One of the few things we have stuck to on this blog is that “Thou Shalt Not Post AU/AU’s”.

And then one day, Mod S asked Mod Z “but what if Mabel died while having the kids and Dipper and Henry got friend married?”

And then Mod S started writing things and then OH SHIT THIS IS A THING NOW HELP.

And then Mod S went to Mod Z and went “um….can we post this?”

And then Mod Z went “eh, maybe we’ll start posting au/au’s, as long as they kind of go along with the general rules of this universe?”

TLDR: Here is the thing we’ve been working on forever and we may be posting a few more au/au’s in the future

————————-

Multiple universes, a new one branching off for every decision made.

Universes so much in number that not even a top hatted dream demon could keep up with every one of them.

(Dipper tried once when he was 22 and a bit bored and the resulting week long headache that had resulted was decidedly Not Worth It)

Here is one universe, where a certain deal between Henry and Stan and Dipper was never made (why? perhaps Dipper missed a detail, perhaps none of them stopped to think about what being pregnant with triplets would mean, perhaps there was no warning signs….there is no knowing now)l.

End result being, here is Dipper Pines, 27 years old, and watching his sister give birth to her triplets.

There was blood in the OR.

Far, far too much blood.

And Dipper had to choose, make the impossible decision.

Did he save his sister, or her newborn daughter?

(“Dipper Pines, if you love me, don’t worry about me. Save my girl. Please.”

He could never say no to Mabel. Even if it meant losing her.

There was a lot more that was shared between the two of them in the Mindscape before he returned them both to the hospital, felt Mabel leave even as he focused on saving Willow, but what the last conversation between the twins was shall remain strictly between the two of them.)

————

Henry Pines never expected to be a widow by 27.

A widowed father of three newborns at that.

Henry knew, as they lowered the box with Mabel’s ashes into the ground, placed the seed that would grow into a pine tree on top of the small cardboard box, that there would never be another person for him again, no man or woman who could take Mabel’s place in his heart.

Dipper, holding Hank and Willow, hugged Henry with his wings, as together they began to sob.

—————

Two years of marriage, and seven daiquiris in, and Mabel looking at Henry cockeyed and plaster faced on the front porch of the Shack.

“Henry….Henry baby.”

Henry tried to focus on his wife but she was really blurry. ”…Yes Mabel?“

"I need you to promise me something. Something…somethin really big okay?”

“Anything, sweetheart,” Henry managed to get out.

"If I die, I want you to marry Dipper.”

“Of cou- MABEL WHAT-”

She giggled and boffed him on the shoulder.

“You don’t have to do the frickle frackle, just get friend married, yannow?”

Henry wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole and the only way that this could be worse was if Dipper showed up.

Dipper showed up, corporeal from a summon, and Mabel yanked him onto the porch chair with them.

“Was someone talking about me?” Dipper asked.

“Yeaaaaaaahhhh, Dipdops, I need you to marry my husband when I die okay?”

“Cool, okay, I can do that.”

Henry was blushing bright day glow red now, and studiously not looking at either his wife or his brother in law.

Dipper saw that Henry was trying to ignore him and refused to be ignored.

“I could get you a ring-would you like gold or silver? I mean, it doesn’t matter because I’ve already Marked you any way-”

“You did what?” Henry couldn’t help but squeak out as Dipper and Mabel began to laugh.

(it was on his cheek, though Henry couldn’t see it, the first place Dipper had ever drunkenly kissed Henry, because he loved Henry and Henry was his, though Mabel of course had first dibs on him)

Five years later, Henry was on that same porch swing, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, stone sober and rocking a sleeping Willow in his arms. Dipper joined him a minute later, having just managed to put Hank and Acacia down for their naps.

They swung in amicable silence for a minute, and then with his free hand Henry reached into his pocket and grabbed out a simple silver band, with a tiny diamond set into it.

“Dipper, Stan and I could use the tax benefits. Will you marry me?”

Dipper was gobsmacked, but went along with the deceptively light tone that Henry was using.

“We don’t have to do the frickle frackle right?”

Henry smiled, albeit a little sadly.

“No, of course not.”

