Archive of Our Own ^beta

Technically speaking, Stanley Pines wasn’t allowed in the state of California. 

Stanford Pines, on the other hand, was perfectly able to traverse the West Coast—and thankfully, happened to be his mirror image—so when Stan got the fateful phone call from his youngest brother, he gave the most unexpected answer: 

He’d be there. 

Just give him ten or so hours. 

Armed with his twin brother’s driver’s license, Stan got in his car and prepared to trek over six-hundred-and-fifty miles down the I-5 South. The Stanley Mobile had certainly seen better days, rattling its way down the highway, but the old girl wasn’t done, yet. Stan figured when the car went out, he might just follow. The thing had practically raised him. 

Stan watched pine trees become farmland and farmland become endless. It wasn’t a remarkably scenic drive, which gave him lots of time to think about his destination. He hadn’t left Gravity Falls, Oregon in an ungodly number of years, let alone seen members of his family. 

Should he be nervous? 

Would they buy that he was Ford? 

Sure, a state trooper pulling him over would, but family was different. Not to mention, Stan had a rather glaring lack-of-a-sixth-finger that would give him away in an instant. He’d tried to think ahead, finding a pair of Sixer’s old gloves and expertly stuffing the extra digits, but it  wasn’t a perfect illusion. Stan was now—by definition—an old hat at making cheap, fake tricks to fool folks who didn’t want to know any better, though, so maybe this one would be his greatest, yet. 

The Piedmont Community Hospital was a rather boring looking building. It was mostly windows and gray-red bricks. Honestly, it looked a bit like his old high school back in Jersey. In the parking lot, Stan pulled on the six-fingered gloves and steeled himself. 

This was it. 

Probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done—the greatest risk to years upon years of planning. He could turn around right now and hightail it back to Oregon, giving Shermie and the new parents some lame excuse about research or houseguests. But for whatever reason, Stan opened the door, stepped outside, and locked the car behind him. 

He marched into the hospital with about as much bluster as he could manage. Approaching the check-in desk, he waited until a free receptionist waved him over. 

“Visitor or patient?” the woman asked brightly, looking up from the paperwork in front of her. 

“Visitor.” Stan cleared his throat. “For the Pines family. I’m Stanford.” 

“I’ll just need to see some identification.” 

He handed over Ford’s ID. Stan was no stranger to using a fake name, and he had several foolproof tricks for passing with ease. He couldn’t look too nonchalant or too nervous. The key was to appear slightly caught up about something else entirely just beyond the check—and in this case, he had the perfect cover. Besides, Ford’s ID wasn’t technically a fake like the others in his extensive collection. 

The woman handed it back to him without much fanfare, passing over a clipboard. “Alright, Mr. Pines, if you’d just sign the visitor’s log, we can get you a wristband, and Jules here will show you to the maternity ward.” 

The walk to the maternity ward was definitely aided by Jules’ presence. She was a very pretty nurse, and if he hadn’t been so dead set on going through with this crazy thing, he probably would’ve at least tried to take her out. Maybe he’d go find her once the visit was over, but probably not. 

“Twins, huh?” she said as they walked. “Congratulations.” 

“Yeah, well,” Stan kept his hands in his pockets. “Runs in the family.” 

Jules checked her papers, then led him down a different hallway. “Right this way. Looks like we have them in the Special Care Ward.” 

Stan’s stomach dropped. “They’re okay, though, right? The babies?” 

She nodded, waving a hand. “Oh, not to worry. Everything’s fine. Both babies are healthy, and Mom is doing well. Sometimes, twin deliveries have complications. It’s very common, especially if it’s Mom’s first birth.” She stopped in front of a door, rapping sharply. “Mr. and Mrs. Pines, we have another visitor for you.” 

Stepping into the delivery room was a blur. Stan hadn’t been this nervous since he’d walked up to his brother’s house in the woods all those years ago. Shermie clapped him on the back, leading him inside. Stan congratulated his niece and nephew on entering the terrible new phase of their life as parents to two inseparable rascals. 

