/coughs

haha, bet it was a bit of a surprise to see this chapter up, huh? Ha... Ha...

well, at least now we all know how school will affect my schedule.

in all seriousness, I got into a serious writing funk when school started (2 AP classes! 2!), and I was seriously doubting my ability and also the quality of this story. Thanks to all who reviewed; you guys are the reason this chapter was scraped together, short as it is. Hope you guys forgive me for the random, unannounced hiatus and enjoy anyways.

Roses are red, Ectoplasm is Green - the probably title of my maybe humor-based one shot series relating to this one, with how everyone back home in Amity Parks is doing. Dani and Valerie- centric.

I'm moving next month, so expect little from me for a while. If I'm up to it I'll edit some of the previous chapters and refine them to reach my word count, starting with this one.

So many AU's and crossovers and prompts in my doc manager, so little time. Don't hate me if I publish a bunch of other self-indulgent stuff, please.

Without further ado, enjoy.

Dipper sucked in a breath of air like he'd just been sucker punched, spinning on his heel as her turned to the others, jabbing his finger at the door.

"Did you hear that! What did I say! I knew something was up with him!"

Mabel rolled her eyes at her rather excited brother, and waved him over to where everyone sat on her bed.

"Let's focus on talking about what we saw tonight first, Dipper. Don't you have a journal to update?"

Dipper slumped and, reluctantly, pulled away from the door, and the topic of their mysterious new tenant. He walked over to where the others sat and climbed onto his own bed, pulling out his journal. As much as he wanted to find out more from Danny, he was also excited at the thought of figuring out what the heck it was that saved all five of them from being lost in the woods. He jotted down some extra information on the Avinean page before tuning into the conversation taking place on the other bed. Mabel was speaking with exaggerated hand gestures to match.

"...and then we were falling out of the tree, and it got really cold, and we were stopped from hitting the ground by the collars of our sweater/vest, and nobody was there when we turned around!"

"Really? You saw the green lights too though, right?"

"Yeah, they started right after we looked around for whatever stopped us from falling."

Dipper turned back to the pages of his book, flipping through for some kind of hint of what they were dealing with. Minutes ticked by, and the conversation gradually turned from one topic to another, until Candy and Grenda dropped off to sleep, probably feeling the aftereffects of adrenalin, something way too familiar for the Pines twins. Mabel absently itched one of her scabbed up scratches and tumbled off of her bed clumsily. She made her way over to her brother, who was also still awake.

"Find anything, bro?"

Dipper clicked the pen he was writing with.

"Well, it's probably safe to say that the green lights and the invisible force that caught us are the same thing, but..."

"But what?"

Mabel spoke as she leaned over to look at the book he was scrawling in. Dipper sighed and flipped to another page.

"Well, the only thing even close to the green lights is this page on Will-Of-The-Wisps, but they're generally either white or blue, and it says here that they're, 'created gradually from ambient supernatural energy to mislead wandering souls into getting lost.' Which isn't what happened to us."

"So how do we even figure out what it was if it's not in the book?"

"I dunno."

Dipper let out a frustrated sigh, closing the book and flopping back down on his bed.

"Well, Danny might know more. I mean, he got saved from being a spot on the pavement. He might have seen whatever it was."

Dipper perked up slightly at the idea.

"Let's go talk to him then."

Mabel raised an eyebrow, grinning at her brother's eager behavior.

"You're not normally so excited to talk to strangers about the stuff that goes on here."

It was Dipper's turn to roll his eyes. Mabel's grin didn't falter.

"Yeah, but Danny actually believes what's going on."

"Okay so, you're telling me, you aren't at all excited to go talk to him because you want to figure out if he's actually, say, some 'supernatural creature'?"

"No! ...Okay, I mean, maybe a little-"

"Fine, fine, whatever you say, Dipping Sauce. You go interrogate- I mean, ask Danny about it, I'm going to sleep."

He turned and looked back at her, curiously.

"You aren't coming with?"

"Nah. I'm exhausted."

The brown-haired girl curled up, yawned, and waved a lazy hand at her brother.

"Wake me up if anything exciting happens."

"You're still on my bed."

There was no response from Mabel, who was now feigning sleep. Dipper managed another eye roll and suppressed a yawn as he went downstairs to where Danny was... not on the couch? The TV still flickered with odd infomercials, but the older boy was nowhere to be seen. Dipper tucked his journal into his vest and peered into the different rooms of the house, glancing around for the tenant. Had he left?

He finally heard a voice when he peered into the gift shop, but it was muffled. He realized that it was coming from the roof and quickly clambered up the ladder, peering over the edge of it for the teenager. When the voice got louder but he still wasn't in sight, Dipper stood up and edged his way over the roof tiles to look down, and see if Danny was on the small balcony that Wendy had showed the twins not too long ago.

"...Yeah, and I ended up having to use it to guide them back."

Dipper jolted as he heard Danny talking, evidently on the phone. He debated eavesdropping and decided against it. He sounded like he was just talking to a friend or family member anyhow. He turned to go back down, disappointed, and slipped, his own feet tripping him up. He let out one of those embarrassing puberty screams that crack halfway through as he realized he was about to fall head over heels off the two-story building. He experienced exactly one moment of terrifying, disorienting nausea before the world steadied again. A firm hand was holding onto his vest, and for a moment, Dipper was reminded of how it felt when whatever had led them out of the forest had caught him and Mabel.

