Chapter Text
Ford Pines was getting to know his family.
He never expected it, after his upbringing, after what happened with Stanley family had never once factored into young pre-portal Stanford’s rather extravagant twenty-year plan. Getting a boyfriend had thrown a big enough spanner in the works. He hadn’t been factoring in any kind of inter-personal relationships. Ford’s plan was primarily research oriented: Get Published. Get Funded. Get Recognised.
Now that part of his life was behind him, but what did that leave?
Here he was in his 60s, retirement age, completely at a loss on how to spend the rest of his life.
He wasn’t looking for this helter-skelter scrappy brood of brown-haired twins and siblings, nieces and nephews. All bickering and banter and a love of astronomy. He had no concept of the sheer scale of what he was gaining when he agreed to go with his brother to Shermy’s house in San Francisco for Passover.
Ford was expecting the only thing the Pines Family has taught him to expect: a door in the face. But his sister, dear God, his sister. She was having none of her father’s bullshit.
It had been months now and Ford loved that woman like a moth loved a flame. Sure, she was sometimes draining to be around but he was still in awe of her simply because she was so…vivacious. She was so loud and brash yet usually understanding.
He was constantly flaking off layers of her, like bark. The sharp Jersey accent that thirty odd years in California had yet to shake and the tough suffer-no-fools attitude that could only come from growing up with their parents. Then in matter of minutes her ridiculous emotional blubbering at any trivial thing, her impulsiveness, her dry awful humour. Shermy was always there to listen, though he hadn’t yet had the courage to come dragging up the past to her, his not-so-baby sister. But he would, one day, he would.
“I don’t want to force my way; I just don’t know how to fit in here. I’m such an outsider.” He’d said one evening. They’d come up to San Francisco to spend more time with the extended family before they brought the kids back down to Oregon, to stay for the summer. Ford and Stan were staying with Shermy and David just for a couple of days and Ford was still confounded by his sister’s brood. There was always so much going on.
Spending time with Stan was one thing, that was like an old muscle memory, a jigsaw puzzle that slowly slotted itself back together over time. These others, his nieces, his nephew, the twins, his sister. He didn’t have any memories to base his interactions on. It was new and it was people and he didn’t cope well with either of those things. He still felt frustratingly awkward in places.
“Just observe, Ford.” His sister had said like it was the plainest damn thing in the world. She plopped herself into the sofa next to him, folding her knees up underneath her, sat close enough so their arms were touching but quite noticeably out of his personal space.
“Look at Stanley…” Shermy smiled, thin red lips curving up in a smile so reminiscent of their mother, Ford’s breath caught in his throat. “He wasn’t always in the kids’ lives like this. He wasn’t always in mine neither. He didn’t meet the girls til they were five. He was in the place you’re in now. He found his niche his own way.”
Ford snorted. “What’s that then? Stan’s, how did you put it? his niche? Cheap tricks?” He’d meant it in jest but his sister didn’t seem to take it as such.
Shermy scowled. “Mock ‘im all you want, Stanford, but Stan’s a protector. He looks out for the different.”
This wasn’t exactly news to Ford, but it wasn’t the words he expected to come spilling from his little sister’s mouth. She didn’t even know about what had happened last Summer in terms of the apocalypse. Poor Shermy was still coming with grips with the fact her brother who ‘died’ when she was in middle school faked his own death and her other brother had been trapped the whole time in some sci-fi scenario in another universe.
There were enough bizarre tropes there to fill a low-grade telenovela and his sister was a great deal more religious than Ford and his twin. He didn’t know how well she’d react to the occult. No, it was better Shermy not learn about the whole Bill situation, nor the fiasco with Stanley’s memory. She’d seen enough heartbreak for one life.
“Come Again?” he asked instead, quirking an eyebrow. Across the room Mabel and Stan seemed to be making a very aggressive business partnership as they cleaned out Dipper and Isaac of Monopoly money.
She didn’t say anything but leaned over and place her hand on his knee. Ford impulsively placed his own hand over the top. His palm looked giant over his sister’s tiny hands. Six fingers closed over the top of five.
