Bright red. A whipping wind. The ground scraping against his face, twigs and dirt embedding themselves into fresh wounds. A huge eyeball. Screaming.
Dipper gasped. His eyes popped open.
He'd had a… bad dream? His hand patted down his covers; it was dark. Moonlight streamed in from the triangular window (disturbingly Bill-shaped, he remembered uncomfortably) but not enough for him to see well. He could just barely make out the shape of his sister's body, rising and falling with slow breaths. The Shack was quiet.
With effort, he tried to think back to what had made him jump. The dream was already disappearing from his memory, but… Great Uncle Ford was there, saying something about the end of the world? The sky was an angry bright red, fresh like a newly opened wound.
Dipper let his breath out slowly. Whatever it was, it was nothing to worry about now. With a groan, he dropped his arm over his eyes and fell back into his bed. It felt softer than usual, more comforting, and he sunk back into sleep without any other thoughts in his head.
The next time he cracked his eyes open, it was still quiet, though the light filtering through his window was soft and yellow and carried dust motes that floated like fairies through the Shack's attic.
"Hey, bro-bro," Mabel murmured to him. She was already awake, knitting in bed. Looked like tomorrow's sweater would be pastel pink with glitter added liberally to the yarn, courtesy of Mabel's glitter fabric glue.
"Hey, Mabel," Dipper answered with a yawn. He pushed himself up out of bed. "No wake-up call this morning?" With resignation, he'd become used to to Mabel's habit of jumping on the bed to wake him up, or blaring loud music, or generally getting impatient with how late he liked to sleep.
"Nah," she chirped. "You looked pretty tired so I thought I'd let you sleep in like the wonderful twin I am." Waddles, splayed out across her legs, oinked in agreement.
"Thanks, I guess. I did sleep weird." Dipper climbed out of bed and looked at the clock. "Huh, it's still pretty early. Maybe my sleep schedule's on time for once."
"Yeah," his sister agreed as she set aside her yarn. "I bet we can still grab some Stancakes."
"Well..." Dipper let his sentence trail off as he ambled to the staircase. "Maybe, though there might only be enough for one of us raceyoudown-!" The last few words were jumbled together as he broke into a run down the stairs, a laughing Mabel soon hot on his heels and crying out at his trickery.
Dipper slid to a stop in the doorway to the kitchen at what he saw. Mabel almost bumped into him, but shuffled back just in time.
Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford were at the kitchen eating already. Together. They both looked up when Dipper and Mabel entered, with Stan waving a hand and Great Uncle Ford smiling.
"There you kids are. Dig in!" Grunkle Stan said, pushing the remaining plate of Stancakes towards the kids. "I made enough for all of us."
"Great Uncle Ford?" Dipper asked, confusion evident on his face as he hopped onto a seat, Mabel following. "You… wanna have breakfast with Grunkle Stan?"
"Well, sure, we're brothers, after all," Ford said with a laugh. "We may have our differences, but that doesn't mean we can't even sit in the same room. Though to be perfectly honest, Dipper, I wanted to talk to you this morning and I didn't think it should wait," he added thoughtfully.
Mabel had been squirting syrup on her Stancakes as Ford talked and handed Dipper the bottle. He took it after a second. "It's important?" he said to Ford.
"That it is." Ford waited until Dipper finished squeezing syrup on to add, "It's about your future in Gravity Falls."
"O-oh." He almost dropped the bottle. "We're not going to be here long, I mean, me and Mabel are going back to Piedmont at the end of the summer."
"Exactly," said Ford. "And what a waste! You've explored every nook and cranny of this town and you've learned more than I did during my years here. I'd really prefer you stay and work with me."
Dipper froze. An intense feeling of deja vu washed over him along with dreadful foreboding. His eyes flicked over to Mabel, then to Stan. "I, um, yeah, I'd love to, but Mabel…"
"It's fine, Dip!" Mabel beamed at him, silver braces gleaming. "Grunkle Ford talked to me about it yesterday. I think it's a great idea!"
"You do?" Dipper's face colored when he realized that his voice had been more of a squeak than anything else, so he cleared his throat. "I thought that you-aren't you upset?"
"Pshaw!" Mabel waved her hand. "Upset about what? That my brother's got a chance to follow his dream? Yeah, I'm devastated."
"No! What about going to high school together? I thought you wanted that!"
"Is that what you want?" Mabel stared at him, her eyes suddenly piercing.
