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"Grunkle Ford!" screeched Mabel Pines, the scream echoing throughout the almost empty ice lake. Yet the scream was a shout of joy, a merry sound much like a little girl being given a piggy back ride by a very much amused father.
The scenario wasn't far from that anyway. Mabel Pines, you see, was screaming from joy while her amazing, bright, wonderful Great Uncle Ford was holding her hands and spinning her around on the ice so much that the poor girl might be seeing stars by the end of it. This wonderful Great Uncle Stanford was laughing along with Mabel's own twin brother, who stood by the sidelines while the two spun and spun like a spinning top. Meanwhile, the fourth Pines, the one a person would call the 'stump' of a pine tree, sat by the snowy grass like an idiot.
Old bones, obviously. As much as Stanley "Grunkle Stan" Pines wanted to join his family while they spun and skated on the empty iced lake, his bones and muscles were much too old to work properly without cracking one. Heck, he demanded he still skate with them even if he were to break all 206 of those bones. Those meddling kids forced him to watch while his perfectly healthy I-took-pills-that-made-my-bones-strong brother played with them the whole time. "It'll be fine!" they said to him. "Watching us will be as fun as being there!" they also said.
Well, ta-freaking-da. Stan watched, grumpy in every inch of his bones, while Stanford Filbrick Pines laughed along with his two favorite grand-niblings.
Stan counted about seven more spins from his brother and grand niece before they fell in a heap, the much younger and lighter one thankfully on the other while they laughed like falling on ice was the most funniest thing in the world. His shoulders stiffened, he tilted his chin up instinctively, and he called out, "Poindexter! Sweetie! Are you two alright?"
"I'm A-OK, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel giggled, in sync with Ford as he called, "We're fine, Stanley!"
Dipper skated warily over to the two, holding out his hand nimbly, first to Mabel then to Ford. He kept switching between the two, clearly at crossroads at which person he should help up the most. He didn't need to pick, it turned out, since Mabel did him dirty and took his wrist, pulling him down on top of her in a nasty looking dog pile on top of Ford.
"Unhand me, you intrusive youngsters!" Ford shouted, shaking a six-fingered gloved fist like a grumpy old man. His deep, demanding voice only made Mabel and Dipper laugh. Ford laughed with them. Stan pouted ever so slightly while they did so. What was he going to do while he sat there, laugh with them for something he wasn't even a part of? Eugh, that sounded as bad as actually taking a sip of Mabel Juice (no offense to his pumpkin, of course).
"No, no. But seriously," Ford said in a monotone, "I can feel my spine cracking from the pressure."
In an instant, Dipper and Mabel rolled off their Grunkle faster than they would if Stan were to scream out, "Kids! I need more toilet paper!" Stan knew this from experience.
Not a moment too soon, Ford got up from the ice, rubbing his back. The young twins called out words of, "Are you okay, Great Uncle Ford?" to "Ohmigosh, I'll get you some juice to soothe the pain!" But Ford shook his head, waving a hand in dismissal. "Are you kidding?" he said jokingly, "Let's do that again! Dipper, my boy, skate to fifteen meters away. Lemme go get a stuffed lemur we could throw around as a football! Mabel, you're the monkey in the middle!"
"Yeah boy!" Mabel whooped.
"I think I'm going to get hit in the face at least forty two times by that flying lemur but thaaaaat's okay!" Dipper grinned.
They skated to their respective spots they were assigned, while Ford skated right over to Stan. Thinking that his brother had finally come to pull him onto the ice without constantly shouting at him to sit at the edge like a kicked puppy, Stan perked up. "Sixer! How 'bout I come and join Mabel in the middle to catch that toy lemur of yours, eh?"
Ford, instead of taking his hand and leading the way as Stan oh-so-hoped, wrinkled his nose like a rich man looking down at a mere peasant. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Stanley," he said slowly, "if you come on the ice, you might-"
"-fall in, get hypothermia, break my knees, break my neck, my back, or literally anything with bone," Stan said with a slight edge of bitterness, "I gotcha."
