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weallpartyatybcpatricksfuneral · 3 years ago

Text

I wrote

gravity falls and marble hornets au! Decided to share this now, just to get it out there

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"Come on, Dip-Dop!" Mabel shouted. She stood atop a mushroom covered log, looking out into the vast forest. Dipper made his way over to her.

"I'm here, I'm here!" He laughed, holding his blue notebook to his chest. Dipper and his sister had just arrived back in Gravity Falls, after a long eighth-grade year. His strange old uncles, Stanley and Stanford, were conversing with each other as the family went on a woodland stroll to celebrate Dipper and Mabel's first day back.

"Ah Gravity Falls! Looks exactly as I remember it." Mabel smiled, inhaling deeply. The air smelled of moist earth and fresh flowers. Summer had come once again. With Bill Cipher gone, the twins felt much safer roaming the forests. Dipper no longer felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he stumbled through the birch trees with his silly sister. Gravity Falls was safe at last -- or, as safe as it can be. It's Gravity Falls after all.

"Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, come on! Stop being so slow!" She turned around to face their uncles, who were still a good couple of steps behind the younger Pines twins.

Ford laughed quietly, "We're coming, my dear."

"Yeah," Stan interjected, "We're old, give us a break!" Mabel laughed.

Great Uncle Stanford looked around wistfully, "It's so peaceful out her--." Ford was cut off by a round of harsh coughing. Stan pat his back gently until the coughing stopped. Mabel's smile faded away.

"Grunkle Ford? You okay?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm alright, Mabel. My time in the multiverse must have ruined my immune system; I've been sick quite a lot recently." Grunkle Stan nodded, slinging an arm around Ford.

"You kids shoulda seen this poor, poor soul when he had a cold--by the way he acted, you'd think he was dying!"

"I wasn't that dramatic Stanley--"

"You laid on the couch and said, "Stanley, I'm dying" the second you started sniffling."

Mabel's smile returned and she laughed at her silly uncles. Ford smiled and tried to say something but started coughing harder.

"Grunkle Ford!" Mabel exclaimed, running to his side. Dipper followed suit, his eyebrows raised in concern.

"Sheesh, Sixer, are you okay?" Stan placed his hand on his brother's back. Ford looked up and glanced at the woods for a brief second, before collaspsing to the ground in a violent coughing fit.

"Great Uncle Stanford?" Dipper whispered, reaching out to place his hand on his great-uncle shoulder. Stanley looked paniked as something red stained Ford's sleeve.

"Stanford!" Stan exclaimed, "Oh my gosh!" He reached over to wipe away the blood that dribbled out of Ford's mouth. The coughing fit stopped, only for Ford to look up and stare into the woods.

"He had no face..." Great-Uncle Ford rasped, before falling unconcious in Stan's arms. Stan freaked out, rightfully so.

"Stanford! STANFORD! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" He shook Ford's body. Mabel had tears running down her face as she kneeled down by her uncle's side.

"Grunkle Stan! What do we do!" Dipper cried, falling to the ground by Mabel. He looked up and around -- Ford had looked up at something right before he collapsed. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Suddenly, Dipper became very aware of the fact that the Pines were being watched. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he started to drown out Stan and Mabel's frantic words as they tried to stir Ford awake. Then, he heard it -- a twig snapped.

Mabel must have heard it to,for she looked up, and screamed. Dipper's head shot up and he saw the creature too, standing among the trees. It had to have been ten feet tall, maybe more, with a snow white face. The anomaly wore a black suit with a red tie. Dipper's skin crawled as it stared dead ahead, right at the Pines family.

Stan stood up, and backed a step away from Ford before glancing back down at his brother.

"What the heck is that..." He whispered.

In a blink, the creature was gone.

"Where'd it go?!" Dipper cried, searching around frantically. Stan shuddered.

"I dunno, kid. But it's giving me the heeby-jeebys." Stan kneeled back on the ground and tried to shake Ford away with more urgency than before. "Come on, Sixer, Come on! Wake up! Wake up!"

Leaves rustled. The slender creature stood much closer than before, that same straight ahead stare on it's featureless face.

Stan jumped up and backed away, pulling Mabel and Dipper close to him.

"Kids...we have to run..."

"But what about Great Uncle Ford--"

" We'll have to leave him, we'll come back." Like before, the creature disappeared in a second. The Pines started to run. Stan led them around the trees,in a large circle. After a few long minutes of running, they made their way back to where Ford was laying.

But he was gone.

On the ground, where Ford should have been, was a circle drawn in something red -- Dipper's stomach churned, it looked dark enough to be blood -- with an X through it in the same deep crimson color. Right in the center of the X was a piece of paper. Dipper approached it cautiously and picked it up. It seemed to be a page torn out of Ford's old journal.

On it, are the words "DON'T LOOK...OR IT TAKES YOU." besides a crude drawing of the figure the Pines saw in the woods. Dipper's heart caught in his throat as he saw the symbol on the ground repeated all of the page. There was other writing too, crammed on it.

"HE HAD NO FACE HE HAD NO FACE"

"LEAVE ME ALONE"

"NO NO NO NO NO"

"ALWAYS WATCHES"

Stan closed his eyes at the sight. "Oh Sixer, what have you gotten into now..."

- - -

Ford awoke in the middle of the forest, much deeper in than where he can last remember. How did he get here? With a groan, he sat up and placed a hand to the back of his head. Sticky blood remained on his fingers when he pulled his hand away.

Twigs snapped.

Leaves rustled.

Something was in the forest. Ford couldn't speak. He found the words to be stuck in his throat when he tried. The older man mustered up the strength to pull himself off the ground and then stared straight into the face of The Operator.

Normally, he would have screamed. He would have run away, as fast as he could and then skip town to get away. This time, Ford felt a strange feeling of calmness wash over him as the horrid creature stared to speak:

'They're after the pages. Find them. Kill them.'

All coherent thoughts in Ford's mind were replaced by these few words. At The Operator's feet were a yellow hoodie and black and white mask. Two names began to float to the surface in Ford's muddled brain but were quickly replaced with the Operator's voice.

'They failed me. You must not.'

Slowly, Ford stripped himself of his cloak, and put on the hood and mask. The Operator left as quickly as he came, leaving his proxy behind. Ford looked around the forest.

THEY ARE AFTER THE PAGES.

FIND THEM.

KILL THEM.

- - -

"Grunkle Ford! Grunkle Ford!

"Great Uncle Ford!"

"Sixer!"

The Pines called out to Ford. Dipper held the page from the weird circle thing in hand, gripping it so hard some of the charcoal rubbed off on his hands. Mabel bounded over to a tree, where a different page -- this one depicting a forest with the tall slender figure -- was stuck.

"Here's another one!" she exclaimed, waving it in the air.

"That's about...3 now, including the one in the circle." Stan said, taking the page from her and putting it with the other one they had found. "When we find my brother, I'm telling him he's no longer allowed to write cryptic creepy messages anymore." Dipper laughed a little bit. Even in such a dark situation, Stan found a way to make them smile.

That figure hadn't reappeared again, much to the Pines' relief.

"Grunkle Ford! Where are you!" Mabel called, hopping over a rock and into a small pile of leaves, making a loud crunch sound.

Right after her jump, came another crunch sound.

And then another.

And another.

Someone was running.

Dipper looked over his shoulder, to see a masked figure in a yellow hoodie hiding amongst the trees.

"Hey! Who are you!"

The masked man ran over and took the page from Dipper, before running off again.

"Hey! I need that!" Dipper went to run after him, but Stan held him back.

"Don't! We don't know who that could be -- what if they're dangerous!"

"But-but- the page--"

"We've got two others. It's fine..." He looked in the direction the masked man had come from, and shuddered.

"We gotta keep going. Stanford's somewhere in these woods and we better find him before that slender man does."

" Let's hope Masky doesn't come back." Mabel said, scrunching up her nose.

"Masky?" Dipper raised an eyebrow

"Yeah, he needs a name. Duh!"

Dipper sighed and ceded to Mabel's insistance that the masked figure needed a name. The trio continued their search for Great Uncle Ford.

After a while of stumbling around, they came across another page. 'HELP ME' was sprawled across it, including the words 'WATCH THE TAPES WATCH THE TAPES. REMEMBER.'

Dipper handed the page to Stan, and the two sat down to figure out what it means.

"Tapes? What tapes?"

"Maybe Ford means the tapes he took back when he was here?" Stan shrugged, "He's gotta whole box of 'em in his bedroom, but I've combed every second of those tapes to look for a way to start the portal. Ain't nothing there other than him being a huge geek."

"Any other tapes that Ford could have had?" Dipper pondered.

"Nope. I've looked everywhere in that house, kid. I've found everything there is to find."

Dipper sighed and rested his head against the tree. They were no closer to finding Great Uncle Ford.

A scream tore through the silence, shattering it like a baseball shatters a glass window.

And that scream belonged to Mabel. Dipper hopped up and rushed to the source of the sound. Masky was back again, standing over Mabel with a large rock in his hand. She screamed again as he raised the rock over his head. Panic flooded Dipper's body, just like it had when Bill nearly killed Mabel in the Fearamyid.

Stan ran over to the figure and wrestled him back, shouting that he wasn't going to hurt Mabel. But something made Stan stop dead in his tracks.

"Stanford..." He said quietly, his eyes wide in shock as he stared at the stranger's hand. Dipper ran over and joined Stan in the fight (Stan didn't fight as hard as he did before. Was he taking it easy on Masky?)

Dipper and Stan manages to wrestle him to the ground and rip the mask off his face. Stan stared right into the identical brown eyes of his twin.

"STANFORD!" he shouted.

Something black stained Ford's lips and chin. His eyes had a cloudy look to them, like he wasn't quite there. But the second Stan shouted, the cloudyness faded away. Mabel stood back in shock and horror, tears running down her face.

"How the hell..." Ford mumbled, resting his head back on the ground with a small whimper of pain. Stan stood up, paler than the slender man.

"Ford- what- how--"

"Where the hell are we..."

"We're in the forest, where we've been this entire time. You just attacked Dipper and Mabel! Where'd you get this mask and hood from?"

"What do you mean."

"Great Uncle Ford, do you remember what happened?"

"Not after I passed out, no..." Ford groaned and placed a hand to the back of his head.

Stan and Dipper shared a look and quickly filled him in. Ford put a hand to his mouth.

"Oh my God...Mabel, I--" Ford stammered and tried to stand up. Dipper saw red staining the hood of the hoodie and Ford's silver grey hair.

"Grunkle Ford! You're hurt--"

He waved it away. "I'll be fine." He fumbled in his pants pocket for a little hand-held video recorder and pressed the on button.

"Sixer, how is this going to help."

"This has happened before...I need to call Tim--"

"Who the hell is Tim? What do you mean this has happened before?!"

"Old college friend. Anyway, we need to leave, now." Ford looked to a still-shaken Mabel, " Mabel, my dear, I'm so sorry."

"Grunkle Ford...what happened..." She whispered, wiping tears off her face.

"I don't know, my dear, but it won't happen again." He didn't have to verbally add in the 'i hope', but the tone of his voice and look on his face certainly implied it was there, hanging off the end of his sentence.

The four started to walk through the forest. Ford assured them that there would be an explanation when they arrived back at the shack. He was constantly checking the camera. What was he expecting to see? After a long, mostly silent trek through the woods, Dipper started to hear a static sound come from the video camera.

Ford's eyes widened with fear, "Go, Run! He's here!"

"He? Who's he?!"

Ford opened his mouth to the respond but found himself coughing again as the Slender Man appeared once more. It stood behind Ford, completely still. The camera went crazy -- the audio became distorted and full of static until it cut completely.

Finally, it spoke. Dipper had never heard a voice like his. It was undescribable and the pain it brought to his ears wasn't on any scale.

'My proxy...I told you to kill them. You've failed.'

"No, no, no..." Ford stuttered, falling to the ground

"Get away from him!" Mabel shouted, throwing a little rock at the Slender Man's head. It stunned the creature for a brief moment, allowing Stan to pull his brother up.

"Run!" Ford rasped between his coughs. Just like before, he coughed up blood.

The four of them ran and ran, until the unfamiliar trees melted into the enchanted forest.

But the Pines didn't stop until they were inside the shack. After they all took a breath, Ford led them into his office.

"Alright, Grunkle Ford, explain what's going on." Mabel said, crossing her arms.

"Back in college, the flim students asked me to help them on their project called 'Marble Hornets'. Alex, who was the director, cast me as an actor and we started to work on the film. Then, Tim -- another actor -- started falling strangely sick. He spread that sickness to all of us -- to Brian, to Alex, to me. With that sickness came the mysterious appearance of a creature called the Operator."

Ford fished around in his desk for an old journal, much older than the three he kept about Gravity Falls. It was apparently from his time at Backupsmore College. He flipped through it, and showed them an old entry. Dipper read aloud from the page:

"'It is called the Operator. It showed itself to me months and months ago, when was I walking home from the library. Under the streetlight was a tall man in a black business suit. He had no face, and no eyes. I found myself paralyzed with fear for a brief moment, before running in the opposite direction. I mentioned my encounter to the rest of the Marble Hornets cast, but they said they hadn't seen this creature before. After filming, Alex pulled me aside with a video recorder in hand. He handed me a tape and told me to play it when it got back to my dorm. On that tape was Alex encountering the same creature outside his dorm window. Alex and I quickly got together and talked. The creature -- which I later knew as The Operator -- started to stalk us both relentlessly. Alex dropped out and skipped town. Slowly but surely, the members of Marble Hornets disappeared. The project was cancelled and Jay was given Alex's old tapes. After Alex left, I saw the creature once again. It was in my dorm room, standing in the corner. I shouted for help but it disappeared before anyone could do anything. The creature hasn't reappeared since, but I'm still paranoid. I'm going to keep recording everything until I know for sure it's gone."

Chills ran down Dipper's spine. The Operator was undoubtedly the creature they met in the woods. The drawing of it Ford including beside the entry looked identical to the Slender Man they saw out in the woods. Ford put his hands behind his back.

"After that encounter in my room I didn't see him again, until Jay reached out to me about seeing this guy on the tapes. That...that led to," Ford trailed off, seemingly not sure how to go about with the rest of sentence. He shook his head, "Nevermind. That's the past now. It's behind me. I left that area and moved to Gravity Falls where I never saw it again. Until today. Definetly brought back some old memories..." He shuddered.

"Why's he here now?" Stan asked, crossing his arms.

"I don't know. Maybe he's still after me? But that doesn't make sense. Why would he wait until now?" Ford sighed, placing the journal back in the drawer.

"Great Uncle Ford, what tapes do you have? One of the pages we found in the woods said to "Watch the tapes". What does that mean?" Dipper asked, handing Ford one of the pages he found. Ford read it, and dug around in a drawer. He pulled out a dusty old tape.

"This one. This one details my experience with The Operator during the whole..."Marble Hornets" incident."

Stan blinked at it. "How the heck did I not find that! I thought I checked everywhere in this house!" Ford smiled slightly.

"I've got some hiding places you haven't found." Stan was about to ask another question, but let it die in his throat as he tossed the mask to Ford.

"By the way, you were wearing this. Dunno where you got it." Ford held it in his hands, staring at it wistfully before tossing it back onto the table. He pulled off the yellow hoodie but instead of tossing it, folded it neatly and placed it on the chair. Dipper watched as he looked at it for a bit too long before turning back to his brother.

"Please be careful. If any of you start to cough frequently, or if you see The Operator again, please tell me. I know how to hold him off but only for a bit. Now, I have to call an old friend of mine down here. He can help."

"Not so fast, Sixer. You're injured." Grunkle Stan gently pulled Ford over to him and checked the back of his head. "Sheesh. What did you do?"

"No idea." Ford winced as Stan tried to touch his head, "I might have fallen on a rock or something."

They went upstairs so Stan could treat Ford's injury. Along the way, Dipper and Ford talked about what happened in the woods.

"So you can't remember anything when you're...like that?" Dipper pondered.

"Can't remember a thing. It used to happen more often, practically every night. Tim and I came to the conclusion that this dissassociative state is a progression in Operator's Sickness."

"Operator's Sickness?" Mabel raised an eyebrow.

"That's what we call it. It obviously doesn't have a real name, but it's tied to the Operator. Encounter him or someone with the disease is enough to contract it. Which is why I'm so scared of getting you all involved. You've all been exposed to the disease -- from both me and the encounter in the woods."

Dipper tried to hide how nervous that made him. If they all had this disease, what was next? Would Dipper find himself waking up in the middle of the woods, with no memory? Would he fall into a state like Ford?

Ford must have noticed how nervous Dipper was. "Don't worry. The disease can be staved off with pills. Doesn't cure it, nothing really can except prolonged abscene from the Operator and those under his influence, but they certainly help. I'll ask Tim to bring the pills with him if he still has the prescription.

"So who's this Tim guy?" Stan asked, eyebrows rasied.

"Old friend from college. Like I said, we worked on Marble Hornets together. And then him, Jay and I eventually got involved in the, uh, "Marble Hornets" incident."

"What's that?"

Ford shook his head. "I can't explain it all now. Too complex. Maybe when Tim arrives he can help. He'll probably bring another old friend -- Jessica -- with him." The elevator dinged and they were all back upstairs. Golden sunshine streamed through the window as Stan sat Ford down and went to get the first aid kit.

#gravity falls #ford pines #marble hornets #stanford pines #Mabel pines #dipper pines #marble hornets au #crossover au #stan pines

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xpacestuff · 5 years ago

Text

Su/gf crossover things part 2

(sorry if these aren't that good!)

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Dipper: So... that glowing pink thing?

Steven: Yeah?

Dipper: Why does that happen exactly?

Steven: Oh, I'm not sure... I guess when I don't feel well? It's like a burst of energy when it happens...when i feel like i need to run away or just...-

Dipper: Oh! Like a flight or fight response!

Steven: What is-

Dipper, taking out the journal: Interesting...

Steven: What's a-

Dipper: mumbles to himself

Steven: ...Nevermind.

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Steven: Hey Mabel! what are you-

Steven: Mabel.

Mabel, putting fake gems on waddles face: Whaaat... he likes it...

Steven: Why didn't you ask me to help you?

Mabel: :D

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Mabel: OH! YOU CAN DO SHAPESHIFTING, RIGHT?

Steven: Oh, yeah, but-

Mabel: Can you turn into anything!? Like a unicorn! Or a hamster! You can do this hamster ball thing, so!

Steven: uuhh haha... I don't really... like shapeshifting... sorry..

Mabel: Aw, why?

Steven: It's just... some things happened when I did...

Mabel: Like what?

Dipper: Mabel, don't bother him! If he doesn't like it then leave him alone.

Mabel: Yeahh... you're right. Sorry Steven!

Steven: Nono, it's okay, don't worry!

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this is something different than the "steven has the same powers as bill so dipper is sus" writing post i made lol (basically this one is just silly)

Dipper, walking around in circles: It's just... what does that star symbolize?

