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donutpwns · 7 years

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Journey to the Roots Part 4

Part 3 - Part 5

When he was twenty-five, he’d been forced to make a deal with a high ranked member of a drug cartel that had shared his cell in a Columbian prison. They’d helped break him out of the prison and set him up with a new false identity and all he had to do was be his schmoozing, showman self to get a few things on a plane and into America. Stan had done it; prison was hell no matter the country. He remembered vomiting from the stress and the fear in the tiny toilet of the air plane. He could still feel the cold metal of a gun pressed to his side as he handed off the package to his contact in the states.; could still feel the white hot blast of pain to his face that had led him to waking up bound in the sunbaked trunk of a car. The way his jaw had ached and his stomach had cramped as he swallowed hard plastic and his own blood but kept biting. That all too familiar moment where you’re pretty sure you’re going to die and all the romance of the idea has fled. Stan had defined that as his quintessential rock bottom, the worse always implied when he assured someone that he’d had it. The pinnacle of fear.

But shit if this didn’t feel a thousand times worse.

Ten years. It had been ten long, long years since he’d last seen his brother closing the curtains on him. How many times had he tried to call Ford only to lose his nerve? How many times had he punched in all but the last number before his shaking hands slammed the receiver back down? Too scared to reach out to his brother, even when he’d finally escaped that trunk and made it to a new town where no one knew any of his names. Too scared to even look at the photo that was now folded up in his wallet at times.

He believed what he’d told Mabel, about the other person needing to love you enough to forgive you, but that didn’t make him want it any less. He’d been a stupid teenager and while he regretted what had happened, felt bad for ruining Ford’s shot at something better, he refused to accept that he’d deserved what he’d got. Looking at Ford’s house, while more than a little hermit-esque, he was sure Ford had been enough of a success without his big fancy school. Their parents must be awfully proud; though Ford never really spoke with any of the family. At least, that’s what Shermie had said the one time Stan had seen him in the last ten years.

Speaking of Shermie…Mabel is staring wide eyed out the window, face pressing up against the glass. Once this was all done, Stan really needs to reach out to his older brother. Properly meet his nephew; let him know that he’s a good kid and gonna do great things. He likes his future great niece and will admit, only to himself, that he might actually miss the knucklehead when she’s gone back home. But hey, he only has to wait a couple of decades to see her again. Stan’s good at waiting. He’s been waiting ten years to see Ford again, what’s that a few times over for someone that was actually happy to see him?

He’s making his way around the car to help her force her door open over a snow bank when the door to the house opens. Stan freezes with his hand on the door handle; he feels like a deer in the headlights. Which is pretty accurate, given there’s his brother with a crossbow pointed at him.

“Good to see you too, Bro.” He calls over to him because what else is there to say? He resumes pulling open the door for Mabel and steps aside to let her out. He almost laughs at the yelp she lets out when she jumps into the snow, white going up nearly to the edge of her skirt. “Wouldn’t suppose you have a time traveling kid that matches mine?”

“Grunkle Stan?” a boy pokes his head around Ford’s legs. He’s a lot paler and more noodly looking than Mabel, but the resemblance is otherwise uncanny. He’s got this stupid smile on his face when he meets Stan’s eyes; once he spots Mabel though his whole face lights up. Ford tries to grab him as he shoves past him, fumbling that stupid crossbow, but he’s too slow. “Mabel!”

Mabel lets out another one of those god awful shrieking squeals and starts kicking her way through the snow towards her brother. “Dipper! Oh my gosh! I knew you’d be here!” once she’s close enough she practically leaps, tackling the boy so they both hit the ground, sending up a puff of loose snow. “I missed you so much you dork!”

“I missed you too, you dummy!” they’re still on the ground, collapsing into laughter though what’s funny who knows.

Stan watches them with a fond smile before looking awkwardly over at his own twin. To his surprise Ford is watching him and another guy with, wow, the world’s biggest nose standing beside him. Unable to stop himself, Stan lifts a hand in a half-hearted wave. So. What was he supposed to do now? Was Stan supposed to go or…?

