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Chapter Text

When Dipper woke up, his clock read 8:52 AM. Earlier than he was used to waking up, considering his semi-nocturnal sleep schedule. So early that he decided it'd be perfectly acceptable to fall asleep again. It wasn't like he had anywhere to be, after all. So he curled back under his cool covers, cracking his eyes open one last time before they quickly slid shut again. His room was darker than he expected it to be. He'd have frowned, were his facial muscles not so relaxed. His hearing was dulled by the haze of sleep, but he could almost swear there was a radio on somewhere. Dipper felt an urge to turn it off and save some battery life, but the siren call of slumber was strong. It was something he could worry about later. Dipper curled a hand around the end of his pillow, and drifted back to sleep.

"Diiiiipp-eeeeerrrr. Dipster. Dip-Dop. Dip-stick. Dip-n-dot. Dipper McPippers. Dipple Tipple. Dorp Porp. Dooper-"When Dipper woke up, his sister was cycling through her vast collection of increasingly bizarre nicknames for him that had accumulated over the years. He cracked open an eyelid, only to find her hovering horrifically close to his face. He released an unmanly yelp at the proximity, which did little to deter her solemn duty. "-iplestein. Dimpimblewhimbintibble. Greg. Dipper the Ripper. Dip-dan Magic-man. Di-"

Dipper groaned aloud, mashing a hand against Mabel's mouth to try and stem the horrid tide. She continued mumbling determinedly against his hand, but he could make out the grin stretching her cheeks. "I don't even know half of these. Where the heck did 'Greg' even come from?" Mabel continued mumbling before he remembered to remove his hand.

"Oh, mom just told me one day that she was planning to name you Greg and me Lucilia and I was like, ohmygosh could you imagine if my name was Lucilia, I'd be like one of those old movie stars and all super classy but then I thought can classy movie stars wear cute sweaters and make arts and crafts and if they can't I could be the first and I could start a petition and get all sorts of other classy movie stars to rally behind me and we could start a movement that sweeps the nation-"

"Okay, okay. It's way too early to hear about the life and times of movie star Lucilia." Dipper grinned despite his exhaustion and his sister's ample volume.

Mabel blew a raspberry at him that was beautifully enhanced by her braces. "You're just jealous that you'll never be able to turn Hollywood on its head."

"Just you wait, when I publish my novel it'll turn all of mystery sci-fantasy on its head. And no, I won't be 'Greg' when I do it." Dipper almost frowned, feeling as if he'd forgotten something. Oh well, it couldn't be that important, right?

"Whatever you say, Greg," Mabel sing-songed. "Now c'mon Dip-Dop, we promised Grunkle Stan we'd work in the store today, remember? At least, that's what we're supposed to tell anyone that asks." Mabel impatiently tugged him from the bed, his noodly limbs flopping bonelessly as he tried to wake up a little. He glanced down to see his sister's latest sweater abomination; it was cream colored, and appeared to have... an egg with giraffe legs on it? Bizarre, but nothing weirder than the beaver-cat sweater. He shuddered just thinking about it.

"Right, child labor laws," Dipper murmured absently. He briefly wondered how those would apply to him anymore, before the thought left his head. "Unless you plan to shower with me, you should probably let go." Dipper quickly liberated his arm, grimacing at the patches of glitter glue left behind.

"Eeeeewww," Mabel intoned, following it up with a fake gag that was so convincing it led to real gagging. "Whew. Okay, not doing that again." Mabel hopped off his bed, doing a little twirl away before turning back to face him. There was a brief moment of silence as they locked eyes, and then she started making fake gagging sounds again.

"Ha ha," he deadpanned, climbing out of bed and plodding across their bedroom towards the door. He gave Mabel a light shove as he passed, and she squawked in between gags and snorting cackles. He stumbled into the bathroom, fumbling for the light switch as a second wave of drowsiness overcame him. He stared at himself in the mirror, a real frown working its way onto his face. Something felt off, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was.

Oh well. It couldn't be anything majorly important, right? Dipper ignored the faint niggling in the back of his head in favor of peeling off yesterday's clothes, scrabbling for his toothbrush and toothpaste with one hand as the other worked off his shirt. Eventually he managed to turn the knob in the shower, remembering to pull out the bath faucet to get the shower head going.

The water was deliciously warm when he climbed under the spray. It leeched away the chill that had settled under his skin, leaving him flushed and awake. He went through the motions of his bathing ritual, nearly dropping his toothbrush at one point before it ended up in his mouth. He frowned around it. It tasted suspiciously like cinnamon, even though he knew his own toothpaste was mint flavored, and Mabel's was cotton candy/bubblegum. The only other toothpaste tube in there was Grunkle Stan's, and last he checked it was oatmeal prune-bran flavor. Dipper still wasn't sure if that was a real toothpaste flavor or not.

Whatever. It's not like it mattered, right? Dipper forced the thought out of his head, finishing his shower and toweling off. He stood in front of the mirror, and had the sudden impulse to shave. He knew it'd been a while, after all. Dipper looked in the mirror, fogged up with steam, and stroked his chin. Smooth and hairless. He felt a brief chill ooze down his spine, despite the heat in the bathroom. He quickly exited the humid room in favor of getting dressed, and pushed the thought from his head.

It's not like it mattered, right?

Chapter Text

When Dipper woke up, his clock read 8:53 AM. This raised several flags in his mind. The first was that he hadn't even fallen asleep, last he remembered. The second was that it had already been 8:53 AM, over an hour ago. Or... maybe he was just dreaming. Yeah. He hadn't actually woken up yet. Satisfied, Dipper peeked his eyes open, and saw his darkened bedroom. He hesitantly craned his neck towards the window, and saw not a scrap of light through the blinds. Okay. His clock was broken. That wasn't a big deal. He'd just reset it in the morning... whenever that was. Dipper frowned, and decided against going back to sleep. Dreaming was never his favorite activity, after all that messy business with Bill. Sleeping pills helped him avoid it, but left him groggy and out of it. But they would do. Dipper shifted, beginning to climb out of bed.

And he paused. Something prickled at the back of his neck, and buzzed in the pit of his stomach. For whatever reason, he felt as if leaving his bed would lead to something terrible. He pushed the thought from his mind, and his toes pressed against the chilly hardwood floor. He felt the familiar dip of a dent he'd made falling out of bed one morning. He rubbed his elbow at the thought, slowly standing and shuffling away from his bed. Dipper felt a tug deep in his gut, urging him to lay back down and fall asleep. To pull the blankets over his head and dream the world away.

Dipper ignored the feeling, padding across his room and avoiding the scraps of paper and piles of dirty clothes that littered the floor. He really needed to clean that up, if for no other reason than to eliminate the tripping hazard. His desk was similarly littered with debris and detritus, but at least he couldn't trip over it. A wry smile tugged at his lips as he entered the hallway, which was similarly darkened. Not surprising, considering the lack of windows. He flipped the light switch. A spark of panic fizzed at the back of his head when the hallway remained dark. He stared into the inky maw that lead downstairs, and heard the faint buzz of the radio.

Dipper slammed his bedroom door shut behind him, heart racing as he fumbled to cinch the lock. His hands were shaking and he wasn't even sure why. The floor was like ice under his feet as he climbed back into bed, pulling the covers up over his head and tucking his legs close to his body. Dipper closed his eyes, and dreamt the world away.

When Dipper woke up, he was drowning. Something cold bubbled around his nose and mouth, and he lifted his head with a ragged gasp. There was a clatter of ceramic, and his eyes flickered wildly upwards, staring into the face of his amused looking grunkle.

"Geez, I was wonderin' when you'd find your way outta there. I've never seen anyone go from sixty to face-first-in-cereal so fast in my life. By the way, you got a little somethin'..." Grunkle Stan gestured vaguely at his entire mug.

Dipper brushed a hand along his face, and it came away wet with milk and sticky with flakes of Sugar Crusted Sugar Cereal for Kids Breakfast. He'd never understand the thought process behind cereal brand names. "Thanks for the assist, Grunkle Stan," he muttered, wiping at his face with a napkin.

"Anytime, kiddo," Stanley replied absentmindedly, attention having already returned to his newspaper. According to the headlines of the Gravity Falls Newspaper (Dipper could not believe the creativity) there had been a break-in at the local eyewear store. Dipper could think of five places off the top of his head that would be significantly more lucrative to rob. Then he paused as he tried to quantify how much his grunkle had rubbed off on him, and whether or not he should begin hyperventilating.

Once Dipper had put to rest his potential grunkle likeness crisis, his gaze wandered around the kitchen, before settling on the clock. The hands on it had little fingers. It was a digital clock. Dipper blinked.

