#That whole shadow monster thing sure was weird huh hero of Twilight? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

apathetic-revenant · 7 years

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now you see it all (part 1)

uhh...right.

I guess if fanfic is what it takes to hack depressive brain into writing, who am I to argue

anyway this went on a bit so I’m just going to throw the first part out there and...we’ll see how that goes. takes place in the immediate aftermath of Weirdmageddon, so, spoilers, obviously.

(title is from this R.E.M. song. cause I might as well do that, if I’m writing fanfic anyway.)

After everything she had been through over the past week, Wendy Corduroy wouldn't have thought anything could freak her out any more, much less something as innocent as an old house in the woods at twilight. But the way the fading light and the long shadows of the trees fell on the ruin of the Mystery Shack, the way the crumbled building looked as if it had sat abandoned in the forest for years, the eerie silence and stillness unbroken by any apparent signs of life-it all put a cold twinge in her stomach.

She didn't know what she was going to find here.

And God, the Shack was a wreck. Well, not real surprising, she told herself; they did turn it into a giant mecha and fight a-demon? Demigod? Really pissy walking trigonometry? Whatever. But everything else in town seemed to have...snapped back, like nothing had ever happened. They were all still battered and bruised, but the town didn't show a hint of having been turned into a demonic weirdscape and run roughshod over for the better part of a week. She guessed she'd been figuring-or maybe just hoping-that the Shack would be back to normal as well. It was in the right place, at least, and it was considerably more house-shaped than it had been the last time she saw it, but it looked like it'd been hit by a wrecking ball or three.

She honked the horn of the van a few times before hopping out, leaving the headlights on to stare sadly at the ruined porch. There were no lights on in the Shack, but then again, there probably weren't any lights in the Shack at this point, at least not ones that were connected to anything useful. Didn't mean anything. But it would have been very nice if there was some kind of sign that someone was there.

“Hello?” she called, trying to swallow down the cold feeling that was creeping up from her stomach into her throat. “Anyone home?”

For a moment there was no response, and she started to think that-but then a couple of small figures came to the door and her heart turned over. “Wendy?”

“Guys!”

Then she was running, and they were running, and they all met halfway in some kind of uncoordinated assault-embrace, everyone hugging each other in an arrangement that made up for in enthusiasm what it lacked in dignity. And no, she was not crying, she was just happy to have found them both alive, and Mabel's particularly intense hugging was making her eyes water a bit, dang that girl was strong.

Somewhere around then she noticed the awkward look on Dipper's face and hastily disentangled herself, realizing that this might be a bit of a difficult situation considering, well, things. Poor guy already nearly died of embarrassment about fifty times a week. But then he let out a quiet “owwww” and rubbed at his side, and she realized that for once his discomfort had an entirely different source.

“Oops,” she said, grinning rather sheepishly. “Bit sore, huh?”

“Bit,” he admitted. “I forgot about Bill dropping us on the floor...and, uh, well, there were a lot of things, really-”

“Whoa, hey. You guys are okay, right?” Priorities, Wendy. Scene isn't clear yet.“What did he do to you? Are you-”

“We're okay,” they both said, but there was something a little...flat about it. Which didn't sound right at all, coming from these two.

“Everyone's accounted for back in town,” she told them. “Everyone's-well, not uh, not okay, exactly, but there's no casualties. Somehow. But you guys just up and vanished, man! Soos ran off to find you but he didn't come back and we were all super concerned for you-I mean, we don't really know what happened, but we know you all had something to do with it. You're, like, heroes, man!”

She knew that much. She knew because she remembered-something. She had seen something, witnessed something, but trying to think about that meant she had to think about where, exactly, she was when it was happening, and-and she thought it would be best if she never thought about that again.

It didn't matter because she didn't have to think about that to know that the Pines family had saved the day. She knew that because she knew them.

