Gravity Falls: Once More

by Absolute Rift

Four years after their faithful summer of weird, Dipper and Mabel finally return to the legendary town of Gravity Falls. Despite having new adventures and mysteries to take on, they are still tailed by the challenges that come with navigating teenage life. With friends and enemies, both new and old, the Pines must prepare themselves for whatever awaits them. (Cover by pau sketches)

29. Many Happy Returns: Part 3

Mabel was beginning to grow anxious waiting for Ryland to come back to the floor room. It had been about ten minutes since he had left to use the bathroom and ten minutes since she asked Soos for a favor. Not that her plan was low on time before execution, but the longer she waited, the more she feared that she wouldn't be ready to go through with it.

Her plan was simple and inspired by some of her favorite high school romance movies. Ryland would walk into the room and Soos would cue in the slow song. At that point, when Ryland returned to her, either he would ask her to dance, or she would ask him. The 'or' part was a backup, considering she had dealt with more than her fair share of oblivious crushes in the past.

Still, she couldn't help but think of how things could go wrong. What if she doesn't look good enough? What if she forgets what to say? What if he rejects her?

"God, what happened to me?" Mabel said aloud to herself as she looked down at her shaking hands.

Seriously, though. What had happened to her? This was the same Mabel Pines that was able to go up to a boy she had never met before and casually say 'My name is Mabel, but you can call me "The girl of your dreams"' when she was only twelve. Hell, she got her Sophomore Homecoming date by going up to a guy in her class and slapping a heart sticker across his chest, saying 'If you're looking for a good Homecoming date, you better stick with me.'

Yet with Ryland, she had suddenly become insecure about her appearance, thought over the possibility of rejection, and even threw up from nervousness. She felt like Dipper when he asked out any girl.

"Just calm down, Mabel," she tried to tell herself. "You're better than this. What happened to your confidence? You just saw Dipper dancing with Wendy a few minutes ago. If he can do that, then you're more than capable of doing this! And at least I'm not crushing on someone who's hopelessly out of my current age range!"

At that moment, Evan ran by the couch she sat on, holding a cup of punch in his hand as he looked around the room. "Darn it! Candy must've had to go! I can't find her anywhere! She needs to get her drink back!" He turned back to Mabel. "You haven't seen her, have you?"

Mabel's eyes glanced around quickly for a moment, wondering how to respond. "Uh... nope! She could be outside. Maybe you can still catch her!"

"Good thinking!" Evan agreed with a nod before bolting away with the drink in his hand, which he clumsily spilled a bit of as he ran.

Mabel watched him speed off and felt somewhat guilty. Both for him and for Candy. At the same time, a part of her couldn't help but feel glad that it wasn't her that he had a crush on. That would bring two levels of awkwardness: being crushed on by a kid and crushing on that same kid's older brother.

Her eyes then glanced down to a nearby table with a white sheet over it, which was pulled up slightly from underneath on one side, where Candy and Grenda's heads soon popped out and looked at her.

"Is he gone?" Candy asked with a worried whisper.

"Long gone," Mabel assured her.

"Phew! Thank goodness!" Candy said with a sigh of relief as she and Grenda stood back up from the ground. "Things were getting a little too weird before."

"Yeah, but I feel kinda bad. Evan may not have the best... social experience... but he's a genuinely smart and sweet kid with a big heart," Mabel admitted as she rubbed her arm guiltily.

"I'm sure he is," Candy said with a nod. "But... he's a child. Though, I will say I'm willing to settle for being friends if he does come to his senses."

"That didn't seem like someone who would come to his senses. Someone just has to tell him it ain't happening," Grenda told them flat-out.

"Maybe... but, c'mon Grenda. There's a nicer way of doing so," Mabel said.

"You're right, sorry," Grenda said. "I think bluntly when I'm happy! Marius and I have made up and he's setting up a screening for Pony Heist 3, 4, and 5 at his castle in Austria! And 4 and 5 haven't even gone into production yet!"

"Oh my god! Grenda, that's great!" Mabel exclaimed happily for her before giving her a stern look. "But you have to promise not to spoil them for us. I still haven't watched Polo: A Pony Heist Story yet."

"I promise," Grenda swore while holding her hand up honestly in the air. "Now enough about me. Where's Ryland?"

"Oh, he went to the bathroom," Mabel said. "He should be back any minute now."

"Did you talk to him while we were gone?" Candy asked, wondering how much has progressed within the last ten minutes or so.

"Sorta…" Mabel nodded while looking somewhat unsure. "I do know that he doesn't like when a relationship is forced, so... I know what'll scare him off…" She then smiled reassuringly. "But the good thing is: I have a plan!"

"A plan?" Grenda and Candy asked at the same time, glancing over at each other with looks of skepticism.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I sound like my brother," Mabel admitted how crazy she sounded for having developed some sort of plan as opposed to behaving normally as his brother used to do. "But the point is that it will bring us closer together while not necessarily forcing us together... in a way."

"Well, whatever it is, we know you can do it, girl!" Grenda said while putting her hands on her shoulders confidently. "Candy and I will just give you two some breathing room while also keeping hidden in case Evan comes back. So if you need us, we'll be under that table," she told her while pointing back under the table with the sheet over it.

The two proceeded to walk back over to it, with Candy turning back around toward Mabel once more. "We believe in you!" she shouted before she and Grenda quickly descended under the table, letting the sheet go back down to hide the two. They both then proceeded to stick out a thumbs up from underneath the sheet, assuring Mabel that they were there for her, which she found quite sweet of them.

She then reverted her focus back to the plan at hand. "Alright, Mabel. Ryland's gonna come back any second now and you gotta be ready for that dance. You got this! Everything will be fine! As long as Soos comes through and makes sure to play the music on cue. Which is no worry either! Soos always comes through!"

---

It wasn't easy, but in the midst of all the ongoing chaos regarding half the party and his friends seemingly falling in love with him, Dipper managed to slip away back to the floor room. Not that their hunt for him was over, as some of them roamed around various areas of the Shack while some also came back to the floor room as well.

To hide, he decided to try to blend in with the other partygoers while also taking attention away from his face by covering his head up with his hoodie. He kept his head down as he walked, making sure the darkness of the hood concealed his face and that no one could easily trace him back. He was aware that it wasn't the best plan of hiding either, considering he wore the same exact hoodie he was running away from them in and just seemed to return into public sight, where anybody could spot him should they recognize his hoodie.

The only reason he came back to the floor room, though, was to get help. He needed aid in figuring out how to solve his unordinary problem with the entire party falling for him little by little. When the girl with the punch stain and Wendy started falling for him, he had a feeling something was up, yet there was something equally convincing about how they approached him that he was beginning to believe he may have just been lowering his self-esteem. But then Thompson suddenly flipped from wanting to beat him up for 'stealing' Wendy, to wanting to fight with her over him.

And as if his best friend and half the party saying they love him didn't add on to the weirdness. At that point, he had known that something weird was definitely going on. Now it was a matter of finding out what was happening and getting help to solve it.

He already lost Wendy and Derrick. Now he needed to find others.

Soos.

Of course. If anyone could get a good grasp on an odd social situation, it would be him. And he and Melody already loved each other and were getting married. No way could they could make a sudden shift the way others have before.

Keeping his head down, he casually walked over to the DJ booth in the corner of the room, where Soos was rocking and bobbing his head to the beat of the ongoing song as it played through his headphones. Right beside him, Melody was typing at a computer, presumably to check on the ongoing playlist settings.

As he stepped up to the booth, he briefly glanced at his surroundings to assure he wasn't being followed or stalked at that moment. Once he knew he was clear, he looked up at Soos as he stood at the booth above him and nervously glanced around as he whispered over to him.

"Soos."

Soos paid him no mind and kept bobbing his head to the music. Dipper looked up and was reminded that he was wearing headphones and a whisper wasn't going to do anything. He then raised his arm up to his stand and snapped his fingers in his face, grabbing his attention. He placed his headphones down and around his neck as he looked down and spotted Dipper.

"Soos, it's me," Dipper whispered while cautiously looking around the room for a second, still watching out for any pursuers.

"Oh, heya Dipper!" Soos said in a casual voice, which also happened to be much louder so he could talk over the music. However, Dipper didn't want him to speak very loud and wanted to assure their conversation could bring as little attention as possible.

"Pipe down a bit, man..." Dipper pleaded while waving his hand, gesturing to keep quiet.

"Heh, sorry bro, but we're at a party right now," Soos reminded him. "Kinda hard to keep quiet when everyone's here to turn up, ya know?"

"Yeah, yeah, but this is serious. I need your help," Dipper tried to tell him.

"Alright, dude," Soos said as he lowered down to get a little closer in order to hear him. "I'm all ears."

"Look, man. Things are getting pretty weird around here," Dipper began quietly, still watching his surroundings. "For some reason, half the party is like... in love with me or something! Even Wendy almost kissed me a minute ago!"

"Dude... Wendy? Almost kissing you?" Soos said, giving an amused look of disbelief. "Look, no offense, Dipper. But you were already starting to lose me when you said that half of these dudes were in love with you. Now, I'm completely gone."

"I'm not kidding, Soos!" Dipper tried to convince him. "Yes, I know it all sounds hard to believe, but…"

He continued to explain himself to Soos, but as he did so, Soos froze. A smell caught his nose, to which he began to sniff a bit, inhaling Dipper's persisting cologne scent. Soon, his eyes briefly flashed pink sparkles and he unfroze. His eyes darted back down to Dipper and his pupils enlarged at the sight. Having grown a new portrayal of him in his mind, Soos began to lean against his DJ stand as he invested himself in every word that Dipper was saying.

"Uh-huh," he mindlessly nodded to whatever Dipper had just said while keeping a fixed gaze on him.

---

Suddenly, Ryland finally popped out of the bathroom hallway. Having been eagerly glancing back and forth at the hallway every three seconds for the past few minutes, Mabel's heart began racing as soon as she finally saw him come out.

"There he is!" she said aloud to herself. She was beginning to feel her nervousness slowly get the best of her again, but she focused hard on suppressing it, not wanting to have her emotions swerve her away again. However, her knee kept on bouncing up and down out of her control, tapping her foot rapidly against the ground. "Stop that, you stupid knee! Now's not the time to work against me!" she shouted as she gave her knee a few hits, which somehow managed to calm it down a bit.

She then looked back over at him and noticed him making his way toward the snack table, presumably to grab a snack before heading back over to her. And so she adjusted her focus back to her plan.

"Alright, he's gonna walk back over here in a second," she reminded herself. "I just need Soos to cue in that 80s slow jam. Like... now…" she said, beginning to grow somewhat nervous that the song hadn't been cued in just yet.

Every second that passed where the music didn't change added to her stress. While Ryland was still at the table, she needed that song to play before he got back so he doesn't get too comfortable when he gets back to the couch.

"Seriously, what's taking Soos so… WHAT?!"

She had looked over across the room at Soos's DJ booth in the corner and was horrified when her eyes fell upon him distracted by a conversation with someone. As she looked on at the person he was talking to, she began to quickly recognize the hoodie and the overall outfit, as well as the recognizable nervous mannerisms.

"Dipper?! No, no, no!" she exclaimed, placing her hands on her head in distress. "C'mon, bro! This isn't the time for one of your bro-talks with Soos!"

She looked back at the snack table and saw that Ryland was still filling up his plate with snacks, not even looking in her direction. Realizing she didn't have much time, she took to her only option. She grabbed her phone and quickly dialed Soos's personal cell number, putting it up to her ear as it started ringing.

