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Time was not linear in the Mindscape. Time flowed like a river, and sometimes time was a roaring rapid, white foam crashing against jagged rocks, hundreds of years rushing through all at once like an unstoppable force. Sometimes time was slow, and winding. Sometimes, time collected in stagnant ponds, echoes of past, present and future pooling in a place where it shall never come to pass.
Sometimes, there were ripples. There were disturbances. Sometimes, time flowed backwards, and what was downriver drifted back up, and found itself in places where it didn’t belong.
Mabel had a weird dream last night.
“Do you have… any… threes?”
“Go fish.”
“Dammit.”
Mabel’s sitting at a table with her brother. She reaches over and takes a card; it’s a jack. Aww… oh, wait! She has three jacks now! One more, and-
“My turn.” Alcor says, leaning forwards with a toothy smirk. “You got any jacks?”
Mabel shoots him a death glare. His smirk only widens.
“Is there a problem?”
“You big jerk! You’re using your omniscience, aren’t you!”
“I can’t help it. I told you I’m no fun to play card games with.” He reaches over and plucks the jacks out of her hand. “You wanna do something else?”
“No! I’m gonna beat you!”
“Are you now.”
“Yes! Do you have any fives?”
Alcor tosses one card her way. She punches the air.
“Yes! I’m gonna win!”
“Have you got any tens?”
“Dammit!”
Mabel dissolves into a coughing fit at that. She grapples for a tissue box perched atop a stack of books, blows her nose with a trumpety trill.
“Ugh.” She says, and sniffs. “I hate being sick.”
“Want some tea?”
“No... Uh, yeah, actually. That’d be great.”
He lays his cards down on the table. “Alright. No peeking.”
“Making no promises, you cheater!”
With a chuckle, Alcor walks off to the kitchen. It’s… not the Shack’s kitchen. It’s small and compact and only a row of counters separates it from the living room. Alcor shoots her a grin from behind them, and she feels herself return it, but she’s confused all of a sudden.
This isn’t the Shack at all – this is some kind of apartment. She’s sitting on a little sofa for two, the other space piled up with unfolded laundry; it’s mostly a lot of flannel shirts and long jeans. The curtains are drawn, and the lights give off a sleepy orange glow.
It’d be a cosy place, if Mabel had any idea where she was.
Where are we? she wants to ask. “How’s the tea going?” She hears herself saying instead.
“Just a few more minutes! Oh, uh, how much sugar you want?”
“How much sugar can I have?”
Alcor snorts. “Alright, one cup of sugar with a splash of tea coming right up.”
“Perfecto.”
Mabel feels herself lean back. She pulls the blanket around her legs up to her chest, and takes out her phone. Taps in the password (it’s 6666, and she feels herself smirk at that) and scrolls over to her texts.
There’s a message there, from ‘BOYFRIEND XXXXXXX’:
Did you know this town is currently in the middle of a famine?
There’s a picture of an empty freezer, and then another text.
An ice cream famine. This is the third store I’ve been to and I’m noticing a trend.
Mabel snickers quietly. She texts him back.
Might be Al’s fault. Don’t worry about it.
She sends it off, and sniffs. Her nose is getting clogged again; she reaches for another tissue. Her hand brushes past Alcor’s cards, and with a smirk she lifts them up for a peek.
They’re all jokers. She watches one of them wink at her.
“Somebody’s a bit curious, I see.” Alcor’s suddenly there, a cup of hot tea in his hands and a grin playing on his lips. “And you call me a cheater.”
“I’m not cheating any more than you are! You can’t blame a girl for trying to even the playing field.” She takes the offered tea. “Thanks. Now, let’s keep playing!”
“Are you sure? This game is literally too easy for me to shut off my omniscience.”
“What? Oh, I can’t hear you over the sound of me winning!”
Alcor shuffles his hand. “You got any sixes?”
“Hey! It’s not your turn, you goober!” She hesitates, and then a grin snakes across her face. “Have you got any sixes?”
He picks out two cards and slides them over to her. Mabel hears herself cackle. “Heh heh heh. I’m gonna win, dude. You should just accept it.”
Alcor opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then there’s a knock at the door. His head shoots over, and his smile fades into something more… guarded.
Who’s behind the door? Mabel doesn’t know, and she can’t ask; all she does is shoot glances at Alcor, and stare down at her hand. Another knock comes, and finally she clears her throat.
“Could you get that, please?”
“Uh… sure.” Alcor stands abruptly. “I’ll just… yeah.”
He makes a move towards the door, but then there’s the rattle of keys.
“Oh, he’s found his keys. He’s found his keys.” Mabel watches him take a step back, drawing himself into the corner. She feels herself frown.
“You’re ridiculous, Alcor. He’s not-”
The door swings open, then, and Mabel sees a man in a flannel shirt nudging it forwards with his shoulder. She doesn’t recognize him at all, but her mouth seems to split open in a wide smile.
