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Once upon a time there was a little girl with a cursed brother and parents who loved them very much. But their love was not enough to weather the curse that her brother had fallen under. So the little girl picked up a phone and called her Grunkle, the one who knew them best. The old man came to get them in his rusty chariot and took them many miles to his home, a magical Shack in the woods. The girl and her brother had many adventures as they grew, some good, some bad, and some deadly. In time, the girl found a Prince, though of course not before giving many other princes and princesses a good road test. They lived in the magic Shack in the woods with her brother the Demon King and her Grunkle the Trickster. In time they had a prince and princesses of their own, who all went on to have their own adventures-
“-and they lived happily ever after.“ Mabel looked at her youngest grandchildren, all asleep like puppies on top of each other, and smiled. They were so like the triplets at that age.
The door opened, and Henry gently walked in. His feet, sticking out of his jeans, were bare and gnarled, the bottoms rough from constantly walking around without shoes. Hair that was once fiery red had gone completely white save for a few strands, and now liver spots were as numerous as the freckles on him. His glasses had gotten thicker as he had aged, and he moved slower and with more care than he used to. Despite running fever hot, he still had on the thickest sweater she could make for him, Henry having grown more and more sensitive to the cold over the years.
He was old. So was she.
She was fine. He wasn’t.
The dark part of her, the part that wanted to keep swinging even after her enemy had fallen beneath her bat, the part that was pleased when Willow had finally told them what happened in tenth grade all those years ago….that other, dark Mabel knew it was only a matter of time.
She screamed back against it, raged deep inside of her mind. Henry was going to leave them, leave her. He wasn’t trying hard enough to stay with them, Mabel wailed. He could fight harder, do more, do something, anything to stave away the inevitable. He couldn’t just die, not like this.
"Oh he’s trying,” that dark inner voice reminded her deep in the night as she lie away listening to the rapid fire heartbeat coming from her husband’s chest, trying to remember when his skin got this thin. “He’s trying as hard as he can, he’s fighting harder than he’s ever fought before.”
“It just won’t be enough.”
———————-
One night soon after the kids had left the house for their second year of college, Henry had woken up in the middle of the night. He looked around and realized with a start that he was somehow looking at himself, asleep. And he didn’t just see him and Mabel asleep in their beds, but Stan as well, fez askew on his bed stand. He could feel Gompers’ hooves as they clomped onto the porch, the goat settling in for the night. He could feel the termites in the floorboards of the Library (better call the terminator tomorrow), see the drops of water beginning to seep in through some of the tiles of the roof-
He was, Henry realized with a shock, the Shack. Or rather, his consciousness had somehow expanded, left his sleeping body and drifted into the wood of his home. Once he realized that, it seemed like nothing to draw away from the comfortingly solid boards and logs of the Shack and return to his flesh.
With some quiet experimenting (he let Dipper find out on his own rather than telling; it was good to keep him off balance) Henry found that he could expand his consciousness into the trees, the grass, the very soil itself. The earth seemed ready to spring to his command, to obey his wishes. It was a little frightening to realize how far he could spread himself in the earth, expanding and stretching thinner and thinner as his mind raced through the soil…
For the most part, Henry was content to use his ability only in battle. He liked staying in his head thank you very much. Though he had to admit, once Willow started adopting children, that it did come in handy when there were eight or nine grandkids in the Shack that all needed an eye kept on. And of course, the look on Dipper’s face the first time Henry had made the trees walk in front of him had been absolutely priceless.
(Less priceless was Willow having the kids call him Poppa Ent for the next month.)
He hadn’t drifted involuntarily since that first time, but more and more this past year he found his soul becoming unmoored, leaving his flesh of its own accord.
Almost like it was practicing.
On those nights Henry clung to the Shack when he became adrift, wrapping his soul around the floorboards and the spindles of the staircase railing. He sunk himself into the foundation, into a basement that still reeked of secrets and broken lives. He was every shingle of the roof, the drawers sitting full of silverware and gadgets in the kitchen, the triangle shaped window in Willow’s room. He was the creak of the house as it settled and the squeak of the window in the wind. He fled mortal flesh and earthed himself in the wood of the floor and walls and roof, earthed himself in the home that was going to outlast them all.
