I made a mixtape on suan.fm of songs that remind me of the Avarice AU! I’ve had the list sitting around in my drafts for a while, so I figured I might as well actually use it.
A/N: finally finished that Avarice AU ficlet! You know, that one where Stan became a demon instead of Dipper, and how that would influence the demonology gang’s story? I’ve started clearing out my draft folder. This one was closest to finished, but expect other drabbles to appear soon...
On AO3: A friend like this chapter 3
A friend like this
Poker Night had become a regular occurrence, pretty much since the first day of classes, when Lee spotted them at lunchtime.
"What are you playing for?" he'd asked.
Maria had shrugged. "Just points. Brad doesn't want to play for money."
"Not against you, you witch. Hi, I'm Brad by the way. I've seen you in class, I think?"
"Yep, he's the guy who slept all through Demonology 101," Maria had said. "Evergreen, isn't it? Deal you in?"
"Call me Lee. And yes." He'd taken a seat and turned to the table behind him, where another student had been sitting all by himself. "Hey, wanna be our fourth?"
The other kid had looked up. "Really? I mean - sure!"
He'd hurriedly changed seats and beamed at them. "My name is Eduardo. How does this game go?"
"I'll explain," Brad had promised. "Nice to meet you Eduardo."
"Such a mouthful," Maria had teased. "Can I call you Eddy instead?"
"Er, sure."
Lee had grinned and given him a playful punch to his shoulder. It was clearly meant as playful - it also left a slight bruise.
"Nah," he'd said. "I think you look more like a Soos."
It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
---
Of course Lee was odd. No one could deny that.
It was a lot of things, but one of them was how he never seemed to study. Often he didn't even show up for class, coming back the next day - or next week - in the grumpiest mood ever. And yet his marks were the highest of their year, whenever he bothered to go. Higher even than those of the resident nerds, Adams and Strange.
"How do you do it, dude?" Eddy had asked once, struggling with an essay about low-level binding wards. "Are you some kind of genius or something?"
Lee had paused at that, a weird look crossing his face for a second. Then the smile returned. "I'm no genius, buddy. I just know some stuff. Do you need help with that essay?"
"Does a Multibear poop in the woods?"
"Let's see it then."
---
Lee spent so much time with the three of them, that all those oddities really started to stack up. Eventually even they had to figure it out.
"Let's play for something other than points or candy tonight," Maria said, shuffling the cards one Poker Night.
"Oh?" Lee asked. He sipped his beer and burped. "We're finally playing for money then? Your funeral! Hey Brad, how rich did you say your parents were again?"
"You're a real hoot," Brad said. "But no. We're playing for answers today."
"Answers? Ugh."
"Yep," Maria said. "Whoever loses has to answer a question truthfully from the winner. No evasions, no lies. Like playing truth-or-dare!"
"Last time we played truth or dare Eddy got stuck in a skylight for three hours."
"Yeah, we're not doing that again," Eddy added. "Please. It was so cold..."
"Well, how about it?" Maria said, her poker face already in place, a slight smile curling her lips. "Are you in or not, Lee?"
"What the hell, sure," Lee said, and met her eyes with a poker face of his own. "Bring it on."
Eddy was decent at poker - Brad was a disaster, either raising too much and scaring everyone off, or trying to bluff with a lousy hand. Usually the winnings went to either Lee or Maria, depending on which one of them got caught cheating the most.
Not tonight. Tonight Eddy and Brad flanked Maria, blatantly sitting close enough for her to peak at their cards before they folded. The first time could have been coincidence. The other times, not so much.
Lee cocked an eyebrow. "Are you three ganging up on me?"
"This isn't cheating," Maria said. "It's cooperative play."
"Don't bother, I've got a bad hand anyway. You win." He threw down his cards on the table and sat back, arms folded in front of him. "What's your question? Is it how many girls I've dated? What my most embarrassing memory is? It's something like that, right?"
"While I do wonder about some of those things..." She shook her head and met his eyes. "Are you the demon Mercuriat?"
Lee blinked. If they hadn't been watching so closely, they would have missed the momentary expression that slid over his face before being replaced by 'honest' surprise.
"What?" he said, sounding flabbergasted. "No, of course not. Heh, why would you even think such a thing! It's ridiculous. Why would a demon - a handsome, clever and powerful demon he is, sure - waste his time like this? Makes no sense. None at all. Heh, I won't even count this one as a question, ask another. Go on, ask another question."
"Not before I get a truthful answer to my first one," Maria said. "Nice try though. And why we think you're Mercuriat, well..."
"Your disappearances tend to coincide with news about Mercuriat destroying some evil cult," Brad said. "It, eh, was Eddy who pointed that out first, I'll admit. I first thought you just made a deal for knowledge with Mercuriat, which would be a lot less terrifying."
"You sometimes talk about the past as if you were there," Maria said. "Things that happened centuries ago. And you know things. Like that time you mentioned how demons have a bar in the Mindscape? How the hell would a human know that?"
"Also, your eyes glow a bit when Maria beats you at poker," Eddy added. "So... that was a big hint, dude. Might want to watch out for that."
Lee - Mercuriat - stared at them.
"I... may have let down my guard a bit," he admitted. "This doesn't bother you?"
"We study demonology, bro," Brad said. "Bit dumb if we were scared of demons. And you're alright. But I'd just like to know one thing..."
Lee sighed, and snapped his fingers. Another beer popped into existence in his hand. "I was bored. That's why I pretend to be a student."
"We figured that, you're known for stuff like that - but not what I was going to ask. I just want to know... why a mullet?"
"Hey now!" Lee sputtered. "Mullets come back into style every few centuries. I figured it was time for them again. Someone has to set the trend."
Eddy patted his shoulder. "You tried."
"It's time to give up. Let it go," Brad said.
Maria got up. "I'll get the scissors!"
---
Thomas liked the small library in the demonology building. Access was restricted to second years and up, so even on its busy days there weren't more than a handful of students there. It was a good place to go and study in peace.
Usually.
Not today, though. Dewitt and her friends were doing some assignment at the other end of the room. He could see their reflection in the big silver mirror that hung between the bookshelves. They were talking quietly enough but occassionally erupted into laughter, which didn't really help Thomas' concentration.
Elisabeth had given up in disgust already and gone home. Maybe he should follow her example...
He idly tapped his pen on the table, still deep in thought, when he noticed Evergreen coming over. His arms were full of books, which he put on the return tray. Oh, good. Looked like he and his friends were leaving.
Evergreen paused in front of the mirror, probably to admire himself. Thomas made a face. It's not that he actively disliked Evergreen, it was just... high school had instilled a natural distrust towards sporty types who looked like they could break him in half with one hand.
But Evergreen wasn't preening and flexing his muscles, like Thomas had expected him to do. No - he seemed to freeze at his own reflection.
Thomas couldn't find anything odd about it. It was just a mirror after all, not even an enchanted one. Good for trapping ghosts but not anything special. And Evergreen looked normal. His hair was still poofy, but anything was better than that mullet he used to have.