Dipper dropped his head. He wrung his shirt in his hands. "No," he admitted.
"Then there's no problem. I want what you want." Mabel's encouraging tone made him lift his head.
"I think that's what we all want," Stan interjected. "Sixer here said that the basement is a good enough lab for him, so we can keep the Shack open to bring in money to finance projects instead of his old grants. I'll need help some days, so you'd better stick around, Dipper."
"Really?!" Dipper twisted his head to look at Stan. "That's great! I can't believe it!"
"We already contacted your parents to ask permission," Ford said, pleased. "We said that I'm a researcher from the government looking into the anomalies of Gravity Falls and that I'd offered to take you on as a research assistant. They bought it hook, line, and sinker."
"Wow!" Dipper looked around the table. "This is a lot to take in, guys."
Mabel slung her arm around his shoulder, tugging him closer. "Looks like things are finally going your way, huh, Dipper?"
The end of August seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Mabel had thrown her and Dipper a party-his thirteenth, he was finally a teenager-and boarded a bus to Piedmont the very next day. Dipper had expected tears and clinging and frantic promises to video-call every day, but Mabel seemed weirdly fine with it-a sibling hug was all they got before she left. Maybe she'd finally matured to Dipper's level.
It wasn't long before Dipper was holed up in Ford's secret room, comparing his own notes in the Journals with the originals. (Ford had showed him a code he hadn't been able to figure out on his own, something involving bar codes that Dipper had a hard time wrapping his mind around. They had more information to work with than ever.)
While Ford typed up one of their recent discoveries into the computer, Dipper stared at a remaining piece of Bill paraphernalia left in the room: a statue of Bill that made him think of some foreign war goddess he thought he'd seen in a book once.
"Grunkle Ford?" Early on, Dipper had started using the 'grunkle' title at Ford's request. 'Makes us feel more like a family,' Ford had insisted.
"Yes, Dipper?" Ford was amazing. His typing rate didn't slow even when his attention was drawn elsewhere.
"Why do you still have all this Bill stuff? It makes me feel like he's… I dunno, watching us."
The typing stopped then as Ford swiveled his chair to face him. "Would you rather they were gone?"
"It'd make this room look a lot different, that's for sure," Dipper said with a frown. Mollified, Ford started typing again.
"What happened to Bill anyway?" Dipper said after a few minutes.
"He's still in the dreamscape," Ford said distractedly. "He can't hurt us now, especially since you finished encrypting your thoughts last week."
"Yeah, but-" Dipper stopped, feeling foolish, but then continued. Bill was so powerful he was practically a force of nature; how could he just disappear without a fuss? "I had a dream earlier this summer about him. I don't remember what happened, but I think it was about the end of the world. You were trying to stop it? With… glue?"
Ford laughed. "Not every dream with Bill in it is real, Dipper. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. Now-"
The ding of the elevator interrupted them. "Oh, there's my brother," Ford said with a roll of his eyes. "He probably wants you to go help in the Shack."
Dipper blinked. Hadn't this room been a secret? How did Grunkle Stan get down here? But, sure enough, Stan stepped out of the elevator bellowing, "Hey kid! A tourist bus just unloaded and I need you up here stocking the shelves pronto! Hop to it!"
Dipper sighed and looked up at Ford. "Can I go?"
"Sure, sure," Ford said. He reached over and tousled Dipper's hair beneath the brim of his cap. "Don't overwork yourself, though. We need to figure out the jackalope nesting-ground coordinates later tonight." Dipper smiled shyly before trotting over to the elevator to join Stan for the rush.
Despite Stan's insistence that a bus full of tourists was spilling into the Shack, Dipper didn't have much work to do once he finished putting out cheaply-made snowglobes on the store shelves. A few customers milled around, but Wendy looked bored at the register.
"Hey, Dipper, my man!" she said when she saw him slip behind the counter for an unscheduled break. "You want to waste time folding up the cash register's dollar bills with me? I found out a new way to fold them that makes Washington's hair look like an atom bomb cloud." She mimed an explosion around her head. "Mind. Blown."
"Not now, Wendy," he said with a laugh, climbing onto a stool beside her. Dipper had started a growth spurt that month, so he didn't have to scramble up the tall stool like he used to. "Just kind of wanted to chat, you know? It feels like it's been a while. This month has gone by so fast."