Ford smiled apologetically, almost sadly even, before he took the backpack right beside his old twin brother. He opened the zipper, rummaging through before he took out a white and gray frozen lemur that seemed to have belonged in the Mystery Shack itself. Then he turned around on his skates, holding the stuffed animal up high like a trophy and made his way to his whooping niblings like they were his groupies.
Stan buried his red, stuffy nose in his arms, watching his three Pines family members throw around a lemur like a football while they laughed and shouted and hollered. Sure, he was the stump of the family, but no tree can be held up without one.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment when Dipper shouted a compliment at Ford's mega arm throw. He squeezed his biceps when Mabel shouted in glee as Ford pushed her teasingly, nearly sending her spiraling into a snow heap off the side of the frozen lake from his strong, portal-trained arms. And Holy Moses, he tried not to think about those grudges from long ago. He tried.
After all, everything was alright now. The kids loved him as much as they loved Ford. They loved the brilliant, handsome author and hardcore warrior as much as they loved the dopey, con man Grunkle Stan. And Ford loved him. They were brothers- of course they loved each other.
But sibling rivalry was always an issue when it came to families.
Especially if those siblings refused to back down from a fight.
"Grunkle Ford, hoist me up on your shoulders!" Mabel whooped, but to Stan's old burdened ears, it came out as, "Ford, you're the coolest great uncle I've ever met in my entire life!"
"Great Uncle Ford, can we play Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons after this?" Dipper asked simply, yet it came to Stan as, "Grunkle Stan sucks! I wanna hang out with you more than that stupid old grump!"
And Ford, and those heedless wonderful kids, were too oblivious to see him seething inside. To see his rusty old gears in his head turning and turning to think whether or not stomping over there without any skates on was any good idea.
Eventually, when Ford set down the lemur and brought both Mabel and Dipper up to his shoulders (something a sixty-something old man could never have done with two growing teenagers), Stan snapped. Pretty much literally at that too.
"Will you three stop doing that in front of me?!" he hissed.
They stopped, looking over at him in a mix of innocent confusion and dying laughter. Mabel was the first one to respond to his sudden shift of mood.
"Stop what?" she called, practically shouting as she was so far away from her Grunkle.
"Yeah, what's wrong?" her twin brother agreed.
"Stanley, did something happen?"
Stan gritted his teeth, a little overwhelmed by the trio's synced responses. Oh man, he told himself he wouldn't be such a prick in the arm today. It was, after all, Mabel and Dipper's first time back to Gravity Falls since summer break, coming back purely for the long awaited winter break for the Christmas and New Year's season. He was lucky to even have convinced Shermie's kid and significant other to bring the twins over to their great uncle's Mystery Shack for a week. A Christmas together, even.
So what was wrong with him? Why was he so riled up looking at Ford and the kids being happy? Shouldn't he be happy himself?
Well, no.
He couldn't. Not really, anyway.
Ford took those kids away from him. Ever since he popped out of that stupid portal and bonded with the younger Pines twins, those two forgot about Stan like he was just a Plan B they weren't looking forward too. Even after the events of Weirdmageddon, Stan still hadn't worked up the courage to talk to his own brother. About Ford's self-absorbance, about his reliance on no one but himself, about acting like Stan was just an assistant he needed to command around, about never talking about his feelings like a normal goddamned person.
"Just-" Stan's throat closed up. Every rant in his throat stopped. "Whatever. Just..."
"Just what, Stanley?" Ford frowned, setting the kids down on the ice with a gentleness of a parent setting down a baby. As much as Stan tried to visualize his brother's frown resembling something like concern, all he saw was Ford's calculation, Ford's brain turning and turning. Even when it came to Stan's health and well-being, Ford treated him like a specimen to study than an actual brother to be concerned about.
"Grunkle Stan, if you want to come on the ice, you can come with us tomorrow," Mabel offered up, mistaking Stan's gloominess for the grumpiness of not coming on ice to skate. She twirled on the ice lazily, drifting away from Ford and farther away from Stan in the process. "I'll even teach you how to do a toe loop!"
