Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Like an unquiet corpse in a grave, a hand, soaked with a liquid that was close enough to be called blood, burst from the snow-covered and nearly frozen ground, clawing the air for some kind of purchase. It found none.

Nevertheless, it persisted.

The hand was not human, though it was badly cut across the palm. The blood was not scarlet. Rather, it was a green color rarely found in nature, thick and heavy like honey. The hand was pulsating, not quite leathery but close enough to be uncomfortable, and the color of a drowned corpse. Or a well-fed maggot.

For that matter, much of the escapee was maggot-like. It pulled itself from the ground, already shivering, an uneven body proportioned with fleshy fly-like eyes and mismatched arms, unbalanced and half-frozen. Teeth, paired with mandibles, gnashed, chattering in the freezing snow.

It hissed something, still unused to human speech despite practice. It was still embarrassingly new to the world, and it was still small enough to tell, though by now it was at least past a larval stage. It’s voice was an amalgamation of several, unwilling to try it’s own just yet, scared of what it might hear. The words it said, regardless, were clear.

“Stanford.”

Stanley Pines, with a house he wasn’t squatting in for the first time in years, fumbled for the key in his pockets while his hands went numb.

Technically, he was squatting. The house wasn’t in his name, and would certainly never be. But no one knew that–least of all a town full of the most gullible people of all time, especially now that he had faked his own death via a fiery car crash. It was easier than he imagined. It almost seemed like the investigators had been eager to write him off as long gone.

And that’s good, Stan insisted to himself, not quite believing it. No one’s gonna come looking for you now, everyone who wants you gone moved on to greener pastures. Or worse pastures. Whatever. Don’t think about the funeral-

“Stanford?”

Stan jumped before he could stop himself, whirling around and kicking over one of the bags of groceries he had set beside him to open the door. He heard eggs crack, but that was hardly his first concern. A voice like that, garbled and painful and nearly incomprehensible, couldn’t possibly be human. He knew there were monsters in these woods; he could feel eyes on him at all times. Monsters that waited with bated breath and sharpened claws, half-crazed grins on their face, drooling with hunger that could never be satisfied-

But when Stan turned, he saw none of those things.

A little boy with shaggy dark hair and a deep frown stared at him, shivering heavily in the snow. He wasn’t wearing a coat, or long pants, or a hat and gloves. Hell, he didn’t even have shoes. He was covered in dirt and frozen mud, and his fingers were stained with some kind of slightly transparent green liquid, dripping off his fingernails But he stared at Stan with such an intensity that it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Jeez, kid,” Stan gathered himself. “What’re you doing out here?”

The boy said nothing, only tilted his head slightly in confusion.

“What?” Stan asked. “Something on my face? Where are your parents?”

Stan stepped over the grocery bags, pulling off his coat. The kid stepped away, frowning. Stan couldn’t totally blame him; it still had a massive hole in the back from the red-hot symbols on the machine that Stan didn’t have the skills or the energy to patch, and it probably smelled like death. He was reluctant to wash it, though. One spin cycle would probably reduce it to threads and little else.

“Hey, c’mon, just trying to help,” Stan said, draping his jacket over the kid and wincing as the cold air immediately began biting at his arms. The kid winced too, though that was probably from the smell. “Where are your parents? Need me to call someone for you?”

The kid looked at him blankly, eyes boring holes into him. Stan got the uncomfortable feeling he was being studied. “You wanna come inside?” Stan asked, motioning to the Murder Hut (name pending). “I mean–okay, your parents probably told you not to go into random strangers’ houses, but this is the exception since you’re not even wearing shoes. I promise I’m a normal guy.”

‘Normal’ wasn’t strictly true, but that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that the kid was so pale he was damn near translucent, and even as nasty as Stan’s coat was, the kid pulled it tighter around himself.

“...I probably have some hot cocoa packets,” Stan said, though he had no idea if that was true or not.

The kid’s eyes flicked up to him, and for the first time, he saw some sembled of life behind his pupils.

“Alright! We got a winner!” Stan said, praying that he could scrounge up something to stave off hypothermia. He gestured to the Hut again, hoping the kid moved quickly. He was starting to shiver himself.

“You got a name, kid?” Stan asked. “I’m Stanford Pines, but you can call me Stan-”

The kid suddenly looked so stricken that Stan expected him to bolt, eyes wide and shocked at his name for reasons that Stan couldn’t possibly place. Ridiculously, Stan looked over his shoulder, wondering if the kid was looking at someone else. “What?” Stan asked, suddenly worried about monsters, or snow ghosts, or the Yeti, or whatever this damn town decided to throw at him next. “Is there something on my face?”

The kid said nothing, trembling.

“Okay, silent type,” Stan said. “That’s alright. My Pa used to say you shouldn’t say anything unless you got something worth saying. ‘Course, I never followed that advice, but maybe you’ll do better at it,” Stan said, trying for his winning salesman smile. The cold made his lips sting when they stretched, and it must have shown on his face, because the kid took a hesitant step back.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, pal,” Stan said gently, kneeling down to the kid’s height, even as snow soaked through his pants. “I’d just feel real bad if I came out tomorrow morning and found a kid-sicle on my lawn. Or, well, maybe you’d make a decent attraction, huh? ‘Step right up, see the amazing Frozen Boy!’ You could be a real lucrative business opportunity for me.”

The kid just stared at him, and Stan felt oddly embarrassed. “Don’t laugh too hard.”

The kid glanced back to the house’s door, the keys sticking out of the lock and swaying in the wind. Stan stood up, wincing when he felt slush in his socks. “C’mon,” he placed his hand on the kid’s back, just barely, herding them into the house. The kid flinched away from his touch, but let himself be led anyway.

“I gotta fun little chair and some cartoons that are calling your name,” Stan promised.

The TV–the creature knew that it was a TV, at least–was too loud, and while the colors were bright enough to sting their eyes, they refused to look away, curled up on a tiny plush chair that smelled like smoke and dust.

This man was not Stanford. That much was certain, though he looked almost identical except for a different body type, different hair, and a glaring lack of fingers. His voice was different too, gruffer and with a rasp that carried something hidden and powerful in it. Their throat throbbed with the phantom pain of trying to mimic his voice, though they had no reason or desire too. For a moment, they had wondered if this imitation was a creature like themselves, but shooed the prospect away. Not-Stanford smelled human. Maybe too human. It had been smart to approach the house as a child they had seen in one of their books, then. No doubt Not-Stanford would have been fearful of the sight of their true form.

“Here we go,” Not-Stanford said, dropping a thick blanket around the creature’s shoulders. They immediately drew it in close, trying to chase out the chill that refused to leave their body even with them practically sitting on a space heater.

On the TV, a little brown mouse smashed a gray cat’s foot with an oversized and impractical hammer. Instead of the cat’s foot bursting into blood and gore, it went flat as a sheet of paper, and the cat let out a deep, masculine yell. Strange.

“So, you got a name?” Not-Stanford asked. “Anyone I can call for you? Betcha your parents are tying themselves into knots worrying about you. I can call ‘em, give you a ride if you need it.”

They said nothing, staring at the TV, eyes flicking over the images.

Not-Stanford sighed, sitting in front of the TV, blocking their view. They frowned–they were fairly certain that, while a liar, Not-Stanford was not a threat. That didn’t make him any easier to deal with, though.

“Did you call me Stanford?” Not-Stanford asked. “Have we met? Maybe you took a tour here over the last few weeks or something.”

The creature huddled ever deeper under the blankets, only allowing their eyes to stay visible. Not-Stanford frowned, and it looked like he aged ten years with it. “Are you…are you in trouble?”

The creature ducked under the blankets completely, curling in on themselves so tight it almost stung. They heard Not-Stanford sigh, and stand back up. “Alright, get yourself warm. I promised you hot cocoa, yeah? I’ll get on that, and maybe you’ll be a little chattier after that.”

They did not reply, but they heard Not-Stanford walk away, and a door opened loudly. They didn’t emerge, feeling their heart pounding in their ears. The TV was still playing jolly music as the mouse and cat inflicted unspeakable violence on each other. But they were too exhausted to care. They ached to sleep, but they were terrified that if they closed their eyes, they might wake up underground again.

They heard something scuttle, and before they really knew what they were doing, their arm shot out and snatched something off the ground.

A mouse, tiny and squealing, squirmed in their tight fisted grip. It was smaller than the one on the TV, gray and with gnashing teeth that couldn’t quite reach their fingers. A hairless, scaly tail whipped against their hand.

The creature sat up, examining the mouse carefully. This one was unlike the ones it had chased underground. This one was clean, its fur not caked in mud and dust, and they could feel body fat on it, unlike the emaciated rodents it had chased underground.

They could feel its tiny heartbeat in their hand, so fast it was like a constant hum. It was warm, soft, almost cute if it didn’t keep showing its awful yellow teeth as it tried to escape.

Their stomach rumbled, and the chill refused to leave. They rubbed a thumb over the soft fur of the mouse, and almost felt guilty. But they had been trapped before, hungry, cold, and alone, and they were self-sufficient enough to deal with it.

They had to be. There was no one else to save them.

The mouse gnashed its disgusting teeth once more, escape efforts redoubling, maybe sensing the end approaching. The creature opened their mouth as wide as they could, and then a little further, and shoved the mouse’s head into their mouth.

The mouse squealed, loud enough to echo down their throat, calling for help-

Crunch.

The mouse went silent, and they went to work on chewing.

They always took the head first; otherwise, the mouse would fight them the whole way down.

Stan sighed, staring at the mug he had prepared for the kid. He had lied; there was no hot cocoa. Besides an industrial size can of coffee, the only beverage available besides hot water was a crumpled packet of English tea, which Stan was pretty sure had even less allure for children than coffee did.

But he knew enough about cold weather (and roughing it in less than adequate clothing) to know that the kid needed to get warm, and an easy way to do that was hot liquids. And he didn’t think kids could drink coffee. He couldn’t remember. And anyway, the tea was already done.

“Jeez,” Stan muttered, grabbing an ancient sugar dish with mostly crystallized contents. Maybe if the kid got to turn the tea into sugar water he’d drink it. “It’s always fucking something out here…”

He took a breath, and stepped back out into the living room. “Alright,” he said, carefully balancing the mug that was threatening to spill over. “I lied about the hot cocoa, apparently, but I hear tea is the next big thing, you wanna-”

He looked up and froze.

The kid’s mouth was covered in blood, fresh enough that it was still dripping off his chin. He was hunched over something, but when he heard the door close, he looked up, and Stan saw the source of the blood; a headless mouse, clutched in the kid’s hand.

The tea and sugar slipped from Stan’s grasp, shattering on the floor.

The kid did not move, staring at Stan, before he moved to take another bite of the mouse.

“NO!” Stan shouted, lurching forward and trying to ignore the horror threatening to make an appearance in the form of vomit. The kid instantly reacted, reeling back as though Stan had brandished a gun, slipping behind the chair. Stan heard something that sounded like skin scraping, flesh tearing. He was well familiar with the sound; he had the scars and had given the scars to prove it.

“Kid, what the-” Stan shoved the chair aside, and probably would have finished his sentence with something absolutely not appropriate for children if it hadn’t been for the thing he saw pressed against the wall.

It was not a human child.

It growled, dog-like, teeth suddenly sharp and bared. It’s face had contorted into something hellish, all boney and lined in places it shouldn’t be, like a living gargoyle. It’s eyes had gone huge and slitted, blinking sideways like some reptilian thing. A child with the face of a monster.

Stan froze. “What the fuck-”

The thing growled again, clutching a headless mouse tightly, blood staining its hands and mouth. The growl tapered off into a hiss as it snapped at Stan, and he jerked away so quickly that he fell ungracefully on his ass.

The thing snarled, lurching forward as if to lunge at him, and in Stan’s everlasting wisdom, he said: “Watch it, you’ll cut yourself on the cup.”

The thing paused, apparently not expecting that.

“J-just-!” Stan struggled to get his bearings again, scuttling back until his back pressed against the wall. “Just don’t bite my head off? Pretty please? Listen, we can work this out!”

Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t used to negotiations. It pressed itself against the chair, clutching the headless mouse to its chest like a talisman, curled up as small as it could possibly make itself, unsettling eyes staring at Stan without blinking, without pausing, filled with an emotion clouded by its inhumanness.

When Stan was very little, he had a small stuffed bear. It had always been in his life, and he assumed he had been given it when he was too little to remember. He had squeezed it tight to his chest when he had been scared, be it over something as trivial as thunder or something so monumental to a child as a furious father. It had been so ubiquitous in his life it hadn’t even really had a name, it was just “Stan’s bear”. At least until his father decided he was much too old for such things, and had condemned it to the trash. He had been nine.

The thing–and Stan was pretty sure it was still a kid–clutched that dead mouse the same way he had held his bear. All out of options for comfort and turning to anything to grip onto during turbulence.

The kid growled again, but it trembled.

“Okay,” Stan held up his hands, and for some reason the kid stared at them. “Okay, let’s just…let’s just calm down, yeah?”

The kid frowned, still holding the mouse.

“Wanna do a trade?” Stan said, feeling around behind him for something that might be worth more than a mouse. A filled up ashtray, lint, a mostly dead roach, and–jackpot.

“See this?” Stan held up his prize. “It’s a TV remote. You can use it to change the channels on the TV. So you can watch whatever you want. See?”

He flicked through a few channels, and the kid’s eyes flickered between him and the glowing box. “Yeah, pretty neat, right?” Stan said, putting on his best salesman voice. “And all you have to do is give me that mouse there.”

The kid frowned, looking like it didn’t entirely trust the situation. Stan sighed. “Look pal, I ain’t mad. You’re clearly not just some lost kid, yeah? You’re…uh. One of the things that lives in town, right?”

The kid stared at him, and Stan sighed again. “Okay, bad phrasing. But my point stands, yeah? You’re not…human. And that’s fine. I just…I can’t help you out if you keep growling at me, yeah? And, uh, the mouse probably isn’t the best thing for you to have. I need to steal–I mean buy, I said buy, some traps. But for now, why don’t you take this remote and give me the mouse, okay?”

The kid looked between the mouse and the remote, and somehow managed to make himself even smaller. “...trick,” he said, in a voice so small Stan thought he imagined it for a second.

“Ain’t a trick, pal,” Stan said. “Really, you’re getting the good end of the deal here. A cool, awesome, super useful remote for a smelly ol’ mouse? Man, I wish I was getting deals like that. Plus, act now and I'll grab you the heated blanket!”

The kid tilted his head with interest, and Stan hazarded a shuffle forward, offering the remote. After a long moment, the kid snatched the remote out of his hand, depositing the mouse in its place.

Stan grimaced, having momentarily forgotten that this plan was heavily reliant on him holding a rapidly cooling dead mouse. “Oh…great. Thanks.”

The kid paid him no mind, flipping through the channels with something like reverence. Stan practically stumbled to the kitchen, gagging only a little when he dumped the mouse in the trash, turning on the sink to scrub away the blood and the feeling of the mouse. When he was mostly satisfied, he snatched several paper towels, soaking them with warm water.

“Kid?” Stan called, poking his head out in the living room and half-expecting to see the kid with a rat dangling from his mouth. Instead, the kid merely looked at him, concentration momentarily broken. “Hey, c’mere, let me get the blood off.”

The kid looked suspicious, still half-hidden. “See? Just paper towels with water,” Stan assured him, kneeling down. “Lemme see your hands.”

After a long moment of hesitation, the kid offered their hands, and Stan managed to wipe away most of the blood without trouble. The kid flinched, and Stan realized he had brushed over a long gash that stretched across the palm of the kid’s left hand. “Moses, kid, what’d you do there?” He asked.

The kid, predictably, said nothing. The gash oozed green, and Stan realized with a shiver that what had been dripping off the kid’s fingers outside had been their own blood. At least it didn’t look like it needed stitches.

“And–lemme get your face,” Stan said, leaning forward, hesitating when the kid stiffened. “Hey, like I said, not gonna hurt you, just lemme wipe your face off. I got better stuff to eat than mice, I swear.”

Stan reached out again, slowly, and the kid did not flinch away or bite him this time. “Where’d you come from, huh?”

The kid wriggled away from him, done with being touched, and pointed down vaguely. Stan frowned. “From…hell?”

The kid blinked, looking just as confused as Stan felt.

“Okay, not hell, that’s good,” Stan said. “I didn’t feel like re-examining my spiritual beliefs today, so-”

“Stanford,” the kid croaked.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Stan sighed. “You know any other words, or-”

The kid shook his head, and held up his left hand.

Before Stan’s eyes, the kid’s hand shifted, expanded, and sprouted a sixth finger.

Stan’s blood went cold. “...ah.”

The kid’s expression shifted, and gone was the gargoyle face. Now a normal human child stared back at him, holding up a six-fingered hand insistently. “Stanford,” they said again.

Oh god, Ford, Stan thought. What did you get yourself into?

“...guess there’s no fooling you,” Stan said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The TV blared some kind of ad for an exfoliating foot bath that screamed scam, but it went ignored.

“Stanford,” the kid said, getting impatient now.

“Yeah, I heard you,” Stan said. “I…yeah. I’m not Stanford, guess you got that. I’m Stanley. You can still call me Stan.”

The kid looked perplexed, and Stan managed a weak chuckle. “Yeah, Pa wasn’t the creative type. Makes remembering our names easier, though, doesn’t it? We’re twins. Stanford ever mention me? His brother?”

The kid said nothing, and Stan’s heart sank even further. “Yeah, well, that tracks. Not your fault. So, how do you know my brother? You two research partners or something?”

He had meant it as a joke, but the kid bristled, shaking his head fervently with an angry expression on his face. “Woah, okay, sorry,” Stan held up his hands in surrender. “Touchy subject.”

“Stan-ford,” the kid said, like a child asking for their parents, and Stan got a horrible, sinking feeling.

“...he ain’t here, kid,” he said softly. “Not…not anymore.”

“Stanford,” the kid said regardless, and then poked their head up, looking around. “Stanford! Stanford!”

“Kid, just-!” Stan stood up quickly, unable to take it, and the kid froze, tense and prepared for fight or flight. “Just stop, okay? He’s not coming, no matter how much you call for him. He…he’s gone.”

“...where?” The kid demanded. Yippee, a third word.

“...I dunno,” Stan said, his voice small and tiny even to himself. “I-I don’t…I didn’t see.”

The kid glared at him, and Stan sighed, feeling a migraine building up behind his eyes. “I don’t…I don’t know how to explain it,” he confessed. “But…but I can show you. If you want.”

The kid considered this, looking entirely unsure. After a moment, he slowly nodded.

“Right,” Stan jerked his head. “Follow me.”

It took a lot of coaxing to get the kid to come down to the portal. Everytime they ventured deeper underground, they started shaking like a leaf about to come free from a tree branch, eyes wide and terrified. Something about the lab, the underground, and the darkness terrified them, but they had already clammed up.

By the time they reached the portal, dead and dark, Stan was already feeling hopeless.

“There, uh,” he gestured vaguely. “I came here because he asked me. The portal turned on, and…” Stan trailed off, unable to finish his own thought for the pain of it.

The kid’s eyes became even wider. “No,” they breathed. Fourth word.

“I-it’s not hopeless,” Stan said quickly, rushing over to hold up the journal, a singular digit on it, emblazoned over a gold foil hand. “I have this. And his notes. And a bazillion textbooks on physics and engineering and whatever. So it’s…the plan is to fix whatever’s wrong with this thing, fire it up, and then get him back.”

He smiled, his best salesman smile, but it felt fragile. The kid stared at the portal, shivering like he was cold. Maybe he was.

“I…” Stan tried to say something encouraging. But he was so exhausted. He was fresh out of encouragement, and at the worst time.

“Stanford,” the kid whispered.

“It was my fault.”

The kid turned to him, and it took a second for Stan to realize he was the one who had spoken.

“...it was my fault,” Stan said again, the words wrenched out of something deep inside himself. “We…I was angry that he told me to leave. I was angry that he wouldn’t explain what he was doing. I was just…I was just so angry and…” he swallowed hard, guilt making him feel ill.

“And I pushed him,” he whispered. “I-I didn’t mean to hurt him, I swear, I just…I didn’t know. And now he’s gone, and I don’t-”

Stan’s voice cracked, and he turned away, unable to face the kid anymore. There were so many ghosts in the basement, and now there was one more, left completely alone and calling for shadows that had never really been there in the first place.

“Stanford,” the kid pleaded with the portal, their voice hitching painfully. “Stanford, Stanford, Stanford.”

There was no answer.

They slept a lot.

They weren’t sure how long it was, huddled on a ragged armchair, drifting in and out of dreaming and wakefulness. Enough that they remembered, vaguely, Stan leaning over them and speaking in a soft and nervous voice, asking if they were getting sick and ‘what in the hell am I supposed to do about that, I don’t even know what you are–’ and they had rolled over and gone back to sleep, chasing a dream where everything was normal, everything was fine. They hadn’t done anything wrong in this dream, they had never tried to slip away in an ill-conceived plan of mischief. They would have stayed in that bunker forever if it meant Stanford would come back and he would stop frowning at them.

They chased those dreams like they chased mice when the can opener snapped in half and slashed their hand open in a quick burst, and when they didn’t have the strength to tear the cans apart, hunger clawing at their unknowable insides like a snarling beast. They reached out desperately for a version of Stanford that had disappeared around the same time that Fiddleford had, with his twitchy hands and faraway expression. They pleaded ‘I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be good this time, I promise, please don’t leave me’ in their dreams. Maybe they whispered it when they were awake too, it was hard to tell.

The chill never left them, no matter how tight of a ball they curled into and how many blankets they draped over their body. The exhaustion never left, no matter how long they drifted. The pain never, ever abated, so all-consuming was the grief that they were certain they would never feel anything again.

Sometimes they would blink and Stan would be there, offering food and water and talking in a quiet, soft, unsure voice that Stanford never used. Stanford was never unsure, and it only made the grief yawn wider. Sometimes, though he would just sit next to them, watching whatever asinine nonsense was on TV. That wasn’t so bad, usually.

Then, they woke up, and something was different.

The wind outside was silent.

Since they had clawed their way out of the ground, they had heard and felt the wind constantly, screaming and wailing with such fury that it seemed to swallow everything and everyone else up in its wake. It was quiet now, and if they focused very hard, they thought they could hear birds.

They had heard recordings a few times, something for them to mimic. They weren’t very good at most birds, but they were good at robins.

There was a robin outside now, in fact.

Stan was asleep, leaned back against the chair, his mouth open and snoring. A single strand of drool hung out of his mouth. They crept around him carefully, clutching the blankets tight around their shoulders.

They opened the door, and paused.

A blast of cold air hit them, and they pulled the blankets around them tighter. The porchlights only gave a vague impression of a terrifying and shadowing forest just beyond their jaundiced glow, but they weren’t looking at that right now. The ground was covered in snow, with a few tiny footprints in them–three toes, tipped with harmless claws. Bird tracks.

They were so focused on the tracks they almost missed the gray of the sky becoming lighter.

They looked up, startled to see that the cloud cover they had emerged in had disappeared, replaced with an open sky and a moon in the shape of a toenail, slowly disappearing as something happened to the sky. The edge of the horizon turned pink, like a soft blush, spread across the sky like rosy fingers, chasing away the gray and turning it blue as the pink receded.

The horizon bloomed orange, and the red, and then the most brilliant gold they had ever seen in their life as something appeared over the edge of the line where land met sky. They squinted, unable to look at it directly but trying anyway, fascinated with the mixing and melting colors that put everything that they had ever seen before to shame.

This is what they were keeping from me, a mean little voice in their head said. The sunrise.

They shoved the voice back down immediately. They’d give up the sun a thousand times to have Stanford back. But, as the sun flew higher, unrestrained by gravity like they were, they still didn’t look away.

“Oh, here you are,” they glanced back to see Stan stumbled out the door after them, rubbing his eyes. “I thought you ran off or something. You alright, little guy?”

They turned back to the sun, watching it arch across a predetermined path. Stan chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a nice sunrise. Glad the blizzard’s finally over, though it’s gonna be a bitch to clear a path. I don’t suppose you know where Ford keeps the snow shovel?”

They shrugged, and Stan sighed with no real irritation. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Shifty,” they said.

Stan glanced back at them. “What?”

“Shifty,” they said again, gesturing vaguely.

“That’s not–” Stan blinked, his eyes widening in realization. “Oh, is that…is that your name?”

They–Shifty–nodded.

Stan smiled. It looked exhausted, cracked, and beaten down so many times it was considering throwing in the towel altogether, but it was there. “Nice to meet you, Shifty. I’m Stanley.”

Something caught Shifty’s eye, and they turned just in time to see a robin land in the snow, looking curiously at the ground before scraping at it vaguely, heedless of the cold.

“That’s a robin,” Shifty said.

“And that’s a full sentence,” Stan said, looking impressed. “Phew. Thought you were limited to one word at a time or something.”

The robin regarded them curiously, opened its mouth, and began to sing.

“Hey, kid,” Stan said, nudging them lightly with his shoulder. “Whaddya say I scrape together some kinda breakfast, and you can have a half-decent meal?”

“...and then we find Stanford?” Shifty asked, their voice almost lost in the robin’s singing.

Stan paused, and then nodded, a look of grim determination coming into his face. “...yeah, kid. We’re gonna find him. We’re gonna bring him home. No matter what it takes. I promise.”

Even Shifty knew what a dangerous thing a promise was.

But in the dawn, with the robin still singing its little heart out, they could take it for what it was.

“...promise,” they repeated, and followed Stan back inside.

Chapter Text

Years later…

A being that was distinctly not human was on the warpath, and it was barely nine-thirty in the morning. No one knew they weren’t human, though. They were wearing a very good costume.

“Can we–?!” Shifty sighed, gesturing vaguely at the sign that proudly proclaimed that their place of business was called a ‘MYSTERY HACK’, the ‘S’ abandoned and being chewed on by a goat. “Can we not call someone to fix this?! My god.”

“I tried, dude,” Soos said mournfully, walking past Shifty in preparation to start his workday. “But the last three times I did it, it just fell off again.”

Shifty glanced at Soos, surprised. “You’ve fixed it? How?”

“Glue,” Soos said seriously. “Lots and lots of glue.”

Shifty had been more concerned with how Soos lugged the letter up to the roof, but they winced when they heard the porch door open, and Stan exited, mostly clothed except for his pants.

“Hey!” He shouted at Shifty. “Get back here! We’re not done talking!”

“Opening in thirty minutes!” Shifty ignored Stan, rushing back into the gift shop. “And your cashier is late!”

“Are you and Mr. Pines fighting again?” Soos asked placidly, following Shifty.

“We’re always fighting, it keeps things interesting,” Shifty said, popping open the register and quickly counting the bills. They sighed. “Did you take fifteen bucks out yesterday, by any chance?”

“No,” Soos said. “Why?”

Shifty sighed. “We’re short again. God, I keep telling Wendy that she can’t put stupid IOUs in here when she wants to spend a stupid night out with her stupid friends…!”

Stan burst into the gift shop, still pantsless. “Quit running out on me!”

“Quit being where I’m not, then,” Shifty said, shouldering past Stan easily to get to the museum itself. “Twenty eight minutes. And put some pants on”

Stan chased after Shifty, and Shifty tried very hard to ignore him, frowning when they saw the Sascrotch had lost his underwear. It was hanging loosely around his ankles. “See that? That’s why you gotta be less focused on dumb ideas and more focused on the here and now. Almost caught another indecency charge.”

“Indecent?!” Stan protested, gesturing wildly. “It’s an animal! We let animals run around naked all day!”

“It has a very large penis, Stan,” Shifty said, frowning at the exhibit.

“So do elephants, we don’t do nothing about that,” Stan crossed his arms.

“I don’t know why you’re arguing with me about this,” Shifty sighed, stepping over the velvet rope into the exhibit. “Soos, can you fly in some duct tape?”

“On it!”

“You can’t ignore me forever,” Stan warned.

“And yet,” Shifty muttered, yanking up the underwear of the Sascrotch and catching the duct tape as Soos tossed it. “Thanks.”

“I just think,” Stan said, and Shifty resisted the urge to groan. “That it might be nice–”

“Twenty three minutes,” Shifty said, darting past Stan once they finished taping the underwear up, and their bad mood expanded tenfold when they heard the entry bell ding and saw a familiar redhead. “Oh, look who finally decided to show up!”

“Lay off, man!” Wendy scowled. “I’m like thirty seconds late.”

“It’s like ten minutes,” Shifty corrected. “And wanna explain why we’re fifteen short on the register?”

Wendy shrugged in that infuriating teenage way of her’s, and Shifty clenched their fists. “Shake down your cashier, I gotta find your pants, since you won’t,” they told Stan, already in the living quarters of the shack.

“Wagner giving you the runaround?” They heard Wendy ask Stan, but Stan’s footsteps were already following Shifty.

“Quit running off!”

“Quit not wearing pants!” Shifty fired back, digging through laundry. “They make, you know, real shorts and sweatpants, I think you just do this to gross everyone out-”

“Well, obviously,” Stan said, looming over Shifty like a particularly annoying specter. “And I know exactly where my pants are, I’m just putting it off!”

“Stop putting it off then!”

“Stop ignoring the conversation!”

“I will not,” Shifty said, storming into the office and slamming the door. “Because it’s a stupid conversation! Seventeen minutes!”

They weren’t sure what they hoped to accomplish, because Stan barged into the office right after them, and made it worse by shutting the door behind him.

“Not now,” Shifty said, digging out the account books for the current month and rifling through them. They had to check the records, try and find a discrepancy that led to missing fifteen dollars. Besides the fact that sometimes every penny counted, Shifty prided themselves immensely on keeping accurate records and numbers, at least for themselves. The IRS didn’t need to know there were two account books. “Sixteen minutes.”

“What the hell is the matter with you today?!” Stan demanded.

“What’s the matter?!” Shifty asked, finally giving Stan their full attention so they could properly glare at him. “The ‘S’ still hasn’t been fixed after two and a half months of it being down, the exhibits are falling apart, your cashier was late again, we open in fourteen minutes, and there’s fifteen dollars missing from the register!”

“Hey, genius,” Stan rolled his eyes. “We got pizza last night, remember?”

“So?!”

“How’d we pay? I forgot where I put my wallet, you didn’t have cash for a tip, so…”

Shifty paused in their furious search through the account books. “...oh. Right. Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, Stan,” Stan said, in a high-pitched imitation of Shifty. “I’ll totally remember this in the morning and not freak out!”

“I do not sound like that.”

“That impression was spot on. I should go into comedy.”

“You should not,” Shifty said, closing the account books with as much dignity as they could muster. “She was still late, though.”

“Okay,” Stan said, sitting in the chair across from the desk. Shifty didn’t like that, childish as it was. Usually Stan was sitting behind the desk, and Shifty was in front. The reversal was new in a way they didn’t feel entirely comfortable with. “So, you’re still acting like a freak.”

“...because I think your plan is terrible,” Shifty said.

“What?! Why?!”

“Um,” Shifty blinked. “Do I…have to explain it?”

“It’s not really my plan,” Stan said. “It’s Andy and Christine’s plan.”

“And I never met them,” Shifty said. “Or their kids. And for that matter, you haven’t seen them in, what, six years? Seven? Why are they asking you? Can’t Shermie take them?”

“Shermie’s going on some kind of cruise this summer with his wife Nora,” Stan said, with a hint of jealousy in his eye. “Some sort of old people world tour with booze thing. Maybe they’re swinging, too. Who knows? They can’t back out of it.”

“Surely Christine has family.”

“Christine’s family lives farther from Piedmont than us,” Stan said. “They didn’t wanna send them too far if they could help it.”

Shifty sighed, rubbing their eyes. “Listen, Stan, the bottom line is that neither of us like kids.”

Stan frowned. “I like these kids specifically, just not every other kid.”

“Are you gonna be saying the same thing when they’re always here and you can’t hand them off to their parents?” Shifty asked. “This is just asking for chaos. That’s the last thing we need. And besides a general dislike of children, there’s the rest of the shack. It’s not exactly, you know, child-friendly. You have ten guns, you go through beer like it’s the end of the world, not to mention the basement.”

“You survived,” Stan rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a child,” Shifty said bitterly. “And I wouldn’t trust me with or around kids either, by the way.”

Stan was quiet, frowning strangely. Shifty sighed. “Look, it’s nice you wanna take the kids while their parents are going through a divorce or whatever, but it’s just not a good time. They can figure it out without involving us.”

Stan said nothing, and Shifty peeked at the clock on the wall. “Nine-no, eight minutes.”

Shifty glanced at Stan and paused. They knew that expression. “...what did you do.”

“...this is sorta awkward,” Stan said reluctantly. “Because I really thought I could get you to agree.”

Shifty’s felt their stomach drop. “...why?”

“Because I already agreed,” Stan said. “So. No take-backs.”

“Yes take-backs!” Shifty stood up so fast that the chair flew backwards, hitting the wall. “Call their parents right now and tell them you changed your mind because your smart business partner explained why this is a terrible idea!”

“Not happening.”

“Why?!”

Stan grinned, like the jackass he loved to be. “Not so fun when you’re the one being ignored, huh?”

“You-!” Shifty groaned, hiding their face in their hands for a moment. “What’s the point of this, huh? Prove that you’re not some recluse who lives at the edge of a town that doesn’t even make it onto maps? Isn’t it a little too late for that?”

Stan didn’t answer, and when Shifty looked again, Stan was glaring thunderously at them. Shifty winced, guilt curdling in their belly like old milk.

Shifty and Stan didn’t apologize when they overstepped some invisible boundary. They just didn’t. They moved on. They had to move on, or they would become so tangled in ghosts and grudges that they would stop moving entirely and drown like sharks gone still in the water.

“Okay,” Shifty said, their voice soft, which was basically a white flag. Stan’s angry expression disappeared, and they counted it as forgiveness. “Okay, listen. I’m telling you this is a bad idea.”

“And I’m telling you that it’s not changing,” Stan said, and shrugged. “Probably shoulda floated the idea earlier, maybe, but too late for that. It’s happening.”

“Where will the kids even stay?”

“Attic.”

Shifty scoffed. “I live in the attic, genius.”

“Well,” Stan said, and suddenly he looked more unsure than he had when he introduced the idea of the kids coming to visit. “I figured you could. Uh. Take his room.”

Shifty felt like ice had been injected into their veins. “No.”

“Would you rather the kids take it?” Stan asked, and the worst part was that he was genuinely asking, though it seemed equally unbearable to him. There were enough ghosts in the house without opening sealed rooms.

“No!” Shifty shook their head. “I just…I’ll stay in the motel.”

“All summer?”

“All-?!” Shifty gestured wildly. “How long do divorces take?! A week’s not enough?!”

“Longer than a week!” Stan huffed a laugh, which only pissed Shifty off. “Why’d you only think it was a week?”

“I don’t know, it seemed like a reasonable amount of time!” They groaned, sitting down heavily at the desk and leaning their forehead on it. “All summer? Really?”

“It’ll be good for you,” Stan said. “Extra socialization. Since you’re so terrible with the customers. And kids. And also people in general.”

“I’m not a dog,” Shifty grumbled.

“Usually, anyway.”

That coaxed a small smile out of Shifty, and they were glad their face was hidden so Stan couldn’t see it. They peeked at the clock, and groaned. “You have two minutes to find your pants.”

“Oh goddammit-” They heard Stan haul himself to his feet. “We’ll figure out living arrangements after the first round of tourists, okay?”

“Sure, yippee,” Shifty said dully.

“See ya, Mouser,” Stan said, and Shifty could hear his shit-eating grin.

“That nickname wasn’t funny the first time, and it’s not funny the millionth-” Shifty lifted their head, realizing they were talking to an empty room. “Oh goddammit.”

They tilted their head to stare out the window at Stan waiting patiently for the bus to pull up to the shack, just barely managing not to drop his 8-ball cane and zip his fly up at the same time. Apparently he had managed to find his pants.

They wiped the glass of the window with the corner of their denim jacket, staring at their reflection.

A person stared back, a person with hazel eyes and unruly dark curls hanging limply around their head. The person had a long nose, a couple dimples around their cheeks, and three freckles under their left eye. When they smiled, which honestly wasn’t too often, most of their teeth were crooked. Teeth were always the hardest to get, and they had given up trying to get them perfect unless they were pretending to be someone else.

“Your name is Remy Wagner,” Shifty told their reflection. “A normal human person who co-runs the Mystery Shack with Stanford Pines. You like TV, comics, numbers, the denim jacket Soos gave you, and being left alone. It’s ten in the morning and it’s time to go to work.”

On cue, they watched a bus pulling up, filled with tourists and their money, money that would keep them and Stan floating along above the ever widening sea of despair for another week or so. It wasn’t a perfect system. But it was a system, and Shifty was reluctant to touch something so delicate with no safety pad.

The basement seemed to laugh at them through the floorboards.

They heard the front door open and close.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mystery Shack!”

“Time to go to work,” Shifty said again, forcing themselves to stand. “It’s gonna be a good day.”

A pudgy child stared at Shifty, unashamed. Shifty glared at them. “Can I help you with something?”

“What’s wrong with your hand?” The child pointed at the scar on Shifty’s palm.

“I don’t know,” Shifty bristled, clenching their fist to hide it. “What’s wrong with you? Are you annoying on purpose or just for fun?”

Wendy let out a singular, entirely un-muffled “HA!” from behind the cash register, and the pudgy child burst into tears and rushed out of the gift shop, searching for his mother, most likely.

Shifty sighed, going back to marking inventory. “And I don’t need your help,” they told Wendy.

Wendy rolled her eyes. “I just laughed, dude.”

“Yes, I don’t need you adding fuel to the fire, thank you,” Shifty said, marking off the snowglobes. Inventory still at 75% after two full weeks post-stocking, we’ll have to take a handful off the shelves, inflate the price through forced scarcity-

“You’re surlier than usual,” Wendy said, in a tone that let Shifty know she didn’t actually give a damn. “What’s your deal?”

“Personal stuff that’s none of your business, that’s what,” Shifty said.

“Just trying to help, man,” Wendy shrugged, going back to her magazine.

“You’re never just trying to help,” Shifty snapped. “And put that away. No reading at the register.”

Wendy rolled her eyes, but shoved the magazine under the cash register. “Hey, Remy, what’s it like to be a grouchy old man stuck in the body of a thirty-something year old?”

“I’m twenty-nine,” Shifty said, and they were pretty sure that was true.

“That sounds like denial,” Wendy said in a sing-song voice.

“If you must know,” Shifty said, his voice becoming increasingly clipped. “Stan’s invited his grand niece and nephew to stay for the summer, and while I think it’s a terrible idea, apparently I don’t get a say.”

Wendy looked surprised. “You have a niece and nephew?”

“What?” Shifty glanced back at her. “No. Stan does.”

Wendy looked even more confused. “You and Stan aren’t related?”

“We have different last names, genius.”

Wendy shrugged. “People can have different last names and still be related. You two kinda look alike anyway.”

“Nah, dog,” Soos said, crunching a chip as he joined the conversation. “You’re new, so you don’t know all the lore–”

“The–” Shifty sputtered. “There’s no lore.”

“But apparently Remy was some kinda traveler that got stuck in Gravity Falls or something, and the two struck up a conversation, and Stan hired Remy as, like, the assistant manager of the shack,” Soos said.

“Co-manager, thank you,” Shifty said, crossing their arms.

“That’s…” Wendy glanced at Shifty. “Extremely vague.”

“Yeah,” Soos nodded. “My theory is that he’s some kinda ex-mob boss in witness protection.”

Wendy nodded sagely. “Goodfellas.”

“Exactly.”

Shifty frowned at Wendy. “Aren’t you too young to have seen Goodfellas?”

“Why do you care?” Wendy asked.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Shifty agreed. “And anyway, sorry to disappoint, but I’m not in witness protection.”

“That sounds like something someone in witness protection would say,” Soos said seriously.

“Especially with the haziest backstory I’ve ever heard,” Wendy said. “C’mon man, details.”

“My so-called backstory is none of your business,” Shifty said, clicking their pen a few times for emphasis. “I’m not a Pines. Sorry. I live here for convenience.”

“And Mr. Pines,” Wendy said. “Notorious cheapskate, doesn’t charge you rent?”

“And how do you know he doesn’t charge me rent?”

“‘Cause you’d complain about it if he did,” Wendy said smugly.

Shifty hated that she was probably right. “I help run this place and keep you two in line. I earn my keep. Speaking of earning keep, by the way, both of you have things we pay you to do. Quit gossiping about me, you do your jobs and I’ll do mine.”

Soos gave Shifty a firm nod, and Wendy rolled her eyes, but they looked like they were at least pretending to go back to work, which was good enough for Shifty. “God,” they grumbled, flipping through their notes as they made their way out of the gift shop. “It never ends with you people.”

“Hey,” a tourist popped up from behind a line of t-shirts out of nowhere, shoving a snowglobe in Shifty’s face. “This has a scratch on the glass, can I get a discount-”

Shifty reacted before they really meant to, jerking their hand up to smack the snowglobe out of the tourist’s hands. It shattered the second it hit the ground.

That’s one way to make scarcity, they thought, more frustrated than anything.

The tourist scowled. “I’m not paying for that.”

“Whatever,” Shifty grumbled, feeling a migraine building behind their eyes. “Wendy, go clean that up.”

“What?!” She protested. “Come on, man-!”

But Shifty had already gone.

“Kid,” Stan said, much later that evening. “Kid, think about the deal I’m offering you.”

“It’s a terrible deal,” Shifty said, clutching the remote so tightly they worried they might break it.

“Come on!” Stan threw his hands up in the air, frustrated. “Baby Fights is on tonight!”

“So’s my show,” Shifty said primly, sitting on the ground.

It was a well-established post-dinner ritual by this point. Stan would make or order dinner, because even almost thirty years later Shifty couldn’t cook to save their life, and they would watch one hour of TV before setting back to work on the monstrosity in the basement. Shifty still rarely ventured down, doing calculations in the flickering light of the kitchen, hunched over until they passed out at the table or gave up for the night and went to bed. It was usually the former.

“You have terrible taste in TV,” Stan grumbled.

“You like watching infants fight,” Shifty argued, flicking through a few channels. “I don’t want to hear anything about my sitcoms.”

“They’re so boring,” Stan said.

“I said I don’t want to hear anything!”

An overly cheerful theme song began to play, and Shifty grinned as the credits began to roll. They could tell it was a rerun already, but that was fine. It felt even more comforting that way.

“So, uh,” Stan said, sounding awkward, and Shifty’s smile melted away when they realized where this was going. “Kids’ll be here next week. I can help you clear out your room and stuff, if you want help. I don’t think you actually have to move too much, ‘cause it’s not like you have anything super breakable.”

“I never agreed to this,” Shifty said quietly.

“Look, yeah, I shoulda told you earlier, my bad,” Stan said. That was an almost-apology. He must have felt pretty bad. “But it’s only temporary. Not that much is gonna change. We just gotta be a little more careful when we go downstairs, and no more trips down during the day. Not like we’ve been doing it that much to begin with. And maybe eat a vegetable once in a while to set a good example, I dunno.”

“I know why you actually said they could stay,” Shifty said quietly. “Because I know they’re twins.”

Silence. Shifty didn’t dare look back.

“Which is also why I think this is a terrible idea,” Shifty said, picking nervously at the carpet. “You see him everywhere. I do too. But he’s…he’s not here. And trying to find him everything else is…well. Everything else is at best a stepping stone to the final goal, and at worst a distraction. And…and I’m sure they’re nice kids. But they’re not a stepping stone. They’re only going to be a distraction.”

“I’m not-” Stan growled, and Shifty could practically smell his anger.

“But,” they said quickly. “I also know you don’t like to listen to me. And I don’t really want to fight about this. It’s not worth it. So…so alright then. I’m going to take off work tomorrow and clear out his room, move my stuff into it.”

The theme song to the sitcom ended, and a long-gone audience whooped and cheered when a smiling father stepped into the foyer of his house, holding two full brown grocery bags.

“Guess who got a ten for the price of two deal on mayonnaise?” He announced. The audience howled in laughter.

“...alright,” Stan said, anger mostly gone. “I can live with that.”

“And for God’s sake,” Shifty said, twisting around to glare at Stan. “Get your glasses prescription updated before they get here, you’re gonna be doing a lot more driving with two kids here, and you don’t need to be putting them in danger as well as yourself every time you get behind the wheel. I’ve made the appointment three times, go to it already.”

“It’s not the glasses, kid,” Stan grinned, tapping his frames for emphasis. “It’s cataracts.”

“That’s worse,” Shifty said. “That’s so much worse. You do know that’s worse, right?”

Stan laughed, apparently unconcerned. “Watch your lame show, Mouser.”

Shifty rolled their eyes, and felt something twinge painfully. They just barely managed to conceal a flinch. But Stan paused, looking confused. “What’s that face? You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“I’m not,” Shifty said, quickly climbing to their feet. “I need to go to the bathroom. Don’t change the channel.”

“No promises–” Stan said, but Shifty was already slouching down the hall, rubbing at their eyes. They half-stumbled into the bathroom as quietly as they could, closing the door behind them before leaning in close to the mirror.

Their eye, as they suspected, was swollen, bright pink and bulging against the skin. They could see it practically fighting to ooze, to burst from its confines, like stepping on an overripe cherry. And it hurt, too–a slow, steady throbbing that would spread across the rest of their body, practically unraveling them.

They took a breath, closed their eyes, and dropped their disguise, practically feeling themselves unspool from the confines of a human shape, crafted carefully and kept up for hours upon hours, days upon days. There was no room for mistakes. And as always, they refused to look at themselves.

They counted to one hundred and twenty, two minutes exactly, before they stuffed themselves back inside Remy Wagner, and examined their own human reflection. They looked tired, a little rough around the edges, but that was fine. They always looked a little haunted. Stan did too.

Distantly, they heard an announcer tell an audience that the first bout of fighting was between Little Suzie and Chubby Timmy, the reigning champ. Stan laughed.

Shifty leaned their head against the glass of the mirror, appreciating the coolness. “You’re okay,” they whispered. “We’re okay. We’re fine. Go back out there and change the channel back. It’s your turn to pick what we watch tonight.”

They counted to thirty, and then stepped back out, perfectly human.

Chapter Text

It was a long time ago when it all happened, muddled so badly it felt like a dream. The memories blurred together like watercolors on canvas, with too much water and not enough paint, and looking back, it was hard to tell what was real and what was imagined in a rose-colored haze of memories.

Regardless, they were pretty sure this had happened, because of how badly it ended. They remembered the bad with such clarity.

“This might be interesting,” Stanford had said with a grin, setting something down in front of Shifty.

They were tiny then, tiny enough that Stanford could carry them around in one arm, which was their favorite way to go from place to place. Tiny enough that their voice was more of a chirp than anything. Tiny enough that it was hard to hold shapes much bigger than their real size. Tiny enough that the things that were coming felt so far away they were practically nonexistent.

Shifty chirruped, reaching for Stanford’s hands with what could generously be described as nubs, and Stanford let them grab at his hand, tugging away gently a few times in a little game that usually ended with Shifty being picked up, which was always the ultimate goal.

This time, though, Stanford nudged them towards whatever he had set down in the center of the room. “Fidds, here,” he said, and Fiddleford glanced back with a slight frown. “You wanted to run a self-recognition test, right?”

“I mentioned it off hand,” he said. “I didn’t mean-”

“Shifty, look,” Stanford said, nudging Shifty again back towards the object when the latter tried to climb up his arm. “Look at that!”

Shifty followed Stanford’s gaze, and immediately stiffened.

Sitting inches from them was a strange, white creature, chubby and glaring back with flesh-pink eyes, a tiny mouth filled with encircling teeth twitching. Instantly, Shifty hissed, moving away from the creature, only for the other to do exactly the same, in perfect unison. They paused, confused.

Whenever they moved, the other creature did the exact same thing, at the exact same time. Cautiously, Shifty edged forward, reaching out for the other creature, only to meet something hard and cold. Shifty chirped a few times, examining what they were pretty sure wasn’t another creature.

Stanford grinned, and glanced back at Fiddleford. “See? I told you it’d be able to tell it was a reflection.”

Fiddleford frowned, and Shifty cooed, pleased to have passed some test without even having known they were being tested. They poked curiously at the object–a mirror, Stanford had called it–and then twisted their shape, turning into something they had seen in one of the picture books Stanford had given them.

“What?” They said, a favorite word, because Stanford always, always responded to it with such a pleased smile.

“That’s a frog,” Stanford said. “You’re a frog.”

Shifty hummed, staring at the mirror, which now contained a frog. They thought they were starting to get it. The mirror was them, or at least some copy of them, a copy that they controlled completely and utterly. They liked it. They shifted again, becoming something small and gray. They knew what they were, but they asked anyway: “What?”

“Squirrel,” Stanford said, and turned back to Fiddleford. “Oh, I think it’s using the mirror to check it’s appearance, I don’t know if it’s out of play, mimicry, or some other instinct–”

“What!” Shifty said, amused by this game, turning into a goldfish.

“Goldfish,” Stanford said, his smile stretching even wider. “Sort of ruins the disguise being out of water, but I guess you wouldn’t know that–”

Shifty got an idea.

They turned back into themselves, and the mirror held a small creature again that looked utterly unlike anything Shifty had ever seen. It was a strange beast; pale and squirmy. The closest thing they could think of themselves being was a worm, but they knew they were too big to be a worm. “What?” They asked.

“That’s you,” Stanford chuckled. “Or, well, that’s the mirror.”

“If it’s asking if that’s itself in the mirror,” Fiddleford asked. “Does that count as passing the test?”

“Probably,” Stanford shrugged. “It recognized that it wasn’t another being, you know, and it’s never seen it’s reflection before until now–”

“What?” Shifty asked again, reaching up to tug at Stanford’s hand. Stanford hadn’t answered their question. “What?”

“That’s you, I just said that,” Stanford said, like Shifty didn’t already know that. “Oh, Fidds, before I forget, do you remember where we put the blue pens? The good ones? I–”

“What!” Shifty demanded, fighting for Stanford’s attention. “What what what!”

Fiddleford stepped back, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe you oughta take the mirror away.”

“What!” Shifty said as loud as they could, frustration growing. There were names for everything, and Stanford seemed to know all of them. ‘You’ was not a name. That wasn’t good enough. Stanford and Fiddleford were humans, and Shifty wasn’t, and they knew that because even before this, Fiddleford had said so to Stanford with a kind of scolding nervousness when the latter had been giving him colorful toys, and Shifty hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but they were thinking about it now. They weren't human. They weren’t anything in their books. They were something else entirely.

“WHAT!” Shifty said, frustrated by their inability to voice their requests. “WHAT WHAT WHAT!”

“Maybe you’re right,” Stanford said, reaching for the mirror. “It might be overstimulating-”

The frustration sharpened into something else, and Shifty moved faster than they knew they could. Their body contorted into no shape they had ever seen–something sharp and barbed, yet made of malleable flesh all the same, utterly ignoring any carefully constructed shapes they had taken on before in favor of something that had one purpose and one purpose alone: to dispel anger as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

They saw themselves in the mirror for less than a second, and were nearly scared by the writhing thing they saw before they lashed out decisively with a singular, snapping appendage.

CRACK!

The sudden noise startled them enough to send them darting into the corner of the room, under the desk, in their original shape again, staring out.

The mirror was gone. Reflective shards lay on the floor, sparkling with dangerous beauty like jagged stars plucked from the sky. Stanford held what was left of it, leaning away from the glass. Fiddleford looked ashen, staring at the broken pieces as if they might rise up and chase him. And Stanford looked…he looked different. He looked afraid.

Shifty chirped softly, a sound that meant ‘pick me up right now’ and almost always resulted as such. They crept forward slightly, and chirped again. Stanford didn’t move, staring at the mirror with an expression that made Shifty anxious.

“Stan-ford,” they said with some difficulty. “Stan-ford, Stan-ford, Stan-ford.”

“...did it get you?” Fiddleford asked, his voice hushed.

“N-no,” Stanford said after a moment. “It only hit the mirror. The glass didn’t get cut either. Do you, um…do you mind grabbing the dustpan? I’ll clean it up, I just don’t want to leave Shifty alone with the glass on the ground.”

"I don't wanna leave you alone with it-"

"I'll be fine," Stanford said, looking at Fiddleford with softness in his eyes. "Please?"

Fiddleford cast one last fearful glance at Shifty. “Sure, gimme a sec.” He practically scrambled out of the room.

Shifty chirped again, a little more desperate this time, crawling out from their hiding place. Stanford frowned, slightly stiff, but didn’t move away.

“Stan-ford,” Shifty said quietly, slightly pleading. They reached up, grabbing his hand and tugging insistently. They had done something wrong, they knew that. They weren't sure where they had messed up, but they desperately needed to make it right. “Stan-ford.”

Stanford did not pick them up, and for the first time, Shifty realized they had asked a question he could not answer.

Shifty stood completely still, staring at a bookcase that held nothing.

Vaguely, they could hear a tour running through the museum, and based on the amount of idle chatter from the tourists, it was a good thing they weren’t working today. This many people didn’t make them nervous anymore, but it always made them snappy.

“It’s a room,” they muttered to themselves, tapping their foot anxiously on the ground. “It’s just a room. You’re being stupid about this. Nothing’s going to get you.”

Their hands were shaking.

“Goddammit,” they muttered, reaching out despite their own trembling, wriggling to move the bookcase aside without knocking anything over or hitting the walls. Behind the bookcase was a heavy wooden door, practically glowing with the morning sun hitting it.

God, I forgot how ornate everything you own is, Shifty thought, with something like fond irritation. They pushed open the door before they could second guess themselves.

The first thing that hit them before the melancholy was the dust, and they were almost grateful for it.

A literal cloud of dust exited the room, like a dying man’s final gasp, and Shifty immediately doubled over, coughing roughly and waving their hands in front of their face. Sunlight leaked through the boarded up window, illuminating cobwebs and more floating dust in a hazy fog. The room had no bed, only a long couch, and the only real spot of color was a bright teal rug in the center.

Shifty wasn’t exactly sure what they had expected to find. They couldn’t remember what the room had looked like years ago, they were so little when Stan had hidden it away, unable to bear the ghosts and regrets that leaked out of it. Shifty hadn’t argued with him.

They ran their finger over a desk filled with discarded papers and empty flasks, wrinkling their nose in distaste when their finger came away gray and grainy with dust.

It’s just a room, they told themselves. A gross, dusty room you have to clean out. You’re good at cleaning stuff. Nothing weird going on in here.

Most of their mind remained unconvinced, but that was fine.

The cleaning itself wasn’t quite so bad when they really put themselves into it. Shifty didn’t mind cleaning nearly as much as they pretended too; unless it was a really tedious or gross chore, it was often relaxing. They could turn their brain off, focus on scrubbing or sweeping or spraying until it was over, and then move onto the next task, and there was a lot of scrubbing, sweeping, and spraying to be had in a room that had been untouched for so long.

They got a good rhythm going, forcing their mind to be anywhere but this room, carefully putting every object in a cardboard box as though it might explode if they didn’t handle them carefully enough. They rolled up the carpet and stuffed it in the closet, unsure what to do about it but knowing they probably didn’t want something labeled “Experiment 78” sitting out in their room. They yanked the wood boards off the window, suddenly blinded by the sunlight flooding through the stained glass, casting triangular patterns of light on the floor.

The trick was to force their brain out of their body, to let mechanical motions take over and ignore everything but the movement of their hands and their own breathing. Unfortunately, that meant that they finished most of the major chores far faster than they meant to, and the second they stopped moving, they saw the glasses.

It was amazing how a tiny object could stop them in their tracks. Before they could stop themself, Shifty reached out, plucking them carefully off the desk, running their fingers along the frames, not the lenses, so they didn’t leave any marks on them. They had a blurry yet distinct memory of turning into a pair of glasses when they were very little, out of curiosity and boredom.

Something painful twisted in their chest.

Before they really processed what they were doing, they yanked the cloth covering a full length mirror off, covering their face when dust flew in the air. They glanced at the door, even though they would have been able to hear someone coming long before they arrived, and reached up to wipe some of the dust off the glass.

They stared down at the glasses, and felt themselves morph and change.

When they looked back in the mirror, Stanford Pines stared back.

“Hi,” Shifty said, in a perfect imitation of his voice, but the words didn’t feel right. “Hello.”

They frowned, and then forced themselves to stand up straight, looking as serious as they could. “Greetings,” they said, in the most important intonation they could do, and that felt correct.

This Stanford didn’t have bloody bandages covering his hands. This Stanford didn’t have stubble covering his face. This Stanford didn’t have eye bags so deep and dark he looked like he had been punched. This Stanford was as Shifty wanted to remember him: powerful, confident, and utterly unflappable in the face of whatever had brought him so low near the end. This Stanford would never leave them behind.

“You’re doing so well, Shifty,” this Stanford said, staring out of the mirror and a memory clouded by time and grief. “When I come back, I'll see it all. It'll be incredible.”

Shifty put on the glasses, and the entire picture went so blurry they couldn’t see anymore.

“Damn,” they muttered, yanking off the glasses and blinking heavily, the illusion shattered.

Shifty heard someone coming down the hall, and immediately changed back into Remy Wagner.

Stan stuck his head in the room, looking surprised. “Woah, didn’t expect you to clear it out this fast.”

“There wasn’t much to begin with,” Shifty said, slipping the glasses in the pocket of their jacket before Stan could notice them. “Guess I’ll be done before the shack closes. Shouldn’t take too long to move my stuff down here, I already got it all boxed up.”

“Did you…” Stan picked at some loose wood in the doorframe. “You didn’t move any of his stuff around, right?”

Shifty shook their head, and Stan looked relieved. “Good. You know how he is about…well. You know.”

“Yeah,” Shifty said, and felt the chasm of loss yawn so wide they nearly fell in entirely.

“Listen, um,” Stan rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “If you really, really don’t want to stay in here, we can probably figure something out.”

“You couldn’t have told me this before I cleaned the place?” Shifty asked, and Stan managed a ghost of a smile.

“Well, you know, free labor,” he shrugged.

“Screw you,” Shifty said, and shook their head. “It’s fine, I guess. There’s less in here than I remembered. And it’s not like–” they snapped their mouth shut just before they finished with It’s not like he’ll be needing it anytime soon.

Progress had stalled so immensely that they had just about resorted to shaking their fists at the portal and yelling obscenities at it. Shifty had decoded and calculated absolutely everything they could, Stan had rebuilt what he could and learned engineering backwards, forwards, and inside out. Shifty was pretty confident both of them could impersonate Ivy League professors in engineering, physics, and mathematics if they were pressed to do so. But there was only so much they could do with one part of the instructions. And they had absolutely no leads on where they could find the other journal.

Stan didn’t comment on Shifty’s almost-observation. “Right. Okay. Well. Good. Guess that solves that problem.”

“The kids are coming in tomorrow, right?” Shifty asked, pretending to be busy wiping down the mirror. “In the evening after the shack closes?”

“Yeah,” Stan nodded. “Not totally sure when, though. I’ll order pizza or something so they can eat when they get here.”

“Cool,” Shifty nodded, wondering at what point it would be alright to tell Stan they wanted to be left alone now. “That’s…okay.”

“...hands,” Stan said, once and simply, before disappearing from the doorway.

“What?” Shifty asked. “What are–”

They glanced at their hands, sighed, and got rid of their extra fingers, refusing to dwell on it.

The door to the gift shop rang cheerfully, and Shifty was about to call out that they were closed before they saw Stan enter, flanked by two kids, a boy and a girl.

“And this is the gift shop!” Stan said, in his best showman voice. “Where the money-making magic happens!”

The girl oohed and ahed, but Shifty was pretty sure it was forced. The boy said nothing, staring at the ground.

“...hi,” Shifty said, feeling incredibly awkward. “I live here.”

The kid looked at him strangely, and Shifty wondered what faux pas he had committed.

“That’s Remy,” Stan said, motioning to Shifty. “Assistant manager of the shack–”

“Co-manager, we keep having this conversation–”

“-he mostly deals with the numbers part of the whole operation. Inventory, accounting, the like. And you’ll meet Soos and Wendy tomorrow, they already went home for the day,” Stan said, ignoring Shifty entirely.

The boy frowned. “Why do you live here? You don’t have your own place or anything?”

Shifty shrugged, wishing they were anywhere but here. “It’s just easier. Work-wise, I mean.”

“Hi, Remy!” The girl waved. “I’m Mabel! And this is my brother–”

“Yeah, Stan told me your names,” Shifty said, relieved for some kind of subject change beyond their living situation. “Mabel and Mason.”

“Dipper,” the boy, Mason, said.

Shifty blinked. “What?”

“Mason’s kinda dumb, so everyone just calls me Dipper,” he shrugged.

“Oh,” Shifty said, a little perplexed. “Okay. Sure.”

There was a beat of silence so uncomfortable that` Shifty considered turning into some kind of creature to escape it.

“But…” they said. “Mason’s a dumb name, but Dipper isn’t?”

They were being genuine, but Mabel snickered, and Dipper’s scowl at the ground turned thunderous.

“O-kay,” Stan said, shooing them out of the gift shop and into the house. “Hope you two like pizza! There’s some in the kitchen!”

“I’m not hungry,” Dipper said, and Mabel elbowed him.

“More for me, then!” Stan said. “Attic’s all the way upstairs, make yourself at home, I’ll be right after you in a second.”

The twins trailed out of the gift shop, and Stan gave Shifty a sideways look. “Not sure you’re the authority on what names are dumb, Shifty.”

They gestured vaguely. “I didn’t come up with it–”

“Wanna go over your first choices for fake names, then?”

“Shut up,” Shifty hissed, without much venom.

Stan laughed, clapping them on the back good-naturedly. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s eat as much pizza as we can before Dipper changes his mind.”

“Mabel,” Dipper said. “Are we really gonna let a magic 8-ball decide if we should stay here or not?”

“Not unless you have a better idea,” Mabel shrugged, arranging her stuffed animals on the bed. Dipper wasn’t sure what the point was, since they would almost all be scattered on the ground come morning. “8-ball said we should stay, but we’re staying! You can do the ‘tie the sheets together and rappel down the house to find the FBI plan’, but you can’t use my sheets.”

Dipper frowned. “But then I won’t have enough sheets.”

Mabel shrugged, and Dipper groaned, lying down on the mildew-scented mattress and staring at the ceiling. “This summer's gonna suck so bad. I was finally gonna beat my high score in Incredible Plumber Siblings 6.”

“...I miss my friends,” Mabel said, in a quiet voice, very different from the optimism she had been holding onto so tightly earlier today.

Dipper felt guilt curdle in his chest. “I’m sure you’ll make more,” Dipper said, though he was more worried about himself. Mabel made friends as easily as breathing. Dipper still felt too awkward and nervous to ask the kids in his math class if he could sit with them at lunch.

“Yeah,” Mabel said, nodding firmly. “I’m already friends with Grunkle Stan! And Remy!”

“I dunno if Grunkle Stan counts,” Dipper said. “And Remy…he’s kinda weird.”

“Well, so’s Grunkle Stan, and we still love him! Maybe Remy’s cool too.”

“Remy’s a jerk,” Dipper decided, getting up so he could more easily ignore Mabel’s frown. “I’m going downstairs, I’m hungry.”

“Shoulda have pizza when you had the chance,” Mabel said in a sing-song voice.

“I was carsick all day, gimme a break,” Dipper said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Don’t fall down the stairs.”

“I did that once! One time!” Dipper said, ducking out of the attic.

The shack was far more intimidating at night. There must have been something slightly off about the architecture of the walls, something almost correct but not quite, because the shadows cast around the halls made him shiver, tilting and swirling around him like ghosts reaching out to grab him.

It took him a second to remember where the kitchen was, wandering through a house lit only by the moon. He didn’t want to turn on any lights unless he absolutely had to.

Finally, he found the entrance to the kitchen, and poked his head in.

Something else was already there.

A hulking figure, mismatched in its shape, was standing in the center of the kitchen. It must have been at least eight feet tall, slouched over slightly to avoid hitting its head on a light. Its head was vaguely tube shaped, and it stood slightly unsteady on spindly, spider-like legs.

Dipper managed a terrified squeak, and it turned to him, bug-like eyes glimmering in the moonlight.

“Oh my god-” Dipper gasped, fumbling for a lightswitch. His fingers found purchase, and he flicked it on–

Remy, wearing a faded t-shirt and pajama pants, winced when the lights turned on. “Jeez, what’s the big idea?!” He demanded, blinking rapidly.

“Remy?!” Dipper asked breathlessly. “But you…where’s the-?!”

“What’s with you?” Remy asked. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“There was…!” Dipper darted into the kitchen, looking around wildly. “There was something in here!”

“Yeah,” Remy rubbed his eyes. “Me. Warn a guy next time, yeah? You’re creepily quiet.”

“There was something in here!” Dipper said. “Like a monster or something! It was huge, had these freaky eyes–”

Remy rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m know you're mad that I called your nickname dumb, but there’s no need-”

“It wasn’t you!” Dipper shook his head. “It was something else!”

“I’m the only one here,” Remy said. “Pretty sure I would’ve seen your monster.”

“But-but…” Dipper said desperately, but there was no sign of anything like the figure he had seen.

“Can I help you with something?” Remy asked, not bothering to hide his irritation.

“I was hungry,” Dipper said. “Is there any pizza left?”

Remy winced, and Dipper realized he was clutching a half-eaten pizza crust. “There was. But. Well. I was hungry too.”

Dipper’s stomach growled. Remy shrugged. “You snooze, you lose. There’s probably some snacks in the pantry if you want them. Just turn off the lights before you go back up, Stan has this whole thing about the electricity bill.”

“How do you know Stan?” Dipper asked.

“I told you,” Remy said. “I’m co-manager.”

“Yeah, but how’d you meet?” Dipper asked. “I’ve never even heard of you.”

Remy grinned, amused, and it looked like he could do with a pair of braces to match Mabel. “I’m pretty mysterious.”

“Hm,” Dipper said, crossing his arms, still annoyed about the lack of pizza. “That doesn’t answer any of my questions.”

“That’s because it’s late, and I want to go to bed,” Remy said, stuffing the rest of the crust in his mouth. “‘Night.”

“Oh, Remy-” Dipper started, planning to ask some question about if Stan had peanut butter and crackers, but he froze when Remy turned back.

In the half-lit hallway, Remy’s eyes were practically glowing, like a cat.

Human eyes were not supposed to do that.

“What?” Remy asked, looking confused by Dipper’s expression. “Something on my face?”

“Um,” Dipper said, a little breathless. “Never mind.”

“Hm,” Remy said, and shrugged, disappearing down the hall.

Dipper went to bed hungry.

It had been a mostly quiet day, and Shifty had spent most of it sleeping, curled up on the chair in front of the TV, dropping their child-costume only for a few minutes at a time when they were positive there was no one looking at them.

They could hear Stan off somewhere in the house, giving loud tours of what he had been recently calling the ‘Murder Hut’, assuring Shifty the name would probably change soon when he saw their frown.

Now, though, the house was quiet, and they were idly watching a show. Or at least they were trying to, though they tore their eyes away when Stan came plodding in, thumbing through cash with a relieved look on his face.

“Hey, kid,” Stan said, reaching out to ruffle Shifty’s fake hair. They didn’t lean away this time. By now, they were just about positive that Stan meant them no harm, and found they even appreciated his attention. He was different from Stanford, but Shifty supposed he wasn’t worse. It didn’t erase the gaping pain in their chest at Stanford’s disappearance, but it helped.

“You had a busy day, huh?” Stan asked, glancing at the TV. “Busy watching sitcoms?”

Shifty nodded. Speaking was still a chore, and they generally preferred not to do so, which was easy because Stan liked to talk more than enough for both of them.

“I’m thinking mac n’ cheese for dinner,” Stan said, sitting down on the ground next to Shifty. “Sound good to you?”

Shifty tilted their head, perplexed, and Stan chuckled. “Never had it? You’ll like it, I promise, it comes from a box and everything. There’s no way to mess it up.”

He grabbed the remote and turned the TV off, rolling his eyes when Shifty made a protesting noise. “Yeah, yeah, you want your brain-melting boring shows. We gotta get you into something interesting. Like, pay-per-view wrestling or something. There’s gotta be a way to get that without paying, right?”

Shifty huffed, grumpy, ducking under the blankets. Stan poked them a few times to make them wriggle, and chuckled. “Oh, hey, been meaning to ask. I’ve only seen you be a kid, and then a weird looking kid. Can you turn into anything else?”

Shifty grinned under the blanket, let them body change and contort, and then poked their head out of the blankets as a large gray cat. Stan jumped, surprised, and then grinned. “Hey! Not bad. Nice, I was wondering if you only had one trick. Anything else?”

Shifty changed into a dog, a snake, a gnome, and an almost perfect copy of Stan before shifting back to a child with a pleased grin on their face. “Not bad, kid,” Stan said. “What do you actually look like, then?”

Shifty paused, confused.

“You know,” Stan said. “I’m guessing you’re not just a normal looking human.”

Shifty felt something freeze in their chest.

They knew what their true form looked like. They were what it evoked. Maggots, rot, monsters. Fiddleford looked at their true form with fear. Maybe it was why he left. Maybe it had been why Stanford had left.

Shifty ducked under the blankets, completely hidden except for their eyes, wide and staring at Stan. The latter leaned down to get a better view. “What, did I put my foot in my mouth again?”

Shifty said nothing, staring back and hoping their fear wasn’t too obvious to Stan. Stan frowned. “C’mon, kid, you’re not gonna scare me-”

“Don’t have one,” Shifty managed to say, thinking the lie was weak even as they said it.

“Don’t have one?” Stan repeated, and then hummed. “Like…you don’t have, like, a real look or something? You’re just always shifting?”

Shifty nodded hard, even as uncomfortable as they were stretching themselves to always fit a child. But they could deal with the discomfort far more easily than they could deal with the idea of being left behind again.

“Aw, my bad, kid,” Stan said. “Didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed about it.”

Shifty poked their head out of the blankets, relieved. “Mac n’ cheese," they said.

Stan grinned, ruffling Shifty’s fake hair again. “You got it.”

He left Shifty alone in the living room, staring at their reflection in the cooling TV.

Chapter Text

Fiddleford wasn’t looking at Shifty.

It wasn’t any day in particular when the incident happened. It was when Shifty was a little bigger, though, better at speaking and better at voicing their demands. Demands they hardly bothered with when it was just Fiddleford.

Fiddleford was never cruel to Shifty. In fact, Shifty didn’t think Fiddleford had ever been cruel to anyone in his entire life. But he gave Shifty a wide berth, eyeing them with open nervousness, and Shifty knew that he didn’t trust them in the slightest. It stung a bit, how he insisted that Ford shouldn’t carry Shifty around like a baby, that Shifty really didn’t need this many books and toys, and that he really shouldn’t be cooing over them. At least Stanford ignored him.

But Fiddleford had been different lately. He had never been a calm person, but he seemed even more high-strung than usual. He reacted to Shifty’s chirps for food by jumping and clutching at his chest, and would repeat actions over and over again before abruptly moving onto something else with no acknowledgement of all the paper he had written the same notes on ten times. His hands shook even when he wasn’t actively afraid, and his eyes weren’t right. They seemed dulled, like his mind was elsewhere or gone altogether. He would stop moving and stare at the wall long to make Shifty nervous before snapping out of the episode with no fanfare and then going about his day.

And he was far, far less careful with Shifty, even as his fear of them seemed to grow.

Not too long ago, Fiddleford would never get within ten feet of Shifty unless Ford was also there. He would never come into Shifty’s space without an express purpose, without trying to get out as fast as possible. And he never, NEVER turned his back on Shifty.

It was frustrating, sometimes, being treated like this when Stanford was always so eager to give Shifty attention, but Shifty supposed they preferred it to being harassed. At least Fiddleford had dropped the suggestion of putting Shifty in a cage when Ford shot it down the first time.

Fiddleford was scribbling something or another on paper now, his other hand running through his hair, occasionally tugging in a way that looked downright painful. Shifty was in the corner of the room, shaped like a monkey because that was their favorite animal at the moment, trying to see how tall they could stack their wooden blocks before they fell over. Shifty was pretty sure Fiddleford knew they were in the room, though it was odd he was in here. Stanford would regularly sit with Shifty just so he could keep them company while he worked, but Fiddleford rarely wanted distractions if he was working with Shifty. At least, that’s how it was before.

Shifty would have taken it as a sign that Fiddleford was finally warming up to them if it hadn’t been for everything else.

Fiddleford’s hand twitched abruptly, and he lost his grip on his pencil. It bounced on the floor twice before rolling under the dresser on the other side of the room. Fiddleford sighed, standing up and walking after it, kneeling down to feel under the dresser for the pencil.

Shifty paused, wondering why the moment felt so odd before they realized: Fiddleford’s back was completely turned to them. For the first time ever, Shifty was positive Fiddleford wasn’t keeping an eye on them.

They tensed, unsure how to process the information. Their body rippled silently, suddenly buzzing with a strange energy. They took a silent step forward, and Fiddleford was none the wiser.

They could kill him, they realized.

They weren’t sure where the thought came from. They only knew a little bit about what death was, after they had found a dried up snake and brought it to Stanford with a confused bout of chirping. Not long after that they had seen a spider wrap up a wayward fly in a web. And they had thought, as Stanford explained with enthusiasm how spiders hunted: ‘I could do that. I could kill. If I wanted to.’

They didn’t really want to, but the knowledge they could stuck in their mind.

And now it was back, and louder than ever. Fiddleford was vulnerable. They could turn into something big and sharp and deadly, and kill him before he could even make a sound. They tested it, and let their body ripple into something they had only seen once: a tiger, and they had stared at the picture for a long time, before Fiddleford had noticed and taken the book away with a disturbed look. Shifty had been given it back later, but the tiger was gone, the page ripped out inelegantly. But they didn’t forget it.

A tiger, with huge teeth and huge claws, crouched low, tail twitching, eyes fixed on Fiddleford’s back. It would be laughably easy, to lunge forward and overtake Fiddleford. And then he wouldn’t take their books. Then he wouldn’t try to pull Stanford away from them. But more than that, more than any superficial reason, it felt right. It felt right to crouch down and wait for the perfect moment to strike, to imagine how it would feel to tear flesh from bone before prey could even squeak in fear. It was like Shifty had been born knowing how to do it, as easy as shifting. Easy as breathing. Maybe even easier. Killing would be the easiest thing they ever did.

And maybe they should, really. Fiddleford still looked at him with fear, though they had done nothing to him. As Fiddleford got twitchier and less careful, he somehow simultaneously became more afraid of everything, Shifty included. Maybe things might get better again if he were gone. Maybe the increasingly dark bags under Stanford’s eyes would begin to go away. Maybe they should make good on the fear, if he was so determined to never try and get over it.

If Fiddleford wanted a monster so badly, maybe they should just oblige.

Fiddleford sat back, pencil in hand, and turned around.

He didn’t scream, didn’t scramble backwards. In fact, he froze, as though cursed to remain still, eyes wide and terrified, realizing his mistake only now.

Shifty snarled, low and quiet, every muscle tense.

Fiddleford let out a breath, so quiet it was barely noticeable, and something snapped in Shifty’s head.

Shame suddenly flooded every cell in their body, and the shape of the tiger melted away immediately until they were themselves, sitting in front of their blocks once more. Why did they do that? They didn’t hate Fiddleford. They were pretty sure they didn’t even really dislike him, at least not that much. Not nearly enough to imagine killing him in such detail it was like it already happened.

Fiddleford stared at them, eyes still wide with horror.

“...hungry,” Shifty said, quiet and guilty. “Please?”

Fiddleford didn’t say anything, rushing out of the room and slamming the door behind him. He left all his work behind.

Shifty didn’t see him again for a very long time.

Shifty reached out, and yanked the steering wheel to serve around a slow-moving possum in the middle of the road. “Please,” they told Stan, a little desperate. “Please let me drive.”

“Oh please,” Stan rolled his eyes. “You drive like you gotta death wish.”

“At least I can see the road!”

“Can we please stop swerving?” Dipper asked, blindfolded in the back and clutching the seat leather tight enough to leave marks. “I’m gonna get sick.”

“I think it’s like a roller coaster ride!” Mabel said. “Woo-hoo!”

“Remy, do you know where we’re going?” Dipper asked nervously.

“Afterlife, probably,” Shifty said.

Stan scoffed. “See you in hell, then, Mouser.”

“Bad word!” Mabel squawked.

“Hell’s not a bad word–”

“BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE!” Shifty shrieked, but it was too late. The car careened off the side of the road, crashing through the forest.

This is such a stupid way to die, Shifty thought, squeezing their eyes shut. The car rattled once, twice, and then came to a peaceful stop.

“See?” Stan said, unclicking his seat belt. “We’re here!”

Shifty cracked their eyes open, finding themselves not only in one piece, but at the marina. Somehow, Stan had managed to parallel park the car perfectly.

“Oh my god,” Shifty wheezed, and glared at Stan. “I keep telling you to fix your damn cataracts!”

“We made it, didn’t we?” Stan said.

“Bad word!” Mabel said again. Dipper gagged.

“Well, here we are!” Stan said, ushering the kids out of the car and yanking off their blindfolds. “Gravity Falls lake!”

The parking lot was almost full, and the lake was filled with people swimming, fishing, sunbathing, or a variety of other activities. Shifty had forgotten that the lake officially opened for the season today, though in their defense, they didn’t get out much.

“Um,” Dipper said, looking confused. “What are we doing here?”

“Fishing!” Stan announced. “Family fun day!”

“Why am I here then?” Shifty asked, perplexed.

Mabel gasped. “Are you two related?! Do we have a secret family member?!”

“Ew,” Shifty said.

“Remy wishes he was related to me,” Stan said.

“I do not-”

“But he’s here so he doesn’t brood at the shack all day,” Stan said. “If you leave him alone too long he gets a broody face and it doesn’t go away the rest of the day–see, he’s making it right now. Take notes, kids.”

“Oh,” Shifty said. “My god.”

“What are we supposed to even do here?” Dipper asked, remarkably suspicious. He had been acting strange the past few days, ever since he and Mabel came back covered in leaves with matching exhausted expressions. Dipper had lost his hat, and Stan had let him pick a new one from the shop, free of charge, in an act of charity that had Shifty asking if he was feeling alright.

In fact, he had been acting strange since the first night he arrived, when he had nearly caught Shifty in the kitchen, unable to wear a costume any longer, but starving. They had been just quick enough to change back into Remy before Dipper got a proper look at them, but they supposed it was a good wakeup call for being more cautious for the rest of the summer. Dipper still eyed them nervously, though, but he eyed everything nervously, like he expected something to spring out from behind the t-shirt racks. Shifty decided not to take it personally. Dipper mostly just seemed like a nervous kid.

“Fishing, of course!” Stan said. “Check it out, I got a boat and everything!”

Stan ushered all three over to a dinky speedboat with a handwritten title of the Stan o’ War. It was already leaking lazily, and Shifty lifted their arm over their nose to block out the smell of bait heating up in the summer sun.

“Oh,” Mabel said, looking unsure. “That’s…that’s nice.”

“I made everyone hats!” Stan said, producing two wrinkled fishing hats and putting them on the kids’ hats. There were hand-stitched letters on both hats, spelling out the kids’ names. Dipper’s hat sat awkwardly on top of his pine tree hat. “Oh, Remy, your’s is in the car.”

“Great!” Shifty smiled, plastic and annoyed, turning on their heels. “I’m going to take a nap in the car then. You guys have fun.”

“You won’t nap for ten hours,” Stan said.

Dipper’s mouth dropped open. “Ten hours?!”

“I brought the joke book!” Stan grinned, holding up a weathered red book with a laughing old man on it.

“NO!” Mabel shrieked, as though Stan had just threatened to kill a kitten.

“There has to be a way out of this!” Dipper bemoaned, and Shifty was right there with him. Unfortunately, they forgot that they had monkey’s paw luck–sometimes their various wishes were granted, but only at a greater price.

“I SEEN IT!” A screechy voice wailed, and Shifty’s blood went cold as ice. “I SEEN IT AGAIN!”

“Give your keys,” Shifty said urgently, refusing to turn around and look at the spectacle, even as the kids’ mouths dropped open in unison, staring at the sound of crashing and shouting. “I’m going home, I’ll pick you up when it’s over–”

“No way am I letting you drive the old girl,” Stan said. “Not after what happened last time–”

“You just drove it off a damn ravine!” Shifty hissed. “My thing wasn’t bad at all compared to that-”

“It’s the gobbledywonker that did it!” The voice shrieked again, so addled he couldn’t even pronounce his own monster’s name right. Something moved in Shifty’s periphery vision, and they looked before they could stop themselves.

Fiddleford McGucket, somehow, looked even worse.

He was bent over with age and an illness that Shifty couldn’t even begin to diagnose. His beard was unruly and tangled, nearly reaching the ground. He had new bandages on his feet, and a cast around his arm that flopped uselessly around his hand whenever he gestured wildly. His eyes, though, were exactly the same. Gone was any focus or semblance of genius, replaced now by careening impulses and fear so strong Shifty could smell it; like a strange combination of vinegar and grapes. Shifty had smelled it a lot in the final days before he fled.

Had it not been for his eyes, Shifty doubted they could recognize him. But they would know that color anywhere, the same shade as the place where the sky met land, a watery blue, the intelligence long snuffed out.

“I seen it!” Fiddleford lurched towards Shifty, and Shifty realized they had made the grave mistake of making eye contact with him. “I did! I did, I did!”

“Get off!” Shifty said, trying to go for waspish and annoyed, but they were pretty sure they just sounded frightened. At least no one commented on it.

“There’s a monster in the lake?” Dipper asked, because of course that was what he latched onto. He had been insistent since the first night that there was something off about Gravity Falls, something hidden in the town he was determined to discover. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t any easier to curb his impulses. A few times, when Dipper had been arguing with Stan about whether or not there was something strange in the woods, Shifty had daydreamed about turning into a huge monster right in front of him. In the five seconds before it ruined their life and revealed every lie they had spent their entire existence trying to keep up, Dipper’s expression would be pretty funny.

“Of course not,” Stan rolled his eyes. “He’s just bananas. He’s always been bananas.”

Shifty nodded, hoping they didn’t look too uncomfortable doing so.

“Anyway!” Stan said, doing a much better job ignoring Fiddleford than Shifty was. “Remy, grab the bait.”

“I’m not touching that,” Shifty said, glaring at the fish chunks like they hadn’t eaten live animals before, and many times.

“Grunkle Stan, Remy!” Dipper said, and Shifty realized they had made another grave mistake: letting Mabel and Dipper huddle to come up with their own plans. “Mabel and I have been talking, and we think that instead of sitting around feeling seasick for ten hours, we can take the boat to Scuttlebutt Island and look for the monster!”

“Monster hunt! Monster hunt!” Mabel chanted.

“There’s no monster,” Shifty said. “Old Man McGucket probably saw a log and thought it tried to eat him. Or he’s just making it up to begin with. You never really know with that guy.”

“Hey, dudes!” A new boat pulled up, and Shifty glanced up, surprised to see Soos piloting a decent looking boat. “Someone say something about a monster hunt?”

“Soos!” Mabel grinned, fist-bumping him immediately. “Just the guy we wanted to see!”

“Since when do you have a boat?” Shifty asked, impressed in spite of themselves.

“Through a series of complex and outlandish trades, starting with a red paperclip. But that’s a B-plot flashback for another time,” Soos said, turning back to the twins. “Dude, you can totally use my boat for a monster hunt.”

“Well, hang on now!” Stan said, clambering out of the boat and throwing an arm around Shifty. They winced–he smelled especially strong today. “You could go waste your time running after monsters or whatever, or you could spend the day with me and Remy! Learn how to skewer worms on a hook and tie complicated and hard-to-learn knots!”

“Please don’t loop me into this,” Shifty begged. As usual, they were ignored.

The twins glanced at each other with a grin, and really, it was Stan’s mistake to give them an option in the first place.

“Bye, Remy, bye Grunkle Stan!” Mabel waved at them from the boat as it sped away. “We’ll send back a picture of the Dobbletonker!”

“Gobblewonker,” Dipper said.

“Him too,” Mabel nodded.

“Ingrates!” Stan shouted, shaking his fist after the retreating boat.

“Well, that was fun,” Shifty said. “Anyway, wanna go back to the shack? I could go for lunch, though, I think the marina sells sandwiches.”

“What?! Nah!” Stan waved them off, and Shifty’s heart sank. “Who needs ‘em?! We’ll have plenty of fun by ourselves!”

“I, uh,” Shifty said. “Don’t want to be here, though. Like, at all.”

“Too bad!” Stan said cheerfully, shoving Shifty onto the tiny boat and ignoring their shout of protest. “I rented this thing for ten hours, and we’re gonna make use of that!”

“This is a rental?!” Shifty demanded. “Why did you write ‘Stan o’ War’ on the side, then?!”

“It washes off, don’t worry,” Stan said, though Shifty was pretty sure it didn’t. He reached out to grab the handle of the motor, and before Shifty could protest, they were already rocketing towards the center of the lake. “This is gonna be great!”

“What?!” Stan squawked, pulling up a soaked boot, hooked through the sole. “Another shoe?! Who keeps throwing these in the lake?!”

“Put it on the pile,” Shifty said dully, motioning vaguely to a pile of about six mismatched shoes, all in varying states of disrepair. “Maybe we can make an exhibit out of it or something.”

Stan grumbled, struggling to stick a squirming worm on the hook. “You can’t turn into a worm or something?”

“Not for long,” Shifty said, leaning back in the boat and trying to close their eyes. “Too small. And, also, I don’t want to get eaten by a fish.”

“I think you’re just lazy,” Stan grumbled.

“Congrats, Sherlock,” Shifty mumbled. “You figured it out. Least I’m not harassing random people.”

“Harassing?!” Stan gestured wildly. “I’m a goddamn pillar of the community! They should be so lucky I wanna fish with them.”

“You ruined that couple’s proposal with your stupid joke.”

“You love that joke,” Stan said. “‘Bout busted your sides laughing when I told you it.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Shifty said. “And even if it was, it was probably my fifth joke ever. I had low standards at the time.”

Uncomfortable silence fell over them. Stan finished wrangling the worm, and cast his line out once more.

“Stupid lake monster,” Stan growled. “Stupid McGucket.”

“Mhm,” Shifty said, choosing not to point out the kids probably would have ditched him for just about anything. “Hey, you don’t think there’s an actual lake monster out here, do you?”

“Sure I do,” Stan muttered. “He’s sitting in my boat.”

Walked right into that one, I guess, Shifty thought, but instead said: “No, really. I mean, I haven’t seen one before, but I’m never really at the lake.”

“Nah,” Stan scoffed. “C’mon, I know this place is a freakshow, but thirty years and this is the first we’re hearing of a lake monster? Get real.”

“Hm,” Shifty said, and then squinted, seeing a silvery blur on the horizon. “Hey, I think it’s them! They’re coming back!”

“Really?!” Stan stood up so fast the boat nearly capsized. “HEY! YOU RUGRATS, HERE!”

He waved frantically, and the little silver dot came in closer.

“...that thing sure is coming in fast, huh?” Stan remarked.

Shifty tensed. “...uh huh.”

They went silent for a moment, watching the boat edge closer. It was making waves, large ones, and the wake it left behind churned angrily in the water.

“They’re…” Shifty gulped. “They’re gonna turn, right? Because, um…because they’re heading right towards us.”

“They see us,” Stan said, but he didn’t sound all too confident.

They sat in silence once more, and the approaching boat engine roared. Stan squinted. “Are those…are those beavers on the boat?”

“It’s not changing course,” Shifty said, their voice rising in nerves. “Stan, Stan-”

“Okay, okay-” Stan said, grabbing at the motor’s cord and yanking. It made a sputtering sound. “Ah, fuck, um–”

“Why isn’t it working?!” Shifty hissed, leaning over the boat to try and paddle them away from Soos’ incoming boat. There was some kind of issue with the beavers; they were chasing Mabel and Soos while Dipper leaned over the railing, trying to take pictures of the water.

“I dunno, um, just-!” Stan yanked the cord with increased speed.

“Stop pulling it like that, it’s gonna snap–”

“Have you been on a boat before?! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“It’s intuitive, you mouthbreather–”

“Intuit this–”

“BAIL OUT!” Shifty shrieked, diving overboard just as Soos’ boat zoomed past them, followed by Stan. Soos’ vessel clipped their’s, and between that and the massive wake the boat left behind, their dinky speed boat capsized almost immediately, leaving them floating uselessly in the water.

Shifty sputtered, clawing at the underside of the boat to stay afloat. “Oh, goddammit, we lost all our shoes.”

Stan sighed, suddenly looking exhausted. “...maybe you’re right. Maybe we should call it quits and leave without paying the damage fee for the boat.”

“We definitely shouldn’t pay the damage fee,” Shifty said brightly, and then paused when they realized how miserable Stan looked. Maybe this was one of those situations where they had to be emotionally sensitive, which wasn’t exactly their forte.

They coughed. “Um…maybe you can take Mabel and Dipper to a movie. Something that’s a little less intense than ten hours on a boat. And then, also, I don’t have to go.”

Somehow, this didn’t seem to help. Stan sighed again. “Help me turn this over, then we can–”

There was a low growl, and a moment later, a huge shadow passed underneath Shifty and Stan, pursuing Soos’ boat. Shifty yelped, trying to scramble up onto the capsized speedboat, and Stan went very still.

“There’s a monster after all?!” Shifty shrieked.

Stan watched it for a moment, looking worried, and then glanced back at Shifty. “Sure would be useful if we had someone who could follow the kids, make sure they’re not getting into trouble. Like, I dunno, a shapeshifter or something.”

Shifty scowled. “I hate it when you do that, make it all hypothetical.”

“I won’t ask you to do it again,” Stan said.

“You’re a damn liar,” Shifty decided, but sighed. “Hang on, let me get my jacket and shoes off, I don’t want to lose them.”

“Oh, yeah, no rush,” Stan said blandly as Shifty struggled to get their soaked denim jacket off. “Not like my niece and nephew are about to get eaten by a monster.”

“We don’t know that, the Gobblewonker could be perfectly reasonable,” Shifty snapped, pulling off their shoes and putting them neatly next to their jacket on the capsized boat. “Don’t lose my clothes.”

Stan raised his eyebrows. “You wear shoes and a jacket and nothing else?”

Shifty glared. “Do you want me to go after them or not?”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Fine, have fun being a fish or whatever.”

Shifty rolled backwards into the lake, flipping Stan the bird before the dark water concealed them. They concentrated, wincing a little when they compressed themselves even more into the shape of a turtle, paddling after the wake of the monster.

They found the ass of the Gobblewonker, but not much else.

They changed back into Remy, shaking off the water, edging along the sheer rock face of what essentially turned out to be a natural alleyway. There must have been some kind of cave behind the waterfall, because the monster was partially wedged in it, too rotund to make it all the way through.

What was really strange was how still it was.

“What the hell…?” Shifty muttered, leaning in as close as they dared to investigate the creature. Its scales had an odd shine to them, and after a moment, Shifty reached out and hesitantly touched them. They were made of metal. “What–”

They didn’t get an opportunity to investigate further, because the monster suddenly came to life with a mechanical whir, backing out of the cave in long, unsteady movements, twitching badly. Shifty yelped, instantly turning into a beaver and scuttling behind a rock. The Gobblewonker rose to full height, each tooth easily the size of a young child, with glowing eyes–

It groaned weakly, sparks popping from its head, before it collapsed into the water once more, smoke leaking out of its mouth. Shifty chittered, confused and relieved in equal measure.

A moment later, what was left of Soos’ boat limped weakly out of the cave. They were fine–a little guilty looking, and a little bruised, but fine. Dipper was fiddling with a disposable camera, and Mabel was already chattering, though she leaned out the boat to wave at the sparking Gobblewonker.

“Bye, Old Man McGucket!” She called, and Shifty’s heart skipped several beats. “Thanks for not killing us with your giant robot! You should try therapy or something, maybe!”

To Shifty’s increasing horror, a hatch opened on the Gobblewonker, and McGucket poked his head out, waving with a vacant smile. “Bye, Dolores!” He said. “Don’t forget to pick up the eggs!”

Mabel blinked. “Uh…yeah!”

McGucket muttered something to himself, scampering out of the Gobblewonker, apparently deciding to abandon it. How very in character, Shifty thought, and then felt silly for thinking it.

McGucket scuttled up the rocks like an animal, old age apparently not an issue for him. He froze at the top suddenly, and whirled around, making eye contact with Shifty.

Shifty went still, their heart hammering in their ears. There was no way he could recognize them. He didn’t recognize them as Remy, and had never been able to figure out it was them before unless they were something obvious. Like, say, a tiger.

But there he was, pale eyes boring holes in Shifty, like he could see everything in their head.

Something hard and angry formed in their chest, and Shifty snapped their teeth once before diving into the water, following what was left of Soos’ boat, their heart hammering in their ears.

“Go on, git!” McGucket yelped, shooing out an overweight possum. “And don’t drive back! Call yourself a ride, y’hear? You’re in no shape to be driving right now!”

The possum stared at him blankly, before continuing to waddle away, deeper into the dump, in search of dinner. McGucket was doing the same, though he had managed to grab a sandwich from the marina before he left, one that he was fairly certain had been left out for him by Tate. And if not, no one was banging down his door, demanding it back. Finders keepers.

It had been a good day in the end, all things considered. He got to test the Gobblewonker, and even if it went kaput, he could always go back and fix it later. In the meantime, he could go back to work on his death ray. He wasn’t sure what he intended to use it for yet, but he figured he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He probably had a good reason, there were so many people who had it out for him, and he’d endured

“I’ve endured, I’ve endured, how long can one endure?” A young lady sang on stage, surrounded by a full band, lit by a soft electric glow in what was essentially a glorified barn, though the smell had cleared out. It was some cousin or another’s wedding, and scads of aunts and uncles and the like kept asking him when it was gonna be him dancing with a pretty lady on his arm and he just smiled thinly and shrugged

plenty of humiliation to pick something to blow up. And besides, sometimes it was just plain ol’ fun to blow something up.

McGucket paused, finding himself in front of his wood stove, holding an armful of sticks. But the stove was already up and running, flames licking the edges of the metal. In fact, it was uncomfortably hot. He could have sworn he was freezing

it was so cold in that house now, in the dead of winter, because both of them were criminal cheapskates, but they had each other and that was more than warm enough

in the little lean-to, and now, when he blinked, he was standing over his haphazard work table, already holding a pencil.

McGucket blinked, disoriented, and then grinned, setting to work scribbling calculations and schematics that came easier than breathing, already ‘heh-heh-heh!’-ing to himself, amused by what color the explosions might be.

He almost didn’t hear the tarp covering the entrance move, so engrossed in his work. But he did, turning around to see a young man standing in his lean-to, bewildered. He had dark hair and eyes, a denim jacket

trench coat rumpled and stained and it smelled like coffee and the outdoors, and he had never smelled anything so wonderful in his life

and was staring at McGucket with an odd expression.

McGucket grinned, overjoyed. “Visitors! I weren’t expectin’ nobody!”

The man flinched. “I’m not a visitor.”

“Siddown, get yourself cozy! Ain’t got much in the way of refreshments, but you’re welcome to chew the firewood! It has a nice woody aftertaste,” McGucket said, pulling out a chair for the man. He didn’t sit down.

“I’m here to, um,” the man looked strangely frightened. That wasn’t abnormal, per say. Kids were generally afraid of him, but this man had sought him out, and he was trembling. “I just, uh.”

