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It starts on an expedition in Northern Iceland, about a year after they first set sail, another summer with the twins and a whole series of adventures as brothers in their rearview mirror. Iceland is the first stop on their second loop, and hopefully by the time summer rolls back around they’ll have hit some warmer, more tropical locations. Honestly, Stanley had always preferred those types of places. There are more people, for starters, more life to experience—and trust him, he’s experienced a good deal of it. Enough to write a book, probably—if he were into that kind of stuff. The tropics were many things, but at least they were warm.
In fact, it’s this very idea he’s ruminating on—how damn cold it is, how it might be nice to show Ford around someplace familiar, or even someplace adjacent to familiar, considering his past—as they scale a snowy, craggy trail in search of something with a dumb, Mystery-Shack sounding name.
“You know, Sixer,” Stan remarks, a touch out of breath from the altitude, but entirely bored of the silence, “You’re about as shit at naming these critters as I am. The Snarl-Whal sounds like something straight out of one of my exhibits!”
Ford twists his neck to face him, making an offended expression. “It does not! It’s both scientific and creative! It’s memorable! It’s catchy! It—it—” His expression falters, his face going pale a moment in realization.
Stan barks a laugh. “Exactly! Everything you want a tourist trap exhibit to be!” He pauses, considering. “You know, Ford, with a little training, you wouldn’t be half-bad at the Shack. You can tell a good story. All you’d need to do is learn to cut out the gruesome parts—well, most of them, anyway. Some people like that kind of thing,” he muses.
“I disagree,” Ford counters. “I don’t know how you did it for so long. I think that I would be quite boring, if I tried to be Mr. Mystery. I become a bit…awkward, when speaking to someone beyond our immediate family circle, you know.”
“I’d never noticed,” Stan replies drily.
“Yes you have. You point it out rather often, in fact.” Ford frowns.
“No, I was—it doesn’t matter.” Stan sighs, grinning and shaking his head. “I still think you could play up the whole professor thing. Plus, everything you’d say would be real, and nobody would even know it! We could even make some replicas of the creatures we’ve seen out here!”
A horrified expression. “Absolutely not! That would be—”
“Eh, you’re right,” Stan shrugs, “I don’t wanna intrude on Soos’ territory. I think he started to miss giving the tours when I picked ‘em back up over the summer, y’know? I shouldn’t micromanage him.” A beat. “Even though he keeps changing all the systems that worked perfectly well for thirty years—”
“I cannot listen to you talk about this again, Stanley,” Ford warns. “Updating to a functional credit card reader is not changing everything, nor is moving the Shack’s money out of your ‘emergency duffel bags’—”
“Banks are a scam!” Stan cries. “I refuse to give my hard earned money to someone—”
He’s cut off suddenly by a sharp gasp. Ford’s eyes are trained on a snowy bush, and when Stan follows his gaze, he sees it too: a thin trail of blood, leading to a small, whale-like flipper protruding from the foliage.
“Do you think that’s—”
“The Snarl-Wahl, yes! It looks like something’s injured it!” Ford’s concerned, but his stance is wary as he approaches the bush, walking in that silent, intentional way of his so as not to disturb the creature.
Stan lingers behind him a bit, observing. Ford doesn’t need his backup, at the moment. The Snarl-Wahl is fairly unintimidating, despite its name. The thing’s a mix of a narwhal and an arctic fox, with a long, sleek tail and a furry front. It has a small horn, apparently, but according to Ford’s research its teeth are sharper comparatively. All in all, fairly harmless. They’ve certainly faced much worse. He’s still keeping an eye out, though, and he watches as Ford’s expression morphs from apprehension and concern into a fawning affection. Stan’s only ever seen him get like this over anomalies—and, once in a while, Dipper and Mabel, when they particularly look or act like the older twins had as kids.
His voice is uncharacteristically soft as he murmurs, “Oh! Look, Stanley—it’s a baby!” That last word is nearly a squeal—he sounds like Mabel talking to Waddles.
Oh boy, Stan thinks. “Is it, now?” he remarks, a grin tugging at his lips. It’s fun, seeing Ford excited.
“It is! And…and it’s injured!” Ford frowns, his eyebrows knitting together, then pushes through the leaves, reaching for the thing.
Stan steps closer. “You sure you should be touching it, if it’s a baby?”
