Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The trees were dark, foreboding, towering over him at crooked angles in the blackness of the impenetrable forest.  He could hear nothing but his own steps on the ground and his own breath, coming in heavy puffs.  There were no animals in this forest at all - what had happened to them all?  What were they running from?  What was he running from?  

All Norman Babcock knew was that he was running for his life.

“R̴̗̩̼̳ù̦̱̻n͉̲̭̲̳̮͝ ̸͚̯̕͠aͅs҉̪͉̩͜͡ͅ ̥͇͔͓̜̭̳̤̤͢͜f̱̭͔̫̫̙̖̟͢a̛̯̠͈͎̲̞̲̠̬s̲͚͚͉t̴̸̢͖͎̯̹̤ ̛͉̹͉̟͟a͏̪͈̜͙͚͓̮s̬͇̗̯͇̭̪̪̩͢ ̲̼̫͚y҉̖̜̙͚͓̭͈ͅò̵̺̮̯͙͔ų͙͚̪̠͍͇̜ ̛̻̀c̡̩̳a̹͔̥̩̮̜̤̜͖͢n̢̳̠̯͚̠͎̜̟,̘͕͚͔͟ͅ ̶̢̣̗͝k͏̸̜̘í̘̟̘̲̱͕d̡̢̝̙͎.”

That voice again.  No matter how fast he ran, Norman couldn’t escape it.  The sound surrounded him so that he didn’t know who - or what - it was coming from.  It sounded like the shrill screams of thousands at once, digging into his ears with claws that damn near drew blood.  

Still, Norman ran.  He felt sick, but he kept running.  Don’t let it catch you, don’t let it catch you.  The darkness was catching up to him, surrounding him.  He’s watching he’s always watching he’s coming he’s behind the trees he’s in the trees-  

He couldn’t go on.  He had to go on.  He couldn’t go on.

He stopped at the base of a large pine tree, just for a second, just to catch his breath.  It was a few seconds of gulping down the cold forest air before he realised the tree had an eye on it.  A single eye, blinking at him between the lines of a triangle someone had carved into the bark.

Norman yelped and jumped back.  The laughter started, a horrible sound like the shrieks of the damned.

“A͟ ͗ͦ͛ͤͨ́d̎͌͌ȁ̧͒̋r͘k̈́̋ͥͭ̇n̡ͣͨ͗e͛́š̐ͦ̀͘s̵̎ ͣ͑͆̀̄̀̚͟iͤͨ͋͞ṡ̋ͦ͋ͯ͋ ̾ͩͧ̓͊̚҉a̿ͭ͐͢p̋̀p̋̿̈̇r̢̓o̷̊̎͐ͧãc͂̃̽̈̇̂h͊ĩͨnͯǵ̶̈ͦ̊͛͑̑.̓̊ͥͯ̃̾ͬ͝ ͐̃̾ ̴͌̈́Ý̢o͑͂͒̿̽uͣ̔̈̽ ͫ̍́c̃ͥͩ̄ͬ͌a̽̋̏̓͂ͩ̚n̔͒ͥͯ͢'̓ͣ͑̾̀t͋̓̃̈̔̎ ͐͆s͋ͤ̋̓̋͑́ţ̌̎͋̽͛̚o̸̅p͊ͤ̿̚ ̨̋̅̍͊̄iͩ̐̓̽̔̔͡tͨͩ͛.”

“Leave me alone!” He covered his ears.  But the screaming laughter didn’t stop.  “Just leave me alone!”

I̥̖̰͉ͨ͜͝'̴̤͙̺̬͈͖̭̊́̀́ͩͬͫ̋m͙̒ͣͦ͒͂͟

̮̀ͬ̈̏́W̮̫͈̦̫͈̤̐ͨ̑̃̊ͤ͢͠a̸̲̮̙͔͙̼̪͉̔͜͝ͅt͒ͤ͒ͨͨ͏̠̝̻̤cͮͤ̿̉҉̱͍̼͜h̟̍͐̆͟͠͡ī̝ͣn̴̮̠̻̮̆̏ͤ̃g̰̼̀ͫͮͥ̏̽ͯ̇ ̹̖̗͙͔͈̓͑ͯ̔̓ͣ̄͌̓͘

̢̠̮̪̰̂̂̓̓ͮ̋́Y̵̨̤̤͓̿͗͋o̶̟͚ͬ͑̈̓͢u̒ͯ̍̆͏̣̺͉̫͈̯̝

̛͙̈ͩͥ̕͠

***

Bright blue eyes shot open as Norman woke up, panting heavily as if he really had been just running for his life.

‘Where am I?!’ the fifteen-year-old medium looked around, alarmed, as he ran a pale, shaking hand through his black spikes of hair.  This was not his room.  This was not his house.

“Are you okay, sweetie?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” a flight attendant walking by asked, and that’s when Norman remembered.  He was on a plane to Eugene, Oregon, on his way to spend his fourth consecutive summer in Gravity Falls.

The irony of the flight attendant’s comment did not escape him - ‘if only you knew, lady’ - and he managed a wry smirk despite how tired he was. That was the third time he’d had that same nightmare this week.

“I’m alright,” he responded, voice soft and somewhat reserved.  “Do you know where we are?”

She gave him a perky smile.  “We’re just over Utah, sweetheart.  Can I get you anything?”

Norman shook his head, and let her go about her business as he leaned back into the hard airplane seat.  He turned to look out of the window at the early morning unfolding thousands of miles below him.  His parents had specifically gotten a red-eye flight for him so that he could sleep - they saw how excited he was to see the Pines twins again - but he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep after that dream.  

Why did he keep having it?  What did it mean?  He was well-versed in ghost lore and B-movies, but Norman didn’t know anything about dream interpretation.  Even if he did, he imagined forests and eyes probably had a whole host of different meanings.

Thinking about it was beginning to give him a headache.  He pinched the bridge of his crooked nose, and tried to focus on happier thoughts.  For one thing, he was on a plane.  He liked planes.  They were quiet - very very rarely did one find a ghost on a plane.  For another thing, in only a few hours (depending on how long it took to get from Eugene to Gravity Falls once he got to Oregon) he would be with his best friends.  He liked his friends back home - things had gotten a lot better for him over the last few years - but no one understood him like Mabel and Dipper Pines did.

Especially Dipper.

Maybe this year Norman would tell him about his rather inconvenient crush on the boy.

But, no, he knew he wouldn’t.  He had been lonely for far too long.  He wasn’t about to risk something as great as Dipper’s friendship.  What right did Norman have to risk that?  Pesky feelings aside, he was pretty excited to see both of the Pines twins again.  He wondered what kinds of crazy adventures they would get into this summer, what his parents would think if they knew what they were really sending him into every year.  (For the last couple of years, the Babcock family had found it easier on everyone to only pay for the one plane ticket of the one family member who actually wanted to return to that tourist trap of a town.  His parents didn’t understand it, but they were glad to get him outdoors, glad that he had friends.)

He dug into his carry-on bag - really, his school backpack - and pulled out the issue of “Fortean Times” he had bought at the airport back in Massachusetts.  Some of the “incredible tales” written in the magazine paled in comparison to adventures he’d actually lived through, but Norman still found it more entertaining than staring out the window at Utah.  He read and re-read that magazine for the rest of the flight.

***

“Dipper, would you quit staring out the window like a creep?  Wendy said she’d be here soon,” Mabel jokingly gave her twin brother a light shoulder punch.  

Wendy Corduroy was in college now, and, conveniently, the University of Oregon happened to be in Eugene, the site of the closest airport to Gravity Falls.  (“Closest” was a relative term, of course - Eugene was still a couple hours away.)  Since she came back every summer anyway, to be with her family, it was no surprise she’d offered to pick up Norman and bring him to the Mystery Shack.  Wendy liked the kid.

Dipper rubbed his shoulder - though he was (finally, after years of scrawniness) bigger and stockier than his sister, her “light” punches still often left bruises - and glared.  

“I’m not being a creep!  I’m just-”

“Eager to see your booooyfrieeeend?” Mabel cut him off, and giggled when Dipper’s glare hardened.

“-Impatient,” he finished, choosing not to dignify her interruption by responding to it.  Because, frankly, her accusations were ridiculous.  Because he wasn’t gay.  He’d once kissed a boy and not liked it, and therefore Mabel needed to just shut her stupid mouth.  

“Relax, bro-bro.  They’ll be here soon and then we can get to hunting Bigfoot or whatever.”

“Come on, Mabel, Bigfoot isn’t real.”

Mabel flicked the brim of her brother’s hat.  “You said that about gnomes too.  Besides, you can’t believe in yetis and not believe in Bigfoot.  They’re like the same thing!”

“Would you drop the Bigfoot thing?!  We’re not hunting Bigfoot.”

“I’ll bet you five bucks.”

“Mabel!  There’s no time for that - we only have a couple summers left to solve the mystery of Gravity Falls once and for all.”

“Dipper…” Mabel started.

“Don’t ‘Dipper’ me.  After Norman adjusts to West Coast time, I’m thinking of checking out the bunker again…”

“We’ve checked it out like five times!  There’s nothing there!  Besides, I have a date tomorrow, so…”

“Really?” Disbelief tainted Dipper’s tone.  “Summer just started.”

“And I’ve been having this relationship over Skype all year, and I would like to go on a real date, and you are just gonna have to accept that, Dippin’ Dots.”

“Don’t call me that!” Dipper sulked.  (Pouted, really.)  

Mabel giggled again at her brother’s antics before her gaze fell on the window.  Dipper followed her stare just in time to see two figures exiting a beat up old sedan: one in flannel with long red hair, and one in black with short black spikes of hair.  Wendy and Norman had arrived at the Mystery Shack.

The twins registered this fact at the same time, and began to race each other down the stairs, to see who would be the first to greet Norman at the door this year.  (Last year it had been Dipper, the previous year it had been Mabel.)  Mabel shoved at Dipper with her elbows, Dipper tried to pull her back behind him by the fabric of her shirt, and they arrived at the bottom of the stairs in an entanglement of limbs poking and prodding and punching at one another - just in time to see Wendy open the door herself.  

She chuckled a bit when she saw the pair, fighting as if they were still twelve years old.  “Easy there, you guys.”

Norman poked his head in the door behind Wendy, duffel bag at his side, and Mabel and Dipper separated to try and run to him.  Mabel, through sheer luck, managed to get to him first, and exclaimed:

“You’re so tall now!”

“Uh, yeah,” Norman smiled, absentmindedly picking a piece of lint off of his sleeve.  “Six foot one, last I checked.”

“That is so not fair!”  Dipper gaped at him, and Norman had to laugh a little at the fact that this would be the first thing Dipper had said to him all summer.  Dipper looked a little different every year - this time his shoulders were wider, filling out his flannel shirt, and he even had a few hairs on his chin.  Norman wondered if his friend would ever get a full beard.  With his stocky build, it’d make Dipper Pines look like a lumberjack.  

“Not fair?” The medium asked, bemused.  “Dipper, I haven’t even put my bag down yet.”

“I’m older, I should be taller!” The Pines boy protested, though not without a grin.  Norman rolled his eyes.

“You’re absolutely right, Dipper.  Here, let me just force myself to shrink to satisfy your ego,” he responded sarcastically, and Dipper shoved him.

“Oh just shut up and get in here.”

“Need any help with your bag, dude?” Wendy asked.  Norman shook his head.  He was a lot more at ease with Wendy now than he had been when he met her, but she wasn’t as close to him as Mabel and Dipper were.

“No, I got it.  Thanks for the ride.”

“Hey, anytime, man!”

The trio of teenagers made their way up the stairs, Mabel leading the way, Dipper walking alongside Norman.  The staircase was narrow enough that the boy’s shoulders were brushing each other with every step.  (Norman wondered if Dipper noticed it too, if that was why his face was slightly flushed.)

“We have so much to tell you,” Dipper whispered to him with a grin, and Norman felt his own face flush, despite himself.

When they got into the attic room, Mabel wrestled the duffel bag out of Norman’s arms and tossed it on Dipper’s bed, and the trio sat on the floor in a triangular formation.  Norman bit his lip when he noticed that and tried to imagine it as a circle instead.  The town of Gravity Falls had more ghosts than any other place he had been to, but there were none in the attic to make their trio into a quartet.  Why was it making him so uneasy?

“What was it that you wanted to tell me?” Norman asked, looking around the room to see what was pinned on the walls this year.  He’d missed this.  He’d missed them.

“This is the year we’re going to do it,” Dipper grinned, determined.  “This is the year we’re going to finally solve the mystery of Gravity Falls.  I can feel it.”

Mabel rolled her eyes, though the smile never strayed from her face.  “Dippity Doo over here is feeling the weight of his old age.”

“I’ve already drafted a plan of action for week one,” Dipper ignored his sister, turning around to rummage through a box of papers sticking out from under his bed.  “We’ll start by checking out the Bunker again.  I just know there’s something we’re missing.  Mabel has a date, so we’ll go without her-”

“Puh-leeze!  You wouldn’t last five minutes without me, Buster!”

The boy adjusted his hat and laughed.  “Just kidding, I guess.  Only because we can use your grappling hook.”

Mabel stuck her tongue out at her brother.

“I don’t know what we’re missing,” Norman paused, chewing his lip thoughtfully.  “I mean, you’ve been there how many times now?”

“Well, I mean, Mabel and I can’t do what you can do.  N-not that we’re just using you for your abilities or anything, you know we’re not-”

“Chill.  I get it.  It’s just that I don’t think the writer of the Journal is dead, Dip.  Or if they are, their spirit isn’t in the Bunker.  I don’t know what you’re hoping to find down there.”

Dipper shrugged.  “It’s just an idea.  Start summer off with a bang.  Besides, I have a feeling about this.  It’s happening.  You can’t stop it.”

‘You can’t stop it,’ a voice whispered in Norman’s memory.  He winced.  This time, the Pines twins noticed immediately.

“You okay, dude?”

“Dipper isn’t that bad, is he, Norm?”

Mabel’s inane comment (and Dipper’s indignant gasp in response) brought his mind back to the room, and he tried to smile reassuringly.  Dipper looked suspicious, still - how did he always know when Norman was faking it? - so he was forced to say, “I’m just tired.”

It wasn’t technically a lie.

“Oh, of course, of course,” Dipper jumped to his feet and began clearing papers (and Norman’s bag) off of his bed.  “Here, you can lay down in my bed.”

“Uh, Dip, you don’t have to-” he began, but Dipper wouldn’t let him protest.

“No, no, I insist!”

Mabel snorted, and both boys looked at her.  “Not this again!”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Dipper shot his sister a short glare.

“You two do this every year - one of you tries to give the other the bed and then the other one does the same thing, and then you both end up on the floor or the bed.”

“Are we really that predictable?” Norman laughed a little.

“No, I’m just that good,” Mabel grinned proudly.  Dipper scoffed and she shoved his shoulder.  “I am!  Really!  Beautiful, smart, talented…”

“And humble to boot,” Dipper remarked, sarcasm positively dripping from his tone.  “Mabel’s right, though - as much as I hate to admit it - we should probably just both take the bed when the time comes for that.  We can sleep head-to-foot if you want.”

“No way, dude, your feet smell terrible,” the medium joked.  

Dipper shrugged, nonchalantly.  “My morning breath isn’t much better.  Lesser of two evils, I guess.”

The two boys looked at each other, and suddenly both of them were cracking up.  It wasn’t even particularly funny, but still they were laughing like maniacs.  And just like that everything was happy again.  Norman smiled, truly glad to be back with his best friends.  He wasn't going to let a few nightmares ruin his vacation.

Chapter Text

Pacifica Northwest admired her reflection in the mirror.  Damn, but she looked good.  It wasn’t that she thought the people she was going to see today would notice or even care - they had no sense of fashion, it seemed - but the blonde liked looking nicer than the people around her, anyway.

Besides, her parents would be suspicious if they heard that she had gone out in anything less than head-to-toe designer.  She had a reputation to uphold, after all.

Pacifica frowned.  Her parents didn’t know where she was going.  Not that they normally cared what their daughter did.  They were selfish.  The Northwest girl had often thought about how she would have been just like them if not for…

Blue-green eyes fell on a photo strip pinned on the wall by her mirror.  It was from one of those photo booths that poor people liked.  It was also one of Pacifica’s most prized possessions.  Mabel Pines was making an increasingly ridiculous face in every one of the four photos, Pacifica was trying to look perfect but cracking up by the last photo.  Even now, the strip brought a rare genuine smile to the rich girl’s face every time she looked at it.

Her other “friends” - if girls like Tiffany and Staci and Heather and whoever else her parents had chosen for her to be seen with - didn’t get it.  They didn’t know the full story, but if they did they still wouldn’t get it.  They knew Pacifica sometimes liked to hang out with Mabel, and assumed it had to be some sort of elaborate joke, or maybe a makeover situation like in “Clueless”.  

After all, why else would the richest girl in town hang out with a freak like Mabel Pines?

Sometimes Pacifica wondered what would happen if she told those shallow spoiled brats that she was dating the silly girl?

Pacifica Northwest had been training all her life to be perfect, to be the beautiful face of the staggering Northwest fortune.  It was hard work, harder than most people realised.  And when Mabel Pines had come along, she was just so effortlessly genuine.

Pacifica hadn’t understood it at first; she’d even hated the girl because for the first time in her sheltered life, someone was challenging everything she had been taught to believe, was making her feel something.  It had taken her years to sort out just what those feelings were.

Her parents would never understand if they knew.  Neither would the other rich (but not as rich) teenagers she spent the rest of the year with.  But Pacifica didn’t care.  Since when had she been one to care about the opinions of others?  She was a Northwest after all.  And she couldn’t wait to see her girlfriend again.

***

Dipper was procrastinating the task of sweeping the floor of the gift shop in order to sit at the kitchen table with Norman (who Dipper tried to not think too hard about having woken up next to that morning) and Mabel (who was waiting for her freshly painted nails to dry).

“All I’m saying,” Mabel was shaking her hands back and forth rapidly as she spoke, “is that you have a new theory every year, Dippin’ Dots.  What makes this one any different?”

Dipper frowned, both at the insipid nickname and his sister’s nonchalant skepticism.  “Because there’s a lot more evidence for alien activity than there is for demonic activity.  I was just too blind to see it before - this time, we’ll be looking for it!”

“Yeah, but aliens though?  Are you serious?” Mabel laughed.

“Yes, I’m serious!” the male Pines twin whipped out a postcard from his back pocket, swiped from the gift shop.  It showed the town of Gravity Falls as shot from above, with the cliffs that surrounded the town towering over it.  Dipper had outlined the cracks in the cliffs and the bridge between them, making the rough outline of a stereotypical UFO.  “Norman, you believe me, right?”

Norman crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on them.  “It’s a pretty interesting coincidence that the cliffs look like that, but I’m not sure it counts as hard evidence, Dip.”

“You know what I think?” Mabel asked.

“I didn’t ask what you thought, Mabel,” her brother replied, but she ignored him, slamming her hands down on the table.

“I think Agent Mulder over here has been watching way too many re-runs of ‘The X-Files’.”

“Ha ha, very funny, Mabel.  But I haven’t even shown you the best part yet!” Dipper had a maniacal gleam in his eye as he whipped out Journal Three and flipped open to a page that had once been blank, but that Dipper himself had written in three years ago after an encounter with some ridiculous creature or another; even Norman couldn’t keep track of all the things in this town.

The Medium sat up a little straighter in order to better see what it was Dipper wanted to show him.  It seemed like a pretty typical case log of one of the many, many creatures he and Dipper and Mabel had dealt with over the years.  Dipper was pulling a blacklight pen out of his pocket and clicking it on, and that’s when the symbols beneath the writing showed up.

“I didn’t even notice these,” Dipper explained, excitement growing in his voice, “even after we learned about the pages written in invisible ink, because I didn’t think to check the pages I’d already written over.  What do you guys think?”

“I think you’re a huge nerd,” Mabel stuck her tongue out.  Her brother returned the gesture.

Norman frowned, and tried to identify the symbols.  They looked as if the Hebrew and Cyrillic alphabets had gotten fused together.  “Is it a substitution code or something?  Have you tried translating it?”

“I’ve tried!  It doesn’t work in English, Spanish, or Latin - the closest I came to translating it was ‘Raa gah io es vin nonca aspt poamal de zod’... well, you get the idea.  Gibberish.  It doesn’t translate to anything in any language as far as I can tell, unless it’s something like, I don’t know, Esperanto.”

“And you think this means it must be alien,” Norman continued.

“In the broadest sense of the word, yeah.  Alien doesn’t have to mean from outer space, you know.  It could also just mean not of this realm.”

“Ugh, could you be any weirder?” a distinctly snotty voice interrupted the trio, and Dipper slammed the journal shut and hastily shoved it under the table.

“Pacifica!” Mabel grinned, and jumped up to greet the bleach-blonde teenager who stood in the kitchen doorway.  She gave a rather awkward hug - her nails still weren’t dry enough for a proper hug - and exclaimed, “you should have texted me to let you in!”

“I did,” Pacifica frowned.  “You didn’t answer, so I had your servant let me in.  José or whatever.”

“Oops,” the brunette girl gave a sheepish smile, and flashed her new manicure at her girlfriend as a means of explanation as to why she hadn’t texted back.  

“Soos isn’t our servant,” Dipper glared.  He and Pacifica didn’t really get along, and it always made Norman a little uncomfortable, especially as he himself had barely spoken to the girl Mabel was so enamoured with.  “You should know that by now, Pacifica.”

“I don’t really care,” the blonde shrugged.

“Play nice, you two,” Mabel insisted, and hooked arms with Pacifica, kissing the girl on the cheek.  Pacifica’s expression softened a little.

“Are you ready to go, babe?” the blonde made a show of grabbing Mabel’s hand.  Dipper’s glare hardened.  Mabel either didn’t noticed, or pretended not to notice, and walked out of the kitchen with her girlfriend, rambling on and on about how much she’d missed her.

“Can you believe that?” Dipper was still glaring at the door.  Norman couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Your protective side is showing, Dip.”

“Do you have any idea how many times that girl has made Mabel cry?  And now they’re apparently in love or something?!”

“They’re dating.  It doesn’t mean they’re going to run off and get married.  You really need to chill.  If Mabel says she’s cool with her, than I have no issue with Pacifica.”

Dipper wilted, and tried to look sulky.  “Well, now you’re making me look like an asshole.”

Norman laughed a little.  “You are an asshole.  But that’s alright, I like you anyway.”

It had slipped out before he could stop it, and Norman hoped Dipper wouldn’t read too much into it.  He held his breath, waiting for the other boy to go bright red and start stammering.  Luckily, Dipper was still focused on other things.  He brought the journal back up into the light and Norman exhaled, relieved.

***

It wasn’t a real date, in the sense that it wasn’t as if Pacifica was taking Mabel to a five-star dinner and a night at the opera.  Usually they either ended up at Pacifica’s mansion - if Mr. and Mrs. Northwest weren’t home that is - or just hanging out in and around the Mystery Shack.  Occasionally they went to a movie, because theatres were dark enough no one would see them, but only if Pacifica could be sure she didn’t run into anyone important in the lobby.  Mabel didn’t seem to mind.

At least, Pacifica hoped she didn’t mind.

As her parents had gone off to an art gallery opening up in Portland - not even bothering to ask their daughter if she would have been interested in going (she wouldn’t have, but it still would have been nice to be asked) - currently, the two girls were sitting on Pacifica’s pristine white carpeted floor, Mabel painting Pacifica’s toenails over an old issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

Pacifica almost wished she was doing it over the carpet, that she would spill all over that stupid carpet her parents had paid so much for, just to see the looks on their faces.  She frowned.

“Hey, now, turn that frown upside down, young lady!  Smiles only in Mabel’s presence!”

“Did you just call me ‘young lady’?  I’m five months older than you.”

“What are you thinking about that has you so frowny, anyway?  Aren’t you pleased as punch to see me?”

The blonde rolled her eyes and smirked.  “You know that I am.  I only let you and this one manicurist in L.A. touch my toes, after all.”

“Paz, “ Mabel used the nickname that only she was allowed to call Pacifica.  “Paz, come on, what are you thinking about that has you so frowny?  Sad feelings are super lame, come on.”

Pacifica rested her chin on her knees.  “I was wondering what my parents would do if I just took this nail polish and chucked it at the carpet.  Just all of it.  Spread it all around.”

It was Mabel’s turn to frown.  She was the only one who got to see this side of Pacifica, and she was honoured the blonde trusted her this much, but she didn’t like when her girlfriend got like this.

“Hey,” Pacifica gave her a soft smile, though her eyes showed no signs of mirth.  “Turn that frown upside down, young lady.”  She said the last word slowly - lay-dee - which made Mabel giggle a little.

“Paz, your parents… you know they love you, right?  Deep down, they must.”

Pacifica shrugged.   Mabel looked determined and suddenly grabbed the blonde’s knees, forcing them down away from her face.  She stared at her straight in the eyes, brown locked onto blue-green.  Pacifica always felt uncomfortable when Mabel looked her in the eyes like that.  The other girl wasn’t looking at her perfect hair and expensive clothes - she was looking at her soul, at Pacifica as a person.  The rich girl wasn’t used to that.

“Can we not do this right now?” She broke the gaze, looking down at her toes.  Mabel had painted each toenail a different shade of purple or pink.  It was hideous and she kind of loved it, in a way she would never admit out loud.

“Pacifica-”

The blonde pitched forward, surprising Mabel by pressing her immaculately glossed lips to the brunette’s slightly chapped ones.  She pulled back, watched Mabel pause and lick remnants of her glitter strawberry gloss off the corner of her mouth.  

And before the silly girl could speak, Pacifica said - a bit too quickly - “I see your brother’s as creepy and weird as he ever was.”  She could go back to being bitchy and judgmental.  That came easy to Pacifica.  Dealing with her emotions didn’t.

Mabel knew exactly what her girlfriend was doing, of course.  Pacifica knew she knew when she grabbed her hand and squeezed it, a silent vow not to bring it up anymore.

“Go easy on him, Paz.  Dipper’s cool.”

“I guess.” she huffed. 

Chapter Text

“Hurry it up, nerds, we’re almost there!” Mabel was leading the Mystery Trio - as she called herself, her twin, and Norman - up a trail to get a better view of the anomaly of the cliffs.  It had been Dipper’s idea to go check it out, of course, but it had been Mabel’s idea to make a day out of it, even going so far as to pack a picnic.

“Maybe we’d be going faster if you didn’t make me carry everything,” Dipper looked annoyed, moreso when Mabel turned around and winked at him, walking backwards for a few steps.

“It’s one measly little picnic basket, bro bro.  Don’t be such a baby about it.  Besides, I made your favourite sandwich, you should be thanking me.”

Norman looked from one twin to the other, laughing a little at Mabel’s cheekiness and Dipper’s exasperated expression.  

“Sisters,” Dipper rolled his eyes and flashed a small smile at Norman.  “Am I right?”

“Hey! I heard that!” Mabel stooped to grab a pinecone and tossed it at her brother’s chest, giggling all the while.  

The twins had been at this pretty much the entire hike, and on lower ground it had attracted a lot of spirits curious about all the noise.  Up here, Norman noticed, there were barely any living creatures, let alone dead ones.  He wondered, briefly, if it should make him uneasy.  But then, why would there be any ghosts up here?  Dipper had told him already that hardly anyone ever came up here.

“Do you want some help with that?” The seer offered an arm to his friend, but Dipper shook his head.

“Just because you’re taller than me doesn’t mean you’re stronger.”

“Dude,” Norman wrinkled his nose at that, smirking, “when did I ever say it did?”

Dipper chuckled a bit, and patted his friend on the shoulder with his free hand.  “Thanks for the offer, Norm, but I’ve got this.”

Norman only nodded, his mouth suddenly very dry.  Did Dipper realise what even a gesture as simple as that meant to him?  But, no, of course he wouldn’t know.  Why would he?  

He shook his head, tried to think of something else.  If he thought too hard about his feelings for Dipper, it might make things awkward.  

Mabel’s voice dragged him out of these thoughts when they arrived at a clearing with a pretty good view, prompting her to exclaim, “Perfect!”

Dipper placed the basket on the ground, sat down on a rock, and stretched his arm.  Looking around, he said, “It’s not half bad, as far as picnic spots go.”

Norman had only ever been to a few picnics - most of them family affairs - and so wasn’t sure what made this spot ‘not half bad’.

“How’d you find this place, Mabel?” He asked, eager to contribute.  “Did you take your girlfriend here or something?”

“Please,” Dipper cut in.  “Pacifica Northwest doesn’t hike.  She might break a heel on her designer shoes, or get dirt under her French manicure.”

Norman couldn’t help but laugh a little at the fact that Dipper even knew what a French manicure was.

“She’s not that bad, Dipper,” Mabel huffed, opening the picnic basket to grab the blanket.  Norman immediately went to help her spread it on the ground, wordlessly.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dipper shrugged.  Mabel huffed again, loudly, but her brother pretended not to notice.  

She shrugged, and grinned at Norman.  “He’s a stubborn one.  You’ve got your work cut out for you, Normy.”

Norman wasn’t sure exactly what Mabel was implying, but it made him blush all the same.  He looked down at the blanket and smoothed out wrinkles that were hardly there to avoid looking at either twin.  Only when it was immaculate did he feel safe looking up.  Mabel was unpacking the food and chattering at Dipper.  

And Dipper was staring directly at him, chin resting in his hand, with a sort of dreamy look on his face and a small little smile that made Norman’s face go even redder.

“Uh, Dip?” he asked, quietly.  His mouth felt dry again.

Dipper shook his head, as if he was waking up from a dream.  “S-sorry, I-! I zoned out.”

Norman pretended not to notice that little stammer that Dipper sometimes did when he was nervous.  After all, it was only polite.

Click.

“Mabel!” Dipper whirled around and yelped at his sister, who was holding a disposable camera up, having just taken a photo.  (The trio had found years ago that digital cameras tended to malfunction in Gravity Falls.)

“What?” She feigned innocence, tossed Dipper his saran-wrapped sandwich, which he scrambled to catch.  “We’re having a nice, friendly picnic.  It’s a perfect scrapbook-ortunity! Why are you so tense, Dippin’ Sauce?”

Mabel grinned like a Cheshire Cat.  She knew exactly what she was doing.

“Give me that,” Dipper held his hand out for the camera.  “We packed it to take photos of evidence of paranormal activity, not for ‘scrapbook-ortunities’.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Mabel handed it over.  Dipper swiped it and began taking photos of the view, and then, for some reason, of the rocks and trees around the area.

Norman felt a hand running through his hair, and he leaned back until he was laying in Mabel’s lap.  The first time she had ever done that, it had made him jump, but by now, years later, he was pretty used to her wanting to play with his hair.  Laying back made it a little harder to eat, but he wasn’t terribly hungry, anyway.

“Last year it was demons, this year it’s aliens,” Mabel smiled down at the head in her lap, attempting to braid a few strands of the dark stick-straight hair.  “What do you think it’ll be next year? Fae?”

“Mm, my bet’s on Cthulu,” Norman said softly.  “Do you really think this year is going to be the year?”

The girl shrugged.  “We’re the Mystery Trio.  If anyone can solve it, we can.  Why, having second thoughts?”

“No,” he looked up at her, and her smile softened.  He didn’t have to try and find the words for how much it meant to him, to be out here, doing this kind of thing with friends.  Mabel knew.  Mabel always knew.

“He does that a lot, you know,” she gestured with her chin to Dipper, who was leaning over and inspecting one rock in particular.

“What, look at rocks?” Norman asked.

“No.  Stares at you.  When he thinks you’re not looking, I mean.”

The medium wasn’t quite sure how he was meant to reply to that.  Mabel giggled.

“I wish I had the camera so I could take a picture of how hard you’re blushing right now.  I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Dipper’s voice asked, and both of the others snapped their heads over to meet his gaze.  He crouched near them.  “Mabel giving you a hard time, Norm?”

“Uh, no more than she normally does,” He forced a crooked little smile.  Mabel tugged on his hair a little for that comment, though not hard enough to actually hurt.  “Get the photos you needed?”  

Dipper’s face lit up in a grin.  “I think so!  We’ll have to see once these get developed.  What do you think?”

“About…?

“That,” a grand gesture to the outline of a stereotypical UFO shape in the cliffs.  “Pretty damn cool, right?!”  His grin widened, excitement colouring his face.

Norman had to admit it was pretty weird, now that he was seeing it in person rather than just on a postcard.  He nodded as best as he could, still laying back in Mabel’s lap.

And that’s when he noticed it.  Above Mabel, a fourth face, staring down at him.

Norman shot up with a small, surprised yelp, hair brushing Mabel’s chin as he did so, and whirled around to face the ghost who was currently staring at him.  The Pines twins exchanged looks, and gave him a bit of space, assuming (correctly) he’d seen a ghost.

The ghost himself had a stern face, and the plain black garments and white collar of a preacher - early twentieth century, if Norman had to guess, though his grasp on historical fashion was not the best.  The preacher’s white collar had bloodstains on it, and Norman had to do his best not to stare at the gunshot wound in the side of the man’s head.  He could do that.  He’d dealt with suicide victims before.  Usually they just wanted someone to assure them that they had been loved.  Usually, they weren’t priests.  Norman gestured for the spirit to take a seat.  It didn’t.

“You can see me, boy!” The preacher’s voice thundered like- well, like a preacher.  

“Uh, yeah.  That’s kinda what I do,” Norman confirmed.  “Talk to ghosts and such.”

Dipper nodded at Mabel, and the two pretended to be very interested in their food.

“Can I help you in some way?” the medium continued.  

“I am beyond help!” The ghost continued to yell.  “I am a sinner, boy - we all are - and for what?! For what?! Why should I be damned for trying to help this town?!”

Norman chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to think of how to reply.  He genuinely did want to help this man pass on, but he wasn’t used to dealing with undead priests.  He’d only ever met one other, after all.

“I’m sure the town of Gravity Falls is grateful for all you’ve done, sir.  And that God forgives you.  Isn’t that what He does, after all?”

“Bah!” the priest gestured to the head wounds.  “You’re trying to get rid of me, boy?!  I didn’t put a hole in my head for nothing, you know.  I wanted to stay here!  The power of prayer is the only thing that can counteract the darkness in this town, and God almighty knows no one else is doing a damn thing about it!  Have you seen any churches in Gravity Falls, boy?!”

Norman had never realised it before, but the man was right.  There were no churches - or any other religious buildings, for that matter - in the whole town.

“So you killed yourself… to protect Gravity Falls,” he murmured, trying to make sense of this.  

“My whole congregation, actually!” The ghost looked proud, and Norman suddenly got chills as he realised that he wasn’t talking to a plain preacher - he was talking to the leader of a suicide cult.

He forced himself to remain impassive, not wanting to know the gory details.  “Did… it work?”

“NO!” the man roared in Norman’s face, making him wince a little. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dipper starting to jump up, defensively, and Mabel tugging on his sleeve to stop him.

“Is there anything I can do to help you, sir?”

“Yes - quit playing with fire before the great darkness destroys this whole town!”

“The great darkness…” Norman trailed off.

‘A darkness is approaching.  You can’t stop it.’

He suddenly felt a little sick.

“God be with you,” the priest reached forward, as if he meant to bless Norman.  But then, when ghostly fingers came in contact with living skin, his eyes widened.  “You-!”

And in a burst of light, the ghost had disappeared.  Norman felt his hands trembling.

In an instant, both Dipper and Mabel were at his side, holding him upright just in case he was about to faint or something.  Mabel looked worried; Dipper looked furious.

“What the hell did that spirit say to you?!” the male twin demanded.  At the same time, Mabel asked him:

“Are you okay?”

He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, and responded, “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit!” Dipper spat.  Mabel elbowed her brother.

“Dipper, shut up!” she glared at him.

Norman shook his head in disbelief.  “You guys, have you ever noticed there are no religious buildings in Gravity Falls?  No churches.  No temples.  No mosques.”

“Hm?” Dipper blinked.  Norman could tell by his face that it wasn’t something he’d ever thought about.

“What do you think happened to them?” He continued.  Then he sighed.  “It was a priest.  He, uh… he apparently had his whole congregation kill themselves so they could stay here instead of going to the afterlife.”

The twins exchanged horrified looks.

“That’s…” Mabel began.

“...fucked up,” Dipper finished her sentence.  She nodded in agreement.  “Norman, that guy was crazy, don’t listen to him!”

“I’m not, I just…” he paused.  “He said something about a ‘great darkness’ coming… I think we should pack up and go back to the Mystery Shack, if that’s alright.”

“Oh, uh, s-sure!” Dipper jumped to his feet and offered Norman a hand to help him up, as Mabel hastily shoved everything back into the picnic basket.  Norman pretended not to notice that even after he was standing, Dipper’s hand remained grasping his for a few extra seconds.

***

Mabel set two ice cream sundaes down on the table in front of the boys.  They were sitting in the kitchen, Norman laying the side of his face directly on the table.  (Her own ice cream was still on the counter - she wanted to put extra whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles on it before taking a seat.)  The brunette girl was worried - Norman hadn’t said anything about his ghost encounter.  Mabel could tell Dipper was resisting asking him about it, which must have been hard for her brother, knowledge-hungry as he was.  

All she had wanted was a nice summer picnic with people she cared about!  But no, some dumb cult leader ghost had to go and ruin everything!  And now Norman was going to be all sad about it, and that was going to make Dipper sad, and then she’d have to work twice as hard to cheer them up!