“Forget what you were gonna say?” McGucket nodded wisely. “Happens to me all the ding-dang time, one time I thought I forgot my hat, but I actually forgot everything but my hat–”

“Stop,” the man said harshly, shaking his head. “Just…just stop, you can’t–”

“Aw, banjo polish,” McGucket frowned. “Ya mad at me?”

“I–” the man paused, and then nodded firmly.

“Well, I’m real sorry for it, truly, I am,” McGucket took his hat off, holding it to his chest. “Er. Mind telling me what I did? And also who you are?”

The man blinked, and fury flashed behind his eyes. “You know me.”

“Nah, don’t take it personal,” McGucket shrugged. “I’m a lil’ absent-minded these days, ain’t nothing against you.”

“You know me,” the man insisted, looking oddly desperate.

“Now, lemme see if I can place it–oh!” McGucket snapped his fingers. “I know! The lake! You were there! With them kiddies, that’s real nice, and the other man, he

like a whirlwind, and he was swept up in it, and honestly he couldn’t even find the will to leave the storm. He was probably going to hell long before this, so in for the penny, in for the pound, he guessed, crashing into him with open desperation, practically drowning in how badly he needed him, and nearly wept with relief when he was met with equal enthusiasm

was there too. You their cousin, or…something?” McGucket trailed off and blinked, confused. “What…what was I sayin’?”

“No,” the man shook his head., ignoring his question. “No, no no! You don’t know Remy. You know me, I know you do.”

“Y’alright there?” McGucket asked. The man was shaking now, and his breath was growing fast, too fast. He pushed the chair a little closer to the man. “There, now, take a seat, catch your breath–”

“Don’t you fucking dare–!” The man lit up with anger so suddenly McGucket froze, startled by the shift. “You don’t…you don’t get to do what you did and then act like you give a shit about me!”

“What’d I do?!” McGucket said, genuinely confused, and not the normal confusion either. “Do you have me confused for another homeless hillbilly?”

The man barked a humorless laugh. “You know me! I know you do! I’m

a monster in the back of the house, in some kind of mixture of a nursery and a testing room, because there was nowhere else to put it, and his request to test the cryotubes had been ignored.

McGucket blinked. The man was staring at him expectantly. “...run that by me again?” McGucket asked.

“I’m

the thing making terrible infant-like noises, and he recalled stories back home of haints that pretended to be children to lure in prey, and when he voiced these concerns he was given a look like he was spouting nonsense, like this was nothing to be afraid of, like his fears weren’t completely founded.

The man was far closer when McGucket blinked, and he scrambled back a couple steps before he could stop himself. “Musta slipped my mind,” McGucket said, because he didn’t want the man to tell him his name again.

The man’s face looked fragile, his entire being did. In spite of himself, McGucket reached out, trying to guide him to the chair. He looked like Tate, in the way anyone reminded him of Tate if they looked at him with anything kinder than open disdain, because here there was mere disappointment, not nearly so barbed.

The man reeled back. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me-!” He took a shuddering breath. “You…why? Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” McGucket asked, getting frustrated with the back and forth. “I ain’t got the foggiest idea what you want, you gotta start being clear–”

“What did you do it?!” The man demanded. “You must have…you must have done something, you must have told him something

“We’re making history. Be there or be left behind.”

and that’s why I ended up there. You were gone, and he just…he just…”

“What?” McGucket asked, blinking rapidly.

“You must have told him something,” the man said, looking for all the world like he was pleading. “He wouldn’t…he wouldn’t abandon me. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t leave me down there. He wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Who?”

“You-!” The man looked even more frustrated. “You know exactly who I’m talking about! It’s

a hurricane of a person, with a deep voice and a smile so big it was possible to fall in it. And fall he did, right into his arms and heart, and really, he couldn't believe that HE was the one who got to chase these larger than life dreams and ideas, alongside the person he loved more than anyone in the world, as wrong as might have been. He couldn't help it, he couldn't see how he could ever stop it

McGucket blinked. “Pardon?”

The man groaned. “It’s

he was like a drink you can’t taste the alcohol in, the ones that don’t hit you until you’ve already had five, and by that point you’ve also taken a hit from a bong and maybe started considering a few other bad decisions when it hits you all at once and you’re seeing Jesus and all his angels, and none of them are too pleased with your presence.

He was easy to love, easy to be with, easy for everything and anything, and by the time he knew how deep in he was he just shrugged, and thought ‘Uh oh’ with a kind of giddy resignation, utterly wasted on being so in love with him he could barely stand it.

McGucket stared, swaying slightly, a tidal wave in his head threatening to make an appearance.

The man looked near tears. “You loved him, I know you did, even if I didn’t understand then. I understand now. Why…why did you leave? He needed you. We needed you. I needed you.”

McGucket blinked once, twice, and then looked around the room like he had just seen it for the first time. “Think I oughta get them hangin’ lights? Real dark in here, huh?” He asked, the thought popping into his mind and exiting his mouth almost immediately.

The man blinked, and then rage suddenly contorted his face, so suddenly that McGucket took a few more steps back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He snarled. “What the fuck happened to you?! What did you do?!”

“I didn’t do nothin’!” McGucket said, a little offended now. “You oughta git, if you ain’t gonna be hospitable-like, I ain’t done nothing to you and I don’t even know you–”

“Yes you do!” The man said, looking half desperate and half horrifically angry. “Yes you do, fine, I’ll prove it.”

His face moved strangely, like it was melting

and the monster was a pale, writhing thing, some voracious grub that he didn’t want to see pupate

and then the face was all up in his, and something was shaking him, and the face looked startled and panicked. His throat felt raw, and he realized he was screaming

and it spoke like a child, and it was indulged each time, carried from room to room like his own little Tater, and maybe it wouldn’t hurt him now, but there was nothing that stayed safe in this town

“Stop screaming! Stop screaming! Stop screaming! Stop

it was looking at him, crouched low in the shape of something that could kill him in one swipe, something he didn’t even know it knew. It stared at him, pupils huge and focused. And if looks could kill he would be dead ten times over, it wanted him dead

“Please stop, oh my god, stop stop stop! I don’t know what to do

and its face, filled with teeth, and the worst part was the eyes, because he could see something behind them that spoke of depth and intelligence. And it was bad enough that this meant it was smarter than he assumed. Because if S̷̥̋̌t̷̘̅̄ä̵̭̕ṉ̴̻̓̂ḟ̴͙o̴̟͒̚r̷̻̈́͒d̵͈̘͊́ was right and it was as harmless as he believed it to be, they had kept it for no reason other than their own curiosity. And he wasn’t sure he could live with the guilt of that.

He couldn’t live with the guilt of a lot of things. Not what he’d done to Emma May and Tate back in California, not being able to stop S̷̥̋̌t̷̘̅̄ä̵̭̕ṉ̴̻̓̂ḟ̴͙o̴̟͒̚r̷̻̈́͒d̵͈̘͊́ from working himself into a grave and God knows what else he did when he rattled around like a ghost at night when he ought to be in their safe bed, not the thing they were making Down There, something so great and terrible it ate away at everything else like corrosion.

So he wouldn’t live with it, with a wonderful searing white slate-wipe that buzzed like carbonation on his brain.

McGucket fell roughly, and it took him a moment to realize he had been pushed. The man was standing a yard or so away now, clutching his wrist with a startled look. “Did you…” there was something green and jelly-like on his fingertips. “Did you just fucking bite me?!”

“Nah,” McGucket said, because he didn’t think he would do that. But what did he know? His mouth tasted like battery acid, and his throat felt raw.

The man was shaking so badly McGucket was shocked that his legs didn’t give out on him. He made a half-choked noise, and swiped at his eyes. “Oh god,” he croaked. “God, I-I-”

McGucket said nothing, and when the man looked at him, he shielded his face before he even really knew what he was doing. “Don’t,” McGucket managed to say, his voice paper thin. “Don’t hurt me none, I’m sorry for whatever it is I did. Don’t do that again.”

There was no escape from this monster, in reality or in his head. Neither offered a place to hide anymore.

“I…” the man, or at least something that looked like a man, wilted. “...you did this to yourself. Whatever…whatever this is, I didn’t do this to you.” But he said it like he was trying to convince himself of something. He looked expectantly of Fiddleford, but the latter said nothing, hunched in a corner, trying to stay as small as possible.

“I…” the thing took a shuddering breath. “I was going to say leave the kids alone. Leave me and Stan alone. Don’t come around the Mystery Shack. Don’t come around any of us, we don’t…we don’t want you around.”

“Uh huh,” McGucket nodded frantically. He would have done and said anything to make the thing leave. “Sure, yeah, right.”

The thing shuffled strangely to the tarp-door, as if it was out of sorts with its own body. It hesitated by the tarp for a moment, but refused to look back at McGucket.

“...you…” it swallowed. “You made your choices. You chose to leave.”

“Yeah, alright,” McGucket said.

The thing hiccuped. “You don’t have a fucking clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

“What do you want me to say?” McGucket asked. “‘Cause I’ll say it.”

The thing’s face twisted in a sort of grief, and with one final swipe at its eyes, it was gone, leaving McGucket in pieces, scattered across space and time.

“Oh, that’s a beauty,” Mabel grinned, holding up a photo of them getting chased by lake cops. “That’s going right in the center!”

“Do we really have to use the photo where we almost got arrested?” Dipper asked, helping her sort through photos on the living room floor. Even with a rough start, it had been a good day, and they were pleasantly exhausted.

“Dipper!” Mabel said, affronted. “These are precious summer memories! We wouldn’t wanna forget them!”

“I don’t think I could forget them if I tried,” Stan muttered, tossing aside a photo of him falling overboard, but Mabel rescued it.

“Hey, where was Remy?” Dipper asked, something that looked like suspicion in his eyes. “He was gone when we met up with you.”

Stan shrugged, a picture of nonchalance, if he did say so himself. “I dunno. He wanted to leave, so I dropped him off at the dock. He might’ve just wandered around.”

“All day?” Dipper asked.

“What can I say?” Stan said. “He’s weird.”

“Too bad he didn’t come,” Mabel said. “It was fun.”

“Eh, he made his choices,” Stan said. “He can join the next outing if he wants.”

The door opened suddenly, and the three leaned to peer into the foyer as Shifty stumbled in, clutching their wrist with a strange look on their face. “Hi, Remy!” Mabel waved. “We almost got arrested!”

Shifty said nothing, taking long, desperate breaths, a look of distant horror on their face. They were shaking.

Mabel’s smile fell. “...Remy?”

“Huh?” Shifty seemed to jolt back to life, startled to see them all looking at them. “Oh, um. Hi. Hello. Greetings.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow. “Greetings?”

“Whatever,” Shifty decided, half-stalking and half-stumbling down the hall. Stan paused, trying to think of a decent excuse to stand up, especially when he didn’t want to, and then decided he didn’t need one, dammit, who was he trying to impress?

“Don’t take my chair,” Stan said, standing up and feeling every joint and tendon stretch and groan. The second he left the room he heard Dipper and Mabel fighting over the recliner. Figures.

Shifty had already closed the door when Stan got there, and when he tried to open it, it was locked. “Knock!” Shifty snapped, but their voice sounded wobbly. “God!”

“Where were you?!” Stan hissed through the door. “I thought the damn lake monster got you or something–”

“There’s no monster. In the lake, I mean,” Shifty said bitterly. “Just McGucket. He made a giant robot–”

“Okay, actually, don’t tell me, I’m too tired for this,” Stan decided. “But where were you? At the lake all day?”

“Mind your own business.”

“I-excuse me?!” Stan said, and then realized there was a trail of green leading to Shifty’s door. “Fuck, wait, are you bleeding?”

Silence.

“Hey!”

“Barely!” Shifty snapped. “It’s a scrape, it’s fine. I have stuff for myself. Leave me alone.”

“I will not–”

“Stanley.”

Stan paused, hearing nothing short of desperation in their voice. Stan opened his mouth, and closed it, trying to think of something helpful and wise to say. But he’d never been much for being helpful. And hell, if Shifty wanted wise, the person who was most equipped to give them that had been gone for decades. They were shit out of luck.

“...are you still standing there?” Shifty said, a little more irritation forced into their tone. It sounded more defensive than anything. “Go away. I don’t need you here.”

That was good enough for Stan. And if it stung, that was fine.

“...fine,” Stan said, gruff as he could. “Don’t make too much noise when you decide you’re hungry and start rooting for the fridge. And clean up the floors. I’m not mopping up your weird blood.”

Shifty said nothing. And as much as Stan strained his ears, he didn’t hear them leave their room for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Nights were the worst.

It had been a good past few weeks all in all, really. Shifty was eating all sorts of wonderful instant and microwaveable meals, not a mouse head to be found. Stan chattered to them amicably every chance he had, and Shifty suspected he was relieved to have someone to talk to. They watched TV, and Shifty was slightly bitter that the TV had not been introduced to them sooner. It was a magical device, even if it hurt their head after watching it for too long.

The days were fine, usually. Stan would run tours and scrape every last penny out of people, and Shifty would usually watch TV until they got a headache, and then they would turn into a dog and follow Stan from room to room as he gave the tours. It made them nervous to be away from him for too long, like he might also vanish into the thing downstairs if Shifty didn’t keep an eye out. Or just get up and leave. Both options were equally terrifying.

In any case, the visitors would usually coo over the so-called Mystery Dog, and Stan would charge them five dollars to pet Shifty (though they didn’t necessarily appreciate it) and twenty to take a picture with them.

Nights were a different story.

Nightmares were an all-too common occurrence. No matter what, every time Shifty closed their eyes, they would find themselves back underground with a broken can opener, wandering the halls with hunger clawing in their belly in search of vermin to eat, desperate enough to gnaw at the edges of canned food, for all the good that did them. They would see shadows, hear someone talking just around the corner, but when they raced forward, there was nothing there.

And when they finally gave into desperation in their dreams, and began to claw their way to the surface through a weak patch on the ceiling that they could just reach if they stood on a glass tube, they never made it out. Their hands, transformed into claws to better dig through the hard-packing soil, would seize up and cramp worse than they ever had. Their body would morph and twist and betray them, and they would lose control in the earth, suffocating slowly as their mouth filled with dirt, choking them silently, completely alone.

And they would wake with a strangled gasp, their body aching from holding a human disguise for so long, and they would stay awake until they couldn’t stand it any longer and their body betrayed them.

Tonight was different though.

Tonight they wandered through the underground labyrinth, same as before, hunger howling in their insides like a beast. There were voices, just out of reach, and this time, they knew them. Stanford, speaking too quietly to hear, but Shifty could hear anxiety in his voice, just like there was before he left.

“Stanford!” They gasped, stumbling forward, hunger and discomfort forgotten. Stanford’s shadow disappeared around the corner, and Shifty half-lunged forward before the smell hit them.

Metallic and overwhelming, hanging so heavy in the air they could feel the fading heat of it.

Shifty froze, their desperate hope turned to ice. “...Stanford?” They called. No answer.

They didn’t want to see what was around the corner. They didn’t want to see what the source of the smell was. Deep down they knew what it was, somehow, that something had derailed, and this was so much worse than slowly asphyxiating, inches from the snow.

“Stanford,” they whispered, their voice weak and desperate. “Stanford.”

They didn’t try to creep forward, but their body did so anyway, traitorous as it ever was. “Stanford,” they said again, shaking from something other than cold.

Stanford was there, they discovered. He was all over the room, in fact, in so many pieces that Shifty couldn’t even begin to count them all. Scarlet red blood splattered the walls, the floors, and even dripped from the ceiling, flecked with bits of pink flesh and pearly white bones. What was left on the ground was nearly unrecognizable, split open from the center like a doll had been taken apart indelicately, all torn organs and cracked ribs, scattered like he had been thrown.

The only thing left to indicate that the viscera was ever a person in one piece, much less Stanford, was a pair of glasses resting on a backwards facing knee, almost polite.

Shifty didn’t move, staring at the gore without meaning to, not daring to breathe. Even without it, they could still smell it, so strong it felt like a physical presence. Their mind went blank for a moment, unable to recognize the carnage as such.

“...Stanford,” they croaked. The pile of flesh did not reply.

Someone behind Shifty cried out, horrified, and they whirled around to see Stan, open-mouthed and staring at the disfigured corpse. “What did you do?!” He demanded. “What did you do?!”

Shifty shook their head wildly, realizing with a jolt like an electric shock that their hands were sticky. They glanced at them, and a choked noise wrenched its way out of their throat. Their hands were covered in blood, dripping onto the floor below.

“What did you do?!” Stan asked again, getting louder and louder, and the gruffness in his voice wasn’t comforting anymore. Not when it pointed at Shifty like a gun. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Shifty stumbled away, back against the wall, shaking their head wildly, trying to explain that there was no possible way they could have done this. That they would never hurt Stanford. That they would never hurt anyone, they didn’t want to do that.

But all that escaped from their throat was a strangled growl, a sound they had never heard themselves make before now. No words, no explanations, no pleas, nothing. Just harsh, ugly sounds. Like a sick animal, that needed to be dealt with for the safety of itself and others.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Stan screamed. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Shifty flinched back, or at least tried to. But their body lurched forward without their consent, and Stan’s eyes went wide just for a moment, and there was terror and horror but no surprise in them. Shifty heard a choked gurgle, smelled fresh blood, and–

They jolted awake, finding themselves standing in the living room, fists clenched and shaking.

Instantly, they dry heaved, gasping for air, sinking to the ground ungracefully and clawing at their chest. Their head and heart pounded, out of sync, and even now they could still smell blood, permeating the very air they breathed, choking them–

“Kid?”

Shifty flinched, craning their neck to see Stan staring at them, rubbing his eyes. “When’d you get out here? It’s like the middle of the night, all you’re gonna get on the TV is static.”

Shifty swallowed hard, trying to apologize, but all that came out was a shuddering breath. Maybe it was for the better, because what if their voice twisted into a growl they couldn’t control?

Stan blinked. “You…you alright there?”

Shifty said nothing, breathing fast and small.

Stan looked entirely out of his depth, reaching out and then stopping, as if worried Shifty might snap at them. “Uh,” he said. “Was…did you have a bad dream?”

Shifty paused, and then nodded. There didn’t seem to be any harm in admitting that, though they would never reveal what it was.

“Right, uh,” Stan said. “Sorry. Why don’t…why don’t we go back to bed?”

Shifty said nothing, and this time, Stan was a little more confident in stepping forward, helping Shifty back up and gently guiding them back to what used to be Stanford and Fiddleford’s bedroom. Now Stan slept on a mattress on the floor that he had dug out of somewhere or other (or maybe he stole it, Shifty didn’t know) and Shifty got the bed, surrounded by ghosts on all sides.

“We gotta figure something out to make you quit sleepwalking,” Stan said, choking down a yawn. “At least you didn’t try to go outside this time.”

“Sorry,” Shifty managed to say, their voice quiet.

“Hey, you don’t gotta…” Stan said, and then trailed off, looking uncomfortable. He ruffled Shifty’s hair, apparently unsure what else to do. Sometimes Shifty wished he would pick them up like Stanford would, and other times they were certain they would bite him if he tried.

“You don’t gotta apologize,” Stan said finally, looking determined to voice his thoughts, even if they came out muddled. “We…we apologized enough, right? So let’s make a deal. No more ‘I’m sorry’, okay? Nothing so terrible is gonna happen that we can’t just shrug and keep going. We’re just wasting time otherwise.”

He didn’t need to say that the most terrible thing that could happen had already happened. Shifty felt it in the air. They could practically smell it, like the ghost of spilled blood from their dream. They imagined Stan yelling at them, demanding an explanation that they couldn’t give, and looked at the floor.

“Kid?” Stan asked.

“S-” Shifty said, about to apologize, and then bit down on it. It tasted bitter.

Stan chuckled with no humor. “‘Atta boy.”

He turned to go back to his mattress, and out of some strange instinct, Shifty’s arm shot out and grabbed Stan’s wrist, pulling at his arm weakly. Stan glanced back, confused. “What?” He asked. “What do you want?”

It wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t Stanford. Stanford would have picked them up immediately, without breaking his concentration or speech once, like it was already second nature. He would have absently stroked Shifty until they fell asleep, and when they woke up, he would still be there, working and writing but still holding them in one hand.

“Kid?” Stan asked. He made no move to pick Shifty up.

Without a word, Shifty dropped Stan’s wrist, lying back down lifelessly, their back to Stan. Stan grunted something, and Shifty heard them climb back onto their mattress, trying and failing to get comfortable.

About ten minutes later, after the two of them pretended to be asleep again, Shifty turned into a badger, and curled up alongside Stan like they always did after their bad dreams, ears pressed against his chest to hear his heartbeat.

And like always, Stan pretended not to notice.

Mabel poked lifelessly at her cereal, annoyed to find herself the first one awake in the house. Dipper had stayed up too late studying the journal, and had passed out with the musty pages plastered to his face. She had heard Stan snore as she passed his room, and she wasn’t actually sure where Remy was.

She normally didn’t mind being the first one awake, but back home she had the cat to keep her company, or the TV playing cartoons. Stan refused to pay for cable, so all he had were the public access channels that only played local news or infomercials at this time in the morning. Dipper had said Stan only didn’t have cable because he couldn’t figure out how to steal it, and Mabel supposed he was right.

“Maybe we should teach him how to pirate movies then,” she had suggested.

Dipper had rolled his eyes.

So that left her alone in the morning, chewing tasteless cereal because she couldn’t find the sugar, with milk that tasted like it was minutes from expiring. At least until she heard footsteps, and craned her neck to see Remy, already dressed, and startled to see her. He had a bandage around his wrist.

“Oh,” he said, looking at her strangely. “Hello.”

“Hi, Remy!” Mabel said brightly. “Sleep well?”

“Uh huh,” Remy said, but it didn’t look like he did. “Why’re you up so early?”

“It’s not that early,” Mabel said. “It’s only nine. The shack opens in an hour. Where’s Grunkle Stan? Doesn’t he need to get ready or something?”

“Stan likes to wait until the last minute to get himself out of bed,” Remy said, and Mabel noticed a bandage wrapped around his wrist. “His favorite pastime is stressing me out.”

“I thought it was fishing and swindling tourists,” Mabel said. She had only just learned the word ‘swindle’ this week, from Stan himself, and was using it liberally. It was a fun word to say.

“Those are close seconds,” Remy said.

“Do you know where the sugar is?” Mabel asked. “Cereal’s kinda bland.”

Remy hummed in acknowledgement, opening up a cabinet and digging out a bag of sugar, stored in another plastic bag to prevent spillage. Mabel grinned. “At home we have this little dish for it.”

“We’re not fancy,” Remy said, placing the bag on the table next to her, which Mabel took as an invitation to go nuts with it.

Remy watched her out of the corner of his eye as he went about his daily routine, almost nervous with her presence. Stan hadn’t been entirely dissimilar when she and Dipper had first arrived, unsure whether to treat them as friends, underlings, or direct them with some kind of authority. His awkwardness with them had started to fade when they came back from the gnomes, and after a day on the boat, it was just about gone completely. Maybe Remy just needed an opportunity to do the same.

“So,” Mabel said, trying to get the conversation ball rolling. “How’d you end up in Gravity Falls?”

“What is it with you and your brother’s interest in my past?” Remy muttered.

“Dipper’s been asking?”

“Well, he asked once, but I think he wants to ask me again,” Remy said. “He strikes me as the nosy type.”

“Oh, you know,” Mabel said vaguely, worried that Dipper was a little too obvious in his investigatory questions. “He’s like that.”

He had burst into their room in a panic on their first night in Gravity Falls, after venturing down to get something to eat. He had insisted, in a desperate and slightly terrified whisper, that there was something very wrong with Remy.

“I saw his eyes glow, Mabel, swear on my life,” he said urgently.

“Go to sleep,” Mabel had rolled her eyes and turned over.

Of course, just a few days later, she was more than willing to believe there was something off about Remy. Being kidnapped by gnomes tends to make a person more open to the supernatural, not to mention the journal. But there was nothing in the journal about strange shapes in the dark, at least none besides the author’s paranoid ramblings at the end. And there was nothing about people with glowing eyes either. Maybe it was one of the torn out or scribbled over passages, but Mabel wasn’t sure.

In any case, none of this meant Remy was dangerous. It just meant he was another weird part of Gravity Falls, fitting in perfectly to the tapestry of colorful characters making their lives here.

She probably owed Dipper an apology for ignoring him the first time, now that she thought about it.

In any case, she took a bite of her cereal and frowned. Even mounds upon mounds of sugar couldn’t save it. “Hey, Remy, are there any eggs in the fridge? Cheese?”

“Uh,” Remy opened a battered fridge, peering inside. “Think so. Why?”

“We should have them for breakfast!” Mabel said. “‘Cause this cereal is kinda terrible. No offense.”

“I’m not allowed to cook,” Remy said, like it was a perfectly normal thing for a full-grown adult to say.

Mabel blinked. “Um…what?”

“I’m a terrible cook,” Remy said. “I’m the reason Stan has a fire extinguisher and got the sprinkler system fixed. See that black mark on the ceiling?”

Mabel glanced up where Remy was pointing, and saw a sooty spot on the ceiling, right above the stove burners. Remy frowned. “I was trying to make meatloaf. Or something. I don’t remember.”

Mabel frowned. “Grunkle Stan didn’t have a fire extinguisher or bother fixing the sprinklers before?”

Remy shrugged. “I don’t eat breakfast anyway. Usually I just have a cup of coffee and get to work.”

“Well, I don’t wanna do that,” Mabel said, and then perked up. “Ooh! Mom and dad let me cook and stuff back home as long as one of ‘em is there to make sure I don’t burn off my eyebrows again.”

Remy looked surprised. “You burned off your eyebrows?”

“Only a little,” Mabel assured him, hopping out of her seat. “Anyway, you’re a responsible adult, right?”

Remy just stared.

“Right!” Mabel nodded. “So I can make us omelets. I get the folding part right, like, maybe ten percent of the time, so I hope scrambled eggs are okay too. Do you want cheese?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Remy said.

“I know, but I want to!” Mabel said, rifling through the fridge. “And I’m already here, I committed! Is shredded cheddar okay?”

“Um,” Remy said, punching a few buttons on the coffee maker. He had a strange expression on his face, not quite perturbed, but something softer. “Sure.”

Mabel grinned, immediately setting to work. She liked cooking, especially for other people, though Stan had a serious lack of edible glitter in his pantry. She would have to change that.

About halfway through the first omelet (which Mabel was pretty sure was about to turn into scrambled eggs) Stan stumbled into the kitchen, idly scratching his butt and making a beeline for the coffee maker. Remy muttered something about washing his hands, and Stan ignored him.

“Morning, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said brightly. “Want an omelet?”

Stan blinked, as though he had just noticed her. “You’re up early.”

“Getting a jump start on the day!” She grinned.

“Getting a headstart on chores!” Stan grinned. “I like it!”

“Um,” Mabel said. “No, I didn’t mean–”

“I’d love an omelet, thanks for offering,” Stan said, sitting down next to Remy with a soft ‘oomph’.

Remy scowled. “Hey, get in line, I asked first.”

“Yeah, but I took the kids and Soos out on a fishing trip for the ages,” Stan said. “So this is like my reward.”

Remy rolled their eyes, scowling into their coffee cup. “By the way, I saw the commercial again.”

“What commercial?” Stan said. “What do you…oh, my god, you’re kidding, right?!”

“Who are we talking about?” Mabel asked, poking at the eggs. They were doing their best to stick to the pan.

“Nope, not kidding,” Remy said, looking just as morose, but at least a little amused by Stan’s horror. “Saw it during primetime, no less. They got you in the commercial this time, too, calling you a fraud and saying not to come to the shack. It’s of you coming out of the outhouse with toilet paper on your slipper. You do know the plumbing works inside, right?”

“It was an emergency, probably!” Stan protested. “Ugh, get the vandalism kit.”

“I am not coming with you on a vandalism trip again,” Remy said icily.

“Sorry, who is this?” Mabel asked, scraping burnt egg into a plate and handing it to Remy.

He gave Stan a triumphant look, but Stan was too busy stewing over whatever enemy had emerged from the shadows. “My greatest rival,” he growled. “This stupid psychic.”

“A psychic?” Mabel asked.

“A terrible one!” Stan said, slamming his fist on the table. His coffee cup jumped at the impact, and Remy caught it without looking, not spilling a drop. “That no good, lousy, grubby little…AUGH!”

Stan snatched the coffee cup out of Remy’s hands when he offered it, stomping into the shack and muttering furiously to himself. “These are good, Mabel, thanks,” Remy said, gesturing to the eggs.

“They’re a little burnt,” Mabel said. “Also, I got some shells in there, I think.”

Remy shrugged, taking a fearless bite.

“So, uh,” Mabel said. “Who’s this psychic?”

“Oh,” Remy said, like he was surprised that Mabel didn’t already know this. “His name’s Gideon. Gideon Gleeful. Dumb name, huh?”

“It’s mostly weird to me that they put Gideon and Mabel’s so-called relationship in the newspaper,” Shifty said idly, following Stan up the steps of the Gleeful house a few days later. “I know there’s nothing going on in this town, but jeez, there’s really nothing going on, huh?”

“Focus up!” Stan said, looking like steam might come out his ears. “We’re here to put a stop to this nonsense!”

He whirled around, pounding on the door. “GIDEON, YOU LITTLE PUNK, OPEN UP!”

“Oh god,” Shifty said, knowing better than to try and stop him. They weren’t overly thrilled about Mabel apparently dating their competition, but they mostly didn’t care enough to do anything about it either way. There were much more important things to worry about.

“Don’t ‘oh god’ me, Mouser!” Stan snapped. He paused, taking notice of a flowery sign that read ‘Pardon this garden’. “I will pardon nothing!” He swatted it to the ground and stamped on it.

“Got that out of your system?” Shifty asked.

The door opened up, and Stan looked startled when Bud Gleeful, a large, tall man with a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat, stood before them. He regarded them dispassionately for a moment, before splitting into an easy smile. “Why, Stanford Pines, as I live and breathe! And who’s your friend?”

“None of your beeswax,” Stan snapped, trying to peek into the house. “I’m looking for Gideon.”

“I haven’t seen the boy around,” Bud said. “But since you’re here, you simply must come in for coffee! You’re invited too, of course, mister…?” He glanced at Shifty.

“Remy,” Shifty said. “Remy Wagner.”

“He’s the assistant manager of the Mystery Shack,” Stan said.

“Co-manager,” Shifty said.

“Come in, come in!” Bud ushered Stan in before he could protest, and Shifty followed in nervously, not wanting to be left alone outside.

“No time for coffee!” Stan said. “I have to-”

“It’s imported,” Bud announced. “All the way from Columbia!”

“Columbia!” Stan whistled, looking impressed. “I went to jail there once.”

Bud blinked. “And…did you?” He glanced at Shifty.

“Did I…” Shifty faltered. “Did I go to jail in Columbia? Uh. No. No I didn’t.”

“Nice place you got here,” Stan said, and Shifty was pretty sure he wasn’t just saying it to be polite, mostly because Stan had never been purposefully polite in his life unless he was flirting. All the same, Shifty disagreed; the interior of the house was gaudy purple, with cheap plastic decorations covering every available surface.

“Oh, this,” Stan said, zeroing in on a velvet clown painting. “This is beautiful.”

“Now,” Bud said, setting down two steaming cups of coffee on a table in front of his lavender couch. “I hear your Mabel and my Gideon are…well, they’re seeing each other, so to speak.”

“Uh, right,” Stan said, sitting down on the couch, re-remembering his anger. Shifty followed, though they immediately grabbed a mug. It smelled fantastic. “And we’re against it! Right, Remy?”

“Sure, yeah, whatever,” Shifty muttered, sipping delicately on coffee.

“You’re not involved, then?” Bud asked, and Shifty paused, a little uncomfortable with being addressed. They wished Stan hadn’t dragged them along.

“Um,” Shifty said. “I mean, on a personal level, Mabel’s not related to me, so I don’t…really care that much. But you know, you did run a bunch of disparaging ads against the shack.”

“Ah, well, the ads,” Bud shrugged. “What can you do? It’s just business.”

“We didn’t run any ads against your dumb tent,” Shifty said, and didn’t say that was only because they couldn’t afford to.

“Well, I see this as a wonderful business opportunity!” Bud grinned, spreading his arms wide. “The Tent of Telepathy and the Mystery Shack joining forces! We’ve been at each other’s throats these past few weeks, sure, but this is a chance to put our differences aside and pool our collective profits!”

Stan’s eyes lit up when he heard the magic word. “Profits?”

“Oh, come on, Stan,” Shifty said. “This is a setup. We don’t know how much they make. How long have they been open? Since April? There’s no way they’re even breaking even yet. Bet they’re dipping into savings just to keep the lights on, not to mention rent, water, merchandising and trademarks.”

They took a smug sip of coffee, enjoying the flavor.

“Thought you might say that,” Bud shrugged, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a folded up piece of paper. “Income from the last two weeks. That’s a copy, you can keep that.”

Shifty opened it up, and immediately choked, spurting coffee all over themselves.

Stan leaned over, and his mouth dropped. “Are there supposed to be that many zeroes?!”

Bud Gleeful merely smiled.

Shifty and Stan glanced at each other, eyes wide. Stan grinned, and leaned forward. “So, is there some paperwork we gotta look through or something?”

“Great news, Mabel!” Stan burst into the living room, and both Dipper and Mabel glanced at him, startled to see him wearing a ‘TEAM GIDEON’ shirt that might have been a few sizes too small. “You’re gonna marry Gideon!”

“Mazel tov!” Shifty cheered, wearing a hat with the star symbol from the Tent of Telepathy.

“WHAT?!” Mabel said, shrilly. She didn’t look quite as thrilled as Shifty expected.

“Remy and I just drafted up a multi-year plan with Bud Gleeful to franchise your relationship with Gideon to hell and back!” Stan said gleefully, and Mabel was too busy looking oddly horrified to scold him for a minor swear.

“The merchandising alone will be enough to cover Stan’s retirement fund,” Shifty said. “God knows he needs it.”

“Watch it, Mouser.”

“B-but,” Mabel said. “Do I really have to marry him? I mean, that’s ridiculous, right?”

“Oh, probably not,” Stan said, grinning to himself. “We’re just gonna milk those idiots for all they're worth and then keep our earnings. You’re not locked in forever, pumpkin!”

Mabel looked relieved. “And…how long is that gonna take?”

“Um,” Shifty shrugged. “Between six months to until you die. So, not technically forever! And if he dies first you can have a rebound in your elderly years. That’s pretty fun!”

Mabel went ashen, and Dipper scowled at Shifty and Stan. “You’re selling out? That easily?”

“Dipper,” Shifty said seriously. “For the amount of money they’re offering, I’d strip naked, tar and feather myself, and run around the town square.”

Stan raised his hand. “I would also do that.”

Mabel screamed in horror, and promptly sprinted out of the room. “Just try not to picture it!” Shifty called after her, but she didn’t stop.

Dipper scowled at them both again before rushing after her. Stan shrugged, promptly taking over the recliner. “Woof! Busy day, kid. Break out the good shit!”

Shifty raised his eyebrows. “The beers that taste like standing water?”

Stan grinned. “That’s the one.”

“Ugh,” Shifty said, making no move to get them for Stan. “Think of it, you can finally hire a real accountant and bookkeeper! And then pay them to fudge the numbers!”

“I’m gonna dig a swimming pool out back and fill it with cash!” Stan cheered.

“We could hire more help,” Shifty said, lowering their voice. “And then use our time off to keep looking for the second journal.”

Stan’s smile went a little funny. “Kid, I dunno how fruitful that’s gonna be–”

“I’m close,” Shifty said, and even to their own ears it sounded like they were trying to convince themselves. “I’m close, really. I have the scent from the journal. And I’d remember his scent anywhere, no matter how long it’s been. I caught it, just after the kids got here, but I haven’t been able to find it again. The woods are only so big.”

“The woods are really, really big though,” Stan muttered.

“I almost had it,” Shifty insisted. “I almost had it.”

A silence fell over them, and Shifty wished they hadn’t said anything. They had a talent, really, for taking the most light-hearted moments, the moments that felt almost like everything might be fine, and then setting them on fire with all the grace of a homemade bomb.

“Or we…” Shifty said weakly. “We could build a barn for the goat. So it stops getting in the house.”

“Yeah,” Stan said, all the whimsy gone. “Maybe.”

Shifty swallowed, and nearly apologized.

“I’m gonna, uh,” Stan said, and stood up with a grunt. “I’m gonna get a beer. Want one?”

“No thanks,” Shifty said quietly.

Stan shrugged, never expecting a different answer. “Suit yourself,” he said, and plodded out, leaving Shifty with something missing in the wind.

Stan scribbled his name on a contract, and Shifty signed their fake one, with illegible cursive. They were probably the only person in the world with handwriting worse than Stan’s.

“Well!” Bud said with a smile. “That’s that! We oughta make a toast. What do you gentlemen propose we toast to?”

“Money!” Stan said, raising a glass of what Shifty assumed was expensive bourbon.

“Money,” Shifty agreed, trying not to breathe in the smell too deep. It was giving them a headache, and they were already trying to figure out how to pretend to drink.

They were saved from their dilemma when the door abruptly opened, and someone walked in. Bud’s face lit up. “Gideon! Lookee here, I got the folks from the shack!”

It struck Shifty that this was their first time actually seeing Gideon. He was tiny, even smaller than Mabel, stuffed uncomfortably into a baby blue suit with hair so tall and so white that Shifty was half-convinced it was a wig. He was, quite possibly, even paler than Shifty was in their true form.

And the parts of his face that weren't paper white were beet red with anger.

“Stanford Pines, Remy Wagner!” Gideon shouted suddenly, and Stan and Remy glanced at each other, unsure. “I rebuke thee! I rebuke thee!”

“...rebuke?” Stan asked, glancing at Shifty. “Is that a word?”

Shifty shrugged.

Gideon scampered to the table, hopping up on it. “The Pines family have invoked my fury! You will all pay recompense for your transgressions!”

“Is he having a stroke?” Shifty asked, genuinely concerned and nervous. “Do you smell toast? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Shifty held up three fingers, and Gideon smacked their hand away.

“But, angel-face,” Bud said, which was silly because Gideon was the furthest thing from angel-faced right now. “What about our arrangement with the shack and-”

“SILENCE!” Gideon screamed shrilly. Bud winced, and shrugged.

“Well,” he said, and snatched up the contract. “You heard the boy.”

“Did we? I don’t know what he wants-NO!” Shifty gasped in horror when Bud tore the contract in two.

Stan’s expression turned thunderous, and he stood up quickly. “Alright, fine! We can see when we’re not wanted! Let’s get outta here, Mouser.”

“Got anymore of that coffee, or…?” Shifty asked, frowning when Gideon’s face turned even more red. “Okay, yeesh.”

“Ah, Stan, we’re gonna need that painting back,” Bud said, and Shifty turned to see Stan snatching the velvet clown painting off the wall. “STAN!”

“Try and catch us now, suckers!” Stan crowed, never one to leave without burning every bridge he could. Shifty yelped when Stan shoved the painting in their arms, now an unwilling accomplice. “BOOK IT, KID!”

“Why do you always loop me into your shit?!” Shifty demanded, but sprinted out after Stan anyway, making a beeline for the car. Bud was still demanding that they bring the painting back, and Gideon was shrieking incomprehensible curses at them.

Stan ignored them, and by the time Shifty got their head on straight again, they were already speeding down the road, ignoring all traffic laws. Shifty glanced at the painting. “This looks terrible.”

“It’s art,” Stan said. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“I think you don’t get it,” Shifty said, and then snickered before they could stop themselves.

Stan glanced at them. “What now?”

“It’s just,” they snorted. “He’s supposed to be some psychic, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Stanford Pines and Remy Wagner!” Shifty said, in a perfect impression of Gideon’s voice. “I rebuke thee, and I’m extremely confident in your names!”

Stan cackled, and the car swerved a bit. “Moses, kid, I forget you can do that. Do another!”

“I’m Gideon Gleeful and I look like a scoop of melted vanilla ice cream!” Shifty said, starting to laugh at their own jokes, playing up Gideon’s accent a bit. “I speak like one of those televangelists on the public access channels that no one watches! Buy my holy water for only a couple thousand!”

“Oh, oh,” Stan said between laughter. “We oughta start selling something like that, maybe…maybe sink water that we can say was enchanted by a witch or something. Put it in a mason jar and people will buy it.”

“Noted,” Shifty said, reaching out to adjust the air filters, for all the good that did.

Stan frowned. “Hands.”

Shifty paused, frowning when they realized their hand had six fingers. The extra pinky disappeared immediately. Stan looked vaguely concerned. “How long was that going on?”

“Just at the end, probably,” Shifty said, feeling guilty. “It, um. It only really happens when I’m nervous.”

Silence fell over them again, and Shifty clutched the painting, their hands feeling oddly exposed.

“I’m Gideon Gleeful,” they said in Gideon’s voice again. “I dress like a politician from the sixties, American flag pin and all.”

Stan chuckled weakly. They were silent the rest of the drive home.

“Kids!” Stan said, dropping his keys in a bowl by the door and almost immediately shedding most of his clothes. “We’re back! We brought decorations!”

Mabel and Dipper were sprawled on the armchair, haggard. Dipper was filthy, covered in dirt and leaves. They both glanced at Shifty and Stan as they entered, looking exhausted. “Yikes,” Stan said, plucking the painting out of Shifty’s hands and looking for a place to hang it. “What happened to you two?”

“Gideon,” they both said dully.

“Ugh,” Stan said, plucking a Pitt Cola from the table. Shifty was pretty sure it was flat and lukewarm, but Stan drank it anyway. “Gideon. Little creep swore revenge on us.”

“Swore revenge on the Pines family,” Shifty said, trying to sound bright. “I’m in the clear.”

Stan chuckled. “Yeah, when he nibbles my ankles, you inherit the shack. Congrats, Mouser.”

“Oh, yeah!” Dipper perked up. “How’s he gonna get us now, huh? Try to guess what number we’re thinking of?”

Shifty was unsure about the use of ‘now’, but Mabel perked up. “He’ll never guess what number I’m thinking of! Negative eight! No one would guess a negative number!”

“Dibs!” Shifty said, plucking the remote out from between Mabel and Dipper, plopping down on the floor and changing the channel. A cheerful theme was playing, and they grinned.

“Aw, what?!” Dipper protested. “We were watching Tiger Fist!”

“Sounds dumb,” Shifty said. “Anyway, Tuesday is always my TV night, and your guest goodwill ran out.”

On TV, a sitcom father burst through the door. “Guess who got a ten for the price of two deal on mayonnaise?” He crowed. The audience cackled.

“Eugh,” Stan said, rolling his eyes and heading for the kitchen. “That’s my cue to leave.”

“C’mon, man,” Dipper said under his breath, probably thinking Shifty couldn’t hear him.

Mabel sighed, and Shifty glanced back, seeing her cheerful expression long gone. “What, is Tiger Fist that big of a deal?” They asked.

“No,” Mabel said. “Gideon and I aren’t going out anymore.”

“I figured,” Shifty said. “After he swore revenge on everyone, obviously. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find someone else to drag to restaurants, or movies, or whatever you do on dates.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t really want to date him,” Mabel shrugged.

“Oh,” Shifty blinked, glancing at Dipper, but he was busy trying to avoid eye contact. He always did that with Shifty. “Then…why are you upset?”

“...I feel bad?” Mabel said, almost as a question.

“Don’t,” Dipper said, instantly snapping to attention. “Gideon’s a jerk and a creep, you should have been meaner when you dumped him. He deserves it.”

“I guess,” Mabel said, still sounding a little doubtful. “And I guess I’ll miss him from before he went all psycho. Now I don’t have anyone to do girly things with. Wendy doesn’t wanna do it with me, she doesn’t like that kinda stuff.”

“Yeah,” Dipper said, getting a vaguely dreamy look on his face. “She’s so cool.”

Mabel gave him a slightly annoyed glance, and went back to staring dejectedly at the TV.

An idea popped into Shifty’s head.

“I…” Shifty said, and then shut their mouth. It was a stupid idea, really. They had no dog in this fight. It shouldn’t really matter if Mabel was temporarily disappointed that she had no one to put nail polish on.

But she had made them eggs, just because she wanted to do something nice for them. Maybe it wouldn’t kill them to do something nice for her.

Mabel glanced up at them, still looking a little miserable, and they sighed, resigning themselves to their fate. “I’ll do girly stuff with you. If you want.”

“Really?!” Mabel leapt to her feet. “You will?! Like makeup and nails and everything?!”

“This is a rerun I’ve seen a million times, so sure, why not?” Shifty said, gesturing to the TV. “It all washes off. It washes off, right?”

Mabel didn’t answer, sprinting up to the attic with a joyful squeal. Dipper glanced back at Shifty with something close to surprise and gratitude. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t tell me that now, I already committed,” Shifty mumbled, standing up to go after Mabel. “I call dibs on the TV tomorrow, though. That’s my payment.”

Dipper grinned. “You got it.”

“Mm,” Shifty said, and realized that was the first time Dipper had smiled at them.

“REMY!” Mabel shouted from the attic. “REMY, COME HERE! COME PICK YOUR LIPSTICK!”

Shifty sighed, not nearly as reluctant as they were pretending to be, and went up to meet Mabel.

Gideon mumbled to himself furiously, putting the finishing touches on a tiny wooden doll that looked startlingly close to a girl living with her grunkle and brother in the woods.

“Gideon,” he said in falsetto, marching the doll around a replica of the Mystery Shack, made of craft supplies. “I still love you! If only my family weren’t in the way!”

“Not to worry, my darling,” Gideon whispered to himself, his voice normal again. “I have more tricks to try.”

His gaze wandered to an open book sitting on the corner of his desk, the pages torn and tattered. He closed it with a satisfied smile, and saw his face in the gold leafed, six fingered hand.

The number two was emblazoned in the middle.

Gideon set Mabel’s figurine down delicately, and scowled at the others. Stanford Pines, Dipper Pines, and the final one, Remy Wagner, some kind of lackey for Stanford, though he made Gideon uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on–

“Fingers,” Gideon whispered, feeling the blood drain from his face.

When Remy had waved his fingers in front of his face, the obnoxious jerk, he had been holding up three. But there were three left. One more than there should be.

A high-pitched giggle forced its way out of Gideon’s throat, and he picked up the Remy figurine. It scowled at him, looking bored even in its wooden form.

“Oh, Wagner,” Gideon said, a grin spreading across his face. “Things just got a lot more interesting. You and I are going to get to know each other very well.”

“And…tada!” Mabel said, shoving a compact mirror into Shifty’s hands. “You look beautiful!”

Shifty thought they looked more like a clown, and felt like one too, covered in foundation, pink eyeshadow, poorly applied mascara, and cherry red lipstick. “Oh…wow…” they said weakly. “It’s…it’s really something!”

“Obviously, it’s still a work in progress,” Mabel said, digging through her makeup bag. “But it’s a good start! What nail polish color do you want?”

“Um,” Shifty said, barely able to tolerate all the powder and goop on his face. “Maybe we can hold off on nails for now? The smell gives me a headache.”

Mabel nodded agreeably. “Sure! Are you alright? You look kind of uncomfortable.”

“I can feel every single grain of makeup rubbing on my skin,” Shifty confessed. “I want to peel my face off.”

Mabel giggled, handing him a towel. “You can wipe it off, if you want. It’s hardly evening-wear anyway, it’s more like mall makeup.”

“I don’t think this is mall makeup,” Shifty said, but took the towel gratefully, rubbing their skin hard enough to sting. It relieved the feeling a little, at least.

“Aw, I missed it?” Dipper said, arriving in the attic. “I wanted to see what Mabel did to you.”

“Nothing that can’t be recreated!” Mabel said, and eyed Dipper. “Especially on a new participant.”

“Nuh uh, don’t come near me with that,” Dipper said, looking wary. “You poked me in the eye last time.”

“You were fine,” Mabel said.

“I had black tears for weeks.”

“No more eye makeup,” Shifty decided, and Mabel frowned.

“So, Remy,” Dipper said, sounding like he was trying to force a conversation. Instantly, Shifty was on guard. “You really don’t think there’s anything weird going on in this town?”

“Sure I do,” Shifty said. “Everyone in Gravity Falls is a weirdo. But you’re going to be hard pressed to find any ghosts or ghouls or whatever it is you think is watching you in the woods.”

“Well, I mean,” Dipper said, twiddling his thumbs. “What if there was something weird in the shack?”

“The pipes just make those noises sometimes, I promise,” Shifty said.

“The pipes sound exactly like they’re shouting for help,” Dipper said, unnerved. “But I’m talking about something else.”

Something unpleasant turned in Shifty’s stomach. “Like what?”

“You know,” Dipper said. “Like a monster.”

Something spasmed painfully behind Shifty’s eye, and they hissed in pain, pressing the towel against it. Mabel looked startled, and Dipper stood up. “Woah! You okay?!”

“Y-yeah,” Shifty said, hunching over as they stood up, trying not to sound too panicked. “I got…rubbed some makeup into my eyes, you were right, Dipper, it stings–”

“I’ll get a wet towel,” Mabel said.

“N-no, it’s fine, I just gotta–!” Shifty nearly tripped, holding the towel tightly against their face. “Just gotta get to the bathroom, don’t wait up for me!”

“Hang on–!”

But Shifty was already gone, half-stumbling down the stairs to get to their room. The throbbing behind their eye was getting worse, and in fact, their entire body seemed to thrum, like their heartbeat had multiplied and stretched to include their entire, wretched body.

They threw themselves into their room, slamming the door behind themselves. You’re fine, they told themselves desperately. You’re fine.

Their body disagreed.

Their spine contorted, twisting in a way that would have killed any human instantly, but Shifty merely gasped in pain, barely keeping themselves from dropping to their knees. Their skin bubbled, as though beetles were racing their way through them just underneath the epidermis, so close they might be able to dig their fingers in and rip them out. They felt their eyes bulging, pressurized and about to pop.

They hadn’t dropped their disguise in days, not since trying to confront Fiddleford, and that was just their face. They hadn’t had the courage to do so since Dipper nearly caught them, and now that they thought about it, it might have been a closer call than they first imagined.

Their body rebelled entirely, warping and writhing to try and escape the confines of Remy Wagner. Shifty half-collapsed, eyes closed and arms wrapped around themselves as if they could physically hold their disguise together.

Stop, they pleaded desperately, biting their tongue to keep from crying out. They tasted their blood, bitter with no relief. Please stop. Hold it together. Keep it together.

They felt their body spasm one final time, and then it stopped.

They took a ragged breath, and refused to open their eyes. They were bigger.

They knew, vaguely, what they actually looked like. White, translucent skin that they could see their musculature through, just a little, bending and twisting, pulsating slightly like it had its own breath and will. Eyes the color of raw meat, bulbous and fly-like. Mismatched body, like someone had started molding them and then got bored halfway through, and just grabbed whatever parts they could find.

At the end of the day, they couldn’t blame Fiddleford for his reaction.

Something rippled under their flesh again, and they flinched, giving themselves two minutes as always to air themselves out. They counted to one hundred and twenty, and then to one hundred and fifty because everything ached so badly that the idea of forcing themselves back into Remy Wagner seemed more like torture than daily routine. The makeup was still smeared all over their face, and they wondered vaguely what it looked like with their strange head now. They didn’t go to the bathroom to look. They didn’t want to know.

They took a deep breath, and shoved themselves back into their human costume. It felt too small now, smaller than it ever had, like trying to put everything in a pressure cooker at once and cranking the heat as high as it could go. The glass was bound to break, and the insides would spill out like a tsunami–

“You’re okay,” Shifty said, trembling slightly. “You’re fine. You’re…it’s okay. Everyone’s fine.”

Someone knocked on their door, and they flinched. “Remy?” Mabel asked, her voice unsure outside their door. “You okay?”

They wondered, briefly, what would happen if they cracked apart and flooded out into the room, spilling out whatever terrible things lay inside them. They didn’t know, and neither had Stanford. But they knew it must be something horrible. It was the only explanation.

And in spite of their best efforts, Shifty liked Mabel and Dipper. It was terrifying. It was bad enough that they constantly worried for Stan, Wendy, and Soos in their presence, like something might snap inside them like a brittle bone, and they might blink and find themselves covered in blood. Adding two more people to their circle–and children, no less–felt like balancing glass on a wobbly shelf: a disaster just waiting to happen.

“Remy?” Dipper’s voice had joined. “Hey man, you okay? Mabel dug up some makeup wipes, I dunno how old they are now–”

“I’m fine,” Shifty said, impressed with how steady their own voice was. “I'm still getting eyeshadow out. You guys go watch TV, I’ll be there in a second.”

“...are you sure?”

“Yeah!” Shifty said, half-stumbling to the bathroom. “Yeah, go ahead!”

They heard footsteps shuffle away after a moment, and took a shuddering breath, gripping the sides of the sink and daring to look at their reflection.

Human. Terrible, stressed, with a strange sort of fear in their eyes, a human reflection stared back.

Shifty gritted their teeth so tightly it hurt. “Get it together,” they whispered. “Get it together.”

Their reflection did not look encouraged.

Chapter Text

Shifty squirmed, trying to catch a look at something bright and colorful on a rack, and Stan barely held in a yelp at the movement. “Knock it off!” He hissed, and someone in the aisle next to theirs glanced at them, looking perturbed.

Stan cast a thin smile at the stranger, and ducked behind some kind of sales rack. “Kid, stop wriggling,” he whispered. “I’m ticklish.”

Shifty’s eyes migrated to peer up at Stan, irritated, and Stan shivered. “Eugh, don’t do that. Someone’s gonna see.”

Shifty shut their eyes, immediately flattening themselves and going back to pretending to be a perfectly inanimate coat. It would have been easier if Stan wasn’t wearing them.

The first few times Stan had run errands, he had left the TV on, told Shifty brusquely he would be gone for a few hours, and then disappeared, returning with various groceries. Shifty spent the entire ordeal tied up in so much anxiety it was hard to do anything except wait by the door and try not to panic, terrified that Stan might never come back, that the thing in the basement might grow legs and chase him down.

It didn’t matter that they knew it was ridiculous. The only thing that kept them from a complete and utter meltdown every time Stan left the house was the idea that their reaction might chase him off entirely, like Fiddleford.

By the time the snow began to melt, though, they could bear it no longer.

“Alright, kid,” Stan said, searching for his beat up jacket. Shifty was pretty sure it didn’t offer much warmth. “We need grub. I’m gonna be gone for a while, just watch TV and don’t blow up anything–”

“I’m coming,” Shifty chirped, pleased with their lengthy response of two whole words. Speaking wasn’t quite so difficult these days, provided the nightmares weren’t too bad the previous night and nothing particularly stressful had happened during the day. Stan took it in stride, saying ‘Look who’s chatty today!’ in a way that might have felt patronizing if it were anyone else, but not Stan.

Stan glanced at Shifty. “What? You never wanted to run errands with me before.”

“Want to,” Shifty said, and then frowned, trying again. “Want to go.” They didn’t have the time, will, or vocabulary to explain to Stan that they had always wanted to go with him.

“Yeah, well,” Stan shrugged, managing to find his jacket. “A kid following me around is gonna raise too many questions. And they don’t allow animals in stores, even if you ask nicely. So–”

Shifty turned into a coat they had seen on TV once, and waited with glee. After a few moments of silence, they let their eyes appear, peering out at Stan curiously.

Stan was standing over them, an expression of surprise on his face, comical enough that it almost made Shifty laugh. He reached out, lifting up one of the arms of the jacket, and dropping it. Shifty let it fall limply.

Stan whistled. “Moses, kid, I didn’t know it could go THIS far. What else are you hiding from me? Maybe I could stop using plates and just start using you, save some time on the dishes.”

Shifty laughed, changing back into a human. “I’m coming too,” they said, confident enough to use first person pronouns.

“You gonna be able to pretend to be a jacket while I’m wearing you?” Stan said. “And you can’t have eyes out or anything. People are gonna see that.”

“Okay,” Shifty said. They would have said they would turn into a full-sized whale if it meant they could go.

Stan looked conflicted, but after a moment, he sighed, waving vaguely in the air. “Guess we’re going on a field trip. How many pockets can you make?”

The field trip was going mediocre.

It was cold outside, bitterly so, even with the snow slowly melting. Shifty had to fight to keep themselves from shivering before Stan stepped into the store, the bell dinging above him. It was difficult to move alongside Stan as he reached out to grab various items; Shifty had assumed they could just go limp in this form, and it would be fine, but Stan had muttered something about their dead weight being hard to move in. Besides that, Shifty felt like they would lose their jacket shape if they became too relaxed. Moving in tandem was difficult, and besides that, uncomfortable.

And in spite of what Stan had told them to do, they kept looking, letting their hidden eyes drift to the surface of the jacket to have a look around. The lights hurt their eyes a little, but the rest of the store was amazing. Bright colors lined the shelves with items Shifty couldn’t make heads or tales of. Signs promising sales, and a linoleum floor that smelled like bleach. And most enticingly, a tall, spinning rack filled with strange, thin books, sporting people in strange outfits with bright letters all around them.

They had squirmed to get a better look, and now Stan was mad at them.

“Get that,” they whispered, manifesting a tendril to point at the rack.

Stan pushed the tendril down. “Put that away, sh!”

“Sir?” Someone called out, behind a counter. “You alright there?”

“Just peachy!” Stan said through gritted teeth, and Shifty waited until they were certain Stan wasn’t looking at them anymore to summon their eyes back, looking around once more with curiosity.

Stan had a faded green plastic basket in his hands, and was occasionally shoving something inside it. But then he would pause, glance around with a casualness that seemed forced, and place something small inside of the pockets Shifty had created in the jacket. It was a strange feeling, but not necessarily unpleasant.

“What are-” Shifty started to ask, but Stan shushed them, and they contented themselves to look aimlessly, mostly just relieved to be out of the house, even if they were positive they were missing good TV.

“Eyes,” Stan whispered, and Shifty made their eyes disappear.

“This all?” They heard someone ask, probably the person behind the counter.

“Yep,” Stan said, and Shifty heard him set the plastic basket down.

They paused, confused. The fake pockets were still full. Stan must have forgotten about the stuff in there. As subtle as they could, they wriggled, only slightly–enough for the contents in the false pockets to spill onto the floor with a clatter.

There was a moment of strangely tense silence. Shifty almost allowed their eyes back out before the person behind the counter said: “And…are you going to buy those…?”

“Right, yeah, my bad,” Stan said, sounding disappointed for some reason. “Sorry, forgot I had them.”

Shifty waited until they were back inside Stan’s smelly car to slide off of him, transforming back into a child and reaching for a pack of powdered donuts. Stan grabbed it out of their hands. “Nuh uh, I had to pay for these.”

Shifty blinked, confused, shrinking back when they realized Stan looked irritated. “What’d you do that for?” He sighed. “I was gonna make off with at least twenty dollars worth of snacks. Did you lose your grip or something? Next time we gotta make a signal if we’re gonna drop something-”

“Stealing?!” Shifty said, horrified, the pieces clicking in place. “S-stealing?!”

Stan paused, looking genuinely perplexed. “...kid. What did you think I was doing?”

“STEALING!” Shifty shrieked, utterly mortified to be a part of a scheme.

“Okay, okay, stop yelling!” Stan said, looking startled by their reaction. “Why do you care?! When did Sixer have time to teach you about stealing?!”

“Stealing,” Shifty said sullenly, turning to face away from Stan, curled up in the front seat.

Stan sighed. “Okay, look. That’s all well and good when you got a buncha fancy grant money to buy shit to build some kinda contraption in the basement, but that’s not me. We’re making money with this Murder Hut business, but not a lot. So sometimes, people have to steal.”

Shifty grunted, unsatisfied.

“Sometimes people gotta do whatever it takes to survive, kid,” Stan said, his voice heavy. “It might be bad. It might be wrong. But that’s just staying alive.”

Shifty wasn’t so sure how necessary powdered donuts were for survival, but they uncurled, facing forward. They supposed they couldn’t fault Stan for all of it. “...stealing,” they muttered, one final time.

“‘S not like I’m robbing them blind,” Stan said, looking relieved that Shifty wasn’t quite so upset anymore. “Just a few snacks here and there, mostly the stuff I know you like. They’ll survive, really. Skimming a little off the top never hurt nobody. Except in drug deals, but that’s…that’s probably not a kid-friendly conversation. Forget I said anything.”

“Okay,” Shifty said, glancing at the powdered donuts. Stan offered them back, and Shifty frowned, still conflicted.

“You’re not gonna kill anyone by eating junk food that wasn’t paid for,” Stan said. “I’ve done it enough to know. Besides, this WAS paid for, thanks to you.”

“Not hurting anyone?” Shifty said, slightly on edge. “Promise?”

“Yeah, kid, I promise,” Stan said, and looked slightly amused as Shifty immediately tore into the donuts. “Yeesh, you remind me of him, you know?”

“Who?”

Stan said nothing, tapping his fingers on the wheel of the Stanleymobile, and Shifty paused in their massacre of the donuts, words sinking in. “...oh.”

“We got in trouble a lot,” Stan said quietly. “Well, at least I did. I was an impulsive kid. Still am in a way, I guess. He was always up in arms about me getting into scraps, or in trouble at school, or whatever. You sound just like him. It’s uncanny.”

Shifty said nothing. On one hand, they practically glowed with praise being compared to Stanford. A few months ago it would have been all they ever wanted. And that glow was there–that desperation that he wasn’t gone completely, that some part of him still lingered, and would return when Shifty needed him most, like a sleeping hero under the mountain.

The rest of them merely felt cold and empty, like a hollow simulacrum of a person who might have only existed in their mind.

Stan had gone quiet too, looking forlornly out the front window, lost in an equally nebulous past. After a moment, Shifty nudged them, and when Stan looked at them, they offered a donut.

Stan smiled weakly. “Thanks, kid. You’re alright.”

He reached out and ruffled their hair, and it was almost okay again.

“Hey, the day wasn’t a total bust,” Stan said, reaching behind his back and slipping some kind of folded up paper out from under his shirt. “Still managed to swipe this. Figured you might like it.”

Shifty took it, and realized it was the brightly colored, thin book they had been so enamored with in the store. They grinned, their eyes roving over the strange looking people, locked in some kind of battle. “X-Men,” they said, tracing their fingers over the title.

“Not so anti-stealing when it’s something you like, huh?” Stan said, and chuckled when Shifty gave him a look. “Okay, okay, read your comic, kid.”

Shifty flipped through the pages idly, already fascinated by the pictures of strange people fighting strange beings. The ink was staining their fingertips, but they couldn’t find it in themselves to care.

“I used to love comics when I was your age, too,” Stan said, starting up the car. The Stanleymobile coughed, and then sputtered to life. “Don’t think I ever read X-Men, though. Lemme know if it’s any good. Maybe we can get you some more the next time we go out, okay?”

“Okay,” Shifty said, already enraptured with the comic. “Okay.”

“Who’s birthday is it, anyway?” Soos asked, hanging up some streaming from a support beam.

Shifty, suddenly realizing what day it was, let go of the balloon they were almost done blowing up. It immediately shot out of their hands, flying around the room with a loud sputter.

Mabel, covered in silly string, laughed. “Yeah, Remy! Get in on the ‘gross body stuff’ comedy train! Balloon fart noises!”

She turned to Wendy and Dipper, holding a can of silly string by her mouth. “BLEH!” She said, her best impression of vomiting. Wendy and Dipper burst out laughing, spraying her back.

“I’d fire all of you if I could,” Stan said, carefully avoiding eye contact with Shifty. “And it’s no one’s birthday, I just figured we can rip a few suckers off if we set up some kinda shindig. Do people still say shindig?”

“They do not,” Wendy said.

“I don’t think they ever did,” Shifty said, incredulous.

“Less yapping, more working,” Stan ordered.

“I’m gonna pass out if I keep blowing up balloons much longer,” Shifty said, kicking a few around. “Why don’t we just get a helium canister?”

“What am I, made of money?” Stan asked. “Also, those are really hard to nab. They’re too big.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I bet people are gonna love stepping on balloons all night,” Dipper said, spraying more silly string at his sister. Mabel shrieked.

“Alright, party supplies are off limits,” Stan said, snatching the silly string away from the twins and shoving a handful of fliers into Dipper’s hands. “Go make yourself useful and copy some fliers, yeah? The copier by my office is all fixed up, use that and save a couple of bucks.”

“You fixed it?” Shifty asked. “That thing was in dozens of pieces. And we didn’t have a manual.”

“I’m great at fixing stuff!” Stan said. “That thing’s good as new!”

Dipper and Mabel looked doubtful, but trodded out to fulfill their new goal. “You two, more streamers and balloons!” Stan said, motioning to Wendy and Soos. “Remy, help me find that old disco ball, I’m pretty sure it’s still in storage.”

“We have a disco ball?” Shifty asked, following Stan out. They were certain that Stan had never bought a disco ball, which meant that it had been accidentally inherited by Stanford, which created even more questions.

“Well, something blinded me the other day when I was in storage with a flashlight,” Stan said, opening a door and immediately digging through dusty items. “And I wanna find out what.”

“...you do know I know what day it is, right?” Shifty said.

Stan stiffened, and focused doubly on rummaging through what was mostly junk. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Are you actually throwing yourself a birthday party disguised as some kind of money making scheme?” Shifty asked.

“How’d you even know it was my birthday?” Stan asked, sounding annoyed. “Not like I ever told you.”

“You hole up in your room one day a year and ignore everyone else completely, and get piss drunk at the end of the night,” Shifty said. “It’s not hard to deduce. Plus, you get really honest when you drink.”

“Hmph,” Stan said, looking uncomfortable. “Well, isn’t this better than that? At least we can make a little money out of this whole thing.”

“I don’t know,” Shifty said, kicking aside a few old winter boots, child-sized and well worn. “Feels…dishonest?”

Stan gave them a look.

“Dishonest in a different, more bad way, obviously,” Shifty said.

“It’s my birthday,” Stan grumbled, looking like he wanted the conversation to end. “I can do what I want. I don’t need two cakes.”

“But-”

“Hey!” Stan perked up. “You found it!”

He grabbed the disco ball, revealed from where Shifty had kicked old shoes aside. “Lemme get this to Soos, he can probably get it up without too many injuries.”

“But-”

“See you tonight, Mouser!” Stan said, already out of storage. “Wear something nice, for once, would ya?”

Shifty would probably never admit it out loud, but Soos was a damn good DJ as long as he wasn’t trying to build goodwill with the crowd over a soundboard.

People had started moseying in the second the doors had officially opened. Loud music boomed from the speakers, with a bassline so deep Shifty could feel it in their chest. The disco balls casting light all around the room, sparkling like a star had been brought into the shack just for the night. Kids and teens were clustered around the snack table, or already having fun on a makeshift dance floor.

All in all, it was nothing like the cheapskate event Shifty had originally envisioned. They could easily imagine enjoying themselves if they were a human child.

“Remy!” Mabel seemed to materialize next to them, grinning in what she had dubbed her party outfit. “You having fun?”

Shifty smiled slightly. “I’m working, Mabel. No time for fun.”

“Grunkle Stan is having fun,” Mabel said, and pointed to Stan helping himself to the snack table.

“That’s because Stan has never taken anything seriously in his life,” Shifty said, but couldn’t keep himself from smiling. Stan was grinning to himself, and it didn’t even look stretched. It was a nice change. “Have you made any friends yet?”

“Not yet,” Mabel said. “But I’m patient! I’m already having fun.”

“That’s nice,” Shifty said. “Where’s Dipper? Is he still at the ticket booth?”

“Yeah,” Mabel said, and snickered. “With Wendy.”

“Oh, great,” Shifty sighed, starting to make their way to the outside. “I gotta make sure those two are actually working. Don’t party too hard.”

“No promises!” Mabel called after them.

Shifty made it into the main hallway before someone grabbed their arm, yanking them into a corner. They yelped, wrenching their arm away, before they realized it was just Stan, the latter now looking worried.

“Stan!” Shifty gasped. “What the hell was that for?!”

“Um, so, um,” Stan coughed. “There’s a small issue.”

Shifty felt slightly nauseous. “...how small?”

“So remember the couplers we replaced on the portal last week?” Stan said, rubbing the back of his neck. “And how I said it was definitely fine to buy them second-hand?”

Shifty’s blood went cold. “Stan…”

“Don’t freak out,” Stan said.

“Don’t freak–?!” Shifty gestured wildly. “They could be leaking toxic gas right now!”

“They’re not, I checked!” Stan said. “No alarms, totally safe. I just need to go down and reinstall them real quick so they can last for a few days before we can get new ones. But it’s gonna take a couple hours.”

“So you–” Shifty groaned. “Oh, come on, I hate doing this.”

“You don’t have to do any work,” Stan said, taking off his fez and offering it to Shifty. “It’ll be over before you know it, really! This’ll be fun for you.”

“...and this toxic gas will definitely kill us?” Shifty asked. Stan just stared at them.

Shifty sighed, shrugging off their shoes and jacket, and taking the fez. “Fine. But listen to me next time when I say not to buy couplers out of the back of a truck.”

They felt their body ripple and twist, and a second later, a perfect copy of Stanley Pines stood before the original. Stan grinned, looking pleased. “Well, you know where to find me! Good luck!”

“I hate it here,” Shifty said, in a perfect imitation of Stan’s voice.

Overall, there were no huge disasters just yet. Wendy disappeared from the ticket booth about an hour later, but Dipper was still there, so Shifty figured it was fine. No one had tried to talk to them other than a few passing nods, and Mabel seemed to be getting on like a house on fire with a few other girls.

Soos had asked for “Stan’s” opinion of his DJ skills, and Shifty had told him to get back to work. A perfect imitation.

Just gotta get through a few hours of this, Shifty said, grabbing themselves a solo cup filled with Pitt Cola. They had earned it. So what if I’ve only done this mostly for strangers on tours I’ll never see again? It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m gonna hide in the office for an hour and then come out, totally normal. Yeah, that makes sense.

They took a shortcut through the darkened museum, freezing when they saw a shadow dart away from the corner. Shifty froze, squinting. Their vision was far better than a person’s in the dark, but even so, the shadows the exhibits cast were downright eerie and disorienting.

Something moved quickly, and they reacted before they could think twice, reaching out and grabbing something. The creature squealed, and Shifty yanked it closer, expecting a large gnome, but instead–

“Gideon?!”

Gideon thrashed, held a few feet off the ground by the back of his shirt. “Release me this instant, Stanford!”

“Nuh uh,” Shifty said, already annoyed. “No way you bought a ticket. How’d you sneak in here anyway?”

“I’ll never tell!” Gideon said, swinging wildly “Release me or feel my wrath!”

“I’m terrified,” Stan said dully, dragging Gideon towards the main entrance. They needed to tell Dipper to keep an eye out. “Well, hope you had other plans besides this, because you ain’t getting in, pal.”

Gideon chuckled, darkly enough that Shifty glanced back at him, perturbed. “What? Something funny?”

“You have no idea the forces you’re messing with, Stanford Pines,” Gideon said lowly. “You’ll rue the day you ever crossed me. Do you hear me?! You’ll rue it!”

“Yeah, I’m real scared of the kid whose dad owns a used car lot,” Shifty said dully, waving off a few strange looks from partygoers.

“It’s not me you need to be scared of,” Gideon said. “It’s the strange forces in this town. Why, they’re right under your very nose.”

He said it so seriously that Shifty couldn’t help but pause. “What in the world are you talking about now?”

“How much do you really know about your assistant?” Gideon asked slyly. “Remy Wagner?”

Shifty almost said ‘co-manager’ before the full implications of Gideon’s words hit them, and they had to work very hard to keep their face neutral. “...you sound insane,” they finally said, throwing open the toss and quite literally tossing Gideon out.

“HEY!” Gideon shrieked, and Dipper jumped at the ticket stand, looking surprised.

“Don’t let the little creep back in,” Shifty ordered, noting that Dipper’s hat looked odd, though they didn’t really care enough to investigate.

“You’ll rue the day!” Gideon said, picking himself up and shaking his fist, heedless of the stares he was receiving. “Rue it–”

Shifty slammed the door and sighed, feeling a migraine coming on. “Ugh. Freak show.”

I really earned that office break now, they thought, making their way into the deserted parts of the shack once more. It’s fine, Gideon doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He’s just trying to make Stan uneasy. He doesn’t know anything about me.

All the same, they couldn’t shake the pit in their stomach.

They turned the corner, gulping down Pitt Cola like they needed it to live, and suddenly froze. “HEY! Dipper?!”

Dipper, halfway across the hall, jumped, whirling around. He looked nervous. “H-hey, Grunkle Stan! Fancy seeing you here!”

“I live here,” Shifty said. “What–wait a minute, how did you get here?! I just saw you manning the ticket booth!”

“Um,” Dipper said. “I had to pee.”

“What’s with your hat?” Shifty asked, realizing something was different. “Why does it have a number four on it?”

Dipper snatched off his hat, holding it behind his back. “Uh, trying out a new look!”

Dipper smiled nervously, and for some reason, he didn’t smell overly sweaty. In fact, he didn’t smell like much of anything at all, save for paper, for whatever reason. Maybe he had finally figured out how to use deodorant.

“Whatever,” Shifty said gruffly. “Get your butt back outside, I don’t have time for this.”

“Yeah, sure, absolutely,” Dipper said, backing up. “I just, um, had to talk to Wendy about something real fast–”

“Kid,” Shifty said, rolling their eyes. “It ain’t ever gonna happen, you know that right?”

Dipper scowled. “You don’t know anything. And if you’re so concerned about the ticket stand, maybe you should deal with it?”

“Think fast,” Shifty said, splashing their solo cup at Dipper, intending to psych him out. They thought they had finished it off, but there was apparently still about half a mouthful of soda left, and it flew out of the cup at Dipper’s face.

Dipper’s eyes widened. “Wait-!”

The soda splashed him square in the nose, and he stumbled back with an undignified yelp.

Shifty laughed with Stan’s raspy cackle. “Alright, go clean yourself up and get back out there–”

Dipper looked up, and Shifty’s order cut off with a horrified choke.

Dipper’s face was bubbling, sizzling softly like meat placed on a hot grill. He stumbled, clawing at the ruined flesh, but the bubbling only spread to his arms. In fact, his entire body seemed to be melting, collapsing in on itself as it turned gelatinous, sinking into the floorboards

Dipper glared at Shifty with a face that was rapidly becoming unrecognizable. “Oh, come on, man–”

The rest of what he was trying to say was cut off by Dipper’s mouth collapsing in on itself, before all that was left was a pile of flesh-colored gloop.

Shifty stared, eyes wide and mouth open. The solo cup dropped from their hand.

“...Dipper?” They asked, their voice coming out several octaves higher than they intended.

The pile of flesh did not reply.

“Oh my god,” Shifty said under their breath, panicked beyond belief. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god–” they cut themselves off with a retch, just barely managing to keep the soda down. They readjusted their grip on the broom, pushing what used to be Dipper Pines into the office. “Holy fucking shit, oh my god, it’s fine, I can fix this, maybe-!”

They slammed the door to the office, and took off sprinting across the Mystery Shack, much faster than Stan would have been able to, but that was fine. They practically catapulted into the gift shop, punching in the code to the vending machine without so much as a glance around to make sure they were alone.

For once, the fear of being underground was overtaken by the fear of quite literally killing someone in what had to be one of the most horrifying ways possible. They threw themselves into the elevator, shaking all the way down until it opened.

The portal room was still terrible.

Wires and tubes hung from the ceilings like great snakes, ready to drop down and bite at a moment's notice. It was freezing, even in summer, and the air smelled like static and gasoline, giving Shifty a headache every time they dared to enter, which wasn’t often. And the portal itself…

Shifty shook on the impending panic to focus on the panic that was already there. “STAN!” They gasped, turning back into Remy, fez askew.

Stan, atop a ladder and fiddling with some wires, nearly fell off. “Kid?! What the hell are you doing down here?!”

Shifty meant for the whole story to spill out, and for once, they would apologize so many times the words lost meaning, and then they would figure out a way to reverse this whole thing somehow, by any means necessary, but instead they said: “Is Dipper allergic to Pitt Cola?”

Stan stared at them, and blinked. “Um. No? Is that why you’re here?”

“N-no, I just, um,” Shifty coughed, trying not to tremble. “I just–”

“Moses, Mouser, you’re shaking like crazy,” Stan said, climbing down the ladder and shooing them out vaguely. “Tell you what, why don’t you go upstairs, keep running the party? That’s gotta be way more fun than being down here, right? Wish I was you right now!”

“You definitely don’t,” Shifty said.

“Right, yeah, whatever,” Stan said, ushering them out into the control room. “See ya in a hour or two!”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said shrilly, as Stan disappeared back into the portal room. “Oh my god. Oh my god–”

They paused, seeing the first journal sitting on the portal console, the gold leaf hand shining in the dim underground light.

Shifty took a breath. “Oh god.”

“Wizard stuff, wizard stuff, wizard stuff…AH!” Shifty gasped, flipping frantically through the journal back in the office. Finally, they came to a page titled ‘ON MAGIC, EVIL AND NON-EVIL’. Shifty didn’t particularly care about the ethics of it, as long as they could undo whatever they had done.

“Don’t worry, Dipper,” Shifty told the pile of goo, which was starting to seep into the floorboards and dissolve even further. They would have to hurry. “I got this, you’ll be back to your old self in no time! And then we can forget this ever happened!”

Magic is a very finicky thing, the journal read. When I first arrived in Gravity Falls, my belief in the outright supernatural was shaky at best, but this town has proved me wrong on so many accounts! Magic is the most difficult to classify. Is it an act with intention? Is it something innate a person possesses? My studies have thus far proved inconclusive, but I have found that–

“Blah blah blah,” Shifty muttered, flipping ahead a few pages. “Come on, less talking, more de-glooping…aha!”

There are several different types of magic; transfiguration, evocation, even the controversial necromancy…

Shifty turned the page eagerly.

...all of which are outlined in great detail in my second journal, even a few spells to bring someone back from the dead! But surely all these journals will be kept together for quick and easy access to such things! Anyway! Onto these fascinating rock formations I found in the mountains.

Shifty decided that if they ever saw Stanford again, they would consider wringing his neck.

There was a knock at the office door, and Shifty yelped, stuffing the journal in the desk drawer and throwing a sheet over what was left of Dipper. Mabel entered less than a second later, grinning without a care in the world. “Remy! You gotta come! They’re about to announce the winner of the party crown–why are you wearing Grunkle Stan’s fez?”

“Um,” Shifty said, ripping it off and cursing themselves for not staying as Stan. “For fun. Or something.”

“Where is Grunkle Stan, anyway?” Mabel asked.

“About!” Shifty said, too quickly. “He’s just about, no need to worry or freak out! Everything’s fine! No one met a gross and disgusting fate!”

Mabel stared at them, and Shifty worried they might throw up. “I-I gotta finish some stuff up in here,” they said, suddenly so overcome with guilt that they needed Mabel out immediately. “Good luck with your thing, I’m sure it’ll go great!”

“Um,” Mabel said, looking slightly hurt. “Okay. Have fun with your thing.”

She left, closing the door behind her. Shifty let out a breath. “Sorry, Dipper,” they said, grabbing the sheet. “A little white lie won’t hurt–”

They lifted the sheet and choked. Dipper had completely dissolved, and what was left of him was sticking to the sheet in rapidly disappearing clumps.

“Oh my god,” Shifty said shrilly. “Oh my fucking god.”

Hey Stan, Shifty thought desperately, trying to dream up an explanation. So, somehow I melted your nephew, and since I think necromancy requires a body AND we don’t have the second journal, we’re shit out of luck. My bad! Do you wanna break the news to Mabel or call the parents first?

“Oh god,” Shifty said, breathless and dizzy. “Oh god–”

They rounded the corner, and ran right into someone.

“Hey!” An overly familiar voice said. “Sorry, Remy, didn’t realize it was you–”

“DIPPER?!” Shifty shrieked, and Dipper jumped back, looking startled by Shifty’s reaction.

“Uh,” Dipper said. “Yeah?”

His hat looked normal again, and his stench was back. In spite of the second thing, Shifty dropped to their knees, grabbing Dipper and turning him around and looking him over, searching for signs of melting. "A-are you hurt?! Do you feel alright?! Do you feel like you might suddenly disintegrate?!"

“Woah, man!” Dipper said, trying to squirm away. “Personal space! What’s with you?!”

“I thought you were–” Shifty gasped. “But you just–how in the–?!”

“Dipper!” Mabel burst around the corner, followed closely by Stan, Wendy, and Soos. Shifty let go of Dipper immediately, standing up quickly before anyone noticed. Mabel looked overjoyed. “Come meet my girlfriends! Remy! I lost the party crown!”

“Oh, um,” Shifty stood up, a little embarrassed now. “Sorry?”

“It’s fine!” Mabel said, grabbing Dipper’s arm and dragging him away. “Candy and Grenda are great!”

“Those are real names?” Dipper asked, disappearing into the shack.

“Oh man, Remy, you missed an awesome party!” Wendy grinned. “Where were you? I barely saw you all night!”

“Oh, you know,” Shifty said thinly. “Around.”

“I have the DJ kit until the rental place takes it back at noon tomorrow,” Soos said. “This thing is going all night!”

"It's going for two more hours," Stan said, looking exhausted.

"It's going for two more hours!" Soos amended, and Wendy cheered. 

Wendy and Soos followed after Mabel and Dipper, leaving Shifty alone with Stan. Stan plucked the fez off of Shifty’s head, and looked at him warily. “What’s with you? You look like you’re gonna hurl.”

“I’m great,” Shifty said, swaying slightly.

Then they leaned over and emptied their stomach onto the floor.

“There we go,” Stan said, handing Shifty a cup of water, sitting down heavily across from them at the kitchen table. “Slow sips, okay? If you upchuck again I’m making you clean it.”

“Thanks,” Shifty said, lifting their head off the table to drink.

Stan popped open the tab on his beer, and took a measured swig. “Wanna tell me what had you so up in arms earlier this evening?”

“Ask me in a couple weeks once the adrenaline wears off,” Shifty said dully. “And then maybe you can help me make sense of what even fucking happened.”

Stan chuckled. “Fair enough.”

“...sucks that you didn’t get to attend your own birthday party, though,” Shifty said, feeling a little guilty about it. “I should have been the one to fix the couplers.”

“Eh, you don’t have an eye for that kinda thing,” Stan said. “And you hate the basement.”

“Still–”

“Still nothin’,” Stan said. “It was one of my better birthdays. Best in years.”

“Well,” Shifty said, lifting their head off the table. They felt better now that they knew they weren’t a murderer. “Happy birthday. You’re, what, a million? Two million?”

“I’ll beat your ass,” Stan shook a very non-threatening fist at Shifty.

“I’d like to see you try,” Shifty said, taking another sip of water. “Maybe we can get a cake tomorrow.”

“You don’t gotta get me a cake,” Stan said.

“You think it’s just for you?” Shifty grinned. “You’re sharing, old man.”

Stan chuckled, raising his beer. “Too mostly not shitty birthdays.”

Shifty clinked their water glass with his beer. “Yeah, to that.”

Shifty wondered what Stanford was doing. If he was safe, healthy, if he even knew it was his birthday. If he was even alive.

But for once, they managed to keep it to themselves, listening to the bassline thrum as six people danced into the night, safe and sound.

It was around two a.m. that night when there was a knock at Shifty’s door.

They perked up, stuffing a notebook of complex calculations between the couch cushions. “Hello?”

“Remy?” Dipper called. “Are you awake?”

“...obviously,” Shifty said, making their way across the room and opening up the door. “What do you want?”

Dipper was blinking heavily, carrying a pillow and blanket, exhausted. “Sorry,” he said, and yawned so wide Shifty thought he heard his jaw crack. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

Shifty blinked. “What’s wrong with your room?”

“Nothing,” Dipper said. “Just that Mabel’s up there with her friends and I think they’re pulling an all-nighter.”

“You like all-nighters,” Shifty said.

Dipper frowned. “Not their all-nighters.”

Shifty thought they heard a distant shriek, followed by hysterical laughter. Dipper winced. "I've been dealing with that for a while."

They should have sent him off, really. Nights were some of the only times Shifty had to do work on the portal, and their was no way they could do that if Dipper was here. It was a waste of time, and Shifty was nearly done with some anti-gravity work, some of the most complicated math and physics of the bunch.

But the memory of watching Dipper melt into nothing flashed before their eyes, and even if they were pretty sure that wasn't truly Dipper, there was something soothing in the idea that at least for tonight, they would know exactly where he was at all times. 

Shifty sighed deeply, and stepped aside, motioning for Dipper to come in.

Dipper looked relieved, looking around the room curiously. “Why are you sleeping on the couch?”

“The room didn’t have a bed,” Shifty shrugged. “This is temporary. I’m going back to the attic at the end of summer.”

“The attic?” Dipper looked confused. “Wait, your room is in the attic? Why didn’t me and Mabel come in here, then? It would have been easier than lugging the mattresses all the way up there.”

“Um,” Shifty said. “There’s, uh, black mold in the bathroom.”

Dipper stared at them.

“Not a lot,” Shifty said weakly. 

“...okay,” Dipper said. “You know what, black mold is preferable to the stuff going on upstairs.”

He set himself up on the ground, making a little nest out of blankets. “Are those your comics in the boxes upstairs, then?”

Shifty glanced at him, surprised. “You saw my comics?”

“Yeah,” Dipper said. “It’s mostly X-Men.”

“You know X-Men?”

“Everyone knows X-Men,” Dipper said, and yawned again. “I saw one of the movies a long time ago. Which X-Men guy is your favorite?”

“I like Mystique,” Shifty said, though whether she was strictly part of the team or not was up for debate. “How about you?”

There was a moment of silence, long enough that Shifty thought Dipper might have fallen asleep. And then: “...Wolverine? I dunno. Why were you acting weird earlier?”

Shifty blinked. “...I wasn’t.”

“You grabbed me and were freaking out.”

“I thought…” Shifty started, and then trailed off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“...do you really think there’s nothing strange going on in this town?” Dipper asked, jumping rapidly from one topic to another as he tried to stay awake for just a moment longer. 

“Of course,” Shifty said immediately. “I’ve been here for years. Never seen a ghost or anything.”

“Hmph,” Dipper said, unconvinced. “What about the shack? You’re okay with just…with just lying? All the time?”

“It’s easier than you’d think,” Shifty said softly.

“I’d wanna show someone something real,” Dipper said, sounding determined. “A real monster.”

Shifty chuckled. “I can guarantee you that if we somehow managed to find a dragon or something, no one would care. They might even call it fake. They’d walk right out the door.”

“Nuh uh,” Dipper said, sounding a little distant. He was losing steam.

“People don’t want something shocking, Dipper,” Shifty said. “They don’t want something that rocks their world. Want to know a secret? I think everyone who comes through here knows it's all fake. And they don’t care. It’s a pretty lie, that the woods are filled with silly monsters who’ll wave and do a little dance for you if you give them five dollars. The world has enough real monsters. The second we show them something real, something with teeth, they’ll reject it. They’ll take a declawed simulacrum any day of the week. I guarantee it.”

“...I think you’re wrong,” Dipper said, almost whispering.

“You can think that,” Shifty said, rolling over on the couch. “Doesn’t change the fact that it's true.”

There was a moment of heavy silence, and Shifty worried they had taken it too far.

“...want me to turn off the lamp?” Dipper asked, sitting up suddenly and looking at a tiny lamp Shifty had brought down from upstairs.

“No!” Shifty said, a little too forceful. They coughed, embarrassed. “I-I mean…no, it’s fine. I keep it on in case…um…in case I need to get up during the night.”

Dipper stared at them, and Shifty swallowed, mortified. “You can…if it bugs you, you can turn it off.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Dipper said, curling back up in his blanket nest. And then he said, no doubt because he was exhausted and not thinking straight: “I have a night light too.”

He passed out almost instantly, snoring softly. Shifty didn't have the energy to be mortified. 

And in spite of their adrenaline still running high, Shifty followed soon after.

Chapter Text

At one time, inexplicably, everything had been perfect.

“Oh, very good,” Stanford said with a grin, and this time he didn’t even reach for a notebook. “That’s good, Shifty! You’re doing so well!”

Shifty chirped eagerly, fishing through the puzzle pieces to find their next bit to complete the picture of the dog. This was one of their new favorite games, and even if Stanford called it a test, it didn’t feel like one. They loved searching through the puzzle pieces to try and find the next bit. They loved the excited look Stanford got whenever they clicked a piece in the right spot. And they especially like how Stanford always ended up helping in the end, unable to resist the call of the puzzle.

“Ooh, hang on–” Stanford said, reaching forward and grabbing a piece, popping it in the right place. Shifty cooed, and Stanford blinked before looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, this is your puzzle.”

“Stanford,” Shifty said, offering a piece of puzzle to him, the pupil of the dog’s eye, focused on something that Shifty couldn’t see. Maybe a treat.

Stanford looked confused for a moment, and then smiled softly. “Thank you, Shifty, that’s very kind.”

“Ford,” Fiddleford walked through the door, looking at several stapled sheets of paper with a perplexed expression on his face. “Where in the world did you put the reference blueprints for the exhaust system, I can’t find ‘em anywhere–”

“Fidds!” Stanford perked up. “Look at the progress Shifty’s made on the puzzle! He’s only had it for a half hour now!”

Fiddleford paused, glancing at Shifty and Ford. The former chattered nonsensically, holding up a puzzle piece like it was a great prize. At first, Fiddleford looked nervous, like he always did, but then he blinked. “It did that all on its own?”

“I–” Stanford coughed. “I may have helped here and there. But yes, Shifty is proving himself to be quite the problem solver.”

“Here and there?” Fiddleford repeated, glancing at the piece in Ford’s hand. “Just can’t help yourself, I see.”

Stanford glared with no irritation, slipping the piece into his pocket. “I like puzzles, sue me.”

Shifty squawked in protest, pawing at Stanford’s pocket for the puzzle piece. Stanford chuckled. “I think we might need to put it away for now, Shifty. We need the table to do work. At least we’re not that far along, right? Do you want to put it away, or do you want me to?”

Shifty made another irritated noise, slinking under the table and turning into an armadillo so they could curl up into a ball. “Shifty?” They heard Stanford say, and Shifty figured by the sound of his voice he was looking under the table. “Are you alright? Are you feeling ill? Are–”

“Ford,” Fiddleford said, sounding amused, which was nice because Fiddleford almost never sounded happy around Shifty these days. “It’s pouting.”

“Wha-how could you possibly know that?!”

“Tate does the same damn thing when I tell him to pick up his toys,” Fiddleford said with a laugh.

“Hm,” Stanford said. “Shifty, I’ll give you a cookie if you clean up the puzzle.”

“Wha–Ford, don’t bribe it–”

“Two,” Shifty negotiated.

Stanford laughed. “One, but I’ll let you play with the chess pieces on the chess board tonight if you’re careful and don’t lose anymore.”

That seemed like a decent enough deal for Shifty. They uncurled, turning back into themselves and climbing back up on the table. They turned into a monkey, dumping the puzzle pieces back in the box in two big handfuls.

Fiddleford shook his head, looking more amused than upset. “Lotta fuss for something that took three seconds, dear Lord…”

“Stan-ford,” Shifty said insistently, turning back into their base form and reaching out to tug on
Stanford’s sleeve.

“Alright, alright,” Stanford said, scooping up Shifty immediately and holding them in the crook of his arm like it was nothing. “We’ll be working upstairs for a bit, so if you’re good, you can stay with us. Okay? But no basement.”

Shifty chirped.

“Say ‘no basement’.”

“No basement,” Shifty said, in Stanford’s voice.

“‘Atta boy,” Stanford said, smiling warmly as Shifty nestled into his arms, as close as they could make themself. They could hear Stanford’s heartbeat, a steady rhythm that promised that nothing bad could possibly happen as long as they stayed there.

“As for the reference prints,” Stanford said, following Fiddleford. “Did you check the fridge?”

“Wha–why would they be in the fridge?”

“No eating behind the counter,” Stan and Shifty said, at the exact same time.

Wendy shivered, and put a potato chip in her mouth anyway. “I hate it when you guys sync up like that. It’s creepy.”

“Less talking, more working,” Stan said, and glanced at Shifty. “Snowglobe sales up, you said?”

“The place is empty!” Wendy protested, gesturing around the shack.

“You got time to lean, you got time to clean,” Stan said, not even looking at her.

Wendy grumbled something that Shifty was glad that Stan’s hearing aids didn’t pick up. “Yeah, I’m counting fewer snowglobes,” Shifty said, trying to refocus. “And I don’t think it’s shoplifting, because Wendy’s pretty good at hunting them down, plus snowglobes are hard to shoplift–”

“Great!” Stan said, clapping Shifty on the back so unexpectedly that Shifty coughed. “Do you mind helping me with something in the back?”

“Um,” Shifty said, a little startled by the sudden change in subject.

“Great!” Stan said again, grabbing Shifty’s arm and dragging them out of the gift shop and into the living room, looking around frantically to make sure no one else was there.

“You’re being weird again,” Shifty warned.

“Can it, Mouser,” Stan said, lowering his voice. “Has Dipper been off lately?”

Shifty blinked. “...I’ve never seen him not ‘off’.”

“Okay, fine, more off than usual.”

“I don’t know,” Shifty shrugged. “Why?”

“‘Cause he’s stopped asking me about whatever spooks he thinks are or aren’t in the woods,” Stan said. “He’s been sneaking around with Mabel, which is fine, glad they’re hanging out and only destroying the shack a little bit, but they don’t tell me what they’re up to. And if they do, it’s a lie.”

“So what?” Shifty asked. “You love lying. It’s your favorite thing. If anything, this is your influence.”

“I wouldn’t care,” Stan said. “If the kid wasn’t constantly asking about my tattoo.”

Shifty frowned. “You don’t have a tattoo?”

“On my back,” Stan said, voice even lower. “He’s real convinced.”

“You don’t–” Shifty snapped their mouth shut. They remembered the smell of burnt flesh, of infection, and then of a fever that by some miracle, Stan had mostly managed to walk off. And when he couldn’t, Shifty stayed curled up by his side, unable to do anything but beg him to wake back up.

“Oh,” they managed to say. “Uh oh.”

“Mhm,” Stan said. “So, I’m just wondering. Have the kids hounded you about anything? Anything about yourself, maybe?”

Shifty gulped, their eyes flicking around the room nervously, as if looking for escape. “...no.”

Stan groaned. Shifty could never lie to him about anything. “Goddammit, kid–”

“They didn’t see anything,” Shifty said, insistent enough that they hoped they could convince themselves. “They think there’s something out there, and to be fair, they’re right, and they’re applying it to everything and everyone in hopes that something sticks. I’m fine!”

“...are you sure?” Stan asked, looking unconvinced.

“Of course,” Shifty said. “Dipper doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Welcome back to another episode of ‘Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained’!” Dipper said, holding up a handmade sign to a clunky video camera, the red light flashing. “Today we explore the exciting enigma that is: Remy Wagner, my grunkle’s assistant! Or accountant. I dunno, it’s not clear.”

“I think they’re friends!” Mabel said, holding several papers. “Even if they argue all the time, Remy really likes Grunkle Stan, I can tell!”

Dipper sighed, leaning out of the camera’s view. “Mabel, remember, I said we gotta keep it professional.”

Mabel rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue.

“Right, okay, where was I?” Dipper settled back in place. “Right! Okay, so our evidence so far is a little thin, I’ll admit. But I know I saw Remy’s eyes glowing, and I saw something in the kitchen before that. Whether that’s related or another mystery entirely remains to be seen, but I think they’re correlated–”

“Quit talking like a dork!”

