Chapter Text
“I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow.”
Dipper sighed, looking straight ahead from where he and his sister sat on the steps of the shack they’d spent their last six summers at. Tomorrow the bus would come and take his sister back home for a week, and then to college.
She looked at him with soft eyes, throwing her arm around his shoulders. “You know it's not late too late to apply for the spring semester.”
He met her eyes and gave a small smile, “I’d just get in your way.” He looked out towards the woods, “Besides, me and Ford have been planning this trip for months.”
“South America is so far though! And what if you don’t have reception and I can’t call you or you meet a new monster you don’t know how to fight and get hurt and I can’t get there fast enough and-”
“Mable.”
She frowned, a rare look for her, “Ya?”
“I’ll be fine. Besides, meeting new monsters is kind of the whole point of the trip.”
She huffed, leaning forwards on her elbow, “Maybe I should go with you, ya know, for backup.”
“Mable, this college is your dream, and I can’t deprive the world of the best future teacher ever,” Dipper consoled.
Neither said anything for a while, trying to process what was happening. They would be apart, really apart, for the first time in their lives. They both knew it was for the best; that spending the next year apart would be a good opportunity for the both of them. But that didn’t make it any easier.
They sat like that, reveilling in each other's presence, until Dipper broke the silence.
“What if we got matching tattoos?”
“What?” Mabel asked, knowing Dipper’s many fears included needles.
“We just turned 18. No one has to know if you don’t want them to. But if you don’t want to, it I get it,” he shrugged.
Mable thought about it, trying to remember a spell she thought she read in one of her brothers journals. Something about binding, or bonding?
“Let me see your journal,” she said, piecing together a plan.
“Which one?” Dipper asked. He had started his own series of journals where he continued Ford’s work, and was on his second.
“The one where you copied down the scroll from the cave with the jewels.”
“Oh, I have that in this one,” He said, pulling his most recent journal from his jacket.
He flipped to the page she was talking about and handed it to her. Mable read of the text, reading ancient words and Dipper’s translation about different kinds of bonds. She found the one about sibling bonds. It was a spell of sorts - more of a chant- and a sigil, that was used when family members went on journeys. It allowed you to know when another was in trouble and feel their emotions to some extent. She showed the passage to her brother, “What if we got this as a tattoo?”
“Do you think it works?” Dipper asked, tracing the sigil with his finger.
“Has ancient magic ever failed us?” Magic laughed.
Dipper raised an eyebrow at her, “Ancient magic almost destroyed our town a few times.”
“But?” Mable waited.
“But, I think this could be cool, if it doesn’t backfire horribly on us,” he answered.
“It’s like a long distance call from our hearts!” Mable beamed, proud of herself.
Some detailed instruction reading and a phone call later, the twins found themselves outside the only tattoo parlor in town, Twisted Ink.
The woman working the tattoo gun gave them a strange look when they showed her the symbol they wanted right over their hearts, but as this was no where near the weirdest thing she had tattooed on someone, said nothing.
Soon enough Mable was in the chair, shirt pushed down enough to expose her sternum, and holding her brother’s hand.
The woman gave a resigned look when they started whispering a chant of words she didn’t understand.
The woman gave a defeated look when the ink on the girl's chest started to glow, questioning every decision that brought her to this time and place.
None the less, she kept going, the glowing getting stronger and the chanting getting louder the further along she got. By the time she was almost done it was getting a little hard to see the skin she was inking, but she finished, and the light died down to the red of a fresh tattoo.
Mabel stood up looking a little dazed and switched spots with Dipper.
Almost the exact this happened with him, except he passed out a few minutes in. All this meant was that Mable chanted a little louder to compensate.
After Dipper’s piece was done and he had woken up,ー apologizing profusely to the woman, who said nothing other than an “Its fine” and the price for both the tattoosー they paid with money from their birthday and tipped extra, feeling bad for making her go through there magical shenanigans.
The pair walked out, not quite sure what to make of their situation now. They felt… different, but couldn’t pinpoint anything other than pain, more pain than should be normal.
“Does your’s like, really hurt?” Dipper asked, grimacing as his shirt grazed his chest.
Mable didn’t look like she was in any better shape than her brother, trying to put on her sweater but giving up. “A ton. Is this supposed to feel like this?”
“Maybe it’s infected,” he said, sitting down on the curb outside the parlor.
“Or…” Mable nudged his shoulder. “It worked!”
“I think it's a little early to say that.”
She smiled, “No, it makes sense, we’re feeling each other's pain!”
Dipper looked at his sister, a little skeptical, until he watched her close her eyes and scrunch her face up like she was concentrating really hard.
Dipper chuckled at her face until he felt… something. Something that definitely didn’t come from him. It was a warmth, a bright glittery warmth in his chest, an energy he immediately recognized as his sister. He looked at Mabel, dumbstruck, and focus on the place he felt the warmth from. He tried to push some of his own energy towards her, and she gasped.
“Do you feel that?” she asked, smiling even harder.
He nodded, matching her grin. “Ya, I feel it.”
They stood up, arms around each other's shoulders, and walked back to the shack, no longer afraid of leaving as long as they could always be with each other.