Aand, another fanfiction! Sue me!

I came up with the idea for this one whilst I was in Norway, and wrote it because I was in the mood for cold weather. Obviously, updates will be sporadic depending on school work, motivation and the rest of it.

Enjoy my sadism.

Chapter 1 – Welcome to Gravity Falls

A (Hopefully) Sane Point of View

The moment he saw the frost-coated 'Welcome to Gravity Falls' sign blur past him, Stan Pines felt the tension in his shoulders ease up slightly. Finally, he could relax. And if he played his cards right, it would stay that way. Reaching into his coat pocket, he absentmindedly ran a hand along the wad of cash that weighed it down. He'd worked hard the past few years to not only save up this much money, but to also pay off all his debts and shake the nasty crowd he'd gotten himself mixed up in off of his back, too. While he wasn't – and probably never would be – completely in the clear, he was as clean as he could get, and that was fine by him.

Oregon was now one of the few states that didn't possess a poor image of him, and the dully average, unassuming town of Gravity Falls was the perfect place for him to keep his head down and get a fresh start. Buy a house, get a job, keep out of trouble, and maybe even find somebody to hook up with.

Encouraged by this particular thought, Stan removed his hand from his pocket to shift the car's gear down a notch and applied a little more pressure to the gas pedal. His speed increased slightly, and he relished the thrill that coursed through his veins. He'd forgotten what it was like to simply cruise down an empty road without having to worry about whether or not someone was tailing him with a gun-toting psycho sat in the passenger seat and intending to fire a bullet into the back of his skull.

He continued at this speed until he approached the town, before decelerating to a level that wouldn't get him arrested. As he drifted through the streets, he took in the sights that Gravity Falls had to offer. In all honesty, it wasn't an awful lot. Even when covered in a blanket of sparkling white snow, it was a dreary town; only a few people dared venture the streets, and some very basic-looking stores proclaimed their wares. He hoped there was a motel around, at least. It didn't even have to provide breakfast; just a bed and a bathroom, and he'd be satisfied.

After a short while, he pulled up in front of a place called 'Greasy's Diner'. Walking in, Stan was assaulted by the sudden heat of the well-populated diner and the comforting scent of a fry cooker at work. The place was packed and buzzing with conversation, families and large groups of friends were seated at the side tables whilst several loners were sat along the counter, making small talk with one another. With practised care, Stanley approached and took a seat by the counter next to a noisy young man with carrot-orange hair and a red flannel shirt beneath denim overalls. Guessing from the name being repeatedly thrown in his direction, the boy was likely called Dan.

"Well howdy there, stranger. What can I getcha?"

Startled from his thoughts, Stanley looked over the counter at a chubby young woman; about his age; with her dark pink hair styled so that the fringe curled up above her forehead, powder-blue eyeshadow adorning her eyelids and mauve lipstick decorating her lips. She wore a light blue t-shirt and darker blue skirt under a grease-stained apron, and she currently held a glass mug in one hand whilst she cleaned it with a rag that she had in the other.

"Uh, well... what's on the menu?" Stan enquired cautiously, unsure about the stranger.

"I'll just go get it for you," the woman said brightly; departing for a moment before returning with a menu, which Stan gratefully accepted. "Hey, have we met before?"

Stan tensed, but kept his eyes on the menu. Hm, that double decker burger looked appealing right now. "No, I doubt it," he replied nonchalantly. "This is my first time in Gravity Falls."

"Hm, I thought I recognised ya from somewhere. Probably just my imagination. The name's Susan, by the way."

"Stanley," Stan returned with a faint smile. He was starting to like this lady.

"So what brings ya here, then? I mean there's not much to talk about, so why the interest?"

"I came for a fresh start. I... got kicked out of the house some twelve years ago because of some mistakes I made. Been on the road ever since."

A sympathetic look graced Susan's features. "Ya poor thing," she said softly, sounding genuinely sorry.

