Her name is Marcella Pines. She has two children, and they're the sweetest kids she's ever met in her entire life. She has a husband, Mark, who leaves the house every Sunday night to geek out over football.
It's a simple, cold November, and there's rain quietly pouring down - simple. It's all very normal, very sweet, down to the red blanket and the book in her hand.
She wants to claw her eyes out. She wants to bleed for years and then some, wants to bleed and crawl and fall and die. Marcella - Marcy, they call her - has no idea why. She's never had depression before, she's never had any sort of mental illness, and it's completely, totally out of the blue.
Except it's not. Because the walls are white, and that's not right, they should be red. Everything in her life should be brighter than she is, she should be swallowed up in extravagant riches; she deserves that.
Right? Right. It's not like she's always lived simply. It's not like there's a picture of her, right there on the mantle, of her milking a cow on her grandfather's farm. But there is.
She wants more.
She'll never get more.
That's not fair, because she deserves more than this. Doesn't she? Does she?
Does she even want more? She was always fine with what she had before.
She doesn't know what she's thinking, so she just stops thinking. So much easier. She's relenting to something far more powerful and ancient than she is; it feels like falling backwards into a bottomless pit, like grace and beauty and the end all at once.
She stumbles into the bathroom down the hallway, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of emotions. It feels like something foreign and alien has crashed into her head, her delicate, precious mind. It's hard to think around its heavy, bold presence. So, she doesn't. She gives in, not entirely sure who she's giving in to; herself, or the dark thing with the strange eyes that has taken up residence where her logic should be.
She doesn't make it to the toilet before she throws up. The viscous, red liquid hits the basin with a splat - blood. There's an aggressive bite in the back of her throat, unnatural. It tastes like metal, but that might be the blood.
She coughs again, tentatively. Metal smacks into her teeth, rattling her skull and slicing her tongue, before slipping past her bloody lips.
Razors. Fucking razors, from her mouth - what the fucking fuck.
That's impossible. It's impossible, improbable, it just doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Not in this world, not in the carefully crafted suburban haven so very far away from everything else she knows.
As far away as she can get from the woman with the strange eyes, but not far enough, never far enough. She can never get away - she should've known. She should've known the second she started thinking thoughts that weren't hers -
but they were. Weren't they? They had to be. Preposterous. Everything that went on in her head was product of her own mind and no one else's.
That's why her fingers were fumbling with the razors. The lethal, impossibly sharp edges sliced the hardened skin of her calloused fingers. Blood, thin and fast, sprung from the wounds, rolling over the knobs and knuckles of her hands.
All her. She could prove it, too. This life was enough for her, just enough; but a drop more, and she'd spill over, blood sliding over the rim.
She looks at the razors - one in her left hand, the other in her right. They weigh the same. They're both deadly, dangerous. Beautiful, under the blood, simple, gleaming metal. Simple. Too simple, like everything around her seems destined to be.
Marcella is filled with a sudden and vicious anger. It leaves her blind, open to attack; her arms are moving before she can register that she's not the one who told them to.
It's a somber, cold day.
Then again, it's California. It's not very cold, and there's few people who are very somber; they're still bustling, busy with their lives and jobs. Dipper wonders if that's supposed to be something fulfilling, like a life goal, an aspiration; it just sounds boring and dreary. Then again, lots of things sound boring and dreary on the way to a funeral.
Dipper self-consciously pulls at his collar. The suit he's wearing - black jacket, black undershirt, and black pants - is tailored and expensive, courtesy of his aunt Marissa. She was a reasonably wealthy fashion designer, and also the reason Mabel started making her own clothes.
His bow tie - which Marissa had insisted upon - was pure white. It's supposedly symbolic, but Dipper had tuned that part of the fashion speech out.
If he was being quite honest, he didn't really care. There was only one type of symbolism he cared about anyway.
Mabel's in the seat next to him, clad in a slim black dress with a thin layer of lace over it. There's a white ribbon tied carefully into her dark, curled hair. It's a jarring sight. Mabel's hair is usually in a wild disarray.
She looks uncomfortable, all in all. Like a toy with its string wound tight.
Dipper winces at the thought.
His scattered train of thought disperses completely. He settles for staring aimlessly out of the window while the car - black, like his mood - shuttles down the road.
He's been doing that, lately, losing track of his own head. Ever since he walked into his mother's bathroom and slipped on her blood. Quite literally, too; he'd fallen face-first into his mother's corpse.
Sometimes he hated being six-foot-three. He forgot to look down, forgot to see the dead body and the blood under his feet before walking forward like a total dumbass.