"Heh," Evergreen muttered. He put his hands against the mirror. His reflection's smile was bitter. "Don't know what all the fuss was about. This college thing is easy."
Then he licked his fingers and the weird, tense moment was broken as Evergreen used his spit to style his hair into short spikes. Thomas cringed. Yeargh.
---
A gloomy basement, plastic zip ties around their wrists, a group of cold-faced kidnappers with guns trained on them...
Thomas would have like to spend his Friday night a bit differently. Watching a movie, maybe. Or visiting the boardgame club, they usually met in the Mangy Dog on Fridays. Stars, even a dentist appointment would have been fine - anything was better than being kidnapped and forced to summon a demon.
At least he wasn't alone. Did that make it better? Not if they were going to die, of course - though dying all alone would suck - but maybe together they would come up with some idea to survive this thing. Elisabeth had a gift for banishing circles and Thomas was pretty good with figuring out loopholes, so together they maybe had a chance...
He wasn't sure what Evergreen could add to their escape attempt though. Really, he didn't seem inclined to help much. He'd taken a look at the crate with summoning supplies their kidnappers had left them with, shrugged, and sat back against the wall.
"Evergreen, you look up the regular summoning they want," Elisabeth whispered, as she and Thomas put their heads together. "Then the two of us can focus on getting out of here alive. We should be able to sneak something into the wording of the deal -"
"Nah," Evergreen said. "I'm going to take a nap for a while. Just relax, kid - things will be fine."
"Don't call me kid, we're the same age," Elisabeth said.
Evergreen snickered. "Sure we are, kid. But seriously, take a seat and relax. I've got this."
"Excuse me if I'm not eager to put my trust in you," she said. "Why are you even here, Evergreen? I can understand why they kidnapped Thomas and me. But you? You spend all class playing cards with Dewitt instead of paying attention."
"Odd how Hicks never says anything about that," Thomas mused. It wasn't like Evergreen and Dewitt were subtle about it. Not to mention the armpit concerts they held during last Contract Negotiation class.
"Suit yourself," Evergreen shrugged, sliding the hood of his jacket back over his head. "Wake me up if something happens."
"If something happens? We're going to get killed and you don't care! What is wrong with you?"
"Hey, you there!" One of their guards called out. He gestured at Elisabeth with the hand that still held his gun. "Stop shouting and get to work!"
"Come on," Thomas muttered to Elisabeth, who looked ready to explode. "Time is ticking."
---
"Alright," Thomas said. "What do we know?"
"We made the preparations correctly," Elisabeth said. She tapped her fingers on the table, deep in thought. In the background her aquarium made soothing bubbling sounds. "I'm sure of it. That circle should have summoned Gubal the Thousand-Eyed."
"But it wasn't Gubal who showed up," Thomas pointed out.
"You don't have to remind me." Elisabeth shuddered. He couldn't blame her - he had nightmares too, about everything that happened in that basement. Being threathened with guns had been bad enough, but when the sacrifice had been dragged out and their kidnappers started the summoning...
The wording had been tricky. They'd worked really hard on it, and Thomas still wasn't sure it would have been enough to save them.
In the end it hadn't been necessary. It wasn't Gubal who answered the summons. Instead, of all things, a three feet tall, winged, fire-breathing goat showed up. In the smoke and confusion it must have escaped the binding circle somehow, because through stinging eyes Thomas saw it make a beeline for their kidnappers and then... then...
Crunch.
Goats eat everything, after all.
When the smoke cleared their kidnappers were reduced to bloody smears on the floor. The demon goat had disappeared again. And Lee Evergreen was cutting through the plastic strips binding the other captive with a knife he'd pulled out of nowhere. He'd paused long enough to give them both a shit-eating grin.
"We have to face the facts," Elisabeth said. "He must be some kind of supernatural entity. My money is on demon."
They looked at the list Thomas had been working on, detailing all the strange occurrences and weird habits they'd noticed in the past three years. They had only really started to pay attention after the kidnapping, but the list was still pretty long. Long enough for Thomas to wonder how the hell he'd ever missed this.
Well. He knew why. He'd been too busy with the whole university experience. Studying, the boardgaming club, homework sessions with Elisabeth... He'd ignored the, let's say, less academically inclined part of their class. They weren clever enough - he couldn't remember Evergreen ever getting a question wrong, in fact - but they didn't seem to take things seriously. Evergreen and his buddies were always goofing off, especially Dewitt. Sometimes loud enough to disturb the entire class, which was more than annoying.
"Do you think they know?" Thomas said. "They spend a lot of time with him."
"His friends? Probably. Maybe he's starting a cult, who knows." Elisabeth took a deep breath. "We have to tell Hicks."
Let the professional handle it. That seemed like a good idea. On the other hand...
Getting Hicks involved could have big consequences. And maybe it wasn't necessery? Evergreen - whatever else he was -hadn't done anything wrong, as far as they knew... On the contrary. They probably would be dead if not for him.
Elisabeth with a mission was difficult to reason with, though. Especially since Thomas wasn't quite sure about his own arguments to let 'Evergreen' be. It would be smart to tell Hicks, it would, but...
But he remembered a mirror, reflecting eyes that seemed too old and too human in their loneliness.
He needed to think. And derail Elisabeth, at least for a while. "Maybe we should wait until we have some kind of proof."
"Thomas, really? Are we going to waste time with - don't give me that look, fine. But if he eats our souls I'm blaming you."
He smiled. "I can live with that."
Stars, he really hoped he wasn't making a big mistake.
---
"You think too much," Lee said, baring his teeth in a grin. "You need to act, not think."
"That's easy for you to say." Brad massaged his fist. Lee was teaching him to box, which was harder than it seemed. Of course Lee had freakishly good reflexes, being a demon and all, but still. He'd toned it down for their little brawl and Brad still couldn't manage to land a punch.
Well, he'd managed to hit the wall. Unfortunately. He just wasn't cut out for this stuff.
"Are you calling me stupid?" Lee teased. "Come on, punch me! As hard as you can. Don't be a sissy."
"Why do you even want to learn this?" Eddy asked, from his cosy corner of the couch, where he was playing a videogame with Maria.
"Just in case I ever need to defend myself," Brad said.
"There are easier ways to defend yourself," Maria said, idly killing Eddy's character when he was distracted. "Like a gun."
"I was thinking about something less lethal and more close-range," Brad said.
"Or there's magic. Not everyone has Mercuriat on speed-dial, you know. That's quite an ace in the hole."
"Less lethal, Maria. I think calling a demon on some poor robbers is a bit much."
"Yeah, and I'm not your bodyguard," Lee said. "So, are you punching me or not?"
-------
It had taken a while to track them down. Evergreen didn't have an adress Thomas could find, but apparently he hung around Dewitt's apartment a lot.
He knew who Evergreen was, now. And sure, technically he could just summon him and tell him that way, but...
But it was still freaking Mercuriat, biggest and baddest demon around, and if he had to face him, he preferred to do it when Mercuriat was surrounded by people he probably didn't want to physically or mentally scar.
Probably being the key word there.
This was all such a huge mistake.