---

"...and then when I went to talk to Wendy about it, she called me cute!" Dipper continued to explain to Soos.

"Oh man, no way…" Soos replied with a mindless gaze.

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Then, she grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor!"

"Holy smokes…"

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Then, she tried to kiss me, but I backed off and ran away because I had to think about things!"

"That's wild, dude…"

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Soos, are you actually listening to a word I say?" Dipper asked, starting to grow skeptical by Soos's supposedly interested comments, finding them a little too constant, even for him.

"Every. Single. Syllable, dude," Soos assured with a nod as he kept leaning on his DJ stand, which was beginning to tilt a little bit with how much pressure had been putting on it.

RIIIIIIIIING!

Melody's attention finally got brought to Soos's ringing phone, her heading turning to it. "Soos, sweetie, are you gonna answer your phone?" Melody asked as she picked it up and held it out to him, not looking at the Caller ID.

"Nah, I'm busy," Soos brushed off without breaking his gaze at Dipper, which made Melody raise an eyebrow. "Tell me more, my dude."

"Soos, why are you acting weird?" Dipper asked, growing slightly uncomfortable by Soos's behavior.

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Soos, it's about to go to voicemail…" Melody reminded him as she continued to hold the phone out to him.

"That's fine," Soos brushed off yet again, still not breaking his gaze on Dipper, as he continued leaning against the DJ stand, which kept on tilting it little by little.

---

BEEEEP!

"'Sup, dawg. I'm probably... like... sucking really hard at Lario Kart right now, but when I win... or... lose... then I'll get right back to you. If that's okay."

"No! That's not okay! UGHH!" Mabel groaned exasperatedly as she hung up the phone.

Mabel's groans attracted the attention of Candy and Grenda, who promptly poked their heads out from under the table sheet and up at her.

"Mabel, what's wrong?" Grenda asked.

"Is everything alright?" Candy asked.

"No! Soos messed up the plan!" Mabel told the two as she turned to them.

"What even was the plan?" Candy asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I asked him to play an 80s slow jam when Ryland came back!" Mabel began to explain. "Like almost as soon as Ryland left, I had told him to do so. But when Ryland walked back into the room, I looked over at Soos, and Dipper was talking to him and distracting him! I tried calling his phone just now but he didn't pick up! The whole plan basically relied on him getting this one thing right, and now that he didn't get it right…"

"Uh, Mabel…?" Grenda attempted to alert as her and Candy's eyes bulged in slight concern.

"...the whole plan is basically ruined!" Mabel continued, not aware of Grenda's alerting tone. She sighed and placed her face in her hands irritatedly. "I just wanted a way to try and naturally ease my relationship with Ryland! A way for me to tell him how I really feel about him without coming off as forced and pushy! Just a natural build-up so I can say I like him without scaring him off! Is that so hard to ask?"

Once her rant settled down, her eyes then glanced at Grenda and Candy, who were both silently pointing and making gestures, their eyes bulged warningly.

"What?" she asked, not understanding.

As she kept looking, she began to process that they were pointing and gesturing behind her. The dead silent and almost fearful expressions on their faces posed no good news.

Then she realized exactly what they must've been referring to.

And she knew exactly what she had just done.

Oh no, she thought to herself as her face flushed a bright red before even turning around.

Ryland stood right in front of her with the most stupefied expression on his face as he casually held a plate full of snacks in his hand. He stared at her with his mouth hung open, unable to mouth words as his bulged eyes were full of nothing less than shock.

She noticed that he looked staggered in the most neutral way possible though, with little to no indication of whether he was pleased or disturbed. He just stood there and stared without saying a single word or without bleeding another separate ounce of emotion.

But it didn't even need to be said aloud that he knew now.

Oh, he knew.

"Hi…" Mabel attempted to greet casually through her bright red cheeks and numb-feeling insides.

"...hey…" Ryland attempted to reply without sounding awkward through his shock.

"Oh, would you look at the time!" Grenda said from under the table pretending to glance down at her wrist as if she had a watch there. "Candy and I should get going!"

She backed up under the table sheet again, pulling Candy along with her. However, the two girls proceeded to then peek their eyes through by pulling up the bottom of the sheet and looking while lying on the floor.

Mabel dreaded having to talk things out this way, but seeing as they were right there, things obviously had to be addressed. "How much did you hear?"

"...enough, I suppose," Ryland answered, his eyes still displaying shock over everything. "I'm assuming this wasn't your intention?"

"No…" Mabel confirmed as she rubbed her arm awkwardly.

"Well, I... guess... I…"

CRASH!

The conversation between the two was interrupted and their attention, as well as the rest of the partygoers', was redirected to the corner of the room at Soos's DJ booth. There, he had collapsed upon his stand, which fell entirely onto the floor, also pulling on some wires and other attached equipment, which promptly shut off the music. Melody placed her hand on her mouth in shock, whereas Dipper stood over him the same way. Soos, on the other hand, just lay on the ground, still conscious, yet appearing unfazed.

"Soos, man! Are you okay?" Dipper asked, kneeling down and coming to his aid.

"Yo, Dipper, dude," Soos said as he pointed up at him from the ground, smiling. "You still look good from down here. Like really good."

Oh no... Not him too!

How was that going to be Soos's response when he had just fallen over and on top of all of his equipment? He had to have been affected too! But how?

"Hey, there's Dipper!" he heard from behind him, which prompted him to turn around.

"Uh oh…" he said to himself once he saw various partygoers scattered throughout the room notice him and begin to slowly make their way toward him.

"Dipper! Where you been, man?"

"I've been looking for you, Dipper!"

"So have I!"

"Me too!"

"Well, you can go away because he's mine!"

"No, he loves me!"

"This is a nightmare…" Dipper said to himself as he progressively backed up further and further from those who were beginning to approach him.

"Hey, there he is!" he heard a voice from behind him, albeit, a familiar one.

"Huh?" Dipper asked as he turned around, and spotted the rest of Wendy's friends: Robbie, Tambry, Lee, and Nate, all sitting in the corner of the room.

"Yo, Dipper! Thompson's looking for you!" Lee called out to him. "He's gonna try to rag on you for taking Wendy from him!"

They all appeared unfazed by him compared to a bunch of other partygoers, so he immediately assumed they weren't after him. Realizing he needed allies, he quickly ran up to them.

"Guys! It's not what he seems! I didn't take Wendy from anyone!" Dipper tried to explain to them. "She just... liked me all of the sudden! Half the party did! Including Thompson! I'm telling you! Something weird is happening! You gotta help me out here!"

As he stood well within the proximities of the four, his scent had been given enough time to get to them, and they all began to gaze at him.

"Yeah, something weird is happening!" Robbie said as he stood up from his chair and walked up to him. "Why aren't you going out with me instead of Tambry?"

"WHAT?!" Dipper screamed in horror, taking a few steps back from him.

"Robbie, you sick freak!" Tambry shouted angrily as she proceeded to get up and push him. "Dipper doesn't want you! He wants me!"

"Wrong! Not that that's unexpected coming from you," Robbie argued, crossing his arms at her.

"You both are wrong. Dipper obviously wants me!" Nate butted in, standing up and narrowing his eyes at the two.

"Sorry, man. But you're wrong too. It's me he wants," Lee said as he stood up and walked up to Nate.

"I DON'T WANT ANY OF YOU!" Dipper shouted frantically before running away from the group.

He ran a good few feet before stopping in front of Lazy Susan.

"There you are, Dipper!" she said as she stood in front of him, holding out a pie. "I baked you a pie! It might have some cat hair, and maybe some of my own hair, but I made it out of love for you!"

"GAH!" Dipper yelled fearfully before dashing away from her and soon finding himself running into Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland.

"Dipper! How would you like to hop in a police car and drive around really fast?" Blubs offered. "With me, we can go around town breaking as many laws as we want without getting caught!"

"No! Break laws with me instead!" Durland pleaded. "This old man doesn't even like going fast with his age!"

"I do too!"

"Do not!"

"GAAH!" Dipper yelled as he ran away from them next, sliding across the dance floor before stopping in front of yet another person.

"Dipper! I've been looking for you!" Gideon Gleeful told him with a frantic look in his eye. "I know I've already said that I wouldn't go after Mabel anymore, but surely you ain't outta the question, right?"

"GAAAAAAH!" Dipper yelled, running away from him and along the side of the room.

As he ran, he continued to run past the remaining unaffected party attendees, affecting them with his scent and causing them to join in on the love-hungry mob pursuing him throughout the room. What weirded him out the most was how many more familiar faces began to join the mob. Having so many people that he knew and befriended now chasing after him and wanting to love him has made him far more uncomfortable than any situation he's ever had with any girl in his life.

Is this what it's like to be the popular guy in high school? Because if so, this is TERRIBLY overrated.

Even Melody had joined the mob after he passed by Soos's DJ corner, where she was tending to him on the ground. After passing by, however, she dropped her aid for him and proceeded to join in the pursuit, to which Soos followed immediately after.

"Why is this happening?" Dipper asked himself aloud as he ran. "What's causing this?!"

At that point, he realized he was just running around in circles throughout the floor room. He needed a better way of escaping the mob, and the only way he was going to do that is if he left the floor room. He looked over at the doorway leading through the rest of the Shack, where he had led his pursuers before. Except now, he needed another place to go. The floor room was no option anymore, as the entire party was basically chasing him at that point.

He ran for the doorway, but unbeknownst to him, he ran past his sister and Ryland, leaving them within a trail of air that held the scent of his cologne. They had watched the madness unfold before them, even jumping out of the way as the mob neared them.

At the same time, the trail of air containing his cologne had managed to reach as far as the nearby table. From underneath, Candy and Grenda soon emerged.

"Was that Dipper?" Grenda asked as she pulled the cloth up and looked over at him as he ran for the doorway.

"Dipper, wait!" Candy shouted as she rushed from underneath the table and began to chase after him. "I take it back! I've gained interest again!"

Grenda also got up from underneath the table to join the mob. But in the process, she accidentally bumped her back against it, which caused a glass vase that sat on top to wobble around landing on the edge of the table.

Confused, Mabel looked on as her friends began to chase Dipper down and raised an eyebrow. Clearly, the entire party chasing after him meant that something had happened.

"Okay, what the heck did Dipper do this time?" she asked with skeptical eyes.

Ryland processed this question just as his eyes finished flashing with pink sparkles. "I don't know, but I think I wanna go check it out!"

He took a few steps forward as if he was about to join the mob, but Mabel quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back before he did. "Wait! What about... what about us?"

"What about us?" Ryland asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh... hello? Have you completely forgotten what you just overheard a few seconds ago?" Mabel asked, finding his questioning ridiculous.

"Oh... right," Ryland realized what she meant. "Look, Mabel. You're really nice and all…"

"Uh, huh?" Mabel nodded eagerly.

"...but, I'm sorry. I just don't feel that way about you," Ryland told her bluntly, while also not showing any remorse. "Well, not nearly as much as I do with your brother."

At that moment, the glass vase on the table had tipped over and shattered on the floor, which seemed to occur at the same moment Mabel felt her heart shatter.

"W-what?" she questioned as her face began to display a strong mix of both sadness and confusion, her eye twitching uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry. I really am," Ryland told her as he displayed a slight look of guilt. This cleared up quickly as he turned around and took off to follow the mob chasing Dipper down.

