Sixer the Cat

by nicnac918

"Is that why they threw you out? Cause you've got six fingers?" Stan asked. He picked the kitten up, and the thing really was tiny. He could practically fit in the palm of Stan's hand. "That's crazy. Having six fingers ain't a bad thing. I even… I…" The kitten had closed his eyes now and was purring loudly, like he liked that Stan was holding him or something. Like he liked Stan.

Tomorrow was not going to be a good day for Stan. Tomorrow was going to be the eighteenth anniversary of Ford falling into the portal. Stan could already feel the tendrils curling up from the base of his spine that tomorrow would be sitting heavy and dark in his gut. He could already hear the indistinct whispers at the back of his head that tomorrow would be voices telling he was useless, worthless, good-for-nothing and never would be.

But that was tomorrow. Today he was going to the store to get groceries while he still had the energy. He was walking out of the store, in no real rush since he actually paid for most of them this time. As much fun as throwing a smoke bomb and making a break for it was, he couldn't do that every time; the store might get it into their heads to actually ban him if he did. Besides, he had enough energy to go to the store, but he didn't know that he had the energy for that.

There was a thump that came from down the side of the store, and Stan froze. Then he immediately told himself off for being stupid. Gravity Falls might be a dangerous place in some ways, but it wasn't the kind of dangerous place where people came out at you from back alleys – the people weren't the dangerous part of this town.

There was another thump, this time accompanied by a high-pitch mewing. Stan peered down there and saw a tiny grey ball of fluff pawing at the dumpster. Little guy could probably smell food in the thing and couldn't figure out why he couldn't get at it.

Stan watched the kitten paw uselessly at the dumpster for another few seconds before he couldn't take it anymore. He set his grocery bags down so he could reach into his jacket and pulled out one of the packets of tuna he'd stashed in there – he didn't like tuna all that much, and it's not like he'd paid for it anyway. The kitten looked over at the sound of the packet being open, then eyed Stan warily as he set the food on the ground. As soon as Stan stepped away the kitten attacked it, eating ravenously.

"Yeah, I've been there," Stan said, watching the little guy shovel the food down like he thought someone was going to take it from him. "What are you doing out here on the streets anyway? You're pretty good-looking for being born a stray, and you're too young and cute for your family to have thrown you out on your ear already."

The kitten didn't answer because of course it didn't; it was a cat. Stan was spending way too much time cooped up alone in his basement if he was talking to animals. Not that he had any other option.

"Okay, well, you enjoy your food. Good luck to ya," Stan said. He picked his groceries up again, turned around, and walked away.

Suddenly he felt something thump against the back of his leg. Stan turned around and the kitten had abandoned the food to run up to Stan and now was standing up on his hind legs with his front paws resting against Stan's leg. The kitten mewed at him, showing off his tiny pink mouth.

"I ain't got nothing else for you," Stan said, stepping away again.

This time the kitten ran around in front of Stan, jumping up on Stan's shoe and digging his little claws into Stan's pants. "Hey, look I was just helping you out a little from one formerly homeless guy to another currently homeless one. I wasn't…" Stan trailed off. He had bent down to dislodge the kitten and he saw something that he hadn't noticed before. The kitten's back paws looked usual, but his two front paws had six claws each.

"Is that why they threw you out? Cause you've got six fingers?" Stan asked. He picked the kitten up, and the thing really was very tiny. He could practically fit in the palm of Stan's hand. "That's crazy. Having six fingers ain't a bad thing. I even… I…" The kitten had closed his eyes now and was purring loudly, like he liked that Stan was holding him or something. Like he liked Stan.

Stan sighed and tucked the kitten inside his jacket. The kitten grabbed onto Stan's shirt so Stan could feel each of his twenty-two claws pricking against his skin. "You stay quiet in there," Stan said. "I don't want anyone thinking I've gone soft." The kitten kept right on purring.

Eighteen years. It had been eighteen years since Ford had fallen through that portal, and eighteen years since Stan had failed to save his brother, and eighteen years of Stan continuing to fail to save him. Stan and Ford hadn't even had eighteen years together – Stan had only been seventeen when he got kicked out of the house. Ford had known the stuff on the other side of the portal for longer than he'd known his own brother. Assuming he wasn't already dead.

What was the point of this anyway? It wasn't like Stan was ever going to get the portal working again. It wasn't like he was ever going to save his brother. It wasn't like Ford would care if he did. Ford couldn't care because Ford was dead because Stan had killed him. All this was Stan's fault because he was a cheat and a liar and a screw-up who hadn't done a single worthwhile thing in his whole life and never would. What was the point of even trying? What was the point of even getting out of bed? He would stay here until he wasted away to nothing and do the whole world a favor.