"Yeah," Wendy said with a nod, counting off on her fingers. "Helping in the shack, video chatting with Mabel, working with your new Grunkle-"
"Hang on, you know about that?"
"You wanted to keep it a secret?" She feigned hurt.
"No, I just-Grunkle Ford acted like this was all hush-hush."
"Yeah, well, I know more about what goes on around Gravity Falls than you think, Dipper. For example…" She poked his chest. "I know you bought a razor last week because you've started shaving."
Dipper gaped. "How'd you-"
"Found its wrapper in the trash. Stan only buys the dollar store brand." Wendy tapped her nose with a smile. "And I'm pretty sure the other Stan doesn't shave." Dipper laughed.
"It makes you think, though," Wendy said. The store had already quieted down, with only a couple people browsing merchandise on the other side of the store. They were effectively alone.
"Think about what?"
"Well…" Wendy stretched. "You're thirteen now. When you were twelve, you were basically a little kid. A cool one, but you know. Right now you're only two years younger than me."
Dipper coughed, looking away and hoping Wendy didn't notice how hot his face was getting.
"And before when you were only here for the summer, it felt weird knowing you had a crush on me. How long would we last, a month? But now you're here for basically, like, forever."
"Wendy," Dipper started, the blood draining from his face. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying-" And just like that, her lips were on his.
And then he was falling, his body slamming against the ground. He'd lost his balance on the stool. Wendy laughed, reaching out to help him up. Dipper just blinked at her, his hand hovering over his lips.
"What's wrong, man? I thought you wanted this."
"I thought so too, but-" His voice died. Dipper scrambled to his feet, stammering. "I, I really like you Wendy, but I thought we'd been over this, and you said you didn't-"
"Can't a girl change her mind?" Wendy smirked. "Look, dude, if you don't want to, I won't push it. I just thought this was what you wanted."
Dipper stared at her. What you wanted. What you wanted. The words echoed in his head, feeling important somehow. "I don't know," he said. "I just, I need to think about it. Okay?"
"Okay, man. I'm sorry. Let me know what you figure out. I can wait." She kept smiling at him until he was out of the room and climbing the stairs to the attic.
Kissing Wendy… It was something he'd dreamed about for ages. But something about it felt wrong.
"It just took me so long to get over her, you know?" Dipper groused to Mabel by way of the camera on his laptop. "And I thought I was finally done, and she springs this on me out of the blue. What am I supposed to do?"
"Well, what do you want from her?" Mabel asked. She was chewing on a sucker-yes, chewing, what the heck, Mabel-as a rowdy classroom full of kids on their "study period" made noise behind her.
"I don't know! It's great. This is great. Everything that's happened this summer, it's been awesome. I don't know why I'm not happy with it."
"You need to turn that worry-wart brain off," Mabel said, miming flicking a switch on her head. "Bwop! Like that. It's not like when we were fighting Bill anymore, Dipper. You can stop freaking out about everything now. Good stuff can happen to you without needing a reason."
"Not like when we were fighting Bill…" Dipper repeated under his breath. "Bill's still out there though, Mabel, planning who-knows-what. And now if I need to fight him, you're not here."
"I can be there whenever you want, though. It's not a long bus ride."
'Whenever I want.' "You'd put your life on hold like that? I thought you made a bunch of new school friends," Dipper said with a frown toward the camera. "Didn't you say you were throwing a party to impress that guy you've got a crush on this week?"
"My bro-bro's more important than some guy," Mabel said with a grin. "After this summer? I trust your judgment, Dipper. If you think a mystery that needs solving is more important than my party, I'll be there in an instant. Got it?" She pointed a finger at the camera, obviously thinking it was the proper pose for an endearingly cute sibling.
Dipper laughed. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mabel. I can always count on you."
"Anytime. Though not now, because-" She was interrupted by a bell ringing, signaling the end of the period. "-That's why. Gotta go, love you, have fun with the jackalope hunting!" She signed off quickly.
Dipper frowned at the screen, Mabel's last words ringing in his mind. So many things people said lately were striking him as somehow off. Dipper pulled out his notebook, the one he'd started taking notes on whenever there was a mystery he wanted to figure out without Ford's help. Already, it had meandering lines of scribbled pieces of evidence. Specifically, that everyone in Gravity Falls seemed to insist on doing whatever Dipper wanted.
That was weird.
