"Hmm…" a doctor said curiously as he skimmed a piece of paper on a clipboard.
In front of the doctor was Stan, who sat up awake in his hospital bed. He wore a hospital gown instead of his nightly outfit. His eyes were no longer bloodshot and he generally looked healthy in appearance. Ford sat in a chair right beside his bed, dressed back in his normal outfit as opposed to his own nightwear.
Since their arrival at the hospital, Stan had undergone basic tests for his condition. The doctor had come back with the results, reading them in his head as the Stan twins patiently waited for an explanation.
"Well, based on the tests we ran, it doesn't appear like there's anything wrong with you, Mr. Pines," the doctor said, letting go of the sheet of paper and looking back up at Stan.
"What?" Ford said, chiming in before Stan could. "That can't be possible. I saw him collapse right in front of me. He even had a fever!"
The doctor stood up and inserted an ear thermometer in Stan's left ear, catching him by surprise for a second.
"Hey, hey!" he exclaimed, jolting his head a bit. "How about a little warning?"
The thermometer beeped, and the doctor pulled it out. He inspected the number, which read a perfect 98.6°F temperature. He then looked back at his clipboard.
"Well, while our initial temperature checks do confirm a very high fever of 103.7°F, his temperature now is... perfect," the doctor told them. "And the rest of our tests don't present any sort of basic issues. Normal heart rate, normal blood sugar, a little overweight but that doesn't appear to present any major issue either. Everything on the surface just appears normal. Especially since his temperature has lowered since... perhaps this was all a result of heat exhaustion or dehydration?"
Ford shook his head, refusing to believe it. "That can't be. It can't be that simple. This was at night with no sun. His eyes were all red, and this wasn't even the first time."
"You mean he's collapsed like this before?" the doctor asked.
"I meant the red eyes," Ford clarified. "They happened once before earlier in the night."
"I see," the doctor nodded, stroking his chin. "Well, if there truly is anything wrong, it's going to require more thorough testing. Perhaps an MRI."
"What?" Stan questioned before shaking his head. "No, no, no. That's not necessary."
"Of course, it's necessary! Stanley, you're unwell," Ford argued.
"I'm fine," Stan assured. "Really. I feel great! Like a new man! My muscles feel strong, and my head feels just fine! Trust me. Whatever happened to me a few hours ago doesn't compare to me now."
"I'm glad you feel that way, Mr. Pines," the doctor said. "But just to be safe, we're going to hold onto you overnight. Just in case anything happens again, we'll be ready to take care of it."
"Aw, c'mon! I gotta keep wearing this paper dress for the rest of the night?" Stan asked, pointing to his hospital gown.
"He'll deal with it, doctor," Ford said while also giving Stan a look to cut it out. "But if I may, can I please have a moment alone with my brother?"
"Of course," the doctor nodded before leaving the two, shutting the curtains behind him.
Stan laid himself back again in his reclined hospital bed, sighing with discontent. "Great. As if we haven't waited long enough to get back to Gravity Falls. Now I'm gonna have to stay here overnight only for them to find nothing."
"Actually, Stan, I've been doing some thinking," Ford said as he brought his chair closer to Stan, bringing his volume down a bit since their only walls were the thin curtains that surrounded them. "I feel like a fool for not bringing this up earlier, but I think I know what might be causing this."
"Let me guess... it was the gas station sandwich I had for lunch, right?" Stan suggested. "Ya know, I was starting to feel kinda funny after that."
"Um... no, that's not it," Ford replied somewhat awkwardly. "Stan, do you remember what happened back in the Arctic? With Bill's Nightmare Realm friends? Anything at all?"
"I remember riding the giant two-horned rhinoceros or something down a mountain if that's what you're talking about," Stan referenced. "Why?"
"Well, while you were unconscious, they did something to you back there," Ford began. "They took the energy of the multiversal rift that was in the mountain and amplified it with a stream of ongoing electricity for a good few minutes while using a metal bed you were strapped to as a conductor."
"And uh... what does that do to me?" Stan asked, growing concerned about his well-being with this revelation.
"To be completely honest, I'm unsure," Ford admitted. "But considering you've been acting strange ever since… the bloodshot eyes, the short-term memory, the random aggressive behaviors- especially by your standards..."
"Ah, please, Ford. That all just sounds like typical old man problems, of which I'm one of them," Stan brushed off. "Maybe the doc is right. I haven't been drinking much water this whole trip. Probably just a bit dehydrated. Nothing to be concerned about."
"Stan, you can't seriously be blowing this all aside like it's nothing," Ford said sternly. "I truly believe there could be something dangerously wrong with you. We need to figure out what and I know how. I have some equipment back in my lab in the Shack's basement that we can use to do a quicker and more thorough scan of your body than any of these hospitals or MRIs can find after a month's wait for results."
Stan thought for a moment. "You're not kidding about that wait for test results."
"I've had it with the waiting for anything, Stanley. In fact, before taking you to the hospital, I checked us out of the motel we were staying in. As soon as we get out of here, we're getting back on the road again and are finishing this drive to Gravity Falls."
"I'm with you," Stan said with a nod. "But, uh, didn't the doc say they're gonna keep me overnight?"
"Agh, we don't have time for that," Ford said while getting up from his chair. "We need to get out of here. Besides, with the fake names and health insurance info I provided, it's only a matter of time before they find out-"
"Hey, sorry to interrupt, you two," the doctor suddenly interrupted, poking his upper body through the curtains with a clipboard in hand. He glanced over at Ford. "Mr. Gerald Pines, we tried using the insurance number you gave us so we could charge for the visit, but it appears to be invalid. Any chance you can review it with us?"
