There's something odd about the Mystery Shack and Dipper's not talking about the overpriced souvenirs or the creepy taxidermied exhibits or even Mr Mystery - a cheerful gopher-like man-child called… Zeus?

Who even names their kid Zeus?

Anyway, Zeus - I think it's Soos, Mabel says at some point, a thoughtful look overtaking her usually bright and cheery grin - doesn't seem to be the cause of the oddness surrounding the Shack, although that is not to say the chubby man isn't hiding something.

In fact, Dipper's almost certain Soos is hiding something - granted, the man doesn't have a single malicious bone in his body, but the male Pines twin can't imagine how such a nice guy can end up in such a dodgy place, using lies as a source of income. It's incomprehensible.

Then again, this whole business begins with something that doesn't make much sense.

...

If Mabel and Dipper have to agree on when it all started, they'll both say it started when high school finished.

The last day finishes normally enough - full of excitement that comes with the end of school - and then they arrive home to find their parents waiting with a letter that'd only arrived earlier that day.

Then, the bombshells start dropping, bombshells like, oh, by the way, you have two great uncles but they're dead and apparently they've left this old house up in Oregon for you. Well, not you-you, but for the rest of the family, and since we're the last of the Pines, it's technically for you.

Of course, their parents word it a little more delicately.

(Mabel chooses and uses the appropriate response. "...What the hey-hey?", mainly because they didn't even know of any great-uncles, just their Grandpa Shermie.)

For a while, Dipper and Mabel decide to leave the house alone - because it's the end of school, and they should be celebrating and partying and whatnot, but as per usual, Dipper's curiosity kicks in and then Mabel has to go with him because they're twins, and twins stick together, and wherever they go, they go together.

And off to Gravity Falls they go, on a rickety old bus with a dangerously sputtering engine that threatens to stop halfway.

By the time the bus limps into the sleepy town, it's already near sun-down. The twins - or rather, their grumbling stomachs - decide to visit the town's diner, where they're served pancakes-

("Mabel, you can't have pancakes for dinner. We're nearly eighteen, for goodness sake!"

"Try and stop me, bro-bro!")

-and other responsible foods that adults eat.

It's there that they ask the locals about the abandoned house in the woods - only to hear that it isn't abandoned, at all.

"Oh, that?" Lazy Susan laughs. "That's the old Mystery Shack. Soos' been running ever since… ah, well...er, never mind all that!"

Susan doesn't bother to elaborate, and before Dipper can sink his teeth into this new mystery, other patrons of the diner add in their own observations.

"It's a tourist trap!"

"Weird noises come outta that place at night!"

("That's just the plumbing."

"Oh, right.")

"It's got termites!"

"Soos holds the best parties - the exit fee's a killer, though."

"That place is totally haunted," a hoodied, dark-haired man remarks, peering over the back of Mabel's seat and into the twins' booth. "There's this creepy old gargoyle that keeps moving around."

"How do you know?" Dipper asks, curious, oblivious to the shushing motions the other patrons make at the hoodied man behind his back.

"Friend of mine - Wendy - works there," the man shrugs, quickly wisening up to the other townfolks' glares of shut-it-Robbie-they're-outsiders. "She never says much about it, though."

"Huh," Dipper mutters, more to himself than anyone else - and Mabel recognises the glazed look in his eyes. It's Dipper's I'm-going-to-solve-this-mystery look, and it means sleepless nights and chewed pens and half-eaten shirts.

"Dipper," Mabel starts, but it's too late.

"Why don't we go take a look?" Dipper suggests brightly. "I mean, right after we find a hotel? I mean, I know we weren't planning to look for one-"

"Oh?" Susan asks, refiling Dipper's coffee mug. "Why not? Weren't you going to stay in town?"

"Well, we were," Mabel shares a look with Dipper, "but we were thinking of camping out at the Shack before we knew that it wasn't abandoned."

A stern look flits across Susan's face. "Why would you even consider sleeping there? How did you hear of the place?"