Mabel: What do you mean?

Dipper: The star on his shirt, Mabel! Does it have to do with this gem stuff? Is it related to his powers?

Mabel: Uh...Dipper, why are you questioning something like that?

Dipper: Well, he showed me a picture of himself when he was younger, and he always had this star on his shirt! Why?

Mabel: Maybe he just likes stars? Come on, bro. It's just some shirt design.

Dipper: I don't know...

later

Dipper: Steven... okay, so, this will sound weird but what does that star on your shirt mean?

Steven: Huh?

Dipper, pointing at it: You always have that star on your shirt. Does it have to do with your powers or something? Is it some magical shirt?

Steven: Oooh hahaha! No no, it's just my dads merchandise. Just like that pine tree on your hat, I'm guessing?

Dipper: ...Oh. Well then. rips a page from a notebook

Steven: ...Seriously?

Dipper: Yes, seriously.

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So what if something dangerous happens and steven completely turns pink also starts turns into his buff chad form (haha edgy)

Steven, in that form: Oh, oh no no no... oh no.. shit..

Dipper: Wha-

Mabel: What!?

Steven: Oh god, Mabel and Dipper, d-don't look at me!

Dipper: ...Does that new form... hurt you?

Steven: What? uh.. no.

Steven: I- I didn't want you guys to see me like this!

Dipper: No, no, it's uh, okay!

Mabel: Yeah, we're here! Don't worry!

Steven, slowly getting smaller do his normal form: It's just..

Steven, as his pink glow fades: This just hasn't happened in a while...

later

Mabel: Well, I made you some chocolate milk!

Steven: Thanks, Mabel.

Dipper: So... you better now? You're smaller than when you were well... all pink and glowy

Steven: Yeah, yeah i'm better now. I guess I need to tell this to my therapist though.

Mabel: You better! I don't want to see you hurt :(

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Steven: Hey do guys wanna fly

Dipper: Wh-

Mabel: YES!

Dipper: Um... what do you mean with "fly"?

Steven: I have floating powers. I can just carry you two and well.. fly around

Mabel: Oh my god!!! really!?

Steven: Yeah!

Dipper: How come you're just randomly suggesting this?

Steven: Well, strange things have been happening here in Gravity Falls, so I just wanted to lighten the mood up a little bit.

Dipper: Alright, then

Mabel: YEAHH!!! LETS FLOAT!

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Mabel, Dipper and Steven are basically floating now

Mabel: THIS IS AMAZING!!! You can float and summon a hamster ball! That's like, the best thing EVER!

Steven: hahah, yeah! ...Dipper you alright?

Dipper, absolutely worried that he's going to fall: y.. yes.

Steven: I can drop you off-

Dipper: AH- NO!

Steven: I mean like... slowly help you land on your feet again, yknow?

Dipper: Oh, uh, yes... please..

Steven: Alright!

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Mabel: Tickle attack!

Dipper: Mabel no- hahaha! Stop!

Steven, entering the room: Hey guys

Mabel, staring at him: >:)

Steven: o h n o

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Dipper: Is this your real form? You can shapeshift, after all.

Steven: Yes?

Dipper: HMM

Steven: How could I prove it to you anyways?

Dipper: I don't know-

Steven: Here, a picture of when I was younger. I can assure you that's me, and my 'real' form haha

Dipper: ...Wow you were small

Steven: You're one to talk

Dipper: Hey!

Steven: Haha!

Steven: Oh, by the way, you know that I don't like shapeshifting, right?

Dipper: Yeah... I guess you don't.

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Mabel: Uuughh I'm so bored

Dipper: Yeah, me too.

Steven: Do you guys wanna uh, bake something? maybe?

Mabel: Hmmm... like what

Steven: Oh! Have you heard of cookie cats?

Dipper: Cookie cats?

Steven: Here, let me show you a picture of them shows a picture of it from his phone

Mabel: It looks so cute!

Steven: We can bake this if you guys wanna?

Dipper: Well, we don't have anything else to do.

Mabel and Steven: Yeah!

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steven and dipper are just walking around the woods cause why not

Dipper: Ouch!

Steven: What happened? Are you okay?

Dipper: Yeah, it's just...I just scratched myself on this branch, i didn't even see it.

Steven: Oh, that's no problem! licks his finger

Dipper: uh-

Steven: puts his finger on Dippers wound there!

Dipper, healed: WH- HOW?

Steven: I have healing powers :)

Dipper: You surprise me everyday...

Dipper, whispering: Maybe I should tell Ford... hmm..

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again before they knew steven is half gem

Mabel: I love gems!

Steven: Me too! Even though some tried to kill me, most of them didn't really know what they were doing. Mostly when they were corrupted.

Mabel: H..huh?

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Mabel: Your girlfriend sure is cool Steven!

Steven: Yeah, I love her a lot.

Mabel:

Mabel: :")

Steven:

Steven: Uh-

Mabel: No, no. It's just cute. Don't mind me. I hope when I'm a teenager I can find love like this. Haha...

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Steven: You guys' grunkle is really nice!

Dipper: Yeah, at first he can be a bit mean, but in reality he's a great guy if he wants to be. Trust me, I've been there.

Steven: Aw... I said that cause he gave me something for free. That's a start, I guess?

Dipper: Sure is.

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Stan, going through a box of old stuff: Ahaha, yeah. Brings back some good old memories.

Steven: Oh, can I look? If you don't mind?

Stan: Sure kid.

Steven: ...

Steven: A... Space Train to the Cosmos CD?

Stan: Yeah, haha. He has the same last name as you. I remember listening to him years ago.

Steven: Mr. Pines... this is my dad. Greg Universe.

Stan: ... What.

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this is before D & M met Ford, I guess? (if this takes place when D & M arrive to GF for the first time)

Steven: So... what's that?

Dipper: Ah! It's uh- it's nothing. haha...

Steven: Dipper, are you okay? What are you holding there?

Dipper: sighs It's just...

Mabel: IT'S A JOURNAL!

Dipper: Mabel!

Steven: Oh, like a diary? That's cool.

Dipper: It's... more than that, actually.

Mabel: Come on! Let's just tell him!

Dippers: Well, uh, it's basically a journal that has a lot of information written down from all these weird monsters and creatures in Gravity Falls. I still have no idea who the author is.

Steven: Wow... Have you told Mr. Pines?

Dipper: He didn't take it seriously.

Steven: Hmm...

------------------------

Steven: I don't understand your purpose... nor do I understand why you look like that

Steven: But I support you

Soos: Dude it's just square pizza

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Connie visits again

Steven: Connie! Hey!

Connie: Steven!

they go for a hug, then fuse

Stevonnie: ...Uh-oh.

Mabel: :D WOOOO!!! HOW???

Dipper: >:0

Dipper: WHAT THE FUCK??

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Ford: This is so interesting... a half-gem, half-human.

Ford: Tell me, what can you do?

Steven: Well, I can summon a shield. I have healing powers. I can bring plants to life. I can bubble things up. I can also have destruct- oh, I uh, I actually don't like talking about that.

Ford: ...Can you show me your shield?

Steven: sure summons his shield

Ford: Wh- how do you do that?

Steven: Well, it's my gem that just summons it when I want to.

Ford: So how powerful is it?

Steven: Oh, pretty powerful, I guess? I was able to protect myself from the diamonds- oh uh, yeah, the uh diamonds are the most strongest gem, by the way. Yellow tried to step on me and tried to uh, hurt me haha but it's okay now.

Ford: Wow! So, how tall and strong are these diamonds? And uh, that's crazy she did that. But do tell me more.

Steven: They're really tall. I don't exactly know how much but as tall as a skyscraper... maybe taller? I'm not sure. The tallest one is White.

Ford: Interesting... I'm guessing you're a diamond too? You were able to protect yourself, after all.

Steven: starts glowing pink a little

Ford: Huh!?

Steven: Ah- sorry, sorry! That just happens sometimes!

Ford: Glowing pink... hm...

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Imagine they all (Stan, Soos, Steven, Dipper and Mabel) fall into that one bottomless pit. Steven completely panics because the others are falling and he's worried to the point where he just forgets about his floating powers. But after the others start telling some of their stories, he calms down. They turn around to him and ask him if he could tell a story aswell. He tells them about how cool it was to learn combat with his (now girl-)friend Connie. How at that point he learned something very important. The others listen very well to him, and as he finishes the story they, surprisingly, fall out of the bottomless pit. After this Mabel and Dipper ask Steven about the things he has learned and if he could teach them.

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Mabel and Dipper: wearing their peanut butter and jelly costumes

Steven: Hahaha! That looks nice, why are you dressed like that?

Mabel: Summerween!

Steven: Oh, I've never heard of that! :D

Dipper: Yeah cause they honestly just made all of this up.

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Steven hanging out with the other teens!!! Very important!!! He needs to learn how to "act his age", y'know what I mean? explore around. take some risks (that are not traumatising, thank you). just be a teenager in general.

(i could make a whole other post for this tbh)

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Stan: You have literally no legal documents, kid.

Steven: Yeahh...

Stan: I love it!

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Robbie: And who are you?

Steven: Oh I just, uh, work here.

Robbie: Yeah? With Wendy, huh?

Steven: Oh! Yeah, she's my workmate, I guess?

Robbie: Hm... right.

Robbie: walks past him while elbowing him in an aggressive way

Steven, whispering: Yikes... scary.

Dipper, from the back: I know right!?

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Mabel, goofing around, doing some weird stuff: hehehe

Steven: Wow... thinking about it, she'd get along with Amethyst.

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Mabel: gasp Oh my gosh! Steven, look at Waddles and Lion!

Lion and Waddles: literally just staring at eachother

Mabel and Steven, with star eyes: Awww....

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Wendy: Dude, your girlfriend seems really cool.

Steven: Oh, yeah! She's great. She's really smart and pretty, she can sing and play the violin... she can sword fight-

Wendy: Wait wait wait... sword fight?

Steven: Yeah!

Wendy: Your girlfriend rides a pink lion and can sword fight? That's so cool!

Steven, full of love: Ah, yeah... she's amazing...

------------------------

Hope y'all enjoyed this one. This is the second part! Even though none of these are in any order, so it doesn't matter. But here's the first one. Also, I just wanted to say something about the shapeshifting thing: I do enjoy posts where Steven shapeshifts to make his arm or whatever longer to help. It's really cute, but in my opinion (again, my opinion) I feel like after steven turning into a cat and kaiju monster, he'd be way too uncomfortable to shapeshift. It'd also remind him of when he became taller, buff and was glowing pink. That's just what I think. :-)

1K notes · View notes

fallen-gravity · 4 years ago

Text

Cheap Thrills and Expensive Snacks

Mabel grins. “Grunkle Ford, do you want to go on a road trip with us? One last adventure before we have to go home?”

Ford’s smile softens with sadness. He’d gotten so caught up in reveling in Bill’s defeat that he’d almost forgotten the kids were heading back to California at the end of the summer.

Ford shakes his head. “I would love to, but…” he frowns. “I’m not sure we have enough time”

The young twins exchange grins, like that’s exactly the response they were waiting for.

“I wouldn’t say that, Grunkle Ford” Dipper grins, looking like he’s struggling to suppress a fit of giggles.

“We have all time in the world” Mabel finishes Dipper’s sentence for him, and in perfect unison the twins pull out a roll of measuring tape from their pockets.

Notes: Here's my belated entry for Week 3 of Forduary: Road Trip!! I absolutely love the road trip trope, and highkey wish Ford could've gotten to see some of Stan's competitors just for the sake of how awful they were compared to the Mystery Shack. C'mon! Give Stan some credit.I also wanted an excuse for Ford to bond more with the kids before they went home, and what better way than through a never-ending roadtrip that somewhat breaks the laws of time and space?

@forduary

AO3

Ever since Ford heard the first bird chirping the morning after Weirdmageddon’s conclusion, he’s felt like a thirty-year old weight has finally been lifted from his shoulders. For the first time in decades, Ford has found himself able to sleep, able to eat, able to do and say anything he pleases without having to speak in hushed tones or cast a cautious glance behind his shoulders.

For the first time since his childhood, he truly feels like himself again, and no longer like a marionette whose strings are always on the brink of snapping under pressure.

It was that first morning after the war, upon waking up before others (out of habit, mostly), that he allowed himself to truly sit and ponder on everything he’s been missing since shutting himself out from the world in his early twenties. He quickly came to the conclusion that the things he missed most were always the things he’d always had just outside of arm’s length; He missed the thrill of discovery, of exploration, the passion for his life’s work that had faded into thin air the moment that fateful first test run of the portal had failed.

Most of all, he missed companionship.

As much as he hated to admit it to himself, Ford needed other people in his life more than anything else, even more than Ivy League schools and research grants and all the knowledge in the universe.

He told Stan the reason he wanted to take a boat out to the Arctic was to track and contain the remnants of Weirdmageddon that had begun to spread outside of Gravity Falls. But truth be told, he would’ve asked Stan if he still wanted to travel world with him regardless, because Ford found himself wanting nothing more than to chase their childhood dream and never let it go again.

There’s a light knock on his study door as he’s scribbling down navigation notes and he’s half-expecting to see Stan when he turns to the noise. He’s instead met with Dipper and Mabel, standing side by side in his doorway.

“Got a minute?” Dipper asks.

“We have something super important to ask you!” Mabel beams.

Ford places his pen down on his desk, and smiles. “I’m listening”

“Well,” Dipper starts. “We’ve been thinking about how we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with you this summer because...” he shrugs. “Well, because we didn’t know you existed until a few weeks ago”

“And that’s totally unfair to you!” Mabel throws her arms up in the air. “It’s not your fault you missed out on all the fun because you were trapped in another dimension”

Dipper nods. “And that got us thinking of all the time we spent with Grunkle Stan, and the road trip he took us on a few weeks ago without you. I don’t know if that was because he asked you and you said no, or if he left without telling you out of spite, or something”

“And that’s when a super genius idea came to us!” Mabel grins. “Grunkle Ford, do you want to go on a road trip with us? One last adventure before we have to go home?”

Ford’s smile softens with sadness. He’d gotten so caught up in reveling in Bill’s defeat that he’d almost forgotten the kids were heading back to California at the end of the summer.

But…a glance to the calendar hanging by the doorway tells him it’s August 29th, and the twins are set to leave after their birthday party ends on the 31st.

Ford shakes his head. “I would love to, but…” he frowns. “I’m not sure we have enough time”

The young twins exchange grins, like that’s exactly the response they were waiting for.

“I wouldn’t say that, Grunkle Ford” Dipper grins, looking like he’s struggling to suppress a fit of giggles.

“We have all time in the world” Mabel finishes Dipper’s sentence for him, and in perfect unison the twins pull out a roll of measuring tape from their pockets. Before Ford has even a moment to wonder what they could mean, they each pull on their tape, high five each other, and disappear into thin air.

Ford stumbles to his feet, nearly knocking his chair to the ground. Between one blink and the next the kids reappear, both of them wearing period piece costumes. The measuring tapes in their hand crackle with blue lightning.

Ford gasps. “Time tapes! Of course!” He approaches the twins in the doorway. “How did you two get ahold of these?”

“Let’s just say we have an inside to these sorts of things” Mabel replies, kicking her costume off and placing her time tape back into her sweater pocket.

“So what do you say?” Dipper steps forward. “Do you want to come with us on a road trip? We can literally go whenever we want”

“You mean when--” Mabel pauses, backtracking. “Oh, wait, you did say that”

“So what do you say, Grunkle Ford? One more adventure for the road?”

Ford’s chest fills with warmth. He’d love to; he really would, but…

“What about Stan?”

“Y’gotta give me some credit, poindexter” Stan’s voice rings from behind the corner. If Ford had to guess, it’s probably because he was waiting for his response. “Someone’s gotta tag along to babysit you three”

Ford wants to glare at his brother at the insult, but his excitement overtakes it and a grin spreads to his face instead.

“Let’s go,” he says, with all the wonder in his tone that he’d been missing for years.

Dipper and Mabel exchange nods, and take each other’s hands. With their free hands, they stretch their measuring tapes out the same length. Stan grabs on to Mabel’s shoulder, and after he and Dipper share a silent, knowing glance, Ford places his hand on Dipper’s shoulder.

Dipper and Mabel release their tape in unison, and a large flash of white light overwhelms Ford’s vision. When it finally fades, the four of them are still standing exactly where they’d been a moment ago, the only indication that anything changed being the sparks of blue lightning crackling from their clothes.

Dipper’s the first to step away from the huddle. “See?” He gestures at Ford’s wall calendar, which now displays June instead of August. “It’s practically the beginning of the summer all over again!”

Mabel breaks away to stand beside Dipper. “Now we can go anywhere we want! We could go to Portland, or Vegas, or the lost city of Atlantis, or anywhere in the world, because this bad boy prevents us from missing our bus ride home for as long as we want!”

Stan chuckles, shaking his head. “Not so fast, Mabel. I love the enthusiasm, but I’m not sure my old RV can handle driving into the ocean. Not unless Brainiac over here is willing to do some modifications on it” Stan throws an arm around Ford’s shoulder, squeezing it tightly. “Besides, I’ve already got a plan!” Stan’s gaze shifts to Ford, and the grin on his face could split it in two. “If you think my attractions look fake, just wait ‘til you see how bad my competitors look compared to me!”

“I dunno,” Dipper frowns, scratching at his chin. “Don’t you think going back to the place where you were almost eaten by a giant spider lady is a bad idea?”

“Hey, time travel rules mean that I never met her in the first place, right?” Stan crosses his arms. “Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna fall for her tricks all over again just because she offers me discounted tickets, or something”

Dipper and Mabel exchange worried glances.

“Mmm, okay,” Dipper says. “But we’re keeping an eye on you”

“That’s the spirit!” Stan exclaims, and slaps Ford on the back as he backs out of the room. “I’m gonna go pack. I doubt you have anything to pack, Sixer, but we’re reconvening in the gift shop in an hour. Go…take a shower or something. I don’t wanna spend next twelve hours driving with someone smelling like that.”

Ford glares at him, but before he has time to respond Stan’s already gone. The kids must’ve slipped out close on Stan’s heels, because when Ford turns he’s alone in his room. Rolling his eyes, he walks to his couch and kneels on the ground, reaching underneath for his emergency exploration pack. It’s a backpack torn and worn from age, and comes already packed with water bottles, nutrient bars, sunscreen, and just about every brand of monster repellent known to mankind.

A nostalgic sort of smile threatens to tug at his lips. He hasn’t seen this bag since his early research days with Fiddleford. He slings it over his shoulders, and pats at his trench coat pocket to make sure his journal is still safely tucked inside. He doesn’t necessarily plan on making any more additions, but he supposes that old habits die hard.

