Chapter Text
DISNEYMUSE, GOLD CHAPTER 20:
I keep wishing for a happy ending, but even the happiest I can think of- The Pines successfully turning Dipper into a blank slate with the memory gun- is filled with tragedy.
The pulsating stream of blue light cast shadows throughout the basement.
Stanford Pines could barely keep his arm upright as he watched his nephew grow still, only the faintest of tremors running along his worn, emaciated frame. Tears were already congealing on the taut skin of the teen’s face. How had Stanford not noticed how tired he looked? How had they not seen?
The rushing fizz of energy stopped short as he dropped the gun to the floor, hand falling away. Neither Stan nor Mabel spoke as he walked up to the chair.
A bruise was blossoming impressively across one cheek, kid’s eye swollen painfully shut. Sweat had stiffened his hair into tight, rounded curls, and his nosebleed had begun to flake away alongside the tearful mucus gathered just under his nose. Beyond that, though, Dipper appeared entirely at peace, sleeping almost, mouth ever so slightly parted as though readying to speak. Gusts of air danced innocently through his lips.
It was so foreign. He barely looked like Dipper at all. Then again, he wasn’t - Ford stopped the thought as soon as it hit, choosing instead to pull away the tape. Each resounding rrr-iiii-pp made Mabel flinch and she buried herself in Stan’s arms, watching as the strips of grey fluttered to the ground. Angry red marks curved along slender wrists; finally, Ford slipped two hands underneath Dipper’s arms, faces a mere foot apart.
When had he begun to associate the boy with fear? With dark circles and that permanent undercurrent of absolute terror which had once hung so heavily around him, like an omen? To see him so at peace, so free… it wasn’t like looking at whoever Dipper Pines had been during the past few months. Not his great nephew, but an extension of Bill’s will.
Gently pulling the limp body up from the hard chair, Ford felt his heart palpitate at the ragdoll helplessness of the arms listing over his own, the head resting on his shoulder. A sprig of brunette curls tickled his chin. He leant back to allow the teen to collapse fully.
“I’m going to carry him upstairs,” Ford mumbled through a thick atmosphere. “D-don’t disturb him for a bit. W-we still need to work out how to… fix everything.”
Mabel’s eyes followed Ford’s movements like a woman half-asleep, bemused, distant. The water rolling down her cheeks could have been tears. It could have been rain.
Aware of the chill of the boy’s body, he harried the elevator quietly, relieved to carry him into the downstairs bedroom - not the attic, too many memories, too many dangerous ways to bring back the darkness (the evil? the devil?) germinating in Dipper. Ford rested him down on his own bed. The boy sank into the covers, hands clutching ever so slightly at the material.
He’d killed so many people. He’d betrayed the Pines family to the utmost. Knowing Bill, and knowing what it was like to be under Bill’s thumb, Ford rather imagined that the kid had fallen in love.
They’d have to protect his mind. First thing on the agenda.
***
“Scalpel.”
A cold handle was dropped into Ford’s outstretched palm, chilling the latex gloves he wore. Stanley watched as impassively as possible. Both were aware of Mabel hovering nervously outside the door, only able to see the sharp white lighting that shifted through the frosted glass. Glancing at the sheath of metal waitting on the table, Ford’s throat hefted a heavy gulp of regret, and he began to make the incision.
***
“Is he asleep?” The girl’s cracking voice sent shivers down Ford’s spine. “Did it go okay?”
“It went fine,” he replied gently, rubbing her shoulder with a fond attempt at a smile. “Never going to have another problem with Bill.”
Mabel glanced into her great uncle’s bedroom, where her brother was lying unconscious. Even from where they were stood, the mass of bandages around his head were eminently visible, a shock of white against dark coverlets. Fear bubbled in her brain. “Did you… did you damage his birthmark?”
Ford looked to the floor. “It’s gone. It was too much of a liability. He’d remember everything and then we -” Tears were already slipping down her ruddy cheeks, hand covering her mouth. “Oh, Mabel dear, please don’t cry!”
“But they were what made him Dipper ,” she choked, trying to cover her face. “He’d only just learned to like it!”
