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English
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Published:
2018-05-15
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1,716
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1/1
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More Alike Than They Realize

Summary:

Stan finds a jittery, apologetic Ford up late one night, and the following conversation doesn't go anywhere near where he thought it was going. Post-Weirdmageddon.

Notes:

Just a one-shot, written because I've been reading (and to a lesser extent, writing) a lot of fic that is heavy on the angst and I wanted to write something in which the Pines Family is genuinely happy.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

For the first time since Weirdmageddon, Stan woke up knowing exactly who, where, and when he was. The bulk of his memories, especially the enjoyable ones from the past summer and his childhood, had returned within about forty-eight hours, but six days later he was still having occasional lapses, the worst of which occurred upon waking up – until now, apparently. He hoped it would last.

He rolled over and looked at his clock. 12:15 A.M. Well, that was less cause for celebration. His head hurt – not unusual lately – and his mouth was dry – not anything to worry about, but still unpleasant.

Careful not to make any sound that could wake Ford or the kids, he made his way down to the kitchen. Warm milk usually helped him get to sleep.

I hope there’s still some left, he thought. The kids and I have been going through a lot since –

“Stanley, is everything alright?” Ford had been sitting at the kitchen table in complete darkness aside from the multi-colored glow of his laptop screen. “Do you know who I am?”

Stan hurriedly rushed to the fridge. “Don’t worry, Sixer, I remember fine. Just wanted get somethin’ to drink before I go to back to bed.” Ford’s concern was pretty reasonable given the state Stan was usually in when he wandered the Shack at night, and had Stan actually been in the middle of a lapse his brother’s presence would have been appreciated, but at the moment he didn’t want Ford worrying about him. He wanted to sleep.

“That’s great to hear,” Ford told him. “But Stanley, we need to talk.” He put himself between Stan and the door. “I was a fool, I realize that now. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Ford, you already apologized,” Stan replied. “About a hundred times. I promise, I’ve forgiven you –”

Stan suddenly noticed Ford’s eyes were bloodshot and his hair was even more of an unkempt mess than usual. “Stanford, are you feelin’ okay? You look… paranoid. Do you need to run more tests to make sure Bill is –”

Realization dawned on Ford’s face – and then he chuckled sadly, like he was laughing at himself rather than Stan. “Oh, no, Stan. This isn’t about Weirdmageddon. I didn’t worry you too much, did I?”

“Wait, then what is it –” Stan noticed the bowl on the kitchen table next to Ford’s laptop. “Is that popcorn? How the hell did you make popcorn at midnight without waking up the whole house?”

“It’s just simple sound-wave cancelling technology I picked up in Dimension B-56,” Ford replied automatically. “But the point is, I need to completely and sincerely take back what I said to you and about your… taste in entertainment on my second full day back in this dimension. I made a hasty judgement based on the show’s… target demographics, and I see now that I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”

“Sixer, you’re not making any… wait.” Stan suddenly remembered what had aired on Ford’s second day back in Gravity Falls. “You started watching Ducktective, didn’t you?”

“I did, Stanley! And it’s so much better than I was emotionally prepared for! After you saved me from Probabilitor that one day, I asked Dipper if I could join you watching the new episode, but he said it would be full of spoilers and showed me how I could stream it from the beginning when I had the time – and now I’m addicted! I can’t believe I called it a kids’ show; the mysteries of the overarching story transcend age demographics like nothing I’ve ever seen before! I’m nowhere near caught up and I already have so many theories! I’m not even sure if the younger Ducktective we saw in the time travel episode was actually him!”

“Whoa whoa whoa, Poindexter, slow down.” A grin was spreading across Stan’s face. “How far in have you gotten? Ten episodes?”

“Twelve,” Ford corrected. “I just finished the one where his rival Pete the pelican was wrongly accused and came to Ducktective for help –”

“Hey, that’s a really underrated one!”

“Wait, who didn’t like it? That was some of the finest comedy I’ve seen in the entire multiverse!”

“Dipper said Pete’s change of heart was unrealistic! Can you believe it?”

“If I wasn’t indebted to him for introducing me to the show in the first place, he would be dead to me,” Ford agreed in an overly dramatic tone.

“You gotta watch the next couple episodes right now, Sixer. Episode 13 is a goddamn emotional journey, and Episode 14 – well, I don’t want to spoil it. It needs to be seen to be believed, anyways. And then rewatched multiple times after learning what happens in the season finale.”

“Are you going to stay to watch alongside me?” Ford asked as he sat back down in front of his laptop.

“And miss you tearing up?” Stan pulled up a chair. “Pass the popcorn, would ya?”

“We’ll see about that,” Ford replied, but when Ducktective was finally reunited with his long-lost partner Steve, he couldn’t help but shed a single tear. Stan shed quite a few more, despite having seen the episode at least twice before, but Ford didn’t rub it in his face.

