They went back to the
Deschutes County Courthouse that Friday to get married. They didn’t even get
married by a judge or a justice of the peace, but instead stood in front of a
clearly bored county clerk who spoke slower and more drolly then Ben Stein.

Their only witness was
Stan (Soos was tied up with a sticky selkie situation back home, and Wendy was
currently off the grid at McMurdo Station in Antarctica) and they each held a
triplet.

Stan spent most of the
ceremony looking disgruntled and holding his hand behind his back because
Acacia was kind enough to puke in his hand.

Henry kept on the ring
he had gotten from Mabel (there was no question of him taking it off. Period.)

Dipper had an old,
battered silver band slid onto his ring finger, a tiny, tiny speck that was
maybe a diamond but more likely cubic zirconia.

Willow stared almost
disconcertingly at the air around Henry and Dipper.

Hank cried so loud at
one point that the clerk lost his place and decided to start again.

It was kind of a hot
mess and it was perfect.

————————————————————————

Delethia Robinson had
been hoping that it would be Henry Pines that came to this parent-teacher
conference. She had heard stories about his husband, Tyrone. Consensus in the
teacher’s lounge among those who had taught the triplets already was that
Tyrone was a bit overbearing and….odd.

Not bad (unless
you were Mr. Jacobson and made the mistake of taking about the triplets’ mother
to Henry and Tyrone), but definitely a bit out there.

So of course it was her
luck that her first meeting with one of the triplets’ parents was on the day
that their father Henry was at home sick leaving-

She could hear the
giggles of the triplets in the hallway heralding their arrival, and indeed a
second later a man of average height, brown hair done in a ponytail, and
dressed in grey jeans, and a black collared shirt and button up vest came in
through the door. Willow clung to his back, and on either side of him he had
Hank and Acacia in hand.

He stooped down to let
Willow slide down his back, and then stood back up and offered his hand to her.

“Hi. I’m Di-Tyrone
Pines. Nice to meet you, um?”

“Mrs.
Robinson,” she replied, taking his hand and noticing that for a man he had
rather long nails. Oddly sharp too.

She looked over to the
far corner of the classroom where the triplets had made themselves at home
around Taco the Gerbil’s cage and were staring in awe at the little animal.

“Mr. Pines, may I
recommend that the children leave the room and go to the playground? We will be
discussing them and there is a teacher out on the ground watching the
kids-”

“No, they’re fine
in here. I like to keep an eye out on them.”

Mrs. Robinson opened her
mouth to object and saw the soft smile on Mr. Pines’ face. Something within her
quailed, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of having brushed up against
something large and terrible.

All she said was,
“Very well.”

She opened her grade
book.

“Now, the triplets
are not in trouble and for the most part are doing just fine,” Mrs.
Robinson started, flipping the pages of her book. “This is just to let you
know wh-”

She looked up to see Mr.
Pines staring very intently into the distance, like an eagle sighting its
prey…She shook that analogy out of her head and cleared her throat.

“Ahem?” Mrs.
Robinson did not brook being ignored by her students and the same went for
their parents as well.

Mr. Pines shook his head
and looked at her. “Sorry. Thought I heard something.”

She frowned at him but
let it drop. “Well, all three of them have excellent grades; you should be
proud.”

He grinned. “We
are.” Then Tyrone winced, as if someone had just shoved a fork in his arm
(and where had that image come from?)

Mrs. Robinson arched an
eyebrow at him. “Are you okay Mr. Pines?”

He winced again.
“Y-yes. Back injury acting up.”

She let it drop. “Now,
Hank and Acacia could use a little work on their cursive; I’m going to send you
home with some worksheets that will-“

She was interrupted yet
again by the sight and sounds of…of….

Mrs. Robinson couldn’t
believe what she was seeing. Mr. Pines had dug his hands, his nails-no, his
claws, deep into the wood of the desk. He was pale and shaking all over, and
even as she watched, there was the sound of cloth tearing, and then erupting
from his back, a pair of bat wings.

His eyes shot open and
they were pitch black.

Then he disappeared.

Mrs. Robinson had never
fainted in her life and she wasn’t going to start now, but her heart was racing
because what the holy hell had just happened.

