Chapter Text
When they came back to Piedmont after that summer, Dipper was sure the Weirdness was over with until next year, or at the very least, dramatically reduced. He was right, for the most part; but that was just Weirdness with a capital 'W'. There was always regular weirdness. Sometimes, it could be even weirder than Weird - and if Dipper thought of the word 'Weird' one more time in the next five minutes, he was sure he'd have a headache.
He knew that Mabel was going to dedicate the next year to some serious self-improvement - she said it herself, between the triple punch of accidentally starting an apocalypse just to get one more day of summer, having to deal with an evil version of herself, and learning she almost strangled her brother before they'd even left the womb, she needed it.
"So like, what," Dipper had said, "art therapy, yoga classes, meditating under marzipan-scented candles?"
"Some of those things", Mabel had answered, "but what I really want is to learn how to vent my frustrations in the most constructive way - punching and strangling people!"
At the time, Dipper had assumed she was joking. That was then. Now he was standing outside a Mixed Martial Arts ring that had been set up in the school gym. Just on the other side was his twin sister, hair tied back and decked out in bright pink MMA padding.
She'd grown over the last year - somehow, she was still taller, and on top of that, she was starting to show muscle from all the 'martial art therapy' she'd been doing - at this rate, she might end up giving Grenda a run for her money by the time she'd finished high school. Meanwhile, Dipper looked back at himself, almost exactly the same as last year minus a few inches, a few sparse chest hairs and even sweatier than before. So much for puberty.
Still, neither of them could hold a candle to the other girl in the ring with Mabel - a blonde girl, clad in blue and a whole head taller. Courtney Cortez, was her name - according to Mabel, she was the current 'champion' of this Junior MMA club that had been set up last year. Dipper hadn't paid much attention, thinking it was just one of his sister's fleeting interests, like that whole sock puppetry debacle. Then before he knew it, it was almost summer again and here Mabel was, about to try fighting the toughest middle school student in Piedmont. Not a hotly-contested title, but still.
"Mabel, are you sure you want to do this?" Dipper said, already sweating as he saw stone-faced Courtney staring them down from the other side of the ring. "I don't think I've seen her smiling once. Not even condescendingly. I'm getting serious 'I don't even enjoy kicking butt, but it's all I know' vibes... r-right? You know what I mean?"
"Less talky, more drinky!" Mabel said back, holding open her mouth. Dipper passed in her bottle of homebrewed 'Mabelade' ('it's got caffeinated caffeine!') for her to drink; after taking a couple gulps, she passed it back, dramatically wiping her mouth and emphatically not looking away the entire time. "Don't worry about me, bro-bro. Last I checked, Courtney doesn't even look like a triangle demon! There is literally nothing that can convince me not to do this!"
"Not even if she was holding a kitten hostage?"
"She WHAT?!" Mabel yelled, tensing up. "Oh, she is SO dead! Nobody holds kittens hostage on my watch!"
"No no wait, that wasn't a rhetorical question, it- no, it was a rhetorical question, but not in the way you think!" Dipper tried to explain, but before he could finish, Mabel had already shoved her pink mouthguard into her mouth and marched up to the middle of the ring.
It seemed as though Courtney understood that 'it was happening' now - receiving some murmurs of encouragement from the small crowd of kids gathered around her, she also sauntered over to meet Mabel.
For a good few seconds, the two of them just stood there, chest-to-chest, staring each other down. Mabel felt the taller girl glaring icy daggers right at her, and so she responded in kind, narrowing her eyes to deliver flaming swords. Courtney apparently retaliated with Antarctic mega-spears, and Mabel felt a slight chill. An actual, literal chill. Their hair began to sway dramatically in the wind, even though they were indoors.
Dipper had wondered why they set up the ring right next to a huge air conditioning vent.
A short 11-year-old boy in a striped t-shirt approached the two girls. "Right, now remember, you two, this is gonna be a nice clean fight! That means no cheating! ...You do know what 'cheating' means here, right?" the self-appointed referee asked. The girls didn't break their stare for a second. The referee frowned and began to whisper. "...Seriously, I actually don't know. I don't even like watching girls fight. It's kinda icky..."
"Courtney..." Mabel suddenly began to whisper, "...you have disrespected the sanctity of the kitten, and for that, I will break you."
Courtney's stony expression faltered for a moment. "...I did what?"
Mabel promptly sucker-punched her right on the cheek, making her reel back.
The referee quickly backed away. "Oh, okay, okay, we're starting now, I guess! Remember, no cheating! Whatever that means!" he yelled before frantically clambering over the side of the ring and out the room.