It’s a very bulky RV, much bigger than Ford was expecting. He’d assumed that Stan calling it an RV was just an exaggeration, and that the four of them would just be piling into the Stanleymobile as they tugged some tiny trailer along that they would only would only step foot in for sleeping. But as Ford approaches, he can see Dipper and Mabel chatting at a small table through the window, and Stan rummaging through a cupboard above them, and it looks as though there’s still plenty of room to walk between them.

Mabel taps on Dipper’s shoulder, points in Ford’s direction, and both of them wave frantically out the window at him.

“Took you long enough,” Stan suddenly appears in the doorway of the camper. “Now get in. The last thing we need is to run into the past versions of those two and get bombarded with questions” He gestures with his thumb towards Dipper. “Especially him. He sees that journal sticking out of your pocket and we’re done for”

Ford chuckles. “I can only imagine,” he says, and climbs aboard behind Stan. He’s about to take the passenger side seat besides Stan when the kids frantically wave him over.

“Grunkle Ford, over here!” Mabel beams, and hops down from her seat across from Dipper. “Come sit with us!”

“This is a road trip about spending more time with you, after all” Dipper nods. “What good will it do for us if you’re sitting way up front with Stan?”

“Yeah! No good interrogation ever happens from across the room!” Mabel exclaims.

Ford raises an eyebrow, but smiles at the pair as he takes a seat across from them. “Interrogation?”

“Yep!” Dipper grins. “We already know all of the heroic scientist stuff about you…”

“But we want to know the fun Grunkle stuff about you!” Mabel finishes his sentence for him. “You favorite ice cream flavor, your first kiss, the most illegal thing you’ve ever gotten away with…you know, just the basics!”

Ford blushes. “Well, I don’t know about that…”

“Aww, I’m sure it’s not that bad! Dipper’s first kiss was with a merman he had to give reverse CPR to!”

“Mabel!” Dipper squeaks, his whole a dark shade of red. “That’s not fair! You know I didn’t have a choice!”

Ford can’t help the fond smile that spreads to his face. It’s moments like these that he’s going to miss the most. Sure, he’ll have anomalies, and treasure, and the whole world to explore, but he just knows that none of that is ever going to compare to time alone with the kids.

Once Stan gets the RV up and running, Ford knows there’s no going back. He and the kids swap childhood stories for hours, only pausing when Stan pulls off the side of the road to fuel up on gas and snacks. Dipper tells him of the time him and Mabel shaved their heads after a bully stuck gum in Mabel’s hair on photo day, and Ford tells them of the time that he and Stan swapped clothes on photo day just to see if they could get away with it. (They could, and Ford still has the yearbook where their photos are mislabeled as each other hidden away in his study to this day).

It’s eye opening, honestly. The young twins really are a mirror image to himself and Stan when they were kids.

“We’re here!” Stan grins, screeching the RV to a sudden halt. Upon looking out the window, the only thing Ford can see is a gift shop about the size of an outhouse and a ball of yarn about three sizes bigger than the RV. Stan stands from the driver’s seat, stretching. “You think I overcharge for my tours, Sixer? This woman charges double the price of my admission just to take a picture of this fuzz ball” He reaches underneath the driver’s seat, pulling out a large hook attached to a thick rope. “We’re only doing her a favor by stealing it! Starting from scratch with a new attraction could do her some good”

“Hmm, I dunno” Dipper shrugs. “Don’t you think that doing the exact same prank on all of your competitors in the exact same order is just gonna result in them, I dunno, pranking you again in the exact same way?”

“Nonsense!” Stan brings his hand to his chest like Dipper had offended him. “The only reason they got away with it last time is because we left poindexter here home alone in the basement. There’ll be dozens of tour groups coming through the shack today with my past self taking care of the place for me.” He taps at his forehead. “Besides, wasn’t this whole road trip your idea in the first place?” He smirks. “Are you telling me that your own idea is dumb?”

Dipper opens his mouth to argue back, realizes he has nothing, and pouts grumpily as he hops out of the RV. Stan cackles, and hops out of the RV after him. Ford rolls his eyes, and hops out after them to take a look at his surroundings. Stan really wasn’t kidding; everything really is contained to the one parking lot with nothing to show for it but the giant ball of yarn and a converted outhouse with tie-dye tee shirts hanging from its roof.

“Don’t just stand there gawking at it!” Stan slaps him on the shoulder, grinning. “Either help the kids out or talk the old woman’s ear off long enough to distract her” he gestures with a thumb towards Dipper and Mabel, giggling and poking at each other as they tie the rope end of the hook to the RV. As Mabel walks to attach the hook to the large yarn ball, she notices Ford watching her and waves hello.

“Hey Grunkle Ford!” she shouts. “If there’s enough left over from this mound after we drag it home, I’ll knit you a sweater with it!”

Ford laughs as he approaches to help her. “I’m counting on it.”

As it turns out, she wasn’t joking. As soon as they’ve all piled back into the RV to head to the next tourist trapped, Mabel already has her sewing needles in hand and a tangled ball of multicolored yarn sitting on the table in front of her. It’s amazing watching her work, clicking the needles together so quickly yet delicately, not missing a single fold. Ford’s never seen someone pour so much love into something so particular since the early days of his research.

Ford doesn’t want to interrupt her focus, so he turns to Dipper instead.

“How long has she been able to do that?”

Dipper glances at his sister beside him. “Oh, you mean sewing? Our grandma from our mom’s side of the family taught her when she was about six.” He rolls his eyes. “Our parents tried to buy her an electronic sewing machine for our eighth birthday, but she flat out rejected it because she insisted there wouldn’t be enough love in her creations if she didn’t make them by hand”

“It’s true!” Mabel exclaims, not looking up from her sewing job. “I’m not gonna sit around and let some machine do all the work for me! How are my friends and family supposed to know I made them their sweaters with love if I didn’t sew my blood and sweat into the threads myself?”

Ford hopes she’s being metaphorical, but the sentiment is still there. “So you’re telling me that every sweater you’ve worn this summer is homemade?”

“Yep!” she beams. “All the way down to the embroidery.” She holds up the skeleton of the sweater she’s working on into the light. “You’re real lucky, Grunkle Ford. This’ll be my first sweater I’ve ever made out of stolen materials!”

Her use of the term first rather than only makes Ford laugh. The more time he spends with them, the less he wants to say goodbye to them. Stan must be the bravest man alive, being willing to send these kids home after three months with them, because if it were up to him he’d already be signing adoption papers to make them legally his.

“Stop two!” Stan yells from the front of the RV, and hops out as soon as they’re parked. Mabel places her work gently on the table, and follows Stan out without any effort. Dipper, on the other hand, takes one look out the window at where they’ve stopped and pales.

“Oh no”

Ford follows his gaze. It’s just a single story home turned on its head, absolutely nothing about it giving Ford the impression that there’s anything scary about it.

“What’s wrong?” Ford asks. “Do you get motion sickness? I learned quite a few tricks on how to deal with just the thing in the Spinning Top Dimension! You’re going to need a few things first, but I’m sure we’ll be able to find them around here somewhere-”

“N-no, it’s not that” Dipper cuts him off, face turning a dark shade of red. “The last time we were here I tried asking Grunkle Stan if he had any advice on how to talk to girls. And there was this one really cute girl, and we hit it off, but…” he rubs at his arm. “I acted like a total jerk. I treated her like she was just a number and I feel awful about it”

Ford frowns, getting down on one knee. “You’re not worried you’re going to run into her again, are you? This time loop should be stable enough to prevent her from showing up early”

Dipper’s gaze falls to the floor. “No, it’s more like…I’m so afraid of being myself that I feel like the only way I can fit in is to act like something I’m not. I just wish I could figure out a way to talk to girls without forcing myself to act like I’m better than them or something”

Ford smiles. “Dipper, I may not have any sound advice when it comes to girls, but I’ve only known you for a number of weeks, and I think anyone would be lucky to have you. You’re kind and caring and so brilliant for your age” Dipper opens his mouth to protest, but Ford shakes his head. “Some of the most brilliant minds in the world suffered from anxiety and depression, my boy, and look where they are now. I have the upmost confidence that the same thing is bound to happen to you”.

Dipper’s eyes are big and wide, like he’s about to cry, but the waterworks never come. Dipper throws his arms around Ford’s neck in a hug, and Ford hugs him back. Once they pull away, they hop out of the van to join Stan and Mabel outside to prevent Stan from coming back in to yell at them. This stop is a bit less complicated, just a simple walkthrough to make sure there isn’t a hoard of tourists inside before running back out to tip the whole house right side up. It’s a lot of laughing from Stan and sprinting back to the van, and once they’re out of the parking lot and back on the highway it’s as if they never stopped at all. Mabel gets right back to working on her sweater, and Dipper gets right back to chatting up Ford for life stories.

A good portion of their stops go equally as smooth. The kids convince Ford to go on the log flume at Log Land with them which he absolutely does not throw up on, thank you very much, and Mabel nearly gets lost in a corn maze, but otherwise there’s nothing much of interest. Ford’s starting to suspect that Stan must be right, that the Mystery Shack really is the most interesting tourist trap in the entire state, until a giant mountain looms over the horizon.

“There she is,” Stan says, as if he could read his brother’s thoughts. “Her first year of opening I lost over half my usual revenue and I’ve sworn revenge on her ever since” He balls his hand into a fist and smacks the top of the steering wheel. “Our biggest mistake last time was getting too attached. I say this time we run in, grab as many mummies as we can get our hands on, and book it back to the shack before Darlene notices.”

“Don’t you mean that was your biggest mistake?” Dipper quips. “Besides, didn’t we find out last time that those mummies are real dead bodies?” He shivers. “I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel about stealing them”

From the rearview mirror, Stan raises an eyebrow at Dipper. “What, you afraid their souls are gonna follow us home and haunt us? Work on your moral compass later, kid, this is about revenge” He adjusts the mirror. “Besides! What’s the chance we rescue someone who isn’t dead yet, just slowly suffocating in that nasty tasting web?”

Dipper opens his mouth to say one thing, pauses, and starts again. “Grunkle Stan, are you telling me you tried to eat the web you were trapped in?”

Stan shrugs. “Hey, I’m no stranger to chewing my way out of things. I’m just lucky I didn’t break any teeth on it, like I did with that car trunk”

As if that doesn’t raise more questions than it does answers, Stan drops the conversation entirely and doesn’t say another word until the RV pulls into the parking lot. Ford can’t even see the mountain peak when he hops out, it’s so obscured by fog that he knows wasn’t there ten minutes ago. Fog is the number one trap produced by anomalies to hunt their pray, so it’s no wonder this place gives Stan the creeps. Ford can’t even begin to imagine the size of the spider monsters the others described to him.

A shriek nearly escapes him at the feeling of something spindly crawling up his arm, but when he whips around he sees it’s just Stan running his fingers along his shoulder in a quick, scattered pattern. When he catches Ford’s eyes, he laughs so hard that tears pour down his cheeks.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face!” Stan wheezes. “You were all oh no, mister spider half the size of my hand, don’t eat me!” he cackles, wiping at his eyes with his wrist. “C’mon, time is money, and we don’t have any to waste” he gestures to the kids, already waiting at the information booth. “If we don’t hurry the kids are gonna get on the sky tram without us”

Ford raises an eyebrow. “You? On a sky tram?”

“Dipper didn’t tell you?” Stan’s raised eyebrow matches Ford’s. “Mabel helped me conquer my fear of heights! Now I’m untouchable!”

Seventeen years of the boardwalk and all the cotton candy as bribe in the world couldn’t fix Stan’s fear of heights. Dipper and Mabel really do continue to amaze him the more Stan tells him about them.

“Right,” Ford shakes his head, smiling fondly. “Of course.”

It’s really no wonder this place boasts having the world’s slowest sky tram, because if it weren’t for the moving tree line Ford would almost think they weren’t moving at all. The bored expression on everyone else’s faces, a massive shift from the mischievous grins they’d been wearing before they got on has Ford choking down laughter. It’s about five minutes before there’s any sight of anything but tree bark, and the sun beaming directly into the glass car makes the whole thing feel like a sauna.

Still, it’s a dramatic shift in pace, and not one that Ford rejects. It’s really forcing him to slow down and think about his own feelings for once, a privilege he hasn’t had since he was in high school. Maybe it’s a little selfish of him to cherish the times he just gets to lose himself in his own head, rather than to spend so much of his time calculating plans to rescue others from danger, but-

“Whaddya think, poindexter?” Stan’s voice suddenly breaks through Ford’s thoughts, startling him.

Ford blushes. “What do I think of what?”

“The new plan!” Stan gestures to Dipper with his thumb. “Since this buzzkill is so against stealing ‘real dead bodies’,” he emphasizes with air quotes, “and since we probably couldn’t shove them all in this car anyway, we’re gonna go ahead with Plan B instead; Burning down Widow’s Peak!” Stan throws his hands in the air dramatically.

Dipper beams. “That way, they can’t make any more mummies for their mummy museum, and we might be able to save a few people from suffocating to death!” Stan and Dipper high five.

“It’s a brilliant plan, but…” Ford taps at his chin. “Where do you suppose we’re going to find the fire to burn it down?”

Stan cocks an eyebrow at him. “You tell me, mister ‘setting my face on fire is faster than shaving’. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a lighter in your pocket right now. They have a bunch of prop torches in the caves, but if we pop the lightbulbs out of them and light them they should work good as usual” Stan’s mischievous grin is back on his face, a perfect reflection of when he was thirteen and pickpocketing a dollar from people’s wallets on the boardwalk to buy a box of saltwater taffy.

Turns out, it’s just as contagious now as it was back then. Ford reaches into the front pocket of his trench coat, and sure enough, comes up with a lighter. Stan erupts in laughter at the sight of it, and soon enough the entire car is infected with it. The rest of the ride up the mountain is much bubblier after that, with everyone swapping overdramatic stories of how the plan is going to go.

Widow’s Peak is much bigger than Ford was expecting. It’s a whole cave that looks like it stretches for miles, and there really are rotting skeletons hanging upside down from the cave walls and ceilings.

Ford shudders.

“Aww, c’mon, Sixer! I know for a fact this isn’t half as bad as the stuff in your journals” Stan jabs at his shoulder with his unlit torch. “Besides, didn’t you say in your own journal that most ghosts come from their old bodies not having a proper burial? He gestures at a skeleton hanging upside down from the ceiling, its left hand barely hanging on by a thread. “You think any of these guys look like their spirits were able to move on peacefully, or however it goes?” Stan shakes his head matter of-factly. “You really want some poor unsuspecting tourist to bump into a hoard of angry ghosts? Tsk tsk”

“Alright, alright” Ford raises his hands in self-defense. “I suppose you’re right”. He takes his lighter out of his pocket and tosses it to Stan. Stan lights up his own torch, helps Dipper and Mabel with theirs, and then he turns back to help light Ford’s.

“Alright,” Stan rubs his hands together the best he can with a lit torch tucked under his arms. “Everyone knows the plan. Burn as many mummies as you can find, rescue the poor suckers who are still alive, and signal if you hear Darlene coming. Since I don’t trust Sixer over here not to try and interview her and get himself in trouble again, I say I’m in charge of lookout duty.” He adjusts his collar and flattens down the wrinkles of his suits with a quick pat down. “I flirt with her just long enough to distract her, I throw my torch in her face, and then we book it out of here as fast as our legs can carry us”

Dipper still doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t know, isn’t that exactly how you got yourself tangled up in a web last time?”

“Oh please,” Stan scoffs, waving a dismissive hand. “The only reason that worked last time is ‘cause she cornered me when we were alone. Besides, where’s she gonna take me if she catches me that you can’t just throw a torch and rescue me five minutes after it happens?”

Dipper’s face darkens. “True,” he mumbles under his breath, which makes Stan laugh. Stan slaps him on the shoulder, and Dipper glares at him, but there doesn’t seem to be any malice in it.

It’s one final glance between the four of them, and they’re all running off in different directions of the cave. It’s not long before the stench of burning silk fills the air, mixed with the stench of something Ford doesn’t want to think too much about. The webs burn relatively quickly, and together they burn through half of the cave in a much faster time than Ford would’ve expected. He’s about to light up one that looks like it was left here fairly recently, until something inside it starts wiggling. Startled, Ford steps backwards until his back hits the cave wall, a soft oof escaping him.

“S’matter, poindexter?” Stan looks up from the fire he’s stomping out with his foot. “You see a widdle baby spider that freaked you out?”

Ford tries to glare at him, but the fear stabbing him in the chest doesn’t let it stick. He swallows hard, and points towards the wiggling cocoon with his torch.

“I think we have a live one” he whispers, stepping to stand beside Stan. Once Stan follows Ford’s torch with his eyes, something inside him tenses up.

“Ah, wh-what’d I tell you?” Stan’s voice shakes. “It’s probably just some poor sucker who fell for Darlene’s charms. Definitely not a gross sack of baby spider people or anything”

“R-right,” Ford swallows hard, and inches back towards the cocoon, rapidly waving his torch back and forth to potentially scare off whatever could be inside trying to break out. But the longer he waves the torch in front of the web, the more he can make out the silhouette of a regular human being.

Throwing all caution to the wind, Ford rushes forward and begins tearing at the web with his bare hands, just enough so that the man is free from the chest up. He takes large gasps of air, and upon realizing that his hands are free he begins tearing at the web himself. Once his feet are free and hit the ground, he takes one look at the Pines family, mumbles a startled thank you, and runs for his life out of the cave.

After that, the rest of the burnings go pretty smoothly. There’s significantly less living tourists in the cave than Ford would’ve expected from such a large tourist trap, and Ford’s not entirely sure whether he should find that reassuring or downright terrifying. He’s almost surprised everything went so well, until the four of them nearly collide with a woman on their way out of the cave.

She looks just as baffled to see them as Ford feels to see her.

“Can I…help you?” She asks in a thick Jersey-esque accent. The name tag pinned to her shirt reads DARLENE in large brick letters.

“No!” Dipper cuts in before neither Ford nor Stan can respond to her. He clears his throat. “I mean, uh, no. Uh, apologies if this is a restricted area, but we got lost trying to find our way back to the sky tram” he shrugs overdramatically, no doubt in attempt to show Darlene that his hands are empty. She squints at him, and for a moment Ford could swear he just saw her blink horizontally. The silence that follows, though it probably doesn’t last for more than a few seconds, feels like it drags on for ages.

Suddenly, she’s donning an overly sweet smile. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? Let me walk you back. We’ve gotten more than our fair share of tourists who’ve gone missing from wandering too far into our caves, and I’d hate to have that happen to such a nice looking family like yours” She grins, flashing her unusually sharp teeth. The four of them stay quiet until they’re all packed into their tram car, and Darlene is waving sweetly at them from behind.

They each collectively sigh. “Woof, that was a close one” Stan says, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his wrist. In a sudden shift of mood, he reaches over next to him and pulls Dipper into a headlock. “How’s about it for this guy’s quick thinking, huh?” he grins, and the four of them laugh until they hear a horrifying screech that makes their tram car rumble. They turn, and see Darlene emerging from the cave, the bottom half of her body replaced by that of a giant spider.

