Hi, guys! Sorry that this took a while to get out - school was bein' a real pain, and I've got other stories that I'm working on, too.

Thanks to triino4944, Tell-Me-Tales, RaphaelplusMikey, Demons archers, ICan'tWrite07, and Crazytraveler4 for the Favs and Follows!

Dark Rebel - I hope this is soon enough - I was hoping for sooner, but life likes to get in the way of things. :p

NickStriker - That was an "off-screen" kinda thing. I'll probably go into detail for that later.

Dip the Hashashin - Mystery Shack? Well, it's not exactly called that right now...as for the wolf-thing, that was definitely a werewolf. As for what "Andrew" is up to, you're actually going to find out in this chapter! :D

Monsterhighcleoaddict - Here is more!

I hope you guys enjoy this! My beta-reader on Tumblr certainly does!

Chapter 4 – You're a what?!

Dipper slammed his back against the door, then bent over and leaned on his knees, gasping for breath. Next to him, Mabel collapsed to the floor and leaned against the wall next to the door and took deep breaths.

There came the faint sound of claws clicking against wood on the other side of the door, and a snuffling noise that made Dipper wonder if the werewolf on the other side was trying to find a way in. Then it let out a huffing noise, which was followed shortly by the fading clicking sound.

Dipper dared to glance out the window in the door in order to see what it was that the monster was doing, and he caught sight of it sitting down in a patch of moonlight a short distance from the door, large, fluffy gray tail curling over its paws.

Dipper sighed and slid down to the floor. "Okay. I don't think he's gonna come in after us."

Mabel let out a sigh herself. "I…think I'll take back ever wanting to be bit by a werewolf. That was too scary."

Thud.

Mabel and Dipper turned sharply at the noise, eyes widening sharply when they saw a tall, skinny man with skin as pale as death and blood-red eyes leap to his feet, a book falling to the floor.

Dipper's eyes widened even further when he remembered what Wendy and the others had said. Andrew's voice came back the clearest.

"I've seen those eyes, and I know they aren't ghosts."

Dipper suddenly felt like he'd been stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Mabel sucked in a breath sharply. "D-dipper?"

The red-eyed man gritted his teeth, revealing a set of fangs that only made the twins' eyes even wider. "Ford! Get up here righ' now!"

Dipper blinked owlishly at the echo of power that was in the man's voice – as well as the twinge of a Southern accent that it held.

FWASH!

Dipper and Mabel stiffened at the bright green flash that suddenly went off in front of the bookcase near the back of the room.

"What is it?" The figure who had materialized – a man with pointed ears, brown hair, green-tinted skin, and glowing completely green eyes with slit pupils – looked at the other man with a raised eyebrow. In his hands were a pen and a book with a maroon cover that had a gold, six-fingered hand on it.

"You said there weren't any kids out there." The pale man nodded to Dipper and Mabel, who looked back and forth between the two of them with ever-widening eyes.

"Red and green eyes – just like Wendy said!" Mabel whispered in Dipper's ear.

He nodded absently, not taking his eyes away from the green-eyed man. There was something about him that looked…oddly familiar.

The green-eyed man's eyes widened sharply when he caught sight of the two of them. "They weren't out there half an hour ago, I can tell you that!"

The red-eyed man let out a slight growl in response. "Heaven's ta Besty. I'd have thought that those kids would have learned something about comin' into the woods at this time of the month by now."

The green-eyed man started nodding in agreement, but then paused as his nose visibly twitched. He closed the book in his hand with a snap! and quickly stowed away it and his pen inside the tan trench coat he was wearing. "Glitter and pine trees, just like Stanley said." He moved closer to the twins, causing Dipper to shift in front of Mabel defensively when he caught sight of the claw-like bare feet the man had – clearly, he wasn't human.

"St-Stanley?" Mabel spoke up hesitantly. "Who—"

The red-eyed man huffed, then walked over to the door, causing Dipper and Mabel to scoot away, still on the floor. They watched warily as the man peered out the window.

The man huffed again. "This must be one of his more lucid nights – he's grinnin' like a loon out there."

"He might have chased these two here for a reason, then." The green-eyed man got down in a crouch in front of Dipper, cocking his head to one side as he looked the two teenagers over. "Who are you two, and what are you doing out here at this time of night?"

Dipper was hesitant to respond, but considering that they were trapped in a house with two more monsters by the werewolf outside, he figured that he wasn't really in a position to withhold information. "I'm Dipper Pines, and this is my twin sister, Mabel. A-a couple friends of ours told us about this place, and we decided t-to check it out."

The green-eyed man's ears stiffened suddenly, the pointed tips quivering as his eyes widened. "Pines? Truly?"