He sighs. He's sure Mabel hears him, but neither of them really have the energy to respond to much.
Senior year is hard enough, he thinks. We don't need this.
But they've got it, it's the only hand they've got. They've got to deal. Adapt. It's what people do, dodge the circumstances and evolve. So Dipper sucks in a breath as his dad pulls the car to a stop, and lets it out, somehow feeling more prepared now that he's made an attempt at something other than being mopey.
The shift in the atmosphere is immediate; suddenly, Mabel seems a lot closer than she had been, a lot more comforting.
Okay. Just keep doing that trying thing. Really, it can't be too hard; plenty of people do it.
Dipper hadn't accounted for actually getting out of the car, which sapped his second wind like a vaguely depressing leach.
Dipper sighs, again. Like he always does. What's with that, anyway? Why do human beings show exasperation with an exhale of breath? Shouldn't they store that oxygen for more important things?
"Alright," his dad said. "We're here."
Dipper nods, and feels a sudden burst of pity when he looks at his father's face. Over the last week, his father had somehow thinned, looking less like a broad-shouldered Pines and more like a willow tree, or something. A sapling, maybe.
Case in point, his father had deep, sunken eyes hounded by dark under-eye bags that bespoke of hell in a very raw, tender form. He knew the last thing his dad wanted was pity, being the testosterone junkie he usually was, but Dipper couldn't help it.
Mabel didn't look much better, but at least she was in his line of sight. The shadows cast by his father's unruly hair made the hollows look deep and threatening. Mabel was closer to the light, almost phototrophic, with a wide, owlish face highlighted by red, teary eyes. She looked less like a ghost than their father did.
"Right," Dipper croaked. "Totally."
The silence was fucking deafening. He was used to Mabel's chittering and chirping about happy things and beautiful things, he was used to his dad's imperceptible quietness - sometimes, they even got a nod, which was incredible - and his mother's soft, but loud murmurs of agreement that sounded like honey would. He was used to shoving his nose in a book and ignoring it, taking it for granted.
Dipper's since come to the conclusion that he is truly a magnificent asshole, but on some level, that's always been true.
"Okay," Mabel murmurs. Dipper's heart breaks. She sounds like a mouse, not at all like the lion he knows she is.
His aunt looks at the three of them with unveiled pity. "Come along," she says, sharply, designer heels hitting the gravel with awkward, uneven claps. Her halting, slow gait would be giggle-worthy if he was in a giggling kind of mood.
They follow without so much as a single word.
The walk isn't far. Dipper pointedly doesn't look at the individual graves as they walk. Mabel does the exact opposite, slowing down before each one and reading them, giving her respects. Dipper's humbled by it; that his sister was at her mother's funeral and was still trying to give to people she couldn't give to. His breath hitches.
He bows his head, and slows down so he doesn't tread on Mabel's flats while she walks.
The funeral party congregates around the area where they'll lower his mother's casket into the ground, all hushed tones and very, very quiet tears. Dipper's tempted to cry, but dismisses the thought. He's gotta keep up his douchebag shtick. If he gets all weepy at a funeral, he, like, loses his professional dickwad license. Can't go doing that.
He's already crying, of course, but if he keeps quiet and keeps his head low, hopefully no one will notice.
And then there's Mabel, sweeping up by his side, pressing her shoulder against his the way animals do when they want each other to know they're not alone. She still smells like their aunt's perfume; Dipper finds himself sorely missing the sickly sweet candy scent that usually follows her around.
Unconsciously, Dipper leans closer to her, draws emotional strength from her never-ending pool of power. He's not afraid to admit that his sister is a lot stronger than he is in a lot of ways.
Their dad is farther away, to Mabel's right, and Dipper can just barely see the man's head bob down as he wipes tears away. Dipper winces. He's never seen his dad cry, or show emotions other than anger and stern fatherly acceptance.
It's like getting doused with ice water. Dipper's suddenly hyper-aware of everyone else behind him, all of them glaring at the white casket.
He doesn't want anyone here - not his aunt, who's three feet to his left but still too close, not his dad, who's always too close, not cousin Jerry or uncle Bruce or all of these people he doesn't actually know - just Mabel. Just him and Mabel, beside each other, making it work, making it hurt less.
"Shit, asshole," someone mutters behind him. "That was my foot - out of my way, out of my way - coming through - hey! I've got important business that's also none of your business, get out -"
Dipper's mouth falls open.
Something in his heart soars, and for a few seconds, he can hardly believe his senses. It can't be. He knows that voice, remembers and reveres it, but he hasn't heard it since that last summer when he was twelve -
Mabel had turned to him, eyes shocked and wide, mouth open; it's like looking into a mirror. They turn around together.
