Hank and His Supernatural Mafia

by Seiya234

Summary:

Where Hank accidentally founds a supernatural mafia in Portland, Willow and Acacia find their brother adorably clueless, Mabel is both super proud and slightly exasperated, and Dipper finds the whole thing rather funny.

Chapter 1

He certainly hadn’t meant to start an informal paranormal community network of aid and protection in Portland.

Really, honestly. Despite what his sisters said afterwards.

These things kind of just happened to Hank.

Story of his life really.

——

Backtrack several months.

Here is Hank Pines, twenty two and fresh out of Oregon State with a BS in Computer Science in one hand, and the key to an apartment with his girlfriend in Portland in the other.

He hadn’t moved back home, like Willow had. She was running the Library now, as Grunkle Stan couldn’t keep up with it anymore, and was using the Shack as homebase for her own paranormal investigation agency.

He hadn’t moved close to home, like Acacia. She and her girlfrie-no, god, wife¬, Reina had moved to Bend which was thirty minutes away. They were renting a trailer in town they called the Love Shack; Acacia painted, and Reina did people’s taxes.

No, he was three hours away, further from home, from his sisters, than he ever had been before.

It was absolutely terrifying. It was exhilarating. It made him want to curl up in a ball some days because he missed Grunkle Stan and Uncle Dipper and Mom and Dad and the girls so damn much.

But it was nice, nice to get a feel for himself as Hank Pines, not Hank the brother, or Hank the son, or Hank the nephew.

It also helped that he was here, doing this with his girlfriend, Vivienne Chen. And he couldn’t even complain about distance-she had come to Portland by way of San Diego.

It had been Grunkle Stan, of all people, who backed Hank’s plan.

“Listen kid,” he told Hank one day when it was just the two of them at the table. “Seventy years ago me and…and your great-grandfather came out here from the Bronx because we were looking for adventure and wanted to make something of ourselves. I get it kid.”

He reached over from his wheelchair and clapped Hank on the shoulder.
“You should do it.”

So even though being that far from Acacia and Willow felt like ripping his heart out, even though Mom sobbed on his shoulder for fifteen minutes, he called Vivi and told her that yes, he would move in with her in Portland.

Uncle Dipper, once they had negotiated some space between them, took it surprisingly well.

(that being said, as he was saying goodbye to everyone and got to Uncle Dipper, his uncle had looked at him with probably the most…alien look on his face Hank had ever seen on him, before solemnly taking Hank’s face in his hands and kissing him right between the eyes.

That probably meant something, damnit, but Uncle Dipper would never tell him.)

Three months in and everything was going…good. Really good actually. He had found a tech job that didn’t make him work crazy hours, and Vivi was teaching kindergarten at the nearby elementary school. Every other weekend Uncle Dipper would either take them home for the weekend or home would come to him and Vivi (the first time he took his mom to the knitting shop down the road, Motherknitter, she actually passed out from joy).

He was making a life of his own and it was nice and-Hank really didn’t want to say normal because he hated that word (years of being referred to as “the normal one” like he should be ashamed of his family). But he had a routine, he was making a name for himself at his job, and he was living with the woman he loved.

Hank forgot, however, that life is change.

——-

It started when he went to take the trash out and he ran into the gnomes.

They weren’t like Jeff and his crew back at home, all attitude and slight bumbling incompetence and really glossy beards. (He had spent many hours with his sisters when they were small running amok with the gnomes and he didn’t realize until he was nine why they called Hank “little prince”)

No, the three who were rummaging in his trashcan were almost skeletally thin, their beards patchy and their clothes ratty.

They tensed as if to run away and Hank spoke.

"Wait! Wait, I won’t hurt you, I promise. Are…are you guys hungry?"

The three exchanged wary looks and the tallest of the three, who looked like a Jerry to Hank said, “Yes?”

Hank decided to take a chance. “Wait here about five minutes and I’ll come back out with some stuff.” (He wasn’t going to invite them in yet, not until he knew them better. Gnomes were like vampires in that regard.)

He went back in the house, hoping that they would trust him even though their past experience probably told them not to, and wait while he made them some of his mom’s famous Catwiches.

As he got the mustard and meat and cut the bread (saving the scraps as well since gnomes weren’t picky) Hank realized he was really upset. He had read in the daily paper advice on how to get rid of gnomes from your house, like they were raccoons or, or, animals.

To be fair, Hank thought as he went back down the stairs, gnomes could be hella annoying and cause problems. But there were better solutions to make sure gnomes stayed away rather than-and he began to shake with anger-laying out rat poison and traps.

He made it back to the landing and thankfully they were all three still there.

Hank put the plate of Catwiches down and the three of them jumped on it like drowning men.

Hank sat on a cleanish spot of ground next to them and waited for them to finish eating before he extended a finger. “I’m Hank, nice to meet you.”

The brunette gnome, who Hank had pegged for the leader, warily took his finger and shook it.

"Hey Tall Dude. I’m Jerry, and this is Rick and Zebulon." Jerry took a deep breath (because manners didn’t come easily to gnomes). "Thanks for the food."

"No problem. Hey, um, are there any more in your troop?"

Jerry started, as did Rick and Zebulon. “You know about our kind,” Rick said.

"Yeah, a bit," Hank replied, rubbing the back of his head a bit.

Zebulon and Rick looked at Jerry, who In turn was looking at Hank intently. Jerry’s eyes flicked up to Hank’s forehead for some reason and his breath sucked in for a second.

Jerry finally said, “Yeah, in the sewer.”

Hank nodded. “Okay, I’ll leave some food out for you guys every-” He did some quick math in his head. “-every other day. Enough for you and your troop.”

Jerry’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

"If other people show up hungry you don’t drive them off. And you let me know so I can have food enough for everyone."

Jerry had an incredulous look on his face, so Hank sighed, picked a scab on his thumb and held it out to Jerry. “On my Name and on my Blood.”

Jerry looked at Hank’s thumb. “You really mean this?”

"Um yeah-are we going to shake soon or do I need to pick another scab while you decide."

Jerry grabbed Hank’s thumb and shook.

"Deal."

(Two weeks later there were four troops of gnomes, a band of pixies, and a murder of crows who came out every other night and Hank had to explain to his highly bemused girlfriend why he needed to purchase a 40 pound bag of rice and an industrial rice cooker)

———-
Vivi and Hank were eating lunch at their favorite diner when a woman walked up and sat in the bench across from them in their booth. She wore a floor length, dark green, silk dress, had long black hair and eyes so deep brown they may as well have been black as well.

She also was soaking wet.

Hank moved Vivi’s purse off of the floor and on to the bench for her, as his girlfriend, always quicker on the uptake than he was, cocked an eyebrow at the woman.

"Can we help you?" Vivi asked.

The woman stared at Vivi, then at Hank, and then down to their clasped hands on the table.

"It seems I will need to include both of you. Very well. Tall One, I need your help."

Hank started at the title that the Dinner Crew, as Vivienne had taken to calling the people they fed, had given him.

(He almost had laughed to Uncle Dipper last week that he finally had a title like him and Mom and Willow but Hank caught himself. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell everyone about this yet)

"I need my skin back."

Hank was about to point out that he couldn’t see muscle, bones and organs when Vivi, the English Lit major, interjected.

"Who took your fur?" Vivi asked. Her question spurred Hank’s memory. Oh. The woman in front of them was a selkie. That made far more sense. Also explained the persistent dampness.

"My ex-girlfriend. I tried going to the police but even now, after the Transcendence, they don’t understand. They think I lost a simple fur coat, they won’t listen and meanwhile Myrna has…has the audacity to wear MY skin-I can feel it on her and-"

A single tear tracked down the selkie’s face.

"It’s okay, um-?"

"Oonagh."

Hank smiled. “Nice to meet you Oonagh, even under these circumstances. Though, um, how did you hear about me?”

Oonagh, more collected now, sniffed and tossed her hair a bit (splashing the three booths behind them with salt water).

"I heard it from the gnomes that you have a good heart and see more than most. I usually don’t trust those little fuckers any further than I can kick them but they don’t give compliments easily and their trust even less so."

Oonagh looked up at Hank’s face. “Will you help me?”

"What’s in it for us?" Vivienne interjected.

"Vivi!"

"Hank, I know you want to help but-" and here she turned to the selkie.

"I want a guarantee that you aren’t going to fuck us over or you’re leading us into a nefarious trap or something."

Oonagh nodded. “Your girlfriend is wise, Tall One. I swear on my Name that I mean you two no ill will nor am I wanting anything else but to get back what is rightfully mine.”

Oonagh thought about it for a second. “You feed a lot of beings every week-I’ll make sure there is always fresh fish enough for everyone, for as long as you feed them.”

Vivi and Hank looked at each other, then back at Oonagh.

"What do you need us to do?" Hank asked.

Thus, seven hours later, Hank and Vivienne found themselves outside the back of one of the most exclusive steakhouses in Portland. They were both dressed in sensible black and Hank had the ring on his thumb at the ready.

(It was a present from Uncle Dipper when he turned 18. To outward appearances, it was a plain silver band on his left thumb. Only Hank and his family knew that a drop of blood on the ring would call the baseball bat Hank’s mom made for him-coated in barbed wire and glass and symbols of banishing and binding-to hand. Or that the inside of the band had his uncle’s symbol engraved on it)

They were waiting for Oonagh to come before enacting the next part of the plan. Hank looked down worriedly at Vivienne, shivering in his arms from the November chill.

"Vivienne, are you sure you want to help? If we get arrested, you could get fired."

Vivi looked up at Hank indignantly (no small feat as she was 5’1 to his 6’7). “Hank, it’s fine. Also someone needs to look after you and make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

Hank grinned. She had a point; he had the height but Vivi had eight years of boxing practice under her belt and frequently sparred both at the gym in town and with his Mom when they were together.

Vivi shifted. “I am worried though-we didn’t get enough information from Oonagh before we agreed.”

Hank winced. Yeah, Uncle Dipper would lecture him seven ways to Sunday if Hank needed to call him for help to get out of a mess.

"I mean, why us? Is there any other reason for Myrna to have taken the skin? Why can’t she just jump Myrna in a back alley by herself and-"

"Myrna has found," a voice came from the depths of the alley they were waiting in.

(Vivi later vehemently denied squeaking and jumping in Hank’s arms).

Oonagh stepped next to Hank and Vivi, dressed in black, comfortable clothes like they were, and kept going. “Myrna has found that wearing my skin makes others perceive her as more attractive, more witty, more charming.”

Oonagh dropped the bag she was carrying to the ground. She knelt to open it and began rummaging through it. “As for why you? I am alone in this city-we had just moved here. I have no one to turn to, and I have heard well of you Hank, like I mentioned.”

She pulled out a-oh my god that was a switchblade. She must have seen the looks on their faces, because Oonagh finished by saying “And the reason I haven’t tried anything myself is because Myrna is the High Priestess of the Cult of Kla’taru and as such, always has two lackeys attending to her.”

Hank, who had been taking a drink of water from his bottle, did a spit take.

Both women looked at him as Hank stared at Oonagh in disbelief.

"The Cult of Kla-and you didn’t think this woman was complete bad news? Seven branches have been busted by Unc- the police for human sacrifice. Seriously, what the fuck?"

Oonagh gave Hank a death glare. “My morality is not your human kind-do not dare to judge me by it.”

A beat and then Oonagh suddenly looked very sheepish. “Um, also she’s really hot and good in the sack.”

"So what is the plan?" Vivi interjected, before Hank and Oonagh could get into it more.

"I can deal with Myrna but I need someone to take care of her guard-that’s where you two come in."

She looked at them. “Can I trust you two?”

Hank and Vivi nodded.

"Good. Because they’re coming out now."

They looked to the back door where two men who could not be more stereotypically “meathead” emerged, followed by a-true to Oonagh’s word-absolutely gorgeous blond woman. A woman wearing an absolute mass of seal fur on her shoulders

Hank was expecting from what he had gathered about Oonagh for the selkie to have some absolutely classy yet truly bone cutting remarks before they engaged in battle.

However, Oonagh chose to reveal her Californian roots by yelling in the most Valley Girl accent Hank had ever heard, “OHMYGAWD YOU LIKE, TOTAL BITCH!” before unceremoniously launching herself at Myrna. The two began to roll on the ground, yanking hair and attempting to gouge the others eyes out.

Myrna’s lackeys tried to go and separate the two women but there Hank and Vivienne stepped in and made almost disappointingly quick work of them: Vivi with a jab to henchman one’s stomach and a head butt when he was bent over in pain, Hank with a few smacks of his bat on henchman two.

They turned to where Oonagh and Myrna had been fighting only to find despite Oonagh’s best efforts, Myrna had gotten the upper hand.

The blonde was on top of the selkie, a well placed knee to the chest keeping her down. In one hand she held Oonagh’s skin and in her other hand she had found the time to cast a spell to bring fire to her hand.

"I liked wearing your skin lover," Myrna said, voice dripping with poison. "But in the end I don’t need it nearly as much as you do. How much longer can you go on land? It’s killing you, isn’t it?"

Oonagh spat in Myrna’s face in response and Myrna used the selkie’s fur to wipe her face off. Her pretty face turned ugly with the force of her grimace.

"Okay. This isn’t fun any longer. Goodbye Oo-ACK."

Hank had snuck up and simply plucked the fur from Myrna’s hand. Myrna leapt up to go after him but Vivi was there to deliver a one-two punch to the stomach.

Myrna glared daggers at the three of them from the ground as Hank handed Oonagh her skin.

"I don’t think you are truly aware of the power I have at hand," Myrna hacked out from the ground.

"I think I am, actually," Hank said, leaning on his bat. "I just don’t think much of it."

Myrna opened her mouth but then seemed to really look at Hank for the first time. Her eyes bulged and the color drained from her face. She scrambled to get as far away from him as possible. “No…no…no,” was all she could manage to squeak out. Myrna managed to get to her feet and ran off, crying, into the night.

Hank looked at Vivi, who shrugged her shoulders in response.

He turned to Oonagh who was also looking at him strangely.

"Are…are you going to be okay?" Hank asked gently.

