Chapter Text
“Kid, why are all the snowglobes gone?” Stan asked Dipper while gesturing to an empty shelf by the door with a sign that reads “snowglobes.”
“Oh, a family came in and some sweaty teen pocketed them.” Dipper responded, looking back at the shelf while he talked.
“Huh?” Stan’s face contorted as he asked.
“Like, he stole them—shoplifted.” Dipper reworded.
“Lie goal ‘em? Glob sniff? Speak up, Kid!” Stan complained, trying to piece together the shapes of Dipper’s mouth.
“Some. Teen. Took. Them.” He repeated obnoxiously loud and slow, teen angst boring out through his eyes.
“And you didn’t stop them?” Stan followed up, finally comprehending.
“I am too young, weak, and unpaid to do that,” Dipper responded, talking fast and moving a lot.
“Whatever.” Stan huffed before walking away.
He walked over to his big, worn-in armchair in front of the TV and sat down. He picked up his ‘Gold Chains for Old Men’ magazine and started looking through it.
“Grunkle!” Mabel yelled down from the attic.
He flipped the page.
“Grunkle Stan!!” Mabel yelled again.
His eyes scanned the pages as he rubbed the paper between his calloused fingers.
“Staaaaan!” Mabel yelled, her voice playfully annoyed.
She ran down the stairs.
“Grunkle Stan!” She yelled again.
“Hm?” His eyebrows furrowed before he turned his head to check out what he was hearing.
“I’ve been calling you forevverrr.” Mabel complained, dragging out her words.
“Huh?” His eyebrows furrowed more, looking right at her.
“I built an ice sculpture out of chewed candy upstairs! Someone needs to see my masterpiece before it melts. It’s so hot up there—I’m pretty sure half of what I thought was my spit is actually my sweat. It’s a hideous monstrosity, and I need to show youuu!” Mabel rambled.
“Uhhh, ask your brother, and if he doesn’t know, go ask Ford.” He waved her off with no idea of what she had said to him.
Mabel groaned and burst into the gift shop.
“Dipper! Dipper! I built an ice sculpture out of chewed-up candy! Come look at it! Please, please, pleeeaaase!” Mabel pleaded.
“Huh? Mabel, I don’t think you can make an ice sculpture out of candy.” Dipper retorted.
“Pleeease! I need someone to see my masterpiece!” Her voice, a mix of excitement and urgent desperation.
“Okay, okay.” Dipper said as he started to follow Mabel out of the gift shop.
As soon as they made it through the door and started heading to the stairs, Ford emerged from behind the vending machine looking disheveled and equally urgent.
Stan looked over from his chair as soon as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Dipper! I need help with something very important. It’s a difficult task; are you up for it?” Ford asked in that intriguing tone that always seemed to make Dipper’s ears perk up.
“Yes, of course!” He immediately left Mabel’s trail and started walking towards Ford. “Mabel! Take over the gift shop for me!” He shouted back as he left.
“Nobody appreciates my art!” Mabel complained as she walked back into the gift shop.
Stan sat there in silence, looking around the room like he was trying to find hints of what just happened. Mabel's upset? Dipper’s kissing Ford’s butt? Ford’s using Dipper?
“Wendy!” Mabel called out, her tone suddenly excited.
“What’s up?” Wendy responded, turning to her with a smile.
“I built an ice sculpture out of chewed-up candy in the attic! It’s disgusting, and it’s my masterpiece! Grunkle Stan brushed me off, and Dipper said that I can’t make an ice sculpture out of candy. You are the only one worthy enough to see its beauty before it melts!”
“Lame!” Scoffing at Stan and Dipper’s actions. “Of course I wanna come see your gross sculpture thing! I need to!”
Wendy followed Mabel’s joyful path out of the gift shop, quickly up the stairs, and into the attic.
“...What was Mabel even talking about?” Stan thought to himself. “Are those snot-noses pranking me? Is it mumble-at-your-old-man day?” He sat there, confused.
