Two boys with issues (ParaPines Fanfiction)

Chapter 3

“So, this is my room.” Dipper said leading Norman to a dark brown door with a intricate brass handle.

Norman stepped into the room and Dipper sat down on his bed, leaving room for Norman to sit beside him. Norman pulled his knees up closer to his chest and rocked back and forth slightly as he looked around the poster covered room.

“You know, most people would have posters of bands or naked girls in their room. You’re the first person I’ve seen to have neither. And it’s especially weird since they aren’t sports or cars, your posters are of ugly creatures people don’t believe exist.” Norman said, chuckling to himself.

“Well of course, I don’t like any of those things so I don’t see the point of putting them up on the walls,” Dipper replied, “I’ve been meaning to take a few down, they tend to make my room look a bit smaller.” 

“Yeah. I like the color of your walls, that sort of deep blue green like the sea is really cool!” Norman said, smiling.

“Yeah I painted them last winter, your walls are just white. You gonna paint them?” Dipper said rubbing one of his eyes.

“Probably just a light grey color.” 

“Yeah, that’d work.”

There was a silence. Only lasted about a minute or so, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable. The soft hum of Dippers parents talking and cooking reaching the bedroom. Dipper sighed audibly and Norman straightened up on the bed.

“So, since you’re so into, all of this,” Norman said gesturing to all the posters in the room, “Have you actually, you know, found anything?”

“Yeah, quite a bit actually. I’ve been interested in it for like five years and have actually been exploring since I was fourteen. Wanna see some stuff?” Dipper said.

“Yeah sure!” Norman said excitedly.

Dipper leaned over his bed and pulled up his laptop. He sat on his bed with his legs hanging over the edge, beckoning for Norman to take a look. The nature of showing someone things on a laptop screen inevitably makes the two sit very close to each other and even though Dipper takes note of this, he doesn’t think too much of it. Dipper opens up a bunch of files before finding the file of photo’s he’s captured over the years.

“Okay so I’ve got about 25 photos here,” Dipper said as he opened one. “This one the first photo I ever caught, I went to Canada for a holiday with some family and we went to Okanagan lake in British Columbia. The Ogopogo, the thing in the photo, is a 40 - 50 foot serpent like animal that has been sighted in that lake since the 19th century.” Dipper said.

“Oh wow, that’s an impressive photo! Have you reported any of these?” Norman asked, genuinely intrigued.

“I’ve thought about it, but because these creatures are constantly being photographed and most of them called as fakes, I feel that since I’m only 16 they would be shrugged off.” 

“That’s true,” Norman said,” Do you have anything from here? Like in Gravity Falls?” 

“Um, yeah I’ve caught a few on camera.” Dipper said, pulling out a photo.

“There’s actually a giant crab here, around 90 feet wide.”


The boys sat and talked about these photos for what seemed like hours and Dipper had shown almost any convincing photo he had in his files. He then began scrolling quickly through some old deer cam photos that contained either nocturnal animals or bugs that triggered the camera. Norman stopped him on two photos.

“Look up in the left hand corner, see that?” Norman said pointing his finger at a pale figured seemingly hunched over being a bush.

“I hadn’t noticed that before! What is that?” 

“It’s definitely an entity of some kind, I’ve seen enough to know that,” Norman said. “But I can’t understand why your deer cam would have caught it. Most spiritual entities don’t possess enough energy for the human eye to see them, let alone a camera. It might have been a Demon.”

“That’s really… Scary, because I set that deer cam up near the house.” Dipper said.

Norman was about to reply when the bedroom door opened and Mr. Pines peeped his head in.

“Dinner’s just about ready, Norman did you want to go tell your parents?” Mr. Pines said.

“Yep.” Norman said sitting up from the bed as Dipper followed close behind out the door.

“Dipper can you tell Mabel to get out here and tell her we have guests.”

“Okay.” Dipper said see ya to Norman and walked across the hallway to his sisters room and knocked. 

There was no response and Dipper was almost expecting Mabel to have snuck off again and he began think of an excuse to save her ass again, when the door finally opened.

“Yeah?” Mabel said.

“Are you staying for dinner tonight?” Dipper replied, looking past Mabel into a bright room with fairy lights and music playing from two pink bubble speakers.

“Yeah, Oscar and his family went out tonight so I couldn’t see him.” She said.

“Okay, well Dad wants you down here. We’re having our neighbors as guest for dinner.” 

“Are you fucking serious? We’re probably creeping the fuck out of them!” Mabel said frustrated. 