“Hey,” Says the man. His hands are full of papers, and tucked under his elbow is a bouquet of black roses. “So, uh, apparently there’s not a flower shortage.”
“Ian!” Mabel says a name she doesn’t know, and beams a grin she isn’t feeling. “You brought me flowers? You shouldn’t have.”
He pauses. “Is that a ‘you shouldn’t have’ as in you like it, or that I actually shouldn’t have done it? I couldn’t find any ice cream and I wanted to do something nice anyway so-“
“Ian.” She sniffs, and reaches an arm out to him. “Come here, babe.”
He makes his way towards her, and out of the corner of her eye Mabel can spot Alcor in the corner, arms pressed to his side and a tight smile on his face as he looks at her. Mabel wants to say so many things – What’s going on? Where are they? Who is this guy? Why can’t she do anything? – but she can’t.
She can only watch as she puts a hand on Ian’s waist, even though she wants to take it away, wants to get out of here, go home. She can only watch as she takes the flowers, smells them, and laughs a little.
“I bet these’ll smell great when my nose decides to stop stuffing up.” She hears herself say. And then she looks up at him again, unable to recoil as she notices one of his eyes glowing an eerie yellow. “They’re perfect.”
Ian smiles. “I’m glad you like them, Mira.”
He leans in close. Mabel feels herself lean in too, her eyes closing, her lips puckering, and no no no NO NO NO-
Mabel wakes with a jolt.
“No! No! No…” She blinks, and looks around. Her bed. Her room. She clenches her fists, and feels them squeeze the covers, under her command once more.
Her sigh of absolute relief. She sinks back into her pillows. “Oh, thank god,” She says under her breath. Just a dream. It was just a dream.
What a strange dream it was.
One hand reaches up to touch her lips, and then comes down and rests on the empty side of the bed.
Mabel can’t see well in the darkness, but she can make out the unused neatness of the covers, can feel the coldness of a space that used to be so warm and so full. Her heart hurts at that; she draws in a breath, and for a moment she misses Henry so much it feels like she’s going to burst; there’s a lump in her throat so big she can’t get her breath back out.
In time, it passes. The pain is still there – will always, always be there – but her breathing comes back with a shudder, and with that one hand she smooths out his side of the bed, and her mouth twists up in a grim sort of smile.
“You’ll never believe the dream I just had, Henry.” She says. “It was wild, it was… I don’t even know.”
She hesitates, and then pushes off her covers.
“Welp, not sleeping again tonight. I’m going to get some water.”
Mabel touches her feet to the floor, and shuffles right up to the edge of the bed. She hates this part – huffing and puffing and heaving herself upright, a thousand little pains piping up all through her body as she rises.
A pop here. A crack there. Mabel shuffles off, stubbornly ignoring the 8-ball cane that had been resting against her bedside table since last Christmas because no, Dipper, you didn’t get that because you thought I wanted to look like Stan…
She rolls her eyes. Oh, to be young again. Well, she was in the downstairs bedroom, so even if she may want to start thinking about using it, she certainly doesn’t need it right now.
The house is dark, but Mabel could find her way around here blindfolded. She runs a hand along the wall, listening to the groan of the floorboards and the creak of the ceiling and the pitter patter of the rain on the roof, all the familiar sounds of her house. Her house.
There’s a familiar feeling as she approaches the kitchen – a less comforting one. Combined with the rattle of cutlery and the soft, choking sound of barely restrained sobbing, Mabel has a good idea of what’s going to confront her when she turns the corner.
She hesitates. The thought crosses her mind that she could just go back to bed, and not deal with this. She’s so very tired of this, and it’s been happening more often and it never feels like anything she can say would help and-
No. She takes a deep breath. Her brother needs her.
(Always, always needs her…)
Mabel walks into the kitchen, and the first thing she notices is Dipper slumped against the cabinets in a pool of golden blood, forks sticking out of his arms and clenched in his fists. His eyes are squeezed shut, and the walls are starting to ooze with a foul-smelling substance. She wrinkles her nose.
“Dipper…”
Dipper doesn’t look up. He just shakes his head and curls a little more into himself. Seeing him like this, it’s heartbreaking, of course, but…
There’s a little bit of annoyance she can’t quite quash. Mabel sighs.
“Whatcha… whatcha thinking about, Dipper?”
She walks over to the cupboards, and gets a glass out as he takes a shuddering breath.
“H-Henry.”
Mabel grimaces. “Thought so. I miss him too, Dipper. It’s…”
Going to be okay? She looks over at him, and decides not to finish her sentence. Walking over to the sink, she turns on the tap. Throws it all the way to cold, and sticks her hand under it as she waits for it to adjust.
Dipper’s talking through his sleeve, his voice just a broken whisper. “I miss him so much. I miss him so much. I miss…”
It’s cold enough. Mabel fills her water, her knuckles white as they grip the glass.
“I miss him too, Dipper. Every day.” She sighs. “Every… single day.”
