Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(2 Months)

Dipper looked at Mabel.

"Um…er…."

She smacked him upside the head

(which even as he cringed from the smack because Mabel smacked hard he still relished. Part because he loved the sensation of pain now but mostly just being touched meant so much more when one was incorporeal most of the time)

and snapped, “Dipper just tell me!”

It had only been three days since Mabel found out she was pregnant and he really should have never mentioned that he could probably tell before anyone else what she was having.

Especially after he looked and oh my god, if being related to an actual demon like Dipper hadn’t killed his brother in law this probably would.

"Um, Mabes," Dipper started, one hand behind his head and top hat in the other hand. "Remember when Mom told us that twins run in the Pines family?"

She hit him again, but this time a gentle boff in the shoulder. “Yeah silly, I know I’m having twins. I just want to know if they’re both boys or both girls or a boy and a girl….”

He looked down at his hands hovering over his sister’s stomach, sensing the little lives inside and really it was cool to be doing this for Mabel but also kind of weird? Eh.

"Well, there are two girls-"

Mabel punched the air. “YES”

"-and a boy. You’re having triplets Mabel."

Mabel sat bolt upright on the bed and stared at Dipper, floating nervously, for a full minute.

Then she screamed loud enough that if Dipper were corporeal he would be sure that his ears would be bleeding.

As it was, he accidentally boiled the nearby lake away for the first time in three years and it rained frogs in Gravity falls for the next two days.

(5 Months)

When he got back, Mabel took one look at him and started laughing.

Henry, sitting next to his wife on the couch, looked at her, and then looked at the empty air she was laughing at. He nodded to Dipper even though he couldn’t see him at the moment, and went back to his book.

"Mabel, it’s not funny!"

She clutched her stomach, which at five months along was starting to show, and just laughed harder.

"People summoning me like they did with…with Bill isn’t funny! What if we were out investigating and you needed me?"

At that she settled down, but only a bit. “Really Dipper, this is your own fault.”

He bristled…literally, as the little bat wings that sometimes appeared on his lower back popped out, making Mabel laugh all over again.

Honestly. Sometimes she acted like she was still twelve and not twenty seven.

"Mabe honey, breathe," Henry said from behind his book as he patted her on the stomach and she finally calmed down.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and patted the spot on the couch that was left perpetually empty for Dipper to ‘sit’ in. He floated over and settled next to his twin.

"It’s just…I bet if you kept the ‘Dipper’ people would be less likely to summon you than now, especially since you go by-" and here she couldn’t help herself and a snerk came out of her mouth. "-Alcor."

"She has a point bro," Henry chimed in, flipping a page. Dipper glared at his in-law and the temperature dropped briefly before returning to normal.

"It makes perfect sense if you know your astronomy," he huffed. "Mizar and Alcor are twin stars within th-"

Mabel suddenly grabbed both his and Henry’s wrists in a death grip, and smooshed both on her stomach.

Henry looked at his wife. “Mabel? Is everything oka-oh.”

Dipper couldn’t even say anything, as he felt underneath his hand, solid with the touch of his sister, movement.

It was one thing to see his future nieces and nephew as he did, all light and sparks and blinding potential that he could barely describe to his impatient sister.

It was another to feel…oh, this was niece number one-flutter under his hand.

Little licks of blue fire tracked down his trace as the three of them sat on the couch for some time.

————-

(6 months)

Mabel sipped her herbal tea (no caffeine now, darn it) and arranged her knitting supplies around her. It was a singularly lovely morning.

She was lying on the porch swing Henry installed soon after they married (and found the Mystery Shack had a covered porch now thanks to some work between Grunkle Stan and Henry’s Corduroy relatives.)

Henry was at work at the town library, Grunkle Stan was at his lodge, and since they didn’t have a case or something of world shaking significance to work on, Dipper was out doing…eh, weird demon stuff, she wasn’t sure but he’d be back in a bit.

As much as she loved all three of them, it was also kind of nice to be alone with her thoughts for a while. She used her foot to push herself and then settled back in.

It was nice to be in a place where she belonged. Where they belonged, since no one looked twice at her here when she talked to Dipper or introduced him or hugged on him or took super cute selfies with the two of them. Sure they couldn’t see him but eh, they knew about the Mystery Twins.

(Also, it being Gravity Falls, they had seen way weirder shit. Just last week she and Dipper had to go check out reports of a unijackelope. Turns out not only were unijackelopes now a thing, there was a whole herd of them. An adorable herd.)

Their parents had taken the whole “Oh yeah your son is now a dream demon of unimaginable power and might” thing….well, but perhaps not as well as they could have. They knew Dipper was still here, albeit only really seeable by Mabel most of the time, and they even moved to Gravity Falls for the first year to try and see if they could cure Dipper, restore him to normal.

But then when it was obvious they couldn’t and they moved back to Piedmont, it was awful because everyone was aware of the supernatural now but it was still all new and scary, and there was Crazy Mabel, talking to the air and acting like her brother was still there, silly girl. Or they thought she was possessed and avoided her like the plague because who knew what dark deals she had made. And after the Incident, she and Dipper had begun to grow apart from their parents. It wasn’t that they didn’t love each other anymore but she would never forget the look on Dipper’s face the first time he spoke to his parents with his new voice and saw the not-hidden-fast-enough fear on their faces.

Mabel asked to move back in with Grunkle Stan when they were sixteen and their parents had agreed. It had been for the best, and Grunkle Stan, while upset at what had happened to Dipper, understood and treated him like normal. She kept in touch with them, of course. They were beyond thrilled to be grandparents, for instance.

But at the end of the day, there was a distance between them, and she didn’t think they would ever be able to breech it again.

Mabel was interrupted in her thoughts and knitting with a sudden rhythmic movement in her stomach that she had recently found out meant one of the triplets was hiccupping.

She wasn’t so alone on this porch after-all, she remembered. Mabel put aside the little booties that she had been working on and patted her stomach.

"Did Mommy’s bad thoughts upset you? I’m sorry little one." She chuckled a bit. "You can’t go to sweater town quite yet."

In response, the other two started hiccupping which felt…really really weird.

Mabel started patting her stomach in time with the hiccups and started to sing.

"Oooohhh this is the hiccup song, time to sing along to the hiccup song…"

Without really thinking about it, she went on for a minute or two, singing and patting until under her hand and in her stomach the triplets stopped.

They stopped…after she sang to them and patted her tummy and sweet Moses.

She yelled at the top of her lungs. “DIIIIIIIPPERRRRRRR!” and for good measure gave a little tug on the link between the two of them.

Two seconds later Dipper popped next to her, more demon than human appearing, hands full of blue fire.

"Mabel what’s wrong are you hurt are the kids okay are-"

He looked at the relative calm and quiet around them, and faded back into his ‘normal’ appearance.

"Mabes, I’m not really sure if I can say ‘you scared the life out of me’ any more, but yeah, you just scared ten theoretical years off a lifespan of indeterminate length."

"Womp womp, I’m sorry but Dipper! Dipper they were hiccupping and I sang to them and they stopped so does that mean they can hear me now?"

Dipper, to his credit, did not say “Isn’t that something to ask your obstetrician” or “I was a guest at a very important diplomatic event and leaving unexpectedly is going to have very dire consequences for me and I really don’t want to have to be in a position to banish a bunch of demons from this realm but that’s what’s going to happen now.”

Instead he sat down next to Mabel who had moved to make room for him on the bench and put his ear to her stomach (though he didn’t need to do that but eh, touch, he’d take it and it made his sister happy).

He sensed one-two-three small lives, still growing underneath the surface of Mabel’s sweater and skin. They didn’t have much in the way of minds yet, or at least minds that other humans would understand, but they were still there and thinking. They liked the patting and the vibrations they had felt that helped them calm down. They loved Mabel and….and they loved him, this odd shadow being that was still so much like their mother that they could feel every time he was by.

His nephew wiggled around to smoosh his body up against Mabel’s stomach and pressed against Dipper’s ear. Dipper had seen wonders and horrors the mortal mind could not begin to comprehend but this was something on a whole other level. His eyes started to leak a bit (because he was Alcor, the Twin Star, the Dream Bender, and he was totally not crying and ruining the little demon cred he had built up)

“Sooooo, does that mean they heard me?”

——

(2.5 months)

Once a month, Henry came home from work with a six pack of Sam Adams or whatever else looked good at the convenience store, and a bomber of the finest, most expensive craft beer he could get from Whole Foods thirty miles down the road in Bend.

Then Stan would draw a summoning circle and pour out the entire bomber while Henry pricked his thumb to get a drop of blood on there, and thus Dipper was summoned onto the physical plane for weekly Beer Night.  

“How long we got Dipper?” Stan asked when Dipper popped into existence (and had finished smoothing down his suit and it was hilarious to Stan that the kid he used to have to beg to take a shower was now so fussy about his appearance).

Dipper thought for a second, feeling the tone of the sacrifice within his being, the richness and quality of the beer that had been spilt in the circle.

“Two hours.”

Henry came out onto the porch and settled on the porch swing next to his in-laws. “Good thing I got extras then,” he said, a six pack in each hand.

They opened a beer.

They drank a beer.

They watched the goat wander through the yard and try and eat the tire off of Henry’s truck.

They opened another beer.

“Mabel isn’t coming back for a while right?” Stan asked.

“Nope, she’s having dinner with the girls at Wendy’s,” Henry replied at the same time that Dipper said “Not for another four hours and ten minutes.”

“To business then,” Stan said solemnly, though the trio sat in silence for another few minutes, because what the three of them were about to do would probably really, really piss Mabel off if she knew.

But the fact of the matter was that Mabel was having triplets, and with that many babies there was so much opportunity for something to go wrong or for them to come out too terrifyingly early or for three to become…two. Or none.

“Can you do it kid?” Stan asked.

Dipper nodded. “Yes.” He grimaced. “For a price. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I want to just do it but I can’t and-“

Stan put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder, ignoring the yellow fire that was flowing out of Dipper’s eyes and the black cast that was coming to his skin. “Whoa, whoa, calm down there, we know that, it’s okay.”

Dipper settled down and Henry took that moment to replace Dipper’s empty with another beer. He looked his brother-in-law in the eye. “What will it take to make sure Mabel carries the kids to term, that they all come out healthy and strong?”

Dipper shotgunned his beer (not that alcohol had much effect on him, even when he was on this plane, but he really felt the need to drink a mass amount of beer right now). He looked down, unable to meet Henry or Grunkle Stan’s eyes.

“A year of your life.”

Immediately both Grunkle Stan and Henry said “I’ll do it.” They looked at each other and glared.

“Henry, son, I lo-like you a lot. You have your whole life ahead of you, and you have a wife and kids to think of. I don’t. It should be me.”

Henry, for once, lost his calm a bit. “Stan, I’m young and I’m sure I can spare a year. How can I not do that for them? Also, okay, yeah, you’re old as…um, something really old, but we would like you to be here to see the triplets for however long you have left.”

(Dipper did not mention that he could see when both of them were going to die. He could see when everyone would die. He could see when Mabel would die and when he thought about that he usually went and vented his rage against some unsuspecting stars or the idiot unlucky enough to summon him in that mood)

What he did say instead was “I can take it from both of you.”

Grunkle Stan and Henry looked at each other for a second.

“Oh,” Henry said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah, really feel like one of us should have thought of that,” agreed Grunkle Stan.

They both turned to Dipper in the middle. “What do we have to do?” Henry asked, twisting his wedding ring on this finger.

“Trust me,” Dipper said because that was more fun than just actually telling them (oh no that was demon talk, that was Bill-talk there but it was too late because-)

Dipper summoned a pocket knife to hand and before either Stan or Henry could react he grabbed Henry’s left hand and made a large shallow slash across the palm. He did the same to Stan’s right hand, then turned the knife onto his own palms. He grabbed their bleeding hands, red mixing in with bright, unnatural blue fire and

breathe in-

(and draw in six months from Stan and six months from Henry because they can both afford it and this is their effort, this pact binding the three of them, this life they are sacrificing to help others, this love that burns like fire through Dipper that should be anathema to him because of his demonic nature but no, he is more than that, he is Dipper Pines and)

breathe out-

(follow the link, the hold he has over Mabel, because of that… one time when they were twenty and he owns her now and even as he hates saying that a part of him is glad in this case because it makes sending all of this life down that link and into Mabel and he can see even as that life and love settles in what would have happened if they hadn’t done that and he goes pale and)

breathe in. Breathe out.

