Chapter Text
Dipper had done more running in the month or so he'd been in Gravity Falls then in the seven years worth of physical education classes before it. Of course, running because there was a literal monster behind you making the most terrible screeching sound was a lot more natural than running because a teacher told you to. There was something about running for your life. Despite the very real danger, it felt like the good kind of fear. The motivating kind, the kind you could laugh about later. Dipper couldn't wait to laugh about this - but if they had to run uphill much longer he might not have the air to.
The horrible shrieking was getting closer.
The one concession Dipper made to the reality of the danger was keeping Mabel in front of him. Whatever was coming up behind them, his first priority was to protect her from it. So when Mabel stopped running suddenly, Dipper barley shifted to one side enough so it was just his shoulder that impacted hers. He wrapped an arm around her waist, the words
"Mabel, Come On!" pushed out of his throat.
Mabel's arm dropped to curl around his waist in return, and she caught him hard by the ribs. Then her grappling hook was in her other hand the next thing Dipper knew his feet were off the ground. Her grip hurt, of course it did, but it was nothing compared to the sudden pain in his ankle that had him cry out and look down. The moment he looked he wished he hadn't.
Its face was split, on either side of his ankle, strangely-shaped jaw clamped down hard on his tendon. The mouth was somewhere near the middle of its face, which was both skeletal and bone-white but the white looked more like skin stretched over the unsettling face. Four of its limbs reached up, trying to grab hold of his leg as he swung out of its reach. Mabel's hand was no doubt going to leave a bruise on his ribs, and the force of her hold yanked Dipper right out of the creatures mouth. He screamed again at the feeling of something tearing, and when they landed he reflexively tried to stand and failed, wounded limb giving out under less than a second of his weight.
"Dipper!" Mabel cried as he fell. He hadn't meant to pull her down with him, but he hadn't had time to let go. She fell to her knees at his side and out of nowhere Dipper was overwhelmed with a blind panic. He whimpered slightly and Mabel gasped "oh no, you're bleeding...oh...oh gross" even as she spoke, Dipper felt his stomach roll unpleasantly and he groaned slightly. "It left a Tooth." Mabel breathed, and Dipper felt a little bile rise in his throat, and the fear ebbed slightly, replaced by a surge of fascination. "That's...kinda cool, actually?"
"Do you have anything to bandage it with?" Dipper managed to ask, now that he didn't feel the full weight of a disproportionate terror sitting on his chest and suffocating him. For some reason, he felt an odd pang of loss then, and a different flavor of panic welled up. "Mabel?" he looked, and she was still there, removing her sweater and folding it into a strip, then tying it around his ankle.
He yelped when the cloth put pressure on the wound, pressing the tooth deeper into his flesh. "Sorry!" Mabel half-shouted, and Dipper closed his eyes, trying to fight past the duel threads of panic that were somehow playing through his mind at once. "Sorry...you'll...have to lean on me."
"Thanks, Mabel." Dipper managed quietly. "Can you...help me up?" Mabel got under his arm and helped pull him to stand on his good foot. Slowly, the panic began to mute into a distant buzz of concern and... "can you make Mabel Juice when we get back to the shack? I have a weird..." he hissed slightly as the first step became necessary and he almost put his injured foot down by habit. "...craving."
"Hey, me too!" Mabel chirped.
It was maybe half a mile of painfully slow going before Dipper realized how weird that was. He was too into the groove of using Mabel as a crutch by then. Their footsteps had to fall in an exact pattern or else they stumbled over the rough ground of the path back to the shack. This happened often enough, and with every accidental pressure on his aching injury, Dipper would also feel a strange stab of concern that only abated when he assured Mabel he was okay.
Finally, they broke through the treeline and the shack was in sight. They picked up the pace a little, and getting up the steps was a challenge. They made it though, up the steps and across the porch in good time for two people with the use of only three legs between them.
Then they opened the door.
Dipper felt as though he'd been physically struck. Square in the chest, an agony that threatened to cut off his breathing. He clutched Mabel tighter, distantly aware of her concerned "Dipper?" - a small prick of worry among the disorientating, devastating flood. He held onto her though, as the sudden terror that he would lose her - that he had lost her, rushed through him and filled him with an incomprehensible dread, and with it a restlessness he couldn't quite describe - and then all of it was overwhelmed by a new wave of concern.
"What happened?"
"He got bit by a monster!"
"C'mere," and suddenly Stan's arms were around him and just as suddenly Dipper couldn't breathe. He'd started crying, and as he was placed in Stan's chair he felt sobs begin shaking his whole body as what felt for all the world like an old guilt seemed to reopen. Like tearing a stitch. Stan rambled off a few breakfast items and told Mabel to fetch the first aid kit and where it was. "Kid - hey, kid. Listen. C'mon, stop crying. It can't be that bad, can it?"
"G-grunkle Stan what..." Dipper gasped "What's happening?"