Still, he steeled himself and rang the doorbell, before he could chicken out. Maybe he was lucky. Maybe only Dewitt was here - she could give 'Lee Evergreen' the message and with a bit of luck he'd never need to see Evergreen again.
Damn it. The door was opened by Hallman, which didn't bode well on the odds of Dewitts other friends being absent. The smell of pizza wasn’t promising either.
"Good evening," Thomas said. He took a deep breath. How to say this...? "Listen. I need to talk to you - and your friends. I know Evergreen is actually Mercuriat -"
There was a gasp and then a burst of pain as Hallmans fist made contact with his face.
Through the haze of pain and watery eyes he could hear voices.
"Whoa! Is that Strange?"
"Did you punch him?"
"I'm sorry! He said he knew about Lee - I reacted by instinct, really, I didn't mean too!"
"You punched Strange!" The voice sounded way too amused about it. Thomas blinked away the tears and recognised Dewitt, flanked by both Evergreen and Noguerra. "That's kind of impressive, Brad."
"Yoo bwoke my noze," Thomas groaned. "Whad de hell!"
"I'm sorry, you startled me!" Hallman protested.
Evergreen gave Hallman a pat on the back. "Looks like those boxing lessons weren't a waste of time after all, heh?"
"Let's clean up your mess, Brad," Dewitt said. She took out a knife, and Thomas hurriedly backed away until his back touched the wood of the door. Someone must have closed it behind him.
"Whad?" he said, pronunciation still mangled by his swollen nose. "Yoo goin' do kill me now?"
"Don't be a baby," Dewitt said, and cut into her own finger. "Hey Lee, wanna make a deal?"
"Shh, we have company," Noguerra said.
Dewitt made a face. "Don't give me that look, he knows already. So, Lee - what about it?"
Thomas stared in horror as Dewitt and Evergreen high-fived, and blue flames covered their hands for a second.
His nose healed itself in the blink of an eye, leaving him free to sputter: "That isn't even close to how you make a safe deal! No laying down the terms? And we have nice, sterile needles for a blood sacrifice - why the hell would you use a knife like that!?"
"Because it's cooler," Dewitt shrugged.
"She's right," Evergreen added. "So, smart guy. Why exactly are you here again?"
Right. He was here for a reason. He wanted to help these crazy people.
"We know who you are," he said, focusing on Evergreen. "Or, well. What you are, actually. You're Mercuriat."
Evergreen seemed to freeze, just staring at him. It didn't escape Thomas' notice that Dewitt, Noguerra and Hallman all seemed to draw closer to him in some kind of protective move.
"You seem really sure of yourself," Dewitt said. "Why?"
"Does it matter? Listen, I'm here to warn you. Elisabeth and I, we figured it out after... what happened in that basement. I tried to stop her but she still went to Hicks, and apparently he'd figured it out himself already. He's been calling some experts. Don't know for sure when they'll arrive, but I thought... I should warn you." He avoided their eyes and shrugged. "I kind of owe my life to you, so... There."
There was a long silence.
"Alright," Evergreen said. "Seems like I have some cleaning up to do."
"Uh," Thomas said. "You're not going to hurt Elisabeth or Hicks, are you?"
"A word of advice, Strange," Dewitt said, not really unfriendly. "If a high-level demon says he's going to do some cleaning up, it's better to not ask too many questions."
"I can't let you hurt anyone."
"I'm not going to hurt them, kid," Evergreen said, sounding exasperated. "I'll probably trick them into loosing their memories about this. It wouldn't be the first time."
"Wait, what?"
"What did you expect me to do?"
"Well, I don't know... I kinda thought you would just... leave? I mean, why would you stay? You've been found out."
Evergreen paused. "So you came to warn me... just to throw me out?"
“Er. Well…” He flinched when Evergreen threw an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. Sofly, but with a definite hint of a threat.
“I’m not going a̡̜̰͎̭̗n̲̣̤̯͙͓y͔w͉̦̠͉he̬r̭̲͈̝͘e͖̦̮̲͍̙͜,” the demon said.
“Not until graduation, at least,” Dewitt added, with a rather unsettling grin. “It’s going to be epic.”
“Great,” Thomas said, weakly. “So this is a cult then.”
“No, dude, it’s so much better.” Noguerra waved his slice of pizza around in a grand gesture. “It’s friendship.”
“Oh boy.”
He glanced around the room, hoping to glean some sign of whatever nefarious thing they were planning. The room was a nightmare. It looked like an arts and crafts room and a library melded together and exploded. The table was covered in sheets of paper, pictures, empty pizza boxes and, for some reason, underwear.
Thomas almost didn’t dare to ask. But his curiosity got the better of him. One day that would get him killed, for sure… “Why do you have piles of men’s underwear lying around?”
“Right, that,” Hallman said, sheepishly. “We can explain that.”
Evergreen moved to the table and showed Thomas one of the pictures with a dramatic flourish.
It looked like the cover for a book.
‘Mercuriat, Gentleman Demon’ the title proclaimed, with a picture underneath of Mercuriat in full demon shape, his face turned away but the pose rather provocative.
Thomas took another picture from the pile. It was even worse. ‘Mercuriat and the Quest for Gold’. Sheesh.
"Alright. So this isn't a cult," he said. He leafed through the pages, reading. "This is worse."
"This is making money!" Dewitt grinned. She high-fived Evergreen again, who seemed entirely too pleased with himself. "Mercuriat? More like Mercuri-HOT!"
Thomas cringed. Hallman did too. “We’re not using that as a slogan, Maria.”
“We’ll see.”
“But why?” Thomas had to ask. He waved at the table with the pictures, the lopsided stacks of what he now realised were supposed to be freshly-written novels. “Just… why?”
Evergreen shrugged. “You know that movie that’s supposedly based on me?”
“Er…” He’d come across it in the past, when looking up demons in pop culture. It was a cult classic, wasn’t it? Rather old though. “Might have heard of it.”
“We’re cashing in,” Dewitt grinned. “Turns out, writing a bestseller isn’t that hard when you have some demonic assistance. We’re going to be filthy rich!”
“Mystery! Adventure! Romance! Gentleman Demon has got it all,” Noguerra added. “Maria writes, and Brad and me are working on merchandise.”
Hallman seemed less enthusiastic. “I still don’t think autographed underwear is ever going to sell.”
Thomas stared. At them. At the room, with the ridiculous pictures and everything. And at Mercuriat, the literal demon, who just stood there with a sly smile.
“So… you mentioned something about losing memories? Because I would be fine if I never heard about this.”
Evergreen laughed, and surprised him with another one-armed hug. “You remind me of someone I used to know, kid. Get that stick out of your ass and we’ll get along fine, you’ll see.”
An Avarice AU fic starring @thelastspeecher‘s OC Angie.
on AO3
The woman was looking at him.
The woman was looking at him, and Stan realized too late that he didn’t look human. He could have done more to conceal himself, could have made the whites of his eyes white again and turned claws back into nails and hidden away his wings, but it was too late for that now, at least as far as the woman standing next to him in the hallway was concerned.
So instead, Stan took a different approach.
“Wanna play Twenty Questions?”