Raw terror gripped his heart like a six (seven twelve eighteen twenty one ) fingered hand, and squeezed until it popped. He sucked in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment before daring to open them again. The clock read 8:54 AM.

Chapter Text

When Dipper woke up, his clock read 8:54 AM. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but it was burned into his brain. He sat under his blankets, eyes squeezed shut, and tried to rationalize what was happening. He vaguely remembered having coffee before bed, and that always gave him odd dreams. Or maybe he was having a rare recurring dream. Or a dream that lead into other dreams. Or... sleep paralysis. Something. Anything.

The radio was louder, he realized suddenly. He could make out voices, fuzzy and skipping. It sounded as if the radio had just barely managed to pick up a signal. Nothing was comprehensible, but it was clearly audible. Part of him, a part he'd thought long dead, wanted to go investigate. The rest of him wanted to curl up and pretend everything was normal. Not that anything had ever been, right?

Dipper left his bed. The polished hardwood felt like sandpaper under his soles, and he wondered if dragging his feet would leave a trail of blood for him to follow back. He ignored the thought, fumbling through drawers on his desk before managing to fish out a penlight. It wasn't much, but it would provide some sort of illumination.

He clicked the light on, shining a small circle of white light at the far wall. He clutched it tightly, creeping over to his door and moving to undo the lock. Dipper's breath caught in his throat when he realized it was already unlocked. He had that burning urge to hide, to crawl under his covers where nothing could harm him, and ignored it as best he could. The hinges creaked as he lightly pulled the door open, shining his penlight directly ahead. The door across from his was half open, and he angled the light to glint off a computer monitor. He wondered if it would turn on. Dipper stepped out into the hallway with the intent of crossing over to the other room. He turned, and shone his light on the end of the hall, towards the staircase. Something glinted dully on the corner of the wall. He frowned, and peered closer. Fingernails.

Dipper dragged a chair in front of his door as quietly as he could manage, propping it up to keep the knob in place. He turned the lock as well, for all the good it would do. He crawled back into bed, eyes clenched shut, and trembled.

When Dipper opened his eyes, he was staring into the face of an irate looking woman with bushy eyebrows and pinched lips. She squawked something at him, and he snapped back into focus, quickly ringing up her purchase while muttering apologies. She sneered at him as she gathered up her eight snowglobes and stuffed beaveryote, screeching about 'insolent little store people' as she waddled out of the gift shop. He stared after her in a daze.

Dipper had never noticed how many clocks they had. He glanced at the one on the far wall, but Manly Dan was standing directly in the way. The monolithic lumberjack met Dipper's eye, and sent him a horrifically contorted facial expression. Dipper thought it might have been a smile. He grimaced when he heard his grunkle shout something about 'The Terrifying Lagoon Baboon', also known as Dipper's cue to put on a poorly made costume and dance around to have money thrown at him. Coins really hurt.

Dipper vacated his spot behind the register at the exact moment that Wendy walked through the door, shoulders slumped and hands buried miles deep in her pockets. They both made eye contact, and Wendy made the monumental effort to lift a hand and wave. "Yo, what's up Dip-Dop-To-The-Top-And-Don't-Stop?"

There was a pause that seemed to engulf the entire universe. "That was..." Dipper cringed so hard that it hurt.

Wendy shrugged, unconcerned. "What can I say? Your sister got to me. Better than Dooples Mc-"

Dipper waved his hands through the air as if to erect a force field that would dissipate the horrible slew of nicknames. "As much as I enjoy hearing the ways my sister can make me hate my own name, I really gotta go. Grunkle Stan is doing the baboon thing again."

It was apparently Wendy's turn to cringe. "Oof. Good luck with that, dude. Watch out for those half dollars." She ruffled his hair as she passed, and he realized for the first time that he wasn't wearing his hat. He frowned, and wondered why he'd be wearing it in the first place.

Not. Important. Dipper snuck around through the house portion of the Mystery Shack, diving into the costume closet in an attempt to ignore the horrid churning in his stomach. There were no clocks in the closet, but he could feel the weight of time pressing into his spine. He bowed under the weight, which, at the very least, helped him locate his costume. He struggled to stretch the frankly terrifying rubber baboon mask over his face, fingers catching on the jutting fangs that his grunkle swore had come from an actual baboon. Dipper wasn't sure how sanitary that was.

He emerged from the closet a scant few minutes later, half naked and slathered with 'lagoon goo'. He trudged towards his fate with leaden feet, feeling his insides twist with dread and distress. For once, it was because of something other than the inevitability of having change hucked at his face. Everything felt surreal; both the waking world and his muddled daymares. He could only remember the biting chill of terror, and the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Those feelings lived within him even now, gnawing at his intestines and the lining of his stomach.

The sound of his grunkle's voice broke him from introspection, guiding him through the twists and turns of the 'backstage' of the Mystery Shack. He emerged from a side door and snuck into his designated spot, just moments before Mister Mystery led a group of slack jawed tourists into the room. He shouted something that Dipper had heard a dozen times before, and the 'lagoon baboon' made a pathetic sort of noise that somehow drew horrified gasps from the onlookers. It was only moments before they started wailing on him with handfuls of quarters and rolled up bills. He glanced dispassionately through the crowd, before his gaze halted on a man with letters tattooed across his forehead. He squinted through the eyeholes to get a better look, and saw the letters 'W C M H'. Dipper almost got the chance to wonder what that meant. His thought went unfinished, however, as the man had reared back and catapulted a sizeable bag of coins directly at his head.

Dipper would have seen stars, were they not already dead.

Chapter Text

8:55 AM, taunted Dipper's clock. The blinking numbers shone through his covers, through his hands, through his closed eyelids. They burned into his brain, searing into wrinkled meat so that he could never forget. Dipper fell out of his bed, scrabbling across the room on hand and foot to vomit into the trashcan. He wasn't sure what he'd eaten, but whatever had come up was black and glistening. He vaguely noted that it was moving. The radio could clearly be heard from downstairs, fuzzy and incomprehensible.

Dipper dragged himself away from the rotten, cloying stench of impurity, something wet dribbling down the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away on a shirt that was already covered in innumerable ink and coffee stains. It came away red and chunky. His feet somehow found their way underneath him, and he tossed the chair holding his door shut to the floor. It clattered endlessly, the sound skipping like a record before falling completely silent. He pulled open the unlocked door, penlight firmly clutched in hand to cut through the veil of darkness that engulfed the hallway. It was empty of all but a blank picture frame.

Dipper pushed his way through the darkness, feeling it pulse and ebb around him like solid smoke. 8:56 AM. The stairs were comfortably carpeted, fibers depressing under his toes as he took each step in a slow, ponderous rhythm. The radio hurt his ears. The living room was empty, save for the flicker of television static off to the left. The television faced to the right.

Dipper tripped on his way up the stairs, teeth colliding and cutting into his tongue. He could taste the red in the back of his throat. It was on his lips, smeared on his teeth, Dripping into every crevice of his mouth. It tasted sullied.

Dipper wedged the chair under the doorknob with arms that shook like a faulty microwave. He stood in the center of his room, assaulted by the black taffy scent of flaw. Fear and anxiety swirled in the air like wistful specters, and he fancied he could reach out and touch them. Dipper fell into his bed, covers pulled tight around his head and feet firmly on the mattress. His pillow felt like the sweetest cement. He closed his eyes, and the clock buzzed. 8:5-

Dipper came to consciousness with a paltry groan, head swimming through molasses as he tried to piece together what had happened. He opened unfocused eyes, and realized he was staring at the ceiling through rubber eye holes. He groaned again in palpable despair.

"DIPPER DIPPER DIPPER DIPPER-" A spider monkey attached itself to his front, and it was apparently made of lead and wool. "Ohmygosh are you alright? I heard you hit the floor from the other room and Grunkle Stan was shouting and threw some guy out a window and we couldn't wake you up even when I poured Mabel Juice on you and played BABBA!"

The torrential downpour of verbosity smashed Dipper upside the head, and it apparently wasn't the first thing to do so. He stared blearily up at his sister through the 'lagoon baboon' mask, and wheezed something incomprehensible.

"Oh, right. Sorry!" The pressure on his delicate organs let up, and he breathed a ragged sigh of relief. "But oh man Dipper, you should have seen it! Grunkle Stan hit that guy like KA-POW! and he went out the window like SMASH! and Grunkle Stan said some stuff that I don't think I can repeat and it was AWESOME!"

Dipper could see the door to their bedroom open out of the corner of the mask. "Hey kid. Glad to see you're finally awake." Grunkle Stan swaggered into the room, looking painfully proud of himself. "You hit the ground like a sack of hammers, kid. But don't worry, I gave that pri- er, jerk a shiner you could see from space. But on the bright side, that was quite a chunk of change he beaned you with. So why don't you change out of that ridiculous costume, and we can celebrate with some Greasy's?" Grunkle Stan and Mabel both beamed winning smiles at him.

