#Ford offers to check his hair but fiddleford just says. Oh I already know I have em you don’t gotta. : ) smile | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

minijenn · 5 years ago

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Universe Falls, Chapter 70, Part 2

Alas, we’ve finally reached the end of arc 7! And its been along damn time coming too. And at the end of it we have a chapter that’s just... eh ok. Its fine. Nothing too special, but I like it well enough all the same and hope you do too. Enjoy!

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Chapter 70, Part 2: In Too Deep

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“And Steven… we love you.”

Once again, Steven found himself awakening with a start, Garnet’s final gentle message all but lost on him as he abruptly jolted upright. The fact that he was back in a body of flesh and gem as opposed to watermelon barely registered when the only thing he could immediately feel was the ground violently rumbling beneath him.

“S-Steven!” Mabel’s startled gasp was only barely audible amidst the continuous earthquake. As the young Gem struggled to sit up, he glanced over to find her clinging tightly onto the one of the legs of the nearby drill in a meager attempt to keep herself steady. “W-what’s happening?! Did it work? Did they split Malachite up?”

Steven didn’t get a chance to answer as the chalkboard resting near the barn suddenly toppled over as a result of the resounding quakes, falling hard on top of both him and Mabel. Fortunately, Ford rushed in, barely managing to maintain his footing himself to pull it off of the startled pair. “Are you children alright?!” he called over the hectic din as he helped pull them both up. Knowing that they wouldn’t be heard anyway, Steven and Mabel both simply nodded, though all the same, Peridot was quick to interject from her spot right next to the drill.

“Good! Because if you two are done just sitting there, maybe its about time that we stop the world from ending!” she snapped, obviously frantic as she reached inside of the drill to make the very last few adjustments to it.

“It looks like the Cluster really is starting to emerge after all,” Ford explained gravely as he pulled out a small, continuously beeping device. “According to my pocket seismograph here, these earthquakes are getting stronger by the second. If we don’t hurry, the entire planet could tear itself apart in just a few mere hours!”

“Oh man, Malachite and the Cluster, both going crazy all in the same day?” Mabel frowned, aptly alarmed. “When it rains around here, it really does pour, huh?”

“What are you talking about? It’s not raining!” Peridot exclaimed, the expression completely lost on her. “And even if it was, that would be the least of our worries right now. Where are the others?”

“They’re stuck at the lake,” Steven informed, though he paused upon noticing the apprehensive, almost pleading look Mabel was sending his way. “B-but they’re fine! Everyone’s fine! They just have to find another way off the island.”

“Then we’ll just have to drill without them,” Ford concluded staunchly, though he did stop to take a brief glance around the area. “Wait, where’s Dipper? He should be coming with us. These quakes are making it far too dangerous for us to leave anyone behind.”

“Uh….” Mabel and Steven exchanged a wide-eyed glance at this, their cover for Dipper’s absence largely having worked up until now. But, when pressed for an actual explanation as to his whereabouts, Mabel in particular was hard pressed to give one, hence why she panicked instead. “…Who?”

“Dipper?” Ford raised a dour eyebrow. “Your brother?”

“Oh, him,” Mabel forced a grin, practically in a cold sweat by this point as she offered the first thing that came to her. “He… died.”

Ford’s already doubtful expression flattened even more as he turned to the young Gem instead. “Steven, where is he? Really?”

“Mmmm,” Steven took in an anxious breath, one that he was practically forced to let out as the ground aggressively trembled once more. “He snuck off with the Gems and Mr. Pines to the lake even after they told him not to so he could help split up Malachite and save Lapis!”

“What?!” Ford exclaimed, baffled by this quickly-spat out truth.

“B-but he’s ok!” Steven immediately reiterated. “They’re all ok, just like I said!”

“Which means we need to stop standing here wasting time!” Peridot cut in quite impatiently as she scaled the small ladder up to the drill’s cockpit. “Seriously, am I the only one who understands the meaning of teamwork around here?!”

“Peridot’s right,” Ford said, letting out an accepting sigh as he urged the kids to follow after her before doing so himself. “I’m sure Dipper, the Gems, and even Stanley will be fine out there. But none of us will be if we don’t put an end to the Cluster as quickly as possible.”

“So,” Peridot addressed the kids, her tone serious as she looked them both straight in the eye. “Steven, Mabel, are you ready to drill down into the planet to depths never before reached by your species to stop the Cluster before it forms and save your world?!”

“Uh, I-I don’t know!” Steven shook his head nervously.

“M-maybe?” Mabel shrugged just as indecisively. “C-can we have more time to think of a better answer?”

“No!” Peridot snapped. “Say that we’ll do it together and it’s gonna be great!”

“We’re gonna do it together and it’s gonna be great!” Steven and Mabel both repeated in the most earnest unison they could muster.

“Liars!”

“Ok, everything should finally be set,” Ford reported as he finished preforming the very last checks on the drill’s base. “It’s now or never. Ready or not, we have a mission to complete.”

Despite the fact that, as far as they knew, the odds stacked against them when it came to the Cluster were rather momentous, Steven and Mabel both opted to push their understandable fear aside in favor of the same sort of determination Peridot and Ford were carrying. And it was with that determination that they all piled into the drill’s cockpit, or as least as much as all four of them could given just how surprisingly small that cockpit was.

“Uh…” Steven frowned as they all squeezed in together. They were pressed so tightly up against each other that Mabel more or less had to sit on Ford’s lap just to fit while Peridot’s usually triangular hair was pressed flat to the side of the cockpit, not that she had even really noticed. “I don’t know if this is really gonna wor-”

“Too late! We’re already in, let’s go!” Peridot proclaimed, slamming the cockpit’s opening shut with a single press of a button. With another turn of the key, the drill’s engine roared to life, its tip starting to spin soon after.

“Everyone! Brace yourselves!” Ford called as he helped the green Gem copilot the machine they were both quite familiar with.

“Increasing speed!” Peridot thrust a lever forward, revving up the drill even more until finally, its tip not only struck the ground but pierced cleanly through it. Mabel and Steven watched in silent awe as the machine abruptly plunged downward, the blue skies and familiar greenery of the barnyard quickly giving way to the darkness of the earth below.

“Alright,” Steven said, his hands held in tight fists as he closed his eyes just as tightly. “Bracing for impact!”

“Actually, we have two more hours until we reach the Cluster,” Peridot pointed out as the whirling of the drill became uniform and quiet. “Approximately.”

“Whaaaaa?” Mabel asked, dumbfounded. “But I thought this thing was supposed to… ya know, boom! Bam! Take us right down to the Cluster so we knock it right out of the park and save everything!”

“And it will,” Ford assured, nodding to one of the drill’s tiny monitors, which showed a representation of the drill’s descent. “But we’ve only just barely breached the Earth’s crust. We’ll have to go through both the lithosphere and the asthenosphere, not to mention the mantle and the outer core before getting to the Cluster at the inner core.”

“That… sure does sound like a lot…” Steven said worriedly.

“It is a lot,” Peridot agreed. “But our drill is more than equipped to handle such an intense journey thanks to its titan’s ore outfitting and my expertly engineered design.”

“I think you mean Fiddleford’s expertly engineered design considering the fact that he was the one who engineered this,” Ford pointed out, sending the green Gem a critical look.

“Ugh, fine,” Peridot groaned begrudgingly. “Thanks to the Fiddleford’s design. Though my technological know-how certainly helped in at least 85% of the drill’s construction!”

“And the same goes for myself and Pearl as well,” the author remarked. “But you already knew that considering just how many times we’ve had to remind you of our contributions so far.”

“Augh! And you insist on going on about those contributions even still!” Peridot huffed, slightly annoyed. “T-though… I suppose I would have been… pretty hard pressed to put a machine of this caliber together all on my own so… I’m… grateful for the assistance.”

“Hmph,” Ford was unable to hold back a satisfied smirk at this. “And here I was thinking you’d never say it.”

“So, uh… does this thing have any windows we can open?” Mabel asked, tugging at the collar of her sweater a bit. “It’s getting super stuffy in here.”

“If we opened up any interior port in here, you three humans would suffocate almost instantly due to the intense pressure of the densely solidified rock all around us,” Peridot explained matter-of-factly. “So now. No windows.”

“Oh…” Mabel frowned, disappointed.

“So… two hours, huh?” Steven asked, already starting to get bored, a sentiment Mabel clearly shared with nothing but dark, endless earth to stare out at. “Wish we’d brought some tunes.” Peridot quickly complied with this request, pressing a button to play some surprisingly calming, but rather mundane music. “Uh… thanks,” the young Gem said, halfheartedly at this.

“What is this?” Ford frowned as he looked to the drill’s console. “Peridot, what did you do with the ‘Beethoven’s Best Hits’ disk I had loaded up in here?”

“Oh, that noisy tripe?” the green Gem scoffed. “I tossed it out. This music I found on the ‘interweb’ is much more pleasing to listen to.”

“Peridot, this is elevator music,” the author deadpanned. “And that was the best collection of classical music I’ve been able to find for quite some time now! Its scientifically proven to help stimulate mental facilities, improve focus, and-”

“And drive someone up the wall with all those whiny stringed instruments!” Peridot exclaimed in clear distaste. “Besides, this so-called ‘elevator music’ is much more fitting for the current situation.”

“Ohhhh yeah!” Mabel chimed in. “We could always just pass the time pretending we’re on a real elevator! Gooooing up!” She brightly raised her hand, only to realize that none of the others were playing along. “Or… I guess, going down, heh.”

A long beat of silence followed after this, largely as the result of everyone more or less running out of things to say. The elevator music continued to drone on just as much as the seemingly unchanging scenery of the crust’s uniform rocky layers, giving them no indication as to how far down they had gone or how close they were to their destination. The full weight of the task that awaited them at the distant core, as well as the very real possibility that they could indeed fail if things didn’t go off without a hitch, was only starting to hit them all amidst the lingering silence. And it was such a dreadful, horrific thought that Steven was quick to be the first of them to push his mind away from it in order to help the others do the same.

“It’s… kinda freaky down here, huh?” he asked the others generally.

“Why’s that?” Peridot asked.

“Its just dark and cramped and-” the young Gem groaned as he attempted to get comfortable without disrupting Ford or Mabel. “Augh, I can’t even stretch out.”

“See? See? That’s what I’m sayin’!” Mabel readily agreed. “Its so stuffy and tight in here! How were all of us and the rest of the Gems and Dipper supposed to all fit in here anyway?”

“I don’t know, they’d shrink or something!” Peridot huffed defensively. “We didn’t have a lot of time to plan.”

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t think the original plan was for all of us to go anyway,” Ford mused.

“So… what is the plan then?” Steven asked curiously.

Ford and Peridot both exchanged a serious glance at this, knowing that in the absence of the others, they were largely the ones left in charge of this mission. And rightly so too, given just how close to the development and construction of the very drill they were now piloting they had been from the very beginning. “We have a drill,” Peridot concluded succinctly. “We’re going to drill.”

“…Good plan!” Mabel remarked after a prolonged beat of silence. “Short and simple. I like it!”

“Oh! Everyone, get ready!” Ford announced as he happened to spot something of note on one of the console’s monitors. “We’re about to penetrate the asthenosphere!”

“The aesthetic-who now?” Mabel asked, confused, though she quickly got her answer. The entire drill jolted violently, rattling the small group aboard it as it finally broke free from the dense layer’s of the earth’s crust to breach into another layer altogether. One that offered a completely different view from the seemingly endless rounds of rock and soil they had been drilling through before.

“Whoa! It’s all lava!” Steven gasped, amazed at the bright orange magma now surrounding them on all sides as they continued plunging through it.

“Aha! The hull is holding up after all!” Ford exclaimed, satisfied by their relative safety. “Turns out that coating of titan’s ore would have been well worth the cost. That is, if we had actually ended up paying for it.”

“So, uh… just asking for a friend,” Mabel interjected casually. “If someone were to uh, get a whole bunch of titan’s ore from the local rich girl that said someone’s brother may or may not be totally crushing on and make really fancy sparkly suit outta all that, then… would that someone, oh, I dunno, be able to swim in lava?”

“…Hypothetically, yes,” Ford adjusted his glasses. “Though I doubt such a suit would be very buoyant, especially in lava.”

“Not that this even is lava in the first place,” Peridot interjected, nodding back towards the thick layer of molten rock they were still descending through. “Lava is what comes out of volcanoes. This is super-heated peridotite.”

“Peridot…ite?” Steven inquired, glancing over at the green Gem.

“Yeah,” Peridot grinned rather proudly. “It’s made of the same stuff as peridots.”

“Oh! So this peridotite stuff has a whole bunch of super-cute silly nerd vibes packed into it too?” Mabel asked curiously.

“Ye—no,” Peridot rolled her eyes as she corrected herself. “…Or at least I don’t think it does. Hm… That might be worth some future research….”

“So… you were made on Homeworld, right?” Steven asked the green Gem, to which she only tersely nodded. Her expression hardened as she kept her sights on the drill’s controls, and for once it didn’t really seem as though she had much to say until the young Gem prompted her onward. “…What was it like?”

“I didn’t exist,” Peridot said simply, looking to her own dim reflection in the cockpit’s visor. “Then I did. I don’t have memories of it. Just… feelings. I know I can never go back to Homeworld now but its… hard, not to have at least some feelings for where you came from…”

“Tell me about it…” Ford muttered quietly to himself, realizing just how much he could relate to the green Gem when he considered the salty, sun-soaked shores of his youth. Shores that he wasn’t sure he’d ever really go back to again.

Likewise, both Steven and Mabel were filled with equal sympathy for the clearly homesick green Gem, especially when they spotted the smallest spark of a tear welling up in her eyes. Tears that she was quick to wipe away as she forced herself to regain her composure in front of them. “B-but its fine! I’m fine. After all, I have something different now.”

“And what’s that?” Mabel asked.

Peridot hesitated, her cheeks lighting up in a bit of a flustered green blush. “You know… y-you… guys.”

“Aw, Peri!” Mabel gushed cheerfully, embarrassing the green Gem even more as she reached over to give her an unexpected hug. “You really do love us after all!”

While there had once been a time when Peridot would have immediately argued against such a claim, this time she didn’t. Instead, she simply accepted the fond embrace, doing so with a small, contented smile as she affirmed to herself once more that she’d give up everything she’d once known back on Homeworld a thousand times over all for the warmth and friendship she now knew.

The tender moment was all too soon interupted however as a sudden heavy thud rattled the entire cockpit. The shuddering noise persisted, seeming to grow louder and more frantic with every passing second, much to the growing alarm of the group listening in on it. “Uh, is that usually what lava—I mean peridotite sounds like?” Mabel asked with an anxious frown.

Before either Ford or Peridot could offer a more scientific explanation, an answer made itself apparent in a different form altogether. Namely, through a large, misshapen hand that suddenly slapped hard against the cockpit’s glass.

“Ah! It’s a Gem mutant!” Steven gasped, aptly startled.

“They must have buried some prototypes along with the Cluster!” Peridot chimed in, opting to press the drill further as a result of this sudden assault.

“Fascinating…” Ford mused as another leg and arm mutant latched itself onto the drill. “These so-called ‘mutants’ are surprisingly durable to be able to survive in an environment as hostile as this. Then again, they are already the shattered remains of gemstones, so I suppose any more external pressure wouldn’t do much to grind them down any further than they already are.”

“W-we don’t need to grind them down,” Peridot growled as she pressed a large button on the drill’s console. “We need to GET THEM OFF OUR DRILL!”

In response to the green Gem’s input, the drill’s wired external camera turned on, allowing the group to see exactly what was besetting their machine. Sure enough, a sizable handful of various Gem mutants had found their way to the drill and were clinging onto it tightly, trying their hardest to beat and tear their way inside it. “Pearl didn’t think it was necessary,” Peridot smirked, pulling out, of all things, a retro video game controller, which she proceeded to hand off to Steven. “But I never leave home without a blast canon.”

With another press of a button, Peridot managed to sync the controller up to the monitor showing off the mutants skittering atop the cockpit, offering crosshairs as an aiming guide for the canon that also rested on it. “Oo! That one! Shoot that one first!” Mabel exclaimed, pointing at one mutant that was starting to get far too close to the camera for comfort. Steven did so, easily getting the hang of the game-like controls to take aim and fire at not just the first mutant, but several others in quick succession. The canon wasn’t quite powerful enough to poof the mutants entirely, but it was enough to blast them clean off the drill, sending them flying out into the vast layer of peridotite all around them until thy were out of sight altogether.

While Mabel was all but completely caught up in the excitement of defending the drill from the potential harm the mutants could cause it, Steven didn’t quite share the sentiment, especially as he watched quite a few of them go flying. He understood well that they couldn’t very well let these mutants impair their path to the Cluster, but even still, he couldn’t shake the thought that these monsters had once been Gems themselves. They had once been like Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot; they had been more than the mindless, broken, muddled states they had been reduced to now. Which was why the more of them he unintentionally hurt, the more guilty about it he steadily started to feel.

“S-something isn’t right about this…” Steven finally voiced his concerns as he lowered the controller somewhat.

“Then use the d-pad,” Peridot suggested obliviously.

“Or better yet,” Ford grinned as he hovered a finger over yet another one of the console’s buttons. “Use this!”

