Chapter 1
It was raining outside, one of those typical summer storms that just happens occasionally. Nevertheless did Stan hate these days. It was to no surprise since it always cost him a whole day with no income, and losing money was one of his worst nightmares.
Wendy had shown up for work as usual but again… as usual she was reading one of the magazines she hid beneath the counter. Today she actually had a good reason to sit and do nothing but read them, denying any kind of cleaning or work in the rest of the shop. Dipper and Mabel however were glad she had decided to show up for today, it was nice to have one more for company and games.
Mabel was trying out the shack's gift shops many hats, making funny voices and act out different scenes with Wendy… Only when Stan wasn't around of course.
"Look at me, I'm a lumberjack eh!" Mabel said in a mocking Canadian accent as she stomped around, grunting with a beanie dragged all the way down beneath her eyes. She fumbled for a plastic axe which she knew Stan had standing around 'for the little kids'. Mabel was chuckling and replaced her own hat, by putting it quickly over Dipper's head(and cap) with one of the beanies too, grunting along with Mabel. "Ooh! I am so manly I need to punch this pillow until it explodes!" She growled and played along.
Dipper observed them with a grin and took Wendy's hat off, looking at it. It was soft and had that lovely scent of pine trees which Wendy so nicely carried. He assumed it was because her father was an actual lumberjack. Of course it smelled like pine forest all over the place since they… kinda… lived in one but, her scent was just different y'know? It was sorta sweeter.
"Dipper. Hey." Two fingers snapped right in front of his face and he snapped back to reality. It was Wendy; she was standing and leaning slightly with that smile on her face. "What's up with that dream like face? You like my hat?" She grinned and Dipper flushed embarrassed. "Ah! Um, No - I mean yes - Well…" Dipper tried to come up with some sort of explanation but his brain wasn't with him today.
You're gonna pay for that later by the way. He scolded his brain before blinking and grinning nervously to Wendy. "It's cool, you know what. You can keep it."
"W-what?" Dipper stuttered and looked at her in surprise. "Yeah it's fine. I have several at home - apparently my dad thinks it's a good present every year for Christmas." She said with sigh and placed her hands on her hips. "I can never say no to him."
Mabel came over to them, holding the beanie in her hand. "Oh! I'll take that then!" She grabbed Dipper's hat and pranced around. "Look at me! I'm Dipper Pines! My sister is the sweetest sister in the world and I have nothing against being her little brother."
Dipper was scowling while Wendy was chuckling behind a hand. "I am not your little brother." He said, "Gimme that!" He snatched the hat off her head and put it back onto his head. "Yes you are, little Dippy." She cooed and pinched his cheeks causing him to flail and yelp. "5 minutes is enough to be my baby bro." Mabel taunted and took his hat again. Dipper was far too exhausted with her teasing that he waved her in defeat. "Ugh."
"It's okay to be a little brother." Wendy said, trying to comfort him but Dipper was already on his way to the attic. "Yeah yeah I'm sure it's fine."
Dipper cared for his sister of course and they had had this whole conversation about being older or taller or whatever before. The twelve year old kid clenched his hands around the furred hat feeling the softness. "Who cares anyways?" He muttered to himself and placed on the bench right at the window where he liked to be when he needed time for himself, to think through things.
Pulling out the very special book which he had acquired early this summer and yet still hadn't read entirely through. It was one of the biggest secret of Gravity Falls; Places and obscure creatures that should only have belonged in myths and movies. Like zombies or gnomes… or Gideon! Dipper shivered by the thought of that little nutcase still roaming around probably thinking about some sort of crazy plan to get rid of Stan and himself, win Mabel(Which luckily won't ever happen, she had assured him) and obtain the Mystery Shack.
Why; he didn't know, and right now he actually didn't care.
Dipper sighed and flipped randomly through the book, listening to the rain as it tapped on the coloured glass with light touches. After what seemed to be 20 minutes or so it knocked on the door and Mabel entered. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah." He replied but didn't look up.