Even though Mabel's punch landed on protective headgear, Courtney still brushed a hand over it as though it was 'real'. She quickly shook it off, however, and got into her fighting stance. She ducked, rushing in, and tried to throw a cross to the jaw, but Mabel, pumped up on Mabelade and righteous kitten-related fury, was quick to duck, countering with a body blow and a kick to the shin.
Courtney tried to grab Mabel's lowered head and follow up with a knee, but once again, she missed - the shorter girl sidestepped her and retaliated with a kick to the ribs - the sharp impact made her lurch forward to protect her stomach, giving Mabel an opening to throw another punch to the cheek and an uppercut right in the centre of her face.
Courtney apparently reeled back again from that impact, but for a split second, Dipper noticed she was tensing up, getting into a more defensive stance.
"Mabel, wait, it's a trick!" he called out, but she had already taken the bait, throwing a heavy punch. Courtney blocked it with her elbow, and knowing that her opponent would follow up with a high kick, she dodged and grabbed Mabel's leg, then grabbed the other one to throw her off her feet, slamming her down on the mat.
"Oh no...!" Dipper blurted out in alarm, seeing Courtney literally right on top of his sister - her opponent trapped, the taller girl began furiously punching her in the face, over and over. Dipper winced at the sight - he wasn't the one getting punched, but he could practically feel every single shock to the skull, twitching about each time. Mabel needed to think smart, but how could you think when the organ used for thinking is getting beaten in? She needed a sign.
“Mabel, the triangle! Remember the triangle!”
Almost immediately, Dipper could see Mabel’s bruised face twist into a snarl, as she blocked one of Courtney’s incoming punches and pushed against her head, wrapping her legs around her neck - which, according to Mabel, was called a ‘triangle hold’. Of course, that wasn’t the reason for the snarling. Dipper decided to terminate any further thought of that.
Mabel attempted to use her new position to roll over and switch places, but the taller girl held firm - using her immense strength, she stood up, lifting Mabel high off the ground, intending to slam her down hard. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of a powerbomb, Mabel put Courtney in a forward-facing headlock, so when she let go of her legs, she’d hold on - once that happened, Mabel flipped herself around so she sat behind Courtney’s head, like some kind of weaponized piggy-back.
“Wooo, NICE! Go Mabel!” Dipper yelled out as his sister began to apply a chokehold. “Think of the kitten, think of the kitten!”
“HNNNNGGGHAAAAAAH!” Mabel screeched as she tightened her grip around the taller girl’s neck, making her face almost as blue as her gear. She wouldn’t relent, however; instead, she stayed on her feet, shoving one of her free hands into Mabel’s face and reversed, fast, into one of the pillars, right next to Dipper. The hard slam made the angry Pines twin lose focus, giving Courtney enough wiggle room to elbow her in the face twice and throw her off, like an unwelcome backpack.
Courtney stopped to massage her windpipe before turning her attention to… Dipper.
“YOU!” she yelled at him in a raspy voice, almost reaching out to grab him beyond the fence. “Did you tell her I killed a kitten or something?! I have, like, five cats!”
“What?! N-no, I was just trying to psyche her up! Well, I wasn’t at first, but-”
“HA!” Mabel announced, taking advantage of the distraction to lunge right at her opponent and grab her by the back of the head. “You let those five cats go NOW!” she demanded, kneeing her in the chest.
“Oof! WHAT are you even talking about, you glitter fiend?!” Courtney said as she tried to dodge the knees and hook her foot around Mabel’s to trip her up again. Mabel had the same idea, and soon they were doing some bizarre dance as they repeatedly tried to catch each other’s shins with their feet.
Mabel felt that air conditioner chill on the back of her head again, and her eyes widened. She forced herself and Courtney to swivel around so the much shorter-haired girl would feel that same chill - that distraction was all she needed to catch her off-guard, getting ‘the hook’ in one of her shins and tripping her up. Now Mabel was the one tackling her to the mat, but Courtney used her superior strength to quickly undo this advantage, placing her feet under Mabel’s chest and launching her backwards.
“Look out!” Dipper called out as he saw the rising Mabel’s back turned to her opponent - who’d just lunged right at her, launching a mighty elbow strike. Once again, the warning came too late - she turned only to catch the elbow with her face. The force behind this one almost made Dipper fall onto his butt, as his sister was airborne for a fraction of a second, before she spun and fell face-down on the mat.
“Mabel!” Dipper called out again, running over to her current position, or as close as possible without entering the ring. “Mabel, are you okay?!”