“Anyway!” Dipper snapped, a little red-faced. “Remy’s weird. And yeah, everyone in Gravity Falls is weird, but he’s a special kind of weird. He clams up when anyone asks him anything about his past, he’s not clear about how he knows Stan, and he’s just kinda…” Dipper gestured vaguely. “And honestly, all this would be something I could maybe ignore if it weren’t for…exhibit A!”

Dipper pointed dramatically at Mabel, and she shuffled the papers, looking slightly panicked. Dipper frowned. “Mabel,” he said in a stage whisper. “We practiced this.”

“Sorry, sorry, I got them mixed up when I went to get my snack downstairs…here!” She handed Dipper a thick sheet of red construction paper. “Exhibit A!”

“Exhibit A!” Dipper crowed, holding up his prize.

Over the construction paper, someone had cut out letters from various magazines to spell out a message, mismatched fonts and colors clashing eerily on the paper. Dipper turned it back towards himself to read it.

“Remy Wagner is not who you think he is,” he read. “He is lying to you about everything. Beware.”

“Spooky,” Mabel said.

“It’d be a lot spookier if the return address on the letter wasn’t Gideon’s house,” Dipper said dully. “‘Cause besides that it’s a pretty decent anonymous ransom-looking letter.”

“He sent a love letter with it,” Mabel said, disheartened, and then perked up. “Grunkle Stan let me burn it with a lighter!”

“Not that I trust anything that Gideon says, and I still think he’s trying to mess with us to some degree,” Dipper said. “But it’s weird that he chose Remy out of everyone. Why not Stan? Or Wendy or Soos? Did he know Remy’s cagey enough about his past to arouse suspicion? Or does he somehow know something we don’t?”

“Or,” Mabel said brightly. “Remy’s just our friend!”

“I’m not saying Remy is bad,” Dipper said, momentarily forgetting about the camera and turning back to her. “He’s cool, I guess. He lets me read his comics as long as I don’t mess them up.”

“He did a makeover with me,” Mabel nodded.

“I’m just saying I don’t like being lied to,” Dipper said, a little stiff, and refocused on the camera. “So! First order of business! Theories!” He pointed at Mabel again, and she bounded forward, practically shoving Dipper out of the way.

“Theory number one!” Mabel said, holding up a hand drawn card of a troll under a bridge. “He’s some kinda bridge troll or something that Stan tricked in some kind of battle of wits, so now he has to work at the shack! Except there’s not many bridges in Gravity Falls, so maybe he’s a different kind of troll. I just wanted to draw a bridge.”

“He doesn’t look very troll-y, though,” Dipper said. “But maybe he’s in disguise. Can trolls change their shape?”

Mabel shrugged, flipping to the next card. “Theory two! He’s mind-controlling Stan and really the one running the shack!” She held up her card, an interpretation of Remy with some kind of aura emitting from his head.

“It explains why he’s so weird about talking about how he met Stan and what exactly he even does here besides the numbers, which sounds super duper sketchy,” Dipper said. “But…if he can mind control people, why is he here? Wouldn’t he want to mind control the president or something? Plus, Stan bothers him all the time and says that he’s the boss. I don’t think anyone’s cover is deep enough to go along with that.”

“Theory three!” Mabel really did shove Dipper aside this time, holding up a picture of Remy in a cape with sharp teeth. “He’s a vampire!”

“That’s a dumb theory,” Dipper huffed.

“It’s no dumber than your troll theory,” Mabel said. “Some vampires can go out in the sun and eat other things besides blood. I hope this one is true. I love vampires.”

“Ew, Mabel,” Dipper made a face. “He’s, like, thirty.”

“Yeah, but maybe he knows some hot vampire teens!” Mabel said.

Dipper sighed. “None of these theories really hold any water. Which is why we gotta go in the field!”

“Woohoo!” Mabel cheered, snatching the camera up. “Espionage!”

“Hey, Remy!” Dipper said cheerfully, trying to enter the gift shop with as much casualness as he could manage.

Instantly, Remy looked on guard. “What did you do?”

Dipper blinked. “What? N-nothing!”

“Uh huh,” Remy said, turning back to writing something down. “Well, as long as this ‘nothing’ doesn’t make a mess, go crazy. Why do you have a video camera on your head?”

“I don’t,” Dipper said, pulling his hat down further over the camera. “I mean, um, trying a new look.”

Remy’s face twitched. “Uh huh. Okay. What do you want?”

“Oh, you know,” Dipper said. “I just feel like we haven’t had a chance to properly talk!”

Remy looked at him again, more discerning. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Dipper protested. “You know, I’ve hung out with Wendy, Soos, and even Stan, but we haven’t really had a time to really hang out and get to know each other! I don’t really count when I crashed in your room, I just kinda went to sleep.”

Remy stared at him like he was speaking in another language.

“So, uh,” Dipper coughed. “How did you get into the showmanship business?”

Remy groaned. “Not this again.”

“Okay, fine!” Dipper said, following Remy as he went to the next aisle. “Parents? Any siblings?

“What is your deal?” Remy asked, looking more and more annoyed.

“I dunno, man, you tell me,” Dipper said. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“Because it’s my private life,” Remy said stiffly. “You don’t get to just…to just barge in and demand a whole backstory. I’ve been here way longer than you.”

“How long?”

Remy opened his mouth, closed it, and then scoffed. “Nice try.”

“You can’t even tell me how long you’ve worked here?” Dipper asked. “I mean, Soos said you were already here when he started, and Wendy only just started working last summer, so–”

“So nothing,” Remy said, trying to evade Dipper by squeezing through the t-shirt racks. No dice; Dipper followed him. “I’m a private person, and I’d like that privacy respected.”

“You’re private to a weird degree,” Dipper said.

Remy glared at him, so sudden that Dipper stepped back, startled. “And you’re nosy and pushy to an annoying degree,” he snapped. “Get off my damn back, some of us have actual jobs to do and don’t spend our day bothering people–”

“HA!” Mabel leapt out from within the t-shirt racks, tossing something at Remy. Remy jumped back, startled, but it was too late. Mabel had covered him in a yellow-ish powder, staining his face and clothes.

Remy sputtered, reeling back, an expression of abject confusion on his face. “Did you…” he sniffed. “Did you just throw garlic powder on me?!”

Mabel’s triumphant smile fell. “...he’s not bubbling,” she whispered to Dipper.

Remy’s face went through several emotions at once, and none of them were all too pleased. “...clean this up. Right now. Leave me alone.”

He stormed off, garlic powder flaking off of him. Dipper whirled around, glaring at Mabel. “What was that?!”

“I thought that was the plan!” Mabel said. “You were gonna distract him and I was gonna garlic him to see if he was gonna freak out and prove that he was a vampire!”

“What?!” Dipper squawked. “When did we agree on that plan?!”

“I told you about it and you laughed!”

“Because I thought it was a joke! Why would garlic work on him if sunlight didn’t?!”

“I don’t know!” Mabel said. “I wasn’t gonna stake him, and it’s not like Grunkle Stan has a crucifix! I don’t even know where to get a crucifix!”

Dipper sighed. “He’s not a vampire, Mabel.”

“Well, I believe that now,” Mabel said miserably. “Maybe we should stop. He might just be a weird guy and we’re making him mad at us for no reason. He seemed stressed enough already.”

“He’s not stressed,” Dipper said, reaching up to his camera and turning it off.

“Remember when we went to the zoo and saw that tiger?” Mabel asked. “And it was just pacing back and forth and back and forth? That’s what Remy reminds me of.”

Dipper paused, struck with the comparison. It seemed strangely apt, though for some reason the idea of comparing Remy to a tiger made him nervous. “...he’s fine,” he said, going to search for the vacuum. The garlic smell was starting to get to him. “He’s fine.”

Shifty stood in one of their least favorite places in the world: the grocery store. Humanity had yet to devise a more foolproof torture method.

The fluorescent lights, the people, and the overwhelming sounds and smells were always a great way to get a migraine. Not to mention that Stan would be mad at them for taking the car without asking when they returned. And that wasn’t even touching on the scent of garlic that clung to their skin, even after a shower. The smell was overpowering.

But they needed to get out of that shack, or they were going to snap and say something to the kids that they would regret. Whether that would be screaming at them or turning into something monstrous, they weren’t sure.

The horrible knowledge that they cared about the kids, in spite of their best efforts, sunk in once more with even more fear. Whatever beast that lurked inside them, whatever was predatory and vile, whatever was intrinsically wrong with them would snap one day. It was inevitable, like a sick lion kept as a decoration. One day it would get hungry, or curious, or just plain mad, and you couldn’t even blame the lion. It was only a matter of time, and someone was going to inevitably be standing in the room when it happened, none the wiser.

Stop being stupid, Shifty told themselves, stuffing a pack of batteries in a shopping basket. You’re not a goddamn lion. You can control yourself. You’re not ruled by anything, you don’t let the things wrong with you take over. They’re only here for a summer. You can handle it.

The voice in their head felt a little doubtful, but it would have to do for now. Something twitched behind their eye, and they decided they needed to hurry home.

They turned a corner, and ran headfirst into someone. The basket dropped from their hand, and their items scattered across the floor. “Fuck!” Shifty snapped before they could stop themselves, dropping to their knees to grab at items. “Watch where you’re going–”

“Well, now, if it isn’t Remy Wagner!”

Shifty winced instantly, just barely keeping themselves from letting out a frustrated sigh. “...Bud,” they said, openly annoyed to run into one of the only people who would try and hold a conversation with them outside of the shack.

Bud grinned, easy and open. “Well, now, isn’t this a coincidence! I haven’t seen you since Stanford grabbed my painting and fled the scene! You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, now, would you?”

“I would not,” Shifty said, doing their best to avoid eye contact. It made them nervous, especially with people they didn’t like. “And also, if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Why, Remy,” Bud said, and Shifty wondered when they’d graduated to first name basis. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t like me!”

Shifty couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t start an argument, so they mumbled something nonsensical, and focused on grabbing their spilled groceries.

“There’s no reason for us to be unfriendly, Remy!” Bud said brightly.

“Right,” Shifty said in spite of themselves. “Even though your kid swore revenge on us and all.”

“Well, now,” Bud chuckled. “I’ll be the first to admit that my lil’ Gideon can be a lil’ hot headed. But that’s no reason for us to stop trying to reconcile!”

“I don’t want to, though,” Shifty said, stuffing the last of their items in their basket and scuttling away. “Bye.”

Bud didn’t get the hint, following them. “In fact, you seem more level-headed than your pal Stanford! I’m sure we could have a productive discussion.”

“What are you–” Shifty glanced back, and paused.

Bud’s smile was big, his arms slightly outstretched, as though torn between offering a hug or gesturing to something larger than life. His words seemed formal, too robotic, even rehearsed. He looked exactly like Stan did when he was trying to convince a tourist that the monkey poorly sewn to a fish’s tail was a mermaid.

A used car salesman was not all that different from a fake psychic. Gideon had to get those bullshit skills from someone.

“...what do you want?” Shifty asked, making sure their voice left no room for beating around the bush.

Bud’s face twitched, maybe not expecting Shifty to address him so directly. “Why, to talk!” He said. “You rather liked our coffee, if my memory serves. Why don’t we take a trip down to my place, we can chat, maybe work something out–”

“Did Gideon put you up to this?”

Bud blinked, and then his smile stretched. “Why does that matter? If the boy wants to speak to you too, he’s within his rights, and maybe he does wanna chat just a lil’ bit–”

“If you say ‘lil’ one more time I’m throwing something at you,” Shifty promised. “Did he put this up to you or not?”

Bud blinked, and his smile looked almost painful now. “Look, you seem real keen, so I’ll be honest. The boy has been wanting to speak to you.”

“Why?”

Bud shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you! When I ask, he starts muttering something about secrets and monsters and the like.”

Shifty felt their face blanch.

Bud squinted at them. “You alright there, friend? You look a little-”

“I JUST REMEMBERED I LEFT THE OVEN ON,” Shifty said, far too loudly. They ducked away to hide a greenish blush when everyone looked at them. “I-I have to go.”

“Gideon told me to tell you that you’re always welcome in the Gleeful house!” Bud called after them. “Don’t be a stranger!”

Shifty ignored him completely, tossing a handful of cash at the cashier with a mumble of ‘keep the change’, completely forgetting they had intended to shoplift most of their haul.

They stumbled into Stan’s car, leaning their head against the wheel with a shaky sigh.

They were long past the point of denial. Gideon must have seen Shifty sprout an extra finger, and had figured out that there was something strange about them. Why he was being so mysterious about it instead of telling the town to grab their pitchforks was something Shifty didn’t understand. And with Dipper equally positive that something was off with them, it was as though they were being pursued by two tiny hunters.

God, Shifty thought, more exhausted and anxious. Stan’s going to be so mad at me when he finds out about this.

Their eye twitched again, painfully, and the ice cream they had bought was no doubt melting in the hot car. Every nerve in their body felt fried, poised to jump at bite at the slightest provocation. They half wished that Bud would return so they could properly scream at him.

“You’re okay,” they told themselves. The garlic was making them nauseous. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Grow up. Grow up already. Just grow up and get a grip.”

They stayed in the parking lot for another forty-five minutes, baking in the sun.

“Do you think Remy hates us now?” Mabel asked nervously, scooping up Waddles and holding him like a particularly pudgy baby.

Dipper frowned. “Um…I dunno. I haven’t seen him since you threw garlic on him.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him since you were interrogating him,” Mabel said. Waddles wriggled to be put down, and she listened for once, letting him wander around the attic, snuffling for crumbs.

Dipper frowned. “I-I wasn’t interrogating him, just, um…”

Mabel gave him a look, and Dipper sighed. “Listen, I know there’s something off about him. Okay, fine, maybe he isn’t a troll or a mind-reader. He’s definitely not a vampire. But there’s something about him. I know what I saw.”

“Maybe,” Mabel said. “And maybe there’s bigger mysteries to worry about than why Remy’s eyes glow in the dark? Maybe his just do that.”

“...maybe,” Dipper shrugged, and sat bolt upright when something clattered in the closet, and Waddles ran out with a startled squeal.

“Oh, my poor baby!” Mabel cooed, scooping the pig up. “Did that scare you? Did those mean ol’ boxes scare you? Oh, my poor little pig…”

“Oh no,” Dipper sighed, going to investigate. “If he knocked over the comics, or tore one up, Remy’s gonna be…”

Dipper trailed off, seeing what Waddles had knocked over. It wasn’t comics.

Toys were scattered across the floor from a singular cardboard box, previously hidden and stuffed in the back of the closet, mostly grinning stuffed animals, etch-a-sketches, and picture books with big letters, but a couple of puzzles were mixed into the menagerie. One of Dipper’s cousins was still a toddler. These were toys for very young kids, save for the puzzles.

Mabel peeked behind Dipper, and frowned. “What’s this for?”

“I dunno,” Dipper asked, more confused than ever. “Stan doesn’t have any kids.”

“Maybe Remy does,” Mabel said, and that made Dipper frown even harder.

“Maybe? He’s never mentioned anything like that. And these toys look really old and dusty. Remy’s not that old, wouldn’t his kid still be pretty young?” Dipper asked, grabbing a puzzle that featured a dog. He shook it curiously, and the pieces rattled inside.

“Hey, you two,” Remy seemed to materialize in the doorway, looking stressed and tired. “Stan said it’s dinnertime–”

He froze, his eyes instantly widening when he saw the puzzle in Dipper’s hands.

Dipper felt himself stiffen, and though he couldn’t place the reason, guilt flooded him. “...is this your’s?”

Remy’s mouth opened and closed. They looked slightly panicked, but there was something else strange lurking behind his eyes. Something almost like grief. And Dipper couldn’t even imagine where it came from.

“...you two really shouldn’t be snooping,” Remy said, his voice strained. He snatched the puzzle out of Dipper’s hand, sweeping all the toys back into the box and lifting it in one smooth motion. “Anyway, dinner’s downstairs. I’m not hungry. Tell Stan to start without me.”

“Is that your’s?” Mabel asked, but Remy ignored her. “I’m sorry about throwing garlic on you!”

Remy half-stumbled, as if her words had physically stopped him. “What?” He turned back, almost wild-eyed, like he thought he was being made fun of.

“Um,” Mabel said, looking almost as startled as Remy. “I’m sorry for throwing garlic on you? It was, um. A prank. Yeah, a prank. But not a good one, I’m sorry.”

“...sorry for grilling you,” Dipper said, figuring he had one chance to apologize. “I’ll leave you alone if you want. I was just curious.”

Remy stared at them as if they were speaking a different language, clutching the cardboard box so tightly Dipper was amazed he didn’t tear it in half.

“...Remy?” Mabel asked.

“Right, um,” Remy seemed to snap out of it, shrugging. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Wait–” Dipper tried to say, but Remy had already disappeared down the stairs.

Waddles grunted, the only one not extremely uncomfortable. Mabel and Dipper glanced at each other.

“...do you think that was related?” Mabel asked, her voice low. “Like, to the eye-glowing thing and the monster in the kitchen?”

“...I dunno,” Dipper said, reaching down and scooping a lone puzzle piece off the floor. The eye of the dog stared at him. “But it’s a part of some mystery. And it’s up to us to find out.”

“KIDS!” Stan’s voice echoed from downstairs. “ARE YOU COMING DOWN OR WHAT?! I MADE SOME KINDA CASSEROLE I THINK! IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WET!”

Shifty wasn’t supposed to be up and awake. They weren’t supposed to be out and wandering the house. Stanford had strict rules about staying in their makeshift, covered playpen until it was time to get up in the morning, which Shifty thought was a little unfair as they knew for a fact that Stanford had stayed up all night many, many times. So had Fiddleford. Shifty was fairly certain the ‘no leaving the playpen at night rule’ was for Fiddleford’s peace of mind. At least the pen was cozy.

Tonight, though, Shifty didn’t feel particularly like staying cozy.

With ease, they pushed up the top of the playpen, despite it being weighed down with a cinderblock, changing into a thick snake to easily slip out before turning back into themselves when they hit the wooden floors. They scuttled easily and silently, pressed against the shadows. They crept towards Stanford and Fiddleford’s room, pressing their head against the door to listen.

They could hear Stanford’s thunderous snoring inside, and if Stanford was in there, Fiddleford was there too, probably both passed out in each other’s arms, still covered in notes like an impromptu blankets. There was a fifty-fifty chance one of them still had their shoes on.

Shifty would have smiled if they currently had the mouth for it, and instead made a quiet cooing noise.

They scampered down to the living room, turning into a monkey to climb up the shelves and pluck the puzzle from it. They liked the puzzle, and besides that, they wanted to practice their skills. They could already imagine how impressed Stanford, and even Fiddleford would be when they solved the puzzle faster than even they could. Shifty just needed a little practice.

They were doing a decent job, able to remember which piece went where, when they suddenly paused, recalling an issue. They couldn’t remember if Stanford had put the piece back, and after a cursory search, the dog’s eye was nowhere to be found.

Shifty clicked their jaws, annoyed. It was probably in Stanford and Fiddleford’s room, somewhere they definitely weren’t allowed in at night. And even if they did sneak in, Fiddleford was a notoriously light sleeper for everything that wasn’t Stanford sawing logs. And Shifty knew full well that Fiddleford would absolutely pitch a fit if he found Shifty in the room at night, and then he and Stanford would create a playpen that was much harder to jailbreak. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

Shifty clicked their jaws one last time, wondering if they could sneak a cookie before they went back to bed, and then froze.

Stanford was standing in the doorway, staring at Shifty.

The moonlight illuminated his back, hiding his face, and while the outline was definitely Stanford, his posture looked stiff and uncomfortable. His hands, which Shifty had spent so much time trying to get exactly right, were clawed and twitching, the fingers hooked and bent in angles that seemed painful. He was almost completely still, save for a slight, rhythmic swaying, as though he was hearing some distant music that Shifty couldn’t.

Shifty went completely still instantly, some strange fear coursing through them so suddenly it rendered them mute and frozen. But this was Stanford. It was his Stanford. The safest person in the world. So why did his presence make Shifty want to turn into something inanimate and easy to ignore?

“...Stan-ford,” Shifty chirped, raspy and quiet. The name sounded more like a question, floating weakly in the air like a dying bug.

Stanford laughed, a strange one that Shifty had never heard, bubbling like boiling water, with just as much potential for pain. “Damn right, bug-boy,” Stanford said. “It’s Stanford.”

Shifty said nothing. Stanford smiled, his grin stretching so far it looked painful. His teeth looked strange from here. So did his eyes. The moonlight was hitting the glass of his glasses strangely, because it almost looked like they were glowing.

With a strange jerkiness, Stanford reached into his pocket, and Shifty tensed, not sure what they expected him to pull out. But whatever it was, it was small enough for Shifty to be unable to see what it was as Stanford dropped it on the ground.

“For you!” He said, with another eerie giggle. “Let’s keep this between us, shall we?”

“...okay,” Shifty whispered, because they didn’t want Stanford to be mad at them.

Stanford’s smile stretched even more. “Smart,” he said, and he abruptly started, walking, clumsy and with uncoordinated movements, as though he had only just learned how. Shifty heard the door to the basement open with a hiss, and shut almost immediately after.

With a nervousness befitting something much more terrifying, Shifty crept forward, too curious to see what Stanford had dropped to leave it be.

A singular puzzle piece sat on the ground, a dog’s eye staring back at them with no emotion.

Shifty cleaned the puzzle up, put it away exactly where they found it, and locked themselves back in their playpen. They resisted the urge to find Fiddleford, in spite of how strange Stanford had been acting.

They didn’t want to get in trouble, after all.

Chapter Text

Summer came, and so did the kid’s personality.

At some point, Shifty had changed from a kid who looked like he was trying to turn invisible into an excitable boy that reminded Stan so much of Ford it ached. As the snow faded away, and daffodils and crocuses began to tentatively poked out of the soil, Shifty’s confidence grew in leaps and bounds. He wasn’t sleepwalking nearly so much anymore, and he was usually able to put himself back to bed after such incidents. He didn’t stare lifelessly at nothing until the TV turned to static. He didn’t shy away from unfamiliar things, and he didn’t struggle to speak like each word was being wrenched out of his belly by a dull hook.

He still followed Stan from room to room, but he didn’t have that deer in the headlights look in his eyes when he did it anymore. Now, he followed Stan around so he could talk his damn ear off. Maybe he was getting TOO good at speaking.

“And it’s really sad, I think it’s really sad,” Shifty chattered, and it was early enough in the morning that Stan was only getting the gist about what Shifty was talking about now. “Because Professor X and Magneto used to be best friends, and now they’re trying to kill each other.”

“Mhm, so sad,” Stan yawned, grabbing a loaf of semi-stale bread off the top of the fridge and checking for mold. He wasn’t going to throw it out, just pluck any moldy parts off. He could afford to be a little more discerning now, with a mostly steady stream of income, but he was still reluctant to throw anything away if it wasn’t outright dangerous to eat. One of the only times he had raised his voice at Shifty was when he caught the kid throwing away a sandwich after he decided he didn’t like it anymore. Shifty hadn’t said a word for three days, and then they moved on without ever mentioning it. Shifty didn’t throw out food again, and Stan did his best to forget Shifty’s fearful look at him.

It had taken Stan nearly three months of steady income at the house to feel comfortable enough to throw away any food, even food that had long turned fuzzy with strange, swirling colors.

“And they want the same things,” Shifty said, following Stan for the three feet it took for him to get to the toaster. “They both want things to be better for mutants, but they’re so upset about the other leaving them and they can’t work it out.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Stan said, rubbing some crust from his eye and sticking two pieces of bread in the toaster.

“Nightcrawler is so cool,” Shifty said wistfully. “I wish I had a tail.”

Stan blinked, looking at him incredulously. “You can have a tail.”

“Yeah, but he has a tail all the time,” Shifty said, honest-to-god pouting. “You won’t let me have a tail all the time.”

“People don’t have tails, kid,” Stan said. “You’ll get too many weird looks. I bet this Nightscuttler–”

“Nightcrawler.”

“That’s what I said. I bet the same thing happens to Nightcrawler.”

“Hm,” Shifty said, which usually meant Stan was right, but he didn’t want to agree. “Anyway, so then Gambit shows up, and starts beating up on the bad guys–”

Something rattled outside, like something heavy dropping into the trash can, and Stan sighed. “Damn gnomes. God, I miss raccoons in the dumpster.”

“Raccoons,” Shifty repeated, and immediately turned into one.

“Yeah, just like that,” Stan yawned. “Watch the toast, would ya? Don’t let it burn up.”

“Okay,” Shifty said, and Stan was never going to get used to a human voice coming out of an animal. “No burning.”

“No burning,” Stan agreed, already trailing outside to shoo away grumpy gnomes.

Even in the summer, a chill still clung to the air. Stan instantly regretted not getting shoes before he ventured outside–the dew on the ground instantly clung to his feet, making him shiver. He heard an owl hoot, a little up past its bedtime, and crickets chirped fearlessly from the treeline. Sometimes, if Stan stared at the woods too long, he thought he saw shadows. He tried not to look, and tried to convince Shifty that it wasn’t worth it to go off into the woods for too long. He was terrified that the kid might find something better out there, something fierce, wild, and better equipped to look after him, and he would disappear into the pines forever. It’s not like Stan would be able to find him. He could turn into a tree when he passed by and Stan would never know.

“Alright, you bearded freaks,” Stan muttered, grabbing a thick stick off the ground. “There’s a million and one trash cans you can go through, and I know damn well Ford wasn’t letting you take scraps for free–”

When Stan yanked off the lid to the trash can, there was nothing inside but discarded newspaper and scraps. No gnomes, no raccoons, nothing.

Stan frowned, about to turn around when he felt something cold and circular press against the back of his head. His heart stuttered, and he froze. He knew all too well what that object was.

“That was easier than I thought,” a horrible and familiar voice growled, breath so powerful it almost made Stan gag. “You’ve gone soft.”

“I-” Stan tried to smile, and maybe it was good his assailant didn’t see him, because his smile no doubt looked like a grimace. “Ed? Holy shit, is that you?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Pinington,” the man, Ed, growled. “Did you really think you could escape the debts you owed Rico?”

“Uh,” Stan said. “I-I wasn’t trying to escape anything, you see, I only came up here to get my money, and you know, I’d be more than happy to bring what I owe out to you! And then some, so you can buy yourself something nice! So why don’t you put the gun down–”

“Nice try,” Ed said, yanking Stan around to face him. He was as ugly as Stan remembered; oily faced and leering, his teeth stained yellow from years of smoking anything that he deemed smokable. His hair was mostly gone, but what was left looked like dying sod, stiff and yellowed. His beady black eyes looked like corpse beetles, staring out at Stan.

He grinned, and Stan tried not to look too frightened. “Did you…get a new gold tooth?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ed said, shoving the barrel of the gun against Stan’s chest hard enough to bruise, not that this would probably be an issue in a few minutes. “What the fuck are you doing way out here in the sticks, huh? In buttfuck Oregon?”

“Not important,” Stan said. “But you should go, I have a friend over, he’s got a shotgun and he’s not afraid to use it–”

“Don’t bullshit me, Pinington,” Ed cackled. “I’ve been staking out for weeks. You ain’t got no one in the world up here with you, do you?”

Stan swallowed, trying not to panic. “W-we can work something out–”

“Oh, we will,” Ed said, shoving Stan forward. “Walk. We’re taking a tour of this place, see what’s worth taking.”

Stan’s heart seized in his chest. “Listen, Ed, swear to God, I’ll bring you every cent I have, just wait out here–”

“You must think I’m pretty stupid,” Ed said.

“Well,” Stan said, because he was an idiot.

He heard it before he saw it, the sharp ‘CRACK’ of the butt of the gun striking the back of his head. His vision whited out in hot agony for a moment, and when he could make sense of the world again, Ed was shoving him through the door. Stan collapsed to the floor with no grace, feeling blood on the back of his head.

“Ed, please,” Stan said, his words slurring slightly. The kid’s face flashed in front of his mind’s eye, and a new terror gripped him. Ford would never forgive him if something happened to Shifty (however they had come across each other, Shifty was clearly being looked after by his brother) and hell, Stan would never forgive himself. He didn’t need another failure in his ledger, another thing to keep him up at night, even if he was pretty sure he would be sleeping forever after this was over. “Ed, come on, take everything, take all you want, just don’t–”

“Stan?”

Stan went completely still, hoping it was just a concussion talking. But Ed made a noise of surprise, and Stan’s heart sank. “Is that a fucking kid?” Ed asked, incredulous. “You got a fucking kid in here? Who the fuck is Stan?”

“Ed,” Stan said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Ed, just let him go. I’ll give you everything. Just let him go back to the kitchen.”

“What the fuck?” Ed asked, still clearly a little lost.

Stan forced himself to look at Shifty. The kid was standing in the doorway, so still he could have been a statue, staring at Ed and Stan with an openly shocked expression. They didn’t blink, didn’t move, frozen in place and clutching a piece of perfectly browned toast, dripping strawberry jam onto the floor.

“Kid,” Stan said, trying to sound calm. “Go back to the kitchen.”

“Oh, fuck no,” Stan could hear a grin in Ed’s voice. “You stay right fucking there, buddy. Is that your fucking kid, Pinington? Is that why you came all the way out here? Got a girl upstairs or something?”

Shifty didn’t look scared. They stared at Ed with intense focus, eyes wide and pupils huge. Stan’s vision was blurring, both from the head injury and lack of glasses, but it almost looked like the kid ever so slightly crouched.

“Creepy fucking kid,” Ed decided, taking a step forward. “Hey, kid, where–”

“Don’t go fucking near him–!” Stan tried to rise, and Ed whirled around, gun pointed at Stan again.

“Try it, I dare you,” Ed snarled, and the kid took a few silent steps into the room, damn near stalking, never taking his eyes off Ed. “You got two perfectly good kneecaps I can shoot.”

Ed turned back to Shifty, and the latter froze again, eyes wide and staring. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Ed said. “You’re a little creep. What the fuck are you doing–”

Ed reached out to poke Shifty with the barrel of the gun, like a rude child poking a stray cat with a stick. Shifty tensed, and–

Stan didn’t see it. Shifty was too fast. His body changed, that was for certain, into something big and blurry, sharp and angled in all the wrong places, lashing out at Ed. And then, like nothing had happened, he was back to normal, still staring, red coating his face and hands, dripping off him onto the floor alongside the jam. He had never even dropped the toast.

Ed’s right hand, still clutching the gun, lay severed on the ground in a pool of blood.

There was a half-beat of stillness, and Ed started screaming.

Shifty fell back, frightened, apparently not expecting such a reaction, or at least underprepared for one. Ed fell to the ground, shrieking and clutching his stump of a wrist to his chest, staining his shirt with his own blood. “YOU FUCKING LITTLE BASTARD!” He wailed. “FUCKING BIT OFF MY ARM, FUCKING MONSTER–”

Shifty regained his bearing, at least partially, pressed against the wall and mouth contorted into a half-snarl, teeth sharp and dangerous. He took a step forward, and Ed scrambled back, terrified. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME–”

Stan lunged forward, still a little dizzy, snatching the gun out of Ed’s missing hand, stepping in front of Shifty and aiming the gun at Ed’s forehead. Ed choked on a sob.

“Does anyone else know you’re here?” Stan demanded.

Ed paused, a moment too long, and then started nodding. “Y-yes, yes, if you kill me every single one of Rico’s guys is gonna swarm this place–”

“You’re a shit liar, Ed,” Stan said. “You probably made this your little side project, thought you’d be Rico’s favorite attack dog for this. Now be honest. Does anyone else know you’re here?”

“N-no,” Ed gasped, and started sobbing. “Don’t let that fucking thing near me, holy fucking shit, what kinda fucking animal is that–”

“Stan,” Shifty whispered.

“Go to the kitchen,” Stan told him, not turning around. “Get up, Ed.”

“I can’t, I can’t–”

“You better try,” Stan said. “Because no way in hell am I carrying you back to your car.”

Ed’s eyes widened. “Y-you’re not gonna kill me?!”

“I think you learned your lesson,” Stan said. “But if I ever even get a whiff of you or Rico’s guys sniffing around here, he–” he jerked his head vaguely at Shifty behind him. “-is gonna rip you to fucking ribbons. Got it?”

Ed whimpered, and the smell of piss abruptly filled the room. Stan didn’t bother checking where it came from. It certainly wasn’t him or Shifty. “I asked if you got it.”

“I got it!” Ed yelped, struggling to stand for a moment. “I got it, I got i-it, don’t let it get me, oh god…”

He stumbled out the door, leaving a trail of blood, still clutching a stump against his chest. Stan felt dizzy, nauseous, and he blinked hard, hoping that he would wake up from his most bizarre and lifelike nightmare yet.

He turned, seeing Shifty reaching for the severed hand with curiosity on his face.

“DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH THAT!” Stan roared, and Shifty darted away from the hand so fast he was almost a blur. The piece of toast dropped to the floor, jam-side down. Shifty looked terrified, staring at Stan with wild eyes.

“Kid-” Stan tried to reach for him, but he reeled back, covering his face before hauling ass to flee the room. Stan almost followed, but the smell of urine and iron stopped him.

This wasn’t the first mess he cleaned up. He just hoped it would be the last.

When the room was as clean as he could make it, he stood up, his head still sluggishly bleeding onto his shirt. He peeled it off, opting to wrap it around his head in lieu of any kind of actual bandage. “Kid?” Stan called, his voice hoarse. “Kid, where are you?”

No answer. The only clue was a trail of blood droplets leading out of the room.

“Kid?” Stan said again, following the trail. “Kid, it’s all good, you can come out now.”

Shifty did not emerge. Stan followed the trail to the TV room, where the trail ended behind the chair.

“Kid?” Stan asked, quiet as he could. His head was pounding. With a grunt, he kneeled down and peeked behind the chair.

Shifty was pressed into the corner, curled up so tightly it looked painful. He stared at Stan, eyes blown wide with fear, breath coming in quick gasps, shaking. His hands and face were covered with Ed’s dried blood.

“You good?” Stan asked, unsure of what else to say.

Shifty said nothing, just staring.

“Hey, c’mere–” Stan reached for him, and Shifty wriggled even further into the corner. “Kid, I’m not–I didn’t–”

Shifty said nothing, rendered mute by fear once more. The kid who physically couldn’t stop talking about comics just ten minutes ago felt universes away.

Stan opened his mouth, unsure what would come out. An apology, maybe. It seemed apt, even if they had already promised to drop those kinds of things. Of course Stan’s mistakes weren’t done with him. Of course they followed him to Gravity Falls. Of course it cornered Shifty, forced him to lash out, and even though Stan was terrified of his focused stare, his ease with blood, he was more horrified by this silent shell of a kid. Some job he was doing, looking after him while Ford was away.

“I–” And he nearly apologized. Nearly managed to say the words. But instead he said: “It won’t happen again.”

He wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe that no one would try to hunt them down. Maybe that he wouldn’t yell at Shifty. Maybe that Shifty wouldn’t have to be violent again. None of these things were things he was actually able to promise.

Mostly, though he suspected that he meant the peace was over. That any illusion of domesticity needed to be shattered immediately for survival. There was very little room for Shifty to be a kid in the world they had found themselves in. He had to respond simply: fight or flight. And today, he happened to choose fight.

“I’m gonna…” Stan stood up, still dizzy and inadequate in every way. “Lemme get you something to clean yourself up with.”

It was two weeks before Shifty said another word.

Time passed, and now it was rainy out, just how Shifty liked it.

They had started out watching the public access channel with Stan, having closed the shack for the day, hours earlier than intended due to the bus route stopping for the day due to bad weather. No tourists meant no income as long as the heavy rain kept pounding on the roof, leaking lazily.

Soos and Wendy were somewhere about, waiting for the rain to let up so they could traverse the town more easily, and Dipper and Mabel were up in the attic. And Shifty, for what felt like the first time in forever, was mostly relaxed, sitting on the ground as Stan had already laid claim to the recliner, leaning against the armrest, half-dozing.

And then Stan startled cackling.

“KIDS!” Stan shouted, and Shifty jolted awake. “C’MERE! I NEED SOMEONE TO LAUGH AT THIS WITH ME!”

“Wazzat?!” Shifty asked, slightly cottonmouthed.

“You were snoring,” Stan told them with a grin.

“I was not, I wasn’t even asleep–”

“What is it?” Mabel asked, closely followed by Dipper. “I was about to destroy Dipper in Battleship!”

“You were not,” Dipper argued. “I peeked at your board, you were making a cat face with the pieces-”

“Who’s cute as a button, and always your friends?” Someone on TV sang, and Shifty groaned when they saw the unnaturally pale face of Gideon Gleeful, still dressed like a televangelist and strumming a rhinestone encrusted ukulele. “Lil’ G-I-D to the E-O-N!”

“Ugh,” Dipper frowned. “Gideon? He’s still around?”

“You should see his bank statements,” Shifty grumbled. “Barring some kind of public favoring turning crime, he’s gonna be around for a while.”

“He’s always trying to trick me into losing the shack!” Stan complained loudly, which was true. One of Gideon’s newest schemes was trying to convince, cheat, or outright force Stan to hand over the deed to the land the shack was built on. Shifty wasn’t entirely sure why. The land was important to them and Stan, but Gideon had no connection with it. Shifty suspected it might be plain old greed, but they didn’t think they were lucky enough for something so simple.

And whenever they saw Gideon or Bud in public, they still stared, to the point where even Stan picked up on it, shaking his fist at the Gleefuls and telling them to take a picture, because it would last longer. The threat of surveillance made Shifty so anxious they would do almost anything to keep from going into town these days.

“One time,” Wendy said, attracted to the living room by the conversation. “I caught him stealing my moisturizer.”

“And yet our mutual hatred for him bonds us together!” Soos said.

It was such a non sequitur that it broke Shifty out of their anxiety spiral, snapping them back to the present. On screen, the voice of Bud Gleeful announced that there was a new location opening up for the Tent of Telepathy. Unfortunately, this new location happened to be right on top of the Mystery Shack, with a surprisingly well rendered sequence of the tent literally crushing the shack.

Shifty blinked, and glanced at Stan. “Should we be worried about that?”

“Leave the worrying to the manager,” Stan said.

Shifty frowned. “Co-manager’s right here. I think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“The only way Gideon’s taking over the shack is if he breaks in and steals the deed!” Stan grinned.

As if summoned by his words, there was the sound of shattering glass from the office.

Shifty stood up with a yawn. “I’ll get the fire extinguisher.”

“We need a new fire extinguisher,” Shifty said, watching Gideon stumble away from the shack, leaving a trail of foam behind him.

“Eh, don’t touch the stove and we should be fine for a few months,” Stan said, opening up a soda.

“Should we be worried, though?” Shifty asked idly, taking the soda that Stan offered them. “That he might break in again?”

“Please,” Stan rolled his eyes. “How would he know the combination unless I told him? And I’m not gonna be telling any pale weirdos the combo any time soon. Are you?”

“Guess not,” Shifty said. “He just freaks me out.”

“He freaks everyone out,” Stan said. “They just won’t admit it.”

He made his way back to the living room, Shifty following behind. “Anything good on TV?”

“No,” Wendy said, looking bored. “My dad said he’s on his way, though. There’s a break in the rain.”

“Ooh, you know what we could watch–” Shifty started, but Mabel covered her ears.

“No more sitcoms!” She said. “I’m tired of studio laughter!”

Shifty frowned. “You people have terrible taste.”

A shriek suddenly echoed from the kitchen, and Soos stumbled out, wild-eyed and throwing cutlery. “Dude!” He gasped. “There’s a bat in the kitchen! It tried to touch me with its weird little bat fingers!”

“Oh, the bats are back?” Shifty smiled. “That’s nice, I missed them.”

Wendy made a face. “Dude, you’re so weird.”

“I like them! I think they’re cute!” Shifty said, and glanced at Stan with a frown. “I wish you hadn’t called the exterminator for the ones in the attic.”

“They were scaring away customers,” Stan said. “And they kept biting you at night,”

“It’s fine,” Shifty said. “It was only like six times! You only need rabies shots after the first two bites. After that you’re immune.”

Dipper frowned. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“No, that’s science,” Shifty said.

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Stan nodded in agreement. “Plus, no hospital bills! Everyone wins.”

There was a fluttering sound from the kitchen, and Soos shrank back even more, snatching a pillow off the ground to defend himself with.

“Relax, everyone,” Stan said. “I got this.”

He lumbered forward, sitting heavily in the recliner and kicking it back. “Dipper, go take care of it.”

“What?!” Dipper squawked. “Why can’t Remy do it?!”

“Because I might already have rabies, and if I get bit again it might get activated or something,” Shifty said. “Plus, I don’t want to.”

“What about Mabel?!” Dipper demanded. “This isn’t fair!”

“Newsflash, kid,” Stan said. “Life ain’t fair. Go do it now.”

“You always make me do the worst chores,” Dipper snapped, standing up. That was a new development. Dipper tended to fold under pressure like a piece of paper. “I’m putting my foot down this time.”

Stan glared. “I said now. I’m not playing around.”

Dipper glared back, folding his arms, determined to make a stand for once. Shifty paused half-wondering if they should volunteer to do it themselves, even if they didn’t want to. After all, since the bite from McGucket healed with no scar or infection, Shifty was fairly certain they might be immune to infectious diseases altogether.

But Stan’s glare deepened, and Dipper cracked.

“Okay, okay!” Dipper snapped, stomping out of the room. “Fine! I’m going.”

Mabel followed him, though Shifty was pretty sure it was just because she wanted to watch. Wendy’s phone beeped, and she checked it. “My dad’s outside. Bye Mr. Pines, bye Remy.”

Stan grunted.

“Try not to be a half hour late tomorrow,” Shifty said, and Wendy rolled her eyes as she left.

“Do you think Dipper’s gonna get the bat?” Soos asked.

Another shriek echoed from the kitchen, followed by a much larger crash.

Stan shrugged. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Ow!” Dipper winced as Soos blotted on disinfectant, frowning as Shifty came into the kitchen. “Thanks for your help, man.”

“No worries,” Shifty said. “Hey, at least you got it out.”

“Why does Grunkle Stan only pick on me?” Dipper asked.

“He picks on me plenty,” Shifty said. “You’ve seen it.”

Dipper frowned. “It’s different. Think about it! The worse a chore is, the more likely he’ll tell me to do it!”

“Just part of paying your dues,” Shifty shrugged. “Or something.”

“Stan’s personality is one of life’s great mysteries,” Soos said wisely. “Like whether it’s possible to lick your own elbow.”

Mabel’s face split into a grin. “Bet you can’t!”

“Bet I can,” Soos said, immediately trying to do so.

“Lick it, lick it!” Mabel chanted, following Soos out as he tried to lick his elbow in vain.

“Hm, well,” Shifty said. “Want a snack?”

“I dunno why you’re not on my side with this,” Dipper muttered. “Stan treats you like crap too.”

Shifty blinked, a little startled. “What? No, he doesn’t.”

“Sure he does,” Dipper said. “You said it yourself. He picks on you all the time.”

“It’s…” Shifty frowned. “Well, you said it too. It’s different. And I pick on him back. It’s an equal exchange kind of thing.”

“I dunno,” Dipper said, leaning back against the chair. “Stan just kinda seems like a jerk.”

“You don’t…” Shifty frowned, suddenly distinctly uncomfortable with where the conversation was heading. “You don’t know the full story.”

“What,” Dipper scoffed. “And you do?”

“Some of it,” Shifty said. “He…had a hard life.”

“That doesn’t mean he gets to hate me for no reason,” Dipper said.

“Nah,” Shifty said, rooting through the fridge for a snack. “He doesn’t hate you. There’d be a lot more screaming if he hated you, trust me. He doesn’t dislike you either.”

Dipper huffed. “Then why is he such a jerk to me all the time?”

“He’s Stan,” Shifty said, grabbing a yogurt. They could just slurp it out of the cup, no need to get a spoon. “He’s bad at caring for and about people. It’s just how he is. Nothing against you.”

Dipper said nothing, staring at the ground with a scowl. “...so no snack?” Shifty asked, uncomfortable.

Dipper shook his head, and Shifty practically scurried out. Stan perked up when he saw them. “Did he get the bat out?”

“Yes,” Shifty said, and frowned. “And he’s also fine, by the way.”

Stan blinked, and then chuckled. “Of course he is,” he said. “He’s a tough kid.”

Shifty said nothing, staring off at nothing. Dipper’s words echoed in their head. They knew Stan was rough around the edges, and only got rougher as the years wore on him. Shifty wasn’t much different themselves. But it had never really bothered them, at least not deeply. Stan wasn’t someone you went to when you needed someone to patch up your skinned knees. He wasn’t someone who hugged you or picked you up when you were small and scared. And he certainly wasn’t someone who apologized for being too sharp.

There was a gap between them, one that neither of them had really bothered to fill. Shifty wasn’t even sure they could do it now.

What if it was him gone instead of Stanford? Shifty thought out of the blue, with such startling clarity that he flinched.

But it’s not, they immediately scolded themselves. So there’s no point in what-ifs. I’m glad he’s here. No matter how frustrated he makes me.

“What are you staring at?” Stan asked, giving Shifty an odd look.

“Nothing,” Shifty said, suddenly so antsy they could hardly stand it. “I’m gonna go hunting.”

Stan blinked. “Uh, which kind?”

“Looking for, you know,” Shifty mimed writing something, and Stan frowned.

“It’s supposed to keep raining later,” he said.

“Luckily, I don’t melt in water,” Shifty said, kicking off their shoes and carefully shrugging off their jacket. “Don’t lose my jacket.”

“You sure you wanna go out now?” Stan asked, looking oddly doubtful. He never particularly liked Shifty going off into the woods alone, though they had no idea why. They could easily take on anything lurking in the treeline.

“Sure, I’ll be fine,” Shifty said, practically itching to get out of the house. They needed to do something mindless desperately, unshift from a human body. “I’ll be a few hours at most. Leave some lunch in the fridge for me.”

“Can’t you catch yourself lunch?” Stan asked.

Shifty sighed, rolling their eyes. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Besides their own body, the best shape to be was a grizzly bear.

Bears were pretty close to their normal size, so the squeezing and stretching was minimal. Four legs were far easier to walk on than two, and they had full use of claws and teeth in case they did come across something that wanted to fight them. Even in Gravity Falls, there were very few things that were willing to tangle with a full-grown bear.

They pawed at the ground, sniffing the air idly for any hint of a journal. As usual, no dice.

They had begun to lose hope long ago about finding the journals. They had been scouring the woods for nearly thirty years at this point, and they knew the odds of stumbling across something all too well. At this point, journal searching was mostly an excuse to be a bear without having to explain themselves.

In fact, most progress on the portal had stalled. Stan and Shifty had done everything they could, and even built and worked blindly, but the fact of the matter was that they were dealing with incomplete instructions. They could putter around, write equations, and run tests until the sun exploded, but the odds of fixing the portal without some kind of instructions were even slimmer than finding the journal.

Something darted out in front of Shifty, and they immediately gave chase to what they realized seconds later was a gnome, holding several pinecones. “Oh jeez!” The gnomes squeaked, barely outrunning Shifty. They weren’t trying to catch it, just scare it. Gnomes had harassed the shack enough, and Shifty was merely paying it forward.

The gnome dove into a gnarl of twisted roots at the base of the tree, losing most of his pinecones. Shifty grunted, pawing at the opening without that much interest.

A pinecone sailed out, hitting Shifty’s nose. They stumbled back with a snort, startled. “Yeah!” The gnome said. “There’s more where that came from!”

Another pinecone flew out, and this time, Shifty was able to dodge. The pinecone hit the tree behind them. But instead of a dull thud, they heard a loud CLANG.

Instantly, they froze.

The gnome darted out from the root knot and into the forest, but Shifty barely noticed. They turned back into Remy with a slight wince, reaching out and lightly touching the tree. Instead of bark, they felt painted metal. “No way,” they breathed, barely daring to hope.

They ran their fingers along the side of the metal until they found a panel, peeling it off to reveal a dusty machine inside, rusted and falling into disrepair. With a shaking hand, Shifty reached forward, fiddling with a few switches. The first few did nothing, but when they flicked the third one down, they heard something whirring behind him.

They whirled around, seeing a hole open up in the ground. They didn’t dare breathe, half convinced it was a hallucination. There was no other reason for this contraption to be here in the middle of the forest. The flair, the overcomplication, the hidden chambers–it had Stanford written all over it.

“No way,” they whispered again, hope rising in their chest for the first time in decades, like a soaring bird. “No way.”

They crept over to the hole, and peeked inside.

It was empty.

And just like that, the hope disappeared, like a quail shot out of the sky by a hunter.

“...no,” Shifty whispered, reaching into the hole, lined with metal, trying to find some sort of secret compartment. “No, no no no. No!”

They leaned down into the hole, trying to see anything they might have missed. A smell, weak and nearly gone, wafted across their face almost like a caress. Paper, lemons, and the sharp tang of ink. They knew that smell.

And just like that, the scent was gone, as if it had never even existed.

“NO!” Shifty gasped, turning into a mouse to better examine the hole, ignoring the ache of pressing so small. “No, no no, it has to be here, it has to! It can’t be gone! Not now!”

There was no secret. There was no clue. Nothing but an extinct smell and the knowledge that they were too little, too late.

“Oh god,” Shifty said, turning back into Remy, unable to tear their eyes away from the metal pit. “Oh my god.”

On the breeze, there was a new smell, faint and disappearing, but still there. Something like metal and ash, wrapped up together so tightly that they could never be separated, touched with the slightest hint of rot.

Shifty barely noticed it, still trying and failing to smell lemons.

A smiling father stumbled into the frame, looking pleased with himself. “Guess who got a ten for the price of two deal on mayonnaise?” He said, holding up two grocery bags. Behind the camera, an audience howled in laughter, startling Shifty awake from an unsatisfying nap.

They picked lifelessly at a stray thread on the side of the recliner, most of the show going over their head. They liked sitcoms–that’s what Stan had called them–for this very reason. They didn’t have to pay attention to what was happening. They could zone in and out, and trust that by the end of the episode, the family would hug each other to upbeat music, and everything would go back to the way it was. Nothing changed. No one really got hurt. And they all stayed in the same place.

It had been two weeks since Shifty had ripped that man’s hand off. They hadn’t even meant too. They didn’t remember attacking him, they barely remembered him entering the house. All they remembered was their heartbeat pounding in their ears, and the vague knowledge that they had to do something, immediately, their body moving almost without their permission, like the path had already been predetermined, and they were just following their lines.

And then they blinked, and they had been covered in blood, Stan screaming at them with horror on his face.

They had taken up residence in the living room, only leaving to get food or go to the bathroom, the TV on almost all the time. They even watched the static that came on after the stations shut off for the night, trying to make out shapes and faces in the visual snow. Sometimes, when they edged between sleep and wake, they thought they saw a face, or a bloody, six-fingered hand, ripped inelegantly from the wrist.

They heard someone shout from outside, and start swearing profusely, and abruptly realized they hadn’t seen Stan all day. They had assumed he was running tours, but they hadn’t heard anyone in the house today.

A little curious, they peeked out the window, and paused. Stan was struggling to drag a long, flat box from out of his car, with a mattress tied to the top. He was rubbing his foot, glaring at the box like it had tried to kill him. He glanced up, and before Shifty could duck away, he waved wordlessly.

A little more curious now, they made their way to the door and stepped out onto the porch, watching Stan struggle with the box for a few more moments.

“Hey, kid,” Stan said, grunting in exertion. “Hope you're not upset that I didn't tell you I was leaving. You were taking a nap, and I didn’t wanna wake you. Did you see the note in the kitchen?”

Shifty shook their head, and Stan shrugged. “Well, I’m back now. Hey, whaddya think of this?”

He gestured to the mattress, and Shifty stared at it, perplexed.

“...it’s your’s,” Stan said. “Got a bedframe and everything. Paid real money for it instead of getting it out of the dumpster too. You would not believe how hard it is to shoplift a mattress.”

He chuckled at his own joke, but Shifty merely stared, even more confused.

“...I know, uh,” Stan rubbed the back of his neck, unsure. “I know you had a rough few weeks, since, uh. You know. But I was thinking, I figured that you’d want your own space, you know? Somewhere to put your comics and toys and whatever else it is you have. So I’ve been clearing out the attic, making space…it’s actually pretty roomy up there! You get a great view of the yard and everything!”

Shifty frowned, suddenly deeply uncomfortable with the thought of being separated from Stan, regardless of their refusal to sleep in the shared bedroom for the last few weeks. Stan seemed to catch their hesitance, and sighed. “Let’s just…set it up and see how we feel, huh? Nothing’s set in stone. Gimme a hand with this box, will ya?”

Shifty ultimately ended up being the one to carry the box with the bed frame and mattress up the stairs, stronger than Stan, but Stan insisted on being the one to build the bed frame, even if he complained about the nonsensical nature of the direction the whole time, and the project had to be halted while they searched for a screw. But finally, after many more hours than it should have taken, a mattress sat solidly on top of a bed frame.

“There we go, kid! Your own bed,” Stan said, and patted the mattress. “Go on, give it a whirl.”

Shifty gave Stan a look, and he sighed. “I dunno, jump on it or something!”

Shifty poked the bed once, twice, and then sat on it hesitantly as if expecting it to bite them. They shrugged, not particularly willing to commit one way or the other.

“Yeah, see!” Stan said, sitting down next to Shifty. “Pretty sweet digs, huh? Man, you get the coolest room in the house. Boy, am I jealous of you!”

Shifty gave Stan an unimpressed look.

Stan sighed, suddenly looking exhausted, and Shifty almost apologized. Almost.

“Listen, kid,” Stan said, his voice unexpectedly soft. “I’m not mad at you, okay? It was a tough situation, and…well, my ass probably would’ve been grass if you hadn’t done anything. But it’s not gonna happen again. I promise. No one’s gonna get us.”

Shifty stared at the ground, picturing a million different scenarios where the man had been a little faster, a little smarter, a little less willing to let Stan talk, and with one quick move, Shifty was alone in the world all over again. And a million and one scenarios where they had aimed for the throat, and blood spurted from where the neck used to connect to skin like the mice they had used to hunt and kill–

“And, uh,” Stan said. “If you get, you know, scared or whatever, you can come down to my room. If you want. Door’s not locked or anything.”

Shifty nodded, picking at a fingernail that wasn’t really there.

“Oh,” Stan said. “And I almost forgot. Swiped you a new comic from the store on my way back.”

Shifty perked up instantly, immediately taking the comic when it was offered. The smiling hero was whaling on a bad guy, and Shifty felt a ghost of a smile on their face.

“That one’s got one of your favorites, I think,” Stan said. “Gromit?”

“Gambit,” Shifty said before they even really thought about it, their voice hoarse from disuse.

Stan blinked in surprise, and then grinned. “Yeah, that’s what I said. How about I rustle up some sheet for you, and tomorrow we can go and you can pick out your own bedding? Sounds good?”

“...okay,” Shifty said.

That night, the shadows grew long, and not even Gambit’s grinning face could chase them away. When it grew too much, Shifty slipped out of bed, back pressed against the wall as they made their way to Stan’s room, opening the door silently.

Stan had graduated from a mattress on the ground to a mattress on a bed frame now that Shifty had fled the room. He was tangled in the blankets, face pressed into the pillow and snoring loudly. Apparently snoring was a genetic trait. But Shifty was very used to it by now.

They climbed into the bed, and Stan woke up with a startled jerk, flailing before he realized it was Shifty. “Kid?” He rasped, breath foul. “What, you sick or something?”

“No,” Shifty said.

“Good,” Stan said, rolling over. “I’m not cleaning up barf.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Shifty said quietly.

Stan was quiet, and for a moment, Shifty worried they had overstepped. But then he sighed, wriggling to make room for them. Wordlessly, Shifty pressed against Stan, ear against his back so they could keep track of Stan’s heartbeat.

“Are you mad at me?” Shifty asked, almost in a whisper.

There was a long beat, and for a second Shifty thought Stan had fallen asleep. But then: “Nah, I’m not.”

Shifty let out a sigh of relief, letting them fall into silence for a few minutes before a new question popped into their head, one far more pressing: “Are you scared of me?”

Stan let out a snore.

Shifty frowned, but closed their eyes anyway, trying to match their breathing with Stan’s, counting his heartbeat until they fell asleep.

They knew something was wrong before they even got back.

Birds were zig-zagging in the sky, screeching in a desperate sort of way, the kind Shifty usually heard if a predator had gotten into their nest. They flew through the air erratically, circling nothing but themselves, crying in some unspeakable terror.

Shifty picked up the pace, the pit in their stomach only deepening. Thunder rumbled, and a few fat raindrops made their way down to the earth, and they put their hands over their head, uselessly trying to block out the rain.

It was no use, and they shivered already, frowning when they realized that the rumbling wasn’t solely thunder. It was something deeper, more mechanical. Unnatural even, and now they could even hear yelling. Stan’s unmistakable voice, practically booming with rage, though they couldn’t make out the words he was saying.

A robin flew by Shifty in a panic, and they realized what the rumbling was–a vehicle, and a big one at that, rolling over the earth.

They burst out of the woods in a panic, stumbling onto a horror scene.

The Mystery Shack had been disemboweled, the living room opened up and exposing the innards of the house to the outside, rain already pelting the furniture and decorations. A wrecking ball swung precariously above the roof, as if there weren’t already several holes in said roof, and a bulldozer was sweeping off debris.

“REMY!” Mabel, Dipper, and Soos seemed to materialize, looking as horrified as Shifty felt.

“Gideon broke into the shack!” Mabel said, near tears. “He grabbed the deed, started tearing the place down-”

“You’re gonna believe that creep over me?!” Shifty perked up at the sound of Stan’s voice, practically pushing the trio aside to make their way towards Stan, in a heated argument with Blubs and Durland as the wrecking ball began to inch upwards, preparing to be swung down again.

Blubs shrugged. “That’s what he said. And let’s face it, Mr. Pines, you don’t exactly have a history of being honest with us.”

Stan’s face turned even redder. “Why, you-!”

“STAN!” Shifty shouted, shrill and panicked. “What the hell is going on, I’m gone for a few hours and Mabel said…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “T-that’s not true, there’s a mistake, right?!”

They turned to Blubs and Durland, trying not to look as terrified as they felt. “What the fuck is happening?!”

“Well,” Blubs brightened. “Hello, Mr. Wagner! Lil’ Gideon’s just doing some renovations-”

“THIS IS OUR HOUSE!” Shifty shrieked, deciding that they were done pretending to be calm and collected. It had been a trying day. “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!”

“Why,” a little voice said, and Shifty whirled around to see Gideon standing behind them, a hard hat sitting on top of his hair, unbalanced and useless. He grinned, and Shifty felt sick. “Stanford has kindly awarded me the deed to his house of course!”

“That’s not true!” Dipper said, storming up to Gideon, fierce in a way Shifty wasn’t expecting. “Officers, he busted the wall down and took it! You have to believe us!”

“Goodness,” Gideon said, batting his eyelashes. “That sure doesn’t sound like something I would do!”

“Why you little-!” Stan made a fist, and Shifty grabbed his arm in a slight panic when Blubs and Durland tensed. It probably wasn’t an unfair assumption to make that Stan might come to blows over this. Shifty was feeling pretty close to it themselves. All the same, jail would make things infinitely worse.

Gideon giggled, and it hurt Shifty’s ears. His cologne was stronger than ever, and if Shifty didn’t have a headache before, they certainly did now. “Pleasure doing business with y’all,” he said, practically skipping away. “Let ‘er rip, daddy!”

The wrecking ball dropped, and Stan made a noise that almost sounded like he was in pain as most of the roof ripped off, sending glass and wood flying, alongside a healthy amount of colorful paper.

My comics, Shifty thought, nauseous, covering their mouth in horror.

The wrecking ball swung again, and Shifty felt dizzy as the horror began to sink in. Their entire life was in the shack. They had absolutely nowhere else to go. And Stan’s life and lies were in the shack too, and if discovered, Shifty had no doubt they would never see him again.

And the basement, guarded only by a vending machine, sat cold and waiting for attendants who could no longer care for it. Stanford had never felt farther away. In less than an instant, everything was gone.

“Stan,” Shifty said, their voice bordering on a whimper. “What are…what are we going to do?”

Stan said nothing, watching Gideon tear his brother’s home apart like it was trash, ruined comics falling around them like confetti, weighed down by the rain.

Chapter Text

“HEY!”

Shifty jumped when a pair of hands moved quickly in front of their face, clapping loudly. Stan was staring at them, hidden panic behind his eyes. “Are you listening?”

Shifty nodded, trying to swallow the lump in their throat that had been there for the past two days. “Yeah, I am,” they lied, and their voice sounded distant, swallowed up by the ringing in their ears.

Nothing had really felt right since Gideon broke down the walls of the shack in a hostile takeover. Shifty felt like they were moving underwater, observing the action as though it was a show they were only half paying attention to. Their mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and their head pounded with a dull pain that was just distant enough that it was unable to ground them. They felt exhausted all the time, but everytime they tried to sleep, they just ended up staring at the ceiling, unblinking, until their eyes burned.

No doubt this was because Soos’ grandmother lived in a tiny house, ill-equipped to take in four extra people at once, but Shifty suspected there was a deeper issue going on as well.

“Okay,” Stan said. “Repeat the plan back to me then.”

“It’s barely a plan,” Shifty said dully. “You’re gonna cause a scene while I sneak into the shack to get the deed back.”

“Come on, Remy,” Mabel said, looking a little desperate. “This might be our only chance to get the shack back! And more importantly, our one chance to save Waddles!”

“I dunno if that’s a top priority-okay!” Dipper held his hands up, immediately backpedaling when Mabel turned to him with a thunderous scowl. “Just kidding! Waddles is totally top priority!”

“I just,” Shifty said, wringing their hands. “What if it doesn’t work?”

They knew what would happen if it didn’t work. The shack hadn’t been invented out of a love of the craft, or any sort of aspirations. It had existed as a home and as a way to keep themselves fed. And it wasn’t as if roadside attractions in the middle of nowhere were constantly raking in cash. They were running out of money fast, and through no fault of their own, the kids were only draining them faster.

“It’ll work,” Stan said, a desperation on his expression that Shifty wasn’t used to seeing. “We have to get the shack back. Any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary,” Shifty repeated.

Stan burst out cackling, and Shifty frowned, ten years old and able to do graduate school level math. “What?” They asked. “What’s so funny?”

“Kid,” Stan was choking on his laughter. “I am NOT calling you Raven Darkholme-Pines.”

Shifty’s frown deepened. “Why not?”

Shifty was quickly getting sick of their role of hiding in the shack until visiting hours were closed, and practically begged Stan to let them start helping out during the daytime hours. Stan certainly needed the help. As good as a showman he was, he couldn’t exactly run tours and man the gift shop at the same time. Shifty had been creating a handful of disguises to watch over the gift shop, posing as some teenage helper or another, nameless and mostly silent, but they had been wanting a more permanent identity lately, even if they were still ironing out the kinks of what they wanted to look like.

The thing they were really stuck on was a name.

“First of all,” Stan said. “It’s ridiculous.”

“No it’s not,” Shifty argued. “It’s Mystique’s name. Mystique is cool.”

“Your nerdy comics aren’t cool, hate to break it to you.”

Shifty scowled, folding their arms. “I’ve seen you reading them when you think I’m not around.”

“No you haven’t,” Stan said, unconvincingly. “And anyway, the second issue is that someone might recognize it. Don’t you think it’ll cause suspicion if someone realizes you’re literally named after a comic book character?”

Shifty frowned. “...fine. I guess that makes sense.”

“‘Course it does, I’m a genius,” Stan said, and stood up with a grunt when the phone in the kitchen started ringing. “Maybe try combining comic names if you’re attached to the idea. Don’t use Raven or Darkholme, though. Both of those names are ridiculous.”

“They are not,” Shifty argued, scowling with no real irritation when Stan ruffled their hair as he walked by. “Fine. I’ll keep thinking.”

The TV was on some fighting show that Stan liked and Shifty couldn’t stand, but it was his turn to pick what they watched, so Shifty had satisfied themselves with reading one of Stanford’s old textbooks, currently fascinated with topology. Stan had seemed impressed with how quickly they picked up numbers, but Shifty didn’t find them particularly difficult. It was just like the puzzles they had played with so long ago, albeit much more complicated. But they were too old for childish things like puzzles anyway. They had been too old for a long time.

They were in the midst of begging Stan for a computer that they could run equations on, but he refused each time, grumbling something about how he wasn’t made of money. Shifty was trying to think of an angle where they could spin it as potentially useful for the portal, but they felt bad about lying.

They only realized that Stan had been gone for a long time when they finished their chapter, and when they looked at the clock, nearly an hour had passed. The TV was onto the next thing, but Shifty couldn’t hear Stan talking to anyone on the phone. In fact, the shack felt eerily silent.

“Stan?” They called, and frowned when they received no response. “Stan?”

Carefully, they placed a bookmark in the textbook, knowing how irritated Stanford became with damaged pages, and made their way to the kitchen, an odd pit of dread in their stomach. “Stan?”

They entered the kitchen and froze.

Stan was staring at the phone, his expression pinched and face ashen. Shifty could hear a busy signal coming out; whoever Stan had been talking to had hung up. He was swaying slightly, as though about to crumple like a marionette with cut strings.

“Stan?!” Shifty asked, suddenly terrified.

Stan finally seemed to notice that Shifty was there, and glanced up at them.

An expression of utter shock and horror was on his face, his mouth still open as if he had been startled and was about to scream. But no sound came out except for a weak wheeze.

“Stan?!” Shifty asked. “What’s wrong?!”

“Go, go!” Stan said, shoving Shifty away, hunched over in a trench coat he had managed to dig up at Soos’ house. “Find a way in, we got this!”

“Okay, don’t push me!” Shifty snapped, rubbing their arm. They hadn’t gotten their jacket back, and felt all the more vulnerable without it. They had never really noticed it until they lost it, but it was a comfortable weight, a perfect insulator from all the unpleasant feelings of the world, worn enough where the denim didn’t make them want to crawl out of their skin like jeans did. “I’m going, I’m going.”

They snuck around the crowd that had gathered outside what used to be the Mystery Shack, most of the town excited for Gideon’s announcement for what he planned to do with the land. A few people noticed them, and they ducked away from suspicious stares like they burned.

They had never really given much thought to their reputation before now. Being beloved by the town had never been something they desired, though they suspected Stan did. But since they lost the shack, they were acutely aware of how people saw them. The weirdos who ran the Mystery Shack at the edge of town: the lying conman Stanford Pines, who would scam your grandma for a few bucks, and his creepy recluse assistant Remy Wagner, who no doubt had some kind of evil secret, because who was this quiet and private without something to hide?

Most of it was true–save for the assistant part, which still pissed Shifty off–but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting to be read like a book so easily.

At least people seemed eager to avoid them; it made it easier to slip away to the sides of the house, searching for an entrance that they could squeeze through if they shifted into something small. They just needed to find the deed, and escape with it. The reasons for why Gideon had suddenly decided to give back the deed could be hashed out later.

“Come on, come on…” Shifty mumbled, crouched along the side of the house, trying not to look at the ruined faces of superheroes, comic bits and pieces scattered across the lawn where Gideon couldn’t be bothered to pick them up.

They paused around the porch, seeing a chunk of soil that had begun to sag. They knew what was underneath–the basement, cold and silent, with a door that might never be opened now.

Shifty paused, thinking. They didn’t want to go into the basement. They especially didn’t want to dig their way into the cement tomb; the very thought made their skin crawl. But there wasn’t another option. They could hear the Pineses shouting onstage, causing their ruckus, claiming that Gideon was a fraud. They didn’t have a lot of time.

Shifty knelt down, reaching out the patch of sinking earth and preparing to turn into a badger–

“Why, Remy,” a drawling voice said, and Shifty jumped with an undignified yelp, whirling around to see Bud Gleeful smiling at them, looking a little too pleased with himself. “How nice to see you.”

“Um,” Shifty said, a little dizzy. “Um.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be back here,” he said in a singsong voice.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Shifty said, because they were getting really tired of this faux-polite song and dance.

Bud frowned. “Goodness, quite the mouth.”

He nodded at someone behind Shifty, and they craned their neck to see a huge muscular man reaching for them, one of the guys usually hanging around the local bar, Skull Fracture. Gideon must have hired them as security.

Suddenly, Shifty was positive that they were going to do something stupid if that man touched them. “I’m going, I’m going!” They snapped, swatting away his hand and standing up quickly. “Don’t touch me.”

“Looks like you’ve got better sense than the rest of ‘em,” Bud said, gesturing to the stage. Stan and the kids were being dragged off the stage with no dignity, and Shifty groaned. They had predicted this plan would fail, but it still hurt regardless.

“Well, now!” Bud smiled, and Shifty wanted to punch his teeth in. “Suppose we’ll see you next time.”

“That’s what you think,” Shifty snapped.

Bud shrugged, a little too sure of himself. “It’s not what I think. It’s what Gideon thinks.”

Shifty blinked. “What-”

“Have a pin!” Bud said, reaching out and sticking a pin into Shifty’s shirt. It would have been fine, except for the fact that the shirt was part of the disguise. Shifty barely swallowed down a squeak at the feeling of the pin piercing their skin.

“Go on now,” Bud nodded condescendingly. “They’re all waiting for you!”

“Don’t worry,” Stan said into the phone. “Your son and daughter are fine! Where are we staying? Uh–”

Shifty, sitting at the Ramirez kitchen table, held up four fingers and mouthed ‘hotel’. Stan blinked, looking perplexed, and then waved them off. “Uh, this amazing four star hotel! It’s great, it’s got a pool and everything! We’ve got more than enough savings to get us through this little rough patch, don’t you worry! If I thought I couldn’t take care of the kids, I’d send ‘em right back to you!”

Shifty sighed, leaning their head against the kitchen table. Their mind felt fuzzier than ever. “Okay,” Stan said into the phone. “Okay, you too.”

A second later, he hung up, and Shifty heard him sit down heavily at the table across from Shifty. “Okay, be straight with me, Mouser. Numbers-wise, how’re we doing?”

“Bad,” Shifty said.

There was silence for a long moment, and then Stan sighed. “...how bad?”

“A week, maybe, before we’re flat broke,” Shifty said. “And that’s assuming we drop down to two meals a day instead of three.”

Stan sighed. “Fuck.”

“...but,” Shifty said, lifting their head. “If we send the kids home, drop to one and a half meals a day, we have almost a month.”

Instantly, Stan scowled. “I don’t–”

“Stan,” Shifty said, lowering their voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to send them home either. I like them, I really do. And I know this is really important to you. But the facts are the facts. We’re homeless. Soos’ abuelita can’t have four of us in this tiny house. We have no savings. Everyone in town hates us. We have no options for anything. We need to focus on making sure he–” they tapped the Gideon pin sitting ominously in the middle of the table, the needle on it still slightly sticky from Shifty’s blood. “-doesn’t get into the basement. If he does, we’re done for.”

Stan frowned. “I don’t–OW!” He winced, grabbing at his ear.

“Oh god,” Shifty groaned. “Please tell me your hearing aid isn’t on the fritz. That’s the last thing we need.”

Stan plucked it out with an embarrassed wince, fiddling with it. “Uh…”

“I told you that you shouldn’t have bought that out of the back of someone’s car!” Shifty hissed. “Why do you always buy important things out of the backs of cars?!”

“Whatever you’re scolding me for, I can’t hear it,” Stan said, and Shifty groaned again.

“What’re you guys whispering about?” Mabel asked, entering the kitchen, followed closely by Dipper.

“How impressed we are by your sweater collection,” Shifty lied easily.

Mabel giggled. “Flatterer. Hey, Grunkle Stan, can we get pizza?”

“Uh,” Stan said, popping his hearing aid back in. “Sure, pumpkin. Hey, Remy, got some cash on you I can borrow?”

“In my jacket,” Shifty said miserably.

Stan blinked. “Really?”

“I always keep emergency cash in there,” Shifty said. “God, I miss it.”

“Why’d you even take it off?” Dipper asked. “You practically live in that jacket.”

Shifty shrugged, nervous. “I dunno. Why do you wear that vest?”

Dipper turned red. “I–the vest is cool, man, you don’t get it.”

“If you say so,” Shifty said.

“I’m sure I can rustle up some cash,” Stan said, standing up and following Mabel out of the room.

Dipper lingered, frowning slightly. “...the vest has a lot of pockets,” he said.

“...alright,” Shifty admitted. “That’s kind of cool.”

There was a beat of silence, and Dipper frowned.

“...sorry about your comics, Remy,” he said quietly.

For some reason, it suddenly took all of Shifty’s strength not to burst into tears. “...thanks, Dipper,” they said quietly. “I appreciate it.”

“...I’m gonna help them find some cash in the couch cushions,” Dipper said. “Wanna help?”

“I’ll be there in a second,” Shifty said, desperate to ground themselves so that they didn’t feel like a passenger in their own life.

Dipper nodded, following Stan and Mabel. Shifty closed the eyes, laying their forehead on the table once more. Their head pounded mercilessly.

“Letter for you,” a soft voice said, and Shifty peeled one of their eyes open to see Abuelita standing over him, her expression serene as she offered an envelope.

Shifty frowned. “What? From who?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It does not say.”

“Weird,” Shifty muttered, but took the envelope, seeing that, indeed, it read ‘REMY WAGNER’ in loopy cursive. No address, no stamp. Someone must have put it in the mailbox by hand. “Thanks.”

She left, eerily quiet for an old lady. Shifty was too used to Stan practically announcing his presence in every room.

They turned over the letter in their hand a few times, feeling a little sick. But curiosity got the better of them, and they tore it open.

Gideon Gleeful cordially invites Remy Wagner for a civilized discussion at five o’clock today.

Come alone or don’t come at all.

Instantly, Shifty’s blood turned to ice, and they crumpled the note up, sticking it into the garbage.

So that was what Bud had meant, then, when he said he would see Gideon next time. He had meant today.

They didn’t have to go. There was probably no force in town that could physically make Shifty do something they didn’t want to do. But they were curious, they could admit that. Maybe Gideon would finally spill the beans on why he was so interested in Shifty.

And beyond that, they were terrified. If Gideon knew a secret, a world-shattering one, one about Shifty’s true identity, this might be their only chance to mitigate the damage.

Five o’clock, they thought, glancing at the tiny little clock on the wall. I can make it.

A week later, Stan returned, his car weaving slightly as he parked outside the house.

Shifty, who had been waiting by the window since the shack closed, felt their entire body relax. They had resisted the urge to call Stan every day, under strict orders that Stan would call them only if he desperately needed to. Shifty had suffered through running the shack on their own, wearing Stan’s face, operating off whatever sleep they managed to get in between nightmares that featured them waiting endlessly for Stan to come back, abandoned once more.

But here he was, half-stumbling out of the car, struggling to get his suitcase from the backseat. Shifty could bear waiting no longer, practically bursting out of the house, shaped like the tall, gangly child-disguise they usually chose when it was just them and Stan.

“You’re back!” They said, unable to hide their relief.

Stan said nothing, and Shifty reached out to help with his suitcase, only to freeze at a foul smell emanating off of Stan. He looked at him, his eyes red and shadowed. “What?”

“...were you drinking?” Shifty asked quietly. The smell of alcohol was practically pulsing off him, getting stronger with each heartbeat.

Stan scowled. “So what if I was? No one died. Got back here in one damn piece.”

“Oh,” Shifty said, shrinking back a bit. There was an edge to Stan that they didn’t like, something that felt like it might bite them. “Okay.”

Stan mumbled something, lugging his suitcase up to the door, stumbling slightly and ignoring Shifty’s attempts to help. He half-fell through the door, dropping his suitcase to the ground and immediately going to the kitchen.

“...how was New Jersey?” Shifty asked, trying to break the silence.

“It was New Jersey,” Stan said dully. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t know,” Shifty said, embarrassed. “I’ve never been out of Gravity Falls. What’s the ocean like?”

“You’ve seen the lake,” Stan said, opening cabinets and leaving them before moving onto the next one. “It’s like that, but bigger. Where the fuck did I put the liquor? Did you move it?”

“No,” Shifty said, slinking back a little. “Why would I touch it?”

“Then where the fuck is–” he stopped, pulling out a bottle of terrible smelling amber liquid from the top shelf. “There we go. Why did I put it so high?”

“...we made good money this week, while you were away,” Shifty said, following Stan to the living room, desperate to improve his mood, if only slightly. “Not as much as usual, because there was no one to help with the gift shop while I did tours, but still good. I-I laid it all out in the safe, and organized all the numbers, I can show you if you want–”

Stan practically collapsed into the chair, ripping the cap off the bottle and taking a big swig. He cringed, coughed, and then took another swig, this one even longer.

“...maybe later?” Shifty asked.

Stan said nothing, fumbling for the remote for a minute before lifelessly flipping through channels.

Shifty rocked on the balls of their feet for a moment. “...I went to the library, while you were gone. A-and I read some stuff. About the ‘shiva’ thing you told me about. And I know I’m not allowed to touch anything in the kitchen but the microwave and toaster, so I-I couldn’t make any food or anything. And I couldn’t do most of the stuff the book talked about. But I covered the mirrors! And I only did it a few days ago, so we can leave them like that for the rest of the week if you want. O-or we can take them down.”

“...do whatever you want,” Stan mumbled, taking another sip. “I don’t fucking care.”

Shifty swallowed hard, feeling nauseous. “I, um. I also read a book about death and stuff.”

Stan looked at them now, and Shifty shrank back. “Oh, did you now?” Stan said.

Shifty nodded. “...it said, um. Sometimes it helps to talk about someone you lost. So maybe that might help–”

“I just spent the whole fucking week talking about my dead fucking mom,” Stan said, his words slurred and barbed. “Why the fuck would I want to talk about it more?!”

Shifty flinched, staring at the ground. “...I don’t know. I-I-” they shrugged. “I don’t know.”

There was silence for a long moment, and then Stan sighed, the anger leaking out of his voice. “...you’re lucky, you know,” he said. “You never knew her. You don’t gotta mourn her.”

“...I wish I knew her,” Shifty said quietly. “She must have been nice if you miss her so much. I wish I could have gone to New Jersey with you.”

“No, you don’t,” Stan said. “You don’t know how fucking lucky you are, kid. You’re not a Pines.”

Shifty’s head jerked up, startled. “What?”

“You’re not a Pines,” Stan said, like it was the weather. “You aren’t sucked in this bullshit. You know what I did over there? I talked to my old man, who just asked me how business was and then started asking how much I was making with my science shit. That’s what he called it. Science shit. I talked to Shermie, who asked me why I never visited when his kid was born. I talked to people who couldn't have given less of a shit when so-called Stanley died. My first time back since I got kicked out, and not one person even suspected I wasn’t Ford. I wasn’t even trying by the end of it. They didn’t even notice I was missing a finger. Even Shermie thought I was him.”

Shifty said nothing. Stan was staring at them, blinking heavily, punctuating each word with a shake of the bottle. Alcohol sloshed over his hands and onto the carpet, and he didn’t even notice.

“Some family this is,” Stan said. “All of us fucked up in our own special, unique ways. I think it’s inherited. I think Ford and I were fucked the moment we were born. It goes back to my dad, and then his parents, and then his parents before that. The whole family tree is doomed. We’re all monsters.”

“Stanford wasn’t,” Shifty said, and flinched when Stan laughed suddenly, half-hysterical and utterly drunk.

“Whatever you say, kid. Some kinda monster got him in the end, that’s for damn sure, and now he’ll never get to see Ma again,” Stan said, vindictive in a way Shifty had never heard before. “She was the only one different, you know. She was the only good thing left in this fucked up family of ours. And now she’s dead. You’re lucky you’re not a part of it. There’s nothing left there now but poison. Up and down, every branch of this goddamned family tree. Poison all the way down. Family’s nothing but a burden. It’s good you don’t got one.”

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath. “Don’t say that,” they almost whispered. “Please don’t say that.”

“It’s the goddamned truth, and the sooner you get that, the better off you’ll be. Don’t ever rely on anyone but yourself,” Stan said, and scowled at the TV. “Why the fuck is there nothing good on?”

“...I’m going to go up to my room,” Shifty said quietly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan said, waving them off. “You do that.”

They came down hours later to take the bottle from Stan, passed out and sleeping on the chair. They dumped what was left in the sink, turned off the TV, and took one of the blankets down from the mirror to toss it over Stan’s body.

After all, he said he didn’t care about the mirrors.

Shifty felt like they were floating away, watching their body from below as they stood outside the door of what was once their house. The security had nodded stiffly at them as they passed, apparently briefed on the meeting.

Shifty tried to ignore the guilt of slipping out without telling anyone, letting Stan take on the burden of telling the kids that they were being sent home, but the anxiety of what Gideon had on them was far more present.

There’s no way he knows about what I am, Shifty told themselves. For crying out loud, I don’t even know what I am.

They knocked twice on the door, and stepped back, trying to control their breathing.

After a moment, the door opened, and Bud’s stupid face grinned at him. “Why, Remy!” He said. “What a pleasure. Didn’t I tell you that we’d see each other again?”

Shifty scowled.

“Come right on in, the boy’s just looking over his plans for Gideonland now,” Bud said, stepping back to allow Shifty to come inside. “Oh, Gideon! Your friend is here!”

“We’re not friends,” Shifty said.

“Why, of course you are!” Bud chuckled, and before Shifty could protest, he motioned for them to follow, leading to what used to be Stan’s office, the hole covered with tarp.

The chair spun around, and there sat Gideon, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. “As I live and breathe!” He chuckled. “Remy Wagner! So good to have you here. Can I get you anything? Sparkling water? A pastry, perhaps?”

“I want my fucking jacket back,” Shifty said dully.

Gideon chuckled. “No need for such foul language! Daddy, if you please?”

Gideon snapped his fingers, and less than a second later, a denim jacket was shoved into Shifty’s arms. In spite of their discomfort, they immediately slipped it on, feeling slightly more like themselves with the familiar weight.

“Anything else?” Gideon asked. “Anything at all?”

“What do you want?” Shifty asked.

“To talk,” Gideon said, and waved at his father. “Leave us.”

Bud immediately scurried away, closing the door behind him. Gideon motioned to a chair in front of Stan’s desk. “Please, have a seat.”

Shifty did, reluctantly, and only because they were still dizzy. “Do you always order your family around like that?”

“Someone has to be the brains of the operation,” Gideon said, and then grinned. “Isn’t that right, Remy Wagner?”

Shifty didn’t like the way that Gideon said their name, like it was an inside joke. “What’s this all about?” They demanded. “You hate me.”

“Don’t be silly, of course I don’t,” Gideon said.

“You swore revenge on all of us,” Shifty said. “I was there when you did it.”

“Ah, you’ve made a small error, my friend,” Gideon said. “I swore revenge on the Pines family. And you aren’t a Pines, are you?”

Shifty stiffened. They had pointed it out themselves, what felt like a million years ago, but they didn’t like that Gideon had picked up on it. “...no,” they said quietly. “I am not.”

“And why is that?” Gideon asked.

“Why am I…not a Pines?” Shifty asked. “Because I wasn’t born in their family?”

“No no,” Gideon shook his head. “Why do you work with Stanford? Why remain here? How exactly did you come to this town to begin with?”

Shifty blinked, fiddling with their fingers, nerves eating them up. “What are you getting at?”

“Oh,” Gideon said, his eyes shining. “I know a secret, Remy Wagner. If that’s even your name.”

A spike of sharp fear pierced them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gideon said in a sing-song voice. He leaned forward, and Shifty leaned back. “You’ve been lying for a very long time, haven’t you? I’ll bet even Stanford doesn’t know a darned thing about you. The Pines twins certainly don’t. But I do. I’m observant. I know secrets that’d make your head spin. I know secrets that you already know.”

“I-I don’t…” Shifty shook their head. “You’re crazy.”

“Oh?” Gideon’s smile stretched even wider, and he reached into a desk drawer, grabbing something. “I think I might be looking at the crazy one.”

He dropped the object on the desk in front of Shifty.

There was no time to prepare a poker face, no time to process. And Shifty suspected that even if they had known what Gideon was about to show them, they couldn’t have swallowed their reaction.

Shifty gasped like they were dying, standing up so suddenly that their chair fell back, clattering against the ground. But they barely heard it, their heart pounding in their ears as they stared at journal number two.

Gideon burst out into excited laughter. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!”

“How did you-?!” Shifty tried to say. “When did-?!”

“I knew it!” He crowed, reaching across the table and grabbing Shifty’s hand, the one with the scarred palm, pressing it against the journal, and Shifty was unable to choke back a cry of alarm.

In their anxiety, they had sprouted a sixth finger, their hand slotting perfectly against Stanford’s.

“I knew it!” Gideon said. “I knew you were the author!”

Shifty wondered if they would pass out, with the roar in their ears and the spots in their vision. They had never once considered that Gideon might suspect this of all things, but they had never known that he had the journal. But they could smell it now, close as it was, even over Gideon’s migraine inducing cologne. The paper, the ink, the lemons. It was taunting him.

They could grab it and run, but what would that accomplish? Gravity Falls was only so big, and Gideon was the most beloved person in the town. Remy Wagner was a freak hermit. Remy had no one in the world to back him up.

So they took a breath, reached for the chair, and put it back to sit in it. In a second, they created a new persona, channeling all they could remember of the great Dr. Stanford Pines. “...how long did you know about this?” Shifty asked, as calmly as they could, inflecting as much effortless intelligence as they could into their voice.

Gideon’s grin stretched even wider. “S-since I saw you at my house, and I saw your hand! Six fingers! Oh, I knew it! I-I-” Gideon chuckled, suddenly nervous. “This is a bit of an honor, actually. Big fan of your work!”

“...I’d be a bigger fan of you if you didn’t steal my house,” Shifty said.

“Oh,” Gideon blinked, remembering that they were technically enemies. “Oh, well. I-I’m sure we can work something out.”

Shifty perked up, trying not to look as hopeful as they felt. “Is that so?”

“Of course!” Gideon nodded, and then paused. “I just…I suppose I have a couple of questions.”

“...okay,” Shifty said. “Go ahead.”

“Is your name really Remy Wagner? How long have you lived in this town, and how long have you been documenting its strangeness? Where’s the first journal? Why did you hide it away-” Gideon said, breathless, and strangely reminiscent of Dipper for a moment.

Shifty shook away the comparison. “Okay, okay, slow down. Yes, I’m really Remy. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I don’t know how long I’ve been documenting everything. And I…” they frowned, unsure of the answer to the final question. “The last one is personal.”

“Is it because of the basement?” Gideon asked.

Shifty choked. “How do you–?!”

“Oh!” Gideon snickered. “Oh, I know a lot of things, Remy. Do tell, what’s down there? Where’s the entrance?”

“That’s–” Shifty shook their head, feeling even more sick. “That’s absolutely none of your business.”

Gideon frowned. “I may admire you, Remy, but I still hold the cards, I’m afraid.”

“Not true,” Shifty said. “I have the first journal. And that…that’s what this is, isn’t it? You want it. That’s what this has always been about.”

Gideon said nothing, and Shifty grinned. “You’re not the only detective in the room, Gideon. You may have found them, but I wrote them. I lived them.”

“...it seems we’re at an impasse,” Gideon said.

Shifty leaned back. “Seems so.”

“...perhaps we can propose a partnership, then,” Gideon said.

“What?!” Shifty scoffed. “Please, you destroy my home, chase my friends out of town, and now you want to partner up?”

“Is Stanford Pines necessary for your plans?” Gideon asked.

Shifty blinked. “W-what?”

“Surely a genius like you could find what you’re looking for anywhere in the world,” Gideon said. “Especially if you still have the first journal. But you’ve remained here. I suspect it’s because you have unfinished work in this town. Am I right?”

Shifty said nothing, and Gideon smiled.

“Whatever resources you need, I can provide,” Gideon said. “Far more than Stanford Pines ever could. I have the influence and the money. Whatever you want, whatever you’re trying to do, I can help make it happen.”

“And then what’s in it for you?” Shifty asked.

“It’s not obvious?” Gideon asked. “I want in. I confess that your final goal is still unclear to me. But I know that whatever it is, it’s gonna be great, it’s gonna put you on the map, and it’s gonna give you a lot of power. I want a piece of that.”

“...you do realize you sound nuts?” Shifty said weakly.

“You’re the one who went chasing fairies,” Gideon said. “Not me. So, whaddya say? Do we have a deal?”

Something in his cadence made Shifty uncomfortable. But not enough to ignore when salvation was practically within arms reach.

It was betrayal, pure and simple, what Gideon was offering. Stan would remain homeless, purposeless, as Shifty drew closer and closer to bringing Stanford home, especially with the other journal. But that didn’t mean there was no logic to it.

Stan had lost, that was a fact. Shifty had too. They all had. But Gideon, unknowingly, was offering a second chance for the work to continue, to bring Stanford back. And Shifty might not have the construction and engineering knowledge that Stan did. Very few people probably did. But they could learn. With both journals, they could learn.

It didn’t matter that the thought of going into the basement without Stan made their stomach turn. For Stanford, they would do it a thousand times over.

“...you can’t hurt Stan,” Shifty said quietly. “You…you’ll leave him alone.”

“You’re still worried about him?” Gideon rolled his eyes. “Fine, sure. I won’t bug him no more. Do we have a deal?”

“...yeah,” Shifty said slowly, feeling like they might throw up. The dizziness was back, ten times worse than before. “Yeah, we have a deal.”

Gideon’s face split into a grin. “Wonderful!”

He reached into the desk drawer, pulling out a contract and plopping it in front of Shifty, along with a fancy fountain pen. Shifty blinked. “W-what’s this?”

“Oh, nothing important,” Gideon shrugged. “Just a contract saying you technically work for me now.”

“What?!”

“It’s only on paper!” Gideon said, with an easy salesman smile. “Nothing crazy, just cuts through the red tape. Also, there’s a 401k and dental benefits.”

Shifty skimmed the contract, but nothing popped out to him as particularly heinous. That was almost worse, the idea that Gideon didn’t even feel the need to entrap them with anything. It was as though he had expected Shifty to fold all along.

It’s fine, Shifty thought, queasy. Stanford will fix this all when I bring him back. Stan will be angry, but he’ll get over it when I fix everything. It’s fine. This is the best option. It’s fine.

With a shaking hand, they signed as Remy Wagner, the only name the world knew them by. It felt like signing a death certificate.

“Great!” Gideon said, looking absolutely overjoyed. “Lemme just-” he snatched the contract up and paused, looking a little confused.

Something like alarm bells went off in Shifty’s head. “What?”

“Oh, nothing, sorry,” Gideon said. “Just zoned out there for a moment. Say, why didn’t you do more work with the vampires you found in the cave systems here? The journal doesn’t go into a lot of detail about it. Just says you quit studying them.”

“Oh, uh,” Shifty shrugged. “You know, they got really aggressive. Bloodsuckers and all. It didn’t seem worth it to keep risking my life.”

“Oh, I see,” Gideon nodded. “See, that’s odd, because you specifically mention in there that you found no evidence of vampires existing in this town.”

Shifty felt their heart skip a beat. “U-uh, yes, that’s because what I meant was-”

“You found anomalous bats,” Gideon said, his smile sliding off his face. “But you said that you found no vampires, not like the ones we know, walking around on two legs and fearing garlic! You’re real specific about it!”

“No, I just misremembered,” Shifty said, a little desperate. “I-I write a lot, you can’t expect me to get everything right-”

“Do you take me for a fool, Remy Wagner?!” Gideon demanded, snatching up the contract and shaking it in Shifty’s face. “This isn’t the author’s handwriting! Your’s is terrible! Did you really think I would look past this?!”

“Listen,” Shifty said, a little desperate and cursing themselves. They had been so worried for Stan that they had forgotten something as elementary as forging a signature. “You have to let me stay here, I can’t-”

“You’re a liar and a conman, just like Stanford Pines!” Gideon snarled, and tore the contract into pieces. “Deal’s off!”

Something cold and angry began forming in the pit of Shifty’s stomach. “Just give me the journal!”

They reached for the book, but Gideon was faster, snatching it off the table and holding it close, leaning away from Shifty. “Get out!” He snarled. “Get out now! And don’t you or those Pines ever come back!”

The dizziness was so bad the world felt like it was spinning. Everything felt clearer, like the fog in their mind had cleared, but they still felt just as distant. But their mouth moved, almost without their permission, and they said: “And what if I don’t?”

Gideon blinked, confused. “W-what?”

“What if I don’t leave?” Shifty asked, leaning forward. “What if I take the journal?”

Gideon looked startled, not expecting Shifty’s defiance. Hell, Shifty didn’t expect it themselves. “I-I…what?” Gideon shook his head. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you. And even if you did, no one would let you walk out of here, you know that! You think you can take on my security?”

“Yes,” Shifty said. “Easily.”

Gideon’s eyes widened, and for the first time, he looked nervous. “I…what?” He shook his head. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” Shifty said, and felt their eye twitching, bulging even. They let it. “But I’m something else, too. I didn’t write the journals. But I know who did. You know why?”

Shifty leaned forward even more, and now they could see sweat coming down Gideon’s forehead. “Because I’m fucking in them. I’ve lived in this town my whole life. I’m a part of it. I’m not Remy Wagner. I’m one of the things that creeps in the woods at night, the things that you try to pretend aren’t lurking outside your window when you try to go to sleep. And you’ve invited one of those things into your house, Gideon. Do you realize that?”

“I-I-” Gideon hugged the journal close to his chest, his knuckles white. “I’m not scared of you. W-what are you gonna do? If you hurt me, the whole town’s gonna come after you!”

“I could destroy this town apart in an afternoon if I wanted to,” Shifty said, and felt their skin ripple. They stood up, taller than they were when they started this conversation. Gideon somehow went even paler, unable to swallow a terrified whimper. “I could rip your head off before you ever had a chance to call for help. I could tear your father’s spine out of his back. I could find anyone you’ve ever cared about and turn them inside out. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Gideon was breathing fast, and if he was ever threatening before, he certainly wasn’t now, reduced to prey in a matter of seconds. Shifty could feel their heart pounding in their ears, and grinned. Their crooked teeth were sharp now. “Give me the journal.”

And amazingly, Gideon swallowed hard, and shook his head.

A spike of rage went through Shifty like an arrow. “GIVE ME THE JOURNAL!” They roared, reaching across the desk with clawed hands, grabbing Gideon by his suit jacket and dragging him inelegantly. Gideon shrieked, strangled and beyond fear, holding the journal like a teddy bear and–

He was crying, Shifty realized with a strange jolt. He was crying, silently, tears leaking out between his eyes, shaking so hard it looked painful. He looked very young, not at all like the egomaniac Shifty had come to think of him as. More like a child trying very, very hard to be an adult, and going about it in all the wrong ways. Ways that hurt people, but a child nonetheless.

Shifty dropped Gideon as though burnt, stumbling backwards, horrified.

“Gideon?!” There was pounding at the door, and Bud’s voice sounded worried. “I heard shouting! Y’all alright?!”

“We’re fine!” Shifty said, in a perfect imitation of Gideon’s voice. “Just having a spirited discussion!”

Gideon’s eyes widened, but he didn’t argue, his back pressed against the desk, still crying but desperately trying to stop himself from doing so. They heard Bud leave, his footsteps echoing throughout the shack.

Shifty forced themselves to shrink back to Remy Wagner’s usual size, and their teeth and claws disappeared. Their skin itched and burned, aching to be big, be fierce, and tear the room and anyone inside it apart. But most of all, they felt absolutely disgusted with themselves.

“I,” they said, and trailed off. “Um.”

Gideon said nothing.