She felt a tap on her
side and looked down to see Willow there, gazing up at her with a fey look in
her eyes.

“Don’t worry;
Dad-dad will be back in a few minutes,” Willow sweetly said. “Also
can we pet Taco?”

Any other time Mrs.
Robinson would have said no, not unless she was holding Taco, but all she could
do was nod weakly.

Willow patted her hand.
“I’ll take care of Taco, I promise,” and she ran across the room.

Mrs. Robinson stayed in
her seat, still frozen in shock for the next ten minutes (though she still kept
an eye on Hank, Willow and Acacia because teacher senses are strong and she did
not want to have to get yet another gerbil for the room.)

One moment there were
only four of them in the room and the next there were five.

The first thing she
noticed about Tyrone, above all else, was that he was covered in so much blood
that it dripped and pooled on the floor.

Blood and bits of bone
and chunks of meat that were at one point perhaps various organs.

She felt the bile rise
in her throat, competing with the deep, existential terror that was coursing
through every inch of her body. Gone was the odd yet still amiable Tyrone
Pines. In his place stood a man, no, a demon, in a suit and floating top
hat. His eyes streamed bright yellow fire, fangs flashed from his mouth, and
when he looked at her, for a second Mrs. Robinson was looking at the end of her
life.

The demon turned towards
oh god the children.

She scrambled to get out
of the chair but it was too late, he was already by them, he was going to them
and-

“DAD-DAD!” With a cry
that she wasn’t sure that came from either Acacia or Willow, the three of them
launched themselves at the demon, disregarding the viscera that covered him.

And he…he took them in
his arms, enveloping them in a massive hug.

Mrs. Robinson felt her
entire world drop out from under her.

Demons were not supposed
to bury their heads in the necks of children and shudder almost like they were
crying (surely not).

Demons were not supposed
to check over children head to toe as if they were checking for any possible
injuries or hurts.

(“Dad-dad!” Hank cried
“We’re fine.”)

And demons definitely
didn’t plait the hair of small children whose braid had fallen out.

Soft wavy hair being
gently woven by hands coated in deep red and that sight was so incongruous that
it spurred Mrs. Robinson to action.  

She finally managed to
get out of her seat and make her way towards the triplets.

Tyro-the demon…Mr.
Pines? Whatever, whoever he was looked up as she came near him and the
triplets, and the air in the room dropped twenty degrees and suddenly she could
see her breath on the air. He hissed, honest to goodness hissed like a
cat and uttered, “”St̵ép͞ ̧aw͏ąy ̸fr̷om m̀y ̛c̵hil͠d̴re͡n͡ ͞n͝ow̴.͢”̷
 

In the face of certain
death, Mrs. Robinson found herself huffing and crossing her arms.

“Honestly Mr.
Pines….whoever you are. I assure you I am not going to harm the children,” she
somehow managed to get out even though she was legitimately scared that at any
second her heart was going to give out (and damn those cigarettes and damn her
for smoking them all these years…)

Acacia helped by
wriggling in the demon’s grip and going in a tone that promised the onset of
puberty in the near future, “Dad-dad! It’s just Mrs. Robinson!”

The demon looked at
Acacia for a minute, the air taut with tension (not that Acacia or her siblings
seemed to notice), and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he opened them, he
was still covered in gore (and increasingly, so were the triplets), still
possessed eyes of black and gold. But the air returned to its normal
temperature, and Mrs. Robinson felt like she could breathe again. Tyrone
released the kids from the hug he had them in and put a hand behind his head.

“So…you were talking
about how the kids needed to work on their cursive?”

“No.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure
that’s what we were talking about before I got pulled five hundred miles to
answer to a ritual sacrifice.”

Mrs. Robinson barked out
a laugh. “No, we are not going to talk about Acacia, Hank and Willow until you
tell me what the fu- what on god’s green earth is going on.”

“Bu-“

She marshalled thirty
years of teaching experience and put it in her voice. “Tell me right now Mr.
Pines.”

The demon deflated like
a flat tire, and the triplets giggled at the funny look on his face.

“Well, my name is
actually….Dipper. Dipper Pines. And one day….”

(Henry brought Mrs.
Robinson a massive fruit basket the next day.)