No, really, it was weird. Dipper was used to people steamrolling over his needs. Stan was too concerned with making money, Ford was too involved in his research and keeping secrets, Mabel was too obsessed with guys and friends and whatever else went on in Mabel-land. They were a good family but they weren't usually this attentive. And, Dipper had to admit to himself, he tended to blow things out of proportion. Mabel especially was his anchor. She didn't normally encourage Dipper when he worked himself into a frenzy about the supernatural.
Flipping a page, Dipper started a new column.
Good things
He chewed on his pencil and started listing off the good things that had happened to him at the end of the summer, the streak of luck that had piled on him all at once.
Ford's apprenticeship
Mabel OK with moving
Stan keeps Shack
Bill gone (for now?)
Grew a few inches
WENDY LIKES ME
Mabel willing to skip party for me
The eraser was chewed off of his pencil already. Dipper added more.
Grunkle Ford nicer
W-
He stopped writing when he heard Stan call up the stairs. "Hey, Dipper! Ford's dragged out that nerd game. The one with the graphs? Turned you into an elf boy that one time? We ordered pizza. Wanna play with us while we're waiting on it?"
Dipper scribbled Stan likes nerd things? before he called down the stairs. "Be right down!"
3 AM. Dipper hadn't slept this badly in months. He was staring at his notes, wracking his brain for anything to add or any pattern that might emerge.
The big question, or at least the most pressing, was where Bill had gone. Dipper couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that the last time he'd seen him, Bill was planning something huge. Something awful. Something that didn't go away in a single night.
Last week, Dipper had managed to slip past Ford, Stan, Soos, and Wendy-a surprisingly difficult endeavor-to snoop for anything suspicious around town. He'd even stooped to visiting Lil' Gideon in prison, but Bill's former partner denied having seen him at all (and, weirdly, insisted on knowing whether Dipper wanted to find him or not).
Dipper had a half-baked suspicion. But it was a dark suspicion, a bad one and an impossible thing that would get everyone to call him crazy if he said it. Everyone, even Mabel, would think he'd gone off the deep end.
Once Dipper had read a story about a kid who explored a magical world through reason and deduction. One thing, said the character, that a lot of sleuths ignored when trying to figure out an answer was the possibility that they could be wrong. They made up tests for hypotheses based only on proving them right. In other words, they assumed boundaries without bothering to check that they were there.
Dipper thought that his idea was wrong. He knew it was wrong-the alternative was too terrible to contemplate. But he had to test it anyway, if only for peace of mind.
"Hey, Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked innocently one day after the Mystery Shack had just closed for the night.
"Yeah?" Stan pushed up his fez as he tore his eyes from the cash drawer he'd been checking.
"I saw this magnifying glass set at the store the other day," Dipper said. He didn't look Stan in the eyes, just scratching the wood grain of the counter in front of him. "Grunkle Ford has a set but it's getting old and I'd rather have my own. It was pretty expensive though. Do you think you could buy it for me?"
"...Sure. You've put in enough work around the Shack. I guess you deserve a paycheck of some kind. I'll go buy it tonight," Stan said with a grunt as he pulled off his suit jacket and stretched.
Dipper nodded, thanking him, and scribbled down a note when his grunkle wasn't looking.
"Grunkle Ford?"
"What is it, Dipper?" The aged researcher looked up from a slide sample of antler in his lab. His eyebrows creased above his glasses.
"I know we were gonna spend next week looking for nests…" Dipper fidgeted in his seat. "But I really miss Mabel. Is it okay if I invite her over so we can have a weekend sleepover?"
"Dipper," Ford said tersely. "Jackalope only pair off annually. We won't have a chance to do this again until next year."
"Yeah, I know, the famous jackalopelope. But this is really important to me. Please?"
"Well…" Ford smiled. It made his face look younger. "I guess we can put off the research for a while if that's what you want."
"It is, thanks. I'll call her and tell her." He chewed the flesh on the inside of his cheek as he walked away. Dipper waited to add a line to his notebook until he was back on the ground floor.
"Mabel?"
"Dipper, why are you calling me in the middle of the night?" Mabel sounded bleary.
"You picked up, didn't you?" Dipper smiled. "I know you said you were meeting a guy this weekend-"
"Yeah, Chris and I have our first date!" she said excitedly.
"-but I really want you to come over to the Falls for the weekend instead. Will you do that for me?"
Silence on the line for a few seconds. Then, "Sure, Dipper. I'll be there. Let me wake up Mom and Dad to buy the bus tickets."
