New chapter y'all! I'm really enjoying writing this, and this chapter feels particularly long and particularly good. Anyway, enough talking! Enjoy, read, and remember to review!
"I touched it! I touched it! I touched it!"
Mabel couldn't seem to stop repeating herself. Standing behind her brother and Wendy, she continued to poke at a high branch with her finger, enthralled at the simple fact that she was now indeed tall enough to do so. A few leaves fell to the ground as the poked the branch incessantly.
"I touched it! I touched it again! And there we go again! Hey, Dipper, did I mention that I to-"
Her voice was blotted out as a clearly agitated Dipper finally put a hand over her mouth. "Yes, Mabel! I understand you can reach that tree branch! Now, will you stop!?"
"Hey, it's no big, Dipper. Your sister's just having her fun. It's not like you guys get to be my age everyday." Wendy chimed, alerting Dipper's mind to a sudden and important thought. He nodded in response, putting an arm over Mabel's shoulder as he took his hand away from her mouth.
"Yeah, uh, right, Wendy. Mabel, can we speak in private for a moment?" he asked his sister, who simply smiled and snorted out a laugh.
"Sure! Is this going to be about that time you wet the bed last wee-" she began, but Dipper was quick to cover her mouth, and this time, he didn't let go. His expression was quite serious, while Mabel seemed to be puffing out her cheeks at she tried to muffle a laugh.
"No, Mabel, ugh, will you just listen to me for a second!" he replied, bringing her a few feet away from Wendy so that they were more than just out of earshot. Dipper sighed before letting go of her mouth again. This time, however, Mabel did not say a word.
"Mabel, look. I don't think you realize how happy I am about us turning into teenagers. I'll give you this much; you were right. This is the best thing to happen to us all summer. But while you're all excited about being able to touch tree branches that you couldn't before, I'm worrying about bigger things."
Mabel puffed her cheeks as she smiled. "Like?"
"This is my chance, Mabel. This is my one and only chance to finally get Wendy to like me! And not in the platonic, "well, he's just my kid friend who I hang around a lot, but he's too young for me" kind of way. I can get her to think I'm cool! I can show her how much I appreciate her! And maybe, just maybe, I can get her to be my...my..." Dipper went on, but he seemed unable to say the last word of the sentence.
"...girlfriend?" Mabel finished, her voice so knowing. Dipper nodded in response.
Mabel put a finger on her chin, realizing something both important and unfortunate for her brother. "But Dipper, isn't she technically Robbie's girlfriend? How are you going to get past him? Are you just going to steal her away from him? Hey! This is just like one of the old soap operas I caught Grunkle Stan watching the other day!"
Dipper grimaced, rubbing the back of his head as he wondered how to answer. "Well, I haven't really thought of a solution yet. But I have time, right? It's not like we're going back to being twelve any time soon, right?"
From a few feet away, Wendy clicked her phone closed, calling out to the two teenage twins.
"Hey guys! Thompson's going to be here in like five minutes!"
Dipper was quick to rush by her side, smiling awkwardly. "Oh, whoops, yeah, we're good to go."
"So what were you guys talking about?" Wendy asked innocently, causing Mabel to smile next to Dipper and instantly putting a nervous look on the boy's face.
"Oh, nothing. We were just discussing whether or not we're introducing ourselves as "Dipper and Mabel Plus", or "Mabel and Dipper Plus." he replied, his nervous laughter very clear. Wendy just raised an eyebrow, not at all convinced.
"Hey, you know, that's an important thing to talk about." he argued, but Wendy just gave him another one of her cute, freckled smiles.
"Hey man, if you're worried about how everyone's going to react to "meeting" you guys, chill out a bit. You know my friends by now. They liked you guys when you were younger, so they'll like you now for sure." she reassured him, which of course, did make Dipper feel better.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, Wendy." he replied, rubbing his arm and feeling somewhat stupid for even worrying in the first place.
"I guess maybe Robbie might be some trouble, but he's generally harmless. Boyfriends, huh? What can you do?" Wendy remarked, before her face perked up as she spotted a familiar car driving towards them. "Ah, there's Thompson."
As Thompson pulled up, Dipper's heart sank quite a bit, as the word boyfriend felt like an icy, cold spike that threatened to tear him apart from the inside. He tried to ignore the horrible feeling as he followed Wendy into Thomspon's car, his sister right on his tail.
Wendy was probably right. Her friends would probably be totally cool with "Dipper and Mabel Plus".
