AUTHOR'S NOTE: heavy-ish themes in this chapter. deals with dipper and stan facing their new reality under less than ideal circumstances. cw for blood, injury, and mentions of an instance of past child abuse (we all hate you, filbrick).
lots of h/c ahead! Enjoy!
Consciousness doesn't find Dipper gracefully.
Instead, every nerve in Dipper's body wakes up screaming, sending shocks of adrenaline coursing through his veins. When his eardrums recover from nearly being ruptured by the pressure of being sucked through the portal, he's greeted by a sound that he's mostly used to hearing in his nightmares.
He gets the sense that he might even be dreaming now, a thick haze wrapping his thoughts and brain in a heavy, tightened cocoon.
Before he can even open his eyes, Dipper's being yanked upward and dragged along, his half-numb legs trembling beneath him as he trips over his own feet. He can barely hear Stan over the echoed cackling all around him, sending the chill numbness up toward his chest. He feels a lot like he did the last time he heard this laugh in real life — petrified, exhausted, and weak.
He finally musters the strength to peel his eyes open, daring to survey their new surroundings for himself.
Stan is beside him, whispering panicked expletives under his breath as he pulls them along, the top of his fez singed and blackened. His features are awash in a sickly, ever-changing array of colors that hang over their heads like shifting kaleidoscopes and carnival funhouse mirrors.
Oxygen does not find Dipper easily either, a potent layer of ash and smoke lingering in the air, like the place had recently been set ablaze.
Dipper trips over his feet, stumbling as his vision doubles and somersaults, his brain throbbing in his skull. A hot, thick liquid trails down from the top of his head, not deterred by his eyebrow as it snakes down and pools in his right eye.
To Stan's credit — not that Dipper's particularly willing to give him any sort of credit at the moment — he catches on quickly, swooping an arm around Dipper's waist and pulling him up onto his back. Dipper wastes no time, throwing his arms tight around Stan's neck and squeezing his eyes shut, desperately trying to expel what he knows must be blood obscuring his vision.
"HOW CUTE!" shrieks a voice Dipper had hoped to never hear again. "IQ THINKS HE CAN TRY HIS SIX-FINGERED HAND AT KILLING ME, JUST FOR FEZ TO COME BUMBLING IN WITH MY SECOND FAVORITE PUPPET!
"TALK ABOUT SERVED ON A SILVER PLATTER!"
Dipper flinches, hard, though he tries his best to hold onto his tightly wrapped position, almost as if he can somehow blend into Stan and disappear from this reality in the process. He's acutely aware that his small, panic-stricken demeanor is a far cry from the presence he's tried to maintain around Bill in the past.
There's no journal this time. No incantations or laser eyes or kittens for fists. No Mabel to fight beside him. Just a terrified preteen, clinging onto the only ally he has at the moment — a lying, cheating, possibly murderous con artist.
But, Dipper doesn't really have it in himself to feel embarrassed or weak right now. Because, just a minute ago, he was home, where earlier in the day the biggest threat was wacky board game hijinks or a water balloon to the face. Now, he's up against Bill for the third time, weaponless, directionless, and fatally exposed.
Bill laughs again, and Dipper finally catches sight of him, perched atop a large, confusingly geometric maze — one that seems to go against all laws of physics. He squints, Bill's triangular shape shrouded by the blood swirling in his irises.
"IT'S LIKE IT'S MY LUCKY DAY OR SOMETHING! WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK, FIRST ONE TO BRING ME PINE TREE'S CORPSE GETS THEIR OWN POCKET DIMENSION?!"
Bill's henchmen — a pink-horned cyclops, a massive-legged purple bread loaf, several floating eyeballs with bat wings, and a bipedal set of teeth — peel themselves off the ground, recovering from some sort of attack, it seems. Stan, for all his bravado, street smarts, and fighting experience, doesn't engage with Bill or his men at all, beelining it straight toward the flickering beginnings of what looks like a wormhole in the distance.
Bill remains perched atop his fortress. "YOU KNOW, I NEVER THOUGHT YOU HAD IT IN YOU, FEZ! YOU PINES TWINS CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT. BUT I THINK I MIGHT JUST LET FORDSY REBUILD THAT PORTAL TO BRING YOU BACK. AND WHEN HE DOES, THIS INTERDIMENSIONAL PACK OF NIGHTMARES MIGHT JUST PAY YOUR DIMENSION A VISIT!"