Leaning forward awkwardly, Stanford breathed a brave gust of air. “Mabel.” He took her hand in his own, and tried not to think how small it still seemed. “Mabel, I know it’s going to be difficult. It’s almost impossible to realise it, with his body there, but... the Dipper we knew is dead.”
***
Heaving a suitcase up onto the bed, the old man huffed and massaged his back for a moment, eyes squeezed shut. That was the worst thing about aging. The pain. The constant aches that resonated from just about every part of his frame.
Stanley, to Ford’s relief, had actually cleaned up a majority of the room, although most of Mabel’s crazed collectibles remained intact. All of Dipper’s posters, belongings, clothing and scribblings were gone. Packed away until the day that it may be safe to return them.
Now it was time to move everything up into the highest section of the loft.
Looking back at the left side of the room, it was as though nobody had ever slept there.
***
“He’s been out for a long time, Sixer. Is he even gonna wake up?”
Wincing slightly at the choice in nickname, Ford glanced at his twin and then back down at the boy in his bed. It had been three days. Giving him sufficient nutrition was increasingly difficult.
There was, of course, the question of whether using the memory gun had simply broken his mind irreparably. With Bill poking around in there, it was entirely possible that the safeguards and structures had completely given way, leaving nothing. Less than a blank slate. Worse than dead.
When he dared to turn away, Ford found his brother crying, aged face wearing yet more rivulets for tears to dance down. “I loved him,” Stanley rasped, eyes immovably focused upon the bandages and the thin wrists of the teen. “I loved him so much.”
***
“Hey, uh. Excuse me?”
Stanford blinked. The voice had definitely come from inside his room. He retraced his steps back to the door and opened it with some trepidation, met with a pair of very warm, very confused young eyes. The boy was sat up, head resting on the board. He appeared to be struggling to move. “Hi. I… I don’t know where I am, uh… could you help me out?”
“O-of course.” Ford entered quietly, supporting the boy’s back so that he could sit fully upright. “Are you okay? What can you remember?”
“Uh, I don’t know… do I know you? Am I supposed to?” A frightened but wary smile was dancing on young lips, agonisingly different to the expression Dipper used to hold. “I just woke up here. There was nobody else around…”
“You’re alright. You hit your head, and had to have surgery.” It was unlikely that he would maintain the complex thread of lies for long. “I’m… I’m your grandpa. Grandpa Ford. Do you remember that?”
“No.” The boy laughed. “I don’t even remember my name.”
***
“Tyrone, that’s not how you hold a fork.”
“Just - gimme a minute -” to the vague amusement of his family, the boy finally righted his fork and smiled proudly, waggling it. “There! See Grandpa, no problems! Although -”
Tyrone picked unhappily at the swath of bandages around his head, grumbling. He frowned down at the rounded orange plastic of his implements in comparison to the gleaming silver the others were using. “How come Mabes gets to have a proper one? I’m not that accident prone. I wouldn’t stab myself accidentally.”
Ford sighed, but quirked a smile. “Mabel hasn’t had very recent brain surgery, unlike yourself. Be nice to your cousin.”
Simply nodding, Tyrone cheerfully ate the noodles steaming away in the bowl, entirely nonchalant. On occasion Stanley or Mabel would find themselves staring, wondering how he could both look and feel so different, turning their gazes away when he hummed delightedly at the last of his food. “Thanks for the meal, Grunkle. It was delicious.”
“Don’t you worry about it, kiddo.”
***
“What’s this?”
Wandering around the satellite dish in the middle of the grass, Tyrone tried to make out the name flashing on the side. DIPPER PINES. What could that mean? He was Tyrone Pines - so there was that surname in common - but he’d not heard of a Dipper in their family. What a weird first name… like that constellation...
“No no, don’t touch that, it’s not safe!” Ford approached quickly, pushing his ‘grandson’ aside. “Just a test we’re doing. Go on into the shack, my boy. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
Tyrone didn’t question it. Mabel, Stan and Ford watched him wander into the building from the safety of their transparent box, breath already fogging up the inside. Stanley hummed. “Why are we sendin’ him in?”
“Well, better safe than sorry. Two hits with the memory gun are better than one.”
