This does not purposely make fun of any people who belive in certain relative theories in Gravity Falls. Heck, even I am on the Soos Gleeful boat!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gravity Falls.
Stan sighed, shaking his head as he closed the door to the vending machine behind him once more. He had been up all night working on the gateway. It was a good thing there were never any tourists on Wednesdays, he didn't know if he could keep up with all of those sucker- Valued customers.
With the intents on heading back to bed and taking a nap, Stan walked down the halls of the Mystery Shack to his room. Only, before he reached there, he heard something off to the side. It was in the old bedroom, that had been boarded up so long ago. Curious, Stan checked to see what was going on. Sure enough, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos were in what was now Soos' break room with the man-child, going through some old boxes that they had not bothered to move... Old boxes... Left from before Dipper and Mabel came to Gravity Falls... Instantly Stan spun on his heel and barged in to the room.
"Hey! Hey! What are you doing touching all of my stuff?" Mr. Mystery challenged.
Mabel, who was trying on a ribbon tie she had found in one box said, "we're just going through all this old stuff before we get rid of it! I found all these old clothes!"
Snatching the tie from Mabel, and stuffing it in the nearest box, he replied, "no one's getting rid of anything!"
"But Mister Pines, you told me to clean the room up," Soos interjected.
Did he say that? Well, if he couldn't remember it, then it didn't count! No one was getting rid of any of these things! Not if he had a say in it! This was his house, which meant that he did! Some of the things in the room were, incriminating... He didn't want any of them coming across that kind of stuff!
"Come on Grunkle Stan, it's just a bunch of boring dusty clothes," Dipper said, pulling out a blazer from a different box. "Man! These things are dated! Who even wears bow ties any more?"
From where Bill was secretly watching (surprise, surprise), he scowled and made a mental note to nearly almost strangle the kid with a bow tie the next time they met. Stan just pulled away the blazer and tie from his great-nephew.
"These tacky clothes have value to them," he shortly said.
Bill reminded himself to add Stan to his quickly growing list of people who didn't like bow ties as well. Mabel gave a sneaky grin.
"Sentimental value?" Mabel gleefully asked.
"No!" Stan quickly denied. "I could probably get a buck or two for them at the farmer's market is all!"
"So it wouldn't bother you if I, dressed up Waddles in them?"
"Pigs in clothing should be considered an affront against nature," he shortly replied, pulling a box full of breakables out of Soos' clumsy hands.
"Hey! There are little candies in here!" Soos exclaimed, his head buried in a different box.
He ate one, only to cough and promptly spit it out.
"Ugh! Dude! not candy," Soos moaned, staring down at the hacked up moth ball.
"Ew! Gross!"
Things went on like this for a little while longer. Stan would try to chase them out of the room, only to be burdened with more boxes and bags until he could not possibly carry any more. He watched as Soos bent behind the couch, obviously in search of more secrets. But if there was one thing that he did remember, it was that they had never put anything under the couch. And for a very good reason.
"Sweet! There's still some cheese left in this mouse trap! Dude, do you think I can grab i- OW! OW! OH DUDE IT BURNS!"
There was a sharp snapping sound as the trap sprang. Soos leaped to his feet and sucked on the fingers he had gotten trapped in the mouse trap. Stan winced, seeing the red welts on his hands. This was exactly why they never stored anything underneath the couch. That was probably going to hurt for a while.
Mabel seemed relatively unphased and pulled out her book of emergency band-aids, which were -according to Mabel at least- "Stickers that heal people with cute little pictures." The man considered telling Mabel that a band-aid would do nothing to help Soos, but decided against it.
"C-can you k-kiss it better?" Soos sniffled.
"Mwha!" Mabel said, giving his fingers a sloppy kiss. "There! See? All better!"
"Thanks dude, you're a live-saver!"
In the meantime, as Stan was preoccupied with watching Mabel and Soos, Dipper was curiously inspecting the dusty floor where the electron carpet once was. Then, he noticed that a very thin book was propping up the new coffee table. Intrigued, he carefully tugged the little leaflet out of it's spot. Flipping through it, he found that it seemed to be a very small note pad or journal of sorts.