“I’m okay, you know,” Norman’s voice surprised her.  She flashed the biggest smile she could muster up.

“Of course you are, Normy!  Why wouldn’t you be?  Not with the Mabel deluxe special in front of you!”

“Is that edible glitter?” her brother grimaced.  Mabel walked her ice cream over to the table and whacked him with your spoon.

“Just eat your ice cream, Dippin’ Dots.”

“You looked worried,” Norman clarified.  “I’ve seen worse things before, Mabel.  You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Uh,” Dipper began, then hesitated.  The other boy gave him an inquisitive look, though, as if awaiting the rest of the sentence, and so he continued.  “You were kind of shaky and gaspy when you were talking to it though, so, yeah, I think we’re both kind of worried.”

“He wasn’t an ‘it’, he was a ‘he’.  And he just…” Norman shrugged, staring at his hand, “I don’t know, I guess I’ve never dealt with spirits whose thought processes were that messed up before.”

Dipper frowned at Mabel.  She knew that Dipper knew that Norman wasn’t telling them the whole story.

“I’m sure you just wanted to help him,” Mabel said brightly.  “But some people just aren’t ready to be helped.  It’s not your fault, Norman.”

“Norm,” Dipper said softly, placing a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.  Worry was clear on his face - Dipper always had been more expressive than he’d have liked.  Norman looked at Dipper, face a little flushed.  When they looked at each other like that, it almost made Mabel feel as if she were intruding.  She held her breath, waiting to see who would break the shared gaze first.

“He… he did say something else,” Norman broke it, looking at his ice cream.  Mabel bit her tongue to stop herself from exclaiming that she knew it.

“What else did he say?” Dipper’s voice was surprisingly gentle, especially since Mabel knew just how eager Dipper was to know everything that had just happened.

“He…” the medium paused, blue eyes searching his friend’s face as if he’d find answers there.  “He warned us, said to ‘stop playing with fire’, and that a great darkness was approaching.  It’s… it’s not the first time I’ve gotten that warning, either.”

Recognition flashed in Dipper’s brown eyes, and he shot a look at Mabel.  She was confused for a minute, before she remembered - it had been years ago, after all - those haunting words that creep Bill Cipher had shouted at her and Dipper.

‘A darkness approaches!  A day will come in the future when everything you care about will change!  Until then, I’ll be watching you!’

Well.  He’d done more than that since then.  Still, the similar wording in the warnings was a bit uncanny.  Dipper would probably read more into it than she did, too.  

“Who else said that to you?” Dipper asked, unable to hold back.

Norman furrowed his heavy brows.  “No one. Just chill. Forget it.”

The male twin frowned.  He knew he couldn’t force anything out of his friend.  “Norman… you know you can tell us anything, right?  That we won’t judge you?”

“I know you won’t.  It was just… another spirit or something.  It doesn’t matter who it was.”

Mabel kicked her brother under the table - ‘He doesn’t want to talk about it, Dipstick, drop it!’ - and grinned at Norman.

“How’s your Mabel deluxe special?!”

It was a welcome distraction, and the heavy mood that had been affecting the Mystery Trio lifted some.  Mabel was relieved.  But if a darkness really was approaching, greater than they’d faced before - how long would it last, she wondered?

Chapter Text

Norman had been sleeping pretty well the last few nights in Gravity Falls, all things considering, but on that night Dipper couldn’t help but notice all the tossing and turning on the other side of his bed.  His best friend was not falling asleep.  Dipper bit his lip, worried, wondering if he should turn over (he was facing the wall) and say something.  He knew that it happened sometimes - hell, he was no stranger to insomnia himself - but it didn’t make him worry any less.

After all, there was still something Norman wasn’t telling him.  The other boy had taken weeks to tell him and Mabel about the whole ‘talking to ghosts’ thing.  Dipper didn’t want it to take that long with whatever this was, not when so much was at stake.  And he especially didn’t want Norman to be losing sleep over it.  Not for him.

“Norman,” he whispered into the darkness.  “I know you’re awake.”

Silence.

Then, “Dipper, go to sleep.  I’ll be fine.”

Dipper rolled over to face Norman, propping his head up on his hand.  The other boy was laying on his back, and all that Dipper could really make out was the faint outline of his thin form and those blue, blue eyes shining from the starlight from the window.

“Sorry, dude,” he was suddenly very thankful it was dark, because he could feel his face getting hot and didn’t really know the reason why.  “If you’re not sleeping, I’m not sleeping.  That’s that.”

“Dipper, we have a big day tomorrow.”

“Guess you’re gonna just have to suck it up and try to sleep then.”

“Oh my god, you are such an asshole,” Norman poked him in the side, the spot that he knew was ticklish, and Dipper bit down on his lip to keep from yelping.

“You’re gonna wake up Mabel,” he rolled onto his back so he could rub his side, but kept his head turned toward his friend.  

Norman didn’t say anything.

Truth be told, Dipper was pretty tired, but there was no way he was going to let Norman stay up all night on his own.  Stubbornly, he began pinching his own arm to keep himself awake.  In the middle of doing this, he whispered again, in what he hoped was a casual tone:

“You wanna talk about… whatever it is keeping you awake?”

“Not really,” Norman replied.  “Dipper, don’t worry about me.  I mean it.”

Dipper snorted.  “Too late for that, dude.  I’ve been worrying about you since the day I met you.”  He realised after a few seconds that it was probably not the right thing to say.  “N-not that you should feel guilty or anything, I just- it’s what I do .  Worry, that is.”

“I know,” Norman murmured quietly.

Again, they didn’t say anything.  The silence made Dipper feel even worse.  The worry over Norman’s insomnia, the starshine reflecting off of those eyes that were so very blue - it was all making something in Dipper’s chest clench up and he wasn’t quite sure why.  The only other person that had ever made his heart clench like this was Wendy.  That thought made him very uncomfortable, and he tried - with little success - to push it away.

“Hey,” he whispered again.  “Would it make you feel better to go downstairs and watch a movie?  I think there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge from last week.  And channel 3 sometimes does late night creature features.”

“Won’t that wake up your Grunkle Stan?”  Dipper could just barely make out the smirk on Norman’s face as the medium said this.

“Naaaaah, he doesn’t sleep with his hearing aid.  We’ll be fine.  Come on.”

“Are you even going to be able to stay awake through a whole movie?”

“Norman, just come on .”

About a half hour into the movie (if “Plan 9 From Outer Space” could even be called a movie), Dipper stopped snarking along with Norman at the cheesy dialogue and terrible effects.  Forty five minutes in, Norman pretended not to notice Dipper’s head bobbing up and down as the older boy stubbornly tried to stay awake.  An hour into the movie, Dipper’s head fell onto his friend’s chest with a ‘ thunk ’.

“Uh…” Norman murmured.  Well this was awkward.  He chuckled a little.  “I told you that you wouldn’t last a whole movie, Dipper.”

He contorted his position as slowly as he possibly could, so as not to wake up Dipper, until he was lying on his back with Dipper still on his chest.  The older boy’s hair was slightly greasy, which was more apparent in the light coming from the black-and-white movie on the television, as if Dipper had skipped a shower or two.  (Knowing Dipper, he likely had.)

Norman was really glad Dipper was such a heavy sleeper and that the heavy pounding of his heart wouldn’t wake him up.  He would have been lying to himself if he didn’t admit that, yes, it was actually really... Well, in a way, cute.  Thinking that made his heart race more, and Norman tried to look anywhere but at Dipper.  

“Damn it,” he whispered into the otherwise-empty living room.  He couldn’t even reach the remote to turn the movie off.  Staring up at the ceiling, he tried to think of what to do, and settled on trying to match Dipper’s slow, even breathing.  It took just enough brainpower to keep the unwelcome thoughts out of his mind.  Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale.  Eventually, after some time, he was able to fall in a blessedly dreamless sleep.

***

Dipper was rudely awoken by a camera flash.

“Wh-wha-?” he began groggily, pushing himself up, trying to make sense of where he was.  

It was only when he heard a little “ow, Dipper” from underneath him did he realise where he had fallen asleep.  And only then did he notice Mabel crouching nearby with a camera, giggling.

“Don’t let me disturb you, boys,” she teased.  “You just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“M-Mabel!” Dipper leaped off the couch.  “You delete those photos right now !”

“Mmmmm, no.  You’ll have to catch me first!”

In a flash, she was up and running, Dipper not too far behind as he tried to chase her around the ground floor of the Mystery Shack.  Norman sat up sleepily, rubbing one of his eyes as he looked around.  He had a kink in his neck from sleeping in such an awkward position on an old couch, and a small spot of drool on his shirt from where Dipper had used him as a pillow, and he was more than a little embarrassed that Mabel had caught them.

All the same, he was relieved.  The nightmare hadn’t returned last night.  Norman couldn’t help but think that Dipper had something to do with it.

“Hey! Watch the merchandise!” Grunkle Stan’s voice could be heard from down the hall as the twins’ chase got dangerously close to the door to the gift shop.  Laughing heartily at their antics, the old man stuck his head in the doorway to greet Norman.  “Rise and shine, kid!  I made Stancakes!  They’re just like pancakes, except-”

“Thanks, Mr. Pines,” Norman stood and stretched.  Normally he was one to let people talk, but he had heard the joke about “Stancakes” every single summer, and it never got funnier.

“Gross, Mabel!” Dipper’s voice sounded from somewhere in the Shack, followed by Mabel’s:

“Ha!  It’s mine now, I licked it!  Now you can’t touch it!”

Norman chuckled and shook his head, trying to stretch out that kink in his neck.  Today was going to be a long day, he could already tell.

***

Dipper had dragged Mabel and Norman back down into the Bunker at least once every summer.  Logically, he knew they were probably beginning to get annoyed with it, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.  He couldn’t escape the feeling that they were missing something .  And other than the Journal itself, it was the only lead that they really had.  Demonic glyphs and vaguely UFO-shaped cliff scars were okay to speculate over, of course, but even Dipper wasn’t dumb enough to call them hard evidence.

As they walked around the underground hideaway, footsteps echoing off the cavern walls of the tunnels connected to the laboratory, Dipper shivered a little beneath his backpack straps.  If he was really being honest, he didn’t like it down here either.  Why would he?  He had no good memories connected to this place.  But he wasn’t about to let nerves get the best of him, and he definitely wasn’t going to let Mabel or Norman see that he was at all anxious.  He had to put on a brave face for them.  He just had to.

He slowed his pace so that he was matching steps with Norman, and, quietly, asked:

“So, what do you think?”

Norman wouldn’t meet his gaze, and Dipper refused to think about why that bothered him.  Yes, the morning had been awkward, but he was willing to look past that for the sake of their friendship.

“Norman?” He tried again.  Norman sighed.

“Dipper, you know I don’t like it down here.”

Dipper felt a little guilty.  He did know that.  Norman had told him last year about the ghosts of strange creatures that tended to hang out around this area.  What this implied about the kind of experiments that had gone on here did not escape either boy.

“Is- is that why you won’t look at me?”

Norman turned and looked at him, right in the eyes.  “You don’t like it down here either, do you?”

The older boy grinned sheepishly.  “You noticed, huh?”

“I notice things, Dipper.  That’s what I do.”  

The unspoken ‘ especially about you ’ hung in the air between the boys. Dipper wondered if Norman could feel it too.

“Secrets don’t make friends, you two!” Mabel popped up between them - when had she even moved over to their sides? - and threw her arms around the boys in an exaggerated motion.  Dipper got the distinct impression that his sister was being cheerier than usual to compensate for the mood in the Bunker.  “What are you guys whispering about, hmmm ?”  

“N-nothing!” Dipper stammered, a little too quickly.  His palms began to sweat and he shoved them into his pockets, feeling his face heat up.  Why did Mabel always have to do that?  Didn’t she realise how much worse it made him feel?  (Because if it was just his thoughts, he could outrun them.  But if Mabel was noticing it too, then it meant Norman might notice, and Dipper wasn’t so sure that he was prepared to outrun that .)

Norman pulled away from Mabel as if he was just noticing something.  After walking a few feet ahead of them, he crouched down in front of what looked like blank air to Dipper.

A ghost?  It had to be.  Dipper couldn’t help but want to watch.  It always kind of awed him, even after all these years, when Norman did this.

“Dipper,” Mabel’s voice grated in his ear.  He shoved her a little with his shoulder.

“Go away, I’m still irritated with you over this morning.”

“I was only going to say that you were staring .”  

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Dipper could just hear the smug grin in his sister’s voice.

“‘M’not staring,” He mumbled, looking down at his feet.

“Just admit it, Dipper!” She continued.

“There’s nothing to admit.”

“Admiiit it.  You have a cr-”

“Mabel,” He hissed sharply between his teeth, hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly in his pockets. “ Shut.  Up. ”

“But-”

“ Please .”

Mabel was giving him an odd look, and seemed like she was about to protest, but was interrupted - ‘ thankfully ,’ Dipper felt - by Norman calling him over:

“Dipper?”

The Pines twins approached the medium, who was still crouching.

“What’s up, buttercup?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah, what are we looking at?  Because all I’m seeing is rock.”

“Dip… Uh, have you ever tried using your blacklight pen on the walls here?” Norman asked, quietly.

Dipper blinked in shock as realisation dawned on him.  Of course !  If the author of the Journal had written in invisible ink, who was to say some of those writings hadn’t also gotten on the walls?  Especially if his sanity had begun to slip, as Dipper suspected it had.

“Mabel, get the camera!” he took off his backpack to retrieve the pen.

“Way ahead of you!” In that moment he was grateful for Mabel’s quickness.

He whipped the pen out and clicked the blacklight on in what he hoped was a smooth motion.  (He sort of hoped that if it was, Norman had noticed.)  The results did not disappoint.  Sure enough, in various places along the walls and even on the floor were invisible markings, most of them splatters and the ramblings of a crazy man.  But hidden in all of this, somewhere in the Bunker, Dipper was confident that there had to be something useful.

“It’s like a crime scene on a TV show,” Mabel whispered.  “Is that all ink, do you think?  You know it could also be, like, blood?  Or vomit or urine?”

Dipper wrinkled his nose.  “If that’s the case I hope that big splash over there is urine.  But I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s just invisible ink.  You need luminol to see fluid stains, after all.  At least I think you do...  I mean, we all know that, right?”

“Dipper, you’re babbling,” Mabel snapped a few photos.  “It’s kind of cute, isn’t it Norman?”

“Uh…” Norman bit his lip.  

Dipper ignored his sister’s implication as he walked back in the direction of the laboratory, past text that proclaimed, ‘IN THE WALLS HE’S IN THE WALLS HE’S IN THE WALLS IN TH’ and then just stopped.  

“There!” He exclaimed pointing to one wall in particular.  “Those symbols!”

On that wall was a long stream of strange symbols, the ones that belonged to no earthly language - the same ones that Dipper had discovered in the Journal.

“Jackpot,” he couldn’t help but laugh in triumph as Mabel got the photos they needed.  How many times had they been down here and never even known what wealth of information had been right under their noses?!

Mabel held out her hands for high fives.  Norman and Dipper both obliged, slapping her palms.  She grinned widely, and exclaimed - yelled, really:

“The Mystery Trio is back , baby!”

Chapter Text

Stanford Pines wasn’t as selfish a man as he made himself out to be.  He did care about his great niece and nephew, and was willing to do things for them, especially if he was already out running errands and they asked him to pick up some photos they’d gotten developed at the drugstore.  How those kids managed to go through so many disposable cameras in a week - especially in the digital age - was beyond the old man.

Handing over the cash for the photos - even though the charge of ten bucks per camera was ridiculous - he grabbed the little paper packages the clerk handed to him and headed out to the car.

Stan wasn’t an idiot, of course.  He knew that it was incredibly unlikely that all these photos were ones that Mabel had taken of the boys.  He also knew that Dipper had a knack for chasing down the supernatural, despite how many times Stan himself had tried to keep the boy from going down that path, from ending up like-

The man shook his head.  Dipper wouldn’t end up like that, no .  Stan would never allow that to happen.

On a whim, he picked up one of the photo packets and pulled out a few of the pictures.  The first one was one Mabel had taken by holding the camera out and aiming it at herself and her brother - a ‘selfie’, he’d heard it called.  Stan smiled a little bit at the annoyed face Dipper was pulling in that one.  The next one, Dipper and Norman staring at each other.  That was it, that was the whole photo - but he wasn’t about to question Mabel’s strange criteria for “scrapbook-ortunities”.  He knew better than that.  The third and fourth photos were equally and boring, and Stan was beginning to think maybe he had been paranoid, maybe these were all just typical photos of teenagers hanging out and having a good time.

Until he got to the fifth photo.

Stan frowned, pulled it out of the stack and shoved the rest of the photos back.  Dipper would be suspicious if too many photos were missing - damn that kid’s brains - but this one, this one could be dangerous.  The old man folded it in half and shoved it into a pocket hidden on the inside of his jacket.  He would not feel guilty for this - it was for the twins’ own good, after all.

He started the car.

***

“I hate you both so much right now!”  Norman yelled as he ran.  A beastly roar sounded from the forest behind them and the trio, though they were out of breath, kept on running for their lives.

“That’s fair,” Dipper accepted this, clutching the journal in one hand.

“Less talking, more running!” Mabel lead the boys as they tried to evade their pursuer.  She made a sudden, hard left into the trees and they did their best to keep up.  

Their feet pounding on the dirt and twigs of the forest floor, their panting breaths from running so much, all seemed so very loud, and Norman desperately hoped the thing that was chasing them didn’t hear, didn’t notice where they had gone off to.

“Get down!” Suddenly, Dipper was grabbing both of them, pulling them down behind some moss-covered boulders.  None of the three spoke, kneeling there, as they tried to catch their breath and keep an ear out for the beast.

The roaring had stopped - they had run a far enough distance - and finally, Norman felt safe to demand:

“What the hell was that?”

Mabel grinned at her brother.  “ You know what it was, Dipper.  Come on.  Say it.  Saaaayyyy iiiit.  Say, ‘Mabel, you were right and I was wrong and Bigfoot totally exists’.  Say it.”

Dipper ignored her demands, and flipped open to the sasquatch page in the journal, to add ‘Very territorial’ in writing.

“Dipper totally owes me five bucks,” Mabel told Norman.

“I never agreed to that bet,” the Pines boy glared at his sister.  “And even if I had, you said we had to specifically be looking for the things.”  

It was true, they hadn’t been looking for any creatures that day.  They hadn’t really been looking for anything.  For once, they had set out with no plan (and a whole lot of griping from Dipper over that fact) other than to just traipse about the woodlands surrounding the Mystery Shack.  It figured that the day they took off from mystery solving was the day they ended up getting chased.

Norman looked around, for some cue that it was safe to leave, and frowned.  There were no ghosts to give him any hints.  Not even a lumberjack with an axe in his back or something like that.  He didn’t want to reflect too hard on the implications, especially considering they weren’t currently too far from where he had met the priest.

“I’m just saying ,” Mabel was still arguing with her brother, “that if it were you, you would want me to admit that I was wrong and you were right.  I don’t think I’m asking much, bro bro!”

“And I don’t think it was smart of you to wave a flashlight into a cave full of sleeping monsters, so yeah, maybe you were wrong!”

“Well someone is a grumpy goose today!”

“I think it’s safe to move now,” Norman interrupted them before their argument could move beyond teasing and into serious fighting.  He sincerely hoped it was safe to move.  Luckily, he seemed to be correct.  They soon found their way to the nearest path.

“So I’m assuming today’s outing is called off then,” Mabel stated as they began walking back in the direction of the Mystery Shack.

“You think?” her brother shot her a look, before shooting Norman a sheepish grin.  “You don’t still hate us for that, do you?”

Norman laughed a little, and shook his head.  “No.  It’s not any weirder than any other outing with you two.”  He paused, wondered if he should share his concerns over the lack of paranormal activity.  He didn’t want to worry the twins, after all.  But then again, if anyone would want to know something like that, it would be them.  He let out a low sigh.  “Hey, uh… guys?”

Two sets of brown eyes focused on him.  Norman wondered how he should put this.  Perhaps put it delicately, ease into it?

“There aren’t any ghosts in this part of the forest.”  Or he could just spit it out.  That worked too, he supposed.

The twins both furrowed their brows, making the same perplexed expression.  

“Didn’t you say that Gravity Falls has more ghosts per capita than anywhere else you’d been?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah.  And normally it does.  In town, I see them everywhere.  But everywhere we’ve been lately… the cliffs, the Bunker, even here...”

“What do you think it means?” Mabel’s concern was evident as she reached over to gently pat his back.

He looked down at his feet, watched them step along the path in rhythm with his friends’.  “I was kinda hoping you two knew.  I still see them around the Shack.  It’s just…”

“It’s just around here,” Dipper finished his sentence.  “Around places that have something to do with-”

“With Dipper’s aliens!” Mabel cut him off.

“Okay, Mabel, one, that is just one of many theories, not a punchline.  Two, it’s very rude to interrupt me when I am in the middle of an epiphany.”  He gave a self-satisfied little smirk, as if he’d just figured out something very important, despite his sister.

“As much as I like seeing you have epiphanies,” Norman couldn’t help but tease a little, “how does that explain where we were today?  I don’t think territorial Sasquatches count as being part of… this .”

Dipper’s smirk fell off his face, and he thought about it for a few seconds.  Then his eyes widened.  “Norman… you don’t think…”

“I don’t think what?  Dip, I’m not following.”

“Look, I totally get if you don’t want to seek it out, I won’t make you, but you said yourself that it was strange there were no religious buildings in Gravity Falls, and, I mean, I was just thinking that if that was true then how could-”

“Dipper, you’re babbling again,” Mabel pointed out.  

The boy took a breath, steadied his thoughts.  “The church, Norman.  The church with the priest you met - there are no churches now but there had to be that one at some point.  You don’t think it’s around here, do you?”

Norman paused.  “I… admit that makes some sense…” he offered.  

“We don’t have to look for it if you don’t want to,” Dipper said, a little too quickly, as if he was worried Norman would be scared.  

The medium blushed a little, still in awe after all these years that someone could worry about him like that.  He sighed.  Truthfully, he was a little scared.  But the truth meant so much to Dipper...

“No.  Let’s look for it.”

“Really?” Dipper broke out in a grin.

“Don’t grin at that, dude, it makes you look like a creep,” Norman smiled a little.  “Yes, really.  If the congregation killed themselves because of some mysterious ‘darkness’, maybe that’s our way of figuring out what it is, so that we can avoid it.  But… can we do it another day?  I think I’ve done enough adventuring for one day.”  He paused, just now noticing a small sharp pain in his knee.  “Also I think I might have a bruise on my leg, so…”

Dipper’s grin didn’t fade.  If anything, it got a little wider.  “You are the coolest ,” he breathed.  Mabel giggled at that, and the medium was taken aback.

“Uh… am I?”

“You are !” the male twin exclaimed.  

“Just accept it,” Mabel advised.  “Once Dipper decides on something, it’s over for the rest of us.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dipper laughed a little at his sister’s criticism.

“It means I love my baby bro bro just the way he is,” she reached out and jokingly began trying to pinch his cheeks, and he swatted at her hands.

“Yeah, yeah,” the brunette boy rolled his eyes, though the smile still hadn’t left his face.   Mabel turned her silly grin to Norman.

“I love you just the way you are, too,” she made a pinching motion with her hands as if warning him.

“Better run, dude, she pinches hard ,” Dipper warned him with a little chuckle.

Norman looked ahead, preparing himself for the short sprint.  Then, suddenly, he took off running and called back, “Race you two to the Mystery Shack!”

Twin shouts of “No fair!” followed him, but Norman just kept running, ignoring the pain from what was almost definitely a large bruise on his leg.  After all, there weren’t many living people he could allow himself to joke with like this.

***

The three teens eventually arrived at the Shack via the gift shop side, sweaty and out of breath and all three of them smiling and laughing in between pants and gasps of breath.  Soos greeted them from behind the counter, letting them know that, “Mr. Pines picked something up for you, Dipper!”

“Thanks, Soos,” Dipper made his way through t-shirts and trinkets towards the employee entrance, the others close behind him.

Grunkle Stan was sitting in the kitchen, reading an outdated issue of “Gold Chains For Old Men Magazine” and eating from a bowl of toffee peanuts.  He wrinkled his nose when he caught whiff of the trio.

“You three reek,” he stated.  “Hope you didn’t stink up the shop too bad.  I’m not going to spring for air fresheners to remove your weirdo teenage sweat smell.”

“Aw, you don’t think we smell like cupcakes and rainbows?” Mabel was not above teasing her great uncle.

“Kid, even I wouldn’t eat a cupcake that smelled like that, and I’ve got a box of cereal from three years ago.”

Dipper grabbed the drugstore parcels of freshly developed photos from the table, and motioned for Norman and Mabel to follow him upstairs.  “Are these my photos?  Thanks for picking them up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the old man shrugged.  “Just make sure you all shower before taking any more selfies or whatever it is you kids are into nowadays.  That means you , Dipper.”

Dipper looked a bit offended at Stan’s remark, but said nothing in reply, choosing instead to take his photos upstairs without even bothering to check if the others were following him.

Norman ended up being the last to take a shower.  Mabel had insisted on Dipper going first (For all her talk of Dipper being stubborn, she was extremely headstrong herself) and then jumped in immediately after.  Once all three were clean and dressed in relatively clean clothes, they sat in that familiar triangle formation on the attic floor beneath the stained glass window.  Norman wondered if Mabel and Dipper had ever noticed that the sunlight streaming through the window made the triangle design match up with the way they were sitting.  His uneasiness was not helped by the fact that the glass was red, which cast a blood-like tone over the photos Dipper was currently laying out all over the floor.

After all of Mabel’s photos had been extracted from the pile, Dipper frowned.

“Well?” his twin asked eagerly.  “Do you see any spoooooky patterns?” She waved her fingers in his face.

“Mabel,” Dipper rested an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand.  “You did take a picture of the wall we found in the Bunker, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.  I’m not stupid , Dippin’ Dots!”

“It’s not here,” Norman noticed what had caused Dipper to frown.  “That photo is missing.”

“Maybe it didn’t turn out?” Mabel offered.

“Maybe…” Dipper didn’t sound convinced.

Norman knew his best friend must be disappointed, and wanted to comfort him, but it wasn’t as easy for him to reach out and comfortingly pat a shoulder as it was for the Pines twins.  He -very hesitantly - settled for placing a hand on Dipper’s knee, surprising the other boy enough for his head to snap up and stare at Norman in the eyes.

The medium blushed.  “The Bunker isn’t going anywhere, Dipper.  Worry about that later.  For now, do what you can with what you have, okay?  There are still multiple photos here with all sorts of signs and symbols for you to figure out.  Okay?”

Dipper paused.  Then looked away, nodded numbly.  “Okay.  Yeah.  Okay.”

Norman offered a soft, crooked, unsure little smile as he pulled his hand back.

“Thanks, man,” Dipper offered as an afterthought, and scooped up all the photos.  “Well, I’m starving.  Who wants pizza?”

“Ooh, me!” Mabel jumped up.  “You’re treating, Dip!”

“Wha- I never said I was treating!”

Norman chuckled and shook his head.  “It’s cool, you guys.  I got it.”  

“Wahoo!” Mabel shrieked, and Dipper flashed him a genuine smile.  And, for now, Norman was happy.

For now.

Chapter Text

Mabel loved to bake.  Well, really she liked creating anything.  Baking just had the added bonus of producing something edible afterwards.  Currently, the entire kitchen was filled with the aroma of cookies baking in the oven, as she added drops of food colouring to the small bowls of frosting all over the counter.  These cookies were going to be so cute !  She squealed just thinking about it.

“Smells good, Mabel!” Dipper marched through the kitchen, dipping a finger in one of her frosting bowls for a taste.

“Don’t touch that with your nasty fingers!” Mabel scolded.  “They aren’t for you!”

Norman walked into the room right as she said this, just in time to hear Dipper jokingly protest:

“Are you and Pacifica really going to eat all of these?  Does she even eat cookies?  Or does everything that passes her lips have to be made out of white caviar and Dom Pérignon?”

Mabel rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to make a comment about ‘passing her lips’, even if it would have been worth it to see her brother’s grossed out face.  “Maybe if you gave her a chance, you’d find out - you guys aren’t that different, in some ways.”

Dipper held a hand to his heart in an overdramatic way, acting as if she had just shot him or something.  “You insult me, Mabel!  Wound and insult me!”  Mabel noticed Norman trying to suppress a laugh at her brother hamming it up - ‘et tu, Norman?’ - and decided her revenge would be swift.

“I really hope you two have fun on your library date,” she said as sweetly as possible, relishing the deep blushes that immediately sprang to both boys’ faces.

“It- it’s not-!” Dipper sputtered indignantly, and she really wished she had a camera and wasn’t so busy mixing up lime green frosting.  Norman was oddly quiet, though, and it almost made Mabel feel bad.  Almost.

“If you say so,” she responded in a sing-song voice.  

After a few seconds, her brother recovered enough to respond with, “It’s not for fun.  We’re gathering important information.  It’s like studying.”

“It’s like boring ,” she gave him a cheeky grin.

“It’s not boring!” Dipper frowned.

“It’s a little boring,” Norman offered from where he was leaning on the wall.  He looked more exhausted than usual.

“Ha!” Mabel barked triumphantly in her twin’s face.  

“Come on,” Dipper grumbled to Norman, leading the other boy towards the door.

“Bye, Mabel.  Tell Pacifica we said ‘hi,’” the medium called over his shoulder.

Mabel watched them leave. She just knew Dipper was being oblivious - as usual - to the looks Norman was occasionally giving him.  It was a little heartbreaking.  Brothers were such idiots.

Someday, she would get Dipper to admit the obvious. For now, she would have to be content with the small victories.

***

Norman didn’t mind the Gravity Falls library.  It was a decent size considering how small Gravity Falls was as a town.  He also didn’t mind holding the growing stack of books as Dipper lead them through aisle after aisle.  Books about local history, the occult and supernatural, symbolism, languages and ciphers, and whatever else caught Dipper’s eye.

Currently, Dipper was on tiptoes to look at the titles on the top shelf.  

Norman would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that it was kind of cute.

“Need some help?” He had meant to ask sincerely, but Dipper seemed to think he was teasing, and blushed accordingly.

“No.  I’m not that short.  You’re just freakishly tall.”

“Mm,” Norman nodded.

Dipper gave him a strange look.  “...this is where you say something dumb like ‘I can’t hear you from down there’ and I tell you to shut up.  Are you okay?”

Norman looked away, watching a couple spirit children trying to listen as a living mother read to her child.  He felt bad for worrying Dipper.  He certainly didn’t mean for the other boy to worry about him.

“Just apprehensive, I guess,” he finally confessed.  “A lot has been happening lately.”

“You know,” Dipper placed both hands on Norman’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes, “if you want a day off, to just go to the mall or something, all you have to do is ask.  I want to solve this mystery as quick as possible, but if you need a break just say the words.  Okay?”

Norman was hyper aware of his own breath, of the tingling sensations where Dipper’s palms rested on his shoulders.  Of how easy it would be to lean down and kiss his best friend between the bookshelves in the library like some sort of cheesy TV movie.

He didn’t do that.  He couldn’t decide if it was incredibly cowardly or incredibly brave that he resisted the urge, but he didn’t kiss Dipper.  

“It’s important to you,” is what he said.

Suddenly, Dipper seemed aware of how close they were, and he pulled his hands away as if from a fire.  

“O-okay,” the shorter boy nodded, face a little red.  Norman pretended not to notice the little nervous stutter, and Dipper went back to inspecting book titles, his face soon settling into the very picture of focus.

It was getting harder, Norman mused.  It was getting harder to act as if nothing had happened between them two, as if they really were just friends.  After last summer, when Dipper had kissed him - but, no, Dipper didn’t seem to remember that.  And Norman had to wonder if maybe… was it selfish of him to want any more than this?  He valued Dipper’s friendship so highly, after all.  Wasn’t it selfish to think of risking it?

Last summer… he had been 14 and Dipper had been 15. Norman remembered it very well, even if Dipper didn’t.  He remembered Stan pouring shots of whiskey and laughing at their disgusted faces when they tasted it.  He remembered Dipper’s embarrassment about spitting it out, remembered Dipper insisting he could handle it and swiping the bottle and trying to take a couple more until he could swallow it without wincing.  Stan hadn’t known about that part; the old man had just wanted a laugh at two stupid teens.  He also hadn’t known about what happened after the boys went into the living room to play the video game “Corpse Killer”.

Norman remembered though.  Dipper had accused him of cheating and they had started play-wrestling and suddenly Dipper was pinning him down and staring into his eyes.  And then they had been kissing.  Norman had never figured out who had initiated it.  Only that it had happened.  It was the most intimate contact he had ever had, and it had only lasted about twenty seconds before the other boy had pulled back and, embarrassed, gone back to the video game.

Dipper hadn’t even seemed drunk.  He had barely had anything, and Norman had spit his out.  And yet, the next morning it was as if nothing had happened.

And it was getting harder to suppress his feelings for his best friend when Norman still remembered what those lips felt like on his own.

“Hey,” Dipper’s voice dragged him out of his memories.  “Check it out.  Pretty creepy, isn’t it?”  The older teen was holding open a book to a page of images related to Satanism.

“I’m pretty sure Satanism is a load of crap,” Norman answered, allowing a small smirk to come to his face at Dipper’s enthusiasm for all things creepy.  “It’s probably not relevant.”

“Probably not,” Dipper tossed the book on top of the pile.  “But it’s got a couple chapters on cults so it might be useful after all.  Anyway, you’re in no place to be skeptical, dude.  Don’t turn into Agent Scully on me now.”

“Pff.  I’m not Scully. You’re Scully.”

“No, I’m Mulder,” Dipper grinned.  “You’re a red headed woman.”

Norman rolled his eyes.  “Obviously.”

“Yeah, obviously ,” Dipper pulled another book from the shelf.

It was getting harder to keep joking like this.  But, Norman thought, he could last a little while longer.

***

Pacifica had been in a bad mood all morning.  First, her mother had made a rude comment about her hairstyle that day (“Pacifica, it’s just that a ponytail is so… low class.  It’s bad enough your hair is so brittle.”), and then Tiffany had texted her asking to hang out when she knew Pacifica had plans today.  (“With that weird girl?  Come on, Pacifica, what do you see in her?  Just ditch the dweeb and come shopping!”)

She couldn’t do anything about Mrs. Northwest, but she was this close to sending Tiffany a rather snippy reply - ‘ I created you.  I can ruin you if you don’t watch your tone with me. ’ - but she stopped herself.  If Pacifica stooped that low, her parents would be proud, sure, but the one person whose opinions mattered - Mabel Pines - would be disappointed in her.

Besides, much of that resentment faded when her limo arrived at the Mystery Shack.  Tipping her chauffeur generously, Pacifica hopped out and eagerly power-walked (she did not run - Northwests never ran if they could help it) to the nearest entrance.  Not even bothering to wait for anyone to let her in, she marched right into the kitchen.

“Pacifica!” Mabel grinned at her and held out a tray of delicious-smelling neon monstrosities.  “I made cookies!”  Not setting the tray down, she walked over and kissed Pacifica on the cheek.  

The brunette had frosting on her nose and smelled delicious in a way that made Pacifica’s chest hurt a little.  She was vaguely aware this was supposed to be a “homey” smell, although her house had never smelled like that.  But she repressed it, and returned her girlfriend’s smile.

“Oh my god , you are a lifesaver!” the blonde gushed.  “My mom is on one of these really weird fad diets right now, there are no sweets in the house that aren’t made with aspartame and it’s really lame.”

“Asparta- huh ?”

“Never mind,” Pacifica grabbed one of the overly-frosted cookies and took too big of a bite, relishing the thought that her mother would probably go into shock if she knew what her daughter was eating.  “Hey, do you think my hair looks cute like this?”

“Are you kidding?” Mabel gasped.  “Paz, your hair is adorable !  I love it!”

A small smile brought itself to the rich girl’s face, and she gave a tiny appreciative laugh.  Mabel’s enthusiasm always cheered her up, somehow.

The pair went up to the roof with a plate full of cookies and two cans of Pitt Cola.  Pacifica had learned to love this spot and throwing pinecones at the totem pole.  It had seemed weird at first, but her competitive streak had soon kicked in, and she and Mabel were often trying to break each other’s records.

“Where’s your weirdo brother today?” the blonde took a sip, then grimaced and spit the peach pit into her hand.  She always forgot about the pit.  “Not that I care.  It’s nice to come over without being sniped at.”

“Dipper’s not always a jerk,” Mabel smiled apologetically.  “He’ll warm up to you eventually.”

“Please.  I don’t care about his opinion, anyway.”

“He and Norman went to the library.”

“Lame,” Pacifica snorted and threw her pitt at the totem pole, hitting one of the eyes.

“They insisted it’s not a date.  But I dunno.  Seems a bit fishy ,” Mabel had a look of mock skepticism, before erupting into giggles.  “They’ll figure it out eventually.”

Pacifica sighed.  “I guess .”  It was always a little weird to her that her girlfriend was so into the idea of her brother dating some kid from Massachusetts.  It didn’t matter who Dipper dated, did it?

“You don’t think so?”

“I just don’t get why you care so much.”

Mabel seemed to give that a little bit of thought before answering, “Of course I care.  Dipper is my brother.  I want him to be happy.  I mean that’s just what family does .”

Pacifica suddenly felt cold.