Oonagh’s eyes flicked to his forehead before she answered him. “I was going to name you the Kindly One,” she said, “but I think the Burning One suits you better. You burn so brightly afterall.”

"Ummmm…"

Oonagh smiled, and tiptoed up to give Hank a kiss on the cheek. She then turned to Vivi and gave her one on the lips.

"Thank you, both of you."

Oonagh turned to go, but before she was out of sight, she turned to look over her shoulder.

"Also, neither you nor any of your kin ever need fear the water again."

She grinned.

"Later bitches."

Vivi and Hank watched her go, standing in silence.

"So….that just happened," Vivi managed to get out.

"Yeah. I think we need some ice cream."

"Good plan Hank."
———
“How’s it going little cousin?”

Hank looked out the window, to where two pixies were having a hair pulling fight that he knew he would have to take care of in a minute. Downstairs he could hear Jerry trying to hog some food for his troop and that would have to be dealt with in a second as we. Also, he was trying to surprise Vivi with a cake and the cake was currently on fire.

"It’s good Wendy."

Chapter 2

"Things have been quiet?"

Hank looked up from his plate of spinach casserole to his uncle across the table, the hustle and bustle of the diner a din in the background.

(Uncle Dipper looked….well, like his Mom said he would if the transcendence hadn’t happened. Honestly, it freaked Hank out a little bit to see his beloved uncle without the fangs that had nibbled on his toes growing up, the pointed ears Hank shared with him a bit, the claws that were really good for opening up packages, or the burning yellow eyes that had comforted Hank when he was small and afraid of the dark.

Also, Uncle Dipper had put on a polo shirt and khakis, so Hank was pretty sure Dipper was fucking with him.)

Hank swallowed his mouthful of food. “Um yeah, I mean, work has been fine and Vivi loves the kids but Uncle Dipper, you know that already so why are you asking?”

His uncle’s face froze in that deer-in-headlights look he got that Mom called his “How do people face?”

Uncle Dipper laughed nervously for a second.

“Oh no reason!” Hank’s uncle said.

 

Hank just stared at him with a mildly quizzical look on his face. He had figured out long ago that he was the only one of his siblings that Uncle Dipper couldn’t easily read, and while he didn’t like to take advantage of his inscrutability, Hank did want Uncle Dipper to get to the point.

(Dipper swore to himself long ago never to enter his niblets’ minds unless they gave permission or were having a bad dream. As for his omnipotence, it was so not worth it, considering when he actively used it the walls bled and no one could touch him without seeing things mortals weren’t meant to know and it took hours to return to normal)

Uncle Dipper sighed, and ran his fingers through his head in defeat. “Your mom is worried about you.”

Hank was shocked. “Really?”

“She seems to think you’re hiding something from us.”

Hank was so glad he had a good poker face because on the inside he was going oh fuck oh fuck.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told his family about the Dinner Crew or Oonagh or that time he helped a firebird out of a tree. It was what his sisters or parents or uncles would have done afterall.

But…these were his ties, his friends, his people, binding him to Portland slowly but surely-he could feel it. (Hank wasn’t sensitive like Willow but living with a demon for the first 18 years of your life and in a supernatural library meant some things rubbed off on you). Hank wasn’t sure if he was ready to admit that to his family yet, that Portland was becoming something permanent, rather than a stop for a few years before he moved back to Gravity Falls.

Hank wasn’t sure if he could. Or if he wanted to.

Also it had been four months and he hadn’t told them and it would be really awkward and Hank was terrible at awkward.

Uncle Dipper was looking at him very intently now, eyes flicking quickly to black and then back again. Well shit, that was Hank found out.

Finally, Uncle Dipper asked, “Are you or Vivi in trouble?”

“No.”

“And if you got into trouble you’d call for one of us yes?”

“Of course Uncle Dipper.”

Hank’s uncle grinned, and his teeth had gone back to the reassuring shark fangs that Hank grew up with.

“Well, we all have our secrets Dog Star, and I don’t mind keeping yours, whatever it is.”

Dipper paused while the waitress cleared the table, then said a little more sheepishly, “But, um, don’t tell your mom I said that because I think she’d kill me.”

Hank laughed. “Sure Uncle Dipper.” (Hank and his sisters had always loved that their uncle was probably more scared of their mom at times than they were.)

Before Uncle Dipper went home that night, Hank could have sworn he heard him mutter “got to keep you out of trouble”, before laying a kiss between his eyes, instead of on his cheek like usual.

Hank chalked it up his uncle being weird (or Dipperitis as his mother called it, much to Dipper’s chagrin).

———————————

 

Hank was sitting outside of Ida B Wells Elementary, waiting for Vivienne to come out of her last parent-teacher conference so they could get some dinner, when he noticed on the bench next to him a little girl in a bright red cape that almost completely enveloped her. From what he could see of her outside of the cape, she had bright black eyes, deep umber skin, and her hair was done in an adorable little Afro poof on top of her head.

She must be one of Vivi’s kids. Softly, because Hank was very aware of his height, age, and gender, he asked “Are your parents inside little miss?”

She turned to look at him then and the weight of age in her eyes took Hank aback.

(He had only seen that weight before in Uncle Dipper’s eyes, when he had one of his bad turns).

“I have advice you should heed, Burning One.”

“Okay.”

“Though I may appear small to not listen to my warning would be-wait, really?”

Hank nodded. “You clearly aren’t one of the kids in my girlfriend’s class; are you a vampire? If that’s not too rude to ask?”

The girl (Hank couldn’t help it-it was too weird to address someone who barely made three and a half feet as anything else) stared at him for a minute.

“How did you know?” she finally managed to ask.

“Your eyes, the fangs I can see when you open your mouth and-“

Hank apologetically held out a small mirror that he had surreptitiously pulled out of his pocket. The little girl did not show up in it at all.

She smiled, and it was far too knowing to be on a face so young looking. “Damn you’re good.”

“Though, um, not to be rude, but how are you-” Hank waved his hands, indicating the wavery but still there October sunshine.

“I’m old.”

“Oh? Like a hundred years? Two hundred?”

The vampire pierced him with her eyes. “When Marie Antoinette lost her head I was there. When Caesar bled out on the steps of the Senate I was there. When the Sphinx was being built I was there.”

“So old then?”

“As balls,” she confirmed.

Hank held out his hand. “I’m Hank.”

She took his large hand in her petite one. “I’ve been calling myself Lucy Ann for these last three centuries.”

“Nice to meet you Lucy Ann-are you sure we don’t need to go inside or something?”

She laughed. “Dude, the sun hasn’t bothered me for 2500 years. It’s fine.”

Lucy Ann grew serious. “I really do have something you need to hear though.”

Hank grew just as serious. “What is it?”

“Your Dinner Crew is beginning to attract attention-and not the good or ambivalent kind either.”

Hank couldn’t help but goggle a bit.

“I believe you, but why on earth would people care if I’m feeding some gnomes and pixies-” he did a quick head count in his head “and harpies, fairies, brownies, that one banshee Olivia that can’t scream, and-“

He was interrupted by Lucy Ann loudly smacking herself on the forehead. “Dude, seriously, I have to explain this to you?”

“Yeah, sorry.” (Hank could reach up high for Vivi, and in turn she could help when, as she put it, “you’re being too damn nice Hank”)

Lucy Ann let out a loud breath and rocked back a bit before looking back at Hank.

“Do you know that you have brought all seven gnome troops in Portland to peace for the first time in thirty years?”

He didn’t.

“Or that the vampire seethes are currently in a crisis because they can’t get the pixies and fairies to gather information for them any more-they found a person who treats them infinitely better and asks for nothing in return.”

He hadn’t known that either, but for a notice long ago that they always seemed to be getting more of the Little Folk in.

“Or that the brownies are demanding more than the pittance they were getting from the werewolves, and the selkie clans in three states are singing your praises and-“

Lucy Ann shook her head. “Dude, for all appearances, you just cannonballed your way into town and started setting up this massive power base for yourself and now the other players in town are wondering how to deal with you and your belongings.”

“My-my belo-?” Hank sputtered. “First, the only people the Dinner Crew belong to is themselves-“

Lucy Ann patted his hand. “I know that and you know that but that’s not how Nicholai or Stefan play this game. Who is theirs is theirs.”

“Who are those guys?”

Lucy Ann sighed the sigh of someone who was only expecting this exposition to take five minutes not twenty.

“I’ll explain later. The point is right now no one has made a move on you because-” her eyes flicked to his hair line for some reason “-they’re not suicidally stupid. But they are biding their time and your grace period will end. In their eyes, you are a threat to be dealt with.”

Hank completely got the logic of what the small vampire was saying but still, a little part of him couldn’t help but say, “I…all I’m doing is putting some food out with people and helping them with small problems. That’s it.”

Lucy Ann gave a sad little smile. “Kindness was in short supply in Portland until you came. People are just going to have to learn to deal.”

She paused. “I…had some ideas about what you might do for protection.”

Hank spotted Vivienne coming out of the building, talking to one last parent.

“Why don’t you come home with us and we’ll discuss this over coffee-uh, can you drink coffee?”

“What am I going to do, stunt my growth? Fuck yes I drink coffee.”

Hank smiled. “Good. Though, um, I’m sorry but I can’t invite you in right away, you’ll have to push in and-“

Lucy Ann interrupted him. “No worries. I’m glad to see that while you’re kind of naive and clueless, you aren’t dumb.”

Hank paused. “Um, thanks?”

“No problem-oh, Miss Chen is your girlfriend? I like her-she brings in cookies on the reg.”

———

“You’ve been awful quiet tonight champ-everything okay?”

Hank started and looked over at his dad. He and Vivi were home for the weekend. Hank and his dad were relaxing on the porch, watching Vivi and Mabel box in the yard. Grunkle Stan had wheeled himself out into the yard and was yelling advice out to the pair. Reina and Willow and Dipper were in the house, painting each other’s nails (well, Dipper was more the paintee than the painter”)

Hank was at home, surrounded by the people he loved. He should be relaxed. And he was! Really!

Hank just couldn’t help but worry about the Dinner Crew. They were used to every weekend either laying low or eating on the stash Hank squirreled away in the special can he kept outside and Lucy Ann said she’d keep an eye on everyone but he was away and what if something happened and-

“Hank?” His dad, worried.

Hank made himself relax and looked out to the yard. “I’m fine Dad, just thinking about work.”

Henry laughed. “Well take care of that long look on your face or your mom will start making horse jokes.”

Then his sister and sister in law dragged Uncle Dipper out for everyone to see his gold and blue nails, and the match in the yard had degraded to just his mom and girlfriend wrestling and Grunkle Stan yelling something that sounded suspiciously like “fight fight fight!”

Hank relaxed. It was good to be home.

Chapter 3

One of the first times he had brought Vivienne home, when they had started going out, Vivi sat right next to Uncle Dipper and asked “Why does Hank attract weird shit?”

Hank felt like he was going to drop into the floor. “Vivienne!”

She reached across Dipper and up to pap his cheek.

“Oh shoosh Hank I’m not complaining, you know I don’t care. Hell, we’ve even gotten to ride unicorns together and how cool is that?”

(Acacia walked through the room when Vivi said that and even though Acacia knew better about unicorns, she still turned to Hank and waggled her eyebrows so fast they could have lit a fire and Hank wanted to double die now.)

“But the fact remains that you’re a weird shit magnet-care to explain Dipper?”

 

Uncle Dipper lit up (probably because, as Hank’s mom put it, he was a complete show off) and launched into a twenty minute explanation that could be summed up as “like attracts like”.

“Guess you’ll always be running into weird things,” Vivi ribbed at Hank later that night in bed.”

Hank smiled. “Guess so.”

——————

Hank was taking a short cut through one of the alley ways by their apartment to get milk a week after he had met Lucy Ann when he smelt sulphur and scented candles and Latin spoken in a voice that sounded far too young and oh shit.

Hank quickly turned the corner only to see a young Korean girl, no more than five or six, hair done in pigtails and wearing overalls, shake hands with a demon-seventeen eyes on his left arm, ram’s horns, that was probably Karnisa the Giver.

Karnisa turned to see who the newcomer was and if he could eat him. The demon’s eyes flicked to Hank’s forehead and Hank could have sworn he heard Karnisa go “oh fuck no” and pop out of this plane, leaving the little girl on the ground, screaming in pain.

Hank ran over immediately and picked her up.

And then damn near dropped her on the ground because touching her was like putting his hand in a lit fire.

Quickly, Hank picked a scab on his finger and touched the blood to the small pine tree that was on his hip. “Uncle Dipper, I need you NOW.”

Dipper blipped into existence next to his nephew and immediately took the girl into his arms.

Dipper laid a hand on her head. “What did you do sweetheart?” he gently asked. A minute passed, long and silent, as Dipper and the child spoke within her head.

Finally, Uncle Dipper turned to Hank. “Close your eyes Hank, unless you want them burned out.”

Hank, used to listening to Uncle Dipper, immediately closed his eyes and turned around for good measure.

He could feel on his back a blast of heat like opening an oven door, Uncle Dipper hissing with effort, and then a tap on his shoulder.

Hank turned and opened his eyes.

There was Uncle Dipper looking faintly exhausted and where the girl had been there was now a creature of blue fire, her shape consistently changing and shifting.

She held up a hand and sent more blue fire flying from it. “Fwoosh!” she said and that tugged at Hank’s heart because he remembered when Willow would do and say almost the exact same thing.

She seemed content for the moment to stand and look at the fire coming from her so Hank sidled up next to Uncle Dipper and raised an eyebrow.

“I assume you have a really good reason for this?” Hank asked, as the little girl spread out the flaming fingers of her hand and made them flame higher.

Uncle Dipper looked horrid, bags under his eyes. “Her name is Mindy. And she was getting teased at school and someone-” Dipper’s own flames flared up until he took a deep breath and settled them down. “An adult told her that if she had magic it wouldn’t be a problem. Even gave her a little sheet with instructions. Told her to ask for all the magic she could use.”

The bottom dropped out of Hank’s own stomach as he looked over at Mindy and realized why she had felt so hot when he had touched her. It would only be too easy for a demon to take a command for all the magic one could use and literally deliver it.