“It’s done,” Dipper said, his voice echoing more than normal.

Henry blinked.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really really?”

“Yes really Henry!”

Grunkle Stan, who had gone in the Shack while this enlightening exchange had been going on, came back out with a first aid kit for everyone’s hands.

“More important question is, did it make a difference?” he asked as he started cutting up a bandage for their hands.

Dipper nodded, still a little stunned from what had happened, and the vision of a future they had adverted (where one of his nieces went very still soon after she was born and no he was not thinking about that would never think about that again).

Henry cleared his throat. “So, how are we going to explain the cuts on our hands because we’re not telling Mabel right?”

“NO” Stan and Dipper shouted at the same time because an upset Mabel was a scary Mabel.

“We dropped a beer bottle,” Stan started.

“And we all cut our hands trying to clean it up,” Dipper finished, albeit a little lamely because that was probably the lamest lie he had ever heard.

“Good,” Henry said, and then fell back into the porch chair as the enormity of what they had done hit him.

“I’m….just going to sit here for a bit then.”

——-

(8 Months)

Mabel needed to get out of the Mystery Shack.

NOW.

Both Henry and Dipper had put a kibosh on any supernatural investigations which she could respect because she didn’t want to put the triplets in any danger either. And, to be honest, she felt like a small planet right now and could barely move faster than a waddle.

But Grunkle Stan had hidden the punching bag and her gloves until after she had the kids, and she had made enough sweaters and cozies and swimsuits for her Etsy store to sell for the next five months (which meant she’d have to start making more come next month but the point was she was good for now) and everything on TV was terrible and she was out of scrapbooking supplies and there wasn’t any work that needed to be done in the Library and she needed to go for a walk in the forest NOW.

She was struggling to put on her shoes around her tummy when Dipper popped in next to her.

“Where you been bro-bro?” she asked but Dipper was too busy frowning at the hiking boots that were on the floor next to her on the couch.

“Mabel, you aren’t seriously thinking about going for a hike are you?”

She managed to get her right shoe on and was working on her left. “Gee Dipper, nice to see you too, how are you, what have you done today?”

Dipper ignored the sarcasm as he watched his twin try and put a shoe on. “Mabel, I know the doctor says you’ve been almost abnormally healthy, but maybe you should keep taking it easy and GRRK-“

Dipper was cut off by Mabel suddenly (and surprisingly given the size of her stomach) pulling him by his bow tie and bringing his face to hers.

“Dipper, I haven’t left the house in three. Days. I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin, and I can’t eat my Smile Dip stash and I’ve run out of art supplies and I need. To leave. The house. NOW.”

While Dipper didn’t need to breathe any more, even when corporeal or when Mabel was touching him, having his sister put him in a chokehold was really uncomfortable.

“OKAY! Okay fine, no problem, will you let me go now?”

She did so and Dipper fell backwards onto the couch, rubbing his throat (even as a small part of him trilled ‘pain is hilarious!’)

Mabel sighed and leaned back into the couch herself.

“I’m sorry Dip, I know I need to be careful with the triplets and I know you and Henry and Grunkle Stan worry about me but sometimes I just…want to be treated like normal, and not like I’m…I’m….fancy china that breaks easily?”

“Porcelain?”

“Yes!” Mabel cried. “Porcelain!”

Dipper looked at Mabel, flush with frustration, hair askew and a slightly wild look in her eye and said “Well, can I come walk with you? Keep you company or is this a Mabel-only thing?”

Mabel reached in to hug him, her stomach pressing against Dipper’s (one-two-three hello little ones, he called silently too them and got a wash of love back). “Of course you can come with me silly!” she said. She looked down at her feet. “Um….could you help me with my shoes please?”

Ten minutes, and a sweater thrown over Dipper’s head later (“Happy belated birthday! It glows in the dark too!”), they were out in the forest.

“Mystery Twins….STROLL!” Mabel shouted, and gigglesnorted. It was a lot slower going than usual because Mabel wasn’t able to walk very fast, and Dipper may or may not have been steering them away from any part of the forest that promised even the slightest bit of paranormal activity, but it was still a nice walk.

“Dipping Sauce?” Mabel’s voice startled Dipper out of his thoughts and he looked at his twin.

“Yeah Mabel?”

“I want to ask you something. Something big.”

Dipper tensed slightly. “Is this going to require a contract or-“

Mabel smiled. “No no no….um, at least I don’t think so. I checked the library earlier to make sure.”

Dipper relaxed. “Okay, what is it?”

Mabel absentmindedly took a piece of her hair and started chewing it. “So, me and Henry have names picked out already but…we’d…we’d like you to pick a name too. A name only you and they will know.”

Dipper stopped in his tracks and stood agape.

“Wha-“ was all Dipper could manage.

“It’s just, now that everyone  knows about magic and stuff, that also means people will eventually start learning you can hurt or control people with their name and-“

“No, Mabel, I figured that part out, I just mean…Why me? Why do you trust me? I’m a demon.”

Mabel reached over and smacked him upside the head. “You are. You’re also my brother and I love and trust you dummy.”

Dipper whirled on her. “But you shouldn’t! Do you know what I could do with that, with their names?”

Mabel just looked at him as he started to pace on the path.

“Mabel, with their names, their true names, they would be like sitting ducks, like puppets in my hands. There is so much I could make them do, could do to them and-“

Mabel stepped up to Dipper, grabbed his hand, and put it on her stomach.

“Would you really hurt them Dipper?”

“But-“

Her grip tightened and underneath his hand one-two-three little people squirmed and wiggled and his nephew sent a wave of colors at Dipper, feelings of warmth and love and comfort all in one.

“I-“

“WOULD YOU?” she screamed and one-two-three he felt niece number two do a flip and all of them seemed as tense as Mabel was.

“Mabel, calm down, you’re making the triplets upset.”

She took a few deep breaths but didn’t let go of his hand. “Answer me Dipper. Would you really hurt them?”

He looked at her, looked down to his hand resting on her abdomen and back into Mabel’s eyes.

“I….no. I never could. I never will.”

She used her hold on him to pull him into a hug. “See? I told you so. You really need to stop being such a goober sometimes Dip.”

Dipper said nothing, still stunned at what his sister had trusted him with, was going to have him do.

“Just…nothing boring like Susan or John okay?”

Dipper looked at her in mock surprise. “Mabel! How did you guess?”

She started to boff him on his head and shoulders as she laughed.

“Dipperrrrr!”

She really let him have it when he picked her up and started to carry her home, and if anyone else had seen them, they would have seen a heavily pregnant woman floating in the air, laughing and kicking and squealing all the way.

————

(9 months)

The balding man with goat blood on his hands and a holey robe, proud that his summons had been answered, had been talking at Dipper for about seven minutes now. “And that is why I deserve world domination. And then, after that, babes. Like running hot and cold, twenty-four seven, tall, short….”

Dipper tried not to show how bored he was but sweet Moses this guy was a bore. Every third or fourth person who summoned him it seemed wanted world domination. This guy-Kevin- didn’t even present a challenge and he was being really vague and it was really going to be so easy to fuck this guy over as soon as he shut up and-

DIPPER

Dipper winced at how hard Mabel called for him. But then she was tugging on that link harder than she ever had and it felt like the bottom was going to drop out of his stomach. What could possibly-

Oh.

Oh god.

He needed to go. Now.

Luckily, he was aided in that the dumbass in front of him actually crossed the circle and snapped his fingers in Dipper’s face. (Seriously? Seriously.)

“Listen to me when I talk Alco-aaaack!”

Dipper had made a hand motion and the Kevin’s lips sealed shut. Then he snapped and the man disappeared. In his place was a small snow globe, with a little globe in side, and a few sparkles in the shape of mermaids. His erstwhile summoner was in there, pounding his now tiny fists against the sides of the globe.

Normally Dipper would spend a good ten or fifteen minutes rubbing it in and pointing out how he gave Kevin exactly what he wanted and so on. But he had far more important things to see to and that didn’t matter anyway because Mabel yanked on their link hard enough to bring him to the Shack.

When he popped in, Dipper got there just in time for Mabel’s water to break.

“Hospital, now,” she managed to grit out. Henry, pale under his freckles went to get the car started while Stan ran in the other room to get her go bag.

If Dipper was still human, he would have fainted by now. As it was, all the plants in the garden burst into bloom (even though it was November), and a giant octopus suddenly found itself in the town lake.

Dipper actually carried Mabel out to the car, and she didn’t protest like she normally did when he did that. He put her in the front seat and buckled her in.

“Are…are you okay Mabel?” Dipper asked, voice cracking like he was twelve all over again.

She smiled weakly. “Yes goofy. Having babies is supposed to hur-owwwwwww.”

Her grip on his hand tightened until he felt the bones grind together but he was so worried he couldn’t even find pleasure in the pain like he normally did.

That worry kept up all on the way to the hospital, with the bulb of every street light they passed under exploding.

At one point, Henry, who was the most chill person Dipper had ever met, turned to him (or the space in the car where he thought Dipper was) and actually yelled “DIPPER CALM THE FUCK DOWN.” (Then there was an appreciative silence from Grunkle Stan and Mabel and Dipper because none of them had actually ever heard Henry yell before).

They finally got there and Henry and Mabel went into the O.R., leaving Grunkle Stan and Dipper in the waiting room.

Dipper was able to summon enough power to pop onto the physical plane for a minute.

“What do we do now Grunkle Stan?” he asked. Despite the depth and unnatural echo to his voice, the black of his sclera, in this moment Dipper sounded to Stan like the twelve year old he had welcomed into his life all those years ago.

He clapped his grand-nephew on the shoulder. “We wait kid. We wait.”

Time passed.

Time really didn’t mean anything. After all, the future is in the past and the concept of time was rather meaningless to a being like Dipper.

Except in here, in this waiting room that emanated worry and despair and not only was Dipper so aware of time in a way he had never been before but it passed slowly, mind bogglingly slow.

He couldn’t even pass the time by wandering in the Dreamscape and popping into other people’s dreams like he usually did because that would require him leaving the hospital and there was no way that was happening. Hell, even the one or two people summoning him he was able to ignore, because there was no greater summons, no greater hold on his presence than the person who was two floors up from them.

Suddenly, Dipper felt within him next to the anchor on his heart, his being, that was Mabel, another one suddenly come into being. The rush of power that another link to this world gave him dropped him back into the physical sphere.

Grunkle Stan looked away from the TV, which was showing “The Duchess Approves 2: The Rise of the Marchioness.” “Dipper? Is everything alright?”

He couldn’t stop the massive grin on his face. “Niece. I have a niece. We have a niece.”

Another link, another flood of power rushing into him (part of him trilled at all this new found might at his disposal and another part of him was looking at that part suspiciously but there were more important things to worry about right now). “And a nephew!”

Grunkle Stan was crying now and clapping Dipper on the back. One final link, and the feeling that he could do anything right now. “They’re all out.”

He remembered what Mabel needed him to do. “Hey Grunkle Stan, can you hold the fort and wait for Henry?”

Stan was wiping his face with a tissue he had taken out of his suit. “Sure kid-where’re you going?”

He grinned rakishly. “To do a favor,” and with that he faded out and followed the new links in his being until he found them in the nursery. They’d only be there an hour or two until the doctor had finished patching Mabel up after the c-section. Henry was staring at his children through the window, but that was okay, he wouldn’t hear Dipper on this level.

No it was only him and his new nieces and nephew.

Dipper looked at them for the first time. All three of them were small and wrinkly, and had bright red hair, like Henry. But one niece had Grunkle Stan’s nose while the other two had Mabel’s nose, and his nephew’s ears had the slightest bit of a point while his sister’s ears didn’t and oh god they were perfect, they were wonderful and they were his.

And Mabel’s. Oh and Henry, can’t forget Henry.

But then and there Dipper swore to himself that no one would ever hurt them, take them away from him, lay a fucking finger on them. Because he loved them and they were his.

But to business. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper Mabel and Henry had given him last week with the names they wanted the kids to have. Mabel was worried he would forget and though he pointed out that he was almost omniscient, and he certainly wouldn’t forget something as important as names but Mabel insisted (and Henry mouthed behind her back “Just do it brother.”)