Property of Stanley Pines...
Dipper gave a gasp, as a picture of a young man fell out of the pages. It looked like a younger Grunkle Stan. But... Different...
"Hey guys, check this out! It's some kind of note book!" Starting to read from the pages, he started; "Property of Stanley Pines. Who's that Grunkle Stan? Come to think of it, how come our parents have always called you Grandfather instead of Great-uncle?"
Stan dropped everything he was holding. He didn't even care that several breakables made very distinct shattering noises as he did so.
"It's nothing! You see I uh-" Stan frantically looked around the room. "It's uhh..."
"You're keeping something secret from us!" Dipper accused. "That's breaking your promise!"
"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel chimed in, clucking her tongue in disapproval.
"Yeah, as if you haven't broken yours as well," the man sneered.
"So who is he?" Soos wondered.
With all of their attention on him, Stan realized that there was not much he could do to keep this a secret much longer. How was he supposed to explain this to them without giving everything away? What would their parents do when they found out that he was not exactly "Stanley," the responsible guy who did not have a criminal record?
"Look! I had a twin brother named Stanley and then Bill partly murdered him in some sort of dramatic back story! Ok?!"
"Really?"
Nervously looking around the room, Stan tried to find some way to distract the twins. His eyes rested on the old calendar. Then, inspiration struck. The old man started to laugh, much to the confusion and anger of the twins.
"What? Are you serious?" Stan chuckled. "You actually believed that I somehow managed to hide the fact that I had a sibling for the past thirty years? Didn't you see the calendar today? It's uh... Fake a Relative Day! Get it? You pretend to be related to someone and see if you can fool them! Yeah!"
"B-but what about the picture?" Dipper asked, looking rather forlorn.
"It was part of an old fake identity. A disguise ya' know?" Stan lied.
"This is actually a holiday?" Soos wondered in confusion. "When did that become a-"
Stan purposely nudged the man-child in where his ribs probably were. You couldn't really feel them under all that fat. He seemed to catch on. Good old Soos was always loyal enough to follow along without question.
"I mean yeah! Everyone gets in on it dudes! The goal is to see how many people you can trick!"
"Wouldn't people just know after they remembered what day it was?" Dipper skeptically asked.
"Grunkle Stan, this seems completely bogus."
"Come on! You two liked Summerween didn't ya'?"
"Yeah, but that involved candy." Mabel said with a frown.
"Come on! You guyes will love Fake a Relative Day! I promise!"
Leaving Soos' break room with Mabel, Dipper grumbled, "man, I can't belive we actually fell for it."
"Yeah. I feel like a total dumb-butt." Mabel added. "Well, look on the bright side! It's not like we could fall for the same joke twice."
Just then, the twin's banter was interrupted by something. Sniffling. They heard tiny, muffled sobs coming from somewhere in the hall. Wondering what could be wrong, they followed the direction of the sound, and were lead to the kitchen. To say a strange sight met their eyes was an understatement.
Soos was crying as he ate an entire tub of ice cream. That was Stan's ice cream! Yet the old man did not seem to mind as Soos ate mouthful after mouthful of prune and raisin bran-flavoured ice cream.
"Soos, I know it's hard, but you're stronger than this." Stan comforted. "It's been ten years now."
"I-it's just so hard Mr. Pines! T-they disowned me on Fake a Relative Day! How c-could they d-do that?!"
"What have I told ya'? Gideon and his family are creeps. You're better off without them."
"Gideon?"
The twins asked each other. They watched in hushed awe as Soos held up a picture of himself and the Gleeful family.
"Sometimes it's just so hard to remember that Gideon replaced me there." The man-child sniffled.
"Trust me, you don't want to work there." Stan said.
"B-but what if Gideon tells Dipper and Mabel? They'll hate me! He said if I don't pay him by tomorrow he'll-"
"We don't care!"
Both twins tackled him to the ground, much to both their astonishment.
"You're the greatest friend a guy could have!" Dipper added.
"We'd never hate you because Gideon's your brother!" Mabel said. "Although we would probably avoid going to your family's Christmas parties."
"Would you hate me if I told you that for the second time, you dudes have fallen for Fake a Relative Day?" Soos grinned.