"It can't be." The red-eyed man's eyes were just as wide, but he quickly recovered himself and frowned. "Not unless Stanley—"

"No, no, not him. Stanley may have done a lot of things, but he hasn't done that." The other shook his head, then paused before looking back at Dipper and Mabel. "You wouldn't happen to be related to a Sherman Pines, would you?"

"You know our grandpa?" Mabel blinked in surprise.

The green-eyed man's ears were quivering even more, now, if that was even possible. His legs bunched under him like he was about to leap, but he remained in place. "D-did he ever tell you if he grew up with brothers?"

"I think he might have said something a couple times." Mabel scratched her head, frowning. "Dipper? Do you remember what Grandpa Shermie said?"

"He said they were twins like us." Dipper's eyebrows dipped down into a frown. "But…they disappeared a long time ago. Nobody's heard from them in years."

The green-eyed man let his legs collapse into a cross-legged sitting position, eyes wide. Then he let out a choked laugh and put his head in his hands. "I can't believe it. After all these years…."

"So these kids are related to you?" The red-eyed man looked at him curiously.

The green-eyed man laughed again and looked up at Dipper and Mabel with an expression on his face that made Dipper think of a dog that had been waiting for his master to come home. "My name is Stanford Pines. I'm…I'm one of Shermie's missing brothers." He gave a gentle smile, letting a pair of fangs peek out as he held out a hand. "I guess that would make me your great-uncle."

Dipper's jaw dropped. "You're our what?"

"Cool!" Mabel grasped the hand and shook it. "Oh!" She turned Stanford's hand this way and that, eyes widening. "Four...Five… Oh my gosh! You've got six fingers – that's one finger friendlier than normal!"

"Wait – what?" Dipper looked at Stanford's hand, while the man himself looked surprised at the exclamation. "Oh, hey! That's pretty cool!"

Stanford smiled and chuckled. "Thank you."

"Maybe you should show him your birthmark!" Mabel let Stanford's hand go and nudged her brother.

"Birthmark?" Stanford's eyebrows rose as his ears twitched.

Dipper sighed, and took off his baseball cap and pushed his hair up above his forehead, revealing a number of dots connected together in the form of—

"Is that the Big Dipper?" The red-eyed man leaned over and looked at Dipper's forehead with interest.

Dipper nodded. "Yeah. It's also why I'm called Dipper – it's not my real name, but enough people use it that it may as well be." He let his hair drop again, then frowned. "And…you are?"

The red-eyed man put his hands behind his back and smiled sheepishly – an odd contrast to the annoyed expression that had been on his face when the two had stumbled in. "The name's Fiddleford MaGucket. I'm Stanford's research partner."

"Research?" Dipper perked up instantly. "Researching what?"

"Were you born an albino?" Mabel looked up at him with wide eyes.

Fiddleford and Stanford exchanged looks at the questions, the smiles fading a little.

"Ah…I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that," Fiddleford said carefully.

"A lot more." Stanford's pointed ears flattened out so that it looked like he had cones glued to the sides of his head.

"Well, we're going to have to wait until that werewolf goes away so that we can go back to Soos' place, so if it's a long story, we've got time." Mabel stood up and looked out the window that was in the door. "And he's still out there – hey, he is grinning!"

"What?" Dipper scrambled to his feet and looked out, then raised an eyebrow when he saw that the werewolf was still sitting in the moonlight, and his lips had pulled back to reveal all his fangs meshed together neatly. "I'm not sure if that's a grin or a grimace."

"Oh, it's a grin, all right," Fiddleford huffed as Stanford rose to his feet. "I've seen that look on that loon's face more n' enough times to know."

"And you said that his name's Stanley?" Mabel looked over at Fiddleford.

Fiddleford nodded. "Yup. You'll probably get to meet 'im properly tomorrow mornin'. I doubt he's gonna let you out of here so easily."

"They will meet him after he's put some clothes on," Stanford said pointedly. "I will not have my brother walking around the house naked."

"Brother?" Dipper looked at Stanford sharply, filing the other comments into the back of his head for later. "You mean—"

"He is my twin brother, yes." Stanford nodded. "He works in the diner in town as a cook, I believe. Perhaps you've met him?"

Dipper frowned at that. "He works—" His eyes widened sharply. "Andrew! So his real name's Stanley?"

"That explains why he spat out his coffee this morning!" Mabel exclaimed. "He didn't expect our last name to be Pines!" Her excited expression faded a moment later. "But…he looks older than you. A lot older."

Stanford hesitated. "Yes, well…there is an unfortunate reason for that."

Dipper looked out the window again at the werewolf – Andrew – Stanley. "Well, I don't think he's going to let us leave, so…."

Fiddleford pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing up the glasses that were perched there. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like a string of curses before letting out an irritated sigh. "Well, if Stanley's so insistent, I don' see how we're gonna be able ta get out of it. You two might want to sit down – it's a bit of a long yarn."

