Chapter Text
“Wow,” Mabel Pines said, her eyes alight with earnest awe, “it doesn't even look like a hunk of junk anymore!”
Fiddleford McGucket tried to hide his grin behind the wide brim of his hat. “Aw, shucks.”
“No, she's right,” Dipper said as he looked the laptop over. His eyebrows were raised ever so slightly as if he was shocked Fiddleford had been able to improve the thing at all. “This thing actually looks like a laptop again, and Bill – uh, I – smashed it up pretty bad.”
“Good job, Mr. McGucket,” Mabel said. She reached across the table, palm outstretched for a high five. Fiddleford pretended not to notice.
“I'm thinkin' you should probably thank me later,” he said, “considering it still ain't working properly.”
Dipper's eyebrows immediately shot down, his grin flip-flopped. “What? So you didn't actually fix it? Why not?”
Mabel slapped him across the shoulder. “Don't be mean!”
“No, he's right. I – I couldn't quite figure it out, what the problem was.” Fiddleford tried not to frown – not in front of the kids – but he couldn't quite manage it. “Guess I don't remember as much as I thought I did.”
“Oh, McGucket,” Mabel said, frowning along with him.
“But you'll keep trying?” Dipper said, and his eyes grew so wide that Fiddleford could hardly turn him down.
“Yeah.” He tried for a grin. “I reckon I will.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
“But don't forget to take breaks and have fun sometimes because there's no rush,” Mabel said, nodding sagely.
“Mabel, what are you-- There's a huge rush, summer's almost over!”
“There's no rush,” Mabel said again, as if Dipper wasn't currently staring daggers at her.
Fiddleford grinned despite the one-sided spat that broke out in front of him. He liked these kids – appreciated them quite a lot, actually, thinking back on how kindly they had treated him. They included him in their adventures, spoke to him like a real person. Mabel was better at that last one than Dipper, Fiddleford noted, recalling the several times Dipper had failed to notice Fiddleford was even there, but he couldn't blame the kid. Most people averted their eyes from him these days, whether intentionally or not. Privately, he had grown to like it; in his humble opinion, being ignored was a step up from dodging glares and pitying glances wherever he went. It was easier on the heart to pretend he had blasted himself with a vanishing-ray rather than a memory-wiping gun.
“Yeesh,” said an approaching voice, “is it just me or did this library get more boring since the last time I was here?”
Dipper was quick to swipe the laptop off the table and onto his lap while Mabel spun around in her chair, beaming. “Grunkle Stan!”
“Hey, kiddos,” Stan said with a fatherly grin. He ruffled Mabel's hair, his large hand neatly enveloping her skull.
Fiddleford couldn't explain it – not the tugging in his chest nor the bone-deep feeling of shame that came over him – but he suddenly wanted more than anything to leave. The gravelly voice of Stanley Pines rasped like sandpaper through his brain, his sharp suit flashing like strobe lights. Fiddleford averted his eyes.
But looking away was not enough. He felt Stanley's eyes rake over him, heard the slight sneer in his voice when he said, “Buzz off, old man.”
Fiddleford had to shut his eyes against the whiteness that flashed behind his eyes. He heard a voice – distant and fuzzy, like the chatter of an old radio.
Buzz off, Fidds.
Then came the laughter, brusque and deep, gravelly, over and over like a broken record until it became nothing but noise screaming in his head, over and over--
“Hey.”
Fiddleford's eyes flew open just as Stanley snapped his fingers, mere inches from his face. Their eyes met. Fiddleford shrank back at the darkness he saw.
“I said beat it,” Stanley said.
A quiet whimper passed Fiddleford's lips. He scrambled backwards out of his chair, hit the floor with a skull-rattling thud, and scampered off.
Stan stared after him for a moment, his eyes as steady as a hawk's, until a tiny hand slapped his arm.
“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said sharply.
“What, did something get my arm?” Stan said, rubbing his bicep. “Are there mosquitoes in here or something?”
“We were kind of having a conversation here,” Dipper said irritably.
“Yeah, Mr. McGucket's starting to get his memories back!”
Stan glanced at her, his eyes gone slightly wide. He didn't notice Dipper behind his back, motioning frantically for Mabel to shut up.
