Chapter Text
Danny knew something was wrong with him the moment his core burst into flames.
A wicked, bloody red scorched the edges of his vision and swallowed up the frost within his center, melting it like a flame thrower to ice. The flames crawled through his throat, the taste of bile blistering his tongue, paradoxically both bone-chillingly cold and boiling hot.
Unbridled panic coursed through his veins after the initial bleary confusion, having been thrust from a blissful dream and into a nightmare. He thrashed about in his bed, fingers reaching out blindly to twist his sheets, pools of sweat clotting the fabric and drenching his back.
Help , he needed help , but the words wouldn’t come, sticking to his throat like broken glass lodged into his windpipe. Breathing alone was a horrible, impossible task, let alone the monumental endeavor of getting out of bed to get Jazz or his parents or anyone. And so he resigned himself to simply writhe in pain until all rational thought became ectoplasmic slop, reduced to the singular plea of make it stop.
Through the searing agony he only minutely registered the tugging against his core, and he did little to resist as his essence was ripped forward as swiftly as a clean slit of the throat.
And then just like that, he bled out of existence.
Or so he thought.
It sure felt like he didn’t exist anymore.
For a few euphoric moments, existence settled to a halt, as though a painfully taut string was finally snapped. Blackness consumed his being like the maw of a hungry creature, devouring his body and soul. It was heart-wrenchingly peaceful—a breath of delicious air after being held underwater for hours.
Nothing mattered to Danny at the moment—-not his friends, nor his family. All that he cared about in that singular point in time and space was that he wasn’t in any more pain. But the peace couldn’t last forever.
It started with the itch of sound, scratching the base of a skull that no longer had flesh, more intangible than his ghost form ever knew. It was easy enough to ignore at first, but in a space so timelessly frozen, any stimuli sent violent ripples through the absolute stillness.
And so the sound swelled, crescendoing with an ever-growing roar until voices could be heard crashing through the silence. It was a garbled and mangled mess—-an abhorrent mockery of the English language perforating the eardrum of an infinite void.
Danny really should have been terrified, he realized in hindsight. This predicament was really only one someone like him would find themselves in (he was, unfortunately, an absolute magnet for the seemingly impossible), and it ticked off every primal fear box like whoever or whatever fucked him over like this made it their personal mission.
Instead, he felt oddly detached, a simple observer, as though watching a show play in the background while he did his homework, or more realistically, while he did literally anything else to procrastinate from doing his homework, Jazz’s bickering be damned. His emotions were blind and deaf, so it was unthinkably easy to let the ear-splitting noise slough off his mind as carefree as dusting off dirt.
So amidst the ever-increasing garbled screeches and endless abyss of ink, he continued to float, buoyant as an astronaut floating across a Milky Way devoid of stars. That was until he began to gain a body again.
It started subtly. First, he felt the phantom sensation of fingers, twitching and flexing. Then he grew arms, lean appendages sprouting from an unknown source, followed by a torso, two legs, a neck, a head, and somehow, having eyes to observe the soul-sucking blackness was so indescribably distinct from having none at all.
The sound of boots hit the floor with a crunch , and he noticed moments too late that those feet belonged to him. Despite the sudden whiplash of having a corporeal form, he didn’t falter nor stumble, instead charging forward with hesitant steps, as though he was on autopilot. Familiar jumpsuit fabric clung to his skin, glued down by sweat, and he recognized immediately the Fenton lab design.
Something was wrong. Which after everything, sounded like the understatement of the century. He felt a foreboding sense of dread unfurl from behind his sternum, poisoning his every movement and boiling in the pit of his stomach. He'd been here before--done this before; these meek, searching steps, hesitant eyes raking across the coal-black of a cylindrical cave scarred by pulsing neon blue wires, artificial and eerily bright.
It's a portal, he realized with horror. His parent's portal.