His brother is ignoring him, positioning the anomaly in his arms like a puppy, whispering down at it.
“Hello, little one,” he coos. “Are you hurt? Did something come and attack you?”
Stan makes an instinctive face at the sickly-sweet tone of his brother’s words. Ew. Immediately, though, he chastises himself. He’s excited! Let him have this. Hey, maybe the thing’s cute!
He moves to stand beside Ford, to get a good look at the creature.
“Isn’t he adorable?” Ford asks.
“Uh.” Stan stares down at the Snarl-Wahl. It’s got a blubbery tail, bluish-grey, and two scrawny front fox-limbs, its top half covered in thick white fur. Its face is small and triangular, with amber eyes and an expression that’s a mix of bored and ticked-off. All in all? It’s an abomination, just like everything he created in the Mystery Shack over the years.
But Ford is grinning down at the thing like it’s his firstborn child. Stan coughs, holding back a laugh. “Sure, Six. It’s real cute.”
His brother angles the critter’s tail to face Stanley. “Look,” he cries, “Someone bit one of his flippers off!”
It does look like a nasty bite. “Shit,” Stan frowns.
“Watch your language in front of him,” Ford chastises, then looks upset. “H-How’s he supposed to survive in the wild without one of his limbs?”
Stan shakes his head sadly. “Happens all the—”
Suddenly, Ford’s face lights up with an idea, and Stanley knows exactly what it is before he says anything. “No, Stanford.”
“Stanleeey,” Ford protests, whining childishly, “Look at him, he’s hurt! We could bring him back to the boat, fix him up!”
“That’s a wild animal,” Stan chides, not for the first time.
“But you had a—” Ford starts.
Stan holds up a hand. “A wild, supernatural, anomalous animal that could have all sorts of boat-destroying powers we don’t know about yet! Do you remember what happened with that laser-snake?”
“I thought it was a lizard-snake! And it was! It had feet—one of them was caught beneath a rock!”
“And it nearly destroyed the entire cabin!”
“It only broke a plate!” Ford protests.
“Try a whole cabinet of plates!” Stan shoots back. “Look, it’s natural selection, Six! Some critters get their flippers bit off, okay? Nature’s a cruel beast!”
Ford looks like Stan just kicked Dipper into the sun. His eyes shine with what Stan is sixty percent sure are tears. “But we’re not cruel, Stanley! What kind of researchers—what kind of adventurers would we be if we left this poor thing to die, alone out here in the woods?!”
His brother’s voice is emphatic, passionate, and as he clutches the creature tighter, Stan tries his best to stay strong.
God fucking damn it. Stan looks down at the thing, its beady eyes connecting with his, and he could swear it makes a little warbling sound. He huffs, grumbling, “You bring that thing on the boat, I throw it overboard.”
Ford looks horrified—but then his face evens out. “Many of them live in the sea, actually. They have gills—look!”
Stan tears his gaze away, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t want to see that! ‘S gross!”
For a moment, Ford’s brain is visibly working, and then his expression grows forlorn, droopy.
Shit. He knows what’s coming.
“You know, Stanley—” Ford begins.
“Don’t do this, Ford, seriously, don’t—”
“—When I was out there in the multiverse, sent through a portal of my own creation by means we shan’t discuss here and now—”
“Oh my god, you know I hate when you—”
“It was impossible to save every creature.” A sigh. “There were so many I had to leave behind, some that I spent months alongside—because I could never fully trust them. Because I could never truly feel safe around them.” A dramatic pause. “I just—” He sniffles. “I just don’t want to let any more of them die, you know?”
Stan groans, pinching the space between his eyebrows. His gut churns with guilt, the image playing back in his mind.
“Fine! Fine, fuck! Whatever!” He snaps. “You win! Bring the thing back to the damn boat!”
His brother wears a self-satisfied grin. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
Stan huffs. “Laid it on a little thick this time, Poindexter. Try about half the dramatics next go-round.” He scoffs, turning around in the direction of the boat, gesturing for Ford to follow. “And you say you can’t tell a story.”
So, Stan ends up cohabiting a space with the little amalgamation for a couple of weeks while Ford does his best to rehabilitate it. At first, he tries to avoid it, staying out of the lab and discouraging his brother from bringing it into the common spaces, but for some reason, that just made the damn thing like him more. One day, he brought Ford lunch, and the critter had thumped over to him on its arms and healing fin, and begged him to be pet, whining and yipping and pushing its head into Stanley’s arms.
