Paranormal Investigator James Gallucio, PhD, had come to Gravity Falls to investigate the history of 'a little town just west of weird'.

He's not quite sure what he expected.

Based on this prompt: post/116972507433/imagine-some-kind-of-paranormal-investigator

James Gallucio, PhD, had been researching the supernatural for years. It wasn't the easiest career path, especially before the Transcendence hit and anyone who studied the paranormal was considered odd, at best.

Tall and lanky and clumsy, with thick glasses, James had always been on the receiving end of taunting and the stereotype of 'nerd', and his hobbies didn't help matters any.

But James was stubborn, and determined to find out the truth. They could laugh at him all they liked, but he knew of at least one man in his field who'd gotten a government grant to study the paranormal, and he was determined to keep working despite his detractors. Who knew, maybe it would happen for him.

Then the Transcendence happened. All over the world, in the blink of an eye, the paranormal was out in plain sight, unable to hide, and demanding their basic human rights, and people like James were suddenly needed.

But even though he was suddenly respected, needed, and looked to, at least somewhat, James just wasn't satisfied. Half of the excitement of his job had been in the danger, in people's disbelieving reactions, in the chase after something no one else understood.

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of people studying the paranormal now. James needed a challenge, something new.

Of course, there were dozens of new species to study now, and many of them incredibly dangerous.

So when the offer came, James jumped on it. So now, in the fourteen years since the Transcendence, James had done a documentary on as many as he could find the least verifiable information on.

Now James was looking for something new to document, something dangerous, something little was known about, something that would really get his name out there.

Then, he had a flash of inspiration.

Because, along with the supernatural creatures that were revealed to the world, there was now evidence of demons and angels. They weren't like what they'd been painted as in history, in fact they were very little like the stories, but they were very real, and very dangerous.

So began Behind the Myths, the show picked up for television and lauded for its high levels of research and the amount of knowledge about the supernatural, Angels and Demons in particular, it added to the little that had been known.

Of course, summoning chants, circles, and the rest were blurred or censored, and while the research James was doing was legitimate and properly documented, the show was also lambasted for being sensationalist.

Well, dry documentaries didn't make good television or rake in the cash this series did, so James continued on unabashed. He kept on with his other documentaries, when he could, but keeping one step ahead of the demons and angels he was summoning – especially in terms of leaving the summonings unharmed – needed all of his attention. He couldn't summon for each show, of course, but figuring out how to do it safely was a challenge he relished.

And he was trying to get information out there so that people wouldn't try summoning them, or at least know the real dangers and risks of dealing with the supernatural, so there was that. Not that some people would listen, but, well, there really was no helping some folks. If he had to be a bit sensationalist to get people to tune in and listen, well, that was a price he was willing to pay.

But despite the danger, it was starting to get stale again. There were patterns of behavior shared by angels, and different ones shared by demons, hidden under the chaos and blood, and he wanted anomalies.

So they started filming at places demons were said to frequent. Poveglia Island, Amityville, Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, The Tower of London. The Devil's Tree, the Pine Barons, everywhere and anywhere they could go. It wasn't quite the same Behind the Myths anymore, but with this new twist, it was exciting again.

Although admittedly, most of the locations they chose were within the United States, thanks to budget concerns. Someday, he'd have the budget to go anywhere in the world to do his shows and documentaries. If it were on his own, or had government grants...

They did shows on supposedly demonic items. Dibbuk boxes, the Robert doll, cursed jewelry and tables and a dozen other strange things, some of which James never would have guessed were considered cursed. The kept up the episodes on other supernatural creatures, but James was living for the dangerous species now, though he kept justifying it as needing to get the information out there, so people wouldn't make the mistake of thinking they could handle these things on their own.

And throughout it all James kept writing book after book, articles and papers and more on all the things he learned, all the theories and speculations his investigations led him to.

And with most of the locations his producers and researcher had asked for complete, he was going to go for something he'd wanted to do for months now. He was going to tackle the most famous, most fan-requested demon and location of them all.

Alcor the Dreambender and Gravity Falls.