“Pacifica?” Mabel noticed her girlfriend’s sudden change in demeanor, and frowned a little bit.  “Hey.  Hey, Miss Grumpy Gills, no pouting up here on the roof.  This is a sacred spot.”

The blonde huffed.

Mabel suddenly grinned.  “You know what the cure for pouty face is, don’t you?”

“Don’t you dar-”

“Smooches!” the brunette yelled, and pinned her girlfriend down by the wrists, pecking kisses all over her face until Pacifica started laughing and squealing for her to get off.

It was the happiest that the blonde had ever been.  How was it possible for one girl - and a middle class girl at that - to make her feel so wonderful?

***

Dipper sat on the floor of the attic bedroom, leaning against Mabel’s bed as his sister on the bed played with his hair.  (He pretended to be annoyed by this, but he didn’t actually mind when she did this.)  On his bed, Norman was reading one of the local history tomes they’d checked out at the library.  Dipper himself was scouring multiple books at once, photos spread out between them, trying to find any links to the strange symbols he was still trying to successfully decode.

“Anything good in those boring old books?” Mabel asked, ruffling her brother’s hair.  Dipper smirked.  Secretly, he liked having his hair played with it, but he’d never admit it out loud.  It wasn’t very manly, after all.

“Maybe if you were helping us read them, you’d find out,” he pointed out.  Mabel flicked the back of his head.

Over on the bed, Norman yawned.  “I can tell you there is nothing good in this one.  Unless you find the whole Oregon Trail dying-of-dysentery thing to be absolutely riveting .”

Mabel laughed.  “Dysentery.  That’s like super diarrhea.  Heh.”

“ Riveting ,” Norman repeated, then tossed the book down.  Dipper watched his every movement.  He knew Norman hadn’t been sleeping well at all the last couple of nights.  It worried him.  

Granted, everything about Norman worried Dipper.  Every second that the other was away from him, Dipper worried that something would happen and that he wouldn’t be there to protect the younger boy.

He wished Norman would talk to him about what was bothering him.

(If Norman asked it of him, Dipper would climb into bed right now and hold him until the other boy fell asleep.)

‘Huh?!  Where did that thought come from?!’  Dipper shook his head, tried to shake the unwanted thoughts out his mind, tried to ignore his palms sweating and his face heating up.  He looked back down at the books, though the words seemed to be swimming on the pages.  Better to channel all his thoughts into the mystery rather than let them wander to dangerous places.

After all, it wasn’t like he was ga y or anything.

“Well!” Mabel took her hands from his hair and rolled over on her bed.  “I don’t know about you two, but I am beat !  Good night!”

Norman shot Dipper a look.  “I think I’m going to turn in for the night, too.  Don’t stay up too late tonight, Dipper.  I know how you get.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Dipper didn’t look up from the books.  He couldn’t risk looking into those eyes right now.  Their incredible blueness did things to his brain that he didn’t want to even think about at the moment.  “G-good night!”

He was keenly aware of Norman staring at him oddly, though he didn’t look up.  Then, he could hear the other boy laying down and settling in to try and sleep.  Dipper sighed, relieved.  How Norman made his mind go crazy was one mystery he wasn’t ready to solve yet.

Chapter Text

Norman was running through the forest again, the same one as every time he had this dream.  The inky black trunks of trees grew up around him at unnatural, jagged angles, more like knives coming up from the ground than like actual pine trees.  Every now and then, he would pass one with that same symbol on it, that triangle like the one in the attic window.  But still, he kept running.

He had to keep running.  He couldn’t escape the feeling that something was chasing him.

"̯̟͓̱͇G̝͉ơ ̟͙̙̙͈a̙̘͉̺͕̙h̸̲ͅe̴̖͓̹̰a̲̩͓̘͍̩͝d̥̼̫̫ ͍̪̬̘̱̞̥a̹͓n͉d̯̞͈̲̤̞ͅ ͓̦̟r͈̝͉̺u͚̼n̩,̤͍̖ͅ ̦̯̹͚͖̲̫͜k̮̪̲̻̟̖i͙͖̤͕͔̦d̤.̤̠̼ ̸͙̣I̱͔̣͕̩̠ ̟̞̞͓̞͉ͅw̜̝ͅi̜͉͓͇̻͇l͘l҉̖̣̟̪ ̢c͓̮͖͕a̖͚͍̥̜ț͈̦͢c̳̯̺͕͟h̼͚͎͝ ͝y͈̩̯̦̳̣o̸͚̮̙̝̣̟̮u̫̼̺ ̸͉͖̩̩̦e̙̪̦̖̫̕v̬̲̰͙̯e̹̗n̩̟t̤͚̗̫͙͞ṵ͕͎̫a̡̖l̜̯̻̘͕̻ͅl̗̻̬̠̹̦̘̕y̴."

Norman was panting now, his lungs threatening to explode at any second.  He couldn’t keep running like this.  But he knew he had to.  If he didn’t run… if he didn’t…

The voice laughed at him, that horrible horrible laugh.  It echoed from the jagged trees, seemed to come from all directions.  Norman couldn’t block it out no matter how he tried.  And it just.  Kept.   Coming .  From everywhere, from nowhere, it kept coming.  It was inescapable.

"͍̯̈̈ͭ̿͞t̓̀h͑ͬͫ͆͏̖̫͖͍̪̣̻ë̶̗͇̹̼́̈͊͆ ͕͇̺̫͌ͦd̲͙̙̫͔ͨͮ̓́͒̚͟arͥ͐̃̋͞k̃͂͏͔̗ ͉̞ͩlͨͥi̵͇̬̫̹̩̘̊ͧͪͪͮ̉̅n͖̼̬̩̳̓ͪͥͧ͛ͨ̇e͙̲̭̟̘̮̰͢ ͇̼̬̮͇̈̀̓ͨ͢

̴̳͒ͨ̈́ẉ̭̳̬̓̎ḧ͙̫̱̰̯̥͇͒e͕̝͖̜̮̙͚͂̿ͤͩ̂͞r̽̃̋̈́ͪ̚ḙ̌ ̱ͣ̅̈́ͅt̺̬͙̾ͭ͑ͧͭͨh̸̝̣͉͈͇̙̑̓̾̿̔̀e̦͇͂ ̢̱̯̭̣͎̂̔ͩͥe̹͈ͤͦͤ̌̿̄ÿ̝͖́̊ẻ̛̫̯̩̥͎͗̊ ̾͑͏p̧ͣe͙̻͓͙̼͈̓ͅr̹̙̫̝̜̬͈̓͛s̟̿͡i̦͢š̰̙̊̚t̔ͩ̅ͭ̽͘s̲̥͉̺̙̩͋ͨ͛̾ ̹̩̥̮͢

͎̗͎̦͘i̷̪͖͕̜̪͈̮ͦ̌͛̐͂ͪ̚n̹͟ ̛̰̪̖͋̈̍̈́̃s̮̗̘͖͔̮ͫ̄ͮ̚͠e̞ͮ͠ẻ̙͉̙̝̖͍̮ͣ̋ḭ̮̃̚͞ṅ̷̜̝̳͇g͖̖͊ ͇̤̩͔̣̌ͭͬ̍̌ͩͅs͓͐͌́͌̅ͮ̓o̠̘̪ͣ͒ͪ͋ͭ͠m̀͑̿e͇ͩ͂̋̕t̹͚̼ͫͥ͑̅̚h̝̣̱̿ͥ̏ͮ̈̇i̳̟͕͓̘̞̊̎ͅn͇̙̥̻ͣ͑g̵͉̜̬͔̤̖͕ͨ̎͋̆ ͊̋͂͂ͫͭ

̴̅͌͊t̾ͥͯ́҉̬̝̞̭̺h̡̤̦̥͇͇͓ͬͭ̂̅̄̅a̙̋͑ť̻͊ ̛̮̪̪͖͍̣͂ͪͬ́̽͊̋w̝̹͉̜̗̆̀̏̿a̺̬̗̐́̑ͅs͊͑ͣ̈͂̅̚ ͚̙̻̳̅̅ͦ̐̑̅͋͞n̛̙̤̳̼͔͔̼͊͊̉͆e͎̲̯̜̳̍ͅv̛̩͓̲̭̦ͯ͒ͪ̈́ͅe͇ͧ́ͦͧͧ̓ŕ̟̼͖̖͎̏͑̉ͫ̓̈͡ͅ ͂͊̉ͥ͏̞̯̭t͕̙̘͇̺̭́ͣͮ̈́̐̊ḧ̙́ͣ̓̇̀͆ȩͯ̀ȓ͖̳͋ͤ̍̆e̜̩̖̹̅ͤͪͮ̌̂͘ ̲͖͇̦̰̭̪ͯͯͥ̈͋

͍͇̩̙̃̆̾͂̇̓ͩ͟t̬̳̯͉̞͔͖ͫ͗ͫ̃͢o̔͘ ͓̯̬͕̘ͫ̽̊ͩ͘b͈̗͓̙̖̯̙̌ͮ̄ͪ̈̓͂͠ë́͛͆̐͏̩̜̦̪͓̼͈g̉i͇̬͕̭̳ͦͤ̄ͦn̺͇͚̠̟͉͛̾͗̈́ͅ ̬̞͗ͥ͒͠ͅw͈̻̟̞̟̣ͤ̒͂ͫ̓̆ͅi͉̾ͥ̎͊͘t̶̯̱͓̔̾h̗̭̥"̡͚̜̼̳ͬ͐́̃ͩͅ

“Leave me alone!” he yelled.  “Why can’t you just leave me alone ?!  What do you want from me?!”

"̔̓́͂͗̚T̈́̈͠heͣͨ͗̿̉ͭͣ ̶͑͗́́ͮfa̶̾̒s̸ͩtę̋͑̈́́͒̌͒r̛ͮ ͧ͐̓̓̾ͣ̚y̽̌̍͌ͩ͠ǒ̏͊͊͆ͩ̚u̒̽̓ͬ͌ g̍̍ôͥ͂ͪ͗ͪ,̌̐ͨͤͫ̂ͦ ͬͯ̎ͮ̋̉́t̒͆͌ͨ̅h͐e͛͞ ͤ̅ͩw̸oͩ͛̌͂ͫ̎̚͢r̍̅̽͏s̀͛͑ͯ̎eͫ̍҉ ̷̄̀̽̋̎̈́y̋̽ͤͮͫ̀o̊̿̀u̓̏ͨͫ͐̽ ̷͗ͬ͂̔aͤr̢͛é̂̈ ͣ͊̾̅͢e̎ͦͫ̐n͂̍͝ẗa̿͗ͯͣ͒͠nͦ̐̑ͧͧ͒́̚g͒ͪ̾͆̋ͬ̚l̔ę̀̈̋ͪd̶̾̒̌ͤ!̿̉͂͝"

Norman stumbled, fell to his knees.  “Please leave me alone,” he begged.  “Why are you doing this to me?”

"͇̺̬̮͇͓̐ͦ̇T̻͉̼̘̞̉͑h̛͓̥̟̟̝ḛ͖̱̙̲̮ͦͥͭ̆̅ͪ ̩̙͈̞̠̮ͭ̊̉̎̓̃̌D͚͓̦̪͚̽ͫ̔͒͜ȧ̓̊ͭ͗͒r̬͓̐ͣk͚͍̲̏̏͘n̖͒̚e̸̾s̪͙͙͙͓͉̀̂́s͉̞͇͈̥̗̀ͫ͆̀̆͊ͅ,̥̞͈̥̝̂͑̾͛̏͋ ͎͙̲͉̫̳̊͆k̲̝̲̼ͮͭ͂͂i͎͕̗͔͉̪̊͛̑d̯͓͌ͅ.͔͎̓́ ̞̱̖̤ͦ͑͌̆́ ̥͙̫̗̪͐ͅͅT̬̬̯̯͓̙͛͒̔͋ͅh̤̱̪͓̭̹̜ͪͩ͗̏́e̴͎̓ ̯̻̭̺͔ͧ́ͦͥͧD̗̑̾͗ͫ̉͜aͯ͆ͭ̈́̇̂r̦̼̘̟̭̬̬̿ͬ̓k͚̳͈̙͛͛ͯͫ͋ͪn͎̥̋͐͌̂ͩ̊̚e̶͔ͅͅs̟͚̣̥̻̭̲̍̎s̶̯̦ͤ̃̑ͪ̑̆.̨̞͔͉̬̪͚̀ͤ̾ͤ́ͨ"̻̮̗̪̯̬ͦ

The forest seemed to be closing in on him.  Norman couldn’t catch his breath.  His legs were shaking.  He had to run, he knew he did, but he was frozen with fear.

***

Dipper was so engrossed in trying to match the strange symbols on the walls of the Bunker - though they didn’t have the photo he wanted, occasional symbols were to be found in other photos - that he didn’t notice the thrashing sound at first.  But when a small gasp came from his bed, his head snapped up.

Norman was turning all about, trembling and gasping in his sleep.

Dipper realised what was happening with a terrible quickness, and before he could even think, he jumped up and was at the other boy’s side, holding his shoulders and trying to shake him awake from whatever horrible nightmare he was having.

“Norman!” He whisper-shouted.  “Norman, wake up!  You’re having a nightmare, come on!”

It took a few tries but Dipper finally succeeded - the other boy’s bright blue eyes shot open, and he looked around frantically, panting and disoriented, beads of sweat on his forehead.

“...Dipper?” his voice came out small and unsure, and Dipper’s heart damn near broke.

“I think you were having a bad dream,” Dipper replied with a smile, not because anything about the situation made him in any way happy, but because he wanted to seem reassuring.

Realisation suddenly flooded the other boy’s features, and Dipper realised that this probably wasn’t the first time.

“How many times have you had that nightmare?”

Norman looked away.  “Uh… it didn’t start until a few weeks ago…”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Dipper paused, trying to figure out how best to help his friend.  “Well… will you?”

Norman didn’t reply at first.  Then - a barely perceptible nod.  Dipper breathed a sigh of relief that Norman trusted him enough.

“But not in here,” Norman said quickly.  “I don’t want Mabel to wake up in case I…”

The older boy nodded.  He understood.  Mabel would be told eventually, of course, but for now he understood.

“Come on.  Let’s go up on the roof.”

Dipper grabbed his hat and the blanket from his bed, and the two made their way through the Shack and up to the rooftop spot.  The thousands upon thousands of stars in the Oregon sky illuminated their faces as they sat, blanket around both of their shoulders.  Dipper had so many questions he wanted to ask - but he held back, waited for Norman to break the silence.  It was a tactic he had learned from Norman himself, actually.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing Norman said.  He was looking up at the stars, away from Dipper.

“Sorry?!” Dipper sputtered.  “How can you say- how can you even think that, man?”

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

Norman’s face was utterly calm, but his fists were balled up on his knees, trembling so slightly that Dipper almost wasn’t sure if he was imagining it.

“Can you tell me about them?” He kept his voice soft, the same way he used to talk to Mabel when they were four years old and she was afraid of monsters in the closet.

Norman shrugged, shrank into himself a little bit, as if he was subconsciously trying to make himself look smaller.  Dipper scooted closer, pulled the blanket around them a little tighter.

“They all start the same… I’m running through a dark forest and even though I’m tired and out of breath, I have this- this feeling that I can’t stop, or something will… I don’t know, swallow me alive or something.  I just know that I can’t stop. So I keep running.  And… it gets darker and darker and the trees keep closing in on me and something is watching and there’s this voice-”

The medium cut himself off with a little gasp and suddenly stopped talking, snapping his head downward to look at his fists.

“Voice…?” Dipper prompted, still forcing himself to sound as gentle as possible even when every fiber of his body wanted to somehow throttle an entire nightmare for making his friend feel like this.  “What does it sound like?”

“I… don’t know how to explain it.  It’s like... everything and nothing all at once, and it surrounds me, gets inside my head.  It’s always taunting me, telling me to keep running because it doesn’t matter if I do or not.  And it always tells me about-”

“-A darkness,” the older boy finished, realisation coming down in torrents like heavy rain.  “This is what you were talking about the other day, wasn’t it?  When you said you’d been warned before?  Oh, man.  Oh, man, Norman, you don’t think- Is it a vision?”

“Feels like one,” a pale, trembling hand ran itself through the black-brown spikes of hair.  “I don’t really know.  I haven’t had visions like that in years, not since… Well…  It feels like one, though, especially with everything else that’s been happening.  And, Dipper, I-”

He stopped.  Dipper held his breath.

“...Dipper, did you even sleep at all tonight?”

That wasn’t what he had been expecting to hear.

“Don’t do that, Norman.  Don’t turn it around onto me.  This isn’t about me, right now.”

“It kinda is.”

“How?” Dipper frowned.  “How is it about me?”

“It’s about everyone, I guess.  The ghost’s warning, the nightmares, the strange symbols - the ‘ Darkness ’ everyone keeps mentioning - Dipper, I’m… I’m scared, okay?”

“...I’m scared, too,” Dipper confessed, quietly.  Finally, Norman met his gaze, confusion in those blue eyes.  “If anything happens to you, or to Mabel, or to the Shack because of all this, I would never forgive myself for not trying harder to stop it.  Honestly, that scares me.”

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, two scared youths under thousands of stars.

“So what do we do now?” Norman asked.

“We keep trying,” Dipper replied.  “That’s all we can do, isn’t it?”

“Dipper, I can never decide if you’re incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.”

He laughed a little at that.  “I’m both.  Either way, I won’t let anything like whatever you’re dreaming about hurt you.  You know I won’t.  They’d have to get through me and Mabel, first.”

One corner of Norman’s mouth twitched upwards for a split second.

“Was that a smile?” Dipper asked.  “Did I see a smile, there?  Pretty sure I did.”

“Shut up,” this time Norman really did smile, and Dipper was relieved he had helped, if even only a little bit.

“Alright,” he chuckled a little, shook his head, even placed a comforting hand on his friend’s knee and pretended not to notice the slight flinch that followed.  “And Norman?”

“Mm?”

“If you have that nightmare again, wake me up.  Or wake Mabel up.  I don’t want you to suffer alone, okay?”

The younger boy looked unsure.  

“Dipper…” he began.

“Don’t ‘Dipper’ me.  I’m serious, dude!”

Norman frowned.  “You don’t sleep enough as it is.”

“Yeah, but… neither do you.”  Dipper looked away.  It was clear he wasn’t going to get his friend to agree to that proposition.  (To be fair, had their positions been switched, Dipper was pretty sure he wouldn’t agree either.)

Again, the two went silent.  Dipper looked up at the sky, more than a little sulky as he pulled his hand back away from the other’s knee.  He could easily spot his namesake constellations among all the other stars.  He was even about to make a comment about them - maybe if he made a dumb joke Norman would smile again and forget all this nightmare business, at least temporarily - when he felt the distinct sensation that he was being watched.

He could feel a blush rising to his cheeks as he slowly turned to see his best friend staring at him.  Norman looked away quickly, but not quick enough - Dipper had seen.

“Dude, what ?” He asked, smirking a little.

“Nothing,” Norman shifted a little.  (God, but his eyes looked bluer than usual in the starlight.  Dipper wondered momentarily if it was weird for him to notice that.)

“Come on, what?”

“It’s just you .”

Dipper wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.  “Uh… Me?”

“Dipper, I don’t understand you,” Norman chuckled a little.  “But thank you.  For caring, that is.”

That strange, funny feeling came back again - the one that made Dipper’s heart feel like it was trying to escape his ribcage.  Of course he cared .  Other than Mabel and maybe Grunkle Stan, Norman was probably the most important person to him in Gravity Falls.  There was nothing weird about that, was there?  So why was it making him feel so weird?  

He gulped, forcing himself not to dwell on it.  Some part of him was certain he wouldn’t like any answer he came up with for that question.

“You’re welcome,” his voice cracked on the second word, and Dipper mentally cursed.  He cleared his throat.  “Hey, uh… you wanna go inside?  Try to sleep?  Or is that completely out of the question right now?”

“Maybe in a little bit,” Norman shrugged.  “How long do you think we have until sunrise?”

Dipper hadn’t brought his phone up with him, and had no idea what time it was. “Uh… a couple hours?”

“Okay… Hey.  Look.  The Little Dipper.”

“Don’t you start,” the older boy smirked.  

The two sat for a few more minutes, watching the sky for constellations, bats, and shooting stars.  Eventually, though, Dipper remembered that they did have plans the next day, and Mabel would give them so much crap in the morning if she found out they’d stayed up all night before an investigation.  He brushed the blanket off, stood up, and stretched.  Norman gave him a questioning look.

“You know, we do have stuff to do tomorrow,” he pointed out, holding out a hand to help Norman up.  “We probably should at least try to sleep.”

Taking it and standing, the other boy replied, “Yeah.  I know.”

“Come on,” Dipper went back down the ladder into the Shack, Norman close behind him, and then grabbed his hand again to pull him towards the stairs before the younger teen could have second thoughts.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t let some stupid nightmare get you again.”

“Whatever, Dip,” Norman smiled a little despite himself, and let Dipper lead him to bed.

Neither of them missed the fact that they held hands the entire walk back to the attic.

Chapter Text

“Alright, let’s see,” Dipper clicked his pen as he went down another of his many lists.  “Running shoes?  In case we get into Sasquatch territory again?”

“Check,” Mabel called from her spot on the front lawn, where she was tying her sneaker laces.  Norman and Dipper were on the porch steps.

“Cameras?”

“Seven of ‘em!” Mabel enthusiastically gestured at her backpack, one of two that the trio was bringing with them.

“Gnome whistles?”

“Wh-” Norman began, confused, but was cut off with another:

“Check!”

“No strong scents?  Like, no one is wearing any perfume or cologne?” Dipper made another mark on his list.

“Dipper, we’ve been through this how many times?” Mabel got up and snatched the list from her brother’s hand, crumpling it up before he could grab it back.  “You act like we’ve never done anything like this before.  We’ve got this.”

He glared at her, pulling out another paper from his pocket and unfolding it, clicking his pen again.

“Maps copied from the local history books?”

“Dipper, did you seriously make a back-up list?” Mabel looked incredulous.  Her brother looked pleased with himself.

“I’m nothing if not prepared.”

It was Norman who took this list away from Dipper.  “Dip, none of the maps had any churches on them, and we aren’t going to have time to stop every ten steps to cross-check them all anyway.  I think I’m siding with Mabel on this one - you need to chill .”

“Well excuse the hell out of me for trying to make sure everyone is safe,” the older boy grumbled, crossing his arms and sulking.

“Quit pouting, you,” Mabel poked her brother on the nose.  “We’ll be fine.  You worry too much.”

“No, I worry precisely the right amount.  You can never worry too much!”

Norman shook his head, watching this whole scene unfold with a fond feeling.  Dipper’s tendency to worry about everyone’s safety would never cease to amaze him.  The boy had a bigger heart than he realised.  

“Dipper, Mabel is right,” he commented with a small, crooked smile.  “We’ve got this.  You don’t need lists and maps.  You’ve got someone who can literally ask the dead for directions.”

“ Yeah , Mabel is right!” Mabel crowed triumphantly.

The trio got up, leaving the Shack behind as they ventured into the forest, going in the general direction of the area they had been the other day.  Norman stopped them every now and then to ask any ghosts he found if they knew of an old church nearby.  Most of them didn’t.  A few of them, he told Mabel and Dipper, would point, but say something like “that place is bad news, though.”  Still, they ventured on.

Norman was stopping them less and less.  As they got closer, the amount of ghosts must have been lessening.  Dipper spotted the boulder they had hidden behind - the lichen on one side of it had claw marks in it now.  They would have to be careful not to alert any forest creatures of their presence.  He didn’t want to be chased off again.

Damn, he wished he’d been able to draft up a good map.  Why had none of the local history books said anything about the church or the suicide cult?  Had it been covered up?  Dipper had his suspicions.

“This way,” Norman lead them past a fallen tree.  “A drowned woman said there should be a path around here, in the opposite direction of the river.”

“You know, if this guy wanted converts, he should have made this place easier to find,” Dipper grumbled.  Mabel elbowed him.

“Dipper,” Norman whispered, and holding a finger to his mouth to indicate ‘ be quiet ’.

The twins looked at each other and nodded, wordlessly agreeing to not make a sound.  They crept after Norman, who was leading them towards what might have once been a path, though it was hard to tell now.

Dipper hoped his best friend was right.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Norman - that wasn’t the issue at all - but they had no idea what to expect.  And without expectations, he couldn’t adequately plan.  What if something went wrong?

He felt a hand suddenly grasp his.  Turning to his left, he saw Mabel giving him a reassuring smile as she squeezed his hand.  He squeezed back, not letting go.  How did she always know?

Norman got their attention by snapping his fingers.  Twin heads looked up just in time to see him gesture to a clearing.  Looking ahead past some bushes, the three were greeted with the sight of what had once been a cluster very small one-room log cabins.

“Yipes,” Mabel whispered, as quietly as she could manage.  “It’s like ‘Friday the 13th’ or something.”

Norman looked apprehensive.  There was no indication that he planned to set foot in the former cult colony.  Dipper noticed, and felt his stomach clench up a little with worry.  Not knowing what to do, he squeezed Mabel’s hand again to get her attention, gesturing to Norman with his chin.

Mabel understood.

With her free hand, she grabbed Norman’s thin, pale hand, so that she was holding hands with both of the boys.  It was Mabel who took the first tentative step into the compound.

It was eerie, walking around the area.  Other than the cabins, and a rusty axe head embedded in a tree as if its owner had abandoned it mid-chop, there wasn’t much evidence of human activity.  Weirdly, there wasn’t much evidence of any activity by animals or plants either.  The few trees that were left standing between the cabins were all dead and rotting.  There was no moss, no beehives, no holes in the ground from gophers, no footprints or animal scat.  Even the air seemed heavy and oppressive.  Dipper gripped his sister’s hand a little tighter, not even noticing that his palms were beginning to sweat.

What had happened here?

Anxiously, the three teenagers continued to walk, hanging onto each other’s palms as if for dear life.

The compound wasn’t very large, and it didn’t take terribly long for them to find what had once been the church.  The building was a decent size, made out of logs, just as the cabins had been.  The steeple had long since collapsed, and the decaying remains of the cross that had once topped it lay on the ground in front of the door.  If there had been glass in the windows at one point, it was long gone now.  

Strangely, for an abandoned building - and Dipper had been in a few abandoned buildings over the years - there was no signs of vandalism.  There was no graffiti, no litter… this building hadn’t been touched since it had fallen out of use.

“Well,” Dipper broke the silence, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt, “moment of truth, I guess.”  He pushed the door with his free hand, thinking it would creak open.  In reality, the hinges were so rusted that it completely fell open, causing him to jump.  The dust that had been disturbed stung his eyes and throat, and he could hear his sister cough.

The sunlight filtering through the windows and holes in the roof was enough so that they didn’t have to retrieve the flashlights to see the horrible sight that awaited them.

Scattered around the floor were skeletal remains, all of them with gunshot wounds in their skulls.  Here and there were rusted pistols, looking much like the ones in old black and white gangster movies.  Most of the clothes were long gone, but the few scraps that remained on some of the bodies were all purple.  Dipper remembered from his research that in some traditions, purple was the colour of Christian penance.  Horrified, he realised some of the skeletons were only a few feet tall.  Children?!  He shuddered.

“This is disgusting,” Mabel seemed to have come to the same realisation.  “Some of these people were just kids !  Who could ever think this is okay?”

Dipper pulled his hand away from his sister’s to crouch down and take his backpack off so he could dig out a notebook.  He had to write down everything he saw, as awful as some of it was, in case any of it offered a clue as to what could have happened.  He noted the purple cloth, the fact that some of these people had been shot in the back of the head - ‘ they weren’t all suicides ’ - and it was then that he realised Norman still hadn’t said anything since they had gotten there.

Alarmed, he turned around.  Mabel was still taking all the sights in, looking more angry than frightened.  Norman was staring ahead, utterly emotionless, paler than usual.  His hand still in Mabel’s was slack.

Dipper jumped up, dropping the notebook and pen.  “Norman?”  

Thankfully, his voice seemed to pull the medium out of his daze, and the younger boy blinked, and turned to Dipper.

“Hm?”

“Are you alright?” Dipper asked.

“Y-yeah,” Norman replied quietly.  Neither of his companions were convinced.

“What’s on your mind?” Mabel breathed, for once not making light of the situation.

“They failed,” Norman murmured.  “The priest said that the reason for suicide was so that their souls would be stuck here, but… there’s no one here.  Not even him .  Nothing left but bones.”  He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was small and tiny.  “What happened to them?”

Dipper looked at Mabel.  She nodded at him and he turned back to his best friend.

“I don’t know.  But I promise you I am going to find out, okay?”

“Besides, that guy was bonkers,” Mabel added.  “He definitely could have been wrong.  I mean, he’s not even up in the front-thingy.”

“‘Pulpit,’” Dipper corrected her.  “The word you’re looking for is ‘pulpit.’”

“Uh,” Norman gestured with his free hand over to one corner of the room.  “He’s over there.”

“His ghost?!” The older teen whirled around again.  He had been just aching to give this guy a piece of his mind for upsetting Norman so much, and the little fact that he couldn’t actually see ghosts on most occasions wasn’t going to stop him.

“No,” Norman shuffled his weight from foot to foot.  “I haven’t seen his ghost again since that day.  But, uh… pretty sure that’s his body.”

Dipper ran over to where Norman had gestured, only tripping once over a femur.  Sure enough, there was a skeleton in what was left of the distinctive black garments of a preacher.  Most of the skull was shattered from the force of a point blank gunshot, the gun still at his side where it had fallen when he died.  

Dipper sighed.

“I hate this,” he said to no one in particular, before doing one thing he really didn’t want to do.  He gulped, hesitated - and then thrust his hand into what had once been a pocket, feeling blindly for something, anything - there !

Triumphantly, he pulled out a brittle, yellowed piece of folded paper.  He would have to be very careful when he unfolded it back at the Shack.

“Mabel,” he beckoned his sister over.  “Bring my backpack over here.”

She did so without protest, though she did glare down at what was left of the priest’s skull.  Dipper tried to find a suitable container for the paper, and ended up taking the batteries out of his flashlight and storing the paper in the battery compartment.  

“Should I be taking pictures of all this?” Mabel frowned.  “Because, no offence, Dip, but I really could do without seeing any of this again.”

Dipper shook his head.  “It’s fine.”

“Maybe you should take a picture of that, though.  That’s probably important,” Norman’s voice was still quiet.  The twins turned to see what he was looking at.

The remains were, based on their size, either that of a woman or a youth.  They had been shot in the back of the head - likely by the priest himself based on the proximity of the two skeletons - but that wasn’t the weirdest part.  The weirdest part was the arm stretched up above, bony fingers still clinging to the handle of a rusted old knife embedded in the wall.  Whoever it was had been carving a message when they had been killed.

Mabel read the short message out loud:

“He’s in the walls.  We were so wrong.”

Beneath that, the person had started to carve a triangle, though it looked as if they had been shot before they finished it.

Dipper suddenly felt sick.

Before Mabel and Norman could protest, he ran out of the church, fell to his knees.  He was panting heavily, his head swimming and his stomach doing somersaults.  He retched, but nothing came up.  He was vaguely aware of his hands, balled into fists in the dirt, trembling.

Suddenly, Mabel and Norman were at his side.  His sister was rubbing his back, cooing into his ear that, “it’s okay, Dipper, everything will be okay, it’s okay.”  Norman was silent, but placed one of his hands over Dipper’s trembling fist.  

It was a few minutes before Dipper caught his breath and felt safe to speak.

“Let’s leave,” he choked out.  “ Please .”

“Way ahead of you,” Norman helped him up, and handed him the backpack he had left inside.  “I’ve wanted to leave since we got here.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” Dipper looked at him, not letting go of Norman’s hand.  He would be embarrassed later, he was sure of it, but right now that didn’t matter. “If you weren’t okay-”

“Dipper, you’re the one who isn’t okay right now,” Norman cut him off, rather more snippishly than he normally was.

Mabel looked from one boy to the other.  Then, she sighed, and grabbed both their hands again so that the three of them were all standing in a circle, holding hands.  No one spoke, just took comfort in each other’s hands for a few moments.  Her gesture worked, and the boys were calmed down enough to walk on their own.

The walk back to the Mystery Shack was completely silent.  Dipper kept his hands shoved in his pockets the whole time, not meeting the eyes of either his sister or his best friend.  He was already beginning to feel the sting of embarrassment over getting scared like that, even when the fear itself hadn’t entirely worn off yet.

Stan greeted them when they got inside, but Dipper hardly heard what his great uncle said as he made a beeline straight for the stairs and rushed up to the safety of his bed.  He sat up by the pillows and sighed shakily.  What was the matter with him?

“Dipper!” Mabel came rushing in after him, Norman a few steps behind her.  “That was rude - Grunkle Stan said hey to you, and you just ran right past him!”

He shrugged.  “Sorry, I guess.”

Mabel chewed the inside of her cheek, anger dissipating as quickly as it had come.  Norman sat down next to Dipper, and seemed to be searching his friend’s face for the right words to say.

“You know,” he finally began, “we don’t think any less of you for being freaked out.  I’m pretty sure we were all freaked out by that place.”

“You’d have to be a total creepazoid not to be!” Mabel agreed emphatically.

“I should have kept my cool,” Dipper shrugged.

“I think you were brave,” Norman confessed quietly.  “I was frozen in one spot.  You were the one elbow-deep in a dead man’s clothes.”

The older boy had a feeling Norman was just trying to make him feel better - it wasn’t as if the medium had never seen or touched a corpse before; Dipper knew he had - but he appreciated it anyway.

“What did that paper say , anyway?” Mabel asked.

Dipper jumped up, already calming down a bit.  “I don’t know.  But I’m going to find out.  Mabel, get me some tweezers!”

“You could try saying ‘please’ for once,” she responded with a teasing tone, some of her regular happiness finally returning now that her brother’s freak-out had worn off.  But the tweezers still were retrieved from the craft kit she kept under her bed.

Dipper took the folded paper out from inside the flashlight, and lay it on top of the magazine Norman had gotten him at the airport.  Using the tweezers, he very carefully unfolded it, going as slow as possible to keep it from falling apart.  Norman and Mabel leaned over his shoulders, and he was aware of both of their breaths on his neck.  (He was especially aware of Norman’s breath, but he tried his best to ignore it, lest his hands start sweating and destroy the delicate old paper.)

Finally, it was done.

“Huh,” Dipper said when he saw what was on the paper.

“Is that…?” Mabel began.

“I think so,” Norman nodded.

On the paper was a series of symbols.  The very same symbols, it appeared, as the ones they had found on the wall of the Bunker.

Chapter Text

Norman was worried about Dipper.  As soon as the older teen had discovered what was on that paper, he had thrown himself completely into trying to decode it.  There had been books strewn all over the floor of the attic bedroom for two days, and Dipper only ever left to use the restroom before returning to his work.  Mabel had to force him to eat and sleep every night.

It wasn’t that Dipper wasn’t normally obsessive about his mysteries, but this was a new level of focus.  After his freak out at the compound, it was more than a little frustrating.

“Dipper,” Norman was currently sitting on Mabel’s bed while the girl twin was in the shower, “don’t you think you should maybe… take a break?”

“No time,” Dipper mumbled, turning another page and mouthing the words on it.

“Dude. Are you reading Latin ?”

“Trying to.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Norman stood up, walked over, and yanked the book away from his best friend, who yelped indignantly:

“Hey!”

“Dipper, you have been in that spot for two days.  You smell terrible, and you’re beginning to look like a vampire.  You need a break.  That paper isn’t going anywhere.”

“There’s no time for a break!” Dipper insisted, taking his hat off to scratch an itch on his head.  “What if this paper is a warning?  Or- or a way to stop all this?”

“And what if it’s just another ‘beware the darkness; he’s in the walls’ thing?” Norman crossed his arms, and slumped back down onto Mabel’s bed.  “What if we’re just running in circles?”

Dipper paused for a moment, just watching his friend.  

“Mabel and I are both worried about you,” Norman continued.

“When did you two talk about me?”

“Last night, when we were eating dinner - which you failed to come down for.”

The medium instantly wished he’d worded it a little differently, because Dipper suddenly looked like he felt guilty.  But what was said, was said.  

(Besides, he had been more focused on leaving out the other part of Mabel’s conversation, the part where she tried once again to get Norman to open up about his feelings for her brother.  Too bad for her that opening up had never come easy to him.)

“Look,” he was quieter when he spoke this time, “Dipper, I want to solve the mysteries of Gravity Falls, too.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t come back every year.  And I’m going to support you. You know that, right?  It’s just… you can’t just freak out on us and then not talk to us for two days.  If something is bothering you, you should be able to tell me, or tell Mabel, or… I don’t know.  You should trust us.”

Dipper had an unreadable expression on his face, and truthfully it made Norman feel more than a little self-conscious.

“I do trust you,” he spoke slowly when he finally replied.  “Have I really been that much of a jerk?”

“Ehhhh, not a jerk , per se…”

“Tell you what,” Dipper sat up straighter, cracking his knuckles as he did so, “let’s take a break.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nope.  But I did say before that if you told me you needed one, I’d give you one.  I’d like to think I’m a man of my word.  Where do you want to go?”

“Uh…” Norman blinked a few times.  He hadn’t been expecting to be put on the spot like this.  What was there to even do in Gravity Falls?  He wasn’t about to drag them back into the forest to stumble across who knows what.  “Isn’t there a mini-golf course?”

