Chapter Text
The world had ended for Dipper even before the sky had ripped open above him.
His world had been dying for weeks.
It’s a nauseating thought that has him running blind into the forest, wounds neglected and apprenticeships abandoned. Hidden behind so much, it’s a guilt that burns with such an unworldly mix of sadness and rage that he wonders how it had ever been blind to begin with.
The shrieks of the townsfolk echoed farther than those of the demons hunting them. Screams, fire, and darkness are all they know now, trapped in a wasteland they had once called home. So flawlessly married in cacophony, it’s a landscape of perfect chaos. The sky is painted with blood and laced with smoke, and it’s as close as Dipper imagines they’d ever get to a hell on earth. He knows better than that now.
Hell isn’t a place. It’s a feeling.
It’s the feeling of a worn out birthday sweater housing a body that’s too cold for closure. It’s having to hold her limp body against his own, her breaths drawn out for far longer than they should. It’s contemplating the idea of never seeing googly eyes glued to her chin for a second time, and never seeing her real ones ever again.
But he still shakes her. Cradling her close, he shakes her again and again and again.
“Mabel!” he cries, “Mabel! Sis, you’ve got to wake up!”
She isn’t sleeping. She can’t be. For as heavy a one that she is, Mabel never slept through the sound of distress in his voice. She’s too still to be resting. Too lifeless. But her heartbeat is still there, a testament that not all was lost in a place where they’d lost nearly everything.
Whatever attention Mabel hasn’t stolen, the remnants beside her have – shards of glass, the corpse of a promise that would keep the world safe. The rift lies beside her all but shattered, its once buoyant galaxies now black sludge staining the earth. Dipper flicks his eyes to it for mere seconds before they’re darting away again, the sickening churn in his stomach when he can’t shake how much it looks like coagulated blood.
Behind him, Ford still hasn’t moved an inch.
Hasn’t spoken, hasn’t helped, and Dipper’s thoughts are still too frayed to rationalize anything about it. He’s done this for missions and threats. But this isn’t some enemy. It’s his niece. It’s Mabel.
The composure he fronted in the face of the security bot has been all but abandoned at this point, the sound of him screaming her name still ringing too deeply in his ears. Fatigue forgotten, he’d bolted to her crumpled figure the moment he realizes what’s happened.
In the wake of his pending meltdown, Ford remains as still as they had in the UFO only hours ago, a stone's throw away behind him. Maybe in shock.
Maybe masking his fear, Dipper thinks, if he has any at all.
It does nothing to temper the growing panic.
When he falls apart at Mabel’s side, everything else does too. Suddenly, the supernatural isn’t his world anymore, and he scarcely wonders if it ever had been. All it took was the sight of her motionless against the grass to shed the mysteries he had shamelessly called his life. To embrace it for what it really was.
His world truly was dying this time, with every slowing breath she took.
“Mabel, please!”
With every moment she didn’t stir.
For every second her eyes don’t open, Dipper feels the anguish creep further and further into his heart. This is his fault. This is all his fault, he thinks, that he wasn’t here. He couldn’t protect her. It’s a mantra that fills him with such a profound sense of numbness that he has to convince himself that he isn’t dreaming.
And he can’t be. Not when the agony felt so painfully real.
The hand he has draped over to grip her shoulder loses its vigor, trailing down to take up her hand instead. As a last act of hope, he threads his fingers through hers, gently squeezing her for some sign of life.
Dipper feels a piece of him break a little more when she doesn’t squeeze back.
He’s too late.
“Please wake up…” he begs, voice dropping to a whisper. Cracking at the edges, the way the rest of him was starting to. Tears fast forming in his eyes, they cling to his lashes as he buries his head in her neck. “Please, please wake up…I’ll do anything…”
When the words leave his mouth, they steal his breath with them. As if triggered by his voice and his alone, howling gales rip through the forest all around them. The vicious shake of the trees sends it over the edge, and Dipper instinctively leans over to shield Mabel from its wrath.
Shadows grow over the both of them. Larger, longer, and Dipper forces his eyes shut, clinging to Mabel like a lifeline. This was it. The fall of the town as they knew it, the smoke wafting in the distance, slowly but surely making its way to them. His heart hammers in his chest, the only thing drowning out the voices in his head telling him this was the end.
As fast as it all leaves his heart pounding, it only takes one word to make it stop.
