DON'T SKIP THIS A/N PLEASE, IT'S IMPORTANT.
Note: This is an AU where the twins never interacted with Bill. The events of Weirdmageddon never happened, neither did sock opera, Gideon never summoned Bill to get into the safe, etc. Stan and Ford never left, either. Just for plot sake. Also, this chapter isn't very important; it's just Mabel and Dipper returning to GF with no main plot whatsoever. Dipper will meet Bill in the next chapter (which will probably be a hell of a lot shorter than this one.) So yeah, you can skip to that if you want.

Lush trees towered high, untamed bushes over-grew the grass and beautiful wild-flowers popped with bright colours and stood tall at the edge of the forest; but it was all a blur in his eyes as the large vehicle sped down the road. Watching through the window, but not seeing all that was there. Not truly. He rested his bare elbow on the warm, metal ledge of the bus and his cheek rested on an enclosed fist that was sweating slightly in the already scorching pre-summer heat; his other hand sat idly in his lap, fingers fiddling with the edge of his shorts' leg lazily. A pop song hummed almost inaudibly from the speaker above his head, but he recognised it as something that was quite popular in his home town. Feet swinging off the edge of the seat, he was impatient with the long bus ride. His head was sweating under the hat he wore – her hat, the hat she'd given him – and he reached up to lazily pull it from his head and down into an unceremonious, albeit small, pile in his lap and he sighed in frustration at the scorching temperature. His hand moved idly across the bus seat but he pulled back his hand quickly and his face contorted into one of disgust when his fingers brushed again a solid, yet squishy object stuck beneath the seat; he presumed it was someone's old, dried gum.

An excited shriek erupted from the girl next to him, his twin sister. "I can't believe we're finally going back to Gravity Falls! Has it really been a year already? I'm so happy! Aren't you happy, Dipper?" she gushed, prodding him in the rib cage continuously. Dipper looked at his sibling, smiling happily at her. Despite the high temperature, she was clad in her favourite pink jumper which had a shooting star pattern sown into it – the twins had barely grown over the course of a year. A simple, purple skirt accompanied the sweater and a pair of white socks and black slip-on shoes donned her feet. Her hair had been trimmed over the year a few times, and whereas everybody else suggested she try a new style, she insisted on keeping the classic 'Mabel-do' as she had called it; a pink headband rested on her head, complimenting her jumper nicely. She still had her braces, which were to be taken out halfway through the summer. "I know that Waddles is happy!" she picked up said pig – who surprisingly hadn't grown much – and hugged him close, playing with his cheeks and squishing them together playfully.

"Yeah, we finally get to see everybody again, I can't wait!" Dipper replied enthusiastically.
"I know! Soos, Wendy, Candy and Grenda!" she shrieked again excitedly, "why is it taking so long?" she asked impatiently.
"We'll be there before we know it, Mabel. Look," he pointed out of the window he sat next to, "there's the welcome sign. You know how small Gravity Falls is, we'll be there in ten minutes."
"Ten minutes is still too long!" she huffed.
"Better than ten hours."

Their bedroom was just how they left it. Dusty books sat upon the shelves, the triangular window was as dirty as ever – and was covered in what Dipper suspected might have been bird droppings, - a white, circular rug was spread in the centre of the room, a large chest was in another corner and the old, unsteady, and wooden table remained pushed against the wall between their beds, in front of the window. Mabel was standing on her already messy bed – ignorant to the dirt she was putting on her sheets – and taping more boy-band posters to her wall. Her clothes had already been neatly folded and were in a small chest that sat at the end of her bed. Dipper, however had flung his clothes around the room and left them on the floor. He was hanging up a pair of binoculars and the pterodactyl tooth that he'd gained last summer when they'd had to save Waddles. He smiled at the memory.

"Do you think Wendy and Soos will visit tomorrow? I hope so; I've missed them so much!" Mabel spoke.
"Well, considering tomorrow's Monday. If they don't come to visit us, they'll come to work." Dipper smiled at the enthusiasm.
"Oh yeah, then you can give Wendy her hat back, and get yours, too!" the girl belly-flopped onto her bed, landing face first into a soft, warm pillow. She mumbled something inaudible through the fabric and Dipper asked her to repeat herself. "I said" she lifted her face from the pillow, resting her chin on it, instead. "Do you still have a thing for Wendy?" she smirked knowingly.
"What?" the male-twin blushed at the question, "no, I never did, what makes you think I did?"
Mable laughed at his reaction.