"Ya got a hurt foot, kid. That's all. We'll get it bandaged right up, okay?"
Dipper nodded. Stan sounded so calm but he wasn't, Dipper could tell. All that guilt, the fear, the pain...it was all coming from Stan. "How -" he gasped, but he couldn't finish the sentence.
"I dunno. I wasn't there. You tell me. How'd this happen?"
That wasn't the question Dipper had been asking, not at all. But he did his best to answer it anyway. "I...we...were just hiking...and...there was a...a hole...I went to...look and..." Mabel returned as Dipper stammered through his answer, trying to get his bearings. It was hard to breathe, why was it so hard to breathe? Stan was on the floor in front of him, foot in his hand.
Distantly, he heard Mabel mumble "He was fine on the way here..."
Stan worked by Dipper's foot, prompting "So? Keep going. There was a hole, you looked inside..."
"There was a monster in it!" Mabel answered.
"Not now, Pumpkin, I'm asking your brother." Stan responded. "Dipper? What happened next?"
Dipper nodded, and more tears spilled. "Mabel-" he mumbled, reaching for her. He could see her through his tears and he reached for her. Why was he so convinced she was gone? He'd realized what he was feeling was coming from Stan, somehow, but how was that possible? He looked down. Stan was...working at the top of his shoe with a pair of scissors from the first aid kit. His expression was focused - the picture of calm. So how could all this pain, this crushing guilt and grief be coming from him?
Mabel slipped into the chair by his side and curled against him. Dipper wrapped an arm around her and held tight, but kept his eyes on Stan. "C'mon," Stan prompted. "Keep talkin. Just gotta get your shoe off so I can get the tooth out without you bleeding all over the place. What kinda monster was it?"
"It...uh..." Dipper let his eyes closed, pressed his face against Mabel's shoulder. He took a long, shaky breath and then described "It was...big? Like...my height but twice as long and it...it's face was..." he shuddered "White. Paper white - and...I didn't even see its teeth until..." he tried to pull in another breath. Why was it so hard to breathe? Mabel tucked her arms around his middle and he found he could speak. "It had uh...sorta spider legs? Looked like...four on the ground most of the time and four...were more like arms? And its body was...sectioned? And...fuzzy? I...I don't...I don't know I just. Turned around and..." he squeezed Mabel briefly before adding "Pushed Mabel in front of me and started running."
It felt important to say that. To tell Stan that he'd protected her. He was rewarded with a gentle nudge of pride - and a rough burst of annoyance from the other direction. "Uh, you didn't push me, I was just faster than you!" Mabel insisted.
Dipper huffed what should have been a laugh through his nose, then sniffed and wiped at his eyes with his free hand. "Yeah." he said after a moment. "Yeah, that." the little thrum of pride was buoying him. Against everything from the steady stream of concern pouring out from a growing boredom in his sister to the violent storm of feeling from Stan. "You saved me too," he added, squeezing her again. "Pulled out the grappling hook right before it got us."
Maybe he should have chosen his words more carefully, because the old well of guilt seemed to just open more. "Shoulda gotten it sooner..." Mabel pouted, and Dipper knew the growth of that feeling was from her.
"Nah, you had perfect timing." it seemed Stan's effort to distract him had been working, because all at once the physical pain doubled and Dipper let out a startled cry as Stan was suddenly pressing gauze hard against where the tooth had been. He hissed as Stan soaked the gauze in disinfectant and whispered "I don't think that's how you're supposed to-"
"I know how to bandage a foot wound." Stan interrupted. But more than his words, it was the sudden sense of...inadequacy, like getting what in hindsight was an obvious problem marked wrong on a test and not being able to tell where you'd made the mistake in your math. Stan added a second patch of gauze over the soaking one and began wrapping them both with bandage. "There." he said when he was done. "Good as new. Now, if you'll let go of your sister, I'm gonna take you upstairs. Mabel, get some pillows. He's gotta keep that foot up."
Dipper obeyed and let go, and Mabel hopped out of the chair to do as Stan instructed. Then Stan scooped Dipper out of the chair and started carrying him upstairs. As they turned on the landing, Dipper asked quietly "Are you alright, Grunkle Stan?"
"Me?" Stan echoed. "You're the one that got bit!"
Dipper frowned. It was all still there. Guilt. Grief. Pain. Just under a fresh blanket of frustration that marked Stan's tone. "I...I don't think you're okay." Dipper answered.
Stan didn't respond, just getting to the attic and shouldering his way into the bedroom. Then he placed Dipper on the bed and turned to leave without a word. Any doubt Dipper had that the pain was from Stan ebbed along with the emotion as Stan walked farther and farther down the stairs. By the time Dipper couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, he couldn't feel that agony. It was like a weight had been lifted from his chest and he could breathe again.
The rush almost completely overrode the pain in his ankle, and was quickly filled with exhaustion. Dipper was asleep in a matter of minutes.