.̰̣̮̹̮̦̤̯̪ͤͭ͛.̼̳̖̬͉̟̞͐ͪ͛̀ͮͤ.̱̰̟͚͓̟͎̟̍̐A̹͕̫̱̮̭̐̽ͯ̓̄͆ͤN̜̝͇͔ͣͥY̼̖̱͙̩̟̬̘͋̈͐̍̿T̲̘̟͙̣̱̺͐̀͒̏H͚̣̮̫͑͐͋ͥ̂I͍̟͑ͯͪN̝̯̐G͚͛̄̑̌?͈̫̻̗ͯ̉͂ͅ
The voice from his darkest dreams. The last facet to truly mark this day as a living nightmare. Demonic laughs fills the air, a thunderous reminder of how this all came to be. The silhouette of a triangle swallows them both, and it’s only when he’s got a protective grip on Mabel that he finds the courage to look up.
Bill Cipher towers above them, in all the glory of a god who’s just brought the world to its knees.
Click.
Before an angry cry of his name, it’s the brazen cocking of gun. Without so much as a blink, Ford bolts to stance himself just a few steps next to him and his sister, weapon in hand. Dipper dares one glance his way, and it says so much: the cold glare in his eyes is as livid as it is petrifying.
It’s a new face for him, but an old sight for Bill – despite Ford’s evident readiness to fire, he’s amused, if anything.
“Well, well, well!” he taunts, floating carefree above it all. “Looks like the Shooting Star finally fell! And what a light show she brought with her!”
It only takes a hint of his mockery for the sadness to vanish. In its place, the white-hot rage burns right through him, evaporating the tears before they have a chance to fall. For all that's happened, it’s in that moment that Dipper Pines is not afraid, that he houses a fire as monstrous as the demon hovering before him.
“Bill!” he screams, fury consuming his voice. He pulls her body closer, clutching her in death grip against his chest. “What did you do to her!?”
“Whoa kid, take a chill pill!” Bill counters, holding up both hands in protest. “Why, nothing she didn’t ask for of course.”
“Enough with the riddles!”
Enough. Enough. For as protective as he was of her, the wrath coursing in his veins is too strong to keep him still. Reluctant, Dipper sets her down gingerly in the grass before rising to face him. “Tell me what’s going on right now!”
“You’re not really great at this ‘calming down’ thing, are you?” he sneers. Dipper doesn’t ease down in the slightest, teeth grit in fierce resolve. “She did me a favor, and I returned it. Since she made it too easy, I thought the least I could do was partially fulfill her wish.”
“What wish?”
“For summer to last forever!” he blurts, as if obvious.
It’s a telling sign already. Bill knows something he doesn’t.
“Sheesh kid, were you even trying to pay attention?”
But his snarl falls away to that. The words echo loudly in his head when they hit him, so resoundingly clear when everything else felt so washed out and hazy. Their last moments in the attic. The pain in her voice at the bombshell he dropped on her, tears threatening to fall and ruin her scrapbook–
“‘I just wish summer could just last forever…’”
“Thought maybe I’d give Shooting Star a break. Summer can’t end if she’s not awake to see it. And I’m sure the Dreamscape’s been kinder to her than you have!”
‘The Dreamscape...?’ He looks back down. For as rag-doll-like as she appeared, he was still clinging to the fact that she was breathing. He felt her heartbeat. There was still life left in her, trapped in some place they couldn’t reach.
It’s a whisper under his breath, more for himself than anyone else. “She’s there.”
“And she will be for, oh, I don’t know…”
A timepiece materializes out of thin air. As if to mock him, Bill purposely lets it tick aloud before them. For what feels like eternity, that’s all he lets it do, relishing in the sick pleasure of watching him start to crack in the silence.
At long last, he clicks it shut.
“Let’s just say until I’m through with her. Not too clear on how many days you fleshbags can go without sustenance. Guess we’ll find out!”
It’s at that wicked remark that it’s the closest he comes to losing all sense of self.
He’s done this before, playing the mind games, but the morbid possibilities flood his mind before he has the chance to fight them. Mabel, the very embodiment of life itself, trapped in her own head while it slowly slips away. Warm memories, wasting away with her heart and spirit…
It’s such a dark torrent of thoughts that it takes every conscious effort not to lose it then and there. Whatever’s left, searching for the words to say to make it stop, to put the images out of his head before they eat him alive.
‘This is all your fault.’
“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” Bill continues, pocket watch incinerating into nothingness. “We both win, this way. She has her dreams and I have mine, coming true as we speak! And to think-”
“I want to make a deal.”