“Ma went through hell and back when she had F-” he cleared his throat. “Stanley and me. I know she woulda been proud to see the legacy passed down.” 

To be completely honest, Stan blocked out most everything else in the room except the two plastic bassinets carrying the tiniest babies he’d ever seen. 

Shermie, seeing his gaze, led him over to the twins. One was swaddled in blue and the other in pink: a boy and a girl. Two small human beings who could do nothing but stare up at the ceiling and burble nonsensically. 

Stan, overwhelmed, turned back to his niece. “They, uh, have names, yet?” 

She smiled, nodding. “The girl is Mabel.” 

Mabel. 

Almost as if she heard her name, the little girl scrunched up her nose and opened her eyes. Stan stared down at her, hardly breathing. 

“And our little dipper there is Mason,” their mother continued, pride blooming behind her words. 

Mason. 

And yes, Stan saw it now: the mark on the baby boy’s forehead. It was dark red and splotchy, but without a doubt resembled the constellation. Incredible. 

“He’s got—” Stan couldn’t finish, still just watching in wonder. 

“Isn’t it wonderful?” their mother asked. “The nurses say it’s perfectly fine. Just a birthmark. Shouldn’t hurt him in the slightest. They’ve never seen anything like it.” 

In his pocket, Stan couldn’t help flexing the six-fingered glove. He tried not to think about what Ford might say if he were here. His brother had spent so many years thinking his birth abnormality meant he was destined to be alone; Stan couldn’t possibly picture the face his twin would make upon learning that his great nephew bore a strange little mark of his own. 

The weirdness of the Pines family endured one way or another. 

Stan forced his voice to remain steady. “And everything otherwise went alright? They’re okay?” 

Stan’s nephew nodded, still holding his wife’s hand. He had the proudest expression on his face—something that Stan’s own pa had definitely never worn. “Our little star Mabel was easy as pie,” he started. 

His wife was unimpressed. “Speak for yourself.”  

He instantly corrected his statement, flushing red. “I just mean she had no complications, darling. Mason, on the other hand… he had the cord wrapped around his neck. Nurse called it a Nuchal cord or something?” Stan’s nephew sucked in a big mouthful of air, shuddering. “The kid came out blue. Wasn’t breathing. Scariest moment of my life.” 

“Our lives.” 

Stan looked back down at baby Mason. The little thing looked plenty colorful now—bright red and mewling—but even the mental image of the boy not breathing sent chills down his spine. His ma had always said that the second-born twin ran the risk of tragedy. Exhausted mothers, birth complications, twisted cords—the lot. He and the boy were similar in that way, he supposed. 

“If you wash your hands, you can hold them, Stanford,” Shermie said, motioning to the sink in the corner. 

“Hold them?” Stan would have to take his hands out of his pocket for the first time, and worse, he wouldn’t even be able to wear the disguise gloves. Everyone would see his lack of a sixth finger. And what if he dropped the twins? What if they started to scream as soon as he took them in his arms? He hadn’t held a baby since Shermie had been born, and even then, it had only been one or two times. No one had trusted Stanley Pines with a baby. 

But Stanford, on the other hand… 

Suddenly, Mason screwed up his face and began to cry in earnest. The noise just about broke Stan’s heart. His decision had been made. 

He rushed to the sink, peeling off the workshopped gloves and stuffing them into his pockets to hide them from view. If he was revealing his hands, he needed to stick to one story. He washed the five-fingers thoroughly, dried them, and returned to the bassinets. It was a risky gamble, but stacked-odds had never stopped him before. 

In fact, he often sought them out. 

“Uh, Stanford?” Sherman stared at him. “Your hand.” 

Stan’s brain worked overtime. “I got surgery a few years back. Got tired of trying to find gloves that fit in those northern winters, if you catch my drift.” 

Everyone seemed satisfied enough with that answer, or at least polite enough not to ask for any details. Worked for him. Stan shoved the six-fingered gloves deeper into his pockets. 

