Stanchez Apprecition Week: Day 3
And here’s day 3! Where Rick is making gifts for Dipper and Mabel’s 15th b-day and Stan gives him some help!
You can read it here under the cut or over on my AO3!
And just a reminder I'm taking stanchez requests until March 24th. So if you have any ideas for stories don't be shy!
Rick still couldn’t believe it. The summer was already over. And soon he and the rests of the Smith’s would be leaving Gravity Falls and heading back to suburbia-hell Washington. It was so weird to think about. Just a few months ago it felt like time had literally slowed down, Rick had to check his one of his universal time tables just to make sure any freaky temporal shit was happening in this weirdo hick town in the middle of nowhere. It had been a real long, boring summer. The worst that happened was a gnome civil war and a unicorn revolt. It had been way to quiet for Rick’s liking. He ended up dragging Stan or Morty and the other kids off into the multiverse every other night just to keep things interesting. And even then things still felt so quiet.
While it was happening it felt so boring. And yet now that was the last week of summer vacation it felt like it all went by in an instant. It messed with his head. Not a lot, but just enough to piss him off.
At least summers in Gravity Falls never ended on a sappy depressing note, with everyone moping around and feeling like shit. It was always pretty nice that the Twin’s birthday landed right at the end of the summer so they could all go out partying.
And from all the commotion he heard upstairs this morning, this was going to be an interesting one for sure. The second summer the Smith’s spent up here but it would be Dipper and Mabel’s third summer, and they were turning 15.
Now knowing the two a lot better than last year or the year before, Rick wanted to make them presents they would actually like. Something they would actually use and not just set aside in the back of a closet to collect dust. He wanted to knock their fucking socks off.
So while they were all upstairs party planning or whatever he went down to Ford’s underground labs and got cracking.
Of the two Mabel was the easier. Honestly he could of made literally anything and as long as he bedazzled it in hot pink Mabel would of loved it. But this summer he’d gone forty steps beyond that. So he’d made a modified version of one of his old favorites before his portal gun. It was a gun where each interchangeable barrel had a different purpose, there was a grappling hook, glitter canon, laser, freeze-ray, hot glue, this guy had everything Mabel could need. And he also painted it hot pink and bedazzled it. He knew the kid always liked her sparkles even when she was in the underbelly of her “punk goth stage” in life which was “totally not a phase guys!”
Dipper had been a little harder to pin down at first. He ended up scrapping his initial plan because half-way through he realized he wasn’t really making something Dipper would want, he was making something Ford would want. So he tossed out his first idea for an electronic journal. But he did keep the concept of a database for his work. And instead of making it writing base, he set it up on a medium the kid used a lot more, camera. This camera could record and hold years of film, and all of it would go into a secure database for all his recordings and research.
Both the gun and the camera were completely finished, and just in time as the party was tonight at Fiddleford’s fancy mansion. All he had left to do was wrap the bastards.
Too bad wrapping gifts was the one few thing he sucked at. When it came to design, he was always functionality and price over looks and god did it show in his gift-wrapping. He already demolished one whole roll of paper, it all sat on the floor in shreds and coated in more tape than paper. And he was working his way to wasting one and a half roll of wrapping paper as he botched up his latest attempt at wrapping. It might have been easier if he’d made the gifts box-shaped, or put them in boxes, but they were so asymmetrical and always looked like shit once he had them secured in tape. He was just about to give up and go look for gift bags like a weakling when the elevator down to the lab came to life and started whirring.
As the cart came down Rick crossed his fingers hoping it wasn’t Ford. When it came to parties the guy usually ducked to find a hiding spot and wait everything out if he could and he really didn’t want him coming down here and seeing the shitty state of his presents.
When the doors finally opened though he was slightly less upset to see Stan there. Sure his Lee wasn’t as annoying as Ford, he was dating him again after all, but he still wasn’t happy with anyone seeing him struggle to do something as easy as wrap presents.
“There you are! Been looking for your sorry hind everywhere!” Stan called out as he stepped down into the basement laboratory.
As he walked towards the bench Rick had been working on he wondered if maybe he should bother hiding the presents, at least all the paper and tape on the floor. But Stan was getting close and it was already too late, he saw the mess and his eyes widened a little.
Then he just smirked at Rick, clasping his hands behind his back like a dick. “Wow! You still have no idea how to wrap presents?”
“It’s harder than it looks, ass!” Rick huffed as he looked back at his recent attempts at presents. This time round wasn’t too bad… on one side. When he turned it over it was a mess of taped-off papers. There were a few spots where the paper didn’t even cover the gift. Pouting he once again ripped off all the paper and tossed it on the ground.
