Chapter Text
It was the summer of 1977.
The first personal computer was demonstrated in Chicago at the beginning of the year. Jimmy Carter was president. Star Wars: A New Hope was in theaters. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was playing on every single radio station.
Not that you minded, you were pretty sure it was one of the best albums ever made.
And you were on a Greyhound bus, watching the scenery change and warp. You had been on this stupid stuffy bus ride for a little less than two days now, currently sitting next to an old lady that smelled like mothballs and Pond's Cold Cream. You couldn't feel your legs. You hated yourself for not getting enough grant money to afford a plane ride.
But hey, you were a Backupsmore student. Par for the course.
You should be happy that you at least found an alumnus that could provide lodging while you researched mushrooms in the area, but you were tired and your butt hurt from sitting for so long. You wished you could cry like the baby a few rows behind you, but you were unfortunately an adult.
You focused on the passing scenery to keep yourself from crying and making everyone in the bus uncomfortable. The forest here was beautiful, tall redwoods and pines, lush vegetation common to the state of Oregon. Various lichen and moss, and you're pretty sure you saw some sort of shelf fungus on a tree, which was enough to make you forget about making a scene.
You loved fungi, you have ever since you were a kid. They fascinated you, kept your attention like nothing else. So much so, you went to school for it. Not only did you love learning about them, you loved going into the forest and looking for them. The prospect of getting up early tomorrow and looking for mushrooms filled you with excitement. You felt the most free in the woods, searching high and low for fungi, dirt on your hands and knees. And somehow also on your forehead? How did you manage to do that every single time?
As passed the sign welcoming you to Gravity Falls you let out a relieved sigh. Thank God. You were excited to try walking, eating, and breathing air. Super excited about the breathing part. Air that didn't smell like sweaty people? You weren't sure if it actually existed after spending forty-something hours in buses.
It seemed like everyone else in the bus was excited too, because people were standing and talking excitedly before the bus even pulled into the depot, much to the disdain of the bus driver. You would've been the first one out of there if it wasn't for the old lady blocking you in. It was like she enjoyed it, with the way she smiled at you. It took everything in you to not push her off of her seat. You were usually not this aggressive towards the elderly, but after this bus ride, you were ready to help her meet Saint Peter at the pearly gates.
Once nearly everyone was off the bus, she got out of her seat and you followed closely behind her. You walked to the side of the bus and got your suitcases. Two suitcases, one with enough clothes to tide you over before the rest of your clothes come in the mail, and the other filled with your lab instruments and supplies for forays. You made your way out of the depot and took a deep breath. Clean air, not a hint of moth balls, Pond's, or yeasty sweat. God bless America.
Now you just had to get to where you were staying. A taxi pulled up next to you as you pulled out a folded up letter from your pocket. You greeted the driver and told him the address in the letter. He nodded and got out of his seat to put your suitcases in the trunk of the car, and opened the backseat door open for you. You were not happy with the prospect of sitting so soon, but you hated the idea of trying to find this place even more. Once you closed the door, he drove you to where you would be living until the winter. You heard the dulcet tones of John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads playing quietly from the cab’s speakers, the sound fuzzy and warm. The song mixed with the quaint scenery made you feel like everything was going to work out, but who didn't feel like that while listening to John Denver?
He just about drove you to the welcome sign you had passed, into a hidden road, and you briefly thought you were going to be killed in the damn forest by a cab driver before you saw a little A-frame cabin come into view. He parked in front of it and quickly came over to your door, opening it for you before popping open the trunk and taking out your suitcases. You tried to tell him you could carry them, but he insisted on taking them to the door. You followed him to the door and paid him. He seemed confused at first when you took out money, looking back at the door then back at you, but he took it and thanked you before making his way back to his taxi.
You took a deep breath and prepared yourself to knock on the door. You felt lucky that your advisor connected you to an alumnus in the area you wanted to do your research, but he warned you about him. You were going to be staying with Stanford Pines, the guy that got a hundred thousand dollar grant a couple of years back. The guy was a genius, an actual bonafide genius. It was hard to get a doctorate degree, this guy had several, and he was just about your age, give or take a few years. Your advisor also made it a point to tell you Stanford was ‘a freak of nature’ with some sort of disfigurement. Not the most professional behavior, but it was the right amount of professional behavior for a guy working at Backupsmore.
Whatever. As long as you didn't have to dip into your grant money for lodging, you wouldn't care if the man known as Stanford Pines was actually conjoined twins or three kids in a trenchcoat.
You tucked a lock of hair behind your ear in an effort to look put together, and knocked at the door.
The door opened almost immediately, as if Stanford was waiting by the door for you. You braced yourself, ready to see your freak of nature host.
Despite bracing yourself, you looked visibly shocked when you laid eyes on Stanford Pines. He's literally a handsome nerd?
Hello?
Why does he have beautiful brown eyes like that.
Why is his hair so fluffy. Why does he have perfect sideburns.
You're staring, you're very obviously staring. He is visibly uncomfortable. You should probably introduce yourself.
“Hello, Dr. Pines,” you said suddenly, making him jump a little bit. “I'm the mycologist from Backupsmore. Thank you for agreeing to have me over for the mushroom season.” You held out your hand, waiting for him to take it in his.
“Ah,” Stanford hesitated, staring at your outstretched hand. He frowned a little and took your hand, giving you a firm handshake. His hand felt so much bigger than yours, you glanced down to look at it.
Oh. Ohhhh.
Six fingers.
That was the disfigurement. Kind of anticlimactic in your eyes, but okay. You tried tilting your hand to get a better look but, he quickly took his hand and hid it behind his back. He cleared his throat and moved aside, making room for you to come into the cabin.
