Chapter Text
The mindscape was as bleak as always: a monochromatic universe highlighted in color only by Dipper’s own physical form. He had grown oddly accustomed to seeing the Gravity Falls woods blanketed in static and void of pigment.
The trees towered over him in shades of black and gray, looming in a way that would have unsettled someone unfamiliar with the otherworld that Dipper had come to know in his sleep. But this was his mind, and he knew every inch of it like the back of his hand. He was in control.
Or at least that’s what he told himself.
After the nightmares had started at the beginning of the summer, Dipper had been spending more and more time in his mindscape rather than inactively dreaming. Over the years, he had become skilled at being able to easily enter his mindscape in his sleep. It was nearly the same as dreaming. His body certainly slept while he did it, but he always woke up to find himself feeling much less rested than if he had just taken the easy road and put his brain into autopilot. Still, being forced to take caffeine pills and drink coffee was a small price to pay in exchange for not having to helplessly endure a repetitive dream in which he always ended up dead.
The nightmares didn’t stop. They followed him into the mindscape. But at least here he knew that it wasn’t real.
But tonight was not the norm. He had forced himself to wake up several times, entering and reentering the mindscape over and over again, trying to correct a flaw that had never occurred before. His mindscape seemed broken- it looked to be looping the same patch of forest over and over again, never reaching the end of the map. Like a glitch in a video game, Dipper could only get to a certain area before the mindscape shifted and he was back to where he started. The manor that Dipper knew was hidden away in a clearing exactly one hundred paces north of his usual phasing spot- the manor that housed all of Dipper's memories- was nowhere to be found.
While the scenario unnerved him, he tried to rationalize it to the best of his abilities. This was his mind. Ultimately, he was the one with power here; anything was possible if he could imagine it, and he attempted to do just that. He pictured himself phasing right in front of the manor, and when he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and felt something flicker, he believed that he had done it. But when he opened his eyes again, he was still on the same path, surrounded by the same trees.
After what felt like hours of wandering (but probably wasn’t, as time flowed much differently within the mindscape), Dipper’s blood ran cold. He physically stopped dead in his tracks, spinning around on pure instinct, ready to face an unseen adversary that he knew was there. As expected, the path was empty, but the air felt heavier and Dipper knew what was coming.
I should just wake myself now, he thought.
And get no sleep at all? the more logical, sleep-deprived part of him argued. After all, he had no idea if it was morning or if he’d only been sleeping for a few minutes.
Dipper decided to wait it out, turning on his heel and quickening his pace. If he could just find the manor, then maybe he’d be safe from whatever his nightmares had in store for him tonight. He knew it wasn’t probable, as whatever invisible force was haunting him seemed to have no problem with burning down the manor while he was inside or creating a vision of his sister throwing herself off the balcony, but it still gave him more of a false sense of security. With walls around him, at least he wouldn’t be out in the open, exposed on all sides.
And then, out of nowhere, came the smoke, wrapping around him like vines on a trellis. It startled him enough that he stumbled to a stop, whirling around. Sure enough, the entire forest behind him was now cloaked in a heavy black smog that hadn't been there moments before. There was no fire in sight. "Shit," Dipper mumbled to himself, and the smoke, seeming almost sentient, took the opportunity to surge into his mouth. He coughed, eyes watering, and pulled the collar of his flannel shirt up over his mouth. The smoke overcame him in seconds, and he took off running.
It only took a second for his foot to become snagged on something and he fell ungracefully, gritting his teeth as his palms scraped on the ground. An instant panic set in as he realized there was no way he could have tripped over a fallen branch or overgrown root- the path in his mindscape was bare of them. Dipper was too much of a klutz in his real life to take the risk in his mind.
His arms and legs failed him, refusing to comply with his orders to push himself up. Instead, he remained paralyzed, fully capable of feeling his limbs but not able to make them work. Though he knew this was only happening in the mindscape and that he wasn't in any actual danger, the fear that struck him was completely real. He started to wonder if it was possible that he would panic enough that he would actually have a heart attack and die in his sleep at age eighteen.
Wake up, he urged himself. When he couldn't, the anxiety worsened.
The smoke covered him, seeming to force itself right into his mouth. It burned both his throat and his eyes, just as painfully as it would have if it was real. His palms still stung with the impact of the ground and when he raised one hand to cover his mouth, he tasted a mix of rust and dirt that really shouldn't have been so vivid within a universe that he was supposed to control.
Wake up, wake up, wake up. The voice echoing in his ears was not his, but at this point Dipper was far too oxygen-deprived to worry anymore.
He saw a figure emerging out of the ash just as the smoke intensified and cut off the scream before it left his throat.
