ghostharasser | Open Post

--Dipper. Dipper. Look at me.

[The plan was to listen and hear him out, but the kid's already spiraling into guilt and despair again. Someone has to hit the breaks here.]

You weren't a monster to me. You were a scared, pissed-off jerk of a teenager, sure, but not a monster. And you're not the worst nephew in the multiverse either. And we already know what's wrong, right? So maaaybe you got a little corrupted. Big whoop! I hear it happens a lot around here! But people heal from it. You are gonna heal from it.

[Healing sucks and it can't feel great to not be at 100% yet, but that doesn't mean he's never going to be back to baseline again.]

Besides, you're worrying WAY too much about what I think anyway. You're the kid here! You asked a question and I answered it. You really don't have to worry about my feelings with that kinda stuff. I can handle it!

[He does stop and look. He let's Stan talk, and while he can't let go of those feelings so easily. Especially after he catastophesized them so much in his own head, it does ...help, to at least hear Stan doesn't consider him the worst, even if Dipper still thinks a little bit that he should.]

[He isn't so convinced everything can be blamed on corruption, either. That feels like ...a far too convenient out.]

[While he does sound calmer, he doesn't sound entirely better.]

That isn't true, though. [He only gives that a moment before he realizes that could be taken super wrong.] Of course I have to worry. I can't not worry. If... If I had worried more maybe-

[You know, that's something he hasn't thought about in a long time. But- yeah, you know what, maybe Dipper's near obsession with trying to keep their family together, and being terrified of it splitting apart has come from somewhere after all.]

...I just, don't want to see us all split apart. Especially if it somehow ends up being my fault.

[Of course it feels that way - he's corrupted and it's making him blame too much on himself.

Now that Dipper's not going a mile a minute rambling, Stan lets him get the full thought out without cutting him off. A more clear picture is coming into place. A phone call muffled in his memory from relatives who never really knew him. Crackling flames in the receiver, begging him for help with their kids.]

...So three things about that.

[One thumb up!]

One - you really think after everything we've been through that it'd be that easy to split us apart now? Even death can't do it anymore! All of you even got me to go through that stupid cramped flesh hole to get here, and I wouldn't do that for just anybody!

[Dipper might remember Stan looking like he was going to have a heart attack by the time they got through it, which probably didn't help when he was wondering if Stan regretted the whole thing. Stan made the choice not to elaborate and insist he was fine.

Second finger up!]

Two - if something like that happened, and it was actually someone's fault, it'd probably be mine. And don't you go getting all sad for me about it - it's not gonna happen, but I'm just saying! The numbers aren't great!

[And a third and final finger up!]

And three - again, you're the kid here. ...Well, you and Mabel, you know what I mean. It's not your job to hold everybody together like glue. Me and Ford are supposed to be the ones doing that right now, and if we ever hit the point where we were actually blaming you kids, we'd be...well, we'd be pretty lousy caretakers.

[They would be like their dad, who had no qualms blaming his kids for anything he felt like.]

[Stan sure is trying to appeal to his sense of logic and nerdy love of numbers, huh. It's nice to have the assurance, at least, that Stan really doesn't feel that way. That he's so confident they'll stay together.]

[It helps, even if the anxiety in his brain is going crazy at the thought of it, and at the thought that he's voicing all of this out loud now after ...what? two, three years? Is it worth it to admit he'd been so scared of them splitting up at the start that he'd stressed himself sick over it back in Deerington?]

...I thought the same about Mom and Dad, you know. That's why I started to wonder if ...if I really should be more worried about it. Maybe if I'd worried sooner, I could have changed things.

[That feels so far away now, but even saying it makes him realize it never left him.]

When we first got to Deerington, I could tell. You and Grunkle Ford were trying to keep things patched up, but it always felt like a thread minutes from snapping. I couldn't just do nothing. So I worried, and I worried, and I tried to get between you two when I could. Now, I guess I can't turn it off.

...They sent you kids to me so you wouldn't have to worry about it. You know that, right?

[Dipper's pretty smart. He knows what was going on with his parents, so surely he figured this part out.]

