Chapter Text
Wendy and Soos ended up staying over, everyone piled into the twins' room for the night. It felt safer that way, especially since someone had gotten into a locked house and escaped without a trace. It made Stan's nerves feel like they were on fire and he desperately wanted to sneak away to the basement in search of the security tapes, but as far as the kids knew, there were no cameras in the living areas. They had already checked over the gift shop’s security footage and found nothing to help the case, but Dipper was determined to solve it come morning.
The boy in question was passed out atop Stan's chest, snoring softly like a living teddy bear. Soos was sprawled out on the floor between the beds, much like a faithful dog, the air mattress he was using having long deflated. Stan stared at him blankly for a while before tossing a spare blanket his way. It only landed on the young man's shoulders, but Soos immediately latched on and wrapped himself up like a burrito.
In the other bed, Mabel and Wendy were curled around each other. The younger girl had her grappling hook tucked against her chest like a toy. Wendy had her boxed in against the wall, her body twisted to face the doorway and her hand resting on her little axe even in her sleep.
Everyone had unanimously agreed that barricading the door was the best option for the night ― at least until Wax Stan's murderer was caught.
Still, Stan forced himself to stay awake.
No one would get their hands on these kids as long as he had anything to say about it.
But laying in bed with the human furnace that was his great-nephew was getting too comfortable and damp to bear. Stan was exhausted after his little freak out and both he and Dipper sweated too much to share a bed.
As stealthily as he could ― which he did with a lifetime of practice ― Stan slid Dipper to the side and covered him up before getting out of the bed. He easily stepped around Soos and then froze as he found himself nose-to-blade with Wendy's axe.
The girl in question stared at him for a long moment, her eyes as cold as ice, before the sleep faded from her gaze. Her brows rose minutely before she sheathed her weapon and leaned back. Behind her, Mabel snuggled into the blankets obliviously.
"You're pretty quick with that thing." Stan mumbled, clutching at his racing heart. The poor thing was lucky he was so young again ― he'd been through more excitement in the past week than he had in thirty years. It might not have handled the strain so well if he was still normal.
"Gotta be in my family." Wendy shrugged, not even attempting an apology. She looked pointedly at the circles beneath his eyes. "Shouldn't you be asleep by now? Thought you were gonna pass out when I got here."
Stan grimaced at the reminder, tongue running over his teeth with disgust.
"Yeah, well, I just realized I forgot ta brush before bed." He ran a hand over his lips, brow furrowing. "Normally I just drop my dentures in some mouthwash before bed..."
Wendy made a disgusted face. "Gross, man."
Stan shrugged unashamedly. "I'm old and already had to deal with my teeth fallin' out once. What's the point of brushing them if they're fake?"
Wendy covered her ears and shook her head. "Nope! I don't wanna hear it! C'mon ― you got any extra toothbrushes around here?"
"The upstairs bathroom has a new pack."
He'd bought them for the kids, along with some of those little pipe-cleaner ones for Mabel in particular. The twins' mom had mentioned them and Stan remembered having braces himself. Being able to clean between the metal and his teeth would have been nice back in the 60s.
Wendy sticks with him while he brushes his newly regained teeth and even bears with it when he sticks his face up to the mirror, marveling over how solid they felt in his mouth and how imperfectly perfect they were.
Losing his teeth had hit him hard when he wasn't playing it off like it didn't bother him. They were the first thing people noticed when he smiled and, as a businessman, they were important. They were also one of the few things Pa had paid for him to have without too much fuss. He broke his glasses too often as a kid for the man to keep replacing, but Stan had been meticulous when it came to maintaining his teeth. At least until he'd been kicked out.
Brushing your teeth in the car is kind of awkward and toothpaste wasn't always on hand. Chewing your way out of a trunk didn't do you any favors either.
"So," Wendy said carefully, treating the word like a loaded gun. "How're you handling being young again? And the whole... wax you getting beheaded and all?"
Stan shrugged nonchalantly. "Eh, it's what it is. Nice to be able to move without cracklin' like a log and I get good tips around the Shack. Kinda weird when it's those middle-aged housewives, but I'm older than them anyway."
Wendy shuddered at the memory of Stan flirting with older women. "Don't remind me. They've got some serious creep vibes when they look at you like that, man. I mean, they don't know you're not a kid."
Stan's brow furrowed at that. "When you put it like that... Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've done questionable things for money!"