Ford stared at the doctor with wide eyes of growing nervousness. Stan then turned over to him, glaring.
"Gerald Pines?!" he questioned. "You're kidding, right? What happened to Darwin and Copernicus? And did you seriously keep the same last name and only change the first? Are you that bad at this kinda thing?!"
"Well, I'm sorry that I'm not an expert criminal like you!" Ford said defensively.
"You told me you were wanted throughout the multiverse! I thought that meant you had picked up some skills in that portal!"
The doctor continued to just stand by, hovering awkwardly between the two and their bickering. "Um... is there a problem here?"
"Yeah, when isn't there one these days?" Stan asked as he dug a hand under his hospital bed sheets.
POOF!
At that moment, Stan suddenly dug out a smoke bomb and threw it violently against the ground in front of the doctor. It instantly blew up, creating a thick ball of smoke that blinded him as it completely took over his face. He began coughing and sputtering within the smoke, waving his hands around to wind it away. He started to recover his ability to see as the smoke cleared up. Turning to his left, he immediately caught sight of Ford running through the hospital corridor while pushing Stan's mobile hospital bed.
"RUN, STANFOR- I mean... RUN, GERALD!" Stan shouted as he rode in the hospital bed that Ford was pushing behind him.
Several other doctors had noticed the commotion with the smoke bomb and looked over at the corridor the Stans were moving through as they turned a corner. The doctor they had blinded narrowed his eyes angrily.
"CALL SECURITY! DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!" he ordered the other doctors surrounding before beginning to chase after them. With that command, several other doctors ran along with him to chase the Stan brothers.
Ford had a good lead on the doctors, but he knew it wouldn't last long, as they didn't have the bearing of having to push a hospital bed around. Still, he ran and pushed Stan through the halls with all of his force, trying his hardest not to accidentally run into anything that would stump his progress.
"By the way... where exactly were you keeping that smoke bomb in your gown?" Ford asked, the thought suddenly coming to mind.
"Trust me. You don't wanna know," Stan answered, prompting a confused look from Ford. "Just focus on pushing! I'll watch ahead!"
Stan turned ahead of the corridor they were traveling through and quickly caught sight of a doctor pushing a trolley bed across in front of them. The speed Ford was pushing was quickly beginning to close the distance between them and the doctor, and he didn't seem to be aware that he was about to run right into him.
"Swerve right!" Stan called out.
Ford did as commanded and swerved the bed to the right, which sent them turning around a corner right in front of the doctor and his trolley. He stopped, preventing himself from suddenly running into the Pines. He stared at them silently as they ran off, wondering what was going on. His confusion only increased upon seeing several doctors from his right come rushing through the hallway and turning ahead of him to chase the Pines.
As the brothers continued running through the corridor, Ford took a second to look behind him and noticed the pursuing doctors.
"Stan! They're gaining on us!" he called out as he turned back ahead.
"Alright… uh…" Stan said, trying to come up with a potential solution. He looked forward and noticed a cart ahead with various medicines placed against the left wall. He had an idea. "Move me a bit to the left!"
Ford carefully did so as he tried to keep up their current speed while trying to put more emphasis on moving the bed leftward, which was a slight struggle. Nonetheless, he managed, and Stan began to lean his arms outward in his bed as they got closer to the cart. As soon as they passed it, he quickly got a hold of two pill containers. He bit off both covers at the same time before getting on his knees and turning to face the doctors behind them.
"Mr. Pines! We urge you and your brother to think about what you're doing!" Stan's doctor called out to him as he chased him. "We're trying to help you! If we find something wrong, we can recommend treatment or prescribe you the proper medications for your condition!"
"Oh yeah? Well, prescribe this!" Stan shouted before emptying both pill containers with the swing of his arms. The pills came bouncing against the floor until they rolled right underneath the feet of the doctors, causing them to slip and fall to the ground.
With the doctors delayed, the Stans whooped at their success as they continued running through the hall, eventually turning yet another corner and leaving the doctors' sights.
"Nice work, Stanley!" Ford called out. "Now to find a way out of here!"
Stan sat back down on the bed and looked ahead again. Right down at the end of the corridor was a large elevator, presumably built for bringing trolleys up and down the floors.
"Well, we're in luck! Elevator straight ahead, Sixer!"
"Perfect!" Ford exclaimed with a smile as he picked up his speed a bit more.
The two soon reached the elevator at the end of the corridor. Ford stepped away from the back of the bed and walked to the button panel, pressing the down button. The door didn't open right away, however, meaning they had to wait for it to show up. This brought stress to Ford, as he realized the wait would give the doctors a chance to catch up.
Right on cue, Ford turned behind him to see that the doctors had just turned the corner from the other end of the corridor that they had just run.
"They're taking the elevator!" one of the doctors' voices called out as they began running after them again.
"Oh c'mon…" Ford said worriedly, pressing the elevator button multiple times as he began to panic.
"Ford?" Stan questioned with concern as he peeked his head behind the bed to see the doctors beginning to catch up to their position. "Ya know that just because I'm in a hospital bed doesn't mean I can't walk, right? We should think about going for the stairs."
Ding!
Luckily, the elevator arrived at that moment. The doors opened up with no one inside.
