Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stand. Shake hands. Smile. Speak briefly. Listen closely. Charm them. Repeat. Don’t frown. Don’t ramble. Feel no compassion. You aren’t like the others. But you are not the machine, you are just a mechanism within it. You are replaceable. But that will slow down the machine. So don’t fail. Stand. Shake hands. Smile. Speak briefly. Listen closely. Charm them. Repeat.

Dipper stood up slowly from his chair, trying his best not to step on the much too long white cloth draped over his chair and dragging across the polished wood floors. He couldn’t take too long trying to be graceful though, he could practically hear his Grunkle Ford nagging in his ear about how awkward that would look. 

“Ah, well if it isn’t Stanely’s nephew!” Dipper swiftly pivoted, being acutely aware of the loud squeak of his oxfords. Preston Northwest, the host of the lascivious party that seemed to be more about flaunting his wealth than celebrating his recent business merger. Not tonight's target of interest, thank god. Dipper didn’t think he’d been able to handle listening in on the man’s incessant bragging of his recently obtained renaissance era art collection or the Marquise-cut diamond ring he had gotten his wife for their anniversary. Still, Dipper knew better than to seem anything but gracious yet firm – an attitude that he knew would blend in with the countless other men at the party – and smiled at the man, outstretching his hand and shaking the others firmly. 

“My my, it’s been one too many moons since I’ve seen you my boy. And how you’ve grown too, who would’ve known old Stanely could raise such respectable and intelligent young gentlemen!” Mr. Northwest laughed and Dipper took that as a cue to laugh along with him, his eyes ever-so-slightly shifting around him to observe his surroundings. 

“Thank you Mr. Northwest, I assure you neither me nor my Grunkle quite understand how I turned out the way I did.” He took a small sip from his champagne glass just so he could have something to do, before immediately remembering why it was still full, the overwhelmingly sweet liquid made his head spin. “Marvelous party by the way, Stan wanted to thank you for your invitation in person but his arthritis has recently flared with this recent snowstorm and all, thought it would be appropriate to send me rather than run the risk of being perceived as ungrateful.” 

Preston furrowed his brow and his mouth twisted into a short frown of clearly staged concern. “Ah well, I certainly hope he finds himself recovering soon. This snow has made all of us miserable, let us hope the upcoming spring months are even more floral to compensate.” Dipper silently agreed, Gravity Falls looked so beautiful in the spring plus all this snow was making documenting the forest and its inhabitants much more difficult. “In all honesty, I am slightly relieved to see you here tonight. Firstly, however, I trust you are still a bachelor, correct?” 

Dipper’s smile strained, feeling suddenly very embarrassed. “Yes, I’ve been focusing on my studies. It's very hard to study the sciences and find a wife at the same time.”

“Ah of course! Trust me, that degree will pay off in the long run when it comes to finding a wife!” He internally cringed at the thought, however well-intentioned it was. “Well, perfect. Because you see, my daughter Pacifica, well, we’ve been hoping to help her catch the eye of this visiting Duke from Austria, but she’s been having difficulty finding a dance partner to help present her in a party crowd filled with married men. Would you mind accompanying her on the first dance?” 

God he hated dancing. The very thought of being stared at as he awkwardly shuffled around with Pacifica of all people made him want to bury himself alive. “Of course.” Dipper smiled, not wanting to burn any bridges that might come of use to him later. 

Dipper half-heartedly listened to Preston’s relieved expressions of thanks and took the time Preston took to guide him across the ballroom floor and towards the balcony to inspect the room. It was densely populated with men in sharp-fitting suits and women with elegant ball gowns or evening dresses with the occasional flapper dress that made him smile, his thoughts drifting to Mabel. The duke that Preston seemed so obsessed over was leaning against a wall with a bored expression on his face, Dipper’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he briefly remembered the array of crimes that had been linked to the man. 

Pacifica Northwest could be described as a lot of things, with lots of colorful language being included, however, although Dipper would never outwardly admit it, deep in the confines of his mind even he recognized that the woman was breathtakingly beautiful. With platinum blonde hair that reached her mid-back that had been lightly curled and her piercingly blue eyes, she was the only woman at the party that caught the attention of others by her personal appearance, rather than her fashion choices, opinions, or connections. 

“Father!” She turned around, her smile falling when she saw Dipper. “Mason.” She said curtly, before pushing past him all together. 

Pacifica Northwest could also be described as a bitch. 

“Pacifica.” He replied dryly.

“Really father? Him? Stan’s nobody nephew was the best you could find?” Pacifica huffed, speaking as if Dipper wasn’t a foot away from her. A small twinge of insecurity shot through Dipper, but he quickly buried such feelings; he refused to feel self-conscious by Pacifica of all people. But dear god was it hard for him to bite his tongue and smile along, not wanting to seem anything other than ungentlemanly in front of Preston. 

“Pacifica!” The man’s face reddened, quickly turning to Dipper to mumble apologies and insist to Pacifica that she let him escort her to the floor where couples were beginning to sway with one another as the string ensemble tuned their instruments. She merely rolled her eyes before tentatively placing his arm on his arm and guiding him back to the dance floor. 

“God, I can’t believe I’m being escorted out by the village tart of all people.” She sighed, her voice laced with disgust. 

Dipper frowned. “Hey, I’ll have you know I very much am drawn to women,” he paused, “I just…also enjoy the company of the occasional man. I’m sure you would understand of all people, Pacifica,” He glanced over his shoulder, his voice going low, “I’ve seen the way you look at my sister.” 

Pacifica’s face flushed red from either anger or embarrassment, Dipper couldn’t tell. She stepped on his foot, “Shush! This is no place for your foolishness.” She rolled her eyes, before looking back at Dipper, a hint of sincerity and genuine concern in her eyes, “How has she been recovering from the accident? I trust not too well since you are taking up her job tonight in her place.” 

Dipper frowned, “She’s recovering, just not yet in the condition to move abruptly without pain.” He paused, “I would like to see you try to recover in three weeks from seven shots to your abdomen. I for one think Mabel is doing fantastically. With or without her little Llama.” He smiled at Pacifica’s frustration with him. 

“God, you are so vague.” She groaned, noticeably ignoring Dipper’s allusion to his relations with Mabel, “What are you even doing here tonight? This is supposed to be a set-up to get me a rich husband, not a playground for violent imbeciles.” 

Dipper chose not to answer her question, instead, taking her to the dance floor, swinging her with the little grace that he had. “Well, it’s not our fault you don’t know how to background check your guest list.” He whispered in her ear, sarcasm dripping from his voice, his eyes locked in on the nervous shifting of the duke as he dipped her. 

“Speaking of which,” he forced himself to smile as he raised her, the music ending for the briefest of moments, “I believe my work here is done. The duke has been staring at you throughout this entire movement.” He bowed before her, grabbing her hand and raising it to kiss it gently on the hand, innerly recoiling as he acted, “And be careful, your dance partner doesn’t have the best of track records. Couldn’t have my sister’s little girlfriend dying on me. Or worse, trying to bill me for any damages.” 

Before she could respond Dipper released her and began walking the opposite way, his eyes lingering on the duke, a dull looking man with dull boring features, casually approaching Pacifica who stood confused and frustrated in the center of the dance floor. 

He walked toward the garden balcony, hoping that a breath of fresh air would help him ease the tension. It was his very first independent, undercover mission. Although it was low stakes he couldn’t help but feel the pressure to perform perfectly, worrying for his family being punished by the machine if he made any mistakes. 

“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Dipper jumped, turning around defensively to face the voice. “Aw no need to get so worked up darling.” 

Before him stood quite possibly, the most handsome man that Dipper had ever seen. He was tall, broad shouldered, with bronze skin and muscle carefully sculpted that brought the distant marble statues of Greek Gods scattered across the garden to shame. He had dirty blonde hair and amber eyes that were filled with mischief and curiosity that made Dipper’s heart race. And based on the elegant uniform he wore, Dipper could quickly tell that he was someone of relative importance, coming from a background of wealth and privilege, which made Dipper making himself known to the man ever more risky. 

“Y-yeah” He stammered, ignoring the man’s playful remark, “Nice clear night, you can even make out some constellations.” 

The man’s demeanor changed from one of playfulness and mischief to one of wonder and eagerness, “Really?” He walked forward next to Dipper and stood close enough for Dipper to feel the warmth of his body and the way he softly gasped, pointing to the night sky, “The big Dipper.” He smiled gently, “That’s my favorite constellation.” 

Dipper felt himself redden at the man’s comment, trying to calm his heartbeat, fearing that the man could feel the erratic pulse of his body from beside him, “It’s a bit of a basic constellation to call your favorite.” He mumbled. 

The man turned to look at Dipper again, “Oh?” He laughed, and for a small moment Dipper thanked the stars for their closeness, relishing the warmth and gentle vibrations of the mysterious man who stood next to him, “I’ll have you know I have my reasons, silly starboy.” He teased, “but that’s a topic for a different night.” He turned to face Dipper completely, their chests touching together as they stood intimately, dangerously close. “Name’s Bill Cipher, my folks are close friends with the Northwests.” He grinned at Dipper’s red face, “And what might your name be, sweetheart?”

Dipper awkwardly smiled, trying to hide the inner panic in his head. On one hand, he rarely had a handsome man be so open and flirtatious towards him, and he wanted nothing more than to make his reciprocation of Bill’s advances clear. On the other hand, it wasn’t unheard of for enemies to use flirtation as a method of destruction, and if Pacifica was keen enough to pick up on his attraction to men, he wouldn’t be surprised if others who had been paying much closer attention to him had as well. 

“Why do you ask?” Dipper smiled politely but didn’t attempt to hide the defensive shift in his demeanor. 

“Woah now doll face,” An amused smile danced on Bill’s face, a reaction that Dipper wasn’t entirely sure how to react to. Those amber eyes squinted ever so slightly, yet retained their curious and flirtatious gleam. “No need to shrink away, I ain’t gonna bite. Not unless you beg anyway.” Dipper turned to face the garden with a scowl, hoping to hide the slight blush that was forming on his face in spite of his better judgement. Bill just laughed at the sight. “Why darling, don’t hide that pretty red face from me now.”

“Y-you’re going to draw attention if you keep being so…foward.”  Dipper mumbled, fiddling with the cuffs of his suit. Dipper’s eyes briefly flickered up to Bill’s own, and Dipper allowed his genuine emotion to creep into them for the first time that night as they locked gazes. “And as an acquaintance of Mr. Northwest, you should know that he would be absolutely disgusted by the words clumsily falling out of your mouth, at a party hosted at his venue nonetheless.” 

Dipper hadn’t lied; Preston Northwest was well-known throughout Gravity Falls for refusing services and even reporting to the machine of any person he even suspected to be queer. It was the reason why Pacifica hadn’t visited Mabel yet and was instead currently waltzing with a Duke from overseas, hiding her true feelings on ink and paper that only herself, Mabel, and briefly Dipper as he delivered the letters, would ever touch. 

“‘Clumsily falling out of my mouth?’” Bill chuckled, but he relented to Dipper’s words slightly by taking a step back from Dipper and leaning against the balustrade. “I can assure you, my mouth moves in calculated precision. In more ways than one.” He gave Dipper a sly wink. 

“Oh don’t be lewd. It’s just an expression.” 

“Not an expression I’ve ever heard before.” 

“Well maybe that’s a sign you should read some more.” Dipper snipped, immediately regretting doing so. He was here to gather information about the Duke and any possible information about DREAM, a rising vigilante group that Grunkle Ford was convinced was trying to infiltrate and destroy the machine. He was not here to banter with some man and get his guard down, especially not at a Northwest party. 

“Sorry, some of us are too busy going on actual adventures to laze around and read about them.” Bill grinned. “You’re awfully sheltered….Pine Tree? I’m going to call you Pine Tree for now.” He gestured to the Pine Tree pin Mabel had gotten him for his birthday last year. “Suits you.” 

Dipper rolled his eyes. “My name’s Dipper.”

Bill’s eyes lit up. “Oh no wonder you got so flustered when I told you the Dipper was my favorite constellation sapling.” 

“Sapling?” 

“Felt like sticking with the Pine Tree theme. Plus it’s less attention grabbing than darling and you do want to stay on the down low right?” Bill chuckled, pulling a cigarette out from his suit pocket. “Want a light?” 

Dipper shook his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as unashamed as you, Mr. Cipher. You ought to be more careful around people you’ve just met. Gravity Falls is…not a progressive town.” 

Bill frowned, his expression hardening. “That’s what the whole damn country seems to be obsessed with right about now. All this talk about ‘the machine’ and what they’re doing out here in these woods to people they think are ‘bad’.” Those amber eyes looked down at Dipper’s, softening slightly. “I can’t imagine how rough you must have it living out here, sapling.” 

Dipper tried his best to control himself from too visibly reacting to Bill openly speaking ill about the machine. The organization had started as a group focused on studying and protecting all the wildlife that inhabited Gravity Falls, from the friendliest bug to the deadly creatures that lurked in the shadows. But after years of having their cries ignored, instead of working alongside the government, it should control it as only the machine could be trusted with putting Gravity Falls first. It established a puppet government in Gravity Falls and created a strict code of conduct that all people living had to follow in order to best protect the creatures that lived in the forest. As leadership changed, some of the policies added were admittedly less focused on preservation and more on control. Some people had decided to dissent, so the machine used their knowledge of the forest to unleash horrific creatures upon a gay couple—who were previously cops, nonetheless—protesting the ban on homosexuality. 

“I….thank you.” Dipper felt heavy and suddenly had the urge to leave immediately.

 Dipper knew the public didn’t view the machine favorably. But Grunkle Ford had always assured him that they were just doing what was right for the forest, by whatever means necessary. Sure, there had been nights especially after the violent affront on those cops where Dipper, being scared, had questioned their actions but he trusted Grunkle Ford. If Grunkle Ford said that this was what needed to be done for the greater good of Gravity Falls, then he believed him. He’d suppress his attraction to men to the occasional rendezvous with Gideon and take his place and take his spy training seriously the next day. Of course, he had made a quiet promise to himself that he’d never report someone for homosexuality (which had ironically helped him make valuable connections) but besides that he pledged his full loyalty to the machine. Because in the end, all they wanted was good…..right? 