The kids are still laughing in the snow. Stan shoves all of the confusing Ford Feelings to the back of his mind and makes his way over to them. “Hey, c’mon, you knuckleheads. Mabel’s already sick, let’s not—”

“HAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“STANLEY GET BACK!”

He hears Ford’s shout about half a second before he feels the pain. He jumps back on instinct; when he lands his left leg gives out from the stabbing pain and he lands flat on his ass. Sticking out of his calf is a long, silver knitting needle, with a spreading circle of red staining his jeans. He stares at it before looking up at Mabel. What the actual fuck?!

She’s staring at him with a grin so wide it looks painful, especially coupled with her cheeks appled by the cold. And her eyes—one eye, the right eye; it looks like a cat’s eye, pupil slitted, and almost seems to be glowing a sick infected yellow color. She’s got Dipper’s hand in her own and he’s wearing a matching grin, only it’s his left eye that’s wrong. They stand together, hands never unclasping.

Stan tries to scramble back away from them, laughing nervously, “Hey, sweetheart! What’s going on? C’mon, it’s me, your favorite Younkle Stan!”

They throw their heads back and let out another laugh in sync and, okay, Stan is over this creepy ass Shining shit already. “WOW, I FORGOT HOW DUMB YOU WERE BACK THEN. NOT THAT YOU’RE NOT AN IDIOT IN THE FUTURE TOO! HA!” their voices sound off, distorted and just…different.

A bolt fires into the snow between where the twins stand and where Stan is on the ground. They all look at where Ford is loading another bolt into the crossbow while stepping down from the porch. Stan realizes that if it wasn’t for the bags under his eyes and insane scientist hair, his brother might actually look cool. When the bow is reloaded he aims it at the kids and growls, “Bill!”

Thank Moses the other guy, who is still on the porch, looks as confused as Stan feels.

The twins tilt their heads in Ford’s direction, grins stretching impossibly further. “FORDSY! GOOD OL SIXER! OOH THIS IS DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE VERSION OF YOU! HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN FOR YOU? NOT LONG ENOUGH FOR YOU I’LL BET!” The twins laugh Bill’s laugh together. Mabel starts tugging on Dipper’s cheek with the hand not holding his while she continues, making the skin painfully red. Does he not feel that? Do neither of them feel the cold? “OOH, ARE YOU GOING TO SHOOT ME?! GO AHEAD! I AM DYING TO KNOW WHAT PAIN FEELS LIKE WITH TWO BODIES! WELL, I WON’T BE THE ONE THAT DIES, BUT SEMANTICS, EH, SIXER?”

That��s Stan’s name for Ford.

Ford hesitates a few feet from them, crossbow wavering. He meets Stan’s eyes briefly before scowling back at the two kids. Dipper has started tugging on Mabel’s hair while the two of them say ‘ow’ in laughing tones. “How—I did the ritual!”

“SEE, THAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH YOU, FORDSY. YOU SEE WHAT YOU WANNA SEE!” Dipper shakes his hand, long brown strands falling from his fist. Each of their non-fucked up eyes are streaming tears down their cheeks, Stan notices. “YOU WANNA BE THE SMARTEST ONE IN THE ROOM SO EVERYONE ELSE IS AN IDIOT. WHICH THEY ARE, SO GOLD STAR THERE, BUT SO ARE YOU. THAT’S WHY YOU’RE SO EASY TO TRICK. YOU’RE TOO SMART TO FALL FOR EASY LIES SO YOU FALL FOR ALL OF THEM! AIN’T THAT RIGHT, STAN? THIS GUY KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.”

Having both yellow eyes on him is very unsettling, but Stan still hears the words. Number one rule to big cons: always let the smart ones lie to themselves. You give them a seed of something they want and they’ll make it blossom with their own rationalizations and justifications. Stupid people needed a story, a show, smart people needed to think it was their idea all along. If they don’t want to ask questions, they won’t.

Stan knew a thing or two about half ass cons.

