They stayed far longer than most, deep into the night long after most of the other couples left. By midnight it was only them and a few others scattered on the once full dance floor as a few custodians cleaned the rest of the space. By this point Norman was afraid that Janet would never willingly leave Dipper's body, and made a mental note to spring for the vial of holy water he kept on his person at all times for such situations if this ridiculous nonsense didn't resolve itself in the next five minutes.

Janet savored the close contact, hands around Norman's waist as they swayed slowly to the low-tempo music.

"This has been the best night of my afterlife. Heck, the best night of my life too."

"Wait till you see what comes after once you move on. I hear it's pretty great."

"Thank you Norman. Thank you so much. I'm so happy you stumbled across me. What did you say your boyfriend's name was again?"

"Dipper."

"That's a funny kinda name. But still. Tell Dipper I said 'thank you so much for letting me use your body.' It really meant the world to me."

"I will."

"You remind me of the guy I was supposed to go on my date with before I died."

"Who's that?"

"George, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"He was really sweet too. Looked kinda like you too. If I squint… Norman, do you think, if it's not too weird, I could just call you George? Just once? You wouldn't have to do anything different."

"Sure, I don't mind."

"George, I had such a great time with you. I don't think I could possibly be happier tonight. Except for one tiny thing."

Before he knew what was happing Janet stood up as tall as Dipper's body would allow and pressed a kiss to his lips. The instant they made contact a bright flash flared up and nearly blinded Norman and once his vision cleared again he saw Mabel standing nearby with her camera, giving a big thumbs up and smiling profusely. In all honesty Norman didn't really know what to make of the kiss. Though it was technically his and Dipper's first, it couldn't help but feel pretty hollow given the circumstances.

As soon as Janet pulled away Dipper's body began convulsing violently, as if trying to reject its host, and his head snapped far back and a green smoke drifted out of his mouth.

It was the soul of Janet departing from this earthly plane, her laughter ringing out briefly before fading into the air.

When the smoke cleared Dipper collapsed on the floor and immediately his boyfriend and sister rushed down to make sure he was all right. Eyelids fluttered open and though his voice was groggy Dipper seemed unharmed.

"Oh my God, Dipper, what's wrong?" Mabel, who still was unaware of any of the night's supernatural overtones, was more concerned than Norman was.

"Nothing, I'm fine. Just a little sore is all."

"Must be from all that dancing you were doing!" she said, helping him up. "Dipper you were amazing tonight, I'm so proud of you! It looked like you were having so much fun."

"Yeah. Looked like it." Observing that the once lively environment around him had long ago died out, Dipper continued, "And it looks like we should be getting out of here. Come on guys, let's go." Without waiting for the others, Dipper went out the building's front doors.

"What's wrong with him?" Mable asked as they followed.

"I'll explain on the way."

As promised, Norman explained everything to Mabel as they drove home, which left the girl feeling a bit regretful for pestering them all night. Dipper, for what it was worth, was at least feeling better by the time they got to the shack. Physically, that is. Emotionally he still seemed pretty down, staying quiet the whole ride until finally they reached the shack.

He dragged his feet inside, ahead of the others, and was just entering when he heard his sister calling after him.

"Hey Dip, wait a minute." Catching up to her brother, Mabel produced her camera and pressed it into his hands, letting him scroll through the photo queue to look at all the pictures she had taken. "These are all the pictures I took tonight. I know it's not really you, but I could scrapbook these anyway if you wanted to pretend you experienced your date. It's still your body after all. It won't take much imagination."

He shook his head sadly and returned the camera. "Look closely upon the eyes, for if the eyes are truly the windows into the soul of a man than in these visages you'll see not me but the specter that has possessed mine flesh upon this night. The memories immortalized upon these photographs are sullied by the knowledge that this is merely a haunted doppelganger of myself, parading around my skin as her own. No, I wish not for these to be scrapbooked. No, I wish not to delude myself into some fantasy in which I am the romantic knight I had seen myself as."

Mabel was dumbfounded. "Jeez Dipper, that was weirdly poetic."

"Yeah, I don't know where that came from. I have a lot of emotions right now. Look, I'm gonna go up on the roof for a little bit to clear my head, okay?" With that, he took his leave up the passageway that led to the roof of the shack.

Norman found him lying on his back on the roof wide eyed, soaking in the universe and the cold of the night. His stargazing, however, was interrupted when Norman's body appeared standing over him, blocking his view.

"Hey Dip," he said. "Mind if I sit here."

Dipper shrugged noncommittally. "Go ahead."