Stan's arms wrap around Dipper's legs, breaking into a near-sprint before he takes flight, the lack of reliable gravity sending them soaring through open space. The sensation is all too familiar, like Dipper might still be in the Mystery Shack, deep underground, swimming in perpetual weightlessness.
He almost expects to open his eyes and be greeted by the dim, dreary darkness of Stan's basement, the portal standing tall before them.
"GO AHEAD! ESCAPE!" Bill screams, shattering Dipper's fantasies immediately, his yellow bricks tinged with a rich, blood-red hue. "I'VE ALWAYS LOVED A GOOD CHASE!"
They plunge through the wormhole.
Stan narrowly avoids slamming into the ground as they're thrown into a gravity-rich atmosphere, the wormhole's force pulling back against them as his wing-tipped shoes crash into the dirt.
The wormhole sputters closed behind them, thankfully, emitting several light-blue sparks as it fades from existence.
Stan keeps himself upright by a stroke of pure luck, huffing a sigh of relief and absently brushing his hand through his newly fez-less hair. Its absence doesn't upset him as much as it should, being the only thing he has to remember his Pa by. Besides, of course, the grimy suit he's dawned for the past thirty years — the lapels now soaked in his great-nephew's blood.
He whips around as Dipper's grip around his neck suspiciously slackens, watching as the kid drops down from his back, trying and failing to gain his bearings on unsteady legs. The kid's eyes are wide and unseeing, one of his white scleras swirling with blood, trailing down his cheek like tear tracks. The ground beneath them is rough terrain, nothing but dirt and rocks for what looks like miles.
Stan lowers himself to Dipper's height, resting on one knee. He pulls Dipper in by the vest, gently, his eyes making a frenzied scan over him. He hasn't gotten a chance to give the kid a full once-over since they crashed through the portal, though the sight of the kid swaying on his feet and bleeding all over himself moments ago is reason enough to be concerned.
"Dipper." His head spins, their trip through the wormhole still weighing on his aged body, his joints creaking as he leans forward. "Dipper," Stan repeats, breathless and panting. "Kid, are you okay?"
The tween shakes Stan off, gathering what seems like all of his available strength to push him back. It isn't quite enough to move him, but Stan relents, sitting back on his heels. Dipper, for his part, goes stumbling backwards, barely avoiding losing his footing and sprawling onto the ground.
"Don't touch me! Don't—"
A thick, distressed sob catches in his throat. "Bill?!" Dipper shrieks, his hands fisted in his hair. "You opened a portal to BILL?!"
The name sounds familiar, but Stan can't seem to place where he's heard it before. He assumes from context that it's probably the name of that isosceles freak back there — seemingly hell-bent on murdering his great-nephew, of all people. But, he has no idea just what it wants. Or what situation Dipper's gotten himself into where he's on a first-name basis with an interdimensional, geometric space demon.
Either way, the kid looks traumatized.
Stan shakes his head, his heart going a mile a minute. "No, kid! I don't even know what that thing was!"
It's like Dipper can't even hear him. "Are you— are you crazy?! Were you possessed?"
Stan stands on creaky bones and steps forward. "Possessed?"
Dipper blanches, clearly having forced some mismatched, paranoid puzzle pieces to connect with each other. "Let me see your eyes, let me see—"
He cuts himself off short, barely able to stay upright as his knees tremble beneath him, a palm going to press against his forehead. He blinks hard and fast, his head wound beginning to bleed anew, scaling down between his panicked, furrowed brows.
Stan's face goes white now too, haunted by the memory of Ford's wild eyes searching him from behind a crack in the door, bursting out and demanding to inspect his eyes. He's noticed the similarities between his brother and his great-nephew before — he's no idiot — but he hasn't seen those paranoid eyes staring back at him since the winter of 1982.
His heart sinks.
What has the kid gotten himself into this time?
The image he has of Dipper this morning is burned into his brain, the kid flashing a dopey smile toward the porch, his brown hair drenched with the sun's golden rays — not his own blood. "Dipper, stop, you're okay," Stan says. "Let me help you."
