Chapter Text
Alcor crossed his arms over his chest, squashing the puffy vest-thing he wore, and gave Ian a look that had probably set cultists aflame and turned lesser demons to stone. It probably worked better when it didn’t hit them somewhere around the midriff. “You think you can just shove your hand into a hole in the fabric of spacetime, steal powers from an alternate version of you who didn’t make it out of the trap your evil demonic mastermind former self lured him into, and keep enough of your sanity to use those powers to bust us out and save Mira without getting caught in yet another extremely obvious trap and causing the apocalypse.”
Ian glanced back at the rift. It undulated.
“Not really,” he admitted.
Alcor glared at him for another handful of interminable seconds, before his shoulders slumped and he looked away.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I know it’s stupid,” Ian said. “But – I don’t see any other way out of this. You can’t swoop in and save the day this time. Neither can Mira.”
“Okay,” said Alcor, “But you know, besides that I just warned you that going in there could get you eaten, burned alive, or worse, there's also the fact that most dimensions that would have a recognizable version of you aren't going to be that interesting!"
“Wait, what?” said Ian.
“I mean, most of them aren’t … useful? Or impressive. Most of them don’t pivot on a really dramatic moment or anything? There’s a lot of alternate dimensions out there where everything’s the same but you’re a bee. Or you’re allergic to bees. Or both. And nothing else changes."
“Huh,” Ian said. “So you’re saying we could do like, a couple safe test runs, then.”
“Um, hello! That’s NOT what I’m saying!” Dipper snapped. “I completely said that there's a ton of dangerous ones, I’m saying it’s an overall bad idea!”
“I had a whole speech about how much of a strain keeping this bottled up has been on me, but now I kind of just want to meet bee Ian. Bee-an. He'd have wings, right? Maybe he can get us out. Maybe I don't see you coming up with any better plans. And a bad or dangerous plan is better than none."
"Is it?" said Alcor." I don't think it is, actually."
The rift pulsed.
A figure in plaid hit the ground in front of them, face-first. He had a rope tied around him, with the other end still feeding back through the rift.
There was a beat.
The real Ian, the one that had, as far as he remembered, not gone through the rift yet, said, “Welp. Another dimension had my idea, but slightly better. A rope. Why didn’t we think of that?”
“Maybe because we doooon’t have one?” Alcor said. “Also, try not to touch each other until I can figure out whether this is one of the cases where touching your alternate collapses the entire universe or one of the cases where touching your alternate does nothing."
"Wait, there's a possibility that this plan can collapse the universe? And the thing you decided to tell me about to dissuade me was the bees??" Ian said.
The Ian from the rift was peeling himself off of the ground. “Hey there, demons," he said, with the air of someone who wished he'd stayed home today. "It’s me. Ya boy.” The new Ian squinted at them. He had, Ian was sure to note, two eyes, and no facial scarring.
“Nnnnope. No demons here,” the new Ian sighed. “HEY, TYRONE?” he called, through the rift, “SURPRISE SURPRISE, BUT ALCOR THE DREAMBENDER ISN’T OVER HERE EITHER.”
Alcor’s eyes widened. “You’re … looking for m- for Alcor?”
“Yeah,” the new Ian, the one from the rift, said. He was wide-eyed gesturing. “For some reason, Tyrone is INSISTING that A, one of these dimensions is going to have a fully powered Alcor waiting for us, and B, that he can’t go anywhere near Alcor, and C, that finding Alcor would be a good thing.”
Ian watched his own Alcor wince in slow motion.
Oof. An Ian that didn't know that Alcor and Tyrone were the same person was going to be... tricky.
“WHAT?” the rift yelled, in Alcor's voice. “OKAY. COME BACK, WE NEED TO TRY AGAIN.”
The new Ian did not go back into the rift.
The new Ian roved his two eyes around the cavern, then pointed at Dipper - the one from the dimension he was standing in, watching the new Ian like he was possibly about to take off his jacket to reveal a bomb.
