Camo was reading, but when was she not? It was a particularly boring day. Well. Boring for the Mystery Shack. Nothing was ever really that boring when you lived at this place. It still felt weird even to think that—one night living at the Shack didn't feel like much, but so much had changed. They'd brought in a bed and scooted it so that it was where the body-switching carpet used to go. Pretty much everything else stayed—well, whatever Stan was okay with.
She did keep most of the stuff in a box under her new bed (not the carpet, though—she had Stan throw that away. She never wanted to go through that again, even though it'd been fun trying on Mabel's clothes). As of yet, she hadn't really looked at it, because she hadn't found the time to, and if she disappeared for too long, Stan might notice and get suspicious. Plus, she was responsible and went to bed at a reasonable hour.
She wasn't really sure why she was keeping this stuff from him—after all, he was now both her boss and her landlord. But still . . . it felt like he wouldn't be okay with this stuff if he knew about it. So, since she didn't want to throw it away, she kept it from him.
Anyway. She was sitting on the floor in the gift shop, reading. Dipper and Wendy were playing some game with the footage from earlier, and Mabel was watching them. She was mostly tuning them out, until—
"Coughing! I was coughing! Those weren't words!" Dipper yelped, having at least five voice cracks in that time span.
Mabel laughed at him in a more mocking way than she usually did. "This is fun, what you two have."
Camo looked up from her book in annoyance and groaned, "Can you guys actually be quiet for once? I'm trying to read here." She lifted up her book so that they could see it from the counter.
"Nope! Try and guess why I'm doing this dance!" the girl responded. The sounds of tap dancing could be heard, and Camo had to do a good portion of writhing around to get to a position which she could see said dance from. She was singing something too, that sort of sing-hum that people do when there isn't actual words.
"Oh no! She got into the smile dip again!" Dipper said in a voice that wouldn't be too far off for a loner in the zombie apocalypse.
"Wrong one thousand!" his twin grinned and moved to a position in which Camo could watch her dance without laying on the floor in a very awkward position. "It's because today is the greatest day of my life!"
Camo hummed. "A bit early to judge that, don't you think? You're only twelve. You haven't lived very long yet, unless you plan to die soon." Inside, though, she was wondering what on earth was happening to get Mabel so pumped up. Well, Mabel was always pumped up, she was just more so now than usual.
Oh. OH. Right. That. Jason had told her about that.
She threw a calendar at Dipper, who yelped in pain when it hit his face. "Sev'ral Timez is playing at the Gravity Falls Civic Center and Buffet!" she explained.
"Ugh. Sev'ral Timez?" Dipper asked in a disgusted voice, and she could practically hear the grimace in his voice. "Aren't they that boy band that came a decade too late?" Oh, no. That meant that to her, it would be 20 years too late. She moaned (quietly; very quietly) and let her face flop down onto her book. Why? "Mabel, you know all those boy bands are fake, right?"
He and Wendy proceeded to say multiple logical things which dissolved into jokes which made Mabel say, "You're making my dance sad. You guys can't ruin this for me. Mabel's got backup!" The preteen pointed to the door, which was thrown open by Candy, Grenda, and a shy-looking Jason, all wearing Sev'ral Timez purple and various other merchandise.
"I'm ready for the greatest night of our lives!" Mabel continued. "How many times am I gonna love ya? Sev'ral Timez!" Her friends joined in for the last bit. Jason merely went red when Camo raised an eyebrow at him. The three girls ran out, giggling, and Camo sighed, picking up her book and getting to her feet.
"You look good in purple," she told her shy friend, who only went more red.
He mumbled, "Thanks." His cheeks were so red, it was hilarious.
"Should I come with? I don't think you'd survive any kind of social interaction without me . . ." she teased.
"I'll have you know that I did it just fine before you showed up—"
She sighed again, rolling her eyes amusedly. "Yeah, yeah, come on, dummy." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him to follow the excitable Mabel and her friends. (Ooh, that wouldn't be a bad band name—the Excitable Mabel and Her Fangirling Friends.)
She was probably going to regret this, but whatever.
She already regretted it.
The girls were in the attic, much to the annoyance of Dipper, and had set up a big wall of just Sev'ral Timez stuff. The fake words showed up so many times that she just grew sick of them. The boy band probably wasn't even good enough to justify altering words for their band name, so she vowed that in her head, from that point forward, she would think of it as Several Times, just to spite it.