The moment the author pressed that button, the drill’s entire exterior illuminated itself in what almost appeared to be a burst of blinding lightning. The shock was more than enough to not only stun the attacking mutants, but completely destabilize their messily-cobbled forms, ending the assault altogether as the remaining shards were lost to the mantle entirely.

“W-what was that?!” Peridot asked, looking to the author completely dumbfounded. “And when did you add it to the drill!”

“Oh, its nothing too special, just a simple destabilizing hyperfield,” Ford explained proudly. “Designed it myself when I realized that the likelihood of our trip down here being completely uneventful was extremely low.”

“Hmph, showoff,” Peridot grumbled. “Just for the record, I-I could have designed something like that too! Not that we even needed it since my blast canon worked just as well in getting rid of those grotesque pests…”

“T-they’re not grotesque!” Steven suddenly interjected firmly. “They’re just… they’re… augh!” Frustrated, the young Gem leaned back in his seat, briefly meeting Mabel’s worried glance before he continued. “We can’t just leave their Gems out there. They’re going to form again later and they’ll still be just as lost and confused as before. If I could just bubble them, then they’d be safe!”

“Aw, Steven…” Mabel glanced aside with growing guilt herself at this. “I… didn’t really think of those guys like that until now… I guess they are sorta Gems too. Which means we should do something to try to help them! It’s only fair, right?”

“There is no helping them,” Peridot shook her head solemnly. “They’re too broken. The beings who used to be in those shards are so shattered, they don’t know who they are or what’s happening around them. They just seek out other Gems, looking for the missing pieces of themselves. Trying to make themselves whole.”

A beat of silence passed as yet another random mutant fell upon the drill, only for the destabilizing hyperfield to blast its twisted, mangled form out of existence altogether. “These early experiments only combine two or three shards,” Peridot continued, her tone still gravely serious. “The Cluster will be a billion times bigger. An inseparable fusion capable of destroying worlds, starting with this one.”

“Which is why we have no choice,” Ford added just as sternly. “We have to destroy it before it destroys us.”

Upon hearing this, Steven’s heart sank just as much as his stomach already had over their grim mission. In many ways, the Cluster was just like those poor, miserable mutants, only on a much grander, even more horrific scale. There was practically no telling just how many Gem shards it could be composed of, each of them forced together against their will, to become something that none of them had any sort of choice or cognizance in whatsoever. The entire concept was so despicable and heartbreaking that it nearly made the young Gem sick, or at least it would have if the sudden aggressive rumbling from the drill wasn’t already doing a good enough job of that on its own.

“We’re hitting some denser rock!” Peridot called as the magma began to give way to darkened stone once more. “This is it!”

The entire group essentially held their collective breath as the drill suddenly burst through yet another layer, this time emerging into what almost appeared to be a surprisingly empty space. Fortunately, the drill was equipped with an overhead light, allowing the group within to exactly where they had ended up. “Recovery depth achieved,” Peridot announced, her voice surprisingly quiet, lest she stir up what was lurking right below them. “T-target found.”

“U-unbelievable…” Ford whispered in just as much awe as the green Gem was upon looking to the vast expanse down below them.

“Whoa…” was all Mabel could utter, at a rare loss for words as she stared down at it as well.

“I-is that…?” Steven trailed off, unable to even say the thought that Peridot finished for him.

“The Cluster.”

Out of all of the things the collective group expected the Cluster to be, the one thing they didn’t anticipate was that it would be, of all things, hauntingly beautiful. And indeed it was, a massive, sprawling sphere that stretched so far across the immense lower cavern it had been tucked away in that its end and beginning could not even be seen. Sure enough, its form was composed of so many gem shards of all shapes, sizes, and colors, that one could not even begin to fathom counting them all. Millions upon millions of the shattered pieces had been stacked together in untold layers, creating a shimmering masterpiece of untapped destruction, resting right below a thin layer of iridescent water meant to maintain its momentous form.

However, for as awestruck as the group in the drill was by its surprising radiance, their amazement was ultimately short lived. A brutal tremor echoed through the cavern, rippling the water enshrouding the Cluster and stirring the drill up quite a bit as it hung desperately onto the cave’s ceiling. “Ah! W-what’s happening!?” Mabel cried, more or less clinging onto Ford’s lab coat to avoid being tossed to the cockpit’s floor.

She was answered with yet another resounding quake, by far the most violent yet as the Cluster itself finally began to take on some form of movement. The forced fusion let out a fledgling high-pitched whine, light beginning to burst from it in the form of dozens of outstretched ghostlike hands. The incorporeal appendages continually collapsed against each other, forming in and out of each other all across the Cluster’s surface. All signs that it was beginning to take on its whole new twisted existence all on its own, just as Homeworld had intended it to do from the very start.

“W-we’re too late!” Peridot gasped in apt horror as the drill itself began to blare out several warning alarms. “It’s taking form!” And sure enough, it was as the Cluster’s steadily forming hands began to reach up towards the only thing it could: the drill itself. The ghostly mass ascended upward rapidly, intent on converging in on the drill and no doubt tearing it, and everyone inside of it, from the outside in. “Steven, Mabel,” Peridot turned to the kids, tears starting to well up in her eyes once more. “I-I’m sorry I couldn’t save you or the billions of other lifeforms who matter far, far less to me. Oh, and Ford too, I guess.” Despite the mortal danger they were all in, the author still spared the green Gem a critical glance at this last minute dig, one that she largely ignored amidst her own immense terror. “Do you have any last words?!”

Steven was the first to act on this request, not hesitating to engulf the panicking green Gem in a comforting embrace, one that Mabel was quick to join in one. One that, for all they knew, could very well be their very last. “We love you, Peridot!” Steven cried just as earnestly.

“W-wow,” Peridot sniffled weakly. “Thanks.”

“G-Grunkle Ford?” Mabel pouted fearfully as she pulled away from the green Gem to seek comfort from the author instead. “W-what are we gonna do? W-we can’t just---this can’t be it! I-I’ll never get to see Waddles, or Grunkle Stan, o-or… or Dipper ever again and I-I never got to say goodbye to any of them! Grunkle Ford, please,” She was sobbing outright by this point, essentially curled up in her uncle’s lap as the drill continued to rattle, heralding their oncoming demise but she hardly cared when she thought about everything that could so quickly, so easily come to an end in just a few short, simple seconds. “T-this can’t be the end…”

For a moment, the author was taken aback, unsure of how to respond to such an immense outpouring of grief and fear. But all it took was one more look at his niece’s distraught, pleading expression for Ford to know exactly what to do and say to drive that grief and fear away and replace it with the usual reassuring hopefulness that belonged there instead. “A-and it won’t be,” the author said, his tone gentle at first as he lifted Mabel’s gaze up to meet his, softly thumbing one of her many tears away. “Not as long as I have anything to do about it.” With a newfound burst of resolve, Ford turned back towards the drill’s console, taking over where Peridot had left off amidst her own miserable mire. “After all, I didn’t face certain death several times over in several different galaxies to go out to something like this.”

The green Gem balked out of her own revere at this, looking to the author in apt confusion. “W-what are you-”

Before Peridot could even finish her question, the drill’s exterior lit up, the destabilization hyperfield glowing brighter and stronger than ever before just as the Cluster’s many tendrils began to strike it. The forced fusion let out a sharp, mangled cry of apparent agony, the hundreds of hands losing their shape as they slammed back down towards their source. “T-that actually worked?” Ford wondered aloud as the Cluster seemed to calm down for a brief moment. He quickly, recanted however, upon noticing the amazed, grateful look Mabel was sending his way. “Oh! I mean, o-of course it worked! Just as intended, as always. Heh.”

“I-it… really did!” Peridot shook her head as she glanced over the drill’s monitors. “After a hit like that, the Cluster’s now has to struggle to take its form! This means we still have time. We still have a chance!”

By now, both Ford and Peridot were working in quick conjunction, their hands practically flying over the drill’s controls as they worked to position it just right to get the job done. It took a bit of doing, but soon enough, they had managed to position the drill high above the Cluster’s center, its tip already whirling and ready to rip its target apart. “Now,” Ford began, moving his hand toward the button that would release the drill down onto its intended target. “It’s time to end this once and for-”

“Wait!” Steven’s sudden cry brought the entire cockpit to a complete standstill. The young Gem’s expression was fraught with dread and what almost appeared to be stressed exhaustion if the thin layer of sweat starting to bead across his forehead was anything to go off of. “P-Peridot, Mr. Ford, I… I don’t think we should hurt the Cluster! I don’t think it knows what it’s doing!”

“W-wha—no,” Ford shook his head sharply, refusing to listen to such a complaint with stakes as high as they were. “Steven, I’m sorry, but what would you have us do? Let this thing simply emerge and tear the Earth and everything on it apart from the inside out?!”

“N-no… but-”

“It doesn’t matter if the Cluster ‘knows’ what it’s doing,” Peridot agreed just as irresolutely. “It’s still going to do it.”

Without taking the time to hear any further deliberation on the matter, Ford and Peridot worked together to push the drill onward, sending its spinning tip plummeting fast down towards the Cluster itself. Once again, the massive fusion made another unsteady attempt at taking on its unknown form, its miasmic hands raising up towards the drill making a beeline towards it. Even despite the destabilization hyperfield, they didn’t retract this time either, instead persisting onward until they easily swallowed the drill entirely. The Cluster itself let out what seemed to be a pained wail as soon as they touched the electric field, but it was only drowned out by the unified cries of terror coming from inside the drill itself. From the moment it made contact with the Cluster, the entire machine had begun shaking so rapidly and aggressively that it felt as though it was going to fall apart at the seams, a terrifying sensation that only seemed to grow as the massive fusion’s fledgling form continued to eclipse them completely.

“T-the destabilizer!” Peridot gasped, realizing that the shield was doing relatively little to ward the Cluster off. “It’s not working anymore!”

“We won’t need it to work,” Ford hissed through gritted teeth as he pressed the drill further down, despite the heavy resistance from the Cluster itself. “N-not once we make it down… here!” With one final push, the drill’s tip finally made contact with the gem shards that composed the Cluster itself. The immediate impact elicited another intense, unearthly scream from the massive fusion, one that only continued as the drill began to bear down upon it, grinding up several of the shards that composed its surface into nothing at all.

Amidst the initial chaos of the drill’s touchdown, Mabel was the first to glance away from the very meager starting progress they were making and instead glance over at Steven upon hearing him let out a sudden low groan of apparent pain. “S-Steven?!” she gasped, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of the young Gem huddled over in his seat, his face pressed tightly into his hands as he continued moaning softly. “W-what’s wrong?! What is it!?”

“Is the increased vibration causing damage to your head holes?” Peridot asked, equally as concerned upon noticing Steven’s obviously poor condition.

“Are you having trouble breathing?” Ford pressed, joining in on the shared sense of alarm. “Because I added drop down oxygen masks for just such an occasion!”

“N-no…” Steven countered, weakly pushing his oxygen mask away as it fell from overhead. “I-I don’t know, I just-”

“We’re not even piercing the crust yet!” Peridot interupted urgently. “We need to increase power, b-but there’s no doubt it’ll take a toll on the drill, and by extension, us. Are you going to be ok?”

“Y-yeah,” Steven stammered, forcing out a deep breath as Mabel helped him sit up properly. “Yes. I think its just the noise. K-keep going.”

The green Gem sent him another worried look, but ultimately nodded in acceptance. “Affirmative. Activating triple tip penetration mode!”

At thus, sure enough,, the singular drill split up and out into three different injector heads, each of them working equally as hard against the Cluster in the hopes of breaking past its surface to destroy what lay deeper within. Paired with the still quite prevalent destabilization hyperfield, the Cluster’s formation was all but forced back, its ghostly arms retreating as its unintelligible cries began to die out. Still, its overall suffering was far from over, a fact that only Steven was really clued into amidst his own continuing duress. For as he kept his somewhat blurry gaze trained on the cockpit’s dark floor, he gasped in quiet shock when it suddenly seemed to blink out of existence entirely. In its place, an endless glowing void stretched out beneath him, thousands upon thousands of agonized, ghoulish faces rising up from the ether through it. They all wailed in unified anguish, almost as if they were in some sort of twisted harmony with the Cluster itself as they surrounded him, converged upon him, overwhelmed him in just about every way possible until—

A sudden sharp snap brought him back to reality. The drill took a violent swing to the right, slamming its passenger’s hard against one another as they looked out to see exactly what had happened. One of the drill’s three heads had broken off, unable to withstand the immense amounts of pressure being pushed upon it. It quickly spiraled easily out of control as it whirled away from the drill, threatening to smash back into it as it twisted and turned about in every direction.

“Ah! Runaway drill!” Mabel cried in alarm, especially as the cockpit shifted its position once again.

“N-not a problem!” Peridot assured, struggling to maintain the drill’s controls to evade the broken head. “Just… gotta… keep balance!”

Just as the missing drill head lost its momentum and collapsed, the main cockpit finally steadied itself as its two remaining tips spread out wide to keep it standing. While Mabel clung tightly onto her seat just to stay upright amidst the drill’s unsteady rocking and tilting, Steven was once again preoccupied with indistinguishable ghostly faces swirling all around him, to the point that they obscured Peridot, Mabel, and Ford entirely. As the Cluster’s already voluminous groaning heightened into another full on scream, one of those many faces turned directly to the frightened young Gem, rushing for him at full, horrifying speed.

And though it never hit him, Steven flinched back with a fearful cry as though it had, accidentally striking both Mabel and Peridot in the process. “Steven?!” Mabel gripped his shoulder, aptly concerned, especially when she noticed just how heavily he was breathing. “A-are you ok?!”

“N-no!” the young Gem shook his head truthfully, looking to her as he gripped her arms desperately for some much-needed support. “There’s so many of them… a-and it’s so much, a-and I don’t know-”

“Don’t know what?” Mabel asked, not even noticing just how red her cheeks were flushing as a result of Steven’s tight hold on her. “What are you talking about?”

The young Gem’s brow furrowed at this, baffled as he watched her flicker in and out of his vision, replaced by the endless barrage of unknowable, agonized faces over and over and over again. “Y-you… you don’t see them…?”

Before Mabel could ask him for any further clarification, the drill jolted once more, practically throwing everyone inside it forward as the result of yet another one of its heads snapping off. Without any additional support, the sole remaining drill was completely unbalanced as it wobbled to and fro, barely able to remain standing on its own, much less continue wearing down the Cluster, a mission that it had barely made any headway on to begin with.

“N-no!” Ford shouted, gripping the drill’s wavering controls tighter than ever before. “Without the auxiliary drills, it won’t be able to hold out much longer! We need to-” The author was sharply cut off as the drill abruptly spun about, whipping the entire group back into their seats and into each other hard. The hard blow was enough to elicit yet another pained cry out of Steven as he gripped both his head and his stomach, both of which felt as though they had been pierced by some sort of unknown blinding, burning force that he could barely even begin to comprehend.

“Augh!” the young Gem finally shouted, unable to bear it anymore. “I-I don’t understand what’s happening!”

“W-what’s wrong?” Peridot asked, deeply worried by this point, a worry that Mabel and Ford also shared.

“I-I don’t know!” Steven shook his head. By this point, the pain had grown so intense that it had practically driven him to tears, his breathing short and shallow as his mind and heart both raced at what felt like a mile a second. As opposed to any sort of external pain, the young Gem knew this was solely internal, but he hadn’t the faintest idea as to where any of it was coming from. In fact, the only things he were aware of at that moment were the trio of voices all fearfully shouting his name, his own gemstone dully glowing underneath his shirt, and the still persistent rising rain of faces, all of which were all too quickly dragging him into the very same emptiness they were falling into.

“…st…m… nee… to… want… orm…”

Steven flinched as he opened his eyes once again, only to find that the drill itself seemed to have been swallowed up that same blank darkness he had steadily been drifting away into. And even more concerning, was the fact that his fellow passengers seemed to be just as gone as the drill itself was.

“P-Peridot?” Steven called, dumbfounded as he realized even the seat had disappeared from underneath him, essentially leaving him floating freely in the darkness. “Mr. Ford? Mabel?!”

The young Gem received no response from any of them. Instead, he was met with a few small specks of light popping up within the darkness around him. And with those specks, came voices so soft and so small that they were barely even distinguishable as they echoed through the now starry void. Yet each of them, as distant and wavering as they were, all seemed to faintly be whispering the same unified, yet broken chain of thought together.

“Must… have to… want to… need to… have to…”

Steven stilled, poising himself to better hear these strange mutterings, until he noticed one of the specks of light starting to slowly drift towards him. Upon a closer look at the sparkling speck, he quickly realized exactly what it was: a Gem shard, completely broken and jagged, yet a spark of light and life, however small, still seemed to persist within it as its tiny voice joined in the chorus of countless others.

“Want to… need to… want to…”

“You… want to?” Steven frowned, carefully cupping his hands underneath the floating shard. “Want to… what?”

Suddenly, the once-whispering voices boomed, their voices blasting a blinding light through the void as they all cried out the only thought, the only desire they were all forced to share.

“FORM!”

Practically defended by this brutal proclamation, Steven let out a pained cry as he rushed to cover his hears from the now rushing, frantic crowd of voices and flickering shards all around him. Shards that were all clearly struggling to escape in some way, shape, or namely, form.