He felt a gloved hand reach up without caution, brushing almost tenderly across the on button. He tried desperately to take control of his strings, adrenaline seething with electricity beneath his skin. He knew what was going to happen next, and could already feel the blood-curdling pain dig its claws up his spine as ectoplasmic contamination forcefully bound itself to his cells, burning his very DNA like corrosive acid---
ꜛᴀ͎ꜜꜛɴ͎ꜜꜛᴅ͎ꜜ
ꜛʜ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜ
ꜛs͎ꜜꜛᴄ͎ꜜꜛʀ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜꜛᴀ͎ꜜꜛᴍ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜꜛᴅ͎ꜜ
ꜛᴀ͎ꜜꜛɴ͎ꜜꜛᴅ͎ꜜ
ꜛʜ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜ
ꜛs͎ꜜꜛᴄ͎ꜜꜛʀ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜꜛᴀ͎ꜜꜛᴍ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜꜛᴅ͎ꜜ
ꜛs͎ꜜꜛᴏ͎ꜜꜛᴍ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜ ꜛᴍ͎ꜜꜛᴏ͎ꜜꜛʀ͎ꜜꜛᴇ͎ꜜ
.
.
.
Until he hit the bottom of the earth with a slam .
"..??..??....????"
"....?....???....???"
"We've.....it....finally....after...long..."
"...Death...bound...bidding..."
The freezing soil was solid beneath Danny's fingertips, smelling of damp pine and manicured dirt. It bludgeoned his senses with a vivid intensity, a stark difference from the scentless void he had just tumbled out from. He lifted his sight from the floor in a numb daze and saw that he was in a small clearing surrounded by the towering figures of trunks with thick necks, reaching their leafy fingers towards the stars. Moonlight dripped like quicksilver from the gentle slope of the trees' shoulders, swaying and humming with midnight breath.
But most disturbing of all was the blood-orange flames embalming him in a circle, emitting no warmth. It sent a chill careening down Danny's spine, gooseflesh pricking the hairs of his arms. The crosshatching shadows bathing in the subdued light looked backward and disturbing, so much that it physically hurt to stare at them too long. It was as though the light was being thrown the wrong way . Several cloaked figures hovered like spirits and chattered with a hushed fierceness, some words filtering in and others emptying into the night.
Suddenly they all went silent. It seemed as if they had turned to stare at him, though he couldn't see their eyes. Danny felt raw and exposed, sitting in an unknown forest in nothing but his target pajamas as unknown assailants bore down on him from above. He knew he should do something, say something. Turn ghost. Fight back. He's fought foes of incredible danger and came out the other side only half-dead. And yet he felt frozen, pinned in place like a butterfly on display.
Then they did something that froze Danny further.
One by one those swathed in cloaks dropped a knee to the floor, prostrating themselves, leaving one very short hooded figure standing. They sauntered over to Danny, slowly, methodically, boots crunching softly over the foliage. Danny clenched his sweat-coated fingers, feeling his eyes begin to burn a noxious green. He felt pissed, that red-hot emotion quickly thawing away the earlier fear. How dare these assholes drag him from his warm bed, force him through a trip that would put Salvia to shame, and then pick a fight with him while he's in his goddamn pajamas . If they wanted a fight, he'd given them a fuckin' fight.
But before Danny could follow through on his mental threat, the lone hooded figure too dropped to the floor. Danny could make out the faintest outline of baby-fat cheeks buried beneath the hood's darkness before they tugged off their hood in one swift motion.
"All hail the ghost king."
Danny felt his jaw drop.
The first thought he had was, what the fuck.
His second was, what the fuck, it's a kid with a pompadour.
His night couldn’t have seemed any stranger, but he knew better than to speak too soon. Moments later, as he heard the unmistakable sound of something charging toward them, he realized with a sinking feeling that he was regrettably correct.
—-----------------------------------------------------
“So, how long do you think we’re gonna stay? Maybe an hour tops, right?” Dipper called after his sister, rubbing his hands wearily against his sweater, though it was little help in preserving body heat as he had hoped.
It had already gotten dark—the moon had quickly crept up the sky to replace Oregon’s warm summer sun, plunging the horizon into a silver night.
“What’s the rush, bro bro?” Mabel said, bouncing through the forest on the balls of her feet. “It’s finally summer vacation! Aren’t you excited to have some fun?”
