a/n ALRIGHT PEOPLE, I AM BACK AT SCHOOL, SO EXPECT ME TO BE GONE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME. THE NORMAL AMOUNT OF WAITING WAS MAYBE A MONTH, MONTH AND A HALF, BUT I AM BACK AT SCHOOL SO HOLD YOUR HORSES. I AM ACTUALLY LOSING MY PATIENCE BECAUSE WHEN YOU GUYS TELL ME TO UPDATE, IT FEELS LIKE A CHORE AND IF YOU GUYS CAN'T BE PATIENT, THEN SCREW IT BECAUSE IT'S NOT ON YOU GUYS TO TELL ME TO UPDATE. WE WAITED LONGER FOR THE ACTUAL EPISODES TO AIR. THIS IS MY LAST WARNING BEFORE I REALLY GET MAD. THIS WAS A WARNING, AND I DON'T WANT TO SOUND LIKE A COMPLETE JERK, BUT I WILL IF I GET HACKED OFF. PLEASE DON'T THINK I'M YELLING AT YOU. CAPS LOCK IS JUST EYECATCHING. YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN SUPPORTIVE AND GREAT READERS, AND I'M GLAD YOU GUYS LIKE THIS STORY, BUT PLEASE, PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE THAT ALL OF US NEED TO LEARN WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF. BECAUSE IF YOU GUYS CAN'T BE PATIENT WITH ME ON THIS, OR ANY OTHER AUTHOR REALLY, THINGS WILL ONLY GET WORSE. I KNOW THAT I WILL PROBABLY WAIT TO UPDATE IF YOU GUYS KEEP COMPLAINING. THIS IS THE LAST WARNING I'M GIVING. Also on a happier note, this story is up for the Wattys so vote for it if you want to. NOW, ON WITH IT.
196-something, Glass Shard Beach High School, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey.
Stanley and Stanford were sitting in their 3rd period senior class; Stanford writing something down in his notebook and Stanley eating toffee peanuts, his feet on the desk.
"Pines twins to the principal's office. Pines twins to the principal's office," the secretary of the school called over the PA system.
"Ah, great, what is it this time?" Stanley asked, looking at his worry-faced brother. The two got up from their seats and walked silently down to the principal's office.
The two were about to enter the office together, but the secretary stopped them. "Not you; him," she said, meaning Stanford. It was odd, as usually, Stanley was called to the office.
The twins glanced at each other in confusion before Stanley sat in the seat next to the door. "Meh," Stanley muttered and motioned Stanford to go on.
Stanford nervously opened the door to the office, to find that both his parents were sitting in front of his principal. Stanford gingerly took the seat in between his parents, not knowing what was going on.
"Now, Mr. Pines, I'd like to speak with you very frankly if I may," the principal started.
"Very frankly is the only way I speak," Mr. Pines said gruffly.
"You have two sons: one of them is incredibly gifted, the other one is standing outside of this room and his name's Stanley." Stanford looked away, embarrassed. He never really thought of him and his brother like that. They had always been just that: brothers. Stan and Stan.
"What are you saying?" Mrs. Pines asked, as both her and Stanford were confused as to the was the principal was getting at.
"I'm saying your son, Stanford, is a GENIUS!"" the principal exclaimed standing up. "All his teachers are going bananas over his science fair experiment!" The principal held out to Stanford a blue, college pamphlet. "Ya ever heard of West Coast Tech? Best college in the country." Stanford took it in wonder and he and his mother stared at it. As the principal kept speaking, Stanford eagerly opened up the pamphlet, his parents looking over his shoulder. "Their graduates turn science fiction into science FACT! The admissions team is visiting tomorrow to check out Stanford's experiment. Your son may be a future millionaire, Mr. Pines."
Stanford looked at his principal with a glimmer in his eye. His science project, his one project could get him into the best school in the country. He didn't even care about the money, he, the six-fingered nerd, who everyone thought was a freak, would finally have his time to shine.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pines stared at the principal in shock as well. Mrs. Pines couldn't believe that one of her sons could go so far. Stanford smiled broadly as his father said the two words he hasn't said in a long time: "I'm impressed."
"But what about our little free spirit, Stanley?" Mrs. Pines asked, concerned about her other son. Stanford's smile dropped as he thought the same thing. Stanley hadn't even crossed his mind after he found out about the college.
"That clown? At this rate he'll be lucky to graduate high school. Look, there's a saltwater taffy store on the dock. And somebody's gotta get paid to scrape the barnacles off of it. Stanford's goin' places. But hey, look on the bright side: at least you'll have one son here in New Jersey forever," the principal said, trying to sound like it was a good thing for the sake of Mrs. Pines.