“What?” the woman asked.
“Instead of staring at me like that, how about you just ask me what I am, and I’ll tell ya the truth. And if you don’t get it figured out in twenty questions, well, too bad for you.” Stan raised a finger. “And ‘what?’ counts as a question, so really it’s more like Nineteen Questions now.”
“Do you do this with everyone you meet?”
Eighteen.
“No, not really.”
“Then why are you doing it with me?”
Stan hesitated, realizing he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Never mind that. I won’t count that as a question.”
The woman paused for a long moment, long enough that Stan half-thought she had given up on the whole endeavour, before speaking up again.
“You look pretty human, all in all. Is that real, or is that all some big magic trick?”
Seventeen.
Stan hadn’t needed to breathe for a while now, but he still instinctively sucked in a breath before responding. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say, because he did--but nobody had ever asked about his state of existence so bluntly before; nobody had ever reminded him so straightforwardly that his humanity was gone, that whether his eyes were white or black he was still just putting up a facade of what he had once been.
“All some big magic trick, I suppose.” Stan tried to grin and make his answer sound light-hearted, really, but some of his real mood shone through nevertheless.
“Well, that narrows it down some… I thought maybe you’d made a deal with a demon or something but- is that it?”
Sixteen.
“Are you asking if I look like this ‘cause of a deal with a demon?” Stan tried not to let the hope shine through in his voice. He could say yes, and it would be true--he had made a deal with a demon, and it had, in a way, caused his change of appearance. And then she probably wouldn’t feel the need to ask much more, and she could feel like she won, and he could walk away knowing-
“No, I’m asking if you are a demon.” As Stan deflated, the woman added, “And I reckon I hit the nail on the head with that one.”
Stan shot her a weak grin. “You did, yes.”
“But then-”
“Grunkle Stan, we’re almost fini- what’s going on?”
Stan looked at Dipper, but before he could respond, the woman spoke up again.
“Who is that?”
Part of Stan wanted to lie, to pretend that he barely knew the young man who stood beside him, to hide that Dipper had anything to do with him.
Part of Stan simply wondered how the woman would react if he told her the truth.
And part of Stan--a part that he wanted to deny existed, sometimes, that still didn’t feel quite like himself--knew that, per the deal he himself had set up, he still needed to answer fifteen of the woman’s questions truthfully.
“Family. Now-”
“And who are you?” Dipper asked, turning to face the woman.
“Call me Angie… actually-” Angie fixed her gaze on Stan, though she glanced back at the all-too-human Dipper once or twice. “If I give you my true name, will you promise not to use it against me?”
Fourteen.
Stan pondered his response for a moment. “No promises. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to hurt someone who knew about my family.”
“...it’s McGucket. Angie McGucket.”
Stan raised an eyebrow. “McGucket, you say? Any relation to Fiddleford?”
“He’s my brother, actually. Now, how in the world does a demon know my brother’s name?”
Thirteen.
Stan hesitated, but even if their deal hadn’t been in place, it seemed only fair that someone who had willingly given her name to a self-professed demon be given the same respect in turn.
“He’s my brother-in-law.” Stan extended a hand. “The name’s Stanley Pines, and it’s a pleasure to meet ya.”
Angie looked as though she were about ready to keel over, but her grip was strong as she shook his hand.
Soos’ voice seemed to fill the room as he spoke up.
“So, you’re Mercuriat.”
Stan rolled his eyes. “No shit, Sherlock.”
“And you’re Sulphus.”
Ford stared at the ground, refusing to meet Soos’ eyes as he mumbled something in the affirmative.
“And you two are Ferrum and Cuprum.”
Mabel yelled out “Guilty as charged!” in response, while Dipper simply let out a nervous laugh.
“Which leaves me with one question...” Soos stroked his cheek for a moment before finishing his thought aloud. “So, when am I gonna get an awesome secret code name like you doods have?”
“They’re not-” Ford began, but Stan cut him off before he could finish.
“No, no, he’s got a point. Soos, you deserve a name from me, too. Just give me a moment to think about it.”
The room filled with silence for a long moment before Stan spoke up again.
“How about... er... Stannum?”
Soos’ eyes grew wide. “Stannum?”
Stan scratched the back of his head nervously. “Yeah, it means tin, and tin means, um, balance, and- and wisdom, and-” Stan found himself raised in the air not by his own powers of levitation, but by Soos grabbing him and physically picking him up off the ground. “Soos, put me down, will ya?”
Soos muttered a quick “sorry” as he obediently set Stan down, but Soos’ embrace remained strong as Stan’s feet brushed against the ground.
In the moments that followed, Stan could feel his shoulder becoming damp as Soos’ face rested upon it, and he heard Soos mumble two words that were probably “Thank you” and a third word that might have been either “Stan” or “Dad” before Soos eventually loosened his embrace.
Gravity Falls Avarice AU fic. Stan meets several reincarnations of his loved ones, all of which share one memorable trait.
on AO3
also on ff.net (no link because filters)
“So anyway, what’s your name, kid?”
The teenage boy in front of Stan was positively glowing, both metaphorically and literally, though the latter was only visible to the magically sensitive. Stan, of course, could see the vibrant pulsing colors clear as day, a reminder of an incident several lifetimes ago, of a soul forever altered by Stan’s actions.
(A reminder of power that burned not only its victims but its all-too-eager user, of a lifeforce whittled away slowly but surely with every use, of how she passed on far too soon and left behind two who had to spend long years without the one who shone brightest of them all- of how it was all his fault, in the end, because he was the one who gave her that power in the first place, he was the one who should have known better...)
“My name is Andrew, Andrew Alcatraz!”
Andrew Alcatraz... Why did that sound so-
And suddenly he remembered the name, remembered it being shouted at him many times over- inside a limo with tinted windows, in any number of poorly-lit alleyways, from the other side of iron bars... Stan could feel himself tense up instinctively before realizing that he wasn’t back there, not really. His prison days were long gone, lost even to living memory save for his own, and not a prison in the world could hold him now. The grimy streets that presently surrounded him were in Tijuana, not Colombia. This was the universe playing yet another cruel joke on him, nothing more.
“Why’re you giving me that look?”
The words slipped out before he thought them through. “Has anyone ever called you 8-Ball?”
“No, why? Should they? That sounds kinda cool, actually-”
“No!” As young Andrew’s eyes widened, Stan softened his tone. “Or, uh, maybe, I guess, no skin off my back either way- wait, do you even know what an 8-ball is?”
The long silence that followed would have been answer enough, but when Andrew squeaked out “...those things you shake and they tell your future?”, Stan let out a long sigh.
“Kid, the day you beat me at a game of pool is the day you get to use that name- and not a day sooner, got it?”
(Stan would learn to regret his phrasing three years, four months, and twenty-one days later, when Andrew refused to give up the nickname he had rightfully won.)
If Stan had had to guess which traits of his great-nephew would be passed along to his reincarnations, “wanting to be on television” would have been far, far down on the list.
And yet here he was, watching Steve on television (or... it had some other name now, something that sounded like it was taken from an old science fiction book- holoscreen? holobox?- but it was similar enough to television that Stan still thought of it as such), one of the lead actors in the newest reboot of Poltergeist Botherers.