Dipper shakes his head, shaking as he inches back even more. "No. Don't get any closer…"
Stan can't watch anymore. He can hardly stand to watch the distrust grow in Dipper's eyes, intensifying as time stretches further and further away from the events of the portal. He can hardly watch as the kid curls in on himself, desperate to protect himself from the one person that he should be able to trust to look after him.
Stan only wishes there was a better way to reveal the truth.
"It was for my brother!"
Dipper freezes, his breath catching in his throat.
"What?" he croaks out, lowering his palm from his head.
Stan lets himself pace, though he tries not to take his eyes off the shell-shocked kid standing in front of him for too long.
"I have a brother… A twin brother. Stanford. He wrote that journal you've had your nose stuck in all summer. I messed up, thirty years ago, and he got sucked into that portal. He was working on it and researching the creatures of Gravity Falls for years. Cataloged the whole thing in those dumb books.
"And I've been trying to bring him back into our dimension ever since. This was never the plan, kid, please. You have to believe me."
It's quiet for a moment, the warm, thick wind howling in the distance.
"The journals?" Dipper repeats finally, his voice hollow.
When he doesn't say anything else, brown eyes staring almost through him, Stan cocks his head. "Kid?"
Dipper sways again, and this time, he falls back onto the ground, jagged rocks digging into the thin skin of his palms.
Stan jolts forward. "Kid!"
He doesn't move, staring at a focal point that's somewhere between Stan and the broader horizon, his eyes glazed over with injury and shock.
"Dipper—" Stan starts, unsure how to proceed. He never considered himself much of a great caretaker under normal circumstances, let alone in a strange dimension with a kid teetering the edge of a complete mental break. He's spent all summer trying to toughen the kid up, teach him how to fight back, how to stand up for himself.
But he hasn't taught the kid how to fight back against this. It's too much. It's too much for Stan, even, who has both age and the fact that he's been dealing with some variation of the supernatural for over three decades on his side.
Just when Stan thinks Dipper's not going to say anything, and is probably so traumatized he'll never say anything ever again, the kid speaks. "Let me see your eyes."
"Okay," Stan says, not fighting it anymore, his hands passively outstretched for what feels like the fiftieth time today. "Okay, kid. Look."
He removes his glasses, meeting Dipper's eyes. "Look all you want."
Dipper's pupils dart back and forth, scanning his eyes for something that Stan isn't exactly privy to. He's not sure how Dipper will react, especially at the results of some test that doesn't seem to have any logical sense to it.
To his surprise, Dipper's expression softens, his shoulders dropping. The kid lets out a breathy sigh, his troubled eyes clearing some. "It's really you?"
"Yeah," Stan says with an absent nod. "It's just me."
Dipper nods back, though he winces at the sudden movement, his hand rushing to grasp at his head once more.
He takes Dipper's ebbing anger and paranoia as an invitation to finally jump in and offer some help. "Let me see it, move your hand."
Stan doesn't expect Dipper's goodwill toward him to extend far past this moment. It's not lost on him that the kid quite literally has to rely on Stan's support right now, regardless of any lingering resentment. Even so, the kid goes from a hundred to zero in seconds, becoming almost immediately trusting of him as he pulls his hand back, barely flinching at the slicked-red sight in front of him.
It's a testament to how shitty he's feeling, surely.
Stan recognizes how detached and disoriented Dipper looks, and how he is becoming rapidly more so, staring at his hand as if it's an object and not a part of him. Stan may not know a lot, but he knows this.
"Looks like my stupid brother knocked you with something real good on the way out."
Stan brushes Dipper's fringe away, his birthmark almost completely concealed with tacky, dark blood that continues to sluggishly seep down from his hairline.
"Brother," Dipper parrots under his breath, meeting Stan's chocolate brown eyes once more.
"Look, kid, I'm gonna tell you everything, but you're not looking too hot and I don't like being out in the open. You think you can trust me enough to get us somewhere safe until then?"
Dipper nods. That answer seemed to placate him, at least.
"M'tired."
"Yeah, figured as much." Stan frowns. Stupid Sixer and his stupid futuristic gun.
He can't even begin to think about the fact that the first time he saw his twin in over thirty years was in passing — the glimpse of a figure hefting a large interdimensional weapon over his shoulder, clad in black, bursting through the portal as Stan and Dipper were yanked through the other side.
He can't think of a lot of things. Not that. Not the guilt he feels whenever he looks at Dipper, knowing Mabel is all alone on the other side.