There was a thump as something landed on his side. Stan was confused about it in a vague, distant, couldn't-really-muster-up-the-energy-to-care way until the something began kneading at the blanket on top of Stan and purring. The kitten. Stan had brought a kitten home yesterday and the little guy was probably hungry because Stan couldn't even manage to get up to feed him.

Stan rolled over onto his back, sending the kitten tumbling onto the bed. He recovered quickly, jumping up on Stan's chest to look him in the face. The kitten leaned in and very gently bit Stan's nose, not hard enough to hurt, just enough that Stan could feel his little teeth pressing against his skin, and then licked him three times with a raspy tongue. Weirdly, it did make Stan feel better. Maybe because even though Stan hadn't bothered to feed him or pay attention to him at all today, the kitten still liked him anyway. Maybe even if Stan never bothered to get out of bed again, the kitten would still like him anyway.

"Okay, you little sixer, let's see about getting you some food," Stan said. Maybe he couldn't save his brother, but Stan could do this much. He could get out of bed and feed his cat.

It took him another hour to manage it, with the little sixer cuddling up with him and purring the entire time, but Stan finally got down to the kitchen and put a bowl of cat food down. He knew he should get some food for himself too, but the heavy dark feeling in his stomach made even the thought of food make him feel a bit sick. He did force himself to pour a glass of water and drink it. He wouldn't be able to take care of little Sixer if he died of dehydration.

Stan walked back to the living room and collapsed into his chair. He turned on the TV, hoping the sound of it might drown out the voices in the back of his head. It didn't. But then Sixer came bounding in the room and started batting around the little ball Stan had shoplifted from the pet store yesterday, and the little jingling bell inside it was much louder than the voices.

Stan leveled a narrow-eyed suspicious glare at Sixer who stared back with slitted eyes. "I didn't let you in here," Stan said. And if he didn't let Sixer in, there shouldn't have been a way for him to get down to the secret basement at all.

After a minute Sixer apparently got tired of the staring contest and jumped up in Stan's lap. "Hey, I'm trying to work," Stan objected. Sixer ignored him, twisting around some before settling down and beginning to purr. Stan sighed and pulled a few of Ford's textbooks over to try to muddle through for the who-knew-how-many-th time. Without really thinking about it, his other hand began stroking through Sixer's thick fur, and Sixer purred even louder.

After that, Sixer kept showing up down in the lab no matter how careful Stan was about shutting him out. Eventually, Stan just stopped bothering to try. Maybe it was nice having a little company anyway.

To hear Mr. Mystery talk about him, the Mystery Shack's newest resident had all kinds of powers. He could turn himself invisible, he could walk through walls, he could move things around, unlock doors, open windows all with the power of his mind, just whatever Stan happened to think up on the spot which mostly depended on what Sixer had done to annoy him recently. The best part was when someone asked him to prove that Mystery Cat could grow and shrink from the size of a flea to larger than a house, Stan just looked at them and said, "You want me to get a cat to do a trick?" Then the person would laugh and let Stan show them to the next exhibit.

"Look Mommy, that cat has six toes! That's so weird!" screamed a little boy, pointing at where Sixer had stretched out his length – his long, long, length – along the side of the Shack and was sharpening his claws against the wood.

"That ain't weird kid. That's called polydactyly; plenty of cats have it. What so special about our Mystery Cat here is he's got a meow that can wake the dead and summon them to do his bidding. Don't worry though, he hardly ever uses it. Only when he thinks someone is making fun of his paws."

Just then, Sixer dropped down, turned to them, and let out a deep, throaty "Throng."

The little boy yelped. "Quick," Stan said, "if you buy his special tuna it might appease his wrath." The kid's mom shoved a handful of money at him. Stan grinned. He loved gullible tourists.

Sixer wasn't an unfriendly cat, but he wasn't a sociable one either. He never clawed or bit anyone who wasn't asking for it, but he didn't care for being picked up or pet or even touched by anyone but Stan. So Stan was understandably a little concerned when he saw his newest handyman – who was just a kid and who had a protective grandma with a hidden terrifying core – corner Sixer.

"Soos, be careful; he…" Stan's words ground to a halt as he watched Sixer gently sniff Soos's proffered hand and then begin rubbing his face against it.

Soos lit up and started scratching Sixer in earnest, quickly finding Sixer's favorite spot behind his left ear. Not only was Sixer allowing it, he was purring for it like he'd just been treated to a plateful of fish. "Wow Mr. Pines, your cat is really nice!"

"He coulda fooled me," Stan said. Sixer looked back at him with narrowed eyes as he continued to lean into Soos's scratching. Smug cat.

Wendy Corduroy's first day on the job, Stan came into the gift shop after a tour to find her leaning against one side of the counter while Sixer lounged on the other side. They both stared off into the distance with identical expressions of disaffected boredom.