Ford had almost looked offended. “He never does that with me! Go on, Stanley, pet him!”
Reluctantly, Stan had, and that had only cemented this one-sided bond. Whenever the thing—Ford had named it Watson—was in Stan’s presence, it would seek him out like a homing missile, vying for his short, irate attentions. Meanwhile, the little runt was growing up, going from a pup to a proper unholy fox-seal combination. Ford had to resize its prosthetic fin several times due to Watson’s growth.
His brother doted on the thing, hand feeding it, stroking its head, putting it to sleep at night—honestly, it was starting to take his attention away from Stan. Not that Stan minded, obviously—his brother hovering over his every movement, constantly chatting at him and lingering beside him, making unnecessary observations was dumb anyway! He didn’t feel put-out, or like his brother had a new best friend, and it certainly didn’t trigger any issues around being abandoned whatsoever!
He just didn’t like the thing, and he wanted it gone, for no particular reason beyond its general inconvenience. Luckily, its rapidly-increasing size and regained health gave him the perfect, logical way out.
On the third consecutive day of broken glass and chaos in the lab due to the large, Mastiff-sized half-whale flouncing about with new mobility, Stan decides it’s time to lay down the gauntlet.
“Sixer, you know what we have to do,” he says, gentle but firm, at the breakfast table one morning. “It ain’t right to keep ‘in around anymore. He’s too big, and he wants to be out there, with his kind! He shouldn’t be cooped up in the lab.”
At first, Ford protests, but it only takes him a few days to see reason. It might be convenient for Stan, but it’s also the objective best course of action to release this wild animal back into its environment. His brother’s scientific side takes over, and the following week, they stand at the railing of the boat, preparing to lower Watson into the sea, about where Ford estimates a colony of his peers to be. It’s an emotional scene.
“Be careful out there,” Ford warns the small creature, “It won’t be safe. Stay with your pack, please, a-and don’t let anything happen to you! Be good, and—and don’t forget—” A wet little sniffle, and Stan rests a hand on his brother’s back in support, “don’t forget about me, okay?”
Ford crouches down, cupping the creature’s face with a hand, staring into its eyes. Watson makes a chirruping sort of sound, and Ford nods somberly. “I know. I know you will.”
He looks between Stan and the Snarl-Wahl, brown eyes wide and watery, shaking his head. Suddenly, his face scrunches up, and tears begin to fall from his eyes. Ford turns his face away, straightening up to his full height and hiding it in his hands, audibly crying, now. Despite Stan’s distaste for the thing, he can’t help but feel his heart ache in sympathy. He knows how his brother gets attached, how he sees himself in every broken little anomaly they encounter out here. He feels like he’s letting another version of himself go, and Stan can only imagine how hard that is.
“Hey, Six, it’s alright! He’s going to be with his family, okay? I’m sure he’ll miss us very much,” Stan comforts, patting him on the back.
Ford hiccups, nodding, leaning against Stan a moment, then exclaiming. “Just—just let him go, okay?! I—Stanley, I can’t watch! Just let him go!”
Stan sighs. “Alright, buddy.” He leans down, and hefts the now-heavy thing into his arms, leaning over to release it over the side of the boat. It wriggles in his hold, eager to swim. He lowers it into the water, setting it free. Stanley turns to Ford again.
“You sure you don’t want to say one last goodbye?”
Ford sniffs, turning to face Watson again, watching as it turns and assesses which way it will swim. “Go on,” he whispers, “You can go be free, now.”
The Snarl-Wahl starts to swim off, its fin visible for only a moment before it vanishes below the surface of the water, disappearing.
“You did the right thing, Six,” Stan says solemnly, and Ford nods.
“I know.”
“It’s not always easy—but you saved him. You gave him a chance. Maybe nobody else had ever done that before, y’know?” There’s a strange emptiness in Stan’s chest, a sudden pity for the ugly, funnily-named creature—and a warm fondness for his softhearted, misfit-kid brother. He claps him on the back once more, shaking his head to dismiss the feeling.
“Now. What do you say we drink to Watson, huh?”
Ford nods, giving Stan a watery grin. “I think that sounds nice, Lee.”