Then he looked up at Danny's curious face, and the feeling faded. He allowed himself to be pulled up and over the side of the roof, ending up standing on the balcony with Danny, uneasily.

"No, no, it's fine. Dipper- you know, the one I told you about? He just came up here to see what I was doing, I guess? Yeah... Yeah. Got it. Bye, Jazz."

He tapped a headset in his ear, eliciting a beep from it, and turned to look at Dipper, who was staring at his shoes.

"My sister says hi."

Dipper's head jerked up in surprise; he'd expected a reprimand or suspicion of some sort.

"What? I mean, uh, what... are you doing up here?"

Danny raised an eyebrow, slowly. It looked to be a well-practiced gesture.

"On the roof, I mean. At night."

"Not falling off of it, which is a step up from what you were doing."

The tips of his ears turned red in embarrassment, even though Danny was clearly joking. This teenager was so unnerving! It made the hair on the back of Dipper's neck prickle in alarm when he was alone with him. Considering last time that happened he had been looking at gnomes dressed up as a person, that was probably a bad sign.

"Yeah. Um. I came up here to ask you about the Avinean thing. Well, what came after it, with the lights and stuff. You know, since you were saved by it and stuff. And also about the whole living with ghosts thing."

He said the last part in a rush, nervous about his reaction. Danny sighed, a bit exasperated, like he'd had to tell this story too many times.

"Alright, I give. Have you ever heard of Amity Park?"

The name rung a bell. He had briefly researched it while looking for more info on the grandparent ghosts and how dangerous they were, after they left the convenience store (They turned out to be mostly harmless. If you knew how to work an adorable lamb costume properly.).

"That town... The one that got pulled into another dimension briefly because of 'supernatural forces'?"

"Yep. My hometown. Ghost hunter parents."

"Oh... Ouch."

Dipper had only been at the shack for a summer and he'd already been put through all kinds of embarrassing shenanigans. He couldn't imagine living with ghost hunters, like the over-enthusiastic ones on TV, 24/7. Danny nodded, looking a bit amused at Dipper's grimace.

"I've pretty much grown up with this kind of stuff my whole life. So don't worry about it."

"So... Do you have any idea what the invisible force could have been? A ghost?"

"Uhhh... I didn't really see, so I couldn't be sure."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, though his eyes still held remnants of amusement, some inside joke hidden in his words. He tilted his head at Dipper.

"What about you? What's up with that wacky book you're always looking in?"

Dipper did a spit-take, but with air. After coughing a bit to clear his lungs after that sharp gasp, he looked anywhere but Danny.

"W-what journal? I don't have a book! I'm not hiding anything!"

"...That was really convincing."

"Your sarcasm is appreciated, but completely unmitigated."

"Do you even know what that word means? Because I do not."

"I totally do, and also it's getting late and I should be sleeping."

Dipper plowed through the rest of his sentence determinedly and fake-yawned loudly, before turning away, slightly panicked. If Danny was working for someone, or a supernatural creature himself, he couldn't see the book.

"Dipper, wait."

Danny's surprisingly serious tone of voice made Dipper pause, heart racing. But rather than press him for info, he turned and rummaged in his backpack, which was also on the roof terrace with them. He pulled out a weapon of some sort, a glowing green gun that appeared to have a high-tech claw with various buttons on the side. He bit his lip as he looked at it, debating. Then, winning some silent argument in his mind that Dipper couldn't hear, he turned to Dipper and handed it to him. He blinked, surprised.

"For me?"

Danny nodded, an odd look on his face.

"I... Trouble and ghosts of varying kinds follow me wherever I go, so it's probably a good idea to keep that on you."

He grinned wryly.

"A weapon that'll actually hit the ghost. Unless you prefer I dip rocks in ectoplasm so you can shoot them out of the leaf blower at them."

Well. It wasn't like they had a surplus of weapons. The leaf blower had yet to fail them, anyways.

After a few more murmured, awkward goodbyes and good nights, Dipper made his way back into the Shack via the gift shop, feeling exhaustion setting in. He looked at the stylized, green, glowing grappling hook in his hands, and set it on his bedside table, before collapsing on the part of his bed that Mabel wasn't snoring on, thinking only one thought before his head hit the pillow and he was dead to the world.

Mabel was going to have a field day when she sees that weapon.

So, bonding? Yes. Important plot related shenanigans? Not really... It was supposed to be in there, but it's been too long already so I cut it short without finishing that part. Sorry, guys.

Oh, if you like the conspiracy and mystery in Gravity Falls and the whole abnormal kid in high school thing in Danny Phantom, please for the love of all that is holy, watch Detentionaire. You can Google it. It's a Canadian cartoon that seems like a stereotyped high school setting at first, but it's designed that way. It's slow going and the art style can throw people off. But the plot is incredible and detailed and well planned out and all the characters are realistic and insightful once you're past the first sevenish episodes. And then the conspiracies and freaky shit starts. Not to mention, incredible diversity! And the catchiest 20 second theme song in the world.

I have nothing but love for Detentionaire.

Review if you enjoyed and tell me what you think! Also please tell me if you are watching Detentionaire and want to talk about it. e.