So this is the beginning of the long-awaited sequel to Afterlife/Curtain Call, and since it's one of sapphireswimming's favorite stories I've done I knew I had to post it on (the day after) her birthday!
I will say that the first two fics in the series and the outline for this were all written January 2015ish (wow, time flies) so there was obviously no Ford or Weirdmageddon at the time. This story remains Twin Theory compliant, but for plot's sake I'm going to have to say that Weirdmageddon never happened. So, to keep Gravity Falls in line, imagine that Mabel went into the woods in Dipper & Mabel VS the Future, had a good cry and an argument with Dipper convincing him to come home with her rather than stay with Ford, Ford was disappointed but relieved that nothing they were able to seal the rift (Bill wasn't after it, Ford was simply justly paranoid) and both twins are now home in Piedmont.
None of the above has anything to do with the plot beyond "the twins are now home in Piedmont" but this series is already self-pandering with what-ifs and headcanons so there.
Also, while it's not 100% necessary, I would re-read Curtain Call if you haven't in a long time. Especially the last sentence. The last sentence provides about all the context you need to know how this happened if you think about it.
Lastly, enjoy! I know a couple people were waiting a long time for this and I hope it's worth the wait!
Mabel Pines was always far too heavy a sleeper for her own good. Not that she was aware of it.
It hid the young girl from too many midnight anomalies that took place in her home, largely coming from Grunkle Stan working on the portal in the basement of the Mystery Shack. She could sleep through bright lights, ungodly sounds (like Dipper's summer reading), and even, on one occasion, the reversal of gravity. This innate ability shared by both of the Pines twins but particularly the elder allowed her to wake up in the morning refreshed and completely undisturbed, with her bountiful supply of energy and innocence intact.
It was also very good at hiding warning signs.
Maybe if she had awoken in the middle of the night none of this would have occurred.
But to be fair, unlikely coincidences are the strings most carefully pulled by the hands of fate. Or in this case, the dream demon impersonating as such.
There were still plenty of blaring warnings when Mabel opened her eyes that morning.
She took in the room with the general greeting of optimism she did every day. Although her room in Piedmont still seemed a bit foreign compared to the attic in the Mystery Shack (despite having been back home for the months between the end of summer and the middle of fall), it had more personal touches that made it hers: she had lived in it her whole live, after all. After mouthing good morning to Several Timez on the wall, Sock Puppet Mabel on the bedpost, and Bear-O underneath the sheets (Dipper insisted that thing be kept out of eyesight), her eyes darted left to say her first out loud greeting to her twin in the same tradition she had every morning since he moved in (they both wanted to share a room after the summer in Gravity Falls, and when Dipper saw the piles of stuffed animals in her room he insisted he move in so she wouldn't have to pack), only to see his bed was empty.
That was odd. Mabel could've sworn her little brother went to bed last night. He always tried to take advantage of the lack of school nights over weekends to stay up studying the journal or some other mystery in an all-nighter, but the elder twin had gone out of her way to make sure Dipper got some sleep, even forcibly dragging him to bed and tucking (shoving) him in under the covers so he couldn't escape. The half-hazard mess of the sheets at the far end of the bed confirmed her suspicions (Dipper was far too lazy to ever make his own bed, and it reflected all the signs of the inevitable morning struggle when he woke up).
But generally if Dipper needed to be forcibly put to sleep he was tired enough (albeit stubborn while still awake) to sleep much later than this into the morning. Or at least if he woke up early he had the decency to read in bed so Mabel wouldn't freak out as she was this morning by him being gone. Sniffing the air ruled out the possibility of their parents surprising them with early morning waffles (though if there was one thing Mabel never slept through it was appetizing aromas), so the mystery still remained of why Dipper left.
Blegh. He was the one who was liked solving weird mysteries.
Her slipper-clad feet padded out the bedroom door and into the hallway, on their way downstairs in search for her twin, habitually rubbing her eyes to adjust to the sunlight pouring through the rose-shaped window at the end when Mabel realized that a figure was blocking most of the usual sunlight from coming through.
A Dipper-shaped figure.
He was standing with his back to her, gazing into the garden below with his hands locked behind his back in what could almost be called a stiff impersonation of Great Uncle Ford. Without Wendy's usual fur hat on (Dipper hardly took the thing off since returning from Gravity Falls) Mabel could see that his usually unkempt hair was brushed and combed back. His outfit, while consisting of Dipper's favorite shirt and vest with fall jeans to match the weather, was obviously clean, unusually so for a Sunday morning.
All in all, the boy in front of her was clearly recognizable as Dipper, but struck Mabel as an entirely foreign entity from her brother.
That alone was enough to make her pause.
As if he just heard the flopping of her slippers now that they stopped, Dipper slowly turned around, facing Mabel and meeting her curious gaze.
His eyes had never appeared so dead.
