Chapter Text
Not for the first time since he has woken up this morning, Dipper Pines feels the strange sensation of being watched.
By whom or what he is being watched in specific, he doesn’t know, but the feeling is enough to give him the creeps. It’s the kind of feeling that leaves the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, causing goosebumps to blossom uncontrollably on his arms and sending ugly shivers up his spine. With each time this odd feeling is to manifest, he tells himself this said feeling is nothing more than paranoia, and each time he does, it gradually begins to sound more and more and more like a stupid excuse.
This sensation started growing more tremendously when his mother had walked in his room, telling him she had gotten the call.
He is about ready to rip his hair out when his twin sister, Mabel, barges into his room, her face stained with a wide and happy grin. Her hands are practically shaking at her sides. “Today's the big day, Bro!” She says it loudly and obnoxiously, obviously in an attempt to get her brother to look up from the book he’s reading, which he does. “Today's the day you get your new heart! Aren't you excited?”
Of course, Dipper is. But that emotion happens to be buried deep under every other emotion he is experiencing at the moment—doubt, dread, fear, anxiousness… And they are all there because so many things could go wrong with his scheduled heart transplant, things he happened to learn while doing his necessary research, and it isn’t the kind of stuff that ends with puppies and rainbows. Not in the slightest.
However, if he voices how he really feels, it would only scare Mabel. So instead he forces a smile. “Yeah, I can't wait. Working with this heart is a chore.”
This isn't exactly a lie. Even doing something as little and simple as walking down the stairs is enough to send his heart into an out-of-beat, painful frenzy; and not just the kind of pain one would experience after, say, running a mile. More akin to the kind of pain that sends waves of pure agony throughout his entire being, the kind of pain that warns him if he continues to push on, he will surely drop dead.
And it sucked. Continues to suck. He’d always wanted to be able to walk down the stairs and not have to use one of those stupid stair lifts. He’d always wanted to walk a few feet without being spiritually drained. He’d always wanted to play sports with all the other kids in his high school. He’d always wanted to go out in public without being restrained in a wheelchair or have someone hold his hand the entire time.
He still wants to.
He wants to be a normal person. He wants to have a normal, properly functioning heart.
And, despite the surgery being just what he needs to achieve such goals, he’s still terrified out of his wits.
“Mom sent me up here to help you get ready to leave,” Mabel explains, toying with one of the sleeves of the sweater she’s wearing. “But I'm pretty sure you would have figured that out already. We have to be at the hospital about thirty minutes after the call for the surgery, after all, and it's currently—”
“Eleven twenty-six a.m.”
“Right.”
Dipper sighs and rises from his bed slowly. “Alright. Tell Mom I'll be down in a minute.”
Mabel's eyes widen, an indication that had not been the reaction she was expecting. “Tell Mom? You, mean, like, you're expecting me to…leave you here and go downstairs and tell her?”
“Well, yeah. What else could I have meant?”
The female twin shakes her head. “No, Mom also told me I have to help you get dressed.”
Hearing something as idiotic as that should not have been so surprising. In fact, as Dipper ponders it, he really isn’t surprised to hear such a thing at all.
At this point he’s just frustrated. Frustrated because not only is he sick of not being able to leave his home and walk down the street like a normal person, but he is also sick of the fact that his parents aren’t able to trust him with something as easy as putting on his own damn clothes. It’s not like he doesn't know how to get dressed, because he does.
Maybe it’s due to today being the day they finally got the call that must've wacked his parents over the head and made them nuts. (Not to mention he and Mabel are both teenagers, so putting them in such a situation is belittling, to say the least.)
But he’s well enough aware Mabel won’t disobey an instruction from their parents, so he allows her to help him into a T-shirt and jeans. Though, technically, what he’s wearing ceases to matter, as he'll just be change into a gown once he gets to the hospital.
Once he finishes putting on and tying his second sneaker, he unconsciously presses two of his fingers flush against his other wrist in order to check his heartbeat for the last time (or, rather, one of the last times, seeing as he is likely to check it a few more times before he gets to the hospital). Instead of the comforting drum of ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum most people on the planet do, his heart's sound is something akin to that of a washing machine; all out of order and chaotic and unpredictable.
He's known for years this sound is abnormal, but for him it is normal. Natural. What he’s used to.
It’s the beat he falls asleep and wakes up to, the beat he hears roaring mercilessly in his ears whenever he has to stop what he’s doing to gasp for air, the beat he’s heard for a complete half of his entire life, since he was eight years old.
He can never seem to forget how upset he had been when he was forced to quit the baseball team in his elementary school, or how his parents had changed since his medical condition came to light; they were once happy and easygoing and kind, but had since become quiet and overprotecting and annoyingly cautious, a transformation that happened almost overnight. And nowadays most of their finances come from his father's stay at home job.
“Are you doing okay there, Dip?” Mabel asks, snapping Dipper out of his deep musing. He nods, and her face brightens once again, though her eyes hold something that looks like skepticism. “Great! Then we're clear to chugga-chugga-chug out of the station!” Grabbing one of her brother's arms, she helps him up off his bed. “Just think of it; soon you're going to be able to play baseball again!”
