Do not expect future chapters this quickly, I don't know what possessed me.
June 14th, 2013
Nicola listened to the dial tone drone on as he tapped his foot anxiously.
After what felt like an eternity, someone finally picked up. "Sup Dude, you've reached the Mystery Shack, a place of wonder, enchantment, and merchandise."
Despite his nervousness, Nicola couldn't stop himself from smiling. "Hey, Little Bro. Is the boss in?"
"Nicky!" Soos greeted from the opposite end of the line. "Mr. Pines is leading a tour right now, but he'll be really happy to hear you called. You want me to tell him something?"
"Just that I'm sorry about our fight a few days ago and I'd like to make it up to him by treating him and the kids to brunch. You're welcome to come to, but I have a feeling he'll ask you to keep the Shack running in the meantime."
"You think so?"
"Course, you're a natural at getting along with tourists after all."
"Aw, thanks dude. I'll pass on your message to Mr. Pines."
"Keep being you Soos."
One short walk from his house later, Nicola sat in a booth at Greasy's Diner. Specifically the one farthest from where Old Man McGucket was drinking an unfathomable amount of coffee. How the old coot even got his hands on so much of it without any money was a mystery.
The door at the opposite end of the log swung open, jangling the little bell above it. Nicola straightened, waving to his smiling cousins and nervous-looking father.
"Hey guys, glad you could make it!"
Mabel plopped down on the bench across from him, Dipper sliding in on Nicola's right.
"Glad to be here! Especially if pancakes are involved!" She chirped.
"Everything work out with Gideon?"
Dipper folded his arms on the table. "Eventually."
Mabel nodded as she tried to hang a spoon on her nose. "I had a talk with Wendy and she helped me realize I needed to break up with him myself. You were right about him seeing Dipper as an enemy though."
Nicola looked back to Dipper. "You okay?"
Dipper waved him off. "Nothing worse than the bumps Mabel's last boyfriend gave me."
Nicola raised an eyebrow. "This is a pattern then?"
"Oh look! Our waitress!" Mabel yelled pointing to the woman who'd walked up to the end of the table.
Stan followed her finger and smiled. "Hey Em, where's Susan?"
Emma-May blew a loose grey curl out of her face. "Poor woman got hit by a bus on the way into work today. Still tried to come in for her shift if you can believe it, but the other staff wouldn't hear of it, so… here I am."
Stan leaned against the edge of the table, posing like he was about to be on an album cover. "Don't suppose I can charm my way into free pancakes, sugar?"
Em smirked. "Not a chance you relic. These cuties on the other hand…" She turned to the kids.
Dipper's gaze caught on something near the door. "No need. I'm gonna win some pancakes by beating that Manliness Tester."
Across the table, Mabel and Stan wore matching skeptical expressions.
"Manliness Tester?" Stan started.
"Beating?" Mabel added.
The two glanced at each other before bursting out laughing.
Dipper's shoulders slumped. "What? What's so funny?"
Mabel wiped a tear from her eye. "No offense Dipper, but you're not exactly 'Manly Mannington'".
Nicola and Em exchanged a look that silently communicated something along the lines of. I don't even know what to do with this.
Emma-May sighed, "I'll just slip you guys some pie," before walking away.
Dipper's tone had become much more defensive. "Hey, I am too "Manly... Manny" or whatever it is you said."
Stan leaned back in his seat. "Look, face the music, kid. You got no muscles, you smell like baby wipes, and let's not forget last Tuesday's... 'incident.' You know… when I caught your excellent rendition of Disco Babe or whatever in the bathroom?"
Nicola smiled at his cousin. "You sing?"
Dipper's eyes darted nervously. "No, I don't, I wasn't. It's not important. I'm plenty masculine, I've got chest hair, see?" He pulled down his shirt and the pair across the table made a show of acting like they'd been blinded before laughing some more.
Nicola frowned, all the while his mindrepeated. Don't start another fight, don't start another fight! You brought him here to apologize for yelling last time!
Deciding to ignore the opposite side of the table, he placed a hand on Dipper's shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm just as bare-chested. Granted, it's because my friend makes me wax, but still!"
Dipper's ever-reddening face implied he wasn't helping. "Fine, 'family of little faith.' Get ready to eat your words… And a plate of delicious pancakes."
The boy ran to the cobwebbed machine.
"You got this Dipper!" Nicola cheered.
His cousin made a 'pipe down' gesture before turning back to the "manliness tester", muttering to himself.
The other three Pines watched as Dipper tugged on the handle with all his might, the light slowly rising from "wimp" to "barely passable" to "man"... before immediately falling back down to "wimp".
Dipper started chuckling nervously. "This thing must be broken. It's totally broken, guys. It's like a million years old, probably ran out of steam power or-"
Before he speak more, "Manly" Dan Courdoroy stepped up, pushing the boy aside.
