Chapter Text
Normal. You're Normal. Nothing wrong with you. Nothing anyone can prove without extensive blood testing in a government lab, at least. Normal.
Normal as a monster can get
The words ran as a messed up mantra in Stanley's head, looping and twisting over themselves until they lost all meaning.
Normal.
What does normal mean anyway?
Conformity.
Conforming is easy enough. Unless you don't know what the thing you're supposed to conform to is.
Normal is the expected. The conventional and mundane.
Stanley Pines is a normal man, mundane and conventional as can be, and certainly not a monster in human skin. Or, mostly human skin, he supposed. He's not sure anymore. Not sure about anything, really.
The last two years have been one unending series of paradigm shifts if he's being honest. Not even sure which way is up anymore.
He could almost laugh at that if his situation weren't so literal. Sometimes he did forget which way was up. Gravity was so insignificant at times.
And speaking of Gravity... He glanced down at the postcard in the passenger seat of his car, the words Gravity Falls staring back up at him innocently. Stan huffed out an irritated breath, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. This was… it was too good to be true. He couldn't trust this. Someone must have gotten to Ford for him to even think about sending him any kind of message.
Tobias
Hell, he should just ignore the postcard and go back to Dead End Flats and the unending heat of New Mexico. Rico thought he was dead. Well, most everyone thought he was dead after the Nevada incident. If he never saw another military transport truck it would be too soon.
No. This was fine. Not a trap. Not like Vegas. Ford didn't, couldn't, know what had happened in Nevada.
...unless he was working with them
No.
Normal. As far as his brother knew, Stanley was perfectly normal. He just had to keep up the act a while longer until he reached Oregon and… whatever the next step was, he could keep himself together until then.
He had to stay in control.
His guts twisted in a familiar knot as he shook his head to try and focus. He could ignore the pull that only got stronger the closer to the border he got. A hook in his chest that threatened to pull him in like a fish on a line. Threatening to make him fall to pieces, strip away the last threads of humanity he clings to in desperation.
He could ignore this. Been doing it for the past two years and its turned out just fine. Everything's been fine. New Mexico is… it's fine.
He can handle this just like he's handled everything else life has chucked at his face full speed.
Stanley adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, taking in a slow breath. He couldn't lose control here. Can't be found out. Not now. He's so close to the Oregon border, just a few more miles, but for now still in Idaho. Hadn't been easy getting there, being banned from most of the surrounding states, but he had made it work, driving straight from New Mexico, miraculously avoiding law enforcement for the few hours he had to spend driving through Colorado in an attempt to shave more time off the drive. And it had worked, three hours shaved off his travel time.
He was avoiding Nevada as if it would kill him. Hell, with his luck it just might.
The Nevada Situation, as he liked to call it, is complicated, to say the least. Most things are complicated in is life, but this was an entirely new level.
Part of him still wondered if it was all some messed up nightmare that he would wake up from eventually. If only he was that lucky.
He had been desperate for money after four months of living in his car in Nevada. The never-ending heat and dry air were inescapable. He couldn’t afford to end up in the hospital with heatstroke, literally or figuratively. Everyone knows what happens to the homeless in a hospital. No matter what they came in for they don't make it back out, and Stan wasn't willing to give up his organs to some hack doctor just yet.
His time, or blood, on the other hand, was a different thing.
Taking part in medical trials he found in the wanted sections wasn't the most humiliating thing he's done for cash, but it certainly was... strange. The tests were vague, in the beginning, and his whole body would feel like one giant bruise after the injections, but it only seemed to last a few hours before it faded. In the days after he would be confused by the change from pain to something that actually felt sort of good.
Well, as good as he felt in those days. Good just meant not in pain and that the nearly permanent soreness of his old injuries was fading to nearly nothing.
When his pain started to fade he had thought it was some kind of drug testing, but he hadn't picked up on what it was really for until about three months in.
That had been part of the deal, no tainting the data with expectations, getting the most honest answers out of people.
And he hadn't wanted to question it. Didn't want to question the steady money that was enough for two meals a day and a cheap hotel room. Laundry able to be cleaned, his car in better shape than it had been in the last five years. Hot showers and a bed. No haircut, but it wasn't like he had a mullet or anything.
Hell, the center even had free lunch every Tuesday and Friday! Why would he want to ask too many questions and ruin a good thing?
But there's no such thing as a truly free lunch.
Three weeks into the trial and everyone involved in the testing was suddenly picked up at the bus station outside the clinic and bussed to the new facility, a freestanding two-story brick building surrounded by miles of desert and enclosed with a chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
Stan knew a prison when he saw one.