You’d only have it for two minutes before you burned from the inside out because the human body wasn’t designed to channel that much force. But you couldn’t say the demon hadn’t delivered.

Dipper saw the look on his nephew’s face and nodded. “Mindy’s only five; I don’t even think they mention demons until a year or two from now in school, she had no idea.”

Dipper started to scuff away the chalk on the ground with his shoe, not looking at Hank or Mindy now. “She…she was almost dead. And she had made a deal. The best I could do was make a new one.”

Mindy drifted over to Hank, floating so she was even with his eyes. She put a finger on his nose. “Boop!” she cried, and then began flying around.

“She’ll live as long as she would have…would have normally. And Mindy has all the magic she could ever want or use. But…this is all she is now, all she can be.”

Hank went up to Uncle Dipper and gave him a hug at that point, feeling a tear or two soak into his shirt.

Mindy came over and joined them. Hank gave her an extra hard hug for all that she had lost, all she had been tricked into losing.

When Uncle Dipper started to pull away, Hank let him. Mindy pulled back too and was currently flying in small circles in the air.

“What did she give you in return?” Hank asked.

The air around Uncle Dipper grew dark as he grinned. Hank could see both rows of teeth, the corners of his mouth stretching farther than they had any business doing so.

“The name of the man who gave her that advice. It’s part of a deal he has with Karnisa-he gives Karnisa hapless sacrifices, Karnisa makes sure Donald’s gambling debts stay paid. Win fucking win for everyone involved.”

His uncle’s grin grew somehow even nastier. “As it is, I think I’m going to go and have a t҉͜a̕l҉k̀ with Donald.”

And if Uncle Dipper didn’t scare this dude to death by showing up unsummoned and through any wards he had up, well he still wasn’t long for this world much after that.

A nicer person than Hank or perhaps a more moral one would have been less blasé about knowing a man was about at the least have his soul ripped out of his body. Maybe a kinder person would talk Dipper out of it, alert the police.

All Hank could think about though was Mindy, her life irrevocably changed. About how many people had been tricked, killed.

No. Not in his city, not to his people.

The dark thoughts swirling in Hank’s head were interrupted by his Uncle sweeping him up into another hug.

Uncle Dipper gave him a smooch on the forehead that he had gotten into the odd habit of doing recently.

“You did good today Hank. Really. Thank you.”

Hank squeezed Uncle Dipper back, getting a little “oof!” from his uncle.

Hank looked at Mindy who was currently tossing a fire ball back and forth between her hands.

“What should I do about Mindy?”

“I’ll…I’ll make sure her family knows. As for you, do you know of any pixie bands in town? She’s more or less kind of like a pixie now.”

Hank smiled. “I got it Uncle Dipper.”

“Good.” Uncle Dipper blipped without warning out of there, and Hank was left in the alley with Mindy.

He kneeled down to where she was sitting on the ground.

“I’m Hank.”

She looked up. “I’m Mindy.”

“Are….are you okay?”

“Uh-huh. I think….I need to go home now. But I forgot how to go there.”

She looked up at Hank.

“Can you help me?”

Teena was a sweet woman, Hank knew Mindy would fit in well her troop.

“I think I can. Can you follow me Mindy?”

Together they left the alley.

(Hank tried to act surprised at work the next day when at the cooler everyone was talking about how a man was found dead in his office, head literally torn from his body.

Hank himself felt nothing but a grim kind of satisfaction. But then again, Grunkle Stan had warned him once that there was a dark streak in the Pines family.)

Chapter 4

Vivi reached up (with help from the box she was standing on) and put a hand across Hank’s mouth.

“Hank, I love you dearly, but if you say ‘Do you think everyone will find us?’ one more time you and I are going to have words.”

She uncovered his mouth and Hank blushed.

“It’s just….I have an obligation for everyone and I don’t want to let people down and…I’m just worried.”

Vivi couldn’t help but smile, and took Hank’s hand in hers.

“Hank, we’ve been telling the Crew for a month we were moving to Caruthers Park. And we made signs in three different languages to leave up behind the trash can. And we had Teena’s band go and let everyone know two days ago. It’ll be fine.”

Lucy Ann came up from behind the toting a ten gallon cooler of coffee. Her vampiric strength let her handle it with ease but her height ensured she looked like she was going to topple over.

She looked at Hank and said “Yes I got it. Don’t even start Hank.”

They finished loading up the truck, and all three of them got in for the five minute drive to Carruthers Park. Behind them, a blur of blue fire followed, flames streaming in the wind.

As they drove, Lucy Ann spoke up.

“Well. If you two didn’t have everyone’s attention before you will now.”

“We were running out of room and if people are going to come and eat it should be some place nicer than the trashcans in the alley behind our apartment,” Hank simply said, turning the wheel as he did.

“I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, I am saying that you two need to be even more careful now than you were before.”

Lucy Ann looked at Vivi, who nodded.

They got to the park and saw the small crowd gathered there. Hank burst into a massive smile.

“They came!” he yelled and leapt out of the truck, leaving the girls for a second.

“We will knock some sense into his head later,” Vivi told Lucy Ann.

“Good, because he’s kind of being a doof about this,” Lucy Ann replied.

Vivi hopped out of the truck and got the door for Lucy Ann. “He’s our doof though.”
———-
Hank and Vivi were having an evening in: bad movie for mocking on the tv, long pajamas, take out, the whole nine yards, when Hank heard a rhythmic tap on the window.

“Think that’s for you Hank,” Vivi sleepily said (she may or may not have spent the last ten minutes drooling in Hank’s lap.)

Hank got up, leaving Vivi on the couch (having fallen back asleep) and went to the window. He opened it up and there in their little window box stood Marquis, who was part of the larger fairy clumps that came to Dinner.

“Burning One,” Marquis said in that odd, lilting, formal tone that all fairies seemed to have. “My Mother Bid Me To Tell You That There Is Bad Business At The Docks.”

“What’s happening?” Hank said, keeping his voice low.

“A Grand Lady, My Godmother, Is Being Held Captive: My Mother Fears The Worse And We Are Not Strong Enough To Free Her And-“

The little fairy knuckled away a tear. “Can You Help Please?”

Hank immediately nodded. “Yes, of course, only if you will lead the way.”

Hank looked at Vivi on the couch. The whole reason they were having a night in was because she had the flu. He really wanted her by his side but more important than that was making sure his girlfriend didn’t get any sicker.

Hank motioned to Marquis to wait a minute, and then walked to Vivi on the couch. He gently shook her awake.

“Viv….Vivi, I need to step out for a bit, one of the Crew needs help, will you be okay?”

“Hnnnnf,” was all he got, and Vivi turned away from him to burrow further in the couch.

Hank got the notepad from the kitchen and left a note in case she became cognizant, and went back to the window, where Marquis was waiting. “Okay, if we take my car will you still be able to show me the way?”

Twenty minutes later they were parked outside of an anonymous warehouse, just off the docks at the Port.

“Can you see a way in and how many people are keeping your godmother?” Hank asked.

Marquis nodded and zipped off.

Not two minutes later he had returned.

“Seven Humans, And There Is A Door On The Side They Forgot To Lock.”

“Awesome! High-five Marquis.” Hank held up an index finger for the Marquis to high five.

It was then before Hank got out of the truck that he noticed a flicker of blue out of the corner of his eye and oh no.

“Mindy,” Hank gently asked, “what are you doing here sweetie?”

The tiny blue flame that had unobtrusively rode over with Hank and Marquis blossomed into her full form, lighting the cab of the truck with her fire. Mindy was doing well with Teena and her band. Teena’s kids and their mass amount of cousins loved having someone to play with and Teena herself helped Mindy immensely by working on….not bringing her back to who she was, it was far too late for that, but helping Mindy adjust to her new existence, who she was now.

Still didn’t explain why Mindy was here in the truck with them.

A flame leapt from Mindy and curled around one of Hank’s fingers, a vaguely tickly sensation.

"Lulu and Vivi told me to follow you if you ever went off on your own," Mindy explained cheerfully.

Oh god, he knew they meant well but while Mindy was now essentially an elemental composed of flame and magic, she was also a five year old elemental of flame and magic.

Aloud all he said was, “What does Mama T say?” Teena surely would know better-

“Mama T was there too! And she said I should make sure you don’t get into trouble cos you’re stub…stub… A doofus, who don’t take care of himself.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, he could see the Marquis out of the corner of his eye trying not to laugh.

Hank sighed.

“Okay you can come on in with us, just stay back so you don’t get hurt okay?”

Mindy was five and really didn’t have much in the way of facial features anymore, but she still managed to give Hank a look that said “Really dude?”

Led by the Marquis, the three of them quietly snuck around back to the door that Marquis had found unlocked. They crept in and Hank wasn’t sure what he had been expecting but it wasn’t this.

Strapped down to the floor was a dragon.

Hank should not have been as surprised as he was that a dragon was a godmother to a pixie, but that was a new one, even for him.

Whatever shock he felt quickly dissipated as Hank took further stock of the room around him. Men and women dressed in leather aprons and gloves. Saws and scalpels and tarps. Plastic lined boxes and bags and coolers.

They were going to take her apart, piece by piece.

Confirming Hank’s suspicions, another man, an eighth man, entered in through another door, and Hank could hear the tail end of his conversation.

“Tell Nicholai we will have everything packaged up by nine…we’re about to start yeah…of course it’s going to be awake, I remember those instructions as well.”

Hank’s blood ran cold.

The mistake people made when they looked at the Pines triplets was that they assumed too much.

They saw Acacia with her hot temper and brass knuckles, and Willow with her magic and insight, and assumed that Hank was the calm one, the normal one (the safe one). He even brought in fresh homemade cookies on a weekly basis to work, and shoveled snow for his elderly neighbors, and that Hank is such a sweet man, unlike those sisters of his and so on and so fucking forth.

And to be fair, some of that was true. No one, least of all Acacia herself, would deny that she had a short temper. Even Willow, quiet as she was, had one as well (she ran more to the vindictive side of things). And Hank really didn’t get mad that often, even in the face of things that would have made even his own father perk up and give a warning glare to the offender. Hank was like a glacier, slow to anger.

That just meant when Hank finally got mad, he really, really got mad. And unlike Willow and Acacia, Hank never forgot and almost never forgave.

His sisters were bright, blazing fire, quick to flare up, quick to burn, and quick to die back down.

Hank was ice.

Grimly, Hank called up his bat, and then brought the Marquis and Mindy together to lay out their plan of attack.

The first Kiyo was aware of her rescuers, it was a vague feeling of the additional presence of heart beats and warm bodies in the room where she would soon die. Gawkers. Fantastic. As if this wasn’t already undignified and horrific enough.

But one of those bodies was-oh Goddess was what Marquis doing here, he didn’t need to die alongside her, no, no. And the second heat source was…nothing but heat. Despite the situation, Kiyo couldn’t help but chuckle slightly on the inside. It had been a long time since she had encountered a magic elemental, especially one this young.

The third one though took what little breath she had thanks to these damned bindings away. If any of her captors had the Sight they would have run screaming to see who had Marked the young man next to her godson.

The three of them stepped out from behind the stack of crates they had been hiding by and all hell broke loose.

Marquis immediately did what fairies were best at, which was get underfoot and be an annoyance, tripping up her erstwhile dissectors. Meanwhile, the little spirit was ensuring that everyone’s weapons were too hot for them to handle, and through the room guns and knives were hastily dropped and cries of pain echoed in the cavernous space. One or two people tried to escape only to find the doors locked and barred by bright blue fire.

And there was the demon marked young man himself. He made quick work of the syndicate members arrayed in the warehouse. His bat swung at torsos and heads, breaking teeth and fingers, and backed up with the occasional kick or punch.

Kiyo could tell he wasn’t aiming to kill these associates of Nicholai; but neither did he want them to leave this room unscathed.

Between the three of them they made quick work of her attempted murderers. Finally the only one left standing was the man in charge, the man on the cell, the man who had lured her foolish self here with a promise of information of an aerie in danger. He called himself Marcus.

Marcus leapt at the redhead with a switchblade the spirit had missed heating, but unfortunately Marcus was a foot shorter than the other man. Before Marcus knew it his blade had been knocked out of his hand, and a foot to the chest knocked him flat on the floor and kept him there.

The red headed man leveled the tip of his bat at Marcus’ throat.

Marcus glared up at him. “You have no idea who you are messing with little boy,” he growled.

“Nope, and I really don’t care,” the tall man responded back. He prodded Marcus’ throat. “I have a message for this ‘Nicholai’ of yours.”

Marcus laughed and spat at the man.

"And what makes you think I will give it to him? Or that you’re going to walk out of this room alive? You’re too weak to have taken care of my associates-we both know you could have killed them with that bat but you left them alive. I doubt there is anything you can do to compel me."

The tall man looked at Marcus for a long moment, his freckles standing out in stark relief against his bone white face.

Finally he said, “Mindy, bat.”

The spirit-Mindy-made a motion with her hand and said “FWOOSH” and the bat at Marcus’ throat instantly alit with flame. Marcus tried to rear his head away from the flame but with limited success.

“I won’t kill you; that’s not who I am. But I have no problem making sure you walk around with a face like melted candle wax for the rest of your life.”

Marcus looked like he was about to say “You wouldn’t” but the flaming tip of the bat got perilously close to his eye and he shrieked.

The tall man nodded grimly.

“Are you ready to be sensible now?” he asked. Marcus just sobbed in response.

“Tell this Nicholai person that this-” he waved at Kiyo, at the room that had seen death before- “stops now. No more pain, no more death. It ends here.”

Marcus was still possessed of some wit despite blubbering in terror because he managed to blurt out “That is really vague.”

The tall man rolled his eyes. “No shit; it’s because I’m sure dissecting people to sell their parts on the black market is only one part of what you do on a daily basis. All of it ends. Or I find out every last thing this ‘boss’ of yours does and take care of it personally myself.”

There was hate in Marcus’ eyes but after a long moment he nodded.

The red headed man said “Mindy will show you out.”

The doors slammed open and Marcus was sent flying across the floor and out the door. It slammed shut and Kiyo was left with her rescuers.