Stanford walked over to the couch with the twins and sat down at one end – the one closer to the bookcase. Dipper and Mabel sat down on the other, while Fiddleford remained standing.

"Ya said yer grandfather said his brothers disappeared." Fiddelford put his hands behind his back again. "Do ya know how long ago that was?"

Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks at that.

"Well…it was before we were born." Dipper scratched his head. "We're eighteen, so…I think Grandpa Shermie said it was 30 years when we were twelve?"

"But, if you guys are still alive, then why didn't you—"

"Technically, only Stanley is the one who is alive." Stanford ran a hand down his face, his ears drooping. "Technically speaking."

Dipper stared at Stanford. "You mean…you're undead? What kind of—"

"I was transformed into a ghoul 40 years ago." Stanford dropped his hand from where it had stopped over his mouth, and he looked at the twins with an unhappy expression – the kind that a puppy would have after having been found chewing on someone's shoes. "And I've remained in that state ever since."

Dipper's eyes widened while Mabel's hands were slapped over her mouth.

"Y-you…you're a what?" Dipper's hands twitched; he longed to pull out his journal and start writing, but he didn't want to seem impolite. He quickly drew on what he knew and had heard about ghouls. "B-but – wouldn't that mean that you…you feast on—"

"Yes, yes, we do need something of that sort occasionally." Stanford waved a hand as though he didn't exactly care, but he still looked a little unhappy at what Dipper was implying. "We've been able to make do with small animals and the occasional blood donation from Stanley and what he can get from the hospital. Technically, I should be eating human corpses in order to find sustenance, but I am not planning on stooping that low."

"We?" Dipper looked at Fiddleford, who grinned, revealing his fangs again. "You're not a ghoul, are you."

Fiddleford shook his head. "I'm a vampire."

Mabel let out a squealing noise, but it was muffled because of her hands, which she instantly dropped. "No way!"

"Yes, way. People don't normally develop red eyes." Fiddleford motioned to his face.

"But…how?" Dipper looked between the two men. "People don't just transform like this without a reason!"

"Were you bit by a vampire or something?" Mabel piped up.

Fiddleford and Stanford exchanged looks.

Dipper noticed the expression that was on the men's faces, and he frowned. "Great-uncle Stanford, how much of the story are you willing to tell?"

"Please – call me Ford." Ford ran a hand through his brown hair, making Dipper notice the small, claw-like nails more than when he had counted his great-uncle's fingers. "There is…well, to understand why I would have been placed in a situation like this in the first place, you have to understand why I came out to Gravity Falls. Initially, I came out here to do research on the paranatural creatures that live here."

"Really?" Dipper reached into his vest and pulled out his journal. "That's the reason we came here, too! There's a lot more here than there is back in Piedmont, California."

Ford's ears perked up at that. "Really? How did you start investigating?"

"He found a nest of brownies under the high school gym." Mabel giggled. "He came home so clean after he found it that he made Mom and Dad nervous!"

"Fascinating!"

Fiddleford cleared his throat. "Ford, we've got a story ta tell. Ya'll can exchange notes later."

"Oh! Right, right." Ford chuckled. "Sorry – I tend to get a little carried away sometimes. Anyway, when I arrived here, I was instantly pulled into the weirdness of Gravity Falls and started researching immediately. Fiddleford joined me later when I discovered a UFO under the hill."

Dipper's eyes bulged. "A UFO? Here?!"

"Yes; I'll have to show it to you later. Fiddleford was helping me with some of the technology – taking it apart, discovering how exactly it worked, and why the UFO might have ended up crashing here in the first place." Ford paused. "And then…well, I may have underestimated the local flora and fauna. Do you know how ghouls come to be, Dipper?"

Dipper frowned. "Not…not really. Did you get bitten, or…?"

Ford shook his head. "When a human becomes a ghoul, the transformation is caused by contact with a strong venom – usually the kind that vampires have in their bodies."

Mabel and Dipper stared at Fiddleford, who shook his head.

"I didn't cause this." The vampire raised his hands. "I would never do that to my college roommate."

"I was poisoned by…another kind of monster." Ford paused. "It took us a few days to figure out what exactly it was that I had become, and by the time that we did, well…I wasn't thinking straight."

"He'd been refusin' my offer to let 'im drink my blood," Fiddleford said pointedly. "Ghouls need it as much as vampires do. Refusing it meant that the cells he had were starting to decay – undead creatures, as a general rule, aren't able to create new cells, so we have to find other ways to keep ourselves moving."

"And he didn't want to take your blood because—"

"I didn't want to hurt him." Ford gained a sour expression as Dipper stared at his great-uncle. "I didn't want to become even more of a monster than I already was, and dealing with the new instincts that came with the transformation –"

"New instincts?" Mabel gained an interested expression. "You mean the ears thing wasn't the only thing you got?" She motioned to her own normal, rounded ears.

