Dipper remained suspicious of the extracted fuel when Ford unceremoniously dumped the dusty old bag onto the floor, and spared no time in handling some of the filthy contents with no lack of curiosity. It was a brittle, unmistakable piece of mineral - coating his fingers black, slightly reflective in the electric lights of the Shack's lounge.
Pacifica was quick to admonish him. "Gross, Dip, look at the state of your hands!"
"Yeah, I guess it's pretty bad." Dipper smirked - before promptly planting a blackened palm on her face. "Help me out, huh?"
She twitched and broke into a wide grin. This meant war!
Ford very quickly split them up and snatched his satchel of samples back with a firm glare. It was a mercifully short battle as a result - after all, coal dust was not an easy thing to get out of the carpet, or the leather grain of a Gookie $500 Periwinkle Waist Belt.
"This is not relevant to research." He said with a furrowed brow. "Enough."
"S-Sorry." Dipper said quietly, as the silver-haired researcher checked the sack's contents were still usable.
"Good. At least it's undamaged." Ford said. He held Dipper's shoulder firmly and huffed - before breaking into a wide smile as he left a pronounced, six-fingered handprint on his great-nephew's t-shirt.
Pacifica burst out laughing, not least with relief at the fact that Grunkle Ford, since his lone wolf persona had dissipated, was so much softer since the start of Summer. Despite her occasional dread of his 'serious' moods, She had grown to appreciate the old man's somewhat unpredictable, aloof nature. He was the closest they had to a genuinely responsible adult - and, being fair, he was still a responsible adult who played board games and ate jelly beans as part of his day-to-day meal routine.
When Ford laughed or smiled, or showed genuine excitement, it changed his entire face - practically changed his entire personality. At first, it always seemed he wasn't sure what to do with kids; he most certainly wasn't sure how to talk to her.
Now though - as he dusted off his hands and admired the colossal, ancient chart with a broad, genuine grin, his eyebrows raised and his enthusiasm bleeding through every pore - it was clear just how much he could be genuinely impressed by his young relations.
"You put all of this together yourselves?"
"Kevin helped a lot, Grunkle Ford!" Mabel smiled proudly, rubbing the soot stain into Dipper's t-shirt. "He brought it all over from his dad's cabinets!"
"I can't believe Dan Corduroy has so much in his archives!" Ford replied. "Why hasn't Wendy ever come along with this stuff?"
"Oh, we're definitely not allowed." Kevin said, simply. "He keeps an eye on Wendy. Thinks she's a troublemaker. When you're the middle brother, though, it's a little easier to get 'lost', you know what I mean?"
Ford nodded understandingly as he traced the map with his finger. "I don't quite understand why it gets into such hysterics, though. The coal appears quite ordinary."
"There has to be something, Grunkle Ford." Dipper protested. "You know what they were like back then-"
"Yeah!" Mabel agreed. "Old-timey folks didn't get scared unless they saw a girl in pants!"
"You're quite right." Ford shrugged. "But there was no weirdness going on with that coal seam. If anything, it was the most normal thing down there."
Pacifica twisted her lip as she thought it over. "I mean, things have changed a lot since then, right? Like, they didn't even have battery-powered flashlights when this chart was drawn up. Maybe it was something old-timey that woke it up? What's the most old fashioned, anti-modern, stupidly ancient style room in the shack?"
"Oh, dude." Soos chimed in, leaning over the gift shop's access door in full costume. "That'll be the boiler room."
"Get back to your tour, Soos." Stan retorted.
"No, Mr. Pines, I'm serious - since I moved the game system and the pinball machine, it's like a time capsule. Even the cinder block holding up the furnace is like, an antique cinder block. An' I don't even know about the furnace."
Ford rubbed his chin. "Zeus probably has a point. All of the heating systems in this building were hand-me-downs."
"Dude, if there's one thing I know, it's heating systems. And Airstream trailer maintenance." Soos replied - before quickly getting back to work. "O- oh, hey, lady, I've a great offer for you on them snowglobes- I gotta go, dawgs. Good luck with the time machine thing."
"Well, I guess it's time to get an experiment running, eh?" Ford smiled. "We need a few gas-powered lamps, some pickaxes - we can uh, maybe go without the asbestos."
Mabel nodded as wrote up a list. "...And forget the forbidden cotton candy. Gotcha. Let's go raid the museum!"
"Now see here! We don't need to make this a crime, kids, it's-" Ford tried to protest, while Stanley gathered his best burgling gear. He knew as well as anyone else that there was no chance of stopping the entourage and its passion for - well, being members of the Pines family. "...Fine. Fine. Let's raid the museum."
His next words of caution were drowned out by the cheers of delight from Kevin, Mabel and Grunkle Stan, as they bounded back into the golf cart, now each wearing face masks and leather gloves.
Dipper and Pacifica glanced to each other with twisted lips. Was it really a good time to resort to criminal activities? While Stan, Mabel and Kevin were happy to shirk the idea of running close to the moral equator, the two of them couldn't help but think that getting into potential police trouble would be a bad end to the Summer.
...Not that anybody had seen Blubs and Durland for days now.
...Not that Blubs and Durland had been particularly effective at the best of times.
The two knew they were thinking exactly the same thing - but decided to silence the concerns with a simple 'meh'. They climbed into the golf cart with no further question. After all, when in Rome…
Or, y'know, when in the company of Grunkle Stan.
Ford Pines followed behind them with a hand-stitched burglar balaclava in his hands, delicately embroidered with 'Sixer' on the inside.
He rolled his eyes, smiled and sat next to his brother. "Let's roll, Stanley."