Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day his brother (his twin, his other half, his best friend, the person who he shared everything with) would decide he wasn’t worth it and leave him behind.

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day he’d end up homeless and on the streets. (Not that he never worried about Pa kicking him out, but that seemed so unlikely back then, didn’t it? He still had Ma and Ford and their dream, didn’t he?)

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day he’d wake up dirty and wet and cold behind a dumpster with blood gushing out of a head wound that he sure as hell didn’t deserve. (Oh, but he did, didn’t he? That’s what he got for messing with the wrong crowd and trying to steal money from people who sure as hell didn’t care whether or not he died for his stupidstupidstupid mistakes.)

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day he’d get a call from his estranged twin brother (who didn’t give a damn about him for the last ten years, so why should Stanley drop everything he had just to help him and hope that maybe, Stanford wanted to apologize and tell him he wasn’t mad, he didn’t hate him, he missed him and Stanley I was such an asshole back then. I didn’t mean it, I still love you and I’d love to have you back in my life. Let’s leave the past in the past and just go back to the way things were before.)    

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day he’d be standing in front of some kind of weird time machine – or whatever it was, he wasn’t really listening anyway – right out of a crazy sci-fi movie and get into another fight with his brother and this time it would be Stanley who watched Stanford leave, never to be seen again (and wasn’t that just his luck? To lose a brother for a second time for thirty fucking years, spending every night in this creepy basement, teaching himself physics and mechanics and all that shit that he swore he’d never need again after school? Trying to manage the Mystery Shack while baby-sitting his great-niece and nephew and also living in this stupid town with its stupid people who’d walk past a gaggle of gnomes stealing food out of the trashcan and act like nothing weird was going on at all.)

Stanley Pines would have never imagined that one day he’d be breaking into a church and worst of all, getting caught breaking into said church (but maybe he should get used to the unimaginable at this point, no?)

“You know the holy water is for free, right? You can just take it.” The nun says from behind him.

“Uh… No, it’s not if I’m stealing it,” Stan answers from where he’s standing, crouched behind a pillar in his black suit and gloves and mask. He’s holding up a bottle to the holy water dispenser that’s halfway full.

“But the sign clearly says-“

“It’s stealing if I’m ignoring the sign though, isn’t it?” Stanley snaps back at her without turning around, stands up in a swift motion and walks back to the window that he broke through. He tries to climb back out but he’s not the youngest anymore and it really doesn’t help that the stupid nun is still standing there watching him.

“The doors are open-“

“God damn it, woman! Don’t you have any Hail Mary’s to pray or something?! Some of us are trying to commit theft in peace here!” He finally looks up at her with a glare. He really doesn’t have time for this.

The young woman just throws her hands up in a way that is half surrender and half annoyance and walks away to another room after that.

Well, finally, Stan thinks to himself and half climbs, half falls out of the window, rolls behind the bushes and ow ow ow his back hurts again, maybe he shouldn’t have overdone it this time!

It’s still dark outside, the sun barely rising over the mountains when he makes his way back to the Mystery Shack, still swearing under his breath. Can’t a guy just casually break into the church of a religion he’s not even a part of (not that he was ever a religious person anyway) and steal some stupid water that will hopefully help repel the devil from possessing his great-nephew again and throwing his body of the water tower?

By the time he’s back, the morning sun shines through the trees and illuminates the Mystery Shack before him in a golden-orange shimmer. The first birds greet the day with their jolly tweeting and chirping and Stanley wishes he could just sit down for once, close his eyes and enjoy the peaceful scenery.

No annoying tourists or town people, no sleepless nights in the basement, no lonely evenings where he’ll watch the kids play outside and fight to hold back tears because it should have been him and Stanford, god damn it! They were supposed to sail around the world together, not spend thirty years apart.

But he knows he doesn’t deserve it. There’s no time for a peaceful morning, he’s not here on vacation to enjoy the forest and the mountains, he’s here to get his brother back and keep his family safe. And maybe afterwards, after he saves Stanford and introduces Mabel and Dipper to him, and Ford will come up with some genius idea to exorcise that stupid demon and maybe the agents will decide to just investigate some other stupid town, maybe then they will all be allowed to sit down on the couch outside and lean back and laugh about it all while the summer sun goes down behind the warm mountains and everyone is safe and happy and together after long last.