But it was too late at that point. With who was doing the testing there was no chance to get out.
And as for who exactly was doing the testing? It was all too easy to tell that.
A poorly hidden symbol on the bare bricks of the walls. Midnight blue uniforms worn by people in the hall who didn't walk fast enough to pass by the doors before they closed all the way. Half aborted salutes and radios that crackled to life asking for sound offs every hour.
That combined with the sinking realization that every test volunteer was homeless was almost enough to strangle out the last bit of hope he had of surviving this. The truth was almost completely right there in the open, but it was still incomprehensible.
The pieces didn't make sense yet.
But the truth would eventually out the way it always does, and he saw just what the testing really was. Saw the weapons recovered from the covered-up crashes, the desiccated husks of inhuman corpses pulled from the very same wreckage. Hadn't meant to see it, but he just couldn't keep himself from trying to find the catch in the situation.
And he found the catch alright. Found it in one of his fellow trial members' corpses shoved into some sci-fi-looking tube filled with glowing orange gunk. By then it was too late. None of them were getting out of there alive.
And since they were who he thought they were, there was no way in hell they didn't know his alias at the time was just that, an alias. But they hadn't drawn any attention to it at the time. Didn't say anything yet.
He just called him Stanley Pines in private and his false name everywhere else.
And that was almost worse. If they knew he wasn't who he said he was... what did they get out of it? His compliance?
Or did the doctors just get off on his fear?
He certainly seemed like he did. Always 'forgetting' anesthesia, or 'accidentally' taking too much blood in a draw. Sadistic fuck was lucky he died in the explosion else Stan would have snapped and taken things into his own hands.
At least, he likes to think he could.
Then again, the whole blood-mist thing had been horrifying enough when someone else had caused it that he wasn't sure he would be able to go that far. Didn't have the stomach for it. And the thought of actually killing someone on purpose was enough to make Stan's hands shake where he gripped the steering wheel. If he's being honest with himself he knows there's no way he could. There were a lot of things he'd done in the past ten years that he wasn't proud of, but murder had never been one of them.
What he did in Illinois didn't count. He told himself that over and over. He just wished he could believe it.
At least he keeps telling himself that. 'At least I'm not a murderer.' But that's how his life worked, he would set up a hard line and then would be forced to cross it. Set up a new line and be shoved over that one. No matter what he would end up crossing the lines he made for himself.
And murder? That had always been the final hard line for him. As long as he didn't kill someone he always felt like he could be redeemed. Or maybe it wasn't so much redemption he believed could be reached, but something vaguer he couldn't put his finger on.
That he would still be deserving of absolution.
That he could come back home.
But he didn't have to worry about redemption anymore. Maybe things would finally be okay, a slight grin worked its way across his face at that thought. He was going to see his brother for the first time in nearly 10 years. Well, closer to fourteen, unless you count the stalking. Not that it was really stalking, you can't stalk your own family, right?
And it's not stalking if it's only once… right? Just checking up on someone.
He just… had to make sure Stanford was doing okay. And maybe watching his graduation from that little hippie college he ended up at had been bitter and made his chest burn, but it was nice to know his future hadn't been completely ruined by a dumb accident.
Stan blinked, pulling himself out of those thoughts. They never headed anywhere good. In an effort to keep his mind off of most things, his burning pile of regrets, or maybe the hunger, he reached over towards the radio dials, keeping an eye on the road as he fiddled with it half-heartedly.
Through the crackle of static, a song he had heard many times back in Nevada swelled to life. Stan raised an eyebrow, shrugging and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.
took my saddle in Houston
Never in a million years would he have thought he might actually enjoy country music of all things. But time, and ten years spent rattling around the world, changes a person.
broke my leg in Santa Fe
And maybe the fact that his roommate in the program had an unholy obsession with the entire genre. Nothing like sudden and total immersion to make you like something. His roommate cellmate joked that the Air Force was just trying to make their own supersoldiers. Stan never laughed at that even though Kade would lose his shit over his 'joke' every single time.
But it wasn't a joke, as they eventually figured out.
He let the music wash over him, thankful for something else to focus on. It was hard to spiral into a panic when listening to country music. Of course, it was easy to slip into melancholy, but that's not something Stan was going to worry about right now.
A crackle of static cut through the song for a moment, drawing his attention out to the worsening weather. He switched the windshield wipers on, clearing the glass of the snow that had started to stick. He hadn't even noticed the steadily building cold, his mind elsewhere. He debated turning on the heat, but his gas gauge was already riding far below the one-quarter mark and he hadn't seen a sign for a gas station yet.
