#just gonna stick in the tags a reminder that this doesn't NEED to be avarice canon

[haberdashing]

Avarice (6/6)

AU of the Transcendence AU where Grunkle Stan becomes a demon instead of Dipper.

Prologue / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6

on AO3

also on ff.net (no link because filters)

“Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Ford, look what we found!”

Ford let out a noise of surprise as he turned and threw the nearest of a sizable stack of crumpled-up wads of paper at the source of the words. The paper ball harmlessly bounced off an unbothered Mabel, who was excitedly waving a notebook page in the air, the wide grin on her face rivaled only by that of her brother.

Ford let out a sigh of relief as he pushed himself up from the desk, where he had been crouched over notes, head and arms encircling the papers. “I’m sorry, Mabel, you just... startled me.”

“Pssh.” Mabel used her free hand to make a gesture waving away Ford’s concern. “Not a problem. But look, we found something in your notes that could help against Bill!” She waved the notebook page around even more enthusiastically, the paper curving and flapping in the air.

“Careful with that! Here, let me get a closer look.”

“Oh. Right.”

Ford stepped closer, and Mabel held out the page. It didn’t look particularly remarkable at a glance, displaying nothing that looked particularly menacing or lethal, just a few small pictures and scribbled descriptions of several rather mundane-looking objects.

Ford examined the page closely, tracing the writing with his finger before eventually resting his thumb next to a picture of something that looked as much like a cheap gift shop knick-knack as a magical artifact worthy of serious study, muttering to himself all the while, before finally glancing back up at Dipper and Mabel. “Good find, you two.”

“Dipper found it, actually.” Mabel extended her arm towards her brother, who stood up straighter at the mention of his name.

“A-and I was thinking-” Dipper rummaged through his vest before retrieving a small notebook, which he flipped through frantically. “-if we combined that with-”

“Quiet now.” Ford scanned the room, but overlooked Stan’s hiding spot near the bottom of the tarp. (Stan always had been the better of the two at hide and seek.) “He’s probably watching us as we speak. If we’re going to plan anything, we need to do it as quietly and stealthily as possible, so that there’s a chance he might not notice.”

And so Ford and the kids gathered together supplies and huddled around a piece of... was that parchment? Of all the things Ford could have around as writing material, he was using parchment? At least that’s what it looked like, a giant piece of off-white paper, nothing like the stuff you’d buy at the store...

The three sketched and wrote frantically on the paper, but the way they all leaned over it made it damn near impossible for Stan to get a glimpse at their plans, even when he eventually inched away from the tarp and closer to their work. They worked for minutes, maybe hours, it was hard to tell, but eventually the three split up and started working on separate projects, ones that still didn’t make much sense as Stan watched them being made piece by piece. But one pattern emerged from their work.

Apparently, to defeat a demon triangle, you needed... circles. Lots and lots of circles.

The circle that Mabel was working on was composed of wood, thin pine boughs twisted and bent until they joined together to make a circle as wide as Mabel was tall, a fact repeatedly demonstrated by her laying down in the middle while doing her work (and when she occasionally flopped down on top of the circle when she had had enough and needed a break). Across the circle, she made intricate loops and patterns with off-white string, geometric shapes arranged just so, with all the lines eventually criss-crossing around the circle’s center. On roughly a quarter of the circle she hung neon-colored strings and lined them with thick beads and brightly-dyed feathers.

It was, admittedly, a magnificent crafts project,  but its connection to the situation at hand was utterly lost on Stan.

Dipper’s project was a bit more straightforward. He made a circle out of rainbow hair, unicorn hair, and Stan had seen a similar lining just outside the Shack, could guess its intended purpose. There was more to the circle than the hair, too- stones dotted its perimeter at regular locations, and all around the edge had been sprinkled drops of mercury, the silver beads gleaming as they were carefully nudged into place. The space that this barrier encompassed was a bit smaller than that of Mabel’s wooden circle; within it lay a large stack of books, the memory gun that Ford had used to get rid of the feds, and, for some reason, a spray bottle full of unidentified clear liquid. (Stan would have liked to assume that the liquid was water. Stan knew better.)