The Shack is still dark and silent as he sneaks back inside towards the living room where he pushed all the furniture aside to make room for everything that he’ll need for his next steps.

After he had brought Dipper back upstairs to his bedroom, he hadn’t wasted a second to tear down and throw away everything that had the illuminati symbol on it. The most obvious being the rug in the gift shop and some other pages and flyers and rags that had it imprinted, but the more he looked the more he found. There were little carvings of the demon in the good damn wood in every nook and cranny of his house.

At some point, he realized that he couldn’t very well start ripping out the wooden blanks and floorboards or else he’ll end up with no house at all and started carving or drawing little Xs over the eyes. He doesn’t know if it actually helped or not but with every crossed-out eye, he felt just a little bit less watched.

There’s a moment of self-awareness where he realizes he’d look like a paranoid loon if anyone saw him doing this and for a second, he feels closer to his brother than he has in almost forty years.

Back in the living room, he lays out the bottle of (rightfully stolen) holy water, a few packages of salt, dream catchers that he found in the Mystery Shack, Mabel’s red yarn, everything that looks like it’s made of iron, and various books he had found about demons and exorcisms. Ford’s journal is safely tucked away for now.

He starts by pouring the salt around the windowsills before he realizes that the moment anyone opens the window it’ll all flow away again and Stan neither has the salt nor the energy to make up for it.

Putting the package of salt back, Stan sits down onto the floor again and starts rethinking his approach to the situation. He could glue the salt down, but that’d be too much work, he realizes. His eyes fly over all the items before him again and stop at Mabel’s red yarn. He was planning on making little ribbons out of it and hanging them over their beds but now a new idea forms in his mind.

Gathering all the salt and yarn (all and every he can find around the house), he runs into his bathroom and fills the bathtub with a generous amount of water. Then he pours all the salt into the bathtub and waits and stirs until it all dissolves.

Now he just needs to soak all the yarn in the salt-water and wait till it’s in all the fibers of the string. Afterwards, he can just glue or nail the string in place around the house, not having to worry about it being flown or kicked away.

“You see, Ford? I can be just as smart and nerdy as you about this stuff,” he mumbles to himself as he stirs the yarn for a few more minutes. He even made sure to leave enough red yarn behind to make the ribbons.

But that’s not true now, is it? Ford would have come up with a better idea than he did, Stan is sure. Yeah, let’s glue some string around the house, that’ll keep the demons outside, wow, you’re such a genius, Stanley!

“Still a better idea than staying up for days on end and losing my mind,” Stan says, glaring down into the tub. He’s trying, ok?

The sound of a door opening and closing rips him out of his thoughts and he hears Soos walking around the gift shop for a few minutes, before walking further towards him. “Man, I didn’t know we were redecorating, dude!” Soos says and knocks politely against the doorframe, even when he already knows that Stan has heard him all the way through. “Is this some kind of new decoration, Mr. Pines?”

“No, it’s not,” Stan says, and he can’t bring himself to sound anything less than just tired. Tired of all the lies, of all his sleepless nights and most of all, tired of this cursed town.

“Are-are you alright, Mr. Pines?” Soos asks and walks a hesitant step towards him.

No, I’m not. There’s a fucking demon terrorizing our family and you snuck out with the kids to the bunker where they almost got murdered, and you didn’t even tell me. Stan thinks bitterly but he knows it’s not fair towards the kid. It’s Stanley’s own fault for letting them all out of his sight, for not caring more about where they are and what they are doing in their free time. For not writing down clear rules and putting his foot down when it came to following them.

“Mr. Pines?”

“Is Wendy there, yet?” Stan asks instead and slowly stands up from where he was kneeling by the bathtub.

“Oh, um, no, she’s always a little bit late, you know? I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Soos says and wrings his hands together. “Ah, do you need any he-“

“Soos, why don’t you go back to the gift shop and wait for her. I’d like to talk to you two about some changes and new rules I decided on.”

“Yeah, sure, Mr. Pines…” is all he gets in response before Soos vanishes down the corridor again.

Stanley takes one last look at the yarn-filled bathtub and closes his eyes, breathing slowly in and then out to calm his nerves. He needs to handle this professionally, he tells himself, no matter how tired and done he is with all of this. This is bigger than them, he knows. They’re just kids at the end of the day, they don’t know better. They don’t really know how it is to watch someone they love getting lost and waking up every night with visions of being the one to blame for their death.