As was his usual method of operation, James didn't hit Gravity Falls with his full camera crew in tow. He always did his research first, before pulling anyone else into the location. To get a feel for what they were about to get themselves into, and how to handle the situation.

Usually, it involved lots of libraries, searching the internet for hours, if not days on end, lots and lots of dusty old books and even more allergy medication to deal with the aforementioned dust.

But this time, there was a problem.

Unlike nearly every other demon currently in existence, there was no record of Alcor the Dreambender to be found anywhere save the few posts online, from those who had summoned him or been rescued from being a sacrificial victim or a bad situation by him.

And unlike every other demon, somewhere from a third to half of those stories were...good. Positive. People actually being helped, fair deals, it just didn't make sense! What possible good could a demon have in such a reputation? What could he be getting out of it? This was behavior different from every other demon he'd researched, with no key thread to the plan behind it all.

James had a few theories about what might be going on, what might have started it, but even he knew they were unsubstantiated and fragile at best.

It was so exciting!

So, once he'd read every scrap of information there was to be had about both the Dreambender and Gravity Falls (and it wasn't much), it was time for a road trip to the middle of Oregon and a little town that proudly claimed itself to be 'a little town just west of weird'.

James stopped the car outside the Falls, pulling off the road into a vantage point perfectly situated to look over the entire valley that cradled the town. Leaning on the railing edging the viewing area, James simply stood for a few minutes, enjoying the view and the breeze. For all its weirdness, when seen from above like this, Gravity Falls was a pretty town. Forests filled the valley, houses peeking out between the trees, growing thicker until they formed the town proper down below.

It looked like a small town out of a movie. Unfortunately, the type of movies James enjoyed usually had small towns like this have picturesque covers like these to hide the horror underneath.

Usually some kind of religious fanatical group intent on murdering the pack of foolish teens who ignored the warning signs and entered anyway.

While James was sure Gravity Falls had its more than fair share of weird, being the center of the Transcendence and all, he doubted it was hiding a horror movie scenario. Monsters? Maybe, to the bigoted. But not a horror movie.

...though for some people, he supposed living alongside non-humans and treating them as equals was a horror movie. Their loss.

He took a few pictures for his own research, a few more for his scrapbooks, and made notes about the viewing area as a prospective opening shot for the episode – perhaps even episodes, if the town proved as lucrative as he hoped – about the town and its inhabitants and their history, as well as notes on it as a nice spot to come and think when he needed to get out for a bit.

Satisfied, James carefully packed away the equipment he'd used before climbing back into the car and starting the trip down into the Falls.

The trip down into Gravity Falls took longer than James had anticipated. In most of the world, while the supernatural was now part of everyday life, it was still taking time to integrate them into most human society, and a lot of the shyer species were still keeping away from humans.

But not here in Gravity Falls. James had nearly filled his camera's memory card with pictures and his notebooks were filled with notes on a dozen different species, tucked safely in his messenger bag on the passenger seat, half of which were creatures he'd never seen before, that he'd gotten a look at on the way into town.

It had slowed his trip down considerably.

Coming to Gravity Falls was the best idea he'd ever had.

It was already much later than James had planned on arriving, what with all the little stops he'd made on the way into town, so rather than exploring the town as he'd much rather do since he just got here, James headed for the cottage he'd rented for the next month.

It took him a little over two hours to unpack everything and set it all up. By the time he was done, the charming if shabby living room looked like something out of a sci-fi novel, blinking screens and wires and metal everywhere.

Satisfied with the day's work, James nuked a can of soup in the provided microwave, eating it while standing at the counter.

He flopped into bed soon after, leaving the dishes for tomorrow (where they would stack later with more dishes left for 'tomorrow' if previous experience held true).

James woke early, the way he'd trained himself to do on earlier research trips, where he only had to get all the information possible in a ridiculously small window of time. At least this time he had a generous buffer before they needed to start filming.

First thing to do, since everything was all set up here at home base, was to get some food in him, then food in the house. James had learned long ago the danger of shopping for food and of trying to do research when he was hungry. And of forgetting to stock up on food before he buried himself in research, only to resurface after everything was closed and there wasn't any food in his current lodgings.