You walked in with your suitcases, giving him a friendly smile as you passed him.
“I'll show you to your room,” He said stiffly as he closed the door behind you. You followed him up the stairs and into a room outfitted with a twin sized bed, a desk, and a chair.
It looked like a dorm.
Which was fine. You were here to do research, this wasn't a vacation. You would do just fine with this space.
“Thank you, Dr. Pines,” you said as you set down your suitcases against a wall. “Could you show me the way to the bathroom? I'm dying to take a shower,” you told him with a smile, a smile he didn't return. He inhaled, closing his eyes and nodded, walking out of the room without a word.
Great. So he was smart and good-looking, but he was kind of an uppity jerk? What was so off-putting about you that he looked at you with so much disdain? Was it that you were a woman? More and more women were getting into science, it wasn't just a boy's club anymore. Or maybe he didn't like your field of research? He sounded nice enough in his letters, but maybe what you thought was kindness was actually him being patronizing? Or maybe he didn't like the type of scientist you were, casual and free-spirited in stark comparison to his conservative, more put-together demeanor. You rubbed at your forehead instinctively to check if you had dirt on it, but no, you didn't this time.
You knew you looked less disciplined than he did, but that didn't mean you weren't smart! You were smart!
You were here to research for your dissertation, after all. You weren't as smart as him, but damn it, you were smart enough to mean something.
He showed you the bathroom, looking at you with a blank face.
“Thanks,” you murmured, peering into the bathroom. Yup. It's got all the usual bathroom things in it. A claw foot bathtub too. Very nice. “Anything I should know, like any quirks with the valves, or…” you trailed off, looking at him stare at you with what you could only imagine to be contempt. Jesus Christ. What did you do to get such a cold reception?
“No quirks. It's all pretty new,” He answered after a moment. “We can talk about house rules after your shower.”
You nodded and he walked back towards the stairs.
Free lodging. It's free lodging. You aren't mad, you aren't annoyed. You don't want to push him down the stairs.
Free lodging.
You took a deep breath and went back into your room to get a change of clothes to take back into the bathroom with you. After taking the best shower you have ever taken, you felt cleansed of two days worth of suffering and hatred. The shower was so damn good you forgot you were annoyed with your host for being such a standoffish bastard. It wasn't until you went downstairs and found him sitting in the living room, looking at you with that smug disappointment that your mother would look at you with when you came home too late that you remembered you were annoyed with him.
“Alright, Dr. Pines. Lay it on me,” You said, leaning against the entrance to the living room.
“First person who wakes up makes coffee. I eat in my lab, so we won't be sharing meals. You're in charge of your own food. No boys. Leave a note if you'll be coming back late. No loud noise from one a.m. to nine a.m. No weed in the house,” He listed off his rules and you nodded along, cracking a smile at his ‘No Boys’ rule. He really did sound like your mother.
“Clean up after yourself. Don't come into my lab without knocking.” Oh, Lord. He was still going. You felt the desire to break a rule, just to get under his skin, but you decided against it. You needed a place to stay more than you needed to be a vindictive little shit.
He pulled out a key from his shirt pocket and held it out to you. “Here's the spare house key. Don't lose it,” He told you as you took it and put it in your pocket.
“One last rule,” Stanford said, looking up at you, choosing to ignore how you looked at him so exasperatedly, like a child. “If you go into the forest, I have to go with you.”
“Why?” You asked him. What an awful, annoying rule, it was detrimental for both of you. You were planning on going almost everyday, and he would have to stop his work and go with you. And also, he was annoying. You wanted to frolic, you knew that Stanford was definitely going to get in the way of that.
“The forest here,” Stanford paused, trying to find the right words to explain the nature of this place in a way someone like you could easily understand. “Has unique wildlife and flora that can be dangerous if you don't know how to interact with it.”
You looked at him like you wanted him to say more.
“There are… creatures,” he added reluctantly.
“Gosh, I sure hope there are, Dr. Pines” you replied, looking at him like he actually had two heads. Stanford rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, and you felt good about making him react like that.
“Did your advisor tell you what I'm researching here?” He asked, his tone annoyed.
“Why would he do that when he could show me how he can almost play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on his guitar?” You deadpanned, reminding him of where both of you went to school. You could've sworn the corners of Stanford's mouth lifted into the beginning of a smile before he sighed your name, frustrated but maybe a hint of a chuckle? Maybe?
“I'm researching anomalies and the supernatural,” he said delicately, holding his hands together on his lap.
“So there's… what? Ghosts in the woods?” You asked, surprised and horrified that this man got a hundred thousand bucks to play ghost hunter. Sure, Backupsmore wasn't no West Coast Tech, but... seriously?
“Among other things,” Stanford replied, completely serious.
Holy shit. This guy's insane. You try to quickly decide if staying is worth it or if you need to get the first bus out of here.
“I understand your skepticism. Really, I do,” He said, watching your face journey. “But Gravity Falls is a hotbed for strangeness. I'm a man of science, I have the PhDs to prove it.” He gestured to his diplomas hung up on the wall behind him. Show off.
“I'm going on a foray tomorrow in the morning,” you told him. “I'm leaving at eight.”
He frowned, but nodded. “We'll leave at eight,” he said, and got up from the couch and went into his lab to do who knows what, leaving you alone.
Part of you thinks he's crazy, but the other part of you is interested in seeing what he's talking about. He does have all those PhDs. Maybe there are ghosts in the woods.
You'll go into the woods with him tomorrow and see. If he's crazy, you'll leave, research be damned. If he's not… you're not sure yet. You'll stay? Maybe respect him a little more? Apologize for thinking he was crazy?
Whatever. You'll figure it out if it comes to that.