The twins were looking at each other guiltily. “We've...been here,” Dipper said. “We didn't think about-”

“Hey, it's okay, dude! I'm just glad to know you're all okay. Uh. You...are all okay, right...?”

The way they hesitated made the cold feeling suddenly rise up all over again, like she'd just swallowed a stomach full of ice cubes.

“We're all going to be okay,” Mabel said, with a kind of desperate determined optimism that didn't sit well with Wendy, not compared to the girl's usual effortless, boundless cheer.

“Well,” she said slowly, trying to figure all this out, “that's...good-?”

“Kids?”

They all jumped, spooking like scared rabbits at the little noise. Boy, had it been a long week.

Someone else had come to the doorway of the Shack (that was all it was, she realized just now, a doorway, no door in sight) and for a moment when she looked up at him Wendy thought-but no, it wasn't Stan, of course not, the silhouette was all wrong. Stan was a big guy, big barrel chest, big paunch, big voice, big personality, at least when he thought people were looking. Stan took up space. Stan's brother-not like she knew him real well, or at all, really, but she figured he could take up space too. He was tall like Stan and you could kind of tell he had the same big block chest even if the rest of him was all lean and compact, and he could certainly draw attention like Stan, although his technique was less hey folks look at me I'm the most interesting thing in the room and more I could blow something up at any moment.

But the man leaning against the doorframe, squinting into the light from the car, seemed...small. All slumped and scrunched up, all folded in on himself, like he was trying to collapse himself out of existence. And maybe Wendy didn't know him real well but she knew that that couldn't bode well for anyone.

“Hey,” she said, waving like everything was normal and good and cool and the air wasn't full of horrible uncomfortable silence. “I just came by to check up on you guys-well, I came by to find you guys, actually. Everyone's kind of like, uh. Looking for you.” She felt a bit guilty saying that to his face because, truthfully, people were worried about the kids and about Stan but no one had said much of anything about Stan's brother. Except Old Man McGucket, but no one understood him anyway.

Still, even with that in mind she didn't expect him to stare back at her like she was speaking some language he didn't get and say, “...Why?”

This was not the expected reaction. She gaped back at him. “Uh, cause you're, like, the heroes of the hour, man? And we're all super worried about you cause we couldn't find you in town with everyone else? And-” She caught that last one just in time because nope, nope, nope, she was not going to say, not right here and right now, that she and a whole lot of other people who didn't want to say it out loud either had thought that maybe this whole victory had been, what was the word? Pyrrhic. That whatever had taken him out had taken them out too, that they had all gone down together like the monster and the wizard in that movie.

“Oh.” Something seemed to occur to him and he straightened a little bit, pulling himself up against the doorframe. “Everyone else? Is-is everyone-”

“Everyone's fi- everyone's alive, man. We all just sorta...poofed back into town like nothing happened. We did a headcount and everyone's there. Even that weird little gnome guy.”

Ford sagged back down in relief. “I didn't even think about...I should have. I should have-”

“Whoa, dude.” She wasn't sure if she liked Ford but she didn't like the way that tone of voice was headed. “It's okay. I'm just glad I found you. But, um.” She looked around at the three of them and she didn't want to say it but it had to get said eventually.

“Where's Stan?”

And there it was. The looks on their faces, the hesitation, the way they all traded glances like no one wanted to be the one to say it, whatever it was, and the ice cubes were back.

“He's fine,” Mabel said. “He's...he's going to be...”

“He's inside,” Ford said, very quietly. “Resting.”

He didn't say anything else, so she took a deep breath and started walking, because clearly whatever it was she was going to have to see for herself. Not dead. Alright. She could work with that. Whatever it was, she could work with it. After everything they'd gotten through, they could get through this. Surely.

She imagined all the worst things she could as she walked up onto the porch, trying to swallow them all down, trying to prepare herself: injury, disfigurement, blood, things missing, things twisted. Instead she saw Stan sitting comfortably in his old armchair, holding a book. Soos was sitting on the floor next to him, looking like he'd been crying, but aside from that about the most horrible unsettling thing she could see was that Stan's bowtie was undone.