BAM!

Screams echoed throughout the ballroom, nearly drowning out the sound of a gunshot—shrill, panicked. The strings from the orchestra snapped at once. The ballroom lights flickered once, then cut completely, plunging the crowd into chaos. A second later: bang. A flash of smoke from the western entrance.

Bill jumped protectively in front of Dipper, pulling out a gun from his pocket. “Fuck, shit. They weren’t supposed to show their faces, those bastards.” Bill mumbled, Dipper’s blood running cold for the second time that night at his words. “You armed kid?”

“I..I..”

Bill roughly pulled him by the collar, “Stay behind me then.” 

As he crouched behind Bill, Dipper tried his best to fight the overwhelming sense of panic growing in him. This was supposed to be just a simple undercover mission, not an attack. He wasn’t trained for combat—well, okay maybe he was, but he wasn’t ready to kill to protect the machine like he knew he had too. And this man had a gun, and Dipper hadn’t been debriefed about him by the machine so he had to be a dream operative. Fuck. 

As they entered, he saw Pacifica limping against a nearby wall, eyes blown wide and stuffing a manilla folder into the slit of her dress. She crumpled against Dipper the moment she saw him. All previous grievances he felt against her melted away, as he grabbed her shoulders to keep her steady. 

“W-what the fuck…?” She panted. Bill gave her a quick jealous glance before continuing to search through the chaotic crowd.

“Dream”  Dipper responded automatically, just as he had been trained to.

Bill scoffed, giving him a suspicious look from over his shoulders. “Oh don’t be so gullible Pine Tree, this has the machine’s name written all over it.”

The Duke, a man who the machine had identified as Dipper’s person of interest of the night, was being escorted—not apprehended—by what an onlooker may describe as foreign military personnel, but Dipper recognized those faces. Those people were the machine’s men. Forming a tight, protective circle. Around the man who, according to the machine’s file on him, had committed heinous crimes. 

Meanwhile a young woman in a bright pink coat—no older than Mabel—ran toward a side exit, a flash drive clutched in her hand. She didn’t make it two steps before a round hit her square in the chest. She collapsed with a sound Dipper would never forget.

As soon as the duke and machine left, Bill ran towards the woman. “Pyronica!” Surprisingly, she wasn’t dead. Not yet anyways. Four others rushed to her side. Someone screamed for a doctor. 

“Dipper,” Pacifica’s voice cracked as she grabbed his hand. “I need to talk to you outside immediately.” 

So he let her pull him to that same balcony he had let himself get distracted with Bill at. He wasn’t exactly sure what else he should do. A voice in the back of his mind told him he should contact Grunkle Ford immediately, but the memory of one of those women crashing to the floor stopped him from doing so. 

“Dipper, oh my god.” She bit back a sob the second they stepped outside, her grip on him growing painful. “That..that woman who died, she gave me this.” Pacifica slipped him a manilla folder, tainted slightly with blood. “Read it later. Footage, transcripts, comm logs. Orders signed by Grunkle Ford. Says Mabel was ‘collateral acceptable to maintain cover.’ Dipper, Mabel was supposed to die that day. By the machine’s orders nonetheless.” 

Pacifica broke into sobs and Dipper held her—just barely. The machine…what? No no no, they couldn’t have. It had to have been fabricated by D.R.E.A.M. He’d give it to Grunkle Stan for an integrity evaluation later, but…there was no way. It was wrong…right? Yes, of course it had to be. Dipper….the machine was the good guys, Dipper…was one of the good guys. 

“You’re a fucking machine agent aren’t you?” Bill’s voice startled Dipper, and the gun he had pointed at Dipper’s forehead caused him to stumble forward with Pacifica in his arms.

“B-Bill! I…” Dipper chewed nervously on his lip. Pacifica gasped in his arms and he placed her behind him in a protective fashion. “P-put that down.”

Bill didn’t speak right away. He just flicked open a silver lighter and lit a cigarette with one hand. “To think I let myself get distracted by your sorry excuse for a diversion. Damn near almost lost one of my best agents tonight. Thankfully, it’s gonna take more than some pretty boy batting his lashes at me to ruin my mission. What a shame that they corrupted you though kid.” He cocked the gun. “Any final wo-” 

Pacifica jumped in front of him and grabbed the manilla paper from him, waving it in front of the two of them as if it was a shield. “He didn’t know! He…he didn’t know that they’d kill her and protect the duke of all people. And that they….they tried to kill his twin sister.” 

Bill scowled at her, snatching the folder from her and briefly flipping through it. After a minute, he sighed and lowered the gun, the anger in his eyes mutating into something colder—disappointment.

“Damn it, kid,” he muttered. “You’re lucky she vouched for you. You wouldn’t be the first sorry bastard the Machine sent to cozy up to me.”

“I didn’t even know you were a dream agent.” He choked out, still shaking slightly. God if only Grunkle Ford could see him now, he’d see him as something less than collateral damage. 

Bill’s eyes narrowed at him and Dipper felt he was reading his very soul. Finally, he sighed and he could see something in the man subtly soften. “Not just an agent kid. Put some respect on my name. I run the damn circus.”

Dipper stood up with a slight groan, his head pounding in confusion. Standing in front of him was the alleged boss of DREAM. If the files from the machine were right, he was a sociopathic, cruel, twisted monster hellbent on control. But the look he was giving Dipper right now screamed otherwise. He didn’t know what to believe. 

“That wasn’t us. But they’ll spin it, won’t they? Let the machine keep grinding.” Bill sneered, glancing back inside the ballroom as people loudly gossiped about how the machine clearly ‘saved them’ from a DREAM terrorist. “Look at how easy it is for them all to believe them. This entire town is damn pathetic. But you know the truth now, don’t you Pine Tree? Can’t unsee Pyro’s body hitting the floor…or knowing your precious organization sees your sister’s life as nothing more than collateral.”

“S-shut up..” Dipper protested weakly, gritting his teeth as he clutched his head. 

Pacifica slapped his shoulder, giving him a glare before turning to Bill. “Don’t listen to him, he’s in shock. His Uncle’s basically the only reason that machine is still running and Dipper here is his little lapdog-” 

“For once in your damn life shut up Pacifica.” He turned to glare at her, but it wasn’t as firm as it should’ve been. 

Bill gave him a strange look; one that even with hundreds of hours of spy training he couldn’t quite decipher. “I don’t want you dead. Not yet. But if you’re staying with them, we’re enemies. Understand, sapling?”

Dipper opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Instead he slowly nodded. “I…understand.” 

Bill blew smoke into his face, cackling as Dipper coughed before continuing. “Y’know I really should kill you, but I just can’t find it in me to sapling. I like you. You’re smart and loyal like a dog. And of course, you’d look damn good by my side as we burn this machine down.” 

Bill took a few steps backward, then paused. “The Machine doesn’t protect the forest. It protects itself.” He looked over again at Dipper, a small smile playing on his lips and a hint of both flirtation and amusement softening his gaze. "And you, Pine Tree... you're better than that. When you're ready to stop lying to yourself and fight for what you know is right, come find me. I’ll make sure to give you a special treat once you do.” He winked. 

Bill turned walking slowly back towards the crowded ballroom where his fellow dream associates were congregating by the door. Dipper reached into his pockets out of habit and fished out a crumbled piece of paper with a phone number and a triangle scribbled on.

“Oh and Pine Tree?” Bill looked over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of danger and flirtation. “This is the last easy out I’m giving you so long as you’re a clog in the machine. I wouldn’t hesitate to leave you dead in a ditch if you get in my way.” Laughter stretched out in the quiet balcony, “Hopefully you’ll come to your senses before that though. Either way, I’ll be watching you, Pine Tree. Always watching.”

And with that he disappeared in the crowd, and Dipper crumbled in Pacifica’s arms as he grappled with the evidence that his family, his world—hell, his very purpose in life, may not be what it seems.

Stand. Shake hands. Smile. Speak briefly. Listen closely. Charm them. Lie if you must. Repeat. Just don’t look up too long. Only look at the machine briefly. Don’t listen closely to the squeaks and groans and moans of the machine. Don’t ask how the machine works. Don’t hope to fix something that isn’t broken. Hope gets you replaced. Just follow the instructions. Stand. Shake hands. Smile. Speak briefly. Listen closely. Charm them. Lie if you must. And most importantly, remember what you saw. Repeat. 

Chapter Text

The light in the bunker buzzed angrily, as if Bill owed it money. Pale, green-tinted, and flickering just enough to keep anyone from getting comfortable. Bill didn’t mind. Comfort bred complacency, after all.

An incomplete topographic map lay strewn across the table, weighted down by an ashtray and half a dozen blurry photos of a few violent cryptids the machine had sent to attack the few Dream agents that had the balls to carry out convoy hijacking missions in the forest. Bill absentmindedly picked up the blurry photo that was thumbtacked to the western edge of the forest.  The picture showed a metal man that was as tall as the trees, had gaping holes throughout his abdomen and skinny arms and ran on all fours. They had lost seven of their best men and three months worth of supplies to that particular cryptid. 

It wasn’t the biggest casualty in Dream’s history. Just the one that wouldn’t get the hell out of his head. And that was a problem. According to the radio calls, his men had spotted the creature a whole two hours before the initial attack and although it sure as hell spooked them, the cryptid didn’t threaten them at first. 

Based on the calls, it was helpful . In the two hours it crawled alongside the convoy, it moved trees out of the way, held up bridges and even scared off mountain lions, which to Bill, was even more disturbing than any killing he’d ever heard of. Helpful cryptids weren’t a thing. Not in this town. If it acts tame, it’s either brainwashed or setting a trap. Maybe both. Yet his men swore up and down that despite its sight, that thing was sweet as a dog. They asked Bill if they could bring him back because they thought he was lonely for Christ's sake. And Bill didn’t immediately cackle like he usually did with his agents' ideas. He had been considering it.

But the second that his men accidentally triggered one of the machine’s alarms they hid throughout the forest, the cryptid snapped. The once docile thing roared in what Bill could’ve sworn was pain. And then it attacked the very men it had been cuddling up to the past two hours. The screaming on the other end of the comms had been almost operatic. Crunch of bone. Crackle of radio static. But it was the timing that made Bill pause. The attack felt less like a natural panic instinct from an animal and more like a performance.

Something about that shift—the moment that damned alarm shrieked—gnawed at Bill. The creature hadn’t been territorial, hadn’t been provoked. It had been helpful. Genuinely. Like a trained beast waiting for a treat. But the second that frequency blared through the forest, it screamed like it had been burned and tore his men apart. Something had flipped the switch inside that thing’s skull. Not survival instinct. A trigger. One keyed to the Machine’s alarms. That wasn’t random. Someone had trained it to be a weapon, and by the shriek of pain that preceded the violence, it likely hadn’t been trained in a very pleasant way; definitely not with the care and keeping the machine claimed it handled its cryptids with.

A raspy chuckle came from the shadows. “Staring at it won’t give you any more clarity than it has the last thirty times, Bill.”

Bill didn’t care enough to turn around and face the man. He tacked the picture back onto the map and hummed. “Is that the logic behind why you don’t look in a damn mirror anymore, frog face?” The man stepped towards the table, shifting in slight discomfort as he scratched one of the deep gashes alongside his jaw. It flaked. That meant it was healing. Good.

“Anyway, be helpful for once and help me decipher this intercepted comm from the machine. I think you’ll like this one Axolotl, it's damn near as archaic as the shit you pull out of your ass during active missions, as if any of the thick skulled goons we work with will know what the hell you’re talking about.” 

That got a rough chuckle out of Axolotl, and the tension that had been pressing down on the room finally let up.

He made those familiar clicking noises as he squinted at the paper. If it had been anyone else , Bill would’ve mocked the hell out of them. But he knew better. That tick meant the old man was focused. Deeply. Strange, precise, ancient kind of focused.

Bill wondered if he had any ticks like that when he zoned in on something. Eh. Probably not. Someone would've told him. And if they hadn’t? Well, most of the people he hung out with enough times to pick up on one of his habits wound up dead one way or another.

Axolotl let out a pleased hum. “We may actually have a fighting chance at intercepting the convoy if we move early. They’re taking the road along the forest’s edge—melted snowfall blocked their usual pass with rockfall. And based on how vague they’re being in an internal comm about the cargo, it’s something big. Something confidential.”

“Sounds too good to be true.” Bill lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl. “You think it’s bait? If their main route’s shot, why not ship it by lake? That would be safer. They know damn well we’re not dumb enough to touch that cursed water.”

Axolotl nodded. “Under normal circumstances, yes. But this winter’s been harsher than expected. The lake’s still partially frozen. Too risky. The machine’s out of options.”

“Then why not just delay the convoy till the weekend? This snow’s forecasted to get shot with sun starting tomorrow. Snow’ll start to clear.” Bill drawled out his words, watching the smoke twist and bend in the drafty room.

Axolotl didn’t look up. “The comm flagged it as urgent. Could be temperature-sensitive cargo. Or people. Either way, not something you can leave freezing in a convoy car for six days. And after your little prison stunt at their headquarters, they can’t risk keeping it in-house either.”

Bill’s grin was sharp and feral, “So they have no other choice.” He cackled. “Oh man I wish I could’ve been there to see all their pissed off faces. The machine’s going to be firing at the clouds for creating this perfect storm.”

Axolotl hummed. “Yes. There were… quite a few curse words in the comm. More than typical.” The man moved to take a sip of his drink. He was the only man in the operation who hadn’t been beaten into an alcohol dependency and instead gulped that damned chamomile tea like it was vodka on the hard days. 

“So?” he asked, eyes finally flicking up. “I can hear the gears grinding in your skull, Cipher. What’s the plan? Hijacking? Kidnap for ransom? Destroy everything and everyone to make a point?”

He chewed his lip as he thought. On one hand, he’d love nothing more than to paint the melting snow with the blood of those machine operatives. But he knew that Dream lacked the resources to be so showy unfortunately. One day he’d be able to burn all those bastards, ugh. 

“Probably a hijacking,” he muttered. “Ransom’s only worth it if the convoy’s hauling someone important. Maybe a researcher. But the Machine’s made it pretty damn clear they don’t give a shit about their own.” He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. Another mission playing by the rules. No chaos, no fun. No fire.

