Y'all getting a chapter slightly earlier than usual because my physics review just got canceled because of a supposed gas leak in the school lmao. It's actually not even just the school it's like the entire block.
Hope you guys enjoy! Share, comment, and vote if you'd like! I'd appreciate any feedback :D
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The police were called immediately.
The red and blue lights flashed outside of the shack, shrouding the surroundings in an eerie glow. The once silent night was accented with the dying police sirens and radio static. Birds and bugs were startled awake, and were loudly voicing their complaints in the surrounding shrubbery and trees.
Inside, Blubs and Durland were inspecting the scene, as Y/n struggled to comfort a mourning Stan and Dipper struggled to cheer up his own crestfallen sister.
"I get up to use the john, right?" Stan started, choking on his words. "And when I come back, blammo! He's— he's—!"
Stan couldn't finish his sentence and turned away from the headless body completely, mumbling apologies.
"He was," Y/n ran her thumb across her throat. "Crrk!"
"My expert handcrafting," Mabel said sadly, patting the chest of the fall figure. "Besmirched. Besmirched!" She cried.
Dipper put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Who would do something like this?"
"What's your opinion, Sheriff Blubs?" Durland asked, looking from his notepad. Y/n glanced over to see what he had taken down of Stan's account. The pad was covered in little doodles and illegible scribbles.
Does this man even know how to write?
"Look," the beige clad Sheriff started, taking a sip of his coffee, "we'd love to help you folks, but let's face the facts. This case is unsolvable."
"What?!" The four screamed in unison.
Stan lunged forward, and Y/n struggled to hold him back. "You take that back," he growled hysterically. "You take that back, Sheriff Blubs!"
"You're kidding, right?" Dipper asked. "There must be evidence, motives."
"Definitely," Y/n said, crossing her arms. She was already in detective mode. "Unfortunately, the scene's already been tampered with, so I doubt we'll find much physical evidence, but we can probably figure out unsubs just by—"
"Whoo!" Blubs said, interrupting Y/n's murmuring. "Would you look at what we got here! A hot-shot City Detective!"
Dipper's brows raised. "What? She knows what she's talking about. And I can help too."
"Yeah, yeah! They're really good at this stuff," Mabel cheered.
"Yeah, have these two kids help. They've got brains up there," Stan agreed, knocking on Y/n's head.
"These City Folk think they're gonna solve a murder mystery! What are you gonna use, your fancy computer phone?"
"City Folk! City Folk!" Durland echoed.
"You two are adorable!" Blubs said, pointing between Y/n and Dipper.
"A-adorable?" Dipper asked, embarrassed. He felt his heart sink for a moment. He hated when he wasn't taken seriously because of his age.
The two cops laughed, and Y/n's brows creased. These little shits—
"Look PJ's, Hoodie, how about you leave the investigating to the grown-ups, okay?"
"Grown-ups?" Y/n snapped. This time, she lunged forward and Stan had to hold her back. She was too tired to think of the consequences. "Pardon me, but if I remember right, you just said this case is impossible. So if you aren't gonna do jack about this murder, then I don't see why Dipper and I— a near capable teen and adult— can't take a crack at it ourselves!"
Before Blubs could give her a sarcastic and belittling answer, his radio went off from his belt.
"Attention all units, attention all units: Steve is going to fit an entire cantaloupe in his mouth. Repeat, an entire cantaloupe."
Durland gasped. "It's a 23-16!"
"Let's move," Blubs agreed, pulling his sheriff's hat down a little with a sly smile.
Giggling like school girls, the two skipped out of the house and into their squad car. Within moments, the car pulled away from the shack.
"That's it!" Dipper announced. He grabbed Y/n's and Mabel's hand. "We're going to find the jerk who did this and get back that head!"
"Yeah!" Y/n grumbled, still fuming. "We'll show those two idiots who's perfectly capable of solving a murder."
"Then we'll see who's 'adorable,'" Dipper added, before sneezing.
