interlude:

high lonesome

The Shack never was much to look at, and that's okay; Stan never was much to look at, either, not even in his salad days, though he can't speak to that ten years he spent not looking into mirrors at all if he could help it. It's okay because it's comfortable, because it's where he's dug himself in, finally, and it's funny how he spent far more of his life here than on the road and still, it took decades before he stopped feeling rootless. The faces have a lot to do with that, he suspects. The people. On the road, all the faces passed like streetlights, bright for a moment, then fading in the red rearview. Maybe there's only two places he ever belonged, and he had to cross the country to find the second. Of course, on nights like this when the wind hits the trees, it just sounds like the sea. Maybe that's irony, he's not sure. He thinks they keep changing what that word means.

It all used to feel romantic, or at least sound romantic, living life on the highway, a desperado, master of his own destiny, a rebel without a cause. Stan always loved the fifties—or maybe the idea of the fifties, the rebellious fifties, not the uptight fifties—always loved the classic cars and leather jackets, the outlaws and greasers. It's how he preferred to see himself when he roared outta Jersey and into an endless series of sleepless nights beneath neon signs.

(Maybe what he really related to in all those James Dean dreams was the desperation, the sense of never belonging. Not as cool as the image, but much more real.)

Jersey itself feels about as distant as the moon. If he squints his brain in the right direction he can remember the brick buildings, the cold ocean, the seagulls screaming overhead. Sometimes it's more of an impression than anything, like a rough sketch of a Jersey postcard, and sometimes it's like he's there again, sea-scented wind ripping at his hair while he looks for loose change in the sand. Maybe the difference has something to do with his brain getting zapped last summer; or, more likely, he's just getting older. Every day that passes takes him further from the boardwalk.

He doesn't miss it. He stopped missing stuff like that a long time ago. For thirty years, he didn't have room to miss anyone or anything but Ford.

Sometimes he wakes up in the morning and expects to shamble downstairs and find everything the same, everything back to default, to stasis. After three decades of incremental change in his life—and sometimes no change at all—it's hard to mentally pack in how different it's become in the span of a year.

It's a good change. Nothing is perfect, but it's so good that whatever bad there might be seems hard to find, most days. All those bitter years when he would have given just about anything to hear Ford's voice, to see him, to let him take over his own stupid, baffling machinery and save himself. Now he's here, in the aged flesh, as uptight and condescending as ever and, god, Stan missed him. Thirty years with a phantom limb—phantom twin—and he's really back.

Sure, things were rough between them for a bit. They had to start over, learn how to be brothers again. They're making it work.

He's spent so much of his life pretending that things were okay that the sudden shift to actually being okay still catches him off guard sometimes.

Ford is older, wiser, less persnickety (slightly), and still has his head in the clouds. He's new, but familiar, like a favorite drink with an unexpected hint of lime. It's funny how Stan still knows what to expect most of the time, though Ford could throw that right back at him. Now, the kids, though—the kids have been a revelation.

Stan never took much part in their lives before, never thought he was all that welcome (or maybe he just didn't want to think about it, didn't want to consider what little family he had left and how much time slipped through his fingers). He came down to California when the twins were born and a few other times after that: a housewarming, an eighth birthday. When their parents asked if he could take them in over the summer, he almost said no. He was running a tourist trap, not a daycare, and besides, what kid would want to spend the summer cooped up with a little-seen relative? He hadn't worried about the lab—if even the Shack's handyman hadn't stumbled across it, a couple of kids weren't gonna.

But some little voice in the back of his head asked him what else you got? He only had one bridge left to burn and he hesitated with the match in his fingers, suddenly understanding that if he said no, they wouldn't ever ask again.

So, yeah, he said. It'll be fun. They'll get plenty of exercise.

There was fun and there was exercise and there was also a whole lot more, more than he ever bargained for and probably more than anyone ever bargained for. It's strange, because he remembers that whole summer, more or less, but he can't remember picking the kids up from the bus stop, not the entire thing. He's got this slice of a memory, just an image of Dipper and Mabel stepping off the bus. He hadn't seen them for a few years and all of a sudden they were taller and smarter and just more like people, in that way that kids grow, where every year that passes seems to tack on another layer of personhood, all the preoccupations and opinions and history. In them, he could see a fainter image, one of him and his brother stepping out of the pawn shop for another summer adventure of their own.