Dipper drew in a breath through his teeth.  “Mabel and I are kinda… banned for life from that place…”

“Okay, an arcade?”

“Uh… yeah, we’re kinda banned from there too…”

“A pool or something?” Norman frowned when he saw Dipper’s face.  “You know what, don’t answer that.  What is with your family?”

“I ask myself that same question on the daily.”

“What are you two morons talking about?” Mabel came into the room in a baggy t-shirt and boxer shorts, wet hair wrapped in a towel.

“Trying to decide what to do,” Dipper replied.  “Norman wanted me to take a break from all this decoding, so-”

“And you agreed ?!” Mabel’s eyes lit up and, in a flash, she was at the medium’s side.  “How did you convince the king of stubborn?  Teach me your ways, oh wise one!”

“Very funny,” the older boy deadpanned.  “Whatever, let’s just go get lunch or something.  We haven’t been banned from the diner, after all.  Yet.”

“Not until you shower too,” Mabel unwrapped her hair and threw the towel at her brother’s face.  “You smell like sweat and burritos.”

“What?  I do not!”

“You kind of do, Dip,” Norman offered an apologetic smile, though it was so small Dipper wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it.

He snorted.  “Fine.”

“And shave your chin hairs!” Mabel called after him as he grabbed his own towel from the floor and begrudgingly headed towards the bathroom.  “They make you look like a douche!”

***

Dipper meant to jump into the shower and jump back out again, really, he did.  The faster he got Norman and Mabel to calm down about him, the faster he could get back to trying to crack that code.  He hadn’t realised sitting crouched over on a hard wooden floor for two days would make his back so sore, or how good the warm water would feel on his aching muscles.

The one thing he didn’t like about this was that without codes and books, or perhaps some playful banter, to distract him, inevitably his thoughts began to wander into dangerous territory.

Inevitably he began to reflect - rather unwillingly - on how things had changed over the years between him and Norman, despite him desperately trying to keep everything the same.

It was all so simple when he was a kid, lying awake and thinking about Wendy Corduroy.  Wendy was flawless, older, unattainable.  Some part of him had always known it was hopeless with her.  And that was okay, liking unattainable girls was part of growing up, wasn’t it?

Why couldn’t he go back to that?

And back home, there were other girls.  He’d kissed Samantha Anderson beneath the bleachers once, and her gum got in his mouth.  He’d taken that Italian exchange student Nicola to Homecoming - he’d really liked Nicola, hadn’t he?  She had a cute accent, and really nice hair, and she knew tae kwon do.

And then Norman came along and suddenly he forgot all about Nicola, all about Samantha, all about Megan and Rachel and Trinh and- and even Wendy.

Dipper wasn’t even sleeping nights all the way through anymore.  He kept having dreams he didn’t want to have.  Dreams where he and Norman were… well...  He kept waking up in the middle of the night curled up into Norman’s side, breathing in his scent.  And then he would feel so awkward that he would lie awake for hours, staring into the darkness, doing his best to not think about anything in a way he hadn’t done for years.

It wasn’t fair .

He didn’t want to remember the dreams.  He was usually able to stop himself from remembering as long as he focused instead on ciphers, or demonology, or paranormal lore, or urban legends, or even algebra problems if that was what it took.

‘One number is ten more than another.  The sum of twice the smaller plus three times the larger is the feeling of his hand in mine is… the way he looks at me is... is…’

“Shit,” Dipper groaned.

He couldn’t really resent Norman for it.  It wasn’t the younger boy’s fault.  Dipper was sure he didn’t mean to be so… compelling … and it certainly wasn’t Norman’s fault that Dipper sometimes dreamed about holding him close to his chest until all his problems faded away.

Was that weird?  That was weird, wasn’t it?

And last summer… last summer…

Dipper shut the water off, and let out a deep, shaky breath.  He wasn’t going to think about that right now.  He couldn’t think about that.  Not now.  Not ever.

***

Though both twins had driver’s licenses, the car they shared was back down in Piedmont, and Grunkle Stan certainly wasn’t going to let them drive the Diablo.  Norman didn’t mind walking.  It was easy to greet all the ghosts in the town - and in town, there were many of them - with the twins covering for him.  Granted, Dipper wouldn’t look him (or Mabel, for that matter) in the eyes, but Norman figured that the older boy was just anxious to get back to decoding.

Dipper did tend to get rather obsessive, after all.  This wasn’t a new thing.  Norman just had to keep reminding himself that so that he wouldn’t get worried.

There wasn’t much of a wait at the Gravity Falls Diner (there never was), and they were soon seated, Mabel across from the boys, Dipper by the wall, the same way they always sat when they went somewhere.  

The rusty old jukebox - every year, Norman was amazed the thing still worked - was playing “Dream a Little Dream of Me”, and Dipper was absentmindedly humming along as he skimmed the menu, even though he almost always got the same thing when they ate here.

“Don’t think I don’t hear you humming, Dippin’ Dots,” Mabel pointed at her brother with a fork.  Dipper tried to look as if he hadn’t heard her, but the abrupt stop of the humming and the way his face coloured up gave away that he had.

Norman offered Dipper a smile, even though the older boy wasn’t looking at him to see it.  “My mom likes that song.”

“Hey, I wonder if your favourite song is on that old thing, Dip,” Mabel grinned at her brother.  

“It’s not,” he didn’t look up from the menu.  “I checked last year.”

“I bet it is, though,” she continued grinning.  If anything, her grin got even wider.

Dipper finally looked up at her.  “I just said that it’s not.  You’re not really gonna bet on it.”

“Loser pays for the winner’s lunch?”

“Okay, but it’s your funeral.”  The twins spat in their palms, and then did that weird twin handshake that always kind of confused Norman, no matter how many times he watched them do it.  “Blip, blap, bloobity bloop.  Twins!”

“Are you guys still using that handshake?” He couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“Less talking, more checking that jukebox,” Mabel pressed a quarter into his palm.  

Norman shook his head fondly - of course they would make him check it - and got up to do so.  He was surprised to find, flipping through the song choices, how many of the names of songs had been chipped off, at least partially.  Even the one that was playing now was mostly chipped away, though not enough to reveal just what the design underneath it was.  Norman could just barely make out a diagonal line on the metal beneath the placard, looking much like the side of a-

- triangle .  He froze for a second.  Then, he sighed.

This was stupid.  He was Norman Babcock.  He talked to the dead.  He had dealt with zombies.  Since when did a shape, of all things, make him nervous?  Maybe Dipper wasn’t the only one who needed to quit obsessing.

He finally found “Disco Girl” in the song list - Mabel had been correct - and pressed the keys (B-1) to play the song.  Turning around to return to his seat, Norman noticed two girls in the type of clothing his sister would wear standing over the table where the Pines twins awaited him.  They seemed to be talking to Mabel.  They also seemed agitated, though Mabel didn’t seem bothered by them, even if Dipper did.

He got back to the table right as they left.

“Who were those people?” he slid back into his seat, accidentally overshooting it and brushing against Dipper, who stiffened up a little at the unexpected contact.  (Norman tried not to read too much into that.)

“Pacifica’s friends,” Mabel shrugged as if it were no big deal.

“They’re total jerks,” Dipper grumbled.  “I’d really like to give them a piece of my mind, prove to them once and for all that their precious queen bee prefers my sister to their stupid empty heads-”

“Dipper, calm down,” she reached across the table and pat her brother on the shoulder.  “I don’t care what those girls think about me.  I have nothing to prove to them.  Besides, I only see them three months of the year.”

“What did they say?” Norman frowned.  He didn’t like bullies of any kind.

“Some bullshit about ‘stay away from Pacifica or else!’” Dipper mimicked the girls with a silly voice.  “‘Or else what?’ I should have said.  They’re not going to do shit.”

Mabel giggled.  “Dipper, seriously, calm down.  They’re jealous of me.  Who wouldn’t be?  I’m awesome.”

Dipper opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the familiar opening chords of Babba’s “Disco Girl”.  He groaned, “Aw, what ?”

“Yes!” Mabel punched the air in triumph.  “Lunch on Dipper is the best kind of lunch!”

“That song wasn’t on that jukebox last year!  I checked!”

“Maybe Lazy Susan added it because of popular demand,” Mabel’s grin envied the Cheshire Cat.  Her implications were clear.

“I demanded it,” Norman offered jokingly.

“Bullshit,” Dipper laughed, mood considerably lighter than it had been a few minutes ago.  He caught Norman’s gaze and the two shared a smile that went on just a little too long.  Then, suddenly, the grin disappeared from Dipper’s face and the older teen looked back down at his hands, leaving Norman to wonder if he had imagined the whole moment.

***

Night fell hours later. The Gravity Falls Diner was closed, dark, empty.  Everyone had gone home for the night.  The lights were off, and the door was locked.

And yet, from the darkness, a small burst of light came forth from the jukebox as that rusty old machine crackled to life.

Even with no one to hear it, it still had one more song to offer the night.

“Stars shining bright above you…”

Across town, Mabel Pines succeeded in getting her brother to agree to sleep.  He still didn’t look Norman in the eye.

“Night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you’...”

Across town, in the other direction, Pacifica Northwest ignored repeated text messages from her friends, choosing instead to text Mabel.  She really wanted - needed - to see her soon.

“Birds singing in a sycamore tree…”

Across town, Norman Babcock had just begun to drift to sleep, unaware of what awaited him in his dreams that night.

“Dream a little dream of me.”

Chapter Text

“Come on, Mabel, please text me back,” Pacifica muttered, staring at her phone as she sat on her bed.  Her floor was littered with shopping bags - her mother had dragged her onto the Northwest jet for a shopping-and-spa trip to the capital, which would have been fun if her mother hadn’t spent the entire time looking into a mirror and “casually” mentioning all the perceived flaws in her daughter’s appearance.  

Pacifica’s friends had been texting her all day - ‘Where are you?  Why aren’t you texting back?  Are you actually ditching us for that weird girl?  Wow, Pacifica, that’s really lame.  You’re supposed to help Staci plan her big party.’ - and the blonde was really getting irritated with everyone in her life right now.  She barely even tolerated her friends anymore.  For years she had had a lot of fun with them, they were good shopping buddies and looked good at her side at events.  Wasn’t that what friendship was all about?

She looked over to her vanity, to the photo strip of her and Mabel that she kept pinned up.

Mabel was horrible to shop with.  And her obsession with neon colours would look more at home in an episode of “Jem and the Holograms.”; Mabel would be a horrible choice to bring to public events where girls like Pacifica and Tiffany and Staci were expected to make “appearances”.  She wore drugstore chapstick in weird poor people flavours like blue raspberry - what the hell was a blue raspberry ?! - and refused to partake in that time-honoured female bonding technique of making fun of other girls’ outfits.

Pacifica was beginning to wonder what life would be like if she was more like that.  And it was starting to make her resent everyone around her.  That kind of resentment, that pent up anger, didn’t suit her.  (“It will give you wrinkles, Pacifica!” her mother’s voice scolded inside her head.)

She checked her phone again.  Nothing.  Pacifica knew it was nearly midnight, but she just wanted ten minutes of Mabel’s time.  Was that too much to ask?  Wasn’t she, as a Northwest, entitled to get what she wanted?  She didn’t even know anymore.

“Ugh, Mabel,” she groaned.  “Come on.  I need you.  This is so not fair.”

Her bedroom door opened.

Pacifica narrowed her blue-green eyes, shot a glare at her parents.  “Don’t you people ever knock?”

“Knocking is for the lower classes,” Preston commented, and his wife raised a hand to her mouth to laugh.  Pacifica rolled her eyes.  It hadn’t been that funny.  Her parents really annoyed her - at least that, she was pretty sure, was a typical teenage thing and not just a her thing.

“I was just telling your father about those cute Moschino and Prada dresses we bought today,” her mother’s grin was too wide, too fake, too white.  

“Since when does Dad care?” Pacifica knew she sounded particularly snotty.  She didn’t care.  “As long as we dress for our station in life and look perfect, right?”

“That’s my girl,” her father nodded, seemingly proud of this comment.  She looked down at her feet.  The mismatched pedicure Mabel had given her was beginning to chip.  

“Which one are you wearing tomorrow?” her mother’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.  “I want to approve of it.”

“What?” Pacifica looked up again.  “Why would I wear one of them tomorrow?”

“Did you forget?” Her father arched an eyebrow.  “Your little friend Traci is having a party.”

“Staci,” Pacifica corrected.  “And I’m not going to her stupid party.  Why should I?  I don’t owe her anything, and besides, she’s been a total brat lately.”

Her parents exchanged looks, and her chest clenched.  Oh, god, they were going to try and have a talk with her about this.  She couldn’t believe this - nobody got to boss Pacifica Northwest around, not even her parents!  She scrambled to find a reason, any reason, no matter how inane, to make her parents agree to let her ditch that party.

“Last week she wore open-toed heels with tights!  Tights from last winter’s collection!  Mom, you seriously aren’t going to let me be seen with someone who dresses like that!”  Pacifica felt a little ill - she kept hearing Mabel’s voice in her head chiding that as long as Staci was happy, who cared how she dressed? - but she pressed on, desperately.  “And besides, I heard from Tiffany, who heard from Pamela, who heard from Heather, who heard from Paisley, who heard from Dakota that Staci totally made out with some waiter from Bend.  I mean, a freaking waiter !  From Bend !  And, like, Staci’s family doesn’t even have a yacht !  Like, I don’t care if your dad bought you a stupid Lamborghini, Staci, if you don’t have a yacht party every once in a while then what’s the point, right?  Am I right?”

“That’s enough , Pacifica!” Her father’s voice thundered, and she shrank back a little.  “It may not be a yacht party - indeed, it may not be even half as good as one of our parties-”

“How could it?” Mrs. Northwest interjected, and they both laughed.

“-but making appearances is important.  We have a responsibility to the public.”

Pacifica felt a little sick.  The last thing she wanted right now was to make an appearance at Staci’s stupid party.  Not even to make fun of Staci’s outfit.  Even that had lost the appeal it once had held for her.

“But…” she offered, weakly, “I already have plans.”

It was a lie.  She didn’t have any real plans - Mabel had not yet texted her back - but she certainly intended to have plans.

“Plans?” Preston scoffed.  “What plans could you possibly have?  Haven’t you known about this party for months?”

Pacifica vaguely remembered Staci telling her about it before, but she hadn’t really been listening.  She shrugged.

“I dunno.  Plans with other friends, I guess.”

“All the friends we’ve procured for you will be at that party,” Mrs. Northwest’s grin only grew.  Pacifica wished all her teeth would fall out.  “And don’t say ‘I guess’, Pacifica.  It makes you sound like you don’t think you know everything.”

“I guess ,” Pacifica repeated through clenched teeth, glaring at her mother.

Mrs. Northwest exchanged an unsure look with her husband, and then said, a little too brightly, “I’m going to bed - I need my beauty sleep, after all.  Preston, you take care of this.”

And with that, Pacifica was left alone with her father.

If this were a movie, he would have sat down on her bed with her, instead of looming over her and talking down to her.  She would have calmly convinced him that she was right, and he would have not made her go to Staci’s stupid party.  Right?

Pacifica was suddenly keenly aware that if this were a movie, it was highly likely she wouldn’t be the protagonist.  Movies were aimed at the general public, after all, not at girls like her .

Movies were stupid.

Girls like her were stupid, too.

“Pacifica, stop looking at the floor.  It’s unbecoming.  A Northwest always stares their opponent in the eye.”

“You’re not my opponent.  You’re my father ,” she challenged, though she did look him in the eye when she said it.  Damn it.  It was hard to be defiant when being defiant was what was expected of her.

“That’s right,” he nodded, that cold, slimy, unfeeling grin returning to his face.  “I am your father, Pacifica.  And you’re going to listen to me.  You are going to Staci’s party tomorrow. End of discussion.”

She huffed.  “Dad.”

“What?”  He didn’t stop grinning.  She almost wished he would.  

“Do you… remember a few summers ago?  I challenged Ma- I mean, that Pines girl - to a mini golf match?”

For a split second, surprise registered in his features. Pacifica relished that split second.  How often in her life did she actually succeed in catching her distant father off guard?

“Of course not,” he didn’t stop grinning.  “I only remember significant things.”

That stung.  She pressed on, anyway.

“Well, I asked you to stay and watch me win that night.  And you didn’t.  And you never gave me a reason why.  Can I have a reason why, now?”

“Who cares?  That was so long ago, anyway.  It’s not important, Pacifica.”

“Dad, I’m just asking for a reason why.  It’ll take like two seconds.”

“I’m sure I was just confident that my daughter wouldn’t lose.  After all, Northwests aren’t losers.   You’re not a loser, Pacifica.”  Something in Preston’s gaze hardened.  “ Are you?”

Pacifica’s stomach churned.  She looked down at her toes again.  “...no, Dad.  I’m not.”

“That’s what I thought.  I’ll see you at Staci’s party tomorrow, Pacifica.”

He left the room before she could think up another banal argument.  She flopped down on the bed.  It just wasn’t fair .  She grabbed a pillow, pressed her face into it, and screamed.

Her phone vibrated.  Pacifica hoped it wasn’t Staci - she would go off if it was.

“Paz,” Oh, thank god, it was Mabel.  “It’s like midnight.  Is everything ok?”

She texted back, “No.  Need 2 c u 2morrow.”  She didn’t give a damn about Staci’s party.  She’d sneak out if she had to.

“Ok,” was Mabel’s reply.  Relief flooded Pacifica’s heart.  

***

“Vampires have been feared and respected for centuries!  ‘Twilight’ doesn’t count!” Dipper exclaimed, slamming his hand down on the table.

“So?” Norman smirked.  “Werewolves are still bigger, faster, stronger, and immune to Italian food.”  

It was the next morning, and the Mystery Trio was sitting around the table eating waffles with Grunkle Stan.  Dipper and Norman had gotten into one of their classic horror movie debates - they hadn’t done it in a while, after all - and Mabel was, in between bites, doodling silly little faces on her finger tips with a marker.

“They are so not faster!  Grunkle Stan,” Dipper turned to his great uncle, who held up one of his hands.

“I’m not getting involved.  This is stupid and weird,” Stan answered.

“Aw, what?  Come on, family loyalty!”

“Nope.  Still stupid and weird.”

“Hah!” Mabel brayed.  “Shut down!  You just got Grunkled !”

Stan shot Mabel a glare.  “Never say that again.”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged mischievous looks, and then began chanting in unison, “Grunkled!  Grunkled!  Grunkled!”

“Alright,” Stan stood up.  “This is officially too weird for me.”

The twins laughed - and even Norman smiled and chuckled a little - as the old man left the room.

“He would have agreed with me anyway, you know,” the medium couldn’t help but tease Dipper a little more.  If he kept up the teasing, maybe the twins wouldn’t notice how tired he looked.  Maybe they wouldn’t ask why he hadn’t slept well last night, he wouldn’t have to think about the nightmare.  It was coming more often now.

“Probably,” Dipper agreed.  “Stan’s always liked Mabel better than me.”

“Dipper, that’s not true,” Mabel stuck her tongue out, then inspected the faces she’d drawn on her fingers.

“What exactly are you doing those for, anyway?” Dipper gestured to his sister’s hands.

“When Pacifica gets here, I’m gonna draw some on her too, and then when we hold hands it’ll be like the little people are all hugging!”

“Pacifica’s not coming over today,” he frowned.

“Uh, yeah, she is,” Mabel corrected.  “We were texting last night about it.”

“Mabel!” Dipper protested.  “You’re supposed to help me on that code today!”

“I’ll still be helping,” Norman weakly raised a hand, as if to remind Dipper that he was still there.  As if Dipper could forget.

“Yeah, Norman is still helping.  But Paz needs me.”

“She ‘needs’ you,” Dipper repeated, incredulously.

“Yes, Dipper.  My girlfriend needs me.  She said it herself.  I don’t know why, but if she needs me, then I’m going to help her with- whatever it is.  That’s just how these things work.  If Norman told you he needed you, you would do the same thing, and you know it.”

The older boy went pink.  “That’s not- that’s not the same thing at all !  Norman would only say that if he had real problems!”

Mabel suddenly glared, and Dipper shrunk back a little.  That had clearly been the wrong thing to say.

“Just because you don’t like Pacifica, Dip, doesn’t mean that her problems aren’t real to her.  You don’t have to be such a jerk !”

Dipper pouted at that, but didn’t respond.  Mabel stood up and swiftly began to clear the table, banging the plates down in the sink with such force that Norman was surprised she didn’t break them.

The medium sunk down in his seat a little.  He was feeling very awkward.

“Come on, Norman,” Dipper pulled him up and dragged him towards the stairs, away from Mabel, before Norman could protest.  Not that he would have - he hated sitting in the same room as two people who were fighting.

They made it up to the attic bedroom.  Norman expected Dipper would fling himself into codebreaking right away to distract himself from the argument with Mabel, but the older teen sat down on his bed, crossed his arms, and continued to pout.

“Uh…” Norman still felt awkward.  “Dipper, seriously, quit pouting.  It’s kind of weirding me out.”

“I’m not pouting, I’m sulking .  There’s a difference.”

Norman sat on Mabel’s bed, across from his friend, and said nothing.  It didn’t take long for Dipper to break the silence that ensued:

“I mean, can you believe that?!  She swore she was gonna help us out with this, and suddenly she ditches because Pacifica freaking Northwest is throwing a tantrum about something!”

Norman sighed.  “Dipper, don’t be mad at me, but I kind of agree with Mabel on this one.  You’re being a bit judgmental, don’t you think?”

Dipper looked aghast, and Norman pinched the bridge of his nose, keeping his voice calm as he clarified:

“Mabel has a big heart, and she really cares about Pacifica.  So if Pacifica tells her she’s upset, of course Mabel’s going to want to help.  That’s just how your sister is.  She’d do the same for you, too.  Besides, we don’t know the situation.  Maybe Pacifica does have a ‘real’ problem.  Maybe her grandma died or something, I don’t know.”

Dipper huffed.  The younger teen sighed.  Why did his best friend have to be so stubborn?

“Fine, Dip, pout if you want.  You’re the one who wanted to work on codes, though, so if it’s alright with you, I’m going to go ahead and do that.”  He sunk to the floor and opened one of the books to a random page on Egyptian hieroglyphs.

After a few minutes, Dipper came and sat by his side.

“You know…” the older boy said, “you really make me feel like a jerk.”

Norman turned, and smiled at Dipper.  “As long as you know how to admit your mistakes, it’s fine.  Alright?  Now, are we going to crack this code or not?” 

Chapter Text

Mabel was a bit surprised when, as she waited on the back porch, Pacifica’s limo pulled up and her girlfriend stepped out in an expensive-looking minidress.  

“My parents think I’m going to my friend Staci’s party,” was the only explanation Pacifica offered as she plopped down on the stair next to Mabel.

“So then, you aren’t going?” the brunette replied.

Pacifica said nothing.  She didn’t even look at Mabel; she just crossed her arms and sulked.  Mabel sighed - her girlfriend hadn’t even been here for a full minute yet and already she was doing that thing where she emotionally shut down and closed herself off.  She tried again:

“Are you mad at Staci?”

“I guess.  I don’t know,” Pacifica’s reply was rather curt.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Mabel sighed, and then reached over and coaxed Pacifica’s arms into uncrossing themselves so she could hold her hand.  Pacifica’s shoulders wilted a little at that.

“What’s on your fingers?”

“Faces,” the brunette smiled as if this were the most normal answer in the world.  “I was going to draw some on your hand too so that we could make our little finger people hug.”

“I would never let you do that.”

“Is that so?” Mabel giggled and nudged Pacifica’s cheek with her nose.  “I could get you to let me if I really wanted to.  I have my ways.”

Pacifica didn’t respond, and Mabel frowned.  Normally, her girlfriend had a teasing reply for all occasions.  She wished the rich girl would tell her what was bothering her so she could help.

“Paz, if you want to go to that party, I don’t mind you going.  It’s okay.”

“Would you just drop it?  I said I don’t want to talk about it.  Besides, it’s what they would want, so even if I did want to go, I wouldn’t.”

“‘They’?” Mabel blinked.  “Who…?”  Then, she got it.  Of course.  “Oh, Paz, why didn’t you just say you got in a fight with your parents?”

“Because I already said I don’t want to talk about it, Mabel!”

Mabel squeezed her hand.  “It’s really not healthy to keep it all bottled in.  I know you’re upset, but I want to help.  They’re your family, Pacifica.  You know they’re going to love you no matter what…”

“No, they’re not!” Pacifica pulled her hand away.  Mabel looked taken aback, and the blonde wilted a little.  “They don’t get me at all.  They’ve got their stupid heads shoved too far up their asses.  I hate them.”

“Paz, you don’t hate them.”

“Yes, I do!  Don’t tell me how to feel!”  She snapped before she could stop herself.  

“I’m not telling you how to feel!  I’m trying to help you!” Mabel looked upset, and suddenly Pacifica’s blood was boiling.  She couldn’t stop.

“You obviously can’t understand.   Your family will never be like mine,” she spat.  Some part of her immediately knew that it was one of the worst things she could have said, but she was too upset to care.  Why couldn’t Mabel just leave the problem buried up, where it belonged?  It just wasn’t fair - she had come here to be distracted, not lectured!  

“Family is family, Pacifica!”

“You don’t get it!” Pacifica was shrieking now, and she wished she could stop it, but the words wouldn’t stop.  They just kept coming, like word vomit.  “Nobody gets it!  I shouldn’t have even come over!”

“I’m trying to get it!  Paz, I’m not a mind reader!  But I’m trying-”

“Maybe I should just go home!” She shut down entirely, and stood up to storm off.  If she blocked out her emotions entirely, maybe they would go away.  Maybe Mabel would come after her, stop her from leaving, and they could just make out on the couch and forget this whole stupid situation.

“If that’s how you feel, maybe you should,” Mabel sounded hurt.  Pacifica suddenly felt as if a bee had stung her in the chest.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.

“F-fine!” She spat.  “I will!”

“Fine.  Go.”

“Fine!” She stomped off, towards the path, to call her chauffeur back.  This had been a mistake.  This whole stupid day had been a mistake.  Pacifica balled her hands into fists, feeling her nails digging into her palms as she walked through more and more trees.

There were… a lot of trees.

She stopped, looked around.  She couldn’t see anything but trees.  She couldn’t possibly have walked that far, could she?

She checked her phone.  No service.  She should have come to the path by now, where the hell had all these stupid trees come from?  Pacifica was starting to get antsy.  Today was just not her day.

“Well, well, well,” a shrill voice sounded behind her.  “You aren’t who I was expecting - but you’ll do just fine.”

She whirled around, and screamed when she saw where the voice had come from.  For it wasn’t a person at all, but what looked like a golden triangle with one eye and a snazzy little bowtie.  Oh, god, she had finally snapped under pressure and was going crazy.  That had to be it.

“You’re not crazy, doll!” the thing seemed amused, and she shivered - how had it known?  “Oh, I know a lot of things!  For example, I know for a fact that you just got in an argument with your girlfriend.”

“Were you spying on us?” Pacifica demanded.  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“The name’s Bill Cipher.  And you need to relax, doll, I’m here to help you out.  You can talk to me if you want.  I’m all ears ,” the eye on his face - if it could be called a face - momentarily turned into a giant ear.  The blonde shuddered.

“I don’t want to talk about it.  Not to you.  Not to anybody.”

“Not even if I gave you a gift?”

“...gift?” She was thrown off-guard.  Bill snapped his fingers and suddenly she was holding a rabbit paw, like the kind the Mystery Shack sold.

“A rabbit’s foot.  For luck!  Of course, it’s less lucky for the rabbit, isn’t it?”

“What are you-” her eyes suddenly fell on a rabbit lying under a tree, shuddering and bleeding from a bloodied stump in one of its legs, as if it had lost… a foot.

Pacifica screamed and dropped her “gift”.  Bill merely laughed, and hovered in front of her.

“What’s the matter?  It’s only a magic trick!” Another finger snap, and the rabbit was whole again.  “Everyone likes magic tricks!”

“G-go away!  You’re crazy!  Just get away from me!”  Pacifica just wanted to get out of the forest and go back to Mabel and forget this whole weird outing.  She turned to walk away.

“Oh?  Missing your girlfriend, are you?” Bill was suddenly in front of her again, even though she was certain she had turned away from him. “She’s not missing you , that’s for sure.”

“You don’t know that,” her eyes narrowed.

“Sure I do!  She and I go way back!” Bill grabbed either end of his bow tie and expanded it into - and Pacifica really could not believe she was seeing this - a sort of television screen on his body.  On the screen, a much younger Mabel was talking to Bill, who looked the same, though Pacifica couldn’t hear what she was saying.  “Wanna see what she’s doing right now?”

Pacifica hesitated.  But her curiosity got the best of her, and she nodded.  

The image changed to Mabel as Pacifica had just seen her, storming inside and up the stairs, plopping on her bed and beginning to sob.  Her brother and his weirdo friend from Massachusetts were at her side, rubbing her shoulders and consoling her, but the sobbing wasn’t stopping.  The blonde bit her lip - she knew she’d made Mabel cry in the past, but that was supposed to be the past.  It wasn’t still supposed to happen.

An unfamiliar feeling twisted in Pacifica’s stomach.  She didn’t like it.

“Feeling guilty?” She couldn’t tell if Bill’s voice was meant to be condescending or sincerely comforting.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Northwests don’t feel guilty.”

“How long do you think your Shooting Star will put up with this?  How long until she sees you for what you really are, and leaves you?”

Those words stung most of all.  Somehow, Bill had managed to guess Pacifica’s most secret fear and throw it out into the open.

“Mabel will forgive me… she always does…” But she didn’t sound so sure.

“I could talk to her if you’d like.”

“I don’t take charity,” Pacifica snapped.  Her head was spinning, and the guilt was only growing.  She had made Mabel cry.   She had made Mabel cry, and now Mabel was going to leave her.

“Charity?” Bill chuckled a little at that.  “Think of it more as… an economic exchange.  I do something for you, you do something for me.”

She blinked.  It sounded simple enough.

“What would I have to do?”

“Just get me a doll.  Simple, isn’t it?”

“...a doll,” disbelief coloured Pacifica’s voice.

“Yeah, you could say I collect ‘em!  Or, you know, you could ignore me, try to fix it yourself, and screw up like you have everything else.  Your choice!”

Damn it, he was right.  Pacifica frowned.

“And… all you need is a doll?”

Bill held out his hand for a shake.  “Do we have a deal?”

She hesitated.  Something about this made her feel weird, but she couldn’t place it.  And she was desperate to prevent Mabel from leaving her…

Pacifica reached out, grabbed the outstretched little hand, and shook it.  Firmly, the way her father had taught her.

“So what kind of doll did you want, then?  Are we talking Barbie, or, like, a porcelain doll…?”

Without letting go of her hand, Bill replied, “I was thinking something a little larger.  Pretty, blonde, rich… You know what, you’ll do nicely!”

“Wha-” But before she could express her confusion with this reply, Pacifica felt herself being ripped away from her own body.

Shocked, she could see herself lying on the forest floor.  Bill was suddenly nowhere to be seen.  And then, she watched herself rise, open her eyes, and stare at her hands.

Bill’s voice came from her lips.  “Oh, it has been too long.”  He - she? - stood, stretched.  Pacifica’s spirit watched in horror as the cute dress she had been wearing was suddenly drained of all its colour.  It looked terrible in black.

“Hey!  Hey!” She demanded.  “That is Chanel !  This is not what we agreed to!  Are you even listening to me?!  Hey!”

“Sure it is!  You give me a doll, I go talk to Shooting Star.” Bill began to walk toward the Mystery Shack.  Suddenly, all the trees that had blocking Pacifica’s vision before had disappeared, and she could see the Shack clearly.  Too late, she realised that she had walked right into a trap.

“You- you tricked me!  I will sue you!  Do you hear me?  I will sue you!”

Bill’s grating laughter sounded so wrong coming from her perfectly painted lips.

“Oh, kid - what lawyer would believe you?!”

Pacifica froze as she realised he was absolutely right.  This was crazy.  This was so crazy.  She watched her own body walking toward the Mystery Shack, and it was only with some practise that she was able to make her disembodied self chase it.

“You leave Mabel alone!” She demanded. “Or I’ll-”

“Or you’ll what?”  The grin looked too wide on her body’s face.  “No one can see you.”  Bill crouched down, began digging some lines in the dirt beneath her.  Pacifica cringed at the thought of all that dirt getting under her nails.  “No one even knows you exist.”

“What are you going to do to her?!”

He didn’t respond at first.  Then, he stood and stared at her, stared at her with her own blue-green eyes, spoke to her with her own voice. “Relax, doll.  I’m just going to talk to her.”

Pacifica tried to follow her body into the Mystery Shack, but found she couldn’t move.  It was as if there were invisible walls all around her.  And though she was loathe to admit it, she was frightened.

***

Mabel had not actually stormed upstairs and sobbed.  She had stormed into the living room and plopped in front of the television to watch reruns of “Ducktective.”  Part of her knew Pacifica was just lashing out as a defense thing.  She knew it was hard for her girlfriend to talk about her feelings.  But it still stung a little that Pacifica didn’t trust her enough to open up.

She knew how it would go.  Their arguments always ended the same.  Mabel would be the one to apologise.  Only then would Pacifica’s walls fall and the blonde would admit she was sorry, too.

It was surprising, then, that Pacifica herself walked into the living room.

“Paz!” Mabel sat up straighter, shocked.  “You didn’t leave?!”

“I thought about what you said, babe.  I do want to talk.  I should talk.”

Mabel hesitated.  Right away, she could tell something was… off.  Pacifica usually never called her “babe” unless she was teasing Dipper, and she never wanted to talk, either.  But maybe she was trying?  Maybe today had been a wake up call?  Mabel hoped against hope that this was the case.

“Uh, sure!” she scooted over on the couch.  “Come sit by me.”

“Not here,” Pacifica shook her head a little too fast.  Mabel couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about that unsettled her.  “Let’s go for a walk.  I want you to show me your favourite part of the forest.”

“Uh…”

“Please?”

The brunette girl was even more surprised.  Pacifica rarely said ‘please’; only if she really wanted something.  This had to have been important.  She stood up, and nodded.

“Dipper!  Norman!” She called up the stairs.  “Pacifica and I are going out!  Tell Grunkle Stan!”

***

A short time later, the boys ventured out of the attic to make themselves sandwiches.  Decoding was “hard work,” Dipper claimed, that required “a lot of fuel.”

Norman had been about to crack a snarky joke when he happened to look out the window and see a ghost floating.  This was not just any ghost, though.

It was Pacifica Northwest.  Pacifica, Mabel’s girlfriend.  Pacifica, who had just left to go hang out with Mabel.  Where was Mabel?  Why was Pacifica a ghost?!  

Norman started screaming.

“Woah, woah!” Dipper grabbed his shoulders.  “Norman!  What is it?!  What’s wrong?!  Norman!”

Norman tore himself away and bolted outside, Dipper right behind him.

“Pacifica!” he exclaimed.  Her spirit whirled around and gaped at him.

“Pacifica?” Dipper repeated.  “What are you talking about?  Pacifica is with Mabel!”

“No, she’s not!” Norman yelped.  “She’s here!  She’s right here!  She’s-”

“No.” Dipper shook his head when he caught the implication.  “Where’s- where’s Mabel?!  Is Mabel okay?!  Oh man, no, no, no, this can’t be happening!  Ask her where Mabel is!”

He nodded, turned to Pacifica’s ghost, who was just gaping at him.

“You can see me?” She asked, incredulous.

“Uh…” Norman nodded.  It was no use trying to keep his ability a secret if she were already...  “I can... see ghosts, yeah.”

“Ghosts?  I’m not dead , ” she frowned.  

“Y-you’re not?”

“What’s she saying?” Dipper grabbed his sleeve, and Norman shook him off.

“Dipper, be quiet, I’m trying to figure this out.”

“No, I’m not!  That thing stole my body!  I can’t move!  You have to go after him!  You have to stop him!”  She was screaming.  Norman looked down and saw the scratches in the dirt.

Oh.  A magic circle.  How juvenile.  He frowned, kicked at the scratches until the circle was broken.

“Does that help?” He asked.  She seemed surprised that it did.  “Dipper, she’s not dead.  Just body-napped.”  

“By what ?!” Dipper demanded.  He was pacing back and forth nervously.

The medium sighed.  He had to remain calm.  “Pacifica, I know this might be difficult, but I’m going to need you to try to tell me who did this to you.”

“I don’t know, some freaky triangle guy?” She scoffed.

Norman froze.  Had he heard her right?  “...triangle guy?” He repeated weakly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dipper stop pacing and go completely white.

***

The girls had walked to a clearing full of wild flowers, and Mabel gestured for the two of them to sit on a rock.  If this went right, it could be a big breakthrough for Pacifica, and Mabel wanted it to be in a special enough place.

“This is… colourful,” Pacifica’s voice was oddly emotionless.

Mabel shot her girlfriend a big grin, and asked, “Isn’t it beautiful, though?”

The rich girl didn’t say anything.

“If you sit still enough,” Mabel continued, “sometimes unicorns come through here.”

“Unicorns?” The blonde’s eyebrows arched higher than Mabel had ever seen them before.  “How’d you find out about that?  Your brother’s journal?”

Something in the air changed.  Mabel felt cold.

“Pacifica…” she murmured, realisation dawning on her.  “I never told you about the Journal.”

Pacifica turned to her, slowly.  Her blue-green eyes suddenly flashed yellow.  Mabel understood all too late.