“Is anyone going to wake up soon?” the tall man asked.

“No Hank I Do Not Believe So.”

Tall ma-Hank- went “Oh good,” and immediately went to a sink and threw up for a solid minute.

When he had finished, he came over to her and started to cut her bindings with an axe that had been among the bladed instruments on the wall.

“I’m Hank-are you okay? Did…did they hurt you in any way?”

Kiyo, unbound at last, straightened and shook herself out before answering. “My name is Kiyo and I am fine. The only wound is-“she flinched “-my pride I am afraid.”

She turned to the Marquis. “Godson, what on earth are you doing here?”

He flinched. “I Am Sorry Godmother But My Mother Asked The Burning One To Help You.”

The burning one eh?

Kiyo turned to Hank who was…oh my goodness, he was blushing and that was adorable.

She stretched to her full length, and then bowed to him. “I owe you a life debt, Kindly One. I am now and forever yours.”

Hank, if it was possible, blushed even more. “I, um, uh, wait kindly one?”

Kiyo smiled, exposing all of her teeth. “Brush up on your Greek mythology dear, and look up the Erinyes.”

“Okay…you really don’t owe me anything you know? I was just doing what anyone else would do.”

Kiyo towered over him-a novel experience for him Kiyo imagined because he was rather tall for a human. “No. You did what people should do, not what they would do.”

She laid back out on the floor. “Want a ride home?”

——

Vivi woke up to the heavy thunk of her boyfriend sitting on the couch, in what little space wasn’t taken up by her sleeping.

She looked blearily at him.

“Hank?”

Hank took a deep breath and the look on his face woke her up immediately.

“I think I need to take Lucy Ann up on her advice.”

Chapter 5

Summary:

A brief foray into someone near and dear to Hank.

Some names Lucy Ann has had before.

One: Sagar

She was born in Uruk, the year Gilgamesh ascended to the throne.

Sagar, she was called, the advisor.

Later Sagar figured that with four older brothers with one brain between them, her parents were hoping that she would be the one to guide them in the background when the pottery business passed to her oldest brother.

That never came to pass though because she died when she was seven.

Sagar had been sent with a vase of beer to go to the market place, to trade for some onions and leeks for that night’s dinner.  She was walking along the canal, by the temple of Ishtar, when a strong arm grabbed her from behind and dragged her behind the temple.

Sagar kicked and screamed and bit and punched but it was like Gilgamesh himself was holding her, a grip as strong as the gods.

She was dragged behind the temple, where a hot mouth attached to her throat, tearing and ripping and sucking.

Sagar bit the hand that was covering her mouth as hard as she could. She drew blood, she knew, because some got in her mouth, but it didn’t seem to matter.

The world faded in and out, black and grey around her.

The last thing she saw before her heart stopped beating was the vase her mother had given her broken on the ground by the canal, beer staining the dirt.

When she came to, it was night. Her arm was badly burnt.

Sagar was hungry. It was a burning, aching hunger like she had never felt before.

From the temple, Sagar could hear the voice of a priestess ring out across the night.

“And Ishtar demanded of the gatekeeper to open the door into Arallû, saying to him ‘I will break the door, I will wrench the lock, I will smash the door-posts and I will force the doors. I will bring up the dead to eat the living. And the dead will outnumber the living.”

Sagar’s stomach rumbled and her teeth hurt. Standing up shakily she got up and started to walk home.

She was hungry. So hungry. Her mother would feed her.

(so would her brothers and father, when she was through)

She never saw his or her face. People would ask her, time and time again over the next several millennia, if she knew who her maker was.

Sagar didn’t. And she never would.

Two: Vipsania Livia Orestilla

Vipsania rather liked this Octavius.

For one thing, he actually listened to her, able to look easily past her sex and her apparent age. At the moment they were in a public house in Lupiae, drinking some really shitty wine.

“So the old man is dead?” he asked, taking a swig from his cup, and then looking down at it in disgust.

Vipsania proffered him the scroll she had hastily grabbed before leaving Rome, the blood of Julius still fresh and pooling around his corpse from the rents in his body.

“Yes. He made a will while you were off gallivanting in Illyria,” she said, taking a drink even though she knew better (it helped quell the hunger, for a while).

Octavius cocked an eyebrow at her. “The last time someone was that insubordinate to me, they lost a hand.”

Vipsania smiled, the better to bare her fangs. “And I am no one’s subordinate Gaius Octavius.”

He grinned back, baring teeth himself, and opened the scroll, reading the contents contained within.

Finally, he looked up at Vipsania.

“I know damn well you read this before you came here-“

“Fuck yes I did.”

“-so what do you think?”

Vipsania drained the last of her cup, if only to get hopefully better wine the next round.

“I think renouncing the adoption, despite what your friends write, would be the dumbest possible thing in the world.”

He nodded. “Those were my thoughts exactly.”

“You have most his estate, you have allies, and, I think, you will quickly gather Caesar’s friends and allies as well to your cause.”

“And you?”

Vipsania started a bit. “Hmm?”

It was Octavius’ turn to look at Vipsania intently. “Will I have you, my spy and my advisor, by my side as well?”

She thought on it for a second. On one hand, her presence in his camp and entourage could potentially weaken him. On the other hand….she had a feeling this kid was going places.

And hell, there were ways to stay under the watchful notice of most people. One of the reasons she had started talking to Octavius in the first place was that he actually noticed her.

“Sure, I’m in.” She paused. “But only if we start meeting in places that have better wine than this piss.”

Octavius burst into laughter.

Chapter 6

At 89, Grunkle Stan tended to sleep like a rock when he drifted off in his recliner or on the couch, or in his wheelchair.

This was good, at least for Hank’s sisters and girlfriend, because this meant he wasn’t going to wake up while they painted his fingernails and toenails.

Currently, Acacia was painting one of his feet a lovely fire engine red, Willow a bright blue, and Vivi and Reina were sharing the yellow for his hands.

Hank smiled and went to the Library, where his mom was, to escape the inevitable explosion (not that Stan would really do anything in the face of four determined nieces and niece-in-laws).

Hank ducked through the doorway and froze.

His mother was wearing her heart shaped glasses, a rainbow sweater with a giant picture of a ring on it and oh shit.

“My Forrest Fire!” Mabel cried, launching herself at her son and squeezing him as tight as she could.

“Hi Mom.”

“Soooooooooo…..” Mabel pulled back and looked at Hank expectantly. “When you going to marry that girlfriend of yours?”

Hank blushed the same fire engine red that Acacia was currently applying to Stan’s foot.

“Um, eventually?” Hank finally managed to get out.

“How eventually?”

Hank looked quizzically at his mother. “I don’t remember you asking Acacia this.”

“Hank, your sister was biting at the bit to marry Reina, I knew it was going to happen.”

Hank looked over at the desk where, instead of the usual Library paperwork, his mom’s matchmaking set was out, complete with graphs and dioramas.

He sighed. Hopefully Grunkle Stan would wake up soon and provide an escape distraction.

———-

“Hank honey? Do you know who this is from?”

Hank looked up from making dinner to his girlfriend. Vivi had stepped out to get the mail and was now holding a manila envelope. There was no address on the outside.

“Noooooo,” Hank trailed off. Vivi handed it to him, and went to put the keys up. Hank slit the envelope open to find a far more ornate one inside, all thick green paper and…yup, that was a wax seal.

There was also a note written on a piece of Hello Kitty stationary that read:

“I think you two should go to this. You may want to have back up ready.

L.A.

PS: Formal dress code.

PPS: Get Vivi to tie your tie for you-you do an atrocious job Hank”

Hank opened the invitation up, Vivi looking around his torso to see what it was.

“Thirty Eighth Annual Catherine McGillicuddy Martineau Charity Auction,” he read out loud.

“So. An elaborate, handwritten invitation to some kind of auction benefitting….anti-human trafficking organizations, at the nicest hotel in town,” she said, able to read the intricate cursive far faster than Hank was able to.

“With two tickets,” Hank replied, holding up said tickets.

“Well. There must be something nefarious going on if Lucy Ann thinks we should be there,” Vivienne observed.

“Do…do you mind coming with me?” Hank asked with some slight trepidation.

Vivi looked at him for a second, then reached up as far as she could and smacked him on the shoulder.

“Dumbass. You need back up, and I love you, and I get to wear a nice dress. Of course I’m coming with you.”

She thought for a second.

“Let’s ask Kiyo to come with as well. We need a ride.”

“Vivi, I’m pretty sure Kiyo has better things to do than give us rides everywhere.”

“I bet she doesn’t mind.”

Hank pouted a bit then, which was absolutely hilarious.

—-

Kiyo flew them up to the Nines Hotel five minutes before doors opened that Saturday.

She dropped them off a block away, out of sight of the entrance of the hotel.

Hank slid off her back first, and then helped Vivi down.

“Thank you Kiyo,” Hank told the dragon, and she bowed her head slightly.

“Don’t mention it Tall Man.”

“So, Kiyo,” Vivi asked as she was straightening out her dress, “this is the kind of thing that you totally don’t mind doing right?”

“Of course not.”

Vivi looked at Hank and stuck out her tongue.

Kiyo had a feeling why Vivi asked that question and just grinned at the couple in front of her.

“Hank, Vivi, if you need my help, remember the whistle I taught you. I’m going to go and get our friends, but then I will return right back to this area. Sound good?”

They nodded, and Kiyo took off into the night.

Hank looked at Vivi, and offered his arm.

“After you, Viv?”

—-

This was, by far, the fanciest event Hank had ever been to.  He had never felt so conspicuous in his life before- and he was 6’9 and had bright red hair.

But…no one seemed to question him and Vivi being here, and on the whole they were left alone to dance, eat from the trays of hors d’ouvrves that were being passed around, and stare awkwardly at everyone and everything and try and figure out what the fuck was going on.

It was odd, Hank thought, to be in a crowd that was entirely human. It was easy to forget sometimes that Gravity Falls was different, and that most people probably didn’t go to a high school where the valedictorian was a werewolf or grew up playing with troops of gnomes and herds of unijackelopes.

Or, Hank thought wryly to himself, have an uncle who was a demon.  

But Hank was definitely getting a Pro-Natural vibe off of the people in the ballroom, even if no one had said anything overtly yet, and it was making him nervous.

Hank wasn’t sure why their tickets hadn’t been taken at the door-only the invitation. But then while they were dancing, Vivi motioned as if to kiss him. He leaned down and she whispered in his ear, “I think I know what the tickets are for.”

She flicked her eyes over to a door in the corner, unobtrusive and unnoticed.

And yet, over the next four minutes, as the song kept playing, Hank saw people go in small groups of two or three over to the door, and after a second’s pause, be let in. Nothing super noticeable; he would say not even a tenth of the crowd of easily four hundred were making their way over. But Hank knew, in his gut, that whatever was happening behind that door was what Lucy Ann was warned about, wanted them to see.

Vivi and Hank danced their way slowly but surely across the ballroom, towards the area where the mysterious door was. As soon as the song was over, they quickly stepped to the door.

Hank knocked on the door.

There was a moment of silence, and then a voice asked behind the door, “Do you have your tickets?”

“Yes,” Vivi responded, pulling out her small hand purse and taking the tickets out.

The door opened, revealing a big, burly man (who still only came up to Hank’s shoulders), whose neck was so thick that it looked like he had a pyramid on his shoulders, rather than a head on a neck.

Vivi placed the tickets in his hands, and the man took a second to inspect them.

“Okay, you two are good.” He reached behind him briefly, and handed them two auction paddles. “Seats at the left, and the auction starts in three minutes.”

He moved aside to let them in, closing the door behind Hank and Vivienne. They turned to the left. There were some rows of simple metal chairs, almost full with men and women in tuxedos and ballgowns, facing a hastily constructed ‘stage’.

Hank and Vivi snagged two seats in the back; just in time, as the industrial lighting dimmed and a man stepped out from behind the curtains and on to the stage. He wore a pin striped suit, had slicked back blond hair, and beady blue eyes. He made the hair stand up on the back of Hank’s neck.

“Ladies, gentleman, on behalf of the Portland Seethe, to the real auction. I am your host and auctioneer, Drew. Now, I know we will all want to get this over with relatively quickly in time for dinner-“

Polite laughter rang through the room, and Hank and Vivi joined in, though his stomach roiled. Hank’s mind raced. Lucy Ann had implied that the vampire seethe of Portland had been involved in some nefarious deeds, and Hank had a really bad feeling about all of this but he needed to be patient and see before he and Vivi made their move….

Drew made a motion and out came a cage with a small pixie inside. No one Hank realized, but it didn’t matter, because the edges of his vision had gone red and he felt like he was about to puke and-

“Lot one! A genuine Alberta Pixie! This little firecracker will be great for hexing enemies and keeping your phone and computer lines secure. Guaranteed binding on her, of course. Can I get an opening bid of ten thousand, ten thou-?”

Hank squeezed Vivienne’s hand, twice, and she squeezed back. She silently got up and made her way to the door and the doorman. Though he didn’t hear her, he knew that she was spinning a sob story about a text message, a grandmother in the hospital, family members that needed to be informed, “don’t worry I won’t ask to come back in my business associate will stand for me but I need to go now-“

Out of the corner of his eye, the door opened and shut unobtrusively.

His turn then.

The girl in the cage had been ‘sold’ for seventy thousand dollars and was taken back stage quickly “for processing, so you can pick your buy up after dinner!”

Now a troll was being led out on stage. He was massive, easily eight feet of solid stone covered in lichen and moss. He was bound by manacles on his feet and hands and had a spiked collar around his neck that twitched every five seconds, making the man twitch with pain in turn.

“Lot two! The prime buck of our silicate of trolls we are selling tonight! Toby is-“

When Acacia got mad, she was all quick fire, quick to burn, quick to hurt, and just as quick to get over it. Willow was more vindictive, waiting several days (Or weeks. Or months) to strike. Hank….when Hank got mad, he tended to blank out, and the next thing he knew, he was watching someone run off in tears, or look at him sheet white, terrified to the bone of what he had told them, terrified of him. (Hank had always been good with people and when you’re good with people, it’s very easy, in fact, to take them apart, break them to pieces with only a few words and a cutting glance).

