#meanwhile Stanley enjoyed getting a hug
Note
Hi! I love your Stanley and narrator and would love to give them a big hug! But seeing Walter doesn’t like that would they take cookies instead? They’re chocolate chip
He seems to not be too fond of cookies... But he didn't hate it.
#meanwhile Stanley enjoyed getting a hug#though you felt Walter staring daggers at you#it's almost like he's jealous you're getting a hug from Stanley and he isn't#but he'll just silently stare at you until you leave#tsp art#tsp narrator#tsp au#tsp stanley#tspud#tsp#heartache au#tsp heartache au#the narrator tsp#narratorverse#the stanley parable narrator#stanley parable narrator#narrator
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Speaking Of Ex’s
Pairing - Tom Holland x Reader
Summary - you misunderstood something that was talked about! You happen to get upset by it, resulting into Tom explaining himself.
Warnings - Sadness, slight angst! But a fluffy ending as always!
A/N - Thank you, requested by @jahayla-parker hope you enjoy! I appreciate all the love and support everyone gives me on my content! 🥰
Word count - 1K+
Tom had his siblings, Harry and Sam. They were in the living room as you was in the kitchen, washing your clothes.
You could hear they’re words sometimes, when they speak very loud.
“Harry’s friend’s ex dumped his friend,” Sam said, looking over Harry’s phone, “What? Y/N? Such a bitch!” Tom called out, really loud.
Since You have the same name as Harry’s friends ex, but of course you heard Tom calling you a “Bitch” or at least that’s what you thought..
Tom continues to say, “God, I can’t stick her! She is always in other people’s business,” Harry scrolling through Instagram, “Well, I agree to be fair she is a cow bag,” Sam nodded, drinking his tea.
Your shocked at how they were talking to you behind your back like that, of course you thought you was a normal girlfriend. Not being a bitch or getting into other peoples business! You only talked when necessary, being quite shy but Tom reassured you that he found that adorable!
Maybe, because he wants to shut you up! You thought, putting more clothes in the tumble dryer. You shake your head as you hear more of their conversation.
“You would of thought that Y/N would of done more to be fair,” Harry scoffed, “Instead of excuses and excuses,”
“Obviously, relationships are based off of love and trust! I don’t think personally, she was the one-,” You ran off in tears, not listening to Tom’s full conversation to Harry and sam, “for him,” he finished off with at the end of the sentence.
You run upstairs shutting the door, quiet loudly with a bang. Going under the covers, thinking how Tom can say that about you. When all you have ever done is supported and love him through out your relationship!
You didn’t want to overthink much about it but that ended in a spiral of non sense thoughts.
“Did you hear that loud bang?” Harry gasped, “Yh, wtf was that?” Sam nodded.
Tom looked through the door, “Y/N, are you ok?” He shouted, not knowing where you were. You didn’t hear him because you was too busy crying under the covers, thinking about the “shit” he said about you.
“I’m going to go find Y/N,” Tom told his brothers, “Yh, you should check up on her!”
Tom rushed to the kitchen, you wasn’t there. Must be upstairs, he curiously went upstairs hearing the slightest sobs.
“Darling, Are you ok?” He tried to open the door but it was locked, that’s weird! He thought. “Please, open the door,” He said catching your attention.
You came out of your bed, opening the door to Tom. “What do you want! Tom,” You scoffed, with red puffy eyes.
“What’s wrong? Darling, why are you crying?,” Tom worried, dismissing your dig at him. He tried to pull you in for a hug but you pushed him away, “Not now Tom! You really done it this time!” You crossed your arms.
“What are you on about? Are you mad at me?” Tom questioned at how your mad, “You honestly, don’t know what came out of your mouth THOMAS STANLEY HOLLAND,” you shouted, getting angry at this clearly oblivious man!
“Oh, that’s what your going on about, love,” Tom gave you soft eyes as he looks at you staying calm, “I’ll explain,”
“Do not love me, Tom! And you will explain!” You squinted your eyes at him, waiting patiently for his explanation even tapping your foot.
“Can I come in then?” Tom calmly spoke, taking your hand and leading you into your bedroom before you had another chance to speak.
Meanwhile, in the living room! “Omg, Sam!” Harry laughed out, “what?” Sam looking up from his phone.
“I know why Y/N is upset!” Harry laughed harder, “what?” Sam said again, very clueless.
“Tom is such an idiot, you know my friends ex! Well his ex has the same name as Y/N, which means she must of heard him,” Harry laughed, “And, she must of thought it was about her! When it wasn’t at all,” Harry, finally got his words out to Sam.
“Oh, my! That isn’t good,” Sam sighed, “ Yep,”Harry agrees looking back to his phone with wide eyes.
Tom released the misunderstanding, “I wasn’t talking about you, sweetheart! Myself, Harry and sam was talking about Harry’s friends ex, she has the same name as you” Tom explained, missing no details out.
“Oh ok,” you looked down feeling dumb, “Sorry, I thought that,” you sigh, taking his hand into yours.
“It’s ok, Darling we all make mistakes!” Tom smiles, pulling you in for hug, “I know your not anything like that because you are amazing, beautiful and smart, can I love you now?” Tom teased, he wipes your tears away.
“Yes, of course,” you giggle, Tom kisses your cheek, “Glad to hear, let’s go downstairs,”
You and Tom go downstairs, “Here, comes the idiot Sam!” Harry, teased pointing at Tom.
You laughed but Tom just shook his head pretending that it’s not funny.
You all hang out a more before Harry and Sam left. “Now, let’s get to bed because I want cuddles,” Tom gushed, running up the stairs.
“I’m going to get you Tom,” You run after him, just about making it to the bed to jump on him.
“Omg, Darling,” Tom giggles, “Come in the covers,”
You nod, snuggling in Tom’s chest. Smiling as he strokes your hair.
“Are you ok? now my love,” Tom asked, kissing you, “yes, Are you?” You smiled.
“Yes,” Tom whispers, between kisses.
“Love you so much, Darling,” Tom whispers, kissing you again because he can’t help himself at all! He’s so cheeky, always!
“Love you so much too Tommy,” you smiled into the kisses, loving his soft lips all over you.
Bonus… 🧋🧋🧋
His slender fingers, stroking across your jaw line, “Your so beautiful, my love!” Tom whispers, tickling your neck with his breath, “So fucking good to me,”
You look at Tom as he pulls your lips into a slow, passionate kiss loving the way you taste as you swirl your tongues in each other’s mouths.
“Mm, Tommy!” You feel him bite your lip, his hands bringing you closer to his lips, “You are beautiful,” You complimented him, “Says you, love!” Tom winks at you.
“Stop,” You giggle, blushing, “Awe is my pretty girl, Blushing,” Tom teases you, kissing you yet again.
“Don’t worry, babe you look cute,” Tom smirked, your hands go into his curly, locks making your lips meet with such Grace. Your in heaven yet again in Tom’s arms.
“Your messy hair, look it’s in your face,” Tom giggles, “And apparently, my mouth too,” he takes out your hair out of his mouth.
“Yh,” It’s your turn to laugh at him, “Karma is a bitch,” you smile, sticking your tongue out.
Tom takes the chance to slip his tongue into your mouth, moaning as you kiss him deeper.
“Fuck, I love you! Darling,” Tom smiles, playfully winking at you.
“Love you so much too Tommy,” You giggle as you pull him into you more to cuddle.
#tom holland#tom holland x reader#tomhollandfan#lovers#tom holland fandom#tom holland fluff#tom holland x you#missunderstanding
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【𝕻𝖞𝖌𝖒𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖔𝖓 | 𝕬 𝖐𝖎𝖘𝖘 𝖆𝖚】
(𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 3)
Description: Kiss was the perfect name for the infamous bank robbers who kissed everything goodbye to go out in a blaze of glory. Wreaking havoc on 1930s America, what happens when the chase ends?
♥ Paul Stanley x Reader
Note: I love folk shit so god damn much and I am so happy to be able to share some of it here. I halfway grew up in the Appalachians so a lot of it I'm actually pretty familiar with! Hope you enjoy!
Warnings: None for this chapter
𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 4 / 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 2 / 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 1 / 𝖆𝖔3
“You are way too good looking to be working here.” The woman said in a snarky mutter as she snatched the duster from your hands.
Her expression softened. “You’ve been working your ass off all day.” She gave you a quick pat on the back. A wide grin shone on your face. “If you get the kids to bed, you can take whatever you need from my beauty supply—as long as it isn’t everything.” She finished lightheartedly. You nodded.
“Thank you so much, madame!” You bubbled. “I appreciate it greatly!”
“I should thank you for keeping this place so clean.” The woman sighed tiredly, sliding her hands on her hips. “Even if I didn’t have the kids, I couldn’t do as good of a job.”
You smiled. “I appreciate it again, Doris.” Doris nodded. She was taller than a tree but hunched like a willow. Her platinum hair was tied in a thousand colorful curlers—making her plain red dress stand out like red on white.
“Get on, doll.” She said through her thick Queens accent. “See you around.”
“Bless you.”
Doris nodded once and sauntered off. It felt like a boulder rolled off of you. You sighed in relief. The wind seemed to sigh with you as it billowed the flower-patterned champagne curtains through the open window. Your smile lingered as the soft breeze rolled over you. Your shoes clicked across the polished oak floors and arabesque carpets as you left.
The golden setting sun swallowed the rustic living room, making it look straight out of a fairy tale—but all that was on your mind was hitting the bed. You yawned, slouching heavily as you made your weaved around the deep red couch, heading up the stairs. You opened the first door you saw. A wall that looked like a photograph of the evening sky met your eyes—but with color.
Three children snuggled in their beds, peeping over the blankets.
“HI!!” They all whisper-shouted together, packed with cheer.
You chuckled. “Y/N!” The oldest, Eloise, sat up, waving happily. She was a young girl with two blond braids over her shoulders. You waved back, grinning widely. “How are you?” Your heart melted.
“Good and you?” You put on an exaggerated but enthusiastic polite voice, walking over to the small book shelf.
“Good.” Eloise nodded. “Mom told me that was polite.”
“Very.” You cooed.
“Can I hug you?” Another kid, Kenneth, who actually had a head full of carrot orange hair whispered.
“Of course.”
The children climbed out of their beds and tip-toed over like it was Christmas and past curfew. You hugged them all. The kids overjoyed grins lit up the room. “Can you read a fairy tale tonight?” Eloise asked. “We all agreed on it this time, actually.” Kenneth chuckled. He playfully crossed his arms and looked away, pouting dramatically.
The youngest looked down. He crept over to his bed and sat down, wrapping himself in his deep blue quilt. Your expression softened. your brows drew together. “I read you two’s pick the day before yesterday.” You said gently. “Would you mind letting Frank pick for now?” Kenneth and Eloise looked at each other. Kenneth lowered his head. Eloise put a finger to her chin.
“Alright!” Eloise enthusiastically opined. “He just doesn’t speak up enough.”
“It’s best to include everyone.” You reassured. Kenneth nodded. “Now, what would you like, Frank?”
“A book about war.”
Meanwhile.
Gene’s foot tapping made a great drum beat. He played the fiddle so quick it should’ve lit on fire, nodding along to the tune he and Paul sang. Paul’s hand danced on the dulcimer while he strummed with the other. Another chaotic song about morning whiskey. They’d get it right some time. The two didn’t even drink. No matter how far down the night weather plunged, the loft hoarded heat.
The roof was just high enough for the two to sit up all the way—but one wrong breath and piles of dust and hay and maybe even an empty birds nest would pile onto their faces and possibly suffocate them.
One of the fiddle strings snapped. It had to be the fiftieth time that week. Gene let out a gravelly sigh. “Get the washboard.” Paul teased, taking a small pause. He played again, singing a flowery little tune. His heart beat to the rhythm. Gene peeled himself off the hay stack. It sounded empty without the fiddle.
He crawled down the ladder. Its creaks and bellows ripped through the air. Paul tapped his foot a bit louder. The music scratched the itch in his brain nicely. He closed his eyes. His singing turned to mumbling as he made up lyrics for the song he didn’t remember. The sound filled the barn like an orchestra as he lost his hands to the tune. He moved with the rhythm before-
“Please, there’s got to be something we can do.” Gene’s soft voice fretted.
Paul’s eyes widened. He lowered his dulcimer and crawled over to the ladder. The owner of the place, mister Boyd—James Boyd, to be exact, screamed obscenities. Paul’s lips pinched as a sour face knocked his smile out. He laid the instrument down and crawled down the ladder. Hay drifted down around him like feathers.
Boyd’s shouting boomed louder than a cow mooing in his ear. Paul leaned against a pillar. He frowned a little. Gene was completely still, yet somehow small as he could be. He wiped his mouth. His eyes went dull so fast it hurt. A slight scowl fought its way onto Paul’s face as he eyed Boyd like a hawk. The man was short as a fence post and thin as a twig.
He always wore a tie and a finely pressed white shirt.
“I swear to god, whatever we’ve done, we’ll make it up to you.” Gene’s gaze darted from Paul to Boyd. His eyes turned overly bright and feverish and his movements fast.
Gene’s racing heart slammed in Paul’s ear. “.. Could I ask what’s going on?” Paul’s voice lightened. He sounded more hesitant than anything, yet a little poison hid snug somewhere in there.
“Gladly!” Boyd thundered, staring down his chin at them. “If the two of you don’t pack your bags and get your asses out of here, I’ll have the cops called immediately!”
So much spite drenched his voice it flew out of his mouth. “Can I ask why?” Paul strained to stay polite. Gene stepped back. His gaze clung to the ground.
“You two have done nothing but cause’ a ruckus!” He tossed his hands in front of him, showing off his freshly polished watch made of pure gold.
“Please-”
“Get out.” The man hissed. “I’d better never see either of you again!”
A comeback choked up in Paul. Gene eased his hand on his shoulder. Paul took a deep breath and let it go with it. The two walked out in defeat. The tense air followed them all the way down the path as they left the farm. At least the smell of shit didn’t.
The truck rattled and the road boomed, Paul winced a bit every time they hit a pot hole deep enough to bury a man. Gene laid his head against the dusty window, staring into the night as the washed out woods smeared around them. Paul drove Gene’s pickup truck as fast as the old thing would go, clutching the steering wheel so hard it would snap. Gene closed his eyes.
“That’s another job.” Paul commented gruffly.
“I always thought he liked me.” Gene confessed, completely at a loss.
“Please. I don’t think he likes anyone.” Paul said more snappily than he would’ve liked. “And that leaves us to do what? Degrade ourselves even more? Get a worse job like eating sawdust?”
“Paul. Calm down. I just don’t think he could pay us anymore.”
“Stop trying to justify his behavior.”
“T.. This is a difficult time.. and I have no doubt he’s struggling as well.” Gene said sincerely through a breaking voice.
“He could’ve at least had the good grace to.. I don’t know, talk to us like human beings?” Paul sarcastically sneered, whipping around a corner.
“He’s probably not even thinking about that..”
“Well that’s his fucking problem, isn’t it?”
Gene looked down. Paul furrowed his brows tightly. He breathed so quickly he could start a fire in his lungs. Gene’s eyes widened for a split second. “Paul.. the gas is low.” Gene squeaked. Paul slowed down. His grip loosened.
“Let’s go get gas.”
“Alright.”
#kissblr#kiss band#kissfan#fanfic#kiss fanfiction#gene simmons#paul stanley#alternate universe#kiss au#gangsters#bank robbers#1930s au
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The green-eyed monster
Warnings: the green eyed monster, of course! Implied smut and a couple of swear words. Oh! And me attempting to put in song references.
Jake Gyllenhaal x Fem!reader
I hope you enjoy it!
Jealousy, also referred to by many as the green-eyed monster, is the act of feeling or showing a resentful suspicion that one's partner is attracted to or involved with someone else.
You had never really been the jealous type. Never. However, something about this situation was very different. Could it be because this was not an event you were familiar with? Could it be because the lady affectionately laughing while placing her hand on your boyfriend’s chest, was capable of buying most of your possessions, if not all of them, with half of her paycheck? Or could it be because your insecurities about how you looked, despite being told you looked gorgeous by your boyfriend, suddenly decided to make themselves known?
Whatever the reason was, you were jealous. And that was that.
Now the question is, how did you get here in the first place?
4 hours ago
“Don’t fret. You look gorgeous, honey! “ you boyfriend exclaimed, finally exhausted by the number of questions you asked about how you looked, while you were having a mini freak out in front of the full body length mirror in your shared bedroom. Jake genuinely thought you looked amazing in anything you wore and it irks him whenever you don’t acknowledge that as well.
Noticing the hint of expiration in his tone, you apologized.
“I’m sorry. I just...” you paused, sighing, as you tried to find the right words. “I just don’t want to let you down. There are going to be a lot of extremely beautiful women there and I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb. Especially since this is going to be the first event we’re going to together.”
With a light chuckle, Jake pressed his lips to your forehead.
“You worry too much. You look wonderful and I don’t care about all the other women because you are the only beautiful woman I’ll see.” He said, cupping your face his big hands and stroking your cheeks with his thumbs.
You smiled and tried your best not to cry because of how sweet Jake was being. You weren’t ready to mess up your make up because it was time consuming and quite expensive.
“I love you.” You finally uttered after a moment of silence, consisting of you two staring into each other’s eyes.
“I love you too, baby. Now come on. We’re gonna be late.” Jake murmured before taking your hand and tugging you out of the room and out of your shared apartment towards the rented car that was waiting for you outside.
Half an hour later, you both found yourself in the midst of many well-known actors, directors and producers. Jake pulled you along as he greeted the people he recognized and introduced you to them, if they hadn’t met you already.
“Hubby!” you heard a familiar voice call out, over the loud party music that was playing. You knew that voice quite well. Maybe too well.
Tom Holland that proud owner of the voice, accompanied by Zendaya, made his way to you and Jake.
“Well, well, well isn’t it my prodigal husband.” Jake joked as he embraced to in a side hug. Meanwhile you and Zendaya, who has become close friends the moment you met each other some time ago, smothered each other with kisses as you giggled in unison.
The four of you spent the next hour cracking jokes, while catching up with each other’s lives. That was until you were interrupted
“Jacob,” a feminine voice purred “I haven’t seen you in forever!”
All the attention moved to where the voice came from.
“Joey! Hi! It has been a while.” Jake responded, hugging her.
Zendaya looked at you with a raised eyebrow as ‘Jo’, as Jake affectionately called her started conversing with him.
You shrugged in response, answering her silent question. You had no idea who this newcomer was.
“Oh how could I forget?! Tom, Z, Y/N, this is Jolene, an old friend.” Jake introduced.
Jolene? How fitting. You suddenly felt Dolly Parton’s pain when she sang her song with the same title as this lady’s name.
Jolene giggled. “Old friend? Is that what you call all your exes now?”
“You knew what I meant, Jo.” Jake rolled his eyes playfully.
She let out more giggles.
You opened your mouth to say ‘hi’ but you were interrupted by Jolene talking again.
“Oh my god, Jacob! You absolutely have to meet someone.” She pulled Jake away from your group and towards whoever she wanted him to meet.
You blinked rapidly, trying to process what just happened.
“That was…interesting.” Tom deadpanned, earning an elbow to the ribs from Z. “Hey!” he protested rubbing the spot he was hit.
You raised your head, looking up at the ceiling. “Y/N, what are you doing?” Z asked in confusion.
“I wanna cry but my foundation cost me thirty-five dollars.” You muttered, trying to blink away the tears that were forming.
Not today, Satan, not today.
Tom’s snort quickly morphed into another exclamation of pain when he got elbowed at the same spot again by the same person.
“Aww hun, you don’t need to cry. It’s not worth it?” Z asked rubbing your back soothingly.
“His ex does seem kinda bossy, to be honest.”
Z gasped, “Thomas Stanley Holland, the next time you do something that will make the situation worse, I. Will. End. You.”
“It’s alright, Z” you sighed, as you fished through your purse to find anything to help you with keeping the tears as bay, “He’s right.”
“I think I’m going to talk to him.” Tom said, leaving before any of you could react.
Z turned to you “Y/N-“
“No, no.” you butted in “It’s okay! I’m okay! I’m just going to head home.”
Oh boy, were you lying.
Who were you kidding? She was beautiful! All Jake’s exes probably were the same. What did he see in you anyway? Why did you decide to come here at all? Ugh! Jolene, please don’t take my man.
Finally, bringing your head down to its original position, you dubbed your eyes gently and put your brave face on and made your way to the exit.
You were not going to cry here. You were not going to cry here. You were not going to cry-
“Y/N!” You heard you boyfriend’s voice shout from afar.
You stood still, taking a deep breath.
You can do this Y/N. Elsa was able to do it. Don’t forget. Conceal, don’t feel. Don’t let him know.
“Y/N.” you heard him again, only closer this time.
You opened your eyes and there he stood, right in front of you, in all his handsome glory.
“Where are you going, love?” Jake asked with a slight tilt of his head.
“You seemed very much occupied with that Jolene of yours so I decided to head home.”
Jake raised an eyebrow.
And now he knows. Fuck.
“Really? That sounds like-“
“Yes, Jacob. I am jealous because she’s extremely pretty and you are probably still attracted to her.”
Let it goooo, let it goooo. Can’t hold it back anymore. Damn, you feel so much like Elsa right now. Why on earth were you thinking about Frozen anyway?!
“Babe!” he laughed, stunned at your revelation. “What did I tell you before we left the apartment?”
You sighed.
“I know it’s just… I don’t feel like I’m enough for you sometimes and coming here just makes me feel like I’m not enough for you all the time.”
Jake shook his head, sighing, and pulled out his phone without a word.
“What are you doing?” you asked, curious.
“I’m getting us an Uber.”
“Why?”
“It looks like someone has to have all her insecurities fucked out of her.”
You blanched and looked around.
“Jacob!” you whisper-yelled between clenched teeth looking around to check if anyone had heard what he said.
He placed a hand on each of your shoulders. “I love you so, so, so much. Please don’t let anyone including yourself make you think otherwise. You won my heart fair and square and you own it, baby. Besides, Jolene is married anyway. ”
“What?! Really?”
“Yeah. “He chuckled.
“She took me to meet her wife. Honestly, it was quite boring. I felt like I was third wheeling. I’m glad Tom saved me.”
“I’m sorry.” You pouted.
“It’s alright, babe.” He said offering his hand which you took “Come on, let’s get of here.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Bonus
“So…your inner green-monster came out, huh.” Your boyfriend whispered as you two cuddled in bed, in your pajamas.
“Jacob, it is 2 am .Why are you thinking about THAT at 2 am?”
Author’s note: I really don't know what to feel about this. I loved writing it, though! I would love to hear from you! What do you think about it?
#jake gyllenhaal#jake gyllenhaal fluff#jake gyllenhaal imagines#jake gyllenhaal x reader#jake gyllenhaal fanfiction
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GF - Two and a Half Men
Summary: Shermie leaves his son with his twin brothers, fully trusting them to take good care of the baby for an afternoon. What a terrible mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was Spring Break, a glorious and yet hectic time in Glass Shard Beach. No one wanted to go to that trashy shoreline for a vacation when compared to the nicer beaches along the Atlantic, but lower-middle class families and broke college students settled and still had a good time for a cheaper price. The weather cooperated perfectly and Ford had worked so hard on his Science Fair project that he could afford to take a break while they were out of school, so today he and Stan were babysitting.
Shermie counted off the list of things for his brothers to remember while Stan held the baby. “Now remember, he needs to take a nap after he eats or he’ll be fussy later, he likes cereal the best and he can snack on that if he wants, but he needs to eat his peas or carrots for lunch, or a little bit of both. Also make sure he drinks his milk and for Moses’ sake, if he makes a mess, please wash him! Now, whatever you do, don’t lose Ottie! Last time we lost him Alex screamed for hours on end, I had to get a new one, so just keep an eye on him, and…”
“Shermie, can you relax? Geez.” Stan rolled his eyes, bouncing his nephew. “We’ve got this. We can handle the little guy for the day.”
“I know you can, I just want to make it as easy for you as possible.” Shermie shrugged off the baby bag and held it out to Ford. He took it and immediately sunk to the floor with it.
“Sweet Lord, Sherman, what did you put in here?” Ford groaned as he hoisted the bag on his shoulder. “Rocks?”
“Everything Alex needs.” Shermie answered and patted the full-stroller that was by the door. “Clothes, diapers, wipes, breast milk, formula, bottles, blankets, toys, Ottie, sunglasses…”
“Why in the world would he need sunglasses?”
“For his eyes, Stanford!” Shermie defended.
“Great, this is perfect, we’ll be fine!” Stan said cheerfully and grinned like a salesman.
Shermie checked his pocket watch and winced. “Shoot, gotta go! I’ll be back later tonight to pick him up.” Shermie bent his knees and little and tickled under Alex’s chin and cooed, making the baby laugh and grab his finger. “Alright, Lil’Lex, love you, sport.” And Shermie kissed his tiny hand and headed to the door. “Oh, and guys,” His eyes darkened and the twins felt shivers go down their spines. “If anything happens to my son, I will never forgive or trust you again… Bye, have fun!” And Shermie was gone.
Stan sighed with relief. “Finally! Now that Stuck-Up’s gone, the real fun begins!” He lifted his nephew above his head and asked in a wittle-baby voice, “Who’s ready to be the best chick-magnet in the world? You are, yes you are, you little stud!”
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.” Ford said cautiously as Stan put the baby on his hip and bounced him as he was getting a little bit fussy.
“Hey, you’re the one who admitted to needing help with girls.” Stan said and reached into the stroller for the stuffed otter. He gave it to Alex, who cheered up and hugged the toy, and then said, “Trust me, girls love babies! They’ll see us taking good care of little guy here and bam! You have your pockets full of phone numbers! Now go put on your trunks!”
Ford was uneasy about taking Alex out to the beach and trying to talk to girls, but he ultimately decided that it would be fun to take their nephew out and let him play (and it might help to find a new girl for Stan since Carla dumped him), so he did as he was told and changed and then watched Alex while Stan changed.
About an hour later, Stan was holding Alex by his hip with a towel over his opposite shoulder and Ford walked next to him with that torturous baby-bag. The stroller had no chance in the sand, so they left it home and decided that if the beach didn’t work a walk around the park certainly would. Stan happily strode around topless in his red swimming trunks while Ford wore a white t-shirt with his blue trunks. Alex wore a white t-shirt, too, as well as little baby-trunks with ducks on it, and he threw down his little green sunglasses every time Ford put them on him.
Stan laughed and said, “Squirt’s got good taste already.”
Ford sighed and pocketed the sunglasses in the bag, hoping the baby wouldn’t become blind and Shermie wouldn’t be mad. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Stanley? What if he gets into some glass, or goes into the water, or is stepped on…”
“Sixer, you’re somehow worse than Sherm.” Stan lightly punched his shoulder. “Relax, we all deserve to have some fun. Alex doesn’t live by the beach; he won’t get to grow up like we did, playin’ here every day. Let him enjoy it with the best uncles in the world.” He threw the towel down on the sand and sat Alex down while making rocket-ship noises.
Ford smiled and said, “Alright, but he really should put on sunscreen.” And he pulled out a bottle and lathered up Alex’s soft skin. The baby giggled and blew raspberries while Ford rubbed his arms and legs and face. The six-fingered teenager used his birth-defect for great evil and tickled the ribs and little baby-fat as he applied the sunscreen and smiled at the beautiful laughter his nephew made.
Stan smiled at his brother, glad to see him coming around a little bit more when it came to kids, and he ruffled the little brown fluff on Alex’s head for being a good sport; he can remember throwing a fit at the idea of sunscreen when he was a toddler, meanwhile Ford would hold his breath and pray the chore would be done quickly.
“Aw, how cute.” A girl in a light-purple bathing suit suddenly cooed as her long brown hair fell by her shoulder when she bent down to get a better look at the baby. “What’s his name?”
Ford could feel his face getting very hot, despite the admirer standing in front of the sun. “This is our nephew, Alex.”
“Aw, you two are great uncles.” She complimented sincerely and wiggled her fingers at the baby in greeting. She glanced up, saw her boyfriend waving at her, and she told the three boys to have a good day as she jogged across the beach.
Stan gave out a low whistle. “Hot tamales, this kid’s gonna score us with some gorgeous babes.”
“Stanley,” Ford chuckled as he shook his head and he reached into the baby-bag for his book, but Stan snatched it from his hands. “Hey!”
“Nu huh, Sixer. No nerd stuff.” Stan put the book back in the bag and laid down on his back to soak in some sun. He shielded his eyes with a pair of sunglasses and said, “If you’re so bored play with Alex. Ooph!” Alex had climbed up on Stan’s chest and sat right on his ribs, not that the six-month-old was very heavy. Stan lifted his sunglasses to his forehead and smiled at the baby. “C’mon, squirt, I’m tryin’ to get a good tan here.”
“No, Stan, no naps.” Ford mimicked his brother from earlier and stood up. “Why not let him try the sea and splash in some water?”
“Good idea.” Stan picked up Alex and left their stuff on the towel and walked to the shoreline.
Alex looked down at the waves that gently crashed on the shore. They rolled close to the sand and splashed peacefully. Stan helped Alex stand by holding him by his hands and Ford sat on his knees just where the water touched the sand at max. The baby awed at the splashing water and wiggled with chills when the water touched his little feet, but then laughed with delight over the new experience.