What could possibly go wrong?
The drive to Tambry's was relatively short, and though Thompson asked who was sitting in the back with Wendy, he was promptly told that a formal introduction would be done once they met up with everyone else.
When they finally arrived at Tambry's, there was a period of time when Dipper felt like he almost couldn't go through with the plan. Mabel pushed past him as Nate, Lee, Robbie and Tambry herself came to meet them outside, clearly excited to unveil herself to everyone. But it took Dipper more than five seconds before he could will himself to get up and leave the car, and it was really only after seeing another one of Wendy's reassuring smiles that he was actually able to do it.
"Alright, people." Wendy said as Mabel stepped out of the car, with Dipper following shortly after. "These two are the surprise I've brought for you all."
Robbie laughed in an instant. "Nice stilts, kiddies! Sorry to burst your bubbles, but that doesn't make you a teenager."
Dipper gave him a doubtful look, of course. "We're not on stilts. And we're not even who you think we are."
"We're Mabel and Dipper Plus! We're the older twin sister and brother of Mabel and Dipper that none of you have ever met!" Mabel chimed, and as Dipper expected, everyone did not look as completely convinced as Soos had been. Nate and Lee began laughing to each other as Tambry started to furiously text on her phone.
"Wait, wait. So you guys are their older siblings? Like, the upgraded set of twins?" Lee asked with a snicker, before Nate just punched in the arm and the two just went into a bout of laughter.
"In the flesh." Dipper said triumphantly, pulling up his pant leg right in front of Robbie to unveil that there was indeed human skin underneath. "You see any stilts under here?"
Robbie just frowned and crossed his arms, but not before Mabel put a hand on his back and smacked it hard.
"Hey, put a smile on that face! You're going to have tons more fun with us that you ever had with our baby brother and sister. You can absolutely trust me on that one!" she told him, her brace-less teeth practically shining in the light of the setting sun outsides. Of course, unknown to her, Robbie couldn't help but see a strange sense of familiarity in this supposed "Mabel Plus."
"So like, are we gonna continue wasting time out here playing show and tell, or are we gonna actually go inside and party?" Tambry added, causing Thompson to twiddle his fingers as he realized something important.
"Yeah, she's right, guys. I gotta be back before midnight, and my mom's gonna be mad if I break curfew." he began, hoping that his friends would understand him. Of course, he could see by the expressions of everyone around him that his efforts had been in vain. Hands went up in the air, and the chanting began.
"PARTY ALL NIGHT! PARTY ALL NIGHT! PARTY ALL NIGHT!
Dipper and Mabel joined in quickly, and soon they were following the parade of teenagers pumping their fists as they all made their way single file into Tambry's house. Somehow, Dipper had ended up behind Wendy, and just seeing her smile and hearing her voice made him thank the fates all the more for letting them discover that overhead projector in the basement.
Tambry's house wasn't all that big, but something told Dipper that it had probably adapted itself to teenage parties by now. Everyone seemed to sort of split up into doing their own thing the moment they made it inside. Tambry herself disappeared behind a counter, only to reappear with her phone replaced by a sleek laptop so she could constantly update her status all night long.
Nate, Lee and Thompson crashed onto the couch, scrambling to grab controllers as they turned on the video game console and began beating each other up in Fight Fighters. Their laughter seemed to drown out all other noise in Tambry's living room, at least until Robbie took it upon himself to head over to the stereo and insert his favorite album.
Dipper and Mabel could only smile awkwardly and debate over whether or not to cover their ears the whole time as the sound of the first track of "Robbie V: Don't Care About Naming A First Album" blasted throughout the room.
"Hey, uh, Robbie?" Dipper practically shouted as the music threatened to destroy his eardrums. "Can you turn that down just a little bit?"
"Yeah! At this rate, I'm going to still be hearing it when I'm twenty!" Mabel added, having finally reached the point where she simply had to cover her ears. Robbie just smirked at them both, turning up the volume slightly as if he was enjoying watching them suffer.
"Ah, sorry, dudes, but I've been meaning to share some of my bands' new material for awhile. I'm sure the more you listen, the more you'll enjoy it." he said through a rude laugh.
Suddenly, his music's volume lessened to a more reasonable level, when Wendy finally decided to take it upon herself to lower it and give everyone some of their hearing back. Both Dipper and Mabel sighed in relief.
"Just a little too loud for my taste, Robbie." she told him, and much to Dipper's annoyance, he put on one of his confident smiles and put an arm around Wendy's waist.