Ford used thick white chalk to outline circles within circles within circles, the outermost one significantly dwarfing the other two projects. (Only one room in the house had enough open space for such a project, and upon poking his head into the basement, Stan had found its floor conveniently vacant; he hadn’t seen the cleaning happen, but the dust of the basement floor matched the dust on Ford’s clothes, and his boots sported a thick layer of mud that hadn’t been there the night before, and he could put together the rest.) Along the chalk lines he added a number of candles- not the ugly squat things Stan kept around in case of a power outage or the thin, colorful ones which had been sitting in a half-empty box in the far reaches of the freezer for decades on end, but long, white, tapered candles, probably meant for some formal occasion, doubtlessly expensive. In between the circles-in-circles Ford wrote symbols, some arcane and some prosaic, some that Stan dimly remembered from old portal-fixing research (was that one from a star chart?) and some that he came across on a daily basis (that tree symbol looked just like the one on that hat Dipper always wore, and he’d seen that shooting star on one of Mabel’s sweaters, and the six-fingered hand... was obvious enough as well).

The work on all three soon turned into mere tweaking, into brushing away lines and replacing them with nearly-identical counterparts, into scraping stones against wood while adjusting their placement slight fractions of an inch, into breaking out a tool Stan dimly remembered from math class to make sure that the string patterns were aligned just so. Stan didn’t know where to look, or what to look for. He suspected that that was rather the point.

Ford came up to check on the kids and their work every so often.

He did not, Stan noted, invite them to do the same.

The last of his check-ups came hours after the summer sun had set, and while in the others Ford had ended his examinations with long lists of things that needed to be edited or redone, this time he offered only a few minor additions, the critique far outweighed by praise. The three stood together inside the unicorn hair circle as Ford rambled on about something to do with the special properties of mercury on wood.

Stan was on the outside of the circle; he couldn’t join them if he tried (and he had tried, had tried several times now, growing bolder as the hours fled by and little seemed to change). Sure, the barrier was made with sparkly hair and gemstones, and the others had no trouble scampering through what looked to the world like thin air, but for Stan it might as well have been a metal wall- it was hard and smooth and cold and even if he charged at it with all his might, Stan wasn’t so sure it’d be the one to budge.

Stan leaned back against the barrier, which came into view as he made contact, emitting a purple-tinged glow riddled with strange sigils.

“Neat trick there, I’ll give you that one.”

Ford didn’t pause his nerd rant for even a moment to show that he’d heard.

“If I knew how to make these work for, er, normal people, the Mystery Shack would have its newest attraction ready to go!”

That one merited a pause, a pause followed by Ford spitting out words rapid-fire as if to make up for lost time.

Stan could practically feel Ford’s gaze burning into the back of his head.

He didn’t turn around.

“I can see it now...” Stan held up his hands as if framing a sign. “’The Invisi-Maze: More fun than the eye can handle!’ Or somethin’ like that, anyway...”

Stan’s arms fell back as he finished gesturing, and he kept slipping as he tried to reposition himself against the awkwardly-curved barrier, eventually taking a step back altogether. He glanced briefly at the colorful barrier before it rippled back into invisibility, revealing a brother who was indeed giving him a vicious glare.

“Probably, uh, hafta get that glow thing in check first. But forget the hall of mirrors, any two-bit hole in the wall can throw together one of those, but an actual invisible maze, hell, what tourist wouldn’t pay out the nose for something like that...”

“This is more than mere fodder for some cheap tourist attraction, Sta-”

All eyes fell on Ford as he halted his speech in the middle of the word. He rubbed one hand against his temple, breaths deep and quick as he paused before speaking up again, voice rushed and with a hint of a tremor.

“Bill, you’re Bill, I know you’re Bill-”

“Grunkle Ford, what’s going on?”

“What’s he doing? Is there something we can do to help?”

Dipper grabbed Ford’s loose hand, and as Ford let his other hand drop back to his side Mabel latched onto it in turn. Ford’s breathing slowed as he squeezed the twins’ hands, though there was still a slight weakness in his voice as he responded.

“...Never mind that. More importantly, I believe I’ve been lecturing you two for far too long.” He let out a noise that was clearly intended as some manner of laugh, but fell far short of the mark. “What matters is that you’ve both done a fine job, and both of these should do quite well to help us defeat Bill.”

Ford shot Stan a quick glare. Stan shot one right back.

“In fact, take the rest of the night off. We can do any minor tweaks in the morning, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be tending to my own project down in the basement. I’ll see you again come morning.”

“Can we help?”

“No!”

A moment of silence fell upon the room before Ford attempted to soften his reply.

“It’s very- very delicate and complicated work, you see, and you two could use the rest anyway-”

“Sure, they’re the ones who need rest.” Stan mumbled.

If Ford heard Stan’s words, he didn’t show it.

“-so I’m sorry, but you can’t join me down there, you really can’t. Just- don’t go in the basement, no matter what, unless your life is in danger.”

“But Grunkle Ford-”

“No buts. I will come to see you in the morning. Until then, just- stay safe, stay up here, and if anything happens, if he...” Ford sighed and squeezed the twins’ hands tightly. “Just be careful. Promise me that.”