Dipper was awake before he hit the ground, but knocking his head against the hardwood floor did serve as further proof of his consciousness. He sat up with a groan, rubbing at the back of his head and imagining the bump that will have formed by morning. Breathing normally now felt strange, as if there was too much air and his lungs just couldn't adjust.
It was only seconds later that his door opened slowly, and he could see his twin’s figure even in the darkness of the room. “Dipper?” she asked quietly. When he didn’t respond quickly enough, she shut the door behind her and crossed the room, going immediately for the lamp on the desk.
When the room flooded with light, Dipper raised an arm to shield his eyes as Mabel exclaimed, “Dipper, what are you doing on the floor?”
Dipper rolled his eyes as she extended a hand to help him up, laying the sarcasm on thick and deadpanning, “Oh, I just thought it would be comfortable.” In reality, he was shaking so hard that he didn't think he would have stood back up on his own until morning.
Mabel frowned at him, sitting on the edge of his bed. He followed suit, his eyes landing on the clock. Just past four in the morning. He didn’t see himself getting back to sleep any time soon. “You okay, bro-bro?” Mabel murmured quietly, looking at him with wide eyes that were far too awake for this hour of the day.
“Yeah,” Dipper lied. His voice sounded hoarse, as if the effects of the smoke had carried over into the waking world. “Just another nightmare.”
“Dipper, I don’t think that counts as okay,” Mabel stressed, sounding upset. He could tell that she was fighting to not hug him, as the last time she had attempted that after one of his nightmares, he had lashed out and basically thrown himself to the other side of the room in an attempt to escape the contact. Mabel had understood, of course, but it didn’t make Dipper feel any less bad about it.
This situation was made so much worse by the knowledge that Mabel would be gone in just a few hours. Dipper’s chest burned when he remembered that his alarm was set to go off in a few hours so he could get ready to go with Grunkle Stan to take Mabel to the airport for her afternoon flight. Because she was leaving. They were going to be separated for the first time since birth. And, also for the first time, Dipper was going to be alone in Gravity Falls.
Mabel had been accepted to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She was, as Dipper had always suspected, planning to get her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in Fashion Design. It was her dream school, and their parents were delighted at the idea that their daughter would only be a few hours away and could easily drive or take a bus home if need be.
They were slightly less thrilled at Dipper’s decision to return to Gravity Falls indefinitely after six summers (seven, counting this one) there to attend a community college in the next town over.
After years of debating with himself about what he really wanted to be, Mabel had finally pushed Dipper to pursue what he had known was his passion all along: writing. He had won several essay-related competitions at the state level during his junior and senior years of high school, and for once, Dipper had felt confident in his abilities. He moved on to occasionally write pieces for a local gazette, but still remained anonymous. If the kids at his high school had known that he was the one writing tales of demons and zombies under a coded pseudonym that actually translated directly to his name, he would have gotten bullied even more than he already had been for being the nose-always-stuck-in-a-book kid.
His parents had been more than worried by his sudden interest in all things supernatural after his first summer in Gravity Falls. After the twins’ second trip there, they had become hesitant to send them there at all, even going as far as to have an angry, hushed conversation with Grunkle Stan over the phone when they thought Dipper and Mabel were asleep. As a result, Dipper toned down his interests while around his parents; they would never believe him, anyway. He couldn’t allow his impulsiveness to ruin this for himself or for Mabel.
His parents weren’t the only ones worried for him, but Mabel didn’t even attempt to hide her concern. It was different, though, communicated to him by a tight hug before he left for the woods and an even tighter hug when he returned. He never missed the small sigh of relief and the look in her eyes that made it clear that she thought that one of these days, Dipper wouldn’t return. Her worry overpowered even the awkwardness that came from sibling affection.
Mabel may have wanted to come with him, but after an incident when they were fifteen and Mabel ended up close to death as a result of Dipper's inattention, he decided it was for the best that he go adventuring alone. The incident resulted in a horrible scar down the side of Mabel's face and many, many heated arguments, but it still ended with Dipper absolutely forbidding his twin ever come with him again. For her own good. Mabel still helped him with research (by going over his notes in what she called his “nerd books”), but field work he did alone.
By the time Dipper turned sixteen, he had stopped trying to figure out what the inhabitants of Gravity Falls were and spent more time delving into the why. He had read the Author’s Journal like a bible and devoted more time than was necessarily healthy to trying to figure out all of its secrets. He had put it under every color black light that existed, scrubbed mixtures of lemon juice and natural herbs onto blank pages, and even tried several spells on it in desperate hopes that it would yield more information. It never did, though, and Dipper had long since filled the remaining pages with his own research in case something were to happen to him and the Journal was to fall into somebody else’s hands.