Little did the office know that Stanley was outside the door, listening in the whole time. As he heard the principal talk, he had slid down the door, knowing that everything that they had said was true. He wasn't going anywhere in life, Stanford was. He wanted so bad to be proud of his twin brother, but the weight of his selfishness brought him down even more, as he never wanted to lose his brother, the only friend he's ever had.
~~~~~~~~~
Later that evening, the twins were on the old swing set on the beach, looking at the sunset. There was a slight tension in the air between the two brothers. Stanley finally broke the uncomfortable silence. "Heh. Joke's on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country. Once we get the Stan O' War complete, it's gonna be beaches, babes, and international treasure hunting for us," he said, looking around proudly at their project.
Stanford couldn't really look at his brother. Ever since he had found out about the college, there was no doubt in his brilliant mind that he wanted to go. He could finally prove himself and get a new start. The only thing his brilliant mind couldn't figure out was how he was going to tell Stanley that. He didn't want to crush his brother's heart. But he also wanted to move on in life. They were high school seniors, they had to grow up at some point. Stanford figured that it was his time.
Stanford internally sighed. He was going to attempt to tell his brother. "Look, Stan, I can't pass up a chance like this," he said honestly, looking at the college pamphlet. "This school has cutting edge programs and multidimensional paradigm theory."
Stanley started moving his arms around like a robot. "Beep boop. I am a nerd robot," he mocked in a robot voice. "That's you. That's what you sound like."
Stanford laughed a little. "Hehe. Ah, well, if the college board isn't impressed with my experiment tomorrow, then okay, I'll do the treasure-hunting thing," he told Stanley, making a deal with him. He hoped that this would help a little bit.
"And if they are?" Stanley asked.
Stanford playfully punched his brother's shoulder, causing Stanley to smile a little. "Well then, I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country. Haha," he said, light heartedly.
Stanley smiled as his brother got up and walked away, but it fell when he was out of sight. Stanley stared at the sunset before deciding to take a walk, ending up at the school.
"Without Ford I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn't make it without him."
Stanley angrily stomped through the multipurpose room, between all the science projects while eating more toffee peanuts. He kept walking until he noticed who's project he was standing in front of. As he saw the machine, his anger and jealousy skyrocketed. He angrily threw his toffee peanuts bag on the ground and then pointed at the machine. "This is all your fault, ya dumb machine!" He slammed his fist on the table, accidentally wobbling the machine, making it start to slow down and knocking a piece off. Stanley realized what he had done and started freaking out, not meaning to do it. "Oh no. Oh no no, what did I do?" He noticed the piece that he knocked off and put it back into place, although it wasn't screwed in and the machine was still slowing down. Stanley breathed out a sigh of relief when he noticed the machine stopped smoking and was still moving. "There. Alright. Good as new. Probably." He picked up a tarp and hung it in front of the machine, hiding it, before walking out of the school.
~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Stanford stood confidently in front of his covered project, fixing his tie has he waited for the judges. He smiled at the professors as one of them said, "Alright, kid. Show us what ya got."
"Okay! Well, what if I told you that the future of technology was beneath this sheet?" Stanford asked as he removed the sheet, revealing his broken project, unknown to Stanford though.
"I'd say that we wasted a car trip," the professor said.
"What?" Stanford asked incredulously. He turned around to look at his project. It wasn't moving, smoking, a vent was hanging off and it short circuited causing a stroke of electricity to go through it. "But it was stable yesterday! A fuse must have blown or something," he said, picking at one of the unmoving pieces.
The professors crossed Stanford's name off the list of potential college students. "Kid, a perpetual motion machine has one job: to not stop. I don't think you're West Coast Tech material," the professor said and lead the rest of the professors away.
Stanford walked after the judges hopelessly. "No, wait! Don't go! I worked so hard!" he called after them. Something crunched under his foot, causing him to lift his leg and look down. He bent down and picked up the bag that he stepped on. Anger surged through him as he recognized the bag. He growled and crushed the bag, knowing exactly what happened: Stanley.
~~~~~~~~~
Stanley sat lazily upside down in his living room, watching TV and playing paddleball. "One-paddle-paddle-paddle, two-paddle-paddle. Man, that Jacki-O, what a fox," he commented. The door slammed open and shut and Stanford stomped into the room, standing directly in front of the TV. Stanley sat up, smiling at his twin. "Hey, what's the word, Sixer?"
