#like they crawl out for a while go oooh.. a ladder…

[sawvhs]

john must’ve thought he was sooo funny making a trap where you’re meant to cut your foot off and then choosing an underground jigsaw lair that you have to climb a ladder to get out of

[redwoodwrites]

Bad Dreams

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13339278

A/N: This story takes place after Dipper and Mabel have returned home. They've started their own paranormal investigation club, the Haunt Hunters, and are doing pretty well...except for the occasional nightmare...  A touch of angst, a hint of Billdip, and a whole lotta Mabel. Enjoy the fluff!

Dipper woke up sweating. His shoulders were shaking and those little stabby fork scars on his arms were burning. He sat up. His scalp felt like it was trying to crawl off his head.

Well. Obviously not going back to sleep tonight.

He swung his legs over the bed. Ew, so much sweat. If he showered now, he'd wake everybody up, but at least he could at least change his clothes. Maybe wipe off his face.

He got up slowly so his bed wouldn't creak. Mabel was flopped over the top bunk bed and one foot hung over the rail, covered in a bright pink heart-patterned sock that literally glowed in the dark. He avoided it carefully, grabbed a semi-clean change of clothes off the floor, and felt his way out of the room to the bathroom.

He reached the bathroom and shut the door, so the light wouldn't bother anyone. He flicked it on, wincing at the sudden glare. He had to stand with his eyes squeezed shut until they adjusted. He cracked them open, a little at a time. When his eyes stopped throbbing, he shucked off his clothes and threw them on the hamper. He put on the clean ones and then stepped to the sink to wash his face. He turned on the hot water faucet at full blast, to make it heat up faster, and glanced at himself in the mirror.

His reflection grinned horribly, and its eyes burned yellow with slitted pupils.

“HIYA, SMART GUY!”

 Mabel startled so badly she nearly fell out of bed. She gripped the rail, her heart pounding, her ears ringing from the scream.

“D-Dipper?”

Dipper didn't answer.

Oh, boy. She quickly swung over the rail and dropped to the floor. Her brother was sitting up, grabbing at the blankets, doing that funny breathing thing he did when he was trying not to panic. His hair stuck out in all directions, hiding his face, but his mouth was open as he gasped for breath.

Before Mabel could move or speak, their parents ran into the room. “What happened?” their mother asked, panting. “Who screamed?”

“I just woke up,” Mabel said truthfully, stalling for time. Sometimes Dipper was too freaked to talk, which freaked out their parents, which freaked out Mabel, which freaked out Dipper. It was not a good cycle.

“Are you kid alright?” their father asked. “Mabel, what on earth are you doing out of bed? Tell me you didn't sleep walk! If you fell off the top bunk –”

“No, no, I promise, I was awake when I fell. Kidding!” she said with a laugh. “I didn't fall. Seriously, I'm okay.”

Their mother stepped closer, peering behind Mabel, who was blocking the view to Dipper's bed. “Dipper? Are you alright?”

“I'm okay.” She heard Dipper scoot back so his mom could see his face. Mabel glanced at him. He looked pale and pasty and haggard, but he was an internet addict so that was a typical look for him. At least he wasn't breathing funny anymore. “I just had a nightmare," he said. "Sorry I woke you.”

“Some nightmare,” said their father. “You want a glass of water?”

“No, no, I'm fine.”

Their mother insisted on tucking them both back in and fussed over Dipper's blankets until she'd practically cocooned him.

“Aw, look at him!” Mabel squealed. “He's gonna metamorphose into a beautiful nerd!”

“Well, he's got the 'nerd' part down,” their father grumbled, and he grinned and ruffled their hair.

Finally their parents were gone. Mabel waited a little while before she poked her head down over the railing.

“So,” she said, and he knew what she meant.

“I'm really okay,” Dipper said, keeping his eyes closed. “Honest.”

“I hate when that happens,” Mabel said conversationally. “Like, you know you're okay but your brain insists on making horror movies in your sleep. You can't even eat popcorn to make it a worthwhile experience!”

“I didn't know nightmares could be a – you have nightmares?”

“Oh sure! Mostly about Waddles getting turned into Bacon Bits, or accidentally pressing the red button so Grunkle Ford never comes back, or that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford get killed at sea and we never hear from them again and we spend the rest of our lives searching forever and never find them until we die.”

“I feel like that got progressively worse.”

Mabel shrugged, which, since she was hanging upside down, meant moving her shoulders up towards the ceiling and then back again, like an opposite-shrug. “You wanna know what I do when I get a nightmare?”

He cracked open one eye. “Eat ice cream?”

“Nope!”

“Eat ice cream with popcorn?”

“Nope!”

“Throw literally everything in the fridge into the blender and make the worst possible version of Mabel Juice ever?”