“He just said that two versions of us can’t touch," the new Ian sais, "and you almost just said ‘me’ when you were talking about Alcor. So how come Tyrone can’t meet Alcor, huh? How come everybody thinks I’m a complete idiot?”
The rift Ian’s hands were clenching and unclenching. Under his flannel, he’d been wearing a groomsman’s outfit, a pressed shirt and tie. A carnation. Not the sort of thing you'd wear to elope. The sort of thing you'd wear to someone else's wedding that had been planned down to the last detail, costumes and all.
Alcor and the real Ian looked at each other in naked worry.
“He doesn’t know-“ Tyrone began.
“She’s marrying someone else,” Ian said, at the same time. He looked like he'd been sucker punched.
Tyrone paused. “What? Back up. How do you know that?”
"His bowtie being those five particular shades of orange, white, and pink was a clue," Ian said, dryly. "I'm going to guess that's the wedding theme. With the amount of times I've had to rebuild my self-image from scratch and have still ended up presenting male at the end, I can at the very least confirm that if he's me, he's probably not a lesbian."
"Okay, well, sorry for not having perfect pride flag color vision in the pitch black darkness with a top of the line magic cybernetic eye?" Alcor said.
"Don't apologize to me," Ian said, with a saintly tone that he was barely keeping a straight face through. "Apologize to the LGBTQIA community."
"I'M IN IT?"
The new Ian cleared his throat. The other Ian and his corresponding Alcor both sobered. Right. Yeah.
"Who is Mira marrying here?" the Ian from the rift asked, softly. It was perhaps extremely indicative that he thought that this question was more important than how his alternate self had ended up needing a top-of-the-line magic cybernetic eye.
“Uh. Me, I hope," the original Ian said. He sounded sheepish.
The groomsman Ian looked at him like he’d discovered his newest mortal foe.
"SHE'S WHAT? IS THAT ALSO IAN OVER THERE? NOOOOO WAY. NOPE!" the rift yelled. "TYRONE! YOU CAN'T LET HER MARRY IAN! HE'S-...."
The other dimension’s Ian looked sharply backwards into the rift. His eyes were paler than the Ian’s of the current dimension, closer to grey than blue.
His version of Alcor failed to elaborate on what, exactly, Ian was.
"Y’KNOW!!" the rift yelled instead, with a tone of squeaky preteen exasperation. "YOU KNOW!”
“YEAH, MAN, I KNOW,” Ian's Alcor yelled. “TRUST ME, WE’VE BEEN OVER IT. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOUR MIRA, BUT MINE DOESN’T REALLY LISTEN TO ME!”
"WELL," the Ian called to the other dimension's Alcor, cupping his hands around his mouth. "GETTING MARRIED WAS THE PLAN, BUT YOU'LL BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT AT THE MOMENT IT'S MORE LIKELY THAT WE'RE ALL JUST GOING TO GET KILLED BY A BIG TREE!”
The new Ian once again cut them off. His veneer of initial humor had evaporated from him quickly. “So, hey. Finish your sentence. What don't I know, Tyrone?"
He flipped his gaze over to Ian's Dipper, like someone casually lobbing a knife. "If that’s your name, I mean. It’s weird, you’re not on social media, like, at all. Or in the phone book. Isn’t that weird?”
"THIS IS A REALLY BAD TIME FOR THIS, IAN!" the rift yelled. "MIRA AND ROSA ARE IN DANGER, YOU SAID YOU'D PUT THIS ASIDE AND HELP ME!"
“We can’t tell him,” Alcor said.
The real Ian said, very slowly, “Ian. Are you at this wedding because you’re … Rosa Darling’s Best Man?”
“Person of Honor,” the other dimension’s Ian said, rigidly. “Is what we decided to go with.”
“WAIT, HEY-” Ian's Alcor yelled, to his counterpart. He had a little scowl on. “TYRONE! YOU’RE LETTING MIRA MARRY GIDEON AND YOU’RE YELLING AT ME?”
“YEAH…” The other Alcor yelled back. He sounded glum. “BUT I KIND OF THINK WE ESTABLISHED THAT SHE DOES WHAT SHE WANTS.”
