Ford found Dipper, finally, when the boy burst through the front door in a cloud of dust, gasping and hefting a box almost as big as his entire upper body in his skinny arms.
"Gre-Uncle F-I found-I got-look-" he wheezed, sounding like he had when they first met in the basement.
Ford knelt and put a gentle hand on his back. "Take a moment to breathe, my boy."
For a moment he worried that he might have made matters worse, since the moment he touched him Dipper made another of those high-pitched squeaking noises, and he could feel his heartbeat absolutely pounding against his hand.
But then Dipper took a few deep breaths through his nose and out through his mouth, and after a minute he seemed to finally calm down. After one last breath he straightened back up, grinning proudly, and held out the box. "It's the latest edition of DD&D!"
Ford examined it with a delighted eye, and produced his old gear. "Excellent! I have my dice and some graph paper all ready to go."
Dipper grinned, and pulled his own dice out of his pocket. "Let's go set it up!"
For the better part of an hour dungeons were created, a quest was established, and various monsters, thieves and minions of the evil wizard Probabilitor were fought.
It took Ford a while to realize, as he guided Dipper through another maze and waited to see whether the boy would stumble into any of his traps, that he was having fun.
When was the last time he'd been able to say that?
Probably at one or two points in the multiverse, in between stealing weapon parts and seeking information. But even then, he doubted he had ever allowed his neck and shoulders to drain of tension as much as he could feel that they were now.
Strange; being here, in his own dimension, in his own basement, and playing his favorite game with his nephew almost made him feel…safe. And comfortable.
As they were taking a break for him to assemble a new dungeon, however, Dipper gave his throat a nervous clear and then asked, "...You're not gonna kick out Grunkle Stan, are you?"
He was staring up at Ford with a frown that was mostly just serious, but if he looked closely, he could see genuine worry behind it.
Ford hesitated, choosing his words carefully before saying, "It has come to my attention that attempting to do that would be somewhat impractical of me. To say nothing of…extremely unkind. So no; Stanley is not obligated to leave this house unless he truly decides that he wants to."
He still wanted to find a way to remedy the whole identity-stealing thing, but one step at a time.
Dipper gave a small sigh of relief. "Oh. Good. I'll tell Mabel she can stop making her 'Stop Being a Jerk, Great Uncle Ford!' sweater."
…Her honesty was somewhat brutal, but the most humble aspect of Ford's psyche suspected that he needed to hear it.
As he finished the dungeon and began laying it out, Dipper cleared his throat again.
"...Then what about the Mystery Shack? I know it's…not what you had in mind when you built this place, and when I first came here it felt like kind of a joke to me too, especially when I saw all the amazing stuff that's really out there, but, um…" In a gesture that Ford found very familiar, the boy reached up and absently rubbed the back of his neck. "...It's kind of grown on me and Mabel. And Soos would definitely cry if it closed down, and Wendy would pretend that she was okay with it but she really wouldn't be because that'd mean she'd have to go to logging camp instead, and-"
He cut off with a squeak, and gulped, before looking intently down at his character sheet.
"…Never mind. Forget I said anything."
Stomach squirming, Ford quickly said, "No, that's all right, Dipper." He bit his lip. "That…is something I will have to discuss with Stanley."
Dipper looked even more apprehensive.
Ford felt his stomach give an even more uncomfortable squirm. "But I will admit…it's not without its level of amusement."
His nephew relaxed again, and even gave him a shy smile before holding up his dice. "I'm ready when you are."
Ford smiled. "Let's see how you do against Probabilitor's most devious trap yet."
They only stopped playing when Mabel came down, banging a couple of pans together and yelling that dinner was ready with enough gusto that it shook both of them out of their roleplaying reverie (in addition to nearly giving Ford a heart attack).
Dipper smiled ruefully at Ford as he got up, and caught his sister's arms. "Okay, we're coming, you can stop now."
Mabel made a face, and pulled away. "No way, I'm doing this for fun now!"
Before she could clang the pans together again, Ford snatched them out of her hands. "You might damage them if you keep doing that."
Unmoved by her pouting, he tucked the pans under his arm and headed for the elevator.
Dinner was a relatively modest offering of mixed vegetables and "scrambled meat," as Stanley referred to it when he placed it on the table. Maybe it was Ford's imagination, but something about the spices he tasted brought back a few faint memories of meals cooked by their mother.
Mabel chattered cheerfully about whatever thoughts happened to be in her head at the moment as she ate, while Dipper interjected with his own when she stopped to swallow.
It was a marked contrast from their awkward silence of the last few days, when he and Stanley had spent most of dinner either ignoring each other as best they could or making jabs at each other, which ranged from subtle to blatantly hostile depending on their current moods and how much they were able to rile the other one up, making the children uncomfortable in both scenarios.
Speak of the devil, Stan barely spoke during dinner, unless someone addressed him directly.
But this time, his silence felt less hostile and more…thoughtful.
Ford just ate his dinner and tried not to do or say anything that would seem confrontational.
It wasn't until later that night, when the children had been herded upstairs and Ford was adjusting his bedding in the break room, that Stan stepped into the doorway, tossed him a can of Pitt cola, and said, "Tell me about the spell."
Ford was taken aback, but finally popped the tab on his soda, barely remembering in time to turn it so the spray only got on his sleeve instead of on his face.
"Well, as I told you, it's a spell that compels-"
Stan waved a hand impatiently, before opening his own cola can. "Yeah, I remember that part. It'd make it so we can't lie to each other and junk."
Ford nodded, and took a drink, startling a little at the fizz. "And I would set it up by forming a circle of lapis lazuli stones, with a purple candle lit at either end, and placing two samples of our DNA in the center of the circle, so it would exclusively affect us. Then I would recite the incantation, and the spell would last for as long as the candles lasted."
Stan frowned. "Is it dangerous?"
"No, of course-well, it is imperative that the candles not be disturbed until they go out on their own. Trying to blow them out and end the spell prematurely might render us incapable of lying for the rest of our lives, if not something worse."
"You think there's something worse than that?" Stan looked aghast.
Ford gave a sheepish little shrug. "There's always something worse than what seems like the worst possible thing that can happen to you."
Stan grimaced, and took a big gulp of soda, before coughing and spitting out the pit.
"Don't know why they put that stupid thing in the can," he muttered, wiping his mouth on his wrist. Then he looked at Ford, and sighed.
"...If I get cursed ta speak the truth for the rest of my life, I'm telling the kids about how you got detention for tryna dig up a dinosaur you thought was buried under the school."
Ford suspected that Stan might eventually be motivated to tell them that story anyway, especially that what his eight-year-old self had thought were bones was actually part of the sewer pipe-but that wasn't the point!
"You-you're really okay with this?"
Stan shook his head, looking disgusted. "Pfft, no." Then he sagged. "But we don't have a lotta good options, do we?"
"...No. I suppose not."
Don't worry, I'm gonna finish this story if it kills me.