He got to his feet and gave Stan a high-five. The elderly man was actually gleeful enough to return the high-five.
"I can't belive you two fell for it! Again!" The man chuckled.
"Ugh, Grunkle Stan that is so not cool!" Dipper snapped.
"Yeah!" Mabel added.
"I mean twice is way to much!"
"Yeah!" Mabel continued to blindly agree. "We'll get you back for this!"
"Yeah! Wait... How are we supposed to do that?"
The two men kept laughing. Dipper, still embarrassed that he and Mabel were being the butt of the joke again, grabbed his sister and stalked off.
"There you are! My long-lost children! I've found you again!"
Bill was hugging them. They were being hugged by a dream-demon. He was squeezing the breath out of their lungs. It hurt. Dipper was fairly certain Bill had stuck a "kick-me" sign to his back in the process.
"Come on, we're not going to fall for Fake a Relative Day for a third time." Dipper snapped, pushing away the demon.
"Even we're not that gullible!"
Bill stared at Mabel for a moment, and then said, "If you say gullible slowly, it sounds like oranges."
The girl's eyes lit up with delight.
"Really?!" Mabel squealed. "Gulli- wait just a second!"
His bow tie twisted in to a smirk at this. Dipper just looked frustrated with his sister. So maybe they could be tricked from time to time. This was just an exception! He was a master of logic and deductive reasoning! He wouldn't fall for another one of these stupid pranks. Especially when it was a triangular, human being, who probably couldn't get a date with anyone let alone their mother. Their mom hated the colour yellow.
"There's no way you're actually our dad." Dipper sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Why not?" The demon asked.
"Well for starters you're a triangle."
"So what?"
"So you can't be our dad."
"Are you certain? What do you and your dad share in common? Something? Anything?"
"Actually, we both-"
"Thatdoesn'tcount. What about your sister? Is she like him at all?"
"Bill, if anything, this has made me realize that without a doubt, there is no way you could possibly be related to Mabel and I in any way, shape, or form." Dipper paused, pointedly staring at the demon. "Especially when it comes to shape and form."
"Dipper, Dipper. Look at it this way. How do you write the letter Q?"
"Uh? Neatly?"
"OH! So do I! That means we're probably related! It's the unfailing truth!"
Dipper was starting to wonder if maybe Bill was just desperate to adopt kids or something.
"Think Kid! What are your strengths? You're more the type of guy to think things out. You're more brain than brawn! Your "dad" on the other hand has track and field medals plastered over ever surface of your house. He's the epitome of that popular jerk who was on the high school foot ball team. You're not like that kid, you're anything but! Me on the other hand, without my powers it's safe to say that I probably couldn't stand. You think people calling you a stick figure is bad? While try actually being one!"
"T-that doesn't mean anything!" The preteen denied.
"You just tell yourself that." He subtly brought forth a few of the kid's bad memories of his real father.
"You and I are a lot alike kid, you just can't see it yet. You want to know all the secrets if the universe, I happen to know the. You want to be taken seriously with your goals. But it's difficult when no one believes in the supernatural. Me? I like to be taken seriously as well. Not every one seems to realize how much trouble they're really in when I come along."
"We're NOT the same person." Dipper viciously spat.
"Of course we're not the same person!" He laughed.
The demon suddenly floated closer to him, his voice taking on a darker tone.
"But we're close."
That was possibly the worst villainous speech about similarities he had ever heard. In fact, he was fairly certain parts of it had been plagiarized. Nevertheless, his voice faltered.
"S-shut up! I'm nothing like you! You're just trying to make me fall for this stupid Fake a Relative Day joke! Again!"
"Kid, what reason would I have to lie?"
"Psychopaths can be characterized by their compulsive lying."
"I prefer the terms morally ambiguous, and unattached from the burden of empathy! I mean, what reason would I have to lie to my own children?"
"Fake a Relative Day?" Dipper bluntly pointed out.
"But you're my-"
"I'm not your anything! Dipper snapped. "You're not going to get this dumb joke to work on me... Again!"
"Come on kid! You have to admit it makes sense!"