Dipper honestly didn't like the red-head anymore. Had he liked her last summer? Undeniably. But now? The feelings had withered over time and he found that he was ok with it. He would still get embarrassed if someone were to bring up his way-too-obvious crush that he had a year prior, but now he had accepted that Wendy was too old for him and he'd moved on; it was time to find someone else.

"Kids," called a familiar and gruff voice from downstairs; their Grunkle Stan had been waiting outside the Mystery Shack when they arrived that day, along with their Great Uncle Ford: the two used to argue constantly before, but the younger twins noticed that they didn't as much now. At least, they hadn't yet. Furthermore, the two men had barely changed at all otherwise; they owned the same old clothes and acted the same as always. While Stan scammed various tourists, bleeding their pockets dry for only the worst quality merchandise available, Ford had continued his research on the paranormal happenings and other phenomenon that took place in or near the small town of Gravity Falls. "We got pizza, come get some!" Stan yelled.

"Pizza!" The brunettes cheered, ambling down the stairs quickly. As soon as they reached the bottom of the rickety, old staircase – jumping over the step that had fallen through – a delicious aroma hit them, causing their mouths to water slightly.

Sitting at opposite ends of the table so they could face each other, each twin took a portion of pizza, not bothering to fetch plates, and devoured the meal quickly. Stan and Ford were already at the table, also sitting opposite each other; Stan donned his typical lazy-day attire: a stained, white wife-beater, a pair of old, blue boxers, a probably-fake gold chain hung around his neck, a pair of purple, fuzzy slippers clung to his feet, and his trademark fez sat upon his head with his usual glasses. Ford was clad in a red turtle-neck jumper that hung out over a worn and black pair of baggy jeans. He wore a large trench-coat, muddied boots that had clearly seen better days, and his typical pair of glasses.

"So how were your parents?" Stan asked through a mouth full of cheesy pizza.
Dipper shrugged, "pretty good."
"We told them all about Gravity Falls and the monsters and everything that happened! You should've seen their faces when we told them about you, Great Uncle Ford!" Mabel blurted enthusiastically.
Ford's brows furrowed as he swallowed. "You told them about me?"
The thirteen-year-old girl hesitated before confirming, only for the boy opposite of her to snort sarcastically: "not that they believed us. They didn't believe anything we said," he frowned and took another bite.
"Eh, your parents never believed that kind of thing; don't bother trying to explain it to 'em now, kid." Stan dismissed.

Soon after their late dinner and having watched a terrible, old film – which Mabel commented was nearly as old as Stan himself – the twins set off to their bedroom; neglecting their dental hygiene and going straight to bed. The mattress was soft and inviting for Dipper, and he found that once he snuggled under his miraculously clean blankets and set his head in his comfortable pillow, he was almost instantly pulled into sleep's embrace.

Slithers of sunlight shone through the triangular window, illuminating the room with its brilliant warmth and tinting the world an enticing orange. The blankets tangled around him encouraged him to simply stay put, to close his eyes and lay there forever; which he would have gladly done if it weren't for the distinct giggling of three girls and the soft pressure running along his forehead. Dipper cracked his eyes open; barely slits. Candy and Mabel were obviously failing to attempt to hold in their laughter as Grenda dragged something across his face, a look of pure concentration plastered to hers. Realisation dawned on the brunet like the rising sun outside and he jolted up, startling the large girl and causing her to giggle with her friends. "What did you do?" He demanded, all traces of sleep had vanished in an instant; the girls only giggled before running out the room. Flinging the blankets aside, he struggled to untangle himself from them for a minute before falling off the bed in his effort; he stumbled up and steadied himself when he was dizzied from a head-rush. The cool, wooden floorboards stimulated his bare feet and his toes tickled as he progressed to the bathroom, passing the still giggling girls on his way.