Stan merely shrugged. "I'm over it. Hey, is there a motel or something round here? I need a place to stay until I can buy myself a house."

"Sure, there's one on the other side of town. Oh, and have ya picked out an order yet?"

"Thanks, and uh, yeah. Could I have the... double decker burger with extra fries on the side, and a Pitt Cola, please?"

"Comin' right up."

Stanley exited the diner with a full stomach and contentment on his face; something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Getting into the Stanleymobile, he fired up the engine and began the fifteen-minute drive to the motel; going by the direction Susan had given him. He must have taken a wrong turn, because twenty minutes later, he was completely lost, coming the streets in an attempt to find-.

"HOT BELGIAN WAFFLES!" Stan screamed, spewing an unhealthily long string of curse words at the top of his lungs as he violently swerved to avoid the rag-clad figure that had unexpectedly rushed onto the road in front of him. Slamming his foot on the brakes, he yelled in shock as his tires lost their grip on the road, resulting in the back end of the car swinging forwards as the entire vehicle careened along the tarmac; narrowly avoiding a second potential collision (this time with a lamppost) before skidding to an unsteady halt.

Stan sat rigid at the wheel; eyes wide with shock, and breaths harsh and laboured. He'd almost run someone over. He'd almost run someone over.

In a panic, he jumped out of the car and rapidly scanned the street in search of the moron he'd come very close to hitting with his car; eyes laying to rest on the human form that lay shaking in the middle of the road.

Oh no...

Starting forward, he ran towards them; fearing for this stranger's life. He was about halfway there when he finally noticed the group of teenage boys that had gathered on the sidewalk to observe the spectacle. However, they weren't showing the same concern.

"Great job, freak! You almost killed somebody! Again!"

"Just go back to the junkyard before you do some real damage!"

"Another car crash? Jeez, just how much trouble can one nutjob hillbilly cause?"

All these insults and barbed witticisms assailed Stan's ears with a violence he hadn't felt since before he'd left home, even though they weren't directed at him. His blood boiled in rage, and his teeth ground together in aggravation, but he carried on forward and tried to fight off the urge to hit these boys square in the jaws. Yes, he wanted to show them a healthy dose of karma, but he had their victim's health in mind as well. The latter of the desires one out, of course. He'd punch someone later.

"Oh, you're in trouble now!"

"He's gonna pound you into the ground!"

"Hey guys. How much cash are you willing to bet that that dude's gonna put McGucket's other arm in a cast?"

Okay, now he was beginning to reach his breaking point.

"What the heck's wrong with you people?!" he roared, turning on his heel to glare at the teenagers. "This man could be dead for all you know, and you're insulting him? That's sick!"

Most of the teens fell silent; shocked by Stan's defensive outrage. However, one boy was unfazed.

"That old ragbag's more trouble than he's worth!" the insufferable brat retorted mockingly.

"If you knew anything, you'd wish you'd hit him full on!"

"How about I ram you into the road?!" Stan spat back. "Now buzz off, before I decide to do so, you good-for-nothing punk!"

He must have sounded serious, because the boys all shot each other the same nervous look before scarpering. Good riddance. With his anger somewhat quelled, Stanley knelt down beside... McGucket, was it? ... and looked him over. "Hey, you okay?"

McGucket was a tall, lanky man, if the length of his scrawny limbs was anything to go by. However, it was hard to tell, because of how tightly he was curled in on himself. A tangled mess of long, matted hair hung around his bony shoulders and flopped over his sickeningly pale, gaunt, unshaven face, which currently bore indescribable terror etched into every detail. His cheeks were dangerously sunken, and his eyes donned a set of ugly, bruise-like circles around them; a sign of sleep deprivation; not to mention they were currently wide with shock and completely vacant, as if he'd fled from reality or something.