(unsaid in that was despite the best, if not slightly insensitive, recent efforts of some acquaintances of theirs, Henry had decided long ago that there would be no other man or woman for him again. No one would ever be able to fill Mabel’s place in his heart, and he didn’t want that place filled anyway.)

Dipper went on. “I have to say though, if I were ever attracted to anyone in that way, you would be on top of my Bone List.”

Henry, who had been taking a drink of water, proceeded to spit it out across the porch in laughter.

“Thanks Dip.”

Dipper had taken the ring from Henry and was holding it in his fingers, savoring the years upon years of memories within the ring, the emotions and-

“It was Hawk Corduroy’s ring-my grandfather. If we are going to do this, I want to do this right.”

Dipper said nothing for another moment, and kept rolling the ring between his fingers.

Finally, he asked, “Why?”

Henry began to stroke Willow’s hair, baby fine but already down to her back.

“First, I wasn’t kidding about the tax benefits, especially since I’m down to part time at the library for now. And secondly…”

He reached over, grabbed Dipper’s hand with his free one.

“We are raising these kids together, you are my brother and my friend and my partner and….and I remember what Mabel asked us that one time, and maybe I’m just being silly, but I think she’d want us to do this and-”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes really Henry.”

A pause.

“Um, we aren’t going to make a super big deal out of this are we?” Dipper asked. “Because I love you and all, and I’d be proud to be married to you, but, um-”

The look on Dipper’s face made Henry crack up all over again.

“No, we’ll just go down to the justice of the peace this week.”

“Cool.”

(long after the triplet’s great-great grandchildren had returned to the earth they come from, long after Henry was a distant memory in his mind, Alcor still wore the ring on his left hand. Some imagined the ring to have a great, terrible power and tried to take it.

That never ended well)

————

They clung to each other, and were bound.

Bound by loss, sadness that was grey and all encompassing, a bleeding hole in their souls, sadness that was never ending.

Bound by the determination to protect who was theirs, to protect the three small humans that Mabel had died to ensure that they lived, dark and ruthless in its scope to ensure that who was theirs was safe.

Bound by love, brotherly love of each other, love of the children, love even for Stan.

Love that was deep enough to triumph over anything that came in their way.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t rough spots here and there.

(but then again, that was life, with smooth and rough and good and bad patches all tangled and jumbled within one another)

—————

It was a really good thing that Dipper could touch the triplets like he could Mabel because otherwise this whole thing would have been impossible to pull off, practically speaking.

(the first time he held the babies in his arms, Dipper had spent long minutes just looking at them, golden tears rolling off his face and splashing on to their onesies, unable to believe that he could touch his kids, feel their heartbeats and the blood rushing under their skin)

Dipper could pop onto the physical plane under his own steam, but it was hard, hard to determine how long he had before he utterly exhausted himself and had to phase back on the mindscape. And yes there were sacrifices of candy and food and beer (and Henry was a damn fine cook) but it did nothing to block out the constant background hum of summons in his head.

It took a lot out of Dipper to ignore the constant requests for his presence, the opportunity to tempt and punish and play with the ignorant (no, no, no that was Bill talk), the taste of blood that came on the wind and landed on his tongue (if it tasted like human blood, Dipper went and took care of that immediately because there were some things that needed to be taken care of, kids or no kids, as soon as possible).

Dipper held his niblings as much as possible, cuddling with Hank on the couch, wrapping Acacia to his chest with his wings and some impossible physics, hours spent rocking Willow in the rocking chair in their nursery. Being near his kids, focusing on their presence, helped Dipper to ignore the unceasing beckoning. And honestly, if he could fight off a demon of unimaginable power and might for the sole possession of his body, best him in a battle of will, then Dipper really should be able to handle this.

But.

But Dipper wasn’t just Dipper any more, or just an uncle, just a nephew, just a brother, just a husband.

He was a demon.

A demon that eventually couldn’t ignore that pull on his soul and the scream of his instincts and went out to answer a summons.

A demon who couldn’t help but think that the world would be better off without not only the leader of the cult who had almost sacrificed a child in front of him, but her hanger-ons as well.

