AN: Based on the Gravity Falls/Beauty and the Beast AU made by artsycrapfromsai/saisai-chan on tumblr.

When We're Human Again

The fading laughter was what let him know the onslaught had finally ended. Ford sensed the distant pelt of vibrations against the stone, moving towards the balcony, towards-

Stanley.

An insidious tendril of dread began to suffocate him as he realized his cursed form was wholly unable to come to his brother's aid. And worst of all, the young man— Gideon, his name was?— abused him enough that his binding was starting to unravel at a dangerous rate.

Wild gales assaulted delicate parchment, threatening to cleave these pages from his trampled spine and leave him barren. He feared this wind was bitter enough to seep through even his brother's thick fur, but as he didn't possess the nerve endings required to differentiate temperature, there really was no way to tell.

Stanley mentioned playing in snow on the castle grounds with the children the other day, though, hadn't he?

He lay sprawled on his back, trapped within his roving thoughts and functionally helpless without his brother or one of the young siblings to pick him up. The long years had chipped away at him, cruelly stripping bundles of parchment from his binding with each passing month— each page representing a portion of his memory. He'd already lost so much of his childhood and early life to this unstoppable decay. In fact, in his present state he found he barely recalled how he'd been cursed into this form to begin with.

What was it like, Ford wondered, to be human? To have strong limbs extending in every direction? The ability to contort and move his form by deliberate choice? What did it feel like to hold an ink quill and write manually for once? To consciously express emotion in more than simple text on page? Faintly, he thought he recalled a time when all of these actions and properties were overlooked mundanities— but he'd been imprisoned within this leather bound journal for so long that sometimes the thought of anything else but this existence faded into obscurity within seconds. And this frightened him.

I can't even remember... what I once looked like, he realized in a pang of panic.

How much humanity did he have left to spend?

The few pages still bound fluttered endlessly in the wind, and he desperately struggled to keep ahold of them. He imagined his own thoughts appearing on pages in written word, frantic pleads for help, in the futile hope that continuing to mark his own parchment would somehow retain his connection with it. He felt another page tear away. Heard it as it cut through the air like a thin blade.

N-no... please…

Ford's thick leather binding quivered as he realized what was happening to him, and what he (and everyone in this entire castle) would lose. When the last page falls out, the curse will be absolute. No hope for the dozens of servants and kitchen staff and castle children, and most of all, no hope for his brother Sta-

Another page stolen away.

The enchanted journal suddenly became aware of rivulets of dark ink dripping down its parchment. It felt... empty. For some reason, a sense of loss it couldn't quite place fell upon it.

In the distance a mighty roar filled the air. The journal did not know nor wish to know what kind of awful creature would produce that kind of caterwauling noise. The only knowledge it wished to procure was that of its identity. Who did it belong to? What kind of simpleton allowed its binding to descend to such a state of disrepair, where pages merely detach of their own volition in the wind?

However, this journal had far too little time to consider these mysteries before the breeze stole the very last page— coated in trails of thick black ink— and carried it into the wintry sky. All that was left behind was an empty husk, the severely bent and abused spine attached to the two covers by what was now merely thin strings of leather.

In the distance two young children cried, faces buried into the neck of an enormous beast. Blood matted his thick, greying fur. The children's sobs were punctuated with a whispered, repeating mantra of "I love you."

Slowly but surely, the whispers of the wind swallowed the breadth of their despair, until not a sound escaped the circumference of the balcony.

Then...

A soothing presence surrounded the tattered remains of the journal. Slowly, this journal— no, Ford… Stanford— levitated into the air on the gentle arms of renewal. He could feel this presence dig deep within, reaching into his very core and… extending in multiple directions?

Ford's emotions tangled between giddiness and an uneasy fear of the unknown as the form he'd lived within for decades finally melted away, leaving his soul without a capsule. The presence pushed against him gently, and stretched and sighed until he could distinctly acknowledge four separate bands of it. Now, Ford was incredibly used to the sensation of pressure. He could always recognize the presence of his brother or one of the children when their hands brushed against his cover as they picked him up. Over time, he'd even learned how to differentiate between the two children based on how they positioned their small fingers to hold him, or the vigor by which they turned his pages. But the strange pressure he experienced now in the extremities of his form seemed startlingly different from anything he could recall. It… tingled. Put into terms he could rationalize, he imagined it felt the way a raucous storm of pouring rain sounded.

Experimentally, he imagined possessing control over these bands of heaviness, just as he imagined ink appearing on parchment. He imagined the top left one shifting downwards towards his core. And in a moment that surpassed every imagined daydream and wistful yearning he'd conceived over this very situation, these limbs— these wonderful, malleable, very human limbs— obeyed his every thought. Ford felt something wet cross down and drip off his pages— no, his face. And it wasn't ink for once, but tears. They were real tears.