“My food!” she screams, shaking her first at the tram cars. “You burned all my food! Mark my words, I may not have gotten your names but I don’t forget faces very easily, you hear? If you ever show your face here again you’re dead meat!” She screams, yanking on her hair to reveal the rest of her spider-like body under her human disguise.

Stan simply cackles. “Yeah, we’ll see about that!” he mocks, knowing well enough that she can’t hear them from inside the car. He turns his attention back to the rest of the family. “Maybe we should go and warn our past selves to bring bug spray!” He exclaims, laughing himself to near tears.

Ford only rolls his eyes, but can’t help the smile on his face.

If only he’d known what he’d be missing when he turned down Stan’s offer to take this road trip with him and the kids the first time around.

The tram ride back to the parking lot is even more relaxing than the ride up. The sun is setting this time around, and even if the wind can’t really reach inside the car the whole thing just feels cooler. Most of all, he finds that the sound of the Stan and the kids’ laughter is far more welcome than any old conversation he could have in his own head.

When everyone piles back into the RV, they do not drive away immediately like they had at all the other stops. Instead, Stan turns around to face the three of them. “Well, that’s the end of that. That’s all I had planned, and we still have…” he pauses to count on his finger. “Two more months ‘til the kids have to go back home, technically. I’m all out of ideas, and I’m sure the kids have seen enough of the Gravity Falls weirdness for one summer”

He smiles to the kids, who nod and in turn smile at Ford.

“So where do you want to go now, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel says, with stars shining in her eyes. The grin spreading on Dipper’s face matches hers like two peas in a pod.

“Any place in the world. Wherever you want to go…” He pulls the time tape out of his pocket. “…For however long you want”

#my writing #gravity falls #forduary #pines family

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nataliedanovelist · 4 years ago