"Wendy left, Grunkle Stan gave her the rest of the day off - talking about not wanting to use any more money than it already is costing him today." She grinned, showing her braces off and skipped inside; Waddles followed her with his small grunting noises. There wasn't any reply and she rolled her eyes. "Come on Dipper. Are you still cranky about the whole little brother thing?"
"You should absolutely do it in front of Wendy, shouldn't you?" He said with a disappointed frown. "She's the oldest sibling of four. She knows everything about little brothers and now she's probably gonna think I'm like one of them. A little kid." The whole thing about being younger than her made him feel ridicules to have the crush on her - but it wasn't exactly a feeling you can control just like that.
Mabel threw the hat into his face making him drop the book in surprise. "Come off it Dipper! You're always making these presumptions and they're never right! You know it! Besides - it's all in good fun and I doubt she even cares!"
"But what if she does Mabel? What if she does care and what if I'm just gonna be a little brother in her eyes forever!" He pulled lightly in his hair. "And what if I got a boyfriend who's not a vampire?!" She replied in the same panicking tone of voice before giggling and punched him on the shoulder. "Dipper! So what if that happens. It's not the end of the world. She still comes to the Shack right?"
"I want to hide up here forever." Dipper murmured and hid his face in the soft hat, maybe inhaling some of the sweet smell… okay that sounded maybe a bit weird and stalker-ish but he couldn't really avoid it seeing as his head was tucked into the fur pretty nicely.
"Don't be such a wimp bro." Mabel said and placed the book aside, moving closer. Dipper looked up and was about to answer that with some other come back when a weird glimpse caught his attention outside in the rain.
"Huh?" He looked out of the window, placing a hand on the glass and looked a weird slurred figure in the heavy rain, but due to the low light he couldn't figure out what it was. "What are you looking at?" Mabel asked with a sudden amount of enthusiasm, crushing her face to the glass. Dipper turned his head slightly and gave her a raised eyebrow, observing her as she started pointing out things.
"Was it the tree?"
"No it -"
"What about that rock?!"
"No Mabe -"
"No I know! It was definitely that bush over there!" She said excited and pointed at it.
"Mabel!"
"Yes my dear twin brother." Mabel replied with blinking eyes and Dipper clasped his hand over her face. "You're going to get blind with that constant blinking."
"Am not!" She laughed and removed his hands. "I thought I saw an animal but I guess it was nothing." He shrugged and looked out again trying to see if he could see some traces or whatever he saw before, again.
However Waddles suddenly came in between them and pressed his snout against the window, grunting. "Yeah you're right! The rain IS stopping." She gasped, "Dipper! Dipper! Dipper!" A sudden shake in his shirt took him by surprise and he stuttered nonsense. "Y-Yes M-Mabel what i-is it?"
"It has almost stopped raining!" She said again. "You're repeating yourself sister." Dipper replied and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Also why are you still holding on to my vest?"
"BECAUSE MUDHOLES!" She excitedly exclaimed and dragged him out of the attic room with a sudden gained strength.
"Mabel I can walk on my own!" He tried to explain but she seemed way too happy about this sudden revelation of… well mud. "We gotta hurry!" She said gleefully and plopped on a pair of gumboots. "Come on Dipper! Before it disappear!"
"I doubt it'll dry away the next hour." He replied with a grimace. Mabel stuck out her tongue and grabbed his wrist and dragged him outside, oddly enough too strong for him to restrain. "When did you start working out Mabel?" He complained and tried to pull his arm back; eventually she lat go, but that was of course just before she made the first jump onto the biggest mud puddle causing all of the water to splash out on every direction.
Dipper of course was right in the firing line; his whole front completely changed of colour into this muddy dark nuance. "Classy Mabel. Really classy." Of course this demanded revenge so, not bothering with the fact that he was only wearing his usual sneakers he leaped to the water, creating just as big a splash as his sister had done.