Maybe that was the wrong thing to see. Mabel, he liked right away, her jokes, her energy, her boundless enthusiasm for doing all the dumb things that make life enjoyable. He took longer to warm up to Dipper, and he knows now that it was his own fault. He saw a sullen little echo of his brother in Dipper, sans glasses and plus ballcap. So, if Mabel was an echo of himself, and Dipper was an echo of Ford, then he wasn't going to get along with Dipper, at least not for long. And someday, neither would Mabel.

Yeah, right. Shows what he knew.

Mabel isn't Stan, and Dipper isn't Ford. They proved that and then some. Stan doesn't know where they got that moral compass from, but it wasn't from his side of the family. Though, then again, Shermie always seemed to know the right thing to do, as Stan remembers it. Maybe he passed that on to his son.

Which reminds Stan: He told the twins' dad to come visit sometime. That'll open a whole can of worms, unless they can avoid anything crazy happening while he and his wife are here. Stan doesn't understand much about Ford's science, but he understands there's little to no chance of avoiding Weirdness. It's as much a part of all of them as it is the valley.

And that puts Stan in a rough spot, sure enough.

He sighs, leaning over in his armchair to snag the remote off the dino skull. There's nothing worth watching on TV and the Shack is utterly dead, not a single sucker passing through the gift shop. He's not surprised. Things tend to slow down towards the end of the summer, and the town just emptied of every tourist it held. It'll pick up a little in the Fall, and then again around the holidays, but summer is the money season. And it's been a good year, if he's honest. Soos kept the place afloat, sure, but this summer they've been raking it in, at least by tourist trap standards. Now if Ford's business would bring in some money instead of always spending it, they'd be in great shape.

But it's not business—it's science. How many times has Stan heard that guff from Ford? It's not like science is putting food on the table, and it's a full house most days, what with Soos and Melody, and Wendy always helping herself (Stan should probably resent her for it, but he has a hard time resenting Wendy for anything). 'Course, if there's something to be said for Gravity Falls, the cost of living is low. Property taxes are nothing compared to Piedmont or Portland. Stan still doesn't pay them, of course, but it's nice to know that if he did, it wouldn't be a lot.

He turns the TV off. He sits there, listening, almost expecting that familiar silence that settles over the building when tourist hours are past, when Soos is gone, when there's nothing but the wind in the forest outside and the creak of wood settling in the cooling evening. He doesn't know how many hours he's spent in this old chair, cranking up the volume on his cruddy TV just to drown out that vast and looming stillness.

But quiet isn't what greets his ears. He can hear the thumps through the top of the wall behind him as the twins move around their attic room. They're supposed to be packing up but have mostly been distracted by getting ready for their fourteenth birthday party. Someone's running water in the downstairs bath, and that's probably Pacifica, who tends to shower early since she takes so long. And there's a banging noise echoing down the hall from the gift shop that probably means Soos is finally fixing that crooked shelf. Either that or Ford is making yet more surprise 'adjustments' to the Shack's infrastructure.

It's nice. It's… alive, in a way that Stan never could make it be by himself.

The water shuts off in the bathroom. Pacifica still won't be out of there for at least another twenty minutes, so if Stan wants to use the can he'll have to go over to the small bathroom off the floor room.

She's been the biggest surprise of the summer, the Northwest kid, give or take hearts and hawks. When the twins asked if she could stay Stan just about refused, couldn't imagine living with a Northwest, never mind one as stuck up and bratty as he knew she was (she's never mentioned what happened at Pioneer Day, and he's all too happy to let it lie). He opened his mouth to tell the kids no way when something made him stop, made him think it over again. Something about a kid without a good home, with parents who didn't understand or seem to want her; a kid who didn't have a whole lot of options, and the ones she did have weren't so hot.

Stan knows that story—he's got it etched on his bones. And saying 'no, get out' to a thirteen-year-old girl who had two friends in the world and just wanted to stay with them, well… He felt like his old man was wearing his skin.

Said yes instead. Somehow, didn't live to regret it.