He laid a hand on the forehead of his eldest niece. She shifted a bit and then settled under his touch (and he could touch them too?). “Your parents have named you Acacia Ruth, and I further give you the name Polaris.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Welcome to the world Acacia Ruth Polaris Pines. May you always be a guiding light in this world.”

Dipper turned to his nephew, looked at the paper, and looked back at his nephew. “Oh no, executive decision little man, I’m switching these around; Mabel will thank me later.” Because there was theme naming and then there was making sure his nephew didn’t get his ass kicked on the playground (not that that would ever happen under Dipper’s watch, but best to remove the temptation anyway). He laid his hand on his nephew’s forehead. “Your parents have named you Henry Forrest, and I further name you Sirius.” Hank (because he looked more like a ‘Hank’ than a ‘Henry’) gave a little kitten sneeze and Dipper grinned before leaning in to give him a kiss on the forehead. “Welcome to the world Henry Forrest Sirius Pines. May your light always shine bright and clear.” Dipper’s brow furrowed. “Also, I really hope your mother doesn’t kill me after this.”

Lastly, he turned to his younger niece, smaller and a little paler than the other two. Dipper frowned and laid his hands on her. She was going to be alright, but he could feel potential health problems lingering within her and-She bopped him once or twice with tiny little fists, and gave a little kick. Well. No matter what, she was a fighter. Dipper moved his hand to her forehead. “Your parents have named you Willow Miriam, and I further name you Antares.” He kissed her on her forehead. “Welcome to the world Willow Miriam Antares Pines. May you never give up the fight.”

They were finally here, and he finally could see their faces and put names to faces and they were amazing.

“Your mom really needs to see you kids,” Dipper told them. With that he picked up Willow and Acacia in each hand, and used his little bat wings to carry Hank-

(Most fathers would be panicked if they suddenly saw their children floating in midair-kind of like the nurses standing next to Henry. Henry just smiled a bit. “Goddamnit Dipper,” he said, but not with much heat, and walked to Mabel’s room where he was sure his brother in law and children would be joining them shortly.)

-and Dipper walked out of the nursery and followed his connection to Mabel to her room.

When he got in, Henry was there (smart man his sister had married), and Mabel was there, barely awake, and in a lot of pain (he could feel it), but still smiling.

She made weak grabbing motions with her hands. “Let me see ‘em Dipper.”

He phased into physical reality so Henry could see him and take Hank from his…not-hands, and the two men brought the triplets to Mabel.

Dipper, aware that Mabel was sore and weak, placed Acacia and Willow on either side of her, so she could still see and touch them. Henry did the same with Hank, placing him across her legs.

A moment stretched, timeless and wonderful.

Dipper broke it. “So I hope you two don’t mind but Hank is Henry Forrest rather than Forrest Henry. Also he’s a Hank.”

Henry silently mouthed ‘Thank you’ at Dipper and Mabel glared at him.

“Is it because you forgot the paper? I bet that was it.”

Then several nurses and orderlies burst into the room, and Mabel and Henry turned their attention to slightly more pressing matters.

Dipper didn’t pay attention to the conversation flying above and around him, enrapt at the sight of his nieces and nephews.

Chapter Text

(9.5 months)

The triplets were two weeks old and Mabel felt like she was about to lose her mind.

Or cry.

Actually, both.

Her mother had given her advice on dealing with multiple babies, but it was different with twins because she just didn’t have enough arms for all three of them so that meant at any one time she could only hold or feed two of the three of them at once and she’d have to leave Acacia or Hank or Willow out, and then they would start to cry which would make her cry.

She was lucky in that she had a crazy amount of help. Henry had been able to take up to three months of paternity leave from the library, so he was here in the thick of it (usually trying to calm down the baby that she didn’t feed first and oh god she was the worst.) And thank sweet Moses that Grunkle Stan was retired and hanging around the house because not was he good for diaper duty and baby calming (which he was surprisingly good at) now, but he’d be around even after Henry had to go back to work. And then Wendy had been coming almost every day because “How can I not see my new cousins?” and Soos was good at getting them to go to sleep.

So yeah, she was lucky, she was beyond lucky, she knew that. She wasn’t doing this alone, she had help and friends and family.

But here she was, hiding out in her bedroom while the kids were sleeping (all at once, a miracle) and Stan was taking a tv break and Henry was making dinner and she had her sweater over her head and was curled up into a ball on the bed.

A hand touched her shoulder.

“Hey there. You gonna come out of sweater town?”

Mabel didn’t say anything but from under her sweater Dipper heard a loud sniffle, and, quieter, a sob.

He got on the bed with her and curled up next to his twin, like they were five again except twenty seven.

“Can you come out of sweater town a bit so I can give you a hug?” Dipper asked softly.

Mabel’s head moved under her sweater, and then popped out like she was a Mabel-turtle.

Before Dipper had a chance to say or do anything else she was sobbing quietly in his chest.

“What…what’s wrong Mabel?”

She couldn’t say anything for a minute or two, just continued to cry on Dipper’s shirt and coat.

Finally, when she had cried herself out, she wiped her eyes and looked at Dipper (the room was dark but that didn’t matter when her brother’s eyes shone like a cat).

“I….I don’t know if I can do this Dip.”

“WHAT?!” he cried (but quietly because he kind of got the hint that Mabel didn’t want Henry or Stan walking in). “Mabel, of course you can do this. What makes you think you can’t?”

She knuckled at her eyes and sniffled up an inordinate amount of snot. “I’m about to lose my mind and I have so much help now and what am I going to do when it’s just me and I can’t always hold everyone and I feel so selfish and I just…I just…”

She started to put her sweater back over her head. “I’m just so scared Dipper.”

Dipper sat up, and gently tugged the sweater back off of Mabel’s head. “Hey, you will never be alone in this. And not just because you have Henry and Grunkle Stan and everyone else. You have me too.”

Mabel smiled a bit. “But Dip, how can you help? I’m the only person that you can touch any time you want.”

Dipper looked at her askance. “Um, Mabel, do you not remember what happened right after the triplets were born?”

She wiggled her hand. “Ehhhhh….kind of? Barely? I was on something that was better than Smile Dip. It’s all kind of fuzzy and I’m pretty sure the sandworm wasn’t actually in the room with me.”

On the baby monitor there was suddenly the sounds of snuffles and crying and Dipper smiled. “Ah. Okay, hold on a minute.”

Dipper got up and phased through the wall.

He came back in through the door a second later with-

“You can hold them!”

Dipper smiled as he cradled Hank and Willow, and had Acacia in his little back wings.

“Yup. We can touch each other.” He handed off Hank and Willow to Mabel and then joined her on the bed with Acacia in his arms.

He looked down at Acacia while Mabel started feeding Willow and Hank, and put a finger in his niece’s mouth to see if that would help quiet her down.

“Ew, Dipper please say you have washed your hands recently.”

“Um, I enveloped them in cleansing fire?”

He heard Mabel sigh (because they were twins and all and of course breastfeeding was natural and there was nothing shameful about it and Mabel even made little nipple beanies for the kids but there were some things a brother did not want to inadvertently catch sight of, and a sister’s boobs was one of them) but she let it go.

“Point being, I don’t know if I can do anything useful like changing diapers or putting their clothes on unless you summon me or I pop all the way in, but I can always hold them-“

“Switch!”

Without looking (“Dipper, don’t be ridiculous”), he handed over Acacia and took Hank from Mabel. He put Hank over his shoulder and began bapping his back. “But yeah, I can hold them. I can help you. I will always help you.”

He looked Mabel in the eyes. “I will always be there for you Mabel. Always.”

Another tear tracked its way down Mabel’s face, but this time it was from happiness.

Then the moment was ruined by Hank burping up all over Dipper’s suit.

“Oh my god, kid, I just got this cleaned!”.

———-

(11 Months)

Beer Night was here but this time it was just Stan and Dipper on the porch.

Oh, and the triplets. Stan had Willow and Acacia, and Dipper had Hank.

They opened a beer.

They drank a beer (though with a little fumbling in Stan’s case until he mastered reaching for a beer while holding an infant at the same time).

They watched the goat attempt multiple times to knock the totem pole in the front over with his head.

They opened another beer.

“I can’t believe we got them to leave the kids with us,” Dipper finally said. He was wearing a bright day glow purple sweater that said “Sir Dippingsauce” and had little felt shapes sewn all over it. He insisted it was to keep the babies from ruining his suit (but everyone else knew better and wasn’t sure why he was even bothering.)

“I know! How long have we been telling them we can take care of them on our own for two hours while they go on a date?” Grunkle Stan shook his head and took another drink of his beer.

Dipper shook his head sadly. “It’s not like we can be a bad influence or anything for now at least.”

A silence, and the goat reared back for another go.

“Um, I didn’t mean that,” Dipper said sheepishly and Grunkle Stan laughed.

Grunkle Stan looked down at his great-grandnieces in his arms, then to Hank, and finally to Dipper.

He killed his beer and looked out over the yard.

“Dipper, I’m going to tell you something I’m only going to say once, and that’s because Henry got us this damn fine beer and I’m actually buzzed for the first time in three years.”

Dipper said nothing, but started the porch swing rocking again with a quick flick of his hands.

Absently, Stan stroked Acacia’s hair while Willow maneuvered his thumb into her mouth and settled back down.

“I wish…what happened to you. That day. Never happened. Every day I think about what I should have done, should have told you in the first place, to keep that day from happening.”

Dipper was completely speechless. Hank began to shift and snuffle in his arms and he made himself calm down until Hank settled.

Stan was resolutely not looking at Dipper now. “But son, I am so fucking proud of you. I’m proud of what you done with yourself. And I can never bring myself to regret welcoming you two into my home that first summer. Because you kids coming here was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Stan was crying, silently.

So was Dipper.

They were both silent.

There was nothing more that needed to be said.

They drank their beers.

They opened another beer.

They watched the goat try and ram the totem pole to the ground until Acacia began to stir and it was dark and a little cold and they needed to get the triplets inside.

They went into the nursery, and put the kids in their crib. Dipper felt his time on this plane, on this summon, about to run out.

He grabbed Stan in a big hug. “I love you, you stubborn, stupid old man.”

Stan smiled, and noogied his grand-nephew the demon.

“Love you too kid.”

—-

(13 months)

Their parents had only been here for five hours and already Mabel was about ready to go to sweater town.

She wasn’t sure how she was going to survive a whole weekend of this.

Mark and Anna Pines had arrived at the Mystery Shack right before noon and came in just in time to see Hank spitting up on Henry, Acacia hysterically sobbing in Stan’s arms, and Willow yanking on Mabel’s earrings like her life depended on it.

Of course they weren’t fazed by it, just laughed and took Willow and Hank in their arms for the first time, and Acacia when Stan calmed her down a bit more, but Mabel couldn’t help but feel like the tone was set for their visit.

Because she hadn’t missed the way her parents had noticed that the museum was now the Stanley Pines Memorial Library of the Supernatural, the look they gave the magical accoutrement that was all over the house, the look they had given to their hands all covered in small prick marks, the worried looks they were giving to the triplets when they didn’t think she would notice.

Her parents loved her. Loved them. She needed to remember that.

-

After dinner, Mabel and her mother had decamped to the kitchen while Stan, Mark, and Henry watched the Ducks game on TV (well, Stan and Mark were watching, and Henry was folding laundry because if he was going to watch football, he’d watch the Beavers, not the Ducks). Her parents had put the triplets down for the night, and things were going….well. Better than Mabel expected anyway. She supposed actually getting to see and hold the triplets for the first time helped.

(they had their chance to see them so much earlier, a little voice in the back of her head whispered)

Her mother took a drink of her coffee, and looked awkwardly around for a second before looking at Mabel.

“I haven’t se-I haven’t heard you talk to Dipper all day. Is he here?”

Mabel felt along the bond she had with Dipper (she couldn’t feel and sense things as accurately as he could but she still felt something. He was her brother, after all).

“Eh, he’s been out answering summons and walking on the moon all day, he’ll probably be back in a bit,” Mabel said blithely and went to go get some cookies from the cupboard quickly, missing where half the blood drained from her mother’s face.

The baby monitor on the table started to emit snuffly sounds- most likely the girls because Hank was proving to sleep like a rock- and her mother pushed back from the table a bit.