Y/n jumped, startled by the small noise. Even Stan looked up from the dead body of his companion, confused.
"Aww," Mabel cooed, "you sneeze like a kitten!"
Dipper deadpanned. "Mabel!" He scolded. "You're not helping."
"Y-you kids would really do that for me? For Wax Stan?" Stan said, smiling sadly.
"Of course!" Y/n said loudly, an edge still prominent in her voice. "Give us until the end of the week— we're bound to solve it before then, but just in case." She turned to Stan, nudging him. "I'm telling you Stan, we're gonna figure out who did this."
"Yeah!" The twins cheered.
"Thank you, kids, really," Stan said, trying to put his arms around all three of them. "If Wax Stan was still here—" his voice caught in his throat for a moment, and the kids gave him a moment to compose himself. "If he was still here, he'd be cheering you on, just like I am."
"We could probably get started right now," Y/n said, the gears in her brain already turning. "Think about it: theoretically, the only suspects should be the four of us. But all of us are accounted for."
"Yeah," Dipper said. "But Stan leaves the doors unlocked—"
"We live in the middle of the woods, what's the point in locks?" Stan grunted.
"That only gives us more reasons to lock up," Mabel said.
"—so," Dipper continued, "our suspect list is nearly the entirety of the town."
"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," Y/n said bluntly.
"What?" Stan asked. "The kid's right, if it wasn't any of us, then it's one of the people at the unveiling today."
"But that's not usually how murders work," Y/n continued. "Most of the time, the culprit was close to the victim. We have to start with the inner circles and slowly expand. I don't want to go as far as all those people; it's too broad of a suspect pool."
"But that's the next circle," Dipper argued. "If it wasn't any of us, we're going to have to expand to the town."
Before Y/n could respond, Stan interrupted them. "Okay kids," he said, holding his hands up. "You two are saying a whole lot of things right now. Go get some shut eye and then regroup in the morning."
He crouched down to the beheaded wax figure. "Besides," he said, gently placing his hand on its shoulder. "I want some alone time with my old friend."
The kids nodded, and quietly went off in their separate directions. As Y/n walked to her room, she couldn't help but think about Stan's weird behavior towards the wax figure.
He's practically mourning it, as if it was family. It wasn't even "alive" for more than a day! But, who was she to judge; she would probably do the same with a beloved plush or figure.
Y/n entered her room, moving her notebook to the dresser. As much as she wanted to theorize again about Stan, the murder was probably a more pressing matter.
And as Stan said, it was probably best to get rest now and regroup in the morning, especially since the girl was lacking so much sleep already. Having a shortfuse as a result of a lack of sleep wasn't the best when trying to keep a level head and logical way of thinking.
Y/n cracked the window open, allowing some of the brisk summer air into the room. She crawled into bed, snuggling into her sheets.
"I really hope I get some sleep tonight," she mumbled into the pillow, closing her eyes.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Y/n started coming to when a strong breeze swept her bags and tickled her forehead. She took a deep breath; the familiar smell of the forest filled her lungs, and she could feel sparse sun rays trickling down upon her from where she sat.
She opened her eyes, a large smile— a genuine smile— pulling at her lips. Y/n knew exactly where she was.
Her back was against a large oak tree; it's prolific foliage shielded her from the sun that forever hung in the sky. The light danced besides her, peeking through spaces in the many leaves of the lush canopy. Y/n put her hands to her sides, feeling the grass blades between her fingers.
The field stretched further; almost miles of rolling green hills housed in her consciousness. If she were to continue out from the shade of the tree, she would stumble across a large pond that housed small fish.
The rest of the field was surrounded by other vegetation, but none stood as tall or as proud as the oak that she had woken up against. In fact, it was the only oak in the area. The rest of the encasing trees were mostly pine and cedar.
"I've missed this place," she said, standing up. "It's almost like I'm back home."