Dipper felt his heart sink. He hung up without a word of thanks.
"Wendy?"
"Dipper! Hey! Did you decide yet?" Wendy put down the Work-Shirk Teen magazine she had been flipping through. No customers in the Shack yet again.
"Not yet." Dipper's smile was awkward. "I actually have a favor to ask from you."
She folded her arms and leaned forward across the counter. "Yeah? What is it?"
"Mabel's coming over this weekend." Dipper's face was hot. He tried not to look at her. "Can you pick up all my shifts for me?"
"Stan doesn't pay you for those shifts." Wendy raised her eyebrows. "I'd be working for free."
Dipper had the good sense to look bashful. "I know, I'm sorry, I just wanted to-"
"Don't say a word. I know how much you miss Mabel." Wendy reached over to nudge Dipper in the side. "Have a good time and that's all the pay I'll need, okay?"
One last test. One last test was all he needed. Dipper rolled up his sleeves as he stepped into Greasy's Diner. The refurbished manliness tester stood before him in all its intimidating glory. Dipper fished a penny out of his pocket and started the machine up, reaching for the handle with a trembling hand.
As soon as he touched it, before he even squeezed the handle properly, the bulbs lit up. "MANLY MAN," the sign proclaimed beside a triumphant blinking light bulb. The whole diner had twisted in their seats to watch Dipper's attempt. They all clapped as Lazy Susan brought out Dipper's free stack of pancakes.
Dipper had a smile frozen on his face.
That was it. His worst fears confirmed and served to him on a silver syrup-drizzled platter.
When he got home, Dipper tore every page out of his notebook. After a moment of hesitation, he stuck them in his mouth and chewed. At this point, there was no telling who could read what he was writing. He'd have to plan this out mentally from now on.
The fun-filled weekend with Mabel was distractingly pleasant. Dipper, much to his shame, didn't even have to fake his laughter when her centaurtaur managed to somehow win a battle on its own in DD&MD or as they pored over Dipper and Ford's weirder journal entries together. He waved at her bus as it drove back to California, watching her silhouetted arm wave back enthusiastically until she was driven out of sight.
Dipper turned his back on the road, his face settled into an expression of grim determination.
"It's time to go to the library," he said to himself. He winced. The sentence had sounded braver and more impressive in his head, he decided as he walked the short distance to the building.
Dipper was well-acquainted with the occult section. Gravity Falls had a better-stocked bookcase of the supernatural than most libraries did, given the town's history. Dipper piled them on a table. A Complete Encyclopedia of Ghosts & Spirits; Vampires and How to Kill Them; Symbols of the Occult; Banishing Rituals; Supernatural Sleep; Bodysnatchers: A Memoir; Zombies, Goblins, and Gods, Oh My!; Is Your Loved One Possessed?; Werewolves in the Night; Controlling Your Destiny Through Lucid Dreaming; Brainwashing Your Way to A Career in Advertising; My Wife Joined A Secret Society!; Welcome to Necronomi-Con!; Haunted Paintings in Oregon; Wake Up! Chilling Tales of Coma Victims; Feeding Habits of Mating Jackalopes, or Nope, Jackalope Can't Elope Without Cantaloupe.
He only needed a few of the books here. The rest he chose to divert suspicion from whoever might see what he was reading. Because of this, he had to spend an unfortunate amount of his research time reading books he didn't need at all (including the werewolf book which, to his horror, he belatedly realized was a romance novel). The pile of books and pieces of information he had to go through made his heart sink with pent-up frustration, though his blood started to pump when he scanned the relevant lines that had meshed with his theories. It made this excursion worthwhile. His afternoon at the library was well-spent. Dipper found out what he needed to know.
It wasn't good news.
He'd have to wait. He'd have to wait for a cavalry that, as far as he knew, would never come. It had already been over a month-how much longer? From what he read, he might experience fifty years before someone came to get him, or he might never get rescued at all.
Dipper returned all his books to the to-be-shelved cart and left the library for home, defeated. Stars twinkled above him, looking as lively and real as anything.
His life was perfect. He had everything he wanted.
Dipper dragged his feet as he trudged back home. He ignored his two grunkles' words of welcome and invitations to spend the evening however he wanted. He climbed into bed and pulled his sheets over his head. At some point he started chewing on his shirt, but he passed out in the wee hours of the morning.
What a great life.