Mabel lifts the hand holding Dipper’s and reaches into the sleeve, pulling out the knitting needle to match the one sticking out of Stan’s leg. Stan swallows around the lump in his throat as she touches it to her own throat. That yellow eye is open so wide; whatever is going on has to make them numb to feeling. Ford had said the name Bill earlier; was this what Mabel had been warning him about? Was this what Bill had done to Ford? The thought of it boils his blood because his brother is an ass but no one messed with the Pines family, not if Stan had a say in it.

Stan shoves past the pain in his leg to stand; he wants to pull the needle out but he doesn’t know how deep in it went, there’s a good chance it’s staunching the blood loss. He reminds himself that he’s had worse, reminds himself of the trunk, and convinces himself that this is no big deal. Time traveling niece and nephew apparently possessed by a conman demon. Alright. Stan can deal with this.

“Hey, uh, Bill, right?” he gives his best show grin, shoving all the anxiety and fear and general ‘what the fuck is my life right now’ to the back of his mind. There will be time for that later, there’s always time for everything later. “While I agree that my brother can be a dumbass, why don’t we put the knitting needle down?”

This time it’s Dipper that speaks while Mabel moves the needle to his throat. “AND THEN THERE’S THIS DOOFUS. LISTEN HERE, STANIEL, YOU WANT NO PART OF THIS. ALL YOU’RE GOING TO DO IS MAKE THINGS EVEN WORSE FOR EVERYONE, BUT HEY, WHAT’S NEW THERE?” Mabel twirls the needle between her fingers in a way that makes Stan think of when Ford and him would play board games as kids.

Stan’s jaw aches as he forces his grin to remain in place. He just needs time to think, just needs time. “Hey, you don’t know me.”

“OHOHO, I KNOW YOU MORE THAN YOU THINK. GIVE ME THIRTY YEARS AND I’LL KNOW YOU BETTER THAN YOU KNOW YOURSELF.” The twins wink their yellow eyes together. Did that count as a wink or a blink? The look back over to Ford again, “YOU STILL WITH US, SIXER? I’M SURE YOU’RE DYING TO TELL YOUR BROTHER TO GET LOST TOO. GET IN ON THIS!”

“Trust no one.” The look in Ford’s eyes is wild and he’s raising the crossbow again with no hesitation.

Stan swears and sticks a hand out towards his stupid idiot of a genius brother, “Shit, Ford, stop!”

----------

He’s not sure what he expected Stan to look like, if he ever saw his twin again. Sure, he expected the resemblance, identical twins and all, but…Stanley had always been the larger of the two of them. More muscle, more girth, more personality. Alpha Twin since the summer that he gained a fraction of an inch on Ford. Quick to make a fist or a joke, Stanley was larger than life, larger than their dead-end Glass Shard Beach, larger than a foolish dream to sail the world.

He didn’t seem so large climbing out of his run down old car, shoulders hunched as he moved to open the door. His clothes were filthy beneath a new looking jacket; his hair was long and probably as greasy as Ford’s had been that morning. He was still making jokes, though, which infuriated Ford beyond the surreal feeling of seeing him in the flesh. How could he be taking the situation so well? How long had he had the girl? Surely not the same amount of time Dipper had been with Ford; he refused to believe Stan could have accessed the situation and made his way here in such a short time.

He was so focused on puzzling out what to do with his own twin, he’d almost completely forgotten about the two kids that were rolling around in the snow. Hadn’t seen the flash of the needle, the glint of yellow eyes, with enough time to warn Stanley.

His brother certainly didn’t seem so large on the ground.

It shouldn’t be possible: he’d performed the ritual! Sure, there was traces of Bill but the boy said he’d been possessed once before so—but how was Bill possessing both children? Even Bill had his limits. He couldn’t possess without an agreement, and surely he couldn’t possess more than one person at a time. Bill was powerful, insane and conniving, but even he had limits and rules. It didn’t make sense! It was a trick! Another trick!

“SEE, THAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH YOU, FORDSY. YOU SEE WHAT YOU WANNA SEE!”

Was that the trick? He wanted to believe Dipper was his family? Someone so eager to help him; that respected his work on top of a mystery he could drown in. Could Bill have fooled his tests? He’d left the boy alone in his house for hours, what could he have done? Had he seen the portal? No, no, Ford would’ve noticed him going to the basement. Right? This was a trick, another trick. Bill had gotten Fiddleford back in his house and now Stanley here. It was a trick, to force Ford to do what he wanted.