As soon as he hit the doorway, he turned the corner out of the floor room and was gone. Mabel continued to stare forward in confusion and desolation. She had never gone from feeling so anxious to so empty in such a short amount of time. If she wasn't so muddled, she'd probably start to cry, but she couldn't. She was too busy processing the fact that she had just been rejected by a guy who favored her brother while tuning out pretty much everything else that had just happened, including the giant mob and her brother being chased down. Nonetheless, she was crushed and had no idea what to do anymore.

It was one thing to be rejected.

It was a whole other thing to be told that your crush would rather be with your brother.

---

In the basement, Ford glumly poured two mugs of coffee from the machine's decanter. Once he did so, he took both mugs back to a table where Stan sat looking just as sullen. He handed him his mug as he took a seat across from him.

"Thanks, Sixer," Stan said as he accepted the mug from Ford and took a sip. "Good to know that the only family I can truly count on now is my brother."

"Now, Stan. While I am just as disappointed as you are at the fact Dipper and Mabel forgot about their very simple obligations, I don't think that serves as a means to call it some sort of utter betrayal," Ford tried to justify. "They are just teens at the end of the day."

"Yeah, and as I said, this is what teens do," Stan claimed bitterly. "They stop caring about their commitments. The world begins to revolve more around themselves, and they have less regard for the family."

"Stan, how could you make such a generalized judgment like that?" Ford asked.

Stan turned and looked at himself in the faint reflection of the decanter back on the counter and sighed. "It's how I was, wasn't it? With mom and dad? Then I see it in people like Wendy and all her friends. Slacking and not caring. Sure, they had some of those tendencies as kids, but even then, they still had some regard."

"Well, hopefully, they can still come back around at some point," Ford said hopefully before taking a sip of coffee. "Again, in the minds of the youth, there's always room to learn and adapt."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," Stan dismissed in an unconvinced tone as he stood up. "Let's just get to work on this whole Bill thing. The sooner, the better, and all that."

"I suppose we need to get started at some point," Ford said as he stood back up, walking over with his mug back to the counter. "Let me just get some things set up here. I still have to get back into my usual routine of working around the lab. Basic tasks and steps are still escaping me."

"You woke up hours before me so you could work on this place, and you still have things you need to set up?" Stan asked, shocked at how much his brother needed to get done routinely.

"Luckily, it's not a lot," Ford said as he organized drawers and cabinets. "Perhaps my most foolish mistake before we left earlier was not enabling the lab's security system. Considering how many guests we have at the Shack for this party, it's unwise to leave the entire place open to being discovered behind something as indiscreet as a gift shop vendor. Anyone can just come down here and touch and mess with all my inventions and projects, which, admittedly, I also need to find better protection for instead of cheap cases and cabinets."

"Well, even without security, in the thirty years I ran the Shack, keeping the basement hidden behind the vendor never failed once," Stan said confidently as he walked around the lab, looking around at the various cabinets. "Trust me, Ford. This town has grown too dumb to expect anything as smart as secret, hidden doorways."

He then looked to the side under one of the cabinets, noticing the cologne from earlier. He raised an eyebrow, walking over to it and picking it up to examine it more closely.

"Hey, Ford?" Stan called out as he held it out in his hand.

Ford's eyes glanced over in his direction in response to his call. His eyes bulged as they laid upon the cologne in his hands again.

"Stanley! What did I tell you about that cologne?" he asked, narrowing his eyes irritatedly as he walked over to him and swiped it from his hands.

"Hey, hey! Calm down! I wasn't doing anything with it!" Stan said as he raised his hands up defensively. "I was just gonna say- I thought you put that away before we left."

"I did put it away," Ford told him as he opened the cabinet above and set the cologne inside.

"Well, I just found it sitting out on top of this counter here," Stan said as he gestured to the counter. "Outside of the cabinet."

"Huh. Really?" Ford asked. "Hmm, that's odd. Maybe I didn't put it away after all. Perhaps we're just remembering it wrong."

"Okay, there are two problems with that," Stan began. "First of all, why would YOU make such a stupid mistake and not put it away? Second, as the man with a demon in his head giving him apparent short-term memory issues, even I remember you putting that stuff away. Adding those two together, then I think something's gotta be up."

"So what are you saying?" Ford asked as he started to see his point. "You think someone's been down here?"

DING!

Stan and Ford's heads quickly turned over in surprise to see the elevator arriving. As the elevator opened up, a short man proceeded to step out.

"Where's Dipper?!" shouted Toby Determined, who took a few steps out of the elevator, eyes darting around the lab.

"INTRUDER!" Ford shouted as he and Stan both jumped into standoff positions upon the sight of Toby in the lab.

"GET HIM!" Stan shouted, to which Ford quickly pulled out a weapon from the side that looked akin to a shotgun.

"Wait... what?" Toby questioned upon sight of the weapon.

BANG!

"CHRIST, FORD!" Stan screamed, startled and shocked by Ford firing the weapon at Toby. "What the hell?!"

"What?" Ford questioned as he put the weapon down to the side. "I handled things, did I not?"

The two looked back ahead and saw Toby stuck within a coat of a yellowish material. The material itself blasted him up a few feet above the ground and onto the wall, sticking him. It was as if he was placed in a cocoon of glue and stuck against the wall at the same time.

"Ughh…" Toby groaned painfully due to the intense knockback and sudden movement of his body and head against the wall.

"The hell is that stuff?" Stan asked as the two walked up to him.

"Foam glue," Ford said. "Just another weapon from the arsenal I've obtained from my time across dimensions. It has the strength and stickiness of spider webbing."

"Yeah... great facts, but you wanna address the creep in our lab who's after our great-nephew?" Stan asked before turning back to Toby. "Explain yourself!"

"I'm just tryiiiing to find Dipper so we can rekindle our looove with one another!" Toby explained before puckering his lips and making a bunch of kissing noises. "Mwah, mwah, mwah! Mwah, mwah, mwah! Mwah, mwah, mw-"

Stan cut his weird and creepy kissing noises short by placing his hand at his throat, choking him. "Toby, you freakin' little creep! You're talking about my sixteen-year-old great-nephew!"

"Creep?" Toby questioned through his choking. "I'm... no creep! Dipper loves me back! We looove each other!"

"Do you want me to call the police?!" Stan asked, tightening his grip on Toby's throat, getting fed up with his creepiness toward his nephew.

"Hold on, Stan! Let him go!" Ford demanded as he came to a potential realization.

"Let him go?! Ford, he's-"

"I'm aware! But hold on for a moment, will ya?" Ford ordered again, pulling Stan back away from Toby. Toby coughed as his throat was released, to which Ford began to focus his attention on him. "Sir, how did you get into this lab?"

"Are you kidding me?!" Stan asked dumbfounded by Ford's choice of question. "Out of all the things to be concerned about, that's what you ask?"

"Dammit, Stanley, I told you to hold on!" Ford reminded aggravatedly.

"I just saaaw the open doorway and came dooown," Toby began, which grabbed the attention of the Stan brothers back. "The vending machine covering it was knocked down by the mob upstairs also looking for Dipper."

"Knocked down...?" Ford repeated, raising a curious eyebrow.

"...by the mob...?" Stan repeated.

"...looking for Dipper?!" they both repeated at the same time, exchanging concerned looks with one another.

---

Upstairs in the gift shop, there were several various partygoers under influence of the cologne. They ran around, searching the Shack for Dipper. They called out for him, physically fought over him, and generally pleaded for his presence.

The gift shop's vending machine was tipped over as a result of the ongoing search, and not even because people thought there would be a doorway into the basement behind, but because they thought Dipper would be hiding inside the machine. There were many who ignored and dismissed the newly revealed doorway or didn't even notice it. However, some found it worth searching.

Stan and Ford quickly came to this discovery as they emerged from the elevator. While there weren't many people, it seemed like they had been waiting for the elevator, standing outside and watching them come out.

"Alright! All of you: get out!" Stan ordered the people there, gesturing back over to the stairs for them to leave. "C'mon! Each and every one of you! Get outta here!"

The twins pushed them out as they walked forward, following their orders for them to leave. As they walked up the stairs, they quickly sped out from the doorway and over the tipped vending machine. And just as the twins reached the top of the stairs themselves, their eyes bulged at the sight.

Throughout nearly every square foot of the entire gift shop, there were people scrambling around. Shelves and racks were flipped over, and pieces of merchandise had been moved aggressively, often resulting in various sorts of destruction. Most prominently, the twins had noticed most of the guests calling out the name of their great-nephew, creepily begging for his love, as well as promising to love him.

Ford had taken the cologne from the basement along with him in his jacket and took it out as he observed these strange behaviors. Realizing the assumption he presumed Stan had been making earlier, he came up with a plausible guess as to what was happening.

"Well, Stanley. I think you may have been right about someone coming down into the basement after all…" he said as he gestured toward the cologne in his hands.

---

Dipper was running out of places to hide and running out of stamina to run. Since running from the floor room, he had run through and around almost every single accessible corner of the Mystery Shack. While he managed to get a few of his lovesick pursuers off his tail, a good number of them continued to stick behind him, making his attempts to hide just about useless. Then when he went running again, he would end up regaining the attention of those he had managed to escape, which meant he would have to lose them yet again.

He had hesitated multiple times to leave the Shack entirely, but he knew he wasn't going to find any greater help from the rest of the town than he would from the people he knew were already present. However, most of the people he knew that had the potential to help him had fallen for him as well which only made things even more problematic.

The next place he had run was upstairs into the attic, which was one of the last places he hadn't gone in the Shack other than his bedroom, which was a dead end in itself and a place he'd rather not let himself get cornered. Otherwise, he didn't have much elsewhere in the attic to hide or go.

That was until he quickly spotted the window pane to his right as he ran up the stairs. While he had his hesitations about going outside, it was at that point he realized he just needed to get away to a spot he couldn't be reached. And while going up to the roof didn't mean he couldn't be reached, it made him much harder to get to.

As the mob gained on him, he frantically pushed half of the window pane outwards and jumped outside onto the roof tiles. He jumped back to his feet and ran back over to push the window back in place before a pursuer jumped out along with him. He used all his force to keep the window clicked in position.

As a secondary precaution to ensure no one could get through the window to follow, he took off his hoodie and tied a knot around the hinges to the frame using the long sleeves. He took a step back and watched as his idea helped keep the windows shut no matter how hard the several townsfolk inside tried to press on it. He didn't dismiss the idea of them possibly shattering the window to get to him instead, but he still felt a sense of relief upon realizing he was somewhat free for that moment.

That was before he glanced down at himself without his hoodie and quickly remembered the catastrophe he had done to his shirt earlier, glancing at the rips where his sleeves used to be.

"Man, what was I thinking?" he asked himself as he shamefully placed a hand on his head.

He then heard screeches, which prompted him to look back at the window. Quickly, he noticed a bunch of teen girls, including Candy and Grenda, upfront against the window pointing at him.

"Look at those arms!" one shouted.

"So noodle-y," another girl swooned as she looked on flirtatiously.

Dipper was genuinely disturbed by the whole situation overall, but still couldn't help but go red-faced upon these comments. It didn't help his cause that he continued to stand right in front of the window where all his want-to-be-lovers were, and so he decided to do himself a favor and remove himself from their sight. He stepped to the side and climbed up onto the roof above the attic, crawling on the tiling until he reached a comfortable seam for him to just sit back and rest by himself.

"Glad I got out of that," he said with a sigh as he restfully lied his head back against the tiles, closing his eyes for a brief moment to think. "Now what am I gonna do?"