She hadn't been in this field for months. Her previous bouts of insomnia had prevented her from getting so much as a few hours of sleep each night while she was home. But now she was back in her old childhood playgrounds.
Y/n stretched her limbs, and felt the stress from waking life practically melt off her. College applications? The Supernatural? They don't matter right now, I'm going to enjoy home for a bit longer.
"Awww, so I guess it's a bad time to drop by, huh Flame?"
Y/n jumped, startled to find another voice speaking in her subconscious that wasn't hers. But she recognized that techno voice.
A slight rustle of leaves sounded above her. She looked up, just in time to see a small yellow triangle drop himself from the canopy like an apple. Instinctively, Y/n caught him in her arms.
"Nice catch, kiddo!" Bill said, floating up and reaching to ruffle her hair. She shuffled away from his hand after a moment.
She giggled slightly, just overall bubbling with excitement to be back in her little oasis within her consciousness. Even if she wasn't planning on creating a dream as a celebration for sleeping again, Y/n was just happy to be somewhere that she knew she belonged.
"So," Bill said, surveying the area. He had to admit, for such a small portion of the girl's mind, it was surprisingly fleshed out. It almost felt as if they were in an actual field. "What's this about being home?"
Y/n froze for a moment, her face dropping.
Right, mind reader, she chided herself, embarrassed. She had to be careful with her thoughts. This was only her second encounter with Bill (third, if you counted the first night); she didn't feel comfortable sharing the truth about this special place. Maybe another day.
"Oh it's just," she paused for a moment, unsure how to go on. "It's just a place that's special to me, you know?"
Bill's eye narrowed, but in the end he just nodded his head. He knew that this place held a story behind it, but if he ever wanted to hear even a portion of it, he would have to play the long-con. I just have to gain her trust by feeding her what she wants to hear.
"So, what exactly are you doing here?" Y/n asked, awkwardly shuffling.
"I wanted to check on my little friend," Bill said, pointing to her. He floated to her other side. "You seem to have gone through a lot in the past couple of days," he finished, pointing to the bandage on her cheek.
"Oh yeah," Y/n laughed nervously, her fingers brushing it. "Ran a boat into a pane of glass escaping a giant robot."
"And then there was that murder!" Bill exclaimed, snapping his fingers. Before the pair, lying on the grass, the headless Wax Stan appeared.
"How do you know about that?"
"Well, when I'm not taking care of things in other dimensions and whatnot, I've been watching you and your family settle in."
"That's... a tad strange, isn't it?" Y/n muttered cautiously.
Bill laughed. "No Flame, you'll meet him later."
"Huh?"
"I'm getting ahead of myself! Tell me," Bill snapped again, and the Stan on the ground disappeared. In its place, an ornate velvet chair appeared. "You got any work in progress theories?" Bill asked, crossing his legs.
Y/n winced. "Yeah, about that. I feel like there's a dozen things I can start theorizing about—"
"There's more than a million things, really," Bill interrupted.
"Exactly! But I just don't know where to start, I guess."
Bill hummed in thought. After a moment, his eye transformed into a lightbulb. He snapped his fingers again, and this time the ground by Y/n's feet shook. The Earth split for a moment, and a whiteboard emerged, growing like a budding flower.
"Show me what you've got so far," Bill said, motioning to the board.
"Um, yeah, okay." She nodded, suddenly feeling a lot of pressure on her shoulders.
Y/n moved to the board. I guess I should continue with Stan—
"Ooo~! Already jumping to a pretty bold start, Flame!"
Like her notebook, she titled the board with Stan's name in the middle, branching out to the suspicious things that were still prominent on her mind. This time, however, since she was lucky enough to be in her own head, she conjured pictures of the vending machine, wax figure, and license plate to add to her board.
Y/n stood back, letting Bill look over her notes. He snapped his fingers again, and a small teapot and cups appeared. He swirled his finger in a circle, and the pot lifted to fill his cup. Both the pot and cup were colored a light blue, and had an eye resembling Bill's in the center.
"You want some?"