Steve kept looking over at Stan as the episode played on, his expression toeing the line between nervousness and excitement, and Stan kept staring back at Steve, distracted by a strong sense of deja vu.
It wasn’t just the expression that was the same, or the soul behind it, either. A number of generations had passed, but he could still see it in the curl of his hair, the chestnut brown color of his eyes...
An old Pines soul in a new Pines body. It wasn’t often that the two coincided.
Though, truth be told, it wasn’t exactly a Pines body.
Not anymore, at least. Steve had been born with the surname Pines, had grown up with it, had used it for everything up until he realized his passion for acting and decided that his surname needed to be tweaked to better appeal to casting directors. Stan still called him Pines, though, when he mentioned Steve’s last name at all. It wasn’t that he forgot about Steve changing his name- he could never forget that- but that he preferred not to think of the memories that other name brought up.
The credits finally rolled, and Steve paused the television (or... whatever they called it these days) as it displayed the name STEVE PININGTON in large, blocky print.
“What did you think?” Steve’s eyes were wide, his hands fidgeting as he carefully watched Stan’s expression.
Stan coughed, though he hadn’t needed to cough for centuries, just to buy himself a moment in which to think before responding.
“Well, it’s not really my kind of thing...”
The smile on Steve’s face started to shrink.
“But you did a good job in it all the same.”
The smile on Steve’s face returned, and Stan matched it with one of his own as he playfully ruffled the hair of his... great-great-great-great-great-grand-nephew? Was that the right number of greats? Probably not, but hell, who cares, they were close and that’s what mattered, not the number of links separating them in the family tree.
“Nice work, kid.”
Stan was no stranger to prison cells by any means. He’d seen more than his fair share of them as a human, and as a demon he’d been called to a surprisingly large amount of makeshift summonings made by prisoners who figured they had nothing left to lose, who thought that nothing a demon could do to them could be worse than their current predicament. (An incorrect assumption, as it happened, but one Stan was generally willing to humor so long as it served his purposes.)
But it was rare that Stan entered a prison cell of his own free will.
Then again, the prisoner in this cell was no ordinary prisoner. Ordinary prisoners were locked up to protect others from them rather than the other way around. Ordinary prisoners didn’t have multiple hits out on them. Ordinary prisoners were either going to serve their time or be freed, not be stuck in some strange combination of the two.
And, of course, ordinary prisoners didn’t have souls with a spot on Stan’s family circle.
“I hear they’ve finally figured out what they’ll call me after the move to Milwaukee.”
Stan raised an eyebrow as he looked back at the scrawny, bespectacled man before him. He really didn’t look like the sort of guy who’d bring down half a town’s mob on his own- but then, looks could be deceiving.
“Oh yeah? Some nerd finally threw a dart at a baby name book for you?”
“I think a computer does it, actually.”
Stan waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Close enough. So? What’s it gonna be?”
“Stetson Pinefield.”
The name hung in the air for only a moment before the man soon to be known as Stetson added, “I know, a bit contrived, isn’t it?”
Stan managed to summon up a grin before responding. “Yeah, you could say that.”
The two of them were alone in the field, Stan floating under the branches of a tree while the human- who had short scraggly brown hair and thick glasses and kept scribbling things down in a notebook and really, all they needed was slightly worse fashion sense and the resemblance would be uncanny- had their back pressed against the tree’s rough bark.
“I need to pick a name already and be done with it,” they said.
Stan didn’t respond, unsure if the statement was directed towards him specifically or whether they were just thinking out loud.
“I mean, you can’t just call me ‘kid’ forever, right?”
Stan flashed the kid a grin. “Wanna bet?”
They threw a pen in Stan’s general direction, and both of them watched as the pen passed through Stan’s arm and fell onto the grass.
Stan watched as they wrote down one name in their notebook, then crossed that off and wrote another, which was in turn crossed off as well.
“You gonna change your last name, too?”
“No, my parents were good people, I owe that much to them. And besides, I’m having enough trouble thinking of a first name...” They rubbed one hand against their temple, their other hand tightly clutching their pen. “Nothing feels right, though. I mean, I want it to be leaning towards male, I think, but not- not too male, because I’m not male, not really, and- this doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Stan considered his words for a moment before he spoke. “Well, I’m not gonna lie and tell you I totally get it, because I don’t- but I believe you, and I want to support you, and if that means figuring out a name that’s male-but-not-male I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
They sighed, writing another name down in the book and scratching it off after only a few seconds’ consideration.
“And hey, if it helps, I’ve had conversations that made way less sense than this.”
“I’m sure you have.” There wasn’t much levity in their tone, but Stan thought he spied the beginnings of a grin on their face.
A short silence fell, the only sound coming from the tree branches swaying in the wind and pen scratching against paper, before they spoke up again. “Actually, if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I don’t seem to be getting very far on my own here.”
It was then that Stan realized.
When he had first met the child that had then introduced themself to him as Becky Forrester, Stan had asked about relatives, friends, crushes, even baby names, waiting for the penny in the air to drop, for the universe to get on with it already, but nobody had had the name he was looking for.
(He had, however, managed to convince them not to name any future children Hephaestus or Mnemosyne, so that time hadn’t been entirely wasted.)
But now he knew what the universe had been waiting for. Now Stan knew what he had to do.
He tried to make the suggestion sound casual. “Well, er, how about the name Hal?”
“Hal, huh?” They wrote the name down in their notebook, pen hovering over the word as they spoke. “Hal Forrester... has a nice ring to it...” Pen hit paper once more, but this time the name was circled, not crossed off. “You know, I actually really like that.”
Stan tried to suppress a smirk as he muttered, “Of course you do.”
Ford let out a noise of surprise as he turned and threw the nearest of a sizable stack of crumpled-up wads of paper at the source of the words. The paper ball harmlessly bounced off an unbothered Mabel, who was excitedly waving a notebook page in the air, the wide grin on her face rivaled only by that of her brother.
Ford let out a sigh of relief as he pushed himself up from the desk, where he had been crouched over notes, head and arms encircling the papers. “I’m sorry, Mabel, you just... startled me.”
“Pssh.” Mabel used her free hand to make a gesture waving away Ford’s concern. “Not a problem. But look, we found something in your notes that could help against Bill!” She waved the notebook page around even more enthusiastically, the paper curving and flapping in the air.
“Careful with that! Here, let me get a closer look.”
“Oh. Right.”
Ford stepped closer, and Mabel held out the page. It didn’t look particularly remarkable at a glance, displaying nothing that looked particularly menacing or lethal, just a few small pictures and scribbled descriptions of several rather mundane-looking objects.
Ford examined the page closely, tracing the writing with his finger before eventually resting his thumb next to a picture of something that looked as much like a cheap gift shop knick-knack as a magical artifact worthy of serious study, muttering to himself all the while, before finally glancing back up at Dipper and Mabel. “Good find, you two.”
“Dipper found it, actually.” Mabel extended her arm towards her brother, who stood up straighter at the mention of his name.