‘Hi-Six, Sixer’ He could hear the childhood memory of his brother’s voice whenever he looked at his hands. It had cut him deep during their estrangement but now it was a nice memory, it told him he was loved. He looks out for the different. Huh. Trust his journalist of a sister to say something so important in such few words.
Shermy was watching his expression with an intense focus, golden brown eyes tracking his body language so fiercely Ford felt like a slide under a microscope
“Observe, Ford. You’re a scientist. Observe First, Questions later. You’ll find you’re place in time.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. What’s your ‘niche’ then Sherm? I mean, surely all I bring to the table is some weird life stories and my brain.”
Shermy cackled, her fluffy bob moving around her like feathers. “Me? Oh honey, I run this show! Our family is a smoothly oiled machine, Stanford. Someone’s gotta keep these fuckerinos in check.”
“A smoothly oiled machine?” Ford echoed, chuckling. Shermy’s face cracked into a matching grin.
“Ok, well…” She gave a little shrug. “Maybe more like a run-down Chevy…” She paused. “A run-down Chevy where the bumper’s falling off, but the point of the metaphor still stands. It’s mine, I’m driving and I love it.”
Ford laughed at that. He leaned back against the couch cushions and squeezed his sister’s hand.
Across the room Stan was grilling Dipper on his upcoming bar mitzvah. A soft undercurrent of validation to his words, though true to Stan’s nature they were gruff as ever. Dipper’s expression shone at any tiny acknowledgment of his masculinity, his gaze sliding up from the board game to his Grunkle’s face, and down again.
He was always like this with the family, Ford noted. Shermy was right there. Stan was a protector. An image arose in his mind’s eye of a freckled faced kid all t-shirts and band-aids with his dukes up. Stan, the younger twin, was always there to fend off his brother’s bullies.
What did that make Ford? The victim, the one protected? That was a passive role, that brought nothing to the table. No one needed another helpless soul.
“Hey, Ford?” His sister had slipped sideways in her seat. Her head was resting against his arm. From the corner of his vision he could see her eyes were closed.
“Mm?”
“You don’t need to stress about it. I can practically hear your old brain grinding away. I’m not asking you to earn your place here, we already love ya. You don’t get literally fuckin’ sorted into a role in the family. I’m just saying, it took time for me, it took time for Stan, if you need time to get your bearings there’s nothin’ wrong with that.
He smiled. Was he really that obvious. He squeezed his sister’s hand again.
“I guess so Shermy.” He said, gently. “Thank you.”
There was a lull in the conversation. Shermy’s breath was deep and easy, her fingers laced with Ford’s own. A small smile on her red lips. A brief little snapshot of serenity.
Ford glanced around the room without a word.
He was getting to know his family.
For the twins it had come so easy.
Mabel was firmly anti-crusts on bread, going as far as to call it a political stance. Crusts, as she said, were the Brussel sprouts of baked goods. She called them ‘breadgetables’ and even at the relatively mature age of almost 14 would protest their existence until Stanley or her mother cut them off for her. Mabel didn’t know or care about random trivia but she could tell you the favourite colour of everyone she’d ever talked to and had made Ford a handy-dandy Pines family favourite colour cheat sheet for him to use in case conversation lagged.
Dipper was more like Stanley, then Ford had originally assumed. The kid kept a collection of old-fashioned adventure stories, the same archaeological explorer’s adventures that Stan and Ford grew up on. The kid acted disparaging of his sister’s adoration of 80s rom-coms but he was just as naively romantic as she was, if not more. Dipper wasn’t into hard science, for the method or the principle. He was in it for the “cool” science fiction opportunities like universe jumping, or ghost hunting. Plus, from Dipper’s journal entries alone Ford reckoned he’d make a good writer, much like Shermy but he doubted the boy could sit down long enough to get anything down.
Thinking of Shermy, Ford had to admit that his sister was the most frustratingly competitive woman he’d ever met (and yes that included their own mother). The few days the Stans had come up for Passover they’d spent the evening hours bonding the only way the Pines siblings really knew: over whiskey and poker, like three tired echoes of their father. For someone so dedicated to looking after her family Shermaine turned viciously cutthroat if you gave her a pack of cards. When the kids were around however, she softened like butter, her rough profanity-peppered speech giving way into a stream of “fudge” and “sugar” and other more creative bumbled oaths that made Ford chuckle.