No, he's got something else he's regretting right now, and it's got nothin' to do with blondie and everything to do with the knuckleheads knocking around upstairs. Especially the one in the hat, who takes after Ford a little too much.

If Stan made a list of all the things he's good at, there would be five things on it, and the sixth would be screwing up. So no surprise to anyone, least of all him, when he makes a bad call—not that he'll ever admit to it. He's got his pride, or at least bravado, and he ain't giving that up now. He's much better at doubling down than folding.

But, well… it's not like the twins aren't gonna see right through him when he walks this back.

He's not the best summer caretaker. He doesn't have to be—he's a great-uncle! For the most part he just lets the kids be kids and it all works out. Until the world almost ended. Until Dipper just about snuffed it in a magic maze. And, if he's honest, until about a dozen other near-death moments he knows about and probably a dozen more he doesn't. Gravity Falls ain't exactly a typical vacation spot. Not if you're a couple of knuckleheaded twins with an attraction for trouble, anyway, and Stan should know. He'd been a twin just like that, once, and recently resumed the role.

He figured he was doing the right thing for once, grounding the kids. It's kinda strange, but having that face to face with Ford and the twins' parents in Piedmont made the whole thing real in a new way. Dipper and Mabel aren't just kids, they're somebody's kids, somebody who was crazy enough to let Stan take care of them for three months. Stan already knew that, obviously, he'd met Shermie's son and his wife before, but the fact of their parenthood was pretty easy to ignore when they were just tinny voices through the phone. Seeing Dipper and Mabel with their parents was a reminder that those parents gave Stan temporary custody of their kids. That means something. It's a… a duty, or whatever. And Stan's never tried to let them get hurt or anything—unless they're trying to hurt each other, since that's just funny—but for the most part he figured they could take care of themselves, and they almost always proved him right. He just never used to bother much with the 'almost.'

Stan's used to having nothing to lose. For a good chunk of his life, he gambled everything because he didn't have anything.

Now he's got a lot. A lot, and he's afraid to lose it.

So, yeah… maybe he overreacted.

He knew from the start that grounding the twins wasn't exactly enforceable, not unless he barred all the doors and windows and confined them to the Shack. That's why he went nuclear, why he told them he'd call their parents if they went off in search of something Weird and dangerous. It was his only option to bring them in line, and he kind of hates himself for it—last thing he ever wanted to be was a narc.

A bunch of destroyed alien robo-hawks later and he's been given a big, fat reminder that the kids don't have to go lookin' for something Weird and dangerous.

The kid's got that theory about personal Weirdness and magnets or whatever. Seems like it works, which isn't really surprising; Dipper's got a good head on his shoulders, after all. It's almost enough to make Stan think he should just tell the kids they can't come to the valley anymore. But they found a ghost and whatever that thing was in Piedmont, and a Boss-Lobster in Malibu. At least here in Gravity Falls it's easier to handle that kind of crap; everyone's used to turning a blind eye (pun intended), and the cops will stay out of it.

Stan leans his head on the back of his chair and sighs. Seems like all he accomplished was making the kids less of a moving target. He just wants them to be safe, which he realizes is kinda pointless. Who's ever safe, really? Even if the odds of getting hurt are lower in normal life, it's not like that normality is something the twins will ever see. Too late for that. If he could turn back the clock and never invite them for the summer in the first place, maybe that would work. But he can't.

(And wouldn't, even if he could. He knows he's too selfish for that.)

Placing his hands on the armrests, Stan pushes himself upright decisively. He's got a whole bucket of crow to eat and putting it off ain't making it any more appetizing.

He stumps up to the attic, his knees creaking as much as the wooden steps. He's lost a fair amount of weight over the last year—not trying to lose the pounds, just trying to keep up with Ford—but his lower back and his knees aren't getting the message that he's supposedly more active now. If Ford was a more useful brother, he'd have built that robot back for Stan already.

When Stan steps into the loft, the door to the twins' room is already open. As he thought, they aren't packing. Instead, they've made one heck of a mess in setting up a new game of Attic Stuff Minigolf. It's a game Stan doesn't care for, partly because he's not any good at minigolf, but mostly because the game usually involves him taking a golf ball to the noggin at some point.

Dipper is saying something to Mabel. "-gets here, she's on my team."

