AN: Here are two follow-up scenes to http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/post/132292603553/one-millennium-at-a-time.  As in that one, this contains references to http://storiewriterkalyn.tumblr.com/post/124643347589/crippling-defeat.  Toby’s kids are from http://oreramar.tumblr.com/post/127681691991/loss.

—

The day had gone better than Dipper could have hoped.

He had taken human form to meet up with Toby and Maddie outside the Gewandhaus, casually making his way through the crowd and listening with a hidden smirk to all the wild discussion flying between the concert patrons, interspersed between lots of laughter.  He hadn’t done anything this public in several years; it was nice to know he could still throw the humans for a loop.

(And the reaffirmation that he could still inspire something other than fear and pain was certainly not an unwelcome balm to his human side.)

With police already on their way to investigate who had summoned such a dangerous demon in a public venue (and oh, Dipper almost wanted to stay for a bit longer just to watch Hohn squirm), Dipper had stealthily maneuvered the kids away from prying eyes, throwing up a minor glamour to keep people from taking notice or remembering them, then blipped them back to his and Maddie’s house in Gravity Falls.

The second they were safely back home, his daughter had relayed her feelings on the field trip with all the trademark calm and restraint that were the usual part and parcel of being a Mizar.

“That, that, oh gosh, omigosh, omigosh, I can’t, I can’t, that was, best thing, the best thing, oh, oh man, oh, oh, oh his face, his face, did you see…?  And, and the music, and, and you, and him, and, and, and…”

As her speech dissolved into giggly squealing, Maddie danced wildly back and forth around the living room, leaping on and off the furniture in hyperactive glee, then dashed off randomly into the kitchen, still laughing her head off.

Toby was a bit more reserved, but even he was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“That was really mean,” he admonished halfheartedly as they listened to Maddie’s incoherent happy noises from the other room.

Dipper raised an eyebrow.  “Hi, Alcor the Dreambender, nice to meet you for the first time ever apparently,” he drawled.

Toby gave up fighting his grin.

“Anyway, he’ll survive,” Dipper added sagely.  “Be a good life lesson for him.”

“Because that was entirely your motivation, of course.”

“Exactly, you’re getting it.”

And besides, I have to jump on these opportunities when they come.  Not all of my old enemies have the decency to stay consistently hate-able when they reincarnate, you know, Dipper’s thoughts grumped.

Maddie bounced back into the living room.

“That was literally the best night ever, Dad!  No, wait, the best night ever, ever!  Better than all the other best nights ever!  Thank you thank you thank you thank you!”

Dipper made an inevitably futile attempt to control the goofy grin that spread across his face.

Firmly pretending not to notice Toby’s stupid sappy aww-happy-father-daughter-bonding-moment look, he rubbed his neck and muttered trivially, “Well, technically it’s still day in this time zone…”

“The BEST NIGHT EVER EVER.”

Eventually, after a few more minutes of nonstop exuberant chatter, Maddie seemed to run out of words, and, still needing an outlet for her enthusiasm, bounced over to Dipper and threw her arms around his waist.

“Best demon-dad,” she proclaimed, looking up at him with a smile that made Dipper melt.  “Right here.  This guy.”

It wasn’t yet noon in Oregon, so the three of them shared lunch, Maddie still chattering away happily in between bites.  Afterwards, Toby said his goodbyes and headed off to relieve the babysitter watching his own brood. 

(Dipper briefly caught his eye before he left, and they wordlessly acknowledged that yes, they were both well aware that they still needed to have a talk about whether/how to bring Sam and Sophie into the loop now, and yes, they were both absolutely going to continue putting off that inevitable discussion for yet another day).

The rest of the day passed by uneventfully enough, save them catching a news bulletin reporting the events in Leipzig, wherein they were treated to a brief shot of a very flustered-looking Dominik Hohn rushing away from the media in a way that Dipper was certain the wunderkind had never felt the slightest urge to do before in his life.  Dipper and Maddie had shared another big laugh at that, and at all the wild speculation regarding Alcor’s motivations.

Afternoon turned into evening, and as the hour grew late and Maddie finally started to crash, Dipper set about making some hot chocolate for his daughter before getting her off to bed.

