The End is Just the Beginning (a Bad End Friends story)

Chapter 31

It was strangely calm after the fight. They all trailed inside and just sat in the living room silently.

Morty and Bipper were grinning like idiots, which was highly suspicious to Mabel – especially considering Morty almost died – but the adrenaline was running off, so it was put off for another time.

The lot of them decided to pull an all-nighter. Wirt was against it at first, but Mabel just pointed out that none of them were going to be able to sleep anyways.

So there they say in a comfortable dog pile. A movie was playing, but no one was really watching. For one, Finn actually did fall asleep, curled into Wirt's side. Frisk was asleep as well, spread out in the armchair. They would have taken the whole thing if Mabel hadn't so persistently stayed, so now the smallest of the group was spread out on top of Mabel, snoring away.

The other two boys were not watching the movie either. Morty was leaning against the coffee table with his head back and eyes closed. Bipper was sitting criss-cross, staring at something between them.

Mabel looked closer to see that the two were holding hands, much to her surprise.

Morty was holding on without second thought, but Bipper was obviously flustered and oh, so awkward.

Mabel, taking pity on the look on her brother's face, decided she would have to school him in how not to be so cringy.

With a sly grin at an insult only she knew, Mabel drifted off to the sounds of the un-watched movie and Frisk's steady breath.

___

When Bipper woke in the morning after not even two hours of rest, all he would register was the crick in his neck from where he fell asleep wedged under the T-rex skull table.

It took a long moment for the events of the previous day to replay in his head.

It was all over. Everything he had been working towards was gone in a snap, a blink of an eye, a single handshake.

Bipper pushed down as he rubbed at his sleep-clouded eyes and sat up. Glancing around, he realized half of the group was gone, the room looking bare with only Wirt and Finn sprawled on the floor, still fast asleep.

Bipper stood up. He made his way into the kitchen for good only to find Morty, Mabel, and Frisk already there.

Morty was standing at the stove, making pancakes, Frisk was stuffing their face with already done flapjacks, and Mabel was pouring maple syrup into her mouth.

"Mornin', bro-bro," Mabel greeted once she caught sight of him leaning into the door frame.

Bipper smiled at his twin. "Morning." He sat down next to her and snuck a bite off of Frisk's plate, earning him a nice glare.

The minutes ticked on, and eventually Wirt and Finn joined them in the kitchen, each grabbing a plate of pancakes.

After a few more minutes of quiet chewing, Wirt was surprisingly the one to speak up, "We should talk."

The room went still, no one moved their utensils, no one took another bite.

Bipper sighed and brushed off his hands. He pushed away from the table, standing up slowly. "Yeah, we probably should talk," he muttered.

"Speech!" Mabel shouted through cupped hands, defusing the tense atmosphere of the room.

Bipper chuckled and grinned. "Speech," he repeated, then his face fell as he continued. "First off, we handled that really well, good job to you all. Um, we won in a way, the way that matters in the long run, I suppose. We all got out unscathed and won't be bothered by this again, but in other ways, we lost. Our plan of world domination is over, we can't continue forward unless we want to go into a battle we won't win, not in any way, so... So now I offer you all a choice.

"There is no reason for any of you to stay, so I can magic things around so that you go back to wherever you want, a happy ending if you so desire. It'll be like the past few months were a long fever dream. You'll remember, but you can't return. You always have a chance to stay here, but that choice is up to you."

He made eye contact with each person around the table, watching as they thought through the proposition.

Mabel was the first to speak up. "I wanna stay. I always did like Gravity Falls more than California anyways," She smiled brightly. "And I wanna stay with my brother."

Bipper smiled back with a thankful nod.

"I'll stay," Frisk said briskly, shoving another bite of pancake into their mouth

Wirt cleared his throat a little. "I don't really see any reason to go back. Besides, we got that little taste of our old lives that night we tried to summon that ghost, and we all came back from that. Well, I came back. I want to stay," he said quietly.

Finn shrugged after Wirt finished. "I have nothing really to go back to, so I'll stay too."

Bipper felt a bit of the tension leave his shoulders as he grinned at them.

That left Morty.

"And you?" Bipper asked the eye-patched boy he had grown so fond of.

Morty thought for a killer second. "I didn't get hundreds of new pawns like you said I would, and I almost died yesterday." There was a beat of silence, and Bipper braced for the worst. "But I think I'll stay for a change in scenery and maybe a few actual friends."

Bipper let out a breath and grinned at the reuse of the words he had told Morty all those months ago when they first met. "So you'll all stay?" He asked.

"Of course, bro-bro. We're a family," Mabel said as if it were the most obvious thing.

"Family sticks together," Finn chirped up.

"We protect each other," Wirt added.

"We'll have more fun," Frisk nodded, seemingly content to finally add something to the conversation.

"Make new memories," Morty continued.

"Find new adventures," Mabel concluded, "Because that's what family does."

Bipper smiled, genuine and hopeful. "And we are a family."

Things would be messy; things would be hard. They were villains, they were kids, but it would end just fine, Bipper knew even without magic because they had each other. Through thick and thin, they had stuck together. Through fighting and laughing, they had grown closer.

So as the six teens went back to eating, Bipper was content. He was content to live a life, not of destruction and power grabs – that could come later, come when everyone else had moved on one way or another – but of the mundane, to just be with his family.

Bipper knew this was the end of all he had worked for, all he had tirelessly labored towards, but he also knew the end was just the beginning.