Text

GF - National Treasure

An AU in which Ford and Stan didn’t have a stupid fight, and the Pines family had been entrusted with a secret generations ago...

~~~~~~~~~~

The pair of eight-year-old twins carefully opened the screechy door to the attic. Inside the room was filled to the brim with boxes and old random stuff, but Mabel and Dipper knew better. They grinned and started to explore.

They were at Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford’s house for Thanksgiving. Normally the weather is bright and sunshiny and it’s perfect for making leaf piles and running around, but not today. Today it was raining with the occasional ring of thunder and a flash of lightning. So rather than go outside while the adults sat around the burning stove and talked about boring adult stuff, the kids decided to go on a little adventure.

Mabel flipped a switch and a sad hanging lightbulb turned on. Seeing what they wanted, Dipper grinned and started to climb cardboard boxes like steps for a book up on the highest stack. Mabel held the boxes still for her brother, and together they retrieved the old maroon book encrusted with a gold emblem. Mabel made sure Dipper climbed down safely, and then they looked down at the book together with their backs to the door, a poor decision.

“Whatcha got there?”

The kids gasped loudly and turned around. Standing side by side was their great-uncles, the only other pair of twins in the family. Grunkle Ford stood in his slacks and red sweater-vest with a brown dress shirt and trenchcoat, a soft smile on his face and his six-fingered hands in his pockets. Grunkle Stan had his arms crossed over his beefy chest, smiling slyly at the kids, as if telling them silent that he was proud of them for being so sneaky. He wore worn blue jeans and a faded white tank-top, and had an old maroon robe on.

“Uh…” Dipper stuttered, still a little startled by the sudden appearance and for getting caught. “Um… we…”

“You both know you’re not supposed to be up here.” Grunkle Ford reminded them gently, not sounding at all angry, rather amused.

Dipper nodded, but Mabel was bold enough to admit, “We just wanted to know the truth.”

“Ah,” Grunkle Stan pulled a cardboard box to himself and sat comfortably. “I guess I’m up for a little storytelling.”

Grunkle Ford sat on a separate box and asked his brother, “Are you sure about this, Stanley?”

“They’re old enough.” Grunkle Stan said confidently, ruffling their little heads. Giggling, Mabel crawled up onto Grunkle Stan’s lap and Dipper sat on Grunkle Ford’s lap, the book still in his tight grasp.

“Tell us a story, tell us a story!” Mabel pleaded, bouncing on Grunkle Stan’s lap.

“Okay, okay.” The old man chuckled and began to tell his story. “It was 1852…”

“No it was not.” Grunkle Ford interrupted. “It was 1832.”

“Shaddup, I’m telling the story!”

“I’d let you tell it id you would tell it correctly.”

The kids giggled at the playful bickering and Grunkle Stan joined in. “Alright, fine, it was 1832. It was storming, kinda like it is right now, and late into the night. Charles Carroll was the last guy who had signed the Declaration of Independence and was still alive.”

“You do know what that is, right?” Grunkle Ford asked the children, who both nodded.

“We learned about it in school.” Dipper informed.

“Oh, good.”

“Anyways,” Grunkle Stan injected, excited to tell his story. “Charles Carroll was part of a secret society called The Masons.”

“Like me!” Dipper gasped.

Grunkle Ford chuckled and ruffled his hair. “That’s right, my boy. That’s right.”

“You see, this Charles guy was dying.” Grunkle Stan went on. “And so he had his stable boy drive him in the dark storm to the White House so he could talk to Andrew Jackson.”

“Why?” Mabel asked.

“Cuz Charles had an important secret to tell the president before he died.”

“Did he talk to him?” Dipper asked.

Ford shook his head. “No. He never got the chance. You see, the stable boy went to alter the president, but he wasn’t home that evening.”

“Probably too busy kicking Indians outta their homes.” Grunkle Stan muttered bitterly.

“Stanley,” Grunkle Ford hissed warningly.

“So, with no one else to tell his secret to, Charles locked himself inside the carriage with the stable boy, our grandfather’s grandfather, James Pines, and told him his secret.” Grunkle Stan said.

“What was his secret?” Dipper asked.

The old men exchanged smiles, then whispered at the same time, “A treasure.”

A crack of thunder and lightning made the children hold onto their great-uncle tightly. “A treasure beyond all imagining.” Grunkle Ford muttered.

“A treasure that had been fought over for centuries by tyrants, pharaohs, emperors, warlords.” Grunkle Stan added.

“And every time it changed hands, it grew bigger and bigger.”

“And then suddenly,” Grunkle Ford snapped his fingers. “It vanished. And it didn’t reappear until over a thousand years later, when knights from the first crusades discovered secret vaults beneath the Temple of King Solomon.”

“You kids do know who King David and Solomon are, right?” Grunkle Stan double-checked. When Dipper and Mabel nodded, he went on with the story. “The knights who found it agreed it was too good for anybody, so they brought the treasure to Europe and formed a group called The Knight Templar.”

“Over the next century, they smuggled it out of Europe.” Grunkle Ford narrated. “They formed a new brotherhood called The Free Masons, after the builders of the great temple. But then the Revolutionary War happened, but by then the treasure had been hidden again.”

“And The Free Masons now included folks like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere.” Grunkle Stan said. “They knew they had to make sure the British never got their dirty hands on it, so they devised a series of clues and maps to each location. Over time, the clues were lost or forgotten. That is, except for one last clue, and that’s what Charles wanted to give to the president, but he gave it to James Pines.”

Grunkle Ford and Dipper opened the book, and the old researcher pulled out an old piece of paper, then read it out-loud to the children. “The secret lies with Charlotte.”

“Charlotte?” Mabel repeated. “Who’s she?”

“No one knows.” Grunkle Ford answered. “Not even poor Charles Carroll knew.”

“But, the Masons and the Founding Fathers were clever, like us.” Grunkle Stan reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill, showing the kids the symbols. “The unfinished pyramid, the all-seeing eye. Those are symbols of the Guardians of the Temple. They’re speaking to us, just in a language we don’t speak yet.”

They all heard warm chuckling and looked at the doorway to see Dipper and Mabel’s father standing in a red flannel and smiling at the warm scene. “Or they thought it looked cool and decided to put it on their money so other countries would take them seriously.”

Grunkle Stan shook his head and pocketed his cash. “Your old man doesn’t believe in the Free Masons anymore.”

“I just think our Founding Fathers were a little too busy fighting for their lives and freedom to have time to hide the world’s largest treasure and leave clues on how to find it.” Alex said with a shrug. “Anyway, we really should get going. Thanks again for having us over, you guys.”

“Of course, we’re always happy to see you all.” Grunkle Ford reassured as the old men put the kids down and stood up.

Alex went downstairs, and Grunkle Ford and Stan moved to follow, but a small voice stopped them. “Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, are…” Dipper stopped, shy and hesitant, and rubbed his arm bashfully.

But Mabel understood him and finished the question for him. “Are we knights?”

Grunkle Stan laughed and Grunkle Ford chuckled warmly at their children. “You both wanna be?” Grunkle Stan asked.

The kids nodded excitedly.

“Okay. Kneel.” Grunkle Stan instructed.

Dipper and Mabel obeyed. Grunkle Stan shed his robe and grape it over Dipper’s shoulders, meanwhile Grunkle Ford took off his trenchcoat and decorated Mabel with it in the same manner. Then Grunkle Stan took out his pocket knife, popped it open, and held it upward, like a sword.

“Mason and Mabel Pines, as great-great-great-great-grandkids of James Pines, do you take the duties…” Grunkle Stan snorted. “Heh. Duties.”

Grunkle Ford groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose while the kids giggled. “Do you swear to take the responsibilities of the Templars, the Masons, and the family Pines?”

“We so swear.” Dipper and Mabel harmonized, and then Grunkle Stan lightly tapped each of their shoulders with his tiny sword.

At once the kids got up and hugged their uncles, Mabel to Grunkle Ford and Dipper to Grunkle Stan, but the old pair of brothers brought them all together for a big warm hug.

#GF #gravity falls #national treasure #fanfiction #fluff #dipper pines #mabel pines #grunkle ford #grunkle stan #dipper and mabel's parents

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asterkiss · 7 years ago

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For those who’ve read my oneshot Once Upon A Dream, I said I rewrote the ending a handful of times. Here’s an earlier and unfinished draft of the ending where Bill wasn’t so bad and where Mabel wasn’t placed under a ‘glamour’ spell.

Ah, what could have been.

The next night, they shared a conversation which she could remember.

“What would you do,” he asked, tone casual as they shared a gondola ride on the Grand Canal in Venice, “if I told you I was a demon?”

She blinked at the very odd and abrupt question, letting out a short laugh. “What sort of question is that?”

He smiled, eyes glittering in the sunlight. “Humour me.”

“Pssht, okay.” Rolling her eyes, she gave a shrug. “What kind of demon are we talking? Because some are pretty but then there are others that look like they climbed out of the Black Lagoon. Gross.”

“How about,” he replied, “a demon that invades the dreams of unsuspecting girls and slowly saps their life force away from them?”

Mabel’s smile dimmed somewhat at his rather precise response. This dream date – and suddenly she was aware she was in a dream – was getting a bit off topic. “Hah… What is this, some weird sort of hypothetical question?”

“Yes,” he affirmed, meeting her eyes, “in the way that I am exactly that and this is my way of telling you.”

Mabel swallowed, feeling uncomfortable. Now that she was aware she was dreaming, she could recall the alarm she’d experienced yesterday after waking to find a hickey upon her throat. Tying that in with what he was now telling her caused a heavy weight to settle in her stomach and she suddenly wasn’t enjoying this date very much. She looked out across the water toward the shore in a hope that they could dock and she could escape but suddenly there was no shore or dock. There was no Venice. They were in the middle of an ocean of black water that stretched on endlessly in all directions.

Mabel took this change in with mounting panic before she snapped her head around toward the back of the boat where the gondolier had been. Instead of an Italian man in a striped shirt, there was now a shapeless shifting lump of black slime the same colour as the water below.

She screamed and jumped up.

Her date blinked. “Be careful, you’ll rock the boat and-“

She tripped over the side and tumbled backwards with a splash.

“-fall,” he finished. “Ah.”

The water was the same consistency as the slime on the rowboat, and as much as she fought to break the surface, Mabel found herself sinking lower and lower into the abyss. Terror seized her heart and clenched it tightly as she opened her mouth and screamed-

-and woke to her brother shaking her shoulders.

“Mabel you- are you awake? It’s okay- it’s alright, it was just a dream!”

Breathing heavily, she stared up at him as he hovered over her, her chest heaving with each laboured breath.

“Dipper?” she whispered, voice cracking.

He smiled down at her, concern clear in his eyes. “I’m here.”

She threw her arms around him as she enveloped him in her arms, clinging to him as if he was the only one who could tether her down and away from that plane of nightmares.

She could remember everything. Every word spoken and every detail of his face and body, from his perfectly black leather shoes all the way up to every thread of hair like golden silk.

How ironic it was that the first time she remembered was the time she wanted to forget.

“What do you mean, you’re being a haunted by a demon?”

“It means what it means!” she snapped, currently seated on the couch in the shack with a blanket wrapped around her form and a mug of hot chocolate placed in her lap. “For weeks now I’ve been hanging out with a handsome stranger in my dreams! Last night he told me he was a demon sucking my life force!”

Three pairs of eyes stared down at her.

“You don’t believe me,” she muttered, shoulders drooping.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Stanford replied. “It’s just… I spent years researching oddities, Mabel. And in all my time of studying supernatural occurrences, never did I come across anything that couldn’t be explained through ordinary means.”

“Yeah. Remember when we were 12 and first came to Gravity Falls? We’d go exploring and think we’d found something like a lake monster or gnome, but then it’d turn out there was a logical explanation behind it all.”

She frowned, staring down into the contents of the drink. “But when I wake up, there’s physical traces left over from my dream.”

“Like what?” Stanley asked.

“Like-” She suddenly clamped her mouth shut, cheeks turning pink. “….It- It doesn’t matter what! Just know that it happened!”

It was as if some sort of spell had been broken since last night. Before, she’d lost all interest in anything aside from sleeping. But now that she knew just what her dream date was exactly, she wasn’t so keen on going back to dreamland.

Noting her negative mood, Stanford suddenly perked up. “Ah! I’m sure I have a modified dream catcher somewhere from my younger years. It should serve to keep away any nightmares – and demons – from you whilst you sleep.”

“You think?”

Stanford nodded, plastering on a wide smile. “Of course!”

Mabel stared up at him for a long moment before breaking into a soft smile. “...Thank you, Grunkle Ford. For believing me.”

“Of course.” He smiled back at her.

As she dropped her gaze down to take another drink, Stanford’s smile faded and he exchanged a concerned look with the other two men. Not only was she sleeping almost all the time, but now she was having nightmares and paranoid delusions?

This wasn’t good.

Mabel tried not to fall back asleep.

Grunkle Ford had found his old dream catcher and placed it above her bed but even so, she was on edge. She tried to stay awake by busying herself with reading one of her young adult novels but she barely got a few pages in before the words began to swim across the page.

Her exhaustion won out in the end and the next thing she knew, she was standing on the Bow Bridge in Central Park, New York.

She gripped the bannister, staring down into the lake below with eyebrows pinched together. Unlike all the other times, she wasn’t under any delusions about this being reality. She knew this was a dream and she knew the footsteps approaching her could belong to only one.

When she turned her head, he was there. Coming to stand a few feet away from her, he leaned himself against the edge of the bridge and stared out across the park. All their other dates, she’d admired his appearance but never really taken anything in past his eyes. Now, standing here and able to look past the spell she’d been trapped in, she realised just how handsome he really was.

A yellow sweater was layered over a white collared shirt and accompanied by black pants and dark leather shoes. His hair was as golden as his eyes and looked as soft as silk, and for a moment she had the impulsive desire to run her hands through it before she quickly shoved the thought aside.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” he remarked, arms folded and resting upon the bannister. She frowned at his lackadaisical comment and said nothing. Her lack of response caused him to eventually look across toward her, and she made a point to avoid looking directly in his eyes. “What’s the matter? You don’t like it? I pulled this out of your mind, you know. All the other locations too. This place is number four on your list of places you’d like to be proposed too, right?”

She scowled at him. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“This!” She gestured out to the park surrounding them with her arm. “You can’t just invade someone’s mind and dreams and give them the best dates of their life and- and- and....”

“And what?” He was smiling at her in amusement.

“And you just can’t!”

He rolled his eyes and turned to face her completely, looking almost bored. “I can and I have done. Not just to you. There’s been hundreds.”

Mabel blinked at that, and felt a pang of pain upon hearing those words.

“It’s how I survive,” he went on. “I’m a demon. An incubus. Are you familiar with that term?”

She was. Her face heated up and he chuckled.

“Aah, so you are. Let me clear up for you what is fact and what is fiction, then.” She suddenly realised he’d grown closer and took a hasty step back in alarm. If he noticed, he didn’t comment. “My kind require and feed upon the life force of humans, aka you.” He shot her a smile. “The easiest way for us to obtain this is invade their dreams. By engaging in intimate relations, we’re able to feed off their energy. It doesn’t take much. Just one…

Single…

Touch.” His hand brushed against her cheek and she jerked back in alarm, unsure when he got so close once again.

He laughed at her reaction. “Things such as hand holding are fine but they aren’t really enough. It’s actions such as kissing and other, more intimate acts that give us the energy we need to sustain.”

She listened, each word like a further twist of a blade in her heart. “You used me,” she whispered. “You were just going out with me because I was some stupid meal for you.”

“Weren’t you using me too?”

She blinked at that. “Huh?”

“You didn’t think I was real, did you?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “In your eyes, I was a figment of your imagination. You went along with it all – and even initiated things most of the time, might I remind you – because you were unhappy with your love life in the waking world, or should I say lack of it?”

Her face turned red, both from embarrassment and indignation.

“We both used one another,” he stated.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“How is it not?”

“Because I didn’t think you had real feelings!” she shot back, eyes alight. She didn’t know he was real. She’d thought he was some perfect dream-boy her mind had conjured up.

He stared back at her.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked when he didn’t reply. “Is this your way of making fun of me and laughing before you leave?”

“It should be.”

“What does that mean?”

He was still staring, and she was beginning to feel nervous under the intense scrutiny of his gaze. Still, she refused to look directly in his eyes.

“…You know, usually when I come across a meal, I’ll limit myself. I’ll visit once or twice for a few weeks and then that’s it.” He was walking towards her again but this time she didn’t move, holding her ground.

“But we’ve-“

“Met a lot more than that, haven’t we?” he cut in, flashing her a smile as he came to a stop directly in front of her. “That’s right. By now, with any other girl, I would have had my fill and moved on. But I haven’t, do you know why that is?”

She fidgeted under his gaze. “N-No… Why?”

His expression hardened and suddenly he was gripping her by the shoulders as he stared eye to eye with her. She sucked in a sharp breath, and tried to move back but his grip was iron-tight.

“No,” he said, voice tense and eyes wide. “I’m asking you why. Why is it that I can’t get enough of you? Who are you? What are you?”

“I-I don’t…”

His fingers dug into her shoulders and the scenery around them seemed to be melting away until the only thing that existed was them and this bridge in a black abyss. He was still staring at her with an imploring gaze, practically begging her to answer. In that moment she forgot her ire and anger, such emotions overshadowed by a sudden pity and empathy for the man stood before her.

He wanted her to set him free with an answer.

But she had nothing to give.

“I don’t know…” she replied eventually, voice soft. She wished she could answer him. She wished she could make it so he wasn’t looking at her like that.

But she couldn’t.

His expression crumpled, and she wondered for how long he’d been falling apart over the past weeks – how long had it been since their first date? Three weeks? Four? The days blurred together.

In the next instant his lips crashed against hers with such a force she stumbled back. Before she could even think of pulling away he retreated, hands still fastened to her shoulders as he dropped his head down in the space between them, staring at their feet.

“Why is it a simple human girl like you can make me lose all common sense?”

She didn’t know if he was waiting for an answer from her.

Their time together ended before she could think of a way to respond.

The next time she fell asleep, the demon was nowhere to be seen or found. Her dreams were left uninterrupted and her energy returned to her during the day. Both her family and friends were overjoyed when the ‘normal Mabel’ returned, and she apologised for her behaviour and the trouble she had caused.

She tried to move on and forget all about the demon.

But she couldn’t.

He may have ceased stepping into her dreams, but he continued to invade her every waking thoughts.

A flash of gold caught her eye whilst in town and she almost caught whiplash in turning towards it. In the end it was just a golden choker around a woman’s throat.

She should have been relieved that her dreams were demon-free.

…So why did it feel like there was an empty space where her heart should be?

#im going to delete the earlier word doc draft so im publishing this here so at least it's kept somewhere

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ibelieveinahappilyeverafter · 7 years ago

Text

Deal

Bonjour, mes chers! I was cleaning up some files and it seems I never uploaded this drabble? It's possible I have it uploaded somewhere and just can't find it, so enjoy it again if that's the case!

Title: Deal

Alternate Universe: None / Post Canon (Age of Twins ~ 16/17)

Rating: T (for mentions of blood and temporary major character death)

Warnings: Mentions of blood, physical trauma, and temporary major character death

Inspired By: I have no idea, I just found it in my google drive when cleaning

Summary: Dipper should know better than to ever make deals with a demon such as him. Still, family is always more important, isn’t it?

Read here on FFN Read here on AO3

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“Well, well, well, isn’t this an interesting thing for me to wake up to!” The boisterous voice grated on the ears and echoed throughout the now silent woods, Dipper’s vision fuzzy as black and white swirled at the edges of his world and- God, what had they done. “Oh, oh, is it my birthday? I feel like it’s my birthday with a gift like this!”

Body twitching on the dry, dead grass, Dipper dug his fingers into the lifeless earth as he looked up at hearing a soft whimper. Mabel was staring at him with wide, fearful eyes, entire body shaking. Autumn leaves were threaded through her hair and dirt mixed with blood streaked her cheeks. He wasn’t sure which one coughed on the blood in their throats first, but he knew that soon the both of them were gasping for air.

“I said to not let them touch it!” The voice that yelled had Dipper covering his ears and no… No, he had heard enough of that voice to last a lifetime. No more. Please- Please. Hadn’t he paid enough for his mistakes? Hadn’t he suffered enough?

“Oh, so it was just an accident. How disappointing- Ooh, but that means you didn’t wake me- Hah! It wasn’t you lot! It was them who did it! Oh, how beautiful.” Dipper couldn’t help but wonder what was worse - running from hell or running straight into its arms.

“Enough. Let’s finish this now. They know too much. Besides, that is weakened. It won’t take much to put it down for good.” Reality around them rippled and shifted and twisted and idiots. Idiots. It had taken the sacrifice of everything to defeat him last time. They really thought he was weak?

“Now, now, didn’t your mother ever teach you to not be rude.” Jerking backwards as blue fire seared its way into the earth, Dipper shrieked at the pain that wracked his body. It hurt- It hurt. The fire, though… When that brushed him, it didn’t hurt. He knew what that meant.

“Di-pper.” God, Mabel sounded as wrecked as he felt. It was all he could do to grasp her hand when she crawled close enough, the two linking their fingers together and holding on tightly. No matter what happened next… Well. At least they would die together, right?

“Oh, how sweet.” Children. They were such children. Had they really thought they could survive this? Had they really thought this was the best idea to beat such a dangerous enemy? It was so- It was- Children. “You thought I was bad, huh? Didn’t even think that there’s more dangers in this world than me. You should be careful of crows, you know. They tend to gather around dead bodies.”

“Release them, demon! The Sect of the Crow stands with God to spread His light and message! You shall not poison the world with your sin!”

“Ugh, disgusting as I remember.” The fire flickered over his skin, Dipper focusing - or at least trying his best to - and staring at the circle that was burned into the dead ground. Circle. Oh… “You made a very dangerous enemy, you two. Honestly, you’re always getting into such trouble!”

The circle wrapped around him and Mabel tightly, Dipper’s gaze slipping and sliding more towards that hazy world of black and white. A scream stuck itself in his throat as his head was jerked up by fingers under his chin, Dipper feeling heat and power as a gloved hand held him in place- Gloved. Human. A human gloved hand.

“What are you doing, demon! Get away from them! Quickly- Quickly! Kill them before it regains power!” Power… Ah, that was right. They had been running- Leading. They had been leading them all and- It was cold.

“You humans are always so fragile.” It hurt. Everything hurt - everything except that quiet voice, words near hummed out instead of spoken. The words were low, and smooth, and nothing like the high-pitched, wild glee from before. “Get in over your head, Pine Tree?”

The blue fires blazed around him and his sister, Dipper prying his eyes open (when had he closed them?) and looking into eyes of molten gold. Eyes. Eyes. “Oh, Pine Tree.” Gold and black and retribution. “Look at you. All grown up.”

