Writing a Family
A Gravity Falls Fanfic
Soos was six years old when he wrote his first story. His cousin María had just published a book, and the whole family was talking about what an amazing accomplishment it was. María was the coolest person in the world, so when Soos heard about her book, he decided he wanted to write one too.
He sat down at the table with some paper and a crayon while Abuelita made supper and wrote about a dog who made friends with a cat, a bird, and a little boy. Abuelita read it, told him it was amazing, then hung it on the fridge.
Soos was eight when he saw his dad on tv–or at least he thought he did. He was watching wrestling shows while Abuelita knitted, and a dark-haired man appeared on screen.
It only showed him for a minute, but Soos thought he looked familiar. He couldn’t remember exactly what his dad looked like. (Abuelita had hidden the few pictures of him away a couple years ago. Soos knew all her hiding places, but she didn’t want him to find them, so he left them alone.). This man looked a little like him, though. Of course, Abuelita would probably have told him if his dad was something as cool as a wrestler.
The screen flashed back to the man, and Soos realized they didn’t look quite as similar as he had thought.
Soos had kept writing. He wrote story after story, giving them all to Abuelita to read, praise, and hang on the fridge until he wrote another. That night he wrote another story: one about a little boy whose father had no money and had to leave, but once he got famous and rich, he came back and they were both happy.
He didn’t show that one to Abuelita.
Soos was nine when he discovered anime. Abuelita was going to a party just for grownups, so María came to babysit.
“Can we watch tv?” he asked.
“Sure. My boyfriend just introduced me to anime. Want to try it?”
She muted some parts without explaining why, and skipped one episode, but when Soos saw the heroes fighting epic villains with gigantic weapons and superpowers, he knew he was in love.
Of course, all the blushing and giggling and hearts for eyes weren’t necessary.
“Do they get married in this show?” Soos asked with a wince when one of the characters stared after another with heart eyes again.
María laughed. “Sadly, no, but that’s what fanfiction is for.”
“What’s fanfiction?”
She leaned her chin in her hand and considered. “You like to write stories, right?” He nodded. “Ok, so, when you write, you make up your own characters. In fanfiction, the characters already exist, you just write more stuff about them.”
“Oh.” Soos turned back to the tv and fiddled with his sleeve. “Can you write fanfiction about real people too?”
“Oh, yeah. People do that all the time.”
Soos looked up fanfiction later and found a picture of two people kissing. He turned off the computer. Maybe some fanfiction was just for grownups. He would just focus on writing his own.
Soos was twelve when he got his first job.
“Hey, gumdrop, think you can fix a golf cart?”
“I–”
A green piece of cloth landed on his face. He pulled it off to find a T-shirt with a question mark on the front.
“Boom,” the weird man in the suit and purple hat said. “You’re hired. One size fits all.”
Soos couldn’t believe it! His first job! He tore off his party hat, threw the large shirt over his clothes, and ran over to the golf cart to see what the problem was. Unfortunately, it turned out being a repairman was harder than he thought. He had no idea what was wrong with the cart, or how it was supposed to look.
The more time passed, the more panicked he grew. The old man would come out to check on him soon, realize he hand’t done anything at all, and yell at him like he had the first repairman. He would lose his first job before he even had the chance to tell Abuelita.
When the man finally did come out, Soos had done nothing but sit and stare at the golf cart with the screwdriver in his hand. “How’s it going, kid?”
Soos raised his chin, ready to accept his fate, but he couldn’t help the single tear that slid down his cheek. He sniffed.
Stan’s eyes widened. “Don’t cry! Did you hurt yourself? Oh, man, you’re just a kid! I’m gonna get sued, and the government will find me, and oh, sh–” he broke off, eyes bugging even wider. “Shhh–arks.”
“I didn’t get hurt,” Soos said, smiling a little since the man was so worried. “But I couldn’t fix the golf cart. I really tried cause I didn’t want you to fire me.”