"Pffft, you wish! No teams!" Mabel declares.

"You get Waddles on your team," Dipper argues.

Mabel retorts, "Waddles is not on my team, he's a cheerpig. He's here for moral support."

"It's still two against one. I'm outnumbered and that's a psychological disadvantage."

"Fine, Pacifica can be your cheerpig."

"Just… don't call her that when she gets here."

Bracing himself, Stan raps his knuckles against the doorframe. It's his house, but he always tries to respect the twins' privacy, especially in their own attic room. He doesn't come in here often and when he does, he leaves it pretty much alone. He doesn't poke, and he doesn't pry. Part of living out of a car for ten years was gaining an acute understanding of the value of a real home, a safe and personal space. He told the twins this was their room and he meant it. Same with Pacifica downstairs, and Ford in the subbasement.

"Hey," he says when the twins turn to see him. "Got a minute?"

"Sure," Dipper says slowly, trading a glance with Mabel. He sits on the edge of his bed, and Mabel sits next to him.

A united front. God, he remembers when he and Ford were just the same.

Stan steps around the makeshift golf course and slumps onto the side of Mabel's bed. Apologies never come easy for him and he's not sure what he wants to say. There can't be more than eight feet between him and the twins, but it suddenly feels like miles.

"So, uh… Look," Stan says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I wanted to let you kids know that, uh… considering recent events, or whatever… you're not grounded anymore."

Neither of the twins look surprised, which in itself shouldn't be surprising. They're both smarter than he ever was at that age. They're in the thick of it with Ford, Mabel almost as much as Dipper, and they know this science junk front to back. They must've realized he was making a pointless mistake when he grounded them in the first place and figured he wouldn't listen if they told him so.

Which, yeah, alright. He wouldn't have.

"I know there's not a lot of summer left," Stan says, grimacing. "But whenever you come back, you can get back to adventuring or whatever you call it. Your usual mission to put me in the ground early by heart attack."

"Early?" Dipper says, fighting a grin.

"You can always be regrounded," Stan growls.

"Well, that's great news!" Mabel says brightly, clapping her hands together. "Thanks, Grunkle Stan! We won't rub it in your face too much."

"At least a day, though, right? One day of rubbing it in? Maybe two?" Dipper asks his sister.

"I don't know, Dip, it's gotta be rough to be so totally wrong, maybe we should go easy on him…"

"Yeah, you're right. If I was ever that absolutely completely wrong about something, I'd never show my face again."

"You know what, just don't come back," Stan says loudly, standing up. "You're both dead to me. I'm leaving all my cash to charity."

"Sure, that's plausible," Dipper says, rolling his eyes.

Mabel jumps up and grabs Stan's right arm, hugging it. "It's okay, Grunkle Stan, we still love you even though you were the wrongest person ever to be wrong."

By this point, Stan can no longer conceal his smile. "Alright, alright," he chuckles, shaking his arm loose from Mabel. "I took my lumps. Be glad you're free. Just… look. If you're gonna go out and do something crazy, at least take Ford or Wendy with you, or Soos if you're desperate. Be smart about it, okay?"

Dipper's expression turns sober. "We will. And, hey, you can always come with us."

"That'll be the day," Stan grunts, knowing full well there will be many days and many adventures, some of which he might even enjoy.

He leaves the attic just as Pacifica is coming in. He can hear the twins start sharing the news as he descends the wooden steps. Too bad they don't have a lot of free time remaining; between packing up and the party, there's little space for an expedition. But there's always next summer. That'll seem like a lifetime to the kids, but at Stan's age the span between years gets a little narrower with each repetition. It's not fair, really, how that works. The years go faster all the time, right when he's starting to want to hold on to them.

The flip side of that is the kids will be back before he knows it. And, hey, it's not like he has a whole lot going on. Soos and Melody can watch the Shack if Stan decides to take a trip down to Piedmont. He is semi-retired, after all.

As Stan descends the attic stairs, the kids' voices rebound through the wooden halls, loud and vibrant. It makes him smile.

Still a little summer left.

and in my head there's all these classic cars and outlaw cowboy bands

i always kinda sorta wished i was someone else

the gaslight anthem — high lonesome