When Gravity Falls and Earth becomes Sky

Chapter Two

The room was horribly silent for the next few minutes, it seemed like no one really knew what to say. Stanford looked incredibly awkward, and the other man— Great Uncle Stanley— looked just as confused as I expected him to be. The presence of Stanley Pines was shocking, because as far as I knew, he was supposed to be dead. He was a stereotypical old man, he looked a bit rougher than Ford did, and his outfit was less than flattering. He was clad in nothing but an old tank top, a pair of striped boxers, and some old, mangy slippers. I couldn't fault him for this, though. After all, this was his house. 

After enduring some more painful silence, Stanley was the first one to speak up.
"Welcome to the Mystery Shack, kid. Sorry for your grandpa's behavior. He's been a bit skittish recently," he concluded his sentence with a hearty laugh, smacking his hand into the stomach of his brother, who groaned at the impact. 

"Stanley, please-" Ford brushed off his coat, coming off as a neat freak, despite his slightly disheveled hair and ripped up coat. As far as I had seen, Ford seemed to carry himself very professionally. He took himself way too seriously and didn't seem to have time for immature jokes-- at least not the kind Stanley was making. "As I was saying before, to Stanley," Ford continued, "I shouldn't have slammed the door like that, I was just... very surprised. I never thought of myself as a grandfather. I was even surprised to know I was a grunkle," he glanced towards Mabel and Dipper then back to me. 

"But you know about your son, right? I mean, It's probably been a while since you've seen him, he said you disappeared when he was, like, seven," I told him, hoping he at least remembered that he had offspring. 

Ford was deep in thought, I saw it on his face. He furrowed his eyebrows and placed a six-fingered hand to his chin. "Yes," he said quietly, "Of course I remember him. I just never thought I'd meet his child. I didn't even know he had a child."

"Well, you were gone for a majority of his life. It royally screwed him up, by the way. After you went missing, and Grandma no longer had any child support or shared custody agreement or whatever, she and her son moved out east and landed in a little town in Utah. So, where the hell were you all those years?" I asked him, still itching for answers to my millions of questions. 

Stanford thought the question over, deciding how to answer. "That's going to take a while to explain... I'll tell you about it later." 

I was appalled. How could he just brush that off? Surely the answer couldn't have been that complicated. "Look, if you just ran out on him, that's fine. I mean, it was a shitty thing to do but, like, I don't have any qualms against you, personally speaking."

"No, no, it wasn't anything like that, I promise," Ford defended, shaking his head. "It's just... complicated. I can't dump the whole story on you right now. I promise, I'll give you an answer soon, but for now... let's get to know each other. We're family, after all." He smiled kindly at me and as much as I wanted to be angry at him, I found myself smiling back. Stanford's presence was warm and inviting, like he was naturally kindhearted. His brother was almost the opposite, intimidating and rogue, but I wasn't here to talk to Stanley. Although, I probably should speak to him. He was family, after all, as Ford would say.

"Yay! Family bonding time!" Mabel shrieked, wrapping her arms around me and Dipper. Dipper was less enthused than his sister, groaning awkwardly as he was pulled into the embrace. He shrugged Mabel off, pulling himself away from us, but he didn't look entirely opposed to the idea of a family bonding time. 

"Mabel, quit bein' weird," Stan said, giving Mabel a little tap on the head with his newspaper. "Hey," he started again, "Why don't we go out on the town, hit the casinos! you're over eighteen, right?"

"That's not a family event, Stan," Ford argued, crossing his arms over his chest. He was very obviously the brains of the family, like me. Stan rolled his eyes at his brother, but thought over his statement.