He had had more than his fair share of his own near-death experiences, most of which he opted not to share with his twin. But it was all important. It was all for research.
Though he was writing through a fictitious guise, Dipper put nothing but the cold, hard truth into his writing. His attic room at the Mystery Shack housed two full bookshelves stocked with every even semi-reliable piece of information he’d even been able to find on demonology, incantations, and the paranormal in general. Every book had been leafed through, dog-eared, and filled with Dipper’s own notes scribbled into what little margin space had been left by its previous owners.
He had started getting into cryptography after his first summer in Gravity Falls. It was necessary to decipher certain messages written in the Journal and carved into trees deep in the woods. He knew Caesarian and Atbash like a second and third language now. He could write it as fast as he could write English, and he could decode it in just a few seconds more. Vigenère took him a bit longer, but he now had a tabula recta printed out and taped to the top of his desk, along with a laminated one glued into the back of the Journal.
He had been forced to learn Latin after he messed up an incantation and, not for the first time, ended up summoning creatures far more dangerous than the ones he had wanted to. It was Mabel who eventually directed him to an online tutor, saying that she, “didn’t want him getting killed because he was too lazy to study.” While he hated to admit it, Mabel had been right, and learning Latin fully definitely helped with his research.
But he had another intention past just researching for writing: protecting the Shack and his family.
Over the last few summers, the Mystery Shack had been subject to more and more attacks by varying supernatural creatures. Mabel saw all of the incidents as being pure coincidence, and Stan refused to acknowledge them altogether. But Dipper knew they were there, and he knew enough about this town to recognize that nothing was coincidence.
He just didn’t know why.
"Dip?" Mabel asked quietly, shaking his knee and bringing him back into reality. He offered her a weak, forced smile, and she sighed but returned it nonetheless. He leaned against her, and she took it as an affirmative to snake her arm around him and give him a quick squeeze.
It admittedly served to ground him a bit, and he smiled for real. "Thanks," he said softly as she pulled her arm away. He knew that she knew that he was thanking her for much more than just the hug.
"What are you gonna do without me?" she teased. Her brown eyes shone in the little light provided by the lamp. They would have been a perfect mirror of Dipper’s were they not so bright and hopeful.
"I don't know," Dipper replied, serious, before they sighed in unison. The tense atmosphere of the room was replaced by a sad, nostalgic one.
He didn't blame Mabel for leaving, just like she didn't blame him for staying in Gravity Falls. He had managed to mostly put the thought of her coming absence out of his mind for the majority of the summer. But the thought that she was leaving loomed over him every time he remembered Mabel packing her bags for her usual summer trip while Dipper had packed up everything he owned.
Mabel crossed her legs and turned to face him and, after a prompting glare from his sister, Dipper did the same. “Do you want to talk about the dream?” she murmured, her eyes burning into his.
The boy shook his head. “Just more of the same.” Not that that answer really cleared anything up for Mabel. Dipper hadn’t elected to give her many details of any of the nightmares since they started occurring at the beginning of the summer. Besides, the dreams never ended the same way; the only consistency was that Dipper always ended up dying, normally in gruesome ways. He really didn’t want her to know that, and he especially didn’t want her to know that a Dream Mabel was also always in constant danger in the nightmares. After the first time Dipper was subject to watching his sister have her heart ripped out by a gargoyle, he had thrown himself into his dream research twice as hard.
He could tell that Mabel was itching to interrogate him further, but she respected her twin’s privacy enough not to push him. One of the hardest things that Dipper had ever done had been deciding to keep the knowledge of his dangerous activities from his sister. He knew it hurt her to know that her brother was keeping secrets from her when they had always told each other everything, and it hurt him, too. But there was something going on that was bigger than just him. Bigger than just Gravity Falls. And he couldn’t involve Mabel in that (though she’d probably hit him if she found out that he was lying for her protection).
She sighed once more. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking a bit. He could feel her pain as clearly as his own, but her desire to make him feel better sparked a warm, familial feeling in his chest. “I wish I could h-” Mabel’s eyes widened all of a sudden, and she jumped off the bed so quickly that Dipper couldn’t help but flinch at the sound of her feet hitting the floor. “Be right back!” she called, already halfway across the room. She also flipped on the bedroom light on her way out, and Dipper groaned and pulled a pillow over his eyes. After a moment, he leaned over towards the desk to turn off the lamp and pulled his glasses onto his face, blinking as the world became clearer.
