Stanley asked for help: A scared kid
Beware! There is a depiction of a panic attack in the middle of this after Stan apologizes for traumatizing Alex. If anyone knows how I can portray it more tactfully, PLEASE let me know.
Shifty- no, Alex. His name was Alex now. Alex felt conflicted about finally leaving the stuffy bunker where he had spent his entire life. He was excited, nervous, and maybe a little scared to finally see what the world outside looked like. Under it all was a little confusion on what to do about Stanley and his question.
I know you want to gain as many forms as possible, but what do you want to do beyond that?
Alex had never asked himself that question before. All he had ever known was being an experiment in a cage. Others preventing him from reaching his full potential. The only thing he could think to do was to gain as many and as powerful forms as possible.
Now?
Stanley was letting him choose. The world was his for the taking, but he didn't know what to do beyond seeing everyone and everything so he could imitate them.
Maybe he should make plans after he saw what the outside world looked like. Perhaps he could find out what a "sun" was.
Eventually, they exited the stone stairwell and emerged in a pit with a second set of stairs leading up to a yellow and orange ceiling. No, he could slightly see the pillars holding the ceiling up at the pit's edge. Brown ones resembled the ones he had just walked out of with green tips.
"Finally! The outside world!"
Alex then became a giant spider and climbed up the side of the pit, bypassing the stairs entirely, to emerge in the largest room he had ever seen. Pillars surrounded him, the ground was covered in green plants he thought were called 'grass,' and dozens of different animals made sounds around him.
He changed back to his base form and just stood there, taking it all in. Eventually, the other two climbed up and walked over to him. This prompted him to turn around to them.
"So, where's the door to the next chamber? Or the staircase to the level above us?"
Both just stared at him with confused expressions on their faces.
"Above us?"
"Um, yeah? On the other side of the ceiling being held up by these pillars?"
The Handwitch winced at that for some reason and then began to open and close his mouth several times while starting sentences before aborting them to begin again. Stanly just lowered his head into his hands and mumbled something that sounded like, "When you get back, I am going to kill you."
Stanley straightened himself, wrapped his arm around Alex, and guided him on a walk through the room.
"Ok, kid, it is obvious that my brother screwed your education up more than either of us thought. Handwitch is trying to explain it to you and failing, so we will do it my way. I'll apologize in advance for scaring you for life."
Alex was confused. It was not about Ford messing up his education—he already knew that—but how could learning the truth be scarring? And why was this room so big? How haven't they seen any walls yet?
"So, look out there."
Alex turned in the direction Stan pointed and-
…
What?
…
It didn't end.
This wasn't a room.
It was a massive field of those pillars stretching onwards as far as he could see.
White things floated so high up that the ceiling must extend even higher. Why wasn't it falling? Was this a large dome?
He changed his eyes into the best he had access to and looked up.
…
It wasn't a dome.
There was nothing above him! It was so big and large and massive and huge and gigantic and colossal and enormous and immense and vast and-
"Alex?"
He couldn't breathe! HE needed walls to breathe! He needed something over his head! Rooms were safe; he knew rooms! Where was the room?
There!
He then shifted into a squirrel and ran as fast as possible into a small hollow of a pillar near him at its base. It was smaller than his cat carrier but enclosed and dark. He curled up in a ball and hugged his tail as he struggled to get his breathing under control.
HE was safe. This was a room. It wasn't like his prison before, but it was still a room.
"Alex? Are you ok?"
Alex couldn't talk. It took all his effort to prevent himself from remembering what he saw when he looked at the blue sky. He wanted to return to his cave, but to do so would mean traveling under that thing masquerading as a ceiling. What could he do?
"Kid?"
Stanley! He did this to him. He knew how horrible it was out here and brought him up anyway! He will pay!
But he did apologize for what he was about to do. No one had ever apologized to him before Stanley.
"I'm sorry, I'm not good at this. I should have tried explaining the sky when we first realized what was happening. The truth is that I am not smart enough to explain it. I was never good at taking the delicate approach to things when the blunt approach is there and much faster."
There was silence, but Alex heard Stanley and the Handwitch whispering.
"We have a basket slightly larger than your cat carrier, which you can ride in. We can take you wherever you want to go. The Shack, the Bunker, even the Crawlspace. I'm not allowed in, but Handwitch is."
That piqued Alex's curiosity. "The Crawlspace?"
"Yeah, think of it as a much larger version of the bunker you were in. Hundreds of the weird and wild creatures you wanted to see in Ford's journal walk around there in person, and hundreds more you haven't can also be seen there."
Alex wasn't sure how to feel about that. He couldn't comprehend that many people EXISTING! Let alone all being in the same place. Maybe that could be somewhere he works up to later. The Bunker was obviously off the table. He tried to escape it too long to go back there so soon.
The Shack?
"How big is the Shack? How many people are there?"
"It is a collection of rooms like your bunker, but all stacked on each other. I'm not sure how big the whole thing is together, but each room except the underground lab with the portal is somewhere between the bunker and observation room sections of your old home.