Mabel’s weak groan captured his attention for only a moment, the hand on his chin keeping him from moving. He was almost grateful for it. Almost. Almost. So many almosts. He had almost been fast enough. He had almost been smart enough. He had almost been strong enough. He had almost managed to beat them. He had almost managed to save them. Almost, almost, almost.

There was blood on his hands. His head was given a rough shake, Dipper’s gaze skittering back to that molten, bubbling gold, attention utterly and completely captured. All he felt was the leather glove against his skin and the fading warmth of his sister’s hand. “Oh, it seems she’s dying too, now. Tell me, Pine Tree, how much family did your mistakes cost you?”

He thought he was so smart. Now look. Blood. So much blood. Ah, everything was quiet. Maybe that’s why he had this sense of standing on the edge. No- Yeah. Yeah, that was it. It was standing on the edge of a cliff so high up you couldn’t even see the ground and it was just one small step-

“Mason Pines.” The only breathing he could hear was his. The sound of screaming and gunfire was so far away, but the only breathing he could hear was his. Only his. Mabel… “Ssh, it’s alright. I can fix everything. I can fix all of it. You know I can. You know my power.”

Pine Tree. Only one person had ever… Right. They had escaped where they had been keeping them and they had lead them all into the woods that they knew so well and they had a plan. They failed. Blood and fear and human skin had touched the stone. Ah, the hand in his was limp. Cold. Empty. Lifeless.

An intake of air had Dipper coughing, vision swimming before he felt warm human skin instead of a leather glove- Human. “What do I want? Isn’t it obvious? I can fix it, but I want my freedom.” No. No. His family in exchange for the entire world? He could never- Mabel. Mabel. “It may not be worth them, but isn’t it worth your world?” Cold. Cold and lifeless. “Mason Sherman Pines.”

Don’t trust him. Don’t let him in your head. Don’t listen to him. Don’t make the same mistakes. Turn away. Turn away, turn away, turn away quick before he catches you- Save them? “Every single one of them.” The gunshots grew closer and the screaming grew louder. “You know what I want.”

Ah, well. In that case, it wasn’t a competition at all, was it? It never was. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Mabel’s hand fell out of his and another took its place. Warm (burning), hard (painful), and tight (greedy). “You know what to say, don’t you? Well?”

Bill Cipher.

The word was torn out of him with a single, last breath.

“Deal.”

I give you everything.

“-ipper. Dipper! Wake up, sleepy head!” Jerking awake with a gasp of air, Dipper clutched at his side where the knife had been stabbed into him far too deep- And… Skin. Nothing but smooth skin that was only broken up by the appendix scar he had since he was nine. Which was impossible - completely impossible. He had just been bleeding out in the woods and dying and oh, god he had said- “Dipper?”

“Okay- I’m okay. I guess I had a nightmare.” Dipper shook under the hand his sister placed against his forehead, looking frantically around the bus. They were on a bus? When had they… It was rumbling along, though, the sight of trees passing them by and the highway bumpy under the wheels. There were only three other people, one on his phone, another asleep against the window, and one hiding obvious animal ears under a hat. “We’re… We’re on a bus.”

“Well, yeah. C’mon, bro-bro, we’re going to visit the Grunkles. Re- Remember?” Mabel looked at him with eyes full of worry, Dipper only giving a shaky nod in response. “It’s June fifteenth.” Right. The start of summer. They were going to Gravity Falls. “Maybe you should try to get some more sleep until we get there.”

“Yeah- Yeah, sorry, Mabel. I just had a really bad nightmare, I guess.” Settling back and closing his eyes, Dipper pulled his hat down low enough to block out the sun, sighing as the world began to darken. Nightmare. It was just a nightmare, he told himself. Only that.

Then his world was filled with black and white and a loud, bright laugh that shook the very foundation of reality.

“Well, well, well. Didn’t that ‘Grunkle’ of yours ever teach you not to make a deal with a demon, Pine Tree?”

#gravity falls #bill cipher #dipper pines #otpafs #blood

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rmjagonshi · 7 years ago

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Whole Again - Chapter 15

Whole Again on AO3

Mason opened his eyes and found himself on a giant puffy, amanita mushroom. At least, he thought it was; he didn’t think normal amanita’s quacked when you poked them. The blue grass stalks towering above him and covered with purple and red dew drops seemed to shield him from the sun. He saw the shadow of a bird pass over him; it was a feathery monstrosity. He was dreaming, that was obvious, but the context of his dream was unusual. He couldn’t see much else beyond his little clearing and the sky, which was a seafoam green with pink wisps of clouds like the artist had started to run out of pint. Where was he? He didn’t remember ever imagining anything like this before; nor had he seen anything like it recently.

Aloud screech of excitement – from the only person such a screech could come from – echoed in the empty air.

“Mabel?” Mason squinted his eyes and tried to shield his face as he scanned the tree, er grassline.

“Dipper!” His head snapped up a moment before he braced himself for the impact of his sister launching herself from wherever she had been overhead onto his perch. She landed heavily and caused the mushroom to let out a chorus of distressed quacks.

“oof. Ow, Mabel, you’re heavy.” He winced, voice strained with the lack of adequate air. He tried to push her off, but the more he struggled, the more the mushroom top quacked and jiggled and he couldn’t gain any leverage.

“Oopse, ok.” Mabel wasn't getting any leverage either, but it didn’t matter much when a set of butterfly wings began to unfurl from her back. They unraveled slowly, the thin webbing damp and dripping with a milky substance. A few drops landed on his face and rolled down his cheeks. It was weirdly sweet, like coffee creamer, and kind of tasted nutty. When her wings were outspread, she flapped them a few times, spraying the mushroom and Mason with more sticky nectar before she lifted off into the air.

“Is this better?” She called, hovering about four feet (was it feet, or were they really small) above him. They were very fancy wings, having multiple sharp points and curves and embellishment tails that hindered rather than aided flight. In fact, she shouldn’t be able to fly at all. And not just because the wings wouldn’t support her weight.

“How…how did you…oh, right, I’m dreaming.” Mason scratched at his head and tried again to stand on the mushroom. It let out a heave and a long-suffering quack as he got his footing. It was like that bouncy castle Mike in the third grade had at his birthday party. Mason an Mabel had gotten into a jumping contest…they were asked to leave when the thing sprung a leak. It was a lot less fun than he remembered.

“Yup, but oh so wrong” Mabel sang from above him, and spread open her arms and rained glitter and small plush strawberries down on him. A particular large berry bounced off his nose; it smelled like baby wipes. Where were they, a weird form of Mabel Land? “I found him!”

“Wait, what?” Mason had taken off Wendy’s hat to shake the glitter from it – and try to wipe away some of that nectar before it dried – when he hear rustling in the grass forest beyond.

“FOUR!” The mystery voice was rough, gravel in a tin can rough, and he would know it anywhere. The yellow object flying directly at his head was certainly unfamiliar.

“What!” Whatever it had been – Mason assumed it used to be a tangy and creamy fruit – was now splattered across his face and shirt, staining the material a bright yellow as the pulp dripped off. He had only a passing moment to be upset when another fruit came out of the grassline and hit Mable. She seemed far less agitated at the mess it caused, instead laughing and crying out in exuberance at the two figures materializing at the edge of the clearing.

Stanley and Stanford Pines stood in all their seafaring glory. Stan wore a white t-shirt and faded jeans that looked as salt encrusted as his boots. He had on a tan trench coat, a read beanie and a pair of palm tree novelty sunglasses. Stan was smiling wide enough, Mason was sure his face was starting to hurt. Ford, however, was not smiling. In fact, if Mason was not mistaken, Ford looked down right livid, face pinched as though he was barely holding back the urge to scream at someone. Ford wore a blue sweater embossed with gold letters that spelled out ‘Nerdy’, brown trousers and stained boots, and a replica of the fishing hats Stan had sewn for Mason and Mabel; it read ‘Sixy’.

“Gr-grunkel Stan? Great Uncle Ford?” What in the heck was he dreaming. His dreams were never this lucid, even when he wanted them to be. He had spent a large part of the summer angry at his own brain that every time he dreamed of kissing Wendy, her face was foggy and blurry and it felt like he was moving through water. He knew when he was dreaming – usually – and this was way too real. It was almost like going into someone’s mi-

“Hey, he finally caught on. It only took Mable a few seconds. Ah well, guess some of us have to overthink things, huh Poindexter.” Stan flipped off the fishing hat so it hung around Ford’s neck and tousled Ford’s hair. Ford angrily pushing Stan’s arm away and flattening out his now pillow quality poof. Mason really should ask him how he keeps his hair that, well, voluminous. He suspected his uncle used a lot of hair gel, or hair spray. He did always have a distinctly chemical smell about him, but Mason always assumed it was due to Ford’s various experiments. Maybe he was a closet fashion aficionado?

“Merry Christmas!...eve.” Stan spouted, faltering a bit at his correction but still keeping his signature Mr. Mystery grin. He knelt and spread his arms wide, expecting the twins to charge forwards and hug him. Mason carefully slid off the amanita to the ground, Mabel flapped her wings a few times and landed beside him. The twins looked at each other with concern; Mabel was no longer grinning and Mason was chewing the inside of his cheek. Stan’s arms drooped, a melancholy sigh escaping his lips to wrap around his form.

“Alright, alright. I can understand that. They are a bit tacky anyway.” Stan ran a few fingers up his cheek and hook into the hinge of his novelty glasses. With a flourish, he whips them off, revealing his normal glasses overtop deep brown eyes wit round pupils. Only then do the twins rush forwards.

“Grunkle Stan!” They shout in unison, each hanging off one of Stan’s arms. He smelled like salt water and a bit like fish, but neither one cared enough to be bothered. Stan wrapped one arm around each of them, one hand coming up to tangle in Mabel’s hair and the other nearly knocking off Wendy’s hat. Mason felt his cheek press into the fur and cold metal peeking out from Stan’s low shirt collar. It tickled his nose and the chain links were going to leave an impression in his face, but for the moment, everything was right.

“This is hardy appropriate.” Que Mr. Grumpy Pants, Great Uncle Ford to spoil the moment. Stan let go of the twins and stood slowly, using Mason’s shoulder for leverage and nearly knocking him over. So, Stan got a lot stronger.

“Aw, common Poindexter, we’re in the middle o’the Bermuda Triangle. How else am I gonna get them their presents?” Mason recovered from his stumble and turned to look at Ford, who looked just as irritated as he had before, perhaps with a hint of deep seeded weariness. He rubbed heatedly at his eyes, six fingers pushing his glasses up to his brow. Even though he could probably change his appearance in the mindscape – Mable had been slowly changing her seater color during their exchange, it now sported a pineapple pattern – Ford looked tired. And not the ‘I need sleep because I stayed up too long working’ kind of tired, either.

“Bill, stop it.” Ford’s snap made both kids jump. Mable’s eyes darted back to Stan’s. They were still brown, but now they swam with unshed grief and shame.

“Aw jeeze. Look, can ya, just this once, call me ‘Stan’? For them?” Stan gestured to the two twins with his open palms. It was Stan, though. His eyes were normal. So even if Mabel and Mason were wrong and it was Bill, he wasn't the one in control now…right? This was Stan. Out of all the things they had learned about Bill, the only consistency was his inability to change his eyes. Mason trusted him. Mostly. Maybe not completely, at least, not if his sister could get hurt. Mason’s eyes snapped to double check that Stan’s eyes were indeed still brown. They were.

Ford looked back and forth between the two teens in front of him and sighed. He couldn’t deny them anything, not when they were this close – even if it was just a mental projection. Ford, too, knelt and embraced the two kinds that had launched themselves at him. Ford’s sweater was soft, and his hug tighter. Mason felt his back pop and hear Mable let out a muffled squeak of protest, but Ford just squeezed them tighter. Ford held them for an awkwardly long time, long enough for Mabel – who LOVES long hugs – to get bored and start tracing the letters on Ford’s sweater. Their uncle needed this. Mason didn’t know why or what was going on in Ford’s head, but it was obvious he needed to make sure they were okay. So, they obliged him.

“This was kinda a present for you too, ya know.” Stan mumbled, hand rubbing at the back of his neck where the hair had grown to cover it. It wasn't quite long enough to be considered a mullet, but it covered his neck and stopped maybe an inch before his shoulders. He avoided making eye contact directly, but he never turned away so that they couldn’t see his face. It made it easy to notice the slight blush creeping up his face.

“You shouldn’t be doing this.” Ford muttered into Mabel’s hair before letting them go, finally. His hands lingered on their backs, though, each set of six fingers toying with the cotton fabric. It was really weird how tactile it was in the mindscape. Everything here was just a mental projection of what was – and often what wasn’t – in the real world, but it all felt real.

“I know, I’m gonna sleep for a day after this, but it’s worth it.” Stan just deflected with a grin and a laugh. Mason didn’t care if any of their hypotheses were right, there was no way that Stan Pines was not standing in front of him. He placed his hand on his shoulder, over Ford’s, and leaned into Ford’s arm. Mabel let go of Ford and bounded over to Stan, climbing up his torso to hang from his bicep like an overgrown monkey. She even swung back and forth, losing her wings in favor of a prehensile tail. Mason felt Ford’s grip tighten painfully, his nails leaving six grooves in Mason’s shoulder. Mason winced, but Ford let go when Stan hurriedly gathered Mable and set her back down on the ground. Stan took an obvious step back to distance himself, eyes fearfully darting to Ford.

“Common you two. Wh-where do you want to go?” Stan had recovered, but only just; his voice wavered and now carried a tinge of anxiety.

“What do you mean?” Mason interjected in an attempt to break the tension that has enveloped the clearing.

“Your Christmas present. Anywhere you want to go. Anywhere! All ya gotta do it tell me. I can’t read yer minds right now, too much energy goin’ inta keepin’ all our minds connected.” Stan explained with a dismissive wave of his hand, glossing over the specifics of how exactly he was able to do what he was doing. In fact, he didn’t bother explaining much of anything; he knew that Ford had told the kids everything – well, not everything, but everything important anyway.

“Anywhere?” Mable squealed, head already filling with all the possibilities of kittens and ice cream baby fighting.

“Anywhere.” Stan countered. Anywhere they wanted to go. No limits. Well, heck, then where should they go first? Mason started towards Stan and Mabel met him halfway. They put their heads together, whispering and glancing over their shoulders occasionally to look at Stan or Ford. Stan pulled at his collar a bit, suddenly feeling nervous about the twins conspiring together. Ford was fairing no better, still gathering himself after the horrid recreation of his nightmare. The one that nearly broke him. The one that would have broken him if Bi-Sta…he hadn’t muted it. He wasn’t stupid, and had picked up on Ford’s anxiety immediately. Stanford prided himself on his ability to control his fear, but the kids were a whole different matter. He would always be fearful for them. Always.

It grew eerily silent, save for the breeze rubbing the grass blades together. The younger Pines twins had stopped talking and were now glancing back and forth between their Grunkles. Neither Stan, nor Ford had yet noticed, too wrapped up in their own heads. The twins glanced at each other and nodded, Mabel clearing her throat to gain attention.

“Decided yet?” Stan asked nervously. He wanted to get this thing started, he wanted to distract himself entertaining the kids, he wanted Ford to stop being so uptight; they were in the mindscape, there wasn't anything he could actually do to anyone here, even if he wanted to. It was talking nearly all of his concentration to make sure they were all on the same wavelength. He didn’t even think he could alter memories at this point, again, not that he wanted to. He wanted to show his brother that he wasn't going to hurt the kids, that he wasn’t going to hurt Ford, that he just wanted them to be happy, together.

“Animation Land Studios World!” Mabel’s shout might’ve actually shook the ground. Stan cocked his head at the unexpected request. Anywhere in time and space, anywhere in existence, even other dimensions, and the kids wanted to go to an amusement park. Albeit a very expensive and world renown one that most people sat on a waiting list of nearly five years to get a ticket, but still, an amusement park.

“Ok, you want the whole thing? ‘Cause that might take a while, that place had got more square acreage than the forest around Gravity Falls.” Not that he couldn’t do it, just, they might get to the edge and it might take some extra time to load. Real life lag. Or, ya’know, close enough.

“Actually, we just want the Lightning Zapper Thrill Seeker. Mabel and I have always wanted to see if we could handle it. It’s supposed to go like 0 to 80 in eight seconds.” Both kids were giddy.

“A competition, eh? I suppose I could oblige ya. And ya can’t have a park without extra greasy and covered in sugar carnival food! Alright! I think I got it!” he said, cracking his knuckles.

Stan clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. He adjusted his posture, standing tall. His face closed, intense, and focused. In a few short moments, there was a stranger standing in front of them wearing Stan’s skin. He looked, well, like one of the guys on Mabel’s romance novels. It was freaky how just a subtle change could make such a huge difference. Stan sighed, faltered, and grimaced.

“Ah, kids, um…Ya, ya’know what happens, when I, ya’know, do stuff, right? I know Ford’s told ya, but, well, I know ya haven’t seen it fer yourselves yet. And, I didn’t wanna freak ya out, or nothin’.”

Mable frowned. They knew, but Stan was right, seeing it in person (well, close enough) was something else entirely. Mason brushed the back of Mable’s hand with his own and she took the hint, interlacing their fingers loosely. Their heard Ford step up behind them.

“It’s ok. We know. Thanks for the warning though.” Mason nodded in agreement.

Stan sighed again, air pushed out between puckered lips as he closed his eyes and steadied himself. They waited a beat, then two. The ground began shifting, the dirt and sand grains vibrating away as asphalt rose from below. The giant grass and mushrooms faded in an out of clarity, pulsating out of existence. Stan’s eyes snapped open, they were bright yellow, elongated pupils. Mason felt Mable’s hand cling tighter to his; Ford bracing both teens with a hand to their backs.

It was different in person. So much different. Mason’s subconscious was screaming at his to ‘Run, get out, get away!’, but he held his ground. Mable and Ford helping to ground him. It was Bill. Except, it wasn't, and as the scenery changed around them, Stan’ eyes changed too. With every blink his eyes grew white, irises forming and pupils curving into perfect circles. With the last blink, the last trace of yellow, the ground stopped vibrating and they stood in the middle of Animation Land Studios World, right at the start of the line the eighth wonder of the world itself; The Lightning Zapper Thrill Seeker, the world’s fastest and tallest roller coaster.

The shock from seeing Stan perform magic wore off quick a Mason and Mabel jumped up and down and raced to the front of the line. Why, not, there was no one here, not even park attendants. Stan wobbled in place a moment before regaining his balance.

“Hey, wait up!”

The twins paused climbing into the front seat of the coaster to see a young boy, maybe their age – maybe a year or two younger – wearing a red and white striped shirt and jeans ripped at the knee. His left cheek sporting a band-aid, and a missing tooth. He jogged up to the twins and took a seat behind them, shouting, “Hey Poindexter, you gonna sit this one out?”

Ford muttered something that was lost to the distance between them and started a much slower and dignified pace to the coaster.

“Oh, come on, old timer! You can change. Or at least run!” The boy shouted at Ford, who continued his slow pace. The boy sighed, turning to the twins and mumbling, “Older brothers, right?”

The twins blinked in unison. “Stan?” Mable uttered the question Mason was having trouble articulating.

“The very same. Who’d’ya think it was?” The now confirmed Stan put out his hand ready to offer a greeting. “Heya.” Mason frowned this time, eyeing the child hand that started to flicker with blue fire. Stan shook his hand and arm to put out the flames and tucked them behind his head. “Yeah, well, we know each other already, so no introductions needed. ‘Bout time!”

Ford had just stepped up beside the stationary carts, arms crossed disapprovingly at Stan’s choice of form. After a few tense moments of the older twins eyeing each other, Ford stepped onto the coater beside Stan and flipped the safety bar down.

“Woohoo! Alright, let’s get this party started!” With a wave and blink, the safety harnesses slid and clicked into place and the bars dropped down. Mason and Mable were jittery and practically vibrating in their seats. The carts jolted and began the slow assertion to the top. A click every second, the cart shuttering every three seconds, the ground slowly fading away below them. Stan was starting to have second thoughts about this. He wasn’t completely cured of his fear of heights. The higher they went, the lighter and lighter his head felt. Every moment it seemed like they would stop, but it kept going, higher and higher and higher. Stan kept moving the clouds higher to make it seem like it was shorter than it was, but Mabel was too strong and materialized an airplane flying below their point on the ramp. Stan gulped and grabbed at Ford’s hand instinctively. Ford raised and eyebrow at the contact, but had no time to react. They crested the top and paused, the carts teetering on the precipice. All four held their breath as the front carts tipped forwards.

Mason was wrong.

It hadn’t gotten to 80 miles per hour in eight seconds.

It did it in four.

They slowed down a bit in the corkscrew, but gained momentum in the curve before the tunnel.

Wendy’s hat had grown hands and clung to Mason’s head like a cat to the ceiling.

Mabel’s hair wrapped itself into a tight braid to keep from catching.

Ford squeezed Stan’s hand and kept his eyes closed save for a few scant moments when they went upsidedown.

Stan could not actually lose his lunch, for multiple reasons, but his body felt like it was trying.

When they finally pulled back into the station and the cart slowed and stopped with a jerk, Stan let go of Ford’s hand.

Stan was heaving and swallowing down the urge to vomit.

Ford was staring at the underside of the station roof, trying to quell the sudden onset of dizziness. The twins were distressingly quiet. The next words uttered almost made Stan want to cry.

“Again!” Mason and Mable called out in unison.

“NO!” Both brothers called out, but their pleas were ignored and the cart left the station.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They rode the thing three times. Ford would refuse to ride another roller coaster ever again and Stan was feeling uneasy about the spinning coffee mugs ride. Stan didn’t want to be the ‘Old Foggie’, but he sat out of some of the more ‘high energy’ rides. They got hot dogs and corndogs and Stan and Mabel shared an elephant ear and got into an argument over whether it was called an aforementioned elephant ear or fried dough. Either way, they got cinnamon and sugar everywhere and Mason suggested the Splash Zone as the next ride.

Ford’s fluffy hair did not survive the Splash Zone.

Upon Mabel’s request, and Mason’s shy additions, Ford reluctantly changed form, sporting a white t-shirt, patched bomber jacket and corduroy pants. It was easy to keep up with the kids after that. He even had fun on the spinning swings.

They wound up at the games corner and Mable was hitting bullseye after bullseye and winning prize after prize. The twins each hat a pair of inflatable, oversized boxing gloves and were playfully punching at one another. Ford had a balloon animal hat sitting atop his head and carried something that looked like a hamster in a business suit. Stan was collecting a bear with fairy wings and wand from the counter when Ford mentioned Dimension F-98/β.

It was a dimension where, instead of humans, all types of animals had evolved and gained sentience, built communities, cities and metropolitans, all living and working together. Mabel jumped at the chance to see it, Mason not far behind. With a few ground rumbles and eye blinks, they were standing in the main square of the major metropolitan city. It was almost like New York Times Square if it had more curved architecture, more bright colors and more greenery. Plants of all types hung from the windows of the buildings and trees grew along the sidewalks. Animals of all different sizes walked or drove or rode variations of bicycles up and down the busy streets. Mable was frantic and followed behind each creature as it passed, imitating them to the best of her ability. A giraffe skateboarding, a water buffalo body builder, tiny gerbil business men, a gecko delivery boy, a duck couple corralling their eight ducklings, a snake zig-zagging his way through the feet of other animals and clutching a briefcase by his tail, frog men being bussed in as tourists and communicating via some language that consisted of more vowel sounds than there ought to be.