Unable to face him or themselves, Shifty fled, leaving before either Bud or Gideon had a chance to stop them.

As if they even could.

Shifty burst through the door of Soos’ home, panting hard. Stan immediately appeared, looking angry. “Where the hell were you?!”

“I-I, uh,” Shifty swallowed, and then noticed a lack of noise. “Where are the kids?!”

“They’re gone,” Stan said, grief intermingling with his fury. “They’re gone, and we waited as long as we could for you, but the bus already took ‘em.”

“What?!” Shifty shook their head. “But I-I…no! I didn’t get to say goodbye!”

“Shoulda thought of that before you disappeared,” Stan snapped, and then his frown became even more pronounced. “How the hell did you get your jacket back?!”

“I-I…” Shifty looked down, cursing themselves for not thinking to stow it before they stumbled back in a haze. “I was trying to sneak in,” they lied, and it sounded fake even to themselves. “To steal the deed. I couldn’t find it. But I got my jacket.”

“You got–” all the fight seemed to leak out of Stan with no warning, and he sat down on Abuelita’s couch heavily. “...god.”

Shifty said nothing, unable to think of anything to add. Shame curled in their belly like a snake. They had tried to betray Stan, might have killed Gideon, and only for a denim jacket.

“This is rock bottom,” Stan said, his head in his hands. “No money, no family, no friends. No house. No…” he trailed off, and it was all Shifty could do not to melt into a puddle of despairing goop.

“How’d he even do it?” Stan asked, picking up the Gideon pin from the coffee table. “How’s he always two steps ahead-OW!”

Stan winced, clutching his ear. “Damn thing, what’s causing–”

He froze, his mouth dropping open in shock, though Shifty had no idea why. “Stan?” Shifty asked, and then stepped forward, a little panicked. “Oh god, are you having a heart attack!”

“THAT’S IT!” Stan leapt to his feet, so suddenly that Shifty reeled back with a shriek. “I know how to defeat Gideon! Come on, there’s no time!”

“What?!” Shifty asked, watching Stan grab his keys. “Wait, right now?!”

“Yes, right now, before the bus gets too far!” Stan said.

“You’re wearing a wifebeater and your boxers!” Shifty said. “At least put pants on!”

“No time for pants!” Stan said gleefully, grabbing Shifty’s arm and ignoring their protests. “Come on, not a moment to lose!”

In the center of town, there was a crater that didn’t used to be there, though it wasn’t hard to find thanks to the flash of light and explosion that had emitted from it.

“BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE!” Shifty shrieked, covering their face as Stan careened into the pit, not even bothering to put the car in park before he practically threw himself out of it, waving wildly at the gathered crowd. A giant robot in that shape of Gideon lay shattered in the crater, and a banged up Dipper and Mabel stood alongside it as well, with Gideon himself standing behind Blubs and Durland.

“STAN THE CAR IS STILL IN DRIVE-”

“WAIT!” Stan gasped, waving his arms wildly. “We have something to say!”

“WE?!” Shifty asked, trying not to throw up. They managed to stop the car from rolling, and practically fell out, legs shaking.

Blubs sighed. “Not these two again.”

“Just wait!” Stan said, running to the mangled robot with the strength of a much younger man. The robot itself had a McGucket-ness to it, and Shifty frowned.

Stan pointed at Gideon, accusatory. “You guys all think Gideon is this perfect little angel. ‘Oh, I could never tell a lie, I’m Gideon!’”

Shifty thought that their impression was better, but they said nothing. The twins were staring at Stan with a little bit of worry, maybe wondering if he had finally lost it. Shifty was starting to wonder the same thing themselves.

“He’s more honest than the both of you,” Blubs said, and Shifty huffed.

“Yeah!” Durland said. “And he’s psychic!”

“How’s this for psychic?!” Stan asked, and kicked the robot.

A huge hunk of sheet metal fell away, revealing a camera system with dozens of monitors, each showing off a different sector of Gravity Falls, the citizens unaware they were being observed. Shifty’s mouth fell open. Whatever they were expecting, it hadn’t been that.

The townspeople broke out into surprised and horrified muttering, and Gideon managed to blanch. “That’s right!” Stan said, holding up the Gideon pin. “The pins are hidden cameras! They were messing with my hearing aid!”

Oh my god, Shifty thought, a little giddy that they had never said anything overly damning around the pin. The basement. That’s how he knew!

“Who’s the fraud now?!” Stan asked, snapping the pin in half.

Blubs and Durland turned to Gideon as the gathered crowd broke into scattered whispers, outraged. “Gideon,” Blubs said. “Is this true?”

“I-I-” Gideon looked startled, looking around wildly. “No! It…he’s lying! He’s trying to frame me!”

“You think I did all this to frame you?” Stan laughed.

“You don’t–” Gideon’s eyes met Shifty’s, widened, and this time Shifty was prepared for whatever Gideon would throw at them. “Arrest him! He tried to attack me!”

“What?” Shifty asked, blinking in a perfect imitation of confusion. “When? I’ve been with Stan all day.”

Stan nodded, even though he knew damn well that wasn’t true. “Looks like you’re all out of lies, pal.”

“Lil’ Gideon,” Blubs said. “You are under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, and–” he removed his sunglasses to wipe away a tear. “-breaking our hearts.”

“Wait!” Gideon said, but it was too late. The officers threw a pair of handcuffs on Gideon, and startled pushing him towards the cruiser.

“Oh, and one more thing!” Stan said, grabbing Gideon and rifling through his suit jacket pockets. Gideon shouted in protest, but it was too late. Stan withdrew the deed with a huge grin. “I think this belongs to me.”

He tossed Gideon in the cruiser, and the latter’s eyes widened. “WAIT, HE’S GOT MY–!”

But Stan had already slammed the door, and gave Shifty a huge, exaggerated wink. Shifty rolled their eyes, but managed a smile, even if it felt frayed.

They met Gideon’s eyes for a moment, just a moment, and Gideon immediately shrank back, frightened. Shifty looked away.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel bounced forward, followed closely by Dipper. The two practically tackled him in a hug. “You did it! You saved the shack!”

“Eh, well,” Stan shrugged. “Mouser helped too.”

“No, I didn’t,” Shifty said, a little perplexed.

Stan shrugged. “Just trying to be nice.”

“Don’t be, it doesn’t suit you,” Shifty said, but managed another smile despite the sick feeling in their stomach that refused to leave.

“There you have it, folks,” Shandra Jimenez, the only real reporter in town, told the camera. “Local heroes Stanford Pines and Remy Wagner have just exposed Lil’ Gideon as a fraud!”

The camera panned over to the Pines family, and to Shifty’s shock, Stan yanked them into frame. They smiled, a little uncomfortable, but mostly relieved that the ordeal was over. “Anything you have to say to the town?” Shandra asked, offering them the microphone.

“The Mystery Shack is back, baby!” Stan declared, and the kids whooped their assent.

“And,” Shifty said, with a slightly petty grin. “Bud Gleeful owes us so much money in damages.”

By the end of the week, they were back home.

The major damages had been fixed, the house was declared livable, the museum and gift shop were open and bustling even with a soft open, and the world was back in the way it was meant to be, barring a few missing pieces. The kids had even found a box of comics that had remained miraculously undamaged. Mabel had been collecting scraps of them around the yard, saying she intended to turn them into a craft project.

Waddles snuffled lightly around Shifty’s feet, and they glanced down at him, smiling. “Yeah, are you happy you don’t have to wear that stupid Gideon outfit anymore?”

Waddles grunted, Shifty chuckled. “Yeah, me too, blue is not your color, bud.”

“Hey,” Stan said, entering the room with a slightly dazed look on his face. “Kids’re settling back in.”

“Oh?” Shifty nodded. “That’s good. I can’t believe they fixed the place up so fast. We should start furniture shopping for a new dining table and chairs tomorrow, though. We can get chairs that actually match! And on Bud Gleeful’s money!”

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Stan said, looking a little out of it.

Shifty paused, trying to get a better look at his face. “Are you alright?”

Stan seemed to snap back into it. “...don’t freak out.”

Shifty sucked in a breath, instantly anxious. “Why?! What are you–”

They paused when the smell hit them. Lemons. And it was stronger than usual.

Without a word, Stan held out two maroon books, worn down with time and age. Each were adorned with a golden, six-fingered hand.

Shifty sat up straight. “WHAT THE FUCK-”

Stan immediately clapped his hand over Shifty’s mouth to muffle them, shushing them. They went completely still, waiting for the kids to burst down the stairs and ask what was happening, but they never did, too preoccupied with their rooms to hear them downstairs.

Shifty wrenched Stan’s hand away. “How did you-?!”

“Gideon had the first one, nabbed it off him when I got the deed,” Stan said. “And Dipper had the other.”

“Dipper?!”

Stan nodded, a grin starting to spread across his face. “He said he had it all summer. Showed it to me cause he thought he should, after everything we’ve been through.”

“The whole time?!” Shifty asked, and groaned. “Oh my god, oh my god, he reeks! That’s why I never smelled the journal! He was covering it up! Oh my god, oh god, I’m going to kill him.”

“Get in line,” Stan said, unable to stop smiling. He handed the journals to Shifty, and they held them almost reverently, their hands shaking. They flipped through them, tracing their fingers over Stanford’s writing, drawings, and codes. “Think you can get a start on decoding those?”

“Y-yeah,” Shifty said, a feverish grin spreading across their face. “Yeah, I think so. Oh my god, Stan. Oh my god.”

“Yeah, kid,” Stan said, barely able to keep his own glee quiet. “We’re bringing him home.”

Shifty didn’t come out of their room when they woke up the next morning, even as they grew hungry. They holed up in their bed, making a blanket nest and re-reading comics they had practically memorized at this point, too reluctant to go downstairs and get their textbook. They heard Stan running tours downstairs, sounding far less enthusiastic than usual, but that didn’t surprise Shifty. He had a lot to drink the night before, after all.

Finally, when the sun was beginning to set, there was a quiet knock at the door. Shifty said nothing for a long moment, and then there was another. “Kid?” Stan called. “Can I come in? Got you a sandwich.”

Shifty frowned, wanting to stay quiet and be left alone, but their hunger won out. “...come in,” they said softly, and the door swung open.

Stan stepped inside, looking exhausted, unshaven and in a wrinkled suit, holding a plate with a sandwich, an apple, and some chips. “Didn’t see you today,” he said. “You, um. Feeling sick?”

Shifty shook their head.

“Okay, that’s good,” Stan said, setting the plate on the nightstand. “I, uh. I know I got in kinda late last night. It’s kind of a blur…you get to bed alright?”

Shifty nodded.

“That’s good,” Stan said, and coughed, wincing at the motion. “Nice job keeping the shack under control.”

“Thanks,” Shifty said. They had been hoping Stan would tell them that when he got back, but the words felt hollow now.

“Right, uh,” Stan coughed, and halfway reached out to ruffle Shifty’s hair before his hand dropped. Shifty wasn’t sure if they were disappointed or relieved. “Well, you enjoy that sandwich. Just bring the plate down later.”

“Figured out a name,” Shifty said softly, and Stan perked up.

“You came up with your alias?” Stan smiled. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“...Remy Wagner,” Shifty said.

Stan looked confused, and Shifty wriggled. “Um, because Gambit’s name is Remy LeBeau. And Nightcrawler’s is Kurt Wagner.”

“No, yeah, I figured it was something like that,” Stan said. “But you didn’t…I thought you wanted to keep your last name as Pines.”

“Um,” Shifty said, a little frightened. “Um, no thanks.”

Stan looked more confused than ever, and Shifty stared at the ground. “Because, um. People will ask less questions if we aren’t related.”

“I…” Stan looked oddly hurt. “If…if that’s what you want. That’s what you want, right?”

Shifty nodded, picking up their comic and pretending to be invested in it.

“...right,” Stan said, standing up. “I’ll…leave you to it, then. Do you want the door open or closed?”

“Closed,” Shifty said.

“...sure,” Stan said. “Uh. Enjoy the sandwich. Lemme know if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Shifty said.

That night, they had a nightmare. The usual fair of being trapped in a bunker, chased by visions of dead bodies that were told they had killed, but couldn’t remember hurting for the life of them. Ripped off hands, torn open rib cages, skull shattered on the ground like broken plates.

When they woke up with a terrified gasp, they didn’t go find Stan. They stared at the ceiling, teeth gritted until the sun came up.

They never went to Stan after a nightmare again. They were far too old for such things anyway.

Chapter Text

“Nuh uh,” Shifty said, tapping their finger on a white wooden dining table in the furniture catalogue. “That’s the one. It’s perfect.”

Stan frowned. “That looks like something you’d find in a yuppie’s beach house.”

“I don’t know what a yuppie is,” Shifty said. “But they have good style.”

Since piecing their lives back together, Shifty and Stan had been throwing all of their energy into simultaneously getting the Mystery Shack into fighting shape, and also tending to the metal monstrosity in the basement. Shifty was making easy progress with rewriting the journals into something Stan could turn into solid foundations in the basement. The math, physics, and code came to them like a language they were born knowing at this point.

And just a few nights ago, Stan had told them with an almost manic grin that they should reach startup before Halloween, handing Shifty a folder of papers to double check.

Shifty had frowned, glancing through them. “Before Halloween? These readings are fantastic, Stan. Waiting until Halloween is cautious to a detriment.”

“Yeah, I know,” Stan shrugged. “But I’m thinking it’s gonna take us a minute to find a decent fuel source. I dunno what Sixer was using to power that thing, but it wasn’t electricity. Unless he blacked out the entire east coast for a few days to do it, which I don’t think he did.”

“Hm,” Shifty had said, disappointed, but at least there was a half decent timeline. Since then, their energy was split between bleeding Bud Gleeful for all he could give them in terms of monetary compensation (“You shoulda been a lawyer, Mouser!” Stan had cackled after a particularly stern phone call) and working out a way to get an energy source that could power an interdimensional gateway.

And they were pretty sure they found something.

“Go-o-o-ood morning!” Mabel said in a sing-song voice, practically spinning into the kitchen, holding Waddles above her head. Dipper followed close behind, maybe not so loud in his happiness, but he was grinning nonetheless. “Ooh, donuts!”

“Remy got ‘em,” Stan said.

“Thanks, Remy!” Mabel said, grabbing one for herself, and one for Waddles.

“Woah, is it your birthday?” Dipper asked.

“Mystery Shack’s official re-opening,” Shifty said. “Figured it would be a good day to shell out for something nice. Save a couple for Soos, he’s not here yet.”

“And Wendy,” Dipper said.

“She can have one if she’s not late, for once,” Shifty said, but they spotted Dipper sneaking one to save. Someone needed to tell the kid it was never going to happen, and it wasn’t going to be Shifty.

In any case, the defeat of Gideon put everyone in soaring spirits. The shack had never been more profitable as people put their money where their apologies were, progress on the portal was skyrocketing, the kids thought Remy Wagner was a funny recluse instead of a scary one, and sometimes Shifty could close their eyes without seeing the pure panic on Gideon’s face as they menaced him. The guilt of almost betraying Stan never seemed to ease, but they were learning it live with it. Once Stanford was back, everything else would fade.

“What do you two think of this?” Shifty asked, showing the kids the magazine and pointing at their choice for a dining table.

They squinted at it. “For what?” Mabel asked.

“For the dining room,” Shifty said. “Gideon wrecked the old one, so we’re making the Gleefuls pay for a new one.”

Dipper frowned. “I dunno if it jives with the whole ‘dilapidated ruin’ vibes that the rest of the shack has.”

“So what, we’ll make them pay to remodel the house,” Shifty shrugged. “We could do with new kitchen tiles anyway.”

“Enough of this,” Stan said, snagging another donut before Shifty could say something about his cholesterol. “We got a busy day ahead of us! Grand re-opening day, people! Look alive!”

Shifty frowned, stuck behind the cash register as Wendy sold tickets outside. Miracle of miracles, she was on time today. They waited until Soos was busy with some minor repair in the corner of the shack, and then leaned over to Stan.

“Was that a good idea to give Dipper the journal back?” They asked, voice low.

Stan scoffed. “We don’t need it anymore, we have the photocopies. The kid was never gonna stop asking if I said no.”

Shifty frowned. “Still, I–” they paused, hearing a car approaching outside. A loud car, no less, one that promised power and commanded respect. “Do you hear that?”

“Hey, Mr. Pines,” Soos said, looking out the window. “What’s that code word I’m supposed to yell when I see a government vehicle?”

Instantly, Stan’s relaxed posture disappeared. Shifty choked.

“Uh oh,” Stan said, and that was all Shifty needed, rushing to the office and into action.

Fuck, fuck fuck, they thought, a little panicked as they grabbed falsified profits and tax sheets, lifting up a floorboard to stuff them under. Please let this be nothing. And if it’s not nothing, let it be the taxes and not me getting ‘E.T’-ed. Or the portal. Oh god, oh god-

“Remy?”

Shifty froze, seeing Mabel and Dipper staring at them, mid-motion in hiding several incriminating looking papers under floorboards.

“...whatcha doing?” Mabel asked.

“Um,” Shifty said. “Not committing tax fraud, that’s for sure.”

They heard the gift shop bell ding, overly friendly, and they gulped, setting the floorboards down and giving the twins a warning look. They just stared back, looking vaguely amused.

Two men in perfectly pressed black suits stood in the gift shop, taking in everything dispassionately. “Welcome to the Mystery Shack, gentlemen!” Stan said, looking remarkably calm. “What can I get you? Key chains, snowglobes?”

He pulled out a five dollar bill from his sleeve. “These rare photos of American presidents?”

“My name is Agent Powers,” the suited man with a mustache said. “And this here is Agent Trigger. We’re here to investigate reports of mysterious activity in this town.”

“Mysterious?” Shifty squeaked, sweating immediately when the agents turned to them, apparently surprised to see someone there. For some reason, their voice sounded vaguely transatlantic. “In this town? Why, I’ve never heard such malarkey!”

Mabel snickered somewhere behind them. Stan glared.

“And you are?” Powers asked.

“Kurt LeBeau,” Shifty said, and then coughed. “I-I mean, Wagner Remy. That is, my last name is Wagner. I said my last name first. Remy’s my first name.”

“He’s the assistant manager,” Stan said.

“Co-manager,” Shifty said.

Stan rolled his eyes. “Sure, you remember that.”

“If you’ll excuse us,” Powers said, moving around Stan easily. “We’re conducting an investigation.”

“Investigation,” Trigger repeated seriously.

Shifty bit down a comment about warrants and illegal search and seizure. They weren’t sure if that applied to the FBI, or whatever part of the government these two had been spat out from. All they knew was the spiel that Stan had made them memorize to tell cops when they were pulled over. And Blubs and Durland were easy to fool; these two didn’t seem like they would be swayed by Shifty offering to give them a discount on the gift shop.

“Wait, wait!” Dipper darted forward, excited. “Did you guys say you’re investigating the mysteries of the town?!”

Stan and Shifty exchanged slightly panicked looks.

“That information is classified,” Powers said, in a way that told the world’s most nosy kid he had hit the nail on the head. Dipper grinned, and Powers looked pleased with himself, the bastard. “We may or may not be one small lead from blowing the entire lid off of a town wide conspiracy.”

Conspiracy this, Shifty thought, fighting the urge to turn into a huge monster and chase them out. They would for sure ‘E.T.’ them, but it would be funny for a few minutes.

“Are you kidding?!” Dipper asked. “I’ve been investigating the exact same thing! I found this journal in the woods which has almost all the answers! Hang on, I’ll go get it!”

Dipper turned to fetch the journal, and Shifty stiffened, about to do something drastic and stupid, but Stan beat them to it, stepping in front of Dipper with an easy smile. “I’m sorry, agents! Kid has an overactive imagination, what are ya gonna do?”

The agents seemed unconvinced, and Dipper looked so offended he couldn’t even get a protest out. “If you have evidence of these claims, we should talk,” Powers said, handing a business card to Dipper before Stan could stop them.

“We can talk right now-” Dipper tried, but Stan shooed him away.

“Paranormal town stuff is just part of gift shop lore, you know, sells more tickets!” Stan said. “The boy knows, we made him dress up as a werewolf!”

Dipper turned bright red, sputtering some kind of nonsensical denial.

“We have other spots to investigate,” Powers said dully, turning around to leave. “We’ll be on our way.”

Trigger grabbed a Stan-shaped bobblehead on his way out. “I’m confiscating these for evidence.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Stan muttered under his breath. The bell dinged, and the door closed, the room with two less agents. Shifty let out a breath.

“Stan!” Dipper said, looking frustrated. “What was that for?!”

“Trust me, kid,” Stan said. “The last thing you want at a party is the cops. I’m confiscating that card.”

He snatched the business card out of Dipper’s hand before he could dodge it. “Hey!” Dipper said, and glanced at Shifty. “Remy, come on! Help me out here!”

“You really need to lose this supernatural fixation,” Shifty shrugged, feeling a little guilty when Dipper deflated. “It’s going to end up eating away at your summer.”

“Exactly!” Stan said. “How about you go be a normal kid? Flirt with a girl, or steal a pie off a window, I dunno! Don’t talk to those agents!”

Dipper complained loudly, but Shifty wasn’t listening, following Stan back through the shack as he left the gift shop. “He’s going to catch on.”

“To what?” Stan scoffed, making his way to his room. “There’s like six jigs that could be up at any given time, Mouser.”

“Any of them, I guess.”

“Please,” Stan said. “We made it this far. Just don’t turn into an elephant or something in front of them, and we should be fine.”

“I don’t even know if I could do an elephant,” Shifty said. “But that’s not why I’m here. I need the keys to the car.”

Stan scoffed. “You’re not getting out of listening to karaoke that easily. If I suffer, so do you.”

“I have a lead,” Shifty said, and lowered their voice. “On an energy source.”

Stan paused, finally giving Shifty his full attention.

“Nuclear,” Shifty said.

Stan frowned. “...wow. That’s a terrible idea.”

Shifty’s mouth fell open, offended. “Why?!”

“First of all, it’s super dangerous. Radiation is the last thing you need, it’ll turn you into a normal person and give me shapeshifting powers. And also melt our bones,” Stan said. “Second, where the hell are you getting nuclear power? Don’t those things require a huge plant and stuff? Not exactly subtle.”

“I crunched some numbers, backed it up with some stuff in the journals,” Shifty said. “Stanford ended up making some kind of miniature fusion core, pretty close to what they have in the reactors. I don’t think he was using uranium or plutonium, though. And I have no idea what it is, and he’s being frustratingly vague as always. We don’t have access to whatever high-tech stuff he used.”

“Okay,” Stan said. “How does this lead back to nuclear energy?”

“We can use plain old nuclear power to turn the portal on, but just once. It won’t be as stable either, so someone will have to be here to make sure nothing explodes or whatever, but we were planning on someone being here when it turned on anyway,” Shifty said, and then frowned. “It does…it does mean we only have one shot. No tests, no partial starts. Once it’s on, it’s on. We’d need to use nuclear waste–”

“Nuclear waste?!”

“-because I can’t build a normal reactor, so the energy given off by the dying isotopes will have to be enough. It’ll be tight, but we can make it. And we have to make it. The waste will become unusable after one use,” Shifty said, and then wriggled, uncomfortable with talking so much about what was, at the end of the day, a very sloppy plan. “Which, um. Leads me to why I need the car.”

Stan’s eyes widened. “Are you stealing nuclear waste tonight?!”

“No!” Shifty said. “Um. Well, not tonight. That’s a two-person job, probably. There’s a facility a few hours west from here. I was going to scope it out. I’m probably the best person to do it.”

Stan frowned. “What, right after those agents leave? What if someone catches you?”

Shifty scoffed. “Who could catch me?”

Stan didn’t look comforted. “...what are you gonna tell the kids?”

“I don’t know,” Shifty shrugged. “That my grandmother is dying? Who cares? This is a perfect time for me to scope out what the facility looks like, where the waste storage is, and the best places to get in and out.”

Stan frowned, still looking unsure. “...I don’t like it.”

“No one does,” Shifty said. “But…it’s the only solution I can think of.”

Stan said nothing for a long moment, and for a horrible second, Shifty expected to be shot down, sent back to the drawing board.

And then Stan sighed. “It’s not…the worst heist I’ve ever agreed to.”

“That’s concerning,” Shifty said, but was unable to keep a smile off their face. They held out their hand. “Keys?”

Stan grumbled, ducking into his room for the car keys, digging around old laundry and papers. “Will you be alright? It’s a long drive there and back.”

“I won’t crash your car, if that’s what you’re asking,” Shifty said. “I have coffee, I won’t pass out.”

“You won’t get bored?”

“Oh,” Shifty said, eyes shining. “I won’t. Because guess what I found?”

They withdrew a small cassette tape from one of their jacket pockets, showing it off to Stan. “Ta-da!”

Stan squinted, and groaned. “Oh god. Is that your girly mix?”

“It’s my music, but yes, if you must call it that, it’s my girly mix,” Shifty rolled their eyes. “There’s a lot of good songs here, you just have terrible taste in everything.”

“I don’t want to hear some broad shrieking into my ear about how much she hates her ex,” Stan said. “I’ve heard more than enough of that in my lifetime.”

“It’s a miracle it didn’t get damaged when Gideon wrecked the house,” Shifty said with a grin.

“I wouldn’t call it a miracle,” Stan frowned, squinting at the cassette. “There’s a band called ‘Hole’ on this, you freak.”

“Don’t be gross,” Shifty said, hiding away their tape.

“How am I being gross?! I didn’t name it!”

He dropped the keys into Shifty’s hands, still looking concerned and not all too happy with the events about to transpire. “Mabel’s gonna be mad you missed karaoke.”

“Oh, I’m sure Love Patrol Alpha will get on just fine without me,” Shifty grinned, waving as they left. “Don’t wreck the shack, we just fixed it!”

“And every time I scratch my nails down someone else’s back I hope you feel it! Now can you feel it?!” Shifty shrieked alongside the music, barrelling down the interstate at speeds that made the Stanleymobile shudder, barely able to hear the roar of the wheels over the vindictive shouts of Alanis Morrisette.

“AND I’M HERE! TO REMIND YOU! OF THE MESS YOU LEFT WHEN YOU WENT AWAY!” Shifty screamed, flipping another driver the bird as they honked. “IT’S NOT FAIR TO DENY ME, OF THE CROSS I BEAR THAT YOU GAVE TO ME, YOU, YOU, YOU OUGHTA KNOW-! HEY, GET OUT OF MY LANE!”

Shifty swerved around a semi-truck, honking back fiercely when the truck driver shook a fist at them. “Yeah, yeah!” Shifty shouted back, utterly fearless, taking the exit off the interstate. They heard a car behind them skid, but no crash, so they were probably fine.

They twisted back to check for any flying debris, and felt something in their other jacket pocket. They paused, and frowning, withdrew the object.

Stanford’s glasses, still in their pocket from when they had hidden them away before the kids came, stared back at them. The song ended, and something by the Cranberries started up.

“...oh,” Shifty said, much quieter, struggling to keep one eye on the road and one eye on the glasses. After a moment of indecision, they carefully placed the glasses on the dash, feeling like a ghost had just sat down next to them.

Fingerprints covered the glasses, and the bridge was held together with ancient scotch tape. The legs of them were warped, though Shifty was pretty sure that was from being jostled in their pockets for weeks. They couldn’t smell lemons on them anymore.

“...don’t look at me like that,” Shifty said, feeling slightly insane, but it felt uncomfortable to just pretend the glasses weren’t there, staring at them. “We finally found your other journals. This is progress. For the first time in years, there’s progress. You have your nephew to thank for that, actually. You’ll like him. You’ll like Mabel too. They…huh. You know, I never really thought about it, but they remind me of you.”

“I guess it makes sense,” Shifty said. “You’re related to them. It would be stranger for them not to have some of your traits. It’s nice. I…” they chuckled. “I wasn’t super keen on them coming, honestly. I was worried they would be a distraction. And they definitely have been. But like I said, I’ll need to thank Dipper when this is all over. And it’s…sometimes it’s nice to have reminders of you that aren’t…that aren’t just papers and shadows and dreams. Mabel and Dipper feel more solid. It’s like a reminder of what this is all for. Why it’ll be worth it in the end. Not that you weren’t your own reward, or anything, but…it’s nice to bring you home to a bigger world. One where it’s not just me and Stan to welcome you back. I don’t have any idea how we’re going to explain this all to them. Or explain me. We’ll figure it out as we go, I guess. We have time.”

Shifty smiled, squinting against the setting sun. They were on a long, endless backroad now, traveling through endless farmlands, beef cows dotting the landscape, as numerous as stars in the sky.

“...I hope you’re alright, wherever you are,” Shifty said, surprised by their own somber voice. “When I was really little, Stan said he would know if you were…if you were really gone. Said he’d feel it in his gut. And I know he was just telling me that to make me feel better, but I can’t…even though I know it’s silly, I can’t shake the feeling that you’re just waiting for us.”

Shifty looked at the glasses, but they did not reply.

“...it’s hard, you know,” Shifty said quietly. They couldn’t make themselves stop talking now. “It’s…it never really got easier, you being gone. I just got used to it. The gap, that is. I got used to not hearing you around the house. I got used to your smell disappearing. I got used to not getting jelly beans when you were working. I got used to a lot of things, but it never made the hurt go away. And a part of me is…a small part of me is angry with you, I guess.”

They winced, slightly horrified to say it out loud. “Not…no, angry is the wrong word, I didn’t mean that. I’m not going to be angry at you. I won’t let that happen, I promise. I’m just…I’m just confused. I know you were scared at the end. I know you were scared enough to do…” they trailed off for a minute, and then barrelled forward. “Scared enough to do things that I didn’t want you to do. And I’ve tried not to be mad at you for it. I really have. But why didn’t…why didn’t you tell me? Did you not think I could help? I could have helped you. You didn’t have to…!”

Shifty’s gaze trailed to the glasses, and all of a sudden, they found they couldn’t look away. They felt vaguely queasy, and their mouth was bone dry.

“...I miss you,” they said, almost in a whisper. “I miss you all the time. We don’t talk about it, Stan and I. We can’t. I think it’ll break something if we do. But it…it never stops. I told him that he can’t go trying to find you in everything. What a stupid thing to say. We’re already looking for you in everything. In other people. In our work. In our everyday lives. I watch TV and I wonder what you’d think of it. I eat food and I wonder if you’d like it. You’re always there, in the back of my mind, like you left a scar on it. Maybe you did. I don’t care. And I miss you, so badly, Stanford. I don’t even think I’ve ever said that outloud-”

A sharp honk broke Shifty out of their stupor, and they jerked their head back to the road to see that they had drifted into the left lane, and were driving straight towards a truck. They shrieked, jerking the wheel to the left so violently it was a shock that they didn’t rip it off entirely, running off the road and into a cornfield, avoiding a head-on collision by the skin of their teeth.

“Fuck!” Shifty said, shaken. “Holy shit. Oh my god…!”

They clutched vaguely at their chest, trying to get their breathing under control. By some miracle, the glasses had not fallen off the dash. Shifty swallowed hard, jittery. Somehow, the glasses felt slightly disapproving.

“...it won’t be long,” they told the glasses. “Until then, I’ll take care of Stan for you. You don’t have to worry about a thing. Just…just come back when we open the door. Please.”

The glasses did not reply.

“...maybe by now you can even answer my questions,” they said, almost silently. “The ones you didn’t know the answers to before. The ones about me.”

Without another word, Shifty picked them up, and placed them in their pocket.

The sun was beginning to rise as Shifty made their way up Gopher Road, with several pages of notes from their stakeout of the facility, helpfully in the shape of a groundhog while they silently observed. They noticed the smell long before they pulled up to the house.

It was foul, sharp odor, overpowering in all the worst ways. They struggled to place it for a moment, and then remembered opening the fridge when they were younger, when Stan had been far less willing to throw things out.

Rotting meat.

“Oh god,” they gasped, and pressed their foot against the gas so suddenly the car lurched like it was about to throw up.

The shack was a horror show. The party supplies were destroyed, scattered across the lawn and torn to smithereens. The shack was broken, the walls and doors covered in cracks, gouges, and the door to the gift shop was gone entirely. And perhaps worst of all, decayed corpses, all in various states of desecration, littered the yard.

Shifty fumbled with the gearshift before practically throwing themselves out of the car, mouth hung open, shaking. “Oh god,” they gasped, half-stumbling through the carnage. They gagged, horrified and hoping against hope that they wouldn’t see someone they recognized.

“STAN! DIPPER! MABEL!” Shifty shouted, picking their way through corpses. For a moment, there was no answer besides the echo of their own voice, and they felt their rapid heartbeat in every cell of their body. “WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“REMY!”

Shifty whirled around, seeing Dipper standing on the porch, unharmed and without so much as a bruise. Even stranger, he was smiling.

He pointed at Shifty like a condemning judge. “I KNEW YOU WERE LYING!”

Shifty’s heart stopped. “What?!”

“Your secret’s out!” Dipper said, practically hopping down the steps, not caring in the slightest about the dead bodies all around him. “I knew it! I knew there was something fishy going on!”

“I-I don’t…” Shifty started, completely unsure how Dipper had figured out their true nature. Maybe they were even worse at this than they thought. But to their shock, Dipper was still grinning. “You’re not…scared?”

“What?” Dipper looked puzzled. “Why would I be scared? I’m a little annoyed you lied to me, but I guess that I understand it. Dude, you didn’t have to be so distant and weird about it all summer!”

“Oh,” Shifty said, a strange sense of relief flooding them. If Dipper didn’t care, Mabel definitely didn’t. “That’s…that’s great to hear. Thank you, Dipper, really. I-it’s actually been a really rough summer, keeping this all from you and your sister-”

“HEY, MOUSER!” Stan said, appearing on the porch, looking far worse for wear than Dipper. His suit was torn, covered in some kind of green slime, and there was a sizable bruise on his chin. “Nice of you to join us after the action! Why is there half a cornstalk stuck in my car’s wipers?”

“What the fuck happened, Stan?!” Shifty demanded, gesturing wildly. “I leave for a night and the yard is filled with fucking dead bodies?!”

“Bad word!” Mabel said, peeking out from behind Stan with a grin. “Hey, Remy! How’s your grandma?”

Shifty paused. “My who?”

“Your grandma?” Dipper asked, looking confused. “Stan said…you were visiting her? She was sick?”

Shifty paused, more confused than ever, and starting to suspect they weren’t having the conversation with Dipper that they thought they were. “Uh. No, false alarm she’s fine...can someone just tell me what the f-” they sighed when Mabel gave them a look. “...why is the yard filled with corpses?!”

“Genius over there summoned zombies to impress federal agents,” Stan said, looking annoyed. Dipper turned red.

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!” Shifty demanded.

“It was an accident!” Dipper said. “I only meant to summon one!”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, close to breaking something. “Oh my god, I can’t leave you people alone to do anything.”

“It’s okay!” Mabel said. “We destroyed them with the power of karaoke!”

“And,” Dipper said, perking up. “Stan confessed that you and him knew that this town was bonkers the whole time.”

“I-” Shifty frowned, glancing up at Stan.

He shrugged. “I was a little busy breaking zombie skulls to try and think of a cover story.”

Shifty frowned, disappointed in spite of themselves. Only one jig was up; the cluelessness one. As far as the kids knew, they were still just plain old Remy Wagner.

“Well,” they shrugged, trying to look as casual as they could. “...yeah. We knew. We have eyes. There’s always some kind of nonsense going on.”

“This is great!” Dipper grinned. “I-I was starting to feel bad about hiding this from you guys, and I was starting to worry that you guys were dangerously unobservant-”

Shifty frowned. “Hey-”

“-but this is way better!” Dipper seemed genuinely excited. “This is great! You guys actually believe me! Two real adults believe me, not just Wendy and Soos! Between this and the blacklight…I have so much work to do! There’s so much to read, decode–”

“We could start by de-zombifying Soos,” Stan said, looking slightly annoyed.

Shifty’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?!”

“Hey, Soos,” Shifty said, a little perturbed, looking at Soos from over the waist high guardrail made of debris and chairs that the kids had created to keep Soos confined to the kitchen.

Soos glanced up at them, and grinned. He didn’t look as bad as Shifty was expecting; his color was unnaturally green, and his eyes were blank and eerie. He was drooling, a little too much for Shifty to be comfortable with it, but he was smiling, and it still looked like Soos’ smile.

“Oh, hey dude!” Soos said, taking an unsteady step forward. “Hey, I have an idea.”

“Do you now?” Shifty asked.

“You, me, hanging out,” Soos said. “And, I’m eating your brains. How are we feeling about that? Yes, no, maybe so? I’ll accept a ‘maybe so’.”

“...maybe later,” Shifty said, glancing at Dipper. “Is there a time limit on this cure?”

“Um,” Dipper said, flipping through the journal, ignoring Soos entirely as he bumped harmlessly into the barrier. “We have a hundred hours before this is permanent, and we have most of the ingredients already. I think we’re okay. Knock on wood.”

“Knock on wood,” Shifty repeated, and then paused, remembering something Dipper had mentioned. “Hey, what’s with the blacklight you told me about?”

“Oh!” Dipper grinned, withdrawing a tube shaped light from his vest. He clicked it on, and a harsh purple light emitted from it. Instantly, the journal lit up with more scrawling, completely invisible to Shifty without the light. “Found this out by accident. Pretty cool, right?”

Shifty swallowed hard, their stomach sinking. “Yeah, really cool. Uh, I’m gonna go help Stan find our formaldehyde. Watch Soos.”

“Why do you have so much formaldehyde?” Dipper asked.

“Taxidermy, duh,” Shifty said, speeding up to get to the office. Stan glanced up when he saw them, struggling with a large jar of chemicals.

“Mouser,” Stan grunted, setting the jar on the desk. “Gimme a hand with these–”

“Do our journal photocopies have the blacklight writing on them?” Shifty asked urgently.

“What are you–” Stan paused, and then sighed, realizing where Shifty was going with this. “...no. I checked.”

“Dammit,” Shifty muttered. “What if there’s extra instructions in the journal? What if there’s a better energy source? What if–”

“I know, I know,” Stan said, pinching his brow. “Yeah, we need that damn book back. But there’s no way to just ask for it without the kid getting suspicious. I only barely managed to keep them from a few other secrets. Almost took ‘em into the basement to seal out the zombies, but by the time I thought of it, we were already backed into a corner upstairs.”

“...are you alright, though?” Shifty asked, tentative. “You look…bad.”

Stan gave them a look.

“Worse than usual,” Shifty amended. “No offense.”

“Offense taken,” Stan cracked his knuckles. “And I’m great! No one permanently died, and I got to break out the ol’ brass knuckles. Really, this was a good night for me. Even the karaoke wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”

“Speaking of karaoke,” Shifty said. “I don’t suppose there’s any video that Mabel’s machine takes–”

“Nope.”

“Dammit,” Shifty said again, and then paused. “As for…as for the journal, what if we asked for it? And told him why we wanted it?”

Stan froze, staring at Shifty as if they were speaking a different language. “...is that a joke? It’s a terrible one.”

“I mean it,” Shifty said, half surprised with their own proposition. “I mean, they’re going to find out eventually, right? And sooner than we thought. Maybe we can come out ahead of it. Maybe we can tell them about all of it. About him, about you, about me.”

“What,” Stan said. “Tell them that my name isn’t actually Stanford, the real Stanford fell through a portal, and you can turn into a dog sometimes?”

“Yeah, Stan, say exactly that,” Shifty rolled their eyes. “Be serious. Think about it. Maybe they know something we don’t. They knew about the journal, and we had no idea they even had it. Dipper probably cracked all the codes already.”

Stan paused, suddenly looking thoughtful. He drummed his fingers on the jar of formaldehyde, deep in thought. He glanced down at the floorboards, creaky and ill-suited to hide a lifetime's worth of secret beneath them.

“...no,” Stan said quietly. “It’s too dangerous.”

“What?” Shifty scoffed. “You can’t just veto it. I have a stake in this too. We can just tell them not to go down there.”

“If we tell those kids about what’s downstairs,” Stan said. “They’re gonna move heaven and earth to see it for themselves. No matter what we tell them. No matter how dangerous we say it is. And then it’s only a matter of time before something terrible happens. I almost–”

Stan’s face did something strange, and he looked away quickly. “...came closer to losing them tonight than I’d like to admit, Mouser,” he said, voice quiet. “I wanna avoid that feeling again.”

Suddenly, he looked so very old, like the slow and murderous crawl of thirty years had caught up to him all at once without Shifty noticing. They wondered, not for the first time, what Stanford looked like now. When they tried to imagine it, they just saw Stan with an extra finger. It scared them a little, being unable to imagine him. Some days they struggled to remember his scent.

“...okay,” Shifty said, a little reluctant, but they knew how to pick their battles. And the idea of the portal coming alive with blinding light when neither Stan or Shifty was there to stop it didn’t exactly feel good either. “Okay, fine.”

“...but,” Stan said, hesitant. “If you…want to tell them about yourself, I won’t stop you.”

Shifty blinked. “Wait, really?”

Stan shrugged. “Ain’t my secret to tell. Just…lemme know if you’re gonna. I gotta know what to say to leave Ford out of it.”

Shifty said nothing. There had never really been anyone they had ever considered revealing their true nature to. Soos and Wendy would have been their only other options, but they never really considered it seriously. Maybe it was the confirmation that Soos and Wendy had already seen the strangeness, and had more or less made their peace with it. Hell, Soos was undead. Surely that was more terrifying than Shifty’s identity. The thought of coming clean was equal parts terrifying and enticing. It felt a lot less lonely.

“You gonna do it?” Stan asked.

Shifty hummed. “I…I’ll think about it. And, um. I got the notes for the facility. Staked it out for a while as a groundhog. No one even looked at me. There’s a lot of weak points we could break through, and I got a good look at a few of the workers, too.”

Stan nodded once, stiff and vaguely worried. “Help me get this jar out to the kitchen. I’d rather fix him now than have to explain to his abuelita why he’s green and hungry for brains.”

“Soos!” Shifty heard Mabel say. “Stop trying to eat the chairs!”

“Sorry dog, I gotta bite something.”

Chapter Text

There were no clocks in the prison that Shifty had been placed in, but they had been measuring time in food.

Whenever they got hungry, they would eat one of the countless cans of beans down there, originally stashed in case of a world-ending disaster, but now the only thing on the menu. It got tedious fast, but it was better than starvation.

Whenever they peeled open a can, they would carve a tally mark on the wall. Stanford had shown them how to make tally marks some time ago, as a simple means of counting, and Shifty had taken to it easily. They were good with numbers. Numbers were so much easier than letters, but they were still decent enough with the latter.

So far, they had thirty cans marked on the walls.

They had no idea what that equated in real time. Probably a lot. It felt like a lot.

Stanford had not returned. He had promised he would, with a sort of feverish look in his eyes, one of them red and crusting with blood on the lower lid. Shifty hadn’t liked this plan, hadn’t liked the idea of being left here, but if Stanford said he would be back soon, he would. He had never lied to them before.

They grabbed another can of beans, bored and hungry enough to deal with the blandness of the food. Stanford had been in such a rush to get them here that he forgot nearly all their toys and books, and the ones he did bring were not Shifty’s favorites by any means. And even if they were, it wasn’t like they wouldn't be long bored with them by now.

Shifty carefully lined up the wheels of the can opener against the top of the can of beans, exactly like Stanford had shown them. They began twisting the knob, methodically and slowly, unimpressed by the smell of the beans wafting out of the can. But then the knob spun uselessly.

Shifty tsked, annoyed, realigning the can and wheels, starting to slice through it again. But the wheels stopped suddenly, grinding on some imperfection in the metal, caught and unable to push further.

Shifty grunted, irritated, and adjusted their grip to push down on the knob, leaning their weight on the can opener in a folly attempt to outclass it.

Quickly, they realized it was a mistake.

The can opener almost immediately snapped in half, the bottom wheel breaking apart and jerking forward as the whole contraption crunched.

Instantly, pain laced up Shifty’s left hand, and they squealed before they could stop themselves, dropping the beans and can opener and scrambling back, clutching their hand close to their chest. With shaking breath, they check the injury. A long gash stretched across their palm, sticky green blood welling up along the soft white flesh.

“Stanford!” They called on reflex, panicked, but no one came.

Still holding their hand close to their chest, they crept back to the can opener.

The metal wheels were broken and bent, utterly unusable.

Shifty felt their heart twist in fear. The can was leaking juice, and they immediately tried to peel the rest of the top off with shaking fingers, ignoring the pain. When that didn’t work, they tried to gnaw off the top, or squeeze the can in their good hand. But nothing worked. The best they could manage was slurping out a couple beans through the slit they had already made, but even that cut their tongue.

“Stanford,” Shifty said, suddenly terrified. Weeks of isolation suddenly hit like a truck, and they stumbled to the entrance of the bunker. They had seen the code to enter, but not the code to exit, distracted by this strange new place that they had no idea was their new home until it was too late. “Stanford, Stanford, Stanford!”

They found themselves pounding on the doors, metal echoing through the halls endlessly, bouncing alongside their desperate pleas, disorienting and terrifying. “Stanford!” They pleaded, still half-expecting him to appear at their call, even after all this time. “Stanford, Stanford, Stanford!”

No one ever came.

“Where’d you figure out how to do this?” Shifty asked, cutting holes in a plastic soda bottle.

“Dipper had a bird-watching phase a few years back,” Mabel said, cutting up her own bottle. “And we pooled our money to get a birdfeeder, but we only had enough for seed, so we cut up soda bottles to make the feeders. It worked well enough that we never really bothered with getting a real one.”

“Smart,” Shifty nodded. “Bird-watching phase, huh? That fits for him.”

Mabel giggled. “He still knows, like, all the birds.”

“Hey, watch it!” Stan called out to construction workers, trying to prop up the totem pole that had been knocked over by zombies a few days prior. Shifty sighed, already mourning the fancy furniture they would have to go without now, in order to pay the workers. “That’s getting charged directly to you if that gets damaged! Mouser, you wanna maybe do your damn job and help me out?”

“Bad word!” Mabel said.

“Um,” Shifty said, focusing on cutting into plastic. “No, not really. I’m actually getting really into this bird thing.”

“Yeah, this is important too!” Mabel said.

“We’ve repaired most of the damage,” a foreman said, approaching Stan with a clipboard and a bored expression. “What exactly caused all this?”

“Um,” Stan said. “Big woodpecker.”

The foreman blinked. “And you’re…” he glanced at their handmade bird feeders and scattered seeds. “And you want more birds?”

“Clearly these are for normal-sized woodpeckers,” Shifty said.

The foreman frowned.

Stan sighed, long suffered, producing a wad of bills from somewhere. He was only in his boxers and wifebeater–Shifty didn’t want to think about where he was hiding the cash. He stuck it in the pockets of the foreman before the latter could protest. “Keep the change.”

The foreman frowned, and then shrugged, walking away to continue working.

“Smooth,” Shifty said, and Stan fixed him with a near murderous glare.

“Mabel!” Dipper burst out of the house, stuffing the journal into his vest. “Let’s-”

He paused when he saw Stan and Shifty, suddenly trying to look nonchalant. “Oh, um. Hey, Grunkle Stan. Hey, Remy.”

“Hey, Dipper,” Shifty said, pointing to a small brown bird at the edge of a treeline. “What bird is that?”

“White-crowned sparrow,” Dipper said, in a tone that sounded as though asking for a bird name activated some kind of sleeper agent protocol. He blinked, turning slightly red. “I-I mean, I dunno.”

Mabel snickered.

Stan frowned. “What’s got you running out here in such a hurry?”

“Oh, um,” Dipper shrugged. “Nothing. Mabel, Soos, Wendy and I are just…you know. Exploring.”

“Exploring anything in particular?” Shifty asked. “Seeing as you have the journal and all.”

“Oh, uh,” Dipper shrugged. “It’s, you know. Just precaution.”

“I told you two not to go looking for trouble,” Stan warned.

“We’re not!” Mabel said. “Trouble just keeps finding us.”

“Yeah, the zombies were just a coincidence, I’m sure,” Shifty said.

Dipper turned even more red. “I said I was sorry.”

“But seriously, we’re fine!” Mabel said. “Soos is gonna be there, so is Wendy, so it’s not like we’re going out alone!”

“What exactly are you planning to explore?” Stan asked.

The kids glanced at each other, having some kind of silent conversation. Finally, Dipper spoke up. “...gnomes.”

“...gnomes?” Shifty asked.

“Yeah, yeah, uh,” Dipper said, and then decided he had enough of this. He grabbed Mabel’s arm, tugging her off the porch and into the woods. “Okay bye, see you later!”

“I-” Stan started, but they were already theoretically out of earshot, though Shifty had no doubts that they would feign deafness. “Damn kids.”

“Yeah,” Shifty said, standing up. “I feel bad for whatever monster they’re gonna poke with sticks.”

“Thought any more about telling them?” Stan asked. “About…you know.” He gestured vaguely.

“Oh?” Shifty asked. “The–” they mimicked Stan’s movements, and Stan scowled.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Stan grumbled.

“Whatever,” Shifty rolled their eyes. “And uh. I…yeah. I think I might do it. If they react badly, I’ll just go live in the woods until they leave.”

They smiled, the idea making their stomach churn. Stan shook his head. “It ain’t gonna come to that, you know that. They might need a little time to come to terms with it, sure, but they’re not gonna hate you.”

“God, I hope not,” Shifty sighed, scratching absently at the scar on their palm, once again grateful that they managed not to get any nerve damage from the injury. The flesh was raised, like it always was, a clear line from where the can opener had slashed them, like a splash of ice water to the face to wake them up, to let them know that the time for waiting was over, and that if they didn’t save themselves, no one would. They tried not to be angry at Stanford. Most days they were successful.

“So,” Stan said. “You’re going after them, right? Because they’re definitely going to get in trouble.”

“Yeah, okay,” Shifty said, stretching. “Maybe I can snatch the journal off of Dipper, check it and make sure that we didn’t miss anything.”

“Yeah,” Stan scoffed. “That kid’s not giving that journal up for anything. Good luck with that.”

The group was easy enough to follow at a distance, especially in the shape of something as unassuming as a deer. They would have preferred a bear, but they had a feeling that might raise some alarm.

Shifty could have tracked them even without their scent, following signs as subtle as a broken branch, to as obvious as a half-full bag of gummy koalas, no doubt placed strategically so Mabel could retrieve it later. Shifty ate a few–Mabel had put them onto them, and they had to admit they were delicious.

They paused, sudden and stiff, when they realized where they were in the forest.

They had been here not long ago, right before Gideon had smashed a wrecking ball through the house and destroyed most of their comics. This was the place where they had found the metal hole in the earth, with only the ghost of the journal’s scent, alongside with something else stranger in the wind. They weren’t sure if it was Gideon or Dipper who discovered it here, but it hardly mattered. Especially now that they had access to all of them anyway.

They really didn’t have much interest in the other scent, either. It wasn’t like it could help them. Ash, metal, and rot rarely did.

The tree didn’t look quite so innocent anymore, however. Now, a pit had opened up around it, with wooden stairs leading around the false trunk in a spiral, stretching deep into some dark chasm below. Shifty peered inside, curious and confused for one beautiful moment, before the scent hit them like a bullet.

Dust. Dirt. Mice, blood, and the hint of canned legumes.

They scrambled back from the pit with a shriek of fear so potent and loud that they were amazed when they didn’t attract anything. They morphed into Remy before they even really knew what they were doing, hand clapped over their mouth in horror. They were shaking, breath coming out in sharp gasps, unable to cover their terror.

“No,” they whispered. “Oh god, no no, please. Please, no. Anywhere but here. Anything but this.”

The pit did not reply. Only that wasn’t quite accurate–it wasn’t a pit, it was merely an entrance to hell. The setting of almost all their nightmares: the bunker.

“Oh god,” Shifty said, peering into the void of light, the bunker. “Oh god.”

The bunker did not reply, but Shifty thought they could feel it laughing at them.

They couldn’t leave them down there. They knew better than anyone–probably even Stanford–how easy it was to get turned around down there. They hadn’t realized that Stanford had even written about the bunker in the third journal. And they didn’t know if he had included the code to exit. Shifty wouldn’t put it past those four–especially Dipper-to enter with only the way in, and trust themselves to figure a way out as they went along.

“Oh god,” Shifty said, a feeling of dread in their stomach unlike any other. “Oh god.”

It was exactly as they remembered it.

The cryo tubes lined the walls, dusty from decades of disuse. The fluorescent lights flickered, sickly and weak, but somehow still chugging. The pipes and valves lining the walls were rusty and groaning already, the sound making Shifty’s teeth hurt. And of course, empty cans of beans littered the ground, a couple filled with the dried up corpses of bugs, or the bones of rodents.

It was like they never left.

The four interlopers were ahead of Shifty, apparently already exploring the bunker. Shifty needed to figure out a way to lure them out, and pray that the journal included the code to the way out. If not, they weren't sure what else they would do. They figured they would panic at that bridge when it came time.

But they didn’t find themselves trailing after a scent. Instead, they started walking deeper into the bunker, muscle memory guiding them down the winding dirt halls. They could see the tunnels they had dug into the walls, their fruitless attempts to escape before something finally stuck. Before they finally emerged, freezing and half-starved already, convinced they were going to see Stanford again.

They paused at a room tucked into a corner, oddly positioned as though hidden, and opened the door.

Inside was a mass of plush, thick blankets, arranged in a sort of nest that had once been their preferred way to sleep. Toys and books were scattered across the floor, a few stained with the remnants of bean juice. On the wall directly behind the blanket next, dozens of tally marks were scratched into the wall. And the broken can opener was pushed into the corner. They couldn’t remember what they did with the half-opened can of beans. They probably threw it at a wall in frustration.

Slowly and carefully, they knelt by the blankets, rearranging them with shaking hands. They paused when they saw a tuft of brown fur, and their heart twisted. They reached forward, carefully extracting a stuffed rabbit, button eyes staring and stitched mouth smiling.

“Oh,” Shifty said, gently stroking the fur. It felt soft, untouched by time and elements, waiting faithfully for their return. “Oh, oh no. I didn’t…I didn’t mean to leave you down here.”

The dread turned to something like grief, so abrupt and out of the blue that Shifty nearly gasped, holding the rabbit tightly to their chest, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, riding out the pain. They pressed the toy against the face, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. It smelled like the earth itself, like it had twisted its way into the very soul of the rabbit over thirty years. Maybe it had.

“God,” they whispered. “Oh god.”

They heard footsteps down the hall, and voices. Shifty stood up straight, startled, stumbling out of the room and trying to find anywhere else to be. The halls echoed, making it difficult to pinpoint where the voices were coming from, and they were far too disoriented to make sense of any scents besides that of the overwhelming earth.

They saw a shadow pass over the corner, and they turned into the first thing they could think of.

Wendy and Dipper rounded the corner, and yelped in surprise. “Oh my god!” Dipper yelped, half-stumbling back, and Wendy clenched her fists, immediately ready for a fight.

Shifty froze, and for one terrible, eternal, itching second, everything was completely still. And then they had to perform.

“What in blazes are you doing here?!” Shifty demanded, their voice an uncomfortable meld of Stanford’s and Stan’s. “This place is meant to be sealed off! You’re not permitted in here!”

They weren’t completely sure who this character was. They never were when they pulled schemes like it. It was easier to let the other person make an assumption and then confirm whatever they believed. It made their disguise all the more easy to swallow.

They expected to be pegged as a particularly determined squatter. The disguise they had chosen–the mascot of the bean cans stashed away and around the bunker, out of sight enough not to draw attention–certainly looked like an old kook who had maybe had a little too much to drink, smoke, or snort.

But Dipper’s eyes widened, and he grinned like Christmas had come early.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, and Shifty got a sinking feeling in their chest. “Are you…are you him?”

“Am I what?” Shifty asked, confused enough to be thrown off their game.

“Dude,” Wendy said. “It’s gotta be!”

“What are-” Shifty started, and froze when Dipper retrieved the journal from his vest, holding it up like it was the secret to life’s greatest mysteries.

“Does this look familiar?” Dipper asked, hope in his voice.

Oh my god. Why does this keep happening?

Shifty couldn’t help being impressed with their own acting.

They feigned surprise–not too much, just enough–and leaned in close with a slight squint. “By god,” they muttered. “My journal. How the devil did you come across this?”

Apparently, mimicking Stanford’s speech patterns was more than convincing. Dipper and Wendy split into grins. “He’s the guy!” Dipper whisper-squealed. “He’s the guy!”

“The guy?” Shifty asked.

“The author!” Dipper said, practically shaking from excitement. “You-we-oh my god-questions–” he gagged. “I’m gonna throw up.”

“Oh, uh,” Shifty reached out, and then stopped themselves. “Well, don’t do that?”

Wendy frowned. “Dude, you good?”

“I’m good!” Dipper coughed. “Sorry, um, I’m Dipper, and this is Wendy! I-I just…I have so many questions!”

“I had no idea anyone had found my journals,” Shifty said, rubbing their false pointed chin. “I’ve been down here for years…is ska music still a thing? That always seemed a bit misguided to me.”

“Why did you come here?” Dipper asked. “What’s the deal with the tunnels and tubes? What is this place?”

“All good questions,” Shifty nodded. “And all will be answered in good time. May I see my journal? It’s been so long I struggle to remember the way out.”

“Oh, sure!” Dipper said easily, and Shifty resisted the temptation to celebrate when he handed it over with no fuss. “Wouldn’t want to get trapped down here.”

“You would not,” Shifty agreed, struggling to keep their voice steady. “And, ah, damn it all. I would need a black light of some kind-”

“Guess what this guy always carries around!” Wendy whooped, elbowing Dipper, and Dipper offered his blacklight with a sheepish smile.

“My word!” Shifty said, doing a good job of pretending to be impressed. “How did you discover this?”

“It’s a long story,” Dipper said. “But now you have everything!”

“Indeed, I do,” Shifty said, unable to believe how well this was going. “Come, I ought to lead you out. This is no place for children.”

“This is crazy,” Dipper said, overjoyed as Shifty led them through the tunnels. “This is…this is crazy! All this time, you’ve been right under us! Why did you come down here? What were you studying?”

“Oh, you know,” Shifty said, flipping frantically through the journal, squinting at it with the blacklight. Portal instructions be damned, if they didn't get everyone out of this hellhole in the next ten minutes, they were going to chew their way out. “This, that, and such. Where are the others?”

“Others?” Wendy asked, in a strange tone.

Shifty glanced back at them. Dipper was still looking at them like they hung the moon, but Wendy suddenly looked uncertain. “How did you know there were other people down here?” She asked.

“Oh, ah,” Shifty said, trying to look nonchalant. “I heard other voices speaking, echoes and the like. I believe it was a young girl and man?”

“Right,” Dipper nodded, apparently accepting this logic. And maybe accepting it too easily. “That makes sense. Mabel and Soos must have followed us.”

“Yes, yes,” Shifty said. “Where did you see them last? I’d prefer if you all left together.”

“Yeah?” Wendy said, abruptly reaching out and grabbing Dipper by the back of his vest when he tried to follow Shifty. He gave her an annoyed look, and then paused when he saw her expression.

Shifty paused, suddenly tense and nervous. The claustrophobia was making them jumpy. “Is something the matter?”

“N-no!” Dipper immediately said. “Just…wow, we’ve sure been walking for a while, huh?”

“Not really,” Shifty said.

“...what made these holes, Mr. Author?” Wendy asked, glancing at the holes in the walls.

“...mole people,” Shifty said, and then realized they had hesitated a second too long. “They’re down here. Sometimes.”

Dipper and Wendy stared at him. Dipper looked anxious, but Wendy scowled, tense and ready for a fight all over again, one hand behind her back. Shifty wondered if she had a gun, scolded themselves for such a silly worry, and then remembered her father was Manly Dan. It was a possibility.

“Right,” Shifty said, turning around and starting to hurry down the tunnels. “Quickly now. I’m sure it’s a wonderful day outside. Come come, we can find this Mabel and Soos you speak of-”

They heard a choked gasp behind them, and glanced back.

Wendy was clutching an empty bean can, eyes wide, and Dipper was looking at the label, an expression of horror dawning on his face. Both of them were looking at Shifty like they were holding a bloody knife. Shifty knew exactly what they were looking at–the bean mascot on the cans. Their disguise, clearly not the author. Only a liar.

“...what have you got there?” Shifty asked, half-hoping they could play dumb enough to get out of this.

Wendy dropped the can instantly, and Dipper smiled nervously. “H-hey, Mr. Author, can I see the journal real quick? T-there’s something I wanna check.”

He took a brave step forward, and Shifty’s grip on the journal tightened.

“...I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Shifty said, realizing less than a second later that they had said that in a much more ominous way than they meant.

“Who are you?!” Wendy demanded, instantly on guard. “What are you doing here?!”

“I’m the author of the-”

“No, you’re not,” Dipper said, realization dawning on his face. “I-I read about you! In the journal! You’re a shapeshifter!”

“I’m in the journal?” Shifty asked, surprised. They had barely read journal three. They hadn’t even finished decoding the second.

“Give him back the journal,” Wendy ordered, her face deadly serious. “Now.”

Shifty gritted their teeth, cursing themselves for choosing such a poor disguise out of panic. But it was too late to turn back now.

“Give us the journal,” Wendy ordered.

Shifty scowled, taking a step back. “No.”

They needed this damn book. More than Dipper and Wendy could ever know. And now that their author disguise had been ruined even quicker than it had been for Gideon, they needed to switch tactics.

They hadn’t meant to scare Gideon, not really. It had been a break in their composure, and nothing more. That monster, the one that the journals might have implied them to be (purely by accident, Stanford would never say terrible things about them, surely) was not them. They refused to allow it to be.

But they didn’t mean it couldn’t be useful.

Shifty tried to quell the sick feeling in their stomach. “You think I’ll just give it to you?” They demanded, letting their teeth grow sharper, the edges of the disguise’s face muddling into something not quite human. “After all this time?”

Wendy immediately stepped back, alarmed, but Dipper stood dead still, unwilling to back down just yet. “Why did he put you here?!” He demanded. “What did you do? What did you do to him?!”

“Nothing the fool hadn’t already done to himself,” Shifty snarled, which was true. They were startled by the spike of real anger that came with the memories of being left down here, but immediately swallowed it down. They couldn’t allow anything to distract them from the mission. They just needed to scare them back to an exit. They could let them out, they just needed to figure out how to do so.

“You don’t have any idea of the things you’re messing with,” Shifty said, and Dipper blanched. “Monsters beyond your wildest dreams, beings that can bend the world to their wishes, I’m hardly the worst that you’ll-OW!”

Wendy had apparently not been looking for an exit. She had found a scrap of sheet metal, and threw it like a frisbee at Shifty’s face. It struck, and Shifty reeled back, clutching their face and dropping the journal.

“What the fuck!” Shifty spat before they could stop themselves. They made a mental note to tell Stan to dock Wendy’s pay.

“RUN!” Dipper shouted, and Shifty realized he had snatched the journal, and the two were sprinting through the tunnels.

“NO!” Shifty shouted, immediately turning into a giant digging beetle they had seen in a different journal. They curled into a ball, forgoing legs to roll after the two, pursuing the beam of their flashlight. They veered right at a crossroads, chasing after the light beam, pausing when they suddenly came to a dead end.

The flashlight flickered weakly, completely abandoned at the bottom of a tunnel. Dipper must have tossed it as a distraction. Smart, they had to give him that.

Frustration, and maybe anger, rippled under Shifty’s skin.

They needed the journal. They needed to stop playing around. Whatever they did, however they scared the four, they could fix it later. Stanford was waiting on them, first and foremost. And it was time they stopped forgetting that he was the point of this. Not making friends.

“Dipper?” Shifty called out, crawling up from the tunnel, shaped like the man on the bean cans. The bunker was completely silent, and they were still far too overwhelmed to try sniffing them out, but that was fine. It was a finite space. No one was leaving unless they were all leaving. “Dipper, where are you? I need that journal. It has the way out of here, doesn’t it?”

No answer, and Shifty twitched. They felt loose, like their form might fall apart at any second. “I’ve been here,” Shifty breathed, slightly shaken. “For so long now.”

It felt true. Maybe it was true. Maybe some part of Shifty had remained in the ground for thirty years, trapped and starving, hunting vermin to survive with nothing but a stuffed rabbit for company.

Usually, the idea of the bunker made their chest ache. Now, the fear calcified into something else entirely. Anger, red and bright like hot coals, stirred in their chest, and they growled, animalistic and furious.

“THIRTY YEARS!” They shouted, their voice echoing down the halls. “IT’D BE THIRTY YEARS! THIRTY YEARS OF DIRT AND DARKNESS! THIRTY YEARS OF COMPLETE ISOLATION!”

The fury stretched, reaching out for something incomprehensible, something that Shifty had sworn never to say, because they knew they couldn’t un-say it.

“HE LEFT ME HERE!” They howled. “HE LEFT ME HERE WITH NOTHING BUT AN ORDER TO SIT STILL AND BE PATIENT! HE LEFT ME TO WITHER AND ROT! AFTER EVERYTHING, HE PUT ME HERE TO DIE!”

They turned into something big and terrible–they hardly cared what they looked like now–and slammed into the wall, unable to contain their anger. Dirt rained down from the ceiling.

“DIGGING TUNNELS TO NOWHERE, BEGGING GHOSTS TO LET ME OUT!” Shifty shrieked, and they no longer recognized their own voice. “HE TOOK THE SUN FROM ME! HE TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! AND FOR WHAT?! WHAT DID I DO?! WHAT DID I DO SO WRONG THAT HE IMPRISONED ME!”

They couldn’t possibly mean what they were saying. They refused to believe it, even as it exited their lips with too much rage to be faked. Because if they meant it, that meant the most important person in the world had abandoned them when they needed him most. And that was far too much to bear.

“I need to get out,” Shifty breathed, raspy, and desperate, the anger intermingling with age-old panic and claustrophobia. Sometimes it felt like they were born angry, or born scared. Now it just felt like both. “I need to get out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me OUT!”

“You wanna get out so bad?!” Dipper’s voice demanded, and Shifty whirled around. Dipper and Mabel stood together, a duo that refused to face the strange alone. Dipper looked frightened, but held up the journal anyway. “Come and get it!”

“Yeah!” Mabel said. “You two-faced freak!”

Shifty growled, contorting their body, eventually deciding on something classic.

A huge spider, legs bent to fit in the narrow tunnels, hissed at the twins, gnashing its mandible. Mabel and Dipper shrieked, taking off down the tunnels. Shifty scuttled after them, slightly regretting the choice of being a spider. It was hard to maneuver. At least it had gravitas.

They rounded a corner, and shrieked when they saw Wendy and Soos fiddling with one of the pipes. “Hurry, hurry!” Mabel said. “It’s coming!”

Of course it was a trap, and Shifty mentally scolded themselves for being too caught up to notice otherwise. They turned one of their legs into a long octopus tentacle, lashing out and wrapping around the journal. Dipper yelped, trying to tug it back, but he was no match for Shifty. “No!”

“HEY!” Wendy abandoned the pipes, reaching behind her back and retrieving not a gun, but a handheld ax that gleamed dangerously even in the dim light.

Shifty squealed in alarm, wrenching the journal out of Dipper’s arms and moving to flee, but then the pipes rumbled.

A stream of water comparable to a fire hose sprayed out of the rusted waterways, instantly knocking Shifty and Wendy off their feet and sending them tumbling blindly down the tunnels.

Shifty gasped, instantly changing from a spider into the first thing they could think of: Wendy. They struggled to swim in the current, gasping for air before they suddenly wondered if the tunnels would fill up, drowning them. But a moment later, the water cleared, leaving them sputtering on the ground.

The journal sat in front of them, soaked, but perfectly fine. They let out a breath of relief and stood up, only for Dipper to suddenly appear, throwing his arms around them.

“WENDY!” Dipper said, looking relieved. “Are you okay?! Are you-”

“I-I’m fine,” Shifty said in Wendy’s voice, suddenly uncomfortable. “Let me just get the-”

“DON’T TOUCH HIM!”

Another Wendy, this one looking far angrier, tackled Shifty, ripping them away from Dipper. “GET OFF ME!” Shifty shouted, wriggling away and snatching up the journal.

“Give that back!” Wendy ordered, grabbing the other side of the book and trying to wrench it away. Shifty held fast, unsure how to get rid of her without hurting her, still disoriented from the water.

“No way!” Shifty said, slipping in a puddle, barely blocking when Wendy tried to kick them. They had no idea she had such a proclivity for violence. “Dipper, help me out!”

“NO!” Wendy said. “That’s the shapeshifter!”

“How do I know who’s who?!” Dipper asked, looking panicked.

“You know it’s me!” Shifty said. “It has to be!”

They tried to catch Dipper’s eye, hoping that if they couldn’t convince him of their identity, maybe they could convince him of their sincerity. But when Dipper looked at Wendy, she nodded firmly, drawing a free hand across her mouth as though zipping her mouth up, and tossing away a key.

Dipper frowned at Shifty.

“ENOUGH OF THIS!” Shifty shouted, refocusing on the journal. They ripped it away from Wendy, sending her sprawling to the ground with a gasp. They whirled around, panicked and more than desperate. “I’M LEAVING, AND YOU CAN’T-”

THWACK!

Something struck Shifty in the chest, and when they blinked, they were suddenly several feet away from Dipper and Wendy, as though they had stumbled without even realizing it. It was hard to breathe, hard to stand, and Wendy and Dipper were staring at them with shocked expressions. Soos and Mabel were there too, and though Shifty wasn’t sure when they arrived, they were also looking at Shifty in shock.

“Wha-” Shifty tried to say, but the words got stuck in their throat. Their chest felt heavy. They looked down.

Wendy’s ax was buried in their chest, leaking green blood.

“Oh,” Shifty said, their voice high and confused. “Who…?”

They looked up, and locked eyes with Dipper. Neither of them said a word, but they knew what happened.

Shifty reached up with arms that felt like they had been weighed down with a lead, and pulled the ax out in one sharp pull. When the wound immediately started gushing, they remembered they weren’t supposed to do that.

Their vision went white, and when they could see and hear again, it must have only been a couple of seconds later, because they were on their knees now, their shape vaguely humanoid, pulsing, and sagging like it was melting. At least they had managed not to default to their true form. Even now, they wanted that as a secret.

The four were standing around them, still staring with expression of horror and fear. Dipper snatched the ax off the ground, shaking, but determined. “You can’t…” he swallowed hard, but continued. “You can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Shifty opened their mouth, not because they had anything to say, but because their mouth was filling up with drool for some reason. Only it wasn’t drool. Thick, half-congealed blood poured out of their mouth, plopping onto the ground unceremoniously.

“Yeugh,” Mabel said.

“You…” Shifty tried to say, swaying. They didn’t feel much pain, which they supposed was good. Just a feeling like they were floating out of their body, confused and fighting to keep their eyes open. Even so, they fluttered. “You…?”

Dipper was clutching the ax in white-knuckled hands, the blade dripping green. His face was slightly ashen, and staring at Shifty with open fear, but also a determination they had never seen before. A zeal to protect his sister and friends from the things in this town that would hurt them.

It was an impressive shift from the kid who got nervous at the shadows in the house at the beginning of the summer. But it meant that now, Shifty was one of those things that needed to be warded off, that Dipper needed to protect the people he cared about against.

“I can’t…” Shifty said, abruptly terrified. “I can’t die here.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you attacked us,” Wendy snapped.

“Dudes, we gotta here out of here-” Soos started.

“NO!” Shifty shrieked, trying to stand, only to end up sprawled on the floor ungracefully, trying to crawl away. “N-no, you can’t-you can’t, you can’t leave me here, j-just-!”

They hissed at a sharp pain in their chest, the wound still gushing like an opened dam. “Don’t, don’t, don’t-”

“Let’s get out of here!” Mabel said, grabbing Dipper’s arm. “We gotta lock the door behind us-!”

“No,” Shifty said, gasping in a half-sob. “No, no no, no please, you–”

They had one last card to play.

“I know who the author is,” they managed to say.

Dipper froze.

“Dude, no way,” Wendy shook her head. “He’s just stalling.”

“I know, I know who,” Shifty said. “I can tell you. I can show you even, just don’t-!”

They shook their head. “I-I can’t, I can’t be here, I can’t stay here, not again, not again–”

“Okay, fine,” Dipper said, suspicious. “Who wrote the journals?”

“St-” Shifty started, and then paused.

They were all staring at them, tense and afraid. This secret would buy them minutes, only a handful, and then they would leave. Shifty was a monster, after all. They couldn’t release a monster on the world. And they could tell them the truth. They could tell them that they knew them as Remy Wagner, that Stan wasn’t really Stan as they knew him, and there was something in the basement. But none of that changed the facts. And the facts were this: Remy Wagner was a liar, and more importantly, a monster.

And monsters needed to be locked away.

And they were probably right, but Shifty was too much of a coward to take the high road.

They muttered something, and coughed weakly. The cough was real. More blood spurted from their mouth.

“What?” Dipper asked, stepping forward.

Shifty tensed, and Wendy’s eyes widened, realizing what was about to happen. “DIPPER-!”

Shifty grabbed Dipper, and nearly grabbed the journal. But taking it meant taking their only means of escape. And Shifty was a monster, sure, but they were the only one who deserved to be there.

They would need to take the hard way out.

They threw Dipper back towards the others, and fled in the opposite direction.

They heard Dipper yelp in surprise, and quickly assure the others that he was fine. “Stop it!” Wendy shouted after Shifty. “It’s getting away!”

Shifty scrambled through the halls, shifting through almost every disguise they had, trying to keep themselves from collapsing into their true form. Their chest hurt now, and they tried to ignore the pain the best they could. But it was rapidly becoming unavoidable.

They could hear the others catching up with them. They could feel themselves falling apart. They were without a key, without a way out, but they were bigger than they were when they were young. And maybe that meant they could scrabble and scrounge more easily.

There was a patch of soft dirt above the cryo chamber that Shifty had stared at, and when they stretched out to dig at it, it gave more easily than the rest of the tunnels they had tried digging-

-Shifty shook off the memory, dizzy and fighting to stay aware. They heard shouting, and they imagined an ax hitting them again, and made their decision, diving into one of the holes they had given up on, changing their hands into claws to better dig, and the transition hurt. Everything hurt, the dirt rubbing against their skin, the din of the others chasing him, the hole in their chest-

-they were digging, and when they managed to wriggle into the hole they had made, they had to fight to stay upright, because the dirt pushed them down, down, down all over again, and they were choking on it, and everytime they paused to try to gather their strength there was a risk they would fall once more-

-“It’s digging out!” Mabel said, alarmed, and Shifty dug faster, hearing them approach. They saw the glint of an axe, and snapped at Wendy before they disappeared into their hole, encased in the earth once more and fighting to escape it. They were stronger, and the hard packed dirt wasn’t nearly the issue was it was when they were little, but everything hurt so much and they were so tired-

-“Stanford,” they said, and they received a mouthful of soil for daring to speak-

-scratching their way through the crust of the earth, half-mad with fear, and the taste of the dirt was so familiar. It was like they were already home. They had never left this place, not in any meaningful way. They were always buried alive, always digging like a grave worm, stuck between dead and dying and unable to release-

-they did not say his name. They had no breath to speak it. But they repeated it in their mind, on a loop, endless until it lost all meaning. It was not a name anymore, now it was a mantra that ordered them to place one claw in front of the other. Ignore the pain-

-ignore the pain-

-ignore the cold-

-ignore the cold-

-because nothing in the world-

-because nothing in the world-

-is as important as-

-is as important as-

-getting-

-out.

Like an unquiet corpse in a grave, a hand, soaked with a liquid that was close enough to be called blood, burst from the summer earth, shaking in the warm air and clawing the air for some kind of purchase. It found none.

Nevertheless, it persisted.

The hand was not human, though it was once badly cut across the palm, scarred over by now. The blood it was soaked with was not scarlet. Rather, it was a green color rarely found in nature, thick and heavy like honey. The hand was pulsating, not quite leathery but close enough to be uncomfortable, and the color of a drowned corpse. Or a well-fed maggot.

For that matter, much of the escapee was maggot-like. It pulled itself from the ground, already shivering, an uneven body proportioned with fleshy fly-like eyes and mismatched arms, unbalanced and half-frozen. Teeth, paired with mandibles, gnashed, chattering in the air, ignoring the peaceful insects that had come to investigate. Its chest was badly injured, a gaping wound still gushing green and covered in dirt.

It hissed something, still unable to speak with soil in its throat, blinking in the sun. It’s voice was an amalgamation of several, unwilling to try it’s own just yet, scared of what it might hear. The words it said, regardless, were clear.

“Out.”

Shifty lost strength the second they were completely out of the ground, heaving and bleeding, feeling oddly naked in their true form.

And then they started laughing.

Because at the end of the day, it was funny. It was funny that they ventured into hell, knowing what horrors awaited them, and were still found by something completely new. It was funny that Dipper had been the one to take an ax to them, scared enough to protect the people he loved with violence, like he had been infected with whatever brutality that Shifty contained just by being near them. It was funny that their stuffed rabbit was still down there, and they felt the strange urge to mourn it.

They laughed, and laughed, and laughed, ignoring the pain in their chest until it was too much to bear and their laughter abruptly turned into harsh, hacking sobs, curled up in the leaf litter and unable to move. They weren’t crying for long, at least.

And then suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

The world tilted even though they were already lying down, and before their eyes rolled back into their head, Shifty found themselves grateful that they could at least die under the sun.

When they woke up, it was dark, and someone was calling their name.

Everything hurt–their head, their heart, their entire body from lying down in the dirt for hours, but most of all, there was an ache deep inside their chest. They wanted to reach inside, tear it out through the wound that was sluggishly oozing.

“MOUSER!” They heard, and saw a bobbing flashlight beam. “MOUSER, DAMMIT, WHERE ARE YOU!?”

They winced, and immediately forced themselves back into Remy Wagner.

It was a mistake. Instantly, their wound began bleeding freely again, and everything ratched up several notches in terms of the pain. Shifty made a terrible, broken cry of pain, and the flashlight beam turned onto them.

“FUCK!” Stan said, and Shifty squinted when the beam got closer. “Fuck, oh god, Mouser, fucking hell…what the fuck happened to you?”

“Ax,” Shifty managed to say, their voice cracked and dry.

“Fuck, okay,” Stan said, and Shifty couldn’t remember the last time they saw him so afraid. “Okay, kid, we gotta get you up–I know,” Stan said when Shifty winced, already anticipating the pain. “I know, it’s gonna suck bad, but you’ll be fine, right? You’re tough.”

Stan grabbed one of Shifty’s hands and winced. “God, your hands are like ice.”

Shifty mumbled something that even they weren’t sure of, and Stan sighed, leaning down and throwing Shifty’s arm around his neck. “On one, okay? One-”

Shifty stiffened. “Wait-”

But it was too late. Stan hauled them up, and a new wave of pain so sharp and so sudden swept them up entirely, whiting out the world so there was nothing but the knife in their chest, digging in deeper and deeper.

“-good?! Kid, you with me?!” They heard Stan ask, and they blinked, slumped against him, head tilted to the ground and green dripping out of their mouth. It tasted bitter. “Kid, you gotta give me a hand, you’re heavy as shit.”

“...think I’m dying,” Shifty said, their voice sounding faraway.

“You ain’t dying,” Stan said firmly. “You just–you just got a bit knocked around, nothing you can’t handle. You’re gonna be fine, but you gotta…fuck, Mouser, come on, you gotta work with me here.”

“I-I-” Shifty gagged, coughing up more blood.

“Stop that,” Stan said, and Shifty couldn’t see his face, but he sounded panicked. “Stop that, you’re fine, it’s gonna be fine. Stand up, goddammit!”

“Tell Stanford,” Shifty said. “Tell Stanford.”

They had no idea what they wanted Stan to tell Stanford, but they heard Stan huff in exertion. “I’m not telling him shit,” he said. “You tell him yourself, dammit, stand up! C’mon, kid, c’mon!”

Shifty opened their mouth to say something else, but all that came out was a vague, choked noise. They went from half-standing to all-falling, nearly taking Stan down with them.

“MOUSER!” Stan shouted. “Fuck, don’t you dare fucking pass out!”

“Tell Stanford,” Shifty mumbled again, and everything went dark.

The door closed, and Shifty took in the surroundings with discomfort.

Stanford had described it as a bunker, and when Shifty asked what a bunker was, he had said it was a place to go to be safe and protected. It didn’t seem very safe to Shifty. It looked lonely, dirty, and cold, and they hugged the blanket around themselves a little tighter.

“There,” Stanford said, the dark circles under his eyes so deep they looked painful. His hands were wrapped in bandages, and he wouldn’t let Shifty see the wounds. “All…all safe now!”

Shifty made a questioning noise, tugging at Stanford to be picked up. They were bigger now–they had mismatched arms and two pairs of legs, their face growing longer and more pointed by the day. But they were still small enough to be picked up and held, and they decided they were done growing if it meant Stanford couldn’t sweep them up.

Not that he could do it so easily now, though. In the time since Fiddleford had left and not come back, Stanford had deteriorated rapidly, unwashed, half-mad, and refusing to sleep even in the dead of night, working until he physically collapsed. Shifty would hide when he did, until he was acting like himself again.

But now, Stanford bent down, and after a moment of struggle, managed to pick Shifty up. Shifty wrapped their arms loosely around his neck, burying their face in his shoulder and breathing his scent in, deep and long. Lemons, there were always lemons.

“Here we are!” Stanford said, in a voice that sounded like it was forcing itself to be positive. “Look, Shifty, isn’t this nice?”

Shifty glanced around, and saw that several soft blankets had been laid out for them. A tiny shelf, filled with toys and books, sat in the corner, looking out of place with the dirt and dark in the bunker. “This is your room,” Stanford said, setting Shifty down on the ground. “Obviously, you have the run of the whole bunker–I’ve disabled anything that might hurt you–but I think you’ll like it here best. See? I even have your rabbit.”

He retrieved a stuffed rabbit from within the blankets, making it hop a couple of times before handing it to Shifty. Shifty said nothing, deeply nervous. “Do you still remember how to use the can opener?” Stanford asked.

“...yes,” Shifty said quietly.

“Good, good, I’ve left one down here for you, there’s more than enough beans to get you through even the worst apocalypse,” Stanford chuckled, but it seemed desperate.

“...not you?” Shifty asked, terror suddenly gripping them.

“I-” Stanford frowned. “There’s…I have work to do, Shifty, I can’t stay down here with you. T-this is only temporary, I promise, I just need to-”

“No, no no,” Shifty turned into an octopus, wrapping around Stanford’s calf and holding on tight.

Stanford sighed, gently trying to extricate himself from Shifty’s grip. “Now now, I know change is scary, but there’s no need for this.”

“No,” Shifty said, gripping even tighter.

“Shifty-”

“No no no!”

“Shifty, you’re hurting me!”

Shifty released their hold instantly, changing back into themselves, flattened against the ground. Stanford rubbed his calf, and sighed deeply.

Shifty reached out carefully, grabbing Stanford’s coat sleeve. “Don’t leave me,” they said.

“...it can’t be helped,” Stanford said softly. “It’s…you’re too little to understand, but there’s things I need to do that I can’t have you around for. If Fidds was here-”

Stanford’s face made a strange expression, like he was about to start screaming, crying, and cursing all at the same time, but after a moment, he sighed. “...well. He’s not. So this is the best I can do.”

“Don’t leave me,” Shifty said. “Don’t leave me. It’s smelly and dark and cold.”

“Like I said, it’s not forever,” Stanford said, trying to smile. “It’s just…it’s just while I work. Once I’m done, you can come back out.”

“How long?” Shifty asked.

Stanford’s attempt at a smile disappeared. “I…I don’t know.”

Shifty whimpered, grabbing his arm again. “Don’t leave me.”

“I have to,” Ford said, kneeling down to Shifty’s height. “I know…I know it’s been a scary time for you recently. A lot of changes to your routine. But you’ll be alright down here. You just need to get used to it. And it’ll be over before you know it.”

“Something bad is going to happen,” Shifty said, because they had never been more sure of anything in their entire life.

“Nothing bad is going to happen to me,” Stanford said, blood beginning to seep through the bandages on his hands. “It’s going…it’s going to be fine. I can fix this.”

“Can I help?” Shifty asked, perking up. “I can help, let me help, help help help-”

“Shifty!” Stanford said sharply, and Shifty shrank back, remembering that Stanford had mentioned he had a bad headache. Repetition always seemed to make it worse. “No, you may not help, this isn’t something you can help with, you understand? It’s bigger than you, me, or the both of us. So while I deal with that, I-I can’t deal with you right now. I just can’t.”

Shifty practically wilted. “...okay.”

Stanford blinked heavily, swaying for a moment, and Shifty tensed, suddenly aware he didn’t have a place to hide if something went wrong. But then Stanford rubbed his eyes, and Shifty relaxed slightly. “It won’t…” he sighed. “It won’t be for long. Just a little. You can entertain yourself until then, right? Until I come and get you?”

“You’ll come and get me?” Shifty asked.

“Of course,” Stanford said, standing up. Shifty’s arms fell away from Stanford’s sleeve, limp on the ground. “When I come and get you, you can have as many jellybeans as you want, you can sleep on the bed with me, look at any books you wish, and whatever else you would like. But you need to wait for me, alright? You need to wait until I come and get you. You must be patient. Do you know what ‘patient’ means?”

“Being good at waiting,” Shifty said.

Stanford smiled thinly. “Yes, very clever. See? You’ll be just fine.”

“...you’ll come back?” Shifty almost whispered.

“I will come back,” Stanford promised. “You just need to wait.”

He left, and Shifty was stupid enough to let him leave.

That was the last time they saw him.

Shifty groaned, pain pounding dully in their chest. They felt too warm, and their throat was almost unbearably scratchy.

“Kid?” A hopeful voice said, and Shifty cracked their eyes open.

Stan was leaning over them, a little too close, his eyes bloodshot and his face even more unshaven than usual. Relief flooded his features so suddenly that Shifty was almost startled by such open emotion on his face. “Hey, pal,” Stan said, and his breath smelled terrible. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Goddammit, it sucks here, Shifty meant to say, but instead said: “Water?”

“Just a sec,” Stan said, immediately grabbing a cup of water sitting next to him on the ground. “Lemme just help you–oh, for God’s sake!”

Shifty had propped themself up on their elbow, only to barely bite back a shriek when the pain went from dull to all-encompassing. “See, this is why you listen to me!” Stan said, but Shifty shook their head.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, just…” they grabbed the glass from Stan and drank greedily, ignoring it when the water spilled out the sides, soaking them. “What happened? Where…?” They glanced around the room and paused, realizing they were in their room at the shack. Or rather, Stanford’s room. “I’m back?”

“Yeah, well,” Stan shrugged. “After the kids came back all cagey and you didn’t, I got worried that I might need my numbers guy. Hid my car and told the peanut gallery that you had another grandma related emergency. Might’ve told them she died, I dunno. Anyway, I spent most of the day searching for you, and then most of the night. But I found you in the middle of nowhere, literally bleeding out. What kinda monster got you?”

“No monster,” Shifty muttered, trying to lay back down on the couch as carefully as they could. They saw with relief that their hand was human; somehow, they managed not to drop their disguise this time. “Dipper hit me with an ax.”

They closed their eyes for a moment so they didn’t have to see Stan’s expression.

“...that doesn’t…” Stan said carefully, his voice unidentifiable. “That doesn’t seem like Dipper.”

“In his defense,” Shifty said. “He thought I was a monster trying to hurt him.”

“Uh huh,” Stan said, no less perplexed. “Care to explain why he thought you were a monster trying to hurt him?”

“...they were in the bunker,” Shifty said in a small voice. “They…they found it, it must have been written in the journals, and I…I couldn’t just let them go. W-what if they got trapped, it just…I know what it feels like to be down there. It’s…it’s so terrible.”

“Mouser-”

“I changed into some disguise, and they thought I was him,” they said. “They thought I wrote the journals. I went along with it, tried to take it so I could bring it back, so we could use it. But they found me out. I figured maybe I could…I could scare them out of the journal. I don’t know. But…”

“Kid,” Stan said. “I-”

“Oh god,” Shifty said, their eyes flying open and scrabbling to yank off blankets. “Oh god, oh god no-”

“Hey, take it easy!” Stan tried to say, but it was too late. Shifty had torn off the blankets, and was staring at their chest.

Bandages were wrapped around it, already beginning to stain green, probably from them moving around. Stan scratched the back of his neck. “Did the best I could,” he shrugged. “Not like I could take you to the emergency room. Lots of dirt to clean out, and your skin is hard as hell to stitch–”

“That’s going to scar,” Shifty said in a small voice.

Stan said nothing for a long moment. “...yeah. It is.”

“That–” Shifty shook their hand. “Stan, I can’t let it scar, the one on my hand is bad enough–”

“Hey, hey, it’s no biggie,” Stan said. “You just gotta start wearing shirts now.”

“I don’t want to wear a shirt,” Shifty said, and then immediately felt childish for saying it. “What am I going to do about disguises? Just get a bunch of shirts?! What about the nuclear facility?! I-I can’t shift right, I’m stuck, they’re always going to know it’s me-”

“Mouser,” Stan said, quiet but firm. “Take a goddamn breath before you pass out again.”

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath, pressing the palms of their hands against their eyes, terrified that they might start crying. “What are we going to do?! What am I going to do?!”

“...I dunno, bud,” Stan said quietly. “I dunno.”

Some time later, Shifty was awoken to the sound of quiet knocking. “Come in,” they said, rubbing their eyes, expecting to see Stan, hopefully with food.

Instead, there was Dipper. Instantly, Shifty’s heart started pounding, and they pulled the blankets up just a little higher, even though they already felt too warm.

“Hi, Remy,” Dipper waved. “Stan said you’re sick?”

“Yeah,” Shifty said, making their voice nasally. It helped hide their nervousness. “Don’t come too close, you don’t want this.”

“It’s already been a few days,” Dipper said, and Shifty silently filed that information away. “You’re not any better?”

“I’m on the mend,” Shifty said. “Worst of it’s over, I think.”

Dipper nodded, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Hey, um. Quick question.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s my real name?”

Shifty swallowed hard, knowing exactly why Dipper was asking. “Mason. Why?”

Dipper shrugged, but he looked visibly relieved. “Oh, uh, don’t worry about it.”

“Sure, okay,” Shifty said. They worried about it.

“Is your grandma okay?” Dipper asked.

“She’s dead. I was gone for the funeral.”

“Oh,” his eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Remy.”

Shifty shut their eyes. “I’m having a bad week.”

“...is there, uh,” Dipper said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not really,” Shifty said. Barring a miracle, they weren’t getting that journal back, and they would just have to do without it. Shifty was beyond done with counting on miracles.

“Stan said you guys were up to something,” Shifty said hesitantly. “After you and Mabel left. Find anything?”

“Oh,” Dipper said. “We…found a few clues. And, uh.”

He looked around. “...can you keep a secret?”

Shifty frowned. “Depends.”

“An author related secret,” Dipper said. “Kind of.”

“...yeah, I can probably keep that secret,” Shifty said slowly. Somehow, their stomach managed to sink even further.

“...we found this underground lair thing,” Dipper said, his voice hushed. “Like a doomsday bunker or something. And it had this underground lab, and…dude. There was a monster in there.”

“...what kind of monster?” Shifty asked hesitantly.

“Some kind of shapeshifter,” Dipper said. “The author mentioned some kind of shapeshifting thing he found once or twice, but most of the pages about it are missing or messed up. I didn’t know it was down there. It pretended to be the author, and then when we found it out, it tried to kill us to take the journal.”

“O-oh,” Shifty said, nauseous. “That…god, that sounds like a lot. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Dipper nodded. “Wendy got a little banged up, but she’s fine. But Remy, it…it got out. It dug its way out of the bunker. It could be anywhere.”

“...and that’s why you asked me if I knew your real name?” Shifty asked.

“Yeah,” Dipper said. “What if it comes back for revenge or something? I…I hit it with an ax. And it still didn’t stop.”

“Maybe it won’t come back,” Shifty said. They suddenly felt dangerously close to crying. “Maybe it’s off doing…shapeshifter things in the forest. I don’t know.”

“...maybe,” Dipper said, looking doubtful. “But we gotta keep an eye out for anyone acting weird now. Don’t worry, Remy, I won’t let it get anyone.”

Shifty rolled over, facing the wall, unable to look at Dipper anymore.

“...Remy?”

“Sorry, yeah,” Shifty said, proud of how steady their voice was. “Maybe next time, don’t go into mysterious bunkers, yeah?”

“...you won’t tell Stan, will you?” Dipper asked, nervous. “I don’t want him to get mad at me.”

“I won’t tell him,” Shifty said. “Just…at least tell me when you’re going on some kind of hair-brained adventure next time?”

“Sure,” Dipper chuckled. “I think we’re done with adventures for a bit, though. My voice is gonna give out from all the screaming. And I’m tired of running.”

“Sounds good,” Shifty said, though it didn’t sound good at all.

There it was, then. Shifty was a monster to the only four people in the world they wanted to tell their secret to. They had blown it before they could even formulate a plan. It was foolish to get their hopes up, foolish to believe there was a reality in which they could shift at will without triple-checking the locks and windows, constantly on edge that someone was going to expose them as a beast. Constantly terrified that the person who exposed them was going to be right in their assumptions of their monstrousness.

“...sorry about your grandma, Remy,” Dipper said quietly.

“...it’s alright,” Shifty said, chest heavier with more than blood. “It was a long time coming. Should have known better than to get my hopes up.”

They saw the shadow of wings outside their window, and then heard birdsong. “Hey, Dipper, what bird is that?”

“Ha ha,” Dipper said dully. “I don’t know any bird calls, sorry.”

“It’s a robin,” Shifty said.

“Wha-really?” Dipper sounded surprised. “You were making fun of me but you’re a bird guy too?”

“I’m not,” Shifty said. “I just know robins.”

“Oh,” Dipper said. “Cool. Uh, I gotta go. Do you want the door-”

“Closed,” Shifty said. “Thanks.”

“Cool,” Dipper said, and Shifty heard the door creaking. “Feel better, Remy.”

“Sure,” Shifty whispered, hearing the door click shut.

They counted to two hundred, and when no one came in, they curled up as tight as they could, ignoring the pain, mourning everything they were stupid enough to think they could have.

Chapter Text

Fiddleford had been gone for less than forty-eight hours when Shifty woke up to the sound of breaking glass.

They wouldn’t have been too concerned about Fiddleford leaving had it not been for what preceded it. Fiddleford had left before, on various errands and quests. Once, he had left for a week. Stanford said he had gone back to California to visit his family, wherever that was. Stanford had said it with a slightly guilty look as well, like Shifty looked when they got caught doing something they were told not to do.

But Fiddleford had left shouting and stumbling, and Stanford had shouted after him. He had shouted cruel words, some of which Shifty understood and some they didn’t, but they all sounded equally mean.

“DON’T COME BACK!” Stanford had shouted, even as Shifty saw sadness and pain heavy on his features. “DON’T COME BACK!”

Shifty hoped Fiddleford would return, if only because they had never seen Stanford so upset before, but he didn’t. The door remained closed.

And now there was shattering glass.

“Stanford?” Shifty called, peeking out of the playpen. The cover was long gone, sitting uselessly on the ground.

Since Fiddleford had left, the routine they had grown so used to instantly fell apart. Stanford fed them too early or too late, and instead of something tasty and filling, it was scraps that he had gathered and practically threw at Shifty in a haste. Stanford himself practically stopped eating altogether, drinking coffee until he was throwing up thin bile into the sink.