Well used by now to long treks, James decided to walk to breakfast and see just how far it was to a grocery store. It would give him a chance to check out the town while it was still early, before everyone was up and about.

The town was surprisingly active for how early it was. James noticed an officer of the Oregon Supernatural Squadron as he walked through town, raising a hand to wave to the man as they passed and making a quick note of the name on his badge.

Most members of the OSS, or any Supernatural Squad, were pretty useless seeing as how they refused to accept the truth of anything not written in their handbook, which tended to treat anyone non-human as some kind of animal (James had, with much wrangling, gotten his hands on a copy and then had to add corrections as he went along. The book was roughly 90% red ink at this point) but an officer living and working in Gravity Falls might still have learned something useful.

Still silently going over all the possible contacts he might be able to make (the obvious ones, that is – this being Gravity Falls, James was looking forward to finding some more, new, unique sources of information), James turned towards a building shaped like a giant log.

Usually he'd dismiss places like that as tourist traps, but the amount of traffic already around the building said it was a place for locals, and those were the best places to eat in his opinion.

Plus, he might find some contacts if he made sure he was approachable and non-judgmental as he usually tried to be going into these kind of situation.

The diner went quiet for a few seconds when he walked in, a normal reaction in James's experience for when a stranger came to a small town. He smiled and waved at the people staring, trying to project innocent curiosity and hoping no one would recognize him from TV.

Thankfully most people turned back to their breakfasts after that first look over, and he was able to sit down and study everyone unobtrusively from his booth.

For the most part they looked like fairly normal people, though there was a fair scattering of non humans in the diner, going about their own business and being treated as completely normal by the waitstaff. It was...actually rather refreshing to see.

James hoped they wouldn't take his presence there the wrong way. A lot of researchers treated anyone who wasn't 100% human as lesser, and that tended to create quite a bit of resentment.

Not that he'd appreciate being treated as some kind of specimen, when it came down to it. Maybe that's why he'd had such luck in getting information – basic decency.

Shocking.

A rather large man wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a question mark and holding a small child stopped by James's table. The woman with him patted him on the shoulder and kept walking, giving James a blindingly friendly smile as she passed before sliding into the biggest booth in the back of the diner.

"Hey dude, you new in town?" the man asked, shifting his hold on the child.

James gave his best disarming grin. Well, here was the first test, a little sooner than expected. "Sure am," he said. "Hope to stay awhile too," he added, "Want to do a bit of research here on the supernatural, maybe even get some footage for a TV show."

He waited, but the man's face remained as open and friendly as before. "Really, dude? That sounds awesome. I have a show on our public channel. 'Fixin' it with Soos'. You oughta check it out sometime." He paused, then added, "You might wanna be careful with the questions though. Lots of newer folks here, they don't want attention, ya know? Not...not really a friendly world out there."

"Oh, I getcha," James said, still smiling. He couldn't really blame the guy – Soos, apparently – for being worried, seeing as how these were his neighbors they were talking about. "I wanted to see about getting information on Alcor first, seeing as how this is pretty much his home..."

Soos laughed. "Oh, I getcha. Yeah, this is Alcor's home too. Better off facing that dude with a good breakfast in you, dawg. Later homeboy." He waved as he walked away, joining the woman who'd come in with him.

James smiled, a genuine smile this time, and started looking through his menu. If half the people in town were as friendly as Soos, this was going to be easy to research...but harder to figure out how to make sure it was all respectful. He certainly didn't want to take too much advantage of that friendliness...

"HI! I'm Lazy Susan, and you're new!" The voice was loud and right beside him, and James nearly levitated in surprise.

The woman – Lazy Susan – grinned, holding up her coffeepot with her free hand on her hip. James tried to grin up at her as he convinced his body he didn't need all that adrenaline right now, really, thank you.

"So what're you doin' in town, stranger?" Lazy Susan asked, filling up his coffee cup, and James was pretty sure he hadn't asked for coffee but it looked like he was getting some anyway.