“Ugh…” she tried to say something as she clambered to her feet, only to be cut off by Courtney, leaping in to grab her prone form from behind and try a chokehold of her own.
“Heh… Mabel, I know what you’re thinking, and, uh…” he tried to say, as his sister’s face began to puff up to keep breathing. He wanted to say ‘there’s no shame in quitting now’ - she’d made it this far already, after all - but she wouldn’t want to, he knew that. She’s stubborn. Much like him, he figured. But what if… no, this is just a sport, perfectly safe! He’d checked. Only… well, he didn’t recall the exact figure, but ringside casualties in mixed martial arts are so statistically insignificant as to not be worth worrying about! Right?
He began to sweat, despite standing right in front of the air conditioner. Made the droplets on his face more noticeable as they blew across it. He looked back at this sister, who had been raising a palm above the mat, ready to slap down and admit defeat - but seeing those droplets of sweat made her expression change. Not into a snarl, but into something flat, calm, without emotion. ...Was he really that gross?
Mabel suddenly began mouthing something to herself - it was something Dipper had seen before, so he recognized what she was trying to say. ‘It’s not the worst, Mabel, it’s not the worst. It’s never the worst, Mabel, it’s never the worst!’
Then Mabel began to shake from some serious strain. With Courtney still on top of her, Mabel just began to slowly, painstakingly rise to one foot. Now her face began to contort, as she bit her lip and closed her eyes from the effort. She eventually did make it to a kneeling position with one knee bent forward, but she wasn’t done - she grabbed Courtney’s arm and, with a lengthy grunt, began to forcibly push it off her neck. With only one of her own arms.
Dipper’s jaw dropped at the sight, and Courtney’s eyes widened in alarm. Dipper had seen some feats from his sister, but never anything quite like this - she’d always had a weapon, or her grappling hook, at least. Now, it was hard for him to reconcile the current sister and the sister who’d had so much trouble dealing with Gideon, of all people.
Yet, she still wasn’t finished - once Courtney’s chokehold was compromised, Mabel quickly grabbed her opponent’s head - distracted and confused - and slammed it down hard on her outstretched knee, sending her reeling back. While she was barely managing to stay afoot, Mabel followed up with a heavy backhanded punch, spinning her around. Finally, she wrapped her arms around Courtney’s midsection.
“ULTIMATE MABEL-PLEX!” she yelled out as she toppled over backwards, slamming her opponent into the mat head-first. “THAT was for cats held hostage everywhere!”
“Wh… I don’t…” the prone Courtney groaned, but before she could finish, Mabel grabbed her arm and began to twist it. “OWWW, OW OW OW OW!” she screeched, as her face turned red and scrunched-up from the agony of the arm lock. All the while, Mabel had a dissonant grin on her face. She was looking at Dipper, pointing at her handiwork like a proud student, but her twin could only maintain his jaw drop.
Finally, Courtney couldn’t take it any more - slamming her eyes shut, she slapped her palm down on the mat three times, admitting defeat.
A lot of the kids watching passed around shocked murmurs, but some of them began to cheer, and soon enough they drowned out everyone else. “MABEL! MABEL! MABEL! MABEL!”
Dipper’s shocked face turned into a smile. “Y-... you did it! You won!” he spluttered, beginning to laugh, and he wasted no time in heading inside the ring to congratulate his sister. She was a bit preoccupied, however.
“AAAAAAAAAGGHHH!” she roared in victory, even beating her chest like a crazed gorilla. “I’M STILL NOT DONE, MABEL IS NEVER DONE! ANYONE ELSE WANNA GO?! HOW ‘BOUT YOU?” she pointed at a random spectator, “OR YOU?! OR YOU?! ORRRR… YOU?!”
That last point ended up right in Dipper’s face as he walked up to her. “Heh... wait, what?”
Before he knew it, she’d pulled him over by the arm and put him in a rear chokehold, and began to affectionately noogie him, giggling maniacally. “Haha... owww, Mabel, stop!” Dipper chuckled, before he could feel a lump in his throat. “Eugh, seriously, stop, I can’t breathe...”
“Oh! R-right, sorry!” she was quick to say, releasing him. “Guess I pulled a Grunkle Stan there!”
“Heh, yeah, you sure did...” Dipper said, the smile returning to his face. “But... oh my God, Mabel, that was amazing! You totally kicked her ass, fair and square! You’re the champion now!”
