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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of It's either tourist traps or drugs
Stats:
Published:
2024-06-17
Completed:
2024-06-27
Words:
24,317
Chapters:
10/10
Comments:
33
Kudos:
77
Bookmarks:
7
Hits:
1,121

Fragile First Chance

Summary:

One day, Mabel and Dipper were sent to live with a family member they had never met who was manifestly unsuited to childcare for an entire summer. It was the greatest adventure of their lives.

Their parents did not tell them why and don't plan to.

Joss William Pines got out of prison at the beginning of the summer. His mother and step-father don't want him near the twins until they are sure he's clean safe to be around. On the day Dipper and Mabel return - and despite the insane news reports from Gravity Falls - he takes the same bus in the other direction, far away from old "friends" in San Francisco and the constant risk of addiction relapse.

Will is nineteen years old, desperately unhappy, has no hobbies and few possessions, hates nature, and thinks Ford is a stuck-up asshole. Will is struggling with all his might to be a mature adult who doesn't start fistfights or commit felonies, but doesn't know how else to spend his time. He's the opposite of a Gravity Falls character.

Also he keeps hallucinating a weird voice when he's in the woods.

Notes:

Click here for a note about the change from "teen" to "mature!"

So, I kept going back and forth about whether this was Teen or Mature. The Archive does not have explicit guidelines on what constitutes Teen content. I initially chose the T rating because this story:

  • Contains realistic situations a fairly normal teenager might encounter
  • Is complex, and does not treat Will's life as straightforward, but does its best to portray his struggles with respect
  • Is optimistic in tone, despite the heaviness of the subject matter
  • Does not dwell extensively on current acts of cruel or criminal behavior (ex. Will has a history of drug use, but is clean at the time of the story)
  • Is not gratuitous in its descriptions of mature themes
  • Is about teens

However, it this was a movie in theaters, it would be rated R. It contains:

  • A whole lot of swearing (mostly in understandable contexts)
  • Realistic in-story drug and alcohol situations
  • References to past addiction, imprisonment, and violence
  • Vivid and potentially upsetting descriptions of major mental health disorders
  • Slurs - almost entirely self-applied or used in an attempt to understand a hard situation
  • Self-injurious behavior during periods of strong emotion

I consider this to be a story for older teenagers. However, the upsetting themes - especially in the second half - ultimately led me to mark it "M."

The first two chapters contain almost nothing objectionable. For some chapters, I have included content warnings in a collapsible details tab:

like this

so that you can easily skip them if you don't want spoilers, or read them if you are concerned about specific triggers.
Feel free to request specific content warnings.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Out of second chances

Chapter Text

"Come on. You'll have fun. I promise."

Mabel wasn't having it. She could glare fiercer than a spurned opera soprano.

May Pines loudly MWAH'd as she kissed Mabel on the cheek.

Mabel suppressed the giggle; she wasn't done being loudly, performative indignant at the injustice of it all. "If I have fun, it won't be your fault! I'll have you know that Dipper and I have been planning fun for weeks because we know just how very UN-fun this whole dumb trip is going to be!"

"Oh, good to know you're getting along so well lately," Fil said, who was such an advanced master at passive-aggression that he could use the super-advanced technique of being earnest and genuine.

"Come oooon," Dipper groaned.

"Wait, hold up, champ." Fil grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into a hug. Dipper rolled his eyes and groaned louder. He plopped his head onto Fil's shoulder.

That's another part of a dad's job - figuring out when your moody tweenaged kid very obviously wants a hug but thinks that he's too cool and mature to ask for one.

Fil and May waited for the bus to pull away before leaving, waving at the twins. They were as nervous as any parents could be. Uncle Stan was an odd duck. Fil's dad always said that he fell off the deep end when his brother died, throwing away a career and his life passions in favor of tourism. But, he sent them holiday cards, he showed up at family gatherings when his aging body let him, and most importantly, he owned a house and business that was far away from the Bay Area.

The next day, they spent the morning getting the guest room ready and clearing out the bathroom medicine cabinets. Dipper had spent a brief stint on Ritalin a year ago. They had the good sense to feel guilty as they checked his things to make sure there weren't any pills hidden away, politely ignoring all signs of his newly pubescent interests that were shoved into crevices and hidden in drawers. They had a stash of liquor that went untouched for the majority of the year and then came out for parties; this was all gifted to neighbors and friends, tied to some excuse about summer cleaning and ensuring that it was appreciated.

They had a long conversation about whether or not they needed to hide the knives. When it was clearly too much, Fil took his wife by the shoulder and hugged her, quietly saying that they would cross that bridge if they came to it.

"He's not a bad kid," Fil said, because if you say something like that out loud, it makes it a little bit more true.

May nodded, tears in her eyes. She remembered the screaming toddler that Fil had never known. She remembered before.

In the afternoon, their work done, they set out. The prison was three and a half hours away. Traffic was lighter than they expected, so they stopped and got a few things - jeans and shirts, notebooks and pens, a backpack, candy. The sort of things you get a teenager who you don't know well, but who doesn't have anything at all.

They kept the receipts. They didn't really know what his size was.

May managed not to cry when she saw him again. Fil wished that she would; it was a lot easier to be a good husband to the wife you've known for thirteen years of marriage than a good dad to a child who you only knew for the nine worst years of your life.

William, by all accounts, should have been a big guy. He had the shoulders of a big guy. His clothes hung loose on him, though, and you could see the shape of his skull. Fil and May had been doing their best to help him out with living expenses, but if that had been working out well, then he probably wouldn't be getting out of jail right now.

The ride back home was quiet.

Fil wished that they liked sports. Dad was into sports. You can always talk about sports. Hell, you can even fight about sports. It was a lot easier to fight with Will than talk to him, and, well, Fil was a Pines. Fighting was practically the family love language.

Will didn't pick a fight, though. He barely said anything, even to his mom. He just stared out the window, a little bundle of gifts in his hands, and looked far too tired for a kid who wasn't even twenty.