Dipper and Mabel looked up at their great-uncle’s deep eyes before nodding.

“We promise.”

“Don’t worry about us, Grunkle Ford- we’re just worried about you!”

“Don’t be.” Ford shook his head and let out another not-quite-laugh. “I’ll be fine. It will all be fine come morning. Now-” Ford released his hands from the children’s grip. “I’m going to go work. Nobody follow me.”

Ford rushed towards the basement entrance, leaving a confused Dipper and Mabel in his wake. Stan, after a brief moment of consideration, followed behind.

Ford worked at a frantic pace, sketching designs that were more and more intricate until Stan could barely make out the individual lines, measuring and re-measuring the circles and the candle placements, consuming prodigious amounts of coffee but no actual sustenance. Stan hung back for the most part, though he didn’t bother hiding from Ford’s view anymore; he made a few passing remarks, attempts to rekindle a conversation, but his words faded and died in the basement’s cold, stale air.

Stan kept his distance as Ford began to light the long, thin candles one by one, going from the outside inward; Stan hung back as Ford reached the center of the innermost circle and got out a fancy-looking knife, its hilt shimmering in the candlelight. Only as Ford pressed the knife into the palm of his hand and beads of crimson blood dripped onto the floor did Stan rush forward, suddenly keenly aware of every microscopic nerve and blood vessel that Ford might have just cut into, all the irreversible damage that might be caused by a single poorly-placed cut.

“Goddammit, Ford, be careful!”

But Ford was faster than him, it seemed, for by the time Stan reached the center Ford was already on the far side of the farthest circle, chanting some gobbledygook that might have been Latin. (Stan suddenly regretted all the times he had nodded off during Latin class.) Ford’s voice reached a crescendo, a wave of warmth passed over Stan...

And then, to Stan’s shock, Ford actually responded to him.

“Since when do you swear?”

“Since, uh, sixth grade? Seventh?” Stan shrugged. “You probably remember better than I do, I wasn’t exactly subtle-”

“That’s not what I meant.”

There was a sound Stan couldn’t quite place, something soft against stone.

“What was that?”

“I’m not getting distracted that easily.”

“No, seriously, what was that?” Stan looked to the source of the sound and saw nothing but a few clumps of dirt and pebbles- though he was pretty sure those hadn’t been there before. “Is this place caving in or something? Because that’s the sort of thing I’d like to know about sooner rather than later, ghost or no.”

“Wh- Look. We can solve this once and for all now. If you really are Stan’s ghost, just leave the circle. A ghost would have no trouble with these wards.”

“Seriously? That’s it?” Stan started floating towards Ford, whose expression was nearly indecipherable. “After all that, I just-”

Stan didn’t mean to scream.

Honestly, he didn’t. But it was only natural that he let out a yelp when he touched that first chalk line and slammed into what felt like a concrete wall and an electric fence put together. There was still no sign to the bare eye that anything was there, no glimmering wall to mark the barrier that was clearly there for him, just a point at which thin air turned into wall and pain.

“I knew it.” There was a cold fury in Ford’s voice, but also a strange melancholy. “This circle was made specifically to contain a demon, to contain you. Which it’s doing quite well, I might add.”

Stan tried to push through, to break whatever barrier those chalk lines had built up, but though he put all his force into it, the only sign that he was doing anything was a few measly sparks and an ever-increasing amount of pain.

Finally Stan fell back, retreating into the circle’s center, not sure that he was ready to concede defeat just yet but willing to at least give himself a little time to recover.

“If- if this thing only works against demons, then...” Stan put together the pieces quickly enough, though he didn’t much like the picture they painted. “Wait, humans can become demons? Does that mean Bill was-”

“No. Humans are humans, demons are demons, and that’s that.”

“Well, the world kind of went topsy-turvy yesterday, clearly a few things must have gone by the wayside...”

“Ah yes, thank you for reminding me of that.” Ford reached into his jacket and pulled out a box nearly as long as he was tall, setting it on the floor- there was a yellow label on the box, and Stan could just barely make out the word Experiment, followed by a three-digit number. “I’m going to make sure you never pull a stunt like that again.”

What Ford grabbed when he opened the box turned out to be a gun- a huge, sci-fi-looking gun, and Ford probably would’ve used fancier words to describe it, but Stan knew a gun when he saw one. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself on the wrong end of one, either, but as Ford’s aim grew more precise, Stan was beginning to suspect that it would be the last.

“Your reign of terror ends here, Bill.”

