Stan really didn't want to say that he was avoiding his brothers. He just needed a little more time to figure out where to go from here. He needed time to come up with a convincing story. When he was ready, he could face Shermie and convincingly pretend to hold his head high.

If he'd known that Shermie was coming, he would have been ready by now. Honestly, he should have been getting ready for this from the second that he told Grunkle Dipper what his dad had done to him. He had known he would have to face Shermie sooner or later. He had just hoped it would be a little later.

He was caught off guard, but he was able to adjust. After having a few hours with Soos to clear his head and come up with at least a vague game plan, Stan was ready to go home. He was nervous, but he didn't want to hide from his brother. Not only did he love his brother, and having a whole week to spend with him without Pa around at all seemed incredible, but Stan didn't want to be a coward either. He didn't want to hide from his feelings, just because they were complicated and dumb.

If there was one thing that Stan could credit his Pa for doing, it was teaching him to face his problems head-on. Sometimes Stan knew that he went too head-on and started an unnecessary fight instead, thus escalating the problem, but at least he wasn't ducking his head and praying for things to magically get better.

So even though it was a little late, and a part of him wanted to stay with Soos for the night and give this a fresh start in the morning, Stan had Jimmy give him a ride back to the shack. He had expected to find his brothers and Dipper playing Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons, or for Shermie to be telling Ford a tall tale about some make-believe creatures that he had come across in the Navy, making the stories so convincing that Ford would actually believe they were true.

What Stan hadn't expected was to walk into the living room to find his brothers curled up against each other, looking like they were in the same position as Stan used to find himself in with Shermie after bad days back home.

Stan lingered in the doorway, feeling like he was intruding. His brothers didn't look like they were sleeping, but they were resting, and they looked emotionally exhausted. Stan didn't know how to handle feelings at all. He was about to walk away and just talk to his brothers in the morning, when they could all pretend that they weren't emotionally vulnerable.

Maybe he breathed too hard, or Shermie had inherited their mom's psychic abilities, or he shuffled his feet against the ground too noisily, but his older brother shifted and opened his eyes, looking right at him.

"Stan." Shermie gave him a small smile. Ford gasped and sat up with a start. He hastily wiped his eyes and scooted away from Shermie, pretending he hadn't been curling against him. Stan felt his chest tighten. It was like watching himself.

"Y-you're back." Ford sniffled and gave him a shaky smile. "Hi."

"You have fun, Kid?" Shermie asked. Stan nodded. "Good. That's good. Are you done avoiding me?"

Stan's breath got caught in his throat. He hadn't thought that Shermie would notice. Of course he would. He noticed everything, and of course he would mention it. He was never one for beating around the bush.

"I-I didn't." Stan swallowed. He hadn't had a story prepped, but he definitely hadn't been ready to talk about the truth. "I'm not…I'm sorry."

Shermie shook his head and sat up. He patted the couch next to him. He didn't seem mad. Stan bit his lip and slowly made his way into the room. He sat on Shermie's other side, letting his older brother wrap his arm around his shoulder and pull him close.

"I feel like it's kinda obvious, but I know you, and I know how your head works." Shermie said. "You know I'm not mad at you, don't you? If you're avoiding me because you're worried I'm mad at you, I'm not. If you're mad at me though. If I did something wrong-"

"You didn't." Stan couldn't even consider the thought that Shermie or Ford could make mistakes. They were the good sons. They were the ones who had a future. "I'm the one who screwed up." He drew his legs up to his chest and buried his head in his knees, just to avoid looking at Shermie and seeing the disappointment in his eyes. "I couldn't even keep my stupid mouth shut."

He felt Shermie's grip on him tighten. It didn't hurt. It was still comforting and reassuring. Stan couldn't help but stiffen anyway.

"Is that what this is about?" Shermie's voice cracked. "Stan, do you think I'm mad at you for telling Grunkle Dipper?"

"You told me not to." Stan muttered into his knees. "You told me so many times to not tell anybody. Not Ma. Not Ford. Nobody."

Stan's chest felt like it was squeezing him from the inside out, and his response was to squeeze his chest tighter. "I mess up a lot of things, but I thought I could do this. All I had to do was not tell anybody. I literally just had to do nothing, and I screwed even that up." His eyes were itching. He was starting to cry, and he hated himself for it. "I can't even do nothing right."

"That's not true!" Stan started when he heard Ford cry out to him, sounding devastated and heartbroken. He lifted his head to see that his twin had got up from the couch and was now standing right in front of him, leaning uncomfortably close. "Stan, that's not true!"

"Ford's right." Shermie said. "I know what I said, but you know what? I'm glad you didn't listen to me. I couldn't be happier about it. I'm proud that you had the guts to do what I was too much of a coward to."