Stan then sat Alex down next to Ford to sit and he wiggled his arms up and down as he squealed with joy. Here, the sand was squishy and fun to grab and the water was going away and coming back, like magic. Stan laughed as Alex shoved a fistful of sand into his mouth and Ford scrambled to help the little guy spit it out. Alex didn’t cry, merely confused as to why something so pretty tasted so bad, but the uncles were too distracted by Alex’s sand-eating that they didn’t notice a bigger wave coming. It wasn’t dangerous, but it did splash Alex on the face and spooked him and made him fall backward and cry over being overwhelmed.
“Oh no, oh no,” Ford cooed and picked Alex up as he stood up. “Perhaps snack time would be more efficient with real food and away from the sea water.”
“I think Shermie packed some peas and carrots to give him.” Stan said as they went back to the towel. He rummaged a bit and found two containers of food, a baggie of cereal, and a small spoon. Ford sat Alex in his lap so he could use his uncle as a highchair and Stan opened the mushed-up peas. “Alright, lunchtime squirt, open up.”
Alex, however, turned away at the spoon filled with food and put his lip out. “Oh, what, you’re too good for my peas?” Stan asked and tried again, but Alex dodged the spoon and scowled. “Oh, come on, ‘Lex. Work with me.”
“Maybe a snack or milk first?” Ford suggested.
“Nah, he’s just being picky.” Stan reasoned. “Look, Alex, Uncle Stan loves ‘em, look.” He put the spoon into his mouth and thought he might vomit. His face turned as green as the mashed-up peas and he spat the disgusting food back into the container. “Who in God’s name would feed that to babies?!” He yelled in horror and hurled the food into the sea.
“Stanley!” Ford scolded, trying not to laugh but he was snickering all the while.
“That was awful!” Stan shouted and coughed and gagged. “No way I’m feeding that to my nephew.”
Ford sighed with a smile on his face and said down to the baby, “Good rule, always make Uncle Stan test it first.”
“Whatever, he can have his cereal instead.” Stan plunged a hand back into the bag and pulled out a bottle of milk. “Here, kid, something to wash down the sand with.”
Alex happily accepted the bottle and even held it himself. His uncles smiled, and one of them finally noticed the giggling happening a few feet away. Stan saw four cute girls sitting at a picnic awhile away, probably in college. They were giggling at them and awing at the baby. Stan smiled and tossed them a wink. The girls giggled again and stood. “And now to reap from the benefits of babysitting, Sixer.” Stan whispered. “Keep it cool.”
“What?” And Ford finally noticed the four girls.
One with flaming red hair and a yellow bathing suit sat on her knees next to Ford and cooed, “Aw, how adorable! He’s very cute.”
“Um, thank you.” Ford said, his face turning red. “I would have also accepted ‘handsome’ and ‘extremely cute’.”
Stan stared at amazement that his brother came up with that on his own and grinned proudly. The girls laughed with him, a lovely change from at him, and the girl with tanned skin and black hair said, “Oh my gosh, you’re so funny! Is he a cousin or something?”
“Our nephew, Alex.” Ford informed the girls as the one with tanned skin sat with her knees by her chest in front of the baby for a good look at him.
“Wow, you two are so good with him.” A blonde girl with blue eyes sighed admirably and smiled at Stan.
“Yup, he’s our little buddy.” Stan said smugly. “Just making sure he has a good time.”
“Aw, well you guys have fun!” And the blonde girls squeezed Stan’s shoulder and the red-head waved at Ford with a cute wink as they resumed their picnic.
“That was the longest a girl didn’t talk to me out of pity.” Ford said breathlessly.
“We should totally take him to the park and catch more babes there.” Stan advised as he took Alex’s bottle to make sure he didn’t drink too much at once.
“Or we could just take him just to spend some quality time with our nephew.”
“Yeah, that too I guess.”
Ford snorted with laughter and noticed Alex’s yawn. Apparently the excitement of a new place and the soothing crashing of the waves, mixed with the warm sun, was making him sleepy. Ford laid Alex down on the towel on his belly, Stan gave him Ottie the otter, and Alex soon fell asleep. Ford opened his book to read while Stan laid and sunbathed for a bit.
A few minutes passed and Stan rolled on his front to tan his back. While on his front, Stan rubbed Alex’s back and kinda got lost in thought over his nephew, the warm sun making his brain melt into mush and all seemed too right in the world to care. Ford was invested in his book, enjoying the story about stupid jewelry or whatever, but then Stan’s eyes looked past his twin and saw some very pretty girl in a bikini, lying on a blanket with a magazine and a nice sunhat on, her freckled body covered by a black bathing suit and her eyes right at him. Her lips were naturally red and lush, biting her bottom lip as she gave Stan this look that made him a sucker. She waved at him and Stan grinned excitedly and hurried to go talk to the pretty woman.
A few moments after Stan left, Alex woke up. He blinked his tired eyes and looked around. His brown eyes landed on a seagull and he smiled at the birdie. Alex grabbed Ottie by one of his little paws and slowly crawled off the towel. He started to get the hang of the new trick and crawled faster towards the birdie, but it soon flew away and went back down farther away from the ocean and closer to the town. Alex followed it as he giggled and he was off.
Stan soon walked back to the blanket with a phone number in his hand and he twindled it between his fingers. He smiled down at the towel to tell Ford the good news, but his blood ran cold. “Sixer?”
“Hm?”
“Where’s Alex?”
“He’s right…” Ford put his hand down right where he believed Alex to be sleeping, but he touched nothing but towel. His heart skipped a beat and he snapped his book closed and scurried around the towel, even lifting it off the sand in case the baby was somehow under it. “Alex? Alex?!”
“What did you do?!” Stan yelled.
“You left us?!”
“You were with him!”
“You couldn’t tell m- This won’t help us find him!” Ford shook his head and tried to control his mounting anxiety. “He couldn’t have gotten far… I didn’t even know he was crawling yet!”
“Aw, man. His first crawl and we missed it?”
“STANLEY!”
“Right, right!” Stan looked around and gasped with horror. “What if he went into the water?! I’M COMIN’, ALEX! UNCLE STAN’S COMIN’!” He ran into the water and looked around, even diving into the deeper parts and checking where the tide was drifting in a different direction.
Ford was shaking, but he then looked down at the sand and noticed small hand prints and a disturbance in the sand. He sighed with relief that Alex hadn’t drowned and ran up to his twin, who was now waist-deep in salt-water and panicking. “ALEX! ALEX!”
“Stanley, there’s a trail we can follow! I think Alex went into town!” Ford called from the shoreline and Stan splashed to him and ran back to the towel with him, gathered their stuff, and ran off of the sand.
The terrified young men looked around on the sidewalk, but saw no sign of their baby nephew. “Okay, if we were Alex, where would we go?” Stan huffed.
Ford held his chin and tried to think through his fear. “Babies are generally attracted to colors and sounds… perhaps something caught his eye and curiosity got the best of him…”
“There!” Stan bolted down the sidewalk and Ford followed him with the baby-bag on his shoulder. On the corner and lying helplessly was the stuffed otter. Stan picked it up with trembling hands. “Okay… now all we need is a dog! To track Alex!”
“Stanley, be serious!”
“I am, Stanford!” Stan snapped back at him. “If anything happens to that kid I’m gonna kill everyone in this stupid town and then myself! I can’t lose Alex!”
“We won’t, we’ll find him.” Ford said, his voice quivering with fear. “How many mysteries have we solved together? How many missing objects and people have we found? We just have to put our heads together and think of a plan. Again, he has only learned to crawl today. He couldn’t have gotten far. Let’s go down this road and keep searching.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Thistle strung his ukulele beautifully, picking notes and finding his tune. Just as he thought he had one, his girlfriend jumped in and sang along. “I don’t need gold, I don’t need silver, I just need you here. I don’t need fame, I don’t need glory, I just need you near. All of my ambitions have gone away, for I’m complete with you.” Carla sang as a soft breeze flew by her long brown hair.
Thistle smiled as they both sat on the front steps of Carla’s townhouse in a small neighborhood by the beach. “Not bad, not bad. Pure poetry, my flower.”
Carla blushed and shrugged. She listened to Thistle playing solo for a bit, the soft instrument filling the air, and her mood was improved to hear a baby’s giggling. She opened her eyes and looked around, expecting a stroller with passerby, but a lone baby sitting on the sidewalk. Carla gasped and hurried over to the baby, on one knee and looking around for anyone who might be with the little guy.
“Hello? Anyone?” Carla called and then scooped up the baby. “Oh, you poor little thing. C’mere, I know.” She cooed and held him by her shoulder and rubbed his back. The baby seemed okay and unafraid. Whoever was looking after him must be close by. Carla carried the baby back to the step and Thistle looked at the little human with sympathy.
“Aw, you think he was abandoned?”
“No, he’s wearing a bathing suit, see? I think some tourists were distracted and this rascal left his parents, didn’t you?” She cooed and tickled the baby’s ribs. The baby laughed and Carla got a good look at the baby. Something… seemed familiar to her. Maybe it was because she wasn’t around a lot of babies, but this baby reminded her a lot of her ex’s newborn nephew. “Wait a minute…”
Carla had only met Alex one time. The day he came home, Stan called her and caught her up on everything. He was kinda cute, all excited and a big lug around the little baby, and he invited her over a few days later and she got to hold Alex. He was amazing and Carla missed him, almost as much as she missed Stan.
“I know you, don’t I?” Carla asked, bewildered, but the more she looked at the baby, the more familiar he looked. “Alex?” He only grinned and grabbed her hair to play with it. Carla gave in, wincing a little but she smiled and hugged the baby. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“You know him?” Thistle asked suspiciously.
“Yeah, he’s Stan’s nephew.”
“Oh.” Thistle said darkly and his face hardened. “Trust that idiot to lose a kid.”
“Oh, c’mon, that’s not fair.” Carla scolded lightly. “If this little guy is anything like the rest of his family he’s impossible to keep track of.” And she tickled Alex’s ribs, making him laugh. “I’m sure he’ll be around in no time. He’s probably tearing up the whole town for him.”
Thistle only rolled her eyes and strung a few cords.
~~~~~~~~~~
Stan and Ford walked into a toy store, in case Alex somehow crawled into it for the brightly colored toys in the window. With no luck in finding him there, they went down the road and called his name cautiously; they wanted the baby to hear them but not any adults who might catch on what had happened. Alex was a smart kid and seemed to know his name by now, so if he heard them he might crawl to them, right?
They entered the bakery and found it empty apart from a sleeping teenager at the counter. They even checked behind alleys and underneath parked cars. The more locations they tried and failed at, the higher their nerves got. At one point, Ford even puked into a neighborhood trash can (but that may have also been due to the pile of rotting fish outside the hatchery) and Stan was losing his mind, every sound making his heart pick up speed and his rain making him think it might be Alex or something about to take Alex.
A few minutes into their search and they had wandered away from the shops and stores to an area filled with apartments and townhouses. Stan was too distracted to notice this was Carla’s neighborhood, calling his nephew’s name and praying something positive would happen. At long last, they turned a corner where music was playing, vaguely guessing Alex was attracted to the sounds, and they saw Alex in Carla’s lap as she sang along to her new boyfriend’s music. But Stan didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that; Alex was safe.
“ALEX!” The twins screamed and ran to him.
Carla smiled and held up the baby. Alex was wiggling and giggling, his chubby arms outstretched for his uncles and happy to see them again. Stan scooped him up and held him tightly and close to his heart, rubbing his back and trying to control himself, but composure be damned. His kid was safe. “Alex! Thank Moses, you’re okay! Don’t you ever scare me like that again, squirt!”
Ford rubbed the baby’s back as he clanged onto Stan’s chest and giggled at the extra affection. “Alexander Jackson Pines, I’m so sorry. I should have watched you more closely. I can’t believe I put something as meaningless as knowledge before my own nephew.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Poindexter, that’s what I get for…” Stan stopped to find a pair of eyes on him. The entire time, Carla was smiling at the two teenagers and the baby. Ford followed Stan’s eyes and narrowed them at Carla, meanwhile Stan just stared, not a trace of anger on his face. “Um… hey.”
“Hey,” Carla said softly and stood on the sidewalk with her arms crossed over her chest loosely. “Glad you found him.”
“Yeah, and thanks for watching him.” Stan said as he looked at Alex instead and his smile returned.
“Great, you got him back,” Thistle said coldly and stood by the door. “C’mon, baby, let’s have lunch.”
“You know what,” Carla said firmly and gave her boyfriend a hard look. “Why don’t you go ahead inside? I’ll be right there.”
Thistle growled in his throat and went inside. Stan didn’t know how to feel about things being cold between his ex and her new boyfriend. The little green monster in his gut known as Envy was purring with satisfaction, but he wasn’t so sure if he would ever take her back. Okay, maybe he would give it a chance, but he couldn’t imagine it lasting long. Not after Carla’s true colors were shone.
Carla turned back to the Pines and kept her eyes on Stan. “Hey, I… I actually wanted to talk to you for awhile.”
“Oh yeah?” His voice was calm. It was just too easy to growl or snap or yell at her. Too easy to go through with it. With Ford next to him and Alex in his arms, he didn’t feel like letting Carla have it; he just wanted to go home and take a nap.
“Yeah, I… I’m sorry.” Carla said. “I’m sorry for how I left things. I’ll admit it, I shouldn’t have just dumped you out of the blue like that, and I’m sorry. If I could I totally would’ve done things differently.”
“Okay, but what exactly are you sorry for?” Stan asked as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you sorry you dumped me the way you did, or are you sorry you left me for the hippy?”
Carla narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, Stan, but I’m not sorry we broke up. I think it’s better this way.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t need someone in my life who doesn’t know what’s most important. I dunno why I didn’t see it before; we’re both free spirits, Hotpants, but at least I think of the people I care about first.”
“Oh, don’t hold yourself all high and mighty!” Carla snapped. “You’re the one who lost a toddler, Stan, not me! And you’re the one who always says ‘if you want something, get it’. I’m sorry that it hurt your feelings, but I’m not sorry that I wanted a better person and I’m not sorry that I left you at all.”
“Well, that’s fine by me!” Stan retaliated. “For what it’s worth, I’ll never be sorry I drove hippy-boy’s van into a ravine, but I’ll always be sorry I ever went out with you in the first place!” And he turned around and walked away with Alex in his arms.
Ford and Carla looked at each other. Ford opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish. Carla raised an eyebrow at him mockingly, but then Ford settled on flipping her off with his two-middle fingers and walking away, leaving her red-faced and alone.
When Ford caught up to his family, he found Stan holding Alex by his shoulder and rubbing circles into his back. Alex hugged him back, smiling and looking up at his uncle with round eyes. Stan, however, looked like he was doing some deep thinking. “Are you okay?” Ford asked gently.
“Yeah, Sixer, m’fine.” Stan said casually. “We’ve got Alex back, he’s safe, let’s just get home.”
“Yes, I am grateful to find him safe and sound, but… is there anything you want to talk about?”
“To be frank, no. I said everything I needed to say.”
Ford smiled and patted his back. “Alright, Knucklehead, whatever you say.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Shermie let himself into the flat above Pines’ Pawns around six o’clock. “Hello? Stan? Ford? Anyone home?” He wandered down the hall and thought he heard snoring as he approached the living room.
He peered down at the couch and smiled. Stan was sprawled out over the couch, lying on his back with the baby curled up on his chest and holding onto Stan’s black t-shirt. Sitting on the floor and against the couch was Ford, with a book on his lap and his head back as he slept; apparently he had been reading to them until they all fell asleep.
Shermie guessed he could leave them all to sleep a little while longer and so he picked up Pa’s newspaper and read it at the kitchen table.
#GF#gravity falls#fanfiction#ford pines#stan pines#Alex Pines#fluff#nothing but fluff over here people#was gonna be part of another fic but that fic's cancelled
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Universe Falls, Chapter 80, Part 2
AHAHAHAH AND SO IT FUCKING CONTINUES. But yeah Memories is a roller coaster ride of feels and ya’ll get ready to board by bringing the tissues along cause oof. There’s a lot in here. Even so, I LOVE how it turned out so I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy! (but don’t actually read it on here, read it on Ao3 please!!!! (also review, reviews are nice ^_^)
Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/621740517506564096/universe-falls-chapter-80-part-1
***
Chapter 80, Part 2: Memories
ZX LPH XNG BRCTV WSVIH
QYK FHA ZCSNK GIXILVJ HRT
EEXWL WRPXKWKIS SMWXXVTCX GDTGTH
AYG AI XH LRK VSBT YEVHRT
“Who?”
The question hung on the air for what seemed like ages, echoing through it to the point that it seemed to obscure everything else, even the dull flow of the fountain behind him. Stepper’s already palpable confusion expanded upon seeing the dumbfounded stares Mabel, Garnet, and Pearl alike were all sending his way, almost as if his simple question was one that none of them had the faintest idea how to answer.
Eventually though, Mabel was finally the first to break the silence, letting out a rather harsh, forced laugh as she kept her gaze on the fusion’s face rather than his still-damaged gemstone. “Ha! Good one, you guys!” she chuckled a bit too loudly, knowing that no one else was partaking in her levity. “You know, I usually love a good joke, but now’s not really the time to be kidding around, so…?”
“I’m… not kidding,” Stepper frowned, raising a curious eyebrow at her. “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s kidding, Mabel? I mean, come on, since when have I been a fusion?”
“S-since... always…” Pearl spoke up, her hands pressed close to her chest as she trembled slightly. “C-certainly, you must… h-how could you not-”
“Stepper,” Garnet interjected, her voice a bit firmer than the white Gem’s, though it was clear she was every bit as shaken. “You must be confused after what you went through. You are a fusion. Between Steven Universe and Dipper Pines. You know that.”
“I… really don’t, because I’m not,” Stepper shook his head incredulously. “I’m pretty sure I’d know if I was a fusion. And if I was, I’d at least know who I was a fusion of to begin with, right?”
“B-but that doesn’t make any sense!” Mabel exclaimed, distraught as she grabbed onto one of the fusion’s lower arms. “Of course you know Steven and Dipper! You have to know them! They are you!”
“Um, I think that’s sort of impossible,” Stepper crossed his upper arms. “I’m me. And besides, I’ve never even met or heard of any Steven or Dipper. Are they friends of yours, Mabel?”
“Yes!” Mabel huffed, frustrated. “More than just friends! Dipper, you’re my twin brother! Steven, you’re one of my best friends! And Stepper, you’re both of them! They’re you! You have to remember them! Y-you can’t just forget who you are! You’re-”
“Mabel,” Garnet suddenly quieted her, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder just as a heavy sob finally escaped her. Stepper was admittedly startled by it, a rush of guilt he couldn’t quite place filling him as he noticed the tears steadily streaming down her cheeks as she resigned herself to Garnet’s consoling embrace.
“I-I… I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, despite his still very palpable confusion. “I-I didn’t mean to upset any of you, I just… really have no idea what you guys are talking about.”
None of the others had any idea how to respond to this as they all looked to the fusion, equally forlorn. Mabel’s tears were still plentiful and by now Pearl had taken on a few of her own as she quietly covered her mouth and glanced away. Garnet kept her sights set on Stepper meanwhile, essentially begging her future vision to give her some kind of insight as to what might have happened to him only to receive none at all.
It wasn’t long before this bout of solemn silence was broken by the chime of the warp pad on the other side of the garden. With its bright light, Amethyst appeared, having followed Garnet’s command to retrieve Stan and Ford as both of them rushed after her to check on the fusion with a shared sense of intent concern.
“There you boys are!” Ford let out an allayed sigh as he approached Stepper. “What a relief it is to see you’re both alright.”
“Ford-” Pearl attempted to interject, though Stan cut her off before she could say anything else.
“You two kids had us worried sick!” he exclaimed adamantly, though it was clear his frustration came from a place of caring. “What the heck is wrong with you, running off like that on your own for three days?!”
“What?” Stepper asked, not able to recall anything of the sort.
“Uh, well, actually, they kinda got sucked into some crazy dimensional portal, remember?” Amethyst pointed out.
“A portal that led to the Nightmare Realm, no less!” Ford shook his head incredulously. “You both are incredibly lucky to have somehow found a way back, much less survived in that despicable wasteland against, well... you know who.”
“Um, I don’t--Augh!” Stepper stopped himself short with a startled gasp as the author suddenly shined a bright flashlight directly into his eyes. The fusion was quick to cover them as the others were all quick to turn to Ford to demand an explanation for such a bizarre, untimely move.
“Ford! What’s the matter with you? What are you tryin’ to do?! Blind the poor kids?!” Stan yelled, sending his brother a harsh glare as he placed a supportive hand against the fusion’s back.
“No, of course not,” Ford scoffed, putting his flashlight away. “I was just… checking something.” He paused for a moment, glancing to Garnet and Pearl as he spoke to them specifically. “Fortunately it seems as though Bill didn’t manage to hitch a ride back through him. But… his gem… Amethyst did mention it was cracked; have you placed him in the fountain yet?”
“Y-yes…” Pearl nodded. “B-but we have no idea why it’s still cracked. Though… perhaps it could explain the apparent issue with his memories…”
“His memories?” Stan spoke up. “What’s the matter with his memories?”
“Nothing, I-” Stepper began, though once again, before he could get much out he was cut off.
“G-Grunkle Stan,” Mabel rushed over to the conman, hugging his leg tightly, tearfully as she refused to so much as look at Stepper this time. “H-he… he said he doesn’t know who Dipper and Steven are! He said… h-he doesn’t even think he’s a fusion… T-that he isn’t them…”
Stan and Ford were both stunned into silence upon hearing this, their wide-eyed sights settling on Stepper, who was unsure of how to meet them. Unsure of how to meet any of the several sets of eyes all watching him expectantly, searching him for answers he knew he didn’t have for them.
All the same, he let out a startled gasp as Stan suddenly grabbed him by his vest, pulling him a bit down to his level as he hissed at him threateningly. “You said what?”
“Stan!” Garnet suddenly shouted, pulling the frightened fusion away from the conman as she placed herself before him protectively. “Leave him alone. What’s happened to him is not his fault.”
“Well, then who’s fault is it?” Stan asked, glaring at the Gem leader coldly.
“Certainly, it must be Bill’s,” Ford said, his tone grave and scornful.
“...Who?” the conman raised an oblivious eyebrow.
“Oh for crying out loud…” Ford sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You had my journals all these years, Stanley. How could you not know a single thing about Bill Cipher? Dream demon? Usurper of the Nightmare Realm? My primary nemesis, since-”
“Wait,” Stan interrupted as he narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Your nemesis? So you’re sayin’ this Cipher guy has a bone to pick with you… so he took it out on Dipper and Steven?!”
Ford flinched, caught off guard by the sudden fury peaking in the conman’s tone. “T-that… I… I don’t know, I-I wasn’t there to-”
The author was sharply cut off by a sudden blow directly to his jaw. He stumbled back from his brother’s heavy punch, collapsing against one of the fountain’s lower statues of Rose as the Gems, Mabel, and Stepper alike all gasped in apt surprise by this sudden act of violence. “What did I tell you, Ford?!” Stan shouted, absolutely furious as he gripped the stunned author by the collar of his sweater. “What did I say about getting the kids involved in your messes?!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Stanley!” Ford shoved the conman back hard. “Bill doesn’t just have it out for me, he has it out for the Gems, for the kids, for everyone on this planet! This isn’t about you or me!”
“That’s right,” Garnet stepped between the brothers, pushing them apart to create some distance amidst their rising tension. “It’s not. This is about Stepper.”
At this, everyone turned their attention to the fusion once more. All four of his hands were drawn close to him, his eyes wide and worried as he took a small step forward to address Stan and Ford in particular. “I-I… don’t know why you guys are fighting,” he began rather timidly. “But please, don’t. You all seem so sad and angry, and… I don’t really understand why, but I wish I did so I could help somehow.”
“I-I think I know how you can help!” Mabel piped up urgently. “You can unfuse! I-if you’re just Steven and Dipper again, then there’s no way you won’t be able to remember them because you’ll be them again! It’s that easy!”
“Well, if you think that would help, I’d be happy to do that, it’s just…” Stepper sighed as he placed a hand against the back of his neck. “I… don’t think I can unfuse? Like I said before, I’m not a fusion, so… yeah.”
“For the love of Newton, this is far worse than I could have imagined…” Ford muttered, immensely concerned.
“You’re telling me,” Stan remarked, aptly baffled. “The kid’s completely lost it!”
“Well, he’s certainly lost something…” Pearl added, shaking her head remorsefully.
“Let’s go back to the temple,” Garnet said, her tone unreadable as she led the way back to the warp pad. “We’ll be able to make more sense of all this there…. Hopefully.”
Though it only took the span of less than five minutes for the group to warp back to the temple, during the short trip, Mabel happened to notice three very specific things about Stepper that no one else really had pointed out yet against everything else. First was his clothes, once torn and tattered thanks to whatever Bill had done to him in the Nightmare Realm, now repaired to pristine condition thanks to Rose’s fountain. And yet, two prominent pieces were missing: the blue pine tree on his hat and the yellow star on his shirt, both markers, both symbols of who the fusion really was, gone just as much as his memory of the two boys that usually wore them seemed to be. Second were his eyes, a far cry from the usual shade of mostly-matched violet brown Stepper was known to have whenever he was around. Instead, they were pink, bright, bold, and undeniably pink, to the point that his irises were practically glowing with it as they sparkled in the light. But third was what was lying just behind those eyes, a sense of innocence, of oblivious unknowing, so unlike the sharp, eager awareness that had once been there instead. Just another worrying sign that something was off, something was so incredibly wrong that even Stepper himself didn’t understand what that something was.
“Well, there’s gotta be some way to split them up, right?” Amethyst began as everyone congregated around the couch. “Oh! I got it! If he doesn’t know how to split up on his own, then maybe we can just do it for them!”
“D-do what?” Stepper flinched, especially as Amethyst pulled her whip out.
“We’ll be doing no such thing!” Pearl scolded. “With his gem cracked like that, there’s no telling what Stepper being forcibly split up--or splitting up in general really--could do to Steven and Dipper! Nevermind the fact that he can’t even remember either of them to begin with…”
“S-so… Stepper is just… stuck like this?” Mabel asked fretfully from her spot on the couch right next to the confused fusion.
“Stuck how?” he asked, though once again he received no direct answer.
“Yes,” Garnet replied, her arms crossed and her tone rigid as she averted her gaze away from Stepper almost purposefully. “For now.”
“But hopefully not for long,” Ford said, resolved. “Now, to properly solve this problem, the best thing to do is to get to the bottom of what’s actually wrong here.”
“Oh wow, great plan there, poindexter,” Stan deadpanned dryly. “Never could’ve come up with something like that on our own. What genius thinking.”
Ford largely ignored his brother’s sardonic remarks as he instead took a step forward, pulling a pad of paper out so he could jot down some notes. “Alright, Stepper, why don’t we start with you? Since you don’t seem to remember anything about Steven or Dipper or being a fusion, what are you able to remember off the top of your head?”
“Oh,” Stepper blinked, surprised that someone was actually giving him a chance to speak his own piece for a change. “Well… let’s see… I remember meeting all of you, and fighting Peridot’s robots in the woods-”
“Yeah?” Mabel asked, suddenly hopeful at the recollection of a memory from weeks ago now.
“Then there was the time you wanted to research my shield journal,” Stepper said, keeping his focus on Ford before turning it over to Mabel. “Oh! And then we fused!”
“Yeah! Into Dipevebel!” Mabel grinned, gripping the fusion’s arm excitedly.
“Right,” Stepper nodded with a smile. “Then there was that street race we were part of and… um… I… think that’s it? I can’t really remember anything else until I woke up in that fountain a few minutes ago.”
“Nothing?” Amethyst asked, dumbfounded. “Not even anything about how your gem got all busted up like that?”
“No,” the fusion shook his head, frowning as he glanced down at his damaged gemstone. “Do any of you know how it happened?”
The others fell silent at this, dread filling their expressions as they realized just how blissfully unaware of the immense trauma he’d just been through he really was. They would have preferred to keep him unaware on that particular front too, if not for the fact that the rest of his memories had faded along with the knowledge of what had taken them away from him in the first place. “Stepper, you’ve… been trapped in the Nightmare Realm for the past three days,” Pearl began to explain as carefully as she could. “We can only assume that it was there that Bill got ahold of you and caused grave damage to your gem a-and your memories.”
For the longest time, Stepper said nothing in response to this, his expression still lacking any sort of real understanding, which became even more apparent when he voiced that lack aloud. “Bill? Who’s that?”
“Y-you… you’re kidding, right?” Amethyst asked, baffled. “You know, Bill Cipher? Crazy talking one-eyed triangle? Tried killing all of us, like a bunch of times? Hijacked Dipper’s body once and wants to steal Steven’s gem? None of that’s ringing a bell for you?”
“N-no…” Stepper admitted apprehensively. “But… whoever he is, he sounds like a really bad guy.”
“‘Bad’ is certainly an understatement when it comes to Bill... “ Ford muttered disdainfully.
“So the kid doesn’t remember who he’s made of,” Stan spoke up impatiently. “He doesn’t remember how it all happened, he doesn’t seem to really remember much of anything! Are we sure this isn’t some weird sort of amnesia situation?”
“O-or maybe he’s just been fused for such a long time that he’s lost himself…?” Pearl proposed. “Oh, but that wouldn’t make any sense, he’s only been fused for three days at most, after all.”