"Well," Mabel takes a deep breath, and launches into the tale of how they only recently found out that they had great uncles who they never even heard of before, and how the Shack'd been left to them, although technically it hadn't been left to them specifically, but rather to the remaining Pines family-

"Oh!" Susan's smile is back. "Why, you should've said you two were Pines'."

"Does it really make a difference?"

"Of course. Stanford Pines was a good man. Him and his brother. Although," she adds to herself, lost in thought, "I still get them mixed up."

Susan's called away by the cook, but as she leaves, both twins hear her mutter, "Which one was the gargoyle, again?"

There isn't a single gargoyle in sight when the twins get to the Mystery Shack.

Or, the Mystery Hack, if the sign on the roof is to be trusted.

(Mabel spots the 'S' lying in the grass around the back of the Shack, and something with a red pointy hat darts away from the letter and into the woods before she can get a closer look at it.)

"Oh, hey dudes. Sorry, but the Shack's closed," the man on the porch says as he locks the door behind him, before getting a closer look at Dipper, squinting through the darkness. "What the- Mister Pines!"

Before Dipper can react, he's grabbed by his shoulders and shaken by a hysterical gopher-human hybrid.

"Mister Pines!" the man wails. "What did they do to you?! You've shrunk! You're young again!"

Dipper panics, and when he panics, Mabel panics too.

And so, it's not really a surprise when the attack glitter comes out.

Dipper hacks up another lungful of glitter - being caught in the crossfire of attack glitter is never fun - even as Mabel apologises to Soos. "Ohmigosh, I'm so sorry!"

"Eh," Soos wipes at watering eyes, dislodging little flakes of glitter from his face, "don't worry about it, dawg. I woulda done the same, come to think of it."

They're sitting on the porch of the Shack, exchanging apologies and explanations after it becomes apparent that the rotund man doesn't mean any harm.

"So, you two are twins, hey?" Soos ruffles his hair, and a tiny shower of glitter accompanies the movement.

"I'm Dipper Pines," Dipper introduces himself.

"And I'm Mabel!" Mabel enthusiastically shakes Soos' hand.

"Soos Ramirez at your service," Soos grins, then looks at Dipper again. "Sorry, dude. You really do look like Mr Pines."

"You knew our great-uncle?"

"Yeah! I work for him," Soos replies, and Dipper hides a frown when he hears Soos refer to his great-uncle in the present tense.

"Er," Dipper tries to think of a delicate way of saying it, and settles with, "how long has it been since you took over the Mystery Shack?"

Soos pauses, thinking, then counts off the years on his fingers. "One, two, three, four- Five! It's been five years. Woah," his eyes widen, "that's a long time."

"Our great-uncles have been dead for five years?!" Dipper blurts out, unable to help himself even as he hears the shocked gasp from Mabel.

("Dipper," she hisses, "you can't just say that!")

"Dead?" Soos repeats, a little incredulously. "Wha- Oh. Right, dead," he laughs nervously. "Yep, they're totally dead. Deader than a dodo. I'm totally not lying to you."

Dipper raises an eyebrow.

Soos babbles on. "At all. This is not a lie."

Dipper can't help but think Soos is lying.

It's clear that the twins won't take over the Shack - will or no will, Dipper and Mabel are not going to kick Soos out from the Shack.

("Aw, thanks, dudes.")

Soos is kind enough to drive the twins back to the hotel before returning to his abuelita's house. Apparently, Soos never spends the night at the Shack.

"It doesn't feel, right, you know?" Soos admits on the pick-up truck drive back. "I mean, the Shack isn't really mine."

Regardless, Soos offers to show the twins around in the morning. "It's a great place! You'll love it - well, I love it, anyway."

Dipper, unsurprisingly, is the one who jumps at the opportunity. He still has a mystery to solve, after all. Mabel rolls her eyes, knowing exactly why her brother wants to go visit the creepy wooden building, but she doesn't say anything to disagree.

After all, the whole reason they're in Gravity Falls is the Mystery Shack. Might as well see the place before they go back.

"Mabel," Dipper asks his sister, without taking his eyes off the newest addition to the Shack, "is… is it wearing boxers?"