“Yeah, but it’s getting dark and I have so much homework I gotta finish-”
“Oh come on.” Mabel skidded to a stop, spinning around to face her brother with a groan. “It’s. summer. vacation. Why are you worried about homework?”
“Mabel, we're in high school now. College is in the near future! I need a perfect GPA if I want even a chance of getting into a good school, and oh god don’t get me started on studying for the SATs. Which reminds me, I better get started on building up extracurriculars and volunteer work and-“
“Bro!” Mabel shouted, marching over to Dipper and pulling him by his cheeks. Dipper squawked, trying to pull his sister's pinching fingers away from him, cheeks heating up with indignity. She snorted, finally dropping her hands. “Man, you should see your face right now! You’re so funny when you’re mad.”
“Well, why the hell did you grab my face out of nowhere?!”
“Because,” she singsonged, “you’re being sooo annoying. Stop being such a worry wort, Dipper! If you keep being so worried about the future how are you supposed to appreciate the present? The present is a present, ya know.”
Dipper rolled his eyes as he continued to pick his way forward through the thick pine trees. “Where even is this party, anyway? Do you even know where you're going?”
Mabel huffed, jogging to catch up with Dipper. “Well, duh!” she said. “It specifically says in the flier that the ‘best party of the summer will be held in the clearing by the kissing tree.’”
“Ok, yeah, I can read. But what does that even mean?”
“Dipper. Bro. My bro. It’s the kissing tree. The legendary Gravity Falls kissing tree! They say if you and your crush kiss underneath it and carve your initials into the trunk, then you’ll be together forever,” Mabel swooned, vibrating with excitement. “How could I not know where that is?”
Dipper snorted. “True, I guess I’d be more surprised if you didn’t know.”
“Exactly! Trust your reliable sister and keep walking straight ahead, we'll be there in no time.” Mabel charged on forward with renewed vigor. “This is so exciting. What if I meet a cute boy tonight?” Suddenly, she gasped. Whipping around, she grabbed Dipper by the shoulders. “Oh my god! What if we kiss under the tree and fall in love? Am I ready for a long-distance relationship? Am I ready for forever ?!”
Dipper brushed off her hands with a scoff. “Come on, don’t tell me you actually believe in that superstition.”
Mabel blew a raspberry. “And this is coming from the same guy attached to the hip with a supernatural spooky book of mystery,” she said as she wiggled her fingers, voice dipping an octave. “You’re telling me you survived Weirdmageddon but suddenly this is too weird?”
Well, she had a point there, Dipper supposed.
“Besides,” Mabel continued in a teasing tone, “Wendy’s gonna be there~!”
Dipper felt his heart do a hard reset in his chest. A warm itch blossomed in the pit of his stomach—a nauseating and confusing mixture of foreboding dread and anticipating butterflies. He hadn’t seen Wendy in almost two years; she had a summer internship in another state the last year he and Mabel came to visit. At that time he thought that he had fully moved on, and those puppy love feelings he had for her when he was twelve would be nothing but a laugh of the past. But, embarrassingly, he would still occasionally think of her when he lay in bed at night, waiting restlessly to fall asleep.
He tried to convince himself that he had just missed her as a friend—she was one of the first people older than him to really treat him as an equal who was worthy of respect, after all. They went through so much together during Weirdmageddon, trusting their life in each other’s hands. Plus, she was so vibrant, and witty, and funny, and carefree, and beautiful -
He stopped his thoughts immediately in their tracks, swallowing a ball of bile down his throat.
“She rejected me a long time ago,” Dipper practically whispered. “I’ve moved on.”
Mabel glanced at him, a look of pity drowning out her typical levity. “Aw, bro, don’t be like that. Even if she rejected you, you’re still friends aren’t ya?”
“Of course, we are.” At least, I hope so , he thought solemnly.
“See?” Mabel said, immediately perking up. “Friend girls are waaay cooler than smelly old girlfriends.”
It was Dipper’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “And this is coming from the girl who’s been boy-crazy since she started middle school.”