“It’s not entirely impossible though,” Ford pointed out. “Time moves differently in the Nightmare Realm than it does here in our dimension. It’s unpredictable, non-linear. What’s a few mere hours there could be days here, and vice versa, so there’s really no telling how long Stepper’s stint there might have been for him. Especially now that he doesn’t seem to remember it in the slightest.”
“Ugh, who cares about any of that?” Amethyst huffed indignantly. “How are we gonna fix this mess?!”
“Until Stepper regains his memories, there isn’t much of a chance that we can,” Garnet said, adjusting her shades. “He’s the only one who can tell us what happened after all. Well, aside from Bill, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d rather not hear it from him.”
“But we don’t even know how he lost his memories in the first place!” Pearl bemoaned fretfully. “How can we go about restoring them if we don’t even know what happened to them?”
From there, a round of debate over this problem broke out, with everyone largely talking over each other as they tried to form a cohesive plan of action. Amidst all this, Stepper sat in silence, trying his best to listen and understand a conversation that kept on going in endless circles, one that concerned him, yet he didn’t entirely know how. He knew well by now that the others were all upset, worried, angry, and afraid, but the reason why was beyond him, a reason obscured by names and events he didn’t know, things he couldn’t comprehend, no matter how hard he tried. At the very least, he could tell there was one thing they all agreed on: they wanted to help him, even if he wasn’t sure he even needed such help at all.
At the same time, Mabel lingered close by the fusion’s side, her focus dedicated to him rather than the ongoing argument between the Gems and her uncles. The heightened, perhaps even petty tensions between them didn’t matter to her in the slightest; nothing did really, not as long as something was wrong with Stepper, as long as something was wrong with Steven and Dipper. And while everyone else debated over whatever logical, scientific, or brute force plans they could think of, Mabel began to develop one of her own, one based not on the many things they didn’t know about this daunting situation. But instead, a plan based on what she did know about her brother and her best friend.
“Everyone, hold on a sec!” she shouted as she suddenly jumped onto the coffee table to grab everyone’s attention. “I’ve got an idea, and it’s a good one too!”
While a handful of the others took pause, exchanging an uncertain glance at this, Garnet was the first to prompt her onward. “Go ahead.”
“Ok, so you guys said we won’t be able to fix Stepper’s gem until he splits up first, right?” Mabel began, her tone intent and determined. “And Stepper can’t split up until he remembers who Steven and Dipper are? So that’s where we should start!” She grinned as she spun back around to face the fusion behind her. “By reminding you of who you’re made of!”
“But Mabel,” Stepper said with a small, exasperated sigh. “I’ve already told you, I can’t split up because I’m not a fusion.”
“You are a fusion, and I can prove it!” Mabel retorted, hands on her hips. “First of all, if you’re not a fusion, then why do you have four arms?”
“Uh… well…” Stepper trailed off with a frown as he looked down at his substantial set of hands.
“And how do you explain how you only remember three totally different days before now?”
“I-I… I just…”
“And out of those three days, how come you only remember a few things about them?”
Stepper interrupted her with another heavy sigh, a hand placed against his now aching head as it struggled to fill in the gaps she kept suggesting to him. “L-Look, I get that not a lot of things are adding up here, but… I still don’t think I’m a fusion. And like I said before, I don’t know who… what were their names again? Sipper and Deven?”
“Dipper and Steven,” Mabel corrected urgently.
“Dipper and Steven,” Stepper repeated, the names sounding completely forign to him even as he said them aloud. “I don’t know who either of them are. And if I don’t know them, then how can I possibly be them?”
“But you are them!” Mabel protested, practically to the point of pleading. “Here, I’ll show you.” With this, she rushed up onto Steven’s bedroom loft, finding his phone lying by his bed quite easily before she rushed it back to the fusion downstairs. “Look! Look at them!” she pulled up one of the many selfies Steven had taken of himself and Dipper, one from not too terribly long ago. “This is Steven, and this is Dipper. Don’t you recognize them? Can’t you see how much they look like you?!”
Stepper looked between the two boys in the photo for quite a long time, not a single sign of recognition showing up in his face even now that he could see some sort of depiction of his two apparent halves for himself. “N-no,” he said with a sad, yet honest frown. “I… I don’t know them. Either of them.” He hesitated in saying anything else, especially as he noticed tears starting to well up in Mabel’s eyes again, her expression overwhelmed with returning grief that she was trying her hardest to force away for his sake. “Mabel, I-I… I’m sorry.”
In an instant, Mabel rushed to wipe her tears away, pulling her shoulder away from the comforting grip Garnet attempted to put on it. “I-it’s ok,” she said, forcing on a reassuring smile. “Because we’re gonna figure this out. Looking at a picture is one thing, but maybe jogging your memories of them might work even better!”
“Uh, how are you gonna do that?” Amethyst asked, mirroring everyone else’s confusion at this plan.
“I think you mean how are we gonna do that,” Mabel grinned confidently. “Even though Stepper might not know who Steven and Dipper are, that doesn’t mean we don’t! Same goes for everyone else who knows them. Plus, I don’t wanna brag, but we just so happen to have a bona-fide expert when it comes to Dipper here, someone who happens to have known him our entire lives…” Her smile grew as she pointed to herself proudly.
“Oh! And we’ve known Steven for his entire life!” Pearl added with a newfound grin.
“Yeah, exactly!” Mabel nodded zealously. “So between all of us, we can fill in all the gaps and remind Stepper who he’s really supposed to be so he can finally unfuse again!”
“But, Mabel,” Stepper attempted to protest in the hopes of voicing his own thoughts about this plan. “I-”
“Shh, it’s ok,” Mabel quieted him, cutting him off in the process. “There’s nothing you need to worry about, Ste-bro. We’ve all got this. We’ve got you.”
Stepper simply let out a resigned sigh at this, realizing once again that the chance for him to even get a simple word of edgewise had been ripped away from him. So instead, he remained quietly sitting on the sidelines while everyone else continued to discuss what they believed was best for him, what they believed he should remember, even if those were memories he knew he didn’t even have to begin with.
“It’s a… novel idea, Mabel, but… I fear it might be too simple,” Ford noted with a frown. “After all, we’re still not even sure what Bill did to his memories, much less how to get them back. The case could be made that this is all connected to the crack in his gem, but-”
“Will you shut up already, Ford?” Stan asked with a disgruntled scowl. “The kid’s come up with just about the only actual plan I’ve heard thrown around here could actually have a shot at working. I say we give it a try.”
“Same here,” Garnet agreed. “It’s far better than doing nothing.”
“Yeah, but could it actually work?” Amethyst asked with an uncertain frown.
Garnet shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” she said, finally mustering a smile for Mabel to show her confidence in her plan.
“Well, I suppose in the meantime we could always continue looking further into the situation to see if there’s anything else we can do,” Pearl suggested. “J-just in case, of course.”
“Yeah, that’s a great idea!” Mabel surprisingly agreed. “You guys can keep looking at the sciency/Gem side of things, while I take over as the first official self-appointed Memory Captain?”
“Memory Captain?” Stepper spoke up, raising a confused eyebrow.
“Yeah, ya know, cause I’m putting myself in charge of getting you your memories back, Ste-bro,” she grinned back at him.
“Oh,” Stepper took a brief, tentative glance down. “Mabel, I-I don’t-”
“I know, I know, you don’t know what to say,” Mabel said with a knowing wave of her hand. “That’s fine, you can always thank me after you remember everything. Now come on,” she enthusiastically grabbed the fusion’s hand, pulling him off the couch as she headed for the door. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to get you back to normal.”
“Yes…” Ford muttered, fretfully looking over his notes as the pair headed out on their endeavor. An endeavor that had really no guarantee of working when it came to setting things right. “It seems as though we all do…”
“Ok, so you remember the day you first fused, fighting Peri’s robots… the time we fused… and when we raced Kevin and his friends… but you don’t remember what happened to you in the Nightmare Realm... did I get that all right?” Mabel asked, trying to make mental notes as the pair made their way down the hill toward the shack.
“Yeah, but I don’t really see what the big deal is?” Stepper shrugged. “I mean, those are all the things that have ever happened to me, right?”
“Those are all the things that have happened to Stepper…” Mabel mused with a dawning realization.
“Yeah, which… is me,” Stepper nodded, silently wishing that everyone would stop referring to him as if he wasn’t actually present at all.
“So, you only remember what’s happened while you were you,” Mabel continued down her newfound train of thought. “While you were fused! So… does that mean… you don’t remember anything that happened before this summer?!”
“I… don’t know. What happened before this summer?”
“Everything!” Mabel cried, spinning around to face him with a desperate, shaken expression. “Our whole lives! Dipper and me growing up together in Piedmont, Steven living here with the Gems. You have two entire lives that you just… don’t even remember anymore…”
Stepper wasn’t sure what to say to this as he glanced down apprehensively. Even if he felt far out of the loop in regards to what Mabel was saying, if there was one thing he did understand, it was that he hated seeing her so dejected and despondent. “Hey,” his voice was gentle as he knelt down to her level. “I may not really get what’s going on here with all of this memory stuff, a-and I may not know who… y-your two friends are. But, at least I still know you. Isn’t that enough?”
Mabel stilled, her pressing tears frozen from falling as she looked to the fusion with another wave of painful realization. “S-Stepper… do you know who I am to you?” she asked, almost scared to hear the answer.
“O-of course I do,” Stepper stood, though even as he did his expression betrayed his bewilderment. “Y-you’re… um… I… you… you’re… someone really important to me…”
“Yeah, but how?” Mabel pressed. “How do you know me?”
Stepper stammered, shaking his head as he pressed a hand to his head, searching for an answer he couldn’t quite find. “I-I don’t know…” he admitted, his voice almost a whisper as he spoke. “I just… do…”
Mabel forced back a mournful sob at this, yet even so she rushed in to tightly embrace the fusion, who readily returned it, a fact that only served to strike at her aching heart even more than his answer already had. “It’s ok, Ste-bro,” she assured so quietly her voice was barely even audible. “I’ll help you figure it out.”
Even though he wasn’t entirely sure why, Stepper’s first thought was to thank her for her dedication, though he didn’t get much of a chance to before their hug was interrupted as something soft suddenly bumped into him from behind. “Huh?” he relinquished his hold on Mabel, turning to find the large pink beast standing behind him. “Ah! W-what is that thing?!” he exclaimed fearfully, rushing to take cover behind Mabel.
“Uh, that’s just Lion,” Mabel said, stepping over to scratch the pink beast behind the ear.
“Y-yeah, I know it’s a lion,” Stepper said, all four of his arms held in front of him defensively as he looked to Lion incredulously. “But why is it here? And why is it pink?”
“Wait,” Mabel frowned, pausing briefly to quiet Lion’s sudden quiet growling before she turned back to the fusion. “You mean… you don’t remember Lion either?”
“Uh, I’ve never seen that thing before,” Stepper said anxiously. “I’m pretty sure I would remember a huge pink lion.”
“But… Lion’s your…” Mabel trailed off before letting out a soft, stunned gasp. “Stepper’s never met Lion before…” she whispered, largely to herself. She was quick to shake the pressing thought of what or who else he might not remember away, instead taking the fusion by the hand once more to expedite their trip down to the Mystery Shack. “Come on,” she said, her tone rather solemn as they continued onward. “It looks like you’ve got more remembering to do than I thought…”
It didn’t take very long for the pair to reach the shack, with Lion trailing not too far behind them as he kept a close, somewhat distrustful watch on Stepper all the while. The fusion returned that watch, unsure of what the pink beast might do, even though Mabel assured him several times over that he was completely tame. Still, Lion was content enough to wait outside as Stepper and Mabel ventured inside the shack through the gift shop, though in doing so, they happened to encounter their pair of employees waiting around inside.
“Oh! Mabel, you’re finally back!” Soos greeted with a smile as he took a break from sweeping. “How’s it goin’, hambone? Did you guys finally find Dipper and Steven?”
“From the looks of it, I’d say they did,” Wendy said, allayed as Stepper entered right behind Mabel.
“Ah ah ah, correction, Wendy; that’s Stepper,” Soos pointed out.
“Finally, someone gets it,” Stepper sighed somewhat wearily before he offered the pair a casual wave. “Hey, Soos. Hey, Wendy. What’s up?”
“Whaaaa?!” Mabel gasped, looking at the fusion in awe at this. “You remember Soos and Wendy but you don’t remember Lion?!”
“Uh… yeah, I guess?” Stepper said, still not sure of what the significance of that fact was.
Though Mabel was baffled into silence at this, Soos and Wendy had their fair share of questions from the very start. “Whoa, hold on,” Wendy started first. “What do you mean remember?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t Stepper remember us?” Soos inquired, just as curious. “I mean, I know he’s a totally awesome Gem fusion, but he’s still Steven and Dipper, right?”
“Ugh… and there it is again…” Stepper muttered, crossing his lower arms upon hearing this bizarre claim once more.
“Yeah, but… he’s the only one who doesn’t really think so anymore…” Mabel sighed sadly. “He doesn’t remember either of them. Or that he’s even a fusion at all…”
“What?!” Soos and Wendy exclaimed in shared alarm, both of them looking to Stepper in apt worry as they unloaded their flood of questions at a hectic pace.
“So he doesn’t remember who he is? Dude…”
“What happened to him?”
“But he remembered us, so… what’s that all about?”
“Oh my gosh! Look at his gem! Who did that?”
“Does that hurt? Is he gonna be ok?”
“H-hey, I am ok,” Stepper finally spoke up to stem the tide of questions he had no answers for. “We’re-”
“We’re gonna get to the bottom of this and fix it,” Mabel cut him off, grabbing his arm once more as she began leading him through the gift shop.
“Well, if you need any help, just ask,” Wendy offered firmly.
“Yeah, anything for Steven and Dipper, dude,” Soos solidly agreed.
But nothing for me, I guess… Stepper thought, not even bothering to voice the notion aloud this time.
“Thanks, you guys,” Mabel called back as she continued pulling Stepper along. “We’ll keep you posted on what happens.”
Soos and Wendy offered the pair their well wishes as they headed out, with Mabel wasting no time in rushing upstairs to the attic with Stepper following not too far behind her. “Hey, Mabel?” he began tentatively as they arrived in the bedroom. “Can we, uh… talk for a second?”
“We sure can,” Mabel replied as she began looking through her half of the room. “Just as soon as I find--aha! Here it is!” She plopped down onto the rug on the floor with her summer scrapbook, motioning for Stepper to join her so he could take a look. “My scrapbook here is bound to help you remember something. Like this!” she pointed to a picture of Steven helping Dipper look through the journal quite some time ago. “This is the first picture I took of Steven and Dipper this summer. Back when we were trying to stop that red eye thingy from crashing into Gravity Falls. You remember that?”
“No, I… don’t,” Stepper shook his head, though Mabel was quick to continue.
“O-ok, well, you’ve gotta remember this,” she turned to a page depicting all three of them playing with what seemed to be some sort of antique mirror. “When we found that mirror Lapis was trapped in and saved her? Then we saved the lake from her? Steven healed her and she went back to space, to Homeworld! And Dipper found her when she came back and me and him saved Steven and the Gems from Jasper and Peridot! It was huge, high-stakes, really dangerous, you’ve gotta remember that!”
“Mabel, I really wish I knew what you were talking about, but I don’t,” Stepper sighed, not recognizing a single moment among the countless photos she kept showing him.
“Malachite! There’s no way you can’t remember Malachite!” Mabel kept going almost manically. “Dipper made a deal with Bill to try to free Lapis from her fusion with Jasper but Bill possessed his body. We saved him, and then it wasn’t too long after that that the portal Grunkle Stan was hiding under the shack opened and we met Grunkle Ford for the first time. Then we caught Peridot after she fused with Bill to make Pyrite; Steven and Dipper were the ones who stopped them! Then Dipper and the Gems stopped Malachite, while Peri, Steven, and I stopped the Cluster. We all saved the day! Everything should be fine now! B-but… it’s not…” She could feel her eyes growing wet with oncoming tears once more as she forced herself to look away from the proof of their triumph. A triumph that felt all but hollow now in light of what had just been lost.
Stepper was quick to reach out a hand to comfort her, though he stopped short upon noticing one of the several pictures decorating the page of the scrapbook they were on. The same photo Mabel had shown him earlier at the temple, one of whom she had said were Steven and Dipper themselves.
Carefully, while Mabel was distracted, Stepper lifted the photo out of the book to get a better view of it. He studied it carefully, taking in the pair of boys depicted on it, their shared smiles warm and cheerful as they stood with their arms resting on each other's shoulders. There was no doubt that, whoever they were, they were close, best friends perhaps, though he wasn’t quite sure. And while they did bear something of a passing semblance to him in different ways, even as Stepper stared at the photo for what felt like ages, not a single thing about either of these boys so much as minutely registered in his memories. He didn’t know them. He couldn’t be them. He wasn’t them. He knew that.
And yet… he couldn’t deny the small burst of longing emptiness that filled him when he looked at them all the same.
“Y-you can keep that if you want to,” Mabel suddenly spoke up, noticing just how captivated the fusion was by the photo. “Maybe it might help you remember them…”
Stepper didn’t respond to this, instead keeping his sights set on her as he tucked the photo safely away inside his vest. At the same time, Mabel took in a deep, steadying breath as she closed her scrapbook, a newfound smile overtaking her expression as she stood with another new idea in mind.
“Well, if I can’t get you to remember, then maybe we can find someone else who can,” she concluded, grinning at Stepper as he also stood up. “And I just so happen to know a handful of people who are super important to Steven and Dipper that just might be able to help.”
“But Mabel, I-”
“I know you’re worried, Ste-bro,” Mabel said, taking his lower hands in hers. “T-to be honest, I am too. But I promise you, I’m not gonna rest until you’re back to who you’re supposed to be. Now let’s get going! We’ve got places to be and people to see!”
With that, Mabel ran off, leading the way and leaving Stepper with no real choice but to follow. Still, before he did, he hesitated, taking a moment to pull the photo of Steven and Dipper out one more time as he felt another wave of what almost felt like loneliness washed over him. Loneliness and perhaps, even a bit of bitterness as well. “Who I’m supposed to be…” he repeated softly to the photo, shaking his head before he ultimately put it away.
“Kon'nichiwa! You’ve reached Connie Maheswaran. I’m currently on a week-long vacation in Japan and don’t have international coverage, which is why I’m unable to answer your call at this time. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve returned to the country. Thank you and Sayōnara!”
“Ugh, of all the times for her to be on vacation…” Mabel muttered to herself as she listened to Connie’s voicemail before leaving her message. “Uh, h-hey, Connie. H-how’s Tokyo? Um, look, we’ve kind of got a bit of a… situation going on here, so if you do somehow manage to find somewhere where you have coverage before you get back, could maybe call me back, like… as soon as possible? Thanks, bye.”
Mabel let out a sigh as she hung up just as Stepper caught up with her along the trail that led toward town “Hey, who were you talking to?” he asked, curiously.
“Connie,” she answered, letting out a sigh of disappointment. “Or at least I was trying to talk to her… It’s sort of hard to do since she’s on the other side of the ocean right now.”
“Connie…” Stepper repeated thoughtfully. “I know her.”
“You do?!” Mabel gasped with a bit of newfound hope.
“Yeah,” the fusion nodded. “She was there during that race, just like you were, remember?”
“N-no, Stepper, she’s...” Mabel trailed off with a small sigh. “C-Connie’s one of our best friends. The four of us: me, Dipper, Steven, and Connie, we’re the Mystery Kids. You remember being one--or two I guess, of the Mystery Kids… right?”
“Mabel, I know you want me to say yes, but-”
“I-I know,” Mabel closed her eyes, largely in an attempt at blocking away tears. “You don’t. I-its ok. We’ll figure this out.”
“That’s what you keep saying…” Stepper muttered, rubbing one of his upper arms.
“In fact, we might figure it out right now,” Mabel perked up as they finally arrived in town. Or rather, to the car wash sitting on the nearest edge of town. “Mr. Universe!?” she called as she ran up to the former rock star’s van and knocked on its back door. “Are you home?”
Fortunately, Greg was home as he burst out of the back of the van, disheveled and exhausted after days of a largely fruitless search for his missing son. “Oh! Mabel, it’s you,” he said, running a hand through his messy locks. “A-any word on the boys yet? Have the Gems found them?”
“Well, y-yeah, sort of…” Mabel replied rather anxiously as she glanced behind her to see Stepper joining them. “But…”
“Huh?” Greg looked to Stepper, initially confused before he quickly gathered who was standing before him. “Ohhh... I get it; they fused!”
“Heh, yeah…” Mabel let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Mr. Universe, t-this is Stepper.”
“Stepper, huh?” Greg said with a small sigh of relief as he stepped out of his van. “It’ve heard about you from Steven. Nice to finally meet you in person. And even better to see you’re both safe and sound.”
At this, the fusion was caught off guard as the former rock star wrapped him into a tight, protective embrace. One that he didn’t really make any move to return. “Um… it’s nice to meet you too, sir,” he said stiffly, awkwardly even.
“Sir?” Greg chuckled as he pulled away from the fusion, wiping away a few tears. “You don’t have to be so formal with me. I am your dad after all. I-in a way. Partially. I think? Hm…”
“Wait, you are?” Stepper asked, baffled by this information.
“Yes…?” Greg’s smile was quick to disappear at this. “I mean, I’m definitely Steven’s dad, at least, so-”
“Uh, M-Mr. Universe?” Mabel interjected fretfully, hesitating to even deliver the horrific news to the former rock star at all. Even if she knew she had to. “Something happened and, um… well, Stepper doesn’t really… remember a whole lot right now. He doesn’t think he’s a fusion, a-and he doesn’t remember Steven or Dipper either…”
“W-what…?” Greg balked, aptly distraught as he looked Stepper over. “B-but he’s…” The former rock star let out a shaken gasp as he finally noticed the fusion’s fractured gemstone. “Y-your gem… what… what happened to it? Is this why y-you can’t…?”
Stepper had no answer for these almost tearful questions, though thankfully Mabel spoke to them instead. “It’s a… long story…” she sighed sadly. “Grunkle Ford and the Gems do think it is the reason why his memories are all wonky, b-but we’re trying to fix them, and I thought bringing him to you might help him at least remember Steven, but…”
“D-did it work?” Greg pressed, looking to Stepper with hope and desperation in his voice alike. “Do you remember me? D-do you remember Steven?”
Stepper could easily see the grief rising in the expression of the man standing before him, and though he couldn’t really claim to know this man, he still couldn’t help but feel guilty for that grief all the same. And yet, he didn’t dare lie to him, knowing that doing so, that giving him false hope for something that would ultimately be just an act, a falsehood, a meager attempt at replicating what he didn’t even truly believe he’d really lost. “N-no…” he admitted sympathetically, apologetically. “I don’t… I’m sorry.”
Try as he might, Greg was completely helpless against the heavy sob that escaped him as he collapsed to take a seat in the back of the van. His expression was rife with tearful grief as he averted his gaze away from the fusion that was partially composed of his son. His son, who didn’t remember his father, who didn’t even remember himself, it seemed. “W-why… how…” he choked out another sob, his face buried in his hands all the while. “H-how does he just… not remember who he is? T-that’s not how fusions work, r-right?”
“N-no, it’s not…” Mabel said quietly. “L-like I said, we don’t really know how this happened. B-but don’t worry; we’re all working on a way to figure this out and get his memories back. Aren’t we, Stepper?”
Stepper hesitated to give a proper answer to this, especially as he met Greg’s heartbroken gaze once more. While he had leaned into honesty earlier, the fusion couldn’t help but offer up something of a lie now, all in the hopes of easing that heartbreak at least a little. “R-right…” he said softly as he glanced away.
“R-right,” Greg added with a small, resigned sigh. He offered the pair a grateful smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes, particularly as he regarded Stepper once more. “Uh… I-I...better go check in with the Gems about all this.” He stood to head to the front of the van, clearly struggling to be near his “son” in such a forgetful state. “I-I’ll see you kids around…”
The former rock star didn’t see much else before getting into the van and driving off toward the temple, in the hopes of getting a more complete picture of what was happening from the Gems. As well as further reassurance that something was being done to fix it. At the same time, Mabel and Stepper set out from the car wash, their manner equally solemn as they began to wander out toward the lake with no real set purpose in mind.
“Mabel?” Stepper began as he stopped, his expression awash in fretful woe.
“Yeah, Stepper?”
“I… I feel bad for that Mr. Universe guy…” the fusion glanced back at the direction Greg’s van had gone. “He was so… sad, just like you and the Gems were before. A-and I know you’re going to tell me it’s not, but… I know i-it’s all my fault…”
“Stepper, no,” Mabel was quick to reassure him as she grabbed his lower set of arms. “None of this is your fault; it’s Bill’s! You’re not-”
“I’m not who you want me to be,” Stepper said quickly, firmly as he pulled his hands away. “I’m just not. I’m sorry.”
“N-no, you… you are, you just don’t remember-”
“Mabel, please,” Stepper stopped her, letting out an irritated huff as he did. “Can we just sto-”
“Mabel?!”
The tension rising between the two fell apart as quickly as the conversation itself did as this call reached them from just a short way down the street. “Pacifica!” Mabel shouted back to the heiress as she ran up to her, phone in hand.
“I-I just got your text,” Pacifica began breathlessly. “You said you found him? You found Dipper?!”
“W-well, yeah…” Mabel began tentatively. “But Pacifica, he’s not-”
“Where is he?!” the heiress pressed, immensely concerned for her boyfriend’s wellbeing. “Is he ok? Is he… he…” She trailed off, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped in awe as she happened to glance over at the fusion. Or, as far as she knew, the strangely four-armed, yet very handsome young man standing alongside Mabel. “H-hey…” she greeted him, her face suddenly feeling hot for reasons she couldn’t begin to explain.
“Hi,” he offered her a small wave and a smile, one that practically made her melt when she thought about who it reminded her of.
“Oh, uh… P-Pacfica, this is Stepper-” Mabel filled in, though she was quickly interrupted.
“Stepper…” Pacifica repeated in the form of a small, almost wistful sigh. “You look familiar…”
“You… don’t,” Stepper replied, his smile faltering somewhat.
“She should be familiar, Stepper,” Mabel sighed tiredly. “Pacifica is Dipper’s girlfriend. A-and, well, you see, Pacifica, Stepper here is a fusion.”
“Oh?” Pacifica was barely listening, her sights still set on Stepper as she broke out into a soft, fond smile.
“Yeah, h-he’s actually… Steven and Dipper.”
“Oh,” the heiress blinked, this information finally breaking her out of whatever unintentional trance the fusion had somehow put her under. “Oh! Oh. Ohhhh my gosh, this is… embarrassing.” Her already palpable blush deepened exponentially as she finally tore her flustered gaze away from Stepper. “I… mean, if that’s true, then you are technically my boyfriend, but you’re also not, a-and, ugh, this whole fusion thing is so confusing, I don’t know how any of you manage to keep it all straight.”
“Well, most of the time, it’s pretty easy, but this is a little… different,” Mabel said, biting her lip. “For starters, Stepper… doesn’t really remember who Steven and Dipper are right now. A-and… I don’t think he would know who you are either, Pacifica, since Stepper has never met you for himself until now.”
“W-what…?” Pacifica asked in newfound fear, especially as she met Stepper’s rather oblivious expression once more. That fear only grew as she realized the only boy she’d ever truly liked, perhaps even more than liked, might very well be lost to her forever. “You… don’t know who I am?”
Stepper faltered, seeing that familiar kind of grief well up in the heiress’ eyes. Grief that he kept bringing to just about everyone he encountered, it seemed. “I… no, I don’t…” he answered simply, averting her pleading gaze.
Those words might as well have been knives for how sharp and painful they were when they hit Pacifica’s heart. She usually wasn’t one to openly display her emotions in public, but right now, there was no stopping the steady tears that fell as she realized her fears were all-too true. “H-how… how did this happen?” she asked Mabel, trying to make sense of something so unimaginable.
“Well, Steven and Dipper got sucked into a portal to the Nightmare Realm, where Bill-”
“Wait, what?” Pacifica interjected, confused. “Nightmare Realm? Bill? What are you talking about?”
“Ugh, seriously? Dipper’s never told you about Bill before?” Pacifica shook her head, eliciting another exasperated groan out of Mabel as she facepalmed. “How many times have I told him? The key to a healthy relationship is communication. Even if that communication is about a crazy, vengeance-driven dream demon who stole his body and tried killing all of us!” Her manner was still quite severe as she turned to Stepper, who was every bit as out of the loop as Pacifica currently was. “As soon as you remember yourself, you’re getting a stern talking-to about this, mister!”
“Um… what?” Stepper asked, absolutely lost.
“Anyway,” Mabel took in a deep breath as she turned back to Pacifica. “The whole thing’s kind of a mess, but-” She stopped short as she heard a sudden loud choke of a sob escape the heiress. “P-Pacifica?”
For her part, Pacifica had taken Stepper’s lower hands into hers, her expression awash in misery as she stared up into his sympathetic, but unknowing eyes. Eyes that were a far cry from those of the boy she had fallen for, and yet... “Y-you… look so much like him…” she whispered mournfully. “B-but you’re not him… are you?”
Stepper nearly answered this, but just before he could, Mabel was quick to step in with some much-needed reassurance. “He is Dipper. And Steven,” she said firmly, almost as if she was trying to convince herself of that fact too. “And I promise that I’m doing everything I can to help him remember that. To help him remember everything.”