Instead, he just hunched his shoulders, ignoring the stinging of the bruises that covered his ribs, and hoped he wouldn't lose any extremities when it inevitably got colder. The radio continued to cut in and out as he drove, songs changing and marking the time in segments of about three and a half minutes.
It was getting harder and harder to stay awake, the cold trying to make a home in his bones. He almost missed the sign for the gas station, his vision blurring as he finally pulled up to the pump and shut down the engine. A knock to his window nearly had him jumping out of his skin and he fought to wrest his breathing back under control.
It was only a gas station attendant, a surly-looking teenager with greasy hair that hung in their face. Stan rolled down his window, barely catching the attendants' bored question when they asked regular or premium.
"Uh," Stan pulled his wallet out of the glove compartment, checking the few definitely not stolen bills within, calculating just how far he had left to drive and how much gas would get him there. "Twelve bucks of regular."
The teenager just rolled their eyes, working around to the fuel pump, flicking open the gas tank door, and unscrewing the gas cap.
"I'll be right back," Stan stated, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door. He pointed towards the small convenience store on the property.
The teenager just stared.
"...right. Okay." He stumbled slightly as he walked across the pavement, the cold seeming so much worse now that he was moving. At least the small convenience store was warm, and he headed over to the small coffee station, picking up a paper cup and filling it with coffee that was hot enough it steamed in the warm air. He added a splash of creamer and a few packets of sugar before heading to the cashier.
Stanley dropped the payment onto the countertop, almost embarrassed by how all of it was filthy coins from the ashtray of his car.
The cashier just heaved an exasperated sigh, grimacing as they counted the change coin by coin before all but throwing it into the register. "Anything else," they said flatly, glaring at him as if daring him to want something else. Bleached blonde hair a d a lip piercing made Stan certain the kid might kick his ass if he did need anything else.
"Uh, no," Stan said quietly, exiting the store quickly and heading back to his car, his coffee held tight in his hands. Holding it in his freezing hands, it almost felt like burning. It was nice, the way the heat steadily drove the cold away leaving his palms feeling warmer than they had been the past two days.
Stan took a tentative sip of the coffee, immediately cursing as he burned his tongue. "Fuckin hell."
"Yo, it's done." The teen waved lazily, pulling the nozzle from the tank and rescrewing the gas cap.
"Thanks," Stan pulled open his car door, fumbling with his coffee slightly before buckling his seatbelt and starting his car back up. He revved the engine, the car protesting the rough treatment, the sudden shift from hot to cold to warm again. He pulled out of the gas station, heading back into the thickening snow.
This process repeated itself a few more times, gas station, coffee, snow, gas station, coffee, even more damn snow. All he wanted was some rest, but if he pulled over to the side he'd end up trapped in a snowbank and freeze to death.
By the time he was beginning to wonder if it was worth it to just let the cold take him, he saw a dimly lit sign around the next bend in the road.
Welcome to Gravity Falls
Nothing to See Here Folks
Stan snorted. Looks like this town was his kind of place. That probably wasn't a good thing.
The ever-present pull was even stronger now, a hook in his chest trying to drag him through the town up towards the forest. He ignored it, rubbing at his chest with a hiss. The bruises were still sore, and the light stinging pain kept him focused on the street names.
Gopher Road was a small dirt road that branched off of the main street, winding into the woods. The further he drove, the stronger the pull got. Like knives under his skin.
Okay, maybe this would be harder to ignore than he had thought.
The snow got deeper the closer he got until it became nearly impossible to drive through. Stanley shut off the engine, the engine rattling and clunking in distress as the cold seeped into the metal. He grabbed his duffle bag with one hand and opened the door with the other, the wind attempting to fight back as he stepped out into the snow. Letting go of the door, it slammed shut with the force of the wind.
It was hard to see through the driving snow, but he could make out signs reading 'keep out' and 'no trespassing' and so on. High fencing topped with barbed wire surrounded a log cabin, the sort that you get murdered in some overly gory slasher flick.
A chill, not from the surrounding freeze, soaked into his skin. A different building was superimposed over the cabin, brick over wood and blistering desert over snow. But the fence was the same. Too tall and topped with barbed wire. No Trespassing signs and the imminent threat of destruction.
"Fucks sake, Sixer," Stanley muttered, the snow started to soak into his pant legs. "You better not murder me or I'm gonna be real pissed off."