Together they sat a moment, Norman searching for a way to begin. Complimenting the sky was the best he could come up with. "The stars are pretty nice here. I ever tell you that?"

"Yeah, a buncha times."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm all right." His subdued tone said otherwise.

"Look, I'm sorry I roped you into that. I know how much you wanted to be there tonight, it's just that-"

Sitting up, Dipper forced a small smile. "Norman, it's really okay. I'll get over it. I know how you feel about your gift, how you feel it's your responsibility to help ghosts however you can. And I know it's a lot more important to help them move on than for me to experience some dumb dance. You're such a good, compassionate guy and I just wanted one chance to sweep you off your feet like you deserve before you have to go back to Massachusetts. I guess I'm just a little selfish is all since I still feel kinda disappointed that I couldn't do that. I'll be fine though. There'll be other dates. Like next summer. A whole year away…"

"You are not selfish, Dipper. How many lives have you saved since you first came to this town? And I know you helped make one little girl very happy tonight. She wanted me to thank you, by the way."

"Heh."

"You don't have to sell yourself short, just because you're short." It was a dumb joke Norman had told many times before, but still it forced a small laugh out of the other boy.

"Dude, shut up." At least he was smiling again.

"Hey, why don't you go downstairs and pick a few movies we can marathon all night."

"Yeah, okay, that sounds good."

"Pick some that are extra scary. I promise I'll hold you if anything becomes too intense for you." Horror movies weren't really all that terrifying compared to some of the shit these kids have been through, so not many films truly frightened them anymore, but they still liked to use "being scared" as an excuse to cuddle with one another at night sometimes. Even if it wasn't quite the date Dipper had anticipated, he still went inside with Norman feeling somewhat happy again, looking forward to whatever time they'd have together.

Forty minutes later, Dipper was on the couch in the living room, a blanket over his shoulders and his face illuminated only by the flickering of Puppet Master X: Axis Rising (easily one of the top five films in the Puppet Master series and one of the best horror movies ever to feature Nazi puppets, according to Norman) that was displayed on the television.

Norman had disappeared into the kitchen not long into the movie under the pretense of making popcorn, which Dipper thought was pretty weird because it wasn't like him to willingly miss out on some sweet puppet dismemberment action, but whatever. He contented himself with the gore on the screen in the meanwhile. Finally Norman returned, sans popcorn, and turned off the screen, sending the room into a darkness that hid how red his face was.

"Okay," he began, a bit flustered. "So this is probably the sappiest and lamest thing I have ever done in my life but here it goes anyway." He cleared his throat, approached his boyfriend, looked him straight in the eye, and extended his hand. "Dipper Pines, would you do me the honor of dancing with me?"

Now it was Dipper's turn to blush. "Y-yes. Of course."

He took the extended hand and was pulled up into Norman's embrace, their hands on each other's hips. Once they were close, the sound of music drifted in from the kitchen. Had either of them checked, they'd have seen Mabel holding a radio above her head, the volume just loud enough to be easy for the boys to hear, yet quiet enough not to risk waking up the sleeping Grunkle upstairs. The sound of a recognizable piano riff and a man's voice reverberated through the downstairs of the shack.

Tell me did you sail across the sun

Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded

And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall from a shooting star

One without a permanent scar

And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

Mentally, Norman cursed Mabel. He had told her to find something romantic on a CD or cassette, not whatever crap happened to be playing on the radio at the time. To his surprise, however, Dipper's face absolutely lit up.

"Train! My favorite classic rock band!"

"Dipper, you have a really sucky taste in music."

"Yeah. I know."

Norman smiled. He would have to thank Mabel later for finding the perfect song. "It's okay. It's cute. I have a pretty sucky taste in movies so I guess I can't judge."

Much as Dipper usually hated being called the "C-word," as he referred to it (though Mabel had many times tried to convince him that calling it such was a very bad idea), with Norman he didn't mind so much.

They danced and swayed slowly to the song, and in their heads they weren't at the shack at all but back at the high school gym as initially planned. Mabel entered the room but the boys were too wrapped up in each other to notice her presence, even when her camera was flashing off every few seconds, capturing enough of the dance that she probably could've made a flipbook of it out of her pictures if she wanted too. A flipbook that started from the first few awkward steps to the number of cheesy twirls thrown in and finally ending with the young couple's first "official" kiss.

Unlike the one shared between Norman and Dipper's body possessed by Janet's soul, this kiss was warm. It only lasted a second, but still they both agreed afterwards that in the next few days (not to mention next summer) they'd have to try it out a whole lot more.