His body was failing him. Henry wasn’t afraid to face the truth. He could feel the hold his flesh had on his soul lessening. The Shack was an anchor he could cling to, a place to seat his soul on those long nights.
But ultimately, Henry knew, this was nothing but a stopgap measure.
One day not even the Shack would be able to hold him here any longer.
——————————–
As soon as he retired Henry stopped wearing shoes around the house.
It was a little odd at first to Mabel, because Henry had always kept his shoes on. It had been a running gag between them even, the way that Henry would switch from his work shoes to sneakers when he got home, how Mabel only ever saw his feet when they were in the shower together or in bed. But soon she got used to his pale freckly feet poking out of his jeans, the cuffs almost four or five inches away from his ankles, toes covered in little red hairs.
Then she noticed that Henry stopped wearing shoes when he went outside into the yard. But it was summer and warm grass always felt good on her feet so maybe Henry finally started feeling the same way.
But then there was the way that Henry started going for walks in the forest without shoes, walks that would last an hour or two. Summer turned to fall to winter and snow on the ground and still he walked outside barefoot. The only time he ever put shoes on now was when they went into town, and on those days he practically wilted in front of her eyes, the energy drained from him, and the pain his wrecked body caused him even more intense than usual.
The realization hit her one night in bed, waking her from a dead sleep. She rolled over to look at Henry, snoring like a chainsaw like he always did. She stroked his hair even as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Somehow, and she wasn’t sure how (didn’t care how,) Henry was drawing life from the Earth, drawing it up through his feet and into him. The plants that curled around and kissed his feet, the way he always felt more like his old self when he came in from being outside… how hadn’t she noticed? Her hand drifted to his shoulder, felt skin that was always so blazing hot to her that she was constantly amazed that Henry didn’t sweat buckets all day.
He was burning himself up, burning out. The feet…it would buy him some time. But how much?
(The next morning she made some calls, sent some emails to people in town, and threw out all of Henry’s shoes save a pair of sneakers, for when they went to Bend and Portland.)
----------------------—
When her kids asked her what her earliest memory was, Dagne smiled and said that she had two, not just one.
The first was of course when their Grunkle Dipper had picked her up and taken her to her forever home at the Mystery Shack, with Mama Willow and GamGam and PopPop. She never forgot how safe she had felt in Grunkle Dipper’s arms, even though he smelt of smoke and his sleeves were wet with…stuff. He told her jokes to distract her from the people sleeping on the floor, told her they were going to a place where no one would ever hit her again.
The second was the first time she had fallen asleep in PopPop’s lap. Dagne had been little then, “littler than you Dagsett,” and she had only been living with Mama Willow for a few weeks. One night she had woken up from a nightmare about Before, and had gone downstairs to get a drink of water. PopPop and GamGam were still in the living room. GamGam was snoring and leaning on PopPop’s shoulder, a puddle of drool staining his shirt.
PopPop gave GamGam a kiss on the forehead then looked squarely at Dagne, with eyes that seemed almost black in the darkness of the living room. She froze-there was no way, no way could PopPop have seen her she was the best at sneaking and oh god what if they made her leave-
"Couldn’t sleep?” PopPop asked in that gentle voice of his.
Well and truly caught now, Dagne moved into PopPop’s line of vision, and shook her head. “Nossir,” she mumbled.
He patted his lap. “Why don’t you watch some TV with me? That always puts your GamGam to sleep.” As if to illustrate his point, another snore ripped out of GamGam’s throat.
Shyly, Dagne went over to the couch and clambered on to PopPop’s lap. As always he was warm, like sitting next to the heater on a winter’s night. He wrapped his arms around her, still strong despite his age, and switched the channel to cartoons. Despite herself, Dagne felt her eyelids growing heavy and her yawns growing longer and more frequent.
She dreamt of eating the best apples that she had ever tasted, sweet like candy on her tongue once she got past the bitter skin. She was in a deep dark forest but Dagne wasn’t scared, because she knew she wasn’t lost. Not when the pines and aspens welcomed her into their embrace. Or a creek that was deep enough to play in but shallow enough to be safe. Or how she sat against an oddly warm tree trunk and was soon surrounded by deer that licked her face and hands and let Dagne pet them to her heart’s content.
Not when there was a dark man with burning eyes and antlers who watched over her….
