@aroace-get-out-of-my-face This idea wouldn't leave me alone and I blame you/ affectionate.
"Dude. You're totally being an asshole right now."
In the span of a few moments Ford felt all the air get sucked from the room.
He had been telling Stanley that the wiring he had found between the atrocious “gift shop” out to the rest of the household was, by and large, an electrical nightmare. It was a miracle that his cabin hadn’t burnt to a crisp in the last few decades if that was what Stanley thought counted as acceptable. Of course, his brother had stormed away in a rage just like when they were teenagers, refusing to hear reason. He really was never going to grow up.
The handyman his brother…employed? Who…volunteered? The details themselves were sketchy, as was everything he’d put together about his brother’s business tactics, but in either direction the mole-shaped manchild had been in the room for the better part of their conversation.
Still, this harsh phrase rang as…unusual coming from what he had experienced from this “Soos”. In fact, it would make more sense for it not to mean the same thing anymore. He had been gone for the last thirty years, there were plenty of things he missed out on. For example, Mabel had recently explained that something being “fire” did not mean that the item was literally in flames, but more akin to “cool, excellent, exciting, etc.”
Yes, that being the case was far more likely than the boy he had seen playing with water guns and losing to the children earlier in the day suddenly turning around and cursing at him out of nowhere . It must just be another thing he was out of the loop on.
"Oh. Has this phrase…changed in the last thirty years? You see, when I was last—"
"It still means the same thing, dude.”
The young man took a step out from behind the counter, his thick arms crossed in front of his chest. Ford noted that his normally congenial expression was clouded over as he stared back. The boy’s eyes were several shades darker than that of a Pines, but the expression itself…it could have been copy/pasted from his brother.
“Considering you're this like, super smart dude, I’m pretty sure you know what I like. Mean by it."
Ford had never considered this strange young man to be any sort of threat, but he still quickly reviewed his mental notes.
In his initial analysis, after determining the young man was in fact not one of the hairless gopher people of Rodentus 7 as he had presumed, he had deemed this Soos (post radiation quarantine) a mostly neutral party. This human man had some interesting quirks such as a healed zombie bite and a seemingly infinite diet of pizza, but otherwise was relatively harmless. The strangest thing about him, of course, was his apparent idolization of his brother Stanley.
Ford may have been lost in the multiverse for the better part of his life, but he recognized loyalty when he saw it. He had once held his brother in the same regard, after all.
“Listen, Soos, if this is about the wiring concerns…you seem to be a strangely adept handyman. I can see your handiwork throughout my cabin, and in many aspects, I can even see where you have improved upon my original design considering your limited access to updated technology for this dimension. You clearly have a good eye for these sorts of things, certainly you can agree that—”
“Sorry to cut you off Dr. Mr. Pines, but like, everything I know how to do around the Shack is because Mr. Pines taught me.”
Soos squared his shoulders in as close an imitation of Stanley that Ford had ever seen aside from his own. How many mannerisms had this boy picked up from his brother? And why had it taken him this long to clock them?
“The reason the wiring for this room is so different from all the others is because those gnarly gnome dudes broke in a couple weeks before the little dudes got here. I dunno if you ever wrote this down, but they love to shred copper wiring with their teeth. It’s their favorite hobby! So, they like, totally stripped all of the copper from the connection wires. Mr. Pines and I did the best patch job we could, and like maybe we cut a couple corners, but it works! I’ve been meaning to replace them as soon as we have a chill day, but I dunno if you noticed dude but like, everyday has been the opposite of chill this summer.”
Ford went to speak, but before he could open his mouth all the way, the young man held his hand up to stop him.
“I know you’re like a totally badass space wizard who knows he’s the smartest in whatever room he’s in—I mean they could like, make an entire show about your life. I’d watch it, dude! However, these are the facts—”
The young man extended his arm and held up a finger.
“You have a MAJOR communication problem. Mr. Pines does too, maybe that’s like some deep-seated childhood trauma or whatever; I dunno, I’m no doctor.”
Soos held up his next finger, stepping slightly closer as Ford felt his eye start to twitch at being interrupted yet again.
“When you yell like that in front of the little dudes its not cool. Kids shouldn’t hear that stuff, full stop.”
“The children aren’t here, but even if they were, I can say—”
“Did ya know Dipper has started to leave tape recorders on in general areas of the Shack because he doesn’t wanna be blindsided by either of you again? I think he’s taking the “Trust No One” bit from your diary a little too literally.”
Soos pulled the aforementioned recorder out of one of his cargo pockets and laid it down on the counter, turned off.
“And Mabel…yeah, that little dude might not be here physically, but she can like, totally tell when the vibes are off. It’s a gift and a curse.”
Soos coughed and a small bloom of glitter puffed out. He sheepishly grinned and said “she’s been making a “Gotta Get The Grunkles Back Together” vision board in my break room for the last week.”
Ford was stunned; yes, he had immediately recognized Mabel’s attention to detail from the very moment that they met. It would make sense that she could pick up on, as the boy said, “vibes.” However, he absolutely should have recognized he was seemingly being surveilled by his great-nephew.
“I’m an easy-going guy. I know people think I don’t know a whole lot, but I know what they say about me—or write about me.” The young man seemed to eye the pocket his journal now resided in and Ford instinctively put a hand over it.
“Mr. Pines hired me to fix stuff, but he got a two for one deal. These dudes, especially Mr. Pines, they’re my family, and you do for family.” The young man cocked his head to one side and seemed to stare right into Ford’s soul—an unnerving feeling as Ford suddenly didn’t know where to look.
“I know I can’t fix whatever—” Soos made a vague hand motion in his and then the doorway that his brother had just stalked out of direction “this is, between you two. It’s like, decades before I was born deep or whatever. I’m guessing it’s something only youse guys can figure out. But you’re not making any of this any easier by being such an asshole.”
Soos adjusted his tool belt and his standard genial expression returned to his face. Ford detected just a twinge of something else behind the boy’s eyes, but it moved so quickly he couldn’t pin it down. “Just thought I would tell ya.”
“Who in the world do you think you are to tell me anything? Especially about my own family?!” Ford sputtered, looking incredulously at the young man in front of him.
Instinctively he knew no one would ever believe this interaction had taken place. It would be his word against this young man who he knew everyone in the family loved beyond measure. Even now, he could barely wrap his mind around the interaction and he had been the one to experience it.
Soos shrugged, a slight grin perking up. “I’m the handyman, dude.”
Soos brushed by Ford and out the same door his brother had left through. Stanford Pines, outsider in his own house in more ways than one, was once again left alone with his thoughts.