Stanley Pines never would have imagined that one day he’d realize that it’s long overdue for him to finally take responsibility for his own mistakes.

Chapter Text

Both Soos and Wendy sit opposite of him, in his office.

While the girl leans back in her seat, one leg draped over the other and looking bored as ever, Soos nervously taps his fingers across his knees.

He’s been thinking long and hard about how to go about this situation, about what to say and what to leave out, and concludes that they’re both old enough to learn some truths about life.

He leans back as well silently, takes out his purse and pulls out an old photograph that he slides across the table.

At that Wendy does perk up in interest and both lean over to see what is depicted. It’s a photo of two young boys at the beach, posing next to something closely resembling a boat. Both are smiling wide and proud, half sunburned from the long day outside.

“Are those your kids or what?” Wendy asks and looks up to him with a slight grin.

“No,” he says. “That’s me. And my brother,” he tells her, no trace of joy on his face.

Wendy’s smile quickly vanished when she realizes he’s not up to any jokes. Whatever is going on now doesn’t allow jokes. She sobers up quickly afterwards, sitting straight and attentive.

“You never told us about a brother, Mr. Pines,” Soos says then and points at one of the boys in the photo, “Are you guys twins? Which one is you?”

“We were twins,” Stan says and understanding crashed upon them both. Stan continues before any of them have the chance to offer any condolences. “It happened about 30 years ago, so it’s not like I didn’t have the time to get used to it. Sometimes the only thing you can do is accept life as it is and move on.” He’s quiet after that, trying to not feel bad about being such a hypocrite. Stanley Pines never got used to it and will never move on.

“See, let me tell you how it happened,” he goes on, hands crossed over his lap and deep in thought.

“Maybe you’ve heard of it, Wendy, but your dad built this cabin,” he says pointing at her, “When I moved in here Dan was a young man, barely taller than you. I paid him to build this cabin here in the woods, because quiet frankly, I hate other people and I doubt that’s anything new to you guys. So, I had my cabin in the woods, I had my peace from the rest of town, and I got to think about how to monetize it. Believe it or not, but other than me and whatever the Northwest’s are doing, there’s not really any way this town earns its money. But that’s another topic entirely.

See, me and my brother, we used to be really close back in the days. Inseparable even. But life ain’t fair and one day – one day Stanley got kicked out.” He can’t help but swipe a hand across his face. Talking about himself in the third perspective did feel weird, but hell if he told them the whole truth. Better to stick to a heavily edited story. “Yeah, I know, Stanley and Stanford. Our parents weren’t all that creative. The point is my brother got kicked out because of a fight and I haven’t seen him for the next ten years.”

Wendy and Soos both sit in their chair uncomfortably, not really knowing what to say. That’s all well for him, he didn’t expect the kids to have any answers for him anyways.

“I lived here in Gravity Falls for a long time,” he says and makes sure to hold eye-contact for a moment too long for their comfort. “I know this town is strange and I know there’s weird creatures living in the woods. Believe it or not but I’m not stupid. This town can get dangerous when you’re not looking after yourself. And one day I made a terrible mistake. See, I missed my brother for ten years, and I desperately wanted to make up. I didn’t care whose fault was what or who stared it all, as long as I could have my best friend back. So, I invited him here, hoping to make amends.

But things rarely go as planned and before long we had another fight. This time worse. We weren’t just two young teenagers threatening each other with words and pushes. We were grown men at this point, and when grown men fight that usually leads to physical violence. One of us threw the first punch and before long we were at each other’s throats. Some things were said, some things were done, but in the end he left. He got into his car and drove off into the night. And the thing is… the thing is, you’re not supposed to drive while you’re too emotional. Because strong emotions cloud your judgement, sadness as much as anger.”

He leans back for a moment and opens the drawer of his desk, before placing a worn, torn out newspaper clipping in front of them. There’s a picture of a burned down car, crashed against a tree. Wendy gasps and covers her mouth in shock while tears well up in her eyes and Soos looks down into his lap, occasionally wiping his eyes.

“So, he drove off into the night and that’s the last time I saw him. The last thing I said to him is how he ruined my life and how much of a terrible brother he is. And the next day I got the call. I had to show up at the police station and identify as much as was left from his body and personal belongings, because trust me, there wasn’t much after the fire,” he forces out and taps aggressively against the picture of the car crash. “And it was me who had to call our parents and explain what happened and it was me who had to hold my mother as she cried over the closed casket, and it was me who had to live with this guilt for the rest of my life!”