"...Why didn't you take off the baboon mask?" Glittering grin and sleazy smirk both fell away to be replaced with stark confusion. Dipper propped himself up into a sitting position, before reaching with one hand to tug the offending mask off his face. "Some guy knocks me out with a bag of money, and you just drag me upstairs with that dumb mask still on my face?"

Mabel and Stan both shared a look. "Look kid, you've been unconscious more times than I can count this summer. If it hasn't caused you any irreparable harm yet, then I doubt a bag of coins is gonna knock your marbles loose. Besides, pancakes fix anything. Including blunt force trauma."

Dipper stared at him incredulously, before turning a questioning gaze on his sister. She shrank away, a slightly guilty look on her face. "Dippin' Sauce... Grunkle Stan kind of has a point. Remember that time a woodpecker landed on your head and you ran into a tree and knocked yourself out? Or when you tripped over Gompers and knocked yourself out? Or once when you-"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Dipper waved a hand through the air in an attempt to dispel the stories of his ventures into the realm of unconsciousness. "Fine, let's get some pancakes." Stan and Mabel both cheered uproariously, Mabel tugging on his hand to get him moving, and their infectious enthusiasm had him joining in with their pancake chant.

They wasted no time in running out to Grunkle Stan's modest sedan; a present they'd gotten him to replace his oldsmobile. Dipper frowned at the thought. When had they..

"C'mon captain brain trauma, the pancakes won't wait forever!" Mabel impatiently tugged him into the vehicle, and he got a faceful of slightly musty pleather seat.

"Well, technically as long as Greasy's doesn't shut down we'll have an indefinite amount of time to go get pancakes-"

"Quit it with your logic, kid. Makin' my head hurt with all that sensible nonsense." Stan revved the engine unnecessarily, before pulling out of their dirt driveway. Dipper settled himself down into his seat, glancing out the window at the passing blur of trees. His head dropped against the cool window, eyes slipping shut even as raw panic welled up in his gut. Dipper fell asleep.

Chapter Text

*:%* read the clock. Dipper squinted at it in confusion through closed eyelids. The paper ghosts of fear and anxiety had reinhabited him, and he felt painfully sick. He contemplated forcing himself to vomit, but the aching dread of what might emerge from within kept him from doing so. He climbed out of the bed on shaking legs, eyeing his desk with a potent cocktail of trepidation and fear. He focused on the vague snatches of his dreams, trying to find some clue to what was going on.

The journals. They were the only things that could help him now. Dipper eyed the chair propped up against his door, and the bin under his desk that was filled with writhing impurity. He hastily snatched his laptop off the top of the desk, practically running back to his bed the moment it was in his hands. He snapped it open, thumbing the power button and waiting for it to boot up with baited breath. Eventually he managed to navigate to his documents, pulling up the file of compiled knowledge that he'd painstakingly plugged onto his hard drive, and copied onto several USB sticks. He flicked through entries for a few minutes, frowning at misspellings that he'd never noticed before. He corrected 'Skinfisher' to 'Skinpincher', and changed 'Leprecorn' back from 'Lepercorpse'.

Eventually he just CTRL-F'd the word 'Dream', and began scrolling through the results. There was... precious little. Harmless (if unsettling) little dream mites that burrowed into the subconscious and fed off dream residue. Something about a 'Fairy Wish Prince' that could make any dream a reality. And of course, Bill Cipher. He tried 'NIghtmares' next, and the first result was something about nocturnal equestrians. There were remedies to prevent nightmares, dreamcatchers, and Bill Cipher once more. It seems that he and the Author both had strayed away from dream related studies, after their run ins with Bill.

Bill. Bill Bill Bill. This wasn't his modus operandi, Dipper knew. Though proficient at working in the shadows in subtle little ways, the demon was a true theatric at heart. Core. Whatever demons had. But... even if Bill Cipher wasn't behind these oddities, maybe he had some knowledge on the subject- no. He couldn't fall for that again. Couldn't give up something precious to a greedy, conniving little triangle. Polygonal though he was, Dipper had not yet seen all of Bill's sides, and he feared the unknown as much as he thirsted to uncover its secrets. Or... he had, at least.

The sound of the radio was making his head hurt, but he didn't dare venture back downstairs. Not when... something, was waiting for him. Dipper couldn't fathom what that something might be, but he knew with every stitch of himself that it was there. He glanced at the clock, but it merely continued spitting symbols at him. Useless. He had the sudden impulse to look out the window, but it was immediately followed by a pulse of fear. Fear that he'd see something out there. Something looking back at him. Or perhaps that he'd see nothing but void, and he'd be truly trapped here, a prisoner in his room forever.

He glanced down at his computer, and his already fragile resolve snapped in half. Whatever Bill might do to him couldn't be worse than this. The summoning ritual was here somewhere, written out in plain text with detailed instructions. He just... didn't have the ingredients. Dipper huffed out a frustrated sigh that didn't manage to encapsulate all his desperation and fear.

But maybe he could contact Bill a different way. Dipper closed his laptop and set it on the side of the bed, pressing his head down on his pillow and squeezing his eyes shut. Contact Bill. Contact Bill. Get to the Mindscape, and contact Bill. He had to be there. It had to work. After all, Bill was always watching.

Dipper woke up with a crick in his neck and a pane of glass smooshed against the side of his face. He groaned a little, straightening up and inadvertently causing something to slide off his head. He blinked at the sound of the in unison 'Awwww' of disappointment that came from his sister and Grunkle. "Wha..?" He glanced over, and saw a trio of styrofoam boxes on the seat beside him.

"Dipp-errr!" Mabel pouted audibly and also visually, staring back at him from the front seat. "You messed up our short stack!"

Grunkle Stan grinned at him in amusement. "Geddit? Short stack? It's cuz' you're short!" He broke out into gravelly laughter, slapping the grip of the steering wheel.

"Hysterical." Dipper rolled his eyes, poking curiously at the styrofoam boxes.

"We went in and ate while you were sleeping," Mabel explained apologetically. "We were gonna wake you up, but you've looked so tired all day! Also you were drooling on your shirt and it was kinda funny."

"That's... fine. It's no big deal." Dipper's desire to eat pancakes with his family was suddenly overwritten by a need that solidified like calcium in his gut. Summon Bill. "Thanks for the pancakes, but I'm... not really hungry." He flashed a painfully fake looking smile, but his sister and grunkle were more than used to him being extremely awkward for no reason. "I'll just, uh... put everything in the fridge and eat my food later okay see ya!" Dipper gathered up the takeout boxes and practically dived out of the car in his haste to get back to the shack. He vaguely wondered how long they'd been sitting in front of the shack, just staring at the pancakes balanced on his head.

Not important. Dipper skidded to a halt in the kitchen, shoving his armful of food inside the fridge and tripping over his own two feet on the way upstairs. He barely avoided biting his own tongue, but his teeth still ached when he entered the attic. He locked the door behind him, for all the good it would do, and snatched up Journal 2 from under his pillow. He really needed a better hiding place for those. He flipped to a painfully familiar page, and saw the Eye of Providence staring up at him, beside a set of detailed instructions. Circle, candles, Latin, picture. Dipper could do that easily enough. He 'borrowed' his sister's sidewalk chalk, and some scented candles. He snagged a candid shot of himself from her 'Drawer of Memories' (when did she take this picture?) and set to work constructing the summoning circle.

The scent of tea leaves, lavender, and cotton candy soon swam headily into his olfactory senses, and he placed the picture of himself in the center of the circle. He cleared his throat, and began chanting ancient words that felt like bitter fire on his tongue. "Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!" He clenched his eyes shut in anticipation, and... nothing. No blue eyes, no spooky winds, no Mindscape. He tried again, something cold spreading through his chest. "Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!" Dipper stood in the middle of his room, alone. He smiled bitterly. Bill wasn't up for a house call, apparently. He blew out the candles and returned them to their proper place, and wiped away the chalk. Dipper slammed the journal shut and slid it under his second pillow, feeling a sudden wave of weariness overcame him. He practically fell into his bed, eyes slipping shut. And then he felt something. The ebb and flow of the universe against his ear.

"Silly Pinetree. Don't you know you can't summon a demon in your dreams?"

Chapter Text

8:88 AM. Dipper couldn't breathe. He was dying, he was going to die. His chest heaved up and down, expanding and contracting like an accordion. He produced a horrid wheezing sound with each exhale, clutching at his chest with one hand while the other fisted in his sheets, white knuckled and trembling. He was dead, this was real and he was going to die, there was something in his house, waiting, hungering for his life. He couldn't escape it. It would pursue him for all eternity, until he was finally nothing but meat.