He repeated his story, watching the coffee overflow the mug and spill onto the table as Lazy Susan listened.

She jerked the pot upright again when he finished, still smiling. "Well, good luck with that!" she said brightly. "You know where to find me if you need an interview with a native, cutie! Wink!" She lifted the lid of her lazy eye, dropping it, James guessed to simulate a wink, and he smiled back, a little weakly, as she meandered off to another table.

The bell over the door jangled again, and James glanced up from his perusal of the menu to look over the group who had just entered. A tall redheaded woman, a very tall redheaded man, a solidly built brunette, an Asian woman with a terrifying array of weaponry strapped to her, especially for something as mundane as going to a diner, a short brunette woman in an incredibly loud sweater, and an older man made their way to the huge table at the back where Soos and the woman and child with him waited, waving and greeting the new people happily.

Nearly everyone else in the diner waved or called out some kind of greeting as the group passed, so James peeked over the top of his menu again to get a better look. If these folks were that popular, than getting to know them or gaining their approval might be the difference between getting information and managing to do some research or being completely stonewalled.

Well, he would be talking to Pacifica Northwest, though not her parents. Her parents were too far gone to the pro-nat side to be of any use, but getting Pacifica on his side might help. But every ally possible was always a good thing. He had already managed to get an appointment. But there was not telling how helpful she might feel like being.

There had certainly been enough going around about Pacifica having some vague connection to the supernatural, Alcor in particular, unprovable but for the vaguest of rumors. Between her and the now infamous Pines family, he should be able to get a lot of research even before he opened a book! ...if she'd speak to him.

Speaking of books, he'd have to make sure to get a trip in to the Stanley Pines Memorial Library of the Supernatural...might be a good place to meet the Pines...or did too many people try buttering them up at work? It was the most obvious place to find them...but then again, just approaching them in the street didn't seem like the best plan either...especially when he wasn't sure exactly what they looked like...

James pulled a small notepad out of the knapsack he carried with him everywhere, starting to write down a mixed list of books to see if they had at the Pines Library, people to try to meet and interview, and ideas of ways to meet the Pines family without coming across as a creep or a weirdo.

He came up briefly for air when Lazy Susan came back to take his order before again diving back down into his notes, glancing around the room occasionally to keep track of what was going on around him.

Before he started going out in the field to research, he wouldn't have even remembered that, so it was a step in the right direction for him.

It wasn't until James had filled nearly an entire notepad with observations and thoughts that a change in the room caught his eye.

Keeping his head bent over his notepad, James glanced over the room. Everything looked the same, but...no, no it wasn't! There was someone else at the big table in the corner, and while James had been distracted, he'd learned long ago to snap out of it if someone passed by – and he was too close to the door for anyone to sneak past him, and he would have heard the other door open.

Lazy Susan dropped a plate down in front of James, making him jump. Was the woman some kind of supernatural, that he never heard her coming?!

"Food!" she announced cheerfully, using both hands to gesture to the plate. James smiled up at her, a little weakly, and she cheerfully walked off towards the big table in the corner.

Feeling the need for a little help, James took a deep slug of his coffee and nearly spit it back out when he finally got a good look at the newcomer seated at the big table where Lazy Susan was taking orders.

Who wore fancy tailored suits in this town? Especially to an incredibly informal greasy spoon like this?

James leaned over a bit more in his booth, teetering perilously close to toppling into the aisle, to get a better look. Not all that subtle, but at the moment it was pretty obvious he'd have to try to get attention right now.

Then the tallest redhead shifted, and he got that better look.

James shot back upright, freezing in place and not daring to move for a few seconds, terrified he'd been spotted.

When nothing happened and the diner continued as normal, as if there weren't some kind of entity sitting in the end booth, James slowly began to relax again.

Maybe he was wrong...after all, the study of the paranormal was still fairly new – as a respected science, at least – and eyewitness accounts notoriously untrustworthy, especially after a stressful experience.

James took a few deep breaths. Calm and center, don't jump to conclusions. Everyone else in the diner seemed to think everything was normal, and they didn't seem like they were under any kind of demonic influence...then again, if that was a demon down there, taking physical form so casually, then they'd have to be strong enough that their influence wouldn't be noticeable, right?