Shermie lifted one of the twins into his arms, then the other. “There you go. Support them like this, see?” 

Stan did what he was told for the first time in his life. Having both the twins against his chest, he was suddenly overcome with emotion. He couldn’t explain it—hadn’t asked for it—but the grief bubbled up in him without warning, anyway. 

They nestled in the crooks of his arms—Mabel on the left, Mason on the right. Their bodies hardly weighed a damn thing, and Stan couldn’t believe how perfect they were. Babies were supposed to be messy and sticky and ugly. He’d seen some horrendous looking little devils in his day. Was it the shared blood clouding his vision? Was it twin bias? 

“Just like you and Stanley.” 

Stan’s throat was too tight. “Hopefully not too much like us.”

His youngest brother probably chalked the blubbering up to twin mourning—which, in a way, it sort of was. 

Shermie put a hand on his shoulder, grief etched into his own face as well. They’d both lost a brother; just not the same one. “How do you think he would’ve reacted, huh?”

Blinking back blurry tears, Stan tried to memorize the way the twins felt in his arms. “I think he’d make a comment about double the diapers and then try to flirt with the nurse down in reception.” 

Shermie chuckled softly. “You knew him better than I did.” 

The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on Stan. “Trust me,” he told Shermie. “Stanley wouldn’t have been into this baby thing at all.” 

Mabel cooed in his arms, the smallest little gurgle he’d ever heard. It twisted his chest in all sorts of ridiculous ways. “Hi, Pumpkin,” he smiled down at her. “Look at those big brown eyes, huh?” She stared back at him, unfocused. She’d only been in this world for a few hours. Hours. God, Stan could hardly wrap his mind around it. 

“Alright, Grandpa Shermie’s turn now,” Sherman said, trying to take the twins back. 

Stan used his body to shield them. “I’m not finished, yet.” 

“Stanford, you’re being ridiculous.” 

Stan still didn’t hand over the babies. “Sherm, I want to hold them a little longer. I drove over ten hours. Let me have this.” 

“Can I at least hold one?” 

Stan looked between Mabel and Mason, trying to decide which one to give up. He wanted them both. Ultimately, he decided to ignore his youngest brother’s request. Shermie would have years to hold the twins if he wanted. He didn’t have a stupid nighttime duty to teach himself quantum physics in the basement of a weird shack in the woods. 

Both babies seemed to be trying to focus on Stan. Their eyes struggled, almost going a little cross-eyed. “They’re looking at me,” Stan said. “Why are they looking at me?” 

“According to our books, newborns are naturally attracted to faces,” his niece told him. “Go ahead. You can talk to them.” 

Incredible. Absolutely batshit insane. He laughed a little, shaking his head. “Hey, kids. I’m your Great Uncle Stan. You wanna hear about the time I nearly made it big in Vegas?” 

“I didn’t know you liked Vegas.” Shermie looked casually interested. Not suspicious, just surprised. “Do you gamble?” 

Yes. 

“Not much. I like… numbers. Statistics. Math. All that jazz. It adds up.” Stan thanked his lucky stars that Shermie had never really known Ford and him all that well. They’d been up and out by the time the kid had been old enough to form any real opinions of them. 

Visiting hours went by far too quickly. Eventually, a nurse came to turn down the lights and the babies needed their next feeding. Mason was still being monitored for any lingering complications. 

Darkness fell as Stan wandered back out into the parking lot, half in a daze. He sat in the driver’s seat with the door still open and lit a cigar. Woody smoke spilled from his lips, circling his head like a twisted vice halo. 

He didn’t know how to explain what he was experiencing or why. Babies were born all the time—twins and otherwise. But as Stan looked up at the hospital windows, trying to count the floors—wondering which pane of glass was protecting his new great niece and nephew—a brand new feeling settled in his bones. 

Everything was different now. 

////

The day the twins showed up on his doorstep for summer vacation, Stan was having second thoughts about agreeing to the whole summer guardian thing. Where previously he watched them grow from afar (holiday cards, school photos, and other progress updates mailed every so often by their parents), now they were going to live with him. 

