Call Me 'York'

The woman takes the stage, guitar held limply in one hand. The suit she wears is rumpled, and her tie is undone. In her other hand, she holds a freshly opened fifth of whiskey- when she sits on the stool in front of the microphone, she downs the bottle in a single long pull, not even wincing, to the cheers and jeers of the less cultured patrons. In this bar, there’s not many cultured ones.

Or innocent ones, for that matter.

Despite the surroundings, and her disheveled state, the woman’s brown eyes roam alertly over the crowd, and a slight smile plays over her lips. She begins to strum a twangy, upbeat tune on her guitar, humming in beat to the music.

When she starts singing, it’s a clear and cold clarion call, eyes focused somewhere in the distance.

“I been down with a broken heart since the day I learned to speak,” she sings, eyes narrowing. “The devil gave me a crooked storm when he gave me crooked feet, but Gabriel done came to me and kissed me in my sleep… And I’ll be sinning like an angel until the day I’m six feet deep.”

Wendy Corduroy grips the wheel of her beat-up sedan with one hand, her free fingers tapping a nervous beat on her thigh. The lights of the gas station are welcoming, if only for the promise of energy drinks or coffee- dark bags hang under the young woman’s eyes, and this is the first gas station she's seen in miles, but she’s resolved to press on gamely.

She’s got places to go, people to see, and things to do. A lot of that last one, actually.

The coffee and gas don’t cost much, and she steps outside, letting the winter chill bite into her skin. There’s a blonde man under the awning, staring out into the night with an expression that accurately sums up exactly how done with life Wendy feels at the moment.

How done with life, that is, when she’s not furiously, terrifyingly angry.

Or scared. She’s used to nerves, she’s hid them all her life, but this is something new.

The blonde man glances at her. “Hell of a night, huh?” he asks, eyebrow raised, voice made deeper and dryer by exhaustion.

“You’re telling me,” Wendy snorts, taking a sip of her coffee. She shivers a bit, but lets the chill sink into her bones, knowing it will help her stay awake. The scalding heat of the coffee helps counteract it, anyways. “Where you headed?”

“East,” the man grunts. “You?”

“South,” Wendy replies. There’s something comforting in such a banal conversation with a stranger.

The blonde man grunts. “Why south? Trying to get warmer?”

She shakes her head, and practices her lie. “Family kicked me out,” she says, wincing at how hollow it sounds, how the twins would never buy it. And how badly she needed them to buy it. It had been years, but… they had, in the words of someone somewhere at some time, seen some shit, and seen it together. That counted for a lot. “Well, I gotta keep moving. Drive safe, dude.”

The man nods, and replies the same. When Wendy’s tail lights recede in the distance, he pulls a phone from his pocket and makes a call.

“I found myself an omen and tattooed on a sign, I set my mind to wandering and walked a broken line. You have a mind to keep me quiet and although you can try, better men have hit their knees and bigger men have died.”

The crowd shifts, undercurrents of worry flowing through them, as the woman continues to sing. In the lighting, her eyes seem almost like liquid silver. “I’m gonna raise, raise hell,” she sings, voice rising loud enough to hurt.

A wistful smile comes over her face. “Go on and ring that bell.”

Jim Alvarez puts the phone away, glancing around Lazy Susan’s diner. “Girl’s on the move,” he says to Hammer, who’s occupying the seat next to him on the booth. The booth across the table from them remains empty, despite the fact that Hammer takes up ninety percent of a single booth. “Headed south.”

Hammer sighs, turning the page on his newspaper. “You were right,” he says, baritone voice rumbling. “That’s trouble.”

Jim snorts. “What isn’t, these days?” he asks.

“What’s your plan to counter it?” Hammer asks, almost mildly. Almost. There’s an undercurrent of tension in his voice.

Jim smiles without humor. “She decided to hit below the belt,” he says, gently taking the newspaper from the much larger man, closing it to the cover, and tapping on the cover photo. “Two can play at that game.”

Hammer raises his eyebrow. “What’re you going to tell them?”

Jim shrugs. “The truth.”

“Is that wise?”

He doesn’t answer. It’s not.

But they’re running out of cards to play.

“Showtime,” Hammer mutters, and both men rise to their feet as a woman comes through the door.

Hammer manages a cultured little bow Jim would never be able to manage in a million years, and gets one returned to him. Jim just meets the cool eyes staring back at him, and sticks out his hands to shake. “Miss Northwest,” he says, meeting her not-smile with his own. “Why don't you sit down? We have a lot to talk about.”

The first patron tries the door and finds it sealed shut, immovable, even under his brawny fists. The woman, eyes completely silver now, suit rippling in ways that shouldn’t be possible, smiles like a shark even as she sings.

“I came across a lightning strike and eyes of bright clear blue,” she wails, still grinning. “I took that tie from around my neck and gave my heart to you.”

“I sent my love across the sea and though I didn’t cry…”

“That voice will haunt my every dream until the day I die.”

Mabel snuggles a bit further into Dipper’s arms, mind still whirling.