He opened his eyes again, staring forward for a bit as the close-to-setting sun beamed upon the side of his face. He was able to make out an odd shadow, however, as well as another figure within his peripheral vision to his right. He turned his head and spotted a girl on the roof with him who sat right beside the rooftop exit from the gift shop.

From the clothes and the hair, he realized it was Mabel. She was looking away from him and didn't appear to have acknowledged or even notice his presence on the rooftop. By her general posture, she looked to be slumped as though she was upset or saddened by something. The fact that she was up on the roof by herself before he came along only seemed to back up that idea.

He hadn't seen his sister since they had spoken in their room before the party, and therefore had no idea of the culmination of events that could've led her to this position. And so he was curious and concerned for what brought her there.

"Mabel?" he asked, attempting to grab her attention.

Her posture immediately went straight upon hearing his voice and she turned her head over to him, looking on at him in surprise. After realizing who he was, her eyes narrowed.

"YOU!" she shouted angrily as she turned her entire body toward him, pointing a finger in his direction as she began to walk toward him.

Dipper's heart dropped. "Oh no... not you too!" he cried out as he backed up against the roof fearfully and held his arms up in front of himself defensively. "Anybody but you!"

Just as he began to consider jumping off the roof as his next means of escape, it was too late. Mabel had walked right up to him and began lightly slapping him repeatedly, albeit aiming for his face, but blocked by his arms.

"What. Did. You. Do?!" she asked angrily as she continued to slap his arms. "I spent the past few weeks of summer talking and connecting with Ryland and then when he finally finds out how I feel, he tells me he'd rather be with my own brother instead?! You big... crush-stealer!"

Dipper's eyes widened. "Woah, woah, woah!" he said as he proceeded to quickly grab hold of both of her wrists mid-slapping, which she tried to resist at first, but stopped. He then pushed her back, trying to get her out of his close proximity. "Hold on... you... don't have a crush on me right now?"

"What?!" Mabel exclaimed in utter disgust at the question. "EW, Dipper! I'm your sister! Why would I have a crush on you?"

"I don't know! Maybe because pretty much everyone else from the party does?" Dipper brought up as he rubbed his arms from her constant slapping. "You were there, weren't you? You didn't see me getting chased by everybody?"

Mabel thought for a second, beginning to recall the incident as it was brought back to her focus. "Yeah... actually, I did. What was up with that?"

"Again... I don't know!" he restated. "It just seems like everybody I interact with today just suddenly falls in love with me! Anybody I talk to! I know whatever's happening isn't natural, so that's why I asked. I was afraid that the same thing might've happened to you."

"Well, thankfully for both of us, that's absolutely NOT the case," Mabel assured him as she took a step back in disgust at the thought.

"Yeah, thankfully," Dipper said as he sat back down, easing down from his fears a moment ago. "But I still have a large mob of people inside where that case does apply. Including most of the people we know- Soos, Melody, Robbie, Derrick…"

"Pfft, Derrick? Nice," Mabel chuckled at the idea, which prompted an unamused look from Dipper. She quickly cleared her throat guiltily. "Sorry."

"God, and even Wendy..." Dipper said as he stuffed his face in his hands out of embarrassment. "We almost kissed…"

Mabel gasped and pushed her cheeks together excitedly. "Really?!"

"Yeah, but it's not like she has a real crush on me," Dipper quickly dismissed, not wanting to get her hopes up. "She's just another result of whatever the hell is happening with these people."

"Oh…" Mabel said, her excitement dying down a bit.

"But, yeah. That's what's going on with me…" Dipper said, lying back against the tiles again. "What were you doing up here by yourself?"

Mabel walked up and sat beside him, laying her back against the tiles too. "Well, Ryland found out about my feelings for him. But instead of returning them, he rejected me because he, uh, said that he liked you instead…"

"Gah! Are you kidding me? Him too?" Dipper jolted up, horrified at this revelation.

"Yeah... I got upset about it and came up here to, you know, just be all sad and stuff," Mabel continued to explain. "Then you came along..."

"...and you got mad and started slapping me and blaming everything on me," he continued for her, giving her a look.

"First, I'm sorry about that," Mabel apologized, rubbing her arm guiltily. "Second, imagine how you'd feel if any of your crushes ever rejected you because they wanted to be with me instead."

"Point taken," Dipper said with a light chuckle.

"But yeah, now I know he probably doesn't REALLY like you like that. Which is good for both of us," Mabel said with a smile. "Unless…"

"Nope, absolutely not," Dipper shook his head, denying what he knew she was thinking. "Trust me, he's all yours."

"Good to know."

"It would be even greater to know what the hell is going on," Dipper said, going back to the matter at hand. "What the source of the problem even is. Why everybody I make contact with... or even walk past... just falls head-over-heels in love with me."

"Yeah, with that cologne you're wearing, you'd expect them to do the opposite," Mabel jabbed. "Seriously, that stuff smells like someone tried to make a cologne based on the word 'intricate'." She then took another whiff of the surrounding air. "Huh... ironically, it kinda smells like what I remember one of the Love God's potions smelling like…"

"Wait a second... the cologne…" Dipper remembered as he pulled on the collar of his shirt and smelled himself. "Of course! That's what's causing all this! It's gotta be!"

"The cologne? Really?" Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah!" Dipper nodded, confirming. "After our conversation in our room, I became a bit self-conscious about my looks and my general capability of being presentable to girls and others, and so I decided to work on myself like you told me to." He pulled on one of the ripped sleeves, gesturing toward it. "I may have gone a bit overboard…"

"That's why you ripped your sleeves?" Mabel questioned, chuckling with amusement as she looked at his appearance. "Wow... I didn't want to say anything, but I thought you were just going through some sorta teen mid-life crisis or something!" she laughed for a bit before immediately reverting back to a straight and honest face. "But yeah, never do that to your clothes again."

"Already noted," Dipper assured her in a well-aware voice. "Anyway, Derrick came along and shared your thoughts about my stench, and so he suggested we go look for cologne to cover up the scent."

"Why not just take a shower?" Mabel asked, dumbfounded by the fact that this was the idea they had come up with.

"Something about not having enough time or something? I don't know! Just let me finish the story!" Dipper pleaded, which she accepted. "So then we went into Ford's lab while neither he nor Stan was there. I thought it wasn't a good idea, but Derrick insisted. Then he found a bottle of cologne inside one of Ford's cabinets and told me to use it. I didn't think it was a good idea either, but I went ahead and put some on. And so here's the thing- I didn't think much of it at the time, but after putting that cologne on, Derrick acted a bit... weirder than usual. More touchy and friendly towards me. And everyone else only started acting weird after I put on the cologne. So I think that anybody who smells the cologne falls in love with me... except you... for whatever reason that is. I don't know. This stuff was in Great Uncle Ford's lab after all."

"So you're saying that this was Derrick's idea and that we should blame him for all of this?" Mabel's thought process immediately jumped to.

"C'mon, Mabel. Now isn't the time to play the blame game," Dipper told her. "But yeah, if I'm right, then it's totally Derrick's fault."

Mabel gasped, clenching her fists excitedly. "Does that finally give me an excuse to punch him in the face?"

Dipper raised an eyebrow. "Um... no?"

"Drat," Mabel said, hopes dying down. "It was worth asking though."

"Anyway, I guess if this is Ford's cologne, I assume he'll have a solution for all of this," Dipper explained before a potential thought entered his head. "Assuming he and Stan weren't affected by it either…"

"Well, I'm right next to you and I haven't been affected," Mabel reminded him. "Maybe they can't be affected either."

"True. Maybe they aren't," Dipper asked as he placed his chin on top of his hands and thought. "I didn't see them in the mob of people chasing me, so it's a possibility. Then again, the last time I saw them was right before everything got weird."

"Well, they have to be around somewhere."

"Shouldn't you know?" Dipper asked. "I mean, you were with them, right?"

"No, I was with Ryland, Candy, and Gren-" she cut herself off as she came to a realization. "-da. I was with them... instead of Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford... Oh no..."

"What?" Dipper asked as he looked over at her.

"The promise, Dipper!" Mabel reminded him as she placed her hands on his shoulders and shook him. "The one we made to them this morning! About not leaving their sides! About not getting distracted! I got distracted by my friends and Ryland and forgot about our Grunkles!"

Dipper quickly recalled the promise as she went on and began to realize that he was at fault for the same thing. "Oh, man... I forgot too! I was speaking with them and then left to get a drink, but then I got caught up with Wendy... before things hit the fan!"

"I threw this big party to celebrate them. For us to go and spend time with them after four long years without them. And then we promised that we wouldn't get caught up in other business…" Mabel said as she laid her head back against the tiles.

"And then we got caught up…" Dipper said for the both of them as he rested his own head back as well.

"Ugh. And Soos even tried to warn me about what I was doing, and I just blew him off," she added as she placed a guilty hand on her forehead.

They both felt terribly guilty for their actions. Breaking their promises to spend time with their great-uncles at a party thrown for them in favor of getting caught up in romantic drama. Now they lay upon the roof, realizing things long after they've already happened, and without a clue where their great uncles were or if they were okay. But they knew they'd be disappointed with them.

"What kind of family are we?" Dipper asked as he stared up at the sky guiltily.

"The terrible kind," Mabel answered. "That's what."

"If I could do this day over, I would've just taken a shower after waking up."

"If I could do this day over, I would've put a bag over Ryland's head so I never had to think about his stupid, cute face until the party ended."

They just continued to stare up at the sky, feeling utterly guilty for their broken promises to their great uncles and wishing they could redo the whole day.

However, their attention was suddenly drawn to the side as they saw and heard the trapdoor burst open.

Soon enough, they saw Stan crawl out and sprawl out onto the tiles, which surprised the twins and prompted them to quickly stand back up. Right behind him, Ford climbed up, which appeared to be a slight struggle for him. As he got his legs out, he quickly closed the trapdoor behind him.

"God, for all the hidden passageways and entrances you have around the Shack, I can't believe the only other way you have of getting to the attic is by climbing up to the damn roof," Stan said annoyedly as Ford helped him up from the tiles.

"Well, if you feel like going through a love-crazed mob instead, then by all means, be my..." Ford began to Stan before his eyes looked past him and glanced over at the twins on the roof. "...guest."

Stan caught his eyes looking behind him and turned his head to look too. His eyes bulged in surprise as they laid upon the twins, who stared back at the two in surprise as well. However, he began to look upon them unhappily as his memory of their broken promises came back into his head.

"Well, LOOK who it is..." Stan claimed as he narrowed his eyes at the two.

Mabel glanced over at Dipper and backed up against him, holding her arms out in front of him in defense as she looked back at the Stans.

"HALT!" she demanded the Stan twins.

"Mabel, what are you doing?" Dipper asked.

"Before either of you take any step closer, you have to answer one simple question," Mabel said to the Stans as she continued to defend her brother. "On a scale of 'Ew, that's my nephew' to 'I could still go for it', how badly do either of you want Dipper?"

"Jesus Christ, Mabel…" Dipper said in disgust. He knew what she was doing, but also felt she could've worded things differently.

"Uh... how about: I won't hesitate to throw you both off of this roof if you ask a question like that again," Stan said in disgust, glancing over at Ford who held a similar look of distaste.

"They're good," Mabel confirmed with a smile as she stepped out of her defensive pose for Dipper. "Grunkle Stan!"

"Great Uncle Ford!" Dipper called out gratefully.

The two proceeded to run up to the two, hugging them both. Ford looked reluctant to hug back, while Stan simply didn't appear joyful about the hug.

