AN: A small fluff one-shot I wrote to one of my best friends, SocialBookWorm (or TheSocialBookWorm on this site). She's amazing and this is my present to her. :)
Stan and Ford were sitting on a bench by the side of the road. They were silent, Stan's arms crossed across his chest and fingers tapping his bicep. Ford's fingers drummed on his knee. Both were obviously impatiently waiting for something.
But the silence between them was companionable. People, especially ones who love each other very much, tend to work things out when they said around the globe together for 9 months with few breaks. Indeed, every so often Ford would look to Stan or Stan would look to Ford and they'd share a smile, looking like kids waiting for Christmas.
Suddenly there was a huffing noise heard in the distance, and a female voice, cheering.
"C'mon, Soos, you can do it! You got this!"
"I don't got this, dude!" the gasping voice replied, and then the two were in view. A tall, round young man in a sweaty green tee shirt was trying to jog alongside a skinny redheaded teen in a tank top and a baseball cap. They got quieter and seemed to speed up at the sight of the two old men on the bench.
"Mr. Pineses!" called Soos. "Did we miss it?"
"Nope!" called Stan by way of reply. "All ya missed was me and the nerd frying on this bench. Who said today should be so hot?"
"It's summer," teased Ford. "Science says it has to be hot."
"Eh boo hoo to science," replied Stan. By then, Soos and Wendy had arrived at the bench, the latter not looking winded at all, streaks of sunscreen visible on her arms. Soos flopped into a sitting position next to the bench.
"Next time I'm leaving early, dudes. Running in the summer, unless it's for your life, or something, isn't cool. In fact it's really really hot." Wendy handed him a bottle of water, which he sipped at then dumped on his head.
"It'll be worth it though, when we…"
"Can it I think I hear it!" Stan declared, standing up, gaze pinned on the bend in the road.
Soon enough, a bus emblazoned with a beaver came into view. "Hah Poindexter, these futuristic nerd hearing aides really do work!" Stan declared with a huge grin.
"I promised you they would!" was Ford's reply, as well as a chuckle. As the bus came closer, all four bus stop residents strained to see the two faces they so missed for the past 3/4 of the year.
"I see 'em!" shouted Wendy, and indeed, two blobs were flailing what they guessed to be arms at them, and by the time the bus had stopped in front of them, the blobs had resolved into two thirteen year old kids. They didn't stay in the window for very long as they gathered their belongings and dashed out of the bus, tailed by a pink pig.
The happy shouts that resulted were rendered incomprehensible due to the fact that everyone was shouting at the same time, and the 'Grunkle Stan's got garbled with the 'Wendy's and the 'Mabel's. But it was an obviously happy cacophony, and a lot of hugging resulted.
When the two groups split apart, it was obvious that not much had changed for the twins. Dipper was wearing his same outfit and appeared to have grown very little. He still had on Wendy's trapper hat. His sister Mabel had lost the braces, but not her smile nor her colorful sweaters.
"Oh my gosh, guys, there's so much we gotta talk about!" said Dipper, excited, voice cracking less than it had the summer before.
"Yeah! And I can show my new scrapbook too!" shouted Mabel with a fistpump.
"Working the Shack is always exciting. I have a lot to tell you dudes too!" exclaimed Soos.
"And I work there, I saw it all too. I'll help keep the stories concise, and not 14 hours long, right Soos?" Wendy added. She'd never forget the previous summer's phone call. Then she snagged Dipper's hat off her head and swapped it out with her old hat on Dipper's head. "Boom. Figured we could trade back for the summer. Plus this way you won't feel as sweaty." She winked at him and he grinned.
"Naturally, there's plenty to our tales that we couldn't tell you via letter," Ford continued as he picked up some of the twins' luggage.
"Yeah and now we get to act out all the crazy stuff we saw!" added Stan with a grin.
"I never agreed to that, Stanley!"
"I just came up with this idea."
"Well get it out of your head!"
"We can charge them since they're the audience!"
"They're our great niece and nephew!"
The friendly bickering lasted all the way back to the Shack, the rest of the group laughing and laughing at the antics of the older twins. So far, this summer was looking to be even better than the last.