“The boys nice, I haven’t met the girl yet.” Dipper said walking down the stairs followed by his sister.



The two of them help prepare the rest of the food and they had just started putting everything on their dining table in the dining room when there was a knock at the door.

“I’ve got it.” Mrs. Pines said taking off her oven mitts and she waddled over to the door.

Dipper heard the sounds of his mothers ‘Come in, welcome’ and he cringed. Sometimes he thought that his parents knew what made him uncomfortable and tried their hardest to do those things. The two families were sitting at the dinner table and they were getting along fine. The parents were talking parent-talk, Mabel and Normans sister Courtney had already reached best friends status despite their four year age gap. Dipper and Norman sat at the far end of the table and after watching their families converse, began their own conversation.

“So, does your family know that you can see ghosts?” Dipper said chewing on a delicious piece of chicken. Norman shook his head.

“My mum does, she’s a sort of New Age-y meditation kind of person so when I told her she totally believed me and accepted it. My Dad knows about it, refuses to believe it and tells me I’m lying or imagining things.”

“That sucks.” Dipper said.

“Yeah. He’s obsessed with trying to get me into sports.He’s signed me up for soccer, Gym, even tried to get me into cross country.” Norman said. 

Just as Norman said this, they boys over heard Normans Dad, Perry, mention his son.

“Yeah. Normans going to NFL college! He’s not very interested right now, but he’ll love it.”

Both the boys shook their heads, and finished their meals.

“You boys can go back up to your room if you’re done.” Mrs. Pines said and Dipper and Norman packed their plates into the dishwasher before heading back upstairs.

The two boys sat back on the bed and Dipper closed his laptop and put it back on it’s charger on the floor. The light had been turned off and only Dippers lamp illuminated the room. 

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Dipper began to say, “Have you seen any spirits since you’ve been here in Gravity falls?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot more than there was back where I came from. Not to scare you or anything but there are two spirits in your house.” Norman said quietly. 

“Oh… I regret asking.” Dipper said. He laughed nervously as he hugged himself on the bed.

“Oh don’t worry, they’re fine. They are just happy being where they are. I don’t think they want to pass on, and they won’t bother you guys.”

Dipper nodded and Norman scratched the back of his head. They briefly made eye contact but looked away when their eyes connected. Dipper felt really different around Norman, he couldn’t explain it. To break the silence Norman asked if Dipper would be okay with him talking to the spirits and getting some communication going.

“Ah… Um, yeah okay. Are you sure it’s safe?” Dipper said, unsure about the situation.

“One hundred percent, so long as you stay quiet until I say you can talk.” Norman said, quite seriously.

There was a silence, Norman crossed his legs and began to speak.

“Hello, um. I’m Norman.” He said to the air, “I can see you and I’d like for us to communicate.”

Norman waited a minute, before turning to Dipper.

“Okay so it’s two old ladies, they used to own this house a long time before you moved in.” 

Dipper nodded, his gaze never leaving the spot in the air Norman had just been looking at. He thought he saw a faint movement, but he knew it was probably just his imagination. 

“Okay well, are you two happy to share this house with Dipper and his family?” Norman said, “Okay, would it be alright if you communicate with Dipper?”

Before Norman got an answer, he and Dipper both heard a buzzing sound from Dipper’s desk. Dipper grabbed his phone and say a text message, but there was no number.

“Read it,” Norman reassured.

Dipper carefully opened the text that read,

From:

Hello Norman. You do not need to be frightened of us, Maggie and I (Josephine) have an attachment to this house and we couldn’t pass over to the afterlife, we’d much rather live in peace here.

We’ve seen you grow up here and I’m almost proud of who you’re becoming. Feel free to talk to us, we usually stay up on the balcony as it’s the least disturbed part of your noisy house. 

Dipper blinked and looked back up to Norman who was giving him a confirming smile.

“You can talk now.”

“Wait, if they’re ghosts. How can they send a text?” Dipper asked.

“They don’t. Because they are on a different wave length, in a different dimension to us humans they can connect to us using things like technology and sometimes pen and paper. Josephine was speaking to you, but because you cannot audibly hear her it was transferred to your phone.” Norman replied simply.

“That makes sense I guess. So, depending on the amount of energy an entity or a spirit has, the more or less they can reveal themselves and interact with our world?” Dipper asked again, still staring at the text message.

“Yeah, basically,” Norman shrugged. “They’re saying goodbye now, they’re back on the balcony.”