Hank felt cold when that happened. He felt cold now.

The smart thing to do would be to play it cool, to wait for backup.

Hank wasn’t feeling smart right now.

Hank felt absolutely fucking furious.

"We’ll start the bidding at fifty, fifty thousand going once, going twice-"

Hank raised his paddle.

"Fifty! Do I hear fifty-five, fifty-five-yes you madam, fifty-five, can I get a sixty?"

The bidding continued in earnest, people dropping away until it was just Hank and a woman he recognized from the society pages in the newspaper, a grey haired doyenne in pearls and a black velvet dress.

She met his eyes and he gave her his most pleasantly blank face back. She quickly looked away, and flashed her paddle as the auctioneer cried “Can I get eighty seven, eighty seven, yes thank you ma’am.”

88, 90, 92, 93, 93-5…the numbers kept slowly creeping higher and higher. At this point the entire room was watching Hank and the doyenne breathlessly. 

At “ninty-six!” when Hank flashed his paddle, the doyenne started to raise her hand yet again, paused, and then put it down.

"Going once, going twice, sold to the gentleman with red hair!”

As a round of applause went through the room, apparently for the good show Hank and the old woman had put on, Hank cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Good sir, if I may, perhaps, be permitted to see my property before you take it back stage?"

Drew paused a second and a small cloud passed over his face. Hank smiled guilelessly and hoped this would work.

Finally, Drew said, “I suppose not sir, though I ask you to please make this quick, we have a lot of property to clear tonight.”

Hank, keeping his slightly gormless smile on his face and hand in his pocket where he pricked his thumb, made his way quickly up to the stage. He stepped onto the raised platform and looked up at Toby for a second, seeing the pain in his eyes, the pain in his body as that fucking collar spasmed again. 

Then Hank touched his bloody finger to his ring, and his bat came to his hand.

The crowd began to stir, disquieted, and Drew spoke quietly into his headset, clearly calling for backup. 

Hoping that Mom meant it when she said that she enchanted the bat to break through anything, Hank quickly raised his bat and brought it down on Toby’s chained wrists.

The metal chains sizzled and melted like butter at the touch of Hank’s bat, which was really good, because he wasn’t sure what he would have done had that not worked. 

Hank quickly did the same to the chains on Toby’s feet, and then turned in time to see two security guards coming at him. Hank swung and hit one in the stomach, knocking him unconscious with the force of his blow. The other one swung at Hank’s face. Hank barely missed, and retaliated by slamming his bat into the man’s kneecap.

The guard went down howling, unable to move.

Hank pointed his bat at the auctioneer. 

"This ends now."

Drew laughed as the auction audience scrambled to disperse (albeit in a matter that wouldn’t draw too much attention from the main crowd outside). Seven more guards came to flank Drew.

"Really? You may think you’re hot shit, redhead, but I don’t even think you can stand up to seven men at once."

Hank heard a rumble and he grinned. 

"Oh, but I don’t need to, you see?"

From backstage erupted the troll troop that had been ostensibly for sale. While Hank had been stalling for time, Vivi had gotten Kiyo…who had gotten Jerry and his troop, Mandy, Mitzi the Unofficial Crew Grandma (as she was 78) and Mage, Teena and her band of pixies, some punk selkie friends of Oonagh who were itching for a fight, and Kerry the Harpy.

(Hank was shocked to see how many people volunteered when he asked for help on Thursday. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt or to feel obligated to come. Something like that must have popped out of his mouth because Kerry laid a claw on his shoulder and said, “Kindly One, you help us so much, let us help you in turn.” Then everyone laughed at him because of how red he blushed.)

And there was Vivienne, riding on Kiyo, brandishing a stick and yelling “Don’t let the fuckers get away!” 

(As a kindergarten teacher, Vivi relished the chance to swear when she had it)

The pixies, fairies, and brownies who also had been backstage and were now free certainly wasted no time in running after their erstwhile purchasers, tripping them up, tangling them up in ropes and cords and wires they found back stage, and generally causing mass chaos. The trolls joined in, easily gathering fleeing men and women and holding them in place while they were tied up for the police to find. Those who managed to escape their grasp found that the doors were blocked by a blue flame yelling “fwooooooosh”. 

Drew looked at the ruins of his auction, and then turned a venomous glare on to Hank. 

"I should have known it was you; Boss has been speaking about you."

Hank cocked an eyebrow. “Really? So my warning got back to him?”

Drew laughed. “‘Warning’? You are a presumptuous puppy. Nicholai has centuries on you. He has held this town since it was nothing but some cabins and sticks on a river, and he will own it long after he squashes you and…and…and these mutts you have gathered.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “Well, I don’t imagine he’ll be too happy that even though you ‘knew’ about me, we still managed to get in and bust your slave auction.”

Drew sucked his teeth. “He will end you puppy, and your family-“

Hank burst out laughing, and then leaned in close to Drew.

"You want to know a secret? We’ve had people try before. And they’re dead now. He’s welcome to try; my family will swallow him whole without a thought."

In the distance, the sound of sirens came (as part of the plan, Vivi had made a phone call to the police right before bursting in; they weren’t exactly preter-friendly but neither could they exactly ignore an illegal slave auction happening in the nicest hotel in town).

"RETREAT!" Vivi yelled at the top of her lungs. 

Drew had looked briefly at the distraction and looked back in time to see a fist flying towards his face. 

Hank hissed and shook his hand as the auctioneer went down cold.

Then he turned to start coordinating the escape.

————

They recouped at the park, drinking coffee and hot cider, and helping people who had been kidnapped from outside the Portland area figure out how to get home.

Hank was taking a five minute break by himself, floored by the enormity of what he and Vivi and the Crew had just done, what they had prevented.

A nine foot, pink, crystalline troll came next to him, and slowly lowered herself to the ground. This was the matriarch of the silicate of trolls. She had introduced herself as Carys earlier, but other than that Hank hadn’t had much chance to talk to her (not that trolls were very chatty in the first place.)

"Thank you, Burning One, for saving my clan," Carys rumbled, slow and deep.

Hank blushed. “You’re welcome….though I mean it certainly wasn’t just me, and anyone would have done the same thing and-“

Carys laughed, and it sounded like an avalanche. 

"No little one, they would not have."

Carys looked over the park for a second. 

"I would speak to you about my son."

Hank thought through the introductions and people he had met tonight….”Toby?”

"Yes. I think that he would like to remain here, with your Crew, rather than go back to Yakima."

She leaned in a bit. “He…fits in more with humans than trolls at times. I think he would be happier here.”

Toby himself wandered over at that moment, a spoon in his hand. 

"The shape of these things are wonderfully funny," Toby said in an oddly breathless voice for someone who was ten feet of solid rock. 

Toby reminded Hank a lot of his mother, and his heart squeezed a bit.

He looked up at Toby. “Do you want to stay here with the Crew?”

Toby nodded. “The small vampire running around said I would be more than welcome. Also that you were kind of dumb and needed looking after.”

Hank blushed and put his head in his hands.

Chapter 7

"You're hiding something from us Hank."

Hank came out of the kitchen and gave the cup of coffee to his younger sister and sat down next to her on the couch.

"I'm not," Hank replied and then primly took a sip of his coffee.

Willow snorted. She had been slowly but surely taking over more of the hunting and investigating from Mom and Uncle Dipper since graduating from college. There had been a report of a stubborn ghost in Beaverton which Willow handily took care of. Hank had invited her to spend the night before she drove back to Gravity Falls.

Which was awesome except for now when Willow was doing her Willow thing and-

"Your aura tells me you're hiding something Hank."

Crap.

Willow took a sip of her coffee and went on. "I can read your face better than Uncle Dipper and Mom isn't going to get it out of you unless she gets you in a corner and starts tickling. So what aren't you telling us?"

Hank squirmed. "Nothing."

"Bullshit, it's something."

Luckily Hank knew his sister as well as she did him, and had an ace up his sleeve.

"Something like how you're going to tell Mom and Uncle Dipper you had to get fifteen stitches on your thigh from this trip?"

Willow pulled a face like she had bitten into a lemon and Hank knew that he had won this battle; Willow insisted that she could handle herself without any help, even when evidence sometimes pointed to the contrary.

Willow put her cup down and began to absentmindedly braid some of her hair. "I'm sorry Hank."

Hank shrugged. "Don't be."

"I'm just worried for you. I have a feeling you've been getting into-" she paused for a second to get the right word. "-shenanigans. But not fun, cool ones."

"I.....may have a bit," Hank admitted, remembering the feel of his bat breaking through chains, and smashing noses and teeth. He inhaled, exhaled. "I'm just...I..."

Willow patted his shoulder. "You're not ready to tell us?"

Hank shook his head.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Willow nodded. "Okay."

Hank smiled. "Thanks Will."

She tied off the end of one braid and started another. "You're welcome, though you know we are going to find out eventually."

"I know. I'm just....not ready yet."

"And when we find out you still won't be."

Hank's head whipped around to look his sister in the face. Her eyes were blown, completely dilated.

Oh dear. Luckily Hank knew what to do during one of these spells, which was to ask Willow something like "Are the Ducks going to win tomorrow?"

Willow stared at him for another minute, then closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them they were back to their normal hazel color.

"Thanks Hank."

"Any time....wanna go get a donut with fruit loops on top?"

Willow lit up-literally since a little flame popped out of one of her fingers.

----

Hank looked down at the little stack of papers in front of him, informal records he had been keeping because it seemed like he should.

He and Vivienne had been in Portland for eight months and the Dinner Crew had existed for six of those months. From Jeff’s gnome troop of eight, they had expanded to feed about-Hank checked his count again-at least 120 people.

And those were the regulars; that didn’t even count people who were just swinging by, or people who came by every once in a while.       

There were the gnomes; Jeff and his crew, Jeff’s cousin Jonathan the lawyer and his gang of gnomyers (as Vivi called them), a troop lead by Jerry from back home’s brother-in-law, and a few others scattered across town.

Oonagh had remained in Portland despite some talk about going back home to San Diego, and had been joined by her cousins Aileen, Seamus, Colleen, and Nnedi. They all had heavy Valley Girl (or Guy) accents, brought an inordinate amount of fresh fish to every meeting, and spent ninety percent of their time talking over each other (and the other ten percent primping and preening and adjusting their mohawks)

There was Teena and her pixie band (including Mindy of course). There was also Damara and her clump of fairies. There were honestly no physical differences between pixies and fairies, only cultural ones, but the two races couldn’t stand each other and once every two or three weeks Hank had to break up a fight between Damara and Teena. However, both of their families and friends, while they no longer worked as information gatherers for the vampire seethes of Portland (“Seriously, fuck those assholes, they tried to pluck my friend’s granddaughter’s wings off,” Teena had told him once), they still saw and heard almost everything in town. And then proceeded to tell Hank for some reason.

He had kept track of everything. He wasn’t sure if or when it would come in handy but a voice inside of him told Hank that it would be the height of foolishness to not take it down.

Most of the brownies only occasionally showed up, as most of the time they were occupied by cleaning, but Melissa and her family were there every other day, and Hank had put her in touch with a friend of his mom’s in town who had done a lot of union work and had twenty years’ experience with collective bargaining.

Recently some goblins had begun to come, which Hank was happy to see because he had a feeling that Curtis and his friends had been holding back from fear of rejection and that would not do. There was Olivia the banshee whose throat was in ruins but still came every time and even occasionally could be persuaded to sing a small tune. Kerry had been a member of the Crew for awhile but had finally persuaded two of her fellow harpies to come along as well, lured by the promise of free raw steak and non-judgmental company.

There were some humans as well. Mitzi Liu, who was a mage and at 78 was the Crew grandmother (she already had twelve grandchildren of her own, as she confided to Hank once, “so I don’t mind a few dozen more.”) Mauricio Gomez had the Sight but no one (even in this post Transcendence world) had ever taught him to use it. Luckily, Mitzi and Kerry had been able to help him out, and Hank was happy to see that he was doing better. And then there was Sarah Smith who had zero connection to the supernatural world before this and had accidentally ran into them one week at the park but had come back the next week with two gallons of soup. She was recently widowed and, Hank and Vivi thought, lonely. The Crew had taken her in though, with no muss or fuss. Perhaps because they too knew what it was like to be cast adrift in the larger world.

Also she made really bomb ass potato soup.

Toby was settling in well, which Hank was relieved to see. Hank and Toby hung out quite a bit. He was quite garrulous for a troll, which meant he spoke three times an hour as opposed to once or twice a day. Hank hoped one day that he could introduce his mom to Toby; they both loved glitter, spouted bizarre non-sequitors, and had a keen appreciation of boy bands.

(“He’s more like a human than a troll,” Toby’s mother Carys had confided to Hank. “I do not mind but others of our kind….treat him well please?”)

Try as he might, Hank could not convince Kiyo that she did not owe him a life debt (and Hank had tried, long, hard, and often). She seemed perfectly content to hang out on the roof of Hank and Vivi’s apartment, and give everyone rides everywhere; relatively easy when one was twenty five feet long and two hundred years old. Some wag in the crew had had made a dragon-sized pendant that read “Team Bus” which had made Kiyo laugh until she turned from green to purple.

Finally there was Lucy Ann. Everyone called her the Hand, which Hank didn’t quite understand why. When Hank asked her, she did her now patented “Hank Pines Face Palm” and muttered a bit.

(Later when Hank realized why Lucy Ann would be called the Hand, he found out that Kiyo was the Driver, Mindy the Fire, Toby the Muscle and he…well, Hank was a little embarrassed to find out how many titles he had unknowingly accrued.)

Hank was not ashamed or embarrassed to admit that Lucy Ann was his best friend (and he knew Vivi felt the same way.) She was crazy smart, drank like a fish, made him blush three times a day, and told the best stories. He still wasn’t sure why someone like Lucy Ann bothered to hang around someone like him. When he said that once in front of her, Lucy Ann went from the “Hank Pines Face Palm” to the “Hank Pines Bonk My Head on the Wall in Frustration and Then Bop Said Hank Upside the Head.”

Hank stuffed the papers on his desk back in the folder, and leaned back in his office chair.

