Chapter Text
Saturday, September 25th, 1982.
When Stanley wakes up in the park, a random teenager is staring at him.
It’s disconcerting- the kid has real buggy eyes, the type of stare Ford used to have for weird shit he found (and Jesus, doesn’t that hurt to think even now, 7 years later). He’s wearing a ball cap that says #1 Grand-nephew!! on it with sparkly glitter letters. He can’t be older than 18, not with those barely existing hairs on his chin, but he’s weirdly focused on Stan. He’s jotting down notes in a notebook while staring holes into Stan’s head. It’s concerning.
Stan tries to say, “what the fuck are you doing?” but it comes out as “Hrmph?” with his ashy mouth.
The kid jolts back. Stan sits up slowly, ignoring the concerning creaks from his back (fun fact: sleeping on car seats and benches makes your back worse, not better! Stan’s learned this the hard way) and rubs his eye. “Fuck are you doing, kid?”
“I-” the kid scratches the back of his neck, and Stanley, if he was in a better mood, would laugh at the clear similarities to Ford. But he’s angry, tired, and pissed at the world, so it just makes the bitter pit in his stomach deepen. “Are you awake?”
Stan can’t help but laugh at that. He pulls out a cigarette. “No shit.”
“Right, sorry, just- are you Stanley Pines?”
Stan freezes. If this kid knows his name, it’s bad. He’s either someone Stan’s scammed money out of, or he's someone in touch with his family. Second one seems likely, now that he’s thinking about it- the kid looks kinda like Shermie. Maybe some sort of distant relative? But why would they try and get in contact with Stan, the eternal fuck-up of the Pines?
“Who’s asking?”
“Oh!” The kid nervously adjusts his hat. He pulls it off and frowns. “Forgot I had this on,” he mutters, before shaking his head and extending a hand. “I’m Dipper- Dipper Mason.”
Definitely a fake name. Stan can’t be mad about that, though, as he’s doing the same thing. “I’m Stetson Pinefield.”
The kid- Dipper’s- face falls into a frown. He taps his pen against his notebook. “So Stanley Pines.”
Shit, have people connected his aliases to his real name? Fuck, that’s bad.
“No, I'm not-” Dipper sighs, rubbing his nose bridge. “Mabel would be better at this. Whatever. I’m a relative of yours, gr- Mr. Pines.”
“Are you? Really?”
Dipper’s face warps into determination. It's the same exact expression Ford would have whenever faced with a particularly difficult math problem. Fuck, he probably is some sort of relative. “I am. And I’m here to bring you to your brother.”
“You’re what?”
When Stanford Pines wakes up from his accidental mid-afternoon nap (he’ll need to properly recover those papers, goodness), he wakes up to the smell of pancakes and eggs.
This isn’t incredibly odd- Fiddleford is a rather good cook. His meager college skills grew during fatherhood. He has been acting… odd, recently, but it’s not as if Stanford can judge. After all, he’s been rather busy with an interdimensional conversation with a multidimensional being, so who is he to judge on odd behavior?
No, what’s odd is the fact that it’s already night time and it smells like breakfast. The other odd fact is the clear conversation Fiddleford is carrying with someone.
“An’ I must say, you know an awful lot about portal schematics!”
“Welp, learned a lot from my bro-bro!” a young girl’s voice chirps. A girl? If it had been a younger male voice, it could’ve been Tate on the phone, but that’s definitely a teenage girl. “He’s a huge nerd, so I’ve picked some stuff up from him. Besides, you’re good at teaching!”
“Well, er, thank ya.” Ford can practically hear Fidd’s blush from here. He never was good at compliments. “But, may I ask, what are ya doin’-”
That’s enough of that. Ford walks into the room. “Fiddleford? Who’s our guest?” he’s about to continue and rebuke him for letting a stranger in and, even more so, sharing vital portal information with said guest, but then she jumps up, and Ford sees Stanley for just a moment.
The young lady is… incredibly energetic, for whatever time it is. She has a bright pink sweater on, along with cuffed jeans that have paintings of stars on them. Her hat reads #1 Grand-niece!!! in bright blue sparkly letters. Her hands clink from the sheer volume of jewelry and bracelets. “Oh, that’s me! Hi Grunk-Mr. Man I don’t know! Heh.”