—
Down in the basement, Dipper handed Ford a tool he had asked him to help him find.
“Thank you, Dipper. I’d been looking all day for this. Without it, there’d be no hope of fixing what I’m working on.” Ford announced like he was giving a speech.
“I’m glad I could help,” Dipper responded, tensely awaiting something to keep his little high going.
Ford looked back at him in a slightly awkward silence.
“Well… That’s all the help I need… You’re free.” Ford added, trying to give a formal resolution.
There was another beat of thick silence, Dipper’s eyes now flickering about the floor.
“Can… I stay?” Dipper asked, gravity suddenly having a stronger pull on him.
All of space and time seemed to be taut in the moment between Ford opening his mouth and finally beginning to speak. The price of holding oneself above uttering “uh.”
“I don’t need any more help, but sure, you may.” Ford responded before quickly going back to what he was working on.
—
Upstairs, Stan had begun to worry.
“Why can’t I hear them as well? Am I… losing hearing? I guess I am getting old… I don’t wanna lose even more of my hearing.” He thought to himself, spacing out at the plastic sheen of printed gold on his magazine.
—
Dipper sat down a couple of feet away and watched Ford fiddle with the large mechanical thing in front of him. He had no idea what it was or what it was supposed to be, and little did he know, Ford was equally as lost.
Ford was typically very grateful to have his great-nephew work alongside him, but right now, being frustratingly stumped in front of someone he knows looks up to him made him feel deeply humiliated. How could he continue to be his genius role model if he lost to one mystical, foreign object? Should he give up here and send himself back to kindergarten?
—
Mabel and Wendy pitter-pattered down the stairs, laughing like the clatter of electricity.
“That’s gonna be one grueling mess later—like gum stuck in your hair!” Wendy teased, her nose scrunching up as she acted out pulling gum out of Mabel’s hair.
“The mess of all messes! My finest work!” Mabel smiled back, ear to ear—a proud, satisfied smile.
They started walking through the living room and caught Stan’s eye.
“Hey, kids!” Stan called out. “What’s going on? What were you snot-noses talking about earlier?” His eyebrows furrowed as he leaned in.
“Grunkle Staaaann, I already told you.” Mabel drew out, just slow and clear enough for Stan to comprehend.
“Sorry, Kid. My hearing's not so great today. Tell me again?” He asked with a tilt in his head, trying to ignore the uneasy vulnerability humming inside him.
“She made this sick candy sculpture up in the attic! You gotta see it, Mr. Pines.” Wendy responded with audible admiration in her voice, but not much of an attempt to communicate clearer.
“...Huh?” Stan couldn’t quite catch what she said.
“You need to get your hearing aids checked.” Wendy teased, completely forgetting that Stan actually had a hearing aid. “I’m gonna go see if anything was stolen from the gift shop while it was unattended.” She walked away with a smirk.
“What’d she say?” Stan turned and asked Mabel.
“You’re. Hear. Ing. Aid.” She said slowly and clearly while gesturing to her ear.
“Ohhhh. My hearing aid! Thanks, kid!” Stan responded
Before he could continue, Mabel was already skipping away.
He pulled his hearing aid out of his ear and fiddled with it in his hands. “What a relief…” he thought to himself with a shy laugh. “I thought I’d lost even more of my hearing.” He looked at the contraption in his hand with something visibly weighing on his mind. “Okay, old man, let’s change out your batteries.”
He got out of his chair with a grunt and headed to the junk drawer in the kitchen. “How long ago did this battery run out?” His hands sifted through the messy drawer like he was digging through sand at the beach. “Maybe it’s time to get a second hearing aid… What would I even do if my hearing got too bad for hearing aids?”
“Aha!” His eyebrows shot up as he picked up the package of small, disposable batteries. Stan had lost the rechargeable ones (and their charger) just a month after he got them.