They weren’t real. The kids weren’t real. They were part of the trick. It wasn’t real. None of this was real, it was a distraction, a trick. Stanley is talking with Bill because he doesn’t see, he’s being tricked too. His brother was stabbed and is talking to Bill and Ford has to stop it.

“YOU STILL WITH US, SIXER? I’M SURE YOU’RE DYING TO TELL YOUR BROTHER TO GET LOST TOO. GET IN ON THIS!”

Trust no one.

He levels the crossbow at the boy and pulls the trigger.

The bolt goes wide as he’s tackled from behind to face plant in the snow. He glares over his shoulder at Fiddleford who is currently trying to grab Ford’s wrists. Ford pulls away, stretching to try to grab the crossbow. “Damn it, get off, Fiddleford! You don’t understand! They’re not real! It’s a trick! I can’t let him get in!”

“Calm down, Stanford!” Fiddleford is a weedy man but, Ford remembers vaguely, spent his childhood wrestling hogs on his family’s farm, and puts up more of a fight than you’d expect. “I don’t know what’s going on, but they’re just children!” a knee digs into his back, Fiddleford’s hands pressing down hard on his shoulders.

“HAHA! YES! FIGHT FIGHT! BATTLE OF THE—HEY, BACK OFF, I’LL—HEY!” there’s an echoing scream followed by a sickening sound.

Ford gets his palms flat on the ground and tries to buck off Fiddleford. He has to stop Bill; he can’t let him hurt anyone else. This is all his fault. Stanley’s hurt and Bill is right there. He gets enough leverage to roll them, slamming his elbow against his former friend’s jaw in the process. He pins Fiddleford with a hand to the chest while he reaches for the crossbow and tries to avoid a punch aimed at his face.

“Hey, can you pause Nerd Death Match for a sec?” Ford looks up at the question; Stan has a limp child under each arm, leaning to put his weight on his uninjured leg. Both kids are covered in snow. Ford spots the glinting silver of the remaining knitting needle on the ground next to a pile of…oh, disgusting. There’s another puddle of sick not too far from the first. Stan is breathing heavy; oh that’s a lot of red staining his jeans and the snow. “They puked and passed out as soon as I pulled them apart. So that’s a thing. Big nose, help me get them inside? Or Ford, if you’re done trying to shoot our niece and nephew.”

Ford scowls as Fiddleford starts shoving at him, climbing off him. He brushes the snow off his front. “Stanley, you don’t understand the situation! They aren’t—”

“Yes they are, shut up. You can explain everything once we have them inside and I’ve had a chance to take care of my leg. I have a ton of questions about this Bill guy.” Stan’s tone is stern and exhausted. Ford notices for the first time the bags under his brother’s eyes. “Now will one of you please come and take one of these kids? I just drove sixteen hours straight and have been stabbed and they’re heavier than they look.”

Fiddleford moves around him to take the girl—Mabel?— from Stan, cradling her to his chest. Ford sees a trickle of red coming from her right eye and down her cheek. He sees the same on Dipper’s left cheek when Stan limps past him. Oh, right, his leg. Ford hurries on his heels into his house. “Stanley—”

“Shit, Ford, you live here?” Stan scoffs and Ford feels personally offended, as if Stan has any room to judge Ford’s living conditions wearing clothes that filthy. Stan turns and pushes Dipper’s limp form into Ford’s arms; Ford nearly drops him at the sudden weight. “Hold him for one second.” Then he’s behind the couch and kneeling.

A strangled noise escapes Ford when Stan lifts the back of the couch, dumping all the books onto the floor. He’s not entirely sure what books were on that couch but some could’ve been important. “Stanley, honestly, there’s no need—” Stan takes Dipper back; is Ford going to be able to get a full thought out at any point?

Stan and Fiddleford place the kids at opposite ends of the coach. Ford groans out a sigh before moving to grab his penlight from his study. When he comes back, Stan is seated on the coffee table and taking a small pocket knife to his jeans around the needle. He slits from the puncture down to the bottom of his pants then proceeds to roll the fabric up. The bleeding seems to have slowed a considerable amount and from what Ford can tell, the needle was in enough to stick back not too deep. His sock and shoe are soaked in blood.