"Too late!" Ford shouted as he ran behind the bed again and pushed it into the elevator. He stepped inside beside the bed and pressed the button to go to the bottom floor.
"NO! STOP THEM!" Stan's doctor shouted as he and the other doctors came close to catching up to them.
Ford started repeatedly pressing the button to close the elevator doors over and over, beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. The doctors soon reached the elevator, but they were stumped by the shutting of the doors, to which the Stan twins were now on their way to the first floor.
"DAMMIT!" Stan's doctor yelled, frustratedly banging the metal elevator doors with his fist. He looked back at the other doctors and pointed to the door to the staircase. "Take the stairs! Beat them to the bottom floor! Don't, under any circumstances, let those two get away!"
Inside the elevator, Stan continued to sit in the mobile hospital bed while Ford stood right beside him, mentally planning their exit strategy to their car upon the elevator doors opening again. However, Ford's thought process was soon disturbed when he heard a noise coming from Stan, who was humming along with the elevator music.
"Hmmm-mm-mm-bore... Hmmm-mm-mm-door…" Stan hummed aloud. "...gonna show them the dance floor…" His eyes then glanced over at Ford, who was staring at him weirdly. "What? It's a catchy song."
Ford just sighed in response. He then found himself unable to retrace his former thoughts and just stared forward waiting for the elevator ride to finish.
Ding!
The elevator doors opened up again, and Stan and Ford stood frozen in place as they were immediately greeted by all the doctors from upstairs. The doctors surrounded the two on the elevator, leaving them with no way to get through. Right beside them was a single security officer, who was also standing defensively among the rest of the doctors.
"Aha! We got you now!" Stan's doctor exclaimed. "Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can provide your payment info and stay or leave as you please, or you'll have to deal with the police. What's it going to be?"
Stan and Ford stared at the doctors and the officer, not moving a muscle. They glanced at one another once before looking forward again. Then, without a word, Ford casually moved his hand over to the button panel and pressed a single button, prompting the elevator doors to close again.
The doctors and the officer simply stared at the closed elevator doors in silence. Stan's doctor's eye twitched as the realization of what just happened slowly settled in with him.
"Well... crap," he said. "Well, people. Upstairs again it is. Let's get moving!" The other doctors groaned in response. "Yeah, yeah! Groan all you want!"
The doctors and the officer all started making their way back to the staircase, though much slower than before with their newfound lack of motivation. Soon after, the doors to the staircase closed behind the last doctor and the elevator was left undefended.
At that moment, the elevator doors opened again with Stan and Ford still inside, with Ford's finger held on the button panel. Ford then poked his head out of the elevator and glanced around, searching for any doctors or other security.
"Huh. I wasn't expecting simply closing the elevator doors and waiting it out to actually work," Ford remarked.
"You're telling me that they all went back upstairs for us without leaving anyone down here in case we'd come back?" Stan asked. "Yikes. Not a hospital I'd want 'helping' me."
"Come on," Ford said before moving behind the bed again, pushing Stan out of the elevator. "Let's just get out while the coast is clear."
The two casually strolled away from the elevator and out of the building without any further trouble from any doctors or security. Ford rolled Stan out into the parking lot and over to his car, which was still parked in the back of the lot. Before reaching it, Stan finally got down from the bed, watching as Ford pushed it into the middle of the lot for it to be taken back by the hospital staff whenever they got around to it.
Stan smirked. "Ya know, it was really nice of ya to roll me around, Sixer. I wasn't feeling like doing the running myself."
"Funny," Ford said sarcastically. "But honestly, I'm sure me pushing your 'slightly overweight' body around was a faster choice anyway."
"Alright, don't go quoting idiotic doctors on me now," Stan said, smile quickly fading.
In the backseat of Ford's car, the Snacken sat waiting. Its tentacles hung out over the seat's edge, swinging occasionally out of boredom. However, once it heard the two brothers conversing outside, it perked up. It crawled up the seat and looked outside, noticing the twins approaching. Growing excited, it jumped onto the right window just as Stan approached.
"GAH!" he yelled. "What the hell? Ford, you left that damn octopus in the car?!"
"I left a window cracked open for it," Ford said innocently, pointing over to the crack he had left open in the front window of the car while sitting in the driver's seat.
"No, I mean you brought that thing along with us? Why?" Stan asked, still not thrilled by the Snacken tagging along on their ride home. He hopped into the passenger seat beside Ford and closed the car door behind him. The Snacken then jumped and wrapped its tentacles around the head of his seat, catching him by surprise. "Hey, hey!"
"Easy!" Ford shouted at the Snacken, using his arm to gesture for it to get off of Stan's seat. It listened to his command and jumped back into the seat behind him. "Anyway, of course I brought it along. I checked us out from the motel, remember?"
"Oh, right," Stan said, cautiously resting his head against the back of his car seat. "So we're really doing this final run back home, huh?"
Ford adjusted his rearview mirror. "That we are."
"Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get a move on!"
"We will." Ford's eyes then glanced over at Stan, scanning him before very quickly looking away. "Although, before we do, Stanley- since we're out of the hospital now... can you please do us both a favor and put on some pants?"
Stan's eyes glanced down at his lower half and immediately noticed that he was still in his hospital gown. And it wasn't doing him much covering while he was sitting up in a car.
"Yeah. I guess that'd probably be a smart thing to do," he agreed.
The next day quickly arrived and a morning sun had risen over Gravity Falls and the Mystery Shack. Obviously, the day was Summerween, but being early in the day, there wasn't much to celebrate just yet. The most that could be done was to continue to stack up on decorations and candy for the evening festivities and trick-or-treating.
The Mystery Shack already had its decoration in place, however, and an abundance of candy had already been acquired for the night's party. They'd done all they could already, and so the morning was just like any other morning. Just with more spooky decorations to look at.
Dipper sat in the living room chair in front of the TV, writing in his journal as a commercial played. Despite his plans to be wrapped up in the middle of an otherwise normal Summerween party, a part of him was paranoid about potential weirdness popping up in the evening. After all, the Summerween Trickster was a threat that they had no intention of ever having to deal with last time, but he still ended up being a problem.
He hadn't looked into Summerween legends as much as he should, but perhaps there were others besides the Trickster that they could run the risk of facing that night. His first thought was the vampire-bat situation that they never solved before they ran into Pacifica at the diner the other night. Perhaps there was some evil Summerween vampire that was controlling them and preparing to unleash them upon the town in the evening.
If that were the case, they do have plenty of garlic in the freezer that Soos keeps for his Texas Toast. It wouldn't be a bad thing to use.
Dipper cataloged other potential ideas and scenarios and how he'd plan on solving them should the night bring them to it. As he did so, he heard the thumping of Mabel running down the staircase.
"MY MABEL SENSES ARE TINGLING!" Mabel shouted as she ran down the steps and over to the door. "And they're sensing…"
She opened the door, revealing an extraordinarily hairy mailman. His fist was raised frozen in the air as if he was just about to knock on the door before she showed up.
"Harry! There's my favorite mailman!" Mabel happily greeted. "How're you doing on this fine Summerween? Are you dressing up? You know, with all that hair of yours, I think you'd make a pretty convincing werewolf! Don't you think?"
Not processing her stream of questions and statements, Harry simply continued to stare at her in wonder at her ability to beat him to the door yet again, just as he still had his fist raised. "How do you always do that?"
"I work in mysterious ways, Harry..." Mabel told him with an ominous tone of voice. "But never mind me- do you have anything for me?"
Harry lowered his eyebrows as he realized the contradictory nature of Mabel's words. Nonetheless, he reached under his arm, where he was holding onto two boxes. He handed them over to her. "Here you go."
Mabel quickly accepted the packages in her hand and walked back inside. "Thanks, Harry! You're the best!" she said really fast before slamming the door right in his face.
He stood there for a moment, not sure what to make of the interaction. Soon enough though, Mabel opened the door back up.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" She went and grabbed a bag of candy from inside, taking a few wrapped-up pieces before walking up to Harry's mailbag and personally stuffing them inside. "Happy Summerween!"
She walked back into the Shack and slammed the door in his face again. Outside, after another brief moment of silence, Harry's eyebrows lowered with exasperation as he sighed and turned around, finally walking away from the Shack.
Back inside, Mabel grabbed the two packages she had received and quickly ran over to the living room with them. She threw one of the packages right in Dipper's lap before throwing her body on the floor in front of him with her own package.
"Check it out, bro-bro!" she exclaimed, gesturing toward the package she threw to him.
Dipper put his journal to the side and picked up the package, examining it. "What's this?"
"Something special I ordered," she told him with an excited smirk. "Open it, open it, open it!"
Dipper raised an eyebrow at her hyperactivity. "Did you already start your candy pregame?"
"Nah, I pregamed my pregame, SUCKA!" Mabel shouted proudly. "I gotta go extra hard for our first Summerween in four years. The people aren't gonna be ready for me later!"
"You're not gonna be ready for tomorrow morning's sugar hangover."
"I wasn't planning on it," she accepted without care. "Now shut up, and open your package already!"
"Alright, alright. Chill out," he said with a chuckle.
A curious smile grew on his face as he started to pull the tape off the package. Once it was off, he opened the box and looked inside. He then raised an eyebrow as he found himself looking at a familiar tan coat. As lifted it up for closer examination, but found that underneath the coat was also a familiar red turtleneck sweater. Putting the two together, the idea clicked in his head.
"Great Uncle Ford's clothes?"
Mabel lay on her stomach, kicking her feet back and forth as she looked to him for his reaction. "Welllll…?"
"I don't get it," he admitted as he continued to look back and forth between the clothes. "Are you doing his laundry or...?"
"No, you big ding-a-ling! Those aren't his clothes. Those are fitted for you! It's your Summerween costume!"
"Wait, really?" Dipper asked as he spread out the clothes in front of him. Looking at the tags, he realized she was correct. They were fitted for him.
"Yep!" Mabel nodded. "And check this out!"
She tore into her own package next, soon pulling out a red fez like the one that belonged to the Mr. Mystery outfit. She stood up and placed it on her head.
"Hey there, Dipper! It's your ol' Grunkle Stan!" she imitated in a deep rough voice reminiscent of Stan himself. "I'm back from sailing the world and... AGH!" She suddenly threw herself back onto the floor, holding onto her lower back with her hand. "I threw my back out! I'm so oooold! Owwww..."
Dipper cracked up at her Stan imitation, which even he could admit was pretty solid. "No way. Stan and Ford outfits? How'd you get these mailed in such a short time? We just found out that today was Summerween last night."
"I borrowed Soos' credit card last night when I ordered them so I could get Day One delivery," Mabel said.