Wendy didn't look at all reassured. If anything, she looked downright distressed.
"Dude..." she breathed, brow furrowed like she was watching a movie where the dog died or something. "You've really been through some serious shit, haven't you?"
Stan was officially done with this heart-to-heart. It hadn't been too terrible to stomach at first, but now they were venturing into dangerous territory. Stanford Pines wasn't supposed to have spent all the years on the streets that Stan talked about. He was supposed to have been living it up at college, breaking records when it came to graduation and getting grants to fuck off to the woods to study the wildlife.
Stan couldn't even remember setting a foot on a college campus. He'd been too busy running shady business deals and slogging through the jungles of South America. But he couldn't let Wendy know any of that.
Pull one thread and the rest will unravel fast.
"It's all in the past," he said gruffly, missing the extra gravel age put in his voice. He'd sounded the same since puberty, but years of smoking had put a note in his tone that made people less likely to fight him on certain things. Like, a John Wayne effect or something. Sean Connery.
Pines. Stan Pines.
Heh.
"And what if whoever killed Wax Stan was aiming for the real you instead?" Wendy challenged. "We haven't figured out how they got in or if they even left the house... oh shit ."
Stan was bolting for the door ahead of her, the cold realization that they'd left the kids and Soos alone and asleep in the attic dawning on them.
They're still asleep, oblivious to the miniature heart attacks he and Wendy had shared over their potential fate.
Stan can't help but slide down against the door in relief, using himself as a shield against anything that might burst into the room in search of his family. The only way he'd allow anything to happen to them would be over his dead body. And, even then, ghosts were a thing around Gravity Falls.
Wendy snickers as she sits next to him, only a slight tremble in her hands betraying her nerves. Her fingers are white around the handle of her axe.
Well, even ice melts sometimes.
"I don't think I'll be getting back to sleep tonight." She confesses in a whisper, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "You wanna get back in bed?"
"Comfy enough right here." Stan denies easily. He crosses his arms and tucks his chin against his chest.
Wendy just hums in acknowledgement, kicking her legs out in front of her and mirroring his pose, the two of them like sentinels at the door.
Between the two of them, they'd be fine.
And if anything did happen to take Stan out, it'd have to make it through Wendy next.
It still made his nerves itch, the idea of something happening to that spunky lumberjack-in-training, but she was a lot like him in some ways.
Pig headed determination was just one of them.
They'd be fine for the night. They had to be.
"I told you having another teenager around was a good idea."
Those are the words that greet Stan as he wakes.
Soos and the twins are staring at him with disgustingly cheesy looks on their face and Mabel has the widest smile, her camera going a mile a minute.
Stan blinks away the starbursts left by the flashing light as she snaps picture after picture of him and then takes stock of the situation.
Against all odds, he'd fallen asleep. A fairly peaceful, blank sleep that left him a little more clear headed and calm, if a bit sore for spending it on the floor.
The entire right side of his body feels like a furnace and he realizes with a jolt that it's Wendy, slumped against his shoulder and drooling all over his shirt.
"Ugh," Stan grunts, crinkling his nose and gently pushing her off him. Thankfully, her hatchet slipped onto the floor during the night and someone had the good sense to move it out of the way. No chopped toes for them first thing in the morning.
"Bwah?" Wendy jerks to life, a massive red spot on her cheek from where she'd had it shoved against Stan's shoulder.
"What were you guys doing on the floor?"
"... nunya." Stan grunted, pushing to his feet.
"Nunya?" Dipper repeated, already looking like he was regretting the answer.
"Yeah," Stan flicked him on the nose. Gently, but enough to make the boy yelp. "As in, nunya business . And get rid of those pictures ― they'll give me hives if I gotta look at them later."
"No way!" Mabel cried defiantly, clutching the camera to her chest. She looked like a mother with a newborn. Or like Ford with his journal. "These are perfect scrapbook material, Grunkle Stan!"
“Perfect for me to get a rash from!” He rolled his eyes, but made no move to reach for the camera. “Just don't let me catch you showing them to tourists. Again. I'm not a model anymore.”
“You were a model?!”
“Yeesh, forget I said that.” Stan grimaced and bolted for the stairs. “Gotta use the john ― don't wait up!”
“This isn't over!”
“Oh yes it is!”