Dipper is tempted to voice to her how, if this surgery doesn’t turn out right or his body is to wind up rejecting his new heart in the future, he won’t be able to do much of anything.
He decides to stay quiet, flashing her another smile. “Yeah, sounds fantastic.”
With that said, Mabel smiles back and hooks one of her arms around Dipper's and they head out his room together. And he doesn’t protest her being so close to him, because he understands why she’s doing it.
It’s the last time he will leave the house with a crummy heart.
Once they make it to the staircase, their mother standing at the bottom, waiting, an idea snakes its way into Dipper's mind. He casts Mabel a quick look, and she nods, releasing his arm.
Taking a deep breath, he steps away from her unsteadily and places one of his feet on the top step instead of going for the stair lift.
Not to his surprise, it is this action that brands a startled sort of gasp from his mother, who immediately lurches forward and holds out her arms, as if ready to catch him. “Mason, what do you think you're doing? Take the lift, for God's sake!”
Dipper doesn't listen to her, but it isn’t for the sake of being disobedient—it’s simply because he can barely hear her over his loud, reeling thoughts. Thoughts that tell him this is a very, very bad idea.
Licking his lips, he slowly takes a step down, almost tripping over himself in the process but swiftly regaining his composure. He feels Mabel's nimble fingers gingerly graze over one of his shoulders, which he takes as her way of telling him she’ll be there if he winds up falling.
Their mother's panicked shrieks of caution cease to exist as he takes yet another step down, his heart already making protests of its own.
Another two steps downward and he’s already stopping to gasp, his breaths coming in and out harshly and his chest clenching in the effort its taking. He can tell his being is tired, if the signs are any indication; his legs burn, his head pounds… But he can’t stop now. He can’t give up now that he’s about halfway there—and, besides, it’s only going to take as much effort to retreat back up and use the lift, anyway.
He had always hated the stair lift. He remembers when his parents had gotten it for him when his heart problem was first diagnosed and, from what he can assume, it had cost them their fair share of money.
He never could stand how slow it was. Mabel can run up the stairs and back by the time he can make it up once, something that makes him ashamed, both of himself and the lift. If Mabel is capable of go up and down the stairs so easily, then why can’t he?
The unfortunate part of it all is he knows the answer.
He laughs internally at the thought of his parents having to get rid of it after he goes through his transplant. After all, when he gets his brand new heart, he’ll run up and down the stairs with Mabel all he wants and nobody will be able to say anything about it.
This thought alone is enough to spark a flare of victory within him.
At last, he makes it to the final step. His flare of victory brightened.
He'd just walked down the stairs. By himself. He hadn't needed that stupid lift! Sure, the process of walking down the stairs had taken about fifteen minutes, plus he’s tired, panting, and his heart’s making miniature explosions in his chest, but he'd done it, God damn it, and he is reinvigorated. If he can do something like this with a bad heart, imagine what he can do with a healthy one!
He moment of blissful success is soon cut off, however, by his mother, who he realizes is basically gawking at him. Albeit suddenly, she runs up to him and places her hands on his shoulders, pulling him in for an ultra tight mom hug. “Oh, sweetie! You scared the living daylight out of me! You could've hurt yourself! What were you thinking?”
“I'm sorry, Mom,” Dipper whispers, then turns his head to look over at Mabel, who gives him two thumbs up.
Because she gets it.
Dipper didn't take on the stairs in order to feel proud of himself. He did it to get one last run with his heart, a chance to get one last feel of his heart at work, to feel his heart overworking itself one last time before he gets his new one. Because, even if his heart is crummy, it was the one he's had for his entire life, the heart he was born with. The one he’s used to, and a part of him will miss it when it’s gone, no matter how much better off he’s supposed to be with a new one.
Starting to feel a bit awkward, he peels himself out of his mother's embrace. “Mom, I'm fine.” And, seeing that she still isn't looking reassured, he adds, “Seriously.” Though, admittedly, his words aren't sounding so convincing, as he has to speak between breathless gasps. “It's something I felt like I needed to do.”
“Oh, that's alright, I suppose.” His mother sighs, cupping his face in one of her hands. “Just… don't be quite so reckless when you get your new heart.” She smiles and lowers her hand. “So, are you ready to go? We'll get to the hospital in fifteen if we don't bump into traffic. And then, after surgery, when you're ready to eat again, I'll make you a huge celebratory cake. Deal?”
Dipper nods. “Sounds great, Mom. Let's go.”
“No, wait!” Mabel interjects, seemingly out of nowhere. She reaches out and grasps one of her brother's arms firmly, probably in a way to keep him from moving any further. When Dipper flinches away slightly from the sudden action, she lets go, saying, “I almost forgot! I knit you a good luck sweater, Bro! You know, something to wear to give you good vibes before you head into your big surgery. Be right back, I'll go to my room and get it.” And, without waiting for the tiniest reaction, she turns away and rushes up the stairs.