As he handed a Maddie her mug and sat down opposite her at the table with his own drink, he noticed that, happily worn out from the day as she looked, she was staring at him now with a thoughtful expression.

“Hey, Dad?” she asked.

“Yeah?” Dipper responded, wondering what had prompted the change in manner.  His daughter hesitated a moment, fiddling with her mug.

“I was wondering…before I go to bed, if you would…well…”  She paused, seeming to have a quick internal debate, then met Dipper’s eyes and spoke quietly but with conviction.

“Dominik was right about one thing: we never did get to hear you play at your best today.”

Dipper froze with his hot chocolate halfway to his mouth, a soothing warmth rushing through his body as he looked at his daughter’s sincere, earnest expression.

He struggled with his tongue for a few moments, his fake human throat unexpectedly developing an obstruction, finally getting out, “You…want me to…?”  He vaguely mimed a violin in front of him.

Maddie shrugged, smiling shyly.  “What would make today even better than getting to hear one virtuoso perform?”

Her smile turned cheeky.  “Besides, you can’t just make a promise and then not follow through.  That’s just bad business.”

Dipper started to grin too.

“You make a compelling point…  I suppose I can improvise a short encore performance.  In the interest of setting a good example, I mean.”

Dipper stood up and started to head to his room, where he had a spare violin stored for his human appearance’s sake…then paused, Lionel’s advice running through his head again. 

As Maddie watched him curiously, he made a show of patting down his pockets as though looking for something, then shoving his arm up past the elbow into a vest pocket and pretending to feel around, and finally pulled out his violin and bow with a dramatic flourish.

Maddie grinned, giving him her well-practiced my-dad-is-a-huge-dork eye roll.

As Dipper checked to make sure he had the instrument tuned within the range of human hearing/ability-to-listen-without-going-insane, Maddie suddenly giggled to herself.

“You know…now that I think about it, it finally makes sense how you got so good: you’ve had, about, a billion trillion years to practice.”

Dipper made an exaggerated offended face.  “Hey now, more like just a little over a thousand.  I’m old, not that old, missy.”

“Always thought it’s kinda weird when Sam and Sophie call you ‘Grandad’, but now I see how completely appropriate it-”

~~EEEEEEIIIIIIYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESKYYYYEEEEEEEEEEE…!!

Maddie laughed, clapping her hands over her ears as Dipper dragged the bow jarringly across the strings.  “Aaah, nooo!  I take it back, I take it baaack!  You don’t look a day over five hundred!”

“That’s better,” Dipper smirked.

He settled the violin into position.

“Any requests from the audience?” he asked playfully.

Maddie again looked shy.  “Maybe, something…you used to like?  You know, from…from ‘back in the day?’”

Dipper did not drop his violin, scoop Maddie up, and squeeze her until she threatened him with glitter in his hair that he wouldn’t stop finding for centuries, because he had a lot of practice over the past two decades in restraining overly affectionate emotional reactions, and because he didn’t want to get Maddie worked up again when it was already past her bedtime.

It was a close thing though, and it still took him a few seconds of grappling with the impulse before he trusted himself to form words without squeeing.

“You wouldn’t, erm, rather have something more contemporary?”

She waved off the suggestion.  “I can hear modern stuff any old time.  When else am I gonna hear the BT classics from someone who actually heard the originals?”

Dipper smiled back.  “Well, I think I know something you’ll like…”

As he launched into a solo string adaptation of “Taking Over Midnight” that he had put together for Mabel so long ago, it struck him that so often throughout the day he had almost completely forgotten the worries that had led to his talk with Lionel in the first place.

Somehow things were just so clear now, watching Maddie’s eyes light up almost as bright as the content blues and greens of her aura as she started humming along to the melody.  For all the moments of uncertainty and suspicion and, yes, fear that he had seen in his daughter since she had learned the truth, he was still undeniably Dad in this little girl’s eyes.

He really had been worrying too much, hadn’t he?  Not that that’s anything new.  Whatever problems and changes that would come, he and his Mizar would work through them.  They’d done it before, whether it was as Mira, Max, Belle, even Mabel; their bond may have been strained at times, but nothing was going to shatter it beyond repair.

He’d just needed someone on the outside to give him a kick in the right direction to recognize that for himself.