And the world stops turning when he does.
Dipper doesn’t realize what he’s said until he’s said it, some thoughtless, desperate attempt to rid his mind of the gruesome implications. As if in sync, he sees Bill’s eye grow in interest, and he hears Ford’s breath catch in his throat. The tense atmosphere only lingers for a beat longer before his uncle's voice rings out behind him, discordant.
"Absolutely not! "
At least, that's what he can make out. It's overshadowed by Bill as he breaks into laughter, almost delirious. He throws up a hand in his uncle's direction, protesting, the other wiping at an imaginary tear. "Hold the phone, Fordsy, let me hear 'im out."
He directs his attention his way.
“Well color me surprised!” Bill exclaims, triumphant. "'Can't really say I saw this coming, but what's a thrilling conclusion without a few plot twists?"
When he claps, a series of projections come to life all around him. Dark entities circling his hat, galaxies by his cane. Tidal waves at his feet. A chaos god in all his glory, showing him just what he's made of.
“I’ve got just about everything ready for this end-of-the-world bash except for the premium entertainment. So what’ll it be? Secrets to the universe? The power of time and space? Humor me, kid.”
The only way to make this right. Still motionless in the grass, Mabel baits his waiting answer from the corner of his vision. He has to remind himself to breathe.
“Let me into her Dreamscape. Let me find her, let me bring her back. That’s all I need.”
“That’s it?”
Dipper nods.
“No explosions?”
He holds the look, an angry glare if Bill looks hard enough. He has every intention on getting on every last nerve, right to the end. Dipper nods once more, and watches as Bill's form slumps in the air, his manifestations disintegrating alongside his enthusiasm. “How boring.”
“Then put a spin on it, I don’t care,” Dipper scorns, thoughtless. “I just want my sister.”
“Leaving me at the wheel, are we? You really haven’t learned at all,” Bill says, a complete one-eighty from his previously apathetic tone. “Have it your way, then. I’ll make this as fool-proof as possible. Call me a sore loser, but I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea of losing my wagers. Not this far into it.”
“...What do you have left to lose Bill? Two pawns?”
‘You’ve already won.’
The rift. His sister. The world on a leash, no conceivable power to ever stop him.
‘You have everything you need. I still have everything to lose.’
It’s a sentiment that comes heavier than he imagines it would, but the amount of truth to it couldn’t be more genuine.
In a town that was never theirs, Mabel became everything. She didn’t have a choice. She'd become his closest ally. Someone to protect. His reason to smile when the world around him was adamant on taking that away from him. There was so much to her that had made everything feel a little more normal in a place where it was everything but.
Dipper never thinks he would see the day he would beg before Bill Cipher, but he also thought he’d sooner do it over his sister’s body.
But his remark provokes something, a low hum of interest that’s still giving him enough reason to hang on. It manifests as a sudden, daunting weight, feeling Bill’s stare burning into his being. When Dipper’s eyes float back up to meet his, there’s a new air to him – something inherently sadistic that hadn’t been there before.
He doesn’t need to see the grin to know it’s there.
“Alright Pine Tree, you’re in luck. I’m in a giving mood today, so I’ll play along with this deal of yours.”
‘Deal’ strikes a malicious chord in him. The scars were still there from the first, after all – three marks along his arm, all fostered by the gaping one in his soul.
“As a matter of fact, deal sounds a bit too serious, don’t you think? We’re at the world’s greatest party, after all!” he muses, swooping down to float mere inches from his face. “Let’s call it a game instead, shall we?”
It’s all a game to him. Gambling with lives was just a pastime to him, next to destroying them altogether.
“Rules are simple: I’ll zap you inside that dark little head of hers, and heck, I’ll even toss in a bonus! A minute head start. You have an hour in the Dreamscape to find her and bring her back. If you do, she’s yours to take.”
Simple enough then. He’ll find her. When he does, just explain to her what was going on…
“-And before we find any loopholes here,” Bill cuts in, holding up one finger, “you can’t tell her why. That’d just spoil the fun.”
….somehow without words. If it were even possible. Something cold starts clawing at him from the inside.
This…didn’t feel right.
He’s crafting this too carefully.
Either he really was that afraid of losing or doing everything in his power to scare him, Dipper finds himself fixated on the delicate wording of the conditions. The stakes have never been this threatening. For a demon so careless in his offers, he’s too precise with the guidelines this time.
So it all came down on his winnings, didn’t it?
