A Friend (Stanford Pines x Reader)

You Won't Be Alone

Stanley looked at you expectantly, but you genuinely had no idea when or how to begin. You sighed through your nose and rubbed your temples, trying to alleviate the pounding that was beginning to form in your head. Part of you still naively believed that, any minute now, you would wake up, and everything that had just transpired would have been nothing more than a bizarre dream. You would wake up and return to your life, as chaotic and stressful as it was. But the man that knelt beside you slowly diminished the hope you had. He was real, you were sure of it, and the sickening feeling of loss and sorrow was real, too. Ford was gone.

"Ford and I investigated the weirdness in this town. It's full of anomalies -- you just need to know where to find them. He was so attracted to this place because he also has an anomaly." You stopped, taking in Stanley's bewildered expression. "Whazzat mean?"

"An anomaly is an unnatural occurrence," you explained. 

"So Ford's six fingers is an anom...anomaly?" he asked shakily, testing out the new word and its pronunciation. "Exactly." you confirmed.

Stanley's lips tugged upward into a sad smile. "Sixer always loved nerdy, sci-fi stuff like that,"

"Did you always call him that?" you asked.

"Sixer? Oh, yeah. Not to rub it in his face that he was different. It's just been somethin' I've always did, ya know?" Stanley suddenly appeared flustered. 

"No, no, I think it's nice," you reassured, "I think it suits him, anyway. But, yes, his additional fingers are anomalies. I sort of got him into it and all that. So, after he and I graduated college, we came here. Things were going great for the first couple years. He got an impressive grant that allowed him to get the cabin built. Then, one day..." You trailed off. Ford had very hesitantly told you this secret. Would he have cared if Stanley knew? You barely even knew him, but something told you that he had a right to know. His desperate pleas for his brother to come back echoed in your mind. "He was contacted by a supernatural being." 

Stanley furrowed his brow, and you couldn't tell if he believed what you were saying. Whether he did or not didn't matter, but you didn't want the stranger thinking you and Ford had gone mad from the isolation in the forest. We went mad for a different reason. Your mind quipped. You shook your head and continued. "The being told him that the only way to understand Gravity Falls was to build an interdimensional gateway from our world to whatever one caused the weirdness to leak through. Whatever the being was, it helped him build the portal. He and I, along with another assistant, worked tirelessly on that thing."

"If ya worked so hard on it, why'd he try to destroy it?" Stan inquired.

You grimaced, not wanting to recall the memories you tried to hard to bury. Regardless, you knew you were in too deep to stop now. Something about Stanley gave off the impression that he could read you like an open book, leaving you feeling exposed and unable to pull off a lie. "He was tricked. The thing, whatever he saw, wanted to use our world for destruction. Ford became paranoid, hardly sleeping and hardly eating, afraid that the demon would possess him. So, he started dismantling the portal and forgoing sleep. He wanted to get rid of any and all evidence that it even existed."

"That's why he wanted me to take the book," Stanley whispered, his brown eyes flicking to the hardcover, worn journal. "He wasn't tryna push me away, he was tryna save the world. Oh, God, oh, God, I'm a horrible brother."

You looked at the man with concern. "Hey, hey, let's not go there. Things between you both aren't ideal. It's not your fault that this happened."

"It is too my fault! Stanford needed me, but I pushed him away, and now he's God knows where because of me! He could be dead for all we know!" The words left his lips, and he realized a moment too late that he couldn't suck them back in. His eyes widened as your breath caught in your throat. 

"We... we can't think that way." you said. "We won't get anywhere if we think like that. I know where one of the journals is, but I don't know about the third one." You shakily rose to your feet and strode over to the machine, placing a hand on the cold metal. "This is gonna be hard,"

Footsteps approached from behind. "Well, you won't have to do it alone,"

You turned your head. "What?"

"Look, I ain't a scientist or anythin', but this is my fault. I wanna help fix it. I wanna get my brother back."

The look on Stanley's face was entirely genuine and determined. You couldn't have changed his resolve if you tried, and in that moment, immense relief washed over you in a wave.  You nodded. "Well, what about you? What's your story?"

Immediately, Stanley became defensive. "What's it to ya?"

You shrugged. "Well, we're going to be partners, aren't we? Shouldn't I know who I'm working with?"

Stanley sighed. "Did Sixer tell ya about why he hates me?"

"Yeah... he told me." You paused, then added, "And for the record, he doesn't hate you."

Stanley laughed, a short, humorless sound. "That's debatable. But, yeah, I was kicked out. Told I wasn't welcome back 'til I made a fortune. I tried, too. I looked for gold, started businesses, you know the deal. Well, turns out makin' a fortune is harder than it looks. I lost more money than I earned. Let's just say finding a place to live and food to eat isn't the easiest thing to do."

Well, that would explain his appearance. Stanley wasn't clothed in rags by any means, but you could tell it had been ages since his torn, stained, clothes had been washed. You were going to have to fix that for him at some point.

"I've gotten in my fair share of trouble, sure, but when Ford called, I couldn't refuse. Good thing Oregon isn't one of the states I'm banned in."

"Huh?"

"Oh, well, nevermind." Stanley waved it off. You were unsure of how exactly someone could manage getting banned from an entire state, let alone multiple, but you didn't want to know. Despite the similarities in the shade of their hair and eyes, the vagabond before you was the polar opposite of the man you loved. Yet something about him made him seem trusting, and you could tell he cared about Ford. You nodded, more to yourself than Stanley's statement. You could make it work, and you wouldn't be alone in the endeavor. That fact lifted a huge weight off of your shoulders. 

"Now," Stanley said, taking the book from your hands, "Show me where we start."