Her daughter snuggled deeper into Dagne’s arms, breaking her out of her memories.
“I wish I could have met PopPop,” Dagsett murmured. Agneta and Hanna nodded.
She felt tears prick at her eyes. “Me too kids, me too.”
—————————–
It had not been a good last few days.
Dipper had been… well. He had had a run of bad summons, summons that started at leaving him covered in blood and got worse from there. Henry hadn’t seen him that bad since… since California. Dipper was currently in the Mindscape, until he calmed himself down enough that he would trust himself around his family again. Without Dipper’s help, Henry was currently spending most of his days on the couch, joints swollen so bad that it hurt to jostle any one of his limbs.
He missed Mabel, who was currently in Portland visiting with Hank and Vivi and their grandchildren up there. She almost didn’t go, but he insisted, and he was glad that she listened to him. That being said though, he missed her. The house wasn’t the same without his brother or his wife. Annie was spending the night at a friend’s house, Rob and Auriga were with Mabel, and Willow had taken the rest of the horde to the movie theater to see the new Star Wars movie (what were they on now? Fourteen? Negative five?) The only person left behind was Miranda, because movies made her motion sick. Speaking of….
He looked over at his granddaughter.
“Sorry I’m poor company today.”
Miranda smiled, half wry, half sad.
“You aren’t PopPop.” She paused. “Besides, you’re letting me watch whatever I want on TV.”
“This is true,” Henry agreed. He heard the sound of a truck coming down the drive.
“Must be the mailman; mind checking the box for me please?”
Miranda popped off the couch where she had been sitting next to him. “Yes PopPop.”
“And some crackers?”
“Now you’re pushing it old man,” she said with a smirk, but she grabbed his bowl and put it on the kitchen counter to refill when she came back in.
Henry settled back into the couch, shifting futilely to try and alleviate some of the pain that was shooting in his limbs when he heard Miranda scream from the yard.
Fuck, fuck, fuck how could he have been so stupid? He should have known, he should have been more alert.
He didn’t need to look out the window to see that what he thought was the mail truck was actually a white sedan, and spilling out of it was Miranda’s birth parents. He wasn’t sure how they had found her after three years, wasn’t sure how they had gotten this address, though considering that they came at just the right moment for her to be ostensibly alone, they had been watching the house.
The time for recriminations could come later; he needed to help his granddaughter. He reached down inside, where the Woodsman lived and pulled and
Nothing.
There was nothing.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Miranda had grabbed the bat they left strapped to the back of the totem pole for that reason and was quickly scaling the pole, but that would only work for so long.
He pulled again but still nothing.
Once upon a time the presence inside of him was voiceless, thoughtless. It had been easy, in those early days, to view his other self as simply a monster, as merely a side of himself that was without restraint.
Time had proved him wrong on all accounts.
Henry sunk into his mind, into the place where whole conversations could be held within a matter of seconds.
“Why won’t you come out?” he asked in the dark behind his eyes. “I need you. She needs you.”
He felt his other self stir from deep within.
“I can’t.”
“I-I can handle the pain, I promise, but Miranda needs us, needs you, she’s only twelve please-“
Something warm blazed within his chest for a second before dying down again. “I cannot leave, cannot come out any more. Not until you move from this body to your next.”
“No…”
The fire curled down to his gut and up his throat in response. “I would kill you, kill you not three steps from where you sit now, and the body I would leave in my birth would not be recognizable as either of us.”
“I don’t care.”
“You wouldn’t even make it to her in time.”
Fury blazed within Henry. “No.” He would do this, he could handle this. There was a reason, so long ago, that perhaps he held on to the power that Dipper had lent him longer than he was supposed to, a reason that he stole what had been offered to him. Never again would he be weak and helpless, never again would he be unable to help the ones he loved the most, never fail again like he had failed his daughter when her head went under the water when her eye was taken out-
He pulled and pulled again, clasping the flame inside to his soul, to his bones. He screamed as he felt his limbs begin to lengthen, the bark rise to his skin-
And then he was on his knees, on the floor at the foot of the couch, coughing up black tar and dark red blood.
He felt his other self return to his slumber, the flame inside dying down to a tiny ember once more. “You are not alone,” the ember murmured to his inner ear before falling silent.
