#Dipper Steps Up

[tswwwit]

Wait, does the cheating thing on the bond always works? bcs that would be kinda freaky for R!Dipper like imagine you get pinned down by someone in the corner of a br or smthng and then said person kissed you and proceeded to explode into red mist and you literally have no idea what happened.

Also, would the constellation mark be a "cursed" Mark over the years, like you would give birth to a baby and the doctor says "😟 I am so sorry ma'am,,, I'm afraid your baby has the Cipher Companion mark. ( could also be something equally as science-y like Ursa Major, Constellation Calamation, etc idk)" And you just burst into tears.

Would that mean that dipper would get into a special program(demon wrangling program or smthng, demonologist? Maybe)? Or would the parents hide it away hoping that Bill would never take their child away?

(Sorry this au is just very interesting to me,,,, I hope u get more motivation, keep writing author 💪)

These are all options! The fun part of reincarnation AU being left ambiguous is that technically any of them could happen.

#Answers #Okay but for full transparency #I never really figured out what the 'cheating' consequence is #It's a nebulous concept since I've never had to write it happening #And left ambiguous because neither of these two are into anyone else - and as a writer I like to leave my options open! #I would assume that one of the few things they agreed on when making the contract was that unwelcome advances didn't count as cheating #But that the villain in question would get what was coming to them. Very Violently. They wanna step on a landmine? Let 'em have it #Dipper would have made a frowny face at the violence but agreed. Privately thinking well that's actually a *bonus* #A built-in defense system of sorts #(Something Bill was also thinking but absolutely phrased in the possessive aspect) #Whether or not the Consequences kick in before they meet again - their equivalent of their vow renewal - is up for grabs #Dipper trying to fend off someone only to have them burst into flames and/or blood would feel a terrified sense of relief #Who knows! Maybe Dipper has protection but has a chance for other actions before they meet again! #But the odds of that occurring are very slim. Partly due to his general awkwardness #And distinct hesitation on Dipper's part. Even though he *thinks* he should be enthusiastic #He looks at the person he's in bed with and just. It feels weird. Maybe because he hasn't (in his memory) done this before #Great job Dipper!! Someone in your bed and the best you can do is kinda grimace. Real sexy. #If he does ever manage to get up to something it's not even a tenth of the time he has with his husband #Dipper reincarnations are all very unfortunately attracted as hell to Bill Cipher and they're deeply alarmed by it #I do like the idea of different parental groups finding Dipper's birthmark and having different reactions #Perhaps a random incarnation of one of his family members ends up in charge of him one time #The results would vary *wildly* depending on who it was #On a scale of Mabel Mom to Ford Uncle how are you preparing this person for his invitable enhusbanding #(Stan remains pretty much the same but has a lot of bad marriage advice) #Wow that's a lot of tags even for me #I am going to queue this and sleep

[slippery-minghus]

oh... i know i've been living in cities too long when, at this airbnb, i looked out the window to see a semi-clear sky full of half-visible stars and thought, "wow, i forgot how many stars there were." uh oh besties

#grew up in a small town without a lot of light pollution and the night sky was pretty significant #not enough to see the milky way by any means but still #where i live now i can make out... the big dipper or orion on a clear night #but that's about it #been living in cities well over a decade now #not ready just yet to leave but.... aligning my career path to take steps to make it possible #the area i'm vacationing in right now is very close to where i want to move #and it occurred to me today as i was driving back to the airbnb how much i missed living in a valley #how *right* it feels to have visible foothills in at least one (but ideally more) direction #this area's a little too remote so it probably won't be this exact valley i settle in but.... i need to move up here #five to ten years is the plan #narrating my life

[theostrophywife]

written in the stars.

pairing: theodore nott x reader. song inspiration: until i found you by stephen sanchez feat. em beihold. author's note: boyfriend theo is the best theo. if you're wondering, then yes writing this hurt me as much as it hurts reading it but like in the best way possible.

Theodore Nott has always had an affinity for the stars. 

When he was younger, Theo's mother used to take him to the rooftop of Nott Manor and point out the constellations to him. The stars told stories, his mum had said. Theo listened with rapt attention as she recounted the tales of Aquila, Heracles, and Orion as they glittered against the backdrop of the English countryside.

The two of them would make an entire evening out of it. Laying on his back atop a nest of blankets and pillows, little Theo watched as the stars climbed higher and higher, filling the horizon with hope and light. Stargazing had been their special secret. The one thing that wasn’t tainted by his abusive father. Theo guarded the memory of those nights in his heart like a priceless treasure.

After his mother’s passing, Theo continued their tradition of stargazing. Even if she was no longer alive, all he had to do was look up at the sky to feel her with him. For that reason, the stars were special to him and he’d never shared its meaning with anyone. 

Until tonight. 

“Watch your step, cara mia.” Theo said as he guided you by the small of your back. 

The dark cloth covering your eyes prohibited you from seeing, but you trusted your boyfriend to keep you from falling. Though you weren’t a fan of surprises, Theo was impossible to resist. All he had to do was flash those pretty watercolor eyes at you and you were an absolute goner. 

For you, Theo had always been the exception. 

He guided you up a staircase, keeping a firm grip on your waist as the two of you ascended. Wherever you were going, it was pretty high up. You smiled as Theo took hold of your waist, knowing that you weren't the biggest fan of heights. Sometimes it felt like he knew you better than you knew yourself. When you reached the top, Theo unfastened his tie from behind your head. 

“You can open your eyes now, sweetheart.” 

You blinked, letting your eyes adjust to the dark. The wind whistled through the stone arches of the Astronomy Tower, framing the starkissed night with its marble pillars. The soft glow of the moon illuminated the nest of blankets and pillows arranged in the middle of the wooden floor. 

“Did you do all of this for me, babe?” 

Theo smiled. “I thought you might like to go stargazing with me,” he said, his voice soft. “Do you like it, my love?” 

“I love it, Teddy.” You beamed, standing on your tiptoes to kiss his nose. “But not nearly as much as I love you.” 

Theo grinned before pulling you in for a proper kiss. His lips were soft against yours and he tasted like peppermint. Butterflies erupted in your stomach as your knees buckled slightly. Theo never failed to make you feel like a lovestruck school girl. It never stopped feeling like this despite how many times you kissed this boy.

As if reading your thoughts, Theo smiled against your lips. “Come on, Y/N. I want to show you my favorite constellations.” 

The two of you laid down beneath the stars, making yourself comfortable amidst the blankets and pillows. Wordlessly, Theo pulled you into his arms and you nestled into the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of sea salt spray and sun kissed skin. 

“Tell me the story of the stars, Teddy.” 

He smiled, brushing your hair back. “That one right there is Ursa Major. Otherwise known as the Big Dipper, but if you look at the entire constellation, it actually forms a bear.” 

“I remember learning about that when I was little,” you said, gazing up at the sky. “Didn’t it have something to do with Zeus?”

Theo nodded. “In Greek mythology, the Olympian God Zeus fell in love with Callisto and got her pregnant. After she gave birth to the child, Hera was so mad she turned Callisto into a bear.” 

“That hardly seems fair,” you responded with a frown. 

“Zeus was a bit of a wanker,” Theo said in agreement. “Hera was even worse. She cursed Callisto to wander the forest for years in bear form until she was hunted by her own son Arcas. Just as he raised his spear to strike her down, Zeus stepped in and sent them up to the heavens. Callisto as Ursa Major and Arcas as Bootes.” 

“The Greek gods were truly a piece of work,” you replied. “But at least we got those constellations out of them."

You squinted, pointing at the cluster of stars hovering in the east. “What’s that one?” 

“That’s the constellation of Leo,” explained Theo. “Named after the Nemean lion that Heracles defeated during the first of his twelve labours.” 

“Didn’t he make a cloak out of the lion’s pelt?” 

“Smart girl,” Theo said proudly. “The cloak made Heracles invincible and more fearsome than he already was. The Nemean lion’s heart is made up of the star Regulus, which is associated with the arrival of spring.” 

“The Little King. I read that it burns hotter than the sun.” 

Theo couldn’t help but smile. Before he met you, he never thought he’d find someone to share such a special and intimate thing with. He was worried that no one else would understand his love for the stars, but as he watched you peer curiously up at the sky, your nose scrunched in careful concentration, Theo felt all of his doubts fade away. 

“Regulus is unique because it can be seen in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.” 

The blue star glittered brightly above your heads, as if it was showing off for the occasion. “It’s beautiful,” you breathed. 

Theo stared at you, at the childlike wonder shimmering in your eyes, and he felt like the breath had been knocked out of his lungs. The gravity of what he felt for you hit him all at once. 

“Yeah,” Theo said softly, still looking at you. “Beautiful.” 

You grinned, intertwining your fingers and kissing his knuckles. “How do you know so much about the stars, Teddy?” 

“My mum taught me.” Theo answered, drawing circles on your hip. “When I was little, she used to take me to the rooftop of the manor and tell me the story behind each star. She was fascinated by them. Before she met my father, she wanted to teach astronomy at the Stati Magia.”

“The Italian School of Witchcraft?” 

Theo nodded. “My mother attended the Stati Magia, just like her mother and her mother before her. A tradition that I unintentionally broke, as nonna Lucia loves to remind me. Sometimes I think the old bat wishes that I was born a strega instead.” 

You giggled. “You would’ve been a very pretty witch.” Theo chuckled as you propped your head up in one hand. “Did your mum end up becoming a professor?”

“No,” Theo said sadly. “After I was born, my father said that her place was at the manor. He refused to move to Florence, even though he knew it was my mother’s dream.” 

You stroked his hair, nodding emphatically. Theo rarely talked about his mother. You knew that her passing was a painful subject for him, so you never pushed him to talk about it unless he wanted to.

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, my love,” you said. “But at least she was able to pass down her love of the stars to you. In a way, she lived her dream by teaching you.” 

A soft smile tugged at your boyfriend’s lips. “I suppose she did.” 

You laid back down, but this time you cradled Theo against you. He rested his head against your chest, listening to the calming sound of your heartbeat. Talking about his mother will always be hard, but you helped ease the pain. 

“What about those stars?” You asked, pointing to the north. “What did your mother tell you about them?” 

“Perseus and Andromeda,” Theo answered. “Those are actually her favorites.”

“The chained maiden.” 

Theo stirred, inclining his gaze to the horizon. “Andromeda was the Princess of Aethiopia, the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. She was said to be very beautiful. Her mother bragged that Andromeda was fairer than the Nereids, which angered Poseidon. As punishment, the Sea God sent the creature Cetus to ravage that coast of their kingdom.” 

You nodded, recalling the story. “King Cepheus chained her to a rock and offered her as a sacrifice to appease the sea monster.” 

“Luckily for Andromeda, the hero Perseus found her before Cetus could attack again. Perseus fell in love with Andromeda and defeated the monster so he could free the princess. They ended up marrying and became king and queen of Mycenae. When they died, the goddess Athena placed them side by side in the heavens so that they would never be parted, not even by death.” 

“A love written in the stars,” you said with awe and wonder. “I can see why it’s your mother’s favorite.”

“When I was a boy, she told me that she hoped I’d experience a love like theirs, minus the sea monster of course.” You chuckled. Theo knit his brows together like he did when he was deep in thought. When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “It’s sad to think that she never found her Perseus.” 

You brushed his hair back, running your fingers through his curls gently. “She might not have found her Perseus, but she did have her Theo.”

Theo turned over and looked at you. The intensity in his gaze made you shiver. He was so ingrained in your heart that it felt inaccurate to continue calling it yours.

“After she died, I never thought I’d share her stories with anyone again, but I’m glad I shared them with you.” 

“Thank you for trusting me, Theo.” You said as you placed a kiss on his temple. “It means the world to me that you not only shared your mother’s stories, but her memory as well. I would’ve loved to meet her.”

The tender smile on Theo’s face was heartbreaking. Then softly, he whispered. “She would’ve loved you, Y/N.”

Your heart cracked open, his words spilling like sunlight over every crevice, warming you from the inside out.

Tears formed at the corners of your eyes, but you forced yourself to give Theo a watery smile. “Because I’m a nerd who memorized obscure mythological facts?”

Your boyfriend smiled. “No,” he said gently, caressing your cheek. “Because you made her wish come true. You are my love written in the stars, cara mia.” 

The moonlight kissed Theo’s tan skin, the silver beams caressing his face like a lover as if the moon and the stars craved to commit his beauty to memory as badly as you did. Gods, he was breathtaking. 

This was the Teddy you knew and loved. Your Teddy.

Those watercolor eyes shimmered with emotion. “Sometimes I think the gods made you just for me, like our souls are linked in a way that neither logic nor magic can explain. Whatever it is, I think I’ve loved you since before the heavens and the earth existed and I’m fairly certain that I’d still love you even after the last star falls out of the sky.”

“You’re the love of my life, Theodore Nott.” Tears streamed down your cheeks as this boy—this beautiful boy ensnared your mind, body, and soul. “I’d find you in any universe and in any galaxy. Maybe someday we’ll be immortalized in the stars too.” 

Theo held your face in his hands. His expression was open and vulnerable, like he wasn’t afraid to lay himself bare before you. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

“We’re two halves of a whole,” Theo said. “I loved you yesterday. I love you today and I’ll love you tomorrow. You’re it for me, Y/N. You and no one else.” 

“You and no one else, Teddy.” 

Under the constellations of the star crossed lovers, Theo kissed you so gently that it made your heart ache. As Andromeda and Perseus kept watch over the horizon, Theodore Nott knew one thing for certain.

Someday the stars would tell your story too.

#theodore nott #theo nott #theo nott fic #theodore nott fic #theo nott smut #theo nott fluff #theo nott x reader #theodore nott x reader #theo nott x y/n #theo nott x you #theo nott imagine #draco malfoy #enzo berkshire #mattheo riddle #blaize zabini

[lis-likes-fics]

Delicious

Pairings: demon!Natasha x Reader Word Count: 5.5k words Prompt: Demon AU Warnings: NSFW, corruption kink, fingering, oral (f! receiving), multiple orgasms, strap-on, swearing... A/N: This is late and it's not very good. This would have been so much better but I have ADHD brain and I had to rush this a bit. Sorry, guys. But I hope you still like it! Thank you!

Natasha had never been in this shop before.

Drawn to a strange feeling coming from within, she wanders inside the little cafe and stares at its warm tones, letting her eyes wander the wall of books, the tables and booths, the counter where a beautiful waitress talks to a customer. She lays eyes on you and can feel the mischief twisting in her gut.

You are perfect.

The light that surrounds you is a beacon of…purity. Your tan apron wraps securely around your body, your hair is out of your face, your smile is brighter than the sun and snow outside. She can taste the innocence oozing off your skin like honey from a honey dipper.

You are radiant, and he can’t wait to hold you in her hands and see how dark she can make you.

A dark and charming grin spreads over her red lips as she walks up to the counter, waiting for you to give your warm goodbye to the last customer and offer a warm hello to the next. She steps forward and swears she could get drunk off your virtue.

You give her a bright smile, and she can see it shining in your eyes too. “Hi! What can I get ya?”

Natasha lets her green eyes wander the menu for only a moment, turning her gaze back to you as she speaks slowly, deeply, letting her rasp wash over you like a siren to a sailor. “I’ll have a mocha.”

You nod, picking up your notepad and a permanent marker to write her order as you take in the sight of her face. She’s beautiful. “And what size would you like that in?”

“Grande.”

You pick up the cup, nodding as you do. “Anything else?”

She looks you up and down, drinking you in some more before gauging what it does to you. You seem almost fidgety, flustered. She grins. “What do you recommend?”

“Well,” you chuckle lightly, “I am a sucker for our Christmas special—the gingersnaps. I shape them like little Christmas trees.” You illustrate your words as you pull your hands up to form a triangle, the closest you can get to the tree.

She raises her brows. “Oh, so you make them?”

You nod proudly, smiling widely as you set your hands on the counter. “I do!”

She hums. You’re adorable. “I’ll take it.”

“Alright-y! Will that be all for you?”

“It will,” she nods simply.

You grab her cup size and clutch the permanent marker. “And what’s the name on that order?”

“Natasha,” she purrs, watching you closely and letting her gaze openly drink you in to see how you’ll react. You’re so flustered already, practically melting at the sultry nature of her voice. “But I think Nat will do just fine.”

You start writing the name, “Nat” in pretty script. “Alright, Natasha. A grande mocha and gingersnaps coming right up!” You say her name like warm icing on cinnamon rolls, letting it drip over your skin like melted caramel. You look at her and smile fondly, shyly, your head tilted slightly down but your eyes glancing up at her nervously. “You have…a beautiful name, by the way.”

Natasha chuckles, shaking her head gently. You're hypnotized. “I can't tell if you're flirting or if you're just that nice.”

“O-Oh!” you say, your eyes widening slightly as she catches you by surprise. “Oh, I'm a really bad flirt.” You meet her eyes again and she sees you panic for a moment as you raise your hands. “W-Well, not to say you're not worth flirting with! I think you're very pretty—gorgeous, even. You're very—You're really–!”

She cuts you off with a hearty laugh, reaching a hand out to gently grab your own as she offers you an almost sly grin. “Relax, sweetness,” she bids. “I think you're absolutely delicious, too.”

“O-Oh,” you sigh, smiling as she eases your nerves. Then you realize, “Delicious?”

“Did I say delicious?” She shakes her head gently as if to say “silly me”. She pats your hand lightly before removing her soft fingers from you. She never looks away from your face. “I meant delightful.”

You nod before you speak. Natasha can't help but think how adorable you are, like the purest angel—but how they are in the movies, not the ones stuck up her ass all the time, calling her pest and rodent and vermin.

No. You would never say something so harsh. She can see it in you, the purest diamond. She wants to break you.

“Okay,” you speak softly—and you're so naïve, she thinks for a moment that you heard her thoughts and were offering yourself up to such exploitations.

She licks her bottom lip subtly. She can almost taste your honey. “What was my total?”

You seem to snap out of whatever thoughts run through your mind. “Well…” you clear your throat, “since you're so nice and I own this place… I'll give you the cookies on the house and bring your total down some.” You lean in, and she thinks you'll wink. “Our secret.”

She doesn't know if she thinks you're capable of holding secrets. But she's been around humankind so much, she knows there's always a secret lurking around the corner. You all just can't help yourselves…

“Nonsense,” she shakes her head. “I'd hate to do that to you.”

You smile gently. “Come on. Let me do this. You've been so nice.”

She scoffs gently, not offendedly. “Nice isn't a word people usually associate with me.”

You tilt your head, genuinely curious as to how someone so sweet could never be called “nice”. “What do they usually use?”

With a dark glint in her pretty green eyes, she smiles. “Sinful.”

“Sinful?” you mutter.

She shrugs a shoulder. “I've got a bit of a…mischievous streak.”

You smile sweetly. “And I like giving pretty girls free cookies.”

Natasha sighs, looking you up and down for the sole reason of flustering you again. “Well,” she says, “at least accept this big tip.”

“Tip?” you tilt your head.

“For a beautiful girl like you.”

She's done it. You clear your throat and nod. “O-Oh. Okay,” you say, watching her pull out her wallet. When she pulls out a hefty $50 bill, your eyes widen and you look like you'll have a heart attack. “Oh, this is too much! I can't accept this!”

She makes a pouty face, gazing at you with those pretty green eyes. She leans forward, and you feel yourself crumbling at the sight of her. “Oh, but you would break my heart if you didn't.” She slides the bill over and smiles, still presenting her puppy dog eyes as she lowers her voice. “You don't want to break my heart…do you?”

No. Never. How could you ever break the heart of someone so…her?

“I…” your teeth graze your bottom lip as you think to yourself before ultimately giving in. “Okay.” You slowly reach your hand out and hesitantly grab the bill, clearing your throat and feeling a little clammy for accepting the money as you put it in the pocket of your apron.

She smiles, but it's more like a smirk, a devilish curl of the lips that you don't quite label as dangerous, like you should.

“Good girl,” she purrs.

You don't know why that has such an effect on you. You feel yourself go limp but you stay standing as your eyes flutter and you feel the need to clear your throat again.

“While I'm in the charitable spirit,” Natasha says, satisfied with your obedience, “why don't you go out with me sometime? Got any Christmas plans?”

Your face is warm, the tips of your ears burn with the idea of going out with such a beautiful creature. As you think of your holiday plans, you shake your head. “Uhm, n-no.” Why can't you seem to speak today?

“No?” she says, her face drenched in surprise. “No dinner with family, an outing with friends?” She finds it hard to believe that a sweet girl like you has nothing to do for the biggest holiday season of the year.

But it's hard to have friends when you're all the way in New York and your family is all the way in California and all your friends are visiting their families or have their own friends to be with.

So, no… no plans for you.

“No,” you smile, almost sadly. “Nothing for me this year.”

Natasha almost thinks she's taking pity on you when she asks this, rather than forming her own plan to taint your white ledger.

“Well, I've got no plans. You've got no plans.” She smiles and reaches her hand out to brush your fingers. “Let's fix that.”

“O-Okay,” you stutter.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She nods, pleased with you. “I'll meet you here, then. Seven o'clock, Christmas day. Dress to impress.”

You smile sweetly. “Always do.”

“I can see that,” she says, looking you up and down with an appreciative glance.

You smile widely, a grand smile that puts the sun to shame. “I'll have your order right out.” You pick up your pen and dot the notepad you have her order written on.

Natasha nods before turning and walking toward a tiny table by the window, the morning light still pouring in, even as the morning slowly dwindles into noon. She watches you as you work, her eyes glued to your body as she follows you everywhere.

You really are just so…pure. She was thinking it may have been a façade to make the customers feel welcome, but one look at you, one sniff of your perfume, one word from your sweet lips and she knew you were sweet as sugar. Pure.

She hasn't met someone this pure in a very long time, if ever.

And you would taste divine.

“Nat.”

Her name said by such honey-tainted lips pulls her from her thoughts. She rises from her seat and makes her way to you once more.

Your smile is already ready, and just so sweet. “I hope you enjoy. Thank you for coming and…” you smile, biting your lip briefly, “I'll see you soon.”

“Thank you…” Her gaze darts down to your nametag, reading the letters one-by-one to savor the taste of it. She says your name like she's making love to it. You shudder. “Beautiful name.”

“Thank you,” you speak, your voice so soft and gracious she could have mistaken it for a whimper.

Natasha grabs the cup and the box of cookies, her fingers intentionally brushing yours as she speaks. “Christmas day. Seven. Don't forget.”

You shake your head. “I won't.”

She smiles. “Goodbye, angel.”

You nod quickly, too excited to see her again. “Bye, Nat.”

She walks out of the little cafe, her treats in hand. She lets the door close behind her, lets the bell ring about her head. Once she's out of the coffee shop but still in your view, she takes a sip of her scorching hot coffee like it's nothing and sighs. Even the coffee is as pure as you, perhaps because it was made by such hands.

She turns her head to see you watching her through the window and just nods. She watches your fluster, nodding proudly back to her before trying to look busy.

She can't wait to devour you.

~

You don't know how you got here, with your back pressed to your bedroom wall, with Natasha's hands smoothing underneath your shirt to touch the bare skin of your waist, with your lips molding perfectly with her own like they were made to fit together.

You'd gotten to the cafe an hour early, pretending—even to yourself—to tidy the place since you were closed for the holiday. Natasha showed up five minutes late, but fashionably so. She was beautiful; a pretty blouse red as blood, dark slacks tight around her waist and loose the rest of the way down, a black coat draped down past her knees.

The air was knocked from your lungs. She was beautiful.

Her eyes examined you, and she was impressed. You wore a short, long-sleeved, cream-colored dress and skin-colored tights to fight the cold. An angel.

She’d taken your hand and kissed the back of it, telling you how beautiful you were—though you swear you heard her say “delicious” again.

Then she took you to dinner. It was a nice restaurant, somewhere cozy with really good food. She paid for your food and for dessert, and you told her she didn't have to, but she insisted.

Then she took you ice skating. She held your hand the whole time and paid for you, and you told her she didn't have to, but she insisted.

Then she took you on a late night walk through the park. She held your hand and kept you close and told you that the moon looked beautiful on your skin. You told her she didn't have to, but she insisted.

Then when she walked you home, telling you how beautiful you were at the doorstep and taking your hands and pulling you in for a gentle kiss, you smiled and kissed her back. Then she kept kissing you, and you kept kissing back.

And it turned into you opening your door and letting her inside, kissing her some more and offering her coffee, only to have her tell you that she had everything she needed right here.

Hands wandered, then lips wandered, then she pressed you into the wall, and now she's got you laid out on your bed, still fully dressed and so, so hot.

She leans over you, inhaling the scent of your perfume with a sigh as she keeps kissing you. You hold her, your arms wrapped securely around her neck to keep her close.

