Dipper was getting his ass handed to him. And none too lightly either.
"Your move, bro." He swore his sister's face could split in two from her sly grin.
"Just nice and easy, dude." At least Soos was trying to be nice about it.
"Come on, kid. I ain't gettin' any younger and those sleeping pills I took are gonna kick in within the hour." Stan was supportive as always.
With a deep exhale, Dipper glanced at everyone once more before looking down at the table in front of him. Better to get it over with quickly.
With one last glance around, he swiftly flipped the card up and threw it onto the pile. In the next second, he and everyone else dove to smack their hands down on the center of the table and a resounding crack filled the air.
"Hey! You finally got it!" Mabel cheered.
"Nice job, dude," Soos congratulated Dipper.
"After forty two rounds, it's about time," Stan said gruffly.
All three lifted their hands from where they'd harshly slammed their palms down, revealing Dipper's underneath, reigning victorious atop the large pile of cards.
"Winning… hurts…" Dipper groaned, his whole body slumped on top of the table as his bright red hand twitched.
"No pain, no game," Mabel smiled as she grabbed one of the last pieces of leftover pizza. They'd eaten it cold, too lazy to heat it and also reluctant to use any sort of heating appliance after Stan had nearly set the whole kitchen on fire and succeeded halfway.
In the aftermath, sadly, Ford had deduced that the stove had been on its last legs and that it had gone to the big kitchen in the sky. That wasn't a problem since they were grilling for the party, but any cooking in the kitchen would now be limited to what they could make in the microwave. But Mabel had done more with less.
"It's no pain, no gain." Dipper dragged himself up and flexed his stinging hand with a flinch.
"Hah! Not for you," Stan guffawed.
"Tis' truly a game of pain for the winner and instant revenge for the losers." Soos nodded seriously. "So who are the true winners?" he pondered aloud.
After getting all the preparation for the party done, Mabel had suggested they play a game, but with Stan's hand, it had taken a little thinking to decide on what to play so that he wouldn't be at a disadvantage. Then she'd suggested a game called Slap, where, depending on the order of the cards they threw in the center from their respective decks, they could slap their hands down and take the whole pile. It seemed like it would work for their currently disabled grunkle, but Dipper found that it might have worked too well.
He never thought a game of cards would be so physically demanding. Mabel had easily been in the lead, obviously more familiar with the game, but by the time Soos and Stan had picked it up (after the latter had stopped mistaking the game for Punch and slamming his fist down on the table with his brass knuckles), Dipper was the one at a disadvantage. Even when he got over instinctively recoiling from his family's hands violently pounding on the table when a slap opportunity presented itself, he was still always too slow to get his hand on the cards first.
Now that he'd "won" a round, he began to wonder just what their hands were all made of as all three took the abuse of being on the bottom of the slap pile without a single flinch.
"Hey, is there anymore pizza?" Dipper changed the subject, rubbing his sore hand.
"I think so, why?" Mabel asked as she finished up her slice.
"I'm thinking I'll sit the next round out and bring some down for Ford. Haven't seen him since lunch," Dipper pointed out.
While Mabel had taken care of Stan, Dipper, Ford and Soos had cleaned up the kitchen. He and Ford had gotten into talking about just what had been keeping the older man so occupied as of late and Dipper hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since.
"Let me guess. More mystery talk," Stan spoke with a scowl. He'd heard from Soos all the sciency stuff that Dipper and Ford had been talking about (in far less scientific terms) while he and Mabel had been out of the room. "Take my advice, kid, and steer clear of that stuff. It's like a black hole. If you're not careful, it'll suck you in and we'll never get you back." Dipper and Ford were too alike for their own good.
"While that's… actually a pretty accurate description of a black hole," Dipper admitted in surprise. "I think I'll be fine," he said with a reassuring smile.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Mabel stood from the table. "Come on, Dippy. Don't run out on the game just when you're starting to make some progress," she teased him.
"Yeah, kid. You ain't getting out of this that easy," Stan smirked.
Before Dipper could reply, Mabel cut in. "I'll bring him some food. You guys keep playing." Standing, she reached down slowly to pet Chi who was taking a drink from her water dish. However, the cat's ears instantly perked and she bowed out of Mabel's reach before turning to the woman with a curious look, ears up and alert.
"Darn it," Mabel hissed at her failed surprise attack. Not even rubbing catnip on her hand was working.
"But-" Dipper stood in his chair only to get pulled down by the back of his shirt by Stan.
"Sit down and shut up. You got plenty to time to geek out with Ford later."
"Come on, dude. It'll be fun. I think you're starting to get the hang out of it," Soos told him with a smile.
"Fine," Dipper huffed as he watched his sister walk into the kitchen. At least Stan had stopped wearing the brass knuckles or Dipper might be the next one reduced to one good hand.
…
"Ford, I swear. This place is either connected to a duct of raw sewage or I'm going to walk in here and find your rotting corpse."
Mabel coughed and covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve as she entered the lab. The place was worse than Soos' break room when she'd arrived and had so much dust everywhere that she wouldn't be surprised if a vacuum had exploded.
"Mabel? Has the party already started?" Ford asked, turning to her in his seat in front of the monitor. Parties weren't really his scene, but he had promised to show up for at least a little while.