“Who or what the fuck is Gideon,” the rift Ian said. He sounded like he was getting concretely irritated with being talked around, with not getting answers.
“Tyrone,” the real Ian said. “Tyrone, shut the heck up for a second. Three years ago, Mira meets Rosa and breaks up with me. With you," Ian said, looking at his alternate self. "Right? Rosa doesn't try to break you and Mira up, because you already are broken up, she has what she wants. That means she doesn’t keep escalating her tactics, and that means you have never been accidentally sold out to the Arcane Division."
"To the WHAT?" Ian's alternate sputtered. "Rosa had me Swatted? ... Actually, no, yeah, that does sound like Rosa."
Ian continued, keeping his gaze and his light firmly on his counterpart, keeping his back to the wall. "He has two eyes, Tyrone. That means -”
He'd never stabbed himself to get rid of Bill. This other Ian had never even learned about Bill. Bill was still there inside of him, lying in wait, and the other Ian didn't know he was even supposed to be fighting it.
Above them, the ground shook.
R E M E M B E R.
...
No one in the cavern could hear it. That didn't mean they couldn't see the effects.
A shudder ran up the new Ian’s spine, like something was trying to crawl out of his throat.
It drove him onto tiptoes, made him sway in place like he was about to black out. His eyes went glassy, pained.
Ian - the one who was still home, the one that had already lost an eye, oh it doesn't stop when you lose an eye, does it? - looked to his Alcor in a panic. What the fuck! You're omniscient, what do we do??
Alcor was not paying attention. Alcor's eyes were locked on the new Ian, and his fragile, helpless, powerless body matched his expression. Ian was sure that he was seeing a side of Alcor that he was never, never supposed to have known. He was indistinguishable from an actual child, scared and alone, miles from home.
Ian felt sorry for him. Ian wanted very much to be feeling sorry for Alcor. Ian wished he felt more sorry for Alcor, but it was a shallow, perfunctory emotion. Underneath it was -
(REMEMBER, a hundred decades roared high above them, REMEMBER)
- vicious satisfaction. Make him run. Bring him low. What are you, kid? A demon, or just a little boy in a costume?
“Nnnh - fuck! Okay,” The rift's Ian said, in the voice of a man who had just willpowered out of his vision tunneling.
The real Ian snapped out of it, too, came out of a daydream reverie.
“That," the rift Ian said, "Whatever the heck that is, keeps getting stronger, and I am starting to wonder why I'm even fighting it."
"Please do everybody a favor and keep fighting it," the original Ian said, quietly. "Yourself included. I know it's miserable. Trust me, I do. But it's not just a - an induced manic episode, it almost killed me in my version of events. If you still love the people up there, they need you."
The new Ian just... looked at him. He held up a hand - he had black gloves on, matching the suspenders he had on over his dress shirt. "You know what's going on, too, don't you? Everyone knows what's going on except me."
The old Ian winced.
Best Man Ian took one glove off, wiggled his fingers. "You two look afraid," he said. "Everyone around me always looks afraid. So, here's the deal. Ready?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Tell me what’s happening. Who Tyrone really is. Why he hates me. Why nobody ever talks to me any more.
Or, next time, not only am I not going to fight that, whatever the fuck that is that you're obviously manipulating me away from, but I'm also going to put my hand on my double and watch your entire dimension disassemble down to its component atoms. Want to take a gamble that me touching you does nothing?"
The current dimension's Ian and Alcor went dead quiet.
The Alcor from the rift didn't take the opportunity to speak up, either.
"That sounds like a win-win to me," the new Ian said. The yawning circular opening of the dead portal frame was directly behind his head, like a black halo. "How does that sound to you guys?”
“TYROOOONE?” Alcor yelled. He had his back to one of the walls, and was edging along it to get between the two Ians, to dive in front of an attempted touch, if necessary. “NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME TO PULL THE ROPE, BUDDY! THIS DIMENSION DOESN’T HAVE WHAT YOU NEED IN IT! NEITHER OF US HAVE MAGIC THAT’LL GET YOU OUT, WE CAN’T EVEN GET OURSELVES OUT!”
