Death

Ford stared at the sight before him. He couldn't believe it.

They were all here.

The grim trotted after Stan as per usual while he wrapped up his tour. The crows had claimed the roof today, but a couple had decided to perch next to Stan's cashier Wendy as she sat in her "secret" spot. Looking to his right, Ford could see the banshee further down the tree line; her eyes never left Stan as she smiled and gave a small sigh. The owl had settled on top of the totem pole and Dipper was sitting in front of it, obviously sketching it and taking notes. Finally, the cat was curled up taking a nap on the porch for the gift shop with Mabel petting it and chatting with Soos as he repaired the golf cart.

He'd thought it before and he couldn't help but think it again: this made absolutely no sense. By all rights, this scene should indicate that someone in the Sha- house should be dead – probably five times over. Given how long these omens had been around and who they all fixated on, that someone should be his brother.

Heck, there was practically a glowing neon sign pointed at Stan that said, "I'm going to die."

Yet Stan was clearly still here. If the omens had truly been false, they would have disappeared long ago, leaving his brother alone. Instead, they kept coming back and all of these omens seemed to genuinely like him.

What was it about Stan that attracted death to him?

Ford didn't know. He didn't know, but he had to figure it out. Because this was his little brother. Even if they weren't always on the best of terms (more like most of the time they didn't seem to be), Ford was still going to look after him.

For now though, all Ford could do was look around incredulously. There was a huge difference between seeing one or two at a time like he had been and seeing all five death omens at the once hanging around his family.

He was startled by a rustling to his left. Ford was hesitant before turning to look at the source of the noise, because he didn't think he could handle another omen at the moment.

He saw the newcomer and his mouth immediately dried out and his heart leapt to his throat. There was no doubt who this was.

It was Death.

Ford had once theorized that there were both Grim Reapers, who were essentially minions that did most of the day to day collection of souls and were what most people thought of when it came to the subject, and then Death, the big boss of it all. The being before him was not a simple Reaper though.

The figure was cloaked in black, the traditional robe most thought of when Death came to mind, and it almost seemed to merge with the shadows, flickering in an unfelt breeze. From the folds of its robe, Ford could see corpse pale hands peeking through. He was grateful that he couldn't see the being's face, because just looking into the shadows of the hood gave him chills. And it was the way he felt as he looked at this being, an overwhelming, oppressive sense of dread and despair that was even stronger than the grim's aura, that told him this was Death itself.

Something made him pause though, despite every instinct in him screaming at him to get away. Maybe it was just the scientist in him, but for a moment, he found that he just had to stop and observe it.

Death was looking around, just like Ford had been mere moments ago. It looked at the grim, the murder of crows, the banshee, the owl, and the cat. As he watched, Ford was surprised to find that the omens were staring right back. Each of the omens had stopped what they were doing, with even the cat opening one lazy eye, to fix a glare at Death. There was an undercurrent of power to the stare-off, a very clear warning.

They're protecting him. Ford thought with a jolt of surprise. There was no doubt in his mind who it was they were attempting to protect.

It was a shocking thought. Death omens were meant to be a warning of impending doom, if not a direct cause in a person's demise. However, for one reason or another, these creatures had sensed Death's approach and shown up just to protect Stan. Just as they must have been doing for years.

Rather than bringing Death to Stan's doorstep, they had kept Death away, saving his brother.

This was as mind boggling as their presence in the first place.

Still, Ford could almost feel sorry for Death, because it was looking around as if at a loss of what to do just like he had been. He found that there was really only one thing he could do.

"Here."

Death seemed a bit startled at being interrupted. He turned to Ford and peered down at the canteen in his outstretched hand. Hopefully, Stan would never know how he managed to sneak the contents of the canteen into the house, but frankly, it looked like Death could use a drink.

Death took the canteen somewhat hesitantly, but there was no pause as it tilted it back to take a big swig. It then handed it back with a great sigh.

"Still not today." Its voice was an interesting mix of a growl and a whisper. It was hard to really pinpoint it.

Death pulled out a notebook and opened it to a bookmarked page. Putting away his canteen in his trench coat, Ford leaned over to catch a glimpse inside. He felt a lead weight in his stomach as he read the title at the top of the page.

