Dippers deal

Broken dreams

The colors might have returned when Bill had left but they still seemed dull and lifeless. Warm daylight fought its way through the clouds, but none of the humans below were able to feel the rising sun on their skin while everything just felt numb.

Dipper's heartbreaking bleats for the demon to return were all that they heard before the small fawn eventually stopped, accepting that it was useless after all, only to make its way back to someone else his instincts told him to trust.

Mabel.

But once his wet nose touched her skin something inside her snapped.

"No!" Mabel's voice finally reached through the void of their minds and ripped them out of their stupor.

"Mabel-" But Wendy's interference did nothing to sooth Mabel's burning eyes as she pushed the deer away from her. Dipper only blinked and carefully tried to close the distance between them again, nuzzling her arm before she pushed him away once more.

"No! I-just..." her eyes wavered between the fawn which gave her a lonely bleat and the people looking at her with surprised, hurt and rather helpless expressions. But it was the pity in their eyes that make something inside the small girl break.

It was just too much for her to take when Mabel made a run for the Shack, her gaze blurred by too many tears she nearly tipped over the doorframe before she finally shut the door behind her, leaving a confused bleating fawn scratching on the door.

"Mabel!" Wendy was about to follow but warm, trembling, fingers stopped her. She looked up to Stan and was about to argue when she saw his grim but empty stare.

"Let her be..." He sighed, shook his head and fixed his gaze on the dark charred remains of the contract.

"But-" The redhead tried again.

"She just needs a little time." The old man's voice sounded tired, his actions didn't tell what Mabel exactly needed time to accept, her brother's "betrayal" or that she's lost him. Pacifica however decided for herself what Stan Pines words meant.

"So that's it..." Her voice was hollow, even the Northwest couldn't hide the shiver in her tone.

"...we've lost him." Wendy gasped balling her hands into fists. While Soos only stared at the contract like he expected it to reappear just like his piece of infinite pizza.

But when it stayed in the burned state that it was, the lower lip of the handyman began to tremble with a soft whisper.

"No..."

The long silence that stretched between them made the tension almost suffocating. Pacifica rubbed her eyes and murmured something about a grain of sand, Soos's breath hitched now and Wendy's trembling fingers called for her ax to hit something, hard.

None of them reacted to Stan's silent words, they were used to the employees lies now after all.

"We find a way." But even the owner of the Mystery Shack had trouble believing in his own words, while his burning eyes were glued to the little pine tree on the muddy circle below.

'We have to...'

Stan took a shaky breath when he finally unlocked the door to the Shack, he looked down to the small fawn who blinked at him, hesitating before he slipped through the door with as much space between him and the human as possible. Questioning bleats were echoing in the house before Dipper settled himself at bottom of the stairs, simply too afraid to set a hoof on the first step. Stan sighed and took a look in the living room only to find in empty and quiet.

Soos and the others had finally left, going back home with sagged shoulders and beaten expressions. He told them to do so, because not even the little Northwest with all her money was able to change their situation- so why should he keep the kids busy any more.