So, there's the different opinions on how old Shermie, are right? Older or younger
what about Shermie is that baby in TOTS, who grows up only hearing about Stan from Caryn, cause Filbrick doesn't talk about the family disappointment and Ford left for college. Who hears about how Stan is clever and creative and cares immensely about family. Where Shermie gets kicked out for whatever reason (Teenage pregnancy?) and Caryn once again doesn't prevent a kid from being tossed out… Where Shermie has Stan's last known phone number from their mom and not knowing who to turn to calls his big brother whose main feature he knows about is his love of family.
What about a Stanley, who does still care about the baby brother he used to babysit, getting a surprise call and hearing the same thing that happened to him being REPEATED??
Just wondering. :)
You people keep giving me brain worms, and I cannot believe you. I scroll back in my inbox and bam. Things that grip me by the throat.
Okay. Okay I see your teen pregnancy thing and I raise you,
Shermie is 9.
Its a year before the portal is properly complete, Stan is just at the precipice of his shit spiral drug lord problems, and Shermie is nine years old.
And he gets into an argument with Filbrick. Maybe he mentioned Stan at the dinner table, maybe he snapped back at some seething comment Filbrick made about Ford not bringing back enough money, something.
But Shermie is nine years old, and Filbrick Pines throws him a backpack and tells him to get the hell out and never come back.
He's nine years old, and Shermie Pines is wet faced and sniveling in the cold November air when he dials the number on the scrap of paper his mother pressed into his palm on the way out the door, the both of them wide eyed and near tears. He dials, and he clings to the receiver and he calls a number he'd always considered calling but never did.
He calls Stan, and Stan answers.
Its the next day that Stan finally rumbles into New Jersey for the first time in almost a decade. His brother, fuck his little brother, who he hasn't seen since he was a baby, who he's only heard updates about from his ma and little burbles through the phone, is standing on the corner by a bus stop clutching a backpack and looking like the sorriest kid in the whole wide world.
Stan knows the feeling.
He cleaned out his car in a frantic, hurried pass when he got gas on the way here. Shermie slides in-into the backseat, because he's too young to even consider the front seat as an option- and the two of them sit in utter silence for a long time. The whole drive out of jersey, out of the state.
Apparently its the time of hard phone calls, because Stan parks next to a payphone, tells his brother he'll be right back, and slots a few quarters in to make a call he hoped and prayed he never had to make.
And Stan calls Ford.
Now, Ford has been living as good of a life as he can imagine. He has, in essence, everything he wants. He has a good home in Gravity Falls, enough anomalies to study till the day he dies, his best friend Fiddleford (or boyfriend, up to you) is staying and helping him build a magnificent device for his Muse, and its going to change the world.
And then he gets a call.
He gets a call from a voice, from a person he hadn't expected to hear from...ever.
"Greetings, this is Stanford Pines."
"Si-Stanford. Ford. It's uh, it's Stan."
The coffee mug in his hand clacks down harshly on the counter. "Stanley?"
Immediately, Ford has questions. Thoughts blur through his mind on a reel, flashing and nonstop. Its been. Its been almost a decade now, and this is the first-Ford glances a look at the calendar on the wall. Its a random Tuesday, no big event, no holiday. The clock next to the calendar tells him it's only four in the afternoon. It's just. It's just a random Tuesday, no discernible reason why Stanley would be calling him. Now. Ever, really. Except one, really.
"I am not posting your bail, Stanley. I don't care what you have to say, that is your consequence for-"
"What?" Stan interrupts, offense and surprise coming through tinny. He must be on a low quality phone line. "No, that's not-jeez, is that what you think of me? First time I talk on the phone with you in years and you think I'm-No, god Ford."
Stan sounds tired. And upset. And frustrated. Ford can feel his own emotions rising up, rightful anger and offense, but a lick of cold water arches up his back first, another thought striking. "Oh god, is Ma Dead?" He asks, concern bubbling under his skin. He may not be close with his mother anymore, but- "Stanley, did Ma die?"