Honestly, Stan wasn't even surprised anymore.

"Grunkle Stan, I didn't know you had a cat!" Mabel cried. Stan made himself ready to grab her by the back of the sweater if he needed to. In the ten minutes since Stan had picked them up from the bus stop his niece had proved to be extremely excitable, and he didn't think it would end well if she tried to rush Sixer with a hug. She had better sense when it came to cats though, because she stopped a coupla feet away and held her hand out to Sixer, letting him come to her. Then, once he was letting her pet him, she rushed him with a hug.

"Yeah, he was a stray that followed me home one day. His name's Sixer," Stan said.

"You found a stray Maine Coon cat?" Mabel asked, eyes wide.

"A stray what now?"

"Maine Coon cat," Dipper said. He was petting Sixer too now. "It's a cat breed. Usually a purebred kitten would be pretty expensive." Huh. Stan hadn't known that. Now, how could he make use of it?

"Especially a special edition one like this. Look Dipper, he's got six toes on his front paws!" Mabel exclaimed.

"Really?" Dipper asked, peering down at the toes too. "Oh, wow, that's kind of cool."

Right then and there Stan decided that maybe having these two hang around for the summer wouldn't be so bad after all.

Sixer was not happy when that Gideon Gleeful kid started coming around and dating Mabel. In fact, Sixer hissed at the kid every time he saw him. After the whole thing was over, Mabel spent an hour cuddling with Sixer and apologizing for not trusting him. Well she should; that cat was the best judge of character Stan had ever met.

There was about a week during which Stan was pretty sure Dipper thought Sixer was a person that had somehow been turned into a cat. How the kid got that idea Stan didn't know – it was a bit crazy even by Gravity Falls' standards, and the kids' weren't meant to know how weird Gravity Falls' standards were in the first place. Still of all the possible explanations Stan could come up with for the four times he walked in on Dipper trying to talk to Sixer, one time complete with those creepy boards for talking to ghosts with, Dipper thinking the cat was a person was the least disturbing explanation.

"Sixer, Waddles, meet your new best friend!" Mabel cried, shoving the pig she'd won earlier that day right at the cat. Stan tensed, already imagining the ways that this could go horribly wrong, all of which wound up with Stan having a crying niece he had to cheer up.

Sixer leaned in to sniff at Waddles, getting so close the two of them were practically nose-to-nose. Then Sixer pulled back and began to walk off past Waddles, brushing down along the pig's side as he went. Waddles gave a little snort, then began cheerfully following at Sixer's heels.

Well, okay. As long as the pig knew the cat was the boss, Stan supposed he could put up with one more animal hanging around.

Berating himself for being stupid and sentimental, Stan slowly made his way up to the attic bedroom. He didn't know what had been going on with the kids today and the puppet show, but it obviously hadn't been good. Mabel seemed pretty alright afterwards, but Dipper was a bit shaken, not to mention pretty beat up. Then when they got home the kid went straight upstairs to bed, which wasn't like him at all. By around three in the morning Stan couldn't take it anymore, and he'd come up from the basement so he could check on the two of them, make sure they were tucked safe in bed and nothing weird was going on.

Mabel was in bed cuddled up with her pig as usual, nothing to worry about there. Dipper was asleep in bed too, but Stan had a heart-stopping minute of terror when he saw something else in bed with him. Then he realized it was just the cat. Sixer was stretched out along Dipper's side, purring loudly enough that if Stan strained he could hear it from here.

Dipper started to toss and turn fitfully in bed, and Stan took another step into the room with the half-formed notion of waking the kid up from whatever nightmare he was having. Sixer started purring even louder, and turned his head to give Dipper a quick lick on the cheek. Dipper turned over to face Sixer, burying his hands in the cat's fur, then settled back down into peaceful sleep.

Stan backed out of the room. Obviously Sixer had a handle on this one.

"Sixer!" Mabel cried. Ford turned to her and Stan winced. Mabel didn't notice any of that, running straight past the both of them to scoop up the cat in the front yard. "Poor Sixer, were the government agents mean to you? Grunkle Stan he's got the blood of his enemies on his claws!"

"Good for him," Stan said while looking nervously at Ford.

"You named the cat Sixer?" Ford demanded.

"Yeah, because he's got six toes on both his front paws," Mabel answered cheerfully. "Oh hey, just like you Great Uncle Ford. He's like your other twinsie!"

Now Ford was giving Stan a weird look that Stan had no idea how to interpret. It probably meant something bad; that would be just Stan's luck.

Stan had spent the last three days trying to keep a tight grip on the constant stream of panic running through him. The world had ended, okay, whatever, Stan had been planning for that for years. The problem was the world had ended and Stan didn't have the first clue where any of his family was. Dipper and Mabel were missing, Ford was missing, Soos was missing, Wendy was missing, the cat was missing, even that damn pig was missing. Stan had seen the goat towering high as a skyscraper leaving a path of destruction in his wake, so that was okay at least.