Wendy. Coming down here, to find work. The girl hadn’t mentioned what was wrong the first time she called, or the second, just a few days later, but even though years had passed without contact, she still knew the older girl well enough to tell when the stress was leaking through.

The newfound contact was a bit of a sticking point with the ‘rents, though, and for once, Dipper had borne the brunt of it.

“Fuck Doc Caulk,” he had snarled, putting one hand down on the dining room table, eyes cool and hard, weathering the objections and disgusted sighs thrown his way. “I don't care what that crackpot of a therapist said.”

What the therapist had said, without using so many words, was that the twins needed to sever their connections not with Gravity Falls, but the friends they had made there. There was a reason the twins had lapsed into stubborn silence not too many sessions after that had been raised.

Despite the stubborn silence, though, they had allowed almost all contact to be severed, and that shame hung covered them both like a shroud during that argument.

Still, they had won, almost by default. Wendy was renting a short-term apartment in town, and the ‘rents really had no recourse short of confining the twins to the house.

Whatever’s bothering you, Wendy, Mabel vows, staring sightlessly at the flickering TV screen, pulling strength from her brother’s arm over her shoulder and his side against hers, we’ll fix it.

They would. They had to. That’s what the Mystery Twins did.

The bottle flies through the air, the aim straight and true. Beer slips from the top, pine wheeling in foaming arcs after it, and it crashes into the silver-eyed woman’s forehead in an explosion of shattering glass that could have downed a troll. She takes no notice.

“I dug a hole inside my heart to put you in your grave,” she calls, slowly standing from the stool. “At this point it was you or me, and mamma didn't raise no slave.”

The rancher is a big man, and his close-cropped hair reflects the moonlight like steel as he inspects his delivery.

His feet are braced, his eyes narrowed, jaw slowly clenching and unclenching in thought. He reeks of confidence, of easy strength, of a man who knew his way around the world and could take anything life dished his way with a smile.

In truth, he’s little more than a rat desperate to flee a sinking ship.

He opens the first massive box, and looks down at the massive man in plaid slumbering restlessly inside. A ghost of a whisper tumbles from slumbering lips, wreathed by a crimson beard showing the first signs of errant grey, and the rancher sighs.

“Take them downstairs,” he says quietly, grimacing. “Make them comfortable. They’ll be here a while.”

He blows out a long sigh, and closes his eyes. “If they’re lucky, they’ll stay asleep the whole time.”

The chirruping crickets in the grass seem to mock him and his men as they move the lumberjack and his family, and the moon stares down like an accusatory silver eye.

Fear builds in the crowd, and they rush her. She drops the guitar to meet them.

The song doesn’t stop.

“You took my face in both your hands and looked me in the eye… And I went down with such a force that in your grave I’ll lie.”

The screams of anger and pain rise, but never threaten to overwhelm the song. Not by half.

“You're sure?” Pacifica Northwest asks, eyes spearing into Jim.

“I am,” he replies easily.

Pacifica stares out at the night that had rapidly swallowed Gravity Falls. “If you’re telling the truth, and not mistaken- both big ifs, I should say- I don't see an easy way out of this trap.”

Jim shrugs uncomfortably. “I’m not sure I do, either.”

Pacifica drains her coffee and moves to stand. “I'll do my best to verify everything you’ve had to say. Until then…” She sighs, and some of the cultured accent slips from her voice. “I know her. She’ll figure out a way to fuck those assholes over. Trust Wendy, and trust the Pines.”

A weak smile dances around her lips. “After all, you said you made a deal not to talk to the twins. You never said anything about not talking to Wendy.”

She walks out without another word, and Jim blinks, mouth open. “Fucking rich people,” he says, eyes wide. “Hammer, we’ve been totally blind.”

“Raise hell,” Anubis mutters, stepping over bodies. The bar is empty, but for her.

No one had been able to leave.

Dipper centers himself, staring at the tree he’s chose as a target.

Ever since the fight with the ghoul, at Sam’s house, he had been building his skill with more… forceful… spells than simple witchfire.

Now he had to see if the practice worked or not. He extends one hand, slowly, the way the books had showed him, and he focuses on the tree, visualizing the impact.

“Left hook,” he whispers, and lets the power fly.

The outer bark of the tree shatters, sending splinters flying, and he allows himself a small, satisfied smile.

“Raise hell,” Anubis whispers again, striding through the unlocked door of the bar, feeling the flames start to rise behind her.

Wendy takes the steps to the front porch in one long stride, squinting in the early morning light, and knocks once.

She hasn't even put her arm down yet when the Pines Twins yank the door open, and they both spend a long moment cataloging the differences, big and small, between this moment and the moment they had left each other at the bus stop so long ago.

And then she’s been pulled into a firm embrace by both, and as her arms wrap around them, she-incredibly- feels a smile start to form on her own face.

Maybe things weren't so hopeless after all.

“Come on,” Anubis says, a humorless smile tweaking around her lips, the roaring fire from behind her casting shifting patterns over the Arizona desert. “Come on, and ring that bell.”