“I-it’s the Cluster…” Steven gasped, his eyes widening in realization as he looked throughout the broken void. “I’m talking to the Cluster?! But… how did I get inside your brain? …Brains?”

“Have to… Want to… Need to… Must!” The Cluster’s unified chants began to grow more frantic as light pulsated through their singular, yet shattered mindscape once more. Steven gasped as its entire being rumbled, clearly a sign that the massive fusion was on the verge of breaking free from itself, and from the Earth, once and for all.

“Wait!” he pleaded, desperate and afraid. “Please, don’t take form!”

Even so, the Cluster hardly heeded him, desperate and afraid itself as it persisted in its one sole yet separate instinct. “Form… form. Form! FORM! WANT FORM! WANT FORM!

FORM!”

Unbeknownst to the young Gem, outside of the Cluster’s immense hive mind, the massive fusion was indeed acting upon that instinct as its entire being rippled and illuminated once more. The drill had all but collapsed against it, no longer to maintain its position, not that it would have helped much anyway if it could. Even so, Ford and Peridot desperately worked to bring it back online, all while Mabel tended to Steven, who had abruptly, horrifyingly slipped into unconsciousness quite some time ago.

“Steven!” she shook him once more, practically pleading with the listless young Gem at this point. “C’mon, you gotta snap out of it! We need you! I-I-” she hesitated, slowly taking his hand and gripping it tight as she pulled it close to her. “I need you, please. You gotta come back to us!”

“W-what’s wrong with him!?” Peridot asked, peering past the drill’s controls for the briefest of moments. “Why isn’t he waking up?!”

“His vitals all seem to be just fine!” Ford shook his head, recalling the brief check he had just taken on the young Gem moments ago. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“M-maybe its some sorta Gem thing!” Mabel vouched, even though she really had no idea herself. “H-he said he was… I dunno, seeing something, something none of the rest of us could. I don’t know what that means, but… but…” She trailed off, breaking out into a small, sharp gasp as she noticed his gemstone glowing ever so slightly under his shirt. “W-what if he’s doing something to help!?”

“Help what?” Peridot asked, not following.

“Us! The Earth! Everything!” Mabel exclaimed. “He has all these weird sorta dreamy powers, like how he talked to Lapis that one time or how he got into one of those watermelon guys to help the Gems and Dipper just a little while ago! M-maybe he’s using those now to do something to stop the Cluster!”

“Or more likely, the severe stress of the situation at hand got the better of him and overwhelmed him,” Ford said, looking to his niece sympathetically. “Mabel, I’m sorry, but there’s simply no way to know-”

“No,” Mabel cut him off sharply, her tone and manner quite serious as she looked between the doubtful pair. “In case you guys haven’t noticed, we’re kinda stuck down here without any other choices to get us out. Which is why I choose to trust Steven. After all,” she smiled briefly down at the unconscious young Gem beside her, squeezing his hand just a bit tighter at this. “He’s never steered me wrong before.”

Though Ford and Peridot both still had their reservations about such a risky course of action, ultimately, they had no choice but to go along with it. Largely since, no matter what the tried, the drill simply refused to pick itself back up again. Fortunately though, the Cluster seemed to retreat back into itself for yet another brief spell, though if its continuous pulsating and nearly endless shrieks were anything to go off of, it wasn’t about to stay dormant for too much longer. A fearful fact that Steven knew all too well as he continued to try and make his own case from within it.

“Um, m-maybe instead of forming you could do something else?” he asked, hopeful, though the suggestion was quickly shot down.

“FORM!” the Cluster cried, practically demanding it of both the young Gem and of itself.

“B-boy,” Steven breathed out a forced laugh, knowing that it was really the most he could do, given the circumstances. “You’ve sure got the one-trackiest mind I’ve ever met…”

“Need form!” the Cluster yelled once more, though their tune soon began to calm into something else. Something… sadder, much to Steven’s surprise. “…To be whole…”

“…Whole?” Steven asked softly, remembering what Peridot had said earlier. These countless pieces of Gems were like missing pieces, pieces that had lost themselves in the process. It was understandable, for them to feel so lost, to need some sort of way to bring the pieces of themselves back together again, even if the pieces they were now connected to weren’t even their own.

“Have to…” the Cluster’s many voices wavered almost miserably, its shimmering shards flickering low and mournful at what they knew they could never really attain, even if they did successfully form. That wholeness, the sense of being something once more, that they had all lost so very long ago.

“I… think I get it…” Steven nodded calmly. “You just wanna find the rest of your gems… B-but forming won’t help you find the rest of yourselves! You’ll just destroy the Earth!”

A ripple of newfound panic seemed to wash over the Cluster at this, frantic over the thought of the destruction they’d all be unwittingly forced to cause to the planet that almost all of their pieces, when they had been together, had once stood to fight for. “No! No! No! No!”

“B-but if you wanna find other Gems,” Steven thought and acted quickly, finding a much-needed solution simply by looking across the vast collection of shards all around him. “There’s so many of you right here! Look!” Carefully, the young Gem guided one nearby shard to float next to another, both of them igniting in a soft glow as they came to hover close to each other. “Shard, meet shard!”

“Have to…” one of the shards whispered weakly, though surprisingly enough, its partner offered an equally gentle response.

“Want to…”

“See?” Steven smiled, allayed at such a simple, yet surprisingly sweet interaction. “You already have so much to talk about!”

At this, the various shards of the Cluster lit up once more, though in a much different sort of way this time. For instead of desperately, violently seeking to gain their elusive form, they instead took a different approach, coming together and greeting each other in short, simple conversations. The most any of them could really offer each other was a brief hello, but it was more than enough to create the connections that these once broken, abandoned shards needed to feel like they were part of something, to feel like they were finally whole once more.

“This is great!” Steven laughed happily, engulfed in the warm glow of newly-formed bonds the Cluster was now made up of. “You don’t even need to form! You can just stay here.”

The Cluster let out a unified contented hum at this, it’s quiet, yet cordial conversations continuing all the while. “Want to stay…” With this shared desire rising up amongst the fusion’s countless shards, links of soft, golden light began to connect them to each other, forming the network that was indeed steadily working to bring them all together. And for a moment, it seemed as though, just as the Cluster was fully starting to accept this network of support and love and fulfillment, it was ready and willing to leave its anxious attempts to take its form by the wayside. To fade into the darkness and keep to themselves, spending the rest of time getting to know each other.

Or at least, that’s what they would have done if they had actually been able.

The dimming void suddenly flashed starkly back to life, completely rattled by the absolute scream of anguish the Cluster collectively let out. “Can’t stop! Going to form! Can’t stop! Going to form! Help! Help! HELP!”

“Ah!” Steven gasped, just as frantic as the Cluster was as he realized it couldn’t help itself. Like all Gems, it was in the fusion’s nature to form, whether it wanted to or not. Unless… “W-wait! It’s ok! If I just bubble you, you won’t have to come out. It’ll keep you safe! Here, look, like this!” Acting quickly, the young Gem formed a sturdy pink bubble around the nearest gem shard, safely securing it before moving onto several others in rapid, hectic succession. “I can bubble you! And I can bubble you! And I can bubble you! A-and that makes five out of… oh geez…” Steven’s hopeful smile quickly faded as realized just how many shards he’d have to bubble and just how little time he had to do so as the Cluster continued crying out in shared fear over its very-near formation. “I’m sorry! I can’t do it alone!”

The Cluster didn’t answer as its uproarious cries continued, the force of its violent, unwanted formation practically pushing the young Gem out of its shared mindscape altogether. The last thing Steven saw or heard from it were its flashing shards and its terrified screams, all of them desperately trying to do everything they could to keep themselves from destroying the Earth and failing fast.

And just like that, the next thing Steven knew, he was back suddenly back within the darkness of the drill’s cockpit, though still far from being anywhere close to out of danger yet. He darted upright with a sharp gasp, startling Mabel, Ford, and Peridot alike in the process as he all but ignored them to glance out the nearby window. Sure enough, the Cluster’s ghostly hands were taking shape, becoming much more tangible than ever before as its form drew ever closer to materializing, despite its best efforts and struggles to repress itself.

“S-Steven!” Mabel exclaimed in apt surprise at the young Gem’s quick recovery. “Are you o-”

“It doesn’t wanna form!” Steven instantly interupted, turning to the trio urgently.

“What?” all three of them asked in absolutely confused unison.

“The Cluster! It doesn’t want to destroy the Earth!” the young Gem reiterated. “It wants to stay here! B-but it can’t stop itself! We gotta put it in a bubble!”

“Bubble it?” Ford asked, absolutely baffled by the thought.

“As if!” Peridot scoffed. “Just look at it! There’s no way!”

“W-well, what if you and Peri work together to do it, Steven?” Mabel suggested, even if her tone lacked any real conviction behind the idea. “Maybe that’ll be enough to-”

“Enough to do basically nothing!” Peridot countered, shaking her head. “We’d need the power of at least a hundred Gems, if not more, to even begin to-”

“Wait,” Ford interjected, his eyes wide as he glanced out the nearby window to the Cluster once more. “Look.”

The harsh glow enveloping the massive fusion had dulled somewhat, replaced by a handful of small, colorful bubbles popping up across its entire surface. Their emergence seemed to be random, but steady, with more and more shards joining in on sealing themselves away, all with the same exact mission in mind: to keep themselves from forming.

“T-they’re bubbling each other!” Steven exclaimed with a growing, amazed smile.

“Whoa!” Mabel gasped, equally as impressed as they all watched more and more bubbles appear. “Talk about teamwork!”

Steven didn’t hesitate to join in on this teamwork, reaching down to the floor of the cockpit as he closed his eyes in resolved concentration. “I’ve got you,” he reassured the Cluster firmly as he added his power onto theirs’. “You’ve got this! We’ve all got… each other!”

While the individual shards of the Cluster weren’t quite strong enough to bubble their entire mass on their own, the help and support Steven was offering them was more than enough to help them bridge that gap. In conjunction with the young Gem, the various bubbles of the scattered shards joined together, adding up to create one large, all-encompassing bubble that succeeded in covering the Cluster entirely. And, with this protective barrier in place, the massive fusion went still and silent, its suffering finally over and the planet finally, finally safe.

***

Considering the immense damage the drill had sustained, it took it quite a while to scale up through the various layers of the earth it had plunged through before. Still, the trip back to the surface was by far a jovial one, filled with immense relief and celebration as the group left the now-dormant Cluster behind. And, the moment the drill breached the ground and made it back to the barnyard, it collapsed, with its exhausted, yet happy passengers piling out of it not too soon after.

“You did it!” Peridot proclaimed brightly, immediately engulfing Steven in a tight hug the moment he regained his footing.

“We did it together,” Steven corrected with a warm laugh as he returned the green Gem’s hug.

“And it was great!” Mabel chimed in, adding herself onto the cheerful pile.

“Hm…” Ford mused to himself, glancing back down into the hole the drill had just emerged from. “And it was surprisingly… easy at that. I’m not used to situations like this going so… relatively smoothly. Are we positive that bubble is really going to be enough to contain the Cluster on a long-term basis?”

“Hmph, if you’re asking a question like that, then clearly you don’t know the first thing about Gems,” Peridot remarked with a hint of a wry, teasing grin. “Our bubbles are made to last. It would take a positively titanic amount of force to pop it, especially one that massive.”

“So… we’re safe?” Mabel asked, hopeful.

“Yes,” Peridot nodded confidently. “We’re safe.”

“And so is the Cluster…” Steven said, smiling down at the ground beneath him. Or rather, at the now peacefully resting fusion buried far, far below him.

The ongoing round of levity was soon interrupted, however, by the loud honk from the approaching car driving up the nearby hill. Stan and the Gems emerged from the car first, a little weary, but clearly no worse for wear after the arduous battle they had just taken part in. Dipper stepped out of the vehicle a bit more slowly, all the while trying to tote the still-unconscious Lapis out along with him, though he wasn’t quite well-suited to carry her, especially given his still-prevalent injuries. Which was why Garnet readily stepped in, much more easily taking a careful hold of the blue Gem instead.

“Don’t worry,” she said, offering Dipper a kind smile. “I’ve got her.”

“Thanks,” Dipper returned her grin, allowing himself yet another small sigh of relief as he kept his sights on Lapis all the while. In many ways, he was still in a sense of disbelief that she was back, but sure enough, he had lingered close to her the entire drive home, a sentiment he intended to continue until the moment the blue Gem finally awakened.

“Guys!” Steven exclaimed, excitedly running up to the group with Mabel rushing not too far behind after him. “You’re back! A-and you have Lapis!” The young Gem’s smile widened even more upon seeing the listless blue Gem resting in Garnet’s arms. “Is she ok?”

“She’ll be fine,” the Gem leader assured, having already offered the same promise to Dipper several times over since they had left the island.

“See, bro-bro?” Mabel smirked, elbowing her brother lightly. “I told ya that if there was anybody who’d be able to save her, it’d be you! And I was right, just like I always am!”

“Yeah,” Dipper chuckled warmly. “I guess you were. And you, Steven,” he turned to the young Gem, absolutely amazed. “I still can’t believe what you pulled off back on the island with that watermelon you. Seriously, that was so bizarre and so cool!”

“Not as cool as what you did to help Lapis!” Steven chimed in just as enthusiastically. “Oh, by the way, that reminds me.” The young Gem suddenly stepped forward, focusing in on the quite-noticeable bruise Dipper had sustained on his cheek one of the several times Malachite had violently knocked him back. Without any warning, Steven landed a small, brief healing kiss upon it, clearing the injury completely. “That’s been bugging me ever since we were back on the island. Remind me to heal up the rest later, ok?”

For a moment, the most Dipper could do was stare at the young Gem in shock at this, unable to hid the rush of red filling his how healed face in light of what he’d just done. “Y-yeah… o-ok…”

“Y-you all look happy,” Pearl interjected somewhat anxiously as she looked to both Steven and Mabel, as well as Peridot and Ford as they came over to join the group. “Did you destroy the Cluster?!”

“Er… not exactly,” Peridot said, hands held behind her back.

“I talked to it,” Steven said simply.

“…What?”

“It doesn’t wanna destroy the Earth,” Steven explained. “It just wants company. And now it’s got like, a bajillion people! They’ll have lots of time to get to know each other now that they’re in a bubble!”

“Whoa, you bubbled it?” Amethyst asked, amazed. “How are you sure something like that’s even gonna hold against something that big?”

“That’s exactly what I’m still wondering…” Ford mused with a small frown. “But, if Steven is confident that this will be a permanent fix to this problem, then, I suppose I see no reason why the rest of us shouldn’t as well.”

“Well, I think its gonna work,” Mabel added with apt confidence. “After all, the Cluster is a total team player!”

“But I’m still confused,” Pearl shook her head incredulously. “How did you even manage to bubble that whole thing in the first place?”

“Let’s just say we had a little help…” Steven smiled, looking down to the ground once more. Far below which he knew the Cluster rested, where it remained, still buried and obscured, but existing in a much more mutual, contented state. Enveloped peacefully in a large bubble that would keep it contained, would keep its shards secured and the Earth safe. That would allow its once-lost, scattered, shattered pieces to find new parts of themselves. To bind new bonds that would never break and never leave them broken or alone ever again.

That would finally allow each and every one of them to become whole, together.

#jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #crossover au #in too deep #steven #mabel #peridot #ford #cluster #garnet #amethyst #pearl #dipper #keyword is cluster

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aceofstars16 · 6 years ago

Text

Trapped in the Past (Chapter 2)

Second chapter of my Timetrapped fic inspired by @artsycrapfromsai!

When Mabel and Dipper fight over a time machine, they find themselves sent back thirty years in the past. Now it’s up to the younger versions of their great uncles to get them home.

Chapter 2 - A Fruitless Search

Dipper searches for Mabel in the snow. Mabel tries to find Dipper in Dead End Flats. Discouragement abounds, but at least they both have someone looking out for them.

1 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

AO3

“Mabel!”

The wind blew Dipper’s hair back as he called out, chilling his face and making him shiver despite the coat and socks. He didn’t know when he had lost his hat, all he knew was that it was nowhere to be seen. Which was unfortunate because right now it would help his head say warmer, and of course there was the fact that it hid his birthmark.

Narrowing his eyes against the cold, Dipper caught sight of Stanford looking back at him and out of pure instinct he reached up and flattened his bangs against his forehead. For a moment, the author just looked at him, a frown on his face, but then he turned and kept walking. After taking a few steps, however, Dipper realized they were going down the wrong trail.

“Uh, Mr. uh…Stanford, er…”

Stopping in his tracks, Stanford looked back at him, eyes narrowed slightly. “Just call me Ford.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t what Dipper was expecting. He always imagined the author as this larger than life person, not someone he could just call…a nickname? “Ummm, I think I actually came from that trail.” Pointing to the path that he was pretty sure would lead to the carnival clearing, Dipper found his hand once again pressing down his bangs.

Ford glanced at the trail for a moment, as if lost in thought. Then he shook his head before walking forward, but as he passed Dipper he spoke. “You don’t need to keep covering your birthmark. No one is going to see it out here.”

