Chapter Text
FIREWORKS POP IN the distance, bright and intrusive against the dark night sky. Dipper sits by his window, arms and chin resting on the sill, watching them spark against the blackened treetops. Each firework is loud and unnerving, and he flinches as they shatter the stillness of the winter air. He’d never been one for loud noises, even more so since Weirdmaggedon. His heart is pounding, and his skin is tight. The air through his open window is sharp and cold, nipping at the edges of his skin. Wind pitches through the screen, pushes against his curtain, his hair. It moves in strange synchronicity.
On long, empty nights like these, he misses his dad. He had always been willing to stay up as long as Dipper needed for him to fall asleep. He’d never been able to quiet his mind on New Year’s, and even if his dad didn’t understand, he never judged. But he’d died in the year after their first trip to Gravity Falls, and now Dipper spends his holidays alone.
He breathes in the cold air, the shrapnel inside of his lungs, and gets the vague notion that he’s disconnected from his body. His skin isn’t his. He isn’t a piece of himself anymore. It’s eerily reminiscent of being possessed by Bill, lost to wander the mindscape. Some days, he isn’t even sure he’s human.
Dipper drags himself off of the floor and shuffles over to Mabel’s door. He stands in front of it for a moment, hand poised to knock, listening to her almost-imperceptible snoring, the way it mixes with Waddles’ heavy breathing. It’s too comfortable for him to break into. He doesn’t want to bother her. He’s put Mabel through too much.
The thoughts had been in the back of his mind for months, always vague and amorphous, but solid enough to grab his attention. An invasive dream demon––always there, always meddling––leaving drafted notes he’d never use, running his fingers over the veins in his arms. There was always the idea of possibility. An option to summon, an option to use. It clings to the darkest, most hidden parts of himself. Solidifies. He can’t ignore it anymore.
He thought he’d learned his lesson in making deals with mindscape-terrors, but time and time again, he proves himself to be stupider than he thought.
Dipper goes to the bathroom and shuts the door.
MABEL TOSSES IN her bed, tangled in the sheets beneath her comforter. The fireworks had gotten particularly close and loud, tearing her from her sugar-crash-induced sleep. Even with Waddles curled up beside her, her dark bedroom is lonely. She never woke up in the middle of the night, and when she did, she never stayed there. With Dipper right next door, probably already awake? There was nothing she could do to stop herself from bothering him.
Careful not to wake her sleeping pig, Mabel pulls herself from the warmth of her fabric cocoon and goes to see what nerdy science articles or strange book has gotten her brother’s attention tonight. His room is dark and empty, the door ajar and blankets a mess. Down the hall, a warm golden light stretches out from under the bathroom doorstep, casting a dim halo on the opposite wall. Clothes litter the floor, and she picks them up and sorts through them as she waits for Dipper to come back out. His room was always such a mess. It was a source of contention between him and their mom, and if she could help him avoid some stress by sorting through his dirty socks, she’d do it. It was why she was the best sister in the world.
She tosses dirty clothes in the hamper until the silence becomes unnerving, and makes her way down the hallway, footsteps slow to avoid the creaking floorboards she’d memorized in her late-night snack hunts. Lately, Dipper had been acting even weirder than normal, and even she couldn’t get him to talk. If he wanted to take forty years in the bathroom, fine, but it wasn’t going to stop her from coming in and pestering him until he opened up.
When she knocks on the door, he’s unresponsive.
She knocks again, this time louder. Silence.
When she tries the handle, it’s locked, but the bathroom door is old and the lock never catches, and when the door opens, Mabel screams.
Her mother barrels out of the room, forces Mabel out of her shaky stammering into action. She’s going to get towels, and then she’s going to go downstairs and call 911, and she’s not going to come back up here until they get there. She runs out of the room as her mom is pressing her nice white towels into Dipper’s arms, calls the ambulance, and leaves the front door unlocked.
Their mom told her to wait downstairs, but the damage has already been done, and she can’t just leave her little brother up there alone. Because he is her little brother, even if it’s only by five minutes, and if he dies and she isn’t there to comfort him, she’d never forgive herself. She doesn’t think she’d forgive herself now. How did this happen?
Her mom eyes her when she comes back in but doesn’t say anything. Mabel takes to covering Dipper with a towel, wiping the hair out of his eyes, begging him not to leave her. She’s sobbing. Her mother just looks grimly determined.
When the sirens pull up, they stain the entire hallway––the whole street––crimson. Their neighbors are flooding the yards, gawking at the spectacle. Mabel ignores them, and as she climbs into the ambulance after her brother, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to look at red the same again.