"Yeah, he's here," Wendy said answering the Mystery Shack phone. Soos was unboxing the new stock of hats for the gift shop while Stan was preparing a new exhibit to show all the guilbe tourists during the summer rush.
"Hey, Mr. Pines," the newest employee called into the exhibit hallway,"Phone call for you,"
"Yeah okay," Stan said as he entered the gift shop to take the phone from her.
"Hey, um, Stanford?" said the voice on the other end of the phone. In his shock, Stan almost dropped the headset. That voice..it sounded so much like Ford and after 30 years of not hearing it, it was easy for Stan to miss the slight differences between the voice of his twin and the voice of his younger brother.
"Um, Ford, you there?" Shermie said.
"R-right," Stan replied, breaking out of his shock, trying his hardest to imitate Ford's voice.
"Yeah, so," From Shermie's voice, Stan could tell he was probably fidgeting. From what he'd seen of his younger brother the three times he met him the poor kid was extremely nervous and socially akward.
Of course, the slight phone anxiety Shermie was suffering from couldn't match the flip flops his heart was doing. Stan had spent so long in Gravity Falls and away from his family, he had begun to get sloppy. Off the top of his head he couldn't remember where he had stored his false six fingered gloves or really how he did Ford's voice exactly.
"Okay, yes," Stan said, pushing a false gruff exterior over his worries. "So, what are you here to tell me? Did someone die? Didn't I tell you I wanted to be left alone? Getting me to show up for those twin's birth was annoying enough."
"Ford okay, I'm sorry," Shermie replied, sounding dejected,"It's just. You know Icarus's kids, the twins. Both him and Beth have to go away on business for most of the summer. I was wondering if you could watch the twins for them."
"Why can't you just do it?" Stan replied indignantly. It wasn't that he didn't want to help, its just that juggling pretending to be Ford based off of whatever information Shermie told them while also not making Wendy and Soos suspicious was basically impossible.
"It's just since Eleanor is busy teaching during the year I've signed up for a bunch of galleries and conventions for my work over the summer. We'll be traveling most of the summer and I don't think we could afford plane tickets and hotel stuff for two more people. Besides it wouldn't be much fun."
"And what, you think working at the Shack would be much better?"
"Please Stanford. I don't have any other options. They can't afford summer camp or a babysitter. They also can't skip the trips, nor can I skip the galleries. We just can't afford it."
That felt like a punch to Stan. He wasn't sure if Shermie was intentionally guilting him or if he just kept getting lucky and always ended up saying the proper words to hurt him(same thing happened when he tried to get Stan to attend the twin's birth). He had always suspected the rest of his family wasn't the best off financially. He probably made enough money at the Shack(especially with how much he saved by being cheap and tax fraud). The problem was he spent a large chunk of that on electricity to keep Ford's machines working and black market materials.
"Argh fine. They can stay."
"Thank you, Ford!" Stan knew that if Shermie could, he would of tried to hug him then.
"So, their names are Mabel and Mason, right?" Stan asked, hoping he wouldn't embarrass himself.
"Well, Mason actually goes by Dipper now." Shermie replied.
At that moment Stan almost burst out laughing, but he was able to stifle it down to a mere chuckle.
"So you can watch them for the summer?" Shermie asked.
"Okay, fine you got me. I'll take care of the little munchkins."
"Thank you Stanford. They should be arriving tomorrow evening."
"What, so soon?," Stanley was certainly surprised. He wasn't expecting them to be arriving for at least another week.
"I told you." Shermie replied,"you were our last option."
"Okay. Anything else I need to know about the kids?"
Shermie rattled off a list of things he would have to remember about the twins. Not much about their personality, but things like their parent's phone number and how he would have to take the girl, Mabel, to orthodontist appointments(the parent's would pay the copay).
Stan hung up and put the phone back on it's base. That conversation was so taxing. If the entire summer was like this he didn't know if he could take it.
"Mr. Pines?" Wendy asked. "Are you okay?"
"Oh yeah, right," he spluttered out. He had forgotten that Wendy that been by his side the entire time. She'd probably heard a one sided version of the conversation.
"Well, good news." he said, attempting to put his showy Mr. Mystery deamor back on,"We're gonna get more hands to help around the shack during the summer rush. My niblings are going to be staying with us."
"Oh cool." Wendy said as the put her feet back on the counter. The shack was almost closed for the night anyway and was closed tomorrow due to state mandated breaks.
"Hey, um, everyone." Stan said,"how 'bout you two take the rest of the night off."
Stan said his goodbyes to his employees and set himself into a rhythm to prepare for the kids arrival. On a normal day he wouldn't even think about Ford. He'd done all he could to fix the portal with such limited instructions. He hadn't even gone down there it what, a couple months? He should probably just check to make sure nothing was more broken. But now, every old pain was fresh again. The dinosaur head he used for a coffee table, probably some prized archaeological artifact of Ford's. The taxidermy he used for exhibits? Other than the ones he "acquired", they were probably Ford's prized possessions.