This promise did serve to ease Pacifica’s frayed nerves a bit, though far from entirely when she thought about the possibility that there was still a chance, however unbearable, that Dipper might be gone for good. “I-is there anything I can do to help?”
“I’ll let you know if there is,” Mabel said, pulling the heiress into a comforting hug, one that she surprisingly accepted in her dejected state.
“Thank you…” Pacifica whispered as she parted from Mabel, only to catch Stepper by surprise with a sudden embrace before she left. “Come back to me…” she whispered to him, or rather, to Dipper, someone who couldn’t even hear her to begin with. “Please…”
Stepper had no idea what to even say to this, even as Pacifica pulled away from him, tears still in her eyes as she silently began to walk away. He felt guilty as he watched her go, and though he would have even liked to have said that he felt longing, he didn’t. Because he didn’t know her. Because he didn’t know them. Because he didn’t know much at all, it seemed.
Mabel said nothing to him as she turned to continue on her way. And once again, Stepper found that he had no choice but to follow.
The next part of Mabel’s plan wasn’t exactly the most solid, but it was still a plan all the same, one that involved taking Stepper around Gravity Falls in the hopes that familiar places might somehow jog his missing memories. They started downtown, passing by spots Steven and Dipper had once frequented, from Funland Arcade to Greasy’s Diner to Gravity Fries to the museum. For his part, Stepper hardly noticed any of the peculiar glances that were sent his way over his extra set of arms. Instead, he went along for the ‘Grand Gravity Falls Tour’ as Mabel put it, quietly appreciating the sights she showed him and the stories behind each one. Stories that she claimed he had been a part of, or his supposed halves had, rather, even if he didn’t remember a single one.
The lake and the forest were by far his favorite stops along the tour however. The lake’s peaceful waters were a much-needed comfort after the hectic day he’d been having. If it had been up to him, he would have spent the rest of the afternoon soaking up the warm summer sun on their soft, sandy shores, staring out across the glistening water all the while. But then Mabel pulled him into the forest, filled with secrets and magic and surprises at every turn, or at least that’s what she told him. Stepper, however, felt a different kind of magic wafting through the trees, one that was perhaps a bit mythical, but every bit as special all the same. The easy summer breezes were gentle as they blew through the trees, lightly skimming his face every bit as much as the small specks of sunlight spilling in through the trees above did. And for what felt for the first time amidst the few memories he had to his name, he actually noticed that breeze, noticed the birds chirping on the branches above him, noticed the sweet scent of summer blossoms, notice the bright blue vibrancy of the handful of forget-me-nots he casually picked along the way.
And as he noticed it all, he couldn’t help but think how lucky he was to be there amidst it all. To be himself, even with barely any memories to speak of, even with gaping, glaring holes in what few memories he did have. To be someone somewhere as beautiful as this. Each new moment he lived in, each new memory he created he couldn’t help but treasure between the far too few he’d had before. And the more memories he made, however minute and minuscule they might have been, he couldn’t help but want to make more. He couldn’t help but want to be more, to show everyone that he was more than just two faces he still couldn’t quite place. Two faces that everyone kept telling him he was when the only glimpse he’d ever had of them was by way of a simple faded photograph.
Despite what everyone kept telling him, what everyone wanted out of him, Stepper couldn’t help but want to be nobody else other than himself.
The sun was setting by the time the pair found themselves arriving back at the Mystery Shack, though they soon found that they weren’t the only ones doing so. For just as they were approaching the shack, a certain green Gem happened to suddenly faceplant right into the lawn before them. Peridot quickly recovered, however, pulling herself to her feet as she rushed over to Mabel first.
“Maaaaaaabel! I received your textual communication via the ‘interweb’,” she frantically explained, pulling her tablet out.
“Uh… you mean the email I sent you?” Mabel frowned, confused.
“Yes!” Peridot nodded vigorously. “And it looks like it’s true. You really did find Steven and Dipper after all! Though do they really need to be fused into, ugh, the Stepper?”
“It’s good to see you too, Peridot,” Stepper regarded the green Gem almost dryly.
“W-well, at least you remember Peri,” Mabel said to the fusion with something of a forced grin.
“Remember me?” Peridot raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
Before Mabel could get a chance to explain, Lapis suddenly flew in, her manner tense and anxious as she let her aquatic wings disappear the moment she landed. “You said Dipper and Steven are back,” she grabbed Mabel by the shoulders, her eyes wide as they betrayed her clear worry just as much as her tone did. “We’ve been out looking for them all day and night. Are they ok? Where are they?!”
“Uh, well…” Mabel trailed off, unsure of how to explain the situation to Lapis, of all Gems, as she briefly glanced over at Stepper.
“Wait, w-what?” the blue Gem’s gaze jumped to the fusion as well. “Who is this? What’s going on?”
“That’s the Stepper,” Peridot remarked, crossing her arms.
“Stepper?”
“H-he’s a fusion,” Mabel explained apprehensively. “O-Of… Dipper and Steven.”
Lapis gasped, taking a stumbling step back away from Stepper upon hearing this, even though her focus remained on him all the while. “W-what? D-Dipper and Steven can fuse? B-but how? Wait… w-why is their gem cracked?! Can’t they heal it like Steven did for mine?! Does it hurt? C-can you unfuse?! Can you-”
“Um… a-actually, Lapis,” Mabel winced, well aware of the panic welling up in the blue Gem’s eyes. “S-Stepper can’t unfuse right now. N-not with his gem like, well, t-that…”
Lapis shuddered, gripping the fusion’s upper arms tightly as she pleaded with him almost painfully. “C-can either of you hear me in there?!” she asked tightly, desperately as Stepper met her anxious gaze with startled surprise. “It’s ok! You can unfuse! You don’t have to be stuck together like I was stuck to-” She cut herself off, shaking her head against the remnant terror even just thinking of Malachite always managed to bring her. “P-please, just… unfuse, for me. I need to see you, both of you. Please.”
Stepper frowned at this, faced with another pang of guilt he had no idea how to ease as he pulled himself away from the frantic blue Gem. “I-I’m sorry but… do I know you?”
“Oh no…” Mabel whispered worriedly as she watched Lapis freeze up in shock over such a piercing question.
“W-what… what are you talking about?” the blue Gem asked, her entire body trembling with dread by this point. “O-of course you know me. Both of you do! It’s me: Lapis! R-remember?!”
“I-I don’t, but please, d-don’t feel bad about that,” Stepper tried to ease her obvious despair. “I’ve been meeting a lot of new people today, so-”
“I’m not a new person, NOT to either YOU!” Lapis shouted at him, suddenly furious as she turned to interrogate Mabel. “What’s the matter with them!? What happened?!”
“I-it was Bill,” Mabel answered, flinching over just how enraged Lapis was amidst her grief. At the same time, she heard Peridot let out a poignant squeak of fear the moment the dream demon’s name was so much as mentioned, understandable after what he’d put her through before.
“T-that demon Dipper told me about the other day?” Lapis asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Y-yeah,” Mabel nodded gravely. “Steven and Dipper got sucked into his dimension a-and they must have fused to try and fight him b-but… he cracked Stepper’s gem and we’re thinking that might have done something to his memories? But… we’re not sure. I’ve been working on helping him remember stuff all day, but-”
“H-he did this to them…” Lapis suddenly spoke, her voice but a low, intense whisper as her hands tightened into tense fists at her sides. “Wasn’t it enough for that… that monster to steal Dipper’s body?! He had to crack Steven’s gem too!? And now he’s got them both trapped... in a fusion of all things, without any of their memories?!” Lapis’ breathing was harsh and heavy as she paced around hotly, her hands pressed against her head as her anger only seemed to rise toward a rapid boiling point.
“L-Lapis?” Peridot dared to speak up, reaching a trembling hand toward the blue Gem, though it never reached her.
“We have to get their memories back,” Lapis said rigidly, still absolutely livid as she spun around to face the others. “And we have to make him pay for what he’s done to them. I wasn’t around to protect them from him before but I am not about to let him get away with hurting either of them any more!”
“L-Lapis…” Mabel attempted to interact before Peridot spoke up in her place.
“A-are you crazy?!” she asked, terrified and incredulous. “You can’t just go up against someone like…” she hesitated, letting the dream demon’s name out in a feeble whisper, lest he was somehow listening in. “B-Bill Cipher. He’s a madman! A lunatic, who-”
“I don’t care!” Lapis snapped fiercely. “I told Dipper that I would never let that guy mess with him again, and I meant that. I don’t care if I have to go face him all by myself, I will, for them, to get back what they lost. Wouldn’t you?”
Peridot flinched at such a harshly asked question, one that she was hard pressed to answer given her prior daunting experience with the dream demon in question. “I-I…” she hesitated, and that was all the ammunition Lapis needed.
“Don’t you care about them?!” she accused, overwhelmed by her fury more than anything else. Fury that she had to place somewhere, even if she couldn’t actually fire it at the one who really deserved it at the moment. “Don’t either of them matter to you?! Why wouldn’t you want to do anything in your power to help them!?”
“I-I do!” Peridot protested earnestly. “O-of course I do! I-I want to help them, just like you do, but I-I just… I… I can’t…”
“Why not?” Lapis hissed between gritted teeth.
Peridot paused, her eyes wide with fear as she glanced over at Mabel. For her own part, Mabel was quite shaken by the intensity of the ongoing argument, as was Stepper, even if he was largely lost when it came to its subject. Still, Mabel offered Peridot a silent nod of solidarity, prompting her to finally have a discussion with Lapis that she’d been trying to avoid since they’d moved into the barn together. A discussion she’d been trying to avoid having with anyone, really.
“S-Stepper, it’s… getting kinda late,” Mabel whispered to the fusion as she began to lead him back toward the shack. “W-we should head inside…”
Stepper didn’t argue, though as he left with Mabel, he did cast a silent, sympathetic glance over his shoulder at the pair of Gems that remained outside as Peridot began to weave a story of woe that she believed was best left forgotten. “I-I… suppose I just come right out and say it…” the green Gem glanced down guiltily. “I’ve… fused with… with Bill Cipher before…”
Needless to say that Lapis was stunned upon hearing this, her former fury stalled as an entirely new type of anger filled in its place. “You… what?” she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
“I-It was a mistake! A-a complete and total mistake that I’m incredibly ashamed of, you need to know that above all else!” Peridot implored her anxiously. “H-he promised me he’d get me back to Homeworld, h-he said he was working in league with the Diamonds (and he is by the way, that’s just about the only thing he wasn’t lying about). But he-””
“A-and you said yes?! You let him fuse with you?!” Lapis asked, baffled.
“I-I understand how foolish it sounds in retrospect, b-but at the time, Pyrite seemed like the perfect proposition!” Peridot took a nervous step back. “I-it wasn’t of course, e-especially after he took control a-and forced me to the wayside. H-he essentially trapped me inside my own gem with him! T-that’s just what he does, from what I’ve heard. He traps you in situations you can’t get out of, n-not without having to ask him for his “help”. That’s what he did to me, a-and I’m willing to bet that’s what he did to Steven and Dipper too…”
Lapis’s anger finally cooled somewhat at this, her expression falling into sudden solace at this as she let out a long, remorseful sigh over her previous thoughtless behavior. “P-Peridot, I… I had no idea…” she said quietly. “I’m… I’m sorry…”
“You’re not the one who needs to be sorry,” Peridot’s manner turned resolved as she offered the blue Gem a supportive smile. “I-I may not be strong or brave enough to face Cipher again, but Lapis, you… I know you are, for both of us! If there’s anyone who can help Steven and Dipper now, it’s you. Well, and Mabel and Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl and Ford and--”
“Ok, ok, I get it,” Lapis said with a small chuckle.
“B-but I also want you to know that I’m willing to do whatever I can to help on this end of things,” Peridot affirmed. “So, what do you say we figure out how to take a dastardly demon down a peg?”
“I’m in,” Lapis readily agreed, calling upon her wings before she took Peridot’s hands and hoisted her up into the air. And together, both Gems headed off toward the Crystal Temple, hoping that they weren’t too late to join the cause to stop Bill and save Steven and Dipper in the process.
For the rest of the evening, neither Stan nor Ford were anywhere to be found; the same could be said of the Gems, and though Mabel half wanted to look for them, she knew she had nothing new to report to them anyway. Stepper’s lack of memories was still just as apparent as it had been from the time they’d found him earlier that day. A painful reminder that only got all the more agonizing whenever she happened to bring up something the fusion had no recollection of, only to receive yet another blank stare, another question of confusion, another piece of proof that he had lost touch with who he really was.
So eventually, Mabel stopped trying, at least for tonight, as exhaustion finally began to catch up with her. After all, while Steven and Dipper had been missing, she hadn’t exactly been getting the best sleep, if any at all. And though she still felt incredibly restless and anxious, she knew weighing herself down by tiredness would do nothing to help Stepper, Steven, or Dipper alike. So she decided to turn in early for the night, encouraging Stepper to do the same as she led him back up to the attic.
“S-so… it’s been a pretty long, less than successful day, b-but that alright,” Mabel let out a sharp breath as she jumped up onto her bed. “We can always keep trying tomorrow and who knows? Maybe a good night’s sleep will help you out in the memory department.”
“Uh… right…” Stepper said halfheartedly as he took to the empty bed across from her. He slipped off his vest and cap and made an attempt at laying out on the bed, only for his legs to end up dangling over the edge rather substantially. “Huh. Bed’s too short…”
“Ha! That’s exactly what we said!” Mabel chuckled as she began to tuck herself in.
“What who said?”
Mabel’s fond smile was quick to fade at this, not even really needing to ask herself whether or not Stepper would even remember Maven in his current state. After all, the only thing he really seemed to remember in any sort of detail was himself. “N-no one…” she said with a small, sad sigh as she rolled onto her other side to face away from the fusion. “It’s... no one…”
“Mabel?” Stepper pressed, though he received no answer from her this time. So instead, he let out a soft sigh of his own as he turned the desk lamp off and laid down, his feet still hanging off the edge of the bed as all four of his hands rested against his chest. Briefly, he glanced down at the cracked gemstone on his stomach, its fractured, dull pink looking paler than ever against the moonlight shining in through the window above him.
He wasn’t sure he entirely believed in his connections to the people who claimed to know him that he’d never even seen before and he sincerely doubted the idea of him being a fusion between two boys he didn’t know a thing about. But if there was one thing Stepper was certain of, it was the deep, unhealable crack in the stone on his gut. A crack that he hadn’t the faintest idea about where it came from. Everyone claimed that “Bill” person was responsible for it, but Stepper didn’t know him, didn’t know anything of him other than the claim that he was bad news and everyone who knew of him seemed to hate him relentlessly. And even if that was what everyone was claiming, Stepper still wanted to know for himself, still wanted to reclaim that apparently missing memory above all else. Because unlike his supposed identity as “Steven” and “Dipper” there was at the very least, actual proof that crack actually existed--he didn’t need to look any further than his stomach for that. Yet for as present as the crack itself was, it was still such a mystery to him, a mystery that he wanted to solve, that he felt like he needed to solve to fill that lingering, aching sense of emptiness within him. Far more than he needed to know the two boys everyone kept telling him he was.
And then, suddenly, completely out of nowhere, a flash. A sharp and sudden gasp he took in as a burst of unknown, yet somehow familiar pain seized him. And with that pain, with that gasp, came that flash, like a dream, no a memory of something he didn’t recognize, something he didn’t know. Something sharp and dark, plummeting toward him, toward his gem as it touched it. As it slammed into it.
As it cracked it.
And that was it. That was all he saw, all he was allowed to see. Because just like that it was over and he was back in the present, back in the bedroom, back in the mystery that left him perplexed and distressed and confused, feelings he’d been awash in all day. The only positive he could see was that the brief bout of pain he’d felt faded as though it had never fallen upon him whatsoever. But that hardly left him comforted when he considered where it had come from to begin with. He noticed that a few more cracks expanded over his skin surrounding his gem, thin pink lines tracing across his stomach as they further fractured a story that he only had the sparsest of pieces of.
A story, a mystery he wondered if he’d ever truly be able to piece together to create the complete picture to.
Staying up all night was hardly anything new to either the Gems or Ford; it was something they had used to do together quite frequently back in their days of working on the portal together, however ill-fated that work ended up being. But their latest all-nighter had been spent on a much more important cause to all of them; namely, figuring out exactly what had happened to Stepper and how to fix it.
“What do ya mean you don’t know?!” Amethyst huffed in extreme annoyance. The Gems stood anxiously by while Ford paced around his lab in the shack’s lowest level, his intensive search through all of his notes proving to be rather fruitless by most accounts. “Aren’t you supposed to know like, everything there is to know about Bill? You guys were good buddies back in the day after all, right?”
“I would hardly say that,” Ford scoffed bitterly. “And besides, Bill is an enigma, his true intentions in any given situation are anyone’s guess--well, aside from the fact that they’re always self-serving.”
“But what would Bill have to gain by doing this to Stepper?” Pearl asked, desperate for any sort of answers at this point.
“His gem,” Garnet guessed. “Steven did say Bill tried taking it from him in his dream once before. Though we still don’t know why he’d want it in the first place.”
“But if Steven’s gem was what Bill was after, then certainly he would have taken it while he had the boys alone, without anyone to protect them,” Ford shook his head. “And I hate to even think about it, but it would have been easy for him to do so in the Nightmare Realm. He isn’t confined to the immaterial plane there like he would be here.”
“But he didn’t take the gem,” Pearl mused worriedly. “He cracked it… If he wants it so badly, why would he damage it on purpose? It doesn’t make any sense! Then again, considering this is Cipher we’re talking about, that’s hardly surprising…”
“Ok, so let’s just say Bill doesn’t want Steven’s gem after all,” Amethyst interjected, her arms crossed as she leaned up against a wall. “Why would he mess with Stepper’s memories and then just send him back here? I mean, the guy totally hates all of us, including Steven and Dipper. If he really wanted to mess with us in just about the worst way possible, he could have-”
“We know, Amethyst,” Ford interrupted, raising a hand to stop her before she could even voice such an awful thought aloud. “We know…”
“The crack in his gem must be connected to his lost memories and sense of identity,” Garnet theorized carefully. “But a fusion forgetting they are a fusion… it’s something I’ve even heard of before. The only explanation for that I can think of could be that Stepper’s mostly human. And that the crack is no longer damaging him physically only thanks to Rose’s fountain. But his mind… his memories… are still every bit as fractured as his gem itself is…”
“So… all we gotta do is figure out a way to heal his mind then?” Amethyst proposed, hopeful. “Easy.”
“So far that’s turning out to be easier said than done based on how Stepper was acting earlier…” Pearl noted fretfully. “As far as he was apparently concerned, Steven and Dipper might as well have not even ever existed!”
“He’s got to remember them eventually,” Garnet sighed, adjusting her shades. “That could be first and the only key to solving this.”
“A-and if it isn’t?” Amethyst dared to ask. It was a question none of the others even had an answer to however, for the possibility that Stepper simply remembering who he truly was not being enough to save him, to save them, was almost just as unimaginable as him not remembering them at all.
“Regardless, I’m still troubled by Bill’s role in all this,” Ford continued with a sigh as he sank into his seat at the desk before where the portal had once sat. “He’s an absolute sadist, sure, but I don’t think he would have cracked Stepper’s gem without a reason, especially if he considers that gem to be a prize for him to obtain eventually. He had to have an ulterior motive, something else that he wants to…” The author trailed off, his eyes growing wide as he glanced up at the small desk cabinet just in front of him. A cabinet which was currently home to something else he knew without a doubt Bill wanted to get his hands on.
“Stanford?” Pearl inquired, concerned.
“I-I… I think I know why Bill did this…” Ford muttered, his tone shaken as grief started to slip into it. Grief over a secret he found he could keep no longer, at least not from the Gems. Not after what the burden of that secret had apparently done to two boys he cared so deeply about. “A-a few weeks ago I decided to entrust both Dipper and Steven with the knowledge of something I haven’t told anyone else about… until now…”
The Gems exchanged a confused glance as they watched Ford unlock his desk cabinet, only to pull out something that stunned all three of them alike. “Whoa…” Amethyst’s jaw dropped at the sight of the small, contained mass of moldable space.
“F-Ford…” Pearl gasped, shocked by its sheer radiance.
“That’s…” Garnet trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I-its an interdimensional rift torn in space time,” Ford explained solemnly, his grip on the rift tight and secure. “I discovered it after dismantling the portal a-and of course I immediately did my best to contain it but… it still stands as a way, however small, for Bill to get into our dimension, just as much as the portal was before it. And, well… I don’t put torturing Steven and Dipper to get information as to its whereabouts out of them past Bill, quite frankly. So-”
“So you just knew about this incredibly dangerous rift all this time, and you didn’t even think to tell us about it?!” Pearl asked hotly, Garnet and Amethyst clearly sharing her frustration right off the bat.
“Of course, I thought about it,” Ford countered as sternly as he could, though he knew defending his decision was going to be difficult. “I just… didn’t. Obviously.”
“But you told Steven and Dipper about it!” Amethyst pointed out harshly. “You know, two kids. What did think they were gonna do to protect this dumb thing if Bill ever came after it? Yeah, I know they can both fight and fuse, but come on, man, what were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking it was the right thing to do,” Ford said, desperately trying to believe that was still true, that it still was. But considering Stepper’s current condition… he didn’t entirely think that was a conviction he’d be able to hold onto for much longer. “I-I… I just thought that the fewer knew about it, the less danger it would pose.”
“You thought wrong,” Garnet finally spoke, her tone rigid, livid. She took a sudden step forward, catching the author off guard as she grabbed him by the collar of his sweater to hoist him up out of his seat. “Because look at where we are now, Stanford. Look at what’s happened to Stepper, to Steven and Dipper! He’s cracked, broken, stuck together; he doesn’t even remember who he’s made of! By burdening those boys--our boys--with this kind of dangerous information, you forfeited their safety. By not telling us about the rift in their stead, by not trusting us like you should have, you kept us from protecting them. And in doing so, you showed how little you really care about either of them. And how selfish you really are.”
With this, Garnet shoved Ford back into his seat, leaving him stunned and speechless as she began to make her way toward the elevator with Pearl and Amethyst following right behind her. None of the Gems had anything more to say to the author, yet he still wasn’t quite done as he carefully put the rift away and began to trail after them. “W-wait,” he implored, his voice weak and weary. The Gems did stop just as the elevator opened before them, each of them sending a cold glare back his way. Ford didn’t make much of an effort to apologize, knowing that such an effort would be meaningless against what they were facing. So instead, he made a request that he knew he had no business even asking of them, especially not now. Yet for the sake of the greater good, that’s exactly what he did anyway. “I… Please, d-don’t tell anyone else about the rift. Until we figure out a way to neutralize it for good, like I said before, it’s safer, less exposed, if fewer people know about its existence…”
For what seemed like ages, the Gems didn’t respond to this plea, but in the end, Garnet simply nodded her cold affirmation to it. “Whatever,” Amethyst also agreed with a quiet scoff. “Guess your stupid secret’s safe with us.”
“Yes,” Pearl said bitterly as all three of the Gems piled into the elevator to leave the author behind. “At least then, no one else can stand to get hurt simply from knowing about it like Steven and Dipper already have…”
And indeed, they already had been, something that Ford lamented as he was left alone in the empty darkness of his lab. The boys had been hurt, damaged, forgotten, possibly even beyond the point of remembrance by the very fusion they were both a part of. And for as much as Ford would have wanted to blame Bill for all of that, at the end of the day, he knew the Gems were right; he only really had himself to blame.
“Okey-dokey, Ste-bro,” Mabel was bright and cheery as ever the next morning as she bounded downstairs, with Stepper following a decent pace behind her. “We’re officially back on what I like to call “Memory Patrol”. I’ve got a whole day planned out that’ll get you back to remembering everything in no time. And that day starts with a delicious morning meal with all of Steven and Dipper’s favorite breakfast treats! Grunkle Stan!”
This call was easily enough to startle Stan awake from his spot in the recliner in the living room. The book he’d checked out of the library the previous day entitled “Memory Loss: Treatment and Talking About It With Loved Ones” fell off his face as he bolted upright in alarm. “Ugh, huh…? What is it? You need somethin’, pumpkin?” he asked Mabel as she poked her head into the den.
“Yeah! I need you to help me put together the best breakfast ever,” she grinned as she ran over to pull him out of his seat. “One that’s gonna be the trick to getting Stepper to remember everything, I just know it!”
“Wait… you mean the poor kid still doesn’t remember who he is?” Stan asked incredulously, sparing a worried glance at the aforementioned fusion as Mabel dragged him toward the kitchen. “...What the heck am I gonna tell your parents?”
“You won’t have to tell ‘em anything ‘cause we’re fixing all of this today,” Mabel proclaimed, confident yet largely more hopeful that they would. Because if they didn’t, if they couldn’t… she couldn’t even stand to think about what would happen. “Now c’mon. Let’s get cooking!”
For his part, Stepper didn’t join the pair in the kitchen as they began prepping breakfast. Instead, he took to casually wandering around the shack, not having any real destination in mind, even as he eventually made it to the gift shop. He couldn’t help but smile a bit as he looked over the various nick-nacks and chachkies stocked up on display, though he did stop upon finding one certain shelf containing several hats, caps to be precise, much like the very one he was wearing. One of those hats in particular happened to catch his eye, one that, instead of being noticeably blank like his was, bore the prominent image of a blue pine tree upon it. Stepper picked it up, examining that pine tree with a sense of what almost felt like nostalgia, that persistent feeling of emptiness starting to spark within him once more.
And then, another flash, this time in sound that seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere all at once as pain flushed out from his gemstone once more.
“Pine Tree.” “Rose Bud.”
“Pine Bud.” “Rose Tree.”
He stumbled back, the hat falling out of his grip as he pressed a hand to his head. The sharp, vibrant pain was gone but he remembered it vividly, though what had come along with it was still nothing more than a mystery covered by a mist that was far too thick for him to even try to see through. Just as so many things seemed to be for him, really.
Stepper was startled once more, this time by the vending machine on the other side of the gift shop opening up almost like a door. As confused by that alone as he was, Stepper watched as the Gems emerged from that doorway, their expressions mutually exhausted and frustrated, for reasons the fusion could only really begin to guess. “H-hey, you guys,” he greeted the trio with a small smile. “Is everything ok?”
The Gems let out a shared, tired sigh at this as they all looked to Stepper sadly. “Eh… gotta admit, it would be a little better if you could actually remember anything about Steven and Dipper,” Amethyst admitted, catching a glare from Pearl for being so overt and tactless. “Any luck with that, dude?”
Stepper frowned, taking in the Gems’ weary manner as he wished there was actually something he could do to ease it instead of add onto it for a change. “...Would you all feel better if I said yes?”
There was another sigh, namely from Pearl and Amethyst this time as Garnet shook her head, placing a consoling hand on the fusion’s shoulder. “You don’t need to lie to appease us, Stepper,” she said, offering him a small, encouraging smile. “If nothing else, we’re just happy to have you safely back from the Nightmare Realm.”
“The Nightmare Realm…” Stepper repeated, his eyes wide with newfound curiosity. “That’s where you guys said my gem was cracked right? Could you maybe tell me more about what happened there?”
“We really… can’t, Stepper, we weren’t there…” Pearl began, though her eyes grew wide as a sudden pertinent realization struck her. “But YOU were! And if you can remember everything that you’ve been through as a fusion, then certainly you must at least still have some memories of what happened to you there!”
“B-but… I already told you, I don’t-”
“Stepper,” Garnet interjected as she placed both of her hands firmly on his shoulders, following along with Pearl’s plan. After all, in light of everything else, it was really the only thing they could possibly attempt at this point. “Listen carefully. We need you to try to remember what happened to you in the Nightmare Realm.”
“W-what?” Stepper asked, daunted by such a task. “I… can’t, I don’t even know what that place is, much less what might have happened there.”
“You do,” Garnet insisted, her grip on his shoulders tightening out of the slightest bit of desperation. “Somewhere deep in your mind, the memory of it still has to exist. And that memory might be the only way we can figure out what happened to you, to your gem, and to your memories. So please, try to think about what happened… so we can help you.”
While Stepper largely believed what the Gems were asking of him to be impossible, he was hard pressed to say no to their pleading gazes. Almost as if all of their hopes for answers rested solely on his shoulders. And really, seeing as how he was looking for many of the same answers too, he knew he at least owed it to them and to himself to at the very least make the attempt, however difficult it might be. “O-ok… I’ll try…”
Unsure of how to proceed, Stepper opted to close his eyes and take in a deep breath, blocking everything else out as he only focused on thoughts of the Nightmare Realm, a place he didn’t know, didn’t remember. And for what seemed like ages, no memories were seeming to come to him until…
Another flash, another burst of pain, far more intense than before as his broken gemstone seemed to pulse with agony both internally and externally. And with that flash and that pain came the memory he’d been searching for, for the first time clear as crystal as it played out in beats, like a song without a melody. Like a tune his heart had forced him to forget.
“What I want is something only you can give me, Rose Tree…”
Shield-
“W-why would you want that?”
-Journal.
“I just wanna see you lose your prized, precious weapon for good."
Shield-
“Sounds like a small price to pay to see your friends and family again and NOT die a slow, painful death in a literal nightmare dimension, dontcha think?”
-Journal.
“I'd rather lose that book forever then lose you forever…"
Shield-
“That's it, right? Nothing more along with it? No strings attached?”
-Journal.
“None at all, Rose Tree! You’ll be home before you know it.”