"Some nerve you two have hugging us after what you both did," Stan said grumpily.

"We know!" Dipper said as he kept hugging.

"And we're so, so sorry!" Mabel said as she only tightened her hug, even beginning to feel herself tear up due to her guilt. "We know we abandoned you guys and we know we broke the promises we made earlier and we know you two are upset with us and we know we totally don't deserve to be forgiven, but we're sorry and we truly love you both and we really have missed you after the four years we've been apart!"

The two processed the apology for a moment, to which Ford still appeared reluctant and Stan still looked unsatisfied.

"Well, you're right about one thing," Stan said as he pulled the two off of them without regret. "You both don't deserve to be forgiven."

Dipper and Mabel lowered their heads sadly in response, both of them feeling truly guilty for what they'd done. Ford then took a step forward and placed a hand on Stan's shoulder before giving a slight smile

"But... we're going to anyway," Ford said. The twins looked back up at him and gave grateful smiles in return.

"Oh, c'mon, Ford!" Stan shouted at him. "You gotta let them sit in the guilt before you forgive! That's how this stuff works!"

"Shut up, old man!" Mabel exclaimed as she and Dipper both wrapped their arms around the two again. "You know you love us!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Stan brushed off with a light chuckle as he pulled the twins away again. "But keep in mind that even though we forgive you, it's still too soon to be going 'Shut up, old man' again."

"Yeah... my bad," Mabel acknowledged as she rubbed her shoulder awkwardly.

"Anyway, I feel as though we should address the obvious matter at hand," Ford switched the subject as his eyes glanced over at Dipper.

"Right... the whole 'Almost everybody's in love with me' deal," Dipper nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Indeed…" Ford nodded as he reached into his jacket and pulled out the cologne. "Now, Dipper, I reckon that you have somewhat of a recollection of this item, correct?"

"I wish I didn't," Dipper said, basically admitting his knowledge of it.

"I see," Ford said as he lowered the cologne. "So, to my understanding, you had gone down into the lab without either Stan or I knowing?"

"Yes, me and my friend, Derrick both," Dipper admitted as well, feeling guilty for not trusting his earlier instincts.

"Why?"

"Because... I stunk," Dipper answered bluntly, which, despite his seriousness, made Mabel need to put full effort into not cracking a chuckle. "I was insecure about my presentation around girls and people and I needed to do something about it. And instead of just taking a shower like a normal person, I listened to my friend and went into the basement and put on a... love cologne... and started this whole mess. But it wasn't my idea, and I didn't want to go down there without you, and…" He sighed and just accepted his fate. "...you're still going to be mad at me anyway."

Ford sighed as he walked up to him and placed his hands on his shoulders. "No, my boy. I'm not mad. I was a teen too, you know. In fact, being a teen was the whole reason I even invented this stuff in the first place. And while its final function wasn't my initial intention, I've learned that the general concept was just one of the many lesser developed ideas of my youth." He glanced between him and Mabel. "The point I want you and even Mabel to understand is that I've held onto many of those failed ideas after all these years rather than sloppily disposing of them, simply to keep them out of getting into the wrong hands. My lab is full of similarly dangerous items and other potential disasters just waiting to happen should they be used wrongly. To prevent things from getting out of control, as we can make note of from today, all I ask is that whether it's you or your sister, don't touch or use any items that you don't know the function of. You both are family and you're older now, and so I think I can trust you both to come down there whenever it's needed, even without supervision from Stan... or... well, without supervision from me."

"Hey!" Stan exclaimed, taking slight offense to his brother's lowkey implication that he wasn't as trustworthy to supervise in the lab.

"I just need you to understand that not everything is what it seems and that down there, some of the most innocent-looking objects could actually destroy the world within seconds," Ford continued.

"That sounds terrifying... and oddly malicious…" Dipper said, raising a concerned eyebrow.

"Trust me, the second I have the chance, I'll be getting rid of most of it," Ford assured him before placing his hand on the top of his head and scruffing it a bit. "All I ask is for you two to be careful and to be smart about what you use down there. Just to prevent future incidents like this."

"Alright, I promise," Dipper nodded with a chuckle.

"I promise!" Mabel said as well.

"We should be recording these promises this time," Stan told Ford as he crossed his arms. "Ya know, just to have them ready."

"Ah, drop it, Stanley," Ford said as he nudged him in the shoulder.

"So now that that's out of the way, how do we fix everything?" Dipper asked.

"Right, well, it's honestly just a waiting game," Ford admitted.

"What?! Seriously?" Dipper questioned, hoping that wasn't Ford's only solution.

"I admit that in college, I had a habit of overusing the cologne and spraying way more than I needed to on myself each day I decided to wear it, which sort of bonded the scent to me for a while even after I stopped wearing it," Ford explained. "I even took my only week off to deal with constantly showering myself trying to kill the scent, to which the day I came back, everything appeared to be normal again. Of course, I was avoided more because everyone retained the memory of their love for me, but... normal. Generally, though, I'm unsure how long it will take before the effects die down completely once you've managed to wash off the scent. It could be days."

"I can't deal with this for days!" Dipper exclaimed worriedly as he placed his hands on his head.

"Grunkle Ford, what did you even put in the cologne that makes people fall in love with the user?" Mabel asked.

"Gosh, it's been so long..." Ford said as he tried to remember. "But it was the usual cologne items you would find in any typical store-bought cologne. Perhaps even safer alternatives to the more hazardous chemicals."

"You also mentioned borrowing some ingredient from a guy with wings," Stan chimed in.

"Right. A loud, hippie classmate of mine who wore wings offered me a tiny sample of one of the many substances he stored inside little flasks he kept on his belt," Ford said as he recalled.

Mabel gasped. "Love God!"

"Wait a second…" Dipper said as he realized something. "Mabel, didn't you just say that the cologne smelled like one of Love God's potions?"

Mabel suddenly grabbed ahold of Dipper's arm and took a good, long whiff of his fragrance, which he found slightly weird. Upon finishing, she let out a large exhale and gasped again. "Young Love! That's why people keep falling in love with you!" She turned to Ford. "Grunkle Ford, that ingredient you borrowed came from a literal love god!"

"A love god?" Ford asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Or a Cherub," Mabel added with a careless shrug.

"We met one here in Gravity Falls the last time we were here and he had a belt of love potions like you described," Dipper explained. "The ingredient you borrowed was a sample of one of his potions, which makes the love-inducing effect."

"Love potions are also supposed to last only three hours," Mabel added. "It probably lasted longer for Grunkle Ford because of how much longer he had exposed others to the smell."

"Well, three hours isn't as bad," Ford stated.

"But still, you three wanna wait up here for three hours?" Stan asked, not thrilled by the idea. "I'm already feeling woozy by the thought of waiting three minutes."

Mabel snapped her fingers at Dipper as she came to another realization. "The anti-love potion we stole last time! I still have it!"

"You brought that stuff back home to Piedmont and back?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sometimes I use it whenever I need to get over my exes," Mabel answered, glancing away innocently.

"I'm not sure that's healthy…" Dipper told her, raising an eyebrow in concern.

"Anyways, if we could make our way back to our room, I could get the potion and we could use it on everybody else and reverse the effects of the cologne!" Mabel told him.

"That could work," Dipper nodded, before looking back at Ford. "But Great Uncle Ford said that everybody still remembered the effects of the potion afterward…"

Mabel realized this potential issue and thought over it. "Well, I mean, we could just be honest and explain to everybody that it was all some sort of…"

"I almost kissed Wendy, Mabel," Dipper reminded her, looking her dead in the eye. "How exactly am I gonna go about explaining that?"

Mabel thought for a second. "Yeah... that is a problem…"

"Well, obviously, memory erasure is out of the question," Ford said as he tried to think of a solution as well.

"Though, I'd definitely consider it…" Dipper said under his breath.

"I have an idea," Ford said, snapping his fingers. "For now, you two and Stan just head over to your room to locate the potion, then bring it downstairs and meet me in the lab. We'll work from there."

"On it!" Mabel nodded as she and Dipper began to run along the tiles before climbing along the side of the roof, making their way over to where their room was located.

Ford proceeded to kneel down and open the trapdoor, to which Stan grabbed ahold of his shoulder.

"Hold up. What exactly are you gonna be doing?" Stan asked, wondering why he was being left with Dipper and Mabel as opposed to coming along to help him.

"You'll find out when we meet again," Ford said as he placed his feet back down into the door. "Trust me. Just go and help the kids!"

Stan sighed and proceeded to turn around and follow after Dipper and Mabel as they climbed the roof tiles up to their room, although at a slower and more manageable pace for his age. Ford watched for a moment before descending down the ladder, closing the trapdoor right above him again.

---

Dipper and Mabel had managed to crawl along the steep rooftop of the Mystery Shack over to their bedroom window. However, it quickly became apparent to them that their bedroom window wasn't as easy to reach as the other windows, as there was no tiling underneath it and it was right below a slight overhang that the tiles they stood on created.

"Now how're we supposed to get down there?" Dipper asked as he looked down below at the window.

"We could use my grappling hook…!" Mabel suggested before she patted herself down and realized she didn't have it. "...which I left back inside our room…"

"Great," Dipper said sarcastically, realizing their predicament wasn't going to be as easy to figure out.

Suddenly, Stan came climbing up the roof behind them, panting and out of breath. As he reached them, he sat down to rest.

"Geez, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said as she examined him. "You just climbed a roof. Not run a marathon."

"That's the thing... I've spent the last four years sailing the world, yet I need to take a break to breathe after a minute of climbing a damn roof," he panted, holding onto his chest tiredly.

"You should probably see a doctor about that," Dipper chimed in as he stepped up to him.

"You know, walking up here, you can really tell how old and worn these tiles are based on how much they sink in when you step on them," Stan said as he examined the tiles he sat on. "Seriously, with tiles like these, who knows how worn the wood underneath must be."

"Wait, so if the tiles are that worn…" Dipper began, glancing back and forth between the two. "...is it really a good idea for us all to be right next to each other in the same spot on the…?"

CRACK!

"...ROOOOOOF!" Dipper screamed along with his sister and great-uncle as the two suddenly fell along with the collapsing roof underneath their feet.

THUD!

The fall wasn't very long, but it wasn't pleasant. However, it could've been much worse, considering they still managed to land right on top of Dipper's bed inside the twins' bedroom. The three groaned as they sat up and looked around, processing their location.

Dipper looked down and groaned annoyedly as he saw the roof rubble and grime all over his bed. "Of course we were right above my bed."

"Well, at least we're inside!" Mabel said, looking at the bright side. She jumped up from the bed, quickly brushing her clothes off before running over to her side of the room and looking through her drawer. "Just gotta find that anti-love potion! I know it's around here somewhere."

Stan got up from the bed, brushing his clothes off as well while walking toward the center of the room. He glanced up and around the room, soon realizing that he hadn't even been up there or seen the place in four years. The last time he saw it, it was empty and had been freshly packed up by the twins not too long before. But here he stood inside and it was full again.

When he remembered Dipper's side of the room, he couldn't say he recalled much. He was a simple kid who liked to read books and hunt weirdness. His idea of decorating then was very minimal, and it still was four years later. There was little he added to his side of the room, aside from more books and some more acne cream. But it still represented him. The nerdy kid that Stan used to know.