Ford gave a weak smile. "I'm afraid not. Ghouls tend to act a little more…animalistic. I identified you by scent initially, for example."

"He also tends to growl a little." Fiddleford smirked. "And if you scratch him in the right place—"

Ford cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. Unfortunately, there is a downside to actually being a ghoul, besides the fact that I was forced to…become somewhat cannibalistic." He shot Fiddleford a look before looking back at Dipper and Mabel, his ears drooping. "They are said to be servants of whatever creature transformed them. And…I can confirm that as truth."

Dipper's and Mabel's eyes widened sharply.

Ford adjusted the collar of his shirt carefully, looking uneasy. "In order to…rescue me from my fate, Fiddleford made a trade with the monster: his mortality for my freedom from whatever he might have had planned for me. As a result, well…." He motioned to Fiddleford.

"I became a vampire as a result of that. First thing I did was make sure that Ford wouldn't end up under anybody else who might try the same things that the beastie was probably planning." Fiddleford's expression twisted into a snarl.

"Th-then..." Dipper looked back and forth between the two of them. "That means that…Great-uncle Ford is—"

"We don't tend to dwell on it unless we absolutely have to." Ford seemed to be trying to wave off the twins' concern, but his voice was tired.

"That green flash!" Mabel realized. "Does that have a part in—"

"Yes." Ford nodded, his ears drooping a little.

"I am capable of summoning him from wherever he happens to be if I need him for something." Fiddleford gained a wry smirk. "Usually, it's so that Stanford can get some rest. Undead he may be, but a night owl he is not."

Ford scowled at that, his ears twitching in agitation. "It is very difficult to be able to gather research on the various creatures here in Gravity Falls without watching them at all hours. If it were not for the information that Stanley brings back because of the children living in town, I doubt that I would be able to gather as much information as I have."

"Chil – Wendy!" Dipper leaned forward. "You're relying on Wendy and the others to get the information for you?"

"But why?" Mabel frowned. "Can't you do that yourself?"

"Ah – well, after my transformation, I'm afraid that the local wildlife took to liking me even less than they already did." Ford's eyes trailed to a window and the dark forest outside. "I can understand their concern; they most likely thought that I would end up eating them after I was done researching their species."

"Oh." Dipper sat back. "I…I guess that would cause a number of problems."

"It caused even more problems when he found out he could stay awake for days." Fiddleford huffed, folding his arms across his chest. "If he had decided to keep that habit, he'd have started eating a lot more than if he'd kept up with his old human habits. Now I hafta remind him from time to time that sleep is just as important."

Ford gained a disgruntled frown at that. "I am more than aware of how important sleep is, Fiddleford."

"Well then, it might be a good idea if you got some. It's nearly midnight." Fiddleford nodded to the analog clock up on the wall. "Stanley won't let them return to where they're stayin', which means they'll have ta spend the nigh' here."

Ford ran a hand through his hair again. "We don't have a guest bedroom."

"We can sleep down here," Mabel spoke up. "Dipper and I have slept on the couch before."

"Yeah." Dipper nodded in agreement. "When we came down with the flu, we slept on the couch so that we could watch TV whenever we wanted."

"Then it's settled!" Fiddleford clapped his hands. "I'll go find the spare blankets. And Ford, please make sure you get some sleep this time."

"Yes, yes." Ford waved off Fiddleford's meaningful look as the vampire walked out of the room. He sighed irritably as soon as the vampire was gone. "I had been planning on investigating the floating head in the lake tonight – to see if it really does have a toothache."

"If it yelled at us, it would probably try to eat you," Dipper replied dryly.

Ford gained a wry smile. "Perhaps. But it might find me quite inedible. I'm afraid that I'm quite tough." He pushed himself off the couch. "Well, I have been avoiding sleep for the last two days. Fiddleford will force me to sleep if I stay up even a few more hours tonight."

"Do you think you could sleep down here?" Mabel cocked her head curiously.

Ford quirked an eyebrow at the question.

"Mabel!" Dipper stared at his sister in surprise. "He's got a bed that he can sleep in – he—"

"It'll be like a sleepover!" Mabel insisted. She frowned. "We probably won't be playing any games or anything, though, but we are sleeping over."

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that great-uncle Ford has to sleep down here!"

"Well, why not?" Mabel looked at Ford with a questioning gaze. "What do you think, great-uncle Ford?"

Ford blinked at the question, his ears twitching. A frown crossed his face a moment later as he put a hand to his chin in thought. "Hmm…."

The family's getting back together! :3 I've got big plans for this story - it's just a matter of, well, actually getting to the point where I can start using those ideas.

I'll see you guys next time I post!