"Okay, okay, I guess I went a little overboard. You know, I've been working on a new song for you, and it would be totally awesome if you'd listen to it." he replied, a little uncertainty showing up in his tone of voice.
"You made a song? For me? You dork, you didn't have to!" Wendy told him as she punched his arm,, before giving him a peck on the lips.
Robbie and Wendy made their way to the other side of the living room, where his guitar lay propped against the wall. Dipper watched them the whole time with stern eyes, fantasies in his mind forming of him showing Robbie up or at least proving to Wendy how much of a jerk he really was.
"Well, you are my girlfriend, after all..."
Those last words bit at Dipper the most. In fact, he was focusing so intently that he managed to catch Nate and Lee's attention. His sister, on the other hand, had found entertainment of her own.
"So can you update it now? I touched a tree branch today! More than six times!" she told Tambry excitedly, having been looking over her shoulder for the past five minutes. Tambry surprisingly complied, and Mabel couldn't help but jump up and down as she continued to pelt Tambry odd requests of what to her update her status with.
"Oh! Oh! Say that we're hanging out and we're totally best friends! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it Do it!" she chanted, and though Tambry typed out Mabel's requests, she made a point to add the words "annoying", "insane" and "crazy", in no particular order.
Dipper, on the other hand, felt a punch on his arm, and which took him out of his staring fit as he realized both Nate and Lee were sitting right behind him.
"Hey, D-Plus, you know you've been gazerbeaming Wendy and Robbie this whole time, right?" Lee said, causing Nate to snicker in response.
"Yeah, you got a thing for her man?" Nate added, and Lee's eyes widened as he put a hand on Dipper's shoulder in an effort to congratulate him.
"If what my bro says is true, then I gotta say, you've got guts, D-Plus. Taking a girl away from her man, now that's called bravery right there. But from the looks of it, you could probably take Robbie in a fight if you had to. I hear he's all skin and bones."
"Your mom's all skin and bones." Nate chimed in, causing Lee to punch him hard in the arm. Of course, this only made them laugh at each other more. Thompson, on the other hand, seemed confused why anybody had stopped playing, but nevertheless was content with throwing fireballs at a defenseless Dr. Karate over and over again.
"Hey, hey, you guys got it all wrong. I just kn-...I mean, my little brother told me a lot about Wendy before we came to visit. She just seems really cool and all." Dipper tried to explain with confidence, but it seemed obvious that Nate and Lee didn't believe him for a second.
"You like her, don't you?" they said in unison, and Dipper knew the charade was over. He looked over his shoulder, then took off his hat and nodded.
"No worries man." Nate said reassuringly. "We won't say a word to her. Besides, she's only really dating Robbie because he's the first guy to ask her out in like a month."
Lee nodded with his tattoo-wearing friend. "She totally doesn't really like him. He's just sort of there, you know?"
Dipper didn't seem immediately convinced. "You guys seem to know Wendy so well. But how do I know I can trust you?"
The two best friends smiled at each other, then looked right at Dipper with mischievous glints in their eyes.
"Trust us." Nate stated. "We'll prove it to you."
Suddenly, Lee put both hands up and shouted into the air, catching Dipper completely off guard. "Hey losers! Who wants to play some Truth or Dare?"
Dipper gulped the moment he heard those words, and his heart seemed to only beat faster in his chest as he watched everyone gather in a circle on the floor as Tambry pulled out an old soda bottle from the fridge in her kitchen. Mabel just had a stupid grin on her face, and Nate and Lee laughed to each other in a way that told Dipper they had something very evil planned for him. Nevertheless, Dipper kept his cool.
Nate put his hand over the bottle in an instant, explaining the rules as best as he could. "So I'm assuming we're all familiar with the game, right? You get picked by the bottle, you get to ask anyone Truth or Dare. Also, there's a house rule in effect this game. First person to touch the bottle gets to ask anyone they want the first Truth or Dare."
Thompson seemed obviously confused over this development, pointing out the most obvious fact. "But this isn't your house..."
Nate just grinned in his direction before pointing at Tambry beside him, who was typing into her laptop at the speed of light. "You really think she cares?"
He didn't need to say anymore. Spinning the bottle, Nate and Lee both watched it with eager eyes as they waited for it to land pointed towards Wendy.
Having practiced spinning it many times in the past, the two best friends had learned that there was a sort of method to getting it to land on someone specific. This time however, Nate's timing had been just so slightly off, and it managed to land on the person just to Wendy's right, which was Lee.