Nicola couldn't hear the rest of the brief exchange from his seat, but he definitely noticed the machine exploding, flinging a pancake onto a plate he swore hadn't been there before.
"Yes! Pancakes for EVERYONE!" Dan cheered, the rest of the diner quickly joining in.
Nicola looked through the celebrating crowd for Dipper, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.
Stan turned away from the scene. "Yeesh, how am I related to that?"
Mabel patted his arm. "Come on, Grunkle Stan. I'm sure deep down you have a soft side too."
"He does," Nicola confirmed.
Stan scoffed. "Yeah right, nothing in here but a cold, dark, empty soul."
At that moment Em returned, placing a piece of pie in front of each of them, a fourth piece sitting in front of where Dipper had been.
"Some sweetness for a sour grump and company," She said, winking at them as she returned to the counter.
"Thanks Em, You're an angel!" Stan called after her before digging into his pie.
Mabel gasped. "Wait a second, wait a second! Grunkle Stan, I think she likes you!"
Stan stared at her flatly. "Course she does, we've known each other since before this one," he jabbed his fork at Nicola, "lost any teeth."
Mabel sighed dramatically. "No… I mean shelikelikes you."
Stan snorted. "Fat chance! 'Sides, Em's so far out of my league we're playing different sports."
Mabel grabbed his face and pulled it against her own. "Grunkle Stan, you are a cranky, gross, weird old man. But we will get Em to give you a chance because nothing is stronger than the power of-"
"Love?" Stan attempted to finish.
Mabel shook her head. "Mabel."
Nicola stood. "And while you're tackling that feat, I'm going to find out where Dipper went. Meet you back at the shack?"
Mabel grinned. "Sure!"
After asking around, Nicola quickly discovered Dipper had disappeared into the woods, so he grabbed the only person with some knowledge of searching the wilderness.
Tate walked slightly ahead of him, using a walking stick to push aside plants in an attempt to find Dipper's tracks. "Your sparkly cousin is doing what now?"
"Trying to set up our parents," Nicola answered. "I'm not sure how to feel about it."
Tate rounded a tree. "Doesn't seem that strange. Your Dad's been filling in for my dad for ages now, and you've definitely reached honorary McGucket status by now."
Nicola stuck a biodegradable tag to the tree as he passed it. "Yeah, but wouldn't it be weird? They've just been friends for forever."
Tate shrugged. "A little I guess. But the two of them gettin' hitched wouldn't change how things are with my Dad, at least not now. Plus…" He smiled over his shoulder. "I wouldn't mind being officially brothers."
Nicola found himself smiling back. "Yeah, that'd be pretty cool."
They did not end up meeting back at the Shack. Instead, Tate and Nicola found themselves running into Stan and Mabel while stopping by Greasy's for dinner before continuing the search.
Nicola rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Dad… we've talked about public indecency before."
Stan pointed at Mabel. "Going pantsless was her idea!"
Em emerged from the back with food for her son and basically second son. "Stan? What are you doing here?" Her eyes darted down to his boxers. "And without pants, no less?"
Mabel dragged the boxer-clad man over. "Hello Miss Em, I noticed you like helping people, and no one needs more help than my Grunkle Stan!"
Emma-May's eyebrows shot up so fast it looked like they were trying to jump off her face.
"Stan? Is this some strange attempt to ask me out?"
Stan grinned sheepishly. "Maybe?"
Her face took on a strange, twisted expression. "I'm sorry, you know I care about you, and you know I don't care for my ex-husband as he is, but-" She paused to take a breath. "I am still in love with the man he was. He sang his proposal, you know that? He knew I love that saccharine stuff." She set the plates she'd been holding all this time in front of the men. "I miss him. And it would break my heart to replace him while he's still physically present, even if his mind went a long time ago."
Nicola only had a quick glimpse of Tate's whitening knuckles before the other man spoke up.
"Really Mom? You're gonna give up a chance at happiness for that wreck?! Mr. Pines is a good guy, he'd take care of you!" In a way Fiddleford can't, went unspoken.
Em didn't look angry when she faced Tate, just hurt. "Why don't I show you all something?"
And so, the small crew found themselves piling into Nicola's van for a drive to the McGucket residence, coincidentally running into Dipper along the way.
Nicola was driving, with Tate sat beside him, neither one listening to Dipper's recounting of his adventures. At least, not until it somehow resulted in Em screaming. "For Pete's sake Stan, put your shirt back on!"
Twenty minutes later, they were all huddled in the McGucket's living room as Em finished plugging an old cinderblock of a camera into the TV.
"This is what I was talking about," she said before hitting play.
