A/N: Wrote this the day after Not What He Seems came out.

X

Stan rarely got along with his brother, and their mother complained because there was hardly an ounce of peace in their tiny house.

They hated each other as much as siblings could, which meant that they loved each other, just enough, but boy did they get on each others' nerves. They shared a cramped room together, the bunk bed not helping with the space problems. Each night they fought over who got top bunk, despite that the top was dangerously close to the ceiling fan and at one point they had each been slapped in the face by a ceiling fan blade. It was the principle that mattered.

Stan never could sleep well when they shared a room, tossing and turning at the sound of his brother noisily turning the pages of his book as he tapped his pencil on the bunk bed ladder like he was practicing the drums or something.

Stan broke a lot of pencils in half as a result.

They were never really close, and grew even farther apart when the bullies at school became more aggressive. Neither of them stepped in to help the other, afraid to be the next punching bag in line. They understood their reasons completely, both cowards, but that didn't mean it didn't get to them. Stan was his brother, and vice versa. They should be looking out for each other, not ignoring the violence, waiting for it to stop, grateful it wasn't them.

The boxing lessons helped and as they grew up, their tormentors turned to drugs and girls for entertainment. His brother, bookish and not a troublemaker, graduated high school and finished one semester of college. Stan dropped out. He had to to flee arrest by going to Columbia. Not that that mattered; he found trouble in Columbia too and became a jailbird anyway.

When Stan returned to the States he didn't contact his brother, and his brother made no effort either. The few people who got to know either brother would be surprised he had a sibling, and a twin at that.

Psychologists and paranormal eccentrics said twins were special. Twins had a bond. Stan's brother wasn't very skeptic, but even he questioned that statement.

Stan could tell, when his brother did finally contact him, years later, that Stan was his last choice. If his brother hadn't offered a handsome sum, and if Stan wasn't living on hamburger buns, he wouldn't have taken the job.

It was obvious why he chose Stan. He didn't want to get his hands dirty, and who better than the twin with an arrest record in every state and two countries?

Stan was the only hired thug that his brother could trust. And that was putting it lightly. His brother trusted no one but himself.

Their relationship was still strained months after moving into his brother's cabin in Gravity Falls. Stan was given a room in the attic, far away from his brother's room downstairs. Stan didn't complain. In fact, he was grateful. He bet his brother still read loudly at night.

The job was hard, as expected, but he enjoyed it. It beat doing "honest" work, but he didn't have a clue why he was rummaging in the junkyard for mechanical parts, or why he was stealing radioactive waste from the government.

He asked several times. A soft grunt and shifty-eyed look was the only answer he received.

Fiddleford's lips were sealed tighter than a pickle jar too. When he asked Fiddleford, the color left his cheeks and he would tug nervously on the collar of his shirt. Whatever it was, it scared Fiddleford. Stan suspected the only reason why he had stayed on the project as long as he did was because he was worried about Stan's brother.

Now Fiddleford's mind was broken, he'd never speak. Stan still didn't know what the machine was, or exactly how to work it. But he did know how to put it back together. He had helped make it and he would do it again.

It was about time he started looking out for his brother.