A/N: Torako has no shame and is a troll.

Bentley could kill Torako. He could actually, literally see himself killing Torako and worst of all, she'd still be smiling the way she was when she'd come through the front door of their apartment with three of her classmates in tow. She hadn't even let Dipper and Bentley know ahead of time.

"Hey Bentley, Tyrone," she drawled, lifting a hand and shrugging the scarf off from around her neck. It was a freak snowstorm in April and Bentley had to wonder why they'd ever moved out here because frankly he was getting sick of the weather again. "Yeah so we have to work on a group project. Move your butts so we all fit in the living room."

"Why should we?" Dipper, having had a split second to morph into something more human, called over the back of the couch. Bentley shifted close enough that they were thigh to thigh and flicked the nub of buttwing that was still showing, and Dipper grimaced. It disappeared almost immediately thereafter.

"School over fooling around, remember?" Torako said, shrugging off her jacket. She draped it over the dining table and looked over her shoulder at the three behind her. "Just dump your layers here; we'll work with those losers over there."

"Ah, okay," one said, running a hand up under the rim of their winter cap and through their hair, dislodging the cap in the meantime. The others chorused, and Tora left them to tap the snow on their boots off at the entrance.

"I'm going to kill you," Bentley hissed, hunching over his MSS. The tablet's light was on dim as he read through the assigned reading on religious development since the Transcendence. "What the hell, Tora?"

"What do you have planned?" Dipper murmured, having pulled an old print book out of thin air. He thumbed it open to a random point, and Bentley reflected that it was odd as ever to see a blunt fingernail smooth the open page. He raised his eyebrow at her. "Have you tired of our art exchange?"

Tora laughed, loud and boisterous enough that Bentley swore he felt her three classmates look over. She leaned over, putting one hand on the back of the couch by Dipper's right shoulder, and tapped him on the nose. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Dipper smirked and leaned up. Bentley thought he saw a hint of fangs. "You know that with just the right words, you'd be putty in my hands."

"Oh my god stop playing chicken while I'm in the room," Bentley muttered, underscoring a particularly important-sounding phrase with his stylus. "For that matter, don't you have company to see to?"

She flicked him in the forehead and he jerked back in annoyance, left hand reaching up and rubbing at the skin there. "Yeah, okay, okay. I get it. Hey, Nestan, Joh, Miri, you ready to get this party started?"

"I guess," one of them said. Bentley stared at her, completely and utterly done with her nonsense.

Torako winked, then spun on the spot and sat with her back to the couch. Extending one leg, she gestured to the carpet. "Just pop a squat here, as my buddy Tyrone likes to say!"

Dipper groaned and curled further into the side of the couch, slinging his legs over Bentley's thighs. Bentley lifted his tablet to let him and then rested his forearms on Dipper's shins. He looked up from the MSS at motion out of the corner of his eye, and watched Torako's classmates sit down. The blond with long hair was the most at ease as they sat down, and the short-haired tall one seemed to have problems tucking their gangly limbs in. Bentley noticed a thin pulsing light on the inside of one wrist and tucked the observation of the artificial arm aside.

"Okay, introductions!" Torako said. She pointed to the long-haired person. "That's Joh, he's like I don't know a junior? Are you Demonology or—"

"Lit studies," he said, smiling. His eyes were very blue. "Minor in demonology with an emphasis on human relations."

Torako snapped her fingers. "Ah, that's right! Right, Joh, cool guy. That next to him is Miri, and she's a damn sweetheart; Freshie, right?"

Miri nodded and smoothed the thick hair on the top of her head with claws that looked like they could slice through stone. Her wings, which had looked like a giant parcel on her back from being wrapped in cloth, rustled. "Yeah," she said, looking everywhere but at Bentley and Dipper. "Double majoring in Chemistry and Alchemy. I'm taking TAM as an upper-level Cultural Studies course."

The gangly one at the end waved before Tora could introduce them. "Yo, Nestan! I'm genderfluid but use she/her usually, and I'm senior also taking TAM as an upper-level Cultural Studies course like a smart person—how the fuck did you get into a 440 class as a freshie again?"

Miri tilted her head and fiddled with her talons. "My Inquiry Prof suggested it to me, and I thought I'd get it out of the way."

Torako laughed. "Nestan, I took DEM 310 as a freshie too. No shame in taking hard classes!"

"I didn't," Joh said, leaning back against their holovid set. "This is like the third upper level class I've taken, and the other two were last semester. We can be underachievers together, Nestan."

"Speaking of overachievers," Tora said, and Bentley narrowed his eyes at her as she tipped her head back and grinned at him. "The most overachieving overachiever in this room is probably my bestest buddy in the whole wide—"

"Oh cut it out." Bentley flicked her on the nose. She made a face, then made another face that was far more devious than the first and sent a thrill of real fear down his spine, and before he knew it her hand was cupping his cheek and she was batting her eyelashes at him.