He looks almost exactly the same.
Grunkle Stan had swapped the green suit for a cheap black one, with a simple white dress shirt and the Mr. Krabs tie Mabel had sent him two Christmases ago. It's a funeral, and the tie is probably seen as an insult, but neither of them care - it's special to them. It's for them.
They haven't seen him since they were twelve, and then he shows up at a funeral with a Mr. Krabs tie - it's so, incredibly Stan that Dipper can scarcely believe it.
He's here for them, not because anyone else had asked him to be. Dipper's heart - achy with the strain of so many damn feelings - swells.
"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel shrieks, and crashes into Stan with all of the force of hurricane. Mabel, being almost as tall as he is - which is intimidating to literally everyone they meet, because, holy shit, girls got that tall - wasn't a joke. Her tackle hugs could take someone out. Dipper would know.
"Oh my God," Stan wheezed. Dipper could just make out his face around Mabel's hair. "You're supposed to be tiny little butterfly kids, what the hellhappened here."
Dipper laughs - a real, honest one - and things don't seem so dreary and dull like they had in the car. (After all, Stan had literally just called him a butterfly child. Things didn't get more colorful than that.)
"Mabel!" their aunt snapped. "You'll ruin your dress!"
"We haven't seen him in five years," Dipper said, leaning towards her. "Cut us some slack."
"You're at least acting with a little class, you know," she said, miffed. "You're still upright."
Oh, no. Not the Mabel-is-crazy-and-Dipper-isn't dichotomy again. "I'm just waiting my turn," he replied, with a lopsided, odd grin.
Sure enough, after a flabbergasted Stan is once again upright, Dipper tackles him in a hug. Instead of breaking the old man's back, which, honestly, he probably could have done in his excitement, he settles for a powerful hug. Out of spite, and with a glare at aunt Marissa, he lifts Stan off the ground a couple of inches.
"Kid!" Stan shrieks - holy shit, he'd outright shrieked. He might have broken something important, like a pelvis or his great uncle's pride.
Dipper puts him down and straightens his jacket. "Couldn't let Mabel outdo me."
"Pffft," Mabel said. "I outdo you in everything."
Dipper nodded to her, a strange, sideways tick of the head he'd learned a long time ago when Mabel had made her official claim to the spot directly to his right. "This is true."
Grunkle Stan popped his back with his hands, with a muttered 'oh, everything hurts.' Then, he said, "I always knew you were a wimpass, Dipper."
Dipper sighs, resolute. "Thank you, thank you. One day I'm going to wrestle a crocodile and prove you wrong."
Mabel giggles. It sounds like the bells of heaven. She slings an arm around him. "Love ya, broseph, but you're never gonna wrestle a crocodile."
Dipper huffs. "I totally could. I mean, I'd die, but I could do it."
"You can wrestle the damn dinosaurs," Grunkle Stan cursed. "They come out every summer. How am I supposed to explain the skyscraper sized brachiosaurus in my backyard?"
Dipper's heart stops beating for a minute. Gravity Falls. The not-so-sleepy town smack-dab in Bumfuck, Nowhere, Oregon. Filled to the brim with mysteries and oddities and the wildest things imaginable, and some things that weren't, a new supernatural curiosity hanging around every corner.
Dipper takes a breath, steels himself. Tucks his longing and childlike wonder away into a deep fold of his mind. He's never going back. He can't.
He coughs, interrupting the silence that had fallen over them.
"What brings you down here?" Dipper asked.
Grunkle Stan glared at him above his glasses. "The weather. It's great! No snow!"
The first part was definitely sarcastic, but he couldn't quite tell about the second part. Didn't Oregon get quite a bit of snow this year? "Uh - was that sarcastic or…?"
Mabel giggled, again. "Dipshit," she coughed.
"Is it beat-Dipper-with-a-metaphorical-stick day?" Dipper mutters.
"That's on Wednesdays," Stan said. "Today's... probably Monday."
"Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. "It is Wednesday."
Stan's eyes widen comically. "Great Barrier Reef, time flies fast when you're old."
Dipper grins. He'd missed this banter, the stuff they easily fall into even though they've spent five years apart; it makes him wish they'd kept going back, that he'd spat in the face of danger and death and danced on a high wire.
Instead, they'd gone to stay on their maternal grandfather's farm, a quaint place with lots of cows and ancient values. The only thing interesting about that place was the pegasus herd in one of the fields his grandfather had been hoping to adapt into pasture.
"I'm only in town for a week," Stan said. "Make your sappy confessions of how I'm the greatest Grunkle ever short and sweet."