The man stared down at him for a minute, then looked at the golf cart. He sighed. “Tell you what. It’s not a big deal if the cart stays broken a little longer–”
“But you got really mad at the other man cause he didn’t fix it quick enough!”
The man shrugged. “Yeah, well, he’s an idiot.” He froze. “I mean, he’s a very nice man and you should respect your elders. Anyway, why don’t you go to the library and–can you read?”
Soos crossed his arms and frowned. The man sighed. “Look, kid, it’s been a long time since I was–how old are you, nine?”
“I’m twelve!”
The man raised his hands. “Sheesh! Sorry. Okay, so go to the library, find yourself some books on mechanics, and see if you can’t fix this thing up sometime this week. If you do that, you’ve got the job.”
“Thank you, Mr., um . . .”
“Pines. Stan Pines.”
It took three years to fix the golf cart (Soos sometimes wondered if it was haunted), but within that first week, he managed to fix the vending machine, which made Stan very happy, and his first job became official.
Soos was almost fourteen when Stan took him to the movies.
“Hey, kid, guess what I found in my pocket! It’s two ticket to one of those cartoon movies you like.”
“It’s anime, Mr. Pines,” Soos reminded him.
“Whatever. Looks like they’re for the showing in an hour.”
Soos frowned. “That’s a weird coincidence.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve got too many pickpockets in this town.”
“But pickpockets steal stuff, not give you stuff.”
“No, that’s why they’re called pickpockets. Cause they pick junk up and put it in your pockets.”
Soos crossed his arms. “But movie tickets aren’t junk.”
Stan rolled his eyes. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or whatever.” Do you want to go or not?"
“Sure, but I should probably call Abuelita and tell her. Can I use your telephone?”
“Don’t have one. We’ll stop by your house and let her know. Come on, let’s close up shop.”
“I thought everyone had a telephone,” Soos said as he helped clean up and lock away the money.
“Yeah, well, mine got disconnected more than twenty years ago, and I just never fixed it.”
“How did it get disconnected?”
Stan locked the door. “Chipmunks. They’re real pests.”
“But what happens if you get sick and have to call a doctor?”
Stan waved away the question. “I don’t get sick.”
Soos frowned. One of his cousins had said that before. He went to the hospital with a broken arm three weeks later.
“But what about your family? Don’t you want to call them?”
Stan laughed. “Who would want to call me, kid?”
“Do you not have any family?” Soos asked quietly.
Stan climbed into the car and put on his seatbelt. “Family can be . . . complicated. I haven’t talked to my parents in longer than I care to admit, and Sherry, well, it’s just hard to see him sometimes.”
“Who’s Shermy?”
“My brother.”
“Oh.” Soos decided not to mention family the rest of the day.
He enjoyed the movie, though Stan made fun of it (loudly) the whole time. Thankfully no one else had come to watch it, or they probably would have been kicked out.
It wasn’t until later than night, after Stan drove him home, that Soos realized what day it was: July 6th, a week before his birthday. When he went to the Mystery Shack for work the next day, he found the telephone and managed to reconnect it.
Soos was fifteen when he learned Stan’s secret. Despite what the kids at school might say, he wasn’t dumb, he just learned differently from them. It might take time, but he was good at working out puzzles and patterns, and spending every day for three years with a conman was long enough to work through the holes in his stories.
Stan Pines was a liar. That much was obvious from the beginning, but there was always some element of truth to his stories. Soos loved hearing him recount his fantastical adventures to the tourists, but even more he loved picking the fact from the fiction.
Stan usually only talked about himself when the tourists came to the Shack. He would wow them with stories of his travels. Once he had shown Soos some of his really expensive and very secret souvenirs. They didn’t look like fakes, even though Abuelita said Stan had come to Gravity Falls right after college and hadn’t left since.
Having grown up in Gravity Falls, Soos was used to the unexplainable occurrences, though he knew most of the townsfolk chose to ignore them. Stan enjoyed scaring the tourists with stories of the supernatural, so detailed it was as though they were real, though he was adamant to Soos that the creatures he described didn’t exist.