"Borrowed?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I left him an IOU."
"Oh sweet!" Soos' voice exclaimed from the kitchen. His head suddenly popped into view of the living room, where he cheerfully held out a pink sticky note in his hand that literally read 'IOU' in blue marker. "Another IOU! Thanks, Mabel!"
"Anytime, Soos!" Mabel nodded with a thumbs-up before he returned to the kitchen.
"Why does that excite him?" Dipper asked.
"Because I use a different colored sticky note each time! Who isn't excited by colors? Oh wait..." She suddenly resumed her imitation of Stan, slouching over again and returning to her rough voice. "I'm not. Ohhhh... I'm grumpy and old and rainbows hurt my eyes. Woe is meeee..."
Dipper chuckled once again at her imitation. "Wow. That's cool. So I'm Ford, and you're Stan then."
"Yep," Mabel nodded. "It's the most obvious choice."
"Obvious?" Dipper asked, confused by what she was implying. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, with you and your smarty pants and Ford with his smarty hands…" she said as she wiggled her fingers in front of his face. "...I felt you two parallel well as the nerds of us two pairs of Pines twins. Whereas Stan's more my kind of match. Outgoing, dangerous, and reckless!"
"Huh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Dipper agreed.
"Yup!" Mabel nodded. "And I've always seen you as the type to grow up to be someone just like Ford."
"Well, he and I do have a lot in common, so maybe you won't be too far off," Dipper said. "Being quote-unquote 'nerds' is just nature for some of us in this family."
"Pfft, yeah. At this rate, you're on your way to picking up the rest of his traits too," Mabel said, examining him momentarily. "His personality, his history, his cold presence... Grunkle Ford may as well be an old man version of you!"
While her words were delivered in jest, Dipper thought about them a bit more than that. While he looked up to Ford in a lot of ways, the thought that Mabel saw him repeating his history and demeanor was a bit unsettling to him. Ford's a great guy but his past was full of self-admitted mistakes that Dipper would be horrified to follow in the shoes of. Maybe they had their similarities and parallels as Mabel said, but if there was any ounce of truth to what she had said, then he was having second thoughts about looking at himself in the mirror wearing that costume.
"Well, maybe I don't think of myself like that."
"What do you mean?" Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I mean that maybe I don't see myself growing into someone like Great Uncle Ford," Dipper told her, looking to the side uncomfortably. "If anything, the similarities end at the 'nerdiness' and just being smart, I guess."
"That's cool with me, bro," Mabel shrugged. "It'll still be adorable to see you walking around like wittle teenage Ford. And me as wittle teenage Stan, although more feminine and about 85% less angsty than the real teenage Stan was."
"Actually, Mabel. I don't think I want to anymore."
Mabel's eyes lit up at this statement, prompting her to face her brother with a look of confusion. "Wait, what?"
"You can dress up as Stan, but I think I'll keep away from dressing as Ford," he said, putting the costume aside and returning to his journal.
Mabel wasn't sure how to respond and ended up just chuckling awkwardly. "Uh... Dipper? The whole point of the costumes is to match. We're supposed to be Pines twins dressing as the original Pines twins."
"I know," Dipper nodded. "I'm just saying that I don't want to."
"Why not?" Mabel asked, starting to grow a little tense by his sudden mind change. "You were on board just a second ago."
"That was until I realized that the costume doesn't suit me like that."
"Um, yes, it does," she refuted. "It's your size. I made sure of it. And you haven't even tried it on yet!"
"That's not what I meant."
She narrowed her eyes, starting to get an idea of where this change of mind came from.
"Are you seriously leaving me hanging on my costume idea just because you don't 'see yourself' growing up to be like Grunkle Ford?" Mabel asked, now getting completely irritated by Dipper's reasoning. "We've dressed as cats! Peanut butter and jam! Prisoners! You were literally a horse butt last year! Where was your existential crisis then?"
"I didn't even want to be the horse butt either!" Dipper said, narrowing his eyes at the comparison.
"They're both costumes either way, Dipper!" she argued. "It's just about dressing up for fun and for one night! That's it! Why do you always have to make things so damn complicated?!"
Dipper's eyes went wide at Mabel's language. Despite both of their vocabularies evolving as they grew older, she wasn't much of a swearer. Not that she disliked swearing, as she had no problems proudly singing f-bombs at the top of her lungs if they were in any of her favorite pop tunes. But in the average conversation, it was rare to ever find her using even more minor swears like "damn". So Dipper was caught off guard hearing her say it angrily at him, which let him know very clearly that she was really upset this time.
He saw her eyes mist slightly, but she quickly rubbed them dry with her sleeve, preventing herself from getting more emotional than she knew she should be. She then grabbed the rest of her Stan costume in the box.
"Fine. If you care that much about a costume representing who you are, then I'll just dress up for Summerween on my own," she said disappointedly. "I'm sorry for assuming that we were past this kind of thing already."
With her costume, she left the living room and went back upstairs, leaving Dipper on his own. As she left, Dipper slumped back in his seat and sighed, unsure whether he should feel guilty or not. On one hand, he was defending a legitimately uncomfortable feeling of his, but perhaps he grossly misread Mabel's intentions.
Soon, he heard Mabel slam the door shut back upstairs. Melody appeared to have heard it too, as she suddenly poked her head from the gift shop doorway. Her eyes landed upon Dipper in the chair, who hadn't appeared to have noticed her.
"Dipper?"
