Chapter Text
You step off the bus and inhale the scent of pine trees and dirt. A sign welcomes you to Gravity Falls claiming that ‘there’s nothing to see here folks!’ You pull your suitcase filled with your clothes behind you into town.
You still had to sort out a living situation and job but those were problems for future you. Arriving at a small log shaped building with a sign on top labeled ‘Greasy’s Diner (we have food)’ you stop and head inside. The place was filled to the brim with people talking and eating. It proves a little difficult to find a seat but you manage to find one and pull your laptop out of your backpack.
A waiter with blonde hair in a ponytail approaches you. “Welcome to Greasy’s. What can I get you?”
You look over the menu she hands you and frown. As usual not much you’d be able to eat but you order a plate of bacon and a coffee so she wouldn’t kick you out. You resume writing your game code because Greasy’s Diner unfortunately didn’t have wifi for you to use to scroll on tumblr.
The waiter came back after about three lines of code (ten minutes) and placed down your bacon and coffee. You manage to read her name tag this time telling you her name is Pacifica. “Hey Pacifica?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know any places for rent I could stay?”
She shrugs. “Not sure. I’d say if worse comes to worse and you can’t find a place then you could stay at mine but my parents would hate that.”
“Don’t worry I get that, thanks anyway.”
She smiles and walks back into the kitchen. Leaving you with no new information on anywhere you could stay. Well worse case scenario you have to sleep in the woods or on the streets again. Which isn’t that bad but it’s not preferred.
Once you finish the scene you were writing for your game you chug the rest of your coffee and go out on your way. The bitterness of the coffee still lingering on your tongue. On the streets you see several odd looking people which comforts you. You never felt at home in places where everyone fit in. You’re busy admiring the new strange people that you bump into a girl about fifteen wearing several colorful pins and an oversized sweater.
“Sorry!” she exclaims as she jumps back, the keychains on her bag klick klacking as she moves. “Hey you look new…”
“I am new! I just arrived an hour or so ago.”
“You are new! I knew I wasn’t forgetting a face again!” She sticks out her hand for you to shake. “I’m Mabel! And this is my brother Dipper!” You shake her hand as she pulls over a thin boy with acne carrying a blue leather bound journal.
“Hi” he says nervously, fidgeting with the ribbon on his journal.
You introduce yourself to the duo and Mabel enthusiastically insists on giving you a tour of the town. You of course agree since you find Mabel… charming isn’t exactly the word but something like that.
After the short tour (there wasn’t much to see) Mabel brings you through the woods to an old shack. The big yellow signs on top read ‘Mystery Shack’ though the ‘S’ in shack had fallen off the sign. Mabel pulls you through the open door and past all the shelves of knick knacks.
“Where are we going?”
“To see grunkle Stan and Ford!”
“Who?”
“Our great uncles, Stanley and Stanford.” Dipper chimes in. “We come to visit them here every summer.”
Mabel stops in front of two older men, likely in their mid sixties. “Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford! Look who I found!”
”Is this someone I’m supposed to know pumpkin? ‘Cause you know I still have after effects from that memory gun thing.”
”Nope! They just moved here! Go on! Introduce yourself!” Mabel pushes you towards Ford and Stan.
”Mabel I don’t-“ Mabel cuts you off and tells her great uncles your name and that you make visual novel games. Afterward she tells you which one is Ford and which one is Stan.
”Visual novels? How long have you been doing that for?” Ford asks
“Well since I was about fourteen so five years now.”
“So you’re nineteen? I thought you looked a bit young to be on your own.”
”Yeah, well I dropped out of college a week ago and heard this was a decent place to live.”
“It’s odd but yes, I suppose it is a good place to live. Have you found a place to stay yet?”
“Well no. But I’m sure I’ll find a place soon.”
”You can stay with us!” Mabel chimes in excitedly
“Mabel, sweetie, are you sure we have enough room for another person?” Stan asks
“Yeah! There’s a big empty closet and we have an air mattress!”
“Well you’ll have to ask Soos. It’s his house now.”
Mabel smiles and leads you to the kitchen where a young couple is sitting and talking.
“Soos! Melody! Do we have room for another person?” Mabel asks gesturing to you.
The woman, presumably Melody, smiles and looks at Soos. “Sure dude! I’m not totally sure we have the room for them though.” He says with a smile.
”I think I’d be fine so long as you can find a place for them to stay.” Melody adds
”I already know where they can stay!” Mabel says excitedly and drags you and your suitcase back deeper into the house leaving you no choice but to follow her. She stops in front of a door and opens it. Inside, a handful of cardboard boxes are stacked in the corner but other than that and dust flying up in the air the closet was empty.
Mabel drops your suitcase by the door and runs to rummage in the boxes. “What are you looking for?” You ask, pulling your suitcase in and letting it stand in the corner of the room.
“The air mattress! Do you have blankets and pillows?” Mabel lifts the top box off of the pile and sets it aside.
”I have a blanket but no pillow.” That was a half lie. You had a large plush that you could use as a pillow but you’d prefer to hug it if that was an option.
”Alright!” She throws a pillow at you which you emarrasingly fail to catch. “Found it!” Mabel exclaims as she pulls out a deflated air mattress.
”Yippee!” You smile and help her unfold it. “How are we blowing it up?”
”I think there’s a inflater thingy in the box just a sec.” She goes back to the box and comes back with a small black device with a cord. You plug it in as she attaches it to the mattress. “Now we wait.”