“Did you ever believe in supernatural stuff, Mr. Pines?” Soos asked one day once the customers had left.
“Huh? Oh, I guess. I used to want to go hunting for treasure and monsters with my–my best friend. We talked about it a lot, but the whole monster part was more his thing than mine.”
“So why didn’t you go?”
“He, uh, he decided he didn’t want to anymore.”
“Do you ever see him? Where does he live now?”
“Nope. I have no idea where he is right now. Hey, shouldn’t you be cleaning that window?”
Soos turned around. “Did you ask me to? I don’t remember–”
“Well I’m asking you to now. Clean it up.”
“Yes, sir.”
A week later, Soos checked the mail and found a hand-addressed envelope with the name “Pines” on the front.
“Mr. Pines! You have mail!”
“Throw any bills in the trash!”
“It’s not bills.” Soos dropped the envelope in front of Stan, who’s face softened when he saw it.
He opened it to find a holiday card with two little kids smiling. “Heh, cute.”
“Who’s that?” Soos asked.
“This is my great niece and nephew, Shermy’s grandkids. I’ve only seen them twice, but their mom still sends me a card every year. They’re twins, actually. Just five minutes apart.”
“That’s so cool!” Soos burst out. “It’s like they have an automatic best friend!”
Stan sighed and murmured, “Yeah, they sure seem like it. Twins, it’s really special. I hope they always stay close.”
Soos knew better than to ask. There were some things you didn’t talk about with some people. He still wrote stories about himself, and if Mr. Pines made an appearance in them more often than not, nobody knew because the stories stayed hidden under his bed. That night, when he got him, he pulled out the latest of many versions he had written of that original story where his father came home.
Maybe there was someone else who needed to come home too.
Soos was eighteen when he went to jail. He had never expected to be there, and the building loomed over him. He swallowed and walked inside.
Stan came out, and Soos had to sign some papers before he got released. He was glad his eighteenth birthday had passed a week before.
“Sorry you had to come pick me up, kid,” Stan said when they got in the car. He grinned. “Actually, I guess I can’t call you that anymore, can I?”
Soos frowned at the purple and black skin around one of Stan’s eyes. “What did you do, Mr. Pines? Why did they take you to jail?”
Stan shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You went to jail!”
Stan sighed. “Listen, Soos, your grandma probably told you that you should never get into a fight, right?” Soos nodded. “Well, your grandma’s a great lady, but that’s wrong. Sometimes you’re gonna have to get into a fight, and if that happens, you need to think hard about whether it’s really important or not. If it is, you do whatever you have to do, but you gotta be prepared for the consequences.”
“But what was so important?”
Stan shrugged, then winced. “Don’t worry about it.”
They sat in silence for a moment before Soos said, “you should come to my house. Abuelita was fixing supper when I left.”
Stan sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. I gotta apologize to her too.” He cracked a smile. “Oh, Soos? While I’m thinking about it, if you ever decide to leave Gravity Falls, don’t move too far away. I’m on the no-fly list now.”
“Mr. Pines!”
Stan laughed. “It was going to happen eventually.”
When they made it to Abuelita’s house, Stan pulled her aside to apologize. Soos didn’t hear the conversation, but he did hear when she started yelling. He worried that she wouldn’t want him to keep working for Stan.
They came out and Abuelita suggested Stan stay for supper.
“I couldn’t do that–”
“Stay for supper,” she said firmly.
“Yes, ma’am.” He sat.
She gave him extra helpings, so Soos relaxed, sure she couldn’t be too mad at him.
“Why don’t you stay the night?” Soos asked when supper was over.
“I couldn’t–”
“You should,” Abuelita said quickly.
Stan smiled. “Thanks.”
Soos was twenty when he made a friend. He came to work one day to find a tall, skinny, red-haired girl sitting on the counter. He knew who she was, of course. Everyone knew Wendy Corduroy. She and the rest of her family had always made him a bit nervous.