“I’ll get them Mabel dear,” she said.

Suddenly the sniffling died down a bit and Mabel felt a little rush of love and affection. Ah.

She smiled at her mother.

“Don’t worry, Dipper’s got it!”

She was not expecting for her mother, who had been taking a drink, to suddenly drop her cup and leap out of her chair.

From the living room she heard her dad and grunkle and even her husband yelling at the tv. Over the baby monitor she could hear Dipper cooing at the girls and without seeing it she knew if she went up there now she would see him rocking his nieces in his arms, gloves off, top hat and cane laid aside. (also the bow tie. Dipper found out the hard way that the triplets were now in the yanking stage)

Mabel had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she knew what this was about but still she asked, “Mom? Are you okay?”

Anna Pines was sheet white and slightly shaking. “You…you let Dipper in the house with the kids? Let Dipper touch them?”

Mabel felt cold, felt her voice and eyes getting cold. “Yes,” she answered curtly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Mabel, honey, don’t be foolish. I know you love Dipper-“

“And you don’t?”

“You know I do. But Mabel, he….he’s….Dipper is different now. He could hurt the babies or-“

Anna stopped at the look on Mabel’s face.

Mabel took a deep breath. Two. Crossed her arms.

“Dipper would never. Ever. Hurt the kids.”

Anna didn’t back down. “How do you know Mabel? He’s not your just your brother any more, he’s not just my son, he’s a demon-“

“There is no just! He is still your son, my brother, their uncle! Mom, how can you say that?”

“Mabel, you have to stop thinking about only yourself. I know Dipper sees them all the time, I can tell from the house. What kind of influence is he going to have on your children and-“

“Stop.”

Anna Pines had never, in twenty eight years, heard that tone of voice emit from her daughter.

Mabel closed her eyes and unbidden, a tear leaked out and dripped down her face. She could still hear Dipper singing to the kids upstairs over the monitor.

She opened her eyes, looked at her mother.

“What are the kids’ names? Their full ones?”

Anna was a bit taken aback. “Um, Acacia Ruth, Henry Forrest, and Willow Miriam.”

“You’re missing a name each.”

“No I’m not, we even talked about if you were going to choose Ruth or Rebecca on the phone.”

“Yes you are. But you will never know those names. I will never know those names. The only ones who do will be the kids and Dipper. He gave them a name too.”

Anna just stared at Mabel.

“I trust Dipper with my life, with my husband, with my children, and he has never given me a reason to do otherwise. I wish you felt the same.”

No words, just a stare, the sound of football, the sound of the lamby lamby song from upstairs.

Mabel took a deep breath. “And if you can’t feel that way, can’t even hide that fact, I would like you to please leave my home.”

-

Dipper looked up from Acacia and Willow asleep in his arms to the sight of his sister entering the room and oh god were those tears on her face? What had happened down there? He had heard his parents, was going to say hello (even if it was awkward as hell), but he felt Acacia and Willow wake up and he came up here to calm them down and then got completely enraptured by how perfect (and his) they were.

He got up and put his nieces down in their crib. He opened his arms up and Mabel walked into the hug and started sobbing, quietly.

He couldn’t get a great sense on why she was so upset because there was such an odd jumble of emotions coming from her and he was upset too because Mabel was upset.

“Mabes?”

“Our parents love us. I don’t think that’s enough.”

Outside, he heard the sounds of car doors opening, closing, an engine being turned on, and their parents driving back to Piedmont.

—-

(15 Months)

Haunting, lilting, music drifted through Henry’s dreams, and he woke up with a start.

He looked around. Mabel, on his side, snoring like a chainsaw and her head at the foot of the bed (as usual.)

And that music, still playing.

Henry sighed. “God damnit, Dipper,” he murmured quietly to himself, and silently got out of bed and trudged through the living room and up the stairs to the attic, where the kids were.

The music got louder as Henry got closer to the nursery. He opened the door, and while he didn’t see Dipper, he could most certainly hear him, playing something on his violin that sounded like…like the time his first girlfriend broke up with him, mentioning when he was seven that he wanted to be a librarian at the dinner table and his dad calling him a sissy, seeing a squirrel get run over and-

He looked at the babies. They were all solidly asleep. He looked over at the corner he was seventy percent sure Dipper was standing in.

“Dip, I appreciate you getting the kids to sleep but your music is moving towards the uncanny valley. Can you knock it off?”

A pause, and then a riff of notes that conveyed a ‘harrumph.’

“Thanks brother.”

The music started up again, but it was just some Mozart. Henry smiled, and then went back downstairs to get some sleep (before the triplets inevitably woke up).

—-

(16 Months)

Willow sniffled in Stan’s arms as he walked into the nursery.

“I know kid, but you did a good job at the hospital today. Now you need some sleep,” Stan said gruffly, still not used to talking to little humans who couldn’t answer back (yet). He laid her carefully on her back, and stood there for a minute, stroking her hair until she drifted off to sleep. Stan quietly left the room.

A second later, Dipper phased in (because sometimes Stan could sense him, or see his outline) and leaned over Willow’s crib. Downstairs Stan and Mabel were taking pictures of Hank and Acacia crawling all over the floor and generally being the most adorable babies ever.

And upstairs Willow was taking a nap because once a week she had to go to the hospital and have her asthma treated with a vaporizer specifically made for infants.  

Dipper leaned in her crib and picked her up, taking her to the rocking chair that was in the corner of the room. (He should leave her alone, because what if she woke up? but he couldn’t stop holding his nieces and nephew at every chance he got). He started rocking, and closed his eyes.

One-two-three breathe in and

(see if he could help Little Fighter because it killed him to see her struggle to breathe, to feel her little body quake under his hands, to see the miasma of worry that came off of Henry, to have caught Mabel sobbing one night under the bed, to see Stan’s fists clench because this was one problem he couldn’t punch or con his way out of)

breathe out and

(but the problem, he began to see, was that this was something that Willow was born with, would have been born with, would always be born with. It was in her genes and Dipper remembered distantly a mention of a cousin having asthma as well? But that didn’t matter, the point was this wasn’t a complication of having saved her before birth, this was something she would have been born with regardless, and this damn thing was so embedded in her, in her very essence and being. And Dipper had power, yes, sure, but his was a ham-fisted, smashy-smash kind of thing, and this was something so delicate and intricate and a part of Willow’s very being and if he even tried to do something he would crush her, hurt her and that he could never do and)

breathe in. Breathe out. Notice Henry at the doorway.  Materialize onto this plane because he had a feeling that he needed to.

“There’s nothing you can do, is there?” Henry asked, looking at his daughter in Dipper’s arms.

Dipper closed his eyes, unable to look at him or his niece.

“No.”

Henry walked across the room, joining Dipper in the other rocking chair next to him.

“I…I know,” Henry started, “that you have Mabel’s soul.”

Dipper froze stiff, and in his arms Willow began to fuss a bit, so he made himself calm down so she would stay asleep.

“Yes?” Dipper finally said.

“Would…would my soul be enough….enough to help her?”

Unbidden, thoughts of what he could do with that power came over Dipper. To have a human agent in this world, a puppet to play with any time he wanted, power in its purest form and he hated himself for having those thoughts, for feeling tempted, for knowing if he accepted he could make Henry do anything that Dipper wished and he shouldn’t have that power over family and-

“N̰̭̦͉̝̠̉ͅO̗̩̜͛̿̃͗.” and oh that was loud so Dipper looked down to see that Willow was somehow asleep.

Henry raised an eyebrow.

“Any reason why not?”

Once again, Dipper found himself unable to look at either his brother or his niece and how was it that these frail mortal beings had such power over him (that was Bill talk, stop that)?

Dipper opened his mouth. Shut it again. Opened it.

“I… I don’t trust myself. I won’t use Mabel….I can’t say the same for anyone else. I’d….I would ruin your life Henry. I could use you Henry and I would love it and, and…”

Dipper trailed off.

This was it, this was when Henry would insist to Mabel that Dipper leave, that he never see the kids again that-

“Okay.”

-that Dipper shouldn’t come within a two state radius of them and WHAT.

Dipper’s mouth must have been open because Henry laughed, softly, as not to wake Willow.

“Dipper,” Henry began, starting to rock in his chair, “it’s okay.”

“How…how can you say that?”

Henry smiled.

“Dumbass, if your intent was really that bad, you wouldn’t have told me that in the first place. I appreciate you being honest.”

Dipper looked at his brother-in-law, and he knew that he looked less like a dignified-scary-as-fuck-demon and more like a gaping fish.

“Henry….how are you so…so…so calm?” And by ‘calm’ Dipper meant ‘perfect’.

Henry frowned.

“Dude, Dipper, I’m not really. I mean, I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t understand why my parents who told me I was going to hell for marrying Mabel still come to me every year to do their taxes. I mean, I do it because I don’t want Dad going to jail for tax fraud but I mean come on and Dipper, are you okay?”

Dipper was laughing, and he couldn’t stop, even when Willow woke up and was Not Happy at being woken up. 

He handed Willow over as he continued laughing.

Seriously.

Chapter Text

2.5 months

Dipper came back from a summons to find his twin in her work out clothes, strapping her gloves on.

"Uh, Mabel, what are you doing?"

She gave him a look that said “I think I know where you’re going with this but I’m going to give you a chance anyway.”

What she actually said was, “Boxing practice, like every other day silly.”

Dipper paled. “But…but…you’re pregnant,” he finally managed to blurt out.

Mabel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Dipper, I’m just hitting a bag, the kids are currently the size of My thumbnail, and Dr. Freeman said it was fine.”

"What if the bag hits you the stomach?"

"It won’t."

"But what if it does?"

"Trust me, it won’t."

"But what if it does?"

"I’ll dodge or I’ll get a bump-either way it will be fine."

"But-" (and the bond between the two of them remind him that he could make her sit down, make her take it easy, keep her in bed because her soul was his and no, NO-)

Mabel looked at the almost anguished look on Dipper’s face, remembered coming back from the ob-gyn two days ago to find the fridge full of nothing but spinach and pre-natal vitamins and every corner or edge in the house capped with foam.

Dipper could do almost anything now. The power he had at hand was almost limitless.

And he was scared, scared for her, scared for them.

She put down her left glove, shifted over on the couch and patted the space next to her.

Dipper floated over and leaned into his twin’s side. Mabel rested her head on top of his, like they were twelve again and not twenty seven.

"Dip. I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But…you can’t wrap me up in tissue paper and act like I’m glass. I’ll be fine. People have been having babies since…since…since forever!"

Dipper wasn’t convinced, she could tell.

She grabbed his hand, put it on her stomach that was still a while from showing.

"Dipper, meet the Lima Beans."

"Mabes, what-"

"Shhhhhh. They’re tiny and compact right now, so I still feel comfortable doing stuff like boxing. When they become apples and watermelons I’ll slow down a bit, I promise."

She looked up at him quickly. “Trust me when I say I know how to take care of myself and the kids. Please?

Dipper couldn’t say anything, only nod.

She still hadn’t let go of his hand though. “Lima beans, meet your Uncle. He’s a big doofus but he already loves you more than life itself and he’ll always be there to take care of you.”

One-two-three tiny stars under his hand and in his mind’s eye, small yet already blazing day bright.

He looked into Mabel’s eyes. “Always and forever, I promise.”

(And if there was an extra cast to his voice then or a pricking on Mabel’s thumbs well. The promise of a demon was no small thing.)

—-
4 Months

One day Henry came home from work a little later than usual.

Dipper was watching Mabel and Stan playing poker inside (they were both cheating) when all of them heard a call of “a little help out here?!” from Henry.

Stan and Mabel put their cards down on the kitchen table and went outside, Dipper drifting after.

There was Henry, grinning ear to ear and all in the bed of his truck was-

"Sweet Moses Henry!" Mabel cried, happily. "How…where…?" She couldn’t talk anymore so she ran over (as best she could) to Henry and glomped him.

Dipper looked with Stan over to the truck which was full of wooden nursery furniture. There was a crib, large enough for three babies, and little partitions built in to split the massive crib into three. There were two rocking chairs, and somehow whoever helped Henry load up the truck managed to get a changing table into the bed of the truck as well and tied down.

Mabel reached out a shaky hand to touch what she could over the truck hitch.