“A-and I was thinking-” Dipper rummaged through his vest before retrieving a small notebook, which he flipped through frantically. “-if we combined that with-”
“Quiet now.” Ford scanned the room, but overlooked Stan’s hiding spot near the bottom of the tarp. (Stan always had been the better of the two at hide and seek.) “He’s probably watching us as we speak. If we’re going to plan anything, we need to do it as quietly and stealthily as possible, so that there’s a chance he might not notice.”
And so Ford and the kids gathered together supplies and huddled around a piece of... was that parchment? Of all the things Ford could have around as writing material, he was using parchment? At least that’s what it looked like, a giant piece of off-white paper, nothing like the stuff you’d buy at the store...
The three sketched and wrote frantically on the paper, but the way they all leaned over it made it damn near impossible for Stan to get a glimpse at their plans, even when he eventually inched away from the tarp and closer to their work. They worked for minutes, maybe hours, it was hard to tell, but eventually the three split up and started working on separate projects, ones that still didn’t make much sense as Stan watched them being made piece by piece. But one pattern emerged from their work.
Apparently, to defeat a demon triangle, you needed... circles. Lots and lots of circles.
The circle that Mabel was working on was composed of wood, thin pine boughs twisted and bent until they joined together to make a circle as wide as Mabel was tall, a fact repeatedly demonstrated by her laying down in the middle while doing her work (and when she occasionally flopped down on top of the circle when she had had enough and needed a break). Across the circle, she made intricate loops and patterns with off-white string, geometric shapes arranged just so, with all the lines eventually criss-crossing around the circle’s center. On roughly a quarter of the circle she hung neon-colored strings and lined them with thick beads and brightly-dyed feathers.
It was, admittedly, a magnificent crafts project, but its connection to the situation at hand was utterly lost on Stan.
Dipper’s project was a bit more straightforward. He made a circle out of rainbow hair, unicorn hair, and Stan had seen a similar lining just outside the Shack, could guess its intended purpose. There was more to the circle than the hair, too- stones dotted its perimeter at regular locations, and all around the edge had been sprinkled drops of mercury, the silver beads gleaming as they were carefully nudged into place. The space that this barrier encompassed was a bit smaller than that of Mabel’s wooden circle; within it lay a large stack of books, the memory gun that Ford had used to get rid of the feds, and, for some reason, a spray bottle full of unidentified clear liquid. (Stan would have liked to assume that the liquid was water. Stan knew better.)
Ford used thick white chalk to outline circles within circles within circles, the outermost one significantly dwarfing the other two projects. (Only one room in the house had enough open space for such a project, and upon poking his head into the basement, Stan had found its floor conveniently vacant; he hadn’t seen the cleaning happen, but the dust of the basement floor matched the dust on Ford’s clothes, and his boots sported a thick layer of mud that hadn’t been there the night before, and he could put together the rest.) Along the chalk lines he added a number of candles- not the ugly squat things Stan kept around in case of a power outage or the thin, colorful ones which had been sitting in a half-empty box in the far reaches of the freezer for decades on end, but long, white, tapered candles, probably meant for some formal occasion, doubtlessly expensive. In between the circles-in-circles Ford wrote symbols, some arcane and some prosaic, some that Stan dimly remembered from old portal-fixing research (was that one from a star chart?) and some that he came across on a daily basis (that tree symbol looked just like the one on that hat Dipper always wore, and he’d seen that shooting star on one of Mabel’s sweaters, and the six-fingered hand... was obvious enough as well).
The work on all three soon turned into mere tweaking, into brushing away lines and replacing them with nearly-identical counterparts, into scraping stones against wood while adjusting their placement slight fractions of an inch, into breaking out a tool Stan dimly remembered from math class to make sure that the string patterns were aligned just so. Stan didn’t know where to look, or what to look for. He suspected that that was rather the point.
Ford came up to check on the kids and their work every so often.
He did not, Stan noted, invite them to do the same.
The last of his check-ups came hours after the summer sun had set, and while in the others Ford had ended his examinations with long lists of things that needed to be edited or redone, this time he offered only a few minor additions, the critique far outweighed by praise. The three stood together inside the unicorn hair circle as Ford rambled on about something to do with the special properties of mercury on wood.
Stan was on the outside of the circle; he couldn’t join them if he tried (and he had tried, had tried several times now, growing bolder as the hours fled by and little seemed to change). Sure, the barrier was made with sparkly hair and gemstones, and the others had no trouble scampering through what looked to the world like thin air, but for Stan it might as well have been a metal wall- it was hard and smooth and cold and even if he charged at it with all his might, Stan wasn’t so sure it’d be the one to budge.
Stan leaned back against the barrier, which came into view as he made contact, emitting a purple-tinged glow riddled with strange sigils.
“Neat trick there, I’ll give you that one.”
Ford didn’t pause his nerd rant for even a moment to show that he’d heard.
“If I knew how to make these work for, er, normal people, the Mystery Shack would have its newest attraction ready to go!”
That one merited a pause, a pause followed by Ford spitting out words rapid-fire as if to make up for lost time.
Stan could practically feel Ford’s gaze burning into the back of his head.
He didn’t turn around.
“I can see it now...” Stan held up his hands as if framing a sign. “’The Invisi-Maze: More fun than the eye can handle!’ Or somethin’ like that, anyway...”
Stan’s arms fell back as he finished gesturing, and he kept slipping as he tried to reposition himself against the awkwardly-curved barrier, eventually taking a step back altogether. He glanced briefly at the colorful barrier before it rippled back into invisibility, revealing a brother who was indeed giving him a vicious glare.
“Probably, uh, hafta get that glow thing in check first. But forget the hall of mirrors, any two-bit hole in the wall can throw together one of those, but an actual invisible maze, hell, what tourist wouldn’t pay out the nose for something like that...”
“This is more than mere fodder for some cheap tourist attraction, Sta-”
All eyes fell on Ford as he halted his speech in the middle of the word. He rubbed one hand against his temple, breaths deep and quick as he paused before speaking up again, voice rushed and with a hint of a tremor.
“Bill, you’re Bill, I know you’re Bill-”
“Grunkle Ford, what’s going on?”
“What’s he doing? Is there something we can do to help?”
Dipper grabbed Ford’s loose hand, and as Ford let his other hand drop back to his side Mabel latched onto it in turn. Ford’s breathing slowed as he squeezed the twins’ hands, though there was still a slight weakness in his voice as he responded.
“...Never mind that. More importantly, I believe I’ve been lecturing you two for far too long.” He let out a noise that was clearly intended as some manner of laugh, but fell far short of the mark. “What matters is that you’ve both done a fine job, and both of these should do quite well to help us defeat Bill.”
Ford shot Stan a quick glare. Stan shot one right back.
“In fact, take the rest of the night off. We can do any minor tweaks in the morning, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll be tending to my own project down in the basement. I’ll see you again come morning.”
“Can we help?”
“No!”
A moment of silence fell upon the room before Ford attempted to soften his reply.
“It’s very- very delicate and complicated work, you see, and you two could use the rest anyway-”
“Sure, they’re the ones who need rest.” Stan mumbled.