Instead of nodding and reaching for a mission report like he usually did, Axolotl just watched him in that quiet, knowing way Bill had come to hate. “The Northwest ball case still weighing on you?” he asked softly.

“Please. Their situation wasn’t unique.” Bill’s voice dropped into something closer to irritation than sincerity. “I didn’t even meet the hardass who survived seven shots to the gut.” His gaze drifted toward an empty patch on the topographic map. A no-man’s-land of static and speculation. The kind of place even Dream’s best recon teams couldn’t cleanly touch yet. Forty-five percent coverage, and half of that was guesswork. Gravity Falls had always liked its secrets.

Axolotl took a slow sip of his tea, eyes never leaving Bill’s. “I feel there’s something you’re not telling me about that mission.”

The steam rose between them.

“Are you certain all you did was protect Pyronica… in sharing the Pines file with Mrs. Northwest?”

Bill dragged his gaze from the gaping void of the southern map quadrant and met Axolotl’s stare. Beady eyes. Permanently swollen. The man’s face had been carved into something barely human thanks to the Machine’s hospitality—a souvenir from the days when Dream was still just smoke and schematics and Bill still found the war fun.

“Jeez,” he said with a crooked grin. “You’re not slipping into dementia already, are you? I need that geriatric data bank in your skull chugging for at least another decade.” He barked out a laugh.“But yeah, that’s all that came out of that mission.”

Bill took another drag of his smoke as Axolotl hummed suspiciously at him. He had to admit, if there was anyone—human or not—Bill trusted enough to share his newfound obsession with that dollfaced machine agent he had met at the Northwest party, it would be Axolotl.​​ 

The older man was annoyingly wise and had a way of stringing words together in just the right way to get Bill to slow down just enough for him to double check if he was on the right path. It was how the old bastard had roped him into focusing his chaos—into turning random, glorious violence into Dream. An actual organization. An actual threat. 

Axolotl, one of the Machine’s original founders—back when they actually stood for what they still pretended to—still had strings tied deep. Enough pull, probably, to dig up everything from where Dipper Pines went to kindergarten to which shoes he wore most.

But then again, that would mean admitting he was going soft for some enemy field rat he’d talked stars with once—and worse, that he hadn’t stopped replaying the way those mocha-brown eyes first looked at him like he’d hung those very stars in the sky. Or most terrifyingly of all, that he’d rearrange every last one just to earn that look again.

Bill took another drag from his cigarette before rising from the chair, smoke trailing after him like a tail. “Anywho, I’ll let Pyro, Teeth, and Keys know about the convoy tomorrow. You keep me posted if they reroute the damn thing or try any other last-minute sleight of hand.” He tapped the edge of the map with a smirk. “Based on this, we’ve got a solid twenty-minute window before they hit the denser stretch of forest.”

He grinned—something sharp and boyish and unhinged. “That’s plenty of time to cause some damage. God, it’s been ages since a mission had the potential to be fun. Just one rule, right? No killing?”

Slowly, Axolotl nodded. “No killing.” He repeated. 

Bill laughed. “Perfect! Well then, can’t wait for you to write up my post-mission report and be reminded why most war crimes happen right before a guy dies. No take-backs though!” 

And with that, he slammed the door behind him, stuffing down the thought that maybe—just maybe—that Pine Tree kid might show. It wouldn't matter if he did. It wouldn’t change a damn thing.

No easy outs this time.

“The fuck you mean I can’t kill those bastards?!” Pyronica nearly gave away their hiding spot with the volume of her shrieks. “Those bitches fucking shot me. I want to see their bones melt.” 

Bill snarled at her. “Quiet down, woman. At this rate half the forest will know where we are if you keep up your incessant chattering.”

Bill and her were huddled together behind a large rock and a mound of melting snow. The air was still cold enough to bite at Bill’s skin but at least he didn’t have to worry about frostbite. A permanent grimace had etched its way onto his face however, as the dirty slush he was forced to lay into seeped into his worn winter clothes. And because his team mate wouldn’t shut the hell up. 

“I think I was quiet enough when I was fucking unconscious after getting shot.” She pouted. “I deserve to use my voice. After all, isn’t that what’s life for? Sharing your thoughts and opinions with friends?” She mocked him by batting her eyelashes and touching his forearm with her dirty gloves. Disgusting. 

“Keep your hands to yourself if you wanna keep 'em Pyro.” He huffed as he wiped any residual slush off his jacket. Bill really was getting too soft. These bastards shouldn’t feel so comfortable with him. “And really shut the fuck up this time. The convoy’s due any second now.” 

With a “hmph” she slumped back on the rock and crossed her arms against her chest. Bill rolled his eyes at the action. It’s such a shame she was such a drama queen, really. She was the only person that even came close to matching his chaotic nature with her own obsession with arson. The flamethrower slung across her back reminded him she was also the only one who understood his own flair for the theatrics. If she had half a brain, they might’ve taken the world apart together instead of sitting in a snowbank waiting to hijack a truck.

Bill could pick up on the faint cracking of branches and the sputtering of an engine in the distance. Both agents straightened, matching sadistic grins crossing their faces.

 “On my word.” Bill whispered to Pyronica, who nodded. 

They watched in silence as the transport finally crawled into view. It hummed. Much too quiet and smooth for Bill’s taste. Machine tech always tried too hard to seem harmless. 

Three guards clung to the barge, gripping ropes for balance. Standard protocol these days—citizen raids had made armored convoys the norm. But there were no Machine tags. No flashy sigils or fear-bait decals.

That meant one of two things: either the op was clean, or someone was going to bleed trying to keep it that way.

The second option was always more fun.

Just as Bill was weighing whether to start with waterboarding or jump straight to electrocution on the one guard Dream had authorized for questioning, he caught movement inside the cab and froze.

Curled up in the passenger seat, notebook in hand, was none other than that infuriating Pine Tree agent from the other night.

Unbothered. Unaware. Lips pressed tight in concentration as he scribbled in a journal with the same intensity most people reserved for prayers or confessions. The barge had started to slow—engine choking on slush and ice, just as they planned—but Dipper didn’t notice.

He was too focused. Too deep in whatever field rat daydream had him gnawing on that soft bottom lip of his. 

Bill’s hands twitched at his sides as the transport rolled into the kill zone. He could see him now—curled in the passenger seat like some innocent mascot of the Machine. Same kid from the Northwest party. Same jacket. Same messy hair. Same lips that had no business looking that soft.

He forced his shoulders to stay relaxed. This wasn’t the time to get distracted by pretty field rats.

“On your mark,” Pyronica whispered, her grin already hungry.

“Now,” Bill said calmly, and the forest lit up.

Pyronica leapt over the snowbank, flamethrower roaring to life as the first of the guards screamed. One tried to radio out, but Bill dropped him with a shock dart to the temple before the guy even finished the first syllable.

The second guard lunged. Mistake.

Bill ducked low, slammed an elbow into the man’s sternum, and kneed him once, hard, in the thigh. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Clean. Quiet.

The third ran. Smart. But not smart enough to dodge Pyro’s fire.

That left the driver and the intel target.

But Bill’s focus had already shifted.

The kid.

He was wide-eyed now, journal clutched to his chest, frozen as the last flare burst overhead and painted the snow red. Their eyes met. That same wide stare. Those same eyes—mocha and sharp and so stupidly brave.

The kid blinked.

And bolted.

“Shit.” Bill was already moving before Pyronica even noticed the passenger door slam.

“Target escaping?” she shouted.

“Not the target,” Bill growled, voice low. “New variable. Handle the cargo. I’ll get him.”

He dove after the kid, boots crunching through snow as the woods swallowed them both. The bastard was fast, he’d give him that. Darting like a wild thing, slipping between trees with an instinct Bill didn’t expect from someone who looked like one of the machines showpieces.

The forest twisted around them—snow, fog, trees blurring into streaks of motion as boots tore through the underbrush. Branches cracked ahead, brush shifted. Bill followed. Footprints, snapped twigs, the fading trail of body heat. A chase like this was good for the blood. Almost enough to make him forget how cold it was.

Eventually, the kid’s pace faltered—just enough for Bill to pounce.

They crashed together into a drift of packed snow, the world tilting as limbs tangled and slid. For someone who looked like he weighed as much as a soggy newspaper, the kid had fight in him. Bill grunted, slipping once, twice—before finally pinning him beneath his knees. He leaned down, breath puffing white.

“Well, well, well, Pine Tree,” Bill purred, his grin sharp enough to cut. “So we meet again.”

The kid’s face twisted—fear, fury, snow clinging to his lashes like glitter. Still clinging to that journal like it might save him.

“Still playing lapdog to the Machine, huh?” Bill laughed. “Cute.”

The kid growled, low in his throat.

Bill nearly howled back in laughter. “Oh jeez, look at you. You’re adorable when you try to be tough. I’ll give you options, since I’m feeling generous. Do you want your death slow or stylish? Neck or lead?”

He waited.

The kid didn’t answer. Just stared up at him, lips pressed together, jaw tight.

Bill’s grin twitched. “Tough crowd.” He leaned in, voice dropping. “Guess I’ll pick for you. Asphyxiation’s nice. Intimate. Makes it personal. You deserve that.”

He slid his gloved hands around the boy’s throat, thumbs grazing the pulse there.

“Oh, and Pine Tree? If the lack of airflow gives you a sudden change of heart, just tap my arm three times. I’ll stop. Maybe.”

He started to squeeze.

Then the kid roared.

It wasn't a scream—it was a full-bodied, animalistic snarl that made Bill's blood freeze. Before he could react, he was airborne, spine cracking against the snow as impossible strength flipped him like he weighed nothing.

Bill hit hard. Vision whited out for a second. When it cleared—

The thing crouched above him wasn't quite right anymore.

The face was Dipper's, but the proportions were off—jaw too sharp, limbs stretched just beyond human range. The eyes held hunger instead of fear, and when it snarled again, Bill caught a flash of teeth that belonged in a predator's mouth.

Shapeshifter. The realization hit like ice water. Of course the little bastard wasn't human.

"Well, kid," Bill muttered, hand sliding toward his hidden blade, "gotta admit—you had me fooled completely. Damn good meatsuit you crafted. Almost perfect." His voice stayed casual even as his heart hammered. "Just couldn't nail the behavioral patterns, could you?"

The thing tilted its head, studying him with predatory interest.

"Shame, really," Bill continued, fingers finding the knife's handle. "You nailed the looks, but the brain? Still running on cryptid instincts."

He struck fast—blade flicking across its cheek in a shallow warning cut—and rolled away, boots scrambling for purchase in the slush.

Got maybe ten feet before snap —the world tilted as a rope caught his leg, yanking him into the air.

"Were you about to fight an echolure with a knife, you absolute dumbass?!"

Bill twisted, coat falling over his face. The voice came from the trees—familiar, exasperated, and very human.

Two figures moved in his peripheral vision. The cryptid, now clearly revealed as something between a jackalope and a fever dream, padded back toward the trees. And dropping from a branch like an irritated cat—

"Seriously?" Dipper continued, storming over. The real Dipper, Bill realized with a mixture of relief and embarrassment. “She’s a mimic species, you moron. You try to kill her and she mimics your heartbeat, strength, and muscle memory for the next hour. You’d be basically fighting yourself—but stronger. God, no wonder Dream has such a piss-poor survival rate.”

The echolure let out what sounded suspiciously like laughter as it curled into Dipper's arms, all antlers and too many eyes.

“There we go,” Dipper muttered, brushing snow off its fur. “You did so good, baby. I’ll take you back to the infirmary after this.”

He turned back to Bill, expression stony.

“This,” he said, jabbing a finger, “is why everyone hates Dream.”

“I’m sorry—just to double-check,” Bill said, still dangling upside down, voice half-muffled by his own coat. “You’re a real person then, yeah? I’m not getting catfished by a bitchy rabbit again, right?”

Dipper rolled his eyes so hard it looked physically painful. “Yes, you idiot. I’m very real. Very alive. Not the one dangling from a rope in the middle of the woods this time either, so… minor win for me, I guess.”

He stepped closer, boots crunching in the snow.

“And honestly? I’m a little insulted you fell for that trap so easily. That decoy? That was me when I was twelve! I’m twenty-two now. How the hell did you not notice?”

Bill squinted, brain trying to backpedal as gracefully as possible. “Okay, well—first of all, you were moving fast. Really fast. Blurry.”

Dipper stared.

“And second…” Bill cleared his throat. “Got distracted. Y’know. Your eyes.” Bill doubled down like a man who couldn’t feel shame. “Very intense eyes. Good camouflage.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Dipper flushed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Thank you.”

“Not a compliment.”

“Still taking it.”

“Also now that I’m getting a better look at you, you’re about the same height now as you were at twelve.” Bill winked at him, causing the boy to sputter indignantly. 

“You’re awfully combative for someone tied up in a very dangerous section of the forest, you know.” 

Bill quirked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, about that—what the hell gives, Pine Tree?! If this is some elaborate foreplay where I’m supposed to beg for my life and then beg for a kiss, just know I’m skipping to the good part. Also I got notes.”

Gaze unwavering, Dipper took a few slow steps towards Bill, his boots crunching on the snow. Bill felt his heart quicken as he got close enough to brush their noses together. Bill could smell the forest on him. Pine needles, frost, and something warm—spiced and rich. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face in the crook of his neck to smell it further. 

Before he could get out another witty flirt, he saw Dipper yank hard on a piece of slack rope. The bindings snapped tighter around Bill’s ribs, forcing a sharp breath from him.

“Y’know,” Dipper took a step back, his voice low and cold, “I really should kill you.” 

Bill sighed and slumped back slightly, eyes flicking up toward impossibly tall trees surrounding them. “If you were planning to kill me, you would’ve done it already.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind.”

That made Bill laugh again, sharp and almost fond. “God, you’d do beautifully as a dream agent. Smart enough to trick me into a trap like this yet pissed off enough to be violent. Maybe you’re the key to shutting down the machine.” Silence followed as Bill absentmindedly struggled to find a weakness in the rope. “It was pretty arrogant to send a shifted version of yourself, by the way.”