He replaced the battery and fidgeted with it some more before turning it on.
“That was an easy enough fix.” He thought to himself with a satisfied sigh.
He put his hearing aid back in his ear and winced at the sudden cacophony of indistinct whirring and buzzing and far-away chatter—none clear enough to be cohesive, but all loud enough to be heavily unpleasant. He took a second to try to get used to it.
He walked back over to his chair and turned the TV on. He sat there listening to whatever boring channel the TV opened to and tried to comprehend what the man on the screen was saying. He could hear that he was speaking, and could tell that he could hear a little bit more, but he still couldn’t make sense of the majority of what was being said. His hearing aid could make the sounds louder, but it couldn’t make them clear enough. Everything sounded like muddy nonsense.
“Maybe it’s all the earwax?” He thought to himself while he pictured just how grimy his hearing aid was while he was fidgeting with it.
He quickly turned the TV back off and wandered off to his bedroom. He bee-lined to his dresser and scanned his eyes across the cluttered top of it.
“I swear this is where I left it.”
He looked at the floor surrounding the dresser, peeked in all the drawers, and even checked the nightstand.
Stan headed down into the basement and into the room Ford and Dipper were in.
“Hey, Ford, have you seen my hearing aid cleaning kit? It was on top of the dresser. It looks like one of those little first aid kits—like all white and plastic and stuff?” Stan asked as his eyes scanned around the room.
“Not now, Stanley.” Ford responded, not even looking up from the machine that he was working on.
“Huh? Oh, I can’t hear very well right now—that’s why I need the cleaning kit.”
“Stanley, can’t you see I’m busy?” Ford’s fuse had already been burned short from how much he’d been beating himself up.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying. Will you help me find the cleaning kit so I can understand whatever heartless nonsense you’re yelling at me right now?” Stan’s fuse was burning short, too.
“That’s an incredibly rude thing to call your own brother, Stanley. I am heartless for not setting some of my precious time aside to fall for your childish prank?” Ford’s tools whirred away at the mysterious hunk of metal in front of him, certainly making it even harder for Stan to piece together the muddy mess of sounds.
Dipper sat there in the corner, silent, trying to sink into the walls behind him; It was all too similar to when his parents fought at home.
“I! Cannot! Hear! You!” Stan yelled back.
“How’d you get a hearing aid anyway? Did you go to the doctor under my identity? You stole my whole life, Stanley! That’s heartless! You muddied up my medical history!” Now Ford was yelling, too. “Did the doctors not even realize that you don’t have an entire extra finger on both of your hands? Ugh, this forsaken country—the incompetence.” He mumbled to himself as he rubbed his brow bone.
Stan huffed and walked away, feeling upset, upsettingly helpless, and unable to get through to his own twin brother.
Dipper sat there holding his breath minutes after everything faded back into quiet.
Stan made his way back to the living room and sat down on his armchair once again. He was reaching for the TV remote before being cut off by Mabel walking into the room and calling out to him.
“Grunkle Stan! How’s your hearing aid?” Mabel asked as she walked up to him.
“Wait- Sorry, Kid. A little slower?” Stan asked.
“Hooow’s yoouurr heearriingg aaiiiddd.” She drew out, gesturing to him then her ear as she spoke.
“I put a new battery in it, but everything still sounds… jumbled.” Stan paused. “I looked all over for the cleaning kit, but I can’t find it anywhere. I think Ford moved it, but he’s… not being very helpful right now.” The last part pressed through gritted teeth.
“I’llll cllleeeaaann tthhheemmm.” She gestured to herself, a scrubbing motion, then to his ear.
“Okay, Kid.” He pulled his hearing aid out and handed it to her with a soft chuckle. “Knock yourself out.”
Mabel skipped off with her Grunkle’s hearing aid.
“What kind of kid wants to clean up their old man’s earwax?” He thought to himself, sitting in the whiplash of the yelling match with his brother and the passionate attention from his great-niece.