"How-who…ohmygosh is this pine? Like actual wood wood?"

Dipper hadn’t seen that kind of shit eating grin on Henry’s face in quite awhile.

Grunkle Stan had caught up to them and was leaning against the cab of the truck. “C’mon kid, spill, before Mabel explodes.”

Mabel was biting her lip and her fists were shaking like she was indeed about to explode.

Henry reached over and enveloped Mabel in another hug. “This is the big Corduroy family gift to us.”

His face darkened slightly. “Well, the ones still talking to me.”

Mabel, bless her, broke in before an awkward silence could descend. “I didn’t know Manly Dan made furniture!”

Henry nodded. “Uncle Dan built most of this, Uncle Tyler sewed the cushions on the chair, and Wendy and my other cousins cut the wood for all of this.”

Mabel’s composure finally broke and she began sobbing into Henry’s shirt.

Dipper rubbed a hand against the grain of the crib. He could feel the love that had gone into the furniture from a mile off. Dipper smiled.

Nothing but the best for his niblets.

—

7 Months

Mabel was lying in bed, surrounded by balls of yarn, fingers flying. She had a huge order come into her store-a bride wanted seven custom sweaters for her bridal party as gifts. She was having a great time knitting and designing…but she was frustrated to find that she couldn’t knit for seven or eight hours in a row like before the babies.

She yawned. No, now she was lucky if she made it two hours before…before….

Mabel’s head lulled to one side, her needles falling gently out of her hands.

Five minutes later Dipper popped into the room.

"Mabel, you won’t believe what I saw-"

He stopped, realizing she was asleep. Dipper grinned. This was better because he could just show her in the Mindscape. Especially because a giant robot-squid beast that shot rainbows from its eyes was better seen than described.

He floated onto the bed next to her, about to lay a hand on her forehead (he didn’t need to do that but he would take any opportunity for touch he could take) when suddenly, he felt a tingling at the edges of his consciousness.

Dipper’s first thought was that Mabel was going into labor-

(Even though Mabel, Henry, Stan, and at the appointments he went to with Mabel, her ob-gyn Dr. Freeman had all told him repeatedly to stop being ridiculous, he still couldn’t help but panic. Henry may or may not have mentioned at one point that Dipper was freaking out more than him, the dad.)

-but another moment and he realized while it was the triplets he was feeling, it wasn’t because of that.

No, it felt like one-two-three like….they were dreaming.

He felt Mabel’s dream the strongest of course, (the four of them were charging into battle, her and Henry astride Aoshima, Grunkle Stan riding a unicorn and he was on….a slobbery attack walrus that was blorping it’s way across the battlefield) but the niblings were definitely dreaming as well.

Gently, he laid a hand on Mabel’s stomach, not wanting to wake her, and concentrated.

They weren’t dreams like he was used to seeing, with ideas and words and actions.

No, the dreams of his niblets were slow, rolling waves of sensation, of warmth and darkness.

Gently, oh so gently (because their minds were like tiny fireflies compared to his and Dipper was terrified of accidentally hurting them), Dipper sent a wave of love at his niblings, to keep them safe and warm in their dreams.

A tap on his shoulder interrupted his reverie.

"Dip, are you okay? You’re crying a bit-"

He didn’t answered, just grabbed her hand so she could sense the triplets like he did.

"Oh," Mabel said. "Is…is this….are these the kids?"

"Yeah."

Mabel smiled as a tear or two of her own popped out.

"Wow," she finally managed to say, and she sat like that with her brother for a good long while.

——

8.5 months

"DIPPER COME SEE THIS!"

Dipper, currently corporeal, smacked his head in shock on the inside of the fridge, the can of Pitt he was grabbing forgotten.

Dipper walked into the living room, where Grunkle Stan was in his recliner watching one of his weird movies, and Mabel and Henry were on the couch.

Mabel lifted her sweater to show her stomach.

"Bro-bro, look."

Dipper looked.

"It looks like you’re going to explode Mabel," he quipped.

"Har har har just give it a seco-oooh!"

The outline of a hand pressed up from the inside of her stomach and Henry reached out a finger to brush against it. Nearby, a little foot pushed against Mabel’s skin.”

Mabel looked at Dipper. “Cool ri-“

The color had drained from Dipper’s face.

It had also drained from the walls and the furniture and was currently in a big puddle on the floor.

Before Grunkle Stan could get after him about the floor, Dipper had passed out cold, dropping onto the rug with a solid thud.

A minute passed….

"He’s still solid; Henry get the camera, Grunkle Stan? My sharpies."

Mabel grinned wickedly.

“His shoes are still on!” she crowed

(Dipper came to twenty minutes later to find every bit of exposed skin covered in marker ink.)

Chapter Text

(18 Months)

Mabel and Henry had run to the grocery store (and, Stan suspected, were taking the long way there and back to have some time to themselves), and Dipper was out doing weird demon shit, so it was just him with the kids.

Hank and Acacia were currently content to crawl and poke at their toys in the little cordoned off corner of the Library Stan had put them in. Willow was asleep on Stan’s chest in the Huggy Wuggy Tummy Bundle that Mabel had gotten for Waddles all those years ago

(they hadn’t thought to put a crib up in the library yet and Stan was at the point in his life where he honestly didn’t give a shit if someone twitted him about having his granddau-niece in a baby carrier on him)

That was one of the things he loved about running his own business, Stan ruminated behind the counter, keeping an eye on Hank and Acacia in the corner and occasionally the researchers in the room. If Stan wanted to bring his great-grand nieces and nephew in the Library, he could.

Not to mention the eggheads seemed to like having the triplets in the room with them. Certainly there was no end of professors and hunters and priests and random enthusiasts who liked nothing more to coo at the kids before starting their work for the day. The kids, for the most part, were starting to get old enough that they would be quiet for a few hours-and hell, if he needed to take them in the living room to change them or put them to bed in their room in the attic, it wasn’t a hassle.

(It also helped if anyone tried any funny business, Stan may or may not have had a magical alarm system set up by his grand-niece and nephew in place).

Stan had gotten out the book request form from last month, and was tallying in his head how much it would cost to get some of the works people wanted to see in the Library (and totally not at all thinking about a certain suitcase under his bed) when he heard a throat clearing in front of him.

He looked up to see a priest from one of the smaller churches in Bend. Stan thought quickly. Started coming in two days ago, looking up books about the soul for an article he was writing, quiet and standoffish, creeped the other researchers out-

“Whaddya want?” Stan grunted.

The man-Father Trevor, he thought it was-pointed a finger directly at Willow and alarm bells began to clang in Stan’s head.

“It’s not too late to drown it,” the priest said and Stan’s hand under the counter went for the pair of brass knuckles he kept tucked away.

“Oh?” Stan asked (wait Stan, give him some rope to hang himself from-)

Father Trevor made some kind of weird sign. “You may not know this but that…that thing on you is demon touched.”

“Guy, my niece is not even a year old. What on earth could she do? Puke up on you?”

(Silently, Stan was kind of hoping that Willow would magically wake up and immediately projectile vomit on this fucker)

The pastor looked Stan in the eye. “Clearly, you don’t See her like I do. There’s a mark on her, of a demon that will destroy this earth one day if left unchecked. She is most certainly his tool to do so.”

A sly look came onto the man’s face (also, was he unable to read other people at all? Did he not notice that one of Stan’s arms was currently curled around Willow in her bundle? Stan wasn’t complaining but damn). “It’s not too late to rid this world of a great evil. There is a pond, behind my church tha-GACK”

Stan had punched him in the throat, cutting him off and knocking him to the floor. (He still had one hand around Willow, to make sure she didn’t get jostled or, even worse, wake up.) Before Trevor had a chance to get up off the floor, Stan was there, grabbing him by his collar and physically hauling him to the door.

Then Stan literally booted the man out of the door and into their yard.

The priest landed face first but got up almost immediately, face streaming blood.

“You think this is the end of this? I’ll make sure this library is blacklisted, I will return with my church, I-“

Stan had made his way over to the priest far faster than a man his age had any business doing so. He kneeled down next to Brother Trevor, ostensibly to help him to his feet.

(not that anyone in the Library really gave a shit; they had overheard the whole thing and later Dr. Hunsicker-Nguyen told him she had been two seconds from calling the cops before Stan had taken care of things)

“Brother,” Stan spat the word out of his mouth. “I have a thousand acres of forest behind my house, a revolver, and I have no problem of ridding the world of minor, petty evil. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done so. And I’m not scared to go to jail again.”

Stan lifted the preacher to his feet.

“Now scram!”

Brother Trevor almost looked like he was going to say something else but the look on Stan’s face made the blood drain from the pastor’s face, and he ran to his car and peeled out of there.

“Ba!”

Stan looked down to see that Willow had woken up, and curled her little hand around his finger.

(His back was going to hurt for the next three days after that stunt but it was totally, completely worth it).

---

(19 Months)

Alcor laid on the floor.

Breathe in, breathe out, and see how the walls seem to move in and out with you.

Also, they seemed to be bleeding but Alcor couldn’t be bothered with that.

Breathe in, breathe out, and try to stay together.

His head felt like it was literally ripping in two, starting from the eye on his forehead, going down the seam of his nose, pulling through his lips and teeth. Distractedly, he wondered if he moved if his head would fall straight off his neck.

In his eyes he saw the Sun, it’s final expansion, its death throes, slowly enveloping the Earth.

Sure at this point humanity had long left and spread across the stars (and the other Alcor he could sense silently watching this had lunch with a nibling at Beta Minor 5 in a few minutes but Marta could wait because this was important to see) but it still hurt.

(That red headed human that hung around the other half of his soul would have said that Alcor was having an info dump. Though he called him “Dipper” for some reason).

Breathe in. Breathe out. Humor that little voice screaming from inside him not to go out and level this tiny forest around him, the little tiny boxes that seemed to sit fragilely around him.

Try and ignore the lick of flames hotter than infinity on his skin as the star in front of him expanded, the pit he felt like he was being sucked into when he realized that he would still be around in thousands of years let alone billions and-

A soft, warm body, bumping into his. Bumping once or twice, and then crawling on top his meat sack.

Gentle colors washed over Alcor, pink and yellow and joyous, warmth and love, complete trust in the creature lying on the floor that the warm body was currently on top of.

Little hands reached for the bow tie on his front, and Dipper gently grabbed them and held them in his own hands.

The walls settled down, and the blood dissipated into the ether.

On his chest, Acacia bapped him with her little fists, making “ba ba ba” noises as she did so

In his mind’s eye, his future self looked him dead in the eyes, bowed, and blipped out of existence.

Dipper wrapped his hands around his niece and sat up. He rocked her in place on the living room floor for a while.

One day, Dipper knew, he would save her. Multiple times, as a matter of fact.

But he would never forget how she and her siblings saved him.

---

(20 Months)

Henry woke up to his wife whisper-screaming at him.

“Henry. Henry wake up you need to see this.”

“Mrrff.”

He felt his wife’s hands on his and before he knew it he was sitting upright and damnit he was up now wasn’t he?

Still half asleep, Henry let Mabel drag him out of bed (with surprisingly little effort on her part, considering he had near two feet on her), through the Library, and into the living room.

Dipper was propped up and stretched out on couch with all three of the kids on him; Willow and Hank in his arms, and Acacia lying on his stomach.

His eyes flicked to where Mabel and Henry were and he smiled a bit, but kept on doing what he was doing.

Namely, blowing his hat up into the air with a little puff of flame.

“One, two, three, FWOOSH!”

Up went the hat and all three of Henry’s children burst into simultaneous belly laughs and giggles.

Dipper’s hat landed on his face and the kids settled down.

Until he blew it up in the air and they started giggling all at once all over again.

“Bro-bro has been doing this for twenty minutes now,” Mabel said, leaning into Henry’s arms.

Henry looked down at her, surprised that she wasn’t videotaping this for adorable posterity.

“Already got it,” Mabel answered, knowing what her husband was thinking in this case. “And picture for the scrapbook.”

Mabel put her hand into one of Henry’s. "Let’s enjoy this now.”

The hat fell back down on the demon’s face, only to be sent flying up in the air with a burst of cold fire from his lips, and the sound of three red headed infants laughing in unison.

(Mabel may or may not have later passive aggressively emailed the video to their parents).