Bill could see the corner of Dipper’s mouth twitch into a smile. “See, the beauty of these Echolure’s is that they shift into whoever their target is currently obsessing over.” Bill grimaced at the news. “I had been expecting Melinda to shift into one of the higher ups of the machine, not myself. Have to admit, I am flattered.” 

Bill groaned theatrically. “Ugh, Melinda ? You gave your murder bunny a name ?”

“She’s more competent than half your agents and doesn’t constantly flirt with people she’s trying to kill,” Dipper shot back, arms crossed, expression unreadable except for the slight burn in his cheeks.

“That you know of,” Bill purred. “Besides, can you blame me? You’re more intriguing than you give yourself credit for. It's a miracle I haven’t died trying.”

“You done?” he asked, voice like ice water.

“Pfft, kid I’m dangling from a tree. I don't really have much else to do.” Bill made a mental note to buy some rings. He’d seen Pyronica use hers in the past to cut rope. “What do ya even want, kid? The longer I’m hanging here without you interrogating me, the more I’m starting to believe this really is just foreplay.”

Dipper didn’t respond at first. Just stood there with that unreadable look—like he was trying to decide whether to punch Bill in the face or toss him a blanket.

Then, finally, “I wanted answers.”

“Oh good!” Bill chirped. “I love a good Q&A. Go on, sweetheart, ask me anything. My crimes, my favorite color, my opinion on your very stab-able jawline—sky’s the limit.”

“Where is Pacifica Northwest?” His voice became dangerous as he grabbed Bill’s knife from the ground. “I know you bastards took her.” 

Bill scrunched his face in confusion. “That Blondie from the Northwest party? There’s a lot of crap you could pin the blame on me for, but whatever you’re talking about isn’t one.”

Dipper’s grip on the knife tightened, the metal catching the low, grey light filtering through the trees. “Don’t play dumb. She went missing three days ago. Her dad’s telling people she ran away but that’s bullshit. The machine says it’s foul play, and that she was taken prisoner for ransom.” He swung the knife and pressed it gently against Bill’s bobbing Adam's apple. “And that you’re the bastard that took her.” 

Bill raised an eyebrow, still dangling but suddenly much more attentive. “Wait, wait, so the convoy sent out here was just a trap to lure me? To you?” His grin started to crawl back across his face. “Well damn, Pine Tree. You’ve been studying. Ohohoh, that makes this so much better. I missed having a rival that could challenge me strategically.”

“Answer the damn question,” Dipper snapped. 

“I am,” Bill snickered, “Haven’t heard from her since she called me a ‘waste of oxygen in a completely last season suit’ under her breath on that balcony. Hurt my feelings, really. After all the trouble we went through to get her that Mabel girl’s files–”

Dipper stepped closer towards Bill, the knife glinting against his jaw and noses brushing against each other again. 

“Look, I’m telling you the truth, Pine Tree,” Bill continued, dropping some of the showman tone. “She’s not with Dream. If she were, I’d know. Trust me, there’d be confetti. Her dad’s the richest man in town and we’re a bit low on dough, could you imagine that ransom?! But sadly she’s not ours.”

Dipper eyed him suspiciously, yet moved the knife from his throat. Bill internally cooed at the flash of stress and fear on his face. The boy really was a doll. 

“And,” Bill added, more quietly now, “if she was on the run? Then maybe you should be asking why she’d rather disappear than stick around with the fine upstanding folks at the Machine.”

Dipper’s lips parted like he was going to say something, like he was about to really ask, but then he caught himself. Stiffened.

“I’ve heard enough,” he muttered, stepping back again.

“Yeah?” Bill called after him, still strung up in the tree. “Then go ahead and leave me hanging, sweetheart! Wouldn’t be the first time someone did!”

Dipper hesitated, his eyes flickering back to Bill. For a moment, his carefully trained machine agent mask cracked and his eyes bore into Bill’s like a dog begging their master to throw them a bone. He took a shaky step forward, the snow crunching under his boots. “You know, they say this spring is going to be extra vibrant here in Gravity Falls.” His voice was soft and shaky, as if he was worried one of his comrades may overhear him breaking character with the enemy. “Thanks to all this extra snow we got and all. I’m hoping the forest heals a bit. Because of all this melted snow.”

Bill tilted his head at the statement. “Heals?” He asked, his voice turning low and soft, like he was encouraging of a scared baby bird to take flight. “Sapling, what do you mean by the forest healing?”

Dipper made a grim face as his fingers threaded through the bunny’s fur. “The creatures in this forest caught in the cross fire between the machine and dream. Hurts ‘em more than most realize. Maybe the spring will give some strength back into this forest. Turn it back to how it used to be when I was growing up.”

Bill tilted his head, voice soft and venom-laced. “You know the Machine’s never gonna let the forest bounce back, kid. Why pretend otherwise? Dream’s got their flaws, sure—but we’re not the ones turning cryptids into lab rats with triggers in their skulls.”

Dipper stepped back, jaw clenched, then stopped. Snow crunched under his boots as he stood there, clearly wrestling with something.

"They're not all like that," he said finally, voice barely above a whisper. "Not everyone at the Machine knows about the... the triggers. The experiments."

Bill's eyebrows shot up. That wasn't the response he'd expected.

"Some of us are trying to change things from the inside." Dipper's voice cracked slightly on the last word, and he looked away. "But it's... it's not working fast enough."

"Ohoho," Bill said softly, leaning forward despite the ropes. "There it is. Little Pine Tree's growing a conscience. That's dangerous thinking for a Machine agent."

"Dream's not exactly the moral authority here either," Dipper shot back, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Maybe not," Bill conceded. "But we're not the ones who created this mess in the first place."

Dipper was quiet for a long moment, stroking the Echolure's fur. When he finally looked up, his eyes held something Bill had never seen before—a desperate, guilty kind of hope.

"There's something you should know," Dipper said, voice barely audible. "Under Sector Seven. Code name: Asterion."

Bill stopped breathing.

"Not the strongest thing they've got locked up, but..." Dipper's hands trembled slightly. "But dangerous enough to break their security grid wide open. If someone knew how to wake it up and survive the process."

The name hit Bill like lightning. Asterion—a cryptid file, the kill-on-sight protocol, the myth locked behind seven encryption walls. Even Axolotl, with all his connections to the machine, couldn't access any information regarding the research and holdings of studied cryptids. Only the top researchers from the machine could access that kind of information. And this kid was just... handing it over.

"Why?" Bill whispered.

Dipper met his eyes, and Bill saw the answer there—guilt, fury, and something that looked almost like faith.

"Because maybe it's time someone shook things up," Dipper said. "What you do with that information is your problem now."

He turned to go, then paused. "Just... try not to get everyone killed in the process."

He laughed. Low and breathless and giddy.

“Well damn, Pine Tree,” he whispered, eyes gleaming. “Tie me up more often.”

“In your dreams.” He huffed. 

Bill watched him go—boots crunching through the snow, cloak snapping behind him like a retreating stormfront. The echolure twitched in his arms, glancing back once before disappearing with him into the fog.

That kid had just handed him a match and pointed to a powder keg. Asterion. He felt the name settle in his bones like gunpowder. And the look in Dipper’s eyes—furious, guilty, burning—Bill would carve that into his memory and dream about it later. Maybe even ruin a shirt or two over it.

He leaned his head back, ropes still tight around his chest, grin wild enough to border on reverent. “You really are something, Pine Tree,” he murmured, voice almost fond. “

And with that, the forest swallowed the last of Dipper’s silhouette, and Bill—bound, grinning, and already planning the next move—let the cold bite in. Just enough to remind him he was still alive. For now. 

“God, I hope I don’t ruin you, sapling.”

Chapter Text

Dipper jolted awake hours before he needed to. Kicking his blankets off rather ungracefully, he staggered to the large triangular window in the back wall of his room and looked out to the dense forest which seemed to sparkle under the gentle moonlight. Vaguely, he could make out that he was panting and legs were about to give out. With uncoordinated determination, he threw himself against the large window. The small rational part of his brain that was still rousing awake, chastised him for slamming into the window with his full body weight. Although the glass was shatter proof, the glass screamed at the harsh contact and could’ve woken up Mabel or his Grunkles. Such thoughts soon disappeared as his eyes darted across the seemingly endless expanse of green forestry with a paranoid fervor. 

What was he looking for again? Dipper chewed his bottom lip as he allowed his brain to mull on that question. Whatever it was felt incredibly urgent to Dipper. Maybe he’d remember once he saw it? 

A harsh pounding from within his skull interrupted his scanning of the area. Dipper let out a strangled cry at the sensation. Threading his fingers in his hair and pressing them firmly against his scalp, he could feel the beating of his skull reverberating against his fingers, as if his very brain was clawing and scraping from within in an attempt to escape. With a sigh, Dipper moved his fingers to trail down from the birthmark on his forehead to the nape of his neck. Just as he suspected, his skin was hot to the touch. The heat remained on the tips of his fingers long after he removed them from his skin. 

With the coordination of a drunk man, he stumbled across the room to his desk and chugged whatever water remained in his flask. Precious water slid down his chin due to his sloppiness, making Dipper frown. After a minute of using his left hand to search the mess of his desk, he finally felt the familiar smooth cylindrical container that held the antidote for these nightly attacks.

After what felt like ages, he swallowed two large pills and the last of his water. The pounding from within his skull seemed to relent ever so slightly, prompting him to slump into his desk chair while he still had the coordination to do so. 

With a resigned grunt, he dragged himself towards his desk. Squinting his eyes, he could vaguely make out the spine of his nightmare journal buried under a pile of his research journals. The pain was fading. Too fast. Shit. That meant the details would vanish soon, too—ripped from his memory like they always were. He lunged for the nightmare journal buried under his secret collection of personal research journals, flipped to a blank page, and began to write.

March 1st - 2:31 am 

Woke up fairly startled approximately….6 minutes ago? Maybe 10? Point being; I’m coherent and the memory of this nightmare is fading faster than usual. They must’ve upped the dosages again. 

My memory is extremely fuzzy this time around, so I’m going to have to be vaguer than usual. I was located in the forest as usual, based on the tree size and moss patterns, likely somewhere in the eastern edge, possibly zone 13. There was a baby…cryptid? I can’t remember what specific creature it was, if it was anything more than a fiction of my imagination anyways. It had pudgy, webbed feet, big amber eyes and tiny horns poking all over the top of its head. Kinda reminded me of Thompson’s old haircut ha. The baby smiled and cooed at me, before turning pale. Something…..vaguely humanoid? Human shaped? I can only remember the fuzzy figure of its shadow. It wrapped its hands around it, and it screamed. I told them to stop but I couldn’t…couldn’t fight. It was like watching a vampire suck the life out of a baby. It screamed something to me as it was dying. I think it was important. I don’t remember it. 

Then I ran. Didn’t need to look back to know it was chasing me. Didn’t need to see its face to know it wanted me gone. I felt its claws hit my back and—

I woke up

Dipper slammed the journal shut. Ever since his parents died in the forest when he was twelve, Grunkle Ford had taken him to one of the machine’s psychiatrists who prescribed him several medications. Some of them he considered as necessary to his living as air and water, others he had replaced with healthy coping mechanisms he learned as he grew and he dropped a few for making him feel worse overall. But there was just one damned medication he couldn’t rid himself of. 

Designed to encourage comfortable sleeping, once a month he was required to go to one of the machine’s clinics and receive a dosage of some pills made to erase the memory of ‘bad’ dreams. Nightmares. Growing up, he didn’t think much of it. He was even partially grateful for it. But as he grew and learned to pick the lock of his Grunkle Ford’s research lab after hours, he learned that dreams and nightmares alike were more than just esoteric bullshit. There were creatures in the forest who’d use nightmares as a way of communicating with others, or send them warnings specifically. He’d bandaged up some of those creatures in the past and had pretty good relations with them, so they’d have some sort of incentive to care for Dipper. Plus, they were the only family ballsy enough to live smack dab in the middle of the forest and proximity apparently increased the ease of transmission of messages. Point being, he refused to believe these nightmares meant nothing. 

Chewing on his bottom lip, he walked over to that same triangle window carved into the back of his room, looking out of it absentmindedly. He’d spent the past few months trying to develop a pill that would bypass the nightmare blockers with little progress. Pharmaceuticals never really was his forte, anyways. He supposed if he really wanted to, he could just ask Grunkle Ford to help him, but that would require admitting he had accessed his highly confidential research reports. The punishment for that was death by the machine. While he didn’t think his Grunkle would turn him in, he didn’t want to risk it. 

It was so tempting to ask for his genius Grunkle’s opinion though. His nightmares had never felt so important, especially considering Pacifica was still missing and he had no leads now that dream was cleared. For the love of god, he just wanted–no, he needed a lead. It wasn’t even just about consoling his sister’s heartbroken sobs by returning her secret lover anymore. Not really. It was about not letting this place—this twisted, silent town—eat another person he cared about. He refused to let Pacifica end like his parents did. Shrouded in mystery and unknowns. He wouldn’t buy any bullshit accusations of it being the forest’s foul play this time; his cryptid friends couldn’t be scapegoated for every mystery this town saw.  

With a slow breath, he let himself stumble back into his bed, curling against the warm sheets. It was late and he was such an anxious, sleep-deprived, impulsive mess he was allowing himself to sound like a dream agent. The thought made him smile—though it really shouldn’t have—as he glanced over to the crumbled up paper that Bill had given him that night at the ball. He’d returned home in a daze, but once he came to his senses he really should’ve treated the paper as an insult and thrown it away. He had memorized the numbers instead. 

Snuggling into a warm blanket, he imagined why the dream agent even had the balls to give Dipper his number. He could very easily turn it over to his Grunkle Stan to be traced and used against him. Or he could pretend he had a dramatic change of heart and go undercover, passing valuable intel to the machine and become coveted for being the agent who took down the dangerous rebel group. The possibilities for sabotage using such an intimate, ten digit string of numbers, were endless. 

Yet Dipper hadn’t done any of that. The latter idea had tempted him one cold night when he desired both the sweet treat Bill promised to him and respect from the machine for infiltrating their biggest enemy. But when he started dialing the telephone, he stopped about 6 digits short. 