James took another deep breath, sternly scolding himself. He was just getting himself all worked up, looking for problems where there might not be any. This was Gravity Falls, he'd been warned ahead of time that things worked differently here. He came here for this exact reason, didn't he?

It was perfectly possible that the person...demon...whatever, sitting at the end booth, surrounded by people, merely had a strong resemblance to the Dreambender. After all, what demon would be strong enough to take physical form at will like that, without circle or summon, and what demon would be caught dead in a little greasy spoon diner like this one, simply sitting in a booth and ordering food like a human?

It was plainly absurd.

This may have been the Dreambender's territory, his 'home', but there was no reason to think he'd appear in a greasy spoon to eat human food, no matter how odd of a demon he was reputed to be.

Calmer now, James shifted, hoping to catch some of their conversation and get a better look.

"...can't afford that many pancakes," the small brunette woman was saying, and while James couldn't see her face he was pretty sure she was wrapping up a scolding.

"The pancakes are on the house," Lazy Susan interrupted, giving another of her 'winks'. "It's the least we can do after you took care of that little problem for us last week."

The creature...demon?...that James was watching grinned at that, huge and wide, and holy crap there were a lot of teeth in that smile, a lot of very very sharp looking teeth, but no one else seemed phased by that in the slightest.

James was phased. He was very, very phased. Especially by all those teeth, so close to that little boy, who was – oh god – chewing on the creature's bow tie, far too close to those teeth, cooing and apparently happy and content in its arms.

Phased, and utterly fascinated. Of all days to leave his camera with the rest of his equipment! Then again, that was a minor, he'd have to digitally blur his face...

There was commotion from outside the diner, and everyone inside paused, forks stopping halfway to mouths and food cooling as the entire diner seemed to hold its breath.

The noise resolved into shouting, and James thought he heard someone crying for help. He half rose, not sure what to do – he wanted to do something, but keeping oneself alive in paranormal situations was different from helping someone in a situation he knew nothing about.

In the corner table, the creature – demon – handed the baby over to his parents, nodding quickly to the rest. The two brunette women, the redheaded woman, and the smaller Asian woman stood and hurried out the side door, while the demon – it had to be a demon, it floated rather than walked and dear god it looked just like James had heard Alcor rumored to look but how was it here and physical? – went straight through the wall.

Really concerned now, because no matter what his intentions (and who knew what those could be, he was a demon), that was still possibly Alcor going into an already volatile situation, if the noise was anything to go by, James slid out of his booth and headed for the door – he didn't know what he was going to do, but if the demon was making things worse...

He made it as far as the door before he stopped, frozen with indecision and disbelief.

James had heard the rumors, but they didn't do the reality justice, not when he could see it now, before his eyes, and know it was truth.

And him without a camera!

Because there, in the middle of the street, was a family. Adults, kids, the kids hiding behind the adults, all of them looking as though they hadn't had a decent sleep or full meal in weeks.

On the far side of the street stood men, hard, angry looking men, with guns and bats and chains and rope and handcuffs. They had dogs, dogs who strained their leashes, barking furiously at the people on the other side of the street. They were watching the cowering people, and in the van behind them James could see the glint of bars, something that looked far too much like a cage, and a shift in his weight was all the change in his line of sight that he needed to see it was a cage, one with chicken wire behind the bars.

Bad enough they were hunters, here, in Gravity Falls, a place that should be safe – and James knew how ironic that was, that he was here yet thinking of how this place should be safe, but he meant no harm, wanted to help by making the supernatural into the normal and understood – but they should never have been here, and if that thought, that they would try and hunt someone in this sanctuary, was enough to confuse so many of James's expectations, than what else he saw shattered them completely.

The four women from inside were standing between the family and the hunters, and that he could understand.

But what made him, made the hunters, pause, was the demon, floating between hunters and prey.

The demon that was sheltering that family with his wings, and making it very clear that he was protecting them, snarling at the hunters softly, eyes ablaze with fury.