“I sure am! O’ course, was there ever any doubt? Nope, never, not once in all time!” she said, raising her voice so the spectators could hear. “But I could never have done it without you, psyching me up and prodding me all the time! Hey, everyone,” she called out, pointing at her brother, “lemme hear some noise for my bro-bro! DIPPER! DIPPER! DIPPER!”
Dipper’s face went all flushed as he heard a few spectators begin to chant his name, and he chuckled nervously, rubbing his sweaty neck. “Heheh, c’mon, guys... I-I didn’t really do that much...”
It wasn’t long before he turned his attention to Mabel’s opponent, still lying face-down on the floor, apparently dejected. He nudged his sister, still bowing and grandstanding. “Uh, Mabel, shouldn’t you...?”
“O-oh yeah, right, yes! Doi!” she slapped her forehead before walking over to Courtney, holding out a hand. “So! You gonna release those cats now? Or am I gonna have to sit on you, fall asleep there, maybe live on your back for the rest of my life?”
“No! What is it with you and-... I never even-”
“Ha, I’m kidding, geez! C’mon!” she said, laughing. “I know Dip-Dop was just motivating me! He knows how to use... brain magic!”
“W-well, I mean, that wasn’t what I-” Dipper tried to say, only to be shushed.
Courtney finally sighed and accepted Mabel’s hand, letting her pull her up to her feet - which still looked a bit odd, given their height difference.
“Ugh, my neck...” the taller girl groaned. “How did you even do that? You’re tiny! Uh, no offence.”
Dipper couldn’t help but get a laugh out of that - he’d hoped he’d be the one to finally call his sister ‘tiny’, but this would do for now.
“Weeeeeell, I might have some latent superpowers! Or...” Mabel continued, her tone becoming a little less bright. “...Maaaybe I just thought of something, or someone, and what they’d done for me in a tough spot. Remembered how lucky I am to be alive, and happy. Or something like that.”
“Pff,” Courtney scoffed, “what, so the secret is believing in yourself? Kinda corny, ain’t it?”
“Yeah...” Mabel said, frowning for a brief moment. She quickly brightened up. “...You’re right, it must be latent superpowers! The PAIN-BOW may yet return!”
“Whatever you say, weirdo...” Courtney said, briefly cracking a smile. “Oh, by the way, I think my brother owes your brother twenty bucks now.”
Dipper gasped. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that! HEY, DEREK!”
The next few minutes went by in a flash. Mabel walked out of the ring to be greeted by a small crowd of newfound admirers - she played the showwoman, laughing, high-fiving, occasionally flexing her barely-post-pubescent muscles. Soon, she retired to the changing rooms, with Dipper waiting outside. That brief moment of panic when it looked like she was about to lose, and having his jaw hang open so much... his throat had gone way too dry. He walked over to a nearby vending machine, inserted a dollar and dispensed himself a can of... what was it, Sub-Cola? Even now, he kept hoping he’d find a nice Pitt somewhere. He came close to madness looking around every store in Piedmont, even went down to Oakland and San Francisco to see if some obscure import places had any.
Cracking it open, he took a moment to think-and-drink - while leaning casually against a wall, as you do. This really was a new Mabel he was dealing with now, he thought - maybe she’d be okay by herself after all, when the time came. Whenever that might be. College, probably. He’d asked her if she’d considered going to college, and she’d always dodge the question. ...It was weird, though - despite having a new Mabel, it all seemed oddly familiar. Dipper had assumed that things would be easy for her when they returned from Gravity Falls - much easier than it’d be for him, at least. His heart - or soul, or mind, or whatever - truly belonged in Gravity Falls, with the rest of the Weirdness, even if his body was elsewhere. Mabel, on the other hand, she was adaptive. Always the socializer. She could go to another country and fit right in with the locals.
Dipper took a long gulp of his drink and glanced down at the floor. It hadn’t quite ended up that way - if anything, it had been the opposite. Dipper hadn’t been getting any more popular in school, but he was used to it by now. Mabel, however… he had no idea what happened. He wasn’t sure if she had changed or her old friends had. Maybe she now found it impossible to relate to them, because none of them had been through anything like Weirdmageddon; or maybe they just felt they were getting too ‘old’ for things like glitter or stuffed animals or macaroni paintings. Suddenly, girls she’d been friends with since preschool started drifting away, calling her a five-year-old in a thirteen-year-old’s body. Maybe that’s why she was so eager to take up more physical pursuits, Dipper thought - after last summer, she didn’t want to go back to clinging to him whenever she was in trouble. Which was nice, but… at the same time, maybe not? He didn’t know.