So what the hell?

She let out her breath all at once. “Hey, Mr. Pines!”

He blinked and turned towards her, and-

Something was wrong, she knew, she felt it in the pit of her stomach, even before he smiled uncertainly and said, “Uh...hello. Do I know you?”

“That's...that's not very funny, Mr. Pines,” she said, trying to be angry, frustrated like you always had to be a little bit when you were dealing with Stan, but her voice cracked on the way out.

What was worse was the look on his face, which was not anything like Stan. Not angry, not grousing, not that little spark of mischief in the eye. He just looked like a little kid who'd been told off and didn't know why.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She whipped her head around and stared at Ford, who was still in the doorway.

“He's lost his memory,” Ford said heavily. He didn't turn around. “He...it should be...he's remembering some things already. So I have hope...”

She kept staring at him. Behind her, she heard Soos saying, “That's Wendy, Mr. Pines. She works for you.”

“Oh, like you do?”

“Yeah! See, here she is in this picture...”

“How?” Wendy said. Probably she should be more tactful right now but screw it, she didn't have it in her, not now. “Did he hit his head, or...”

“No.” She could tell by the very definite way Ford said it that she'd hit on something there. Abruptly he turned his head and looked at her with an intensity so strong and sudden she almost took a step back. The glare of the headlights made all the lines of his face harsh and stark and he looked somewhat more like she thought he was supposed to, but also somehow not.

“Listen,” he said, like he was giving her the most important information in the world. “When you go back to town, tell them-tell everyone...it was Stan. He saved us. He's the hero. You have to tell them that.”

Wendy looked at him, propped up in the doorway and staring at her like all their lives depended on what he had just told her-looked at Stan in his chair, looking at the scrapbook like a kid, looking small, while beside him Soos sat on the floor with his eyes all rimmed red and exhaustion ground into his face-looked at the kids on the porch standing close to each other all bruised and beaten up and still putting monumental effort into being brave-looked at this whole family scattered around the ruins of their home, all desperate and determined and battered and tired and lost-and right then she made an executive decision.

“Tell them yourself,” she said. “I'm taking you guys back to town with me.”

Everyone looked at her. Ford frowned like he couldn't quite process the words. “Er...”

“Dude, you guys can't stay here!” The looks on all their faces made it clear they hadn't really considered this. Somehow. “This place is like, condemned. And you all look one hundred percent done for. I mean, do you have any food here? Running water? Lights?”

The kids and Soos- so, basically, the kids-all spoke up at once in protest. “We're not leaving the Shack!” “It's our home!” “We can't just give up on it now-”

“Whoa, whoa, time out.” She held her hands up and waited for them to stop. “Calm down, guys, I don't mean, like, forever. Just for tonight. Everyone here looks like they need a square meal and like, two days of sleep. So come back with me-I stole Thompson's van, so we should all fit-and we'll get you put up somewhere and then we can see about fixing up the shack when we're all in better shape, okay?”

There was a round of looks exchanged among the family. Finally Ford-who evidently was the current reigning Responsible Adult, if only by default-said, “That's...probably the best idea, under the circumstances.”

Wendy sighed in relief. “Okay. So-”

“Wait-I-have-to-get-some-stuff!” Mabel ran past, almost bowling Wendy over. Dipper followed her, a little less energetically; it looked like they were making for the attic, or whatever was left of it.

“Be careful up there!” Ford called after them. “This house is not very structurally stable at the moment!”

There was no response. Wendy rolled her eyes.

“Okay, Mr. Pines,” Soos said. His usual Soos-ness seemed a bit forced, but he was trying. “How about we get you into the van?”

“I'm an amnesiac, Soos, not an invalid,” Stan griped. “What, are you gonna get me a walker next?”

Wendy almost cried.

