Chapter Text
Stanley Pines dies two days after being kicked out. He is angry and scared and hurting. Stanley Pines is haunting a car. His car. The one that would have been his home if he hadn’t died.
Stanford Pines learns that he is half of a soul. While he does not currently wish to see Stanley, it would be wise to know where he is– how he is– to keep an eye on him. Stanford Pines goes to a mailbox in the woods and asks a question.
How is my brother? He asks.
Dead. He is told.
His muse, his friend, would not lie to him about him being a soul cleaved in two. If his little brother is dead and Stanford is not, then that means there is a ghost. Necromancy is supposed to be much easier in such cases.
The residents of Gravity Falls are lucky in two respects: to finally have a chance at purpose for once in their meaningless lives and Stanford’s health having been in decline simce he was seventeen. Even then, though, he has been able to make progress on the portal. The unsuspecting are no harder to manage.
He does feel a little bad about Fiddleford, but Fiddleford did love his siblings. There’s no reason, really, for him to have been upset– anyone who loved their siblings would do the same if they lost one of them.
Stanley Pines has been a ghost for 9 years, growing weaker all the while, feeling himself being lost all the while, when he wakes up. The face looking down at him, excited, arms reaching down to clutch Stan tightly, is familiar. It can’t be Ford, though. Ford closed the curtains, for one thing. For the other, Ford isn’t that old. Stanley Pines is a twin. He is 17 years old. Stanford Pines is a twin. He should be 17 years old.
Lee. The arms squeeze tighter. Good things do not happen to Stanley Pines– which is more reasons to why this cannot be Sixer. Good things do not happen to Stanley Pines because he is the dumb twin, a bad son, always, always, too much. He lets himself be held, anyways. This is a nice dream, and he has not had those in— he does not know how long it has been. Stanley Pines is only 17, after all. It can’t have been very long.
He does not think of the alleyway, the strange man, suddenly never being able to leave his car. He does not think of the people who touched his car running screaming, legs folding in on themselves, hands clawing. . He does not think of the blood flowing in rivers from the body of the last person to try and touch the one picture Stan had of him with his brother. He does not think of all of the blood and screams. None of those things happened.
Stanley Pines is only 17, after all. He is 17. He is only 17, and he is alive. The last bad thing to happen to him was Pa kicking him out. It could not be any other way. Stanley Pines, after all, is only 17.
There is no harm, he thinks, in dreaming a little longer- in hugging this dream version of his brother back- in not letting go.