ATTENTION

Starting tomorrow morning, I will be on my way to my lovely vacation overseas! I will not return until July 13th, which is the day that A Tale of Two Stans comes out! So, in order not to get 5000 requests while I am gone and have no internet access PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not send me requests.

This is only for that time so that I am not completely overwhelmed and swamped because I love you guys, but I might have a heart failure and die if I return to see that I have a hundred new requests in my emails.

I am not joking. So seriously. I promise I will return and work hard on Introverted and WitD once I return (by the way, I will be writing WitD from my notebook which is not online so that I can just type that up...god, that's going to take a while, but it will be worth it). I just don't want to be swamped. You guys are really awesome and I love how supportive all of you have been - I haven't had one mean review on either of my Gravity Falls fanfics and for that you have my eternal thanks.

From Bill Cipher (Guest): "Hi! I know you're really busy owth lots of other requests, but possibly could you do a simple one shot in which the twins get sick and Stan gets really worried and overprotective? Just a thought. Thanks!"

Why not? I can totally see this happening. Enjoy the one-shot! (This is set a day after The Golf War)

A Little Baby Cold

On Saturday when the Mystery Shack closed for the night and he turned around after putting up the CLOSED sign, Stanford Pines did not expect to watch his great-niece vomit the contents of her lunch on the floor in front of him and Wendy.

Needless to say, the awkward silence that followed for a brief few moments was not pleasant for any of them.

(Later he would find out from Soos that Dipper had also thrown up not ten minutes after he had closed the Shack and that was why he was currently confined to the attic. He subtly slipped the handyman and the ginger teenager an extra ten dollars for their help in removing the waste from the floor since the old man couldn't bend like he used to.)

Wendy told Stan that she had lots of practice taking care of her brothers and her dad because they got sick a lot more than she did, so she stayed to make soup for the ill twins and to help take care of them in general. She showed a surprising amount of initiative when he awkwardly asked her to do so. Soos also agreed to stay later after he cleaned up the vomit and bought some medicine for the kids since Stan's were expired (What? He had no use for them! He didn't usually get sick, and when he did he normally convinced someone else to take care of him so that he wouldn't need to go to the hospital). When Stan mentioned that his grandmother might miss him for dinner, the younger man just chuckled and went upstairs to bring the medicine to his coworkers.

As for the twins themselves, they both had different reactions entirely to being pronounced ill and confined to the attic.

Mabel was pleased by the pampering and fuss (from Soos mainly - Wendy was a bit harsher and wouldn't take "I'm too sleepy to take my medicine" for an answer, no matter if you actually were tired) but Dipper was obviously fidgeting from restlessness. He blushed when his crush offered to feed him the soup (to which Stan coughed awkwardly and Mabel silently made kissing motions when Wendy wasn't looking) but it was very clear that he didn't want to be bedridden. He had a high fever but the moment that it was only the twins in the attic, Stan heard someone trying to get out of the bed and knew immediately which one it was. They had to almost threaten the boy into staying upstairs where he wouldn't contaminate them and where he could rest.

Dipper just scoffed and tried again when Stan was halfway down the stairs. He caught the sound of footsteps even with his hearing aid and just calmly walked back up to stop the preteen.

By the time they had managed to wrestle the kids back into their beds and they were fast asleep, the crew was exhausted. Wendy blew some red hair out of her eyes and dumped the remainder of the soup into the sink.

"Can you handle it from here, Mr. Pines? Remember, if they wake up and want a drink, get them some cold water. Dipper's fever is higher than Mabel's so I'm more worried about him not staying up there. Do whatever you can to make sure he stays up there because at least Mabel understands not to leave the attic. I left the medicine up there as well - "

"No offense, Wendy," Stan interrupted, watching as Soos yawned and rubbed his eyes to his left, "but I think I can handle this. The kids will be fine. I wasn't born yesterday."

"You had expired medicine and the soup I gave them was the only one that didn't have mold growing inside it."

The elder man sighed but one look at the girl made him bite back his angry retort. For once, she didn't look like a lazy fifteen year old. The serious expression made her look at least twenty. He would never admit it, but the look was sort of frightening.

"Fine. Point proven. But the knuckleheads will be fine. I do know what it is like to get sick, you know."

Wendy sighed now. "Call me if you need any help. Just...not at three in the morning. I do want to sleep tonight."

"Same, dude," Soos yawned as he spoke.

Stan glanced back at the clock. 8:16 pm. He ran a hand over his face and made a split-second decision.

"You two can have a day off - not tomorrow, if these two are still sick, I am going to need help in the shop still - as uh, thanks for...this. This took longer than I thought it would."

"Well, that vomit smell took a long time to get out of the floorboards," Soos said thoughtfully. Neither of his coworkers responded to that statement.

They went back to their homes and the older man sank into his favorite chair, undoing his eye patch with a low groan. Gosh, taking care of someone when they were sick was difficult. He remembered when his brother got the flu and he was bedridden for a week. This caused Stan to shudder. Terrible memories.

Aside from the exhausting task of taking care of the twins though, Stan was actually...worried about them. He had never seen them look so pale and feverish before. Mabel's eyes had been glassy and unfocused at one point when Soos was talking to her, trying to cheer her up with a funny story. It was a good thing neither Soos nor Wendy seemed to have noticed that his hands were trembling when Dipper threw up a second time an hour into the fussing and nearly collapsed face-first into his bucket that he had just vomited in. He didn't do good with sickness. It reminded him too much of death.

No, he wasn't going to think about that. He sucked in a deep breath, shut his eyes and tried to go to a happier place. Everything would be alright. As long as the twins stayed upstairs and got better, everything would be fixed and go back to normal.

He heard light stumbling footsteps upstairs and fought the urge to throw the TV at the wall. Time to put the knucklehead back in bed. Again.

If this didn't end soon, Stanford was going to go insane.

I kind of imagine Wendy being a harsher nurse than Stan or Soos because she likes the twins but they're pains in the asses when they're ill. Also she has better patience for it than Stan and isn't as much of a pushover like Soos (no offense to Soos, but he probably wouldn't be able to resist Mabel's puppy dog eyes).

Anyway, unless I do more tonight (which I highly doubt will occur, sorry), have a great couple of weeks before I am back on the 13th to post more! I can't wait for A Tale of Two Stans!