If Ford heard Stan’s words, he didn’t show it.
“-so I’m sorry, but you can’t join me down there, you really can’t. Just- don’t go in the basement, no matter what, unless your life is in danger.”
“But Grunkle Ford-”
“No buts. I will come to see you in the morning. Until then, just- stay safe, stay up here, and if anything happens, if he...” Ford sighed and squeezed the twins’ hands tightly. “Just be careful. Promise me that.”
Dipper and Mabel looked up at their great-uncle’s deep eyes before nodding.
“We promise.”
“Don’t worry about us, Grunkle Ford- we’re just worried about you!”
“Don’t be.” Ford shook his head and let out another not-quite-laugh. “I’ll be fine. It will all be fine come morning. Now-” Ford released his hands from the children’s grip. “I’m going to go work. Nobody follow me.”
Ford rushed towards the basement entrance, leaving a confused Dipper and Mabel in his wake. Stan, after a brief moment of consideration, followed behind.
Ford worked at a frantic pace, sketching designs that were more and more intricate until Stan could barely make out the individual lines, measuring and re-measuring the circles and the candle placements, consuming prodigious amounts of coffee but no actual sustenance. Stan hung back for the most part, though he didn’t bother hiding from Ford’s view anymore; he made a few passing remarks, attempts to rekindle a conversation, but his words faded and died in the basement’s cold, stale air.
Stan kept his distance as Ford began to light the long, thin candles one by one, going from the outside inward; Stan hung back as Ford reached the center of the innermost circle and got out a fancy-looking knife, its hilt shimmering in the candlelight. Only as Ford pressed the knife into the palm of his hand and beads of crimson blood dripped onto the floor did Stan rush forward, suddenly keenly aware of every microscopic nerve and blood vessel that Ford might have just cut into, all the irreversible damage that might be caused by a single poorly-placed cut.
“Goddammit, Ford, be careful!”
But Ford was faster than him, it seemed, for by the time Stan reached the center Ford was already on the far side of the farthest circle, chanting some gobbledygook that might have been Latin. (Stan suddenly regretted all the times he had nodded off during Latin class.) Ford’s voice reached a crescendo, a wave of warmth passed over Stan...
And then, to Stan’s shock, Ford actually responded to him.
“Since when do you swear?”
“Since, uh, sixth grade? Seventh?” Stan shrugged. “You probably remember better than I do, I wasn’t exactly subtle-”
“That’s not what I meant.”
There was a sound Stan couldn’t quite place, something soft against stone.
“What was that?”
“I’m not getting distracted that easily.”
“No, seriously, what was that?” Stan looked to the source of the sound and saw nothing but a few clumps of dirt and pebbles- though he was pretty sure those hadn’t been there before. “Is this place caving in or something? Because that’s the sort of thing I’d like to know about sooner rather than later, ghost or no.”
“Wh- Look. We can solve this once and for all now. If you really are Stan’s ghost, just leave the circle. A ghost would have no trouble with these wards.”
“Seriously? That’s it?” Stan started floating towards Ford, whose expression was nearly indecipherable. “After all that, I just-”
Stan didn’t mean to scream.
Honestly, he didn’t. But it was only natural that he let out a yelp when he touched that first chalk line and slammed into what felt like a concrete wall and an electric fence put together. There was still no sign to the bare eye that anything was there, no glimmering wall to mark the barrier that was clearly there for him, just a point at which thin air turned into wall and pain.
“I knew it.” There was a cold fury in Ford’s voice, but also a strange melancholy. “This circle was made specifically to contain a demon, to contain you. Which it’s doing quite well, I might add.”
Stan tried to push through, to break whatever barrier those chalk lines had built up, but though he put all his force into it, the only sign that he was doing anything was a few measly sparks and an ever-increasing amount of pain.
Finally Stan fell back, retreating into the circle’s center, not sure that he was ready to concede defeat just yet but willing to at least give himself a little time to recover.
“If- if this thing only works against demons, then...” Stan put together the pieces quickly enough, though he didn’t much like the picture they painted. “Wait, humans can become demons? Does that mean Bill was-”
“No. Humans are humans, demons are demons, and that’s that.”
“Well, the world kind of went topsy-turvy yesterday, clearly a few things must have gone by the wayside...”
“Ah yes, thank you for reminding me of that.” Ford reached into his jacket and pulled out a box nearly as long as he was tall, setting it on the floor- there was a yellow label on the box, and Stan could just barely make out the word Experiment, followed by a three-digit number. “I’m going to make sure you never pull a stunt like that again.”
What Ford grabbed when he opened the box turned out to be a gun- a huge, sci-fi-looking gun, and Ford probably would’ve used fancier words to describe it, but Stan knew a gun when he saw one. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself on the wrong end of one, either, but as Ford’s aim grew more precise, Stan was beginning to suspect that it would be the last.
“Your reign of terror ends here, Bill.”
“No, wait-” Stan flew upwards as fast as he could, but well before he could reach the ceiling one of those invisible barriers jolted him, sending him reeling back towards the floor. “-c’mon, Ford, don’t do this to me, please-” He tried to swerve, to maneuver around as much as he could to avoid whatever that sci-fi gun had in store for him, but there just wasn’t enough room, and the muzzle was glowing blue and Stan didn’t know exactly what that meant but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good news for him...
For one brief moment, Stan and Ford looked each other in the eye, and Stan silently pleaded to his brother to think twice, tried to save himself without words at a time when words failed him-
-but Ford closed his eyes as his finger twitched against the trigger.
THUMP!
Ford’s aim went awry as the sudden noise distracted him, and the shot landed not on Stan’s head or torso but on his left pinky finger, a grazing shot that nonetheless hurt like hell. What the shot had touched, it had obliterated, leaving Stan with only four fingers remaining on his hand- until, as he watched, bone and muscle and skin appeared out of thin air and stitched itself back together, and after a few long, painful seconds his pinky was back, with no sign left to show that it had ever vanished in the first place.
Ford was watching Stan too, a somber look upon his face as Stan’s finger rebuilt itself, so neither of the two had actually looked over at the source of the sudden sound until-
“Grunkle Ford, what are you doing?”
Both Stan and Ford spun around to find that where there had been nothing but a few rocks, there now stood both Dipper and Mabel, the two wide-eyed and covered in dirt.
“What are you doing?” Ford retorted. “I told you two to stay upstairs!”
“Yeah... about that...” Dipper scratched the back of his head nervously, while Mabel shot Ford a sheepish smile.
“You were acting... kinda suspicious. So I may have- sort of- followed you down here to see what was going on. And once I saw Grunkle Stan I went and got Dipper and-”
“How? I would have heard you using the elevator...”
Before Ford could finish his sentence, Mabel brought out her tool of choice and pointed it triumphantly in the air. “Grappling hook!”
“Wait, wait, wait...” Stan jumped in, and all eyes turned to face him. “You can see me?”
Dipper and Mabel both nodded and made noises of agreement, their wide eyes growing even wider.