She screamed.

Chapter Text

Dipper had taken off running into the forest without warning.  Norman could only chase him - Pacifica’s disembodied soul following close behind - and shout out questions.

“Dipper, where are you going?! What’s going on?!”

Dipper wouldn’t respond, his face as horror-stricken as Norman felt.  The medium was sickened by confusion and fear.  Questions kept bombarding his mind.  Who had done this to Pacifica? Why? Why was Dipper freaking out so bad about it?

Pacifica screaming at him wasn’t helping either.

“Norman, what’s happening?! Are you going to be able to help me or not?! Hell- ooo , are you even listening to me?!”

He tried his best to pretend it was his sister screaming at him - it would be easier to tune it out that way.

Up ahead, Dipper stumbled and tripped on a rock.  Norman ran to help him up.

“Dipper,” he started, but the older boy didn’t let him finish that sentence:

“Gotta find Mabel.  Gotta save Mabel,” he muttered.  “We gotta- we can’t let Bill get her.”

“Bill?” Norman frowned.  The name sounded vaguely familiar - he felt as if he had heard it mentioned, years ago.

“Bill Cipher!” Pacifica exclaimed.  “That was the thing’s name!”

“Bill Cipher?” Norman repeated, for Dipper’s benefit.  “Dipper, what is going on?  Who is Bill Cipher?”

“No time to explain.  If he’s possessed Pacifica the way he possessed me, then Mabel is in danger.  We have to find her before he-” Dipper cut himself off, shuddered.

Norman remembered where he’d heard the name before, now.  He remembered exchanging possession stories with the twins late one night a couple of summers ago.  Mabel’s had been funny.  Dipper’s, not so much.  Guilt swam in his head, seeped into his bones - if he’d remembered sooner, if he’d warned Dipper about the triangles in his dreams - but there was no time for that now.

“Pacifica,” it was no use forcing himself to remain calm, for he was frantic now as he spoke, “do you have any idea where they could be at all?”

The blonde seemed frustrated.  “No!  He trapped me outside and then when they left I tried to scream but Mabel couldn’t hear me, and I could hardly hear her, except she was talking about how much I would love this one place, with a bunch of flowers or whatever?  I don’t know, I couldn’t hear that well.”

“Dipper.  A place with a bunch of flowers…?” He offered.

The older boy nodded.  “I know where they are.”

And then, he took off running again.

***

There were no more flowers in the clearing.  The unicorns would not be coming to this spot anymore.  There was a ring of otherworldly blue flame, and Mabel was trapped on scorched, dead ground.  

“Get out of Pacifica, you- you moldy dorito!”

Bill had stopped using Pacifica’s voice.  It was his own that yelled in her face as he pinned her to the ground by the wrists.  “Come on, Shooting Star, is that any way to talk to an old friend ?!”

“You’re not my friend!”  She tried to shove him off.  It had been easier when she was twelve and Dipper was possessed.  Pacifica was stronger than her sleep-deprived brother had been at twelve.

“Mabel!” She heard a familiar voice calling for her.  

“Dipper!” She called out to her brother.  “Help m-mmmngph!” Bill covered her mouth and nose with one of Pacifica’s manicured hands.  

“Pine Tree can’t help you now,” Bill-cifica - for Mabel didn’t know what else to call him at this point - whispered in her ear, and licked a cold, slimy tongue up her cheek.  She bit down as hard as she could, trying to get the hand off her mouth - she couldn’t breathe - but it didn’t seem to phase her attacker at all.  If anything he seemed to like it!

“Leave her alone!” Dipper ran through the flames, pulling Norman in with him.  They had run through just fast enough that the flames barely licked their clothes.  “Mabel, Pacifica’s been possessed!”

From her place on the ground, she could only glare at her brother - ‘Yeah, you think? I nearly hadn’t noticed.’ - and continue to try and shove Bill-cifica off of her.  Her lungs were beginning to burn from the effort of trying to breathe.

“What’s the matter, Pine Tree?” Bill-cifica stood up - dragging Mabel with him, not taking the one hand off her face - “Don’t like my hot new bod?”

Dipper was screaming something, but Mabel couldn’t hear him. The lack of air was making her dizzy.  Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head as she lost consciousness.

“You let her go right now !” The older boy was practically foaming at the mouth as he dove towards his sister’s possessed girlfriend.  Norman ran after him, catching Mabel’s unconscious body as she fell ungracefully.  Dipper and what had once been Pacifica were rolling about on the ground, getting kicks and punches in wherever they could.

“Aw, but Pine Tree - Shooting Stars are so pretty when they fall, don’t you think?!”

“Mabel!” Pacifica - the real Pacifica - was nearly hysterical.

“She’ll be fine.  She’s breathing.” Norman replied, then watched in horror as Bill kicked Dipper in the side.  “Dipper!”

“I- I’ve got this!  We got him out of my body before, we can get him out of Pacifica’s.  I just need to find her weaknesses!”

“Weaknesses?!” Pacifica sounded offended.  “Tell him I have no weaknesses!  I have a personal trainer - I’m fit as hell !”

“Do you want your body back or not?” Norman replied.  “Pacifica, we’re trying to help you.  We’re trying to help Mabel .”  He wished Mabel would wake up so he could get out there and help Dipper.  But he couldn’t just leave her.

Pacifica’s spirit looked unsure for a second.  Only a second.  Then, the anger was back as she witnessed Dipper shoving her body onto the ground, hard .

Dipper stood triumphantly for only a second, though, before Bill rose again.  His grin looked too wide, too crooked, out of place on Pacifica’s face.

“Oh, Pine Tree,” that shrill voice grated in Norman’s ears.  “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?  Do you have any idea what I’m like…”  Bill’s voice changed again, got deeper.  “When…” he made Pacifica’s body stand “...I’m…” and then it rose into the air “... M͝҉̩͙̮̹͇̻͇̱̲͈̙̟̘͙̯͎̥͜ͅͅÁ̸̡̟̝̰͖̩̯̞̺͝ͅD̶̟̤̠̗̺̟̪̦̱̳͙̤͚͙̞̭͝ͅ ?͏̲͚̣̮͈!͏̶͚̟͎̳̣̮͍̮̬̺̳͖̦̳̙ͅ ”

Norman could feel his hands shaking.  That voice… he didn’t want it to be true.  But there was no mistaking the voice that had haunted him for weeks now.  He gasped.

Hovering in the air, Bill turned Pacifica’s face to him.  The eyes were no longer yellow, but bright red, as were the flames still surrounding him.  Bill didn’t make Pacifica’s mouth move, but Norman heard the voice all the same, the sound of thousands, around him, inside his head.

Y͏͏҉̙͓͚̳̙̭Ơ̕͏͔͎̫̲̟͎̠̼̱̰̻̥U҉̪̖̜̺͓̭̙̲͔͘- I̧҉̴̛̦͚͚̪̪̱̯'̷̕͠͏̼͈̮̻̝̘̳̩̣͉̠̹̺v̨͡҉̝̲̗͎̀͜e̴̵̡̯̰̹̪̱̘̟̙̮̩̻̗̯ ̶͇̰̼̙͎̮̮͇̰̣̮͢ͅb̧͘͜͞͏̲͙̲͙͉͓̲ͅè̘̝̙̣̱̻͔͟͝e̵̵̮͚͉̲̲͓̻̦͘͠ͅn̶̦̜̟̻͘͘ ͟͏̨̻̟̠̮̙͈̲͖͍̩͉̻̹̰͝l̡͏̨͇̼̱͕̟̖̜̲̀͘ò̶̷̱̰͖͚͖̤̤̗̭͟o̧̡͔͖̰̜̺̱͍͍̻̤̣̼̱̥̪̠ķ̧̛̳̗̺̻̣̻̫̤͇̜̻͕̰i̵̶̵̡̩̙̟̰̙̜̟̻̬̰̻͠n̨͏̡̼̭̠̪͈̳̲̱͎͓̗͇̹̀g̡̨̞̫͖̗̗͍̤̭̯̱̹̮͓̬͙͙̀̕͘ ͉̻̰̬̯͍͙̀͡a̴̸̛͖͔̙̬͠ḷ̨̗͙̤̗͘͘͜ļ̪̺͙͍̭͖͍̜͈ ̮̝̫̬͓̭͚̜͍̞̻̬͈̱̞̱́̀̕͜o̢̺̜̜͓͓̱͓̱̳͍̬̠͔͘̕͜͡ͅv̴͖͙̖̺̯̤̦̫͎̗̪͉̱͉̩̯ȩ̦̙͔̯̺̻͔̲͟͢r̨̨̞̹̳͉͉̖̥̯͔͔͢ ̢̟̖͕̟̮͉̲͇͘͜ͅf̸̹̣̗͈̻͔̲͈̻͙͖͕̪̗ͅͅo̴͙̻̦̻͠r̛̝̣̱̥͜͡͡ ̸̧̨̜̤̪̱͕̰͠y̧҉̺͔̺̥̻ò̶̸̹͚̞̤̙͢u҉̜̘̳̯̳̜̗̗̞̤̖̣̬,̨̢̹̮͍̲͚͇̱͟ ͏̷̯̺̺̬̟̙̣͜L͖̟̥͎͝i̷̷̻̩̖̙͙͈̩͔͔̹̖̻ͅţ̧̢̗̦̖̟̞̪̟̦̘͉̲̪̹͢ͅt̷̵͈̬̬̟̬̰͕̥̫̮̀͜l̴̨̜͓̖̝͕̟͟͠͞è͓̖̤̝̱̠̙̯̫̣̱̤̠̙̯̕͜ͅ ̸̖̫̹͚̬̮̳̮̼͙̩̭̤̠̞͎̕͠͞G͏̷̢̤̜̱̗̹̲̼̜͎̘h̨̡̥̯̰͉͚̕͟o͏̵̢̨̩̠̲̯̦̥̬̲̤̖͇̲̫ś̸̡̼̪̤̙͜͜t̩̘͖̗͚͕̱̦̻͔̤͕͓̀͞ͅ

Norman choked a little on his own breath, and shot Dipper a look.  Dipper was glaring straight up in the air, hands balled into fists and face scrunched up as if he was trying to come up with a plan of action.  The medium realised that Dipper couldn’t hear this voice.  Neither could Pacifica.  It was for him alone.

Mabel twitched in his arms, and he snapped his head down as she began to stir awake.

“Norman?” She asked weakly, and then her eyes widened as she shot up.  “Pacifica-!”

“Pacifica is gone!” Bill flicked a wrist, and Norman and Mabel were thrust apart by a great force, throwing them into the trees back-first.  Bill’s other voice continued, seemingly coming from the trees, from the sky, from the ground.

Ľ̸̷̨̨̡̹̪̞̟͇̲͎̮͍̳͓͉̝̠̞͐ͪ̓̇ͥi̝̞̭͕̱̮̼͖͎̪̝̤̦̝̦͙̟̣ͩͩͫ̎̓͌ͧͩͨ̀͜͟͞͡t̷̷͎̬̞̞̪̪ͣ͛͐ͯ͒̊̓͜͝t̵̡̤͚̩̭͙͉̪̳͚͚̖̖̭̘͖̤̗ͩͩ͒ͩ͊̋͒ͯ̀̀̑͋̎̓l̵̡̩͙̠̯̥͙̩̳̟͔̖͉̉̏̋ͩ͊ͤę̵͍̺̥̺̳̜͍̺̱̗͚̯̃̀ͥ̽̚͟͡ͅ ̵̨̖͍͚̖͇̤̮͙̗̲̰ͮ͊̀͛̆ͯ̊͌͂͞Ḡ̴̛̛̛͙̳̥̦̜͔̖͓̠̣̞̇̄̈́͑̑̅ͩ͌ͪh̢̛̯̥̲̙̪̺̤͇̼̜̼̩̠̼͚͎͉͋̇ͦ̓ͪ̔̊͒̆͜͡ͅo͈͎̳̰̭͇͈̻̙̞͇̦̞̾͌̇͂ͫͩͯͪ͢͟ͅṡ̵̢̲̬̮̖̠̤͚̮̠̟̯̀ͧ̽ͬ̀͜t̵̢̛̥̜̮̭̺̩̤̬͈̭̰͖̟̯̻̭̯͎͇͋̌͆̿̋̇͐͘͢,̶̵͙̼̦̻̦͉̤͔͔̩̘̼̪̪ͩ̃ͬ͋͂ͬ̔̀̎ͩ̚͟͠͠ ̴̆ͩ͛҉̞̹̺̘̫͕̠͓̝̠͙̳̳͈͢ͅL͋͛͑́́͊ͪ̊͒͑͑҉̵̷͓͎̝͕̖̗͇͓̰͓̪͓̠̖̖́͟ͅįͪ̈ͭ̓̾ͣ̊ͣͯ̆̒̾ͥ͠͏̬̥͇̘̤͙̱͈̗̮͉̙͖͉̝̝̠͡ͅt̷̻͙̱͓̔̐̈́ͣ͑͗͑͛ͤ̎ͮ͑̈́̇͆̀͘ţ̨̬͈̤̟̰̯̙̳̘̰̒̌ͩ̀̚͝ͅl̸̨̰̱͕͖͎̪͖̫̠̲͑ͨ̏ͧͩ͌̽̇͐͢e͇͚̤͖̱̩̳̜͇̜͇͖͖̼̤͕ͥ́́̿̽ͭ͑ͤ̿̋̐̀̕͝ͅ ̴̹̟̟̠͚͖̼̩͚̱͚͈͉̫͙̙̈̿ͣͮͣͣͣ̋͂ͯ͌̈ͩͣ͟͞͡G̛͖̰̗͉̟̱̠͇̳̺͎͒̿ͣ̂̈̃́̍͋̏̽̑̀̑̀ͮh̸̤͉̣̠͈̳̳̳̻̤̻̞̿̓̇̄̔́̋ͣ̋̆̽͆ͯ̓͂ͨ̄͢͞ȯ̷̡̦̞͎̱ͪ̓̎ͮͮ̓̓̇̀s̵͖̬̤̠̦͖̱͖̝͚̱̪̍̈͛ͬ̍ͨ̇̃͛̀͢͠t̞̗̥͎͔͉͐͑͑̾̄͆ͦ͒̄ͬ́̚͜ ̵̷̧̦̙͓̹̲̍͐ͫ̓ͨͫ̑ͤ̈́̑ͩ̔̏̀͜-̵̶̢̻̲͕͍͕ͬ͒̈́͒͆͗̏ͮ̓̇ͩ́ͅ ̵̼͈̫͔̺̤̋̊̈̄̀̆̾́͝t̢͆͒ͯ͒͗́͏̛̤͈̤̞̼͙̥͇̭̻͙͎ͅe̵̵ͭͣ͆̽̐̂ͬͪ̍ͫͨ̚͜҉͙̪̣̖̼̟͍̪͉̺͎̘̺̰͇͠ļ̡̹͚̰͇̩͈̝̌̂͂̿ͥ̍ͤ̇̊̂̌͛ͬͦ̈́͜͠͠l͓̖̲̮͓͎͍̞̣̙̳̟͚͚̥ͣ̃́ͫ̔͘͢͞͞ ̶̢̝̺̼͍̺̑̌ͦͫ̈̇́̑̄̑̔̏̃ͦ̉̓ͥͭ͝t̴̰̺̙̭̜̤ͩͮ͌̾ͥ̊̏͂͜͟͜ȟ̡̝͖̻̣̗̰̞̭͖̮͂̆̽̋ͥ͐ͯͫͩͯ̅̔̆ͤͩ̅͞ͅe͊̀̓ͯ̚͡͞͏̫͉͈̪̪m̶̡̫̲̮͚̺̤͙̝̪̟̱̝̳̥̖̩̗ͯͧͬ͐͛͊͡ͅ ̵̧̞̻̪̯̻̳͓͛̊̄̆̈̔ͮ͒ͩ̉̍̀͘͝w̳͚̮̣̦̤͓͕̻̪͓̼̹̑͂ͫ̿͋ͭ̌̀̿ͪ̊̿̊́́͜͝h̸̛͖̦̮̞͈̙̙͒̓ͬ͌̋͂ͩ́͐͊͗̊̽ͨ̀ͅo̷̔̅̽̄͊͆ͦ̕͜҉̘͎̦̬͉̺̹͡ ̸̢̟͔̪̱̦͚̩̦̞̬͔̜͖͈͎̹͐ͨ̍̀ͅsͫ̄̾͂ͮ̍̿ͫ̎ͬ͐̌͌̎̊ͮ͏̡̹̜̟̥̬̗̹͚͕̤͙̳̮̟́c̡̺̪̘̲̪ͧ̒ͯ͋ͭ̿ͬ͗̂͑ͤ̎̾̎̃͟͠ͅa̴̛͍̭̱̗͕̻̻̽͆ͥ͆ͪͧ͊ͧ̇͆ͦ̈́̽ͦ͟͞͞ȑ̫̤̫͚͈̮̱̮͕͇͉̯̯̞̝̞̤͚̍ͥ͑ͥ̄ͧͬͥ͆̾͂ͧ̊ͮ͑͗́̚͞ę̻̱̤̹̅̐ͦ̐̊ͪ͑̿ͮ͌́̀͘ͅs̴̡̢͔̤̫̬͕̯̗̼̙̫̳̱̉ͭͪͩ̅ͦ̎̂̏̂ͮ̃̀ ͛ͬ̒̽̈̾̑ͦ̇̒̈̅͂ͤ͆ͧ̊͗̂́̕͏̨̼͍̮̜̱͘y̯̪̘̬͚̥̼̝̭̦̯̬̓̌̆̆ͩ̎̔͗ͮ͆̑͜͞ȏ̴̩̻̟̗̬̪̳͙͈̱̌̆̇̊̊ͨ̀u̵̢̳̦̰̟̫͉͕̯̭͙̞͉͚̙̪͎̳͙̬ͮ̌̈́̎ͭ̃̍ͬ͑͒͟͢ ̗̱̯͍̀ͥ̎́͛̿ͤ̇ͣ̂͌ͤ̇ͮ̓̓ͥ͘͜ͅt͐̿̈ͣ͌̉̾̈́͑ͥ̔̾̌̊͏̢͍̼̻͓̣̲̬̝̖̩̩͓̝̹̫̕͡͞ȟ̸̨̥̬͓̙̭̩̣̞̝̰̪̻̞̹̗͓̜̯̓͗̾ͥ̈̀͢ͅe̽̊ͧͬ͛ͮͯ̏̉ͪͨͯ̊́͏̸̸̝̟̯͕͙͕͔͉̹͜ ̴̵̸̳̬̗͎̥̪̱͇͎͇͍̮̱͙͉ͨ̈́ͥ̅̀̽̓̋̉͒͌̑ͭͮ͜͡ṁ̜̺̰̣͎̳͖͌͗͗ͥ̑͆̂͐̍ͨ̈́͝ȏ̶̢̥̯̥̜̻̦̓̐̓ͧ̑̾̇ͥ͐̿͋͂̓̀̚̕̕s̈́̌ͫ̄ͪ̅̾̾̈̒̂̂͂̄̎ͮͮͭ̂͠҉̫̤͚͔̤̮͚͔͚͙̖̗͙͈̖͚̪͝ṫ̶̶̥̞͖̳̝̂̍͒̓

“Mabel!  Norman!” Dipper yelled, hopelessness evident in his brown eyes.

Norman winced and stood up, rubbing his back where it had slammed against the tree.  He looked around, saw Pacifica’s spirit trying to get through to Mabel.  He ran over to her.

“Mabel, Pacifica’s not gone - she’s here.   I can see her,” he was gasping out, trying not to let the fear show on his face.  “Are you okay?”

Mabel stood up.  “Come on, we have to go help Dipper!”

“Mabel, no-!” Pacifica called in vain as Mabel ran out to the centre of the circle to be with her brother.  “Norman, you aren’t seriously going to let her - I mean, you can’t be serious!”

“I’m sorry,” he shrugged, before running to join the twins.  She would have to be placated later.  For now, he just wanted to get her back into her body.

“Give up, Pine Tree!  You’re in over your head!” the voice coming from Pacifica’s lips, ten feet above them, was deep now, rage incarnate.  “And can I just say that you kids have been a pain in the neck for far too long ?  I’m going to enjoy getting rid of you today.”

Moving unnaturally - more like a marionette on strings than anything human - Bill lunged Pacifica’s body downward, aimed straight at Mabel.

Dipper acted quickly, using his shoulders to push his sister down, out of the line of attack - only to be slammed into, himself.  He slid nearly six feet across the scorched forest floor, almost to the red flames, Pacifica’s hands wrapped around his neck so that her nails were digging into the skin.  He thrashed beneath her body, knees making contact with the chest, but Bill’s rage would not be quelled.

He was going to kill Dipper.

“Dipper!” Mabel stood up and began to run, but Norman grabbed her arm, shook his head.  She turned.  “Norman, what-?”

“Norman, your eyes-” Pacifica’s ghost began.

He could no longer hear her.  He could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his head, and Dipper’s screams.  And then, he heard his own screams as he ran directly at Pacifica’s body.

“ Don’t you touch him! ”

With seemingly inhuman strength, he grabbed Pacifica’s shoulders and tore Bill-in-Pacifica’s-body off of his friend.  He was so angry all of a sudden.  His vision was tinted bright green, and he could feel what felt like lightning coursing through his bones and he was so. Very.  Angry .

Bill swiped at his face, but he grabbed the wrist, bent it back away from him with an awful quickness.  It was only then that Norman realised what he was doing, only then that he saw the sparks coming off his fingertips and running down the arms that had once belonged to Pacifica Northwest.

Horrified, he dropped her body.  He hadn’t known he could do that .  He’d seen Agatha’s spirit do it, sure, but that had been her thing.  She had three centuries of anger.  He wasn’t going to become that.

Bill laughed.

“Oh, kid.   You are something special, aren’t you?  Didn’t you wonder why I was looking for you, Little Ghost?”

“Stop calling me that,” Norman demanded, his voice icy cold.

“And get out of Pacifica’s body!” Mabel’s voice sounded from where she stood by Dipper’s side.

Bill stood up, turned to the side, spat some blood from Pacifica’s mouth.  Her eyes were back to yellow now.

“Tell you what,” his voice returned to its normal high pitch.  “You’ve amused me.  So I’ll go ahead and give your Doll back now - she wasn’t as useful as I thought she’d be, after all!”

“Hey!” Norman was the only one who could hear Pacifica protest this.

“But know this - the game has only just begun.  I’ll be watching you.”

The flames died down and Pacifica’s body crumpled to the ground as Bill disappeared.  Norman didn’t even think about what he was doing as he grabbed her spirit, shoved it back into the form on the ground.  He didn’t want to think about what had just happened.

Dipper limped over to him, holding a hand to his neck and wincing at the pain shooting through his body.  “Norman… you okay?  You don’t look so good.”

The younger boy nodded weakly.  Dipper hadn’t seen, had he?

Pacifica shot up, looked around frantically, experimentally clenched and unclenched her fists - then suddenly grabbed her side and glared at Dipper.

“You kick hard , asshole,” she muttered, then turned to Mabel, burying herself in the brunette girl’s arms as the other girl helped her up.

“Hey, I did what I had to do!” Dipper protested.  Norman grabbed his arm to get his attention, and shook his head as if to indicate not to talk to Pacifica that way.

“Can we just go?” he asked.

They all agreed it was for the best that they did so.  Norman turned back as they walked back towards the Shack, looked at the scorched ground - and flinched when he heard the whispers in the trees.

I̦̠̋͂͗̃'̸͇̰͙͒ḽ̴͈̭̪͚̟̦l̨͔̺̝̯̥̃̊ͧ ̯͇͇̫̐͑͐̈́ b̫̼̭̪ͥe̵͚̻ͦͦ̐̿ ͓̣̱͚͓̱͓̂͞w̲͈̜̬̘͊̇ͣ͆ͨ͋a̢͙̭̝͖ͩ̄̆̀̃͌ t̜ͣͩͨ̓̓ͮ̍c̦͖̗͉͖̻̮͑͠h̐̄ͨ̆̐ị̶͕̘̑̑ͧ̿̽ͫ̍n̹̠͍̟͔̐͗̈ͦ̿ͪ͋͘g̡̮͖̪̦̞̅̈̏ ̹̌̀͌

̥̗̘͍̬͎̀͗ͪ̾ͯ̄̕ȯ̵͍̻̰̠͙̫ v̲̣͓͕ͮ̈͑e̼̟͇̬͉ ŕ̆̄̈ͦ̓ ̼͍͈͖ͤ̑͗͢ͅͅy̴̙̲ͮ̽̈̔ o̳̘͈̐̓̂̅̿̐̀u̧̦̮,̮͎̹̗̪͛͘ ̹̼̲̜̗̦̭L͉̤̱͈̘̤̲ͥ̔ǐ͖̇̃̄̋ͫtͣ҉̣̩̮͎̣̱ţͨlͣ̈ͫ̈͒ͦ̚ ȩ̈ ̮̙̗̏̈͋͂̐̎͠

̒́̂ͪ͋̈G̸̣̙̯͉̱̤̏ͪhͭ͗̄҉ ỏͦ́ͯ͒͏̻̦͙̣͔̫s̷͇͇͍̖̅͋̑̄ͨt͕̥̺ͤͨ̎ͭ́

***

Mabel patched up Pacifica first, once they got to the living room of the Mystery Shack, where the first aid kit was.  The girls spoke to one another in hushed tones.  Norman couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw the tears in Pacifica’s eyes threatening to spill over.  She wouldn’t allow herself to cry, of course.  He looked away.  That conversation was not for him.

Dipper sat next to him on the floor, and just looked at him.

“Dip, what?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Norman gaped at him.  “Dipper, you still have red marks on your neck - you could have died - and you’re asking if I’m okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Dipper said a little too quickly.  Norman sighed, choked his anger back down.  His anger frightened him.  He didn’t want to become that.  And so he forced himself to calm down.

“It’s okay, I guess.  You’re not dead, so…”

The older boy offered a weak smile.  “Thank you, by the way.  For saving me, back there.”

“You would have done the same for me.”

Their eyes met, and for a few seconds it was wonderful, before the awkwardness reared its ugly head and both boys were blushing and looking away.

Mabel cleared her throat.

“Dipper, come here,” she said.  “I gotta patch you up next.  Norman… I think Pacifica wants to talk to you.”

Surprised, the medium looked up.  Pacifica was giving Mabel a rather unsure look, but the brunette girl nodded encouragingly.  Ah.  He understood.   Mabel wanted Pacifica to talk to him.

Standing up, he offered Pacifica his arm.  She didn’t take it, didn’t look him in the eye.

“Uh…” He realised he’d never really spoken to Pacifica before today.  “Do you want to go into the kitchen?”

She was unresponsive at first.  But then, she nodded, and followed him as he led her in.  They sat at the table.  Norman fidgeted a little, trying not to focus on the pain from where his back had hit the tree.  

“So…” Pacifica began, somewhat awkwardly.  “Talking to ghosts.  How long have you been doing that?”

“I don’t know.  My whole life.”

“I see,” She didn’t sound interested at all.  “Thanks for, like, saving my life, or whatever.  I guess it was pretty dumb of me, letting that- that thing in, you know?”

“...I don’t think you’re dumb,” he tried.  She turned, and he could see a small spark of emotion in her blue-green eyes.  “You were upset,” he continued, “and Bill took advantage of it.  It’s not your fault.”

“Did Mabel tell you why I was so upset?” She sounded as if she hoped Mabel hadn’t told him.

And suddenly, Norman knew.  He knew exactly how Pacifica felt.  He saw the scared little girl hiding beneath her icy exterior.  He saw her trying to hide from her own emotions because they scared her.  And he knew how to help her - it was no different than talking to a ghost, really.

“Your parents,” he began, and she shrunk back a little.  He tried again.  “You know… when I was younger, my dad used to yell at me all the time.  He didn’t believe that I could see ghosts, and he said a lot of things that really hurt.  My mother tried to help us find some middle ground, and I appreciated her effort, but she didn’t really understand, either.  And it was lonely.  It was so lonely.  I used to hide in my room a lot, you know, to stay away from them.  I couldn’t stand the idea of my own parents being afraid of me, you know?”

Pacifica’s expression was unreadable.  But at least she was looking at him.  He had her attention.  He continued:

“It’s… gotten a lot better over the years.  But my dad and I still aren’t terribly close. He just wants me to drop all this paranormal stuff - as if I have a choice.  I know he loves me, now - I didn’t know that for awhile - but he still doesn’t really understand.  I don’t think we’re ever going to be close.  And, I mean… I like Dipper and Mabel a lot, but this is something I could never talk about with them, you know?”

She still didn’t say anything.

Norman sighed.  “I guess what I’m trying to say, Pacifica, is that… Family doesn’t always have to be just blood.  It’s the people in your life who… who accept you, no matter what, and they’d do anything for you.  Dipper and Mabel are my family, too.  You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

“I used to do child beauty pageants!” Pacifica blurted out.  Norman immediately clamped his mouth shut and went silent, waiting for her to speak more, when she was ready.  He didn’t have to wait long.  “I was, like, six, and I remember asking my mother during rehearsal if she loved me, and do you know what she said?  She said, ‘Be quiet, Pacifica, and start your routine from the top.  You need to be perfect ’.  And, like, I won that pageant - of course I did - and I asked her again, and she said ‘I love my little winner’.  Not ‘I love you’.  That was the day I realised she’d never said it.  My father hadn’t either.  I learned at six fucking years old that I was worthless if I didn’t fit their definition of perfect... No one ever told me they loved me until Mabel did…”

“That’s a horrible thing to learn at six,” Norman tried to give her the validation she needed.  “Have you told Mabel this?”

Pacifica shook her head.  “I never told anyone before.”

And suddenly, she was bawling.  Norman hoped he was making the right choice when he scooted the chair closer to her, wrapped an arm around her (oh, that shoulder was definitely bruised), and pulled her to his chest so she could muffle her cries in his shirt.  He wondered how long it had been since she had allowed herself to cry like this.  If she was anything like him, too long.

“Why?” She moaned into his chest.  “Why do you care ?  I’ve been nothing but a bitch to you.”

“Because, I… I know what it’s like to need someone to care about you like that,” he attempted, weakly.  

She continued to cry wordlessly, and he just held her, awkwardly, until it subsided.  When she finally pulled away from him, her face was blotchy and streaked with tears and snot.  She sniffled, and Norman got up to grab a paper towel from the counter so she could wipe her face off.

“I’m never going to be like them, you know,” She grabbed the paper towel from him.

“Of course not,” Norman agreed.  “Mabel would never allow it.”

“It’s Norman Babcock, right?” Pacifica suddenly turned to him.

“Yeah,” he nodded.  She looked away.

“...thanks, Norman.”

He was about to say “you’re welcome” when Mabel’s voice yelled from the living room:

“Norman!  It’s your turn for Nurse Mabel!”

He shook his head, turned to Pacifica.  “Shall we?”

As soon as they got in the living room, Pacifica sat in front of Dipper and demanded, loudly, “I want in.”

“What?” Dipper looked confused, and more than a little silly with all the rainbow band-aids all over his arms and neck.

“This little mystery-solving thing you have going on - don’t lie to me, Dipper Pines, I know you have one.  I know you’ve fought that thing before.  And I want in.  I want revenge .”

“No offence, Pacifica, but I don’t trust you.  At all.”

“I know that,” she glared.  “You’ve made it more than obvious.”

“I think we should let her join,” Norman interjected, wincing a little as Mabel lifted his shirt to rub some balm on the bruises along his spine.

“You what ?” Dipper looked shocked.  “But - why ?!”

“Why not?” He shrugged.  “She already knows something is going on.  And you’re always griping about Mabel having to divide her time, but if Pacifica was with us, she wouldn’t have to.”

“Let’s vote!” Mabel exclaimed.  “All in favour of the Mystery Trio becoming the Mystery Quartet?” She raised a hand eagerly.  Norman followed suit, and finally, Pacifica did it as well.

Dipper huffed.  “Fine.  Whatever.  Mystery Quartet.  But,” he turned to Pacifica, “you’re on probation.”

“What does that even mean ?” She scoffed.

“It’s Dipper-speak for ‘welcome to the team!’” Mabel smiled.

Pacifica looked over and returned her girlfriend’s smile.  Then she turned to Norman.  He nodded at her, and she mouthed the words, “thank you.”

Chapter Text

It turned out, Pacifica found, that mystery solving wasn’t always exciting.  Sometimes, it was really boring.  But she wasn’t going to give Dipper the satisfaction of being right by admitting that, so she pressed on.  

“I just don’t get it,” Dipper scratched his head - his hair looked greasy, Pacifica noted with a sneer - and cross checked some notes that he had all over the floor.  They were sitting in the main room of the attic, in a square formation on the floor, Dipper directly across from Pacifica because neither of them would agree to sit next to one another. “It’s not hieroglyphs.  It’s not Aramaic.  It’s not alchemical symbols.  No possible Latin alphabet translation makes sense - ‘Odo cicle qaa’?  What does that mean ?”

“It’s not Chinese, I can tell you that much,” Pacifia shrugged, leaning over to put her head in Mabel’s lap.  Mabel looked down from the book she was looking through in order to smile at her, and the blonde softened a little.

“You speak Chinese?” Dipper frowned at her.

“My dad has associates that do; I only know how to say basic things like ‘Ni hao’.  Like I have the time to learn Chinese - that’s what translators are for!”

Her phone vibrated again.  Pacifica continued to ignore it, as she had been for days.

“And what happens when we do crack this code anyway?” She continued.  “What, you think it’s going to be a spell to banish Bill?  Because that seems way too convenient.”

“I don’t know , but it’s the only lead we have,” Dipper sniped.  “So unless you have any other bright ideas-”

“Dipper,” Norman flicked his best friend’s knee to get his attention.  He leaned over, whispered at him, “can you maybe lay off Pacifica?  Mabel’s right, you know - she isn’t that bad once you get to know her.”

For a second, Dipper looked as if he would protest.  But then his gaze met Norman’s, and his eyes dropped to the floor.

“For me?” Norman tried.  

The older boy nodded, but still didn’t look up.  Norman sighed, and looked over at the girls.  Pacifica was still laying in Mabel’s lap, sneering at one of the library books.  Mabel was looking down at her fondly, petting her hair.  Even after their big fight, they were still comfortable with one another in a way that made him feel… well, not jealous , per se, but perhaps wistful.

“ Ugh ,” Pacifica frowned at the page she had just turned to in A Complete Encyclopaedia of Symbolism .  “Did you guys know about this?” She turned the book around so that they could all see the picture of an eye within a triangle.

“Eye of Providence.  Back of a one dollar bill.  Basic Freemason symbolism,” Dipper nodded.

“They make one dollar bills?” She frowned.  “I really thought it was…”

“Dipper had this theory a couple years ago that Bill modeled himself after that symbol on purpose,” Mabel offered.  Pacifica’s features softened.

Norman frowned - if that was so, wasn’t it possible that it could work the other way around as well?  Or was he just getting paranoid?  The nightmare hadn’t returned yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time.  He knew , somehow, that Bill still had an eye on him.

“Hey, dudes,” a fifth voice sounded from the staircase before he could develop this thought.  Shortly after, Soos poked his head up into the attic and said, “there’s these two girls in the gift shop looking for you guys! They seemed pretty mad.”  It didn’t seem to occur to Soos that this was in any way worrisome, and he laughed at himself.  The quartet all exchanged somewhat confused glances.

“Two girls?  We don’t know any two girls,” Mabel said with mock-thoughtfulness.  It couldn’t have been Candy or Grenda, who were both out of town this summer.

Pacifica’s phone vibrated again, and the rich girl sat up.  “Oh my god ,” she groaned, and rolled her eyes.  “I know who it is.”

“Tiffany and Staci,” Mabel knew without being told.  “Paz, do you want me to go down with you?”

“No,” the blonde’s frown deepened.  Then, she hesitated. “...okay, maybe.  But don’t say anything.”

Mabel nodded, and helped her girlfriend up, before turning to the boys.  “You two coming?”

Dipper shook his head.  Of course he did.

Norman hesitated, looked over at Pacifica.  She was already setting her face into its familiar snooty expression, but something in her eyes as she caught his gaze made his chest clench.

He had always had a big damn heart, hadn’t he?

***

Tiffany and Staci had been kicked unceremoniously out of the gift shop by Stan Pines for “causing a scene” - really, was slamming a hand on the counter and loudly demanding to talk to Pacifica ‘right fucking now’ that much of a scene?  The stupid kids and their stupid tourist parents didn’t have to look - but they refused to leave the property entirely.  Pacifica found them on the front lawn.  Behind her, at her request, Mabel and Norman waited on the porch.

“What do you two want?” Pacifica glared down at her nails, placing one hand on a popped hip in a pose of uncaring cockiness.

“I knew it!” Staci pointed.  “I knew you were ditching us for those losers!”

Pacifica shrugged unapologetically.

“So the minute summer comes around, we’re suddenly nothing to you?  Is that it?” Tiffany added.  “Pacifica, you knew how much that party meant to Staci - the least you could do is explain why !”

The blonde started to say that Northwests never explained anything , but stopped herself.  That was something her parents would say.  Hadn’t she just said a few days ago that she would never end up like them ?  Didn’t she owe it to Mabel and to Norman and, hell, to herself to not end up like them ?

“Because,” she began, unsure of how she was going to finish this sentence.  “Because I’m not interested in doing any of that stupid stuff anymore.  I’m not really interested in a neverending stream of shopping for clothes I’ll only wear once and partying with people who I don’t care about.  It’s stupid.”