Miranda’s voice rang out from the yard. “Get away from me! I’m-“ There was a hitch in her voice and Henry’s heart broke at how brave his granddaughter was. “I’m not scared of you no more. And I’m never leaving here.”
“You little slut, you got until the time your daddy gets the latter out of the car to come down or else.”
“No!”
A shot rang out and Miranda screamed.
“Next time it’s going to hit. Come down.”
“PopPop help please-“ Her voice broke into quiet sobbing because she was brave and doing exactly as Willow and Mabel and him had taught her but she was only twelve-
As quickly as his damned limbs would let him, he limped out slowly, too damn slow but the pain was so great it felt like he was going to pass out. He practically lurched over to the back door, grabbing the axe he kept in the umbrella stand on the way out.
Henry opened the door and stepped onto the back porch. Miranda saw him first and –smart girl- remained silent, though a smile broke through on her teary face.
The things that called themselves Miranda’s ‘parents’ (he had seen the report from CPS, he had held her in the night as she woke from the nightmares) noticed him next.
Robert Jones emerged from the car clutching a ladder.
“You thought you could take what was ours old man?” he sneered as Allison Jones kept her gun trained on Miranda’s torso.
Henry forced his body, now blindingly hot with pain, to take one, two steps forward, reaching the stairs. “You have five seconds to leave this property and never come back.”
Robert laughed. “How you going to do that old man? I don’t see a phone in your hands, and what are you going to do with that axe? Throw it? You can barely make it off that fucking porch.”
“Just lay down and die and stay out of our business,” Allison added.
Henry said nothing; he was saving his breath on making it to the yard. Even if it killed him, he would be damned before letting Miranda down, before he sent her back to the hell that Willow had rescued her from.
His foot descended from the last step and touched the ground, grass curling around each of his toes and around his ankle like usual and-
(you’re not alone)
-and Henry closed his eyes, let his hands fall to his side and his other foot touch the ground, emptied himself until he was hollowed out.
(Help me, he whispered in the dark behind his eyes and Something heard his call)
The first step was the lightest touch upon the grass and dirt. The next step he took the pain had vanished, and the earth trembled as his foot landed on the ground. Another step and the land shook again. Miranda fell from the top of the totem pole only to land in a mass of moving and whirling vines that was vaguely shaped in the form of a hand. It brought her gently back down to the ground, and she booked it past Henry and shot straight into the house, going into the basement like they had taught her.
He dropped his axe. He didn’t need it, not when his bones were the plates grinding slowly over one another, his blood the lava that ran thick and hot at the core of the world. The air that rose and fell in his lungs corresponding to the gusts of wind that had knocked Miranda’s parents to the ground, vines quickly binding them and holding them as he made his way over. Another step that rattled the Shack to its rafters and bones and he felt his antlers come spiraling out into the air; something told him that they would not ever return to intangibility, that he was now permanently marked, but he was past caring. The clearing that the Shack sat in was rapidly becoming encroached upon by tiny sprouts that rapidly grew and spiraled up into the sky, turning into massive pine trees as he watched.
One final step and he was in front of them, in front of these animals that had... that had… he couldn’t even bear to think about what they had done to their daughter, what they let others do to their daughter.
Henry meant only to sink them to their chests into the earth, let them stay and struggle futilely to escape while he called the cops on them.
Instead when he bent down and laid his hands on the ground, roots burst from the soil at their feet, winding around their legs and puncturing into their skin. Allison and Robert screamed as the roots burrowed into their legs, spread up their veins and bones (Henry could feel it) and blossomed through their whole bodies. Henry was the forest, and the forest was him. And what the forest wanted was for these creatures to twist and tear and stretch inhumanly tall, wanted for them to have bark blossom all over their skin, wanted their arms to spilt, blister and burst into branching limbs stretching towards the sky.
Before Henry’s eyes, under his hands and his power, he saw Miranda’s parents become exceptionally ugly maple trees. He should have been horrified, should have tried to stop this, but he wasn’t and he was glad he didn’t. The new trees burst into foliage and the power that the forest had lent him flooded out of him, leaving a feeling of satisfaction. Henry fell to the ground, his world blurring black around the edges before he passed out.
(When Willow came home, it was to her dad lying unconscious in the yard and two new trees near the totem pole.)
