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He nearly tears it apart.
His hands won’t stop shaking as he flips frantically through the journal. He’s on the floor, on his knees in front of that crazy machine, and he thinks his shoulder might be really messed up.
“Come on, Stanford…come on, buddy, you gotta tell me what to do…”
The words and pictures flying past don’t make any sense, but he can’t stop turning pages, can’t stop praying and swearing under his breath, can’t stop searching for anything that looks like instructions for how to undo the worst mistake of his life.
Continued in Journal #2
There’s a reading lamp attached to the headboard, because of course there is.
The sheets don’t smell like his brother any more, haven’t for weeks, but the lamp is the kind of nerdy thing that makes this still feel like Stanford’s bed. Reminds him that he isn’t doped up and dreaming somewhere.
He forces himself to stay awake and finish reading another few pages. Cornish Peskies. Size and coloration. Geographical distribution. Treatments for bites. A scribbled eye glares up at him from the page, crazy on top of crazy.
He lifts the book and breathes in.
Just paper. Just ink.
See, he always figured Stanford couldn’t handle it. What they did together. How they felt.
But here’s the kicker, what he finally sees in all those breathless journal entries. Before something went wrong, Stanford was happy in Gravity Falls.
His brother didn’t want to be normal. He just didn’t want to be with some dumb Jersey meathead who liked boxing and cowboy movies and wasn’t anything special enough to write a book about.
Stanford wasn’t running away from weird, he was running towards it.
Stanley’s sober when he makes this realization. Then he isn’t for a good two years after.
“Goddamn toothy little bastards...”
He limps into the house, trailing blood. He yanks the book out of the drawer and riffles through it. Cupboards fly open and bottles hit the counter. Gauze, check. Hydrogen peroxide, check. Unicorn tears—
“For Christ’s sake, Stanford!”
He makes do with the hydrogen peroxide, and that night while working in the basement, he slaps a post-it note on the front of the journal, renaming it: Stanford Pines’ Dictionary of Useless Cures for Creepy Garbage Animals in the Creepy Garbage Woods.
It’s not the snappiest title, but it cheers him up until the Pesky bites heal.
He kind of likes getting snowed in. The lack of TV reception, not so much, but the quiet’s nice. The excuse to do nothing for a while.
The fire’s crackling as he reclines under a pile of blankets, revisiting his favorite parts of the journal. The funny stuff.
Man, he’s going to give Stanford such a hard time about Bigfoot when…
...when he sees him again.
He reads until the daylight fades, then closes the book on his chest. His hand settles on the outline of his brother’s, and he sleeps as the snow piles up silently outside their house.