"Hey, you gonna answer?" Stanley pressed, getting a hold of the trembling man's shoulder and shaking him gently. He wasn't sure what to do, and although he knew that it would be a good idea to get this guy out of the middle of the road and somewhere warmer, he had no idea what the best course of action would be. What if he'd suffered serious injury after getting hit by the car? He could risk making things worse. "Come on, you've gotta say something."

It was only when snow began to fall, and he figured he'd just have to pick the man up regardless of the consequences in order to get him out of there, that McGucket seemed to finally snap out of it and focus on him with glazed eyes. Haunted dread flooded those pale blue depths, and he unexpectedly lashed out at Stan; swinging a wild punch that only just grazed across his face; and frantically tried to scramble away, only to fall to the floor again with pain clearly written on his face.

"Hey, easy, I'm just try'na help," Stan said. "Be careful, you're hurt."

The barest hint of annoyance flickered through McGucket's eyes, but he didn't say anything, so Stan wordlessly held out a hand. To his confusion, the strange man stared at his appendage as if he were holding out some nerd equation for him to figure out.

"Come on, we can't spend too long in the middle of the road," he said in slight annoyance. "Let me help you up."

McGucket nodded, and finally complied; taking hold of Stanley's hand and allowing himself to be pulled up onto his feet. The oddball was favouring his left leg.

"Umm…" Stan mumbled as he guided the limping McGucket to his car. "Do you, like… have anywhere to go? Home, maybe some family? Anything?"

In answer to his question, McGucket just shrugged, looking lost, hopeless and confused; something Stan was painfully familiar with. Lost because he didn't know where to go; hopeless because there was nothing he could ever do about it; confused because he had no idea where everything went wrong.

"Nothin', huh? I guess… you could stay with me for a little while," Stanley grunted, carefully assisting McGucket into the passenger seat before darting round to set himself behind the wheel. He felt eyes on him, and a glance over at the strange man riding shotgun told him that said man was looking at him with a mix of bewilderment and undying gratitude, which honestly made Stan feel worse for him. Clearly, the guy hardly ever experienced kindness. It was obvious, really; he was homeless and not a single person seemed to care. The dark grey trench coat he wore was badly torn in places that left him seriously exposed to the cold, his feet were covered in bandages as poor replacements for shoes, and the hems of his ragged old trousers were completely shredded. An old plaster cast encased his lower right arm, indicating that he'd taken a beating at some point, but now it probably served as some menial form of protection from the elements. Among other things, of course. There was always more to fear when the whole world wouldn't just get off of your damned back. "Name's Stanley, by the way. Stanley Pines."

A fleeting glint of recognition flashed through McGucket's eyes, but Stan thought nothing of it. He probably heard about one of his many failed attempts at marketing. With shaky hands, he fumbled through his pockets whilst Stan fired up the engine of the Stanleymobile. After a moment, the scrawny man brought out a battered old notepad and a pencil (the end of which had been chewed to a lump of splinters and ground-up graphite), and flipped to page that had obviously been read over many times before, judging from the stains and torn-up edges. He turned it to Stanley, and he read the simple message written on there.

"My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket."

From a Mute's Skewed Perspective

Fiddleford may have had trouble remembering things, but he certainly remembered that his plans for the day didn't involve getting hit by a car. It really hurt, which was the main reason he had wanted to avoid it, but regardless of the driver's attempts not to collide with him, the back of his red-and-white Cadillac had swung round and smashed into his side, sending crippling pain shooting through his right hip. Oh, god, he hoped it wasn't broken.

After getting hit, Fiddleford vaguely recalled the sensation of falling onto the ground and hitting his head. He… wasn't quite sure what exactly happened next. He was in another one of those moments when he just felt… numb to everything around him. Another world full of cool mist shrouded the one he should've been in, and he just felt sort of… stuck, but free at the same time, if that made any sense. The best way to describe it was that his body seemed restricted to one place, but the rest of him could do whatever he wanted. Except he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

In the real world, he could hear muffled voices yelling familiarly painful things at him that made his eyes sting and his chest clench unpleasantly. He didn't understand why everyone was so cruel and uncaring towards him. He'd tried asking, but his failure to create any actual words had only earned him scathing looks and further degradation; pushing him further into that dismal pit of maddening loneliness and depression. Just… none of this made sense to him. He'd done nothing wrong – nothing he could remember, at least – so why did everyone insist on labelling him as a freak and an idiot who needed to 'get lost'?