There were the others. The ones he didn’t know that well and frankly made him nervous. His nephew Isaac, the twins father, who seemed rather wary of Ford and Stanley (a fact not helped by the unwelcome addition of Waddles to his household.) but kept to himself mostly. They not had much time to talk.
Then there were the other twins: Shermy’s daughters Sam and Miriam. They were an interesting pair and their own issues meant they spent of most of their shared family time squabbling amongst themselves. Ford and Sam got on very well, she was finishing up her doctorate at the Illustrious West Coast Tech. (which Sam had taken great pains to assure him was not as great as the brochures made out and largely a rich boys’ club) She was probably the easiest to talk to because discussions of theoretical physics didn’t require anywhere near the emotional energy as other types of conversation.
Ford hadn’t spoken much to Miriam. He was still leery of her past mistreatment of Dipper but he could at least appreciate she was largely in the same position as he was: a stranger re-joining their family. At least she was here, she was still trying her best. That was all Ford could do as well. He wrapped an arm around his sister’s shoulders and pulled her closer.
Across the room there was a great deal of hooting and hi-fiving going around. Mabel was making it rain paper $100 bills over Stanley’s head, decreeing herself the ‘Goddess of Fortune’ while her father laughed and her twin rolled his eyes good-naturedly in the background.
Stanley looked over in his brother’s direction, his grey hair all mussed, and a goofy grin on his face and he shot Ford a wink. Ford just smiled right back. This didn’t feel that alien, after all.
They left back for Gravity Falls in the morning. The twins’ parents brought them back over with their luggage to see them off. Outside by the car port, Laura Pines was trying to get in enough lectures to tide her over for the month she wouldn’t see them.
“Alexander, If I hear you’ve been fighting.” She started to say.
Dipper rolled his eyes “I know…I know…”
“He won’t, Mom. I’ll keep him out harm’s way.” Mabel intervened.
“Oh you are just as bad young lady! Don’t think I haven’t forgotten the stunt with the bees… Just be good for your Grunkles. Both of you, and Mabel honey, no more animals this year. Promise?” She shot daggers back over her shoulder in Stan’s direction. Ley in a display of his usual smartassery blew her a kiss.
Mabel nodded solemnly. “Promise, Mom. The only animals I’ll bring home are Waddles and Dipper.”
“Hey!” Dipper bopped her on the arm.
Laura chuckled at that.
“Good enough for me.” She bent down to kiss both of them. She didn’t have to bend down far for her son. Dipper had shot up a great deal in the past year and was now several inches taller than his sister.
Ford was watching this all from the doorway, between his sister and twin.
“Oh Stanley?” Shermy said, in a voice all sing-song and smiley like she was about to burst out into a musical number. A voice Ford was learning often preceded a threat.
Stan was busy trying to fit Mabel’s oversized suitcase through the front door. “Yeah, what?”
Their sister smiled. “Ford told me you two are going away in the fall?” Stan grunted a yes and she continued. “Well, if you two aren’t back from your little boat trip in time to come up for Thanksgiving, I’m gonna smack your heads together so hard you fuse into one giant knucklehead.”
Stanley blew a raspberry and heaved the bag through the door. Shermy glanced at her other brother, pulling a face in his direction. “D’you think that asshole heard me?” she asked.
“I did. Consider it duly noted, Sherm.” Said Ford hanging back behind.
Shermy kissed him, once on each cheek and looking up at him she cupped his face in her hands. “Have another great summer, Stanford.”
Ford smiled and pressed his lips to her forehead in return. “You too, little sister.”
He hadn’t planned for a family, but the one he found, the one he fell into was far better than anything he had planned in the first place. Ford waved to his sister from the passenger seat until her outline and her house was too small for him to make out anymore. He glanced across at his brother focused on the road, and the twins excitedly chatting away in the backseat and Ford relaxed.
They were going home.