There were sounds outside the door and every time that happened there was always the fear that this time it was something dangerous that had finally found a way inside the barrier. Everyone in the Shack grabbed a weapon and tensed up for battle, but when the door flew open on the other side was the kids – all four kids – and a happily prancing pig and one sauntering cat with his tail held high and looking as smug as possible.

Much later, after the happy reunion and while Stan was trying to distract them from their stupid plan that was going to get everyone killed just to try and save someone who wasn't even going to be grateful anyway, the kids told him about what they'd been through the past coupla days, about Mabel in her bubble with Waddles and about Dipper trying to survive in Gravity Falls' downtown. Then Dipper had run into Wendy in the mall and the two of them had run Soos out on the plains, and then the three of them had run into Sixer sitting guard outside Mabel's bubble giving them a look like he was wondering what took them so long.

He – Stan, he guessed, since that's what these people kept calling him – didn't know what was going on. He didn't know much of anything really. He'd been sitting there in this little clearing in the woods, mind totally blank, when these three people came up and just started talking at him like they expected him to know all these things. Then the little boy grabbed the little girl and started hugging her and they both started crying while the nerdy guy – Stan was pretty sure he was a nerd, even if he was a snazzy dresser – hugged Stan and he started crying too.

So here Stan was, caught in a surprisingly tight hug and sitting out in the woods with three weepy strangers trying to figure out how to get them to stop crying. It was awkward first of all, to be surrounded by crying people when he wasn't crying, but also he really felt like they shouldn't be crying at all, especially not over him.

A cat walked into the clearing, a huge fluffy silver-grey monstrosity. Stan hoped maybe that would be the ticket – little girls loved cats, right? But the girl didn't even seem to notice the cat, and the cat walked right past her. He walked up to Stan and the nerdy guy and then sat down and let out a deep, insistent "Throng!"

The guy let go of Stan and looked back at the cat. "Sixer, no…"

The cat didn't listen because of course it didn't, it was a cat. Sixer reared back up on his high legs and put his front paws on Stan's shoulders so he could sniff Stan's face. He leaned in and very gently bit Stan's nose, not hard enough to hurt, just enough that Stan could feel his little teeth pressing against his skin, and then licked him three times with a raspy tongue. Weirdly, it did make Stan feel better. Maybe because Sixer here was the only one not bawling his eyes out.

Sixer got down from Stan's shoulders and started to walk back the way he'd come. He got a couple yards away and then stopped and looked over his shoulder at them. "I think that cat wants us to follow him," Stan said. He bet this group were the kind of crazy people that would think following some cat around would be an adventure. The very least, it might distract them from whatever they were crying about.

The little girl sniffed and wiped at her eyes. She smiled at him, and it was probably the least convincing thing he'd ever seen, but he'd take it. "That's a great idea, Grunkle Stan."

"Do you really want to take him with us on the boat?" Ford asked. Sixer was currently draped with his front half in Ford's lap and his back half on the couch, purring loudly as Ford stroked him. "I don't mind, but I thought cats weren't particularly fond of water."

"Are you kidding? Sixer loves boats. He used to come fishing with me all the time," Stan said. He hadn't actually remembered that until the words had come out of his mouth, but now he could picture it: Sixer running back and forth on Stan's little fishing boat and standing up at the bow staring intently at the water. One more memory, or set of memories, back in place and Stan allowed himself a moment to bask in the satisfaction.

"Really? Well I certainly wouldn't want to deprive him," Ford said. He moved his hand to scratch under Sixer's chin and Sixer leaned into it with a blissed-out expression on his face.

Stan let out an amused snort. "Deprived is the last thing that cat is."

"You know I've been meaning to ask, Stan. Why did you get a cat? You were always much more a dog person growing up."

"Not like I went out and decided to get a cat one day or anything," Stan said with a shrug. "I just saw this stray cat one day, and I felt kind of bad for him. I gave him a little food and next thing I know he's trying to follow me home. I almost left him there anyway, but he started reminding me of you. With the toes, yeah, but also because he's curious, sticks his nose into everything, and is way too smart for my own good."

"That's funny," Ford said with a soft, amused look on his face.

"What's funny?" Stan demanded. He'd basically put it out there again how much he'd missed his brother while Ford was gone, and he didn't need Ford throwing it in his face. He thought they were past that now anyway.

"Oh, it's nothing," Ford answered absent-mindedly as he kept petting the damn cat. He looked up at Stan and saw the expression on his face and said, "Really Stanley, I didn't mean anything by it. It's only that Sixer reminds me of you."