After breakfast and multiple dodges about his less than pleasant past in front of the camera lens, the kids bolted to town in search of Wax Stan's murderer.
Good. Those two would be a worse sentence than even the most rabid raccoon Stan could get his hands on. And Mabel had an axe, so they'd be fine.
Stan had other business to attend to.
“Wendy! Give me a hand with this thing!”
The redhead in question eyed the coffin he had obtained (through completely legitimate means, of course…) and raised a brow.
“Don't you think you're taking this whole thing a bit… far?”
Stan let the coffin rest against the Stanleymobile's bumper and turned to frown at her, hands on his hips.
“Whaddya talkin’ about? Wax Stan was a loved member of this family! He deserves a service! Something small, but classy.”
“I'm gonna help,” Wendy sighed as she lifted her end of the coffin. “But only to keep you from crawling in there with this thing. It's just a wax figure, man.”
“Nah,” Stan said quietly. “He was more than that to me.”
“Kids, Soos, Wendy, lifeless wax figures ― thank you all for coming.” Stan clasped his hands solemnly atop the podium, wondering how on earth he’d found himself back here again. It wasn’t the first time he’d given a eulogy for himself, wearing this same suit and his brother’s name. It was the first time he’d have something to bury though. Besides the rocks gathering moss in the local graveyard. At least there were more than two people in attendance this time. Wendy and the twins looked rather bewildered by the whole thing, but Soos was crying like it really was Stan’s funeral. “Some people might say it’s wrong for a man to love a wax replica of himself.”
“They’re wrong!” Soos shouted impassionately, leaping to his feet.
Stan held up his hands to calm him down.
“Easy, Soos!” he cleared his throat and turned to the coffin. “Wax Stan, I hope you’re ―”
Ford stared back at him accusingly from within the padded interior.
Lights flashed before his eyes and suddenly he was the one below the ground, freezing and hurt. His brother was floating away from him, illuminated by unnatural light and screaming his name.
“Stanley! Stanley - help me!”
“I, uh-” he stammered, words failing him. He blinked and he was back in the Shack’s parlor. Ford was gone and the headless wax figure in its proper place. “I gotta go―!”
Wendy stood from her pew, only managing to take a half step in his direction before Stan was bolting down the makeshift aisle and out of the Shack.
Moses, he couldn't stay there another minute. Not in his brother's house, not in what was basically the man's grave.
The kids and Soos were shouting for him, tiny figures fading as he put more room between himself and the Shack.
Stan had never gotten a body to bury. Not even his own. Just an empty grave with his name and a brother the world never noticed was missing. The Mystery Shack was no better than a tomb scarred by the name he'd made for Stanford Pines.
Ford should have been remembered for some great scientific feats or discoveries ― not as a conman running a kitschy tourist trap.
He'd be mortified to find out the legacy Stan had burdened him with. How would he ever recover or regain his place with the scientific types he loved so much?
Stan stumbled over a tree root, nearly landing flat on his face before regaining his balance. He could hear someone calling his name in the distance, but that never boded well for him while he was on the move. He quickened his pace, leaping over a fallen tree trunk in a way he would have never tried as an old man.
How would he ever recover from everything Stan had ever done to him?
How was Stan ever going to get him back?
“Look out, man!”
Stan barely heard Wendy before he was tumbling over the side of a small drop off, rolling through rocks and gravel before landing at the bottom with a yelp.
He wheezed desperately, feeling that fog settle over him again. He couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't breathe!
Cantbreathecantbreathecantbreathe―
“Stan!”
Wendy was on him in a second, having slid down the drop-off with ease. With strength that belied her slender frame, the girl hauled him up into a seated position and shoved him forward until his head was between his knees.
Panic flooded him at the manhandling, but Wendy really was stronger than she looked.
“I'm not trying to hurt you, man!” She growled, voice straining as she held him in place. His body felt at odds, jittery with panic while simultaneously going numb. “I'm trying to help you. You gotta breathe or you're gonna pass out!”
“Lugging me around like a sack of flour isn't helping!” He managed to gasp, twisting out her hold like an eel in water. He'd gotten away from nearly every attempt anyone had ever made to hold him down and he wasn't going to let that change that now.
The last time he failed to get away, it had cost him a kidney. He didn't have anything left to take.
Wait, did he have both his kidneys again?
Surprisingly, that was the thought that snapped him out of his panic.