"Sweetie, I'm too old for that. You uh, know that right?" he said, chuckling a bit. He scratched at his chin, looking a little embarrassed now at his sudden outburst.
"Oh, we know!" Dipper called, looking up from tying his skates. "But she's Mabel. She can probably teach you how to win at a Grand Prix Final if you give her enough time. And determination."
"He's not wrong," Ford chirped, "that girl once taught me how to knit with only my pinkies once."
"That's nice," Stan said dismissively. He shifted the weight underneath his butt, feeling heat fan his face despite the weather. He didn't know from what emotion it was coming from. "But it's- it's uh, not the skating I snapped about. I didn't mean to do that in the first place."
"Then what's the problem, Stanley?" Ford asked him gently. Dipper skated away with his sister, now disinterested in the conversation Ford and Stan were about to have. He was more concerned with how many spins Mabel was doing than he was with them. "You know it's not healthy to hold in thoughts and emotions. With your brain, it's thrice as unhealthy," he continued.
Stan put his gloved hands on the snow right behind him, arms shaking as he forced himself up. Even though his body ached and his labored breathing told him to sit back down before he collapsed in a pathetic heap, Stan stood his ground, standing with arms crossed and feet apart like he was waiting for something to come by.
"Don't you think you should...let me have a turn?" Stan said. He hated how feeble he sounded. He needed to sound intimidating, angry. Not weak and slightly annoyed.
"Turn at what? The mall carousel?" Ford laughed.
"A turn," Stan repeated stubbornly.
"Stanley, don't beat around the bush."
"Then let me have a turn!" Christ, he sounded like a whiny baby.
"A turn at what?" Now Ford was starting to sound annoyed.
To be the kids' hero, to be your brother, your actual brother, your BEST FRIEND! he wanted to shout. He wanted to scream and shake Stanford until he got it, until he stopped acting like a narcissistic robot and actually acted like his brother, the brother he went on adventures and fantasized wing-manning for in clubs. Yes, he got his wish and traveled the world with Ford in a ship they spent years dreaming about. Yes, Ford and he were happy. Yes, he was happy to have his brother back. Of course he was! But why was Ford so dense for a man who had 12 PhDs, so goddamned dull when it came to talking about human 'feelings'?
"For the love of-" Stan gritted his teeth. He could practically feel his dentures slowly being chewed away. His brain turned and turned, flipping this way and that, to figure out ways to kindly invite his brother to sit down with him and talk to him like a normal human being. Does anyone know how it felt, to be stuck on a sailboat with a man who said nothing but orders and, "We're going to run out of food, you better conserve"? How awful would a person think it would be, to be with someone who you used to run around with, solve mysteries with, go on adventures with, and have them act like you were nothing to them but a nuisance?
Ford acted so considerate when it comes to these young Pines twins, but acted selfish on the behalf of a twin brother who sacrificed everything to give everything to him.
"What the hell do you want from me?" Stan snapped.
"What?"
"What the hell do you want from me!" Stan threw his arms up. "Ford, we're old. No magic or medicine or book of yours could help us live forever or make us young-"
"Technically, we-"
"-can't! We can't!" Stan shouted. He felt the heat tickle his neck underneath the knitted scarf Mabel gave him. "We can drink from the fountain of youth or whatever that is you found, Ford, but we can't be young! We can't live with Ma again, or our old man, or with Shermie! We can't fantasize about going on adventures anymore because we already are! But can you guess why that sucks like hell?! Why I can't stand it when you're doing nothing but having fun with the kids?!"
He almost laughed when Ford blinked, sliding backwards ever so slightly in shock. "It's already gone, you big IDIOT! You- you hated me when I broke your project, I know you did, I hated myself too. Then you come back, we all celebrate, we're still not okay, but then we make up after some interdimensional frat boy swings by to greet you, and we're still not goddamned okay. You still refuse to look at me, sometimes you act like I'm not even there, you-"
"Stanley."
"Don't you dare cut me off, you blockhead!" Stan spat. "I- I don't know why I'm rambling now, but I don't care. Ford, sometimes I-"
"Stanley!"