She laughs, as she begins to walk. First Jim. Then the twins, and the girl. Then, they could wipe this tiny little slate clean, and move to the next spinning clod of dirt.

And later, when they had accrued enough power? The Outsider itself would fall, would pay for the treachery it necessitated, the lives it had taken. It knows, in its own, unfeeling way, what she has planned, and it doesn't disapprove. Many had tried.

It was still there. Not much could threaten the storm.

The coffee in Dipper’s lap is cooling as he sips it, watching the light-covered streets of Alexandria, slowly pass by.

A wet, heavy snow is falling, making the streets treacherous, but he navigates them with ease of long practice. He has to admit, the snow makes the christmas lights strung up over every tree and awning beautiful. Even the lights of DC, just out of sight, turn the heavy grey clouds into a thing of beauty, infusing them with a warm glow completely at odds with the cold street.

The few souls braving the night, cheerful crimson santa hats pulled low against the chill, are far from home, and far from their loved ones, this Christmas Eve, and Dipper Pines has to admit he’s among them. He pulls into an empty spot on the side of the street outside of a beautifully lit artisan pizza place, raising an eyebrow at the the GPS, sure he made a mistake with the address.

Still, the GPS is rarely wrong, and this is where he should be, so he climbs out of the car, eyebrows raised.

Jim Alvarez, the co-star of their monster-hunting show- recently the only star, but he’s done well in Dipper’s absence- wraps him from behind in a bear hug before he’s even fully out of the car. “There you are!” the shorter man roars, laughing. Jim releases the shocked youngster and holds him at arm’s length. “I’m liking the Taliban appreciation beard, man.”

Dipper, despite himself, laughs, and reaches out to yank a few hairs on the patchy beard across from him. “Pot, meet kettle?”

Jim smacks the hand away, laughing. “Hey, I figured I couldn’t let you be the only guy on the streets tonight with a dead rat stapled to his chin.” The grin slowly slides from his face, and he pulls Dipper into another hug, one that Dipper can actually return. “It’s good to see you, dude.”

“You too, man.” Dipper mutters, letting the hug drag on for a moment before releasing his arms. “Sorry about-”

Jim waves a lazy hand. “Pshaw. Don’t mention it. I’ve managed to keep the ship from sinking while the Captain’s away.” He jerks a thumb at the pizza place. “Shall we go in?”

Dipper waves a hand in the same direction, and Jim laughs as they turn to the entrance. “I don’t know,” Dipper replies. “I thought the episode where you wanted to wrestle- sorry, ‘wrassle’- Bigfoot was brilliant.”

The answering laugh rings around the pizza place, and Jim shrugs. “Well, you know. Each to his own. You didn’t hire me for my higher education, that’s for damn sure. Or my class.”

They weave their way between tables to the bar, and Jim pulls out a stool for them both. “I don’t know,” Dipper observes. “This is a pretty swanky place.” The waiter hands them both a pair of drink menus thick enough to warrant being a short novel.

Jim flicks through his menu, eyebrows raised. “Well. We’ll visit one of my preferred watering holes later tonight. I figure we could start off classy and get closer and closer to anarchy the more shitfaced we get.” He glances at the waiter. “Uh, you got any Guinness?”

The waiter stares back, eyebrow raised. “No, but we do have a rather lovely selection of artisan seasonal beers-”

“Yeahhh…” Jim mutters. “Uh, Heineken?” The waiter gives a shake of the head. “Crap. What about Miller? Budweiser? Sam Adams?” He blows out a sigh and turns the menu around to the waiter. “I’ll take this one, then, please. I can’t pronounce that name.”

When the waiter goes to fill his glass, he shoots Dipper a rueful grin. “Yeah. May have been a bit too classy of a start…” The waiter hands him his drink, and turns to Dipper. Jim takes a small swig out of the artfully-swooped glass and grimaces.

Low enough that only Dipper could hear him, he sighs. “Oh, yeah,” he mutters. “This was a mistake.”

Christmas Eve at the Pines Residence is always an adventure.

He can see, even from the start of the walkway to the porch, the uncountable lights strung through the windows, their brilliance only matched by the outdoor decorations. Walking past the glowing pig made of tinsel and Christmas lights, he can’t help but grin.

Mabel’s handiwork is everywhere.

It feels like home.

He’s barely taken a step through the door before Mabel flies into him, arms wrapped around his chest. “Welcome home, brosef!” She yells, picking him up for a second, the weight of the suitcase on his back slowing her down not in the slightest.

He hugs her back, grinning. It’s so very good to be home again.

“So, Dip,” Jim says, gesturing expansively with the flask clutched in his hand. He had come prepared for ‘artisan alcohol’, a phrase that sounded not unlike a curse coming from his mouth, and only took appreciative sips of his bar-bought beer when the waiter turned around. “What have you been up to?”

Dipper grimaces and tries to hide it with a shrug. “Same thing I told the producers. Scouting out new weirdness for the show.”