“His memories?” Stan said, quiet at first. Then he let out a great bark of a laugh and slapped Mabel across the back, nearly slamming her face into the table. “That's impossible, the guy's crazy! I'd be surprised if he can even remember to bathe. Sure doesn't smell like it.”
“He's not crazy, he's smart!” Mabel insisted. “Smarter than Dipper!”
“Yeah-- Hey,” Dipper said, but went ignored.
“He lives in the junkyard, Mabel.”
“Well – well it's not like he can afford a nice house! Or a bed! Or clothes!”
“Or a bath,” Stan muttered.
“Just give him a chance?” Mabel said, her eyes glistening. “For me? How do you know you don't like him if you won't talk to him?”
For once, Stan didn't have a witty retort lined up for this one. What could he have said? Ha, joke's on you, I used to talk to him every day! Even funnier – listen to this, Dipper, listen – I told him I loved him! Ha!
Stan felt the blood drain from his face at the mere thought. He scratched loudly at his chin, shrugged, made a face as if he was actually considering her offer.
McGucket regaining his memories posed a problem. He knew of Stanford, knew of the giant machine beneath the Mystery Shack – what would he remember first? What might he go blabbing about, and to whom? Surely, he would have questions, and surely, once he remembered enough, Stanley was the one he'd come running to.
If Fiddleford McGucket was really starting to remember then everything was about to change, and that did nothing to appease the sense of foreboding that swirled in Stan's gut.
“It's getting late,” he said abruptly. He gave the kids a warm smile. “Let's go home.”
Fiddleford realized three hours too late that he had forgotten the laptop.
He slapped a hand to his face. The sudden movement startled the raccoon that had been pawing through the junk at his feet but he let her scurry away to some dark corner of the shack.
“Dangit, Fiddleford,” he said, “you're supposed to be remembering things now, not forgetting 'em.”
But that was easier said than done. He seemed to have no control over what he remembered and what remained forgotten. Old memories would return to him in a dizzying bang that sent him reeling, with no warning and little instigation. He'd already had four more since leaving the library, since the most unpleasant episode he'd had so far.
That one had had plenty of instigation. That Stanley Pines had really jostled his head.
Fiddleford tried to put it out of his mind. He was getting closer to uncovering his true self – he could feel it, an itching anticipation that ran through his veins like blood. He was gleaning glimpses of his past quite frequently now, piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Like Stanford. Stanford Pines. That had been the researcher's name. Hair too long, too unruly, but he had always refused to cut it short. Always laughing about something, even things that didn't warrant laughter, but Fiddleford couldn't remember what those things might have been. Hated coffee, drank a lot of it. Just small details. Glasses, maybe. Stanford: A Pines man, a brother. Fiddleford hadn't seen any of him or his friendliness in Stanley's chilling glare.
For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Fiddleford had to force the thought of Stanley from his mind. He took off his hat, tossed it aside, and ran a hand through the tuft of gray that had recently gotten to growing on his head. If only his teeth would grow back, too.
But he was making progress. He had tidied up his shack, sorted out all the junk metal he planned to build with, patched up the holes in the walls with deliberate albeit haphazard slabs of metal. It was better, certainly, but something still bothered him and it bothered him even more that he couldn't figure out what.
The only new addition he properly liked was the change he had made to the broadest wall in the back of his home. He supposed it looked like a bit of a mess from afar but when you got in close it was actually a collage of paper, magazine clippings he had cut out ever so carefully with a rusty pair of scissors. Cutouts of suits – business and tweed alike – and other semi-formal collared shirts peppered a good chunk of the wall; all things he thought he might have worn back in the day. There were some briefcases thrown in there for good measure, all clutched by disembodied hands he had cut off at the wrist. There was no artistic direction behind any of it – it was more of an emotional piece – and even he had to admit the smell was off-putting. That was what he got for thieving the magazines out of dumpsters in the night.
But smell or no smell, the plan didn't change.
Fiddleford straightened up a little as he stared at the collage with purpose, screwing up his face to drown out the sound of his raccoon wife chattering in the background.
He stared and said, “I am Fiddleford Hadron McGucket.”
He waited for something, anything. He cleared his throat.
“My name,” he said, voice lowered, “is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket.”
His mind offered him nothing, only echoes of that same gravelly laugh he'd heard in the library. The silence only made it more pronounced.