Get lost. Now that was something he really wished he could scream about. Whenever someone uttered those two bitter words, he wanted nothing more than to tell them the truth. He was already lost.

A new voice joined the rest, but to McGucket's surprise, it was neither malicious nor aimed at him. Instead, it was angry and protective; seemingly aimed at the crueller onlookers; threatening to run them over if they didn't get lost. He couldn't help but feel a little triumphant at that.

There was a brief silence before McGucket heard the newer voice speak again. It was… familiar, as if he'd heard it before, but… rougher than he for… some reason… remembered.

"Hey. You okay?"

Huh. No one had asked him that before. It… felt nice and odd at the same time to realise that someone cared about him.

"Hey, you gonna answer? Come on, you've gotta say something."

There was the barest sensation of being shaken by the shoulder, and McGucket realised he should probably try to find the real world again. As much as he wanted to remain where he was, he knew he'd regret it if he did. If he stayed too long… things started happening. Bad things. Things he didn't want to experience again.

It took a moment, but eventually he managed to get out of the sense-numbing fog and focus on-.

Oh god.

A silent scream lodged in his throat, and he instinctively lashed out at the man before him, then tried to run away, only for lancing pain to strike his hip and sent him sprawling onto the floor again. He looked different, but that… that was His face. The face of the one who would bring about The End. Whatever that was.

"Hey, easy. I'm just tryn'a help. Be careful, you're hurt."

'Ya think?' Fiddleford wanted to retort, but the words failed him as usual. He sat there, immobile as the Endbringer extended a hand towards him.

Wait. Something was… different. Missing. How many fingers did he have? One, two, three, four, five…

Five. There were only five fingers. It… it wasn't Him?

"Come on, we can't spend too long in the middle of the road," the man said, in a voice that Fiddleford had trouble associating with his face. He felt that it shouldn't have sounded so rough. "Here, let me help you up."

With a shaky nod, Fiddleford took hold of the familiar stranger's hand and allowed himself to be pulled up onto his feet. The pain in his hip was slowly dulling down to a throbbing ache by this point; only getting worse if he tried moving his leg or placing any weight on it. It really hurt, but at least nothing seemed to be broken.

"Umm…" the mystery man mumbled. "Do you, like… have anywhere to go? Home, maybe some family? Anything?"

Fiddleford felt as if he should've been able to answer that. Told the man where to go as if it were easy as breathing. But like most everything else, there was nothing. No memory of any family, or even a home to remember. Sure, there was the junkyard, but that was… well, he didn't really call it a home. He supposed it was something, seeing as how he'd been settled down there for a while. He even had a pet; a little raccoon called RJ who he fed potato chips and watched crappy movies with on the battered old TV he'd managed to cobble together from the parts of other ones that were beyond repair.

"Nothin', huh?" the mystery man murmured as he guided him into the passenger seat of his car. Fiddleford couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive at this. "I guess… you could stay with me for a little while."

Wait, what? He… he was letting him stay? This… this felt like… oh, he had no idea what it felt like, but it felt amazing. This… Oh, this was gratitude, wasn't it? Probably, although it wasn't often he ever had a reason to feel grateful.

"My name's Stanley, by the way. Stanley Pines."

He… he knew that name. Stanley. Stan. Pines. Stan… something-or-other Pines. He knew that name. But… where?

A headache was beginning to nag at him, so he stopped thinking about it so frantically. He could ponder the familiarity later. After he'd introduced himself, because he may have been homeless in every sense of the word, but he still had manners. That he'd spent god-knew-how-long trying to relearn, by the way.