“Stupid?!” Pacifica’s friends - could they even be called that at this point? - exchanged offended looks.

“Yeah.  Stupid,” she repeated coolly.  “Whatever, I’m over this.  Are we done here?”

“No,” Staci grabbed Pacifica’s wrist before the blonde could walk off.  “How can you say we’re stupid when you’re here with- with Sweater Girl?!”

“The weirdest girl in Gravity Falls,” Tiffany added.  “Pacifica, this is social suicide, and you know it.”

“I don’t care,” Pacifica pulled her wrist away and rubbed it - it was still bruised and tender from a few days ago.  “You don’t even know Mabel.  She’s- she’s-” She began to choke on her words.  What could she say ?  How could she make them see ?

“She’s what, cool?” Staci snorted.  “As if .”

Pacifica turned to look at Mabel and Norman standing on the porch.  Mabel was staring at her with an unreadable expression.  Her large brown eyes sparkled, and the technicolour kittens on her shirt seemed to be dancing in the breeze.  Nothing about her was cool.  The blonde turned back to her friends.

“She’s… different.”

“Yeah.  Understatement of the century,” Staci snorted again.

“She makes me happy,” Pacifica’s tone was challenging, even defensive.  “Happier than you two have ever made me.  She has more kindness in her little finger than either of you two have put together.  Go ahead, be jealous of her.  Be jealous that I like her better.  Because I don’t care.  Because when I’m upset, and want someone to talk to, at least I know I can go to her .  You two don’t even notice when I’m upset.”

“How would we know that, Pacifica?!” Tiffany demanded.  “You never talk to us!  We’re supposed to be your friends , but you treat us like accessories!  Who was there for you that time the heel on your Louboutins broke?  Huh?  Staci and me.  Who held your hair back when you totally started puking on my father’s boat?  Staci and me.  You really think that if you wanted to maybe, I don’t know, talk to us like people, that we wouldn’t be there for you?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Pacifica glared.  

“No, Pacifica.  Fuck you .  You don’t get to act like we’re the ones in the wrong when you’re the one who’s being a hypocrite!”

The blonde couldn’t think up a snappy reply to that.  Tiffany was being a total bitch, but she wasn’t wrong .  Pacifica had never attempted to talk to them about her problems.

“You never tried to talk to me either, you know,” she grumbled.

“What do you think we’re trying to do now?” Staci’s glare was ice cold.  “It’s not that hard of a choice, Pacifica.  But we won’t bother you anymore if you’d rather waste your time here with a bunch of freaks.  So choose.  Mabel or us?”

Pacifica rolled her eyes.  Staci was so melodramatic.  Without even hesitating, she replied, “Okay, fine, I choose her.”

Staci looked like she was going to cry.  “I-! I’m l eaving !” she turned on her heels and began to stomp off.  “Come on , Tiffany!”

Pacifica wondered at first if she should call after her, but what would she say? She wasn’t going to take anything back.

Tiffany didn’t leave.  She just stared at Pacifica, shaking her head slowly.  “You know, Pacifica, Staci really looks up to you.  She wants to be just like you.  Or, at least, she used to.”

The blonde hadn’t known that, actually.  But it didn’t change anything.

“Maybe she shouldn’t,” she shrugged.

“Maybe,” Tiffany agreed.  “Pacifica, there’s something really wrong with you, you know that?  You’re messed up.  You’re just messed up.  If Mabel thinks she can handle how messed up you are, then I guess you made the right choice.  But she’ll see, sooner or later, you know.”

With that, Tiffany left her to go after Staci.

Pacifica turned and stomped back to the porch where Mabel and Norman were just kind of awkwardly watching her.

“Can you believe them?” she crossed her arms.  “Can you… believe…” her voice faded, and suddenly the fury was gone, replaced with fear.

‘ How long until she sees you for what you really are, and leaves you?’

Pacifica suddenly felt very unsure, and began to retreat into herself, began to hide behind her familiar emotional walls.

Mabel grabbed both her hands and pressed their foreheads together.  “Pacifica, don’t listen to them.  Sometimes when people are angry, they say things they don’t mean.”

Norman looked like he wanted to comment on that, but he didn’t.

“I think they did mean it,” Pacifica shrugged, her voice emotionless. “Whatever.  I’m over it.”  She wasn’t over it.

Norman and Mabel looked at each other.  The medium let out a heavy sigh.

“Pacifica, you’re not messed up,” he told her.

“But everything they said was right !” she blurted out before she could stop herself, before she could get her walls completely up.

“And you recognise it, and you’re trying to change,” he said, calmly.  “That’s… the furthest thing from messed up.”

“But it changes everything!” she protested.

Mabel kissed her, and she wilted a little, calming down some under the spell of her girlfriend’s kiss.  When Mabel pulled back, her brown eyes were warm, and Pacifica squeezed her hands.  Then, she turned to Norman, not letting go of Mabel.

“Norman… that thing you said the other day… I…”

He looked at her, waited patiently for her gather her thoughts - god , she had misjudged this kid - and she didn’t say anything else.  She couldn’t find the words yet.  She just had to hope that Mabel and Norman knew, the way they always seemed to.

After all, they were all she had left, now.

***

Dipper was pacing when they got back into the attic.

“Uh…” Norman began, somewhat awkwardly.

“What’s the story, morning glory?” Mabel got his attention, and he snapped his head up to them.

“I found the images in one of those books!”

“You what ?!” Mabel and Norman yelped in unison.  Dipper grabbed an occult encyclopaedia and flipped it to a page about two English occultists from the 1500s.

“We were looking at it all wrong - it’s not matching up with a human language because it isn’t of this world at all!  I knew it!  Look!”

Norman grabbed the book, and frowned.  “Enochian - the language of angels.” He closed it.  “Dipper, are you seriously saying Bill Cipher is an angel?  Because I don’t think-”

“I’m saying that people of the past could have been convinced he was an angel.”

“Slow down, von Daniken,” the medium replied.  “And stop pacing.  You’re making me dizzy.”

“Of course!” Dipper was manic.  “Gideon thought he was a demon, I thought he might be an alien, but we were both wrong.  And we were both right . I was just too smart to see it before!”

“Ooo-kaaay,” Mabel breathed.  “Dipper, you clearly need to sleep better; you’re not making any sense-”

“Mabel, just listen to me!  Just hear me out!  I didn’t notice it because it was too obvious, but then Pacifica-”

“Hold up,” the blonde interrupted.  “What did I do?”

“The Eye of Providence!” he exclaimed, pulling a one dollar bill out of his pocket.  “In Freemasonry, it represents the Grand Architect of the Universe.  Think about what Bill said all those years ago Mabel - ‘reality is an illusion.  The universe is a hologram.’”

“So he’s a god,” Pacifica tried to understand.  Dipper was rambling like a crazy person.  He wasn’t making any sense.

“God, demon, angel, alien - call it what you like.”

“Great,” the rich girl muttered sarcastically.  “Glad we spent three days reading all this boring old shit for you to come to that thrilling conclusion.   Really helpful.”

Dipper held up the paper from the priest and waved it in everyone’s faces.  “Don’t you see what this means, though?”

The other three teens didn’t reply.

“This paper,” he continued, “can only be one of two things.  Either it’s something that can stop Bill, or it’s something from Bill.  If we can just get a little bit closer, figure out one more piece of the puzzle-”

“Okay, then what does it say?” Pacifica frowned.  Dipper stopped.

“I- I don’t know yet.”

“Of course,” she interjected.

“But I’m going to find out !”

Chapter Text

Dipper didn’t have the code to distract him anymore.  Sure, he still had to translate the Enochian, but it wasn’t nearly as much work as it had been trying to figure out what the symbols were.

And without the distractions, it was getting harder not to remember.

Oh, yes, Dipper remembered kissing Norman.  How could he forget?  No matter how much he tried to, he had never quite succeeded in shoving the memory out of his mind entirely.

A fluke.  That had been what it was.  Just a fluke.  He had been drinking, after all, hadn’t he?  Not much, granted, but maybe he was just a lightweight.  And they had been so close , and Dipper had been on top of Norman, and gravity wasn’t on his side.  It wasn’t impossible that maybe he’d slipped and fallen - fallen right into those blue, blue eyes.

A-and if Dipper had let his mouth linger a little, then what?  Norman had been soft, warm… it was just an accident, just a stupid silly accident.

Because he couldn’t be gay.  He just couldn’t .  Because it would change everything .  It would change the best friendship Dipper had ever had in his life.  It would ruin it.  If something went wrong, they couldn’t ever go back to how things were before.

He would lose Norman forever.

Everything would change and he wouldn’t have his best friend anymore, and that terrified him more than all the ghosts and demons and eldritch abominations in the world.

So he couldn’t be gay.  He just had to keep things as they were.  

He wasn’t sleeping well.

Dipper kept dreaming about that night.  Sometimes, his dreams didn’t stop where the memory did.  Sometimes, they continued into full make out territory.  Sometimes, Dipper dreamed of falling into those blue eyes forever, of lips and tongues and fingers touching and- damn it.

He would always wake up in a cold sweat, curled into Norman’s side.  Breathing in his scent , even.

Usually, he would proceed to turn over, away from Norman, and face the wall, nervously staring into the darkness for hours until the sun came up.  He would try to think about nothing.  Even if, lately, he was having more and more trouble keeping the thoughts away.

Tonight, however, when Dipper awoke, hands and face sweating, Norman was not in the bed with him.  

He pursed his lips and wiped his palms on the sheets.  The other side of the bed was still a little warm, and Mabel was still asleep (both twins were pretty heavy sleepers).  Norman couldn’t have gotten far.  He walked out of the bedroom, to the staircase that led downstairs, and strained his ears to listen for something, anyth- ah.  There was the sound of creaky kitchen cabinet door that no one could ever open quietly.

Dipper made his way downstairs and into the kitchen doorway, somewhat relieved to find that Norman was just pouring himself a bowl of cereal and not having a panic attack or something.

“ There you are,” he said, not worrying terribly about waking his family members.  

Norman jumped a little, spilling some of the milk he was pouring.  “Dipper, go back to bed.  I’ll be fine.”

“Another nightmare?” Dipper leaned on the doorframe.  His friend hesitated to answer, and he felt his stomach drop.  “Norman, why didn’t you wake me up?”

The younger teen shrugged, sat down at the table with his cereal.  “Seriously, I’m fine.  Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s too late for that,” Dipper pulled up a chair next to him.

“What are you even doing up?”

“Th-that’s not important.” Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but blush a little, remembering Norman as he had just seen him in a dream.  

Norman looked down at his bowl, but didn’t take any bites. He sighed, shakily, and Dipper suddenly felt guilty, though he wasn’t entirely certain why.

“They’ve gotten worse?” he tried.

Norman nodded.  “I should have told you before about - I think he’s sending them, you know?”

Dipper knew.  Norman didn’t have to tell him who “he” was.  It had to be Bill Cipher.  After all, who else could control nightmares like that?

“He wants something from me,” the medium continued.  “I don’t know what.”

“We’re going to stop him, you know,” Dipper furrowed his brows, determination in his voice.  “That paper upstairs, I’m going to translate it and we’re going to stop him.”

“Are we, Dip?  Those symbols were found in the pocket of a dead man and in the lab of a guy who mysteriously disappeared.  There’s no one we can go too.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t get all hopeless and pessimistic on me,” Dipper replied.  “Don’t give up on m- on us ,” he suddenly corrected himself, appearing a bit flustered.  “I mean, uh, us being the Mystery Tri- er, Mystery Quartet, now.”

“I’m not giving up.  I’m just…” Norman trailed off, shrugging.

“Scared?” The older teen offered. “You admitted that last time.  But… Didn’t you once tell me that… it was okay to be scared, as long as you don’t let it change who you are?”

The smallest trace of a smile sprung to Norman’s face when he heard that.   Had he once told Dipper that?  His grandma had certainly told him often enough.  He wished, not for the first time, that she was able to follow him here to Oregon.

“You’re scared too, though,” was what he ended up saying.  “I can see it.”

“Doesn’t matter.  Scared or not, we’re already tangled up in… this,” Dipper made a strange hand gesture.

Norman imitated it.  “What is ‘this’?”

“You know, this!  All this!” He gestured again.  “We just need… just a few more clues.  We’re so close.”

“Do you have a plan, then?”

Dipper’s shoulders wilted.  “I’m… still trying to figure one out... Man, if I’d known what I know now when you met Father Crazy, I’d have so many questions for him.”

Norman shifted uncomfortably and pushed the bowl of cereal away from him.  He wasn’t very hungry anymore, all of a sudden.  “I haven’t seen any sign of his spirit since…”

“Since he disappeared on you,” the older teen completed that thought.  “You think he’s moved on?”

“Someone that determined not to move on?  I doubt it.  You didn’t see his face when it happened, Dip.  He looked- I dunno, scared of me.”

“Who could ever be scared of you?” Dipper seemed genuinely surprised, and Norman looked away and rubbed his wrists.  The concern in those brown eyes was too much for him to look at right now - there was so much Dipper didn’t know.

“You’d be surprised,” he deadpanned.

“Hey,” Dipper scooted closer, placed a hand on Norman’s knee - the twins always did tend to get rather touchy when they meant to comfort someone - “Norman.  I’ve seen a lot of horrible, terrifying, freaky things, okay?   You are not one of them.  The only thing that scares me about you is...”

He trailed off.   ‘The only thing that scares me about you is the possibility of losing you.’  Dipper couldn’t possibly say that.

“What?” Norman looked at him, prompting him to finish.

“...the way you scream your head off on water slides.  Absolutely terrifying, dude.”

“I do not, shut up,” the younger boy shoved him.  “That was one time , Dipper, and it was only because you and Mabel pushed me.”

“You think priest guy maybe saw you on a water slide?”

“Shut up ,” Norman rolled his eyes.  Dipper was still leaning on his knee, close enough that he could smell his breath if he were so inclined.  Their eyes were locked, and Dipper was leaning in closer, almost as if-

“What are you two nerds doing in here in the middle of the night?”

Mabel’s voice was a shock, and both boys jumped back, propelling their bodies away from one another.

“Wh-what the hell are you doing up?” Dipper sputtered.  “Y-you were asleep!”

“Oh?” the girl raised one eyebrow.  “Do you two always do this when I sleep?”

“I had a bad dream.  Dipper was helping me out,” Norman offered, and watched Mabel’s face change from amusement to worry.  She ran over and leaped onto the surface of the table itself in order to cup either side of his face with her hands and stare at him with those big, brown eyes, full of concern.

“Mabel, really?” Dipper groaned at this, but his sister ignored him.

“Are you okay ?” Mabel was asking.  Norman nodded, to the best of his ability with her holding onto his head.  “What happened?  What was it about?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Uh… I guess it was about Bill? I, uh-”

Mabel was suddenly squeezing him in a tight hug.  He tensed up at first, but then let it happen.  

“Pacifica hasn’t been sleeping well either.  That’s why I woke up, she just called me and my ringtone is like really loud.  But I’m going to tell you what I told her - don’t you worry your pretty little head.  We’re gonna kick his ass .  Isn’t that right, Dippin’ Sauce?”

“Mabel, get off the table,” Dipper muttered.  She nudged him with her leg.

“Not until you admit I’m right.”

“Not until you let Norman go, it doesn’t even look like he can breathe.”

“Dude, don’t use me as a hostage in your argument,” Norman muttered.  But Mabel released him from her grasp anyway, and slid off the table into a chair.

“We were just talking,” Dipper told her, “about that priest.”  Mabel wrinkled her nose in disgust, and he continued. “I know, I feel the same - but I was saying I wish I could ask him some questions about-”

“So, what, you wanna go back up to the cliffs and look for him?” She didn’t let her brother finish that sentence.

“We can’t,” Norman answered.  “He’s disappeared entirely.  It looked like he moved on, but that just doesn’t make sense.  Ghosts can’t move on unless they want to, and he very clearly didn’t want to.  Whatever happened, I couldn’t sense him when we went into that part of the forest again.  I don’t know how to get ahold of him.”

“Too bad you can’t summon him, like on TV,” she shrugged.

“You mean like with a Ouija Board or something?  Those things don’t work, they’re just toys,” he scoffed.  “Besides, every horror movie fan knows you don’t summon ghosts to you.  It never works out.”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion, anyway,” she wasn’t phased.  Dipper, however, looked to be deep in thought.  “Uh… Dipper, did you hear me?   Not a serious suggestion.  I was joking .”

“Hm?  No, I know, I was just thinking… I mean, in theory, it could work...”

“Dipper, I can see ghosts all the time, I’m not going to use a Ouija Board.”

“No, no, of course not, that’s not what I meant.  But calling a spirit to you…  Mediums do that all the time, don’t they?  That’s how they get book deals.”

“You mean like a séance?” Norman felt a little uncomfortable.  “I… I don’t know, I’ve never tried… I mean, I’m not that kind of medium.  At least, I don’t think I am.”

He didn’t know which was worse - watching Dipper’s face fall with disappointment, or realising Dipper was trying and failing to hide this disappointment.

“That’s fine, that’s- that’s fine,” The older boy nodded.  “Mabel and I would never make you do anything you didn’t wanna do, you know that.  Let’s just forget it.  We’ll figure something else out.  We always do.”

Damn it.  Dipper trying to reassure him was somehow only making him feel guiltier.  Norman sighed heavily.  He was going to regret this, he just knew it.

“I could try, though.  If… if you think it’ll work…”  

Now both twins were looking at him.  He wanted to sink down in his seat to the floor.  This was quite possibly the dumbest thing he had ever agreed to, he knew it already.  A séance ?! Was he serious ?!  How cliché.

“I’ll look up protection circles and start looking for candles,” Dipper actually seemed excited by this prospect - damn it, it was cute - and started to rise when Mabel grabbed him and forced him to sit back down.

“Slow down, bro bro!  It’s like two in the morning!  We are not doing it right now!”

“Right, right, of course not.  There’s too many variables; I need to plan-”

“ Dipper ,” She got his attention, and gestured to Norman with her chin.

The older boy paused, then sighed.  “Norman, you know Mabel and I won’t let anything hurt you, right?  I mean, if some ghost tries something, I’ll throw salt in its face or something.”

Norman nodded.  It wasn’t the ghosts he was afraid of.  He could handle ghosts just fine.

“Are you sure you’re cool with this?” Dipper tried again.

Another silent nod.

“...do you want to try and get some sleep? I’ll be right next to you if the nightmare comes back.”

“Y-yeah.  I’ll try,” Norman nodded for a third time, even though this time it was a lie.

***

He had tried to stay awake.  He really had.  But he had been too tired, and as soon as his eyes closed he was right back in the strange, dark forest with its jagged black trees.  The nightmare picked up right where it had left off - with Norman panting for breath in front of a tree with an eye that happened to be glaring down at him.

D̶̂͆̆́͘҉̼͕̮o̡̞͂̿ͩ̆̈̕͘n̅͛͛̄́̍̇̃͏̝̞̦̩̪'̰͇̭͇̯ͧ̄́ͅt̿ͪ͂ͬ͑͏͝͏̘̘̟̦̣ ̢͔̭̳͔̘̦̰̼̳̇́̋̎́̽̑͛́̚m͍̼̘͔͍̝̙̣͂̊̿ͧ̈ͪͩͅạ̵̷̩̳̦̜̦̳͇̭ͨ̋̀͢k̴̥̤͈͍̥̤̦̈ͦ̋̑̈́ͨ̚e̖͔̗̯͆͐͛̍̍ͪͬ ͔͓̞̞̠̼̺̈́ͤͬ̾ͫ̂̕t̏ͥ̌̆ͭͣ͋̚͡҉̫͔͔ͅh̡̧͓̟̰̼̖̣͍̦̑ͭ̇̊͑̿i̷̬̱̠̘̘̬͇̩͓̽͋̀͑̀̄͋ͦ̕̕s̪̬̪̑̂̆͑̌̓̄̍ͯ́͟ ̈̏ͤͨ͛̆͏̜͙̳̤̯̻ą̮̞̭̝̯̬͐̆ͤͯ̌̈́͒͟ñ̅҉̟̘̪͔͍̻̙̼͠y̧̋̊̆̀͏̯̖̮͚̬̹̫̣ ̵͚̫͓͗̈͋͢͜

̸̩ͤ̏̉̿̒ͅḩͩ́ͧ̏͐ͤͧͧ҉̝̳̤̲̪̪̜a͚̘͉̙͙̟ͮ͋ͭ̋͠͞r̡͔̽ͦ̐̂̊ͭ́d̼͉̝̫̜͎͙̃ͧ̉̍̌̋́͠e̟̲͖̠̺͑͐ͮ̔͌̈́͆̑́͘͟r͔͖͓͚ͯ̋ͯ ͖̬͍̖̥̻͕̞ͦͥ́t̷̨͙̩͉͊̆ͮ́͋͂ͥͯ̀h̙͍̟̝͎̱́̊̀̍̅͒̀̋́͘a̵̬̣ͪ̑ͦ̑̔ͩͦ́n̥͓̤͎̰ͭ͐̍̏̿ ̤͕̭̗̠̏̈́͂ͪ̕͡i͚̣̖̪̲̪̹͖ͦͤ̽ͭ͆̚͜ṫ̡̛̙̜̦̌͆̾ ̧͙̹̯͇̣ͧ̽̂ͮ̅ͥ̋̇h̡͔̼̭͊͛ͣ̄ͤ̇̈́͢ȧ̲͕̗̣̳̹̓͒̓͒͜͝͠s̶̪̹̲̘̥̲͓̱̞͗͑ͧ̊͑̈͑ ̼̟͖̩̙͎̑ͮͨͤ͜͠͠t̵͍̮̟̼̎͋͒o̶̢̠̬͚̮̦̜͖̣ͮ̾̆ͧͫ ̸̜̯̰͇̖ͦͤ̂̀͡ͅb̿̇ͯ̍̾ͫ͛҉̤̹̳̥e̡͙͍̲̖̤̤͚̽̽̀ͨ͋̅̌̈́̉͜ͅ,͚̥͎̬͈̙ͥ̾̒ͯͤ̂̿ ̙ͥ̆͌̄̑̄

̷̸̠̯̥̗̳̦̻̥͌̍̈́̒ͥ̐Ḷ̸̯̘͎͇̻ͨ̊̒̏͂i̛͔̪̯͈̯͚̲ͪ̆̎͟ͅt̬̣̥̲̭ͭ̏ͯͨ̋̅͋ͫt̽ͬ̋ͥ̍̔͏̗͇̝̥̯̙l̶̬̻͇͇͖̼̻̼̐ͪ̓̍̿̈́͞e̴̵̱̠̲͚̫͊̈́̏͊̈́ͧ͡ ̣̪͍ͨ̄ͭ̐ͤ͘G̴̏̆̀̚͏̼͈͚̗͟h̼̬̪͔͖̱̻͐̋̋̌͌͐ͮͬŏ̶̝̻͓̎̎̔͢s̷͍̲͉͍̉ṱ̙̲͒̂ͫ̊̆͋́̚̚͘

He tried to clench his eyes shut, to look away, but he couldn’t.  The eye went black, flashing red symbols - the same Enochian letters that Dipper was trying to figure out, in the same order.

Norman wanted to look away - his heart was pounding, his head was rushing, he was so very frightened - but he couldn’t even move.  He couldn’t even stand to run.  He was tired.  He was so tired .

“Why are you doing this?” He knew he wouldn’t get an answer, but he asked anyway.

T̲͚̪̠̲̲͇̼̏ͤͧͮ̎͂̉̽̆͞͠͠h̷̷̡͎̩ͮ̑̐̍̓e̘͓͙̼̽̆ͮ̊͑̽̋ ̸̰͖ͣͫ͟d̝̗̮ͯ̇a̪̻̥̽̋͐ͨr͕̯̩̙̯̈́̆ͨͫ̾ͭͬk̈́̇̆̀̐҉̵̫̜̼n̞͍̞̺͎̠̓̍̑̀e̡̱͎͎͔͚̠̦͗͐̈ͤ̔͝s͇̣͉̲̹ͧ̑ͭ͂̈́ͨ͘͞s̢̯͔̮͉̟̮̎̈͌̀ͤ̏͢

̻̰̠̐̋ͤ̾͛̚i͓̖̫̝̟͍͑ͭ̅̏̍͋̑͡ș̫̲̫̼̱͈̏ ̴̼̫͓͔͉̥̒͡ͅc̃ͩͭ͊̓҉̼̗͓̩̺ó͎̖̘̭̗̤͉̍͂ͮͮ̇͞ͅḿ̢͍̞͇͙̻̲̪̎̚͜i͋ͨ̍͑͏͍͕̝n͉͗̅̚g̵͉̝͙̹̺̦̿̂ͩ

͉̞̊̓͑̿̓̈́̿̈Y̼͍͚̆̆ͧͬ̂͠õ͍̺͈̼̳̰̦̓u̪͓̭͎͚̻̮̣ͣ̋̎̇ͥ̄̐̑̓ ̟̫̘̻͒͑̽̀c̖̲͕̘̋ͥͦ̈͆̔̉́á̡̘̻̈̊̽n̠̰̹̙͚̞͚̲̾̍̽ͮ͒̐́̑͢͡'̜͈͚͋̑ͪ̔̉t̶̗̱̬͓̫̞̺̬̓̌̄̓ͫ̀́͘

̷͕͎̙̫ͪͧs̨̹͙͛̓͌͘ṱ̙̑ͫͯͧͦ͊ͦơ̛͕͕̎ͨ̉̑̌ͤͦp̵͍̼͍̿̌̿̍̚͟͠

̵̸͙͚͍̼̝̯̦̟ͧ͊͆̊̾̆m̪̲̳͑̑ͣ͟͜e͎̬̜̪͆̀͞͝

“I don’t know what that means !” Norman yelled.  The voice was coming from everywhere as it laughed at him, taunting him.  He tried to cover his ears to block it out, but somehow it only seemed to grow louder and louder.

I̡͈͚͎̣͉͍̘̒ͫ̎̒̈̚͢t͎̤̻̳̖̜̊͋͂̈́̈́̓̀͝ ̛̻̜̗̝̯̤̅̽ͣ̿̓̿ͪ̕ẅ̷͚̦̞͇́̔ͯͅi̶̶̝͉̝̺ͤ̆ļ͇̱̗̘̲̲̖̯ͮl̮̬̽͊ͦ̈́̅̾̑̇̀͢ ͮ͛̐̑ͯ̽͋̚͟͏̺̫̫̺̫͎̳̕a̴̞͇̱̗͚̅̒ͤ̌̒͟ͅl̨͇͈̓̍̇͞ļ̫̣̄͂͐̈ ̩̗̪̂ͨͧͬ̎̑̑ͥ̊̕ͅb͙̯͈ͥͧ̈́́e̢̯̝͕̖̮̦̣̪̎ͤ ̨̼̙̣̀̽ͨ̍̀o̹͎̣̹̬̒ͨ͠v̢̟͈͉̰̠͎̖̞͌́e̔͊̐̇̊͊̚͠͏̻̣̰̼̟͖̹ͅr̻͕̿̈́͜

ͧͣ҉͕͔̙͍̳͍s̳̈́̊̓̐̅̀̚ȏ̸͌̅̂̀͏͔̝̠͖͖̖̰ő̷̪̼̦͚̲͍ͯͦṉ̛̜̖̖̯̼̞̬͓͌͗̄̀

Chapter Text

“We remembered the salt and candles, right?” Dipper asked as the four teens hiked up the path to that spot in the cliffs where Norman had first contacted the priest.

Mabel held up a blue box of offbrand table salt.  “For the fifth time, Dipper, we didn’t forget anything.”

“Are these birthday candles?” Pacifica frowned down at the packet she was holding.  Mabel had asked her to hold it so that they could also hold hands.  The blonde had only ever seen tiny candles on birthday cakes in movies, and was surprised to find out they really did exist.  This fact irritated her even more than the fact that she didn’t own hiking shoes and was forced to dig last season’s Ugg boots out of her closet for this expedition.

(Surprisingly, her mother hadn’t said anything about her old boots or her hair tied up in a ponytail.  Mrs. Northwest had just frowned at her as she left.)

“It’s what we had at the Mystery Shack,” Dipper replied.  “I mean, candles are candles, right?  They don’t have to be big black things with scent names like ‘midnight magick’ or anything.  I mean, I wasn’t even sure if we’d need four or five of them.  Some books said to place them in a pentagram shape, but then others said to place one at each cardinal direction, and still others-”

“Well, there’s four of us,” Mabel was surprisingly chipper as she cut her brother’s rambling off.  Pacifica suspected her girlfriend was being extra cheery on purpose, so as not to let anyone’s mood sink.  “So you can place five candles, and then we four can sit in the whatever directions you just said.  I call west - west is best!”

Pacifica tuned out whatever Dipper said in reply to this - the twins’ playful banter didn’t particularly interest her right now - and noticed Norman looking straight ahead, rather than joining in at teasing Dipper.  She realised that he hadn’t spoken this whole time.  Should she say something?  Was that normal?  She frowned - was she actually worried ?  Since when did she ever worry about others?  What did one even do when one was worried?

Why didn’t Dipper notice it?  Wasn’t he supposed to be, like, in love with the medium or something?  Mabel had certainly told Pacifica so enough.  But the male twin was so focused on some to-do list he’d made, he didn’t really seem to notice anything.

What the hell were they getting themselves into?

They finally made it to the clearing where they had once had their picnic.  It looked much the same as the last time the Mystery Trio had checked it out, except for the scorch marks now on some of the rocks.  Dipper noticed those .

“That’s concerning…” he muttered, going over to one of them to kneel down and scratch at it.  “There’s no other sign of fire, though.  It’s almost as if someone just wiped coal on the rocks or something…”

“It’s probably nothing,” Pacifica huffed. “Probably some stupid kids were smoking pot up here or something.  Who cares?”

“I’ll note it just to be sure,” he ignored her and whipped out a notepad from his pocket to write down what he was seeing.

“Your brother is crazy,” she muttered to her girlfriend, who only laughed a little in reply.  

When he was done, Dipper gestured to Mabel to hand him the salt.  He began to pour it onto the ground in a circle (if a somewhat lopsided one) big enough for the four of them to sit inside.  

“Don’t tell Grunkle Stan we took this,” he cautioned as he did so.

Mabel made her voice go gruff in imitation of the old man as she said, “Dipper, I paid good money for that horrible offbrand salt, and you just throw it on the ground!”

Dipper rolled his eyes and held out a hand for Pacifica to give him the candles.  She did, and he opened the packet, placing five of them at roughly equidistant points along the circle’s circumference, so that if one drew lines connecting them, they would form a star.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the paper he had been attempting to decode, and placed it in the circle’s centre, putting a pebble over it to keep it from blowing away in any sudden gust of wind.  The last thing he did was to pull out a digital recorder and press the button to record the whole escapade.

“This is stupid,” Pacifica suddenly said.  Three sets of eyes looked to her, and she repeated, “it’s so stupid .  What is this, some cheap horror movie?  Do you really expect something so cliché to work?”

“If you have any better ideas, by all means do tell us, your highness,” Dipper snipped.  “But if not, this is what we have to go off of right now, stupid or not.”

“Norman probably thinks it’s stupid too,” she grumbled.  She hadn’t really intended for anyone to hear it, but both twins had. They both looked at Norman, who was standing somewhat awkwardly outside of the salt circle.

“I, uh…” he finally spoke, voice quiet and a bit rougher than usual.  “I just don’t really… I don’t really know how I feel about this.”

“That’s a valid way to feel,” Mabel replied.  “You can still back out if you want.”

Norman shook his head.  “I’ll be okay.  Let’s just get it over with.”

Dipper nodded, lit the candles, and gestured for them to come into the salt circle - “Don’t step on it!” - taking out a compass and gesturing for everyone to sit.  They ended up sitting the same way they did when in the attic - Dipper on Norman’s left, Pacifica on his right, and Mabel across from him.  They all grabbed each other’s hands.

“Whatever you do,” Dipper warned the others, “once we start, don’t let go of each other’s hands.  Don’t blow out the candles.   Don’t break the circle.”

Pacifica still thought this was stupid.

“Norman?” he gestured for his best friend to begin.

“Uh…” Norman looked unsure.  “I’ve… never done one of these before.  What am I supposed to say?”

“Don’t mediums just kind of know how to call spirits?” Pacifica didn’t mean to sound snippy; she honestly didn’t know.

“I’ve never had to call them to me.  They usually just show up, whether I want them to or not.”

“Just do your best,” Mabel told him.  “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

Norman still looked lost, but he tried again.  “Uh… sp-spirits of the, uh, church in the woods. We… we call to you now.  Come to us, someone, anyone from the church.  We won’t hurt you.  We just want to talk.”

It was an awkward and clumsy attempt, but it was a start.

No one said anything after.  For a full two minutes, they sat there and waited.

Truthfully, Norman sort of agreed with Pacifica.  It was kind of a stupid idea.  He had no idea what he was doing, or if it would even work.  But Dipper was holding his hand so fervently, he kept trying.  For him.

“Come to us, please,” he asked again.  “We promise, we don’t want to hurt you.  Come to us, spirits.”

God, what was he even saying?  This was stupid.

“It’s not working,” Pacifica said again, although she didn’t let go of his hand. Norman didn’t know what to say to her, so he did what he supposed Dipper or Mabel would have done - he squeezed her hand, although tentatively.  She went silent, and he took a breath and tried for a third and final time.

“Spirits from the church in the woods.  Please come to us now.  We wo-”

“You can stop repeating yourself, ya turkey.”

The strangeness of the comment caused Norman to blink a few times before his eyes focused on the ghost in the centre of the circle.  The other three teens didn’t seem to see the spirit, who looked as if she had been no more than fifteen or sixteen when she died.  She had a shock of short, red hair, a gold crucifix necklace, and a rather disgusting looking exit wound taking up most of her face, as if she had been shot in the back of the head.

He held onto Pacifica’s and Dipper’s hands a little tighter.  Dipper nodded, to let both of the girls know they were in the presence of the dead.  As if they even needed to be told - the entire air had changed.  It was colder, heavier.

“You’re from the church in the woods?”

The ghost frowned.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I was there.”

Norman’s first instinct was to try and help her move on, but he knew that Dipper was counting on him for information.  Still, it never hurt to be polite.

“My name is Norman,” he told her.  “That’s Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica.  We’d like to ask you a few questions.  Is that okay, uh…?”

“Emily,” she gave her name, crossing her legs to sit even though she was floating a few inches above the ground.  “And I suppose that’s jake.”

“...‘jake’?”

“I mean it’s fine to ask me things, just peachy keen.  You some sorta dumb Dora or something?  Try to keep up.”

He paused, tried to figure out what best to say to her.  He had to frame every question through her worldview - the view of a Christian teenager of sometime between the two world wars - so as not to offend her.

“You wanna know about this, don’tcha?” she gestured to the wound on her face.  “Cut to the chase, I don’t have a lot of time here.  If they notice I’m gone…”

“What happens if they notice you’re gone?” Norman prompted her to finish.  When she didn’t, he tried again, “Why don’t you just start from the beginning, Emily?”

“We weren’t crazy, y’know,” she began.  “Father O’Reilly brought the church here when the Methodists ran our family out of Boring.  God sent him a vision on a dream - Gravity Falls was in need of a spiritual awakening, and our Father was who was going to deliver it.  We built the first church downtown, those of us who had followed them out there.  Those was simpler times.  Father O’Reilly really knew his onions back then.  But the dreams kept coming…”

Norman repeated what she had said, for the benefit of the others, and then asked, “did everyone have the dreams?  Or only the priest - uh, Father O’Reilly?”

“Just him.  Father was a holy man, after all,” she said reverently, before her face fell.  “And then things started gettin’ all wet.  Then it was into the woods for our church, and no more giggle-water or dancin’ parties for ole Emily.  But I couldn’t argue with Father - that’d be like arguing with Jesus.  An’ it wasn’t as if I could just leave.”

“Why couldn’t you leave?” he asked the ghost.  She sighed.

“I couldn’t.  Everyone I knew and loved was in that church.  The dreams and the sermons weren’t the dangerous part - the friendships were. Life was worth nothing without my friends.  Or my family - you know, my whole family was part of that church.  And I really believed , you know.  I believed that it was what our God-given mission was, to cut ourselves off from the sins of the outside world and live as Heaven intended.  I believed the dreams were sent by angels.”

“What’s she saying?” Dipper whispered, and Norman told him.

“Hey, your friend here’s pretty cute.  He insured?”  Emily seemed to be noticing Dipper for the first time.  Norman frowned, and decided not to answer that question.

“Emily, what happened that lead to-”

“To the hole in my head?  Yeah, yeah, I’m gettin’ there, hold your horses.  Well, Father O’Reilly started gettin’ more paranoid, y’know?  Started mumblin’ to himself, talkin’ about signs from above, about how the time was coming soon.  Left the compound for awhile to ‘see a man about a dog’, came back with a flivver full of Colts.  We was supposed to be peaceful, y’know?  We came to Gravity Falls to rejoice in the power of prayer, what did we need guns for?”

“Did you talk to Father O’Reilly about your concerns?” Norman tried to remain calm, even though he didn’t like where this conversation was headed.  He tried to keep focused, concentrating on his friends’ hands.  Dipper’s sweaty palm was what allowed him to keep himself grounded.

