7/14: I cleaned it up a bit and expanded some parts. Mostly the dream part. Speaking of which, emetophobia warning. There is vomit in this fic.
"Of course, you don't get it," Stanford scoffed, turning on his heel and storming out of the hallway. He refused to acknowledged Stanley's outstretched hand. Stanford hoped his arm got tired and fell off. "You never did."
Stanford sauntered into the kitchen, stopping by the outlet next to the sink to grab the coffee pot.
"Where's the damn coffee maker, Lee?" he growled when his hand met thin air.
"Wouldn't you like to know, Poindexter?" Stanley's voice came from his above-ground research room. His eyes flicked toward the doorway. It was a living room now. Typical.
"Just tell me where- Oh. There it is." He slapped a hand down his face when he found it. And... it was empty. Of course. An energy, two parts fury and one part nervousness, flowed through him. Since he'd left the portal, his whole body had been shaking. He just needed coffee. "Have they invented some new way to inject caffeine into your system?"
"There's always Mabel Juice," Stanley's voice gained a playful maliciousness with this comment.
"Elaborate?" Stanford pulled open a cupboard. The silverware rattled angrily at him. He pulled at a fork and picked at the stains on the tips. Rust? Of course, Stanley had always been careless.
"'S in the fridge. At the corner of sugar village and nightmare valley," his brother shuddered, but he followed it up with a gruff, barking laugh.
Stanford stiffened. Couldn't he just stay mad or cry or something? Another large jolt of energy ripped through him, tingling in his arms. He dropped the fork and wandered to the fridge. He hated coffee but he also hated sleep, so he supposed this "Mabel Juice" would suffice.
"Is it purple?" Stanford grimaced at the strange mounds of dough on the second shelf. There was a gritty texture to them as if someone had put in far too much sugar. "I'm assuming it's a liquid."
"Bingo, sciencemancer."
There was a click and then a series of loud noises. He groaned, dragging the pitcher from the fridge.
"There's a dinosaur in it. Is there supposed to be a dinosaur?" Stanford called, not expecting a response. His prediction was proven correct and he returned to rifling through the cupboards. He reached into the sea of mugs, surprised to see a familiar purple handle. He turned the mug over in his hands, tracing one pink and green triangle with his thumb. ScienceCon 1975. There it was, the chip from when Fiddleford had let it slip from his shaking hands. He remembered his own clenched fists, the way he'd buzzed with anger. He was certain that Fiddleford did not.
There was a dark ring around the top of the mug that wasn't there before.
Stanley leaned back in his chair, one hand digging into the fading fabric on the armrest and the other wrapped around the remote. He ran his hand down the armrest, feeling the ridges in the fabric. Some lines were worn down and discolored. His finger rose and fell in some tiny unit of measurement he didn't know. Stanford would have, though.
He frowned at a commercial for a psychic hotline. He changed the channel. Women in ruffled dresses, dancing in a wide hall. He changed the channel. A pale man reaching for an equally pale woman's hand. He changed the channel. A man yelling in Spanish, probably at his secret evil brother who had stolen his fiance. He changed the channel.
Ducktective. The kids would have liked that.
He considered going to the kitchen to make some popcorn. He imagined himself standing beside the microwave, Stanford an arms length away, listening to but not seeing the kernels overheat and explode.
He turned his head, looking into the kitchen. Stanford was gulping down whatever was in his mug. The mug clinked against the table and he eagerly refilled it, purple liquid spilling over the rim.
Stanley chuckled.
"What're you laughing at?"
A laugh track hissed in front of him, prompting Stanley's giggles to grow into raucous laughter. His life was a terrible farce and finally the laugh track was playing at the right parts.
"The tv, stupid. It's a funny show. This duck, he- he solves mysteries. But he's still a duck." Stanley swiped at the tears running down his face as he laughed. "It's hilarious."
"If you say so. I never did like television. It's gotten worse, I assume."
"It's- it's terrible."
Mabel stared at the ceiling. She turned on her side and picked at the knot in the wooden wall panel. The gentle swirls of the wood met and formed a big mass in the middle. Like a ball of yarn.
"I can't sleep either, Michelle," Mabel sighed, running a hand over one line from the isolated edge of the swirl down to the black hole middle.
She screwed her eyes shut and tugged at the sleeves of her nightgown. She flopped over, eyeing the lump of blankets across the room. Dipper's foot had sneaked it's way out of the comforter. How did he sleep with his socks on?
Mabel liked the feel of the wood floor against her feet, the way the skin on her heels was growing thick and hard. She pulled at a string of tough skin on her left heel, took a deep breath, and twisted it off. She ran a hand over her foot, sticking her thumb in the dip on her heel.
"See ya, Stantonio," she whispered, christening the bit of skin as it dropped to the floor.
The rest of her feet quickly followed Stantonio. Mabel tip toed from board to board, making a face if one creaked. It was a game; if she woke up Dipper, she would lose.
She slipped into the closet, curling up into the back corner. She reached up and tugged at a couple sweaters. They tumbled down, hangers and all. Mabel peeked out the door, frowning when the Dipper-lump squirmed.
She plucked up the sweaters, retreating into the corner. It was hard to see but she could tell they were the one with the shooting star on it and the one with the puppy playing basketball on it. She tugged on the puppy one. The last time she wore it, Dipper had told her that it was great that she was weird. Ever since, she'd wanted to ask if he still thought that. But no one ever liked when she asked them the same thing all the time. So she tried to stop.