Bedtime was a thing of the past, too. Stanford was forgetting to put them down most of the time, either for naps or for the night. When he did remember, the process was hasty and rushed. No story, no play, no blankets or toys. Most nights, Shifty just fell asleep where they were. Tonight, they had put themself to bed, upset and pleased with their own initiative in equal measures.

“Stanford?” They called again, and a shadow passed over the doorway.

Stanford stood in front of them, staring down at them. Shifty froze, not entirely sure why they were doing so.

Stanford was standing strangely again, stiff and uncomfortable, like he was worried something might break if he moved. He stared down at Shifty, his glasses reflecting the porchlights strangely, and when he grinned, he showed every single tooth.

“You’re still here?” Stanford asked, which didn’t make any sense. “Would’ve thought he was bored of you by now. Huh.”

Shifty chirped nervously, backing away. There wasn’t much room to move around in the playpen now. Stanford had been talking about getting them something larger to sleep in before Fiddleford left. Shifty had been hoping for a proper bed. It seemed an unlikely dream now.

“Stanford,” Shifty said softly again, feeling their back press against the back of their pen.

“Yeesh, quite the setup here, huh?” Stanford muttered, eyes roving over Shifty’s toys and blankets. He picked up a stuffed rabbit–Shifty’s favorite–inspecting it curiously. “And I thought I was delusional.”

“What?” Shifty asked, and flinched when Stanford’s gaze snapped back to him.

“Lemme take a look at you, I didn’t get to last time,” Stanford said, abruptly leaning down into the playpen and picking Shifty up with a grunt and a grin. “Ooh, that’s gonna be hell on the back in the morning! You’re heavier than you look.”

Shifty squirmed, trying to grab onto Stanford’s shirt for security. He was holding them all wrong, far away from his body instead of close to it, and it was uncomfortable and nerve-wracking. Shifty immediately turned into a decently sized python, wrapping around Stanford’s arm to keep from falling. His hands were freezing cold.

Stanford immediately started shaking his arm. “Hey, stop that, I’m trying to see you. Turn back into you. Or whatever the maggot thing was, that was funny looking!”

“Stop, stop,” Shifty said, but their voice was lost in the shaking. “Stop, Stanford, Stanford-”

“Damn, you got a tight grip, I’ll give you that,” Stanford said, and then stopped shaking his arm, trading that method out for a much worse one. He grabbed at Shifty’s long body, digging his nails into them to try and peel them off.

Shifty yelped. “Stop, stop!”

“Oh, relax,” Stanford scoffed, in a tone that didn’t sound like him at all. “This probably doesn’t even hurt. Much. You really ought to learn to appreciate all sensations!”

He grabbed Shifty’s midsection, nails embedded in their skin, and pulled. He pulled hard.

Something twisted in Shifty’s center, painful enough to snap them out of their fear and into action. They turned back into themselves, and craned their neck back, sinking their teeth into Stanford’s hand and biting down.

Instantly, their mouth filled with blood, and they let go, horrified with themselves. But it was too late. The damage was done, and Stanford had a large bite mark on his left hand, gushing blood.

And Stanford didn’t even let go.

“Woah-ho!” Stanford laughed, and Shifty was back to holding onto their arm again, trying to twist themselves into a position where his nails didn’t hurt. “Feisty! I like it! There’s a little kick to you, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” Shifty gasped, trying to spit out the taste of iron to no avail. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“Oh, now you ruined it, Stanford sighed. “Come on, you were actually doing something interesting-”

“Down!” Shifty said shrilly, unable to take the feeling of nails pressing into them any more. “Down, down, down!”

“Nuh uh, no way,” Stanford grinned. “You gotta be more interesting than that-”

Shifty twisted into something that was fleshy and mostly liquid, and though pain ricocheted up their body, Stanford’s grip loosened, and they fell roughly to the ground. Instantly, they turned into a chipmunk, skittering across the floor and diving under a heavy drawer. They heard Stanford lumbering after them, and they pressed their back against the wall when he got down on his hands and knees, peering underneath the drawer with a grin that made Shifty feel sick.

“Aw, c’mon,” Stanford said. “Don’t be rude.”

“Hurts,” Shifty whispered, and Stanford laughed. It hurt Shifty’s ears to listen too.

“Yeah, well,” Stanford said, holding up his hand as it bled freely onto the floor. “Guess we’re matching, huh?”

Shifty whimpered, the taste of Stanford’s blood in their mouth making them even more nauseous.

“Anywho!” Stanford stood up suddenly, swaying slightly as he tumbled for the basement. “You have fun under there! Don’t follow me down!”

Shifty stayed huddled under the drawer until the sun rose, eyes wide and terrified, the taste of blood coating their tongue.

Shifty winced for the umpteenth time, tugging at their very first t-shirt, bought in a bulk pack from the local drugstore.

Stan glanced at them. “Quit yanking at the collar, you’re gonna stretch it out.”

“This is hell,” Shifty muttered. “I’m already in pain, and now I have to wear this thing? You couldn’t steal me any painkillers?”

“I told you,” Stan rolled his eyes. “That prescription pad in my desk is known to every pharmacist in a one-hundred mile radius. ‘Sides, we don’t even know what your reaction to the heavy stuff is gonna be. Ibuprofen already makes you dramatic.”

“You hate me,” Shifty said, gripping the edge of the kitchen table so tightly that it hurt the tips of their fingers. “You hate me and you enjoy watching me suffer.”

“See,” Stan said, sounding bored. “There’s the drama we were talking about. Drink some damn orange juice before those pills start hurting your stomach.”

Shifty scowled, but swallowed the glass as fast as they could. They gagged once, twice, and then coughed, managing to settle.

Stan looked at them sideways. “If you hurl, you’re cleaning it.”

“You hate me,” Shifty decided again.

“Yeah, I hate you,” Stan agreed, flipping idly through the newspaper. He was single handedly keeping Toby Determined in business. “That’s why I nursed you back to health and shit.”

“I hate that you’re going to hold that over my head forever,” Shifty said.

“Oh, you should,” Stan grinned. “I’m gonna use it against you for all the worst jobs.”

“Yay, Remy’s back!” Mabel bounced into the kitchen with a grin, tailed by Waddles, snuffling at her feet in search of any dropped pieces of candy. “We missed you! Feeling good?”

“Feeling a solid six out of ten,” Shifty said. “I wish I could’ve gone mini-golfing with you guys. Did you have fun, at least?”

“Yeah!” Mabel grinned. “We fought a society of golf ball people and Pacifica’s not so bad, as it turns out!”

“I’m withholding my judgement on that,” Stan said.

“You should,” Dipper said, trailing after Mabel. “She sucks. Hi, Remy.”

“Hi, Dipper,” Shifty said, totally calm. They had practiced their expressions. “Thanks for nabbing me a mini-gold club. I’m gonna use it on the gnomes next time they get into the trash.”

“Grunkle Stan, can we go to the library?” Dipper asked,

“Wassat?” Stan asked.

Dipper folded his arms. “I know you know what a library is.”

“Sorry, kid, I don’t speak nerd,” Stan said, and nudged Shifty. “This one does, though.”

“Can you get off my back for five minutes?” Shifty groaned.

“Why do you wanna go there anyway?” Stan asked.

“Um,” Dipper glanced at Mabel, and she nodded encouragingly. “Summer reading.”

“...right,” Stan said, not at all convinced. “Well, not today. We got a full tourist load coming in, and I need all hands on deck! If someone finds Dipper’s werewolf costume, lemme know. Wolf-Boy was a hit last time!”

Dipper shuddered. “I still have flea bites from that thing.”

“Alright,” Stan said, standing up. His back popped, and the kids winced. “Let’s get to it, yeah? Lots of people need to be fleeced, and I’m not gonna let them down!”

He left the room with a smile on his face, and Shifty looked at the kids sideways. “...summer reading?”

They nodded, and Shifty sighed. “Hey, Dipper, remember our agreement?”

Dipper turned red. “It’s nothing bad, I promise,” he said. “We found a laptop in the bunker, and Soos fixed it. We were gonna turn it on in the library in case we needed to find books on codes, or computers, or whatever.”

“And,” Mabel said. “There’s a new Fairy Ninja book out right now that I’ve got to get my hands on.”

“...okay,” Shifty shrugged, struggling to stand up for a moment. “Someone steal Stan’s keys and I’ll drive you.”

Dipper’s eyes widened. “Woah, really?”

“Sure, he’s been especially annoying this morning. I’m not going to feel bad about stealing his car for a few hours,” Shifty said, tugging at their shirt collar again. “Plus, if a tourist asks me a stupid question, I’m going to end up biting their head off.”

“Woo hoo!” Mabel cheered, punching the air. “Road trip to the library!”

“Don’t tell them I’m here,” Shifty said, lowering their voice as they ducked into the library, looking away from the front desk. “I’m technically banned because I have, like, fifteen books and comics I never gave back.”

“Fifteen?” Mabel looked impressed. “Wow, even Dipper’s not that bad.”

Dipper frowned. “I’ll have you know, I’m extremely responsible with my library books. Why don’t you just give them back? Late fees aren’t that bad.”

“Well,” Shifty coughed. “A bunch of them were in Gideon’s line of fire. And, um, I think some of those are limited editions. So I’m a little screwed.”

“Oh,” Mabel glanced suspiciously at the front desk. “Wuh oh.”

“I’m going to be in the sci-fi section,” Shifty said, peeling off from their group. “Grab me when you need me, okay? Don’t blow anything up.”

“No promises,” Mabel said.

That was good enough for Shifty. They ducked between the shelves, snatching the first book they saw with an interesting cover and sitting heavily in a plush chair with a wince.

Their chest was beginning to ache again, and they knew how this went. As they moved, the pain would grow exponentially, until the pounding seemed to deafen everything else around them. The shirt didn’t help matters. Stan had specifically gotten a size larger than Shifty was, so it hung loose and strange off their frame, but it didn’t matter. It was constricting, and they had to resist the urge to flinch whenever it touched their skin. And if it brushed their wound wrong, even bandaged, it sent stars in their vision.

They sighed deeply, giving up on getting invested in the book almost immediately, squeezing their eyes shut and taking a long, slow breath.

When they opened them, there was a little girl standing in front of them, her mouth agape.

Shifty scowled. “Go away.”

“What’s wrong with your face?!” She asked, in a voice that seemed like it was trying very hard to remain in a whisper.

“What?!” Shifty asked, touching their face. “What are you-?!”

It felt tingly when their fingers touched their cheek, like a limb that had fallen asleep. Their heart skipped several beats.

“Are you melting?!” The little girl asked, equal parts fascinated and terrified.

“Go back to your mom,” Shifty said, jumping to their feet so fast their chair scraped along the ground. They stumbled away, trying their best to ignore the sudden pain in their chest, ratcheting up with each movement.

“I’m here with my dad-”

Shifty burst into the men’s room, relieved that they were alone for once, covering the numb half of their face. Cautiously, as if afraid the mirror might bite them, they stepped towards the sink, and removed their shaking hand from their face.

The right side of their face was sagging, the flesh sloughing downwards in a way that would have revealed muscle and bone for any human, but Shifty just looked like they were made of melting wax. Even their teeth dragged along, each tooth jutting out in strange and unsettling patterns as their face stretched downwards.

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath, and their face continued to sag downwards.

“Oh god,” they whispered, trying to carefully press the skin back up, to no avail. It simply drooped back down. “Oh god, oh my god…no no no, not now. Come on, not now…!”

They wheezed, their breath coming quickly and painfully as they struggled to get their appearance under their control. Their body would not respond to their commands, would not yield to poking fingers. In fact, it seemed to be getting actively worse, even as they tried to press themselves back together. Their body lurched, as though their insides were desperate to see the sun, and they sucked in another sharp breath when their chest twinged, painful enough to make their vision go fuzzy for a moment.

Unable to bear it any longer, they practically ripped their shirt off, and clawed at the bandages Stan had so carefully put on, exposing the wound.

They had never really tried to look at it before. It had made them sick to their stomach. But they could see it now, ragged flesh torn away by the bite of a sharpened ax at the edges of the five inch long gash. The sutures were haphazard and done with shaking yet experienced hands, already soaked green and frayed from exertion. Green blood oozed through the thread, and they wondered if fluid was building up beneath a layer of skin.

They wondered what it looked like underneath, even as the thought made them dizzy. A layer of skin protecting a layer of fat, thick and vaguely gelatinous, pulsing with something green and bitter. Below that, muscle tensing and untensing as they commanded it to warp and distend to their will, even as it melted like crayons in the hot sun, running off of them in thick rivulets, desperate to escape the confines of their costume. Boneless, no endoskeleton or exoskeleton latch onto, to force them into a form, leaving them free and vulnerable at the same time.

More than once they had been tempted to peel back their skin, and poke around at what they found inside with forceps and scalpels. They had seen it in a movie, once, a monster where if you cut off a part of them, that severed chunk would wriggle away, alive without any help, and twice as foul from the body it was cut from. They wondered if they sliced off a finger, if it would squeal with no mouth and drag itself into darkness. They had stared at the knives in the drying rack for hours, trying to work up the courage to test their theories, to run an experiment, to do anything but sit in silent terror of the things that lurked inside of their body like worms lurking in a corpse, waiting to be disturbed so they could poke out of the skin and turn their blind faces to the sun, to something they were never meant to see.

Worms, they thought nonsensically, watching a stream of blood travel down their chest, and their face collapse into something terrifying. I must be filled with worms.

They could picture it like it had already happened. Opening up the chest and belly, top to bottom like an autopsy, with the boxcutter Stan had in the junk drawer, the blade still sharp even after all this time. Peeling back the layers of skin, fat, tissue, and whatever else lay underneath, dissection pins holding it all back and out of the way so they could reach inside, pluck out the worms and the sickness they brought with them.

If only they weren’t so scared of what they might find, what rot might have been eating away at them for thirty years, only to be released the second they looked too close. Or worse, maybe they would find nothing wrong at all. Maybe there was nothing that could be fixed by taking them apart.

Maybe this was just how they were, born corrupted, vile, and monstrous.

The door to the bathroom started to open.

Shifty threw themselves against the door, and they heard the other person make a noise of surprise. “Hey, c’mon, I gotta go! There’s two stalls!”

“I need the space!” Shifty said, their voice slightly slurred. “I-it’s a mess in here!”

“...dude, gross.”

“Sorry!” Shifty said, trying to focus on the embarrassment. It was better than the pain. “Go piss outside or something, I don’t know.”

They heard the man grumble, but a few seconds later his footsteps went away. Shifty shoved a trashcan in front of the door, and practically fell against the sink.

They couldn’t take off their disguise, even though they ached to do so, just for a few minutes. It would tear open their stitches instantly. They trembled, feeling like something was alive and rebelling under their skin, poking at the edges of the barrier, just aching to get out. And the ax had long proved that it was a very, very weak barrier.

“You’re fine,” they whispered, gripping the edges of the sink. “You’re fine. You gotta get home, take a break, and Stan can fix the stitches if he has to. Just wrap it up, relax, and get the fuck out of here.”

They closed their eyes, taking long, steady breaths, and against the pain, commanded their body to obey them.

They winced when the tingling sensation got worse, but when they checked in the mirror, they looked like themselves again. They poked at their skin, feeling uncomfortably loose and elastic, but there was nothing to be done for it.

That had never happened before. They snapped their teeth together a few times, and felt them rolling around in their gums like they wanted to pop out.

They re-bandaged themselves, terribly, but it would have to do until they got home, and splashed some cold water on their face for good measures and slipping out of the bathroom the best they could. They found Mabel and Dipper fairly quickly, the former with a dreamy look on her face and a bright pink book, and the latter with a rusted laptop and several armfuls of books on codebreaking and computers.

Shifty recognized the laptop instantly, but elected to ignore it. One problem at a time.

“C’mon, we gotta go,” Shifty said, startled to hear how hoarse their voice was. “I need to puke and I’m not doing it in a public bathroom.”

“Are you okay?” Dipper asked, looking concerned. “You look a little sick.”

“Very observant,” Shifty said. “That’s because I am.”

“Remy, Remy,” Mabel said in a hushed voice. “I just met the love of my life.”

“Again?” Shifty asked, which was the wrong thing to say, because Mabel frowned and Dipper sighed. “I mean, that’s great! Tell me about it in the car?”

“What do you know about puppets?” Mabel asked.

“Absolutely nothing?” Shifty said, bewildered. “What? What are we doing? What are we talking about? Let’s go, go, go, I’m not barfing on the floor.”

“Let me just check these out–” Dipper said, starting to make his way towards the front desk.

“Sorry,” Shifty said, steering him away and trying not to make eye contact with the woman up front, who was squinting suspiciously. “We’re going to do this the Stan way because I think my cover’s blown.”

“The Stan way?!” Dipper’s eyes widened. “We can’t steal from a library! That’s, like, a super-evil deed, I think!”

“Just return it when you’re done with it!” Shifty said, walking faster because now the librarian was standing.

“Wagner!” She barked, and Shifty broke into the best run they could as they pushed Dipper through the door and a weak alarm went off.

“Start the car!” They tossed the keys to Mabel.

Mabel’s eyes widened. “I don’t know how to-”

“START THE CAR!”

Shifty let Mabel bustle around them, already on the hunt for socks that she could turn into puppets, and Dipper immediately made his way up to the attic to start working on the laptop’s password.

Shifty went into their room, tossed off their jacket, and collapsed onto the sofa.

Less than a minute later, they heard Stan tromping through the house, swearing he was going to tear them a new one for taking the car without asking.

The door flew open. “CARE TO EXPLAIN-” Stan immediately froze, and frowned. “Aw, dammit. I coulda told you this was gonna happen.”

“I just drove,” Shifty said, voice strained, not even bothering to sit up when Stan approached, shutting the door behind him. “I can’t even drive without my chest exploding now?”

“With the way you drive, you have bigger worries,” Stan muttered. “I can’t believe you haven’t killed anyone. Lemme see it.”

“You’re the one who’s actually hit people, not me,” Shifty said, pulling off their shirt with shaking hands. “Can I have more ibuprofen now?”

“Nah,” Stan said. “Not time for it yet. But you can get your stitches redone. You popped a few.”

Shifty meant to say something biting and funny, but instead suddenly found themselves taking an embarrassing, shaky breath. They covered their face with their hands, humiliated by their own weakness. “...do we have to?”

Stan sighed. “Yeah, I know it hurts, kid,” he said, his voice a little less gruff than usual. “Good thing you’re tough, huh? Sit back and relax, I left the kit in here. Had a feeling this would happen.”

Shifty took another breath, trying to get their emotions under control. This wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as the ax would, but their stomach still churned. “Where did you even learn to do stitches?”

“Oh, you know,” Stan said vaguely. “Here and there.”

Shifty frowned, very suddenly realizing that this was going to be one of those things they weren’t going to talk about.

“Did you…” Shifty trailed off, slightly dizzy as Stan retrieved a small box from their closet, not dissimilar to a sewing kit. “Did you see my notes? On the nuclear facility?”

“Yeah, I did,” Stan said, grabbing a few towels from the bathroom that Shifty was pretty sure were clean. “I think you should find a different energy source or get comfortable with waiting.”

“What?” Shifty blinked, lifting their head up to stare at Stan as he sat next to them. “Why? That place isn’t secure at all. Hell, once the stitches are out, we could make a plan, be in and out in a night-”

No,” Stan said firmly, starting to snip at a few stitches with scissors. Shifty hissed in pain, and Stan grunted. “You’re fine.”

“There’s no point in waiting,” Shifty said, their teeth gritted. “W-we could have this finished in a few weeks, maybe even less than-”

“And have it be a rush job?” Stan shook his head, focused on threading a needle with shockingly steady hands. “Too risky.”

“When has risk ever been an issue before?”

“When the kids came,” Stan said. “I’d be willing to risk it, maybe even willing to risk it if they were here, but…” he trailed off, frowning slightly.

“...what?” Shifty asked. “What changed?”

“Don’t yell,” Stan said.

“What-” Shifty shoved Stan back on reflex, feeling something pierce the ragged skin around their wound. “Fucking-!” They gripped the couch seat so tightly they heard something tear, fighting to keep themselves from shrieking. “Warn me! God!”

“You need to relax,” Stan said, having the gall to look offended.

“I want drugs,” Shifty said.

“Well, you’re shit out of luck,” Stan said. “Unless you want me to knock you out with a hammer or something. Which-” Stan said, seeing Shifty perk up. “-I’m not going to do.”

Shifty sighed, feeling something shift uncomfortably in their chest. This could be their chance. It might be their only chance. Their one opportunity to peek inside before Stan closed them up. He hadn’t reacted with horror or disgust, so the ax must not have gone deep enough for all the horrible things inside to look out, writhing and squirming to escape. The worms, at least, were encased for now. They picked their head up, trying to see the wound, suddenly unable to breath.

“Don’t look at it,” Stan said sharply, and Shifty’s head fell back on the pillow, equal parts annoyed and relieved.

“Just relax,” Stan said, sitting next to Shifty again. “The more you relax, the faster I can go. No more driving for a while. And no more stealing my car ever.”

“Whatever,” Shifty muttered. “This sucks.”

“At least you heal fast,” Stan said. “These won’t be in that long, don’t worry.”

“I’m so tired of waiting,” Shifty muttered. “I’ve been waiting my whole life.”

“Yeah, I know,” Stan said, muttering something sympathetically when Shifty stiffened, trying not to thrash. “Won’t be that much longer, though. At least we have an end plan in mind.”

Shifty said nothing, frustrated and annoyed with Stan’s willingness to wait. Thirty years was too long. The end was in sight, and Stan was refusing to speed towards the finish line out of some misplaced caution.

“Are you-” Shifty said, and then stopped, unsure what they were going to say for a moment. “...are you angry with him?”

Stan didn’t have to ask who they were talking about. “...I dunno. Mostly I just miss him.”

“Hm,” Shifty said, staring at the paneling on the ceiling. They heard footsteps–probably Mabel’s based on how fast they were–across the attic floors, and wondered what it would be like to live there again after the summer ended. They had no doubt they would be finding chewed up pens and glitter in every corner, like the twins had tattooed their existence into the very bones of the house itself.

“Are you mad at him?” Stan asked.

“What?” Shifty asked, startled.

“Are you mad at him?” Stan asked. “Is that why you’re asking me-”

“No,” Shifty said, a little too quickly.

“Really?” Stan asked. “Because you-”

“I said no,” Shifty snapped. “Are you almost done?”

Stan blinked, surprised, but shrugged, snipping something. “Yeah, all done. Don’t do anything stupid, I don’t wanna do this again.”

“Can I have ibuprofen now?” Shifty asked.

“You got another forty minutes,” Stan said.

“God,” Shifty said. “I don’t even think it’s doing anything. I think it’s just the placebo effect.”

“Do you still want it-”

“Yes, obviously, I want it.”

“I don’t know if this puppet captures my essence,” Shifty said, looking at a sock puppet Mabel was nearly finished with, helping her load other finished puppets into Stan’s car.

“What?” Mabel looked shocked. “Come on, Remy, he looks exactly like you!”

She held up the sock puppet, its googly eyes rattling around, dark yarn used as hair. “My eyes look big,” Shifty said.

“Your eyes are big,” Mabel said.

Shifty frowned. “I’ll say the Stan puppet is a spitting image, though.”

“I think Mabel took some impressive artistic liberties!” Grenda said, easily hefting up two boxes of heavy props. Candy nodded in agreement

“You wrote an entire rock ballad opera with sock puppets in, like, three days?” Shifty asked Mabel, still having a hard time believing it.

Mabel grinned. “I’m multi-talented.”

“At least this is almost over,” Dipper said, plodding out of the house.

“Jeez,” Shifty said. “You look terrible.”

Dipper scowled, his eyes lidded and blinking heavily. “Thanks.”

“Go take a nap or something, we’re almost done here,” Shifty said.

“Maybe,” Dipper yawned. “I just gotta-”

“GABE!” Mabel shrieked, dropping a box on Shifty’s foot. They yelped, stumbling back.

A boy around her age was zooming towards the house on rollerskates, skidding to a stop. Shifty frowned, noticing that he was riding with a soft felt puppet on each hand. It didn’t seem very safe.

“Hey, Mabel,” the boy, Gabe, said. He had an easy smile that instantly irritated Shifty. “I was skating by, and decided to drop in. It helps dry out my ponytail.”

He took off his helmet, and shook out a blonde ponytail with more effort than was necessary. Grenda and Candy’s mouths dropped open. Dipper rolled his eyes.

“It’s so great to see you!” Mabel said, unfortunately smitten. “I was just working on the world’s greatest puppet show! It has puppets!”

“Your passion is truly refreshing, Mabel,” Gabe said, and then frowned. “Unlike the girl from last night’s puppet show. Single stitch on one puppet and cross stitch on the other? I was like, ugh!”

“...cross stitch?” Mabel echoed quietly, and Shifty wondered what kind of stitch they had in their chest before they immediately shut down that train of thought.

“Obviously, I deleted her off my contacts list,” Gabe said.

Mabel’s face blanched.

“I know you won’t let me down, though,” Gabe said. “Based on what you said the other day, you must be a puppet expert!”

He squinted at the box Shifty was trying to get a better grip on. “Are those…sock puppets?”

“Of course not!” Mabel said, tossing the puppet resembling ‘Remy’ behind her head carelessly in an attempt to hide it. “They’re, you know, made to look like that! For nostalgia purposes!”

“Oh,” Gabe nodded wisely. “How artistic!”

Does this guy ever shut the fuck up, Shifty wondered vaguely, deciding they were bored of watching this exchange and shoving the box into the back of Stan’s car. Luckily, Gabe seemed to take this as his cue to skate off.

“Okay, well,” Shifty said as soon as he was out of earshot. “That was boring. Anyway, Mabel–”

“BAH!” Mabel shrieked, racing back to her friends. “We gotta up our game, girls! Did you hear what he said about stitches?!”

“Don’t worry, Mabel!” Grenda said. “Your production crew can handle it!”

The bottom of the box Shifty had been shoving suddenly gave out, and the contents spilled to the ground. They heard glass shatter.

Shifty frowned. “That’s fine, right?”

Mabel’s face twisted, and she took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m back on fabrics. Get me my lint roller!”

She snatched up a few boxes of puppets, but Dipper grabbed her arm. “Wait, wait! You just said you were gonna help me with the laptop!”

“Dipper!” Mabel waved her arms wildly. “This sock crisis just bumped up to a code argyle! The laptop can wait!”

“Oh my god-” Dipper rolled his eyes. “Do you seriously think that your random crush of the week is more important than uncovering the biggest mystery of this town?! You’re obsessed!”

“My stuff’s important too, Dipper!” Mabel said. “And I’m obsessed?! Look at you! You look like a vampire! One of the old time-y ones with terrible teeth and nails! You’re gonna go bald!”

“No I’m not,” Dipper said, but he felt his hairline nervously. “You said you were gonna help me today.”

“I just have some stuff I have to-”

“No,” Dipper snapped, rubbing his eyes. “You know what?! Forget it! I’ll do it on my own!”

Dipper stomped back inside, and Shifty rocked on the balls of their feet, feeling incredibly out of place. Candy and Grenda looked equally unsure.

“...i-it’s fine,” Mabel said, going back to her puppets. “He’ll get over it.”

“I’m gonna,” Shifty motioned vaguely. “Get a snack. Do you need me for anything else?”

“You don’t have to do more crafts, Remy,” Mabel said, and Shifty let out a sigh of relief.

“Good, my fingers still hurt from hot glue,” Shifty said, sweeping their own discarded puppet off the ground. “You guys can leave whenever, I’ll ride with Soos and Wendy to the theater. Dipper’ll probably join us.”

Shifty grabbed a few discarded pieces of supplies off the ground–fabric scissors, a half-used baggie of glitter, and a case of pipe cleaners–and ventured back inside, relieved to be away from the chaos, if only for a minute.

They winced, touching their chest lightly. The wound was healing, and quickly. They were good at bouncing back. But they felt loose, like the blow had knocked something out of place in their body, and it was still trying to find it’s way back, making them vaguely sick.

That’s just what I need, Shifty thought humorlessly. My first time getting sick and it’s some crazy infection from the ax.

There was a soft thump from upstairs, and Shifty glanced up.

Silence.

They shrugged, dumping the items rescued from the yard on the counter, digging through the fridge for anything that sounded tasty. They perked up when they saw a full six pack of Pitt Cola, grabbing one for themselves and popping the tab.

They heard crashing upstairs.

“Hey, watch it up there!” They called. “I have to live there after you leave!”

For a moment, there was more silence.

And then, an even louder crash, like something heavy tumbling down the stairs.

They paused. “Hello?”

No answer.

“Oh, my god,” they grumbled, making their way towards the stairs. “Dipper, if you broke something-”

Dipper was lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, wheezing slightly.

“DIPPER?!” Shifty shrieked, rushing forward, unsure whether to touch him or not. “Holy shit, oh my god, are you okay?!”

“NEVER BETTER!” Dipper said, his voice pitched oddly, but Shifty supposed that was a given at this point. It wasn’t like Dipper had been firing on all cylinders since he decided sleep, food, and personal hygiene were secondary to the laptop. “Boy, it’s been a while, huh?”

“What?” Shifty asked, letting Dipper haul himself to his feet. “Did you…not fall down the stairs then?”

“Oh no, I did!” Dipper grinned, and it almost looked like a grimace. “I fell down every one of them! You should’ve seen it!”

“...okay,” Shifty said, a little uneasy. His eyes looked strange, too–darting around a little too quickly, a little too alert for someone who hadn’t slept in about three days. “Did you hit your head?”

“It’d be hard not to!” Dipper rapped the side of his head with his knuckles. “This thing’s enormous!”

“...okay, well,” Shifty said, standing back up. A few ferocious bruises were already starting to come in, but it wasn’t like there was blood trickling down the side of Dipper’s head or anything. “Um, should we run to the clinic? Make sure your brain isn’t about to leak out your ears?”

Dipper tipped his head back and shrieked with laughter, so suddenly that Shifty flinced, taking a couple of steps back. “OH-HO-HO!” He said, still cackling uncontrollably. “Oh, I didn’t realize how funny you’ve gotten! That’s a good one, brains out my ears! Boy, I’d pay to see that!”

“What?” Shifty asked, thoroughly uncomfortable, and aching to end the conversation. Sleep deprivation was making Dipper a little too strange, even for their taste. That had to be it.

“But no,” Dipper shook his head. “No hemorrhages today, I’m afraid.”

“That’s…cool,” Shifty said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Another smile spread across Dipper’s face, and he made a motion like he was shooing a bug away, though Shifty couldn’t see one. “Oh, I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.

“...you’re weird,” Shifty decided, making their way back to the kitchen. Unfortunately, Dipper followed them, still grinning.

“Ooh, soda!” Dipper said, spotting Shifty’s unattended can. “I’m gonna drink it like a person!”

“Hey, that’s mine,” Shifty said, annoyed enough to let his strange comments slide. “Don’t-”

Dipper snatched the can, held it about six inches from his face, and tipped it into his open mouth. He missed almost entirely, spilling it all over his face and into the ground, gargling whatever made it into his mouth.

Shifty stared, open-mouthed, and Dipper looked at them with a grin, dripping wet. “...I’m not cleaning that,” Shifty said.

“Say,” Dipper said, rifling through the cabinets, slamming them roughly after shifting the objects inside around. “Did you happen to see where I put that journal of mine? I need it. For mystery stuff. And monster stuff. That kind of thing.”

“Yeesh, you don’t have it on you?” Shifty asked, irritated. “I’ll tell you if you clean up your mess.”

Dipper looked back at Shifty, looking strangely surprised to be ordered around. He scowled. “No, tell me now.”

“You can act like a freak all you want,” Shifty said, rifling through the fridge again, turning away from Dipper’s creepy wet face. “But if you’re waiting for me to clean up after you, you’re gonna be waiting a long time.”

“I would tell me now, if I were you.”

Shifty scoffed. “Who the hell do you think you are? If we get ants, I swear I’ll bury that thing and never tell you where it is.”

There was silence, and they amused themselves with the idea of using this as an excuse to take the journal once and for all, though they were certain it would be a temporary solution. Dipper was damn determined when he set his mind to something, almost to an obsessive degree.

“It’s your fault he left you, you know.”

Shifty stood up straight so suddenly something pulled on their stitches. They slammed the fridge shut, and heard something clatter inside, but they hardly heard it. “What?!” They demanded, whirling around to face Dipper.

Dipper was rummaging through a drawer, and looked up, the picture of innocence. “What?” He repeated.

“Y-you said…” Shifty said, panicked. “You said…”

Dipper cocked his head to the side, eyes wide and guileless. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did,” Shifty said, breathless. “You said…you said…”

Dipper stared at them, and for some reason, it looked like he was trying not to smile. “What did you think I said?”

Shifty stared back, rendered speechless. Dipper blinked, one eye at a time, like a lizard.

“Hey bro-bro!” Mabel popped into the kitchen, breathless. “I’m gonna borrow your journal for the wedding scene, okay? Thanks, bye, I’m leaving before you process this sentence!”

She rushed out, and Shifty and Dipper stared after her. Dipper smiled. “Guess that answers that question.”

“Clean up the-HEY!” Shifty said, but it was too late. Dipper had already raced out, and Shifty sighed, muttering curses under their breath as they grabbed a handful of paper towels, wincing as they lowered to the ground to mop up the soda. Soos’ truck horn honked outside. “I’M COMING!” Shifty said, deciding that their rush job would do, and Dipper could mop the kitchen later.

They reached for the supplies they had collected outside just in case Mabel needed them for her show, and then paused.

The discarded puppet, glitter, and pipe cleaners were all there, just as they had left them.

But the fabric scissors were missing.

“Here, Mouser,” Stan said, sliding back into the seat and shoving a peanut candy bar into their hands.

Shifty looked at it, surprised. “Did you buy me candy from the concessions?”

“Hell, no,” Stan said. “Four bucks for a candy bar? That’s highway robbery. Stole it. Stole something for all you animals.”

He leaned over Shifty, passing out candy to Soos and Wendy. “Woah, thanks Mr. Pines!” Soos said, immediately ripping open a bag of gummy koalas.

Wendy frowned, staring at her sour candies. “Are you dying or something?”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Give it back if you don’t want it–”

“No no,” Wendy said. “I’ll eat it.”

“Grim Reaper won’t take him, anyway,” Shifty assured her. “He’s too annoying.”

“Damn right,” Stan said.

“This is going well,” Soos said, motioning to the stage, already covered with glitter and a few discarded puppets. “Act one went off without a hitch.”

“I’m still confused,” Stan said. “So it’s, what, a puppet show? But they went to war? Puppet war?”

“It’s avant garde,” Shifty said. “I think.”

“What do you think avant garde means?” Wendy grinned.

“It means eat your candy and shush before we dock your pay,” Shifty said, taking a defiant bite of his candy bar. “Was Dipper acting strange with any of you guys earlier today? He fell down the stairs and was all weird after it.”

“That’s just Dipper, dude,” Soos said. “He gets sucked into something and starts going funny if he can’t figure out a problem.”

“Falling down the stairs builds character,” Stan said. “He’s fine.”

“His eyes looked weird,” Shifty frowned.

“Weird like ‘concussion’ weird?” Wendy asked.

“No, weird like–” Shifty frowned. “Ugh, I don’t know. Just weird.”

“Eh,” Stan shrugged. “If he’s still weird after all this, I’ll shine a flashlight in his eyes, see what happens.”

“Hm,” Shifty said, unable to shake the uncomfortable feeling that they had missed something. “Okay.”

The lights flashed twice, and the curtains opened, sock puppets milling about. Shifty grumbled, trying to get an ancient tape camera to work. “It’s being weird,” Shifty hissed. “It won’t turn on–”

“Gimme that,” Stan said, trying to snatch it from Shifty.

“Stop it, you’re gonna get us kicked out again–”

There was a huge crash from the stage, and Shifty jumped, their mouth falling open as a wedding cake prop–big enough to sit in–fell to the stage like the Phantom’s chandelier.

Wendy laughed. “Sick! Stunts!”

Mabel and Dipper tumbled out of the cake, shouting at each other, mid-fight and trying to tug the journal away from each other. Shifty couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was hands down the most serious fight they had seen them engaged in. And they had fought a lot over the summer; close quarters tended to do that.

“Woah, dude! Plot twist!” Soos said.

Shifty flipped through the program. “This isn’t in the program.”

“Oh, yeah,” Soos nodded wisely as the fog and laser machines started going off at random as Mabel and Dipper continued to wrestle like the fate of the world depended on it. “They only put songs in those things, dude, not fight sequences.”

“Oh,” Shifty nodded. “Okay. That makes sense.”

“Woah, children fighting!” Stan said, snatching the camera. “I can sell this!”

Mabel smacked Dipper in the face with the journal, and scampered away, Dipper chasing after her with fury on his face. Shifty frowned. “He looks pissed.”

“Acting,” Wendy said.

“...okay,” Shifty said, a little uneasy.

Dipper stumbled, visibly worn down, swaying slightly before he collapsed without warning, like a marionette with cut strings. Stan paused, looking as concerned as Shifty felt, but Dipper rose unsteadily less than a few seconds later, something that looked oddly like relief on his face.

Soos started clapping.

Mabel pulled out some kind of oversized remote control, and looked sadly at her set. “Oh, the pyrotechnics!” Stan grinned. “Set ‘em up myself.”

Shifty glanced at him. “The pyro-what-”

The set exploded with the force of what Shifty assumed an atom bomb was like, sending them and the rest of the theater-goers diving to the ground for cover. Fireworks exploded above their head, and when they shut their eyes against the flash, they could still see it imprinted against their eyes. The smell of gunpowder overwhelmed them almost instantly.

This should have been in the program, Shifty thought, covering their ears.

Their ears didn’t stop ringing until the audience had already cleared, presumably fearing for their lives. Gabe squeezed past them, for some reason kissing his puppet passionately.

“Well!” Stan said, taking in the state of the kids. Dipper looked horrible, and Mabel looked guilty. “That was…something! We should skedaddle before the cops get called and we have to pay damages.”

“Wait,” Shifty said, seeing Dipper wince as he walked. “Were you guys actually fighting?”

The two glanced at each other, and the silence was all the answer Shifty needed. “What was that all about?!” They demanded.

“Oh, you know,” Mabel said vaguely. “Just, like. Sibling stuff. You know how it is.”

“Dipper’s eye is swollen shut,” Stan said.

“It just does that,” Dipper muttered.

“I’m sure,” Shifty said, stepping back when Dipper glanced at them.

“...sorry about the soda, Remy,” he said quietly. “I’ll get it when we get home.”

Shifty blinked, almost as uncomfortable with the sudden attitude shift as they had been with him before. “...it’s fine, I already got it,” they said carefully.

“Let’s go home,” Mabel said. “Please?”

Soos volunteered to drop Wendy off, so it wasn’t long before the Pines family and Shifty piled into Stan’s car. The second Dipper clicked his seatbelt, he slumped against Mabel, snoring loudly. Apparently snoring was genetic.

“Did he ever solve that laptop?” Shifty asked, hoping the answer was no.

Mabel didn’t answer.

“Mabel?” Shifty said, and twisted around.

Mabel was sniffling quietly, clutching a piece of paper covered in writing. Shifty had seen Dipper drop some kind of note in Stan’s car before they had entered the theater, but they had gotten distracted before they could ask about it.

“What’s wrong?” Shifty asked, reaching for the note.

Mabel stuffed it in her pocket immediately, scrubbing at her face. “N-nothing!”

“What’s nothing?” Stan asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “Pumpkin, you good?”

“I’m fine!” Mabel said, smiling unconvincingly. “Just a little disappointed with the end of the show, I guess.”

“I liked it,” Shifty said. “The unorthodox use of fire was compelling.”

“Yeah, what he said, I think,” Stan said.

Dipper snored.

“Thanks, Remy,” Mabel said quietly. “Thanks, Grunkle Stan.”

She didn’t speak for the rest of the ride.

It was late when Shifty felt their blood run cold.

The rest of the day had been excruciatingly quiet. Dipper had stumbled up to bed immediately, and had not emerged. Mabel took him up a sandwich, but she hadn’t come back down either, calling it a night. The mood felt strangely somber, in a way that made Shifty even more uncomfortable. The feeling that they had missed something important curdled in their stomach like rotten milk, or guilt.

They hadn’t brought up Dipper’s accusation in the kitchen, and they hadn’t wanted to. They also hadn’t said anything when the fabric scissors slipped out of Dipper’s pocket when they left the car, and the twins had looked at the tool like it was a gun that had been unloaded only very recently. It made Shifty nervous too, and they had swept them up with no fanfare.

Now, it was past midnight, and they were decoding the photocopied pages of journal three, trying not to think about their own section.

The sections of ‘the shapeshifter’ were some of the most damaged of the bunch, rendered illegible either by time or by Stanford scribbling over them. The cross-outs and redactions only seemed to get worse the longer Shifty read. Whole passages had been blotted out, hidden desperately from the world and even Stanford’s own eyes.

They refused to decode anything on their own pages. They doubted it would be helpful, and they were too cowardly to be curious about what Stanford could have written to make Dipper so afraid of them.

Get it together, they thought, and flipped the page. They froze.

The two pages were blotted out almost entirely in ink, scribbled over in what could only be described as mania. Eyes stared back at them, drawn in a frenzy and then crossed out. They could only just barely make out the writing, and they wished they hadn’t.

MY MUSE WAS A MONSTER, it read, a strange condemnation. I WAS LIED TO.

Shifty felt sick, and flipped the page.

The next page was heavily redacted, large swaths of writing crossed out or covered by splotches that looked like bloodstains. But they could see a strange creature, surrounded by a ring of symbols, staring back at them with so much intensity a shiver rolled down Shifty’s back.

Shifty squinted at the page, the codes falling to the wayside as they read the title of the entry.

“Who the fuck is Bill Cipher?”

“SHIFTY!” Stanford shouted, and Shifty could hear his unsteady and harried footsteps. “SHIFTY, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Shifty did not emerge, terrified and exhausted, still hiding under the drawer. Their sides still hurt from where Stanford had dug his nails into them. All through the night, they had felt the drone of whatever was in the basement, punctuated by the occasional crash and thump that made them flinch each time. And now, as the sun came up, Stanford had returned, sounding very different than he had during the night.

“SHIFTY!” Stanford shouted, and Shifty whimpered before they could stop themselves.

Immediately, Stanford approached the drawer, dropping to his knees and peering underneath. He looked terrible, his hands covered in blood and a stream of it running steadily out of his right eye. His unshaven and haggard face split into a relieved smile when he saw Shifty. “Oh my god, oh god, I thought–” he reached out, trying to grab Shifty, but they growled before they could stop themselves, pressing even further beneath the drawer.

Stanford froze, surprised. “Shifty?”

“No, no,” Shifty whispered. “No.”

“I-it’s alright,” Stanford said. “I…you gave me a decent nip, didn’t you? That was you, right? On my hand?”

Shifty whimpered again, and Stanford shook his head. “No, no, I’m not angry with you, I promise. Come out now.”

Shifty turned into a rock, like that would do any good. Stanford already knew it was them, and now their eyes were gone.

“Shifty,” Stanford said, his voice seriously. “Come out now, please. I promise I am not going to hurt you.”

Every instinct in Shifty screamed for them to remain hidden, or maybe lash out and fight their way to an exit, but they could never ignore Stanford when his voice was soft and kind like that. They suddenly wanted to be held so badly it was a physical ache.

They slithered out to Stanford as a lizard, belly scraping the ground, and Stanford immediately swept them up. Shifty turned back into themselves immediately, holding onto Stanford tightly, scared of being dropped again.

“Hang on, hang on, let me make sure you’re alright,” Stanford said, pulling Shifty away slightly. Shifty wriggled, suddenly unstable, and Stanford’s eyes widened when he saw the fingerprint shaped marks in their side. “Oh, my god.”

Shifty managed to get closer, and wrapped their arms around Stanford again, shaking and refusing to be put down. Even the smell of lemons didn’t help now.

“Oh, god,” Stanford said again, unable to say anything else.

“Why?” Shifty asked quietly, even though they were scared of an answer. “Mad at me?”

“O-oh, no no, I’m not…” Stanford swallowed hard. Shifty could feel it, the back of their head pressed against Stanford’s throat. “That wasn’t…I didn’t mean to. I-I was wrong, oh my god, I was wrong, I messed up, and now…and now…” he trailed off, muttering nonsensically to himself.

Shifty said nothing. It wasn’t a satisfying answer, but they sensed they weren’t getting anything else out of Stanford without probing.

“...are you sick?” Shifty asked, with only a vague understanding of what sickness was. They knew it made your mind and body act in ways they weren’t meant to. It seemed to fit the bill.

But Stanford flinched as though he had been struck, and he took a shuddering breath.

“Stan-ford?” Shifty asked, suddenly worried they had said something bad.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I…yes. I’m sick. And I need…I’m going to figure out a way to keep you from getting sick as well.”

“Okay,” Shifty said, suddenly so relieved they felt boneless.

If Stanford was sick, it wasn’t him that had hurt Shifty. Stanford would never hurt them, no matter what. The sickness had made him do it, twisting his mind to see Shifty as something that was to be manhandled with no care and a touch of cruelty. Like an unwanted toy. The sickness had made him say all those odd and unsettling things, things that hurt and made Shifty so scared.

The sickness had hurt them. Not Stanford, never Stanford.

With that relieving revelation out of the way, Shifty relaxed, pressing their face into Stanford’s shoulder to breathe in his scent, as necessary as oxygen, while Stanford looked around the broken room, his face filled with horror, guilt, and regret.

Chapter Text

It was a little while before Stanford came back, stumbling through the door, his face red with cold and his eyes bright with a strange excitement and an even stranger guilt.

Shifty immediately tossed a stolen cookie under the table to retrieve later, knowing full well they were supposed to wait until Stanford gave one to them. “Stanford,” they said, and Stanford didn’t even look at them. “Stanford, Stanford–”

“Oh, Fidds, sorry,” Stanford said, ushering in Fiddleford, and Shifty immediately went silent. “I suppose I’ve been a bit conservative with the heat, I apologize–”

“S’alright,” Fiddleford said, shrugging off his coat with a strange tiredness behind his eyes. “I don’t mind the cold none.”

Shifty chirped insistently, and Stanford perked up, seeming to remember they were there. “Oh, hello, Shifty.”

Fiddleford blinked, looking a little surprised. “You let it have free reign of the house when you’re out?”

“Well,” Stanford said, looking a bit embarrassed. “I suppose I’ve been a bit lonely since you’ve been gone. He makes decent company, he mostly entertains itself. He’s started speaking in complete sentences too.”

“Hm,” Fiddleford said, and for some reason Shifty saw a strange lack of something behind his eyes. Though what the lack was, they couldn’t even begin to guess.

It had been a few weeks since Shifty had turned into a tiger, and nearly made a very foolish decision. And though their sightings of Fiddleford had been rare since then, he hadn’t looked at them with the same terror he had had in that moment. Which was especially odd because Fiddleford’s default around Shifty seemed to be terror. Stanford had informed Shifty early (with a great heaviness in his voice) that Fiddleford would be gone for some time, going down to California to visit his family.

That prompted a confusing discussion where Stanford danced around Shifty’s questions until he finally gave them several cookies in an attempt to shut them up. It worked.

But Fiddleford was back, and he wasn’t even gone that long. And the shadow in his eyes seemed chronic and unshakeable, like the look he sometimes got when something that wasn’t supposed to spark and explode did just that. But this seemed far more serious and long-lasting.

“Say hello, Shifty,” Stanford said, a little bit flighty.

“...hello,” Shifty said, in a copy of Stanford’s voice. Fiddleford winced.

“No no, use your voice,” Stanford said.

Shifty whined, still unsure about debuting the voice they had been crafting for themself to Fiddleford, who tended to take anything new Shifty did as a personal attack. Shifty couldn’t even blame him for it now, since the tiger.

“Go on,” Stanford said fervently.

“...hello,” Shifty said, in their own voice.

Fiddleford did not turn around and walk out the door. He blinked, looking vaguely surprised, and then frowned like he was trying to figure out a particularly tricky problem. “...huh. I’ll be. It ain’t just mimicking.”

Shifty turned into a shaggy brown dog, tail thumping against the floor, because Fiddleford tended to look at their true form with more fear than he did a dog. Stanford smiled, strained, and Fiddleford just stared.

“I’ll, ah–” Stanford gestured vaguely. “Heat something up in the microwave, put fresh sheets on that bed. Not that I quit doing laundry after you left, just that–”

“You quit doin’ laundry,” Fiddleford deadpanned.

“I quit doing laundry,” Stanford agreed, and glanced at Shifty. “Would you…would you feel better if I put Shifty back in his pen?”

Shifty stiffened slightly. They didn’t really want to go back to being confined when someone wasn’t actively watching them. That was the one good thing about Fiddleford leaving.

“I don’t care,” Fiddleford said, dropping a lumpy suitcase to the ground with a dull thump.

Stanford blinked. “Really? You don’t…?” He trailed off, and frowned. “It may…it may seem foolish to ask this, but…are you alright?”

Fiddleford said nothing.

“...can I get you anything?” Stanford asked.

“Jus’ wanna sleep,” Fiddleford muttered, sitting heavily in a chair. Several stacks of paper slid to ground, balanced precariously. “Sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” Stanford said, looking worried. “I’ll…I’ll be right back. Shifty, be good, won’t you?”

Shifty thumped their tail against the floor once, and that was good enough for Stanford, because he scurried upstairs to the bedroom. Fiddleford didn’t move, slumped over and staring at the floor like it held all the secrets of the universe.

Shifty let out a vague whimper, cookie forgotten. Fiddleford’s eyes slid over to them, seeing right through them.

‘Don’t you remember?’ Shifty half wanted to say. ‘Don’t you remember when I wanted to kill you? I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry, please don’t be angry with me, please don’t tell Stanford, please don’t leave us again because Stanford gets so, so sad when you leave and nothing I do can fix it.’

Instead they said in their own voice: “Fiddleford?”

“Don’t wanna talk none,” Fiddleford said, his voice as dull as his eyes.

Shifty hauled themselves off the ground, still a dog, padding over to Fiddleford, trying to look as friendly as they could. They sniffed his luggage, and his banjo (Stanford seemed to be tolerating it, mostly, but Shifty enjoyed the sound of it) and when Fiddleford didn’t react badly, they placed their head on his knee, staring up them with big dog eyes.

Fiddleford looked at them, barely a spark behind his eyes, and Shifty wagged their tail hopefully.

After a moment, Fiddleford laid his hand gently on top of Shifty’s head, warm and heavy. “I gotta bad feeling about this one, critter.”

That wasn’t unusual. Fiddleford had bad feelings all the time, ranging from the blast radius of an unstable machine to flavored syrup. But there was something in his voice that made Shifty paused, nervous and unsure how to proceed with the interaction.

They opted to nudge Fiddleford’s hand with their wet nose. They didn’t dislike the feeling of his hand on their head. They realized, with a strange sort of epiphany, this was the first time Fiddleford had ever touched them.

After a long moment, Fiddleford started mindlessly scratching behind Shifty’s ears like they were any other dog. Shifty nearly held their breath, scared to break the moment.

They stayed like that for a long time, silent, as if gathered by a dying person’s bedside, just waiting for the inevitable.

“Am I blanchin’? Girl, we blancin’! I live up in a mansion!” The radio cawed, because it was Soos’ turn to pick the music. It could have been worse. At least they were past his ska phase.

“Remy,” Wendy groaned, her head down on the counter. “Remy, please. Make him change it.”

“You didn’t change it when we were listening to your metal music,” Shifty said, marking up the t-shirts as much as they dared. “So you don’t get to change Soos’ rap music.”

“They’ve played this song six times!” Wendy said. “In a row! I read somewhere that that’s considered, like, psychological torture.”

“You’re psychological torture,” Shifty muttered.

“What?”

“I said that if you come into work on time three times in a row,” Shifty said. “You can have my day to choose music.”

Wendy paused, considering this before she frowned. “It’s not worth it.”

“Remy, you like this song, right?” Soos asked, pausing in his sweeping, his eyes shining with hope.

“...Soos, you’re doing such a good job sweeping,” Shifty said. “Keep it up.”

Wendy scoffed, and Soos saluted. “Yes sir, young man.”

“WENDY, SOOS!” Dipper exploded from the back like he was fired from a rocket. “WE HAVE TO GO SEE OLD MAN MCGUCKET!”

Shifty straightened up, startled. “What?!”

Dipper jumped. “O-oh, Remy! Didn’t know you were here!”

“I live here,” Shifty said.

Mabel nudged Dipper with a significant look. Dipper frowned, and then turned to Shifty. “So, you know how I’ve been searching for the author of the journal all summer?”

Oh fuck, Shifty thought, but shrugged instead. “Yeah, not like you’re constantly muttering under your breath or anything.”

“I do not,” Dipper said, and Wendy snickered. “But Remy, I think we finally figured it out.”

Oh fuck oh fuck-

“Dude!” Wendy’s eyes widened. “Really? Why do we need to find McGucket then?”

Oh god, get ahead of it.

Shifty took a breath. “Okay, I didn’t want it to-”

“He wrote the journals!” Dipper said, his eyes shining.

Shifty blinked. “...what?”

“Woah, woah,” Soos said. “Old Man McGucket? Like, married to a raccoon old man McGucket?”

“Yeah!” Dipper nodded. “Listen, I’ll explain on the way, but we have strong evidence, really good evidence, lemme just-”

“Wait, wait,” Shifty said, a little relieved that they didn’t think the author was them this time, but still on edge. “You can’t just go chasing after that old coot.”

“What?” Mabel asked. “Why? He’s not dangerous.”

“He built a giant metal lake monster!” Shifty said.

Dipper blinked. “Wait, how do you know about that?”

“I-I-” Shifty scoffed, trying to look nonchalant. “You guys are a lot less secretive than you think. Point is, he’s unpredictable. It’s not safe. For any of you, for that matter.”

“What?!” Dipper squawked. “But this could be the final breakthrough!”

It might be. That’s why this is a horrible idea.

“Too bad,” Shifty said. “And you can ask Stan, but I know he’ll agree with me.”

Dipper frowned, and Shifty prepared to waste a half-hour arguing with Dipper. Probably longer, since no doubt his friends and sister would join in.

But instead, he shrugged. “Fine. Okay.”

“What?” Shifty asked, startled.

“We won’t go find him,” Dipper shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

His last statement set off alarm bells in Shifty’s head. They knew full well that for all their postulating, they didn’t have an ounce of control over those kids. “Are you messing with me?”

Dipper blinked, the picture of innocence. “No!”

“You’re going to sneak out the second I look away, aren’t you?” Shifty asked, their heart sinking.

“Wha-a-a-t?” Mabel laughed. “Come on, Remy! Does that seem like something we would do?”

“Oh, my god,” Shifty said. “You two are monsters.”

“Give it up, man,” Wendy grinned. “The end of the world couldn’t stop these two if they wanna do something.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, closing their eyes and pinching their brow. “Oh my god. I hate it here.”

They half expected the room to be empty when they opened their eyes, but Wendy was still looking smug, Soos was pretending to be interested in his broom, and the kids were grinning like the little shits they were.

“Fine,” Shifty said. “But I’m coming too.”

Shifty reasoned with themselves that this was logical. If they came along, and acted as clueless as the others were, they could steer them away from any trouble, and keep them from unraveling anything that should have stayed hidden.

Besides, they weren’t positive that there wouldn’t be another disaster if they tried to sneak along again this time. It seemed likely with their luck. And if McGucket started yelling that Shifty was an unholy monster, even if he was right, who was going to believe him?

At least they weren’t in so much pain now. It had been some time since Mabel’s puppet show, and Shifty had managed not to pop any more stitches. The wound didn’t look quite so angry now, and Stan had mentioned that they could probably take the stitches out in a few days or so.

That didn’t help the uneasiness. Shifty had not fallen apart again like they had in the library, but they felt loose, untethered, like a strong gust of wind might send their parts and pieces careening to the ground with a disgusting splatter of viscera. They couldn’t remember ever feeling this unsteady, especially as the equations continued to point to one inevitable conclusion: one way or another, that portal was turning. And it was turning on soon.

They were just worried that this might be the thing that shook them apart.

“Old Man McGucket!” Dipper called, ducking under the chain link fence, wandering fearlessly into the junkyard. “Are you here?”

“Here, hillbilly, billy, billy, billy!” Soos called, as if summoning a naughty cat.

“Oh, don’t do that,” Shifty winced. They rounded the corner, and froze.

They had seen Fiddleford’s “home” once or twice, usually from a distance or as a small animal, hunting the dump for scraps that could be repurposed for the portal. It never made seeing it any easier. It was still impossible to believe that Fiddleford McGucket, who was quite possibly the only person in the world able to match wits with Stanford, had been reduced to this.

Two teenagers–Shifty was pretty sure they were Wendy’s friends–were snickering to each other outside the shack, spray painting a name on the side: MCSUCKIT.

Shifty frowned. They had no love towards Fiddleford, but it still felt childishly cruel.

“Took us an hour to think of this!” One of the teens muttered, and Shifty was even less impressed.

A tarp covering the entryway moved, and Shifty sucked in a sharp breath when Fiddleford McGucket scrambled out, waving a long stick. The teens didn’t seem especially scared, laughing with each other as they dodged his manic swipes.

“GET OUTTA HERE!” Fiddleford shrieked. “YOU SALT-LICKN’, HORNSWAGGLIN’-!”

He seemed to run out of steam almost immediately, frowning. “McSuckit,” he said, more so tired than defeated. “They got me good.”

He swung around abruptly, almost owl-like in how big his eyes were, and Shifty stepped back, their breath catching. All their self-assurances that Fiddleford’s insanity would dispel any of his claims about Shifty were gone, because the second he used the word shapeshifter, the group’s ears would pick up like hounds that had caught the scent of blood. And Shifty wasn’t all too positive that they could hold up under that much scrutiny.

But Fiddleford’s gaze was vacant for a moment, and then he split into a gap-toothed smile.

“Visitors!” He said, overjoyed as he had been when he saw Shifty the last time, at least before everything went wrong. “Come, come, come in!”

He ushered them inside, his smile wide and friendly. “Pull up some scrap metal and getcher-self seated! Can I offer y’all some rainwater collected in a rusty pail?” He grabbed a bucket that was quite literally coated with rust, offering it. The smell of iron was overpowering, and far too close to blood for Shifty’s taste.

“Old Man-” Dipper said, and then paused. “Uh, Mr. McGucket, you remember us, right? From the lake? And other stuff?”

“Mm,” Fiddleford’s gaze was unfocused and cross-eyed. “Nope!”

“What?” Mabel frowned. “You chased us with your robot.”

“Aw, I chase lotsa people with robots!” Fiddleford shrugged. “Can’t hardly keep track of ‘em all. Oh, wait, I know you, right?” His eyes swerved to Shifty, and they felt sick.

“O-oh, no,” they shook their heads wildly. “I-I mean, you’ve seen me around, but never-”

“Oh, yeah!” Fiddleford snapped his fingers. “You’re the feller who grabbed the apple at the bottom of the apple pyramid in the grocery store, and the whole thing went kaput!”

The group snickered, and Shifty’s mouth dropped open. “...how the hell do you know about that?!”

“Bad word!” Mabel said.

“I like to hang out in the ventilation tunnels at the grocery store,” Fiddleford said. “Smells like day-old produce!”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said.

“You can drop the act, McGucket!” Dipper said, probably coming in too hot. “I know you’re the author!”

Fiddleford blinked. “Huh?”

“You studied the mysteries of this town and wrote this book!” Dipper said, holding up the journal, and Shifty prepared for a potential disaster if Fiddleford’s brain randomly decided to start firing neurons in the correct order.

“Dude, you’re the genius Dipper’s been searching for all summer!” Wendy said. She reached into Dipper’s backpack and retrieved a broken laptop, though Shifty had no idea it had been destroyed until now.

But Fiddleford paused, and they felt their heart skip a beat. “Genius?” He looked confused, and vaguely frustrated. “I’m no genius. Would a genius be livin’ here? I think y’all got the wrong man. Dunno how I got here, but I musta been a big failure for it to happen.”

“But the laptop has your name on it!” Soos said.

“What about this book?” Dipper asked, holding out the journal and flipping through the pages. “Are you sure you didn’t write it?”

“I told you, I don’t recall!” Fiddleford said, looking more frustrated.

“He said he doesn’t know,” Shifty said. “Look, let’s go back home and regroup-”

Suddenly, Fiddleford shrieked like he had been shot, scrambling away from the book and covering his face. “THE BLIND EYE!” He wailed. “ROBES! MEN! MY MIND! THEY DID SOMETHING!”

“What?” Dipper asked, and Shifty’s heart skipped a beat.

“Let me see that,” they said urgently, snatching the journal and ignoring Dipper’s protests. The page was vaguely familiar; it had been unhelpful to portal building, so Shifty had merely skimmed it, reading about men in long red robes with a name that was meant to evoke fear, but mostly made Shifty sigh, think Of course this town has a cult in it and move on.

But the way Fiddleford was cowering spoke to something far deeper than that.

“THEY DID SOMETHING!” Fiddleford repeated.

“Who did?” Dipper asked.

“I…” he frowned, looking even more frustrated. “Don’ recall.”

“Oh, you poor old man,” Mabel said, a bastion of sympathy. “No wonder your mind’s all-” she blew a raspberry. “You’ve been through something intense.”

Shifty winced, but no one seemed to notice.

“What if McGucket learned something he wasn’t supposed to know, and someone, or something, messed with his mind?” Dipper asked. “We have to get to the bottom of this.”

Shifty said nothing, something strange unraveling in their chest. It took a second to recognize it; a new type of hope.

If someone had done this to Fiddleford, destroyed him in increments and then all at once, it meant he hadn’t meant to leave, maybe not entirely. Maybe he had wanted to come back. Maybe whatever had happened, the thing that made him flighty and paranoid and twitchier, had ripped him from Stanford and Shifty. His fear, his twitchiness, all of it might never have been the result of his own weakness, or some innate wrongness in Shifty that only he could see.

Maybe he was just sick, in the same way Stanford was. Maybe he hadn’t meant to abandon Shifty at all.

The idea that it might have been accidental didn’t make Shifty’s anger go away, but it made it easier to ignore. It gave them a goal. And they operated best with a goal.

“What’s the earliest thing you remember?” Shifty said, for once not caring that asking that was a dangerous game.

Fiddleford frowned, thinking hard. “...the history museum, I think.”

Dipper grinned. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

“Soos, I’m sorry, really, I’ll get you a new CD as soon as we can,” Wendy said, following the rest of them up the steps of the museum. Fiddleford scampered up like a flighty animal.

“You threw it out the window,” Shifty said with a grin.

Wendy threw her hands up. “I’m sick of that song!”

“Alright, whatever,” Shifty said, picking out the window that looked the least secure and easily raising it so everyone could slip in. Spending an adolescence with Stan had its perks in situations like these.

“Hello?” Soos called. “Anyone?”

“Sh!” Shifty said, creeping inside and shutting the window behind them. “Do you want to get caught?”

“Sorry, dude,” Soos grinned. “This is my first time doing a heist!”

“It’s not a heist,” Shifty said. “It’d be a lame heist, anyway.”

“Keep your eyes peeled for anything suspicious,” Dipper said.

“Peeled peepers,” Fiddleford said, and Shifty jumped, not realizing he was right next to them. “Sounds nasty.”

“God, we need to get you a bell,” Shifty muttered, uneasy. Fiddleford looked at them blankly, and they shuffled away, uncomfortable.

“Anything coming back to you?” Dipper asked.

“Eh,” Fiddleford said. “Not right now, but-”

“Guys!” Soos said, pointing down the hall. “Look!”

At the end of a hall about fossils, a hooded figure disappeared into the shadows. Dipper, of course, immediately started chasing after them. “HEY! WHO’S THERE?!”

“Wait, wait!” Shifty said, sprinting after them, coming to a sudden stop when they turned a corner into a dead end. An ominous room stood open before them, with a roaring fire in a fireplace casting dancing shadows on the wall. For some reason, the room was completely filled with eyes–diagrams, plastic models, even several in a jar, pickling. Shifty hoped they were fake, but a quick sniff of the air told them they weren’t so lucky.

“Kettle my corn!” Fiddleford said. Shifty was pretty sure he was just saying words at this point with no real rhyme or reason. “He vanish-a-fied!”

“Dudes,” Soos said quietly. “This room is mad creepy.”

“You can say that again. And you don’t actually have to say it, Soos,” Shifty said as Soos opened his mouth.

He nodded. “Right, I keep forgetting.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Dipper said, frustrated. “Where did he go?”

Fiddleford made a nervous noise, backing away. “I feel like all these eyeballs are a-watchin’ me.”

Dipper glanced around, and paused. “Wait! Doesn’t it look like they’re all looking in the same place?”

Shifty followed the direction the eyes were looking, and paused when they realized every single one was looking at Fiddleford. Fiddleford backed up nervously, unused to this much staring, and Dipper approached what he had been standing in front of: a single rock with an eye carved into it.

Dipper reached forward, and before Shifty could stop him, he pushed the rock like a button, scraping along the wall.

There was a second of stillness, and then fire went out.

The fireplace rumbled, moving away with a mechanical squeal to reveal a dark staircase, descending deep into the underground of the museum. “Jackpot!” Wendy grinned, and Shifty frowned.

“This seems…” they paused. “Ill-advised.”

“Don’t lame out on us,” Wendy said.

“It’s not laming out!” Shifty said. “Someone has to be a responsible adult, and no offense Soos, but I don’t know if you’re exactly the one for this.”

“None taken, dude,” Soos said.

“McGucket’s an adult,” Mabel argued.

“McGucket has a stuffed raccoon in his overalls,” Shifty said.

Fiddleford scowled, holding his arms over the raccoon protectively. “I’m laying her to rest proper-like once we’re done here.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, exhausted. They felt the sudden need to shriek into a pillow.

“Old Man McGucket, leave the raccoon up here, and you can get it when we leave,” Dipper said, and Fiddleford frowned, but listened, stowing it behind the pickled eyes. “And you said it yourself, Remy. We’re just gonna do it anyway.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said again. “You’re a horrible kid.”

Dipper just grinned.

“We’ll have to be stealthy,” Fiddleford said, peeking down the staircase. “I’ll hambone a message if there’s trouble.”

He whacked himself several times in a strange pattern, looking intensely focused. The group stared at them, and Shifty sighed. “Can we put him at the back of the group? Please?”

The basement of the museum, if indeed that was what it was, smelled like dust, mothballs, and inexplicably, smoke. The stairs led deeper and deeper down, spiraling, and very suddenly, Shifty heard chanting.

“Do you…?” They whispered, glancing back. By the looks of everyone’s wide and nervous eyes, they heard it too. They couldn’t make out what the voices were saying. They were too distorted, and it didn’t even sound English.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, concealed by a blood red curtain. Dipper pulled it aside, giving them all a perfect view.

Several strangers in red robes stood in a circle, their faces concealed by hoods, chanting at an intricate wooden chest in the middle of their circle. Behind them, a chair with leather restraints was unused and ignored, and it made Shifty sick to look at it.

One of the figures stepped forward. “Who is the subject of our meeting?” He asked.

“This woman!” The figures answered, dragging someone forward with a burlap sack over her head.

“Oh no,” Shifty whispered, checking their hands for an extra finger. They had been better about kicking that anxious habit since Gideon, but it didn’t hurt to check. So far, so good.

The robed men strapped the woman in the chair, and pulled off the burlap sack. “Lazy Susan?!” Mabel whispered, instantly recognizing her bad eye and bright makeup.

“Oh no,” Shifty said, trying to grab the kids. “We should go, we need to go-”

“What is it you have seen?” One of the men asked.

“SPEAK!” The others intoned.

“Uh,” Lazy Susan said, looking rightfully frightened. “Well, uh, I was leaving the diner, and I saw these little bearded doo-dads, and I was like ‘whaaaa?’”

“There, there,” the man said, reaching into the box, and pulling something out. “You won’t be like ‘whaaaaa’ much longer.”

He retrieved an object from the box. It was small enough to fit in his hand, some kind of metal device with a long light bulb affixed to the end of it. The man gripped it like it gave him power, and with a jolt, Shifty knew what it was: a gun. It wasn’t like any of the ones they had seen up close–not that they had seen many–but they knew that they never wanted to be around a gun again.

“We need to go,” they repeated. “We need to go right now-”

“What, Remy!” Dipper swatted their hands away. “Stop it–”

The man aimed the gun, and shot Lazy Susan directly in the face.

There was a sound like a circuit board exploding, and Lazy Susan screamed, thrashing in her chair against the restraints as a beam of light exploded from the gun, so bright that Shifty flinched, looking away. But instead of blood and skull exploding against the wall, when the light faded, Lazy Susan was still there, blinking and confused.

The smell of smoke grew far stronger.

Fiddleford made a scared noise, and Shifty nearly mimicked him.

“Lazy Susan,” the man said, lowering the gun. “What do you know of these bearded men?”

“My mind is clear,” she said robotically.

“It is unseen,” the other men intoned.

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, their head spinning. “Oh my god, oh fuck-”

“Super bad word,” Mabel scolded in a whisper, but she looked frightened.

“They just wiped Lazy Susan’s memory!” Dipper hissed.

“Shoulda wiped off that awful mascara though!” Soos grinned, raising his hand for a high five to Shifty. “Up top, dawg!”

Shifty started to raise their hand to give Soos a high five, but Mabel and Wendy turned around, looking vicious. “I think she looks beautiful!” Mabel hissed.

“She’s doing the best she can, Soos!” Wendy snapped.

Shifty immediately lowered their hand, and Soos looked surprised. “Woah! Touched a nerve there.”

The robed men were dragging Susan off, who still looked extremely dazed. The man opened up the gun, retrieved a vial from the center of it, and handled it delicately as though it might explode. “All your memories will be safe with us,” he muttered. “In the Hall of the Forgotten.”

The man walked to a dusty pneumatic tube on the other side of the room, shoving the vial inside with no fanfare. It immediately disappeared up the clear tube with a soft hiss of air, and the man brushed his hands off, satisfied. Shifty followed the tube, and ducked back behind the curtain when they realized the tube stretched over their head.

“Meeting adjourned!” The robed man said, and the others dispersed, chattering idly.

“Okay,” Shifty whispered when the room was clear. “Now we can–what are you doing?!”

“Investigating!” Dipper whispered, emerging into the room with no fear. The others followed, and Shifty just managed to keep from allowing a frustrated scream to bubble out of their throat.

“This is crazy,” Dipper said. “A secret society of evil mind erasers!”

He reached for the gun, and Shifty grabbed him by the back of his vest. “Don’t touch it, are you nuts?!”

Dipper frowned. “All investigative work comes with risk.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty groaned. “Is that what you and your sister have been doing all summer?! Just getting in life-threatening situations?”

“Some of them weren’t our faults,” Mabel said.

“Some of them?!”

“If we find out where Old Man McGucket’s memories are,” Dipper said. “It could be the key to unlocking all the secrets of Gravity Falls-”

“Uh, dude?” Soos said. “He’s gone.”

Shifty whirled around, panic spiking in their chest for what felt like the millionth time. “Oh god,” they said, realizing that Fiddleford was, indeed, nowhere to be seen. “Oh my god! When did he get away?! He’s going to get into something and ruin everything!”

“We’ll have to split up,” Dipper said, which sounded like a terrible idea. “Mabel, Wendy, can you guys stay here to make sure those guys don’t come back?”

“Girls mission!” Wendy grinned, elbowing Mabel.

“No, no, not a girls mission!” Shifty said, feeling the situation spiral desperately out of control. “They have a gun!”

“And they left it here!” Mabel said, pointing to the gun sitting peacefully in the box, like it had done no wrong. “We can just threaten them with it if they come back!”

“Don’t touch it!” Shifty said desperately.

“Soos and Remy, you guys find out where the tube goes,” Dipper said, as if Shifty hadn’t even spoken. “I’ll find McGucket–”

“No, no,” Shifty said, willing to put their foot down on at least one thing. “I’m getting McGucket, okay?! You two stay out of sight, at least!”

“Dude,” Soos said. “What’s your deal with McGucket? You’ve been weird this whole adventure.”

“Because I think it’s a terrible idea,” Shifty said. “And also, I don’t like McGucket.”

“What’d he ever do to you?” Mabel asked.

“N-nothing, just…” Shifty sighed, trying to force their body to relax. Who knew where Fiddleford could be by now, and what he was getting into? “I’ll be able to get him. Dipper and Soos, go.”

“You sure, man?” Dipper asked.

Oh my god, no, I’m not sure, please help, Shifty thought, but instead said: “Yeah. Piece of cake.”

Shifty decided that they were going to do their damndest to get those kids grounded for the rest of the summer, fully aware of how fruitless such an effort would be.

Fucking hell, they thought morosly, wandering through the museum. We need child leashes or something.

“McGucket?” They called, as loud as they dared. “Hello? It’s time to come out now, we gotta go.”

No answer besides the echo of their own voice.

“H-e-e-e-re, McGucket, McGucket, McGucket,” Shifty called. “I have a can of beans for you. And…table scraps, or whatever it is you live off of.”

They heard voices down the hall, unfamiliar ones, drawing closer. They froze, panicking before they saw a metal door, and immediately ducked inside, shutting it quietly behind them. They pressed their ear against the door, tense and nervous.

“I swear I heard something,” they heard someone mutter.

“There’s a possum infestation in the walls, I think,” another said, which was a little concerning. “It’s probably that.”

Shifty relaxed only slightly when they heard the footsteps retreat, leaning their head against the cold metal of the door. “God,” they muttered, trying to relax. “God.”

“Well howdy!”

It was a good thing that time and whatever ailments Fiddleford suffered from had shrunk him by several inches. Because the blow the Shifty had delivered probably would have killed him.

They swung their fist out of instinct, already wound like a spring ready to pop. They connected with the wall, and felt it yield under their knuckles, missing Fiddleford’s face by several inches.

He huffed. “That ain’t no way to greet someone.”

“Where the fuck did you go?! Why did you run off?!” Shifty hissed, already uncomfortable with the small space. They fumbled for a lightswitch, and found a long cord hanging from the ceiling. They yanked down on it, and a naked lightbulb illuminated Fiddleford in a sickly light. It made him look even worse.

He grinned, vacant and happy. “Hey, there, friend! Fancy seeing you in this closet!”

“That’s not–” Shifty sighed. “Whatever, fine. Let’s just go.”

They grabbed the door handle, and frowned when it rattled without opening. “What…?” They yanked on it a few more times, scowling. “Is this locked?!”

“Try pushing,” Fiddleford said. “Maybe it ain’t pull.”

“Shut up,” Shifty growled, letting go of the handle. “Hang on, I’m going to break it down.”

Fiddleford frowned. “I don’t think-”

“I’m stronger than I look,” Shifty said, and braced themselves before they threw their shoulder against the door. It didn’t even shake, except for the loose doorknob.

“What…?!” Shifty tried three more times before their chest began to burn dangerously, their shoulder aching long before that. “Why can’t I break this down?!”

“Oh,” Fiddleford nodded wisely. “That'd be reinforced steel.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yep!” Fiddleford whistled, examining the door with an impressed look. “Real strong, good craftsmanship. Wonder who made it? I’d like to shake their hand!”

“Why is it even reinforced steel?!” Shifty demanded, breathing hard.

“Well,” Fiddleford said, pointing to an ominous chair and burlap sack, shoved in the corner of the closet. A circle of rope sat beneath it, and Shifty felt nauseous. “This is where they keep the folks a-fore they mind erase ‘em, I reckon.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, feeling panic begin to build in their chest, far more acute than the shimmering anxiety from before. “Oh my god, I can’t be in here. I can’t do this.”

If it hadn’t been for the stitches still in their chest, they could have easily turned into a mouse and fled through a crack in the wall. They would consider it payback to abandon Fiddleford while they worked to open the door, and besides, he didn’t seem all too upset to be trapped.

“Seems like we’re stuck,” Fiddleford said, annoyingly serene, or maybe just mentally absent.

“No no!” Shifty said, uselessly trying to open the door. “There has to be a way out, there has to be a way out!”

“You alright there?” Fiddleford asked, looking concerned. “Go have yourself a sit, you’re lookin’ awful pale–”

“I’m not sitting in the hostage chair!” Shifty said shrilly, yanking the doorknob off entirely by accident. “FUCK!”

“Eh–” Fiddleford said, looking nervous.

“I can’t do this,” Shifty said, their breath coming faster than ever. They felt their skin ripple, and they winced. Fiddleford stepped away, eyes wide and confused. “I can’t do this, I can’t be in here, I can’t be fucking trapped again, and I can’t be trapped with you.”

Fiddleford frowned, looking more confused than scared now, even as Shifty’s body pulsed in time with their heartbeat. “Alright, what’s your issue with me?” He folded his arms, frowning. “You been acting squirrely since we started this whole lil’ trip. You mad at me?”

“Oh my–?!” Shifty laughed, high and out-of-control. “YES! Yes, I’m mad at you! I’m not having this conversation again!”

“Huh,” Fiddleford said, looking vaguely surprised. “Well, whatever I did, I’m real sorry for it.”

“You can’t apologize,” Shifty snarled, angry enough that it distracted them from their panic. “You don’t even know what you did.”

“What did I do, then?” Fiddleford asked. “Sorry, my mind’s a-jumbled up. On account of that whazzit and all.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” Shifty said, their teeth clenched. They turned away, unable to look at Fiddleford anymore. “You…you did some things. You were building something, something big and important, but you…you left when you should have stayed. It hurt a lot of people. And now you’re like…this. Maybe Dipper was right and this stupid society thought you were too dangerous, too smart to keep walking around intact. I don’t know, I don’t care, you just–!”

There was a beat of silence. Fiddleford’s breath was slightly rattly. Shifty wondered how long it had been like that. “...you walked out when it mattered most.”

Fiddleford hummed. “That don’t sound like me.”

Something inside Shifty cracked.

“YES IT DOES!” They shrieked, whirling around to face him. Fiddleford flinched away, but his back hit the wall. “Yes it does, it sounds exactly like you! That’s what you do! You fucking leave people! You abandon them the second it’s too much trouble to care for them! You leave them and you run away to God knows where, doing God knows what! You’ve let down every single person who ever cared about you, and what did you get you?! It got you fucking insane! It got you living in the dump! Was it really that fucking hard to stick around?! Was it really that terrible to be needed?!”

Fiddleford said nothing, staring at Shifty with wide eyes. They were shaking, dangerously close to unraveling.

“And what kills me,” Shifty said, their voice low. “What kills me is that you don’t even know. You don’t even know what you’ve done anymore. You don’t have to live with it. But everyone else does, even if it’s not your fault. And I would give anything…”

They trailed off, not quite sure what they would give anything for. To forget the things they had done? To make him remember what he had put them through? To be wanted and needed like he was? They all seemed like good answers, and all equally impossible.

“I would give anything,” they decided, their voice cracking. “I would give anything to have you back.”

“...you’re speakin’ like you know me,” Fiddleford said quietly. “But you told me you didn’t.”

“I used to,” Shifty said. “A long time ago.”

They leaned against the wall, all the fight leaking out of them like water in a cracked glass. The panic was gone, the anger had drained away, and all that was left was a grief so deep and so wide they were amazed that it didn’t break them apart.

“...but I don’t think I do anymore,” Shifty muttered, sliding down the wall, their head in their hands. “And now those bathrobe freaks are going to find the others, and who knows what they’ll do to them, and it’ll be all my fault because I’m too busy doing whatever the fuck this is.”

There was a beat of silence, and a shuffle. Shifty peeked out between their fingers, and saw Fiddleford sitting next to them, hat in his hands.

“...I know something’s wrong,” he said quietly. “I think. I know something’s missing. There’s…lil’ flashes of something, sometimes. Voices I ought to know, faces I ought to recognize, stuff like that. Dunno what it is, really. Dunno if any of it’s even real. Some days I don’t see any of ‘em, some days it’s all I see. It ain’t…” he frowned, suddenly looking morose, and for a moment, Shifty could almost see who he used to be. “Sometimes it ain’t clear and sometimes I wish it were less clear.”

Shifty said nothing, not trusting his clarity in the slightest.

“...I don’t know what I did,” Fiddleford said slowly. “But I hope that if we get out of this, I can remember. I’d like to try and fix it. Best I can, leastaways.”

Shifty pressed the heels of their hands into their eyes, as if they could press tears back in. They took a humiliating, shuddering breath, but Fiddleford didn’t comment on it.

“I’m real sorry for makin’ this hard for you,” Fiddleford said. “For all y’all.”

“I-I…” Shifty said, entirely unsure what to say. “...okay. Sure.”

“Hey,” Fiddleford said, and they heard him stand up. “Lemme get up on your shoulders.”

Shifty glanced at Fiddleford’s feet, wrapped in filthy bandages in lieu of shoes. “Uh. No?”

“Lookee there!” He pointed up, and Shifty followed his finger, seeing a vent on top of the ceiling. “I can a-wriggle through that, find a way to get you outta there!”

“You can go through the vents?” Shifty asked.

“Yessiree!” Fiddleford grinned, back to his old empty self. “I love ‘em! S’like one of them mazes on the back of a cereal box!”

“...that…” Shifty stood up slowly, managing to bite back a wince. “That could work.”

“Gimme a boost,” Fiddleford said, clambering over to Shifty. They wondered how they always seemed to end up in close proximity to someone with a powerful odor.

“Okay, okay, just be careful,” Shifty said, interlocking their fingers to create a step-up and leaning down for him. “I-I got hurt a bit ago, so you can’t–HEY!”

Fiddleford immediately lunged at Shifty, scrambling up them like a chain link fence. Shifty reeled back with a shriek. “GODDAMMIT, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

“Quit wriggling!” Fiddleford scolded, reaching up and yanking the vent cover off, and easily scrambling inside. Shifty brushed their jacket off, frowning when they saw dirt coming off it. Fiddleford reached a hand down, making grabbing motions. “Gimme that there thingamajig.”

“What?”

“The thingamajig,” Fiddleford repeated. “From the door.”

“The…” Shifty blinked. “The doorknob?”

“That’s what I said,” Fiddleford said. “Give it here, might hafta fight off a possum with it if they’re really in these walls. Sure hope so, I’ll be eating good tonight!”

Shifty didn’t even bother telling him not to eat any creatures he found in the wall. It seemed like a lost cause. “Here,” they handed the doorknob to him, and he immediately scuttled away, ‘heh-heh-heh’-ing all the way.

They listened closely, hearing the rattling overhead get farther and farther, until they couldn’t hear him anymore, clenching and unclenching their fists nervously.

“...McGucket?” They called, uneasy. “Fiddleford?”

No answer.

Shifty felt something in their chest tighten, and the room felt smaller in a way it hadn’t been just a few seconds ago. Now it felt painfully familiar, cramped and suffocating, and as they drew in breaths that were rapidly becoming more wheezy, they thought they could smell the dirt all over again. Their wound burned, and they only just resisted the animalistic urge to claw at it, to chew away at it until they were left with an even bigger injury than before, like a fox with a paw stuck in a trap.

Who knew where Fiddleford had gone to? Who knew what was happening to the kids, to Soos, to Wendy? Maybe it was already too late, and by the time Shifty was found, they would be long gone. Or worse, those robed men would find them and pick their mind apart until they were a shell just like Fiddleford, all traces of hard fought humanity ripped away in a flash like tearing away a bandage–

The door creaked, and swung open.

Fiddleford stood in front of them, slouched and smiling. “Got it!” He whooped, looking pleased with himself.

Shifty said nothing, trying to get their wheezy breathing under control, eyes wide and still half-terrified. Fiddleford frowned, stepping back and motioning vaguely. “You can come on out, now.”

“...you came back,” Shifty said in a small voice.

Fiddleford blinked. “‘Course I did,” he said, sounding oddly cognizant. “I had to.”

Shifty didn’t trust themselves not to say anything stupid, so they merely nodded, stunned into silence.

Fiddleford jerked his head vaguely into the museum. “Whaddya say we find them young folks?”

Fiddleford couldn’t resist raiding the early settlers’ exhibit, insisting with a half-excited grin that shovels, mallets, a pickax, and a fake banjo were absolutely necessary to a rescue mission. Shifty didn’t have time to argue.

They burst into the secret room just in time to see the gun being raised to point at all four of their missing members, tied to a post and struggling.

The man’s face was exposed now, and he was bald with extensive tattoos all over his paper-white skull, a wicked grin on his face like he actually enjoyed watching the others struggle and fail to escape.

Shifty froze, struck stupid by the sudden horror, but Fiddleford didn’t waste a second.

He reached into his pocket, withdrawing the doorknob, and in one smooth motion lobbed it at the bald man like a baseball pitcher. “HEADS UP!” He shrieked.

The man looked over, and the doorknob hit him square in the nose.

He stumbled back, a spray of blood flying from his face, barely managing to hold onto the gun. The other cult members either rushed to the bald man’s side to help, or stared in shock as Shifty and Fiddleford darted forward, freeing the others easily.

“McGucket!” Dipper said, pointing at the bald man. “We found your memories! Ivan’s got them!”

Shifty startled when they saw a familiar face among the cultists. “Is that Bud Gleeful-”

“No time for chit-chat!” Fiddleford said, shoving a mallet into Shifty’s hands. “We gotta get outta here!”

“Stop them!” Ivan said, his nose practically gushing blood. Fiddleford had gotten him good. “They know too much!”

“What–” Shifty started, only to whirl around and wave the mallet threateningly at several cultists that approached them. “Don’t even think about it!”

“Guys!” Mabel shouted, pointing at a small glass vial on the ground, labeled as ‘Fiddleford H. McGucket’. “There it is!”

Shifty tried to lunge for it, but someone kicked it out of the way. Dipper immediately scrambled after the tube, followed closely by Ivan. Shifty tried to follow, but they tripped over someone’s outstretched leg.

They hit the ground with a pained wince, the air half knocked out of them. Bud Gleeful leered down at them, flanked by several cultists with equally shit-eating grins. “Seems like you’re outnumbered, boy!”

“YOU OWE US SO MUCH IN LEGAL FEES,” Shifty said shrilly, swinging the mallet at Bud. It connected with his foot, and he yelped, hopping backwards. Shifty scrambled away from the other cultists as they closed in, frantic.

“HEY!” They heard Dipper shouted, and craned their head back just in time to see Ivan grab a hold of the gun, aiming it right for Dipper. Dipper stumbled away, eyes wide and terrified.

“NO!” Shifty shouted, stumbling to their feet and easily throwing the cultists aside. But it didn’t matter; they were too far away, and Ivan pulled the trigger with a horrible grin, and a flash of light exploded out of the gun. Dipper covered his face–

Fiddleford lunged in front of the beam, and it struck him square in the face.

Shifty made a horrible, gargled scream.

When the flash cleared, Fiddleford blinked, looking vaguely confused, sneezed twice, and then grinned. “That tickled!”

“McGucket!” Dipper said, looking shocked. “Are you…did that…oh my god?!”

“What?!” Ivan said, shooting again. Fiddleford shook this one off even faster, and now the cultists were staring with something akin to fear as Fiddleford approached Ivan, utterly unaffected and cackling like the direct hits merely tickled. “Why isn’t this working?!”

“My mind’s been gone for thirty odd years!” Fiddleford crowed. “Can’t break nothing that’s already broken!”

“No,” Ivan said, and the smell of smoke began to mingle with the scent of frying circuitry, the gun overused and heating up from shot after useless shot. “NO NO NO!”

Fiddleford reached up, smacking the gun out of Ivan’s hand with a glee unlike anything Shifty had ever seen. Ivan yelped, genuinely afraid, and tried to scramble away, but Fiddleford grabbed Ivan and reared his head back.

“G’NIGHT, SALLY!” He shrieked, which felt like more nonsense to Shifty, but he pitched his head forward as hard as he could, headbutting Ivan so hard that he collapsed immediately, nearly senseless. He grinned, pleased with himself.

“Oh my god,” Wendy muttered, looking impressed.

“Yeah!” Dipper said, snatching up the gun and aiming it at the cultists, who immediately backed down. “Yeah, you better not mess with us!”

“I think I got a concussion,” Fiddleford said, blinking heavily.

“Oh, dude, do you need to go to the clinic?” Soos asked.

Fiddleford grinned. “What’s it gonna do that ain’t already been done?”

The rest of the cultists were dealt with–that is, their memories of the Society of the Blind Eye were erased, and they were sent on their way.

(“That doesn't seem right,” Bud Gleeful said, looking dazed on the steps of the museum.

“No, it’s right,” Shifty assured him. “You still owe me and Stan a few more thousands, and you owe me several hundred comics, I think I have an itemized list somewhere–”

“Remy,” Dipper said without too much scolding.)

“Alright,” Dipper said, having gathered them all around a tiny screen, holding Fiddleford’s vial of memories. “You ready to see your memories? Find out who you really are?”

Fiddleford frowned, suddenly looking uneasy. Shifty felt equally uncomfortable, hanging near the back of the room, half-poised to flee at the first sign of trouble, still expecting Fiddleford to whirl around with a shriek of terror and a finger pointing in accusation.

“I dunno no more,” Fiddleford muttered. “What if…what if I don’t like what I see?”

“We’ve come all this way!” Mabel said. “Don’t you think you deserve to know?”

“Eh…” Fiddleford said, casting a nervous glance back at Shifty. They immediately looked away, refusing eye contact.

“It’s up to you, man,” Dipper said, offering the glass vial.

Fiddleford hesitated, and for a second Shifty thought he was going to march out and scuttle back to his kingdom of trash. But with a shaking hand, he took the vial, and inserted it into the screen.

The screen buzzed with static, and very suddenly, Shifty found themselves looking at another image of Fiddleford McGucket; the one they really remember, the genius who had disappeared in the middle of January.

They hadn’t expected such a physical reaction. They just barely managed to bite down on a pained noise, looking away from the screen, unable to face that version of Fiddleford again. Their chest ached so sharply that for a second they worried that the wound had reopened–and maybe it had, in a way.

The others oohed, apparently shocked to see Fiddleford so put together, and Shifty couldn’t blame them. Young Fiddleford was utterly unrecognizable from Old Man McGucket to the untrained eye. For better or worse, Shifty had a trained eye.

“My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket,” the man on the screen said, and Shifty realized with a strange sort of nervousness that this man did not sound like he was speaking under duress. This wasn’t the voice of a man being threatened. He was speaking voluntarily. “And I wish to unsee what I have seen!”

Shifty’s head jerked up, their breath catching in their throat.

“Oh dear,” the current Fiddleford Hadron McGucket said, the screen casting an eerie glow on his face, ghost-like.

“For that past year,” the man on the screen said. “I have been working as an assistant to–” Shifty tensed, and the man on the screen hesitated for a half-second. “-a brilliant researcher. He’s been cataloging his findings about Gravity Falls in a series of journals. I helped him build a machine which he believed had the potential to benefit all mankind, but things are…they’re going wrong, and I can’t…I just can’t.”

Shifty wanted to lunge forward and shatter the screen, but they remained still, glued to their spot by the door, frightened into freezing.

“I believe I’ve invented a machine that can permanently erase these memories from my mind,” the man continued, looking haunted.

No, Shifty pleaded, covering their mouth to swallow back a sound of horror. No, no no. No, it can’t be your choice. Please, no. It can’t be voluntary. Please don’t tell me you would have rather gone insane than stayed.

“Test subject one,” the man said, and it appeared with no warning; the gun, gleaming with newness, the copper handle glinting in the screen and the light bulb unblemished, before years and years of use set in. The man on the screen pressed it to the side of his head as though he were about to do something even more permanent. “Me.”

Shifty looked away, but they still heard the sound, and they held back a gag.

They couldn’t make themselves watch, every excuse and reasoning the man gave to use the gun again as he fell apart with relief, the deterioration of his speech, a screech coming into his voice as he lost more and more control. Everything seemed to be terrible, everything was a reason to wipe it from existence the best he could; a gnome sighting, a terrible dream, a bad phone call back home, each one compounding and looping together into one seemingly inevitable conclusion: it all had to go, no matter what it took.

“A tiger! A tiger!” The man on the screen cried, one of his most nonsensical complaints yet, and Shifty couldn’t take it anymore.

They fled, going as far down the hall as they could before they tripped over nothing, just barely managing to keep themselves from collapsing, their breath coming back to them in more sharp gasps, just as it did in the closet. A whimper, tiny and hurt, managed to wrench its way out of their throat, and they bit down on their jacket sleeve to keep more from escaping. Tears sprang to their eyes, and they used their other hand to press them back in, sick to their stomach.

“No,” they whispered. “No, no no no.”

Fiddleford had left, and stayed gone from his own choices. It was amazing how something they had always believed could gut them like this all over again.

“Stop crying,” they muttered, taking a shaky breath. “Stop it. This happened a lifetime ago. He doesn’t give a shit about you. You knew that.”

They took several shuddering breaths, feeling their body pulse almost violently. “Fuck,” they hissed. “Oh god, oh my god…”

“Remy?”

Shifty gritted their teeth and looked back, seeing Dipper peeking out of the room. Shifty forced a smile, and hoped it didn’t look too fake. “Sorry, I thought I heard someone out here. It’s fine.”

“Are you okay?” Dipper said, and Fiddleford exited the room, holding the vial like it was about to break into a million pieces, lost forever. Maybe it was.

“Yeah,” Shifty said. “I’m okay.”

They caught Fiddleford’s eye in spite of their best efforts, and found themselves unable to look away, like a fly trapped in a spiderweb. Fiddleford stared at them, blinked once, twice, and then something terrifying fell over his face: recognition.

Shifty stiffened, unable to stop themselves from taking a tiny step back, their heart pounding in their ears. All that work, all that hope, just for Fiddleford to come back to himself just long enough to see one of the monsters he had tried so hard to forget come back, play-acting at being a person, and not even doing it particularly well.

Fiddleford frowned, and when he blinked, the clarity did not go away. But he broke eye contact first, and Shifty felt their body relax, almost against their will.

“We oughta get on outta here,” he said, shockingly quiet. “‘Fore the cops get called and we gotta explain.”

“Okay, yeah,” Dipper said, and the rest of the group emerged, looking somber. “You ready to go, Remy?”

“Yeah,” Shifty nodded. “Let’s go home.”

Fiddleford did not speak to Shifty for the rest of the night, save for a polite goodbye after they dropped him off back at the dump, everyone looking extremely reluctant to do so. Shifty was the only one who didn’t say goodbye back, staring at the floor of Soos’ truck with such concentration that they were amazed that it didn’t burst into flames.

They practically scurried to their room before anyone could say otherwise, collapsing onto the couch-bed and staring at the ceiling.

They weren’t sure how long they were there before they heard a rough knock.

“No!” They said, and the door opened anyway. They didn’t have to look to see who it was. “Stan, not now, I’m tired.”

“Then make it quick,” Stan said, and Shifty winced–he sounded more irritated than usual. “Care to explain why the entire staff was out today? I was running between the gift shop and the tours! My knees hurt, Mouser!”

“What do you think they left for?” Shifty asked, still not bothering to look at him. “They were trying to find the elusive author. They didn’t, by the way, you’re welcome.”

“Yeesh, who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?” Stan chuckled at his own joke, sounding vaguely relieved. “What’d they find, then? You were all gone all day.”

“They just ran in circles all day,” Shifty said.

Stan sighed. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m definitely not.”

“Well, you’re a terrible liar to me,” Stan shrugged. “What happened?”

“...I don’t want to talk about it,” Shifty muttered.