"Jeez, you sure are dramatic! Giving me a run for my money, Pine Tree!" That horrid laughter rang out around his bedroom, a sound he hadn't heard in... he wasn't sure. Years. Decades. Centuries. Time was fluid and immaterial. All he knew was 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8- "Holy Toledo, give it a rest already! As hilarious as your problems are, they are entirely insignificant from a cosmic standpoint, so stop makin' a big deal about it."

Dipper stared at the little floating triangle in his room, eyes wide and his entire body quivering. "W-...why are you here?"

"Forgot already, huh? And here I thought you really cared about me." Bill sniffed dramatically, wiping a tear from his bulging, all seeing eye. "You summoned me, Pine Tree! Technically you did it in a dream, but it's the thought that counts, right?" Bill did a jaunty little dance through the air towards Dipper, twirling his cane and scatting a little diddy. Dipper stared at the demon in stark disbelief. Bill stared into his eyes from mere inches away, and Dipper could feel the impression of a shark toothed grin. "So, before you start blubbering about your pathetic problems, I'm just gonna let you know that I'm already hip to the jive. What I don't know is why you bothered to summon me in the first place. What, did'ya think I'd just wave a wand and solve your little issue for you? 'Fraid it don't work like that, pally. Especially after our.. past encounters." Bill flashed white hot with rage for a split second, but it was enough time for Dipper to feel the searing pulse of heat. "So!" the demon exclaimed brightly, "What's your ridiculous reasoning? Our faithful viewers are dying to know." Bill shoved a little microphone in Dipper's face, a newscap suddenly replacing his top hat.

Dipper's head wasn't so much swimming as flailing helplessly while being dragged under by the riptide. "I.. I-I don't know what's happening. There... something is here. In here. I thought..." Dipper shrank away, something like embarrassment undercutting his constant fear. "I thought you'd know what it was. How to get rid of it."

"Well, you're right about that. I do know virtually everything, after all." Bill puffed up with pride, running a hand through the flowing, gorgeous locks that he did not possess. "But I'm not hearing any incentive. What could you possibly give me that would convince me to help you, instead of watching events unfold to my liking? Trust me, it'll be hilarious."

Dipper floundered for a moment, words failing him. "..W-what do you want?" His voice cracked with desperation, and he didn't even bother feeling mortified by it.

"What do I want?" Bill swung his cane around idly, and Dipper noticed for the first time that what little color had been in his room was leeched away. "That's the million dollar question, ain't it? Let me tell you. What I WANT, Pine Tree." Bill magnified a dozen times over, bulging eye burning red as the demon's gaze tore right through him. "What I WANT is to take you, and your cute little family, and STRING YOU UP LIKE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. I WANT to TEAR YOU IN HALF, and see how far I can pull the pieces apart while they're still connected." Bill was looming over him now, and Dipper felt stripped down to his very bones. His chest constricted with fear, and he was reminded of the terror of Bill Cipher.

Dipper just wanted to close his eyes and pretend nothing existed anymore. That he wasn't being haunted by two supernatural horrors at once. He made a choked little whimpering sound, and could taste bile in the back of his throat. "B-Bill.."

The polygonal demon stared wordlessly down at the trembling human, and in an instant he was back to his original size. "You're a lot more pathetic than I remember, Pine Tree. You're more like a whimpering willow now! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!" Bill cackled gleefully at his own joke, the noise grating against Dipper's ear drums. "So, here we are. You're in need of help that I can provide, and you have nothing I want in return. Unless you wanna see how many limbs I can take off before you go kaput. Buuut... because I like you so much, I'll give you a little hint. You'll just have to owe me down the line. Sounds good? Great!" Bill cleared his nonexistent throat theatrically before Dipper could make any kind of protest. "Reality is a manifestation of the mind, the root of impurity lurks within and must be purged, terror is only a feeling, even nightmares can bleed, have fun with Bright Eyes byeeee!" Bill winked and vanished into the depths of his top hat-

-and Dipper woke up. His clock read 8:60 AM. Two words swam round and round in his head. They escaped his lips in a breathless murmur. "Bright Eyes..."

Chapter Text

Dipper stared at the clock, glowing red numbers imprinting on his eyeballs as thoughts swirled through his head. Ideas and theories blossomed like flowers, before crumbling into ash. Bill's words circled like flotsam in a whirlpool. 'Reality is a manifestation of the mind.' That sounded par for the course, as far as the dream demon was concerned. Dipper wasn't sure what useful information could be gleaned from that.

'The root of impurity lurks within and must be purged.' Dipper was suddenly acutely aware of the thick, heady stench of rotting black licorice. Impurity... He glanced at the waste bin under his desk, and passed his tongue over the fuzz on his teeth. Red and black. The root of impurity must be purged.

Dipper dragged himself over to his desk, fumbling around underneath it to grab for the lip of the trashcan. He stared down into its depths, and felt as if something were staring back. As if in a trance he wrenched open his own jaw with one hand, using the other to take two fingers and jam them down his throat. His esophagus spasmed and he retched around his fingers, but continued pressing them further inwards. In a great heave it came, glistening black flowing out of him and intertwining like serpents as it was deposited amongst its likeness. He heaved and vomited until it was overflowing, and yet he did not stop. It oozed out over the edges of the waste basket, held up from the floor by its own power. Tears streamed down his face and his lungs burned from a lack of air. Eventually black tar was replaced by liquid red, which spattered into watery, chunky puddles on the floor.

Dipper ripped his fingers away, panting for breath and staring, uncomprehending, at his own impurity. He raised a hand into his field of vision, and saw thick strands of it fizzling into smoke from where it clung to his fingers. A similar cloud was billowing up from the trashcan, tendrils of rot dissolving and sublimating. Dipper scooted back across the floor, staring up as it gathered against his ceiling before beginning to slowly dissipate. He felt... lighter, as if his limbs were no longer filled with liquid lead. But in return, he was emptier, less complete, without the intrinsic darkness he had possessed. Dipper wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

'Terror is only a feeling.' Well, Dipper certainly knew that much already. He'd been intimately familiar with the feeling even before this... incident. The way Bill put it, it sounded like some sort of motivational speaker garbage. Dipper discarded that one for now. He couldn't make himself stop feeling, after all.

'Even nightmares can bleed.' Was Bill telling him to fight it? Dipper had a feeling the demon just wanted to watch him get ripped apart. Not that Dipper could blame him. Well, actually, he could, because everything he'd done to piss off Bill had been in the best interest of the entire universe. But all that aside, what other choice did he have? Whatever was in here was malicious, and he could feel that malice permeate his skin and seep into his bones. It wasn't something he could talk to, or trick. He couldn't make any deals with it. And the one thing he actually could make deals with was the last entity he ever wanted to make a deal with ever again.

Dipper released a ragged sigh, trying to ignore the gnaw of yawning emptiness that resided within him. He didn't feel scared, at that moment. He felt a creeping exhaustion settle in his blood, in his nerves, in his tendons and muscle fibers. His bed called to him like a siren song, but he was unsure of what he might find, were he to venture back into the realm of his dreams. Not that he could really remember what was in there in the first place. There was a hazy fog that separated him from his dream consciousness, which left only the faintest impression of feelings behind when he awoke. Amusement. Exasperation. Uncertainty. Dread. Desperation. Several of which he felt here, in the real (was it real was anything real) world. As trepidatious as he was towards his dreams, the idea of what waited for him drove his hand. Dipper climbed back into bed, and closed his eyes.

Chapter Text

Dipper woke up with a white shirt. This was an unusual occurrence, considering he almost exclusively wore red shirts. He frowned, testing the fabric between his fingertips. Sixty percent cotton, thirty five percent polyester, five percent spandex. The same as what he always wore. Something about flannel and denim ran through his head, but he brushed the thought away. He began sifting through piles of clothes that he'd very carefully and meticulously discarded onto the floor for a red shirt, and found nothing. If this was a prank, it wasn't a very clever one, he decided.

Resigned to his odd wardrobe swap, Dipper paced back and forth, absently wishing he had a pen to gnaw on. Unfortunately, ink poisoning was a very real concern, so he'd instead taken to chewing on lollipop sticks. He plucked one from his little stash, tearing off the wrapper- and pausing. Pure white hard candy stared back at him. He checked the wrapper again. Cherry flavored. Dipper carefully re-wrapped the sucker, and gently deposited it back amongst its brethren.