“I meant to.  I followed him put one night - he stopped sleeping when the ‘angel’ began to visit him in the waking world, to reward his faith.  Imagine my shock to learn he wasn’t talkin’ to no angel - it was the Devil!”

“The devil,” Norman repeated.  He had to remind himself that through the eyes of someone brainwashed into a rather extreme offshoot of Christianity, of course anything amiss would be labeled ‘demon’ or ‘devil’.  “What did you do, then?”

“I hollered, that’s what!  Father was so angry I’d followed him - he grabbed me by the wrists and tied me to a tree and whupped me good, he did!  Left me there ‘til mornin’ so the rest of the congregation could learn from my mistakes.  The Devil had seen me though, and came to me that night, tried to placate me.  He tried to give me a fake name, but it wasn’t a very good one, y’know?  Bill Cipher?  Like Louis Cipher - or Lucifer!  It’ll take more than that to get the hood over these eyes.”

Norman shivered a little, but repeated everything, word for word, for the rest of the quartet.  

“What could I do?  What could I say?  I wasn’t about to get whupped again!  I kept my mouth shut, but the Devil wouldn’t leave me alone.  I began to see him everywhere.  In the trees, in the walls - he was always watching.  And that’s when Father got the sign.”

“What’s the sign?” the medium asked, managing - just barely - to keep his voice from wavering.

“These symbols,” Emily gestured to the paper she was floating over.  “The Devil sends ‘em, you know.  Father O’Reilly said it was the Lord telling him to bring his children - that’s us, the church - into the kingdom of Heaven. But I don’t take no wooden dimes - it’s a warning that you’ll be in Hell with him soon!”

Norman felt his breathing speed up involuntarily.  His hands began to go lax - he had seen those symbols, in his dreams - but both Dipper and Pacifica were holding onto his hands tightly, keeping him from breaking the circle.

“I tried to warn everyone,” Emily continued.  “When all those guns was brought into morning service, I tried!  But no one listened - they were all under his spell!  So I tried to leave a message for the coppers, in case they came to check us out, but I guess no one ever came.  The world turned its back on us, and Father O’Reilly shot me in the head before I could finish my warning.  Can you believe that?  My own father!”

“Y-you mean like your pastor…”

“No, he wasn’t just my pastor - he was my father!  My own daddy didn’t believe his daughter, little ole Emily O’Reilly!  But you believe me, don’t you, Norman?  You have to tell Gravity Falls.  You have to warn them about the Devil!”

“You were the one who carved the message in the wall of the church,” Norman realised.  What evil force could have driven a man to shoot his own daughter in the head?  His heart was pounding.  He felt sick.

Emily nodded, manic now as she grabbed the medium’s shoulders.  “You do believe me!  Norman, you have to break the circle!  You have to let me out, you have to free me from his grasp!  He has all our souls trapped with him!  Do you know how hard it was for me to get to you?  You have to free me!  If he finds out I’m here-”

But, just as had happened with the priest, suddenly there was a too-bright flash of light.  Emily wailed:

“No!  I won’t go!   Noooo !”

It was no use.  Soon, she was gone.  All the candles blew out, and the wind almost sounded like…

No, that wasn’t the wind.  It was laughter.  It was a high, shrill, unmistakable laughter.  Pacifica dropped his hand and screamed, and Dipper pulled him up, ready to run.

Norman fell forward, dizzy and ready to faint, but Dipper caught him.

“Are you okay?” Dipper looked worried, holding him up, one hand on his chest and an arm wrapped around him to keep the medium from falling forward into the dirt.  The laughter had suddenly stopped, and the air was back to how it had been before Emily had shown up - warm and light and summery.  Norman pushed himself away from Dipper, somewhat reluctantly, and nodded, catching his breath.  The dizziness was thankfully beginning to subside.

“Dipper, that- that message, those symbols, they’re a warning that-”

“Shhh,” Mabel was at his other side, shushing him.  “Shhh, you can tell us everything when we get back to the Mystery Shack, Norman.  You don’t look well.  Let’s get some food or something in you, and make sure you’re safe, and then we can worry about the symbols.  Okay?”

He nodded, numbly.  He didn’t know how to tell the twins that if Emily had been correct, not even the Mystery Shack was safe from Bill’s watch.

Chapter Text

Pacifica slammed the door behind her when she got back to the Northwest mansion.  She pulled her hair out of the ponytail, eager to get into the shower and wash away all the sweat and dirt from the day.  Mystery solving was gross.

“Pacifica, your mother and I would like a word with you.”

She froze on the stairs at the sound of her father’s voice.   Ugh , why now ?!

“Can I shower first?” she whirled around to face her parents, matching their glares at her.

“No,” Preston crossed his arms.  “We’ve been putting this discussion off for long enough.  Your mother and I are concerned with the company you’ve been keeping lately.”

Pacifica pursed her lips.  They weren’t concerned about her , no.  Of course not.  That would have meant caring about someone other than themselves.

“What are you talking about?” she rolled her eyes.

“Staci’s mother and I went out for cocktails today,” Mrs. Northwest stared down her upturned nose at her daughter.  “She mentioned Staci saying something about you ‘ditching’ her for… that Pines girl.”  She said ‘Pines’ the way one might say ‘raw sewage’, and Pacifica felt a twinge of protective anger.  How dare her mother talk about Mabel with that tone?

“So what if I was?” she challenged.  Why deny it now?

Her parents exchanged looks.

“Pacifica…” Mrs. Northwest began, then sighed.  “Preston, deal with her.”

The blonde snorted.   Typical .

“Pacifica,” her father glared, “you’ve been told countless times that only three things matter in life: money, winning, and looks.  I didn’t get to where I was by cavorting with those who have none of those things-”

“You didn’t get to where you were by doing anything !” Pacifica interrupted her father.  “None of us did!  Nathaniel Northwest was a fraud , remember?!”

Her parents both gasped.  She had broken the unspoken agreement to never mention that again, not when they had thrown so much money at that problem to cover it up.  Her father looked furious , but Pacifica wasn’t about to back down.  Something strange and new had awoken in her, something that made her chest burn when she thought about her parents speaking lowly of Mabel, or even of Norman.

Was this what caring felt like?  Why did it hurt so much?

“Maybe I am spending a lot of time with Mabel Pines - that’s her name, by the way, since you two were too rude to ask,” she spoke through gritted teeth.  “So what if I am?  I like Mabel.  And... I like her brother’s friend Norman, too.   They don’t care if my great great grandfather was a fraud, or if I have money or designer clothing or gold trophies.  They like me .   That is the most important thing in life, Dad .”

Her parents looked shocked, and she shook her head, turning to walk up the stairs.

“Whatever.  I’m going to go take a shower now.  Good night .”

“It reflects badly on our family for you to be spending so much time with the lower class,” Preston called up after her, anger icy cold.  “I demand you call Staci or Tiffany right now, and make plans with them!  They’re far more suitable friends for someone of your status!”

“You demand it?” Pacifica wrinkled her nose.  She turned to face them again.  “And what if I don’t, huh?”

“You can’t possibly be serious,” her mother tried to smile, but it looked nervous.  “Pacifica, darling , teenage rebellion doesn’t suit you.”

“How would you know?  You two don’t even know what I like !”

“You like what we tell you to like,” her father commanded.  

“What are you going to do, cut me off?  Kick me out?  The paparazzi would be all over you - it would reflect so badly on the Northwest reputation.  Public opinion is important, Dad.  Or did you forget that?” She spat all his stupid words back at him, using them as weapons.  “And besides, didn’t you always tell me Northwests are never wrong?  Well guess what - I am a Northwest and I refuse to have you tell me that this is wrong when it’s the only thing that’s ever made me happy!”

“You’re making a mistake!” he yelled at her.

“Then let me make it!” she screamed.  “It’s my mistake to make!"

Preston Northwest clenched his fists, his wife making little nervous noises at his side.  His daughter was right that he couldn’t do anything that would make the public come down on him - if the public got angry enough to search their family history carefully… Or, worse, if Pacifica got angry enough, and went to the public herself with that terrible family secret… It would ruin him.

“Fine,” he repressed his anger.

“Fine?” Mrs. Northwest gasped.  “Preston, darling , I thought you were going to deal with this.”

“But Pacifica,” he ignored his wife, “you are not taking my limousine to that place.  If you want to cavort with poor people, you’ll have to take the bus like poor people.”

That seemed fitting punishment.

“ What ?!” Pacifica shrieked.  This was so unfair.

Her father smirked - in that moment she really hated him - and raised an eyebrow as he asked, “Are those losers worth that humiliation?”

The blonde hesitated as she really thought about what her father was implying.

She had said horrible things to Mabel, but Mabel had always forgiven her, had been patient with her, had offered her kisses and soft touches to melt away her hatred.  She had outright ignored Norman, not even seeing him as being worth her time, and yet he had seen right through that cold façade and found the root of her anger, and he hadn’t even judged her for it.

She had been possessed by an evil force that the English language didn’t even seem to have a word for, and they had stayed by her side.  She’d cried in front of them - her make up had smeared, and her face had gotten blotchy and red - and still, they’d stayed with her.  Even when she was a useless addition to their mystery solving team - what did she know about chasing the paranormal, after all? - they still hadn’t given up on her.  Mabel and Norman didn’t care about her money, or her looks, or how many things she had won.

And what was it that Norman had said to her?

“Family doesn’t always have to be just blood.  It’s the people in your life who accept you, no matter what, and they’d do anything for you.”

Everything was suddenly so clear.  Her ivory tower was crashing down around her, and Pacifica didn’t care anymore.  She had made her choice.  She knew who her real family was now.

She stood up a little straighter.

“Yes,” she glared down at her parents.  Their smiles fell.  “Mabel and Norman are worth taking the bus.  They’re worth more than that to me.  They’re worth more than any of this .   And if you two can’t accept that, then I feel sorry for you.”

No one spoke or moved for awhile.

Then her father sighed.

“Pacifica… I think you’re making a big mistake.  But I won’t waste any more of my valuable time trying to help you.  If you crash and burn, that’s your problem.  Your mother and I are done bailing you out.”

“Preston!” Mrs. Northwest gasped, but the patriarch merely shook his head and walked away.

Pacifica couldn’t believe it.  Had she… won the argument?

Did it even matter anymore?

She ran into her room and slammed the door, sinking to the floor as she took a few deep breaths.  She had made her choice.

And then, suddenly, she was laughing maniacally and crying her eyes out all at once as she leapt to her feet, tearing all the trophies off her shelves and throwing them on the floor.  Pageant trophies, mini golf trophies, croquet trophies, horseback riding and ballet and polo trophies - none of them meant anything .  

When this had subsided, she wiped her face off, and sent for one of the maids through the mansion’s intercom system.

The maid was quick to come to the room, and very clearly confused by the mess on the floor.

Pacifica suddenly realised she had no idea what the maid’s name was.  Her mother had always just called them all Maria, regardless of what they looked like.

“What’s your name?” she asked, calmly, not believing the words that were coming out of her mouth.

The maid was taken aback, and stuttered, “R-Rosalyn, Miss Northwest.”

“Rosalyn,” Pacifica tested the name out in her mouth, and nodded.  “I’m getting rid of all of these.  Do what you want with them.  Maybe you have some cousins that want them or something, I don’t know.  I’m going to take a shower.”

The maid - Rosalyn - merely nodded and watched as Pacifica grabbed a towel and left her bedroom for her private bathroom.

The blonde felt a little warmth growing in her chest.  She didn’t know what it was.  But she knew that she liked it.

***

The illusions of safety and security had completely fallen away for Norman.  The nightmare was coming every night now, sometimes even twice in a night if he managed to fall asleep again.  Even when he was lying awake in the middle of the night, listening to the slow, even breathing of the twins - how could they sleep ? - he still felt as if he were being watched.  It was different from being at home, where occasionally wandering ghosts came through and kept him up.  He wasn’t afraid of them.  This feeling was so inhuman, so alien , even.

Sometimes Dipper would turn over in his sleep, curl into Norman’s side and cuddle closer to him.  Norman never knew what to do in that situation.  Sometimes the other boy would wake up and turn back towards the wall - the younger teen would pretend to be asleep for this - but sometimes he wouldn’t.

It didn’t help his already poor sleep cycle.  If anything, it magnified that feeling that something was watching him.  Bill had already tried to kill Dipper once - he would likely try again.  He might even try to use Norman to do so.  

They were running out of time, and every new clue made the situation even more confusing.

“You’re awake,” a feminine voice surprised him out of this worry, if only partially.

Norman turned his head to Mabel, who was sitting up and looking at him.  Why was she awake?

“Couldn’t sleep, I guess,” he offered weakly.

“Me either,” she stood up and walked over, sitting on the end of Dipper’s bed.  In the darkness, Norman could just barely make out the hint of a smile on her face.  (The reflection of the moonlight through the window on her retainer helped.)  “You two look super cute right now, you know.”

Dipper was nestled up at his side again, and Norman blushed.  

“If I’d known you were awake too, I would have said something sooner,” Mabel continued before he could protest.  “Norman, no matter what that Emily girl said, you’re not going to die.  You know that, right?  Dipper would do anything to keep that from happening.”

He frowned.  He had told the twins - and Pacifica - earlier what Emily had said about the symbols, and that he had started to see them in his dreams as well.  

“I know,” he replied.  Of course he knew Dipper would do anything to keep him safe.  That only worried him more.

“Norman,” Mabel said his name again.  

“Hm?”

“ I won’t let it happen,” she answered.  “We’re going to beat this.  There’s four of us against one of him.  I may not be a huge statistics nerd like Dippin’ Dots here, but I mean that’s gotta count for something.”

He admired her for trying, but it wasn’t working.  He didn’t respond.

“That’s not all that’s worrying you, is it?” she gestured to Dipper, who was still sound asleep, thank god.

Norman sighed.  He didn’t want to have this conversation, even if, logically, it was an easier problem to deal with than the whole Bill thing.

“He’ll figure it out in time, you know,” Mabel reached over and pat his hand.  “It took Pacifica a really long time, too.  She didn’t admit she liked me until the end of last summer, even though I kind of already knew.”

“This from someone who used to be called ‘boy-crazy Mabel’...”

“Oh, I still like cute boys.  I just also like cute girls.  What can I say?” she giggled a little.  “Guess I’m just shallow, huh?”

“It’s not really the same,” he started to say.  

“Isn’t it?” she asked.  “Norman, he’s literally snuggling you right now.  And don’t even try to tell me you don’t like him .”

“I…” he began, feeling a bit unsure.  Should he tell her about last summer?  “It’s not really important right now.”

“Not important ?!” she gasped, and he shushed her.  This was not a conversation he wanted Dipper waking up for.

“We might not make it out of this summer alive.  I think that’s a little more important.”

He hadn’t meant for it to come out as sounding irritated.  But it had, and there was no taking it back.  Neither of them spoke for awhile.  Then, Mabel was holding his hand again.

“It’s okay not to know all the answers right now,” she told him.  “And it’s okay to be scared.  But you can’t let that fear stop you from trying.  That’s how evil wins.”

She sounded so sure of herself.  How could she be so optimistic?  How, in the face of such horrifying darkness, could she manage to find even a speck of light?

Not for the first time since he’d met her, Norman thought Mabel was incredible.  If Dipper hadn’t been on top of his right arm, he would have sat up to hug her.  What he actually did was to bring her hand to his chest, and hold it there, over his heart.  

She seemed to understand.

Chapter Text

If she was being entirely truthful with herself, Mabel was frightened, too.  But when Pacifica texted her late at night about her family problems, when Norman wasn’t sleeping for fear of things in the walls, when Dipper was neglecting everything about his life in order to try and solve this mystery - what could she do, but be positive, try to be there for everyone?  It was what she was good at, after all.

“You guys aren’t eating your smiley-face pancakes,” she frowned from over at the sink where she was doing the dishes from breakfast.  Or, rather, Stan’s dishes and her dishes, as both the boys were still picking at theirs.  “The mouths are bacon, what more do you want?  Dipper, put the journal away and eat something.”

Her brother shot her a glare as he took a big bite of the scrambled eggs that made the “hair” on the smiley-face pancakes.

Satisfied with this - for now - Mabel turned her attention to Norman.

“What about you?” she walked over and stood over the younger teen, who was absentmindedly doodling on a notepad Dipper had left on the table, rather than eating.  “Norman, you usually love my smiley-face pancakes!”

“Hm?” he looked up at her, exhaustion clear in his face.  “Oh.  Right.  Sorry, Mabel.  Just not that hungry.”

“Not that hungry ?!” she exclaimed.

“That is what he literally just said, yes,” Dipper chimed in, and she reached over to smack the brim of his hat.

“You’re always hungry in the mornings,” she continued, not glorifying her brother’s snide comment with a response.

Norman didn’t respond.  Mabel watched his eyes drift downward to the paper.  Seeing what he had drawn, he quickly tore the paper out and balled it up, tossing it toward the trash can and missing.

Mabel got up to throw it away for him, wordlessly.  Norman hadn’t wanted her or Dipper to notice what he was drawing, but she’d seen the Enochian letters.  

She frowned and looked back over to the boys.  Dipper was trying to sneak glances into his journal beneath the table - how many times had he read that thing over the years?  It was a wonder he didn’t have it memorised by now - and Norman kept shooting little nervous glances around the room, hand twitching by the pen as he seemingly tried to keep himself from picking it up and doodling more.

“You guys ,” she said, getting their attention, “Pacifica is going to be here soon… well, soon-ish.  Do you really want to still be eating when she gets here?  Come on, for me?  Just three more bites?”

“Okay, mom ,” Dipper rolled his eyes, but took another bite.  Even Norman picked up the bacon mouth and took a tiny nibble.

She didn’t like seeing her boys looking so dejected.  There wasn’t even any playful banter going on between the two of them about the difference between fast and slow zombies, or something equally dorky.  

“Dipper,” she sat down and placed a hand on her twin’s arm. “Maybe we should take the day off?  Maybe ease up on the mystery stuff for a day?  I’m worried about you guys.”

“Ease up?!” he exclaimed.  “Ease up ?! Mabel, we don’t have that luxury - Bill isn’t easing up, he’s cracking down!  We have to do that, too.”

“But Dipper…” she sighed, and gestured over to Norman with her chin.  “Norman is…”

Dipper leaned in and whispered - which was probably unnecessary, as the medium seemed to not be paying attention to them anymore - “Norman is afraid of Bill.  I know.  I’m trying to beat this as fast as possible because it’s the only way I have to protect… you guys.”

“Nice switch-off, bro-bro.  Totally subtle,” she raised an eyebrow.  “But what’s more important?  Solving this?  Or him?”

“Him,” Dipper didn’t hesitate, and Mabel would have found it cute under any other circumstance.  “But that’s why I have to beat this.”

Norman tore out another page and crumpled it up.  This time, Dipper noticed, and turned his head to face his friend.

“What’re you drawing?” he started to ask, but Mabel, thinking fast, cut him off:

“Dipper, if you’re not going to finish your breakfast, tell me now so I can take your dish!  But then you don’t get to ask me for snacks later, capiche?”

Both boys shot her confused looks, but then Norman seemed to understand.  His eyes widened momentarily as he grabbed the crumpled paper and hastily shoved it in his pocket, away from where Dipper could see it.  He wouldn’t look Mabel in the eye after that.

She frowned.  What was going on , here?  If he didn’t want them to see, why did Norman keep drawing?

Dipper took another bite off his plate, seemingly more to do something than out of any real hunger, then grimaced and pushed the plate away.

“Can’t do it.  It’s no good when it’s cold,” he offered an explanation.

“I think I’m done too,” Norman’s voice was quiet and unsure, and he wouldn’t look at either twin.  

Mabel rose, slowly, keeping her eyes on both of them as she took the plates away to put them in the sink.  She was even too worried to be upset that they hadn’t appreciated the breakfasts she’d put together for them!  When she turned around, Norman was doodling again - he didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it - and Dipper was watching, his expression a mixture of confusion and shock.

Inwardly, she cursed.   Damn it .  

“Uh, Norman…” she said, trying to get Norman’s attention, trying to warn him even though it was already too late, even though Dipper had already seen.

Awareness flitted through the tired medium’s eyes, and when he saw what he was doing, he sighed, and put the pen down, pushing it so it rolled away from where even his long arms could reach.

“Crap,” he muttered.

“How long have you been able to do that?” Dipper demanded, and Mabel cringed.  She knew her brother didn’t mean to be so insensitive, but it was still frustrating.  She considered smacking the brim of his hat again.

Norman looked a little taken aback, and Mabel was about to jump to his defense, when he said, “I’m not sure.  I think it started this morning…” His voice trailed off, and he looked profoundly uncomfortable.

“Dip-” Mabel began, but her brother didn’t let her finish before pulled Father O’Reilly’s paper from where he had been keeping it between two journal pages.

“It’s the same symbols,” he pointed out.

“I told you, I’ve been seeing them in my dreams,” Norman was beginning to look a little upset.

“Dipper-” Mabel tried again.  Again, her twin cut her off:

“Can you read them?”

That hadn’t been what anyone was expecting.  Thrown off guard, Norman allowed himself to look up at Dipper.  

“I… I don’t speak Enochian…”

“But you can suddenly write it.  It’s not that much of a stretch,” Dipper actually seemed excited by the prospect.  Mabel couldn’t believe it.  She opened her mouth to tell him off - loudly - for being so selfish, but Norman spoke before she could:

“I guess I could try.”

The medium grabbed the notepad again, and Dipper handed the pen to him.  The symbols didn’t take that long for him to draw at all.  They came as natural as writing English would.  Norman looked at the paper once it was done, brows furrowed…

…and then suddenly chucked it across the room and exclaimed, “ No !”

Everyone froze for a few seconds.

“Norman?” Dipper was the one to break the silence.  “Are you alright, man?  Hey, if you can’t read it, it’s not a big deal, we’ll just-”

Norman shot up, distress clear in his features, and speed-walked out the room.

“N-Norman, wait-!” Dipper called out after him, but Mabel pulled him back down by the back of his shirt.

“Dipper, you idiot .  If you had just paid attention to me, you would have seen he didn’t want to talk about it!”  This time, she did smack the brim of his hat.   Hard .

To his credit, Dipper at least had the decency to look upset.

“Oh man, Mabel, I didn’t mean to-”

“I know you didn’t,” she grabbed both of his hands for a second.  “But you really need to work on watching what you say before you say it.  Dipper, I think Norman is really terrified by all this stuff.  And I think he’s not telling you just how scared he is because he sees how into it you are.”

“I’m not ‘into’ it,” Dipper protested.  “I’m trying to help him!”

“I know that.  But does he ?”

The male twin hesitated.  “He’s got to.  I mean, shit, how many times have I told him I’m going to protect him?”  Dipper began pacing.  “Oh, god, am I being a shitty friend right now or what?  I just got so excited, you know?  And, I just, I didn’t mean to-”

“ Dipper ,” Mabel interrupted his ramblings.  “Chill out.   I’ll go talk to Norman, okay?  Leave it all to Mabel.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You?” She smiled at him, perhaps a little too sweetly.  “You can do the rest of the dishes.”

***

It didn’t take Mabel long to find Norman on the roof.  When he hadn’t been up in the bedroom, there were really only a few other places he would go.

The medium had drawn his knees up into his chest, chin buried behind them, and didn’t turn around when she climbed up next to him.

“Hey, Mabel,” his voice was muffled behind his sleeves.

“Hey, Normy,” she grinned brightly.  

“Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, now I have to call you that,” she teased, hoping it would get him to smile, or at least to look at her.

It didn’t.

Mabel sighed.

“Norman, if I don’t call you by a silly nickname, then will you please look at me?”

He looked over at her.  The intensely dark circles under his eyes made them look even bigger and bluer than normal.

“Oh, Norman ,” Mabel sighed, reaching over and placing a hand on his arm.  “You know… Dipper didn’t mean to act like that.  He’s just…”

She paused, trying to think of what to say.

“I’m not mad at Dipper,” Norman didn’t wait for her.  “I just… think I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not crazy.  You’re not.”

“Mabel, I have no memory of drawing those symbols.  My hands are just doing them on their own.  It’s like… it’s like I’m compelled to draw them, anytime a pen gets near me, I can’t stop.  And I keep seeing him everywhere, out of the corner of my eye, and I turn and it’s just a window or something, but it keeps happening. And I just think…” he sighed, hesitated.  “What if this is what happened to Father O’Reilly?  To the writer of the journal?  They had this compulsion to write it, too, and look what happened.  One of them is dead, the other vanished without a trace.”

“ You’re not going to die or vanish without a trace,” Mabel frowned.  “And you’re not crazy, either.  You have three things that they didn’t: Dipper, Paz, and me !”

“I’m sorry…” Norman looked down again.

Mabel slung her arm around his shoulders.  “Don’t be.  I’ll keep reassuring you as long as it takes.  Until the day I die.  And then my ghost will come back and keep on reassuring you.”

“I lied, you know.”

“Hm?”

Norman didn’t clarify what he meant at first.  There was at least half a minute of nothing before he finally spoke again:

“About not being able to read it.  I mean, I don’t… I can’t read Enochian, but when I looked at it, it was as if I got this… feeling about what it said.  Like something was whispering it in my ear.”

Mabel leaned her head on his shoulder, her arm still wrapped around the other one.  “I won’t tell Dipper if you don’t want me to.  And you don’t have to tell me anything, either.  It’s okay.”

“... ‘ The time has come.  The darkness will be coming for you soon. ’  There.  That’s what it says.  That’s what we’ve been trying for weeks to figure out.  It wasn’t a way to fight him, or a spell, or anything useful.  It was a message from Bill the whole time.  And now he’s sending it to me, too.”

Mabel wished dearly that she had some words of comfort for this, something that would make Norman stop worrying this much.  It clearly was taking its toll on him.  She used her free hand to check her phone - shooting a quick text message in reply to Pacifica, who had texted her about six minutes prior - and then grabbed the lunchbox she and her brother kept stocked with pine cones.

“Let me show you something,” she told Norman, using both hands to dig to the bottom, where she knew she kept something hidden from Dipper, who would destroy it if he ever found - aha , there it was!  

She pulled out a scrapbook - one of many she had made over the years - with a shimmering teal cover, and placed it on her lap, flipping through the pages.

The first page she stopped on had an old newspaper article pasted in, from the summer before Norman had met the twins.  The photo showed Stan with the twins, Mabel brandishing a grappling hook and Dipper bruised up with a bloody nose and a proud grin.

“It’s from the day Gideon was arrested,” Mabel explained, even though she didn’t really need to - Norman had heard the story multiple times.  “You know, Dipper was really… he thought we’d lost everything when we were going to have to leave Gravity Falls.  He almost gave up entirely after Gideon stole his journal.  I think his exact words were…” she struggled to remember, “Mmm… ‘the only courageous or cool things I’ve ever done have been because of that journal.  Without it, I can’t help anyone.’  Something like that.”

“That’s not true at all,” Norman murmured.

“That’s what I said!” she exclaimed.  “And wouldn’t you know it, I was right.  When everything looked like it was going to be the worst thing ever, he still came out a hero.  And so will you.”

Norman still looked unsure, but at least he wasn’t protesting.

Mabel flipped forward in the scrapbook.

“Look at this one,” she pointed to the first photo pasted into the page she had stopped on.  Surrounded by mermaid stickers was a photo from last summer, from when they had all went to the waterslide park.  Stan, Dipper, Mabel, Soos, Wendy, and Norman stood around in swimsuits in front of one of the slides, cheesy photo-fake smiles on everyone’s faces.  “Ha! You and Dipper were still about the same height.  Do you remember that day?”

“You mean do I remember the poltergeist in the locker room?  Or do you mean do I remember you and Dipper pushing me down the big green slide?”  Despite himself, Norman was beginning to come back out of his shell a little.

“I mean, do you remember Stan lying and saying we were all related so he could get the family discount?  You’re, like, practically my brother, Norman.” She laughed a little, “Well, maybe like my brother-in-law.”  He blushed, and she continued, “But family is family.  Dipper and I would never let anything happen to you.  We might push you down a waterslide every once in a while, but we won’t let you be hurt.  You have to believe that.  Trust me, okay?”

He nodded, somewhat numbly.  

“Come on,” she flashed what she hoped was a winning smile as she returned the scrapbook to its hiding spot.  “Let’s go back inside, okay?  I’ll make Dipper apologise to you.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Norman replied, but he followed her back down into the shack anyway.

Dipper, having finished the dishes, was pacing in the living room.  Norman didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth before the older boy was suddenly in front of him, throwing his arms around him in an embrace, if a somewhat awkward one.  Norman stiffened a little.

Mabel could hear her brother mumbling:

“I’m sorry.  I am.  I’m sorry.”

Norman hesitated before tentatively bringing his arms up to return the awkward hug.  “I’m sorry, too.”

Mabel suddenly felt as if she was intruding on a private moment.  She backed out of the living room wordlessly to wait for Pacifica and allow the two of them to hug it out.

She hoped sincerely that she had been right, and that between the four of them, the Mystery Quartet would be able to keep Norman safe.

Chapter Text

Sleeping pills - that had been what Mabel had texted Pacifica about.  Norman was more than a little surprised when the blonde finally showed up - on a bus full of tourists, weirdly enough - and pressed the bottle into his hand.  Of course, he had protested, but Pacifica wouldn’t hear it.

“Just take them,” she had demanded.

He had been skeptical at first.  Three nights of blissfully dreamless sleep later, and he would have been happy to admit he was wrong, if Pacifica asked.  She never did.

Dipper had spent the days between those nights trying to figure out how to defeat Bill Cipher before it was too late.  Norman and Mabel had decided to share with him what the symbols translated to, but the medium almost wished he hadn’t.  He didn’t like seeing Dipper so worried, especially not for his sake.

Mabel and Pacifica had quickly grown bored of this - “We’ve read all these books like twenty times!” had been their protest - so currently, the girls were flipping through magazines and chit chatting about this and that. Norman lay on his stomach on Dipper’s bed, looking over the older boy’s shoulder as Dipper sat on the floor, flipping through one of the many library books strewn about the room.

“Do you think that would work?” Dipper pointed to the image of a banishing circle.

“Magic circles are kind of a demonology thing,” Norman shrugged to the best of his ability, considering how he was laying.  “And where would we get enough goat’s blood?”

Dipper sighed, and slammed the book shut.  “I knew we should have looked for books on Lovecraftian lore.”

“Lovecraft was just a novelist,” Norman pointed out.  “What would he know?”

The older boy’s only reply was to sigh again, and lean his head back in order to look at his best friend.  Their eyes met, and Norman felt himself blush a little.  He was keenly aware of the fact that Mabel and Pacifica were still in the room to see this. But he didn’t want to look away.

“Uh… Dipper?” he murmured, as quietly as he could manage.

“Mm?”

“You’re kind of, um… you’re kind of staring at me.”

Brown eyes snapped downward quickly, and Norman watched as Dipper’s hands - was it just him, or were they shaking just a little? - brushed the cover of the book he was still holding. Dipper’s hands were tanned, the nails bitten down and dirty, the skin boasting a few small scars.

(God, he loved those hands.)

“When are those books due back, anyway?” Mabel’s voice interrupted these thoughts.  Norman didn’t even have to look at her to know she was grinning smugly at them - he could hear the grin in her voice.

“Wh-why, what day is it?” Dipper stammered, a nervous habit he had never quite managed to get rid of it.

Mabel checked the date on her phone, and turned it so Dipper could see.

“Uh…” the older boy adjusted his hat.  “Two days ago.”

“Shouldn’t we take them back ?” the girl twin arched an eyebrow.  “Dipper, we’ve read through all of them. I don’t think you’re going to find anything else in there.”

“I know, I know,” he frowned. “I just… if I can just find something, anything , then this will all be over and we can have a nice, normal summer.  Okay?”

“Ha!  Normal summer?  You?” Mabel laughed.

Norman didn’t hear Dipper’s reply.  He winced at a sudden ache in his head, a sudden remembrance of one of the many things Bill had told him:

“It will all be over soon.”

“Norman?” Suddenly, Mabel was in front of him, waving a hand in her face.  “Earth to Norman!  You alright, there?”

“Sorry,” he sat up and stretched his neck.  “I, uh, zoned out for a second there.  Sorry.”

The other three were all looking at him now, and he shrank into himself a little.  He really didn’t like being stared at like that.  He had to remind himself that these were his friends , and that they were staring at him out of worry rather than ill will or suspicion.

Dipper looked like he was about to say something, but he never got the chance.  Pacifica spoke first:

“Norman and I can take the books back to the library.”

“What?  Why you two?” Dipper protested, having completely forgotten whatever it was that he was originally going to say.  Norman had to wonder if the blonde girl had done that on purpose.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to him, anyway,” Pacifica shrugged, looking at her manicure.  “Why? Is that a problem ?”

The older boy looked irritated, but was forced to admit, begrudgingly, “n-no…”

“Good,” she stood up and began gathering up books.  “Mabel, you okay with that?”

Mabel showed how okay she was with it by throwing her arms around her girlfriend and whispering something to her that made Pacifica’s hard expression go soft.  Norman looked away.  It gave him a funny feeling to look at how comfortable the two girls were with one another, to realise how increasingly unlikely it was that he would ever get to experience something like that.

“Come on,” Pacifica handed him a stack of books.  Numbly, he stood up to follow her to the stairs, looking down at his feet as she called over her shoulder, “and make sure he showers, okay?!”

***

“He doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

The two had made it almost to downtown (though, with how small the town of Gravity Falls was, it wasn’t too far of a walk) before Pacifica said that.

“Hm?” Norman blinked wide blue eyes in surprise.

“Dipper,” she clarified.  “He doesn’t deserve you.  You’re too good for him.”

The medium blushed a little.  “It’s not like that.”

“You so want it to be like that.”

His blush deepened, despite all efforts to keep it from doing so.  “He’s not… that bad, Pacifica.  Not at all.”

“He just doesn’t like me , is that it?”

“That’s not what I-”

She laughed a little.  “It’s okay, you know.  I don’t deserve you, either.  I’m not quite sure anyone does.”

“I’m not that great.  I mean, I have flaws, too...” Norman allowed his voice to trail off.  He still wasn’t used to the Pines twins thinking so highly of him, let alone Pacifica.

“Do you, though?”

“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

She paused, looked away, seemingly gathering her thoughts.  

“Actually,” she began.  “I… I wanted to tell you that I finally stood up to my parents.”

Norman didn’t respond.  He waited for Pacifica to say more, when she was ready.  He didn’t have to wait long.

“They found out that I totally ditched Tiffany and Staci in favour of the Mystery Quartet or whatever we’re calling ourselves now.  And I could have denied it, but… I kept thinking about how kind Mabel is to me, and how kind you’ve been to me even when you had every reason to hate me.  And I realised that my family is… well, I feel a hell of a lot closer to you and Mabel than I do to my parents.  Or something.  I don’t know, I’m not so great with this whole… ‘talking about my feelings’ thing.”

The medium didn’t really know how to respond to what Pacifica was saying.  

“I’m proud of you,” was what he ended up telling her.  And he was proud of her, he found.  He was surprised at how much she had grown in the short time he’d known her, and maybe even somewhat pleased that he could have helped at all.

Pacifica blushed a little, and looked as if she wanted to say more about the subject, but she didn’t, instead noting:

“We’re here.”

“Are you okay, though?” he asked as she dropped book after book into the book drop slot on the side of the building.  “Your parents must have been angry… you’re okay, right?”

She didn’t meet his gaze, but she did nod.  “...they won’t do anything.  Not really.  I have to take public transportation now, and they’re not speaking to me, but I only have to put up with it for one year.  Then I never have to see them again.”

Norman began to say something else, but he was cut off by a sudden sharp pain right behind his eyes.  Involuntarily, he winced, fingers shooting to his temple though he knew it wouldn’t help.  Instantly, the paranoia set in, the feeling that something was wrong, something was watching .

‘Not here,’ he inwardly pleaded.   ‘Not now.’

“Norman?” Pacifica frowned.  “What are y-”

A sudden scream broke out across the street before the blonde could finish.  The two teens snapped their heads up just in time to see people running from the sudden appearance of a group of beasts.  The strange creatures were tall, muscular, with clumps of greenish-grey fur and large fangs.  Their eyes were glowing yellow.

“Call Dipper and Mabel,” Norman instructed.  She nodded, hands shaking a little as she fumbled to grab her phone from the back pocket of her shorts, dialing her girlfriend’s number.

“Mabel?” she said into the phone.  “You two need to get down here.   Now .”  A pause.  “I don’t know, there are these things ?  Just get down here as soon as possible.”  She hung up, and turned to Norman, a somewhat-manic look in her blue-green eyes.

“Come on,” he gestured at the beasts.  “We need to lure them away from people, so no one gets hurt.”

“ What ?!” Pacifica frowned.  “I am not going to be live bait.”

He winced again.  What was this throbbing head pain?  Why wasn’t it fading?

“Norman?” the blonde’s voice sounded strangely far away.  

He shook his head, trying to get the pain to ebb before he ran at the beasts.  Pacifica could stay put if she wanted to, but he was going to make sure people were safe.  Just in case his paranoia wasn’t ill-founded, in case of…

‘It will all be over soon.’

“Norman!”  Pacifica was shrieking.  “What are you doing ?!  Are you crazy ?!  You could get killed!”  Irritated, she ran after him.  “God damn it, Norman!”

The creatures - what were they?  Where had they come from? - turned their attention to the teens, lumbering toward them in unnatural, lurching movements.  By now, Norman’s head was throbbing, the pain getting worse with every second.  It was as if his head was about to burst open.