He was responsible for keeping them alive or something. 

Stan could barely keep himself alive, let alone two ten-year-olds. Eleven-year-olds? Eh, he wasn’t really sure. It didn’t matter much anyway—their childhood would all blend together into one colorful blob. 

“Mr. Pines, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fold a towel,” Wendy, the fifteen-year-old who did a mediocre job managing the gift shop cash register, joked the morning of the twin’s arrival. 

“Yeah, well,” Stan threw the colorful blue beach towel down onto the counter in frustration. “Kids get dirty, right? What if they swim in the lake or jump in a mud puddle? Doesn’t matter. Damn thing won’t fold right, anyway.” 

“Here.” In a few motions, Wendy made quick work of the thing. “Corduroy laundry days are not for the faint of heart.” She stacked a few more towels from the shop rack and handed them to him. “Go put these in the bathroom.” 

Sometimes, when she acted like this, Stan was reminded that Wendy’s mother had died a few years back. She too often rode the pendulum between wannabe-reckless teen and grown-up oldest child. 

He patted her on the head, which was about as affectionate as he got.  “If you’re trying to get off work early, it’s not gonna happen.” 

She snorted, sitting back down and kicking her feet up on the register. There was a big smile on her face. “Whatever, dude.” 

“Don’t call me dude.” 

Stan couldn’t for the life of him decide whether or not he was supposed to wait at the bus stop for the twins or not. On the one hand, it would probably be the responsible thing to do. On the other, going into town sounded like hell. Besides, he still needed to put the finishing touches on a couple new exhibits. Surely, the kids could find their own way to The Shack, right? Hell, he and Ford had traversed half of New Jersey back in the day with zero supervision required; they’d preferred it that way, even. 

He contented himself to spend the next few hours gluing random animal parts to other random animal parts, probably inhaling an unhealthy amount of adhesive fumes. Stan focused on each piece, trying not to let his mind wander too far. 

“Mr. Pines,” Soos called finally, popping his head into the room as Stan attempted to balance a tiny tophat on a large stone frog. He’d already glued fish-eyes to it, and they were starting to smell pretty awful. Definitely not his smartest decision. “They’re here.” 

Stan felt his stomach drop. He put down the glue, straightened his fez, and marched towards the door to the Mystery Shack. 

This is nothing, Stan, he told himself. Stop getting all worked up over a bunch of children. Seriously, it’s embarrassing. 

He swung open the door with as much grandiose energy as he gave the tourists. “Welcome to the Mystery Shack, kids. Who knows what sort of—” he covertly grabbed a rubber, banjo-holding squirrel skeleton whose head was too big for its body, “— spooky things are waiting insideeeee.” He thrust the thing in front of him as a jumpscare. 

The kids just stared at him. 

Stan squeezed the body and two rubber eyes popped out. Mabel, a tangle of colorful yarn and braces, laughed appreciatively. Mason jumped, grabbing onto his sister’s arm and then quickly pretending he hadn’t—adjusting his hat. 

“He’s holding a banjo,” Mabel laughed. “Grunkle Stan, that’s so weird.” 

“Grunkle?” Stan made a face. 

“Great Uncle,” she patiently explained, holding out her hands and then smashing them together. “Grunkle! You’ll get used to it. Can I see my room now? Can we go exploring? Wait, do you have popsicles?” 

The barrage of questions hit him harder than a solid right hook. He slid his gaze over to Mason whose sleeping roll and pack looked far too heavy for his skinny frame. He didn’t seem anywhere near as eager as his sister, watching Stan and the Shack with an unimpressed side-eye. 

Opening the door wider, Stan let the twins into the Mystery Shack proper. Mabel practically bounced off the walls, talking a mile a minute about absolutely nothing. He nodded along, catching almost none of it. 

She burst ahead, disappearing around the corner. Ah, that was probably fine. She should get the lay of the land eventually. 