"Bill, you admitting to being our dad on Fake a Relative Day makes it anything but believable! "
"I'm starting to think oranges doesn't sound like gullible when said slowly." Mabel mused to herself. "Oh well, must take practice!"
"What have you always wanted in a parent? Someone who would listen. Right? Someone who would get your crazy stories, know what you were going on about hm? When had your "real" dad ever done any of that for you? When has he ever seen your predicament, and offered a way to make it better for ya'? What has he ever done for you to make up for bringing you into this miserable existence of yours? I mean, why do you even bother to defend him? Forget the mysteries of Gravity Falls, the real question is why you even think a guy like him could care about some scrawny kid like you!"
"T-that's..." Dipper failed at finding the words to describe what he felt. "Right. You've done all that stuff before though. Even if it resulted in my disembodiment."
If Bill had a mouth, he would be grinning.
"Exactly. It makes perfect sense now doesn't it?"
A tiny part of Dipper's mind was fighting this, telling him that it could not possibly be true. But the desire to actually have a parent that didn't think he was crazy, and needed to hang out with more people his age because he was "not normal." How could have he ever been related to guy man who he considered his father? They were nothing alike. Brown eyes? So what?! A million people out there had brown eyes and brown hair to boot! His dad never really cared about what he wanted! The man just saw his failed clone! The weird one who didn't do sports or any of that manly junk!
"It does." Dipper slowly relented.
"Are you convinced now, son?"
The boy gave a hesitant smile. "Y-yeah D-D-Dad, I think I am."
"AH HAHAHA! YOU FELL FOR IT! YOU ACTUALLY FELL FOR IT!"
Bill started to madly cackle, after finally succeeded in persuading Dipper. Right away, the preteen realized that he had been had. Again. Even Mabel started to laugh at him! The Mystery Twin's face flushed bright red.
"Man! It's days like this I love bein' a dream-demon!" Bill laughed, wiping away a tear from his eye. "You're really insecure about your parents kid! Get a therapist or somethin'!"
"T-that's not funny! This is the third time today!"
Neither of them listened, as they both continued to laugh at him. Mabel was the one who now believed that saying oranges sounded like gullible slowly! Why was he the one being laughed at?! Eventually, Bill managed to stop laughing long enough to say, "well that was fun! And I guess while we're on the subject I should tell you that I'm actually Stan's long-lost brother named Stanley who was accidentally turned in to dream-demon after something went wrong with our bid to ultimate power. Which means I'm your grandfather."
"GET OUT!" Dipper snarled, pushing the demon out of the room.
"Yeesh! Where's your sense of humour? Were you born without it or something? That probably would have made the fact that we're not related a lot more obvious!"
Both he and Mabel started to laugh once more.
"Good one Dad!" She giggled.
That stopped Bill's amusement. From where he was, the demon stretched out an arm and pushed her as far away from him as demonically possible.
"Ugh. Don't say stuff like that kid. It's creepy."
"Hypocrite." Dipper grumbled.
"Hey, I'm not ready for parenthood!" The demon shrugged. "Would you trust me with your kids?"
"OUT!"
"Alright, alright, I'm leaving."
With flash of blinding light, he was gone. Dipper stewed in quiet frustration for moment, beyond furious that Fake a Relative Day had managed to trick him. Three times.
Just then, there was knock the door.
"Dipper, go answer the door!" Stan called from somewhere. "It might just be some long-lost relative!"
The old man's laughter rang through the house at this, Mabel joining in once more. Dipper went to go get the door. When he opened it, he was surprised to find man who looked like Grunkle Stan on their door step.
"Oh thank goodness!" The elderly man cried. "Are you Dipper?"
"Yes, that's me."
"Do you still have my journal? If it falls in to the wrong hands-"
"Wait a minute. Your journal?" Dipper asked, not going to fall for it this time.
The man was obviously Stan dressed up. Stan had been outside the whole time and just recorded his voice, which Soos would play as he knocked at the door. He was not going to fall for any more of this!
"Yes! You see, my name is Stanford Pines, Stanley's brother and-"
Slam!
Epilogue...
"Who was it Dipping-Sauce?" Mabel asked.
"No one," Dipper replied. "No one..."
Fin