When she returned a minute later, she was carrying a small white gift box, to which Dipper raised an eyebrow. Mabel frowned and practically shouted, “Close your eyes!” as she unceremoniously slammed the door behind her. Dipper inwardly cringed, not imagining that Grunkle Stan would take well to being woken up at this ungodly hour, but complied and shut his eyes nonetheless.
Dipper smiled when he felt the bed dip with Mabel’s weight and the gift box land in his lap. He knew that Mabel expected him to open his eyes then, so of course he kept them shut instead, grinning when his sister eventually made a noise of frustration and slapped his arm. “Open it!” she whined.
Dipper opened his eyes and pulled the lid off of the box, slightly nervous about its contents. He really wasn’t prepared to get up and clean excessive amounts of glitter off his bed at four in the morning. He was pleasantly surprised when the top of the box showed no glitter, and rather just a plain piece of red tissue paper. He gently pushed the paper to the side, pulling out the box’s contents.
It’s a dreamcatcher, was Dipper’s first thought, and his second thought was, Wow.
It was obviously homemade- it had Mabel written all over it, and not in the gaudy, over-the-top way that sometimes influenced her handmade clothing. And while Dipper didn’t know the slightest thing about crafts, it was clear that she had put hours of time and effort into it. He ran his fingers lightly over the wood, shocked at the convoluted designs carved into it that had to have been made with a precision knife. The web-like design in the middle was woven intricately, and Dipper continued to be amazed at the thought of how much work his sister must have put into it.
“Do you like it? I hope you like it. I started making it after our first week here this summer, after your nightmares wouldn’t stop. I almost didn’t get it done in time. I wasn’t going to give it to you until morning, but technically it’s already morning, so,” Mabel babbled on, wringing her hands nervously as if there was some chance that Dipper wouldn’t love it.
“Mabel,” he cut her off, and she looked up at him with hopeful eyes. “Of course I like it. God, I love it. I can’t believe you...” He stared at the thing once more, turning it over in his hands. It was beautiful. “And I’m sure this isn’t half-assed, either,” he joked. “But… do these things actually work?”
“Of course they work!” Mabel cried, her eyes wide and shining with wonder, a look that Dipper had grown used to over the years. “Bad dreams are supposed to pass through hole in the center and be cleansed.”
Dipper smiled, and while he liked the idea, he was thinking more about how ineffective it would probably be in the mindscape. Mabel must have read the hesitancy on his face, for she quickly added, “And it won’t work if you don’t believe in its properties.”
Dipper snorted at that, and Mabel crossed her arms across her chest with a serious look. Dipper straightened his face. “Alright, alright. I believe.” Mabel smiled, looking pleased with herself. Dipper examined the dreamcatcher once more, taking notice of the feathers hanging from the bottom. They were long, an angry, bright red at the tips fading down into a softer orange near the bottom. When Dipper ran his fingers over them, it was obvious that they were real. He raised an eyebrow at his twin.
Mabel laughed sheepishly, and Dipper groaned. “What?” he asked, already dreading her answer.
Mabel smiled nervously, beginning to babble again. “Well, traditionally, you’re supposed to use eagle or hawk feathers, and I was going to, but then I thought, ‘No, that’s not Dipper!’ So I decided to go with phoenix feathers instead.”
“Phoenix?”
“Yep! Aren’t they pretty?”
Dipper’s eyes widened and he forced himself to steady his breath before gritting through his teeth, “Mabel, where did you get phoenix feathers?”
“Oh, well, I had borrowed your Journal, and-”
“You what?!”
“And I saw the page you had written on phoenixes, and I knew that was the bird I had to find!” she cried, looking dead serious. Dipper felt as though his heart had stopped the moment she first mentioned the creature, paralyzed at the thought at his sister venturing into the cliffs out by the waterfall and approaching what had to be one of the most dangerous birds Dipper had ever encountered. He couldn’t even bear to ask any more about it. Thinking about his twin in dangerous situations always made him feel as though he was about to have an aneurism.
In the light-flooded room, the scar on Mabel’s face was clearer than ever, starting at the top left of her forehead and going a few inches down to her cheek. A centimeter over and it would have taken out her eye. In the three years since the incident, she had never once tried to cover it.
He grabbed a pillow and shoved his face into it, groaning. “Mabel, you’re going to get yourself killed at college,” he mumbled into it.
She ripped the pillow away from him, tossing it across the room where it hit the wall with a soft thud before falling to the floor. “You’re one to talk,” she pointed out. They both knew she was right, so Dipper didn’t bother to argue.
They chatted absently for a while, and when Mabel yawned, Dipper encouraged her to go back to bed. But his twin just glared at him, punched his arm, and muttered, “I can sleep on the plane, Dipper. But I only have a few hours left with my twin brother.”
