Who: The Pines Family + Friends.
What: A Semi-closed catchall for the month of September.
When: Throughout the month of September.
Where: The Bone Fortress + around town.
Content Warnings: PTSD, Hallucinations, Eye Gore, Referenced Insanity. More to be added as they become relevant.
Top-levels below
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But her brother clearly thinks it is and the real problem, Mabel knows from confronting her own phobias, is that Dipper's fear is rational.
They can't tell him Bill isn't really there when they killed Bill once and then he showed up in Deerington anyway. They can't tell him there's nothing here to hurt him when there shouldn't have been anything there to hurt him before, and in the end it was Dipper's own hand that left those scars, because Deerington made him do it. None of them can make him the promise that these things won't ever happen again because they might and Dipper is right to be afraid of that and even if they can stop whatever's happening now he's still going to know that.
But that just means the promise he really needs is that if it does happen, they can handle it. Mabel's expression settles into a ferocious frown, and she begins pulling insistently on her brother's hands.
"Then we'll just kick his butt again," she says firmly. "Really heck him up! Come on, Dipper, let's go find Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan! Everybody's here. We'll call Sailor Moon if we have to!"
The first step is just to get him out of this room.
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It looks alarmingly like how Stan remembers. Glass litters the floor and Dipper is in hysterics. For a moment, Stan looks far away too. He looks scared for Dipper all over again, pained and worried that he'll actually lose the kid this time. It's all incredibly real for him in a way that it couldn't be for Mabel.
But...then Dipper gives his warning. He finally registers Bill's laughter, which-- that couldn't have been part of it. It couldn't have because Bill wasn't there.
Stan blinks and shakes his head. He can still see what Dipper is projecting at them, but he's not being sucked in anymore. He steels himself, and walks right into the room.
"We're already here, Pumpkin," he says. He spares a glance back at Ford, gesturing for him to come in too. "We're both here."
Then, he places a cold hand on Dipper's shoulder - a grounding gesture that's stuck since last October. He goes for almost the complete opposite approach as Mabel, but he hopes it'll work. The kid likes things that appeal to his logic.
"Dipper, Bill's not here. Remember?" he tries. "All this? The glass and the windows and blood and junk? This all happened already. But he wasn't here then and he's not here now. He's not here 'cause that's not what happened."
And maybe-- maybe if Dipper remembers what actually happened, it'll make a difference here.
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Mabel words are reassuring, but it's Stan's that actually snap Ford out of it. Right, that's right, Bill isn't here, just like he wasn't in October, and even if he can't prove that Stan wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. But just as Stan's words work where Mabel's don't, the opposite is also true: Stan's reassurances start him on the right path, but it's Mabel's that make the path easier to navigate.
"Mabel's right, Dipper." Mentally he calls for Castor, telling her to seek out Alcaid and bring him upstairs, and he feels more than hears her launch herself from her perch above his desk and tear off through the house. "Even if Bill is back we've dealt with him before - and you're the one who found out that the deal we made with him isn't binding us anymore, remember?"
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Everything screeches to a halt as those words finally breech through. They land where everything else had been lost in the torrents of thoughts and memories. Mabel wasn't apart of this mess. He searches through the chaos to reconcile this, but he comes up short. She's not supposed to be here.
But she is. Finally, everything starts to catch up with him. He gasps like he suddenly remembered how to breathe. Like he broke the surface of very deep water. None of this could be happening because it'd already happened, that's right. Stan was right. They already came out of this once, a long time ago. Bill was gone and Mabel was here. None of this could be real.
The images start to ease, flickering less often, and Dipper finally looks lucid enough to really see his sister for the first time. Legs start to shift, start to move in the way she's urging him.
"Mabel?"
He still feels everything with such an intensity that he thinks he might burst, but at least he's aware.
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"Yeah! I'm right here, brobro. Come on, let's go. Let's get out of here, okay?"
A pause. Then, because siblings are siblings, and because Dipper cares so strongly about understanding the truth of things that he was the only person who was able to see through her mindscape even when it tried to give him what he wanted, and Mabel can think of one thing that will really confirm that she herself is something true in this moment:
"You dork."
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"Alright, everybody out of the stupid cursed bedroom," he says, with the finality of a grown-up, even though it's basically what's already happening anyway. It just feels like the thing he should be doing.
Similarly, he gives both of them a nudge - but it's oddly light and gentle for him, as though he doesn't actually want to push Dipper too hard.
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At least more help is on the way. A moment last Castor swoops through the door, Alcaid in tow - though it's a bit more like Castor is literally dragging Alcaid, and once they're both through the door she releases him and sends him tumbling right at Dipper.
... Well, he supposes he didn't clarify how she should bring him, so he can't do anything but offer her a silent thanks as she swoops back around to alight on his shoulder.
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Alcaid burbles something startled and distressed before Dipper holds the omen close, and then moves them to his shoulder. He'll take one of Ford's outstretched hands and make his way out of the room entirely, finally.
Crossing the threshold gets a heavy sigh of relief out of Dipper. A giant bulk of the emotional pressure does not follow him out of there, and he already feels like he's coming back after being emotionally overloaded. There's a tiredness that clings to his bones that feels not unlike a hangover. Alcaid is more responsive now, too, and climbs onto his head.
Dipper regards the room with deep apprehension.
"I forgot October," He says, after a moment. "I opened this room and it all came back."
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She squeezes her brother's hands tight for a moment, and then finally releases them in favor of throwing her arms around his neck, sobbing.
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But, they can't do much about that right now. He gives Dipper and Mabel a beat to have their crying hug by themselves, and then tugs the two of them close for a group hug, and gestures Ford over.
"You got it back now though," he says. "I mean, you probably didn't want it, but you got it back."
Stan knows exactly how that is, which isn't a thing most people can say.
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But it'll have to wait. Making sure Dipper and Mabel are holding it together as well as can be expected is more important for the moment. Stan initiates the group hug and Ford doesn't hesitate to join this time. He doesn't have the same words of reassurance Stan does, but he's at least got something.
"And now we know what to look for in the future."