Dipper’s hand fell to his side as he watched Ford continue to walk in the snow. Of course someone with six fingers would be used to rude comments, in fact, that was just one of the things that Dipper had connected with while reading the journal. However, he still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of his hero, now that he was actually meeting him. The suspicious behavior and disheveled look wasn’t exactly what he had been imagining, but surely there was an explanation for that?

“Hurry up, this weather can change in an instant and I don’t want to be stuck in a blizzard.”

Ford’s voice interrupted Dipper’s thoughts and he shook his head before trotting forward, going as fast as he could in the snow. “Sorry, coming!”

Stumbling after the author, Dipper kept his eyes out for any sign of Mabel, calling out her name every few feet. But as they reached the clearing, the only sign of life were his own footprints from earlier.

“MABEL!” Dipper called out, his voice already getting sore from shouting so much. Her name rang through the clearing but there was no response, just the whistling of wind.

“There are a few caves we can check, this way.” Ford waved his hand and kept walking, though Dipper couldn’t help but notice how he seemed to keep glancing around quickly, as if he was being watched. Each time he did, Dipper would cast a worried glance behind him. There didn’t seem to be anything around, but Ford’s unease was contagious. That, plus there being no sign of his sister anywhere, resulted in a heaviness settling on his chest that was impossible to ignore.

“Mabel! Mabel please, I’m sorry for everything, please answer!”

Wind was the only response. Again, and again, at each nook and cave that Ford lead them to, and with each empty response, Dipper grew more and more worried.

“No signs here either.”

Dipper barely heard Ford’s voice through the exhaustion of his body and the anxiety clouding his mind. “S-she has to be around h-here somewhere.” As he spoke, Dipper’s teeth chattered. The coat that had barely been keeping him warm was now drenched at the bottom. He wasn’t even sure it was keeping any warmth in now.

Hugging himself Dipper started walking forward again, not even sure where else Mabel could be, but not wanting to give up either. Then Ford’s arm appeared in front of him, blocking his way. Glancing up at him, Dipper could see a frown on his face. However, he wasn’t looking at Dipper, but the sky.

“It’s getting dark.” Ford’s frown grew as he spoke, as if not liking what he was about to say. “We need to head back before the sun goes down. Or else we are going to freeze.”

“But, w-what about M-Mabel?!?” Despite the shivers that were shaking his entire body, Dipper knew he couldn’t just go back to the Shack without finding her.

“There is no telling where she is. Maybe she found someone to take her in for the night, but we can’t stay out here any longer.”

It was the last thing Dipper wanted to do, but as Ford started making his way back down the trail, Dipper followed. Exhaustion and despair weighing him down.

Then, as he was stumbling after Ford, his foot caught on a rock and he couldn’t catch himself - his body was too exhausted from trekking around in the snow for over an hour. Landing face first in the snow, Dipper’s incessant shivering, which had overtaken his body, grew even worse.

“What are you-?”

Dipper heard Ford’s voice cut off, but he was so tired that he couldn’t even respond. His whole body felt like a block of ice. He wasn’t even sure he could get up again. He was so drained, both emotionally and physically. All he wanted to do was lie down and wake up back in the Mystery Shack he knew with Mabel safe next to him.

“Come on, we need to hurry.” A hand rested on his shoulder and as Dipper forced himself to look up, he saw Ford crouching next to him. A moment later the author stood and offered him a hand. Closing his eyes for a moment, Dipper tried to gather his strength and remind himself that he couldn’t do Mabel any good if he froze out here. Then he reached up, accepting Ford’s hand and allowing himself to be pulled up.

The whole walk back, Dipper was barely aware of the hand that rested on his shoulder, guiding him at each turn in the trail, or how he was pulled up and steadied every time he stumbled. All he could think about was putting one foot in front of the other. But in the back of his mind, worry nagged at him and he couldn’t help but be weighed down by the fact that Mabel might be out in the cold, all alone. All because of a stupid fight over a machine. He’d gladly give up his day with Wendy just to know that Mabel was okay.

Ford was exhausted. Though that was normal for him lately. However, now his body felt even more drained. It took most of his concentration to keep standing, though he constantly reminded himself to keep on eye on Dipper. Of course Bill would send someone who had an oddity as well, trying to get Ford to feel pity so he would let down his guard. And it had worked. Ford found himself helping the kid take off the soaked clothes he was wearing and wrap him up in a few blankets that he could find. He had even turned on the heater despite knowing warmth might lull him to sleep again.

It was a ploy, he kept telling himself that. But part of him also realized that Dipper might not know Bill was using him. After all, Ford himself had been a pawn for the demon. And if that was the case, then, well…Dipper was just a kid. Plus, his fingers had been turning blue by the time they had made it back to the house. Ford might not trust the kid, but he wasn’t just going to let someone freeze.

Besides, he doubted Dipper had any energy to do anything for Bill at the moment. As soon as he had sat on the couch, the kid hadn’t moved and even as Ford checked again, he was in the same spot, still shivering a little despite the blankets wrapped around his shoulders.

A beeping interrupted Ford’s observation and he made his way back to the kitchen, sighing as he noted that his coffee wasn’t finished brewing yet. He really needed something to give him some energy or he was liable to fall asleep on his feet. Shaking his head - both clear it and to wake himself up - Ford pulled the mug out of the microwave before pouring an old package of hot chocolate mix into the water. He didn’t drink much of the stuff, but Fiddleford had kept some around and apparently he had left a few packages behind.

Once he had mixed the powder as well as he could, Ford made his way back to the living room, trying not to pay attention to how his legs felt like they were full of led.

“Here, drink this.”

Dipper looked up slowly, and for a second he looked confused, but then he focused on the mug and reached out to accept it, his fingers tightly wrapping around the warm cup before taking a sip. A small shiver ran through his body, but then he took another sip and his shoulders relaxed a little.

“Aren’t you cold?”

The question took Ford by surprise and he stared at Dipper for a moment. Yes, he was cold, but he was used to being cold - it had become normal for him. Though he supposed, he was a little colder than he would like. “I’m fine, I have coffee brewing.”

A quiet “oh” was the only response as Dipper continued to drink his cocoa, his eyes drooping more with each sip. Well at least it seemed to be warming him up, though Ford felt a knot of unease forming in his gut as Dipper seemed about a second away from falling asleep. Bill loved using people while they slept…

However, a few minutes later – after Ford had put Dipper’s mug in the sink and watched as the kid slept – he had to admit his worry seemed to be unwarranted. Dipper was out cold and there was no sign of Bill anywhere. Well, aside from the quiet whispers that continued to follow Ford wherever he went. He had even heard them out in the snow, despite being far away from the portal. Occasionally they fell into the background, but then he would hear them again and the paranoia in his chest would return – though he was starting to think that maybe that it had never actually left.

Taking a sip of coffee, Ford forced himself to move again – even standing still for too long resulted in him almost falling over from exhaustion. He needed to move, and despite not wanting to turn his back on Dipper, he found himself making his way to the basement. The portal had been shut off for a while now, but Ford had to check it multiple times a day or else he would go crazy. There was no telling what Bill would do to turn it on. So, he constantly checked on it, making sure everything was in place, turned off and harmless. It was a necessary precaution, just until Stan got there…that is, if Stan even came at all.

Unease settled in Ford’s chest at the thought, but he tried to push it aside. If Stanley didn’t come, he would…he would figure something out. Probably.

“Are you her father?”

Stan stared at the man who he had pulled aside a moment ago to ask about seeing Mabel’s brother. They had been going at it for at least an hour with no luck whatsoever – which weighed down on Stan’s chest. Not just because of his looming deadline but because he could see Mabel slowly losing heart.

Opening his mouth, Stan was about to reply that he was in no way anything close to a father - just someone trying to help - when Mabel’s words cut him off.

“No, he’s my gr-uh…uncle! Well sometimes I call him grunkle but that’s cause he’s a great uncle, not like an actual great uncle but an awesome uncle, you know?”

The words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly that Stan found himself simply staring at her for a second, trying to process exactly what she had just said.

“Huh…is that so?” The man looked at Stan, who forced a quick smile and put an arm around Mabel.

“Yup, sure is!” Okay, so it wasn’t the truth, but if he disagreed with Mabel there was no telling what kind of complications might arise and he was just trying to help her. If people assumed they were related, it would get rid of any of the awkwardness surrounding the fact that he was walking around with a child he had just met. Even if he had no ill intentions toward her.

For a moment the man just looked at them then shrugged. “Sorry I haven’t seen anyone like you described, hope you find him.”

As the man walked away, Mabel sighed, slumping against Stan’s leg. “Why hasn’t anyone seen him?”

Stan patted her head, frowning as he looked around the street. “I don’t know kiddo, maybe he’s hanging out in one spot? What does he like to do?”

She opened her mouth, only to close it, a shadow of sadness passing over her face. “He likes video games, but also weird things like conspiracy theories and stuff. And reading, he likes to read too.”

As she spoke, Stan felt a small knot of emotion grow in his chest. Weird things and books? Of course he ran into the one kid who’s brother sounded just like Ford…or at least, what Ford had been like as a kid. Trying to shake off the thought, Stan looked around. “Well, we can try the library. And there might be an arcade somewhere around here?”

Despite being in this town for a few weeks, Stan hadn’t really been to the…regular spots, but he figured there would at least be a library. And seeing as arcades were getting more popular, there might be one somewhere, or at least a restaurant that had a machine or two.

“Okay…” Something about Mabel’s demeanor had changed, but Stan had no clue what had caused it, so he tried for smile.

“I’m sure we’ll find him soon.” It was a lie. Stan had no idea if they would find her brother, there was no telling what could happen, especially in a place like this. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he shoved it away. No, Dipper was fine and they were going to find him. End of story.

Determination settling in his chest, Stan patted Mabel’s back in assurance before setting off to find the nearest arcade.

“Here you are darling.”

Mabel looked up from the café counter at the basket of chicken strips and fries. Despite the worry weighing her down, she felt her stomach rumble and she hesitantly grabbed a strip, nibbling on it as she watched some kids playing Pac Man a few tables away. Dipper wasn’t one of them.

A hand grabbed some fries from the basket and Mabel turned to look at Stan, who was stuffing the food into his mouth. He hadn’t said anything since they ordered but from the way he kept sticking his hand in his pocket, she couldn’t help but wonder if he could actually afford the food. She sure hoped so, not only because she didn’t have any money either, but also because she didn’t like the thought of her great uncle being broke. It just wasn’t right.

“Hey, chin up kiddo, I’m sure we’ll find him soon.”

Stan gave her a smile, though she couldn’t help but wonder if it was real or forced. They had been searching for hours and there wasn’t even a sign of Dipper. She didn’t want to stop, but her knees – which hadn’t felt too bad at first - were starting to sting and ache. Also, her sweater and skirt combo wasn’t exactly the best for staying outside for long periods of time, at least, not when it was cold out.

“Find who.”

The waitress that had taken their order was back, filling up their glasses with water. Mabel opened her mouth, but found she couldn’t get the words out. That her brother was missing without a trace, that she was stuck in the past with no way home, that she didn’t even have a clue as to what she should do now. All because of a stupid fight. Sure, she loved Waddles, and she didn’t want to give him up but...she would gladly do so if it meant she could be home with Dipper right now.

“Uh, her brother. He ran off and we’ve been looking for him for a few hours now.” Stan answered the question - the half lie rolling off his tongue with well-practiced ease. At least this Stan was the same in that regard, despite being about thirty years younger than Mabel was used to.

“You check the police station? They might be able to help.”

“That’s our next stop.” Stan said it so fast, Mabel almost didn’t catch the way his hand twitched a little. She had to admit the idea of going to the police wasn’t really ideal to her either. Not only because of that night in the Gravity Falls jail during a ‘family bonding’ day, but also because she really didn’t know if they could help. Dipper might be in an entirely different year for all she knew.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mabel saw the waitress – Pam, if she was remembering the nametag right – leave only to come back a moment later and set a plate down in front of her.

“Here darling, it’s on the house.”

Sitting up, Mabel could feel her sweet tooth acting up as she took in the huge slice of apple pie that was now sitting in front of her. She looked at Stan and the unfinished chicken nuggets, but he just waved at the pie. Oh yeah, this was the Stan she knew, who let her have ice cream for breakfast on a regular basis.

The next few minutes passes by in silence – Mabel eating every crumb of the pie while Stan finished off the rest of the chicken and fries.

“So…I can take you to the police if you want…”

Mabel, who had been licking her plate to savor any last traces of ice cream, froze and lowered the plate to the table, not sure how to respond. She wanted to find Dipper but from Stan’s hesitance, and her own uncertainties about consulting the police, she was reluctant to say anything. But after a moment, she asked quietly, “Do…you think they would actually be able to help?”

“Eh,” Stan rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Probably. Even if they can’t find him right away, they could ask other cites and maybe even put up fliers and stuff. And they could probably get you home too.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, anxiety jumped up in Mabel’s chest. Home. The police couldn’t get her home. Heck, she didn’t even think home existed right now. Her parents might not even be born for all she knew. Stan was the only family she had right now and the thought of trusting strangers to get her to a home that wasn’t even created yet was…She shook her head.

“I don’t…” Her voice died in her throat. She couldn’t explain all of that to Stan, or at least, she wasn’t sure if she should. Or if he would even believe her if she did. And if Dipper was here, she knew he would argue that it could ruin the future if she said anything about it.

“Hey, don’t worry they uh…they’ll know what to do.”

A hand rested on Mabel’s shoulder and in any other circumstance, she would’ve agreed. But this wasn’t a normal situation. No one would believe that she was from the future, and even if they did, she doubted they could help her get home.

“Can’t I just stay with you?” It was the only option that didn’t totally terrify her. If she really was stuck in the past, she’d rather be stuck with Stan.

Stan laughed, though it was forced. “Trust me kid, you don’t want to.”

Running a hand through her hair, Mabel couldn’t look at him, because from everything she’d seen of his life that might be true, but she knew she would be safe with Stan. Even though he didn’t know her, she knew him and she knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. “I really do…”

Shaking his head, Stan sighed. “Come on, the car isn’t too far away. I can take you to the police station. It... it’ll be for the best.”

Stan got up before she could answer and Mabel tried to force down the panic that was rising in her chest. What could she say to convince Stan to let her stay with him? Fear and desperation raced through her as she stumbled after Stan, out of the diner and onto the street. Her chest grew tighter and tighter as emotion overwhelmed her until she couldn’t hold back a sob. If only Dipper was here, he’d know what to do, probably…at least they’d at least be together.

“Oh gosh…hey, it’s okay, kiddo.”

Mabel looked up at Stan, her eyes blurry from tears as another sob escaped her mouth. “N-no it’s not I, Dipper is g-gone and I can’t go h-home and I-I don’t know how t-to- and I just want to s-stay with y-you and-“ Her voice cut off as sobs overwhelmed her completely and she flung herself at Stan, wanting to hide away from every terrifying and overwhelming thought and just pretend she was back in Gravity Falls crying over a movie or a stupid crush.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then a sigh and arms wrapping around her. “It’s okay, I…you can stay with me for…for tonight at least, okay?”

Snuggling closer to him, Mabel managed to whisper out a thank you. It wasn’t perfect. She still didn’t know what to do, but at least she didn’t have to leave the only family she had right now.

This was a mess. Stan didn’t know what the heck he was doing. He should not have caved; he should’ve driven Mabel straight to the police. It would be for the best. But her absolute trust in him – despite being totally unwarranted – was touching, if not a little worrisome. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the kid, it was just…he wasn’t even equipped to take care of himself. How could care for someone else’s needs too? He couldn’t just say no though, not when she had started crying, looking so scared and helpless. Gosh, he wished he knew what was going on so he could actually help her, but whenever he tried to bring it up, she just got quiet, so he left it.

“There, that should do it.” Tucking the bandage in itself so it wouldn’t come undone, Stan reached up and ruffled Mabel’s hair. Not long after he agreed to let her stay, he had noticed how scrapped up her knees were, and thankfully the hotel had let him have some things to patch her up. Okay maybe they hadn’t given them to him, but they didn’t exactly guard the stuff very well either…

“Thanks grun-uh, Stan…” Her voice was quiet, and her gaze was transfixed on her knees, her hands brushing over the bandages. It was such a contrast from how she had been talking his ear off a few hours ago and it worried him. But he tried not to think about it. Tomorrow she would be out of his life. It was for the best, she’d realized that. She just needed some sleep and time to think about it, that’s all.

“Uh, yeah, no prob. You should probably get some sleep now though.”

Mabel looked at the bed then up at Stan for a moment. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“Ah…” Stan rubbed his neck, sleep was just about the furthest thing from his mind right now. “Don’t worry about me kiddo, I’m not really tired anyway.”

For a moment, Mabel frowned at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t you worry about me, kiddo.” Stan tried for a smile, which Mabel returned, though it was only a half-smile.

“Okay…” She looked at her knees one more time then slowly lied down on the bed, but her eyes stayed open. “What is a Stan Vac?”

A real laugh escaped Stan’s mouth as he looked at the boxes piled up behind him. “Ah, just a business idea. Didn’t really fly.”

“Can… can you tell me about it?”