“Since elementary school, actually,” she announced proudly.
“You just proved my point further, ya know.”
“Whatever. Point is you haven’t seen your super awesome friend girl in, like, forever! So try not to be too bummed out, ‘kay?”
“I’ll try not to,” Dipper mumbled.
“That’s the spirit,” Mabel grinned. “‘Sides, you’ve gotten older now, right? That’s the reason she rejected you in the first place? Cuz you were just a whittle baby back then-“
“Ugh, Mabel, we’re the same age-“
“-but now you’re, like, so much older! Maybe,” she said, drawing out the ‘e’, “her feelings have changed?”
Dipper once again felt his stomach somersault. Her feelings could have changed? He hadn’t even considered that as a possibility—didn't want to, in fact. He shuttered, shaking off the creeping chill of hope like snow sloughing off a tree.
“Absolutely not. I’m not talking about this anymore, Mabel,” he said sternly, mouth pressed into a hard line.
Mabel frowned, shrugging her shoulders placatingly. “Whatever you say, Dip Dip. Just wanted to cheer you up, s’all.”
Some tension unwound itself as his face softened, punching his sister’s shoulder gently. “I know. Sorry. I’m just feeling a bit anxious.”
Mabel's eyes grew brighter. “Aww, don’t worry Dip. ‘Sides, I shouldn’t have brought it up anyway.”
“Wow, is that a hint of maturity I hear? Never thought I’d live to see it,” Dipper teased good-naturedly.
Mabel stuck out her tongue. “I distinctly remember it was you and not me who was caught making out with their stuffed bear, oh mature one-”
“Hey! I was practicing!”
“Practicing with a stuffed bear!” she cackled.
“Says the girl who made out with their boy band poster-”
They continued to bicker back and forth, falling back into a lull of comfortable ribbing. Dipper was grateful for the distraction, keeping the frost of anxiety from freezing his feet cold and turning him right back around to the shack. He just couldn’t think about how he was marching head first into a horde of teenagers, most of whom he’d had never met before, and how he was going to have to talk to them and hold an interesting conversation and be pressured to drink alcohol and oh god, worst of all, talk to Wendy who he may or may not still have feelings for and may or may not still have a chance with and-
“Oh my gosh we’re almost there!” Mabel said, voice buoyed by excitement.
Dipper was pulled out of his spiraling thoughts, having not realized that he had been completely operating on autopilot. He realized immediately she was right—voices and laughter had ripped apart the quiet forest’s natural hum, lifting through the air along a path of fire and light.
Mabel pulled a sleeved hand to her mouth, its bright pink color drained beneath the murkiness as she let loose a muffled scream. “My first real teenage party. I’m so excited. But nervous. But excited. Gah!” she started pulling Dipper by the hand. “Come on!”
“Mabel, wait!” he said in a blind panic, pulling back his hand as though burnt by fire.
Mabel recoiled. “Dip, what’s wrong? Feeling anxious again?”
Dipper felt his heart throw itself against his ribcage, sweat pricking the palms of his hands. “I don’t know if I can do this. I think I’m gonna head back-”
“Oh no ya don’t!” Mabel said, stopping him in his tracks. “Look, bro, I get it. You’re scared to see Wendy.”
“It’s not just Wendy! I mean it is, but also it’s just, ugh, it’s everything…”
“What’s everything mean?”
Dipper made a noise of frustration, threading his finger roughly through his slick hair. “You wouldn’t get it. You’re so extroverted and talking to people comes so easy. But it doesn’t for me! I just get so in my head and…I don’t know...”
Dipper trailed off as Mabel went uncharacteristically quiet, letting the swarm of chatter buzz in the distance like static from a TV. Dipper attempted to steady his breath, willing it to rise and fall at a closer approximation of an acceptable pace.
“Look, maybe I don’t know exactly what you’re feeling, but it’s not like I’m not nervous too,” she said at last. “But!” Suddenly her face lit up, bright enough to chase away the lurking shadows. “Do ya wanna know the trick to make it a bit better?”