He then glanced over at Mabel's side and remembered how it used to be. The colorful posters of kittens, boy bands, rainbows, and other pictures of her summer memories. The general splash of life that she had brought to an otherwise bland and colorless room. Yet four years later, she's managed to pretty much do the same thing, except slightly more organized, yet just as extravagant. There were newer posters of kittens, boy bands, and rainbows, along with pictures from home, which seemed to include her friends and parents. All of them so sparkly and colorful.

She must've coated the pictures with glitter or something because there was no way any photo glistened that much naturally.

One photo stood out from the others though. An old picture from the last summer they spent together. He and Ford were standing while Dipper sat on his shoulders and Mabel sat on Ford's. They held water balloons in their hands and smiled widely as if they were mid-laugh. Ford appeared to be mid-laugh too, but Stan himself appeared to be reacting to a water balloon that he had just taken to the face, tilting over slightly.

This photo stood out not because Stan recognized it, but because it was pinned separately from Mabel's other photos of her friends and family. Completely on its own, it hung. It was as though she had put a separate value into that one picture than she did all the others.

Stan recalled his earlier annoyances with the twins' broken promises and how seeing them try to pursue potential romantic relations rather than spend time with them had led him to think that the kids he knew weren't the same anymore. That four years had changed them far more than he had thought. That they didn't value family as much anymore. That they no longer cared.

'The kids ain't kids anymore. They're teenagers. And this is what teenagers do.'

He had already forgiven them, but now he knew that he was wrong. When he looked around the room, he realized that the kids he knew four years ago hadn't gone anywhere. They were still inside the teens that stood there with him right that second.

Sure, they grew. But so did their hearts.

"Found it!" Mabel announced as she pulled a flask of the dark purple anti-love potion with the same old spray bottle top attached to it. She walked over to Dipper with it.

"Nice!" Dipper said with a smile as he took it from her. "Good thing you held onto it all these years." He turned to Stan. "Grunkle Stan, are you ready to go?"

Stan remained silent as he continued to look on at the picture.

Mabel raised a concerned eyebrow. "Grunkle Stan?" she asked as she walked over to him, tugging on his jacket.

He finally turned back to her and glanced between her and Dipper. At that moment, he envisioned the two in their current positions as twelve-year-olds again, watching as they looked back at him in concern. Then, he watched them revert back to their present selves, watching as their matured appearances settled back in and four years passed right before his eyes.

"Grunkle Stan, are you okay?" Mabel asked, still giving him a concerned look.

He smiled at her and then at Dipper. "Yeah, pumpkin. Everything's fine," he assured her as he rubbed the top of her head. "I've just realized that... I'm gonna hate dealing with the both of you again for yet another summer."

Dipper and Mabel smiled, knowing that this was his way of saying 'I've missed you both and I'm glad you're back.' They proceeded to both walk up to him and wrap their arms tightly around him, to which he finally broke and hugged back.

"We've missed you too, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, to which Dipper nodded in agreement to.

SLAM!

The three quickly looked up from their tender hug to see the door to the room had been kicked open by one of the many people affected by the love cologne that stood at the door. The eyes of everyone that stood at the door quickly glanced upon Dipper, to which the front girl pointed at him and smiled widely.

"THERE HE IS!" a girl shouted.

Dipper pushed away from the hug between the two in panic. "We gotta go! We gotta go!"

"No worries, broseph!" Mabel said as she reached for her grappling hook from her shelf. She quickly wrapped an arm around her brother and aimed back up at the hole in the ceiling that they had fallen through, shooting the grapple upwards as it quickly stuck, and retracted the two upwards, leaving Stan behind.

"HEY!" he shouted after the two as they zoomed up. "What about me?!"

Before he could give the twins a chance to respond, the Dipper-obsessed mob began pouring into the bedroom, forcing Stan to have to back further away. Realizing he'd run out of breathing room momentarily, he glanced around for a way of escape. His eyes fell upon the triangular window, to which he decided to make a split-second decision and go for it.

He jumped straight through the window, breaking the glass and beginning a short-lasting fall, plummeting to the ground from the second floor of the Shack.

Dipper and Mabel stood back on their feet on top of the roof again, brushing themselves off before walking up to the edge to see what had happened to Stan. They saw him lying on the ground, groaning in pain.

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel called out to him worriedly.

"Are you okay?!" Dipper asked.

"I forgot... that that room was on the second floor…" he said as lay in pain, also feeling slight resentment for the twins and their quick decision to leave him behind right after he had begun to warm up to them again.

Though, he'd chew them out for that another time.

---

DING!

Ford quickly turned around to see Dipper, Mabel, and Stan emerge from the elevator.

"Ah, there you all are," Ford said as he walked up to them. "I was worried you might've gotten into a brawl with the mob."

"Nope! Luckily, most of them are more focused on finding us in the attic than anything else. Getting to the elevator was pretty easy," Mabel informed him, before glancing over at Stan. "Getting Stan's dislocated arm back into place after he jumped out a window from the second floor... not as much…"

"It saved another hospital visit, but for the record, I'd strongly vote against either of you ever becoming doctors in the future," Stan said, narrowing his eyes at the two as he rubbed the affected arm from earlier.

"Anyways, we got the potion," Dipper said as he presented the anti-love potion in his hand for Ford to see.

"Excellent," Ford nodded as he took the potion in his hands. "Just to ensure that it's just as effective as its name implies, we should perform a quick test on someone who got affected."

"So should we go back up and grab somebody?" Dipper asked, not thrilled about the idea of going back up again.

"No need. We already have Mr. Determined over here," Ford said as he gestured over to the wall beside the elevator, which Dipper, Mabel, and Stan didn't notice. There, Toby Determined continued to hang from inside a ball of Ford's foam glue stuck to the wall.

"Hello," Toby waved.

"GAH!" Dipper, Mabel, and Stan screamed in horror at the sight of Toby's hideous face.

"God, I forgot that little troll was down here!" Stan remarked as he looked on at Toby.

"At least Dipper thinks I'm beautiful!" Toby defended before dreamily looking over at Dipper. "Don't you, Dipper?"

"Yeah... uh... you just keep thinking that, pal," Dipper said awkwardly as he flicked his fingers at him.

"Anyway, let's just hope this works," Ford said as he walked up to Toby with the potion, fingers around the trigger of the spray.

"Wait, what are you…? GAH!" Toby shouted as he took a spray of anti-love potion to the face from Ford. He then began coughing and hacking as the potion settled in on him and his body processed it.

Ford allowed the potion to settle in for a minute before stepping in front of Toby again, who was still coughing slightly. "Mr. Determined?"

"What the…?" Toby asked as he looked around. "What happened? Why do I feel like I've died inside?"

"He must get that feeling a lot," Stan said as he watched alongside the teens.

Mabel stepped forward, dragging her brother in front of her for Toby to see. "Toby, on a scale of 'yowza!' to 'bazinga!', how attracted are you to my brother, Dipper?"

Toby stared at Dipper for a moment before gaining a feeling of extreme awkwardness. "Yowza…" he said, trying to look away from him in disgust. "And I think I'd be arrested if I said anything higher."

"You're damn right you would be!" Stan confirmed, pointing a stern finger at him.

"This is so weird…" Toby said as he continued to look on at Dipper. "Was I obsessed with you just a moment ago? Gosh, what went over me? This is just too weird for me now! I can't look at you the same anymore!"

"No worries. You will again later," Ford said as he suddenly grabbed a long, wide tube attached to a machine behind him, holding it out in front of him.

He then pressed a button beside the tube, which expelled a puff of white gas in Toby's face. As Toby inhaled the gas, he felt himself suddenly drift off before becoming unconscious. The rest of the gas dissipated into the surrounding air, to which Ford then proceeded to connect the tube to another machine next to him.

"What did you do to him?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over Toby's unconscious body.

"Knockout gas," Ford told him simply. "I designed it myself."

"Does it... erase his memory too?" Dipper asked further. "I mean, he still remembered what the potion did to him."

"No memory erasure," Ford added.

"So... then what…?"

"Look, we already know the damaging effects that memory erasing does to the mind," Ford reminded them. "So rather than doing that on a large scale, we're going to try to play things a bit dumb here. Since we know it works, I'm going to combine the anti-love potion with an hour-long knockout gas, then send the mixture through the entire Mystery Shack ventilation upstairs. Everyone inside will receive the mixed effects, diminishing their love for Dipper and knocking them out."

"And how are we playing things dumb?" Mabel asked.

"Well, as said, we'll have an hour before the effects of the knockout gas wear off, and so in that time, we'll fix everything up and place all the party guests back in their positions in the floor room," Ford explained further as he placed the anti-love potion into a boiling machine. "The playing-dumb bit factors in when everyone reawakens, to which we'll simply try to play the whole thing off as a dream or something of the sort. I don't know the exact excuse yet, but if all goes to plan, we should be able to brush the whole thing under the rug as if nothing happened without potentially damaging anyone's mind."

"Which means I'll also be able to brush off my confession to Ryland as one big dream he had!" Mabel realized aloud.

"You sure you wanna do that?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe it's worth talking about and getting out of the way, now that it's out and about."

"True, but I didn't like the way he found out," Mabel told him.

"Well, as long as everyone is no longer in love with me and they could all brush off the whole thing as a dream and not see me weirdly afterward, then I'm good," Dipper said.

"Well, considering you're the guy they 'dreamed' about getting weird with, I think it's safe to say that you're still gonna get some weird looks your way," Mabel said with an amused smile as she rested her elbow on his shoulder. "But don't worry. I'm sure most of them will get over it after a day or two."

"It's better than having to explain anything," Dipper admitted, willing to accept his lesser fate.

"Mixture's ready to go," Ford said as he inserted the finished anti-love/knockout gas mixture into the machine. He then pressed a red button, which activated the machine, causing it to light up green. "Firing it through the upstairs ventilation now."

---

Through about every single vent throughout the Shack, a dark purple gas began to slowly fume through. In nearly every room, there stood at least a handful of people, though some rooms had significantly more people than others.

Most of the mob stood in the attic and within Dipper and Mabel's bedroom, where they were last seen. Though plenty stood out in the gift shop and living room as well.

As the gas settled in, however, people began to drop to the floor, the effects of the knockout gas in the mixture doing quick work. With a simple brush of the nose, the gas sent people unconscious. Before one knew it, the entire mob was knocked out entirely, with occasional stragglers able to crawl on the ground a bit before the gas finished them off.

The gas continued to pump through the vents for another minute or so before getting shut off. But the job had been long done at that point and the plan was working so far. Everyone in the Mystery Shack had been successfully knocked unconscious, with an approximate hour between them and their awakening.

After about five minutes of letting the gas dissipate and the air clear up, the Pines family quickly emerged from the basement, riding straight up the elevator and running up the stairs to see the results. As they looked around the gift shop, they saw just what they had hoped.

"It worked!" Dipper exclaimed, relieved. "Everyone's out cold!"

"Brilliant!" Ford said excitedly with a smile on his face. He glanced down at Meridian and checked the time. "Now we have about fifty-five minutes before they all wake up! In that time, we need to carefully drag all these bodies back into the floor room and make it look like none of this had ever happened. We need to be quick though!"

"Don't worry! This won't be the first time I've had to drag a bunch of bodies somewhere," Stan remarked casually before walking forward to begin the job. "Colombian prison punishments are brutal."

"As for you, Dipper…" Ford mentioned as he turned to his great-nephew. "While we're cleaning up the Shack and the guests, you need to go clean up yourself. Wash that cologne off your body as best as you can. Take a dozen showers and scrub every skin cell if you have to."