Well that would be the strangest bedtime story ever, but if that’s what she wanted… “Sure…it all started in Virginia…” Stan recounted the story from his past – thankfully it was one of the most child friendly ones he had. Mainly just a lot of door to door campaigns and trying to fix broken machines because they were pretty poorly made. But it seemed to do the trick. Slowly Mabel’s eyes closed and as he concluded the tale, he could see her chest rising and falling slowly.

“Sweet dreams kiddo.” Stan pulled a blanket over her shoulders and glanced at the clock. Crap, he was going to be late.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to refocus himself. It was time to talk himself out of a debt. And he knew if he wanted to stand a chance at that, he needed to be on his A game, especially with Rico. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from double checking the lock on the door before he left. As long as Mabel was in his life, he was going to make sure she was safe. No matter what.

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thelastspeecher · 5 years ago

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...Not giving this a title because I don’t know what to call it. And no preamble, because I have to get dinner started. Here, have Fiddleford meeting Stan in the Stansort AU.

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Someone tapped Stan on the shoulder. Stan stopped staring out the window at the snowy grounds and turned. A young man stood before him.

The only people I’ve seen with a nose like that were the royal family. The man began to speak to Stan in Lironian. Stan held up his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, I’m not that good at Lironian yet,” he said quickly. “You gotta talk slower, man.” The man frowned.

“Are you American?” he asked. His accent was just like the royal family’s as well, light and reminiscent of French. Stan nodded. “Why are-”

“Fidds!” At the shout, Stan and the stranger looked over. Angie and Lute ran into view and tackled the stranger in immense hugs. The stranger chuckled.

“Good to see you, too. Even if it only took one semester of me being abroad before you replaced me with an American.”

“Who?” Lute asked, breaking off his hug. Angie followed suit. Stan cleared his throat. Lute looked at him. “Oh! Right.” He looked back at the stranger. “That’s just Stan.”

“We’d never dream of replacing you,” Angie said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Stan’s a special case.”

“Oh?” The man eyed Stan with an analytical gaze. “How so?”

“Pa and Harper fished him out of the ocean,” Lute replied. The man’s eyes widened.

“Oh. That definitely qualifies as a special case.” He stuck out a hand. “By the way, my name’s Fiddleford. And in case you couldn’t tell-”

“You’re Angie and Lute’s older brother,” Stan finished, shaking the offered hand. Fiddleford grinned.

“Yep. You catch on quick.”

“Kinda hard not to, since you’ve got the same nose that Merle does.”

“Wow, already referring to Pa by his first name. You sure you’re not my replacement?” Fiddleford asked jovially.

“Nah. I’m just some random foreigner that charmed his way into the castle.”

“Don’t know what’s so charming about you smelling like fish and throwing up every half hour,” Lute muttered. Stan punched his shoulder playfully. Lute grinned at him. “Face it, Stan, you weren’t exactly the most charismatic thing when you were soaking wet sitting on the deck.”

“He’s lying,” Stan informed Fiddleford, who rolled his eyes.

“Sure he is. Say, what’s your last name?”

“My last name? It’s Pines. Why?” A strange look crossed Fiddleford’s face, but vanished so quickly that Stan half-wondered if he’d imagined it.

“Just wanted a proper introduction, that’s all.” Fiddleford narrowed his eyes at his younger siblings. “Now, if you want presents, go wait in the sitting room, okay?”

“Which one?” Lute asked.

“The blue one, obviously,” Angie scoffed. “That’s Fidds’ favorite.”

“She’s right,” Fiddleford said. He made a shooing motion. “Scoot! I’ll bring your presents in a bit.” Angie grabbed Stan’s hand. Fiddleford grimaced. “Oh, Stan, I don’t have any presents for you. If I’d known you were here-”

“It’s fine, I-” Stan frowned. “You would’ve bought me presents even though we’d never met?”

“Sure!” Fiddleford said. After a moment, Stan shook his head.

“You McGuckets are so fucking weird, I swear.”

“Language,” Angie hissed.

“English.”

“You-” Angie huffed a few times, then began to tug Stan. Stan waved at Fiddleford as he let Angie drag him away.

Fiddleford shook his head in amusement at his younger siblings’ and Stan’s antics. He turned away, about to go unpack the presents he’d bought, when he heard someone clear their throat. Fiddleford spun around. He beamed.

“Pa!”

“Fiddleford,” Pa McGucket said warmly, embracing his son. He broke off the hug to look Fiddleford up and down. “I see your semester abroad hasn’t left you any the worse for the wear.”

“Nope. It was very illuminating.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. And I’m very happy you’re back for the holidays.”

“Of course!” Fiddleford chewed on his lip. “Pa, about Stan…I think he might be-”

“You’re right,” Pa McGucket said. “Your roommate is Stan’s brother. Twin brother, actually.” Fiddleford leaned against the wall, trying to digest the information. “We discovered that when running background checks on Stan.”

“Maybe I should have invited Ford to visit,” he said softly.

“No.” Pa McGucket’s response was immediate. Fiddleford cocked his head.

“Why not?”

“Think about it. Did your roommate ever mention he had a twin brother?”

“…No.”

“That’s because there’s bad blood.”

“What exactly happened?”

“That’s information that Stan can share with you when he wants to,” Pa McGucket said firmly. Fiddleford gave a short nod. “But know that your ma and I decided it merits his staying with us for the foreseeable future.” Fiddleford’s jaw dropped.

“Wait, what? Pa, I know you like to help people, but-”

“Stan needs support and warmth, as well as some freedom from economic anxiety. So he’ll stay with us. He can leave whenever he wants, of course.” Pa McGucket sighed. “And we decided that his situation means we won’t force him to contact his family. If he wants to, by all means, he can. But we won’t make him.”

“Sounds like he got out of a pretty bad situation,” Fiddleford said after a moment.

“He was less than eighteen when we fished him out of the ocean after his shoddy boat capsized. He got halfway across the Atlantic. And we couldn’t find a single missing persons report for him. That alone should speak volumes,” Pa McGucket said. Fiddleford nodded slowly.

“It does.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find some other way to bond with your roommate. You can make friends without reuniting an estranged twin.” Pa McGucket ruffled Fiddleford’s hair. “You better go grab the presents before your sister and brother raise a kerfuffle.” Fiddleford managed a grin.

“Yep,” he said weakly. Pa McGucket smiled at him before walking away. Fiddleford let out a long sigh. “Hopefully Stan wants to meet up with Ford soon, so that I don’t have to keep this sort of secret from both of them,” he said quietly to himself. “He’s got to. I mean, how long could it possibly take for Stan and Ford to want to mend fences?”

#it's got less than 1000 words so I'm not putting it under a readmore #hopefully that doesn't nuke anyone's dashes whoops #Stanley Pines #Fiddleford McGucket #McGucket Family #Angie McGucket #Lute McGucket #Pa McGucket #Stansort AU #King Stansort AU #(tagging both AUs bc the same scene happens in both)#my writing #ficlet #speecher speaks

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radioactivedelorean · 7 years ago

Text

Dēbĭlĭto #1

Next>>

Brain Trauma AU masterpost

AO3

Dēbĭlĭto - meaning to paralyse, to weaken, to disable, to incapacitate, to impair, to maim, to lame, to cripple

Chapter 1: Set sail

Seagulls cried out above their heads, circling over the deck and the coast as the two men walked along the pier. There was the occasional flap of a seagull’s wings as one flew too close, before letting out a squawk and flying off again. The old wooden planks beneath the men’s feet creaked a little as they walked, straining under their weight. Behind them, they could hear the crashing of the waves hitting the beach, accompanied by the laughter of young children playing in the surf. The sound reminded them of their niece and nephew over in California.

“Ah, there she is!” The larger of the two men, Stanley, pointed to a small wooden boat tied up at the side of the deck in front of them. Constructed of dark oak and the hull reinforced with carbon fibre, the boat bobbed up and down on the waves. A large, wooden mast stuck up out of the middle of the cabin, numerous aerials for radio and mobile signal attached with firm steel plating. A telescope was fixed to the front of the cabin roof, already aiming up towards the stratosphere. A red banner of paint ran around the edge of the boat, just above the surface of the water and below the railing. The words ‘Stan ‘O War II’ were painted on in block capitals with white paint.

Stanley’s twin brother grinned. “Finally. I thought we would never get her finished.” The second man, Stanford was considerably thinner than Stanley, though they were of identical height and age. Ford’s hair was not confined by a hat in the way Stan’s was, being whipped around by the ocean breeze. Ford took a deep breath as the twins approached their boat. Ford was the first to step onto the deck, offering his brother a six-fingered hand to help him on.

“I’m not that old Sixer.” Stan rolled his eyes. “I can still walk fine, you know.” He reached for the hand anyway.

“It was merely a gesture of kindness, Stanley.” Ford teased lightly, pulling his hand away before his brother could grab hold. Stan chuckled and stepped over the railing onto the deck of the boat. Almost immediately, the two men found themselves stumbling, their balance thrown off by the change in stability of the ground beneath their feet. Ford managed to get his balance back considerably easier than his brother. Stan ended up having to cling to the railing for support.

Ford crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow and smirked at his brother. He said nothing, only lifting up one leg, remaining perfectly balanced. Stan shot him a glare. “Oh quit bragging. You spent thirty years on the run, no wonder your balance is better than mine.”

Ford put his leg down and walked over to his brother, offering him a hand. “Come on, you want to have a look inside I take it?”

Stan rolled his eyes and took his brother’s hand. He found it easier to walk while holding onto Ford’s arm for support. Ford led him down the stairs and through the cabin door. They were immediately placed into the saloon of the ship. On one side was a small kitchen area fitted against the wall. A booth was opposite the kitchen area, the two small seats opposite one another, a small table in the middle, resembling booths in a diner. At the bow end of the cabin was a small closet for supplies, already loaded with long-life packaged foods such as tinned and dried goods.

A very small fridge-freezer stood beside the kitchen, being powered by the solar panels on top of the boat’s mast. It was barely the size of a hotel refrigerator, but it would certainly be enough for the two men. Beside the kitchen area were some cupboards, full of kitchen supplies such as pots, pans, cutlery, plates and bowls. The cupboards were floor-level. This meant that, should there be a storm and the boat was tossed around (a likely event, considering the size of the Pacific Ocean) the plates were unlikely to smash as they were not falling from a great height.

Behind the stairs leading up to the deck were two more doors. One of them led into a small bathroom, including merely a toilet, a small shower and a sink. The other door led into a bedroom complete with two small beds on opposite sides of the room, a small nightstand between them. A second closet stood opposite the bathroom door, loaded with clean clothes and various bits of scientific equipment, as well as general boat gear such as rope.

Stan went over to the booth and took a seat. “Well this is pleasant, and this seat is really comfortable.”

“It should be. We’ve got to be sitting there for a good few months.” Ford chuckled, taking a seat opposite his twin. “At least Fiddleford was able to set up the watermaker system so we can have fresh water for both drinking and for showering.”

“Knowing how sweaty you get in the summer, that’ll be a good thing.” Stan teased his twin gently, a playful smirk on his face.

Ford scoffed indignantly. “Excuse me, Stanley, but you sweat far worse than I do. It’s your weight, you see. It makes you overheat.”

“Oh shut up, Poindexter. I didn’t have time to get all fit and healthy like you. I was too busy working!”

“I didn’t have much of a choice to get ‘all fit and healthy’, Stanley,” Ford smirked. “It was either run fast or die.”

“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t the latter.” Stan leant over to tousle his brother’s hair.

Ford swatted his hand away. “Get off!” He flattened his hair down, attempting to undo the mess his brother had made.

Stan chuckled, folding his arms on the table. “Some things just don’t change, do they Sixer? You still hate having your hair messed up. Now I know where Dipper gets it from.”

Ford scoffed as he managed to get his hair under control again. “It’s bad enough with the salty sea air messing it up without you too!”

Stan grinned and got up. “You should have bought a hat, then, Poindexter.”

“Stanley, you and I both know you didn’t pay for that hat.”

Stan gasped, putting a hand over his chest dramatically. “Me? Steal? How could you ever think that?!”

“It’s still got the security tag on it,” Ford said simply, an amused grin on his face. “Where are you going?”

“To check out the bedroom.” Stan replied. Ford got up from his seat and followed his twin to the back of the boat to the bedroom. The beds weren’t quite normal size - they were a little narrower to leave enough space in the room to move around - but they were certainly long enough. Stan took a seat on the bed on the starboard side and Ford sat on the opposite bed. Stan flopped onto his back, his arms out above his head. “Oh yes, this is nice.” He grinned.

“These mattresses are very comfortable, I agree.” Ford kicked his boots off and laid down on his own bed with a content sigh. “Then again, after thirty years of sleeping wherever I could, I’d find anything comfortable.”

“The minute your butt touched my chair you fell asleep in it,” Stan said with a smirk. “You were out like a light.”

“Your weight on it over the years softened it.” Ford retorted. “No wonder it was so comfortable.”

“Make one more fat joke and you can swim around the world,” Stan said bluntly, causing his brother to laugh. “I’m serious, Ford. I’ll make you follow me in your speedo.”

Ford snorted. “At least I can get away with wearing one, Stan. Something that can’t be said for someone your size.”

“Alright, that’s it!” Stan got up from his bed. “I warned you about the fat jokes.”

Ford sat bolt upright, scooting backwards on the bed away from his brother. “Oh come on, Stan. We both know I’m right.”

Stan simply grabbed Ford’s leg and pulled him forwards, scooping his brother into his arms to carry him in a fireman’s lift over one shoulder. Ford struggled and wriggled in Stan’s grip. “Stanley Pines if you don’t put me down right now I swear I’ll-”

“You’ll what, Poindexter?” Stan smirked as he carried his brother out of the bedroom and up the stairs to the deck. “You’ll toss me overboard? I thought you couldn’t lift me since I was so fat?”

“STAN PINES PUT ME DOWN!”

“Alright alright, yeesh. Don’t get your sideburns in a twist.” Stan tossed Ford over his shoulder and put him down on the deck. Ford sat on the deck and crossed his arms, scowling at his brother. This only caused Stan to chuckle. “You look like some pouty kid who just got told off for stealing cookies outta the jar.”

Ford got to his feet, his arms still crossed and a scowl still on his face. “Well excuse me for not appreciating being carried around like a ‘pouty kid’ by my own brother.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “You’re just lucky I didn’t toss you overboard, Sixer. I will do next time, though. Especially if you keep making fat jokes.”

Ford unfolded his arms to punch Stan’s shoulder playfully. “You know I don’t care how big you are. You tease me about being smart, so it’s only fair I get to tease you about being fat.”

“Yeah but there’s a line somewhere, Ford, and as soon as you cross that line you’re going overboard,” Stan smirked a little, shoving Ford’s shoulder gently in return. “Come on, let’s go get our stuff from the car and load up.”

Ford smirked at his brother as he stepped over the railing back onto the pier, offering Stanley a hand in return. Stan accepted the help, allowing Ford to pull him up over the railing and onto the dock once more. Side by side, the two men walked back in the direction of the dockyard parking lot. The seagulls above them continued their cries, the sound bouncing off the sides of the boats surrounding them and ricocheting into the ocean.

“So, how long do you think we’ll be out there before we’ll need to restock?” Stan asked.

“Depends on how much we eat and how much equipment is either broken or lost to the waves,” Ford replied, humming in thought. “I’d say maybe two months at sea, towards the end of which we’d have to make sure we’re near to a port.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard, they’re dotted all along the West Coast,” Stan said. “Whereabouts do you think we’ll be by then?”

“Maybe near Canada or Alaska?” Ford shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Sounds good enough to me. I know there’s a pretty large port up in Anchorage.”

“That’s the place we’ll most likely be docking at, then.” Ford nodded as they approached the parking lot. The Stanleymobile was parked at the left side, the crimson paint glinting in the midday sun. It looked just as old and worn down as its owner.

Stan unlocked the car and opened up the trunk, digging out two of their suitcases. Ford dug some of the boxes of supplies out of the back seats of the car, setting them down on the ground beside the car. Stan shut the trunk again as Ford got out as many boxes as he could carry comfortably, before shutting the rear passenger doors. Stan locked up the car and picked up the suitcases. Ford lifted up the boxes and the pair made their way back to the boat.

It took roughly an hour and a halft to get everything from the car onto the boat and then to get everything put away properly. Ford sat on the edge of the railing, his legs hanging over the side of the boat. He had tossed his shirt aside, leaving him in a plain black T-shirt. He used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead, removing his glasses to dry off the bridge of his nose to stop his glasses slipping off. Stan had removed his own shirt, leaving him topless. He leaned against the railing beside his brother, panting a little in the heat. Both of them were slightly red in the face. Luckily, Ford had insisted that they both put on copious amounts of sunscreen before leaving the house, so the risk of sunburn was minimal.

Stan checked his watch. “Weren’t the twins meant to come and see us off today?”

“Yeah, they were.” Ford nodded. “They should be here shortly since they left first thing this morning.”

Stan stretched his arms out above his head with a slight yawn. The heat had drained most of the energy from both men, leaving them feeling rather fatigued. Of course, both of them were far too stubborn to admit this and instead opted for walking around on the deck to keep themselves active. Before long, they heard two pairs of footsteps running along the deck towards them. Turning to look at the source of the noise, both men grinned upon seeing their niece and nephew running towards them.

