This fic is based on the Alex Hirsch cameos throughout the entire series, and just a little thing I've been thinking about for a while. After hearing the news of Gravity Falls coming to an end, I decided it was time to type it up. The news broke me up, but I stand by Alex, and I see his reasoning, so while I will mourn the loss of a great tv show, I will smile that it ended how it was always meant to.
At first, it didn't really bother Dipper. Than man. Gravity Falls was a town, and people lived in a town. He was used to seeing the same familiar people, it was just how life was in the small town. That man looked like any other man, in a broad sense. Two eyes, two arms and a pair of legs. A nose. A mouth. Nothing worth taking note of. His hair was reddish brown, and the only shirt he seemed to own was a red flannel one, and Dipper had pretty much assumed that he was probably Corduroy.
It was a little while after coming to this conclusion to his head that while Dipper was talking to Wendy one day, he asked who That Man was and how he was related to Wendy. Wendy's face clouded with conclusion and she reached for her wallet, pulling out a small family photo and holding it out.
"You mean my brothers?" She questioned, and Dipper shook his head.
"No, he's an adult. Like, in his thirties or something."
"But not my dad?" Wendy persisted, and Dipper shook his head. "Sorry dude, but this is my entire family right here. It is possible for more people than just us to wear plaid you know." She gave a small smile, and the conversation drifted off to other topics as Mabel came into the room with a hot glue gun and a pair of Stan's glasses in the other hand, now bedazzled, and asked Dipper and Wendy to help her decide what color ribbon to put on them.
But That Man never quite left Dipper's mind.
A few days later he asked Mabel to help him put together an actual investigation of That Man. She agreed, of course, and they went one a mission going around town asking people what they knew about That Man. The results were disheartening. Nothing noteworthy was brought up. He didn't have a name, no one knew where he lived, no one was even really sure how long he had been around Gravity Falls.
"Lazy Susan, what can you tell us about this man." Dipper asked, holding up a polaroid of the man taken from the side. Lazy Susan gave it a good look before nodding to herself.
"Yeah, I know 'im. He comes here often, always loves my pie." She smiled, to herself, recalling some memory. "Now that I really think about it, I don't know much about that fellow in particular. He seems to pop back up and disappear again all the time. In fact, I seem to remember seeing a man that looked a lot like him about thirty years ago." Mabel elbowed Dipper and gave him a owlish look.
Things had officially taken a turn for the supernatural.
After that the mission became something more permanent. They began to try and follow the man around, sneaking around town and trying to figure out his habits, where he lived, anything really. Dipper and Mabel didn't find out much more than they already knew. Some days he went to the diner, to the market, sometimes bowling, on one occasion even to the Mystery Shack. But no matter how hard they tried, something would always happen, and they'd always lose track of the man.
The man's voice was normal, with a comfortable and familiar sound, that shouldn't stand out as much as it did in a crowd. But sometimes, his voice sounded a little too much like Grunkle Stan. Or Soos. Or McGucket, or countless other residents in Gravity Falls. And sometimes, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Sometimes it sounded a little too much like Bill's.
But then life continued to happen, and suddenly they were busy with ghosts, and giant bats, and helping Soos get a girlfriend, and there was no time for investigating a practically fruitless investigation. They were caught up in bigger and better things, and Stan was not what he seemed at all, and their entire world had been spun on its' axis, twisted upside down, and then turned inside out. The strange man in the red flannel didn't even cross Dippers' mind. It wasn't until several weeks had passed that he came up again.
Ever since Ford had stepped into their lives, things had changed in the Mystery Shack, and one of those things was that slowly but surely, scrapbooks had been appearing on the shelves. There were always covered in dust, and every time Dipper or Mabel commented on them, Grunkle Stan would just grunt, or say nothing, and get a melancholic look on his face. Dipper wondered how long it had been since Stan had looked at them, had allowed himself to see the face of his own twin.
So Dipper and Mabel pulled out a random book and sat down at the table with Stan, flipping through the pages and asking about the circumstances. Stan's first boxing match. Ford posing with awards. Both twins standing with their prom dates. Then, a picture of the Science fair, setting up Ford's project, and Dipper felt his stomach drop.
There, among the people milling around in the background, was a man with subtly ginger/brown hair wearing a red flannel shirt.
Dipper stands up, and his chair squeals against the wooden floor. Mabel and Stan look up at him questioningly, but he shakes his head slightly.
"I-I'm going to be right back." Dipper left the two of them standing there, as he did his best to head to town. He was going to get to the bottom of this right now. This was officially beyond Gravity Falls. That was all the way in New Jersey, the opposite side of the entire country. It was like the man was following them, the Pines family. It was eerie, and Dipper felt like a cold hand was gripping his heart.
He found That Man sitting on a bench, just, watching the people of the town mill around, and he allowed his feet to take a small rest, walking towards the man. When he was a few feet away, the man looked up, saw Dipper, and began to stand up, and walk in the opposite direction.
"No! Wait!" Dipper sped up, just enough that he could grab onto the edge of the man's sleeve. "Who are you? What are you? Why have you been following us?" Dipper asked, pleaded really, because at this point, he needed to know. That was all he needed. Was to know.
And That Man looked at him, and the look at his eyes made Dipper pause. Because it wasn't angry, or threatening, or make Dipper want to turn tail and run away like Bill's did. It was… proud, but also kind of sad, bittersweet. A kind of, fatherly look was there, empathetic and caring, and Dipper felt himself let go of the sleeve.
"You're doing great, Dipper." That Man took off Dipper's hat and patted his head, ruffling his hair before placing the hat back on his head. The man began to walk away again, before pausing, and looking back at Dipper, that same odd look in his eyes. "My name's Alex."
Later, Dipper would tell Mabel what had happened, and they'd theorize until late into the night, but they would never quite decide what That Man – Alex – was. They would both decide that maybe it was better that way. Alex continued to pop up in odd places, like when they went on the road trip, but Dipper would resist the urge to go after him.
In the attic, on the corkboard, the picture of That Man stayed up, the name 'Alex' placed underneath it.