"Can you explain what this was doing next to my broken project?!" Stanford questioned, holding up Stanley's toffee peanut bag angrily.
Stanley held his hands together guiltily. "Ho-okay. I might have accidentally been, horsing around-" Stanley started, truthfully, but Stanford cut him off.
"This was no accident, Stan; you did this!" Stanford accused. "You did this because you couldn't handle me going to college on my own!"
"Look, this was a mistake!" Stanley defended, honestly. Although, his selfishness took over again. "Although, if you think about it, maybe there's a silver lining. Huh? Treasure hunting?"
Stanford stared at his twin in disbelief. The suggestion raised his temper even more. "Are you kidding me? Why would I want to do anything with the person who sabotaged my entire future?!" he shouted pushing Stanley onto the couch.
"You did what, you knucklehead?" Mr. Pines had just entered the room as Stanford was talking. Currently, he had Stanley face to face, holding him by his shirt. Stanley looked fearfully at his father's strict and angry face.
Mrs. Pines walked into the doorway, holding the Stan's younger brother in her arms. "Stanley? What's goin' on in here?" she asked as the baby cried.
"Wait, no, I can explain: it was a mistake!" Stanley tried to explain to his parents, but his father wouldn't have it.
Mr. Pines angrily threw Stanford out of the front door and onto the concrete below. "You ignoramus! Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump! All you ever do is lie and cheat and ride on your brother's coattails. Well this time you cost our family potential millions! And until you make us a fortune, you aren't welcome in this household!" Mr. Pines exclaimed angrily and threw a duffel bag at him.
"What?!" Stanley asked incredulously as he caught the bag. Stanley helplessly looked to his brother. "Stanford, tell him he's bein' crazy!" he pleaded.
Stanford had a choice, between his brother and his future. He looked away from Stanley, and closed the curtains. Little to Stanley's knowledge, it was probably one of the hardest things he had to do in his life.
"Stanford? Don't leave me hangin'. High six?" Stanley asked one last time before Mr. Pines shut the door. At that point, his anger and upsettedness took over. "Fine. I can make it on my own! I don't need you! I don't need anyone! I'll make millions and you'll rue the day you turned your back on me!" Stanley threw the bag into his car, got into the driver's seat and drove off in a huff.
"Thanks to one dumb mistake I had no brother, no home, no nothing. But I had a plan to fix everything."
2012, Gravity Falls, Oregon
As Stan continued with his story, he and Ford turned their backs to each other as everyone else in the room stared at the two. Mabel cried out as to how upset she was about the story so far. "Oh! This story's so sad! I know what you two little broken teacups need: to hug it out!" The twin brothers didn't move from their spots, despite what Mabel said. "Hug it out!" Nope. "Hug train's comin' in the station." Nothing. "HUGAPOLOOZA!" Still not a change. "TWO THOUSAND!"
"Kid, will ya knock that off?" Stan finally snapped. "I'm tryin' to tell my life story here."
196-something, A Beach, somewhere in the US
Stanley didn't know anything about making millions, but he knew he was going to do it somehow. So he got a metal detector and headed down to the beach. Not the most efficient way to get money, though.
"I had decided I wasn't gonna show my face at home until I made something of myself. Unfortunately, the treasure-hunting business was slow going. Apparently gold was some kind of... rare metal."
Stanley had been searching the beach for hours at a time each day, but he couldn't find anything. That was, until he stopped in front of a billboard that was advertising a traveling salesman. Stanley smiled widely and threw his metal detector into the trash and ran toward the billboard, an idea springing in his mind.
"Luckily, I struck a different kind of gold....in sales."
Stanley had gotten to work on his "ideas", but he must have gotten some lying skills from his mother as everything he sold was a total sham. Exhibit A - Stanley had made a product he called the Shammy, and he made a commercial for it. Here's a little snipit:
"Hi! I'm Stan Pines of Stan Co. Enterprises. Are you sick of this always happening to you?" Stanley asked when a pitcher was thrown at him, covering him in juice. "Then you need the Shammy of the future!" Stanley started wiping himself off with a blue cloth, but the commercial quickly skipped to Stanley completely dry and the Shammy soaked. "Made with the same material astronauts use to clean up cranberry stains on the moon! That's the Sham Total! It's a total sham," he finished, squeezing the juice out of the Shammy.
"I had made my mark, all right. Unfortunately, so did the Shammies."
People must have missed Stanley's complete bluntness at the Shammy being a total sham because they bought them, and the Shammies ruined everything.