Stan knew he was a living ghost, walking through the house of a man who should be here, if it wasn't for him. On days like this, that was clearer than ever.
First he headed to his room to try to find his sixer fingered gloves. If by some miracle, he got lucky and the twins forgot about them he wouldn't need to wear them any longer than tonight. He would try to keep his hands hidden, but if they wanted to see them, he wouldn't be caught unprepared.
Searching through his clothing, he found the black wool gloves tucked away. Dusting them off, he held them in his hands. They were his brothers. A bit of modifications with the limited supplies he had allowed Stan to have a convincing sixth finger and a limited range of hand movements.
Try as he might, Stan couldn't stop the tears from falling. One part of him knew he needed to work on getting the house ready for the kids. Another part just wanted to wallow in the sadness. That part lacked no motivation to do anything. That part was in control tonight.
Even though it was only six at night, Stan remained collapsed at the side of his bed. Thoughts, regrets, and "what-if" ran around his head. Why did he have to push his brother into that thing? Why did he have to break Ford science project? Why did he have to be so selfish? He should've just let Ford go along, become famous. At least when he died then, people would care about him. Well here he was, sitting here. Maybe if he wasn't so stupid, it wouldn't of taken him 30 long years to fix the damn thing. He wouldn't be a shut in, the ghost of a dead man, walking through his brother's home...his brother's life.
After a few hours of that, he managed to muster enough energy to crawl into bed and sleep. It did matter if he was hungry or not that tired, as soon as he got up, it felt like his limb had turned to lead again and he only had enough energy to collapse on his, no Ford's bed, with the gloves cradled to his chest like some sort of stuffed animal.
The next morning, Stan pushed all those thoughts out of his mind and got to work. He prepared a bedroom for the children in the attic, cleaned up the shack(somewhat), and went to the store to buy extra food. He kept his hands busy to keep his dark thoughts out of his mind.
That night, Stan headed out to the bus stop. It was only a quick walk(kinda his fault, as a few years ago he had relocated the sign to increase business to the shack) from his house to there. In the cool summer evening, he wasn't hot in is normally stuffy Mr. Mystery outfit or the six-fingered winter gloves. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he saw the bus arriving.
Out of the bus stepped two children. The girl, Mabel, was wearing a pink sweater with a shooting star, while the boy was wearing a brown hat with a star stitched on. Dipper was looking at the ground with his arms crossed. Stan could tell he definitely didn't want to be there.
"Come on, bro-bro," Mabel said, lightly poking him. "Maybe it I'll be better than you expected."
"I doubt that," Dipper mumbled back.
The girl turned from her brother to look at Stan. "Hi," she said, waving,"You're great-uncle Stanford, right?"
"P-please," he said, trying to push through his fear to establish his Mr. Mystery persona "Call me your Grunkle Stan."
"Okay," she said nodding, then bursting into a cheerful "YEAH!" for no apparent reason.
Stan lead the children to the shack. Upon seeing the exhibits, Mabel was fascinated, while Dipper just looked them over and rolled his eyes.
As Stan gave the children the "grand" tour, Mabel asked a billion questions, while Dipper just sulked. After they dropped off their bags in the attic, they sat down at the kitchen table for dinner.
Mabel talked excitedly about herself and her hopes for the summer. Stan only really half listened until he heard her say,"Oh, and with summer I'll have all this free time to make new friends and work on my 'sweater a day' project."
"Not so fast kid," Stan said to the overexcited, over sugared ball of energy in front of him,"You'll still have to help out at the shack."
"Wait, but we're just kids? Isn't that illegal?" Mabel replied, looking to her brother for backup.
"I don't know," Dipper shot back,"I haven't had time to check the Oregon labor laws about summer work or working in family business."
Stan internally flinched, not because he cared about the labor laws, but because this little squirt seemed to have the same smarts as his own twin. Argh, he'd probably be reminded of his own brother whenever Dipper shot off a little known fact or the twins were playing. He was mainly worried about his cover being blown, not all the memories two happy twins would dig up.
Looking down at his almost empty plate, Stan said,"Hey it's kinda late. Maybe you kids should head off to bed." Stan just half tossed, half placed his dish in the old sink to wash later, but the kids took their dishes and started to wash them.
"No need for that," he said,"we wash dishes during normal chorches. Just run along to bed."
Happily, the kids headed off to bed, Mabel trying to talk with her still sulking brother. Hopefully, the boy would break out of his attempt at making everyone miserable in a day or so. Realizing that if Dipper continued sulking, he wouldn't be spouting facts and stuff, making it would be better for Stan if the squirt kept his mouth shut.
Heading back to his room, and stuffing his six-fingered gloves in the farthest corner of his dresser, he went to sleep with a little more self care than last time.
A/N: I'm taking a break from After the War to write some one-shots for ideas I've had. It'll probably take awhile to get through all of them, but atleast you can enjoy these. They're also in the same continuity as After the War, so there may be some foreshadowing thrown in.