#can i say how much i love the newborn kit sprites

[i-have-no-braincells]

false alarm everybody the kits are Mistydawn's

Leafkit↑ and Juncokit↓

Mistydawn for reference

family tree also for reference

SDFSJHFKSD FALSE ALARM EVERYONE!!!

[bgtea]

Cellular Memory - Interlude

Undecided if I should lump this in the last chapter or if I should just post it as a separate chapter. Either way, here’s a brief interlude between Chapters 5 and 6. 

XIV. The Calm Before the Storm

They decide to set sail to the Arctic in the upcoming summer, which gives them a good amount of time to prepare and to recover.  

“In the meantime, I want you to take care of yourself,” Ford warned after they have decided on their travel date. “Especially if you’re experiencing pain from recovering more memories. Let me know.”

“Yeesh, talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Stanley scoffed. He wasn’t the one who had come out of that deathbot escapade all black and blue. “I’ll be fine, my memories haven’t been giving me too much grief aside from the slight headaches. I think they’re starting to slow down.”

Stanley likes to think that for the most part, he’s pieced together a near full picture of Stan Pines’ life, whether it includes the good, the bad, or the ugly. This may explain why he hasn’t gotten any new major flashbacks in a while, what with the well about to run dry. Hell, aside for remembering his love for old men gold chains, which has the hilarious effect of mildly horrifying Ford, things have been quiet. Blissfully so.

He’s not complaining at all especially when it means he’s being left alone to enjoy his days in relative peace. Peace and quiet are rare things in Gravity Falls that should be coveted. His time spent with his brother and the children has more than taught him that.

(There’s a part of him that can’t shake off the fear that there are only a small handful of memories left for him to discover, and with those exposed, Stan Pines will become whole again.)

(He has no idea what will happen to Stanley with Stan Pines back at the helm. Maybe he’ll simply…cease to exist in a blink of an eye. One second, he’s Stanley and the next, he’s not. Or maybe, he’ll fade away bit by bit into the background until he’s gone, sort of like an old photograph that’s slowly being bleached by the sun.)

(However he dies, he hopes it’ll be painless.)

“Just one more push, Stanley,” he utters to himself one night when his dark thoughts are threatening to choke the air from his lungs. He just needs to focus on pushing through the next hour, day, week, month, however long this will last.

Because if he knows his days are numbered, then he might as well make it his personal mission to squeeze out every last bit of living he has left. It’ll be his last defiant stance against the shit cards life has dealt him. It’ll be Stanley Pines’ version of waving two middle fingers in the air.

He has a feeling that Stan Pines can get behind that.

He breathes. “Just one more push. Everything is going to be okay.”

His days are spent keeping the shack in running order, making sure their sailing preparations are on schedule, and, most importantly, keeping tabs on what his brother is doing in the lab. That last task is a new add-on but Stanley feels it’s warranted given Ford’s injury, which he refuses to go to the doctors for, and Ford’s tendency to straddle the line between brilliant genius and mad scientist when it comes to his inventions.

Also, his brother does not do bed rest well. At all.

“Screwdriver please, Stanley.”

Stanley sighs and obediently reaches into the tool kit on the ground beside his chair, snags the required tool, and hands it to Ford. Despite Ford’s promise to take things easy, Stanley walked into the lab earlier that day to his brother at his desk, elbows deep in what looks like an unfinished miniature replica of the murderbot, except sans claws.

Stanley promptly threw a shit fit. As one does, really.  

“Why are you building another one?! Are you a glutton for punishment or something?”

Ford jolted from his desk and whipped his head towards the entrance. “Stanley,” he said, his hands out in a placating motion. “I know what this looks like, but I think I know where I went wrong with my last design.”  

“The whole design is wrong. It’s a robot that murders people via laser beam.” Stanley crossed his arms with a scowl and leaned against the door frame. “And what happened to taking it easy? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I am taking it easy,” grumbled Ford. “I’m sitting down, aren’t I? And for the record, I did not design it with laser beams. Or for murder.”

Stanley scoffed. Semantics. “And how many hours have you been working on that thing straight? Five hours? Six?”