Which was how they ended up staying up the rest of the night, laying on Dipper’s bed and bringing up old memories of Gravity Falls. When Mabel brought up the time that Robbie tried to brainwash Wendy, Dipper realized how hard it was for him to believe that six years had passed. Now, Wendy was off at college in Seattle and Robbie was… well, he was still Robbie, and he still lived with his parents.
In fact, not much had actually remained the same since their first summer out here. Soos had ended up marrying his girlfriend Melody and now lived in Portland, from where he occasionally contacted the Pines family. Pacifica Northwest was still the talk of the town, even though she had left a month before to begin her study abroad program in Europe. Even Mabel’s best friends had moved away to go to college.
Gravity Falls had changed, but overall, it was still what it had been when the twins first arrived: a mystery begging to be solved.
-------
“I don’t wanna go,” Mabel wailed into his chest, clinging onto his hoodie. Dipper patted one hand awkwardly on his sister’s back and gave Grunkle Stan a panicked look over her shoulder. His great uncle just shrugged, also looking a bit overwhelmed. Neither of them knew what to do if Mabel cried, and it sounded like she was on the verge of it.
“Yeah you do,” he tried to remind her. She just pulled away and frowned at him, her eyes welling up.
Dipper slipped his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the time. “You need to get going through security, Mabes,” he murmured, though it pained him. Dipper couldn’t remember a time that he and Mabel had spent more than a few days apart. Now he didn’t even know when he would see her again.
As if reading his mind (twin telepathy, duh), Mabel seemed to perk up significantly and happily chirp, “Don’t worry, I’ll fly up here and visit you a lot! On the weekends!”
Dipper laughed. “How are you going to pay for that?” he reminded her.
Mabel huffed, looking determined. “I’ll figure it out. Oh, and I’ll spend winter break here with you for sure!”
“Mabel, I’m pretty sure that Mom and Dad aren’t going to be cool with-”
“Mom and Dad can see me all they want, Dipper!” Mabel cried. “Piedmont is only a few hours’ drive away from Los Angeles! But Gravity Falls is, like, sixteen hours away by car, bro-bro.”
Dipper smiled at his sister’s logic. “Well, I meant more in the way of how Mom and Dad are probably going to want to see me, as well, and that I’ll be the one going to Piedmont for winter break.”
His twin held her resolve for about two seconds before she deflated slightly, looking sheepish. “Oh. Yeah. Right.” She dissolved into giggles, and after a moment, Dipper laughed along.
Grunkle Stan stepped awkwardly between them. “Sorry to break up this moment,” and for once, he actually did sound regretful, “But you really need to get going if you want to make your plane, sweetheart.”
Dipper looked away when Mabel surged forward to hug Stan, letting them have their moment. After a quiet exchange between the two, he gave his sister one last squeeze before shooing her off in the direction of security.
She only made it a few steps before turning back and calling, “I’ll call you when I land!” She offered one more teary smile to her brother, and Dipper returned it before casting his eyes down, not liking how bad they stung. When he looked up again, Mabel was gone, just a bright purple sweater and long brown hair mixed in with a crowd of people.
Stan put a comforting hand on his nephew’s shoulder, and when Dipper looked at the man, he was shocked to see that even his uncle’s eyes looked misty. When he caught Dipper staring, he widened his eyes and quickly rubbed at them with the back of his hand. “Allergies,” he muttered, starting towards the doors, and Dipper followed.
The ride back to Gravity Falls was filled by a comfortable silence. Dipper watched the trees as they drove past, letting his eyes unfocus and enjoying the blur. He was met with sudden images of a monochrome forest full of black smoke, however, and he eventually resolved to just shut his eyes.
“You okay, kid?” Grunkle Stan asked eventually, and when Dipper opened his eyes again, his uncle shot him what almost looked to be a worried glance.
Dipper swallowed. “Yeah,” he forced himself to say. “Just tired.”
Stan frowned, his eyes on the road again. “Dipper, you know you’ll see her again soon. There’s no force in the world that would keep Mabel from coming to see you.”
While that hadn’t actually been what he was worried about, the sentiment did serve to make him feel slightly better, and he smiled. “Yeah, I know, Grunkle Stan. Thanks.”
Stan turned up the radio then, seeming to have reached his emotional toll for the day. Dipper was also getting drained by the heartfelt talk, so he just shut up and sat back in his seat, soothed by the smooth movement of the car. He couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut that something was wrong, though.
They were a mile away from the Shack when they first saw the smoke peaking above the trees.