He could’ve called. Could’ve sold Dream out, traced the number, handed Bill’s location to the Machine on a silver platter. It would’ve made sense. It would’ve made him a hero. But he didn’t. Not because he cared about dream, because he didn’t and not because he trusted Bill, because he absolutely didn’t. He wasn’t about to betray the machine for some maniac that threw his number at him mid-massacre with a wink; no he fought too hard, trained too long, and loved his family and cryptid friends too much. Yet, a small part of his brain couldn’t help but be curious about the dream leader. The man had learned of his affiliation with the very organization he dreamed to destroy and let Dipper walk away with nothing more than a passionate invitation to join him and then a teasing warning about it being his last easy out when Dipper didn’t immediately bite. Deciding not to take advantage of the weak spot Bill had given him with that scribbled on a ten-digit number, was the last easy out Dipper would give the man, he decided. 

Before he could remind himself that he had given him two easy out’s and a free cryptid ally during their second meeting, Dipper curled himself into his bed and fell sound asleep. He dreamed of being held in strong arms, amber eyes looking down adoringly at him and being peppered with tender kisses and whispered sweet nothings from the dream leader. He didn’t remember the dream when he woke up.

Dipper woke up a little before noon, surprisingly well-rested. The sunlight brightened his messy room and there was an unopened water bottle on his nightside with a note from his Grunkle Ford inviting him down to his personal lab if Dipper felt up for it. He stared at the neat handwriting on the Post-It. It was stupid how something so simple could make his throat tighten. He wished he could ask for help. But that would mean telling Ford everything and Dipper didn’t know if he could survive the look on his Grunkle’s face if he ever found out what Dipper had done. Or what he was still hiding. That didn’t change the fact that his Grunkle’s and Mabel’s gestures to try and support the mess that was Dipper Pines made him want to bawl his eyes out and confess to every little secret he held from them. He loved his family so much it hurt sometimes. 

With a renewed sense of vigor, Dipper tidied his room up before going to shower. Heat pooled in his face as he remembered that tomorrow he was supposed to have a little secret rendezvous with Gideon to help them both purge their urges. He ended up taking a much longer shower than he normally would, his mind drifting off to craft deplorable fantasies of amber eyes and a wolfish grin as he scrubbed at his skin. When he finally dried off, he did notice he felt a lot more relaxed than he had in previous days. In the back of his mind he remembered Mabel trying to give him anxiety management tips when they were 14 and saying, “I’m telling you Dipperoni, an everything-shower just resets the brain chemicals.”

Suppressing a smile, he decided to stop by Mabel’s room before he went down to chat with Grunkle Ford. His energetic twin despised being forced into bedrest as she recovered, and Pacifica’s recent disappearance had only made her even more antsy. He grabbed a bag of gummy worms he had bought from her at the store from his room before heading downstairs. There were no sparkly stickers on the frame today, his Grunkle Stan had probably taken them down because they got too worn again. Dipper would have to go into town and pick some up from the craft store later. He knocked on the door—two hard knocks, a pause and then four rapid knocks, the same secret handshake they had made when they were twelve—and frowned. For once, there was no music blaring from inside. No bright laughter. Just a faint rustle, then an uncharacteristically weak, “Come in!”. 

Since the ‘incident’, Mabel had been confined to laying on her bed most of the days. There were crutches that she could use to move to the kitchen and living room, but Grunkle Ford fussed over her too much to allow her to be out of her room for too long. So they had tried to make Mabel’s room as lively as possible. Blessed with the second largest room in the shack (Dipper’s room was slightly bigger but it lacked the closet space Mabel’s had.), Dipper had made it a point to make the room as joyful as Mabel. He tacked streamers onto the walls, installed a stained glass chandelier Mabel had thrifted two years ago and kept putting off installing, bought mountains of trashy romance novels which he knew she loved and built a radio communicator that had a range as far as the forest’s western edge so they could always be in touch. 

At first, Mabel had been understandably annoyed. But the gifts, the books, the attention… eventually she laughed again. Said she would’ve let herself get shot sooner if it meant paid vacation leave. She built a routine: reading, knitting, writing letters to Pacifica, giving Dipper unwanted advice, painting. However, ever since news spread of Pacifica’s disappearance she became a shadow of her former self. She now spent most of her time writing letters to Pacifica and collecting them in a neat pile in the corner of her nightstand, as if she could write Pacifica back into existence. She’d be quiet for long periods of time, no longer radio-ing Dipper to tell him all the jokes she thought of or shouting at Grunkle Stan to come play poker with her. Although she tried to mask it whenever someone came to visit, it was obvious to Dipper at least that Pacifica’s disappearance had absolutely wrecked Mabel. 

“Hey bro-bro! I was starting to wonder if you were gonna visit me at all today.” Mabel giggled as she pushed her paper and pen to the side of her bedside desk. “Come to complain about the gnomes again?” 

Dipper shuddered at the mention of those pesky creatures. While a mosquito probably posed a greater threat to humans, something about those things unnerved him. “Thank god no. I just wanted to say hi and maybe talk about nonsense. Y’know, have our daily twin-bonding time you’re always insisting upon.” 

“You always come at the end of the day for that though! Pfft, you trying to clock in your hours early, agent?” She laughed at her poor impression of Grunkle Ford’s “officer” voice. “No but seriously bro, what’s bothering you? And don’t say the gnomes or something because I know it isn’t that.”

Dipper chewed his bottom lip as he gave her a guilty smile. The truth was, there was a lot that was bothering him. The nightmares, Bill, Pacifica’s disappearance, the file about Mabel’s attack from the Northwest Ball. He had been hiding so much from her and he did feel guilty. Then again, with her emotional state he wasn’t sure if it was the wisest choice to push his own worries onto her. After a moment he settled on something he knew Mabel would find important but felt face-value enough that it wouldn’t cause her to question his mental state. “I….Dream didn’t take Pacifica.” 

Her eyes became impossibly wide at the mention of new information relating to Pacifica. “What?! How can you be so confident?”

Dipper gave her a guilty smile. “Remember how I told you I was going field training yesterday? Sorry that was a uh, a lie. I staged a prison convoy transport. Called up a few cryptid friends to block the main machine roads and bribed a few echolures to disguise themselves as machine guards. I even encrypted the false comms with a cipher I borrowed from one of the Machine’s retired prototype codes. Took me a night, but it sold the urgency. Anyways, Dream took the bait and tried to hijack the convoy and uh….yeah they don’t have her Mabel.” He stopped short of mentioning Bill. He really wanted to tell Mabel about the strange man who had been haunting Dipper’s moral conscience but a small voice in his head told him not to. Not yet. 

Mabel blinked dumbly at Dipper, mouth ajar. He knew that under other circumstances, Mabel would be insisting on baking a cake to celebrate the first mission he organized, but instead the news of his mission killed a bit of the hope remaining in her eyes. When he saw how his words smothered that wildfire of hope into a weak flicker, he almost regretted telling her. “Whaaa…no, no they 're probably bullshitting you. Dream’s smarter than we think—well, they’re strategically usually pretty shit but still! Maybe they hired a new guy that actually has a brain between their eyes and Pacifica is captured by Dream and we can still focus our efforts to save her–” 

“Mabel, no.” Dipper sighed, gently grabbing her hands and rubbing a smooth circle in each of her palms. “Dream..they don’t have her. I’m sorry.” 

“How can you be so sure! What made you come to that conclusion–” 

“That’s classified information.” Dipper lied, not wanting to admit his interaction with Bill and how he had actually trusted the information the Dream agent had fed him. While Bill Cipher and the concept of trust were antonyms in his head, years of spy training and his own emotional intuition made it clear to Dipper that the man had slipped him a rare truth when he said they didn’t have Pacifica.

Mabel looked almost hurt at the interruption, before nodding in bitter understanding.  She understood that there were some details that the twins couldn’t even share with each other. The machine had the final say in the end, and they both had to respect the line the machine had drawn in the sand no matter how much they desperately wanted to cross it. 

Of course, this wasn’t the exact reason why Dipper wasn’t elaborating to Mabel. He felt incredibly guilty hiding behind such a frustrating yet impenetrable excuse. “But I’m absolutely certain Mabel. Dream doesn’t have her. That doesn’t mean we should give up though. She’s out there trying to fight her way back to you. We just need to re-focus on a new target. I’ve already told my cryptid friends to keep an eye out.” 

Mabel stared out her window and into the forest. The silent plea to the forest to keep her lover safe was as clear as day on her face, so Dipper looked away out of respect. After several minutes passed, Mabel spoke, her voice uncertain. “I’m so scared for her, Dipper. I…I can’t lose her. I love her.” 

The words hung heavy in the air. Love. Mabel had never used that word to describe her feelings for Pacifica, not seriously anyways. He obviously knew they’d flirted through letters and had their own private rendezvous, but he had never realized that his sister’s relationship with Pacifica ran so deep. If the machine found out…they would be ripped apart. She had to love in secret and now that secrecy was mixed with grief. Even if Pacifica returned unharmed, Mabel would never be able to live the life that her lovesick heart yearned for. Dipper’s heart felt like it was being stabbed at the thought so he pulled his twin into a tight hug and let her sob into his shoulder. He wished he could do something to make the world a little less cruel to his sister. 

“Hey,” he whispered softly in her ear, “She’s okay. I know she is. I won’t rest until I find her, and once I do I’m taking her straight here.” He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head, her sobs subduing to sniffles. “You can’t stop believing in her Mabes. I need you to believe she’s okay so that we can work together to solve this mystery.” He pulled back so he could see her face and give her a grin, his arms leaving her shoulders. “After all, we are the mystery twins. And what do the mystery twins do?”

Mabel sniffled, giving Dipper a weak yet genuine smile. “We kick mysteries in the butt and make everything okay.”  

Dipper’s eyes flicked to the stack of letters on her desk, and his stomach turned with guilt. The rational side of his brain lost to the emotional side as secrets spilled out of his mouth. “Mabel.. there’s something else I need to tell you.. I wasn’t entirely honest about what transpired at the Northwest Ball. I…should’ve told you sooner, I’m so sorry.” 

Mabel stiffened. “What happened?” 

“I- no, well, a Dream agent slipped Pacifica a file. An internal machine file. I held the thing in my hands at one point and it looked official and felt real. It..” He gulped on air, his voice lowering. “It said that the machine ordered that hit that got you shot. You were marked off as…..acceptable collateral on a report signed off by Grunkle Ford. You were supposed to die.” 

Mabel’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “What? No way. I call bullshit. Let me see it! Were you able to get it authenticated by Grunkle Stan?” 

Dipper shook his head. “I don’t have it. Pacifica insisted on reading through the entire file herself in case Grunkle Stan saw that it incriminated Grunkle Ford and destroyed it to keep him safe.” 

“Hmph, sounds like Paz, ugh.” She tapped her chin as she thought, surprisingly composed for someone who may or may not have had a hit placed on them by their own family member, “I call bullshit still. Grunkle Ford would never. C’mon we both know that. Yeah, he’s a real stickler for the rules when it comes to the machine but he loves us so much. He loves us more than he loves obeying the machine.” 

Dipper nodded “I have to admit that’s the one detail I found odd. I can’t see Grunkle Ford agreeing to have you killed under any circumstances. I mean, he cut those gunmen to ribbons before your body even hit the floor. It’s hard to believe.” 

Mabel played with the sleeves of her sweater. “I guess that could be true. One thing's for certain though, there’s definitely something fishy about that report. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a plant from Dream meant to stir up some trouble.” Her eyes shot open. “Or…to get Pacifica convinced the machine is working against us and make her fake her death so she can try to fight the machine! Hell, maybe even to get her to join Dream! Oh my goodness that’s it….those bastards are low on resources anyways and with Pacifica’s connections….”

Dipper scrunched his nose. That….actually did make logical sense. There was a small problem though. “But Mabel, Dream doesn’t have Pacifica right now.” 

Mabel rambled on. “Of course they don’t! She’s–oh my god it all makes sense now!” She let out the first genuine laugh Dipper had heard from her since Pacifica went missing. “Paz and I always talked about how one day, once life quieted down a bit and we were ready to settle down, we’d run away to Canada. Apparently her family has a cushy little penthouse in Vancouver. But anyways, step one of that plan was that she’d drive into this top dollar pawn store in San Francisco to sell some of her valuables! Get her the money to help us set up a boutique. Anyways, what I’m getting at is that San Francisco is about a week and a half by car! And she’s been gone for about a week and a half! She’s pawning her stuff to get the money to give to Dream to take down the machine because they tricked her into thinking I was in danger! Or maybe she’s going to come back for me and we’ll flee for Vancouver early. I dunno. What I’m getting at is that it all makes sense now….right?” 

Dipper scooted next to Mabel and leaned back against the headboard, letting his brain chase itself in circles. He wanted to believe her. God, he really did. But something still felt...off. His thoughts flicked to the way Bill’s face had twitched when he brought up Pacifica—like it genuinely surprised him. And those amber eyes, usually so smug, chaotic and conniving, had gone still. Almost soft with honesty. Almost. The memory made it difficult to believe Mabel’s admittedly very logical theory was true, even though the only evidence against it was the words and looks of a man who Dipper was supposed to regard as their enemy. 

Rather than share his doubts with Mabel and crush her spirit, he weakly added “Maybe,” he murmured. “Maybe it wasn’t even a full fabrication. They could’ve gotten their hands on an old assassination file and just... swapped in your name. Used Grunkle Ford’s signature to scare Pacifica into acting quickly, knowing that he lives with us and you’d assumedly be under great danger living with the man who took a hit on you.” He sighed. “It would explain why neither of us recognized the names of the agents listed too. Who knows. Anything’s possible, right?” 

Mabel nodded vigorously. “Anything is! Anyways, I’ve stolen you away for too long and I kinda wanna write all this information down somewhere so I can keep track of everything. You should probably go talk to Grunkle Ford. Oh! Also, maybe let’s keep this theory between the two of us for now? I uh, I don’t want to explain to Grunkle Ford about how close me and Paz really were. Too risky, y’know?” 

Dipper nodded, smiling. “Of course Mabel. I won’t mention anything but I’ll still try to sneakily poke his brain a bit to see if I can get anything of good use.” Mabel smiled brightly at him as he hopped off her bed. “Oh! I almost forgot. Catch.” He threw the bag of gummy worms at her. 