Shield-
“But… if all I stand to lose is my shield journal for a chance to go home and get as far away from you as possible, then… I’ll take it…”
-Journal.
“I knew we'd be able to work something out, Pine Bud. Now… pay up."
And he did. He paid the price for his return. A price that cost him far more than he ever could have imagined…
“My shield journal!” Stepper gasped, practically falling onto the floor as he was forced out of that horrific memory. Garnet caught him just in time to keep him steady, but even so, the fusion was trembling, the cracks across his stomach expanding even more, just as they had last night, though he was really the only one to notice. “M-my journal…” he repeated, his eyes wide with panic as he continued reeling from what he’d just seen. “I-it’s gone…”
“What?!” Pearl and Amethyst exclaimed in baffled unison.
“But… how? Can’t you just summon it like you always do?” Amethyst asked incredulously.
“N-no, I… I don’t have it anymore,” Stepper explained hectically as Garnet helped him stand properly once more. “I gave it away to some… triangle guy. H-he only had one eye and he-”
“B-Bill…” Pearl interrupted, terror and disdain mingling in her tone. “You… you gave your weapon away to Bill?”
“That was Bill?” Stepper asked, still largely unfamiliar with the being his memories had shown him. “But… he said he’d help me get home if I gave him my journal, and… I am home, right? So… he did what he said.”
“No, he didn’t,” Ford suddenly broke into the conversation that he’d been listening in on from the other side of the vending machine door. As he emerged from it, the Gems all offered him brief, bitter glances, though he didn’t speak to any of them as he kept his focus on Stepper, hoping to at least try to set right all of the things he’d done wrong. “Bill lied to you, Stepper, just like he lies to everyone. He may have somehow gotten you back to this dimension, but by taking your shield journal away from you, I fear he might have stripped you of your very identity in the process.”
“My identity…?” Stepper asked, confused. “Uh… how? It’s just a book, right?”
“...Stepper, tell me, what do you remember when it comes to your shield journal?”
“Uh… well, I know how to make shields using it… and… um…”
“Do you happen to remember what’s actually on the pages of that journal?” Ford pressed, though unfortunately, Stepper had no answer other than a small shake of his head. “Just as I feared… Stepper, your shield journal is very unique when it comes to other fusion weapons. Based on what I was able to study of it before, it’s pages are composed entirely of information about you, or rather, about who you’re made of. Half of it is about Steven, while the other half is about Dipper. I have reason to believe it’s tied not just to your gem, but your mind, your very existence as a fusion.”
“But I’m not-”
“I don’t know how we didn’t think of this before…” Ford interrupted, still intent on his developing theory as he delivered his final, grim verdict. “Don’t you all see? That journal tells the complete story of who Steven and Dipper are on their own, and joining those stories together makes them Stepper. So when Bill took the journal away from him, he also took away all those stories, every ounce of knowledge Stepper once had of either of his component halves. He didn’t just take away Stepper’s memories of Steven and Dipper. He took away their very identities altogether.”
This information hit all three of the Gems hard, each of them stunned into silence as they tried to make sense of such a horrific thought. The thought that Steven and Dipper were far more lost than they ever could have realized.
“His gem,” Garnet spoke first, her tone tight and barely restraining the tranquil fury she was feeling. “That’s why it’s still cracked. The fountain may have healed the worst of it, but it couldn’t restore what he’s lost. Without that journal, without Steven and Dipper… Stepper is incomplete.”
“I-Incomplete?” Stepper interjected, alarmed by the very implication.
“That’s bound to be what’s keeping him from unfusing too…” Ford noted gravely. “There’s nothing left for him to unfuse into.”
“But I already told you all,” Stepper attempted to speak up. “I can’t-”
“But,” Ford cut him off as he began running with another, much more hopefully theory. “If we were to get his journal back to him, then there’s reason to believe that might be enough to restore his knowledge of his halves, fix his gem, and help him unfuse all in one fell swoop.”
“Whoa, hold on-” Stepper tried to break into the conversation once again, but by this point he’d all but been forced out of it entirely.
“So what?” Amethyst asked. “Are we just supposed to take a trip into the Nightmare Realm and beat the bricks outta Bill until he hands the book back over to us?”
Ford sighed, far from keen on the idea of venturing back to a place he had such awful memories of, even if he knew such a trip was extremely necessary now. “At this point, I’m not sure what other options we have…”
“B-but… how would we even get to the Nightmare Realm?” Pearl asked, daunted by the very thought of facing off against Bill in his domain. “The portal’s gone, a-and that rift…”
“We can’t risk that,” Ford quickly shot the idea down. “But we could always use the rift’s energy signature to lock onto the Nightmare Realm’s location… All we’d really need to get there is a makeshift wormhole stabilizer to create a temporary portal that would be up just long enough to get us in and out of Nightmare Realm, a few hours in our time at the very most.”
“Well… that shouldn’t be completely out of the question…” Pearl mused. “After all, we did send Peridot and Lapis back to the barn to salvage whatever materials they could from the drill, right, Garnet?”
The Gem leader nodded, her future vision, even as spotty as it had been during this entire situation, thankfully proving serviceable and spot-on in this instance. “I knew doing that would come in handy.”
“W-wait, can we just… slow down for a minute?” Stepper asked, taking a step forward in the hope that he wouldn’t go unnoticed this time. “Didn’t you say this Bill guy is really dangerous? If that’s true, then why would you want to go and pick a fight with him?”
“Uh, weren’t you listening, dude?” Amethyst asked, hands on her hips. “We gotta get your journal back!”
“That’s right,” Ford nodded, resolved. “It might be the only way for us to help you, Stepper.”
“Help me?” Stepper asked with a small scoff. “How would any of you risking your lives help me?!”
“It could help you remember who you are,” Garnet explained evenly, even though she was the first to pick up on the fusion’s rising frustration. “Who you’re supposed to be.”
As the Gem leader reached out a hand to place on his shoulder, Stepper harshly pulled himself out of her reach. “I am who I’m supposed to be!” he protested hotly. “That’s what I keep trying to tell everyone, but none of you will listen to me!”
“S-Stepper, please, don’t get upset,” Pearl said cautiously. “We know you don’t remember who Steven and Dipper are right now, but if you did, then you’d understand that they’re what makes you you.”
“No, they’re not!” Stepper countered, all four of his hands in tight fists. “How many times do I have to tell you? I am not a fusion! I’m especially not a fusion of two people I don’t even know!”
“Uh, yeah, you are,” Amethyst argued with a scowl.
“I’m not!” Stepper retorted bitterly. “Do any of you realize just how unfair all this is to me?! You all are asking me to be someone I know I’m not! Someone I can’t be because the only thing I know how to be is myself!”
“Stepper, that’s enough,” Garnet said, her tone as cold as ice. “You’re being irrational. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying!” Stepper accused, absolutely livid by this point. He knew he was going too far, he knew the ground he was standing on was shaky at best, but he couldn’t help it, he wouldn’t stop. He was tired of being silenced and refused to let his own voice go unheard any longer. “Even if I ever was a fusion, which I’m not, I don’t know who Steven and Dipper are! And I won’t let you all sacrifice yourselves just so you can force me to become who you think I should be! Why won’t any of you just let me have a say in what happens to me?!”
“Because, Stepper, you just… don’t understand,” Ford shook his head dismissively. “You don’t have the complete picture, you don’t know-”
“I know plenty,” Stepper hissed intensely. “I know who I am. I know who I want to be. I may not have a lot of memories right now, but I want to make more! I want to see so many things, I want to do so much, I want to become someone on my own. I-I don’t want to be Dipper or Steven or whoever else you keep trying to tell me I am. I want to be Stepper. I want to be me.”
“Stepper, you can’t stay like this,” Garnet insisted, her tone severe and stern. “You’re cracked, damaged, in gem, body, and mind. You will never be whole as long as you exist as you are now.”
“You’re wrong!” Stepper shouted, furious as he felt like the others were all backing him into a corner. A corner he would not let them trap him into, not anymore. “I can be whole, I am whole! Why can’t any of you just see that?! Oh, I know, it’s because you’re all so obsessed with Dipper and Steven, whoever they are, to the point that I don’t even matter, right?!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Pearl chastised, though her voice was trembling even as she said it. “You do matter to all of us, Stepper, but-”
“But only because you think I’m them,” Stepper surmised crossly, glaring away from all of them. “Well, I’m only going to say this one more time: I am not them. And even if there’s a chance I ever was them, I’m not going back to being them, ever! I’m staying just like I am, and if that means Steven and Dipper are gone, then… then I guess they’re just gone! For good!”
Before any of the others could even try to argue with this, the sudden clamor of shattering glass abruptly cut through the tension of the room. Everyone was quick to turn to the gift shop entrance, only to find Mabel standing in the threshold, the spilled remains of the now broken breakfast plate she’d dropped on the floor lying at her feet. Yet even so, her sights were set on Stepper and Stepper alone, tears brimming in her eyes as even more continued to fall over everything she’d just heard. Her grief-stricken expression alone struck Stepper with more guilt and remorse than he could have ever thought possible, especially since he knew there was no way he could take back what Mabel had just overheard now. Even if he actually wanted to.
Even so, Mabel didn’t say a single word, instead choking out a heavy, sorrowful sob as she turned and ran, rushing down the hall to get as far away from the fusion as possible. Stepper gasped, making an instinctual move to hurry after her, though he stopped short before he could even leave the gift shop upon noticing all of the other sets of eyes watching him all the while. By all accounts, Ford seemed completely shellshocked, Amethyst sharing the same speechless sentiment. Garnet’s mouth was pressed into a tight, thin, clearly angry line, while Pearl clung onto her arm, her own mouth covered to suppress a mournful sob to match the tears streaming down her cheeks. Stepper tensed, unsure of what to say to any of them at a moment like this. Because really, he’d already said more than enough by now.
So instead, he did largely the same thing Mabel already had and retreated, pressing past the group as he ran out of the shack entirely. He had no idea if any of them tried to stop him, and he largely didn’t care. He just needed to go, to escape, to get away from all of the expectations, all of the pressure, all of the guilt he couldn’t bear to shoulder any longer.
He found himself heading up the hill toward the temple, not on purpose, but out of a simple desire to be alone. He had thought to go after Mabel, though he had a high suspicion that she was just about the last person he’d probably want to see right now. So instead, he went off on his own, his thoughts constantly washing over each other like waves lapping onto a shore. As much as his guilt still overwhelmed him, so too did plenty of other emotions: confusion, sadness, concern, exhaustion, but above all else, there was conflict. A sense of uncertainty that plagued him almost constantly now as he continued to wonder what came next. Or rather, what might become of him.
He wasn’t a fusion, he wasn’t Steven or Dipper. He knew that. He was certain of that. And yet… that certainty still left so many gaps in who he actually was compared to who he wasn’t. He knew he was Stepper… and that was about it. An undeformed identity that he wanted to claim as his own, even if he didn’t know how. A life that he wanted to lead, even if he couldn’t see where that life might be going. Someone who he wanted to be, even if no one else wanted him to be that.
The mid-morning sun was crisp and warm as it shined upon his face, yet even in its radiance he felt strangely cold. Empty. Incomplete, just as they’d called him before. Something was wrong, something was missing, he knew that. He just didn’t know exactly what that something actually was. And amidst that conflict, amidst all of the countless thoughts washing up onto the shore of his unsettled mind, he strangely found himself compelled to voice those thoughts in a way that felt undoubtedly familiar, even if he had no memory of doing so before. Still, he sang anyway, his mind aching and his heart breaking with each and every word of his melancholy tune.
“I’m someone, I’m no one, I’m me,” he began, his voice smooth yet sad as he strolled up the hill ahead of him. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be… They want me to give up myself, and then just become someone else…”
He let out a small, bitter sigh at this, the arguments Ford and the Gems had put forth stinging him even still. Even so, he couldn't help but feel some form of sympathy for their plight. Whoever Steven and Dipper actually were, Stepper could tell they were important to the others based on how adamant everyone was about getting them back. Certainly, if anyone he cared about that much had been ripped away from him, he would have likely felt the exact same way as they did. Though perhaps not to the extent of forcing someone else to become someone they weren’t.
“I wish that I knew them, I do.” And it was true. He would have loved to know who those boys actually were, perhaps even befriended them based on how highly everyone seemed to think of them. Even if he felt like he barely knew a single thing about either of them. “They’re sorry they lost them, me too. But someone else is to blame, for memories that I still can’t claim.”
Memories of people, of places, of events he hadn’t been a part of, of things he had no context for. People like Greg and Pacifica and Lapis, all of whom seemed quite nice, but he didn’t know, or at least he hadn’t until now. Places like the Nightmare Realm, of what happened there, something that, even for as filled with as many holes as it was, what holes had been filled shook him to his very core with fear. Events that Mabel tried telling him about, weaving together into a grand, epic story he wasn’t a character in, but he wanted to be, he strived to be. And yet, no one else seemed to want that along with him.
“I’m no one that they want around.” By now, all four of his arms were wrapped around him in a loose hug as he continued to approach the temple, knowing he’d find some much-needed solitude there. “They’re someone I still haven’t found. I’m me but I’m not what they need. ‘I’m them’ but I’m not sure I agree.”
He entered the house, his song still spilling out of him as he stepped into its quiet atmosphere, bereft of any of the Gems as they remained down at the house. Unsure of what else to do there, he climbed onto the loft, finding a small bedroom setup there, decorated with plenty of personality to spare. What caught his eye however, was the collection of photographs resting above the bed, each of them framed as they depicted several faces Stepper recognized, from the Gems, to Mabel, to Connie, and then of course, there was Steven and Dipper, just like they were in the photograph he pulled out of his vest to compare. Their smiles still bright, their eyes brimming with life, their identities a complete and utter mystery to him, just as they’d always been from the very start.
“I want to be someone, but I can’t keep pretending to try,” He continued examining that photograph as he laid out on the bed before him, one that, just like the one he’d slept on last night, was far too small for him to fully fit on. “That their pieces fit into mine. Pieces I’m trying to find.”
He sighed in resignation, his sorrowful song starting to come to an end as he laid that photograph on his chest and closed his eyes in contemplative reflection. Reflection over an identity that still evaded him, a mystery he still hadn’t solved and likely never would.
“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be-”
“So I’m someone, I’m no one…”
“I’m me…”
He opened his eyes, letting out another solemn sigh as he did. He held the photo up again, staring at the boys depicted in it almost as if they were his own reflection. And if what everyone else kept saying was actually true, then they might as well have been. “...What am I going to do…?” he whispered to the picture, even though he knew it couldn’t possibly give him the answers he was seeking.
And yet, that didn’t mean something else couldn’t. Stepper gasped in alarm, bolting upright on the bed as his gem, even as fractured and dull as it currently was, suddenly began to gently glow. That same glow overtook the large, star-bearing door on the far side of the house, and in an instant, that door slid open to reveal whatever lay beyond it. Confused, Stepper climbed down the loft, taking in first glimpses he got of the strangely pink expanse on the other side of the door, one that he couldn't help but step through to get a better look.
“H-hello? Is anyone in here?” he called as he emerged into what looked like an endless forest, though by far the strangest one he’d ever seen. The trees towered far beyond what he could see, creating a canopy of leaves that were all inexplicably pink, just as much as the trunks of those trees and the almost cloudlike ground at his feet were. The entire wood was dead silent, yet mystically calm and peaceful, coming across as some sort of safe haven he couldn’t help but step further into, not even noticing as the temple gate sealed itself shut before disappearing entirely behind him.
For a while, he simply walked around aimlessly, weaving between the towering trees as he listened to that void of silence echo all around him. Yet even still, that silence gave him no reprieve from his endless torrent of raging thoughts, each of which consumed him, taunted him, tore away at him to the point that he could see no semblance of peace, not even here, away from it all.
He shook his head, glancing down at the photograph in his hand once more. And as he did, he couldn’t help but wonder what those boys were really like. Who they really were to begin with. Because maybe if he knew them, then perhaps he’d finally understand exactly why everyone was striving and struggling to get them back in the first place. “...I just wish I could actually meet both of you…” he muttered despondent as he began to put the picture away.
Yet as he did, the pastel pink clouds at his feet suddenly began to shift, several of them swirling in from between the trees to take some sort of shape before him. Or rather, two shapes, each becoming more and more distinct with each passing second until they took on the fully-formed, fully-colored appearance of two boys: one with dark curly hair and a pink shirt bearing a large star and the other clad in a pine tree cap and a dark blue vest.
Stepper gasped, stunned as he took a small step back from the pair, even as they both opened their eyes and offered him mutually friendly smiles and a unified warm greeting. “Hi, Stepper!”
At first, Stepper had no idea what to say as he looked between the two boys standing before him, the photograph he had of them finally slipping out of his hand entirely as he somehow managed to speak to them. “S-Steven? D-Dipper?”
“Yeah!” Steven chimed, his tone bright and warm. “Who else would we be?”
“Are you ok, Stepper?” Dipper asked, his smile less wide but still apparent as he raised a curious eyebrow.
Stepper shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he leaned up against the nearest tree. “I… I can’t believe it…” he whispered. “You’re… both actually here…”
“Yeah, we are!” Steven chuckled, as if what Stepper had just said was the funniest thing in the entire world.
“Why wouldn’t we be here?” Dipper asked, his hands in the pockets of his vest. “You wanted to see us, after all.”
“R-right…” Stepper nodded weakly, though he was quickly reinvigorated by a newfound idea. “Wait… you’re here. You… you aren’t gone! I-I could take you both back and I could finally show everyone that I’m me and not you!” Without any warning, Stepper grabbed both boys by the arm and began to drag them along through the woods. “C’mon! They’ll all be so glad to see you again, especially Mabel. She-”
Stepper froze as the boys’ hands fell out of his grip simultaneously. And at the same time, another flash, pain sparking from his gem, all throughout him as his thoughts went wild, rampant with things he had once said, with senseless sentences he didn’t understand.
“We could do this--we could win this!” “I’m sorry!” “Maybe you should just break things off with me…” “I don’t want to break away from you!” “You mean so much to me!”
“You stayed with me… so I’m staying with you…”
Once again, it was over far too quickly. There were pink cracks spreading to his lower hands now, but he hardly noticed them as he turned to see the boys standing behind him, both of their bodies glitching out even as they retained their upbeat smiles. “W-what?” Stepper reached toward them both, only for his hands to pass right through them as immaterial as they both currently were. With a gasp, he pulled away, and sure enough, both boys finally stabilizing as if nothing had even happened, to give him another refrain of their first hello. “Hi, Stepper!”
“Y-you… you’re not… real… are you?” Stepper guessed, his heart sinking as he already figured out the answer.
“Uh… of course, we’re real,” Dipper said, apparently confused. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Yeah, we’re you, remember?” Steven asked, still wearing that constant knowing smile.
“N-no,” Stepper began, his voice shaking as he collapsed against the tree once more. His upper hands were pressed tightly into his hair, his mind and heart both raging against each other in a storm, a hurricane he had absolutely no control over. “No, I don’t remember. I don’t remember you, I don’t remember being you!” With a heavy, agonized sob, he fell to his knees, to the soft, cloudy “ground” below him, his lower hands covering his face as he wept miserably. “I… I’m not you… I’m NOT… I’m… I…” His tears fell onto all four of his hands as he held them out to look at them mournfully, scornfully really. “I don’t know who I am… I don’t even know what I am...”
For what seemed like ages, the only thing that could be heard echoing through the pink trees was the sound of Stepper’s continued sobs, each one wracked with despair over an identity he’d never get to have, over the life he knew he’d never lead. When those sobs were finally interrupted however, Steven was the first one to do it. “We know what you are…” he said, his voice soft as he took one of Stepper’s hands and held onto it gently.
“You’re our fusion,” Dipper added as he grabbed another hand.
“You are us…” Steven agreed just as affirmatively.
“No…” Stepper whimpered as he averted the pair’s intent gaze. “I… I’m not, I… I can’t be, I don’t even know who either of you are, I’m not-”
“Stepper,” Dipper spoke up as his grip on Stepper’s hand tightened. “Look at us. You may not remember us, but… deep down, I think you do know the truth.”
“Don’t you see?” Steven whispered warmly as he lifted his shirt up a bit. And there, resting squarely on his stomach, was the exact same pink gemstone that was sitting on Stepper’s own. “We’re the same. We are you. And you’re us.”
“I-I… I’m your fusion…” Stepper repeated with a dawning sense of realization as he looked at Steven’s gemstone. As he looked at Dipper’s clothes. As he looked at both of their faces and finally took note at just how similar both of them looked to his own. As he finally figured out that he wasn’t his own person at all. He never had been, not even for a single second. “A-and that’s all I am…” his sobs were softer now, still sad, but largely resigned to this fact. To the loss of any hope he might have once had that he could have been something more. “That’s all I’ve ever been… Only a fusion… all this time…”
“Only a fusion?” Dipper asked, incredulous. “You’re way more than just a fusion!”
“That’s right!” Steven readily agreed. “Whether we’re fused or not, you’re a part of us, Stepper. A very special part of us!”
“Yeah, you’re like… the living embodiment of our friendship,” Dipper explained as both him and Steven took a step closer to their fusion.
“You represent the bond between us,” Steven added kindly. “And that’s not nothing. It’s something so important to both of us! It’s what makes you who you are!”
“B-But… I don’t even remember that bond…” Stepper muttered, tears still in his eyes as he shook his head remorsefully. “I don’t remember your friendship, I… I don’t remember either of you… I-I… I feel like I barely even remember me…”
“You will,” Dipper assured with a confident smile. “And don’t worry about what happens after you do. Because as long as we exist, then so will you.”
Stepper sighed, his tears finally stilling themselves as he suddenly pulled both Dipper and Steven close in a much-needed hug, one that they gently returned. Because even if neither of them were actually real, this had been all of the proof he needed to know that they once had been. That they could be real again. “And as long as I exist,” he promised, knowing that wherever the real Dipper and Steven were, whether locked tight away inside his mind or somewhere else entirely, they’d hear his newfound vow somehow. “Then you will too.”
And then they were gone, dissipated into the very clouds they had both been composed of, nothing more than an empty memory he didn’t have. A memory that he at last knew was actually his, a memory he knew he had to reclaim. A memory he was going to reclaim.
Even if he had to rip his shield journal out of Bill Cipher’s hands himself.
He found Mabel in the woods, not too far away from the Mystery Shack. She sat against a wide tree, her legs and her face both buried into her sweater as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly. Stepper knew she’d been out there for a few hours, at least, and even still, she was inconsolable, understandably so after the horrible things he’d said earlier. Still, he was resolved to set this wrong right first, in the hopes that it would be the start of fixing many more on the difficult road ahead.
“M-Mabel?” he began, carefully taking a seat on the ground next to her. She didn’t even bother to look up at him as she instead pulled her sweater tighter around herself, hoping to block him out even more than she already had. Yet even so, he was determined to reach her all the same. “I… I’m sorry…” he said with a remorseful sigh. “What I said before, I… I wasn’t thinking, I-” He cut himself off, realizing just how insufficient his apology was really proving to be as Mabel showed no signs of responding to it. So instead, he opted to go in an entirely different direction instead. “Mabel, can… can you tell me more about them?”
Caught off guard by this question, Mabel finally glanced up, tears streaking down her cheeks as she looked to him curiously. “A-about who?” she asked softly, sadly.
“Dipper and Steven,” he answered, managing a small smile as he said their names. “You’ve already told me so much about who they know and what they’ve done, but… I still don’t feel like I really know much about who they are. So…?”
“Y-you want to hear about them?” Mabel sniffled, wiping away a few of her tears on the sleeve of her sweater. “Really?” Stepper nodded, his smile widening just a bit as he urged her onward. And so she gave him what he asked for in the best way she knew how. “W-well… Steven is… h-he’s just about the nicest person you could ever meet. He’s friendly and helpful and so much fun. He likes Crying Breakfast Friends and Ducktective and donuts and Lion and… he always helps people whenever they need it, no matter who they are.”
“He sounds like a pretty great person to know,” Stepper mused fondly.
“Yeah…” Mabel glanced away, her cheeks warm with an affectionate blush as she thought of the young Gem. “He is… He’s… one of my best friends… I kind of wish he was maybe a bit more than that, but… that’s fine… we’re fine...”
“What do you mean?” Stepper asked, confused.
“N-nothing, it’s nothing,” Mabel shook her head with a small, wistful sigh. A sigh over what she knew could never be ever if they did manage to get Steven back. “Still, Steven is… well, he’s a real gem. Get it?”
“Yeah,” Stepper chuckled. “I think I do. So what about Dipper then?”
Mabel’s smile faded into returning grief at this. “Dipper…” she whispered, her tears coming back in full force as she suppressed a mournful sob over the brother she’d lost.
“You said he’s your brother… right?” Stepper asked, hesitantly.
Mabel nodded, holding back her tears to at the very least honor him by telling his story. “H-he’s my twin,” she corrected quietly. “My one and only bro-bro, the best one I could ever ask for… He’s a total nerd, but he’s brave, great with a sword, and he’s stubborn, oh gosh, is he stubborn! He’s probably the smartest person I know, or at least I think he is, and that’s saying something since I know people like Grunkle Ford and Pearl and Peri. But most of all… I know that no matter what… Dipper’s always there for me. He’s always got my back. Dipper and Steven both do… I-I… I miss them…”
Mabel finally broke down into another heartbroken sob, pulling her knees close to her chest in a renewed hug as she fruitlessly tried to chase that heartbreak away. And while Stepper wanted to comfort her with a secure embrace of his own, he decided to offer her another form of comfort instead. “I… I want to remember them…” he admitted, his voice soft, barely even a whisper as he said it.
“W-what…?” Mabel asked, not sure if she’d heard him right.
“I want to remember them,” Stepper said again, his tone firmer this time. “I want to be them again. For you, for them, a-and for me.”
“But, S-Stepper, I… I thought you wanted to be… you know… just you,” Mabel pointed out, briefly glancing away from the fusion.
“I do,” Stepper confirmed with a warm, confident smile. “And Steven and Dipper, well… they’re who I am. So as long as they’re together, then… I’ll always be me. Right?”
Mabel nodded, choking on a small, yet happy whimper this time as she leapt at the fusion, pulling him into a tight, grateful hug. “Thank you, Ste-bro,” she whispered, practically dreaming of the moment she’d get to see Dipper and Steven as they truly were once more.
Stepper smiled, easily returning her embrace as he solidified his resolve. He would do whatever he had to to keep that genuine smile on Mabel’s face. He would do whatever he had to go back to being who he had always been meant to be. “You’re wel-!” Stepper cut himself off with a gasp that bordered more on a scream, a sharp wave of sudden agony overtook his entire form. And this time, it was no mere flash, it was a torrent, a flood that overwhelmed his ever sense as pain flushed out from his gem to every single fiber of his being it seemed.
“Stepper!” Mabel cried, terrified as the fusion suddenly collapsed out of her arms onto the forest floor. His body seized up with yet another burst of unbearable anguish, the cracks that had once only surrounded his stomach expanding their reach to the rest of his body as his vibrant pink eyes flashed brightly, erratically. His gemstone also flashed, dangerously so as even more color seemed to drain from it, as his face grew pale and beleaguered by the intense, yet strangely familiar anguish he had found himself engulfed in completely out of nowhere. “Stepper, w-what’s going on?! What’s wrong?!” Mabel asked, gripping one of his arms tightly as he wrapped them around himself.
“I-I… I don’t know…” Stepper breathed tensely, another paid groan escaping him as his gem shot another burst of agony through him. “I-it… it won’t stop…”
Needless to say Mabel was panicking every bit as much as Stepper himself was, but even so she knew there wasn’t any time to waste. “C-come on,” she urged, slowly and carefully helping him properly sit up. “We gotta get you back to the shack.” Stepper didn’t argue, largely because he couldn’t as burdened by his lingering pain as he was. It was an immense struggle for him to even stand, but with a bit of doing he managed it, largely leaning against Mabel for support as they both began to inch their way back toward the shack, both of them awash in fear and dread for whatever could possibly befall the already tormented fusion next.
“Is it finished yet?” Lapis asked impatiently as she continued pacing around the author’s room. Garnet, Amethyst, and Stan also stood by, anxiously watching as Ford, Pearl, and Peridot continued tinkering away at their latest invention. An invention that could, if all went right, get them to the Nightmare Realm and back with an all-too-important journal in hand.
“It’s almost there…” Peridot noted as she checked over the readings on her tablet once more. “It seems as though we’ve locked onto the exact location of Cipher’s dimension after all. Where exactly did you get these coordinates from, Stanford?”
Ford flinched at this, looking to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, who only glared away from him bitterly in response. “Uh… l-lucky guess,” he answered quickly, falsely. “Now, let’s review the plan. Peridot’s going to stay behind to monitor the machine in case anything goes awry. Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and I will venture through our temporary displacement portal into the Nightmare Realm and-”
“Not without me, you’re not,” Lapis interrupted rigidly. “I’m not about to stay behind and let that Cipher guy get away with what he did to Dipper and Steven. He’s going to pay, I’ll make sure of that.”
The others all looked to Lapis in sligh concern at such a vicious threat, though it wasn’t really one any of them could argue with. After all Bill had done, there was no denying they all wanted to see him finally be brought to justice too. “V-very well then,” Ford nodded. “Then myself, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Lapis will-”
“I’m coming too,” Stan suddenly spoke up, his expression solid and resolved as he stepped forward.