---

(21 Months)

After the birthday party, after the purple and green and blue cakes that had gotten smeared over all three of the triplet’s faces, after the little axes Wendy had gotten the kids and the little shirts with question marks on them from Soos and Melody, after the small fire that erupted for a really good reason okay? after Stan had helped Mabel and Henry clean up and the last of the guests had gone, here was Dipper lying on the floor in the nursery, the better to have all three of the kids to sleep on him.

(That being said, he had summoned a massive bean bag because of Comfort)

Three tiny hearts, beating in time.

Three heads, red and curly, though Dipper could already see the different shades of red between the three, see what they would become.

Three small, warm bodies, full of potential, full of love, and all Dipper could taste in his mouth was ashes, because they would end, all too soon, and he would be alone and his niblings would be gone and he loved them so much and-     

“Stop thinking Dipper.”

Unnoticed, Mabel had made her way into the nursery, and was now sitting next to Dipper on the floor, at this ungodly hour.

“What do you mean?” Dipper asked, as quietly as she had.

She laid out next to him, just in time for Hank to roll off of Dipper’s stomach onto Mabel. Mabel picked up her son and settled him on her.

“Dipper, I…I know that you are going to be here. Long after we are.”

Next to her, Dipper couldn’t help but tighten his grip on his nieces, before catching himself and attempting to relax (especially since it had taken him about thirty minutes to get them to go to sleep in the first place).

Mabel grabbed his hand around the armful of Willow her brother was holding.

“You will be here long after I am, after Henry, after the kids…so enjoy this now? Please?”

“Mabes-I….”

The hand that wasn’t holding Hank reached out and grabbed his.

“Dipper, everything ends.” She turned to look at him. “Even you.”

He could say nothing, just focus on the warmth of her hand, the feel of Mabel’s soul in him, Acacia and Willow sound asleep in his arms, feelings of safety and security and love coming off them in waves.

Mabel took a shuddery breath. “Everything ends, and I’m sure that one way or another we will see each other again. Even after I leave.”

She looked at him across the massive beanbag they were on.

“Dipper, you’re going to have a long time to think about that, so for now, please, just…be here?”

A beat.

“Also, is this beanbag going to stay in here? I’m really digging it.”

The laughs burst out of Dipper, and he couldn’t stop, but that was fine, because his sister was joining him as well.

In their arms, the kids woke up, distinctively Not Happy about the noise that disturbed them, but here and now, Dipper loved the warbling sound all three of them were making, the bapping of Stan’s cane against the wall accompanied with a “GODDAMNIT DON’T WAKE THE KIDS UP”, the thump down stairs of Henry coming to see what was up.

The future could and would take care of itself.

Dipper was going to enjoy this moment, in the here and now.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

8 Months

It was just Mabel in the house when Dipper got home from his latest summons.

Henry still had two hours at work and Stan was out ‘acquiring’ (i.e. stealing) books for the Library. It would be nice to just have some time alone with Mabel and…

Dipper looked at his sister on the couch, thirty or forty minor forest sprites slumbering around her pregnant belly, unperturbed by the clack of her needles or the movement of her hands as she completed yet another onesie for one of the babies.

Mabel looked up at Dipper as he plibbed into existence and beamed.

“Dipper!” she whisper-shouted at him (and only Mabel could whisper-shout, of course). “I made friends!”

“I…can see,” Dipper replied. “What are they doing here?”

“One minute I had said I was really cold and the next they had all come in through the window cracks and the crack under the door and offered to stay around my belly so the babies stay warm! We’ve been chilling for the last few hours. Also, I may have made some matches today, so I still got my matchmaking mojo and-“

Dipper listened to Mabel ramble as around her, the spirits of the forest continued to pay homage to Mizar the Gleeful.

Chapter Text

"HENRY!”

Henry, who had been working on his truck outside, sat up, banged his head on the underside of the truck, scooted out from under the car and ran into the house.

Mabel was in the kitchen, one hand clutching the counter in a white knuckled death grip, the other clutching a coffee cup, her hand shaking so hard that half of the coffee had spilled all over the floor.

“Mabel! Mabes, honey, are you okay?”

Mabel looked up at Henry and she looked more serious than he had ever seen her before.

“I…I think the babies are coming and-“

Dipper popped into the kitchen just in time for both men to see Mabel’s water break.

Mabel looked up at Henry.

"Hospital, now."

Henry felt the blood drain from his face. Oh god it was happening, it was finally happening.

He managed with shaking hands to grab Stan’s car keys, and ran outside to get Stan’s beater started, while Stan rushed to get Mabel’s go-bag ready.

All around him the plants in the garden were bursting into furious bloom, growing larger and faster than biologically possible in the November chill. In the distance, from the direction of the town lake, Henry thought he heard a “fwoomp” and then the sound of a large amount of water being displaced.

Speaking of Dipper there he was, carrying Mabel in his arms. Henry knew she must be in pain because she wasn’t even complaining like usual, but instead was gripping tightly to Dipper’s suit jacket, whimpering a bit as he tucked Mabel into the front seat.

Henry and Stan got in the car as Dipper buckled Mabel up, and once Mabel let go of Dipper’s hand he blipped himself to the back seat next to Stan.

Stan cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Kid, it would have taken you all of two seconds to do that the normal way."

Dipper said nothing, face pale as snow, ears pinned back, and black showing completely around his pupils.

Stan wisely decided not to say anything else.

———-

The drive to the hospital just outside of Bend where Mabel’s ob-gyn was usually took 25 minutes.

It was taking a little longer today though because Henry was consistently having to dodge glass in the road.

Glass from the stop lights (pop pop!)

Glass from the street lights (pop pop!)

Glass from other driver’s windows (less pop pop and more a shatter with lots of cursing)

Meanwhile, Mabel was taking deep breaths and focusing on not crying next to Henry.

Another light popped, Henry swerved to avoid the glass, and the movement made Mabel cry out with pain.

Henry had never, in the five years that he had known Dipper, ever lost his temper with his brother in law.

The next stop sign they encountered, Henry turned around to look at Dipper and yelled “DIPPER CALM THE FUCK DOWN,” at the top of his lungs.

Then Henry kept driving, even as all the other occupants of the car looked at him in awe.

The ride went smoother and more quickly after that, and Mabel squeezed Henry’s leg in silent thanks.

——

They left Dipper and Stan in the waiting room and Henry went with Mabel to the OR.

Henry washed up like Dr. Freeman showed him, and put on the scrubs that they offered.

While Dr. Freeman and her assistants were getting ready, Mabel grabbed Henry’s hand as another contraction passed through her.

"Henry," she said in the most tiniest voice he had ever heard from his wife. "I’m…I’m scared."

He knelt down next to her bed side, the better to see eye to eye with her.

"Me too," he admitted, rubbing a thumb over Mabel’s knuckles.

"What if….what if something happens to one…one of the babies?"

Henry’s mind flashed back to beer and a deal and the feeling of a small portion of his life leaving him and-

He smiled.

"I think they’ll be fine."

Mabel sniffed, and wiped a tear away with her other hand.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Mabel nodded.

Then she turned to one of the nurses.

"BRING ON THE DRUGS"

————

He was firmly behind the little curtain with Mabel and decidedly NOT looking at what was going on on the other side.

(Henry had told himself when they found out Mabel was going to need a c-section that he was not going to be that dude who passed out in the OR.)

Mabel at this point was completely and totally off her gourd stoned.

"Henry," she whispered as Dr. Freeman moved in out of the corner of his eye. "The sandwirms are imminent. Their rise will be swift and deadly."

Henry nodded, smiled, and really wished he had a video camera on him.

But then there was movement, and a rustle and then….

Then there was a cry.

There was a cry, and a cut, and a wriggling tiny human red all over being placed in his arms.

“First one is a girl Mr. Pines!”

She was screaming fit to bring down the house, and she was squirming and angry and Mabel had done that, brought her into being.

“Look Mabes,” he said, kneeling a bit so Mabel could see their daughter, “look at who we made.”

Mabel had started crying as well, and reached out a shaky hand to stroke the hair of their oldest girl.

“Look Henry, look at our Acacia,” she cried.

The nurse next to him was motioning for him to hand his daughter over, which he did with extreme reluctance.

But then there was another scream, another cut, and another infant being placed into his arms.

“Here’s your son Mr. Pines,” Dr. Freeman said with a smile, before turning back to work.

Forrest (though he looked more like a Hank to Henry, to be honest), wasn’t crying, but looking at the world around him, albeit myopically and unfocused.

Henry dutifully brought their son to Mabel, who couldn’t even say anything, just weep and cover her son’s face in kisses as best as she could.

Another nurse with open arms, and again Henry reluctantly relinquished his son into the man’s arms.

Their last child took a few more minutes to enter the world, but when she did, it was with a piercing squall that made Henry’s ears feel like bleeding.

It was beautiful.

“And last but not least, your other daughter,” the doctor proclaimed, as Willow was put into Henry’s arms. Unlike her siblings she was smaller, almost worryingly so.

But she was just as red, and screaming just as loud as Acacia.

It worked.

Mabel never needed to know how close it was, but the deal worked, thank god and-

“Henry, let me see her.”

Henry rushed to bring Willow over to Mabel who looked at their youngest daughter in awe.

“She’s so beautiful,” Mabel managed to gasp out.

“Yeah,” Henry replied. There were tears streaking down his cheeks, and he didn’t know how long he had been crying but he didn’t care. Every other good moment in his life paled in comparison to this, to seeing his wife bring their children into this world, to holding the three small lives that he had helped make for the first time.

“Okay Mr. Pines, we need you to leave for a few minutes, we need to sew Mrs. Pines up, but we have the babies in the nursery and…”

——-

There is a picture on the fridge in the Shack that is never taken down.

It’s of a disheveled Henry, bags under his eyes, face wan, still in slightly bloody scrubs.

Henry, holding three infants, two in green caps and one in a purple cap.

Henry, tears down his cheeks, hair disheveled, looking like the luckiest man on earth.

Chapter Text

8 Months

It wasn’t often that Dipper got a quiet moment with his sister, and he knew as soon as the kids were born those moments would become even rarer so he took the opportunity whenever he could.

Like now, for example. Mabel was knitting onesies for the triplets, green and purple and covered in inexplicable deely boppers. Dipper himself was content to drape his legs over her lap and lay across the couch in a pleasant doze.

Well, Mabel probably thought he was dozing, but really he was listening to the babies.

He had his eyes closed, the better to get on their wavelength, and just….listen.

Listen in awe of the new lives forming within his sister.

Feel three heartbeats, and above them all, comforting and steady, Mabel’s heartbeat.

They dreamt in colors and waves, and the world around them was dark and warm and safe and love.

They could feel him, and occasionally one of his niblings would drift over in his direction, or as best as they could in Mabel’s increasingly crowded womb.

It amazed him that they could sense him, just how they sensed Mabel when she patted her stomach or talked to them or ate seven hamburgers in one go.

His nephew began to fall asleep and-

“Oh my god Dipper!”

Dipper came to with a start.

“Are you listening to the kids again you big softie?”

“N-nooooo,” said Dipper.

(For a demon, Mabel thought, he was a terrible liar.)

“Really? Your cutie mark is showing?”

“My what?”

Mabel waved at her forehead. “Your birthmark….but now that it glows I think it should really be called a cutie mark.”

“MABEL IT’S NOT A CUTIE MARK!”

She just smiled and made a shooshing motion at his face.            

“Well, I think it’s really cute!”

Dipper face palmed.

Suddenly he was rethinking this whole ‘spending time with his sister’ thing.

Chapter Text

“What if I fuck our kids up?”

Mabel looked up fromthe booties she was knitting to her husband lying next to her in bed.

“Henry, you won’t.”

Henry frowned. “Mabes, you’ve met my dad…”

Tall and burly and hateful and she had to resist the urge to rip his throat out with her teeth, yes Mabel remembered Arnold Corduroy.

Henry looked down at his hands, as large as his father’s were and just as covered in freckles and fine red hair.

“I don’t have any models to go off of, no good base, nothing. I’m going to fuck our kids up, and they’re going to be miserable and-“

Mabel snorted.

“Trust me, you won’t, I promise.”