“That was really… wow I’m speechless,” Dipper said. “And you can just talk to them like you talk to me?” 
“Yeah, I can walk into the room and see anything that might be in there, hear what they’re saying, doing and stuff. Sometimes it’s gotten me in a lot of trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Dipper asked, sliding onto his side.

“Well, there was one time I was in primary school and I was being scolded by my teacher. There was a male ghost standing in the classroom with her and he was punching and kicking her,” Norman said. “It didn’t affect her, he had low amounts of energy, but as you can imagine I couldn’t stop laughing and I got sent home for the rest of the day.

“That’s hilarious!” Dipper laughed.

“There’ve been worse times, but I don’t like thinking about them.” Norman said, his voice growing quiet.

“What do you mean?” Dipper said.

“Well… Not all spirits are kind and friendly, sometimes they can be really violent.”

“I see…” Dipper replied, “Well doing what I do isn’t always fun either.”

“Yeah?” 

“A few days ago I was nearly killed by a… Something, I’ve never seen anything like it before. I was walking through the forest behind the house, and mind you I’ve been there so many times I know it like the back of my hand, I came across an old building I didn’t remember. I climbed through a hole in the roof and after being in there for a few minutes I noticed a huge creature crouching on it’s back feet in the corner. It was easily twice my height and maybe three times my weight.” Dipper said. Norman listened carefully.

“I wasn’t really planning on finding much that day, just maybe some evidence of something out there so I hadn’t brought anything with me. I ducked behind some furniture and it must have heard me because it stood up and started bashing and thrashing around. I ended up getting out through a trapdoor and breaking through a boarded up window. But the thing began to chase me for about twenty minutes straight and it was unbelievably fast. I’m still really sore from all the running, especially because I’m not very fit.” He continued.

“Wow, that’s so scary! Did he get you?” Norman asked, concern on his face as he moved closer.

“He came within three meters of me before I made a sharp turn and he gave up. I think he must have watched me run home because during the early hours of the morning I caught a glimpse of something standing outside my house and I got the same awful feeling I got around it. Never in my life have I been so scared.” Dipper wiped his face with his hand as he remembered the way that creatures malicious eyes pierced his entire being and sent fear to his heart.


Soon after, a knock on the door brought the boys attention off each other and to the turning door handle. Normans mother Sandra stuck her head through the door, her blonde hair hanging by the sides of her face.

“Norman, would you like to stay the night here? Mrs. Pines was wondering.” She said sweetly. She looked at the two boys positioned on the bed, raising an eyebrow at Norman before looking back at Dipper

Norman looked back at Dipper, who raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“It’s alright if he stays the night, right Dipper?” Sandra asked.

“Yeah of course,” Dipper said.

“Yeah, okay,” Norman said shyly, “Are you going to bring back my stuff?”

Sandra nodded before closing the door.

The two boys lived about ten minutes away from each other so it was close enough to walk to the house.


The two boys brushed their teeth and had changed into their pajamas. Dipper moved a spare mattress onto the floor beside his bed and Norman set up his pillow and duvet. They weren’t quite ready to go to sleep yet, so they both lay down side by side on Normans bed with a laptop on Dippers legs. They put on a horror movie and a couple of times Norman would gasp or flinch but he was relatively okay. Dipper on the other hand, had his hand covering his mouth with his eyes just above his finger the entire time.

The movie had almost ended when the feeling of an arm over his chest made him jump. He turned and saw that Norman and fallen fast asleep. Not really knowing what to do, Dipper thought that maybe if he slid out and slept on the mattress it wouldn’t be so awkward waking up, but the more Norman snuggled up against Dipper, and considering how tired Dipper was, he couldn’t resist lying there next to the warmth and comfort of his new friend. He paused the movie and closed his laptop, placing it on the floor beside his bed. When he rolled back, Norman cuddle closer to his side and even though it was a bit awkward, he was okay with it. Norman’s head rested in the crook of Dipper’s neck and as he lay there awake, he felt his eyes grow heavy. A complete sensation of contentment and adoration came upon him and he smiled to himself as he fell into a perfectly undisturbed sleep. 
Although to Dipper, he and Norman were alone in that bedroom, two resident old women rolled in on their wheelchairs to take a look at the unusual sight.

“Dipper’s been suffering so much, and clearly this boy Norman has as well.” Maggie said quietly so as to not wake Norman. 

She looked over her shoulder at the waste paper basket beside Dipper’s desk and saw the pile of paper and bloodied tissues and band-aids making her heart sadden.

“Hopefully now that they’ve become friends, they can learn to help heal each other.” Said Josephine as they glided through the bedroom wall and let the two boys rest in each others sleeping embrace.