The dogs, who had been barking and snarling, leashes strained near to breaking, suddenly went quiet. Whimpering and whining, they crouched low, tails tucked submissively, and hid behind their humans as the demon's snarls grew louder.

James had to brace himself against the doorway, watching in disbelief yet knowing what he was seeing was very real. That was a demon, the demon he'd come to research, and he was protecting other people, ones that were obviously strangers to him, with no time to make a deal for that protection.

Quite frankly, it made no sense!

The hunters were snarling at the women, demanding things – James thought they were demanding the women move and let them take the family away with them, but it was hard to tell, as he was closer to the demon and the family than the hunters, and Alcor was snarling loud enough that it was hard to hear the men.

The hunters, James was quick to note, were stealing little glances at Alcor, as if they weren't quite sure if he would attack or not.

Then the brunette woman stepped forward, a glass and nail studded bat held low and ready (and where the hell did she get that from? Shit he should've been taking notes or video or something of this no one was going to believe it, James barely believed it and he was watching it, this was incredible! Only in Gravity Falls...).

"Spread the word," she called to the hunters, gesturing with a toss of her head towards Alcor, who spread his wings a little wider, bared his teeth a little farther, flexed fingers tipped with needle sharp claws. "Gravity Falls is Alcor the Dreambender's territory, and we protect our own here. Anyone who comes here for sanctuary is under that protection. And we protect him back. Got it?"

The hunters were looking between the women and the demon rapidly, backing away slowly.

Three of the women kept a close eye on them while the fourth, the speaker, turned to look at Alcor. The woman and demon exchanged nods and she turned back to the hunters.

"Just so you know," she called to the retreating hunters, "this is the last warning for hunters like you. No one else gets a warning, just Alcor. And if any of you, in particular, try hunting again or come back to the Falls..." she tapped her bat against on hand meaningfully, tipping her head to gesture at Alcor, who grinned wider than a human-like face should be able to. "And if you attack him, well, we get what's left. Got it?"

The hunters fled, and there was a general relaxation. No one completely relaxed until the hunters were out of sight, waiting until Alcor, still hovering protectively over the small family, relaxed.

"They're gone," he said, and once again James was taken off guard, this time by how surprisingly human Alcor's voice sounded. "I'll take care of them tonight, Mabel."

The woman, obviously named Mabel, nodded firmly. "You'd better," she said, but she was smiling as she said it. Smiling up at the Dreambender, patting his arm even as she started talking to the people Alcor had been sheltering.

Slowly James slid down the door frame until he was sitting on the steps into the diner, staring into nothing. This wasn't what he'd expected when he came to Gravity Falls to research Alcor, at all!

What had he gotten himself into? Holy crap this was...he had no words, but no one was going to believe this, and this...so amazing!

His moment was broken when a clawed hand waved in front of his face. "Um, hello? New guy? You okay there?" asked a concerned tenor voice.

James glanced up and found himself looking into black and gold eyes, inhuman eyes set in an inhuman face that was looking more concerned by the moment.

"Dippendots, are you terrorizing the new guys?" the woman – Mabel – said from behind the demon.

Alcor's head turned a one eighty to say something to her, and James felt his stomach lurch as he got a close up look at a human-like body doing something it shouldn't have been possible to do.

"Di – Alcor, you're freaking him out, knock it off," Mabel scolded, grabbing Alcor's arm and dragging him inside. "Welcome to town, sorry about the cruddy welcome wagon!" she called to James from around the demon. "Come to the Pines Library later, okay? We'll say hey proper then. C'mon, dorkus, pancakes are waiting."

"Pancakes!" the demon cheered, flying back into the diner.

The heavyset brunette and tiny, weapon heavy woman followed more leisurely, nodding at James in passing as they spoke to the family they were escorting into the diner.

He continued to sit there, staring blankly, until another hand was shoved in front of his face. His eyes followed the arm up to the amused eyes of the redheaded woman, who grinned. "Welcome to Gravity Falls, dude," she said simply.

James grinned and took her hand.

This was the best decision he ever made.