Then that strange presence dissipated, and without so much as a warning, the cold, overwhelming reality of human sensations and pains and awareness slammed into Ford with a ferocious vengeance. While darkness still wholly enveloped him, the wind that blowed stray strands of hair into his face and frosted his cheeks and nose alerted him that he lay face-up.

The man wheezed, having not breathed the air around him at all for well over thirty years. The chill of the breeze and the snowy stone slabs he laid on radiated through his cloth and skin and into every single quadrant of his form, causing him to shiver violently. The longer he lay, the quicker the snow melted around him, threatening to christen him the frozen centerpiece of a large puddle. His head ached insufferably, which he assumed was the source of the awful ringing that plagued his mind. His spine still suffered from the curious tingling sensation he'd endured earlier. His limbs suddenly felt like dead weights.

"-anford!" he just barely heard a low, raspy voice call out through the ringing. Luckily, as this awful auditory disruption lessened with time the words became far more comprehensible. "Stanford! Can you hear me?"

Other, lighter voices entered the picture, overlapping one another all at once. The children.

"-really do look just like each other when you're not all magicky!"

"Mabel, they're twins like us. Of course they're-"

"Well duh, I know that, but it's kinda hard to tell when-"

"-everyone, we're- we're all finally human, Ford! Ford? You awake? 'Ya with me?"

Yes! Yes, Stanley… I-I'm here, Ford thought fervently, trying to push this sentiment towards his brother, just like he always used to conjure up writing on his pages. But nothing occurred, and the words dissipated in his mind like the impermanence of a sunbeam's dust.

"Why isn't he moving or talking with us? He is gonna be okay, right? Right Grunkle Stan?"

"I… I don't know, pumpkin."

An achingly familiar and warm pressure pressed gently against his cheek. A hand, and a small one.

"Great Uncle Ford?" the young boy— Dipper— said hesitantly. "C-can you open your eyes?"

"Please be awake, Grunkle Ford," another voice whispered- Mabel- sounding on the verge of tears. "We love you so much, too!"

He wanted to. He desperately wanted to, but they felt like they were locked shut from years and years of unuse.

Stanley sighed, the timbre of it considerably lighter than Ford recalled. "Kids, I- I'll be honest with ya', I don't even know how much he'll remember."

His brother's voice sounded so broken, so vulnerable, that it tore right through him like shears through string. They'd reversed the curse, hadn't they? Ford was human again. If— after decades of misplaced hope and broken relationships and the insidious reminder of what lay dormant in their future — he'd finally regained everything he ever wanted, why did he still feel so lost? Why couldn't he manage to accomplish a task as simple as communication? A sudden and intense bout of shivering ran from his core to the edge of every extremity, numbing his thoughts and leaving him breathless.

"He's freezing, Grunkle Stan," the young boy said, a worried lilt dancing at the edges of his voice.

"Then we-" His twin brother paused briefly. "We should take him inside. Quickly. Mabel, go see if you can find somethin' warm to wrap him in. And Dipper, track down Wendy and Soos for me, will 'ya? Explain what's going on."

"On it."

Something slipped under his legs and back— Stanley's arms?— and with a labored grunt, hoisted his shivering body up and away from the wet, blisteringly cold stone. His cheek rubbed against rough hewn fabric as his brother adjusted his hold. Now that he finally had limbs again, Ford desperately wanted to sling one of his arms around Stanley's shoulder to alleviate the insidious fear that he'd be dropped, but his extremities had since become numbed and useless. He'd simply have to trust that his brother's path would be sure.

Of course, he thought mirthfully, feeling the man in question briefly stumble, this trust would be far more easily given to someone who hadn't just regained human form after thirty years of walking on all fours in the guise of a beast.

Presently, he heard the heavy clamor of the balcony door shutting the wind out, the whispers of the children becoming distant as the atmosphere gradually grew warmer. Felt his brother's heartbeat running tandem to his.

One no longer a beast. The other no longer a journal.

Human, but still woefully unadjusted and unsure.

The arms lowered his unmoving, frail form, depositing him into what he assumed was a bed. It certainly felt far silkier and pleasing to the senses than the freezing stone. Stanley quietly stripped him from the majority of the wet clothes, and wrapped him in something soft, with long sleeves. A robe? Perhaps. He continued to shiver as the silk sheets were pulled to his chin, and his twin gently laid the back of his hand against his forehead.

"I found Soos and Wendy!" Dipper said suddenly. Ford could hear his footsteps pounding against the wood floor vigorously as he ran into the bedroom. "They're gathering everyone in the castle in the ballroom. Trying to sort out all the confusion and surprise, y'know? They said they'll be up here as soon as possible. How… how's he doing?"

"Still not responding," Stanley muttered.

"But- you adjusted just fine after you turned back. What's different? What's changed? What could have gone wrong?"

"It's not your fault, Dipper. He lost a lot of pages. A lot of his memory. It's-" he drew in a large, heavy breath- "difficult, but very possible that there wasn't anything left to save."

"Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel's cheery voice cut through the gloom, growing louder as she neared. "I grabbed every blanket I could find! Here!"

"Good job, pumpkin! Kids, help me lay these over him, won't ya'?"

Layer by layer, Ford grew warmer, the soft blankets providing him with a welcome buffer from the cool air. He heard the crackling of a newly born fire, and slowly but surely his shivering receded. Mabel's hand slipped into his right, their fingers loosely threading. Ford's six fingers surrounded hers perfectly.

"I love you, Grunkle Ford. I love you a whole, whole lot!"

Seconds passed and the young girl gave his hand a gentle squeeze. Distantly, he imagined reciprocating that gesture, imagined his muscles shifting. And as he did so, to his great surprise he felt his own large fingers tighten around hers.

"Stan! Grunkle Stan! He heard me, I know he did! Look, our hands are even hugging now!"

"She's right, he's definitely conscious!" Dipper said.

He almost chuckled at their hope-filled enthusiasm, but to his ears it sounded more like a deep, pained rumble. Mabel "hugged" his hand again.

"Ooh! I know how to communicate," she exclaimed suddenly. "We can play a game! Uh- hug my hand twice if you can hear us! Hug three times if you love me and Dipper and your brother a whole, whole, bunch! Hug four ti-"

"All right, ya' little gremlin," Stanley said, gently pulling her away, "let's not overload my poor brother's brain, y'hear? It's been a long thirty years, and he might not remember how to speak anymore. He needs time to adjust. We… all do."

Ford's mind nearly vibrated with frustration. Every neuron was aflame with sheer awareness, and yet his tongue felt like a swath of thick cotton lining the bottom surface of his mouth, and his eyelids were sealed. Lame from lack of use. However, he refused to concede from this challenge without trying.

When he felt Stan's hand firmly cusp one of his shoulders, he imagined inclining his neck so he'd be facing his brother. He actively pushed this thought out of his mind and into his body. A stifled gasp arose from the other man, a sure sign that he was doing something right. Ford then focused on the small rings of muscle surrounding the eyes with such an intense fervor that it almost caused his head to ache once again. But then…

A small crescent of brightness suddenly made its way to the man's optic nerve, almost blocked out entirely by the web of his tangled eyelashes. Not surprisingly, that tiny amount of light proved nearly enough to overload his senses. His head pounded and he fought against the temptation to let his eyes fall shut again, instead allowing the crescent to slowly grow larger, muscles minutely twitching at the sudden strain.

His brother and the children were suddenly all talking at once, their encouragements and surprise and sheer joy overlapping each others' so much that he could barely derive meaning out of their words.

As he adjusted to the light flooding his system with color and texture and a myriad of brand new stimuli, someone flung themselves onto the bed with nothing less than complete enthusiasm. Mabel- brunette, wavy haired, button nosed Mabel- beamed at him with slightly crooked teeth, hollering to anyone in the vicinity that he was awake and conscious. Dipper— the splitting image of his sister— laughed as he laid a hand on his shoulder, his face lighting up with sheer joy. Ford found himself almost overwhelmed in the moment because he'd never seen the children for real, with his own eyes and yet here they were in front of him, laughing and hugging him and surrounding him with so much… love.

Love. So that was it. Initially, the conditions of the curse seemed quite clear— they were all to remain in those enchanted forms until the day came that Stan and he stopped fighting and learned to love one another, and another came to love them. Bitterly, he questioned for years how anyone could possibly develop feelings for either of them, but perhaps he didn't understand these conditions as well as he assumed at all. All along he interpreted 'love' as something purely romantic, but he was wrong.

Dipper and Mabel were his answer. Together, their love— childlike, familial, and pure— released him from his prison. It saved an entire castle. Most importantly, it saved his brother.

"Sixer…"

Slowly but with growing confidence, Ford turned his head towards Stanley. His eyes grew wet as he met his twin's face, unmistakably weathered, wrinkled, and grey from the choppy tides of the past thirty years, but still everything he remembered. In an instant, his brother wrapped his sturdy arms entirely around his body, nestling his chin into the crook of his neck. And after a short moment... he felt something warm and wet against his shoulder. Stanley's sobs were stifled— quiet— but they were there.

The tears that threatened to spill from his own eyes gave up on their resolve. They streamed down his cheeks freely, unbridled by emotional restraint or the cruel limits of his old enchanted form. He felt his breath hitch, his lungs expand and contract rapidly, as he too began to weep.

No words were needed between them to know they were forgiven and loved.

Through his tears Ford saw the two children wrap their small arms around them both. He saw Soos and Wendy, their butler and caretaker- no, their long-held friends- rush into the room with nothing short of elation.

I'm human, he thought breathlessly. I'm human! Finally human. I'm safe, I'm alive, I'm-

I'm loved.