“What?” Stan demanded, glaring back at her. “What are you looking at?”

She had to swallow hard a few times before she was able to grin back at him like this was all normal, another day in the Shack trading barbs with her cranky crusty grouchy wonderful boss who maybe wasn't completely gone after all. “Maybe a walker would be a good idea,” she said, catching Soos's eye. “You are, like, a senior citizen, man.”

Stan narrowed his eyes at her. “How much do I pay you?” he said. “Because however much it is, it's too much.”

Wendy started laughing, and somehow she couldn't seem to stop, not the whole time Soos escorted Stan out to the van, Stan clutching the scrapbook like a life preserver and looking at her like she was crazy, which, she supposed, she was a bit right now. She followed them out on the porch and sat down on the edge, still giggling a little.

From the corner of her eye she saw Ford come away from where he had moved out of the doorway and slowly sit down on the opposite side of the steps. He moved-well, the phrase like an old man came to mind, but not much like this particular old man. One of the only times she'd seen Ford out and about in the Shack, he had come running into the gift shop chasing something or other that had gotten free, and by the time she had watched him chase it out into the yard and up a tree before punching it to the ground, jumping on it, and wrestling it into submission, she had enough evidence to conclude that however old the guy might have been, he was in better shape than some lumberjacks she knew.

Right now, though, he was clearly not doing so hot. It was hard to tell in the bad light, but he seemed drawn and pale, and one hand was clamped to his side. Well, he had spent a lot of time this past week as a gold statue. That probably couldn't be good for anyone's well-being.

She wasn't sure, really, what to think about him. She hadn't been, ever since he'd turned up. Not that she'd ever gotten the whole story about him, exactly, but she knew the gist of it; Soos had gone on about it for like two days, which was enough time for even Soos to make some kind of sense. She knew he was Stan's twin brother, who had gotten...lost, or something, because of some crazy experiment, and Stan had spent thirty years trying to replicate that to get him back. He'd even taken his brother's identity, which honestly didn't really faze her much because she'd pretty much always assumed that Stan was operating under at least one false identity, probably more like three or four.

She knew the two of them were estranged because anyone could see that. Not that she really got all the why behind that, but she knew Stan had been kicked out of his home when he was a kid over it. Soos had cried for about half an hour when he told her that part. She knew from Dipper's rather manic ramblings on the subject that the experiment was dangerous, and that made Ford angry, angry that Stan would risk that danger even to bring him back. And she knew that had to be a sore, sore point between them because it had, after all, very nearly doomed the entire world.

Her instinct was to not like Ford very much for that, mostly because she liked Stan. It was sort of hard to not like Stan in some way, once you actually got to know him and not just the bluster and gruffness and sleazy showmanship. He had given her a job, a place to be, at a time when she had very much needed to not be at home; and as much as he groused and threatened to fire her about five times a day and sometimes threw newspapers at her, he really wasn't that bad of a boss. Alright, and not just because of the amount of slacking off she could get past him.

Because...when she'd first started working at the Shack she'd been-well, not careful, exactly, but snide, keeping her retorts under her breath and her eyerolls behind his back, hiding it all away like she was supposed to, until one day when everything was especially bad he'd turned to her and said, “Look, kid, I don't care if you wanna be insolent. Just put some effort into it, fer cryin' out loud.”

She'd stared at him, hating him, hating herself, hating everything in the whole stupid mean pointless world, and right then she'd let fly with a tirade of the foulest, angriest, most insulting language she knew. It lasted five minutes and at the end of it Stan cackled and gave her a soda and some tips on how to really curse someone out.

He cared about people. She knew that much, for all that he tried to hide it. She knew he cared about her because of the way he had said, once, very quietly, almost shyly, “I know what it's like. To miss someone,” and then suddenly gave her a bone-crunching hug which he would forevermore deny had ever happened. She knew he cared about Soos because every time his birthday came around and he slunk into work all quiet and morose Stan would fire off a constant stream of the absolute worst jokes of all time until the handyman couldn't help but crack a smile. She knew he cared about the kids because-well, anyone could see that.