Dipper smiled to himself as he crescendoed into the first chorus.  He wondered if Lionel had been reborn yet, and made a mental note to keep an eye out over the next few decades; he definitely owed his dad a visit, wherever and whoever the soul ended up next…

—

FOURTEEN YEARS LATER

—

“Okay, Grandpa, will you pleeeeease not embarrass me during this?” Andel pleaded, looking increasingly flustered as he self-consciously re-checked his hair and smoothed out his clothes for the fiftieth time in as many minutes.

Dipper smiled indulgently at his teenage grandson.

“Pfft.  Me?  Come on.  Why would I embarrass you?  When have I ever embarrassed you?”

Andel shot the human-cloaked demon a deadpan glare that Dipper felt immensely proud of.

“Okay, why would I embarrass you here?” he amended, conceding the unspoken point.  “Purposely, I mean.  I helped get this whole thing set up for you two, remember?”

Andel ducked his head and slouched.  “Just…things, okay?” he specified helpfully.  “It’s…you wouldn’t understand.  I just…need this to go well, okay?”

He sounded legitimately worried and insecure at the last part, so Dipper dropped his teasing tone.  “I know.  I want it to go well too,” he assured his grandson.  “So I promise you I won’t drop any old references, or make uncool – unrampant, I mean, see, I can be modern – unrampant jokes, or anything else you’re worried about.  Best behavior on, for the whole visit, promise.”

He gave Andel a “scout’s honor” gesture along with his best comforting, non-demonic smile (he’d gotten convincingly-human facial expressions down to an art over the past several decades).

Andel still looked worried.  He avoided his grandad’s eyes for a moment, looking around at the waiting area of Gravity Falls Air-Bus Station, trying to distract himself by watching random people go about their businesses.  His feet tapped the floor restlessly as he fidgeted on the bench they were sitting on, trying to resist the urge to indulge in some anxious pacing.

“Look, I, I don’t really care if you make jokes or any of that, I guess…it’s not that big a deal…” he finally muttered at the floor – then looked back up at Dipper, his face stern.

“Except, just, please don’t call me your ‘moose kid’.  I still don’t believe you that it used to be a term of endearment for tall people.”

Dipper smiled nostalgically.  “Well, not all tall people.  Just a few special ones.”  He reached over and ruffled Andel’s hair fondly.  Andel ducked away, shooting Dipper a pouty scowl that did nothing to hide the grudgingly happy glow in his aura.

Dipper still found it amusing that the baby of Toby’s adoptees was, at fourteen, already taller than his oldest siblings (and Sam and Sophie were short to begin with), and showing no signs of slowing down.  Dipper had already foreseen that he wouldn’t get quite Henry or Hank tall, but he’d definitely be looking down on his “grandfather” by the time he stopped growing.

(The thought of how silly Andel and his dad would have looked standing next to each other popped up unbidden in Dipper’s head, and how happy and proud Toby would have been to see how his youngest child had grown, in more ways than just height, and how he should be here for this, and how Uͨ̍͐ͣ̀̽̔͏N̷͋F͞A̾ͤ͂̔̓̐Ḯͦ̄̽̕R it was that he-

Dipper swiftly quashed those thoughts.  Not the time.)

Andel continued his fretting.  “And, y’know, don’t do anything magicky, okay?  I mean, just in case, I don’t know how Djibril would react, even without knowing about the, you know, all the stuff…”

He glanced around anxiously, but no one in the bustling crowd around their bench was paying them the slightest attention.

“Oh, and could you please not do your whole overprotective granddad thing?”

Dipper rolled his eyes.

“What would I possibly need to protect you from in this situation?” he asked logically.  “You’re just gonna be spending time with your boyfriend for a few weeks, nothing for me to be concerned about.”

“When Delia brought over her first boyfriend, you almost made him wet himself.”

“…Okay, well.  That’s.  Completely different,” Dipper began, feeling defensive.  Everyone’s always bringing that up.  “I didn’t know him, first off, Delia’d only mentioned that guy a couple times and he could’ve been anyone really, trust me, I’ve seen all the psychos and creepy puppet-kissers and disguised kidnappers over the years – really, the potential for disastrous heart-break was practically inevitable, there – and they broke up later anyway so he clearly wasn’t good enough for…”

He trailed off, noting that Andel seemed to have stopped paying attention, instead glancing up at the schedule holo on the wall with trepidation in his eyes.  The boy took a deep breath, let it out, and started muttering shakily to himself.