-------------
They knew.
They knew that they were going to lose him, even if no one in the Shack could bring themselves to say it.
They knew and still it had been so sudden.
And still they hadn’t been ready for this night.
It was just the five of them; Reina and Vivi had graciously declined, citing the horde of Henry and Mabel’s grand and great-grandchildren that needed to be fed, watered and harmlessly amused back at the trailer in Bend.
Dipper watched impassively as Mabel wept brokenly on Henry’s still chest, his arms around his niblings. Acacia had decorated Henry’s bier with crabapples and oak leaves, taken from the trees she and Henry had walked by a thousand times before. Hank had cut and gathered the wood at the base, and Willow stood nearby, a lone finger outstretched near the collected pine boughs and apple branches.
The four of them had been standing together for a long time. No one wanted to interrupt the small broken figure on the bier as she said her final goodbye.
Finally, the wails and sobs faded into soft groans and choked breaths. Dipper could tell that she would have gladly followed Henry into the dark, yet Mabel pulled herself up with all of her considerable will, and pulled away from her husband one last time.
Dipper let his kids go as they rushed over to his sister, their mother.
He stepped up to the bier and looked at Henry’s face. A shacking claw tipped finger that Dipper barely recognized as his own stroked his brother’s cheek. It was so horribly cold, like touching clay rather than flesh. And yet it looked as if Henry was only asleep, as if he would wake at any moment, and ask them why everyone had put a bunch of plants around him, had his nap been that long?
His antlers were gone. They had disappeared when he passed.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Dipper knelt down and gently kissed Henry on the lips. Around them, the bier burst aflame, bright blue fire lighting up the night, growing higher as Willow added her own fire to the inferno. The demon stepped out of the flames and joined his family, wrapping his arms around his sister as the fire quickly obscured Henry’s body.
They watched the fire burn until morning.
------------------–
"How long?"
Dipper froze. Between his hand in the peanut butter jar and the look on his face, Henry's brother looked more eight than eighty for a second.
The hand stayed in the jar but Dipper had his game face on now, the one that had fooled a million summonses but never would anyone in the Shack.
"How long will it take me to eat this jar of peanut butter?"
Henry smiled sadly and shook his head. "No, how long do I have? Until I pass? And don't bother to deny it; you had the same look on your face when Stan died. You also followed him as much as you have been for me this last week."
The peanut butter jar and any trace of it on Dipper's hands disappeared in a small puff of smoke. The demon's eyes squeezed shut, and a golden tear trickled down his left cheek. Unable to look at Henry, Dipper murmured, "Two or three years, but no more. I... I saw it this morning."
It was Henry's turn to close his eyes. Years seemed so long, until they no longer weren't.
They stood in silence in the kitchen for a long moment, neither of them able to speak. Finally, Henry took in a deep breath, and opened his eyes.
“What would I need to offer for you to…forget that?”
“Forget?”
“Forget that you know when I’m going to die. Let me forget that I know when I’m going to die. Forget so we can make these last few years good ones instead of filling them with you moping around and everyone being miserable.”
“I… Henry, I-“
“What do I need to give you Dipper?” Henry reached out a hand and laid it on Dipper’s shoulder. “Please, I…” It was Henry’s turn for a tear to escape. “If this is it for me, I don’t want this laying on my shoulders. I don’t want it looming over me. I want to live. Please… what can I give you?”
The demon in Dipper, the one that thrived on the deal, on wheeling and haggling, took over while the human mourned and keened.
“You have at least two years, three if you don’t do anything stupid between now and then.” Dipper pointed at the crown of antlers that adorned Henry’s head. “Every apple that falls from your head from now until the next year are mine.”
Henry nodded. “Will that be enough?”
“Yes.”
Henry sighed. “Dipper, don’t lie to me. Do you need a toe or something? I won’t need them all for much longer.”
“I, wait, what- Henry!”
The other man grinned and Dipper choked out a laugh.
“Goddamnit Henry.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” his brother gently pointed out, peering over the lenses of his glasses.
“It…is almost but not quite enough,” Dipper admitted, always a sucker for Henry’s stupid librarian glare. “It will be enough though.”
“Dip-“
“Please. Let me do this for you. For you I can take whatever the backlash is.”