Mabel’s antics had Stan and Mason nearly rolling, even Ford found it in himself to smile. They located a city directory and Ford explained the layout of the city. Each district was divided based on climate and the sub-districts based on the major populace; savanna, arctic, rainforest, dessert, and a centralized urban area for non-specialized animals. Sub-districts in each major district were specialized for size and species differences. The rain forest district had a large area to the north reserved for insects and amphibians; the city and structures being built to accommodate tiny insect families. Suburbs lied to the outskirts for community based species like rodents and baboons, and the tops of the buldings were covered in trees and greenery and perches for the flight bird population. The ocean held another entire civilization, with fish and sea-bound mammals as the core populace. Coral reefs acted as telecommunication lines with one coral polyp sending a message to the next polyp down the line.

They used the tube system to travel to each of the major districts. They swung on vines in the rainforest, getting soaked in the process and dried off in the hot desert district. Mason and Mabel got into a sand fight and ran with a group of camel joggers that were eager to talk to the twins. Stan shoved a handful of sand down Ford’s shirt while he was distracted watching the kids. Stan paid for it when all three built him into a snowman in the polar district as a group of teenage penguins watched and laughed. They left his eyes and nose clear of snow, but shoved a carrot in his mouth to act as the snowman’s nose. Some passing snow leopard snapped a picture and they made it into the paper. The transit to the savanna district was closed for gazelle migration.

They stopped in to talk to the mayor, a capybara by the name of Richard Waterhog, whom Ford had the pleasure of befriending when he had traveled through. Dream or not, it was proper to visit old friends, especially ones that pardoned you for stealing bananas. He’d been so hungry, and hunting was out of the question in a world where animals were sentient.

It was so strangely real that Ford wondered if Bill had tapped into Richard’s mindscape too, but once the mayor agreed to let Mable ride him like a horse, he knew it was a dream. Richard detested walking upon his front appendages, he was dignified after all. Well, he was until he had a few drinks anyway. Ford remembered the founder’s festival less than fondly. After three rounds, Richard turned into a raging flirt and had suggestively asked Ford to ride him. Ford had sputtered and politely refused, desperately citing the difference in their species would make copulation difficult if not impossible. Richard had laughed it off and bought Ford another drink that smelled of timothy hay.

Ford could feel Stan giving him a hairy eyeball look after remembering his interactions with Richard, and he refused to answer Mason’s questions as to why he was blushing. Richard had insisted on a rather overly friendly hug from Ford as they left, and there was no doubt that it was Bill’s doing. Can’t read our minds, my ass!

Stan was barely keeping it together, face contorting every which way to not laugh, and Mable gave him a thumbs-up and a look she was way, way too young to be throwing him. He was never going to live this down. When Mabel tried to engage him in conversation “Hey Grunkle Ford, that Guinea Pig guy seemed to really like you”, Ford immediately changed the subject and started discussing the complexities of building a civilization underwater with Mason. Mable and Stan shared a quiet chuckle at Ford’s red face; Mason noticed, but decided his uncle’s business was private.

It wasn't long after that both younger twins expressed a desire to explore an underwater city, so another few blinks and they were on Elcoris 4, a planet in dimension A412 that was 90% water and the denizens had adapted to building underwater. They were humanoid with pale blue, speckled skin, webbing between their fingers, toes and attached to their arms and legs. They communicated via sonar, but could speak above water. A few flicks of Stan’s wrist and the four of them each had a bubble of air around their heads and flippers attached to their feet.

They swam in and out of buildings, kelp forests and into the drop-off of the continental shelf. Their guide, a man whose name Stan didn’t like and had instead called Drew, warned them of the drop-off and the potential for sea serpents. He warned that the deeper they went in the planet, the larger and more aggressive the monsters became, warning that if they went too deep, they would find a lava lake with a fire breathing dragon.

So, naturally, Stan gave them all depth suits and they went off searching for sea monsters. And sea monsters they found. In the darkness they came across a serpent like thing with bioluminescent jelly like tentacles protruding from its head, the mouth just a hole with concentric rows of teeth. They found a squid-like creature with pincers instead of tentacles. Mason spotted what looked like a cow in the distance then turned out to be a jelly blob that could turn into anything, save for a few differences like a badly made knock-off.

They made it to the lave lake, and saw the fire – rather superheated plasma as the water was not conducive to fire (but Ford wasn't going to hold that against a population that lived most of their lives underwater) – breathing sea dragon that was easily ten times their size. It was only slightly unexpected when Stan accidently teleported them back to the main city when the beast turned towards them. Nothing could hurt them here, it was a dream, but Stan’s protective nature was instinctual.

They spent the next hour discussing how something like that could survive down there with little to no food source and both twins again expressed desire to know about Ford’s multi-verse travels. He regained them with some of his tamer escapades such as the M-dimension and the time he got into a fight with a sofa and he, with great reluctance, showed the younger twins the ‘All-Star’ tattoo still on his neck even in a child form. He was careful to not mention his other markings.

At the end of the day – or night – the four found themselves on Glass Shard Beach. The iconic swing set from Stan’s mindscape was fixed, and had extended to accommodate four people. The dock in the distance bordered by both incarnations of the Stan O’War, and the StanleyMobile parked somewhere in the sand lot behind them.

The memories at the swings were so ingrained into each brother that they hadn’t realized they had changed until Mabel squealed in delight. Ford, startled and reaching for his side arm (that wasn't there) turned to Mable only to realize he now had to look down at her. Which, under usual circumstances was normal, but he had gotten used to being her height all day. Her eyes were wide and shining and her hands pressed into her cheeks. “Grunkle Ford! How come you never told us you were such a hottie!”

Ford sputtered, blushing for what seemed like the millionth time that day, and scratched at the back of his neck while avoiding eye contact. He was wearing the yellow v-neck from that night on the beach. Stan stood behind the younger twins wearing that damn white t-shirt, hair slicked back and acne scars. Stan just shrugged and mouthed ‘Sorry’ as he sat down on the swings. Mason turned in the sand and joined him, pausing only a moment to take in his uncle’s teenage form. Ford distracted Mable by promising to push her and they spent a good twenty minutes just laughing at how high she could get.

Mason and Stan got into a sand kicking contest and wound up losing their shoes in the process. They fell into play wrestling when Stan tried to give his nephew a noogie, over shot the lunge and landed in the sand with Mason sitting on his back.

This is what Stan wanted, all he ever wanted. He wondered if maybe he and Ford could find the fountain of youth somewhere and get some more time. More time to play with the kids, more time for days like this – when if they ever made it back to port – more time for games and stores, more time for them to be a family again. Stan lost all desire to put the boy in a head lock and instead gathered Mason up and hugged him tightly; sat in the sand and resting his back against the strut of the swing set. Ford had stopped pushing Mable to watch them, but now both he and Mable turned their attention to the sunset.

It was so achingly familiar, sitting in the evening air, feeling the bay breeze wash over them. Listening to the waves roll in, bringing in sand and cobbled to tumble the broken bottles into beautiful pieces of beach glass. They used to collect it for Ma, spending hours combing the fresh shards for that one smooth and polished piece. She made them into jewelry sometimes; Ford remembered Stan had been given one as a child that he wore proudly until some asshole kid called him a girl for wearing jewelry. Stan had always been…well, fighting himself in his pursuit to be manly.

Ford remembered Stan going through his wardrobe one day before the school year started and pulling out all of his favorite shirts – the ones he had to beg his parents for and who only relented because they were cheaper than anything else – and throwing them in a donation box. Pink, yellow, baby blue with little flowers embroidered on the collar, a purple one that said ‘free hugs’ (that was Stan’s favorite). They all went. It left him with not much else besides white t-shirts and a mustard yellow jacket. Stan had also tossed in the jewelry he had accumulated. The only thing he kept was a gold chain and pendant that Ford had bought for him; it was thick and heavy and was masculine enough for him to keep.

Pops had made some comments that week about the ‘Gays’ parading around in broad daylight. “They go around dressed like women, wearing make-up and hanging off each other like they ain’t committing sin. Like they ain’t sick.” Ford had seen Stan’s posture tense. The next day, he donated a bunch of old stuff to the shelter down the street, saying it was much too old to even try and re-sell in the shop. Ford, thankfully – though unfairly – never felt the need to do the same.

He was jostled out of his depressed ruminating by Mabel standing from the swing he was holding onto and striding over the sand to reach Stan.

“I’m sorry.” She said, head hung low and voice full of remorse.

“What in the world for?” Stan nearly snapped, bewildered at the unprompted apology that seemed to come from nowhere. Mason, still sat in Stan’s lap frowned a moment before understanding dripped over his face like water. The boy took hold of Stan’s hand that was wrapped around his middle.

“I…I didn’t know if I could love you anymore. Knowing what you’ve done. But you did all this for us, even though you can’t be with us on Christmas. You didn’t have to, there was nothing in it for you, but you did it anyway because you love us.” Her eyes were wet now, and she was nearly pleading.

Ford felt Stan take hold of his mind while he poked and prodded at the memories of the younger twins. They saw the discussion between them, the theories, the fear, the guilt and the unknown. Could the kids still love Stan even if he was Bill?

“I wouldn’t say that. I got somthin’ out of it. I got to see you kids.” Stan shifted and knelt in front of Mabel, placing his hands on her shoulders to look her in the eye. He was Bill?

“I know things are…different now. I don’t blame you for feeling or thinking the way you did, or still do. I know I…scared you…before. I’m sorry.” Mason took one of Stan’s hands and squeezed. Stan was Bill?

“But hey, we can do this again, just give me a few weeks to rest, ok? This takes a lotta brain power.” Stan was BILL! How could Stanford have forgotten? This whole time? And Bill was taking control of his mind, their minds. This had to stop. NOW!

“Bill, that’s enough!” Stanford’s words were like a blade slicing through the air.

Stan just looked at a spot above Mabel’s shoulder and sighed, the pain and sorrow dripping from his form. His hand fell limp and lifeless from Mabel’s shoulder, fingers catching on the sleeve of her sweater.

“Yeah. Ok.” His eyes were downcast as he stood and took a step away from them. She could see he wanted to cry. Heck, she wanted to cry.

It was gradual, the change. His eyes glowed yellow again as he aged, like a movie and fast-forwards. It was hardly a ten count when the teen was left behind and the old and grizzled man that was their uncle stood before them. Grunkle Ford had changed as well, face pulled back into a look filled with anger and hate.

“Hey, it should be morning now. Should probably let you kids back, huh?” The beach was fading faster than they could process. They were falling, or being pulled away from the beach and their grunkles. Mabel looked back and saw a nightmare. Stan’s body contorted, growing in size, and taking on a triangular shape. Her vision blurred and he was jolting awake before she was able to register the voice that still haunted her dreams.

Was he Bill, or Stan? She thought she knew.

Chapter 1

#Whole Again #stancest #stanley pines #Stanford pines #stanowar #stanisbill #bill cipher #billisstan #billford #dipper pines #mabel pines #blatant zootopia refrence #subnautica reference #Ford is a clueless multiverse player

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tcthinecwnself-a · 7 years ago

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Mabel’s Coraline Au: Night Three (w/ angst!)

again old writing, booooo

under the cut to avoid rbs

No one had time for Mabel that day, or listen to her stories about her adventures in the other world. Not even Grunkle Stan, he was too busy with the summer rush.

When Mabel tried to get his attention because Ford and Dipper were headed out, he simply chuckled. “I’m sorry sweetie, I’ve got to give another tour,” he ruffled her hair. “I won’t be long.” Grunkle Stan smiled and strutted outside.

“But I might be.” Mabel smirked and carefully slipped into the basement when people’s attention was directed outside.

The elevator dinged on the 3rd floor and Mabel rushed out and threw the small door open. It was real! It wasn’t a dream at all! Mabel crawled though the colorful spiral tunnel into the color filled basement and took the elevator up to her other family.

Other Dipper wasn’t there though. Mabel asked her other Grunkles where he was, and Other Stan said he was waiting for her with Pacifica.

Mabel went out the door into the night (it seemed it was always night there, it made the stars on her sweater glow in the dark) and was making her way through the forest when the world became black and white, and laughter filled the air.

Bill appeared before her. “OH BOY SHOOTING STAR! I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D BE THIS GULLIBLE!” he laughed, glowing yellow every time he spoke.

“Bill? What-what do you mean?” Mabel asked raising her eyebrow. She knew better than to trust Bill, but what was he talking about?

“YOU MIGHT THINK THIS WORLD IS A DREAM COME TRUE SHOOTING STAR! BUT YOU’RE WRONG!” He said in a sly voice, dragging out his last word. “EVEN I CAN’T PUT MY FINGER ON WHAT THESE THINGS ARE, BUT HE MAKES THEM LIKE DOLLS!”

“Who-who makes them like dolls?” Mabel said backing up even more.

“YOU’RE ‘OTHER GRUNKLE!’” Bill made quotation marks in the air. “HE’S THE MASTERMIND IN ALL THIS! EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST RAGS!” he smirked picking up a gnome in mid air.

“No stop!” Mabel cried running towards the demon. “That’s one of the gnomes Dipper and I saw yesterday!”

“POP GOES THE WEASEL!” laughed Bill as the gnome’s head popped right off and sand poured out.

Mabel squeaked out in surprised, covering her mouth with her hands. “Why are you telling me this?”

“THE TRUTH IS I LIKE YOU KID! AND I NEED YOU FOR FUTURE PLANS! GET OUT NOW BEFORE YOU GET HURT. IF YOU DON’T I’LL JUST HAVE TO GET SOMEONE TO COME AND HELP YOU!” and with a laugh and a skip Bill left, and the world returned to its colorful look.

Mabel didn’t know how much time had passed, but she didn’t care, she had to go meet Other Pacifica and Dipper, right?

Once she was there she met the purple button-eyed Pacifica, who was so kind and nice and was getting along with Other Dipper very well. They played a few games, talked about their families and watched tv. When it was time to go other Pacifica pulled Dipper over, away from Mabel and gave him a cold hard stare. As if to say ‘don’t screw this up.’

Mabel and her other brother walked home to a great, big beautiful dinner that other Stan and Ford had made. After dinner and desert Other Stan gave Mabel a big smile.

“Y'know. You could stay here, if you wanted.” he said getting up and walking other to get something off the counter.

“Really?” asked Mabel with big eyes.

“Sure! We’ll sing and play games, and Stanley and I will cook your favorite meals.” Other Ford said with a slightly nervous smile, obvious to everyone but Mabel, he didn’t like what was happening.

“There’s just one thing we have to do first.” said Other Stan, placing down a small present in front of Mabel. “For you little doll.”

The entire time Other Dipper was silent, looking down at his plate which he had left untouched.

Mabel took no notice of this and ripped open the little box, inside, staring back at her, were two large black buttons, and a needle. Mabel’s smile soon faded.

“Black is traditional.” her other Grunkle said with a warm smile, which now started to creep Mabel out. “Or if you want pink, or purple like your friend Pacifica that’s fine.”

“NO WAY!” Mabel screeched and shoved the box away from her, making Other Dipper get up startled. “You’re not sewing buttons in my eyes!”

“Mabel we have to, if you want to stay.” said Other Stan.

“It’s so sharp you won’t feel a-GAH!” Other Ford began before Stan slammed his first on the table and stared daggers at him.

“Now it’s your choice, Mabel.” Other Stan picked up the box and brought it under Mabel’s nose. “We only want what’s best for you.”

“I-I want to go to bed! Right now!” Mabel said getting out of her chair, if going to bed sent her home the other two nights, it would now.

“MABEL!?”

Everyone in the room seemed to freeze as a gruff voice sounded through the house. Mabel’s first thought was to look at Other Ford, who’s voice it sounded like. But the button eyed man was frozen with fear.

“MABEL WHERE ARE YOU?” it said again. “ARE YOU DOWN HERE?”

“G-great uncle ford…” Mabel mumbled. “I’M IN THE KITCHEN!” she screamed, realizing that he’d come for her.

Suddenly her Great Uncle Ford, her REAL Great Uncle Ford, burst into the kitchen, his triangular gun at the ready. “Get. Away. From. My. Grandniece.” Ford’s voice was low and gravely, making him sound tough.

A growl came from beside Mabel and Other Stan grabbed her arm.

“YOU CAN’T TAKE HER! YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE TO LIVE HERE! SHE’S STAYING WITH US!” he yelled.

“Ouch! Stop it, you’re hurting me!” Mabel struggled to pull herself from Stan’s grasp.

Like a flash of light Ford’s gun went off and shot other Stan’s shoulder. Mabel scrambled away, almost tripping as she rushed over to her great uncle and tried to get him to run, but he was shaking and rooted to the floor.

“Stanley?” he choked out.

“Great Uncle Ford that’s not Grunkle Stan! We have to go!” Mabel tugged her uncle’s hand.

“Mabel, please go!” Other Ford was pointing at the vending machine. “Please leave!”

Other Dipper ran towards Mabel, Ford tried to shoot him but the boy was too quick. He reached the vending machine and to Mabel’s surprise, punched in the code. “C'mon! Hurry, before he wakes up!” he cried pushing the door open.

Soon Mabel, Ford and the other Dipper were all in the elevator. Other Stan was getting to his feet and was running towards them. Ford shoved the kids behind him.

At the last possible second they saw Other Ford tackle his 'brother.’

“GO!”

And the door shut. The soft hum of the elevator was the only sound they heard. Other Dipper was shaking at the loss of his Other Ford, Mabel patted him on the shoulder but was soon cut off as Stanford stepped in between them.

The elevator dinged as they reached the third floor.

“Okay Mabel, it’s time to go. We don’t have a lot of time. I know for a fact the my other self will not hold off the monster for long.” stated Ford.

“But, what about Dipper?” Mabel asked and turned towards her other brother. “Can’t you come with us?”

“Mabel.” the boy sighed. “I’m a doll, I can’t live in your world. If I did I wouldn’t be anything but…a rag doll. I can’t feel or touch or live or anything. But you gave me the best two and a half days of my life.” he said smiling.

Mabel opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by a loud banging sound.

“TIME TO GO!” yelled Stanford climbing into the door.

Mabel didn’t hesitate, she grabbed Other Dipper’s hand despite his protests and dragged him into the door with her.

The sound was getting closer

and closer

and closer!

Until Mabel and reached the other side. Her side.

Ford pulled her away from the door and slammed it shut. He pulled a key out of his pocket and locked it shut.

“That’s it, I’m destroying this thing.” he twirled his gun and pointed it at the door.

He stopped when he heard a sniffle behind him. He turned and saw Mabel clutching something to her chest. At a closer look, it was a small doll with black button eyes resembling Dipper.

“No, nononono!” the little girl choked out. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! Now he can’t even talk anymore! What did I do?!?”

Ford had never heard Mabel sob like this. He inched towards her and placed a hand on her back. He slowly pulled her into a hug, trying to sooth her.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s okay. It’s much better this way. I don’t think he would’ve lasted long with that monster in there. Now, let’s destroy the door okay?” he pulled away to meet his eyes with hers.

Mabel gave a small nod.

Ford sighed and took his gun and pointed it at the door once more. He shut his eyes and fired.

He used himself and a shield to make sure none of the flying splinters got to Mabel. When he looked up, the door was nothing more than a pile of dusty wood.

“Now.” said Ford. “Tell me everything you know about the Other World. And I’ll tell you everything I knew about it.”

#DO NOT REBLOG #;Peggy drabbles #Mabel | headcanons |#Mabel | Coraline au |#*tosses confetti*#i can't write ford to save my life

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a-gil-rebel · 1 month ago

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Double update in case anyone missed it since I didn't have enough signal to run Tumblr until the lasg 24 hours lol. Chapter 12 AND 13 of Fade to White - Grunkle Bill uploaded this week! Excerpt from each below. The Pines split up for a classic adventure, and grocery shopping.

"Don't. Move." Mabel ordered, slowly reaching out her hand to take his as he tried and failed to control his breathing, chest burning. The woods were silent around them, no birds or singing crickets, just the sound of something clicking behind him. Rion stayed stock still, holding Mabel's hand till his knuckles turned white until something breathed on his ear.

Then the only thing he knew was jumping over roots and running through the underbrush following the splash of bright pink and brown in front of him. The creature kept up with them easily, even as Rion screamed his head off. Not too long into their chase, his throat and lungs gave up on him, and he fell, pushing his back against a tree as Mabel tried to get him to stand.

-------

"Yeesh, uh. You good?" Stan tried, and Bill sighed, carefully rubbing his hand waiting for it to un-clamp as they moved to another aisle.

"Yeah just... happens." He sighed as his hand finally relaxed, running his hand through his hair. "My arm doesn't act up near as often as my knee, just getting... upset earlier sorta triggered it. Getting old fuc- er, fudging sucks."

"Ha! Yer tellin' me. New day, new mysterious body pain. Keeping up with Ford is one thing, but the twins too?"

Bill laughed, "Don't I know it. But if those boys weren't constantly trying to backflip off a cliff or tape each other to the ceiling, this life would be a lot more boring."

"Heh, yeah, retirement just ain't for us Pines, huh?"

"Not a chance." He agreed, faltering as he realized what Stan had said.

It should not be important that Stanley Pines just called him a Pines. Addressed him as a part of the family.

#gravity falls #gravity falls au #fade to white grunkle bill #grunkle bill #grunkle stan #bill cipher #some toxic family roles but mostly Grunkle Bonding time #and they eat an apple

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pinesconessecrets · 7 years ago

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A Chapter’s End

This is a gift for @lilymanzo , happy Christmas! And I want to thank @pinesconess2k17 for organising this, y'all rock.

Honey coloured sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting a golden glow on the remaining people and white chairs below. It was a sunny, spring day, and quite a fine day it was for a graduation ceremony. With the many loitering people and the scent of spring still lingering around him, Wirt was reminded of the quickly approaching Summer. He should’ve been excited, ecstatic even, but to be quite honest with himself, Wirt was terrified. He was terrified of applying for colleges, he was terrified of moving away, he was terrified of time flying by way too fast.

But most importantly, he was terrified of drifting apart from his friends.

Dipper, on the other hand, was not that much different. Usually, it was Mabel who was scared of these kinds of things happening, but this time it was him. Ironic, isn’t it? Looking at the navy cap in his lap, he wondered if he will end up staying just as close to his sister, or if his relationship with her will end up like Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford’s failed relationship. He let out a sigh, out of all things, this was making him panic the most. Mabel, noticing her brother’s quickened breath, held his hand to ground him. She herself was no stranger to this, having gone through a similar experience in their childhood. Dipper had comforted and helped her through that, now it’s time for her to return the favour.

Still holding his hand, she looked around the field. It wasn’t as crowded now, most of the people had gone home, but there were still quite a multitude of faculty and parents left. Mabel hoped that Wirt and Greg hadn’t gone home yet, there was a purikura photo-booth near the food; she wanted them to take some pictures with her and Dipper for memories sake.

Just as she was about to give up searching, she spotted a short boy dressed in red and yellow talking to another taller boy dressed in the same graduation gowns as she was. There they were! No wonder she couldn’t spot them, they were by the buffet table, and to no one’s surprise, it was still crowded.

“Dipper, Dipper, Wirt and Greg are over at the buffet tables,” Mabel whisper-yelled to her twin, eager to get him out of his moody state, “let’s go talk to ‘em!”