“Hey, uh, Mason,” Stan said, clearing his throat. “There’s a bunch of Pitt in the fridge. Your parents specifically said not to get you two any soda, but I did, anyway. Buzzkills, right?” 

The boy just shrugged. 

Phew, this was already going about as well as Stan expected. 

“Dipper—” Mabel came sliding back into the room on her socks. “I found our room. It has mold shaped like a boat and an actual real-life goat. Hey, that rhymes. C’mon , Dipper, come see.” 

“Dipper?” Stan made eye contact with Mason, who flushed red. 

“Nickname,” he shrugged. 

“He got it because of his birthmark.” Mabel tried to take off her brother's hat, but he swatted her hand away. “Oh come on, bro-bro; it’s cute. He hides it now because other kids made fun of him.” 

“Mabel.” 

“Alright, well, uh,” Stan scratched the back of his neck. “Dipper. Mabel. Go put your stuff down and then—” Both kids looked up at him expectantly. Stan’s heart clutched in his chest. He straightened his shoulders. “You’ve both got a date with fine folks named Unboxing and Restocking.” 

They blinked. 

Stan sighed. “You’ll both be working at the gift shop. That was your parents’ agreement for me letting you two freeload all summer.” 

Mabel looked excited. Dipper did not.  

“What are you waiting for? A kiss on the cheek?” Stan snapped his fingers. “Go. Your shift starts in ten minutes. Get a move on.” 

The day progressed... slowly. By the following afternoon, Stan had noted several changes around the Shack. Firstly, the noise levels were out of control—someone was always stomping or running upstairs. Seriously, were they slamming golf clubs into the attic floor up there? And then, there was the clutter. In twenty-four hours, the twins had managed to leave more of a mess than Stan had in thirty years. 

Which was honestly, quite an accomplishment all things considered. 

And lastly, neither Dipper, nor Mabel seemed all that impressed by him. Mabel almost never stopped smiling, but he could recognize a pity laugh when he heard one, alright? And Dipper seemed downright uninterested, shoving his head in a book whenever Stan entered the room.  They also left their posts at the gift shop all the damn time. Every time he turned his back, one or both of them had disappeared. It was ridiculous. 

Even now, Stan climbed the Shack stairs, ready to order both of the little deserters back to work. As he got closer, he could already hear Mabel’s out-of-breath voice. The attic door was partially ajar, allowing him to remain out of sight, but still catch every word. 

“Ninety-nine, one-hundred, one-hundred-one, one-hundred-two!”   Each of Mabel’s numbers were punctuated by a gasp of breath and the obvious sound of mattress springs. 

“Mabel, will you stop jumping?” Dipper's irritated voice asked. 

Ugh. Young people and their stupid, relentless energy. The whole system was rigged. Old folks needed energy way more than the youth—all they were using it for was leaving uncapped glitter bottles in the living room and jumping on mattresses. 

The twins’ attic room had been a storage space until earlier in the week when he’d done his best to convert it to a working bedroom. There were two beds, made with extra linens he’d found in the downstairs closet. He hadn’t had to make a bed for a child… ever, so he’d just scrounged around and hoped for the best. Soos had checked over his work and given him a big thumbs up, although later Stan had pretended not to see him redoing the fitted sheets. 

The jumping sounds continued. “You’ve been moping since we got here,” Mabel grumbled. “Be more fun.” 

“This sucks, okay?” 

Stan could picture the expression on the kid’s face; Dipper tended to scrunch up his nose when he was disgusted by something. 

“You could at least try.” 

“Mabel, we’re working for free all summer doing boring chores. Grunkle Stan is weird. This town is weird. And I wanna go home. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’s like a legitimate criminal. This morning, I said something about checking federal workplace regulations, and he taped my mouth shut.” 

“Yeah,” his sister sighed. There was a thump as she got off the bed. “He’s definitely got a stash of fake money under the dining room table. The numbers are all backwards.” 

“We could report him to the FBI.” 

“Would they believe us?” 