Stan grimaced, not understanding at all. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Dipper and Mabel didn't yell at him when he broke rules. They were very gentle about correcting his behavior, especially since they'd found out about his dad. But it was one thing to not get in trouble when he should, but to be told that he'd done something good when he'd done something wrong? It didn't make any sense.

Shermie nudged his shoulder, though Stan still refused to look up at him. "Ley, do you know why I told you not to tell anybody?"

Stan shook his head. He definitely hadn't known, but there were a lot of things that he was told to do that he didn't understand the reason for. He didn't blindly trust everybody, but Shermie was his older brother. He was the bravest person he knew. He had gone through all of this, which meant that he knew what he was talking about. Even if Stan didn't understand why he shouldn't tell people, he'd taken his brother's word for it.

"I just didn't want you to go through what I did." Shermie said. "You know, I was about your age when I told somebody what Pa did."

Stan jerked his head up and stared at his brother in shock. "You told? Who?" Stan thought that the point of telling people was to make it stop, but he knew for a fact that the abuse hadn't stopped when Shermie was younger.

"One of my teachers." Shermie said. "I didn't know her very well, but she seemed really nice, and she seemed like she cared. One morning I accidentally spilled Pa's coffee before school, and he wasn't happy. He…well, you know." And Stan did know. A good knock around the head didn't sound so bad, but Pa didn't hold back, and he was a lot bigger and stronger than a thirteen year old.

"It wasn't the first time I'd gone to school with a concussion." Shermie said. "But I was already feeling kinda sick that day, so I wasn't as good at hiding it as I usually was. My teacher knew that something was wrong, so she pulled me aside and asked me what was up."

Shermie tapped his fingers against his thigh. There was a distant look in his eyes. "Pa had told me not to tell, but I was hurt, and scared, and she seemed really nice." It sounded a lot like how Stan had felt when he'd told Dipper. "So I told her, and she…she didn't believe me."

Shermie took in a shaky breath. "I guess she was told about my old habit of spinning the truth a bit when I was younger. I never really lied, but I definitely told tall tales, just for fun, and she thought that's what this was. S-so she called Pa and told him what I'd said."

Stan's throat tightened and he heard Ford make a wounded sound. They both curled closer to Shermie. They knew that their brother was okay, because he was right here, but it wasn't hard to imagine just what Pa would have done to Shermie to punish him. Stan felt terrified and a little sick at just the thought.

"As you can imagine, I got punished, and it…it was bad." Shermie said. "Do you guys remember when I stopped talking?" Stan bit his lip and nodded. Ford shuddered next to him. Stan remembered being confused about why Shermie wasn't telling them bedtime stories anymore, and frustrated with the unfairness that they still had to go to school when Shermie was allowed to stay home.

"That was why?" The three of them jumped, startled, when they heard Mabel's voice. They looked towards the doorway where their great aunt was standing with barely restrained fury. She looked like she was about to storm back to New Jersey and teach their Pa a lesson he would never forget. "That was why you stopped talking?"

Shermie grimaced almost sheepishly, as though he had done anything wrong. "I was scared of Pa. School had always been my safe place, but when I went into that building the next day all I could see was Pa's angry face, and all I could hear was him yelling. My friends, my other teachers, Ma, they all tried to ask me what was wrong, but what could I say? The last time I had said what was wrong, it didn't go very well. I was scared that if I said anything, it would all come rushing out. So I just…didn't say anything, I guess. It was easier."

"It was terrifying." Dipper said. He was standing next to Mabel, looking very awkward in the doorway, like he didn't know if he was allowed to intrude.

Ford drew close to Stan, but wouldn't look at either of his brothers. He just stared blankly at his lap. "Why didn't Pa ever hurt me?"

Stan gave his brother an incredulous look, confused and horrified at the very thought. "You wanted him to hurt you?" He knew that his twin had always felt left out of Stan and Shermie's relationship, but did he really feel so left out that he wanted to be a part of this connection between them? Forget the six fingers, that would be the most freakish thing about Ford.

"No, but…why'd he hurt you?" Ford stared at his hands, like he always did when he was questioning something about himself, even if that something didn't actually have anything to do with his hands. "What made me different?"

"You weren't as much of a screw-up as I was." Stan said.

"You're not a screw-up!" Ford exclaimed.

"You're really not." Dipper said.

"And if I hear you say that again, I'm going to hug you until you stop thinking bad about yourself, even if it takes a hundred years." Mabel said

"It's going to take longer than that." Stan muttered. Ford made a sound almost like a growl and hit his arm.

"Stop it." Ford snapped.

"Actually, I don't think he's wrong." Shermie said. Stan gave his brother a betrayed look, and the others looked like they were close to starting a fight. Shermie held his hands up defensively. "Not that I think you're a screw-up, Ley, because I don't. You know I don't. But Pa does, and he always had, and he saw me the same way. Everybody in Glass Shard Beach thought that we were trouble makers, and they thought if we got hurt, it was our own fault. Ford though, he was the prodigy. He was the one that the teachers kept an eye on."

