AN: Warning: This fic contains PTSD, self hatred/self harm, and a little bit of bullying. I'll put of specific warning for chapters, but be careful reading if any of those things hit too close to home.
Warnings for this chapter: PTSD, self hatred
Chapter 1:
Returning Home
Dipper sighed and folded up the letter from his friends. Mabel was trying to coax Waddles to sit in her lap, instead of wandering around the bus. Unzipping his bag, he placed the letter under the books he had brought to read this summer. He had planned to read them all, and maybe even reread a few, but an actual mystery and actually saving the world had occupied his time instead.
"Hey, Mabel," he said, zipping his bag back up. His sister had stopped trying to get Waddles to listen to her and instead was knitting tomorrow's sweater out of her remaining knitting supplies.
"Yeah, what?" she replied, not looking up from her work.
"Do you think we should tell Mom and Dad what happened? I mean, what if they won't let us return to Gravity Falls next summer? Ford and Stan have actually broken a lot of laws, and they might try to get them arrested for it." Dipper said, looking out the window, watching the nondescript trees go by.
"I don't know." Mabel replied,"I'd feel really guilty lying to them, for what? Years?"
"Yeah. I don't know." Dipper said, fishing around in his bag for the book he had started reading before the found the journal. Opening up the book, he tried to escape to a world where he wasn't the hero.
As the hours went by and the sun began to set, the buss eventually crossed the Oregon border. A few people came on the bus and then got off. Mabel, who normally would love the chance to speak with strangers didn't bother anyone and instead worked on her sweater in silence.
Around dinner time, the bust pulled into the Piedmont bus stop. "Alright, everyone," the bus driver called,"last stop, everyone get off". Mabel folded her almost finished sweater into her bag and grabbed Waddles. Dipper committed the page number of the book he was on to memory and tossed it into his bag, zipping it up and standing behind Mabel.
As they exited the bus, Dipper smiled at the bus driver. "Thanks for letting my sister's pig on the bus, it really meant a lot to her," he said.
The bus driver let out a nervous laugh. "You're welcome, kid," he said.
"Come on, Dipper," Mabel called from the sidewalk,"You're talking too long."
"Okay, okay," he said, hopping of the bus.
Mabel grabbed her brother's hand. "Come on!" she squealed,"Mom and Dad are here to met us." She pulled her reluctant brother along at a surprising speed considering how many bags she was carrying.
Mabel turned the corner to where her mother and father were standing. Dropping her bags, she launched herself at her father. He embraced his daughter, smiling. "I see you still have all your energy."
"OMG, dad! This summer was so AWESOME! We ended up saving the…" Mabel stopped as Dipper shoot her a look.
"Um, I mean. I made a lot of friends and Grunkle Stan ended up being really nice and…" Mabel was cut off when her mom let out a gasp. Waddles had trotted behind his owner, only just reaching the site of the reuniting family.
Mabel ran back to Waddles. "This is Waddles," she proclaimed proudly. "I won him at the fair and he has been my best friend ever since!"
"Um, Mabel deary," her mom said,"I don't think we have the room to keep a pig. I mean, they grow much larger when they get older." Pure shock appeared on Mabel's face.
Stepping in, Dipper spoke up. "Well...um, Waddles is a pigmy pig, so he shouldn't grow much larger than this," he fibbed. "And uh, you can just feed him leftovers, so you don't need to spend money on pet food." Mabel gave her brother a weird look. His plan was to use the size altering crystals(that he still had) to resize Waddles slightly whenever he grew a little bit.
"Well, okay," Dipper's father said. "And I suppose if she's been taking care of it all summer, than she's already proven that she's responsible enough."
As they were talking, Dipper's stomach rumbled loud enough for everyone to hear. Mabel let out a chuckle, but their mother showed mild concern. "Come on kids," she said. "I already have dinner prepared back at home. You can tell me all about your summer while we eat."
After the short walk from the bus stop to the twin's house, they reentered their house for the first time in two months. After spending so long in the Mystery Shack, it felt odd to return to their old home. After dropping their bags at the bottom of the stairs, the Pines family sat down to dinner of steak and green beans.
As they were eating, Dipper's father spoke up. "So what do you think of your Great Uncle Stanford?"