Jim nods. “Uh-huh. ‘Scouting’.” He pauses, and takes a hurried sip from his glass when the waiter turns around. “And please, feel free to tell me to fuck off here, but your ‘scouting’ had a lot in common with running away.”

The artisan beer takes a bitter turn on Dipper’s tongue. “It’s not anything I want to talk about, Jim.”

The other man shrugs and takes a quick nip from his flask, mouth tweaking in amusement. “Fair enough.” There’s a momentary pause. “Last thing before I drop the subject. Mabel’s been calling, asking about you.”

Dipper’s heart slams straight into freefall.

“You want to disappear on me, on your family, for a year, man, that’s your choice. I don’t blame you.” Jim’s eyes bore into space, somewhere far past the wine rack in the background. “Vanishing on her, though, is a bit fucked up.”

He shrugs as the two pizzas arrives. “That’s your business, though. Ooh, food.” He pauses as he registers the shining fork and knife on the plate, blinking back and forth between the pizza and the utensils. “Heathens,” he breathes.

The dinner sits heavy in their stomachs, and contented sighs and small, disguised burps are heard all around the table. “Thanks, mom!” Mabel chirrups, smiling at their parents.

The elder Pines woman smiles back at her daughter. “Don’t thank me yet, you two still have to rock-paper-scissors your dad for dish duty.” She laughs at the overblown sighs from the younger Pines. “Oh, he always chooses rock and you know it.”

“I do not!” Father Pines protests, grin on his face giving way to the obvious lie. “Just you watch. I’ll chose paper this time.”

“Probably not a good idea to tell the children that, dear,” Mrs. Pines laughs, and the twins grin at each other. There’s still yet to be a year they’ve had to do the dishes, and everyone at the table knows it.

Dipper sips from the small tumbler of Jameson on the table, enjoying the warmth it sends through him. Mabel does the same, shooting him an eyebrow waggle. It feels good to be home. He’s spent far too many months away with Jim, trekking through the ‘hemorrhoidal butthole of the armpit of the world,’ as his co-star liked to call it.

“Okay, children,” Mrs. Pines says quietly. “We’ll decide on dish duty, throw the plates in the sink, and call it a night.” She leans forwards and lifts an eyebrow at the twins. “Don’t stay up too late, we’ve got presents to open in the morning.”

“We won’t, mom!” The twins chorus back, and turn to their father. “On the count of three?”

He choses rock, of course.

“Okay,” Jim says, after both pizzas have been consumed. Dipper ate his with a quiet serenity. Jim inhaled his. “What say you we blow this popsicle stand?”

Dipper chuckles. “But it’s so fun to watch you stick out like a sore thumb,” he needled. Jim flicks him an eloquent bird and deposits a pile of twenties on the bar.

“That should… probably do it,” he says, laughing, and jerks his head at the door. “Come on, I got a place a bit more my speed to show you. Unless you’re having too much fun here at this swank parade.”

Dipper slides off his stool, unable to help laughing himself. “Oh no. Please, get me out of here. At least when the Northwests acted like pretentious douchebags, they were actually rich enough to back it up.”

Jim scrunches up his face. “Goddamn ‘Yellow Aged cheese over bread with a tomato reduction paste’,” he quotes, voice a mocking tenor. “That’s a fuckin cheese pizza, you arrogant pricks.”

They both shiver as the chill from the air hits them, and Dipper winces a little as he puts his shoe in a pile of wet slush. Jim glances at him. “You okay, man? You’re looking a little cold.”

“You’re looking a little cold over there, Dip,” Mabel laughs, pulling her own coat a little tighter around herself.

The snow drifting down on the back porch gives her an ethereal look, and Dipper has to force down another shiver. My god, he thinks to himself, she looks beautiful tonight. Of course, she always looks beautiful to him- he’s just liquored up enough to say it to himself, right now.

The bottle of Jameson, on the porch between them, continues to cool. It’s over half empty.

Mabel pats the seat on the couch next to her. “Come on, goober,” she says, smiling slightly. “I’m cold too. We can help keep each other warm.”

Dipper ignores the slight, warning lurch of his heart, and goes to sit by his sister. She snuggles into his side, and he drapes his arm around her shoulders without thinking about it. It’s cold, out here, and their coats don’t let any warmth through.

But just her presence on his side, the side of her hair pressed into his collarbone through the jacket, the slight smell of her hair drifting past his nose…

It helps. As does the next swig of Jameson he takes.

“So I’m going ninety down the highway,” the burly bartender, Mack, by his nametag, at a hole-in-the-wall steak and bar combination says, “and my wife wakes up, and starts screaming at me cause I’ve got kids in the car.”

Dipper and Jim both laugh, eyes wide. “Yeah!” Mack continues, gesticulating wildly. “And so here I am, I’ve been driving for 12 hours in some Deliverance-level Kentucky backwoods, and my wife starts howling like a banshee out of nowhere. I’m in the median before I know it!”

The man blows out a sigh and glances around. The other bartender, a short Hispanic man of few words, rolls his eyes and hands Mack a whiskey. “Yeah. That was a bad fuckin trip, my friends.” He sighs. “So what can I get the two of you this fine Christmas Eve?”

