Archive of Our Own ^beta

There's nothing quite like sitting alone in a diner, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. It's a liminal space, a space between spaces. A little spooky, a little surreal, and absolutely electric with possibility.

Okay okay, maybe you're romanticizing it a bit; it is just a diner. Everything in it seems tired: the sagging booths, the yellowing signage, the plodding waitstaff. And the coffee is beyond bad, bitter and burnt from sitting on the warmer. But you sip it greedily because you're here, and you're here because you're on your way somewhere, and you don't just mean your Airbnb.

Across the room, a pack of teenagers wreak minor havoc. It's been awhile since you were a teen, but it all looks familiar: playing on their phones, daring each other to eat whole sugar packets, the artist in the corner making straw-paper origami (this diner still uses plastic straws! You really ARE in the sticks). They pay you no attention whatsoever. Probably for the best.

You pull out your notebook and flip to the first blank page, but you're really not ready to get to work. You only just arrived, after all; you need time to settle, time to absorb. Time to... unclench. And you've got the Airbnb for a full month anyway, there's no rush. So you just jot down your thoughts:

The bell on the door rings flatly, announcing the arrival of a family: a pair of teens with their granddads. What are they doing out so late? Whatever it is, the girl is STOKED about it; she's talking a mile a minute, practically doing cartwheels around the group.

They slide into a booth nearer to you than the teenpack, just within earshot. Perfect: eavesdropping on strangers never fails to yield a nugget of inspiration. You sip your coffee, regret it, and doodle mindlessly in your notebook, trying to look like you're totally absorbed in whatever it is you're doing.

A waitress--the only one on shift, far as you've seen--greets the family warmly; they clearly know each other. Heh, small towns. Well, she's gonna know you too here pretty soon. You'll be clocking a lot of hours in this booth over the next few weeks.

"Pancakes for everyone!" proclaims one the granddads, startling you into looking up. Dude's got a voice absolutely chock full of... gravitas? Bombast? Whatever it is, it's entirely too much for a pancake order. Apparently it belongs to the granddad with the wild hair--he's grinning around the table, and the family's grinning back. He continues, confirming that really is his voice: "You've certainly earned them tonight."

"VICTORY PANCAKES!" the girl exclaims, throwing her arms up and flailing them around. She's wearing a pink sweater and at least five scrunchies, not all of which are in her hair. "I want a smiley face on mine. WITH THREE EYES! Just like the--"

The boy, who's wearing a much more subdued puffy vest and a trucker hat--her brother? cousin?--tugs at her arm. "MABEL! Come on, keep it down."

"Yeah," the other granddad rasps, glaring across the room at the pack of teens, "wouldn't want to bother the other patrons." His voice, dripping with sarcasm, could not be more different from his counterpart's; it sounds like he smoked for thirty years, then gave it up for gargling with gravel. (Not a couple, you realize. They look way too much alike. Brothers, maybe.)

"Well, there's some out of towners here," The boy gestures in your direction and you drop your eyes back to your notebook. Yep, busy, very busy, extremely busy with minding your own business over here. Their conversation dips below your threshold of hearing, and you assume they're talking about your hair. Central Oregon probably doesn't see a lot of unnatural colors.

The waitress refills your coffee. Somehow, this pot is even worse. You wrinkle your nose and add a pinch of salt.

"Hi." The pancakes boy is suddenly at your elbow, looking at you shyly around the brim of his hat. You look up with a surprised smile (Seattleites NEVER approach strangers in public) and close your notebook. While you were definitely not expecting to talk to the locals tonight, you were hoping it would happen eventually. So, whatever's about to happen, you're here for it. Subconsciously you switch into Extrovert Mode.

"Hi there."

He points at you. "Is that a... 38-sided-die from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?"

You look down at your necklace with a little laugh. You'd forgotten you were wearing it. "Hey, good eye! Do you play?"

He rubs his arm and gives you a half-smile. "Oh yeah, every chance I get!..."

And your heart sinks with the realization: he probably doesn't get many chances. Growing up in a place like this? He may well be the only nerd in the entire town. But you keep your smile wide and your tone light. You've run into lonely kids before, and you're more than happy to spend the evening letting him talk your ear off about tabletop roleplaying. And if you can get in a plug for 'going away to college,' all the better.