Well, that’s incredibly suspicious. Ford adjusts his glasses, looking her over again. Trust no one. That’s what his muse said, wasn’t it?
“Who are you, exactly?” Ford says sharply.
Fiddleford shakes his head and mutters something- probably about manners- but the young girl is completely unfazed. She rushes up to Ford, extending a hand. “I’m Mabel! Mabel Pinefield! But you can just call me Mabel. Don’t be mad at Fiddleford, I just spawned into your creepy shrine room earlier.”
Stanford’s face is only going red because of the odd heating here, clearly, since those aren’t shrines to Bill, and, if they were, they certainly aren’t creepy. Still, it definitely makes it better if she appeared and wasn’t let in. “Fascinating.” Ford can feel himself already reaching for his journal, taking out a pen. Bill would love to hear about this. “Do you know precisely how you got here?”
There’s no noise as Stanford begins to write- new anomaly- mysterious teleporting person! When he looks up for an answer, Mabel’s face is inscrutable. It’s oddly similar to Stanley, so many years ago.
“Mrs. Pinefield?” he prompts.
The expression drops off her face, instantly replaced with a grin so radiant Ford is almost swept off his feet from the sheer, genuine joy. “C’mon, I already told you- just call me Mabel! And I don’t know how I got here. I just remember seeing a giant baby head while me and my brother, Dipper, were exploring.”
Time baby then. Maybe she was just unfortunate. She certainly doesn’t seem like the sort of intellectual that would be able to operate a time machine by herself. Stanford opens his mouth to ask more questions, but, before he can, Mabel cuts in.
“But,” she continues, “I do know that journal looks super cool.”
“Oh.” Stanford smiles. No one has complimented the journal besides Bill and probably Fiddleford. “I- thank you.”
“The gold hand plate is awesome! Did you use gold leaf or paint it? Because if you did paint it, that is awesome staying within the lines, and the texture is so realistic!” She talks a mile a minute, tracing his 6-finger handprint on the book. She hasn’t remarked on the 6-fingers yet- probably out of politeness. Ford never could get a handle on that type of thing.
“Er- i-” he looks desperately over to Fiddleford, the one far more equipped to talk to people, but he just grins at Ford’s incompetence. Ass. “I, uh, used gold leaf?”
“I can give you decoration tips, if you want. I’m the #1 bedazzler in my family. Just look at the back of my sweater!” She turns to show off a bright bedazzled star. It hurts Ford’s eyes to look at.
“I… I’ll pass.”
“Don’t worry, Mabel, he ain’t insulting your skills-” Thank god for Fiddleford, as Mabel start to pout a bit- “he won’t let anyone near that journal of his. It’s frightenin’, how possessive he is ‘bout it.”
“I’m not possessive. It’s…” Ford grasps for an explanation that doesn’t say the interdimensional being I’ve become close with knows everything about my life through this book, so I can’t let more embarrassing things occur, and he already doesn’t like Fiddleford, for some reason, and I need to fix that as well, so no, you can’t touch it. It’s a run on sentence, he knows that, but it’s the only proper way for him to express the sheer panic he feels at handing over the journal. “...simply a treasured possession of mine. I treat it very appropriately.”
Mabel smiles at him almost… placatingly. It strikes a nerve. “It’s alright, Mr. Pines!”
There it is. Ford knew his muse was right- there are people out to hurt him everywhere. Bill wouldn’t lie to him. He adjusts his stance, straightening his shoulders. “How do you know my name?”
Mabel blinks, and Ford can see the panic, but it’s instantly wiped off. “Oh, I saw it on the tag on the back of your book!”
Ford blinks. He flips the book, and it does actually say Property of Ford Pines. Oh. “I see.”
“Stop bein’ a curmudgeon, Ford,” Fiddleford says, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “She wouldn’ tell me anythin’, but she seems nice enough.”
“Of course you think that,” Ford grumbles. He carefully stuffs his notebook back into his pocket so Fiddleford’s arm stays where it is. “You’re a father, Fidds, you see a child and instantly take care of them. It’s an instinct of yours.”