“What? Oh, ok sure.” Dipper replied, mood improving rapidly with the dread of summer disappearing almost instantaneously.

So they got up and quickly set off to meet the brothers. Wirt noticed them earlier, but dared not approach them. They looked like they were having a moment, which was not a bad thing as he got to hear what Greg had to say about the ceremony. He said that it was like Wirt was a superhero or when they were in the Unknown where Wirt wore his great-grandmother’s cape -he winced internally to the later comparison, he’d rather not be reminded of the time in what was basically purgatory-.

In the end, neither he nor Greg had to go to them as they came to he and Greg. Mabel with her sunny and joyful grin, and Dipper with his more subdued but equally happy one. Greg stopped talking to his older brother in favour of hugging and talking to his honourary older sister. Wirt could feel everything fade into the background as he saw Dipper approaching him with open arms. They were both high school graduates now, and they would soon go their different paths unless he and Dipper both ended up in Harvard. So he would rather savour what would be the last moments he would have with his boyfriend until the new school year starts up again.

Time seemed to slow around them as they drew close to each other. Voices and colours started to grow blurry and it soon faded into a soft buzz. Wirt could feel Dipper wrapping his arms around him like a koala, it was a bit tight, but comforting nevertheless.

“Hey,” a muffled voice greeted him.

“Hey to you too.”

They spent quite a while hugging each other, it was getting a bit warm. But the warmer the better, Wirt thought. He never did like the cold, bad things tended to happen in the cold (this was totally not based off his own experiences, totally not). Dipper on the other hand, quite welcomed Wirt’s hug. It was soft and warm, just how he liked it; though he could shed the robe, it was getting really hot.

Wirt looked over to their respective siblings. Greg and Mabel were having quite the time of their lives just talking to each other, it would be rude to just interrupt them like that. Turning back, Dipper had let go and was starting to shed his robe. It was getting rather warm, with the spring fading into summer and all that.

“You know,” Dipper mumbled, “things are going to be really different.”

“Hm? Could you repeat that, love?” Wirt responded, looking over to him. Wirt hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, but he knows somethings up when he starts mumbling to him.

“I said that things are going to change a lot. I’ll be going to college and you’ll be in college too.”

“Go on,” Wirt encouraged, quirking an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s college. You and I will be in different courses learning different things in different states with different schedules.”

At this point, Dipper was starting to breathe a bit more heavily, he was panicking and it was getting worse. Wirt could see where he was going. That thought made him scared too. It wasn’t an uncommon sight for Wirt to see him like this, the first time he met him was literally a few days after weirdmageddon. And he was the one to make him panic due to him talking about the Beast in detail, it was too similar to Bill. He was surprised that it wasn’t worse. The Unknown left him and Greg a nasty reminder of what happened there, and they couldn’t get over it for years. Wirt slowly inched his hand closer to hold Dipper’s clenched one to help ground him, but he hesitated. Was it ok to touch him? What if he freaks out? What if Wirt just made everything worse?

“Dipper, Dipper!” that didn’t catch his attention, oh no. “It’s okay, take your time,” Wirt whispered, his hands moving to clasp the other set of hands. He nodded and continued.

“Point is, you and I will end up in different places with busy schedules and not enough time to see each other, and that’s just us! What if Mabel and I become so busy that we don’t even talk anymore? I’m scared that we’ll end up drifting apart, and,” there was a pause, but then he spoke in a quieter voice, “and I don’t think I can handle that.”

Wirt sighed and tightened his grip on Dipper. They really were two peas in a pod, weren’t they? Wirt smiled and shook his head. It was natural to think this way, he too often worried about these things.

“Well, you don’t have to, Dipper.” Wirt reassured him, he needed to know that he wasn’t going to go through this alone, they both did. “We’re not going to drift apart or not have enough time for each other, that’s what communication is for.”

“But what if we do?” Dipper asked, voice filled with worry.

“Then we fix it. You said it yourself, communication is key to any relationship, so that’s why we need keep the flow going.” Wirt bit his cheek, “and, if we ever drift apart, you can count on your pilgrim to come back to you.”

At this, Dipper grinned. It wasn’t a bright grin, but more a tired and relieved one. It was as if he was fighting an internal battle prior to this talk, Wirt noted to himself, it’s good that he got it out of his system. Dipper leaned up to peck Wirt on the lips as a thank you, he really thought that he was being ridiculous for awhile.

“Thanks, I needed that.”

“I know, the next time you need to talk to someone, don’t hesitate to shoot a message to me, Greg or your sister, okay?”

“Okay, but what if I send you a pigeon? How would you reply?”

“I’ll come to you by moonlight on a talking and formerly thieving horse with Greg, Mabel and a bluebird by my side to fight off whatever is bothering you.”

“What, with your poetry and sass?”

“Yes, with my poetry and sass.”

“Fair enough, thank you Wirt, that helped me a lot,” Dipper replied softly but with feeling, he felt lighter now, like the world wasn’t on his shoulders, “say, how about we go and see what our siblings are up to? We haven’t heard from them in awhile.”

“Hm, good idea.”

With that, our two waffles have gone on to talk to their siblings and go home. Thus marks the end of their time in highschool and of spring, at least for Mabel, Dipper and Wirt. Soon summer has arrived and so do the plans for the upcoming seasons. But, that’s a story for another day.

A bonus accidental line I wrote and erased:

“You know,” Dipper mumbled, picking up a crunchy boi from the buffet. The boi was so crunchy, it needed some moisturiser.

#pinescone #Pinescone Secret Santa #pinescone secret santa 2017 #Wirt #Dipper Pines #submission

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pinewreaths · 8 years ago

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Inseparable, Part Two

The second part of the first story of Angstmas 2017! The first part is here.

“Hiya bro-bro. What’d I miss?”

Mabel had given him her brace-filled grin, then shivered in the cool damp of the cavern. The green fire that has surrounded her had faded, and with it the surge of supernatural warmth had fled as well. Dipper quickly pulled off his vest, offering it to his sister as she shrugged it over her bare form.

His vision was blurred, but it was still her. The same smile, same chestnut locks, same dimples, and same voice. It was beyond belief, impossible even, but he and his sister had seen countless impossible things last summer: Dipper’s faith in the unknown had been nothing if not strengthened, and now kneeling before him was a miracle made flesh.

She was back.

He reached out to cup her face, but had to bite back a grimace of frustration as his hand shivered violently upon contact. He thought it was nerves, and although he could feel the warmth beneath the pad of his thumb as he rubbed it under her chin, it was also unexpectedly cool, as if the surface of her skin was ice that mingled with the heat of her vitality beneath. He forced his arm to settle, the sensation growing as familiar as he could remember as her twinkling eyes met his.

“Dip. Dipper, I...I was alone.” She grew quiet for a moment, and her lip pouted at the edge of a quaver before she drew a slow, careful breath. “I...did I...die?”

He tried looking everywhere but at her questioning face, but finally forced himself to meet her gaze and nodded. She shivered, and scooched an inch towards her brother across the dirt of the cavern floor. He could see her lift her head, her gaze sweeping across the smudged and ruined edges of the ritual circle she had been reborn within.

“You...wow, Dip, did you cast a spell or something?” Her voice grew playful, tinged with an edge of admiration. “A little high-power hocus-pocus?” She giggled, and the infectious sound caused Dipper to chuckle as well.

“Something like that.” No reason to cause her to worry over a little grave desecration; at this point it was moot, and simply a sad patch of dirt rather than her final resting place.

She grinned, and leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. It lingered, the warmth of her breath causing the hairs on his neck to stand erect, and he Sighed with both happiness and disappointment as she withdrew.

It was then, as they looked into each-other’s eyes, joy and relief filling his heart, that Soos’ voice echoed down the elevator shaft.

“Uh, dood? I, uh, I dunno if you’re down here or what, but, uh, Mister. Stan and his bro are back!”

Dipper groaned, but slowly got to his feet, offering Mabel a hand up. She took it, her grip like iron despite the weakness he had anticipated from her resurrection. He had known his Grunkles were coming back, but this was a day or two early. Likely they had meant to surprise him, to try and take his mind off his moping, but Dipper again felt like he was looking into a snowglobe of how others expected him to feel.

Instead, he felt lighter than air, suffused by a relief and laughter within his chest that he hadn’t felt since before he lost her. They expected him to be despairing when he felt like this? Dipper didn’t know if he could hide the newfound elation he felt at feeling his sister’s hand in his, or if he even cared to in the first place.

“C’mon, Mabes. Let’s get you a change of clothes.” He guided her to the elevator, to Ford’s study where Dipper knew they had left an emergency supplies stash for Weirdmageddon. Sure enough, the cache remained, and while musty the clothes still fit just fine. Mabel did a little twirl, restored to her favorite style of skirt and a white sweater with grey striping on the sleeves. The futuristic font on the front spelled out Lincoln Six Echo, some boy band she probably had obsessed over that had mingled with the countless others.

Clenching her hand as tightly as he dared, they rode the elevator to the top, and approached the back of the cracked-open vending machine doorway. Stan’s belly laughter could be heard, followed belatedly by some sort of lecturing tone from Ford. There was something Soos and Melody said, and the mingled laughter of their Grunkles came a moment later.

Dipper reached the door, pushing it open a foot. Melody and Soos had their backs to the shop, but Ford immediately noticed the movement and caught Dipper’s eye.

Then his gaze shifted to directly behind Dipper, and he froze.

Melody must have noticed, because she went to follow his gaze when Ford barked out an order, loud and harsh with the expectation and implied threat that it be followed immediately and without fail.

“Eyes on me-eyes on me NOW!” Melody’s head snapped back to face him, and Soos did as well. Face still straight ahead, Dipper could see him whisper something to his girlfriend out the side of his mouth, and she muttered something back. Soos shrugged, and Dipper could see Stan come in from the hallway.

Then he caught sight of the twins, and with barely any delay had already resumed his smooth-talking conman air as Ford just stood and stared, a vein bulging slightly on his forehead.

“All right, kiddos, special treat on us: a week of vacation, pro bono! We’ll cover the shop and all, so no reason to drag your feet, eh?” He had already maneuvered behind the couple, and with a forceful hand on their shoulders he was marching them to the front door.

Dipper could hear a faint “But what about some luggage, Mr. Pines?” Stan casually dismissed it with a wave, managing to keep the waving hand applying steady forward force as he did, and said “Ah the heck with it, kid. Luggage is overrated; here, treat yourself to some new duds and go have fun and whatever.”

A crumpled fistful of bills was crammed into Soos’ coat pocket, but Dipper could see his pace slow in confusion. Stan was never the type to give away money, and instead usually the smallest pittance had to be obtained through hook, crook, or a reliably tough set of pliers.

Soos started to turn, muttering “Mister Pines, are you ok? Something just seems not right about this whole-”

The pictures on the wall shuddered as Stan’s arm slammed against the doorframe. He was in a pose of casually leaning against the now-cracked wood, but the congenial tone in his voice held an edge of violence.

“Scram, kids.” There was a pause as he met Dipper’s stare, his expression unreadable. “Trust me on this.”

He pulled the door shut behind the turned back of his former assistant, and had crossed the living room to stand next to his brother a moment later. Stan made a motion to move towards them, but Ford held out a hand and shook his head.

Instead, Stanford turned to Dipper, his voice carefully level.

“Dip, I need you to tell me exactly what you did.”

A rushed explanation, given haste by excitement, pride, and guilt, proceeded to tumble out and fill the dusty air of the souvenir shop. Stan watched with dull suspicion, his eyes darting from Dipper, to his revived sister, to his brother, and back, as if he was a predator assessing an ambushed deer.

Ford, however, had none of the same poker face. His expression shifted only a little, but Dipper had studied his every move and expression at every opportunity after he had arrived last summer. To him, Ford’s shock, horror, and something akin to fury passed by in equal measure. The first two Dipper had expected, but not the third.

As he mentioned the lightning, the last rumble of the passing storm buzzed the windowpanes, and Ford broke the silence.

Dipper was surprised when he didn’t address him.

“Stan, knife.”

In quick succession there was a thump as Stan’s heavy seaboot thumped up onto a stool and in the same motion a sliver of silver flashed out from his hand, in a lazy arc to Ford.

He caught it without hesitation, the blade almost appearing in his hand as Stan pulled his pant leg back down. Dipper could see engravings along the bone handle, but most of all his mind was focused on how Ford was striding over to Mabel, who took a worried step backwards.

Ford’s hand shot out, gripping Mabel as he said in a terse voice “I just need to check something.”

The knife flashed, and Dipper’s breath caught in his throat, but then there was another flicker as the blade was returned to Stan, and Mabel just let out an indignant “Ow.”

Peering around his Grunkle’s back, Dipper could see Ford had made a half-inch cut along the side of one of her fingers. He was squeezing it carefully, and Dipper could hear him murmuring “c’mon, don’t be green, don’t be green.”

Instead, nothing emerged. The cut was deep enough to see the redness below, but not so much as a single drop of blood welled forth. Ford let go of her hand, taking a long and contemplative breath as Mabel glowered and stuck the wounded digit in her mouth for a moment before pulling it out to look at it.

“Well, she’s not the shapeshifter at least,” Ford said, and then snorted through his nose. “‘Course, something else is wrong that I don’t think you accounted for, Dipper.”

Stan’s voice cut in unexpectedly. “She’s undead, kid. No pulse, no life. Not really.” His voice was thick as he asked pleadingly “Dipper, did you even read the warnings?”

Dipper’s suspicions, already curling around his gut despite his fleeting optimism attempting to tamp them down, flared to the forefront.

The icy skin. The revulsion to touch. The quietness.

The last one caught him off-guard, but even his subconscious had noticed that his sister had said barely a dozen words since she had risen. That certainly wasn’t like Mabel, as the moment an opening in a conversation appeared, she had an almost-biological inability to do anything other than fill the waiting void.

Dipper could feel Stan’s questioning, pleading look on him, and he shook his head, letting out a squeaked “no.” His Grunkle cleared his throat, saying in a bit clearer voice “Yeah, well, I figured as much. There’s a reason I know what the warnings say.”

Ford’s head shot up at this; with Dipper forgotten for a passing moment, his voice was equal parts hurt and confusion. “Stanley, whatever do you mean? You saw me pulled through, body and spirit and all. A resurrection spell wouldn’t have had anything to work with, and would have just-”

Now it was Stan’s turn to turn towards his brother, a single finger waving warningly. “Stanford, you numbskull, it was Twenty. Damn. Years. You had gone through a portal, to only god knows where in the multiverse. Sure, I was able to find where you had disappeared to, but how was I supposed to know I was going to get anything back through than a half-eaten corpse, a charred skeleton, a mangled-”

He cut off with a glance towards the younger twins, sighing as the frustration drained out of his posture. “I’m just saying, I wanted to cover the eventualities.” Ford nodded, but turned to give a worried look towards Mabel. Stan grunted with affirmation.

“And let me tell you, that’s not an eventuality I wanted.”

Dipper’s voice was unsteady, and he felt like the ground was collapsing beneath him as he gripped Mabel’s hand. “W-what do you mean?” She returned the grip, but it was too strong, and the chill was giving his entire arm goosebumps.

Ford’s voice was kind, reassuring, but carrying a weight of sadness Dipper had rarely heard from him. “Dipper, have-have you tried talking with her-with Mabel for any length?”

Blinking away tears, Dipper shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know? We talked when she first came back, said she thought she had died, that she had-”

He cut off what he was saying as he noticed Stan had returned from where he had stepped out to rummage through a hall closet. He had a set of items in his hands, and Dipper’s breath caught as he saw them.

It was a ball of pink yarn, and a pair of knitting needles.

He recognized them from last summer, and now more than ever Dipper wanted to smack them out of Grunkle Stan’s grip, scatter them across the floor and let them be forgotten.

Instead, he felt a mounting feeling of dread as Mabel cautiously took the yarn and needles. She turned them over in her hands, and Dipper could feel his remaining willpower shatter as he heard her voice crack.

“I...I don’t know how to do this.”

Dipper’s head shot up towards Ford as he had a sudden thought. “Maybe she just needs time to-” before Stan stepped to interject.

“Dipper, the warnings, the damn warnings said what this is: these aren’t her memories.”

“They’re yours.”

Dipper turned to look at Ford, as he sighed and removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “B-but the fawn?” he said, hoping his Grunkle might have possibly, hopefully, impossibly been wrong about this.

Ford coughed, rubbing his hand on his neck. “Well, you see, the fawn lived, but it had my memories of it’s...fawn-ness.” Dipper cocked his head, not understanding, and trying to not look at his sister’s futile attempts to fumble a line of yarn out between two needles and form anything but an ugly knot.

She always made it look so easy…

Ford took a breath and began again. “Dipper, I’m an extradimensional physicist, not a biologist. It thought the Shack was its home; I didn’t know where its den was!” His voice rose, a tinge of defiance against the guilt beginning to color the story. “I shooed it away time and again, but each time it returned, weaker than the next. I had never raised a deer, didn’t know the first thing about feeding it.”

His eyes rose to meet his nephew’s. “After the fact, a baby mammal drinking milk had made sense, but at the time of the ritual I had never given it that much thought. I had assumed they ate grass and leaves and greenery. I had always assumed that...”

He trailed off, and Dipper looked over at his sister as tears of frustration fell on the discarded heap of yarn and needles. I had always assumed that I’d never need to pay attention to a detail like that.

Ford’s gaze dropped as Stan put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I did my best to feed it once I realized it wasn’t going away, but it wouldn’t take to being bottle-fed. Out of desperation I tried using leaves of a head of lettuce; it ate them, but nutritionally it was useless to a week-old fawn.” He took another long pause. “She died after a few days short of two weeks after I raised her.”

He met Dipper’s horrified gaze. “I don’t think Mabel’s going to starve, but the same problem persists. She’s formed from your memories, not hers.”

Dipper began to shake his head, a fervent hope that disbelief could resolve the crisis and set everything right and just the way he had hoped for if he just shut out all else and-

He was shocked from his mantra as Grunkle Stan gripped him by the shoulders and shook him. “Damn it, Dipper, look at me. Look at this.”

He turned towards Mabel, tears still glittering on her rosy cheeks as Stan’s hand kept Dipper’s shoulder in a vice grip. “Mabel, sweetie, what’s your favorite boy band?”

She chuckled, and gave them finger guns. “Man, Sev’ral Timez; what else?” A moment later she gave him a playful glare and muttered “I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let me keep one of them.”

Stan shook his head. “They’d make a helluva mess on the carpet, and besides I-” He stopped, shook his head with a sigh, and then said “Okay then, kiddo, what’s your second-favorite boy band?”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Again, Dipper wracked his mind for any time she had told him the name of a band she liked, but they all flowed together in a stream of frosted tips, crooning, and snapped fingers. Sev’ral Timez had only stood out thanks to their escapades in rounding up the feral cloned escapees, but the rest?

It was a blank.

His point had been made, but Stan continued. “Okay then, next question: what’s your favorite candy?”

Mabel had been eyeing both him and Dipper with a hurt look of suspicion, but at this she perked back up. “Duh. Smile Dip!”

Ford started, and in a questioning tone he started to say “Wait, wasn’t that banned in the-” before his brother cut him off.

“So what flavor is Smile Dip?”

Ford opened his mouth again, but then shut it and waited. There was another agonizing pause, and in a questioning tone Mabel just said “...Pink Glitter?”

Stan just let out a snort through his nose and looked to Dipper. “I get the picture,” he said to his Grunkle. “Please; no more.”

Stan nodded and took a respectful step back as Dipper stepped over to hug Mabel. There was a long pause, disturbed only by another rumble of thunder from the distance. Then Ford broke the silence.

“There...may be another possibility.” He leaned forward and murmured in Dipper’s ear, before leaning back. He glanced at Stan, who was clearly curious but decided save the questions for later; the glance held a sad memory, and then it was passively neutral once more.

“Did you need me to bring anything from upstairs? Old notebooks, personal effects, that sort of thing?”

Dipper’s mind was racing, but kept looping around to a single, blazing outcome.

“No,” he said, and summoned the effort for a smile. Then hugging Mabel into another embrace, he led her by the hand back towards the hidden elevator.

Before he clicked shut the vending machine, Dipper managed to draw on the effort for another reassuring smile, and said “Thank you.”

Then the door was shut, the emergency lights leading the way as they returned to Ford’s abandoned study. Dipper made his way to the desk his Grunkle had mentioned, pushed the cap of the one golden pen in a cup full of black ballpoints into a specific knothole on the side, and caught the velvet-wrapped item that slipped out from a panel as it slid backwards.

Mabel had taken a seat on one of the old swivel chairs, and was nervously bouncing her knee up and down. Carefully, Dipper unwrapped the velvet, revealing a dusty but intact memory gun.

“You could try again,” Ford had whispered into his ear. “Try to set it right, get every memory you can into there, as best as you can remember, focusing this time so you don’t leave anything out.”

Dipper had nodded, but his own memory screamed at him about the foolishness proposed.

I can’t knit, or purl, or even sew, let alone make another one of her sweaters like I remember. I can’t cook, and could probably burn a salad let along make her amazing sugar cookies we had the Christmas before last. I can’t laugh like she can, let alone replicate her sense of humor and make the entire classroom laugh like we did in fourth grade Geography that fall. I can’t love like she could, the love she had for random strangers and animals and pets like Waddles or Gomper, the ability to walk into a room and have a dozen new penpals by the time she walked out. I just can’t bring that back.

“Dipper?” Her voice was worried at his silence, but he just patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

“No worries Mabes. Everything’s gonna get fixed here in a second.”

He could see her shoulders slump slightly as he gently clicked the oiled dial to >ALL<.

“Hey, Mabel?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you like best about me?”

She giggled a little as he pulled off a post-it note from the stack by the pen cup, and scrawled a note on it before adhering it to the side of the gun.

“Well, I like that you’re smart, that you’re good at puzzles and decrypting codes, that you totally do not sneeze like a kitten, and…”

The pause lasted for a long while, and Dipper gently prompted her. “And?”

“And you love your sister more than anything else in the world, and she loves you back just as much.” She giggled. “How was that?”

Dipper smiled, blinking away the tears as he charged up the memory gun. “That was great. J-just...just focus on those memories, all right?”

She nodded. Dipper grinned through his tears, raising up the memory gun to read the writing on the side:

Destroy this gun before anyone can stop you.

Then he raised the glowing bulb to his temple, and the world went white.

Prompt from @noneatnonedotcom: for angstmas mabel dies in an acident dipper is unwilling to let her go and after a year of trying sucsessfuly brings her back. mabel is quite literaly alive again dipper wouldn't settle for less but the rest of the pines family and gravity falls at large belive he's lost his mind and the mabel he's brought back is nothing more then a corpse animated by magic. can the twins survive the hatred of the people they love?

#angstmas #angstmas 2017 #pinecest #wreathfic #drabble #pinescest #pinecest fanfiction

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