The newest addition in question is a large, human-sized stone statue perched on the roof of the Shack, hunched over and pulling a face in the direction of the woods. The large, menacing wings and horns leave no doubt in Dipper's mind that it's the gargoyle - something he's sure wasn't there the night before.

Maybe.

(Then again, it was pretty dark last night, so Dipper isn't that sure.)

Mabel tilts her head and squints through the bright sunlight, studying the gargoyle. "And a wifebeater. And a fez."

"...why?" Dipper throws his hands up in frustration. It doesn't make sense. "Why is it wearing that?"

"Simple," Mabel shakes her head at her brother. "It's modern art, bro."

Dipper groans, "Don't get started on the modern art again, Mabel."

Mabel giggles as she tugs Dipper towards the front door of the Shack. "Come on, Soos' probably waiting for us."

As it turns out, Soos is quite capable of spinning a tale and capturing the attention of a group of gullible tourists. Dipper and Mabel can see that the exhibits are fake, and they see right through Soos' attempts at squeezing the suckers dry.

It's amazing how much people will pay just to look at some fake exhibits.

(At one point, Mabel's pretty sure the so-called Tri-Goaticorn is just a goat with an extra horn strapped to its head with fur dyed a hot pink. She squees over it anyway.)

"And behold," Soos finishes the tour with a single feather set up behind a glass case, "a genuine Sphinx feather!"

The tourists' reactions are less than impressed.

"It's a fake," someone mutters from the safety found in the anonymity of a crowd.

Soos gasps. "It is not! You take that back!"

When the culprit doesn't identify himself, Soos falls back into the Mr Mystery persona, and directs the tourists toward the gift shop, telling the group to purchase the overpriced knick-knacks.

"So, what do you think?" Soos asks, a little nervously as he makes his way to the twins.

It's ridiculous, Dipper stops himself from saying, and scrambles for something nice to say.

"It's amazing!" Mabel squeals, looking at the glitter-covered half-monkey half-fish display.

Dipper sighs in relief. "Y-yeah, it's great!"

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the weather. Throughout the day, dark, heavy clouds, gather overhead, and by midday, a strong gale whips up, sending leaves, twigs and dirt scattering in all directions.

The twins, who'd only planned to stay there for half of the day, find themselves trapped for the whole day. The storm starts, and rain pours down by the buckets. Tourists stop showing up to the Shack after that, since the old building's sitting on a dusty - now very muddy and treacherous - road.

Incidentally, the three humans in the Shack can't leave either.

Mabel looks on the bright side of things when night falls and the storm is still raging. "It'll be just like a sleepover!"

While Soos takes up the idea happily, Dipper isn't quite so eager. In the day, the Shack's a decrepit but definitely-not-scary building in the woods. At night…

Well, there's the weird sounds, the low growls, coming from the floorboards, along with some muffled scratching.

"It's just the raccoons," Soos shrugs, then continues to help Mabel drag dusty blankets from a closet to the living room.

Dipper pokes his head into the closet, eyes widening when he catches sight of the object. "Aaaaaah!" he squeals, sounding remarkably like his female twin.

"Dipper?!" Mabel runs up the stairs in alarm, only to trip and face-plant at the top. She pries herself off the floorboards without batting an eye, rushing to her twin's side. "What is it?"

Dipper whirls around, clutching a flat box in his hands. "It's Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons! It's the controversial 1991-1992 version!"

"Ugh! Not that nerd game!"

Soos, fortunately, has managed to get the old tv in the living room to work, so that they don't have to spend the night playing the nerd board game.

Unfortunately, the power goes out half an hour into the cheesy movie - 'The Lady Endorses' or something ridiculous like that - and the three of them are left, blinking in the sudden darkness.

"You guys have a flashlight?" Soos asks out of the darkness, only to be answered by Mabel's phone screen lighting up.

"Nope," she says. "Got my trusty phone instead."

There isn't much to do after that - the power's gone, and no one (except maybe Dipper) wants to play a board game, so the three retire for the night.

Dipper ignores the howling wind, the growls from the plumbing and the occasional scratches from the raccoons.

