I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope you all enjoy reading it, too!

Once again, I'd like to thank my beta PhoenixWillowsRox88! She makes my life much easier - you should all go check out her own work, she's a fabulous writer!

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravity Falls.


The next few days were full of waiting. Dipper still came and went. He asked questions a lot, but Gideon for the most part could only answer with an 'I don't know,' or a 'why don't you ask Bill yourself,' if he was feeling particularly crotchety that day. He brought food and drink with him, changed his bandages, and even gave him a couple of books to read to pass the time. Gideon was beginning to think he was going to be stuck here forever.

The door swung open, Dipper's tall frame appearing in the doorway. "I brought you some crutches," he said as he walked down the stairs. Gideon sat up in his bed, letting his arms hold his weight.

"Where did you find these?" He demanded. "And why didn't you hand 'em over sooner?"

Dipper shrugged. "Think of it as a..." He paused to think, brows scrunching downwards. "A show of acquaintanceship. I can't trust you – doubt I ever will, but this is better than fighting. We're on the same side now, Gideon. A little bit of mobility is the least I can do after shooting you in the leg, I guess."

Gideon just huffed, taking the crutches from him and pushing the cushioned area of the crutches under his armpits. He pushed the ends against the ground, clenching his teeth and hissing as he finally managed to pull himself into a standing position.

It was a relief to be up and moving again. Blood started to flow back into his joints and muscles. He sighed softly, wriggling the toes on his good foot.

"Now this is gonna be a struggle, but you need to get upstairs."

"What?"

I said you need to get-"

"No, I heard you, but I thought you were keepin' me down here?"

Dipper pursed his lips. "I don't want you dying on me or something, and I know my doctor won't want to drag all of her stuff down here. So up you go to get looked at properly."

Gideon scowled at him with annoyance. "You're a pain."

Dipper smirked at him in response, but the expression fell quickly, and he indicated the stairs with a tip of his head. "Go."

Struggling at first, he finally found a good pattern to move in, hobbling on one foot over to the stairs. Dipper's hand rested on his shoulder, helping him move up the stairs. Dipper shoved the door open with his foot, and with a pleased sigh, Gideon stepped out of the stuffy basement.

He sniffed, brows drawing downwards. "What's that smell?"

"Oh, that's you, Gideon. You smell like a skunk farm," Dipper replied. "Once you get checked up I've got a few things I want to clear up with you, and then you can have a good scrub down. Perks of not being undesirable number one - well, two."

"Oh, thanks, I appreciate your concern," he shot back with a scowl. "You don't have any hairspray, d'you?"

The small, but wicked smile that pulled at Dipper's lips didn't bode well at all. Gideon felt his scowl strengthen when he didn't get an answer to his question.
Dipper stopped Gideon's limping movements with one hand in front of him before knocking on a hard wooden door.

There was no movement for a moment, and then the door was pulled open. A pair of huge eyes behind a pair of crooked glasses met his own startled blues.
"Gideon Gleeful?" A girl with a light Korean accent said in a shocked tone.

Gideon's eyes flickered up to Dipper, who for some reason, was smirking superiorly down at him, eyes narrowed.

"I don't understand," he said.

Dipper's brows rose mockingly. "Oh, so you don't recognize Candy?"

Candy…Candy Chiu?

He recognized her now, a strange black-haired girl. A friend of Mabel's.

Gideon straightened. "Mah band of merry men-"

"Say that again and I'll cut you," Dipper cut across.

"-mah band of…eh, prisoners didn't capture you?"

Candy blinked at him, adjusting a pair of cracked, circular glasses on her button nose. "Clearly. Close calls though."

Dipper nudged Gideon inside, hard enough that he nearly lost one of his crutches to the floor. "But if you think we're just gonna explain our life stories to you, you've got another thing coming. Sit down."

Gideon plopped down on a low bed, putting the crutches down. "Okay. Understandable, but at least tell me where ya'll got all this medicine stuff." The room - a converted bathroom - was stocked full of a number of items and equipment he couldn't name. He spotted a bag of medical tape tossed on top of the counter, a tub of needles next to it, and sets of rolled up bandages. Gideon eyed an open cooler on the ground, stocked full of blood bags. He decided not to think about where it had all come from.

Candy was unwinding the bandages on his legs, and he grimaced, fighting back against the way she was jostling the injury around, a little too purposefully in his opinion. "We raid," Candy said.

"Raids?"