It was Henry’s turn to be reticient. “Dipper I-“
“You are going to be dead in two years and I don’t want to take any more from you than…than…than already will be.”
Henry drew Dipper into a large bear hug, squeezing his shell tight.
“Thank you, thank you Dipper.”
Dipper squeezed back, as hot golden tears soaked Henry’s shirt.
--------------
More and more Henry caught himself staring for long periods of time out at the woods beyond the Shack. Even if he had just finished a walk in the forest or a spell in the garden, he would barely step inside and sit down before he found himself looking out the window again.
It felt like a physical pull on his body, the call of the trees and the shrubs, the vines and the grass. The earth and the sky. It pulled and pulled constantly, unceasingly. It was beginning to interrupt his sleep, the pull that rang through his being from his tips of his toes to the tines of his antlers.
It was a call to rest, a call to come and join the one that loved him best. It was a call to walk deep into the woods and never leave, a call to lie in the soil and let the earth retake him, let roots wind around his bones and bring him to rest.
A call to the other one that lived inside of him, a call to a being that would soon be born.
There were days where the call was strong enough that Henry wondered…. Wondered if it would be better if he did go for a walk one day, and never come back. Wondered if it would be easier that way.
(Those were the days he went fishing with his grandchildren.)
--------------------------------
“Mama?”
Willow looked down from where she was making bread… or at least attempting to do so. Hank had always been the better cook of the three of them. Maybe this dough would actually rise this time; if she didn’t lose her temper and burn it into ashes any way.
She wiped the flour on her hands off on a dish towel and looked down at Larry.
“What’s up Larebear?”
“PopPop fell asleep in the living room and I want to watch TV.”
“Honey,” Willow gently chided. “Your grandpa had a long day today, let him nap. Besides, I know there’s a TV upstairs in the attic too.”
“Eliza and Berry and Hyun-Woo are using it and you said if there’s more than two people using it I gotta wait my turn and I really want to watch the new episode of Ponder Under Yonder and I finished my homework and-“
Willow held up her hands. “Alright, alright! I’ll see if I can’t wake PopPop up and get him to move.” She looked sternly at her youngest. “But if he’s sleeping too hard for me to wake up then you’re just going to have to deal with it. Okay?”
Larry nodded fiercely, sending his long dreads flying in a cloud around his face.
“Do me a favor-unload the dishwasher okay?”
“Yes Mama!” Larry gave her a hug around her legs before going to open the dishwasher door.
Willow smiled and then walked through the house. To accommodate both her ever growing family as well as the Library, the Shack had grown over the years. Sometimes new rooms appeared organically, like her parent’s bedroom (something that Uncle Dipper still had no idea to how it happened.) Most renovations however, like the window in the living room, were ones that they had done themselves.
She stepped into the living room.
“Dad? Hey Dad, do you want to go sleep somewhere more comf-“
Willow’s voice froze, died in her throat.
Her dad was sitting in the recliner that had once been Grunkle Stan’s, just outside of the pool of light coming in from the window. His head was resting at what had to be an uncomfortable angle, falling off the back of the chair. Her father’s face was turned to the sun as much as he unconsciously could do so. And where his face had failed, his antlers…
Willow let out a breath that she hadn’t realized that she had been holding in. Dad’s antlers had moved and shifted, both branches now on the side of his head closest to the sun. The hands and feet that hung from each tine were stretching, pulling as far as the strings attaching them to her dad would let them, each one yearning for the sun. Leaf buds were sprouting and forming into new tines before her eyes, each of them growing closer and closer towards the puddle of sun on the carpet.
Almost as if Dad was a plant, like he needed the sun to li-
Willow stepped out of the living room as quietly as she could.
Then she took the bread dough off the counter, took it outside so Larry wouldn’t see, and then burnt it to fucking ashes.
–------------------------------
Dipper purred a lot these days, even though he usually only got hit with Dip Nip once or twice a year.
Yet without fail almost every night, he would clamber up onto Henry’s lap. Henry, long since used to this, didn’t even comment any more, but simply wrapped his arms around his brother as Dipper made himself comfortable. He winced once or twice as Dipper’s “bony ass tailbone” as Mabel called it dug into his legs, but soon enough the two of them would be comfortable on the couch together.