It felt like he was growing here, shifting and changing into someone new, becoming a part of something larger, something greater. (Sometimes when Hank laid on the grass of the park, and just looked at the sky and breathed in and out, it felt like the whole city was breathing in time with him.)

The Dinner Crew was becoming a bigger and bigger part of his life. He had actually began to work from home (and thank God he was a computer programmer, and had a boss who gave approximately zero fucks) in order to be able to keep up with Crew stuff.

Because it wasn’t just feeding one to three hundred people every other day, but arranging for therapy for his friends who had been through some shit but didn’t know who to talk to or where to go. It was mediating between conflicts in the larger supernatural community he was becoming part of. It was finding a medical doctor who could and was willing to treat preternatural patients and helping people who had never gotten medical attention make appointments at a doctor. It was helping Teena, Damara, and some of the other mothers in the Crew enroll their children in school for the first time ever. It was a million small things that added up and that Hank didn’t begrudge any of it.

Neither did Vivienne and for that, Hank knew he was so ridiculously lucky. Vivienne had taken to her role as “Crew Mom” (the same person who had gotten Kiyo that pendent also got Vivi one two, because “they were fucking BOGO!”) like a fish to water, asking from Hank for nothing in return but that he cook dinner now because she was tired from the Crew and teaching kindergartners.

Hank certainly didn’t mind (besides, of the two of them, to be honest, he cooked better.)

Hank looked out the window.

There were clouds on the horizon, dark and heavy with insipient rain.

There was a storm coming, Hank knew. He had stirred up too much shit, butted into the business affairs of this ‘Nicholai’ one too many times.

He just hoped that they were ready.

-------

The trouble that Hank had long been expecting began at Gabriel Park, where the Dinner Crew had moved after outgrowing Caruthers Park.

Up until this point they had been left alone. It helped that everyone cleaned up after dinner (thanks to a few looks from Hank), used as little space as possible, and tried to stay under the radar; there were around a hundred or so of them at any one time after all.

However, when Hank and Vivienne pulled up that Friday, they found a cop haranguing the only person who ever beat them there, Matilda the pigeon woman.

Matilda was usually a pretty mild mannered woman but she was looking ready to turn into a four foot tall 180 pigeon and peck the shit out of a cop.

(Thanks to the laws of conservation of mass, Matilda could either turn into a flock of a hundred and eighty pigeons, or one super pigeon)

Hank came up on the two of them, knowing Matilda would sense him but not the cop.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” he asked as innocuously as possible?

The officer jumped and Matilda smirked. The cop turned to look at Henry and then realized he had to look up for once, which visibly disconcerted him.

Matilda took the opportunity to pluck a feather out of her afro and flick it at the cop while he was glaring at Hank and Vivi tried not to laugh.

The cop-Hank looked at his badge-no, Officer Arinson, puffed up a bit, realized that Hank still loomed over him, and huffed.

“I was explaining to this young woman here,” he pointed at Matlida, “that your…your group or gang or whatever the hell it is, cannot meet here.”

Hank looked quizzically at him. “Why not?”

“You don’t have a permit.”

Hank cocked his head, and looked if possible even more innocently confused. “I don’t understand officer, I mean, I checked with Parks and Rec when we first started coming here, and I call once a month to make sure, and I read the city code outlining public parks and oddly enough, in all of that, I’ve never heard talk of there needing to be a permit.”

“I, well…”

“Officer Arinson, could you tell me what part of the legal code of Portland says that we need a permit?”

“Um, you see…”

Hank stood up straight and smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“Coincidentally, aren’t you supposed to have had another officer come by now if you were going to give my friend a ticket? Or should I say, friends?”

From all the entrances of the park came more members of the Dinner Crew, in all their varied forms and species.

Officer Arinson looked at the multiple supernatural beings coming with forks and knives and pickle jars, and then up to Hank, whose smile didn’t reach his eyes, and made a decision internally that the man who had paid him off to hassle these civilians didn’t pay near enough to deal with this shit.

He walked off.

Hank let out a huge breath.

“I can’t believe that worked.”

Vivi came up next to him. “I don’t like the implications of that man being there.”

For once, Hank didn’t need someone to point it out to him.

“Me neither.”

Chapter 8

Stan looked up from his paper at his grand-nephew.

“You gonna actually eat that Stancake or keep poking at it?” Stan gruffly asked. It was just the two of them in the house this Saturday morning. The girls were getting their nails done, Henry was doing a Saturday shift, and Dipper was….well, God only knew where Dipper was.

It was hard to manage the stove and the wheelchair but Stan did it, if only because Stan did what he wanted, when he wanted, and fuck anything or anyone who said otherwise.

Hank looked up from where he was cutting his pancake up into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. There were bags under his eyes.

Stan had never seen bags under any of the kids’ eyes.

Aloud, all he said was “Bag check for Hank’s eyes!” and barked out a laugh.

Hank normally would have laughed or made a crack at the wrinkles on Stan’s face but he didn’t say anything.

Now Stan really knew something was wrong.

He rubbed a hand on his face.

“Look kid, what’s your deal?” he asked.

Hank said nothing still, just continued to push his stancake bits across his plate.

Stan was ninety one years old, and damned if he hadn’t learned a small, tiny, miniscule bit of patience in that time. He waited.

Finally, Hank looked at him.                                

“Grunkle Stan, I think a bunch of people are fucked, and it’s all my fault.”

Stan said nothing, just took a drink of coffee and gave Hank some space to talk.

“I…I…I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, and people are going to get hurt, and I’m trying my best to stop it but it’s all my fault-“

Stan would have proudly admitted, even now, that he had no soul and as for feelings, what feelings?! But it twisted said non-existent soul to see Hank at the brink of tears, looking five instead of the twenty two he was.  

Hank always did have the biggest heart. Long ago Stan would have said that that that was a liability, a weakness. But past Stan was, present Stan thought, a complete idiot.

He clapped a hand on Hank’s shoulder.

“Do you have a plan kid?”

“Yes…I think. Um, not a plan, but I do have some things I’m going to do.”

“And your friends, did you mean for them to get into this?”

“No! No…never, and they tell me I’m being ridiculous when I say it’s my fault-“

Stan snorted. “They’re right.”

Hank looked agape at him. “Staaaaaaaaan!” and for a second Hank sounded like nothing more than an exasperated teenager. Good. The sooner he stopped feeling bad for himself, the better.

Stan squeezed Hank’s shoulder. “Listen Hank, I will flat out lie if you tell anyone I said this, but you have a good head on your shoulders, and a good hear….hearing. Good hearing. Point is, I know you can handle this. You got it.”

Hank weakly smiled.

“Really?”

“Really. Now eat your damn pancakes before they go cold.”

Hank’s smile turned into a more authentic one and he began to shovel food into his mouth.

Stan wryly noted that Hank actually hadn’t told him what the problem was but, well….he had kept his fair share of secrets in his time as well. He wasn’t going to push if Hank wasn’t going to offer.

——————-

Nicholai frowned at the papers splayed across the green velvet top of his desk. Absentmindedly, he stroked the human skulls that were carved into the mahogany wood, felt the leather panels dotted here and there, the weight of his velvet coat on his arms and shoulders.

(the last time he had seen the Eldest, who insisted these days on going by the absolutely ridiculous moniker of ‘Lucy Ann,’ she had taken one look at the desk he was at now, arched an eyebrow and asked “Can you get any more fucking tacky?” Then she had turned her back on him-on him!- and left.  

He had had to kill the ten thralls and four vampires that were in the house with him that night as well, but it was worth it to keep word of that embarrassment getting out.)

When Nicholai had first heard about the overly tall red head with the Mark of Alcor on his head, he hadn’t thought overmuch about him. Alcor was not a demon to be trifled with or even thought of, but perhaps the redhead had just gotten in over his head on a deal. None of Nicholai’s business.

But then that red head-Hank, Hank Pines it was-had started to feed the vermin.

And then he got the various clans of said vermin to stop their squabbling.

And he had drawn his best informants away from him; oh and how it hadburned the day the pixies and fairies had gathered together (something unheard of) and had informed Nicholai that he no longer had sway over them.

(They flew away before he could pluck their wings off one by one, and the fact that they still lived and drew breath in Portland rankled him to the bone).

The Eldest had gone to the upstart, which was when Nicholai was first tipped off that this was one problem that was not going away. The Eldest hadn’t taken an interest in mortal affairs, as far as Nicholai knew, in over a hundred years, not since her expedition to the North Pole with Henson.

And then there was the new fire elemental Pines had brought to his side, no, had brought into being, the increase in the selkie population that was all due to him, the resurgence of the harpies in Portland, a million other small irritations. And then there was audacity of this puppy to dare get involved in his affairs, to disrupt his way of doing business.

Nicholai had a large amount of money tied into that auction. And he knew now that Hank Pines meant to follow through on his threats. Almost two hundred years of work in this town, and it was all under threat now thanks to this one, small, irritant.

He sighed, and leaned back into his desk chair, his leather pants creaking as he moved. Generally, he liked his affairs to be as below the radar as possible; subtlety was the rule of the day for Nicholai. However, desperate times called for desperate measures.

There were calls to make, pictures to take, lies and stories to fabricate. He was going to have to get his hands dirty on this one, which he despised. He hadn’t built this town up from the dirt he had found it in for nothing.

Nicholai had dealt with interlopers a time or five before, he was sure this Pines would be no different.

He looked across the room, to where there was a heavy wooden door, heavily barred and locked.

Besides, he had resources that this Pines couldn’t even begin to marshal to his side.

Like twelve newborns, willing to listen to anything he said, and currently being starved slowly but surely behind the door. A few more days and their mind would have broken beautifully, willing to do anything Nicholai asked of them if only to have a chance for a sip of blood.

He liked to think that he would have settled this long before he had to unleash his hounds on Pines, but Nicholai took a pleasant moment to imagine the straggling runaways and other street trash he had changed over ripping into the irritant.

It kept him in a good mood for the rest of the day.

———————

It began with phone calls that had no voice on the other end, proof thatsomeone had your number.

Someone had taken Nnedi’s pelt, and when they found it at the fish market, it was pinned on the ground with a Bowie knife.

The leprechauns on Ross Island, who Hank had been trying to get to come to dinner for three months, did leave….to Seattle.

“Heard there’s hard times a’comin’ Hank,” Martin told him, right before he left.

Teena came home one day to find her place completely trashed and ransacked, the nest that the pixie had spent months painstakingly putting together burnt and smelling of piss.

Olivia the banshee had been sent an envelope with no return address and inside was a picture of her, altered to have a Glasgow Smile, and a note reading “Next time we won’t stop at your throat.”

Mindy streaming into Vivi’s class one day, absolutely hysterical because someone threw a bucket of water on her and “It hurt Miss Vivi!”

(thankfully, Vivi had both a very chill boss, and time spent around kids her age helped Mindy calm down considerably).

Kiyo coming home to her hoard of books, and finding them burnt, ripped, and otherwise destroyed.

And one morning Hank’s boss called him in to the main office, asking if he had ever been a member of a cult because he had gotten some very disturbing pictures in the mail, and of course Larry didn’t mind the supernatural, his best friend was a unicorn, but a cult was a little much and-

It took Hank two hours of his finest bullshitting and fast talking, not to mention pulling up Photoshop and showing layer by layer how the photos were fake, before he left Larry’s office, job intact, but barely.  

Once Hank had gotten a few blocks away, he ducked into an alley and leaned against a wall for a minute, fisting his hands in his hair.

His friends were under attack, under siege, and it was all his fault.

Lives were being ruined and it was his fault.

He ground his palms in his eyes, and Stan’s voice suddenly rang out in his head.

“Okay, it’s your fault. Whatever. What do you plan on doing about it?”

Hank lowered his hands, and smiled. His voice of reason had never sounded like Stan before but there was a first time for everything.

If Nicholai wanted to fight, wanted to hurt his friends, fine.

Perhaps it was time to bring the fight to him.

Hank stepped back out onto the street, hands in pockets and head aflame with plans

Chapter 9

“I’m pregnant.”

Hank, who had confidently taken a slurp from his soda not anticipating any world shaking news, spat it across the table.

Reina sniffed and raised an eyebrow at her brother-in-law.

“Hank, I know you weren’t raised in a barn,” she said, and tossed him a rag to wipe off the table.

Acacia was not helping, shaking with laughter.

“Dude, you should see your face, it is excellent!” she cackled.

Hank looked around the Love Shack (as Acacia and Reina called their small trailer), and tried to imagine a niece or nephew running around. He couldn’t help but see Acacia’s sword collection hanging up on the walls, tubes of oil paint lying around uncapped, Reina’s tiny glass figurines which were the perfect size for swallowing, the three inch drop between the kitchen door and the living room….

“Um, have you told Mom and Dad yet?” Hank asked.

“We were waiting for you to get here, and then we were going to go to the Shack together and then we were going to tell all of you at once but I got really excited and um….Reina, help me out here?”

Reina only laughed, and kissed Acacia on the forehead. Hank noticed that her eyepatch had an appliqué of a baby bottle on it; how had he missed that?

“So…I’m the first to know?”

Acacia grinned, and pulled Reina onto her lap, causing her wife to laugh and boff her on the head.

“Well, second to know but yeah,” Reina confirmed.

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Hank asked.

“Hank, I just peed on a stick and found out yesterday-“Acacia stopped to laugh a minute at the face Hank pulled, but went on. “I was going to ask Grunkle Dipper when we get to the house.”

Hank thought about the sounds that his mom and uncle were probably about to make when Acacia told them the news.

“Do either of you have earplugs?”

---------

Hank was leading a sparring practice at one of the warehouses that Kiyo had rented (she let the Crew use it for various events for free with the caveat that if they messed up her boxes of books they were toast) when Toby came up behind him and gently tapped him on the shoulder.

“There’s someone who wants to meet you,” Toby said in his lilting voice, which should have seemed out of place coming from a nine foot troll yet never was.

Hank’s heart started to hammer. The only people who knew about sparring practice were those invited and they were all in the room now, and if he could pick that scab on his left wrist he could probably get his bat out and-

“Damara sent him,” Toby continued, and Hank relaxed. (He picked the scab still, just in case.)