The blonde-haired teen's grin faded, and Nate's seemed to just grow in size. He snickered before delivering the verdict to his friend.
"Alright, Lee. Truth or Dare?"
"Totally dare. Give me your best shot." Lee replied, clearly ready for a challenge.
"I dare you to...eat this orange." he said, surprising Lee as he pulled out a seemingly normal orange from behind him. Lee raised an eyebrow and took it into his hand, and feeling it, he couldn't find anything strange about it. Looking around at everyone, Lee shrugged.
"Sure, fine." he said, before biting into it. There was a loud squelching sound, and suddenly Lee was spitting out blue globs of toothpaste. When he wiped his mouth away, he could feel something in his teeth, and he pulled out a long thread of dental floss.
Nate roared with laughter, and everybody, even Tambry, followed suit. "You doofus! I filled that with toothpaste and dental floss!"
Lee threw the orange right over Nate's head and it landed against the wall, splattering in a blue and teal display. "Ah, that's gross man! Pretty good, but still gross."
His fingers were over the bottle in an instant. Lee's eyes filled with that eagerness agin. "My turn!"
Lee turned out to be much more skillful with the bottle spinning than Nate was, and this time, it landed spot on Wendy. The two best friends looked at each other with knowing grins before Lee posed his question.
"Okay, Wendy. Truth...or Dare?"
Wendy seemed to actually think about it for a moment, before smiling and putting on a determined expression. "What the heck, I'll take a dare."
Lee hit the mark. Without sparing a word, he glanced at Dipper, and then right back at Wendy. "I dare you to kiss D-Plus over there."
Robbie was up and annoyed in an instant. "Hey man, that's not cool!"
Nate simply put a hand up to stop him. "It's her dare. She doesn't have to do it if doesn't want to. Or you know, if she's too scared."
All while this was going on, and Wendy was debating on what to do, Dipper seemed to be elsewhere. The words rang in his head like a gigantic bell, and now all he could think about was hearing Wendy refusing the dare to kiss him.
Part of him was okay with, partially because he had no idea what a kiss actually entailed, and what it would be like to get one from the girl he had a crush on as opposed to his mother.
The other part of him couldn't stand the thought of being refused by Wendy, because it would prove that Nate and Lee were wrong, and that he had no chance with her whatsoever, even with the advantage of this new teenage body.
But either way, Dipper still felt frozen in fear. He looked over at Mabel, who instead of offering any sign of understanding, simply grinned and gave him two thumbs up.
Finally, the eternal silence ended with Wendy's carefree words. "Yeah, alright. I'll do it."
Of course, Robbie seemed visibly annoyed at the whole situation, but Wendy put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.
"Hey, trust me on this one." she said, before crawling over towards the still shocked Dipper. He felt his heart beat a million times a minute in his chest as Wendy's face got closer and closer to his. The fact that everyone around them was watching didn't really help much either, as even Tambry had stopped typing on her laptop to see this spectacle.
Dipper could feel Wendy's breath on his cheek. Then, like a quick shot, she kissed him on the right cheek, before pulling away and sitting right back next to Robbie. Her boyfriend was quick to put an arm around her as Dipper put a hand up to his cheek, trying to believe that all of this was really happening.
"See?" Wendy told Robbie, as Nate and Lee seemed quite disappointed by her interpretation of the dare. "I kissed him, but everything's still cool. You can stay chill, Robbie."
Dipper stood up, still in a partial daze. "Excuse me. I think I need to use the bathroom."
He made his way past Tambry and Thompson, and upon reaching the bathroom, he grinned at himself like an idiot.
When the grin didn't go away, he splashed water at his face and then pinched himself to make sure that this was indeed reality. Touching his cheek again, he marveled at just how wonderful Wendy's lips had felt there. Not knowing that he wasn't actually alone, Dipper let something out that he shouldn't have as he looked in the mirror.
"You know, when I was twelve, I probably would have fainted on the spot from that. Being older really does have its perks." he said out loud to his reflection, only to stiffen up as the door to the bathroom creaked slightly.
Standing in the doorway was none other than Robbie. And he had a very knowing smirk on his face.
"I knew it!" he announced, pointing at Dipper's chest with one finger in an almost threatening manner. "You're the same little Dipper that's been after my girlfriend this whole time!"