“Okay, he’ll be here in a few minutes, just act casual…but not too casual…but not too un-casual…but don’t look like you’re trying too hard to be casual but not too casual or un-casual…”

Dipper put a hand on Andel’s shoulder.  “Hey, buddy, relax.  You and Djibril have been pen-pals – or, in-shares or whatever it’s called now – for years.  You know each other.  You’ve written fanfiction together.  You’ve never been this nervous with him before.”

“But we’ve never actually met!” Andel suddenly blurted out.  To Dipper’s mixed amusement and concern, his grandson was actually starting to look a little green around the gills.  “Not in person!  We’ve only ever talked over L-Check before-”

“Which involves full-body holo-pros, so it’s almost exactly the same as meeting in person…” Dipper pointed out, only to receive an “urgh!” of frustration at his inherent adult inability to understand the complexities of life.

“It’s not the same, Grandpa!  He’s, it’s gonna be all the time, we won’t be able to just leave and call back whenever we want, and…now everything’s gonna be…gonna be different…and I just read an article and there are statistics about relationships that start over L-Check and I just really really like him and, and I’m gonna do something stupid and he’ll laugh and think I’m a stupid little kid and he won’t wanna be boyfriends or, or even friends anymore and I…I…IIII’m gonna throw up…”

“You’re not gonna throw up,” Dipper rebutted calmly, rubbing the kid’s back gently.

Fortunately he’d dealt with his fair share of crush drama over the past years, what with Toby’s three other kids plus Maddie, so he had more to rely on now than just his extremely vague memories of the brief period in which he had actually been capable of experiencing this kind of thing.

“If I could hazard a guess, I’d say he’s worrying about this meeting just as much as you.  But heck, he’s coming across an ocean and most of a continent just to spend time with you!  If that doesn’t say-”

Dipper was interrupted by a soft green light flashing up on the schedule screen beside the text BEND MUNICIPAL AIRPORT->GRAV FALLS, indicating an oncoming arrival.

“O-o-o-oh, God,” Andel moaned, but he stood up, took a few deep breaths, and clenched his fists, his face scrunching into a look of determination that would not have been inappropriate for a soldier about to charge headlong into a deadly warzone for great honor and justice.

It was all so adorable, but Dipper hid his amusement in favor of giving his grandson’s shoulder a squeeze.

“You got this,” he assured him confidently.  Something that might have been the ghost of a grateful smile twitched briefly on the boy’s face.  His aura was a fierce coruscating battle between apprehension and excitement.

Truth be told, Dipper was a touch nervous himself, though not for any reason Andel was aware of.  But more so, there was such a warm bubble of giddy eagerness in his core right now that he was actually struggling to keep his feet on the ground.

Wouldn’t’ve thought fourteen years could still feel so long to me…

Then there was the soft buzz of an air-bus zipping into the terminal on the other side of the gate; an automated voice read off the requisite end-of-trip thank-you-for-riding-with-us and the traditional subliminal encouragement to BUY OFFICIAL GRAVITY FALLS SOUVENIRS AT ANY OF THE CITY’S MANY MYSTERIOUS AND INTRIGUING HISTORICAL LANDMARKS! (Stanley Pines had left more of a lasting imprint on the town’s culture than he had ever known); and finally the gate slid open.

A flood of travelers began streaming into the waiting area, and pretty soon there was a mill of bodies and luggage all around them.  Dipper and Andel stayed where they were, keeping their eyes on the gate…

A teenage boy stumbled slightly over the threshold into the waiting area, pulling along a hovercase stamped with the flag of the Northwest African Unity.  His bright rainbow-patterned t-shirt, sporting a large Tough Transmogrifyin’ Force Wardens logo, made him stand out in the press of bodies around him.

Dipper felt Andel’s heartbeat achieve an almost supernatural rate.

The boy scanned the room nervously as he moved out of the way of the people behind him.  Andel hesitantly raised his hand in a sort of half-wave, looking like he was fighting an urge to duck down and lose himself in the crowd; but the other teen spotted the motion and looked over.  His face broke into an elated grin.