“Thanks bro-bro! You’re the best! Now go get ‘em tiger!” Mabel yelled after him in between munching on gummy worms as he left.

After the forest, Dipper’s favorite place in the world had to be his Grunkle Ford’s personal research lab.

Located in the basement of the shack, the lab smelled like wildflowers, old books and coffee. After stepping off the elevator, he was greeted by the sight of rows upon rows of file cabinets that contained any magical item one could ever need. From hanahaki flowers to deer teeth, everything was neatly categorized by magical property or usage and then arranged alphabetically. Each item was accompanied by a sheet or two of journal paper describing the different usages and effects of said item. In the center was, of course, his Grunkle Ford’s lab space which contained state of the art technology. But past his lab area and beyond the file cabinets was a seemingly infinite stretch of ancient books that contained about every topic the cryptid-loving, magic obsessed young man could ever desire. The entire area was both Dipper’s heaven and a testament to all the scientific knowledge and progress that was able to be attained all thanks to the machine. 

“Dipper my boy!” His Grunkle Ford waved him over with a smile. He looked sleepy yet content, not noticing the pencil tucked behind his ear slip out and fall onto the linoleum floor with a thud. “Come here now! I brewed some coffee and brought down a slice of coffee cake for you–you’re favourite!” 

Dipper smiled and bent down to pick up his Grunkle Ford’s pencil. “Thanks Grunkle Ford! You’re the best! Also thanks for the water last night, I chugged it the second I woke up.” 

“Ah of course my boy! It is important that we Pines stay hydrated and healthy, you know!” His smile faltered. “These forests aren’t safe and we’re smack dab in the middle of it.” His smile returned and he clapped a hand on Dipper’s back. “Anywho, I wanted to share with you a bit of information that I believe may aid you in your research into Thunderbird…”

After that they fell into a natural rhythm, exchanging cryptid knowledge and theories. As much as he loved the rest of his family, he never felt as much at ease as he did when he was debating cryptid information with the man. After years of being outcasted and bullied, his Grunkle Ford was finally someone who he could trust and understood him. He showed Dipper how to be both remarkably intelligent yet also care deeply for his family. Before meeting him, Dipper had always been led to believe that one can be either intelligent or emotionally inept. Never both. But Grunkle Ford had shown him that intellectual passion and emotional distance didn’t go hand in hand, giving him hope for his future. 

As they flipped through a dusty tome on migratory storm beasts, Ford reached under the table to pull out a thin black file. “Oh, I nearly forgot—I was authorized to share this with you. Low-clearance version of Project Asterion’s file. Should help you rule out a few false cryptid leads.”

Dipper’s blood turned to ice. Project Asterion, as in the small dragon cryptid-taming project that the machine had abandoned for being too expensive and after determining the Asterion was too weak to be useful as a weapon. Project Asterion, as in the seemingly irrelevant creature and irrelevant base that while Dipper was swept up in his emotions, he had stupidly slipped the coordinates to Bill, the leader of the dream.

Shit. 

“Project Asterion?” he asked, carefully casual. “I thought the machine dropped that project years ago?”

“Yes, yes,” Ford said, waving a hand as he sipped his coffee. “However the machine noticed something unique about the location of the base, however. Something in regards to magical resonance and channeling potential. Plus it’s far enough from other bases and has been abandoned for long enough that it should be off our enemies radar. They’re sending a couple classified files over there and sending someone out in about two days to analyze them and assign a project lead. No big deal. Well above my pay grade, anyway—access to the current files is tightly locked.”

Dipper took the file with shaking hands and flipped it open. It was sparse. Sanitized. But the header caught him off guard.

ACCESS LEVEL: ARCHITECT’S EYES ONLY.

Shit.  

This couldn’t be happening. If even his Grunkle Ford wasn’t cleared, heaven knows what Bill and the rest of Dream would do once they got their grubby little fingers on the file. Also, why had Dipper been handed a file by Grunkle Ford that neither of them could read? 

The moment he thought that, his Grunkle Ford stuffed the file back in his cabinet with a light flush. “I’m…not supposed to have this, but they asked Stanley to seal it and he slipped it to me since he understands I’m fascinated by this type of stuff. I got the information about assigning the project lead via a comm that came in this morning” Ford shifted nervously, “A-Anyways! I just wanted to let you know that the magic radars in that section will likely be going crazy in that section but for reasons connected to that project. It would be best if you stayed away from the area honestly.” 

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Shit. If the comm had been sent out this morning, Dream had likely already intercepted it by now and would rush to Asterion as soon as tomorrow where they would be expecting a small dragon, they would stumble upon possibly one of the most classified machine files that was currently active. And it was all Dipper’s fault. Dipper swallowed hard. He had given Dream a fucking gold mine on accident. 

“Oh! Well that’s pretty neat. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks Grunkle Ford!”  He had to fix this. Before anyone realized. Before Bill realized. And he didn’t have much time.

Chapter Text

The hum of the old ventilation system was the only sound keeping Dipper company in the bowels of Project Asterion’s base. Dust choked the corners. The flickering fluorescent lights above looked ready to give out at any second.

The Asterion had been hostile at first, but Dipper had experience calming cryptids. After a ten-minute tussle, he patched up a few minor wing injuries and stashed the medium-sized fire dragon in a reinforced enclosure two levels down. Triple-locked. Not because he didn’t trust the creature—he didn’t trust anyone to not get in his way right now.

It was a shame. Under different circumstances, he would’ve been thrilled to bring the thing back to Ford’s lab and study it properly. In the brief window researchers had worked on Project Asterion, they’d learned the dragons were fireproof, and mature ones could spark entire thunderstorms. Who knew what else the seven-foot cryptid—who had followed him like a baby bird—was hiding? Or why it was the only Asterion he’d found alive.

He crouched near a broken security terminal, fingers flying across the dusty keypad. The air smelled like copper and mildew. He growled and shoved away from the screen as it blinked red for the fifth time. Hacking had never been his strength—and whatever backup security the system needed now was beyond his clearance or patience. If he wanted to find the file, he’d have to search the old-fashioned way.

And quickly.

Somewhere above, Dream’s operatives might already be closing in, thinking they were about to “liberate” a forgotten dragon from a junk heap of a project.

They had no idea.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it: an Architect-level file hidden in this dump. If Dream got to it first, the Machine would bleed—and it would be his fault. If he found it first, maybe he could erase the damage.

He rubbed his temples and ducked out of the security room, boots echoing against cracked tile. The base was falling apart. Two exits, maybe three if he could pry open the rusted sublevel hatch. He didn’t have the firepower to hold off a full Dream raid. But if he played this smart—if he moved fast—he might not have to.

He just needed to move the file. Or torch it. Or hell—steal it.

He checked his watch.
3:45 AM.

He’d dragged himself out of bed before sunrise to get here first. Dream had a habit of hitting early. He was banking on beating them by an hour—two, if he was lucky.

Then, he heard it.

A woman’s laughter—sharp, roaring—just above forest level.

“Shut up, Pyro! Someone could be here!”
A man’s voice. Too loud. Too familiar.

Bill.

Shit.

So much for getting his preferred outcome.

Dipper ducked behind a row of old storage tanks, heart hammering. He could hear footsteps approaching the base entrance. They weren’t talking anymore, but Dipper could hear their labored breathing as they climbed down the ladder. 

Just how many were there? Dipper held his breath, listening to each set of boots slam onto the metal floor after the ladder. First came a nimble, confident thump—light but leading. That had to be Bill. Next was a louder, ungraceful thud. Heavy, fast, and unsteady. Brute force, probably a messy fighter. A third impact landed harder but quicker—controlled. That one had experience. And finally, a soft step, followed by the telltale drag of shoes skimming the floor. Hacker. Of course they brought a hacker. Shit.

His heart pounded like it was trying to claw its way through his ribs. Four intruders. Dipper’s breath caught, but he forced himself to breathe. Four was better than five. Four was manageable—if he was fast, smart, and lucky.

Dipper searched the materials scattered on the floor, his mind racing. There was an old junction box open on the floor. His Grunkle Stan had taught him once how to rewrite those older models to create a signal jammer that would break any comm relays. With shaky hands, he yanked the dusty box open and twisted and tore at wires, releasing a breath of relief as the box let out a sharp snap of static. 

Now they’d have no team coordination through comms if they split up—which, by the difference in volume of the sound of footsteps, Dipper could tell they were. Dream never really were good strategists; had he been leading such a mission he would’ve insisted on staying together. In this forest, strength was in numbers. But Dipper was thankful that Dream was filled with ego fighters and decided to split up anyways. Now they had no backup calls, just confusion. Dipper could work with that. For now anyways. They’d realize soon enough though so he had to act quick. 

Against his better judgement, he decided to follow the pair of strong and brash footsteps—the fighters of the group. The hacker and Bill would have been a more fair fight for Dipper, but Dipper wasn’t the strongest. He relied on strategy, and those two—especially Bill—he was more certain could pick up that something was wrong faster than the other two. 

He crawled into the nearest vent hatch. Every Machine base was built with emergency researcher exits in mind—wide enough for a full-grown adult, reinforced to withstand cryptid attacks and most importantly to Dipper, hidden to anyone outside of the vent. Today, it would serve a new purpose: ambush tunnel.

Dipper dragged himself through the vent, stalking the pair of fighters. He had a better visual on them now and was able to make out their builds. An older yet bulky man led, scanning the area ahead. He had piercing green eyes, a buzz cut and veneers that damn near blinded Dipper. Behind him was a fierce looking woman with brown eyes and fiery red hair tied in a stylish updo. She intrigued Dipper more than her comrade due to the confidence that she carried herself with and the mischievous expression on her face. Her entire uniform was a bright pink, that although Dipper would admit looked breathtaking on her, was ridiculous for a hijacking mission since it made her pop out in the monochrome lab like a sore thumb. As they kept moving and she came closer to the ridges of the vent, he recognized her as the woman from the Northwest Ball that had gotten shot. He was pretty sure she was named Pyronica? Dipper had to admit, had Bill not found him first he may have found himself flirting with this Dream agent that night. What could he say, he had a thing for red heads!

Dipper internally smacked himself on the forehead when after two whole minutes of gawking he noticed the flamethrower on her hip. He needed to get a grip of himself if he wanted to make it out of that base alive. Her flamethrower was not something Dipper wanted to see be put to use anytime soon. 

“Yo Teeth, come look at this baby.” Pyronica grabbed the other man—Teeth—by the forearm and shoved him over to a picture of a fully grown Asterion. “Ooo look at the size of this babe! We’ll have those bastards at the machine slaughtered before dusk with that thing on our size.” 

Dipper rolled his eyes at that. Yes, a fully grown Asterion was an incredibly formidable foe. It grew to about 17 feet and could have as much as 1000 pounds of muscle. But, the only Asterion that remained in the base was only 7 feet—practically a baby. The rest of the Asterion flock was just….gone. He made a mental note to look into that mystery if he made it out alive. 

He drowned out the rest of their conversation as he began to think of how to separate them. So they thought the massive beast they saw on the wall was what they were dealing with? Dipper could maybe use that misunderstanding to his advantage. If he just jumped down and snatched, say, Pyronica, Teeth would kill Dipper on sight. But if they thought it was an Asterion that snatched Pyronica, they’d hesitate because they know their primary target is to tame, not kill the Asterion. Dipper could work with that. 

Pyronica would have to go first. She was louder, more volatile, and the flamethrower on her hip made Dipper's skin crawl. But if he just dropped down and yanked her, Teeth would probably rip him in half. Still... they thought a full-grown Asterion was in this base, didn’t they? That was something he could work with. If Pyronica disappeared screaming into the dark, Teeth might assume their target got loose and panic—but not kill. After all, they wanted to tame the Asterion, not fry it. But, what would he even do with her? His eyes darted back to the picture of the Asterion and had an idea. The cell that Dipper had kept the Asterion was just one of several. And these vents were connected to every part of the base, including the cells! So all Dipper would have to do is pick them one-by-one and drop them in a cell! 

A grin twitched at the end of his mouth. This was a good start. Now he had to subdue and snatch Pyronica without Teeth noticing. And he finally had an idea. 

He pulled a loose piece of metal peeling from the edge of the vent. While the two were busy chatting about what type of pizza to order that night—Dipper was seriously flabbergasted these people were The Machine’s biggest threat; it was a miracle they were even still alive in a town like Gravity Falls—he slipped his hand through a ridge in the vent and used the metal piece to push aside a metal slot in the reinforced cell door, revealing an observation glass. As soon as he finished, he shot his hand back inside the vent and threw the metal piece down a vent headed for the kitchen and landed with a loud clank. 

Dipper slithered like a ghost through the vents, tracking every echo. He waited for the right moment—right as Teeth muttered something about “checking that noise” and started stomping off down the corridor, muttering curses under his breath. Pyronica hesitated, glancing around like she was considering following, but then her eyes caught on something deeper in the hallway: the reinforced cell sector door and the observation glass. 

Bingo.

He shifted in the vent above her, careful not to make a sound as he adjusted a nearby pipe. Attached to it was an old cryo canister—mostly drained, but if he rerouted pressure just right, it might give off a sharp enough hiss to startle her. His fingers worked the latch with expert speed.

Down below, Pyronica approached the cell sector with a cocky swing in her step. “C’mon baby,” she cooed, voice syrupy sweet, the flamethrower bobbing on her hip. “Mama’s here to take you home. You want a treat? Or should we skip straight to the part where you torch some fascists with me?”

Dipper blinked, stunned for half a second. That was… a little hot . His face burned and he internally cursed himself. Focus, idiot.

He watched her kneel by the cell entrance, peering in.

“Damn, you’re cuter than your file said,” she said softly. The Asterion inside cried low in fear, curling tighter in its corner. She leaned forward, her smile turning wolfish. “What’s the matter, big guy? You shy?”

Now.

Dipper popped the latch on the cryo pipe.

A blast of icy air hissed straight down from the vent and hit Pyronica in the back. She yelped, spinning wildly with her flamethrower drawn—just as Dipper shoved open a wall access panel behind her. Her instincts kicked in too slow. He lunged, not aiming to fight—just to shove. His shoulder hit her side as she turned and, caught off guard, she stumbled backward and fell straight through the hatch behind her.

Thunk.