Stan flopped backwards against the grass, lifting a shaking hand to poke at his stomach. It was still soft, baby fat clinging stubbornly to his stomach and hips, and all he could feel beneath his fingers were the outline of his ribs.
Which, come to think of it, didn't feel funny anymore like they did after that time he broke some of them in Memphis. Ugh. Tennessee. They'd had good moonshine there, at least. And Dolly Parton ― whadda fox.
“Can you feel your kidneys?” He asked suddenly, staring at the sky. It was a lot later than he'd realized. Just how long had he spent putting together that funeral? Was this daylight savings or something like that?
The grass was wet with dew and he could swear the night was getting brighter.
How long had he been running?
How long had Wendy been chasing him ― and just what did Dan Corduroy feed His family to make them so… Corduroyish .
Wendy looked at Stan like he'd grown another head.
“Did you have a stroke or something?” Her brow furrowed. “Do you think you hurt your kidneys or something when you fell? I mean, I know you're really old, but I thought you had your teen body.”
“Yeah, that's why I'm asking if you can feel them. I had one cut out in a motel in Texas.”
“... what the fuck , man.”
“Language!” Stan barked sharply, turning his head just enough to glare at her. The girl was pale, eyes wide and glassy, and maybe telling her he was a victim of organ trafficking was a bad idea…
She was only like, sixteen, right?
“Stan… just what is your life?”
He turned back to the stars. They were beginning to fade as the sky turned to shades of pink and yellow.
“It's a regular horror story, kid.” He sighed. “Sorry to drop that on you like that.”
“‘s fine.” Wendy shrugged, scooting over to lay beside him. They stared at the coming dawn and avoided looking at each other. “Guess I didn't realize how rough you had it. Dad said you've been running the Shack for longer than I've been alive. Kinda thought you’d always been here.”
“Yeah, well, those first few years on my own weren't the best.” Stan raised his hand enough to flap it dismissively. “Didn't really have a place until I came here and made one. Everything before that doesn't really matter in the long run.”
“Does the model thing come into that somewhere?”
Stan grimaced at the reminder of his slipup and contemplated it for a moment.
“It was… I got strapped for cash and had to come up with something to keep from starving. This face ain't the prettiest, but people don't always care about that when it comes to certain forms of… entertainment . Which is why I want Mabel to forget I ever said anything.”
He didn’t like talking about this with the kid, but it was better to warn her off now than for her to go snooping. Who knew what you could find on the internet these days?
Wendy shuddered. “That's something I can help with. We'll find her some new boy to fall in love with and she'll forget all about it.”
Stan snorted. “Yeah, she is pretty boy crazy right now. I'm glad she's getting it out of her system now. I went through mine kinda late ― dated this biker called Jimmy Snakes until I realized I was better off without him.”
Wendy sat up to stare at him. “You know, your life story gets weirder and weirder every time you open your mouth like this. You never said this much about yourself when you were old.”
Stan sat up too, feeling his stomach begin an acrobatics show.
She wasn't wrong.
Stan had managed to keep his life under wraps for nearly thirty years. He was guilty of occasionally dropping a fact about his drifter years from time to time, but he'd never actually come out and admitted them to someone in conversation like this.
That led to questions with answers he couldn't give.
“What's happening to me?” He mumbled, looking down at his hands, calloused with years of boxing and not with the hard labor that came with living on the streets. They didn’t feel like his own anymore.
“... I dunno,” Wendy said quietly, standing and offering him a hand up. “But we'll make sure you come out of this okay, man."
They returned to find a few shingles knocked loose and the parlor in disarray.
“I decapitated Larry King.” Dipper said matter of factly, his flat delivery causing Stan to crack up into laughter.
“You kids and your imaginations!” He snorted, eyeballing the wax puddles on the floor. Living wax figures, huh. Explains why they creeped him out so much.
Which made Wax Stan a bit creepier in theory. He'd have to keep an eye on that one. He’d keep it, of course. The guy was too handsome to throw out.
“You done good, kids!” Stan grinned, pulling the twins close. “Now line up for some affectionate noogieing.”
They shrieked and laughed, but couldn't get away from him.
It was nice, being able to hold his family close for once and laugh at the local cops for spitting coffee on each other.
It made him wish this summer never had to end. It made him hopeful About all of them coming out of his plans okay in the end.
Even Ford.