"I'm guessing there's not a lot of players in Gravity Falls?"

"Not so much, no." He agrees. "And the last time we tried it was a huge disaster. Everyone almost died."

You wince. "Oh, that's rough. But, you know, some of my favorite memories are total party wipes. I mean, sure, it's a disaster, but you end up with a GREAT story--"

His face tells you he does not agree.

"Well," you hastily amend, "I think it's fun, but it's not for everyone. One of my favorite moments of all time was this time when I died and the rest of the party hauled my corpse around for hours, hoping they could find a priest to resurrect me. In the meantime they used my body as a meat shield in combat and stole all my money."

As you talk, the smile on the boy's face relaxes and lightens. When you pause, he holds up a hand like he needs a minute to catch his breath. "Hang on, hang on." Then he turns and shouts back at his booth: "GRUNKLE FORD! SHE *DOES* PLAY DD& MORE D!"

Grunkle--? Ohh, okay, not granddad, but great-uncle. That's clever. You expect "Grunkle Ford" to respond with a wave or a mumbled "that's nice, dear," but instead he-- it's the one with the hair--practically vaults out of the booth to come join you. Okay then. Either he's the ur-nerd of the family, or he's a very good sport.

Up close, he's really quite striking: silver temples, vintage glasses, strong jaw, sideburns!-- he must have been gorgeous, back in the day. As your surprised smile makes another appearance, his eyes sweep over your scene; in a blink, he takes in your necklace, your notebook, your coffee, your backpack, your hair. It's... unnerving. Like you're being scanned. But then he grins with unabashed enthusiasm, and your gathering unease vaporizes.

"Hail and well met, fellow adventurer!" The man booms. You can't help but laugh. Ur-nerd. Definitely ur-nerd.

"Well hail there, traveler! I take it you're also a fan of the game?"

"Oh yes," Grunkle enthuses, nodding vigorously. His hair bounces around like it's got its own physics engine. "Ever since the first edition. I have a level eighty five dwarf wizard somewhere in my archives. Yarbwog the Tenacious!"

You laugh again. That's patently absurd, and yet for some reason, you absolutely believe it. "Amazing. I'm pretty sure that's illegal now."

"What class do you play?" The boy asks you.

"Oh, well, wizards are my favorite, but I'll really play whatever rounds out the party. What about you?" Directing the question to both of them.

Grunkle nods at you approvingly. "I'm also partial to the casting classes."

"What, you didn't get burned out after Yarbwog?"

"Well,... I did switch to a barbarian for awhile after that. Wall the Wordless!" He strikes a barbaric pose. "But it wasn't the same."

You shake your head, chuckling. Grunkle is a hoot. "'Wall.' What a perfect barbarian name." He smiles at that, but his eyes dart away from you. Huh. Well, some people just aren't good at taking compliments. You'll have to be careful not to make him uncomfortable. Give him a minute to recover. Address the teen. "What about you?"

Teen shrugs. "I haven't gotten to try all of them yet, so I don't know. But so far I like the ranger."

"Oh yeah, Rangers are sick! Love having a ranger in the party." He relaxes a little, as if he'd been afraid you wouldn't approve. After all, it isn't a casting class. "All the classes are fun for different reasons, I hope you get the chance to try them out." You lean in, conspiratorially, and add: "But to tell you the truth? My actual favorite role is the DM."

Grunkle and... grephew? no, that's terrible, definitely not grephew, exchange a thoughtful glance. This is a great segue to an introduction, so...

Surreptitiously reaching into your bag, you palm a business card. Then you hold your hand out to the teen and pop the card up into a pinch grip--a simple sleight of hand that looks like you plucked the card out of thin air. Cheesy as hell? Yes. Do you do it every chance you get? ABSOLUTELY.

"My card."

The teen takes it, somewhat warily. Grunkle is giving you a pained look--guess stage magic is a bridge too far--and in your periphery, you catch the other (granddad? also-grunkle?) leaning over to whisper to the teen girl. Apparently you have an audience. Fortunately, you rather like being the center of attention. Hope they're having fun.