You stand there for a minute next to Mabel watching the mattress slowly inflate. After about a minute you loose your patience and rummage around in your backpack for your cards. “You know how to play poker?”
”Is that like go fish?”
”Not really… let me teach you.”
A few minutes later you sit at a table with Mabel and Stan, teaching Mabel how to play poker. Once she understands you deal out the first hand.
Two cards and $300 worth of Stan’s poker chips for each player.
You look at your cards: two aces. The best thing that one can be dealt. You frown a little but keep your poker face otherwise.
Stan starts the betting and puts in ten bucks. Mabel matches his bet and now it’s up to you. You don’t want to scare them off but you want to raise the pot so you raise Stan fifteen dollars. Everyone matches and you burn a card before laying out three face up. A six, a seven, and a nine. Meaning that if anyone had a five and eight, or a eight and ten then they had a straight, beating your pair of aces easily.
Stan starts the betting again and puts out fifty. Mabel matches and you suspect that’s only because she’s never played before. You smile and match because as usual you don’t know what the word fold means. You burn a second card and lay out the fourth card. An ace.
Now things were turning around for you. Now you had three of a kind which was better but not good enough to beat a straight. Stan checks. Weird… he ether didn’t get what he wanted or he was throwing you off. Mabel checks too and you put in twenty. Stan and Mabel both match and you add the last card after burning another card. The last ace.
This was good. Four of a kind beat almost everything. And none of the stuff it lost to was available. You give a small smile and watch Stan put in thirty, Mabel matches and you decide to raise thirty. Stan and Mabel match and you revel your cards. Stan curses and throws his across the table: a five and eight. You laugh and collect your winnings. Mabel blinks and puts down her cards: a king and jack.
A few rounds later Mabel’s gotten the hang of poker and she’s won two rounds in a row. “How are you winning?! You can’t even bluff!” Stan asked as Mabel revealed her cards and won a third round in a row.
You laugh as Stan looses the last of his chips to Mabel and throws his cards onto the table. “I give up. You win pumpkin.” He gets up and ruffles Mabel’s hair. “You two can keep playing.” He walks away leaving you with Mabel.
“I have to unpack anyways. This was fun though Mabel! You wanna play again sometime?” You get up and start putting away the cards and poker chips. Mabel joins you and shuffles the cards a few times before putting them back in the box while you finish tucking the poker chips into the case.
Mabel follows you back to your closet and helps you set up your bed. “I’ll come get you when it’s time for dinner!”
”You don’t have to feed me! I can find my own food.”
Mabel shakes her head “Nope! We’re eating together!” She runs off before you could object.
You feel guilty about taking their food but it’ll be nice to not have to worry about meals. You’ll have to find a way to make it up to the Pines for letting you stay and feeding you. But that’s a problem to solve once you find a job and can afford to exist.
Unzipping your suitcase, you find your stuff just as you left it. Clothes stuffed into one side and plushies stuffed into the other. You throw the plushies onto your air mattress and close your suitcase.
Now you need a workspace. Cardboard boxes could work decently as a desk you decide and start arranging the boxes so you could work on them. Once they’re set up you place your computer on them and plug it in.
About an hour and a half later Ford knocks on your door with a smile and comes in. “Dinner is ready. Mabel insisted that you join us.”
”Thanks” you move to close your computer when Ford speaks up.
”Is that one of your visual novels?” He asks looking at the word document of code open in the middle of the screen.
You feel a bit of heat rising to your face. No one you knew in real life had ever paid attention to your games or wanted to learn about them. “…yeah. I could show you sometime if you want?”
Ford’s face lights up “that’d be wonderful! I’d love to hear you talk about them!”
The flush in your face heats up more and it didn’t help that Ford was smiling at you like that. “Of- of course!”
”Do you want to go down for dinner? It’s spagetti.”
The thoughts of Ford and flustedness dissapear as relief rushes through you that you’d be able to eat the food they were providing and wouldn’t have to seem ungrateful by asking for a substitute.
Ford leads you to the kitchen where there were two empty seats both with bowls of (thankfully plain) noodles. You sit down next to Ford and Mabel and pick up your fork to eat but Mabel stops you. “Wait! We have to say grace!”
You freeze. Memories pouring back of your parents forcing their religion onto you and dragging you to worship services.
Mabel cuts through your panic. ”Thank you lady Demeter for this food, I hope that you will continue to bless us with sustenance and comfort.” You immediately calm.
Ford pats your hand. “You okay? You looked a bit panicked there for a bit.”
“Yup!” You smile and take a bite of your spaggetti, Slightly embarrassed that Ford noticed your panic.
Ford smiles back at you and you feel the flush rise to your cheeks again. You quickly turn away and start conversation with Mabel. A few minutes into the conversation you bring up her prayer and she explains that she worships the Ancient Greek Gods. “My main ones are Aphrodite and Artemis but I pray to amost all of them for different things.”
You nod in acknowledgement and she continues “Like earlier, for food I prayed to Demeter because she’s the goddess of harvest!”
”I know a bit about Greek Gods. Mainly just Hephaestus though.” Hephaestus was your favorite because he was the god of fire. Fire, for some odd reason, had a special place in your heart.
Mabel smiles and starts infodumping about Hephaestus and the other Greek Gods. You listen because it’s important to her and that means something to you.
After a dinner of listening about Greek Gods you help clean up and go up to bed. It had been a long week of travel so the air mattress felt amazing and you quickly drift off to sleep.