"SOMETIMES I ASK MYSELF WHY THE HELL I EVEN SPENT HALF MY LIFE TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU ALMOST TOOK MINE!"
"Stanley, please."
"You said I was the kids' hero. You said I was the town's. But to you, I'm nothing but a nuisance, aren't I?"
"Stanley!"
"Will you stop snapping out my name?!" Stan shouted. "It's bad enough you barely listen to me, but now you-"
"STANLEY, GET OFF THE ICE!"
And Stan stopped dead. The world felt different on his feet. Slippery, not crunchy like the snow. Slippery, as in ice. He looked down. The sounds of cracking ice reached his ears way before the screams of his terrified niece and the warnings of his panicked nephew could ever fall onto them.
"STAN-!"
He had marched onto the ice to confront his brother. And now it was starting to crack underneath him.
Someone shoved him aside, someone heavy and as burly as he was, and Stan tasted the blood in his mouth as he went down.
Stupid. Reckless. Idiot. Stupid and reckless and idiot.
Was he describing himself or his brother, Ford? Honestly, it could go both ways.
Stan dunked his hand back in the bucket, drenching the cloth in warm water. Warm, not hot. Just as Fordsy had basically ordered him to make sure of. Even in the face of death and hypothermia, Ford still managed to bring Stan in the right direction of the medical field.
Behind him, Mabel and Dipper watched in concern as Ford groaned and shivered in the thickest blanket Mabel had ever produced. Dipper put his hand against Ford's forehead as a mother would, grimacing to himself before he pulled away. When his sister asked for an update, he simply shook his head, warning Mabel not to talk anymore. Mabel opened her mouth in protest before Dipper nudged her hard, glancing at Stan and then at Ford. Mabel closed her mouth faster than one of Ford's bear traps.
"Grunkle Stan," Dipper said quietly, wringing his hands together like the nervous little kid he was, "don't you think we should call the ambulance? It might be severe."
"Might." Stan shook his head, pressing the warm cloth against Ford's thigh. Ford shivered even harder, glaring at Stan at the placement of where he had put the cloth. But he couldn't speak. Each time he tried, it turned into a coughing fit. Or his voice simply didn't come out. "We could figure this out ourselves."
"But Grunkle Stan, look!" Mabel cried, rubbing her nimble thumbs over her poor Grunkle Ford's bony fingers, "He's shaking so badly. Maybe-"
"I said we don't need an ambulance," Stan snapped. He removed the cloth from Ford's thigh, dunking it back in the bucket. The warmth of the water was turning cold. "Look you two, I know you're worried about him but he's a tough guy. Just like me. Maybe...maybe even more. He just needs time. He doesn't need help from anyone other than his beloved family."
"Well, some beloved family we are," Dipper muttered under his breath.
"What's that?" Stan said.
"Nothing."
"I thought so."
They were quiet. Very quiet, in fact. Nothing, not even a mouse, made a noise in the house. The only thing running was the fireplace Ford and he installed a year back, for winters like this with the family. It cracked and snapped with the wood Dipper hauled into it, constantly bringing them back into reality. Stan wanted to stamp that stupid thing out more than anything.
"Grunkle Stan..." Mabel said slowly. There was a sadness in her tone. A twinge much like that of a disappointed child waking up to an empty Christmas. For all they knew, maybe on that fateful day they would wake up the same way. "You really blew up on Grunkle Ford lately."
"I know, pumpkin. I'm sorry," Stan apologized. He left his hand to swim in the bucket, elbow propped over the top. "I didn't mean to lash out like that. I don't even know what set me off."
"Were you jealous of him playing with us?"
Dipper was the one who blurted that out. When Stan turned to look at him, Dipper had no shame on his face. In fact, the growing stubble on his chin made him look more confident in his words than ever. A sign that his grand nephew was growing up, and grown up people knew exactly what to call out.
"M- maybe. I don't know, alright? Don't push it," Stan huffed. He wiped his own stubble with a gnarled hand. He was tired and beyond exhausted but the last thing he wanted to do was leave his own brother alone.