Before he could start attempt number 23 Stan stopped him, nudging him aside and swiping the roll or wrapping paper out of his hands. “Here, let an old pro! Mabel’s been hounding me on proper wrapping etiquette ever since she first came here!”
“I’m fine!”
“Come on, it’ll take be like two minutes! Besides, you really want to show the kids these? You know Jerry would have a field day with’em!”
Rick caved in at that, he could take humiliation from anybody else, but never in his life would he ever let a Jerry talk shit about him. He hoisted himself up onto the bench to watch Stan at work.
As he worked he rolled out a sheet of paper double the size of Mabel’s gift and began marking off crease line with a pencil along all the funky little curve and nobules on the gun. Then after cutting a few of the creases, he folded them over so they were fleshed to the shape of the gun. Soon after strips of paper were stretched across and while you could clearly see it was a gun, it was still completely wrapped-up.
As Stan went to work on wrapping Rick’s camera, he flashed a cheeky grin at Rick.
“Show off.” He muttered, still pouty but unable to stop watching Stan at work.
“You’re welcome!” Stan said back mock-sweetly before he went back to marking crease-lines onto the paper. “Why are you even worried about this stuff? Usually you just wrap things terribly and don’t give a shit.”
“I dunno.” Rick replied, trying to keep a cool, apathetic tone. “I guess I’d rather not look like a complete embarrassment to your nibs’. Spent long enough on their presents. Nothing was half-assed so the presentation shouldn’t be half-assed either.”
“They look pretty neat, that’s for sure. How long did you spend working on’em?” Stan asked as he cut up some strips and began folding them over Dipper’s gift.
“Little less than a month, Dipper’s camera went a little longer cause I had to scrap my first idea.” Rick answered easily.
“Why’d you have to do that?”
“Eh, didn’t really seem like something he’d actually like once I started working on it. I wanted to make thing’s your kids would want use this year, you’know? Something they’d actually like? I think I got it right though, so both of them should be happy with their gear. I think they’ll appreciate them at-at the least or something like that-“
Rick hadn’t realized he’d been talking so long. When he looked back up at Stan he’d already finished the present and was beaming at him.
“What?”
Stan had his head leaned up on his fist and he still had that weird look on his face. “You really want to impress them, don’t you Sanchez?”
“Wha- No! The- those little bastards can go peddle these on the streets day after their birthday! I don’t give a shit!”
“You’re getting soft!” Stan teased.
“Fuck off!” Rick shoved him away but Stan just laughed.
And he leaned back his ruffling Rick hair, “Hey they’re pretty great kids, so it’s not all that surprising. But don’t worry, you’re secrets safe with me!”
“Whatever, get off me!” Rick squirmed out of Stan’s hold and readjusted his hair from its frazzled state back to its normal frazzled state.
And Stan stepped away from the bench as Rick hopped down and grabbed his newly-wrapped resents.
“So I got some other stuff to take care of but I’ll see you at the party right? You and you’re beautifully wrapped presents?” Stan asked smirking as he stepped into the elevator.
“Ya, if I don’t have anything better to do.” Rick replied stepping in right after him.
The elevator door slid shut and began pulling them back up to the surface. Rick tucked the presents into his coat pocket, he’d keep them there until the party then whip them out once they were done opening the gifts from everyone else.
On the ride up he caught himself wondering about how the two would react to his gifts. If it would blow them right out of the water. If Mabel would get all jumpy and screechy and thank him a billion times. Or if Dipper would start freaking out, asking a hundreds questions a minute about how the camera worked. If they would really like their presents.
When the hell did he start caring so much?
When all this began two years ago he'd started out a little distant to the younger twins. Sure they were cute, but Rick hadn't really seen much else in them. They both reminded him of Ford though, especially Dipper, all wide-eyed and excited to talk about aliens and monsters. And while Mabel wasn't as clear cut as her brother, she still had a lot of Stanford Pines to her, whenever she got on a project she dedicated her whole life to it, and that pride. And both seemed like they were always trying to impress. But over the past year or so of being around them and seeing them in action, they really grew into their own, weird, original people and wormed their way into his heart. Right next to Morty and Summer. And he realized he was actually hoping they had a nice time on their trip today, now he was the one trying to impress them.
Even as the elevator slid open and Stan pecked him on the cheek before stepping out his train of thought was stuck on the kids.
Maybe Stan was right, maybe he was getting soft…
Yet it was something he didn’t feel strongly happy, or upset about. It was just something that had happened ever since he came back to Earth. Sorta like his rekindled relationship with Beth. Or his now with Stanley.