Thirty years is a long time to wait for a sibling. Too long for Dipper Pines.
Weirdmaggedon came and passed, like Christmas Day or a warm Summerween night. Ford, Stan, and Dipper managed to 'defeat' Bill with the help of some friends. The whole day was really just a blur to him, lost within the thirty years of pain, suffering, and emotional agony. Bill had taken Mabel to who knows where, it didn't really matter. There was a chance she was dead. A chance she was subjected to torture for the rest of her life. None of it mattered. She was gone.
They tried to bring her back. Incantations, rebuilding the portal, and even attempting to summon Bill for one last deal were all subject to testing. But the spells never worked. The portal never flashed. The demon never came. They tried and tried, using as much brain power the three of them and Soos could muster. At one point they even tried to fix McGucket's mind, to no avail.
Five years passed, along with Ford, and then Grunkle Stan just two months later. Dipper was left alone with the shack. His parents thinking that their two children were learning valuable business skills and adult values. The former couldn't be any further from the truth. The latter, an unfortunate reality.
Dipper and Soos made due, running the shack just a few days a week to provide themselves with enough money for electricity, water, and food. Wendy had gone off to school to become an environmental scientist, ironically finding ways to cut down on deforestation with some small firm in Portland.
The days of waiting took their toll on Dipper. Stress ate him from the inside out. He lost weight because he constantly ignored the need to eat while he tried to get the portal to work from within the basement. He went long periods without shaving; Soos would have to trim his beard and mustache at night after he passed out from exhaustion. His mental state decreased day by day. His memory lapsed on occasion, paranoia pounded on his brain and dilated his pupils, and depression struck his heart from deep within. Until one day, his progress with the portal came to a halt, changing the path of his life forever.
Dipper had gone out with Soos to the hardware store, off to retrieve a few nuts and bolts. That's when a large 8.8 magnitude earthquake stuck in central Washington, and the aftershocks were felt all across the northwest. The old infrastructure of the shack couldn't deal with the shear force of the earthquake, and the wooden supports fell, crumbling on top of the foundation. The entirety of the Mystery Shack was destroyed. As was the portal Dipper had nearly completed. The past ten years had gone to waste. Dipper lost it all.
The two moved into a motel that night. All Dipper was left with was the shirt and vest on his back, a picture of him and Mabel at age twelve, and thirteen dollars. Overnight he ditched Soos and used the rest of his money to catch a bus to Portland. That bus broke down on the side of the highway, five miles outside of the city, forcing the passengers the exit the bus on top of an overpass. The new bus arrived, and the passengers were required to show their tickets to board. When it was his turn, Dipper reached into his pocket, grabbing both his ticket and the picture of him and Mabel.
A strong wind blew, knocking the ticket, and the picture, out of his hands and over the railing. The photograph floated down, landing in the back of a garbage truck. Dipper snapped. He rushed down the highway, screaming at the speeding cars to stop. No one did. Dipper made his way to Portland by walking on the side of the highway, ignoring the vehicles ferociously honking at him. With no money, no motivation, and no sanity left in his mind. He was at rock bottom with nowhere to go, or no one to turn to but the shattered inner workings of his mind. He was broken.
20 years later
A man, whose bones are defined visibly through his pale skin, waits in line outside of a building with dozens of other people hoping to get inside, at least for tonight. The man mumbles incoherently to himself, his frail fingers twitching as if he were counting how many people stood in front of him. His clothes are tattered, torn on both sleeves. His only possessions are a half-eaten bag of peanuts that he scavenged from a dumpster outside an apartment complex, and a dirt-caked blanket a young child gave to him eight years ago. The line moves forward, and so does the man. He hobbles on the concrete as he steps towards the door. His left foot is protected only by that of a black sock that had originally been white. His right foot is covered by a dirty boot, his sock exposed through a hole in the top of the shoe. The man fidgets some more, this time stroking his long gray beard at a quick pace.
The cold swirling wind blows against his back, which is covered by a light windbreaker with a broken zipper. Beneath that, nothing but an orange t-shirt two sizes too big. Winter is upon the Pacific Northwest at this time of November, bringing a package of fluffy snow and blistering cold with it. The man moves along with the line once more as the tender voice of a woman becomes audible. She checks each person, man, woman and child, for signs of drugs with a quick result blood test. Those who were clean would be allowed to spend the night on one of the cots set up in rows of three, and columns of twenty in the small building. If any trace of drugs were found in your system, there was no sympathy shown to the fact that you would not be allowed admission.
It's his turn.
The man limps forward and places out his palm to be pricked. However, the lady stops him. She speaks loudly, cupping her hands over her mouth to project her voice as if he isn't there. "We're filled up for the night, sorry." Ignoring the man, the woman walks into the building and slams the door behind her.
He stands in disbelief as white flakes fall from the sky, and begin the process of littering the streets with a crystalline blanket. He cries out. His yellow teeth are exposed, minus the exception of a molar and two canines that had fallen out long ago and were now filled with dark voids. He slaps the wooden door with open palms as the rest of the homeless scatter about to take cover.