And she knew he had to care about his brother, to have spent so long working to bring him back. Thirty years-that was her whole life twice over. She could barely get her head around that. Alright, so maybe it was dangerous, but c'mon, this was Gravity Falls; if Stan wasn't threatening to destroy the universe, something else would pick up the slack by next week.

So she'd not been too sure about this brother, about the way he treated Stan, the way any mention of him seemed to make Stan clam up and hunch in on himself and look old and tired and sad. Not that she said anything about it-the kids loved their new grunkle, especially Dipper who was in total awe of the mysterious Author. It wasn't her place to ruin that, and it wasn't like anyone had asked her anyway.

But whatever she thought about him, right now the guy looked so utterly, thoroughly miserable that it was impossible not to feel bad for him.

“Hey,” she said, and then faltered, realizing that she wasn't really sure what to call him. She knew his name, of course-except even that was weird, because it was Stan's name, which was not in fact Stan's name after all-but just calling him Ford felt a little off, a name that wasn't really hers to use because that was the sort of name that always had “my brother” or “my uncle” lingering somewhere in front of it. And she wasn't about to call him Mr. Pines because Mr. Pines was in the van arguing with Soos and she wasn't going to give that name to anyone else.

Mr. Stan's Jerk Brother? Dr. Pines? That was what Soos called him and it was probably her best bet, although imitating Soos was always a risky endeavor. He didn't look like any kind of doctor but he was definitely a Smart Guy so he had probably picked up the right to use the title somewhere or other.

Okay. Dr. Pines.

And maybe, if she had not been exhausted and punchdrunk on stress and adrenaline and caught somewhere between giddy relief and devastation, she would have actually said that like a sensible person, instead of just up and saying, ��Hey. Count Rugen.”

dammit dammit dammit NO that was NOT it that was NOT the right thing to say

She waited for him to be angry but he just stared at her in total, blank confusion. “I'm sorry?”

Wendy did some quick math in her head. “Right. I guess you missed that movie.”

Ford sighed and folded up a little bit more. “I missed a lot of things.”

Oh god, oh god, this was just getting worse and worse. “Forget I said that!” she blurted out, a little too loudly. Ford was looking more and more lost by the moment. “What I meant was...I mean...I was just...look, man, are you okay? Ugh, no, no, stupid question, no one's okay right now but...are you...you look like you're going to pass out on me or something, dude, and I don't know if I can handle that right now.”

Ford shifted a little. He still had that hand clamped to one side, like he was trying to hold something in place. “I'm fine.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Okay, so...you're a terrible liar. Got it.”

Ford opened his mouth and then closed it again, looking completely nonplussed. Wendy snorted. “Dude, I've had Stan for a boss for like, three years now. I've seen some good lying, and that? That was not it.”

He glared back at her for a moment like he was seriously going to try to keep up the pretense, but then he shrugged and most of the determination evaporated off his face. “It's...nothing that serious. I've had much worse.”

Oh, god. He was like her dad.

“And that's relevant how, exactly?” she snapped.

Ford was back to giving her the confused-owl look. She sighed. “Look, I don't know if you realize this, but like, if you get hurt once, that doesn't have to, like, set the bar for the entire rest of your life. You know, people can survive all kinds of crazy stuff and then die because they tripped and fell down the stairs or something.”

“Uh,” Ford said. “That...maybe be true, but...”

“So you're gonna see a doctor when we get to town, right,” she prompted.

Ford coughed awkwardly. The brief flash of pain this sent across his face didn't help his case any. “It's nothing anyone needs to worry about. I can take care of it.”

Then, quietly, like someone not really intended to actually say something out loud, he began to say, “I'm not the one-”

He stopped.

Wendy followed his gaze to the van.