“I do take the occasional breaks.” Ford sighed in exasperation at Stanley’s raised brow and judging silence. “Look, if it makes you feel better, you can pull up a seat and help me with this. Besides, the sooner I’m done, the sooner I can get back to bed. How does that sound?”

Which brings Stanley to the present, slouching in his chair by the work station beside his brother and bored to tears. So far, his duties entail handing random things to Ford so that he doesn’t have to get up and jostle his injuries, and reigning Ford back from trekking into mad scientist territory.  

Stanley yawns and scratches his stomach. “I still don’t know why you’re so eager to make that robot work. What’s so great about it?”

“It has a lot of potential to be useful for our travels,” Ford mutters from his desk without turning around. The components of the robot are splayed before him in an explosion of nuts, bolts and other doodads, and Ford is seemingly plucking random bits to screw back into the machine. “I originally designed it to collect data on the water sprites for us so that we don’t have to be there to do it ourselves, but I redesigned it as a scouter instead. Spanner, please.”  

Stanley blinks as he fishes out the spanner. “Wait. You mean, we didn’t have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn when this thing could’ve done all the data collecting for us? Why the heck didn’t you invent this sooner?”

“I only thought it necessary when you drove the boat like a madman.” Ford snorts and grabs the spanner. “But yes, it could’ve done the work for us and then some. The original design was also waterproof, heatproof, shockproof and it ran on solar power. Self-sufficient and nigh indestructible!”

He pauses and breathes a little “huh” in revelation. “In hindsight, I see how the AI is a bad idea,” he says, a touch contrite. “Ah well, you live and learn!”

With that, he sets the robot upright, pulls a set of exposed wires from its back and hooks them up to the large battery beside it with a level of gusto that Stanley will never understand.

The metal egg starts vibrating violently. Stanley scoots back with a perfectly manly yelp as the dotted light bulbs lining its circumference begin to flare to life. One by one, the spindly legs twitch, initially slow, almost lethargic little movements that grow more rapid and violent with every passing second.

“It’s alive!” Ford all but gushes like a proud father. The robot has barely managed to lift itself to standing with the way its legs are shaking like a newborn fawn. Stanley leans a little closer and is torn between being impressed at Ford for making his design work so quickly, feeling horribly curious at what the robot can do, and feeling marginally terrified at what the robot can do.

“See?” his brother laughs. “Nothing to be afraid of at all! What the – ”

The robot shudders violently with an electric crackle and all at once, its lights wink out with several faint popping noises. The legs immediately turn motionless, buckling under the egg’s weight, and the whole thing collapses on the table with a thump that rattles the remaining bolts and nuts on the desk. A stream of dark smoke starts pouring out from the machine.  

Ford’s face turns crestfallen. “I don’t understand! What happened?”

“Don’t know and you’re not about to find out either.” Stanley bats Ford’s hands away from his pet project while breathing a mental sigh of relief. “That’s enough freaky science for today. You can finish this tomorrow after you’ve rested. Come on, it’s bed time.”

Tomorrow becomes the day after that, then one week, then two. Although the initial problem with the robot is resolved quickly, fresh ones keep cropping up with every new feature added to the machine’s design.

Stanley is a bit surprised that Ford, now fully healed and as energetic as ever, keeps asking him to join in on every single robot-building session.

He’s accepted every time despite having no idea why Ford even bothers. It’s not like Stanley contributes anything meaningful to the project, even when he’s helping to assemble bits and pieces of the bot.

Still, he’s glad to be included in one of his brother’s nerdy projects. Working on the robot is growing on him along with the realization that lab time with Ford is becoming another activity they do together, like D, D, & More D, or their nightly Airing of Grievances, where they get to spend time side-by-side, cracking jokes and ribbing on each other.

Something small ricochets off the back of his head and hits the ground with a soft clinging sound. “Oy, knucklehead! Have you finished screwing everything together yet? You’ve been hogging the screwdriver for the last hour.”

Stanley glances up from his portion of the robot and rolls his eyes at a smirking Ford who’s standing a few paces away from his workstation.