"Yeah, raids," Dipper said, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. He jammed his hands into his pockets. "You know, breaking and entering, stealing whatever we want. Usually it's a pinch, but things get really bothersome if we get attacked by monsters or another group."

"Another group?"

"Uh huh – it wasn't just my faction in Bend for a long time. But the other few that were scattered around are gone now." Dipper and Candy shared a look that sent a slight chill up Gideon's spine.

Gideon opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but he let out a shrill scream instead. Candy had a piece of cloth pressed hard against the wound in his leg, a bottle of rubbing alcohol in her other hand. "Slight infection," she said, more to Dipper than him.

Dipper grinned unapologetically. "Oops."

Face flushed red, Gideon squeezed his eyes shut. Damn that hurt. His leg hadn't been hurting quite so much for a while now, but it was like the wound had been reopened, acid poured over it.

"I am surprised that bullet didn't pass through," Candy noted, patting his leg lightly, despite the cracking squeal at the back of his throat. "Lucky you, fat legs!"

"Mah legs ain't fat!" He spluttered.

"Fat enough. Oink oink."

Gideon opened his eyes in time to see Dipper's shoulders stop shaking, expression full of mirth.

That asswipe is enjoying this, isn't he?

He chose to sulk rather than rise to the bait, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes watered against the pain in his leg, but the bite to the rubbing alcohol was starting to die down. Candy was winding fresh bandages around the injury. As she worked, she began to smile – just a little bit, but it was enough to coil his gut at the sense of oncoming danger.

"What's goin' on?" He demanded as Dipper suddenly took a step closer. He was spinning a pocket knife in his hands, and when the sharp blade suddenly snapped up, Gideon felt true, raw fear erupt in his belly.

"It's gotta go, Gideon," he said. His dark brown eyes had come to rest on his messy white hair.

"No!" He said with dawning horror. Dipper was grinning like a maniac, and Candy was giggling under her breath, and this was worse than the hole in his leg.

"Not mah hair, anythin' but mah hair!"

He begged.

Dipper shook his head, tutting gently. Gideon's eyes followed the knife as he spun it around and through his fingers. "Stands out too much – you want to die?" He asked. "Because that's what going to happen if you stick out like a sore thumb."

"Please, Dipper – I'll give you anythin'! Just please don't touch mah hair!"

"Sorry, I can't hear you!" Dipper said, voice rising over his pleads. "Candy, did you hear anything?"

"No, Dipper, I did not!" She replied cheerfully.

The knife took against his hair. "Then I guess we don't have any problems!" One quick swipe later, and a horrified gasp tore past Gideon's lips, long strands of snow curls fluttering to the ground.

He was sure his cries could be heard miles away, but it wasn't like he could run away anywhere. Instead, he settled with gripping Dipper's arm, trying to stop his arm and keep it away from him. The older teenager seemed to barely notice his protests, both vocal and physical, and continued to saw through the white mess. Candy's black hair was being covered in pieces of white. She picked out a couple of strands, throwing them into the air.

"Winter wonderland!" She said enthusiastically, shaking her head of the remaining wisps.

All Gideon could do was watch in horror. It felt like part of him had been stepped on and crushed. His hands slipped away from Dipper's arm, and the older teen increased his cutting with a more rigorous vigor.

After some time, the floor and the bed carpeted in his snow white tresses, Dipper stopped. "Whew. That took longer than I thought."

"And…voila!" Candy said, spinning on the back of her feet and shoving a mirror in front of his face.

Gideon felt like crying all over again. It was far too short. Dipper apparently wasn't feeling hateful enough to make him bald, but his hair was flat and lifeless and oh, it was so horrible!

"Dude. You're blubbering like a girl."

Candy harrumphed at him, and he quirked the smallest of smiles. "Sorry – like a girly stereotype."

"YOU CUT OFF MAH HAIR HOW AM I MEANT TO REACT!?"

"Oh, we aren't done yet," Candy noted, fixing her glasses on her nose.

"Oh no, you thought that was all?" Dipper added, eyebrows rising. Gideon paled significantly.

"White hair…much too obvious," Candy said.

"What fourteen year old has white hair?"

"The ones who work for Bill-" She was taking far too much enjoyment out of how uncomfortable he was.

"-and we just can't have someone figuring out that you're the Gideon Gleeful: Bill Cipher's feared lieutenant." Dipper wasn't any better, his voice sly.
Gideon felt weak, quaking where he sat – not because of his leg, no, but from the way Candy was shaking a pack of black hair dye in his face.