He focuses on his hands instead, making quick work of pulling off his string tie and wrapping it around Dipper's head, applying pressure to the large, thin gash. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot, making them look a lot scarier than they are. Stan knows from experience. It's the concussion he's really worried about.
The kid's eyes seem to have slipped shut at some point during his ministrations, fluttering open when Stan lightly pats him on the cheek.
"No sleeping yet, kid."
"When?" Dipper asks, ever-so-eloquently.
"That depends," Stan says, putting up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Four."
Stan tries not to panic. That won't help anyone. "Nope, try again."
Dipper squints, focusing. "Three?"
"What's your name?"
"Dipper," he says. "Dipper Pines."
He'll let the kid have that one. "When's your birthday?"
"August 31st, 1999."
Stan pauses, thinking of a harder question to ask. Mostly, he just wants to make sure he's still able to carry a conversation.
"What sweater was your sister wearing today?"
Dipper's eyes fall to his lap, like he isn't sure he'll be able to answer. He's quiet for a moment, and Stan can practically hear his tired brain working overtime to find the answer.
He perks up when he remembers. "The pink one. With the key."
Stan nods, trying to picture it for himself, solidifying the memory in his head. But, as much as he tries to remember anything different, all he can see is her tears and the crestfallen look on her face as she debated pressing that button. He stays there for a moment, remembering her hesitation and the way she ever-so-slightly lifted her hand away from the button in the last few seconds.
But, more than anything, he remembers her panicked yell as she called out for her twin, like a mirror image of Stan thirty years back, in what feels like another lifetime now.
When Stan comes back to reality, his memories are reflected back at him. Wetness underlines Dipper's eyes, washing away dried blood and sending lined-tracks all the way down to his neck. He sniffles, seemingly unable to control the tears that continue to flow from his eyes.
He squeezes them shut. "I miss her," he says, barely loud enough to be considered a whisper.
Stan softens. "I know."
After a few moments of hand-muffled sobs, Dipper reins his emotions in, sniffling and steeling himself. He's not sure what's going on in the kid's head, but Stan figures he better worry about the physical before they address the rest.
"Alright, Dip," Stan says softly. "I'm just gonna check your eyes and then you can sleep. Promise."
"My eyes?" Dipper asks, as if that's somehow now an insane ask.
"Gotta check your pupils to make sure they're still dilating. I don't have a light so we'll have to improvise. Just keep 'em open for me, okay, kid?"
Dipper nods, and Stan places one hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun overhead.
He waits a few moments before pulling away, sighing with relief when both shrink evenly in response to this sun's bright, white light.
"Alright, kid, you'll live. You can sleep. Just until we get to where we're going."
"Where's that?" Dipper slurs.
"I'm not sure yet," Stan admits. "But I don't want you to worry about that."
Dipper squints. "Okay, um—"
"What's your name?" Dipper asks, so expectant and innocent that Stan feels a surge of protection and love for him. It would be a startling, worrying question — especially given his current state — if not for the circumstances and the bombshell that Stan dropped on him today.
He offers a small smile. "Stanley," he says. "So, you can still call me Stan, if you want."
Dipper flashes him a smile too, albeit a much goofier and concussed one. "Okay, Grunkle Stan."
In his youth, Stan considered himself decently athletic. Not having much going for him gradewise meant that he had to focus on other endeavors. In fact, if you asked his old man, he might have even said it was the only thing Stan had going for him.
He had considered continuing boxing, then. Maybe he'd even get the chance to make it to the big leagues someday.
But, all hope of that was lost in a rush, his Pa beating him a new one and throwing a haphazardly-filled duffel bag in his direction, kicking him to the curb in a matter of minutes. He didn't even get to apologize to Ford. Or explain himself.
None of that matters now, Stan thinks, trekking through the hilly mountainside of an unfamiliar dimension, focusing on the sound of Dipper's soft, breathy inhalations in his ear. He's not that man anymore. He's certainly not athletic. Or young. It shows in the way he stumbles over the rocky cliff face, trying his best to climb downhill with an injured child hanging off his back. He curses the years he spent idle, forgoing his health to work on the portal all night or scam tourists all day. He curses the years he spent smoking, filling his lungs with cheap tobacco as he hid from Rico and his goons.