He looked up at the sound of his name and finally saw her right across from him. "Oh. Hey, Melody."
"What's going on?" she asked, walking over beside his chair and leaning against the wall behind him. "It sounded like you and Mabel were getting into it or something."
"Nothing. It's just... Mabel wants us to dress up as our great uncles for Summerween tonight," he explained. "They're twins, of course, so she thinks since we're twins, it'd be fun to mimic them."
"Aww, that's a cute idea!" Melody said with a smile, charmed by the thought.
"I don't want to do it though."
"Oh…" Melody said awkwardly. "Well, why?"
He sighed. "You see- she wants me to dress as my Great Uncle Ford, but the way she put it, I felt like she was drawing some sort of weird parallel between us. I love Ford, and I do have a lot of things in common with him, but I don't see myself becoming like him. Or I guess, maybe I don't entirely want to. Mabel thinks I'll grow up similarly to him though. The same cold presence, she says. I mean, I'm not cold! I used to be a target for spitballs in high school. Girls usually don't think I'm cool. And even my best friend has had to defend me most of high school so far. So... I don't entirely know what I see myself as in the future, but I know it's not becoming like Great Uncle Ford. At least, I hope I don't make the same mistakes as him..."
He sighed again, realizing how jumbled his ramble may have sounded to her. Especially considering he didn't know her too well.
"I don't know. It's all kind of complicated."
"Oh, Dipper..." she said, putting a hand on his shoulder comfortingly with an apparent look of understanding. "That's not kind of complicated. That's very complicated."
"Well then…" Dipper said, expecting a completely different response based on her gesture.
"Look, based on the little bit I heard from Mabel before I walked in here, it sounds like she just wants you to put on a costume and have fun with it for one night," she explained. "This whole perspective-thing you got going on just makes things sound complicated for the sake of being complicated."
"Seems like 'complicated' is the word of the day," Dipper said while slouching forward in his seat.
She gasped. "Is it? I haven't done my daily crossword yet. I made a bet with Soos that the word of the day is going to be 'possession'. Is the word really 'complicated'?"
Dipper gave her a strange look. "Uh... I couldn't say...?"
She frowned. "Dang..."
"Anyways, I guess I get what you're saying, but it all kind of goes back to this one time when I was with my Great Uncle Ford on an adventure and he had told me that he saw a lot of himself in me and offered me an apprenticeship, which meant staying here in Gravity Falls with him and leaving Mabel alone back in California. I was going to accept, but then I decided that spending high school with Mabel was more important. And that hasn't changed," Dipper explained to her as he looked up at the ceiling. "But I can't lie... there have been times when I still think about that offer and how different things could've been had I taken it. But every time I do, I feel bad because I know that's not the decision I made, so I shouldn't be thinking about it. So when she compared me to Ford, I just felt like I was supposed to... refuse. Just like the apprenticeship. Even if they're not connected."
"Ohh... I think I get where you're coming from," Melody nodded. "I still remember this one Halloween when I was a kid. My sister and I had just finished trick-or-treating, and she thought it'd be a smart idea to eat half the candy in one night, which led to her throwing up a rainbow of colorful assorted candy on me. I was mortified. I refused to step out of my room for several Halloweens because I was so scared of getting rainbow-puked on again. But eventually, I realized that I was being ridiculous and that just because it happened once didn't mean it was going to happen again. And so one Halloween came and I decided to go trick-or-treating again, and guess what? It didn't happen again! And so my sister and I were cool once more," Melody said positively until her facial expression suddenly changed as she recalled further events. "That was until college rolled around and she joined a sorority, which was actually a cult, and so it's actually been a while since we last spoke... I still love her to death though."
After the rollercoaster of a story she had just told, her eyes fixated upon the ceiling in a momentary gaze. Dipper continued to sit looking up at her with nothing but genuine concern for her mental wellbeing.
"Uh... Melody?" he prompted.
Her eyes eventually looked back down at Dipper, and she came back down to Earth, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly as she realized what she had done.
"Sorry. I can see how I got way off track there," she said with an awkward chuckle. "Look, Dipper. My point is you'll only continue to associate that moment with your great uncle with small things like dressing up as him for Summerween if you don't just face those small things. It's like conquering a fear. Sometimes you just gotta face it head-on in order to, ya know... move on. Your sister's just asking you to put on a matching costume with her for a party. Don't miss out on something fun because your head is telling you it's something otherwise, okay?"
Dipper thought for a moment, eventually smiling once he finally understood what Melody was getting at. "You're right. I really am acting like a horse butt, aren't I?"
"Well, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but uhh... sure! I guess," Melody said supportively despite not having any context for what he meant.
Dipper stuffed his face in his hands, as he let out a regretful sigh. "Man, I don't know why I do this. To myself and to Mabel…"
"You just miss your great-uncles," she said, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. "I've gone through similar deals with Soos. Except he's a bit more... stubborn about it…"
"Alright, Mr. Pines. I need your opinion again," Soos said to a framed picture of Stan on the wall as he held a bowtie in each hand. "For tonight's Summerween party- black bowtie or orange bowtie? I've been feeling the black one, but I think the orange one is pretty dope too. I don't know. What do you thin-"
He stopped himself and looked up at the picture as though he was receiving a response. His eyes suddenly lit up at something he thought he was hearing.
"R-really?" he asked the picture, his eyes sparkling happily. "You... you mean it?"