Her teeth graze your lip, struggling to refrain from biting so hard, she draws the sweet syrup of your blood. You lean into her touch, keening against her and longing to savor the flavor of her name on your lips as you whisper, “Natasha.”

She wraps her hand around your throat as her mouth trails down to your neck, to your collarbone, feeling your pulse beating rapidly under the skin. Her teeth sink into your flesh, and she chuckles deeply when your breath hitches.

She could just as easily crush your windpipe if she wanted to. She could snap her fingers, and you'd be reduced to nothing but a pile of ash and bone.

But where was the fun in that?

No, she would savor you. She would lick your skin and taste the sweet ambrosia you'd create all for her. She would carve her name into your flesh with the bite of her claws. She would sink her sharp teeth to the bone. She would make you scream until the only word you knew were the letters of her name.

Her hand dips low under your dress, gripping your thigh as she slowly moves it up, up, up, her fingers digging into your skin as she does. Your eyes flutter shut, resorting to just feeling her as she touches you any way she likes. She hums deep in her throat as she pulls back to look at you, riding your dress up and pulling your leggings down so she can see the pretty panties you wore for her.

“Mm,” she sighs. “You look delicious, darling.”

Your tiny chuckle comes out as a breathy moan. “Don’t you mean,” you whimper slightly as her sharp nails dig into your skin as they make their way down your leg, the stinging sensations exciting you more than she initially thought. Corrupting you will be easy. “Don’t you mean ‘delightful’?”

Her hand around your throat tightens just a slight, not enough to constrict any airflow, but just enough for you to feel the warmth of her palm against your skin. “No,” she rasps. “I mean delicious.”

She manages to get your tights off, humming appreciatively at your lacey panties before ripping those off your body instead. You gasp lightly but say nothing else, allowing her to do as she wishes as you sit back and enjoy it.

Your hips jerk when her thumb teases the skin of your mound, dipping between your thighs just enough to press it lightly to your clit. Your breath hitches, your chest rising and falling in quick succession as she presses her thumb so lightly, you wonder if she’s actually touching you. She teases you like this for a moment, feather-light touches that make you so desperate for her.

“Tasha,” you whimper. “Please, I need you.”

Her eyes glint at the way you plead for her. Already, you’ve begun to beg. You’re so responsive, so sensitive to her touch. One would think you were untouched, but no… She would be able to smell that off you, and she smells that this is not the first time someone has been between your legs.

How precious you are. Tainted but still so unspoiled.

The pad of her middle finger grazes your slit, teasing you further as your body keens for her touch. “Say it one more time for me, baby,” she whispers in your ear. “Say it. ‘Please, I need you.’ Lemme hear it.”

You whine gently, letting one hand travel to her hair to let your fingers card through the softness of her red locks. You let your bottom lip pass between your teeth before you gladly obey her. “Please,” you whisper, lifting your hips to meet her. “I need you.”

Proud of herself, and of you, she slips her finger inside of you, sheathing it in the warmth and wetness of your body. You hum, closing your eyes. “How is that, angel?” she smiles, watching your eyes dart behind your closed lids.

You nod, parting your lips as a breath passes through them. “Yes.”

She grins devilishly. “Good girl.” She rewards you with another finger in the tightness of your slickening pussy. You reward her with another little whimper. She pumps them slowly, in and out of you, pushing them deep to feel every little part of you before allowing herself to pull out and do it again.

She curls her fingers inside of you, a come hither motion making your lips round into a ‘o’ shape. You whisper her name again, gently begging her for more. More closeness, more pleasure, more her.

She pumps them slowly, massaging your spongy walls as you begin to move your hips to the rhythm. “More?” you whimper, still so polite as you beg her for a request. And how could she say no when you’re as sweet as you are?

“You want more of me, angel?” she smiles. “I’ll give you some more.”

She dips down to kiss your collarbone again before she pulls her fingers out of you and laughs at the way you whimper, a pathetic little sound at the loss of her touch. Before you can begin to protest, you hear her snap and feel the zipper at your back begin to zip down your body. But you have no time to question her, as her lips attack yours between the time it takes to pull the dress over your head and off your body.

You don’t seem shy when you are laid bare to her. You keep holding her and kissing her, forgetting your confusion and shock before in favor of tasting the spice of her lips. She pushes you back onto the bed, abruptly separating you, even as your hands stay attached to her arms just to feel her soft skin.

She leans down over your body and lets her kisses ghost over your flesh, a phantom of herself teasing you. You feel her warm breath at the juncture of your thighs and want nothing more than to feel her tongue next. And it seems your prayers are answered when the hot muscle of her tongue flattens against your wet pussy and licks the arousal she’s pulled from you.

She’s happy to listen to the way you whisper her name under your breath when her lips wrap around you, allowing her tongue to plunge between your folds and fill you with pleasure. You moan and grind your hips against her face. She has to hold you down, chuckling darkly as she continues to lap at your needy core.

She sucks around your clit and swirls around your folds, tasting the sweetness you bear with a deep hum. “You taste just as delicious as you smell,” she rasps, kissing you messily. “This body is so…divine.” You melt under her praise, your hands tangling in her hair as your chest heaves.

Her fingers join her tongue once more, stroking and spreading and slipping in and out of you with the sole goal of tasting more of your sweet, sweet honey. “Natasha,” you moan. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? That’s a new one. Out of all the words in the Urban dictionary that can be used to describe Natasha Romanoff, sweetheart is not among them. Still, it’s sweet, and she thinks you’re adorable for thinking that way.

Natasha devours you, feeding off your moans like they are the essence of her being. Her hands grip your flesh and her tongue delves inside of you. She replaces her tongue with her fingers once more, pumping them in and out of you, curling against that sweet spot hidden deep within you. Your back arches and your moans get sucked up into the walls of your bedroom, pitchy and full of breath and desperation. You need her like you need air.

You moan her name again and she knows you’re close by the way your pussy tightens around her fingers, the way your clit pulses between her lips, by the way your fingers begin to tug at the locks of red hair you have tangled between them. She works harder, so eager to taste your nectar.

You hurdle over the edge with a loud, gasping moan. She holds you securely atop the counter, fingering and licking at your pussy as you gush around her, easing you through your orgasm. You chant her name under your breath, riding out your high against her face as she keeps building you up and prolonging your release just so she can continue to suck on your offerings, like the sap from a maple tree.

The last sparks of pleasure shoot through your limbs, in your belly. Your hips jerk when her fingers curve inside of you just a slight. She pulls them out and pulls away and licks her lips like she’s gotten sugar smeared all over them. “Oh, my angel,” she rasps. “Like heaven on earth.”

And you think she’s done as you will yourself to sit up, offering a sweet smile as you pull her in to kiss again, fully intending on seeing if she tastes just as “delicious” as she keeps telling you that you are.

But she breaks her kiss and stands off the bed and to her feet. You sit back, watching her pull her blouse over her head as her eyes stay glued to your beautiful body. She slips her lacey, only-for-decoration bra from her body to leave herself in nothing but her slacks.

You gaze at her, taking in the perfect hour-glass of her body and gawking when she steps out of her slacks and presents you with the strap-on she’s been hiding all this time. She watches the way you stare at it, smirking to herself as she stalks back over to you, leaning on the bed with her knee. “You like?” she says.

You bring your gaze up to her face, swallowing thickly and feeling embarrassment warming in your face for staring. You just nod. She chuckles, cupping your chin with her hand and shaking her head. She thinks you’re adorable.

She slides the hand around to your neck, cupping you there and pulling you in for a kiss. You moan, leaning into her. “But what about you?” you whisper, pressing your hand to her side and stroking your fingers over the skin.

She shrugs, “Don’t worry.” You miss the small wave of her hand behind her back as she lets her magic wash over her, connecting her own pleasure to that of her strap as she’s done a million times before. But you don’t need to know that. You don’t need to know the extent of her inhumanity. It isn’t important to the pleasure she derives from getting to taint something as pure as you. “It’s double-sided,��� she lies.

You don’t get to protest because her lips are already on yours again. She slides her fingers through your folds again, swallowing your moans as she lays you down on your back and spreads you wide open for her.

As you're distracted by her kiss, she thrusts inside of you with a deep moan. You break the kiss, laying your head back and letting out a whimper of your own as she fills you, stretches you open for her as your tight pussy adjusts. You whisper her name like a prayer, and she moans yours like a sin.

She gives you only a moment to adjust to her size before she's moving her hips, a slow and steady in and out as she gets herself used to the feel of you, and oh… You definitely do not disappoint as you squeeze her cock like a vice.

“Fuck, my angel,” she laughs to herself. “You're fucking perfect.”

You wrap your arms around her shoulders and savor the strokes of their cock inside you. “Please, Tasha,” you mutter.

She likes the way Tasha sounds. She's never been called Tasha before, her nickname has always been Nat. But the way it sounds falling from your lips, like a spell seeping into her skin and pulling her under your enchantment.

And it's hard to deny you when you look as precious as you do.

Her cock slides in and out of you in long, slow strokes as she fills you to the brim. You bite down on your bottom lip, your eyes closing as you breathe long, heavy sighs at the feelings she thrusts into you.

The desire for you, the desire to tear you apart invaded every little crevice of her being as she lost herself to more and more of her urge to fuck you desperate. She wants to hear your angelic voice beg a demon to fuck her nice and deep. She wants to see you fall apart, become a sinner all for her.

She grips your hips tightly, her rough thrusts no longer forgiving as she decides to take you how she wanted. You moan and whimper as your legs climb her waist until they're wrapped around her. She holds your thigh and just keeps thrusting.

You stutter her name, your capacity to remember anything else already slipping. She thrusts into you with all the passion in the world.

And then she pulls out at the pique of your wanton moans. You mewl and uselessly grab at her arms and waist. She separates from you with a sigh and ignores your attempts at bringing her back in, turning you on your stomach instead.

She thrusts inside without another word, filling you up from behind as you let your head hang. “There you go,” she husks. “That's better. Now I can fuck you like a whore.”

You moan, gripping the sheets and letting her do as she pleases. She keeps fucking you, relishing in the building sound of her hips smacking against your slick skin, the sound of you practically crying at the feeling of her fucking you so roughly making it harder to hold back.

“P-Please,” you stutter, clenching harder at the feeling. “Please don't stop. You're…amazing.”

Your gentle praise spurs her on more than she'd intended. She presses her finger to your clit and begins to rub fast, tight circles over it. She wants to feel you come undone. The more you cum on her cock, the more tainted you become with her darkness.

Her cock spears into you, pulling the dirtiest sounds from you as they echoed in the room—skin on skin, wet against wet. Your mouth falls open and you let out breathless cries accompanied with their own pleasured tears as they slip down your cheeks.

It feels so good, and you're going to cum.

You feel your body getting ready for it, building up higher and higher until you can do nothing but moan Natasha's name and shake upon your crashing release.

“Tasha,” you whine, dragging the last syllable out and breaking off into a pathetic moan. She keeps fucking you, groaning roughly as you clench so tightly around her. You gush and moan and she can't help but to fuck you just a little harder.

And when the orgasm melds to a little tremble, she keeps going. One of her hands wraps around your throat, tightening just a bit. She likes to feel her veins thumping under her palm, she likes to feel your life in her hand.

And apparently, so do you as you wrap your hand around hers and hold it securely there. Her eyes close as your pussy tightens, her thrusts become rougher as your moans become louder. She is going to make you cum again, she's set on it.

Your legs are a trembling mess, your arms are slowly dwindling in the strength they need to hold you up. “Please,” you mewl again. “Please don't stop, Tasha. I need you so…fucking bad.”

She feels successful. That's the first time she's heard you curse, and she's so excited to have spoiled your tongue with such a word. She rubs your clit again, wanting to reward you.

“I want you to cum for me again, angel,” she rasps. “All over me. Come on.”

Her thrusts are becoming sloppy, so absorbed in her oncoming release as she readies herself for your own. She pulls you back to meet her thrusts, rough and fast and deep as she continues to build you up.

You moan loudly as the pleasure builds and builds until it snaps. You throw your head back, crying out as you cum with the tight squeeze of your cunt. The warmth and the wetness of your pussy is too much as Natasha follows after you. She moans deeply in her throat as she grinds roughly inside of you, burying her cock in your pussy as if she was cumming in you to give you a deeper taint of your purity.

You allow your arms to give out as you fall forward onto the bed and muffle your moans into the sheets. She keeps gripping your hips tight, still riding out her high as she moans your name and lets out a string of curses.

Your whole body is shuddering by the time both your pleasure is reduced to tiny spasms through your limbs. She thrusts her hips a couple more times before pulling out of you with a long sigh.

You roll onto your side, lazily lying there as you glance up at Natasha with heavy eyelids. She runs a hand through her hair and gathers herself, looking down at you as the pride shimmers in her eyes and her chest.

She watches you, smiling, though she can't help a prickle of confusion when she takes in the sight of you. You lay there, half-asleep and completely spent, bare and vulnerable and exploited by her darkness.

And, yet, you look every bit like an angel as when she first met you. You look just as sweet, smell just as sweet, smile at her just as sweetly.

“Thank you,” you whisper sweetly. She watches you, watches as you pat the spot next to you and cast your innocent eyes on her.

And she's curious, so she lays down where you offer her a spot. Then you cup her cheek with the palm of your hand and kiss her, a long and slow and gentle kiss that Natasha becomes conflicted with as she leans into it.

Then you wrap your arms around her body and pull her in tight so she can't escape—or, she could… but she won't. All that time spent trying to corrupt you, and you're still the virtuous little angel she met at the coffee shop, cradling her in your arms and kissing her forehead and thanking her for the night of passionate fucking she'd just given you.

There is a warmth in your arms that Natasha hasn't felt in a long time. She's not quite sure if she's ever felt a warmth like this. She leans into it, she feels herself succumbing to your purities, despite her best efforts.

Curious, she lets you hold her, even longer after you had fallen asleep as she could safely slip away into the night, never to see you again.

But, no… You intrigue her. She couldn't leave now, especially if there was still so much virtue left in you. She will have to stick around. Yes… she will have to keep you a while longer.

You are a rare delicacy. She couldn't let you go to waste.

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[ckret2]

Chapter 41 of human Bill Cipher being really sick of being the Mystery Shack's prisoner: after absolutely terrorizing Gideon for projecting used car ads into Bill's dreams, tries to blackmail Gideon into working for him again.

But not before showing some unexpected sympathy for the plight of a child psychic on whose shoulders the family's financial future rests.

####

Dipper and Mabel were in the middle of a race on a roller coaster track when Bill wandered back downstairs. He sat on the couch armrest next to Mabel and precariously balanced as he crossed his legs. "So I've been thinking over this whole thing," Bill said. "I think I should apologize to Gideon."

"Work that out all by yourself?" Dipper glanced at the clock. "Wow. And it only took you half an hour."

Mabel finished a lap. While the roller coaster track slowly lifted her car to the top of the hill to start the next lap, she turned to give Bill an appraising look, ready to assess his work. "Apologize for what?"

"For terrorizing him! Is this a trick question?"

She nodded slowly—a little skeptical, but so far so good—but had to look away as she regained control of her car. "What's your angle?"

"I'm equilateral, work it out."

"Shut uuup, I'm serious."

"Why do I need to have an angle? Maybe I want to practice some of the apology lessons they're teaching on Color Critters! Aren't you the one who wanted me to be a decent person? You should be thrilled. You are thrilled."

"Bill."

"Okay fine, I want you to stop looking at me like I'm evil incarnate over a silly little prank letter." He nudged Mabel's head with his elbow. She smacked his arm away. "Isn't that the only reason anyone apologizes? To stop people from getting mad at them?" He lifted his eyepatch and squinted at the screen. "Goose in the left barrel."

Mabel swerved left. "Yes! Eat tail feathers, Dipper!"

"No no no no—!" His anguished groan mingled with angry honks. He tossed down his controller as Mabel sailed past his disabled car. "I'm not playing with Bill in the room."

Mabel laughed. "You're a sore loser!"

"I'll be out of your matted hair in a few minutes," Bill said. "You're cranky, go get a juice."

Dipper stomped from the room, grumbling. "Whatever, I'm getting a snack." He pointed at Bill, "Not because you told me to! I'm just hungry! It's got nothing to do with you!"

"Sure." Bill nudged Mabel again. "C'mon, let me use my training. Don't think I haven't noticed you're trying to mold me into a model citizen. Why bother if I never get a chance to act like one?"

Mabel looked at him thoughtfully. "You know what? Okay. I guess not wanting people to be mad at you is a good enough reason to apologize." She'd been hoping he'd land on genuine remorse, but she'd take what she could get.

"Great! Fisherman's out, Questiony's working, Sixer's gonna be in his cave til dinner, Dolores doesn't care—" Bill gestured toward the door, "so let's get the bracelets and get to the kid's house while the adults are distracted."

Mabel grimaced. "Oough. Right. We have to actually visit him."

"Unless you want me to mail an apology letter—"

"Definitely not." She sighed. "Well, if it's for the greater good... put on something other than a hoodie and let's go."

"You got it." Bill hopped off the couch and swung with one hand around the doorframe as he headed to the stairs.

####

Dipper tried to protest, but he'd missed his window to talk Mabel out of it; and so Bill and Mabel headed out, with Bill in a loose smiley face-covered Hawaiian shirt—Mabel approved of the friendly message—an undershirt, the leggings that looked like jeans, and his dress shoes. In other words, about as disarmingly unthreateningly un-Bill-like as he could get. He seemed to get bouncier and more energetic the longer they walked outside, until by the time they were turning onto Gideon's street he was cartwheeling up the sidewalk.

Bill waited for Mabel to open the gate in front of Gideon's house; but while Bill blithely passed through, Mabel lingered behind a few steps. Bill paused and glanced back. "Hey. All good, star girl?"

"Yeah." Mabel laughed nervously and caught up. "Just... haven't been to his house since before he got weird. Kinda gives me the willies now."

"Can't blame you. This is the guy who agreed to be my sheriff in exchange for custody of your bubble key."

Mabel cringed. "Did he really?"

"Oh yeah. Think he was planning to visit you in there until he wooed you? I never asked him. I didn't want the details."

"Ugh." Mabel shuddered.

Bill paused. "Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that ten feet from his front door."

"It's... it's fine." She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Greater good. Right?"

He didn't answer immediately, tapping a foot as he thought. "Listen. Once we're in there, do you want me to go somewhere private to talk with him? So you don't have to worry about him leering at you the whole time?"

"Would you?" Mabel's shoulders slumped as a little tension eased up, relief obvious on her face. "But how will I know if you've apologized properly?"

"That little tattle will tell you if I do an awful job." Bill laughed. "Come on! I don't need you grading me on a rubric! Gimme a chance to prove I can say 'I'm sorry' without my life coach telling me how to behave."

"Thanks, Bill." She gave him a quick hug.

"Sure, any time kid. I'm not about to let any creeps get to you on my watch." Bill stretched his arms out, fingers laced together. "Ready?" When Mabel nodded, Bill knocked on the door.

After a long moment, a worried-looking, gray-haired woman opened the door. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Gleeful!" Bill offered a partial bow. "We're here to visit Gideon, he should be expecting us. Would you let him know we're here?"

"Oh. Yes, of course." Her voice was a hushed murmur, as though she were talking to herself—or perpetually concerned about being overheard. She didn't raise her voice much as she called into the house, "Gideon? You have visitors."

Voice muffled, Gideon shouted from upstairs, "Who is it!"

Joy glanced over Bill and Mabel, but her gaze lingered on Mabel's face. "Oh. Aren't you that girl he...?"

"It's Mabel."

Joy said, "It's Mabel, and—"

Gideon let out an alarmed squawk. "Ohmygoodness. JUST A MINUUUTE! Where did I leave my cologne—"

Joy watched the ceiling nervously, listening to the subtle thuds.

Bill glanced her up and down, as though sizing up what he had to work with; and then he smiled brightly and said, "Well, I'm sure the little star's preparing a big entrance! Shall we wait inside?"

Joy started a little. "Oh—yes, of course. Please, come in." She pulled the door open wider and gestured to the sitting area.

Bill and Mabel took a seat on the couch. Bill crossed one ankle over his knee in a casual figure 4, and gestured to the armchair as though he were the host giving his guest permission to sit. Joy hesitated, but took the seat, sitting straight up without touching the back of the seat, feet together and hands laced over her knees.

"And how has Gideon been lately?" Bill asked. "We haven't had a chance to catch up since last summer!"

"Oh—I'm sure he's probably fine," Joy said, eyes darting around—to the clean carpet, to the framed pictures hanging straight on the wall, to the doorway into the kitchen.

"'Probably'?" Bill echoed.

"Well. He's really closer to his father, you see..."

"Nonsense." Bill lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I trust a woman's intuition on this sort of thing." He paused. "I'd wink here, but uh..." He gestured at his eye patch and shrugged with a helpless grin.

Joy curled her lips into her mouth and, for the first time since she'd opened the door, for a fraction of a second, nearly almost smiled. But it faded quickly; and when she spoke, her voice was low enough that Mabel had to lean halfway across the coffee table to hear her. (Bill didn't even move.) "You should probably know before you see him: he... has seemed a little bit cranky, recently."

"Oh?" Bill prompted.

(Mabel mumbled, "'Recently'?" and Bill nudged her.)

"Nothing like he was when he—" Joy faltered and quickly course corrected, "before his arrest. But, a bit. But then he's going through so much—reintegrating into life on the outside, trying to make friends at school..."

"Say, that's nice to hear! Has he made many?"

Joy hesitated. "He's always been... such a precocious child. It makes it hard for him to relate to other... And honestly, I think most of the children are jealous of his talents."

Bill nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure they are. Kids can be so cruel when they notice someone special. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

Joy nodded. "Yes—exactly. And he's so... sensitive."

Bill gave Mabel a warning glance. She pursed her lips tightly and puffed out her cheeks. Satisfied she wasn't about to weigh in on why Gideon wasn't making friends, Bill turned back to Joy. "Do you think that's what's been bothering him lately?"

"Well, yes, there's that."

Voice a tad lower, Bill prompted, "And...?"

Joy paused. She twisted her hands together. "And—I think he might be concerned about his father's business."

"Oh, the auto dealership?" Bill sat up a little. "I hope it hasn't been struggling lately?"

"It's... been a slow few months," Joy said. "It must be weighing on him—"

"He doesn't feel responsible, does he?"

Joy quickly shook her head. "Of course not. It isn't his fault. But he's just a little boy, there's not much he can do to help. Besides perform in a commercial, maybe—and he doesn't like that, we don't make him do that anymore—or..." She trailed off. "Well. Not knowing how to help or what to do... I can imagine he must feel... guilty." She stared down at her hands as she spoke.

Bill's gaze never wavered from her face. He nodded slowly. "I'm sure the business must be weighing on the whole family. It can't be easy for you, Joy—keeping a household running during such a difficult time." He gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll see what I can do to help you all."

Joy stared at his face, eyes shining. "I'm, sorry—did I catch your name?"

"Mr. Locke is fine, thanks. I was in business talks with your son before his incarceration."

Mabel leaned against Bill and whispered, "You mean he hired you to invade my grunkle's brain—"

Bill elbowed her.

Footsteps scurried down the stairs. "I'm coming!" Gideon rushed into the room, tugging his sleeves down his wrists, all gussied up and reeking of three separate hair products. "Hi Mabel my honey pie! What a pleasant surprise, what brings you by so s—" His gaze fixed on Bill, and his sweet smile twisted into fury. "You!"

Joy quickly stood up. "I should be—vacuuming the dining room." She hurried from the room, giving Gideon a wide berth as she went. The sound of vacuuming quickly filled the house.

Gideon never looked away from Bill. "Just what do you think y—"

Bill was on his feet and sweeping across the room before Gideon could get more out. "Hello again! I don't think we were properly introduced. The name's Goldie Locke." He blinked. "Wink."

Gideon grimaced. "You serious? Goldilocks? That's the best you could do?"

"I thought it was funny!"

Mabel scooted up onto the arm of the sofa, took a leap off, and landed next to Bill. "I came up with it!"

Gideon smiled uncomfortably. "Oh—sure, sure. Real cute."

"We came by so Goldie here," Mabel poked Bill's arm with both hands, "could give you a proper apology for his... 'prank.'" She got behind Bill and poked him in the back, directing him toward the stairs. "So you two go off somewhere private and do that! Go! Go on!"

"Wh— private?" Gideon leaned around Bill to give Mabel a pleading look. "M-Mabel, aren't you coming too?"

Mabel laughed nervously. "No, definitely not. I'm staying right here."

"But—but—"

"It's fine! If he tries any—" her voice dropped to a whisper, "—weird space demon magic—you can just scream. But he's basically harmless! I promise."

"But... I don't wanna be alone with..."

Bill put a hand on Gideon's back, turned him around, and practically dragged him toward the stairs. "And she doesn't want to be alone with you, and I'm going to respect her wishes."

Gideon hissed at Bill. He wasn't quite sure what to do when Bill hissed back. No one had ever done that before.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Bill said, giving Gideon a very worrying smile. "I just want an opportunity to show you the sincerity of my remorse. A little heart-to-heart! And anyway, you and I have a lot of catching up to do."

####

The moment Gideon's bedroom door shut, Bill said, in an exaggeratedly innocent golly-gee-whiz voice, "'Well, Mabel, the thing is, I was just cranky because I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in days, because Gideon's been broadcasting mind control dreams to the town multiple times a week! Yeah, you know how you've been waking up feeling hypnotically compelled to buy a car? Good ol' Gideon! But you're right, bullying isn't the solution! I should have just asked him to cast his brainwashing spell a little further from the Mystery Shack—'" Bill cut off with a laugh. "I take it you get the picture! Your flesh is as white as your hair! It's—it's creepy. Stop it."

Gideon was already on the far side of the room, holding a floating arm desk lamp toward Bill like a sword. Voice shaking, he asked, "How do you know about that spell? H-how are you even alive? And here like... like this?"

"Does it matter?" Bill meandered around the room, looking at Gideon's matching nightstands, his TV, the floppy teddy bear on his bed. "Here's the only important question: what's it worth to you for me not to spill the beans to your sweetheart?"

Gideon swallowed hard.

As Bill rounded the bed, Gideon backed away from him until his back was pressed against the wall between his vanity and his dresser. Bill leaned over to look under the bed and nudged a rolled-up tarp with his foot. It unrolled across the floor, revealing Gideon's magic circle. "Uh-huh."

"Please stop looking around my room."

"Relax, I just want to see what's changed! This is hardly the first time I've seen your room." He glanced down at the subtle depiction of his face woven into the pattern on Gideon's carpet. "I've had eyes in here since you were a baby." 

He leaned over Gideon's bed, studying his knit zodiac blanket. "Although this eye is new. You went with red, white, and blue? How patriotic." He tugged at the blanket's edges, straightening it out. "Lots of pilling on the yarn, this thing's been very well loved. Does it still smell like Shooting Star, you cretin?"

"You keep your hands off of Mabel's blanket, you—!" Gideon swung his lamp toward Bill. It missed by a foot.

Bill didn't even flinch. "You're very lucky that you missed." For a moment, his voice was inhumanly low.

Gideon's blood ran cold. He clutched the lamp against his chest. "W-what do you want from me? I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep, all right? Is that what you want to hear?!"

"It's a good start!" Bill sat on Gideon's bed and made himself comfortable, propping himself up on his elbows, ankles crossed casually, resting in the center of his own zodiac. "Now, promise you'll stop advertising in people's dreams, and everything's forgiven!"

"I..." Gideon bit his lip.

Bill grinned a little wider. "What's the problem, kid? It's not like your daddy needs you running his advertising campaign! The family finances aren't resting on your shoulders!" He laughed.

Gideon just bit his lip harder. 

"Oh wait. Maybe they are. Are they?"

He looked down at the tarp. "Mrrng."

Bill sat up, leaning forward until he caught Gideon's gaze again. "So sorry, Star Boy! I didn't realize how serious your situation is!" His wicked smile said otherwise. "Wow, that must be so hard for you—the family breadwinner, at such a young age. Knowing your family needs you to keep them afloat. And it's not like you can just go out and get a job! So what can you do, except... well, whatever it is you already know how to do? Putting on a good show, right?"

"It's not like that," Gideon snapped, ignoring the weight in the pit of his stomach. He looked down at his lamp weapon and tugged anxiously at one of his sleeves. "It—it's not as though we're broke! We just... might have to tighten our belts a little bit, that's all. It's normal, most businesses have their ups and downs."

"Of course. Just no big shopping trips for a while! Pity you're about to need a whole new wardrobe, though."  Bill casually pushed himself off Gideon's bed, taking a step closer. "Hey, wanna know when your next growth spurt starts?"

Gideon shrank down. "No."

"It costs a lot to keep a growing kid clothed. And fed, and stocked with school supplies... If father asks for a little help, how can you refuse? If you don't, you could lose the business, lose your house, lose everything... all that, plus knowing it'd be your fault for not doing what you can? It's heartbreaking."

Bill leaned over Gideon, propping himself up with a hand on his dresser, trapping him in his shadow. Gideon cringed; but Bill asked, voice unexpectedly low and almost gentle, "You're so important. There's a helplessness that comes from wielding that kind of power, isn't there?"

The weight in Gideon's stomach grew heavier. Bill must have been watching his life ever since last fall; that was the only way he could have understood what Gideon was feeling so well. And yet—hearing someone else put it into words was a strange relief. He'd cut to the bleeding core of the issue. Gideon was the only one with the power to do anything, so he had to do something. It was a helplessness.

"Yeah." Gideon put his lamp back on his dresser, defeated. "Yeah, there is."

Bill crouched in front of Gideon, meeting him at eye level. "It just so happens that I'm sympathetic to your situation, kid. I get it." It was hard to read the mood in Bill's alien gaze; but for a moment, Gideon was sure he really did see a glimmer of sympathy in his slit pupil. "So how about this: I could help you out. Make some calls, pull some strings... give the family business a little boost," he said. "If you do me a couple small favors first."

Outraged, Gideon shouted, "You're blackmailing me into working for you again?! You—!" With a furious grunt, Gideon shoved Bill away from him.

To his surprise (and immediate horror), Bill lost balance, toppling onto his back with a yelp. But he just rolled onto his side and hopped back to his feet, laughing. "No no no! I'm blackmailing you into knocking off the annoying dream spell. That's all! Cut it out, or I'm telling Mabel. And—heck, how about the police while I'm at it?"

"You wouldn't—"

"I am pals with the sheriff and the mayor. Mind control happens to already be illegal in Gravity Falls, you can thank Quentin Trembley for that—such a forward thinker! I don't think there are any state-level laws yet, but I bet they'll wriiite ooone just for yoo-oou." The last sentence came out as a singsong taunt. "Anyway: drop the mind control. That's all I'm asking for. Okay?"

Gideon had circled around Bill to his bed, where he pulled off his zodiac blanket and bundled it against his chest. He wasn't sure which sounded worse. Prison probably should, but the thought of giving Mabel a fresh reason to hate him... He looked down at the blanket, and heaved a shaky sigh. "Okay."

"So? We're agreed? No more dream advertisements?"

"No more dream advertisements. You win."

"Great!" Bill beamed at Gideon. "But then, completely separately, if you want help saving the family business... well, offer's on the table! In fact, I'd happily offer to help without asking anything in return—"

"—you should, it's mostly your fault—"

"—except that, with my own situation being like it is, what with the limited access to my usual resources... I need you to help me help you." He spread his hands apologetically. "Nothing I can do about it."

Gideon pressed his lips together, looking down at his zodiac blanket. A fold in the fabric displayed part of the ripped heart. Gideon plucked out the blanket until he could glimpse the top of the shooting star.

He swallowed hard. "No. Absolutely not."

Bill blinked. "'Scuse me?"

"I can't accept your help," Gideon said. "I lead a support group of ex-cons—the very same ones I stupidly led into battle for you—and what would they say if they heard I was working for you again?"

The indulgent smile on Bill's face vanished. Rage flashed in his eye. "What would they say if they learned you're the first among them to reoffend?" He pointed at Gideon's magic circle. "Wouldn't they be disappointed. Aren't they your followers these days?"

Gideon squirmed under Bill's glare, backing away until he bumped into one of his nightstands. "F... 'followers'?"

"Your devotees—now that your Tent of Telepathy audience has abandoned you." The new smile that twisted across Bill's face now was hard and cruel, and his eye fixed like a prison searchlight on Gideon made Bill seem much closer than he was. "Isn't being worshiped sublime, Star Boy? That unconditional love? A worshiper will always be more reliable than some girl's fickle heart. But even the most 'unconditional' love always comes with fine print. How far are you willing to go to remain worthy of their love?"

Bill pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and waved it in the air. "We both know you'll help your daddy's business. The only question is if you'll do it your way, or mine." He placed the paper on Gideon's dresser and tapped it with his finger. "My way doesn't even involve breaking the law."

Gideon shook his head. "I won't..."

"I'll leave it with you anyway."

Bill strolled around the bed. "Well! I think we're finished here, how about you?" He stopped in front of the door.

He turned back. "Gideon, you're gonna have to get the door, I can't..."

"What?" Gideon asked. "Y'can't what?"

Bill huffed. "I'm sort of under this curse? So. If you could just—"

Gideon burst out laughing in disbelief. "The Amnesia Limina curse? You can't open doors?! Are you kidding me!"

"I can still ruin the rest of your embarrassingly short mortal life, you twit. Just—just get over here—"

Still laughing, Gideon crossed the room and got the door.

"Yeah. Thanks. Great."

As they came downstairs, Mabel hopped off the sofa. "Sooo? How'd the apology go?"

"Great!" Bill got in front before Gideon had a chance to speak. "I think we really understand each other better. Isn't that right, Gideon?"

Gideon grumped, "I think it's the worst 'apology' I've ever heard."

Bill gave him a dirty look powerful enough to kill a skittish horse; but he flinched under the weight of Mabel's disappointed frown. He laughed nervously, "Okay, so I still need some practice with my delivery! Human tones are finicky." He stared at Gideon. "But you accept the overall content of it, right?"

Bill was giving Gideon the creepiest smile he'd ever seen. But Mabel, on the other hand, was giving him this hopeful look—like she wanted this to go well so badly, and only Gideon could make or ruin her day. There's a helplessness that comes with wielding that kind of power.

In the world Gideon had been raised in, if someone who has transgressed against you apologizes, you don't have the right to withhold their forgiveness—it makes you as bad as the transgressor. The only way he could refuse was if he told Mabel he hadn't even gotten any apology; but there was no way to say that without admitting what they'd really discussed. "Yeah," Gideon muttered at his shoes. "I s'pose I accept it."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist in the air so enthusiastically she lifted a few inches off the floor. "Great work! Happy face stickers for everybody!" She smacked a sticker on Bill's shirt and Gideon's lapel.

They tugged out their clothes to inspect their stickers. Bill's had a giant yellow smiley face over the words "Good job!" Gideon's had a smiling whale surrounded by the words "WHALE DONE". They were both disproportionately elated by their prizes.

"So can we go now?" Mabel whispered, "I feel like Mr. Gleeful's new clown painting is staring at me."

"Just one second. I should have a word with the missus of the house." Bill waved back at the kids as he trotted from the room. "Be right back!"

Mabel eyed Gideon warily.

Gideon smiled winningly. "So, Mabel. As long as you're already over here, would you like to stay for dinner—?"

"Nuh-uh." She turned and headed for the door. "Goodbye forever!"

"Aw."

Bill followed the sound of vacuuming through the kitchen into the dining room, and rapped on the doorframe. "Knock knock."

Joy flinched and spun around. "Oh." She turned off her vacuum. "Yes, Mr. Locke?"

"Just wanted to thank you for your hospitality before we leave!"

"Oh—yes, of course. You're welcome."

He lowered his voice, "And I also wanted to tell you not to worry about a thing. I'm sure everything will turn out fine for your family—and for you." He flashed her a winning smile.

She hesitantly nodded. "Thank you."

####

As they walked to the gate around the Gleeful property, Mabel said, "You weren't just all talk with Gideon's mom, were you? You actually are planning to help her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Something like that. How'd you know?"

"You told her to call you Mister. That means you mean business!"

A crooked smile stretched across his face. "Hey! No fair, you know too much. You're figuring out all my secrets."

Out on the sidewalk, Bill did a cartwheel, attempted to turn it into a handstand, and fell on the sidewalk. He brushed off a scraped elbow with a grumble and got back up. Well, it matched his burn on the other side.

"4 out of 10."

"I didn't ask."

Mabel snickered. "You know—your conversation with Gideon might not have gone perfectly. But you realized you did something wrong, you apologized for it, and you're gonna do better." She patted his arm. "I'm really proud of you, Bill. That's some serious growth."

"Really?"

"Really."

He beamed. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had been proud of him. (Granted, he didn't generally tolerate relationships in which somebody felt like they had enough superiority over him to feel "pride" toward his actions. Generally "awe" or "admiration" were more common.) He was basking in the praise. He was over the moon. He was euphoric. He was the best person to ever exist.

The fact that the praise was horribly misplaced didn't faze him in the least.

####

Gideon had spent the past minute picking peas out of his pot pie and scooting them to the edge of his plate.

Bud cleared his throat. "Son, you really ought to eat your vegetables. And they'll taste better mixed in with the rest of your food than all by themselves."

"I don't want my peas."

"But they're good for you! Don't you want to grow up big and strong—?"

Gideon flinched. He pounded the table. "I said I don't WANT my peas!"

"All right, okay, that's fine! Just thought I'd suggest it."

Gideon grumpily scooped up a forkful of chicken, carrots, and corn, eyed the carrots skeptically, and took a bite. It was fine. "So, father. How was work?"

Bud sighed. "Oh, it would've made more sense just to close for the day. At least then I wouldn't be wasting money on air conditioning the office."

"Oh." Gideon stabbed at a lone piece of corn with his fork. "Maybe we oughta... stop with the nighttime ads. It doesn't sound like they're helping."

"Ahh, you might be right."

Gideon heaved a sigh of relief.

"I just don't know what else to try." Bud shook his head. "I've tried newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads, billboards, fliers, sales, cutting brake lines..." He settled his hand near Gideon's spot at the table. "Son, you know I know you're doing the best you can to help our family, and it means more to me than I can say. But, if there's anything else you can think of...?"

Gideon tried to avoid his father's gaze—and instead, spotted his mother. She usually kept to herself during dinner, wholly focused on her own plate when she wasn't setting out dishes or cleaning them up. But tonight, she was looking right at Gideon. Like she expected something out of him, too.

He shrank into his seat. "Well. I've got one other idea I could try."

####

Gideon shut the door to his room—and, just to be safe, stuck his chair under the doorknob. Then he gingerly picked up the paper on the dresser and unfolded it.

The same tall, thin handwriting as on the letter he'd received—but even more cramped, cramming as much text on one torn-out book page as possible. A terse paragraph of instructions, a phone number, a numbered list of questions, a prepared statement.

Gideon got his mobile phone and a notebook, set up to take notes at his vanity, took a deep breath, let it out, and dialed the number. As the phone rang, he looked at himself in the mirror and muttered, "Heaven help me if I'm facilitating the start of Armageddon."

Then someone picked up, and he held the phone up to his ear. "Hello? Oh, right, er—" He read off the paper Bill had given him, "'But rises gold over the pyramid.' ... Yes. Mhm, I'm calling on behalf of... of Bill Cipher. ... My name's not important, I'm just the messenger—oh, oh you recognize my voice! Haha!" He mopped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "A-always nice to meet a fan! Yeah, we know each other. Small world. N... no, he didn't give me my... I was—was psychic before I met him, actually. Sorry, I didn't catch your name—who'm I speaking to?"

Gideon looked at Bill's list of questions, wrote a 1. in his notebook, and beside it wrote "Sue Blime." One question down. "I have a message to pass on."

####

He pushed harder.

Her skin fractured and peeled off, strand after strand. It filled the spaces between his fingertips, wrapped up his arms. He could shut his eye but he still saw it through his eyelid, still felt it tickling at the corners of his mouth. He let out an angry, hysterical, broken laugh.

And then he laughed louder, and louder—higher, shriller, echoing all the way to the distant stars. "What am I doing?" He opened his eye and looked at his hands, tangled with gold threads and soaked in blood. He laughed again, gleeful. "What am I doing! None of this is real! This is a dream! We're in my dreamscape. None of this matters! I control all of you!"

Bill controlled all of them.

He effortlessly peeled his arm off the plane of his dimension into the third, still tangled in gore, and spun his finger. The golden shreds of skin let go of his hand, rotating around his hand in a loose tornado. Cackling again, he rose up into space, looping like a paper airplane on a breeze, telekinetically twirling the countless golden shreds with him like he was doing a ribbon dance. And wasn't it beautiful? He was changing their color—yellow green blue violet red orange yellow—he was melting them down to floating drops of liquid gold, he was making them vanish into thin air. There was no blood on his hands. There never had been. He had never killed. His mother did not exist.

He glanced toward the stars. "Am I gonna have any meddling from you? Want to sell me any cars tonight?"

The stars didn't answer. Good. He didn't want his show interrupted by a commercial break.

"I control you," Bill announced to the crowd of assembled worshipers below, numb and thoughtless and unmoving while the god of this dream had no use for them to live. "You answer to me!" He jabbed his thumb against his golden face—not the internal organs exposed to the third dimension the rest of the shapes had, but the exoskeleton he wouldn't start wearing until centuries after this memory. "The only life you have is in my head! All of you, all of you have been burned away for a trillion years!" He paused, then flashed two finger guns at a red hexagon in the crowd. "All except you, Hect. Always great to see a long-time fan!"

In the field of frozen shapes, Bill's memory of Hectorgon hesitantly waved.

"But..." Beneath Bill, still as aghast as he'd been so many eons ago, still playing his part to move this dream along, his father said, "But... what are we going to tell your followers?"

"Ugh, you're such a downer. Give it a rest, you old square!" Bill did something no prisoner of the second dimension had ever been capable of doing: he snapped his fingers. His father silently dissolved into origami butterflies and fluttered into space. "You barely even liked her."

He floated back down to the plane, lacing his fingers together to stretch his arms in front of him. "I don't need you," he muttered. "I've got this handled. I've always been the one who had this handled. Now let's end this dream the right way."

Time to sucker his suckers.

He swooped through the open doors to speak to his assembled worshipers as effortlessly as though he'd been doing this a trillion years: "My beautiful, loving believers! I have wonderful news. Your high priestess—my mother—has passed on; but, you should be celebrating! Because she hasn't abandoned us! Her spirit's just ascended—not up, but out of our dimension and into the third, where the spirits of all departed shapes live on! Her spirit's formed a bridge from there to me, and through me to you! She's revealed the true nature of the third dimension—a sublime realm of color and life—and I'll reveal it to you, too!"

The black starry void of the third dimension above Bill mutated as he spoke; now, it was raucous colors, beams of light, and glittery gold. Faraway neon-colored shapes danced deliriously through nebulas and clouds.

"I'll teach you the secrets passed down to us from the enlightened third-dimensional spirits; I'll show you how to see it all for yourself... and if you follow me, if you devote yourself entirely to my teachings, if you trust me blindly—blindly, for I can see what others can't—then I'll guide you INTO the third dimension! I will be your teacher, your divine guide, your muse! So tell me: do you trust me?"

The worshipers cheered.

"Do you worship me?!"

The worshipers screamed.

"Do you love me!"

The worshipers howled, mad with love for Bill, ripping each other apart in a spontaneous outpouring of zealotry.

Bill's shrieking laughter rose up above the roar of his imaginary crowd.

####

For the first time since his death, Bill woke fully rested. Dawn streamed in through the attic window, shining golden on the cloud of curly hair dangling in front of his eyes. And wasn't it beautiful? He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothed it back, and pushed it into the right shape.

He checked to make sure no humans were coming for a while, slid Journal 4 out of its hiding place, and flipped to the page where he'd stuck his "Good Job!" sticker. He'd used his stolen half-dried marker to blacken the sides of the yellow smiley face, turning it from a circle into a triangle, draining the last of its ink in the process. He wasted four pages with every detail he could recollect from this dream, going on and on about how easy it had been to assert his rightful control, how effortless to control time and space. If he ever found the human who wrote that lucid dreaming guide, he was giving 'em a planet.

At the end, he wrote in English, "You'll regret turning me down as your teacher, Stanford. You can't even imagine how many people would have committed murder to get that kind of attention. But I gave it to you."

He tried to remember how that sermon had really gone.

What did he need to remember the truth for? It must have gone something like that. He wouldn't still be here if it hadn't, would he?

####

(Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd appreciate a comment!! Next week we kick off with more of Bill's history—and then start ramping up for the biggest, longest plot arc so far.)

#bill cipher #(for the art) #human bill cipher #gideon gleeful #(for the chapter) #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #(I'm disappointed i didn't get to draw Bill menacing Gideon; but i only had time for one illustration and i picked Lots Of Colors.) #(plus it's nice every once in a while to get a reminder of what Bill actually looks like)

[eregyrn-falls-art]

And here is the final piece I did for the "Trouble" Multi-artist Lyric Comic - a "polaroid" to end the final instrumental break of the song, in the video still to come!

Of course I wanted to show Stan and Ford's happy ending, surrounded by what I think of as the extended family they now have. (Or at least part of it! Not forgetting Dipper and Mabel's parents, and Shermie Pines and his wife, and so on. But this is, of course, the core extended family in Gravity Falls itself.)

This is also a good place to put some of the remarks on the project that I originally had in the big lyric comic post, but had to cut out just to get Tumblr to post that monster.

I really can't even begin to thank everyone who participated in this huge project! The result is, IMO, spectacular, and the process was a LOT of fun! I'm just so blown away with how everyone truly brought their A-game to whatever they did on the project. It was great to see the enthusiasm and creativity, and also to see folks really get into the idea of collaborating on how their take on their line fit in with those before and after them. And then, everyone contributing to the "polaroids" for the instrumental section was another case of seeing how much people got into the idea and collaborated, both in terms of suggestion, feedback, and actually teaming up (like some artists contributing to some of the great news-clippings that @fordtato came up with!).

Further: special shout-out to everyone; but, in particular to the folks who pitched in to do extra work in order to bring this to the finish line ( @stephreynaart, @fordtato @tazmiilly @gin-juice-tonic; and last-minute help from @creativepup and @nour386!). But even beyond that, every time extra help was needed we had a bunch of people volunteering; even if I didn't end up tapping everyone who stepped forward, I appreciated so much that I had so many people to depend on!

This turned out even better than I hoped it would when I first decided to try to make a project like this. And I am super excited to have a Stan Twins "vid" to this song, at last. (I've been wanting one ever since first hearing the song in 2016.) Stay tuned, of course, as @stariousfalls is working on finishing that video, and it will be out soon!

#gravity falls #stanford pines #stanley pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #soos ramirez #wendy corduroy #fiddleford mcgucket #melody ramirez #tate mcgucket #trouble lyric comic #fiddleford friday #sea grunks! #my art #id in alt

[greatooglymooglyyy]

When We Were Young (C. Sturniolo)

contains: kissing, fluff, slight angst, ex!chris, flashbacks (in italics), use of y/n, 1.3k words

a/n: hi besties. this was an anon request that was LONG overdue. anon you know i love you. to everyone i promised this fic last week... my bad LMFAO hope it was worth the wait. kissesssss

If there’s ever a time where I hate being an event photographer, it’s in moments like this. Shifting my camera bag from one shoulder to the other, I try the number I was given for the event coordinator again. But again, it goes straight to voicemail. Great.

I yank the door of the employee entrance one last time out of pure desperation to no avail before I give up and walk back around to the front. There’s a long line stretched around the side of the building waiting the show to start.

A few girls at the front of the line tense up when they see me coming but their shoulders drop when they realize I'm not someone they know. Hoping they won’t think I’m cutting the line, I walk up to the glass doors where a security guard is posted.

“Hi. I’m working the event tonight.” I say with a nervous smile, pulling my camera bag up so he can see. “I couldn’t get into the employee door. Could you let me in?”

He gives me an apologetic look and shakes his head. “You’ll have to call Gabe. I can’t let anyone through.”

“But, I did call him,” I say with a hint of frustration. “Do you think you could tell him I’m here? I think his phone is dead.”

“Can’t leave. Sorry. You’ll have to wait until the talent arrives.”

That’s exactly what I was afraid of. As if it isn't humiliating enough to be working my ex-boyfriend’s event, I’m going to have to wait out front with the fans. I might as well have made a sign.

Sighing, I thank the security guard and turn around to head back to my car when everyone in line begins screaming. The tour bus pulls to a stop in front of the door and creaks open. The boys and their team pile off the bus pretty quickly, rushing towards the door, and I step off the side hoping I can stop their manager without being noticed.

But as Chris passes me by, a fan calls out his middle name and he looks up, meeting my eyes. And it’s like I’m being flung backward in time.

we’re lying in the grass of my backyard studying the stars for an astronomy class. somehow, as we always manage to do, we shifted from laying side by side and my head now rests on his stomach as we form a T shape.

“how do we tell if that’s the little dipper or the big one?” he asks, straining his eyes to see the worksheet.

“the little dipper’s upside down it says… and smaller.”

chris sits up, forcing me to as well, and grabs his phone to take a picture of the constellation for the project. but as i look back up at the sky, a flash covers me and I look back confused.

“what are you doing?” i ask, taking the worksheet from him and moving closer.

“taking a picture of my favorite star,” he says with a wide goofy grin.

“oh. my. god. corny!” i say dragging the word out through a laugh.

“Y/N,” Chris says like he can’t believe his eyes. Unsure of what to do, I give in to the awkwardness, waving and exclaiming a too-excited, “Hey, you!”

He blinks at me, clearly wanting to ask what I’m doing here but not wanting to be rude so I put him out of his misery. “I’m supposed to be your photographer today but I couldn’t get in. But honestly, maybe I should just go. I mean really it’s fine-”

Nick cuts me off with a squeal having doubled back looking for Chris. He pulls me into a tight hug and I lean into this boy who was once one of my closest friends. After I re-explain the situation to Nick, he takes my hand and leads me in the doors behind him before introducing me to their manager.

She and I discuss the details of what I’ll be shooting and I thank her, going to set up my equipment. I perch at the edge of the stage taking some test shots when someone settles in beside me. I look over and I can’t help but smile at how bewildered Chris still looks.

“So…”

“So…” I prompt when he trails off and he nudges my shoulder.

“You’re doing it! You always talked about taking photography seriously. That’s so fucking cool, kid.”

I bark out a laugh at his absurdity. “This?” I say holding up my camera. “How about you guys being fucking superstars? Is it everything you thought it’d be?”

Chris’ smile wavers for a split second before snapping back into place. “In some ways, even better. But in others… I don’t know.”

I nod in understanding and make a move to lighten the mood. “Say cheese.” I scoot back to get a good angle and point my camera towards him. He smiles and strikes a stupid pose. “You got my good side?”

“just one more, i promise!” i say, reaching out and gently adjusting chris’ head position.

“babe, i love you, but we’ve been at this for two hours. my neck hurts,” he whines but keeps his head where i’ve angled it.

“i know. i know. i’m sorry. but i need this portfolio to be great. please just a couple more.”

he folds under my pleading eyes and nods, straightening his posture. i smile and lean in, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips as a thank you. he follows me when i go to pull away, giving me two more short pecks.

i smile but scold him with feigned strictness. “christopher! stop moving your head.”

“then stop distracting me! did you at least get my good side?”

Someone calls for Chris from backstage and my face drops as I realize our time is over. “I think the show’s about to start.”

He nods but doesn’t move, keeping his eyes trained on mine. “I know.”

“Chris, you should-”

“I miss you.” He cuts in, his voice full of sincerity. “I miss you all the time. And I know why we did this. I know what we said. But, every day without you just doesn’t feel worth it.”

chris holds my face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away my falling tears, while his stream undeterred.

“i’m just scared we’ll end up hating each other.” he chokes out. “all we do is fight when i’m in LA and i’m supposed to be moving in two weeks.”

i nod, leaning my forehead against his. “i don’t ever want to hate you, chris.”

“so what do we do?”

“we walk away.” i breathe out a heavy sigh. “and you go make sure it’s worth it.”

“what if it never is?”

"then you try harder."

I blink back the tears springing to my eyes at the memory, the weight of how much I want this second chance heavy on my chest. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“We’ll make it work.”

“But-”

Chris cuts me off with a kiss I feel all the way down to my toes. His lips taste like watermelon and home and I lean into him, drunk on the feeling.

We finally pull away gasping for breath after what feels like hours and he stares at me, uncharacteristically serious.

“I’m never letting you out of my life again. So we will make it work.” He says with a tone of finality. I grin and let him pull me into his arms, whispering into his neck how much I’ve missed him. I lean back to press another kiss to his lips but jump when someone else speaks.

“Finally!” Matt exclaims, stepping out on the stage. Heat rises to my face and I go to pull out of Chris’ arms but he holds on tighter. Matt grins at the two of us like a proud parent, walking over and picking up my camera before snapping what I’m sure is a very blurry candid. “We missed you around here, gang.”

I raise a brow but can’t fight back my smile. “Oh, is that right?”

“Duh,” He says, snapping another picture. “I mean, who do you think booked you in the first place?"

🏷️: @sturniolho @sttzee @tillies33ssss @miloisdone1 @sstvrnioloo @junnniiieee07 @sturnioloslurps @mrsmiagreer @asturniolos

@teapartyprincess4two @whicked-hazlatwhore @sukiipjs @accio326 @sturniolosmind @imfromthediningtable @rootbeerworshiper @st4rswrld

#maggie b writes #sturniolo triplets #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo #sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo oneshot #matt sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo fic #chris sturniolo x you #chris sturniolo angst #chris sturniolo headcanon #matt sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo angst #matt sturniolo x you #matthew sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo fandom #sturniolo oneshot

[incomingalbatross]

Things that make Weirdmageddon a top-tier finale:

Every victory and ally the characters gain is essential to pursuing the next victory.

Dipper needed Wendy to reach the bubble, needed to talk down Gideon to reach Mabel, and needed to reconcile with Mabel to do anything. Then they needed to reach the Shack to get Shacktron, needed Shacktron to reach Ford, needed Ford and all their previous character development to build the Zodiac—oops! not enough character development! REVERSAL! But they still pulled out a win from having all four Pineses in the Fearamid, which wouldn't have been possible except as salvage from their previous victories.

It all builds really nicely—it's easy to get your characters running in circles to fit in enough action and/or screentime (see certain Classic Who serials), but that doesn't happen here.

Personal issues and plot problems were interwoven in a way that genuinely made resolving the former a basic step in resolving the latter.

The big problems at the start of the finale were the rift between Dipper and Mabel, the older, deeper rift between Stan and Ford, and... well, the Rift. And Bill. The finale is able to resolve all of these things together because it is, in fact, crucial that the Pineses all be able to work together; they need each other to defeat Bill. This means that, for instance, Mabel and Dipper's reconciliation is the urgent first step on every level, personal and situational (neither of them will accomplish anything until Mabel's free), and that Stan and Ford's reconciliation is a necessary condition for the last step of beating Bill. It's seamless—no one has to take time out of the plot to talk about their feelings, because the plot can only move if their feelings are being addressed.

Even more, the action works in such a way that Stan and Ford have to show character growth to defeat Bill and the way they defeat Bill then results in healing for both of them (Stan gets to be a hero while Ford gets to let go of his hero complex).

Gave time to addressing the big themes and made them structurally important, too.

This ties in to the point above, but... the fact that Dipper and Mabel's conflict (the manifestation of a much longer-running tension of "is it possible to grow up and still be happy? is it possible to be sure we'll stay in a close and healthy relationship, and not lose each other?") is given its full weight. Dipper and Mabel have the conversation they need to convince themselves, each other, and the audience that this ghost has been expelled from their futures. That's big.

And the themes continue consistently throughout the finale! They answer the questions raised by Stan and Ford's estrangement—first through Dipper and Mabel and then repeatedly through the rest of the cast—with consistent reassurance and hope for the future. It's thematically sound. That's not easy to balance with plot progression in a way that makes sense, but like. The plot can only progress to a happy ending if these themes are tested and found to be true.

Plot development and emotional impacts hinged on information the audience already had.

When the finale revealed new information (the zodiac's function, for instance), it was almost always answering specific questions the show had previously raised for fans (what's that zodiac about??). Not always true—the barrier around the town was not foreshadowed—but a very high percentage of the time.

More, the moments with a big emotional punch hinge on us realizing something at the same time as the characters and sharing their reactions to that thing, rather than reacting to their reactions. That sounds clumsy, but you know what I mean—"Grammar, Stanley." Ford pulling out the memory gun. "Get off me, Waddles!" Ford holding out the picture of the Stan O' War. The finale builds on what we already know so strongly that we can react to good or bad events alongside the characters.

(Well, except for the exact moment revealing the twin switch, I guess. We are not having the same emotional reaction as Bill Cipher there. ;P)

A fully satisfying send-off.

After the plot is resolved, and even after the eucatastrophe moment of Stan getting his memory back, we get to stick around and see for sure that everything's okay. The twins turn thirteen. Stan and Ford plan to go sailing. Soos gets the Mystery Shack. Everyone in Gravity Falls is fine. Everyone gets to say goodbye. We end on repeated reassurances that the thing the story most highlighted as crucial but uncertain will, in fact, happen—that they'll stay a family and they'll all be happy.

I'm not saying every story needs to end with a wrap party, but it was the right move for Gravity Falls, and they nailed it.

#i did not have the energy for a short post so i wrote a long one sorry

[alex-rambles]

For personality for someone into cryptid academia, I’d say the reader be almost like dipper but sorta different? Like keeps to themselves, overall loves walking in the woods. And also thinks like ford.

Also here are pictures

Thanks for the info! I like how there was a journal 3 in there lol. I did the Pines + Bill because i wasn't sure which characters you'd want

Gravity Falls characters with a cryptid academia s/o

Dipper

🌲Your aesthetic may actually have been what caught his eye to begin with

🌲He likes it a lot

🌲Would love taking walks in the woods with you, hoping to come across a supernatural sighting or two.

🌲He adores pouring over The Journal™ with you, looking for creatures you should hunt for next

🌲Very happy to find someone who shares his interest in the supernatural and the outdoorsy stuff

Mabel

🌠Supports your interest despite not sharing them

🌠Def enjoys going on hikes and nature walks with you though, and likes to listen to their stories and theories about the supernatural

🌠Even though she might call Dipper a nerd for displaying some similar traits, you're her s/o so that sibling teasing does not apply to you

🌠When you're on walks she gets distracted by cute animals so you'll probably have to either let her stare and try to pet them or attempt to reign her back in

Stanely

💰Bro compares you to Ford constantly

💰Not in a purposefully mean way he just likes to tease you jokingly

💰You may end up developing a friendship with Ford after Stan introduces you to him

💰And then you and Ford continue talking

💰aNd STAN GETS JELOUS BECAUSE YOU'RE SO SIMILAR

💰So he tries to get into that stuff for you

💰And buys you the clothes the match your aesthetic (only the cheap ones ofc. If he doesn't have enough he either shoplifts or steals from Ford)

Ford

✋Like Dipper, your aesthetic probably caught his eye

✋He sees something of a "partner" in you

✋BIG BRAIN DUO

✋He could spend HOURS talking about the supernatural with you

✋You probs find his six fingers thing cool so he feels comfortable around you

✋After all, most people bullied him for it

Bill

👁Bill is the cryptid you were looking for

👁He will explain all about his home dimension to you if you find it intriguing. If it were anyone but you'd he'd give a vague response about "liberation something something," but you're you sooooo

👁You like hiking? He'll make a mindscape hike trail for you to do together

👁During Weirdmaggedon he'll force his henchmaniacs to let you study them

👁He might make one little area of the forest normal so you can hike in the real world and obliterate anything that dares step into the area

👁In the mindscape he likes to try to scare the shit out of you with eldritch-esque creatures, but it doesn't work because a) not real, and b) you want to sTUDY tHE tHING

#gravity falls x reader #gravity falls #bill cipher x reader #ford pines x reader #stanford pines x reader #stan pines x reader #stanely pines x reader #dipper pines x reader #mabel pines x reader #alex writes

[ihavemanyhusbands]

Hannibal request!! Hannibal and the reader are going to an event (maybe the opera or dinner but definitely something fancy). the reader decided to wear a short dress with no panties and is teasing Hannibal all night and being bratty- then I imagine this going one of two ways, either Hannibal takes them home to punish them or shoves them in a coat closet or something to fuck them and is degrading the reader about being a slut and making everyone hear her moans.):):) okay that’s the requests if you write it thank youu💓💓

EEEEEEE YESSSSS (i hope you don’t mind i snuck a lil bit of Mr. Graham in there 🤭 and also yes they are married hee hee AND also yes i got carried away)

——

As soon as you stepped out of the bedroom, Hannibal knew he was in for a long night.

He was taking you out to see Turandot, one of your favorite operas. It was the perfect excuse for both of you to dress up even more than usual, and your gown was one he hadn’t seen you wear before.

Not only did it have a plunging neckline, but a prominent slit on one side too, showing just a little too much of your thigh.

It was a pleasant surprise, sure, but it did worry him some. Especially considering he’d also invited Will to join you two for the show.

“Playing games tonight, are we?” He asked, adjusting the cuff of his shirt.

“Whatever could you mean?” You tilted your head in an attempt to seem innocently confused. “I just thought you’d appreciate having some arm candy this evening.”

You busied yourself by touching up your lipstick in front of the mirror as he looked you over. The fabric clung to you in a way that didn’t leave much to the imagination — all those curves and soft angles he’d memorized over time.

Hannibal didn’t mind showing you off, but he still had a possessive streak he could not deny. He knew well that you loved taking advantage of that by being rebellious, always eager to test just how far you could push him.

He inhaled deeply, immediately scenting that perfume you knew he liked. He also detected a sharp note of adrenaline, which told him you were more thrilled than you let on. He huffed in amusement, shaking his head.

He supposed he could leave it be for the time being, but he would have to be cautious. At the very least, the balcony at the opera house would be dark, should you decide to misbehave.

When you two met up with Will in the reception area, Hannibal did not miss the way his eyes wandered. Or how his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“My, aren’t you a striking pair,” Will said, earning a smile from you. “I feel woefully underdressed now.”

You hummed, returning the favor of drinking him in. "That's never a problem in my eyes."

"I'm sure your husband agrees with that."

Hannibal merely smiled politely, but his jaw was clenched. More eyes strayed in your direction as the two men led you up the stairs and toward your balcony. You basked in the attention, especially because it made Hannibal keep his hand on the small of your back.

Will slid onto his seat first, and before you could even try, Hannibal scurried in after him. He offered his hand to help you sit, pointedly keeping eye contact with you. You offered him your most charming grin, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly.

The lights soon dimmed, and the orchestral notes of the first act subsequently filled the cavernous room. The rising voices of the choir reverberated all the way to your bones, and you let them carry you away for a moment, closing your eyes.

Hannibal eyed the column of your throat as your head slightly tipped back, enraptured by the performance. His gaze dipper lower, seeing that your fingers were splayed over your sternum to feel the thrum beneath.

As the first song came to an end, you clapped uproariously along with the rest of the crowd. For a while after, you simply watched, forgetting all the mischief you had planned. Or so it seemed, at least.

Then, you re-crossed your legs, making a point of leaning just a little closer to him, and the slit of your gown widened. Hannibal couldn't help himself, his fingers ghosting past your knee and trailing upwards. When he couldn't feel the hem of your panties, he realized you weren't wearing any. That earned you a pinch on the hip, hard enough to bruise.

You pretended to be none the wiser -- despite the fact that your slightly upturned lips gave you away -- folding up your opera glasses.

"Excuse me, I have to go to the powder room," you murmured, your fingers lightly tracing the back of his hand.

Before you could get up, he leaned in close, grasping your forearm.

"Try not to get lost," he said, his breath hot in your ear. "Or else I'll have to come find you."

This time, your smile had a lupine quality. "Is that a promise?"

He did not respond, instead releasing you. You felt his burning gaze on you as you left, your heart frantically racing.

It only took him a couple of minutes to keep his word. You could vaguely hear the last song of the first act as he ushered you toward the coat closet.

There, away from prying eyes, he wasted no time, pinning you against the wall among a sea of fur coats.

“You did always like putting on a show, didn’t you?” he said, making you gasp with a particularly hard thrust.

"I think we can both agree I can captivate a-an audience…”

“Oh, and how I wish they could see you now, rightfully claimed.” He smirked, bringing a hand to your neck. “Go on, let them hear you. Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”

——

#hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter x fem!reader #hannibal fanfiction #minors dni #hannibal smut #will graham fanfiction #self indulgence strikes again bc i loveee Turandot #🌱 anon

[emilybeemartin]

Inktober Days 22-24

Day 22: "Scratchy"

Saguaro, cholla, prickly pear, pincushion, hedgehog, barrel cactus—how magical are these amazing plants? Iconic, unique, perfectly tuned to their environment. The pleats on a saguaro help it bulge and shrink to accommodate water availability, and the inhospitable trunks provide shelter for desert birds. 

Saguaro NP produces some of my favorite educational videos in the system, thanks in part to Feature Fridays with Ranger Freddy Gutiérrez Fernández-Ramírez. Just to add to the scritchy-scratchy theme of this prompt, some of the more unusual videos featuring Ranger Freddy show how to remove jumping cholla barbs from your skin and clothes. Rangers in Saguaro carry hair combs in their first aid kits—and it’s not to fix flat-hat hair!

Day 23: "Celestial"

In recent decades, park managers have come to recognize natural soundscapes and pristine night skies as tangible resources, just like clean air, land, and water. As I was entering the NPS field, a big effort was kicking off to designate certain units as Dark Sky parks, and Big Bend is the king of them all. It has the lowest levels of light pollution of any park in the lower 48 and is famous across the NPS for its breathtaking starscapes.

Protecting natural darkness opens up amazing new opportunities for visitors and rangers. I love assisting with night sky programs, because I remember how I felt when I first traveled away from the greater I-85 corridor and saw my first pristine night sky. It’s a primordial type of magic to see stars unveiled from urban lights and humid haze. And the good news is, unlike other endangered resources, dark skies are salvageable. When towns and cities take steps to reduce their light and air pollution, there’s no slow, agonizing recovery—the stars come right back. They’re just up there, waiting to peek at us again.

Day 24: "Shallow"

I have to confess—I used to look down on Congaree, despite it being the only national park in my home state of South Carolina. I thought of it as muggy, buggy, and a bit boring. But when I was researching wetland habitat for A Field Guide to Mermaids, I was stunned to realize just how special this landscape is. Our country used to be covered in immense floodplain forests along river corridors, but the natural flood cycles that made these lowlands so fertile also meant the land was prized for agriculture. Rivers were straightened, forests were cut down, and the rich soil was planted with crops. Because of this, Congaree protects the largest swathe of bottomland floodplain forest left in the United States.

And it’s a gorgeous park, as well. There’s something evocative and eerie about walking the elevated boardwalks over tea-colored water. Spooky cypress knees reach up through the water like outstretched arms, and several massive national and state champion trees loom up out of the thick forest.

This park may not have the accolades some of the grander, more storied parks have, but I’m proud that it’s my home state’s park and glad that it protects one of the last intact forests of its kind.

------

Another big thank you to the folks who have preordered Thirty-One Days of National Parks: The Artbook! The Big Bend page features a little guide to starhopping from the Big Dipper out to other stars!

#inktober #31 days of national parks #saguaro #big bend #congaree #national parks

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 2- Unsettling In

— — — — — — —

“Dibs on being the first Pines inside the Shack!”

The old floorboards creaked lightly under Mabel’s weight as she bounded through the door, pausing only to drop her bags by the staircase before she continued on towards the living room. “Aww, I’ve missed this place!” 

She jumped from the small doorway step to the carpet, twirling on her toes like a ballerina before she gestured to the television set. “Hello, ancient TV that only plays local access channels~!” Her gesture moved to the large dinosaur skull in the middle of the room. “Hello, weird T-Rex skull that we use as a coffee table for some reason~!” 

She waggled her finger at the aquarium. “Hello, giant aquarium tank that only sometimes has an animal in it~!” she said with a giggle. “You can’t hide from me forever, Sir. Wiggleton the Pink!”

From the nearby couch where she had seated herself and Waddles, Wendy raised an eyebrow. “Sir. Wiggleton the Pink?”

“That’s what I call Stan’s axolotl,” Mabel explained matter-of-factly. “He’s very sneaky, and likes to hide a lot. I only got a good look at him, like, once last year!”

“Maybe he sneaks out when nobody’s looking?” Wendy suggested, then snapped her fingers with inspiration. “Ooh, what if he’s actually some kinda secret agent, one who goes out and fights bad guys? And that's why it's so hard for anyone to spot him in the tank, ‘cause he’s not always in the tank!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Mabel agreed enthusiastically. “Maybe he’s part of a whole secret organization of secret-agent animals! And they all wear funny little hats!”

While they laughed in unison over the idea, more creaking from the hallway floorboards drew their attention to the doorway. A moment later, Dipper’s body was propped against the frame for support, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he gulped down precious breaths of air.

Between the desperate attempts to catch his breath, he shot Mabel a sour look. “You know, most people might call ‘tripping your brother as he tries to pass you in the driveway’ something along the lines of—oh, I dunno, maybe something along the lines of—cheating?”

Mabel’s mouth curled into a coy little smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dipping Sauce~!” she said innocently. “Not my fault you don’t know how to avoid branches while you’re running.”

“You literally stuck out your leg as I was trying to pass you!” Dipper argued. “And then after I fell, you laughed about it once you were sure I wasn’t actually hurt and was only just mildly inconvenienced!”

From her spot, Wendy let out a cackle. “You tripped him? Brutal.”

“It was a branch!” Mabel insisted. 

“A branch shaped like your leg!”

Mabel waved him away. “Oh, we can go on and on about things I did or didn’t do all we want—”

“You did do it.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered anyway!” Mabel continued, tossing her arms up in the air. “I still called dibs on being the first Pines to step inside, and you can’t go against dibs!”

“She has a point,” a voice spoke up behind Dipper, seconds before Ford stepped into the room. “The International Dibs Protocol is highly respected across countless dimensions, with millions of interdimensional beings valuing the weight it holds when it comes to ownership over specific affairs.”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “I believe at one point, there was even talk amongst the council members here in town about passing a law that would make adhering to said protocol mandatory. But the idea was scrapped before the House could ever lay an eye on it.”

“Yeesh, so this town’s just fine and dandy with people marryin’ woodpeckers or deciding ownership of a place based on whatever chump’s got the deed in their hands,” Stan called from out on the porch. “But you call dibs on something and suddenly that’s going too far—hey, hey! Knock it off, Soos, I’m not gonna look!”

He cast a miffed look to his right, where Soos had firmly remained throughout their entire walk up the driveway. His arms were spread out as wide as he could possibly get them, and he had even crab-walked up the porch beside Stan in an attempt to block something from his line of sight. 

“Sorry, Mr. Pines,” he said, keeping his arms outstretched until both of them were safely inside the house. ”But I can’t risk you seeing anything on the other side of this building until I give everyone the tour later!”

Stan let out a gruff sigh as they joined everyone else in the living room. “Yeah, yeah, like I’m in any rush to jump right back into work stuff after a nine-month vacation.”

Soos gave him a pitiful look. “Wh-you mean you’re not excited for the tour of all the new exhibits and stuff?”

“...I said ‘right back into’, didn’t I?” Stan pointed out. “Gimme an hour, we’ll see where I’m at then.”

He moved to the couch, then paused with a look to Wendy. “They got all the rats outta this thing while we were gone, right?”

“Completely rat free,” she assured him, moving her hand to Waddles’ head for scritches. “Although you’re never gonna guess what happened after we chased the last of them out of the shack—”

“Well, that sounds like six voices,” a voice called from the kitchen, seconds before a woman peeked her head through the doorway. “Pretty sure that’s everyone, unless we’re also expecting the girls.”

“Negative,” Wendy replied, as Stan settled down next to her. “Mr. Pines put down a hard no on any sleepovers tonight. Well, any sleepovers with the under-fourteens, at least.”

“Dipper also put down a hard no,” Dipper added. “Also hey, Melody!”

“Melody! Hi!” 

Mabel’s features lit up as Melody stepped out into the living room proper, and both twins rushed over to greet her further with a hug. “Hey, you guys!” she said, bending down to reciprocate. “Been a while, huh?”

“Sure has!” Dipper said with a hearty laugh.

“It’s so nice to see you again!” Mabel added with equal amounts of enthusiasm. “How’ve you been?”

 “I also think it’s nice to see you again!”

Before Melody could answer, all three suddenly found themselves lifted up from the ground. “I know we were only gone for, like, fifteen minutes or so,” Soos said, hugging all of them close to him. “But still, that’s enough time to miss someone, right?”

Despite most of her face being squished against his own, Melody smiled up at him.  “Well, fifteen minutes is about the same amount of time it takes to complete Ladybug on Dancey-Pants Revolution—” She paused and wriggled an arm free to tick off her fingers. “—what, five times? Five and a half? Just saying, that feels like an eternity when you’re trying to hit a perfect combo, doesn’t it?”

“That is so true,” Soos said with a nod. “You have such a way with words, babe.”

A squeak of delight drew their attention to the teenagers smushed between their bodies. “Hehe, you guys are adorable!” Mabel piped up. “And nerdy!”

“Also you’re kind of squishing us,” Dipper added with a wheeze.

With an apologetic smile, Soos lowered the group back down to the floor. “Sorry, dudes! Got so caught up in giving Melody a hug, that I kinda missed you were there.”

“Don’t worry, I’m okay,” Mabel assured him as she straightened out her clothes. “Being squished like that made me feel like the ham and cheese in a lovey-dovey sandwich!”

She gave a nudge to her brother’s arm with her elbow. “Guess that makes Dipper the lettuce and tomatoes!”

“What? Why am I the vegetables?” Dipper asked.

Mabel shrugged with a smile. “Because even if they’re not the most exciting ingredients, it just doesn’t feel like a proper sandwich without them,” she explained, pressing her hands together as if she were forming a sandwich herself. “But you gotta put ‘em between the meat and cheese, otherwise their veggie juices get mixed in with the condiments. Then bread gets all soggy and fall-apart-y and the sandwich is just inedible at that point.”

“Okay first of all, rude and gross. Second of all, that is a very weird analogy which explains nothing.” 

He pressed a hand to his stomach. “Although weirdly enough, it is making me hungry.”

“Good thing I got a head start on dinner before everyone got here,” Melody said. “In fact, I just checked the timer and there’s only a few minutes left before I need to pull it out of the oven—oh, by the way, lasagna from a box is fine with everyone, right?”

She directed her question both to the kids and to the group that had gathered by the couch, earning her a nod from Ford. “Fine with me. Meals that require minimal effort to prepare have sustained me since my college years, and I see no issue with continuing that trend now.”

“Long as there’s no fish involved, I’ll eat anything,” Stan assured her.

Wendy, who had distracted herself with scritching the spot between Waddles’ ears, looked to him. “Got sick of seafood out there on the open ocean, Mr. Pines?”

“Got sick of badly-prepared seafood.” 

Stan shot a pointed look to his brother. “Apparently somebody can rip out the spine of a zombified fishman from the ‘Walking Bullhead Dimension’—” 

“We’re gonna start this again, Stanley?” Ford interrupted, giving him an flat-but-amused look that implied they had discussed this topic countless times before.

“—but you give the guy a regular tuna to debone, and suddenly it’s all ‘Oh, this is ~soooo~ hard!’” Stan continued in a jestful tone. “‘I’m gonna make my twin brother nearly choke on a rib bone! Or two. Or five.’”

“Their spinal cords are more delicate than what I’m used to handling,” Ford insisted. “The anatomy of an anthropomorphic fish person—oh, uh, make some room?”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Stan made a gesture with his hand for Wendy to move. “Hey, scooch over and put the pig on the floor so we can all sit down.”

“I can take him off your hands now, Wendy,” Mabel said, holding her arms open. “Although he’ll probably end up on the floor anyway; I know he’s been dying to root around in the carpet for burrito bite crumbs again!”

While Wendy readjusted and passed Waddles back to his owner, Ford seated himself comfortably next to Stan. “As I was saying,” he continued. “The anatomy of an anthropomorphic fish person resembles our own more than that of a non-anthropomorphized fish from our dimension. This size increase in bone structure makes it far easier to get a grip on their spinal column and just—” He made a tearing motion with his hands. “—rip it straight from the body—”

He paused and looked to the younger twins. “Only when such drastic measures are necessary to take, of course. Had the dimension been populated by living anthropomorphized fish people, I would not have resorted to ripping out anyone’s spines.”

Stan lightly bumped his knuckles against Ford’s arm. “Heh, sounds like a buncha fancy-schmancy excuses from a guy who never learned how to properly work a pair of fish tweezers,” he said, making small, pinching motions with his fingers. “What’s wrong, Poindexter? Thought you were used to usin’ delicate sciencey tools out in the field with your dainty little sciencey grip.”

“Nothing about my science or my grip has been dainty in over thirty years, and I think you know that.”

“Yeah, tell that to the octopus babe you tried to hook up with off the coast of Australia! When’d she leave again, less than half-an-hour into the date?”

While Ford responded with his own playful fist to the arm—one that Stan cackled loudly at in return—Mabel knelt to the carpet and set Waddles at her side. “Aww, it’s nice to see you two getting along so well now!” she said sweetly. “Does that mean no more fighting? I mean, actual fighty-fighting and not play fighting?”

“Psh, please, let’s not go that far,” Stan replied, with a wave of his hand. “Of course we’re gonna fight, we’re siblings. Or are you forgetting how you tripped your brother out there in the driveway?”

“It was a bra~anch!” Mabel insisted in a singsong tone.

Dipper gave her a flat look. “Still gonna go with that excuse, huh?”

“Yeah-huh~! Also it’s not an excuse.”

With a wink to them, Stan snaked an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “But if anyone’s worried about a repeat of last year’s performance, don’t be!” he assured them. “Nine months of punching sea monsters and nabbing treasure from sirens have made us thick as thieves, just like old times!”

“While Stanley’s claims are a touch exaggerated, he’s not wrong,” Ford replied. “Despite our petty bickering over fish preparation, there’s nothing quite like spending months out on the open seas with someone to remind you of what’s really important in life. Sailing around the world on the adventure of a lifetime—”

He cast a small smile in his brother’s direction. “—well, it puts a lot of things in perspective.”

With a faux look of disgust, Stan pushed him away. “Ugh, why’d you have to go and make what I said all sappy? What, you wanna make the kids blow chunks on their first day back?”

While the kids giggled at this response, Ford nudged him in retaliation again. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, we could always go back to our petty fish arguments,” he said with a smug look. “You’ve harped on my inability to properly debone a fish, yet you act as if you didn’t completely butcher the deboning of those seatrout we caught along the coast of Florida.”

“Hey, hey, I plead the Florida loophole!” Stan insisted. “Which clearly states that if anything funky happens within the Florida boundaries, it was caused by the fact that we were near Florida.”

He folded his arms firmly across his chest. “Can’t be blamed for anything when we’re sailin’ through territory that could give this town a run for its money in weirdness.”

“Oh, you two were down in Florida?” Melody piped up. “That’s exactly where Abuelita headed a few days ago!”

“She won a free trip in a bingo game,” Soos explained with a look of pride. “Man, you should’ve seen how jealous Agnes and Bertha got when she held up her winning card—”

The ringing of a timer from the kitchen turned everyone’s heads to the doorway. “Oh, sounds like the food’s done,” Melody said. “Better go ahead and start plating.”

“Need an extra hand?” Soos asked.

“Mmm, I think I can manage slicing up lasagna by myself,” she assured him, before casting another look at the group. “Besides, I know how excited you were for everybody to get here, and I wouldn’t dream of pulling you away from everything just to help me slop some food on a plate.”

Soos moved his hands to her shoulders with a solemn expression. “I love you. So much.”

With a chuckle, she leaned up to kiss his cheek before turning back to the kitchen. Once she disappeared out of sight, Soos let out a warm sigh. “Isn’t she the best?” he asked to no one in particular.

Stan turned to Wendy with a raised eyebrow. “So them bein’ all lovey-dovey with each other,” he said. “Is that a rare thing or am I gonna have to actually start stockin’ up on eyeball bleach for the summer?”

“Told you to keep it in mind earlier,” Wendy said, hand on her hip. “Also, you call that ‘lovey-dovey’? Kisses and random compliments for the other when they’re not even in the room barely crack a three or four on the Soos-Melody Romance scale.”

She tilted her head in thought. “Though I guess it’s been more about quantity than quality lately. Can’t go five minutes without one of them trying to smother the other person in affection because of…reasons.”

She raised a finger to her mouth before casting a look over at Soos, who smiled and pressed a finger to his own mouth in return. Leaving the Pines family to watch them with raised eyebrows and tilted heads. “Well, that’s not cryptic or anything,” Ford said.

“Yeah, what’re you two hiding?” Dipper asked. 

“C’mon, spill the beans!” Mabel added, with a quick glance around the living room before she followed up with: “...If there were any opened cans of beans lying around, you know I’d poke ‘em over for dramatic effect!”

“Hehe, that’d be so funny,” Soos said amusedly. “It’d be like…a callback or something! But sorry, dudes, no beans of any kind can be spilled at the moment. Whether it’s beans of the secret variety, or just the ones in a can.”

“Why not?” Mabel asked.

“I mean, I think we ran out of them yesterday so you can’t spill what—”

“The secret part, Soos,” Dipper clarified.

“Oh, that!” Soos pressed a hand to the back of his neck with a tender look. “Well, it’s kind of a big deal, y’know? And I wanna wait until Mel and I can tell you together.”

“Yeesh, this secret of yours must be big big,” Stan said with a loose chuckle. “What, are the two of you getting married or some…thing—”

The mild amusement in his tone faded as the punchline he was waiting for never seemed to come, while the giddiness in Soos’ expression only seemed to blossom further. His cheeks had brightened to a light shade of red and he’d pressed hand over his mouth as he tried—and failed—to hide the smile that was quickly taking over his entire face.

Wendy also slapped a hand over her mouth to hide her smile—her entire upper half trembling as if she were holding back the biggest laugh of her life—while a deafening silence of realization overtook the rest of the Pines family.

“Alright, who wants the first two plates?”

It was Melody who finally broke the silence, having returned to the doorway with a paper plate of lasagna in each hand. “Again, I would’ve prepared something better for a welcome-back dinner, but with Abuelita out of town and the party tomorrow—”

“YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED!”

Mabel’s words were punctuated by an ear-piercing scream—one that earned slapped hands to the ears of everyone except for Melody and Soos—and she flung herself around the neck of the latter to hug him tightly. “You guys are getting married! I can’t believe it!”

Dipper hurried to join in the hugging of Soos with a hearty laugh. “Congratulations, Soos! I’m so happy for you guys!”

“Can I be the flower girl?” Mabel prattled on. “Can Waddles be the ring bearer?!”

“What?! Why Waddles?” Dipper asked, then looked to Soos hopefully. “Can I be the ring bearer?!”

Melody stared at the sight with a look of mild confusion, to which Soos shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, babe,” he said meekly, and slung an arm around both of them. “Guess my poker face needed a little work.”

She chuckled in response, and went to set the plates down on the t-rex skull. “Well, I guess that’s one way to spill the beans.”

“YEAH! I spilled the beans!” Mabel said delightedly, pumping a fist in the air. “The metaphorical beans!”

“I mean, technically Stan was the one to spill them,” Wendy said, flashing Stan a grin. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, dude, it was priceless!”

This earned her a pair of narrowed eyes from Stan. “Hey, hey, what’s with you and the jokes today? You should be a little more respectful to the guy who used to sign your paychecks.”

“Mmm, are you going to be signing my paychecks again now that you’re back?”

Stan opened his mouth to respond, before the implication behind her reply snapped his attention right back to Soos and Melody. “Woah, woah, hold on, go back a sec—you’re telling me that you two are actually tyin’ the knot?”

Melody held out her hand, an engagement ring with a beautiful, purple gemstone resting comfortably on her finger. “End of the summer’s our set date,” she confirmed. “Oh, not the end end of summer; Soos told me that the kids’ birthday was the last day of August, and he didn’t want to take the spotlight away from their special day with our special day.”

“Aww, what? Booo!” Mabel protested as she hopped down from Soos’ arms. “Come on, we can share the day with you guys! Right, Dip?”

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “If there’s anything that’ll make our birthday better, it’ll be sharing it with your wedding day!”

Soos pressed a hand to each of their heads with a warm smile. “Aww, man, now I kinda wish we did!” he said, with a hopeful look to Melody. “You don’t think we could—”

“Normally I’d say yes in a heartbeat,” Melody said. “But we’ve already booked the photography, and you know how they are about rescheduling at the last second.”

“But don’t you guys have three months?” Dipper pointed out.

“To a wedding photographer, rescheduling earlier than five months counts as last minute,” Melody explained. “Especially if your set date’s in the summertime; they’re usually pretty swamped from June to the middle of September.”

“You shoulda gone for a Vegas wedding,” Stan said. “You get in, get out in an hour tops and all you need is a witness.”

He crossed his arms with a scowl. “And I guess you’ll need a safe for your valuables, in case the broad’s only marryin’ you for your winnings and plans on running off with ‘em in the middle of the night. …On second thought, don’t get married in Vegas.”

“Well, thankfully I don’t have any plans to go running off with any of Soos’s valuables, so there’s nothing to worry about there,” Melody said, taking a look around the room. “Besides, I’m pretty sure the majority of his valuables are sitting right in this very room, and I don’t think I could carry most of you.”

This earned her a chorus of ‘aww’s from the kids and Soos, and a retching gag from Stan. “Yeesh, forget the eye bleach thing, I’m gonna need something to scrub out my ears with after hearing that.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Wendy said, rising to her feet. “You still want some help with the food, Mel? I’ll do it just so Mr. Pines has an excuse to stop complaining about all the mushy stuff.”

Melody pressed a hand to her mouth to try and stifle back another laugh. “Sounds like a plan,” she said, and gestured for Wendy to follow.

While Wendy hurried after her—Stan glowering at her until she was out of his line of sight—the kids continued to swarm Soos with questions. “So where are you guys holding the wedding?” Mabel asked, hands folded together. “Ooh, lemme guess! Uh, uh—the arcade? No, that’s not romantic enough. Hoo-Ha Owl’s Pizzamatronic Jamboree? Since it’s where you had your first date?”

“Here at the Mystery Shack?” Dipper guessed. “Or, you know, a regular church?”

Soos pointed at him. “Ding ding ding, Dipper got it! Or, uh, he was right with the first guess.” He tossed his hands in the air. “We’re gonna have it here at the Mystery Shack! We’re gonna make some space outside, maybe put the alter over in that spot by the totem pole—it’s gonna look so good!”

“Well, I know I’m happy for both of you,” Ford spoke up from his spot on the couch. “I mean, I might not know either of you very well. But from the little I’ve seen of you two together, this is clearly a big deal and I’m honored that we get to share this opportunity with you.”

Soos turned to him with a surprised, yet touched expression. “Wh—aww, thanks, Dr. Pines,” he said, placing a hand on his heart. “That actually means a lot, coming from you.”

Ford blinked in confusion. “It…does?”

“Well…yeah,” Soos said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, I know you didn’t plan for this place to become the Mystery Shack when you built it. But because it became that, I was able to meet Mr. Pines, and then Dipper and Mabel—” He began to tick off his fingers. “—and they were able to help me learn how to get a date, which led me to meeting Melody at the mall—”

He paused, looking to his hand. “Hey, should I count the whole ‘killer video game girlfriend’ thing in there somewhere, or was that more just a…thing that happened and isn’t really connected to all of this?”

“Definitely more of a side thing,” Mabel said. “Like, it happened, but I think connecting it back to the shack is a bit of a stretch.”

“The very weird point they’re to make is that none of this would’ve happened without you building the shack to begin with, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper said with a smile in his direction. “So in a way, a lot of this is because of you!”

“This wouldn’t be possible without help from our friend here!”

Ford’s smile vanished, nails gripping the arm of the couch tighter than he’d intended as the shrill, high-pitched sound of Bill’s voice echoed through his mind. Cruel tauntings mixed with the vicious laughter of his surrounding henchman, all while he struggled desperately against the invisible binds that held him in the air—

“Grunkle Ford, is everything alright?”

Mabel’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, a expression of worry painted across her features. Not only hers, but Dipper was giving him a mildly concerned look as well.

Ford let out a slow exhale of air through his nose to steady himself. It was just a horrible, fleeting memory, as were all his memories of Bill. Outside of his nightmares, he had managed to keep a lid on most of them for the past nine months whenever they managed to snake their way to the front of his mind.

That’s all it was, just another bad memory. No need to dwell on it, especially not now.

“I’m fine,” he reassured the rest of the group with a smile. “I was just about to say that I don’t know if I would go that far with the compliments. I mean, Stanley’s the one who put all the time and effort into making this place what it is today, isn’t he?”

He looked to his right, an identical pair of eyes meeting his own as the older Pines twins stared at each other in silence.

While he and Stan had only been reunited for less than a year, falling back into the habit of picking up on Stan’s mannerisms had almost been second instinct for Ford. Despite the forty year gap between their teenhood and the present, so much of the way that Stan presented himself hadn’t changed in the slightest.

So naturally, Ford had also picked back up the ability to distinguish when Stan was hiding his displeasure with a situation.

It didn’t happen often; Stan had always been the kind of person to openly and fervently vocalize his complaints at the slightest inconvenience. A behavioral habit he had possessed since they were young boys—such a thought sent an uncomfortable wave of nostalgia rippling through Ford’s chest—and one that had clearly stayed with him throughout the years—more uncomfortable waves in his chest of a different sort.

So whenever Stan made the choice to to keep his grievances to himself, it usually meant there was more bubbling under the surface. More than he was willing to let anyone see.

And the way that his features had shifted, jaw clenched and a rigid look behind his eyes that was easy to miss if you blinked—

“Yeah, the heck am I? Chopped liver?”

Before Ford could think to question Stan, he’d already turned back to the group with an affronted look. “Or are you knuckleheads forgettin’ who even started this whole business to begin with?”

This sent a wave of laughs through the trio. “Of course we didn’t, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel assured him. “We’d never forget about you!”

“Of course not!” Dipper added with a laugh.

“Not for a second!” Soos added. “In fact, I was actually about to ask you—”

“More plates coming through~!”

Melody and Wendy reentered the living room, a plate in each of their hands. “Alright, dorks, come and get these before I eat them,” Wendy joked, passing both plates in her hands to the younger twins.

“And one for you,” Melody said, handing one of hers to Soos with another kiss on the cheek.

This got a small hum of delight from Soos, which was accompanied by another eye roll from Stan as he leaned forward to take one of the plates off the skull table. “Eugh, on second thought, I don’t want any sorta credit for this mush fest,” he said, bringing it to his lap. “In fact, unless you got more happy news to tell us, I’m turnin’ my attention to this mush fest instead.”

To emphasize his pun, he brought the back of his fork down onto the lasagna with an audible squishing sound, before shoving a large bite into his mouth. “‘Sides, the sooner we eat, the sooner we get to see Soos’s big, fancy shack tour, right?”

His point seemed to encourage the kids to dig into their own plates as well, although not without bombarding the happy couple with more wedding-related questions. Wendy, in the meanwhile, had realized that she was the only person left without any food and headed back to the kitchen to fetch herself a plate of her own.

Leaving the remaining plate on the dinosaur skull, one growing colder by the minute, for Ford to take.

He leaned forward to pull it to his lap as well, unable to resist giving Stan a glance out of the corner of his eye as he did. Stan’s expression had returned to a more relaxed look as he dug into his food, any previous signs of distress now nothing more than a memory.

Settling back into place with his plate, Ford turned his attention back to the group—specifically Dipper and Mabel as they laughed along with whatever Soos was telling them through a mouthful of lasagna. 

None of them had expressed any further concern for Stan’s behavior after it had happened, and the three of them had spent far more time with Stan than he had in the past thirty years. Sure, the two of them had spent the past nine months together out at sea, but the kids had gotten to know him over the course of the previous summer. And Soos had practically spent all of his childhood and young-adulthood around him.

If they had failed to noticed anything was wrong with him, did that mean that Ford had misinterpreted his reaction completely? If one of Stan’s closest employees and family members—people who had been around Stan for far longer than he had in the past few decades—hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him, then maybe there was actually nothing to notice at all?

“Ho-ho! Looks like Mr. Brainiac finally got smart!”

…Then again, he did have experience in not picking up on the obvious.

His grip on the fork tightened as he stabbed it into the remaining lasagna on his plate, letting out another slow exhale in the process. It was like Stan had said earlier at the bus stop. If the two of them showed any signs of stress regarding the events of the previous summer, then it was sure to stress out the kids as well.

He raised the fork to his mouth. And it was like he had said; It was a new summer. A chance for everyone to start over, and for them to start over together.

“We don’t have to do anything alone ever again, right?”

“We don’t have to do anything alone. Not now, not ever again.”

If there was anything truly wrong with Stan, he would say something. They could talk things out, find a solution together.

As he bit down on the lasagna, however, he couldn’t stop his gaze from uncertainly shifting back to his brother.

—right?

— — — — — — — — 

“Remind us again why we’re wearin’ blindfolds?” Stan asked.

“Oh, how the tables have turned,” Mabel piped up, and reached her hands out in front of her to blindly grasp at the air. “Are you going to make Grunkle Stan drive us somewhere with his blindfold on?”

“I strongly advise against anything of the sort,” Ford said quickly. 

“Nah, I’m pretty sure Soos just wants us to be surprised by all the new stuff he’s added to the shack,” Dipper pointed out, and looked towards where he had heard Soos’s voice. “Isn’t that right, Soos? …I think I’m looking at you, I can’t actually tell.”

“You got it, dude!” Soos said, giving him a thumbs up before adding as an afterthought: “By the way, you can’t see it but I gave you a thumbs up!”

Dipper gave him a thumbs up in return, while Stan folded his arms across his chest. “Yeesh, with how much you’re hyping this thing up, it better end with a boatload of cash.”

He flipped his thumb in the direction of the parked car and boat situated a short distance from the group. “And don’t think I don’t know how much a boatload is, we got the Stan-O’-War 2 parked right over there for reference.” A pause. ���I’m pretty sure it’s over there, at least.”

“It is,” Soos assured him. “Alright, is everyone ready?”

Dipper gave a nod. “We’re ready, Soos!”

“Yeah, knock us dead, Mr. Mystery!” Mabel added encouragingly.

After a quick glance down at the stack of flashcards in his hands, Soos looked back to the waiting Pines with a big smile. “Greetings, ladies, gentlemen, and other assorted tourists,” he began in a rehearsed tone. “First of all, the Mystery Shack family would like to offer you a hearty welcome to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon—”

He winked at them. “Or I guess I should really say welcome back to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon! …‘Cause, like, you all came back to the town after leaving—”

Stan pressed a hand to his forehead. “You’re really gonna give us the entire pitch first, huh?”

From off to the side where her and Wendy were situated, Melody perked up at his remark. “He’s been waiting ages to show it to you,” she called to them. “He barely got any sleep last night out of excitement!”

“I kept opening my eyes and hoping it was finally morning,” Soos admitted with a bashful smile.

“Besides, aren’t you the one who’s always saying that buttering up the chumps that come through here is a good way to get them to toss more money at us?” Wendy added. “Why do you care if he gives you the entire pitch first?”

“Hey, never said I didn’t approve of it,” Stan clarified. “I especially like the part where he refers to the staff as a family.”

He gave a theatrical wave of his hands. “Paints a mental picture in those chumps’ minds. A picture that says ‘Hey! The people at this place must be really close if they’re callin’ themselves a family! And if they’re a family, they must have a bunch of hungry kids to feed! Let’s toss all the money in our wallets at them…for the children!’”

“Probably helps that you actually made us dress up like ‘the abnormally hungry twins’ for an exhibit last year.” Dipper cast a flat look towards Stan, then to verbally emphasize his point: “Which I will not be doing again this year.”

Stan waved him away with a scoff. “‘Course not; those extra inches on your height won’t make you pass as anything more than a starving teenager. And people aren’t as taken in by teenagers in need as they are kids.”

“An unfortunate fact, but a true one,” Wendy chimed in again. “Now shh, Soos worked really hard on preparing this speech!”

“Thanks, Wendy,” Soos said. “But I don’t mind any interruptions, especially not from Mr. Pines! If there’s anything my online forums taught me, it’s that running a business is like writing a fanfiction: healthy criticism informs me of the areas I can improve on, and makes me feel good about the areas I’m already doing well in!”

He tapped his chin. “There’s also a lot of overlap between the two when it comes to people who want to learn about how to romance a werewolf,” he mused with a chuckle. “Turns out the secret is just buying a lot of beef jerky, they go nuts for the stuff—”

“Keep it on track, Soos,” Stan interrupted with a roll of his hand.

“Gravity Falls, Oregon,” Soos continued. “A mysterious and strange town, full of mysterious and strange beings. Whether they’re human, animal, vegetable, mineral, something in between or something else entirely, the one thing they all have in common is that they call this town home.”

He tossed an arm in the air to gesture at the building behind him. “And lucky for you, our totally awesome family here at the Mystery Shack is happy to help bridge the gap between the mysterious and the…not-mysterious—”

He made a so-so motion with his hand. “This part’s a little rough, but we’re working on smoothing it out. I know there’s a good M-word that would fit there, I just can’t remember off the top of my head.”

Ford pressed a hand to his mouth, before he spoke up with a suggested: “Mundane?”

Soos’s features brightened with inspiration and he shot a finger gun in Ford’s direction. “Boom! That’s the one!” he said, fetching a pencil from his pocket. “Thanks, Dr. Pines! …By the way, I shot you a finger gun. If you don’t know what that is—‘cause of all the time away from our dimension—I can tell you! It’s when you take your finger and—”

“No need to explain, Soos,” Ford assured him. “The concept speaks for itself.”

While Soos scribbled a few edits onto his flashcard, Melody raised a hand from her spot. “Sorry to interrupt your speech, Soos, but I just want to make sure I’m getting things right now that everyone’s here.” 

She pointed a finger at the Stans, shifting it back and forth between them. “Mr. Pines is the founder of the Mystery Shack and Dr. Pines is the one who actually owns it, right?” she asked with a shrug. “Or—well, I know that technically we own it since we have the deed to the building, that’s such a weird law for this town to have—”

“You have no idea,” Stan added.

“—but you get what I mean, right? Dr. Pines is the name on the deed?”

“I gotcha, and you’re right!” Soos clarified. “Mr. Pines founded the mystery shack and Dr. Pines is the one on the deed.”

He turned to face her completely. “If it helps, you could try remembering it like this: Mr. for mystery and Dr. for deed to the shack!”

Melody considered this for a moment. “Oh, that does help, actually. It’s like a stalactite/stalagmite kind of thing.”

“You could also just call them Stan and Ford,” Mabel added. “Ooh, or Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford like we do!”

“I mean, technically they aren’t her great-uncles,” Dipper pointed out. “So that wouldn’t really make sense.”

With a tut, Mabel placed her hands on her hips. “Please, the title of Grunkle is less about being a great-uncle, and more of a state of mind.”

“...Yeah, the state of mind where you’re a great-uncle,” Dipper said pointedly. “Hence the combination of the two words.”

“You can call us whatever you please,” Ford spoke up. “Clearly there are plenty of options to choose from, and all are accurate to some degree.”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “Although I will admit that it’s been a long time since anyone has referred to me as Dr. Pines. It was far more common for people to call me that for the first few years after I finished college.”

“You know what, I’ll experiment with a few different names, see what sticks,” Melody said, then turned her attention back to Soos. “Sorry, babe, didn’t mean to interrupt. Go ahead and keep going.”

“Never hurts to double check,” Soos assured her. “Plus since the two of them are part of the Shack’s history, it doubles as a tour question! Ooh, we should write that into the speech, too—”

There was another pause as he scribbled something down on his flashcards. “See, that’s another reason I wanted to show you guts the tour as soon as possible,” he said to the Pines. “I’m adding so much that’s gonna knock the next group of tourists that hears it on their butts! Okay, let’s see, where was I—”

“Mysterious and mundane,” Dipper reminded him helpfully.

“Thanks, dude! As I was saying before, we here at the Mystery Shack are happy to help bridge the gap between the mysterious and the mundane—”

He playfully waggled a finger in Ford’s direction, before tossing his free hand in the air. “And hopefully after today’s tour, you’ll all be able to walk across that bridge alongside us! Welcome to the Mystery Shack!”

He squinted down at his flashcards again. “Is…is that good for a welcoming statement?” he asked. “Did I do a good job? Do you feel invested to learn more about what awaits in this fine establishment?”

“Oh, I know if I had a wallet full of money, I’d be tossing fistfuls at you right now,” Mabel said supportively, and dug a hand into the pocket of her skirt. “Ooh, wait, I might have some glitter I can toss instead—”

After blindly feeling around for a moment, she pulled her hand out with a with a disappointed look. “Aw, nope, false alarm,” she said, opening her palm to reveal a squished, blue blob. “Just my wad of that sticky stuff teachers use to hang up posters that I stole over the school year~!”

She dropped it in her pocket again and gave the side a pat. “Just gonna tuck that back where it belongs~!”

“And I’m always ready to learn more,” Dipper added. “So you don’t need to do much to convince me!”

“Sounds like a yes to me, Mr. Mystery,” Melody said. “We good to move on to the next part of this tour?”

“You know it!” Soos said, before looking back to the Pines. “Okay so that part of the speech would normally be followed up with me leading everyone over to the exhibits area and showing all of them off.” 

His gaze moved to the Stans. “But I know you wanted a quiet evening without tourists or sleepovers or parties—”

“We did,” Stan confirmed.

“I didn’t,” Mabel argued with a pout. “I’ll bet Candy and Grenda would’ve had so much fun on the tour!”

“Oh, they’ve taken it many times!” Soos assured her. “They’re practically honorary employees at this point, and sometimes they even help with the new exhibits!”

At this information, Mabel’s pout was immediately replaced with a cutesy smile and she squished her hands to her cheeks. “Aww, of course they do! Can we see some of the ones they helped with?”

“Well, uh—like I was saying, we knew Mr. Pines wanted at least one evening before all the loud stuff,” Soos said. “So we ended tours early for the day and sent everyone from the exhibits home.”

The Pines exchanged a series of confused, blindfolded looks, before Dipper vocalized their confusion with an: “Everyone?”

Soos looked to Melody and Wendy, who nodded in unison. “We sent everyone home,” he continued to the Pines. “But we still wanted to give you all a taste of the kind of tours we’d normally give on a regular basis! So Melody had the brilliant idea to leave out the empty displays and do a fake tour before cleanup!”

He gestured for them to follow. “If you really want to know more, you’re gonna have to come look for yourselves~! And to look for yourselves, you’re gonna have to follow me!”

“Refusing to explain further until we take the tour for ourselves?” Stan gave a proud nod. “Good, good, you’re reelin’ us in…”

“Uh, Soos?” Dipper said, and pointed to his blindfold. “How can we follow you if you can’t see?”

Soos froze, and pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh, duh, forgot about that!” he said, and thought for a moment. “Uh…just carefully follow the sound of my voice and footsteps?”

He began to walk backwards, making wide gesturing motions with his hands as they blindly followed him. “Alright, dudes, just keep walking forward—oop, careful of that crack in the ground, Dipper! Okay, just a little further—”

“Still don’t understand why we can’t just take the blindfolds off,” Stan said, taking a few bold steps forward—

—and letting out a grunt of pain as he stepped on a small rock. “Also, since when did Soos know to call you Dr. Pines?” he asked, kicking the rock to the side. “Don’t remember you ever tellin’ him to do that.”

He directed the last remark at Ford, who was carefully toeing the dirt in front of him before taking a step. “Well, I did mention my college years back when I first stepped out of the portal,” he reminded Stan. “Perhaps he took that fact and came to the conclusion that using the Dr. prefix would be appropriate, given my numerous PhDs.”

Stan’s expression shifted for a moment. “Oh yeah, that did happen, didn’t it,” he said, before shaking his head. “Yeah, given your whole science guy thing, I’ll bet he woulda called you Dr. Pines even if you didn’t have the credentials for it.”

“I would’ve!” Soos confirmed helpfully.

“Ooh, Mabel just had a fun idea!” Mabel piped up, and pressed her hands together. “What if we called you Dr. Grunkle Ford?”

She smiled cutely in Ford’s direction, despite being unable to see him. “I’ll bet one of those PhDs is from mastering the study of Great-Uncle-ing, isn’t it? Hmm~?”

“Well, if we’re getting into the specifics,” Ford began. “The field of studies I majored in were biology, archaeology—dabbled in Hyper-Advanced Engineering and Fifth-Dimensional Calculus for three semesters, deeply regret trading the rest for an extra semester of Applied Quantum Phase Theory—”

He paused. “Oh, that was a joke, wasn’t it?”

Mabel let out a giggle. “The PhD part was, the Dr. Grunkle Ford part was not. That was also not a ‘no’ so I’m gonna tuck that away for later.”

She made a motion to grab something out of the air, and pretended to drop it into her pocket. “And just ‘cause you can’t see it, I grabbed the nickname out of the air and dropped it into my pocket,” she explained, patting her skirt. “It’s resting right next to my blob of sticky poster stuff as we speak.”

“Hey, Soos, are we able to take off our blindfolds yet?” Dipper asked.

“Just a little further ahead—ooh, okay, stop, stop!”

Soos came to a stop himself, smile wider than ever. “Alright, esteemed guests! You may now remove your blindfolds and behold the wonders the Shack has to offer! …Or, at least, get an idea of what the Shack has to offer when we’re not closed!”

Four pairs of hands met cloth as the Pines reached up to lower their blindfolds and take in the sight before them.

The area situated between the shack and the edge of the woods was reminiscent of a carnival after all the guests had gone home for the day—the grass a tamped-down mess of discarded pamphlets and trash, and a wide selection of empty displays surrounded them on all sides.

To their left stood a tall aquarium that stretched around ten by ten square feet, filled nearly to the brim with placid water. Further ahead was a lengthy presentation stage, littered in the remains of unidentifiable objects made of wood, stone—anything that looked like it would’ve been a challenge for a regular human to destroy.

Ahead of that was an artificial recreation of a magical forest glenn, one perfect for a unicorn to kneel before in a graceful and elegant fashion. A series of perches for winged creatures both big and small. A small pet bed the perfect size for a plaidypus. A collection of scattered Pitt Cola cans near a skateboarding ramp covered in massive, yeti-like footprints and tire tracks.

Empty display after empty display surrounded the Pines family as they looked around, each a clear indicator of what beings would normally occupy them during business hours.

And if the sight wasn’t enough, Soos was happy to confirm it as he lead them forward: “Now, this is our Main Exhibit Area,” he said, and gestured around himself. “Any live beings for these attractions would normally be gathered here for their demonstrations—”

“Live beings?” Dipper asked with a hopeful sparkle in his eyes. “As in we’ve started including actual, real monsters and creatures and stuff?”

“You know it, dude!” Soos said.

Mabel smooshed her face against the side of the large, glass tank, pupils darting back and forth while questions spilled out of her mouth at breakneck speed: “Is this a mermaid tank? How many mermaids are here? What are they like? …Are any of them Mermando?”

“Reminder that you’re in a relationship,” Dipper said.

Mabel pulled her face back with an audible pop, before giving her brother a pointed stare. “I wasn’t asking so I could date him again! It’d just be nice to catch up with an old friend!” 

She moved a hand to her forehead, rubbing the spot where skin had met glass. “Besides, you act like Dev wouldn’t be cool with being in a polyamorous relationship with a mermaid.”

“...You know, that is probably something he’d be cool with.”

“Soos said he had a feeling you’d like the mermaid tank,” Melody said, coming up beside them. “And Wendy had a feeling that you’d love to see me jump into it.”

Mabel stared up at her with a grave look. “I would love nothing more.”

“Called that one,” Wendy said with a smug grin.

Using the ladder near them, Melody climbed up and onto the wooden platform on top of the tank, pausing only for a moment to fiddle with something in the very center. After a few seconds, she lifted the half she was not kneeling on upwards and held it still for the group to see. 

Rather than being made completely out of wood like the other half, the ‘lid’ was made up of sturdy, steel bars with gaps between them. Like the bars of a jail cell, if the entire jail cell had been laid on its back and made of glass.

“We like to close and lock the lid between mermaid demonstrations,” she explained to the Pines family. “Keeps any bold tourists from trying to climb inside.”

“You lock your mermaids up?” Mabel asked, hands pressed to her mouth in horror.

“Wha—oh, no, don’t worry!” Melody quickly assured her. “We only lock it up once Mitch is outside of it and in his portable tank—hey, Soos, Wendy, can you guys—”

“Oh, yeah, one sec.”

Both Soos and Wendy hurried over to the opposite end of the tank and held out their arms, as if preparing to catch something out of the air. Once they were in place, Melody arched the lid up and over towards the side where they stood. While it quickly swung downwards at the two of them, they stood firm as they caught it in their arms, before gently guiding it to rest against the side of the tank.

Looking pleased, Melody turned her attention back to the kids. “Alright, I’m not even gonna try to do a proper mermaid dive into this thing because there’s a good chance I might break my neck,” she said. “So are we fine with a cannonball instead?”

“Cannonball! Cannonball!” Dipper and Mabel chanted in unison.

“Cannonball!” Soos added with just as much enthusiasm.

“Sounds like a yes to me!” Melody said, and took a small step back from the gap. “Get your cameras ready!”

Mabel held up her cell phone with a bright smile, before taking a cautious step back from the tank. “For safety measures,” she explained. “Don’t want what happened to Dipper’s phone to happen to mine~!”

“There was a chicken in science class, caught on fire and set off the sprinklers…” He shrugged in mild annoyance. “I had to get a new phone, it was a whole thing—”

“Shshshsh,” Mabel said, taking one hand off her phone to wave him quiet. “We can exchange cool stories after the tour! Cannonball time!”

“Oh, right—go for it, Melody!”

And with that confirmation, Melody took a deep breath jumped up and over the open side of the tank, folding her body into a cannonball shaped before she sank down into the water. Water that splashed up and out, soaking the grass around the tank and the toes of anyone who hadn’t followed Mabel’s example and backed up to safety.

While Melody breached the surface and swam to the tank’s side, Soos looked back down to his flashcards. “As you can imagine, normally a trick like this would be done by our hired merteen, Mitch,” he explained. “He would do a few tricks, explain a few of the basics of being a merperson, and then answer a few questions from the audience about being a mermaid and stuff.”

Melody propped her folded arms over the side of the tank. “And since I’m not an actual mermaid, I can’t really answer any real mermaid questions,” she said. “Or, at least, not as well as someone who’s been one their entire lives. But if anyone’s got any about how the exhibit works in other ways—”

“And Mabel’s hand is already in the air.”

Dipper flicked a thumb towards his sister, who was waving her arm about so frantically that it was a miracle that it didn’t go flying right off her body. Melody smiled and gestured to her with a damp hand. “Go ahead, Mabel.”

“Because I didn’t get any answers before, I repeat my questions from earlier,” Mabel said. “How many mermaids are here? What are they like?”

She turned her nose up at Dipper. “And would there happen to be an old friend of mine by the name of Mermando among them?” she asked. “One I am not interested in dating again, but one I would like to say hello to, despite what a certain someone might think—”

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?” Dipper asked.

“Ehhh, we only got the one merman and I doubt you’d be interested in dating him,” Wendy answered. “He’s kinda dull, one of those beach-dude types who’s overly obsessed with surfing and sun…”

She flicked a thumb towards the skating ramp. ”Gets along pretty well with the Abominable Bro-men who hang out at the halfpipe, though.”

“Speaking of which, he headed down to the California coast for the summer,” Soos said. “Apparently he’s got a lot of family down there—”

“Makes sense,” Dipper said with a nod.

“Totally tracks,” Mabel added.

“—which means that the only mermaid exhibit you’ll get to see for the next three months is Melody’s,” Soos continued. “Unless another one applies for a job soon, that is. ‘Course we’ll still need to check their resume, confirm their resources are legitimate—”

“Which could happen,” Melody said, as she pulled herself up onto the edge of the tank. “I’ve got a couple of interviews lined up.”

She looked towards the older Pines twins. “What about you two? Got any mermaid questions for me?”

“I’m afraid any questions I might still have about mermaids would only be able to be answered by actual mermaids,” Ford said, and looked towards the rest of the displays. “And I assume the same applies to the rest of the exhibits.”

He cast them both a smile. “But I’m in full support of this method of showcasing them! I mean, using the supernatural beings of Gravity Falls as willing exhibits, and providing a chance for everyone to grow accustomed to each other in a neutral setting?” 

He tossed his hands in the air. “All with education lessons about each creature added to the mix? Quite the scientific approach to this sort of thing, color me very impressed!”

“Well, we kinda have you to thank for the idea, Dr. Pines,” Melody said. “You and the kids, of course.”

Once again, Ford found himself bewildered by the sudden praise and he tilted his head with a curious look. “Care to explain?”

“See, I spent sooooo much time with Dipper and Mabel last year,” Soos explained. “And they spent sooooo much of their time doing lots of cool, mystery stuff! Whether it was fighting some big monster or just trying to find out more about the super-mysterious author guy who wrote the journal that Dipper found in the woods—”

He once again pointed at Ford with a playful grin, before continuing: “—we learned about a lotta weird dudes! And with the town coming together and everything after Weirdmageddon, that meant a lotta those weird dudes were walking around in broad daylight. Which meant a lotta tourists started seeing those weird dudes walking around in broad daylight!”

“And as most tourists do, plenty had questions about them,” Melody continued from the water tank. “So with the Shack being one of the most popular locations in town, some talk was thrown around about us providing a space for those beings to answer their questions!”

“It probably helps that a lot of those weird dudes hid in the Mystery Shack during Weirdmageddon,” Wendy added. “So you know, didn’t take a lot of convincing to get them involved, since they kinda consider it a safe haven now.”

“That’s so cool!” Dipper piped up excitedly.

“It’s brilliant,” Ford agreed. “During my years of research, I spent so long studying all the strange and mysterious beings of this town. How they came to exist, how they functioned—”

He placed a hand to the side of the tank. “Not just them but the weirdness that surrounded the town as a whole. Why all of it was so drawn to this tiny, Oregon town out of anywhere else in the world—”

“Imagine it, Sixer—a whole dimension of weirdness! One where the strangest and most bizarre beings the Multiverse has to offer call home! All waiting for someone as brilliant as you to pop on over and show the world what they—and you—can do!”

“You really think so?”

“Buddy, I know so! This is the way genius happens! …With a little help from a friend, of course!”

The hand against the glass curled into a fist as Bill’s voice once again pounded through his skull, the memories of their ‘research’ together gripping his insides like a vice. All those years of hard work for naught, all that wasted time being fed promises from the honey-dipped spoon of a liar, the bitter truth hidden from sight until it was too late to spit it back out—

He slowly unclenched his hand with a shuddery exhale. Deep breath, just relax. Everything was fine. “—well, this whole setup is making me reminisce on more nostalgic times,” he finished with a forced smile in Soos’s direction. “That’s all.”

If Soos had caught on to his half-truth, he didn’t show any sign of it in his own expression. Rather, his own smile simply widened further as he looked to Stan. “What about you, Mr. Pines?”

Ford couldn’t help but look to his brother as well, and his eyes once again met a matching pair as the two of them stared at each other in another shared silence.

The rigidity in Stan’s features from before had returned. Far less prominent than it had been back in the house, but the way his jaw was set, the cold, studious gaze behind worn lenses—

“All I wanna know is how much this kinda stuff’s costing the two of you.” 

And quick as a flash, Stan had turned back to the rest of the group, arms folded across his chest and any sense of tension in his features nonexistent. “Don’t get me wrong; I think usin’ all the ghouls and goblins of this town to get more money outta tourists is a great idea—”

“You mean like what I suggested last year?” Dipper pointed out.

“Last year I was still playin’ dumb about all of that, in the hopes it would keep you kids outta trouble,” Stan reminded him. “Think we can safely say that ship has sailed by now. Besides, I ain’t the big man in charge anymore, so whatever changes you make to the shop are up to you and you alone.” 

He directed the back half of his sentence at Soos and Melody as he turned to face them again. “But you know me; always lookin’ at the side of business with the dollar signs. And I just wanna know if you’re turnin’ more of a profit than what you’re spendin’.”

Ford’s gaze continued to linger on his brother for a moment more, before he turned to them as well. “Stanley raises a good point. While I clearly support the desire and motivation to help others approach the supernatural beings of the Falls with a more respectful and scientific mindset—well, as Stanley put it so eloquently, such methods aren’t exactly cheap.”

“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” Melody assured them. “If anything, the Shack is making more money than it ever did before!”

“Oh yeah!” Soos agreed. “Even taking into account all of the paychecks we give out—of course we pay anyone who’s part of an exhibit—”

“They’re employees after all,” Melody chimed in with a nod.

“—even taking all that into account, we’re doing really well!” Soos finished, tossing his hands into the air. “In fact, the Shack is more popular than it’s ever been before!”

Ford glanced back at Stan, scanning his features for any other signs of distress. However, Stan only seemed to perk up further at Soos’ comment, even going so far as to clasp a proud arm around his shoulder. “Well, then I have no complaints whatsoever! Show me another one of these magnificent, moneymaking—uh, m—uh…whatever, just show me another one.”

“Sounds like my cue,” Wendy said, and turned to the younger twins. “Who wants to see me break something over at the Manotaur stage?”

This time, Dipper and Mabel’s hand shot up in unison, and Wendy laughed as she lead them over towards the empty presentation stage. Much like back at the bus stop, the adults found themselves left behind as Soos helped a sopping-wet Melody back down the ladder and into the grass. 

“Well, the tour might not be how we usually do things, but at least they seem to be having fun,” she said, and reached up to wring out some of the water in her hair. “Plus getting a chance to jump into a tank of water on a hot summer evening’s probably the opposite of a problem.”

“You cannonball like no other,” Soos said, tone full of sincerity before he looked to the older twins. “So you’re really enjoying the tour so far, Mr. Pines? I know you probably won’t get a proper feel of the new exhibits until you’re able to take a real tour, and I know this is a huge change from how you used to do things—”

“Like I said, it’s makin’ this place more money than ever so I’ve got zero complaints,” Stan said with a shrug. “Your methods are smart, keepin’ up with what the people want like any good business should…”

His features shifted to something that almost resembled genuine pride, if one looked closely enough. “You’re…you’re doin’ good, Soos. Really.”

A single touch could’ve shattered Soos like glass, eyes swelling with tears of pure joy.. “Thank you so much, Mr. Pines!” he said, and finally gave in to the urge he was probably holding since the moment the Stans arrived and scooped Stan up into a hug. “You’ve no idea how much this means to me!”

Any pride in Stan’s expression vanished in place of annoyance at being scooped, and he struggled fruitlessly against Soos’ embrace. “Alright, alright, save the huggy stuff for your fiance over there,” he insisted firmly. “Besides, didn’t Wendy say she wanted to show us another exhibit or whatever?”

“Oh, right!” Soos said, and looked to Melody. “Want me to hug-carry you over to the stage?”

“Soos, I’m soaking wet.”

“Then we’ll both be soaking wet!”

Recognizing a good point when she heard it, Melody shrugged and hopped into his arms and the two of them fell into a shared fit of laughter as Soos lead them both towards the Manotaur stage. 

Leaving the Stans as the remaining two near the mermaid tank. 

“Can you believe this?” Stan asked, with a light flick to the glass. “A mermaid exhibit with a living, breathing merman? And one not made out of random animal parts?”

“They really seem to have tapped into a brilliant method of showcasing the exhibits here,” Ford agreed, turning his attention to the glass as well. With Melody no longer inside, the water inside was slowly settling back to a calm and undisturbed state. “You really picked the right man to take up the reigns in your absence.”

“Yeah, I…I really did, huh?”

That heavy silence from before began to envelop the brothers again, nearly impossible to ignore by this point. Not even the whooping and hollering from the stage—apparently Wendy had started her demonstration without them—was enough to distract Ford from his growing suspicions that Stanley was hiding something.

With the way he kept looking at Ford, features set with that rigid expression that clearly obscured his actual feelings beneath, he was either hiding something or he needed to say something without the others nearby.

Well, they had a moment alone now. Best to do the straightforward thing and just ask directly. “Stanley, is everything alright?”

Stan snapped his attention from the tank to Ford so quickly that it was a miracle he didn’t pull something, and for a moment he did seem like he had something he needed to say—

—before his expression settled back into something more neutral as he leaned back against the glass. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

It was an odd thing. With the many years of conning people under his belt, Ford had expected his brother to be far better at lying right to his face. “Are you sure?” he tried again, and leaned back against the glass as well. “You know you can talk to me, Stanley. It’s like you said before: we don’t have to deal with things by ourselves anymore. So, if you need to talk about anything, anything at all…”

This earned a small chuckle from Stan. “Throwin’ my own words back at me, huh? Cheap shot.”

He hesitated to reply for a moment, before giving him a halfhearted shrug. “I dunno, it’s nothin’,” he said. “I think I’m just having a hard time getting back into the swing of things now that we’re back in town. Just a lotta new stuff to get used to, stuff that wasn’t here last year…”

He cast Ford a smirk. “Guess you could say I’m having trouble gettin’ my land legs, instead of my sea legs,” he said, leaning over to nudge him with his elbow. “You—you get it? My land legs—”

Dodging the subject with a joke, and an incredibly cheesy one at that. A classic Stanley move to avoid talking about something he didn’t want to, one that only cemented Ford’s concerns further.

However, his first remark brought a thoughtful hand to Ford’s chin. “There have been quite a few changes in our absence,” he agreed. “It would make sense that it would be difficult for you to readjust, especially in regards to the shack.”

He cast a look towards the shack itself. “I mean, you were in charge of this place for what, thirty years? That’s about five times the number of years I lived here,” he said. “Not to mention Soos and Melody’s whole announcement, I can imagine that would be quite the surprise for you—”

“Only surprise there is that there’s apparently someone on this planet more nerdy than Soos,” Stan interrupted quickly, and crossed his arms. “What about you? How’re you holdin’ up?”

Ford stared at him, perplexed. “Me?”

“To quote the words you stole from me to then throw back at me; we don’t have to deal with things by ourselves anymore,” Stan said. “So do you have anything you wanna talk about?”

“Heads up!”

A shout from the stage sprung the brothers into action, and both jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a porcelain vase whizzing past at breakneck speed, right before crashing straight into the side of the cabin and shattering on impact.

“Sorry, guys!” Wendy called from atop the stage. “Think I put a little too much oomph into that swing!”

“I think you put just the right amount of oomph into it!” Mabel said from beside her, grin bright. 

“It was incredible!” Dipper agreed. “Can you do it again?”

“I dunno,” Wendy said, tapping the end of the bat against her boot. “The destruction of valuable properly really gets both the Manotaurs and the audience all riled up, so they tend to keep the going until there’s nothing left to destroy.”

She moved the end of the bat was moved to a discarded plank of wood near her feet, gently nudging it towards the edge of the stage. “And judging by today’s damage, it’s a miracle that one vase remained unscathed as long as it did.”

“Aw, boo,” Mabel said. “I wanna see more mindless violence!”

“Sadly that’s all I got for the big lugs for now,” Wendy said, letting the bat clatter to the stage. “You squirts know all about their deal already, so random trivia is kinda out of the question. I mean, I could always do the thing where they let someone from the audience challenge them in a fight, but ehh, I’ve already gotta clean up the displays on my day off—”

“Didn’t you choose to come to work anyway?” Mabel pointed out.

“—so I’m just gonna pass the baton to Soos,” Wendy continued, tossing a hand in Soos’ direction. “How about it, Soos? You’re the only one who hasn’t shown off one of the exhibits yet, it’s only fair you get a turn before we move on to the Big Stuff inside.”

“You make a good point!” Soos agreed with a nod, and glanced around at the remaining exhibits for a moment in thought. “Who wants to watch me try and do a kickflip over at the Abominable Bro-Men’s halfpipe?”

“Me! Me!” Dipper piped up enthusiastically. “You are absolutely going to fall and break your neck, so I’m in!”

Beaming, Soos turned back to the direction of the mermaid tank. “What about you, Dr. and Mr. Pines?” he called. “You wanna join us?”

The sudden vase attack had pulled both from their conversation long enough to grow distracted by the kids’ antics on the stage. At Soos’ call, however, the two of them exchanged a look with each other. “Like I was askin’ before,” Stan tried again. “Are you okay? You got anything you need to talk about?”

It was said in such a knowing tone, as if Stan could physically see the triangle-shaped echos that were permanently etched against the inside of Ford’s mind. As if he were just waiting for Ford to offer him the chance to swing another fist at them again.

But while swinging a fist at Bill had worked the first time around, Stan couldn’t exactly swing a fist at the nightmares that had plagued Ford’s head for as long as he could remember. And even if he could—

“I’m fine, Stanley,” he finally insisted aloud. “Really, I am. Perhaps it’s as you said, and it’s taking me more time to readjust to being back in town than I’d initially expected.”

He flashed Stan a weak smile, one that his brother hesitated to return for a few seconds. But eventually, the corners of Stan’s mouth curled upwards into a amused smile of his own. “Pretty sure my exact words were ‘having trouble gettin’ my land legs’,” he pointed out, clasping a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Was a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

“Stanley, you realize that ‘getting your land legs’ is about as common of a phrase as ‘getting your sea legs’,” Ford pointed out.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I made that one up,” Stan said, and plopping an arm across his brother’s shoulders. “Now come on, let’s go watch Soos break his neck or whatever he’s gonna do.”

“Personally, I’m not a fan of Abominable Bro-Men,” Ford admitted. “But with all this talk of neck-breaking, I think there should be at least one person there who knows how to reset a bone.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert with human bones—”

While the adults followed Soos towards the half-pipe, Mabel let out a disappointed noise. “Aww man, I wanted a chance to try and fight Wendy!”

“Eh, we’ve got all summer,” Wendy reminded her. “Besides, you’re telling me you’d miss a chance to watch Soos fall flat on his face?”

With a giggle, Mabel shoved her hands in her pockets. “Now I never said that—oh, wait—” 

She shuffled her hands around for a moment, before pulling them back out and peering into her pocket with an annoyed look. “Aww, dang it, I think my wad of sticky poster stuff fell out of my pocket somewhere.”

“Eugh, that probably means it’s all covered in dirt or something now,” Dipper said with a grimace. “Probably best to cut your losses and start a new one when school picks back up again.”

“Are you kidding?” Mabel protested, gaze now shifting around their feet and the rest of the stage. “I barely managed to collect as much as I did before the teachers started catching wind of my thievery!”

Taking care to avoid any of the broken debris, she dropped to her knees and pressed her face against the stage for closer examination. “By the time fall hits, they’ll probably have security guards around every single one of those cheesy pun posters that relate to each class’s specific subject! I’ll never be able to get the new one back to the size of the original!”

Dipper placed a hand on his hip. “You realize that this is a very weird and specific problem that only you could have,” he said, then paused. “You want me to help you look?”

“Nah, nah, you go ahead and watch Soos. Just snap me some pics with my phone.”

Without taking her eyes off the stage, she held out her cell phone to him. “Feel free to add whatever filters you want, I’m partial to the kitty-ears myself.”

“Of course you are.” 

While he hopped down from the stage and headed towards the half-pipe, Mabel continued to search on her hands and knees for the telltale blob. When the stage itself produced no results, she moved to retrace her steps from the stage to the mermaid tank, to the area where she was pretty sure she’d pulled the lump out of her pocket—Soos making them walk around blindfolded had been delightfully quirky at the time, but now it was just making her search all the more difficult—

THUMP!

The sound of something heavy hitting the ground snapped Mabel’s attention towards the edge of the forest, her gaze darting about wildly as she tried to locate the source. A goal that didn’t take long for her to accomplish; a conspicuous black mass was splayed out on the ground between a pair of nearby birch trees.

Her first guess was some kind of animal, until her gaze landed on a small, fleshy hand at the end of an arm. An arm, a head of messy hair, a pair of legs—

“Wait, that’s a person!”

Once her brain put two and two together, Mabel broke into a sprint towards the unknown—potentially unconscious—body. Sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed once she reached it and knelt down to investigate.

They were short, probably not much taller than her or Dipper at full height. And as Mabel rolled their unconscious body onto their back to get a closer look, further similarities between the mysterious person and Dipper presented themselves to her.

They had the same facial structure, their noses were the same rosy shade of peach that was slightly darker than the rest of their face. Even their messy mop of hair fell over their eyes in the exact same way Dipper’s did when he wasn’t wearing a hat, although his usual brown shade had been swapped for a light bleach-blonde that would make the entirety of Sev’ral Timez weep with envy.

Despite the similar physical features—the mysterious person’s fashion sense differed from Dipper’s in every way. Rather than the casual shirt, vest and hat combo that Dipper wore on a regular basis, the person was dressed in a black jacket and pants, bow tie, yellow button up—an unusually fancy outfit for someone who might’ve just fallen out of a tree in the middle of the woods.

“What’s wrong, Pumpkin?”

Drawing her gaze from the body, Mabel looked up to see Stan approaching her with a curious look. “I think someone fell out of one of the trees,” she explained. “I heard a loud thump, and saw them lying here. I think they might be a kid—”

“What’s going on over here, dudes?”

Stan turned to see Ford and Soos coming up behind him, a skateboard tucked safely under Soos’ arm. “I was just gonna wait until everyone was at the half-pipe ramp,” Soos explained. “Dipper said Mabel was looking for something, and I’m in no rush.”

He flashed a grin in Stan’s direction. “Even if I’d love to get to the inside part of the tour as soon as possible, you are gonna flip when you see it, Mr. Pines—”

“What’s wrong, Stanley?” Ford asked, echoing his brother’s earlier question.

“Accordin’ to Mabel, some kid fell out of a tree or something,” Stan said, with a look to Soos. “What, you’re just lettin’ kids climb in the trees around here now? You lookin’ to get sued by some Patsy or Jane with straight bangs and a failing marriage that she insists on makin’ everyone else’s business?”

Soos innocently raised his hands. “I didn’t let anyone do anything, I swear! Maybe he was part of the last tourist group of the day and got separated from them before they left? Haven’t had any parents show up looking for a lost kid, though.”

“Either way, we should probably call 911.” 

Ford knelt down beside Mabel and pressed two fingers to the unknown child’s neck. “Well, they have a pulse so they’re probably alive,” he said, then pulled his hand back. “Of course, a lack of pulse doesn’t rule out the possibility of them being undead. But if they did fall out of a tree, they could possibly have a concussion. So either way, it’s a concern.”

“Well, let’s hope you don’t have to rip out the spine of this one,” Stan said.

While they conversed, Mabel gingerly placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder and gave it a light shake. “Hello? Are you alright?”

There was no response, so she tried again with a bit more force. “Hey, kid, I hope you know that you just fell out of the sky!” she said with a bit more urgency. “Which is probably not out of the norm for kids in Gravity Falls, but still, it’s a little worrying!”

The child remained still for a moment more—

—before their body began to tremble with a quiet chuckle. A quiet chuckle that slowly morphed into a full-on laugh.

Any relief that might’ve started building inside Mabel was snuffed out in an instant as the laughter—that cold, cruel laughter—only grew more vocal, and sent her crawling backwards in a panic as the body slowly rose up from the ground and turned to face her.

Now that Mabel got a better look at his face, the similarities to her brother were so clearly skin deep. Their aforementioned features were the same as before, but Dipper never smiled in a way that revealed all of his teeth and gums at once, like a young child being told to smile for the first time in front of a camera.

Dipper’s limbs weren’t quite as gangly and limp as the other boy’s, like a marionette being controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer who hadn’t mastered the art of making their body move naturally.

And Dipper’s eyes weren’t that terrifying, familiar shade of jaundice yellow, complete with slitted, catlike pupils that bore deep, deep into her very being.

“Grunkle Ford!”

Her panicked shout—one that spilled out of her on complete instinct before she could even process what she was saying—was far from necessary. Ford had completely frozen when the laughter had started, features aghast and grim as he stared at the child, as that wicked, horrible laughter droned on and on—

CRACK!

And suddenly the laughter was silenced, and the same sound of a body hitting a ground as before drew Mabel’s attention back to reality.

The child was unconscious again, now with a decent sized welt on the back of his head. And beside him stood Wendy, the bat from before in hand and her body hunched over while she tried to catch her breath. “Saw…saw what was happening,” she explained between sharp gulps of air. “Heard the laughing. Panicked…”

The only sound to break the silence that followed for a few seconds was the faint rustling of the wind through the trees, until a pair of approaching footsteps against the dirt drew everyone’s heightened attention towards the sound in a panic. 

Much like the others had done, Melody and Dipper were approaching the group from the direction of the half-pipe. Upon seeing their petrified expressions, Melody held up her hands. “Woah, woah, hey, what’s going on?”

From beside her, Dipper lifted up something he was clutching tightly in his hands—one of the discarded planks of wood from the Manotaur’s stage. “I heard Mabel yell and saw Wendy run over here with her bat,” Dipper added. “Thought it’d probably be smart to grab a weapon, too—”

“Get a rope.”

Ford didn’t tear his gaze from the body as he responded in a low tone, as if it would vanish the moment he looked away. As if he, or everything around him, would shatter in an instant if he dared tear his attention away from the body that had previously been letting out that horrible, horrible laughter. 

The laughter that had haunted his dreams for four decades, the laughter still bouncing off the inside of his skull, even after Wendy had silenced the source.

When he didn’t elaborate further, Dipper looked to one of the other adults for an explanation—

“You heard him! Get a rope!”

It was Stan who replied next, and actually spun to face them with a grim expression. “A rope, chains…if it can be used to tie someone up, then get it!”

“It’s code yellow, Melody,” Wendy said quickly. “Soos, do we still got that unicorn-hair rope?”

“Same place as it always is,” Soos said, and looked to Melody. “Come on, we need to hurry—I’ll get the moonstones, you fetch the mercury.”

Recognizing their urgency, Melody looked to the unconscious body on the ground. “...That’s him, then?”

“Did you hear me, I said get a rope!”

It was Ford who spoke again, tone more demanding as he finally tore his gaze from the body to glare at them. “If I have to say it a third time—”

“Oh, okay, yeah, that answers that question,” Melody said quickly, and gestured for the rest of them to follow. “Alright, there’s a rope and a chair to tie him to in the shack. But who’s gonna—”

“I’ve got it.”

Letting the bat clatter to the ground, Wendy scruffed the unconscious child by the back of his jacket and hoisted him up into the air. “Let’s get him inside.”

With mild chaos, the group hurried towards the Shack with the unconscious child in hand. Leaving the bat, Mabel’s unfortunately-missed blob of blue poster tack lying several yards away, and the remaining exhibit displays abandoned as the first real hints of night began to peek their way through the tops of the trees.

#Hayley Writes Triangulum #Gravity Falls #Triangulum The Fic #My Writing #Long Post #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #(There are more characters but they are on the poster and arguably get the most focus this chapter)

[hkthatgffan]

The fanmade Gravity Falls episode called Return to the Bunker is now out!!

I'll give my 2 cents below so, spoiler alert from here on out!

I loved how the episode was done. The artists did some amazing work with the animation and storyboarding for it. It surpasses in many ways even the work on Deep Woods. The VA's all did an awesome job too, with all of them being very close in getting to the voices of the original characters. I think the story was also really creative, fun and lore/character building. I've always longed for an episode diving into Mabel and Ford's bond and this episode did a great job with it. I also loved stuff like Stan and Dipper bonding, Wendy having more than just a background character role for once, how it explained stuff like the rift crack and especially that insane ending that makes it feel almost like a canon episode.

I have heard some negatives in regards to stuff like how Ford was handled by a lot of the Ford fans in the community which isn't too surprising given his character's love. I will admit personally that I felt Ford could have been handled better and as a retired fanfic and episode idea writer myself, it's not how I would have handled Ford, but I don't think for a sec it was unsalvageable. I think it would have worked better if Ford had more reasoning to why he was acting like that beyond trust no one, or that the end had him perhaps do what he did when they all were asleep so we wouldn't see the heartbreak in Mabel over that, but it is a fan episode. It's not how I would do it or probably Alex Hirsch, but that's us. I also feel there were plot holes here and there that were a bit hard to ignore that made the episode feel a bit clunky compared to how it was advertised.

But truth be told, the effort to put something like this together outweighs the flaws in it and I mean, it's fanmade so it's not actually canon or going to affect the show overall. IMO, Lost Legends had a lot more problems in how it handled the Mabel situation in ways (though that may be a bit of my left over Ford critic speaking from my younger days in the fandom when I was getting into all sorts of arguments over the Mabel issue with Ford fans on GF Amino but that's a tale for another day).

All in all, it was a great episode. If I had to give it a rating, I'd say 7.5/10 or 8/10. A huge congrats to the whole team for finishing it and releasing it. I know from speaking to Deep Woods members just how long and difficult these things can take to make and no matter the story, I'll always have respect for the artists and VA's who bring fan projects like this to life. What other cartoon has a fandom as dedicated as this one? Gravity Falls fans are one of a kind and 11 years on, we still show our love for this show in a greater way than other fandoms ever can.

To sum up, I have my pluses and minuses with this episode. Some are ones most fans will agree on and others will likely be a bit harder to do which I get. But my overall final take on it is good and my final rating out of 10 is a firm 7.5-8. I will agree though that Ford could have been handled better. Even back in 2018-2019 when I was writing fanfics and a bit more..."aggressive," in my stance of Ford to say it lightly, I did my best to write him in a way I felt was more aware and compassionate than RTTB Ford was. I am happy with how the episode handled Mabel however. I was so afraid they'd pull a Don't Dimension It type pattern but it was way better and I felt it was a decent step towards a Ford and Mabel like story. Still a way to go but not horrible.

But those are my two cents on Return to the Bunker.

#gravity falls #Return to the Bunker #Fan episode #fan made #fanmade #fanfic #gravity falls fanfic #gravity falls fanfiction #Grunkle Ford #Ford Pines #Stanford Pines #alex hirsch #dipper and mabel #gravity falls mabel #dipper pines #mabel pines #mabel #gravity falls fandom #dipper #grunkle stan #Review #That GF FAN #ThatGFFAN #I thought it was pretty good tbh #Though I get the hate regarding how Ford was like #It's not how I would do it #But I also don't mind it too much #Then again Ford was never my top character lol #It was always Dipper and Mabel #But I still like Ford

[ckret2]

Chapter 23 of human Bill being the Mystery Shack's prisoner is honestly becoming a bigger inconvenience for them than for him, featuring: Bill's ex-girlfriend.

Bill wants to avoid being seen in a human body (humiliating), Mabel wants to know everything about Bill's love life, and Ford and Soos just want to get rid of the safety hazard. And somehow they start here—

—and end up here.

After going through the entire pile of library books on lucid dreaming, Bill found one to recommend to Mabel that had glossy full-color illustrations, simple little meditative exercises, and—most importantly—no information about astral projection. (It was galling enough that her brother had somehow picked up the trick without realizing it; like heck would Bill help Dipper master it unless Bill could think of some way to take advantage of his skill.)

But for himself, Bill elected to follow a slim decades-old guide that advertised full control over your dreams in four weeks or your money back. A frustratingly long wait to master his own dreamscape, but surely Bill could find a way to fend off his execution at least another four weeks. And anyway, Bill was already a dream expert—maybe he could take shortcuts a human couldn't. He'd picked this book for two reasons: it was the shortest of the books Mabel had brought home; and it had Bill's face on the inside cover page, a triangle containing a grayscale human eye. If Bill couldn't trust advice dispensed by his own face, who could he trust?

He flipped to the back of the book, to the section on all the advanced dream tricks the author promised readers could learn once they'd mastered the basics. Telepathically sharing a dream with a lover. Prophetic visions. And of course, astral projection.

He gazed wistfully at the drawing of a body with its humanoid soul floating above it, loosely tethered to its physical shell's belly button by a ghostly cord. When Bill got out, no tether would tie him back to his flesh prison, and the little soul floating free wouldn't look so human.

He hoped it wouldn't, anyway— No. It wouldn't. Surely the Axolotl had only imprisoned him, not altered him... but then, the Ax had strange ideas about mercy.

Well, Bill wasn't getting to those tricks until he mastered the basics. He flipped to the front of the book. Step one of this four-week journey was to establish...

Bill scoffed under his breath. "A dream diary? Seriously?" A primitive travel journal for psychically-stunted creatures who could only peer through the doorway of the mindscape without properly exploring it.

But right now, Bill was one of those creatures. This book was for him, no matter how condescending he thought it was.

He sighed. All right. Dream diary. Fine. Luckily, he'd already assembled all the supplies he needed.

Mabel had spilled out her crayons in front of Bill plenty of times; sometimes she even let him use them. It had taken some careful timing and preparation, but a few days ago he'd grabbed the unloved grey and greenish-yellow crayons—the sharpest in her collection—during a moment she'd left him unsupervised. So that there wouldn't be any gaps in Mabel's meticulously rainbow-ordered crayon box, he'd had to unwrap the crayons, break off the tips and butts, roll out two tubes of Claydough to fill in the gaps, rewrap the false crayons, and stuff them back in the crayon box before Mabel got back. The middles of the crayons were safely spirited away in his hoodie. He was a genius. The humans underestimated him without his powers, but he was the smartest creature in the universe.

Bill was loathe to pull out Ford's Journal 4—he'd entertained some vague fantasy of filling it with the secrets of reality and slipping it somewhere Ford could find it, make him really regret turning his back on Bill's wisdom—but it was good quality paper and it was already in Bill's possession, so he couldn't afford to pass it up.

The lucid dreaming guide recommended keeping the dream diary under his pillow. Considering he was still sleeping on the floor on a couple of stolen couch cushions that he shoved aside as convenient, not likely. If he was supposed to have easy access to it whenever he slept, he couldn't leave it in his usual hidey-hole, either. He pulled the cushion off the window seat, chewed a tiny hole in the seam on the bottom edge, and carefully plucked out the thread to open up a gap along one side where it wouldn't be seen.

He pressed the stuffing out of the way, slid in the journal and crayons, and put the cushion back in place to await his next dream.

As Bill straightened up, he glanced out the attic window—and flinched in surprise.

Just outside, by the trees, was someone he knew. The most beautiful, graceful, desirable person in all the world. Someone he half thought he'd never see again. Bill stared in shock.

And then she turned toward the shack.

Bill ducked out of the window's view. "Heck."

####

"Star girl, we've got trouble." Bill was standing grimly in the kitchen doorway. "My ex is back in Gravity Falls."

Mabel's brain short-circuited so hard that she momentarily lost the ability to see as she processed the revelation that Bill Cipher had a love life. A whole new multiverse of matchmaking possibilities had just opened up. "Your what?!"

Bill pointed upward.

Mabel bolted out of her seat to follow him upstairs.

"Anyway, I assume we're exes," Bill said. "I usually dump people when they die, I'm sure she did the same to me."

Barely listening to him, Mabel gushed, "Bill, you sly dog, you've been holding out on me! I didn't know you dated!" She took his elbow to help keep him from tripping as they headed upstairs. "What's she like? Tell me everything!" Mabel hoped she wasn't evil. She probably was, but Mabel still had her fingers crossed for some sweet alien princess with a taste for bad boys who may yet lure out Bill's tender side.

"Oh—she's a stunner." Bill used his free hand to pantomime a shape that didn't conform to any silhouette Mabel could imagine, "Curves in all the right places... Down for anything..."

Maybe it was that pink Henchmaniac. She had curves. And was also the only one Mabel remembered who looked like a girl. "You must miss her a lot."

Bill grimaced uncertainly and muttered, "I miss what she does to my body, let's leave it at that."

He steered them toward the attic window and heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay, she's still here. Don't let her catch you staring."

Mabel pressed her face to the glass, eager to see who could have won the heart of Bill Cipher, Most Villainous Triangle Ever.

Below, a gigantic veiny eyeball flopped through the air on gnarled bat wings.

Mabel glanced up at Bill skeptically. "The eye-bat?"

"Mm-hm." Bill was biting his lip and gazing at the bat with pained, shiny-eyed yearning. His face reminded reminded her of the time her parents had dressed for a fancy grown-up dinner, and the way her dad looked when her mom came out in a slinky fuchsia cocktail dress.

Well, who was Mabel to judge? Everyone is beautiful to someone. Good for them. "What's her name?"

"Iris." Bill put a hand on Mabel's shoulder. "You've gotta help me."

####

"Hey, Ford? You got a minute?"

Ford looked up as Soos hovered in the door of his study. "I suppose I do now." He swept aside his lunch—his desk was littered with the remains of formerly-undead teriyaki chicken and the cheap wooden chopsticks he'd jabbed through the meat like wooden stakes—and slid the notebook paper with Bill's fowl resurrection spell back into his journal. "What's on your mind?"

Soos stepped fully into the room. "We've got a supernatural problem I was hoping you could help with," he said. "You know those little eye-bat things that hang around the farm? Well, there's a really huge one flying around the shack, and all the tourists are out-of-towners, so they don't know the eye-bats will swoop at your face unless you pretend you're blind? So the big guy keeps attacking the customers. I had to give away all our souvenir sunglasses to let the last tour group escape to their cars."

"A giant eye-bat?" Ford frowned. "How large?"

"Uh..." Soos held his hands apart. "Like a big beach ball? Yeah. One of those novelty oversized beach balls. But not like, so comically large you can't do anything with it. You could definitely still play beach volleyball with it. But you'd have to deflate it to get it through a door."

It sounded like one of Bill's minions. "It's not turning people to stone, is it?"

"No, just swooping at people's faces and being terrifying."

####

Bill watched from the kitchen window as the eye-bat folded in her wings, like a hawk preparing to snatch up a mouse, and dove at a tourist's head. The tourist screamed and ran the other way, chucking her purse at the eye-bat. Bill shouted at the window, "You don't know what you're missing out on, lady!" He dragged his hands down his face, groaning. "Man I wish that was me."

####

Ford nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

It was a welcome distraction. With Fiddleford currently pursuing their best lead to kill Bill, Ford hadn't felt motivated to keep researching long-shot plan B options; but he got antsy without work to do. Maybe dealing with an eye-bat would make him feel useful enough to quiet his nerves. 

Soos heaved a sigh of relief. "Thanks. I've gotta head back up now—there's a tour bus coming and I need to scare the eye-bat off with a broom so they can come in."

As Soos got on the elevator, Mabel bounded off. "Hi Soos. Grunkle Ford! I need your help. You'll never guess who's at the shack: Bill's ex-girlfriend! Whaaat!"

Ford opened his mouth. He shut his mouth. He tried again. "His ex-girlfriend."

Mabel nodded excitedly.

Ford was momentarily stunned silent as he, too, processed the revelation that Bill had a love life; although his reaction had less to do with matchmaking possibilities and more to do with trying to reconcile the eccentric, intellectual, standoffish alien that Ford knew with the concept of romance. "She doesn't happen to be an eye-bat, does she?"

Mabel's face fell. "Did he tell you about his girlfriend before me?"

Once Mabel had explained what she knew about the situation, Ford frowned. "This could be gravely dangerous. One of his 'Henchmaniacs' is a potential ally. If he catches her attention..."

"Actuallyyy," Mabel said, "he's super trying to avoid her."

Ford blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

####

"I can't let her see me like this," Bill told Mabel, pacing across the attic floor. "I'd be a laughing stock! Look at me—stuck in a human body, powers locked away, and hideous!"

"Don't say that," Mabel said reassuringly. "You know I think you make a really beautiful human, right?"

"True, but that's like saying Caesar is delicious for a salad. It still doesn't compare to a hot fudge sundae, does it?" He pointed toward the window. "You have to hide me."

####

"So do you think you can help?" Mabel asked.

Ford reluctantly got to his feet. "I suppose there's not much choice, is there?"

"Wait—" Mabel stood in front of Ford, blocking him with her arms. "You can stay here! I just meant if you know how to make some kind of magic anti-eyeball forcefield or something! You don't have to—you know—talk to Bill..."

It was sweet of her to try to spare him. "Unfortunately, I do. I don't trust his story." Why would Bill drive away a Henchmaniac, ex or not? Maybe this "ex" was actually Bill's enemy—some sort of interdimensional bounty hunter or law enforcement officer hunting for him. Bill was too sly, too opportunistic, too manipulative to throw away a useful ally.

But then, Bill was also vain and arrogant. Once the portal was finished, how fast had he thrown Ford away?

Ford headed toward the elevator, gesturing for Mabel to follow him. "Come on. Let's find out what he's really up to."

Mabel cringed, but followed.

####

Bill's face lit up as Mabel came in from the gift shop with Ford. "Look at you, Shooting Star, you brought reinforcements!" From his position seated cross-legged on the cushionless sofa, Bill gestured grandly at the unoccupied living room chairs, like a lord inviting two guests into his parlor.

"Yeah," Mabel laughed nervously. "Reinforcements. Sure." She took the chair closer to Bill. 

Bill beamed at Ford. "Welcome back to the surface world, Stanford. If I'd thought you were coming up, I'd have made tea."

Ford remained standing. "Cut the chatter, Cipher. Why is your 'girlfriend' back on Earth attacking people? How did she get here? Is she looking for you?"

Bill's eyebrows raised in surprise at the abrupt confrontation; then he slowly leaned back in his seat, his expression cooler. "How should I know? Maybe she never left Earth."

"How? The rest of your thugs were dragged back into the Nightmare Realm when you died."

"So I've been told," Bill said dryly, glancing at Mabel like he trusted her eyewitness testimony over Ford's.

Mabel nodded. "Like they got sucked into a big invisible rainbow tornado!"

Bill spread his hands in exaggerated bafflement. "Then I don't know what to tell you. It's not like I was around to see it. Maybe she was out visiting family when you kicked out my pals."

"Of all the absurd—family? On Earth?" More likely she had been sucked out with the rest, but found her way back to Earth through—what?—a small rift they'd failed to seal that Bill was trying to cover up...? "For once in your life, why don't you give a straight answer?"

"You wouldn't know what to do with a straight answer if I did give it! You walk in looking for a fight and act like I'm the one who picked it." Bill gestured between Ford and Mabel, "You think I can't see you two trying to pull some good cop/bad cop routine?"

Defensively, Mabel said, "I'm not—!"

"I'd be happy to give you straight answers about anything you want, Stanford," Bill said, "but if you're treating this like an interrogation instead of a conversation, then I'm pleading the fifth until my lawyer gets here. And you do not want to meet my lawyer."

Bill had lost the privilege to have "conversations" years ago. But—as much as Ford hated to admit it—starting a fight was a poor way to gather information. "Fine." He forced himself to sit down. He wasn't about to be nice to Bill, but he could at least hate him civilly.

Bill made a gracious, open-handed gesture, as if to say proceed.

Now that Ford had taken a moment to turn over the idea—perhaps Bill wasn't lying about the eye-bat visiting "family." Here were two facts: there were eye-bats in Gravity Falls; and there were much larger eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm who'd been there before the dimensional portal ripped open. Ford hadn't been able to inspect Bill's variety, but... "That's another mystery I've been wondering about. What's the nature of the relationship between your eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm and ours in Gravity Falls?"

"Pfff, come on." With an air of smug intellectual superiority, Bill rolled his eye and said, "You clever little pattern-seeking humans want to find connections everywhere! Who said there's any relationship between them at all?"

"You did," Ford said.

"A few seconds ago," Mabel added.

Bill's smug look disappeared. He considered that. "Hm."

So much for getting straight answers out of Bill. He couldn't go one minute without contradicting his own lies. "Unless you're saying she was 'visiting family' because she is from Gravity Falls? Not one of your Henchmaniacs," Ford suggested. "Just some local eye-bat you mutated and magically enthralled into doing your bidding when you arrived?" Bill wouldn't like that.

And sure enough, Bill laughed harshly. "I'm flattered you think I can woo someone that fast," he said, blithely gliding past Ford's implication that mind control might have been involved, "but no. She came with me from the Nightmare Realm and we've been going out for... I don't know, a century and a half now?"

This information immediately activated the household romantic. Mabel gasped. "What! Bill that's so long! You're basically triple married."

Bill shuddered. "Yeesh, don't say that. It was a casual physical thing! We were seeing each other until we found better options, that's all. She's hot, but not my type."

"You have a type?! What's your type?"

"Don't answer that," Ford said. (Mabel pouted, but didn't argue.) "How is the same species in two places? Are the eye-bats in Gravity Falls descended from the eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm...?" But how would they have gotten in?

"Other way around," Bill corrected. "A few leaked into the Nightmare Realm from Gravity Falls. I wouldn't be so rude as to call them an invasive species, but they've taken really well to the place! I'm proud of the gals."

"But then how did the eye-bats get into the Nightmare Realm before the portal was complete? That's the whole reason you needed the portal—there was no other access."

Bill hesitated—and Ford got the sense that Bill had once again accidentally talked himself into a corner. Then there was some other passage to the Nightmare Realm, and Bill didn't want them to know about it. But what? Where else in Gravity Falls was there an opening to other dimensions?

The answer came to him before Bill had a chance to try to make up one. "The bottomless pit," Ford said. He couldn't believe he'd never made the connection before. "That's it, isn't it. The eye-bats could have fallen through. One of its exits leads to the Nightmare Realm. You said so in my journal."

There was a flash of irritation across Bill's face, and then he was all smiles. "Oh, you finally figured out that code, did you."

"Please, it was a simple substitution cipher. It wouldn't have taken me nearly so long if someone hadn't kept me sleep deprived for weeks."

Bill didn't respond to the jab—but it was clear from the way his mouth twisted that the restraint took an effort. "I'm not making any plans to jump into the bottomless pit, before you get worried." Said like somebody who had definitely considered jumping into the bottomless pit. No wonder he'd been so evasive about his eye-bats' origins. "The odds I'd actually make it back to the Nightmare Realm are way lower than the odds I'd either end up right back here or somewhere worse." 

"'The lady doth protest too much,'" Ford muttered. He'd have to find a way to seal off the pit. "Is that why the eye-bat wasn't sucked out with your other minions? It has some... ancestral, genetic link to this world—?"

"What, do you think the fabric of reality is running DNA tests to see what does and doesn't 'belong' here?" Bill scoffed. "Most universes aren't sentient and yours isn't one of the exceptions. Still, you might be on to something. Most of my guys are built on biological blueprints and laws of physics that aren't compatible with this dimension; I had to use some of my power to 'translate' between their bodies and your universe. That magic connection probably reeled them back into the Nightmare Realm. And the eye-bats were the only ones I didn't do that for."

"Really." Ford's fingers itched to pick up a pen; he wished he'd brought his journal. "If you were supporting them, why did they get sucked back through the rift when you died? Rather than just dying when your power dissipated? Was that some sort of safety measure you left in case—? No, that's not like you." In order to plan for his death, Bill needed to admit he could die. "Is the source of your power in the Nightmare Realm?"

Bill said, "Frankly, I'm taking your word for it that they survived at all. I wasn't exactly around to watch."

"You're dodging the question." Trying to get anything out of Bill was like chasing a dancing ghost while wearing lead boots. "I want an answer."

"Then ask a different question."

"Fine!" Ford had plenty of questions. If Bill wanted another one so badly— "Why did you need the interdimensional portal?"

Bill stared at Ford. "What?"

"The bottomless pit is ancient—and you clearly knew about it. If you already had an opening into Gravity Falls..."

"The pit only goes one way."

"So why didn't you build something on your end of the exit to reverse its direction? You certainly had the time to work out the science! Or—there are thousands of openings from other dimensions into the Nightmare Realm, natural and artificial alike. Why did you never use them?"

Ford had wondered for decades during his travels through the multiverse. He'd told himself he would never know, that Bill's motives were incomprehensible—ineffable like a god's, unintelligible like a madman's. But Stan had asked the same question a few days ago, and Ford hadn't been able to get it out of his head since. "If you had a trillion years to refine your plan, then why did you give me blueprints for a portal that would tear my universe apart, instead of any other design? Why here, why now? Why me?"

He expected some catty quip or a dismissive brush-off. But instead, Bill gave Ford an appraising look. A chill ran up Ford's back. Bill's face was blank now—no trace of the smirk he'd worn while tossing out contradictions and cryptic riddles—but his eyes had the same hard, heavy look he'd worn in the penthouse, talking about "liberating" his dimension. Bill asked, "Do you really want to know?"

It felt like they were back in Ford's dreams, and his fickle, wonderful muse had finally decided to stop teasing, get serious, and tell his student some precious secret. It felt like he was about to get a real answer. Ford did want to know. Of course he did.

"No."

Bill would only lie. Everything he'd ever said about the portal had been a lie.

Disappointment flickered across Bill's face.

Before an uneasy silence had a chance to fully settle over the room, Mabel shifted in her seat. Ford started; she'd gone so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was here. "Grunkle Ford, is that everything we needed to know?" It wasn't like her to sound so timid. "We know she's not looking for Bill, she just—got stuck here last summer. Right?"

Why were they talking? "Right." The eye-bat harassing the tourists. Ford shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "And the eye-bat is from the Nightmare Realm, but it's descended from Gravity Falls' eye-bats—which means it has the same weaknesses as local eye-bats. Right?" He opened his eyes again, directing the question at Bill.

"Oh, now you're interested in what I have to say?"

"Good point; I'm not." Ford stroked his chin. "I have a recipe for an eye-bat repellant spray I learned from Old Lady Sprott, we could use that to keep it away from the shack. I wrote it down in... my first journal..." 

"Ah," Bill said. "You mean the incinerated one." He said it so coolly, like he wasn't the one who incinerated it.

"Actually," Mabel said, "after everything went back to normal, Grunkle Ford's journals got un-incinerated!"

Bill made a poor show of trying not to look surprised. "You don't say."

"Yeah, good as new! They regrew their torn pages and everything," Mabel said. "And... then we kinda chucked them into the bottomless pit."

Bill cracked up, kicking out a foot in mirth. "You what?! You idiots, don't you know you had an invaluable occult encyclopedia in your hands? The second journal alone was the most important human grimoire of the last five hundred years!"

Ford was too irritated to be flattered. What business did Bill have mocking him, thirty seconds ago Bill had thought he was the one who destroyed the journals. Ford snapped, "I didn't want to keep anything you'd tainted."

He was gratified by how fast Bill stopped laughing. "Then burn down your shack and lobotomize your hippocampus," Bill muttered. "Fine! Are we talking about the eye-bat repellant made with gnome wizz?"

Bless this insufferable, all-seeing pest; maybe he was good for one thing. "That's the one! You know the recipe?"

"That's the only ingredient I remember."

Ford mentally retracted the prior blessing. "It's the only ingredient I remember." He sighed. Maybe Old Lady Sprott had taught her son...

Bill said, "But wasn't that was back before you turned into a hermit, when you were still interviewing the human neighbors about the freaks in the woods? All those little interview notebooks—"

"Yes! That's right, I'm sure I kept them somewhere—"

"Filing cabinet under your globe. Second drawer."

Ford shot Bill a dark look.

"You're welcome," Bill said.

The insufferable all-seeing pest didn't need any blessings, he was smug enough already. Ford got to his feet. "Then as soon as I find the recipe, we can chase this eye-bat off and put this whole mess behind us."

"Finally," Bill sighed. "Always a pleasure to work on a project with you, Sixer."

Ford glared at him again; but as he turned to go, his gaze fell on Mabel. Sitting in her chair with her hands under her thighs, with that big-eyed small-mouthed look children got when the adults were talking about something they had no part in but they were paying keen attention to it anyway. Ford winced at himself. "Mabel. I'm sorry that got... a bit heated."

She gave him a small smile. "It's fine—"

"And whose fault was that?" Bill cut in. "I was being perfectly helpful."

Ford swallowed back the urge to retort. 

Mabel didn't. She blew a raspberry at Bill. "When you weren't lying to us?"

"When did I lie! Tell me one lie I told—"

Ford wasn't getting dragged into this. "I think you can handle him from here," he muttered to Mabel. "I've got work to do." He escaped back to the gift shop; but the tension in his shoulders didn't start to loosen until he was back in his study.

####

The door swung shut behind Ford; and Mabel waited a few more seconds before she said, "Sorry about that." She sighed. "I thought Grunkle Ford could think of some way to help. I didn't think he'd actually come and talk about it."

"Not your fault." Bill smiled ruefully. "He was probably looking for an excuse for another confrontation. And to think, for a moment I was excited when my old friend showed up." He sighed deeply. Oh, how poorly he was mistreated—

"What?" Mabel laughed. "What are you talking about? You're not friends—"

"Hey! Shush-shush-shush!" Bill blocked Mabel's words with a hand. "Shooting Star, I'm about to tell you something that'll put you ahead of the competition for the rest of your life. Once you've figured out lucid dreaming, go back to the library—"

"Are you about to give me more homework?"

"I'm giving you more homework. Go look up the law of attraction. Master that, change your life. If you want something to happen, the first step to making it happen is saying it's happened. Say it until you believe it; believe it until it's true. So I don't want to hear any of your negativity, buster."

A thoughtful look crossed Mabel's face as she considered that. She was such an attentive listener once you figured out what caught her attention. Best student Bill had had in eons. She'd go far. "So..." She lowered her voice. "That means you really do want to be friends with Grunkle Ford!"

"That's not what I said. I said we are friends." Bill was sure she'd pick it up. It was an easy game and she was a quick study. "Even if he clearly doesn't know it. Sixer's such a grump these days." He sighed, again. Woe was him—

"He's not that grumpy! Only around you," Mabel said.

"And how is that fair? After everything I did for him—"

"You mean everything you did to him?"

Bill shot her an exasperated look. Mabel's impish grin stretched wider. Bill said, "Whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of truth and tough love!"

"Oh, truth. Truth's a fickle god. Does your version of the 'truth' include all my contributions to his work that he never brings up—"

"Nope, I don't care about what you're saying!" Mabel bounded over from her chair to join Bill on the couch. "We're done talking about your dumb grudge and pretending you're not evil."

"'Pretending'—!"

"There's only one thing I'm interested in!" Mabel leaned into Bill's face. "I wanna know everything about your love life."

"Wh—?" Bill's train of thought veered off track as the conversation swung from Ford back over toward Iris. "I'm flattered by the attention, but don't you think 'everything' is a little personal?"

"Nope!" Mabel got comfortable in her seat. "So have you ever gotten married?"

This was what Bill got for being so open and forthcoming with the personal details while Ford was in the room. He'd wanted to look like he was an open book, and what happened? Now Mabel thought he was an open book. Funny how that worked out. "You don't even know if marriage is a thing where I'm from."

"Is it?"

"Next question."

"Do you want to get married?"

"Next question that isn't about marriage."

"Who do you consider the top ten most attractive people or creatures in Gravity Falls."

It was beginning to dawn on Bill that he was in danger.

####

Soos passed from the gift shop through the living room. (Mabel had put on the Color Critters Valentine's special—Prisma the Rainbow Fairy and Glory Unicorn were explaining to Misty Dolphin why it was important to give a Valentine to all your friends, even the ones you weren't as close to, because it might hurt their feelings to be left out and including everyone might make you a new friend.) Bill was sitting upside down, legs hooked over the back of the sofa and head bright red, as he said, "No, I just don't see relationships as eternal. Romance is a short term commitment. Like a fashion trend, or, or—"

"Like gum?"

Bill snapped his fingers. "Yes! Exactly like gum—"

"Hey dudes." Soos awkwardly squeezed around behind the TV to avoid blocking the screen. He looked at Bill's face and said, "Hey, all the blood's rushing to your head. Be careful, Abuelita says if you do that too long your head could pop."

"She's right," Bill said.

Mabel said, "He's making his face red on purpose so I can't tell when he's blushing."

"Not true! You little tattler!"

As he headed upstairs, Soos heard Mabel say, "So when a romance starts to lose its flavor, you just—" and Bill cut in, "You spit it on the sidewalk, grind it under your heel, and float away without looking back, never thinking about it again..."

A few minutes later, after changing out of his Mr. Mystery suit into a more comfortable question mark t-shirt, Soos headed back downstairs. Bill was still talking, "... and all you get out of it is sickly sweet spit, you're just—swallowing all this sweet spit until it makes your mouth sour and it's dripping out around your eye, and you're hungrier than if you'd never eaten at all, and all your friends say 'oh Bill, you're always griping about your gum, why don't you settle down to eat a proper meal,' and you say 'how about you mind your own business, Kryptos, I don't lecture you about your diet,' and then your other friends accuse you of choosing inedible snacks so you don't have to commit to swallowing them, because they don't get that you're a flawless energy being, you don't need 'nutrition' or 'sustenance,' this is just a hobby to you—and finally you just, you get sick of the taste of gum altogether, you never want to chew gum again as long as you live, it's always so needy and your jaw hurts, and everyone thinks it's your fault if you can't focus on chewing the stupid thing all day every day, like maybe you have a life of your own, did anyone consider that? And at this point you're so disgusted by the very idea of gum that you burn down a gum factory so you don't have to look at their stupid ads! And then an eon later you find yourself craving a stick of gum, so you find a different brand and cram a new one in."

Mabel, who'd been listening to Bill's monologue in wide-eyed stunned silence, finally smiled in relief as he landed on a familiar sentiment. She pumped her fist in the air. "Yeah! Cram a new one in!"

"You get me, kid."

Probably none of Soos's business, but he thought Bill needed to work on his relationship with gum.

He took the elevator down to Ford's study. "Sup, dawg."

"Hm?" Ford was sitting on the floor in front of an open filing cabinet, completely surrounded by skinny reporter's notebooks like the kind Abuelita used for shopping lists, intensely focused on flipping through one. "Soos. Yes?"

"How's the eye-bat problem going?"

"I'm working on it," Ford sighed. "Somewhere I have a recipe to repel eye-bats, but it's been thirty years since I've seen those notes, so..." He shrugged helplessly. "But I'll find it before I go to sleep and we'll deal with the eye-bat tomorrow."

"That'd be great. Thanks, Mr. Pines."

"In return, can I ask you to take care of something?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Could you find a way to block access to the bottomless pit? If Bill gets outside the shack, he could use it to escape to his own dimension."

"Yeah, no problem. I've got the perfect thing for that," Soos said. "Hey, don't stay up all night, okay? I kinda think the eye-bat's attracted to bloodshot eyes."

"That's not the worst thing she's attracted to," Ford muttered. "Thank you, Soos. I won't be too late."

That was, of course, a lie.

####

(Took a week longer than planned, but it was worth it to get this hammered out properly! As always, I DEEPLY appreciate any thoughts, comments, and feedback y'all have—hearing from you guys is what saves me from feeling like I'm just shouting thousands of words into the void. Thanks for reading!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #grunkle ford #stanford pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #bill goldilocks cipher

[winchester-girl67]

Imagine... Dean Knowing How To Cure Your Insomnia

Pairing: Dean x reader

Square: Falling asleep in their lap @spnfluffbingo​

Word Count: 674

Warnings: insomnia, fluff

A/N: Written for @spnfluffbingo​.

_____

You couldn't sleep, again and there was only one person who could always help with that, "Dean." You tapped on his bedroom door as you pushed it open.

He was sprawled out on his bed, laying on his stomach, "Hey, Y/N."

"What are you doing?"

You lingered by the door. You didn't want to invite yourself in if he wasn't in the mood for company. But honestly you knew Dean would never turn you away.

"Watching reruns of Doctor Sexy M.D., they're airing all night. And pizza," he held a slice up from the box, "I ordered too much, want some?"

"Sure," you said, Dean scooting over and patting the side of his bed.

You padded over and sat down next to him, grabbing a slice of pizza for yourself. You picked off the pepperoni and handed it to Dean like you always did. Pepperoni was too strong for this time of night, but Dean had a stomach of steel and added them to his slice.

It was rerun after rerun of Doctor Sexy M.D., each showing you'd already seen five or ten times and you and Dean reenacted the lines before the characters on the show did. Laughing hysterically when Dean slipped up and got one of the lines wrong and he swatted you with a pillow, claiming you distracted him by making fart sounds. You were making fart sounds with your mouth against your elbow, but you only did it because you loved hearing him laugh.

"So..." Dean alluded, side-eyeing you when you settled down. "Still can't get any sleep, huh?"

Of course he knew, he always knew, "Mmm, not really. I just can't get sleepy." You rolled onto your back and glanced over at him propped up on his elbow.

"I've got an idea, come on." Dean said, hopping out of bed and grabbing your hand.

He pulled you up out of bed before you had a chance to object, "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," he chuckled, tugging you down the hall with him towards the garage.

"Wait, Dean, I'm in my pj's." You argued when he pushed you towards the Impala.

He smiled at you and playfully shoved you in the open door anyways. You landed on the bench-seat in a huff and he shut the door, joining you a moment later in the driver's seat. You glared at him.

"It's fine, nobody's gonna see you but me."

You rolled your eyes, "Ugh... Alright."

Dean drove you out to a field in the middle of nowhere. You had just started to nod off when he put the Impala in park and shut the engine. And now you were awake again.

He threw open his door and stepped out, leaning back inside when you didn't follow, "Come on."

"What are we doing?" You asked, settling into your spot next to him on the hood of the Impala.

He leaned back against the windshield and pointed up at the stars, "Look."

You laid down next to him and stared up at the sky. Stars twinkling and dancing against the endless backdrop of the universe. He didn't say a word, but shuffled closer and wrapped his arm around you.

"It's so pretty," you sighed and he agreed, kissing the top of your head.

A chill ran down your spine and Dean pulled you into his lap, rubbing his hands on your arms to warm you. You leaned your head back against his chest and gazed back at the stars.

"Do you know any constellations?" You asked, you were pretty sure you could pick out one or two.

"Mhm, there’s Orion," he pointed to the southwest and you followed his finger with your eyes, “the Big Dipper," he pointed northeast, "Cassiopeia," he pointed north.

He pointed out a few more but you started to nod off again and shut your eyes. Your breath evening out until he was sure you were asleep.

"Works every time." Dean mumbled, resting his cheek against the crown of your head and shutting his eyes too. "Night, sweetheart."

_________________________ 
 Dean/Jensen: @akshi8278 @laycblack @thoughts-and-funnies

#spnfluffbingo2022 #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester #spn fanfiction #SPN #reader insert #supernatural fluff #dean winchester x #dean x reader #dean x you #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x y/n #dean x y/n #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dean supernatural #imagines #dean imagine #comfort fic

[tswwwit]

suuuurely part 3 of the Mute!Familiar!Au for my birthday? Surely? Pleeeeease???

Sorry, it's still a work in progress. But have a little snippet for the holiday!

“All of that aside - I think we oughta get to the heart of the matter, as it were.” Bill smirks, taking a single, ominous step closer.

Dipper nods. He swallows, throat bobbing, and ducks his head. 

Okay. Everything else has been kind of surface level. Now he must be moving on to deeper secrets. Things in Dipper’s head that have never seen the light of day. Or the ones that have, and Bill’s going to dig into them, deep, possibly painfully so -

“Why won't you talk to me?” Bill whines. There’s no other word for it. 

What?

Dipper nearly does a double take. Between the nasal tone and the look on his face, nearly a pout - Bill’s straight up sulking.

“Seriously, what are we looking at here?” Bill says, straightening up. He paces around Dipper in a circle, arms tucked behind his back. “Vow of silence? Cause I’m your god, and I say screw that! Pipe up anytime!”

Dipper shakes his head. No, if it was, he would have violated it a long time ago. It’s a weird guess.

It’s weird that Bill is guessing.

#answers #Marty crimbles to those who celebrate #I'm going to feed my cats too many treats #Might also finally post this thirsty thursday ask group if I get around to it #If not then next thursday