"Grunkle Stan," Mabel called yet again. She was hugging a polar bear plush, one that Pacifica Northwest gave to her last Christmas, to her chest like some sort of moral support. "You never told me you wanted to be young again. To stop growing up. We could've spent nights on the roof talking about that over Mabel Juice and Pitt Cola!" she scolded. Mabel, always the one who found the positive in negativity.
Stan smiled sadly. The one he always pulled out when Mabel was being Mabel. "Come on, I thought you knew," he said simply.
"Well I didn't know enough then," she huffed.
Dipper laughed, taking the stuffed polar bear from her to hug it for his own. Mabel instantly shouted in disbelief, gasping at the betrayal of her own twin brother. Dipper fell over on his back trying to hang away from her grasp, laughing and laughing when Mabel tried to tickle his sides to let go of "Mr. Bear".
They were at it for a while, kicking and tickling and having no mercy whatsoever at the hands of the stuffed toy. All the while, Stan looked at them, slightly in awe. All he saw was him and Ford.
Playing on the beach of New Jersey, teasing Ford by waving that notepad of his. Accidentally finding what Ford thought to be mermaid skeletons by the rocks. Bouncing up and down and fanboying together. Them telling the local police and those trustworthy adults telling them off by calling Ford "a freak of nature". And them swearing and going by an oath that they would always rely on each other and never to those stupid, stinky adults.
"Mabel, sweetie," Ford croaked, "Dipper, my boy. Can you two excuse me for a couple minutes or so?"
Dipper and Mabel stopped dead in their fight for the glorious polar bear, looking over at Ford in slight concern. But seeing that he was in fact breathing and talking, they both seemed to breathe a sigh of a relief together. They nodded their heads almost eagerly, climbing up to their feet and heading for the door of Grunkle Stan's room almost drunkenly.
Stan got up to try and follow, but Ford croaked out an extremely hoarse, "No." It forced Stan to sit back down.
Once Dipper and Mabel had left them alone, generously closing the door after their feet left Grunkle Stan territory, Stan turned to look at his brother. And his first words were, "You didn't have to do that."
Ford only smiled. If not by a crack. "You're my brother. Of course I had to." He didn't miss a beat before he added, "I mean, come on, Stanley. Who else is going to save your fat body off the ice?"
Stan sighed through his nose, almost annoyingly. "Even when you're shivering harder than Ma during her glory days, you still find a way to call me fat even though we're literally the same pounds."
"Same pounds don't mean same health, Stanley."
"Says the one with hypothermia."
Ford snorted. Almost instinctively, he wrapped Mabel's blanket around him even tighter. "It'll go away. All my illnesses do."
"You're not superman, are you?" Stan joked. He pushed the bucket away from him, getting up to sit closer by the bedside where Ford sat cross-legged, still shivering. On his bedside stood two steaming cups of hot chocolate, the marshmallow on top already beginning to melt away completely. He took a mug, taking a sip.
In the meantime, Ford watched him over his lopsided glasses, almost wearily. The calculation in his eyes were gone, replaced by some sort of emotion. Perhaps he was intrigued. Or sad. Or both.
"What?" Stan looked down at his mug. "Do you want some? Mabel made two for the both of us. She made another two for her and Dipper but they downed it all down while they were waiting for you to start talkin' again."
"How..." Ford cleared his throat. "How long ago?"
"When she made them? 'Bout two hours ago, why?"
"And you didn't drink yours yet?" Ford asked him. Ford raised a shaky hand, all the way up to his face. But he put it back down, body still shaking like a chihuahua and face contorted in what looked like constipation. Stan set down his mug, reached over, and fixed Ford's glasses for him. He sat back down, grabbing for his mug again without another word. Ford blinked, adjusting to his glasses' new position. If anything, he looked more surprised at Stan's actions than with the clearance of the new position.
"To answer that question, 'course not," Stan said. "I may be rude, Stanford, but I wouldn't be so cruel to down the whole mug of hot chocolate while you were dead to the world."
"But you were rude enough to say those things."