. . .
After an hour, Mabel returned with her Grunkle’s hearing aid in her hands and a mischievous smile on her face.
“Here ya go!” Mabel said as she handed the hearing aid back to Stan.
He picked it up and looked closely at it. Not only was it cleaner than he ever remembered it being, but it now had a tiny, sparkly star sticker on it.
“That’s real cute, kid.” Stan said with a genuine smile on his face.
Mabel’s mischievous smile didn’t waver.
“Okayy… Out with it.” Stan said with a knowing tone.
She whipped out a whiteboard that she had somehow perfectly hidden behind her back. She faced the whiteboard at him, and he began to read it aloud.
“I… signed us up… for…. ASL classes… at the community center… smiley face?” Stan read slowly. “What’s ASL? Alcoholics: Steezy and Lazy? Angry Senior Living?”
She whipped the whiteboard back to face herself, quickly erased it, and wrote something new.
“American Sign Language?” He reads with a question in his voice. “Oh, is that, like, the hand stuff?”
Mabel’s face visibly dropped, the same way when someone’s about to scold their pet.
She wrote on the whiteboard again: “It’s a real, full language that so so many people use.”
“Wait- you already signed us up for classes?” Stan asked, finally processing what she had told him seconds earlier.
Mabel nodded excitedly.
He almost started to rant about how that was not a decision that she gets to make for him, but he set his overwhelmed, smothered feeling aside to keep himself from possibly taking a firehose to Mabel’s sunshine.
“You don’t know if I need that! You cleaned my hearing aid; I’m probably fine now! Come on, say something! I’ll show you I’m fine.” Stan rambled urgently.
“Grunkle Stan, it’ll be so fuuuunn! You can’t say no, anyway; I already signed us up and there’s no take-backsies!” Mabel responded.
Stan’s expectations crumbled as he listened to his great-niece speak; He could hear her voice but could only make out a word here and there.
He took a long, deep breath as he pieced himself back together.
“Okay… I’ll give it a try.” He said, trying to hide his solemn tone.
“Yippee!! First class is on Wednesday :)” Read Mabel’s whiteboard.
She walked away without catching the weight hanging on her Grunkle Stan.
He sat there soaking in his disappointment, the helpless feeling in him spiraling slightly.
“Well, I guess there is a solution. I can’t believe it’s come to this. How am I gonna talk to everyone? Who’s gonna learn a whole language just to tell me things? How would anyone think I’m worth all that? I’m gonna be even more alone. Oh god, I’m gonna be that cranky old man no one even tries to talk to. I’m gonna be even further away from my family…” His thoughts wandered and ruminated.
Stan could feel himself get worked up and suddenly felt a deep need to cut himself off, to distract himself. Maybe it’s the men who raised him; Maybe it’s his tendency to ignore and avoid things.
He grabbed the TV remote and turned it on. He flipped through the channels and landed on some old Ducktective reruns. He still couldn’t understand everything that was being said, but he realized that sounds were a little clearer than they were before.
Mabel heard Ducktective from across the shack and quickly ran over like a moth to a light.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?” Mabel wrote.
“A little bit… kinda?” Stan paused. “The duck has subtitles anyway.” He shrugged.
“Oh, right! Subtitles!” Mabel said to herself excitedly.
She frantically jotted down on her whiteboard.
“Y’know you can turn on subtitles for the whole thing? Goofball.” It read.
“Oh, really?” Stan asked with palpable curiosity in his tone. “How? You know I’m no good with all this new-age technology.”
Mabel grabbed the remote from the arm of his chair and went to the settings. She flipped through the long list of settings and fiddled with a few of them. She went back to the channel they were on, and the subtitles popped up.
Stan smiled, his heart subtly warmed. Maybe some people were willing to make an effort.
They sat there watching Ducktective together as the world went on around them.