None of them dared to dwell on the boy in the Mystery Shack as the waves of power frazzled the grass around them. Stanford tried to keep his hands from shaking and his mind from pulling apart all of the implications of their actions. Mabel let her shoulders sag in the realisation that this was the final nail in the coffin. Stanley simply watched, impassive.
***
The final scents of summer were washed away by the incoming drudgery of fall, and Mabel found herself packing her bags with shaking hands. She folded up a semi-clean shirt; threw a bra carelessly into her suitcase; dithered over which of her five notebooks were of top priority. Pictures of her brother were stuffed discreetly beneath her socks and a statuette of a mermaid. Admittedly, there weren’t all that many - Dipper hadn’t cared to stick around for a lot of selfies at the start of summer.
There were two polaroids that Mabel definitely didn’t remember. The first was of Dipper, knelt in the forest, glaring up with a rose stuck very roughly behind one ear. The second was of both her brother and Bill, obviously from a far later date, teen smiling sheepishly beside the triangle’s exuberant arrogance.The damn things had appeared on her pillow one night, completely devoid of explanation save for a very scratchy PINE TREE written on the white edge of the former and a burn mark on the back of the latter.
If nothing else, it was comforting to know that the comradery between boy and demon had taken a long time to build.
“Uh, Mabel?”
Startled, the girl jumped up, turning to see the lanky and vaguely self-conscious figure of Tyrone. Surprisingly, it wasn’t so difficult to remember the difference. The new boy was an entirely unique person - soft spoken, nervous, sweet like Dipper had been in preschool.
“Hey there, Ty. You okay?”
Shifting uncertainly in the door, he wandered over to his bed and sank down into it. When he spoke, it was gentle. “Wanted to chat before you left. I’m gonna miss you, cuz.”
A bite of acrimony shot through Mabel’s throat, prompting her to stoop further over her bag for a moment. Her hands gripped the fabric. Sighing, she stood and went to sit beside her twin. “I’ll miss you too, hun. Bloop.” She prodded his nose with vague amusement. “But there’s more to it than that.”
“How did you know?” Tyrone quirked a small, sly smile that made her flinch internally.
“Oh, just brilliant that way,” she cut back easily, ignoring the voice in the back of her head that whispered twinsense despite having cast that term aside years before. “So, bozo, what is it?”
Tyrone nibbled at his lip, playing with the covers of his bed. “I - you trust Grandpa Ford, right?”
Trust no-one , she thought bitterly. Some things never changed. “Of course.”
“It’s just - he said my memories would come back over time but there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Nobody in town seems to know me. Ford looks shifty every time I ask about my parents. Grunkle Stan looks at me like I’m some kind of ghost come back to haunt him.” Tyrone began to choke up, eyes reddened. “I have absolutely no idea who I am or where I’m from, Mabel, and it’s driving me insane.”
“Oh, br-” Mabel checked herself before the inevitable ‘bro-bro’ almost slipped out, biting her tongue and wincing. “I’m so sorry. Honestly. It’s not - oh, don’t cry!”
But it was too late. He had buried his face deep into her shoulder, arms wrapping around her neck in a way that they hadn’t for years, and she hummed stiltedly. “I wish there was something I could tell you,” she mumbled. “I really do.”
***
Tyrone only had to mention the strange note with the triangle doodle on his wall for Ford to fully Bill-proof the house, mere hours before Mabel had to leave.
***
The coach rumbled and hummed easily over the roads outside Gravity Falls, Oregon, and Mabel sat alone on the window seat. She remembers the sound of Dipper opening a letter by her ear a few years before, and his pleased sigh. She remembers the same sound of satisfaction an hour before, when she had hugged him as tightly as possible. “Bye, cuz,” he chuckled in her ear, but for all the cheeriness in his tone the strain was still audible.
Now she had to work out what remained of her brother, and how to continue alone.
***
Ford watched the coach pull out onto the road, heart heavy. Stan was trying to hide his tears.
“So, my boy, what do you think of it?”
Tyrone raised his head in confusion, wanting his friend back already. Life made more sense with Mabel around. “What do I think of what, grandpa?”
“Well, you were my apprentice before.” Ford ignored the semi-shocked, semi-scandalised look his twin threw at him. “When do you want to start?”
Looking out at the cloud of dust the coach leaves behind, Tyrone didn’t know.