“I’m seventeen!” Mabel says. “I’m not a kid!”
“I-” is that really what a seventeen year old looks like? Mabel is certainly a child, even Ford can see that. Did Stanley- when he was kicked out, was he really that young?
No, no point in dwelling on the past. Ford puts the thought into the back of his head, somewhere no one, not even Bill, can access it. “What are you hoping to do, exactly, Mrs- Mabel? Do you need help leaving the cabin?” or perhaps telling us everything you know about what happened to you, Ford thinks silently. Maybe not silently enough, from Fidd’s glare in the corner of his eye.
“Oh, easy!” Mabel puts her hands together and smiles brightly. “I’m gonna get you ready to reunite with your brother!”
“You’re what?”
“No, nuh-uh, no way in hell am I going-”
“No, just- shit shit shit,” Dipper mutters as he scrambles to catch Stanley. Good luck to the sucker- he’s gotten practice at running away. “Stanley, your brother’s in trouble!”
That gets him to freeze. Dammit. “How do you know?”
“It’s Ford,” Dipper says dryly. “You think he’s doing well by himself?”
And, well, Stanley’s life is no bright shining thing right now, but at least he knows up from down. Stanford was always bad at that- bad at seeing the truth behind things. Give him a million facts, a million tidbits to analyze, and he’d focus on that instead of the core truth at the center of it. Made him nearly get into a billion scams, where the person would ask for help with this and that, saying oh, it’s just a simply chemistry equation, and Stanley would have to point out that it was clearly a drug ring that wanted help perfecting their formula. That had happened more than once. Somehow.
The problem was that, along with people being bad with Ford, Ford was bad with people. He didn’t like them much at all. He had barely tolerated Stanley, until- well, until. But if a person pushed the right buttons, flattered Ford the right way, he wouldn’t examine whatever the person said as long as his ego was fed. It made him susceptible to cons. Stanley had grifted tons of suckers since the last time he saw Ford, and hell, the type of sucker Ford was made him prime. He’d be able to rationalize every bad decision until he dug himself into a pit.
Fuck, he was like silly putty in this kid’s hands already.
“Alright, alright, let’s say you’re telling the truth. Why should I go with you?”
“Because I know where he is?”
Stanley laughs. “Pfft, nice try. I could find him easily.” and it was- once you learn how to invent an identity, it’s easy to find others.
“Um…” Dipper searches his surroundings, and his face splits into a grin. “I have money. Lots of it.”
Stanley fucking freezes. “You, uh, you do, huh?”
Dipper’s smile curls. He had been Ford’s doppelgänger for the last 15 minutes, but hell, Stanley had seen that smile a thousand times in the mirror- it was reserved when he caught someone hook, line, and sinker. “Yep.” The kid pulls out a whole deck of 20s, and Stanley feels his hands already twitching to grab.
“If you let me go with you, I’ll pay for the entire trip,” Dipper says confidently.
“That’s it?” Stanley tries to focus on Dipper to see the kid’s tells, but his traitorous eyes keep twitching back to the money. There was enough there to pay for at least a week of shitty dinners and gas. “That’s your only thing?”
“Yep. And you drive. I, uh, can’t.”
Stanley couldn’t help but laugh at that. He could’ve been more suspicious otherwise, but if this kid truly didn’t know how to drive, no wonder he was desperate to hitch a ride with Stan. still… “How can I trust you?”
Dipper sighs. “Stanley, you don’t trust anyone, but I promise you, I have someone waiting for me at Gravity Falls too. Just- Please?”
Stanley looks at the money. He looks at the desperate kid, clearly missing… someone. It strikes a cord, unfortunately.
“Fuck, fine. But I get an upfront payment.”
Dipper’s face becomes so bright it’s almost blinding. Jesus. “Oh yeah, of course! Here, just-” the kid drops a whole forty dollars into Stanley’s hands. Part of Stan just wants to book it now, but fuck, he can relate to this poor sap. “Now, where’s the car?”
“Right over here.” Stanley begins to walk over to the car, but stops as something hits him. “Wait, how did you know I had a car?”