“But how do you know that Mabel?” Henry asked quietly. “That….that way of parenting, that way of raising your kids, that’s all I know. What if it’s only a matter of time before I’m yelling at them and then I need to leave you and them and Dipper and Stan for everyone’s own good and-“

Mabel reached over and gently laid a finger on his lips.

“You won’t. And-“ she interrupted before he could object, “-you know how I know?”

He said nothing, just was absolutely still, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

She gently placed her hand on his chest, over his heart.

“Because you have a kind heart and a good soul. Because I know that you would rather die than hurt our children. Because despite what you think, you are nothing like that shitbag who is technically your father.”

Mabel looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“And if you don’t believe that, if you were really as awful as you said you were, you wouldn’t be so worked up that you’ve not been able to go to sleep for the last three nights.”

She turned out the light and then gently pushed him until Henry was lying down. She curled up against his side, and placed his hand on her bulging stomach.

“Now say goodnight to your kids,” Mabel said, smiling as she felt him relax against her, every muscle untensing, and the way his hands ghosted gently across her bulging belly.

She knew he was going to be the best dad in the world. 

Now she just needed him to believe it. 

Chapter Text

8 Months

-----

“Dipper, talk to your sister. She’s moping in her bedroom.”

Dipper dried another dish. The dishwasher had broken down for good, and Henry was currently out in Bend at Sears trying to find one they could afford. Stan had given him a can of chocolate covered peanuts that a researcher at the Library had left behind in return for him popping onto the corporeal plane to do the dishes.

Since Stan hated doing the dishes by hand so much, Dipper was considering upping his cost by another can of peanuts next time Stan asked. He thought Stan would probably be proud once he got done being annoyed.

“I don’t know Grunkle Stan, I asked her if she was okay before I came in here and she said yes.”

Stan, drinking a mug of coffee and reading the paper at the kitchen table, barked out a laugh.

“And you believed her?”

Dipper paused, and felt down the link between him and Mabel, and staggered at the wave of sadness he felt come over him. The dishes could wait, he needed to talk to Mabel now.

He took two steps away from the sink before the unfinished deal began to drag on his stomach, a heavy weight of an obligation unfulfilled. Dipper groaned and snapped his left hand.

Where there had been a sink full of hot water and dirty dishes was now empty, and clean dishes sat in the rack, drying peacefully.

Stan sipped his coffee.

“You know, you could have done that in the first place,” he pointed out to the now empty kitchen.

-----------

When Dipper stepped into Mabel and Henry’s bedroom, he found his sister curled up under the blankets in a Mabel ball. At eight months pregnant, Mabel had probably taken more naps in the last few months than she had in the rest of her life. Henry had been secretly taking pictures of Mabel in the places that she dropped off to sleep, for a scrapbook he was going to make himself for her birthday.

But this afternoon she wasn’t asleep, just in Sweater Town.

Dipper gently tapped Mabel on what he guessed was her shoulder.

“Can I talk to Mabel?”

The person under the blanket sniffed. “Mabel isn’t here. Mabel is in Blanket Town.”

“Whoa, Blanket Town? That’s pretty intense. Can I join you in Blanket Town?”

There was no response, but she didn’t say no, so Dipper tossed his hat across the room, folded his wings against his back, and got under the blanket with Mabel.

She had been crying; not hard, but enough that her cheeks were a little wet and her eyes were red and puffy.  Her left hand was absentmindedly resting on her stomach, and Dipper sent a wave of love to the babies, one-two-three snug and warm and content within their mother. He could spend all afternoon just listening to them (and in fact had at several points, complete with looking really intently at Mabel’s stomach and making her laugh at the look on his face) but right now his sister needed him more.

Dipper reached into his suit coat pocket and brought out a handkerchief and handed it to Mabel. She took it and blew into it with an inelegant blort.

“Mabel, what’s wrong?”

Mabel looked away from him.

“It’s silly.”

“What? No it’s not, I promise!”

“It is-“ and Mabel began to cry again. Dipper took her into his arms and let her cry, her stomach poking into him.

He felt, like he always did when Mabel was in the dumps, at a complete loss. Mabel was the cheery twin, the one who always knew what to say and never had a frown on her face long. He was the socially awkward, odd twin who had no idea what to say to his own sister to make her feel better.

“I’m…I’m…I’m tired of being pregnant and I’m tired of not being able to breathe and puking and waddling….buh…but I feel bad because I l..I love the babies so mu-“

Mabel paused to blort into the handkerchief again. “I love them so much but I miss…I miss….I miss tying my own shoes!”

At that Mabel broke down again, crying into Dipper’s suit jacket as he stroked his hair and tried to think about how he could make this better.

Suddenly, he had an idea.

“Want to go for a trip?”

--------

One minute Dipper had taken her hands in his and told her to close her eyes, the next minute Mabel had a feeling that could best be described as plib and one of the babies did a somersault in her stomach in protest.

But that plib feeling meant only one thing…

“Okay open your eyes Mabel!”

Mabel opened her eyes onto the greyscales of the Mindscape. Well, grey for her anyway. She had said something about the lack of color once to Dipper and he looked at her confused; to his eyes everything was in a full riot of every color on the spectrum.  

She looked around. There was Dipper with that weird grin/stick up his butt look on his face that meant he was really way too proud of himself and would probably need to be taken down a peg soon.  Under her legs and all around was soft grass and gentle rolling hills. In the distance she saw what was probably the fence line, and the outline of a building that looked similar to the Shack.

“Where are we Dipdops?” Mabel asked. She stayed sitting; she trusted Dipper not to bring her anywhere dangerous, especially now when the slightest movement or sudden sound around her would make Dipper freak out.

Also, she was finally comfortable for the first time in two hours, and she wasn’t going to do anything to change that.

His grin got bigger. “My part of the Mindscape. Remember how I have a whole bunch of sheep that…um…follow me and stuff.” He put a head behind his head and looked, heh, sheepish. “Because…um…reasons?”

Mabel took pity on him. “Yeah, I’ve met some of them, remember? Sometimes they come by the house to eat real grass and Broktron and Mary and Grasbluttrinker are really cool and let me have some of their wool for yarn…”

“Well, you haven’t met all of them.” He waggled his hand and suddenly they were in the midst of the Flock.

She would have said something about showing off but on the other hand, she hadn’t had to get up so…

“Hold on a second,” Dipper asked and waded into the crowd.

----

He had been gone for a few minutes, and Mabel was catching up with Terrance, Destroyer of Grass, Eater of Souls, when she saw over the crowd her brother coming back. It looked like there was something…someone? in his hands.

He got close enough for her to see and-

Dipper winced but as his arms were full of lamb, he was unable to cover his ears as Mabel let out the most ear piercing shriek of joy he had ever heard from his sister. This being the Mindscape, not only were the soundwaves coming from his twin’s mouth visible, but as they passed over the grass, flowers bloomed up from the ground, a riot of impossible colors.

He fought through the aural onslaught, and gently placed the lamb in Mabel’s lap.

Her mouth snapped shut, and she reached with a shaking hand to pet the lamb, asleep and snuggling up to her bulging stomach.

“Wha…who is this Dipper?” she asked quietly, as the other sheep looked protectively on.

“She hasn’t picked a name yet, she’s still too little. But she’s a Dream.” Dipper sat down next to them on the grass. “I found her last week when I was exploring. She was under a rock and there was- well, I brought her back here and I think the Flock is starting to take to her, right guys?”

There was a series of bleats that conveyed everything from “Eh” to “Yeah, sure” to “Not really,” but Mabel hadn’t missed that everyone in the Flock was either gathered around them and watching protectively, or near enough that if there was trouble they could reach them in time. And she was pretty sure it wasn’t all just due to her.

She gently ran her fingers through the black wool of the tiny lamb. The triplets had settled down in her stomach, and the longer the little creature slept in her lap, the more her worries and cares seemed to melt away.

Dipper had wandered off to talk to the others, but Mabel was perfectly content to sit in the sun….well, maybe lie in the sun…. Slowly she laid the lamb on the ground, and curled up next to him. Even her belly, which usually gave her trouble, was not a problem.

She didn’t remember her eyes drifting shut, but she remembered dreaming of warmth and love and safety and a close comforting darkness.

Mabel remembered and treasured that dream for the rest of her life. How many other moms got to feel what their children felt before they were born, after all?

(This did not, as Dipper tried and failed to point out to her, make Mabel the alpha mom)

Chapter Text

(7 months)

-

Dipper could feel it coming like sighting ominous black clouds hanging over the horizon. It was the calm before the tornado, a pause too long when picking up the phone, the hitch of a chest. He had no idea what his omniscience was going to dump on him this time. But Dipper knew whatever it would be, it was going to be bad.

He walked through the kitchen wall to the living room and saw Mabel on the couch, knitting tiny little booties for the babies. Dipper joined her there, sitting on the couch and wrapping his arms around her, his sister, his twin, his anchor. 

Mabel didn’t even pause in her knitting. At seven months along, she had gotten used to Dipper glomming on to her. 

“Everything okay bro-bro?” Mabel asked.

“No,” Dipper said after a long pause, the words and the process to push them out of his mouth taking him some time. 

Mabel continued to knit, even as Dipper wrapped his arms around her. “Anything I can do?” she asked as her needles clicked

“Just…just…just be. Be you Mabel. Be you.”

She looked down at him cockeyed.

“Dipper? That was a lot of repeating words. Did you run into some Dipnip?” Mabel asked. “You sound like Candy when she’s had too much cider.”

He could only shake his head and cling tighter to her stomach, the storm hitting his mind, making his head feel like it was splitting open. It felt like he was about to drift apart, scatter into a million pieces as information flowed into brain, filling it past full. Dipper needed an anchor, needed to be grounded before he lost himself… His eyes clenched shut as his mind showed him images of exploding suns and blood, filled his ears with sobs of pain and heartbreak, screams of fear and terror. He smelt smoke and felt his skin splitting apart, unable to contain his form any more.

Against the skin of his cheek, he felt a bump as one of the babies (his nephew) gently kicked, their foot pressing up against Mabel’s stomach, and a solution spring before his eyes. He concentrated with all of his might, fighting his way through the fog of information swarming his awareness, and focused only on the triplets. Dipper sunk his being into them, mooring his consciousness on his three stars, his niblings, his lights. He felt the beat of their hearts like it was his own, marveled at the rush of blood from Mabel to each of them and out to Mabel again. Eyes that recently gained lids and sight blinked at the dark red light that was around them. The three of them were curled together, so close at times as to almost be one, while all around them they were surrounded by the comforting throbbing sound of Mabel’s heartbeat. Dipper felt himself relax as he focused on his niblings, weathering the storm as it buffeted and lashed at him. 

Finally, he felt the info dump let him loose from its grip, and every one of his muscles unclenched and relaxed. Dipper pulled away from his grasp on the kids with one last wave of love sent at them. He sat up and opened his eyes.

“Thanks Mabel. I really appr-“

Dipper paused. Mabel’s eyes were closed, her head leaning against the back of the couch, knitting having fallen out of her hands. 

He was a being of pure energy and above such trivialities as having a physical form, but his heart was racing and his breath coming in short pants as he tried to wake Mabel.

“Mabel. Mabes! Mabel, wake up-“He frantically reached down their link, down the unwanted hold he held over her soul and-

Dipper let out a deep breath, and a tiny bit of the tension he held within him released. She was fine, only unconscious. But how and why? Mabel’s ob-gyn, Dr. Freeman, was constantly remarking by how surprisingly well Mabel’s pregnancy was progressing. “Healthy as a horse, girl,” the doctor had even said last visit. 

He froze. 

Oh god, the babies-

Faster than thought his hands flew to Mabel’s stomach, his senses reaching within to check on one-two-three little stars. He sent them waves of comfort and love but they…

It felt like his world was shattering around him because underneath his hands he felt them shy away from the side of Mabel’s stomach he was touching. In his mind he felt not a reciprocating wave of love, not feelings of warmth and safety, but of complete and utter terror. He felt their tiny hearts beating far, far too fast for their still developing bodies to contain. Their thoughts, their senses were of fire and flame and fury and pain and things that they should never know about, things they couldn’t comprehend even as adults yet they were still growing, not ready for the world and-

Dipper felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

He did this to them. In clinging to the triplets, in grounding himself in his niblings, in these new links to this plane, in the three people he already loved more than life itself….In doing so, he had shared what he saw. Dipper thought he had shielded his thoughts from his children, but instead he had shared with them the visions that nearly destroyed him. 