They were such innocuous little things; shirts and candies without their proper colors. And yet... Dipper felt as though something terribly unholy had been wrought. He very calmly and carefully made his way into the bathroom, faintly hearing voices from downstairs. He turned on the single buzzing light, and stared into a mirror that felt much higher up than it was supposed to be. He leaned in, and noted how much paler he seemed all of a sudden. Like a sheet of paper stretched over muscle and bone. His lips were nearly colorless, like he'd been caught out in the cold too long. His eyes flickered back and forth, and he leaned in closer, pulled his lids apart with steady fingers. Solid whites, unbroken by capillaries. He pulled on the lower lid, and saw pale, delicate flesh. Dipper swallowed convulsively, and had a chilling thought. With hesitance freezing in his blood (was that even the same anymore) he opened his mouth, and saw a shadowed white maw.

All his red was gone. Of all the unbelievable and frankly terrifying things that had happened to Dipper Pines up to this point, this was one he couldn't quite wrap his head around. Everything else had a clear cause, a reason, something behind it. The only things he'd known today were impending dread and bone deep weariness. Dipper slid down the far wall and pressed his hands to his face. He tried not to notice their lack of natural coloration. His head was pounding, and thoughts ran together in his head like water colors. A radio was playing somewhere downstairs.

Dipper stood up, and all breath left him in a cool, steady exhale. He opened the mirror and fumbled through its innards, retrieving a disposable razor. He pressed the cutting edge against his thumb, and inhaled.

Dipper bled white.

8:60 AM, his clock screamed soundlessly in blaring red. For some reason, Dipper found this to be a comfort. He vaguely wondered why the time hadn't yet changed, considering it had done so every other time he'd awoken. Not important. 'Reality is a manifestation of the mind.' Dipper still wasn't sure what that meant. He couldn't just transcend reality through willpower, or anything. Despite all the strangeness of the situation, everything still made some sort of sense. He had to latch on to that, and work out a solution through the limitations of the real world.

'Terror is only a feeling.' That was something he could work on. Dipper glanced at his door, and felt a pulse of dread. But instead of letting the feeling consume him, he grasped it, tried to understand the reasoning behind it. His bedroom was safe, so far. Outside his door, he didn't know what would happen. Fear was born of the unknown.

Dipper pulled open his unlocked door, and stepped out into the hall. It was free of the cloying shadows that had assailed him previously, and was instead enshrouded in natural darkness. He could handle that. His penlight clicked on, and he cleaved a narrow swathe through visual impairment. Empty. The master bathroom door was open, and so was the door to his study. Solid walls, solid doors, solid floors. Everything was in its natural place. He turned as calmly as he was able, nudging open the study door with his foot. He flicked the light switch, and nothing happened. The power was out. The light he'd seen downstairs had come from something else. His desktop was where it always was, his bookshelf was untouched, his writing desk was covered in sheets of organized papers and writing utensils. Protein bar wrappers reflected the shine of his penlight from the trash can.

Dipper entered the bathroom. He flicked the light switch. The bulbs overhead flickered and popped, showering him with shards of glass. He stumbled backwards, a noise of shock escaping him. He froze against the wall opposite the bathroom door, and strained to listen. The radio shrieked its broken signal. He glanced askew at the corner leading to the stairs. Nothing. No fingers. Terror is only a feeling. Even nightmares can bleed. Dipper wondered if he could make it to the kitchen.

The stairs swam in his vision, blood pulsing in his veins and arteries, he could feel it surge through every vessel and capillary. He felt engorged with pure red, like a well fed tick. He was free of impurity, and had never been lighter. Dipper descended, and television snow flickered to the left. His breath caught on a thousand piercing hooks. Dipper took the last step, and turned.

Luminous circles stared from the unseen, and they saw everything he was. The softest light he'd ever seen emitted from the pair of luminous bodies, which slowly approached. He was rigid, caught through the spine by a stake of undiluted fear. The light burned right through his skull, and he could feel a cool breeze on the stalk of his brain. He vaguely recalled the name of it. Medulla Oblongata, regulator of the heart and lungs. The light seared through his skin, and his ribcage bubbled. The organs beneath popped like little balloons, and stained his shirt with sprays of viscera. The light grew ever closer, looming above him. His eyes bulged out of his head, and something coppery oozed from the corner of his mouth. The circles leaned down, and he suddenly realized.

Bright Eyes. He made a gurgled little croaking sound, and it responded. Something parted with a wet tearing sound, and he was hit with the stink of all the rot in the world, collected in one breath. Something touched his face. Four somethings, each with a million points of pressure that undulated like little tentacles against the bristles coating his jaw. He stared into Bright Eyes, and remembered. 'Reality is a manifestation of the mind.' Dipper Pines was not going to die, Dipper Pines was not going to die, Di-

Chapter Text

Dipper woke up. Days seconds months minutes years hours E T E R N I T Y time passed. He stared up at the bathroom ceiling through one eye, and felt something warm on the back of his head. Blood, thick and oozing and whiter than anything he'd ever seen. Dipper's mouth was soaked with it. Dipper stood as if under another's power, tugged upwards by invisible strings as his head lolled. He looked into the mirror, and saw the inside of his head, paved white and smooth. A perfect circle around where his left eye had been was missing, as if someone had pulled it out like a wine cork. He heaved, something spilling past his lips and plopping into the sink, white and oozing. It was like glue, but so bright that it burned his remaining cornea. Dipper pressed a hand against his chest, under his shirt, and it sank inwards without resistance. His fingers brushed along the edges of stunted ribs and his oft bitten nails grazed ruined organs.

He didn't scream. Wasn't sure if he could. He couldn't feel his lungs inflate when he inhaled, and it produced a soft whistling noise when he did so. But he didn't feel lightheaded, he was still standing, still able to move. Dipper took advantage of that, stumbling out of the bathroom on unsteady legs and very nearly running into his sister.

"Ohmygosh, bro-bro!" Mabel covered her mouth with both hands, looking shocked beyond belief. "I just realized you weren't wearing your hat! That's like, the first time ever since you got it! Now I can finally knit you a new one!!!" Mabel squealed in delight, leaving her brother caught in a cartoonish cloud of dust that collected in the hollow of his head. He watched her leave, a trembling hand reaching up to gently clean out the hole. The inside was glassy smooth and warm to the touch, and he could feel the pressure of his fingers splayed out inside. Dipper's throat convulsed and he pressed a hand against the wall, spilling nothing but wretched sounds onto the floor.

He couldn't live like this. He wasn't sure how he was living like this at all. He was barely more than a shambling corpse, but he was still breathing and thinking. His red was gone, a chunk of his head was incinerated (how did he know that?) and the majority of his organs were destroyed. He was falling apart, both inside and out, nothing made sense but everything else was normal and why couldn't she SEE IT-

8:88 AM. Dipper sobbed for breath between wails, one hand clutching the left side of his face and the other scratching dark lines down his chest. Realization struck like a freight train. Dipper Pines did not die. He was alive, he was breathing, he was whole and the clock-

"Boy, what a show you put on for me! You've got some real Broadway potential, Pine Tree. Class A acting chops." Bill's applause rang hollow in Dipper's haven, his greyscale mindscape. "You and Bright Eyes sure didn't disappoint! But I gotta say, I'm shocked you'd show some two-bit monster your delicates before you showed me." Bill rapped his knuckles against Dipper's skull. Dipper recoiled, pressing himself against the headboard of his bed.

Bill swooped over and leaned in, his eye blinking in contemplation. "Wow, you're pretty shook up, huh? Quivering willow, more like!" Bill cackled for an uncomfortably long time, slapping his knee(?) repeatedly. "Not that I can blame you, Bright Eyes did a real number on you. Hmm, I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because you didn't follow the instructions that your good friend Bill Cipher gave you! The incredibly simple and easy to follow guidelines that I so graciously provided for you at no charge whatsoever! You're pretty thick skulled, huh? But not thick enough to avoid getting your HEAD MELTED, HUH PINE TREE?!" Bill's pupil engorged until it engulfed his entire eye, colors flashing and blinking and colliding until the image of Dipper's death was visible, bright lights searing right through meat and bone and brain tissue. "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T LISTEN!" Bill was screaming, expanding and engorging and filling every inch of Dipper's vision with his own death, his mutilation, his failure-

"Well, that's enough of that!" Bill floated easily away, twirling his cane. He glanced back over his edge, where Dipper was pale faced and trembling. "Yeah, you look like you've got the message. Maybe next time, you'll give a little thought, huh? I hope so, because I sure do like your stupid face better when it doesn't have a big hole in it." Bill winked suggestively at his near comatose compatriot, and laughed heartily. "Anyway, I'd better get going. Got way more important things to do than babysit you, know what I mean? Toodles!" The fabric of the mindscape tore apart, creating an infinite void that Bill slipped away into-

-And Dipper shot up in bed, eyes immediately gravitating towards his clock. 8:60 AM. Crudely smeared on the wall above his clock in red paint (he hoped) was a message. 'LOOK UP' Dipper obeyed. On his ceiling, the clouds of impurity had finally dissipated. In their wake, filmy black letters had been seared into the paint. 'CUT IT OUT.'