His shoulders drooped. “Fiddlesticks.” The raccoon didn't notice the helpless glance he gave her then. “That's my name, innit? That's me! That was me in those memories!”
The raccoon waddled unhelpfully past him and he stared after her, wringing his hands.
“D'you think maybe... maybe I'm not anymore? Not Fiddleford McGucket?”
Her only reply was a quiet huff before she disappeared beneath his desk.
“Aw phooey,” he sighed, waving her away. “You're no help today. In fact, I don't think you ever did me any good at all! All you care about is yourself! Selfish raccoon wife...”
He crossed his arms and pointedly turned his back on her. A moment passed as the gears in his head turned. Slowly, his eyebrows began to furrow.
“Raccoon wife,” he said again, quietly, as if the words made no sense. He spun around just in time to see her poke her little head out from under the desk. Something clicked in his brain. Fiddleford held his head, pointed at her, and let out a loud guffaw. “You're a raccoon! We ain't married!”
She tilted her head at him.
Moments later a small furry shape could be seen making a mad dash out of Old Man McGucket's lopsided shack. He appeared in the doorway after it, shaking his fist at its backside.
“Get out of my house!” he cried. “Don't come back! Leave me alone!”
He watched the raccoon until it scrambled out of sight around the bumper of half-crushed car. Slowly, his fist lowered back to his side and his face relaxed. A small weight seemed to lift from his shoulders and ride out on a sigh.
“Good,” he uttered. “Good riddance.”
He felt liberated as he ducked back into his shack, a small but satisfied smile on his face.
But soon enough, he was sorely missing having someone to talk to.
A few days went by – Fiddleford wasn't really sure how many, just that they had all left him bed-ridden with headaches. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the same man – broad-shouldered, brown hair, strong chin, ample nose – Stanford, but not Stanford at all. It only became worse when the memory grew stronger, when a gut-wrenching ache started to accompany the visions. It was longing and anger and guilt all rolled into one continuous punch to his stomach that lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever, and he began to worry it might actually trigger another descent into madness.
He could distract himself well enough during the day – hammering metal together usually resulted in a headache strong enough to overpower the memory-induced one – but during the night? Sleep was impossible. The notion of sleep was a poorly timed joke his mind made whenever his eyelids grew heavy, which was often. He thought he ought to laugh, just to be polite – he liked to make people feel good about their jokes – but he just couldn't muster it.
No one had come to visit him, and it made him feel ashamed that he hoped someone would. The Pines children came to mind first, with their smiles and creativity. He thought of his son second, but that was another ill-conceived joke that did, in fact, make him feel slightly ill. His son had stopped coming to the junkyard months ago.
Was it possible that anyone missed him? Had anyone noticed he had barely ventured out of his house at all lately?
Fiddleford let his hat flop down over his face with a groan, hoping to block out some of the daylight and summer heat. He twisted and turned in his raggedy bed, wishing he could stop thinking for just one moment.
Wishing such a thing made him feel like a coward, a quitter, but it did not stop him from clamping his hands over his ears and willing it all to go, go away.
“Damn you, Stanley Pines!” Fiddleford called out into the night, for no good reason other than that it felt like the thing to do. If anyone was out there they would not have heard him over the rain battering the junkyard to oblivion. The cool nighttime air was welcome change from the daytime heat but he could have done without the noise of the rain; his brain had been working heedlessly for hours, going in circles as if he was pedaling a bicycle midair – pushing and heaving and sweating but never moving an inch and God he was exhausted. Did he even know how to ride a bike? Had Fiddleford Hadron McGucket ever learned?
If he had ever felt like the younger, smarter man he had seen in those bottled memories, even for a moment, that feeling was gone now, replaced by someone somber and drained.
He looked around his shack, grateful that the headaches had stopped at least. Gentle beams of blue moonlight sneaked through the slightest of cracks in the ceiling. Illuminated was his poor excuse for a bed, the heaps of scrap in the corner, and the metal tub he used to bathe himself when he could. He looked at all these things as if for the first time, as if this recess from the headaches had left his mind tuckered but clear, and felt something wither in his chest.