A demon who ripped and tore souls from the flesh, because that meant more power which meant more time on this plane, which meant more time with the triplets.

(Dipper would do anything for his children. Anything. And if that meant he was damned, well, he had been damned since he was twelve.)

——

“Da!”

Acacia waved her chubby arms up at Henry from the floor, as he laughed and tried not to cry because Mabel should be here to see this, hear this too.

Acacia looked over at Dipper, and looked at him quizzically for a second.

“Can you say “Uncle”?” Dipper asked.

“I don’t know if she’s there yet Dip,” Henry said, patting Dipper on the shoulder.

“Hey, you never kno-”

“Dunk!”

Dipper grinned, his smile like a shark’s.

“It’s a start.”

(The kids ended up calling Dipper “Dunkle” most of the time, and Dadu , Dadcor, Deedu,and other nicknames the other half the time. Dipper was worried that it was like betraying Mabel,  but Henry told him to stop being a goof.)

——

When the triplets were two, and still walking like tiny drunks everywhere, a short man with a large white blond pompadour broke into the nursery and took them while Henry was at work and Dipper was stuck listening to a man drone on about why Alcor should totally help him take over the world.

(they were all he had left of his marshmallow, his Mabel and there was no way Gideon would let the Pines family ruin them. The children were rightfully his; they should have been his and Mabel’s, rather than Mabel and that mistake, but it wasn’t too late to fix things. Like that last name for starters-Gleeful always had a better ring to it than Pines)

Stuck, that is, until Dipper felt waves of fear and unhappiness ripple through his heart, the three links on his being panging like piano strings being struck and oh my god-

Dipper felt ice go down his spine. He couldn’t lose them, couldn’t lose his children like he lost Mabel, he could̡n̳͇̮̗͇̪’̡̳t̸̲,͠ ̻͉̥̲͍he̵͙̜ ҉̗̭c̪̪o̲͉u͙̠̪̩̣̱̕l҉͖̲̻̭̣d͇̮̲͓ṇ’̧t̮-͕̲̣̘̙

Absently, Alcor tasted the fear rolling in waves off of the pitiable thing in front of him, noticed distantly that he had gone sable black and yellow lines. Alcor reached out a hand, pushed a hand through flesh and bone, and took the man’s soul, eating it in one gulp rather than savoring the taste or making it last like he usually would. Alcor needed it more than him right now.

(Henry found out his children had been kidnapped when he got a call from Stan while he was at work. Henry didn’t remember the next hour, but Mr. Hagesawa later told him that he broke the phone from squeezing it so hard and at some point he had managed to drive himself back to the Shack)

Gideon had made it as far as the forest around the Mystery Shack before he met his doom.

In the minutes up to then, he was struggling to wrangle three tiny redheads who seemed to have turned into little wiggle bots. Wiggle bots that also would have been shattering his eardrums if it weren’t for the spell he had slapped over their mouths to mute them. Gideon kept reminding himself that this was worth it, and once he had gotten out of town, they would settle down and then he could teach his kids some manners, lord only knew what the Pines had done to his children-

“Y̛o̢ur̡ chil͘dr̸en?̛ ͜I ͢d͡on’͔̹͕͕t ̥̠͍̯͎t҉̟̭̹ͅh͖̻͔̤i̻͕͈̬͘n̼͓̬͎͚͜k͞ͅ ͎̠͈̤͚̀s͍͔͓̬̙o͙̱̠̝.̪̟̯͕"̢̭͙͇͎̖͚ͅ

There was a man. Or at least, it was shaped like a man.

Men usually didn’t have large wings erupting from their back.

Or pits of yellow light where their eyes should have been.

And humans weren’t usually wreathed in blue fire, the ground quaking slightly where they tread.

If Gideon were a smarter man, he would have comprehended how completely fucked he was.

But he wasn’t so he took some salt that he had in a pouch from his belt and flung it at the demon.

In response, the demon grew even larger, opened a jaw that unhinged like a snake and had teeth like a shark, and roared.

Mabel’s children, rather than shrieking in terror or crying even more hysterically than they had been, instead started…

Gideon couldn’t believe it. They had started to giggle.