“I dunno.” Dipper didn’t sound too concerned about it. 

“We could jump out the window,” Mabel suggested. “Be all stealth-like. Make a covert phone call to the government and disappear into the night. Could be fuuuuuun.” 

“It’s daytime.” 

“We could wait.” 

Silence again. Stan shifted his feet. They probably weren’t serious about calling the FBI. Hopefully. He had far worse things for them to find than simple counterfeit cash. That was even the decoy stock—the real stuff was underneath his bed. 

“Wait, I know! ” There were the telltale sounds of scrambling as Mabel rooted around for something. “Let’s ask this magic doohickey whether we should stay or not. It’s got the only twenty answers you'll ever need in life." 

"It literally doesn't, though." 

Moving ever so slightly, Stan positioned himself to peek inside. The kids had their backs turned to him, hovering over what looked like a… magic eight ball?

Damn kids, he thought to himself. It was exactly what he would’ve done at their age.  

“Oh, great and powerful Magic Eight Ball,” Mabel said, shaking the thing far more vigorously than it needed. “Should we stay here in Gravity Falls with our crazy criminal Grunkle?” 

He couldn't see the face of the ball, not with the twins huddling over it. 

After a few moments, Dipper sat back. “Well, that settles it.” 

Stan headed back downstairs to double-check his emergency Oh-No-The-Feds-Are-Here bag. Sitting on the floor of his room, he sifted through his belongings. The room was a wreck. His bed hadn’t been made in weeks. Stuffing a few handfuls of cash into the leather duffel (plus a few stacks of the fake, non-decoy counterfeits), he couldn’t help growing frustrated with himself. It had been a stupid idea to let their parents talk him into this. 

They’d thought he was Ford—great, spectacular, twelve-PhD-having Ford who would’ve been a great educational influence on two kids their age. He couldn’t teach them a damn thing except how to lie, cheat, steal, and call the cops on people they wanted to get away from: a job well done. His work here was finished. 

Grabbing a shoe box, Stan rifled through the contents—mostly fake IDs and old newspaper clippings. Who did he want to be this time? Steve Pinnington was a classic, but a little too close to Pines for comfort. The FBI were idiots, but they weren’t stupid. He dug to the bottom of the bin and stopped.  There, nestled between IDs for Samuel Greenleaf and Spencer Spruce, was an old photograph of him and Ford. Even in the bad lighting and with his abysmal-and-getting-worse eyesight, Stan could see the sunburns covering their bodies alongside the giant, toothy grins. 

Heya, Sixer, he thought before he could stop himself. I’ll come back once this all dies down. I won’t stop trying to get your damn machine to work. Not until it kills me. Which it just might. 

Stan couldn’t help remembering a similar conversation between him and Ford as the one he’d overheard upstairs. They’d been sitting on Stan’s bottom bunk, huddled under the covers and trying to decide whether or not to run away. He’d been grounded for doing something stupid, no doubt, and Ford had been all too willing to cut and run with him—even though he never did anything wrong. At least not in Pa’s eyes. 

Stan had just wanted his father to do one thing right. 

Say one nice thing. 

Let him off the hook one single time. 

That would’ve been enough.

Hmm, Stan thought, stowing the photo in the bag. This self-reflection shit does not feel very good. 

He wished he hadn't put all his cigars away in a heroic, preparing-to-host-twelve-year-olds gesture. Alright, so be it. If the kids decided to stay, he would put in more effort. Make their summer interesting, at the very least. He figured the chances of them sticking around were slim to none, seeing as they'd put their faith in goddamned Magic Eight Ball. Truth be told, he didn’t even expect them to stick around long enough for dinner, but the pounding of two sets of feet racing each other down the stairs at the end of the evening proved him wrong. They slid into their chairs, talking amongst themselves about some silly television program.

Okay, so, they'd wanted one last meal. Sue them. Surely, the twins would be gone in the morning, then. It would be the smartest thing to do, and neither of them struck him as particularly stupid. He wouldn’t hold it against them if they cut and ran. Stan listened for several hours after the twins went to bed for any sound—a door opening, the creak of floorboards, the bang of a window unlatching. 