“I live in the dump,” Fiddleford said, defeated. How was he just now realizing this? This wasn't some kind of four star motel, wasn't even a one star motel, not even close, but it was truly only hitting him now. He was suddenly grateful for the solitude that had bothered him earlier because if anyone had been around now – even the raccoon – the shame might have killed him.
Fiddleford McGucket. The name was beginning to mean something again, but it brought with it a terrible self-consciousness.
“Oh God, I live in the dump.” Fiddleford ran a trembling hand through his hair, almost tempted to rip it right out while his hand was up there. “That ain't right, this ain't right.”
There was no way around it.
No way around it except to move out.
“What kind of thinkin' is that?” he asked himself. “Where are you gonna go? Who's gonna take an old hillbilly like you in?”
A few seconds passed while he let the question hang in the air. He stopped worrying at his hair. He stopped doing much of anything.
A hesitant smile passed over his face.
“Now – now that's wishful thinking, Fiddleford,” he said, but he was already headed for the door. “But I'm getting better now – a little bit, I think, and trying never hurt nobody. I'll show him. I'll show him, he'll see!”
He swept the low hanging raccoon skin out of his way and took the first step outside, his toes plunging straight into a puddle--
“What am I thinking?” he said with a little chuckle, and ducked back inside. A quick dash around the shack and he was out once more, shrugging into an oversized windbreaker he had picked out of a bin the other day. He didn't mind the stains – thought they were kind of fetching.
“This'll work,” he told himself. “I mean it, this'll work. I'm getting outta here and I'm not coming back.” He stepped out into the rain – the first step in a journey of many, he thought as hope swelled in his chest. “Finally,” he breathed. He truly felt ready.
The rain drenched him instantly – plastered his hair against his forehead and battered his thin shoulders. His weak arm shivered in its cast and his soaked beard weighed him down but Fiddleford trudged through the deserted streets of Gravity Falls with purpose in his strides.
His bare feet splashed numbly through puddle after puddle, his nose heaved in the scent of wet pines and fresh rain. The surrounding forests hissed under the sky's torrent.
Down the main street Fiddleford went, following it through town and almost out of city limits, until his toes dug into the mud of a well-trodden forest path. The downpour on his head let up a little as he slipped under the partial canopy of branches. He had many memories of this path, fresh ones. Some of them were even good.
He emerged from the brief spell of forest with an intake of breath raked in through chattering teeth. The lake of Gravity Falls loomed before him like a great rippling shadow, churned by the rain. He clutched his jacket tighter around himself, shivering from head to foot now, and trudged into the frigid sand.
“Gosh almighty that's cold,” he breathed, and thought of it no more. Soon enough, his feet would be too numb to feel it anyway.
Fiddleford shuffled toward the lone building on the lake's shore: The bait store. Darkness greeted him from the other side of the front door's little window but that was to be expected. It was getting late and his son was a good kid, had probably already gone off to bed. Fiddleford paused at the door, gripped by his first bout of hesitation. Heavy drops of water rolled off his face and dripped all over the porch.
“Maybe I didn't think this through,” he muttered to himself, though to anyone else it would have sounded less like words and more like audible chattering. He certainly hadn't thought through the journey over, having wound up a bad combination of elderly and soaked. What if he went and keeled over right on his son's doorstep? The thought was enough to startle him into throwing his fist at the door – once, twice. More than twice. A lot more than twice. Too many times. He was cold and desperate and his hand took on a manic life of its own.
“Stop, Fiddleford, stop,” he hissed, and actually grabbed himself by the wrist.
A glowing, warm, lovely light switched on inside the bait shop. That tiny flicker of hope flared up in Fiddleford's chest, warming his core. To be in there, in the warmth, in the dry, with his son of all people, God almighty, he would have given anything.
A man approached the door, wide in the hips and long in the face, his silhouette made radiant by the light behind him. He gazed out the window, arching down to get a look at Fiddleford. His shoulders rose and fell as if with a sigh. Clearly in no rush, he began to work at the door's locks. Fiddleford watched patiently until finally the man pushed open the door. He must not have realized how close Fiddleford was standing because he slammed the thing right into his foot. Must not have noticed that either, because he remained quite silent.
Fiddleford grinned weakly, biting back the pain, and gave a shaky wave. “Howdy--”
He froze in place as a terrible chill that had nothing to do with the rain soaked him through. His brain stuttered to a halt.