He checks Dipper first, pulling both eyes open and shining his penlight in them. The pupils react normally and both are the usual brown if not bloodshot, though the sclera of the left is filled with blood from a burst vessel. He’s got smeared blood under his eye that Ford can’t help but wipe away with his sleeve. Mabel is much the same, only it’s her right eye that’s red and bloody. Both of their breathing is heavy but regular, same as their pulses. Ford thinks about what Stan said, about them collapsing when they’d been separated, and looks for something to use as a separator for them.

“Uhh, Stanley, was it? Are you sure about that?” Fiddleford speaks behind him and he turns to see Stan holding the flame of a lighter up to the blade of his pocket knife.

Ford blanches; Stanley cannot be serious! “Stanley, there’s a hospital in town, we can just—”

“Nah.” He interrupts him again; Ford is going to strangle him. “Hospitals are bills and, more importantly, questions. This is fine.” The blade is black by the time he sets the lighter down. Ford himself winces when Stan grabs the needle. Then, in a single fluid motion, the needle is out and the blade it against the small puncture wound, Stan echoing the hiss it makes against his skin. The smell of burning meat hits Ford’s nose and he nearly gets sick.

Fiddleford goes white and slumps to the floor. He pulls his knees up to his chest and holds his head in his hands. “I knew I shouldn’t a’come here. Two hours and already so much I want to forget…eyes, eyes watching…” he dissolves into mumbles, though Ford thinks he hears “beast with just one eye” mixed in there.

Ford clears his throat, eyes locked on where Stan is burning himself. The skin is an angry red when Stan pulls away the knife, a sealed but puffed out circle in the middle. It disturbs him that Stan even knows how to do that. “Uh…” he swallows, “Fiddleford, maybe you could, um, get my brother some bandages from my bathroom?”

“What? Oh. R-right.” Fiddleford nods and looks grateful for the excuse to get out of the room for a minute. “I’ll, uh, be right back. W-with bandages.”

He stares at Stan who is purposely not looking at him, staring instead at the children. Unable to find a suitable separator, Ford just sits himself on the middle cushion between then. That gets Stan to look at him briefly before putting his focus on Dipper. Ford’s not sure what to say at this point. He’d planned how to ask Stan to take the journal away but not how to tell him anything else. He’d never planned on Stan finding out about Bill; never planned on Stan finding out about anything. Bill was supposed to be his burden to bear alone. His sin to atone for. But now his brother did know, and Fiddleford, and the kids if they were in fact real. Which, now that he was given a chance to calm down from the mania, he was coming back around to the idea of. If not, he had a knife in his boot and a gun tucked under the cushion he was sitting on for emergencies, and Stan apparently had a knife too.

“So, uh. This Bill guy.” Stan is the first to speak, it turns out. He’s rubbing at the skin above his wound. “That’s what that was, right? Cause I understand very little about what’s going on but yesterday that kid appeared in my car and told me she was from the future and you were in danger from a guy named Bill.”

Ford fidgets, tapping his thumb to each of his fingers. “She told you about him?” he looks over at the girl; she’s shifted onto her side and curled up, one foot stuck out until it’s nearly touching Ford’s thigh. Her face is starting to return to a more normal color now that she’s out of the cold but she’s still shivering. “It’s…very complicated, Stanley. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and apparently you’ve been dragged into them.”

Stan reaches a hand out and, for a second, Ford thinks he’s going to squeeze his arm or something like that. But no, he touches Dipper’s forehead instead, pushing the boy’s hair out of his face. Ford’s not sure why he’s disappointed; he’s still very angry with his twin and if he’d had a choice Stan wouldn’t even be here. “Well, we better figure out how to clean up your damn mess, Stanford, before you get these kids killed.”

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#this is also on ao3 if anyone prefers to read it there #gravity falls #mabel pines #dipper pines #stanley pines #stanford pines #kainichivonwrites #kainichivonarts #journey to the roots

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