Now that they both had been introduced to the water, the war could finally begin. Jumping, stomping in the water, kicking it toward each other and they kept going for several minutes. It was filled with laughter as the sun silently snuck its way through the dark clouds and shined gladly on the playing kids.
It was nice playing while the sun was burning through the empty clouds, because that meant they didn't have to worry about being cold afterwards and could just throw themselves at the grass at the perimeter of the forest and wait for the sun to dry their clothes.
"Although it's gonna be difficult to walk around with dry mud on our clothes." Dipper suddenly said as he looked at the sky and observed how the clouds were separating, giving the sunlight more space. "Maybe you're right. Changing into something less stiff might be a good idea." Mabel thought out loud before letting out a loud 'Naaah' and spread out her arms with a sigh. "It's too comfortable right here on this grass spot. I am not moving until I can't actually move."
"Then… How will you move then?"
"Oh I'll probably have Waddles drag me inside or something." Mable said like it was nothing to worry about. Dipper on the other hand wasn't fond of his t-shirt being covered in a thick layer of dirt while wearing it. "I'll go inside and change." He said to his sister whom nodded in response not bothering looking at him.
Dipper grinned and got up on his feet, feeling his sneakers and socks soak in the lasting water and grimaced, "Maybe change into some other pair of shoes…" Mabel laughed and said something about changing into gumboots before going outside but Dipper had lost interest when he the same fog-thing right in the shadows of the forest. Again it was too unclear to see what it was before it vanished into the air.
"Probably just my imagination." He tried to reassure himself as he took off his t-shirt and dug into his trunk for another one, it looked exactly like the old one. Having a lot of different and colourful sets of clothes was Mabel's part and expertise, having an orange t-shirt and his trademark, water-absorbing vest and a pair of shorts for the heat, was enough for him. Mabel could keep the rainbow sweaters.
"My mind is trying to make up ghost stories since all these weird experiences here in Gravity Falls." He said with a smile, though it ended up looking more like a forced grimace and gave up on that pretty quickly.
"Maybe I should look up ghosts again. Could be the book said something about ghosts in the forest and fog… I didn't exactly have the time to read into it last time." Dipper recalled the unfortunate trip to the haunted convenience store - never again was he going there. It could be haunted by itself thank you very much.
So Dipper snatched his book from the room and went back outside, no reason to stay indoors now that it was finally nice weather and could therefore enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Mabel was playing with Waddles in the grass, squealing and cooing at her all time favourite pig and Dipper had made himself comfortable on a bench(without shoes on though, they had been washed for mud), reading up on the page about ghosts.
It wasn't as though it had updated itself while he had been outside so it was the same old writing and the exact same choice of words on the page - and the exact same stories. Nothing new there… Dipper sighed and flipped through the pages again, seeing if he could find something he had yet to discover. However he didn't find anything before his sister suddenly popped up in front of him. "Dipper!" She said with her usual tone of happiness. Well no more reading while she was here so the book got closed again.
"Grunkle Stan promised that we could make a campfire tonight!" She seemed just as excited about this as she had about the mud holes. "We'll roast hotdogs and s'mores and Soos said he'd join!" Dipper's smile grew, now that he thought about it they hadn't had one of those for a long time and camping was a habit of doing when summer was here. But y'know… living practically inside a forest, haunted by the super-naturals coming right out of the latest book of 'Horror-stories-perfect-for-camping', makes you forget that you aren't exactly camping.
"Stan said he knew a place where they could lit up the place without putting fire to the woods and of course if it should happen we should just run away."
"I know I know - so we won't get sued." Dipper replied stopping her mouth for a second and she grinned with a nod.
Stan and safety precautions weren't exactly two words joining together in the dictionary.
Heck Stan and legal wasn't exactly two words joining together in the dictionary… ever.
A/N:
I apologise for any kind of grammar mistakes or mispelling~
This is my very first fanfiction I have dared to publish so I would very much appreciate some reviews if it has caught interest. :3
Otherwise I hope you've enjoyed and please do expect chapters soon.