But nothing. 

And when he poked his head inside the attic room, both kids were sound asleep—although, Mabel had somehow managed to completely flip to the foot of the bed? Crazy kid. He picked her discarded blankets off the floor and draped them back over her body. 

As he turned to leave the room, a patch of silver light from the window caught the Magic Eight Ball lying face-up on the floor, right where they’d left it. He knelt down. There in the plastic window, surrounded by inky liquid, he could read the message, plain and simple: 

Yes definitely. 

Stan stared at it for several long moments. He couldn’t stop a wide smile from spreading across his face. Magic Eight Ball, indeed. He tucked the thing under his arm with a quiet chuckle. 

Practically rushing back down the stairs, Stan re-entered his room—this time, on the hunt for something very specific. He opened several drawers and the closet before he found what he was looking for: a whole stack of plain canvas fishing hats.  He grabbed two of them and made a beeline for the living room. If the twins were staying for the summer, they’d need sun protection. Stan could take them out on the lake sometime this week and show them the falls; it had been ages since he’d had a proper fishing trip. 

Sitting down in his chair, Stan opened up his sewing kit. He was no stitching master, but he’d been darning his own clothes for longer than these kids had been alive—easiest money-saving trick in the book. He could whip something up in time if he really tried. 

The Magic Eight Ball rested on the table beside him, and he set down his sewing supplies for a few moments to entertain the fateful item.  Feeling a little silly, he cleared his throat. “Will my, uh, great-niece and nephew ever warm up to this place?” To m e? 

He shook the ball. Flipped it over. 

Signs point to yes. 

That’ll do, Stanley , he told himself. That’ll do. 

////

We’ll meet again. 

Don’t know where. 

Don’t know when. 

But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day. 

Grass. Trees. Birdsong. He wasn’t quite sure where he was. Or who he was. But the hot breeze felt nice on his skin, and there was a distinct, numb buzzing in his body that drowned out any panic at the foggy nothingness. 

There were two kids here, he realized. And they were looking at him real funny. A boy and a girl—they were the spitting image of each other. Definitely related; maybe even twins. The boy held the girls’ arm tight enough for his knuckles to go white. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but his sister let him do it, anyway. They were both beat to shit, covered in dirt and blood. The girl’s sweater had been partially burned, and there was an impressive bruise forming on the boy’s chin. 

The thing that struck him most, however, was the look in their eyes. They were glassy and tired, like perpetual fear had melted into something more haunted. Maybe those were even tear tracks on their cheeks. They’d certainly been having a bad day from the looks of things, and that was sad. Kids shouldn’t be crying like that. 

“Can I help you?” he asked. Maybe there was someone around who was supposed to be looking after them. They clearly weren’t doing a very good job. 

“Grunkle Stan?” The girl took a step forward, her brother still latched onto her like a barnacle. “Do you really not remember us?” 

She had big, beautiful brown eyes. 

Like a small baby he’d once held. 

Wait, when had he ever held a baby? 

“Let’s get him home,” another voice said. An unknown man took him by the arm, leading him through the woods. It was all very weird. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.” 

Grass. Trees. Birdsong. Mushrooms. Pinecones. Partially destroyed wooden shack. Those were the things he saw; the sights that registered in his whited-out brain. 

As they walked, the boy fell in step with him. A gust of summer breeze lifted the kid’s hair off his forehead, revealing a dark red constellation marked there. It didn’t look like a brand or a scar. Maybe a tattoo? 

“Hey, kid,” he said. “I like your stars.”

For a split second, the boy’s eyes widened. He grabbed his sister’s arm again, eyes flicking to the symbol on her sweater. And then his hands clasped his forehead, softening. “Oh. Thanks. It’s a birthmark.” 

“Neat.” 

He was led inside the strange shack in the woods. It was even more destroyed on the inside, bits of domestic life strewn about the floor and photos knocked off the walls. Someone’s home had been destroyed. 