Name – what was his son's name?
“Dad,” the lake ranger said, sounding quite the same as someone who had just opened their door to greet a tax collector. He stared down at Fiddleford with bloodshot eyes – quite nice eyes, his father's, and Fiddleford never understood why he tried to hide them under a hat all the time. He was glad to see them now.
“Son,” Fiddleford settled on, but the light in him had gone out. His wreck of a tongue tried to force words through frozen lips. “Son, I'm – I was wonderin' if maybe you had it in your heart to t-take in your old man? Just for a night, at least,” he added quickly. “An'-- An' see how it goes?” He tried for a warm smile of the frozen variety.
The lake ranger uttered the quietest of sighs as he lifted a hand up to his eyes. “Dad.”
“Just – Just seein' as it's raining and all! And I was in the neighborhood.” Fiddleford failed to keep the frantic edge from his voice. He was still smiling only because his face had frozen like that. “I don't wanna live in the dump no more, really. I wanna fix this, I wanna fix me-- Look, I'm getting better! My hair--” He had lifted a shaking hand to point at the wet tangle of gray on his head but the lake ranger cut him off.
“Dad,” he said sharply. He frowned immediately after at the dejected look on his father's face, as if he regretted using such a tone. “I don't have room,” he said, almost gentle now. Almost. “That hasn't changed since the last time we had this talk.”
“I – I can sleep on the floor,” Fiddleford offered faintly.
“No you can't. This building has two rooms. One of them's the store, the other's my house. There's no room.”
“I won't be a bother, I promise. I--”
The pit in Fiddleford's gut froze over as his son glanced back at the clock that ticked quietly on the wall.
“I'm getting better, Son, I am,” he said, the words rushing out of his mouth. “I mean it, I wouldn't lie to you about this, I wouldn't make this up, I wouldn't.”
The lake ranger rubbed his eyes. “It's three in the morning, Dad. Go home. Please.”
Fiddleford opened his mouth – to plea or to beg, he was prepared to say anything – as the lake ranger retreated into his home and yanked the door shut with him. Fiddleford let his jaw hang loose. The warm light inside flicked off. Something within him seemed to go out with it.
The night became a great deal colder.
“Okay,” he said, still staring at the piece of darkness where his son had been. “Okay, Son, I'll see you later. Maybe tomorrow after the rain's died down. Nice talkin' to you.” He couldn't tell if his lip quivered from the cold or from something else. “Love you, too. Bye now.”
He took a slow, reluctant step away from the door. His feet had lost their barrier of numbness while he'd been standing on the porch and they now faced the full brunt of coldness from the sand. The rain pounded against his skull, sharp like tiny icicles. He wondered if it was possible to drown in all this rain. He'd probably be able to manage it somehow – he had always been a poor swimmer.
He let his feet carry him. Go home, his son had said, but returning to the junkyard was no longer an option – not now, not after all this. Home was where his family was, and his son was his family.
He should have told him that. Things might have ended differently if he thought to say that to his son.
“Damnit, Fiddleford,” he said, just barely.
He scolded himself under his breath all the way back up the well-trodden path for much longer than he realized, following the main road until another dirt trail veered off to his left. He slowed to a stop to stare down the path that plunged into dark forest. He knew where this led, too – not as well as the trail that led down to the lake, but he knew few trails as well as that one. This one he had been down only a few times in recent years, and yet....
Fiddleford found he could not look away. It could have been perspective, he supposed, but the way the trees bent around the road was so slight and almost perfect, like a great bonsai tunnel. The markings on their trunks were somehow, miraculously, as familiar as the pages of a well-loved book. It even smelled differently here, like ancient pines creaking in a warm summer wind, like fresh laundry hung up to dry. Fiddleford could smell marshmallows and hot chocolate even though he had not tasted them in thirty years and someone was prodding the campfire, blowing embers across his shoes and hot smoke in his face--
The ghost of a headache suddenly pulsed in his skull, making him wince. The rain became real again, the wind howled in his ears, and he shuddered against the biting cold.
Whatever that memory had been, he wanted it back. He wanted to feel warm again, to taste food that wasn't tainted by the tang of garbage, even if it wasn't real. Anything that stopped him being whoever he was right now, he wanted it.
