hello friends, here's a present


Chapter 10

Dipper rested his head defeatedly against the yellow armchair in the Shack's living room, and absentmindedly recorded the cracks and crevices of the cheap ceiling plaster. Today's events had been decidedly action-packed, yet still, there remained so many mysteries unsolved. In fact, he almost felt numb from everything that happened in the last few hours.

It wasn't even the end of the day yet and Dipper's thoughts were already spiralling out of proportion, but he couldn't help it. Something just didn't sit well with him. He didn't exactly know what, but he had a bad feeling about whatever was going to come.

What exactly was Bill implying earlier? No matter how much Dipper had thought about it now and before, his brain still came up with nothing. Not only the confusion Bill caused, but with the whole Danny situation… nothing still made sense.

Could these things possibly be related? Could any of the things that happened today be related? Was that why Danny was so suspicious to Dipper? And why had Bill shown up in the first place? Could it be because… no, that was a problem for a different brain-compartment in a separate thought-train going to who-knows-where-town.

Every possibility or question just made Dipper's brain hurt thinking about it. But on the other hand, if he didn't think about it, then not knowing made him stressed out enough to make his brain hurt all over again.

He groaned mournfully, and shifted his weight so that he was hanging upside down from the seat of the armchair, letting his hat fall off his head in the process. Not the ideal position, but it helped him think at times like this. Now, what am I missing here? He thought frantically.

Dipper had finally resolved things with Danny, and he had been assured that the teen was just a totally normal guy, but his gut just didn't agree. And they had even become somewhat friends too, and were on friendly terms after they departed ways in the woods, but that didn't mean he fully trusted the guy just yet.

In fact, he had decided to not tell Danny about Bill at all after that encounter, but his lying needed serious work. Even he could tell that Danny wasn't buying his 'you tripped over a rock and passed out' lie. But Dipper didn't seem like the only one that was lying.

Danny may be a slightly better liar than Dipper was, but he noticed things. And even without actual proof, and no matter how much Danny had assured Dipper of his 'human-ness', he just felt like Danny was lying. There was just so many things that were off about him, but why didn't anyone else seem to notice?

Maybe it's...

"Am I paranoid?" Dipper asked aloud, to the response of dead silence. He stared blankly at the black screen of the television in front of him, slowly feeling the blood pressure rush to his head. He knew he was going to feel dizzy sooner or later from hanging upside for too long, but he almost felt in a trance muddled with his own inner thoughts and memories.

Like puzzle pieces fitting together. Like a revelation of obscene ideas that might not be so crazy. Slowly, things and words that Danny had said earlier in the day were starting to come together, forming some kind of correlation.

'I bet we have to avoid the sascrotch too, right?' Danny had asked, when they were in the woods earlier today. It had just been a simple offhand comment, and Dipper didn't think much of it more than just a joke.

But the more he really thought about it, the more it lacked any actual sense. The sascrotch is part of the exhibits, which I don't recall him ever buying a ticket for. Dipper furrowed his brows, trying to come up with possible reasons as to how he could know about it.

'Comes with the experience, I guess.'

What experience? He said his parents hunted ghosts, not him...

'Weirdest biology I've seen alive.'

What? Did he see dead biology on the usual? Why did he say 'alive'?

'I'm good solo, so, just, shout if you need me!'

How!? He was so nervous about everything when we were a group, and then he was just suddenly confident about being in the woods alone? That makes no sense!

'I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I don't look like a brain eating zombie.'

Dipper's frustrated expression fell into a scowl. He recalled the terror in his eyes when Dipper first accused him of being inhuman. If Danny was human like he said he was, why would he be so terrified with Dipper questioning him about it? Wouldn't normal people just laugh it off and disregard it entirely? In fact, Danny hadn't just laughed it off, he changed the subject entirely! How could I not have noticed that!? Dipper thought, mentally face palming.

His mind went to one of the things Danny had said after their argument had been resolved.

'I kinda don't blame you for being so paranoid about all this.'

What the heck did that mean? Did that mean he had a reason to be paranoid? Dipper thought, his stomach doing flips. Why would Danny imply that Dipper had a reason for being paranoid? Maybe that meant…

No. Maybe he was just reading too much into everything. Maybe he was just overanalyzing the most miniscule things. It's too early to have an existential crisis— he's only 12, for crying out loud! He was going to lose his mind if he kept thinking about this. And at this point, he was just going around in circles.

The memory of Bill's voice suddenly rang out in Dipper's thoughts, clear as a bell. 'All I know is that it feels like it's not from this dimension. It's definitely weird.'