Stan swallowed this sip of hot chocolate harder than the rest. It took all of his might not to slam the mug down. "I wasn't being rude," he said quietly.
"No? You practically called me a robot, Stanley," Ford said back. He didn't sound angry. He didn't even sound slightly annoyed. If anything, he sounded almost...saddened.
"With all the time you do at that basement of yours to fix all the machinery you have, I wouldn't be surprised if you turned into one yourself, Sixer," Stan joked. A cruel joke, he had to admit, but it was a joke. Jokes were made to be funny, yet not a single smile cracked among the two brothers.
"Was I...was I being that- that emotionless to you, Stan?" Ford asked him kindly. Stan bit down on his tongue. Here it was again; Ford was sounding much like a physiatrist to treat Stan's health than their relationship.
"I mean, if you put it that way..." Stan shrugged. He took another sip of his hot chocolate, looking down at the red mug to avoid the heavy eye contact his brother was trying to reinforce.
"Stanley," Ford said in exasperation. The slur in his words were 80% gone. Even his shivering was going down.
"What?" Stan didn't mean to snap, of course he didn't, but the annoyance and irritation was getting so much to him that he felt like he was going to start yelling all over again. The perks of being an old man, he guessed. "I'm sorry, alright? Let's just- put all of this behind us. No more yelling. No more fights. Let's celebrate this stupid holiday that we don't even celebrate just for Dipper and Mabel."
"I'd agree with you, Stanley, damn it, I would," Ford said through his teeth. "But we need to talk about this. I'm not-"
"Will you just drop it for two seconds?" Stan groaned. "All I want is to spend this break with the kids with as less drama as I could. But you're making it very hard to, Ford!"
"Me?! I'm not the one who started shouting in the middle of a frozen lake about being heartless and jealous!" Ford hissed.
"And I'm not the one who made me think I was gaining back my brother when all I got back was a broken man who can't even FACE ME!"
Ford shut his mouth. They both did.
The fire crackled behind them, loud and aggressive. It was like it was tailored to Stan's emotions. Wondering and depressed at first, then a whole burst of flames that only the largest of buckets of water could stop.
"You know I love you, right?" That was Stan's bucket of water.
Stan looked up from his sad mug of coffee, his neck coming up so fast he thought it might've bruised. But no. This time he didn't look up because something was a joke. This time Ford was truly looking at him, truly looking at him as a brother and a loved one than a person he had to pity.
Ford's eyes were scrunched up a little, and so were his eyebrows. His body no longer shook, but his voice certainly did. And heck, the way his eyes kept flitting back and forth from the wall to the fire to Stan reminded Stanley of them when they were little. Of scared little Stanford Pines who lived in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey with a not-so-perfect family, but perfect enough.
"I love you," Stanford murmured, "I do, Stanley, I do. You're my brother and my best friend and my- my hero. I'm sorry if I seem cold, I really am. I don't- I don't mean to act like that but it just happens. Too much time in the portal can do that to a person. And so can an interdimensional demon. Thank you for pulling me out of that portal. Thank you for convincing Mabel and Dipper's parents for them to spend time with you. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for wrecking my project all those years ago."
Stan's hand shook. And no, it wasn't from early Parkinson's disease. And no, it wasn't because he was angry. But because he was happy. All he wanted to ever hear Ford say to him was "thank you". Or better yet; "I love you".
It was one thing to be thanked. It was another to be loved.
But then...
"Thank you? For breaking your project? You mean the one I wrecked all your chances of getting into a good college with?" Stan asked him.
"Well, of course," Ford said matter-of-factly. "If you haven't done so, I never would've found Gravity Falls. Dipper would've never been so into mysteries and been the fine man he is now. Mabel would never have realized that loving herself was better than having someone love her first. Stan, you're my hero."
And Stan, his heart as heavy as the gold he could ever have dreamed of, set the mug down on his bedside table with a rattling sound. Ford looked at him in alarm. Stan glared at him.
And he launched himself on his bed with a shout of, "GERONIMO!"
"WAIT, WAIT, STAN, I'M STILL-!"