“Stanley, no, you can’t-”
“Can it, Ford,” Stan cut his brother off with a scowl. “Dipper’s my nephew too, you know. And neither him or Steven deserved what that creep did to ‘em. So I’m with frills here,” he nodded over to Lapis. “Let’s make this guy wish he’d never messed with our boys.”
“Yeah! Let’s get him!” Amethyst cheered in uproarious support.
Garnet and Pearl also nodded their consent, leaving Ford with no choice but to agree. “Fine,” he said, stepping away from the now-finished machine. “I think it’s ready. But we still need to-”
“Help!” Mabel’s urgent cry rang through the shack, catching everyone’s attention instantly. “Please! I-it’s Stepper! Something’s wrong with-” Before she could even finish, the Gems were all already at the door she’d barely managed to pull Stepper in through before the fusion completely collapsed in pain, far too weak and worn to keep himself upright anymore.
“W-what’s wrong with them?!” Lapis asked in apt alarm as Garnet rushed in to lift the languishing fusion into her arms. “What happened?!”
“I-I don’t know!” Mabel shook her head fearfully. “He was fine one second and then-”
“T-the cracks on his skin are back…” Pearl noted anxiously. “Could that mean his gem’s condition is getting… worse somehow?”
“Uh, his gem still looks like it did before,” Amethyst noted worriedly. “Ya know, aside from the whole flashing thing. T-that’s pretty new.”
“A-and concerning…” Peridot agreed with a fretful frown.
“It’s not his gem,” Garnet theorized as she properly picked Stepper, who was largely out of it by this point, up. “It must be his memories.”
“His shield journal!” Ford interjected as him and Stan joined the group that was already making their way back to the author’s room. “I’ll bet anything that Bill’s probably doing something to it even as we speak. I hate to even think about it, but for all we know he could be… damaging it, and who knows what that might be doing to Stepper in turn.”
“Then that means there’s no time to waste,” Garnet said as she began to set Stepper’s listless form on the nearby couch. “We’ve got to go get that journal back now, before it’s too late. Peridot, open the portal up.”
“B-but we haven’t even had time to test it yet!” Peridot protested apprehensively as she lingered near the machine’s controls.
“Who cares?!” Lapis shot back. “Dipper and Steven’s lives could be at stake! We’ve just gotta risk it!”
“Y-yeah!” Mabel agreed as she stayed close to Stepper’s side. “W-we’ve gotta go get his journal! We have to help him remember! He wants to remember now, r-right, Stepper?”
At this, Stepper opened his eyes, still dully glowing pink as he forced himself to sit up, even though his body protested with pain that still refused to go away. “Y-yes…” he said, his voice rough and tired, yet somehow firm and determined all the same. “I-I… need to remember them… I need my journal back…” He was shaking as he stood, though as he nearly fell one more, Garnet barely managed to catch him and hold him upright just in time. “W-we have to go… I… I have to go…”
“No, absolutely not,” Ford resiliently rejected the fusion’s resolve. “That’s completely out of the question, Stepper. You can’t possibly go back to the Nightmare Realm after what Bill-”
“I-it’s my journal,” Stepper protested, refusing to wait on the sidelines any longer. “Those are my memories… D-Dipper and Steven are me… a-and I’m going to get all of them back… n-no matter what happens…”
“That’s right,” Mabel solidly agreed, grabbing one of Stepper’s lower hands in complete support for this mission. “And this time, I’ve got your back, Ste-bro.”
Stepper offered her a thankful smile at this, though even so, the pair was still met with resistance from the others. “Kids, we appreciate your bravery, but this is far too dangerous for you,” Pearl shook her head. “You both need to stay here with Peridot where it’s safe. We’ll be back with the journal before you know it.”
“But-”
“No,” Garnet cut both of them off as she went to join the others near the machine. “You’re both staying here. That’s final.”
Neither Stepper nor Mabel had time to argue as Peridot flipped the switch on the machine, a bright light sparking around its central hub. From that light, a portal was quick to open up, bright and vibrant even as it connected to the dreadful place they all knew that had to go: the Nightmare Realm. “Is everyone ready?” Ford asked the others, all of whom had either taken up or summoned their weapons for whatever fray laid before them. “Good. Then let’s go.”
Knowing the portal would only remain open for a short window of time, the group marched onward into it, all six of them unflinchingly ready to face the dream demon and retake what he had stolen. However, as the last of them passed through the portal, Stepper and Mabel exchanged a brief nod, both of them prepared to act on the exact same idea as they ran forward toward the portal as it began to close.
“W-wait!” Peridot shouted the moment she realized what the pair was doing, but by then it was too late.
Because just before the portal could disappear out of existence entirely, Stepper and Mabel both leapt through it together, disregarding any sort of orders the adults had given them. They were going to face the Nightmare Realm, to face Bill Cipher himself, no matter how daunting or dangerous such a struggle might become.
And as far as Stepper was concerned, he wasn’t about to come back until he had finally remembered exactly who he was supposed to be.
To be continued...
Next:
#jen writes#universe falls#steven universe#gravity falls#crossover#au#fanfic#memories#rmd#stepper#mabel#garnet#amethyst#pearl#ford#stan#greg#lapis#peridot#pacifica#lion#soos#wendy#steven#dipper#keyword is stepper#on point huh?#anyway again dont read this on here pls#formatting is a bitch
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Bird Watching [Stan Uris]
A/n: Hi, this is my first imagine! Feedback is very much appreciated! Hope you enjoy!
***
“Y/n, what do you want?”
“Wow, Stan, charming. I was going to come bird watching with you!” You stood, looking expectantly at Stan, binoculars dangling from your neck and a small smile on your face. Stan had to admit, you did look at least a little cute, bouncing on your toes, hoping upon hope that he would give you the answer you were looking for. The problem was that you were a very excitable person. Even you could admit that. Always rambling, always laughing, always smiling. You could say that you were the quite opposite of the mature and reserved Stanley. He packed his backpack, making sure he had all his birdwatching equipment, simultaneously trying to find a way to let you down gently. It’s not like Stan didn’t like you, he did. A lot, so much he surprised himself. It’s just that you weren’t built for bird watching. You must be quiet and focused, you were simply neither of those things. Amongst that Stanley feared that he wouldn’t be able to spend more than five minutes alone with you without managing to embarrass himself, his face would blush an impossible shade of red and he would start stuttering over every word he said, resembling that of his best friend Bill. Although he hadn’t admitted it to himself, it was obvious, he had a crush on you.
“Well that’s nice of you, Y/n. But I don’t think that you would enjoy it.”
“How come?” Stan paused at that, trying to choose his next words carefully, he didn’t want to hurt your feelings after all, he would feel awful if he did. Luckily, for him, Richie decided to step in.
“You can’t say or do anything, Y/n. You just have to sit there and shut up. Something you can’t do.” Stan didn’t think he had ever, and never would, thank Richie and his huge mouth but, apparently, today was that day. He still felt bad though, watching your face fall slightly at Richie’s unnecessarily harsh comment. Stan said nothing, he wished he could find something to say.
“Hey Y/n, why don’t we go into town, do some window shopping? I’ll buy us some ice cream!” Bev interjects, encouraging a slightly hurt Y/n. A smile brightens her face and Stan sighs in relief, Bev would be able to cheer her up.
“Are you buying us ice cream too, Bev?” Eddie asks, practically falling out of the hammock that he and Richie were squished into.
“No, this is a girl’s trip. You’re not invited.” She says, bluntly.
After much bickering, Y/n and Bev climbed the ladder of the clubhouse, Eddie in tow, infiltrating their girl’s trip out, Stan following them to make his way into the forest.
*
The next week, the losers went out to the cinema, not to watch anything in particular, but it was a Tuesday afternoon and it was pretty much empty. They get in to watch whatever’s on and then sit at the back, talking mostly. Making fun of the idiotic plot, the bad acting, the cringy dialogue, anything really. You made sure you sat next to Stan at the end of the aisle. You spoke to him mostly, sometimes leaning forward to answer a question directed at you. Stan could feel himself heating up. You were paying so much attention to him, hanging on to every word he said. It made him feel giddy inside, he was the centre of your attention, he didn’t think he’d been anyone’s centre of attention before.
That’s how it was for weeks. You gave your undivided attention to Stan. Always riding your bike next to his. You sat next to him in the clubhouse, listening intently as he flicked through his bird book, pointing out his favourite’s, usually the most beautifully coloured and majestic ones. Sometimes the other losers would joke that you were both ignoring them. It wasn’t true, of course, you weren’t ignoring them, purposefully anyway. You and Stan were just both in your own world.
Stan had started to think about you more and more. He had always liked you and thought you were the cutest person he’d ever met, but he’d never acknowledged his feelings for you until they hit him full force like a wall of bricks. He was laying on his bed arms behind his head and is bird book open on his chest. He had been trying to find more about Sandpipers, one of the most common birds found in Maine, and yet, he couldn’t. He just thought about you, and how interested you looked when he talked to you about Magpies and Thrushes and Hawks. He smiled, a rarity for him, and wondered whether you felt for him like he did for you. You did spend more of your time with him than the other losers, and you always wanted to hang out with him. You had even bought your own binoculars to go bird watching with him! Thinking about that, he felt even guiltier about not letting you go with him. You went through all the trouble, saving and spending your own money and he’d avoided taking you at all costs. Maybe I should take her, he thinks to himself, vowing to invite you on his next trip into the woods.
Meanwhile, you were also laying on your bed, your best friend Eddie spinning around on your desk chair, listening to you ramble.
“I mean, what else can I do, Eddie? I really like him, but I don’t think he’s getting the hint.”
“Why don’t you just ask him out? Then you’ll know.” He sighs, all he had heard about for the past month was Stan, and how much you liked Stan.
“No, I couldn’t do that! Maybe I should just forget it. It’s stupid to think he would like someone like me.” You sigh heavily. Manoeuvring your legs so that they lay propped up against the wall.
“The fuck do you mean by that?” Eddie stops spinning on the chair to look at you.
“I’m not is type. I’m too loud and…well, I guess I’m just too much for him. He won’t even let me go bird watching with him because I’d scare all of the birds away!” A frown etches its way onto your face.
“I really don’t think that’s the-”
“I’m not stupid, Eddie.” He says nothing, unable to help or lift the spirits of his friend.
The losers were back in the clubhouse the next day, the yearly Derry carnival had ended and there were no movies playing at the cinema. New Kids on the Block smoothly and quietly played from Ben’s stereo. He and Beverly, sat next to it, singing along. It provided background noise to Richie and Eddie’s incessant bickering whist Mike and Bill poured over a new book that Bill had bought the day before. Stan was packing his backpack once again, preparing for another bird watching trip. You sat, picking at the skin on your nails out of boredom. What would you do when Stan left?
Stan nervously picked up your binoculars, the ones that you had bought weeks ago, they had been left on a random table, collecting dust due to the lack of use. He brushes them off before walking over to you.
“I think you might need these,” You look up at him in confusion, but before you can ask why, he answers for you, “if you still want to go bird watching with me, of course.” You jump up, smiling, going to hug him before you refrain yourself. Stan was trusting you enough to let you go bird watching with him, so you wanted to prove that he made the right decision. Silently, you vowed to yourself to be quiet and respectful of the birds, and to not annoy him in anyway. The other losers had all stopped their conversations, even Richie and Eddie had stopped bickering, to watch the interaction unfold, the only being the low hum on Ben’s stereo playing the ‘Right Stuff’. You and Stan looked away from each other awkwardly, blushing madly.
The woods were quiet and serene as usual, the birds sang, and the branches rustled as the wind blew through them. Stan lead you to a small clearing, surrounded by trees and lighted by the sun. A large tree branch that had fallen now lay on the floor so you both sat upon it. Stan opened his backpack, pulling out both pairs of binoculars, his bird book, some water and chocolate.
“You thought of everything.” You say, as quietly as possible, smiling widely. Stan smiled too, appreciative of your compliment and your respect of the forest.
Every so often, Stan would spot a bird from his book. You, being a novice at bird watching, wasn’t as good, not even knowing where to look until Stan would place his hands over yours and guide the binoculars to where the bird was. You would giggle softly, apologising and shyly commenting on how beautiful the bird was. Stan would then tell you what kind it is, and a fact about it, before pushing the book toward you so you could see for yourself. He’d never thought about how fun bird watching would be with someone else, although he wasn’t sure whether he was only enjoying it more because you were there. With his binoculars still held up to his eyes, he turned towards you whilst you still looked through yours. This was his chance. His hear pounded in his chest, but he managed to stutter out,
“I think I just found the most beautiful specimen.”
“Ooh! Where?” You ask, head whipping around to face him. You didn’t think it was possible to feel so much elation inside of you, but when Stan lowered he binoculars and gave you a tiny smile, you swear you felt your heart soar like one of his Stan’s favourite birds. You raised your binoculars, looking at him through them.
“I think I’ve found him now.” He’s shocked for a moment, before he blushes, averting his gaze from you out of embarrassment. You both laugh awkwardly, unsure of what to do now after confessing your feelings. Stan looks back at you, grabbing your hand that lay in your lap. Squeezing your hand around his you both turn back to the woods, carrying on with the bird watching, wide smiles on your faces and love in your hearts.
#it chapter 1#it chapter 2#it 2017#it 2019#stan uris#stanley uris#stan x reader#stan fic#stan uris fic#stan uris x reader#wyatt oleff#andy bean#richie tozier#eddie kaspbrak#bill denbrough#mike hanlon#ben hanscom#beverly marsh#fanfiction#fanfic#stan uris imagine#the losers club
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Stan and Ford Pines: A Melancolic Story (Prologue)
Words: 3642 words approximately.
0: The Beginning
Ok, let's begin. Let's start with Filbrick's death: why not? Some crudeness is not going to affect you much.
The whole Pines family was at night. Filbrick driving in his car: an old but quite reliable one. A familiar car, of a dark blue, a color that in his golden age was the beauty canon of cars. Caryn, his wife was looking out the window, toward the street, without much interest, thoughtful. Maybe thinking about her work and the other lies that are credible enough that it doesn't sound like complete stupidity, pretending that she knows what she’s doing, even if she is only a scammer who pretends to be a telephone psychic. A fraud, but one quite effective for people desperate enough (or stupid, or ignorant, call it what you want) to turn to a person who knows nothing to predict prosperity and a world of roses. She argued a little with Filbrick about Stanley's performance at school, which turned ridiculously bad, to decent performance, something that only surprised Filbrick a little; something that barely responded with a sad "congratulations" after Stanley told him when they went to pick them up at school. Something that put Stan with a bad taste in his mouth, who expected a better reaction. His mother, on the other hand, gave him a big hug, and as a reward, he took him for a milkshake at his favorite restaurant. She remembers the conversation she had with him. Caryn also take Ford with her: she could invite them both. The milkshakes were pretty cheap, and Caryn order a tea. This is where it all starts.
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-You surprise me, darling. - said Caryn, looking at Stanley, who wore his white shirt with red stripes, while taking his milkshake. Beside him, Ford was trying to pick up a cherry that was at the bottom of his glass with the cigarette, without much success. -Now tell me: did you have to make a pact with a sect or a mystical being to get good grades?- Caryn asked, with a mocking tone in his question. Stan laughed, and Ford smiled a little with the comment. -Of course not, ma! - Stanley replied with a little shame and laughter in his voice. -I just had to ask my brother for help to study for the exams and pass even with a 6.- Stanley says. Wow. It’s the only thing Caryn can think; she knows his children very well, and knows that Stanley is quite proud, and would not ask anyone for help. She looks at Ford, who seems to regret, trying to go unnoticed, but it's too late for him. –Stanford Filbrick Pines: did you help your brother to study? There’s nothing you should be sorry for. On the contrary, you should feel very good about yourself.- She says, and Ford pretends he didn't hear anything, but his mother keeps looking at him. - Let's see young man, are you going to tell me the truth or not? - Caryn says, in a slightly more threatening tone of voice. –Ma, you don't have to ask him anything. It didn't help, he didn't care about it either. - Stanley said with a somewhat bitter smile, and taking his brother’s shoulder, to which he responded with a small smile. Caryn notes that Stan puts a very special emphasis on the word him. She don't need to think twice to know who it is. - “Then that was to see their father happy once and for all.” - She told for herself. Filbrick always has to be that way twenty-four hours a day. That explained Stan's behavior, which was first with Fil to tell him about his feat. -I'm sorry love, is that your father is ... - She tries to think of a word that can redeem her husband in the eyes of her children, but nothing comes out. –Mom, my brother is right: he doesn't care about anything or anyone. It seems that he does not care ... and it seems that we’re shit for him.- Ford said, with a certain face of resentment. Caryn opened her eyes wide, shocked. Ford was not expected at all - which was especially cultured in its vocabulary- to use an insult of that caliber. Although, sooner or later, age would make him see bad words as something normalized and without moral obstacles to use them. He is already twelve, for the love of all that is sacred. -Don't say that about your father, kiddo, let alone with that language! What happens to both of you? your behavior is very inappropriate of yours.- Caryn scolded . She doesn't know where he could have learned it, but she suspects a certain little person next to him at a restaurant table. Although Caryn must admit that her son really expressed himself in a way she did, she has also felt about her husband at many times. Except for the word "shit," of course. –Doesn’t matter. Ma, he isn’t surprised at anything. If you put him in front of an ancient creature from the depths of the ocean, he would not care, as if it were something as normal as reading the newspaper. - Stanley says with some hatred in his words, a nuisance that eats him. - It doesn't seem to matter to us. I wish he was even more affectionate with us. - He says finally, with a gloomy and sad look. He is disappointed, that is evident: both are. It seems that they both planned everything for their father to say something, even give them a hug, even if it is a sign of affection. A childlike dream, naive but with a good heart. She looks around as a way to focus and know what to say for those statements.
Caryn felt a little sad, because in the depths of his being he knew that what his children were telling him was true. He tried to find something to admire: the other clients, for example, sitting in large red leather chairs, just like them. Around there are several photos of very popular artists of the sixties: Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and the occasional star of years after the sixties. Like the good Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain and his grunge, and let's not forget his enmity with Axl Rose. But nothing of stars and celebrities after the 90's. She likes that restaurant because of that atmosphere - which is that of nostalgia and good art -: Caryn occasionally goes with her children and they are dedicated to find some other Hidden star somewhere in the restaurant. They enjoy it, since it’s a pretty fun game as far as it goes, and the food is pretty good. Caryn came back to reality and looked at his children: Stanley was resting his head on his hand, and Stanford was trying again to grab the cherry. -Pass it on: I'll try. - She says finally, and Ford passes him the glass. -Look and learn. - They both look at their mother, although Stanley remains in the same position, but has some interest. Caryn takes the cigarette, and begins to press the cherry, using the force of the other hand with the glass, pushing it, but does it gently so as not to cause a disaster. -Ma, I made the attempt that way and it won't work. - Ford says, with a somewhat serious smile. But Caryn , instead of doing the same, begins to spin the cigarette over the cherry, digging and making a hole first in the surface. Stop straining, and repeat the process, until the cigarette is well stuck in the cherry, and she checks if it is safe to take it out. He passes the glass to Ford. -Ready, all yours dwarf. - Caryn smiles at his son and puts the glass down. She takes her cup of tea, which was very hot when she arrived at the table, and took it. Peach tea: sweet and quite calm. Ford puts the cigarette in his mouth and takes out the fruit with his teeth and eats it, savoring the sweetness.
When she finishes her drink, Caryn takes out his card and pays by that means. She tells her children if they are ready to leave, and they both leave the table. She take Ford by the hand, seeing there what Caryn calls "his peculiarity." They leave the restaurant, feeling the heat of the summer sun, in the middle of a clear sky. It's already 5:42 in the afternoon, reminding Caryn that she should not postpone the purchase in the supermarket for the week. -Well, dwarfs, we have to go to the market right now to buy some things. – Caryn said, and sees on both sides of the street before cross. No car is coming, so the three pass. -Do you think you are strong enough to carry the bags, Stanley? - She asks, and he replies instantly: -Sure: I'm the strongest and most handsome son. - Stan flexes one of his arms, and Caryn laughs. Obviously, Stanley wanted to envy Ford in a joking way. -Hey, shut up! - Ford says laughing, punching his brother in the arm, who answers in the same way, both laughing out loud, and Caryn accompanies them inside.
-Hello? - Filbrick says , his voice raspy and tired. Maybe he had a long day at work at the pawnshop. Caryn listens to her husband's voice through the earpiece of her mobile phone, just outside of an Acme. –Hi sweetie. - Answers the woman who looks sideways at her children, who went to sit on a bench to wait, leaving at their feet the four shopping bags. - Caryn, you received about three calls from clients, and I answer it while you weren’t here. - Says Filbrick from the fixed phone they have at home. -Can I know where you three were? - Filbrick asks, in a bored but serious voice. She feels some anger towards her husband. Work, work, everlasting work. The woman imagines that in her husband's mind there’s only place for everything involved with that very tedious word: work. Can't she give them a reward for their merits (and also say, to take away the bad taste in their mouths)? –Well: congratulating my children as they deserve, Filbrick. - Caryn replied caustically, among disillusioned and angry. - It can be said that I did better than you. - Add as a subtle message that means: "something that you missed." Meanwhile, stunned and on the other side of the line, Filbrick tries to justify himself: -Oh well: if Stanley does better after summer, I promise to congratulate him better. For now, it remains the same as before. - Caryn ignites briefly, remaining a few seconds in silence. Trying not to raise her voice as a result of Fil's heartless phrase. Caryn says the following to give more clues to her husband, and make him to understand: –If you didn’t notice, Stan is getting better for you. He told me everything at 60's Celebrities: he even asked his brother for help to study and not have to go to summer school again. Don't you see that he told you especially to you so you can be proud of him? - She looks expectant at Filbrick's possible reaction, which is silent for the moment. As a mother, she has a predilection to notice the changes. It can be said that Caryn has done the twice of the work.
–Look: surely Stanley is just manipulating us both and he gets everything he wants. - -Speak clearly, okay? - Caryn doesn't understand what kind of action Stan can be doing to scam them. For a few seconds she feels proud of him (lying is something "given" in the family). -Would you think that Stan has become a saint overnight? You and I know that old habits don’t die. What if Ford knows somethin’? - Filbrick closes sharply. Caryn takes time to think about those words, and understands that Stanley might be lying. Caryn understands the words of Fil. Ford may be supporting him, maybe he convinced him in one way, or blackmailed him... no. But that’s completely impossible. Stanley couldn’t hurt his brother: with the times he has defended him at school and she finds out over the phone that Stanley was hit hard for that reason. That’s taking it to the extreme and in paranoia.
The mother abandons these conclusions, becoming defensive with her Stan: –Fine, I recognize it: Stan can be unruly, disobedient, but I don't think he would lie to me. And less could force his brother to say something that isn’t true. - Caryn says, trying to put a firm tone of voice, but only sounds insecure and doubtful. -Let's do something- She proposes. -: we will go on the day of the delivery of notes, and we will see if my Stanley tells the truth or not. Meanwhile, we cannot know for sure. - Caryn is between believing in her husband's theory that it’s more reasonable, or believing to his son, who affirms something that he cannot prove in the meantime. -I think its fine. For me, it sounds good. - Filbrick says, with a sincere and reasonable tone of voice, although a bit scrutinizing. Caryn tells him where they are, and that they wait for him at the exit of the Brick District supermarket. Wait a few minutes, and see her husband's car that’s already looking for parking. Upon arrival, Caryn kisses her husband with an empty kiss, although she is somewhat bored. -Well, we're leaving. - Filbrick says dryly, and with a look as a greeting, looks at his two children. -Stanley, give me those bags: I’ll carry them. - It doesn't sound like a question. -Don't worry. I’ll manage. - Says Stan, who looks serious and distant. He take the heaviest bags, and go to the car. Filbrick looks at him, and decides to help Caryn and Ford with some bags. They put everything in the trunk, getting in the car, and they leave. The twins put on their belts almost by inertia, an act that Caryn approves. Safety first.
All right. We return to where this story began to be told. The unique fact is that Filbrick has a few seconds to live. Of course, he doesn't know that.
Children play thumb fight in the back seat. Although Stanley tries to beat his brother, his opponent's fingers are faster. Caryn stops looking in the rearview mirror and looks at her husband, who’s wearing a formal straw-colored jacket, his hat, gray tie, navy blue shirt, perfectly tumbled shoes, and with his sunglasses. Wait ... it's already 7:40 at night, its dark, and anyone barely see a soul. How can you drive with those things on? “-Well- Think Caryn -, it doesn't matter. If Filbrick thinks he can see well with those things, there he. -” Fil for when it reaches a red traffic light. Caryn tries to analyze why her husband is wearing that to drive. However, nobody notices that on their left, there are two people on a motorcycle. They wouldn’t mind paying attention if they knew what they are capable of. The passenger gets off, and goes to the car. It is almost completely black, with a jacket and hood, black gloves with some pretty unnatural red details: they seem to have been added by a few drops of paint ... or blood. Boots and dark jeans.
The man goes with one hand in one of his pockets. They are close to residential buildings, about two hundred and thirty-three meters from the Glass Shard Beach. The stranger touches the car window with his knuckles, and at the moment when Filbrick turns his head to see what produced that sound. The criminal, as agile as they are, pulls out a weapon. A snubbed revolver, with a small mouthpiece and that does not lock when hidden in clothing. Aim at the children, who look at the deadly emptiness of the weapon. -This is an assault, get out of there! - Yells the criminal. Filbrick isn’t an idiot, and he was aware that he would be mugged someday. So he wisely picks up a copper mitt discreetly. Filbrick did not sell it in his pawnshop because it was a family inheritance, and he left it near a very well hidden corner, near the handlebar of changes, and went with the thief. The criminal was still targeting the children, but Stanley was protecting his brother with his body, a very noble act on his part. But neither of them would be shot.
In a distraction, the thief began to look at the children, about to laugh at the stupidity of that boy in a striped shirt. That mistake was terrible for him: Filbrick hit his face well, taking advantage of the distraction. The criminal inadvertently fired, and the flash lit the street, and several people began to go to their windows to see what caused the noise. Filbrick, believing he had knocked out the criminal, went for the driver of the motorcycle, who approached him with a razor. -Come on, you can! - Mumbled Stanley, who couldn’t deny his father's boldness. The criminal was going to stab him in the stomach, but Filbrick grabbed the enemy arm, pulled him and punched his nose, which broke, cracking. The criminal dropped the knife in its fall to the ground, and the edge gave off a small twinkle. Crouching down, the thief tried to grab his broken nose, which was also bleeding.
Filbrick went to the car, and was about to open the door and get out of there. His son Stanley was radiant: his father had saved them, saved him and his family, and he was very relieved that nothing happened to him. Filbrick could be a bad father any time: however, it’s his father. And he loves him because of that. Filbrick was furious. Adrenaline made him aware, and he was predisposed to save his family. He wasn’t afraid, and that was an incredible boldness. Stupid, but very daring. The first assailant was with a horrible pain in his jaw, although he remained standing despite the pain. The gun was close, so he grabbed it with tares. Filbrick saw nothing. –You fuckin’ bastard, take this! - The assailant was behind Filbrick, so he aimed at his back, being perfectly shot. Everyone in the car; Caryn, Ford and Stanley, saw the thief pull the trigger. –Pa, watch out! - The twins shouted in unison. But it didn't work.
There were three shots, some horrible and shrill sounds, which knocked at Filbrick’s back, who was propelled to the door of his car, and turning, to see how the thieves were fleeing. -Fuck, Joel, get the fuck up, we have to move! - The assailant shouted, and Joel, with a little difficulty, got on the motorcycle, and they fled at great speed. -Filbrick, oh my God! - Caryn shouted. She got out of the car and looked at her husband. The children were hugging, completely afraid. Filbrick was unrecognizable. His glasses and hat fall down, three holes were coming out of his shirt. His blood dripped from the driver's door. Filbrick was perspiring, and sweating a lot. He formed a face of agony. Caryn ran as fast as his heels allowed her. Now, all the residents were leaving their homes with fear and feet in dusty; some seeing from their windows everything that happened, still dumbfounded. "-God saint- They thought -: they shot a man-". Caryn knelt close to her husband, removing her jacket mitt. She took it and began to put pressure on the wounds without logic. -No, no, no, no, no ... Fil, no ... - Caryn said to himself. She was somewhat troubled, starting to tear and stutter. -Help, we need help, please! - Caryn was desperate, already losing her temper. A great mass of murmuring people had already gathered, which highlighted the occasional cry of terror for what they were seeing. -My God, someone call an ambulance! - Someone shouted from the crowd, and some people in the crowd began to take out their phones, some calling the police and telling everything that happened. Others, calling a hospital. A person from the crowd ran to help, helped Caryn keep up the pressure. While all this was happening, Ford, hugging his brother, saw his father: lying on the floor, bleeding, with trouble breathing. That broke his heart, and he began to cry inconsolably.
And beyond, about two hundred and thirty-three meters, on Glass Shard Beach, a piece of newspaper was fluttering. It flew in silence. It crashed into the entrance of a cave, which was covered by several planks, which have been painted over time. The wind (or destiny) was driving that piece of newspaper into the cave, and that piece gave way to wind power, entering through one of the holes. It slipped into an old wrecked ship, resting on the boat.
***
If you stayed until the end, I want to thank you very much. Remember that I do my best to bring a good story for you (remembering that I need to use online translator and proofreaders). Although, that doesnt mean that’s an excuse to give ya a product with errors. If you liked it, it would be very helpful if you gave it a Like and a Reblog. For now, I say goodbye. Salvete ignotum est a terra.