 “Hey, this is a real nice place you got here.” He meant it. 

“It's your place, Grunkle Stan.” The boy looked close to tears again. 

“Don't you remember? Even a little?” The girl actually was crying. Strange. He really didn’t see anything worth getting sniffy over. It was a nice day. The chair he was sitting in now was comfortable. Who could ask for more? 

Yet, as everyone talked and cried and talked to him some more, hazy memories started to bleed back into his brain. The white expanse of nothingness became more populated, more confusing. A bit greyer. 

“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands. “Go again. Names.” 

The man in the trench coat—his brother, his twin brother— nodded. “Your name is Stanley. Stanley Pines. And I’m Stanford.” 

“That’s just awful,” Stan laughed. “Our parents must’ve really hated us.” No one laughed with him. Now Ford looked like he might cry. Geez. 

Instead of focusing on the surplus of emotions, he let the name “Stanley” wash over him and settle in his bones. He liked it well enough. It was better than having no name at all. 

“And you’re… Soos?” Stan pointed to the younger man in the room who had yet to stop sniffling. He simply got a choked affirmative noise in response. 

“Ow, Dipper, make room for me.” The little girl moved to Stan’s other side. “Hi. I’m Mabel. I’m almost thirteen, and I own a pig.” 

Stan pointed to the creature on the floor. “Waddles.” 

“That’s right.” Mabel looked at her brother. “And this is Dipper.” He waved, tucking a strand of hair behind his ears. “ You have to introduce yourself ,” she urged him. 

“I’m, uh, also almost thirteen.” Dipper thought for a while. “You once taught me how to pick up girls. That was fun. And then you almost got eaten by a giant spider-lady, and we all nearly died in a gondola. Not as fun.”  

The twins spent the next hour answering his questions and going through Mabel’s scrapbook, usually talking at the same time or interrupting one another. There were stories about fishing trips and zombies and terrible movie nights. Mabel showed him hundreds of pictures, settling the book on his lap so he could see and pointing out all her favorite parts. 

“If you look closely here, you can see Dipper having a mental breakdown about his disposable camera,” she told Stan. “He does that sometimes. The correct thing to do in that circumstance is throw any and all available cameras off the boat.” 

“No, she’s lying,” Dipper immediately cut in. “Grunkle Stan, don’t listen to her.” 

Mabel laughed: a loud, wonderful giggle that made him warm all over. Carefully, Stan put his arms around the twins: Mabel on the left, Dipper on the right. They settled against him with zero hesitation, like they were used to it. Like they wanted it. 

As the shadows grew longer and dusk bled into night, the twins’ stories became quieter. They interrupted each other less and long stretches of quiet interspersed their chatter. Stan used the lapses to start untangling the mess of memories in his mind. There were ones coming back to him organically and those the children described in such vivid detail he really couldn’t tell whether he remembered it himself or not. 

Stan wasn’t sure how much time elapsed before he surfaced again. 

Everything still felt so murky, including the passage of time.

A soft sigh came from Mabel, and he realized both kids had fallen asleep in his arms. He didn’t move a muscle, terrified of waking either. They clung to him and each other, Dipper’s arm resting over Stan’s middle to grip his sister’s sweater. Their breathing was steady and slow. Occasionally, they let out a snore here and there. 

Stan let his eyes rememorize every inch of their faces. 

He loved them. He didn’t know much else at the moment. Maybe he wouldn’t for a while. But he was pretty damn certain that he loved these two kids. How weird. How wonderful. 

“Stanley?” Ford was watching him. He’d been right there all night, listening intently. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, Stan swore the man looked like a child himself—with glasses that were too large for his face and freckles from the New Jersey sun. “Would you like me to carry them up to bed?” 

Stan thought about it, then shook his head. Words came to him, like from a distant, long-forgotten dream. He smiled softly, eyes not leaving the precious cargo at his sides. 

 “No,” he said quietly. “No, I’m not finished, yet.”