Too late. Stan flopped right beside his brother, Ford yelping in surprise. Then Stan hogged the blankets from his still freezing brother, wrapping the heavy fabric around the both of them with a bellowing laugh. He tackled his brother in a hug, Ford trying to push him off with a great amount of two percent effort. Eventually, he laughed himself, and slumped. He let Stan cuddle with him, wrapping his own freezing arms around Stan's warm ones.
"Did I just hear someone call my ex-?" Mabel asked, poking her head into the room. Dipper followed suite. Geronimo was one of her exes, obviously.
Then her eyes popped open with stars, squealing madly and loudly at the sight of the two brothers laughing and cuddling in an attempt to get warm.
"Ohmigosh, ohmigosh! I'm cold too! Lemme join!" she screeched.
"Sweetie, I don't think there's any room to-" Ford warned her.
But she didn't heed his warning, grabbing Dipper by the wrist and dragging him over to Stan's bed. They belly-flopped to each side of each twin. Stan with Mabel, Ford with Dipper. And then they tackled each old twin with themselves, crawling under the blankets like the parasites they were. Due to the enormous size of Mabel's knitting, it comfortably fit four Pines for the price of one.
And they all cuddled together, as happy as a family could be during this kind of season. Mabel was the one who began talking, rapid fire rants coming out of her mouth about how they should have a board game night tomorrow with just the four of them with a bunch of extremely unhealthy snacks and lifestyles. They all chipped in ideas together, one after another, until their whole calendar for the whole break was full to the brim with family bonding they were either going to regret in the morning or remember for a life time.
In the end, when the four were calming down and they were beginning to stop laughing and chatting, Mabel was the first to talk.
"Hey," she whined, writhing in her seat, "Grunkle Ford didn't drink my hot chocolate."
"Aw, sorry," Ford apologized. "Perhaps you could make me another one tomorrow?"
"Idiot," Stan snickered. "Look at me. I downed the whole thing like a champ. Your move, Poindexter."
"Yeah, see!" Mabel exclaimed. "Stan is such a cool Grunkle!" Stan puffed out his chest, even though no one could see, at the compliment. "He downed all of my hot chocolate induced Mabel Juice! Oh hey. It rhymed too!"
"I-" Ford blinked. "Did you just say Mabel Juice?"
"The one with the plastic dinosaurs?" Dipper offered.
"Mhm." Mabel bobbed her head.
"Darn, I loved that," Ford complained, "it has such great flavors. But maybe that's just my literal iron stomach. I don't know how the acids in a real human stomach would take it though. Stan, how do you fe-?"
Right on time, Stan's stomach growled like a hyena that hadn't eaten in four days.
Dipper whistled lowly. "Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford." He looked over at the two twins. "You better do your last awkward sibling hug. It looks like your last." Mabel reached over, hitting him with the sleeve of her freakishly long sweater with a pout. Dipper only snickered.
"Oh, don't mind him, Grunkle Stan," Mabel huffed, "it's not actual Mabel Juice!"
"Then what is it? My denture water?" Stan chuckled.
"Nope, just natural flavors," she chirped. "Blueberries and strawberries!" Before they could question her as to why, exactly, she had chosen such two random fruits to grind up and put in their drinks to disguise as hot chocolate (however that worked anyway), Mabel answered it for them.
"Because Grunkle Stan's heart is as sweet as strawberries and Grunkle Ford's head is as bright as blueberries!"
"Goodness," Ford blinked, "Mabel, I'm afraid that makes no sense. To- to me, at least. Strawberries are no near sweetness and blueberries are simply-"
"Ah, don't kill her vibe, Sixer," Grunkle Stan laughed. He turned to look at his no longer shivering brother, holding out his arms in a much, much familiar way to the Pines family. "Awkward sibling hug?" he asked his twin. A simple request, yet he tried his best to keep the delight at bay in case Ford pulled another one on him and brushed him off.
But instead, Ford smiled. He said nothing, but crushed his brother in a bear hug.
And at the same time, they said monotonously, "Pat pat."