“Take five everyone!” he called out to the assorted selkies, humans, ogres, harpies, gnomes, and Rick (no one knew what Rick was and Rick wasn’t telling) in the room, and stepped outside to meet this friend of Damara’s.

“His name is Ben. We get ice cream together sometimes,” Toby explained as they walked around the corner.

“After We Are Done Fighting Together,” came a voice from Hank’s shoulder area. He looked slightly down to see a fairy floating in the air. He had sleek and immaculately done blond hair, a button up orange collared shirt, and jeans that looked like they had been ironed before Ben put them on.

Ben was also small, even for a fairy, and couldn’t be no more than six inches tall.

Hank extended a pinky for Ben to shake. “Hey, I’m Hank. How are you?”

Ben shook his finger, and Hank tried not to wince at Ben’s grip.

“So You Are Don Pines? I Was Expecting Someone….Different.”

Hank looked down at himself. He was in Oregon State sweatpants, with the cuffs half way up his shins (sweatpants and people his height didn’t always work.) There was the t-shirt with a floppy disk on it that he got as a hand-me down from his mom, and was kind of tight on him but Vivi refused to let him throw it out and actually insisted that he wear it frequently “because Reasons.” He ran a hand through his hair, and didn’t find any tangles.

Hank had no idea what Ben was talking about. But it would probably be rude to say that, so he settled for a more innocuous, “What brings you here Ben?”

Ben eyeballed Hank up and down for a minute. Finally, he said, “My Second Cousin Told Me You Needed Fighters And I Wish To Volunteer My Services.”

Huh. Fairies and pixies were more known for their reconnaissance skills rather than fighting but then again, Ben had a really tight grip on his finger…and who was Hank to judge by appearances.

“Cool. Do you have a weapon or do you just use your fists?” he asked.

Ben’s jaw dropped.

“You Believe Me?”

Hank shrugged. “I’d still like to see you in action, but I’d rather not risk a hospital trip and disbelieve you. Also, Toby says you two box.”

“We do,” Toby chimed in. “He puts my milkshake down for the count.”

Ben and Hank spent a second running that phrase through their heads, before mutually deciding that their friend had once again confused several colloquialisms into one.

“Come on inside, I’ll introduce you to everyone, and then maybe we can spar?” Hank suggested.

“Sounds Good Burning One,” Ben agreed.

For someone who was only six inches tall, Ben dropped Hank on his ass three times out of four.

Hank had a good feeling about Ben.

-----

They had dinner that week not at Gabriel Park, but at the largest warehouse that Kiyo owned (Kiyo owned a shit ton of warehouses, but then when one had been collecting books for five hundred years, that was an inevitability.)

The entire Crew was there, which hadn’t happened in a while, because some people could only make dinner once a week, other people were bound by the phases of the moon or the ocean, and so on and so forth.

But tonight, the night before they…rode into battle? No, too pretentious. The night before they had a…Talk? No too Mafioso.

Anyway, the night before they did something probably very stupid yet something that was necessary, everyone showed up. Gnomes, selkies, humans, harpies, ogres, banshees, Rick, were-animals of various species, kappas, unicorns, pixies, fairies, dragons….everyone came.

This dinner was important.

This dinner may be their last together.

Hank was taking a break from talking, sitting on a bean bag chair and finally having some of the soup that Oonagh and Nnedi brought. He had spent the last two hours going around, speaking with everyone there, and asking again and again if they were sure they wanted to do this.

There wasn’t a single person in the room that wouldn’t be joining Hank when he went to Nicholai’s mansion tomorrow. The few that were staying behind would be back at this warehouse, watching the kids and getting ready for the worse.

Everyone was going, even though he insisted that they didn’t have to, that he had little idea what to expect, that they may be dead by this time tomorrow.

Everyone in the room trusted Hank, hung on his every word, and the knowledge of that sat like a giant leaden weight in his stomach.

He didn’t deserve their trust, didn’t deserve his friends, and maybe he should go to Nicholai’s alo-

There was a hard poke in his side.

“The fuck eating you up Tall Guy?”

Lucy Ann had dragged over another bean bag and sat it next to him. Where his limbs were askew and spilling over the bean bag, Lucy Ann’s bag practically swallowed her up.

Hank couldn’t trust himself to talk, so instead settled on looking at Vivi who was joking around with Toby and Mindy and some of Teena’s kids as they played Go Fish.

Maybe if they survived this he’d ask Wendy for one of Mother Corduroy’s rings that she still had.

Lucy Ann followed his gaze. “Okay, that’s cute you’re thinking about Viv and all, but that doesn’t answer my question. Why the long face?”

Hank swallowed his spoon of soup.

“Why do they trust me?”

The diminutive vampire raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you shitting me?”

He winced but went on. “Teena and Damara have told us as much as they can, and we’ve been doing research for the last few weeks, but I’m still pretty sure that Nicholai knows way more about us than we do him.”

He looked around the room, gesturing with his spoon as he did. “Before they met me, Oonagh and her cousins were just partying, and Mindy was in kindergarten, and Terrence and Artie were working at a sushi restaurant. And yet here they are about to raid a fucking mansion? I keep trying to tell them how serious this is, and that they shouldn’t feel like they need to go on my behalf but…” He shook his head. “They won’t listen to me.”

Hank took another slurp of soup. “And if I fuck this up, no one will be safe after this and I’ll have gotten everyone killed for nothing.

Lucy Ann looked at him for a minute.

Then she reached over and up-no easy feat considering how small she was-and slapped him upside the head.

Hank hissed and put a hand to his cheek, feeling a drop or two of blood where her sharp nails had pricked his skin.

She closed her eyes and took a deep, if unnecessary breath, and then opened her eyes again.

“Hank. I love you like a brother. But you’re being a complete and utter dunderhead.”

Hank couldn’t help but gawk at her. In the background, Iona and Ilane the ogres had joined Vivi and Toby in their game of Go Fish, the pixies and fairies had begun a game of touch football using a peanut for the ball, and Kiyo was deep in conversation with Terrance the kappa over the literary merits of Nabokov.

Lucy Ann pinched her nose. “Hank, take it from someone who was here before you got to Portland; you’ve made this place, these lives in here, so, so much better than they were before.”

He opened his mouth to deny that and Lucy Ann raised a finger. “Hank, I’m four thousand years old and I can guess pretty much everything that’s about to come out of your mouth, so don’t even bother.”

She turned the pointing finger into a gesture that swept the room. “This wouldn’t have been possible without you coming here. Before, everyone stuck to their own species, their own little communities. You’re like…glue. Yeah, we’ll go with that. Glue. You’re the glue that binds us together, makes our goals and needs one.”

Lucy Ann’s eyes were shining in a way that Hank had never seen before and it was making him feel a little awkward. He shifted uncomfortably in his bean bag. “Lucy Ann, anyone could do what I did, it’s not that big a deal.”

“Not a-“ Lucy Ann trailed off and muttered something in what Hank had learned was Sumerian. She twisted in her bean bag to better look at Hank.

“You weren’t here when they would pull gnomes out of the Willamette. You weren’t here when Teena and Damara had to let their bands spy for Nicholai or else; why do you think so many of them are missing parts of their wings or their limbs? You didn’t see the werewolves work the brownies to death; they’d wash up on the banks of the river same as the gnomes. You-“

Lucy Ann stopped, looked away for a second, and then went on. “Okay. So tomorrow ends horribly, with everyone dying. That won’t be the end of it. Not this time. You’ve created a new community, you’ve helped forge new relationships. Do you think the Crew would just give up if it goes wrong tomorrow?”

Hank felt a blush creep across his face, and looked down at his empty soup bowl.

A small yet strong hand clucked him under the chin, and he looked back up into Lucy Ann’s eyes.

“You’ve given everyone in here hope. You’ve given them a place they belong. You help them with their problems big and small. Don’t be so surprised that they want to help you. And try to repay their faith in you in kind.”

There was a brief Moment, which Lucy Ann then ruined by burping.

“Ugh, I told Oonagh to not put catfish in here but did she listen? Noooo.”

“Why haven’t you done anything before this?”

Was that his voice? Did that just leave his mouth? Oh fuck, it had.

Lucy Ann was glaring at him now, but while he was blushing hard enough it felt like his face was about to burst on fire, Hank met her gaze. He didn’t want to offend her, didn’t want to drive away his best friend, but he had had three beers and it was now or never, and, well…he was curious.

Finally she blew out a puff of air.

“Tell me Hank,” Lucy Ann asked sweetly, “have you done anything about the sweatshops, the maquiladoras on the Mexican border?”

“No! Wait-“

“Or all of the starving children here in Portland?”

“That’s not fair-“

Lucy Ann simply looked at him for a minute, and for the first time, Hank could truly see in her eyes the weight of millennia, centuries upon centuries within her.

“Come back to me when you’ve seen everyone you love die, over and over and over again. Come to me when you’ve tried to fix the problems around you but it never works. Come to me when you’ve seen centuries pass and people still treat each other like shit, and then talk to me about fair then, yeah?”

Hank tried to say something but for once the words died in his throat.

She stared at him for another minute, and then sighed.

“That’s not fair. Truth is, being around you…makes me care again. I…I haven’t felt this way in a while. In a long while.”

Lucy Ann smiled, showing every fang in her mouth. “Besides, Nicholai has been getting far too big for his britches. Need to take him down a peg.”

Hank suddenly found himself smiling back, smiling bigger and more than he thought he would the night before battle.

No matter what happened, Hank had his friends. Good friends, and good people.

What more could a man ask for?

Chapter 10

Summary:

well i uh didn't intend for this to be 8 years later but here we are. oop. more detailed notes at the end but for now, thank you for reading.

The most dangerous man in Portland sat in an uncomfortable seat in a Greyhound station. In the past he would have been walking around, looking out the windows, getting endless rounds of bad free coffee…

But it had only been a few months since he had left the hospital and his shattered knee was still tender, still healing towards… not what it used to be, but better than where he was at now.

It was a weird liminal space, being newly disabled. He was out of the hospital with the initial shock fading, and his new, permanent reality settling in-

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Next to Hank sat the most dangerous man in North America.

“Nah, just woolgathering. This was a good visit dad.”

Hank’s dad smiled, and Hank suddenly was struck by the crows feet, the hair that was starting to become more grey than red, all the little things he didn’t see living in the Shack but were so screamingly obvious now.

“Sure you don’t want to take the airplane home?” Hank asked as the board showed yet another delay added to the bus going to Bend.

Henry smiled wanly. “He’s been hovering around your sister at the house. Frankly I love your uncle dearly but I could use some space.”

Hank winced. He knew why Uncle Dipper had been hovering, knew that as soon as Dad got home Dipper would be by ‘just checking in!’

The reason that he had managed to avoid talking about after the initial conversation in his hospital bed, and the subsequent all family visits and solo family member visits and-

“It’s not going away son.”

Hank was tempted for a long second to ask “what won’t go away?” but the mutual aid society he accidentally made now had a body count, so he just sighed and said, “I know Dad.”

Henry put his hand on Hank’s still healing knee, but gently. His hand was warm and the touch felt better than Hank expected. “Can you talk about it?”

Peak dad. Not “want” but “can.”

The time on the board said the time to bend was now coming in 618 minutes. An improvement from 666 minutes, Hank supposed, but not by much.

Hank sighed and Henry gave him a rueful look. “I know. You’d rather not. But it’s important. Trust me.”

Hank considered the cold burning fire in Dad’s open chest cavity, the antlers crowned with bloody hands, the funeral black and bare feet and-

“Wait, seriously? Is this a dream? Did Uncle Dipper arrange this? We couldn’t have had this talk on the phone?”

Hank’s voice rose higher and higher as he talked and he felt his cheeks heat and wait, was he getting upset? Yes. Yes he was.

Henry folded his arms over his chest, unbothered by his burning heart.

“This is dream. But your uncle has nothing to do with this-”

Hank didn’t ask how his dad was here- and he really was here- because he already knew.

“-And we have tried to do this over the phone. But you have ignored your sisters’ calls, you have been curt with your grand-uncle and your mother.”

(the room grew cold)

“I understand your reluctance to discuss your feelings. It is hard for me to do so as well. But I will not have you bottling this up inside of you and I will not have you taking this out on the people you love. That is not who you are Hank.”

“I…I really don’t want to.”

Did he just say that, oh my god Hank did not mean to actually say that.

“Well son, considering you are a leader now, you do not have that luxury.”

The priest’s collar was on his dad’s neck and while his dad’s form was still mostly human, Hank knew that he was now in the court of the Woodsman. No getting out of this then.

“Fine, but this bus station is going to need a Peets in here, I need better coffee for this.”

His regular Peets order appeared in his hand, while Dad had the mug Mom made him, the one that read “Trees make me horny!”

Hank opened his mouth. He froze. That had been part of the problem because obviously he knew he needed to talk about it but starting was hard and he didn’t know how to thaw and flow and-

“How did it feel?

“How did what feel?

“When you killed the Master of Portland.”

And now they were back in that room except this time instead of the Crew watching him anxiously, watching him fight for all of their futures, it was just Dad, just Dad who saw Nicholai slam the hammer down twice, once on each knee-

Hank felt it shatter again, and Henry felt it too, felt as Hank’s heart sank because he wasn’t afraid to die but Christ he was afraid of what would be left behind, what Nicholai would do to his friends, would do to his town, would do to Vivi-

“It didn’t hurt,” Hank managed to say. “I mean, it did, obviously, but I didn’t register it. Everything was happening all at once and I didn’t have time to be hurt, I didn’t have time to scream, I needed to be back on my feet.”

“And then your uncle was there.”

Hank winced. “I still don’t know if I did the right thing. I’m worried me asking for his aid will cause problems down the line.”

Dad didn’t say anything for a second.

Dad didn’t say anything for a minute.

The temperature of the waiting room dropped twenty degrees while Dad was sitting silent and Hank was trying to figure out what was wrong before finally Dad managed to grit out-”

“Forrest Henry Pines, you would have died without the intervention of your uncle. I don’t know what he would have done if you had died. I-” and this time it was Dad’s turn to look down. “-I don’t know what I would have done if you had died. I understand where you are coming from son, but please remember going forward that as responsible as you are, you are a brother, a partner, a nephew and a son. Those hold weight as well.”

