A/N: So, I wasn't originally going to post this, but then I realised, hang on... I've written 27 pages! So, I think I'm probably into it enough to make it a story. I dunno.

Full credit to the AU goes to it's creator Finnrakh Tybay ( ) and I would definately recommend you check out their artwork because, seriously, they're amazing!

I've kind of (Mostly) drawn on the description of this youtube video for the story, as I found it quite hard to find the origional story anywhere else (I am not very good at internetting, because, apparently everyone else could figure it out fine... I think it's just me...) : watch?v=7dYOT1p-IxM

Oh, and some other fanfictions that I read based on this AU, so it's definately a mix of other people's ideas thrown in with my own.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. I've been working on this for ages, so I hope you enjoy!

xXx

Nonononono... It had happened again. How could he have let this happen again?

He could only be thankful that the blood covering his hands was his own, and not someone else's.
Horror closed his throat up, which, for once, he was thankful for, seeing as he would have cried out if it hadn't.
Slowly, he managed to calm his breathing down. Shutting out the coldness of what he was thinking, he tried to be reasonable.

Ok. First things first. Get rid of the blood.
Then, try to sneak back to the Shake, without being seen.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to think back, past the black, missing patch of recent memory to the last thing he remembered doing.

Right. He was out, walking, late at night. He wasn't always so nyctophilic, but it was a starlit night, and he had needed time to clear his head.

Then what?

After that, he had run into...
Of course...
Gideon.

The ruthless gang leader who had murdered his parents.

Was that what had triggered it?

No, it was something else. The way the brat spoke to him, talked about his sister, Mabel, made him feel sick.

That must have been it. After that, just black.

God only knows what had happened then. Hopefully, nothing of huge consequence, or else there would be hell to pay.

The once astriferous sky had become a black, empty void. A good thing too, the night hid him from late night nomads, allowing him to traverse the streets unseen. Soon, he reached the Shake. The old club had also been nicknamed 'The Mystery Shack', due to the... 'exotic' items and people that populated it during the night hours. In other words, it was a meeting place for gangleaders, and 'under the radar' merchants selling their 'wares'. Unfortunately, any policemen in the area were all either paid off by said occupants, or just plain oblivious. Probably both.

The lights in the main club area were all off, meaning that, thankfully, the club was probably closed, and that it must be the small hours of the morning for it to actually be uninhabited by it's usual patrons. The Shake was one of the most late open public places in the entire town, most likely due to the fact that Stan Pines, the owner of the place, was squeezing the business for every penny it could bring in. Especially in such a place as Gravity Falls.

Dipper approached the small oeil-de-boeuf that was known to have a broken lock, so it would be easy to sneak into. Trying to ignore the fear of going to sleep in there when anyone else could just use the same entering trick as him, he slid inside as quietly as possibly.

If the club was closed, then his sister would definitely be asleep, after singing on stage, probably until everyone had left, she was often so tired by the time she got to bed, she would be snoring in seconds.

These suspicions were confirmed after peeking into the room that they shared and seeing her fast asleep.
He breathed a small sigh of relief.
Just down the corridor, in back room, there was a water pump, a necessity for the club business, where he could wash the red from his hands.

He turned the corner to enter the room, but too late, he realised that a silhouetted figure was already there.

In the darkness, neither could quite make each other out. Thankfully, this also hid the blood on his hands.

The sound of a gun click filled the room.
"Who is that?"

It was the voice of Ford. Someone who, only just recently, he had found out about.
"It's just me."

Recognising his voice, Ford lowered the weapon.
"What are you doing here?"

Quickly, Dipper fumbled for an excuse.
"I needed a drink. What are you doing here?"

The faint shadow of Ford held up what looked like the outline of one of the numerous bottles of alcohol kept in this room.

"Pretty much the same thing."

Dipper sighed. He wasn't a child anymore. This was normal, especially in this kind of world.

Now was not the time to be thinking about that kind of stuff. He still had to wash all of that red off of his hands. Every second he spend talking with Ford, the higher his chances of getting found out.

"Hey, shouldn't you have come with a light? How are you going to see where the pump is?"

Oh no.
If Ford lit a lamp, he would see the state of him.

"No, I can find may way. Don't want to waste it for something so small."

Ford paused for a moment.
"Suit yourself. I'd better be going to my room. I'll see you tomorrow."

