So, as insisted, Kevin was taken back home - after a particularly huge make out session from Mabel - and was soon sitting back in the tattered seats of Soos's pick-up truck, while the Pines tried to settle down. Poor Kevin wasn't entirely sure how he felt, himself. Today felt particularly crazy. Not even the normal level of crazy.

He was a Corduroy. He could deal with the normal level of crazy. It was basically his family's thing.

He had always known there was weird stuff going on in town. His Dad was one of the few who had never been 'wiped', perhaps out of fear for the town's manliest man who ever manned - and it had much continued in that vein with the Corduroy family.

But after encountering Bill Cipher, Cankerblight, Gnomes, Nymphs and a Clurichaun, his entire perspective on the world seemed to be changing. He was now wondering how much other stuff he had missed, what else Mabel must have seen, if he should pick up conspiracy magazines and, like, read up on it. Should he tell someone? What does it all mean? It didn't help that he was weirded out by Dipper's tendency to listen in any time he even mentioned Wendy in passing.

He bit his lip as the portly man drove him home, trying to distract himself by gazing out of the window at the angular pine trees and rugged mountains that made up his home town's landscape. Attempting to comfort himself in the only place he'd ever really known - even trying to rationalise himself in the weirdness.

Perhaps it wasn't as weird as it felt, and this was just something normal. Dipper and Mabel seemed fairly acclimated to it all by now. Even Pacifica seemed to be normalising it. Is that what he needed to do? Dive headfirst? Go full Dipper and Mabel mode?

He huffed as his eyes caught onto the unwieldy amounts of glowing eyes hidden in the woods. Were they always there, or-

"You got the Pines symptoms, dude." Soos commented idly as he navigated out of the parking lot. "I've seen it before."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, bro. It starts with joining them on an adventure, helpin' investigate somethin', then you blink and you got sixty copies of Cryptid Magazine and are planning to break into Area 51."

"...Are you planning to break into Area 51?"

"Dude, I'm totally planning to break into Area 51!" Soos chuckled jovially as he spoke. "Imagine the exhibits in there, dawg!"

"Soos, have you joined them on a lot of this stuff?"

"Oh yeah. Not like, as much as I'd like to, dude, but I gotta run a business and Melody wants me to keep both of my limbs until cybernetics come out."

"What's the freakiest thing, y'know, apart from Weirdmageddon?"

"One time I saw Gideon Gleeful eat an entire jar of maple syrup because Mabel had touched it in a store. That was pretty weird."

Kevin wrinkled his nose. "I- I meant monsters and stuff."

"Ooh, awkward. I guess you don't want that jealousy bug, right? Between you an' me, I think Mabel would love a guy gettin' the jealousy bug over her. She's like, romance cliche central, dawg."

Kevin took mental notes while doing his best to make it look like he wasn't taking mental notes. Soos continued driving as he thought about the question.

"In terms of monsters, bro, that's like, a bit of a strange principle. What's a monster? Who's a monster? Like, the scariest thing I've ever seen Is Abuelita in one of those tanning beds. You ever seen those things? Freakin' A, dude, it's like something from A Space Odyssey."

Soos continued trailing off into his anecdotes and nuggets of profound - albeit abstract - wisdom, as the pickup manoeuvred around a large group of stomach faced ducks, fighting over a bag of fresh Mega Melter Poofy Doof Imitation Marshmallows. Kevin raised an eyebrow.

Where would a duck - let alone a stomach faced one - get a brand new bag of marshmallows? Those messed up birds were pretty much banned from town. Nobody liked them (mostly due to the view of their internal organs every time they quacked.) He watched as one of the ducks drop-kicked another in the sickeningly violent battle for the sugary gelatin treat. Usually he'd find that sort of thing hilarious, but he found himself more... Perplexed.

Don't ducks usually eat, like, bread? Or smaller ducks? Or grapes? Then waddle away?

It just seemed a bit odd to see them fighting tooth and nail for the equivalent of air, artificial sweetener and pig feet.

His eyes remained fixed on them as they disappeared out of sight.

"Those ducks crack me up, bro. I tried to keep up one as a pet when I was like, 9, but it tried to eat our cat." Soos chuckled to himself as he spoke - before his face dropped into one of stony sincerity. "We had to eat the duck first."

Things fell quiet.

"You uh… have quite a history, huh, Soos?"

"Kevin, bro, this entire town is built of history from the people who live here. Like, Pacifica's family memoirs would be a wild read." Soos leaned over to the day-old milkshake sitting in his cup holder, maintaining his hands on the wheel with surprising tact."Everyone in this crazy place has a history. Your folks, my folks, Grenda's folks…"

Kevin nodded absently, his attention now being arrested by a group of gnomes attempting to firebomb an ice cream truck.

"Hell, bro, Dipper and Mabel's folks thought Gravity Falls would be a peaceful summer vacation. Can you imagine that, dude? This place is about as peaceful as my stomach after I eat four Baseball hot dogs in a row."

Kevin was now completely distracted. "You live in the shack all the time, right? Seen plenty of gnomes and stuff?"

"Yeah, bro. I've swapped things with one of them, y'know, for magic stuff."

"Are they normally so violent?"

"I know what you're saying."

"You do?"

"No. What do you mean, dawg? I got completely distracted by the Manotaur trying to eat the Browniemobile."

"How do you like…manage to deal with this weird stuff so easily? It's like you've always got blinkers on, Soos. Y'know - tunnel vision. Like you're too busy dealing with your own stuff to see what's going on around you."

"Abuelita thinks it's due to my creative mind." Soos nodded.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, dude. The doctor said I was borderline artistic, y'know?"

Kevin blinked. He considered saying something but was soon distracted by a flock of tree geese attempting to tear open a taco delivery wagon with their terrifying goose teeth.

It was a strange, strange ride home.