Ford was a bit confused, however, when the town erected a hyper-realistic statue of Ducktective to honor him for his continued work, and Stan bawled his eyes out seeing how Ducktective refused to look at the monument for longer than a few seconds.

“He’s just not used to the attention! What’s so sad about that?” Ford asked.

“You don’t understand,” Stan sobbed. It took all of his willpower not to explain that the statue reminded Ducktective of his long-lost twin gone evil. Ford had more or less guessed the twist already thanks to the time travel episode and the extra room in Ducktective’s childhood home, but Stan was drawing on all his con man power to act like Ford’s theory was crazy.

During a lull in the action in Episode 17, Ford paused the video and said: “I’m getting a little tired, but I can’t stop watching yet. Do you mind if we go sit somewhere where I won’t wake up with back pains in case I do fall asleep?”

Stan was also very tired, but there was no way he was going to miss Ford’s reaction to the next episode’s reveal. “While we’re at it, let’s go someplace where you won’t wake up the kids when you scream. There’s a big plot twist comin’ up.”

Ford closed the laptop. “I’d suggest the basement, but it’s probably pretty cold down there. We can go to my private study.”

Stan frowned. “Not exactly a lot of comfortable furniture in there, is there?”

“No, especially not after I cleaned it out. I was thinking we could bring blankets – wait, you’ve been in there? It’s supposed to be a secret!”

Stan snorted. “Sixer, I lived in this house for thirty years. Now go get those blankets.”

***

“Great Uncle Ford? Grunkle Stan? Are you guys okay? What are you doing down here?”

Stan tried to sit up, but something above him slipped, and several surprisingly heavy blankets fell on his face. Besides, he didn’t really want to get up. He was reminded of the good old days when he and Ford would hang some blankets from the top bunk, then sit on Stan’s bed together reading comic books, telling ghost stories, and generally making a mess with snacks.

“Morning, Dipper,” he heard Ford mumble. “I’m sorry we didn’t make breakfast…”

“Grunkle Ford, we were so worried about you!” Mabel yelled. “We thought you got kidnapped by gnomes or one of the last few eye-bats or something! But this whole time, you were just down here in your secret room?! You even built a whole blanket fort without us!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Ford pulled his laptop out from under his blankets. “I didn’t even consider the possibility that you wouldn’t realize where we were. We just didn’t want to wake you with our reactions to Ducktective.” He glared at Stan. “I can’t believe I predicted Ducktective’s twin brother almost a whole season in advance and Stan just pretended that my theory was ridiculous.”

“Hey, what was I supposed to do, spoil the ending of the best episode in the whole show?”

“How about simply not making fun of me for ‘looking too deep’ into everything?”

Mabel shook her head. “I can’t believe you nerds.”

“Hey, you can say that about Ford, but not me,” Stan complained. “I’m not like him and Dipper, not at –”

“You kind of are, though,” Ford told him, trying and failing not to laugh. “Obviously not to the same extent as myself, but we did just stay up until three in the morning watching a children’s show and discussing elaborate conspiracy theories about it. We’re more alike than you realize, Stanley.”

“So? It was one time!”

“I seem to recall we did this kind of thing pretty often when we were kids. Obviously not on a laptop, but with equally nerdy works of fiction nonetheless.”

“You’re an honorary nerd now whether you like it or not, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper added.

Stan shook his head. “Ya know, I was gonna apologize for making you worry, but now I’m not so sure.”

“You should apologize for ruining our blanket fort, Stanley,” Ford chided jokingly. “It was an absolute marvel of engineering before you decided to drag down the roof.”

“A real marvel of engineering wouldn’t let its roof get dragged down that easily!”

Ford frowned. “Uh, let’s go get breakfast. Kids, do you know if there’s any pancake mix left?”

“Ha, so you admit I have a point!”

“Honestly,” Mabel interrupted, “I’m not mad anymore that you guys disappeared into the basement to build a blanket fort and eat popcorn and watch your show. I’m just mad that you didn’t invite us.”

“Yeah!” Dipper added. “I wanted to see Ford’s reaction to the season finale.”

Ford smiled. “Well, we still have about… ten episodes before I’m caught up?”

“Eight,” Stan corrected. “Plus the shorts. But yeah, you kids could join us.”

“Will there be popcorn?” Mabel asked.

“Of course!”

Mabel and Dipper exchanged a look.

“Are we forgiven?” Stan asked.

The kids nodded in unison. “You’re forgiven.”

Notes:

If I had sum up my overall reaction to Gravity Falls when I first watched in 2017 using just one phrase from this fic, it would be "so much better than I was emotionally prepared for."

As always, comments are appreciated.