Maybe he was onto something there…

"WHAT'CHA UP TO?" Mabel interrupted, popping up from behind the sofa.

"AHH!" Dipper yelped as he came out of his trance, doing an ungraceful somersault off the seat of the sofa with his flailing arms abound. Tragically, this also resulted in him falling face first onto the ground beside his hat, limbs sprawled in different directions.

"Oh, you know, just trying to see if I can break all my bones in one sitting," he mumbled into the carpet, voice laced with pain.

"Neat! Good luck!" Mabel responded jokingly. She walked over to the front of the sofa, and held out a hand to help her brother up.

"I'm fine," Dipper ground out, looking at her outstretched hand. "Just…everything hurts," he complained, struggling to push himself back up. Once he managed to finally lift himself up, he grabbed his hat from the ground and placed it back on with a frown.

"If you broke your arm, I could bedazzle your cast with rainbow rhinestones and put stickers on it!" Mabel offered with a wink.

"Please don't," Dipper deadpanned, watching his sister's giggle with an incredulous expression. He didn't think she would actually take his sarcasm seriously, but this is Mabel here. The same girl who would eat a bucket of glitter if she could.

"It doesn't have to be rhinestones! I can put only stickers on it if you want!" she continued, and at this point Dipper knew she was full on serious. Figures.

"Riiiiight," he drawled. "Um, I'm just gonna double check something in the journal," he added wryly, reaching into the pocket on the inside of his vest to snatch the tattered book.

Mabel turned to face her twin. "About why we didn't see the plaidypus?" she guessed, "Yeah I'm pretty miffed about that too. Anyways, I'm glad you've let the whole thing about Danny go. It's nice to see you guys actually became friends after you ended your whole conspiracy hunt on him," she teased jokingly, crossing her arms.

"Yeah…" Dipper agreed slowly, and laughed nervously, and turned around as he conspicuously opened the journal. Just need to check. That's all, he told himself.

He passed through the pages about ghosts, looking for any sort of similarity or connection. There's gotta be something, come on, come on… He frowned, and flipped back to the page about the undead. He was missing some information. The ghosts that he had met in the convenience store were unlike the ghosts described in the journals. Were the ghosts in Amity Park different too?

Dipper twitched. If he didn't figure this out soon, he was going to be lying awake at night until greater bouts of insomnia hit. He needed to dig deeper, he'd decided, closing the journal shut and placing it back in his vest pocket.

"Um, hey, you want anything from the store?" Dipper asked, scratching his arm casually.

"You're going out now? Isn't it kinda late?" Mabel frowned, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat on the sofa chair.

"Yeah, I just… have to clear my head a little. Danny and I had our own little run in with danger too." Dipper said, half smiling. Well, it's not a total lie, he reminded himself.

He debated telling her that the 'run in with danger' was actually Bill. But although they told each other everything, he'd rather allow her to sleep well tonight instead of worry her about Bill's possible comeback. He'd tell her once he got more information.

"I'll be back really quick, I promise," Dipper insisted as he began to slowly walk backwards out of the living room and out the front door.

"Okay. But get me candy!" Mabel hollered back from inside the house.

Dipper smiled, relieved, as he ran to the Gravity Falls library. There was less than ten minutes left before the library closed, so he decided to do some fact checking on Danny's story. Just in case.

He ran across streets and roads in town until he felt the need to take a breather, panting his lungs out. "Aw, man this would be much faster if I took the golf cart," he wheezed out loud, resting his hands on his thighs. Checking his wristwatch, Dipper bit his lip reading that he had only eight minutes left until the library closed. In a stress-fueled panic, he sprinted the rest of the way there.

After nearly tripping over his own two feet stumbling through the doors of the library, Dipper managed to get his hands on one the of the aged computers behind the historical fiction section. The computer was not from this decade, and resembled a huge box, and probably had enough dust on the monitor to trigger an asthma attack, but it was his best bet at getting any information.

After wasting the first few minutes waiting for the dinosaur computer to boot up, he hurriedly clicked on the internet icon, opening a Google page. Typing in 'Amity Park' in the search bar, he hoped for anything substantial to pop up, and surely enough, everything that Danny had said about his hometown was true. Amity Park, Illinois, was a ghost town. Literally.

Danny hadn't been lying about that.

Turned out, Amity Park could rival Gravity Falls in weirdness. The town in question apparently suffered from ghost attacks daily, and everyone was aware of them. The people in Amity Park weren't oblivious to the ghosts, and there were countless articles on these attacks.