He curses himself for getting them in this situation in the first place. If he had just told the kids the truth from the beginning, or even earlier that day, Dipper never would've gone for the button. They would be together, as a family. Maybe a little rough around the edges, but they'd still be under the same roof.
He hasn't stopped questioning every choice he's made since this morning. What he could've done differently. What might have been out of his hands.
More importantly, the choices he makes now.
For the first time in his life, Stan is completely and utterly lost. Even before, when he was living in his car — siphoning gas out of parked vehicles and running from the law — he at least could be sure that the only life he was ruining was his own. Now, he's got Dipper's whole life on his back, literally and figuratively, completely responsible for the way his future turns out.
He shakes his head, trying to push away that train of thought. Bullshit, he tries to reason with himself. If his nerdy, paranoid, nearly-emaciated brother could fend for himself out here for over three decades, Stan has nothing to worry about. He's Stanley fucking Pines. He's been to prison in three different countries, chewed himself out of the trunk of a car, outrun state and local law enforcement in nearly all 50 states, and killed a couple dozen zombies with his own two fists.
They'll be fine. They have to be.
After walking for what feels like miles, lost in his own head, Stan finally reaches the top of the hill, a distant town coming into view. He doesn't have much in the way of a plan, but at least shelter, water, and medical supplies could be within reach.
Stan approaches the town, surveying the area. It isn't quite a bustling city, but the streets are lined with structures that stretch into the sky, bathed by a purple sunset. The air is cooler here, carrying an unfamiliar, metallic scent that sticks to the inside of his nostrils.
Stan's seen a lot of crazy shit in Gravity Falls over the years, but he's seen nothing that rivals the sight of an alien population roaming a busy street, each one a widely different species — varying dramatically in appearance and size.
Stan scouts his targets — or help, rather — picking his mark quickly. A tall, humanoid woman leans against the entrance of a store-front, typing something into an alien device. Her skin is a light purple, long blonde hair trailing down her back, decorated with gemmed braids. Mabel would love her, he thinks.
"Hey!" Stan calls, making his way over to her. She looks up quickly, eyes widening at the sight of Stan and Dipper. He's sure they're a sight for sore eyes right now.
"Hello, ma'am, I- uh, we're not of this dimension," he says, slightly out of his element. "But the kid's hurt real bad and we're looking for a place to stay for the night. Is there anywhere we could look—"
She interrupts quickly, breaking into a fast-talking, indecipherable alien language. Fuck. He doesn't know why he thought that would work.
The alien woman cocks her head, coming to some sort of realization when Stan doesn't respond. She reaches for the black, buckled satchel that crosses over her body, beginning to dig in it for something specific.
When she finds what she's looking for, Stan stares at it, raising a single eyebrow as he examines the metallic, circular cuff clutched in her hands. When he doesn't move, she extends it toward him, the device dangling from her outstretched palm.
"What's this?" Stan says, finally reaching out.
She breaks into charades quickly, her darker, magenta hands beginning at the front of her neck and forming a clasping motion toward the back.
It doesn't take long for Stan to catch her meaning. He carefully adjusts Dipper's limp arms, making room to wrap the thing around his neck. He makes a mental note to thank Mabel whenever he sees her again for all those impromptu games of charades she forced on him.
He clasps the thing, finally, a shrill ring filling the silence as it powers on, flashing green from a button protruding from its side. Stan knows he's being too trusting right now, putting this random device on his body, but it's not like they have many other options.
"Can you understand me?" the woman asks in perfect English.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks."
"That is a dimensional translator," she clarifies before answering. "There's a hostel down that way. But I'm willing to wager you have no units."
Stan's cheeks heat up, feeling oddly called out. It seems she's got him figured out already. "That'd be correct, ma'am."
The woman pockets the device she had been messing with earlier, completely redirecting her focus on the two of them. She seems to be weighing a decision, scanning Stan's eyes with newfound intensity.
He doesn't know what she finds there, but she flicks her gaze over to Dipper, her hairless brow bone furrowing as she regards him.
Finally, she speaks. "I have children of my own," she says, decisively. "Come with me. You may stay the night in my home."
"Wow, uh. That's—" Stan starts, completely bewildered at her hospitality. "Thank you. I'm Stan, and this is Dipper," he says, adjusting his grip around the kid's shins.