His face twisted into a look of disgust; it was his ‘I don’t know’ face. ‘I don’t know and I hate not knowing’.
Suddenly, the door to the girls’ changing room burst open, and Mabel came bounding out - her hair was undone, but she was still dressed in the plain t-shirt and shorts she’d been wearing in the ring. She was frowning, and Dipper could see the telltale reflection of water on her eyes. It wasn’t there when she was leaving the ring, despite the fresh bruises.
“Mabel? What’s wrong?”
“I-It’s…” she tried to say, before fidgeting, fumbling with her phone in her hand. Dipper could make out a lot of texts on the screen. Must have been sent during the fight.
“It’s Waddles! H-he’s sick!” she finally announced, the words practically exploding out of her mouth. “We need to go to the vet’s! He must have eaten something bad, o-or… or I fed him something bad! H-he could die any second now!”
“Woah, okay, okay…” Dipper said, putting a hand on his sister’s shoulder, “I-... I’m sure he’s fine, I mean, he’s Waddles! He can eat, like… a whole barrel of, uh… chocolate-covered pretzels!”
He stopped as he felt a sinking sensation in his chest. He couldn’t brush it off like that, but what else could he have said? “...Ugh, I dunno, I’m sorry… but he’s not gonna die, don’t worry! Let’s just go to the vet’s and you can see him, and he’ll be… oinking away, like nothing ever happened!”
“He better! I’m not leaving him alone, not now!” Mabel said before running off down the hall, Dipper chasing after her. “Mabel, wait! Where’s your bag?!”
Mabel uncovered her eyes. She didn't remember what she had just been doing - she was pretty sure she was visiting Waddles at the vet's, but now she was sitting... outside, on the grass? There was a lot of grass around.
She stood up, gasping, and glanced around at her new surroundings. A vast, green field under a clear blue sky, the sun locked into high noon above her. There was a faint breeze, but besides that, she couldn’t hear any signs of life. No birds, not even bugs in the grass by her feet. The dirt didn’t leave any marks on her sweater, either. It should have been a beautiful sight, but instead it all felt sterile, even more sterile than the vet’s room she thought she was in. She wasn’t even sure the grass was alive - it felt rubbery, like astroturf. The wind was all there was, ringing against her ears, blowing her about so she never forgets its presence.
She looked around, circling at least a dozen times, trying to get her bearings. This can’t be right, where is everyone? Every thing? Soon, she started wandering around, trying to see if there was something just over the horizon that she’d missed. The field seemed to go on forever, as far as she could possibly see. She began to sweat.
“W-Waddles?” she called out, opting to start walking in a random direction. “Dipper? ...Mason? Mom, dad? Anyone?!” she kept calling out, her pace quickening, making her sweat even more. “Hello?! Anyone, please?! ANYONE?!”
She soon broke out into a run, trying to find an end to this vast field. “No… n-no, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening…” she spluttered out between heavy breaths.
“ANYONE?! PLEASE! My name is Mabel Pines! I’m thirteen years old, and I’m lost! I need… I need someone! My pig, my brother, my parents, my Grunkles, I don’t care!”
She ran for what must have only been a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Soon, she had no choice but to stop - her chest was heaving from the pain, and her throat felt like it was trying to throw up a load of sticky air, that was just getting lodged in her windpipe. She couldn’t yell anymore, not without feeling her throat burn.
She fell to her knees, and felt that sting in her eyes again. This time she didn’t stop it - she could feel water flood her eyes and stream down her face. There was no-one out here. Nothing. Nothing but her, all by herself.
“P-please, someone… don’t leave me alone…”
She stayed down on the ground, sniffling, letting her tears form a puddle on the lifeless grass beneath her. With each tear, the puddle grew larger and larger - far larger than a single tear should have made it. She looked at her reflection in the overly-large puddle that had formed beneath her. Same red, puffed-up face, made shiny from all the waterworks. Then the reflection’s expression changed. It smiled. Its brow lowered, eyes narrowed - its face twisted from sadness to mischief, sadistic pleasure. Then it raised its hand and pointed down, in the direction of its chest.
Mabel obliged, thoughtlessly, looking down at her own chest. Her sweater had vanished, and in its place was a white t-shirt, with large letters reading ‘I HATE CATS’.
Then she shot up, feeling a blast of air chilling her damp face. Her gaze frantically darted around - the endless field was gone. She was back home, in her bed. Without hesitation, she threw the covers off, glancing down at her shirt. It was just her usual floppy disc-themed pyjamas. Just to be sure, she pinched herself on the neck.