"'Juneau Ceres, independent game designer'," the boy reads, then looks up. "This is you?"

"That's me! Mostly I make video games, but sometimes I write modules for DDMD."

Ah, the face of a kid who just realized 'game designer' is a real job. Never gets old. You give him a big, genuine smile.

"Pleased to meet you..." You prompt, extending your hand.

"Oh! Dipper. Dipper Pines." He shakes it, and his grip is firm, if sweaty.

"Pleased to meet you, Dipper. Hey, celestial object solidarity!" Course, if he doesn't know Ceres is a dwarf planet, that statement won't make a bit of sense... but he plays ttrpgs and goes by "Dipper" so it's probably a pretty safe bet.

It gets a chuckle out of Grunkle, at least. "And I'm Ford Pines. A pleasure." He offers his hand. You reach for it while maintaining eye contact and smiling, a habit hard-won by years of showcasing at festivals. His hand is massive compared to yours, and strong and calloused, not at all what you'd expect from an ur-nerd. Interesting. Something unreadable flashes across his face, just for an instant, as he pulls away. Interesting.

"Likewise, Mister Pines," you agree. Use their name: another 'networking move' that's become a reflex. "It's always exciting to meet other tabletop enthusiasts in the wild!"

"It's doctor, actually," he corrects. "But call me Ford."

You sit up straighter at that. Interesting.

"Oh yeah? What kind of doctor?"

Not that there's anything wrong with medical doctors, but PhDs are way more your vibe. In another life, you would have been one yourself.

"PhD," he responds, puffing out his chest a little. "I'm a scientist."

Not just a PhD, but a STEM PhD? Fucking jackpot! (You shoulda known, really. Between the hair and the glasses and the elbow patches, he's really got that whole "unhinged professor" aesthetic down pat.)

"Oh hell yeah! What do you study?"

He seems surprised by your enthusiasm, but, like all PhDs, jumps at the chance to talk about his work. "It's interdisciplinary! Mainly a combination of statistical anomalies in quantum ontology."

You blink.

"Wow. I know all of those words individually," you say, to which he gives a self-conscious chuckle. You continue quickly, before he assumes you're not interested--because this is the most interesting sentence you've heard all year--"Quantum ontology? Is that... physics?"

"Yes!" His face lights up. "Well, partially. Like I said, it's interdisciplinary. What do you know about topology?"

"Almost nothing!" You exclaim, in a tone of voice that says 'but I want to know everything.' Which is true, actually. It's one of those subjects you bump up against when you're programming, but you've never had a chance to actually learn. And everything you've heard about it sounds utterly bizarre. "It's one of the, uh, weird maths, right?"

"Oh yes," his eyes flash as he slides into the booth across from you. "Let's say you have a--" he pulls a pen from his pocket and starts drawing on the nearest napkin.

"Wait--" you open your notebook to the next blank page. "Here."

He accepts the less-soggy paper with a nod. "Okay, let's say you have something like this in three-dimensional space."

"A mobius strip?"

"Yes, exactly!" He scribbles notes around it. "But in four dimensions--"

You squint at the page. This is way more thinking than you were prepared to do after nine hours of driving. But you'll never walk away from a puzzle (plus, okay, his enthusiasm is infectious), so you slam down your mental clutch and force your brain into a higher gear. "Are you saying--Wait, really? You're kidding."

"I never kid about science," he deadpans. "Now suppose you have an _entire universe_," and draws looping, wild curves--

"HEY NERDS!" Gravel-voice yells from the pancake booth. "YOUR FOOD'S HERE!"

The scientist rolls his eyes and waves a hand without turning around. "In a MINUTE, Stanley!" he snaps. "Go on, Dipper," he adds distractedly. "Don't let your pancakes get cold."

You look over with a start; you'd forgotten the teen was still there. You give him an apologetic smile. "Nice meeting you, Dipper."

"Yeah, you too." He hesitates, starts to ask you something, aborts, and hurries back to his booth with an awkward little wave. Oof, you don't miss being a teenager.