Surprisingly, they're all asleep in moments.

Dipper is not in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night.

Dipper is, however, in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to comfort his sibling if she ever has a nightmare.

Or an urge to suddenly explore the Shack and its weird noises.

"Dipper, this one was different," Mabel insists in a whisper as they creep pass the snoring Soos and into the hallway. "It wasn't the plumbing's growls. It was the plumbing itself."

Dipper, who's still half asleep, forms out a very articulate "Whuh-?" before shaking his head. "What do you mean," he asks, more awake.

"Listen," Mabel presses her ear against the wall. "There's water rushing through the pipes."

Dipper follows suite, and listens. "Are you sure? I mean, it could be just the rain-"

"No, it's definitely the pipes," Mabel insists. "I would know."

"And how would you…?"

"We do not talk about the pipes," Mabel shakes a finger at Dipper. "Ever. Like the Lamby Lamby-"

"Okay, okay," Dipper quickly retracts his questions. "You've made your point."

The twins follow the gurgling sound of the pipes up the stairs and to the bathroom. It's there that they hear the sound clearly - the unmistakable sound of running water from the showerhead and a odd rhythmic growl that might be passed off as humming.

"You don't think that-?" Dipper looks at Mabel in panic.

"There's an intruder!" Mabel finishes in a frightened whisper.

They arm themselves - Mabel with her pillow and Dipper with a nearby stool.

"On three," Dipper whispers.

Mabel nods. Then, she shrieks out, "Three!" before throwing the door open.

There's something with grey, stone-like skin sitting in the bathtub, and the showerhead's sending a fine stream of water cascading down its back, where the creature is scrubbing away with a shower brush between his wings. He starts to turn at the noise. "Ford, for the last time, quit bargin' in here. I get to use this bathroom every other night, and I don't care how matted your fur gets-"

He stops, eyes wide at the sight of the two teens at the doorway.

Then they all scream.

(Meanwhile, deep in the basement, a pair of lion-like ears twitch towards the sound, before the owner of the ears sighs in exasperation. "Oh, for goodness sake, Stanley.")

Dipper and Mabel are screaming because it's the fricking gargoyle from the roof, and the gargoyle is screaming because who wouldn't scream if they are caught in the shower by two strangers?

The gargoyle pauses in his screaming long enough to snag a nearby towel and cover himself. "Holy fu-" he stops. "Wait a minute, how old are you kids?"

"Seventeen," Mabel answers, still in shock.

"Technically almost an adult," Dipper adds automatically.

"Still a kid, then," the gargoyle muses, then switches the expletive for something more kid-friendly. "Hot Belgian Waffles! Don't you know how to knock?!"

That snaps the twins out of their daze.

"Die, Weeping Angel!" Mabel's war-cry is accompanied by a wallop to the creature's head with her pillow.

"Geez-" the gargoyle grunts when the pillow connects with his face again. He catches the feathered pillow the next time Mabel swings, rips it from her grasp and tosses it through the still open door. "Will ya stop that?"

Mabel squeaks in fear and ducks behind Dipper, who holds up the chair in the same manner one might if one happens to be facing off a circus lion. "Get back!" Then, his curiosity gets the better of him. "How are you moving? You were stone! You're a gargoyle."

"Yep," the gargoyle rolls his eyes, grasps the stool and tosses it after the pillow before shoving the twins out the door and locking it behind them. "And I'm also taking a shower."

Fifteen minutes later, when the gargoyle finishes with his shower, he steps outside to find the twins still gaping at him. "What? I got something on my face?"

They continue to stare.

The gargoyle, seeing no changes in their facial expressions except for a sporadic twitch in the boy's left eyelid, sighs. "Follow me."

And when the gargoyle slowly shuffles down the stairs, spiked tail swinging from side to side as he walks, the twins follow hesitantly.

Soos, who's been woken up by all the screaming, is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey, Soos," the gargoyle grunts as they pass by.

"Hey, Mister Pines."

Dipper and Mabel stop, look at Soos and then at the gargoyle's retreating back. "Wait - what?!"