"Eh," Dipper said. "Too much effort." He was rewarded with a slap to the back of his head from Stan, who grumbled under his breath. But his smile was fond.
Mabel slaps his arm playfully. "Mr. Pines," she said, mocking their English teacher's voice - deep and ridiculously gritty.
"But Mr. Beaton," Dipper responded, speaking through his nose - stupidly high and nasally. The typical teenager voice.
"You sound like you're twelve when you do that," Mabel said.
Dipper curls his lip and sticks his tongue out at her. Suck it, my voices are great.
Mabel spreads her hands and plants them atop her head like moose antlers. You look like a lumberjack.
Dipper huffed. The awkward lumberjack look was totally in.
Grunkle Stan slapped them both on the back of the head. Jeeze, what is with that gesture? "Knock it off, or you're both my personal servants while I'm down here."
"Technically, that's child labor," Dipper said.
"It's only labor for you, noodles," Mabel said, poking his arm.
Dipper's eyes widened. Holy shit. A blush crept up his cheeks. "Mabel -"
Grunkle Stan busted out into wheezing, old-guy laughter. "Noodles! Ha! Pool floats are hilarious."
"Hilariously dumb," Mabel said, with a broad grin.
Totally not what I was thinking, Dipper thought. But he laughed anyway.
After their laughter had subsided, the cold, grim feeling seeped into his bones. The unfamiliar faces in unforgiving suits set him on edge; he felt like a cornered animal.
The priest was ready to speak.
In the back of his mind, Dipper wondered what had taken him so long.
Dipper's mood, bolstered by his family, dwindled.
It was a curse. The more people talked in monotones, the more his mind wandered. Wandering heads wasn't a good thing; they tended to get lost. In the decapitated sense.
He kept his eyes brazenly on the casket. It was a small act of bravery. He was going to do it, he swore, he was going to come to terms with his mother's death - and he was going to be damn okay with it. He had a sister and he had the man behind him and all those people way back in Gravity Falls. He could take those memories and thrive. He could. He just had to try.
And then they started to lower the casket. His mental pep-talk flew out the window. It was just an effort of crying silently, which, to his pride's great pleasure, was a success.
Somewhere between one word and the next, Grunkle Stan's hand had landed between his shoulder blades. It didn't move - it was there, like sun-warmed stone. It was the only thing holding him up and keeping him together in front of the congregation.
Dipper closed his eyes, awarded himself a moment to be thankful, to be glad. It was strange what the presence of the right person - or people - could do.
Dipper fumbled for Mabel's hand awkwardly - it was shaking violently against her thigh - and slipped his fingers through hers. Mabel's hands were clammy and he hoped he was doing this comforting shit right.
He sucked at that. All he knew was hugging and listening and the occasional shoulder-pat.
Mabel squeezed his hand tight. Dipper cussed under his breath - her grip was like iron, jeeze. She chuckled beside him.
"Whaddya say we go for something to eat," Stan said, voice light. "I saw a pillage-able shack on the way up."
Pillage-able. Dipper snorted.
"Grunkle Stan, you would be proud," Mabel said. "Dipper and I haven't paid to go out to eat ever."
Dipper shrugged. "It's true."
Grunkle Stan gawked, and then slapped them both on the back, hard enough to make them stumble. "Bathroom-and-run trick?"
"Yep!" Mabel said, popping the last letter with her tongue.
"Hah!" Grunkle Stan cackled. "I've got a new one. Daisy 8's?"
"They're good," Dipper said. "I'm down."
They started off, back down the hill. Dipper stayed behind - just a moment.
He looked at the scene around him, the graves, the flowers surrounding his mother's picture. He felt cold in his flesh, like he'd just swallowed ice and it had gone through his bloodstream. Like he'd been injected with antifreeze.
The night his mom had died - when he'd gone upstairs to ask her what was for dinner - he'd felt like it was going to happen. He knew something was up, could feel it, deep in marrow; the atmosphere had changed. It had felt like stepping into the Mystery Shack for the first time, all those years ago. That sick feeling of knowing he wasn't the only one in the room no matter which room he was in.
And she'd carved triangles on her arms, up and down, in neat, tiny rows. Even the ones drawn with her non-dominant hand had been perfect, hateful things. But Dipper knew that, given the terms of a deal he'd made a very long time ago, that it couldn't have been Bill. Demon deals were too binding for that.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was murder, not a suicide.
"Dipper!" Mabel called. "Are you coming?"
Dipper turned to yell back, "Yeah!"
He could think about it later. For now, he was starving.