Instead, there was a pause.
There was a snipping sound.
"Oh you total, absolute demon,” the normal Alcor said.
The rift Ian whirled around, pale eyes blazing. “NO!”
The other Alcor had cut his safety line.
The Ian from his dimension dashed for the rift in his dress shoes even as the end of it that had been held taut through the dimensional barrier began to fall, its tie to his home universe severed. His Alcor had timed it so there wasn’t much time to return; the rift was already whirling, in preparation to pulse again. It would strand him.
“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!" the other Ian said, his voice cracking in fear and desperation. "YOU CAN’T JUST GET RID OF ME!”
Ian threw himself as far away from his double as he could, not trusting that if he failed that he wouldn’t go through with his threat. He should have been worried about what a dimensional collapse would do to himself, or to the billions of innocent beings living on Earth, but all he could think about was Mira, if he destabilizes our reality it’ll hurt Mira, I’ll lose Mira-
There was an awful, horrible scream.
There was an awful, horrible silence.
Ian and Alcor were alone again, panting in the silence, each the versions of each other that they remembered falling in here with. The Ian with two eyes with his silly little pink and orange bow tie was gone.
The rift drifted like a drunken firefly, sparkling and harmless.
“Well,” Alcor said, in the quiet. “Shit.”
Ian sat up, shaking. “Ohh, most dimensions aren’t dramatic, the omniscient guy says. Most dimensions are super boring, it’s just bees or something, it's all going to be bees and nothing else.”
Alcor put one finger up. “That was. A bad example. They won’t all be like that. We got a good idea out of it, though."
"Yes. Actually communicating stuff." Ian said.
"No, a rope. You don't ... um...?” Dipper hesitated.
Ian groaned. "I don't what?"
"You wouldn't like... do that? Right? Blow up a whole dimension just to find out the answer to what was wrong with you?"
Ian took too long of a pause before he answered.
Alcor’s expression darkened. Normally, Alcor’s expression darkening would have sent small animals instinctively fleeing. Like this, it looked more like a little pout.
"I don't ... Honestly know,” Ian said.
“Well, great,” Alcor said, with cheery sarcasm. “At least we’re all honest!”
“Shut up,” Ian said. He scraped his hand backwards through his hair, dislodging a clump of spiderweb. “I don't even know if he was bluffing, or if he was serious. And his Alcor tried to strand him in an alternate dimension just now and screw all three of us over." He sat up with a grunt, flicked his hand to get the web off of his thumb, and gave Alcor a tired glare. "So maybe I should be asking you if you would do that."
Alcor rolled his eyes, stuck his little preteen arms out. “What do you want here, man? Should I apologize for my alternate self?"
"I don't know. I guess ...no." Ian said. "I don't want to be held to that standard, so I won't hold you to it either."
Alcor scuffed his sneaker in the dirt. "Well, I mean, I wouldn't mind an apology from Bill Cipher."
"Alright, well, I wouldn't mind an apology from everybody that decided I should be born into a horrible flesh body without giving me any kind of say in the matter, but I'm not getting that either."
Alcor shot him a dirty look, then sighed through his nose.
"I know what I should apologize for and did actually do, I guess. I'm sorry I didn't tell you why I hated you like, right away? You did sorta have a right to know.”
“I’m not sure that if I was up for casually threatening to kill dimensions? That I WOULD have had a right to know, honestly,” Ian said, shakily. His flashlight eye was scanning the room, making sure the other-him really was gone.
“No chance he at least left us something useful?” Alcor said, wincing.
“Nnnnope. Just emotional scarring, as usual! And more reasons to avoid each other when this is all over!"
“Yep! Right,” Alcor sighed. “Yeah. Of course. So all we've got is the rift and.. .our minds. And rocks. Still.”
“"And us!"” said the tall, gracefully blond stranger with a fanciful triangle-shaped eye patch and his a doe-eyed, constellation-marked human boyfriend, in cheerful unison. They were currently standing about six inches directly behind Ian.
“AAAFUCK!“ “WHATTHEF-”