In beautiful calligraphy, it bared the name "Stanley Cassandra Pines."

Under his name were dozens of potential deaths. The first five or so were written in a normal size, but after that point the size of the short phrases was drastically reduced. Each one was crossed out though as Stan had obviously continued to survive. Ford couldn't make many of them out, but one of the ones he managed to read made him feel sick to his stomach.

He knew all too well what sort of severe burn on Stan's shoulder could have led to an infection that might have killed him.

Though Ford could admit that some of the other potential deaths he caught sight of really made him want to sit his brother down and thoroughly discuss what exactly Stan had done during first those ten years after high school as well as in the past thirty years. After all, what could "Death via Llama" mean?

Death snapped the book shut before he could read any more and the noise seemed to echo with finality. It slid the book back into its robe. "I'll give it a week or two before I'm back." It grumbled lowly.

Ford figured he probably wasn't supposed to hear that.

Death gave Ford a nod, perhaps in thanks for the drink or in goodbye, before seeming to melt away into the ether.

Ford stared at the spot the specter had been mere moments ago. He found himself going over to the nearest log and sitting down heavily. A glance back to the house showed the omens had returned to acting normal. Still, his eyes drifted once more to that spot.

He was grateful that Death had left without getting what it came for. That at least was something he was sure of. Its parting words were not very reassuring though, and just the length of that list…

Seriously, how was his brother still alive?

"Stanford."

Ford flinched in surprise at the sudden voice and jerked his eyes up to see Stan frowning down at him. He then looked past him to see everyone else had gone inside to do their jobs and sell merchandise to the tourists. If Ford wasn't mistaken though, he would say Stan was watching him with worry.

"Jeez, I called your name, like, five times, Poindexter. The least you can do is pay attention." Stan rolled his eyes and sat down next to him.

"Right." Ford said, trying to avoid Stan's eyes as he looked him over. Just a few minutes ago he was thinking about how he wanted to talk to his brother but now that he was here, he also didn't want to talk to him about this. After all, Death had quite literally just been here to try to collect him.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he really should have tried to catch how Stan was supposed to have died today.

Stan had a look on his face that Ford hadn't seen in ages. It was the same look he'd give right before yanking the book Ford was hiding behind from his hands and demanding to know who had dared to mess with him, whether physically or through taunts. His younger brother had always had a sense for when something was bugging Ford, and he had always been persistent in figuring out what was wrong.

"Are you freaking out because of all the death omens around here? Or is it something else?" Stan asked.

"Yes. It – " Ford answered automatically before doing a double-take. "Wait a minute! You admit that they're omens! But you – "

"To be fair, Ford, you only told me that Omen was a death omen." Stan pointed out.

Ford blinked in surprise and quickly ran over their previous conversations in his mind. That was actually true.

"With all the others, you were just focusing on how weird it was that they were still alive or just how not normal they are in general," Stan spread his arms to emphasize his point, "Which as I mentioned is a moot point in Gravity Falls."

Well, maybe I would have been clearer if you had shown any inclination in listening to my advice. Ford thought, somewhat disgruntled. "So what helped you finally figure out their true nature?" He grumbled. He narrowed his eyes in thought. If one of those things had tried to do something...

"The Internet is a thing, Poindexter."

"The what?" It seems that this was another thing that he needed to catch up on from the past thirty years.

"The kids haven't taught you about that yet? It's pretty much the best way to research information nowadays. I'm sure Dipper would be thrilled to show you, though if you have been to super sci-fi worlds like you said, you've probably seen something similar." Stan said, "Anyway, so yeah, I just looked up the different stuff you were having a conniption over and saw that lots of people consider these guys death omens." He paused. "I also may have found an explanation as to why it's always been hard for me to hang mirrors on the wall besides ones that are considered part of a cabinet."

"Wait, what?"

"Anyway," Stan continued, "my point is what exactly about these supposed omens are freaking you out?"

Ford blinked at his brother. "Isn't the fact that they're death omens enough?"

Stan was silent for a long moment. "It's not like they want to be omens, you know. The people who know what they are, they probably haven't treated them very well. It's not like they want to be omens or want people to die. They just are. I don't see why I should treat them differently whether they're just animals and a forest guardian or actual death omens."