"No. That's tomorrow. It's still Friday," Mabel told him, trying not to roll her eyes at his horrible sense of time. "I came down to bring you some pizza," she added.
"Friday?" Ford glanced down at his watch and squinted. "Well, what do you know?" he uttered in mild astonishment, scratching his head.
When Mabel set the pizza down, she was glad to see Ford still had some of his priorities straight when he snatched the food the moment she set it down.
"Thank you, sweetie," Ford spoke between bites. "I didn't realize how hungry I was until now."
"I bet…" Mabel glanced around, amazed that he had somehow managed to clutter the place even more than when she had been down there the day before. Papers, books, maps and languages she couldn't understand were everywhere. It screamed "nerd stuff," but she had to admit that it was so outside of her realm of understanding that it had almost had a magically profound quality when she looked at it, like looking up at the stars and realizing how small you were. But in a nerdier way.
"You may be a total packrat, but I sometimes forget what a genius you are," Mabel spoke, idly flipping through a book that looked older than her. Of course, nothing on the pages made sense to her.
Ford chuckled, swallowing before he replied. "That may be, but it's only a result of my hard work all these years, learning and discovering," he commented wistfully. "And managing to not get eaten or mutilated by the things I research," he added with a smile as he finished the pizza.
"Fair enough." Mabel mirrored his look and slowly pulled her sleeve away from her face. The smell was still horrible, but it was at least more tolerable than when she'd first come in. "Speaking of which, have you thought about… maybe taking a break?" She leaned back against the desk since there was no space to sit where she wouldn't be on top of something and ran her shoe through the dirt on the floor distractedly.
"A break… from what?" Ford asked, perplexed.
"Just… all your research. It must be really borin-I mean tiring to do this all the time. Right?" Mabel asked uncertainly, hesitantly meeting Ford's gaze.
"Hm? Not at all." Ford grinned, turning in his chair towards the monitor as he typed something into the supercomputer. "Mysteries and anomalies have fascinated me all my life, Mabel. Though the sheer number and magnitude of them all can be a bit daunting, at the same time it's… very exhilarating. Despite the dangers, there's still nothing I'd rather do with my life."
He and Stanley had shared a love of adventure all their lives, but to Ford it was more than just the monsters, magic and oddities. He felt like he was discovering parts of the world and even the universe that almost every other human on earth would forever be ignorant to. He learned how it was all connected and the truth behind what man had once considered unexplainable and dismissed as myth or coincidence.
Mabel recognized the look on Ford's face. It was the same one on Dipper's when he talked about mysteries. It made him so happy, but Mabel felt so empty and alone. She could tell Stan felt the same way from the occasional longing gazes she'd seen on the man over the years.
"That's great, Ford! But maybe you need to take a step back. I mean, drowning yourself in work kind of leaves you brain dead, doesn't it?" Mabel suggested as she pushed off of the desk to walk over to her great uncle.
"I suppose, but there's no need to worry. I get my standard seven hours of sleep most nights of the week," he assured her. That was, when he could decipher what time of the day or night it was.
"Uh… I meant something a little more than just sleeping," Mabel hinted.
"Food? I take care of that too," Ford chuckled, amused by his niece's concern.
"A little more than that…"
Ford frowned thoughtfully. "… Vitamin D? I do go outside for some of my research. I can't do everything down here," he explained as Mabel counted to ten in her head to keep her cool. Obviously, she needed to be a little more direct.
"More than just that," she stressed. "Ever thought of maybe just… not doing any research at all some days? Maybe spend some time outside of this place for more than lunch. Go on a boat and just… fish a little. With other people. Like your family. Huh? Huh?" Mabel nudged Ford with an elbow as the elderly man frowned pensively.
"Mabel, I have a feeling you're trying to get at something-"
"YES! I mean…" Mabel deflated when Ford reeled back in his seat from her outburst and sighed. "Look, grunkle Stan is worried about you. We all-"
Mabel and Ford jumped simultaneously at the sudden high-pitched beeping. The scientist suddenly swerved in his chair towards the computer screen, his firm look of concentration breaking into disbelief when he registered what he saw.
"What is that?" Mabel asked uncertainly, looking over his shoulder with a frown.
"The unusual energy readings. And fantastic ones at that. I've only been able to follow the residual signatures until now because they've been further away when they occurred," Ford breathed out in awe as his fingers flew over the keyboard.
Mabel frowned and scratched her head at the practically alien scripture that she was looking at. She recognized some numbers, but that was about it.
"Um, you need… some time?" she asked after a moment, hesitant to interrupt Ford.
"Yes. I-I'm sorry Mabel, but I've never gotten a burst this close before. I need to analyze and store the data before it's over. But I promise we'll talk later, alright?"
"Yeah. Sure thing. Later." Mabel bit the inside of her cheek, looking around the dank lab contemplatively before she turned to head back upstairs, giving a glance back at her grunkle's hunched form. This was important to Ford. It could wait just a little while, right?
Author's Note: I think I have a weird propensity to cause Dipper to be hurt/humiliated in the beginning of my chapters. I hope this doesn't become a problem. Unless you guys want it to be. ;)
Also, sorry about the long wait on this chapter. I don't schedule these release dates, but I know I've stayed pretty consistent until now. However, good news is that I think my writer's block is over for the moment and soon I'll have more free time to write and really kick this story into gear.