Chapter 3: Road to Ruin

"Dean," Sam called, trying to get his older brothers attention. Said older brother was currently digging into a rather fat burger curdosy of the diner they were currently stopped at. It was rather late at night but the place was miraculously open and anything had to be better than a Denny's.

With the burger half in his mouth, poised to take a bite, the older Winchester eyed the younger for a moment before biting down and finally replying with a mouth full.

"What?" Sam couldn't even bring himself to be disgusted by his brothers antics anymore. He was too used to them, which now that he thought about it was rather depressing.

The booth they were in was cozy, if a little worn down but this was the only diner around in the small Idaho town that promised free wifi. It was colored in traditional reds and whites and held a classic bar even if they didn't serve any liquor. The look of the place didn't really matter, what did was that it was a place they could do research and grab a bite before hitting the road to Gravity Falls.

If Sam was completely honest with himself he was frustrated. Not that the exhaustion from lack of sleep was helping. Not a single thing of note could be found about the small town they were headed towards. If he wasnt directly searching for it, he doubted it would have even been on the radar. No strange happenings had even been reported in Oregon that would lead one to believe demon activity was even the region.

Letting the annoyance and skepticism show on his face face, the younger Winchester finally responded. "I dont like this."

"Whats not to like? Sure this joint isn't that shnazzy-"

"Not the diner, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes in exasperation. "This whole seal business, I mean, I can't find a single strange thing about this town. All I have been able to dig up is that it's a small logging town started by some guy named Northwest."

"Nothing else?" Dean mercifully asked after swallowing the bite and putting his food down.

"No strange weather, no reports of riots, I'm telling ya this place is clean." Sam let out a frustrated huff as he closed his laptop.

"I doubt the angels would send us on a wild goose chase, not when we're so close to the endgame." Dean muttered.

"And thats another thing, since when have you been so on board with this whole angel business? One just shows up and tells us there's a seal and we jump to it?" Sam asked incredulously, making his annoyance perfectly known through his tight lips.

"I dont like it Sammy," Dean finally snapped showing his own frustration finally. "But we don't have any other leads and I dont know about you, but I want to keep Lucifer in his damn cage."

"You think I dont? Everything about this situation screams trap!" Sam shot back with perhaps more heat than he intended. "The angels can't apparently enter this town which means we'd be on our own."

"Like we're not already?" Dean replied with a scowl. "Every time we've gone after a seal they always sat back and let us handle it. I dont see any thing different here."

"Here we don't even know what we're up against. We don't know if its witches, or demons, or what have you!"

Sam stopped the rant before he really started going. Already some of the other patrons, few that there were, started giving the two brothers funny looks. With a deep breath the younger tried to calm down before looking at Dean who stared back at him seriously.

"I dont like it either, but if there is a seal then good people are going to get hurt, so come on, what else? You had to have found something."

"I'm telling you Dean, there's nothing."

The brothers lapsed into silence, Dean frowning into his food and Sam gazing out the diner window. As if sensing the awkwardness, the waitress decided that was the moment to come on by and drop off the check. The older Winchester forced himself to finish his meal, no sense in wasting good food.

"I just wish we had something more to go on or what to expect." Sam whined, though he would never call it that.

"Yeah well, since when has the world cared about what we wanted, huh?" Came his brothers jaded reply. After a moment Dean spoke up again, "What does Ruby have say about this?"

The question caught Sam off gaurd and Dean fought to keep the disgust off his face having asked. He hated her, but the bitch was a demon and she could be suspiciously useful when the situation called for it.

Sam frowned trying to think of the last time she called. It hadn't been for a while, the Winchesters were too busy dealing with angels and that kept her at a distance. Though now that he thought about it, this would be just the kind of thing up her alley. If only he had a way to contact her besides a summoning.

"Great," Dean apparently took his brothers silence as an answer and decided to chip in his two cents. "The one time we could use her she isn't around."

"Since when do you want her help?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean muttered to himself, signaling he was done with the conversation.