Fiddleford set off down the road and into the woods at a desperate staggering sprint. The darkness swallowed him easily. Damp pine needles softened his footfalls. Still, all he could smell was the rain.
After what seemed like an eternity the trees parted in a large clearing and he slowed to a stop. Before him, the Mystery Shack weathered the downpour like a slumbering giant. A solitary lamp lit up the back porch, setting the mustard yellow couch there aglow. The windows were dark – but of course they were, Fiddleford had to remind himself, it was very late. No one else in town was out running around in the rain like he was. They were home, sleeping in their warm beds, their families only a few doors down.
The thought brought a hot stab of envy to his stomach, along with a terrible realization of the futility of this whole charade.
“Why'd you come down here?” he asked himself, because he had to ask someone. “The twins are sleepin' and Stanley is-- What, didja expect him to welcome you inside? Open arms and all? At this godforsaken hour?”
A painful pulse in his head and then--
Come on in, Stanford's already downstairs--
Miserably, Fiddleford dragged himself up onto the back porch, at least to get out of the rain. It battered the sheet metal overhead, making a sound like pots banging together, but this rain-against-metal was different than the kind he heard at the junkyard. This one felt safe, familiar, and brought to his mind the image of a TV screen framed by the darkness of an unlit room, of a hot drink in his hand and an arm curled comfortably around his shoulders, cushioning his neck.
Fiddleford blinked. Even as he sighed and rubbed his eyes he still felt the ghost of that strong arm around him. It was attached to no body, no face. The part of him that remembered it was happy and that made him all the more miserable.
Dejectedly, he flopped down on the couch, carefully avoiding the damp half that had been caught by windswept rain. The cushion felt as pillowy and lovely as clouds under his head; he never once realized how stiff it actually was. Tempted by exhaustion, he turned his head, burying half his face, and heaved a sigh. The faint scent of mold shot up his nose, along with the burn of cigarettes and a light whiff of cologne.
Fiddleford couldn't remember having smoked a day in his life – could not remember wanting to and had no interest in starting now. Inexplicable was it when the ungodly stench of cigarettes suddenly left him falling prey to a bone-deep ache that had him biting back tears.
“I hate this,” he uttered, huddling further into his oversized jacket. “It'd be easier just to forget.”
He wished he could forget how cold he was, wished he could be the man he'd seen in his memories, the one that liked the smell of cigarettes. It wasn't necessarily a bad smell, he admitted after a moment. Just overbearing. He wondered suddenly if his junkyard stench would smother it out.
In the end it was the thought of a warm shower that wrenched the first and only sob from him. He clamped a hand over his mouth and left it there, left it until his eyelids began to droop and his shoulders went slack and he drifted off to the song of the sheet metal above him.
He dreamt of Stanford Pines – of his penchant for ideas, his exuberance, the occasional late night breakdown. He dreamt of his wife, leaving him over and over again as Stanford proposed new idea after new idea. With them was always a presence, strong and warm and stinking of cigarette smoke. For once, Fiddleford's dreamself felt calm.
In the shadows of his dreams something bigger loomed, something absolutely brilliant. It tantalized him, dancing just along the edges of his mind. He dreamt of a project, of three keys – of something that could destroy them all.
A gasp tore from Stan's throat as he jerked upright, blankets pooling at his midriff. It took him a moment, a few slow and heavy breaths, to realize he was still safe in his bedroom. He gritted his teeth, brought a hand to his forehead to paw at the sheen of cold sweat there. He listened to the muffled patter of rain as he gripped his sheets, feeling their texture. This was real.
“Shit,” he hissed, and dragged his hand down his face.
He thought he had freed himself from these night terrors ages ago. He had worked tirelessly to control his mind, to safeguard it, and it had worked. It had worked for – his hand hid a scowl – roughly thirty years.
“Damn you,” he croaked into his palm.
Visions of a machine thrumming and lighting up the room in a whirlwind of spinning colors flashed before him as if branded to the insides of his eyelids. He dropped his hand, stared distractedly at nothing in particular. He needed a smoke.
He fingered a packet of cigarettes open as he padded out into the hall, robe swishing at his feet. He paused at the foot of the stairs and gazed up into the attic, listening, but all was quiet. Satisfied, Stan plucked out a smoke and tucked the rest of them into his pocket before reaching for the door.