Click. The door locks from within. The man slaps harder with his browned fingertips. He violently yells incoherent noises at the lady on the other side. However, his arms grow weak quickly, and he finds himself traveling south on SE Stark street.
The roads are quiet at this time of night. Only the occasional car drives by with their windshield wipers swishing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The tires crunch and flatten the snow underneath, leaving a trail of groves and ridges imprinted in its wake. The street lamps illuminate portions of the road, showcasing the falling flakes before they pile up on the concrete sidewalk. The dark spots of the road provide an aura of calmness, the flakes invisible to the naked eye from far away.
The buildings on both sides are mostly dark. A shifty looking car dealership, an abandoned plaza, and an apartment complex subject to demolition, all rest under the cover of the moon. They match the surrounding darkness with their own absence of light, expanding the night's grip of the shabby streets of Portland's worst neighborhood. The stop light half a block away changes from red to green despite no cars being present at the intersection. The only other source of light, besides the rows upon rows of stop lights and street lamps, comes from the flickering sign of a McDonald's on the opposite side of the intersection.
The man treads across the four lane street, unable to feel the blistering cold snow against his frostbitten foot. One car sits in the parking lot of the fast-food restaurant. The chains had switched to touch screen ordering, eliminating the need for cashiers. At night, a single cook and a janitor held down the fort. The man limps into the parking lot. He glances up at the sign and continues walking with his head turned. Happy Thanksgiving, it read in its bold black letters against the pale-yellow background.
He approaches the door and pushes. It doesn't budge. He feels his hand around, still staring at the large neon-yellow 'M' as he does so. He yanks the door open and ignores the No shoes, No shirt, No service sign. He steps inside and is warmed up by the heat blasting through the vents above. His head twitches as he scans around the seating area. There's no one in sight. Christmas music echoes loudly throughout the building as the cook blares his old-school IPhone '30 as loud as possible to pass the time.
The man quietly hobbles over to a booth towards the front of the restaurant, as far away from the kitchen as possible. He lies down against the hard red plastic bench, and covers himself with his stained blanket. He coughs and curls up as much as possible to fit in the seat. With his shoes hanging over the edge, he gently closes his eyes to rest for the night.
His sleep is short lived.
He awakes from his slumber a few minutes later by a teenager and his friend. They laugh as they squirt a bottle of ketchup in his direction. The red stream oozes onto his clothes, and entangles his beard with spots of red. The man flails his arms in the direction of the kids, swiping at both of them with his unclipped fingernails. They throw the half-filled bottle at him and continue to gawk as they taunt the man. The blaring saxophone from a Harry Connick Jr. Christmas song ceases as the music is turned off. The two teens spin around to see the janitor pounding a large silver wrench in his palm. Without saying a word, the kids scatter in fear, rushing out of the restaurant faster than they came in.
The janitor, in his 40's, examines the man with tired eyes as he sits on the bench covered in ketchup. Placing the wrench into his pocket, he silently leaves. A few minutes pass until the janitor comes back to the dining area. When he returns he brings a burger, apple slices, and a bottle of water with him. The janitor places them on the table in front of the homeless man who had just finished wiping the ketchup from off his face with his dirty blanket.
The janitor slides into the seat across the table and stares at the homeless man with brown eyes, waiting for him to start eating. The janitor turns and gazes out the window, the mesmerizing snow gently floats down onto the parking lot below. "You know... I used to be in the same situation nearly a decade ago." He sighs, not bothering to turn to the homeless man who slowly reaches for the food, mainly because he can see via the reflection in the window. "I came here with nothing... I tried to find an old friend, and a job. Turned up empty on both." The homeless man opens and chugs the crisp clean bottled water he is unaccustomed to. The janitor presses on with his story. "I fell into depression, lived in vacant homes for a while until I was out on the streets. That cycle continued for ten or so years. I was at rock bottom." He pauses and notices the homeless man reaching out towards his shoulder to comfort him. He doesn't flinch. "I... I attempted suicide." The janitor wipes his tearing eyes with his sleeve. "Jumped off the Ross Island Bridge... figured it'd be a far enough fall to be quick and painless unlike the previous fifteen years of my life. I missed the rocks though..." His voice shakes and quivers, as his throat becomes numb. "Drowned instead. My friend found me downstream and performed CPR. Then she got me the help I needed for five long years." The janitor turns away from the window and glances at the man on the other side of the table. "She got me this job, to regain my footing... I- I want to repay the favor." He looks down at the floor and shakes his head in disappointment. "Not because I have to. Because I want to." He raises his head and smiles. "You have a name?" The janitor asks, extending his hand out in good faith.
The homeless man seemingly contemplates accepting the offer, perplexingly staring at the Janitor's hand like it's a foreign object. The homeless man crawls out of the booth and limps away, as if the entire conversation had never happened. The janitor gapes in amazement as the homeless man walks right out of the restaurant, and back into the cold streets.
A deep voice from the kitchen snaps the janitor's attention away from the homeless man. "Hey Dipper, can you help me with the inventory check?" The janitor faces back towards the window where the homeless man last was.
But no one is there.