She hit the lower level floor with a grunt of pain and a long, “ Son of a biiii— ”

SLAM. The reinforced cell door closed above her, auto-lock hissing into place.

Dipper panted, staring down the hatch in disbelief. Holy shit. He did it

“N-not here to hurt you, sorry if I did!” Dipper cracked out before shaking his head. “And don’t worry! You’ll have company soon!” 

A furious growl echoed from below. “I’m going to burn you alive, mystery boy!”

Dipper didn’t wait to see if she figured out how to hotwire the panel. He scrambled back into the vent, heart pounding, and shot off toward his next target.

One down.

Three to go

Teeth was pacing around a defunct weapons bay two halls down, mumbling to himself and occasionally kicking old scrap metal with enough force to send it skidding into the wall. Dipper followed from above, crawling through the narrow ventilation shafts like a stalking animal, pausing just above the rusted ductwork where the ceiling grates were loose.

He needed a new approach—Teeth didn’t seem the type to be startled. Based on how careless he was acting, definitely the type to punch first and ask questions never.

His eyes flicked back toward the cell sector. The Asterion had made a few odd sounds when Dipper first found it—almost a guttural chirping, broken up by low, wavering warbles when it tried to puff up and act intimidating. Which… hadn’t been very convincing, given the broken wing and sleepy eyes. But still. It sounded weird enough.

He cupped his hands over his mouth and let out a warbled chuff, high-pitched and off-kilter.

Below, Teeth froze mid-step.

Dipper let out another—slightly louder this time. A layered sound, too deep for a bird, too sharp for a mammal. He mimicked the growly trill the Asterion gave when it first saw him.

“Pyro?” Teeth shouted, squinting toward the end of the hallway. “That you? You find it?”

Dipper made the chirp again.

“Damn, that must be it!” Teeth took off running down the hall without waiting for backup, tripping over a pipe and nearly face-planting before catching himself on a doorframe. “Yo dead lizard, come to papa!”

Dipper scrambled ahead, dropping down into a side hall and ducking behind the heavy metal door of Cell #5. He flipped the manual override to open and pressed into the wall, waiting.

Teeth turned the corner full speed and barely paused when he spotted the open door.

“HA! Gotcha now, you son of a—”

Thunk.

Dipper slammed the door the second his foot crossed the threshold. The lock clicked and Teeth’s confused “Wait, what—?” was cut off with a dull thud as he walked straight into the back wall.

Dipper exhaled, hands on his knees, breath catching up with him. “I cannot believe that worked.”

From inside, Teeth groaned. “I think I bit my tongue…”

Two down.

He wiped the sweat off his brow with a shaky hand. Pyronica had firepower. Teeth had brute strength. But the hacker? And Bill? Those two were going to be harder. He doubted that Bill would easily split up with someone he knew wasn’t a fighter. Bill was also smarter and stronger than Pyronica and Teeth combined. He needed to think fast.

He began to crawl through the vents again and followed the faintest sound of voices in the distance, namely Bill’s voice. 

From the cramped, overheated vent above the terminal room, Dipper pressed his ear to the metal panel, straining to hear. 

“…He’s sharper than I thought,” Bill’s voice murmured, soft and wrapped in a dangerous kind of admiration. “Clever. Slippery. Never would have expected my little Pine Tree to have me tied up in a clearing like I was some cheap date—left me with a fake and a trail of breadcrumbs.” A chuckle.

Dipper stilled, breath caught. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, crouched in the cramped, sweltering vent, but the second he heard his name—his nickname—from that voice, his mind refused to make any sort of plan.

“I mean, I knew he had nerve, but that? That was art.” A pause. “You should’ve seen it, Ax. Tied me up, replaced himself with a shapeshifter, handed me coordinates like a goodbye kiss.” 

A second voice hummed. “Sounds dangerous.”

“He is,” Bill said, almost reverently. “And stupid. And infuriating. And the most interesting thing I’ve seen in years.” 

Dipper didn’t breathe. His fingers dug into the rusted vent grating. He wasn’t supposed to be hearing this.

“I think he’s coming around,” Bill added after a pause. He sounded…giddy? “You gotta agree with me about at least that, Axolotl? The kid literally gift wrapped one of the most magically volatile and classified machine project files we’ve seen ever.” 

“I’m not so sure, Cipher.” The second voice—Axolotl—hummed. Dipper flinched when he caught sight of the man. He had clearly survived some sort of horrific attack, as his face was heavily disfigured and barely human. “Doesn’t he hate your guts? You did threaten to kill him and openly mock the organization that’s manipulated him for years now. Doesn’t quite scream romance.” 

“Details!” Bill groaned. 

“You’re smitten,” Axolotl deadpanned.

“I will not be judged for having taste, He’s got the whole package; Brains, Beauty and could kill me? That’s catnip, baby. And I don’t intend to give him up so easily. Give me a week and I’ll have him on our side.” Bill said, and Dipper could hear the smug grin in his voice.

Dipper didn’t breathe. His fingers dug into the rusted vent grating. He wasn’t supposed to be hearing this. Dipper was about to backpedal through the vent and regroup when the grate beneath him gave a sickening noise.

creaaaaaak

He froze. So did the voices below.

“…Did you hear that?” Axolotl asked.

Before Dipper could shift, the panel beneath him groaned and snapped.

“OH, YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDD—”

CRASH.

He slammed into the floor directly between them, sprawling face-first with all the grace of a tranquilized raccoon. 

Pain shot up his spine. His heart, meanwhile, was already trying to escape his ribs.

Bootsteps.

Dipper forced himself onto his elbows—and found himself eye to eye with a pair of scuffed black boots and the unmistakable edge of a gold-lined coat.

Dipper looked up—and froze. 

Bill stared down at him, gold eyes burning like twin suns. He blinked once. Then again.

And smiled like the devil had just walked in and found his favorite sinner.

“You came,” he breathed.

Dipper scrambled back. “It was an accident.”

“Sure it was.” Bill took one slow, deliberate step forward. “You fell out of the sky. Into my hands. You expect me to believe that this is nothing more than fate showing off its sense of humor?”

“Yes?” Dipper coughed, leaning against the wall as he struggled to stand up. A piece of metal had lodged into his abdomen when he fell. Thankfully his jacket covered the evidence for now. He didn’t think Bill had noticed yet. 

Bill’s eyes dragged down his form, slow and shameless, before flicking back up with a heat that made Dipper’s skin crawl and shiver.

“Cute outfit, by the way,” Bill said. “Little dusty and torn. I like it.”

“Shut up.”

“No,” Bill said, stepping in even closer, now barely a breath between them. “Not when I’ve got you right here. Not when I’ve been replaying that moment, when you looked me in the eye and handed me the best intel out resistance has ever had.” 

“You mean when I left you tied up in a forest and gave you coordinates because I thought you’d freeze to death?” Dipper coughed again. 

Bill gave him a strange look as he coughed for a second time, but shook his head.  He raised a hand, and Dipper flinched—but Bill’s touch wasn’t violent like he had expected; it was tender. Calloused fingers cradled the side of Dipper’s cheek, his thumb drawing a triangle on the soft skin. Dipper’s breath hitched. 

“You’ve been thinking about me,” Bill whispered, his voice husky. There was an intensity in his eyes that almost tricked Dipper into believing Bill cared for him beyond a possible physical attraction. “I can feel it in the way you tremble under my touch, sapling.” 

“No—”

“Don’t lie to me, Pine Tree.” Bill licked his lips. “You don’t have to do that anymore. Not with me, anyways. Dream won’t hurt you like the machine has. Nothing will. I’ll personally see to it that your safety is guaranteed.” 

Dipper hated how hot his face felt. His spine straightened, but it was shaky. The pain in his abdomen was starting to build and he felt his knees wobble. Much to his surprise, Bill wrapped his arms around his waist to steady him, their chests touching. “Easy now, tiger. I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d get you to switch sides so easily. Not that I’m complaining of course, doll. I mean look at you! You led me and my crew straight to a file detailing a project that could’ve actually killed us. You're finally ready to burn the Machine down, Pine Tree?” Bill leaned close enough that Dipper could feel his hot breath on his lips, voice a low purr. “Because if this is your way of saying you’re mine now… I gotta say, I’m flattered.”

Dipper’s eyes widened. So Bill didn’t realize he had trapped half of his “crew”? He believed that Dipper was here to join him? Maybe he could use this misunderstanding to his advantage…

..is what Dipper would’ve thought if  Bill wasn’t so close. Way too close. His eyes were shining—genuinely thrilled. His lips parted just slightly.

And then—

Bill leaned in. 

And Dipper mustered all the energy he had in him to punch Bill square in the jaw. 

Bill fell back with a yelp and a clatter of boots on metal. His bottom lip was split and Dipper was a little proud when he noticed a bruise forming on his cheek.

Bill stumbled backwards at the force, gripping his jaw. “OW, WHAT THE HELL?” he barked, clutching his face. “I WAS GOING FOR A TENDER MOMENT, YOU MANIAC!”

“I’m not on your fucking side, Bill.” Dipper spat out, forcing himself to stand steady despite the searing pain in his abdomen. He had fought with a bullet lodged in his neck once; he’ll live. “I stand with the machine and I’m here to take you down.” 

“I think you want to believe I’m the villain,” Bill continued, voice slipping into something exasperated. “Because if I’m a monster, then it makes it easier to ignore how badly you want me to press you against this wall and ruin your loyalty problem.”

“ Fuck you, ” Dipper growled.

“Oh, I’d let you.” Bill’s smile split wider. “But you’d have to ask nicely.” 

Axolotl let out a disgusted grumble at Bill’s words. “Pipe down boys, I’m trying to decipher this. Cipher, either kill him or take him to the room to have your way with him.” 

Dipper gave the disfigured man an apologetic smile, before turning back to Bill. “As a proficient de-crypter myself, I’m very sorry to say sir but your current efforts are a waste.” 

Bill let out a disappointed groan. “Please, kid. You’re clever but I brought two of my best fighters with me. You died the second you punched me, in my mind. Stop pretending you can stop us. It’s four against one puny agent boy.” 

Dipper leaned his back against the wall, masking his need for external support to keep him up as a smug action. Bill raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “Oh? And when did you last hear from your other comrades, Bill?” 

Bill’s eyes narrowed into something dangerous. The anger in the man’s expression made Dipper flinch. Not taking his eyes off Dipper, he reached for his comm and tried sending a signal to one of them. The sound of static coming from the device made him snarl. He took slow steps towards Dipper, shaking in rage. “Signal blockers? Cut the bullshit, Dipper. Where. Are. They.” 

He grinned at Bill. “Keeping my Asterion friend company.” 

The fist slammed into the wall inches from Dipper’s head, warping the steel with a screech. He didn’t flinch—but his knees almost buckled under him.

A flicker of blue-white light surged past Bill’s shoulder before he could swing again.

Magnetic cuffs snapped shut around Dipper’s wrists mid-recoil, pinning his arms tight to his sides with a painful jolt. He barely had time to process the shock before he was yanked backwards with a grunt, his body dragged into the wall like a doll tugged by unseen strings.

Axolotl stepped into view, his mechanical hand raised, a control band blinking on his forearm. “That’s enough foreplay,” he muttered.

Dipper’s eyes widened as he looked down at the cuffs—prototype tech, encrypted with Machine-level biometric locks. Impossible to forge. Even harder to hack.

“You accessed the security logs,” Dipper breathed, shocked in spite of himself. “I didn’t even think this base still had a functioning mainframe—”

“It didn’t,” Axolotl cut in, tone dry. “But someone left just enough of a backdoor open while rewiring the junction box. You’re good, kid. Sloppy under pressure, though.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“I got into the security system. They’re in Cell Sector A,” Axolotl answered without looking at him. “The girl, the brute. Your Dream ‘muscle.’ That dragonling’s more docile than I thought.”

Bill blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t kid.” Axolotl turned his disfigured face toward Dipper, and for a moment, there was something oddly gentle in his ruined features—respect, maybe. “Took me ten minutes to crack the vault access code on that security log. You rewrote the whole protocol using a ciphered redirect loop hidden inside the fire suppression system. Impressive, considering the time constraints.”

Dipper, despite everything, flushed. “...Thank you?”

Axolotl waved a hand at Bill. “File decryption can wait. We need him alive to open those cells.”

“You’re assuming he’ll cooperate,” Bill snapped, voice sharp with frustration. “He just cracked my jaw, in case you missed it.”

“Which you probably deserved,” Axolotl muttered.

Bill growled, but didn’t answer. His gold eyes blazed as he stepped closer, and for a moment, Dipper thought he might swing again—but instead, Bill’s hand reached out, hovered an inch from Dipper’s jaw, then curled into a fist and dropped.

“You’ll talk,” Bill muttered. “Sooner or later.”

Dipper didn’t flinch. “Good luck with that.”

Axolotl flicked his wrist, and the cuffs yanked Dipper off his feet with a mechanical hum, dragging him across the floor toward the far corridor. Bill followed in tense silence, gaze never leaving him.

Outside of the vent system, Dipper had a hard time telling if they were even going the right way. Machine bases were designed to be like a maze. A unique design choice made to confuse any stray cryptids that tried to escape or any intruders. Which they technically were. 

Dipper bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. He could feel the warmth starting to pool beneath his jacket, sticky and terrifying. Thank god the metal was still lodged in his skin and prevented most of the blood from rushing out.  He needed to stay sharp. If Bill or Axolotl noticed his deteriorating state, they’d use it to their advantage. He could do this. He could ignore the pain. After all, that’s what he had been trained to do.  

He focused on Bill’s voice instead.

“You’re clearly not stupid and have a semblance of a moral compass,” Bill repeated, voice low, sharp. “So why stick with the machine, huh?” 

Dipper swayed on his feet, the world tilting sideways for a second. His breath hitched as he pushed off the wall with his shoulder, refusing to let himself fall—especially not in front of him .

“You don’t get it,” Dipper snapped. “I don’t follow the machine because I’m blind. I follow it because it gave me a life .”

Maybe it was the trickling loss of blood. Maybe it was his exhaustion. Whatever the reason, Dipper found himself unable to stop himself from revealing too much, too quickly. “My parents died in that forest when I was twelve. We had been on vacation here from California. My dad was a big hiker, y’know? But they were killed by something even the Machine couldn’t identify. They found me and Mabel—crying, screaming, covered in blood—and took us in. They gave us to another pair of twins rather than just throw us in the system where we would’ve been split up. The Machine gave me a family. Gave me a purpose.”