Sam leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. His brother had made some fair points but this whole thing was still off. Something bigger was happening and not for the first time did the younger Winchester wonder if the angels were really telling the truth. Admitedly he wanted to believe in the good will of the divine but the angels had proven to be well… dicks. Dicks with wings who think they can just pop in and command humans to do whatever they want. It was incredibly frustrating.

With a sigh, Sam put one of his credit cards up and the waitress took it swiftly to cash them out. He would have liked to stay a little longer on his laptop but as he had told Dean he couldn't find anything weird about Gravity Falls other than a couple old laws, like the one about woodpeckers. But most towns had stuff like that, like how in Arizona you couldn't let a donkey sleep in your bathtub.

The waitress returned with the card and a smile and the boys packed up their stuff. Well, Sam packed up, Dean just stood and waited while watching his younger brother with amusement.

Not long after, the boys were back on the road towards their future.

xxXXxx

Dipper shot up like a rocket, breathing hard. For a few seconds he wasn't sure where he was or what he'd been doing. Back tracking a moment, the young boy vaguely remembered sneaking out of the shack and following something. His sister… who was acting strange, yeah that sounded right. He was following her and then-

Suddenly flashes of knowledge he had recently obtained jolted through him giving the boy a massive headache. Dipper crushed his eyes closed from the pain and gripped his head as if that would steady himself. The pain was intense enough that if he hadn't been on his knees already, he would have crumpled like a paper bag.

Phrases and incantations flew by and inadvertently he found himself muttering what sounded like Latin. What stood out the most however, and what was burned on the back of his eyelids, was the depiction if a pentagram with strange runes written around it. The title accompanying the image was just… devils trap. The glyph was so vivid he felt like it really was physically seared onto him.

Breathing heavy Dipper managed to cram all the knowledge he had gotten from the deal (and ho boy great uncle Ford wasn't going to be happy about that when he found out) into a far corner of his mind to use for later. Right now he needed to get up and move. It was probably early morning by now and who knew when Mabel, or the thing possessing her to be more accurate, would be back to the shack. He had to be ready to spring his trap before then.

With great effort, the male Pines twin staggered to his feet and raced back to the shack. It wasn't until he reached the wooden porch that he realized had been very lost before. The thought had barely time to form before he brushed it off, getting the devils trap set up and working was more important than anything else right now.

Bursting through the door of the gift shop loudly, Dipper proceeded to dive behind the counter looking for a piece of chalk. Thankfully his Grunkle kept a stash on hand so he could redo the prices on any items on a whim.

With a feeling of triumph, the boy darted to the door and began drawing a large circle in front of it and feverishly started sketching out the star and accompanying symbols. The chalk broke a few times as he was pressing rather hard, but finally he got the hang of the fragile piece. There was little finesse in his movements but that didn't matter as long as this worked. He was so engrossed in his work that when the vending machine opened up and Ford walked through, the boy didn't even notice.

Ford, for his part had actually heard the door banging upstairs and decided to investigate. Afterall he was just going to get some sleep for the first time in a few days, it wasn't a big deal really. What he hadn't expected when he emerged from his lab was Dipper desperately drawing on the floor and muttering in a language he couldn't quite make out. Weird didn't even begin to describe the scene but it made Ford instantly wary.

"Dipper?" He called quietly not wanting to wake the others if he could help it. Then again Stan was a rather heavy sleeper if he recalled correctly and Mabel was all the way up in the attic.

The boy didn't even react as he scratched away on the floor boards. Ford inched closer and saw that the boy was drawing what appeared to be a pentagram of some sort. The older man's stomach bottomed out and his heart sped up. Dipper was moving like someone possessed and his first thought was Bill had somehow managed to get his hooks into Dipper… but that couldn't be, the barrier spell was still up wasnt it?

"Dipper?" Ford called again and this time the boys head snapped up, eyes bloodshot and wide. They looked slightly glazed over and he regarded his great uncle for a moment before returning to his work. Ford felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Something was horrifically wrong here.

Before Stanford could take another step foreward his twin came down the stairs, yawning and scratching his head.