Shermie ruffled Ford's hair. "If something happened to you, people would notice, and they would care."

"They didn't care about me." Ford said bitterly. "They just cared how they could use me." He clenched his hands into fists. "You're probably right, and I hate it. They should have cared about you. They should have seen me as more than just something to boost themselves up."

"Well, you don't have to think about it anymore!" Mabel said with false cheer. "The Gravity Falls schools are so much better." Stan didn't know how she could possibly know that. She didn't go to school here, and even if she had, it would have been so long ago that all of the teachers and staff would be different. She couldn't know that the schools were better. And Stan knew that just because something was better didn't mean that it was good.

But he trusted Mabel. He wanted to believe that school would be better.

And no matter how bad school was, it shouldn't be as bad as it had been for Shermie. Even if Stan's teachers all thought he was a trouble-maker, Dipper and Mabel believed in him. And Dipper taught at the schools sometimes, so maybe he would have some influence.

And the biggest difference was that Stan had Ford. He didn't have to take on the world by himself. He had his brother at his side. He hadn't ever wanted Ford to know what he'd been going through, because his brother had enough to stress about. Stan hadn't wanted to burden Ford with even more. But he knew now, and it really did feel like a weight lifted off his chest.

"I think you guys are going to be fine." Shermie said. "If you're not though, tell me, yeah?" He looked at Ford. "And that goes for both of you. I'm your big brother. It's my job to make sure you're okay."

Ford pouted. "Only if you tell us if you're not okay either. I-I know there's not a lot that I could do to help you, but I don't ever want to find out that I was just sitting there while my brother was getting hurt. Never again."

"It's a deal." Shermie said without hesitating. Stan didn't think he believed his brother, but hopefully even if he didn't tell them if something was wrong, he could at least tell Dipper and Mabel. They were grown-ups, and they'd helped Shermie before. They could help Shermie in ways that Stan and Ford just couldn't.

"Hey, Sherm?" Stan looked at his older brother, who looked attentively back at him. Stan hated how vulnerable this conversation was making him feel. He hated seeing the reminder that his older brother wasn't as strong and perfect as he thought. He didn't like seeing Ford look so wounded and upset when he was the one who was supposed to be fine. His brother was here. It was supposed to be fun.

Stan slapped on a smile with practiced ease. "Did you know that there are gnomes here, and Ford was so busy studying them that he almost agreed to let them kidnap him and make him their queen?"

"Wha-Stan!" Ford gave him a betrayed look. "It was more nuanced than that!"

Shermie laughed and nudged Ford. "I don't know, Fordsy, it sounds like something you'd do."

Ford scowled and crossed his arms. "If you tell him that story, I'm telling him about the time you went looking for ghosts, only to get possessed by a hippie girl."

Stan felt a rush of embarrassment at the memory, but he pushed it down, because he knew that the best way to fight shame was by turning it on the other person. He smirked. "If you tell him that, you'll have to tell him that it took you guys three days to even figure out that I was possessed at all."

Stan still didn't know how they hadn't realized that the hippie hadn't acted anything like him. The only reason they found out when they did was because the hippie girl had tried to go down into the basement for some reason, and Dipper had dozens of anti-possession spells and barriers in place. No incorporeal form could go into the basement, and if somebody went in who had a soul that wasn't their own, alarms of all sorts would go off.

Shermie smiled broadly. "Then I guess I'm going to have to tell you about my own adventures here in Gravity Falls, like the time that I fell and twisted my ankle, but was so embarrassed that I'd hurt myself that I let Dipper think that the manotaurs had hurt me. He was about ready to start a war with them."

"You're just lucky the manotaurs thought that lying to make yourself seem more 'manly' was admirable." Dipper grumbled, though the small smile on his face made it clear that he wasn't that mad. Stan laughed and Ford, as upset as he was, let out a little chuckle. This right here was the kind of thing that Stan looked forward to when Shermie visited. No stupid emotions. Just stupid stories.

He knew this wasn't the end of the conversation. Shermie was here for a whole week, and that was a lot longer than he usually stuck around for. Usually he just stayed long enough to take Stan to the movies or a theme park or something, and then he was off again.

Then again, usually he was staying at home, with Pa. Shermie didn't have to be afraid of being hurt here. He could afford to stick around. But if he was around, that meant more hard conversations like this one.

Maybe if they spread the conversations out throughout the week then it wouldn't hurt as much. It had to be better than all at once. And of course, a week in Gravity Falls meant at least a half a dozen monster attacks. Maybe they would get lucky and be so surrounded by weirdness that Shermie would forget to apologize for the bazillionth time about Pa, and Ford would be distracted from feeling guilty about something that he had no business feeling guilty about.

It was a long shot, but this was Gravity Falls. Weirder things had happened before.