There’s no sense in walking into this blind, but Dipper feels the brick in his stomach at just the thought of asking.
“And…if I can’t?”
“Oh see, that’s the best part, really. Call it my ‘spin’ on things.”
And before he can comprehend it, his yellow build blares a deathly red, eye tripling in size. The same scare tactics as the night before Mabel’s show: bulging veins, pupil trembling. An unearthly, demonic growl miles from the piercing screech he knows it to be.
But it’s the words that ultimately steal the air from his lungs.
“Y̱̌̉ͦ̎͒͘O̶ͯ̅͌͒͏̦͎͙U̖̦͍̫͈͐ͤ̎͑ͨ̿͢ ̗͎̫̥̻̠̗ͫ̇̓̔̿͛D̯͕̺̲̹͇̺̓͂̌ͫͤͪͣ̆͞͞ͅİ̔̉̚Ȇ̷̫͙͍͓͔̎͢.͍̥̼̯̥̜ͦ͂͡ͅ"̭̞͌̀̊ͤ͘
It shakes him to his core.
“…what…?”
Nonchalant, Bill snaps his fingers to revert to his form. The bleeding red lightening to yellow, his tone as high and lively as it was mere seconds ago.
“I think you heard me loud and clear, Pine Tree. Die,” he reiterates, running a single finger across what he assumed was supposed to mimic a neck, “as in, kick the bucket. Hasta la vista. Get the picture?”
“But why?”
It didn’t add up. One person, a child, no less, could leave any lasting damage on his plans at this point. Surely, he couldn’t have stooped that low, could he? But even when it’s a game, he’s never playing for fun, and the very real possibility of losing his life leaves him stumbling on his words.
“What good does that do for you?”
Bill seems more than delighted to answer, a flippant wave of his hand. “Look kid, the Pines family’s been a thorn in my side for years. ‘You know how maddening it is having all these wrenches thrown in my plans? Frankly, it’s a miracle I didn’t start picking you all off one by one eons ago.”
The fear is raw and paralyzing, a wave that rips clean through every shred of bravery he’s collected all summer. He feels the cold sweat begin to bead when Bill points an accusatory finger his direction, the awaiting panic to course his veins.
Dying? That was his price?
“And let’s face it: when one of you’s out of the picture, you’ll tear each other apart on your own. Won’t even have to get my hands dirty.”
He leans on his cane, staring Dipper down.
“But of course, that’s up to you. The offer’s on the table.”
It’s all on him. He had to make this…he had to make it alone. There were too many close calls in this town to count on one hand, but this? The possibility of truly having his life stolen…
Everyone else will crumble after him.
It’s mere seconds to process it all before he’s following Bill’s eye when it darts over to Mabel, the sinister way it curls up when it reaches her. “Tick-tock, kid. Your sister isn’t getting any livelier.”
He would be the downfall of this family, if he fails.
The pressure of Bill’s circumstances nearly crush all there is to him, a time sensitive decision too affected by his sister’s lifeless figure still torturing him with each passing second. There are too many factors to weigh in so little time, but his attempt to try is prematurely halted.
“…Unless of course, she’s not worth it.”
‘Stop it. Don’t listen to him.’
He can’t.
“-which, given how you were about to abandon her, she really must not be!”
There’s that laugh again. It reignites the anger that’s been stewing, but in the same heartbeat, it triggers whatever alarm bells in his head that have had yet to go off. There’s too many emotions mixing together at once. Too many conflicting thoughts for him to sort through. It’s his tricks, he tells himself, ‘he’s doing this to toy with you,’ but the guilt he’s slowly been drowning in shuts everything else out.
Mabel’s worth it.
She always has been.
It takes every bit of willpower to leave Mabel’s side, treading closer towards Bill — it takes even more to hold his balance at the sharp yank on the back of his vest.
“Dipper, stop—”
Nearly losing his balance, he backpedals hard into Ford’s grasp. His eyes are borderline frantic when he spins him around to face him, desperately searching his nephew’s for the smallest shred of rational thought. “You're not thinking this through clearly. What if you can't find her?”
“I’ll find her.”
Ford shakes his head, insistent. He wasn’t having any of it.
“You don’t know that.”
Ford meets him at eye level, dropping to one knee, placing a hand on either side of his shoulder. It’s in moments like these that he sees the glimpses of a man beneath the bravado. Ford’s already on his tangent before Dipper has a chance to protest it.
He doesn’t miss the way his uncle’s voice has softened. A rarity between the two of them.