The twins both flinched in sync. It took them a moment to realize that their father was talking about Stan, not Ford. Mabel spoke up first. "Oh, he's like really nice. At first we thought he was all mean and grumpy, but it turned out he just wasn't used to having a family." Mabel trailed off.
"I'm sure dad will be happy about his brother reconnecting with his family," the twin's father cut in,"after Stanley's funeral he shut himself off from everyone, even his younger brother."
Dipper dropped his fork in shock and it landed on his plate with a light cling. After all the time he spent with Ford and discovering the secrets of his family, he never thought about how it would affect his grandfather. Before anyone noticed his slip up, he picked up his fork and began eating again, but thoughts raced through his head. Why hadn't he known at least the official story of what happened to Stan and Ford? A heads-up like "Oh, yeah, the great uncle you're staying with used to study the mysteries of Gravity Falls until he just started selling cheap tourist stuff." That would've made the search for the author a lot easier. Well, Dipper had never really paid attention to his father's stories, thinking they were boring and not as exciting as a good book, so he could of missed that information.
As much as Dipper had tried to hide his shock with this revelation, Mabel had noticed. She looked at him, as if to say "Let's find a way to get out of this. We need to talk."
"So, did you make any friends in Gravity Falls?" their mother asked, putting a chunk of steak in her mouth as she waited for her children to answer.
"Oh, yeah!" Mabel exclaimed,"There's Wendy, she's pretty cool. Soos works at the shack too. There's Candy and Grenda. I'm gonna miss them," Dipper continued eating as Mabel counted off each of the friends they made in Gravity Falls.
Thoughts whizzed around Dipper's head as he waited to speak with his sister. Looking down, he saw that he had finished most of his meal, while Mabel had (somehow) finished all of her food. "Um, can we go now?" Dipper asked, moving his food around with his fork to make it look like he had eaten more. "We need to unpack."
"Before you do that," his mother said,"we have a surprise in the living room. You can see it once you clear your dishes."
"YES! SURPRISE!" Mabel screamed suddenly.
Dipper chuckled, before standing up and gathering his dishes. Instead of dumping the excess scraps of food into the trash like he normally did, he brought out a plastic bowl from the cabinets and scraping it into there. After giving the dishes a quick washing in the sink, he placed them in the dishwasher. Mabel followed suit, doing the same thing, but she didn't have enough food left to put in the bowl.
"What's that for?" she asked.
"It's to feed Waddles," Dipper replied.
"But it's STEAK. You know, MEAT. I don't think Waddles would want to eat his friends!" Mabel said, bending down to embrace the pig who had wandered into the kitchen.
"I highly doubt Waddles knew the cows it came from. Besides, pigs are omnivores, they'll eat anything," Dipper said, bending down to place the bowl on the floor.
As soon as Dipper stood up, Waddles shot out of his owner's arms and began gobbling up the meat in the bowl.
Mabel stood up and Dipper crossed his arms proudly. "See, I was right."
"Argh, fine," Mabel replied, rolling her eyes. "Come on," she exclaimed, switching from mildly annoyed to excited in only a few moments. "We got to see what the surprise is."
Dipper ran after is excited sister, who was in a full out sprint even though the living room was only the next room over from the kitchen.
They arrived in the kitchen to see their parents sitting on the old and worn couch with two folded laptops on the coffee table.
Without hesitating, Mabel ran forward and picked up the one closest to her and hugged it to her chest. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you," she squealed as she jumped up and down.
"Wait, those are for us?" Dipper asked. It was so rare for them to get new stuff. He still had only an Ultra GamePlayer, even though its successor the TSS had been out for eight years now. One of the reasons they had been sent to Gravity Falls in the first place was because their parents couldn't afford summer camp and they didn't want their kids cooped up in the house the entire summer.
"Yes." Dipper's dad replied,"my work had some extra laptops and so they were giving them away. I offered to take them off their hands."
"Dipper," Mabel said, smiling,"We can still video chat with everyone back in Gravity Falls! This is awesome!"
"Yeah, High Five!" The twins high-fived, smiles on their faces. Mabel sat down on the floor and opened up the black laptop, starting to create an email account for herself now that she was thirteen.
"Before you kids get all excited," their mother interjected,"you should probably unpack and go to sleep soon. School orientation is tomorrow, you need to get some rest."
"Yeah, right." Dipper said. Adjusting from the wildness of Gravity Falls where you didn't even know what adventure you would be going on that day to the regimented day to day activities of school would be hard.