#fanfic#gravity falls#stanley pines#stanford pines#my writing#young stanford pines#young stanley pines#pines boys#stan twins#the original mystery twins#i don't know why i wrote something in latin at the end: maybe it looks pretty cool or pretencious#stan and ford pines: a melancholic story
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Key to the Jungle (Reddie AU): Chapter 1
A/N: This is my first Reddie fic that I’ve ever written, so I hope you guys enjoy! I hope to post once a week and I have predicted that it will be around 12 chapters. Dedicated to @j0ys for all the encouragement and being my first tumblr friend, I love ya.
Summary: Ecologist!Richie and Nature Photographer!Eddie. Eccentric Dr. Richard Tozier has graduated with his Ph.D in Ecology and was given grant money to conduct his own research in the Amazon basin. He gets a research team, one of them being the very talented nature photographer Eddie Kaspbrak of National Geographic. They could not have predicted the beauty and chaos of the adventures that will ensue.
Pairings: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak, eventually Stan Uris x Bill Denbrough
Word Count: 2,647 words
Warnings: Vulgar language; future chapters will contain angst and NSFW scenes
Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4
// Link to Read on Ao3 //
[Chapter 1: Preparation]
[Friday, February 21, 2018]
The sun was searing bright in the dead center of the sky, as 1:00 PM was signalled by the aggressive pings going off on Richie’s watch. He hurriedly wrestled with papers, and their accompanied color coordinated post-it notes threatening to fly off, as he jostled them into his shoulder bag that he threw over his head and trotted down the hall from his office to meet with Stan about this upcoming Tuesday. And he knew that if he was even a few minutes late, Stan was going to grumble and roll his eyes into the next dimension. The good ol’ Stanley Uris eye roll, ladies and gentlemen. There was something special about Stan’s signature eye rolls: they were comically dramatic and looked borderline painful, but left you feeling disappointed in yourself even if you did abso-fucking-lutely nothing wrong. Well Richie had quite the reputation of being late, even as a part time professor, and he was making a solid effort to improve his habits.
He rounded the corners of the university’s biology department halls with little to no grace and excitedly threw open Stan’s office door with a loud *THUD* knocking off a poster that had been pinned to the back of the door. He was a mess of frizzy black curls, sporting a toothy grin extending from ear to ear in the archway of Stan’s office. Spatters of freckles painted his pale complexion on just about every patch of his body along with numerous tattoos (some large, some minimalistic), he wore thick horn rimmed glasses of severe prescription, and was overall a whimsical fashion anomaly.
Richie had been waiting for this Tuesday to come for approximately a year now and couldn’t contain his unbearable excitement from any person.
Not no way. Not no how.
He was beaming. After finishing his Ph.D in ecology in record time at the early age of 23, he was given the opportunity at the university to not only teach part time for extra cash, but was also given a significant amount of grant funding to conduct his own research in the Amazon basin for a few months where he’d be able to bring along a team for his trip. His own team?!
My own Justice League of nerds….yowza.
The university was confident that Richie would be producing highly acclaimed work in the future and wanted to provide him the services to do so (and to get their title slapped on his published reports in big, bold, obnoxious lettering). The University of California, Los Angeles was one of the top universities in the entire United States. Man was he a prestigious son of a gun, but he never really took it to heart about how much he naturally excelled. He just always did. It was a normality.
The lanky man was loud, lacked a filter, but carried a magnetism with him that was crafted through wit and overwhelming charm. And over everything….. he was fucking brilliant. Nearing genius. Dr. Richard Tozier could do differential equations in his sleep, but couldn’t coordinate an outfit that matched if his life depended on it. He was a wildlife ecologist who focused primarily on conservation, taking a keen interest in tropical habitats. There was so much dangerous shit in the jungle. Spiders the size of your fingernail that could make you bleed from every pore?
Cool.
Twelve foot snakes that were known to eat small children if they were hungry enough?
Fucking awesome.
Hell, even pissing in the water could send a fish swimming up your dick. Richie was enthralled with the uniqueness of everything in the jungle, because frankly, it seemed like the jungle just didn’t play by any of the rules that the rest of the world abides by. And he admired that.
Stan finished his Ph.D in ornithology about a year after Richie had, despite being the same age. He loved everything about birds, and like Richie, wants to focus on their conservation. Stan thought that birds were God’s gift to the world, and needed to be protected by all means. He began bird watching at a very early age, making careful note of the ones that he observed, and keeping color coded lists of ones he wanted to one day see.
“Stan my Right Hand Man! What a lovely day to see my favorite bird man. The sun is SHININ’, cancer is CURED, racism is ERADICATED, the planets have ALIGNED. Today, my good chap, is a fantastic afternoon”. Richie promptly plopped himself onto the edge of Stan’s desk buzzing with contagious enthusiasm, meanwhile completely ignoring Stan’s pristine organization of his desk.
“Get off my desk Richard, for the last time this place is not the ‘jungle gym of dumbass’” Stan retorted, but with little malice in his voice. A slight smirk even tugged on the corner of his lips. “You’re on time though, so I’ll let you keep your limbs. Now let’s get to business. Did you bring the grant pap-”
“Duh” Richie cut him off with.
“Okay how about the permission sli-”
“Mhmmmmmmmm”
“You’ve gotten all your vaccinations, corre-”
“YES. Yes, and yes to the next two questions I know are about to tumble out of yo’ damn mouth. So instead, let’s go fi-”
Richie tried to diverge, but was in turn cut off by an equally diligent Stanley. “How did you know what I was going to say, dipshit? So please let me finish, my goodness-”
Richie sharply interrupted once more. “Yes, I’ve prepared the laptops with all the data analysis software, and yes I am in touch with Mike about our dock time. He’s even contacted the others and all is set, what did I tell you Staniel?”. With narrowed eyes, Stan slouched in defeat, “Really? Staniel? You are exhausting. I really don’t know how I’ve put up with your incredulous idiocrities for this freaking long. I must be sick in the head”.
Stan was stubborn and hated to be proven wrong, but had a massive soft spot for Richie in his heart (Stan himself may have called it a sore spot), and knew he could never hate the fucktard. Or even slightly dislike him, despite his annoyances. Richie and Stan had been best friends since childhood where they grew up in the quaint town of Derry, Maine. The air in Derry was stifling, the people cold, and the aura of in its entirety was unwelcoming and intolerable. They were each others only comfort and true friends for years, bonding inseparably over their love for science, the environment, and the creatures that inhabit it. And needless to say, they spent a large chunk of their young lives finding creative ways to escape bullies. Richie could be crass, and disgusting, and blatantly rude but Stan ultimately loved him deeply and considered him family. It was a friendship that most would not encounter in a lifetime, and he was grateful for this friend that he could share his life with.
Both were accepted to UCLA the same year, moved to Los Angeles as a team, and were roommates for their entire bout in college only just recently being able to afford to get their own places (a few blocks being the gaping distance from each other).
Looks like acquiring a doctorate would after all pay off in more ways than one, Stan thought mindlessly.
“Ahhhhhhh you love me, I know ya do Stanny boy! Now, let’s go snatch Bev and grab some grub, my stomach is beginning to digest itself”. And with that, Richie slung a long, gangling arm around Stan’s shoulders, and they departed to retrieve Beverly from the lab, both with jovial smiles on their faces.
________________________________________
KNOCK… KNOCKNOCK……KNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCK
From behind the thick, iron door of the lab Beverly could be quaintly heard shouting “One minute please, I’m getting the samples out of the centrifuges!”
“Bev dearest open the door love, I can’t be waiting all day for this lame centrifuge excuse of booty calling my fine ass, Stanley knows about our insatiable coworker lust!”, Richie sang. Stan groaned and soothingly pinched the bridge of his nose with slight embarrassment, so that his ash blonde curls were forced to shade part of his face.
The door opened in a slow motion, revealing a lively Beverly with raised eyebrows, and a mischievous smirk; her hands boldly rested on both of her hips. Richie loved the way her smile was endearingly crooked, and left front tooth faintly chipped. The perfect people after all, had the most unique imperfections.
“Richie I swear to God I would have gotten you kicked out of this place years ago for sexual harassment if I didn’t find you so entertaining”.
“M’lady you wound me! Now come give papa a hug ya beautiful, wench”. Richie held out both of his arms expectantly and Beverly flung herself into his, as a small child would do to their father after he came home from a long day’s work. They both let out familiar chuckles, and swam in the endearment that they had for one another in that brief moment. Her fiery ginger hair cascaded softly down her back in waves down to her hips as she let herself be immersed in Richie’s bearhug. Richie then placed both his palms on Bev’s shoulders and held her at an arm’s length, staring her straight in the eyes with a mock sternness. The extreme height difference between the two of them would have made this tableau as seen from a stranger very intimidating with Richie standing 6’3”, and Beverly Marsh an average five foot and six inches.
“Now, Miss Marsh. I trust that as my most talented, and may I say favored, field assistant you have prepared my lab materials to endure a long flight as well as waterproofing for the rainforest. The Amazon is unforgiving, and so am I. Do we have an understanding, little dove?”
Beverly lightly shoved Richie’s arms off of her shoulders and snapped into a marine’s saluting position, lowering her voice to crack a “Sir, yes sir!”. As much as Stan found Richie and Beverly’s relationship dysfunctional, he could feel the loving platonic electricity between them and couldn’t help but smile at their banter. They were a refreshing drink of rambunctious tonic water.
Beverly Marsh was in the midst of completing her Master’s degree at UCLA for environmental sciences, and while Richie never had the pleasure of being her professor, he was gifted her assistance for field work and immediately favored her. The other field assistants could go to hell, they all had barbed spikes up their asses and couldn’t handle Richie’s demeanor. Not to mention she was smarter than the others. Maybe not academically (Einstein failed math, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard yada yada yada), but she had a wit that strongly matched his own and that in itself exemplified enough intelligence. Bev was also wildly freckled, with beautiful red hair that resembled her illustrious personality for adventure. She was an uncontrollable flame; one that could birth innovative creation, and in the blink of an eye cause deadly destruction. Richie hoped he would never have to see that side of Beverly.
_________________________________________
Stan, Beverly, and Richie trolloped towards a small trendy café about a half a block down from the biology department corridors, off of campus to satisfy their growing hunger. Richie ignited the end of a menthol cigarette and puffed on it ferociously to try and curve his appetite, before ashing it on the bottom of his sneaker and tossing it in a proximal trash bin. Just because he littered his lungs didn’t entail him being a litter bug, he was a conservationist remember?
All on the edge of their nerves, at a similar state of “hangry”, they waltz into their favorite local eatery named “Cafe Synapse”***. An appropriate place for a group of biologists to eat at. Stan ordered a black, medium roast coffee complemented with a club sandwich (minus the turkey, due to obvious reasons); Beverly kindly requested french onion soup and side salad along with hibiscus lemonade; Richie ordered a chocolate chip frappuccino and a croissant. The last thing Richie ever needed was more sugar to indulge his ADHD habits, but not even God Almighty himself could stop the Trashmouth from consuming an unhealthy quantity daily.
Stan delicately placed a folded napkin onto his lap, to protect his neatly ironed slacks. He bled order; the tucked in, baby blue button up shirt, the combed curls that could easily become unruly, the freshly polished dress shoes. His cheekbones were even as sharp as his tongue. Everything Stan wore, and did, was thoroughly considered and executed with an impeccable grace.
Except when Stan drank. He could toss back whiskey like nobody’s business and was even roudier than Richie at times. He was the perfect alcohol parallel of a pure Christian girl getting freaky in the sheets behind closed doors as their opposite public persona. And it was priceless to witness, if you were so lucky.
Richie placed both of his hands behind his neck and reclined in his wooden chair to a dangerous incline, “Jesús Crísto Stan, you look like you’re covering up a hard on with that origami napkin on your lap.”
“Fuck you, beep beep Richie” Stan countered with a light-hearted giggle.
Beverly sat forward in her chair and flirtatiously twiddled her finger around a curl framing her face, “Dr. Richie please stop staring at Dr. Stan’s lap like the pervert you are, now that’s just rude”. Richie furrowed his eyebrows, and steadied his chair back on to solid ground. “Just because I float my boat both ways sweetheart doesn’t mean Stan is my type m’kay? Plus Stan denied me access to those pretty li-”
“Oh my god Richie fucking sto-” he intervened.
Richie threw up his hands in a submissive gesture, “Okay okay princess, no more smut I promise.”
“So please do inform Bev and I about your talk with Hanlon. What’s our living situation like? And who are the others joining us on our research trip?” he continued with sincere curiosity.
“Well, Mike said that we’d be living in our own netted huts on the nature preserve. Running water will be provided in certain locations Stan, so don’t worry. I know how much powdering your face at night means to you. And from what I know, Mike will be our host and also act as a guide since he owns and lives on the research station. A fellow named Ben Hanscom will be our medic. A Bill Den-whatever will be our botanist, also there to gain inspiration for his ulterior fictional narratives that he writes for his online blog. I heard he wrote a horror ficlet about a possessed venus fly trap….”. Richie trailed off into a fit of sniggering fidgety squirms imagining a large carnivorous plant taken over by supernatural powers wreaking havoc in Tokyo. That would be an honorable death, Richie thought.
Death by occult man-eating angiosperm. At least it’s not a boring trip to the grave.
“….and I’m not finished yet folks”. Richie motions for a drum roll, and Bev and Stan joyfully play along, using their hands to pat the table.
“We even get our very own nature photographer to document our tomfoolery. Edward Kaspbrak, born and raised in New York City. Oh man, he sounds like a mama’s boy, even more than you Staniel”. Stan followed this remark with presenting Richie with the bird from both hands. Stan never called this action “flipping someone off”. It was giving someone “the bird” or the “double bird”, because god damnit he was an ornithologist with a Ph.D and he deserved this unalienable right to give someone the bird whenever he wanted to. Even rude children.
Little did they know that their future research teammate, Eddie Kaspbrak, had been packed for weeks now and heavily anticipated his Amazonian adventure that would ensue for the next few months.
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CHAPTER NOTES:
**** Cafe Synapse is a real place around UCLA in Los Angeles, and I thought this was a perfect addition to this fic.
I hope you guys loved the introduction, I have SO much more planned, and I am quaking to share the rest with everyone <3 You will also meet one of my favorite versions of Eddie very soon…. Leave me comments, I’m a sap! And let me know if you want to be on the tag list :)
#reddie#reddie au#it 2017#it stephen king#it fanfiction#it fandom#it au#richie tozier#beep beep richie#eddie kasbrak#stenbrough#stanley uris#bill denbrough#ben hanscom#beverly marsh#mike hanlon#reddie fic#ecologist#nature photographer#hannah writes#key to the jungle
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Welcome Back // The Loser’s Club
Word Count: 1488
Summary- After moving away, you return to Derry, Maine, and reunite with your old friends.
Warnings; N/A
A/n; This came to me and I would’ve been mad if I didn’t write it so enjoy x
Requested; Nope, just an idea I had!
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6 years ago...
“Shit!” “Richie! That’s a bad word!” 7-year-old you scolded. “Y-yeah Richie!” A young Bill frowned. “LALALA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Eddie cried, hands clamped over his ears dramatically. “Ugh, you all suck!” Richie cried, pouting. “You love us.” You winked, Richie opening his mouth to protest. “Yeah, we’re the only ones who actually don’t mind you.” Stan chimed in, making Richie pout even more. “Group hug!” You cried, squishing your friends in a group hug. Everything was great. Until you got home that day, when your parents suddenly had you pack up everything, very rushed, and leave the town the next morning.
You didn’t even get to say goodbye to your best friends.
Little did you know how much it hurt them to visit your house, and see it abandoned. They asked around town, and everyone simply said you had to go away. It was confusing for the 7 year old group of boys, and it broke their hearts to see one of their best friends go. Over the years, they made a silent agreement that they wouldn’t bring you up; the memories hurt them too much.
Present day
A lot had changed since that day. You’d grown out your hair; it used to be boy-cut (to match with the boys, you felt left out), now it fell past your shoulders, in loose Y/H/C curls. You wore makeup these days, even though you were only 13. You grew up in NYC, where you learned to fend for yourself and you didn’t take shit from anyone. You’d gained much more confidence; going from the little, innocent girl from down the road to the baddest bitch in town.
Now, driving past the sign ‘Welcome to Derry, Maine’, that confidence began to slip. You were nervous about coming home; it was no secret. You didn’t really want to come back, if you were being honest. You’d just moved on, forgotten the feeling to miss all your best friends, and made new ones. You finally felt at home in New York, after 6 years, and just your luck, your parents decided it was time to go back. You never did know why you moved, but you never really thought about it.
Now, as you saw the many buildings you used to bike past with your friends, you gulped. Your friends. You wondered how they were. You lost contact as soon as you left, and you hadn’t spoken to any of them since. It hurt, they were all like your brothers. Were they still friends? Would they even recognize you? 6 years was a long time, and not only your appearance, but your personality had changed drastically.
You were excited to see them; you hoped they were all still here, and still friends. Another feeling was locked in your mind, though; what if they didn’t remember you? You remembered all of them vividly; Eddie, the nervous boy with the inhaler, and the crazy mother, Richie, the boy who never shut up and had a potty mouth (as 7-year-old you recalled), Bill, the stuttering leader of your friends group, and Stanley; the smart brainiac who drove you all mad, but you loved him. You loved all of them. You missed all of them. You could only hope they missed you too.
Stepping out of the car, you took a deep breath as a wave of nostalgia filled you. Your parents never sold your house; again, another thing you didn’t bother questioning. You had asked time and time again while in New York to come back to visit, and now you were here, and ready to leave again. You glanced down the road, knowing Bill’s house was down the block. If he still lived there, anyway.
“Mother?” You asked, nervously. “Yes, you can go.” She immediately said, waving you off. “Bike?” She questioned, and you shook your head. “No thank you!” You called, running down the road. It felt odd, you never really rode it in New York. Not only was there nowhere to ride it, it just felt unusual, because you weren’t with the boys. Sighing, you went for a walk around town, taking in your old home.
Meanwhile..
Beverly was walking along the streets, smiling happily. She’d just been invited to the Quarry with the ‘Loser’s Club’ and she couldn’t have been happier. Not paying attention, she walked right into someone, slamming into them. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!” She said, helping the girl up. Confusedly, she looked the girl up and down. “Have we met before?” She frowned, the girl looked so familiar, yet so different.
“Oh my god.. Y/N L/N?!” Beverly exclaimed, shocked. You looked up, having been knocked over. Your jaw dropped. “Beverly Marsh!?” You gasped, jumping up. You two were quite close while you were younger, (obviously, not as close as you and the boys, but still close) and to say you both changed was an understatement. You tackled her into a hug, her quick to return it. “How have you been?!” Bev exclaimed, and you two chatted for a bit.
“Hey, have you seen the boys yet?” Bev asked, frowning slightly. You told her about what happened; you leaving abruptly, without saying goodbye. “N-no.” You stuttered, “They don’t even know i’m back.” Beverly pondered this for a second, before lighting up like a christmas tree. “Well, tomorrow the boys and I are going to the Quarry, why don’t you come with?! We can surprise them!” She exclaimed, and you thought about it, biting your lip. “Sure, why not?” You said, calmly, but your heart was racing. “Awesome, see you tomorrow!” She said, walking off. “Haha.. yeah, see ya..” You said, nervously. You returned back to your house, and the rest of the day flew by, as you anxiously awaited for tomorrow to come.
Time skip
You got dressed normally, simple undergarments and a nice dress. You didn’t really style your hair, brushing it out and leaving it down. You smiled as you biked to where Bev told you to meet her. She was already there, and her hair, which was long like yours yesterday, was cut very short. “I like your hair!” You complimented, and she blushed slightly. “Thanks.” The two of you biked up the hill, where all the boys were stood there, shirtless, and ready to jump. Well, they were dressed to jump. They all looked nervous as hell. There was another boy you didn’t recognize; maybe he’d joined onto the group after you left. You were just happy they were all still friends; it was one of your biggest worries returning here.
“Who’s gonna go first?” One of them said, you didn’t catch who. “I’ll go, Sissies!” Beverly called, catching the group’s attention. She quickly stripped off her dress, you following suit. The boys seemed confused, but you didn’t give them time to process it. “Come on, Y/N!” She screamed, grabbing your arm and you both together ran and jumped off the cliff. “What the fuck!?” You assumed Richie called.
Eddie turned to the guys, confused. “Did she say.. Y/N?” He asked, quietly. The loser’s, except Ben, tensed, looking to Eddie slowly. “No, Ed, it couldn’t be..” Stan whispered, looking down at you and Beverly, who were watching them impatiently. “Come on, guys!” You called, waving them down. Richie gulped. “Holy shit.. It is Y/N.” “Whose Y/N?” Ben asked, confused as hell. “A-An old f-friend.” Bill stuttered, shocked. “Seriously, are you coming?!” Bev called, confused. The boys all took a last glance, before jumping off the cliff, screaming and kicking their legs wildly.
You swam over to them, shyly, as they all settled. “So, uh, surprise?” You asked, scared. The boys all glanced at each other, and you sighed. “Look, I can explain-” You started, but Richie cut you off. “No, Y/N! What the hell? You fucking left us! You didn’t even tell us you were leaving!” The group fell silent, you gulping. “I-I didn’t know..” You whispered, knowing you deserved it.
“W-W-What d-do you m-mean y-you didn’t k-know?” Bill asked, confused. “That night we were out, all of a sudden, my parents said we’re going to New York, and to pack everything I owned. We just up and left. I begged and begged to say goodbye. It was like they couldn’t hear me, or they just ignored me.” You said, sadly. They all remained quiet, before Stanley swam over to you, giving you a much-needed hug.
You gladly hugged back, and one by one, the boys swam over, giving you hugs and saying how much they missed you. You were introduced to Ben, who you got along great with. “You know how we got picked on a lot, Y/N?” Stanley asked, as you all were relaxing in the water. “Yeah?” You asked, confused. “W-We gave ourselves a n-name.” Ben added, looking to Eddie. “Welcome back to the Loser’s Club, Y/N.”
#the losers club imagine#eddie kaspbrak imagine#richie tozier imagine#ben hanscom imagine#beverly marsh imagine#bill denbrough imagine#stanley uris imagine#it 2017#it 2017 imagine#it#it imagine#derry imagine
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The Star to my Heart
A/N: Its a little smutty but what the heck ha. Enjoy and feel free to share.
Disclaimer: underage drinking, cursing, and smuttiness, wonk wonk
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Their Chapter
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They all nodded as they proceed to walk out into the club and enjoy the night as they had planned earlier. The Hoodlums and The Misfits minus Eddie and Richie, they proceeded to walk to the bar and order some drinks. Richie looked over at Eddie before smiling softly.
“So do you want to go ahead and walk to the bar? To go ahead and order those drinks?” Richie asked softly as he glanced at the bar where their friends were.
“Sure but let’s sit on the opposite side of where they are so we can be alone,” Eddie replied smirking softly as he led Richie to their seats.
The bartender saw them and gave them a hold on sign. Eddie nodded as he looked at Richie and smirked.
“You do drink right?” Eddie curiously asked.
“Huh?... Of course, I do” Richie replied as the bartender walked over.
“What do you guys want?” The Bartender asked as he watched them.
“Uh… One shot of Vodka...and just give me the whole bottle while you’re at it” Richie replied as he glanced over at Eddie nervously.
“Wow, Vodka already?” Eddie chuckled before focusing on the bartender, “I would like a whiskey cocktail… old fashion please.”
“Coming right up” The bartender replied as he went to make their drinks.
Richie sighed as he looked at Eddie nervously. Eddie smirked at him before he winked, and Richie blushed softly before turning away as the bartender showed with their drinks. Handing their drinks to them, Richie took his and poured him a shot before gulping it down. Eddie chuckled softly before taking a gulp of his drink.
“So are you nervous or something is that why you have a bottle of vodka?” Eddie asked as he bit down on his bottom lip.
“No just the aftershock from the performance tonight since it went so well I wasn’t really expecting that to be honest” Richie explained as he gulped down two more shots.
“Why would you think that? You guys are amazing on and off the stage” Eddie replied as he took another sip
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During that time, on the opposite side, we have Beverly, Ben, and Mike talking about poetry and how Ben should keep writing poems. They were drinking beer while talking and Beverly already had 3 glasses while Ben still hasn’t touched his, Mike just casually slowly drank his throughout the conversation. Bill and Stanley managed to get full on drunk and walked backstage where it was empty.
“Shhhh” Stanley giggled as he pulled Bill close and smirked softly as he placed his hand on Bill’s hips.
Bill nodded as he hiccuped a bit before he stared into those hot brown eyes. Stanley smiled as he noticed Bill staring at him which caused him to stare at those anxious blue eyes. They slowly leaned forward till the next thing they knew was that their lips were touching, and they were passionately kissing. Stanley slowly moved his hands up Bill’s shirt, slowly tracing his fingers over his back. Practically being able to feel his spine. Bill shivered at this as he moaned softly before he slowly moved his hands to the boy's waist, slowly he played with the hem of Stanley's pants. Stanley shivered before they somehow managed to arrive at Stanley’s hotel room before they did some things if you know what I mean, wonk wonk.
Meanwhile Ben, Bev, and Mike kept talking the whole night as Ben kept stopping Beverly from drinking too much and Mike would just laugh at the sight of the two. Mike just knew this would turn into something special and he was ready to see it happen.
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Now let’s back to our Eds and Trashmouth. Now at this point, Richie and Eddie enjoyed the night so far. They were talking about their life and stuff, (shame that they don’t remember this to be honest), which led to Richie gulping down what was left in the vodka bottle. Eddie eyes slightly widened at the sight of Richie slowly getting wasted and finished his drink before he got up.
“Richie, are you going to be fine? Or do I need to get on of your friends to take you home?” Eddie's voice was full of concerned as he subconsciously reached for his inhaler even though he quit using it a few years ago.
Richie shook his head before he stumbled out of his seat, giggled drunkenly, as he started to walk but almost fell. Eddie sighed as he looped his arm around Richie’s waist and pulled Richie’s arm around his neck. Richie leaned against him brushing his lips against Eddie’s neck. Eddie jolted and looked at Richie who was smirking. Eddie shook his head as he kept walking, Richie groaned softly.
“Eddie-Spaghetti I need to puke” Richie whispered before he almost vomited right there.
“Okay, okay, let's get you to a bathroom,” Eddie replied as he dragged him to the restroom, “and second of all don’t call me that”
Eddie led Richie to the bathroom. Richie got off Eddie and checked every stall making sure they were empty. Eddie just stared at Richie thinking, ‘What the fuck is he doing?’, before Richie smirked and locked the bathroom door.
“Richie, why did you just lock the door?” Eddie asked before facing him and was met with a pair of soft lips.
Eddie’s eyes widened as he realized what happened but melted into the kiss, placing his hands on Richie’s hips. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s neck, though Eddie was smaller, and pulled apart after a while. They both stared at each other both their lips were slightly swollen.
“Fuck, I didn’t think you were a good kisser Eds” Richie smirked as he brushed his hand up Eddie’s chest.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” Eddie exclaimed angrily before he chuckled, “Of course I’m a good kisser”
Eddie smirked as he closed the space between them and places his slightly rough lips against Richie’s soft lips. Richie kissed back before he slowly pushed Eddie against the wall and gripped Eddie’s shirt collar before he let go and slowly started unbuttoning Eddie’s shirt. Eddie’s eyes slightly widened but he smiled as he pulled the other boy’s shirt off and proceeded to pull Richie closer. They made-out the whole night before Richie got a call from Bill.
“Fuck gotta answer this,” Richie told Eddie before Eddie nodded and watched Richie, “Yes Bill?”
“Actually this is Mike, Bill is with Stan I think,” Mike responded, “anyways Bev is a drunk mess and I have to take her home, Ben’s waiting for you and the club is about to close anyway”
“O-okay just give me a couple of minutes” Richie replied before he hung up and turned around and was met with a pair of slightly rough lips. Eddie pulled away before smiling
“Guess this is our goodbye” Eddie smiled as he pulled Richie close and gave him a huge hickey on the side of his neck.
“Fuck they are so going to kill me but call me?” Richie asked as he pulled his shirt back on and left the bathroom.
“Wait I don’t even have your….number” Eddie whispered the last part as he watched Richie disappear into the crowd.
Eddie buttoned up his shirt and walked out of the bathroom. Richie smiled drunkenly when he saw Ben
“Haystack!!” Richie exclaimed drunkenly as he hugged him.
“Don’t call me that Trashmouth” Ben chuckled as he took Richie home and boom that's their first encounter but shush I know and don't worry they will most definitely meet again.
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3 Years Later
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Now as you all recalled the last time they met Richie was drunk and Eddie forgot about everything the next morning. At that time they were 19, (Shush they managed to get into the club and get drinks), now they’re about 21 and 22 years old. What neither Eddie nor Richie know is that their friends kept in touch afterward especially Stan and Bill. Wonk, wonk now you guys have to wait for the next update. Hahaha
#the star to my heart#reddie#richie tozier#eddie kaspbrak#stanleyxbilly#stanley uris#bill denbrough#benxbeverly#beverly marsh#ben#mike hanlon#it 2017
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A Losers Club Christmas
hey guys! christmas is already over for me but I hope everyone had a merry christmas and got some great presents and spent time with their families. i decided to write a little au for christmas and i hope you guys like it. :) this is my first tumblr au so enjoy!
summary: basically just the losers club & christmas aesthetics
pairings: richie and eddie, side stanlon and a hint of benverly. :)
disclaimer: yes, i am aware that stanley is jewish and does not celebrate christmas but after all it is alternate universe so don’t come at me. thanks :) read on and enjoy!