"Alright, whose making all that racket down here?" The old man gripped clearly unhappy at being woken up prematurely. Upon seeing Ford his frown deepend before he gazed around the shack and saw Dipper ruining the floor of his giftshop.

"Oi kid, what do you think your doing?" Stan asked, grogginess slurring his speech a bit. As he moved to take a step closer to the young boy he was surprised when his twin grabbed his arm and held him back his face as still as stone.

"Ford?" Stan questioned, but snapped to alertness when he saw his brothers countinence. Something was going down and it was bad.

He looked back to one of his charges and noticed the boy was drawing some sort of satanic symbol on the wooden floor. Stan's buisness mind told him it actually wasnt a bad touch to the place. It could replace the triangle carpet that ford went and burned with a vengace not long ago.

"Stanley," Ford began quietly, edging him and his brother along thr wall, all the while keeping his eyes on the possibly possessed boy. "I think Dipper may have gotten himself in trouble out in the woods."

Stan only groaned, "What was the kid doing in the woods at this time of night?" That's when a feeling in his gut took over and ice shot down his back. The answer was that the kid wouldn't be out at night without damn good reason. The boy was prone to trouble, but he was also nearly are paranoid as his Ford was.

"We can figure that out later Stanley, but right now we have to stop him from completing whatever that pentagram is." Ford finally let go and motioned for Stan to go around the opposite way and get in position for a pincer attack on the seemingly unaware boy.

As the two adults crept closer, one intending to restrain the youth and the other to keep him still, they didn't realize Dipper had heard them. His feverish scratchings bacame more manic. He had to finish this now! Just another symbol here, and a curve there and it would be done!

Just as the chalk broke on the last foriegn sigil, the adults sprung. Ford grabbed Dipper from behind and hoisted him up. Stan for his part, tried to calm the boy down but the flailing kid was having none of it.

"Stop!" Dipper shouted as he tried to pry himself out of his great uncles grip. Now that the trap was built he needed to get everyone out of here so the demon wouldn't suspect anything. Once it was trapped he knew the next step, but his current gaurdians wouldn't like it. It was probably going to sound like he was summoning something when in truth it was to do the exact opposite.

"Kid calm down, what's going on?" Stan tried, his hands up to defend himself from the boys wayward kicking.

"Dipper please, we're trying to help!" Ford tried as he struggled to hold onto the child.

"If you want to help you need to put me down! Mabel will be here any second, we don't have time for this!" Finally he wriggled loose and dove to the otherside of the room panting hard. Inadvertenly a few strings of latin fell from his lips and he put a hand over his mouth.

"You're sister?" Stan scratched his head and looked up towards the attic. "Isn't she asleep?"

Ford on the other hand was looking at Dipper hard and took a few cautious steps forward. "Dipper, what happened out there?"

The boy shook his head, he couldn't tell. If he could help it, the man he looked up to would never learn of his second deal to their arch nemesis.

"You need to tell me!" Ford's voice raised and it was admittedly as frightening as it was commanding.

"Ford, come on. You're scaring the kid." Stan interjected which started the adults arguing. Ford's paranoia seeping into his words. Stan's bitterness was coating his words as well, the argument taking on undertones of uncleared air and misunderstandings.

Dipper started to shake in terror. It was so hard to think clearly when all he could hear in his mind were the words to the exorcism and all he could hear externally was heated bickering. He couldn't think of a good excuse that would satisfy either of his great uncles and he was so afraid this wouldn't work and that he had been tricked again, but it had to work because his sister was suffering and he couldn't loose her-

"Hello family!" A bright cheery voice rose from the door way. Immediately everyone froze and turned to look at the one who just barged in.

It was Mabel... and her eyes were black.

A/N: I had most of the chapter written for a long time and it took me till now to finish it. I actually like it a lot and had the whole thing daydreamed out, I just got stuck when it came to writing it down ". I was actually going to write the next scene into this chapter but I found a natrual stopping poiny early so you get it in the next chapter.