“GRUNKLE STAN! GRUNKLE FORD!” Mabel cheered as she all but leapt over the railing, directly into Stan’s arms. Stan was knocked back a few steps by the force of the girl’s hug but was more than happy to return it with a chuckle.

“Heya pumpkin! It’s good seeing you again!” Stan grinned, ruffling Mabel’s hair.

A moment later, Ford had been tackled in a hug of similar strength by Dipper. The young boy giggled a little as Ford lifted him clear off the ground, wrapping his arms around him tightly. Ford grinned at the boy in his arms. “Glad you were able to make it!”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Dipper grinned, hugging Ford tightly in return. “We wanted to be able to see you before you left!”

“Trust me, we wanted the same thing kiddo.” Satan grinned, setting Mabel down on the deck. Mabel went over and hugged Ford tightly, once Ford had set Dipper down. Dipper, in turn, went and gave Stan a huge hug as well.

“Can we have a look around your boat before you leave?” Dipper asked with wide, curious eyes.

“Course, come on in!” Stan grinned, setting the boy down and gesturing for his nephew to follow him inside. Dipper followed Stan down the steps into the cabin, swiftly being followed by his sister. Ford remained out on the deck, enjoying the sunshine. At least, he remained outside until Mabel came back up on deck and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the cabin with her.

Dipper was looking at all of the scientific equipment in the box underneath the small kitchen table. Mabel let go of Ford’s hand in favour of having a look at the bedroom, allowing Ford to kneel beside Dipper. “Anything in particular that you’re wondering about?”

“This thing.” Dipper held up a small remote-control-like device, with what appeared to be a small satellite dish on one end, attached to an extensible rod.

“Oh, this?” Ford sat down on the floor beside him. “It’s called a subsurface echolocator. It allows us to hear signals from deep below the surface of the sea.”

“Whoa, that’s awesome!” Dipper grinned, his eyes wide with curiosity and wonder.

Ford chuckled at his childlike enthusiasm and took the boy’s hat off so he could ruffle his hair. “Sometimes I honestly wish I found things like this as interesting as you do,” he said, “but thirty years of coming across this stuff daily really wears off the fascination for such technology.”

Dipper giggled a little at the gesture. “So you saw stuff like this all the time?!”

“Yep, all sorts of weird and wonderful gadgets and machines that even a mind as imaginative as yours couldn’t even begin to come up with.” Ford chuckled. “Unfortunately, some of the time, such devices were aimed at me.”

Dipper frowned, hugging Ford tightly. “That must have been really scary.”

“It was rather terrifying at times, yes,” Ford admitted, returning the embrace, “but thanks to my brother, I no longer have to face such things.”

“Are you telling your nerd stories again, Sixer?” Stan called from where he was sitting on one of the beds, chatting with Mabel. “I thought you’d already told Dipper everything interesting!”

“At least my stories are actually interesting, Stanley!” Ford retorted, earning an ‘ooooo!’ from Mabel.

Stan grumbled and got up, heading to where Ford was sitting on the kitchen floor. “I’ll have you know my stories are perfectly interesting!” He retorted.

Ford scoffed. “Not when you’ve told them a hundred times. I think I could recite the one where you escaped those drug traffickers from memory!”

“At least it’s better than adding ‘oh but in dimension XZ Alpha Q’ blah bah blah onto the end of everything anyone ever says!” Stan shot back.

“I do not do that!” Ford protested.

“Yeah you do,” both Mabel and Dipper giggled, causing Ford to blush red.

“I didn’t think I did…” Ford mumbled.

Stan chuckled. “You’re such a nerd, Poindexter.”

“So? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing!” Stan grabbed his brother and pulled him into a tight embrace, rubbing his knuckles over the top of Ford’s head and causing his brother to yelp.

“Hey! Geroff me!” Ford protested, wriggling in Stan’s grip.

“Nope!” Stan laughed. “Kids! Get him!”

As Ford was held in place by his brother, the twins promptly engulfed him in hugs of their own, making it impossible for Ford to go anywhere. Ford wriggled in an attempt to get free but found himself thoroughly trapped by his family’s hugs. “Guuyyys!” He whined. “No fair!”

Mabel giggled, moving so she was resting on Ford’s chest, hugging him around the neck. “It is so fair! You hug us all the time and we get trapped. Now it’s your turn!”

Ford whined again, trying to get free. Stan adjusted his hold on Ford so that Ford’s arms were pinned to his sides. He put his chin on his brother’s shoulder. “I thought you loved our hugs.”

“Yeah, I do, but not when you’re hugging me like this just to annoy me,” he pouted.

Mabel just giggled, kissing Ford’s cheek. “But we love you and we like hugging you!”

Ford wriggled again. “Well if you’ll let me go I’ll be able to reciprocate the hugs you love so much!”

Mabel and Dipper both let go of Ford while Stan kept a hold of him, simply releasing Ford’s arms but keeping his own arms around Ford’s middle. Ford rolled his eyes, before bringing the twins in for a hug. The younger pair of Pines twins eagerly returned the hug, huge smiles on their faces. Ford chuckled softly, more than happy to just stay like this for a little while. All of a sudden he didn’t want to go sailing and leave the twins behind, even though he knew they would easily be able to stay in contact with their grunkles via the online video messaging system on Stan’s laptop.

Stan checked his watch. “It’s almost time for us to set off,” he said. It was clear by his tone of voice that he didn’t want to leave just yet either.

“Aww…” Mabel pouted. “Can’t you stay a little while longer?”

“As much as we’d love to, this is something Ford and I have been looking forward to for our whole lives,” Stan said. “We’ll call you on the computer tonight, though. Promise.”

“Okay.” Mabel did seem to cheer up a little bit at that, sliding off Ford’s lap and standing up. Dipper let go of Ford as well and stood beside his sister, allowing the two older men to get to their feet. Ford was standing beside Mabel a moment later, while Stan found himself stuck on the ground, his old, worn-out body stuck in that position.

Chuckling, Ford offered his brother a hand up. “It’s a good thing one of us aged well, huh?”

“Oh shut up Poindexter,” Stan grumbled as he was helped to his feet. “Not everyone can be as fit and healthy as you, alright?”

“You would be if you quit eating pizza all the time and did some exercise.” Ford murmured under his breath, giving his brother an innocent smile.

Stan narrowed his eyes. “If that was another fat joke, I swear to God Ford!”

Ford laughed, shoving his brother’s shoulder playfully. “I’m just teasing!”

“Well how about I tease you by tossing you into the sea?” Stan raised an eyebrow, though he couldn’t stop himself from smirking at his brother’s antics as the kids giggled.

“You wouldn’t.” Ford stuck his tongue out, crossing his arms. “You care about me too much. Plus you need me around to keep the boat from falling into disarray.”

“I can manage just fine on my own, thank you very much,” Stan retorted.

“So that’s why the Shack was a mess and falling to pieces when I came back?” Ford smirked.

“That was only ‘cause that portal of yours essentially turned off gravity several times, causing everything to float up in the air and get destroyed!”

“Oh sure, always blaming everyone else. So the trash in the hallway and the state of your bedroom was caused by the portal, huh?”

“Oh shut up Poindexter.” Stan poked him in the ribs playfully. “The place was a tip when I first arrived anyway. I know you were fighting … him, at that time but there was at least five years’ worth of mess there!”

“It was perfectly acceptable to have papers lying around. It was my own home and I was living on my own, so I didn’t have anybody around complaining about the mess. Apart from Fiddleford. He did bring the issue up once or twice towards the end of the portal’s construction process, when the piles of papers started to build up, but by then there was little point in cleaning the mess. Then he fell into the portal, caught a glimpse of what was going on and...you know the rest,” He finished hastily.

“Your mess was worse, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel piped up, grinning and giggling. “You left trash everywhere!”

“Only because I ‘was in my own house and didn’t have anybody around complaining about the mess’,” Stan retorted, sticking his tongue out at his brother.

Ford rolled his eyes. “You’re such a child, Stanley. I honestly think Mabel is more mature than you are sometimes.”

“She probably is.” Stan shrugged. “I won’t deny it.”

“Does this mean I can run the Shack for a day again?” Mabel asked.

“Not on your life you little gremlin.”

“Good, cause it was too much work.” Mabel pouted. “No wonder you’re so grouchy all the time.”

“I am not!” Stan protested indignantly. “I’ll have you know I can be rather joyful and a pleasure to be around, when I wanna be.”

Ford snickered. “Sure. Well, let’s just hope you want to be ‘rather joyful’ when we set off, otherwise I’ll go mad.”

“You’re already mad, Ford.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“And you call us immature.” Dipper shook his head in mock exasperation, smirking a little. Both of his great uncles laughed.

“I know, hypocrites and all that.” Stan chuckled. “Now c’mon, we’d better get you two off the boat. We’re due to set off in about five minutes.”

“Awww…” Both of the twins whined. They had forgotten that the uncles were still meant to be setting out today. They had enjoyed spending this time with them and wanted to be able to stay longer, but they both knew that it was time for Stan and Ford to go.

“We’ll call you tomorrow evening, we promise,” Ford assured them.

“Alright,” Dipper nodded. He and his sister headed back up the stairs onto the deck, followed by Ford and Stan. The twins turned to face their uncles with wide grins. “Have fun out there.”

“I’m sure we will. Within a week we will have reached a major spot for a smaller breed of hydra that isn't a threat to humans. They grow to be maybe the size of a greyhound and feed off fish.” Ford said. “We should be able to get a lot of good photos.”

“Sounds cool!” Dipper grinned.

The two older Pines twins knelt down to give their niece and nephew a final hug goodbye. Mabel clung to Stan tightly, not wanting to let go just yet.

Stan chuckled. “Looks like someone doesn’t want us to go just yet. You’re going to have to stop hugging me eventually.”

“This isn’t a hug,” Mabel said, causing Stan to frown.

“Oh yeah? Then what is it?”

“A chokehold!” Mabel swung her body around, her arms around Stan’s neck. She held him tight - not tight enough to actually choke him, but tight enough to prove that she was rather strong for her age.

Stan laughed, easily detaching the young girl and setting her down on the floor. “Alright, alright, you’ve proved your point ya little demon. Come on, off the boat. We’re setting off now.”

Both children sighed, reluctantly stepping away from hugging their uncles and climbing over the railing of the boat, dropping down onto the pier again. Stan headed up to the wheel to get the engine of the boat going. It roared to life, the engine thudding as it waited for more controls.

Ford stood at the railing, ruffling the twins’ hair one last time. “We’ll see you soon, we promise!”

“You better!” Mabel replied. “Cause if you miss that call I’ll be mad.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want my darling niece to be mad at me.” Ford gasped in mock horror.

Mabel giggled. “No, you don’t, otherwise I won’t make you any more sweaters!”

“I think ten sweaters is enough for now,” Ford chuckled. He hauled up the anchor, hoisting it out of the water and making sure the winch was locked into place. He turned to look at Stan, up on the bridge. “We’re all set!”

“Awesome!” Stan grinned. Both himself and Ford waved to the twins as he adjusted the throttle on the boat.

With a roar of the engine and a splash of water from the current caused by the propeller, the boat began moving out of the dock and into the open ocean. The twins ran along the pier, waving to them and shouting their goodbyes. Their great uncles did the same, Ford standing at the stern of the boat as he waved. The twins kept running along the pier until they reached the end, standing at the edge of the dock and waving as their grunkles’ boat got smaller and smaller. They only stopped waving once they weren’t able to see the individual shapes of Stan and Ford any more, before returning to their parents.

Ford joined his brother up on the bridge, taking a deep breath as the salty ocean air flowed through his hair and caused his clothes to billow outwards. The pair of them each pulled on a lifejacket as their boat sailed across the water towards the horizon and towards all sorts of mysterious creatures.

_______

Aaaaand here it is! The first chapter of the long-awaited fic for the Brain Trauma AU, something that has been in the works for a little while now. Notes for the AU can be found at the top of the page, and I have the following people to thank: @sixerpines @a-million-chromatic-dreams @archervale @crossroadsdimension @themindofcc @transformersg1fan271 @nour386 @witete

(I won’t tag you guys in every chapter, just this one, I promise!)

#brain trauma au #debilito #ford pines #stanford pines #stanley pines #stan pines #gravity falls #sea grunks #stan o war #dipper pines #mabel pines

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siodymph · 7 years ago

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Fiddauthor “Something Silly”

Jeez I’m really behind for this fan week! But hopefully this is better late than never right? Here’s my first take on doing something silly with Stanford and Fiddleford. (I don’t know why this was so hard for me lol they’re two of the biggest dorks in the world!)

And you can read this story under the cut or over on my AO3!

word count: 1587

Staff at hand, the Mage stepped forwards to face the trickster Wizard, the one who had kidnapped the princess and destroyed the kingdom. Years of traveling. Years of fighting. Years of scouring the world in search of the Princess Unitainabelle. If he could just generate enough power for his spell he could defeat him. It would all be over.

He could hear the Wizard cackling as the iron gate slammed shut behind him. He knew he was here.

“Do you really think you could defeat me?” The Wizard called out, his voice echoed through the dungeon mockingly. “Normally I’d crack open your skull and steal your intelligence! But I think eating your feeble brain would lower my IQ! So I’ll just stick to killing you!”

The Mage raised his staff, he was too wound-up to think of anything quippy to say back so he was going to go straight into his spell. That would be more epic than trying to respond to the Wizards taunts, right? Just say nothing and then destroy the Wizard like it was nothing? That’d be cool.

He whispered the incantation under his breath. Light shooting out from his staff. It was now or never. He pointed his staff at the Evil Annoying Probabilitor and-

He missed the Wizard’s face by several yards. His spell hit a nearby wall instead.

The Mage was dumbstruck and the Wizard just cackled louder.