“No, but now I definitely want to try that tomorrow. No, what I do is think of a real thing that really happened, something just as good as the nightmare was bad, and I focus on that.”

“What do you do for a Grunkles-Lost-Forever dream?”

She paused. Dipper's nightmare must've been really bad. What would cheer up a nerd?

“I think, if I were you...I'd remember that one time you found an alien saucer with Grunkle Ford. You did say it was, and I quote, 'the best day of your life.'”

“Ah, yes, the day I accidentally pushed you into accidentally starting Weirdmaggedon.”

“Work with me here, Dip-Dop. Before that you know you were having a great time. Actually...” She pulled herself back up and climbed down the ladder. All that hanging upside down was starting to give her a Grenda-sized headrush. She scooted onto Dipper's bed and sat cross-legged at the foot of it. “You never did tell me what happened. You wanna tell me now?”

He picked his head up and looked at her for a minute. “I really am okay,” he said.

“If you don't tell me, I will tickle you,” she said, raising a finger threateningly and touching his big toe through the blankets.

“Mabel, I'm tired. I just want to –”

“SO BE IT!”

He squealed with laughter as she grabbed his feet and started tickling with all her Mabel powers. He was so tightly wrapped up he couldn't even fight back. And when it looked like he was about to get his arms free, she body-slammed him and started tickling his neck.

“Mabel, Mabel, stop!” he gasped, laughing so hard tears rolled down his cheeks. “Seriously! I'm gonna pee!”

She sat up, grinning from ear to ear. “Alright, Count Dorkulus, story time! Stor-y time! Stor-y time!”

“You are the worst,” he said, but he was still laughing as he sat up. He told the story, starting with how Ford blew up his face every morning to get rid of five o' clock shadow all the way through staring down a big alien security droid with a rail gun the size of a Maserati.

“Wow, Dipper, that sounds amazing,” Mabel said admiringly. “You're like a hero from a science fiction movie!”

“Yeah, well...” He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. “It was really cool, that's for sure. I wish we could have more adventures like that, but I guess not every place is as weird as Gravity Falls.”

“I dunno, bro, with you here I think we give the Falls some decent competition.”

He threw a pillow at her.

“And we did just fight off a buttload of gremlins at school,” Mabel said. “Who knows what other wild stuff the Haunt Hunters will face? I bet we'll get world-famous and have to travel to all the weirdest, most haunted places in the world!”

“Yeah! Like that forest in the Rockies with all the Bigfoot sightings! Or that one house in Colorado with the baby hands on the window!”

“Oooh! I bet the Hand Witch would love it there!”

They talked and planned until it started getting light outside. Luckily it was the weekend, so they knew they'd get to sleep in. Mabel was too tired to climb back to her own bed. She crawled up next to Dipper and stole the top blanket. The fell asleep facing each other, their foreheads just touching, their faces gilded with the soft gold of the rising sun.

A/N: So I know the whole “bad dreams” idea has been done to death, but the idea WOULD NOT leave me alone until I put it down on paper. Digitally, anyway. MENTAL SYSTEM PURGED!  Also, for more Dipper and Mabel after the Falls, please check out my work “Haunt Hunters,” where the twins have started the Haunt Hunters club and investigate paranormal events.

[the-killing-jokerrr-blog]

A killer clown his habits never change

“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

The sick and twisted clown aimed for a measly and tactless melee attack, the dark knight before him simply moved away, quickly grabbing one of the clown’s arms to pull him to the floor, using the other hand to press on his head so Joker’s body was unable to resist he force. It was then when the sick madness like this man realized he wasn’t just playing simple games anymore. He attempted to crawl and grab his pistol as it was launched to the floor near an unsteady wooden table by the fall Joker made. As he was crawling away, the dark man behind him began to tag along, walking and following the criminal his every move, until he put it to a final stop. Pushing a foot down on one of Joker’s legs, the clown began to sneer as he became aggressive. “Hey! HEY!! AAARGH!! How dare you batman! Don’t you have any manners?” glaring into his arch enemy’s gloomy eyes that were overlapped with shadows from his black mask, the clown couldn’t help but scatter loud laughter around the empty warehouse. It was him and the bat alone once again.   “Come on, batman, I haven’t harmed anyone you could care about! He was just a criminal, like me right? Theh, bat, bat, you are truly confusing!”