“Yeah, well,” Stan said, and Shifty finally glanced up when they felt the couch dip with his weight as he sat down. “I think we’re kinda past any secrets.”

“You want to know a secret?” Shifty asked, unable to hide the irritation in their voice. “I think your plan to wait until to find an energy source is terrible.”

They weren’t sure where the complaint came from, even though it was true. Maybe they had been stewing on it longer than they thought. Stan blinked, looking surprised by the topic change, but he took the bait. “I told you, it’s risky, way too risky–”

“So what?” Shifty said. “This entire plan is risky. The portal could explode if we look at it too hard. But we can see the finish line. Now’s not the time to slow down, conserve energy. The government’s onto us. Even if those agents are gone it doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten this. We could be on borrowed time right now and not even know it. Now’s the time to throw everything we have at this. It could be the difference between life and death.”

Stan pinched his brow. “What are you even suggesting?”

“You know what I’m suggesting,” Shifty said, sitting up. “The facility. You’ve seen my notes. We know the weak points. Between the two of us, we could come up with a plan in a day to get in, get out, and turn that piece of shit on before any agencies can even blink twice. This is our shot. After thirty years, we can finally do it.”

Stan said nothing, his eyes distant. Shifty scooted closer, something deep inside them burning in anticipation, like a greyhound waiting to explode onto a track. “Think about it, Stan. All that work, all that time, all the suffering. It’ll finally be for something. It’ll be over. We’d have won.”

Stan said nothing, his gaze distant and longing.

Shifty smiled. “We can start now, I’ll get my notes. There’s a hole on the east side of the fence–”

“No.”

Shifty went silent, their mouth still open from speaking, stunned into stillness and silence. “...no?”

“No,” Stan shook his head. “We ain’t doing that.”

“This isn’t…” Shifty shook their head. “There’s no better plan, this is all we have. You can’t just say no, this is a team decision–”

“No, it’s not,” Stan stood up. “I’m vetoing. It’s a stupid plan, one of us is gonna get shot.”

“Who cares?!” Shifty asked, frustration eating away at them again.

“Says the guy with a hole in his chest,” Stan said.

Shifty bristled. “I’m fine. Stitches come out soon, I can be out there the same day, I’m not scared of them–”

“Too bad,” Stan said gruffly, shaking his head. “Things change, pal, including my mind. We’re finding a better energy source. One that doesn’t involve potential bullet wounds.”

“You don’t get to decide that alone!” Shifty said. “I put in just as much work on this thing as you did, you don’t get to make the decision for both of us! Especially when you don’t have a plan!”

“Listen, kid,” Stan rolled his eyes. “I’ve been around the block a time or two–”

“Don’t call me kid,” Shifty snapped, surprising even themselves, standing up suddenly. “I haven’t been a kid for a long fucking time.” If I ever even was.

Stan blinked, looking thrown by the sudden shift. Shifty was eye to eye with him–they hadn’t realized they were the exact same height. They weren’t sure why they weren’t taller. But growing taller now would be obvious, and for some reason, the idea of looming over Stan made them nervous in a way they couldn’t pin down.

Stan grinned with no humor. “Fine,” he said. “Mouser.”

He said it like a challenge, and Shifty clenched their fists, staying silent.

Stan grunted, and motioned vaguely as he made his way to the door. “Dinner’s ready, by the way.”

“I’m not hungry,” Shifty said.

Stan rolled his eyes. “Fine, pout. See if I care.”

They spent the rest of the night alone, half-baked plans and fully realized regrets swirling in their mind until the sun rose, and they heard the robins outside once again.

“Fiddleford!” Stanford said into a handheld radio with a smile. They had been using them to communicate between floors during work. It was easier than constant elevator trips. “Come down here at once! There’s something wrong with the portal!”

Shifty chirped, slightly disapproving, but Stanford hardly seemed to notice, practically bouncing from foot to foot in glee.

Shifty heard a crash, even through the floors, and Fiddleford came crashing out of the elevator in a panic. “What is it?!” He demanded, wild-eyed. “Was the gravity reducer damaged?! Is the circuitry smoking?! Is–”

He froze, taking in the sight of the basement.

Everything was covered in decorations, mostly green, red, and silvers strewn about the basement, and lights blinked around a massive metal triangle, with a banner that read ‘HAPPY HOLIDAYS!’ displayed over the central opening. Music was playing from a record player in the corner, a song about grandmothers and reindeer that Shifty didn’t really understand but was already getting sick of.

Fiddleford blinked, looking shocked. “Surprise!” Stanford said, unable to contain himself any longer.

“Oh my god,” Fiddleford breathed. “…how? When? Why?”

“It was a rush job, I admit,” Stanford said, looking apologetic. “And I’ll admit I’m probably not the person who should be shopping for Christmas decorations either. Still, I think I did alright. I had to fight an old lady for the last banner at the store.”

Fiddleford frowned. “You’re joking, right?”

“...yes,” Stanford said, hesitant. “Do you…do you like it? If it’s terrible, I can take it back down–”

“Don’t you dare,” Fiddleford said, a smile finally starting to stretch across his face. “This…my god, it’s gorgeous. You…you didn’t have to do this.”

Stanford reached out, and after a second of hesitation, took Fiddleford’s hand. The latter let him, and Stanford smiled, his eyes shining. “I wanted to.”

“Are you finally coming around to the holidays,” Fiddleford asked. “Or is this a ploy to keep that goat feller away.”

Stanford shivered. “I have some ‘nog. I propose we drink it until we can’t remember what a Krampus is.”

“That’s probably your best idea yet,” Fiddleford laughed.

“Nog,” Shifty said, in the shape of an armadillo. ‘Nog’ was a fun word.

Fiddleford jumped, and his smile died a bit. “O-oh, I didn’t realize it was–”

“Oh, well,” Stanford coughed, looking slightly embarrassed. “He was quite curious when he saw me come in with the decorations, not to mention confectionaires, and I know he’s never been down here, but…” he shrugged helplessly. “He didn’t see the code, if that’s what you’re worried about, I know that for a fact. I just didn’t want to leave him upstairs alone while we were here, but if you really want, I can take him back up.”

“No, no no,” Shifty complained loudly. “Don’t want to go.”

Fiddleford stared, his eyes slightly blank for one strange second, and Shifty nearly shivered.

“...it’s the holidays, I guess,” he said finally. “Guess it can’t hurt none if it didn’t see the code.”

Shifty immediately turned into a gibbon to snatch several cookies off a plate before Stanford could stop them. It managed to make Fiddleford smile.

Shifty wasn’t allowed to drink the ‘nog, which was fine because it smelled terrible, even though Stanford and Fiddleford seemed to enjoy it. Shifty couldn’t remember the last time they had seen Fiddleford so at ease, laughing and chattering with Stanford with a smile that Shifty barely remembered, leaning in close to him like he was the only source of warmth in the cold basement.

Shifty ate cookies until they were gone, taking Stanford’s toothless scolding as encouragement to keep doing it because it made Fiddleford laugh. The night crept on, far past their bedtime, but they were having too much fun to even think about closing their eyes. Fiddleford even made up a game where he would fold increasingly complex paper airplanes, ones that looped and spun in surprising ways, and Shifty would try to snatch them out of the air in increasingly ridiculous shapes, egged on by Stanford and Fiddleford’s cheers with each acrobatic leap.

They weren’t sure when, but eventually, they ended up outside, illuminated only by the porchlights.

“I ain’t done this before,” Fiddleford said excitedly, slurring his words ever so slightly, rolling snow into an increasingly large sphere. “Only seen it in pictures. Not enough snow in Tennessee, if any, Backupsmore just got sleet, and if it snows in Palo Alto that’s a sign of the end times. You ever make a snowman before back in Jersey?”

“I tried a few times,” Stanford said, rolling his own snow spheres. “They never turned out any good. The snow was more ash than water. It was like playing in piles of cigarette butts.”

Shifty chirped, tucked into Stanford’s coat, safe and mostly warm except for their head. “Are you getting tired?” Stanford asked.

“No,” Shifty said, and Fiddleford chuckled.

“He’s on a sugar high, probably,” Fiddleford shrugged. “He’ll crash soon.”

“Down, down down,” Shifty said, wriggling.

“Are you sure?” Stanford asked, unzipping his coat. “You’ll get cold.”

“Down!” Shifty said, wriggling when Stanford set them in the snow. They shivered, and then started rolling their own sphere.

Stanford grinned, and even Fiddleford looked amused by it.

They copied Stanford and Fiddleford, stacking three spheres of different sizes on top of the other, adding sticks and stones as the others did.

“Oh, hang on,” Fiddleford grinned, racing back inside and returning with his banjo. “This is gonna be a hoot.”

“What are you–” Stanford started, and then immediately started laughing when Fiddleford placed his glasses and banjo against his snow sculpture. Very suddenly, it bore a striking resemblance to himself.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Stanford said, placing his own glasses on his snow sculpture and messing with it to give it the illusion of sideburns. He stepped back with a grin. “It’s like looking in a mirror.”

“Is it?” Fiddleford squinted. “I can’t see it at all.”

“Oh, me neither,” Stanford nodded. “Shifty, how does it look?”

“Good,” they said, because that seemed to be the right answer. They frowned at theirs’. They hadn’t realized they were creating a lookalike.

“Aw, feller,” Fiddleford said. “You can just pretend to look like it.”

“...oh,” Shifty said, a little embarrassed that they hadn’t thought of it first, immediately shifting into a perfect copy of their snow sculpture.

“Wonderful job, Shifty,” Stanford grinned. “I can’t tell which is which.”

“I couldn’t tell before,” Fiddleford said. “They’re both white and lumpy.”

“True, true,” Stanford laughed, and then paused, looking at his gloves. “I…apologize again. I didn’t get you a gift. It seems an egregious oversight now.”

Fiddleford rolled his eyes. “Do NOT make me say something corny like ‘you’re the only gift I need’. Even though it’s true and all.”

Stanford looked absolutely enamored, pulling Fiddleford close and pressing his lips against his forehead with a small noise. “Oh, I liked it. It’s sweet.”

Fiddleford rolled his eyes again, but he was smiling too.

Shifty waited as long as they could before they couldn’t take the temperature anymore. “Cold,” they said, turning back into themselves and scrambling back to Stanford. “Cold, cold, cold!”

“Okay, okay,” Stanford said, taking his glasses back from the snow sculpture. “It is getting rather chilling. And–god, it must be late. We ought to get some rest.”

“Get him all dry, Lord knows we don’t know what to do if he catches cold,” Fiddleford said.

The warmth of the house was almost shocking as they re-entered, and Shifty was suddenly aware of how exhausted they were. Their stomach hurt a little, and they figured maybe they should have listened to Stanford when he said to stop eating cookies.

Stanford and Fiddleford started talking again after Shifty was wrapped up and dry, leaning against each other on the couch for warmth and maybe something more. Though it was barely a couple minutes before they were snoring, crumpled against each other, Shifty held loosely in Stanford’s arms.

They found they much preferred this to the playpen.

They wriggled, trying to get comfortable, and Fiddleford woke with a small start, bleary eyes resting on Shifty. They tensed, expecting him to wake Stanford up so he could take them to the playpen.

But instead, he yawned, and reached his hand out to them. Shifty shrunk down slightly, but Fiddleford merely stroked their head a few times with his callused hands.

“Happy holidays, critter,” Fiddleford mumbled, pressing against Stanford even closer and immediately falling asleep again, his hand still on Shifty.

They found that they didn’t mind too much.

They fell asleep almost immediately, dreaming of reindeer and blinking lights, marveling at how much five fingers almost felt like six.

Chapter Text

Shifty was having a terrible day long before Stan entered the gift shop with a smile that they half wanted to smack off his face. Which wasn’t a fair response, they knew, but they couldn’t help it.

It had been a slow season, and today was no exception. Tours still ran, but merchandise sales were low, and that was where the real money was. Beyond that, the golf cart had been out of commission for a solid three months, and it was getting harder for Stan to run tours on foot. He seemed to have grown old right before Shifty’s eyes. They didn’t like it.

And today, tourists simply refused to stop asking stupid questions. The next time someone asked if a stickerless item was free, Shifty was going to throw whatever they wanted to take at their head.

The gift shop bell dinged, and Stan entered with a huge smile, trailed by a little boy with a dinosaur on his shirt who was looking around in amazement. “Ah, Mouser!” Stan said, using an annoying nickname he had recently picked up. Shifty hoped it wouldn’t stick. “How are you doing on this beautiful 2002 summer’s day?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be running a tour?” Shifty asked.

“Eh, well,” Stan shrugged. “Figured you’d want to meet the new guy.”

“New guy?” Shifty asked.

“We needed a new handyman,” Stan shrugged.

“What?” Shifty blinked. “Why? What happened to Durland?”

“Please!” Stan rolled his eyes. “That idiot doesn’t know a screwdriver from the screw. He’s fired.”

“What?!” Shifty shook their head. “Stan, we’re supposed to decide these things together, you can’t-”

“Anyway,” Stan said, nudging the kid forward, who was now staring at Shifty with what were almost literal star-eyes. “Meet the new guy!”

“Hello,” the boy said in a tiny voice.

“This is Remy Wagner,” Stan said. “My assistant.”

“Co-manager,” Shifty said, confused. “Stan, this is a child.”

“I know that,” Stan said.

“How old are you?” Shifty asked the boy.

“Elev-” he paused. “No, twelve.”

Shifty frowned. “He doesn’t even know how old he is.”

The boy frowned. “Yes I do.”

“That’s super illegal,” Shifty said.

“No, it’s not,” Stan said. “We’re paying him good money. I already started! Show Remy, kid.”

The boy held out a fistful of green paper, and Shifty reached over the counter, snatching them to examine it, ignoring the boy’s noise of surprise. “These are Stan bucks!”

“Right,” Stan nodded. “Because it’s illegal to hire a twelve year old. So, genius solution over here: we pay him in Stan bucks and he can use them as credit for buying stuff at the shack.”

“Ooh,” the boy said, his eyes shining when he looked at Stan. “That’s so smart, Mr. Pines.”

“No, it’s not!” Shifty said, rapidly feeling a breaking point approaching. “It’s not smart! Because it’s still illegal and you also just reinvented scrip!”

“Oh,” Stan blinked. “Did I? Neat.”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, clenching their teeth so tightly they were shocked nothing cracked. “I’ve been in the gift shop all day, with a broken AC with idiots harassing me, trying to keep us from going bankrupt, and you’ve gone and fired the handyman and hired a TWELVE YEAR OLD?!”

“Hey now,” Stan frowned. “No shouting in the gift shop.”

Shifty opened their mouth to keep shouting–because at this point it was about the principal–when the boy abruptly spoke up. “Mr. Wagner?”

Shifty’s head snapped to the boy, and he looked nervous. “What?” Shifty said tersely.

“Um,” he said. “Um, I fixed my Abuelita’s AC unit. So, if you want, can I try to fix your’s? And if I do it, maybe I can have the job?”

“You don’t want to work here,” Shifty said. “It’s terrible.”

“Hey,” Stan complained.

“I do, though,” the boy said. “I really, really do. Please.”

Shifty stared at him, entirely unsure what to do. For whatever reason, he seemed sincere. And apparently they did need a new handyman. To be fair, Durland was pretty terrible at his job; he had little to no mechanical skills except for fixing light bulbs, he left smelly lunches in the kitchen fridge, and he argued with Shifty almost as much as Shifty and Stan argued with each other. Only Shifty and Stan were allowed to snipe at each other while on the job. Otherwise the whole damn system broke down.

Plus, Shifty was pretty sure Durland had been the one to break the AC in the first place. Shifty wasn’t sure why fixing the AC eluded both them and Stan–at this point that had been working on the portal for two decades–but perhaps they were designed to be as frustrating as possible. A lot of things seemed to be made specifically to be unpleasant.

“...fine,” Shifty said, nodding at a silent AC unit sitting in the window. “Knock yourself out.”

The little boy grinned and raced over to the AC unit. Stan grinned. “You’re going soft, Mouser,” he said under his breath.

“I’m going to break your nose,” Shifty said, too damn hot for any kind of friendly argument.

The boy’s name was Soos, and he fixed the AC. He was hired on scrip, and moved up to below minimum wage when he turned fourteen.

“Ow!” Shifty winced, jerking away with a scowl. “That was on purpose.”

Stan rolled his eyes, zipping up a first aid kit. “Relax, you big baby. Anyway, it’s done.”

Shifty glanced down at their chest, frowning at the puckered skin, newly freed of stitches. “It’s…so you’re sure it’s safe to change forms?”

“Moses, what do I look like, a doctor?” Stan shrugged, and Shifty scowled. “Look, I dunno, you know your body better than me. Just don’t do anything stupid, I guess.”

Shifty poked at the wound experimentally. It hurt, but in the way a bruise did. It didn’t threaten to reopen if they changed something. With trepidation, they shrank, then grew, and then returned to normal size. Nothing terrible happened, so they rapidly changed between a dog, a squirrel, a flopping fish, a Manotaur, before returning to Remy Wagner.

Stan rolled his eyes. “Who are you even showing off to?”

“Myself,” Shifty said, touching the scar gently again. They focused, trying to command skin to fold over to hide the scar. But just like it did with their hand, the illusion only lasted a few seconds before the scar reappeared, like a whale appearing out of dark water. “Dammit.”

“Looks like you’re sentenced to shirts,” Stan said. “Hey, when the kids leave, you can hide away in the office again when you’re working. Then you don’t have to wear it.”

“Where are the kids anyway?” Shifty asked, sliding on their shirt and jacket, slightly more relaxed with the feel of familiar denim on their arms. They looked out the window of their room, and frowned. “They’ve been suspiciously quiet.”

Stan frowned, looking worried. “Huh. Yeah. Hope they didn’t blow anything up.”

“We’d hear that.”

“Hope they’re not about to blow anything up then,” Stan corrected. “But, yeah, they’re making me nervous. Let’s roll.”

“‘Let’s roll’?” Shifty muttered, slightly perplexed, but followed.

“I’m trying out new slang,” Stan grinned. “I’ve been thinking of getting a senior citizen ponytail kit!”

Shifty opened their mouth, closed it, and frowned. Stan grinned, reinvigorated. “Yeah, exactly, I think it’s a great idea too.”

“No-” Shifty said, but Stan was already waving down Wendy in the gift shop

“Hey, Wendy!” He shouted, ducking into the gift shop, and Wendy didn’t even attempt to hide her phone. “Seen the kids?”

“I think they’re outside, doing something,” Wendy said.

“Oh, something, very specific,” Shifty said. “Thank you. Put that phone away before I break it.”

“You break it, you buy it,” Wendy said, mimicking Stan.

“...okay, I'll let it go this one time, because that was pretty good,” Shifty decided.

Stan huffed. “No it wasn’t.”

“Do you want to check to see if the kids are setting things on fire or not?” Shifty asked.

“Ooh, I like fire,” Wendy said, following them outside. At least the gift shop was empty.

“Oh, hey, Soos,” Shifty said, seeing him rushing towards them. “Hey, did you see–”

Soos nearly bowled Shifty over in his attempt to leave, and didn’t even so much as send them an apologetic look. Soos was polite to a fault, usually. He had spent his first few weeks at the shack apologizing anytime he made eye contact with Shifty. Though to be fair, Shifty wasn’t very good at eye contact back then. They tended to look at people like they were trying to psych them out sometimes.

Stan frowned. “Yeesh, what was that?”

“Hey, dude!” Wendy called. “‘Sup!”

Soos just disappeared around the corner of the shack.

“That’s weird,” Shifty said, following the others around to the backyard of the shack. “Think there’s a dead animal back here or–”

They froze when a new, far worse scene revealed itself.

Two fold out tables sat on the lawn, covered in colorful plastic sheets and loaded up with various, strange foods. Toby Determined was, for some reason, tapping dancing on a small raised stage like his life depended on it. Colorful balloons were tied to the tables, and Shifty’s heart sank when they saw a banner that read “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” in cheerful bubble letters.

“Uh oh,” Wendy said, having been working at the shack long enough to know why this was a code red. “Uh oh, uh oh.”

“What’s ‘uh oh’?” Mabel was there, standing alongside Dipper, both decked out in birthday party regalia and looking confused.

“Look, this isn’t your fault, ‘cause you two haven’t been here long,” Wendy said, lowering her voice. “But Soos hates his birthday.”

“What?!” Dipper looked shocked. “Why?!”

“We don’t know,” Shifty said, glancing back to see if they could catch a glimpse of Soos. No dice. “He won’t tell us. We’ve tried basically everything to help. Stan and I tried to get the date banned from all Gregorian calendars once, and now he’s not allowed on planes.”

Mabel paused. “But…Remy, you’re still allowed on planes?”

Shifty shrugged. “I’m faster.”

“The TSA holding cell was freezing, thanks for nothing, Mouser,” Stan grumbled.

“There has to be something we can do,” Dipper said, looking disappointed.

“It’s personal stuff, kid,” Stan shrugged. “Best to not pry with that kinda thing. Opens up a whole can of worms that no one wants getting out, you know?”

“How can anyone hate their birthday?” Mabel asked, looking genuinely heartbroken.

“I don’t know, dude,” Wendy shrugged. “Maybe we should just let him be. He’s usually fine by the next day.”

Stan nodded. “Yeah, any of our attempts have just made it worse.”

“No one should be alone on their birthday,” Dipper said, and Stan frowned.

“Dipper’s right,” Mabel nodded. “We gotta do something doubly incredible to make up for this!”

Stan sighed. “Look, I get you two wanna help, but–”

“You know,” Shifty said. “Maybe they’re right.”

Stan blinked. “Come again?”

“Yeah, Remy!” Mabel cheered. “Get in on the birthday train!”

“I mean,” Shifty shrugged. “We’ve let this go for like ten years. Maybe if we do something nice for him but don’t label it as a birthday thing, he’ll like it more. I mean, we certainly owe Soos nice things in general.”

Stan sighed. “Come on, Mouser, you’re only gonna make it worse by trying to go in and interfere–”

“I don’t think we should just sit around if we have a solution,” Shifty said tersely. “Do you?”

Stan blinked, looking a little surprised, and then settled his face into his usual, displeased scowl. Mabel and Dipper glanced at each other, confused and a little nervous.

“What’s with you two?” Wendy asked, looking perplexed.

“Nothing,” Shifty and Stan said at the same time, which probably didn’t help matters.

“But yeah!” Mabel said, trying to get spirits back up, or at least to get people to stop glaring at each other. “Don’t worry, Dipper and I have this handled! We’ll come up with a great plan! We’re birthday experts.”

Shifty didn’t have time to ask what made them birthday experts before the kids darted off, ready and raring to make a new plan. “Register,” Shifty jerked their head back towards the shack. “Before someone steals it.”

“No one’s gonna steal it,” Wendy rolled her eyes, but started making her way back to the cash register anyway.

“And I better not see you on your phone!” Shifty said, and Wendy didn’t bother answering. They sighed, looking at the party spread. “Is that cake flavored pizza?”

“Sure is!” Toby Determined said, somehow still tap dancing. “Can I have some?”

“Go home,” Shifty said, and Toby looked disappointed.

“I just want to be a part of things,” he said morosely, slinking off. His shoes clicked after him as he left.

“Always something in this damn town,” Shifty muttered, as if they weren’t one of the somethings in this damn town.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Stan hissed, angry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shifty said stiffly, snatching the balloons down.

“I know you’re pissed at me, because God forbid someone makes good decisions around here,” Stan scoffed. “But don’t start shit in front of the kids. Or Wendy for that matter, not like she needs any more reasons to undermine us.”

“I’m not starting shit,” Shifty snapped. “I’m stating a fact that if you can solve a problem, it’s stupid to just sit around and twiddle your thumbs.”

“It’s dangerous,” Stan said bluntly. “Answer ain’t changing, no matter how much you bitch and moan.”

“It’s all dangerous,” Shifty snarled. “And it’s a stupid answer. And by God, you’ll know when I start bitching and moaning.”

Stan scoffed. “Coulda fooled me. I don’t think you appreciate how hard it is to deal with you when you’re like this.”

Shifty gritted their teeth hard enough to hurt. “And I don’t think you appreciate how close we are to finishing this. I know that any number that doesn’t have a dollar sign attached to it tends to go right over your head, but the math is rock solid. We can do this. We can end it right here, right now. Hell, you were on board when I first went scouting!”

“Yeah, well,” Stan shrugged in an infuriating way. “Changed my mind. Make a plan that doesn’t involve breaking into a research facility that no doubt has military ties, and I’m all ears. Not to mention we already had those agents sniffing around here a few weeks ago.”

“Since when have you been scared of the goddamn government?” Shifty said, a sneer in their voice.

They expected Stan to rise to the bait, to snarl that he wasn’t scared of nothin’ or nobody, and Shifty oughta shut their yap if they knew what was good for them.

Instead, he merely folded his arms. “Things change.”

“Like what?!” Shifty demanded, with nowhere to put their anger.

“A hole in your chest, for one,” Stan said.

“I’m fine!” Shifty snapped. “I literally just showed you I’m fine! I can shift with no issue! If you’re waiting for the scar to go away, you’re gonna be waiting a long damn time.”

“Good,” Stan said. “It’ll give you time to come up with a plan that isn’t stupid.”

“My plan is not stupid,” Shifty growled. “You just refuse to see sense.”

“And I’m gonna keep refusing,” Stan said, practically turning on his heels. “Find an alternative.”

“You–?!” Shifty gestured wildly. “Goddammit, you old bastard, you can’t leave me to clean this shit up on my own!”

Stan didn’t answer, already ducking inside the shack.

Shifty clenched their teeth once more, fighting the urge to flip the table. It wasn’t the first time Stan had been unreasonable, and it would most certainly not be the last. All the same, Shifty didn’t think he had ever put his foot down on something so crucial, something that they wanted so desperately.

It was like all the worst parts of his personality were rearing their ugly heads, specifically to ruin everything they had worked so hard for.

If it had been Stanford here instead of him, they thought without meaning too. We would already have that nuclear waste.

They flinched at their own train of thought, as though it hurt. Something popped loudly in their hands, and they looked down, startled to see the ripped remnants of the balloons.

“Oh,” they said in a small voice.

“Remy!” The side door burst open, and Mabel stumbled out, grinning widely. Dipper followed, looking equally enthusiastic. “We figured out what we can do to cheer Soos up!”

“Oh, good,” Shifty said, dropping the balloons and kicking them under the table, relieved for the distraction. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be great.”

It was terrible.

Shifty had never played laser tag before, but Mabel and Dipper had sold it as a sort of war game with no actual physical contact, which was nice. In actuality, it was like hell.

The fog machine was working overtime to spew as many unpleasant smells as possible, blowing right into Shifty’s face to make them cough and gag. The unlicensed techno music was overwhelming and terrible, giving them a migraine that was already being exacerbated by the fog. The lasers made terrible, high-pitched shooting noises, and Shifty had already been flashed in the eyeball by the beams several times.

“HEY!” Shifty yelped, ducking away and covering their right eye as the laser light hit it. Spots danced in front of it. “QUIT AIMING AT MY FACE, WHAT’S THAT EVEN DOING?!”

“Ha ha!” An annoying voice said, and Shifty seriously considered turning into a bear and just tearing the place apart when they saw Wendy’s stupid ex grinning at them. In lieu of mauling, they threw their laser gun at Robbie as hard as they could. He ducked, and the gun shattered against the wall.

“Hey!” An attendant shouted. “Didn’t you read the rules?! No throwing–HEY!” They ducked as Shifty peeled off their vest and threw that at him too. “That’s it! You’re out! Out of the laser zone!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving,” Shifty grumbled, their headache disappearing slightly when they stepped out of the arena and into the waiting area. “Who came up with this?”

They paused, seeing Soos sitting at one of the tables, looking despondent. “Soos?” Shifty asked. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you laser tagging or whatever it is?”

“Mabel and Dipper ran off, I guess,” he shrugged. “Lost ‘em right as I went in.”

“Oh,” Shifty frowned, remembering when the kids promised they would be right by Soos’ side the whole time. “I-I mean, you know there’s no way they did that on purpose, right? It’s disorienting in there, they’re probably looking for you right now.”

“I guess,” Soos said, looking no less comforted. He looked even more upset than he did at his surprise party.

“...wanna go to the concession stand?” Shifty asked. “I’ll get you something while we wait for them to reappear.”

“...okay,” Soos said. “Only if it’s not, like, a birthday treat.”

“Sure,” Shifty said. “It can be a, uh. Bro treat? Is that dumb?”

“Nah, it’s cool, dawg,” Soos said.

Shifty grabbed a juice for themselves, because the thought of eating greasy food right now made them vaguely ill. They swiped a few candy bars when neither Soos or the concessions guy was looking, just in case they wanted them later.

Soos ate a hot dog like it was his last meal, and Shifty sipped delicately on their juice. Soos wasn’t overly chatty, especially in comparison to someone like Stan or Mabel, but he wasn’t exactly one to sit in uncomfortable silence either.

“So, um,” Shifty said. “That girl you said you’re seeing. Melody, right? How’s that going?”

“Good,” Soos shrugged, which was nice to hear, but a one word answer when it came to Melody meant the situation was even more dire than Shifty assumed. It was usually impossible to shut him up about Melody once he got going; they were crazy about each other.

Shifty opened their mouth, closed it, and then slurped on their juice with nervousness, trying to think of a topic of conversation that didn’t feel like a minefield. “So, uh, the weather–”

“Has anyone, like, ever let you down?” Soos asked. “Like really badly?”

Shifty blinked, startled. “W-what?”

“Just chatting,” Soos shrugged.

“Right, sure,” Shifty said, suddenly distinctly uncomfortable. “Sure, Wendy lets me down every day.”

“I mean really let you down,” Soos said. “Like…like something big. Like you were really relying and hoping for something and it just…kinda…” he mimed an explosion.

“...where’s this coming from?” Shifty asked.

Soos shrugged again.

“Right,” Shifty said. “I…yeah. I have. A bunch of times.”

“What happened?” Soos asked.

Shifty frowned. “Do you want to share your’s?”

“...not really.”

“That’s what I thought,” Shifty said, not unkindly.

“What’d you do?” Soos asked.

“Um,” Shifty said. “I don’t know. Moved forward, I guess. Not much else you can do.”

“You seem upset,” Soos said.

Shifty blinked. “What? Since when?”

“Not like, all the time,” Soos said. “Just…I dunno. You have this look sometimes. Like you don’t know how to feel about something. Like you’re mad and sad at the same time. Smad.”

“Smad?” Shifty almost smiled. “I…I’m fine. You learn to live with it. I think people…” they frowned, staring down at their juice. It wasn’t sweet enough. They wondered if the concession people had cut it with water. It seemed like the kind of thing Stan would do, and the thought of him sent another wave of conflicting emotions through their chest.

“I think people just disappoint you, over and over again,” Shifty said. “And the best you can do is…is to just know that, I guess. I don’t know. I’m not good at any of this, I think.”

Soos was staring at them, and Shifty frowned, suddenly feeling far too scrutinized. “I gotta, um. Bathroom.”

They stood up a little too quickly to make it casual, half scurrying to the bathroom. They felt vaguely queasy, and their skin was prickling uncomfortably. They hadn’t had any more incidents like the one in the library, but sometimes they still felt seconds from collapsing into a pile of flesh and nothing more.

They burst into a filthy bathroom, relieved to find it empty. They cupped their hands under the sink, letting their palms fill with water before splashing it on their face. Their hands were shaking.

What if it had been him instead of Stanford? they wondered, unable to stop themselves once more. Would he have come and gotten me? I would have helped. It wouldn't have taken so long. I would have helped them fix it.

They felt even more sick, and splashed more water on their face.

Would Stanford even want to save him?

“Of course,” they hissed at their reflection. “Don’t be stupid.”

Their reflection looked uncertain.

“Get it together,” they muttered. “Stanford never let you down. He did what he had to.”

Their reflection’s face screwed up like it wanted to argue, and Shifty left before it could do so.

They found the kids with Soos, looking tired but pleased with themselves. “See?” Shifty said, relieved. “I told you they were around here somewhere.”

“Hi Remy!” Mabel waved, chipper as ever. “We played Globnar!”

“What?” Shifty asked, pretty sure that wasn’t a real word. “Are you having a stroke?”

“I think I’m all laser tagged out,” Soos said, looking much more chipper. “Should we find Mr. Pines and Wendy and go home?”

“Please,” Shifty said, rubbing at their eye. “I think I have permanent damage from all those lasers.”

“You’re not supposed to shine it in your eye,” Dipper said helpfully, and yelped when Shifty reached out and yanked the brim of his hat over his eyes.

“Get your dumb uncle, these lights are going to give him a seizure,” Shifty said. “And don’t tell Wendy we’re leaving either.”

Mabel and Dipper darted off, and they glanced at Soos. “You seem to be doing better.”

“Yeah!” Soos nodded. “Those dudes did, like, a whole gladiator thing for me!”

“...right, sure,” Shifty said. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Guess I was just so focused on the stuff that upset me that I was, like, totally ignoring the stuff that didn’t,” Soos said.

“That’s…” Shifty trailed off for a moment. “Astute.”

“Yeah!” Soos nodded. “Like Mabel and Dipper. And Wendy and Mr. Pines! And you too, duh.”

Shifty looked at him, startled. “Me?”

“Well, yeah dude,” Soos chuckled. “You're my friend.”

“Since when?”

“Since…” Soos blinked. “Always?”

“Oh,” Shifty said, a little surprised. They hadn’t really considered it like that. They liked Soos a lot, certainly, but they had been certain that Soos always viewed them as an oddity.

“...thanks,” Shifty said. “You’re my friend too.”

Soos beamed.

Soos was, admittedly, one of their better handymen.

He was far too young to do any of the bigger repairs that the shack always seemed to be in need of, but he was eager to help and eager to please, which counted for a whole lot. He was also more than eager to take scrip, which concerned Shifty mostly because they were fairly certain Stan would try to continue to do that even when it was legal to officially hire him.

“Hi, Mr. Wagner!” Soos said brightly, carrying two bundles wrapped haphazardly in Christmas wrapping paper.

“I keep telling you, Remy’s fine,” Shifty said. “What do you have?”

“My abuelita said I should give you and Mr. Pines something to thank you for letting me work here, especially you because you weren’t sure,” Soos said, handing Remy the lumpier package. “Mr. Pines gets slippers.”

“Oh, uh,” Shifty said, feeling incredibly awkward. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

Soos frowned. “Do you not want it?”

“No, I, um,” Shifty coughed. “What…what is it?”

Soos tapped the bundle. “You’re supposed to open it.”

“Oh,” Shifty said. “Right.”

They stared at it, oddly unnerved. They had seen people receiving presents on TV a thousand times, but finally getting one in real life felt off-putting, like one of the other million experiences that wasn’t ever meant for them.

Soos coughed. “You can open it now.”

“Oh,” Shifty said again, embarrassed. They delicately tore the wrapping paper, wincing slightly at the sound.

Beneath the decorated pine trees and images of a fat man in a red outfit, there was a faded denim jacket. Shifty held it out, confused. “This is…for me?”

“Yeah!” Soos said. “You know, to wear.”

“I know what a jacket is for,” Shifty said.

“Just checking,” Soos said.

“I’m not…” Shifty trailed off. “I’m not really a clothes guy.”

“What?”

“Kidding,” Shifty said quickly, slipping the jacket on, surprised to find that their body didn’t have the same visceral rejection it did to most clothes. “I…thanks, Soos. This was nice.”

Soos beamed like Shifty had pulled the sun up into the sky themselves. Most days he looked at Stan like that, though for the life of them, Shifty didn’t understand why.

“You’re a good kid, Soos,” Shifty said, their voice oddly quiet. “Go ahead in, Stan has some stuff for you.”

Soos scampered inside like an excited puppy, and Shifty flexed their arms experimentally. The jacket would never fit them in their true form, but it wasn’t like they ever used it. It fit around Remy Wagner perfectly, blocking the summer sun from bearing down on their arms and back but never quite making them hot.

It was a good gift. They decided to wear it, just for the rest of the day.

The sun was setting, and Shifty still refused to go back inside.

The excuse of ‘it’s a nice day out’ was running thin as the sun began to set and a chill began to fall over the valley, even in the middle of summer. The bird’s around the handmade feeders had begun to disperse, singing to each other, maybe even saying goodnight. It was a quaint thought, but an unlikely one.

“Hey, dude!” Shifty glanced back, seeing Soos standing behind him on the porch, holding a plate filled with a strange looking food. “Want some cake flavored pizza?”

“...is it good?” Shifty asked, a little skeptical.

“I think so,” Soos said, offering it, and Shifty took it, a little unsure. “Are you and Mr. Pines fighting?”

“We’re always fighting,” Shifty said, which was true.

“Yeah, but like, fighting for real,” Soos said.

“No,” Shifty lied. “It’s fine. It’s just nice out. Was the rest of your day nice at least?”

“Yeah,” Soos grinned. “Good birthday.”

Shifty glanced back at him, surprised. “We’re acknowledging it now?”

“Yeah!” Soos nodded. “I guess when Mabel and Dipper got lost, they got trapped in some kind of time travel storyline, and also caused a bootstrap paradox. I dunno. It seemed a little high concept.”

Shifty blinked. “...okay?”

“They did this whole thing to try and get me a time wish so I could see my dad,” Soos said, and Shifty blinked, realizing they had never once heard Soos talk about his parents.

They knew vaguely that his mother had died a very long time ago, and his abuelita was raising him, but that had never really explained his father’s absence. The pieces fell together now, though, and it didn’t make a pretty picture.

“So…” Shifty said, unsure whether they should pry or not, but a little too curious. “Did you? See him?”

“Nah,” Soos said. “It just…it didn’t seem worth it to do that. But…I just started thinking, and I mean…”

He trailed off, and Shifty waited patiently.

“What if…” he looked worried. “What if letting people down is like, hereditary or something?”

“...you’re worried because your dad sucks,” Shifty said. “That you might suck?”

Soos said nothing, looking at the ground intensely.

“...that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Shifty decided.

Soos blinked. “Um.”

“You’re probably the nicest, most helpful person I’ve ever met,” Shifty said, surprised by their own conviction. “You’re literally impossible to get mad at. And I can get mad at anybody. You always want to help, you’re friendly to a fault, and pretty much everyone who’s ever met you adores you. I don’t know your dad, and I don’t want to, but that doesn’t sound anything like him. If he was even the tiniest bit like you, he’d already be here.”

Soos said nothing, staring at Shifty with an expression that looked pretty close to surprise.

“...and anyway,” Shifty said, turning away and pretending to look intently at the treeline. “His loss.”

“...you mean that?”

Shifty glanced back, surprised to see Soos grinning at him, so wide it looked almost painful. After a moment, Shifty nodded. “Of course.”

“Thanks, dude,” Soos said. “That means a lot.”

“Anytime,” Shifty said, emboldened to try a tiny bite of the pizza flavored cake. They paused, shocked. “Wait, is this good?”

Soos nodded. “I know!”

“Huh,” Shifty said, practically shoveling it in by the mouthfuls. They hadn’t been eating well lately, nerves eating them up inside. Whenever they thought about the portal or the nuclear facility, they started getting antsy.

“...I have a hypothetical question,” Shifty said, surprised to hear their own words coming out of their mouth.

“Oh, okay,” Soos said.

“If…” Shifty trailed off, unsure how to phrase it. “Pretend there’s someone you care about trapped somewhere. They might be hurt, or even dying. You don’t know, you can’t see them, and you haven’t seen them for a long time. You think you have a way to save them. But it’s dangerous, it might not work, and someone else you care about is telling you not to do it.”

Soos looked vaguely confused. “So…what’s the question?”

“...would you save them?” Shifty asked. “Would you try?”

Soos chuckled, as though Shifty was asking a silly question.

“Dude,” he said. “I’d do anything.”

There was a monster in a mirror, a big one.

It stared with bug-like eyes, glassy and pupil-less, affixed to a long head with a mouth full of sharp teeth and clicking mandible. It was uneven, one arm swollen as though hurt, a strange melded hand at the end of it. The other arm was thin, with only three long, spindly fingers. It didn’t have legs, at least not proper ones, more like an arthropodic joint, four of them to be exact, supporting a bulky body, the same color as a corpse bloated with water. It had a long scar across its chest, a wound that would have killed any human. But the monster persisted, stubborn and maybe even unkillable. What a terrible thing to be.

Shifty frowned, revolted, and the monster frowned back.

They stared until the thing in the glass became even more alien than it already was. There was only one person in the universe who wouldn’t turn away from them like this. And that person was waiting on them.

They shoved themselves back into Remy Wagner, relieved to see a nondescript face looking back at them. It was late now, late enough where they could hear the owls and crickets outside, singing their nightly songs, and Shifty hoped they would be loud enough to cover their espionage.

Stan slept more these days, and spent less time in the basement at night. For one, he was old. It was harder for him to pull the same consistent all-nighters he was pulling when Shifty first met him. Besides that, he was careful. None of them wanted the kids to find them out. And of course, being around two twelve year olds that made it their life’s mission to get into trouble was simply exhausting.

Shifty heard him snoring even before they opened the door, and they turned into a mouse, slipping through the door so it didn’t creak when they opened it. They found him sprawled on the bed, half-tangled in the sheets, his glasses sitting on the nightstand. The slippers Soos had gotten him all those years ago were waiting patiently at the foot of the bed.

They scurried across the floor, finding the keys to the Stanleymobile sitting next to Stan’s glasses. Carefully, they slipped off the car key, worried that taking the whole keychain might make too much noise. Stan let out a terrifically loud snore, and Shifty flinched back, worried thay he might wake up. But he only made an odd noise that sounded slightly like he was choking, and rolled over with a mumble.

Now we have to check for sleep apnea at the next physical too, Shifty thought, knowing Stan was well overdue for one.

They managed to slip the key off, and made their way back to the door as fast as they dared. They couldn’t let guilt consume them. Not now, not when they were so close. Stan would thank them later. He had to.

They turned back into Remy in the hall, and paused as they passed the living room, their eyes falling on a small cabinet hanging on the wall, out of reach of younger people in the house, and utterly ignored besides. Shifty knew what was inside it, and it always made them sick to think about. Most days they pretended it wasn’t there.

There were other cabinets and boxes like this one around the house, in hidden places no one would expect, but most of them required keys. And Shifty didn’t know where Stan kept those keys.

Slowly, they stepped up to the cabinet, opening it up and wincing at the tiny creak. They felt their way past bottles of cheap whiskey, refusing to look, feeling their way through. Their heart stuttered when their hand closed around something cold and metal.

With a shaky breath, they pulled out Ed’s gun. The bullets were still inside, unused from all those years ago.

Stan had taught them how to shoot when they were younger, using bottles and a different gun. It had seemed fun then, before they realized how adept Shifty was at killing without any need for a weapon.

They didn’t need the gun, most likely. But they didn’t know what they were walking into. And inflicting pain with a piece of metal as opposed to their own hands felt ever so slightly more doable. It might have to be. A monster might be needed, but at least they could be a human monster. Or at least mostly human.

They triple checked the safety was on, just like Stan told them to, and stepped outside.

The breeze changed abruptly, sending cold air swirling around them just as they stepped outside, and they shivered, hugging their arms around their chest and taking a deep breath, only to pause.

The scent was back, the one they had caught so long ago at the journal’s empty crypt, just before Gideon destroyed the shack. It was as unfamiliar as ever; the ash, the metal, and the hint of rot.

They stood still, breathing in the scent, deep enough that it almost made them cough, but it sparked nothing. And Shifty never forgot a smell. Whatever this was, it was alien to them.

The breeze died, and the scent disappeared.

They shook off their unease, sliding into the Stanleymobile and shutting the door silently, putting the car into neutral and carefully pulling out of the driveway, the only witness to their crime a mangy coyote that fled as soon as Shifty made eye contact with it.

He’ll understand, they told themselves. They all will.

The car hit the gravel, far enough away from the shack for them to properly get a move on, and Shifty threw the car into drive, speeding down the road like they were driving for their life.

What if it had been him instead of Stanford?

Shifty’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, the worn leather catching on their scar.

But it’s not, they thought grimly. So it’s up to me to bring them back.

Chapter Text

There were headlights coming down the road in the opposite direction.

Shifty squinted, trying to make out who was coming towards them. It wasn’t a rinky dink car like most of the others they had seen driving along the road at night, lit by their brights, a half-moon, and little else. This was a truck, the kind made for pulling heavy loads to and from various locations. And best of all, the truck bed was empty.

They swerved, hoping that the truck driver had fast reflexes. If not, they would have to make peace with Stan never forgiving them for wrecking his car.

Luck was on their side, at least for now. The truck swerved wildly to avoid a collision, careening over the side of the road and coming to a harsh stop in the ditches on either side of the road, ill-maintained and half abandoned in a weak attempt at irrigation and drainage.

They took a breath, pulling over when they saw the truck’s hazard lights come on. They reached over to the passenger seat, trying to ignore how their hands were shaking as they picked up the gun. It was heavier than it looked, and it made Shifty even more nervous.

They caught sight of their reflection in the rearview mirror when they stepped out of the car. They weren’t Remy Wagner now, not while they did this. They had chosen the face of a sandy-haired man they saw in an ad, but it still startled them to see themselves wearing an unfamiliar face.

The driver was out of the truck when Shifty approached, gun behind their back. He looked up and scowled. He was an old man, maybe around Stan’s age, and he had a thin white beard, a hat with a faded logo, and filthy boots. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” He demanded, gesturing wildly at the truck. “You could’ve killed me!”

“Is the truck damaged?” Shifty asked. Their voice sounded high and thin.

“You’re damn lucky it’s not,” the man snapped. “Are you drunk?! What the hell do-”

Shifty pointed the gun at the man with a swing of their arms, trying to keep their hands from shaking. Instantly, the man went quiet, hands up and backing away. “Woah, woah, alright, hang on now–”

“Sh,” Shifty said, their heart pounding in their ears. For one horrible second, they felt dizzy, and they wondered what would happen if they passed out.

The man went quiet immediately, his eyes trained on the gun, waiting for some kind of instruction. Shifty opened their mouth, and to their horror, no sound came out.

This hadn’t happened since they were very young, the strange feeling of the words getting trapped in their chest, like birds flying into netting and only tangling themselves up the harder they fought. It was a terrifying feeling then, and it was a terrifying feeling now.

“...alright,” the man said, his voice soft on purpose, like Shifty was a wild animal that could go berserk at any moment. “You haven’t…you haven’t done anything you can’t take back yet. Just…just let me go, yeah? It doesn’t have to end like this.”

Shifty said nothing, their hand trembling hard enough that the gun was rattling.

“Put the gun down, son,” the man said, and Shifty lowered their arm, throat dry and chest hitching.

The man took a step towards his truck, and something inside Shifty snapped to attention.

“Stop,” they ordered, raising the gun again, and the man froze. Shifty could barely see, but the man looked ashen and afraid. “Can you hitch a car to your truck?”

He paused, looking slightly surprised, and then nodded. “Probably.”

Shifty walked back to the Stanleymobile, gun raised the entire time, and withdrew a long and rusted tow chain, tossing it at the man’s feet. “Is my car close enough to your’s? To hitch it up?”

“I-I think so,” the man said, squinting in the dark. “I mean…yes. Yes, it should work–”

“Do it,” Shifty said, trying to keep their voice under control. “Now. You have five minutes.”

“Listen,” the man said, pleading. “I’m just trying to get home to my family, I need-”

Shifty flicked off the safety, and the click might as well have been a gunshot for how the man reacted. “Do it. Now. I won’t ask again.”

“Okay,” the man breathed, creeping towards the chain. “Okay, just don’t…okay.”

Shifty stood back, glancing up and down the road anxiously. They had no idea what to do if someone drove by, but so far, the road stayed as abandoned as they had hoped it would.

They heard a click, and glanced back to see that the Stanleymobile was firmly hitched to the truck. “Listen,” the man said. “I don’t want trouble.”

“Give me your keys,” Shifty ordered.

“Son–”

“Don’t call me that,” Shifty snarled, jerking their head at the truck. “Keys, now. Put them on the ground and step away.”

The man grabbed the keys from the seat of his truck, and set them on the ground. Shifty snatched them up immediately, heart pounding.

“Listen,” the man said, sounding desperate. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Yes,” Shifty said, their finger hovering over the trigger. “It does.”

The man flinched, his eyes closed and face pinched, waiting.

It would be cleaner to pull the trigger. It would make it easier for them to flee. Corpses didn’t file police reports. They didn’t chase after moving trucks. They couldn’t be traced back to Shifty, not if they didn’t want them to be.

They didn’t even need the gun. They could lunge forward, and the man would be dead before he even hit the ground. It might be even more painless than a bullet to the head.

It’ll be worth it, they thought in a strange panic. This is all for Stanford. And he wouldn’t have to know.

The man’s eyes cracked open, maybe wondering why it was taking so long for Shifty to just kill him.

I would know.

“How far do you live?” Shifty asked, and every word was like dragging barbed hooks out from their throat. “From here.”

“I-I…” the man glanced around. “Twenty minutes by car maybe, but–”

Shifty nodded at the road. “Go. Walk.”

The man blinked. “What? But-”

Shifty dropped their arm at their side, flicking the safety back on. “Don’t be stupid,” they managed to say, jerking head towards the road. “Go.”

That was all the encouragement the man needed. He scrambled out of the ditch, practically on his hands and knees, half-sprinting and half-stumbling away as fast as he possibly could.

Shifty slipped into the truck, keys in hand, and drove as fast as they dared, the Stanleymobile dragging behind them.

For better or worse, the waste site at the research facility was a separate building, as though it was the back shed. Shifty scurried under the fence, shaped like a lizard, scuttling along the pavement as fast as they could without attracting any attention. They had stashed the truck and Stanleymobile in the woods surrounding the facility, and they were pretty sure it was close enough that they could transport waste easily.

The door to the waste storage area opened, and a man stepped out, armed with a heavy assault rifle. Shifty was glad they had elected to leave Ed’s gun in the car. It wasn’t like six bullets would scare them here.

The man–some kind of security guard–scrounged around in his pocket before withdrawing a package of cigarettes, lighting one and puffing it like he was afraid someone was going to take it from him. Shifty hung back in the shadows, and then changed into something new: a dog, the fluffy one that had made Fiddleford not quite so fearful of them all those years ago.

Shifty whimpered, limping out of the shadows like their front paw was hurt, looking mournfully at the guard. He jumped, fumbling for his gun before he relaxed, looking perplexed. “What in the…?!”

Shifty whimpered again and licked their paw, trying to look as pathetic as possible.The guard’s face instantly softened. “Aw, hey little guy. How’d you end up all the way out here?” He made a few kissy noises, kneeling down and offering his hand for Shifty to investigate.

Shifty tilted their head, looking interested, and then lowered their head as if nervous. “Hey, c’mere,” the guard coaxed. “I’m a dog guy, I just wanna see what’s wrong with your foot. Yikes, what happened to your chest?”

Shifty huffed, and limped off, pacing into the shadows. The guard stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, making more kissy noises as he followed Shifty.

They turned around, sitting patiently, their paw still off the ground. The guard knelt in front of them, gently taking their paw. “Alright, let me see–”

Within a second, Shifty turned into a perfect copy of the guard and lunged at them, slamming their head against the side of the building. The guard yelped, the rifle falling from their hands. He scrambled to try and stand up again, but Shifty snatched the rifle up and smacked the back of his skull with the butt of the gun. The guard instantly went still, slack jawed and breathing shallowly.

“Okay,” Shifty whispered, fumbling with the rifle in a way that would have made Stan yell at them. “Okay, okay.”

The violence was easier than they had ever imagined it would be. And it still felt unfinished as the guard took short breaths, his heart beating loud enough for Shifty to hear it. They forced themselves to ignore it, grating as it was.

The guard had a keycard clipped to his shirt, and Shifty grabbed it, hunched over as they went back to the front of the building. With a shaking hand, they swiped the key card, trying and failing to not flinch when the door beeped, unlocking with a soft click.

“Hey, Rodney!” Someone called, and Shifty barely concealed a wince, crossing their arms awkwardly in front of their chest to hide their scar. A man in a lab coat with thick glasses rounded the corner. “Smoke break end early?”

“Uh,” Shifty coughed, dropping their voice to Rodney’s register. “Yeah, I heard they’re bad for you.”

The scientist chuckled vaguely. “Did you see Matt come back from the bathroom yet?”

“Matt?” Shifty asked.

The scientist raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t he on shift with you tonight?”

“He–” Shifty blinked, and nodded. “Yeah! Yeah, he should be back soon, I’m sure. Um, are you…?”

“Yes, I’m leaving,” the scientist rolled his eyes, and Shifty got the impression that Rodney wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. “Call Haggarty if Matt’s not back soon.”

“Right, call Haggarty,” Shifty nodded. “You got it.”

The scientist squinted, and Shifty hoped they weren’t sweating. “...did you need something?” The scientist asked, and Shifty immediately shook their head.

The scientist gave them an exasperated look, and stepped out of the waste storage building. Shifty must have hidden Rodney’s prone body well enough, because they didn’t hear any screams.

From the sound of it, they had a limited amount of time before this Matt got back. They slung the rifle over their shoulder carefully, suddenly worried it might go off. They had only seen guns this size on TV, and had no idea how to shoot them without killing themselves and everyone else in the room. Hopefully it wouldn’t come down to a gunfight anyway; they were pretty sure they couldn’t tough out a bullet to the head.

The waste center was small enough. It was essentially shaped like a donut, one long room that looped around, and Shifty knew from their previous investigations that the waste was dumped in a massive hole in the center of the halls, almost like the scientists were trying to create a black hole that they could dump anything into without thought. It didn’t seem particularly safe; really, they were doing everyone a favor by putting the waste to use.

Thick lead walls lined the hallways, and Shifty got nervous thinking about how much deadly waste was buried in the center, like a sleeping giant waiting to wake up and wreak havoc. They knew radiation was bad for them, but the only real exposure they had to the effects was still TV, which usually promised that an ordinary person would get fantastic powers when they were blasted with nuclear radiation. Shifty was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

“Okay,” they muttered. “Okay, okay. Relax.”

There was a small room labeled ‘Processing Unit’ on the other side of the waste center, with two massive lead doors closing it off. There were a handful of protective suits lining the walls, reminding Shifty ridiculously of ballgowns waiting to be tried on. They were labeled by name, and a quick check of the keycard let Shifty know that Rodney’s last name was Bridgers. He slipped on the protective suit, trying not to wriggle too much with how uncomfortable it was.

They swiped the keycard on the door, and went to work.

Matt probably needed to be fired. He still hadn’t shown up.

Either the nuclear facility was seriously underfunded, or they never expected trouble at the waste center. It was probably a bit of both, Shifty decided, wheeling out barrels of waste two at a time, one on a dolly they had found and another tucked carefully under their arm, glad for their strength. The barrels gave off an uncomfortable heat, like something was alive and pressed up against the metal, and none of them seemed particularly secure. One of the barrels even rattled like it had a loose lid as Shifty loaded it into the stolen truck, the Stanleymobile already stuffed with as many as they could manage. They weren’t sure how much waste would be needed, and they would rather have too much than too little. Admittedly, it wasn’t the safest idea to have extra nuclear waste lying around, but nothing they were doing had been strictly safe thus far.

They had four barrels so far, painstakingly transported off-site in a roundabout way to avoid cameras, to the hidden cars in the woods, two barrels in the Stanleymobile and two in the truck bed. It might have been enough. It was probably enough. But there was room for one more barrel, and Shifty was never one to do things halfway.

They loaded one last barrel onto the dolly, and started down the hall.

“RODNEY! MY MAN!”

Shifty jumped, whirling around to see a man with dark hair and a scraggly beard stumble towards them, grinning widely and smelling like alcohol. Shifty stepped back, instantly uncomfortable. “Did you cover for me?” He asked, and then paused, chuckling. “Whatcha wearing the whole getup for?”

“Um,” Shifty said, sweating. “Safety.”

“What are you dragging that thing around for?” He asked, gesturing vaguely to the barrel.

“They need it, Matt,” Shifty said, testing the name, and when the man didn’t look confused or correct them, they figured they had guessed his identity correctly. “For science stuff. I don’t know.”

They tried to leave, but Matt started following them, his stench nearly unbearable. The smell of alcohol always made them uneasy and slightly ill, especially if it was someone they didn’t know. It was always so strong. “Dude,” Matt said, following Shifty in spite of them clearly not wanting to talk. “Dude, the bar was great, there was this girl–”

“You were at a bar?!” Shifty asked, incredulous enough to speak up. “You were gone for hours!”

“Duh, I told you that!” Matt chuckled, and Shifty marveled at how the facility had never exploded before if this was their caliber of workers. “But listen, this girl was there, and she had on one of those denim miniskirts I like, so-”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Shifty decided, speeding up. The dolly went over a bump, nearly sending the barrel careening to the ground. Matt still followed, much to Shifty’s chagrin.

“Come on, dude! What’s your deal? You already knew I was there, you were covering for me, what’s the issue now?” He asked.

“No issue,” Shifty muttered. “I just really need to get this out, you should stay here, though, there might be–”

They froze when the door to the center opened, and the real Rodney stumbled through, wide eyed and confused, blood running down the side of his head. He locked eyes with Shifty, and swayed.

“Dude,” he muttered. “That’s my suit.”

He collapsed to the ground in a heap, mumbling to himself even as he lay sprawled and bleeding.

Shifty didn’t move a muscle, their heart pounding in their ears.

They heard shuffling behind them, and saw Matt had moved to grab at some kind of lever on the wall. His eyes widened. “Wait, don’t-”

Shifty didn’t wait, lunging at Matt in the same moment he pulled down on the lever. Immediately, the loudest alarm Shifty had ever heard in their life began to sound, punctuated by a flashing red light that instantly disoriented them.

They yelped, covering their ears as the sound bounced in their skull painfully. Matt dodged their lunge easily, scrambling away. “HOLY SHIT, DUDE! IT’S LIKE ONE OF THOSE POD PEOPLE!”

Shifty decided to cut their losses, grabbing the barrel with both hands and sprinting out of the waste center, leaping over Rodney’s prone body. Alarms were sounding all around the facility, and guards–far more prepared than Matt or Rodney were–flooded out of the buildings, armed to the teeth.

Shifty tossed the barrel over the fence, letting out a small sigh of relief when it didn’t shatter into a million pieces, practically ripping off the suit so they could turn into a groundhog and wriggle under the fence. They turned back into Remy on the other side, too panicked to think of a better disguise, and yelped when they heard a spray of bullets behind them.

“THERE’S SOMETHING FUCKING OUT THERE!” Someone shouted, and Shifty took it as their cue to leave.

They snatched up the barrel, trying not to think about what might happen if it’s contents leaked all over them. Visions of the waste burning them to nothing like acid flashed in their minds, and they did their best to shoo the idea away, with little success.

They heard frantic shouting behind them as they practically threw the final barrel into the stolen truck, leaping into the driver’s seat and starting the car up with shaking hands. Their chest hurt, but they ignored it. They had left their jacket at home, worried about possibly damaging it, but they would have done anything for the comforting weight of it now.

The truck exploded out onto the road, wipers frantically trying to get rid of the branches caught in the windshield, with little success. “Okay,” Shifty muttered, trembling. “Okay, okay, okay-”

A gunshot exploded behind them, and the back window shattered. Shifty shrieked, swerving wildly and scrambling for the gun stowed in the passenger seat. Six bullets, originally meant for themselves and Stan, turned back on faceless workers.

There were three heavy black cars chasing them, gaining speed rapidly, far faster than Shifty was with the Stanleymobile hitched up. A few more shots rang out, and they swerved wildly again, relieved that at least the backroads were still abandoned.

The barrels rattled, and Shifty got a stupid idea.

They forced their arm to stretch out, and grabbed the barrel that had been especially loose, tossing it out of the truck bed and at the encroaching cars behind them. The second it hit the pavement, the barrel practically exploded, a thick paste-like liquid splattering across the road like a struck deer, the liquid glowing a dangerous green.

The cars screeched to a halt, and Shifty heard a bullet whiz by their ear.

“HA!” They shrieked, pushing the pedal to the floor. The truck roared, speeding away with its cargo of nuclear waste, an extra car, and a monster clutching a handgun in the front seat.

It was raining and already evening when they arrived at the shack.

Paranoia had taken over, and they had driven in circles for most of the day, hoping to lose anyone who might be tailing them before they finally built up the courage to pull in at the shack, relieved to find the parking lot empty. No one burst from the house to ask why they were here, and why they had a truck with broken windows. The shack must have closed early for the rain.

It was easy enough to get the barrels in the house, especially with no risk of being shot at. Their heart was still pounding, and they paused in the gift shop, suddenly unnerved by all the shadows that the overcast day sent skittering across the walls. Oddly, many of them were triangular.

“Stan?” Shifty called out, and then wished they didn’t. No one answered.

The shack had never felt emptier, filled to the brim with silent ghosts, awaiting their next move. Shifty scratched at their chest anxiously, the pain grounding them slightly. They felt dizzy and floaty again, like they had when Gideon had wrecked the shack and they felt like their brain had been submerged in soup.

Outside, it started to rain even harder, the water pattering on the roof in a mind-numbing way. They could have stood there for hours, mind racing and paralyzed with equal parts dread and adrenaline.

They glanced at the vending machine, and nausea twisted in their stomach in the same moment thunder rumbled outside, unobtrusive, but undeniably there. And it was only going to get louder.

Shifty glanced at the four barrels, frowning deeply, pausing when a blinking red light caught their eye. The security camera stared at them, red light recording. It had sat nonfunctional for some time, breaking near the beginning of the summer, and at that point Shifty and Stan had been too busy to worry about replacing it. Besides, Wendy was a better security system than the shoddy CCTV ever was. Shifty wondered when Stan had fixed them; no doubt he had checked them to try and glean where Shifty was already.

Silently, they brought two fingers up to their eyes, and pointed them back at the camera. Watching you too, old man.

They grabbed the first barrel, hauling it towards the vending machine, just out of view of the cameras, determined to ignore the dread building in their stomach.

“Okay,” Shifty said, for what felt like the millionth time. “Okay, okay, okay.”

They flipped through the second journal, their eyes glazing over the instructions. They were beyond exhausted, fighting a migraine, and starving. And being underground, especially alone, made them feel on edge like some greater beast than them was in the corner, just watching and waiting for them to screw up and pounce.

The portal didn’t help either. In the few times Shifty had seen it, it had been dark and looming, an ominous but a far off threat. Now, it was alive, like Frankenstein’s monster brought back from the dead, buzzing with a horrible energy that made Shifty’s teeth rattle. It was glowing too, a bright white light like how they imagined death was for humans, which only made them more disconcerted. They realized with a start that they didn’t really know what was on the other side of the door alongside Stanford. Whatever it was, it had scared the hell out of him.

The portal buzzed angrily, apparently angry with Shifty’s indecision, and spat what looked like lightning at the ground. Even behind the observation glass, Shifty jumped, their heart pounding so loud it was all they could hear. They skimmed the journal’s instructions once more, feeling vaguely dizzy.

Stanford had a pair of thick rubber gloves, and Shifty wished they hadn’t shed the protective suit. It would have been good for their peace of mind, but they had left it behind long ago. Their jacket was comforting to have back, but it wasn’t exactly immune to radioactivity.

They grew an extra finger and shoved the gloves on, making a point to ignore the terrible sounds emanating from the portal, grabbing one of the barrels, and tipping the contents into the open repository. It smelled like burning plastic, and the heat from it made Shifty’s skin prickle uncomfortably. They leaned away, even more ill, but determined to power through.

The machinery whirred its approval, and the waste disappeared, drunk up eagerly by the portal, starving for power. The lights flashed once more, which did nothing to help Shifty’s headache, their ears still ringing from the alarms of the facility. They poured another barrel in, and a few machines buzzed, spitting out information from various data centers that Stan would have understood in an instant, but Shifty just hoped it meant all was well.

The poured the final barrel in, and with no prelude, the portal went from spitting light to a warm glow, steady and strong. “Come on,” Shifty whispered, punching a few buttons that the journal had instructed them to. “Come on, you can do it.”

The portal flashed once, twice, and then a third time, but this time the blinding light remained on, like an angel had appeared in the room. Or maybe a demon.

“YES!” Shifty cheered, and then their stomach dropped. “FUCKING YES! FINALLY!”

“Gravity event imminent,” a robotic voice chirped, and then Shifty’s feet weren’t touching the ground anymore.

They yelped, scrambling for something to hold on to, but as quickly as the weightlessness had come, it was gone, and they fell gracelessly to the ground, knocking into a control board. The board fell onto the ground with a sickening thud, and instantly, several alarms started screaming.

“NO!” Shifty scrambled to their feet, a high-pitched tone ringing in their ears. They snatched the second journal, flipping through it frantically, trying to parse what the problem was, but between the lights and the noise, they could barely keep themselves from quite literally collapsing into a puddle. They tossed the second journal aside, reaching for the paperclip-bound photocopy of the third journal, but they only ended up scattering papers around, out of order and useless in this state.

“Warning,” the computer’s voice said, helpfully refusing to say exactly what the warning was for. “Warning.”

The portal’s light turned too bright, and Shifty squinted, blinded and unable to look at it anymore, unsure if this was the mythic tunnel of light or just their own mistakes, still clutching the pages of the third journal.

“No no no,” Shifty said desperately, barely able to think over the alarm. “No no no, oh god-”

And as quickly as it started, it was over.

The light died away to a more manageable brightness, and the alarms snapped off as though gagged. Shifty panted like they had been sprinting for their life, blinking away spots in their vision.

When they could see, they saw Stan. And if looks could kill, Shifty would have been dead before they ever got their vision back.

“Stan,” they managed to say, feeling oddly small. “Stan, Stan, I–”

“I know,” Stan said in a low growl, so furious and Shifty took a step back, startled to hear that much open anger. “I know you’re not this fucking stupid.”

Shifty blinked, startled. “I-”

“Did someone put a fucking hole in your head too?!” Stan barked, and Shifty flinched. “I wake up to find you and my goddamn car gone, no note or nothing, and I gotta make up some bullshit to everyone on the fly that you’re delivering fucking checks to Portland or some shit, not that I think anyone besides Soos believed me. I spend all goddamn day in the rain and mud searching for you, because the last fucking time you flaked out like that I found you half-dead in the middle of the fucking woods!”

“If I told you what I was doing you would have stopped me,” Shifty protested, but it sounded weak.

“You’re goddamn right I would have!” Stan waved his arms wildly. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! Stealing from a fucking nuclear facility?! I don’t even want to know where you got the truck from!”

“I needed it!” Shifty protested. “Look, the car and gun were–”

“What gun?!” Stan demanded, and Shifty snapped their mouth shut, feeling their face flush green. “You–Moses, oh my god, don’t you fucking tell me you took a gun.”

Shifty said nothing, and Stan blanched. “Please tell me you didn’t–”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Shifty snapped, sick to their stomach that Stan would assume murder. “I-I needed protection, I didn’t know if I was going to be strong enough to do it without backup of some kind, I never even fired it. You can check the bullets. I didn’t use my own face to take the truck, I didn’t even hurt the guy. I did what you taught me to do, safety on, I was careful-”

“CAREFUL?!” Stan roared, and Shifty jumped. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! You chose a great goddamn time to be the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, I’ll tell you that!”

“I had to do something,” Shifty said, unable to force themselves to take Stan’s fury lying down, even if it did scare them. They had never seen Stan this angry about anything before; they didn’t even think they had ever seen him as anything besides deeply annoyed. “I had to do something! It’s not like you were going to help!”

“I told you a million times, a million fucking times,” Stan snapped. “To come up with another plan-”

“There is no other plan!” Shifty said. “This is it! We had an answer, and the only thing standing in our way was you!”

“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that!” Stan barked, and Shifty gritted their teeth, suddenly furious to be ordered around like a rebellious child.

“We’re supposed to be working on this together! Not just you! Where would we be if you were in charge, huh?!” Shifty demanded. “What if we did what you wanted?! You’d be sitting on that goddamn chair, watching TV and drinking piss-flavored beer until your liver finally quit on you! Stanford could be gone already and you don’t even care!”

“Watch your goddamn mouth,” Stan warned. “You don’t even know how this machine works, what the hell are you doing dumping that shit in there?! I have half a mind to turn it off, it’s a goddamn miracle the kids weren’t here to feel that–”

Stan took a half-step towards the controls, and Shifty felt a sharp spike of cold fear. They moved in front of Stan to block him, fast enough that Stan nearly ran into them.

“Don’t,” Shifty said, their voice low and dangerous. They were taller than Stan now; not by much, but enough to be noticeable. They didn’t even realize they had done that. “Don’t you dare touch it.”

Stan blinked, and Shifty thought he might have seen something like fear behind his eyes before he smothered it with more anger. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Stan hissed, a formidable opponent in his own right.

“I’m the only one who gives a shit,” Shifty said, strangely breathless. “I’m working every goddamn night on this thing, and where have you been? Waffling around, too cowardly to see this through to the end. I’m stupid? Who’s inventing new math every night while you buy couplers out of the back of a van? When did you give up on this?! When did you suddenly decide you don’t care about Stanford anymore?!”

“Don’t you even–” Stan took a breath, his face red. “Don’t you even fucking think that. He’s my fucking brother. You don’t even know what that word goddamn means.”

Shifty flinched, but Stan didn’t seem to notice. “You didn’t know him at all. You don’t know what it’s like. Don’t you ever tell me I don’t care about him.”

“I did know him!” Shifty protested, mortified. “He was my whole world!”

“Small ass world,” Stan scoffed. “You didn’t know him at all, kid, you know how I know that? You don’t have any idea what a jackass he was.”

“Shut up,” Shifty snarled. “No he wasn’t. Shut up, you can’t-”

“I sure as hell can,” Stan said, as though words were bubbling up from some deep seated place of swallowed fear and anger in his gut, decades of pain turned sour in an instant. It didn’t matter if the words were true or not, or if he believed them–they just needed to get out. “I grew up with him. You knew him for, what, less than a year? Those rose-tinted glasses of your’s are fucking up your vision real bad, I can tell you that. You wanna know the real Stanford? The real Ford? He was a tunnel-visioned, selfish jerk who was so busy trying to be great that he completely forgot that other people besides himself exist.”

“Stop it!” Shifty demanded, and Stan laughed, cruel and desperate.

“You keep thinking that he’s gonna waltz out of there, with a smile and a lollipop for you or some shit!” he said. “You are way too goddamn old to let yourself keep believing that.”

“Fuck you!” Shifty snapped. “You don’t know shit! You hadn’t seen him in years! You told me that yourself!”

“He was the same as he ever was!” Stan said. “Why do you think you were in those goddamn tunnels?!”

Something terrified and prey-like shifted in their chest, and their breath stuttered. “Don’t,” Shifty said. “Shut up, shut up–”

“That’s what he does, pal,” Stan said, not seeming to notice. “When he doesn’t need someone anymore, when they piss him off for the last time, he abandons them. Happened to you, happened to me, and I’d bet my life it happened more. You got the shit end of a shitty deal.”

Shifty chased thoughts of Fiddleford from their mind. “That’s not true!” They clenched their fists. “He put me there to protect me! He thought he was doing the best he could!”

“Yeah?” Stan rolled his eyes. “From what?”

“H-he…” Shifty paused, trying to think of anything other than the vague reasoning Stanford had given them. “He…he was sick. He didn’t want me to get sick. You know that. I told you.”

“Sick in the goddamn head, more like,” Stan said.

“He wasn’t crazy!” Shifty protested.

“‘Sick’ was a weak excuse then, and it’s a weak excuse now,” Stan scoffed. “Face it, Mouser, he dumped you because he didn’t want to deal with you anymore. That’s what he does. He leaves people, and dumps his shit on them as he runs. That’s what he did to me, and now I got this portal and you to deal with.”

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath, feeling like they were struck with an ax all over again. They opened their mouth, and no sound came out. Something came loose in them, and in the back of their mind, they hoped their face wouldn’t start sagging again.

Stan blinked, glancing at Shifty with an odd expression on his face. “That’s not…that all came out wrong, I-I didn’t mean it like-”

A cold fury settled over Shifty, and they let it, because it was infinitely easier to process than the excruciating pain in their heart. They reformed that shattered internal thing into a new shape, something better adapted for a crueler world than they had expected. It was easier to do than they had ever imagined it would be.

“If you’re the resident fucking expert on Stanford Pines,” Shifty hissed, oddly snake-like. “Maybe we should give him a chance to speak on it.”

“What are you even talking about-” Stan started, and then Shifty’s body morphed. Stan’s eyes widened, stricken, and he turned away from Shifty so fast it looked like he gave himself motion sickness. “Knock it off.”

“What?” Shifty asked, their voice a perfect imitation of Stanford’s, and their body and face exactly as they remembered him. They grabbed his glasses, still sitting in their jacket pocket, and shoved them on their face. The world went blurry, but that was fine. “Suddenly can’t face it anymore?”

“Drop it,” Stan said, still refusing to look at Shifty. “Drop that face now.”

“Isn’t this so fucking typical,” Shifty sneered. “All of a sudden you can’t face your own mistakes. What? Are you all out of clever bullshit to say now?”

“Mouser, goddammit–”

“We wouldn’t even be in this situation if it wasn’t for you,” Shifty snapped. “You’re yelling at me, you’re mad at me, and I’m the only goddamn one trying to fix your fuck-ups!”

“I haven’t done anything–”

“You pushed him!” Shifty interrupted, breathing hard once more. The ringing in their ears was back, and louder than ever. “You’re the one who pushed him through! You told me that! On my very first day back home, you told me that!”

“It was an accident!” Stan protested, trying to walk towards the elevator. “You know that, it was an accident–”

“Don’t you fucking walk away from me!” Shifty shouted, chasing after Stan. “Oh, how could I forget, Stan and his accidents, it’s never your fault, is it? Just bad luck and being in the wrong place at the wrong time! Nothing can ever be the result of your own actions! I’m stupid?! I’m fucking stupid?! Look around! We’re here because you fucked up and couldn’t fix it, even thirty years later with my help! You can’t even look at me!”

Stan said nothing, and a new, hot rage spiked in Shifty’s gut. They grabbed Stan’s arm, yanked him away from the elevator, harder than they had too. Stan yelped in surprise, suddenly face to face with his brother from thirty years ago.

“LOOK AT ME!” Shifty roared, unable to swallow it all up. It was like a bottle of cola, and someone was dumping in pack after pack of Mentos. “LOOK AT ME! YOU DID THIS! YOU FUCKING DID THIS! YOU PUSHED HIM AND NOW HE’S GONE! YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME! YOU DON’T GET TO DESTROY MY LIFE IN LESS THAN TEN SECONDS AND THEN WALK AWAY FROM ME LIKE THAT! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

“Let go of me!” Stan tried to yank his arm away, sounding genuinely frightened. Shifty couldn’t see his expression, the glasses still muddling their vision, but their grip tightened around Stan’s arm.

Something snapped in their heart, like a frozen rubber band stretched too thin.

“I WISH IT WAS YOU!” They roared, in Stanford’s voice. “IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU THAT GOT TAKEN! THEN I WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE TO BOTHER WITH TURNING IT BACK ON!”

Stan twisted his arm, managing to wrench it away from Shifty. They felt their nails scrape against his skin, deep and desperate, like a cat clawing for stability on a smooth surface.

“DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT?!” Stan shouted, louder than he had been when he ordered Shifty not to touch Ed’s severed hand.

But this time Shifty didn’t flee. Now, their mouth snapped shut, and they stared back with a fierceness that would have sent anyone else running. They were trembling, wondering if they were about to collapse, oddly exhausted. They wondered if Stan was doing the same–they couldn’t see it.

“Power sequence complete,” the computer said. “Twenty four hours until event horizon.”

They stood in the silence of a cement tomb, the only sound the noises the portal was making, electrical and utterly inanimate.

“...wonderful,” Stan finally growled. “Fucking peachy. I can’t wait for this to be over. Then I never have to speak to you, or see your fucking face ever again.”

Something in Shifty’s chest stung, dangerously close to grief, and they immediately shoved it away. “That sounds like a dream come true,” they said.

Stan said nothing, staring at Shifty, and unable to resist, they lifted the glasses up, blinking to see again.

Stan’s face was completely ashen, biting his lip hard enough to bruise, and clutching his arm where Shifty had scratched him. His expression was one of grief, horror, and nothing else.

Shifty shoved the glasses back over their face, unable to look at him. There was nothing more to say.

That was what Stanley had taught them, after all. Never back down, never look back, never stop moving forward.

Never apologize.

So Shifty didn’t. Neither of them did.

They couldn’t drop Stanford’s shape.

They stood in their temporary room, swaying, breathing hard, their body buzzing with a horrible energy. They stared at themselves in the mirror, glasses-less, but still Stanford. Every time they tried to change their shape, it would hold for only a few seconds before it snapped back to Stanford, with a scar on his hand and a strange slash on his chest, over his clothes.

“Stop it,” they muttered, shaking so badly they could barely get their hands to reach up and yank at their hair. It hurt, but not enough. Stan’s blood was under their fingernails, and they saw it no matter how many times they scrubbed their hands. No was no use in ripping out the nails. They had tried. “Stop it, stop it.”

Their reflection did not change back to Remy or the horrible thing they really were. For once, they longed to see the monster in the mirror, because at least it wouldn’t be Stanford, shaking and trembling as he had in the finals days, how Shifty least wanted to remember him.

“Please,” they pleaded to the mirror. “Please, please, I want–”

They weren’t sure what they wanted. There were a million and one things they didn’t want now, but somewhere along the way, what they wanted had become so twisted and so antithetical to what they thought it would be that they didn’t think they could sparse it out if they tried. There would be no grand reunion, at least not where Stan was there too. They couldn’t even imagine what it would be like without him, and it hurt too much to think about, and it made them angry all over again. All those years trying to swallow anger like bitter medicine, only for it to regurgitate violently in the final hours.

Something lurched in their stomach, and they had to do something.

The mini-golf club that Mabel had stolen for them at the golf course sat placidly against the door, and they snatched it up, giving themselves no time to reconsider before they swung the club at the mirror as hard as they could, feeling some sick relief when the mirror shattered, pieces scattering all over the floor, jagged stars reflecting Stanford’s face a million times over. A memory with another broken mirror, a bad one, wriggled in the back of their mind, and they ignored it.

They swung the club again and again, pulverizing the mirror into smaller and smaller pieces, until there was nothing but pointed dust scattered across the floor, twinkling softly like the Milky Way had been brought into Shifty’s room.

They stood completely still, relieved they had taken their jacket off now, because they were in their base form now, heaving and clutching the club like their life depended on it. Maybe it did.

They choked on something harsh in the back of their throat, unable to breathe over the grief and guilt in their chest, pressing against them like the worms inside were fighting to get out all over again, feasting on every terrible thing Shifty had ever done, and after tonight, they had a goddamn buffet to eat from.

They were thankful that the kids were all the way up in the attic, unable to hear them continue to slam the golf club into the ground until the head snapped off, flying into the wall and leaving a small hole. Their buzzing energy left them almost immediately, and they collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, feeling miniscule pieces of glass poking holes into their insectoid skin, vulnerable in all the worst ways.

They couldn’t stop themselves from breaking into painful sobs, even if they wanted to, aching for a home that was never theirs to begin with.

Chapter Text

Shifty awoke from a fitful sleep to the sound of explosions.

They sat up quickly, panicked and wondering how the portal could have gone sideways so fast, only to relax infinitesimally when they heard Mabel and Dipper cheering in delight, closely followed by another explosion, this time with a cheerful whistle. They must have found Stan’s fireworks stash. Which meant Stan was with them too. There was little he liked more than unlicensed pyrotechnics.

Shifty groaned, covering their eyes with their arm, immediately turning back into Remy when they realized with a chill they had fallen asleep as themselves. The room looked like a hurricane had rampaged through it, the ground covered in miniscule pieces of mirror dust, a broken mini golf club sitting in the corner.

They buried their head under the covers, their stomach churning in guilt and anxiety. Less than a day, and they would have either achieved the only goal they had, or failed so utterly they might as well retreat to the forest and never return.

The fireworks continued to explode outside, and half of them wanted to join the others. They didn’t have anything against illegal explosives. Under most circumstances, they were quite fun. But the thought of facing Stan again made their heart pound, fast enough to make them dizzy.

“Just until the end of the day,” they whispered to themselves. “Just until the end of the day. Then it’ll…it’ll be over.”

They wondered, maybe even for the first time, what they would do when it was all over, no matter how it went. It was a terrifying question, and they decided they didn’t want to think about it anymore.

The explosions were gone now, though they could still hear the kids shouting at each other outside, distant and muffled. It sounded like they were having fun, at least. Shifty wondered exactly how they planned to explain Stanford’s sudden presence in their life. All these logistical questions they had never thought about before popped into their mind, and now that all they had to do was wait, the questions seemed just as scary as breaking into a nuclear facility.

Will they hate us for not telling them about Stanford? They wondered, fruitlessly trying not to think about it, tossing and turning under the blanket. Where will he sleep? What will he want to do after coming back? Will he be hurt? Sick? How will we keep running the shack with him here?

Shifty felt the scar on their palm absently, their heart pounding. Will he even remember me?

They closed their eyes and tried to take a deep breath, feeling shaken and unsteady. Maybe if they tried, they could catch a few more hours of sleep before everything went crazy. They were pretty sure Stan was going to send the kids off for the day, at least until the portal was done opening. As long as someone remained in the basement to watch over it, there shouldn’t be any more gravitational anomalies. Even Shifty knew how to prevent those.

It’ll be fine, they told themselves tersely, and it was getting harder and harder to believe it. It’ll be fine-

Suddenly, they heard several birds shrieking in alarm before the frantic pounding of wings, slowly edging farther and farther away from them, as if the birds had been suddenly scared. Shifty paused, unsure what to make of it, but all they could hear now was silence.

And then, shattering glass.

They sat up instantly when they heard several people running through the house, shouting and practically stomping with heavy shoes. Abruptly, the house smelled unfamiliar and scary, like sweat and bullets, and they hugged the blanket tighter around themselves.

They were halfway standing when Mabel burst into their room without knocking, tears already streaming down her face.

“REMY!” She shrieked. “Something’s wrong, they made a mistake!”

“What?!” Shifty asked, disoriented and pulling the blanket tighter around themselves to hide their scar. Mabel grabbed their free arm, dragging them through the house. They could hear people shuffling through the house, but they always seemed just out of sight. “What’s going on?! Who’s in the house?! Why is there-?!”

“Tell them it's a mistake, quick!” Mabel said, shoving them out to the porch.

“What’s a mistake-” Shifty started, and froze.

Outside, a helicopter was circling the shack like a buzzard waiting for a deer hit by a car to exhale its final breath. Stocky black cars surrounded the shack, armed with bullbars gleaming in the morning sun, with men in bullet proof vests and guns the size of toddlers rushing about. Dipper, standing at the front of the steps, turned back, and visibly relaxed when he saw Shifty. His face was ashen, but he managed a tremulous smile.

“See?!” Dipper yelled at two people, wrestling to get a third in handcuffs, the half-arrested man mostly concealed behind their scary looking vans. “Remy’s here! He’s an adult! He can vouch for him! Remy, tell them!”

“What the fuck is going–” Shifty started, and their mouth snapped shut when the two looked at them, and they instantly recognized each other. Agent Powers and Agent Trigger from the gift shop, weeks ago, each looking highly annoyed to be back.

“Bad word,” Mabel said miserably.

“Hey! Easy with the merchandise!” The man being arrested snapped, and Shifty felt their blood run cold. Powers yanked the man forward, shoving his face roughly onto the hood of the car, arms pinned behind his back.

Stan growled something incomprehensible but probably obscene, putting up a decent fight as Powers struggled to get the handcuffs on. “Oh, you suits have a helluva lawsuit coming your way, just you wait buddy, I’m gonna-”

His eyes met Shifty’s and he went quiet.

“Tell them, Remy!” Dipper said, looking desperate. “Tell them that Stan was in the gift shop! He didn’t steal any nuclear waste!”

Powers and Trigger looked at Shifty, and their eyes narrowed.

Stan’s expression held no hatred, no fury. Shifty was too afraid to look in his eyes for any affection, terrified of what he might find. Stan frowned, and with a strange look of resignation, mouthed a single word.

Run.

Shifty didn’t need to be told twice.

Like a bullet fired from a gun, they whirled around and sprinted away. Mabel and Dipper shouted after them, alarmed, and Shifty heard a sound that sounded like a gun being readied to fire. “Stop him!” Powers shouted. “Don’t let him get away!”

A special ops agent lunged at Shifty, and they ducked into the house, slamming the door behind them, only to promptly remember the house was already teeming with agents.

One appeared around the corner, their gun half-raised. “What do you think you’re–”

Without thinking, Shifty transformed into a bear and swatted them aside.

Instantly, the house erupted into chaos.

“HOLY SHIT!” Another agent shrieked, and Shifty turned into a cat, wild-eyed and panicked, sprinting towards the back door, spinning wildly in the air as bullets sprayed around them. One whizzed by their ears, and they yowled, landing on the kitchen table and scattered dirty plates. They shattered on the floor, only adding to the chaos.

“GET IT, SHOOT IT!” Someone shouted, and Shifty turned into a boar, and threw themselves at the only unbroken window in the house.

Glass shattered instantly, and they squealed when they felt it slice at their skin, landing ungracefully outside in a heap, scrambling to stand back up again.

“GET IT GET IT!” Someone demanded, and they turned into a rabbit and ran like they had never ran before.

The pain was secondary, logic was secondary, even their guilt was secondary. All that mattered now was the animal drive to run, to put as much distance between themselves and this fight as possible, because they knew there was no way they could win it. Not like this, not when the opponent had the element of surprise on their hands.

More bullets tore apart the greenery, and Shifty zig-zagged desperately, hearing the shouts of the agents grow distant. A helicopter whirred above them, and they heard the heavy cars starting, racing through the underbrush and crushing everything in their path. The jig was utterly and completely up.

Another spray of bullets exploded over their head, and Shifty darted into the thick underbrush, ignoring the feeling of sticks and thorns scratching their skin. They came upon a tree with a thick root ball, and immediately dove inside, pressing as close to the back as they could, heaving in exhaustion and fear.

Something else must have been startled by the cavalry chasing them, maybe a real rabbit, because the bushes rustled again and something streaked through the forest once more, possibly even more frightened than Shifty was. The cars chased after it, and Shifty flinched back even further, shaking uncontrollably. Their body ached, rippling within the confines of a cowardly rabbit.

Oh god, Shifty thought, wild and panicked. Oh my god. Oh god.

They didn’t know what Stan was being arrested for, not truly. It obviously had something to do with the waste, but that had been Shifty. And they weren’t dumb enough to use Stan’s face, or their own. There wasn’t any reason that–

“Oh god,” Shifty said out loud, their voice garbled in a rabbit’s shape. “The car.”

They must have seen the car, the infamous Stanleymobile, and the reports must have made their way to Powers and Trigger. And the duo was smart enough to at least want to take Shifty in for questioning. Not that it mattered now; they had made themselves far more interesting than just a potential accomplice. At least the kids hadn’t seen.

“Mabel! Dipper!” The rabbit shape crumbled, and Remy reappeared, sweating and haggard. They hadn’t even thought about the fact that they were abandoning the kids to the uncaring forces of the American government. It was undoubtedly too late to return and take them somewhere, not that Shifty would even know what to do in that situation.

They had had a fear instilled in them by Stan at an early age that they might be taken away if they weren’t careful, either by an organization called the ‘Child Protective Services’ if they figured out that Shifty existed as a child, or by an even more terrifying entity known as government scientists. They used to have nightmares about it frequently. And now they had allowed the same thing to happen to Mabel and Dipper.

They’ll be fine, Shifty thought, desperately trying to quell their guilt and fear. Worst case scenario, they’re just going to be dropped off at home. They have safe options. We don’t.

They stood in the forest, completely still and struggling not to spiral. It struck them, suddenly, that they were completely untethered for the first time in their entire life.

Stanford was still gone, and could theoretically still return with no one to greet him. Stan had been arrested, and while Shifty believed they could take on the town, they probably couldn’t take on the government. There was nothing they could really do for the kids–and it was probably better that they were sent away from this anyway–and Soos and Wendy had never relied on Shifty for anything besides checking their hours.

They could disappear right now, go off into the woods and never return. No one would stop them, and more than that, who would ever know? It was safer, certainly, far safer than returning to the shack.

They imagined themselves fleeing for a moment, just a moment. Never taking a human shape again. The idea was almost appealing, but they didn’t turn and walk deeper into the woods.

It was an animal instinct, this idea, and little more. Rabbits fled, boars squealed, cats did acrobatics, bears attacked, and Shifty, apparently, considered cowardice with more thought than they had any right to.

It was always going to end this way, they realized, no matter what happened. They were always going to end up in that basement, praying to a faceless entity that for once, just this once, a miracle might happen and all might be returned to how it was.

They took a breath, turned back into a rabbit, and started to make their way back to the shack.

Shifty slinked along the side of the shack, belly pressed against the ground, ready to flee at a moments’ notice. Agents surrounded the shack, and the stupid helicopter was still circling the sky. Now that Shifty wasn’t rustling branches, it seemed largely unaware of their presence, which was a relief.

An agent stepped out of the house, and Shifty darted under the porch, ears pricked up and listening. “Yeah?” The agent said into a walkie-talkie, and a crackling voice that Shifty couldn’t make out spoke back. “Alright, good, we should be in contact with the children’s parents by the end of the day.”

Shifty felt a little bit of anxiety uncurl in their chest at the confirmation. Mabel and Dipper would be fine. Disappointed, but fine and perfectly alive.

“Is Stanford Pines still in custody?” The agent asked, and Shifty edged forward, trying to hear the answer. They knew Stan was no stranger to prisons, but this felt different. This wasn’t Blubs and Durland that would usually release him to Shifty after a night on account of him being too damn annoying to keep long term. This was the government. And even if Shifty was pretty sure TV gave them a skewed view of how evil or benevolent the government could be (the pendulum tended to swing wildly) they knew enough to know they didn’t want to catch their attention. Especially now.

The walkie-talkie crackled again, and Shifty was pretty sure they heard a ‘yes’ come out the other end. It made sense–even Stan would probably have difficulties escaping federal containment. But even now, furious as they were with him, they deflated.

“No, sir,” the agent said. “No sign of the monster.”

Shifty felt sick.

“Last we saw, it turned into a rabbit,” the agent said. “No intel on what else it can turn into, or what it is. We’ve been exterminating any animal that comes too close to the exclusion zone and saving their bodies for later.”

Oh good, Shifty thought, dizzy I least I won’t get vivisected. Just autopsied. Wonderful.

“Right, we got Bridgers’ eyewitness account, but he’s not exactly the type to pay attention. It could be anything,” the agent said, and then, with a note of horror: “It could be a filing cabinet right now.”

That sounded like a good disguise, and Shifty filed the idea away for later.

The walkie talkie hissed again, and the agent grunted. “Heard. Over and out.” He stepped down the stairs, and Shifty scuttled deeper under the porch, suddenly disgusted with the amount of empty aluminum cans hiding under it. They heard something shuffle, and whirled around to see a gnome crawling out of the dirt, several worms in hand.

He shook his fist at Shifty threateningly. “Back off, buster! Finders keepers!”

Shifty hissed like a snake, sharpening their teeth and bluffing a charge at the gnome. The gnome yelped, scampering out from under the porch and into the woods. Luckily, no gunshots followed. Or maybe unluckily; the gnome would no doubt be back.

The ground underneath Shifty was soft and yielding. They had read passages where Stanford had complained about finding beard hair in the portal’s finer mechanisms, but had never really stopped to wonder where the pests were getting in from. The ceiling was made of dirt, Shifty knew that, but apparently, it was thinner than they had thought.

They scraped in the dirt experimentally, fighting the revulsion and fear throbbing right where their scar was on their chest. It seemed like every time they went underground, something terrible happened.

Stop it, they scolded themselves. You’re being stupid.

This did nothing to assuage their fear, but there was no other option. There never really was. Maybe they were always meant to be entombed, and this was the universe’s way of trying to rectify that.

In any case, they should really just get it over with.

With as little fanfare as they could, they turned into a mole, and began to dig.

The second they were surrounded by soil, they felt themselves begin to panic. It didn’t matter that the earth was loose and light, and didn’t constrict them like it had when escaping the bunker. It didn’t matter that the smell was entirely different. It didn’t matter that they had chosen this. Even as they forced themselves to burrow, they felt as though there was some great, vile spirit in the earth, just waiting to swallow them up. Just waiting to trap when. Just waiting to–

With no warning, the floor gave out.

Shifty shrieked as they tumbled out from the basement ceiling, and turned into a large eagle. They couldn’t fly–they had tested it many times–but they could glide, and they spread their wings in an attempt to save themselves from what would be no doubt a painful, and possibly even injuring fall.

It barely worked. They caught air at the last possible second, gliding headfirst into a table, entangled with the papers and notes covering it, flapping frantically to right themselves. They turned back into Remy, sputtering, relieved that at least no one was here to see that.

They thought they heard footsteps above, and froze, terrified that the crash might have alerted the government to their presence. But no one shouted for them, no one demanded their head. The footsteps remained idle, wandering agents who didn’t know where to look.

The portal spat sparks, and Shifty jumped.

“Yeah, yeah,” they grumbled. “I know, I’m getting to it.”

Somehow, against all odds, they were fighting sleep.

The portal loomed larger than life, a dangerous entity that threatened to destroy the entire town if they weren’t careful. They were underground, and if they stopped and let themselves think about it too long, their breathing got short and desperate, like prey. Stan was gone, carted off to some max security prison, and they kids were no doubt halfway back to California right now.

Shifty wasn’t sure if they could do this alone, even though the portal did seem stable and able to chug along just fine without too much interference. They had managed to mitigate any gravitational anomalies to mere bounces, largely unnoticeable unless you were a bug. But that was just the technical aspect.

They had no idea what they would do if Stanford walked through that portal.

When they were young, they knew exactly what the plan was: force Stanford to pick them up and then never let him put them down again. But they were bigger now, and far more grown up besides. As time had passed, the mythic quest of getting Stanford back had seemed more and more like simply something to keep themselves and Stan from going insane, and it had worked for the most part. But it meant that Shifty had no idea what to do when he arrived.

He wouldn’t recognize them as Remy, and probably would hesitate even if they were in their true form. They didn’t know what to say, what to do, and like the claustrophobia, if they let themselves dwell on it for longer than a second, it threatened to swallow them whole.

And in spite of all that fear, all that uncertainty, they were sitting at the control panel, fighting sleep and losing.

They had been sleeping poorly since the incident in the bunker, and had never been restful for most of their life regardless. The whopping two hours they had gotten the previous evening, combined with coming down from the adrenaline from the nuclear break-in and the government attack, made it damn near impossible to keep their eyes open.

Shifty jolted awake for the umpteenth time, the portal humming listlessly, but what had been a hair-raising sound before morphed into something almost comforting, like the hum of some greater animal, comforting and quieting in all the ways it shouldn't have been, but still was.

Like a white noise machine, Shifty thought and that was their final coherent thought before their head tipped forward, resting on the cool metal of the control panel.

Their dreams were frightening and nonsensical, filled with endless tunnels and axes. Stan’s furious and then horrified face peered at them from around every corner, and a man dressed like Stanford, but terrifyingly faceless, kept staring at them with no eyes, waiting for them to slip up.

Stop looking at me! Shifty demanded of the entity, and it did not look away. Their body contorted into something painful and disgusting as the worms inside them bucked and writhed, working desperately to escape their confines. The worms were winning. Don’t look, please leave me be, don’t look, don’t look–

Shifty woke abruptly to the sound of alarms. They were floating.