"No! Poindexter I swear ta-no, Ma didn't die. I'm calling you for help." Stan sounds like he's rubbing his face with a hand, the words muffled. "I'm calling you because I need help."
Its a shock enough that Ford doesn’t answer right away. Stan doesn't ask for help. It's just, that's just how he is. Stubborn and unyielding to the end, the mere idea of Stan calling for help for some problem is unheard of, the idea is just plain wrong.
Ford can't remember a single time, in his entire life, when Stan was the one to ask. Stan never asked even if he needed it, like the time he broke his arm at six and didn't tell anyone-not even Ford-for days. Asking for help and Stan Pines do not belong in the same sentence. It's, it feels wrong.
"It's...my help?" Ford says, and he can't keep the incredulousness out of his voice. Stanley didn't ask for help, and he certainly wouldn't ask for it from Ford. Ford was always the one who-the one-hm.
"What do you-are you dying?"
This time Stan actually splutters, and Ford strains his ears to see if he can hear him cough up blood or something. "Is that why you're calling me? Are you dying?"
Ford's mind is on an even faster reel. Situations, dangers, who knows what else, is going around and around in his head. Possibilities, impossilities, spinning around and around.
Stan interrupts it all though, with a simple sentence. "Shermie got kicked out."
It drags Ford's thought process to a halt so fast it leaves skid marks on the inside of his brain. "Shermie?" He asks, utterly dumbfounded. "Shermie is- he's seven, what do you mean he's been kicked out?"
"He's nine, you hermit." Stan snaps. "And I mean what I said. Kicked out. Dumped to the curb. Same thing that happened to me, Pa threw him out. He called me."
"He called you?" Ford echoes. He doesn't know Stan's phone number, hasn't ever, really. Stan never needed a different one than the home phone when they were seventeen. How the hell did Shermie know it?
"I came and picked him up. But I can't-Ford I need your help. He can't stay with me. I'm not. I'm not good for him."
"You picked him up?" Ford asks, lagging.
"Are you just gonna repeat everything I say?!" Stan snaps into the phone. "Yeah, I picked him up! He's got a backpack and nothing else, and he's nine fucking years old Ford! I have no idea what to do!"
The outburst leaves a quiet over the phone that's suffocating.
Mercifully, Ford's mind is still.
"Where are you?" He asks.
Stanley sounds ten, twenty years older than Ford's ever heard him. "Outside Ohio, on the Pennsylvania side. At the first truck stop I could find. Shermie's in the car. He's-god, he's just a kid."
Ford takes in a deep, steadying breath.
"And why," Ford starts. Why call me? "Why can't he stay with you?"
There's actual anger there, when Stan responds. "Because I don't have a house, Stanford!" He yells. "Shermie needs all sorts of shit, he needs food, he needs clothes and he needs to go to school, and I can't-I can't do shit about that!
Stan sounds so enraged, but even under that Ford knows what it sounds like when Stan gets choked up. He knows it because he remembers it from the last night he saw his brother.
"I'm living outta my fuckin car Ford, I can't take care of a kid! I'm not, I'm, I-"
What Stanley is saying, what he's really saying, hits directly into Ford's chest like a bullet. He'd flinch, or drop the phone, but his fingers are curled too tight and his feet are rooted to the floor. It's Stan, that's what's so hard hitting about this. It's Stanley.
Stanley, the one with people skills and the humor to make a room laugh. Stan, charming and quick witted and unstoppable, who never backed down from a fight, who never second guessed himself and who never stumbled, or broke.
Stanley, the man shouting and sounding close to hyperventilating on the other side of the line, and Shermie, little baby Shermie he hasn't seen in years, not since he was little and he's still little, Shermie is nine and he's been kicked out like Stan was and the tiny voice whispering did he deserve it too? Makes Ford's tongue finally move.