“A Guinness, please,” Jim says, sighing. “For the love of god, give me a real drink.”

Mack’s got the Guinness in front of Jim before the other man is even done talking, and Jim sighs. “I could kiss you, you know.”

“Probably not a good idea,” Mack snorts. “My wife may be a little jealous. Or she’d angle for a threesome. Either way, very good reason for me not to kiss you.” He turns to Dipper. “And you? Guinness, Miller, Jameson…? We’ve got everything.”

Dipper laughs nervously, looking away. “Last time I drank straight Jameson...” he says uncomfortably, before trailing off, a blush rising in his cheeks.

Jim and Mack, of course, take that the wrong way. “Juan! Give the kid a dry Jameson, as full as you can!” Mack bellows, and the shorter bartender hands a glass filled as full as physically possible to Dipper. He stares at the glass and swallows.

“The fuck is that?” Mack says. “The kid can’t pick that up, he’ll have to slurp it off the table!”

The shorter one, Juan, turns and barks back, barely comprehensible, “You said full! It full!”

Mack let loose with a quick blast of rapid-fire Spanish, and the two began a rollicking argument, peppered here and there with English swears, as Jim laughed.

Dipper, for his part, just stares at the glass, before swallowing and lifting the glass for a drink. Last time I drank straight Jameson, he thinks to himself, I slept with my sister.

The coffee cup of Jameson, now empty, comes to rest against the similarly empty bottle. Mabel shoots him a glance, then shrugs and drains her own, setting it at her feet before returning her head against Dipper’s chest.

The night is still cold, and they both still shiver, but neither one notices.

“So what happened?” Dipper asks quietly. “I thought you and that Chad douchebag were going to be together forever.”

Mabel shakes her head against his chest, an almost imperceptible motion. “He got controlling, Dip. Tried to stop me from going anywhere, doing anything, without him… he never wanted me to hang out with my friends…” Her nose wrinkles, and she giggles a little. “Plus, he was really, really boring in bed.”

Dipper laughs a little, shaking his head. “See, I think that’s officially too much information.”

Mabel smacks his chest with a splay-fingered hand. “Shuddup, you,” she slurs, blowing a raspberry at him. “Anyways. Lady Mabelton’s a free woman again.”

The moment ticks on for a long, comfortable silence, before Mabel stirs again. “How’s the show been doing, Dip? You seem like you’re really happy.”

Dipper shrugs and draws her a little closer. “Oh, you know,” he says, glancing down at her, and jumping a little bit when he realizes just how close their faces are. That odd, alert sensation is growing in the tip of his nose, and he realises that Mabel’s is almost brushing the tip of his.

Her eyes seem huge and beautiful in the moonlight.

“It’s uh, it’s not…” He’s leaning in as he talks, feeling their breath mingle, and he’s having trouble thinking straight. His heart is hammering in his chest.

“I…” He trails off.

There’s nothing left to say.

Their noses brush, briefly, barely.

He sees her eyes start to close, through his own half-lidded eyes.

Their lips meet in a silent, subtle explosion, and he feels the warmth of her against him. There’s nothing in his head but how amazingly right this all feels.

She draws back for a moment, eyes huge. “Wow,” she breathes, blush rising to her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, and she grabs the lapels of his coat and they come crashing back together.

The Jameson’s almost gone, and Dipper is pleasantly light-headed again.

“So,” Jim slurs, leaning against his shoulder. “This… was fun. Yes.”

He jumps a little at the pressure against his side, but blinks the memories away. “Yeah, Jim. It’s been fun.” He pushes a bit at the older man, managing to right him on the stool. “You know, for your favorite drinking establishment, I have to say it’s not as…” he waves a hand. “Uh, Jim-ish as I expected.”

Mack’s laughter rings around the bar as Jim stares at him, a smile coming over his face. “Oh, my sweet summer child,” he says, straightening, the slur vanishing from his voice by what appears to be sheer force of will. “Oh, my sweet, sweet child. Come on.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll just stick all this shit on your tab then, Jim?” Mack calls, as the two men slip from their stools and head for the door.

Jim laughs as they barge into the night. “Yeah, right next to all the shit you drank tonight too, you cheating bastard!”

Juan’s laugh echoes into the street as the door slips shut.

They stumble in the back door, Mabel’s legs wrapped around his waist, her lips pressed against his, and they giggle together for a moment, before remembering that silence, here, is paramount.

He lays her on the corner of the kitchen counter, sweeping aside a few plates, one forearm still supporting her from underneath, and sets her on the counter as they kiss again. Mabel’s arm snakes around to his back and pulls him closer, as his hand drifts up to cup her cheek.

The outside chill remains, in the stiffened fingers and cold skin, but both twins are burning, lost in how they feel together.

They kiss, for a moment more, Dipper’s hand still squeezing the curve of Mabel’s ass, the other slowly slipping from her cheek down her neck, until she bites his bottom lip.