He waited a bit more for another response before suddenly dropping the two bowties out of pure shock and happiness. He then grabbed the picture frame from the wall and held it out in front of him.
"Yes! Yes, Mr. Pines! I will be your son!"
He wrapped his arms around the picture frame, hugging it tightly out of pure joy. He began tearing up through his tightly shut eyes, but he suddenly opened them as he considered something.
"Melody?" his voice called out. "Am I doing it again?"
In the same room literally right behind him were Melody and Dipper, who had simply turned their heads to watch Soos and his delusions ensue in the corner of the living room. As Soos stared at Melody for confirmation of his question, she simply gave him a mellow nod.
"Of course," Soos sorrowly accepted as he put the picture of Stan back on the wall. "Maybe another day then."
Dejected, he started to walk out of the living room, making his way upstairs. The entire time, Dipper and Melody simply looked on with great sympathy as he shamefully walked out of their sight.
"For reference, I've been dealing with that since I moved in with him four years ago," Melody said.
"Wow. Poor Soos..." Dipper said with pity. "Well, anyways. Thanks, Melody. You've really helped open my eyes a bit, and I appreciate it."
"No problem, dude," Melody nodded with a smile. "I know we're still getting to know each other, but if you or Mabel ever need to talk about anything, don't be afraid to tell me."
"Of course," Dipper nodded back. "And uh, just to be sure, you're okay, right? Regarding your sister and all?"
"Oh, of course!" Melody blew off with a smile. "It's no big deal! I mean, I could go on about how crazy my family is! Like, my dad was a luchador and my mom played fiddle in an old Irish band. Their wedding was an Irish-Mexican Lucha Libre event where my dad herniated his spinal disc in the ring. Still, within the next ten years, they decided to have me, my two sisters, and my six other brothers. Crazy stuff, huh?"
Dipper stared at her with mixed thoughts on how to feel about everything she had just said. "Yeah... pretty crazy... I also really hope you're in therapy."
"Every Tuesday..." Melody confirmed with a nod. "Well, glad we could have this talk. I better go tend to Soos before he suffers another emotional breakdown. I'll catch you later, dude."
She casually left the living room and made her way upstairs, leaving Dipper alone once again.
He looked down at the package with the Ford costume and held up the tan coat right in front of him. He stared at it for a good second before beginning to feel guilty for denying Mabel.
Man, I really AM making things needlessly complicated.
Now, he knew he needed to make things right with her.
Later that day, Stan and Ford found themselves driving through a highway somewhere near the border of Idaho. At that point in the afternoon, they were approximately six more hours before reaching Gravity Falls if driving was consistent. The drive from Cheyenne to their current location in Idaho had been fairly normal and without any unusual behaviors from Stan. Assuming that remained unchanged, the rest of the drive home was looking to be mostly free of any major incidents.
However, Ford had decided to pull up into a nearby rest area for something he had been meaning to do since leaving Cheyenne. He drove into an empty parking space and parked the car. He sighed, leaning his head back in his seat exhaustedly. Stan looked out the window before turning back over at him.
"Why're we stopping?" he asked. "We already took a bathroom break half an hour ago."
"This isn't a bathroom break. This rest area has a shop," Ford said. "I'm gonna go inside and grab some temporary batteries for Meridian. Seeing as though we're only about six more hours from Gravity Falls, I wanna call Dipper and Mabel and let them know that we're to be expected later tonight."
Ford then let out a large yawn as he leaned forward in his seat. He hadn't gotten a proper amount of sleep for over a day at that point, and the very few hours he did get back at the motel had done nothing for him. He was essentially running on fumes right behind the wheel.
Stan noticed this, however, and gave him a concerned look. "Yeesh, Sixer. You really need to give the driving a break and get some rest. The bags under your eyes are starting to make your face wrinkles look healthy."
"I'm fine."
"Come on, Ford. I know after the sleepwalking thing in Cheyenne that you're worried about me going crazy in the middle of the road, but honestly, I think we're risking more by having your sleep-deprived ass driving us for another six hours," Stan reminded. "You gotta get some sleep, bro. And trust me, I feel as well-rested and healthy as a man can dream. I can easily get us back to Gravity Falls."
Ford yawned again before looking over at him. "It's too risky, Stan. Don't worry about me. I've spent far more days without sleep during my trips through the multiverse. This is nothing in comparison."
"Sure thing, Mr. Multiverse. But in case you forgot, you're in the real world now," Stan pointed out. "You wanna stop needlessly challenging yourself to do stuff you don't have to do?"
"As long as I'm keeping my family safe, I'll challenge myself as much as I need to," Ford said before opening the car door and stepping outside. "I'll be right back."
Ford closed the car door and walked away, heading toward the reststop's store. As he did so, Stan poked his head out the lowered window and called after him. "Just to clarify- by doing this drive, you're not really keeping anyone safe!"
Ford paid him no mind and simply continued on his way inside the shop. Irritated, Stan let out a sigh before pulling his head back inside the car and bringing the window back up.
"Ford's worrying too much," Stan said to himself as he crossed his arms. "Sure, maybe I nearly killed myself sleepwalking, even though I have no memory of it. And sure, maybe I randomly collapsed and had to go to the hospital, which I also don't remember… And maybe I did throw Thistle Downe through a window. And according to Ford, I constantly forget the last thing I say. And my eyes were going red for no reason..."