Dipper needed a knife.

Chapter Text

Dipper felt something cold solidify in the marrow of his bones. The words on the ceiling might as well have been branded into his chest, for all he could feel them. He shuffled across the bedroom like a stop motion skeleton, and vaguely recalled making fun of old horror movies with... someone. Not important. He needed to cut it out. Dipper fumbled with the knob of his door, before realizing that it was locked. He jiggled the lock, but it held steadfast. Jammed. Did that thing mean to keep him in here? He rammed his shoulder against the door, but all it resulted in was an aching humerus. A hysterical giggle slipped through his lips. Not funny. Dipper took a step back to view the locked door from a different angle.

Only... the door wasn't locked. It was unlocked. It was open. He could pass through. 'Reality is a manifestation of the mind.' Dipper pulled on the handle, and the door soundlessly swung inward. He didn't have time to feel pleased. He could feel the radio resonate in the inside of his head. He wasn't even sure he owned a radio. He entered the hallway, and moved with single minded purpose towards the bathroom. Cleanup would be easier. If he ever bothered. He stared into the open doorway, and saw shards of glass littering the floor. Fallen stars, he compared faintly.

Only... there wasn't any glass. The lightbulbs were whole. The floor was free of detritus. Dipper could walk through without impaling himself. The floor sparkled despite the lack of light, cleaner than it had ever been. He entered the bathroom, filtering drawers out of his head as he tried to remember where- there. Dipper yanked open the drawer so hard that it shook, and so did he. A straight razor greeted him from amongst various bathroom paraphernalia. A gift, he thought dimly. Not important. Dipper snatched it up and flicked out the blade, testing the sharpness against his thumb. Blood welled to the surface nigh instantaneously. It would do.

The bathtub would be a good cutting board. Dipper climbed inside without a second thought, banging his knees and elbows against the enameled sides. The pain reminded him that this was real. As real as it could be, at least. He rucked up his shirt, throwing it off in the corner and staring down at his unmarred flesh. With a surgeon's precision, Dipper sliced a line from the bottom of his ribs to his navel. He felt nothing. Fascination bubbled into existence at the same moment his red did. He smeared it with his already bleeding thumb, and felt a twinge in it. His abdomen felt the pressure, the warmth, but no pain. At least this would be easy.

Icy steel parted epidermal tissue like red waters, digging through fat and muscle like a dream. Dipper would have to thank... not important. Didn't matter where he got the razor from. It just needed to do its job.

Dipper knew the exact moment he breached his chest cavity. He felt open to the elements in a way he'd never experienced, and a shiver crawled up and down his spine. He cut through the last few layers before discarding the blade, and dug his hand inside. His flesh sucked it inwards with an interesting noise, and he fancied he could feel the exact layers of himself against his wrist. He could certainly feel his insides, organ tissue soft and pliant under his digits. But that didn't matter. He needed what he came for. He reached around, sinking in halfway up his forearm as he shifted organs around.

Then he found it, nestled against his liver. Something cold and gnarled, like a grinding stone turned pitted by stomach acids. He pulled and something snapped, and he removed his arm with a sucking squelch. He cradled the object in his hands, squinting to try and get a better look at it. Black, blacker than anything, blacker than the darkness that surrounded him. It had the texture of an old tree trunk, and twisted in on itself a thousand times over. It beat and pulsed rapidly, even outside his body. The root of impurity.

Dipper stood up from the tub on wobbling legs, nearly tripping as his bare feet just barely touched the cool tile underneath. He felt like he could fly, he was so empty. Like a stiff breeze would carry him away from his nightmares. A smile lit his face so bright it nearly illuminated the bathroom. Dipper dropped his impurity on the floor, and crushed it under his heel.

The release was unlike anything he'd ever felt. A resounding 'POP' that echoed through him, limbs to torso. He gasped in frozen rapture, tears springing to his eyes and pouring down his face. He toppled to his knees, felled by his own euphoria, and pressed one hand against the floor. The other sought his abdomen, testing the blood slicked skin. Seamless. Whole again. There was only one thing left to do now. Dipper gathered his straight razor, and exited the bathroom on silent soles.

Terror is only a feeling. Dipper knew what he was up against. It was slow. It had a physical form. Its gaze was lethal. Dipper could take it with his eyes closed. He giggled at the thought, leaping down the stairs. He was going to land safely. Carpet met his toes, and television static illuminated his left. Dipper caught a glimpse of something in the dark, behind luminous circles. He closed his eyes and swung, blade out. He would cut those eyes out of its head, tear it apart, paint the room with-

Dipper's arm was missing. A searing heat engulfed it for only an instant. Flesh cracked and peeled and sloughed like wilted flower petals. Fat bubbled and dripped to the floor, where it sizzled amongst carpet fibers. Muscle cooked and popped and blackened into char. Bone overheated and exploded into shards.

Dipper screamed until his throat bled. Agony unlike anything rocked through him for that instant, before nerves were deadened and burnt away. The phantom feeling exploded through his veins, synapses fired liquid lightning, pain was all he knew. On his side, he knew death approached, somewhere beyond physical sensation.

Bright Eyes loomed overhead. Dipper stared into them, voice broken and raw. Senses blurred together, light caressing his skin as the radio danced over his tongue. Wet hands caressed his face, and he took no comfort in them. Bright Eyes leaned in, and Dipper could just barely make out pale, lumpy flesh. Something (a face?) tilted towards him, and grooved skin parted before him in a wet, sloppy tear. A smile slashed across that face, strings of flesh lined like teeth. It spoke to him, in a voice he was certain he should know.

"Wake up, Dipper." Dipper Pines was going to die. Dipper Pines was not going to die. Dipper Pines would not D I E

"-ipper? Dippppp Dooooooop. Dipperoni Macaroni. Di-" Mabel paused, blinking down at him. "Oh, you're awake! Finally. I found you lying on the floor when I came back to get my emergency stash of glitter glue. You've been falling asleep like this all day! Are you okay, Dipper?" Concern shone in her luminous eyes.

Dipper met his sister's gaze with one eye. Her pupils were gone. Pits of darkness were replaced by blinding white. She was... so much brighter. A wellspring of color and light before, she was now near impossible to see for all her vibrancy. Dipper reached up to touch her face, to make sure she was real... but nothing ever came. No hand. No arm. A shoulder, white and shiny and ending prematurely. Dipper wanted to vomit, but he knew what would come out. Dipper looked into his twin's face, bright as the sun. "No," he whispered, voice cracking. "I'm not okay."

Mabel looked at him as if she had never done so before. "Okay," she murmured. "Okay. Let's talk about it." She offered him a hand, a goddess ethereal, and he did not hesitate. The attic door was locked behind them.

Dipper didn't know what to say. All he could think about was how vibrant everything was, about how the corners of the room went without shadow, how the setting sun burned white, white, white. Dipper opened his mouth, and a sob was wrenched from his throat. He collapsed against Mabel's shoulder, and he knew she would hold him upright. Keep him from falling. He could trust her. Words spilled from his mouth in a raging deluge, a raging river of syllables that swirled and churned with terror. He couldn't see her face, but he could imagine what it looked like. But he spoke anyway. Red and black were lost to him. Sleep stole him away. He was missing pieces, Bill wouldn't answer him, he was scared beyond anything he'd ever felt. She had to believe him, please.

There was silence, a pause that stretched for nigh on eternity. "Okay. Okay, I-I believe you." Mabel's voice was a tear soaked warble, but she did not falter. "We're going to look in the Journals, okay? Find something. Anything. I'll help you summon Bill, if it comes to that." Mabel tenderly brushed the hair away from the hole in his head, hand trembling. "You're not alone, Dipper. I promise."

"Okay. Okay, I believe you." Dipper leaned into his sister's hideous sweater, soaked in her warmth. He felt some semblance of safety for the first time that day (week month year forever). Dipper closed his eye, and felt sleep take him-

"No. You have to stay awake." Mabel's voice was stern and steady, but undercut with panicked tension. "Something happens whenever you wake up, right? So you have to stay awake, Dipper. I need you here with me."