"Oh, believe me, Grunkle Ford. If it's been as long as I think it has been since his last shower, he's going to have to," Mabel assured him as he looked over at his brother.

"Alright, I get it," Dipper said with an eye roll as he began to make his way over to the bathroom, having already realized the vitality of his need to take a good shower for once. "I'll shower as best as I can."

"Make sure to use a hand scrub!" Mabel called out to him as he walked away. She looked back up at Ford, who gave her a curious look. "Again, he's probably gonna need it."

"Well, anyways, we should get to work," Ford stated as he glanced down at his watch again. "We're on the clock. The sooner we work, the better."

"Right!" Mabel agreed, just as the two began to join Stan in gathering bodies.

---

Time had passed quickly, but the Pines family had worked just as fast as they needed to. With approximately five more minutes still on the clock, Mabel, Stan, and Ford had managed to transport just about every unconscious body scattered throughout the Shack back to the floor room in manageable places and positions.

Mabel had been put in charge of placing everybody back in place as best as she could. She made sure that Soos and Melody were stationed back by the DJ booth, which had been fixed up after Soos collapsed over it. She left Soos' head resting on top of it at an angle that wouldn't cause yet another collapse, whereas she left Melody resting on the ground beside him with her back fixed up against the wall. Additionally, she had placed Candy and Grenda back under the table where they were previously hiding together, sat Wendy and all her friends in their seats back in their corner of the room, and even rested Ryland and Evan back on the separate ends of the couch. As for all the other party guests, she simply laid them around the dance floor or against the walls in groups and such, though she wasn't entirely sure who was hanging out with who, so she simply played mini-matchmaker and just grouped up those who looked best together.

While Mabel handled that, the Stan twins fixed up the damages throughout the Shack that were caused by the recklessness and carelessness of the running mobs of people. They had even placed the vending machine back in a functional position in front of the basement doorway, though Ford had commented how he needed a better way to secure it so such a blockage couldn't be simply toppled over with sheer force.

Luckily, most of the damages that needed fixing were very minimal and required nothing more than a bit of cleaning up and putting back into place. However, there were slightly more annoying destructions that were caused that they knew they had to worry about, but not right away, including the hole broken through the ceiling of Dipper and Mabel's room. Things that would take too much time to clean up or repair, they just put to the side to worry about later, agreeing to just make up dumb excuses should anyone ask.

Dipper spent about forty minutes in the shower, washing off every bit of his body to the fullest extent to ultimately assure he got rid of the smell of the cologne. While Ford had said that one shower didn't rid him of the scent entirely, that had been due to his overuse of it over several days. Even though Dipper had gone overboard when he put it on, it was the only time he had used it, and therefore, the scent wasn't as bonded to him as it had been to Ford.

Once he had finished, Dipper could even admit that it had been the cleanest he's ever felt. And he appreciated the feeling of walking out of the bathroom like a new man. He realized that he, perhaps, didn't value the feeling of being clean as much as he should've. Knowing that he had let his insecurities get the best of him enough to the point where he would stop showering made him feel ridiculous. Even if he was a busy man, there was always time to clean himself up.

That was a thought that made him smile as he looked on at himself in the mirror.

He proceeded to quickly get dressed, putting on a clean new red shirt and tossing away his old ripped-sleeves disaster in the trash. Upon placing his lumberjack hat back on his head, he glanced at himself in the mirror again and quickly knew something was still missing.

That's when he realized that he had left his navy blue hoodie back outside, still tying the attic window shut.

It was no chore to get it back, however, as he simply climbed back up the secret rooftop exit from the gift shop to make his way back to the roof. Then, he carefully ran along the tiles, making his way back outside to the attic window. There, he untied his hoodie from the hinges, brushing it off quickly. Before putting it back on, however, he gave it a quick whiff and quickly realized it was still heavily coated in the scent of the cologne.

Laundry was a whole separate story at that point, and while it was his signature hoodie since the start of high school, he wouldn't say he was really desperate for it at that moment.

"I'll buy a new one," he told himself casually, accepting the fact that it was probably time to retire the hoodie after all that it had been through.

He ran back to the rooftop exit, stepping past it to the edge of the tiles where he dropped the hoodie from the roof into the trash can below at the front of the gift shop. He then ran back to the trap door and climbed back down before making his way back to the floor room to join the rest of his family.

"I'm here and completely scrubbed down!" Dipper told them cheerfully as he presented himself to the three.

Mabel shoved her face within his personal space for a moment so she could smell for herself. "Hey! Nice going, bro-bro! You actually smell like a person again! I'm impressed!" she said as she gave him a playful shove in the arm. "Now if only you could act like one around girls, you'd be set!"

"Alright, don't push it now," Dipper warned her, though gave a hearty chuckle to her teasing, willing to accept that he still hadn't perfected his issues.

"But, seriously though. Nice work," she genuinely complimented, patting him on the back.

"Yes, excellent work, Dipper," Ford agreed as he looked down at his watch. "We're all right on time too. The hour just passed. Everyone should be waking up any second now." He looked back between the twins. "You two try to conceal yourselves from public sight so you don't attract obvious attention. Stan and I will deal with the confusion as it arises."

Dipper and Mabel nodded understandingly at his request and quickly rushed up the steps leading into the hallway, where the two stood back and simply poked their eyes out to watch from the doorway.

The four continued to wait through a good moment of continued silence and lack of movement from any of the unconscious guests. Ford himself began to grow nervous the more time that passed, internally hoping that he didn't mess up the knockout gas formula and create something that would last much longer or have some other negative effect.

However, after another two minutes, there was finally an ounce of movement from a young man in the corner of the room. He shuffled his body around on the ground for a bit, groaning exhaustively as he finally rose, rubbing his head and eyes.

Just as Stan and Ford glanced over at him, they noticed several other guests begin to move as well. Whether from the middle of the dance floor or the sides of the room, everyone began to come to little by little.

"What the...?" Gideon said as he suddenly jolted awake from the middle of the dance floor.

"Ugh... not on the rug, Mr. Catface…" Lazy Susan groaned as she sleepily rose up, rubbing the side of her head. As her eyes adjusted, she began to become aware of where she was. "Huh?"

"Five more minutes, Blubs…" Deputy Durland said as his head rested on top of Sheriff Blubs's stomach, moving up and down along with movements of Blubs's breathing. However, suddenly, he snorted and jolt awake, holding onto his head as his sight adjusted. "Wait... what?"

"You say something, Durly?" Blubs asked as he slowly came to as well, rising awake.

---

Dipper and Mabel watched as everyone slowly began to rise upwards from the floor, looking around in confusion.

"Looks like everyone's finally waking," Dipper claimed as they watched.

"Yep!" Mabel nodded. "Nice to see that all the positions I put them in are looking okay so far!"

As Dipper glanced around the room looking for familiar faces, he realized Derrick was nowhere in sight. "Hey, where'd you put Derrick at?"

"Oh, him?" Mabel questioned, putting on a grin. "Well, since you said I couldn't punch him, I decided to think of a more subtle way of getting revenge for indirectly causing all of this trouble…"

"Mabel, I swear, you better not have dumped his body in the lake…" Dipper said, beginning to grow unsettled by his sister's potential actions.

"WOAH THERE! Geez, Dipper! I don't like him, but I'm not that cruel," Mabel said defensively. "No, I just leaned him at a certain angle over at that table over there! Just think of what a wake-up call that'll be!"

She pointed across the room beside a table, where the two twins saw Derrick unconsciously leaning against it. With every passing second, he leaned a little bit more to the side, to which he soon woke up in the middle of his leaning. As he processed what was happening, he quickly fumbled and fell right on the side of his face, where he stayed lying flat on the ground in pain.

Dipper watched this as Mabel burst out laughing. While he never really agreed with the general idea of revenge against his friend, he was willing to accept it this one time.

"Okay, I'll let that one slide."

---

Back on the couch, Ryland slowly found himself waking up, groaning tiredly. He looked around and quickly saw several other people waking up and rising up as if they were just asleep a moment ago as well. Several thoughts were racing through his head, though he couldn't figure out which one to focus on.

"Ryland?"

He glanced over to his right and saw Evan wake up on the other end of the couch, rubbing his eyes.

"Evan? You too?" Ryland questioned, confused as he looked around at everyone else as they woke up. "God, what's going on?"

---

Wendy's body began to lean forward slowly as she remained in her slumber. As soon as she leaned forward hard enough, she found herself jolting straight awake suddenly.

"...what?!" she asked as she looked around. She then put a hand on the side of her head, thinking about what had happened, growing incredibly confused. "What the fu…?"

Beside her, she noticed a sleeping Thompson leaning forward out of his seat. At that moment, he fell onto the floor, his face planting right against the ground. The immediate impact caused him to jump awake, prompting him to hop to his feet as he stumbled around frantically.

"GAH! DIPPER, I'LL KILL YOU!" he screamed as he got into a defensive stance, but quickly realized where he was and noticed his surroundings, quickly growing confused. "Wait... what?"

"Thompson?" Wendy asked as her eyes glanced over at him, not sure where he had come from.

"Wendy?!" Thompson said, face going red upon noticing her right behind him.

"God, what just happened?" Tambry's voice interrupted as she found herself waking up a moment ago as well. She quickly heard snoring in her ear, to which she turned and noticed Robbie sleeping away right beside her in his seat. "Robbie, wake up!"

"Hmm... what?" Robbie questioned as he found himself casually waking up. He then looked around, rubbing his head in confusion.

Wendy glanced to the side, noticing that Lee and Nate were still asleep. "Lee! Nate!"

The two groaned as they immediately woke up on call. They quickly glanced around the room and their peers and were barely able to process what was happening either.

"Did... everyone just wake up?" Lee asked as he scratched his head.

"Dude, I have absolutely no idea about anything anymore," Wendy admitted as she rubbed her eyes.

---

"Huh?" Melody asked as she woke up, surprised to find herself on the floor. Her head then turned to look over at Soos, who sat at the DJ stand, head laid on top, drooling as he slept. "Soos?"

"GAH! UBER THRASH BROS ULTIMATE COMES OUT IN 2018!" Soos stammered as he bounced up from his seat in panic.

"Wait, does it?!" Melody asked, eyes widening in near-excitement at this claim.

"I don't know…" Soos admitted, scratching his head curiously as he tried to think about it. But he found himself confused as he realized he was right in front of his DJ stand. "Wait... what just happened?"

He then turned his head, looking over his DJ booth to see Stan and Ford walking up to him and into his booth.

"Mr. Pines? Mr. Pines Number Two?" he asked, still trying to readjust from his sleep. However, from what he was able to recall at that moment, he thought the two had walked out on the party.

"Ford, son. You could just say Ford," Ford reminded him for the second time that day.

"Right. Sorry," Soos apologized, recalling the claim. "It's just... I kinda just woke up. Or, at least, I think I just did. I really don't know anymore…"

"Soos, can we borrow the microphone you use here so we can make an announcement?" Stan asked, gesturing over to the microphone at the stand in the middle of the booth.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sure," Soos accepted as he walked over to the microphone, quickly flicking some switches at the booth before handing it over to them.

Ford took the microphone in his hand and tapped on the top a few times to check if it worked, which it did, as proved by the taps amplified through the speakers. This grabbed the attention of just about every single guest, who all looked up at Stan and Ford at the booth in confusion.

"Hello? Is this thing on?" Ford spoke into the microphone as one final test. Assured that it was working, he nodded. "Good. Anyways, good evening, everybody. I'm sure several of you are very confused as to what had just happened and why you all suddenly find yourselves scattered throughout the room after awakening from a supposed unexpected slumber. Well, I can provide a very simple explanation for this..."