Weird enough, each of these ghosts had some sort of gimmick. There was some kind of metal hunter ghost, a fiery blue singing rock ghost, a technology ghost, some sort of genie ghost, a motorcycle duo, and a vampire ghost…? The list just got weirder the more he dug in, but these ghosts were among the most frequent that haunted the town.

But one name in particular stuck out, and seemed to be the most recurring and known ghost of all, that went by the name of… Inviso-bill? Dipper snorted at the ridiculous name. What kind of a name was that? He thought, clicking on another article of the same ghost.

He discovered that said ghost was Amity Park's resident ghost-hero, an infamous one at that. He seemed to have as many fans as he did haters. Some people really hated this ghost, and some even swore to hunt him down and rid the world of 'ghost scum'. Yikes, Dipper cringed.

Inviso-bill was reported to have saved the entire town from some huge ghost attack a couple of months ago, from some ghosts called ParIah Dark and Fright Knight, giving him better public perception and the favour of the people that lived in the town. After that incident, the rest of the articles referred to him as Phantom.

Further articles stated that Phantom was the one that defeated all the other ghosts that terrorized the town, and he locked them away in some device, rumored to be… FentonWorks technology?!

Dipper quickly typed in 'FentonWorks' into the search bar, reading that Danny also wasn't lying about his parents being crazy ghost hunters. They built inventions of all kinds, designed to mutilate and pulverize ghosts. No matter how hard it was to believe, so far everything that Danny was saying was turning out to be true.

No wonder Danny came off as so suspicious, he came from a town filled with ghost attacks and insane parents. But that still didn't explain why the infamous ghost Phantom had access to FentonWorks technology.

Maybe I can ask

The librarian suddenly called out that it was closing time, and Dipper groaned in frustration.

Okay that's enough for one night. You've stressed out yourself enough, go home, he thought to himself, dismissing the possibility of his regrowing suspicion. He deleted his history and stood up, still winded from his journey here.

He sighed tiredly and turned to leave the computer area, defeatedly not even bothering to look directly in front of him. He made it three steps of the way before bumping into something— actually, someone. He bumped into them at full force, giving Dipper the impression that this person wasn't looking where they were going either.

"Oof! Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there," the voice from above said, taking a step back. The person was much taller than Dipper, and he had to look up just to see who exactly he just bumped into.

"Sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going and I just—uh…" Dipper began, trailing off as he made eye contact with the teenaged redhead in front of him. And it wasn't Wendy. He's never seen this girl around the library before, let alone in Gravity Falls. At this point, he and Mabel knew just about every local in town, and could spot a tourist right away. After all, they dealt with tourists all the time at the Mystery Shack. This girl wasn't from around here, he could tell. Why a tourist would go to the library was beyond him.

"Um, kid? Are you okay?" The girl asked with a small laugh, waving a hand in front of Dipper. "You spaced out… staring at me."

"Oh, uh, sorry, heh, I've guess I've just never seen you around town before, and I know every local here, so I was wondering why someone not from around here would be at the library this late," Dipper clarified hastily, trying not to come off too rash.

"Oh. Yeah, this is a small town, huh? And you're right, I'm not local, I'm actually just here with my parents and little brother for a few days. I'm not exactly a tourist, because we came here by accident, but yeah, I'm from pretty far away. Do you know Amity Park?" she inquired.

He swallowed, "Uhm, yeah! I've heard quite a bit about it," he responded, ironically basking in the fact that he'd just been researching the town minutes before. He was about to say something else, but then realized what exactly she had just said.

Not from here. Here with her parents and little brother. From Amity Park.

"Really? So you know how weird it is, right?" she laughed, not taking notice of Dipper's mental epiphany. "I'm Jazz, by the way," she added.

"Yeah, it's a pretty weird place," Dipper began casually, but then paused. He knew what he was going to say next, but instead pretended that the thought just occurred to him. "Wait, are you Danny's sister?" he wondered inconspicuously. He couldn't be wrong on this, he knew, but if he just stated it instead of asking, he'd definitely come off as creepy.

"Um… yes?" she answered warily. She seemed too tired to even have registered the question properly, but Dipper continued, testing his limits.

"What are you doing at the library? Can you even take out books here?"

"Well I didn't even bother checking, but I didn't get a good sleep the first night so I came here to tire myself out by investigating whether there are paranormal things going on in this town because my brother kept going on about—" Jazz looked at him with an off-put expression. "Hey wait— Who are you and how do you know my brother?"

"I was with him earlier, we went into the woods together?" Dipper offered.