Mabel nuzzled into the sweater. The yarn she had used was from the best skein she'd ever gotten, so soft and fluffy. She'd been sad when it was all used up. More and more yarn had replaced it but she'd never found that kind again. Her father had picked it up at a failing craft store and she had thrown away the little paper that kept the yarn together as soon as she got it. After that, she'd started a scrapbook for the papers, surrounding them with bright borders and gluing in pictures of the things she'd made with the yarn on the same page.
Mabel tried to focus on the scrapbook, the sweater. She'd start a new scrapbook soon, for Stanford. Some new family caticatures would be necessary as well.
If she reminded them that they were family, Stanford wouldn't be so mad at Grunkle Stan. She tried to imagine a smile on Stanford's face, but his eyebrows stayed furrowed. She imagined them moving up and down, then wiggling off his face like tiny caterpillars. They caterpillars made beautiful, glittery cocoons and grew up to be hairy butterflies with big, bedazzled wings. She forced out a giggle at the thought, the sound muffled by the sweater covering her face and the hair in her mouth. She pulled the lock of hair from her mouth and tucked it behind her ear.
In her mind, she saw herself crawling from the closet on all fours and slithering into Dipper's bed.
"Mabel?" Dipper would say, too loudly but it would be okay because they weren't asleep.
"Dipper, let's go downstairs and watch tv with Grunkle Stan. No- no! Let's go into that portal and find a dimension where kids stay kids for, like, a bazillion forevers and bring the Stans and since they only let kids in, they'll turn into kids and be so adorable and friends again and we'll go on adventures with them and we'll-"
Mabel couldn't imagine what Dipper would say to her, but she was sure that he'd stop her there.
Dipper jerked awake. He had fallen in his dream, having tried to climb a set of stairs up to the Shack which were suddenly not there. And weren't there in real life either. The staircase had been spiraled like the ones that led into the bunker, but with a rickety wooden handrail. A knot in the wood blinked at him as he made his way up- an eye. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he fought the feeling that someone was still watching him.
He stared at the painting hanging on the wall, wondering if Stanley or Stanford- the Author! - had bought it. Maybe the Author had made it, he mused. The guy was pretty good at art. And science and everything. Dipper wanted to talk to him, to pick his brain. Then he wanted to tell him all of the things he'd learned from his books.
Dipper tried to imagine the man nodding at his stories, a small smile tugging at his lips and admiration shimmering in his eyes. But his brain couldn't picture the man quite right. He kept seeing Grunkle Stan, waving away Dipper's comments while he knew they were all true.
He squinted up at the boat, frozen on its journey to nowhere from nowhere. He glanced at the lamp beside him. He shouldn't wake Mabel up. The springs groaned as he pulled himself to his feet and pulled the ponderous frame from the wall. It was a bit too heavy for him and he toppled over, his cheek hitting the sticky-smooth surface of his uncovered mattress.
Dipper scrambled up. Luckily, the painting had fallen on his hefty comforter. He squinted at the signature in the bottom right corner.
Stanley Pines.
He picked at the staples holding the cardboard backing of the picture. The back popped off easily, a small scrap of paper fluttering into his sheets.
Stanford,
Ok, I didn't paint it. Got it in a thrift shop and stuck my name on it. Pretty funny, eh?
-Stanley
P.S. You still up for a sail?
Dipper frowned and wedged the letter back in the frame. Of course. The only artist his Grunkle Stan was was a con artist. He stuck it back on the wall and wrapped himself up in his blankets, promising himself he'd go back to sleep. Somehow, he managed to keep this promise. And he dreamed once more.
Of a boat sailing through a dark ocean, crashing into an office building where he, Dipper Pines, worked pushing papers with a broken push broom. The papers turn into summerween candy wrappers. The floors and walls simply stop in one corner, dropping away into misty nothingness. He pushes the wrappers over the edge, into Mabel's glittering jack-o-melon. She's dressed as Darth Vader. If she's Darth Vader, then who is he supposed to be? He didn't have a brother; his family was dead.
He reaches for Mabel, who is still twelve when he is, he is old. He grabs her red sweater and she is tall with graying hair and Grunkle Stan's face. He tries to speak but a thickness has crept up his throat. He is unable to stop it, the burning that pours from his mouth. Tears prickle at the corners of his eyelids but it won't leave him, the murky water gathering in his soul. The man who was Mabel and is not Grunkle Stan turns away from him. He opens his mouth to shout for him to return, to come back home and the letters pour out. Not words, not codes, but pasta building blocks. Alphabet soup.
A pool of letters gathers in his hands as the red hot soup slips between his fingers. He tries to arrange them, but the hot dog chunks of his heart choke him. His hands reach up to claw at his throat where soup leaks from the holes burned through his skin. He can't speak.
A-U-T-H-O-R. A-U-T-H-O-R. E-Y-E-S S-E-E M-E. D-O Y-O-U S-E-E M-E?
Suddenly, he is fine. He is sitting on the old T-Rex head, his hands clutching the coffee-stained doily. Grunkle Stan is wearing a long coat and watching tv but it's just static. He can see Old Man McGucket screaming in the static snow.
Grunkle Stanford Author presses the memory gun into his hands and points down the hall. Mabel stands there, staring. She only has one eye, placed high on her forehead.
He knows the moment he sees her. He fumbles with the dial, trembling. She'll be happy when she forgets. They'll never fight, never ruin each other like Grunkle Stan and Stanford.
He walks toward her.
She burps and a bubble-gum pink speech bubble floats out of her mouth. "What does it say?" the bubble screams as it pops.
"My brother, Dipper Pines," he answers with unsettling ease.
Writer's woes: the new episode had me writing like crazy! I'm going to try to post more, if possible!
Hope you liked!