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“You’re an idiot, broski,” Mabel says, threading a needle in a practiced motion. Her hair looks shiny under the Mystery Shack's bathroom lights.
The needle is sterilized, Dipper knows that, but he can’t help but feel a bit ill, knowing that this thing is going under his skin in the near future.
Or, well, what’s left of his skin. Turns out wraiths can, in fact, assume a corporeal form, and they are very capable of forming claws to rend living flesh.
Dipper’s just lucky he threw his arm up in time to prevent it from hitting its intended target, ie: his jugular.
“Yeah, kinda,” he admits, only a little dizzy. He’s gotten better at handling blood loss since last summer.
...is it screwed up to be proud of that? Probably.
“But I got a ton of valuable data! Like, Mabel, did you know that wraiths are territorial? I found signs of other ghosts, but only ectoplasm- I think it must’ve attacked the others.”
Mabel huffs. Dipper takes a careful step back to avoid her possible wrath, his hip bumping up against the sink.
No such wrath comes, but from the look on Mabel's face, it's a close thing.
“Wow, I’m sooo glad you almost died for that little tidbit,” she drawls, taking his wrist to inspect the wound. She's gentle, but even the tiny movement as she turns his arm causes a throb of pain. “Invite me to the party next time, wouldya? Also, brace yourself, 'cause this is probably gonna hurt.”
“I mean, now if we ever need to kill a ghost, we’ll know we can just get a wraith to-” Dipper yelps, looking down to find that Mabel has jabbed the needle directly into his arm. “Christ, Mabel!”
To her credit, Mabel shrieks too, nearly dropping the needle in the process. “Sorry, sorry! Flesh is a lot different than fabric.”
“Maybe we should ask Grunkle Ford for help?” Dipper says, but even he’s uncertain, and Mabel shakes her head the second the words leave his mouth.
“Nah, we got this! No need to worry them, right?” Mabel chuckles nervously.
Dipper can’t exactly blame her. The two of them have been getting hurt more and more often, a steady uptick from their first summer in Oregon, and their Grunkles are having a hell of a time explaining away Dipper and Mabel's constantly-increasing collection of scars to their parents (not to mention the medical bills).
If Dipper knows anything about his great uncles, it's that they'll stop at nothing to keep their family around, but why make it harder for them?
Plus, Dipper loves spending time here- it’s practically his life’s dream- and he knows Mabel loves Gravity Falls just as fiercely. They can’t do anything to jeopardize that.
“Right,” Dipper agrees, anxiety settling now that he knows they’re on the same page. “Uh, maybe a book, then? I’m sure we have some medical textbooks downstairs.”
Mabel looks like she’s considering it for all of two seconds. Then she gasps, curls bouncing with the force. “Oh! Disinfectant! That’ll numb it, I bet.”
“I’m not sure-” Dipper starts, glancing down at the extremely deep series of gashes in his arm, and isn’t it bad to dump antiseptic in an open wound, but then Mabel’s doing exactly that.
Dipper screams for a second time (they'll definitely need to pretend they were watching a horror movie later- there's no way Stan hasn't heard them) and instinctively jerks his arm back.
Unfortunately, Mabel’s grip is firm, entirely unyielding as she pours half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide over his wounds, letting the runoff dribble into the sink.
He’s a few pints of blood short of peak performance, sure, but Dipper swears she’s even stronger than the wraith was.
“Mabel, do you lift?” Dipper asks, feeling a bit like he’s been hit by a truck. Oops. So much for blood loss tolerance.
Mabel notices, and ushers him to the floor. For once in his life, Dipper is more than glad to follow directions. The bathroom tile is cool and grounding beneath his folded legs.
“I lift people’s spirits!” Mabel cheerily answers. “Okay, this time for sure.”
Dipper has his doubts, but he knows better than to voice them. His sister has enough self-doubt without him piling on, and he’s not about to try and stitch himself up.
(Not his dominant arm, anyway. If it were the other one, he might risk it.)
Against all odds, Mabel’s hands are steady as she slides the needle through his arm. Her tongue pokes out through her teeth.
“Woah,” Dipper says, watching her work. It’s still nausea-inducing, but… “I really can’t feel that. Great call on the disinfectant.”
Mabel glances up for a split second. “Uh, it shouldn’t’ve been that strong,” she says, sounding uncomfortable. She pushes a lock of her hair out of her face, apparently unconcerned about the blood on her fingers. “Are you sure you didn’t get nerve damage, bro-bro?”
Dipper blinks. He sure hopes not.
Writing in the journal is gonna be a pain if he loses a significant amount of dexterity in his dominant hand- not to mention their excursions out into the dangerous world that thrives just outside their cabin.
Blessedly, Mabel lets the subject drop. Although that may have more to do with the panicked, stubborn fervour with which she’s stitching up his arm.
Her stitches are painstakingly even, surgical wire shiny against his skin.
“Hey, uh, Mabel?”
“Yeah?” Mabel’s distracted, cutting the current thread so she can rethread the needle and start on the next gaping slash in his flesh.
“Thanks for… being so normal about this. I think I’d be really freaking out if you weren’t… well, yeah. Thanks.”
Despite the awkwardness of his statement, Mabel looks up, a smile gracing her face. It’s different than her usual sunny smile, though no less real.
It’s the soft, almost shy smile that her new friends never get to see. The girl she was before Gravity Falls. The girl who nearly sacrificed everything to keep what she’d found.
Dipper’s glad she’s happier now, really. But sometimes he worries about just how deeply she’s buried that girl. Hopefully it doesn’t keep her up at night.
“Yeah, well. What are twins for, huh?” Mabel elbows him, an endearingly awkward movement since they’re facing each other. “Just don’t fight any more ghosts on your own again, okay? Or I won’t patch you up next time.”
She’s teasing, Dipper knows it; he could do any number of stupid things and Mabel would still sit in the bathroom with him, hands deep in his blood- but he still means it with his whole heart when he says, “Deal.”
Her grin is more than worth it.