“I…” Dipper’s face contorts, clearly trying to find an excuse, before the kid sighs exasperatedly. “Stanley, I literally know who you are and who your relatives are. Of course I know you have a car.”
Well. that answered that.
“Alright!” Stanley unlocks the car door and thunks the dashboard. The car starts with a concerning noise. “Rules- no backseat driving, no talking, and if I tell you to shut off a song, you do. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, got it,” Dipper mumbles. “Couldn’t backseat drive anyways, even if I wanted to.”
Huh, so the kid really couldn’t drive. Kinda sad.
Stanley shrugs, and begins to drive out the parking lot. “Alright, Dipper, where are we heading to?”
“Oregon. Gravity Falls, Oregon.”
“No.”
Mabel began to pout. It was, unfortunately, effective. “Wha-”
“No, as in no, never happening, not ever,” Ford continues. He beelines for the door. He had thought of tons of things that this clear menace might’ve wanted, but a reunion was certainly not one of them. “I wouldn’t leave Gravity Falls for any reason, and certainly not to see Stanley. Now, leave.”
Ford turns, expecting to see Mabel right behind him, but she is still right next to Fiddleford. “I’m not bringing him here, silly!”
“I- what are you doing, then?”
“I said getting ready, and that means a Mabel Makeover!” Mabel lifts her hands in triumph. “Seriously, the shack is dusty and gross. Do you guys ever clean?”
“I try, but this wise guy says the scattered papers are ordered as he wants,” Fiddleford mutters.
Ford sniffs. “I do have a system, Fidds. It’s not my fault you can’t understand it.”
Fiddleford snorts. “And the system is ‘leave shit everywhere and hope I remember’, if I recall correctly.”
Ford shifts towards Fidds, feeling the adrenaline rush of a good argument flood through him. “It’s not my fault I have superior memory recollection.”
Fiddleford raises an eyebrow. “Where was that ‘superior memory recollection’ four days ago tryin’ to find the scissors?”
“It-” damn it, the asshole. It was hard to think right now, for some reason, with Fiddleford leaning against the counter, a confident smile on his face, sleeves rolled up, showing his rather defined forearms, his hair shining in the moon light. Mabel must’ve been distracting him. Yes, that had to be it- she was just such an odd addition to his normal morning. “That’s- not relevant,” Ford says lamely. Is he blushing? Must be the heat of the summer. “That was an anomaly!”
“Oh my god.”
“Huh?” Ford turns to see Mabel. Her eyes are stuck between them. “Are you alright, Mabel?”
She smiles widely. It’s… ominous. “I’m fine!” she chirrups. “Now, Stanford, I’m not bringing your brother to you- that’d be silly since I'm staying here.”
“You’re staying-” Ford starts, but she continues to barrel on. God, she is enough like Stanley to make it painful.
“But I can make you do some certified Mabel Therapy!” She finishes with another cheer. She throws up glitter. “Make sure than when Stan arrives, you don’t do something stupid, like accusing him of stealing your eyes.”
“And why would I even agree to that?”
Mabel’s face instantly warps into something deadly serious. “I know all your secrets, Stanford Filbrick Pines,” she says, tone completely flat.
She has to be bluffing. This- this teenage girl with a bedazzled sweater can’t seriously have any daunting info on Stanford. She can’t! “Like what, Mabel?”
“I know about karaoke night.”
Fuck. Ford reels back into the table. Shit, shit, shit, no one was supposed to know about karaoke night! He barely knows about karaoke night, just that somehow he knew Bill had a human form he could take, and that it could blush, and- shit.
“Karaoke night?” Fidds says slowly.
“Fine!” Ford points an accusing finger. “What do you want from me?”
Mabel smiles brightly again. Clearly a facade- she has to be some sort of witch. An evil, terrifying witch that knows Ford had to wonder whether or not his opinions on Carl Sagan were strictly professional, before deciding that whatever was wrong with him went far beyond homosexuality. Bill was a triangle, for god’s sake. “I’m glad you asked, Stanford! I’m going to need a room in the shack, three hot glue guns, knitting needles, and enough yarn to put a grandma to shame!”