phenyxsnest:

Long, long after the Transcendence, Dipper has come to
terms with the fact that all his loved ones will never again live at the
same time.

Then, in a twist of fate, they all reincarnate at roughly the same time.

And Dipper’s not the only one to notice…

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This fic is technically being posted for the 2nd year anniversary ficathon, though it was started well before that.
It’s a combination of 3 prompts off the blog:

http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/post/110949675487/hc-that-everyone-dipper-cares-about-has-a-symbol

http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/post/142796865175/re-alcors-wheel-maybe-it-cant-be-used-to-hurt

http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/post/141750826113/tau-prompt-someone-is-trying-to-collect-all-the

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Over the years, Dipper came into
contact with hundreds of souls. Some he met for a fleeting moment, the
length of a summons only and forgotten almost as soon as he’d returned
to the Mindscape. Other he only knew briefly for one short lifetime,
losing touch after that lifetime ended. But there were others he would
search out again and again, during his times of humanity, for that
tenuous connection, that love and friendship that helped him remember
himself.

There were times it worked…better than others.
No matter how much he and a soul may have loved each other in one
lifetime, they weren’t always so accepting the next. Still, he kept
trying, and met even more souls in the process. Not always deep or more
than passing connections, but connections even so, and some meant more
to him than he could ever express.

As Dipper grew more
powerful, formed more relationships, his circle grew more complex. The
Cult of Dippingsauce circle stayed fairly simple, as did the one he
designed eventually for the Circle of the Dreamer’s Star, and the one he
still kept for friends or family, but those were special exceptions.

Though
he did still also make exceptions for children’s summons. They couldn’t
quite draw the circle properly, but when he remembered himself, then
they were treated kindly, given a lecture on demon summoning, and then
made a deal with. When he was more demonic, well…he was still kind to
them, but it was more a demon kindness, creepy and off and wrong, but he
wasn’t cruel. It was one of the few things he could be grateful for
when he remembered himself, that he was still kind to the children even
when out of his mind.

People he wanted to remember, whose
souls he wanted to find again and again, had symbols added to the circle
as the years passed. Not everyone got a symbol – his circle only had so
much room on it before things got a little ridiculous – but the ones
closest to him did.

Besides, there was the ultra-complex
circle that was only for the most formal of summons, the ones that
tricked people into thinking it would bind him somehow by virtue of
being so intricate, that he could add everyone’s symbols to so it would
be even more complicated. Some people frankly deserved having to draw a
hundred symbols to call up a demon. Maybe give them time to think about
what they were doing.

Not that they needed to know what
all the symbols meant in order to draw it. He kept the symbols in his
room of memories and he would be surprised if anyone ever actually
managed to dig the whole thing up, let alone find out what they
represented.

As for the people whose symbols were
on the main circle – in general, he had only had one or two, up to four
at the most, of his loved ones reincarnated at the same time. He took it
as best he could. At least it meant he could focus on keeping them as
safe as possible in that current lifetime, since hardly any of them
incarnated in the same family.

Because, you know, that would be helpful for keeping an eye on them, but no, couldn’t go easy on the demon.

But
he was trying again – he’d gotten the lecture from Ma…Mizar, about
neglecting his loved ones, one time too many, and he was going to try
his best now not to deserve that lecture, that disappointment in his
sister’s eyes, again.

Because no matter what lifetime, he did love them, and he wanted to see them, watch over them, love them.

It
hurt, to not see them for so long, and for them to no longer be the
people he first loved, but he savored each lifetime they had together.

At the moment, though, he was beginning to think the universe really was against him.

Because it seemed like everyone
had reincarnated, all within a few years of each other! Mabel, Henry,
Willow, Hank, Acacia, Stan, Ford, Wendy, Soos, Melody, Cassie, Pacifica,
Lionel, Torako, all of them within a five year span!

And
now, now Robbie, Tambry, Soos’ Seven, Gideon, Killian, Michael, Thomas,
Elisha and a dozen more who he’d been friends with, they’d all been born
as well! Every single one within a decade, and it shouldn’t have been
possible, but it had happened anyway.

Part of him wanted
to focus on the newly reborn Mizar, but he’d seen what happened when he
did that to the exclusion of everyone else. (Bentley’s face hovered in
his mind with the thought, the reminders of just what happened when he
depended only on Mizar to help him stay human, the burden he put on
them, how very unfair it was to expect one person to shoulder that
responsibility by themselves, and he refused to do that again, not if he
could help it.)

But there were just so many of them!
Dipper found himself blipping across the globe almost constantly, with
barely time to answer the occasional summons in between. (His answering
machine was getting the most work it had seen in centuries, although the
frequency of its appearance didn’t seem to be deterring anyone from
trying over and over again to summon him. Fine. Let them listen to
Mabel’s covers of twenty first century music on endless repeat, see if
he cared. He. Was. Busy!

…Maybe he should update it a
little, though. Add some more music. But there was no way he was taking
Mabel off it, no matter how old the music was. They could just deal with
the ancient music.)

Continue on AO3 // Continue on FF.net