"I'm Ulma. Welcome to Dimension 37/-&."
"It is not so odd for us to receive interdimensional travelers," Ulma explains as they walk to what she calls a modest home in the industry district. "There are many weak spots in the fabric of this dimension. I cannot remember a day in the last forty cycles where there wasn't a wormhole pulling in a weary traveler or two."
While he's grateful that they've winded up in a dimension where their presence is not only accepted, but expected, Stan can't help but worry about their predicament. If that demonic triangle meant what it said, then those freaks are going to be coming after them. It won't do them any good to stay in such an easily accessible dimension.
Stan nods. "I can't thank you enough. Really."
Ulma meets his eyes, her lips curving upward in a small, shy approximation of a smile. "Hardly anyone is actually from here. I still remember my first day in this dimension. I would have appreciated the hospitality. And I didn't have a child with me then."
When they arrive, Ulma ushers them in, guiding them to a spare room. She beelines straight for a drawer, dragging out a medium-sized backpack.
"First aid, rations, and water," she says, placing it in his hands. "For you and the child."
Stan shakes his head. "I can't accept this," he says, mostly out of courtesy. Part of him screams at him to run, to take this act of generosity and flee before it ends up being too good to be true. Instead, he stands there in place, praying for his instincts to be wrong, just this once.
"It is not much," she says. "Just enough to find yourselves."
He nods again, not really sure what to say. "Thank you, Ulma."
She nods back. "Goodnight, Stan."
When she closes the door behind her, Stan stares at it in shock. He's never known people to be good just for the hell of it. If it weren't for the kid, he probably would've been halfway out the door by now.
But he isn't alone. He moves toward the bed, laying Dipper down on one side of it. The kid doesn't so much as stir, which fills him with an eerie heaviness that he needs to squash immediately.
"Dipper, hey." Stan shakes him gently, frowning when he doesn't show any immediate signs of waking up.
He shakes his shoulder with more force. "Kid."
Finally, after ten impossibly long seconds, Dipper's eyes flutter open, landing on him. Stan releases a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Morning, Dip."
Dipper groans, moving to sit up with little-to-no strength. Stan braces him as he does so, throwing one of Ulma's throw pillows behind his back.
"What?" He looks around, glassy eyes scanning the walls. "Where are we?"
"Well, apparently Dimension 37 slash hyphen amper-something, I don't know," Stan says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "But we're in this alien lady's house… if that's what you were wondering. You've been out for a few hours."
Dipper shakes his head, unbelieving. "Am I dreaming?" His hands go to cover his face.
"What is happening, Stan?" he asks, his voice small.
"How're you feeling?"
The kid shrugs, dropping his hands. "Dizzy. Tired. My head hurts."
"Yeah. A concussion will do that to you."
Dipper pales. "That's… that's bad, huh?"
"You tell me. It wouldn't even be your first this summer," Stan says, remembering the way Dipper stumbled into the Mystery Shack after his sister's more-than-eventful puppet show, sporting a nasty goose egg at the back of his head and several rows of puncture wounds that he had no real explanation for.
Dipper makes a pained face at that, his chest heaving as he takes in a deep, startled breath. "Why'd you have to bring that up?"
"You'll be okay, kid," he says, patting his knee. "But, now that you're up, I need you to answer some questions for me. That… that thing knew you. It knew me and my brother." He pauses, thinking. "What was that name it called you?"
"Pine Tree," Dipper answers after a long beat, so quiet that Stan almost misses it.
He nods, looking down at his lap. He almost doesn't want to ask but he has to know. He has to know exactly what they're facing out here. "This Bill… what is it?"
"Nuh-uh," Dipper says, gaining intensity despite the exhaustion swimming in his eyes. "I'm not telling you anything until you tell me everything. You have a brother? He wrote the journals? And now we're in a different dimension? What—"
"Okay, okay," Stan says, placing his hands on his shoulders, guiding him back down to rest against the pillows before he gets even more worked up than he already is. Stan honestly has no idea how the kid is still able to get this fired up.
"Lay down, I'll tell you if you relax," he says, grabbing for the first aid kit to start helping the kid look a little more alive.
Dipper obliges, settling back and watching Stan fumble for the right words.
Stan sighs. It's going to be a long night.
"It all started in New Jersey, in a little coastal town called Glass Shard Beach."