It hurts, lightly, just enough to feel good, and he moans against her, drawing her as tightly into himself as he can. Both sets of eyes fly open at the moment, and they stare at each other, panting slightly.

A slow creak of the house, shifting in the wind, sends shivers down two sets of spines, and they straighten, for a moment, struggling to control their breathing.

“Just the wind,” Mabel whispers after a moment. Her eyes flick back from the doorway of the kitchen to Dipper’s gaze, and she takes a quick, panting breath. “Dipper, this might be-”

He kisses her again, just for a second, and she giggles as she breaks the kiss and leans her forehead against his. “Point taken,” she whispers, and suddenly her lips are back on his and her hands are unzipping his coat, pulling aside so she can rake her fingernails down his chest. He shivers against her, feeling the warmth shoot down to his fingertips, and moans a little.

Her hands scratch down to his belt, fingers scrambling at the buckle, and he leans down, nibbles at her neck, and listens to her moan as his pants slide to the floor.

They’re both very pleasantly warm, now.

Jim slams the glass of Guinness down on the table, cheering in time to the music. “You say we die alone in this case you were right, with no friends by your side or family in sight, there’ll be no talking your way out this time!.. SO DON’T COUNT THE CASH, ‘CAUSE YOU LEAVE IT BEHIND!”

The beefy smaller man breaks into hysterical, drunken laughter, nudging Dipper’s side. “Come on, man, what’d I tell you?” He roars over the music. “Isn’t this place ridiculous?

Staring, somewhat amusedly, over his own Guinness, Dipper has to admit this was totally to Jim’s tastes. Military and police patches cover the shamrock-green walls, and the ‘Irish’ part of ‘Irish bar’ has been turned up to eleven, and then some- Celtic knots over every surface that could reasonably sport one, Irish music, and a lot of short redheads behind the bar.

All in all, ridiculous is an adjective that fits this place well.

“It’s, uh, special,” Dipper says, staring off into space, managing to ignore Jim’s barking laughter.

“Yeah,” Jim laughs, until the giggles fade to a small smirk. “Yeah, it is.” He glances at Dipper. “It’s good to see you back again, man. It really is.”

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispers in his ears, as she pulls his underwear down. “Ooh. Yes, very glad you’re back.”

He kisses her, again, as she pulls herself against him, feeling his length twitch in response. Even through the rough fabric of her jeans, he can still feel how warm she is.

Her kisses becomes more forceful as she works the clasp on her jeans, biting on his bottom lip again as he yanks roughly on her kitten-patterned belt. Between his rough fingers and her nimble ones, the jeans come yanked down around her knees, and she lifts her legs around him until the jeans press into his chest, matching with her suddenly-scratching fingernails.

The sudden absence of anything but the thin fabric of Mabel’s thong- when did she start wearing a thong of all things?- against his aching flesh drives his fingers down, down from under her sweater, tearing the thong aside, trailing his fingers up and down her slit, smiling to himself as she gasps against his lips.

“Please,” she whispers, one scratching hand moving from his chest to his ass, pressing his hips closer. “Please, please, please Dipppppper-”

He presses against her one last time, his shaft sliding against her sex one last time before angling himself correctly and kissing her one last time.

She moans, loud enough to wake the dead but they’re both past caring about such things now and her mouth darts from his to his shoulders, teeth digging into his shoulder, and he has to choke down a moan of his own as he presses inside her. Slowly, slowly, her legs, wrapped around his chest, slacken a little, and she draws her head back to meet his gaze, squirming a little against the feeling of Dipper inside her.

“I love you,” she whispers quietly, into to the silence, and he whispers it back, feeling his skin start to crawl at the sensation of cold marble countertop against sensitive flesh, before starting to pull back. Her fingers claw at his ass, desperate to bring him back, and her eyes go wide when he slams back inside of her.

Her fingers curl up under his shirt, drawing lines across his chest, and he helps her remove his shirt in quick, desperate motions. The moment he’s free of the shirt, he chucks it to the tile floor and forgets about it. Her jeans follow suit shortly after, although the pulled aside thong remains firmly out of place.

She hisses and wraps her legs around his waist, finally able to grip him with her thighs, and pulls herself off the countertop, until Dipper’s supporting her weight with both hands, giving her a counter-motion to his own thrusting. “God, Dip,” she breathes in his ear, before biting at his neck, “yes yes yes fuck…”

Her lips crash back into his, her fingers scoring long marks across his back, and he moans against her, slowly lowering them both to the cold tile, reveling in the heady pressure of flesh-on-flesh, on the glorious heat he feels rolling off his sister. His lover. The woman in his arms, the woman whispering his name as he takes her.

They’ll warm the tiles before long.

Jim’s barely conscious when he turns to Dipper, eyelids fluttering dangerously. “Hey, ma-aaan.” He hiccups, and scowls downwards as if his lips had betrayed him. “Hey. Smoke break?”

Dipper raises an eyebrow, turning from the band onstage. ‘Sweet Caroline’ plays, with everyone joining in. “I don’t smoke,” he says quietly.