“Ow!” she went, purposely going for a sensitive nerve. She sighed with relief, but that feeling was a short-lived one. Looking over at her phone, she checked the time - 1:30 in the morning.
Sniffling to get the last of the tearful snot out of her nose, she clambered out of bed, gingerly stepping out into the hall. Looking to her left, as she expected, she could see a faint light emerging from her brother’s bedroom. One thing Grunkle Ford seemed to have encouraged in him was his night owl schedule - Dipper would usually wait for the parents to fall asleep at around midnight before getting out of bed to write in his journal, or look up ultra-eldritch equations on the Weird web, or whatever other nerd things he was doing.
She lightly tapped on the door, and it didn’t take long for a tired Dipper to answer. Before he could say anything, Mabel pulled him in for a mighty hug. “Oh thank God, Dipper, you’re here… I love you, so, so much, I don’t ever want to stop hugging...”
“Wh- hey… I-I love you too…” he said, patting her on the back. “I kinda need you to release the hug, though.”
“No. Never. This is your life now.”
He stopped for a moment to inspect his sister’s reddened, puffed-up face. “Mabel, you’ve been crying,” he said, his smile turning to a concerned frown. “What’s going on? ...Did you have another nightmare?”
“Whaaaat?” she responded, releasing the hug and dismissively waving, proudly placing her hands on her hips. “Of course not! I just wanted to assure ya that… that I, uh…”
She sniffled again. “...Okay, yeah, I had a nightmare. ...Look, Waddles is okay, right?”
“What?”
“Waddles. He was sick, we went to see him at the vet’s, then what happened?”
“Oh, uh… yeah, Waddles is fine. Just a bug. They did say he… he probably won’t be able to come to Gravity Falls with us. But he’ll recover.”
“Oh...” Mabel went, her gaze falling to the floor. “...Did he chew on my shirt?”
“No, but he chewed on the vet’s coat.”
“Eh, good enough…” Mabel said, sighing. “Well, thanks for letting my dumb, stupid, leaky brain know again. Guess I should go back to bed and try meowing myself to sleep.”
“Alright. Night, Mabel!” Dipper called out as she turned to head back, but before he could shut the door, she stopped.
“...A-actually, wait, I wanna ask you something. Uh… can I come in?”
“Oh! Uh, yeah, sure,” Dipper answered, opening the door a bit more to let Mabel step inside.
As Dipper checked to see if the coast was clear of any newly-awakened parents, Mabel looked at the source of the light on her brother’s desk. He had his laptop open, bathing the entire desk in light.
She glanced up at Dipper’s notice board, seeing a huge collection of drawings arranged to look like some sort of… leaning tower of plates? With chopsticks suspended between them? Except the plates were dimensions? She was sure he’d explained all this to her at some point, but she must have zoned out. Or maybe she was just impressed by his artwork - just as she’d lately been indulging in ‘manly mannington’ hobbies like punching and strangling people, Dipper had taken to improving his art skills. Just never ask him to draw something cute, he’d invariably twist it into some creepy monster; and not the creepy-cute kind either, like a scorpion.
Then she finally glanced down at his laptop - she’d avoided it before now, it being so bright she was blinded for a moment, but now her vision had become adjusted enough for her to see it. Dipper had a word processor open, with…
“...’ The Mystery of Trembleyville: a Screenplay by Mason Birch’?” she said, reading off the page.
Dipper swooped in with frightening speed, slamming the laptop shut. “Forget you saw that! ...Secret. Secret stuff. ...Aaaand now I can’t see anything,” he said, very astutely, as shutting the laptop had indeed removed the one source of light in the room.
Fortunately for both of them, Mabel had thought to grab her phone when getting out of bed - pulling it out of her pocket, she switched it on, illuminating the pair of them. The shadow beneath Mabel’s face exposed the grin that had formed.
“Secret, eeeeeeeh? ”
Dipper sighed. “C’mon, Mabel, you can’t fool me that easily. I know you’re still upset. Just ask me what you were gonna ask me.”
Mabel’s grin faltered. “Yeah, you’re right… but I still wanna know about your top secret junk.”
“Maybe later - and it’s not junk, it’s art. I-in a manner of speaking.”
Mabel rolled her eyes before leaning in a bit closer. “Okay, so… you remember last summer when I made that bet with Grunkle Stan where I had to run the shack for three days, and you kidnapped that… troll-goblin?”
“Gremloblin. I dunno how old it was, but ‘kidnap’ doesn’t seem like the right term.”