A gust of wind blasted his face as soon as he stepped outside, chilling the sweat on his neck and back. He muttered something rude and drew his robe tighter around himself, clutching that single cigarette as if it might blow away. It took him a few tries to light it – the storm was having none of his bad habits and he couldn't say he blamed it. He was trying to limit his smoking these days, especially while the twins were staying with him, but these were desperate times. This was a desperate measure.
He took a drag, relishing in the sin of it for just a moment. The cold was biting enough to reach his toes in their slippers but he relished that, too; it was a constant reminder that he was here, and now, and not downstairs in the basement watching his brother be swept away into a swirling vortex of color.
Another sigh, but this one was more of a groan. He had buried this years ago, why was it coming back now?
Stan approached the couch and, as if on cue, clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the bark of a cry that shot up his throat. He swallowed it with difficulty. Curled up on his couch and sleeping soundly was a sad, bedraggled little old man. With his face half-buried in the cushion and the oversized windbreaker hiding half of his body Stan only managed to recognize him by the long white beard pinned under his arm. There was a great deal of familiarity in the man's odd posture – he always used to disfigure himself with the strangest sleeping positions – but Stan firmly pretended he hadn't remembered that.
Stan stared, his smoke hanging limply at his side. It was too late at night for this, he thought numbly. He was too tired to be dealing with all this old shit coming back to life in his brain like zombies rising from the dead.
He came forward, hand outstretched, cigarette jutting from between his fingers. Wake up, he meant to say, meant to grab hold of that bony shoulder and shake it until it popped from its socket, but his hand froze half a foot away, trembling, as if repelled by an invisible force. His arm felt as stiff as a rod. The rest of him froze as well as he took in the quivering of McGucket's arms, the sad smell of him. Stan noted vaguely that he was soaking wet and probably not doing his poor couch any favors but this observation was quickly set aside when he noticed something that interested him a great deal more.
McGucket's hair was growing back.
He stared, only breathing.
Finally, Stan pulled away, frowning, and tended to his cigarette. His eyes scanned the surrounding forest, the deserted parking – anywhere but the couch.
“What are you doing on my porch?” he muttered, quieter than the rain. “What is this? You want handouts? Food, money? What do you want from me?”
Only McGucket's soft breathing answered him.
“You're not getting it. I have nothing for you. You hear me? Nothing.” He puffed on his cigarette, frown only growing more pronounced. “You did this to yourself,” he said, and hated the sound of his own voice.
He grunted and slipped back into the house, slouching something terrible.
He returned only a minute later with a bundle of quilts draped over his arm.
“Dumb bastard,” he said under his breath, and drew the blankets over McGucket's shivering body. Gently, as light as a breeze, to avoid waking him. McGucket seemed to shrink several sizes under the bulk of the blankets until he was just a small, young thing again, the perfect size to surround, to wrap an arm around and pull into the nook at Stan's side that had been empty for thirty years.
Stan stared down at the huddled figure on his couch, his mouth drawn in a very taut line.
“And you're a dumb bastard, too,” he said gruffly, and went back inside.
Fiddleford rose with the sun. The first peaks of light through the dense treescape eased him into consciousness. The chirps of early morning birds hopping in the dew-wet grass tugged his mind away from fading dreams of his old life. He stretched his legs, wiggling toes that were still sore from the night before, sleepily deciding to think about that mess later. For now, he just wanted to stay comfortable. He snuggled into the couch with a tiny contended sigh and pulled the blankets up to his chin--
His eyes snapped open.
He sat upright, goggling down at the thick pile of quilts that had somehow managed to find him in the night. They were soft to the touch, well-loved and somehow reminiscent of long, cozy nights in a bed that wasn't quite big enough for the people sharing it. Strange town this was, Fiddleford thought, with a strange forest inhabited by little creatures that showered blankets upon cold men when they weren't looking.
Except he was still at the Mystery Shack and it was much more likely that someone had woken in the middle of the night and found him here. He smiled a touched little grin as he traced a line of stitching with his finger. Dipper and Mabel Pines were just too thoughtful – he didn't deserve their kindness.
When he returned to the forest path on aching feet he bid the Mystery Shack farewell, but not before folding each of the quilts and leaving them safely by the door in an orderly stack.