Dipper waved his hands in defense. "I think you're a little confused. I'm Dipper Plu-"
"Oh come off it! You think I'm actually stupid enough to believe that?" Robbie practically shouted. Caught in an awkward and difficult situation with nowhere to run and no one to back him up, Dipper's answer turned out to not be a particularly smart one.
"Uh...yes?"
Of course, this made Robbie very mad. Soon he had a fist raised, and Dipper was backed up into a corner. It seemed like Dipper was in for a world of hurt when the teenager felt something strange happening to his left arm. The hairs on it stood up, and it began to prickle. Then, it felt like a jolt of electricity was charging through it, to the point where it almost hurt.
Figuring out an escape to this bad situation, Dipper doubled over, feigning sickness.
"Ah, my stomach!" he said, checking his arm as he did so, and seeing that it had shrunk into his sleeve. Fear began to grip Dipper, as his experience with the weird and the bizarre in Gravity Falls let him realize exactly what was happening to him.
"I...I think I need to be going. I'm coming down with something." he said to Robbie, in the most fake weak tone of voice he could muster.
"What? Wait. I was just about to..." Robbie attempted to say, but Dipper pushed past him and left the bathroom in a hurry.
Stunned, and not really knowing how he should have reacted, Robbie simply paced around the bathroom. After a good minute, he decided to sit on the toilet, not realizing the seat was in fact up.
There was a loud splash as he sat down. Of course, his pants became drenched in toilet water, and Robbie proceeded to grunt in anger as he slammed his fist against the wall.
"Arrgh...stupid, stupid, stupid!"
Outside, Dipper was already dragging Mabel along, who had been fiddling with the braces that had reappeared on her teeth with her tongue. Dipper waved apologetically at the confused members of the party, save for Wendy, who with only a look figured out exactly what was happening with "Dipper and Mabel Plus".
"Sorry guys, but looks like we have to split! Some serious stuff just came up! It was fun though! We should do it again!"
And with that, Dipper and Mabel rushed out the door and were outside Tambry's front door. As Dipper reached for the cheap phone Grunkle Stan had given them when they first arrived in Gravity Falls, he quickly dialed for Soos. Their conversation was quick and to the point, mostly because Dipper's voice rapidly began changing by the end of it.
When Dipper clicked the phone closed, he was no longer the tall lanky boy he was only minutes before and Mabel was also short and back to her sweater and her teal skirt. They stood there together, pre-teens once again.
"Well...it was fun while it lasted?" Mabel said in an attempt to try cheering Dipper up. Dipper just sighed.
"I should of known the effects wouldn't be permanent." he stated. "It's just a good thing they didn't see us like this."
Mabel smiled and put an arm around her brother. "Hey! Look at the bright side. Now we're officially were-teens!"
Of course, Dipper couldn't help but smile at his sister's comment. It was silly, but it was also funny. As the two twins watched Soos pull up beside them, they could only wonder how long it would be till they could taste the teenage temptation again.
Not surprisingly, Mabel's need for the teenage fix didn't last very long. When Soos finally got them back to the shack, after Dipper skillfully explained that they'd been at Tambry's because their brother and sister had asked them to come, Mabel was quick to run out of sight.
Naturally, Dipper followed. When he found her, she was in the musty basement, standing next to the old overhead projector, which glowed with the same crimson light. Dipper looked behind him, somewhat afraid that Grunkle Stan would appear out of nowhere and find out everything. But when all they could hear throughout the shack was the sound of Stan's chainsaw snore, they both knew that the coast was clear.
"I was thinking we could try sleeping as teenagers. I want to have my first teenage dream!" Mabel said excitedly as Dipper went over the side of the projector opposite to his sister.
"Wait, what if you have a nightmare tonight?" Dipper asked. Mabel simply laughed in response.
"Well, that works too. For all I know, teenage nightmares are probably nowhere near as bad. But then again, they could also be a lot worse."
Dipper just gave her a small smile in response, before pulling his hat down just a bit. When he hovered his hand over the projector screen, his sister did exactly the same. They looked at each other with determined eyes, knowing exactly what the other was thinking for once.
"Well, were-teens again then, brother?"
Dipper narrowed his eyes, and moved his fingers excitedly. "Yup. Were-teens again."
The two twins put their hands down onto the projector screen at the same time, and the crackling electricity and red light engulfed them as they made contact.
Not surprisingly, they both could only smile knowingly to one another as the transformation took hold, and their short time as pre-teens was nothing more than a memory once again...
The saga of the were-twins begins! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and more will come soon! Stay tuned! :D