“No, your Highness.” Stanley drops the screwdriver and idly rubs the spot where he’s been hit probably with a stray nut or something. “Putting these bits together doesn’t magically happen in a blink of an eye. Although we could’ve built this deathbot faster if we just duck-taped everything together like how I wanted, but some people vetoed that idea and called it, ‘utterly ridiculous.’”

“You keep your uncouth ways away from my robots,” Ford sniffs with such an air of faux offence that Stanley can’t help grinning his shit-eating grin. Ford doesn’t last for more than a second before his composure breaks and he chuckles. He strides next to Stanley and claps his brother on the shoulders. “It’s coming along nicely though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. How long do you think we’ll need before we test this baby out in the wild?”

“Maybe a few more days, we’ll see.” Ford fishes something out of his pocket and places it on the table. “I got you a snack in case you’re hungry. There’s more upstairs if you want.”

The bag of toffee peanuts stares back at Stanley.

A wave of vertigo hits Stanley like a freight train and his mind spins and his stomach lurches - Can you explain what this was doing next to my broken project?!

This was no accident, Stan; you did this!

You ignoramus! Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump! All you ever do is lie and cheat right on your brother's coattails. Well this time you cost our family potential millions!

He jerks himself back with a sharp inhale of breath as awareness swims back into focus. He can feel the pinpricks of sweat dotting his forehead, and the wild hammering of his heart, like he had just run a marathon.

The bag remains sitting there, untouched and unblemished.

What in the holy hell was that?

“Stanley? Is everything alright?” he hears Ford ask, and it grounds him to the present like a rock.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he winces at the croakiness of his voice and clears his throat. “Just got a bit dizzy from sitting too long. No big deal.” Stanley pushes the packet away from him, making sure not to look at it this time. Whatever that was, he most certainly does not want to deal with it with Ford nearby. “I’m good with the snack, thanks. I think I’ll take a breather upstairs instead. Do you want to come up with me?”  

Ford shrugs and thank goodness, it looks like he buys Stanley’s explanation. “Sure, I’ll join you. I could use a break myself.”

As they make their way to the elevator, Ford adds quietly, almost shyly, “I’m glad we’re working on this together. We haven’t done a project like this since the Stan O’ War.”

Stanley nudges his brother with an answering quiet grin of his own. The sappy dork. “Me too, Pointdexter. Me too.”

(The persistent nagging feeling that something is missing follows Stanley all the way up their elevator ride like an ill omen. Stanley shivers.)

“Hey Ford.” Stanley says once they’ve settled in for their nightly chats in Ford’s parlour. A pot of mint tea sits on the low coffee table in front of them and its warm, spicy scent fills the small, cozy room. “You said the murderbot is the second project we worked on together. Did we ever finish our first project?”

Ford pauses, and something like apprehension flits through his eyes. “No, Stanley, we never finished the Stan O’ War.”

“Huh. That’s a shame. Why’s that?”

“Well, we didn’t get to the finishing touches because of the fight.”

“The fight?” It takes a few seconds before it clicks. “Oh, you mean the one where we went our separate ways afterwards?”

(Once upon a time, Ford had explained to Stanley why they parted ways: “We had a fight shortly before high school ended. There was an incident that exacerbated everything.” His brother had looked away at that point and cleared his throat. “I…got mad, but Pops got even angrier. He took matters into his own hand, and well, you ended up striking out on your own. I went to college. We lost contact for a while.”)

(It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Stan had gotten kicked out of his home for screwing up. Just what did he do to warrant said kicking out, well, he’d rather not know.)

(He was happy with leaving some memories buried under the sands of time.)

“That’s the one,” Ford hums in agreement. A longer pause fills the room this time. “Stanley,” Ford starts with more hesitation, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you want to hear about what happened in detail?”

Stanley chuckles nervously. “Eh, I think what you told me is enough.”

Unlike Ford, he’s not a glutton for punishment.