Besides, what were you gonna do? Be a tiny marriage counselor? Whatever they were going through, none of that was on you.

[Then Dipper lets out the rest and Stan sighs.]

Yeah...you did butt in a lot, huh? [The choice of words is rough, but only Stan could make them sound weirdly affectionate.] That was different though. We spent so long apart that, well. We kinda had to figure out how to fight like normal people again? I mean, as far as I know your parents didn't spend basically over forty years not talking to each other and no one chucked anyone through a portal.

[Dipper isn't imagining the tension there. Some of it was fear from both sides that they were going to screw things up again. It all fell apart easily enough the first time, so they had to learn how to trust each other. They had to work through some things and really show they were going to be there for each other, no matter what.]

People fight. You're probably gonna hear us fight again. Heck, you and me are prolly gonna fight again. But that doesn't mean any of us are going anywhere.

[God its like. Years of tension and anxiety that had always been misplaced are getting some kind of closure. While it will take a miracle for Dipper to really put aside that part of himself that feels all this misplaced responsibility, being told out right that it was okay if these things didn't fall to him is actually something he needed to hear.]

[It is hard to swallow, but he needed it either way.]

It's scary ...not knowing if one of these fights is going to be the final straw. I guess I couldn't deal with even just the thought that something might tear us apart.
I know you said I shouldn't worry about stuff like that but it's like, literally impossible not for me to be on high alert basically all the time.

[He sighs, Stan puts it all very bluntly, but thats fine because that means Dipper's finally caught onto the root of the issue. He's quiet a moment.]

I guess ...I really didn't learn much about trust after all.

[It's not that Stan's never been anxious. He's had to be on high alert before, and there have even been points where that high alert feeling was on all the time - like that shitty October in Deerington. But he's pretty sure that's different, and it's different in a way he kind of gets from a distance.]

You know who you really oughta talk to about that part? Ford. The guy's a tangled-up bundle of nerves and trust issues and he's been overthinking since the day we were born, but...

[Stan pauses, a little flustered to admit this part so candidly. He kind of rushes through it--]

...well, he's come a long way, alright? So he might know a thing or two about it.

[HIS BROTHER FINALLY TRUSTS HIM AGAIN AND HE'S NOT GOING TO GET EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT, OKAY?]

A-Anyway! There's a difference between worrying about something and having to actually do something about it. You can just...I dunno. [An awkward beat. None of them are great at this part, but...] ...talk to us? Probably?

[Well, Stan isn't really wrong there, is he? Dipper ...kind of knows already, considering what he wrote at the end of the journals. Ford did a whole lot of praising of him, too, that made him even more worried about admitting all of this because what if that affected how proud Ford was of him...?]

[Perhaps it is better in the end, to feel some manner of equalization in all of this. Dipper has long since held Ford on the pedestal he used to, but at the same time, maybe it's okay for Dipper to not try and act like he has to embody so much of what people praise in him to the point it starts wearing him down.]

[However, any comment he might have had about that kind of grounds to a halt.]

...Really? Grunkle Stan, are you really suggesting we just talk stuff out like a functional family? Okay, so like, you're definitely a pod-person right now, right?

[Look.]

[Stan bristles at that call out and crosses his arms.]

Can it or this "pod-person" is gonna come over there and affectionately noogie you until all the extra worrying starts coming outta your ears!

[He probably won't - not when Dipper's sore and wobbly as it is - but he's still going to bluff.]

[Stan reacts and Dipper starts to laugh.]

[A nice far cry from earlier when he was crying and stressed and tearing himself to pieces over an enormous amount of anxiety and worrying.]

Haha, no way, you'll have to catch me first.

[Which is also a bluff because they both know Dipper's barely been able to walk since he came back. He settles down a little, picking up his sandwich.]

...Thanks, though. That actually means a lot to me.

[It's good to hear Dipper laugh after everything, and soon enough Stan's laughing right along with him.]

No problem, kid. You're gonna be fine.

[That might be reassurance for himself as much as it is for Dipper, but he sounds pretty confident about it - enough to go back to eating his own sandwich.

...That is, after he spends ten seconds reheating it with his hands. It's been a minute, okay?]

Open Post

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject