Chapter Text
The night before Greg arrives, another notice is released that the nations of Dipper and Mabel are now at peace. The dispute has been resolved and peacetime reparations have been released in the form of a packet of new glitter markers for Mabel and a “deeply haunted” antique clock from the 18th century for Dipper. Terms of the peace agreement include “never talking about this again, oh my God, what a disaster,” and they would appreciate it if the terms of their treaty would be summarily accepted and respected by all neighboring nations. To sum up, please, never bring this up ever again, oh my God, what an absolute nightmare.
It’s released on different stationery. This one is maple scented. It has a shimmering gold wax seal in its bottom left corner and has been notarized by someone called Tad Strange.
Wirt did not buy them this. He did not buy them any of this.
…
Greg arrives with a solid knock at the door and a huge, crowing shout in the front entrance in lieu of greeting. He accepts Wirt’s hug with an even stronger one of his own, half-lifting Wirt off his feet with the movement. Greg grew up big, and he grew up strong, and he grew up ready to envelop anyone into a hug. He always arrives in a big way.
He also arrived six hours early.
“And you must be Greg,” says Uncle Ford, holding out a hand to shake. “I’ve heard a lot of great things about you.”
Greg envelops him into a firm, jostling hug. Greg never changes as a person.
“Oh, um…” Uncle Ford sounds winded. “Well. We weren’t expecting you for another six hours. The twins are still out, I’m afraid.”
Greg beams. “I made great time on the freeway.”
It is a three hour drive.
“Well, we’re happy to have you. I--the house isn’t quite ready yet, we thought we’d have more time, but--”
He waves him down. “I totally understand. When I have guests coming over, I always want every second before they arrive. You know, clean the house, water the plants, hide my secrets, walk my dogs…”
He trails off with a laugh.
Uncle Ford also laughs. Distinctly uncomfortable. “What?”
“Walk my dogs,” chirups Greg. “I have three.”
“Right, right, I just thought… Never mind.”
“Oh! Yes, hiding secrets. Always important to do that before guests come! Never know what information you might have that should have been disclosed to legal guardians ages ago!”
He laughs again. Companionable. Uncle Ford also laughs. Nervous. There is an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.
Slapping him on the arm, Greg says, “Where’s Uncle Stan? I wanted to spend all day with you both.”
“Yes, that, well. Wouldn’t you rather spend time with dear Wirt--”
Greg crams his arm into the crook of Uncle Ford’s elbow. “Let’s go find him together.” And he drags him off.
He winks solidly at Wirt on their way out the door.
God, he loves his brother.
…
Wirt realizes that Beatrice is going to die when she starts talking about going home.
She lies in a crisp white hospital bed, yet another operation having sapped away her strength, her red hair utterly withered away.
Wirt sits at her side, slouched in yet another hard, plastic chair in a long line of hard, plastic chairs. His twins sit across from him, curled into one another’s sides, sleeping uneasily.
At first, Wirt doesn’t notice when she wakes up.
“Hey,” he says, sliding closer. Her eyes are open, sharp and distant. She’s looking at something he can’t see. “You’re awake.”
“Wirt,” she says. “I miss home.”
“We’ll go home soon,” he assures her, and he folds her hand in both of his. “The doctor said that if this treatment worked, you had a good chance of going into full remission. We’ll all be back soon, all four of us.”
“I can see it,” she says, and she smiles. “I’m going back home.”
Wirt feels the world drop out from under him.
“Doctor?” he calls, his voice hoarse. “Doctor?”
“It’s beautiful,” she says, talking faster. “I remember.”
“Hey,” he says urgently, scooting closer. “We’re going back there together, remember? You and me. We’re not leaving each other behind. Not again.”
“It’s not so scary anymore,” she says, soft and fading. “I wonder why we ever thought it was?”
Wirt lunges for the alarm. “Kids,” he chokes out, tears spilling down his cheeks. “Kids, wake up.”
Dipper startles first. “Dad? What’s wrong?”
He looks at Wirt.
He looks at Beatrice.
“No,” he says. “No, no, Mom--”
“I’m going back home,” Beatrice says again. She smiles.
“Mommy?” asks Mabel, sounding small. “Mom, Mom stay. Mom, stay .”
“We made a deal,” says Wirt, begging. “We made a deal. Stay here, with me. Just a little while longer.”
“I can fix this,” he hears Dipper say, almost to himself. “I can fix this.”
He starts to babble then, words Wirt has never heard before in languages he didn’t know existed. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to focus on what exactly his son says.
His ears pop. His ears pop. His ears pop.
She closes her eyes then, looking so incredibly, unspeakably happy, and she says, “I love you.”
Her heart rate monitor sounds as flat as a grave.
…
When Wirt leaves the house, he feels oddly light. Happy. Content.
There’s a certainty to it. A positivity deep in his chest. He’s going to know what happened to his kids soon. Dipper will tell him. The Stans will crack. It’s going to be out in the air, exposed, open, and they can finally exorcise this awful-something between them all. They can go forward. This limbo Wirt’s been trapped in since that first summer will be over. For the first time in a long time, he feels at peace.
At the edge of the property waits the woods, green and bright in the summer sun. They don’t look like the Unknown.
He steps inside. They’re just woods. Just… trees. He’s been projecting his past onto them, pretending like each grove is the memory of what has passed, the knowledge of what’s to come.
They’re just woods, he thinks, half-marvelling at the greenery around him. And there’s nothing to be wary of in the woods.
Behind him, there’s the snap of a tree branch.
Oh, how Wirt loves to be proven immediately wrong. It’s as constant as gravity. He’ll think an optimistic thought and the universe will immediately rally together to prove him wrong. At least he knows what to expect, which is to not expect anything.
Might as well turn around. Find out what fresh hell this is.
Angry eyebrow kid stands a scant few feet behind him, his face drawn in cartoonish rage. In his hand, there is a drawn sword with blade as black as midnight, with star-pricks of red shining throughout its face. Behind him waits four men on stark white steeds, bows taunt and arrows notched, all pointing directly at Wirt.
Oh, okay, they’re doing this now.
“Hey, Zielach…” says Wirt, with no enthusiasm. He glances at the men behind him. “Are those… also… cosplayers?”
He is immediately clocked on the head with the hilt of the sword.
Oh, okay. They’re doing this now.
…
“No, no, no…” mutters Zielach, pacing the forest floor. He tears the thick parchment in his hands to shreds. “No, no. It’s all wrong.” His head snaps up. “What rhymes with ‘brave’?”
“Cave, knave, glave--”
“You are a fool.” He sniffs delicately. “Rave.”
“Do not use that.”
“You know nothing, peasant.”
Wirt looks heavenward for strength. “You know, not all poetry has to rhyme.”
“You know nothing, peasant.”
“Only a poet. Professional one. For over twenty years. Only won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for extraordinary lifetime achievement. And the Walt Whitman Award. And a Pulitzer.” He bangs his head idly against the bars of his cage. “Some might even say one of the greatest of our generation.”
“Humans are petty and stupid and short-lived,” says Zielach, snidely. Oh, so not human then. Fantastic. He loves learning these new things in life-threatening circumstances. “Few of you are worth the breath in your lungs.”
Wirt had come to in a cage of black brass, gilded and bejeweled and suspended from a knotted, twining tree the color of bleached bone. In the grove beneath him waited Zielach and his men, pacing the span of the clearing with an alert, twitching gaze.
The clearing itself was not in Gravity Falls. Not fully. The forest of the Falls bled together with a forest of a much darker, eldritch design, the colors blurring and warping like water colors. Wirts hangs over the exact threshold between worlds, the ground beneath him a hellish swirl of cheerful green and aching, oozing black.
Oh, no, Dad, the stars can’t open any portals. That’d be ridiculous. There are absolutely no portals to hell worlds that you have to be worried about. None at all. This is just a random cosplaying tourist who needs professional help to work through his many problems.
His kids are so grounded. They are so grounded.
“I’m just saying, man, I really don’t know why else you’d want me here,” says Wirt, cracking his back. Oh, God, he’s so old. He can’t do magic kidnappings anymore. This is elder abuse. “It’s kind of like, the only thing I can help you with here.”
Zielach has spent the entire time composing terrible poetry.
The.
Entire.
Time.
“Ha! As always, you prove your own ignorance, peasant.” Which like, hurtful. He has a name. Zielach wheels on him. “Did you think that I would be bested so easily? Did you think my resolve so weak that mere words could drive me off? I have bathed in the blood of enemies of far mightier means! There is no trial too treacherous, no obstacle too large. I shall not be bested by a mere man.”
He claps, turning on his heel to resume his pacing. “Now, in the next verse, I need to express my abilities as a provider. My willingness to weave a garden of bone and brass for my heirs to play in.”
“Oh my God,” mutters Wirt.
In the distance, there’s a faint whine coming ever-closer, growing from the part of the forest belonging to the Falls. Not a minute later, the Stans golf cart screeches into view, slamming to a stop not two feet from the divide in the forest.
Mabel is at the wheel. Dipper is at her side.
“Give us our Dad back, you dumb dork!” shouts Mabel, as she climbs from the cart.
Oh no. Oh no. This is Beatrice’s contribution to their genetic material. This is the part of their family that gets turned into bluebirds.
“Kids!” snaps Wirt. “Back in the golf cart. Now!”
“Don’t worry, Dad, it’ll be alright!” Dipper replies, not taking his eyes of Zielach. “We’ve got this.”
“Pines Family,” says Zielach, tilting his chin in regal composure. He looks staunchly at Mabel. He does not so much as spare Dipper a glance. “Have you yet come to your senses?”
“We have,” says Mabel, taking a step forward. There’s a steely look in her eyes. “Yes, Zielach. I will marry you.”
Oh absolutely not. First off, nope, they are not adding a child bride situation to their family line. Secondly, Wirt knows that look in his daughter’s eye. He’s going to have to dig a shallow grave before the day is out and swear both of his kids to secrecy about the murder Mabel’s about to commit. He’s not capable enough to be covering up murders. Damn, he needs the Stans to help. They look like they’ve individually covered up a few.
Zielach jerks back with a sneer. “You? You? I have no desire to marry you.”
This makes Mabel falter. “Um. You proposed?”
“Yes. To the object of my affection. The love most dear to my heart. Through you, his chaperone.”
“What?” says Mabel.
“What?” says Wirt.
“What,” says Dipper.
“From the moment I first laid eyes upon my love, I knew we were meant to be,” he says, stoically. “I abided by the rules of courtship, but I can restrain myself no longer. I long to gaze upon my most dearest’s beauty. I long to have my cherished’s name on my tongue. Um.” He rifles through his pockets, coming up with scraps of parchment. “Um, my beloved’s depths of strength are matched only by my own reserves of bravery. I could find no such qualities elsewhere, not even in a”--he falters--“Rave. Ery.” The parchment is tossed to the ground. “There will be time for poetry later. I will compose them in blood for only my love’s eyes to bear witness. Is my proposal accepted?”
Dipper buries his face in his hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Zielach’s eyes flicker between Mabel and his guards. “Is that a good sign?”
“The pet names were you flirting with my brother by proxy?” asks Mabel, aghast. “I thought you were trying to be cute.”
His hand twitches towards his sword. “Is my proposal of marriage accepted?”
“Oh my God,” says Dipper.
Zielach stares at Mabel. He’s waiting for her response.
Mabel, for her part, is flickering her eyes uneasily between her brother and Zielach. “Right. Um. About that… See, the thing is…”
Wirt knows his kids. Whatever plan they have, it’s being derailed. They need Mabel to be the distraction. They need her brother to be free to pull the next step.
“Hey, um, excuse me,” calls Wirt, waving slightly through the bars of his cage. “Hi.”
Zielach’s head snaps upwards, annoyed. “What?”
“Yeah, hi, hello. I’m Dipper’s father.”
“I am aware.”
“Oh. Were you aware that in our culture, all proposals of marriage have to go through the father?” He looks pointedly at Mabel. “I think this is a simple matter of a cultural mix up.”
Mabel catches on quickly. “It is! I mean, it is. I can’t accept your proposal on Dipper’s behalf, Zielach. It has to go through my father.”
Zielach jolts, his eyes flying wide. “Oh my--in my kingdom, it goes through the first introduced family member, but--oh no matter.” He claps. “Guards. Release my beloved’s father at once.”
The cage makes a slow, rattling descent.
Wirt plans it out in his head. The cage is going to unlock. He is going to step out, and it is going to be composed, and he’s going to brush himself off, and that’s going to be composed too. Strike an intimidating figure. Do it right.
Except the muscle spasm hits him while he’s still trying to clamber to his feet, and his knee sort of crumples and he sort of tilts to the side, and everyone watches in haunting silence as he tries to yank himself up by the corner of the cage.
Zielach snaps his fingers towards two of the guards, and the guards step forward, arms reached out to help him up. He waves them off.
“Are you sure?” says the guard closest. “I could--”
“No, no--”
“It’s just, muscle cramps are so common after suspension in the Gilded Cage--”
“No, no, really, I’m almost up--”
“It’s no trouble, really--”
He drags himself to his feet. The guards step back. Brushing himself off, he clears his throat, trying to reclaim what ounce of dignity he has left.
There is a haunting silence.
“Now,” says Wirt, clearing his throat again, this time with more purpose. “You want to marry my son.”
Zielach goes ramrod straight. “Yes.”
“Well, this is a very serious manner,” says Wirt, severely. “It’s my responsibility to make certain he makes a proper match.”
Puffing himself up, Zielach says, “There is no match more proper than I.”
“Yes, well.” He folds his arms. “I understand that there have been some cultural difficulties so far. In our culture, you must go through the father. It’s absolutely prohibited to do anything else.”
As if. If Beatrice didn’t kill him, the twins would.
Zielach opens his mouth in a rush, but Wirt just holds up his hand. “But, of course, I understand that these things happen. What’s important is that there are no misunderstandings going forward.” Then, he turns, looking pointedly at the guards. “In our culture, this is a private meeting. Family only.”
One of the guards immediately steps forward, mouth open in protest.
“Of course,” says Zielach, snapping a hand in his direction. “My guards will leave us.” He gives them a severe look. “The only thing that could possibly be in danger at this junction is my proposal, and we mustn’t have that.”
That’s right, cosplayers. Just a middle aged poet with bad joints. You all just watched the embarrassing exit from the Gilded Cage. Go on and back up now.
After a moment, the guard assents with a nod. “We shall retreat to a reasonable distance.”
The footsteps recede into the distance. When Wirt is reasonably certain they’re gone, he turns back to Zielach. “So. Zielach,” he says, severely, steepling his fingers before his face. “What is it that you do?”
He seems to falter at this. “Do?”
“What are your job prospects? I can’t exactly let my son marry just anyone. I have to know they can provide for him.”
Immediately, he puffs up. “I am the crown prince of the Shadowed Realms,” he declares, imperiously. “I have conquered nations which make your world seem like a mere village. There are an innumerable shackled of my enemies to provide for his every need.”
Why can Wirt never have normal problems?
“Huh,” he hears himself say, faintly. “That’s, uh. That have good job security?”
“I am the only heir to the throne. I have slain all others.”
“Huh.” He nods. “So. Pretty solid position then.”
Zielach stares at him impatiently. Wirt claps once. “Well, looks like we really can’t expect a better match for Dipper here.”
“Um,” says Dipper. He darts his eyes between them. “Dad?”
“I was gonna try to find a nice tenured professor for you, but it looks like you can’t get a better match than, uh. This. Situation.” He shakes his head gravely. “I, uh, can’t beat the garden of blood and brass--”
“Bones and brass.”
“Pardon me, bones and brass for your heirs.”
“Heirs?” echoes Dipper, every single stage of grief passing before his eyes.
Zielach spins, thrilled. “We shall be wed before nightfall,” he declares, sweeping his cape from his shoulders and settling it around Dipper’s shoulders.
“That sure is soon, isn’t it, Dad?” says Mabel, meaningfully.
Wirt hums his agreement. He’s not watching this anymore. His eyes are scanning the forest floor for what he spotted from the cage. “Young love,” he says, agreeably. “Never want to wait with that.”
“A kiss, I think,” says Zielach. “From my beloved.”
There it is.
Wirt picks up the tree branch.
…
The woods wait for Wirt.
They lurk in his mind, in his thoughts, always always always. He thinks of the woods, of the trees, and he thinks i’m coming, i’m coming, i’m coming, but not yet.
Death waits for everyone. Wirt’s just a little more aware of it than everyone else.
This is what Wirt knows:
One day, he will tumble back over the garden wall. One day, he will walk in the woods, in the Unknown, and he won’t say, “Greg, I think we’re lost.”
Instead, he will walk in the woods, sharp orange leaves beneath his feet and a song echoing through the trees, and Beatrice will be there. He will smile, and so will she.
“Wirt,” Beatrice will say.
And, “Beatrice,” Wirt will say. “I’m home.”
And they’ll walk. And they’ll wait. And one day, his kids will come, and they’ll take his hand amongst the trees and the pumpkins and the leaves. Beatrice will laugh and Mabel will cry and Wirt will pull them all close and hold them tight.
“We waited,” Beatrice will say.
“We came,” Dipper will say, and then they’ll go off together, into the Unknown.
That day, Wirt thinks, hoisting a tree branch above his head, is not today.
…
Dipper’s eyes are wide.
Wirt knows this because he can see them again. Once, they were obstructed, because an especially prickish prince who thinks he has the right to demand a kiss from Wirt’s son just because he’s “an immortal, unstoppable being,” and “sits upon a throne of skull and bone, bathing in the blood of all who dare defy him” had been blocking it with his abnormally large, plainly whackable head. Now, however, they are clearly visible, because said prince is currently an unconscious puddle on the ground, and does not seem to be getting up in the foreseeable future.
Wirt steps over the body. He unties that ridiculous cape from around his son’s shoulders, dumping it on Prince Blood-of-my-Enemies.
“Kids,” he says, utterly calm, “get in the golf cart.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Yes, Dad.”
Wirt climbs into the driver’s seat. He checks his mirrors.
“Everyone buckled up?”
“Yep.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good,” he says, and he floors it.
…
“Um, Dad?” Dipper says, craning his neck behind them. “The soldiers noticed you beat up their prince.”
Glancing in the rearview, Wirt swears. He thinks it’s the best way to convey his feelings, at the moment.
The soldiers, ridiculous cloaks flapping majestically behind them, ride towards them on steeds as white as starlight, as pale as death. They hold swords lynched tight on their belt, and bows drawn in their hands.
It helps, though, that they keep trying to ride in a line, the idiots. Sure, it’s the more cinematic shot, but the path is also stupidly narrow, barely allowing the cart to pass, let alone five horses riding in tandem. They only serve to slow each other down, something which Wirt very much appreciates.
“Dipper,” Mabel says, twisting around in her seat, “I think now would be a good time to break out the dandelions.”
“Dandelions?” asks Wirt.
The cart rattles dangerously as he rumbles over rocks and branches. He hates the woods, he hates the woods, oh God he hates the woods so much.
Dipper nods. “I think so too. Cover fire?”
“Cover fire?” asks Wirt.
“On it,” says Mabel, unbuckling her seatbelt.
She cranes herself over the seat, digging through the back of the cart and coming back up with a crossbow in her grip. She kneels solidly in the rocking cart, one foot on the floor, one knee on the seat, and she grounds the bow solidly in the crook of her shoulder.
She breathes in. She breathes out.
The first shot hits the left guard square in the helmet, slamming him backwards off his horse and into the trees beside. The horse thunders on without him, its rider left rubbing his head on the mossy forest floor, thoroughly stunned.
Wirt watches it all in the rearview mirror. “Good shot, sweetheart,” he says proudly, veering between two twisting trees. “Aim for the guard in the center next, okay? He’ll trip up the people around him on his way down.”
Mabel beams, loading another round in her bow. “Sure thing, Dad!”
“Dipper, bud, how’s the, uh, dandelions coming?”
“Almost there, Dad,” he says, flipping through his journal at a lightning rate. “The incantation is--ah! Got it. Mabel, scooch over.”
“I’m in the middle of something, bro,” she says, releasing another volley of arrows. Another thud rings out behind them.
“I need the space or you’ll get hit,” says Dipper, elbowing in next to her. “Now scooch.”
“I need the space or you’ll get hit,” protests Mabel, elbowing back as she loads another arrow. “Release the dandelions on the other side.”
“I need a direct line of wind!”
“Well so do I!”
“Kids,” Wirt snaps, wrenching the golf cart around a sharp turn. “No fighting when we’re running for our lives! Now share the wind! Mabel, scooch over for your brother. Dipper, do not elbow your sister while she’s handling weaponry.”
“Yes, Dad,” Dipper and Mabel chorus.
Mabel scooches. Dipper begins to speak.
And Wirt’s ears pop.
Dipper blows softly on the dandelion in his grip, gently, like he’s making a wish. The seeds drift lightly in the wind, floating from the golf cart in an idle breeze.
They begin to grow.
Wirt nearly crashes the golf cart, watching as they stretch tall and wide as any tree, landing firmly in the ground between cart and soldiers. They grow larger as they root in the earth, bright yellow blooms craning through the trees and to the sun as roots rumble in the ground, warring for space in the narrow forest path.
There, where there had once been a bright, clear path with leaves and grass and good, strong trees, green stalks twist and tangle together in a dark mass, so densely woven that not even sunlight passes through.
The patch of dandelions, a sunny yellow far, far above their heads, looks like a grove of baobab trees.
“Wow,” breathes Wirt.
Dipper swings back down in his seat easily. His eyes widen.
“Dad, watch out!”
Wirt wretches his eyes back to the road.
He hadn’t noticed the turn ahead of him, so focused on the magic--actual magic-- being performed behind. Trees loom ahead of him, dark and twisted and gnarled like an edelweiss-- Wirt, Greg says, pale and weak, I did it. I defeated the Beast--a nd he knows that he will never be able to turn in time.
He lets go of the wheel.
He pulls his kids into his arms. He shoves his body between them and the trees.
And Dipper mutters something that he can’t quite make out.
Wirt’s ears pop.
The cart careens sideways, almost parallel with the ground--or, it would be, if the ground was where it was supposed to be.
It slopes upwards, curves high like a racetrack on a turn, bending to meet the wheels of the cart. The car rattles unsteadily beneath them, zipping along faster than any golf cart Wirt has ever been in, and continues surely onto the path.
“Dad,” says Mabel, slightly muffled by his protective but ultimately superfluous arm. Her arms have snaked beneath his, gripping the wheel by the bottom as she handles it narrowly between rocks and roots. “Take the wheel. Those guys are gonna get around the dandelions eventually, and I need to shoot them.”
“Oh,” says Wirt, feeling slightly foolish. “Right.” He nods. “Well done, Dipper, Mabel.”
Mabel beams. Dipper ducks his head, blushing.
“Head to the house,” says Dipper. “We’ve got protections around it. These guys can’t get past the boundary line.”
“Um,” says Mabel, “the protections may be down right now.”
“Unless the protections are down right now,” concludes Dipper, groaning. “Mabel, why are the protections down right now?”
“Grunkle Ford and I invited the manotaurs over for pilate night, and the manotaurs didn’t want you to know because you and the Multibear have that weird rivalry with them, so Grunkle Ford lowered the protections himself. Except not everyone has magic reserves to throw around like you, and he was too tired to put them back up again so we decided to wait instead of telling you and the protections are very much not up right now.”
“Mabel! Are you kidding me right now?”
“Don’t blame this on me. If you and the Multibear would just get over yourselves and stop being so mean to the manotaurs, we would have asked you to put the protections back up! And we would have invited you to pilate night.”
“Mabel, for the last time, I’m not going to hang out with the manotaurs. They tried to make me kill the Multibear! And they have horrible tastes in music. You’re supposed to be on my side in this feud.”
Wirt blinks. He blinks again. “Okay,” he says, still blinking. “There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s not. What do we have to do to raise the protections?”
“We have a ward stone,” explains Dipper. “We keep it in the basement.”
“We have a basement?”
“I need to go down to the basement and activate the ward stone,” continues Dipper. “I can’t do it from anywhere else.”
“So we get to the house before them,” says Wirt, veering through the path with a newfound reckless abandon. “And you go down to the basement and do your stuff before they show up and kill us. Sound like a plan?”
Mabel shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”
Nodding, Dipper says, “Sounds good to me.”
“Good.”
“You’re taking this pretty well,” notes Mabel, tilting her head. “You know, Dipper doing magic, me with a crossbow, manotaurs, multibears, a fae prince from another dimension falling madly in love with Dipper and trying to drag him off to be his princess--”
“Mabel.”
“You know, the whole,” she says, waving her arms for emphasis, “schtick. We thought you’d be freaking out right about now.”
“Well, I do have a lot of questions,” says Wirt, grimly, and the cart bursts into a clearing. It is, thankfully, the right clearing; their house lies innocuously on the other end. Wonderful. Wirt had been secretly worried that he was going in the wrong direction for a good five minutes. “The existence of magic and other realms… aren’t… actually… some of them.”
“What?”
Wirt shrugs. “I kind of already knew about that? Like, not in Gravity Falls specifically, but in general? I’ve known since like. The 80s.”
Dipper and Mabel splutter.
“Questions will have to wait,” says Wirt, hurriedly, his eyes darting back to the mirrors.
Six newly dazed, horseless fae, led by Prince Jerkface himself, stumble into the clearing. Prince Can’t-Rhyme points at the cart, shouting.
Two of them raise their bows.
Wirt screeches to a stop at the porch, shoving the kids out ahead of him.
“Inside,” he snaps, wrapping himself around his twins as they rush up the steps. “Inside inside inside inside--”
There’s the twang of a bow.
Dipper mutters something. Wirt’s ears pop.
“Dipper,” says Wirt, as a soft, decidedly non-deadly tulip hits his back with a gentle thump, right where his heart should be, “I absolutely love whatever it is you’re doing. Keep it up.”
Mabel shoulders the door open, yanking them in before slamming it closed again.
“I got the windows,” pants Dipper, flipping open a stone that Wirt most definitely thought was just part of the wall and pressing the button beneath.
Steel plates slam down over glass, locking into place with a professional ease.
Wirt stares. “I have been living in this house for two months.”
“We’ll show you all its tricks later,” says Mabel. “Dipper, the basement.”
“On it!”
The door nearly jolts out of its frame.
“Kids, we’ve got company,” says Wirt, rushing to the door.
It rattles again, harder. The handle begins to turn.
Wirt grabs the knob and braces it closed.
The next slam nearly knocks him to the ground.
“Dad!”
Mabel rushes to his left, and Dipper to his right. They force the door closed.
“Mabel,” grunts Dipper, his shoulder lodged soundly against the heavy wooden frame, “your stupid boyfriend is gonna break down the door before I can raise the protections.”
“My boyfriend?” says Mabel, snapping him a glare. “ Uh-uh. You’re the one he’s all weak in the knees over! This is your boyfriend.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t know that!” Another crash. Another. Another. “He only ever talked to you! I told you he was creepy ages ago, and it took him proposing to take me seriously! Again! If you had just listened to me, this wouldn’t be happening!”
“Kids,” Wirt grits out, feeling the next crash rattle through his skull and into his teeth, “what did I say about fighting when people are trying to kill us?”
“You were always jealous of me and Zielach,” shouts Mabel. “Maybe you wanted this to happen!”
“I wanted Zielach to kidnap Dad, put him in a cage, and try and force me into spending eternity with him?” says Dipper, incredulous. “Mabel, that doesn’t make any sense!”
“... I don’t know! Maybe! You always hate every guy that I date! How was I supposed to know that this one was a creep?”
“Kids. Not. The. Time.”
“Because they’re always creeps!” snaps Dipper, bracing himself as another rattle shakes the frame. “Always. Norman was five gnomes in a sweatshirt who proposed to you on the second date and then kidnapped you when you said no! Gideon pressured you into a relationship, and then tried to kill me when you broke up with him! Mermando told you he was getting married over letter! Gabe only liked you for your puppet show, and then made out with his own hands! Seriously! Half your exes have tried to kill us, and that guy was somehow the biggest dodged bullet of the bunch! Are you not seeing a pattern here? Everyone you date is a creep!”
Mabel splutters.
“You’re so great Mabel,” says Dipper, earnestly, as his One True Love tries to force himself into his heart, and also their house. “You’re smart, and funny, and nice, and any guy would be lucky to have you! So why do you keep wasting your time on such losers?”
“Aw, Dippin-dot,” croones Mabel, and she tosses her arms around her brother. “That’s so sweet.”
“Door,” Wirt and Dipper say in unison. “Door.”
“Oh!” Mabel straightens. “Right, sorry.”
The next attack splits a crack down the center of the door.
Wirt swears.
“Go away!” shouts Mabel, punching the door back. “We’re having an important family bonding moment in here!”
Wirt frowns. “Is he saying something? It sounds like he’s saying something.”
“I think”--Dipper furrows his brow--“I think he’s reciting bad poetry. While he tries to break down the door.”
Mabel and Dipper shudder.
“He’s worse than Gabe,” says Mabel, gravely. “We actually found one worse than Gabe.”
Dipper nods. “I… am not proud of this relationship. I mean, I didn’t even know I was in it, but I’m still not proud.”
“Neither of you are allowed to date until you are thirty.”
“Um, hey guys,” says Greg ,from behind them. “Uncle Ford and Uncle Stan were just showing me y’all’s power tools.” He takes a long look at the storm blinds, the rattling door, and the three of them braced against it. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Grounding my kids for life,” grouses Wirt. “Get over here and help us keep the door closed. Dipper, go do your stuff in the basement.”
Dipper nods. “Hi, Uncle Greg. Good to see you.”
“Hey, Dippin Dot,” says Greg, and he ruffles his hair as he passes. “Good to see you too.”
“Greg! Now!”
“Ah,” says Uncle Ford, infuriatingly calm, slipping into the place Dipper left vacant. Greg shoulders his way in besides Mabel. “I see we’re under attack.”
“Yup,” says Wirt. He can play this game too.
“Stan is going to get our weapons. And Dipper will take care of the boundary in a jiffy. He’s very talented, your son. He has the strongest affinity for magic that I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying quite a bit.”
“Wonderful.” He grunts, feeling a bruise beginning to form where the door slams against his shoulder again. Another crack forms.
“Might I inquire who’s attacking us?”
“Zielach,” Wirt says. “Prince. Fae. Terrible at poetry. Worse with relationships.”
Ford blinks. “Prince Zielach? Of the Shadowed Realms? Whatever did you do to anger him?”
Wirt grunts. The door cracks. “Heard of him?”
“He’s the mad son of a tyrant. I spent a brief period in his kingdom, and I heard many tales of his cruelty. It’s said he actually bathes in the blood of his enemies. Thinks it gives him a nice, clear complexion.”
“He mentioned.” His skin care routine was the third verse of his poems. Crack. Crack. Crack. “Anything else?”
“Well,” says Ford, scratching the back of his neck. “He can’t assume the throne until he marries, but he’s beheaded every suitor his parents have sent him. He’s very particular in his choice of consort, it seems, but that’s all the gossip I heard. I can’t imagine how that will help us here.”
“After this, Grunkle Ford,” snaps Mabel, “you are going to sit down and write out a list of every. last. lunatic you’ve met, ever. And what their type is!”
“... type?”
“Zielach is a jerk who thinks Dipper is incredibly dateable,” says Mabel. “He wants to drag him back to his shadow realms or whatever and raise a big, happy family together. Dipper didn’t even know they were dating. Dad hit him with a tree branch while his back was turned. He wants to kill us now, and probably still marry Dipper, I don’t know.”
Greg nods appreciatively. “Ah, a tree branch. Classic.”
Wirt’s ears pop.
There’s a zap, and a scream.
Wirt slides to the ground, groaning. “You kids,” he says, rubbing his shoulder. “Never dating. Thirty.”
Mabel scratches the back of her head. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
Dipper sprints up the secret staircase they apparently have, because Wirt had been incredibly naive in assuming that Stan’s stuffed ant-o-jack-a-bear is not, in fact, hiding a secret staircase to a secret basement.
“The protections are up,” he says, pushing the button to retract the storm blinds. “There’s nothing they can do to get in now. Are they still out there?”
The steel rolls up to reveal a red-faced, enraged Zielach standing way too close to the window.
Silently, Dipper pushes the button to roll the storm shields back down.
“They’re still out there,” he says.
“We can’t stay inside forever,” says Mabel. “We have to do something.”
“The gateway between realms doesn’t close for days,” mutters Dipper, beginning to pace. “We could survive a siege for that long, but the town couldn’t. They have to be back over by the time the moon reaches its zenith, or they’ll be stranded for the next three thousand years. They won’t be content just waiting us out; they’ll try to force us out.” He looks up. “We have to stop them. Now. Before they start attacking the town.”
“Right,” says Uncle Ford, glancing at Wirt and Greg uneasily. “Right, we have to, um.” He glances back at Dipper. “How much do they know?”
Wirt sighs, and straightens.
God, he wishes Beatrice was here. She would have just gorily murdered one of the Stans ages ago and gotten her answers out of the survivor. She was always the more productive of the pair.
“All right,” he announces, clapping his hands. “That’s it. It’s time for a Bluebird Promise.”
…
When the twins are first born, Wirt buys a bluebird mobile and hangs it above their crib. The bluebirds are crafted of a crystalline blue glass, pale and bright, and when the sun hits them just so, they send shards of light scattering across the room.
Beatrice looks at the mobile flatly.
“I swear to God, Wirt,” she says.
…
“A Bluebird Promise is for when we all need to work together, but we’re too scared of getting in trouble to do it,” Mabel explains, sandwiched between her brother and her uncle at the kitchen table. “Dad says that we all have to give up all our information before we get each other in trouble, and then he gives Mom a funny look, and then Mom scrunches up her face and says that we won’t get in trouble for anything we tell them during a Bluebird Promise, and then we all work together to fix the problem.”
“That’s exactly right, sweetie,” says Wirt. He crosses his arms and glares down at his uncles.
At least one of them should have been present while his kids were galavanting off in horrible relationship after horrible relationship. He and Beatrice had a system. They were constantly vigilant. He’s not exactly sure which one of them, but when he is, he’s going to punch them. Hopefully Stan. Uncle Stan may have been a boxer, but Uncle Ford looks like he’s been in more fights. Wirt likes his odds better with Uncle Stan.
“We… can explain,” says Uncle Ford, glancing uneasily at Stan. “We would have explained sooner, but, well, it’s a lot to take in. We didn’t know how you would handle it.”
“We didn’t want you to take the twins from us,” sighs Uncle Stan. “That first summer was rough, not gonna lie, and the summers after it weren’t exactly walks in the parks. We wanted to, you know, ease you into the truth.”
“The truth is currently trying to force my son into marriage,” says Wirt, pointedly. “Spill. Now.”
There’s a pregnant pause.
“Eh, that’ll take too long.” Uncle Stan shrugs. “I’ll sum up: My brother got stuck in an alternate dimension for thirty years. I stole his identity to try to get him back. Your kids showed up, took one look at the town, and became monster hunters. We save the world once or twice every summer, and now the diner gives us free pancakes.”
Wirt blinks. “Um. Okay. Anything else?”
“Dipper’s a witch,” Mabel informs him solemnly.
Dipper makes a disgruntled noise.
“Well, you are. He was always doing magic stuff with that journal, but we always thought everyone could do that, if they knew how. But then I tried and I couldn’t and Ford found out and he freaked because Dipper’s like, super powerful and can do stuff that he shouldn’t be able to and now Dipper keeps floating in his sleep.”
“Mabel’s a badass,” says Dipper. “She’s really good with a crossbow and sword and I’m pretty sure she can kill people with her bare hands.”
Wirt nods curtly. “Anything else?”
“... I think that’s most of it?”
He nods again. “Okay. Good. I’m going to sit down now.”
Collapsing heavily into his chair, he nods again.
“We’re sorry we didn’t tell you and Mom,” says Mabel, sniffling. “We were just so scared you’d never let us go back to Gravity Falls if we did, and we love it here.” She gives him a watery smile. “We love it here, Dad. We love living with our Grunkles. We love Gravity Falls, and monster hunting, and magic, and Soos and Wendy and everyone else. We didn’t want to lose it.”
Dipper won’t meet his eyes. “It’s my fault that we never told you,” he says. “I told Mabel not to. I didn’t think you’d believe us even if we told you, and I was scared you’d never let us come back if you did.”
Wirt closes his eyes.
“I understand,” he says. “I wish you had told me, but I understand why you didn’t.”
Dipper looks up. “Really?”
“Really,” Wirt sighs. “I understand too well, actually.”
Mabel gives him a look that she stole from her mother. “The 80s, Dad?”
“That’s where we have to confess,” says Greg, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s a long story.”
“Sum it up here, people,” says Uncle Stan. “We’ve got only a few hours until Wirt’s giving away Dipper at his wedding.”
“Okay, um, Wirt and I fell off a wall, almost died, ended up in another dimension or maybe it was the afterlife? We hit a woodsman on the back of his head and stole a horse, and we both almost got turned into trees. Oh, and your dad met your mom there, too. She was a bluebird. She didn’t get out of there until later, though.” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “I think that’s it, though.”
“Um,” says Uncle Stan. “What?”
“I’ll… explain later,” says Wirt. “The point is we’re on the level. Now, how do we get rid of Zielach?”
“Well, it won’t be easy,” Uncle Ford says, rubbing the back of his neck. “His family has been trying to find him a suitor for over a century--”
“Which is a super creepy age gap, I would like to point out,” says Wirt.
“--so they have a lot invested in getting Dipper back to their realm, and once he’s there, they just have to wait until the rift between words closes again, and his only escape will close with it. There are many different branches of the fae throughout the multiverse, but none as deadly as those from the Shadow Realm. We can’t match them force for force without losing.”
“So, the brute strength method is out,” says Dipper. “Conning him it is. Grunkle Stan, whatcha got?”
Uncle Stan shrugs. “I need to know more about my target before I can con them. How’d you even get the little freak interested in you in the first place?”
Dipper throws his hands in the air. “I have no idea. I never even realized he was interested in me.”
“Well, how’d you meet?”
“Um.” Dipper scratches the back of his head. “I was poking around the interdimensional rift while it was still settling and then all of a sudden it settled and he just like, walked out, and I decided to introduce myself but he started to spout some Shakespearean crap and pulled a sword, and then I said he didn’t have to be a dick about it and turned his sword into a flower, andmaybethrewhimintoatreeidontreallyremember, and then he got all weird and nice and apologized for starting off on the wrong foot and asked if he could get to know me better and I thought, hey! Cool! Alternate dimension cosplayer dude! Let’s find out what other worlds are like! Only he was jerk about like, everything, and I spent all day trying to ditch him but then Mabel showed up and he got all weird and started talking about courtship and true love and never once setting his gaze upon such unadulterated beauty in all the multiverse, only he only ever addressed her in this creepy third person ‘my love’ and ‘my darling’ and ‘my glorious sun,’ and he never even so much as looked at me after that so he was definitely talking to her. Only then he like, proposed to her, and then got all weird when she said no and kidnapped Dad. And we went to rescue him, only then suddenly it was me Zielach wanted to marry and not Mabel. And I’m still very confused about all of this.”
There is a long silence.
“So what I’m getting from this is that you gave him a flower,” says Uncle Stan.
“That’s not the point,” Dipper huffs.
“The point,” says Uncle Ford, pinching the bridge of his nose, “is that other dimensions have very different ideas of courtship. The fae hold a very large emphasis on strength. Being powerful, whether magically or otherwise, is a very, uh, attractive quality for them. Zielach is an incredibly strong entity; his magical skill is only matched by his prowess in battle. Every suitor he received likely had been trained in battle as well, but would have maintained a deference to him that he would have perceived as weak.” Ford gives Dipper a flat look. “You called him a dick. He must have been enthralled by you.”
Dipper’s face scrunches up, disturbed. “I am never dating anyone ever again.”
Wirt crosses his arms. “You most definitely are not,” he agrees.
“Okay, but he still proposed to Mabel,” argues Dipper. “That part doesn’t make sense.”
Ford shrugs. “I didn’t stay long enough in the Shadow Realm to find out about their exact courtship rituals, but in many dimensions, it was expected that marriage proposals would only go through a proxy. You introduced Mabel as your sister, yes? She became a familial link he could negotiate the marriage contract with. And when he flirted with her, he only referred to her in third person? He was likely flirting with you. It’s considered impolite in some realms to even gaze upon the object of your desire, once the courtship has commenced. He was courting you, by proxy. Mabel’s rejection acted as your rejection, and that’s what infuriated him. He likely wasn’t expecting a no.”
“And I’m guessing he won’t take one now,” says Uncle Stan, groaning.
“There’s an infinitesimal chance that he will, yes.”
“Ooohhh!” Greg says, bolting upright. “I’ve got it! He’s mad because Dipper won’t marry him, right? Well, we need him to get over their relationship so that he’ll go back home. How does anyone get over a bad breakup?”
“I’ll get the rom-coms,” says Mabel, nodding excitedly. “Grunkle Stan, you get the ice cream. Dipper, get my sparkliest nail polish. Dad--”
“I don’t think that’s quite what Uncle Greg was getting at, pumpkin,” says Wirt. “Why don’t we let him finish?”
“He needs a rebound.”
“A rebound?” says Dipper, skeptical. “You want to set him up on a date?”
“But it can’t be just any date,” says Wirt, frowning. “He wants to marry Dipper, and I doubt he’ll go home without a new consort. Where are we going to find someone crazy enough to marry a bloodthirsty prince on the first date, and then move with him to his shadow kingdom forever?”
In unison, everyone at the table looks at Dipper and Mabel.
…
“It’s not fair,” complains Mabel, hugging her list protectively to her chest. “Why do I have to show my list first? It’s Dipper’s cray-cray boyfriend.”
“He’s not my--” Dipper stops, then groans. “We’ll show our list at the same time, okay?”
Mabel nods. “Okay. One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
Then, as one, they slap down a crisp white sheet labeled Summer Romances.
Wirt and the Stans exchange a look.
An understanding passes between them.
Immediately, they crowd forward, memorizing as many names as possible. For reasons. Which absolutely do not include broken kneecaps.
“What about Gideon?” says Dipper, his finger tracing down Mabel’s list. “He’s weird and likes power. He’d be happy as the ruler of a kingdom.”
“Nah, he doesn’t have an amulet anymore. His magic’s super weak without it, which means he’s not Zielach’s type.” She glances up at Dipper. “You dated that siren who lives in the sewers?”
Blushing, Dipper says, “Alana’s really nice! She only lives in the sewers because the Gobblewonker won’t let her live in the lake.”
“Did we date the same werewolf?” says Mabel, incredulous.
“What? No way! You dated Marcus?”
“Weird, clingy, sweaty Marcus? Somehow managed to rip off his shirt every five minutes?”
“Ugh,” Dipper says, burying his face in his hands. “I forgot he used to do that. He was weird.”
Mabel nods. “He was cute for like, the first five minutes. Then he just got so needy. Like, I know you can bench press a tree, congrats. Why are you waking me up at two in the morning to show me?”
“Did he do that weird I-watch-you-while-you-sleep thing to you too?” asks Dipper. “I dumped him after that. Like, physically. Into the lake.”
“Oh, yeah, that was so weird. I pepper sprayed him once by accident, because he was like, following me in the woods and I got freaked out and thought he was a murderer. Kinda wish I did it on purpose now.”
An awkward pause.
“June,” says Dipper, quickly.
“July,” says Mabel, at the same time.
They stare at each other for a moment.
“I dump Marcus and he immediately turns around and dates my sister?” fumes Dipper. “I told him to stay away from me and my family!”
“I was a rebound?” says Mabel, aghast. She looks at Dipper. “You’re the stone cold bitch who broke his heart?”
Dipper throws his hands in the air. “He was insane! He took me to look at wedding cakes on the second date! I thought we were just going out for coffee! I spent the rest of our relationship trying to figure out how to break up with him!”
Wirt stares daggers and Ford and Stan.
Uncle Ford begins to surreptitiously check his gun. Uncle Stan slips on his brass knuckles.
“You forgot addresses,” says Greg, helpfully. “We can’t see if these guys will date Zielach without an address, can we?”
“Marcus is your man,” says Dipper, shaking his head. “Man, if we pull this off, we’ll be getting rid of two weird, clingy birds with one stone.”
“We should still have the addresses on the list,” insists Uncle Stan.
“For posterity,” agrees Uncle Ford.
“Um, how exactly are we pulling this off?” says Dipper. “He still seems pretty convinced that I’m going to marry him. He’s not about to start dating around.”
Greg looks at Mabel.
Mabel looks at Greg.
An unholy pact is formed.
“Leave that to us,” says Mabel.
…
Marcus,
I love you. I’ve always loved you. I was frightened by the passion I felt for you, and I pushed you away. Can you ever take me back? If you don’t, I’ll just die. Let’s elope.
Meet me at the Mystery Shack.
Love,
Mabel
…
Zielach,
I’ve run away from my family. They can’t keep us apart any longer. I love you, and I want to marry you. Meet me at the Mystery Shack.
Love,
Dipper
…
Greg giggles as Dipper brushes neon pink glitter paint along his spine, his face pinched in careful concentration.
“Any harm anyone does you will be returned upon them tenfold,” he tells Greg. “But don’t take any risks, anyway. Zielach has magic, but it’s different than mine. I don’t know how they’ll clash if it comes down to a fight.”
“Interesting,” says Greg, nodding appreciatively. “And pretty.”
Dipper’s face twists. “All we had to work with here was some of Mabel’s old craft stuff. I should have grabbed more supplies before we left the house.”
Because they had managed to leave the house, despite said house currently being under siege by knock-off Edward Cullen. Through the secret tunnel connecting their house to the Mystery Shack. Which they apparently have.
Wirt has been living in that house for two months.
“That’s very impressive,” says Wirt. “Where’d you learn how to do that?’
Dipper startles violently.
Swearing, he wipes away the paint splatter, carefully redrawing the line from the base of Greg’s neck to the small of his back. “Uh, Dad. How long have you been there for?”
“Just a few minutes,” Wirt says, stepping closer. “Can we talk?”
“I, uh, I dunno if we have time. I have to contact the gnomes and see if they were able to deliver the love notes, I have to finish the protections on Uncle Greg and I haven’t even begun the protections over Soos yet--”
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Wirt promises.
Dipper nods reluctantly. “Uncle Greg, will you go ask Mabel to use the hair dryer to help the paint dry quicker? I have to add more sigils when these are done.”
“Okay,” Greg says, looking at Wirt seriously.
Wirt smiles humorlessly, and nods. Greg leaves, but Dipper doesn’t turn to face him.
Still kneeling, he busies himself with the paint, shuffling them between one hand and the other in an attempt to look occupied.
“What’s up?” he says, clearing his throat. “Is something wrong?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” says Wirt, eyeing his son carefully. “You’ve been avoiding me since, well, since before we moved to Gravity Falls, come to think of it. But it’s been worse today.”
Dipper doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“The Bluebird Promise is still ongoing, bud. If something’s wrong, tell me now, before we go to outright war with a literal warrior prince. Which is something I never thought I’d do, but...”
“Aren’t you… mad at me?”
“For getting a stalker? That’s not your fault, Dip. It never was.”
“No,” Dipper bites out painfully. “Because I didn’t save Mom.”
Wirt stills.
“What happened to your mom was not your fault,” he says, soft and gentle. “She was sick.”
Dipper snorts.
“Do you know what Grunkle Ford said, when he discovered my magic?” says Dipper, looking anywhere but at Wirt. “That he had never seen anything like it. He explained it to me, see. Most magic in this part of the multiverse is weak. The magic itself is there, but no one can access it, so using it died out pretty quick. It’s like, genetically speaking, we all have a dam blocking our ability to use it, and sometimes the dam is weaker in some people, but it’s there, and it still blocks almost all of it.”
He sighs.
“And in you?”
“And in me… it’s like I never got a dam at all.There are hierarchies. To magic. The lowest one is the kind most people can access: you get funny feelings when bad things are about to happen, you can tell when it’s about to rain, and sometimes, you get ridiculously, stupidly lucky. It’s the extent of magic, for most people. That’s what Grunkle Stan and Mabel got; it’s probably what you got.
“The next is the ability to manipulate things on a mental level. That’s what Grunkle Ford has, and what Gideon Gleeful has. They can enter dreams or the mindscape with the right spell, access some memories if they build an array, summon demons if they know the incantation. If someone else builds a magical item, they can activate it, if they figure out the proper ritual. This is usually where the hierarchy stops, in this universe.
“Then comes the ability to manipulate objects in the world around you. You can make things float without the aid of an enhancer, defy a few of the laws of motion, move things that already exist within the world. Make a plant bloom sooner than it should. It’s pretty common in some parts of the multiverse, apparently, but nobody’s really supposed to get it, in this realm.”
“But you got it.”
For a moment, Dipper’s hands tighten, and he waits there, entirely still.
Then, he shakes his head.
“There’s another level,” he says. “To the hierarchy.”
“The level that you have,” Wirt says slowly.
“It… doesn’t really happen. To anyone. It pops up maybe every few hundred years, in the realms where almost everyone can use magic. But not here. It’s the ability to manipulate reality. To change things that already exist into totally different things. To bring new things into being entirely.”
“Things like changing arrows into flowers,” says Wirt. “And making dandelion seeds grow to the size of the water tower.”
Dipper nods. He still won’t meet his eyes.
“Grunkle Ford had all these notes from his travels,” he explains, almost pleading. “He wrote down every spell he learned, even though he couldn’t use most of them. He let me read them, but he didn’t even think of telling me that I shouldn’t be able to use them, because nobody should have been able to use them. And I,” he says, a watery, hysterical laugh bubbling at the edges of his voice, “I would just use them. Like it was nothing. I thought everyone could use that kind of magic, if they knew the right words. And then the Mothman kidnapped Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan--”
“The Mothman did what now?”
“He owed Grunkle Ford money and didn’t want to pay it.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Well, Mabel and I went after them in the golf cart, and we got in a fight, and the bug spray was not working like, at all, and the fly swatters didn’t work that well either, so I just summoned a giant bug zapper and he flew right into it and just like passed out on our couch for a while after that. And I never really did my magic around Grunkle Ford, I guess, because I figured everyone could do it and he had all these spells so he had to be better than me and I didn’t want to embarrass myself, right? But like, I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. No one was. But I could.”
“You could,” repeats Wirt, gently. “So maybe, if you could do all that, you could cure cancer too.”
Dipper nods, his fists white on his shorts, and he still will not look up at Wirt.
“You know what I thought when we got the diagnosis?” he says, his voice ugly and thick. “That it wasn’t a big deal. I’d fix it in a week, and Mom would go to her next checkup and it’d just be gone and we’d all pretend it was some kind of fun medical miracle. And--I tried to fix it, I swear to God I tried, but I wasn’t good enough and I--I’m sorry, Dad, Dad, I’m so sorry--”
His breath comes in huge, shuddering, shallow gulps, none of them ever seeming to bring in enough air. He cries messily, loudly, like Wirt did when Beatrice died, like his sister did. Like he didn’t.
Everyone had told him to back off, after it happened. That kids grieve in different ways. That he needed to give Dipper space, to let him process.
Bullshit.
What a complete load of utter bull. shit.
Because Wirt knows his kids, damnit. He knows how they act, knows when something is wrong. And yeah, he hadn’t guessed “Magical Monster Hunters in Small Oregon Town” or “Stopped the Literal Apocalypse,” but he had still known something was off, just like he knew something had been off with Dipper after Beatrice died.
For months, for months, his son had carried the guilt of his mother’s death on his shoulders like an anvil, and Wirt hadn’t done anything.
Wirt pulls him close.
Wirt holds him tight.
“Listen to me,” he says, carding a hand through Dipper’s hair. “Listen. Is what’s happening right now Mabel’s fault?”
“What?” Dipper jerks backwards, but Wirt keeps his arms around him regardless. “Of course not!”
“Is it your fault?”
“I…” Dipper hesitates.
Wirt stares.
“... No?”
“Right.” Wirt nods, then decides to revisit that on a different night. “Whose fault is it?”
“Zielach’s.”
“Exactly. Because he’s the one who’s attacking us, and he’s the one causing the harm. It’s not our fault, because we’re just the ones who are trying to stop him, and it still won’t be our fault even if we fail to stop him.” Wirt glances at Dipper sharply. “Which we won’t. We’ll win. It’s just. The point stands.”
“I got it, Dad.”
“Good.” Wirt nods again. “So, even though you didn’t stop your mom’s cancer, it still wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause it, Dip, and you couldn’t have stopped it.”
“But I--”
“Don’t ever think that it was your fault,” says Wirt, softly, fiercely. “I loved your mom. I would have done anything to keep her with us. But… it was time for her to go back to the Unknown.”
“I don’t know,” Dipper says, doubtful.
“Well, I do know. And I know that it’s never been your fault.”
Dipper sniffles slightly. He looks like he may cry again.
“Now,” says Wirt, and he grins, “let’s kick Zielach’s ass.”
…
“MABEL! DAD SWORE!”
“WHAT? NO WAY! CAN WE SWEAR NOW?”
Wirt sighs.
…
“There’s no way this is going to work,” mutters Wirt.
Dipper shoves his way in next to him. They kneel at the top of the stairs, side by side, peering into the Mystery Shack proper below. There, down below, stands Marcus, shirtless and oddly glistening, patiently waiting for his bride-to-be to finish “powdering her nose,” which she has been doing for the past thirty-six minutes.
There are some put on this world to do great things, think great thoughts. There are others who are meant to do presumably something, but rather instead decide to spend their time inserting forks into electrical sockets, and think it’s a grand idea all the while. Marcus belongs in exactly one of these groups, and is missing only a fork and an electrical socket to complete his enrollment.
“Zielach isn’t going to show,” insists Wirt. “It’s been too long.”
“He’ll come,” says Dipper, flipping through his journal calmly. “They always come.”
Wirt frowns. “But what if--”
The door slams open hard enough to dent the wall.
“Rude,” mutters Dipper.
“I AM HERE FOR MY BELOVED,” declares Zielach. At his side, one of his guards blows a trumpet.
Oh, buddy. Inside noises.
Marcus stares at him. “Oh hey, man,” he says, after a beat. “Are you also here to get married?”
Zielach seems thrown by this. “Yes?”
Marcus takes in this information with interest. “They must have rebranded to be like one of those wedding chapels. Like in Vegas.”
“I am not getting married here, peasant,” says Zielach, sniffing. “Royal unions must be witnessed by the Unholy Hoard, the highest priests of the darkest magicks. The sacrifices must be performed in the Pit of Darkness and Screams. And my mother has been planning all week. She thinks our colors should be silver and lilac.”
Oh, this guy is ten pounds of crazy in a nine pound sack. Why does this have to be Wirt’s life experience?
“Ah,” says Marcus, nodding amiably. “So is this like, a pre-wedding drinks reception or something?”
Oh, Wirt can’t wait for this.
“Of course it is,” snaps Zielach, with a toss of his hair. “Do I look like someone whose nuptials would be marked by anything other than the deepest of bliss? Do I look like someone who has to pursue their beloved in a high-speed chase after being rejected by their family?”
Marcus considers him with an honest air. “You kind of have that vibe, not gonna lie.”
This is going swimmingly.
Before Zielach can commit a gorey and bloody murder in the center of the Mystery Shack, the door at the far end of the room slams open. With great fanfare, Greg struts out, a little white towel draped over one arm and a tray held aloft in the other. Cheap plastic champagne glasses are balanced on top, both filled to the brim with Mabel Juice.
Oh. So they cancelled this plan and went to poison.
“Beverages,” announces Greg, proffering the tray. Marcus accepts his with glee. Zielach does the same with confusion. Greg backs out of the room without turning.
A moment later, Soos comes out, dressed in a t-shirt that looks like a tuxedo. “If you will follow me to the waiting area.”
Zielach stares at him. “I am. Here? For my beloved.”
“Of course, of course, we see that all the time at the Mystery Shack,” says Soos. He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. “Ten percent off in the gift shop for all dramatic professions of love. Not redeemable on days that end in y.”
Stan sniffles slightly. “He’s really coming into himself.”
“That’s a great deal,” says Marcus, God bless him. “My dude, I myself am here for a love profession.”
Soos surreptitiously slips him a coupon. Marcus fist pumps. “I’m gonna get a koozie.”
Zielach stares at him in open disgust.
Slowly, Soos corralls them to the table arranged in the back, a white tablecloth draped over it and a single lit candle in its center. He leaves them there with the promise that it will be “just a moment’s longer, we at the Mystery Shack pride ourself on the quality of our service,” and then he freaking books it.
The moment he’s out of the room, the lights dim.
Marvin Gaye’s Lets Get it On starts to play.
Marcus seems unbothered. He takes a sip of his Mabel Juice, gags, then takes a sip again.
“So. You ready for married life?”
Zielach startles. “Of course I am. Peasant. I have known my beloved for a full six and a half days. There is no greater preparation I could take before devoting myself to him for life.”
“Me too, me too.” He takes another sip of Mabel Juice. Gags. “I dated this girl for like, a solid week, you know? Three days. Whatever. And it was only a year ago, and she only like, maced me twice. So. You can say it’s pretty serious.”
For the first time, Zielach seems vaguely interested. “I am unused to your world’s courtship rituals. Was your beloved also unusually… enraged by your very presence?”
“Oh yeah dude. Fully. She told me if I ever so much as looked at her again she’d dangle me upside down by my toes in the wilderness like dry-aged beef. Once she threatened me with a crossbow.”
“Interesting, interesting,” says Zielach, intrigued. “And she has still agreed to marry you?”
Marcus gestures to his abs. “I’ve kind of got it going on, man.”
Zielach makes a noise of agreement.
“Is this working?” asks Dipper, in a horrid fascination. “Are their crazy energies attracting one another?”
“Well. I expect married life to suit me enormously,” says Zielach, looking staunchly at anywhere other than Marcus’s bare chest. “The wisest of my kingdom’s wizards say that, in my infancy, foul witches came and cursed me with ‘violent tendencies’ and ‘manic depression,’ whatever that is. I expect marital bliss to cure me entirely, of course.”
“Cheers, bro,” says Marcus, raising his now-empty glass. “Nothing like staking your entire mental health on your partner in life.” He goes to take another sip of his Mabel Juice, realizes it’s empty, and then reaches for Zielach’s glass without a moment’s consideration. He slams it back like a shot, downing it in under three seconds.
Poor kid is going to be dead by nightfall.
There are five unbroken minutes of silence.
“Is there… any sign that our beloveds know we’re here?” asks Zielach.
“Um, this place has pretty killer service, dude. I wouldn’t expect them to not tell them.”
“But you have been here for longer than I have,” points out Zielach. “And your bride-to-be has not yet arrived.”
Marcus shrugs, uncaring. “Gal’s powdering her nose. That probably takes girls what, forty-five minutes, an hour? Eh. Mabel will be here soon.”
“Mabel,” says Zielach, slowly. “Mabel Pines?”
Oh, damn it.
Zielach leaps from his seat. “More machinations. More deceit! Do they think I am to be trifled with?”
“Does your boo know Mabel?” asks Marcus, obviously too illiterate to read the damn room. “Dude, we could have like. One of those joint weddings.”
“Do they not appreciate the depths of my affection?” Zielach paces the breadth of the room like a tiger in a cage. “Do they doubt the horrid extents I will go to in order to show my endless love?”
“Dude, I feel you. I make all these dramatic professions of love and it’s always, ‘How did you get in my bedroom, Marcus,’ and ‘No, really, I locked my windows, how did you get inside,’ and ‘I’m calling the cops, back the fuck off.’ No one appreciates romance anymore.”
“It’s infuriating! To bear your soul only to be rebuffed. Do they not know I would flay my own heart for the barest brush of his hand on mine? Do they not appreciate the extent of my affections?”
“We deserve someone who will appreciate what we put into relationships,” says Marcus, nodding sagely. “We need someone who will return all we give. I think we should try dating again.”
Holy shit, did they somehow round back around to success?
Zielach ponders this gravely. “I think,” he says, after a beat, “that I would much rather burn the town to the ground.”
There’s a pregnant pause.
“In hindsight, I have no idea why we thought that would work,” says Dipper.
…
Mabel squirms her way in next to Wirt while Zielach is rallying his men. She tugs at his shirtsleeve urgently.
“Father,” she says, a maniac gleam in her eye. “Father, Dad, parental unit--”
Bless his kids, they wouldn’t change if God himself came down and asked. “Yes, glitter bomb?”
“Can I swear?” she asks, with extreme gravity. “This feels like a swearing situation.”
Wirt ponders this for a second. “You may have two swears.”
“Excellent.” She shoots Dipper a look. “Meet you all in the golf carts?”
“Yup,” says Dipper, unspooling some kind of weird string with weights on it. “Time to ad lib this.”
“Fantastic.”
Then, Wirt’s beautiful, glorious, absolutely insane daughter launches herself out the window. Through glass.
A moment later, he hears her shout, “HEY YO FUCKHEADS!”
A moment after that, there is a chorus of screams.
Dipper and the Stans usher him down the stairs, out the back door, where they proceed to guide Wirt to signature Mystery Shack Battle Ready Golf Carts, which have apparently been sponsored by IKEA, if the branding on the sides is any indication. Dipper, Ford, and Wirt climb into one. Stan, Greg, and Soos climb into the other. Ford screeches by the front long enough to pick up Mabel from where she’s terrorizing the fae.
And then they’re off, arrows chasing them the whole way.
Mabel flips them off. “Catch us if you can, bitch,” she crows.
“So,” says Ford, calmly proceeding with this high speed chase. Out of the corner of his eye, Wirt can see Stan weaving his cart through the trees, screaming bloody murder the whole way. “Plans?”
“Uhh, get them out of our universe,” says Dipper, flipping through his notebook. “Question is how to keep them out.”
“Can’t you just close the stupid rift?” screams Mabel, wrestling with her crossbow on the reload. “Aren’t you both nerds?”
“The stars--”
“You’re really going to let some dumb stars tell you what to do?”
“Um,” says Dipper. “Yes? I can’t change the stars, Mabel!”
“Zielach’s universe sucks. I want a refund.”
Then, she sends a volley of arrows out behind her. One of them clips one of the horses, sending it stumbling.
“Princess, I’m so sorry, this isn’t your fault,” she shouts, over the wind.
“Mabel, that's it!” Dipper looks up from his journal, his eyes alight. “Ford, remember what we were theorizing? This is just a matter of chance. It could have opened up to any universe. Why don’t we just switch them out?”
Ford swerves them through a brutal turn. “We have no guarantee the next universe will be any better!”
“Can’t be much worse,” shouts Wirt.