A part of him feels bad for scaring them the way he does as both shrink back into their chairs with every word and every aggressive jab he does against the table. But he knows he needs to bring his point across somehow, and he knows teenagers and kids won’t listen until they truly understand how it feels like to lose someone they love like that.

“And I live with that guilt for the rest of my life, because it’s my fault I let him leave like that. I pushed him away and never wanted to see him again in that moment. I told myself I’d never let something like that happen again. I’ll never be the reason why. I’ll never ever have to call someone’s parents and explain to them how their child died. So, tell me,” he says and stands up to lean over the desk to look down at them.

“Tell me, why the fuck you thought it’d be a good idea to sneak away into the bunker of all places, while I explicitly forbade Dipper to use the journal in any other way than self-defense. And tell me why you thought to keep it from me, that my niece and nephew almost got murdered by the shape-shifter. That thing is locked up down there for a reason!”

“Mr. Pines, we’re so sorry-!” Wendy starts, but he raises a finger at her, silencing the girl at once.

“What would have happened if you died down there, Wendy?” he asks her while she stares up at him in horror. “Did you want me to call your father and tell him his only daughter is dead? Do you think he would be able to just go on with life as if nothing ever happened? Would he have to retrieve your body, or would they send in someone else? Or would they think it’s too dangerous with a monster down there and just close it all off? And what about Dipper and Mabel? Could you be able to live with yourself if one of them got murdered? Could you be able to call their parents and tell them their children are dead?”

He puts his hands against his chest. “Do you think I could? Again?” he whispers.

They’re quiet, staring at the floor, not really daring to breath or say anything. The silence becomes unbearable. Uncomfortable.

He hates that he must do this to them. But if they want to continue they’ll have to follow some new rules.

“I want you to go home and stay away from work until the end of the week. I’m not firing you. I just need to change some things around here. And if you’re willing to actually follow my rules, you’re allowed to come back,” he tells them and sits back down. “No more adventures with the journal. No more looking for the author. Trust me, you won’t find him.”

Two pair of eyes shoot up to stare at him.

“That’s right,” Stan says and stares back just as intently before they get any ideas to accuse him. “He got in too deep with this town. Got involved with things that destroyed him. That man is no longer with us.” He points at Wendy especially, because he knows how stubborn that girl is. “So don’t try with me. I’ve seen what this town does to people. And I’ll be damned if I let it happen to anyone else. And now out.”

They don’t wait any longer, quietly shuffling out of their seats, Wendy sprinting out of his office and house, throwing the door open. He hears Soos following close behind, sobbing quietly. After that there’s silence.

Just Stan and his thoughts.

And a picture of two boys from a different time, none the wiser to what will come.

Chapter Text

Ok, so first of all, I am planning on continuing this work, it is not abandoned.

It’s just a lot of things have happened the last few months (?), so I’ll keep it quick.

First of all, my laptop had broken down and I couldn’t be bothered to fix it until I got a new one for Christmas.

Secondly, I’ve got like the worst ADHD and have trouble focusing on things. I do like writing, but it does feel like a chore most of the time. Took half a year till I got an appointment with some lady who prescribed me medication, but I don’t really wanna take it unless I have classes. At least it helps me to sit down for more than 10 minutes when writing essays or whatever.

Third, I have no idea if it’s because of the ADHD or what, but I keep switching between hyperfixiations very frequently for the last year or so? Like, I get absolutely obsessed with a fandom or just some random ship and then I’ll just keep reading that 24/7 until I run out of fics and then I look for something else, or wait until some old hyperfixiation resurfaces again.

Since November last year I got obsessed with fnaf again (proud to say I was an OG fan uwu), but yeah. Sorry for that ^^’

The next chapter was always supposed to be based around (I think) episode 5 with Soos looking for a girlfriend, and it’s still gonna be, I’m just gonna mix in some elements into it that weren’t planned before. At least then I’ll actually write something, because I know how much it sucks when you have to wait so long for a fanfic to update.

Again, sorry for the long wait and thanks for any new and old comments. It really does make me happy when people read and enjoy the stuff I write :3

Have a nice day!