Ford impatiently tapped his foot against the ground. “Of course they can see you, it’s a summoning circle, the whole point is that you’re physical until the summons ends-”
“Holy shit, you can- er- don’t tell your parents I said shit, okay?” After a moment’s thought, Stan added, “Actually, don’t tell your parents about any of this. That seems like a bad idea all around.”
“Was this your plan all along, Bill, to drag them into this?”
“Was your plan all along just to shoot me?” Ford stayed silent in the face of this accusation, and Stan, all too aware that Ford’s gun was still aimed in his general direction, pressed on. “All those fancy circles and lines and- it was all just a distraction, wasn’t it?” Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have known- a classic shell game right there.”
Mabel wrinkled her nose and tilted her head to one side. “A what now?”
“A shell game- you know-” Stan’s hands flailed around in a series of awkward gestures as he attempted an explanation. “-you get three cups and put a ball under one, and move the cups around a bunch and get people to bet on which cup the ball is under, and by the time those rich guys realize you’re palming the ball halfway through you’re walking away a couple hundred dollars richer.” Stan coughed and scratched the back of his neck nervously in the silence that followed. “Uh, not that I’ve done it myself. And you shouldn’t either, it’s a bad idea. Especially once the cops get involved.”
Ford adjusted his glasses before speaking up. “That... is a surprisingly apt metaphor.”
“Was that a compliment? That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Grunkle Ford...” Mabel’s speech was hesitant as she looked from one grunkle to the other. “...were you really going to shoot Grunkle Stan?”
Ford let out a long sigh before responding, resting one hand on Mabel’s shoulder in a gesture of solace. “I’m sorry, Mabel, but that?” Ford pointed to Stan. “That’s Bill. He’s been taking that form this whole time. That is not your uncle.”
“You mean…” Mabel looked at Stan with eyes full of sorrow. “I-in my dream… that was you, wasn’t it?”
Stan let out a long sigh before he could reply, grasping desperately for the right words, but all that came to him was a simple “I’m sorry, Mabel.”
“Don’t…” Mabel started, but the sentence trailed off without an end. Evidently Stan wasn’t the only one desperately scrambling for words.
“But we’ve got him now. Bill’s trapped in that circle, and one good shot from this-” Ford gestured awkwardly in Stan’s direction with his gun. “-will be enough to destroy him for good.”
Ford started aiming, but his arm was shaking and his fingers trembling and Dipper and Mabel were in front of him now, off to the side but only just- too close, much too close for comfort-
“Dipper, Mabel, for Pete’s sake get out of the way!”
Stan hadn’t meant for the words to be more than a mere whisper, hadn’t really expected the kids to heed his warning, but the words echoed through the stone chamber all the same, and all eyes turned to him.
Mabel looked at Ford, then at Stan, before taking a step forward. “No.”
“What?” Stan and Ford asked in near-unison.
“I said, no! I won’t get out of the way!” Mabel walked- no, ran towards the circle, passing through its chalk lines with ease before standing directly in front of Stan, her arms waving wildly in the air. “If you’re gonna shoot Grunkle Stan, you’re gonna have to go through me!”
Ford lowered his gun, though his grip on it remained tight.
“A-and me!” Dipper didn’t move quite as fast as Mabel had, and his eyes stayed glued to the ground until after he had navigated the last of the chalk lines, but when he turned to face Ford, his gaze was just as fierce as his sister’s. “You’ll have to go through me first.”
“Don’t you see what he’s doing?” Ford’s voice was hoarse and anguished. “Bill knows you care about Stan, he’s- he’s using that against us, using that to-”
“No. No, no, no, no, no.”
Dipper and Mabel looked up at Stan as he spoke, and Stan took that opportunity to grab them both, holding them at arm’s length away from him. They felt light as a feather, their weight barely even registering to him, and though they squirmed and struggled it was a cinch to keep them more or less in place.
“Neither of you pipsqueaks are dying on my account, got it?”
The only response Stan got was a few noises of protest and one solid bite to the arm, but then, he hadn’t been expecting much else.
“You want to kill me, Ford? Well, here’s your chance. Got a nice, clean shot for you here. No shields, no distractions, no nothin’. Just get it over with so you and the kids can go about your lives already.” After a moment’s pause, Stan added, “And for God’s sake, don’t close your eyes when you shoot this time.”
Stan locked eyes with his brother; Ford was doing an admirable job of keeping a neutral expression. For a moment, Stan thought he saw the gun moving out of the corner of his eye, thought he saw it rising up to point his way once more-
Clang!
The gun hit the ground near Ford’s feet, and Ford’s now-empty hands were shaking violently.
“I... I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I, Stanley?”
“Yup.” Stan loosened his grip on Dipper and Mabel, and as the two stood by his side, Stan couldn’t help but break out into a grin. “And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
Ford smiled back at Stan, and the sight made his heart soar. “Evidently not.”
“I think this calls for a GROUP HUG!”
Stan winced a little as Mabel shrieked into his ear; she may have felt light in his hands, but her voice was clearly as loud as ever. “Mabel, I don’t think F-”
“Well, if you insist...”
Ford walked towards Stan, his steps slow and deliberate as he stepped between the chalk lines. Dipper and Mabel grabbed onto Stan and embraced him tightly, and once Ford entered the center circle they embraced him as well. Stan was slow to embrace them back, half-expecting that his arm would pass through them as it had before, but no, they were there and they were real and he could feel their warmth as they clung to him and if he were still human Stan might have been concerned that Mabel’s tight grip was going to cut off his circulation, but that was one small upside of the situation, that he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore...
Stan wasn’t sure when, exactly, Ford joined the hug, but soon enough Stan realized that the kids alone couldn’t account for all the limbs latching onto him, and once he focused on it he could tell that yes, there was definitely a six-fingered hand patting him on the back. For one shining moment they were all there, all together, all hugging, and Stan knew deep down that despite all the shit he’d gone through, things were going to be okay, at least more or less.
Then Mabel lifted her hands into the air and screamed “GROUP HUG!” again and the group broke apart a little bit, though they were still close, still nearly touching as they faced one another in the circle.
Stan was the first to speak up after that.
“So, uh, Ford, you said something earlier about this circle making me physical, right? How’s all that work?”
Ford nodded and took a breath before replying. “It’s a summoning circle, it binds demons- which, in this case means you I suppose- I, I still don’t know how that works-” Stan was pretty sure that even if he hadn’t been looking right at Ford, he still would have felt the force of his brother’s wide-eyed gaze as he hesitated for a moment and looked him at him up and down before continuing. (Stan glanced downward for a brief moment and realized that his feet still weren’t quite touching the floor.) “-anyway, it binds demons to the physical plane temporarily, until one of two things happens: either we make a deal-”
“Not happening.” Stan interjected.
“Or... or the summons runs out of time.”
“And then these numbskulls-” Stan wrapped one arm around Dipper and the other around Mabel. “-won’t be able to see me anymore?”
“Not unless we perform another summoning, no.”
“Alright. So.” Stan’s grasp on Dipper and Mabel grew slightly tighter. “You’re the brainiac here, Ford, so tell me. How long have we got?”
