A/N: So I'm doing a fic for dodofiasco's picture of the Stan Twins suddenly turning young on tumblr. I meant a quick one-shot, but it then it seemed like there should be more.
From about a mile away, you might be able to faintly hear their voices. In the front yard, it's a little clearer and it's easy to tell it's not good. If you were right in the room though, most human ear drums that were not in the habit of being bombarded by exceedingly loud noises ranging from screams of children to deconstruction in cities were sure to feel a pop and then soon a trickling of something wet from all the ruckus being made.
Between angry shouts and hysteric laughter to cries of pain and deep bass groans, one's ears may not bleed but they will ring for a good while afterwards.
"I'm sorry! I'm really REALLY sorry!", Dipper said between aching fits of laugh, his stomach constricting too hard for him to properly breathe. "But-! Ha ha ha ha ha ha- ow! Ooh, ow! Ha ha ha!"
"You guys were so freaked! It's hilarious!", Mabel also heaved in laughter next to her brother, tears streaming down her face.
"Children this isn't funny!", Ford's booming voice was enough to be felt through the floorboards Dipper and Mabel were helplessly resting on. "I've warned you not to mess with the journals and NOW look at what you've done!"
"Kids I told you you weren't supposed to use that spooky book for ANYTHING but self-defense!", Stanley was also shouting. "Not only did you use it just to be STUPID, but you had to use Ford and I for your guinea pigs?!"
Dipper and Mabel tried to calm down and soon rested into breathless giggles before Dipper picked himself up and dried his eyes.
"I know, it was stupid..", he said. "But oh-ho man I didn't expect you guys to react so badly!"
"Well what else do you expect when they wake up and find out they're suddenly 30 because they saw each other?", Mabel giggled.
"Dipper, I KNOW you're more rational than this!", Ford rolled his eyes in frustration. "What on earth were you thinking?!"
"If you were thinking about using that stupid thing on yourselves-", Stan began, pointing his now-useless glasses at them.
"No! No no, I know, we're already really young.", Dipper chuckled. "Okay, okay, lemme start from the top…"
–
Mabel and Dipper were playing in the attic and talking about the journal meanwhile, when Mabel pointed out something.
"You know, for three whole journals full of weird stuff in Gravity Falls, I'm surprised that we don't use more spells and magic-y things.", she mentioned. "Like, when did we ever need to chant a spell or gather some weird ingredient besides the unicorn hair?"
"Well you know there was that time we went into Grunkle Stan's mind to stop Bill and when I raised the dead, but I guess you've got a point.", Dipper nodded. "We don't do a lot of magic ourselves for a place full of magical creatures.. Actually there was one I was kinda curious about. Grunkle Ford wrote in his journal that even he hadn't tested it out yet, and that there wasn't a lot to it, more of a rumor than anything. But he was planning to try it sometime later on his life."
Dipper pulled out Journal 1 and flipped about the paged. He came across it and the two looked over and smiled at the youth spell Ford had written.
"See, it goes- Oh. Wait, shouldn't say it.", Dipper laughed a little. "Might turn us to toddlers or something!"
"We should test it and see how it works!", Mabel encouraged with enthusiasm. "It's been so boring lately."
"Yeah but how?", Dipper asked. "We should test it on something REALLY old.."
Suddenly Mabel gasped and smiled widely. Dipper looked at her and then soon caught the implication as he grinned too.
While Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were both asleep, the kids snuck into their rooms and chanted the spell. Nothing happened and both sighed and returned to the attic.
"I guess it was a hoax.", Dipper shrugged while they sat on their beds.
"Aw, that would've been neat though.", Mabel flopped backwards onto hers. "See what Stan and Ford were like YOUNG."
"Yeah, how weird would that look?", Dipper teased. "Can you imagine? A YOUNG Stan?"
Mabel giggled.
"Ew! That'd be like.. A young version of McGucket!", she shook her head.
They laughed a little and decided to fall asleep, unaware the spell had to take affect over the night. The next morning, Stan had decided to skip washing up in the bathroom. A forceful headache blocked out other thoughts in its demand for coffee as he got loosely dressed and bleary-eyed made his way to the kitchen.
Ford woke up as well, readjusted his glasses, though his eyes were still closed and stretched, trying to shake off the restless feel of another night's broken sleep. He sighed and made a mental note that he forgot to change before bed again and peered about the bedroom. He felt foggy-minded as he made his way through the house, hoping coffee would make it easier to fluently speak with censorship.
The twins reached the kitchen, one shortly after the other, and rubbed the tiredness from their eyes as they mumbled greetings.