The incident with the Snarl-Wahl has long since passed, and repeated itself once or twice over, before the Stan-o-War II finally gains its third permanent resident—and, funnily enough, it’s not one of Ford’s anomalous acquisitions.
They’re leaving a bar in Argentina, a few drinks deep and wandering back towards the boat, when it happens.
“You—you know,” Stan hiccups, “That reminds me of this time when I lived in Colombia, and I got into a fight with this street magician over a—”
“None of these stories e-ever end well,” Ford interrupts, whining. “You think ‘s funny, but it’s—it’s just sad, Lee. H-How many times can one guy get robbed?!”
Stan looks offended. “Hey! I’ll h-have you know that that story didn’t end with me gettin’ robbed—I a-actually got my ribs broke by the guy!”
Stan guffaws like he’s just told a joke, but Ford knows he’s being serious. “So, turns out he actually performed at the birthday parties a few cartel guys—who did not like me, obviously—threw for their kids, and they had told him—”
“Y-Your goddamn life is so sad,” Ford says plainly, unabashedly cutting Stan off.
His brother makes an offended sound, then clicks his tongue in reproach. “Wh-what did Ma teach you about social graces, Poindexter? You don’t say that t-to—”
He rolls his eyes, waving a hand dismissively. “Blegh. Who cares. Stupid Earth stuff. Tell me—tell me a Mystery Shack one. A story.”
“A story where I g-got beat up at the Mystery Shack?” Stan asks, confused.
“No, not a—wait, did you actually—no, I mean a good story a-about—hey, where are you going?” Ford frowns exaggeratedly. “Hey. Hey. Stanley. Where are you—”
But Stan’s not listening to him, anymore. He’s spotted something in a cluster of shrubby, dry bushes along the sidewalk, and completely changed course to inspect it.
Ford trails behind him, standing a few feet from the brush and watching his brother crouch down in front of it. He’s begun making an odd clicking noise, something Ford recognizes as an animal summons.
“What’s in there?” Ford asks. The question falls on deaf ears. He rolls his eyes petulantly, tired of being ignored. “Stanley. What. Is. In—”
“Shh!” Stan shoots him a disapproving look. “Quit whining, will ya? You’re gonna scare it away!”
“Scare what away?” Ford asks.
“Hold on, I’m tryin’ to show you! Moses, you’re a clueless drunk.”
“Rude,” Ford murmurs to himself, watching with some skepticism as Stan continues his clicking sounds, then sticks a hand inside the dry undergrowth. A moment later, his hand retreats, supporting the minimal weight of a tiny, grey—
“Cat,” Ford says grumpily. “It’s a cat.”
The tiny thing mewls, as if to back up his assertion. It’s scraggly, thin, underfed, with crust around its eyes and what looks like the beginnings of a mat in its fur. It can’t be more than four months old—probably younger. And, yet, it seems completely unafraid of Stanley as he transfers it into both of his arms, holding it securely against his chest. In fact, it’s just looking up at him, wide-eyed.
His brother looks down at it like it’s the most beautiful, precious thing in the world.
“Isn’t she adorable, Six?” Stan asks, then, addressing the kitten: “I can already tell you’re trouble, huh? Yeah.” He nods down at the thing, grinning.
“How do you know it’s a girl?” Ford asks, in lieu of answering his question.
“Dunno. Jus’ a guess.” He grins. “Thing’s got huge eyes—kinda like Mabel. Come look, Sixer!”
He inches closer, appraising the scraggly grey ball in Stan’s arms. “She’s…cute, I suppose.”
The cat makes a satisfied chirrup. “She says thank you,” Stan translates, stroking her head with two fingers.
A thought occurs to Ford, and he brightens a bit. “You know, some cats are polydactyl. It would be interesting if—”
Stan maneuvers one of the kitten’s paws, holding it up. “Nope. Five fingers. Sorry, Poindexter.”
Ford shrugs. “Ah, well.” He pauses a moment. “How much longer do you suppose you’ll spend with it before we go back to the boat?”
Stan lowers his eyebrows, frowning. “So, you don’t like it because it’s normal?”
“I never said that,” Ford replies.
“Well, that’s what you meant!” Stan puffs up a bit. “So—so because it ain’t special, you think I should just leave it here in the bush?!”
Ford’s confused, his head spinning a bit. Suddenly, the scope of the conversation has expanded before him, and he feels a bit guilty.