Dipper nodded.
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow."

Something told him that Ford was still suspicious, but, thankfully, he didn't push the matter. Maybe it was just tiredness. Or the obvious.

After the sound of Ford's footsteps had faded away, Dipper hastened to where he knew the pump was.

He only pumped it a little. If he had really pushed on it, then it would have woken everyone up.

After a couple of deep breaths, he put his hands under the freezing water and started scrubbing. Up until that point, he had been so focused on getting back to the Shake, that he hadn't felt the pain that now pulsed through his hands and arms.

The blood had long dried, so it was easy to clean off in the pitch dark, but, as he felt along his arms, he found gashes and bruises all over them.

Wincing, he pulled his hands away from the running water and stopped pumping it up.

Tired and hollow, he made is way back to his shared room, taking extra care not to wake Mabel.

Surely, the next day would be better. It had to be.
In the dim moonlight, his hands and forearms were still tinted red, but that could be passed off as anything.
Fatigue pushed down his eyes as he hoped for a better tomorrow.

Per usual, when he awoke, the other bed was empty. Sometime, Dipper thought that his sister might be superhuman to be able to go to bed so late, and yet still wake up hours before anyone else.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, groaning as the wounds on his arms complained loud and painfully.

For the first time, he noticed that he must have gone to bed in his clothes from the day before. Small splatters of red still populated the ends of his sleeves, but they shouldn't be too noticeable, as long as he got rid of them quickly.

After changing and pulling on a long-sleeved jacket to hide the cuts, he sauntered his way to the dining room down the hall.

As expected, Mabel was sitting at the table, enjoying breakfast.
Dipper poured himself a glass of orange juice and grabbed a slice of buttered toast.

"Morning, Dipper!"
She said, her voice aleger and uplifting.

"Morning." He replied, groggily, still exhausted from the previous night.

"So, where did you go last night, anyway?"

He stopped to think about how he should answer. Of all people, Mabel was the one he least wanted to lie to. But, if she somehow got involved, or tried to help, who knew what would happen? In all likelihood, this Demon would kill her as soon as he found out that she knew.

No. It was better to just not tell her.

"I just went for a walk. I didn't think such a starry night should be wasted.".

She grinned at him and held her fist up to the ceiling, as if she was about to rally a revolution.
"Right! Stars should never be wasted!"

After everything that had happened with Gideon and Bill, her innocent cheerfulness was refreshing.
He gave her a half smile before sitting down at the table to eat.

Before long, Stan joined them, looking even worse than Dipper did.

"Morning!" Mabel said to him, still smiling, even if he didn't reply. In fact, he wouldn't speak until he had a cup of coffee in his hand and a breakfast in front of him. Even then, all that they got was a half groaned, "Yeah. Mornin'."

Unfazed, Mabel turned to Dipper.
"So, what are you doing today, then?"

"I don't know, something?"
Then he remembered something.
"Hey, Grunkle Stan, where's Ford?"

Stan pulled a face.
"Pft. How should I know? I'm not his keeper."

There was an awkward silence.

"Anyway, I've gotta go open up. I'll see you tonight, don't forget."

He left the dining room, quickly, leaving the twins.

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, "Do you want to go to the library today?"
Her eyes lit up.
"Okay!"

There was something different. The tone of his voice changed. The atmosphere grew pressurised and voltaic.

A confidence that wasn't there before showed in his countenance as Dipper got up and began walking towards them. She always got so excited about the smallest things.
"Great, I think it opens in a while, if we set off now, it should be open when we get there."

The library was huge. Strange, for such a small town. Not that he was complaining.

It was a good place to scan through the journal that he had found not long after getting to Gravity Falls. Not only was there other books and references to help with any kind of research, but it was somewhere where he didn't need to worry about being seen with it. After all, with the gangs and danger, you could never be too sure.

Mabel quickly bounded off to look through the art books, with the pictures and paintings in them, so he found a closed in corner and got the journal out from his jacket.

There had to have something about possession, or, at least, about the series of events that had lead him to this point.

As he flicked through the pages, there didn't seem to be anything of use, until...

Right in the middle of the book, there was a double page spread of scrawled ramblings. Chunks of writing crossed out and written over with red. Blotches of the same colour were splattered over it. Some kind of cyclic triangle veve was emblazoned on the centre of one of the pages, but it meant nothing to Dipper. No matter how many books he looked in, there was nothing even remotely related to it, and the red scribbles made it impossible to read most of what was written down.