"My bestest, bestest bestest buddy in the entire universe and all its galactic colonies Bentley," she crooned. Despite himself, Bentley felt his face warm, "took SIG 480: Practical Application and Theory Experimentation fall semester of his freshman year."

"I hate you," Bentley hissed, batting her hand aside and feeling as though he could fall into the couch's cushions to rid himself of the embarrassment. "I despise you."

Next to him, Dipper was shaking. Bentley took perverse pleasure in the fact that Torako was undoubtedly going to target Dipper next.

"Woah," Joh said. He whistled, and Bentley looked at him and his half-lidded, thoughtful eyes. "Don't you have to take a couple intro classes for that?"

Bentley tilted his head and would have brought his knees up but Dipper was pinning them to the couch. Instead, he raised the tablet and raised his stylus. "Tested out," he mumbled. "Nothing big."

"Nothing—" Nestan said, then made a grumbling noise. Bentley didn't dare look over the top of his tablet because he didn't want to see their wide eyes; this kind of flattery from strangers made him want to hide under a rock. A heavy rock. "I hate you."

Torako shifted. "Eh, enough about him though; he won't help us much because his brain's full of sigils and crap. He even refused to take this class with me! I asked you all here because this doofus behind me is an expert in TS."

It went quiet. Dipper stiffened. Bentley wanted to laugh and cry and absolutely bury Torako because why.

"Like you've finished school?" Nestan asked. Bentley tried to focus on the words before him: the revelation that souls typically reincarnated, for example, led to many monotheistic faiths, in particular the Abrahamic faiths, adopting the idea that only people who were pious followers of their respective one true God would ascend to Heaven…

Dipper coughed. "Uh—"

"Hell yeah! Tyrone Pines here finished pretty early, though he's just a bit older than we are so eh. Got his doctorate and everything! Dr. Tyrone Pines is his name; he especially likes the Doctor part." Torako sounded like she did whenever she'd reduced Dipper to incoherent screaming through the alcorastar4lyfe blog. Bentley underlined reincarnated and only people who were pious followers would ascend to Heaven. He hated them both. Them all.

Bentley, in fact, thought about getting up. The moment he did, Dipper pressed his legs down on Bentley's thighs; when he looked over, Dipper had that 'trying to smile but looking constipated' face on, and there was an air of you suffer with me around him that made Bentley swear he'd kick them out of the bed for the next few days if they even tried to cuddle him.

"What school did you go to, Dr. Pines?" Miri asked.

"It's—they've both closed by now. Um. Northern was my undergrad. Hamball were for master's and phD."

"Never heard of them," Miri said. Her claws scraped against one another. Bentley raised the tablet and hunched over as though it could save him from awkward social interaction. This was worse than when he'd brought Dipper to dinner with his dad for the first time. This was so much worse.

"They were small before they closed," Dipper said. He'd reached over and was smoothing down the shoulder of Bentley's sweater. "So. Yeah. Not very. Well known."

"But he knows his stuff!" Torako cried. "So, if we need to ask him about the Great Revival of Twin Souls in 2143, or how it was banned suddenly in India in 2095, or the difference between the anime adaptions of 2148 and 2193, or anything, he'll know it!"

"Wow, you'll really help us?" Nestan said, and there was a clacking of not-quite-skin on the plexiglass screen of an MSS.

"Oh," Dipper said, and his tone was so carefully modulated that Bentley thought that he'd get to offing Torako before Bentley could. "Of course I would be glad to help Torako in any way, if it would benefit her well-being and growth."

She actually laughed, and Bentley didn't know why he was surprised anymore. Torako purred, "Oh, Ty, you're so kind! I'll ask you for that help when I need it though, okay hon?"

Bentley looked over the edge of his tablet despite himself. Torako had half twisted and was walking her fingers across Dipper's thigh with her 'bedroom eyes' expression. As always, it looked as though she were on the verge of giggles. Bentley closed his eyes and lowered his head again because he didn't want to see any of this. He wanted to leave.

Again, Dipper stiffened his legs, and this time he pushed down more firmly on Bentley's shoulder. Bentley decided that hell with it, he was pulling his knees up and Dipper could just deal with it.

"As you wish," Dipper said, and oh no there was going to be another explosion in their Twin Souls Fanfiction war that was going to drag Bentley into the middle of it again. Matching body pillows of Korato and Alcor 'lovemaking' on the couch had been enough; he didn't want to see how they could make it worse.

"…Sounds good," Joh said. He paused a heavy moment before adding, "Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate the help."