Bill’s edge softened ever so slightly as he continued. A flicker of understanding passed in his expression. That terrified Dipper. He didn’t want his pain to be understood by a man like Bill Cipher. 

“My Grunkle Stan taught me to fight. My Grunkle Ford—” and here, Bill’s jaw twitched ever so slightly—“taught me everything I know about the forest. About cryptids. About magic. I grew up in these woods, Bill. I learned to patch up a griffin’s wing before I knew how to ride a bike. The Machine may not be perfect, but it’s the only family I’ve got left. And I can’t lose my family. Not again.”

Something dangerous flickered in Bill’s eyes. A hint of recognition. Of memory. But he masked it behind a lazy smirk.

“And how many more families do they have to break before yours finally counts as collateral?” he asked, voice silk-wrapped steel.

Dipper’s expression twisted. “I don’t know. I’m not saying they’re saints. But I’ve got people I love—my sister, my Grunkles, the cryptids I grew up with, the agents who risk their lives beside me—and I’m not going to risk them just because some unhinged rebel with a god complex thinks he can solve deep-rooted community issues by shooting some leaders and causing chaos..”

Bill stepped in again, closing the gap between them, the air practically crackling. “You know what’s funny?” he murmured, voice low and smooth. “You say you fight for your family, your forest. But you’re not just protecting it, Pine Tree. You understand it. You see the cracks. You know what’s broken.”

Dipper’s knees faltered. Bill caught his elbow before he could hit the floor. Dipper straightened immediately, brushing him off with a mumbled, “Tripped on air,” like that explained anything.

“That’s what makes you dangerous,” Bill continued, gaze sharp. “You get it . You hate me, sure. But deep down—you know I’m right.”

Dipper shoved his arm away. “Don’t put words in my mouth.” His voice lacked the bite it should’ve had, but neither of them acknowledged it.

They followed Axolotl in tense silence before Dipper finally spoke, still winded but defiant. “What’s your reason for being such a bitch about the Machine, anyway? Everyone’s got complaints, but you went full underground warlord. That’s not just rebellion, that’s personal .”

Bill grinned, tilting his head. “Oh, I just want world peace and good vibes for all,” he said, tone mockingly sweet. “Love, trust falls, flower crowns.”

Dipper scoffed. “And then what? You bake cookies and find inner peace?”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “Actually, yeah. I used to want a bakery. Cozy little shop, cute dog, cuter husband, big bed. Maybe travel—see the pyramids. I was a nerd for ancient history as a kid.”

He bumped Dipper’s shoulder playfully, but a little too rough for a secretly injured Dipper. Pain flared through Dipper’s side, the jagged metal in his abdomen twisting deeper. He hissed under his breath, but said nothing.

Bill’s voice softened—just barely. “Of course, some of your family got in the way of all that.”

Dipper’s expression twitched, but he didn’t ask. He couldn’t.

Axolotl cut in with flat finality. “Romantic tension’s cute and all, but we’re here.” They stopped in front of the cell block. From inside, Pyronica was screaming murder and metal. Teeth groaned something about his tongue.

Bill looked almost relieved. Dipper noticed.

“Open it,” Bill ordered, shoving him forward.

Dipper stared at the keypad, listening to the flamethrower threats echoing through the walls. “Can I not?”

A hand slid around his throat—tight enough to make his vision tilt, not tight enough to kill.

“You’ve got ten seconds, sapling.”

Dipper’s fingers flew over the keys. The door hissed open. He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting hellfire to be unleashed upon him but nothing touched him. 

“Pyro!” Bill called, stepping in with a grin. “Really? You let a scrawny machine agent outsmart you? Kinda tragic.” She socked him in the arm and grumbled something sharp, but the way she ruffled his hair made Dipper’s stomach twist.

Bill’s reunion with Teeth was no different—light punches, snark, a pat on the back that almost looked like affection.

It was… weird.

Dream didn’t look like the cruel, chaotic war machines he’d been trained to expect. If anything, they actually reminded Dipper of his own family. That comparison terrified him. 

Dipper barely had a moment to breathe before Pyronica turned on him.“You little bastard,” she snarled, voice raw with fury. “You locked me in a cell. Me .”

Before he could react, she grabbed him by the collar and shoved —his back slammed against the cell wall with a crack. He gasped, stars bursting behind his eyes, but she didn’t let him slide down. She grabbed him again and threw him through the open cell door.

He hit the floor hard, skidding against rusted metal. The Asterion reared up in the corner, growling, startled. Dipper’s hands scrambled for purchase—but Pyronica was already inside, flamethrower drawn, safety clicked off with a hiss.

“You think you’re smart?” she seethed, stepping into the cell with hellfire in her eyes. “You think locking me up was funny? Let’s see how clever you are now.”

Her finger pulled the trigger.

The flamethrower roared .

In a blink, fire bathed his arms. The flames wrapped around them like liquid metal— not the theatrical kind of heat, but the kind that ate through flesh, devoured fabric, and licked bone. The pain didn’t come all at once—it slammed into his nerves in wave after wave, each one worse than the last. The fabric of his sleeve fused into his skin. Skin bubbled, then split. Raw red peeled back into black. The sickening crackle of cooking muscle filled the air as the smell hit his nostrils—burnt hair, burnt leather, burnt Dipper .

He screamed. He screamed so hard his vision blurred.

His knees gave out. He hit the ground, twitching, the nerves in his right arm firing with every movement, the damage so deep it didn’t feel like his body anymore.

“Pyronica!” Bill’s voice, frantic.

The fire kept going.

“ PYRONICA! ”

He slammed into her, launching her out of the cell like a doll flung by a furious child. She hit the wall with a grunt, her flamethrower skittering across the corridor.

Bill stormed into the doorway, eyes wide— genuinely wide—for a split second. His gaze landed on Dipper’s crumpled form, his arms charred, twitching in the fetal position. His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to reach out but didn’t know how to.

Then something flickered across his face. Not rage. Not amusement. Not even disgust.

It was fear.

“ Pine Tree… ” he breathed.

Dipper blinked through the blur of pain, barely registering the word. But the look— that he understood. That wasn’t the expression of a man looking at an enemy.

Bill stepped in a half pace, fists clenched at his sides, teeth gritted. “You’re not supposed to look like that, ” he muttered—too quiet for anyone but Dipper to hear.

And for the briefest instant, Dipper saw it— saw him. Saw through the sneering, snide exterior to the man beneath: desperate, furious, and afraid. Of what? Of failure? Of guilt? Of caring ?

He didn’t get to figure it out.

“You were supposed to scare him,” Bill said, voice tight and shaking. “Not gut him alive! He’s—” He cut himself off.

He caught himself then, shoulders squaring, voice icing over as the wall slammed back into place. The moment was gone. 

“He’s mine to kill.”

Bill straightened slowly, brushing soot off his jacket like the flicker of emotion had never existed. His face went cold.

“Forget it. I’m not in the mood to watch him die anymore.” He waved a hand like it bored him. “Just set the base on fire. He’s already cooked. Let the flames finish the job.”

“You sure?” Pyronica called from the hall, wiping blood off her lip.

“I’m sure.” Bill didn’t look back at Dipper. “I’m all out of second chances to give the kid.” 

The door slammed shut with a final clang , locking Dipper in darkness.

The heat was rising. Fast.

He couldn’t move his arm— shouldn’t move his arm. Every breath was a wheeze of ash and agony. He could feel his blood slick under him, could smell himself burning. Smoke seeped under the cell door in greedy waves, curling around his legs, his face.

A low whimper caught his ear. The Asterion.

“B-Baby,” Dipper rasped, nearly choking. He dragged himself across the floor, half-crawling, half-collapsing. His vision was going dark at the edges.The Asterion lowered its head, eyes huge with fear. “Please,” Dipper whispered, voice paper-thin. “Help me.”

The dragon curled one wing out, just slightly—enough to make a pocket of space. Dipper collapsed beneath it, coughing blood.

The fire breached the vents. Something exploded above. Concrete dust rained down from the ceiling. The last thing he saw was a bloom of orange against the silver wall, and the edge of the Asterion’s wing curling tight around his body.

Then—

BOOM.

It was over.

The fire was almost out. From their perch on a jagged ridge above the wreckage, Bill, Pyronica, and Axolotl sat in silence. Their legs dangled over the cliff edge, boots slick with soot, watching as Teeth stomped through the smoldering wreckage of Project Asterion’s facility, dousing flames with grim efficiency.

Normally, Bill liked the smell of smoke. Something about burning wood and sulfur stirred up old memories—freedom, destruction, clarity. But today the scent was sour. Acrid. Like grief soaked in gasoline. Like ash clogging his throat.

He couldn’t stop seeing it.

Dipper, on his knees in the cell. Crying out. Skin searing as the flamethrower burst across his arm, blistering in seconds. The way his eyes squeezed shut, trembling through the pain, but not begging. Not once.

And worst of all, the way Bill had hesitated. Frozen. Something inside him screaming to stop her, even as the words twisted into something cruel instead. He’d told Pyronica to torch the base. To bury the kid. To leave him. He didn’t even know what he’d said. It had all blurred after the moment he saw Dipper’s blood steaming off his own skin.

Even Pyronica and Axolotl seemed to notice his emotional distress; choosing to remain quiet rather than fangirl over the fire or provide updates on the file they obtained. Pyronica placed a rough hand on his. “We did the right thing. Yes, he was probably a victim of the machine in his own way, but you couldn’t save him. You tried your best though.” She gave him a weak smile, before resigning into a more somber expression. “And I’m proud of you for trying. But sometimes we meet people that are just broken beyond repair and have to make tough decisions to make sure they don’t drag us down.” 

He hummed, leaning into her shoulder. “I don’t know if I’d call him broken beyond repair though. You didn’t see it Py, I was so close.” 

Axolotl placed his webbed hand on Bill’s other shoulder. “And maybe he did,” he said. “But we’re not fighting for what-ifs. We’re fighting for survival. We don’t get to save every fire that flickers.”

Bill didn’t answer.

He just breathed in the ash again. And it hurt.

He rose to his feet. “I’m gonna check on Teeth. See if he’s pulled anything from the rubble. The kid said his family meant everything to him. I figure he’d want a proper burial.”

Pyronica nodded, her expression unreadable. Axolotl gave a soft grunt of approval.

As Bill made his way down the slope, boots crunching on scorched gravel, his mind drifted. Brown curls. Freckled cheeks. Soft lips that begged to be kissed. A weary frame that yearned to be cradled. Brilliant eyes always calculating, always burning. Dipper had outwitted him. Challenged him in ways he’d never been challenged before. He liked that. Maybe that was the problem.

It was stupid how fast it had happened. The balcony, the convoy-hijack setup, the taunts, the chase, the kiss that never landed. “Should’ve kissed me when you had the chance, darling,” he muttered bitterly to the stars overhead.

The constellation above him sparkled mockingly. The Big Dipper.

Of course.

“Teeth!” he called, rounding a heap of slag. “Tell me you’ve got a body. Or something.”

The stocky man turned, covered in soot, breath ragged. “Yeah, um… about that.” He scratched his neck. “There’s nothin’, boss. No bones. No clothes. Not even a badge. Just... ash.”

Bill’s stomach dropped out. The world tilted. “...Fuck.”

He didn’t wait for another word. His legs were already moving, boots skidding down the blackened incline as he stormed toward the remains. Teeth called something after him—maybe a warning, maybe nothing—but it was white noise now. The ash crackled underfoot like bones. All that remained of the kid who had once stared him down with fire in his chest and that stupid, stubborn smirk on his face.

Gone.

He was gone.

A tightness seized his chest—panic, grief, regret —he couldn’t name it, didn’t want to. His hands trembled as he stood at the edge of the cratered cell. His voice, when it came, was hoarse.

“…You weren’t supposed to die like that.”

Not without answers. Not without the final word. Not without—

A roar tore through the sky.

The wind shifted. Bill whipped around as the air cracked like a whip—and from the ruins, the Asterion rose in a magnificent arc of flame-tinged wings and golden scales, the blaze glinting off its hide like armor forged by gods.

And on its back, perched like a phoenix rising from the pit, was Dipper fucking Pines.

Ash-streaked. Bloody. Alive.

The boy was battered, but not broken. Not even close. He grinned down at them like he was invincible.

“Asterions are fireproof, dumbasses!” he shouted over the rush of wind. “They raise their young in lava fields! They generate flame-repellent shields to protect their kin! Maybe read the whole damn file next time!”

Pyronica shot to her feet, absolutely livid. “ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME—?!”

But Dipper just whooped, wild and reckless, tugging at the cryptids horns as the Asterion banked into the sky. Flames licked at its heels and it shrieked triumphantly, cutting through the dawn like a star on fire.

“Gonna take more than fire to kill me!” he yelled over his shoulder, voice echoing through the sky. “Better luck next time!”

Bill didn’t move. He couldn’t.

He just stood there, chest heaving, heart caught somewhere between fury and awe, watching as Dipper disappeared into the trees like he was the most beautiful creature alive.

He exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

And then he laughed.

A soft, low laugh that turned into a near-manic bark of sound, sharp and disbelieving and alive.

That little bastard.

Bill clutched at his chest, half expecting his heart to claw its way out. “He lived,” he whispered, eyes wide with something feral. “He lived. ”

Behind him, Axolotl and Pyronica had come to a slow stop at the ridge. Pyronica looked like a mixture of thunderstruck and pissed. Axolotl, for once, said nothing.

Bill slowly turned, a grin spreading across his face like a fresh wound. “That boy just cheated death. Twice. Outwitted us. Again. And made a goddamn show of it.”

He ran a hand through his soot-dusted hair, golden eyes gleaming. “You see it now, don’t you?” he said, voice wild and reverent. “That wasn’t a mistake. That wasn't a chance. He’s brilliant. Now, imagine what we could do if we could get that boy on our side.”

He looked up at the stars, finding the Big Dipper constellation once again. The last echoes of wingbeats still rattled through the trees.

“Your move, Pine Tree.”