“I think I might be able to do it,” says Dipper. “What do you think?”
“We won’t be able to close anything until a replacement is open,” says Ford, grimly. “There’s no way that even you can overcome cosmic alignment, Dipper, not even for a moment. There has to be another avenue for the celestial energies before we can cut off any connections.”
“All in favor of risking two connections at once for a chance of closing Zielach’s, say aye,” says Dipper.
“Aye,” chorus Wirt and Mabel.
“This isn’t gonna be easy,” says Dipper, grimacing. “Can you guys buy me some time?”
Wirt exchanges a look with Ford. “I think we can manage that.”
They burst into the clearing, the rot and black of Zielach’s world coming into view. Ford slams the golf cart to a halt. A moment later, Stan’s golf cart rolls to a stop next to his.
“We have a plan?” he demands.
“We’re on distraction, Dipper’s on magic, hopefully we don’t die,” says Ford, pulling a freaking laser gun from his pocket.
Stan shrugs. “Okay.” And then he slips on a pair of brass knuckles.
Greg picks up the exact same stick Wirt used to clobber Zielach. Mabel readies her crossbow. Soos kind of shuffles to the back of the crowd and squints.
Not a second later, Zielach and his men burst from the treeline.
“I AM HERE FOR MY--”
One of Mabel’s arrows catches him in the shoulder blade immediately. He falls off his horse.
“STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER YOU DUMB FREAK.”
Beautifully put, sweetheart.
After that, things get very fast very quick. Ford starts to shoot people. Mabel pulls a knife from her boot and starts parrying swords. Greg clobbers people like this was an activity he was expecting on his first day in town. Stan rips the sleeves off his shirt and starts choking out one of Zielach’s guards with a necktie. Wirt feels oddly out of place in his violent and capable family.
Slowly, they corral them back to their side of the rift, where the grass is black, where their homeland lies. Dipper’s voice rises and falls, undulates under the weight of the magic, and Wirt’s ears pop. Pop. Pop.
The grass starts to swirl.
The grass starts to grow.
It falters, flickering between green and blue and brown and black. Dipper’s voice turns desperate.
Wirt remembers this. He remembers the hospital room. The panic.
“Bud,” calls Wirt, his eyes locked on his son. “It’s okay. You know where home is.”
Dipper stops speaking. His eyes lock on Wirt’s, and after a moment, he nods.
When he starts to speak again, the grass bleeds green and gold in autumnal vibrance. Just like Wirt had remembered it. Just like it had been all those years ago.
It always seemed more real than the grass of his world, Wirt remembers. More there. He hadn’t realized how two dimensional this world had become until after he already got back. Like poking your finger through a sheet of paper.
“Dipper, you’ve done it!” shouts Ford, firing off another round of shots. “Quick, close the gate to Zielach’s realm!”
Dipper nods, and his chant starts again, the words twisted, off, slipping through Wirt’s mind like he’s not meant to hear it. The chant grows, swells, and with it grows the pressure in Wirt’s ears.
“No,” snarls Zielach, surging forward. Before anyone can stop him, he grabs Dipper by the elbow, dragging him over the rapidly closing rift.
“No!” screams Wirt.
In the distance, there’s another scream. Another voice.
“Hey! Get the fuck away from my kid.”
And a shining golden pair of scissors lodges in the juncture of Zielach’s neck.
Another pair of hands wraps around Dipper’s arm and it pulls him free, back across the rift, back into the Unknown. Not a moment later, the rift snaps shut, and Zielach is gone, his world of rot with him.
Beatrice swipes the blood splatter from Dipper’s face with her thumb. “I have no idea what any of this is,” she announces, and then she drags her fingers through Dipper’s hair, combs it the way she did every morning. “But I have a feeling that when I know, everyone involved will be grounded. Including your father.”
Dipper turns white.
He stares at Beatrice like she's a haunting.
“Mom,” says Mabel, tentatively. “Mommy?”
Beatrice beams at her. “Hi, glitter bomb.”
“Mommy.” Mabel hiccups a sob. The crossbow goes tumbling from her fingertips, and she takes a tentative, stumbling step forward. “Mom, you --”
She launches herself at Beatrice, presses herself into her neck, clings to her and buries her fingers into the fabric of her blue, blue dress. She cries and cries and cries, their sunshine daughter, her chest heaving, sobs bubbling from her throat.
Beatrice hugs her back fiercely. “Oh, baby. I missed you so much.”
For the first time in a long time, she looks healthy. Her skin is flushed, ruddy, and has none of the sickly sallow tincture which marked her final days. Her hair has grown back. She’s put back on all the weight that dropped off when her body was slowly killing itself.
She’s beautiful. Even more beautiful than Wirt remembers.
“Mom,” wimpers Dipper. He swipes roughly at one cheek with the back of his hand. His breath catches in his throat. “Mom, Mom, I--Mommy, I’m so sorry--”
“Shh,” says Beatrice, and she pulls him to her chest with one arm, tucks him in next to Mabel and starts to rock. “What do you have to be sorry for? Nothing.”
Dipper sobs into her shoulder.
Across the glade, Beatrice’s eyes meet Wirt’s.
And Wirt’s eyes meet Beatrice’s.
Hi, she mouths.
Wirt can feel tears streaming down his own cheeks. Hi, he mouths back.
He crosses the space between them and he settles in at the twins’ backs, wrapping his arms around them as tight as he can, pressing his forehead to Beatrice’s.
And for the first time in a long time, Wirt feels like everything’s going to really, truly be okay.
“Did Mom straight up kill a man just now?” mutters Mabel, still crushed into her mother’s side.
Wirt feels the laugh bubble up from his chest, tangled in a sob. “You know what, I think it’s best to just leave that ambiguous.”
…
“I KNEW IT.”
“You did not,” protests Wirt, and immediately receives a smack to his chest for his efforts.
“I knew it,” insists Beatrice, moving on to abuse his shoulder instead. Elder abuse. “I knew it, I told you, Wirt, I told you that we needed to interrogate the Stans--”
“You didn’t even know there were two Stans!”
“Details,” says Beatrice, waving her hand dismissively. “Point is, if I was there this entire thing would have been handled in like, three days, tops.”
Wirt has to fight back a grin. “Because you would have burned the town to the ground.”
“Because I would have burned the town to the ground,” agrees Beatrice, nodding solidly. “And it would have been effective.”
They’re collapsed on the grass, legs and limbs tangled together, Beatrice and Wirt and the twins and Greg. Ford wandered off to poke at the new rift to the Unknown not two minutes after Beatrice soundly abused him for not taking proper care of her children. Stan wandered off with him, either to stop something from eating his brother or to encourage something to eat his brother, Wirt wasn’t clear on which one. Soos, meanwhile, has found a bluebird perched on a tree, and is staunchly trying to convince it to talk to him.
The bluebird is on the Gravity Falls side of the rift. Soos does not seem to care.
At the edge of the clearing, the odd, whirring device that Ford had yanked out of his pocket to poke at various trees starts up a screeching noise. It starts flashing the sort of shade of red that Wirt associates with a nuclear holocaust warning.
Ford makes a delighted sound. “Oh, this is fascinating.”
Stan sighs heavily.
“So, our kid is magic,” says Wirt, jerking his head towards Dipper. “And the other one is like. The terminator. Did you know they could do that?”
Beatrice squints. “You don’t think this has to do with that witch we killed, do you?”
“The what you what,” says Dipper.
“Oh--you mean--” Wirt blinks. The Unknown has roles for its inhabitants. Positions. Holy orders, decreed, not optionalized. It would build a replacement for that which was taken. “You know, this may have something to do with that witch we killed.”
“Guys, the what you what,” says Mabel.
“Huh,” says Greg, thoughtfully. “Who’da thunk.”
“You never know what will be relevant down the line,” says Beatrice, just as thoughtful.
“This is revenge,” groans Dipper, flopping backwards. “And we deserve it.”
Mabel flops down next to him. “You guys kept your secrets for longer, I’d like to point out.”
Throwing his hands up, Wirt says, “We wanted your brains to be fully developed before telling you about the other world that's going to reclaim you when you die, okay? It’s heavy stuff.”
Dipper props himself up on his elbows, peering at the Unknown, at its golden light.
Wirt can hear it so much clearer now. The singing. Home.
He never thought to ask whether the twins heard it too.
“It’s funny,” says Dipper, half to himself. “I--I feel like I’ve been here before, you know? But I couldn’t have been. I would know. Still. It feels like…”
"Home," finishes Mabel.
“We still have a few days before the rift closes, right?” says Wirt, glancing back towards the clear green summer of Gravity Falls. “We could show you around. Show you home.”
Mabel darts a wistful look towards the treeline. “Can we?”
“It’s home,” says Greg, and he stands. “You should come see it.”
“Ford, Stan,” calls Wirt, craning his neck to look at them. “Do you want to come poke more deadly things in the place that metaphysically changed us as children?”
“Do I ever,” says Ford.
Stan shrugs. “Ain’t like I had plans for the day anyway.”
Wirt slips his hand into Beatrice’s. He slings an arm around Mabel, and watches Beatrice do the same to Dipper.
And they go off together.
Into the Unknown.