They shrieked, very awake, their back pressed against the ceiling. “Warning,” a robotic voice said. “Gravitational anomaly in process.”

Shifty thought they could have figured that one out on their own, but they scrambled regardless, trying to grab at the journals, and find the instructions that would allow them to stop this. The portal made a horrible noise, flashing blinding colors and spitting lightning once more.

“STOP STOP!” Shifty said desperately, trying to scuttle along the ceiling, hold onto anything.

And as quickly as it started, it was over.

Gravity returned, and Shifty dropped to the ground unceremoniously, wheezing when the wind was knocked out of them. The portal seemed to be laughing at them. “Please,” Shifty said desperately. “Please, please, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Please.”

No one emerged to help them. They didn’t expect anyone to, and somehow it still hurt.

They checked the countdown and winced. An hour left before the event horizon, before they would be forced to figure out what the hell to say to Stanford. Or how to start truly mourning.

“Okay,” they whispered, hauling themselves to their feet. “Okay, okay okay.”

It seemed like they were saying that to themselves a lot lately.

They did their checks, and then they did the checks again. From what they could comprehend from the engineering instructions, everything seemed in order, but that had always been more so Stan’s department than theirs’. But they tried, because what other choice was there?

The portal was roaring now, and there were a handful of minutes left on the clock. Shifty was glad they hadn’t eaten today. They would just be throwing it up. They were beyond exhausted, and their body was threatening to collapse under the weight of the stress, but they ignored it. They could rest when Stanford was back. Maybe that was the first thing they could do. Say hello and then collapse onto him entirely.

The elevator dinged.

Shifty whirled around, suddenly terrified. Had the agents found a way in, discovered some latent secret code? Or maybe–and Shifty couldn’t help but perk up–Stan was better than they had ever imagined when it came to grand escapes, and would be at their side after all, at least for this. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe it would be fine. And maybe, this time, they could unlock their jaw and beg for forgiveness, break their one rule.

“Stan?” They called out as the elevator opened, without really meaning too.

But the elevator opened, and there stood Mabel, Dipper, and Soos.

They all stared in silence for a long moment, each unable to reconcile what they were seeing.

Shifty recovered first. “You–” they took a few steps back, horrified. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Remy?” Mabel asked, because it always seemed like she was the first to say hello. This wasn’t a hello, though. This was a ‘please tell me this isn’t what I think it is’. “Why are…you here?”

“Dude,” Soos asked, looking uneasy. “What is this place?”

“It’s…” Shifty shook their head. “It’s not important right now. Listen, you can’t…you can’t be here, you need to-”

“Your chest,” Dipper said, staring at Shifty.

Shifty looked down at their chest, their heart skipping a beat when they saw the scar stretching across it, folding over the skin they had ordered to look like a shirt. “I-I-”

“Oh my god,” Dipper stepped back, horrified. “We saw you on the security cameras, and we saw you book it when those agents came. Mabel and I didn’t know why, but…you’re him. You’re that thing! Oh my god, you’re the shapeshifter!”

Not like this, please, not like this.

“No!” Shifty said, and then realized it was a stupid thing to deny. “You don’t…no, wait, you don’t understand-”

“Where’s Remy?!” Mabel demanded, stepping forward. “What did you do to our friend?!”

“Oh dude, if you like, ate him or something,” Soos said, looking deadly serious. “We’re gonna kick your weird butt.”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Shifty said, desperate. “I-I’ve been lying for a long time, this isn’t-”

“I’ll say!” Dipper said, looking more angry than scared. “What did you do with Remy?! What is this place?! Why–” he froze, focusing on something behind Shifty. “Are those the journals?!”

“...no,” Shifty said.

The blatant lie made Dipper angier and less afraid, a dangerous combination. He stepped forward, fists balled. “How long have you been lying to us?! What is that thing?! Tell me where Remy is, now!”

“I am Remy!” Shifty insisted, panic beginning to eat away at their good senses. They started to approach the trio, their heart twisting when Mabel and Soos stepped away, afraid. “Look, there’s no time to explain, we’re almost finished–”

“You got Grunkle Stan arrested!” Mabel accused. “They think he’s trying to blow up the world! But it was you! You stole the nuclear waste! What are you doing down here?!”

“I-it’s going to take too long to try and tell you,” Shifty said desperately, trying to kneel down to the kid's height. “Please, please, just a couple minutes, and everything will make sense, I swear it, just–”

Mabel lunged forward. “GLITTER ATTACK!”

She blew a handful of sparkly dust into Shifty's face, and they reeled back with a shout as it got into their eyes, grating on their corneas. They rubbed at their face desperately, but that only seemed to make it worse. And of course, the chemical eye wash station hadn’t worked in years. Stanford would have had their heads for that. Or maybe not, he wasn’t exactly a pro at lab safety from what Shifty could remember.

“We have to turn it off!” They heard Dipper say, and they stumbled forward desperately, their arms out and flailing.

“NO!” They shrieked, trying to open their eyes, but they were streaming tears too much to be useful. They took a deep breath, trying to make a mental map of the room by scent only. They could smell them, of course, but there was too much going on to pinpoint anything but Dipper’s overwhelming body odor and the pungent stench of fear.

They heard a loud buzzer, the sound of the emergency shut down powering up, and forced their eyes open. Rising in front of the portal, like a demon crawling out of hell, was a single red button, shiny and flashing.

Dipper and Shifty made eye contact, and for just a minute, everything was still.

And then Dipper lunged for the button.

“NO!” Shifty screamed, because there wasn’t much more they could say. Without really meaning to, they turned into a lion, lunging forward, tackling Dipper as he approached the button. Dipper squeaked, terrified.

“DIPPER!” Mabel shouted, and made her own mad dash for the button. Shifty turned into a bear, leaping in front of the button, growling furiously, even as their stomach twisted from Mabel’s horrified look.

They turned back into Remy, panting, and struggling not to outright panic. “...I don’t want to fight you,” they said desperately. “This…please, it’s me, it’s always been me.”

“Liar!” Dipper said, winded.

“Your name is Mason!” Shifty said, and Dipper blinked in surprise, his expression mostly hidden by the shadows of the glowing portal. “Mabel, you love boy bands even when all the members look like clones of each other! Soos, you’re the one who gave me that jacket I always wear! It’s me, it’s been me the entire time, and if you ever cared about me, ever trusted me, ever thought I had good intentions for any of you, you’ll leave this portal on. Please.”

They weren’t sure if they would be able to fight them, if it came down to it. It would be a sweep, physically speaking, easy to defeat them, to just pin them to the wall until the countdown finished. But they didn’t want to. Somewhere along the way, the quest to bring Stanford home had entangled them in ways that might strangle them if they weren’t careful. And Shifty was never good at being careful.

And Shifty didn’t want Stanford’s first view of them in thirty years to be them pressing his niece and nephew’s faces into the ragged cement of the basement floor.

“Please,” Shifty pleaded. “Please.”

“What did you do,” Mabel demanded, the most serious he had ever heard her. “What did you do.”

Shifty swallowed hard, and they felt oddly close to crying. “...only what I had to,”

“You left Mr. Pines, dude,” Soos said quietly. “That’s mega messed up.”

“You chased us through the bunker!” Dipper shouted. “I thought you were going to kill us! Why?! Just to steal some journal so you can end the world?!”

“This isn’t to–” Shifty started, but Mabel snatched something off the ground–a long, discarded piece of lead pipe–and raced to the control room, pipe held high, prepared to smash it to smithereens.

“NO!” Shifty shouted, turning into something viscous and quick, writhing and mostly tendrils, scuttling across the floor and lunging at her. Mabel yelped, swinging the pipe at Shifty, but they caught it with a fleshy pale tendril, and snapped it in half.

“DIPPER!” Mabel shouted. “THE BUTTON!”

Shifty turned back into Remy, sprawled out ungracefully and whirling around just in time to see Dipper sprint for the button. They wailed, animalistic, too far away to stop him now, reaching out as Dipper’s hand stretched out to end their singular life’s goal–

“DON’T TOUCH THAT BUTTON!”

Shifty jerked their head back, startled to see Stan, sweaty and panting, his suit having seen better days, but he was there, staring at Dipper with a desperation Shifty had never seen before.

And Dipper stopped.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cried, wriggling away from Shifty to go to her brother. “T-there’s something wrong with Remy! He’s–”

“What’d you do?!” Stan demanded, and Shifty shrank under his glare before they could stop themselves.

“...I didn’t know they would get down here,” Shifty said weakly. “I was trying to stop them.”

“You…” Dipper’s eyes flashed between Stan and Shifty, and he somehow managed to look even angrier. “You knew?! You knew he was some kind of monster?!”

Shifty winced, but no one seemed to notice. Stan crept forward, hands up as if surrendering. “Look, kid, I know this is all a lot, but you gotta trust me-”

“Trust you?!” Dipper shook his head, his hand hovering over the button. “I don’t even know you! You both have been lying to me all summer! Was all this buddy-buddy stuff just a ruse to keep me off the real mystery?!”

“No!” Stan said, but he looked a little unsure. “Dipper, please, you gotta believe me, I promise I can explain everything-”

Something on the control panel flashed, and Shifty leapt to their feet, their heart pounding. “Stan-!”

“Oh no,” Stan followed their gaze. “Brace yourselves-!”

“Gravitational anomaly imminent,” a voice chirruped, and Shifty yelped in surprise when their feet suddenly rose off the ground, and anything that wasn’t nailed to the ground followed.

This one was far more intense. The portal screamed like it was in pain, so bright it hurt Shifty’s eyes, still teary from Mabel’s glitter attack. They saw Dipper push off the wall, hurtling towards the button, and they immediately turned into a monitor lizard, using thick claws to scuttle along the top of the ceiling, before turning into a gorilla and pushing themselves off the wall to grab Dipper.

“HEY!” Dipper thrashed, furious. “PUT ME DOWN!”

“Dammit, Mouser-!” Stan tried to get to the button, to guard it, but Soos managed to sail through the air, grabbing him around the waist. Stan shouted, squirming. “SOOS, YOU IDIOT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“Sorry, Mr. Pines!” Soos said, and he genuinely did look sorry. “But I have a new mission now. Protecting these kids!”

“Dipper!” Mabel said, and Shifty’s heart stopped when they realized Mabel had managed to hold onto the button.

“PUSH IT!” Dipper shouted.

“NO!” Shifty said, changing back into Remy, but there was no way they would be able to get to her in time. “MABEL, NO, PLEASE!”

“Finalizing in thirty seconds,” the computer warned.

“Mabel, do you remember what I was trying to tell you and your brother this morning?” Stan asked, pleading, giving up entirely on trying to get away from Soos. “I-I should’ve told you earlier, but I didn’t, but I’m telling you now-”

“He’s trying to trick you!” Dipper said. “Push it now!”

“Twenty seconds,” the computer said, and Shifty wanted to smash it.

“I was gonna say that people are gonna say a lot of bad things about me,” Stan said quickly, catching Shifty’s eyes for a second by accident. “And some of them are true. But believe me when I say, everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for, it’s all been for this family! You need to let go of that button!”

“WHAT IF HE’S LYING?!” Dipper shouted. “HE COULD DESTROY THE WORLD!”

“He’s not!” Shifty said, managing to find their voice. “You have to listen to him!”

“We don’t even know what you are!” Dipper told Shifty, and they winced.

“Look into my eyes, Mabel!” Stan begged, and Shifty had never heard such open pleading in his voice. That wasn’t true, though–once they had seen him threatened with a gun. This sounded just like that. “Do you really think I’m a bad guy?!”

“Ten, nine, eight…” the computer said.

“DO IT NOW!” Dipper said, fighting to get out Shifty’s arms, even though they were Remy now.

“Mabel!” Stan said. “Please!”

Mabel frowned, looking back and forth between Shifty and Stan. The flashing in the portal had opened up into something else, a sky full of stars, none of them stars that Shifty recognized. An alien place in alien space, unlivable and dangerous. But it was always dangerous. And it shouldn’t make a difference, but their heart still lurched with fear to see Mabel so close to the maw of the void.

“Grunkle Stan…” Mabel said slowly.

“Five, four, three…”

“I trust you,” she decided, and let go of the button.

“MABEL!” Dipper thrashed, and Shifty let him go, because it didn’t matter now. “WHAT ARE YOU-?!”

“Two, one.”

There was a flash of light, and the portal wailed again. The entire basement seemed to be shaking, stuttering, and Shifty wondered if everything would come apart, if reality itself would shatter under the strain of their grief, and the last thing they ever heard would be Dipper’s screams.

The light became hot, and then strikingly cold, and they closed their eyes, unable to look at it, but it still felt like it pierced right through them, a spear through their eyes. And maybe their soul, if they had one, they weren’t sure.

The noise became louder, the lights became brighter, and then–

Nothing.

They scrambled back to consciousness like a beetle scuttling for shelter, coughing and wheezing and loose.

The basement was in shambles, wires sparking and hanging loose, debris falling from the ceiling, and the portal itself had become detached from the ceiling, sitting pathetically on it’s side, sparking.

Shifty looked around, vision blurry, but everyone seemed present and accounted for. Everyone except who this was all for.

The portal flickered, and then cast a soft blue light over the world’s most beat-up welcoming party, like lights underwater. Please, Shifty pleaded, not even daring to breathe. Please. I’ve never wanted anything more than this. Please.

They weren’t sure if that had always been true, but it was certainly true now.

And then, like a miracle (and it was a miracle), someone emerged.

They were dressed completely in tattered black clothing, some sort of strange device strapped to their back. Shifty couldn’t see their face, covered by a scarf and goggles, but they sucked in a sharp breath when they saw the person’s hands.

Six fingers.

Please.

“Who is that?” Dipper asked, shaken but unhurt.

“...the author of the journals,” Stan said, sounding like he hardly believed it himself. “My brother.”

The person pulled their goggles and mask off, face stoic, and–

He looks exactly like Stan.

Shifty felt stupid. They weren’t sure what else they had expected. Of course time passed. Of course he had aged. Shifty couldn’t have stopped it if they tried. But to see thirty years they had missed laid out so clearly before them stung, and they felt disappointment curdle in their belly, and they hated themselves for it.

“Yo,” Soos breathed, which seemed like the only appropriate response.

For a moment, everything was completely still. No one moved, no one breathed, and the portal sputtered weakly before it went dark, its job finally finished.

Stan forced himself to his feet, maybe sensing he was going to have to be the diplomat here. “After all this time…after all this time!”

He sounded giddy, even as he looked terrified of a man who was essentially a stranger to him now. “You-”

And with no warning, Stanford punched Stan in the face.

Chapter Text

Shifty’s oldest memory, as far as they could tell, was gnawing on something tasty with poor efficiency, still unused to solid foods, even as their clicking teeth made quick work of the object. Most of it ended up splattered all over themselves. Looking back, they were fairly certain it was a piece of fruit, maybe a banana or a melon of some kind, but the memory was so hazy they couldn’t be sure.

Secondary to the food was that they were being held, close and secure, and someone’s deep voice was rumbling, saying things they didn’t understand and didn’t quite remember regardless. But they knew they were warm, full, and safe while Stanford held them.

Their newest memory was the sound of Stanford’s knuckles connecting with Stan’s chin.

“Oh my god!” Shifty gasped, in spite of themselves.

Stan reeled backwards with a sharp gasp, clutching his jaw, and Shifty sprang forward. They weren’t sure what the plan was. Get between them? Grab Stanford’s arm? All of it seemed like a terrible choice.

Stanford made the choice for them, though. He didn’t seem to notice them at first, too busy glaring daggers at Stan as the latter collected himself and started glaring back, all illusions of a joyful reunion shattered instantly. But when Stanford did see them, he whirled around, yanking the strange contraption off their back.

That looks like a really big gun, Shifty thought, before they thought: Uh oh.

“Get away from me!” Stanford demanded, the first words Shifty had heard him say in thirty years, snapped out with a harsher tone than Shifty had ever heard before.

Shifty stopped so immediately that they tripped over themselves, clumsy after so many quick shifts. They scrambled back, their heart in their throat, and Stanford didn’t lower the gun, glaring at them suspiciously.

“I can always count on you for a warm welcome,” Stan grumbled, rubbing his jaw. “Put the sci-fi blaster down, Sixer, nothing to blast here. Sorry to disappoint.”

Ford’s jaw clenched, and he whirled around to face Stan. At least he wasn’t aiming the gun at anyone anymore. “How could you restart the portal?! Didn’t you read any of my warnings?!”

“Warnings, schmarnings,” Stan scoffed. “You know, a ‘thanks’ wouldn’t kill you for saving your stupid butt from that thing!”

“I didn’t need saving!” Stanford snapped. “You really think I’m going to thank you after what you did?!”

“What I did?!” Stan said, looking like he was revving up for his own punch. Shifty was a little bit surprised by how terribly this was all going, but at least no one was looking at them anymore.

“Hey, um!” Mabel said, looking incredibly uncomfortable about all this. “Quick question: what the heck is going on here?!”

Stanford blinked, suddenly looking sheepish. “Y-you didn’t tell me there were children down here. And–” he glanced at Soos, looking perplexed. “Some sort of large hairless gopher?”

“Heh,” Soos grinned. “I get that a lot.”

“Do you?” Shifty asked, and then regretted it when everyone looked at them.

“And some kind of monster!” Dipper said, remembering all over again that he was supposed to be frightened of Shifty. They couldn’t really blame him.

Stanford’s eyes narrowed, spurred into action, and the gun was aimed at them again. Shifty scrambled backwards again, their back hitting the wall too quickly. “What do you want?!” Stanford demanded. “State your intent! Now!”

“Easy, gunslinger!” Stan looked irritated. “It’s been a while, guess you wouldn’t recognize him.”

Stanford looked even more confused. “What in the world are you talking about?!”

“He chased us through the bunker!” Dipper said, standing in front of Soos and Mabel like he was any kind of protection, though the effort was valiant. “He tried to kill us!”

“Nuh uh,” Shifty said, stupidly.

Dipper blinked, looking surprised with such blatant denial. “Yuh huh!”

“The bunker?” Stanford looked perplexed. “You aren’t supposed to be able to get in there, it’s–”

Something flickered across his face, and he turned back to Shifty. This time they couldn’t help but shrink away, forcing themselves to stay as they were and not turn into something small like a shrew so they could scuttle away.

“...my god,” Stanford said. “...Shifty?”

“...um,” Shifty managed to say.

Stan rolled his eyes. “That’s such a dumb name you gave him.”

“Hey,” Shifty and Stanford said at the same time.

“What’s a shifty?!” Dipper looked no less panicked.

Stanford glanced back at Stan, distracted from Shifty easily, and they weren’t sure if they were hurt or relieved. “Why are there children here?!” He demanded. “This is an incredibly dangerous environment–”

“I didn’t let them in!” Stan said, gesturing at Shifty. “Your pal Shapey here–”

“Hey!” Shifty said, climbing to their feet.

“-let ‘em down!” Stan finished.

“Not on purpose!” They protested. “They’re…they’re wily.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “They’re your family, Poindexter. Shermie’s grandkids.”

Stanford’s eyes widened, and he looked at the twins with new curiosity. “I have a niece and nephew?”

Mabel, Dipper, and Soos were staring at Stanford like he was a space alien, which wasn’t that far off. Stanford waved, suddenly looking a bit shy. “I…suppose my brash entrance was a bit unwarranted, then. I do hope I didn’t scare you. Greetings! Do children still say ‘greetings’?”

“They do not,” Stan said.

“I wasn’t asking you–”

“What is…?!” Dipper looked ashen. “What is happening?! The author is our uncle?!”

“You’ve read my journals?” Stanford said, looking entirely too nonchalant for something that had quite literally consumed Dipper’s summer.

“Read them?! I lived them!” Dipper said, pacing. “I-I spent all summer trying to figure out who you were, where you’d gone! A-and now Remy can turn into a gorilla and stuff, and I’ve been waiting so long to meet you, and I have so many questions for you both and–”

Dipper gagged, and Stanford stepped back, looking unsure. “Are…you alright?”

“He does this when he’s nervous,” Mabel assured him.

“I’m not–hurgh,” Dipper belched dangerously, and turned bright red in embarrassment. “N-no, it’s cool.”

“There will be time for introductions, explanations, and thorough vomiting later,” Stanford assured him, grabbing the first journal and flipping through it. He glanced at Stan. “Now listen, this is very important: does anyone else know about the portal?”

“No!” Stan scoffed.

Shifty coughed once, and Stan frowned. “...except for the federal government, but that’s all.”

“WHAT?!” Stanford darted over to a handful of monitors, now showing several agents fanning out around the shack, flooding in the shack once more. “Stanley!”

“What?!” Stan said. “It could be worse! Canada could have gotten involved!”

“It’s fine,” Stanford said, pinching his brow before he started scribbling furiously in the journal. “We have a while before they find this place, we just need to lay low and think of a plan.”

“Well, if we’re stuck here,” Mabel said. “Why don’t we play backstory roulette? Grunkle Stan? Remy? Cool new sci-fi grunkle?”

“Yes, I have some questions of my own, Stanley,” Stanford said, shooting his umpteenth glare at Stan.

“Oh, I have a question, I’ll start!” Mabel raised her hand. “Why did you call Stan ‘Stanley’? He’s Stanford.”

“What?!” Stanford said. “You took my name?! What have you been doing all these years, you knucklehead?! What have you been doing with Shifty?!”

“Shifty?” Dipper asked again, and groaned when Shifty looked sheepish. “Anyone else with a fake name I should know about?!”

“You literally go by Dipper,” Shifty said, annoyed.

“That’s different and you know it!” Dipper waved his arms. “Can anyone just tell me what’s going on?!”

“Okay, okay!” Stan stepped forward, looking exhausted with the shouting. “Fine! I owe you all an explanation, I guess. Mouser does too.”

“Mouser?” Stanford frowned. “Good Lord, how many names does he have? And what in the world is wrong with his chest?”

Dipper winced.

“Don’t loop me into this,” Shifty muttered, crossing their arms to hide their scar.

“You got looped in a long time ago, pal,” Stan sighed. “The whole story starts before you, though. It started a lifetime ago…”

“Wait,” Dipper said, looking confused. “Wait, wait, so…when does Remy come into the story?”

Shifty perked up, forcing themselves to look like they were paying attention. They had heard the story, most of it anyway, in bits and pieces. Most of the details were merely aesthetic; they hadn’t known why exactly Stan had been living on the streets, they hadn’t known how Stanford and Fiddleford had met, and they didn’t know exactly, in perfect reasoning, why Stanford had been in Gravity Falls in the first place. Most of it didn’t feel particularly important, at least not to them. The details didn’t change the story.

Stanford frowned. “Shifty is…well, it’s a bit complicated. He knew me first, before Stanley.”

“Why can he turn into animals?” Mabel asked.

“I don’t know,” Shifty shrugged. “I just can–”

“Well, he’s not human,” Stanford said easily, and Shifty winced. “So he has inhuman abilities. He’s not limited to animals. After many, many tests, I concluded he can change his shape, and even his DNA if necessary, into almost any organism or object.”

“Can you be a filing cabinet?” Soos asked.

Shifty blinked. “What is it with that–why would I want to be a filing cabinet?”

“To hold files,” Soos said, and Shifty supposed that made sense.

“I mean…” Shifty shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I could. I can’t, um, do stuff that’s really small or stuff that’s really big. So I couldn’t turn into an amoeba or a whale. And I can’t fly or grow gills either. I’ve tried.”

“Many, many times,” Stan added, and Shifty glared at them.

“I found Shifty as an egg,” Stanford said, either not seeing or ignoring Shifty’s discomforted look. “I suppose they imprinted on me after they hatched, and…I confess I grew quite fond of him.”

“An egg?” Mabel frowned. “How do you know you didn’t take him from his mama bird or something?”

“I’m not a bird–”

“He was buried quite deep,” Stanford said. “We found the egg as we were excavating for the bunker. It was near bedrock, and the only things living down there were microbes. It’s too inhospitable for most living organisms. I was shocked the egg was viable, to be quite honest. I checked the area and the discovery site frequently, looking for a parent or guardian, or even some clue as to what had happened, but I found none. In absence of any biological caretakers, I looked after them the best I could.”

“Wait, dude,” Soos said suddenly. “So is the other Mr. Pines like your dad?”

Stanford frowned. “First of all, it’s doctor–”

“How do you think being a father works, Soos?” Shifty said, exhausted.

“Oh, uh,” he glanced at the twins, suddenly unsure. “Have they, you know. Had the talk?”

Mabel shivered.

“No, Soos, I do not have a father. Or a mother, as far as I’m aware,” Shifty said dully. “Thank you for that incredibly uncomfortable non sequitur.”

Soos saluted Shifty, and they almost saluted back. Old habits.

“So, um,” Dipper asked, looking strangely guilty, though Shifty couldn’t parse why. “What do you look like?”

Shifty looked down at themselves. “Like…this?”

“Yeah, okay, but I mean…” Dipper frowned. “If you aren’t…like, a homo sapiens or whatever, and you shapeshift, what do you look like? When you don’t look like…that?”

Shifty hoped their fear wasn’t evident on their face. Stanford was looking at them curiously, and how could he not? He hadn’t seen Shifty in thirty years. Of course he was curious as to how he had grown.

“I don’t…” they shrugged haplessly. “Look like anything.”

“What?” Dipper looked confused.

“I just shift, always,” Shifty shrugged, trying not to look at Stanford. “I don’t really, um, have a base form.”

In spite of their best efforts, they caught Stanford’s eye.

He was frowning, but he didn’t correct them. Shifty breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

“Oh,” Dipper said, looking slightly disappointed. “Okay.”

Shifty could almost feel the cold in the days after Stanford’s disappearance as Stan finished his story of how he started the Murder Hut, later to be rechristened the Mystery Shack. They had frowned at his tone–he was upbeat, like things were finally turning around for him during that time, at least a little.

But Shifty remembered. They remembered the moldy food that Stan saved obsessively, just in case. They remembered him collapsing from an infection in his burn, and they had sat next to him for days, pleading for him to get back up and giving him water until he managed to eke out a little bit of strength because they didn’t know what else to do. They remembered their nightmares, haggling with the power company to turn the heat back on while they both shivered, the sting of their slow healing palm whenever they tried to grip something, watching the TV until it went static, and then still watching, because it was better than the silence. The icy cold fear that one day they would blink, and they would be back in the bunker, hungry and alone.

Mabel, Dipper, and Soos were frowning, apparently not believing Stan’s rosy spin on the tale either. “And…Remy was here too?” Mabel asked, glancing at them. “Just hanging out in the house the whole time?”

“He-” Stan started, and Shifty felt sick.

“Yes,” they said, jumping it. “I was frightened when Stan first arrived. I was hiding until he returned upstairs.”

This time, both Stan and Stanford frowned, but they didn’t say anything.

“This is confusing, dawg,” Soos muttered. “So the new Mr. Pines is like your dad, but Mr. Pines raised you?”

“No one is my dad, Soos!” Shifty said, trying not to get too frustrated.

The sounds upstairs suddenly intensified, and Shifty stiffened when they realized they could hear drilling at the main entrance of the lab. “Oh god,” Shifty said, horror coloring their voice. “They’re trying to break in.”

“Aw, man!” Soos frowned. “I was so entranced by your interwoven tales of loss and betrayal that I forgot all about those guys!”

“Wait, forget!” Dipper said, and reached into his backpack. He rummaged around, and pulled out the memory gun.

Shifty recoiled. “Why do you have that?!”

“I thought it’d be useful,” Dipper said. “And I was right.”

Instead of ordering Dipper to put the gun down, Stanford’s eyes lit up. “Incredible! I don’t know how you’ve managed to find one of these, but it just might work.”

He grabbed the memory gun and rushed over to a monitor, pulling it apart and putting it back together so that the wires snaked through the gun like IV lines connected to a sick, sick man. Stanford typed a few commands into the gun, and backed away when the contraption began to hum. “Cover your ears!”

Shifty clapped their hands over their ears, and made them disappear for good measure, but they still felt the vibration through their feet. They shivered, uncomfortable, and imagined that the vibration had been inside their skull. It wasn’t a nice idea.

After a moment, they lowered their hands from their head, and their ears came back. “...is it alright?” They asked.

“Yes,” Stanford grinned, almost looking like himself again. “Yes, that should have done it.”

“I said,” Stan said, shooing the kids away. “Go to bed!”

Dipper scowled, trying to catch one last look at Stanford, but he was busy investigating tire tracks in the dirt.

“I, um,” Soos gestured vaguely. “I should go? Does this count as overtime, by the way?”

“No,” Stan and Shifty said at the same time.

“Yeah, okay, just checking,” Soos said, and waved awkwardly. “Bye, Mr. Pines. Bye Other Mr. Pines. Bye…Remy? Shifty? I dunno what to call you now.”

“His name is Shifty,” Stanford said, not even looking up. “I understand why you’ve elected to use an alias, but now there’s no need for one.”

Shifty frowned. They had never really given much thought to the name Stanford had given them, either as something bad or something good. It had just been them. They were always Shifty, even when they were pretending not to be. There were never other options.

But the thought of losing Remy Wagner scared them, and not just because they had lost a disguise. They had chosen the name themselves. Remy was a friend to those who lived and worked at the shack, a person they trusted. Shifty was a stranger, and furthermore, a monster. And while the secret was long out that Remy had never really existed, Shifty didn’t want to give him up.

“You can still call me Remy,” Shifty blurted out, and Stanford glanced up, surprised. “All of you. It’s…what you’re used to. I don’t care which one you use.”

The twins glanced at each other, maybe having some kind of silent conversation. Soos shrugged. “Cool, dude. Um. Guess…I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Soos scurried off, maybe sensing the tension, and Shifty wished they could follow. Stan gave the kids the evil eye, and they trudged into the house, Dipper especially looking disappointed.

Shifty realized abruptly that they were standing between Stan and Stanford, and wished they were anywhere else.

“...I lived in the attic, mostly,” Shifty said, strangely nervous. “But…I had to take your room once the kids got here. You can have it back, I can find somewhere else to sleep, I can sleep anywhere–”

“No need,” Stanford said, scooping some dirt into a test tube. Shifty wasn’t sure where he had gotten it from. “I intend to stay downstairs. That’s where my work is. There’s still much to do.”

Shifty blinked, and practically felt themselves wilt. “...oh. I…right. Do you need any…any help-”

“I need to make sure Stanley’s foolish actions haven’t endangered us,” Stanford said, throwing a venomous look at Stan, who deflected by rolling his eyes. “There could be solar radiation emanating from the soil now, what were you thinking–”

“I helped,” Shifty said abruptly, not sure why they were vying to take credit. “I stole nuclear radiation from a research facility to power the portal. I’m the reason the government found us out in the first place.”

Stanford’s eyes widened. “Why did-”

“And it was my idea,” Shifty said quickly. “I did it.”

Stanford’s mouth snapped shut, apparently not expecting that at all. He looked between Stan, Shifty, and Stan again, before he frowned. “Well,” he said, his voice unidentifiable. “That was extremely foolish, then.”

Shifty turned away, unidentifiable emotions swirling in their chest. They didn’t want to examine them right now. They were too tired. “I’m going to the kitchen. I haven’t eaten all day.”

Stanford grunted some affirmation, already fixated with his soil samples again. Shifty accidentally caught Stan’s eye and froze, like a bug caught in the hungry gaze of a frog. Stan looked just as startled for a moment before he smiled. The smile looked plastic.

“Is it everything you imagined?” Stan asked quietly.

Shifty’s false spine straightened uncomfortably, and they gritted their teeth. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah,” Stan grumbled. “Fuck you too.”

Shifty sat at the breakfast table, morning sun shining through the windows, poking lifelessly at dry cereal. They felt dizzy, and every time they had gone to take a brave bite of food, the idea of putting the cereal in their mouth and actually chewing it seemed deeply nauseating.

They sighed before they pushed away the bowl, rubbing their eyes. When they stopped, they saw Dipper and Mabel in the doorway, already dressed and looking rather sheepish.

“...hi,” Shifty said, hoping they could make an exit without it being too obvious that they were trying to escape. They probably wouldn’t succeed.

“Uh,” Dipper scratched the back of his neck. “Mabel and I were talking.”

You tend to do that, Shifty almost said, but merely nodded, unsure where this was going and nervous about it.

“We…” Mabel rocked on the balls of her feet. “We should have listened to you when you said not to touch the button.”

Shifty blinked. They hadn’t expected this. “...what?”

“I…” Dipper shrugged. “I know we kinda got caught up in the moment there, but…you were right. We do know you. And…you know, Remy, Shifty, or whatever, we know who you are. You’re our friend.”

“I-” Shifty looked between them rapidly. “Are…are you guys messing with me?”

“...no?” Mabel said.

“Oh,” Shifty said, a strange lump of emotion sitting in their throat. “Oh, I…thank you. That means a lot. Um. Anyone want dry cereal?”

“Hooray!” Mabel said, grabbing a bowl for herself and her brother. “Mediocre breakfast!”

Shifty passed the cereal box to Dipper, a relief unlike anything they had ever felt before uncoiling in their chest. They heard footsteps, and glanced up to see Stanford walking down the hall before he paused abruptly, looking into the kitchen with open interest.

“...hello,” Shifty said quietly.

Stanford nodded once in greeting. The kids looked between them, falling silent, apparently waiting for one of them to make a move.

Shifty coughed, gesturing to an empty chair. “Do you…want some dry cereal? For breakfast, I mean?”

Stanford frowned. “I have a lot of work to get to in the basement.”

Shifty could practically feel themselves wilting. “Oh, yeah. No, that’s okay.”

Stanford said nothing for a moment, suddenly looking a bit like Dipper when he was trying to decide between two options. “...though,” Stanford finally said, taking a tentative step into the kitchen. “I suppose a short break wouldn’t hurt. There’s nothing explosive downstairs right now. I think.”

“Really?” Shifty asked, and then coughed, realizing they sounded far too excited for dry cereal. “I-I mean, okay, good. Um. Are you sure there’s nothing explosive down there?”

“At least seventy percent certain,” Stanford said, which was good enough for Shifty.

They barely kept themselves from grinning ear to ear, basking in one of the most peaceful atmospheres they had felt in years, no tasks hanging over their head, no secrets that they couldn’t easily and painlessly bury, no preemptive grief waiting around a corner to lunge at them.

Maybe for once, for just the amount of time it took to eat breakfast, it could be good.

The front door slammed open and shut, and Shifty twisted around to see Stan step into the kitchen, holding several plastic grocery bags.

“Guess who got a ten for the price of two deal on mayonnaise?” He asked, holding up the grocery bags.

Shifty blinked, suddenly confused. “What?”

Stan said nothing, staring back at Shifty and grinning silently.

They wriggled, suddenly deeply uncomfortable. “Why are you…what are you talking about?”

Stan said nothing, and for some reason, Shifty had a hard time reading his expression. It was like he had been flash frozen in a strange grimace-grin, holding out the grocery bags.

“Is your uncle having a stroke or something-” They turned back to the others, and reeled backwards with a shout when they saw them, standing up so fast they heard the chair clatter behind them.

Mabel and Dipper were dead.

The scent of iron hit Shifty’s nostrils like a truck, and they stared, horrified, at what remained of them. It wasn’t much; red smeared the walls like a child’s overzealous fingerpainting, splattered so intensely that it was dripping from the ceiling. More solid bits and pieces–bone, gray matter, and chunks–littered the ground, and what was left of their actual bodies looked like a botched egg crack, the yolk and shell mixing into one. Bone and dark pink viscera wrapped around itself, piercing through delicate flesh like a sewing needle through fabric, with far less elegance and only the malicious desire to cause as much mess and pain as possible.

The only things that even vaguely hinted that the scattered materials had once belonged to humans was Dipper’s hat, bits of gray stuck to the brim, and the rosy fabric of Mabel’s sweater, lovelessly torn to ribbons.

Shifty’s hands were covered in blood. All of them was covered in blood, head to toe, and it was under their fingernails, in their hair, suffocating them, and it was even in their mouth–

They gagged, taking several steps back and tripping over Stan. He was in a similar state to the kids, his fez resting on top of a spilling skull, intentionally placed like it was an art piece.

Shifty scrambled away, tracking blood into the living room, gasping and only smelling blood. “This isn’t real,” they said hoarsely, even as speaking made the taste stronger. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, I need to wake up. Wake up, wake up!”

They smacked the side of their head, hard enough to hurt, and then hard enough to really hurt, but they didn’t wake up. The blood remained, all parts of it. The sight of it drying and coagulating against the walls, the sound of it dripping off the table, the smell of it permeating every part of Shifty’s nose, the feeling of it sticking to their skin, the taste-

They gagged again, and noticed a trail of it leading out of the kitchen, through the living room and into the gift shop. Shifty’s heart pounded, but they followed it, dizzy from breathing in a way that only seemed to depleted oxygen in their veins.

They saw a flash of red outside, and there was Wendy and Soos on the porch, in similar shape to the rest of the Pines. Carrion birds were already starting to circle the skies, curious about a potential meal but too frightened of whatever had caused the carnage, at least for now. But the blood trail went right past them, and further into the gift shop.

They heard heavy breathing, and mechanical beeping, and turned the corner into the shop, shaking.

Stanford stood at the vending machine, trying to punch the code in with shaky hands, leaving fingerprints of blood every time he tried to type. He was breathing heavily, clutching his heavy gun, blood dripping off of him from an unknown source.

“...Stanford?” Shifty whispered.

They had practically breathed the word, but Stanford still whirled around, holding the gun up and aiming at Shifty. His shirt and coat were torn at the shoulder, gushing blood. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” He shouted.

Shifty almost fell again, and pressed their back against the wall, terrified. “What the fuck,” Stanford croaked, shaking. “What did you do?”

Shifty tried to answer, to swear they had no idea what had happened, to plead with Stanford to put the gun down, but all that came out was a strange, animalistic grunt and whine, like a bear eyeing something up.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Stanford demanded, and squeezed the trigger.

Shifty threw themselves out of the way of the blast, landing roughly on the ground. The hardwood floors of the gift felt different. It was more granular, colder even, and they wondered distantly if someone had spilled dirt on the ground before they realized that the entire floor was soil. And so were the walls and ceiling.

They were in the bunker again.

“No,” they managed to choke. “No no no, no, I can’t…I can’t-”

Something gleamed in the corner of the eye, and they lunged out of the way, just in time before an ax nearly buried itself in their head.

Stanford was looking at them with nothing more than hatred, wielding a wickedly sharp ax, bloody and clearly in pain, but determined to take down a monster. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” He screamed, swinging at Shifty over and over, sloppy and losing his balance. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Shifty couldn’t say anything, trying to keep themselves from meeting the wrong end of the ax. Their head was still spinning. They couldn’t have done this, there was no way. They would never hurt the kids, and they would never hurt Stan, and they would never hurt Wendy or Soos. But they could taste the blood, and it still covered them. And if they let their mind wander, they thought they could see terrified faces in their memory. Screams cut short and turned into wet gurgles. Someone clawing at the ground in an attempt to escape. Someone weakly pushing their head away, begging them to stop before they sunk their teeth in their neck–

Stanford swung the ax, and Shifty’s body reacted to the attack without their permission, and they lunged forward, clawed and toothed for a fight. Stanford’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to scream, cut off when Shifty bit down on his throat. The ax struck home in Shifty’s chest, and green blood mixed with red, both of them dying in tandem. Shifty bit down–

–and their eyes snapped open, standing in the dark living room alone.

A scream wrenched its way out of Shifty’s throat, or at least tried to. They slammed their hands over their mouth, and it turned into a choked, gargled shriek. Their legs gave out on them, and they collapsed into the filthy carpet, bent down over the weight of their horror and terror.

It’s a dream, they told themselves. It’s a terrible dream.

The knowledge did nothing to soothe the panic. Their body trembled hard enough that it felt more like convulsions, and their skin rippled strangely, making strange shapes just underneath the epidermis. They pressed their forehead against the carpet, feeling the ancient fibers scratching uncomfortably. They rocked back and forth, hands still pressed over their mouth to muffle scream after scream, tasting the beginnings of bile instead of blood. It had an infinitely better taste.

Their chest ached.

A dream, a dream, they repeated, true awareness slowly coming back to them. A dream, a dream. A dream. You made a sandwich and went to bed. That’s what really happened. It’s a dream.

It had been years since they had a dream like that. It had been even longer since they had awoken to discover they were sleepwalking.

They realized, with new terror, they had no idea how long they had been up and walking. They had no idea what they had been doing. Just because they couldn’t smell blood didn’t mean there wasn’t any.

Shifty scrambled to their feet, new panic exploding in their chest, turning into a cat so they could get upstairs more quickly, and more quietly too. They got to the closed door of the attic, and pressed their ear against it.

They could hear Mabel snoring–the inheritor of the Pines open mouthed sleep habits–and they could smell Dipper, his stench wonderfully alive. They darted to Stan’s room, and heard him snoring similarly to his niece.

They raced back downstairs, to the gift shop, turning back into Remy and punching in the code.

It buzzed angrily at them, flashing red.

“What?” Shifty said before they could stop themselves, trying again. Same result, no entry.

Shifty tried three more times, the buzzer almost getting more annoyed with them each time. “Come on!” They hissed, punching the keypad. The vending machine rattled, and dropped a flavor of chips that Shifty didn’t like into the bottom compartment for them to grab.

“Come on!” Shifty said again, shaking the machine. They wondered if they should just rip the cover off altogether. It seemed perfectly possible.

A shadow passed by the window outside, and they froze.

Silently, every single muscle tense and ready to spring, they crept out to the porch, wincing when the bell above the doorway chimed cheerfully. A part of them wanted to call out ‘hello?’, but the rest of them rebelled. They had seen horror movies, they knew what would happen next.

They scanned the treeline, trying to see if there was anything dangerous lingering at the edge. Nothing caught their eye, not even a wayward gnome. Crickets and a few brave cicadas sang, and they heard an owl hooting gutturally in one of the trees around the shack, but they couldn’t see where it was. A frog peeped, and then went silent, nervous to be the only one making noise.

Shifty sighed, pinching their brow. Their heart still hammered badly, and they thought they might still have a good few screams in. Maybe they could turn into a bear and spend the night in the woods. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea.

A shadow passed in the corner of Shifty’s eye, and the whirled around with a startled shriek.

Stanford stepped away from them, looking startled. “Oh my god!” Shifty gasped, clutching at their chest.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Stanford said, somehow managing to look surprised by Shifty’s reaction.

“You changed the code,” Shifty wheezed. “To the vending machine.”

Stanford looked even more confused. “Of course I did. Presumably everyone knows it now.”

“W-what…” Shifty took a breath. Everyone in the house was present and accounted for. No need to panic, except they still felt the fear pressing down on them. “What are you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night.”

Stanford frowned, his expression suddenly unidentifiable. “...perimeter search.”

“...why?” Shifty asked. “There’s nothing out here.”

Stanford frowned, fiddling with the gun. “...you’ve become quite good at speaking. Congratulations.”

They blinked, thrown by the sudden topic change, but a little bit grateful for it. “Well, it’s been a while.”

“How long, exactly?” Stanford asked. “Time is hard to keep track of.”

“Thirty years,” Shifty said, and winced when Stanford looked at him, his eyes disbelieving. “I…it’s been a long time.”

“I thought it was shorter. Or longer. I don’t know,” Stanford said, his voice almost a whisper. “Good Lord, I’m an actual senior citizen now.”

He ran his hands through his hair, and Shifty saw a small scar on his hand. They had bitten him there, a lifetime ago, when he had grabbed them. They felt nauseous.

“Are you still sick?” Shifty asked, their voice almost a whisper.

“Sick?” Stanford looked confused. “What are you–”

Something flashed over his face, something almost frightened, but as soon as it arrived, it was gone. “...I am not,” Stanford said quietly. “What happened then will…it won’t happen again. I assure you.”

Shifty nodded, oddly relieved.

“...I didn’t mean to threaten you downstairs,” Stanford said suddenly. “Well, no, I did, but that was because I didn’t know who you were. You came up on my right side, and…I’m afraid my eyesight is quite poor on that side. Nonexistent, in fact.”

“What?” Shifty asked, squinting at his right eye. It wasn’t cloudy, but it did look unfocused now that they were looking up close. “What happened?”

Stanford looked dodgy. “Oh, there’s a great many dangers in the multiverse. I’m quite alright, I assure you. I’ve adapted.”

“The multiverse? That’s where you’ve been all this time?” Shifty asked.

Stanford nodded, a bit more life flashing in his good eye. “I’ve been to countless universes and dimensions, seen things that have rewritten my understanding of everything around me. It’s been difficult, even deadly at some points. But I certainly can’t say it wasn’t incredible.”

“...did you ever see me?” Shifty asked, surprised by their own question. “I mean. Another me. Another shapeshifter like me.”

Stanford went quiet for a moment, looking thoughtful. “...shapeshifting is a more common ability than one might think in the multiverse,” he said. “Most can’t do it to the extent that you can, though. I might not have known it if I spoke to another of your kind.”

Shifty’s heart sank. “So you don’t know.”

Stanford shook his head. “I’m afraid your origins remain a mystery.”

Shifty said nothing. They weren’t sure what they had been expecting. It had been an answer that they had given up on a long time ago, but for some reason, hearing confirmation that even the great wide multiverse was coming up empty just felt like the same disappointment all over again.

“You’re out of the bunker,” Stanford said suddenly, and Shifty winced. “I don’t think I processed that until now.”

“...I dug my way out,” Shifty said. “I made my way back here, found Stan. The rest is basically as he told it. An accountant and a con-man by day, a mathematician and an experimental engineer by night.”

“Why?”

They straightened, perplexed by the simple question. They stared at Stanford as though he had grown an extra head. “What?”

“Why did you leave the bunker?” Stanford asked. “I told you to stay put.”

“...I would have been there for thirty years if I listened,” Shifty said, their voice thin.

“It was safe,” Stanford said. “I can assure you of that. It was probably the safest place to be. More than enough food to last probably a century, and it certainly wouldn’t have been that long–”

“Beans?” Shifty asked, suddenly a little dizzy. “Useless. The can opener broke after a little while.”

Stanford frowned. “Ah, I see. I suppose you weren’t quite strong enough to open them on your own. I should have left two can openers in case of an issue like that–”

“And it was dark,” Shifty said, desperate to communicate it all, even if they didn’t know how. “It was cold. I was scared, and I cut my hand open on the broken can opener–”

“It was the best solution I had,” Stanford almost snapped, refusing to look Shifty in the eye. “If there was a better option to keep you from…to keep you from getting sick while I worked, I would have done it. But there was none. Obviously, I didn’t predict being pushed into a portal and being unable to return for thirty years.”

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath, looking away from Stanford and focusing on the rickety porch railing instead.

“And anyway,” Stanford said. “It seems you’ve turned out quite alright. Though I wish Stanley hadn’t roped you into all this.” He gestured at the shack with a slightly disgusted look.

Shifty had the strange urge to laugh in his face, but was worried that if they did, it might devolve into screaming. It seemed rude to wake everyone up.

“...I didn’t mean to frighten you when I placed you in the bunker,” Stanford said suddenly and earnestly.. “You understand that, right? You understand I was making the best possible choice at the time? You understand that I never meant to harm you, yes?”

But you did! Shifty thought, picking at loose wood on the railing. But you did! I was scared! I was so scared! I was starving and cold and alone! Did you even know that? Do YOU understand that? Why would you leave me? What did I do wrong? I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand! Just tell me what I did wrong and I can fix it!

“Shifty?” Stanford asked.

Maybe there was nothing wrong with them. Maybe that was the great and terrible truth. Maybe they were just like this, whatever this was, and Stanford had seen it, somehow, and decided to cut his losses, whether it was the right choice or not. That only made it sting more, and infinitely more terrifying.

Everything I learned about being good I learned from you, Shifty thought, half-wondering if they could project their fears right into Stanford’s head so they wouldn’t have to say it out loud. So if you’re not who I thought you were, then what? What does that make me? Who am I supposed to be now?

“Shifty?” Stanford asked again, and it didn’t really feel like their name anymore. “Did you hear me?”

“...yes,” Shifty nodded. “I…I understand.”

Stanford nodded, looking relieved. “I would like to ask, though. Why did you tell them you don’t have a true shape?”

“...everyone’s had a long day,” Shifty said softly. “I didn’t want to frighten them.”

Stanford hummed, though Shifty wasn’t sure whether he agreed or disagreed with their decision. “...thank you for not ratting me out,” Shifty said softly.

“What does Stanley think of you keeping that from them?” Stanford asked. “Have you had a chance to discuss it with him?”

“He doesn’t…” Shifty frowned. “He doesn’t know either.”

Stanford looked surprised. “What?”

“When I got out of the bunker,” Shifty said. “I came home looking like one of the children from my books, in case I ran into anyone in the woods. Stan was there, of course, and I eventually shifted because I was freaked out and that gave me away, but I didn’t show my real form. He asked what I really looked like too, and I just…I just told him I didn’t have one. I didn’t…I didn’t want to scare him.”

“So you’ve never dropped your shape in front of anyone?” Stanford looked shocked. “For thirty years?”

Shifty nodded, and Stanford frowned. “...that sounds quite tiring.”

For some reason, Shifty almost burst into tears.

“...it can be,” they managed to say, their voice steady. “It’s okay, though. I’m used to it.”

“It’s very impressive,” Stanford said. “Well, I won’t tell them if you don’t wish me to. It seems like a harmless secret to keep.”

Shifty nodded, something like relief uncurling in their belly, but it brought no peace. “Do you…” they started, and trailed off.

Stanford tilted his head slightly. “Do I what?”

“...do you think they would be scared of me?” They asked softly. “If they knew what I looked like?”

Stanford frowned, suddenly looking like he was thinking very hard. Shifty waited, anxiety curling in their stomach like a snake about to strike.

“...I don’t know,” Stanford said.

The axe to the chest had hurt less than that. Shifty looked away quickly, suddenly unable to face Stanford any longer. They tried to take a breath, and failed, as though the wind had been knocked out of them.

“Shifty?” Stanford said. “I don’t…I don’t say this to hurt you, I’m merely trying to help.”

Shifty said nothing.

“You understand that, right?”

Shifty opened their mouth, and abruptly, the words got trapped all over again, just like they had with the old man with his truck. Just like they had when they were young. Their voice was lodged in their throat, like they had swallowed something and it had gone down the wrong pipe, and if they fought it too much they might asphyxiate on it.

“Shifty?” Stanford asked, looking concerned. “Are you alright?”

They nodded. It was all they could do.

Stanford looked relieved. “Well, I…I’m glad we could talk, at least for a little while. I’ll…I’ll see you around the house, I suppose, yes?”

Shifty nodded again, and Stanford reached out with one hand, looking unsure. Shifty glanced at him, and he dropped his arm, looking embarrassed. “I’ve…got quite a bit of work to do, I’m afraid. Perhaps I’ll see you in the morning?”

Shifty shrugged. Stanford looked unsure of what to say or do, so he decided not to do anything, going back inside. The screen door slammed shut behind him, and Shifty heard the code for the vending machine beep before he descended down again, fearless of the underground. Why would he be scared of it? He could leave whenever he wanted. He just chose not too.

Shifty realized, with a strange drop in their stomach, that he didn’t smell like lemons anymore.

They sat on the porch all night, rendered purposeless as the one person they had dedicated their life to saving tinkered in the basement once more.

In a place underground, not all too far from the Mystery Shack, it smelled of ash, metal, and a hint of rot.

It was an old place, older than humanity itself, buried deep under millions of years of buildup, and Gravity Falls itself had grown around it, smothering it in a silent tomb of bedrock, soil, and overgrowth. The crypt had sat undisturbed for those million years, until it was excavated–though only slightly–and stripped for parts by two precocious scientists.

The scientists found nothing particularly dangerous in the crypt, save for a few automaton security measures, easily dissuaded from attack as long as you remained calm. Easier said than done, but doable. Nothing down here could still be alive, surely.

They never investigated what was left of the corpses, their bone-like and rotted clean remains scattered and tossed like discarded toys around the crypt. They never translated any files or messages left behind, which spoke of failed missions and absolute mayhem. They never went deeper into the crypt than they had too, taking what they needed and then returning to the land of sun and sky. It was a large crypt after all, and some level of caution was reasonable. Even for them.

But the portal had long reaching consequences, a jolt of energy and power reaching across Oregon and burning out somewhere in Portland. It didn’t do much–lights flickered or went out momentarily, animals would prick up their ears, and there was a slight scent of ozone in the air, if only for a moment.

But the crypt shuddered in the surge, then it rocked, and then, impossibly, it blinked.

Deep inside, something woke up.

Chapter Text

Against all odds, I’ve returned.

I never thought I would write in this journal again, much less step foot back in my home dimension. But I’ve long learned that what you least expect is what’s most likely to happen. Which is incredibly frustrating, because, as previously stated, you can never expect it.

It’s an odd feeling to be back in the place I had considered both a sanctuary and a prison. Now, the house feels like a stranger wearing the face of someone I used to know well. I keep expecting to wake up and find myself in a land weirder than any science fiction author could have ever imagined, interdimensional authorities hot on my tail. I’ve pinched myself many times. Note to self: cut nails.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Stanley was the one to turn the portal back on, despite my many dire warnings. He always had a talent for ignoring sound advice and an even larger talent for pure, pig-headed stubbornness. What I didn’t expect was who had helped him.

My old friend? Pet? Ward? I haven’t the slightest idea what to say Shifty has emerged from the bunker, digging through bedrock and hard-packed soil to escape. While initially surprised escape, I suppose I can’t fault him for it, especially after he explained that he was going hungry. My own fault, I suppose, I should have pushed F to invent that pneumatic can opener instead of bringing up my silly safety concerns. Prior to my arrival, Shifty had been posing as some kind of assistant to my brother’s schemes, going by the name Remy Wagner (a bit of a strange name, but there are far stranger names in this town)

I’m curious as to how he’s grown these past thirty years. When I left him last, he had difficulty holding any shape that was much larger than his base form for extended periods of time, but he has informed me that since my departure, no one has seen his true form. Either he has become masterful in his skills, or he has grown quite a bit. Possibly both. I wish I had had the wherewithal to request to see his true form, as well as ask him questions about his abilities and development, for scientific purposes if nothing else, but we were all a bit tired by that point and it didn’t even cross my mind. I don’t know if he would have been amenable to the idea anyway

He seems well enough, if extremely nervous. I don’t recall him being quite so hesitant when I was looking after him, but things change. A lot of things do. Perhaps I was an even poorer caretaker than I imagined, I let it get very bad before I took any action

When I first stepped out of the portal, I assumed I had stepped into a bizarre version of my home, one of the countless parallel earths I had explored in my time away. This old man who shared my face couldn’t possibly be Stanley. This human stranger–a grown man–couldn’t possibly be Shifty. These children couldn’t possibly be my niece and nephew. I still have suspicions that the man they call Soos has an ancestor who was from Rodentus 7.

But it IS home, at least for a version of myself that once existed a lifetime ago. But I’m starting to worry it isn’t MY home, not anymore. Perhaps it never was, really.

Shifty couldn’t speak anymore. Though that was an oversimplification.

Since Stanford’s sudden and less than idyllic return, the atmosphere of the shack had essentially plunged into the toilet. The house needed repairs desperately, and Stan was forced to close for the week to try and rush them, for the second time that summer. This time, though, it wasn’t Dipper’s fault. The Pines and Shifty had essentially locked themselves inside the house, without even Wendy or Soos to distract them from each other.

Shifty was doing their damndest to interact with the kids as little as possible, taking the initiative to try and make a clean break between them since their monstrous reveal. It was embarrassingly frightening to run into the kids in a narrow hallway now; they could escape easily, of course, but it still made them feel trapped and nervous. Mabel looked at them like she felt horribly bad for them, and Dipper looked at them curiously, with some healthy caution. They weren’t sure which was worse.

As for Stan, Shifty didn’t feel bad about turning into something quick or small to get away from him as fast as possible, especially if they could dart under his feet and make him yell. It was petty, it was mean, and on the stairs it was dangerous, but they couldn’t make themselves stop.

They either went days without speaking, or spoke in words so biting and vitriolic it exhausted Shifty completely. Every interaction felt like tightening a jar in a pressure cooker, which was almost impressive because a different jar had only just exploded. It was only a matter of time before something cracked again, and Shifty only hoped that the kids wouldn’t be around when it did. They already looked so nervous when Stan and Shifty spoke now, perhaps used to an atmosphere choked in hatred from home. Both Stan and Shifty refused to answer any questions about if they were angry with each other, and why.

Stanford was another beast entirely.

He didn’t come up from the basement often, much to Dipper’s disappointment. Stanford had allowed him to read the other journals, figuring that there wasn’t anything actively dangerous in there now that the portal was being dismantled (Shifty thought differently, but it wasn’t like it was up to them).

Sometimes if they were feeling bold, Shifty would leave some food outside for him for when he emerged to use the bathroom, though they weren’t even sure he was doing that. The food would be gone, eventually, though Shifty didn’t know if he took it or someone cleaned it up. A small part of themselves was disgusted by their own loyalty to Stanford, but they couldn’t help themselves, like a dog that kept slinking back to a cruel master.

When Stanford did appear, they couldn’t speak.

The same horrible sensation, like they were on the edge of choking, would appear in their throat whenever they saw Stanford. He didn’t usually speak to them, usually only exchanging a polite nod and then rushing back down to the basement, but when he was around, Shifty had the same strange urge they had when the government was at their door. The humiliating, animal urge to flee. Which was foolish; Stanford didn’t want to hurt them now. He had no reason to.

And all the same, Shifty’s body and voice froze up whenever he walked in. Even if he was chasing a weird octopus thing.

“Well!” Stanford said, oddly cheerful and holding the octopus thing like he had caught a sizable fish. “Call me for dinner!”

The vending machine shut behind him, and Shifty felt their body relax, tongue loosened.

“Wait, Great Uncle Ford-!” Dipper rushed to the vending machine, a second too late, and even tried punching in a code. The machine beeped angrily at him, and he looked sadly at the second journal he had been clutching.

Stan rolled his eyes. “You’re wasting your time, kid.”

“I just wanna help,” Dipper said, looking miserable. For whatever reason, for a kid who still held a grudge against Pacifica like they had a blood feud, he seemed to harbor no ill feelings towards Mabel or Stan. Maybe he realized that at the end of the day, they were right, he was wrong, and he was too embarrassed to actually apologize. In any case, at least it lessened the tension in the house ever so slightly.

He still avoided Shifty, and followed Stanford’s shadow like an eager puppy.

“Don’t worry about that nerd,” Stan said. “You’re better off up here, anyway. You know, in the sun, where you get all those vitamins that are named after letters of the alphabet or whatever.”

“Yeah!” Mabel perked up. “And the Ducktective finale is on soon!”

“The show with the talking duck?” Shifty asked, and jumped when the three whirled around, looking startled.

“Moses!” Stan clutched his chest, looking irritated. “When did you get here?!”

“I live here, asshole,” Shifty said, irritated, shifting the box of bobbleheads they were holding for restocking.

“Woah, bad word alert!” Mabel said nervously. “And you were doing so good! No biggie, you two just gotta-”

“I’m not hugging him,” Stan grumbled, and Mabel wilted.

“I don’t want his smell to seep into my pores,” Shifty agreed.

“I don’t smell,” Stan grumbled, and the kids glanced at each other.

“Please, the only one out-stinking you is Dipper,” Shifty said.

Dipper looked surprised. “I stink?”

“Wash your clothes!” Mabel ordered, throwing an empty cheese puffs bag at him.

“It’s a waste of time!”

“You both smell, how’s that?” Stan said, flipping Mabel’s hair over her face. She giggled. At least one relationship hadn’t deteriorated into the toilet. “Seriously, Dipper, you keep trying to chase after my brother, and eventually there’s gonna be some monster he doesn’t kill before it bites you.”

Shifty’s grip loosened around the box suddenly, feeling nauseous. The box fell noisily to the ground, bobbleheads spilling out across the floor and rolling away farther than they should have been able too. Shifty bit back a swear, dropping to the ground to grab as many as they could as all eyes turned to them once more.

It was stupid. Stan hadn’t even been looking at them. And Stanford had never tried to kill them, not even when he turned a gun on them. But Stan’s words still made them deeply nervous and uncomfortable. They felt like an intruder in a place they had lived their whole life.

“You better hope you didn’t break anything,” Stan said, and Shifty’s nerves calcified into anger.

“Fuck you,” they spat, kicking one of the bobbleheads for good measure.

“Woah!” Mabel said, sounding genuinely uneasy. “Bad word alert! A big bad word alert! F-bomb word alert-”

“Mabel,” Dipper said tensely, like he was worried she was riling up a dangerous animal.

“You pick it up,” Shifty decided, just desperate to leave the situation. “These don’t sell anyway.”

“Don’t you–” Stan started, already scowling, but Shifty had already slipped out the door.

Shifty tripped over a box of comics laid strategically out in front of the door, and woke up with a sharp gasp, their heart racing from a nightmare they couldn’t remember.

“It’s fine,” they whispered to themselves, lowering themselves to the floor with shaking legs before they collapsed altogether. “It’s fine, you’re fine. You didn’t even leave the room.”

Their dreams, already so rarely pleasant, had devolved into nightmares that followed them into the day, dreams filled with blood and murders they couldn’t remember committing. Some days they remembered the dreams, and some days they didn’t. They weren’t sure which was worse, the images or the mystery.

And even worse, their sleepwalking habit was back.

They rarely slept now, terrified of nightmares and what they might do in their sleep, but when they did manage to get some rest, they had a setup and safeguards. They placed their remaining boxes of comics and other trip hazards around the room so that they might fall and wake themselves up. They tied string around the doorknob so that they would know if they left the room when they woke up. And if the boxes failed, they had a dusting of shards from the mirror along the edge of the door. The pain almost always woke them up.

They weren’t sure what time it was, but the sun was shining powerfully in the sky, and they could hear movement in the house, so they hazarded a guess that it was sometime in the afternoon. They couldn’t even remember falling asleep.

They climbed back to their feet, fighting a headache and a foul taste in their mouth. They stepped over the jagged line standing guard at the door, and made their way to the kitchen. They rubbed their eyes, wincing at the dull throb behind them, opening them as they entered the living room, and immediately freezing.

Mabel was sitting on the ground, scribbling a note, staring at them.

“Oh,” Shifty said, stupidly, and then turned to leave.

“Remy!” Mabel said quickly, and Shifty stopped before they could rush away. “Hi! Um, I haven't seen you much.”

“Uh huh,” Shifty said, deeply uncomfortable.

“Do you wanna…” she motioned to the TV. “Do you wanna watch Ducktective with me? This is a good episode, and they’re replaying the whole series to lead up to the season finale.”

“Uh,” Shifty said, stepping back. “I-I’m good, Mabel, I need to-”

“Or you can watch one of your shows!” Mabel said quickly.

Shifty paused. They were pretty sure one of their favorite sitcoms was having some kind of marathon today. “...you don’t like my shows.”

“I don’t mind!” Mabel said quickly, patting the chair invitingly. “Sit down, put your feet up!”

“Is this a trap?” Shifty asked suspiciously.

Mabel frowned, and Shifty took a half-step back, prepared to bolt before Mabel pulled a Whoop-ee cushion out from under the chair pillow. “I’ve been waiting all day for someone to sit on it,” she said dejectedly.

“Oh,” Shifty said, relaxing slightly. They were being ridiculous; if there was danger to be found in the house, Mabel wasn’t the one they needed to watch out for. And apparently the chaos of the last few days had made her lonely enough to seek out even their company. “Give me the remote.”

“I don’t know where it is,” Mabel said, going back to writing and drawing.

Shifty sighed, starting to search around. “Right, great.”

The duck on screen quacked several times, and the subtitles beneath him claimed that he said ‘A murder most…fowl! Waterfowl!’ The camera panned to a bedraggled looking stuffed swan.

“How did they train that duck to do all that?” Shifty muttered, searching for the remote.

“Ooh!” Mabel said. “Maybe the duck’s another shapeshifter!”

Shifty winced, and hoped it wasn’t too obvious. “Ah, no, he’s definitely not.”

“Oh,” Mabel frowned. “How can you tell? Is it obvious to you?”

“Um, no,” Shifty said. “I can’t actually tell, but–I mean, come on, do you really think he’d be pretending to play a hyper-intelligent duck for a children’s TV show if he was a shapeshifter? He could be the queen of England or something.”

“You could be the queen of England,” Mabel said. “But you’re here.”

This time, Shifty couldn’t hide a wince, and Mabel looked at him with that awful pitying look that made them itchy. They found the remote hiding under the chair, and snatched it up. “I don’t want to be the queen of England.”

“What do you want to be, then?” Mabel asked.

I don’t know, Shifty thought, but said: “I want to be watching my shows, thanks.”

Mabel’s frown deepened, but Shifty looked away, flicking the TV on. A sitcom father stumbled through the door, holding several grocery bags. “Guess who got a–”

Shifty instantly turned the TV off. “Never mind. You can go back to your duck show.”

Dipper burst into the room like a hurricane, panting. “Mabel! Quick, I gotta borrow a red crayon, the pens all ran out of ink!”

“I can see ink on your mouth,” Mabel folded her arms. “Were you chewing pens again?”

Dipper scrubbed at his mouth, only succeeding in spreading the red stain around. “No.”

Shifty wriggled to try and get a little more comfortable on the chair, and Dipper jumped as though he had just noticed them. “Oh! Um. Remy. Hi.”

“...hello,” Shifty said, deeply uncomfortable.

Dipper stared at the ground, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were up here.”

“Oh, uh,” Shifty said, standing up quickly. “That’s fine, I was…just about to leave anyway.”

“You were?” Mabel asked.

“Yes!” Shifty said, committing to it. “We…need light bulbs.”

“What do you need a crayon for anyway?” Mabel asked, handing Dipper a red crayon.

His eyes lit up. “Oh, man, so there’s this hole under the porch, in the dirt. I was poking at it, ‘cause I was bored, and it opened up and I fell right into the lab! Ford was there, and he saw my thirty eight sided die, and now we’re in the middle of a Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons campaign!”

“Ugh,” Mabel made a face. “Your nerd game?”

“What?” Shifty said, horrified at how small their voice sounded.

Dipper glanced back up at them again, his expression unidentifiable. “Oh, um. It’s…it’s just a game, I had asked everyone if they wanted to play, but–”

“You didn’t ask me,” Shifty said, and then felt humiliated for having said anything at all.

Dipper’s face turned as red as the ink on his face. “I…didn’t think you’d want to. Um, I can see if we can railroad in another player-”

“I don’t want to play your stupid game,” Shifty snapped, and Dipper stepped back, looking nervous. Mabel looked between them, tense, as if waiting for someone to lunge.

“...oh,” Dipper said in a small voice, trying very hard not to look at Shifty. “Okay. Sorry.”

They felt something uncomfortable shift in their chest, like a foundation beginning to shake loose. “I’m leaving,” they announced, with all the passion and conviction of someone resigned to the gallows.

“What?” Mabel said, looking vaguely frightened. “You don’t have to, plus Grunkle Stan will be mad if you take the car again–”

“I don’t care,” Shifty said, which was true, but the twins frowned. “I-I’ll walk.”

“All the way there?” Dipper asked, but Shifty was already leaving, exhausted with the conversation and exhausted with being in the house in general.

There seemed to be no rest to be found anywhere.

They considered, briefly, turning into a bear and retreating to the woods, for any length of time between a few hours and the rest of the summer. But the townspeople would likely be on edge after the strange gravitational anomalies caused by the portal, and Shifty wasn’t confident that they wouldn’t be chased by a nervous lumberjack if they were spotted as a bear.

They resigned themselves to wandering around town, for once appreciating how easy it was to be ignored. For a while after the Gideon incident, people seemed to take their brief appearance on the news as a sign that they wanted to interact with the town, which couldn't be further from the truth.

They squeezed around a gaggle of teenagers taking up the whole sidewalk–they were pretty sure they were Wendy’s friends–and wondered if it was worth it to walk by Soos’ house to see if he was there when they heard it.

“Well, as I live and breathe! Remy Wagner!”

Shifty nearly jumped, and didn’t bother holding back a groan when they realized they had strayed right in front of the Gleeful’s used car lot. Bud was leaning against the chain link fence, smiling at Shifty like they were an old friend he hadn’t been expecting to see.

“Ugh,” Shifty said, and Bud’s smile only widened.

“Well, that’s no way to greet an old pal,” he said.

“We’re not friends,” Shifty said. “I’d swallow a fork before I called us pals.”

They had indeed swallowed a fork before, but that was beside the point. “We certainly see each other enough to be pals,” Bud said.

“That’s because there’s, like, sixty people in this town,” Shifty grumbled.

“Strange week we’re having,” Bud said idly. “All those strange ol’ earthquakes, and then government vehicles driving through town like they’re chasing the devil! Odd, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure, whatever,” Shifty said.

“In fact,” Bud drawled. “It looked like they were heading up to your place! I don’t suppose you know why they were here?”

Shifty scowled, barely even bothering to deign him with a response. Bud’s smile only widened. “I’m not hearing a no.”

“Because I don’t like talking to you,” Shifty snapped.

“Now, now,” Bud said. “Your loyalty to Stan is admirable, but–”

“You don’t know anything about me or who I’m loyal to,” Shifty hissed, and immediately regretted it when Bud looked surprised, and then his smile spread even wider.

“Well, now!” Bud said, living up to his last name with how gleeful he looked. “What’s this trouble I hear then? Don’t tell me you and ol’ Stan aren’t happy campers anymore!”

“Shut up,” Shifty said, but they didn’t say it confidently enough.

Bud pounced on their uncertainty. “Goodness, that must just be awful. You don’t have any family in town, do you? Must be awfully lonely to be working there when you’re not getting along with anyone. Or if none of them like you.”

Shifty blinked, startled, and felt words bubble out of their mouth before they could stop them. “It’s probably not as lonely as visiting your psychopath kid in prison.”

Bud blinked, looking shocked, and Shifty felt cruel satisfaction at his expression. “Do you have to charge a ‘widdle’ extra on your lemon cars to pay for all the legal fees? And the money you still owe us?”

Bud stared at them, rendered mute for a moment before he abruptly frowned. “...Gideon warned me about you, you know. Said there was something wrong with you. Something real wrong.”

“Right, yeah,” Shifty said, something uncomfortable coiling in his stomach. “The guy wearing an orange jumpsuit because he was spying on everyone and made a giant rampaging robot is the expert on whatever might be going wrong with me.”

“He wouldn’t say anything more,” Bud said stiffly. “It seems you gave him a fright. But I see what he sees. You’re one mean ol’ nasty sunnuva bitch, Mr. Wagner. And I, for one, hope I’m not around when you finally decide to show that side to everyone else.”

“...you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shifty said, turning away, trying to look relaxed as they walked away as briskly as they could.

“You have the day you deserve,” Bud said, annoyingly prim and proper. “And let’s hope we’re on different sides of a room when we meet next.”

You and me both, Shifty thought, thoroughly unsettled.

There was a hole in the house when Shifty got back.

“Ah, Shifty!” Stanford said brightly, completely ignoring the fact that all of the outside was visible from the TV room. “Where have you been? You’ve missed a lot of action.”

This time, the freeze in Shifty’s throat wasn’t even entirely from fear. They stared at the hole in shock, and the TV cheerfully announced that Ducktective would be back after a few short words from their sponsors. A few bits of debris broke off the hole in the wall. They wondered, vaguely, when they would stop being absent when people decided to tear the house apart.

“The others have gone to wash pixie dust off of themselves, if you’re wondering where they are,” Stanford said, poking and prodding at the splintered wood curiously. It was helpful, because Shifty had been a little worried that something terrible had happened and Stanford was only just now getting around to dealing with it. “Contrary to what the storybooks tell you, it’s actually carcinogenic.”

“Oh,” Shifty said, which was about all they could manage to say. They realized, abruptly, they were the only person in the room with Stanford, and this time he wasn’t even holding a massive gun.

Somehow he felt no less intimidating. The version of themselves that would have tugged on Stanford’s sleeve fearlessly for comfort and entertainment was long gone, buried with their stuffed rabbit in tunnels beneath the earth. They wondered, briefly, if Stanford had changed, or if they had just been a rather stupid child. Maybe it was both.

Stanford followed Shifty’s gaze to the hole in the wall, and frowned. “Ah, yes. I’m afraid there was a…small incident. No one was hurt, not to worry. You see, Stanley had a rather emotional moment–” Stanford rolled his eyes. “-and ended up rolling my infinity sided die by accident, thus summoning a few characters from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. It was quite an adventure to get rid of them.”

“Um,” Shifty said, bewildered.

Stanford finally seemed to realize that Shifty didn’t share the same enthusiasm, and frowned. “...I know we haven’t had much of a chance to speak since my return, but…I do hope you’re adjusting well. I know this is probably quite a bit of change.”

Shifty swallowed hard, trying to rid themselves of the knot in their throat. “...it’s alright,” they managed to say, hoarse and lying.

Stanford didn’t seem to notice, only looking relieved by Shifty’s affirmation. “That’s wonderful to hear, I know it’s certainly been a big adjustment for everyone in the house, and that’s not even getting into the end of the summer–”

“What?” Shifty said, the words wrenched from their throat. “What’s happening at the end of the summer?”

“Oh, whoops, I suppose in the chaos I’d forgotten to seek you out and let you know,” Stanford said, glancing back at them again. “Stanley will be giving me my house and name back at the end of the summer. I’d much rather he do it sooner, but I don’t think it would be productive to anyone’s best interest if I sent the children home with no warning-”

“What?” Shifty asked again, their heart starting to hammer. “What does…what does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” Stanford said. “The house will be mine again, and I can take down this…this mockery of my work.”

“Stan’s…” Shifty was starting to worry that their voice might pitch up. “Stan’s leaving?”

Stanford nodded.

“But, he…” Shifty clenched their fists so tight it hurt. “Where…where’s he going?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Stanford shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll find something. He was able to take care of himself before. Now I suppose he’ll have to do it without hijacking my life.”

Shifty felt dizzy, and hoped they weren’t wheezing. It was a strange feeling–they were still so furious at Stan it made their jaw ache, but it was their oldest fear come to life. The worry that one day they would wake up, and Stan would be gone.

And for some reason, the fact that they had Stanford back did little to soothe this.

“...what’s going to happen to me?” Shifty nearly whispered.

Stanford looked surprised. “I…you’re more than welcome to stay here. In fact, I’d rather hoped that–”

He snapped his mouth closed abruptly, a strange expression crossing over his face before he turned back to the hole in the wall, inspecting it very closely. “I suppose…you can do whatever you wish. Go anywhere you please. As I said, you are…you’re always welcome here. But don’t…I wouldn’t trap you.”

Not again, anyway, Shifty thought vaguely, but they barely heard Stanford’s tepid invitation. It was hard to breathe, suddenly, and any will to speak that they had summoned disappeared once more like a puff of smoke in the air.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Shifty?” Stanford asked, glancing back at them.

Shifty said nothing, drowning in the knowledge that they would never see Stan, the man they had literally screamed their hatred of, when summer ended. And the end of summer was coming soon. There were only a couple weeks left.

“Shifty,” Stanford said, looking concerned, and for some reason it just made Shifty angry. “Are you alright?”

Shifty forced themselves to nod once, feeling nauseous.

“...good,” Stanford said, looking unsure. “I…I suppose I’ll continue to see you around.”

Shifty rushed off before Stanford could take stock of their expression, terrified of what he might see.

There was a knock at Shifty’s door, and they startled abruptly, dozing. The sun had almost disappeared, and what was left of it cast an eerie red glow across the ground. “Wha-huh?” Shifty asked, barely aware.

“It’s me,” Dipper’s voice said nervously from behind the door. “I have dinner. You, um. Weren’t there. Grunkle Stan said we should leave you alone.”

“One second,” Shifty said, hopping over the boxes scattered around the room and sweeping the mirror bits to the side. They opened the door, and Dipper was standing there, looking nervous, holding a plate of glistening meatloaf.

“It’s not very good,” Dipper warned, offering the plate. Shifty shrugged, taking it. They could and would eat almost anything. And admittedly, they were pretty hungry.

“Can I, um,” Dipper looked incredibly nervous. “Ask you a question?”

“You already did,” Shifty said, contrarian by nature. “But you can ask another.”

“Sure, okay,” Dipper said. “Um…when we saw you in the basement, you had, um, you know.”

He motioned across his chest in a line, and Shifty managed not to stiffen.

“...I’m wearing a shirt, and my jacket” Shifty said, tugging on the shirt collar. “That’s why you didn’t see the scar. I wasn’t then.”

“Oh,” Dipper nodded. “Okay. That makes sense. Are you wearing pants?”

“No more questions,” Shifty said, sitting down heavily on the couch-bed. Dipper hesitated, looking like he was at war with himself, and then took a couple of brave steps into Shifty’s room. Shifty glanced at him, a little surprised, but didn’t say anything.

“Are you redecorating?” Dipper asked, looking around at the boxes on the ground.

“Something like that,” Shifty muttered, taking a brave bite of meatloaf. It tasted confusing.

“...if you want,” Dipper said slowly. “You can play with me and Ford next time we do Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. I don’t think we’re gonna play for a while, though. I’m kinda fantasy-ed out for a bit. He said he told you what happened.”

Shifty considered the offer, not quite able to tell if it was genuine or out of pity. Besides that, the idea of playing the game with Ford made them nervous, but they couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or some childish hope that everything might magically return to the status quo of thirty years ago. They had a sinking feeling it was the former.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Shifty said, trying to make their voice light. “I’m not a nerd.”

Dipper looked pointedly at a box of comics. “Right, of course.”

“Shut it,” Shifty said, almost smiling, and out of habit reached forward to yank the brim of Dipper’s hat over his face.

But Dipper’s eyes widened, and he took several steps away from Shifty, hugging himself as if worried his arms were about to be grabbed.

Shifty’s hand froze in midair, and they stared at each other. Dipper looked surprised by his own reaction, and Shifty could see him forcing himself to relax. “Um-”

“...thanks for the meatloaf,” Shifty said, trying to turn their ruined reach into some kind of stretch. “I think I’m going to turn in early. ‘Night.”

“Oh,” Dipper said, and Shifty laid down awkwardly and turned over, unable to force themselves to look at him anymore. “Yeah, okay. ‘Night Shifty-”

“What?” Shifty asked, sitting up suddenly, strangely alarmed.

“What?” Dipper repeated, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Shifty said. “You…called me Shifty.”

“Oh, um,” Dipper rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Yeah, I mentioned you to Great Uncle Ford, and he said that your name was Shifty, and you were probably just telling us we could keep calling you Remy because you thought it might confuse us or something. And you said you didn’t care which we called you so I just…I dunno. I can call you Remy if you’d rather me do that.”

Something unidentifiable but distinctly angry, angry in a way they couldn’t redirect anymore, unfurled in Shifty’s chest painfully. They forced themselves to lay back down, staring at the wall and away from Dipper. It suddenly felt like it had right after they had woken up after he had nearly killed them with an ax.

“Shifty?” Dipper asked. “I-I mean, um, Remy-”

“I don’t care what you call me,” Shifty said, and their voice sounded dull and robotic. “One person calls me Shifty, another calls me Remy, Stan absolutely insists on calling me Mouser. I’ll respond to anything.”

“...oh,” Dipper said. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t be saying it if I wasn’t,” Shifty said, more waspishly than they meant. They felt vaguely fractured, like the parts that were Shifty and the parts that were Remy were beginning to crack and break away from each other, as opposed to the neat little boxes they had been previously kept it.

“...okay,” Dipper almost whispered. “...goodnight.”

Shifty didn’t say anything.

When they woke up next, it was the middle of the night, standing in a hall of the shack, shaking from a dream they couldn’t remember.

One of the windows was open, and on the breeze, they smelled fresh dirt, just waiting to bury them.

Chapter Text

Shifty awoke from their first semi-restful sleep since Stanford returned home as though someone had set a firecracker off under them, their door slamming open so suddenly and so loudly that they were amazed it didn’t break.

“Why is there glass on the floor?!” Stan’s voice demanded, somehow even more gravely than usual.

Shifty yelped, startled awake, tumbling off the couch and blinking rapidly. It must have been mid-morning, because the sun was shining cheerfully through the blinds, and they could hear birds outside, far happier to face the day than either Shifty or Stan was.

“What the hell was that for?!” Shifty demanded, rubbing their eyes and opening them to see Stan picking their way through their mirror shard mindfield. “Get out!”

“Did you get light bulbs?!” Stan demanded, sifting through Shifty’s closet. “Mabel said you went out the other day for light bulbs, and if I’d known that I wouldn’t have schlepped all the way out to the store at the ass crack of dawn, only for Ford’s to build his own damn light bulb-”

“This doesn’t involve me,” Shifty decided, hauling themselves to their feet. “Get out of my room. You’re acting insane.”

Stan scoffed. “It’s not your room, it’s not even your house.”

“Well, it’s not your house either,” Shifty snapped, and Stan frowned. “Leave me alone and quit bothering everyone.”

“Right, yeah, I’m the one bothering everyone,” Stan said, in a nasty voice that let Shifty know immediately that they had struck a nerve. “I’m not the one leaving food outside the vending machine door until it smells.”

Their own nerves struck and frayed, Shifty reached into the nearest box and withdrew the heaviest thing their fingers could find–a dusty alarm clock, cold and heavy in their grip. “GET OUT!” They shouted, hurling the clock at Stan. He ducked, and it shattered into a million pieces against the wall, scattering springs and cogs across the floor. The bell started ringing, grating on Shifty’s ears, and didn’t stop.

Stan merely popped out his hearing aide, not looking at all satisfied with the stalemate. “You have fun with that,” he said, gesturing to the ringing apparatus, carefully stepping over the debris.

Shifty groaned, hardly bothering to do anything about the alarm other than place a pillow over it, stumbling back to their couch bed and collapsing back into it. They groaned, fighting a soreness behind their eye that was bound to bloom into a full blown migraine if they didn’t drink water, but they couldn’t find the energy to do so.

That had been the most that Stan and Shifty had interacted one on one since Stanford returned, and it left a sick feeling in their chest. At least the pressure between them had loosened, ever so slightly, but Shifty had no doubt it would only return.

They sighed, dragging their hand over their face, and then paused.

Their left hand was numb.

With a strange detachment, they pulled their hand away from their face to see that the fingers were sagging, beginning to drop and stretch like melting crayons in the summer heat. The fingers felt tingly, like the nerves had fallen asleep.

Shifty stared at their hand dispassionately, before reaching up with their right, grabbing at the tip of the finger and stretching it out with all the enthusiasm of a middle schooler performing a rat dissection. The tingling sensation increased tenfold, uncomfortable, but Shifty merely twisted the useless fingers around their other hand like they were making a ring made of pipe cleaners.

They grabbed at a nail that wasn’t real, feeling the keratin yield under pressure, pushing it back as if curious to see what the naked nail looked like. It didn’t hurt, not really, but feeling was starting to return to their fingers, as as they uselessly flopped and twisted and writhed under Shifty’s poking and prodding, and they felt the beginnings of pain at the sensation–

“Hey, Remy–”

Shifty jumped, shoving their hands behind them, trying to control their expression for Mabel. She didn’t look horrified, so she probably hadn’t seen.

“Oh,” Shifty said. “Hello.”

“Grunkle Ford invented this cool lightbulb that lasts for a thousand years and makes your skin soft,” Mabel said. “...you know, if you wanted to see.”

“...I’ll make a note of that,” Shifty said. “Just, uh…”

“Why is there a broken clock?” Mabel asked, looking worried. “And, um, were you yelling at Stan?”

“...I saw a bug and overreacted,” Shifty said, and refused to answer the second question. “Can you…close the door?”

Mabel looked even more crestfallen. “...sure, okay.”

She closed the door softly behind her, and Shifty took a shaking breath, putting their hands in front of them to examine them.

Now, they looked completely normal. Not a cell out of place.

Shifty sighed, an uncomfortable feeling buzzing in their chest: apathy, and a vague fear of that apathy.

With a sigh, they rolled over, unsuccessfully trying to snatch a little bit more sleep. The exhaustion only seemed to seep deeper into them.

When they finally arose and wandered into the living room, they wondered if they had fallen into one of those strange alternate worlds that Stanford had mentioned off-handedly once or twice.

“What the…?” Shifty trailed off, just barely keeping themselves from saying something stronger when they saw the mess in the living room. Poster boards, colored red, white, and blue, littered the floor with snappy slogans, such as ‘STAN’S THE MAN’ and other rhymes ending in -an. The kids were there, along with Stan, his two employees, and even Mabel’s two friends.

“Oh, hey Remy,” Mabel said. “The mayor died.”

Shifty blinked. “The…the guy with the weird name? He wasn’t already dead? I thought he died back in the 90s.”

“Who did you think was mayor then?” Wendy asked incredulously.

“I kind of figured the government was leaving us to fend for ourselves,” Shifty admitted.

“Oh, hey!” One of Mabel's friends, Grenda, perked up. “Can you turn into one of the boys from Sev’ral Times?”

Shifty felt their heart skip a beat. “...what?”

“Or an ostrich,” Candy said. “A blue ostrich.”

“Dude,” Wendy said, looking deadly serious. “You know what would be sick? A filing cabinet.”

“Enough with the filing cabinets!” Shifty snapped, stepping away, glaring at Wendy. “What are…who told you?!”

Soos looked guilty. “I’m sorry, dude, I figured she would have to know, ‘cause we gotta tell her about everything that happened, so…”

“Maybe, but I wanted to be the one to tell her!” Shifty said, and gestured wildly to Mabel’s friends. “And why do they know?!”

“I’m sorry!” Mabel burst out. “It just slipped out! I tell them everything!”

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, covering their face, horrified. “Oh my god.”

“It’s cool,” Candy said, trying to be helpful. “I wish I could turn into a blue ostrich.”

“It’s not a party trick!” Shifty snapped, and Candy winced. “What’s even going on here?!”

“It’s not obvious?” Stan asked, finally speaking. “I’m running for mayor.”

Shifty’s mouth dropped open. “...no, you’re not.”

“What?” Stan asked, crossing his arms and fixing Shifty with a formidable scowl. “Do you think I couldn’t win?”

“Not only do I think you couldn’t win,” Shifty said. “I think someone should have stopped you. I wish I was there. This is a terrible idea, politics is not your strong suit. You can’t con your way into an elected office! At best, you’ll make an idiot out of yourself, at worst, they’ll literally run you out of town.”

“Why don’t you run for mayor then, you jerk?” Stan grumbled.

“Because I’d rather jump in acid,” Shifty said. “This has got to be the worst idea you’ve ever had, and you could probably fill a children’s television series with your terrible ideas.”

“Come on, Remy,” Mabel said, extremely focused on cutting out posters by hand. “It’s Grunkle Stan or Bud Gleeful!”

Shifty blinked, their own scowl settling across their face. “...Bud Gleeful’s running?”

“The whole town is running I think,” Dipper said. “But Bud and Stan are the frontrunners because they nominated themselves first.”

“Ah,” Shifty said, their voice startlingly calm. “...I see.”

“If you’re gonna be a grouch,” Stan said. “Go back to hiding in your room–”

“No, no,” Shifty said, oddly focused for the first time in what felt like weeks. “No, just…what’s the plan here, exactly?”

Stan looked shocked, and Dipper held up what looked like a dusty scroll. “The whole election is based on two events. The Wednesday stump debate, at an actual stump, of course, and the Friday debate. The townspeople throw birdseed at whichever candidate they like more, and at the end, they release something called a freedom eagle, which bestows a, uh…birdly kiss on whoever has more birdseed, appointing them as the mayor.”

Shifty blinked, several times. “...is this an elaborate prank?”

“I’m not that creative,” Dipper said.

“Do eagles even eat birdseed?” Shifty asked.

“That’s what I said!” Stan said. “And birds don’t even have lips!”

“Hm, okay,” Shifty said, rubbing their chin. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We ditch all these posters and stuff and steal the eagle so I can take its place and crown Stan the mayor myself. Ta-da, done.”

Dipper frowned. “It’s super-duper illegal to mess with a bald eagle.”

“Thanks, bird guy,” Shifty said dully.

“I’m into this birdnapping idea,” Stan said.

“I thought you said you couldn’t fly, Remy,” Mabel said. “Pretty sure the eagle flies down.”

Wendy laughed. “You can turn into a bird but you can’t fly? What’s the point of that, then?”

“You can’t turn into anything at all!” Shifty sputtered. “A-and I can glide! A little!”

“We can table the eagle stealing for later, maybe,” Dipper said. “For now, Stan has a radio interview.”

“With who?”

“Toby Determined.”

“Ugh,” Shifty frowned. “You can’t escape that guy.”

“Wait, wait,” Stan looked perplexed. “Are you…helping me with this? Or just watching?”

“...helping, I guess,” Shifty said, hardly believing it themselves.

Stan frowned, folding his arms. “You just said I would make a terrible mayor.”

“You would,” Shifty nodded. “But I need Bud to lose. Otherwise I’m going to have to skip town. I am not living under his rule.”

“Good enough for me!” Mabel said, bouncing out of her seat as the phone rang. “Grunkle Stan, are you ready for your first radio interview?”

“I was born ready!” Stan grinned, standing up and waltzing to the phone with more confidence than Shifty had seen in a long time. He swept up the phone, grinning. “Stan Pines, future mayor speaking!”

“You’re listening to Falls Radio!” An automated DJ voice announced from a radio someone had brought with them. “Twenty four hour news and bear rampage alerts!”

Dipper frowned. “I don’t think there’s bears in this part of Oregon.”

“There’s me,” Shifty said.

“What?”

“Candidate Stan,” Toby’s voice was grating as ever. “First question: how do you feel about the American flag?”

“Mm,” Stan shrugged, and Shifty's heart sank. “Take it or leave. Lotta stripes, you know? Not my thing. Next question!”

“Uh oh,” Grenda said, sensing approaching disaster.

“What would you do to educate our kids?” Toby asked, moving on with shocking grace.

“Simple!” Stan smiled. “Put ‘em on an island and make them fight for dominance! Also, teach them swears at an earlier age. It gets them ready for the real world.”

“Dude, I dunno about this,” Soos said uneasily.

“What would you do about the crime in Gravity Falls?”

“The cops ‘round here are way too nitpicky about things like, you know, hypothetically, speeding at ninety miles an hour down town square, shoplifting groceries, and massive, massive amounts of tax fr-”

Mabel lunged forward, snatching a pair of craft scissors off the floor and snipping the phone line. “Hey!” Stan said, and Wendy turned off the radio with a pinched frown.

“What was that?!” Shifty demanded. “You can’t suggest Battle Royale as an educational outlet!”

“I’m speaking my truth!” Stan folded his arms. “People love that!”

“You lie for a living!” Shifty said, gesturing wildly. “You lie for the thrill of it! You lie for no reason at all! You’re the textbook definition of a pathological liar, and now you decide to tell the truth?!”

“I’m trying something different!”

“IT’S TERRIBLE! STOP TRYING!”

“Okay, Candy?” Dipper said, stepping between them. “What’s the damage?”

“Your approval rating started at zero,” Candy said, looking at her laptop. “Now it’s less than zero.”

“You’re memeing fast, and none of it is good,” Wendy said, and then snickered. “Some of these are kinda funny, actually.”

“Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said gently. “Maybe you should use the prepared stuff me and Dipper made for you. Show him, bro-bro!”

Dipper grabbed a handful of postcards out of his pocket, and passed them to Stan. He looked over them briefly, a little surprised, and then chuckled. “Sorry, kids,” he said, tucking them into his suit pocket. “I say words that come out of my brain.”

“But your brain is terrible,” Shifty said. “It’s going to lose us the election.”

“Last time I checked, pal, you ain’t running,” Stan snapped. “I’m in the election, not us. And I’m gonna win.”

He stomped out of the room before anyone could stop him.

Shifty sighed, putting their head in their hands. “I’m going to have to flee the town.”

“Easiest ways to…” Shifty muttered, typing into the laptop. “Incite a coup d’etat…”

“Remy!” Mabel exploded into the living room, carrying two ties. “Remy, we did it!”

“Ford did it,” Dipper corrected, hanging near the back of the room, holding something in his hand.

“Did what?” Shifty asked, perplexed. “What’s going on?”

“We can make Stan say what we want him to say!” Mabel said excitedly. “No more of the overly honest act!”

“Ford made this tie,” Dipper held up a blue and red striped tie. “If you wear the matching one, you can control the wearer to do whatever you want.”

“Wait, really?” Shifty reached out for the tie, and after a moment of painful hesitation, Dipper handed it over. Shifty turned it over, surprised by the weight, feeling something solid inside, maybe machinery. “Why did he even make this?”

“I dunno,” Dipper shrugged. “Something about Ronald Reagan.”

Shifty opened their mouth, and then closed it with a frown.

“With this baby, we might have a shot at winning!” Mabel grinned.

“I mean,” Shifty frowned. “I don’t know. Is this, you know. Evil? It’s probably not evil to use it on Ronald Reagan, but what about Stan?”

The idea of mind control wiggled uncomfortably in the back of their head, like an answer just out of reach, one they hadn’t even known they were missing. But Dipper shrugged. “I mean. Do you have a better idea?”

“We-” Shifty started, but Mabel shook her head.

“One that isn’t stealing an eagle,” she said.

“It’s stupid!” Shifty said. “I don’t even think those things are endangered anymore! I’ve seen an eagle eating out of the trash! Are we going to decide our election results from an animal that eats out of the trash?!”

“Mind control it is,” Dipper said.

Shifty groaned, handing back the tie. “Fine. But if he starts yammering about space lasers or something, we need to take it off.”

“Do I have to wear this tie?” Stan grumbled, wriggling like an annoyed teenager as Dipper draped the tie around his neck. “Looks like a flag threw up on me.”

“It’s a lucky tie,” Mabel said, nervously peeking out as Tyler Cutebiker finished his stump speech. Stan was moments away from delivering his own. “You have to wear it.”

“I don’t-”

“Just wear the goddamn tie before I strangle you with it,” Shifty growled, tapping their foot anxiously. The ‘VOTE STAN!’ t-shirt they had worn in honor of the common goal was itchy, and no doubt from the cheapest material Stan could find. It made their skin feel even looser than usual, and now they were half inclined to let it slough off.

“Bad word!” Mabel said, and grabbed Stan, pushing him onstage. “Break a leg!”

Stan half-stumbled on stage, looking slightly suspicious of them all before the crowd gathered for the speeches began to clap for his entrance, and he immediately turned into Mr. Mystery with an easy smile.

“Okay,” Mabel said, putting on the matching tie, this one black with blue stripes. “We’ll only jump in if it gets bad.”

“Maybe he learned his lesson,” Dipper nodded.

“You don’t know Stan at all,” Shifty said.

“Heya, Gravity Falls!” Stan said with a sort of sleazy ease, leaning against the podium. The mic crackled at the movement, and the audience winced, but Stan didn’t seem to care or notice. “Stan Pines here, you know me, you love me, let’s get real here. Do you think the women of Gravity Falls wear too much makeup?”

“Jump in!” Dipper hissed, and Mabel fiddled with the tie for a moment before clicking a small button on the tie.

Stan jerked like he had been shocked, before he relaxed, his face vaguely blank. Shifty shivered, but ethics were hardly a concern at this point.

“I mean,” Mabel said, and Stan spoke in time with her. “What I meant to say was that you ladies look great. And have you done something with your hair?”