The little boy (Hank, Gideon remembered, though he hadn’t been too fussed and bothered about their names because he had been planning on changing them as soon as they made it to Alaska) cried “Da! Da!”

Alcor reached out and easily plucked his children (his, his, no one else’s, and how dare this worm in front of him even think to touch Alcor’s children-) from the interloper’s grasp. In his arms, his stars blazed bright and happy once more. Polaris bwapped his front with a little fist, and Antares sneezed once or twice before falling asleep.

Gently, oh so gently, Dipper brushed against the minds of his niblings, sending Acacia and Hank to sleep as well, ensuring that they would only dream of happy things before blipping them back to the Shack with a thought.

(And Henry, who hadn’t been able to summon Dipper, and had been pacing the Shack with Stan, both of them almost vibrating from the need to do something, almost collapsed in belief to feel reality waver for a second, and then have his arms full of his children)

Alcor turned back to where the worm had been standing with his stars, but the little mortal had already run.

It was no matter. Alcor could smell his fear, hear his heart beat, feel where the little man’s feet trod upon the ground. It was nothing for Alcor to rip a hole in reality (reality! what a funny, stupid concept really) and emerge where the man was.

Gideon tried to turn to run but found his path blocked at every turn by blue fire, burning almost white in its intensity and circling around Gideon and the demon.

Now the demon was in his almost human guise, looking remarkably like a grown up Dipper Pines, had Dipper not disappeared when his perfect peach had been twelve and the world had turned upside down.

“Did you honestly think,” the demon asked him, “that you would get away with it? That you could take my̬ ̳̲̞̪̰͠c̹͉̥͉̯h̳̗̫̩̮̦̝͡il͙̟̲̪̤d̙̳͈͚͜r̺͔͍̞̙͙e͖̙͉̞͟n̨̫̦̹̣̤̠ ̘̻̼͙̖ͅf̸̘͖̫̮͚̠r͈̜̭̤̮̳̙ơ͕̫̜͉͔̳m͉̫̙̟̠̟ ̤̰̭m̭͓̥͖̖e̥?”

Even though a little part of Gideon was smart enough to know not to engage with the hellspawn in front of him, the larger part of him couldn’t help but snarl “YOUR children? If my Mabel was still alive, she would rather die than let a demon touc-”

Suddenly Gideon couldn’t breathe and his feet gave out from under him, leaving him face first on the ground, crippled by the waves of fear he felt emanating from the demon in front of him. He could see shiny patent leather shoes slowly come near him, the demon kneel next to him, a gloved finger place itself under Gideon’s chin and force his gaze up to the demon’s.

“If my sister was still alive,” the demon told Gideon, “she still wouldn’t love you.”

A razor sharp claw shot through the fabric of the tip of the glove, drawing a slight bit of blood from Gideon’s throat. The dem-no. No, this was Dipper, Dipper Pines though Gideon had no idea how on earth that happened, how this abomination could be.

Dipper licked Gideon’s blood from his finger.

“And if Mabel were still alive, she would do a lot worse to you than what I’m about to do for touching the kids.”

Suddenly, Dipper’s form erupted in front of him into something incomprehensible to human eyes or minds and Gideon began to scream.

“S̼͔͍̣̙h̝͞a̭͚̻̱l̨̟̘̲̘͈͔̗l̠̝̗͍̰̹ ̻̗̟̼͎̜̟w̟͇͜ȩ̙ ̪͓͉̟b̶̹̗̹̺̮e̗̜̹̫̰̥̖g̫̹̭̤͉͚̖͝in̩͢ͅ ̪͚̙̞͖̗͈Gi̛̟̣͕̟̤͕̞d̬̗̭̕e̸͙̪on̹?͘”

There was a part of the forest that forever after no living thing set foot in; even the bugs stayed away. There time had stretched, impossible, a second lasting a decade, an hour a century. There a man was taken almost to the point of death, healed, and then taken back to the point of death over and over and over again.

(how many times? it was hard to tell. how long does the anger of a demon last?)