“What’s that?” Dipper asked skeptically.
“You. make. It. a. game.”
“...What?”
“You make it a game!” she said, waving her arms. “You don’t know most of these people, so who cares? You can tell them anything and they gotta believe you. It’s not like you’ll see most of ‘em again. Make up a fun backstory, say the silliest thing that comes to the top of your head, anything!”
“How’s that a game?”
“It’s a game because it’s fun. It’s like playing a life sim or something!”
“I don’t consider lying to people and making myself look like a fool as fun,” Dipper muttered.
“Lighten up Dipper, don’t tell ‘em bad lies. Just harmless, funny things,” she said, dimples pinching the sides of her cheeks. “Point is to try not to care so much.”
“Easier said than done,” he said before letting out a breath, “but… thanks for trying to help. They’re just my own mental hang-ups; I gotta get over it.”
“They’re valid mental hang-ups,” she corrected. “And as for Wendy, try to talk to her like normal, yeah? No matter what, she's still your friend.”
Dipper shot her a grateful smile. He was still scared, obviously, but the frothing terror had begun to simmer slightly. “Thanks, Mabel,” he said genuinely.
“No prob, Bob.” Mabel threw an arm around his shoulder. “How’s this? Let’s check it out, but if you start feeling all bleghhhh, then we’ll leave, ‘kay?”
Dipper took in a breath, feeling the air expand his lungs before he allowed it to leave in a sharp punctuation of sound, the cold feeling numbed beneath his skin warming. If he wasn’t having fun, he could just leave. At the very least, he wanted to try.
“If we can fight off a dream demon, we can handle a high school party, right?” Dipper said with a shaky laugh.
Mabel pumped her fists in the air. “Hell yeah we can! That’s the spirit! Nothing can stop the Pines twins.” A hard, warrior glint squinted at her eyes as she whispered, “ Nothing .”
Before Dipper could let his anxiety swallow him once more, he allowed himself to be led towards the source of the liveliness, a pocket of bonfire and fairy lights and rowdy laughs hidden within the depths of an otherwise still summer night.
—--------------------------------------------------------
Vomit.
That’s all Dipper could taste.
It invaded his senses: stinging his nose, his eyes, choking his lungs, burning like acid in the depths of his bowels. He heaved against a tree, a sour and nauseating cramp twisting his insides, as though a child had reached into his stomach and played with his organs like Play-Doh.
He didn’t remember making the conscious decision to run away—-he just knew that he had to leave, and he had to leave at that very moment. Mabel was probably beside herself with worry, looking for him at this very moment. Guilt lay heavy in his stomach.
But he couldn’t stay.
The image of Wendy, with her red hair flowing to her waist like a waterfall of flame and the smattering of freckles like constellations in the sky, and her easy, carefree aura that drowned out the insecurity and anxiety he became accustomed to bearing, kissing another boy right before his eyes was enough to crumble him to pieces.
He didn’t know why he was being like this. He had moved on, he told himself he had moved on. He knew that he had no chance. He knew she made it very clear that she only saw him as a friend. He was such a bad person, for holding onto these feelings for her that were so unwanted. She was so much more to him than just a potential girlfriend. He wanted more than anything to respect her feelings. You can’t force someone to love you.
So why did it hurt so much.
Why did it feel like his heart had been crushed into a million pieces?
She had a boyfriend.
Of course, she did.
And he let himself indulge in a silly fantasy, one where he stood a chance. Wendy deserved a way better friend than someone like him.
Once Dipper had finished squeezing out the last bit of bile and vomit that he could muster, he glanced up from the soiled ground, trying to catch his bearings. The world was still a kaleidoscope of blacks and grays, and he was half convinced the world was truly spinning like some janky teacup ride. He stumbled forward, unsure of where he was going or what to do. He knew he had to get back to the party and find Mabel but his feet fought him every step, disobeying the orders to his brain. He didn’t even know which way to go, having blindly run out into the darkened woods in a drunken flurry of emotion. Panic began to dig into his skin like sharp vines, his heartbeat hammering harshly in his ears.