"Okay," he says, and he tries to put force, to put confidence in his voice. "Okay, I'm in, I'm in Oregon. Gravity Falls. It's a tiny, it's a very small town, but there's a school, and I have a house, I'm, I can-"
Stan takes in such a shocking, stuttering breath it sounds painful. "Thank you," he breaths, and his voice shudders. "I can, I can get Sherm enough for a plane ticket, maybe-maybe enough for a bus ride if you can't get him from the airport, I can, you don't have ta-"
"No, no," Ford interrupts. "No, you said you're in your car? I have a guest room. And, and the attic. I can, I have room, Stan."
The strength comes back into Stan's voice this time. "Ford. Ford I won't-that's too much. It's just Shermie who needs a place, I'm, I can't ask you that."
Ford almost rolls his eyes. The effect would be lost over the phone anyway. "You're not even asking, Stanley. I'm offering."
"No, Ford. I'll get him a plane ticket, or drive him up. I'm not-I can't stay."
This time Ford really does roll his eyes. The one time, the first time Stan has ever asked for help and he still won't take it. The stubbornness, the sheer unbelievability of his brother.
Why can't Stan see that this is the only smart decision, that Ford is willing to give up some of his house, his lab-oh.
"I have very important work here," Ford says pragmatically. Technically that's true, the portal is almost finished, but nevertheless Ford's eyes drift to the jar of eyeballs on his countertop, next to his cooling coffee. "And I'm not equipped to watch a child. You wouldn't just be staying, you'd be, you would have to take care of Shermie. Get him to school, and all that."
Its an olive branch. A compromise, really. If Ford makes it sound like Stan will actually be doing something, maybe he'll actually say-
"Fine." Stan says quietly. It sounds like defeat. It sounds like hope. "Fine. We're. I'll drive Shermie up. And I'll stay. I'll get a job in town, pay rent. I won't be a leech."
"You won't be a-" Ford almost says, before he remembers that telling Stan that won't actually do anything. "I have a grant from school that covers expenses. Just take care of Shermie, that's it."
Ford feels the deep breath he takes in down to the bottom of his ribcage. "I'm in Oregon. Do you know the address?"
"Uh. 418 Marmot Pass?"
Ford almost laughs. "618 Gopher Road. It's rather secluded. I'm not sure Gravity Falls is on many maps."
"I'll manage." Stan says. "But it'll, We're in Ohio. It'll be, it'll be a couple days before we can get there Ford."
"That's fine. It'll give me time to prepare."
He knows theres a mattress in the attic, and a nightstand, but probably not the actual bed frame. The guest room needs dusting, and there are plenty of volatile things that need to be cleaned before a child can come running around. And-oh lord, he's going to have to tell Fiddleford.
Ford's so deep in his planning he doesn't realize the call has gone quiet, neither of them knowing what to say.
Its Stan that breaks the silence.
"Stanford," he says seriously. "I. You didn't have to do this, or answer the phone, just. Thank-"
"Don't mention it." Ford interrupts. "It's," he thinks about what Stan had said, about living in his car. About not being able to provide food, clothes.
He thinks about long nights, he thinks about nine years.
"What's family for?" He finishes.
He is graced with the smallest, most exhausted laugh he's ever heard in his life. The sound that comes out of Stan is barely more than a heavy breath.
"We'll be there in a few days. Um. I'll call, maybe a couple hours out?"
"Yes, that sounds good." Ford answers.
"Well. Bye."
"Goodbye Stanley."
He clicks the phone back on the hook, and when he lets go of it, his hand feels empty. The house itself, seems more quiet, more still than it had before. Waiting, preparing, almost.
Ford reaches for his coffee cup. The coffee inside has gone cold.
I know we like to think of tumblr as this secret hideaway on the internet sometimes but like. do you know that sociologists study social media. And that includes tumblr? They're paying attention to us. There are studies about the asexual community on tumblr. We are not insignificant
Taking a break from writing my BA by watching why r u was a mistake. How in the name of everything am I supposed to just ho back and focus on anything now.....why am I like this