"Apparently, the cheap dye I used to color them only made stains worse."
Because of this, the people of New Jersey gathered to run Stanley out of New Jersey for this scam. The people went to Stanley's Shammy stand as an angry mob with pitchforks, ready to attack, but it would be futile because-
"Customers went crazy about that. Fortunately they were using Stan Co. brand pitchforks."
-they broke.
Stanley had gotten in his car and quickly drove passed the angry mob shouting, "SUCKERS!"
"I was officially banned from New Jersey, but with a quick name change, Steve Pinington was ready to take on Pennsylvania."
Stanley continued to con people with rip-offs as he got to Pennsylvania. Exhibit B: another commercial.
"Hi! I'm Steve Pinington!" Stanley introduced. He started pulling at a bandage on his arm, showing the camera. "Are you sick of bandages that are hard to remove? Then what you need is the Rip Off!" Stanley said, holding a bandage box. "The Rip Off won't give you rashes, I repeat: it won't give you rashes."
And guess what happened next?
"It gave ya rashes."
Next thing Stanley knew, he was being run out of Pennsylvania by an angry mob covered with rashes. He ran out of Pennsylvania into the next state, and the next, and the next.
"I traveled the whole country, sometimes outside of it, always one step ahead of the law, looking for something that would be my big break."
2012, Gravity Falls, Oregon
"Whoa. So that explains all the fake IDs," Mabel said in realization. She and Dipper had both taken seats on the same rock Meagan was laying on.
The kids turned to Ford, curious as to how he turned out in the time Stan was gone. "But, wait, what about you? Did you end up going to your dream school?" Dipper asked is newly found great-uncle.
Ford looked away from the kids. "Not exactly."
196-something, Backupsmore University
Stanford sat in freshmen orientation at one of the last colleges he wanted to attend, but he couldn't afford a good college, so he chose the school that is made specifically for that. A backup college. Stanford sat in the auditorium, upset about his family fallout, but still listening to the college speaker, sort of.
"Alright, I know Backupsmore wasn't anyone's first choice, but what we lack in prestige, we make up for in mostly bug-free dorms! I'm sure your families are proud, more or less," the speaker said.
Stanford took a picture out of his pocket, looking at it upset, but as his eyes lingered on Stanley, his anger spiked at his brother.
"In a place like that, I had to work twice as hard. Luckily, that's what I do best. I went from undergrad to PhD three years ahead of schedule, wrote a thesis that was nationally ranked, and was awarded an enormous grant for my own scientific research! But what to study."
Stanford sat in his dorm, not sure what to do as he had graduated. He thought for a long time, his books and research surrounding him. In his thoughts, he looked to his right hand, causing an idea to strike.
"My whole life I'd been teased for my six fingers. But that got me thinking about anomalies: things that were odd, unusual, statistically improbable. And according to my investigations, there was one place with a higher concentration of these things than anywhere else."
Stanford studied anomalies for a while, and marking where the anomalies were on a map, and there were many, many pins on Oregon. Stanford smiled and circles the pins.
"A small lumber town in roadkill, country, Oregon: Gravity Falls."
~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, Stanley was still going from state to state to country to state, living in his car. Sitting in the driver's seat, Stanley crossed off Kansas on a map he had labeled "States I'm Banned In."
"Meanwhile, your old uncle Stan was doing great. I had come up with a sophisticated new business strategy."
Stanley was a bit out of the traveling salesman business and had turned to a "totally reliable source" for money: a lottery ticket.
He took a coin and started scratching off diagonally. "Come on, owl...owl...football player with an omelet!? Gah!" He crumpled up the ticket and threw it at the car window in anger, but it bounced off the window and hit Stanley in the face.
"I was in great shape, living on my own, and the best part was: I didn't need help from nobody."
Stanley looked at the picture he had of him and Stanford taped onto the visor. He and Stanford were playfully roughhousing, smiling at each other with their father in the background. In all of the time Stanley had been gone, he hadn't forgotten his brother. In fact, even though he would never admit it, he missed his brother. He missed having a best friend. He wanted to be the kings of New Jersey again, if only he could swallow his pride and apologize.
Stanley finally thought about it, and went to the nearest payphone. He wanted to make things right, and he was hoping it would go alright. He dialed Stanford's number, and waited anxiously as it rang.
"Hello? This is Stanford Pines."
Stanley hung up.
He leaned against the phone and sighed. He choked. He just couldn't do it. Just hearing Stanford's voice made him regret everything even more.