There was a corner of the vast consciousness of Alcor the Dreambender that held imprisoned within it a soul, a soul that was forever screaming, begging for release, even devourment being preferable to the grey hell the soul found itself in now

(did the demon eat the soul? perhaps eventually? but even when the details began to fade from Dipper’s mind, still Alcor knew that the soul he kept pent within him needed to suffer, that there was a reason why he hadn’t eaten that morsel yet)

Henry woke up from the cat nap he had been taking on their bed, all three kids around him and Mabel’s bat ready at hand, to find that his husband had returned. He was covered in blood, blood all over his front, on his hands and face, on his teeth. In Dipper’s arms, he held the triplets tightly, unable or unwilling to let them go, staring blankly into the distance.

Dipper registered that Henry was awake, and proceeded to tell him what he did to Gideon.

Dipper managed to get out three sentences before Henry ran to the bathroom and threw up everything he had eaten in the last two days.

(but even though Henry had nightmares that night, was haunted for the rest of his life by the knowledge of what Dipper had done, still that night he dragged Dipper into bed with him and the kids when it seemed like his husband was going to be a stubborn doofus and run away.

Dipper was his partner, his children’s uncle and father, and he had saved their kids. Henry could never, ever turn Dipper away.)

They never told the triplets about this however.

——

Henry didn’t know what he would have done without his cousin and the girls. Wendy, Candy, Grenda…they all came through for him and Dipper.

They could never take Mabel’s place (and they were not trying to of course) but all three of them were just so wonderful.

Candy babysat the kids when Dipper was out and Henry had to work, and taught them how to knife fight (sure there was the time that Henry almost had a heart attack because he didn’t know that Candy was going to show them how to knife fight and he came home to his three darling children trying and failing to stab Dipper with wooden knives, but now it was just funny).

The triplet’s first job was at Grenda’s pet shop, and Grenda taught them invaluable lessons about responsibility, the value of hard work, and when to duck because the dragon was about to flame and don’t look the teacup griffin in the eye seriously don’t.

And then there was Wendy.

Wendy who took the girls out to buy their first bras, helped take them prom dress shopping, who told Willow that it was okay if she didn’t want to be with anyone, who gave Acacia dating pointers.

Wendy who practically lived at the Shack the amount of time she spent watching the triplets growing up.

Wendy who taught them how to climb trees (and take them down).

Wendy who also totally won the ‘coolest aunt/uncle’ contest hands down.

Henry had Dipper and Stan, but he was beyond lucky, honored and touched, to have Candy, Grenda, and Wendy in his family’s life as well.

————-

Dipper knew the second that it happened when Mabel reincarnated, felt her soul come back onto this plane..

(because that was his sister, his twin…and, um, that whole owning her soul thing which had never stopped being really painfully awkward for him, and was even more so now that he realized it went past death as well, would stretch over lifetimes.)

But at the same time Mabel reincarnated, he also had his hands full of a ten month old Hank, who had just puked on his suit, and Willow and Acacia were sobbing, and Stan was yelling in the Library at a book collector on the phone that he had been in a bidding war with, and Henry was trying to heat a bottle and-

well.

Mabel was back. But she wouldn’t be Mabel, the Mabel he knew, his sister. She was a new person now, in a new family, a new life.

And in the meantime, he had with him the three little people she had brought into this world, the husband that she had trusted him with, the Shack to watch over.

It killed Dipper to not run immediately to Mabel’s side, to watch over her as she grew, to see who she was (or he, or they-the soul was genderless after all), what he would have in common with his sister and what would be new.

But Mabel wasn’t his only family any more. Now he had Henry, and Acacia and Hank and Willow (and Stan, how could he forget Stan?).

(one of the last things she had asked him was “Take care of them Dipper. Please, please, take care of Henry and-” Even in the Mindscape she had started to cry a bit, scared even though she was trying to put up a jolly front for Dipper. “-and the kids. Please.”)

Dipper could never refuse his sister, even before she literally gave him her dying wish. And he loved his family.

So as hard as it was, (and Dipper would be lying if he said not a day went by without him thinking about popping in to see the new person his sister was now), Dipper tried his best to put Mabel out of his mind, to focus on his niblings and husband and grunkle.

The fact that seven years later his sister ended up waltzing into town anyway boggled his mind.