Reaching into his pockets, he busied himself with searching for his notepad whilst Stanley fired up the engine. Upon finding it, he opened it to a page he'd spent many hours sitting on a steel barrel in the dump staring at. Memorising the message, burning it into his mind so that he'd never forget. Not again. Never, never again.

"My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket."

"Fiddleford, huh? Well, bud, you got directions to the hotel in that notebook of yours?"

Through the Eyes of a Madman

It was all so cold. Jesus Christ, he was cold. Why was it so-? Oh, wait. It was snowing, of course it was fucking cold! Snowflakes clung to his hair and tossed themselves at his face, completely numbing his skin. His clothes (he really should've put on something warmer than a shirt, trousers, some old leather shoes and a trench coat) were soaked through and clinging to his torso, he could barely see more than a foot and a half in front of him, and it was getting harder and harder to move. Harder and harder to… to think.

"C… come on," he growled hoarsely. "J-just… just get g-going. A-almost there."

After an eternity (actually just six minutes, twenty-three point four-two seconds) of blindly stumbling through the fog and thick snow, he arrived at the bunker. Several frustrating attempts at pulling the lever later, he was staggering down the spiralling staircase, desperately trying to ignore the stares aimed in his direction (they aren't there, they aren't there) and the constant, muttered mantra of 'leave me alone, please just leave me alone' being whispered in his ear. Oh, wait… that was him. He was the source of the querulous nattering. Shut up, shut up, shut up, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Oh, shit, he yelled that out loud, didn't he? Stupid, stupid-!

You need help, said one of the many voices in his head. One of the few sane ones left. Get a psychologist, get more medication, talk to someone.

"Trust no one," he snarled back, sounding no saner than he had before. "Trust… no one."

Not even your own family? the voice challenged.

"Can't burden them," he countered wearily. "Pops… would only be disappointed, Shermy wouldn't understand, and I could hurt Ma."

What about Stanley? Can't you trust your own twin?

"He won't help me. Not after what I did."

That was twelve years ago. Maybe he's-.

"Unforgiveable!" he screamed, dropping to the floor to curl up and start tugging viciously at his greasy hair. "Can't be forgiven!"

Not again, the voice growled in worried annoyance. Pull yourself together, you psychotic nerd!

Tears were slowly trickling down his face. Not many, since he was dehydrated and thankfully still had the common sense and willpower not to just pick up some snow and eat it, but they were tears nonetheless. Hot, salty droplets of water that blurred his vision and warmed his face somewhat.

Come on, snap out of it! You're going to let it get to you like this? Come on! This is what He wants!

At the mention of… Him… he straightened up. The voice was right. He wanted this to happen so He could latch His claws onto his mind again. No, he couldn't let himself break any further.

Good. Now sort out what you came here to do. Oh, and there's a few cans of food left in the corner cabinet, and some water on the desk. Remember that?

"Yes, I remember."

Good. Just promise me you'll start looking after yourself.

"Sure, yes, I-I'll do it, I'll do it."

You'd better.

With a dismissive grunt, he shakily got up and walked over to the console, brushing past his teenage doppelganger as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"I'll be fine, Stan," he said in a distant, monotone voice.

His twin didn't look convinced, but otherwise stayed silent as he worked; watching with a look of grim worry set on his features.

Ford: What the heck is wrong with you?

Howl: *shrugs* I have a penchant for afflicting crippling mental disorders on fictional characters.

Stan: Because you yourself have one?

Howl: Probably. Hey, are there any cookies around here?

Stan: You gave them all to Fidds, remember? To say sorry for making me hit him with my car.

Howl: Oh yeah. Can I have hugs instead?

Ford: *frowns* Why are you-? Wait, Fiddleford?

Fidds: *hugs Howl*

Howls: Yay! *hugs him back* I got a hug from the cinnamon roll!

Stan: The what?

Fidds: Review, guys! Hey, I can talk here!

Howls: Of course, this isn't in the actual story!