Chapter Text
Dipper cannot stand dreams. By the way – he doesn’t really consider dreaming an action; not one you can take up.
We do not dream the dreams but are dreamt by them. He used to make an effort to memorize his – even had a dream book, upon waking used to immediately write down any detail before it faded. Not that he ever believed in their meanings – lest they should come true.
‘Stains that bleach out on their own- ‘ He told a boy once. ‘My dreams are like that. Or like water drying out.’
Now they are gone, mostly. Well, he doesn’t remember any at least. They’re like singular memories that come into mind sometimes. Leaving only emotions, echoing away into silence after waking. After that summer the emotion was fear, usually. Lurking, perhaps with no intent to ever resolve into anything more, but as if daring to investigate and to go down its rabbit hole so far until you couldn’t pull your thoughts away if you tried.
Dipper is not superstitious, or – he wouldn’t like to become superstitious. He does believe in reason, in science that proves herself right on her own leaving no doubt. Even if in her entire being she is just an aggregation of theories. It is hard not to get into a certain headspace if you’ve ever been in Gravity Falls. You cannot not believe in a creature who nearly killed you and your loved ones – he would think a lot about that – you cannot not believe in something you have seen so clearly and touched and cognized as if it were anything else.
Dipper’s dreams foretell him one future grim; he would like to let himself snap his fingers at their meaning. But this dream is different – Dipper will not say it, bah, he’s scared to even think it properly not to accidentally invite something onto him but – this dream is interactive, more actual.
He lays inside a cave and its stomach and walls are pressing against his skin. He feels them through layers of clothes – cold and sharp-edged. Getting to his feet abruptly, he thinks-
‘I could have cracked my head open if the ceiling was any lower. I didn’t even check.’
He looks around, a homogenous wall of darkness before his eyes, unchanged regardless the direction he turns his head in. He doesn’t know how he knows it’s a cave and not any other of places, but he is sure of it. The same way he knows he wouldn’t be able to find a way out because there is no exit for him here.
Earth strives to eat him starting from the shoes, he prises away from teethless jaws, flees, stretches his arms in front of him but doesn’t run into a wall nor anything really. His breathing doesn’t echo but a pebble flying from under shoe’s sole sounds like a canon firing.
Then he starts to hear murmuring and rustling. Eyes wide open, sightless, he roams around; there is presence in the darkness. Movement behind him, he turns around and again – scraping and grating, behind him, steps. He doesn’t see anyone, he is not alone.
‘They’re coming back-‘ A thought appears, one that is not his own, overcomes him.
‘Who is coming back?’ He doesn’t know.
That is a lie, he knows exactly. He can guess. Realizing with such precision would require a time for an idea to bloom, he shakes that thought out of his head just as it happens. A drop, cold, falls down into his hair. He howls and starts running again but noises follow him no matter how far away he gets.
His breath heavies, he slows down.
‘They’re gonna catch him-‘ Who’s gonna catch him?
‘Nightmare.’ He didn’t mean to think that, he wants to wake up.
‘Demon.’ He replies to himself anyway.
It is just a bad dream, he knows that, but you can die inside a dream too, right? Never waking up to spend the eternity deep underground.
“Show yourself! I know you’re here. You’re not going to deceive me.”
The noise stops and silence in place is far worse. Dipper takes a step back as if he wanted to revoke the command he spoke into the darkness, as if no longer wishing to see through it. Suddenly he feels there is nothing behind him, nowhere to abscond. He almost falls but instead to his back, he does so forward, and his hands and knees come into contact with rock. It bares its teeth leaving a mark on the heel of his palm.
There is a chuckle rising; like the humid air itself though funny the clumsy way he manages to avoid death.
‘No one has yet managed to hide-‘ He shuts his eyes, tight, puts fists against his ears, shaking his head full force, to finally, finally, forget and to wake up. Hair soaking wet bouncing around his face, he’s not sure if streaming down his cheeks is water from above or tears.
Chuckle morphs into croak and howl, tragicomedy – the audience leaving theater with faces reddened from laughter and eyes puffy from crying. The voice from earth and air, from nowhere, moans and wails words unintelligible, hiccupping and choking on own breath, shaken by unimaginable despair, sobbing out stories untold.
Ceiling drips more and more, whole cave crying, more and more water falls down on Dipper and he still hears the damned voice through closed ears.
Stone turns into mud and it is slippery; Dipper falls down deep into cave’s throat and when he looks up, he sees eyes opening upon the ceiling, plenty, tens of eyes glowing, tearing away sadness with all might down on him.
*
He wakes up as though emerging and breaking the water surface, sitting up. He thought the dream was realistic, as he was dreaming, now realizing it was, but in a way like being experienced from the bottom of the pool; vision waving and sounds odd, distorted, alien. Hearing his breath, still rapid, now actually recognizes it as his own. It’s still dark outside, Mabel is laying in her bed, facing the wall, snoring, which mean he didn’t disturb her while waking up, hopefully without screaming.
He sighs and lays back down looking up at the ceiling. The moon shines bright, the whole room lit as if it were day, everything in place and as all right as it can get.
He knows what it meant and he’s too afraid to admit it. He cannot afford it, he cannot let anything happen to the family, so cannot be right about it. He promises himself he isn’t, hoping it will suffice.
He last shaved his stubble yesterday. Or maybe the day before yesterday? Either way, it’s gown back now. He scratches it looking at where the two sloped of the ceiling touch.
He decides on going to the bathroom for water. Feeling as if just having finished a run for life, he suddenly stops feeling comfortable in his bed. He needs to calm down.
He struggles to make himself remember what happened in the dream, he is sure that he just had a dream, one that meant something. That meant. Return; he shakes his head.
It happened on the mountainside? Or at the edge of a creek… Maybe in a cave? Sky, or ceiling was crying a hundred eyes, or a hundred faces? He does not remember…
He tries to close the door behind him as quietly as he can, a hinge creaks, Mabel keeps snoring though.
His return – a thought appears in his head suddenly, as if somebody else thought it. He has a déjà vu.
This part of the attic is bloodred even in month’s light, shortly there will be a full moon, werewolf securities ought to be put up, he reminds himself. He does not look at the depiction of one-eyed triangle made into the window by vitrail, whose eye follows him as he makes his way down the stairs, minding those ones that creak. He knows which ones do, noticed them yesterday; third counting from the top, two in a row four steps down and three at the bottom. He jumps down avoiding the latter and a thick carpet, similar to that electric one, muffles his landing.
He heads for the bathroom, smiles to himself at remembering the floorplan.
There is a small light next to the mirror – he turns it on - and a couple of empty glasses on the window sill – he takes one in hand. The window is right under the ceiling, he has to stand on tiptoe to reach it. He turns on water from cold supply faucet’s handle and taking a sip, he looks his reflection in the eye. Makes sure there’s no yellow in the iris. Just in case, he’s not sure what would he actually do if he’d find any.
And he notices. A bloodstain on the mirror.
From the wound. He brings his glass into the light, against lightbulb, he can feel his heart skip a beat. From his hand, the one he fell on, on the rock, in the cave. So it happens he finds himself on the bathroom floor at once, his hands yanking his hair, and knees digging into his chest.
He panics for a moment. Then makes a decision. If that’s how its’ going to be, he’ll take it upon himself, they do not deserve it.
He makes another decision, grabs bandages from kitchen cupboard, he doesn’t exactly remember getting there, but it had to happen, so no matter; he ties them around his bleeding hand, after disinfecting it.
If they ask, he’ll say he fell down the stairs on his way to the bathroom. It doesn’t count as a lie, if he’s not telling the truth to protect them.