Two or three minutes later Dipper would begin to purr, hard enough to rattle the rafters of the Shack slightly and loud enough that the kids could hear it even playing outside. No one said anything about it though.
Not when they knew that Henry ached. Ached from bones that had lengthened and shortened over and over again. Ached from muscle that had twisted and torn itself into new shapes, and had healed as it was reduced back to its original size. A back that had bone and muscle punch out of the skin over and over again. Joints that swelled from over use, from being fused into an axe that could cut through anything.
Purrs helped. They helped when Henry gently but firmly refused to take anything stronger than asprin because he didn’t like how the pain medication fogged his mind. They helped because twenty minutes of Dipper purring kept Henry pain free and going for the rest of the day, rest of the evening.
Dipper purred, some of the lines of pain eased from Henry’s face, and Willow had her kids pick up the books that got knocked over in the Library.
–---------------------
Dipper couldn’t quite recall why he and Henry made a deal that he would get to keep the fruit of his brother’s antlers for a year. Whenever he tried to poke at it in his mind, like he used to wiggle a loose tooth, he would lose interest or feel a stab of pain through his chest or something would come up or-
After a month, Dipper got the hint and let it be. Probably wasn’t important.
What was important was what to do with all these damn apples.
He never remembered Henry’s antlers putting out this many apples before. What used to grow over the course of one year was now growing over the course of a month. His antlers no longer laid fallow but instead grew round after round of apples. They still were as wonderful as always, though oddly enough they were now full of seeds, almost like a tree giving off its last round of fruit before it died.
(Why did he think of that analogy?)
So Dipper and Stan made round after round of hard cider and stored it in the basement. Pies and butter and cobblers flew out of the kitchen, going to Portland and Bend and half of Gravity Falls. Bowls of apples sat out on the table for snacking, and considering the constant horde of children and friends that came through, they got eaten.
Mostly what Dipper did was plant the seeds.
He planted them in the forests around Gravity Falls, in the forests of Washington and Oregon. He kept an apple in his pocket in his hat in his shoe and took a minute to step outside wherever he was summoned to place a seed in the ground. It was probably a little gauche to use some of the blood and viscera that dripped from his skin onto the ground as initial fertilizer but eh, there was no one around to call him on it.
Dipper planted the seeds of Henry’s soul around the world, and failed to notice how the leaves on Henry’s antlers were beginning to turn brown, beginning to curl up and fall to the ground.
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It had been an excellent day, Henry thought as he pulled on his pajamas.
Mabel had started the tradition when the kids left for college of having everyone back at the house for dinner every other Sunday, a tradition easily helped by Alcor Airlines.
He smiled as he looked at the tables still set up outside. He remembered when they could still fit everyone in the kitchen. Henry chuckled a bit. And he had come a long way from the lonely young man he had been in college. From no family to more family than he ever dreamed imaginable. Not bad.
Everyone had been able to make it today: the kids, their grandkids, and all the great-grandkids even. Soos and Melody and their extended clan had come as well, so at one point there had been about ninety people out on the front lawn. For once he woke up pain free, so he was able to whip Annie and Robert’s butts at croquet, chase Nito’s horde across the lawn, and help Hank set up the barbeque. He marveled at the lives that his children had made for themselves, hell, the lives his grandkids were making for themselves. And at the center of it all sat Mabel like a queen, Dipper dancing attendance next to her.
She was still as beautiful to him as the day they met. And he still loved her more than life itself.
And of course, it wouldn’t have been a Pines-Castañeda Family Dinner without an hour of pictures, organized by generation and kid family group, with Mabel stage directing and whipping out five separate cameras to use along the way. Even now his face hurt a little bit from all the smiling but it was worth it. It always was.
Willow had gone to bed first, worn out from kid wrangling and the impromptu fire breathing demo she did. Mabel fell asleep on the couch watching TV, like she did every night, and like every night, only went to bed after he woke her up three or four times.
There was a twinge in his chest as he got under the covers but it was easily ignored, just one of the minor aches and pains that seemed to come with growing old. Mabel, even though she was still asleep, sensed his presence and rolled across the bed until her back hit his front. He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her hair.
As he closed his eyes for the last time, Henry thought back to the day they were married, the promise Dipper made to them at the altar, and smiled.
(The same smile was on his face when Mabel woke up the next morning.)