Dipper made some noise that was supposed to be an agreement, but he wedged his legs down further into Bentley's lap like that would stop Bentley from fleeing. Bentley pressed himself into the back of the navy-upholstered couch as though he could actually phase through it. Dipper's tactic was working far better than Bentley's thus far.

Eventually, thankfully, Torako and her classmates started outlining their project with the occasional question to Dipper about how to best go about things. Bentley tried to focus on his paper, but every other suggestive question from Torako would make him want to hide his face and scream. In fact, she even draped one arm across Bentley's feet and made some comment about how she'd really wished that Bentley had joined her in this class because then it'd be so much more fun and they'd each get the same attention from Tyrone.

Bentley underlined a phrase with a violent stroke when she'd said that. He vowed to fill her morning coffee with syrup, because every time he looked up at her group, he saw Miri blushing at whatever outrageous thing Tora had just implied or Joh looking at them all with smoky-shaded, half-shut eyelids. And whenever Bentley glanced at Tora, her grin was sharper than Dipper's usually was.

In fact Bentley was actually surprised that they lasted maybe an hour and a half before Nestan lifted his head and asked something embarrassing. He just wasn't expecting, "Okay I can't deal with this anymore, who's shagging who?"

Bentley hid his face in his hands and suppressed the urge to scream. Next to him, Dipper—who had shifted so that he was pinning Bentley to his corner—started choking on thin air. He thumped at his chest even though he didn't actually need the air. "What?"

Bentley was going to do worse than shove syrup into Torako's coffee; he was going to see if he could appeal to Dipper's sense of chaos and dump a thing of that old hallucinatory candy into her caffeine and get the hell out of dodge. The mess would be worth her reaction once she became relatively sane again.

Joh hummed. "Not sure we need to read into it that much, Nestan."

Peering between his fingers, Bentley vowed that the only one allowed back would be Joh, and that was if he allowed Torako to bring anybody else home.

"Eh, that's up for us to know and you to think about!" Torako said, and she leaned over her work again. "Now, let's go back to—"

"There has to be something more to this! You're climbing over both of them and they're practically in each other's laps at this point!" Nestan said, gesturing wildly with his hands. "It's been bugging me for ages, I need answers!"

Torako cackled. "Us to know, you to think about!" As she made a note and started talking about their presentation again, Dipper leaned over and hissed, "Smile Dip, right?"

"Yes," Bentley murmured, fishing his tablet out of Dipper's lap from where it had fallen. He opened an app and scrawled You up for a deal later?

"Hell yes."

"Torako I literally can't focus on this they're whispering probably sweet nothings in each other's ears right now—okay, I'm calling it, Dr. Pines is like in a poly relationship with both you and Bentley, there we go, that makes—"

Bentley's head snapped up as Dipper made a spluttering, gurgling noise, and Bentley fixed Nestan with a stare that had him stopping mid-sentence. "I. Him. No. Never."

Nestan opened and closed his mouth. He eventually looked off to the side and smiled in a wobbly sort of way, never looking back at Bentley. "I. Aren't we pretty much done anyways?"

Miri hummed, fiddled with the sleeve of her sweater. "We just have to put together a prezpoint, and I've got the bare bones of one already. We're pretty set as it is. If you all don't mind me working on it and assigning everybody parts to speak, we should be done."

"That settles it then!" Nestan said, rising to his feet and stretching. His limbs unfolded in a way that made Bentley think of the few nymphs at school, but he lacked the telltale coloring and texture to his skin. "I've got. Like. Other stuff to do too, and we're meeting at school to rehearse, right?"

Torako leaned back against the couch, one of her elbows brushing Dipper's foot. Bentley exchanged a glance with Dipper. "Aw, have we scared you off already? We could always come back and do it here, but if you wanna do it at the library that makes sense."

Gathering up his things, Joh stood as well. He looked over all of them with a calculating gaze that made Bentley rethink his mental decision to let him back. "The Library would likely be better," he said, pulling back a strand of hair with immaculately manicured nails. "When do you have practice again, Torako?"

"Ah, four to six every evening, seven to eight every morning. So if you wanna do something after I have practice when I'm still smelly, that's fine. Otherwise I'll need to take stuff with me to shower at the locker room." Torako levered herself up onto the couch, draping her arms across the back of Dipper's head so that the hand brushed Bentley's shoulder; usually this was not a bad thing. And really, he was fine with it.

But Torako wasn't getting cuddles for a long, long time if Bentley had anything to say about it.

Joh tilted his head, hair draping over his shoulder. "Eh, up to you."

"Shower please!" Miri called, having already packed up her things. Bentley tipped his head back and saw that she was already in the process of slipping her wings into what looked like giant sleeves. "My nose is pretty sensitive, and while I could handle it, it would be nice not to have to deal with sweaty human."