"Ooh. Should I go with lip balm or lip salve?" Mabel asked, looking in her little mirror.
"Mm, balm," Jason answered from where he was doing Grenda's makeup.
The big girl added, "Yeah, go wild! Tonight's our night!"
"Be quiet unless you want smudged lipstick," he warned her.
"I can't wait, guys. Tonight we're gonna meet Creggy G, Greggy C, Leggy P, Chubby Z, and Deep Chris!" Mabel said excitedly, pointing to each of the band members in turn.
Candy put her foam fingers to her face and said, "He's the fat one."
"And those boys will fall in love with us," Mabel added dreamily.
"Why wouldn't they?" Grenda asked, Jason having finished her makeup. The big girl shoved her hand in her jar of peanut butter and started eating it. The tailor's son looked at her in an offended way. Camo just sat in despairing silence.
The five of them went downstairs, where they found Dipper trying to lick a CD, for some weird reason. "What are you doing?" Mabel asked, which was a fair enough question.
"Guys, the weirdest thing just happened," the preteen boy explained. "I think Robbie might be hypnotizing Wendy with his music."
"Knowing you, that's probably true," Camo said cheerfully, smacking down his hat.
"Oh, Dipper," Mabel said affably. "Girls just like musicians. You'll understand when you're older."
"We're the same age!"
"Girls mature faster than guys. Right, Grenda?" Both Mabel and Camo looked at Grenda at the same time, not totally surprised to find her kissing a picture of one of the boys with peanut-buttery lips.
It took the bigger girl a second to respond. "Mm . . . this is Grenda time!" She then went back to kissing the magazine, and Camo facepalmed.
"Okay, girls plus Jason minus Camo, have you all practiced your obsessed boy band scream?" Mabel asked. In turn, all of the people listed practiced (Jason significantly quieter than the other two), and then Old Man McGucket came over and did his scream. "Uh . . . just gonna ignore that."
"Wait, why minus Camo?" Camo asked with a pout.
"Because I figured you had too much dignity to do one" Mabel responded, which was fair enough.
The group ran over to the ticket stand, but the pimply teenager there told them, "Too late, girls! The show is sold out." He pulled down the gate thing, and the others gasped.
"Oh, no," Camo said exaggeratedly. "What ever shall we do."
The group despondently walked over to sit and pout. "This night is ruined" was Grenda's way of moping. Candy said "I welcome you, death" and fell on her face. Jason frowned slight and mumbled, "Aw, man".
Mabel, however, wouldn't stand for it. "No! I said we're going to meet Several Times tonight, and I meant it!" Camo frowned, was that how grammar worked? "And I'm not gonna let a 'keep out' sign keep us out!"
"See Stan's been teaching you well."
They ran for the employees-only door, Camo with mixed feelings. For one thing, she didn't care about this band at all, but she did care about her friends. They were breaking the law, but she'd done that a thousand times with Stan. Also, it was dark back here, and it gave the place a really cool ominous lighting. Anyway, Mabel spotted the door, and the girls rushed toward it (minus Camo, but she was a woman, not a girl. Don't quote her on that.)
She hung back with Jason. "I'm not the only one getting a sense of negative foreshadowing here, am I?" she whispered.
"Uh . . . no."
"This is it, girls-plus-Jason-minus-Camo. You're finally going to meet the five cutest boys in the world! Dipper's gonna eat his words that boy bands are fake." Mabel took a deep breath and opened the door.
Revealing several glowing green tubes clearly labeled Cloning Tubes and a massive hamster cage with the boy band members in it.
"They're not fake, huh?" Camo deadpanned.
"That is one big hamster tube," Mabel said after they'd overcome their general shock. She gasped. "Someone's coming?"
Camo, who hadn't heard anything, frowned and needed pulling to hide behind the clothes. A rather large, grumpy man with a gold tooth came in and yelled, "Terrible show!" He walked over to where the clones were playing. "What is wrong with you boys?! You barely even sold out the arena! And Deep Chris, you call that a pout?" The clone deepened his pout. "Every one of you should be ashamed of yourselves! Except for you, Leggy P, you were really on point tonight. Here ya go, gorgeous." The man threw a cork-shaped something at the clone, who started possessively munching on it.