Ford started coffee and stood by the pot, waiting for it to finish.
Stan scratched his head and then felt a distinct amount of thickness to his hair.
It was enough to break through his headache to make him alert as he reached further back and felt more and more locks.
Stanley opened his eyes and took a good look at his brother but had to rub his eyes again and make sure he was seeing straight. Actually he could barely see at all until he removed his glasses. And then shouts of surprise woke him, his brother, and the kids, up.
"Gah! Stanley what the-?" Ford stopped short, hearing a lack of old-man-hoarseness in his voice.
Ford turned around and was met with a wide-eyed, mullet-styling, wrinkles-missing twin brother. He gasped at the sight of it and felt his own face. Smoother with a bit of stub around his chin. His overgrown sideburns were shorter, his hair was thicker and fell in a mess on his head instead of standing up from countless hours of holding his head up over books.
Stanley was also panicking and feeling over to make sure he was thinking right. But the deep brown overgrown hair he could pull over his shoulder to see was proof enough and he could feel the blood rush in excitement and panic. Callouses returned to his hands instead of the dried, crusty, skin he always had. There was more color in them too. It was as if they had woken up and it was '82 all over again.
"Hot Belgium Waffles, what happened?!", Stanley asked, surprised again at also feeling a less of gruff and a lack of hoarse in his voice.
"I-I-I don't know!", Ford replied. "I don't know what happened, or why this happened!"
"Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, what is it? What's wrong?!", the kids came rushing in.
When Dipper and Mabel arrived on the scene, finding the Stan Twins gawking at each other and almost in a state of panic, the two couldn't help but roll with laughter. Later, after everything was explained, they all sat in the living room trying to decide the day's course of action.
"Well first thing I'm gonna do is cut this stupid hair.", Stanley grimaced, having to pull back on it a little, just to remind himself again that that's what he really used to look like.
"NO! you shouldn't!", Mabel gasped. "It's so beautiful!"
"Beautifully HIDEOUS if you ask me..", Stanley argued.
"Dipper, I understand where you were coming from but do understand this is a GRAVE mistake.", Stanford was saying after he finished his second cup and was able to comprehend it all.
"Why?", everyone asked.
"We look kinda silly, sure, but y'know isn't it kind of a good thing to have that kinda time back?", Stan asked.
"Try to understand Stanley. First of all, I don't know all the side affects caused by this spell. I never, EVER, had the chance to use it before.", Ford began to list. "Secondly, I don't know exactly how stupid everyone in Gravity Falls is but I doubt they're going to buy that the original Mr. Mystery had been able to use movie make-up to make him look THAT young."
"Okay, well you've kinda got me there..", Stan scratched at the five-o-clock shadow around his chin.
"Thirdly– and this is most important– even if there are no horrible side affects of this spell and even if people will buy the 'New and Improved Mr. Mystery' shtick, even if everything blows over smoothly and we've been given another 30 or so years to live again, what are you going to tell Dipper and Mabel's parents when you have to drop them off at the end of Summer?"
"Yikes..", Stanley grimaced.
The first to come to Stanley's mind was trying to imagine starting a conversation when they ask questions with, "Well to start over, my real name's Stanley-" and it would only go that far before he got stuck.
"Oh wow, I didn't think of that..", Dipper cringed. "Well it's okay though because there's a reverse for it, right Grunkle Ford?"
"No. And that was going to be my fourth point.", Ford corrected. "It was only a sort of foot-note in some ancient texts. There was no real study involved in it, it was a guess, an example of what the real structure of spell-casting is like! I didn't even believe it could be real but I wrote it down to test some day just to see if it bore any truth."
"So what does that mean?", Stanley asked, frowning. "You sayin' we're actually going to just be stuck like this from now on?"
"No, hopefully I can dig up those scrolls again and see what they had to say. I was always one to follow instructions rather than trying to improvise, but hopefully the texts will give enough information that I can cobble together a reversal spell.", Ford explained.
"Alright then in the mean time since I can't be Mr. Mystery..", Stanley tossed his fez to Mabel, surprising her as she caught it. "Mabel, you're back in charge of the shack."
"You're letting a 12 year-old take charge of the business?", Ford asked.
"She kept her head up for 3 days. I trust her.", Stan smiled at her.
Mabel smiled back, a little touched. She wasn't sure at first but seeing Stan's faith in her helped her to take a breath before putting the fez back on.
"Okay. Boss Mabel is back in action.", she declared, ready to tackle the job.
"…this is going to be scary.", Dipper quickly confirmed in his mind, remembering last time.