Mabel pointed in the general direction of several women, and Stan followed suit. “Girl, you are working it!”

The women giggled, and Shifty hummed. “Tone down the sass, just a bit.”

Mabel frowned, but didn’t argue. “I’m Stan Pines,” Mabel said for Stan. “You may know me as that guy who accidentally let all those bees loose in the elementary school a few years ago.”

“Less honesty!” Shifty hissed, and Dipper snatched the tie. Stan spasmed again, before Dipper started speaking.

“But I believe in things,” he said. “America. Freedom. Ameri-freedom!”

“Do people like this crap?” Shifty muttered, only to scoff when they saw several people paying close attention in the audience.

“Like my opponent said,” Dipper and Stan continued. “I may not have a pretty face, but if you want a candidate that will listen to you, I’m all ears!”

The crowd muttered appreciatively, and Shifty got a spark of inspiration, grabbing the tie for one final remark. “And also,” Shifty and Stan said. “Bud Gleeful still owes us so much money in damages and he refuses to pay! Thank you, good night Gravity Falls!”

The crowd cheered, and Shifty yanked off the tie, handing it back to Mabel. Stan shivered, and then blinked, looking confused as he came off stage, rubbing his head absently.

“You did great, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said with a grin. “You did great!”

“Uh, yeah,” Stan said, looking confused. “Huh. Weird, it was all kind of a blur–”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Shifty said quickly. “You were probably just, um. In the zone. You know how that is. Being in the zone. So don’t, um. Worry.”

The Pines family went silent, staring at Shifty. They coughed, and fanned their face. “Hot one, huh?”

“There he is!” Toby Determined seemed to materialize, and this time he was even holding a real camera. “Stan Pines, can we get a picture?”

Stan scowled. “Nice try, you’re not putting this mug on a wanted poster–”

“No, no,” Toby shook his head. “For the newspaper! The people love you!”

Stan looked startled. “They do?”

For the first time, he seemed to realize that the applause was no longer polite and socially mandated, but in fact voluntary and enthusiastic, even paired with cheering. Stan blinked once, twice, and then his face lit up in the biggest smile that Shifty had seen in weeks.

“Sure, a picture, why not?” Stan said, kneeling down to yank the kids in close. He paused, and then in what felt like a moment of bravery, motioned vaguely at Shifty. “You get your butt in here too, Remy.”

Shifty blinked, stupidly looking behind themselves for anyone else Stan might be referring to. “Oh, um,” Shifty almost backed away, but some small, strange, weak part of them practically sang with joy at being included on purpose. “Sure, why not?”

“Say cheese!” Toby said as Shifty leaned in, trying to smile in a way that didn’t look like they were trying not to hold back vomit.

“Gorgonzola!” Mabel cheered, and the camera flashed.

“Do you think things are going too well?” Shifty asked, stacking jelly packets into a tower in Greasy’s Diner. “I feel like we should mess one thing up on purpose, get it out of the way.”

The past few days of campaigning had been a breeze with the help of the tie. It had been exhausting, and there had been more whispered fights backstage over who should have control than Shifty would have liked, but every poll had Stan leading by a mile. The town adored the new Stan, and he adored being adored.

“No, why would you say that?” Dipper shook his head. “Look, the Friday debate is almost here. In just a few hours, we’ll have done it. We just gotta get Stan to put the tie on. Mabel, don’t drink the flavored coffee creamers.”

“Don’t tell me how to live my life,” Mabel said, slurping down a sip of hazelnut creamer.

“Well,” Stan said, entering the diner with a huge grin, easily slipping away from a crowd of excited townsfolk. “If it isn’t my hardworking campaign team!”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said, peeling off the top of another creamer. “Listen, we just have to-”

“Give me that–” Dipper said, trying to reach for the creamer, and knocked it out of Mabel’s hand–directly onto the tie.

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath, and the kids’ faces blanched. Stan shrugged. “Eh, that thing was getting old anyway.”

“WE HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM RIGHT NOW,” Dipper said, grabbing Mabel and practically dragging her away. “Shifty, stay here!”

“Why do I have to–” Shifty started, but the kids had already disappeared.

Stan frowned. “Why are they going together?”

“Um,” Shifty said. “Moral support.”

Stan paused, and then nodded. “Checks out.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the two of them, like heavy fog on a cold morning. Shifty placed a jelly packet on top of their tower, and Stan almost smiled. “Did you eat any of them?”

“What?” Shifty asked.

“The jelly things,” Stan said. “When you were little, you used to beg to come here so you could steal all the free condiments and eat them later. You ate a lot of Splenda. I think you ate the paper packaging too.”

Shifty blinked, and then almost smiled. “Oh. Yeah, I think I remember that.”

“Weird times,” Stan mused.

“Yeah,” Shifty said. “Not that they got any normal-er.”

“Guess not,” Stan said, drumming his fingers on the counter.

Silence settled over them once more, and Shifty flicked out the bottom right jelly packet from their tower. The whole thing collapsed.

“...so what inspired this dream to be mayor?” Shifty asked. “You never really cared about politics before.”

“Oh, I still don’t,” Stan shrugged. “I dunno, just figured it was time for something new! The Mr. Mystery shtick is fun, but it’s been thirty years, at some point a man wants something new-”

“Is it because you’re leaving the shack at the end of the summer?” Shifty asked.

Stan’s expression turned sour. “...oh. So you heard about that.”

“...Stanford mentioned it,” Shifty said, and barely held back a wince when Stan’s frown only deepened.

“He ain’t got nothing to do with anything,” Stan said roughly. “Not everything I do leads back to that jackass. Maybe I just wanted to do something new.”

“...okay,” Shifty said quietly, spinning a jelly packet as best they could, as if it was a poorly made top. “...I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“...okay,” Stan said, staring at the table, his brow slightly furrowed, but not angry anymore.

The silence didn’t feel heavy now. The gap felt smaller between them, bridged easily if only one of them got a running start. Maybe it was only as wide as the table they sat across from each other at.

“But, well,” Shifty said. “If you win, you definitely won't have to leave Gravity Falls. Stanford can hardly claim the whole town for himself.”

Shifty didn’t say that they had no plans to leave the town either. They didn’t have too. Stan looked surprised, and then shrugged, looking as though he was struggling to stay nonchalant. “Huh. I guess that’s true. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Maybe I’ll stay in this podunk town, for at least a little while.”

Stan was a good liar, but Shifty had known him long enough to see right through him. They smiled slightly, fiddling with the jelly. “...sounds like a good plan.”

“Okay!” Dipper and Mabel reappeared, looking relieved. “Good news! The tie is just fine!”

“I thought you were going to the bathroom,” Stan said.

“Um,” Dipper said. “Multitasking. Anyway, here, you can put it back on now.”

“Pfft,” Stan rolled his eyes. “And smell like cheap coffee creamer? No way.”

Shifty’s heart skipped a beat, and they looked nervously at the kids, who looked equally crestfallen.

“...you gotta,” Mabel said, too insistently to not be suspicious. “It’s your lucky tie.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “You hear this crap, Mouser?” He asked, and Shifty realized it had been a while since he had called them ‘Mouser’. “The whole town’s on my side, and these two are still antsy!”

“...it’s a nice tie,” Shifty said weakly, fiddling with a sugar packet anxiously. “I-I don’t think it could hurt to wear it. It might be lucky-”

“I don’t need luck!” Stan said. “Have you seen the polls? I could debate naked and still win! Actually, you know, I-”

“Do not,” Shifty hissed.

“We really need you to wear your tie, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said earnestly.

“Suit and tie, gotta wear it,” Dipper nodded.

“Ugh,” Stan rolled his eyes. “What is it with you three and trying to tell me what to do? I’ll tell you what, I’m starting to get sick of it. The whole town respects me, maybe you guys should start doing the same.”

“We’d respect you if you took things more seriously!” Dipper said, looking frustrated, and Shifty could hardly blame him.

“I am taking this seriously!” Stan snapped. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re on top of the world right now! I’m in the zone!”

“The zone?!” Dipper asked. “That’s what you think this is?! The zone?!”

“Hey, um,” Shifty said, nervous. “Maybe you should think for a second before you-”

“Every one of those speeches we’ve been controlling you!” Dipper said, and Mabel and Shifty exchanged nervous glances.

“What?” Stan looked puzzled.

“This tie is a mind control device made by Ford!” Dipper said, snatching the tie and pushing back the fabric to reveal a flickering circuit board. “If it wasn’t for this tie, you would’ve never had a chance!”

Stan’s expression went slack with shock, and for a moment, Shifty thought he wouldn’t say anything at all. But his face tightened, and he gritted his teeth so hard Shifty was amazed that his dentures didn’t crack.

“Stan-” Shifty tried, but he was already standing up.

“You can tell that self-righteous, know-it-all jerk brother of mine that he can keep his fancy lightbulbs and magic ties!” Stan snarled. “I’m gonna win this debate on my own, without any of you!”

He stormed out of the diner before any of them could stop him, and the door slammed behind him.

“Oh, god,” Shifty said, running their hands through their hair. “Oh god, I’m going to have to flee the state itself.”

“We need a new candidate if we’re going to beat Bud,” Dipper said, looking distressed.

“We can’t just drop someone new into the race at the last moment!” Shifty said. “It’s between Stan and Bud now, no one’s going to take a newcomer seriously!”

“We could find a blank slate,” Mabel said. “Like, someone easy to mold to our whims.”

“Creepy,” Shifty said, their mind racing. They stood up suddenly, practically sprinting out of the diner. “But I have my own plan.”

“I looked this up,” Wendy said, crouching behind the bushes with Shifty. “This is a felony.”

Shifty looked at her, surprised. “This…a temporary bird-napping is a felony? That’s stupid.”

“Just touching a bald eagle without a license is a felony,” Wendy said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Shifty scoffed, and shrugged. “”Whatever, not like I never committed a felony. I’d ask Mabel and Dipper to help too, but they were super against this plan to begin with, so I didn’t bother. And I couldn’t find Soos for whatever reason. And you’re…cool with this?”

“Cool with committing a felony?” Wendy asked, and shrugged. “Yeah, man, not like I was doing anything today.”

“No, I figured you were okay with that, you work for Stan and all,” Shifty said. “I mean with…me. And such. Knowing that I’m…you know. Not strictly human.”

Wendy shrugged. “Eh. It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen in town. Besides, it’s not like anything changed. You’re still my boss’ assistant who likes superheroes and corny TV shows.”

“I’m your co-boss. I really don’t know how I can make that any more clear to you.”

Wendy shrugged again. “And Soos feels the same way, by the way.”

Shifty glanced at her, startled. “Do you two talk about me when I’m not around?”

“All the time,” Wendy nodded, and shook a burlap sack. “Now are we bird-napping this thing or not?”

“Fine, fine, okay,” Shifty said, a strange weight lifting off their chest. They didn’t care what Wendy thought of them. They never did. All the same, her indifference had never been a more welcome miracle. “You ready?”

Before them sat a large enclosure, hidden from the rest of the town and rarely seen. Inside, a bald eagle sat on a branch, looking out at the town placidly.

Wendy grinned. “Hell yeah, I’m ready.”

Shifty slinked out of the bushes, bashing a rock against the padlock on the door. It fell off easily, and the eagle glanced at them, curious.

“Nice birdie,” Shifty said, motioning Wendy into the enclosure. The eagle took several steps back as they approached.

“Yeah,” Wendy said, with much less trepidation. “Nice birdie.”

The eagle made an undignified squawk, and lunged for the open enclosure door. Wendy didn’t hesitate, opening the burlap sack and tossing it over the bird. Instantly, the eagle thrashed, but Wendy was stronger, easily keeping it under control.

“Nice, nice,” Shifty said, wriggling out of their shirt and jacket. “I don’t care what happens to the shirt, but if you lose the jacket I’ll fire you.”

“Dude,” Wendy looked disgusted. “Are you not wearing pants?”

“Take the goddamn bird, Wendy,” Shifty said dully.

“Fine, just–wait, oh my god,” Wendy’s eyes widened. “What’s going on with your chest?”

Shifty glanced down, wincing when they saw their scar. “Aw, crap, crap, crap…I didn’t even think of that.”

“What happened?” Wendy asked, looking slightly horrified.

“You…?” Shifty blinked. “You were there for it. You know. The, uh. Bunker.”

Wendy’s eyes widened even more. “O-oh my god, Soos never mentioned that, and I guess I didn’t put two and two together until now…you…you were the one after us–”

“It was a ruse,” Shifty said quickly, turning away from her, unwilling to face the possibility of her blessed indifference turning into fear. “I was just trying to get the journal, you weren’t in danger. Just…get the eagle out of here.”

“Dude–”

“Hurry, before someone gets back,” Shifty said. “I’ll figure something out to hide this, it’ll be fine.”

They dared to look back at Wendy, and found her expression unreadable. Before she could ask them to say anything further on the matter, they turned into a bald eagle, and glanced down at their chest. They pulled their wings a little closer and puffed up their fake feathers. It didn’t hide the scar perfectly, and they looked a bit strange, but it would be fine.

Wendy frowned, but didn’t argue. “If you’re sure.”

Shifty screeched, and Wendy winced, backing out of the enclosure, still clutching the real eagle in a burlap sack. She closed the enclosure door behind herself and fled.

Shifty crouched down, and took the biggest leap they could manage, flapping unsteadily onto the perch the real eagle had been on moments before, trying to get settled. They weren’t entirely sure how they were meant to pick Stan as the mayor. There wasn’t anything in the rules that said the eagle couldn’t waddle ungracefully to the winner. Hopefully Stan would manage to not mess up the debate too badly, and would have enough birdseed that they could still sell this.

Oh no, they thought abruptly. We’re fucked.

“Alright, Mr. Eagle!” A townsperson appeared, and paused when they saw the lock had been shattered. “Yeesh, we’re lucky you didn’t fly away, huh?”

Shifty chittered, staring back at the townsperson as he entered the enclosure. Odd, he didn’t seem to have any protective gloves on, and they were pretty sure you needed those. Shifty glanced at their talons, wondering how to stand on the man’s arm without puncturing his skin.

“Please don’t eat my eyeballs,” the man said, which seemed like a strange thing to say before he reached out and grabbed Shifty.

Shifty shrieked, not expecting that at all, thrashing wildly and beating their almost useless wings. The man yelped, holding Shifty as far away from his body as he could, his eyes half closed. “Not the face, not the face!”

Shifty twisted wildly, trying to get away, but the man had a good grip, and before they knew what was happening, they were shoved into a cramped birdcage, and the door to it slammed shut behind them. Shifty backed into the corner, and hissed.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Eagle,” the man said, panting. “Please don’t send me to bird prison.”

Just you wait, Shifty thought, managing to get a hold of themselves. They tapped their beak against the bars of the birdcage curiously, relieved to find them flimsy. They could escape in a second if they wanted too. No need to panic.

So don’t panic, they ordered themselves, as the mayoral candidates stepped out, waving cheerfully. Bud, Stan, and Tyler Cutebiker, the only candidate remaining that hadn’t dropped out of the race, though he didn’t have much backing, though not for lack of trying. It was hard to compete for attention against Bud and Stan.

Shifty cheeped a few times, trying to get Stan’s attention, but he ignored them entirely. Bud seemed strange, almost loose, like he was half-drunk, but he was still smiling at the crowd.

“What’s this?” They heard Shandra Jimenez say, and started squawking when they saw Soos stumbled onto the stage, blank eyed and wearing the tie. “A new candidate has entered the stage!”

Shifty screeched, and a few people sitting near them looked slightly nervous. “Man, he sure it riled up today, huh?” Someone said, scooting away. Shifty hissed at them.

Stan looked furious, peeking offstage, and paid no attention to the eagle in the cage. “Let the debate begin!” Shandra said, and rang a bell.

“First question,” someone at the front said–Manly Dan, based on the sheer size of the person, though Shifty didn’t have a great view. “What’s your position on axes? I mean taxes, whoops. These cards are tiny.”

Shifty’s heart sank.

“Easy!” Stan said. “Taxes are the worst! I propose we stimulate the economy by waging war on neighboring towns and cities. We have the cannons.”

Shifty groaned, and the crowd booed. Stan looked shocked by the sudden betrayal, looking at his empty birdseed tub as if he couldn’t believe it. “What? Uh, I mean-”

“I don’t know much about taxes,” Soos said dully. “But I can promise you a kitten in every pot. That doesn’t make sense, Mabel.”

Soos turned, pointing at an invisible person, and Shifty’s stomach sank even further. “You don’t make sense, Dipper!” Soos accused, and jerked strangely.

“Um,” Tyler said, looking unsure. “I think-”

“Fwends, fwends,” Bud Gleeful said, and Shifty couldn’t help but feel sorry for Tyler, and all the more hatred for Bud. “Can’t you see what’s happening here?”

Shifty hissed at Bud, but he didn’t even seem to hear them. Bud stepped forward, still loose. “These politicians are dancing around issues.”

“Actually, I think we can redirect some tax money from road maintenance to the high school library because most of the roads have been paved recently–” Tyler started, but Bud waved him off.

“I can sing around the issues!” Bud said, and ripped off his shirt to reveal a sparkly unitard in red, white, and blue. Someone tossed him a guitar offstage, and he immediately began dancing.

“Crime is bad, crime is so-so bad!” He sang. “Vote for Bud, and there ain’t gonna be no more crime!”

My god, Shifty thought, unable to believe that people were throwing their birdseed at Bud for that. We would have been better off fending for ourselves.

They screeched, beating their wings against the cage. “The eagle loves Bud!” Someone shouted, and the townspeople started throwing even more birdseed.

“A quick intermission!” Shandra said, and Shifty chattered, disoriented and worried.

They screeched again, trying to catch Stan’s attention, but he didn’t notice, looking anxious and sweaty. No one had any birdseed besides Bud, though Shifty supposed most of the town didn’t share their burning hatred for him. All the same, he was acting downright bizarre.

The intermission didn’t last long, maybe fifteen minutes, and when the candidates returned to the stage, Soos wasn’t among them. It was probably for the best that the kids released him from their service. He probably would have been confused if he blinked and suddenly found himself as the mayor. Stan was still doing terribly, Tyler couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and Bud was dominating with a strange new act of ‘being strange and almost sickeningly cute’.

“Um,” Stan said, sweating. “And that’s why the Statue of Liberty is our hottest landmark!”

The crowd booed. He and Tyler had no birdseed. It was getting to the point where there was no way Shifty would be able to believably appoint Stan as the mayor. This was probably a foolish idea anyway; the eagle kiss seemed more like a traditional thing than an actual decider.

Maybe I can tear Bud’s face off, Shifty thought, and perked up a little at the idea. They had long given up on trying to catch Stan’s attention. Where did the kids even go? Are they trying to find another last minute puppet mayor? Maybe I should have gone in with them on this eagle plan, they could have thrown birdseed at Stan or something–

“Help!”

Shifty froze, hearing a tiny voice echo down. Stan, somehow, also paused, looking perplexed.

“Help us!” This time, it was unmistakably Mabel.

Shifty screeched, thrashing in the cage. Stan whirled around, looking up at a half-finished statue that the town had been building in the late mayor’s honor, carved straight into the mountain. Out of the nostril, something fell, dangling by a piece of thin rope. The kids, tied together and hundreds of feet off the ground.

Tyler followed Stan’s gaze, and shrieked in alarm, pointing. The crowd gasped, and Stan’s color went gray. “KIDS!”

Shifty screamed.

“Debate’s over!” Stan said, panicked. “I gotta go save my family!”

“N-no!” Bud said. “Those are just some, ah, demolition dummies, no need to be frightened!”

Shifty resolved that they would tear Bud’s face off the first chance they got.

“CAN IT, GLEEFUL!” Stan shouted, and ripped off his lav mic. And for some reason, his sleeves as well. He sprinted off the stage with shocking quickness, racing towards the mountain.

Shifty threw themselves against the cage, knocking it down. The crowd gasped, captivated by them and Stan, and Shifty beat their wings violently against the bars of the cage, breaking out easily.

Bud cowered away from them, maybe sensing Shifty’s hatred, but they didn’t have time for revenge fantasies. They knew where Bud lived, this was a later problem.

“The bird’s getting away!” Someone shouted, and several people tried to grab Shifty. They took off running and flapping uselessly, probably the least dignified eagle of all time. The second they had cover in a bush, they turned into a rabbit, sprinting towards the mountain and after Stan.

Stan was mostly up the scaffolding by the time Shifty arrived, but they still turned into a squirrel, scuttling up the iron bars and catching up to Stan. “Go away!” Stan tried to shoo them away. “Get out of here, you damn rodent-”

Shifty squeaked, waving desperately. Stan squinted, looking surprised. “...Mouser?”

Shifty nodded frantically, and Stan looked like he wanted to ask more questions before they heard the sound of rope tearing, and the kids shrieked. Stan’s expression became serious and he scrambled up the scaffolding even quicker than Shifty could have predicted.

They began to follow, chittering angrily when the townsfolk began throwing birdseed at Stan, mostly hitting Shifty and preventing them from getting up the scaffolding quick enough. By some miracle, by the time they regained their footing, Stan was already pulling the kids up through the mayor’s nose, untying them from the chair. The town roared their approval.

Shifty breathed a sigh of relief, only for it to melt away when the mountain rumbled. “The explosives!” Dipper cried.

Stan’s face became determined, and he scooped the twins up. “Kids,” he said seriously. “If I die, make sure I get a bigger tombstone than Ford’s.”

The kids nodded, equally serious, and Shifty screeched a warning.

They were too late. The mountain rumbled again, and then exploded into an array of flaming rock and smoke. Shifty leapt to safety in a nearby pine tree, clinging to the branches as the world exploded into manmade shrapnel and debris. Their heart pounded, but they didn’t smell burning flesh, which was a relief, unless the Pines were obliterated so badly that smell was no longer possible.

They scrambled to the top of the tree, leaping closer to get a better look.

Below them, on the stage, Mabel, Dipper, and Stan had fallen into a massive pile of birdseed, thrown by the approving townsfolk, so large that they were practically swimming in it. They looked dazed, and were covered in dirt, but they were unharmed.

The town exploded into cries of approval.

Fuck it, Shifty thought, half-delirious with relief. They turned into an eagle once more, and screeched to regain attention. One person looked up and gasped. “Look! He came back!”

Shifty leapt off the tree, gliding down gracefully towards Stan and the kids. This time, they wouldn’t even have to pretend to pick Stan. The town had chosen him, loud and clear.

With no warning, a gust of wind picked up under their wings, and sent them tumbling to the ground with a screech of alarm. The town ‘ooh’-ed in sympathy. “Oh god,” Stan muttered.

Shifty picked themselves up, and tried to shake off the dirt, hopping up the stairs to approach Stan. He leaned away as they climbed up to him, and the kids blinked a few times, looking confused and maybe starting to recognize that the crease in the feathers across Shifty’s chest wasn’t just a strange quirk of a wild eagle.

“Alright,” Stan whispered reluctantly, holding his arm out. “Make it quick.”

Shifty chittered, a little annoyed, but managed to climb up Stan’s arm, nearly losing their balance several times. They paused when they were right next to Stan’s head, unsure how to bestow a birdly kiss.

“This is the most important part of the event,” Shandra told a camera quietly, watching with rapt attention. “The official announcement of the mayoral title!”

Oh, this was a terrible idea, Shifty realized, but it was too late to back out now. They reshaped the beak, making it lip-like enough to plant a serviceable kiss on Stan temple. Stan made a face, and Shifty chattered at him, scolding.

The town erupted into cheers, even louder than before. “MAYOR PINES! MAYOR PINES!” They chanted.

Shifty screeched, and paused when they saw Wendy at the front of the crowd, looking frantic. She wasn’t holding a burlap sack, and was trying to shout something at them. Shifty couldn’t hear her over the crowd.

Something slammed into Shifty, and they tumbled off the stage in a flurry of feathers and talons. The real eagle was attacking them, screaming in their face for their impersonation. The crowd exploded into shouts.

“And in a shocking turn of events,” Shandra said. “Two eagles have nominated Stan Pines! This has never happened before! This is unprecedented! This is-”

Shifty squealed, managing to get away from the eagles, darting into the bushes for cover once more. The real eagle followed, unsatisfied with their bloodlust, not relenting even as Shifty turned back into Remy.

“GET OFF!” They shouted, but the eagle just kept at it, beating them with its wings and trying to claw at their face. “GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!”

“Congragualtions, Mayor Pines!” Someone said.

“Thanks, sorry,” Stan said, and Shifty heard him rushing over. “I’ll be happy to bask in the glory momentarily. Let me just help my assistant-”

“CO-MANAGER–OW!”

“Ow!” Shifty winced, ducking away when Stan dabbed disinfectant on their scratches. “There has to be a brand of this that doesn’t sting.”

“Probably,” Stan shrugged. “But I ain’t buying it. It’s probably expensive.”

“Well,” Mabel said, ripping open a truly staggering amount of band-aids. “Even if they disqualified you, Grunkle Stan, you’re still the mayor to us!”

“It’s probably for the best that Tyler Cutebiker won, actually, even if Stan being mayor would’ve been fun,” Dipper admitted. “He was the only one who filled out the paperwork and was actually trying to answer the questions.”

“I hate eagles,” Shifty decided. “Do you know what that thing smelled like up close? Rotting fish. Why are we giving so much respect to a bird that smells like rotting fish?”

“Ooh!” Mabel hopped down from the chair she had been standing on. “Me and Dipper have something for you, Grunkle Stan. Stay here!”

She grabbed Dipper’s arm and raced out of the room, ignoring his squeak of protest. Shifty coughed, spitting out a mouthful of feathers. Stan gave them a look. “How’d those even get in there?”

“Don’t ask,” Shifty muttered. “God, what a day.”

“If you had told me you were going to kidnap a bird,” Stan said. “I would have changed my approach to the debate.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” Stan shrugged, popping the cap on the disinfectant. “Good news, I don’t think those scratches are gonna scar.”

“Finally, one good thing happened today,” Shifty said. “At least Bud Gleeful isn’t the mayor.”

“The kids said that Gideon was possessing him from prison apparently,” Stan said, and shrugged at Shifty’s surprised expression. “Just for the final debate, though. When they got stuffed in the mayor’s memorial statue.”

“Ugh,” Shifty scowled. “Even from jail he’s messing with shit.”

“Wanna go vandalize the jail?” Stan asked.

“Mm,” Shifty shrugged. “We wouldn’t know which cell was his. We could wreck Bud’s car lot, though.”

Stan grinned, a strange shadow of relief behind his eyes. “Hey, uh,” he coughed, a little awkward. “You know how every year, the other tourist attractions around central Oregon prank the Mystery Shack?”

“...it’d be kind of hard to forget,” Shifty said.

“Right, yeah,” Stan said. “So…I was thinking, instead of waiting around to get punked, why don’t we take the party to them? I was gonna rent an RV for a few days, take a road trip through the sticks and mess with any tourist trip we came across. The kids’ll love it.”

“Hm,” Shifty said, and shrugged. “Okay, sure. I can keep the shack running while you’re gone. I’ve done it before.”

“Yeesh, you’re dense when you wanna be,” Stan said. “You can come too, stupid.”

Shifty blinked, unable to hide their surprise. “What? Don’t you want to keep the shack open?”

Stan frowned, and shrugged. “It’s…not like it’s gonna matter for much longer. Might as well shut it down, just for a bit. Have some fun or whatever.”

“Oh,” Shifty said, still unable to shake their shock. “I…I guess I never thought about it like that.”

“So anyway,” Stan said. “Wanna come with?”

“...I think Dipper might be nervous about me coming along,” Shifty said slowly.

“He’s nervous about everything,” Stan said. “I’ll tell him to get over it.”

“I just, um,” Shifty said, nervous about being put on the spot. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Stan said jovially. “Not like you have a dog to look after or anything.”

“No, I know, it’s just…” Shifty wriggled, unsure how to phrase their thoughts. They didn’t hate the idea of the roadtrip. In fact, it sounded fun. They so rarely left Gravity Falls that the rest of the world seemed as mythical as the moon to them–a place that you could theoretically go, but was so far out of reach for themselves that it might as well be fake. They didn’t usually mind it, but the odd out-of-town trip always brought a good deal of excitement.

But they were sleepwalking, or not sleeping at all. They could set up their failsafes at home, but not in an RV, fighting for space. The thought of being that close with so many people, people who were so deeply fragile and with no place to run or hide, made them nauseous.

They thought of their body falling apart just a handful of days ago, peeling back layers of keratin to try and see what was underneath. They imagined melting away, their visage horrifying and waxy, unable to conceal whatever terrible thing had been kickstarted in them. Maybe they were dying. It wasn’t as terrifying an idea as they might have thought it would be.

They were taking too long to answer, and Stan was beginning to frown. “What?”

“...Stanford would be alone,” they said weakly.

It was the wrong thing to say. Stan’s frown was thunderous. “Who cares? He likes being alone. Hell, he doesn’t like anyone, really.”

“That’s not true,” Shifty argued. “He likes me.”

“Is that why you’re so scared of him?” Stan asked.

Shifty winced before they could stop themselves. “I-I’m not scared of him. Don’t be stupid.”

“Right, yeah,” Stan rolled his eyes. “That’s why you look like a deer in the headlights every time he enters the room.”

“Fuck you,” Shifty spat. “At least he doesn’t treat me like a burden.”

“I don’t-”

“That’s what you told me,” Shifty said, folding their arms. “In the basement. Surely your mind isn’t going already, you have so little to spare.”

Stan blinked, and a strange expression crossed his face. “I-I didn’t–look, what I meant was-”

“I don’t give a shit what you meant,” Shifty snapped.

“You know what?” Stan said, closing off almost immediately. “Fine. Fuck you too. Invitation taken back. If you’re gonna act like an asshole I don’t want you coming along. Stay here and rot with my brother who you don’t even like, who doesn’t even like you, see if I give a shit. Hope it’s worth it.”

Shifty blinked, trying to ignore the painful thing blooming in their chest. They couldn’t leave it at that, they didn’t want to just leave, allow Stan some kind of bitter victory, let him have the last word like this. They were never good at backing down from a fight, especially one they couldn’t win. The campaign had certainly proved that.

“I was going to betray you for Gideon.”

Stan looked perplexed, and Shifty realized they had been the one that had spoken.

“You…what?” Stan asked, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”

“When Gideon took over the shack,” Shifty said, their heart pounding in their ears. “He…he connected me to the journals, thought I was the author. He invited me here, and I came. He offered me a place back here if I worked for him. I agreed. The only reason that I didn’t send you packing was because he figured out I wasn’t the author after all.”

Silence fell over the room, suffocating and terrifying. Shifty could barely hear anything but their own shallow breaths.

“...and I wish I’d taken it. Then it…then everything would have been done faster,” Shifty said, having no idea if that was true or not. “Then I wouldn’t have to still be around you.”

Stan stared at Shifty as if they were a stranger. “...why are you telling me this?”

Shifty said nothing. They didn’t have to. There was no reason to ever tell Stan that, especially not now. It had only been revealed for one purpose, and one purpose alone: to try and hurt him.

And it looked like they were successful. It was a victory that tasted like bile.

Stan shook his head, and chuckled with no humor. “Right. Gotcha. Thanks. Well, glad you could get that off your chest. Fuck off.”

“Fuck you,” Shifty spat, turning on their heels before Stan could say anything else. The pressure was back, building once more. They needed to do something, something drastic to relieve the itch and the anxiety inside them, but anything they could think of involved large scale destruction or grievous injuries.

They turned the corner and froze.

Dipper was standing in the hall, ear pressed against the wall. He looked startled when he saw Shifty, turning the color of fresh snow. Shifty made a vague choking noise.

“I-” Shifty said, their throat dry. “Dipper, I-”

“Is that true?” Dipper asked. “That you betrayed us for Gideon?”

“I,” Shifty said, and found they couldn’t say any more. Dipper just frowned. He didn’t even look surprised.

“Got it!” Mabel bounded around the corner, holding some kind of knitted object, grinning. “Is Grunkle Stan still there-”

She paused, looking like she was practically smelling the dismal atmosphere. “What’s…what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Dipper said, going after Stan. “Shifty was just leaving.”

“What?” Mabel looked perplexed. “But he– wait!”

Shifty had made a break for it, their head spinning, half-stumbling through the halls. They just needed a minute to themselves, just a minute, and then they could formulate a plan, anything to figure out a way to just survive in the house with everyone, without feeling like they were on the verge of turning into something even more monstrous–

They practically fell into their room, and made a strangled gasping noise when they realized they weren’t alone.

“Oh!” Stanford stood at the closet, holding a cardboard box. “Hello. I haven’t seen you in a bit. Good Lord, what happened to your face?”

“Wha-” Shifty tried to say, their voice sticking in their throat like chewed gum. “Wha-”

“I needed some equipment,” Stanford said, holding up the box. “I had hoped it hadn’t been discarded, and I’m pleased to see it wasn’t. There’s a lot of comic books in the closet. Are they Stanley’s?”

For some unknowable reason, Shifty nodded.

“Ah, that makes sense,” Stanford said, and Shifty was oddly relieved to hear there wasn’t really any derision in his voice. “I suppose some things never change. Anyway, I’ll be out of your hair now, have a good evening–”

“Do you like me?” Shifty asked suddenly, in a humiliating whisper. They hadn’t even meant to say anything.

Stanford looked up at them. “What?”

Please don’t make me say it again, Shifty thought, but Stanford seemed to process it a second later, and looked confused.

“Why are you asking me that? Of course I like you. I care about you a great deal, in fact,” Stanford said.

Shifty studied his face, anxious. He looked sincere, even a little concerned as to why Shifty would ask that. But they couldn’t tell if Stanford meant it, or if he had just gotten much better at lying in the last thirty years. With a strange sort of terror, Shifty realized they were trying to read Stanford like they read Stan, and was coming up empty. Stanford was a mystery to them now. He might as well have been a stranger. Maybe he always was.

“Is…that all?” Stanford asked, still looking a little thrown by the question.

Shifty nodded. What else could they possibly say?

“Oh, by the way, it’s a mess in here,” Stanford said, carefully stepping over debris and boxes. “You really should clean up, you’ll end up hurting yourself.”

Shifty made a sort of half-shrug, half-nod motion that Stanford seemed to take as affirmation, because he smiled in a way that was both alien and familiar, ducking out the door. “Goodnight, Shifty.”

He closed the door behind him, leaving Shifty alone once more, surrounded by scattered pieces of a life.

Chapter Text

“Live, on Gravity Falls Public Access,” the TV said, and Shifty stared blankly at the screen, upside down on the armchair because at least it was something new. “Seven straight hours of infomercials!”

Shifty sighed, and turned off the TV. Even they had a limit of what they were willing to put themselves through to take their mind off of everything.

They heard a shuffle, and glanced over, slightly surprised to see Stanford emerge, looking determined. He looked more exhausted than usual, and Shifty wondered if he was still doing perimeter checks. Based on the Stanford-shaped shadow that passed by their room window at night, it seemed likely.

He was carrying several books and dusty looking scrolls, and a few more in a large suitcase, spreading them across the living room table. “Family meeting!” He shouted, looking urgent. He spotted Shifty and paused, looking surprised. “Oh! Good morning, Shifty, I’m glad you’re here. You should hear this too.”

The kids appeared in the doorway, looking perplexed. “Ah, children! Come in, hurry.”

“Hey, Remy!” Mabel waved.

“What’s going on?” Dipper asked, ignoring Shifty completely. Their heart sank.

“There’s something of great importance I must discuss with you all. Where’s Stanley?" Stanford asked. “I suppose it’s only responsible that he hears this too.”

“I think he’s outside, giving a barrel full of pugs to someone,” Mabel said.

Stanford looked perplexed. “Pugs?”

Dipper nodded. “When I asked, he said the American Kennel Club’s been after him for years and to watch our backs for Bichon Frises. Those are their attack dogs.”

“Hm,” Stanford said, like that made sense. “Very well, I suppose it’s unlikely this will affect him.”

“Ooh, mysterious scrolls!” Mabel said, hopping up onto a chair next to Stanford. “Are you going to tell us we’re finally of age to go to a wizard school that doesn’t have any kind of baggage because it’s 2012? Is there an owl in there?”

She reached for the suitcase, and Stanford snatched it away. “No no! No owls. He passed on some time ago.”

Mabel looked heartbroken.

“I need to know,” Stanford said, grabbing a scroll. “Do either of you recognize this symbol?”

He held up a vaguely familiar poster, and Shifty sat up as the kids leaned away, looking frightened.

“Oh,” Shifty said, speaking only from the vague surprise. “Will?”

“WILL?!” Dipper and Mabel shrieked at the same time.

“No, it’s Bill,” Stanford said, confused and worried.

“I know that!” Dipper said, wide-eyed and staring at Shifty in a strange panic. “How do you…how do you know Bill?! Did he talk to you? Did he try to make a deal with you?!”

“What?” Shifty asked.

“I take it from your reactions that you’re familiar with him,” Stanford said gravely. “This is extremely serious. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how dangerous he can be.”

“Dangerous?” Mabel scoffed. “Puh-lease. We already defeated him twice. Once with kittens and once with tickles!”

“It was a lot more heroic than it sounds,” Dipper said quickly, glancing at Shifty again. “How do…you know Bill?”

“Bill’s in the journals, bro-bro,” Mabel said, nudging Dipper. “Remy probably just read about him, right? He didn’t even know his name.”

Shifty nodded, their voice gone once more.

Dipper frowned, mostly soothed, but still worried. “Great Uncle Ford, how do you know Bill, then?”

“I’ve encountered many dark beings in my time, Dipper,” Stanford said evasively. “What matters is his powers are growing stronger by the day. We need to protect the house, and those who reside inside it. Fortunately, there should be a way to shield us from his power.”

Stanford grabbed a few scrolls, rummaging through them until he muttered a small ‘a-ha!’. “Right, there we are, all I need to do is place moonstones around the house, bury some mercury, and–”

Stanford made a face like he had smelled shit. “Ugh. And unicorn hair to draw an actual barrier.”

“UNICORN?!” Mabel squealed, and Shifty winced.

“That’s not like, rare, is it?” Dipper asked.

“It’s hopeless,” Stanford said, casting a concerned look at Mabel. “Unicorns reside in a deep, enchanted glade, and only deal with those pure of heart who go on a magical quest to find them-”

“GRUNKLE FORD!” Mabel shrieked. “I DON’T THINK YOU HEARD ME THE FIRST TIME WHEN I SAID ‘UNICORN’! UNICORNS ARE REAL?!”

“No, Mabel, I heard you, it would be very hard not too,” Stanford said. “And yes, they’re quite real.”

“You have to let me go on this quest!” Mabel said, practically vibrating. “I’m literally obsessed with unicorns! My first word was unicorn, I once made my own unicorn by taping a traffic cone to a horse’s head and got banned from a petting zoo, and are you even looking at the sweater I’m wearing right now?!”

She gestured wildly to her sweater, handmade by herself with a knitted unicorn on the front of it. “Not to mention, I’m probably the most pure of heart person in the room.”

Can’t argue with that, I guess, Shifty thought, continuing their silence.

“So can I go on a mission to get that hair?” Mabel asked. “Please, please, please! I’ll give you my blood!”

“A blood oath won’t be necessary,” Stanford said. “Though I appreciate the offer of one nevertheless. The quest is your’s, but it won’t be easy. You’ll need this.”

He handed her the first journal, and Mabel’s eyes lit up. “Oh!” Stanford said, fishing a crossbow out of his bag and giving it to her. “And this as well.”

“Ooh!” Mabel said, handling the crossbow with far too much ease. Shifty hid behind the couch, already seeing where this was going.

“Aw, can I have one?” Dipper asked.

“Later,” Stanford said, and then paused. “Oh, I haven’t been in this dimension for a while, actually, is it okay to give children weapons?”

“Pfft!” Mabel said, and Shifty peeked out from behind the couch to see her grinning. “Come on, dog!”

The crossbow made a small pew! noise, and the arrow shot from the holster. Shifty ducked again with a yelp, and the window behind them shattered.

“IT’S THE FUZZ!” They heard Stan shout. “GUN IT!”

There was the roar of an engine, and Mabel looked momentarily guilty. “There’s more arrows hidden behind the couch outside,” Stanford said helpfully.

“Awesome!” Mabel said, sprinting out to the gift shop.

“W-wait!” Shifty gasped, running after her, a little relieved to have an excuse to leave Stanford and Dipper alone.

“Remy!” Mabel grinned. “Isn’t it great? I’m going on a unicorn quest!”

“Unicorn quest?” Wendy asked, seated behind the register and reading a magazine. “That’s a thing?”

“Magazine away!” Shifty warned, and Wendy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah!” Mabel said. “Wanna come?”

Wendy looked thoughtful for a moment, and shrugged. “Sure, not like I’m doing anything.”

“Excuse you?!”

“Yay!” Mabel grinned. “I’m gonna get Candy and Grenda, girls’ trip!”

“Woah, hang on,” Shifty said. “Stanford may be cool with you running in the forest after some kind of creature with a crossbow and nothing else, but I’m not.”

“There’s a crossbow?” Wendy perked up.

“No,” Shifty said firmly, plucking the crossbow from Mabel’s grasp. Both girls wilted. “Look, I–this is important, for this Bill guy, whoever he is, I get that. Fine. But I’m coming with. There needs to be at least one actual adult.”

“Are you an adult, though?” Wendy asked. “Like, because in shapeshifter years, you might just be a baby.”

“I’m more adult than you!” Shifty said, and then realized that made them sound extremely childish. “Look, I’m coming, okay? For my own peace of mind.”

“Oh, um,” Mabel frowned. “I-I don’t know if you can, Remy. I don’t know the unicorn lore for real unicorns, but in stories, unicorns run away from boys or spear them with their horns. It depends. I don’t think we’ll get that unicorn hair if you come. I’m sorry.”

“...you’re joking, right?” Shifty asked.

Mabel looked confused.

Shifty sighed, and spread their arms out. “Abracadabra.”

They changed their hair, face, and body in an instant. The t-shirt fit differently, and somehow, worse than before.

“Woah!” Mabel looked amazed. “You’re an old lady!”

“I–” Shifty blinked. Their voice was different too. “I’m not old, I’m the same age I was before. Just a woman now.”

“You were old before too,” Mabel shrugged. “Is this gonna work? Does this count for unicorns?”

“I think the thing they would get me on is not being a human, not lying about being a proper human woman,” Shifty said. “It’s probably fine.”

“Wait, so,” Mabel still looked confused. “Are you a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Shifty said, and gestured to the door. “Call your friends and let’s get out of here.”

“Dude, wait,” Wendy said, following an overjoyed Mabel and bored Shifty. “Are you Alanis Morrisette right now?”

“Uh, no, I don’t know who that is.”

“Wait,” Grenda said, trailing after Shifty. “Should we call you Remy with an ‘I’ now?”

“What difference does it make?” Shifty asked, ducking out of the way of a branch. Wendy was chopping through the undergrowth, but Shifty was still tall enough that branches were getting in their face.

“It’s a huge difference!” Candy said. “Because you are a woman now. Welcome to a world of high heels, makeup, and unsolicited advice.”

“And that’s why this is temporary,” Shifty said, rushing forward. “You two talk amongst yourselves. Mabel!”

Mabel glanced up, and smiled when she saw Shifty. “Hey, Remy! Having a good quest?”

“Sure, sure,” Shifty lied. “Uh, so who is this Bill guy?”

Mabel’s smile disappeared. “Um…”

“I need to know what we’re dealing with,” Shifty said. “You and Dipper said you were going to tell me things now, remember?”

“This is different,” Mabel said. “A-and also, you didn’t tell us things.”

Shifty winced. “That was different, too.”

“Still,” Mabel said, and for a moment Shifty thought she would clam up. But she frowned, did a strange uncomfortable wriggle, and sighed. “You saw Grunkle Ford’s pages, right? That he’s some kind of weird dream demon.”

Shifty nodded.

“Well, a bit ago, Gideon made a deal with him to steal the combination to Grunkle Stan’s safe from his head so he could get the deed,” Mabel said, like it was completely fine to drop that on Shifty. “He failed ‘cause Dipper, Soos, and I defeated him and so Gideon just wrecked the house.”

“He–?!” Shifty sputtered. “What?!”

“And, um,” Mabel frowned, suddenly looking nervous in a way Shifty had never seen before. “Um, the second time was worse. It was during my puppet show, when he was trying to figure out the laptop. H-he was so tired and not thinking straight, and Bill showed up and promised he would give him the laptop code if he got a puppet in return. Dipper figured he meant one of my puppets, so he agreed, but, um…”

Mabel went quiet, and Shifty waited an entire three seconds before saying: “And then…?”

“...he meant Dipper would be the puppet,” Mabel said quietly, and Shifty’s heart skipped a beat. “He…he possessed him to try and get the journal.”

“...oh,” Shifty said, Dipper’s strange behavior recontextualizing in a second. They felt ill, and inexplicably like they were still missing just a few key pieces to a puzzle. “He…was acting weird. He said something to me he shouldn’t have known.”

“What did he say?” Mabel asked.

“How did you get rid of him?” Shifty asked quickly.

Mabel grinned. “Tickled him so much that he booked it.”

“What?” Shifty said, and then shook their head. “Sure, whatever, fine. What was in the note then?”

Mabel instantly looked nervous all over again. “W-what note?”

“There was a note inside the car,” Shifty said. “I saw Dipper drop it in Stan’s car before we went into the theater, and he was still possessed then. What did it say?”

Mabel still said nothing, and Shifty sighed. “Mabel…”

“...just bad stuff,” Mabel said quietly. “Like…like that he was having fun hurting Dipper. And he wanted to hurt me and other people. And…and when he was done, he was going to throw Dipper’s body off the top of the water tower.”

Shifty sucked in a sharp breath before they could stop themselves. “W-what?”

“...it was pretty bad,” Mabel said, and for a second, she looked like she wanted to say more, but she plastered a smile across her face. “S-so that’s why we gotta get this hair. So Bill can’t hurt anyone else in our family.”

“Our?” Shifty said, more startled by their inclusion than they wanted to admit, but Wendy stopped swinging her ax and looked back.

“Hey,” she said, pushing a few branches aside. “Is this your magical glade?”

She had revealed a clearing covered in pink and purple wildflowers, tall stones dotting the landscape, covered in strange ruins. The grass looked strange; greener, almost too green.

“It smells like magic,” Shifty said, wrinkling their nose. “Like cherry cough syrup.”

Candy’s eyes widened. “You can smell magic?!”

“Um-” Shifty said, wishing they hadn’t said anything.

“What do I smell like?” Grenda asked, waving wildly. “Smell me, smell me!”

“Focus, ladies!” Mabel said, seeming to sense Shifty’s discomfort, and they sent her a grateful look. She pulled out the first journal, flipping through it. “The journal says to summon a unicorn, we…aw, I should have read ahead. We have to bellow an ancient chant, droned only by the deepest voiced druids of old.”

“ON IT!” Grenda said, grabbing the journal and stepping forward. She cleared her throat, and impossibly, her voice got even deeper as she chanted in a language Shifty didn’t recognize, reading out of the book.

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, surprised.

Candy nodded. “She’s very good. She took lessons in the fifth grade for a while.”

“I bet you ten bucks nothing happens,” Wendy said.

“Double or nothing,” Mabel said. “No takesies backsies.”

Stan would have been proud of her for that.

The ground rumbled, and like a vampire rising from a coffin, an ornate golden gate decorated with flowers rose from the ground. The gate shuddered, and opened up, and Shifty was blasted with a floral scent that felt more like taking an entire bottle of cheap perfume directly to the face than anything else.

The girls gasped, and Shifty coughed.

Inside the gate, a peaceful glen with a babbling brook sat undisturbed, swarming with candy-colored butterflies. In the center, an equally colored horse sat upon the rocks, and when it turned its head, Shifty saw a spiraling horn protruding from its forehead.

Shifty hadn’t expected it to look so much like a toy from the bargain bin, but the younger girls looked enraptured.

Mabel held out her hand, and Wendy sighed, placing twenty bucks into her hands.

“Hark!” A grating voice emitted from the unicorn, feminine enough, and its horn flashed in time with the words, though its mouth never moved. “Visitors to my realm of enchantment!”

“Oh my god,” Shifty muttered, having an inkling on how annoying she might be.

“Oh my god!” Mabel squealed. “What’s your name?!”

“I am Celestabellabethabelle,” the unicorn said, her hair blowing in a breeze that Shifty couldn’t feel. “The last of my kind.”

Those are just sounds, Shifty thought incredulously, but just barely kept themselves from saying that.

“Come in, come in,” Celestabellabethabelle said, motioning with her horn. “Just take off your shoes, I have a thing about shoes.”

The younger girls immediately complied, and Wendy and Shifty tried to sneak by. “Ah ah!” Celestabellabethabelle said. “I’m talking to all of you!”

Wendy sighed, peeling off her muddy boots, and Shifty paused, looking down at shoes that weren’t real. “Um, I have a medical condition.”

Celestabellabethabelle managed to look perplexed. “What kind of medical condition?”

“Woah, okay,” Shifty said. “That’s kinda personal, we just met-”

“Oh, fine,” Celestabellabethabelle huffed. “Just…just stay over there, then.”

Shifty shrugged, mostly relieved they didn’t have to get closer to the overwhelming perfume stench.

“Celestabellabethabelle,” Mabel said. “We have journeyed far and wide-”

“About an hour,” Grenda said.

“-on a mission to protect our home with your magical hair!” Mabel finished.

“Very well!” Celestabellabethabelle said. “To receive a lock of my hair, step forward, if you be a girl of pure and perfect heart!”

Mabel grinned, doing a little spin as she stepped forward. “Presenting…Mabel!”

There was a moment of stillness, and then Celestabellabethabelle blinked, looking taken aback. “What?! You?!”

Mabel looked confused. “Um…me?”

“A unicorn can see deep into your heart, child,” Celestabellabethabelle said, scolding. “And you have done wrong. Wrong, I say!”

“I-I…” Mabel frowned, looking doubtful. “I guess I do make fun of Dipper a lot. And I just shattered a window with a crossbow. And I still don’t know where I put Remy’s House of M comic.”

“Wait, what?” Shifty asked.

“Your bad deeds,” Celestabellabethabelle said, her face screwing up. “Make me…cry!”

A singular tear dripped out of her face, falling onto a pink flower. The flower shriveled up immediately, and the floral stench was suddenly slightly easier to bear. Shifty was relieved, but Mabel cried out in horror.

“Come back when you’re–” Celestabellabethabelle reared up, her front legs windmilling in the air, more wind blowing her mane about. “PURE OF HEART!”

She landed with a little less grace than she had gone up with, and the group went silent for an awkward moment. “...that’s all,” she said simply. “Exit is that way. Don’t forget your shoes.”

Mabel looked absolutely crushed as they trailed out, clutching her shoes in her hand. “Hey Mabel, don’t let her get to you,” Grenda said.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust a horse that wears makeup,” Wendy said.

“And it’s not even good makeup,” Shifty said, glancing back at the gate as it closed behind them. “Okay, can I say something controversial?”

“I’m intrigued,” Candy said.

“...so I could totally take her,” Shifty said.

“Oh, good, we’re thinking the same thing,” Wendy said, pulling out her ax. “You hold her down, I’ll just start chopping hair off–”

“NO!” Mabel said, jumping in front of the gate. “Are you crazy?! We can’t do that! Don’t you see, she’s right! I used to be one of the sweetest people I knew, but I’ve been backsliding recently! This is the wakeup call I needed, and today I’m gonna fix it!”

“...do we have too?” Shifty said. “That sounds like a lot of work. We could just have her scan Wendy’s heart and she’d probably explode. We can scrape what’s left off the walls.”

“Too far,” Grenda said.

“Yeesh, sorry.”

“No violence!” Mabel said. “From this moment on, I’m gonna do so many good deeds that Celestabellabethabelle’ll have no choice but to give me her hair! Come on ladies and maybe Remy! There’s a whole town that needs Mabel!”

“Dude,” Wendy said. “Give it up. You’re Alanis Morrisette.”

“I’m not,” Shifty insisted, trudging back to the glade after many exhausting and somewhat irritating hours of do-gooding. They had absolutely refused to go back to the shack, and had filled their goodness quota by buying lunch for the girls. It endeared them to Mabel’s friends, at least, who really weren’t so bad when they stopped questioning Shifty about their abilities.

“Like three people asked if you were, you look exactly like her,” Wendy grinned. “Come on man, clearly you’re a fan–”

“Shut up, we’re here,” Shifty said, ducking into the garden. Celestabellabethabelle perked up, looking surprised to see them back.

“Celestabellabethabelle!” Mabel bounded forward. “I’ve committed over one thousand good deeds today! Scan my heart, I’m ready!”

“Oh, Mabel,” Celestabellabethabelle said. “I don’t need to scan.”

Mabel grinned.

“I can already see,” Celestabellabethabelle tossed her mane. “That you are not pure of heart.”

“Boo-yah!” Mabel said. “I-wait, what?”

“How is that even possible?! Wendy exploded. “Mabel’s a literal saint!”

“Tell me what I’m doing wrong!” Mabel pleaded. “It’s not about the hair anymore–”

“Um! It is!” Shifty said quickly.

“-it’s about being a good person!” Mabel said. She looked close to tears. “I just wanna be a good person!”

“Doing good deeds just to earn points isn’t good at all,” Celestabellabethabelle said. “Not to mention you’re crushing, like, ten dandelions right now.”

“Those are weeds!” Shifty protested as Mabel scrambled to her feet in a panic.

“Shoes!” Celestabellabethabelle said shrilly, and Shifty groaned as loud as they could, trudging back towards the door to the garden. The unicorn turned back to Mabel and snorted. “Sorry, Mabel, it’s not my fault you’re a bad person.”

Mabel stepped back, making a noise like she had been stabbed. Wendy’s hand drifted towards her ax, but Mabel burst into tears, sprinting out of the garden.

“Mabel!” Grenda and Candy rushed after her, and Shifty glared at Celestabellabethabelle, venomous.

“Do you even care what this is for?” They demanded.

“She’s not pure of heart,” Celestabellabethabelle shrugged.

“That’s stupid,” Wendy said. “You could change the rules. Careful, you’re with two people who definitely aren’t pure of heart and don’t care about staying that way.”

Celestabellabethabelle snorted. “What are you going to do, grab me and shave me?”

Shifty inched forward.

“Besides, I have plenty of friends in the forest who would be willing to help me,” Celestabellabethabelle said, and trotted away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a three o’clock posing in front of a rainbow that I will not be late too.”

She trotted off, and Wendy and Shifty exchanged a meaningful look before rushing out of the garden to find Mabel, hunched over by a creek that was way too sparkly, wiping tears from her eyes. “Hey,” Wendy said, kneeling next to her. “Don’t worry about that stupid unicorn.”

“We can forget about the unicorn hair,” Candy offered.

“It’s not about the hair anymore,” Mabel said. “It’s about me. Being a kind and sweet person is what makes me who I am! If I’m not that, who am I?”

“Mabel, you’re like the sweetest person I know,” Shifty offered. “That dumb horse’s head is full of sparkly rocks.”

“Remy, you barely know anyone! That doesn’t count,” Mabel said. “I’m not leaving this spot until I think of a deed that makes me as good as Celestabellabethabelle!”

“Mabel-” Grenda tried, but Mabel turned away, scribbling furiously in her notebook.

“Hey,” Wendy whispered, jerking her head over to the treeline. Shifty grinned, following her and desperate to commit equine violence. Grenda and Candy followed as well, looking perplexed.

“Guys, this has got to be rigged somehow,” Wendy shook her head. “Mabel’s like the best person I ever met. We tried getting that hair the nice way. Now we gotta do it the Wendy way.”

“Nice,” Shifty said. “So, do you want to get clippers or just use the ax? The ax is quicker, but if I get her really still and you have clippers we can just shave her bald completely–”

“No way, dude,” Wendy shook her head. “You heard her. She said she’s got friends. If she calls for help, who knows what’s gonna come out of that forest?”

“There’s no way she has friends,” Shifty argued.

“That’s probably true,” Wendy admitted. “But we can’t risk it. We need a better plan.”

“One with violence?” Grenda asked. “Sabotage?”

“Mabel won’t like that,” Candy said quietly.

“Are you gonna tell her?” Shifty asked, and Candy frowned, but didn’t argue.

“Look, it’s time we stopped trying to be perfect and be who we really are!” Wendy said, getting amped up. “We’re crazed, angry, sweaty animals! We’re not unicorns, we’re fricking WOMEN! AND WE TAKE WHAT WE WANT!”

She punctuated her statement by punching the nearest tree, so hard that pinecones fell from above. Grenda and Candy cheered, bloodthirsty.

“Oh my god,” Shifty said, a little disturbed.

“Oh, uh,” Wendy coughed. “Women and Remy. I think. I dunno and neither do you. Whatever, listen up, here’s the plan…”

Wendy nodded at Shifty, and they sighed, shrugging off their shirt and jacket. “Don’t lose these.”

“Woah,” Grenda said, her eyes widening at Shifty’s scar. “What happened?”

“Uh,” Shifty frowned. “Birthmark.”

“Are you not wearing pants?” Candy asked.

“Enough about the pants,” Shifty said, and transformed into a badger that looked like it would fit perfectly into a storybook. The younger girls cooed.

“Are you sure there’s actually a gnome tavern?” Shifty asked, examining their little claws.

“Aw!” Candy cooed. “Talking animals!”

“This is just like a movie from Rat Cartoons!” Grenda said.

“Oh my god,” Shifty huffed.

“Yeah,” Wendy pointed at a twisting willow tree. “The journal says gnome criminals hide out there. There has to be someone who can help us take down a unicorn.”

“This is ludicrous,” Shifty said, but sighed, padding over to the tree. There was a knot of roots, leading into the trunk, but they couldn’t quite see far enough inside to make out whatever lied in the twisting bark. They glanced back at the girls, and Candy offered Shifty a thumbs up. They sighed again, and ventured inside.

This is stupid, they thought, nearly grumbling aloud. A gnome tavern, of all the ridiculous things, there’s no way the journal says–oh my god.

They came across an ornate door, and without a second thought, used their head to shove it open.

Inside was what could only be described as a whimsical dive bar. Gnomes sat alone or in close pairs, whispering suspiciously to each other and sipping sweet smelling liquid out of thimbles. The bartender was cleaning a thimble with a piece of lace. It was so ridiculously adorable it was starting to irritate Shifty.

They huffed, padding over to the bar. The bartender–a gnome with an eerie scar across his face–frowned. “Don’t get many badgers around these parts.”

“I’m one of a kind,” Shifty said, and the gnome looked slightly surprised.

“A talker, huh? Don’t get many of those either,” he said, which was infinitely more confusing as to why the gnomes were serving random animals that happened to wander into a gnome bar.

“What’ll it be?” The gnome asked.

“Um,” Shifty said. “What currency do you even accept here?”

The gnome bartender glared at them, and Shifty coughed. “Actually, I don’t even need anything. I need some, ah…business done. Business that needs to be kept rather secret. Perhaps you know someone who could help me with that.”

The bartender’s scowl deepened. “You a cop?”

“The opposite,” Shifty assured him. “I’ve committed several felonies, actually.”

“Hm,” the gnome said, not looking like he quite believed them. “...see the fellow behind you? Don’t make it obvious that you’re looking. The one with the sharpened acorn. He might be able to help you.”

“Good,” Shifty said. “Um. Thanks? Do you guys say thanks for this sort of thing?”

“I don’t care for your odd ways, badger,” the gnome snarled, which was warning enough for Shifty to abandon speaking to him immediately.

Shifty scuttled over to the gnome, who was stabbing in between his fingers with the tip of a sharpened acorn. He stared at Shifty as they sat down in front of him, and smiled. His teeth were stoplight yellow.

“Heard you needed help with a little something,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“A unicorn something,” Shifty said. “Taking one down. Not permanently, but maybe enough to shave a little off the top, if you catch my drift.”

“Fairy dust is what you need,” the gnome shrugged. “Everyone knows that fairy dust’ll knock out a unicorn, easy peasy.”

“Easy peasy,” Shifty repeated. “How does one acquire fairy dust? And–oh, shit, is it carcinogenic? Like pixie dust?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Actually, nevermind, I don’t care,” Shifty decided. “Can you get us fairy dust?”

“For a price,” the gnome said.

“Right, great,” Shifty said, and then perked up. “...you know the tourist trap at the edge of the woods? The Mystery Shack?”

“Sure,” the gnome said. “Can’t go near it without getting chased off by one of the humans up there. There’s something funny ‘bout him.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” Shifty said, fighting the urge to smile. “What if I could work something out where those trash cans are all yours’ to go through?”

The gnome blinked, looking surprised. “...you’re lying. How’re you gonna keep me from getting chased off? By the funny one.”

“I have my ways, trust me,” Shifty said. They leaned forward. “The old one has his grand niece and nephew for the summer. And I have it on good authority that those kids are picky and throwing out perfectly good food. Chicken bones, day old salads, stale bread and moldy cheeses. All your’s. You just gotta get me some fairy dust.”

The gnome hummed, sitting back and looking thoughtful. “...you got yourself a deal, Mr. Badger.”

Shifty grinned, reaching out a badger paw. The gnome shook it. “Excellent.”

“You got her in your sights?” Shifty whispered, back in a woman disguise, because at this point an all-female strike team seemed to feel appropriate and good for camaraderie.

“Mhm,” Wendy said, clutching a bag of fairy dust. “Give me a second.”

Obtaining the fairy dust had been a breeze, and Shifty fully intended to continue to chase away all gnomes that approached the shack, in monstrous forms if that had too. Gnomes attracted raccoons, for some reason, and then the cans would be rattling all night long.

It was dusk now, and they had snuck past Mabel, just outside the unicorn’s garden, and Mabel had still been furiously trying to come up with a deed that would absolve her of all mistakes, past, current, and future. So far the best she had come up with was cleaning Stan’s bathroom, and Shifty didn’t think anyone deserved that punishment. Least of all Mabel.

So sabotage it was.

Celestabellabethabelle was reading a book titled Eat, Prance, Love, humming to herself. “Well sure,” she muttered, half to herself. “I’d love to travel, but it’s hardly feasible in this economy.”

Shifty was spared from wondering how in the world she might travel when Wendy threw the bag of fairy dust in a clear, soaring arc above the babbling brook and flowers. The bag hit Celestabellabethabelle right in the nose, and exploded into glittery pink powder.

Celestabellabethabelle reared back, surprised. “What the–?!”

She never finished her sentence, collapsing almost immediately.

“Nice,” Shifty grinned, emerging from the brush with the younger girls. Celestabellabethabelle made a strange, whinny-like snore, and Shifty wished they had a camera. Wendy withdrew a long pair of scissors, grabbing a chunk of Celestabellabethabelle’s mane, lining up the snip–

“WAIT, STOP!”

Shifty jumped, whirling around to see Mabel sprinting into the garden, looking panicked. “Mabel, sh!” Wendy said, looking equally startled. “You’ll wake her!”

“But this is wrong!” Mabel said, looking close to tears once more. She snatched the scissors away from Wendy.

“It evens out!” Shifty whispered frantically. “Without taking her hair, the shack is vulnerable! Greater good!”

“What?” Celestabellabethabelle said, abruptly waking up. Shifty bit back a curse, vowing to chase off the gnome that had sold them fairy dust that lasted so short. “What is this?!”

Celestabellabethabelle’s gaze focused on the scissors in Mabel’s hand. “Doth my eyes deceive me?!”

She sprang to her feet, posing as dramatically as she could, still a little wobbly. “No! You shall never be pure of heart!”

“No, please, you don’t understand!” Mabel pleaded, and burst into tears all over again. “I just wanna be good like you!”

Shifty wasn’t even sure how to combat Mabel’s breakdown, not when they were so close to one themselves, but luckily, a rustle at the edge of the enchanted forest saved them.

“Woah, woah, woah, you gotta be kiddin’ me!”

From the treeline, two more unicorns emerged, looking vaguely irritated and much less rainbow-y than Celestabellabethabelle. Shifty’s mouth fell open, and so did everyone else. Save for Celestabellabethabelle, who simply looked mortified.

“C-Beth,” one of the unicorns said, the blue one. “Are you still running this pure of heart scam?”

“Scam?” Mabel asked shakily, her face still wet and a little snotty.

“Guys,” Celestabellabethabelle said, less than ethereal. “Shut up.”

“Kid,” the other unicorn said, a dark pink one. “All our horns can do it glow, point to the nearest rainbow, and blast rave music.”

A loud and grating song echoed across the glade, and the red unicorn bobbed his head along to the beat before the song disappeared again. “All this pure of heart biz is just to get humans to leave us alone. Wait, dude, is that Alanis Morrisette?”

“Oh my god,” Shifty groaned.

“You…” Mabel’s voice was so incredibly small and fragile. “You lied to me?”

“...no,” Celestabellabethabelle said uneasily. “It’s…it’s more a vibes based thing than a strictly horn based thing, but…”

“Oh, you are so full of it,” Wendy said.

“I have been running around all day,” Mabel said, her voice becoming stronger. “Doing good deeds based on VIBES?!”

Mabel threw the scissors aside with reckless abandon. Instead of breaking down all over again, her resolve seemed to turn to iron. For the first time ever, Mabel was well and truly pissed off. It was terrifying.

“I CLEANED UP THE ENTIRE DOWNTOWN!” She shouted. “I GAVE WADDLES A BATH AND NOW I THINK HE HATES ME! I WAS GOING TO CLEAN MY GRUNKLE’S BATHROOM, AND THAT HAS RAINBOW MOLD IN THE SHOWER! MOLD ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE RAINBOW! All this time, I thought I was the bad one, and it was YOU ALL ALONG!”

“Okay, fine!” Celestabellabethabelle said, tossing her hair. “We have more hair than we know what to do with, and we keep it to ourselves to tick humans off! So what?!”

She grinned, which Shifty didn’t even know was possible for a horse. It was an ugly grin, and she sneered. “What are you going to do about it, huh? What are you gonna do?”

Shifty opened their mouth to say something vaguely threatening, but Mabel beat them to it.

Her fist swung out, connecting with Celestabellabethabelle snout hard enough to wrench her horse head sideways. Shimmering blood spurted from her nose, staining Mabel’s hand.

The younger girls and Shifty gasped, and Wendy started laughing. “WOO-HOO, GO MABEL! DON’T TUCK YOUR THUMB IN YOUR FIST!”

Mabel looked shocked for a split second, staring at her knuckles, and then her face grew steely and downright dangerous. The other unicorns pawed the ground nervously, tense.

“I’M GETTING THAT HAIR!” Mabel swore, and ripped the unicorn off her sweater altogether, tossing it to the ground. “MY FAMILY NEEDS IT!”

“Oh, it’s fight you want?” Celestabellabethabelle said, wiping the blood away from her nose. “Then it’s a fight you’ll get!”

Shifty grinned. They had been worried she would never ask.

They stumbled out of the garden later on, bruised, bloody, and banned from the enchanted forest for the rest of their lives, but undeniably victorious.

Mabel was covered in blood, mostly unicorn, clutching the hair in her black and blue knuckles, smiling like she’d won the lottery. “I think that was a really good bonding experience for us.”

“Yeah!” Grenda said. “I’m gonna make my mom sign me up for kick-boxing!”

“Me too!” Candy agreed, and punched the air a few times. “Hi-ya!”

“Stan should teach you to box, Mabel,” Shifty said, their heart aching a little bit at the thought. Stan had tried once or twice with them, but they were far stronger than him to the point of it being a little dangerous to practice with each other. “You’d be lethal.”

“Thanks, Remy!” Mabel said, looking overjoyed with the comment. “Maybe I’ll ask him!”

“All in all, good day,” Wendy decided. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but she had returned the favor doubly to her attacker.

“Sorry your hero turned out to be a jerk,” Shifty said.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Mabel said, and glanced at the torn spot on her sweater. “I guess I’ll put something else here that I love. And it was still fun! It felt pretty good to whack Celestabellabethabelle’s dumb face. Um, does that make me a bad person?”

“Not even a little,” Shifty said.

Mabel smiled, but Shifty could see a little bit of relief behind her eyes. “Oh, the first one to the house gets leftover Summerween candy! Three, twoonego!”

Mabel took off like a rocket, and Candy and Grenda chased her, shouting that she wasn’t being hair, that she had cheated on the countdown, but none of them looked actually upset.

“You’re not going?” Shifty asked, seeing Wendy was still keeping pace with them.

She shrugged. “Eh, I’d smoke ‘em. What about you? You don’t want candy?”

“I’m tired,” Shifty said. “And anyway, I know where they hid their stash. I’ve been dipping into it all summer.”

“What?! Dude, don’t hold out on me.”

“Come into work on time for a week and I’ll tell you.”

Wendy made a face, and Shifty almost laughed, abruptly changing back into Remy Wagner. Instantly, they realized their mistake. Wendy looked uncomfortable, staring at Shifty like they were a strange and unidentifiable animal, one that could be harmless or harmful.

Part of their brain begged them to let the conversation lapse into silence, but the rest of them was screaming for some kind of conclusion to the bunker-shaped sword hanging over their head. No matter how it ended.

“...I shouldn’t have scared you,” Shifty said suddenly, forcing the words out. “In the bunker. I-I thought I needed the journal, and when you found me first, I panicked and turned into the first thing I could think of, that guy on the bean cans. When you found me out, I guess I just decided to go all in instead of trying to diffuse everything. It was stupid.”

Wendy looked surprised, and considered this. “...it wasn’t that scary,” she finally said. “It was mostly just freaky because I had to fight myself. Felt like a movie. A bad one.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Shifty muttered. “It’s not like I was overjoyed to be you.”

“Hey, I’m great,” Wendy said, and coughed. “Sorry you got axed.”

“You didn’t swing it.”

“Yeah, but it was mine,” Wendy said. “So…it’s at least twenty five percent my fault. Eh, maybe fifteen. Still.”

“...thank you,” Shifty said slowly. “That…thank you. I accept your apology.”

“You took the ax like a champ, if it helps,” Wendy said, and then shuffled. “So…are we cool?”

“What?”

“With the whole ‘our group tried to kill you and you pretended to try and kill us’, and also lying to us about, like, everything,” Wendy said. “We’re cool?”

“...yes,” Shifty said slowly, a weight lifting off their chest that they hadn’t even known was there. There was still a deep, terrible fear and dread, as well as loose threads left flapping in the wind, but for a moment, just a moment, it was a little easier. “We’re cool.”

Wendy grinned. “Nice, man. You know, I don’t know why you don’t use your powers for fun. That’s what I would do. Think of what I could get away with.”

“I shudder to imagine,” Shifty said dryly, but couldn’t keep themselves from smiling. “And who’s to say I don’t use it to get away with stuff?”

“Please,” Wendy rolled her eyes. “You’re way too lame to try and have fun with it.”

“What’s the supposed to mean-” Shifty started, and then froze.

They could smell it, once more. Ash, metal, and the faintest hint of rot, that utterly unfamiliar scent that had haunted them a few times over the summer, the one they had purposefully been trying to ignore.

“Dude?” Wendy nudged them. “You kinda cut yourself off there.”

“Uh,” Shifty said, unable to stop themselves from turning towards the scent. It was clearer, now. The wind was pushing it towards them, and for the first time, there was a clear trail to follow.

“Remy?”

“I’m fine,” Shifty said, gesturing vaguely. “Go ahead, I…there’s just something I have to do.”

“What kind of something?” Wendy asked.

“It’s okay,” Shifty said. “I’m fine, I swear, just…I’ll meet you back there.”

Wendy looked doubtful, but after a moment, began to trek away, following the younger girls back to the shack. Shifty stood completely still, letting the scent fill their nose, becoming more and more familiar with it by the second. It was an old smell, one that felt nearly ancient, but it was difficult to tell why.

They followed the trail, making their way through thick brush before they found themselves that the edge of Farmer Sprott’s land. They could have hidden their jacket and shirt, turned into a squirrel to explore in secret, but doing that felt like committing to a level of secrecy that they were uncomfortable with right now. They hopped the fence, merely hoping that he wasn’t patrolling with a double barrel shotgun. They weren’t even sure if he did that, but it felt accurate to him.

A few cows stared placidly at Shifty as they walked past the herd, but no one tried to stop them. They climbed to the top of a hill, overlooking most of the town, and paused. The scent was stronger than ever, beneath a large stone.

Hesitantly, they moved it, startled to find a metal hatch hiding beneath it. Instantly, a chill went down their spine, wondering if they had found a stranger entrance to the bunker, maybe one that was never completed. They had a hard time imagining that the rock was there by coincidence, after all. Someone was trying to hide this hatch.

The scent was stronger than ever, practically calling to them. In a flurry of determination, they opened the hatch.

The bunker did not lay inside, though Shifty had already half come to that conclusion themselves. The bunker was not this deep. The bunker was not this dark. The bunker didn’t smell like this.

The hatch opened to a rickety looking ladder, allowing access to a metal tunnel that led straight down into the underground, so dark that even Shifty’s eyes couldn't pierce the blackness. The smell was nearly overpowering, though they suspected that was due to their rising panic. Just looking down into the abyss gave them vertigo, and their fingers gripped the grass, digging into the soil as if to remind themselves that they were not underground, they were above it. They could feel the setting sun on their head, smell the nearby cows, hear birds and bugs chattering in the nearby forest–

Something made a noise inside the darkness.

It sounded distant, and it was echoed and distorted, so much that Shifty couldn’t even begin to discern what it was. Nevertheless, they slammed the hatch shut in a panic, scrambling back and trapping whatever lay inside. Their heart pounded, and they felt ill.

There was no logic behind their fear, other than the general distaste for dark, small spaces underground. But even as they heard they felt the wind on their skin, smelled the Oregon summer, their fear did not abate. Something deep inside them was frightened of the strange metal hatch, and even more terrified of the sounds that echoed within.

Maybe it was hidden for a reason.

Without a word, they pushed the rock back to where it had been, and made their way home.

It was well into the evening when they finally returned home, still a little shaky. Owls announced their return, as well as the occasional cry of a lonely coyote. Shifty was pretty sure it was hanging around the shack, but didn’t have the heart to chase it off.

The light was nearly gone, but they could see a silhouette on the porch, almost as if standing vigil.

Stan stood, completely still, staring at Shifty. Shifty felt all the air exit their lungs.

The coyote called out, long and mournful, and Shifty saw a flicker of light in front of Stan’s face before it disappeared and became a dim glow. A cigarette, then. It had been years since Shifty had seen him smoke. They still didn’t move, warring emotions fighting for dominance in their chest.

A shadow appeared at the screen door, and Stan dropped his cigarette, stomping it out just before Dipper emerged, saying something to Stan that Shifty couldn’t quite hear. Stan shrugged, and Dipper looked out at the woods, pausing when he saw Shifty.

Shifty realized that the magical barrier must be up by now. Stanford probably set it up the moment Mabel delivered the unicorn hair with a slightly bloodthirsty smile. They wondered, for the first time, if the barrier would count them as a threat, something to be expelled by any means necessary. Maybe whatever was so dangerous about this Bill was the same thing that was dangerous about them; the capacity for violence, the capacity to lie, being a time bomb that was gradually tick-tick-ticking away to an inevitable conclusion–a deadly explosion.

It was a terrifying thought, one that made it hard to breathe for the umpteenth time.

Stan and Dipper were still watching, waiting to see what they might do. A flash of anger went through them at the thought of failing to cross the threshold in front of them. They wouldn’t fail like that, not in front of them.

Without a word, Shifty turned on their heel, and retreated into the forest. No one tried to stop them.

They didn’t come home that night, too frightened of what they might do if they found themselves barred from their own home.

Chapter Text

Shifty watched Stan from the treeline, hidden and crouched in thick brush, waiting for him to leave with the same energy as one waiting to be shot.

It had been less than a full day since they had fled, preferring to spend a night in the woods than risk getting publicly exiled from the house. True to his word post-election, Stan was loading up an RV, almost certainly grumbling to himself about why he was the only one packing said RV. Mabel was laughing with her friends, Dipper was inside–and probably with Stanford–and Soos was trying and failing to duct tape a suitcase to the top of the RV.

Shifty was in the shape of a mouse, oddly sore from it. Getting smaller had been difficult lately, compressing into a miniature form almost downright painful when they did it now. But they couldn’t risk being spotted.

Dipper emerged from the house, lugging his own suitcases that almost certainly had only one change of clothes and no toiletries. Stan said something to the girls that they couldn’t hear, and Dipper hopped on the RV almost immediately, Soos clambering after him.

Candy and Grenda piled into the RV, squealing, and Mabel said something to Stan with a frown. He shrugged, ushering her into the car.

Shifty expected Stan to climb in as well, but he paused, turning back to the forest, staring at the trees intently. For a moment, Shifty thought he might have seen a monster with how still he was, but then Stan cupped his hands around his mouth.

“MOUSER!” He shouted, loud enough that Shifty winced.

A not insignificant part of Shifty wanted to emerge, head hung low like a dog that got caught tearing into furniture. They twitched, tiny paws scraping at the dirt.

“MOUSER!” Stan shouted again, and a flock of birds fled a birch tree. A robin scolded him for yelling.

Stan frowned, kicked at the dirt, and ran his hand down over his face, suddenly looking downright ancient.

Shifty swallowed the urge to appear once more, and slinked back farther into the bush. Stan scanned the forest one final time, climbed into the RV, and disappeared behind the doors. The RV sputtered, backfired, and then began to putter away. Shifty heard the suitcases on top fall off and crash to the ground, and they hoped they weren’t important. For the sake of Soos and the kids.

They counted to one thousand, and emerged, shaped as Remy Wagner. They grabbed their jacket, tossing it on as they approached the house, their heart pounding.

They could see a thin line in the ground, light dancing in it like an oil spill, and smelled cherry cough syrup faintly in the air. They stood at the threshold, realizing they didn’t know for sure what would happen if they stepped over it and were rejected. Maybe it would simply shove them out rudely. Maybe they would explode.

The unicorn hair shimmered on the ground, crushed moonstones catching the sun like a child catching a bug. The smell was just present enough to be annoying. If they didn’t make a move soon, they’d end up with a headache. And that would only make things worse.

“Okay,” they whispered, and shut their eyes tight. Unwilling to let themselves stay in limbo any longer, they threw themselves over the barrier.

They landed on the other side with no issue. No sound, no smell, no touch. It was as if nothing was different.

Shifty felt a wave of relief go through them, and with it, a wave of exhaustion. They hadn’t slept in the woods, too scared that they might sleepwalk off a cliff or something. Their bed practically sang to them now, or at least the couch they were pretending was their bed until the summer ended.

Now that they thought about it, bonelessly slinking into the house, summer was almost over. They had no idea what they were going to do once it ended, though they knew what would happen. Stan would move out of the house he had lived in for thirty years, likely leaving the town altogether, maybe finding greener pastures, but probably not. Stanford would make the place his own again, trying to pull something familiar out of the wreckage of his life, both preserved and buried in equal measures. Shifty had no idea where that left them.

It was like trying to cling onto the back fenders of cars zooming in the opposite directions, both of which speeding towards their own creative hells. Where could they go, anyway? What was even out there for them? It didn’t seem like much. A world far less willing to tolerate oddities than Gravity Falls lay beyond the town borders.

“I’ve seen the world,” Stan had said once when Shifty asked about his travels, in a more morose mood. “You ain’t missing much.”

They turned the corner, and nearly ran face-first into Stanford.

Shifty jumped back automatically, on edge and already half-prepared to flee, and Stanford’s hand instantly flew to the blaster on his hip before he stopped, looking relieved. “Oh! Shifty, it’s you. You startled me. You aren’t going with the others on their road trip?”

Shifty shook their head, finding that once again, their voice had failed them. “Ah,” Stanford said, looking a little perplexed. “Well…I suppose we’ll have to avoid barrelling into each other over the weekend.”

He smiled thinly, and Shifty didn’t return it, positive they would grimace instead. Stanford stepped aside so Shifty could go down the wall, and they practically scuttled away, far too exhausted to make a graceful escape.

“Why aren’t you in your base form?”

Shifty winced before they could stop themselves, and glanced back at Stanford. He looked confused again, and a little concerned. “...Stanley’s closed down the shack. There’s no one here but us. There’s no reason to stay in a human shape.”

“...my jacket,” Shifty managed to say, their voice oddly hoarse. “...I don’t want to rip it.”

“When was the last time you returned to base form?” Stanford asked.

It had been when they collapsed into their true shape the night before Stanford came home, when they had shattered their mirror and broke down into tears for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Maybe it was. Instead of saying this, they shrugged.

Stanford looked even more concerned. “Shifty, that could be incredibly dangerous. I admit I don’t know everything about your physiology, but from what I gathered in my tests years ago, it could be quite hazardous if you go without returning to base form for too long. Have you noticed any side effects during long stints without rest?”

Shifty almost laughed, and they felt a phantom numbness on their face. They shrugged instead, but their heart was pounding.

Stanford frowned. “That much effort must be taxing, and could be physically harmful to you if you aren’t careful. I don’t know how you’ve matured over the years, but–”

“It’s fine,” Shifty said, just barely biting out a sentence. Stanford blinked, and looked even more worried, seeming to notice for the first time how quiet Shifty was.

“...I know you may be reluctant to answer,” Stanford said, and Shifty nearly laughed again. “And I know…I know this is likely a source of turmoil for you, but we’ll settle into a true routine soon, I promise. I don’t wish to add any undue stress to you.”

“...sure,” Shifty said, and nearly winced when the word came out sharper than intended.

Stanford frowned. “I…I understand that you’ve experienced a good amount of distress in my absence. Even in my presence. That was…that was never my intention. I would never purposefully–”

He cut himself off, looking like he was just barely restraining himself from some kind of rant. He rubbed the bite mark on his hand, probably without even meaning too, but Shifty still looked away.

“...I think it would be best for both of us,” Stanford said softly. “If we were to move forward. I think…I think dwelling on the past will only bring more pain. It’s best to let old scars be.”

Shifty’s chest and palm throbbed.

“In short,” Stanford said, adjusting his glasses. “I think the best course of action is to look to the future instead of looking back. Wouldn’t want to end up like Orpheus.”

He grinned like he had shared some inside joke, but Shifty merely blinked, not understanding the reference. Stanford looked like he was waiting for Shifty to smile or laugh back, but after a moment, merely coughed, looking embarrassed. “Ah…well. I think…I think it’s the best way forward, wouldn’t you agree?”

“...sure,” Shifty said, their voice a little raspy. They felt vaguely dizzy, like the house was swaying back and forth, not enough to throw them off their feet, but just enough to make them uncomfortable.

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Stanford said. “Have you, ah. Heard from Fiddleford?”

Shifty felt something twist in their belly like something writhing with a broken back.

“...everyone seems quite intent on changing the subject whenever I ask,” Stanford said softly. “I know you two weren’t, ah, especially close but–”

“I don’t,” Shifty managed to say, and then had to pause. They felt oddly breathless. “I don’t know where he is. Maybe he. Maybe he went home.”

“...maybe,” Stanford said. He didn’t look convinced at all. “That…I’m sure he’s wildly successful by now.”

Stanford smiled again, and this time it looked like a proper grimace, like he was in pain. Shifty viciously wanted to say something about Fiddleford going home to his wife and child, just to see how Stanford might react, but it seemed like a lot of energy to say all those words, and they were so tired and hungry.

“Just…” Stanford rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, and Shifty was violently reminded of Dipper in that motion. “Just take care of yourself. Alright?”

Shifty nodded once, worried that trying to speak once more might shake something loose. And they already felt so incredibly fragile.

Stanford made a strange gesture, the one he had done when he had first returned home, raising his hand halfway as if about to reach out for something, only to balk when Shifty looked at him strangely. “I…” he coughed, looking embarrassed. “I’m sure you have things to attend to. I won’t…I won’t keep you any longer.”

Shifty didn’t even bother nodding this time, beelining straight for their room.

They refused to drop shift, even as the vertigo increased, their body went numb and buzzing, and they had to sit down until it passed. They couldn’t even muster up the energy to be fearful of it anymore.

Shifty woke up, and instantly knew it was going to be a bad day.

The RV had returned approximately thirty six hours ago, before which Shifty had not seen Stanford once. The only interesting thing of note besides their own deterioration was that they had had to chase off a group of very angry tourist trap owners who were determined to exact their revenge on the Mystery Shack. Stan and them hadn’t spoken when he returned, but for a moment, Shifty thought they saw a flicker of relief in his eyes. But it was gone just as quickly as Stan lumbered for the kitchen, loudly announcing that he wanted a soda.

Dipper had ignored them, Mabel and her friends had waved, and Soos wasn’t there for some reason.

Mabel had chattered to them excitedly, telling them about how much fun she had, the places she went, and the spider lady that tried to get with Stan and then kill him. Before they could ask any follow up questions, she had apologized for not being able to get them a souvenir, and then scampered off to collect her suitcase. Shifty had immediately retreated to their room and stayed there the rest of the night.

Now, it was morning, and they were awoken with no fanfare to the sun shining through the window, directly into their eyes. They groaned, feeling oddly dizzy. Their body didn’t hurt, and it didn’t feel numb–they had woken up to numbness more than a few times–but there was a strange energy buzzing in their skin that they didn’t like, as though microscopic needles were trying to push their way through their skin from within the muscles itself. They wriggled, deeply uncomfortable and far too exhausted to wonder what the new symptom might be.

With as little fanfare as they could, they tossed on the same wrinkled shirt from the day before, their jacket, and made their way out the door, immediately met with Waddles in the hall, snuffling at the ground in hopes of finding something good. They grunted in greeting when they saw Shifty.

“Remy!” Mabel appeared around the corner, scooping Waddles up. “You’re finally up!”

“Didn’t sleep great,” they shrugged, quickly closing the door so Mabel didn’t see the mess their room had been devolving into. Broken glass, discarded food, and upturned boxes littered the floor, quickly making it look like a hoarder’s room. They couldn’t find the energy or will to clean it up.

“Well, I’m glad you’re up now,” she grinned. “You can help with birthday stuff!”

“That’s today?” Shifty said, and then realized they probably should have played it cool, like they knew about it all along. “Uh, I mean–”

But Mabel merely grinned. “One week until Dipper and I are officially teenagers, isn’t that crazy? PG-13 movies, here we come!”

“I’ve seen you watching a PG-13 movie,” Shifty said, relieved they hadn’t missed the actual day. “You’ve seen Clueless at least twenty times.”

“Yeah,” Mabel said. “But now it’s, like, official. Maybe mom will let me watch Pretty Woman.”

Shifty knew just enough about the plot of that movie to doubt that, but they didn’t say that. “What do you need me for?”

“You can help me and Soos spread the word!” Mabel said, pressing several invitations into Shifty’s hands. “We’ll need the manpower, Dipper’s gone for the day–”

“What?” Shifty asked, perplexed. Dipper was a lot of things, but he wasn’t one to skip preparations of any kind. Especially if it was for something he wanted to do, like turning into a teenager. “Why isn’t he helping you?”

“Oh, I guess you didn’t see,” Mabel said. “Grunkle Ford grabbed him to help with some kind of expedition. I dunno the details, they left pretty fast. I think it was important.”

“And you’re…” Shifty frowned. “...okay with that?”

Mabel nodded, but seemed to realize Shifty wasn’t buying it completely. “I-I mean…it’s okay. Someone has to pass out invitations and stuff, and I like doing that! And Dipper wants to hang out with Grunkle Ford, he promised he’d be back at the end of the day to help me out. I believe him, he knows how important this is. Are…you okay?”

“What?” Shifty asked.

“You were upset when Dipper left you out of his game by accident.” Mabel said. “Are you upset that they’re leaving you out—”

“No,” Shifty said, maybe a little more harshly than they meant. “I don’t care.”

Mabel looked doubtful. “Also, um. Are you okay? Like physically? You look a little…sick.”

“What?” Shifty asked, looking down at themselves, suddenly terrified that Mabel could see something that they couldn’t feel. “What do you mean?!”

“Just, you know,” she said uneasily. “Also, you might wanna wash that shirt. And that jacket. And everything. No offense.”

“This is the only shirt I have,” Shifty said.

“Oh, you’re as bad as Dipper,” Mabel shook her head sadly. “But are you okay?”

“I’m great,” Shifty said, rifling through the posters. “So, are we going to deliver these or what?”

Normally, Mabel would have split into a metallic smile, but now she simply frowned slightly, looking thoughtful. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight,” Shifty said, managing to smile.

“...okay,” Mabel said slowly, trailing to the door. “If you’re sure.”

Shifty stood outside of Soos’ truck, staring at the high school, uncomfortably hot in the summer sun and waiting for Mabel to return from checking to see if they could set the party up in the gym. Apparently, she was expecting the whole town to turn up.

It struck them that this was the first time they had been alone with Soos for longer than a few seconds since his birthday.

“Jeez,” Soos said. “She’s been in there a while.”

“High school registration is today,” Shifty said. “She’s probably just trying to get her bearings.”

“Maybe,” Soos shrugged.

Shifty glanced at him out of the corner of their eye. He didn’t seem afraid of them, but it was sort of hard to tell. It wasn’t that Soos was good at hiding his emotions, or even that he was particularly invested in doing so. It was just that a lot of his facial expressions were the same.

Shifty took a breath, leaning against Soos’ truck. The exhaustion was weighing on them more than ever, and they were grateful they could get rid of eyebags if they wanted too. Their head was pounding in the bright sun, and they wondered if Soos had any sunglasses they could borrow, though they didn’t want to ask.

“What are you getting them for their birthday?” Soos asked. “I got Mabel down, but I’m kinda stumped on Dipper. I dunno where to find an encyclopedia of cryptozoology like he said he wanted. I don’t even think those are real words.”

“Mhm,” Shifty said, scratching absently at their skin. “I, uh. Didn’t think about it yet.”

“What?” Soos asked.

“Hm?” Shifty said, squinting hard enough that their eyes were mostly closed. Soos was just a blur.

“Dude, your voice sounds weird,” Soos said.

“No it doesn’t,” Shifty said, and realized their words were slurring.

“Um,” Soos said, sounding a little panicked. “Do you smell toast?”

“What?” Shifty asked, their voice sounding very far away. The dizziness felt worse than ever, and they looked down abruptly, trying to get their bearings.

Something strange must have happened. Everything went fuzzier, and then very loud and very quiet at the same time, like white noise overwhelming everything at once. They felt themselves tilting and spinning, which was odd because they were pretty sure they were standing, though they really weren’t sure anymore.

What they were sure of was a tingling numbness, this time spread all over their body, and what wasn’t numb was trying to release itself from human shape.

No, they thought desperately, the only clear thing in the haze of confusion. No no no.

Stanford’s warning floated through their head, much to their irritation. Their body tried to surge, like waves breaking over a seawall, pounding against a concrete barrier that had begun to show wear and tear over the years.

No no no, they thought desperately. No no no.

Somehow, the sea wall held.

They blinked several times, finding themselves sitting on the ground, leaning against Soos’ truck. “-here, dude,” Soos was saying, looking panicked. “I-I’m gonna get Mabel, then we can go to the hospital.”

“N-no,” Shifty managed to say, horrified by the idea.

“Dude, I think you’re having a stroke,” Soos looked terrified. “Your face looks weird.”

“What?!” Shifty said, and realized that half of their face was still numb and tingling. They grabbed at the numbness, blinding trying to push sagging flesh back into place. At least the sagging wasn’t as drastic as usual.

“Don’t grab it!” Soos said, reaching out for Shifty.

“Don’t touch me!” Shifty snapped, damn near barking the command. They felt drool pooling in their hand, and shuddered.

Soos froze, looking surprised and a little startled. “Dude, you’re definitely having a stroke or something, we gotta–”

“It’s fine,” Shifty said, poking and prodding desperately at their face to try and force it back in order, mortified. “I-It’s fine, this happens.”

“Um,” Soos said. “I don’t think it does.”

“I’m not…” Shifty sighed, disgusted at the feel of their flesh beginning to pool behind their hands. It felt like putty. “My body can do this. It’s fine.”

“...you never did it before,” Soos said, looking suspicious.

“I, uh,” Shifty said. “I have a cold.”

Soos blinked, looking amazed. “A cold did that?!”

Shifty nodded, resisting the urge to rip away the rebelling flesh like it was far more vestigial than it was. They probably would have tried if Soos hadn’t been there. “I’m fine,” they said, taking a shaky breath. “Do you…do you have water or something?”

Soos practically dove into his car, retrieving a water bottle and offering it to Shifty, screwing the cap off for them. They immediately took several large sips of the water, a little put off by the warm taste, but desperate for it nevertheless, pouring what was left over their head when they couldn’t take the temperature anymore.

“Dude,” Soos said, still alarmed. “You sure you don’t smell toast?”

“I’m fine,” Shifty said again, not bothering to hide the edge in their voice. “I’m tired and I have a cold. This is just what happens if I have a cold.”

“...am I gonna fall apart if I get your cold?” Soos asked tentatively.

“This is a ‘me’ cold,” Shifty said, managing a breath of relief when they felt some feeling beginning to return to their face. They hauled themselves to their feet, ignoring Soos’ worried look, staring at their reflection in the car window. Their face was beginning to move back into place, slowly but surely. They commanded their skin to fall into an orderly shape, and this time it responded, though they winced at the feeling.

“...does it hurt?” Soos asked.

“No,” Shifty said. “Just feels like pins and needles.”

“Dude, seriously,” Soos said. “That was super freaky, maybe you should–”

“Maybe you should mind your own business,” Shifty growled, pinching the bridge of their nose. Their headache felt even worse. “I said I’m fine, so I’m fine, okay? Drop it.”

Soos went quiet, and they forced themselves not to look at him. “...okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

Shifty said nothing.

Mabel emerged from the high school, looking much more despondent than when she had entered it, clutching the walkie talkie and frowning at it. “...lost the signal,” she said quietly. “I was trying to keep in touch with Dipper, but he’s out of range, I think.”

“What’s with the face?” Shifty asked, trying to keep their voice light.

“Um,” Mabel said. “Remy, what was high school like for you?”

“I didn’t go to high school.”

“What?!” Mabel looked surprised.

“How would I go to high school?” Shifty asked. “I don’t legally exist. I’m pretty sure you need papers for that kind of thing. I never went to school at all, actually."

“How do you know stuff?” Mabel asked, looking amazed.

“I just learned?” Shifty said, a little perplexed. “I don’t know, I had a lot of time on my hands. I figured it out.”

“Maybe I can skip high school,” Mabel said, looking excited. “I already know how to read and count. I think that’s all you really need.”

“I thought you were all excited to go to high school,” Soos said, opening the truck door for her. She hopped in, and Shifty half-collapsed into their own seat. Luckily, Mabel didn’t seem to notice.

“Wendy’s in there,” Mabel said. “She said high school is terrible.”

“Wendy doesn’t know anything,” Shifty said.

“I dunno, she seemed pretty convinced,” Mabel said. “What if I go all through high school, and I never meet an Australian hunk who at first dates me for money, and then falls in love with me and my quick-witted personality and gets me an expensive guitar to apologize for our prom miscommunication?”

“I don’t know how often that happens in real life,” Shifty said. “Do you even play guitar?”

Mabel looked unconvinced. “Soos, how was high school for you?”

“Oh, dude, I dunno,” Soos chuckled, starting the truck up. It sputtered, a little sickly, but lurched forward. “I blocked it out big time.”

Shifty elbowed Soos, and he seemed to realize that might have been a bad response. “Um,” he said. “Don’t we need to deliver invitations to your friends?”

“Yeah!” Mabel perked up, though it looked a little forced. “Yeah, we do! Straight ahead to Elm Street, Soos! We have party invites to deliver!”