"Right, there's that," Torako said. She tipped her head over the back of the couch and poked at Bentley's shoulder. He smacked his stylus against her knuckle and she withdrew satisfyingly quickly. "Okay, so tomorrow or Thursday?"

"What about Friday?" Nestan asked, pulling his bulky winter jacket on. "I've got things going on during that time."

Bentley looked away and stared down at his tablet. He put the notepad app to the side and pulled up the article again, just to skim over in case he'd lost any information in this horrifying ordeal. In the meantime, Torako and her classmates made whatever arrangements. Dipper twitched next to him, then shifted. When Bentley glanced over, it was so that his elbow was digging into Torako's ribs. In retaliation, she flipped over so that she could see her classmates better and wrapped her arm around his head, fingers combing through his hair suggestively.

Dipper gurgled, then narrowed his eyes. Bentley was going to leave as soon as he could because this was going to turn into another one of their chicken fests and he had no desire to see any of this.

"Bye, thanks for coming over!" Torako yelled. Bentley told himself to wait at least thirty seconds before hightailing it to his room so he could avoid as much of the ensuing chaos as possible. The door shut, and for a few moments everything was blissfully, wonderfully normal.

Then Dipper twitched, and next thing Bentley knew Dipper was hissing literally into Bentley's ear that, "they're calling me a Sugar Daddy Bentley why."

Bentley stopped. He looked over at Torako, who was sporting a wide grin that told him that she'd heard what Dipper'd just said. "You will pay for this."

Torako draped herself across both of them. "Sugar Daddy? Oh my god that's hilarious I love it. I can get behind this."

Slowly, Bentley started to ease himself over the arm of the couch. Dipper was tilting his head and looking down at Torako, who had turned over and was sitting essentially in his lap.

"Don't you dare," he said.

"Heeeey," Torako crooned, trailing a finger down Dipper's jaw. "Heyyyy, could I have a carrrrrr?"

Bentley pushed himself the rest of the way over, feet hitting the floor as softly as he could. Dipper was staring at Torako, his face pained, and her shoulders were shuddering with suppressed laughter.

"If you make a deal with me, sure," Dipper said. "But it'll cost you."

Tora pursed her lips and smacked his chest with just her fingertips. She leaned forward, lips centimeters below Dipper's. Bentley dropped his stylus and had to catch it before it clattered against the floor. "Oh, so forward, already wanting me to pay out! Sooo, what'll it be this time?"

"Torako I'm going to adhere you to the ceiling for six hours if you don't stop so help me."

Bentley took another step to leave, and was embarrassed to have actually squeaked when Torako called out to him. "Ben, what do you want from Sugar Daddy Alcor? I'm sure that if we work together we—"

"Do not bring me into this," Bentley said, and made the mistake of turning around to make sure Tora heard him.

She grinned. "I know you were thinking about something, it's written all over your face. Come, there's enough space for two here!"

"Oh my god stop," Bentley moaned, stamping his feet. He felt his face warm, the tips of his ears especially so, and he was so glad that blushing wasn't really visible with his skin.

Torako tilted her head, moved away from Dipper who looked moments away from making good on his promise. "It's nothing new; we've given him backscratches for weird ancient candy before. Like, it's similar to selling our bodies to him in a way! See, it fits!"

"I'm. Actually serious about the ceiling thing."

"Oh, are you," Torako crooned, focusing all her attention on him again. "Heeey, I really really really want a car. One of the ones that can manage high altitude travel! You can do that for me, can't you, Alcor Walcor?"

Bentley got the hell out of there. Seconds after he shut his door, he heard Torako's startled screech and a thump, and Dipper laughing hysterically.

Back to the door, tablet held to his chest, he looked at the giant bed in the center of the room and wondered how this was actually his life. "Sugar Daddy?"

Three days later, she'd made the shirts. Bentley came home to see her dangling from the ceiling, an all-too-pleased expression on her face. When she saw him, she fished something out of her bra and tossed it down to him.

"Here's yours!" She crowed. "Since we're both in the Alcor-Is-My-Sugar-Daddy club!"

Bentley opened it. Stared at the attractively bright letters. Shut his eyes.

The worst thing was that he'd probably end up wearing it at some point. He opened his eyes and stared up at Torako, still grinning and dangling.

"I hate you," he said.

"But all that matters is that Alcor loooooves ussssss," she crooned. Bentley stared up at her a few moments more, then walked past her to his room.

"Wait. Wait. Aren't you going to help me down?"

"No," he said, placing his hand on the door to open it. "You deserve this. This is your hell. Have fun in it."

"But Bentleyyyyy!" She howled, and he let the door shut behind him. He then looked down at the shirt, and snickered a little before shoving it on a hanger in the back of his closet, with the rest of his shirts.

If nothing else, he'd save it for a rainy day when he needed some ammo against Dipper.