Once she’s out of sight, Dipper raises one of his brows and mumbles, “I'm not going to be able to wear the sweater once I get to the hospital.”
His mom laughs. “Hey, it's the thought that counts, right? Besides, you know how your sister is. She's always doing things like this.” There’s no use arguing with logic like that.
No more than a moment later, the loud bang of a door slamming reaches Dipper’s ears and Mabel appears out from the hallway, happily bounding down the stairs two steps at a time. Something fuzzy and yellow is flying out from behind her, like some kind of cape.
“Okay, okay, sooo,” she starts to say as she approaches her twin, practically dumping the sweater in his arms, “I had originally planned to use red fabric to make this, but the heart had to be red—ya know, because hearts are always supposed to be red—and I only had one shade of red to work with, can you believe it? That's crazy!” She laughs. “But, yeah, I had to make do with a color that would make the heart stand out, ‘cause as you know that's the important part.”
Dipper grasps the sweater by the armpits and holds it out so he can get a better view of it. Just as Mabel as explained, there is a heart design on it, right smack dab in the center, large and proud. Below it, in violet words, the words Congratz on da new heart! are stitched on—quite sloppily, Dipper might add, the ‘z' in congratz threatening to fall off.
“Wait, I'm confused. Why couldn't you use, say, black or white for the color of the sweater? Either of those colors would have been good enough to make the heart stand out.” Dipper frowns in slight confusion and tilts his head. Mostly because he’s certain Mabel is well aware of him not being the hugest fan of yellow.
But, then again, he realizes, that might've been the exact reason why Mabel had chosen it in the first place.
His suspicion is confirmed almost instantly. “Oh, come on, Bro," Mabel insists, clasping her hands together dramatically and holding them close to her chest. “Who's to say you won't magically fall in love with the sweater once you get out of surgery? Like, don't people start to become interested in different things or whatever after their heart transplants? For all you know, after your transplant you could start to view yellow as the most amazing color ever to have existed.”
“I guess that has some logic in it,” Dipper muses hesitantly, but not before taking a moment or two to process what his sister’s trying to say, “in a weird, irrational type of way.” But he figures she’s right in a sense; changes in behavior and interests aren't uncommon in transplant patients, even if science isn't too good at explaining why so.
Honestly, it isn't something that makes any kind of sense to Dipper, either, but he decided a while ago not to question it too much.
After muttering an almost inaudible thanks for the sweater, Dipper turns to look at his mother. “Alright, now we can go.” But, as he speaks, he eyed Mabel. “Right? You don't have any other surprise good luck presents for me or anything?” It’s intended to be a joke, but, knowing Mabel, she most likely has another twenty to thirty gifts in hiding somewhere.
However, Mabel only shoots him a mock salute. “Nope, I don't. That's it…” She trails off then, obviously in a train of thought. “...Uh, I mean, that's it for the time being, anyway. You're probably gonna get another couple of sweaters when I visit you at the hospital.” Grinning deviously, she adds, “But you should totally put that one on, like, right now.”
After Dipper pulls it on over his shoulders, a perfect fit, his mother leans down to give Mabel a hug. “See you later, sweetie. I'll call you once your brother's out of surgery, alright?”
“I’ll watch the phone until you do.” Mabel giggles, squeezing her mother back twice as hard. “Bye, Mom.” Then, once she pulls out of the hug, she turns to tackle her brother into one that he assumes has the potential to damage a few of his ribs. “And I'll see you later, too, Bro Bro.”
As his father is busy with his work, Dipper won't get the opportunity to say goodbye and give him a hug as well, something he’s a little grateful for. He doesn't think he has the strength to handle another hug, not after the one Mabel had given him.
He doesn't really start to worry about the transplant again until buckled up in the passenger seat of his family's van. And, this time, he isn't necessarily worried about whether or not his body will be able to accept his new heart.
“Oh, thank God," his mother whispers, putting the car into reverse and backing slowly out of the driveway. “We've been waiting eight years, and the day is finally here… Eight years.”
Dipper feels too queasy to say anything in response. Instead he leans his face on one of his hands and stares out the window.
This is exactly how his mother had acted when she'd walked into his room not long ago, telling him they'd gotten the call telling the good news; Dipper finally has a heart. A heart is waiting for him at the hospital.
“God gave you that heart, you know.”
It takes a few seconds before Dipper realizes he’s being addressed directly. And, when he does, all he can manage to say is, “Uh… Sure. I know, Mom.” But he had to kill someone else in order to do it, he thinks bitterly. His stomach flips painfully.
It dawns on him then that, for the past eight years, his family had been praying for Dipper to get a heart—but, by doing so, they had also been praying for someone else to die.
His donor had to have been someone young, right? Taking in consideration Dipper’s only sixteen, he won't exactly be able to function on a heart from a fifty year old.
For the rest of the ride to the hospital, he grimly wonders who his donor was and what family is most likely grieving right now.