“You probably already know each other,” Stan said without looking up from his magazine, “but Soos, Wendy, and vice versa. She’s going to be working here now.”
Soos narrowed his eyes. “Why did you suddenly decide to start working here?”
Wendy shrugged. “I just turned thirteen last week, and Dad said I needed a job for the summer. Now I have a job.”
“I need you two to clean out some space in the attic.” Stan waved them upstairs. “Shoo. Go. Bye.”
“Is he always like that?” Wendy asked as they walked upstairs, jerking her thumb back down towards Stan.
“Like what?”
“Never mind.”
She loved the collection of mismatched taxidermy animals in the attic. It didn’t take long for Soos to relax around her. She kept a running commentary in goofy voices about all the animals' thoughts on their surroundings and kept him laughing the entire time.
By the time they went back downstairs, Soos was glad she had come to work there.
“Do you need more taxidermy animals?” Wendy asked when Stan came back in the room. “My dad took me hunting for my birthday and I have some skins I could bring!”
“Nah, that’s okay, kid.”
“Ok.” She poked Soos’s arm. “I actually shot a deer when we went hunting.”
“That’s cool, dude.”
“What do you do for your birthday?”
“Birthday’s are a waste of time,” Stan said. “Let him work, Wendy.”
“When’s your birthday?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
She smirked. “Fine, I’ll just ask other people in town.”
“It’s none of their business either, and none of them know it.”
She frowned. “But don’t you want them to know? Then you can have a party and get presents!”
“I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I was eighteen.”
“So you’re long past overdue!”
“Absolutely not. Wouldn’t be right. Get back to work. I’m heading out.”
Wendy frowned after him as he marched out, slamming the door. She turned to Soos, crossing her arms. “What did he mean it wouldn’t be right?”
“Uh, he doesn’t really talk to his family anymore,” Soos said slowly. He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.
Soos was twenty-two when he realized all the fanfiction in the world couldn’t fix what was broken.
“Soos, it’s really late. Can you please explain all this tomorrow?” Wendy asked over the phone.
“I–” Soos sighed, “sure, dude.” He hung up and leaned against the shack wall. He needed to go home. Abuelita was probably worried.
The front door slammed, and Stan stepped out onto the porch. He didn’t notice Soos leaning against the side wall. He marched off into the woods, yelling as he went.
“Thirty years, Poindexter! But no, a ‘thank you’ is too much to expect. Just like you sticking to your promises, or defending me to dad, or just wanting to see me!” He kicked a tree and screamed, “Do you hate me that much, that all you want is to be rid of me? I tried. I tried so hard to do what you wanted, so why can’t I be good enough for you?” He tipped his head forward against the tree and sighed.
Soos took a few careful steps back, then turned and ran back home. He curled up on his bed like he hadn’t done for years. He wanted to burn the box of papers under his bed, but he didn’t. He had had enough nights like this to know he would be glad he kept them in the morning.
As he swiped the tears off his cheeks, he thought maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t used that time wish to bring his dad back.
Soos was twenty-three when he decided that maybe he didn’t need fanfiction anymore.
It was Stan and Ford’s birthday, and everyone had come to Piedmont. All the Pines' were there, Melody had flown in, and Soos, Abuelita, Fiddleford, and Wendy drove to California to celebrate.
The day was spent with laughter, hugs, games, and catching up, though the highlight was when Mrs. Pines brought out the birthday cake, covered in candles.
“You really didn’t have to–” Ford began, but Stan slung an arm over his neck and pulled him closer to the cake.
“C’mon, Sixer, it’s our birthday. Blow out the candles.”
Ford rolled his eyes, but they both blew them out, and everyone cheered.
As Soos watched them, with Dipper and Mabel standing on one side, and Melody leaning on his shoulder, he decided he didn’t need to write fanfiction anymore–at least not for real life.
He enjoyed writing for anime and video games, and he would probably never stop that, but looking around, he knew the stories tucked under his bed had the perfect ending right here.