"As for the rest of you, remember: You can always be replaced by your brothers. Dance for me, child, dance!" The clone who looked about her age started to do a weird knee thing without opening his eyes. The man cackled and left, the force of his slamming the door knocking the five out of their hiding place.
"Who goes there?" one of the clones asked. "Prepare to be danced at!" He angrily danced towards the side of the cage, to a shocked Mabel.
One of the other clones got in the way and said, "Step off, Deep Chris! She's a lady. Don't disrespect her, bro! Don't disrespect!"
"Mah bad," the first clone, Deep Chris, said, and he did some weird kiss thing which made Mabel squeal. "Chubby Z, let's calm this boo by posin' for her, poster-style!" The five boys posed as if they were on a poster.
"Whoo! Trying hard not to let my brain explode!" Mabel screamed. Camo, meanwhile, was unimpressed. "I've always wanted to meet you guys! But what was the deal with that scary chub-chub man?"
"Mr. Bratzman's our producer, yo," Deep Chris, who she was starting to get as the leader, answered.
Another clone jumped in and said, "He genetically engineered us to be the perfect boy band, G!"
"But he keeps us in cages! That junk is straight brutal, girl!"
"That is straight brutal, Chubby Z!" Mabel said sympathetically.
"Our one dream is to escape into the real world, for real. Yo, I heard tell about these things called trees? I don't know what they are, but I want to kiss one!"
Yeah, right. The real world would roast these guys alive.
"But we can't disobey Mr. Bratzman! He says he loves us!"
"If he loved you, he'd set you free!"
All the clones replied, in unison, "True dat." One of them added, "That's a valid perspective."
Mabel unlocked the padlock with her hairpin (again, Stan had taught her well), and said, "Let's go right now. Me and my friends can help you escape."
"We're masters of stealth!" Grenda screamed.
Jason was just staring at the clones with a look somewhere between confusion, horror, and adoration. Maybe he admired how many girls had crushes on them? Or was he . . . you know what, that was a problem for later. Camo had to pay attention to right now, with Mabel stealing the boy band.
"I'm sorry, did you just call me 'Beef'?" Mabel was asking, and she realized she'd zoned out again.
The five, now ten, of them went back to the Shack, and Camo decided she was done with 2002 boy bands and joined Dipper and Stan in their conversation instead of going upstairs with Mabel. "So," she started. "What are you two talking about?"
"Uh . . . Robbie's mind-controlling Wendy with this CD, but we can't figure out how," Dipper eventually answered.
"Hmm . . ." Camo rubbed her chin. "Interesting . . ."
Mabel kept them at the house. It was so hard to fall asleep, what with their singing late at night. She didn't know how Stan remained oblivious (actually, he probably wasn't and just ignored it to keep up pretenses). Meanwhile, Dipper spent his days converting the CD to a record so they could use Stan's old phonograph.
"Now we can slow it down to see if the mind-control-message theory is correct," Dipper was saying. "Prepare to have your mind blown." He set it on.
"Spit take, here I come!" Stan said, taking a deep drink of soda.
Camo merely sat on her knees and peered up at it, interested. The music started playing like normal, and then when Dipper slowed it down . . . it was the same song, just slow. "That's not spit-worthy. What gives?" Stan asked.
"What? Is that it?" Dipper moved it up and down, trying to figure out what was wrong. "Oh! This was so stupid! Of course there's no hidden mind-control messages! Mabel was right. Wendy just likes the song. She just likes Robbie." He sat down and it was clear to tell from his expression that he was heartbroken.
The door opened, and Wendy said, "Hey, Dip. Forgot my keys."
Robbie was there too, of course. "What's up, junior?" he asked condescendingly. Wait, no, he probably didn't know that word. Robbie asked it as if Dipper didn't know anything. There. Then he might actually understand it. "What are you doing, trying to come up with an equation to make girls like you?" The teen laughed, and Camo almost did too at the hilariously angry face Dipper was wearing.
Wendy came back, saying, "Ready to go to Lookout Point?"
"Am I? Later, dorks. Catch you on the rewind."
Camo caught on. "Hey, did you try playing it—"
"Backwards?!" both kids said in excited unison. Dipper moved the record backward, and she was actually shocked at what happened.
"You are now under my control, your mind is mine." It sounded weird and warped, but of course it did. She ducked just in time to avoid the spit take that took Dipper straight in the face.
"Holy mackerel! Now there's your spit take!"