A grainy video started, a slim bespectacled man holding a banjo front and center.
"Be sure yer gettin' all this, ahm not gonna get a chance tah do it twice."
"Unless something goes catastrophically wrong," a deep male voice replied from behind the camera.
"Hush up! Here she comes!"
The man turned to the side as a young woman with curly brown hair stepped into frame.
"Fiddleford? What's this about?" The woman, who was clearly a much younger Emma-May asked.
Fiddleford smiled. "Ah wrote you a song!"
Emma-May looked at the camera. "And you're filming it because…?"
Fiddleford pulled her to a bench. "Nuthin fancy, just wanted tah look back and see yer reaction when ahm not as nervous as a turkey on thanksgivin'!"
Emma-May sat on the bench, folding her hands primly. "Alright then, let's hear this masterpiece."
"R-right!" He cleared his throat, moving to stand in front of the bench in such a way that he didn't block the camera. "Here we go."
He began to pluck a bubbly tune on the banjo, only allowing the instrument a moment by itself before he began to sing.
"Ah love tha warmth of summer, tha harvest fruits 'a fall, tha icy gleam of winter, but ah love spring most of 'em all."
The tempo picked up a bit, his voice still shaky with nerves. "Especially May, May, wish it was every day. I want a year full 'a nuthin but May."
The tune slowed again for the next verse. "An' why you may ask? Mah affection for this season? Well ahm embarrassed to admit that a girl is the reason."
Fiddleford's voice had slowly lost its shakiness as he leaned closer to Emma-May. "An' her name's May, May, ah love her more every day. It's because ah so love Emma May."
The Emma-May on video giggled. Em looked like she was about to cry.
Back on screen, Fiddleford slowly lowered himself to one knee, playing his banjo all the while. "Now darlin' ah can't imagine the rest of my life, without you beside me. So please will you be my wife? An' make it May, May, every day. Ah want a life filled with you, Emma-May."
The Emma-May on-screen threw her arms around Fiddleford, nearly knocking the small man over.
As the pair kissed, the voice behind the camera spoke up again, his tone a balance of fond and annoyed. "I told you you were worried for nothing."
The camera shook a bit, and then the video ended.
Sometime during the last chorus, Em had moved to stand behind Tate, a hand carding through his hair. "That's who I remember."
When Tate spoke, his voice was ragged. "How come I haven't seen this before?"
"I finally finished cleaning the attic this week."
Tate let out a choked laugh.
Nicola reached out to his friend. "You okay?"
A tear ran out from under Tate's bangs. "I am. It's nice to see something positive about him for once… I can't remember anything nice."
Em sank to her knees, wrapping her arms around her boy. "Oh, baby…"
Stan nudged Nicola from behind, the twins flanking him. "I think this is our cue to leave."
In all the chaos of the day, Nicola nearly forgot his intention behind meeting his dad for lunch that morning. Which is why he was still lingering in the shack even as Stan finished getting his cousins into bed.
After a semi-heated argument about whether Dipper should shower, (it eventually ended with Stan locking the boy inside the bathroom until he at least came out wet) Stan finally ambled down the stairs, grabbed a beer from the high cabinet he'd hidden them in, and sat across from Nicola at the little kitchen table.
"I know you're wanting to talk kiddo," Stan said before Nicola could even open his mouth. "But I don't think I'm in a good headspace for it tonight."
Nicola furrowed his brow. "How come?"
Stan popped open the lukewarm can, taking a long slurp before he answered. "Ford was the one filming that video. It's the first time I've heard his voice in about thirty years."
Without another word Nicola stood, walked around the table, and gave his dad the biggest hug he could muster. "You'll get him back, I know you will."
Stan didn't reply, just patted one of Nicola's appreciatively.
Meanwhile, Nicola's head was swirling with ideas.
Dad's birthday is tomorrow.
Notes:
- Nicola and Soos will explain their relationship in future chapters, but Nicola is happy to treat him like the little brother he never had.
- Susan's accident is pulled from a line in the episode. It was probably a joke in the original context, I'm just taking it seriously. She's fine. (My headcannon is she actually ran into a manotaur, but the Blind Eye reshaped it as being hit by a bus.)
- Priscilla makes both Tate and Nicola wax their chest hair off because Preston has chest hair envy. (Man had to get implants.)
- Fiddleford's proposal song came to me in a dream and I just had to use it.
- Tate was young enough when all the portal stuff went down that he can't remember the times Fidds was a good dad, but those times did happen!
- Stan doesn't really see Emma-May in a romantic light, but he did consider the idea after Mabel insisted Em liked him. She hasn't broken his heart or anything, they're still good friends.
Also, I have a tumblr now! I can post sketches of the characters! Just look for Azarath Cat! (I've already got some sketches up.)