Mabel closed her laptop and stood up. "Hey, Mabel." Dipper said.
"Yeah Dipper?" Mabel said with her usual perkiness, only mildly upset that she couldn't use her new device.
"Could I help you unpack first?" Dipper let the words hang in the air, trying to communicate that he need to speak with her alone.
If Mabel, picked up on the hint, she didn't let it show, as her demeanor remained unchanged. "Sure bro-bro," she gave Dipper a light punch and ran off, laptop still in her hands.
Dipper gave his parents a smile and grabbed his laptop and went to chase after his sister. As he neared the stairs, he saw that Mabel had already taken her bags up to her room. He set his laptop down carefully on his own bags and headed up to join his sister.
When Dipper reached the top of the stairs, he turned right to reach Mabel's bedroom. After three months of sharing a room, going back to seperate rooms would be tough, even if they did have sleepovers a lot.
The door to Mabel's room was already open a crack. Dipper pushed open the door and saw his sister's pastel pink room for the first time in a while. Posters of cute kittens and drawings by Mabel adorned the walls. Mabel had already pushed her the crayons she kept on her desk to the side and placed her laptop there. She was now placing her undershirts in her dresser.
Dipper closed the door behind him and plopped down onto the ground. "Argh, I can't believe this entire summer I never even stopped to think about how grandfather would be affected by any of this."
"Yeah," Mabel said, remaining focused on her work. "I never really stopped to think of anyone back here during the summer."
Dipper pulled Mabel's other bag toward him. "Lying to mom and dad is just feels so...wrong. I mean we kinda have to do, but I wish we didn't."
"Well once we get video chat set up with Stan and Ford we could always just ask them. I mean, it is kinda their secret," Mabel replied.
"Yeah, I guess so," Dipper replied. He opened up the duffel bag and pulled out Mabel's scrapbook. He opened up to the back and started slipping any pictures containing Ford out of their holders. He didn't know if their parents would flip through Mabel's scrapbook, but he would rather remove any record of the supernatural just to be safe.
As Dipper was making his way through the book backwards, leaving most pages with only one or two pictures and small stack of photos were forming by his side, he came to a page completely dedicated to a supernatural adventure they had. Placing his other hand slightly above the paper as a foolhardy attempt to muffle the sound, he began to rip the page out.
The sound of paper tearing caught Mabel's attention. She whipped around and quickly bounded over to where Dipper was sitting. "What the heck are you doing?" she exclaimed.
"We can't let mom and dad see all the stuff that happened to us," Dipper said as he finished ripping out the page and tossing it onto the pile.
Dipper looked up and saw all the shock and fear on his sister's face. Guilt twinged in his stomach. "Don't worry," he said, attempting to calm her down. "It's not like I'll burn it or anything. You can hide it somewhere when I'm done. Don't you still have one of those stuffed animals with pockets in your closet somewhere?"
"Oh, yeah," Mabel said, remembering as her cheery demeanor returned. She bolted off to her closet as Dipper returned to the scrapbook.
"Hey, Dip-dip," Mabel said as she searched through the clothes and stuff animals in her closet.
"Yeah?" he replied out of her line of sight.
"What was that thing about Waddles being a pigmy pig? Did you and Ford do some nerd tests on him while I wasn't looking?"
"No. I was thinking whenever Waddles got a bit bigger, we could size him down a tad with the flashlight. Just do it in small increments, no one would know the difference."
As Mabel tried to think of a reply, she found what she was looking for. Pulling out a giant furry purple stuffed bear, she set it down on the floor. It was about a head shorter than the twins and had a zipper running along its belly.
"Hey there Mister Hiddy-hole," Mabel said as she unzipped the pocket. "I never really liked you, your zipper was too uncomfortable, but now I have a really important job for you."
Dipper had stood and handed Mabel all the pages and pictures he removed from the scrapbook. As Mabel stuffed them into the pocket, she felt her stomach twinge. This scrapbook was exceedingly important and shouldn't just be hidden in the darkest corner of her closet. She shook her head. It wasn't like they needed it anymore. Those adventures were so impressionable and so scary, it was impossible to forget. And Stan, the person who actually forgot had a full color copy of it(apparently if you enabled the proper setting, the copier machine in the shack could also copy books the same way it copied humans instead of like a normal copier machine. It took a lot of ink though).