Dipper laughed out loud. "Ha ha! I knew it! It's mind control after all." He realized something. "Oh, no! I gotta save Wendy!"
"Finally, a good reason to punch a teenager in the face! Let's roll!"
"Nobody abuses music like that!" Camo cheered furiously, jumping up to her feet. "Onward, my friends!"
They ran for the car, though Camo tripped on a rock and fell flat on her face. She rubbed her chin in pain, groaning. She happened to look up at the license plate, and she frowned slightly. STNLYMBL. Stnlymbl . . . Stanley Mobile? But Stan was short for Stanford, not Stanley, right?
She got up, and she was so confused that she didn't realize that she was submitting herself to Stan's driving again until she was already buckled in. She screamed loud and high, like she was being murdered. She had a reasonable phobia: riding in a car when Stan was driving. It definitely was not unfounded.
"We gotta warn Wendy about that song before she gets brainwashed!" Dipper yelped, though 1) he was always yelping, and 2) she wasn't sure how she could hear him, what with the duration and intensity of her screaming.
"Road safety laws, prepare to be ignored!" Stan growled, and Camo pressed herself further back in her seat, screaming even louder.
"YOU WEREN'T ALREADY IGNORING THEM?!"
Stan spun around a corner and right through a wooden bar thing. Part of her briefly wondered how his car was still in such great shape, if he rammed into things so often. The rest of her was just screaming, gripping the seat, and cursing Mallory for sending her here to die in the company of a nerd and an old man.
Somehow, they made it all in one place (by driving UP THE SIDE OF THE CLIFF—she was genuinely sure Stan had a death wish at this point) and skidded to a halt near the lovebirds' van. Dipper anxiously ran towards them and screamed, "Wendy! Stop! Robbie's been lying to you!" Camo reluctantly hurried after him.
"Dipper?" Wendy asked.
"Kid . . . s? Mr. Pines?" Robbie asked in confusion.
Stan angrily said, "That's Mr. Pines to you!" Was he really only just getting out of the car? Oh, right, he was sixty-something. Riiiiiiiight.
"What? That's what I just said."
"Look, Wendy," Dipper said, bringing them back to the matter at hand. "You've gotta hear this." He started to play the song, but it wasn't going backwards. He nervously hit it and defended himself, "There's a message in there, I swear!"
"Let me just close the window," Robbie said, and the teen motioned to do it, at least until Camo grabbed his wrist warningly and glared at him.
Dipper finally figured it out and said, "Wait! Here!" He spun a dial and it played backwards, sharing the hidden message.
Wendy then got mad, and Robbie revealed he'd claimed some other song as his own, and Wendy got even madder. They ended up breaking up, much to the excitement of Dipper and the horror of Robbie.
"Ha ha! We won!" Stan cheered. "Kid, this is a victory for every guy whose hands are too weak or fat to play a musical instrument."
"I couldn't've done it without you, Grunkle Stan," the preteen declared, and Camo huffed. He looked over his shoulder at her and added, "And Camo, of course."
She let herself have a satisfied smile that probably came off as more smug.
Dipper ran over to Wendy and said, "Um, hey! Now that your night is free, me, Grunkle Stan, and Camo were thinkin' maybe bowling or something?"
She facepalmed and went to comfort the distressed teen.
Camo and Jason were hanging out in her room, but she had something on her mind that just . . . she couldn't let it go. It was persistent, and it made a lot of sense, if she thought about it. And now that the Several Times dudes were living in the wild . . .
"Jason?" she asked softly. "Are you . . . gay?"
He looked stricken, then went a little red. "I'm . . . I like both girls and boys," he admitted quietly. "I'm bisexual."
"Huh." She thought over it for a moment. "So that's why you like Several Times so much, huh?"
His red cheeks went deeper, and he looked away, but he nodded.
"Hey." She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about. I really don't see why people are so interested in who likes who. Though," she added in a lighter tone, "I bet Mabel will be happy to find out she has another person to talk about cute boys with."
He smiled slightly. "Thanks for seeing it that way. Other people . . . don't react so well." He briefly shut his eyes, but he opened them again to look at her gratefully. "Thanks, Camo."
"No problem," she grinned. "I couldn't care less. In my opinion, both boys and girls are dumb and overrated, but that doesn't make me wrong or weird. Actually, maybe it does make me weird. But weird isn't so bad, is it?"
"No. I guess it isn't."