He continued to shamble onward, somehow feather light and leaden heavy, hoping desperately that if he kept plowing ahead that eventually he would find his way back. He tried desperately to use the last of his alcohol-logged brain cells to create a mental map, digging within his memories for any landmarks or checkpoints he could use to find that damn tree. If only he paid half as much attention to the mundane superstitions as he did to the ones confirmed to be true.
But it was no use, every shadow and every pine looked almost exactly the same. The trees seemed to engulf him from either side, sheltering darkness within their open mouths, whistling soft, windswept songs between each branch. He shivered violently, a chill leeching deeper than his skin and into his very bones.
That was until he stopped in his tracks, practically tripping over his feet in the process.
Through the thick foliage, he could hear a murmuring in the distance and the telltale vestiges of lazy orange light saturating the harsh gray tones of moonlit air. Relief thrummed in his chest, and in his stupor it didn’t register that this was clearly different than the booming throng of high school party-goers.
He hurriedly crept forward, sloppily picking his way through various bushes and flora, tripping a handful of times on the thick roots that jutted out harshly from the ground until he finally reached its source, practically tumbling head first into his anticipated destination.
He realized very quickly what a mistake he had made.
Instead of arriving back at the party, he was greeted instead by a mass of cloaked figures slowly rising from a kneeling position, their heads turned in his direction in complete silence. Eventually, after several awkward seconds had passed, they began to whisper amongst themselves, seemingly just as startled by Dipper’s untimely entry as he was.
Despite the horrifying implications of his predicament, soap bubbles of laughter churned inside of him. It’s a cult. Why. This wasn’t even the first time he’d stumbled into a cult in Gravity Falls. Why were there so many cults in Gravity Falls? Two was waaay too many in his humble opinion-
“Dipper Pines! W-what are you doing here?”
Dipper knew that annoying Southern voice anywhere, but in that moment, he had convinced himself that it was simply a weird, culty hallucination.
“Dipper!” the voice cried again.
Slowly, with the same coordination as someone with absolutely zero coordination, he swiveled his head to face definitely not Lil’ Gideon who yep definitely turned out to be Lil’ Gideon. Wearing a cultist cloak. For some reason. Why.
“Gosh golly, Dipper Pines, your face has always been pretty stupid looking but this takes it a step further than usual. Have you been imbibing alcohol? Did you know that’s bad for your body?”
Dipper raised an eyebrow, somehow much calmer in this situation than he had any right to be, pulling himself into a seated position. “Are you really lecturing me right now?” he said disbelievingly. “You’re the one who looks like you’re five seconds away from sacrificing a baby goat. What happened to that whole spiel of ‘I wanna be little Gideon, a regular old kid’?”
“And who says I’m not being a regular ol’ kid right now, huh? Regular ol’ kids participate in ritual summonings, too!”
“No, they don’t.” he deadpanned.
“In Gravity Falls they do!”
Dipper thought about that for a moment before shaking his hand in a “so, so” motion.
“Ok,” he heard a voice behind him drawl, dragging out the ‘k’. “This has been super fun and all. I’ve been really needing to get some more fresh air, so that’s just great. But can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on? ”
Dipper jolted around, not expecting anyone else to be there. What he saw was somehow far more bizarre than anything else he had seen tonight. A boy, maybe slightly older than he was, was sitting in the middle of a crudely painted circle, surrounded by flickering candles that somehow made his nausea return in full force. Black hair nested on his head wildly, as though he was just dragged out of bed, and judging by the fact he was still wearing pajamas…that much checked out. But he couldn’t seem to look away from his eyes. They were a piercing blue, brighter and richer than he had ever seen in his life, even muted against the soft illumination of wax light.
Dipper’s first thought was that he was beautiful. He was drawn to him almost, like a moth to a flame.
And he immediately recoiled, wondering where the hell a thought like that would even come from. All he knew was that he was never drinking vodka ever, ever again.
“Gideon,” he said slowly. “Why is there a boy in pajamas sitting in some freaky summoning circle?”
There's a sentence he never thought he'd say.