“Right, right, anyway, you said that if you look into its eyes, you see your worst nightmare. Did you look into its eyes? What’d you see?”
Dipper paused as he got into his seat, fidgeting about. “Huh… I don’t think I did look into its eyes. ...Its eyes were pretty small, it wasn’t actually that hard to avoid looking into them.”
“Oh… well, if you had, what do you think you would’ve seen?”
“I don’t know! I was different back then, it probably woulda been something stupid like… Wendy and Robbie getting married. Or maybe getting a makeover from your friends. Which actually did happen, and while certainly terrifying, it was far from the scariest thing that’s happened to me, so I can probably cross that off the list.”
“Heh, you liked it, you know you did!”
"No, I really didn’t,” Dipper said, exasperatedly rubbing his birthmark. “Why are you asking me this now anyway?”
“Ehhh… no reason, I was just… thinking about it.”
“Mabel ” Dipper said, starting to sound more like a parent than a child.
“Okay, okay! It’s just… you know I looked into its eyes, right? When stupid, silly old Mabel gave it a five-minute break and it trashed the place, and you ran in to save the day?”
Dipper raised a finger, as though he was going to make a point about how it was his fault for thinking he could bring monsters in to begin with (‘which it totally was’ Mabel almost thought to herself, before quashing those thoughts. Bad, bad Mabel), but he stopped.
“...Huh, yeah, you did. I never did ask you what you’d seen. I probably woulda done if we weren’t, you know, preoccupied with the Shack getting trashed for the umpteenth time. How the hell is that building even still standing after that summer?”
“Maybe it’s alive?” Mabel speculated.
Dipper stopped to gaze at his noticeboard, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “Hmm, maybe, dear sister, maybe…”
“...Aren’t you gonna ask me now?”
“What? Oh, right, yeah… guess I shoulda taken the hint. So what did you see?”
Mabel sat down on the floor, cross-legged, her throat beginning to feel sore again, as she remembered her nightmare. “Well… it was only for a li’l, but… I saw me , out in this big ol’ field. It was so big, I don’t think it ever ended. I was running and running, screaming for someone to find me. You, Grunkle Stan, Wendy, Soos, Waddles, mom and dad, the whole list of people! No-one came. There was nothing out there, just me, in this field. Alone.”
Once again, Mabel could feel that stinging sensation in her eye. Dipper’s expression mirrored hers. “Oh… aw, man, that… so your worst nightmare is being alone? ...Mabel, I’m so sorry. I-If I had known, I would have thought twice about Ford’s offer-”
“No! Don’t worry about that. You woulda just been making sacrifices for me again, and that sucks. It sucks you made so many sacrifices for me. Like giving up Wendy so I could have Waddles.”
“Aw, c’mon, Mabel, don’t say that. You love that pig! And anyway, we both know that me and Wendy would have gone nowhere. When you think about it, what happened was actually the optimal outcome!”
“That’s not the point!” Mabel snapped, slumping down so her face lay in her knee. She sniffled again, rubbing her eye. “You had no idea back then, that’s why you tried so hard to make things go right. Plus, humans live for, like, five billion times as long as pigs. Now Waddles could die because of me, and you’d have sacrificed for no reason!”
“Mabel, I told you, Waddles will be fine. He’s not going to die.”
“But what if he did? Then I’d have made another friend who leaves me alone, just like those stupid girls at school. And… I- I hate this, my brain is being all stupid, because I woulda been the same way if you stayed with Ford! Or… what if he and Stan crashed into a giant mermaid or something, or… or you got possessed by some dumb ghost and made to jump off a bridge?” she began to rattle off, her voice cracking.
“M-mabel… I... I don’t understand what you’re trying to say…” Dipper said, fidgeting again.
Mabel wiped another tear from her eye. “It’s… I’m gonna be alone, someday, I know it. I’m gonna be in that field for real. So why do I hate it so much? Why does everyone have to make sacrifices just to put it off? You can be alone just fine, right? Why can’t I?”
“I…” Dipper tried to say, his own voice beginning to crack a little - and it wasn’t just puberty squeak. “Mabel, I don’t like being alone, either. I don’t think anyone does. But… when you think about it, no-one’s ever really alone. It’s like, uh… on some of my Weirdness hunts when you weren’t around, I’ve seen things you woulda really liked. Like these little fluffball creatures that reproduced way too fast. I'm always thinking ‘Mabel would love this’, and just like that, it’s like you’re there, next to me.”