Oh.

Oh fuck. 

—–

Mabel waited until Dipper blipped out of the room, then she let her head fall back and a frustrated groan out of her mouth.

An accident, it was an accident, and Dipper was beating himself up far worse than she ever could. But al the forks he stuck in his arms and legs did sweet kitten all to help the triplets-

Her hands drifted to her stomach. They hadn’t stopped moving since she had woken up with the taste of blood in her mouth and the sight of Dipper wringing his hands in front of her. This wasn’t like the gentle movements she had gotten used to, only occasionally punctuated with a prod at her kidney. It felt like they were trying to claw their way out of her, their motions violent and jerky as they thrashed and kicked in such a small space. Mabel didn’t have the same ability as Dipper did to feel what her children were feeling, but somehow she knew that they were utterly terrified. 

Her children, her daughters and her son, were scared and there was nothing she could do to help them.

They were hurting and her brother was the reason.

Without thinking, Mabel’s fingers tightened, grabbing chunks of sweater in her grasp. 

Always, whenever it came down to a choice, she chose Dipper. The illusion of being normal, their parents and home in Piedmont, to….. To die and remain free for forever, she had always chosen Dipper, without hesitation or thought. Doing otherwise had never occurred to her.

But she wasn’t choosing only for herself now. She was choosing for her and the three tiny lives she held within herself.

For the first time, Mabel knew, deep down, that if it came to it, she wouldn’t choose Dipper.

—

Dipper hadn’t been on the physical plane in the past two days and Henry was tired of waiting apparently. Dipper could tell because Henry looked around the living room until he sensed where he was, and then walked back and forth through him until he was so uncomfortable that he had to shift planes, if only to stop the feeling of being split into his component atoms over and over again.

He popped into existence next to the tank that held Grunkle Stan’s axolotl, Matilda, conspicuously Not Looking At Henry. Henry in turn paid equally no mind to Dipper, sinking onto the couch with a big sigh.

“So I took Mabel to the ob-gyn’s office this morning,” Henry mentioned off hand, looking at his clasped hands resting on his knees.

Dipper felt like he was about to throw up, but he managed to sit next to Henry and say, “Oh?”

“Yes. Dr. Freeman put her on-“There was the barest hitch in Henry’s voice, but then he went on. “She put Mabel on bed rest.”

“But…But Mabel’s been doing good, better than good!” Dipper conspicuously didn’t say “And we made a Deal” but he didn’t have to. He realized with a rush of apprehension like cold water down his back, that his actions may well have negated the deal that he had made with Henry and Stan a few months back. They had worked so hard to try and keep the babies and Mabel safe, and with one bad decision Dipper had undone all of that.

“Dr. Freeman says she’s never seen anything like it. The babies won’t stop moving and she’s worried they’re going to overstrain themselves or hurt Mabel or both.”

“I-“

“And Mabel has only gotten five hours of sleep in the last two days because the babies are moving around and kicking so much,” Henry continued on in that calm, even tone of voice. “So later today I’m going to the pharmacy to pick up some tranquilizers Dr. Freeman prescribed.”

“That…that can’t be good for a pregnant woman,” Dipper said weakly.

His brother shrugged. “Well, it looks like there’s an umbilical cord wrapping around one of the girl’s neck, and Dr. Freeman clearly has no idea what to do and what’s going on so… Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose.”

“You…you seem to be taking this pretty well,” he responded lamely, not knowing what else to say. The guilt weighed down on his bones and in his stomach like lead.

Henry looked up and into Dipper’s eyes for the first time, and Dipper almost blipped away from the anger he saw in his brother’s gaze. Dipper was the Dreambender, Lord of Nightmares, King of Blood and Pain, and a dozen other ridiculous titles that had been foisted upon him. He was a demon of unlimited power and fury, and Henry was just a mayfly human whose meatsack was only going to be around for a few decades. Dipper should not be scared of Henry.

Dipper was fucking terrified.

“My wife is in pain, and my children are in pain, and all four of them are in danger. The doctor doesn’t know what to do and I can’t do anything to help. I am not fine.”

He didn’t say “You hurt them.”

He didn’t have to.

“I…I have to go now,” Dipper muttered, and slinked out of the room, fading from this plane to the Mindscape.

—

For the longest time, all they knew was love.

They were warm and safe in this dark space, curled around each other so tightly that sometimes it was almost like they were one instead of many. They were surrounded by a loud, steady throbbing, and they knew it was the one who fed them, who was helping them grow. They thrilled at the occasional drumming sounds that came from outside of their small world, the faint sounds and vibrations that came from further above their heads. Sometimes there was one who was like the one that fed them but not who came and visited them. That one was bright and filled their world with light. The bright one shared their dreams and thoughts, sent them warmth and love. They welcomed the other presence, thrilled when he wrapped and curled around them in a way that even the one who fed them, the one they loved most could not.

Then the bright one came to them but there was something different about the bright one, something happening to the other presence that they couldn’t understand. The bright one wound their way around them again but this time they didn’t feel love, didn’t feel the warmth of the bright one’s light.

Instead eyes that they had just learned to open were bombarded with…they weren’t sure what the different flashes of light and color were. Or the vibrations that weren’t like the gentle coos and taps of the one who fed them but were…were…they couldn’t understand what these sounds were, only that they didn’t like them. They tried to let the bright one know, sent waves of unhappiness and confusion at the other presence but they were ignored. Waves of emotion they couldn’t understand crashed into their minds. It was too much to handle, incomprehensible to them….

The only way they could process the information flowing into them was by pain.  

And suddenly the tight warm space was too little, too confining. They needed to flee, they needed to leave, even as something deep down inside of them warned that they weren’t ready, that it wasn’t their time yet. The touch of one against another was no longer comforting but a torment and they tried to push away, and every failure to do so brought only more agony to their senses. They weren’t safe anymore, could feel no love through the pain that bracketed their bodies.

They weren’t sure why they could feel the thuds inside of them coming faster and faster, why the bright one made them feel even worse now. But they didn’t like it.  

—-

Stan pulled the toast out of the toaster, and turned around to open the drawer under the coffee maker to pull out a butter knife.

He saw what was inside.

“God damnit Dipper,” Stan swore under his breath.

All of the forks were covered in golden ichor, puddling and pooling around the rest of the unsorted silverware in the drawer. He grabbed as much of the cheap flatware as he could and dumped it in the sink, turning the water and squirting soap all over the dishes. As he grabbed another handful to dump in the sink, Stan felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck. Dipper.

Stan looked through the doorway of the kitchen, to the hall that led to Henry and Mabel’s room, and back to the toast that he had been making for his bed ridden niece.

“Kid,” he said to the air. “You’ve gotta learn to start cleaning up your messes.” 

The hair on his neck settled back down, and Stan started washing blood off in the sink, ignoring the sting it left on his skin with long practice.

—–

When Dipper came into the room, Mabel didn’t notice at first. She had been working on her latest project, crocheted hot pink holster covers that Candy was going to sell at her store. They sat abandoned in a sequined and glitter covered pile next to Mabel on the bed. All of Mabel’s attention now was focused on her stomach, hands rubbing the distended skin, as she rocked back and forth gently and sang softly.

“Come on guys, its okay, you’re-” Her voice cracked and the sound hit Dipper like a punch to the nose. “You’re safe. It’s okay…”

Even from this distance he could feel the waves of fear and pain coming from his stars. Fear and pain that Dipper had caused. It was a mistake to come here, he needed to go before he fucked things up more-

Mabel’s head snapped up and she looked Dipper straight in the eyes. Shit. He was busted.

“Finally, you stopped pouting,” she said, relief and annoyance mingling in equal parts. “Now come over here and help your nieces and nephew calm down.”

Dipper squirmed under her gaze. “Um, I-”

Mabel’s eyes narrowed.

He tried and failed to find the words to convey what he was feeling. Finally, he managed “I just….just wanted to say sorry,” Dipper said, his words sounding lame and limp even to his own ears.

“That’s it? Three days of hiding and that’s all you got?”

Dipper choked back a sob. “Mabel, I….I hurt you, hurt the kids, I couldn’t-”
“Couldn’t what? Come and fix your mistakes? Actually help me?!”

His temper flared and his cheeks flushed. “Mabel, I am trying to apologize to you! Why won’t you listen?”

Mabel threw the blankets off of her and swung her legs over the side of the king sized bed. Hand on her stomach, she slowly got up.

“Mabel, Mabel the doctor said you’re supposed to rest-“

She waddled over to him and prodded his chest with a finger.

“I don’t need your apologies right now Dipper, I need you to help the babies.”

“I…I can’t.”

Now it was Mabel’s turn to flush. “Why not?”

“I’ll just hurt them more. When I get close to them they…they can tell and it makes them even more scared-“A golden tear slipped down his chin. He had failed his sister and his niblings and-

“Get over it.”

The words hit him like a slap across the face.

“How can you say that Mabel? I fucked up!”

“You did! And then you spent the last three days pouting and sulking and being a goofy goober instead of trying to fix your mistake! My children are hurt, they are in danger, and I can’t help them and Dr. Freeman can’t help them and the only person who could spent three days refusing to see me!”

Dipper opened his mouth, saw the look on his twin’s face, and closed again.

“I’ve tried calling you, but you didn’t answer and you’re sorry, and you feel bad, and I get that but…” Mabel paused, as much to catch her breath as to figure out how to voice her thoughts. “I don’t need your guilt trip Dipdops. The kids won’t get better because you poke yourself with forks for a few hours and feel really bad a lot. You being an angsty dump puddle won’t fix things. And I could let you do that before, and I could take care of stuff while you were gone but Dipper I can’t…” Her voice trailed off, became smaller.

“I can’t just think about only you any more Dipper,” she said quietly, her hands cradling her stomach.

He tried to think of something to say. He couldn’t, could only instead just stare at his sister, who had to sit back down on the bed, tired from that brief bit of standing.

Finally, Dipper sat down next to Mabel, whose hands were still cradled around her stomach.

“What…what should I do?” he asked in a small voice.

Mabel knocked her head into his.

“Well you apologized. That’s a start. Thanks.” She grabbed his hands and placed them on her stomach, where he could feel one-two-three stars and no answer to his tentative wave of greeting, too caught in their fear and pain.

“Now calm the babies down and let them know its okay.” Mabel winced. “Before they kick my bladder to pieces maybe?”

Dipper smiled weakly, then closed his eyes and concentrated, focusing only on the small lives like tiny fireflies beneath his hands.

The problem was, he realized, he had used his niblings as a shield when instead he should have been shielding them, protecting them from the storm of his thoughts, of the world. For a second he felt the despair that he had sunken into over the last three days threaten to break over him again, but he felt Mabel’s hand on his shoulder, and the far too fast heartbeats of the babies. He needed to fix this.

Dipper wrapped his wings around his sister as he focused on the triplets. They squirmed trying to get away from him, from the light that had brought them pain, but Dipper stayed calm. Instead of shying away from them like he had the last few days he gathered all of his power and wrapped it around each of his children like a blanket. He twined around bones still soft growing, rushed up and down veins that carried blood that was half theirs, half Mabel’s, drifted in and out of each tiny chamber of their hearts. He wove a web of protection down to the very essence of their beings.

“No one will ever hurt you again, least of all me,” Dipper whispered to them, and they wouldn’t understand the words but they would feel the depth of meaning behind them. “You’re safe, you’re safe again.” One by one, first the girls, then his nephew, drifted off into sleep at last. As he felt them enter the Mindscape he wrapped their dreaming selves (still so tiny, still growing and becoming who they would eventually be) in his and Mabel and Henry’s love. They settled and finally rested.

Outside of himself, Dipper felt Mabel yawn, and join her children in sleep, gently slumping on his shoulder. He untangled himself from the triplets and laid Mabel out gently on her and Henry’s bed.

He stood up and turned to go but Mabel stirred.

“Come lay down and take a nap with us goober.”

“Um…”

Mabel chuckled. “Don’t be a silly potato. You’re my brother. I still love you. And you made things better. Now take a nap with us.”

(When Henry came home that evening from work, he found Dipper drooling on Mabel’s sweater and Mabel’s elbow in Dipper’s face, and he knew without being told that all was right in the world again.