"I... I'll try." Dipper forced away the veil of slumber, focusing on newfound color. Everything was bright, and his sister was here, and he would not sleep. He reluctantly left his sister's embrace, and shoved his pillow off his bed to retrieve the Journals. He reached out, and froze. One hand hung in his field of view. He couldn't carry all of them, not like this. With one arm. How long would he have to deal with this? Would he be like this forever? What if he fell asleep? Would he lose more parts of himself? Who's to say anything would be left, after next time? He could never sleep again, could never close his eye for more than an instant and he could never do anything that required two hands and he couldn't breathe-

"Dipper? Dipper! Bro bro, calm down, it's alright. I'm right here, it's Mabel. I need you to breathe, okay? In, count to three, and out. Breathe with me, Dipper. Breathe with me. Dipper, breathe! Dippe-"

The clock read 8:88 AM.

Chapter Text

Dipper emerged from the clawing phantoms of agony with a wet gasp, shooting up in his bed and clutching frantically at his right arm. Warm skin gave under his searching fingers, and solid bone stood sturdy beyond it. He took no comfort in it. It was like escaping from a sinking ship, only to surface in the middle of the endless sea.

"Well, looks like someone's finally up and at 'em!" Bill's high pitch echoed through every corner of the palette drained room, emanating from the blindingly yellow triangle floating just above Dipper's desk. He seemed to be shuffling through papers, making extremely exaggerated and insincere noises of interest. "Wow, your writing has really improved over the years! That's really not saying much, but hey, what do I know? Oh right, EVERYTHING." Bill cackled and swooped through the air like a three sided bat, ignoring Dipper's personal space to perch right on top of his head. "So? Regale me with the tales of your heroism! C'mon slugger, I'm DYING to know."

Dipper very carefully slid out from underneath the dream demon, something lodged in his throat. He attempted to clear it. "I-I... I died," he croaked, something like shame washing over him. He wasn't quite sure why.

"Boy, you sure did!" Apparently unconcerned with his chair slipping away, Bill floated leisurely towards Dipper's face, tapping him on the nose with his cane. "You died. Again. This upsets me, Pine Tree, because I was really rooting for you! Especially when you were wrist deep in your guts. Talk about a Kodak moment!" Bill produced a tiny disposable camera, and set off the flash. "Click! Oh, this one is a keeper."

"W-why are you here?" It was barely a whisper, but apparently Bill was always listening in addition to always watching. Dipper shrunk away when that all seeing eye locked onto him.

"Because you summoned me, remember? C'mon, you can't be forgetting me already, can you?" Bill almost sounded like he cared, but Dipper knew better.

He ignored the false concern, and tried to sound more sure of himself. "You... I know I summoned you. But why do you keep coming back? Why do you care what happens to me?" Dipper could have hit himself for asking that last question. Even if Bill was faking it, he was still the only person (well, demonic entity) Dipper knew that would even pretend to care.

"What, you haven't figured it out already? It's because you're my favorite!" Bill flew up and pinched Dipper's cheek with a whole hand, yanking it back and forth to produce a yelp. "And I like that you're smart enough to realize that things aren't as they seem." The demon patted his face before backing up. "So, I COULD explain to you why all this is happening, buuuut... I've already done you one favor, and I don't work in twos. So if you want information, I want something in return. Say, for example, oh... I dunno, the gruesome deaths of your entire family at my hand?"

Family. Family. Dipper's eyes went unfocused. He clutched at his head with one hand, a pulse of heat zapping through his brain. His family.. they were... something about a sibling... parents? His family was..

Not important. "Okay. If that's what you want." Dipper stared placidly at the demon, waiting for him to offer a hand.

"...What?" Bill stared, wide eyed, sounding beyond flabbergasted. "You... what? You're not serious." Bill squinted a little. "Oh okay you're serious. Now, normally I wouldn't look a gift Corthal Rang Beast in the mouths, but I think this one is infected. What's your sister's name, Pine Tree?"

Dipper blinked as if in slow motion. Confusion crept past the passivity on his face. "I... sister, I don't have a sister."

"Yeesh. Bright Eyes is due more credit than I give it. No wonder your Mindscape changed so drastically." Bill floated away, his bricks unlinking and rearranging themselves. Dipper dimly likened it to shuffling cards. "Now, as much as I'd like to rip and tear your family apart into individual particles, I'm technically unable to make a deal if the other party can't comprehend the terms." Bill hung suspended in the air, bricks whirling faster and faster. Then they froze in place before snapping back together. Bill swung around in a wide arc, the corners of his eye crinkling upwards. "Well, I've got a much better deal for you anyway! Let's say... you become my flesh vessel, and I help you get rid of ol' Bright Eyes?" Bill extended a hand wreathed in crackling blue flames.

Dipper shook his head, eyes refocusing and incredulity etching onto his features. "You... flesh vessel? Why would I ever do that? You'd just... use my body to help you take over the universe, or destroy it, or whatever nonsense you're planning."

Bill 'hmm'd in mock thought. "Well gee, you raise a fair point. NOT! Look Pine Tree, you've got nothing to live for at this point. What are you gonna do, publish some garbage novel about inaccurate supernatural facts disguised as fiction? What a life accomplishment. Face it; your days of making any sort of quantifiable difference are over. You'll just be another useless flesh bag rotting away on this ball of mud." Bill sounded sickeningly pleased with his own words. He leaned in closer, and Dipper could see the chaos of the cosmos trapped in his pupil. "You've got noBODY to live for, Pine Tree. I'm the only one that knows you. I'm the only one that cares if you live or die. Why would you throw away your only friend in the world? A friend that just wants to help you?"

Dipper was stricken by the depths to which Bill's words cut. But... he had made a difference, hadn't he? He'd saved Gravity Falls! ...Right? He'd found the Journals in Gravity Falls. Gravity Falls is where he met Bill. He... stopped Bill from doing something. Something that must have been bad, right? He just wasn't sure what it was, or what he'd done to prevent it. Dipper realized, with dawning horror, that he didn't even know why he'd come to Gravity Falls. Where he'd stayed. What he'd done. What the Journals told him. His chest felt tight, iron chains of panic constricting around his ribcage. "I-I..."

"Yeeeeess?" Bill waggled his fingers, attempting to wheedle an answer out of Dipper. "I'm waiting, Pine Tree."

Dipper was lost to the far reaches of the void. Everything he thought he knew, everything he had known to be true... "I-I don't remember what my name is." His voice cracked, and misery oozed through the crevices.

"...What? How could you not know what your own name is? I'm contractually obligated to say it at least twice every monologue, Pine Tree." Bill winked conspiritorially, and then paused. "...Pine Tree."

Dipper's pitiable demeanor sparked into a raging inferno. "N-no! Not that... that stupid, made up name! My real name! I-I don't..." As quick as it had come, it was extinguished, leaving him drooping and pathetic.

"What, like your birth name? It's Landrin, or something. I might've got you mixed up, actually." Bill thumbed through a stack of index cards, either ignorant or uncaring of Dipper's breaking down. It was likely the latter.

Landrin. Dipper clung to the name like a lifeline, unsure if it was even real or not. But it was the closest thing to an actual identity he had. Realer than Pine Tree, that detestable title. Realer than Dipper, a nickname he couldn't even remember being labeled with. Landrin... it was such a dorky name, like something from the fifteenth century. God, what were his parents thinking? No wonder Mabel had taken to calling him Dipper. He'd have to thank her for that, if he saw her again.

Realization cut through Dipper like a saber. "You're wrong. As wrong as you've ever been, Cipher." He stood up on his bed, looming over the triangle with his fists clenched in fury. "I do have somebody to live for. A lot of somebodies! Mabel, and my parents, and Stan and Ford and Soos and Wendy and- and myself! I'm worth more than being some puppet, or food for some monster! So you can forget any deals you've got cooking in your twisted mind, because I'm not going to fall for any of them ever again. Now get out of my Mindscape; I have more important things to do than talk to you." Dipper shook with unbridled energy, memories flooding into his head and filling his emptiness with warmth.