At that time, Ford realized why the death omens loved Stan so much, because it was one of the reasons why he had always loved his brother.

Despite a person or being's weirdness or abnormality, Stan accepted that and treated the person like they were normal.

He had only made a big deal out of Ford's hands when he was defending him and had always tried to help him feel comfortable about it. He fed these various death omens because he thought they were hungry or provided shelter because that was what immediately caught his attention, not the fact that they were strange. He waved at the banshee because he thought she was nice, even when he realized that she wasn't human.

Stan didn't necessarily care what you were; even if he put up a front of not really caring about someone at all, he would still help that person out.

"Besides," Stan was saying, "these guys have never tried to hurt me. Quite the opposite, in fact."

Ford took that in and frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, once when working on the portal, some stuff fell on me and Omen pulled me out. Another time, some… former associates of mine tracked me down," Stan roughly cleared his throat, "the crows nearly pecked their eyes out when they attempted to get reinforcements."

Stan continued talking about a few other incidents, like the banshee guiding him around a bad part of the woods or the owl freaking out one of the Northwest's lackeys, but Ford wasn't really paying as much attention as he probably should.

It seems that he was right that the omens just wanted to protect Stan. If that was the case, he supposed that he could tolerate their existence. Plus, they seemed to be a deterrent for Death itself, and he really didn't want to see that being around again.

Stan had stopped, he belatedly realized. He looked over at him and saw that his brother was still giving him that look.

"So you and the omens good now?"

"I suppose." Ford said, but that didn't seem to be what his brother was looking for.

"And there's nothing else you want to talk about?" Stan narrowed his eyes at him. Obviously, his brother could tell that there was still something bothering Ford.

For a second, Ford thought about telling Stan about the Rift that was sitting in his lab, or about why he had had to make a barrier around the Shack – Dangit, I've been trying not to get sucked into calling it that – and Bill Cipher. But that would probably put his brother in more danger than he already seemed to naturally be in. He didn't need to give Stan even more reason to court Death.

A stray thought occurred to Ford that maybe Stan had actually tried to literally court a Reaper and that's why Death showed up instead. He really hoped Stan's luck in love wasn't that bad.

"No, there's nothing you need to know about." Ford lied, throwing his brother a reassuring grin.

Stan didn't seem to buy it, but at least he dropped the subject. He easily shrugged off the subject and stood. "Well," he stretched his back with a sharp crack, "in any case, I hope this means you're going to start calling everyone by their names."

"I am not going to call them by those ridiculous names." Ford deadpanned.

"What do you mean ridiculous?! My names are genius!"

Together, they started heading back to the Shack. Ford absently thought he probably shouldn't go in considering there were still tourists around, but Stan would most likely explain it away and earn more money to boot.

"I did see a couple of your commercials back in the day, Stanley. You really want to argue about names when you literally had a product called 'Sham.'"

"I don't have to take this. I'm old."

"We're only 58. And I'm the older one."

"Don't tell the people who give me senior citizen benefits that. If anyone asks, we're 68."

Ford rolled his eyes and tried to suppress a smile.

Even with all these death omens hanging over them, things would be okay.

Probably.

End

AN: And that's a wrap! So this was a 5+1 fic of the 5 death omens Stan kinda adopted and the one (kinda) that Ford met first, and it takes place between The Last Mabelcorn and Dipper and Mabel vs the Future. (Hint: That's why Death figured he'd be back in a week since Stan's next potential death was during Weirdmaggedon. He still doesn't know how Stan escaped that one.) Again, this is based on the JOML/Grim AU developed by notllorstel, thesnadger, and impishnature on Tumblr so check them out if you want. Obeedee here on this site said they might do a continuation or something similar within their works if you're still interested in the topic.

Personally, I had a lot of fun with this. It was my way of poking fun of all the symbolism and clues that seemed to scream that Stan was going to die before the series was done, probably by fire. As it turns out, Death and all of its related omens just love Stan, so seeing signs of death around him doesn't necessarily mean he's gonna die. I hope you enjoyed this and thank everyone for all the support I've been shown for this. Thanks!

P.S. Stan totally flirted with the Reapers. That and his growing still-not-Dead status is what attracted Death itself.