“Dipper, listen to me,” he urges, a slight shake of his shoulders. “I know this is a delicate situation. Please understand that— I do. But Dreamscapes can be incredibly unpredictable.”
It’s not something he hasn’t thought about. Mabel is as worldly as they come, someone bigger than herself in more reasons than just one. An ocean of ideas and feelings, a fact he’s too often reminded of when she tackles the projects that she does. Always an idea, always a purpose.
“Trust me when I say this: an hour’s not nearly enough. Not for an imagination as large as Mabel’s.”
And if she was an ocean, her Dreamscape could easily be a universe. It’s a frightening assumption, but one he was willing to chance.
Dipper’s voice is far quieter when he answers Ford again, but no less determined.
“I will find her.”
Surprise fills his features when he does. The eyebrows raised tell Dipper everything. It’s in those fragile seconds that the ice in his chest grows a little thicker. Ford doesn’t understand it.
Willing to die for your twin. Some melancholy part of him wonders if Ford ever knew what that felt like.
He hasn’t been ignorant of the bleeding tension between his uncles since the day everything changed.
“You said so yourself, Great Uncle Ford. She’s magnetizing,” he repeats, echoing Ford’s praise. Even with uneasiness toiling below the surface, Dipper smiles despite himself. “If that’s the case, it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?”
Ford doesn’t respond to that, save for a breathless sigh, stalling a moment longer to look him over. Picking apart his posture, the slouch in his shoulders. The bags beneath his eyes. Ford’s hands grow a little tighter on him. “Not like this, it won’t. You’re exhausted. Should you lose consciousness in her Dreamscape, you’ll…succumb to it that way too.”
“Hey Sixer, cut the chatter!”
At the shrill outcry, both their eyes shoot to Bill. Almost childish, he sits airborne with his arms crossed at his base, eye squinting in irritation. “What’s the point of a game if you give away all the secrets?”
His blood runs cold, when he hears it.
When he meets his uncle’s eyes again, he sees the terror reflected back in them. The revelation drains whatever color is left in his face, suddenly too aware of the heavy weariness spreading throughout his body. Instantaneously, he feels all of it – every ache. Every sore spot. Every reminder that he can’t do this, that telling himself not to fall asleep won’t keep him from doing so. Another chance of failing.
The despair in his heart is almost too great to bear. For as many fatal signs as there were, he wouldn’t back down from this now. Not for Mabel’s sake.
‘Thisisallyourfault-’
“I…can’t, Great Uncle Ford…” Dipper says, backing away from Ford’s touch. It leaves his hands hanging, frozen in the air where his shoulders were before. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
Something glazes over Ford’s eyes that he can’t fathom. Some wordless sorrow that encroaches on his aged face, painting him much older than he is. It’s in the few seconds that Dipper stares at him that he realizes what he’s seeing. A vulnerability that Stanford Pines has never let show in the short life he’s known him.
He looks at him as if he’s already died.
“Smart move, Pine Tree. So…” Bill trails off, hand igniting, reaching, “do we have a deal?”
At the sight of his hand consumed in blue fire, it awakens a primal fear long hidden behind the bravery he’s been riding on all summer. It’s all too familiar – red light devouring the wooden floors the same way the hellish sky did now. Ghosting at the back of his mind, the countdown of a laptop, its agonizing beeps no different from the chimes he’ll hear from his watch.
He’s done this before, extending his hand in selfish desperation.
Mabel isn’t here to save him this time.
Dipper swallows one final time, nerves overridden, briefly, by Mabel still peeking out of the corner of his vision. Like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance to, he tears his eyes away from the blue embers to glance at her still curled up in the grass. Still helpless. Alone.
Something inside of him shifts.
‘I’ll find you. I promise.’
He has to. There are no ‘what ifs’ this time. She’s needed him for weeks and this is the price to pay. With no more than a flick of his hand, he dials his stopwatch for an hour – and one minute, as a pitiful afterthought, but he’ll take all the time he can get.
With renewed confidence, he extends his own hand to grasp Bill’s.
The moment they touch, he feels it.
From the depths of wakefulness, Dipper senses the cold tendrils of the Dreamscape reach through him, entangling with his soul in haunting reunion. Like one’s reached out to snatch his neck, the suffocation comes to dilute his thoughts to fleeting notions. Ruthless torment, right down to the last seconds of consciousness.
The words never leave his mouth, but they’re the last to fade from his mind before being dragged down into the darkness.
‘…deal…’