Hey kiddos! Like my fic? Go into withdrawal and start bashing your head against the wall when I don't update in forever after cliffhangers?! Like Pines and Cipher drama?! Then read 'The Pines Triplets' by FlamingFlyingFoxofDoom! My little sister shares my love for tormenting the Pines family and f*cking with minds via triangleness! It won't give you feels, I repeat, it WON'T give you feels.

Would I lie?

But yeah go check out her fic it's gonna be pretty good. Also I own nothing. Etc.

Dipper's eyes widened, staring down the barrel of a large, pulsating gun. He barely had time to process what was happening when Stan tackled the assailant around the middle, knocking him down onto the ground. The gun fired off over Dipper's head and blasted into the stone wall with an eardrum-bursting explosion. He tried to bring up his arms to cover his ears but his arms were pinned to his side by his sister's own arms. Mabel clung to him tightly, her back to the two old men as if shielding Dipper from the newcomer's view. Soos had run over to the brawling seniors and was attempting to break them up.

"GET OFF ME, STANLEY!"

"HE'S YOUR NEPHEW, YOU IDIOT! SHERMY'S GRANDKIDS! BOTH THOSE KIDS! THEY'RE OUR FAMILY!"

"YOU DON"T UNDERSTAND! HE'S CIPHER-!"

"He's not Bill!" Mabel shouted over her shoulder "Bill did this to us but we're not with him! We're not on his side!"

Soos and Stan both had managed to pin the newcomer, whom panted heavily, eyes darting between the two men and the younger set of twins.

"What- what do you mean by that?" he managed to ask through his ragged breathes.

Mabel clung to her brother more tightly, meeting Ford's eyes with a mix of determination and fear.

"Bill tricked my brother into making a deal with him, and then me too. We're not on his side but he- he changed us, made us like him. But we're not on his side, so don't hurt Dipper!"

Dipper was trembling but the fire had extinguished, nothing left but a faint blue glow around his eyes as he stared at the three men. The man looked just like Grunkle Stan- but Stan had called him 'Ford'…they were obviously brothers, but- what on earth was happening here? How did 'Ford' know Bill? Why-?

"Okay, poindexter," Stan said, looking down at Ford with obvious aggression. "I don't know what's going on with those kids, but mark my words, if you try to hurt them, I don't care if you're my brother or how long it took to get you back, I'll kill you."

Soos and the younger Pines were taken aback by Stan's harshness but said nothing, watching Ford slowly nod.

"Fine. Let's talk about this, then."

Stan and Soos let Ford up but kept his arms behind his back, not trusting him enough to leave him fully mobile.

"Grunkle Stan- what's going on?" Dipper stammered, staring at them.

"Kinda need to ask you the same questions, kiddos." Stan frowned. "Who's 'Cipher'? He's the one that did this to you? What exactly did he do?"

Mabel and Dipper exchanged glances, the boy then averting his eyes and covering the triangle mark with his hand.

"We- we really don't know exactly what Bill Cipher is, he's some kind of dream demon. He tricked me into making a deal with him once and things just went downhill from there." Dipper explained, looking at the ground.

"He said Dipper and I were his…" Mabel hesitated. "His 'kids'. He said he made a deal with our parents before we were born so that we were his 'children' now. So he changed Dipper and then he just kept getting worse and worse so I- I tried to help him but the only way I could was- so I-"

Mabel eyes welled up with tears again and dipper hugged her, guilt etched into the lines of his face.

"It was all my fault, I was stupid enough to make a deal with Bill and then Mabel got dragged into it because of me." Dipper shook his head. "I should never have listened to him! The journal warned me about him but-"

"Wait- you've read my journals?" Ford blinked, raising a brow in interest.

"Yeah- wait….your journals?"

Ford chuckled in what was by far the friendliest expression he had made since arriving, looking at Stan.

"You can let me go, Stan. I believe them, I'm not going to hurt them. It's not their fault for being fooled by Bill…they're just kids, after all."

He would know very well about being fooled by Cipher. Not that he trusted them, far from it, but he wouldn't' be able to learn more about it by being hostile, that was certain. Stan eyed his brother, not trusting him quite much either, but considered a moment before nodding.

"…Fine, but you make one wrong move and I'll knock you silly."

Ford stretched his arms a bit, looking at the stunned children. He walked forward and picked up Journal One, which had fallen not far from them during the gravity event. Ford picked it up, looked it over and then looked at the young twins.

"I wrote these journals. You've read at least one of them, from the sounds of it."

There was a moment of silence.

"YOU WROTE THE JOURNALS?!"

Mabel rubbed her ears, pouting. Her brother had exclaimed in such a high-pitched squeal of pure delight that her head was hurting now. Dipper had taken the journal he had from his vest, showing it to Ford with big, bright, starstruck eyes that indicated he had completely forgotten the same man he was looking up to with adoration had tried to shoot him not minutes ago.

"I found this one in the woods and I read the entire thing so many times! I've run into a bunch of them and I've studied and I've- I've- I'm going to throw up-"

Though annoyed by her brother's reaction, Mabel still supported her brother, patting him on the back as he insisted he merely had to 'ride it out'. However Dipper's reaction seemed to have flattered the author. He was susceptible to flattery, this man. It was somehow so obvious to her; she'd remember it, it could be useful- She shook her head of the thought, returning her attention to comforting her brother. There were more important, less obvious things that had to be addressed.

"So uh, yeah we want to know what the heck is going on, you guys want to know what the heck is going on, we all do, but uh we have a problem first." Mabel looked at Stan. "The agents are like, right upstairs, aren't they?"

"Agents-? What agents?!" Ford rounded on his brother. "Stanley! What did you do?!"

"I brought your sorry a- bum back to reality, that's what! It's not my fault the government found out about it!"

"This is a disaster! If they find this room-" Ford began to chew on a pen he had conjured up from his coat. "We need to figure out a plan before anything else-"

"Wait! Wait I got something!" Dipper cut him off.

The boy ran over to his backpack and shuffled around in it, pulling out the memory gun McGucket had created.

"We can just use this, right?"

The author seemed pleased with the idea and Mabel tried not to stop him when he approached her brother. She still stayed close to him, eying Ford warily. She didn't trust him, but that was fair, she guessed, the man didn't seem to trust them either.