"Oh heavens to Betsy…" he murmured. He felt his body give out from under him, black dots clouding his vision, and then he was out like a light.


He awoke to the sensation of being thrown into the Antarctic Ocean. With a gasp, he sat up, eyes blown wide. Dipper was standing over him, Candy next to him with an empty mug in her hands.

"Again?" Dipper asked.

"No!" Gideon panicked, waving his arms quickly in front of his face. He brushed his arm over his eyes to stop water from dripping into them. His hair felt light against his head despite how clogged and wet it was. With a pang of horror, he remembered Dipper slicing it off, and then Candy waving a box in his face.

"You didn't," he mumbled with muted repulsion.

"You look goth! It does not suit you!" Candy said cheerfully, heading across the room to the bathtub.

"I hate you. I really really hate you, Dipper Pines," Gideon bit out miserably.

The expression on Dipper's face shifted from playful humor to cruel sadism. "Let me be perfectly clear, Gideon," he said quietly, leaning down into Gideon's face. His voice spoke like a snake eyeing prey; soft, hypnotic, sinister. "You are nothing to me but a household of information. Once that information well dries up, what do you think is going to happen to you?"

Gideon swallowed thickly.

"That's right," his eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he had heard a particularly good joke. "So if you want to stay in the realm of the living, I suggest you fall in line. Things for you will be much more pleasant for you if you just accept it and move on." The corner of his mouth pulled at the corner, curling up in disgust. "Or I can break you, in every single sense of the word. I'm not a fan of puppets myself…" His whole face seemed to tighten, the pull at his mouth dropping back into something neither a smile nor a frown. "But if that's what I have to do to make sure you're stuck with me until every single last drop of information has been drilled out of you, then that's what I'll do."

Dipper straightened his back, Gideon's eyes watchful and wary on him.

Before Dipper could back away, to leave him to mull over his words, he uttered, "You're just like Bill, you know. You're as much of a monster as he is."

To his credit, Dipper didn't really react to the harassment. Instead, he said something Gideon wasn't sure he was fully prepared to hear – not from someone who'd always seemed so firmly on the side of what was decent and noble. "Good." His face was slack, giving nothing away. Candy was watching them intently from where she was gathering up some bags of saline. "I read somewhere once…that 'he who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. But I don't think that's true. Sometimes the best way – the only way to fight them is to become one yourself."

Did he just not care? No - that wasn't right, of course he did. Unless what he'd said to him about Mabel had been all some elaborate ploy to pull him onto his side.

"I know who I am, Gideon," he continued. His eyes fell on Candy, whose face had been plastered with a strange expression, one that spoke of strength and understanding. "And I might not like what I've had to do to get here, but I've accepted it. This just isn't a war we can afford to lose... and sometimes the only way to battle a great evil is to fight fire with fire."

"Or burn to the ground trying," Candy recited with a firm nod.

"Or burn to the ground trying," Dipper murmured back.

"That…that ain't no way to live," Gideon argued bitterly.

"Sure it's not. But it is a way to die."

Gideon fell silent, pulling his good leg up onto the bed. Dipper breathed in deep, let it out, and said, "Right. We have a bath set up for you. You'll have to keep your leg out of the water, and make sure you wash your hair well. There are some clean clothes and a towel out already, so make use of those, okay? I'm sure you can handle moving around yourself. Once you're done, head down to the last door at the end of the hallway – someone will help you out with getting some food and water in you. After that…" His hand clenched around the shooting star key. "After that, we'll discuss what happens next. See you soon."

Dipper turned and left, Candy a second behind him. Gideon stared at the door they'd walked out of.

He felt trapped between a rock and a hard place – it was Bill or Dipper, and the latter wasn't proving himself to be a better option at the moment.

Letting out a puff of air, and picking himself up on his crutches, he pushed the thought way. At least he had one thing going for him at the moment. If he could hold onto as much information as he could, then Dipper would keep him around.

It was better than just trying to get by, at the very least.


I really liked writing the whole psyche stuff in this chapter. If you're interested, the reason Candy is in this fic is because I needed a character who could play the role of the doctor within Dipper's group (he isn't super human, he can't do everything after all), and I wasn't too keen on creating an OC for such a integral character. How Dipper and Candy managed to band together will be explained in later chapters!

Thanks for reading and reviewing guys, and I'll see you next time!