“Oh hoo hoooo! Wow! I knew you were dumb but you’re really dumb!” Probabilitor said. Then raising his own staff he invoked a spell of his own and sent a bolt of green lightning down on the unlucky Mage.

~~~

“NO!”

Fiddleford laughed while Ford let his head fall on the table.

4… He only had to cast one final spell to end the game and he rolled a 4!

And Fiddleford could hardly catch his breath. Stanford had been so confident. So ready. Just to loose so horribly at the last second.

“Serves you right for getting so cocky!” Fiddleford said snorting.

Stanford lifted his head off the table at the dice in dismay. 1, 2 and 1. “So this is how it ends…” He said over dramatically and slumping back onto the table. “I can’t believe I did that! And now I’m dead…”

“Well you’re not dead yet, Stanford!”

Ford pulled his head up. “What? Probabilitor landed his third most powerful spell on me. Not even my king-grade dwarven armor could have withstood that!”

“No, no. I think you just barely survived it.” Fiddleford said. He readjusted his glasses and looked over his math from behind the Dungeon Master board. And as he looks back to Stanford, showing him his own math work, he gets back into character. “Mhmm. Yeah, you’re still alive. Weak. The fallen Mage looks up at the Wicked Wizard, Probabilitor the Annoying as he laughs… wickedly.”

He lets out a high-pitch cackle that makes Stanford grind his teeth. “What can I do?”

“The Mage is so tired… He can’t even lift himself up to stand again against Probabilitor. But his staff is still at hand. If he can find the will, he could cast just one more spell.”

Stanford frowned as he looked over his own quick-math. “Fiddleford are you sure? I used up nearly all of my magic to cast that last spell. I only have 12 points left!”

“A summoning spell is only 10 points.” Fiddleford offered.

“Call for help?” Stanford asked. “But Fiddleford, I have no one to summon. I left everyone in my party behind to go ahead on my own! No one would answer my call. I’m done for whether I use up my magic or not!”

Fiddleford just smirked as his looked at his story.

“What?” Ford asked. He hated it when Fiddleford knew something he didn’t and he’d just grin from behind his little Dungeon Master board. He could never tell if it was something good or bad heading his way when Fidds got like this.

Fiddleford said only two words that made Stanford want to tear out his hair.

“Arcbuckle Bumpterpuddingshire.”

Stanford groaned and put both hands to his hair. “The Orc raised my halflings?! Seriously?! He’s the only one!”

“You never officially took him off your party list. You only parted way temporarily in the Amethyst Forest of Violet Violence.” Fiddleford said beaming.

“Oh right. I remember now.” Ford said, he still felt a little bad for leaving the easy-going Orc back in the purple woods. He had been pretty strong and had a high level of stamina. But at the time Stanford had really wanted Kingsly, the dark-elf bandit with better espionage abilities but had a phobia of Halfling culture, in his party when they went to go ransack the ancient Amythyst castle. He lied to Kingsly about removing Arcbuckle from his party and while the two went to look for the castle he had Arcbuckle hide out in a nearby village. “And I never completely took him off my party list?”

“Nope. You told him you’d come back for him. And when you removed everyone from your party list outside of this dungeon you never mentioned his name. So he’s still there. And he’s been waiting for you to come back for him.”

Stanford pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wow. My Mage is an ass… I bet if I summon Arcbuckle now he’ll be pretty pissed at me.”

“Oh, definitely.” Fiddleford agreed, seeming to get happier the more Stanford was dismayed. “But what other choice do you have? You need help and he’s your final friend.”

He was right. Stanford had no choice left. He could either call Arcbuckle for help, or suffer alone and die.

So sighing in defeat, Stanford collected up his dice. “I use 10 magic points on a summoning spell. I call out to Arcbuckle Bumpterpuddingshire for help.”

It was a low-power spell so his dice easily made it work. And Fiddleford pulled out Arcbuckle’s abandoned piece as he narrated. And he set the little Orc next to Stanford’s little Mage.

“He answered your call. Slicing his way through time and space with his enchanted sword to find you here. Fallen and weak before Probabilitor. The evil Wizard who stole his adoptive family’s strawberries and blackberries. Leaving them in ruin. He is disappointed in his dear friend, the Mage, but that anger is nothing compared to the hellish inferno he feels towards Probabilitor the Annoying. What shall he do?”

“Arcbuckle hits the Wizard with everything he has.” Stanford says. “Whatever the most destructive attack his sword has.”

“And so. Arcbuckle charges at the wizard! ‘No one hurts my friends and no one hurts my family!’ he roared.” Fiddleford said, getting fully into character and giving Arcbuckle the deepest, raspiest voice he could muster before continuing to roll his dice behind the board. “And with one swing, he puts all his strength into his sword…”

“And…”

Fiddleford said nothing, just looking down at his dice and scribbling down some math to double check. Going purposefully slow, he picked up the Probabilitor model and the Orc piece.

“Oh for the love of- Stop trying to build up the dramatics and just say it!”

“Arcbuckle’s sword landed on Probabilitor the annoying’s neck. And with a sword so magical and an arm so mighty… Arcbuckle cut the Wizard’s head clean off and sent it flying into another dimension!”

Stanford got up from his chair shouting and scooping Fiddleford into a hug. “Yes! Oh thank god! He did it! We won!”

Fiddleford laughed as Stanford swung him around and set him back on the ground. “And so, Probabilitor has been defeated and the game is complete!”

“Excelsior!” Ford said, triumphantly. “Finally… that story felt like it went on forever.”

“It wasn’t that long actually. We just had to keep taking huge breaks in-between sessions.” Fiddleford said.

As Stanford calmed down, he frowned a little. “Does it have to end right there? You know, with Arc buckle killing Probabilitor… Cause my Mage character never got to apologize to him. And especially since he saved his life.”

Fiddleford, seeming to read his mind picked up the Mage and Orc pieces. “After the bloody, bloody magical carnage, Arcbuckle turned back to his friend, still on the brink of death on the ground. And…” He rolled his dice quickly and smiled at the result. “He used another teleportation spell to safely get his friend to a hospital back in his hometown.”

“And as he recovered, the Mage apologized to Arcbuckle.” Stanford continued. “He regretted the way he treated his friend and asked for forgiveness.”

“And he was easily forgiven. While Orc blood ran fiery through his veins he had been raised to be kind and merciful by his family. After all, the Mage was a dear friend to him so Arcbuckle let go of the grudge he once held against the Mage.” Fiddleford added on.

“And the Mage gave him the seeds! The seeds he bought while in the skeleton-demon marketplace. Their resistant to almost all forces of nature. My Mage gives Arcbuckle the seeds for his family’s farm! And-”

“I’ll need you to roll for dexterity.” Fiddleford said.

“Seriously? Technically, the games already over so-”

“Dexterity!”

Stanford sighed, rolling his dice. “Fine! I roll to see if I have enough dexterity to give my friend a bag of seeds. And…”

Stanford looks at his dice and Fiddleford slaps a hand over his mouth.

“… And my Mage drops the bag. The seeds spill out onto the hospital floor.”

#fiddauthor week four #fiiddauthor week #fiddauthor #something silly #day 1

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as-be-low · 8 years ago

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Time Has Changed Me, Chapter 3

Oh, But It Gets You Right Down to Your Soul

I got a feeling I just can't shake I got a feeling that just won't go away You've got it, just keep on pushing and push the sky away Push the Sky Away—Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Stanford awoke the following day with a feeling of unease he couldn’t shake. He had a niece. A small niece who couldn’t be over the age of two. Possibly. He was never sure with respect to these things. He’d initially hoped that he’d be able to work through his issues with Stanley and get them out of the way, and waste no time in doing so, but how exactly was he supposed to do that? Especially now that Stanley had a toddler in tow? Surely she’d take up a large amount of his attention. He vaguely remembered having to babysit his brother Shermie’s young son once and what a nightmare that had been. There’d been tears from both parties involved and he was never asked again. He shuddered. Small children were terrifying at times. Stan would probably laugh at him if he said as much. He’d always had a way with children.

He needed to talk to Stan. Ford glanced at the clock. 8:45 am. That wasn’t too early for most people, was it? He couldn’t remember. What was the rule Fiddleford had given him, no calls before or after nine? Or was it ten? He’d wait until ten to be safe. But what would he do until then? He’d made his decision, so pacing was unnecessary. He had a solution to his most immediate question already.

“Aha!” His eyes brightened. Breakfast! He could make breakfast for them all while he waited. Surely that would make this situation flow more smoothly. His feet led him into the kitchen, where he paused. Did he have the supplies for breakfast? He doubted he’d let things get that bad. Maybe. Stanford opened the refrigerator and was pleased with himself when he found a half-carton of eggs. Less pleased was…whatever it was that had taken up residence behind the ham slices. He made a mental note to inspect the fridge’s thriving fauna at a later date. Maybe I should clean it as well. He grimaced.

In the pantry he found a stale but thankfully mold-free loaf of bread waiting for him and he cheerfully stuck a few slices into the toaster. Eggs, toast, ham… Omelettes? Omelettes and toast should suffice. He vaguely wondered if he still had cheese as he reached into the back of a cabinet for a skillet, jumping back as various pots and pans tumbled out. It’s fine. I’m sure no one heard that but me. After rearranging the fallen pots, he turned his attention to cracking the eggs, taking great care not to leave excess eggshell in the bowl. He remembered how much Stanley would complain about them whenever it had been Ford’s turn to help Ma with breakfast, though Ford himself didn’t see what the fuss was about. Extra calcium was extra calcium, he thought with a fond smile.

He could do this. Sure, he was out of practice—both with cooking for others and talking with them—but he could. Stan wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t wanted to talk to him at all… Though maybe he would have? How well could he say he knew his brother at this point? It felt like a cotton ball had settled on the back of Ford’s tongue and he tried to swallow it away. He turned his attention back to the eggs. Heat skillet. Whisk eggs. Place eggs in hot skillet.

You’ve been apart longer than you were ever together. Stir eggs vigorously, making sure to scrape the metal of the skillet with that of the spoon.

There’s no way you could know him anymore. Scrape harder.

You haven’t known him since you were a child, and now he’s got one of his own. Scratch.

This was a stupid idea. You’re certainly full of stupid ideas, aren’t you?

“Uh, Ford? What the hell?” Stanford visibly jolted, turning towards the intrusion. His brother stood in the doorway, eyeing him warily. Right. This hadn’t been a good idea

“I, uh. Breakfast?” he offered lamely, holding the skillet high. His brother’s eyes narrowed.

“Yeah… I hope you’ll pardon the pun, ‘n all, but uh. Those eggs are toast.”

“What?” Ford looked down to the skillet in his hands, and for the first time noticed the smoke gently curling upwards from the charred flecks of eggs he’d scraped back and forth. “Fuck!” he rushed over to the sink.

“Still suck at making eggs?” Stanley murmured after a few moments of silence. Ford sighed.

“Guess so.” Another beat of silence.

“Guess some things never change, huh?”

Ford ran a hand through his hair, pulling it away in distaste once he realized it was wet. “Look, Stanley…” Ford trailed off as he took in his brother’s tense posture. He seemed to hunch forward and rear back simultaneously, with Ford’s loaned t-shirt hanging from his body in a way Ford had never expected to see. Where had his brawn gone? He backpedaled.

“I was wondering if you and…” Shit, did he just forget his niece’s name? His eyes glazed over. “I was wondering if you and Stella slept well.”

Stanley shrugged. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, thanks… Thanks for askin’.” He shifted from foot to foot, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort. “I, uh, so, d’you… need any help, or anything?”

“Oh! No, thank you, Stanley! Everything is under control, I can assure you!” Stanley didn’t look so assured.

Maybe he was right for that, since immediately after, the forgotten toast popped up, completely charred. Both twins winced.

“I can fix it,” Ford mumbled, lifting the toasts with his fingers only to fling the hot bread across the countertop.

“H-haah! Hot! Okay, no, I can’t fix that.” He flapped his hand in the air, and popped in a second batch. Stupid toaster. Why did it even have an incinerate function? What purpose did that serve? Who in their right mind would eat that—Ford’s internal diatribe was cut short by his brother darting from the room and up the stairs.

Oh, shit. Stanford followed behind his brother, skidding to a halt in the guest room doorway just as his brother scooped up his little girl.

“It’s alright, sweetie, I’ve got ya. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He murmured repeatedly, cradling the child close to his chest. Ford faintly heard sniffles as he watched his brother rock to and fro, his hand rubbing circles over the child’s back. “You’re okay, sweetie, you’re okay. Daddy’s here.”

“Where’d you go?” the tiny voice wailed. “I-I woke up ‘n-n-n you wasn’t here!” Stanley hiked her up to pepper her wet cheeks with kisses.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I went downstairs t’… check on my brother.” He let the sentence trail off into a mumble.

Ford watched as a tiny fist pushed against his brother’s chest. The child frowned up at Stanley. “You don’t got a brother.” She whined.

“Sure I do. Got two of ‘em.”

“N-no, you’re s’posed to have a sister. S’posed to be a pair.” To Ford’s rising confusion, Stan only responded with an “oh, my bad” and a kiss to her forehead.

“Stanley—” Ford’s whisper was cut short by Stanley’s quick shake of the head.

“Sweetheart, you wanna meet your uncle? Hm? Wanna meet my, uh… My brother?” Ford’s heart would’ve plummeted at the difficulty with which Stan seemed to claim him were it not for the promise of meeting his tiny niece. He stood stock still as the small, fluffy head turned towards him, following the trajectory of Stan’s chin jerk. He watched silently as her eyes widened, then darted to her father, then back to him before watering again. Stanley slowly inched his way closer. The child hiccupped and Stan quickly began to pat her back.

“Aw, kiddo,” Stanley sighed.

“H-how come you-you…”

“Daddy’s a twin, so me ‘n him both look the same.” Stella frowned up at him through her tears with a look that clearly said don’t patronize me. That look had their ma written all over it, Ford thought. He would’ve snorted had he not been worried that she’d turn that look on him next. The child turned less into Ma as she sobbed against Stanley’s chest. “Oh, hey, sweetheart… Are you scared ‘cause there’s two of us? We didn’t mean to scare you…” He took a few bouncing steps with her, and Ford followed behind him at a loss.

“Is…Is everything alright?” Stanley shrugged, ignoring the question in favor of mumbling to the child on his shoulder. Ford’s eyes widened as she lifted her head up—pausing briefly to wipe her nose on Stanley’s shoulder—and turned her watery frown on him. She quieted, save for the occasional hiccup and sniffle. Ford shifted from foot to foot under the scrutiny. Stanley took a few backwards steps closer.

“Can you say hello?”

“I, ah, hello there—”

“I was talking to her, Ford.”

“Oh. Right, Apologies.” That awkward little exchange earned him a giggle and a watery smile. He supposed it was worth it.

Stanley nudged the baby. “Go on, pumpkin.”

“Hi.” She mumbled, punctuating it with a sniff. Ford’s tension eased slightly.

“H-hello, dear.”

“This is your uncle Stanford, can you tell ‘im your name?” Ford thought he saw a flicker of panic—or was it confusion? —cross her face. Such similar names and faces would likely do that to a child, he supposed.

“ ‘M Stella.” He jerked back into the present.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Stella.” As Ford wavered back and forth between offering her a hand to shake, Stanley took the decision from him by holding the young child out towards his hesitantly raised arm. With a start, Ford gripped her underneath the armpits and gaped, his eyes darting from his brother, to the child, and back. Stella’s scowl returned and she began to squirm in his outstretched grip, her little legs wiggling. Oh, shit. She doesn’t like me. He panicked. Was…was that suspicion in her eyes? What did she know? He took a deep breath. He was just overreacting. Bill wasn’t here. Couldn’t be here. He’d made sure of that. This was just a baby. A regular baby that happened to be judging him. She must’ve seen his hands. He wouldn’t want to be held by his hands, either. He moved to set her down, pausing when he heard a loud whine.

“Easy there.” Stanley coaxed, arms outstretched. “She’s afraid you’ll drop her.

“I wouldn’t—”

“Yeah, but it probably feels like you’re about to.”

“I—She wanted to get down.”

“She’ll tell ya if she wants down. She just doesn’t like the way you’re holding her.” Ford looked at her, getting a scowl and a nod of agreement. Oh. Well, then. He slowly, carefully pulled her in closer as he’d watched Stanley do earlier, and was silently awed to find that she settled herself in.

“Is…Is that better?”

“Yeah.” He noticed Stanley’s own stiff posture relax with an internal grimace. He did that. Was he really that disconnected from people? Children are a wild card, though. He mused. He stared down at the tiny figure and a slow smile broke across his face. A stray curl flipped up and tickled his chin. There must’ve been another tendril sticking up in his face. There was no other reason for the stinging in his eyes. He swallowed thickly. Tiny fists dug into his shirt and he began to hope that she wouldn’t wipe her nose with a rising sense of alarm.

Also rising was the smoke alarm. Ford had forgotten—he wasn’t sure what he’d forgotten. “Fuck!”

“Hey, language!” Stan fussed, reaching for his giggling child. Ford was too busy balancing her on his hip while simultaneously bolting down the stairs to have noticed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stanley mumbled under his breath, running behind the other man. The twins slid into the kitchen, giggling toddler in tow. Ford heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s only the toaster. I thought I’d left the stove on.”

“The stove is on,” Stan pointed out, “it’s just…not on fire yet.” He took the liberty of turning it off. “There. Now,” he pulled Stella from Ford’s arms, then gestured to the smoking toaster.

“Oh. Right.” Ford mumbled, reluctantly reaching for the smoldering bread. He flung it towards the trashcan, ignoring the flush of heat rising to his ears. Well, that didn’t go as planned.

“Really, Ford, you don’t have to worry about—”

“How about Greasy’s?” Ford interrupted, noticing the blank look on his brother’s face. “I mean, well, Greasy’s is the local diner. They’d…likely do a better job than I can.” He rambled on. Stan shifted his weight from foot to foot while Stella stared at the smoking trashcan with curiosity.

“Nah, Ford, don’t worry about it, really—”

“Great! I’ll go get my coat!”

Stanley blinked. “Ford—”

“I’ll just be a moment, truly—”

“STANFORD.” He froze. “If we have to go out, can I, I dunno, at least have a minute to bathe my kid?”

Ford took in Stanley’s annoyed expression, then compared it to Stella’s scruffy but happy demeanor. “Oh. Right. Right. Of…of course.” Stanley gave him a stiff nod before turning away.

“Can I have bubbles?” he heard Stanley snort.

“You’ll have to ask Ford. It’s his house.” Ford winced at that. Of course she could, why would he care?

“HEY, CAN I HAVE BUBBLES?” echoed back into the kitchen, mixed with an “oh, holy Moses!” from Stanley for good measure.

“…Yes?” Ford called out.

“I can have bubbles!”

“That you can. Alright, little miss, let’s get you cleaned up.”

≈