Shutting and locking the door, Dipper examined his reflection, only to sigh at the mess of multi-coloured ink decorating the skin. Adorning his forehead was a poorly-coloured rainbow that stretched from one eyebrow to the other and had pink unicorns standing on it; a leprechaun was drawn to look like it was standing on his right eyebrow whereas a pot of gold was on the left. An inky black filled out a large area around his eyes and in a hot-pink, on one cheek it was written and circled; "im a panda" with terrible grammar and all. He shifted his head to see on his other cheek were the words: "Candy was here xxx!" His nose was coloured black and a green beard and moustache was scribbled poorly around his mouth and along his jawline, all the way up to meet his side-burns.

Filling the stained and once-white sink with warm water, Dipper splashed the liquid over his face a few times before lathering the bar of soap and rubbing the suds across his skin; he washed off the soap before repeating the process two more times and then rubbing his face in a white, fluffy towel harshly – he suspected the towel had been stolen from a hotel by his Grunkle Stan. Glancing in the mirror, his face was pink from the harsh treatment of the towel and unsurprisingly most, if not all, of the ink still stained his skin. The brunet let out a frustrated noise and he wasn't sure if it was a sigh or a scream of anger.

After spending a large portion of the day catching up with Soos and his family – Wendy was away and wouldn't be back in town until the next day, - he went to his bedroom to retrieve his journal and said his goodbyes that afternoon before heading out into the woods in search of something paranormal or supernatural to investigate. As much as the boy loved his family and enjoyed the company of his friends, the thing he found himself craving most at that moment was the thrilling sense of adventure; of danger; of freedom to explore all that was the mystery called Gravity Falls.

With the journal tucked into his vest, the thirteen-year-old slipped through the thick treeline with ease; he admired the towering trees that stood at the edge of the forest and navigated his way through the quickly thickening accumulation of trees. Bushes clawed at the material of his clothes as he passed and tree branches reached out to brush gently against his soft skin. An enchantingly earthy and natural aroma beckoned him further into a maze of wooden soldiers; he brushed the palm of his hand against the rough bark of a nearby tree, relishing in the feeling of rugged wood beneath the pads of his fingertips while grass crunched almost silently beneath his feet. Despite the alluring delicacy of it all, Dipper only searched for an hour before deciding to return to the shambled shack; where were the monsters? The paranormal? The supernatural? The things worth adventuring? Last year, the exciting phenomenon had shown up so easily that the Pines twins didn't even have to search for it; but as soon as the boy decided to search for something dangerously thrilling, it seemed it had all disappeared.

"Hey bro-bro," Mabel greeted when he entered their shared bedroom. She lay on her bed, fiddling with Waddles' ear with one hand and the pig's curly tail with the other; Waddled squealed his approval at the gesture. "What have you been up to all day?"
"Just out in the woods," he kicked off his shoes before jumping onto his own invitingly warm bed.
"Oh, find any unicorns or dragons? We should totally go adventuring together tomorrow like we used to last summer!"
"I didn't find anything today, but yeah we should!" he smiled at the thought of adventuring with his twin.
"Yay! Mystery twins?" she asked.
"Mystery twins," he confirmed.
"Air high-five!" Mabel announced and they both made a high-five gesture from opposite sides of the room, Mabel saying 'bam' for added effect.
"Want to play some mini-golf before bed?" Mabel inquired.
"You know it," he smiled. The two jumped from their beds and played a long game of mini-golf, conversing about the town and their friends there as they played. Unsurprisingly, Mabel won.

This will probably be a story full of Bill and Dipper - and Mabel sometimes, too - adventuring and finding weird magical things, just to let you know xD
But don't panic! (You're not panicking? Oh. Carry on then...) There is going to be an actual plot with this (which you already know 'cause it's in the summary...) And I don't know whether or not this is going to be a BillxDipper fic or not. As much as I like the ship, I'm a terrible romance writer. Maybe they'll just be friends? (Or maybe Bill is going to be a big butt-hole and use Dipper? You'll never know!)
Help me decide? Be warned, if this does become a BillxDipper thing, the genre of this fic will have to become a horror just because my romantic-scene-writing skills are that horrifying and scary.
Also, you have no idea how difficult I find it writing such descriptive paragraphs, I am SO bad at it! D: PreyForMe.

Anyways, thank you for reading (unless you skipped this chapter? In which case, thank you for skipping my boring writing.)
Leave a review, favourite and follow for your least favourite author? Meee! Oh and if you spot any mistakes, please tell me!

And if anyone has any less-bad ideas for a title, please tell me! Titles are not my forte.