"As for people, I do tours of about 20 people at a time. Multiple times a day. They only see a few rooms in the Shack, with the rest being off limits to them, so you don't have to see them if you don't want to."
Alex thought it over. The Shack sounded like the best option, not a step back like the bunker.
"Can we go to the Shack?"
"Sure. We'll get the basket down and place it next to the entrance so you can go in without having to see the- Ow. Ok, without you seeing anything that might make you nervous."
Alex wasn't sure what happened, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever a horse was.
A basket appeared in front of the hole, and he rushed into it. The inside contained some jerky and granola bars. Next to them was a woolen hat that looked so soft that Alex decided to cuddle.
"Are you in there, Alex?"
"Yes, Stan."
"Good. I will tilt the basket back so we can carry it, ok?"
"Go ahead."
True to his word, the basket slowly tilted to the side. Alex pulled the hat to the section, turned to the floor, and settled in again once the tilting stopped. Something covered the top, preventing him from seeing the-
It was preventing him from seeing anything outside the basket.
"All done. Are you still ok, Alex?"
"Yep."
"Good. We're going to pick it up and carry you to the Shack. I put the lid back on the basket, but if you want, we can take it-"
"NO!"
"Ok, well, leave it on until we get to the Shack. Ok?"
"Sounds good."
Alex felt the basket lift and shake as it was carried away. He felt a little uneasy at being carried around again, reminded of when Stanford did it earlier.
"Hay, while we are moving, why don't you tell me more about yourself, Alex?"
"Hun?"
"I know your story, but what about your favorite food? Your favorite color? Your favorite form to turn into? Things like that."
Alex thought for a moment before answering.
"I like the dark red of the Journal cover. It represents all that I want and was denied. I don't have a favorite food. Your brother fed me beans since he had so many of them, and they satisfied all my nutritional requirements."
"WHAT! Okay, as soon as we get you settled into the Shack, I will blow my savings on as many kinds of food as possible so we can figure that out, especially ice cream."
"What's that?"
"Delicious. Now, what about what forms you like to take?"
Alex enjoyed the distraction. He talked about what he liked as he cuddled in the basket, wrapped in the woolen hat. The front of the hat had a heart lovingly designed from wool that was somehow fuzzier than the rest. He rubbed his face against it repeatedly as they traveled. Eventually, Alex heard the door opening.
"All right, here we are. We're inside the Shack now with a solid roof over our heads. Do you want me to uncover you now?"
"Yes, please."
Stanley did and leaned the basket on the side. Alex walked out and returned to his base form, but he kept the hat on his head. He looked around the room, taking in the four walls, the floor, and, most importantly, the ceiling.
He never knew how a ceiling could offer so much comfort.
"You feeling better, Alex?"
He sighed and collapsed into a chair nearby.
"I wanted nothing more than to leave that cage, and the first thing I did was freak out and hide in the closest substitute. Who does that?"
Stanley stared at him for several moments before walking over and hesitatingly placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Growing up, I didn't realize how big the world was. I knew roughly how big it was, but I had trouble placing that into a frame of reference. After I was kicked out, one of the things I did was try sailing across the ocean on my own to England."
"What's the ocean? Also, what's England?"
…
"I tried sailing across a large body of water called an ocean to a place called England. I knew it was big, but I thought I could cross it in a week.
"It took me 28 days."
Alex froze as he tried to comprehend that, tugging the hat down so it covered his eyes.
"I almost died of starvation and dehydration on that trip, as well as almost drowned in some bad storms. I spent a week huddled in the seediest tavern I could find, drowning my fear in booze. I couldn't even look at the ocean for a week after that. The idea of such a vast and powerful thing that didn't acknowledge that I existed was terrifying."
Stan then noticed that Alex was shrinking a little to make it easier to hide his head in his hat.
"The point is, I know what you felt when you looked at the sky. I felt it, too, and learned how to cope with it. If I can overcome my fear of the ocean, I can overcome my fear of the sky. Ok?"
Alex doubted that, but he appreciated that Stan was trying to help.
"And if you can't, then we'll just turn the ground under the town into the largest ant colony in the world! We can sell tickets, merchandise, and maybe even start mining!"
"Stanley!"
Alex chuckled at that. Say what you will about Stanley, but he was feeling better now than he was a while ago.
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To celebrate the "Book of Bill," I have decided to make this a Gravity Falls summer! This means I plan to post a chapter of this fanfic once a week, every Friday morning until August 30th. I have almost 20 pre-written chapters, so I don't know when this will stop.
I have a if you want to support me and my New Year's resolution of posting one fanfic of 2k words or more weekly. This is also being posted on , AO3, and Tumbler.
Remove all the spaces from the URLs to get them to work.
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. c o m : : / / w w w . s/14051718/1/luz–appreciation–week–2022–from–1228248
AO3: : / / works/52823413/chapters/133608991
Tumbler: : / / w w w . blog/brianedner
I am also doing fanfic info dumps, like wiki articles that go one episode at a time, with some compilations at the end on specific topics sorted by episode.
Fanfic info dumps here: : / / w w w . 1228248/gallery