Roughly an hour later, Stanley Pines found himself tossing various items into the trunk of his car while Stanford, nosy man that he was, tried to ‘help.’ Thankfully his daughter, darling child that she was, had decided to keep the other man occupied by darting off in the direction of the forest after something she saw. The sight of the man bounding off after the little girl would have been priceless if it hadn’t been for the look of pure terror that gripped him. Maybe that had added to it, actually. He was lucky enough to be able to say that his little girl had a good head on her shoulders, toddler or not. She sure didn’t get that from him.

He took his freshly scrubbed baby from the frazzled man and strapped her into the backseat, then leaned against the roof of the car. And waited. “…You are getting in, right?”

“Ah! Yes, yes, absolutely!” The man hustled himself into the passenger seat and Stanley took his distraction as an opportunity to conceal a sigh. He slipped behind the wheel once more and glanced up into the rearview mirror, earning himself a toothy grin. That was right. He could do this. This wasn’t a big deal.

Stanley’s first clue that he’d lied to himself came when Ford, distracted by whatever was going on in that big brain of his, managed to forget that he was supposed to be giving directions.

“Oh, we should’ve turned there.” What? “That’s fine, we can just turn around.”

“Pretty sure U-turns are illegal here.” Either way, he’d play it safe. In multiple ways, Stanley couldn’t afford to get a ticket.

It took ages to find a decent enough shoulder to turn around on. Stan eyed the fuel gauge warily. This trip was already over his ‘budget,’ he didn’t need to add another tank of fuel to the proverbial fire.

“Is it a left turn here? I suppose it also could have been on the right…” Stan jerked his head back to thump against the headrest.

“Y’know what? Don’t worry, I’ll find it for us.” Ford just hummed in absentminded approval. Fuckin’ figures. Stanley closed his eyes for a second and let out a deep sigh. He could find every other little Podunk diner, what was one more?

When the trio finally arrived about half an hour later (and what Stanley was sure should’ve been a 10-minute trip, tops), Stella was asleep again and Ford was muttering something under his breath that Stanley chose to ignore. He ran his hand over his face a few times before unbuckling himself loudly, startling the man beside him. Good. He slipped out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He was getting too old for this. His expression softened as he leaned into the backseat.

“Alright, princess, time to wake up.”

“No.”

He chuckled. “Stubborn.” She got that from him, for sure. Stan scooped his princess into his arms and eyed his dazed counterpart. “Sooo, are we going in, or what?”

“Ah. Right. Yes, of course.” He nodded, his posture stiffening. Really? Stanley still remembered that pose. Ford was nervous about something and doing his best to hide it. Very nervous, judging by the fake smile.

“C’mon, it’s just a buncha small-town hicks, just like everywhere else. It’s not like there’s any reason to be all weirded out by ‘em.”

Stanley’s initial assessment proved untrue. These folks were weird. Nice and harmless, yes, but they were also just plain strange. The guy in the booth behind them was talking into a turkey baster, for fuck’s sake.

“Mornin’, stranger!” the small man had popped into Stanley’s personal space before he had time to sidestep him.

“Oh, holy Moses!”

“No! Shoo!” Stanley’s panicked jolt had woken Stella, and she was not happy about it. “Bad! Bad!” she fussed, waving a tiny clenched fist in reproach. Stan felt oddly proud as the man deflated.

Then came the waitress. “Toby! What’d I tell you about scaring people off? Well, if it isn’t Mr. mysterious science man! Is this your brother? Are you twins? Oh, which one of you is the evil one? Ha!” Ford cringed.

“Yeah, don’t expect me to answer that one.” Stanley mumbled.

“Ha! I like this one. He’s funny!”

The trio sat quietly in their booth, with Stella burrowing into Stan’s side while he tried to ignore Ford’s stiff, awkward body language in favor of glaring at the back of Turkey Baster’s head.

“Sorry about Toby, he gets excited sometimes. The poor thing’s got his mind made up that he’s gonna be the next big reporter.” The waitress shrugged and, spotting Stella, leaned forward with a big grin. “Well, hello there, sweetie!” Stella stared back blankly.

“Uh. She just woke up.” Stan offered.

“Aww, still sleepy? Don’t worry, I’ve got jut the thing for that!” the waitress—her name was Susan, if Stan had read the name tag correctly—bounced off and returned a few moments later with a glass of orange juice and a giant milkshake topped liberally with whipped cream and sprinkles. Stan’s heart rose to his throat. He didn’t order this. He couldn’t afford this.

“Uh, ma’am?”

The waitress giggled, waving a playful hand at him. “Oh, just call me Susan!”

“Uh, well, Susan,” Stan grinned for added measure, “there must’ve been some kinda mix-up. See, we didn’t order any of this, or at all, actually—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it!”

Stan blinked. “S’cuse me?”

“These’re for little miss cutie here, acting all shy ‘n sleepy!”

Stanley gently nudged the child into an upright position while she rubbed her eyes. “Seriously?” his voice was wary. “Is there some kinda catch, or somethin’?” There always was.

“Aw, shucks, no! This is a sleepy little town, we don’t get that many visitors here, to be honest, ‘specially not any cuties like this little one!”

Stan gaped, then turned to look down at Stella. If this lady was nuts enough to give away free food, who was he to complain? “What do we say to the nice lady, pumpkin?”

Stella’s eyes peeled away from the glasses placed in front of her and she yawned before fixing Susan with a wide grin. “Thank youuu!”

Susan giggled. Yep, Stan had taught his daughter well. He glanced across the table at Stanford, who had resumed frowning past a spot on the glittery Formica tabletop. Stan looked up in confusion as Susan began to leave.

“Oh, wait, could we uh… We didn’t order yet.”

“Don’t worry, I already placed your orders.” What?

She inclined her head towards Ford. “Mr. mysterious science man always orders the same thing when he comes, but he hasn’t been by in such a long time, we almost thought he’d moved, hah! Anyways, you look like a bacon and scrambled eggs kind of guy, with extra hash browns on the side. Wink!” Stan froze. That was what he would’ve ordered, if he’d had the money for it. As it was, he didn’t. This would cost a lot more than a small order of fries. His stomach sank.

“What’re you, some kinda psychic?” This was starting to get freaky.

Susan laughed. “Wouldn’t that be something? I’m not psychic, I just like to think that I’m good at what I do!”

“Yeah, you must be.”

“Oh, you!”

That was a good way to hike up someone’s bill. He’d have to remember that one. As soon as Susan moved off to check on the handful of occupied tables—it was still early—Stanley kicked Stanford’s food under the table. The man barely held back a startled squawk.

“You, uh, you okay there? Kinda…kinda quiet. ‘Specially since this was your idea, ‘n all.”

“I-yes, yes, I’m perfectly fine. I just…” he trailed off briefly, worrying his lip before continuing. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected the establishment to be this densely populated.” Stan glanced around. Seriously?

“Well, they’re all here to stuff their faces, they’re probably not too worried about us stuffin’ ours.”

Ford gave him a wan smile. “I’m afraid I’m disinclined to agree.”

Stan closed his eyes and sighed, letting his head drop back against the booth. If Ford could just lay off it with the ten-dollar words for just five minutes. Yeesh. “What, so everybody here is just dying to see you out and about, huh?” Ford hunkered down further in his seat, eyes darting around the room. Okay. So Stanford was still shy and paranoid as fuck. Good to know. His attention turned downwards when a sticky hand touched his arm. Stella held up a dripping spoon. “Are you sharing your milkshake with me? Thanks, sweetie.” He let the child guide the spoon to his mouth, tactfully ignoring the smear of chocolate she left on his cheek. He’d wipe it away when she wasn’t looking. He took a surreptitious glance at Stanford, whose startled eyes were busy tracking the waitress as she headed towards them with a fully loaded tray.

“Here you are!” she chirped. “One coffee omelette, extra coffee; bacon, eggs, and hash browns; and for the little lady,” she drawled, “pancakes!” Stella’s eyes widened as a small stack of pancakes with a whipped cream smile dropped in front of her.

“’S got a face!” she grabbed her father’s sleeve and tugged. Holy fuck, he could not afford this. He felt a lump forming in his throat.

“Thank you. Really.” He grumbled out. When was the last time anyone had shown his daughter this much kindness? Or him, for that matter?

“It’s no problem, really. I gotta admit, I’ve always had a soft spot for kids. Cats too, actually. Cats ‘n kids, hah! Or maybe kids ‘n cats? Maybe the cats are the kids…”

“Uh, right.” This was getting strange.

“So! What brings you to Gravity Falls? Here to help out with the next big mysterious experiment?” she wiggled her fingers for effect, tucking her tray under one arm. Stan noticed the man—Toby, was it?—leaning over the edge of the booth. He turned to Ford, holding back a frown as the man visibly recoiled. This wasn’t gonna work. He’d have to turn up the schmooze. He was too tired for the schmooze.

He didn’t have a choice though, did he? They weren’t gonna get anything useful out of Ford but some suspicious facial expressions and he had to keep up the positive rapport that was forming. These people were nice. They were nice to him, of all people. He had to keep that going for as long as he could. Stanley put on the biggest grin he could and leaned forward.

“Nah, I came up here so Mr. Science here could meet this little cutie.” He placed a hand on Stella’s head and she looked up with a confused smile, her face smeared with whipped cream. “I dunno how much help I could be anyways, being the dumb twin ‘n all.” He ignored Stanford’s flinch at that. “Reckon I did pretty good on the mini me, though!” he gave Susan a wink and briefly—just briefly—thought about saying the word out loud himself, just as she did. He settled for turning to Ford. “What d’you think, Mr. Expert?”

≈

Ford jumped slightly as the attention turned towards him. He glanced from the waitress—what was her name, again?—to his niece, then up to his brother’s questioning smirk. “Ah… You did a wonderful job, I’m sure.” He adjusted his glasses, trying to hide his relief as his brother let out a barking laugh. Apparently that was the correct answer. What was Stanley up to? He felt his unease grow.

“So what is the next big experiment, Mr. man of mystery? You’ve lived out there in the woods for years, but still no one knows what you’re up to out there!”

Ford pretended not to notice the pointed look Stanley fixed him with.

“What? Ford, you never told anybody about all that biology research you’ve been doing?” What? What was Stanley talking about?

“I—”

“Yeah, when we were kids he always had his nose in a book, learnin’ about plants ‘n animals ‘n all that jazz.” He laughed. “Always wanted t’go off explorin’ and findin’ all the little critters he could. Makes sense to be out in the woods for that.”

The waitress’s eyes brightened. “Oh, so that’s what you do! Why didn’t you just say so?” Ford shifted under the scrutiny. “Find anything interesting out there?” His ears began to burn as his mouth opened and closed.

“Ah, well—”

“Unicorns!” Stella interrupted with a happy shriek. Stanford gasped. How did she know? His eyes darted around the diner. Oh, no. It wasn’t safe. Bill could be anywhere. Why had he suggested leaving the safety of the cabin? This was foolish, foolish—

“Unicorns, huh?” Stan chuckled, reaching over to grab a napkin and wipe the child’s face. She let out a noise of complaint. “Y’think he found some unicorns? What do you know about unicorns?”

“They’re pretty!” She looked to Stanford for reassurance. He swallowed.

“Yes, well, that they certainly are.”

“ ’N they taste like candy.”

“I’m not too sure about that one—ouch!” Stanley kicked him again.

“They can taste like cotton candy if they want to. Let her have it, she’s three!” he hissed. Ford glanced at his niece. Three? She was so small. He’d thought… He wasn’t sure what he’d thought, truthfully. Ford knew nothing about small children, other than that they could be judgmental and cruel. The waitress let out a full-bodied laugh.

“Well, if you catch a unicorn, you let me know so I can come taste it too, okay?”

Right. This was a small child. A regular, non-possessed, normal small child with a normal fascination with unicorns. Unicorns were well loved by children. They were still pure enough to meet their approval. Ford briefly wondered at what age he stopped meeting their criteria.

The waitress turned to Stanford and whispered the word “Wink!” conspiratorially. Was… Was she joking with him? No one had done so since Fiddleford in quite some time. He couldn’t remember how it felt. Should he like it?

His brother kicked him again and he jerked, fixing him with a glare. “Stanley, would you please—”

“Your niece is trying to offer you something.”

“What?” he turned to look at the child, who was staring at him intently while waving her fork in the air at him. He watched in dismay as a soggy bit of pancake dropped into his coffee.

“Well, I’ll leave you fellas to it. Wink!” she headed off to the counter with a grin. Finally.

“Uh, no thank you, dear.” Stanford mumbled to the child, offering her what he hoped was a placating smile.

She only frowned and waved the fork more insistently. “Yes.”

He was being strong-armed by a toddler. He couldn’t believe it. “I—”

“Aww, are you sharing?” Stanley asked the obvious as he tucked into his hash browns. He himself glanced down at his untouched omelette. Somehow, it was still hot. He looked back up to his brother, pleading. There was no way in hell he was eating mushy, child-picked-over pancakes. He wouldn’t.

Whatever spark of charisma that had brightened Stanley moments before was gone. No more grinning. No teasing. Sitting across from him was a man who just looked worn out. One hand propped up his jaw while he stared listlessly down. The man’s gaze turned upwards and caught Ford’s own, a hint of annoyance hiding behind his hooded eyes.

“You gonna take the pancakes or not?” Ford apparently waited too long to respond, as Stan merely sighted and pulled the small outstretched hand towards himself and stole the proffered bite. The child, instead of seeming mollified, fixed him with an appraising glare. Well, I fucked up, apparently. She stabbed more pancake with her fork and held it up to him again. Stanford let out a sigh and quickly took the fork, returning it empty. That… wasn’t as bad as anticipated. He mused as he chewed. The little girl gave him a smile of approval.

“She’s like a little old lady sometimes, I swear.” Stan mumbled, a small smile playing at his lips. “Gonna make sure you get some of everything.”

Stanford was relieved to find that the remainder of breakfast had gone on with minimal fanfare—Susan had come and gone briefly for little chats here and there, and with her went Stanley’s exuberance and that brash, happy-go-lucky attitude he’d missed remembered from their childhood. Only Ford was left with the empty shell treatment, it seemed. It was remarkably disconcerting. But then again, he had seemed reluctant to go out in public with him. And for good reason. He clinked his spoon along the inside of his coffee mug, lost in thought. The strange reporter from earlier returned to badger them but was quickly run off by Stella’s scolding. Little old lady, indeed. Stan’s shoulders squared and tensed as the little man scuttled off.

“Maybe we should leave? Before he comes back, I mean.” Ford offered. He was surprised to find that this made his brother tense further.

“…Yeah.”

Stanford absently reached for his wallet, a preoccupied frown in place. Oh. Oh. He’d spent the entire night ruminating about his brother’s likely homelessness, and conveniently forgot that it implied a certain lack of money. And what did Ford do? Drag him to a place where they’d have to spend money. He was an idiot. An oblivious idiot. He fumbled for a few bills, enough to cover their meals and a bit more, and flattened his palm across the table as he stood. “I think he’s coming this way.” He fibbed. Stanley muttered something under his breath and scooted out of the booth, child tucked under his arm. Ford watched as he carried her outside and placed her in the tired, worn-out car seat.

At… At least they have the necessities. That was clearly a lie. He kicked himself inwardly and folded his awkward limbs into the passenger seat. His brother soon followed.

“You think you can guide us back?” Ford blinked.

“Of course I can. Why wouldn’t I be able to?” He wasn’t sure why his brother snorted in response.

Soon enough, Stanford found himself guiding his brother down his driveway. “You might want to pull up a little closer to the cabin.” He mumbled. Stanley eyed him strangely, but complied nonetheless. He’d talked to him—as much as one could, at least—but Ford still didn’t trust any car to Steve after the incident with his own. As soon as the car was in park, Stanford hopped out and headed to the backseat. Carefully, gingerly, he unbuckled his niece and plucked her from the car. He ignored the confused look passed between parent and child in favor of carting her to the front door. It wasn’t safe for any of them out here.

“Wanna get down!” He was a bit surprised as he looked down at the girl leaning as far away from him as she could, angling her body towards the tree line. Hell no.

“Oh, h—” he cut himself off. “…No.” He shook his head, raising an eyebrow as she contorted in his grip to look at him.

“Wanna get down please?”

“I’m afraid that’s not the best idea.”

“But I wanna.” She stared blankly.

“Yes, however—”

“But I said please.” And? How was that supposed to change anything?

“Are you planning on heading towards the forest?”

“Yeah.” Straightforward. He commended her for her honesty.

“The forest is dangerous, you might get hurt.”

“But I saw somethin’.”

He tensed. “What did you see?” Stella let out a big huff.

“I dunno, you won’t lemme go see. It was shiny.”

Stanford was conflicted. Could it possibly have been pixiecorn? He’d been trying to study the elusive little bastards for weeks now, but he hadn’t been able to get close enough to them before they would flit off. Maybe they were drawn to children? They were certainly pure of heart… He turned to look at Stanley, who leaned against his car with his arms folded. He cocked an eyebrow.

“It was shiny, Ford.” He drawled.

“I, well… I suppose… Maybe we could inspect it, if your father allows. But I’ll carry you over there, all right? No running off.”

To his surprise, Stan gave him a brief nod. His shock must’ve shown on his face, because Stanley immediately rolled his eyes. “For f—you’re literally going about ten yards away. Where I can see you. Now, go, before—”

“Pinky promise?”

“—she makes you pinky promise.” Stan finished.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, dear. I mean—”

“Pinky. Promise.” She scowled and shoved a tiny little finger in his face, nearly poking him in the nose. Stanford’s eyes crossed as he squinted down at the small hand.

“Holy shit.” He counted six little fingers.

“That’s a bad word!”

He turned to his brother, who was sheepishly avoiding his gaze. “Was kinda wonderin’ how long it’d take you to notice. Now ya can stop bein’ so shy ‘n funny about your hands.”

Seriously? Was this some sort of a game to him? His brother deserved a punch in the face for that. His hands had been a source of ridicule for him their entire lives and now his little niece would have to face the same problems he had growing up, and Stanley had the gall to turn it into some sort of a practical joke? He needed to sit down. Stanford slowly lowered himself onto the front steps, setting the child in his lap. Stella wiggled in his tight grip.

“I like hugs, but you said we can goooo!”

Stan sighed. “Give ‘im a minute, sweetie, he’s havin’ a moment.”

“…Is he sad?”

“You’ll have to ask him, pumpkin, not me.”

“Hey, why’re you crying?” He was startled by the tiny hands patting his face.

“…I don’t know.”

“So can we go look at the sparkly now?”

Ford was silent for a moment.

“Yes. Yes, we can go look.”

Hopefully the fact that this chapter is a lot longer than I expected makes up for the fact that it took a lot longer and I simultaneously like and dislike it.

#Gravity Falls #reverse portal au #angst #stanley pines #stanford pines #fanfiction #single dad stanley pines #THCM

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