"I'm good," Y/n said. She didn't necessarily trust mind-tea.
"So I'm guessing this fixation on your Uncle stems from what you stumbled across a couple days ago?"
"Of course," Y/n said, crossing her arms. "Stan definitely is a shady character; did you not see him when he put in that code?"
"Why'd you add the license plate and the wax figure?" Bill steepled his fingers. Of course, he knew the real reason behind them, but he was hoping that Y/n didn't realize it just yet. It wouldn't be the best thing in the world if she found out about Stan's skeletons.
It was a double edged sword, really. Bill wanted to feed the suspicion that Y/n had towards Fez. He wanted to draw her further away from her family. It already seemed to be working: he already had her keeping secrets from them. Not to mention, Bill noticed that she never appeared to address them as her family. It was never "Grunkle Stan," or "my brother," or "my sister;" it was just their names or "the twins." She never seemed to attach herself to them...
But at the same time, if Bill were to give information that led to an answer, it would cause a lot more damage. Not to mention, he was working on a tight schedule: as soon as Y/n saw that page Sixer wrote about him in that journal, he was pretty much done for. Sure, he could try to lie his way out, but (unfortunately) Y/n wasn't stupid. Luckily, she seemed very receptive to his company. It appears Pine Tree didn't mention the whole "trust-no-one" motto that Sixer lived by.
"The license plate is 'Stanley Mobile,'" Y/n said, pointing to the picture of it. "It— it's probably stolen, actually, but something about it rubs me the wrong way. When Stan was telling me about it, he didn't seem to be lying about having it since he was a kid, but..." Y/n rubbed her temples, a yawn escaping her lips. "I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit too tired to be thinking this hard about this; I'm probably overthinking this."
"And the wax figure?"
"That was just weird," Y/n said, moving over to that section of the white board. There were several pictures of Stan and his double together; laughing, watching TV, eating— it was always by his side. "You said you were watching us— as weird as that sounds— you saw it, too. I never thought Stan could be so— so— vain, I guess."
Bill hummed, waiting for Y/n to continue.
"That's all I got, really. Besides the vending machine— which is probably a coverup for something illegal or something, knowing Stan— all these things aren't mind blowing or anything. They're just details that my gut keeps finding weird."
Bill remained silent for a moment. When Y/n turned back to him, he was sipping the tea. His eyelids doubled as lips, and the girl was slightly puzzled as to how that worked, but quickly dismissed the thought. She didn't want to learn about triangle-demon-anatomy tonight.
This girl's worse than Fordsy, Bill thought. They were both so analytical and logical, but unlike Ford— who was fully versed in the supernatural by the time Bill met with him— Y/n was stuck in the box. Don't get him wrong, Y/n wasn't completely stuck in her old ways— she did have an endless notebook and was talking to a demon— but she was still having a hard time accepting the supernatural. She was treating it like a rare add-on to life as supposed to a prominent force that she interacted with on the regular. The best he could compare it to was the way other mortals viewed Death: something inevitable, but something that was still far away, when— in fact— it could come around at any given moment.
She couldn't go anywhere with her theories because she was looking for a puzzle piece that fit a mold that would lead her to a logical conclusion— not one that was confusing or defied things previously thought to be concrete.
"Who do you think did it?" Bill asked suddenly.
Y/n's brows rose. "What, you mean murder Wax Stan?"
Bill nodded.
Y/n turned back to the board, eyes locking on the picture of the crime scene from earlier than night.
"Well," she started, "at first I honestly thought it could have been one of the twins, or even Stan, for publicity reasons. I could come up with plenty of motives for one of them to be the culprit. But we're all accounted for. Dipper thinks it was one of the townspeople at the unveiling today, but it just seems to be a little too far of a reach. I mean," Y/n started pacing. "I guess it has to be one of them; there wasn't anyone else in the shack besides us four. But if it was someone from town, one of us had to have heard them come in. And even if no one heard them, then Blubs and Durland would have run into them on the main path to the shack."