“No, wait-” Stan flew upwards as fast as he could, but well before he could reach the ceiling one of those invisible barriers jolted him, sending him reeling back towards the floor. “-c’mon, Ford, don’t do this to me, please-” He tried to swerve, to maneuver around as much as he could to avoid whatever that sci-fi gun had in store for him, but there just wasn’t enough room, and the muzzle was glowing blue and Stan didn’t know exactly what that meant but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good news for him...

For one brief moment, Stan and Ford looked each other in the eye, and Stan silently pleaded to his brother to think twice, tried to save himself without words at a time when words failed him-

-but Ford closed his eyes as his finger twitched against the trigger.

THUMP!

Ford’s aim went awry as the sudden noise distracted him, and the shot landed not on Stan’s head or torso but on his left pinky finger, a grazing shot that nonetheless hurt like hell. What the shot had touched, it had obliterated, leaving Stan with only four fingers remaining on his hand- until, as he watched, bone and muscle and skin appeared out of thin air and stitched itself back together, and after a few long, painful seconds his pinky was back, with no sign left to show that it had ever vanished in the first place.

Ford was watching Stan too, a somber look upon his face as Stan’s finger rebuilt itself, so neither of the two had actually looked over at the source of the sudden sound until-

“Grunkle Ford, what are you doing?”

Both Stan and Ford spun around to find that where there had been nothing but a few rocks, there now stood both Dipper and Mabel, the two wide-eyed and covered in dirt.

“What are you doing?” Ford retorted. “I told you two to stay upstairs!”

“Yeah... about that...” Dipper scratched the back of his head nervously, while Mabel shot Ford a sheepish smile.

“You were acting... kinda suspicious. So I may have- sort of- followed you down here to see what was going on. And once I saw Grunkle Stan I went and got Dipper and-”

“How? I would have heard you using the elevator...”

Before Ford could finish his sentence, Mabel brought out her tool of choice and pointed it triumphantly in the air. “Grappling hook!”

“Wait, wait, wait...” Stan jumped in, and all eyes turned to face him. “You can see me?”

Dipper and Mabel both nodded and made noises of agreement, their wide eyes growing even wider.

Ford impatiently tapped his foot against the ground. “Of course they can see you, it’s a summoning circle, the whole point is that you’re physical until the summons ends-”

“Holy shit, you can- er- don’t tell your parents I said shit, okay?” After a moment’s thought, Stan added, “Actually, don’t tell your parents about any of this. That seems like a bad idea all around.”

“Was this your plan all along, Bill, to drag them into this?”

“Was your plan all along just to shoot me?” Ford stayed silent in the face of this accusation, and Stan, all too aware that Ford’s gun was still aimed in his general direction, pressed on. “All those fancy circles and lines and- it was all just a distraction, wasn’t it?” Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have known- a classic shell game right there.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose and tilted her head to one side. “A what now?”

“A shell game- you know-” Stan’s hands flailed around in a series of awkward gestures as he attempted an explanation. “-you get three cups and put a ball under one, and move the cups around a bunch and get people to bet on which cup the ball is under, and by the time those rich guys realize you’re palming the ball halfway through you’re walking away a couple hundred dollars richer.” Stan coughed and scratched the back of his neck nervously in the silence that followed. “Uh, not that I’ve done it myself. And you shouldn’t either, it’s a bad idea. Especially once the cops get involved.”

Ford adjusted his glasses before speaking up. “That... is a surprisingly apt metaphor.”

“Was that a compliment? That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Grunkle Ford...” Mabel’s speech was hesitant as she looked from one grunkle to the other. “...were you really going to shoot Grunkle Stan?”

Ford let out a long sigh before responding, resting one hand on Mabel’s shoulder in a gesture of solace. “I’m sorry, Mabel, but that?” Ford pointed to Stan. “That’s Bill. He’s been taking that form this whole time. That is not your uncle.”

“You mean…” Mabel looked at Stan with eyes full of sorrow. “I-in my dream… that was you, wasn’t it?”

Stan let out a long sigh before he could reply, grasping desperately for the right words, but all that came to him was a simple “I’m sorry, Mabel.”

“Don’t…” Mabel started, but the sentence trailed off without an end. Evidently Stan wasn’t the only one desperately scrambling for words.

“But we’ve got him now. Bill’s trapped in that circle, and one good shot from this-” Ford gestured awkwardly in Stan’s direction with his gun. “-will be enough to destroy him for good.”

Ford started aiming, but his arm was shaking and his fingers trembling and Dipper and Mabel were in front of him now, off to the side but only just- too close, much too close for comfort-

“Dipper, Mabel, for Pete’s sake get out of the way!”