“Andel!”

Barely keeping hold of his hovercase, the boy rushed eagerly in their direction, haphazardly dodging around annoyed travelers and almost tripping over a family of gnomes, before stumbling to a stop in front of the two.  He gave Dipper only a brief glance before his attention became exclusively focused on Andel.

Dipper didn’t mind.  It was enough to finally have him here.

Djibril Niang looked nothing like Lionel Sterling, gender aside.  His skin was dark, his hair black and close-cropped, his face round and youthful.  Instead of glasses he wore modern gel-contacts that dyed his eyes a deep indigo (a current fashion in the N.A.U. from what Dipper understood).  While he wasn’t exactly short, his frame was stout and slightly overweight.

But to Alcor’s eyes he was unmistakable.

When Lionel had been reborn shortly after their talk all those years ago, Dipper had been a little distracted with other obligations – Maddie had been starting middle school, Toby had just adopted Delia, plus all the usual daily rigmarole of keeping up a human identity – and searching for one soul out of billions that he didn’t own, even if it was a familiar one, took time and effort.

But he had never forgotten his father’s request; and so, when four years ago he had done an omniscience-check of Andel’s newly-assigned partner in his school’s Internation-Share program (yeah, fine, he was overprotective of these kids and he made no apologies for it) and gotten a pleasant surprise, he had immediately begun planning towards this moment.

Djibril began jabbering breathlessly at Andel.  He spoke with a light francophone accent. 

“Wow, you’re here!  I mean…yeah, of course you are, that was the…the whole point…um.”

He scratched the back of his neck and self-consciously stepped back a little.  “That is…  H-hi.  I should’ve started with that, yes.  Hi.  Nice to finally meet, uh, you…you know, in person, I mean, I know we’ve already…uh…yes.  Wow, you’re, uh.  You’re really tall.”

Dipper didn’t need demon-senses to see the teen mentally kicking himself.

Conversely, a smile was slowly blooming on Andel’s face, as Dipper felt his grandson’s tension level dropping considerably from where it had been just moments ago.

“Hey, Djibril,” he greeted back, with just a tiny nervous squeak in his voice.  He cleared his throat and added, “I like your shirt.”

Djibril’s expression brightened instantly.  “Yours too!”  He gestured to Andel’s well-loved Fable of Adlez shirt, with its Pentaforce and Guru Saber designs.  “I thought that I should maybe wear something less casual, but…long trip, you know, and this was more comfy, and I figured you wouldn’t…”

“Hey, I thought that too!  But I figured it might be too much, I mean, we know each other, right…?”

(That, Dipper thought, was a very generous recounting of this morning’s endless back-and-forth debate over whether or not such casual wear would be inappropriate, as though the boys’ initial bonding catalyst hadn’t been shared geeky passions).

The two boys stopped babbling and shared an easy, relieved laugh over their mutual unnecessary worrying.  Djibril gave Andel a shy smile, which he returned.

The moment stretched on, with the two teens just gazing, smitten, into each other’s eyes.

Smirking, Dipper gave a light cough.  The two jerked out of their eye-lock, Andel throwing his grandpa a mild glare while Djibril finally turned his attention to Dipper, looking flustered as he nervously held out a hand in greeting.

“Sorry, sorry, I should’ve…  Hi, you must be Andel’s…”

“Yeah, uh, Djibril, this is my Grandpa.”

“Tyrone.  Nice to finally meet you, Djibril.”  Dipper took the offered hand (vaguely amused at the novelty of the action for once not involving a deal), and gave Djibril a warm smile, which the boy hesitantly returned.

(Feet on the ground, Dip, keep your feet on the ground and no tears no tears just keep it together man you’ll be home soon enough and you can let out emotions or whatever in private…)

“It’s great to have you here, I hope you’ll have a good time,” Dipper said, taking a step back to look at these two kids: his wonderful grandson and his former father and they looked so adorable together and oh man it was going to be a trial restraining himself from being too pushy with his shipping over the coming weeks.

“And don’t worry, I’m not here to get in you guys’ way, or – you two should go ahead and hug, by the way, I can tell you’ve both been holding back – or chaperone you all the time or anything…

“I just wanted to say hi.”