"Huh!?" she asked, eyes widening in a mix of confusion and shock.

"I'm Dipper, a friend of Wendy's?" he tried again.

She gave him another confused look. "Who?"

"Girl from the Mystery Shack?"

"Oh! Yeah, that cashier he was talking to at the gift shop, yeah, he mentioned her. And you're friends with him too, now?" she asked. "He never told me that," she huffed to herself.

"He doesn't tell you much, does he?" Dipper sighed, as they walked together towards the exit doors of the library.

"Yeah, he keeps to himself, he usually only tells me what he wants me to know and I— wait, what's with the interrogation?" Jazz put her hands on her hips as Dipper signed out of the computers at the front desk. She signed out after him, and raised an eyebrow waiting for Dipper's explanation.

Dipper decided to take a chance on the new information. "Oh, nothing, I was just… looking up your city! Yeah, he was telling me about this ghost in your town— How people don't like him even though he's kind of a hero," he lied, secretly feeling proud of himself for coming up with that so quickly.

"Yeah, well… Even if you don't like ghosts you can't help but be proud of how far he's come." Jazz mused, a small smile on her face.

"But your parents are ghost hunters, doesn't that cause some kind of conflict?" Dipper asked without thinking. With Jazz giving him a look that said 'how did you know?', he quickly added, "I mean, Danny told me that your parents hunt ghosts, so, I was wondering…"

Jazz eyed him with an unreadable expression, shrugged, and stretched her arms above her head. Clearly exhausted. "Parents aren't always right, and what they don't know won't hurt them," she responded. "See you around, maybe," Jazz smiled, pushing the doors open to the library. With one last wave, she walked down the wooden steps of the small building and onto the dimly lit street, disappearing from sight.

Dipper stood there at the entrance of the library. Jazz seemed to know a little more than she would be able to let on. If his sister didn't seem concerned, then it was unlikely that Danny was a danger.

As he made his way to the general store to get Mabel the candy she asked for, he felt more relaxed than he had been these past few hours because he had finally gotten some answers. He didn't have much to worry about after all, but he knew better than to let his guard down.

Just in case.


SO

thats an entire chapter of dipper being suspicious as hell

fun fact here was the rough draft of this chapter that my sister wrote:

Wait…. Danny IS a ghost… that sounds familiar…. Why does it sound familiar?

*Flashbacks*

"I'm not a ghost," said Danny.

*/end Flashback*

HE'S A GHOST

and yeahhhhh that clearly didn't happen but hey, getting closer. now to address some lovely reviews left on the last chapter: (in order of most recent)

DannyPhantomPhandom: eheheh don't worry, this fic isnt TOO angsty, and hinthinthint that wont make sense now lmao it wont be danny suffering eheheheh just wait my friend

dcgirl07: Thank you so much! you made my day when I saw your review, lowkey ily :)

Guest: same

Person: you just wait, friend, theres soooo much more to come

coronadomontes: the fact that you wrote half your review in spanish makes my latino heritage simmer with pride so thank you ily

TenableCape9819: not yet, nope! :)

IronyIsMyName: MUCH APPRECIATED THANK YOU

Guest: lmao I could totally see that happening, and hehehheeh spoilers but YOU'LL SEE

Da Dude: [my lovely sister (the one who does my rough drafts of this fic) volunteered to reply to your review.] Yo, Sis here. I'm responsible for the turd in the writing plot. peace sign You might be looking for S3 Danny, where he fights 'Monsters from another Dimension', but when a guy who's lived all his live accounting abnormalities to ghost-related incidents, it's understandable to be shocked when it turns out to be something entirely different, and opposed to ones cognitive framework. My dude is confident. He's a fighter. But he's also half human and he's a total dork. Maybe you should rewatch the series... because David Kaufman screamed into that mic quite a few times. Danny isn't always fearless all the time. No one is. For you to expect that of him, That's unrealistic

lupsss1412: I would say that this fic being DxS is up to your interpretation, seeing as Sam isn't in this story, but I'm going to go with cannon here and say that he lowkey likes her but they're not a thing yet. (This fic takes place right after Reality Trip ep, the s2 finale) and yeah! :)

anyways thank you all for reviewing, I love hearing your input, it makes me happy because I do read every review and see each time you follow or favourite this story and I can't say enough how happy it makes me seriously y'all are the best

ALSO I now have a tumblr! It's called ghostfall if you wanna stalk me, I co-run it with my sister and its lit af just sayin' and yeah thats all pretty much its 1:03am and I got school tomorrow rip so UNTIL NEXT UPDATE,

-dannyghost :)