Bill Cipher, Eye of Providence and Master of the Mind stared down the yelling, gesticulating human. And he laughed, short and sweet. "Oh, Pine Tree...  YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF MISTAKE YOU JUST MADE." Bill flashed a deep, angry red, and twitched. He twitched and writhed and spasmed in mid air, bricks parting and eye whirling and the light he emanated growing brighter and brighter. Whipping, dripping tendrils emerged from the void between his bricks, ending in twisted, gnarled fingers that dug into the walls and ceiling. Oceans of misshapen teeth swirled into a vortex of a maw that spilled sizzling sludge on the hardwood floor. The ceiling itself was torn away, revealing the swirling nebulae of the Mindscape overhead. Bill towered over the four walls and the worm that resided within them, twisted into a polygon with infinite sides and a single, bulging eye that glared death at Dipper Pines. "YOU THINK OL' BRIGHT EYES IS THE REAL THREAT HERE, PINE TREE? I'M AFRAID YOU'RE SADLY MISTAKEN. ALL I NEED IS ONE HANDSHAKE, ONE DEAL FROM SOME BRAINLESS HUMAN, AND I CAN DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU LOVE. 'TERROR IS A FEELING'. I AM TERROR! I AM THE NIGHTMARE THAT MAKES YOU BLEED, AND REALITY IS MINE TO TWIST AS I PLEASE! YOU REALLY THINK I NEED YOUR PATHETIC CARCASS TO DO WHAT I WANT? YOU ARE NOTHING, PINE TREE. JUST THE BLINK OF AN EYE IN AN ENDLESS UNIVERSE THAT DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU, OR YOUR FAMILY, OR YOUR WORTHLESS PLANET! REALITY IS A NIGHTMARE, THE UNIVERSE IS A COLD, DEAD PLACE, AND ALL THE WEALTH IN THE WORLD WON'T MAKE YOU WORTH ANYTHING!" Bill leaned in, small enough to make eye contact. "I'll see you again, Pine Tree."

The clock read 8:61 AM.

Chapter Text

Dipper's sheets were soaked through with cold sweat, and he kicked them away in disgust. His most recent venture into the Mindscape felt like some sort of hallucination, and he had to convince himself that it really happened. He remembered everything. His family, his friends, his accomplishments; they were empowering. The cold emptiness of purity was filled to the brim with warmth, and even Bill's dramatics couldn't put a damper on it. He had something to live for now, a reason to fight beyond simple survival.

Then Dipper saw the light. Thick bands of it stretching across his floor, coming through his blinds. Either the witching hour had finally passed, or it was- Dipper couldn't risk it. He climbed slowly out of bed, not even daring to glance at the blinds a second time. He hunched over on hand and knee, crawling under the reach of the beams. His window rattled like a bag of coins, the glass warbling and singing the song of Dipper's demise. He dragged himself across the floor as fast as he could, elbows and knees banging against the hardwood in his haste. He squeezed underneath his desk, knocking over the trash bin with his leg. He squirmed out from underneath the desk, emerging just outside the range of the lights. His window frame creaked like a falling tree.

Dipper scrambled to his feet, nearly slipping as he ran for the door. It was open, he could go through, and Bright Eyes couldn't exit the bedroom. The door swung opposite its hinges, pushing out into the hallway before Dipper slammed it shut behind him. There was the sound of shattering glass, and the squealing 'CRRRRACK' of his window frame giving way. He raced into the bathroom, yanking open drawers and throwing their contents aside in search of- Dipper paused, and fished around in his pocket. Straight razor. He'd have to thank Stan later.

Dipper climbed up onto his bathroom counter, feeling dread and anticipation writhing in the back of his head. He pushed past them, fumbling to flick out the blade before feeling around for the screws that anchored his mirror to the wall, squinting and cursing in the dark. He fumbled for his back pocket, fingers grazing the cool metal of his penlight. He grasped it in a trembling hand, flicking the switch and shining it on the top left corner of the mirror. It provided just enough illumination for him to see the screw, and he wasted no time in slotting his switchblade into it and twisting frantically. He could hear a doorknob groaning and shaking, as well as a thunderous pounding. Just four screws. The shriek of the radio was deafening.

Dipper's palms were soaked in sweat, liquid fear dripping from his pores as he struggled to keep a grip on his tools. Twice he lost his hold on the screw, and he felt his heart stopped the moment his penlight slipped into the sink basin and flickered out. He shook it desperately, flicking the switch back and forth before it sputtered back to life. Wood was creaking from down the hall. The first screw came out, and Dipper let it fall. No time. He immediately began unscrewing the next one, hands shaking like a blender full of stones. Chunks of anxiety hardened in his bloodstream, leaving him dizzy and lightheaded. The second screw came free. Hinges squealed like slaughtered pigs. This had to work. There was no other way. Dipper Pines was going to survive. Dipper Pines was going to win. Dippe-

The door shattered into splinters, and the radio went silent. Dipper could just barely make out the sound of wet, plodding footsteps. They approached. He was going to die he was going to die hewasgoingtodie- Dipper popped the third screw loose, and stopped wasting time. He yanked the mirror off the wall, glass bending before the remaining anchored corner came away with a snap. Dipper held it up with both hands like a shield, and stepped out into the hallway.

Two bright eyes stared. Soft luminosity hardened into devastation incarnate, searing the paint off the walls and making the air shimmer with heat. Dipper stood steadfast, holding up the mirror in defiance. Bright Eyes stared, and Bright Eyes stared back. The radio shrieked unlike any other sound Dipper had ever heard, coming from every direction, coming from inside his own head. Every broken voice and unheard murmur unified in a blood curdling scream. He could feel blood bubbling out of his ears. But it was working. He was going to win. He was going to live.

And then the glass started melting. Like clay it sloughed through his hands, molten and useless. Dipper was frozen to the core, frigid terror petrifying him into his own headstone. The light seared into him, and he could feel everything he was burning away. Dipper Pines would not die, Dipper Pines would not die, Dipper Pines-

W A S A L I V E. Dipper's flesh gleamed like the purest steel, clinging to his meat and bones indomitably. Liquid glass poured from his hands, and Bright Eyes stared him down. Four fingered limbs undulated as if beckoning him, and the radio became a gentle murmur. Skin parted into a toothless grin, and it spoke in a voice not its own. One he knew was stolen. "Wake up, Dipper."

"I'm not dreaming anymore." Dipper struck. He whipped out his straight razor, slashing a line across the empty face. He could cut, and cleave, and damage, and kill. Dipper tackled the abomination to the ground the moment it screeched in agony, bowling over Bright Eyes and sending both of them to the floor. His blade raised, and it gleamed in the light.

Dipper carved out its eyes with a surgeon's precision and a murderer's callousness. The radio was silent, and only the sound of parting flesh could be heard in the dark hallway. It seemed Bill was right; nightmares really could bleed.

Dipper woke up, but not as he usually did. He slowly eased his way into consciousness, a pleasant, heady drowsiness clouding his thoughts. He yawned, and wrinkled his nose when he got a whiff of his own morning breath. He scrubbed at his face with both hands, cracking open his eyes-

And found his sister sitting ludicrously close to his face. Dipper released an unmanly yelp, and knocked his forehead into Mabel's. He recoiled in pain, but she seemed no worse for wear. "Gotta say bro-bro, your headbutts get worse every single time."

"It's not my fault you've got a head made of bricks," he mumbled, rubbing at his forehead. "Is there a reason you were perching on the end of my bed like a gargoyle?"

"Well, reason one is because gargoyles are super neat and awesome. Second, we promised we'd work in the shop today, remember? And by promised, I mean coerced into doing it with the promise of pancakes. I was going to wake you up, but you looked so peaceful! Also you were drooling all over. Like, a flood of drool just pouring everywhere. I'm surprised I didn't have to swim over to you."

"Mabel, that's disgusting." Dipper wrinkled his nose, both at the thought of working in the shop and of a flood of drool. He wiped at his cheek, and grimaced when he found a wet patch. "Gross. Let me wash up first, and then we'll go downstairs to our cruel fate."

"Hooray for illegal child employment!" Mabel whooped and threw her arms up in the air, tripping only four times in her rush to get downstairs.

Dipper smiled after her, feeling something warm pulse in his chest, he combed his hair with his fingers for a moment, before shrugging and giving up. Not worth the effort. He pulled on his hat, smiled at his reflection in the window, and left the bedroom.

Dipper woke up, but not as he usually did. He was conscious and alert in moments, instead of fuzzy headed and exhausted. His phone was ringing. He climbed out of bed, stepping around the sheets bunched up on the floor and retrieving it from a pile of debris on his desk. He smiled at the caller ID, and hit 'ANSWER'.

"Hey Mabel, what's up? ...Wait, they're in town?! That's awesome! What's the occasion?" Dipper paused, before he was struck with embarrassment. "N-no! Of course I didn't forget that we'd been planning to meet up for two months! I just... misplaced the information in my brain. ...Okay, maybe I forgot." A smile tugged at his lips. "Okay, okay, I get it. Uh... my place?" Dipper glanced at his destroyed bedroom, and thought of the corpse in his bathtub. "How about we meet at yours instead? My place is kind of a wreck. What? It isn't a pig sty, I just have a few things out of place! Stop oinking at me, Mabel. Wait, is that you or Waddles? I honestly can't tell anymore." He grinned and waited for the laughter on the other end to subside. "Okay. Okay, I'll be there soon. Bye. ...Love you." Dipper hung up, and shoved his phone into his pocket. He stepped over the remains of his bedroom door, and glanced backwards.

The clock read 9:00 AM.