Y/n groaned loudly. "It just doesn't make sense: as much as it has to be someone from town, I still feel like the person is right under my nose!"
Bill sighed loudly. She's really rooted in her ways, isn't she?
She was right. They were right under her nose; they were living in the shack with her. Hell— she was just advertising for them.
He couldn't tell if it was amusing or infuriating seeing how close this mortal was from the answers. She was literally right there; she just kept missing the target.
Bill weighed his options: he could either give her the push she needed to be right on track, or leave her stranded in the dark. As much as he wanted to keep her blind, he figured it would be best to throw her a bone. After all, if his goal was to end up dividing her from the rest of the Pines, then he needed a catalyst; something that her over-reactive mind comes up with and sticks to.
It would be hard to do if the best and "most logical" thing she could come up with when talking about that vending machine was that Stan was just "hiding something illegal." That wasn't fun at all, and he definitely wanted to see this girl go insane with her own overthinking and overreactions. If she overwhelmed and destroyed herself, then all Bill had to do was swoop down for the kill.
"Kiddo, you seem to be missing a key factor," Bill said finally, setting down his tea cup in the air.
"What?"
"Where are you?" He asked, floating up to her.
Y/n's brows furrowed. "What do you me—"
"Where are you?" Bill repeated.
"I'm in my mind...?" She ventured.
"No, I mean: what town are you in?"
"Gravity Falls," she said.
"Now tell me, how would you describe this place?"
"Well, I guess... small. Weird—"
Bill cut her off. "Repeat that."
"Weird?" Y/n was still confused; what was he getting at?
"Y/n," he said, slightly annoying that it wasn't clicking. Had he a nose, he'd be pinching the bridge. Definitely as dense as Sixer.
"You're in Gravity Falls: a paranormal hotspot! You're talking to a demon in your own mind, for God's sake. Why are you still trying to view things so logically?"
Y/n stopped for a moment, putting a hand to her face in thought.
"You liked believing in the supernatural before, right?"
"Y-yeah," she said, rubbing her arm embarrassed. He was right. For someone trying to make theories that dabbled in the supernatural territory, she was viewing things way too literally.
"And now you know all that stuff is real, so why are you trying to fit a mold when you know very well that reality is much more chaotic than that? Think outside the box, Y/n." He said, resting an arm on her shoulder.
"Outside the box..." she repeated under her breath. "Yeah... yeah! I can— I can do that."
Bill laughed. "You're going to have to do that, if you want to get anywhere, kiddo."
Y/n chuckled too, running a hand through her hair. "Can't believe I didn't realize that sooner."
"Relax Flame! It happens to the best of us. You're still adjusting to this place. Your siblings seem to be having an easier time, though."
"Yeah," Y/n trailed off. Of course they were having an easier time adjusting. They had long-accepted the existence of the supernatural, especially since their first encounter was a horde of gnomes trying to make Mabel their queen. Y/n was still processing, even despite having a literal demon talking to her like an old friend.
Before the two could continue discussing Y/n's beginning of a theory, the surrounding field started to flicker. Trees in the far-off distance began to fade away completely, as the ground below slowly lost its rich color.
"It looks like you're waking up, Flame."
"Damn, already?" Y/n cursed under her breath.
"Remember what I told you," Bill said, floating up into the air. The sky behind him had lost its color, and the sun that once shined down so bright had disappeared. "Think outside the box! This is the supernatural we're dealing with!"
And with that, the field Y/n had woken up in faded completely, and within moments she snapped awake in her bed.
She sat up in her bed, a sudden rush of adrenaline shooting down her body. For the first time in a couple of days, she actually felt awake.
"Think outside the box," Y/n mumbled. She looked at the notebook on the dresser. Anything is possible here.
Y/n shot out of bed, grabbing the notebook and securing it in her pocket. She reached for the door.
She was going to solve this murder case, and it was going to start with a fresh perspective on the crime scene.