Stan hadn’t meant for the words to be more than a mere whisper, hadn’t really expected the kids to heed his warning, but the words echoed through the stone chamber all the same, and all eyes turned to him.

Mabel looked at Ford, then at Stan, before taking a step forward. “No.”

“What?” Stan and Ford asked in near-unison.

“I said, no! I won’t get out of the way!” Mabel walked- no, ran towards the circle, passing through its chalk lines with ease before standing directly in front of Stan, her arms waving wildly in the air. “If you’re gonna shoot Grunkle Stan, you’re gonna have to go through me!”

Ford lowered his gun, though his grip on it remained tight.

“A-and me!” Dipper didn’t move quite as fast as Mabel had, and his eyes stayed glued to the ground until after he had navigated the last of the chalk lines, but when he turned to face Ford, his gaze was just as fierce as his sister’s. “You’ll have to go through me first.”

“Don’t you see what he’s doing?” Ford’s voice was hoarse and anguished. “Bill knows you care about Stan, he’s- he’s using that against us, using that to-”

“No. No, no, no, no, no.”

Dipper and Mabel looked up at Stan as he spoke, and Stan took that opportunity to grab them both, holding them at arm’s length away from him. They felt light as a feather, their weight barely even registering to him, and though they squirmed and struggled it was a cinch to keep them more or less in place.

“Neither of you pipsqueaks are dying on my account, got it?”

The only response Stan got was a few noises of protest and one solid bite to the arm, but then, he hadn’t been expecting much else.

“You want to kill me, Ford? Well, here’s your chance. Got a nice, clean shot for you here. No shields, no distractions, no nothin’. Just get it over with so you and the kids can go about your lives already.” After a moment’s pause, Stan added, “And for God’s sake, don’t close your eyes when you shoot this time.”

Stan locked eyes with his brother; Ford was doing an admirable job of keeping a neutral expression. For a moment, Stan thought he saw the gun moving out of the corner of his eye, thought he saw it rising up to point his way once more-

Clang!

The gun hit the ground near Ford’s feet, and Ford’s now-empty hands were shaking violently.

“I... I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I, Stanley?”

“Yup.” Stan loosened his grip on Dipper and Mabel, and as the two stood by his side, Stan couldn’t help but break out into a grin. “And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

Ford smiled back at Stan, and the sight made his heart soar. “Evidently not.”

“I think this calls for a GROUP HUG!”

Stan winced a little as Mabel shrieked into his ear; she may have felt light in his hands, but her voice was clearly as loud as ever. “Mabel, I don’t think F-”

“Well, if you insist...”

Ford walked towards Stan, his steps slow and deliberate as he stepped between the chalk lines. Dipper and Mabel grabbed onto Stan and embraced him tightly, and once Ford entered the center circle they embraced him as well. Stan was slow to embrace them back, half-expecting that his arm would pass through them as it had before, but no, they were there and they were real and he could feel their warmth as they clung to him and if he were still human Stan might have been concerned that Mabel’s tight grip was going to cut off his circulation, but that was one small upside of the situation, that he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore...

Stan wasn’t sure when, exactly, Ford joined the hug, but soon enough Stan realized that the kids alone couldn’t account for all the limbs latching onto him, and once he focused on it he could tell that yes, there was definitely a six-fingered hand patting him on the back. For one shining moment they were all there, all together, all hugging, and Stan knew deep down that despite all the shit he’d gone through, things were going to be okay, at least more or less.

Then Mabel lifted her hands into the air and screamed “GROUP HUG!” again and the group broke apart a little bit, though they were still close, still nearly touching as they faced one another in the circle.

Stan was the first to speak up after that.

“So, uh, Ford, you said something earlier about this circle making me physical, right? How’s all that work?”

Ford nodded and took a breath before replying. “It’s a summoning circle, it binds demons- which, in this case means you I suppose- I, I still don’t know how that works-” Stan was pretty sure that even if he hadn’t been looking right at Ford, he still would have felt the force of his brother’s wide-eyed gaze as he hesitated for a moment and looked him at him up and down before continuing. (Stan glanced downward for a brief moment and realized that his feet still weren’t quite touching the floor.) “-anyway, it binds demons to the physical plane temporarily, until one of two things happens: either we make a deal-”

“Not happening.” Stan interjected.

“Or... or the summons runs out of time.”

“And then these numbskulls-” Stan wrapped one arm around Dipper and the other around Mabel. “-won’t be able to see me anymore?”

“Not unless we perform another summoning, no.”

“Alright. So.” Stan’s grasp on Dipper and Mabel grew slightly tighter. “You’re the brainiac here, Ford, so tell me. How long have we got?”