seiya234:

A link between a wedding and a rescue.

———-

“This I promise you both.”

As Dipper began his blessing, sealing his promise with his
blood and his power, a bitter tang filled his mouth. He had no idea why that
would be.

“Yours is a love that will never be sundered. From now until
the end of your days you will live together, make a life together….”

And he could see it all, see it unfurling and unwinding
before his mind’s eye. Not the finer details but at the very least the large
picture. And what a life it would be for the two of them. And Dipper felt so privileged,
so lucky, that his sister and now his new brother had welcomed him into the
life they would make together, into their home.

“And no matter what, at the end, you two will go together.”

In his mind’s eye he could see Mabel and Henry, two weeks
from their hundredth wedding anniversary, falling asleep in each other’s arms
and never waking. Mabel, Henry, and the ill-advised 120^th birthday
present of a motorcycle, a wheel rolling out of the wreckage.  And of course only Mabel would somehow die
after an accident involving peanut butter, five kangaroos, and trying to pull
an sick skateboarding trick for the grandkids at 118, Henry following a week
later. Myriad possibilities, all of them painful, true, but all of them with
Henry and Mabel. Together in life, and together in passing, as it was meant to
be, as it should be.

“This is my blessing and this I promise.”

Dipper felt a little smug. There were, he had to admit, a
few small perks to being condemned to
an eternity of demonhood, and this was one of them. Such was his power that no
other force other than him could break this promise, sunder Mabel and Henry’s fates
into two.

In his mouth, the bitter taste intensified as the happy
couple kissed and Dipper began to sob.

——-

Dipper leaned his head against the wood of the attic door,
solid and on this plane thanks to the feast he had reaped at Caney Patch (and
it hadn’t lasted long enough, their suffering, no screams or pain could ever
atone for what they had done-)

Inside, in Willow’s room were one-two-three stars, shivering
even in their slumber. He and Henry barely had time to tuck Willow into bed
before Acacia and Hank had bowled them over, diving under the covers with their
sister, the three of them curling up together like puppies. The two men quickly
left the room, to give the triplets space. Henry had shuffled down the stairs
in order to call Mabel and leave a message for Stan and Dipper had gone to
finish taking care of matters regarding the New Canaan Methodist Church.

And now here they were. Dipper had been telling himself for
the last thirty minutes that he was going to go downstairs to check on his
brother, Henry having undergone as much of an ordeal as Willow had. But he couldn’t
pull himself away from his children. His consciousness was wrapped around
theirs in a way he hadn’t done since from before they were born and still in
the womb. He felt three heartbeats in his chest like it was his own, three
pairs of lungs pushing air out and taking it in, nipped three nightmares in the
bud before they could even take hold. And still it wasn’t enough, still he
couldn’t convince himself that they were safe…

A great racking cough interrupted his thoughts and it took
Dipper a second to gently free himself from the triplets to realize that it was
him who was coughing. And suddenly he
couldn’t stop the heaves of air violently tearing out of his body, stop the fit
that brought him to his knees and hands in the hallway. With one last cough,
something tore out of his throat and landed in his right hand. Dipper looked at
it in bewilderment.

It was a clot of blood, golden and dark red congealed
together into a sickly mass.

A strip of pain tore across Dipper’s left hand. He looked
down and saw that the scar from the wedding, that had remained no matter what
form he took, had suddenly split open. Blood pooled in his left hand to match
the blood that had landed in his right.

“Dipper?”

Dipper’s head whipped up as he heard Henry’s voice coming up
the stairs.

“Dipper are you okay? I heard you coughing and um. You don’t
usually do that unless it’s a tooth that went down the wrong pipe…”

Henry came up and stood on the landing, looking worriedly at
Dipper.

His head was crowned with antlers that were somewhere
between wood and bone. From each tine hung a string that held a severed foot or
hand. The blood was still fresh at the stumps, the flesh still twitching. Henry
cocked his head, and the limbs swayed in time with Henry.

Dipper felt like he was going to be sick. The energy he had
lent Henry was supposed to have gone away, dissipated after the conclusion of
the deal they had made. But instead it had stayed and lingered. Henry’s soul
had sucked it up, and before Dipper’s eyes he could see his brother’s body
changing in a thousand subtle ways, his very soul transforming into something new that Dipper couldn’t even
guess at.

Henry burned so bright now to his eyes, it almost hurt to
look at him.

Now he knew where the blood came from.

“And no matter what, at the end, you two will go together.
This is my blessing and this I promise.” His words echoed back at him in his
head mockingly. A promise had been made and now a promise had been broken. He
looked at Henry and a line that had stretched as long and as true as Mabel’s
now was halved, the edges torn and burnt as it flapped in the breeze. Something
precious had been broken, a path that was fated to be one forever cleaved, and
already Dipper could sense the dizzying repercussions this one act would have
in the future, a million billion moments changing because of this one.

Henry kept talking but Dipper couldn’t focus, not with the
taste of bitter ashes in his mouth.