“Hold on, now—
“She doesn’t have a home, Stanford!” Stan exclaims heartedly, cradling the animal close to him. “Look’it her! She’s just a kid! S-someone’s supposed t’ be takin’ care of her, and she’s all alone in the street! It’s nighttime!”
Ford tries to head off his brother’s tirade, but finds himself stumbling, inarticulate. “Lee, I feel like you’re—slow down, I never meant to—”
It’s too late. Stan’s voice is thick, emotional, a bit unsteady—no doubt due to the alcohol, but only in part.
“Where’s her family, Six? Hm? No-nobody’s lookin’ after her! How is she findin’ anything to eat?!” His brother shakes his head firmly. “No. No, we can’t just—just leave her out here to—what if something happens, Ford?! She’s all alone! I can’t believe you’d—”
“Stanley,” Ford says firmly, “Relax. I didn’t—I wasn’t suggesting—I only meant to say that you’re not really the type to take in strays.”
As the words leave his lips, though, Ford realizes they’re completely false. In fact, considering it, he finds himself hard pressed to think of any lost soul, animal or human, that Stanley hadn’t thought to take in on their journey, albeit begrudgingly at times.
He’s never said no to an anomaly, not really. He always gives the unhoused people they pass change or cash, and he hardly spends money on anything. He has two teenagers (well, one Soos and one teenager) who are constantly at the Mystery Shack because they don’t want to be at home—and, well, weren’t Dipper and Mabel strays, just a little bit? Odd ducklings in need of a begrudging, ruffled-up goose to guide them?
His house was full of townspeople during Weirdmageddon, according to the younger twins. Fiddleford had brought them, sure, but…Stan had taken them in.
And, after all, wasn’t Ford the very first to receive that protection? Was he not alone, a strange boy shielded from harm by his strong-hearted, perhaps equally strange twin?
It makes sense, with a moment of consideration. Stan would know better than anyone how it feels to be a stray—he’s spent his entire life as one, forming colonies of unhoused, imperfect, abandoned creatures.
Ford looks at the matted, dirty animal in his brother’s arms, and sees his seventeen-year old twin on the New Jersey sidewalk, staring up at the window of the pawn shop, stunned, confused, and directionless. Suddenly, he feels a wave of that familial, protective instinct towards the creature, an affection and sympathy so strong that it nearly bowls him over.
Stan, unaware of Ford’s current internal journey, stands schooling his expression, trying not to project his mixture of shock and disappointment.
“I mean, usually, I’m not! You know I hate charity—but do we even got a choice, here? She’s—” Stan stops in his tracks, bewildered, and stares at him, “Shit, Sixer, are you crying?”
His face is wet, and he feels his breath hitching. “Shut up,” Ford sniffles, hiding his face in his hands. “Shut up, Stanley, I’m drunk.”
Stan’s concerned, for a moment. “What happened? Did I say something that—”
“No, no, you—let’s just—can we just take the damn thing home?!” Ford hiccups, feeling Stanley’s arm come to wrap around him in support.
“Really?” Stan sounds so earnest, so excited, that it almost sends Ford over the edge completely—thank goodness his brother immediately tries to shatter this sincerity. “I-I mean, I wasn’t going to suggest that, obviously, but if you want to, I guess we can—”
“You’re an idiot,” Ford remarks heatlessly, scrubbing at his eyes. “Don’t lie. You wouldn’t have left without her.”
“Please,” Stan replies, adjusting the kitten in his arms, “Little ones like this rascal? All a bunch of freeloading scam artists. It’s softies like you who fall for their traps.”
The kitten meows, punctuating Stan’s sentence, as if in similar judgement of Ford’s nature. It’s a small, rugged sound, almost gravelly.
“She even talks like you,” Ford observes, half-sarcastic. “Good God. Just what I needed—two Stanleys.”
His brother suppresses a smile. “Oh, go back to crying, will ya? You’re a real rollercoaster tonight, Poindexter. I swear, I’m gonna stop buying you those margaritas.”
Ford waves him off, as they resume their slow amble back towards the boat. “No you won’t.”
“Try me, Poindexter. I’m a cold-hearted old man—everybody knows it.”
Ford glances at him, watching Stan grin down at the creature in his arms, scratching it behind the ear. The little thing stares up at him almost reverently, like he’s her mother.
The older twin chuckles affectionately. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, knucklehead.”