“No,” Jim says simply, “but you can walk, but I don’t think I can.” He starts to stand off his stool and shows the truth of the words, stumbling. Dipper catches him, just barely, and sighs.

“Okay, Jim,” he says quietly. “We’ll go smoke.”

Jim sags against the taller man, hiding a grin by keeping his hands down. “Thanks, man.” The black ketek cigarette appears in his lips, as if by magic, and begins to sing along with the music on the way to the door. “Hands… touching hands…. Reaching out.... Touching me, touch-ing-YOU! WHOA-OH-WHOA!”

He elbows his supporting cast, grinning past the cigarette. “Come on, Dip, sing.”

“I’m not in the mood, Jim,” he says simply, dragging the shorter man out the door to the street. Jim leans up against the reinforced windows, seemingly comfortable with the metal bars against his back. The cigarette lighter flicks in his hands for a moment, and the smell of burning cloves fills the brisk sidewalk.

Dipper’s starting to regret this little trip already. He came out, at Jim’s request, for… what? A chance to reconnect? Come back from the hermit he had been becoming? What did it matter?

Sure, it had been fun. But he hasn't been in the mood for fun since the morning after, when Mabel could hardly look at him. Not since he made his own flight, Christmas Day, fleeing from that look on the face of the woman he loved. It-

“Hold this,” Jim says, interrupting Dipper’s thoughts, holding his cigarette out. Dipper can hear the music start to swell in the background. “I gotta piss. I’ll be right back out.”

Dipper sighs. “Jesus, Jim. Fine.”

He reaches out to take the cigarette from Jim’s hand, but the shorter man whirls, and one clank-clack of handcuffs later, Dipper’s stuck to the bars of the window. Jim gives him a shit-eating grin and cackles at Dipper’s expression.

“Come on, kid,” he says, straightening his back and dropping the slur. “I’m not that fucked up. And I’m not letting you run away from your problems anymore.” The key to the handcuffs are produced from his coat, then tossed into a pile of slush. “You’ll get those back when you’re done, laddy. In the meantime, I got a song to go back and sing, and you’ve got a visitor to talk to.”

He swings the door open, looking back at Dipper for a moment. “May as well sing along, dude,” he says, still grinning, and begins to catch up with the refrain of the song over Dipper’s rising protests. “Warmth… touching warmth… touching me… touch-ing-you…. SWEET CAROLINE! Good times never seemed so good!”

The door swings shut with a resounding slamming sound, and Dipper’s left staring at Jim saunter back to the bar. He doesn’t need to see the man’s face to know he’s grinning.

The crunching of snow from behind him tells him everything he needs to know about the approaching visitor and Jim’s little trap. He grew up listening to those same footsteps, after all, and he closes his eyes until he can hear the steady, quiet breathing in front of him, smell the sweetness she always seemed to carry with her.

He opens his eyes and gives her a sad smile, feeling his heart lurch at her face. He hasn’t seen that face in a year. Hasn’t touched those hands since that night. Hasn’t admired a sweater like that since he ripped one off of her, the night everything changed.

“Hello, Dipper,” Mabel says quietly.

Christmas morning dawns with a warm and golden glow flitting across Dipper’s eyelids, and he smiles as he opens his eyes.

He’s home, he’s happy, and he’s successful. The scratches across his back and ass pull a bit as he stretches, and he grins as he adds yet another glorious part of this visit home- that, bar none, was the best sex of his life, and it was with someone he loved completely and unconditionally, the woman-

-the woman who had been by his side their entire life-

Realization comes screaming in on a wave of regret. Mabel, he thinks desperately to himself, oh no Mabes I’m so sorry-

He pulls a robe around him as he steps into the chill that’s seeped through the rest of the house, trying to control the hammering of his heart. A few quick steps bring him to the family room, where the tree twinkles merrily, presents stacked to the brim. He glances around, eyes wide, and follows the sounds of eating into the kitchen.

His mother and Mabel are there. Mrs. Pines is leaning against the countertop- that same damn piece of countertop, and his heart does flips- and Mabel is scarfing down Fruity Pebbles with an almost inhuman vigor, eyes flicking up to meet his for a brief second, then snapping back to her bowl.

“Morning, Dipper!” Mrs. Pines says cheerily. “Merry Christmas!”

He blinks at her for a second, then drags himself back to reality. “Uh, yeah. Hey mom, hey Mabes.”

Mabel finishes the bowl of cereal, drains the milky contents without a word, and drops the empty bowl with a clatter to the sink. She brushes past Dipper and her mother, muttering something to Mrs. Pines, and his heart sinks when the front door opens and closes.

Dipper shoots an inquisitive glance at his mother, hoping the fear pounding through his veins doesn’t show through. “Where’s she off to, so early? You know, because it’s Christmas morning. And Mabel’s all about Christmas.” He swallows, managing to cut off the flood of words before his nervousness becomes too flagrant to be ignored.

Her mother waves a hand. “Oh, she muttered something about picking up a last minute bit of supplies before opening presents.” She sets the coffee down on the counter and quirks an eyebrow at him. “By the way, what are you doing up so early? Normally we have to rouse you from your slumber by noon for presents.”