She didn't know just what had happened, but she could guess, maybe, a little part of it.

Okay, well, fine. She could play dirty.

“Sure,” she said. “I mean, I'm sure the kids would be totally fine if their grunkle collapses in front of them or whatever. Wouldn't freak them out at all.”

Ford jerked his head around, the look on his face equal parts anger and horrified realization. She met his gaze without flinching. Cool as a bag of ice.

There were footsteps on the stairs behind them. Ford glanced back into the house and sighed. “Fine.”

Wendy grinned.

The kids came tumbling out of the doorway, each wearing an over-stuffed backpack. Dipper was carrying what looked like a camera case and some notebooks, while Mabel was struggling to contain a giant stuffed animal of indeterminate species, an extra sweater, and another scrapbook. Ford blinked at them. “Kids, is all that really necessary-”

“Uh-huh!” Mabel insisted. “Look, I brought my backup scrapbook, and Dipper's got his journals and the camera with all the videos we took! So we can keep showing Grunkle Stan stuff!”

“Oh.” Ford looked taken aback, but after a moment he offered up a wavering smile. “I...retract my statement, then. That...that was good thinking.”

“And Mr. Hufflepotamus is definitely necessary,” Mabel went on, trying to gesture with the stuffed animal and almost dropping it.

“Oh, absolutely,” Ford said, with utmost seriousness.

“And I brought you a replacement sweater.” The younger Pines juggled her burdens for a moment before managing to extricate the sweater and holding it out. “Since yours is all torn up and stuff. I was going to give it to you as a good-bye present, but I thought...” She stopped for a moment, some of the insistent cheer sliding off her face. “I thought...tonight was a good night for new sweaters.”

Ford took the sweater carefully, almost reverently. It was red, like his battered turtleneck, and there seemed to be a design picked out on the front, though Wendy couldn't make it out. “You...you made this for me?”

“Yep!” Mabel beamed at him. “I like making sweaters.”

Dipper groaned loudly. “That's an understatement.”

“I...thank you. It's wonderful.” Ford folded it neatly and held it against his chest. “I'll treasure it.”

Mabel squinted at him. “Aren't you going to put it on?”

Ford coughed again. “Erm-”

Mabel's face crumpled. Ford looked suitably horrified. “I-I mean, of course I'll put it on, just-just not right now this minute, okay? I...I'm all dirty and sweaty right now, and I wouldn't want to mess up my new gift.”

Mabel didn't look like she was entirely convinced-probably, Wendy thought, because she also had spent enough time with Stan to know a terrible lie when she heard it-but she just shrugged and said, “Okay.”

“Can we go already?” Dipper broke in. “My arms are getting super tired.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.” Ford levered himself up slowly, stiffly. He glanced at Wendy a little suspiciously as they all made for the van. “Do you...actually have a driver's license?”

“Nope. But I out-drove a bunch of escaped convicts through a maze of weirdness bubbles, so I figure I can make it back into town.”

“...Maybe I should drive,” Ford said.

Wendy cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? Do you have a driver's license?”

“Um...well...technically...”

There was some stifled giggling from behind them, but when Ford and Wendy turned around the twins were looking completely serious. The giggling started up again as soon as they looked away.

“Look, that's not the point,” Ford said. “The point is...”

“The point is you're not driving anywhere,” Wendy said, throwing a significant look at the hand Ford still had around his side. “So-” “Guys,” Dipper said, still sounding as though he were barely holding back laughter. “How about Soos drives?”

On cue, Soos poked his head out of the driver's side window. “Way ahead of you, dawg.”

The twins scrambled into the very back of the dingy old van, while Wendy and Ford took the middle seat. Stan had already been installed in the front. “You guys took long enough,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wendy said, trying not to grin too hard at Stan sounding like his old self.

#gravity falls #now you see it all #gravity falls fanfic #fanfic #scribulations #excessive ellipses #gravity falls spoilers #????

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