The clown’s voice cracked at the last word. He scarped his throat, loosening his purple tie a little before he crawled near a table. “You never fail to surprise me and I’m full of them. You see…” he started to look at his feet which he was clacking together like a child in boredom. “I have one for you right now. OH LOOK!” batman actually believed someone had entered from behind, the Joker taking his chance to run behind the table. When the bat was trying to catch up, Joker tossed the table over and started playing a cat and mouse game. “Woohoo, hoo! HAHAHA! Come! Get me! Woof woof! Oooh, I’m being so naughty now, aren’t I! Punish me!” And Joker had found the gun he lost. Being as fast as he could, he nicked it from the ground to only aim it at the bat as he meanwhile was trying to walk back to a back door. “I must say.. I never used that trick, right? It’s funny to believe you actually are pretty naive still and you still have SO MUCH to learn!” His voice became louder, powerful at again, the last few words he spitted out from his red and swollen lips. combing his greasy muddy green hair back with a flat gloved hand, he made sure he kicked the door open to run for his life, up the stairs, being chased by a tactical man who may not be prepared for everything all the time, yet he knew how to pick up the pace, catching up at the right time. Using his grappling hook, he tried to get to the top first, but Joker knew that trick very well too, and that… was what batman knew as well. So the question is, who’d outsmart the other this time ?

If Joker knew what batman was going to do, and batman knew what Joker was going to do, who’d win? Maybe one of them didn’t plan ahead FAR enough... Joker had grabbed his favorite pocket knife to only try and cut the rope off of the grappling hook fast enough, laughing while he does it, as he had quite enough distance from the batman. But the rope didn’t budge, as it was made out of strong materials. Joker quickly gave up on that idea and used a special chalk bomb he made to perhaps blind the batman just enough so he could run higher up, to only pull more useless pranks. Strange tactics but they always worked with most victims. And throwing the powder which left a loud thud once it hit batman’s head, Joker made himself through the last row of stairs before he stopped to watch the dark knight dash through the green cloud being covered all over with green powder. He had put on a mask that made sure he couldn’t get blinded. However,batman couldn’t really see either still, the chalk powder was thick enough to stay on for the most part, but he had to simply undo the covered mask again, and he was ready to get that clown. Unfortunately, the Joker was already somewhere on the roof by now, not wasting too much time anymore as he was waiting on his goons to bring a ladder close from a helicopter.

“Hurry up you maggots! The bat is-”

-”Right behind you!”

A firm arm grabbed Joker around his neck and throat, choking him. The clown began kicking the air with is legs, batman doing his best to not let go. A few shots got fired from the helicopters but they failed to to hit the batman. “Boss, duck!” the goons yell from above. How reckless, the goons couldn’t hit him anyway because the Joker was right in front of him like a shield. “GRRRAAH!” Joker was growling, trying to elbow his enemy in the face, and he even attempted to kick him against he legs. However, batman’s thick and bullet proof armor was able to resist many hits. “You can’t beat me batman! You can’t! UUUGH!”

-”You always seem to escape and nothing seems to do good to you, Joker!”

-”Does that mean you’ll set me free because it’d be useless otherwise?” he grins, chuckling. Batman didn’t speak back, keeping his sentences short. Saying anything to this madman usually meant nothing. Not even the biggest mental asylum was capable of restoring the Joker’s mind. “Aw, gnah! Do I have to do everything myself?!” He ducked, one of the goons from in the helicopter quickly and anxiously grabbing a sniper to aim at the bat who didn’t have his flexible armor on. It wasn’t fully tested yet, left with severe tears from last encounter with a severe explosion at corrupt factory where sharp objects managed to strike a painful landing, killing and harming many employees, including batman, his arm still not fully healed. And right now, this obstacle meant he couldn’t bend or turn his neck, nor move fast enough, wearing this classical heavy armor just to keep himself away from dangerous gun shots. May it not being the flexible areas being exposed anymore, his face still was as always for some iconic reason. It made the goon holding the sniper scream in happiness as hey tried his very best to aim one good shot at the bat for once and Joker was covering his ears, waiting for it to happen until he suddenly saw other helicopters appearing from behind his, aiming their lights onto both the clown at the dark knight on the roof. “We can handle it from here, batman!”

The police aka commissioner Gordon, who was getting pretty old for this job, had arrived once again, ruining Joker’s evil plans. Batman somewhat was relieved to see the great Gordon still at it, but knew it couldn’t last forever and he himself couldn’t let go of the criminals like Joker as of yet either. When the helicopter with those panicking goons tried to take down one of those from the police, some of them had fallen to their deaths as they got shot down first, ending up squashed on the city ground below. Gunshots were as loud as fireworks almost, and it made the Joker smirk and dance a little. “Oh, batsy! You didn’t have to do this now! It ain’t my birthday yet, silly!” Batman didn’t reply, suddenly shoving the Joker to the ground so he could tie his arms and legs up like wild bounty hunters do to their prey.

“It’s over, Joker. And this time, I’ll make sure of it!”

Joker smirked harder, thinking: “I’ve escaped countless times before. When will you realize I’m the king of the game? I know your people better than anyone! But go ahead and try again. Let’s shuffle the deck of cards once more! I don’t mind. What value does my day give otherwise.”