He can feel it, now. Not the dread, or the fear, or even the pain- those will come back in time, he knows. But right now, in this moment, there is nothing. Just the empty, cold feeling in his chest, and the lie tumbles from that place before he’s even aware of his decision.

“About that,” he says, just the right amount of sorrow and embarrassment in his voice. “The producers just called me. There was an issue with the show- I’ll have to go back and take care of it. I’ll be back in a few days, okay?”

He smiles at his mother as he turns, walks in steady, unflinching steps back to the bedroom, relying on the cold empty of his heart to keep him moving.

There’s more protests flung his way, as he dresses and strides out the door. It doesn’t matter. He’s gone before the pain behind them really sinks in, out on the open road, letting the wheel decide where to take him.

He prefers it that way. It keeps his lust and shame and fear away.

“Hey,” he says back to her, voice cracking a bit.

They sit there for a long moment, as he drinks in every detail. The way her arms fold across her sweater. The tightness to her lips, the way her eyes blaze with heat, the tilt of her brow and the coolness of her stance. He drinks these things like a man in the desert drinks water, and he’s glad, despite himself, that he got to see her again.

The moment draws on, and he tugs on the handcuffs again. They don’t give, and he sighs and clears his throat. “It’s, uh, been a-”

-Whoompf.

Mabel’s hand smashes into his free shoulder, swinging him until his back is against the bars, her face less than an inch from his. “Dipper Pines,” she hisses, eyes boring into his, “you inconceivably self-absorbed butthole. You arrogant, cowardly, stupid assmunch.” Her breath, the harshness of whiskey mixing with the sweet scent that seems to infuse her entire body, hisses out in a cold breath. “Where. The FUCK. Have you been?”

“Uh,” he replies, eloquently, trying to get his brain working again. “I, uh-”

“A year, Dip,” she says, one hand still pressing him hard into the bars of the window. “A year. I couldn’t find you, you never returned my calls, you never appeared on your show- I mean, I had to go through Jim to find you again, Dipper! What happened?”

He makes a noncommittal sound, and Mabel sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose with her free hand, keeping him pinned. “Let me guess. You got it in your thick nerd noggin somehow that I was ashamed of you, and didn’t want to see you ever again, and that’s why you ran off, right?”

It’s all he can do to nod back.

“For the record, mister,” she says, pushing him back up onto his tiptoes, her face scant inches from his, “I was running off that morning to get some Plan B-” She pauses, head turning to watch a passing couple. “Hey, howya doin’?” she chirrups brightly. “Sorry. My idiot boyfriend here messed up his magic trick. Merry Christmas!”

When the couples, and their stares, take the next corner, she turns her attention back to Dipper. “I was going to get some Plan B because I wasn’t planning on bonin’ my brother when I came back home, and neither of us were exactly thinking about protection that night.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, feeling the words tumble out from numb lips. “I’m so, so sorry- we were drunk, and you had just broken up with Chad, and I took advantage of you, and-”

“Oh my god,” Mabel says, eyes widening. “You really did think I didn’t want you to do me that night, don’t you?”

Dipper blinks. “What?”

Mabel reaches up, one hand cupping his cheek, and brings her lips towards his with agonizing slowness. Her grip on his shoulder slackens, comes to loop around his neck, while his free hand slips behind the small of his back, pulling her closer to him. Their lips meet in a brief, small kiss that seems to do everything to dispel the chill of the night air.

She draws back, looking up on him, eyes twinkling in a grave face. “That’s your answer, you goof. You’re still not forgiven, you know. But… I thought you should know.”

The moment stretches on, and Dipper’s heart does its damndest to punch through his ribcage. He can see the hurt, the worry and the pain etched into Mabel’s face, and knows she sees the same etched on his, too, and his heart aches for the pain he’s caused.

He makes a decision, swallows, and gives her his best sad smile. “You, uh… I would invite you into the bar, but I’m a little chained up at the moment…”

Mabel smiles at him. “It’s a good thing Stan taught me all about lockpicking, then,” she says, and reaches over and disconnects the handcuff from the wall and his hand. When Dipper gawps at her, she whirls them around her finger. “You are drunker than usual tonight, Dip. These are plastic.”

His gape doesn’t diminish, and she laughs. “Come on, doofus. There’s a very Mabel place just down the street. Jim’s got your tab, and we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I’ve missed my brother.” She starts off down the street, silhouetted by the twinkle of Christmas lights, illuminated by the warm glow reflecting off the snow.

Dipper hurries to follow her, heart swelling. She turns him a mischievous grin, twirling the handcuffs around her finger again. “And, you know. If I get all my sibling bonding time in with my brother by the end of the night, perhaps my boyfriend could find a use for these on Christmas night.”

She takes off, skipping over the melting patches of snow, and Dipper stares after her for a longing moment.

He glances back to the bar, catches Jim’s stalwartly turned back. He smiles despite himself and gives the man a little crapsack salute.