Eddie Kaspbrak had just finished putting up the last of the Christmas decorations when the doorbell rang. Richie and Beverly stood in front of him. “Hey guys,” he greeted them, smiling. “Come inside, it’s freezing.” He opened the door wider. “Hey Eds,” Richie grinned. “I got a Christmas present especially for your Mom and I know she’s gonna love it,” he said, winking and receiving a kick in the shin from Beverly and a disapproving look from Eddie. “You’re disgusting, Rich. And I thought I told you to stop calling me that!” Richie gave a smug smirk in response and walked inside with Beverly. Soon afterwards, the rest of the group showed up one by one. Stan and Mike were the last to show up, and they appeared to be holding hands. When they told everyone they started dating, Richie and Beverly immediately gave each other a look as if either one of them were the camera on the office. “You owe me ten dollars!” She told him. Shaking his head, Richie pulled out a ten dollar bill and slapped it into her hand.
The first thing they did was share their Kris Kringle presents, they had organised this a week ago. Richie had to buy for Eddie, and he had the perfect prank to play on him. Eddie went first; he looked under the tree for his present and opened it, only to find... “A rock?” He asked, raising his eyebrows and looking straight at Richie. Damn it. He knows it was me. At that, Richie burst out laughing and pulled out the real present, the slight look of disappointment on Eddie’s face fading. “You really think I’m that mean?” He placed his hand over his heart. “Honestly, I’m quite hurt!” Eddie rolled his eyes but turned a shade of red as he smiled and gratefully took the gift. “Beep Beep Richie,” He said. Beverly was the last person to open her present and when she did, she opened the box to reveal a beautiful, quite expensive looking necklace. “You guys!” She exclaimed. “Who got me this?! You shouldn’t have, it’s- it’s beautiful!” No one had to tell Bev anything to know it was Ben, who was blushing pretty hard.
Next, they all decided to do some Christmas activities. This included Christmas card making (in which Richie gave Eddie a card that said, “I love your mom”), baking cookies (Bill got way too excited and he ended up having egg all over his shirt), ginger-bread house making (Stan’s was the neatest, no surprise there) and blasting Christmas music while dancing all around the house, laughing uncontrollably. Eddie is in a state of euphoria seeing Richie happy, as he knows that his best friend too well to know that behind all the jokes and sarcastic comments he makes, Richie definitely isn’t the happiest person on Earth. He can’t help but smile at Richie giving Beverly a piggyback and almost tripping and falling in the process. He confidently strides over to Eddie and pulls the small boy toward him. “Dance with me, Kaspbrak!” He laughs and puts an arm around Eddie’s waist and the other in his hand. Eddie blushes and smiles. “You’re an idiot, Richie Tozier.” Richie spins him around and dips him backwards like a professional in those cliche dance scenes in movies and grins. “You’re beautiful, Eddie Kaspbrak.” Meanwhile, Stan and Mike are also dancing and Bill is shouting the lyrics to Time After Time with Ben and Beverly because the three of them, like everyone else in the room, have had way too much sugar.
Eddie had prepared a bunch of food the previous night for everyone to have dinner and everyone was actually really impressed with his cooking skills. There was enough to feed an entire pack of wolves, ham, chicken, turkey, all kinds of salads and potatoes. Ben had made some desserts including Christmas pudding and a cheesecake. The snow got heavier and heavier and soon turned into practically a blizzard. “What are we gonna do now?” Stan asked. “We won’t be able to leave the house until tomorrow.” Eddie shrugged. “Looks like you guys are staying over for Christmas Eve. Everyone then started to get excited. After dinner, Richie and Eddie were talking when suddenly Richie looked up above him. “Oh, look,” He said, facing Eddie again. “Mistletoe.” Both boys’ faces turned a rather deep shade of red as it was now pretty obvious they had strong feelings for each other. After a very awkward moment of silence, Richie cupped Eddie’s face in his hands and kissed him. The other Losers, who they hadn’t noticed were standing there, started whooping and cheering, causing them to pull away and glare at each of them, Richie flipping them off. But Eddie and Richie both smiled at each other and Eddie pulled Richie into a hug. “You guys are disgusting,” Stan remarked, rolling his eyes. Mike laughed and slung his arm around Stan’s shoulder. “Aw, Stan. You gotta admit they’re pretty cute. Not as cute as us though.” Stan blushed and leaned into Mike. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
The Losers were both tired and stuffed after eating so much food and running around all Christmas Eve, so they settled down to watch a movie. They all settled on Gremlins and got comfortable. Eddie and Richie sat next to each other, and Richie moved his hand closer and closer to Eddie’s until he grabbed it and they were holding hands, intertwining their fingers. Eddie sighed happily and leaned his head on Richie’s shoulder. Stan was leaning into Mike’s chest and Mike had an arm around him. Bill, however, was third wheeling and thought it would be a good idea to dive in between Ben and Beverly. They both rolled their eyes, but smiled.
The following morning, Bill was the first one to wake up. He woke up at 5:45am and started bouncing up and down. “E-everyone wuh-wake up!” He screamed, receiving multiple groans in return. “It’s Christmas!!” Richie groaned and hid his face in Eddie’s chest. “Five more minutes.” And five more minutes turned into fifteen. Once everyone was up, they looked at the tree and noticed multiple presents under the tree. “IS SANTA REAL?!” Bill and Richie shouted at the exact same time. Eddie smiled. “Guess we’ll never know.” After opening their presents, they got changed into warm clothes and went to play in the snow, which was pretty deep. They ended up making a snowman and Richie wanted to name him Bob but Bill wanted to name him Frosty the Snowman, and they ended up settling on Bill’s idea. After having a huge snowball fight, Eddie made hot cocoa for everyone and as he played in the snow with his best friends, he smiled over at Richie and Richie smiled back. Eddie was spending Christmas with his best friends and the boy he loved, and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
#it#losers club#the losers club#richie tozier#eddie kaspbrak#bill denbrough#stan uris#beverly marsh#mike hanlon#ben hanscom#reddie#reddie au#stanlon#christmas#merry christmas#fanfiction#finn wolfhard#jack dylan grazer#jeremy ray taylor#wyatt oleff#jaeden lieberher#it cast#pennywise#alternate universe#christmas au
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the birthday (laura fandom, 600w)
(happy birthday laura @disarmd, i wrote you a birthday fanfiction because i am your fan ♥)
"It's my birthday!" Laura thought happily when she woke up on October 30. "But it's also Monday," she realized a moment later, less happily. That meant she had to go to work and do boring stuff instead of write great Canadian literature, pet her beloved cat Boz, or watch a woman-centered television show.
But before Laura could leave for work, the phone rang. "Laura, hi!" said someone with an incredibly sexy voice that was also strangely familiar.
"Who is this?" Laura asked.
"It's Dua. Dua Lipa! I was just passing through Victoria and I wondered if you wanted to hang out?"
Laura had never met Dua Lipa before but she admired her work. "Absolutely," said Laura. "Did you want to like meet for coffee, or––?"
"Would it be okay if we watched hockey together? I heard your favourite team was playing!"
Somehow Laura had forgotten that the big game was today. "Sure, come on over," she said. Quickly, she emailed her boss that she couldn't come to work because she was stuck in the 427s and just couldn't get to the TZpR for an AfY3B. Her boss was also Canadian so he totally understood.
While Laura was waiting for Dua, she read a new 50k fic involving several of her favourite themes, and then took calls from family members who wanted to know specific ways they could make Laura's life easier in the coming year.
When Dua arrived, she was wearing that cute dress she'd worn on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "Happy birthday!" she said. "I hope it's okay I brought over some wine and weed and several delicious vegetarian options." After making friends with Boz, she settled down on the sofa with Laura to watch a bunch of muscular young men aggressively push their bodies against another bunch of muscular young men.
"I'm so glad Dylan Strome plays for the Leafs now," Dua said––and it was true! There he was, playing his heart out, occasionally getting confused and hugging his boyfriend on the other team instead of remembering they were on opposite sides.
"And look at Connor over there meditating," said Laura. "He looks so calm and centered now."
"I love hockey," said Dua, and snuggled closer to Laura on the sofa. "The best thing is how all the teenie-looking players are actually ten years older than they look so we don't even have to feel bad about it." Laura hadn't realized before that her favourite players were definitely born before 1992 but when she googled, it turned out Dua was right.
The game was super exciting. There were several homoerotic fights and the Torontonian and Edmontonian banter flew fast and furious. Meanwhile, the announcer kept up a stream of commentary about the Leafs probably dominating the Stanley Cup finals, and how wild it was that no team from America really had a chance this year.
"America who?" said Dua, and she and Laura both cracked up.
Finally the Leafs won. "How are you going to celebrate?" asked a reporter during the post-game interviews.
"Group sex, probably," said Mitch.
What a historic day in hockey! Laura and Dua were so happy. After celebrating for a while, Dua looked closely at Laura. "Are you okay? Suddenly you've gone a bit pensive."
Laura enjoyed spending time with someone so perceptive. "It's just that it's been such a wonderful day and I don't want it to end."
"It's not over yet! We still have to go to the party, remember?"
"The party?" Laura felt better already.
"Your birthday party! Everyone you really like will be there, plus a couple annoying people so we can talk about them later."
"That sounds perfect," said Laura. "This is the best birthday ever."
"That's because you're the best ever," said Dua Lipa. "You deserve it."
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You don’t have to write this if you feel uncomfortable, but what if Stan’s need to make everything perfect slowly turn onto himself and he slowly develops and eating disorder and when he meets bill and they start dating he makes the effort to get better
REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!
I actually havent write an actual fic in so long but i tried my best for this request hope you enjoy also sorry it took me so long
ALSO:I’m not trying to romanticize in any way any sort of mental disorder so I am very sorry if it comes off that way!
Stanley Uris was the world’s youngest adult. He had his life together. Shoes so cleaned it shined in the sunlight. Shirt iron and perfectly tucked into his pants. Everything about him seemed calmed, under control. Or at least that’s what people thought.
On reality Stan was barely keeping it together. Maybe his exterior was the cleanest anyone had seen, but it was for sure that his mind was making him insane.
Stan gave himself one last look in the mirror before he left his room and went downstairs, ready to leave for the barrens.
“Stan breakfast first!”
Stan make his way into the kitchen and looked into his plate. A big serving of scrambled egg and toast was in front of him, but despite not having eaten dinner last night he was not hungry.
He knew if he didn’t eat his mom would be angry, but all he could think about while trying to swallow the food was how much weight he would put in.
For the past couple of months he had tried to lose as much weight as possible, after all, he needed to look his best for the bar mitzvah. Skipping meals was giving great results, except people started to notice.
It was little things, but if he wasn’t careful maybe his parents would find out about it and get mad. He wasn’t supposed to waste food.
He was saved by the bell when Bill Denbrough knocked on his door, asking to walk him to the barrels. He quickly made his way to the boy, excited to leave his home behind.
Bill looked just like always. With his slightly red hair shining under the sun, excited to hang out with his best friend. He followed him with Silver on his other side, heading towards the woods.
“H-hey Stan”
“Hey Bill, I thought we weren’t supposed to met until later”
A blush spread through Bill’s cheek as he looked away, trying to sound casual as he said “Ye-yeah, but i wa-wanted to go b-b-bird watching with you”
Stan smiled as he realised what meant. Since a couple weeks back he had hanged out with Bill more than anyone else in the losers club. They had always been close; but now they shared a special bond, just the two of them.
Stan got closer to him, his hands barely brushing against each other and looked at the boy.
“I’d like that”
They both got on Silver and went deep into the woods, were only the finest birds could be seen. After spending most of the morning running behind the birds, writing and laughing together Stan was feeling pretty tired.
Maybe skipping on breakfast hadn’t been a great idea?
He tried to keep up with Bill’s laughter, but he obviously wasn’t making a great job, as the boy seemed to realise something was off.
“S-Stan are you fe-feeling okay?”
Stan tried really hard to keep his eyes open, however they seemed to shut themselves close. All he could see was how pretty Bill looked under the sun lights, despite his worried face. Everything seemed to be fading away, but Bill’s voice was still there, and that was all that mattered.
Meanwhile Bill Denbrough was going insane. What was going on with Stan? Why did he black out? He had so little experience with this stuff, but he tried his best to calm himself down and think of something. All he could bring himself to do was throw his bottle of water into Stan’s face and hope for the best.
Stan felt himslef slowly coming back to life as he looked around and realised he was soaking wet, with a very preoccupied bill in front of him.
“Stan what the hell”
“Guess I just felt asleep”Stan tried to shrug it off with a laugh, but Bill Denbrough was having none of that.
“Bu-Bullshit! Tell me what is really going on!”
“I was just feeling tired I guess, it’s nothing to worry about”
“You literally just pay pa-passed out i-in fr-front of me!”
“It was nothing!”
Both boys were now screaming, hardly frustrated at each other. Why couldn’t Bill just drop it?
Suddenly Bill looked up and down at him and got a very serious expression on his face. He approached him and gave him a long stare, the one he always used when he knew he was being lied to.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“This morning! You saw me eating breakfast!”
“All I saw was a full pla-plate in front of you”
Stan didn’t like we’re this conversation was going. If Bill couldn’t leave him alone then he would just leave. It was for the best. he avoided the boy’s gaze as he tried to excuse himself
“Stan don’t leave! Answer me!”
Bill reached form Stan’s arm and hold him in place, stopping him from storming out like he wanted to.
“Why do you do this to yourself? Don’t you see that you’re literally starving? I ju-just want to help you”
Bill tried to meet Stan’s eyes, but he felt too embarrassed to answer, let alone watch him in the eye. He felt the tears kicking in his eyes, fighting to make their way out.
“Stan, yo-you don’t have to be per-perfect all the time”
A soft sob finally scared the boys lips as Bill uncovered what he was trying to hide. His seek for perfection. He let himself be held by Bill’s arm into a hug as he cried into the crock of his neck. Feeling like such a crybaby, but also safe in those arms.
“Everyone loves you the way you are. You a-are the ki-kindest, most be be-beautiful boy I know. That’s why your parent love you, your fri-friends lov-ve you”
“I love you”
Bill felt himself fill with pride as he didn’t stutter once in his confession he had been dying to say for all those months. He loved the boy he had in front of him. he loved him for his laugh, for his eyes, for his hair, for his love for birds, but most importantly because he made him feel like home.
Stan looked up at Bill’s eyes for the first time in shock. He knew what his feeling for Bill were, but he never thought they were mutual. He finally felt himself smile after ages of crying and snuggle deeper into Bill’s arms.
“I love you too”
Both boys closed their eyes and came together in a first of many kisses to come. Wet tears came in the way, but it didn’t matter to either of them, because they both had been waiting too long to care about that.
When they finally pulled apart Bill kept his eyes locked to Stan’s.
“Please promise me you’ll try to get better”
“I promise”
And he truly meant it, because with Bill by his side everything felt better. He wasn’t instantly cured, but if he had his best friend soon to be boyfriend with him there was nothing he couldn’t do.
#bill denbrough#stanley uris#stan uris#stenbrough#it#it 2017#stephen king#the losers club#losers club#big bill#stan the man
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Return to Rothezar 2
AO3 | LJ | FF.net
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |
Stan and Ford returns to Oregon with tales to tell.
First and foremost, I want to give a shout-out to the wonderful @eregyrn-falls for drawing Maegella and Ford! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! <3
--
Port of Brookings, Oregon – two days later, Monday
Soos stood at the waiting area, holding up a sign saying “STAN BROS”. He’d been holding up the sign since he arrived at the Port over thirty minutes ago. His arms were aching something fierce, but he didn’t mind. He had to be visible so that the two Mr. Pineses could see him. The large man was practically bouncing with excitement.
The Pines family is returning to Gravity Falls. The summer of 2013 will be AWESOME.
At the moment, only ten people in Gravity Falls know that the two pairs of Pines twins will be spending the summer here. From the Mystery Shack were Soos, Melody and Abuelita. Abuelita had been cleaning the Mystery Shack with the help of Candy Chiu and Grenda Grendinator (Grenda had been a big help in lifting the furniture high enough for the floor under it to be vacuumed) and Melody and Pacifica set to work making banners and blowing up balloons. At the former Northwest Manor, Fiddleford and Tate had prepared the guest rooms for the family. Meanwhile, Wendy went trekking into the forest to prepare its citizens of the family’s arrival.
The tenth person arrived two days ago. This person was another reason why Soos was so excited.
And then he starts bouncing again with more rigor, because he spotted two familiar faces making their way toward him.
“Welcome back, Mister Pineses!” Soos called out as he drops his sign to engulf the two men into a spine-cracking hug.
“Thanks for taking the crick out of my back Soos,” Stan said appreciatively after being placed back on the ground. The younger man just grins at him and picks up their duffel bags. “Haven’t been able to get rid of it since we last made port.”
“How’s things going on, dudes?” Soos asks amiably as he leads the way to the pick-up truck. “Did you find more mysteries out in the ocean?”
Soos didn’t see his former employer-slash-father figure elbow his brother in the ribs.
“Oof! Oh! Yes, we came across some interesting places after we dropped you off here last time,” Ford shared while he rubbed the area where Stan elbowed him. “Let’s see: we went to Easter Island for some time off…”
“Turns out all those big-headed statues were kinda alive, and we decided to drop by on the ONE day of the year where they decide to pop outta the ground for a swim,” Stan cut in. They had reached the pick-up truck, where Soos placed their duffel bags in the cab of the truck. Stan immediately calls shotgun while Ford rolls his eyes and takes the seat at the back. Ford waited until Soos hopped into the driver’s seat and fired up the truck before continuing the story.
“First of all, they’re called Moai, Stanley. Secondly…well, you’re right about the swimming. I don’t understand how the locals slept through all that racket. But I figured the Moai didn’t mind when they saw us camping in their meeting spot.”
“I’m just glad they didn’t trample us on the way to the beach,” Stan snorted. “But their beach party sent the Stan O’War out into the middle of the ocean…”
“Now, now: Paro apologized to us about it and pulled the boat back for us,” Ford added.
“Like a dude from Egypt?” Soos asked.
“Paro, not Pharoah, Soos. He’s the biggest of the Moai statues—er—giants,” Ford explained. “And he unmoored the Stan O’War when he cannonballed into the ocean.”
“I still can’t believe no one woke up from that but us!” Stan muttered. “The best one was where we became twenty years old again for a day.”
“Stan, it was a trap,” Ford said in exasperation.
“No way!” Soos breathed out, taking his eyes off the road to look agog at Stan.
“Soos, keep your eyes on the road!” Ford yelped.
“Whoops! Hehehe, got distracted there for a moment,” Soos said nervously as he looked back on the road. “Where’d you two go to get de-oldified?”
“Well, after the Easter Island incident, we decided to head south to check something out in Mexico,” Ford began to share. “Before we passed Ecuador, we came upon this island that wasn’t on any map and decided to investigate. We docked and explored the beach for a while until we found a trail that led to this cove. In the middle was this small, rocky fountain with writing carved into a slab beside it that said, ‘Drink this elixir of life and regain the years passed by.’ Next thing I knew, Stan dunked his head into the water and started drinking from it.”
“Hey, that’s what you do when you find something interesting and get science-crazy,” Stan defended himself. “And the sign was right! Soos, ya should’ve seen Ford’s face when he saw me de-oldifying before his eyes!”
“Like watching a raisin turn back into a grape,” Ford snorted. “After deciding that Stan wasn’t suffering from any ill effects, I took a drink myself and de-aged just like Stan.”
“And then there was a party on the beach!” Stan yelled happily. “Babes and barbeque!”
“Surprisingly, a lot of young people right after we drank that water,” Ford said quietly.
“Hey, don’t you deny you were enjoying yourself out there that night!”
“Probably would have stayed longer if we hadn’t woken up back to our normal age with a raging hangover,” Ford reminded him. “And have you forgotten what we found when we went back to the fountain?”
Stan made a face. “Older people!”
“There were other people on the island?” Soos asked, perplexed.
Ford snorted. “They were the same partygoers we met the previous night. Turns out they’ve been living on the island for decades. The elixir only lasts for twelve hours, and they return to the fountain to rejuvenate the following day. They invited us to stay forever, but…”
“That meant we couldn’t see the kids again,” Stan muttered. “Yeah, it was a trap. They went nuts when we said no and formed an angry mob.”
“Fortunately, only two of them had managed to drink the elixir. Stan knocked those two guys out, and we reached the boat before the rest of them could hobble out of the cove,” Ford finished, trying to repress a grin.
Soos shook his head. “I gotta admit, this is very different from my fanfic of you two. I gotta do some rewrites…”
“I feel a li’l conflicted knocking out two guys who may be a hundred each,” Stan chuckled. “But not too much! And let’s not forget the humongous owl who thought you were her baby!”
“Stan, please don’t…” Ford begged.
“Hey, rescuing you from her perch was the reason I nearly threw my back!” Stan shot back before he started his tale.
Ford just shook his head as he let Stan tell this story. He leaned back on the seat and pulled the neck of his sweater to extract a polished, dark blue stone attached to a necklace. The blue stone was etched with gold symbol that looked like an X fused with a rectangle, with a sort of key-shape protruding from the middle of the X. Ford recently discovered that this was the old Behenian symbol for Deneb Algedi, or “the tail of the goat”, referring to the fish-tail of the celestial sea-goat Capricorn. And just like its fellow sigil, this symbol is shown differently from its Earth counterpart on another dimension, standing on its “tail” with the X raised to the sky.
He rubs the stone with his thumb and tucks it back under his sweater.
--
(Former) Northwest Manor
Inside a bathroom, Maegella looks at herself in the large oval mirror as she combs her hair. The bags under her eyes were darker since she arrived in this plane of existence. She was unable to recall when she last had a good night’s sleep.
She was delighted when she was reunited with Soos and Wendy the day after she arrived. It seems that her new acquaintance knew the people she was looking for. Between the McGuckets and these young people, it was decided to keep her presence a secret, to surprise the Pines family when they arrive at the mansion.
Maegella agreed.
On the sink in front of her are a pair of scissors she managed to find somewhere. There is also a tattered picture of a blonde girl with a supremely confident look about her that she found in her bedroom. Maegella looks at the girl’s hair before facing the mirror and using the comb to part the hair she is planning to cut.
Author’s note: Oh my goodness, what a dry spell for writing! I got stuck after writing a few paragraphs, but thanks to the abovementioned fanart and a little bit of brainstorming and I manage to churn this out!
The adventures that Ford and Stan shared here was inspired from a post from @fordblogs, a great RP Tumblr account, a post from the famous @moringmark, and a headcanon from @thesnadger.
Here's to hoping I don't wait months before churning out Chapter 3!
#return to rothezar gf#gravity falls#fanfic#au#stanford pines#stanley pines#dimension travel#maegella#wendy corduroy#soos ramirez#fiddleford hadron mcgucket#tate mcgucket#no more writing dry spells#I hope
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Article from BusinessInsider: A $70 billion investment manager turned the Milwaukee Bucks into a basketball powerhouse. Now he's set on improving America's dismal passenger trains
When Wes Edens bought the Milwaukee Bucks in 2014, the team was 15-67. This year, they're a top seed in the playoffs. Photo: BrightLine
The United States' passenger rail system is in dire need of improvement.
Wes Edens, founder of Fortress Investment Group and the owner of several professional sports franchises, thinks he's found the cure.
Edens spoke with Business Insider about his leadership on Virgin Trains USA, which will eventually connect Miami and Orlando, Florida.
There are nearly a dozen other possible locations for private passenger rail in the country, Edens says, and the West Coast is next on his list.
Hugging Florida's Atlantic coast is a narrow strip of land with some of the country's most recognizable attractions.
From the white sand of Miami's South Beach and its nearby cruise ship ports, through the palm-laden groves of Broward County, all the way up through Orlando and Disney is one of the country's most densely built metropolitan areas.
With an ever-rising ocean on one side, and the Everglades on the other, the region is quickly running out of room to expand traffic lanes and keep up with an increasing population.
Wes Edens, founder of Fortress Investment Group, a private equity and investment management firm with about $70 billion in assets under management, says that combination of space constraints and a dense urban landscape is the "perfect storm" for building passenger rail in the United States that people actually want to ride.
The 57-year-old is the largest investor in BrightLine, now branded as Virgin Trains, with help from media mogul turned travel investor Sir Richard Branson. His other bets include a 2014 purchase of the Milwaukee Bucks, currently a top-seeded Finals team, British soccer club Aston Villa, which is also on a 10-win hot streak in its race to make it back to the upper Premier League, and even a professional "League of Legends" franchise.
"I really wanted to focus on things that I have great passion for, and those things fall into the general classification of infrastructure," Edens told Business Insider in an interview. "Infrastructure really catalyzes economic development in a very material way. Sports, in and of itself, is almost like a social infrastructure."
Sports, in and of itself, is almost like a social infrastructure. It really provides unity, brings people together, and can rebuild downtown areas."
That's exactly what he's done with the areas surrounding Milwaukee's downtown Fiserv Forum arena, and hopes to recreate with its Downtown Miami Central station. The 3 million square-foot complex also happens to be on the site where one of Edens' heroes — Henry Flagler of the iconic 19th century Florida East Coast railroad — built the city's first terminal in 1896.
The original Florida East Coast Railway linked the many of Henry Flagler's opulent Florida hotels with major American cities on the East Coast.
Wikimedia Commons
"I want to build a train station people want to get married in," Edens said, drawing inspiration from London's St. Pancras Eurostar terminal, housed in a grand Victorian building that's part luxury hotel.
Eventually, trains will run from Miami through their current stops in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach as far north as Orlando, with a three-hour journey separating theme parks from cruise ports.
Edens points to Denver as an example of transit-oriented development spurring economic activity, noting that examples like Colorado's capital are "why we wanted to be right in the middle of Miami."
"It's a part of Miami that has been under invested versus the Brickell areas and some of the downtown stuff," Edens said. "It's thick with development activity now and I think the train's been a big part of that."
Too short to fly, too long to drive
American cities like Denver are only part of the story. America, after all, has long struggled to make passenger rail a viable alternative to car-clogged highways — even in dense corridors like the Northeast from Washington D.C. to Boston, via New York City. Edens and other Virgin Trains stakeholders visited dozens of city pairs comparable to Virgin Trains' market across Europe as part of their research.
"These city pairs that are too short to fly but too long to drive are all over the world," he said. "In Europe, the most successful by far obviously is the London to Paris Eurostar route, but there's also Paris to Lyon, Madrid to Seville, Rome to Milan, and others."
The key similarities — despite language or cultural barriers — between these pairs are all roughly the same: the cities are roughly 250 to 200 miles apart, with large populations at either end and in between that need to travel along the corridor.
"That gave us a lot of confidence in the route we are planning initially from Miami to Orlando, which has identical characteristics and is even more constrained in terms of the competition or what you could do by car," Edens said.
In the most successful cases, train services between two major cities in other parts of the world are able to carry more than a quarter of total travel between the two. Virgin Trains has first set its sights on a much smaller "capture rate" of five percent, something Edens says "does not sound like a terribly aspirational goal."
For now, at least, Virgin Trains seems well on its way to that goal. Its hourly departures are reasonably priced, and can make the journey from downtown Miami to West Palm Beach in about 75 minutes. The modern Siemens locomotives and sleek railcar interior evoke a much more European feel than Amtrak's comparable rolling stock, with on-board WiFi and concessions to boot.
Fares run as cheap as $20, too, making Amtrak tickets look more like air travel reservations.
Passengers enjoy the Brightline passenger train's inaugural trip from Miami to West Palm Beach on May 11, 2018 in Miami, Florida. Brightline welcomed the media, politicians and other dignitaries to ride on the inaugural trip for the privately funded passenger train which is running from Miami to West Palm Beach with one stop in Fort Lauderdale. The $3.1 billion project, will eventually extend its rail system to Orlando International Airport and is scheduled to be completed by January 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
In April, the company announced it had closed a $1.75 billion private bond package sold to 67 different investors that will help fund Virgin Trains' expansion to Orlando, with assistance from Morgan Stanley.
Edens hopes the success can be replicated, too. The company has plans for a similar project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the future, with eyes on roughly a dozen city pairs throughout the US that could also benefit from train travel.
"Atlanta to Charlotte would be another one," Edens said. "Chicago to St. Louis would be maybe the most attractive of them all, and if you look at the business travel market, Houston to Dallas would be a good one too."
Of course, it won't be easy. California drastically slashed the scope of its planned high-speed rail project earlier this year, initially relegating the route to the Central Valley instead of the originally proposed San Francisco to Los Angeles link. Rail proponents in Texas, meanwhile, have struggled to gain possession of crucial land needed to build in the busy I-35 corridor.
Edens is optimistic, but Virgin Trains won't be able to turn the tide on its own.
"Our investment in South Florida will be about $3 billion," he said. "But to build it as true high-speed rail would probably be $10 billion more than that. The government has not actually made it a priority to build it themselves."
"The model we're using could be easily copied in different markets," he continued."These shorter city pairs where you can build that grade and get there in three hours could easily displace lots of automobiles and passenger flights."
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