Mabel zipped the bear's stomach back up. Picking up the large(yet surprisingly light) stuffed animal, she tossed it back into her closet.
Mabel turned back to her brother. "So, are you actually gonna help me unpack, or was that just to get me alone?"
Dipper chuckled. "Fine, I'll help," he said, going back to his sister's duffel bag and pulling out all the stuff she brought.
The two of them made quite a team. Mabel had brought much more stuff than Dipper, but they were able to quickly put most of it away(even if was in random places that Mabel insisted made sense).
Mabel tossed the geode she had picked up between her hands. Well, geode wasn't really the right word. It was much to light. In reality, it was a cheap replica Stan sold at the shack gift shop. He had given it to his grandniece to make up for leaving Waddles outside.
She scanned the room, looking for a place to put it. Her eyes landed on her window sill. It was still covered in glitter from "The Great Glittery Sparrow Incident" and various items, such as her first set of knitting needles and a unicorn snowglobe.
As Mabel placed the "geode" on the window sill, her hand accidently knocked the snow globe to the ground, luckily the soft carpet kept it from breaking, but that wasn't what concerned Mabel.
Her eyes widened as she saw the overturned snow globe on her carpet, most of the glitter pooling to one side.
Memories shot through her mind.
The feeling of tears on her face and the smell of evening air filtered through a sweater.
The warmth of the rift through her hands as she took it from her backpack.
The mesmerizing swirls of interdimensional jelly.
The sound of glass shattering in the dirt and the feeling of electricity rippling through the clearing.
Blendin's voice, laughing, turning into the harsh sound of Bill Cipher.
Fear shooting through her veins, posing her to run as Blendin..no Bill approached her.
Sleepiness dulling her senses, dulling her sense of fear. What was she supposed to do? What had happened? Who should she tell? Ford and Dipper? Who were they? Why should she? They abandoned her.
Coldness and darkness being replaced by warmth and light. A brightly colored pastel world spread below her.
"M-mabel?" A voice brought Mabel out of her memories. No, she wasn't back in the bubble. Weirdmageddon was over. They had defeated Bill. She was back at home. She could feel her plush carpet, a dull pink, under her knees.
She was kneeling in front of the overturned snow globe. Yes, this was just a snow globe. If it broke, the worst that could happen was something valuable getting wet or someone cutting themselves on the glass, not the end of the world.
Tears were streaming down her face. Her hand was over her mouth. She allowed it to fall to her side. Dipper was holding her shoulder.
"Mabel, what was that?" her brother asked.
Mabel's breaths were extremely fast and shallow. She tried to get words out. Complex sentences and explanations ran through her head, but she could only get one phrase out "I remember."
Dipper moved to sit in front of his sister, to hold her hands. "What do you remember?"
He noticed the snow globe by his leg. He picked it up, moving it around. "Oh, Mabel." he said,"It's not your fault. You just broke the rift when you ran out of the house. It was an accident. I should've told you, then you would've known to be more careful."
"THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!" Mabel screamed, a fresh batch of tears began to stream down her face. She buried her face in her skirt. It was all her fault. She shouldn't of been so stupid. Why did she have to trust everyone?
"M-mabel," Dipper said, gently touching her arm. Mabel flinched away. She didn't deserve to be forgiven. It was all her fault. Her fault that the townspeople got turned into stone. Her fault Ford was tortured. Her fault Stan lost his memory. If only she had said no. If only she had been realistic. If only she had taken even one moment to think of those living outside of Gravity Falls. If only she had thought of what Dipper and Ford could have discovered together.
"Then what happened?" Dipper said. Mabel couldn't see him, but she could imagine the pity on his face.
"I-I-I," she choked out, the words catching in her throat. "The rift didn't get broken by an accident. While I was in the woods, Blendin approached me. He said if I gave him the rift, he could create a time bubble. Time wouldn't move forward. We could stay in Gravity Falls forever. We wouldn't have to go back to school. We wouldn't have to grow up and get a job. I could stay in the one place where I had friends."
A fresh bout of sobbing racked the young girl's small frame. "I WAS SO STUPID!" Mabel cried some more, until she was calm enough to speak again.
"But it wasn't Blendin. Bill had possessed him. He took the rift and smashed it. It's my fault Weirdmageddon happened."