By now, Mabel was lying down on the floor, her phone resting atop her stomach. She sighed again. “Yeah, I guess… I’m real sorry about this, I know I’m being stupid and making zero sense. Wendy was right, this whole ‘being a teenager’ poop is overrated. I’m prob’ly just bummed out ‘cause Waddles can’t come with us to Gravity Falls, all ‘cause I fed him a death burger or something.”
Dipper leaned forward on his desk, resting his own head on his hand. “Yeah. If it’s any consolation, I’m not too happy the Grunkles aren’t gonna be there, either. I know they’re following up a big lead in Australia right now, and they promised they’d be back in time for our birthday, but… well, we both know plans can change. Even when there isn’t any danger of an apocalypse happening. ...I kinda wish we got to travel with them. I love Gravity Falls, it’s basically my home now, but… you know, there’s a whole world of Weirdness out there. Even Ford has barely scratched the surface.”
Mabel didn’t say anything for now, she took a moment to let her head cool down again, let her eyes dry out, and stare at the dark ceiling for good measure. She’d known about the Grunkles’ situation for weeks, since sea travel takes basically forever.
They were off hunting down ‘Weirdness Hotspots’, places like Gravity Falls - something about the dimensions of the multiverse being like a tower and they trickle down in certain places? ...Sorta like what one of her alternate counterparts told her back in Dimension MAB-3L - all the alternate versions of herself being drawn to each other, like potato chip crumbs at the bottom of the bag. It didn’t make any sense, she’d seen the multiverse, and it looked nothing like a tower - it looked like a huge load of nothing with globby portal bubbles everywhere, and it left a fruity taste on her tongue, like bubblegum! Apparently that was just the space between dimensions and they sometimes leak through the ‘floors’?
“Ugh…” she groaned, as she sat back up, rubbing her head. Thinking about all this dimension stuff gave her a headache. At least it took her mind off that fake nightmare, pulling tricks on her brain, making her think she was… that other Mabel.
‘You think you’ve defeated me, but I’m part of you! Every selfish choice you make, that’s being just like me!’
She looked back at Dipper - even when she was lying here, miserable, her face still red, somehow him leaning on the desk, staring glumly at the wall seemed to dwarf it. She always felt his big-brain nerd concerns were way out of her league - he was on a whole other level. Here she was, obsessing over being lonely, meanwhile he was probably working on mapping out a… multidimensional bus line or something. If he was anything like Ford, he could become the most important person in history. Yet she was barging into his room at nearly two in the morning, forcing him to listen to her cry over stupid stuff. Maybe he did need room to breathe.
She glanced up at Dipper’s notice board again - she saw something else next to his dimensional diagram. A map of the world, with ‘X’s scattered about, including a big ol’ X slapped right on top of Oregon - the rest of them were in other countries, most of which she’d probably never heard of, let alone knew how to spell or pronounce. She figured they represented possible Weirdness Hotspots. They all had question marks next to them, except three - the one over Gravity Falls, one in the arctic circle - Iceland? Greenland Junior? - and one slap-bang in the middle of Australia, with three circles around it.
“Dipper… if you wanna spend this summer investigating with Stan and Ford instead, that’s okay.”
Her brother looked back at her, raising a brow - intrigued, but also confused. “What? No… no, of course I’m not doing that! I wanna see Soos and Wendy again, too! Besides, even if I wanted to, I dunno if they could even afford an extra mouth to feed on their outback expedition. Plus, I’d probably need to pay for my own plane ticket; and as for mom and dad, heading one state over for a few months is one thing, heading to an entirely different country on the other side of the pacific is another thing entirely.”
Mabel paused, considering her words. “Yeah, you’re right, I dunno why I thought you’d want to. ...Guess I figured you needed some breathing room, without me holding you back.”
“Mabel? No , let’s not even go there,” Dipper said, sounding much firmer than before, as he stood up from his seat and knelt down to be on eye level with his sister. “You know I don’t think of you that way, and if I ever do, I… wouldn’t want to become that Dipper. If that Dipper came back in time with one of Blendin’s stolen Time Tapes and started talking about you like that, I’d punch him in the face,” he said, miming doing just that to the air. “Listen - if Stan and Ford ever have an opening for me on their crew, you’re coming too. That’s a fact. If they can’t have you, they’re not having me.”
Mabel was silent for a good few moments, processing her brother’s words. “Really? You sure?”
“Were you even at the fight where you suplexed an MMA champ? Believe me, you’re not holding anyone back.”
Wiping the last few crusty remains of her earlier tears from her face, Mabel smiled once more, and pulled Dipper in for another hug.