Chapter Text
It’s not terribly unusual for a witch not to have a familiar, but that’s typically reserved for people as old as Grunkle Stan, whose familiars have died, either due to natural causes, or in some duel or battle. They’re only animals, after all, and as useful and comforting as they are, they aren’t immortal. By the time most people reach middle age, their first familiars have already passed, and they’ve moved on to another one.
They say that you never forget the first, that the combination of your magic influences you for the rest of your life.
Dipper’s eighteen, and he still doesn’t have a familiar. He’s never found anything that felt right.
A practitioner without one at Dipper’s age is, at best, weird, or at worst- Well, Dipper’s heard worse things said about him. At least in Gravity Falls, it’s more out of pity for his lack of companion, not that he’s shunned for being a freak with magic.
Still, he watches Mabel and Waddles doing all kinds of things with each other - the little outfits she makes him, the odd pink tone that’s been added to all of the spells she casts, the hugs….
It bothers him. A lot.
Mabel’s had a familiar for years now, and Dipper can’t find anything that matches his own magic, or even wants to hang around him for too long. He likes animals, sure, but nothing’s ever been very interested in hanging out with him when Mabel’s around. She attracts affection like a magnet, and it’s understandable, she’s a lovable person.
But it still leaves Dipper feeling left behind. Especially when it means he never gets to form a bond.
It finally gets to him when he makes friends with a squirrel - not the kind of familiar he’d choose, but it’s the first thing that’s seemed to genuinely like him, and he hadn’t even been feeding it-
But when Mabel shows back up at the Shack, fresh back from her trip with Pacifica, the stupid furry thing immediately ditches him, begging for scritches behind the ear from his sister.
Dipper gives up.
Clearly, he hasn’t got the talent. He’s never been quite as magically strong as Mabel, that was clear enough since puberty set in, but he didn’t think he’d be this behind on things. He kind of wants to hate her, but it’s not her fault Dipper is apparently the least talented magician in the family. Or that he’s apparently incompatible with everything that’s existed, ever.
He groans into his pillow, collapsed face-first on the bed. He pulls another over the back of his head, and screams into the down in frustration.
Dipper curses for a long time before sighing, dropping a pillow off the bed and turning onto his side.
There… are other things he could try. It makes him embarrassed and feel a little sick, but at least he’d stop getting all those stupid looks from other practitioners.
An illusionary familiar might be better than none. As long as he remembers to banish it, to not get attached to what’s essentially a hologram of a creature. At least that way he’d have something.
Mabel would stop looking at him with those awkward smiles. Grunkle Stan wouldn’t have to carefully look away from him whenever familiars get brought up. Stan’s reaction is almost worse than Mabel’s, because Dipper knows what his Grunkle is thinking, without the sentiment ever being said.
Dipper contemplates it, eyes feeling hot, rubbing at his face.
Fuck it.
It’s a lie, but it’s a lie he can keep up for a long time, and the spell is one he can actually pull off without assistance.
He sits up in bed, clearing his throat and running his hands over his face. All he needs is a knife and some time, and since he’s alone in the Shack right now, well. Might as well go for it.
He settles down on the floor, then rethinks his strategy, and spreads out a clean white sheet before he begins. This is going to need some blood, and if he doesn’t want Mabel, and Stan, and everyone else in this godforsaken town to find out, he’s gotta clean up afterwards. It’ll be easier to do laundry than scrub blood out of wood.
The bite of the knife into his palm catches and pulls at his skin, but he gets a reasonably steady drip onto the sheet as he sits in the middle of the circle. His blood trickles only slowly, but he doesn’t need a lot. This is humiliating as hell, but as he moves his hand around himself, dripping blood over the sketched circle on the sheet, Dipper feels better for at least doing something about this. Fake or not, at the end of the day, he’ll still have something to stand by his side. It’s going to take up a good quarter of his magic to sustain a fake familiar, but it’s not like he had much to work with anyway.
He almost clenches his hand in frustration, but stops, letting his blood keep falling on the sheet.
Nobody’s going to notice. He reminds himself of that as he finishes the blood circle, and quietly murmurs the chant to himself. It’ll take some of his own magic, and create a little illusion that can follow him around, bound to him and his flesh so it won’t get lost, or wander off.
Everything goes smoothly. The gentle cold that comes from magic siphoned off blood trembles through him. Dipper can feel the slow build of energy in the circle, and there’s a resonance in it that tells him it’s matching his personal magic. Dipper finishes his chanting, and takes a slow breath, waiting for his imaginary familiar to materialize.
And that’s when everything goes to hell.
The sheet underneath him bursts into blue flames. All of it. He would scramble away, but there’s nowhere to go, he’s covered in the fire. It surrounds him entirely, flickering over his legs and hands.
Dipper looks all around himself - nothing hurts, nothing’s being burned, apparently - he looks up-
With a sudden, painful impact, another person falls from the air and lands on him. Dipper’s head bounces off the hard wood floor, and he lies where he is, dazed.
The sheet beneath him has burned entirely away, and through his hazy perception, Dipper feels the chest against his breathe in, then out - and then the person sits up, stretching and groaning loudly.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Asks the man. He stands up, brushing himself off. Dipper blinks up at him slowly, watching as the strange man straightens the ridiculous top hat he’s wearing. “This is by far the worst fucking summon I’ve ever been part of,” The man glances over himself, then lifts a hand and licks a little speck of blood off his thumb. “Nice magic, though. Tastes pretty familiar.”
Dipper coughs quietly. He kind of hurts, from the impact of this stranger landing on him, and from the amount of magic he’s just spent. It’s far, far more than he’d expected. He didn’t even know he had this much to spare.
He blinks and squints, still disoriented. “Sorry,” He rubs at his temples, though his arms feel weak. “Just was… trying to get a…” He can’t finish his sentence, and just groans quietly.
The man standing over him gives a soft, amused huff of breath. “Well then, since you’re not all that interesting,” He smirks to himself. “Expect the worst dreams of your life, for, oh,” The man hums contemplatively for a moment. “Forever. Thanks for wasting my time, fleshbag.”
Then the stranger stretches his arms, eye closed - Dipper notices that the other is covered by some eyepatch, how odd - then he pauses. And stretches again.
The stranger makes a few more perfunctory motions, then walks a circle around Dipper, muttering to himself. Dipper shakes his head carefully, sitting up. He feels a little better, though this is more than a little confusing. There’s no reason the spell should have failed.
He touches the ashes beneath him. The circle should have only summoned something close to his own magic, and it’s not like there’s anything else in the world that’s comparable to his own-
The man pacing around him stops right in front of him. His single eye glares.
“What kind of spell were you trying here, kid?”
“Uh,” Dipper’s mouth feels dry. He swallows and licks at his lips. “I was, uh,” It’s embarrassing as hell to admit, but the way this stranger is looking it at him is too intimidating for him to lie. “I was trying to get a fake familiar.”
The man’s eye widens, and his face turns blank. He stares at Dipper, then looks away, making a few, unrecognizable gestures. Nothing happens. He looks at Dipper again.
Dipper shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. What the hell is going on?
“The name’s Bill, by the way,” The man - Bill, says, after a few long moments of staring at Dipper. “And boy, kid, you didn’t get a fake familiar,” He smiles, wide, teeth sharp and white, and Dipper realizes with a start that this isn’t a human. “You got a real one. And you’re gonna regret it.”