He slammed the book shut in frustration.
Why couldn't there ever be a straight answer for anything? Ever?

Vaguely, he remembered Mabel telling him that she was going home. He must have been reading something, and not taken much notice.

Once again, he found himself walking home. In the dark. This really was a habit he had to break, it wasn't safe.

Thankfully, though, it wasn't that long a walk back to the Shake, so it was still open when he got there. Inside, he could hear Mabel singing, like she did most nights, on stage.

He was about to keep walking past the club, when the shouts of their great uncles rang down the corridor.

"Keep outta my stocks! I didn't even wanna let you stay here for this long! You and anything you're involved in is too dangerous!"

"Well, I wouldn't need to stay here if I had anywhere else to go! And what about you? You're so 'involved' in you're business that you need bodyguards! In fact, what you do is just as dangerous as what I do, if not, more, because at least I tried to keep in with good connections to powerful people! You just make underhanded deals on your own to people who could shut you and everyone you know down forever, with no insurance!"

"Yeah, and where are those 'good connections' now, Ford? Tell me? Where? Oh, that's right, trying to kill you! At least I have bodyguards!"

"You're reckless, Stanley, you always have been! One day, you're going to dig yourself a hole you can't get out of!"
"Yeah, and I suppose you'll be there waiting for me, won't you? Seeing as you've been there for the past 5 years!"

There was the sound of something smashing, and Dipper hurriedly decided that it was probably best just to go into the club.

Mabel was still performing on stage, so he quietly manoeuvred his way around the edge to a seat in the corner, hoping no one would approach him.

As usual, the crowd was clapping in bacchanalia, most completely out-of-it from the drink.
After the song finished, Mabel moved to exit the stage, and protests were heard from all around the room, but still, she came off and came to sit with Dipper in his corner.

"Hey bro! Good to see you came back from the library! I was worried we would lose you there for days!"

Her voice sounded slightly horse, probably from all of the singing, so she went to get a drink of water. When she came back, the two of them had barely had time to start talking before some drunk and his lackeys had shambled their way over.

"Hey, aren't you a bit young to be working so hard?"

His breath stank of alcohol as he spoke. Mabel moved closer to Dipper, who slightly pulled both of them around the table, away from the man.

"Ummm... No, I just..."
He cut her off.
"Why don't you come have some fun with us, huh? take a break from all the work."

His grotesque grin was yellow and repulsive.

"Oh, thank you, but I can't I'm going back on stage in..."
Once again, he barged in.
"And what? Come on, we just want some fun, come on!"

He grabbed her wrist and she cried out.

"H-hey!"
Dipper shouted at them.
"She said no! Leave her alone!"
He went to pull the man's wrist off of Mabel, when, suddenly, there was a small knife pointed at him. It shook violently in the hand of the man.

"You best back off, boy. This ain't got nothing to do with you."

Dipper felt the cold metal of the knife. Where were Soos and Wendy when you needed them? Probably with Stan.

He swallowed the fear beginning to gather in his throat.

"Yes it does. I said, get off!"
Dipper grabbed the wrist holding the knife, pushing it away and pulling Mabel out of his grasp.
Before another breath was taken, they were surrounded the the Drunk's henchmen.

"You just made the last mistake of you're life, boy."

Once again, the man made a grab for Mabel and shoved Dipper back, the tip of the knife digging into his shoulder.

"Dipper, help!"

They started pulling Mabel back.

Dipper looked back up at them, clutching his shoulder wound.

"I told you to GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!"

Silence fell.

xXx
A/N : Well. There it is. Chapter 1... One more thing, I know that this particular AU is set in the 1920's in America, being an uncultured Brit, I tried to do as much research as possible when writing this, but I have no idea if ANYTHING I wrote was anything like truth. Feel free to correct anything, if it isn't.
Hopefully, chapter 2 should be out soon, since I've already written in, if people like this, I'll post more. Or I might just anyway... Oh well! I'm having a bit too much fun writing this!

Bye! xXx

*Edit - to anyone who noticed that I spelled Mabel's name wrong *Waves hand mystically* You didn't see anything ;-)

I need to stop writing late at night...