He opened his mouth to try and say something - he wasn’t sure what he would say, only that he had to try whatever he could - but his eyes locked with the strange, glowing yellow eyes of one of the beasts.

And suddenly he was no longer in the streets of downtown Gravity Falls.  Rather, he was back in the dark forest of his nightmares.

“No,” he shook his head, looking around.  How was he here?  He’d found a way to keep the nightmares out - what was happening?!  

D̠̠͎i̳͙d̼̟͎ y̧̮̞͍͉̪̖̦o͏̘͙̦͕̙u̗̗͔͙͙ ̴̗͙r̰̩͎͓͔͈͚e̺͇̺̲͇͚̠a͞lly̱̲ ̸̪̣t͙͚̕ḩ̩̝̬̹i͎̩͍̩͍͟n͓͇̦̭̻͙k̛̘͖̺͉̘ ̟̣̖̪̯y̝ͅo̦̕u̧ ̫̻̦͚̱c͟o̢̜̥̖̤u̶l̡d͕̞̫̘̞̳̹ ̜̱͉̥̤̼͘e̷̠̳͇̞̯̞͎ș͎̳̥̗̦͙c̻̦a̴͍͕̗̝p̹͙̫̬̮eͅ,̟̼͔̀ ͏̥̪̮̬̩̭

̧͍̝͓̹̳L͖̰̻͖i̻̹̦̰͎̤̹͜t̺̮͖̪t͔͚̝̙͔͟l̥͞e̥͕̖͉̖̰̥ ̶̳͓̝͔͖̭G̳͞h̵͇̟̪͓ͅo͈̩̭̪̺͘s̥͚͖̭̬t̥̬̖?̸͇͖̫

“Leave me alone !” he screamed, clutching either side of his head - the pain was agonising - and dropping to his knees.  “Please, just- just leave me alone!”

“Norman!” Pacifica was suddenly in front of him, holding his arm to help him up.  The vision had subsided, and he was back in the streets of the town.   What …?  

“Pacifica?  What-?”

“You just froze and started screaming!  Come on, are we running from these things or not?”

He turned - the things , whatever they were, were still lurching towards them.  Just before one of their clawed arms came down on him, Pacifica pulled him away.  The pair began to run, back towards the Mystery Shack.

‘Dipper, where are you?’ Norman silently pleaded as he ran.  He had no idea what was happening, only that he was confused, in pain, and already wishing that this day would end.

As if on cue, the Mystery Shack’s golf cart turned a nearby corner with enough quickness that it nearly toppled over.  Norman had never been so happy to see that stupid golf cart in his life.  From behind the wheel, Mabel slammed on the breaks and gestured to the two of them, screaming:

“Get in!  Get in!  Get in!”

She didn’t have to tell them twice.  Pacifica and Norman practically ran each other over in their rush to get in.

“Are you two okay?!” Mabel demanded.

“Less talking, more driving!” Dipper, sitting next to his sister, grabbed the wheel and turned the cart around.  Mabel elbowed him out of the way as he continued rambling, “we need to lure them back into the forest where they belong!”

Whatever the creatures were, they looked pissed now.  Their movements sped up, got more jerky and unnatural as they chased after the golf cart.  It reminded Norman of a marionette show.

“What the hell are those things?!” Pacifica shrieked.

“Gremloblins,” Dipper responded, looking behind them at the creatures chasing them.  “Half gremlin, half goblin, all a pain in the ass to deal with.  Whatever you do, don’t look into their eyes - or you’ll see your worst nightmare.”

Norman shuddered involuntarily.  That certainly explained some things.

“That sounds ridiculous,” the blonde deadpanned.

Dipper gestured at the Gremloblins wildly, glaring at Pacifica.  “How can you say that when they are literally on our heels right now?!”

“Will you two just stop it?!” Mabel turned another corner, sharply, throwing Pacifica into Norman’s side.  Norman had to grab onto the back of Dipper’s seat to keep them from falling out of the golf cart.  He was really glad that he’d taken enough “joyrides” with Mitch and Neil that he didn’t really get motion sickness.

The golf cart was soon in the woods that surrounded the town centre.

“I just don’t understand,” Dipper spoke again.  “It’s not like them to leave the forest like that - Gremloblins tend to avoid people, not seek them out.  It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Uh… Dipper?” Mabel got her brother’s attention.  “When was the last time you filled the gas tank on this thing?”

“I don’t know.  Why?”

The golf cart sputtered to a sudden stop, leaving the Mystery Quartet stranded in the middle of the forest, the Gremloblins rapidly approaching them.

Norman winced as the sharp pain in his head intensified again.  He could almost make out whispers, as if the trees themselves were trying to speak to him.  

“Free us,” they pleaded.   “Free us…”  

He hissed a sharp intake of breath through his teeth.

“We should run,” Mabel’s voice brought him back to reality again.  

Before Norman could even think of a reply, Dipper was suddenly pulling him out of the golf cart and into a run.

“Where are we going?!” Pacifica demanded.  “Why are they still chasing us?! What do they want?!”

“You think I know any better than you do?” the older boy sounded irritated.  “It’s not like them at all!  I- whoa!”

Another gremloblin, eyes positively glowing yellow, was suddenly in front of them.  The four teens skidded to a stop, stumbling over the momentum of their own feet.

Everyone froze.

“Remember,” Dipper whispered, “no sudden movements.  And nobody look into-”

“Into their eyes?” the beasts all spoke in unison, but the voice wasn’t theirs.  

Norman gasped when he realised where he had heard the voice before.  It didn’t make sense.  And yet it was unmistakably Bill Cipher.  The high pitched voice came out of all the gremloblins’ mouths at once, an entire grating chorus of Bill.

“How do you like my little puppet show, Pine Tree?  Wanna see them dance?” Bill’s voice laughed from the mouths of the creatures surrounding the teens, a few of them suddenly jerking their arms back and forth. “Come on, this is funny stuff!  Why is no one laughing?”

“What do you want, Bill?” Dipper glared, hands balled into fists.

“Tsk tsk, Pine Tree,” the gremloblins shook their fingers in an exaggerated gesture of disappointment.  “There’s no need to be so rude.  I just want to spend some quality time with my favourite Little Ghost.”

Norman gulped, and instinctively Dipper stepped in front of him, as if distancing him from the gremloblins - and from Bills’ clutches.

“That’s never going to happen!”

“Dipper,” Mabel tugged on the sleeve of her brother’s flannel, “the crystals…”

“Crystals?” Pacifica frowned, exchanging a confused look with Norman, who only shrugged in reply.

But Dipper seemed to understand what his sister meant, and nodded.

Suddenly, Dipper was grabbing Norman again, and Mabel was grabbing Pacifica.  The Pines twins pulled the others into another run, not telling where they were going, although the both of them seemed to know.

“Run all you want, Little Ghost!” the chorus of Bill’s voice called after them as the gremloblins gave chase once more.  “I’ll get what I want in the end!”

“What does he want?!” Pacifica asked, fear tainting her voice.

“Me,” Norman replied, panting and exhausted.  “He wants me.  Maybe if you all run ahead, I could hold him off-”

“No,” Dipper tightened his grip on Norman’s wrist.  “ Never going to happen, Norm!”

“But-”

“It wouldn’t stop at holding him off, and you know it!  Bill is too tricky - I won’t let anything happen to you!”

“Come on!” Mabel interrupted them.  “We’re almost there!”

Up ahead, Norman could see a clearing.  The sight within it nearly took his breath away with its beauty - out of the ground jutted beautiful, sparkling quartz crystals in shades of blue, pink, and purple.  Some of them were larger than he was, and some of them smaller than his fingers, but they were all almost impossibly pretty.

Why had the twins lured the gremloblins here ?

Mabel was suddenly at the base of one of the crystals, chipping off a piece of one of them.  “Do you think it’ll work with the flashlight app on my phone?”

“We have to try,” Dipper tried to reassure his sister, only to be cut off by the reappearance of that unmistakably shrill voice.

“Do you never learn?!”  Incredibly, even more gremloblins were appearing within the trees, all with the glowing yellow eyes that came with being possessed by Bill.  “You kids are really something, do you know that?!”

“Leave us alone!” Dipper looked furious.  “We’re never going to give Norman up to you, so why don’t you just leave?!”

The beasts lunged, all at once.  Mabel turned on her phone’s light behind the crystals.  It all happened so fast, that Norman wasn’t quite sure which had happened first.  All he knew is that suddenly he and Dipper were knocked down, tumbling over one another down a short ledge.  They landed with a dull thud, and Norman sat up just in time to witness Pacifica snapping a branch off a tree and beating a bunch of suddenly-small gremloblins with it.  Apparently, the blonde’s years of experience with golf and polo and croquet were coming in handy.

“Shrinking crystals,” he murmured out loud, realising now what Dipper and Mabel had known all along.

He sat back against a boulder, doing his best to move slowly, as he was probably very bruised up now.  He turned his head to Dipper, to tell him he was okay - and what he saw sickened him.

Dipper was hunched over, clutching his left wrist, bruised and bloodied face contorted in pain.  There was so much blood spurting through his fingers that for one horrible moment, Norman almost thought he had lost his hand.  Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.  But something was very, very wrong.

“Dipper!” the medium exclaimed, suddenly trying to coax his friend’s hand off of his arm so he could see the damage.  “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” the older teen forced a smile, though it looked more like a grimace.  “Man, that thing jumped at you out of nowhere.”

Norman shook his head, guilt suddenly twisting at his stomach.  Dipper had gotten hurt trying to protect him.

“Let me see your arm,” he forced himself to sound as calm as possible, given the circumstances.

“I’m fine,” Dipper repeated, turning away from him.  “Just go help Mabel and Pacifica.”

“Damn it, Dipper, let me see it!”

“No,” the older teen protested, albeit weakly.  He looked a bit dizzy. “Norman, I-”

It was too late.  Norman had seen.  He had seen the jagged white shard of bone poking up out of the gory mess that was now Dipper’s wrist.

“Oh my god,” he gasped.  “Dipper, you-”

Dipper’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head as he finally passed out.  Norman threw his hands out to catch his best friend before the older teen could injure himself further by falling onto the rocks.  Dipper’s wrist - very clearly badly broken, now that Norman could look at it - was bleeding all over the both of them, and the medium yelled for the girls.

It didn’t take long for Mabel and Pacifica to show up.

“Dipper, Norman, you should have seen it!” Mabel was gushing.  “Pacifica was awesome!  She was like kapow !  And then wham-o !  And then-” The smile faded from her face when she saw Dipper’s unconscious form.  “Norman?  What happened?”

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Norman’s voice shook.  “ Now .”

Chapter Text

Dipper’s wrist was broken in multiple places, the most serious of which the nurse called a “Colles’ fracture.”  His unconsciousness had been more due to shock than anything else.  

Grunkle Stan was less pissed than he could have been, considering Pacifica had paid for the medical bills (upon seeing how much it would mean to Mabel and Norman), but the old man was still furious when he drove up to pick the four teens up from the emergency room.

“Get in the car,” was the only thing he said when he pulled up.  Dipper slid into the front seat, staring at the cast on his arm.  Mabel, Pacifica, and Norman got into the back.

No one said anything for a good five minutes as Stan drove the Diablo away from the hospital and back towards the Mystery Shack.  It was Stan himself who ultimately broke the silence:

“How’d you break your hand, kid?”

Dipper shrugged, and looked out the window.  “Technically, it was my wrist-”

“Dipper, answer the question.”  Stan wasn’t yelling at him, but Dipper could still hear the blatant fury in his voice.

“I fell on it wrong.  It’s not a big deal.”

“Don’t lie to me!”   Now Stan was yelling.  Dipper sunk down into his seat a little, wondering briefly why none of the others were sticking up for him.  Though, he supposed that if he were in their position, he wouldn’t have said anything either.

“I’m not lying,” he muttered, not looking his great uncle in the eyes. “Not technically, anyway.”

“Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?!  I’ve told you year after year after year, Dipper - don’t go chasing after things you can’t possibly begin to understand!  If you listened to me for once-!”

“You don’t even know what happened!” Dipper turned to face Stan now, returning his shouts as his temper flared up.  “I’m not some little kid anymore, Grunkle Stan!  I’m almost a man!”

“You’re not going to survive long enough to become a man if you keep chasing this stuff,” Stan wasn’t having any of this.  “Today it was a fractured wrist - next time it could be a broken leg, or a punctured lung!  Don’t you get that?”

“You don’t understand-”

“No, Dipper.   You don’t understand!”  Stan’s knuckles were white with how hard he was gripping the steering wheel in his anger.  He and Dipper locked glares, but neither said anything else for a few minutes.  The very air in the car was permeated with the force of their anger.

“Grunkle Stan,” Dipper finally broke the painful silence, speaking slowly, through gritted teeth, “something horrible is going to happen, and if I don’t- if we don’t stop it, then everyone in this town will be in danger-!”

“It isn’t your responsibility to be everyone’s hero,” Stan replied.  “Who do you think is going to have to clean up your mess when all is said and done, huh?!  And that’s if you get out of this alive!”

“Unlike you, I’m not too selfish to-”

“You think I’m being selfish ?!” the old man screamed.  “You have n o idea what you’re messing with.  If you keep chasing this, you’ll end up dead!  Or worse!”

“How do you know that?!” Dipper refused to back down.  “You don’t think I’m strong enough, or smart enough, fine, but I know that I am!”

“I know because I’ve seen it happen before!”

“W-what?!” the brunette boy sputtered.  

Grunkle Stan shook his head and sighed, heavily. “I won’t have you hurt like that.  Not on my watch.”

“Hurt like what?!  You haven’t explained anything!”

The Diablo pulled up to the Mystery Shack.

“Get inside,” Stan demanded.  “Starting tomorrow, you’re working at the gift shop until the end of summer.”

“What? That is so unfair !” Dipper protested.

“I’d rather be unfair than see you dead!  Now get inside !”

He shot his great uncle one more glare before opening the door of the car to slide out, slamming it behind him.  He could hear the other teens getting out as well, could hear Mabel and Pacifica muttering to each other, but he didn’t look back as he stomped inside and up to his room, fuming all the way.

With his good hand, Dipper punched his pillow when he got up into the attic bedroom.  This was horrible - how could he possibly make Stan understand that he couldn’t afford to let up now, that Bill was targeting Norman, that Dipper had sworn to always protect his friend?  Wasn’t that a little more important than an old man’s paranoia?

He sighed and sunk down onto his bed, laying back and lifting his left arm to get a look at his cast.  The blue fiberglass almost exactly matched the pine tree on his cap - that had been Mabel’s idea, of course.  

The thing about the injury was that Dipper knew, without a doubt, that he would have done everything exactly the same even if he had known it would end in a broken wrist.  

Better his wrist be broken than Norman’s mind, after all.

The bedroom door opened, and Dipper turned, expecting Mabel.  It was Norman who walked in, though.  Dipper sat up.

“Are you okay?” Norman leaned on a wall, crossing his arms.  Dipper noticed a small cut on his best friend’s cheek, and suddenly had the urge to walk over and run his thumb over it tenderly.  He shook that thought out of his head as quickly as it had come.

“You already asked me that at the hospital.”

“I just want to be sure.”

“I’m fine,” Dipper insisted.  “Pissed off at Grunkle Stan, but fine.  I mean, who does he think he is?  Can you believe this?”

“He’s worried about you,” Norman frowned.  “I don’t think he’s in the wrong to worry.”

“Yeah, well he has a hell of a way of showing it.”

“Maybe he’s right.  Maybe we are in over our heads.”

Brown eyes widened. “You can’t be serious!”

“Dipper, don’t be mad at me, but…” Norman sighed, “When you fainted earlier today, do you have any idea how scared I was?”

Dipper was taken aback by that.  “...I’m sorry?”

“You were seriously hurt.”

“It’s just a couple fractures-”

“Dipper, I saw your bones!”

“It won’t happen again.  Anyway, if I hadn’t pushed you down, it could have been your face that got broken instead.”  He shrugged.  “I promised I’d protect you, didn’t I?”

“Not at the cost of your own life!”

“Dude, you’re overreacting.”

Norman ran a shaking hand through his hair, and took a deep breath.  If he let his fear get the best of him, if he began yelling, then Dipper would shut down and stop listening.  He had to stay calm .

“I’m overreacting ? Dipper, you could have been- I mean, if you just had an ounce of self-preservation-”

“What are you trying to say?” Dipper glared, balling his good hand into a fist.  “You can’t seriously be thinking of giving up now .  We’re so close to solving this!”

“Dipper, you’re obsessed!  Why can’t you see that?!  This obsession is going to get you killed one of these days, and I’m going to have to watch, and it will destroy me!”

The older teen had not expected Norman Babcock, of all people, to yell at him.  Norman, who always managed to remain calm, no matter what the situation.  Dipper counted on him for that.

“I won’t get myself killed,” he glared, sulking.  “And besides, even if I did, you could still see me.  So why does it even matter?”

“Are you serious right now?” Norman took a step closer.  Dipper stood up, not sure how his best friend was going to react.  He had never seen him this angry before, after all.  He sincerely hoped Norman wasn’t going to start throwing punches or something, because he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to punch back if it came to that.  “What the hell is wrong with you, Dipper?!  Do you want to die or something?  Do you?!”

“Of course not!  But I do want to solve this mystery!  Don’t you care about that , Norman?!”  Now he was yelling, too.  

On some level, Dipper knew he was being unreasonable, but he was too angry to really care.  Besides, Norman was being unreasonable too.  Wasn’t he?  Dipper didn’t think he was in the wrong to be upset when everyone he cared about kept attacking him like this.

“You know what, Dip?  I don’t care.  I don’t.  Not when you seem to be doing your damned best to get yourself killed!  Don’t you get it?!  That’s what Bill wants - he already tried to kill you, what?  Once?  Twice?!  How many near death experiences do you have to have before you get through your head that the truth isn’t worth losing your life over!”

“Well maybe… maybe to me it is, okay?  When you’re unable to sleep through an entire night, of course I’m going to try and find the truth!  I’m doing all of this for you !”

“I am not worth getting yourself killed over!” At some point in the argument Norman had stepped closer and closer, so now he was in Dipper’s face, screaming down at him.  “Dipper, why can’t you see that this is destroying me?!  That if I lost you, I… I can’t lose you, Dipper.  I care about you too much!  I…”

And suddenly Dipper’s stomach twisted up, and his heart began pounding.  And he realised, horrified, what Norman was implying.  He shook his head.

“We aren’t doing this right now.”

“No, Dipper.  I’m not holding it in anymore!  Don’t you see what this is doing to me?  To us? It’s selfish of you to ask me not to say that I-”

“Norman, please ,” Dipper’s voice cracked.  He was begging now.  All his anger had turned into fear as he realised what pent up emotions were coming to the surface.  “Please.  Don’t say it.  Don’t.”

“Dipper, I…”

“Please don’t.   Please .  Norman, I can’t-”

“I’m kind of… a little bit… in love with you.”

And there it was, out in the open.  The unspoken agreement between the boys had been broken, and Dipper wore the expression of a terror-stricken child.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.  This was all wrong .  Why couldn’t things just stay as they were?  It felt like the entire world was crashing down all around him, and Dipper was trembling, not sure what he would do now.  He took a step back, opened his mouth to yell, to scream, to get Norman to take it back.

He never got the chance.  Dipper had no idea what made him do it - or maybe he knew exactly why he did it, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to admit that to himself - but suddenly he plunged forward and smashed his lips to the other boy’s.

Norman made a muffled noise of surprise, but didn’t pull away.

Dipper opened his mouth and pressed his tongue in and Norman was so warm, and so soft, and Dipper couldn’t stop himself.  He couldn’t stop.  He was losing himself in the taste of his best friend, of cinnamon and autumn air and softness, and he just.  Couldn’t.   Stop .

Why couldn’t he stop?

Norman pulled back, breathing a bit heavily, and wiped some spit off of his chin.  Dipper looked into those eyes - they were so blue - and once again, the prickling fearful sensation began to set in.

He couldn’t deny it now.  He had kissed Norman last year and he had just done it again.  It was all on him.

“Norman, I…” Don’tpanicdon’tpanicdon’tpanic .  “I, uh…” Don’tpanicdon’tpanic …

...he panicked.

“I’m not gay .”

Norman’s face fell, and Dipper knew right away that he had just made everything so much worse.

“Wow, Dipper.” The younger teen shook his head in disbelief.  “ Wow .  You know what? Whatever.  I’m done .”  He turned to walk away.

“Norman, wait!”

Dipper grabbed the medium’s wrist, intending to stop him, maybe even wanting to kiss him again - and suddenly, he was thrown back into the wall by an otherworldly force.  The back of his head hit the wall with a loud bang , and Dipper cried out involuntarily, eyes clenching shut from the force of it.

What the hell had just happened?!

He sat up, rubbing the back of his head with a wince, and witnessed Norman staring at his own hand, horrified.  If Dipper wasn’t mistaken, there were still little green sparks circling the medium’s pale, trembling fingers.

“N-Norman?  What…?”

The younger teen’s head snapped up.  He looked terrified.  Dipper felt like his heart was dropping into his stomach when he saw just how much fear those blue eyes could contain.

Before the older boy could say anything else to stop him, Norman turned on his heels and fled the room.  Running far, far away from Dipper.

The older boy could only sit there, too in shock to even move.

His lips were still tingling.

***

Norman didn’t know where to go.  He didn’t even know what to do.  All he knew was that he couldn’t stay at the Mystery Shack that night.  He couldn’t sleep next to Dipper and act like everything was okay, not when they were fighting and he was…

He was dangerous .  

Where could he go where he wouldn’t hurt anyone else, ever again?

“Heeeeey, Norman,” one of the ghosts who tended to hang around the Mystery Shack - a pioneer girl named Mary Beth - ran up to him.  He wasn’t in the mood to play with her.  He wasn’t in the mood to do anything except stare at a wall and attempt to think of anything but Dipper Pines.

“Please go away,” he muttered.

“But we haven’t played all summer!” The little girl ghost protested.

“Go away !” The medium suddenly yelled, breaking into a run.

He needed to get out of here before he hurt anyone else.  He needed to go to where no one would find him, be they dead or alive.

There was only one place in the forest he could go.  He wished it weren’t so, but the church in the woods was his only option.

And at this point, right now he felt that even the skeletons would be better bedmates than Dipper. At least they wouldn’t push him away like some sort of freak .

He never would make it there.

***

Dipper was laying on the bed again.  He kept playing the conversation between him and Norman in his head, over and over.  Why had he let it spiral so out of control like that?  Where had everything gone so wrong ?

He felt sick with guilt.

The door opened.  He sat up, hoping it would be Norman, only to be greeted with Mabel and Pacifica instead.

“Where the hell have you two been?” he frowned.

“We went to the movies,” Mabel answered.  “It’s been a hard day - we needed cheering up!  We would have taken you guys, but Grunkle Stan said- hold on, where’s Norman?”

Dipper looked away.  Mabel’s eyes widened.

“Dipper, what did you do ?”

“I…” He didn’t know how to respond.  “We got into a fight and he ran off.”

“He what ?!” Pacifica exclaimed.  

“Dipper, you need to apologise!” Mabel added.  “Where did he go?!”

“I don’t know, okay?!  I don’t know!  It’s all my fault - if I hadn’t freaked out so bad after I… after I…”

“After you what ?” his sister prompted.  “Dipper, what is going on?”

He gulped.  That sick, guilty feeling wasn’t going away.  He didn’t want to tell them, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He couldn’t stop.

“I kissed him.  And then I freaked out about it.”

“ You what ?!” Both girls shrieked in unison.

“I know, I know!  It’s so messed up!  I mean, I’m not even gay-”

“That’s a load of bullshit!” Pacifica cut him off.

“Hey, you weren’t even there!” He protested.  

“It’s bullshit , Dipper!  You are so full of bullshit !  So, what, you’re not gay?!  Who gives a damn?  Suck it up, and clean up your god damned mess!  That boy is head over heels in love with you, and you- you just throw it away?!  And for what?  Some pseudo-macho bullshit!”

“Paz…” Mabel grabbed her girlfriend’s hand.  Dipper felt even sicker - he could have had that, if… god, if Pacifica wasn’t right about him.  “Paz, be nice.”

“I am not nice,” the blonde shook her head, and continued to yell at Dipper.  “You know, for someone so smart, you sure can be an idiot!”

“I know, okay?!  I messed up!  What do you want me to say, Pacifica?!  You’re right!  There!  Are you happy now?!  Are you fucking happy?!”

“Dipper, I went my whole damn life before I even knew what happiness was !  You- you had it handed to you, and you threw it away!”

It was all too much.  The guilt was making him sick to his stomach.  He was going to be sick.  He knew it now, he could feel his stomach clenching up.  

He shot up and pushed past the girls, running to the bathroom with as much speed as he could muster.  He barely made it before he was suddenly doubled over, retching into the sink.

Damn it, Pacifica was right.  This was the worst he had ever messed up before.

His eyes were stinging when he finished.  He turned on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror.

“Don’t cry,” he commanded his reflection.

It wasn’t working.  The tears still stung at his eyes.

“Don’t cry, you piece of shit.  You’re almost an adult.  Don’t cry.”

He was going to cry, he just knew it.

He sat down on the closed toilet, and sighed heavily, continuing to tell himself, “don’t cry.  Just don’t do it.  Don’t freaking cry.”

“Dipper?”  

He could hear the door open and shut again.  He didn’t look up to greet his sister.

“Oh, Dipper ,” she stood in front of him.  He still didn’t look at her.  “You finally figured it out, didn’t you?  You have feelings for him - strong ones.”

He nodded, miserably.

“Hey…” she spoke softly.  “Look at me.”

He looked up.

Something in her face broke him, and suddenly he crumpled into her, sobbing into her chest as she just held him and rubbed his back.  Tears and snot were streaming down his face as his entire body shook with the force of how hard he was bawling.  

“I fucked up,” he moaned.  “I fucked up so bad!  Everything is changing too fast for me, and there’s still too much to do, and I’m already losing you, and now I’ve lost him, and I-”

“Woah, woah, woah!  Dipper, you’re not going to lose me!  What are you talking about?!”

“I- I don’t kno-o-o-ow!” he bawled.  “We’re going to graduate, and you’re going to-”

“Oh my god,” Mabel breathed, understanding.  “Dipper, I could go to college on the moon and you still wouldn’t lose me!  We’re twins.  Forever.  And you and Norman… the bond between you two is stronger than this.  You can’t let this fear of change ruin it.”

“But I’m-”

“You’re scared,” she finished, rubbing his back as he continued to cry like a baby.  “I get it.  Dipper, it’s okay to be scared.  But do you really want to wake up at fifty and realise you never got anything done because you were too scared of change?”

He sniffled.  “I guess not…”

“I bet he’s pretty scared too, right now.”

“Mabel,” he looked up at her.  “What if… what if we don’t find him?”

“Dipper, don’t talk like that.  We’ll find him.  I promise.”

“No, but- what if something out there got to him first, and he’s trapped somewhere, dying or already dead, and we don’t make it in time, and it’s all my fault?  Mabel, it’s… it’s all my fault…”

She reached over and grabbed some toilet paper, and began wiping his tears from his face, gently.

“We will find him.  You’re not alone, Dipper.  We’re a team.  You, me, Pacifica… Norman… it will be okay, if you just trust us - and trust yourself. Let us help you.”

“I don’t know…” Finally, the sobs were beginning to end, replaced now with the occasional small sniffle.

“Come on,” she smiled down at him.  “That’s not the Dipper Pines I know!”

“Mabel, I was supposed to protect him, but instead I fucked up and now Bill might get him and-”

“Hey.   Hey .  Who trained with Manotaurs?”

Dipper paused.

“...I… I did, I guess, but-”

“And who once raised the dead just to prove he could?”

“...I did…”

“Who uncovered a massive government conspiracy to erase a man from history?”

He saw what she was doing.  Despite himself, he smiled a little through the sniffles.  “Me.”

“Who jumped off a cliff and punched a giant robot in the face just to save his sister?!” Mabel was yelling now.

Dipper laughed a little, wiping his face.  “It was me.”

“Damn right , it was you!  And who is going to go out there and find his boyfriend?!”

Boyfriend… is that what they were now?

Dipper forced himself not to panic.  And he realised… yes.  That was what he wanted.  

He wanted to kiss Norman again, to fall into those blue eyes forever.  He wanted to hold his hand and go on stupid dates and, shit, even to just make out on the couch and gross Mabel out.  He wanted what his sister had with Pacifica.  And he wanted it all with his best friend.  He wanted Norman to be his boyfriend.  

Mabel was right.  She was absolutely right.  

How did she always know?

He stood up and sighed.

“I guess I could try…”

“That’s the spirit!” she exclaimed.  “And Dipper?”

“Hm?”

Her grin softened.  “I’m proud of you, okay?”  She held out a fist.  “Mystery twins?”

“You know it,” he bumped her fist, and then turned to leave the bathroom.

After all, he had a boyfriend to find.

Chapter Text

He couldn’t wake up.

Norman had never made it into the church.  He must have passed out or something, he figured, because he was right back in the forest of his nightmares, running from the whispers in the jagged black trees - he’s in the trees, he’s in the trees, free us, free us - running, running, always running.  His lungs were burning from the effort, his legs sore, but he was afraid to stop.  Why wasn’t he waking up?

That familiar laughter began to sound out, from everywhere, from nowhere, enveloping him.  Bill had found him.

“Didn’t I warn you, Little Ghost?” Though Norman could not see Bill, he could hear this voice - the regular, high pitched one that was used with the other teens, rather than the one that sounded like the screams of Hell itself - speaking to him, saying, “Didn’t I tell you it would all be over soon?  You should have known better.”

It suddenly dawned on him that he was awake.

It wasn’t just a nightmare anymore.  It was all real.

“Can’t you leave me alone?” he pleaded quietly, between heavy pants of breath.  How long had he been running?

“Now why would I do that, hm?”

A bright flash of light, and suddenly Bill was in front of him.  Norman tried to stop too quickly, and stumbled over himself, landing in a heap beneath his tormentor.

Bill’s singular eye stared down at him.  “Now, now, Little Ghost.  I’m being nice here, aren’t I?  All I want is to talk to you.  Is that so much to ask?  You don’t have to fight it.”

“No.  No!  I’m never going to stop fighting you!” Norman protested, getting up.

“Is that so?”

Norman only glared in reply.

“You know something, Little Ghost?  You’re really cute.”

“I’m what ?”

“Of course you are!  Little outcast boy, always alone, never having anyone, and then suddenly?  He makes a best friend!  And he isn’t alone anymore!  So cute, don’t you think?” Bill laughed, twirled his little cane jauntily.

What was he getting at?

“Wanna know what’s even better?” the triangle continued.

Norman shook his head.  He didn’t care what Bill had to say.

It didn’t matter.  Bill continued on regardless:

“What’s even better is that the little outcast has gone and hurt his best friend!  And now?  He’s alone again! Ahahaha!  All alone, just like before, and you know you’re never going to have that again.  Don’t you, Little Ghost?”

“Shut up!” Norman demanded.  “Just shut up!  You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Was it nice while it lasted, Little Ghost?  Was it nice to hold his hand?  To sleep right next to him?  To pretend for a second that he could feel the same way that you do?”

“I’m not listening!” the medium covered his ears with his hands, but it was no use.  Bill’s voice was in his head now.

“Sorry to break it to you, kid, but life isn’t a fantasy - it’s a nightmare.  It always will be.  Shooting Star will always be clueless, Doll will always be unhappy, Pine Tree will never love you, and you?  You’ll always be alone.  You’ll always be a freak .”

Suddenly, the air changed, as did Bill’s voice.

I͈̙̻͓̼͊͜'͕̤͚̮͍̫̮ͬ̽ͣ͞v͙̟̞̐ͨé̇̅҉̘ ̵̶̨̬͇͙̘͔̱̆̓̿̈̓ͩb̪̮̟͐͋͆͆̏̃͋̃ͬ͜e͇͎̪̫͔̬̤̭̠̍͆ͩͯ̊̊͜͠ẻ̶̮̼̤̦̰͕̆͆͘͜ͅn̆҉̫̮͓̳ ̵͓͍͚̯̝̗̔ͩg̭̰͈̎̉̈̈́̾ͧͩͥ͗͢͞eͮ́ͬ̑͡҉̬̩n̳͉̥͖͈̺̘̊̂̏͒̈̐̔̄̀̚ẻ̵͇̝͔͍̱̬̃͌̃ͬͩ͌͒́͜ȓ̛͎ͬ̑̍ͥͬͯo̵̺͇̹̮̙̫͌͜u͚͕͙̹̭̝͎͊̉̐̐ͯ͝s̛͉̜͖̺̹̖̭̹̞̔͊̽́̍ͩͣͦ̕ ͋̅̄ͯ̏͏̴͎͈s͓̼͚ͧͫ̄ͮ͌̓oͦ͛̃ͦͫ͐͂̔͏̨͙̹̤ ̡̧̭͎͔͚͎̥̝̥̾̄̿̉̄ͣ̽͞f̨̹̺̣̗͖̳ͩ̾ͪͬ̈́̿̍ͧ͛͡à̝̩̙̰̪̖͉̲̊̒ͭͤr̷̪̝͓̝͓ͭͪͥͬ̾ͅ,̶̠̫̲̙̋̃͐͆ͫ̎

̨̭͙̪̙̥̟̻͚͎̈̆̈̈́̽̌́L̶̮̥̺̲͚̯̰̓ͣͮ̅i͇̠̒ͨ͗ͤ̐̒t̛̜͕̻͍̜ͫ̃́͢t̰̜̖̳̺̱͂ͯ͟ļ̵̭̦̼͈̞̍ͬͪ̌͆ͫ͒̓e̵̘͉͇̯͖͐̐̚͘ ͓̤̤̮͖͔̍͊̿ͯ̃̆̓ͅG̡̫̺̣͓̭̤̫̺͕ͩ̍h̡̠̠̪̳̣̫͍͚̘͋̂̑ͨ͑̀̆o̴̥͎̘̹̱̎̓̌́s͚̺̃̕͜t͈̙̭͔͖̭͚̽͛ͯ͠

̽ͨͣ̋̾̑̕͞ͅI͍̺͖̦͒ ̢̲̱̠̤̤̖̠̔͂̔̏̔̄̋͜c̙̺̦̼̙̲ͪͤ̃̂̀͜͠a̙̣͎̲̭̣̝̬̓ͬ͐̕n̵̵̨͕͍̲̰̑͆̍͒͊͂ ̒̇͒̆͋͆҉҉̥̹̥ͅb̧̳̥̜̫̣̖̦̥̑̽̄̂͞e̡̧̻͖͉̟̹̜̙͈̐͊

̴̳̈̒̆ͤ͊c̛̠̩̜̬͉̱̈́̉̽ͩ̆̉ͨ̀ř̲̲̣̏̾ͦu̱ͮę͓̺̱͈ͨͨ̒̄͑ͥ̍͘͠ḷ̺̤̋̔͌͒ͦ͐̈́̇͒

“Generous?” Norman spat.  “What the hell have you done that was generous?”

The ground rumbled, and more jagged trunks rose up around him.  Norman had to jump out of the way to avoid being stabbed.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted again.  “Just leave me alone!”

Ḥ̹͚̩͉͓̙̐ͣͤͯͪ́͜ḁ̧̺̬̖̝̆͛ͥ͢͠v̠̮̼̙͚͐̓̃̃͒̇ȩ̭̘̯̀̀͛ͣ̌ ͎͙̟͍̝̻̌͒̈́ͯ̆͌̽i͓̜̘̩̙͆̅ͤ͢ẗ̖̗̹̫̝͂͐̊̊ͨ ̛̛̠͓͉͈̗͙͊ͥ̈̕ͅŷ̹̤͕̺͙̾͆̍͋̊͊͜o̶͎̱͇͖̝̒̌̒ͩ́uͩ̽͑ͭ̍͒̾҉̤r̺̟̝̜̪̜̭͈̆ ̸͉̭̼̦̗͚̲̎ͤͥ͒ͭ̑̐͝ͅw̖̱̬ͨ̄̾̉͌̋̀̚ą͓̪͛ͥ͊ͬ̊̋̀̇́̚ÿ̷̢̮̘̺́̔ͩͩͯ͘

Bill disappeared, but the voice didn’t stop.  Norman’s head hurt.  His chest hurt.  His everything hurt.  He looked around, desperately, for a way out.  Some part of him knew he wouldn’t find one even before he finished looking.  There was no way out of this.

S̮̝͉̯̝̍ͬ̕t̰̫̹̩̭̤͖̿̇̋ͣ͗̒a̱̼̘͈r̦̦̞̝͖͓̗̂̿ͫ͐ͩͤ̀̚t͉̩͂̍͑ ̼͊̇ͨͪ̅̓̽͝

̴͇̰̓͊͛͋͆ͮr̊͝ụ͇̠̱̗̫̊̋̆̎̇ͬn̜̰̎̀ͬ̊̄̈̚ņ͎ͅi͈͉̤̲̳̓ͮ͡n̗̲̦̺̑g̋ͭͦ̌͆̄

***

“What did I just get done telling you?!” Stan wouldn’t move from in front of the door, glaring down at the teenagers.  “Dipper, get your ass back upstairs right now .”

“You don’t understand!” Dipper could hear the desperation in his own voice.  “Norman is out there!  He could be in danger!  Grunkle Stan, please !”

The old man’s expression hardened.  He didn’t move.