His face slowly got less uptight the more he spoke to himself. He then glimpsed up at the rearview mirror, looking right into his own eyes. They appeared perfectly white and normal, and he wasn't feeling any oddly painful sensation in them. He looked away from the rearview mirror and simply stared forward, thinking about himself.
Up to that point, he had truly led himself to believe that it was just a simple case of dehydration. But it was starting to become clear to him now that it could be something more.
"Is there really something wrong with me?"
His head turned down, and he looked at his hands, front and back. However, he soon clenched them tightly.
"Can't be! I feel fine! I look fine! Everything has to be normal, right? Because Stan Pines feels normal."
He looked back at himself in the rearview mirror again and narrowed his eyes at himself with full confidence.
"I am normal."
He then smiled at the mirror after successfully reassuring himself. However, he frowned soon afterward.
"Now that I think about it, is talking to myself while I'm alone in my brother's car normal?" Stan asked his reflection.
In the mirror, his eyes glanced behind his reflection and directly at the Snacken in the backseat. There, it lay innocently while staring right up at him in the mirror as well. He frowned at it.
"Oh, please. You don't count."
He then stopped looking up at the mirror and mentally realized he should stop talking directly to himself. He then started to glance around at the unopened compartments at the front of the car.
"Maybe Dad left some money behind in here," he said just as he casually opened one of the compartments and started digging his hand through it. "Or even some sorta old 60s or 70s thing that's worth a lot now."
Not too long later, Ford emerged from the rest area's shop with a six-pack of lithium cell batteries in hand. Not wanting to waste time, he ripped open the pack and took four batteries out of the six. He pressed a button on the side of Meridian which triggered it to flip open from the top, revealing its open battery compartment. In the center of the watch was a single, large, gold-colored cell battery. He carefully took the piece out from the watch and stuffed it into his coat. He then placed the four lithium batteries in place of where the single large battery used to be.
Part of his prototype design for Meridian was having versatile functions and features, including using normal batteries as a backup in case his specifically designed battery for the watch stopped working. One of his plans for the finished version of the watch, however, was to make a single unlimited-usage battery using materials he had kept in his lab from the portal. The temporary battery was built only to test out any potential errors in the watch, and therefore, he didn't want to waste advanced resources on something that might not even work properly.
After inserting the lithium batteries into the watch, he pressed the same button he had pressed to open it to close it back again. With all the advanced technology featured on the watch, he knew that the few cheap lithium batteries would be quickly drained. But he also knew it would provide just enough power to the watch long enough for him to call Dipper and Mabel, which was the only reason he bought the batteries in the first place.
After a brief moment, Meridian's interface lit up, to which Ford cracked a smile at his success. However, his smile quickly faded when he saw a prompt come up.
Recalibrating. This may take a while…
With the watch having been powered off and stuck in offline mode for several days, it now had to recalibrate, where it would try to correlate itself with its previous state before its battery drained. And since it had been several days, the process was bound to take even longer to catch up.
"Damn..." Ford said with a facepalm. "I literally installed this myself. How could I forget?"
HONK! HONK!
Ford was startled by the sudden honks of a car, which he quickly realized was his own as he looked ahead of him. Stan had taken over the wheel and pulled up to the curb of the rest area, glancing over at him through the open window.
"Hey, that seemed to have woken you up a bit!" Stan remarked.
"Stanley? What are you doing?" Ford asked as he walked over. "I told you that I'm driving us home."
"Oh, please, Sixer..." Stan said, rolling his eyes. "Look at how drained you are. There ain't no way you're gonna get us to Gravity Falls without dozing off and driving us off a cliff."
"I told you that I'm…"
Just as he spoke, Ford felt the urge to yawn again and gave right into it. Stan sat witness to it, giving him a face that clearly wanted to say some form of "I told ya so" that Ford felt immediately defensive about.
"Alright, that looked bad. But-"
"No buts," Stan cut off. "You need rest. Me? I'm tired of rest. And I know that I'm good enough to finish this for us, Ford."
Ford shook his head. "Stanley, I really don't-"
"Trust me, Stanford."
Ford stared into Stan's eyes, seeing that he was very insistent about driving them home. Stan was right about his earlier assumption of him being afraid of him driving because of what had happened the previous night. And his fear hadn't lessened very much with his pleas.
However, as much as he hated to admit it, he really did need rest. And truthfully, Stan had been acting the most like himself since they left Cheyenne. While having him take over the wheel could still be risky, being drowsy on the open road could lead to just as much disaster or potentially worse.
"Alright, fine. You can take the wheel," Ford said as he got into the passenger seat right beside Stan. "I don't feel comfortable making this decision, but I'm willing to trust your word here this one time."
"Don't worry, Poindexter," Stan said as he patted him on the back. "I promise you that when you wake up, the first sight you'll see is the Mystery Shack herself."
"One can only hope," Ford said skeptically as he rested his head back against his headrest. "But in case you do start to face issues again, I encourage you to wake me anyway."
"Nothing's gonna happen," Stan continued to assure him. "Just go to sleep already. I ain't gonna let anything bad happen to ya..."
Ford had already begun to doze off in his seat and almost instantly fell into a deep sleep, which went to show just how much rest he had been lacking previously. As soon as he began to snore, Stan started carefully driving out of the rest stop, making his way back onto the main highway.
"Never again..." he assured before focusing back on the road ahead of him.
He pulled right onto the highway and picked up his speed to match the other fast-moving cars through the lanes. With six hours left to go, their final drive to Gravity Falls had begun.