Meanwhile, the scientist has not stopped scribbling in your notebook, and now the page is dense with diagrams and annotations. You lean in closer, trying to make sense of it. Math is hard enough right-side up.

"As I was saying." He clears his throat. "If you manage to fold an entire universe--" jabbing with his pen here and there, eyes glittering with excitement, moving on before you can finish parsing what he's pointing at, "like so, of course it would take a tremendous amount of energy!, but if it were possible,--"

"FORD! STOP FLIRTING WITH THAT CHICK AND GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"

At that, the scientist whips around and levels the man with a glare that's got to require a special permit. "I WAS NOT--!" but he cuts himself off and whirls back around to you. His cheeks and eyes are burning, and you resist the urge to flinch back in your seat. "I assure you, I am not--"

You hold up your hands placatingly. "Hey, hey, no worries, I didn't think you were." Not that you're especially good at recognizing it. You'll never forget the time you blew your chance with that NASA engineer. "Listen--I don't want to get between you and your family. I'm just some NPC in a diner, you know? Sounds like tonight is a big deal for you folks."

He smiles slightly, and with one last longing look at the page, slides your notebook back across the table. "Yes. Yes, it is. I should be going." Then he lifts his gaze to yours, softer this time, and rubs the back of his neck. "I suppose I got a little carried away. It's... been awhile since I've gotten to discuss my research."

You're struck then, pummelled really, by the overwhelming impulse to give him your card, tell him you're going to be in town awhile, invite him out for coffee and math. You're not ready for this conversation to end. After all, it started with folding up the universe; where could it go?

But he's already out of the booth. "It truly was a pleasure," he says, inclining his head. And he turns on his heel and strides away before you can say anything else.

You blink.

Take a breath.

Take a sip of coffee. (Still gross.)

Take another breath.

Open your notebook again, and resume writing, but this time-- this time in a bespoke script, a set of characters you made up that more or less replaces the alphabet. You always feel a little silly doing this, but sometimes... sometimes you just don't want your thoughts in plaintext. The letters flow vertically down the page, veering left and right of center as you scrawl.

The Pineses are attacking their pancakes like they're breaking a fast. Except for the scientist, that is. He chews thoughtfully, staring into the middle distance. His probably-brother waves a hand in front of his face and says something you can't hear.

You drop some cash on the table and tug your jacket on, giving the Pines booth a friendly wave as you walk past. The boy ducks his head. The scientist smiles regretfully and nods. The girl gives you a puzzled wave, and the smoker narrows his eyes. Yeah, definitely time to go.

The outside air is bracing, thick with the scent of pine and earth, and so, SO dark. You leave the windows down as you drive to the mansion, soaking it in. Lightning bugs flash. Frogs croak. A deer considers ruining your day, then thinks better of it. You don't pass a single other car.

By the time you unlock the door to your suite, you're ready to faceplant onto the bed. But the bed is covered by a designer duvet and you're afraid to contaminate it with your pedestrian face oils. So you turn down the sheets and THEN faceplant, sinking slowly as the memory foam molds to your body. Ohh yeah. That's the stuff.

But instead of reaching for the light, you reach for your phone and start composing a text to your bestie.

So I met this guy tonight

But no, that's not it either. WAS it all that wild, really? Would it sound "truly bananas" in the retelling? Maybe it just felt like a lot because it was so intense. You delete it and stare at the cursor for a solid minute.

Made it to Gravity Falls. The coffee's terrible!

You toss your phone onto the pillow and open your bag, retrieving your notebook. It obligingly falls open to the pages you didn't write.

His handwriting is nice. Really nice. Abnormally nice. Compact but fluid, regular but elegant. It's possibly the most readable cursive you've ever seen.

Too bad you can't understand a damn thing he's written.

Well... if nothing else, it's a great reference for the next time you need a "mad science" asset for a game.

What a character. What a collection of characters, but him especially. If this is at all indicative of the town as a whole, you are going to have a VERY interesting month.

You stare at the page a little longer. Folding universes, huh?...

You give up and turn off the lights. The quiet sounds of the woods drop you to sleep almost immediately.