There was emotion there, and a presence, but rather than the lovable anxiousness and energy that she associated with her little brother or even the manically malicious fire Bipper exuded, now her twin's gaze seem calculating and cold, assessing her for far too long to be sincere before his lips shifted into a smile carefully framed to be reassuring. "Hello Mabel."
His voice was soft and low, as foreign as the time Dipper changed his voice without any of the charm. There was an alluring effect, and if it was a stranger speaking to her that way Mabel would be lying if she wouldn't admit that she'd be a little intrigued, but now there was only one thought pounding through her mind.
"You're not Dipper."
His smooth face seemed to soften even more at the accusation, treating it more the way one would a wounded dove frantically beating against a caring grasp. Head tilting to complete the effect he began moving slowly towards her, that understanding smile still in place. "No, I'm not. Although your brother is here right now. He says hi."
"Who are you and what did you do to him?"
"I'm not going to hurt him. I'm not going to hurt either of you. I am an angel who unfortunately needs a vessel in order to interact with the Earth. You may have heard of me, my name is Lucifer."
Mabel's hard gaze met his, still closed off to the idea of anything but Dipper inside of her brother, "If you're an angel, where are your wings?"
Dipper- no, Lucifer, looked over his shoulder at nothing in particular before reaching a single hand out to stroke the air around his sides. "They're here, it's just your eyes simply cannot see them." A soft smile made its way across his face as he continued the action- stroking his wings, Mabel's mind filled in. "My brothers used to tell me they were the most beautiful wings in all of Heaven."
Mabel could feel the inclination towards awe growing within her at the creature, it had been months since she's seen a supernatural entity (ever since they left Gravity Falls), but a cold wariness set in as she remembered who the angel in front of her was possessing in order to have this conversation.
What would Dipper want her to do?
Mabel's eyes darted around the quiet hallway as she tried to think of what her twin would be doing in this situation. It felt disorienting, standing in the middle of her home, where she had spent most of her life running through without stopping to notice the place yet having every memory ingrained, then to have the entire atmosphere shift into something completely foreign.
Lucifer stopped his careful preening to look back at her after a minute, and the feeling of his gaze made Mabel even more confused. The angel's presence behind her brother's eyes had a serene feel, one that made him seem infinitely patient despite obviously waiting for her to respond and answer the unspoken question of how she would react to the surprisingly calm creature inhabiting her brother's skin.
A thought immediately bubbled in Mabel's mind that Lucifer really did fit the sacred quality of a heavenly angel teaching and watching over God's children.
"Why should I trust you? How did you get into Dipper's body and why did you take over my brother?" She felt her voice rising as the panic she really should've been feeling earlier reared its ugly head in the too-calm situation. Dipp-Lucifer opened his mouth to answer and Mabel took a small step back, shaking her head as she suddenly came to the decision that she really didn't want to hear it.
"And why should I even be listening to anything you say when you show up in my house, proclaim that you're some guardian angel and start possessing my brother?!"
Lucifer's expression didn't falter from that concerned 'you're a kicked puppy I'm going to take care of now' look as he took a single step and reached out towards her, somehow managing to make that single move appear sensitively unsure and regally confident at the same time. All it should've done is reminded Mabel of how foreign the creature inhabiting her brother's body was: Dipper surely would've tripped and nearly fallen on his face by now, but the more she watched Lucifer's body language the harder it was for Mabel to remind herself that that body belonged to the twin brother she knew better than anyone else in the world.
That face and the barely-noticeable tingling sensation that made her think of feathers dusting behind her shoulder blades was all it took to stop Mabel from her retreat and hold her in place.
The Devil smiled inside his host as he noted that the child didn't even seem aware of the glamor-like effect he had on her or his wings closing in. With a subtle kick inside his borrowed grapefruit (he certainly didn't want to crack the façade and validate any of the concern his 'sister' might have) Lucifer silenced the itch of the frantic kid trying to break free from his Grace.
One pluck of that little string Azazel left, as well as the firm memory of his puppet saying yes put the soul back in its place.
"Like I said before, the only way I'm able to physically influence the Earth is with the help of a willing vessel. Your brother had to consent to my presence, Mabel, and as soon as I came to him and told him of what I planned to do to the Earth he did so without hesitation." Lucifer's hand slowly reached up and brushed against her cheek with curiosity and an almost cautious affection, the gesture made Mabel feel like glass and somehow felt a thousand times more awkward than any of her brother's sibling hugs but a thousand times more natural coming from the creature-angel before her.
Dipper's body leaned forward and whispered in her ear despite the privacy, trying to create a caring sense of intimacy with her and stroking her pride by standing on his tip-toes. "I would never lie to you, Mabel. To you nor to your brother. The one thing he wanted most, more than even any of the wonderful plans I have to return the Earth to how it's meant to be, is to keep you safe, to keep you happy."