Dipper was taken aback. There was his sister, sobbing uncontrollably. Maybe he could say something to make her feel better. "The time bubble kept Bill from escaping, confined Weirdmageddon to Gravity Falls." However, that was blatantly untrue. Ford had explained that the weirdness of Gravity Falls acted like a magnet, to strong for Bill to stray to far from it.
Dipper embraced Mabel. He didn't care that she tried to avoid it. "It's okay. If it wasn't for Weirdmageddon, Ford wouldn't trust Stan again. There wasn't any lasting damage(that part was a lie, but at least they wasn't any lasting physical damage). Stan got his memories back. If Bill had remained trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he would've found another dimension to conquer, somewhere without us. I would of crushed mom and dad and I wouldn't get to spend the rest of my life with my favorite person in the world."
Mabel had stopped crying now, but she didn't look up. "Just, go away. I'll be fine." Dipper stood up, but didn't leave. "I said LEAVE," Mabel screamed. Slamming her head up with the force of the last word. Dipper could see that her eyes were bloodshot. Her veins were swollen. Tears and snot caked her face. Her irises were extremely vibrant. She stared at her brother. "I said leave. I'll be fine." She placed her head back into her lap.
As much as Dipper wanted to stay and comfort his sister, he also wanted to respect her wishes.
He walked out of Mabel's overly colorful room to the muted browns of the rest of the house. Carefully and silent, he walked down the stairs and grabbed his own bags and laptop.
Flipping the light on, he saw that his room was just as he left it. The placed his laptop on his neat desk and began to return his books to their proper positions on his bookshelf. He had brought a few other pairs of clothes, but since Stan never made him change his clothes or complained about how he was always wearing the same thing, filling that space with books was a good idea.
As he put each book away, he thought of the stories contained inside them. Tales of teens, not even old enough to drive, saving the world from some supernatural threat. That hit way too close to home now. The more he thought of the tales contained in each book compared to his own life, he came up with a few differences. Most of them had several years between "magic is real" and "okay now you need to save the world". Most of them also had other characters who were also involved in the supernatural. A whole underground society. Dipper and Mabel only had their grunkles.
Since Dipper was so caught up in his thoughts, he wasn't paying too much attention to his work. He dropped one of the books. Looking at the cover, he realised that it was the finale to one of his favorite series. His friend(a member of his DDnmD group) and made a custom cover to celebrate the occasion(also pre-ordered the hardcover edition for him). On the back was one of his favorite quotes "The heroes burden". The rest of his group of fellow nerds had teased him(playfully) for such an odd favorite quote. He had explained that it was his favorite, because it was about not glorifying being a hero. Sure, they were fictional characters, but this series was the best with showing how not only do the heroes have the weight of the world on their shoulders, but how even if they suffered no physical injuries they would still carry the scars of their fight.
Dipper smiled at the cruel irony of it all. If the story of his life was fictional, he would compliment the writer on how Mabel crying in the other room was a great way to show the longtime repercussions of Weirdmageddon, even if everything was reversed after Bill's defeat. As much as he loved when stories showed that it wasn't just a happy ending from there, that was what he wanted in his life. A happy ending.
After he finished putting all the books away, Dipper stood up. On the top of the bookshelf were the minis his grandfather had carved for his DDnmD group.
Seeing these minis reminded Dipper of how much he missed his group. Since he was the DM(dungeon master) they had decided to put the campaign on hold for the summer. Since he didn't expect to be able to play in Gravity Falls, he had left all the supplies here. Even if he did get to play with Ford, they were just playing the starter campaign to save setup time. He missed the complex stories he got to tell each week. He had promised he would think of new monster and plot ideas during the summer. He had been too busy to write them down, but not only did he have so many encounter ideas he also had someone who had seen countless other dimensions and could help him write stories.
Dipper picked up the nearest mini, a paladin, and flipped it over. Carved on the bottom of the base was two elegant letters. A S and a P. Sherman Pines. Dipper was hit with another wave of sadness. If his estimate was correct, his grandfather would be growing up mainly after Stan was disowned. Did he look up to his older brother who was earning PhDs at a record rate? His father said that "Ford" had shut Shermie out of his life after "Stan's funeral".
Dipper put the mini down and looked at the clock. It was late and he was exhausted(emotionally more than physically). Only taking his vest and shoes off, Dipper plopped down on the bed. All of his thoughts buzzed around in his head, eventually forming into dreams.