He was right. But Hank couldn’t say anything, just watch as his uncle glided in, Death himself entering the ring. Nicholai had tried to say something about breaking the rules of combat, but it wasn’t Uncle Dipper who had said something but-

(watch this dad)

(“Really Nicholai? Are you really going to raise a fuss about this? How gauche.”

Lucy Ann strode into the ring, all two feet eleven inches of her, and even as Hank almost bit through his tongue from the effort of trying not to scream, he couldn’t help but feel his heart swell as Lucy Ann finally stepped up. 

“The Eldest. The Eldest is here-” The other members of Nicholai’s seethe looked ready to kneel as Lucy Ann made her Presence known.

“Eldest one-” Nicholai began in his most obsequious voice, but Lucy Ann raised a hand and the voice died in his throat. 

“Can it asshole. I don’t want to hear about interference. You and I both know Hank fights his own battles.”

“But the Dreambender-”

“Will not enter into this fight on Hank’s behalf, is that correct Alcor?”

Uncle Dipper was clenching his hands and biting his lip so hard that blood bloomed on his chin and on his gloves but he managed to nod.

“See?”

“He will provide aid however and-”

“And do we want to talk about the babies I saw here tonight Nicholai?”

Nicholai was putting up a good show against Lucy Ann, even though he reeked of fear, but finally he paused. “What children Lucy Ann?”

Lucy Ann grinned and her teeth were red, dark dark blood red. “The ten to fifteen teenagers you turned for tonight.” She licked her teeth and suddenly the smile was gone and if Hank thought Uncle Dipper was dangerous, right here and now, he was no match for a woman who had survived several thousand years in the body of a small child. 

“They had no reason, no thoughts, nothing of them left because they had been starved. The only blood I could smell inside of them was their own and it had curdled in their veins. What maker does that to his own children, Nicholai? 

“I-” Nicholai looked around, and even though he had chosen his seethe for sycophants and people he could terrorize easily, even they were looking away because well..

even among murderers there were some things you would not, should not, do.)

Lucy Ann and the crowd melted away (though not without Lucy Ann giving Hank a wink that she did not do during the actual fight) and it was just Hank and Dad again, watching a shadow of an event. 

“What happened next son?” Not that Dad didn’t know what happened next already, because Hank had given him the bare bones in the hospital, but Hank needed the cue to keep going, so...

“Uncle Dipper... he told me I had some choices. And that they wouldn’t be easy ones.” Hank took a deep breath. 

“Dad... Uncle Dipper was sweating blood. It... it scared me.” 

It felt like the last few words ripped out of him but it was true. Hank wasn’t scared of Uncle Dipper- he never could, he never would- but this was the first time he saw his Uncle’s limits, the first time he was scared on Dipper’s behalf. 

His Uncle, sweating blood and panting like a horse, with claws that kept growing and retracting, the whites of his eyes showing all around his pupils before turning black black black as Dipper tried and tried and failed and failed to think of any kind of deal that would heal Hank’s knees and not cost Hank his soul.

“He didn’t say it at the time, but I knew. If I had broken them at home, it would have cost me something significant, but we could have done it. But here, in the basement, in the fight.... there was too much riding on this. So the cost was greater.” 

“What did he offer you son?” 

“My soul for both knees to be healed....Or-” Hank paused. It still hurt. It was the right decision, it was the best thing that Dipper could do it saved them all

“Or?”

“He could heal one knee, numb the pain for me until I did what I had to do.... but the other knee would forever be damaged. That every day I would wake in some kind of pain.”

Dad said nothing. The quiet extended as they watched Hank gasp out his agreement, lift a shaking hand to his uncle’s, and Dipper lending Hank his cane to stand, unbowed and pain free, albeit with only one working leg, to face Nicholai again.

The tableau after that paused, and it stayed paused and Hank looked at his Dad and

“Dad?”

Death was next to him, and the edges of the dream were beginning to go fuzzy. 

“Dad, Dad please, don’t blame Uncle Dipper, he was doing the best he could.”

Dad looked at him, and it was like the time Hank and his sisters had stumbled upon a mother bear in the woods, that split second of deciding if they were not a threat or if she was going to maul them .

His father’s eyes, in that moment, had considerably less reason in them.

“I promise Dad, it’s a headache that goes away with coffee, it’s knee pain I can treat, it sucks but it’s manageable Dad please-” 

Hank took his father’s hand, the one that hadn’t turned into wood and cutting metal, and squeezed it, even though it was so cold it blistered his skin. 

“Please let me finish.”

The Woodsman looked at Hank, then looked away. Hank politely ignored the squelching sounds until it was just his father again, next to him.

“My apologies Hank. I let the anger get the best of me.”

“It’s okay Dad, I understand.”

“I will be having words with your Uncle when I get home though.”

“And I’m glad I’m going to be on the other side of the state for that,” Hank said truthfully, which managed to surprise a laugh out of his dad.

It was a little easier now, to keep going, so they turned back to the tableau before them. 

“What happened next Hank?”

“I looked at my watch. And I had stalled long enough.”

The entire night, Hank and his friends had fought multiple foes throughout Nicholai’s mansion, winning some battles, but retreating and retreating until they were cornered in this ballroom, conveniently large enough for a battle to the death. 

So had Nicholai thought twenty minutes earlier, as he had triumphantly come into the room with his flunkies, prepared to wipe out the Dinner Crew once and for all. 

He had no idea though, that this was all according to plan. 

“I told everyone, stall as long as they could, stretch out every fight until it was too dangerous for them, and to follow the map.”

“The map?”

Hank grinned.

“Teena and Damara and their families were forced for years to be Nicholai’s errand people. They knew every nook and cranny of that asshole’s mansion. So we knew where we needed to corner him. And then....”

Hank paused, and he and his father watched the scene. Nicholai, gloating because despite this reprieve, he was still so clearly going to win. 

Nicholai’s taunts sputtering to a stop, as he saw the expression on Hank’s face and oh wow, Hank did not realize he was smiling when it happened. He just remembered feeling shit scared

(but that wasn’t true)

and heart sick at what he was going to have to do

(no, he wasn’t. because)

Hank threw his bat upwards, to the ceiling. It flew true, and hit a certain spot in the ceiling that Teena’s clan had spent a month sawing at, two or three minutes at a time to avoid notice. 

It came crashing down, and wow, it was later in the morning than Hank realized because sunlight came flooding in, directly over Nicholai’s head. 

Nicholai barely had time to scream before the burning began. Hank felt like he was going to be sick, his stomach churned

(his stomach churned with satisfaction because it worked, his plan worked)

The room had been silent, so utterly silent, as Hank watched Nicholai burn to ashes at his feet. 

“Is that it?”

Hank couldn’t look his father in the eyes.

“No Dad. No it wasn’t.”

Hank bent down. The pain was already excruciating, but he had to see this through, had to finish. Ben offered a backpack that was comically oversized for his tiny body, and from it Hank took out a brush and a bag, and quickly swept Nicholai’s ashes in. Using Ben’s arm as a support, he managed to get back up to his feet, and croaked, “Outside, now.”

Nicholai’s underlings had obeyed him without question. That felt bad

(right)

but they at least led him to the quickest way outside. 

While one team had worked on the roof, another, led by Toby, had been preparing the sidewalk outside, chipping away until two or three panels had been clipped away. 

“Is the mix ready?” Hank had asked.

Toby nodded, and it was Vivi who had brought over the massive barrel of cement mix, wet with the paint stick still inside. 

She looked at Hank for a second, taking in his wounds, taking in what he had done, what he was about to do.

But she didn’t look away.

Hank took the bag of Nicholai’s ashes, and dumped them in the cement mix. He tried to stir, and managed a turn or two before Lucy Ann gently but firmly moved him aside, and finished the job, not stopping until the ashes were thoroughly incorporated in. Oonagh, Nnedi, and all the other endless amounts of selkie cousins took the bucket, and poured it out on the ground, quickly spreading and smoothing it out.

There was silence again. There was one last thing to do. 

Vivi and Dipper were at his sides this time, helping him down enough to run a finger through the cement, writing his full name, for the world to see. Once Hank was helped up, it was a gentle melee as the two dozen Crew members who had been a part of the infiltration all signed their names on their handiwork. 

Mindy, the last, still couldn’t manage her name, but did blow a big burst of flame, hot enough to dry the sidewalk almost instantly. 

It was that point that Hank, full body shaking from the pain, finally felt safe enough to pass out. 

And he was back in the bus station, and he had a croissant in his hands in addition to a refill on his coffee. “So yeah. That’s what happened.” 

His father looked at him, then looked at the mug in his hands for a long moment.

The long moment stretched into a minute stretched into two minutes before Hank couldn’t take it any longer and asked “Um, Dad? What... what’s going on? Are you upset at me?”

Dad started, then shook his head. “No. No son, I am not upset at you. To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about all of this.”

Maybe it was childish, but Hank’s mouth dropped a bit. “Wait, really?” 

“I’ll probably need a while to process it.” Dad must have seen the look on Hank’s face, because he huffed out a little chuckle and went on. “Look Hank, if you and Vivi have kids you will find that sometimes they utterly, absolutely, flabbergast you. This is one of those times.” Dad looked at Hank’s face and took pity on him.

“Let’s try this a different way: how do you feel Hank?”

“Like I never want to do that again. That was the worse thing I’ve ever done.” 

Henry’s nostrils flared. “That’s a tiny part of it, but that’s not all of it. Tell me son. We are not leaving until this wound is all the way lanced.”

This is why it always sucked when you got in trouble with Dad, Hank remembered. Mom would get mad and creatively ground you, but everything was over and forgotten in thirty seconds. Dad? Dad thought about things. And you. And what you did.

He couldn’t look his father in the eye.

Finally he managed to get out, “Dad, it felt good.”

“Mmm. How so?”

“It felt good my plan worked. It felt good that Nicholai was gone. It felt good that I killed him and he would never hurt anyone ever again. It felt good that I was right, that I was in the right. It felt good to have everyone looking up to me. And-”

Hank took a drink of coffee, to quell the sudden dryness in his throat, and it tasted bitter, bitter bitter all the way down.

“I know Mom and Stan and Dipper have all said... that our family has a dark side. That we need to watch for it. That it runs in our blood. And what if it’s that? What if-”

Suddenly his Dad’s hand was on his shoulder, giving it a small but firm squeeze. “Son, may I stop you there for one second?”

“Um, sure?”

“I’m going to tell you something that no Pines wants to hear, not your uncle, not your mother, and most of all not your Grunkle Stan.”

“Uh-” Hank was totally lost now. 

“The ‘Pines Dark Streak’“ and wow did Dad always have a talent for not only audibly announcing Capital Letters but also in speech quotation marks-

“-Hank, that’s bullshit.”

What.

“What?”

His dad gave his shoulder a gentle, almost condescending pat. “That’s just something your Grunkle Stan made up to justify both the horrible things he had to do in his life to survive and to rationalize the behavior of his father.”

“Uh-”

“And then your mom and uncle latched onto it because it makes them feel better about the things they choose to do.”

Hank, for once at a total loss for words, finally managed to squeak out, “Dad that’s really uh, observant for you.”

“I’m your dad’s subconscious who is just putting together a lot of little clues he’s noticed over the years, and am able to better articulate it in this liminal space we find ourselves. Also your uncles and your mother are not subtle people.”

“So...not therapy then.“

“No, why?”

Hank resolved to find a good therapist for himself after this dream was over.

"Look, I’m not just saying that to be unkind, though I have worried about what extent you children have internalized that, and I will be having talks with your sisters some time after this... No, Hank-”

His father gently took Hank by the chin, to look him in the eyes.

“Forrest Henry Pines, you are ambitious. You are ruthless. And you are capable of great cruelty and viciousness-”

Hank wanted to cry.

“-but that is not all of who you are, those are only the small parts of you, leashed by the parts of you that are good, that are kind, that seek to help others around you. So you leash those feelings. You put it in the service of your friends and family and those you love, which you have already been doing. You leash it, and you take responsibility for your actions, which again you have done and will continue to do.”

Hank’s dad leaned in to kiss him on the forehead.

“Go freely my son. Go freely and gently forward, and know you have my blessing.”

They sat like that for a minute, heads touching, Hank crying, and tears going down the face of his father as well.

Finally, Hank noticed that his coffee had grown cold, the edges of his vision had grown fuzzy, and the loudspeaker was announcing that the bus to Gravity Falls had arrived.

“There will be consequences for your actions son,” Henry said, somewhat regretfully as they parted and his dad picked up his suitcase.

Hank had already been running through the socio-politico-cultural implications for days, but still asked, “Like what?“

“Like that you are going to call your mother and tell her what you did when you wak-”

---

The sun was shining through the windows as Hank blearily opened his eyes.

In the kitchen he could here Toby whistling as he attempted to make pancakes in their tiny apartment set up, and Lucy Ann talking with Vivi about observations Lucy Ann had made among the other kindergartners.

The sheets smelt clean. His knee was in agony, but already it was fading down to something more annoying than anything else. The sky was blue.

He wasn’t sure why, but something in him prompted him to gently roll over, and pick up his cell phone.

He owed his mom, and his sisters, the truth. 

Notes:

So uh, really didn't mean for this to be 8 years in the making! I've known how this fic was going to end for 7.5 of those years: the first two to three years I just... was stuck. Could not think of a good way to write it. Then I started a draft that was pretty good- in another world you would have read about every Squad member's journey through Nicholai's murder mansion- but then the computer that draft was on went kaput and that was the one time that I did a draft in fucking word of course.

then it sat fallow for several years, though i let other details- like Hank's knee and his bamf cane which came from hours of convo with mayordomogoliat on tumblr- come through.

Then one of my fellow mods- Toothpastecanyon- gave me some fic prompt that eventually turned into this.

All this to say, thank you for waiting and I'm sorry it took so long.

And this is deffo NOT the last thing I write for the AU; even after 8.5 years I'm just having too much fun with these babies.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 14 of Transcendence AU