Lucifer leaned back to a more comfortable distance to take in the wide-eyed look on Mabel's expression. He masked his smirk as a soft grin: he may never lie to his vessels, but that didn't mean that the Serpent wouldn't use his silver tongue to say exactly the right words to keep the children where he needed them to be. The little omission of the fact that Lucifer assured Dipper's consent through a little demon contract before he arrived was irrelevant.
He already had Adam, and it was never the challenge to trick Eve.
"Your brother has been a great help to me, and there's nothing I would regret more than to see you or him hurt. And when my work is done and the Earth is finally the way Father truly intended it-" Lucifer cut off for a second as he thought of the world finally free from these hairless apes, and Mabel stared on enraptured by the emotions that suddenly danced in her the angel's eyes at the future he was imagining.
It shouldn't be this hard to focus when her brother (who somehow seemed so different than him with the different looks and attitude but was still Dipper) wassomewhere in there.
Lucifer's eyes didn't meet hers as he continued, still lost in the wonder only he could see. "The world will finally be paradise." And then, as if remembering himself (yet without the shock or jolt a less divine creature may have had) the angel locked eyes with the human before him, "And in return for all that your brother has done you and he will get to see it. Just think, Mabel. The world as it was meant to be. All of my Father's marvelous creations in harmony after its rebirth. No more conflicts. No more destruction. No more mere pockets of wondrous creatures living while hiding away from the rest of the world."
Mabel felt him grab one of her hands that hung at her side in his, cradling it as if physical contact would make the dream come across clearer. "It'll be everything you ever wanted in that small Gravity Falls and more. No more school, no more bus rides home, no more forces trying to separate you and your brother. When he and I are done, it'll be an eternal summer."
Mabel's face was as frozen in a daze of emotion and memories as Lucifer's calculated dream before, and the Devil smiled softly as he began the final pull to reel her in. "You would like that, wouldn't you Mabel?" He all but whispered.
Her small nod was as binding as a deal. It was a small price to pay, Lucifer figured, although just deigning to deal with the human made him sick. Yes, Gravity Falls would still remain the sanctuary it was after the apocalypse was finally completed the way it was meant to be, even if the tables were turned. It was the perfect Garden for the two human children to live out the end of their species when he was done shaping the rest of the world.
He pulled lightly on her hand in his grip, bringing her to stand slightly behind him to the side as he turned to face out the window for the first time since her entrance. "I need you to be strong for me Mabel, to stay safe for Dipper. We'll do all we can to keep this place safe, but you must promise me not to leave Piedmont, not to leave home until all of this is over."
Lucifer could see the constant haze of curiosity on the girl's face condensing into a question as he settled his gaze on the backyard outside the window, subtly and successfully prompting her to do the same. He let another graceful smirk spread across his borrowed features, less subtle this time as he regaled in how the dumb human was practically eating out of his hand, down to the light exhale as the W of 'why' died softly on her lips, following his will before the Devil even had to make himself clear.
She was practically his puppet as much as her brother was.
The word Mabel was about to say faded away as she took in the sight before her, the backyard where she and Dipper had spent their childhoods running and playing filled with people: everyone she knew in Piedmont and everyone she didn't, from her friends to her teachers to the neighbors and everyone besides her parents staring up at her.
No, staring at Lucifer. With completely black eyes.
"Everything and everyone here will make sure you're safe. Will make sure that everything now goes as it's meant to be." Lucifer turned back towards Mabel, and for the first time she saw a glint of something more sinister than joy and heavenly intentions in the angel's eye, something even more off-putting than the already little resemblance he had to Dipper.
He brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear and the smile grew even larger. "It makes it so much easier for the both of us to have you on our side where you're meant to be, sister."
As the angel wrapped Mabel into a hug, it wasn't the loose, barely-touching in darkish fear of being too close that was so Dipper. It was firm without being tight, again feeling like a gesture to wrap glass more than to embrace.
Both twins felt the phantom brushes of Lucifer's wings wrapping the around them as reinforcements to the Devil's embrace. And as Mabel looked down from where her head was above Dipper's shoulder and Dipper tried to tear his vision away from the forced direction of the demon's gaze at the demon army- wardens- below, both twins couldn't help but feel certain meaning come across from the gesture that they were trapped in Lucifer's cage.
Yep. This whole series (Curtain Call was plotted first, then Afterlife to tie in DP because I'm a nerd) was based on the idea that since Azazel's special kid combination was intended to determine Lucifer's vessel, technically anyone with demon blood could host the archangel, and Dean being able to host Michael was bloodlines/coincidence/destiny giving the Winchesters a cosmic f-you. One to two more chapters, and one to two more sucker punches of hurt coming hopefully soon. Excuse/spoiler: Michael and Mabel in a scene together is really hard to get right.
And as a note, no the twins haven't heard of Lucifer before. I'm going with the Alex-supported idea that they were raised fairly secularly, and though they know the idea of some of the biblical stories, they aren't familiar with Revelations and don't automatically know the Devil by name. I can't say for sure whether I knew Lucifer when I was twelve, but I know it was sometime around then I personally heard the whole story.