He dreams of an abandoned beach under a desolate sky of grey-blue. A set of old swings sits on the sand yards away from the churning ocean water, its metal frame twisted, bent and rusted, ravaged by age and the elements. One of the two wooden seats is broken in half with a part of it lost to decay while the other piece hangs perilously from the frame by fraying, rotting rope. The other seat is intact but the wood is warped and stained dark from dirt and mildew. The swings sway quietly in the wind off-tandem, one always lagging behind the other.  

He wakes up in the morning, eyes wet and with a heavy heart. From his bed, he takes a deep breath and exhales. He repeats this a few times.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he says out loud to the seven little holes in the wooden beam above his head. The Big Dipper mark stares back at him.

They don’t.

In fact, after three mini flashbacks – At least you'll have one son here in New Jersey forever. I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country. This is all your fault, ya dumb machine! –  Stanley is ready to concede that things are getting worse.

The only saving grace is that those flashbacks weren’t anything of substance, each of them darting through his mind before dissipating into the nether. They aren’t strong enough to knock him out, but they do give Stanley a pounding, excruciating migraine that has him curling into his bed with his covers thrown over his head and the blinds to his room drawn tightly shut to plunge everything into soothing, blessed darkness.

He jolts awake when he feels something warm on his forehead. “Hmm. Ford?”

“Hey, sorry for waking you up. I wanted to see how you’re doing,” a blurry Ford-shaped creature whispers back. Stanley’s mind helpfully reminds him that he isn’t wearing his glasses.

“Surviving,” he croaks out, squinting up at the blob that’s probably his brother. “What time is it?”

“Noon. I haven’t heard from you all morning so I thought I’d come up and check on you. I miss seeing you at the lab.”

“Crap, sorry.” Stanley winces. “I missed our robot building session.”

He moves to get up, but is gently pushed back down by Ford. “Don’t worry about it, you need your rest. From the looks of it, it’s pretty bad, huh?”

A fresh, throbbing pain floods through his head. Stanley squeezes his eyes shut and grunts.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I can bring you some chamomile.”

Another grunt.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.”

He manages to crack open his eyes and catch the sight of his brother’s retreating back and –

They were sitting by the swings on the beach. It was a calm evening, the clear sky above them bleached a mix of orange and yellow from the setting sun. From their seats, they have a perfect view of the gentle lapping waves of the ocean as they slosh lazily against the golden sands of the shore.

Stan was younger then, barely at the cusp of manhood at seventeen years old but excited to see both his and his brother’s future opening up before them, at the possibilities of taking the world by storm as the dynamic duo.

After all, it was them against the world. It has always been that way. No stupid college from across the country was going to change that.

“Hey. Joke’s on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country,” Stan said. “Once we get the Stan O' War complete, it's gonna be beaches, babes, and international treasure hunting for us.”

There was no way his brother would give up their dream, not when they worked so hard on it.

His brother sighed and looked wistfully at the school pamphlet in his hand. Stan hated that pamphlet already. “Look, Stan, I can't pass up a chance like this. This school has cutting edge programs and multi-dimensional paradigm theory.”

He hasn’t seen Ford’s eyes glow like that since they first discovered the remains of the ship as children. Hasn’t seen Ford look that genuinely excited about anything in a long while in fact. Instead, he has gotten used to Ford looking like he was…

Like he was…

Bored. Resigned. Tired even.

Stan swallowed the growing lump in his throat. “Beep boop. I am a nerd robot. That's you. That's what you sound like,” he said irritably.

There was no way Ford would leave Stanley behind.

Right?

Ford gave a good-natured laugh. “Ah, well, if the college board isn't impressed with my experiment tomorrow, then okay, I'll do the treasure-hunting thing.”

“And if they are?”

Ford punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Well then, I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country.” With a last little chuckle, Ford got up, brushed the sand off his pants, and walked away.

Stan made sure to keep smiling until his brother’s retreating back was out of sight even when his cheeks hurt.  

Stanley slams back to the present as awareness floods his senses. He gulps in a few breaths, and takes in the darkness of his room, the weight of his blankets over his body, and the lumpy feel of his worn mattress against his back.

“Shit,” he utters with feeling.