“He’s gone,” Dipper moans. “He’s gone, he’s left me, and everyone’s going to leave me- I-I can’t take it, I can’t-“
He presses one of the forks into his elbow, and Mabel moves to pull his arm away. She hesitates, and then sticks her cup in his hand instead.
“Here. Drink some water, you’ll feel better.”
“I won’t.” He says, but he holds it to his chest anyway. “It’s cool.”
Mabel tries for a smile. “Straight from the tap. I can put some ice in if you want.”
He doesn’t respond to that. His claws scratch against the glass as he grips it tight.
“I’m going to be alone, Mabel.” He says, staring down at the water. “What am I going to do?”
His face crumples again, and he squeezes the glass so tight it shatters, spraying water and shards everywhere; the floor crunches as she takes a step back. And Dipper retreats back into himself, his legs drawn up tight against his chest, his hands digging into his hair until golden blood runs down his neck. The sludge on the walls oozes onto the counters.
And this is the part Mabel never has words for. What could she say? Dipper is right, terribly, terribly right; one day she would die, and her children would die, and her children’s children would die, but he would live on.
This is the part where she’d clean him up. Take the forks out of his arms, and try to cheer him up with a little tune as she washes the blood off of them. Pick him up, give him a hug, whisper some words of comfort that comforted neither of them, like ‘I love you’, or ‘I’m here for you’ or ‘everything is going to work out.’ Spend the next few hours scrubbing gold out of the floorboards and ooze off the walls. Wait for it to happen again, wait for that little bubble of frustration, of my husband just fucking died and I’m the one comforting you to get a little bigger, a little closer to bursting.
Mabel can't help him here. She just can't, and she’s so, so tired of trying.
This is the part where she sucks it up and tries anyway, but then she thinks of her dream. It’s strange; it felt like a nightmare while she was having it. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she didn’t know where she was or who she was talking to – she could only watch, terrified and confused and that man leaned down to kiss her and she was revolted-
But she isn’t in the middle of it anymore, and the more she thought about it, the less it scared her. No, it didn’t scare her at all, actually; it was actually pretty sweet.
Like a glimpse of something yet to come.
Mabel looks down at her brother, sobbing brokenly into his knees, and she imagines his cheeky smile as he asks her if she has any tens. She imagines herself, younger and livelier with a boyfriend sweet enough to go to three separate stores to try and find her some ice cream.
She smiles a little at that. Then she leans down (slowly, slowly, one hand on the table) and puts an arm around her brother. He leans into her almost immediately, his face sinking into her shoulder and his wings wrapping around her chest, holding her like he never wanted to let her go.
“Dipper.” Mabel starts, and pauses. “You know, you’re never going to be alone.”
He stiffens. “I am. You don’t understand - I’m going to outlive everyone. Acacia, Hank, Willow, everyone.”
“We won’t be gone, Dipper.”
“Yes, you will. Mabel, the reincarnation cycle – it won’t bring you back. You’ll be a different person; you won’t know me, you’ll be…” He hugs her tighter still. “A stranger.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad. I get to meet you all over again.”
“But I don’t want that. I want you. I-I… I need you, Mabel. I need you to keep me-”
“From sticking forks in your arms?” Mabel shakes her head. “Dipper, I’m not going to be here forever. Things are going to change, whether we want them to or not.”
“But-“
“Things have already changed so much. And guess what? We learned how to deal.” She pulls back to look him in the eyes. “Look, change like this sucks, Dipper. It really does. I’m gonna die some day, and that’s… I don’t like thinking about that. But I’ll still be around. Maybe it’ll be different, but I’ll still be there for you.”
Dipper looks away. “You can’t promise that.”
“No. I can’t promise that.” She thinks back to her dream. “But I think we’ll be close again, if you give it a chance.”
He doesn’t have anything to say to that, but when he draws her in again for another hug, he’s not crying anymore. Mabel hopes that’s a good sign; she doesn’t push it any further.
It’s a long time before they let go of each other. Slowly, they pick the forks out of his arm, and Mabel hums a little tune as she washes them. The sludge goes away on its own, and Dipper takes off his jacket and lays it over the puddle of golden blood. When he lifts it up again, it’s dry, and the blood is gone.
“Hey, look at that!” Mabel puts the last fork on the drying rack and beams around the room. “Kitchen looks beautiful! Well, as beautiful as it’s ever gonna be. Thanks for the help, bro-“
“No.” Dipper puts a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t know why, but she gets a little choked up at that. Words don’t come, so she throws her arms around him for one last hug. And now she’s crying on his shoulder; she sniffs and she tries to laugh it off but it all comes flooding out.
“I-I miss Henry,” she gets out. “I miss him s-so-so much, D-Dipper. I’m so tired, I’m…”
He holds her tight. Mabel sobs; she sobs, and she thinks of Dipper and Henry and dying and how one day, she’ll stop having this aching hole in her heart – how one day, she’ll feel that kind of love again.
It won’t be in this lifetime, no. But she had a dream last night, a glimpse of love yet to come.
She can take comfort in that.