There was a moment of silence as Ford realized he didn't have an excuse very well prepared, which was the last thing they needed for this plan to have been successful. However, as he tried to think about it, he continued to struggle to find something believable and easy to accept. This caused him to start panicking internally.

"You see... um…" he began to stall, followed by another brief silence. Several eyebrows throughout the room raised as he continued to delay his answer. "The honest answer... if I were to give it... would be... uh…"

Dipper and Mabel continued to watch everything unfold from the hallway. Though they were able to quickly realize that Ford didn't know what to say and that he was stalling. They started to grow nervous themselves, hoping he wouldn't ruin everything they'd worked for up to that point.

"C'mon, Grunkle Ford!" Dipper whispered hopefully to themselves, clenching his fists nervously.

"I feel it would be best to explain things in a simple manner…" Ford continued to stall, his forehead beginning to balm with sweat. "...which... would... be…"

Tired of his stalling and stuttering, Stan quickly grabbed the mic away from Ford and confidently held it up to his own mouth. "I'll tell you what happened! You party people got so crazy with those drinks of yours that you all fell asleep!" he made up, which prompted everyone to start weirdly looking around at one another. "That's right! Every single one of you! Don't believe me? Well... I mean... you all were just asleep a moment ago, and so I feel that's enough proof to show!"

"Um... but none of the drinks you set up were alcoholic!" a teenager pointed out from beside the drink table.

Stan processed this for a minute, trying to figure out how to address the teen's point. "Well, duh! You think that's what I meant? There's a lot of sugar in those sodas and... err... that punch! I mean, c'mon! Didn't your mothers ever tell you when you were young not to have so much sugar or else you'd get a sugar rush?"

"But I never even had a drink!" another teen raised their hand from the middle of the crowd.

"Sugar rush is contagious!" Stan added with the snap of his fingers. "And instantaneous!"

The teen remained quiet for a moment as he processed this explanation. "Huh. Guess you learn something new every day."

Several partygoers around the room nodded and murmured in agreement, which seemed to imply that they were all buying Stan's excuse. Ford looked over at Stan in disbelief that his obviously fake excuse was actually working. Dipper and Mabel smiled from the hallway, glancing over at one another hopefully at how things were looking to turn out.

"Now luckily, sugar rush doesn't come with as bad of a hangover... unless you're my great niece…" Stan continued. "Which means that all of you are going to be okay! And also, none of this is on us, so don't think about suing! And also, just about everything you remember from the last hour or so when you were conscious was all a dream!" He paused for a moment to let everything he said set in. "Anyways, you all can resume partying as normal! Hit it, Soos!" he said as he turned to Soos, putting a hand over the microphone to cover it as he leaned over and whispered into his ear. "Before any of these morons ask any questions!"

"I have so many questions right now too, but whatever you say, Mr. Pines!" Soos shrugged off as he leaned a hand over to his computer and began playing a track through the speakers.

As the music began to play again, nearly everyone stood still on the dance floor, still trying to process everything they had just been told. But soon enough, they began to just brush off their confusion and resume dancing again.

"I still got it," Stan said as he placed the microphone down, happy he hadn't lost his touch with the ability to tell good lies and sell them to people.

"Sweet Moses…" Ford said in disbelief as he watched everyone slowly begin to go back to normal as if nothing had happened. "I can't believe that actually... worked!"

"What have I been telling ya, Poindexter?" Stan asked as he crossed his arms. "The people in this town are idiots. I can name only a few people who are capable of reading past such an obvious lie."

"Who might those be?" Ford asked.

"I don't know," Stan admitted as he tried to think about it. "Eh. It's probably not important."

---

Robbie sat beside Tambry, still trying to process the things that Stan had claimed over the microphone. "So the last hour I remember was a dream?" he asked himself. "Thank god. I was about to freak out for a second, thinking that somehow I had actually gotten a crush on that stupid Pines kid."

"You too?" Tambry asked, eyes widening in disbelief.

"Wait, you had the same dream?" Robbie asked, eyes also widening. "How…?"

"Hey, you know what they say- great pairs think alike," Lee claimed casually from beside the two as he overheard their conversation.

"Who the hell says that?" Nate asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Shut up, man! I'm trying to get them to stop arguing..." Lee whispered over to him.

Tambry glanced over at Lee before turning back to Robbie, playing with her hair awkwardly. "Maybe he's right..."

"Yeah, maybe…" Robbie said as he smiled up at her. "Hey, you wanna make out for a bit? After that dream, I think it'd be a good reminder of how much I really value our relationship."

"Agreed," Tambry nodded as she wrapped her arms around Robbie's neck, and the two proceeded to lock lips with one another.

"Alright, I think I could've gone without seeing that," Nate said as he looked away from the two, putting a hand up to shield his peripheral vision from being able to see them either.

From the side of the teens, Wendy sat looking down. She thought over the whole 'dream' thing and how she caught that Robbie and Tambry had 'dreamed' the same thing that she had as well. She didn't want to chime in sharing the same thoughts, but she found it incredibly coincidental. But while she wasn't sure enough of what had really happened, she wasn't stupid enough to fall for what was clearly one of Stan's lies.

It was at that moment that she looked up and noticed Dipper and Mabel walking down the floor room stairs. They gave one another a thumbs-up before heading in separate directions. That said everything to her.

Something had happened.

---

Dipper made his way over across the dance floor and approached Derrick, who was rubbing the side of his face he fell on earlier.

"What's up with you?" Dipper asked as he approached him, pretending not to know.

Derrick turned to him and realized who he was. He gave him an odd look as he recalled what had happened in his supposed dream, but tried to dismiss it. "Uh... fell on my face." He then looked at his appearance. "What happened to your hoodie?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm gonna get a new one tomorrow or something," Dipper quickly brushed off.

"Riiight," Derrick simply accepted as he continued to rub the side of his face. "Anyways, what exactly just happened? Did everyone here seriously pass out because of a sugar rush?"

"Something like that," Dipper shrugged off.

"I don't even remember having a drink today," Derrick said as he tried to recall if he had. "I don't know. Maybe I did. I'm just so confused right now. Like I'm torn between what's real and what's not."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I won't go into too much detail because things get... substantially weird…" Derrick mentioned as he thought about his 'dream'. "But I thought we had already met up before. And I thought we were looking for... cologne... or something. I don't know. Everything just gets weird after that."

"Cologne? Pfft…" Dipper faked a laugh as he heard this. "Yeah, man. You were totally dreaming alright. I don't think I've ever worn cologne before in my life!"

"Huh…" Derrick said as he scratched his head. "Weird, because I had figured that you needed it before. Though that might've been my idea..."

"Well, it must've been a pretty stupid idea," Dipper told him.

"The more I think about it, it probably was..." Derrick told him as he dragged his hands down the sides of his face tiredly, which made him wince due to the pain on one side. "Yeah, this hurts."

"There's an ice pack in the kitchen freezer if you want," Dipper suggested.

"I'll go check that out," Derrick nodded as he began to walk off. "Thanks."

"No problem, man," Dipper said, before coming up with a final idea of what to say. "Don't forget! We're the best of bros!"

Derrick stopped in place to turn back to him, giving him a weirded-out look. "Alright, do us both a favor and never say that ever again."

"Gotcha," Dipper nodded with an amused smirk, knowing for sure now that his best friend truly had reverted back to normal.

"Yo, Dipper," a familiar voice called out to him from behind.

He turned around and his eyes bulged, immediately growing nervous and feeling a wave of awkwardness overcome him. "Oh... uh... hey, Wendy! What's up?"

"I honestly have no idea anymore," she admitted as she stopped in front of him, folding her arms. "But I ain't really buying Stan's whole sugar rush deal and neither would anyone else with a brain."

"Really?" Dipper asked, beginning to feel his nervous sweats start to form as he had a feeling he knew where she was going with things.

"C'mon, man," Wendy said with a slightly amused smile as she playfully punched him in the shoulder. "I've worked for Stan. I know a lie from him when I hear one. You guys are a tight family that tells each other everything. What was the real reason everyone here got knocked out?"

"Uh, can't say! Guess it's just another mystery, huh? Heheh…" Dipper chuckled as he tried to play dumb in front of her.

It wasn't working though. Wendy knew that he knew she was smarter than that and just stared on at him, only raising an eyebrow when he tried to cover it up.

"Dude, you know I'm not dumb," Wendy told him, her smile fading. "I'm not trying to get you in trouble or anything. I just wanna know the truth. I won't tell anybody else."

Dipper sighed, realizing he had to be as upfront with her as possible in order to satisfy her wants. However, at the same time, he couldn't imagine how she'd think of him if she knew that the whole love-potion-cologne incident had actually happened and that she had actually come close to kissing him. The fact was that she wanted to know what caused everyone to blackout. She didn't seem to question him on the crush or the near-kiss.

Perhaps he was being too paranoid and she'd be chill with the idea once she knew it was because she was unintentionally under an influence. But at the same time, their friendship and views of one another weren't something he was willing to jeopardize. They had already dealt with these types of feelings four years ago, and he wasn't going to take this as a chance to come digging them back up again.

He sighed. "The truth is... one of Ford's lab experiments accidentally made it into the punch and we didn't find out until later after everyone started acting weird. You, Ryland, Soos, Melody, and pretty much everyone else who had any punch then blacked out and as an excuse, Stan decided to pin the whole thing as a sugar rush rather than a wrong and potentially dangerous ingredient. Luckily, the ingredient needs to be drunk in large dosages, so it's safe to say you and everyone else are going to be alright. And anyone who got affected but didn't drink the punch must've been affected by one of the surrounding gases expelled from those who have drunk it."

Wendy stared at him for a second, processing everything he had told her. "That's what really happened?"

Dipper silently nodded, continuing to feel his nervous sweats develop.

After a brief moment, Wendy smiled and looked up, shaking her head. "Freakin' Ford, man. I'm telling you. If anyone is gonna get us all killed one of these days, it's gonna be either him or Stan. Maybe Bill isn't even the real enemy after all," she joked, lightly chuckling.

Dipper chuckled along with her, hoping it meant that he was in the clear. "Right…"

"But, really. Thanks for telling the truth," Wendy said as she looked on at him. "Again, I won't tell anybody. It's just nice to know that there's some honesty to be had around here."

The more she went on, the guiltier Dipper began to feel. "Yep. Of course. Anything for a friend…"

"Ehem!"

Dipper and Wendy both then turned to the side where they both saw Thompson, who stood approaching Wendy with something behind his back. He looked slightly nervous as he walked up to her.

"Oh, hey Thompson," she greeted casually. "What's up?"

"Yo, Wendy," Thompson greeted back, trying to maintain his deep, suave voice as opposed to the raspy voice he possessed when confronting Dipper earlier. He shook a little bit as he cleared his throat. "You know, since you're going away soon, I decided to get you these..." he said as he pulled the bouquet of flowers from behind his back and held it out in front of her. "...as a going-away gift."

Wendy's eyes bulged as she looked on at the flowers, but not in a good way. As he held them out to her, she promptly took a few steps back, placing herself behind Dipper and using him as a defense. "Uh... Thompson?! The gesture is sweet... but those are Crossfires!"

"Y-yeah, they are," Thompson said, glancing back and forth between her and the flowers, appearing confused as to why she reacted the way she did. "I thought you said you liked Crossfire Tulips! At the cemetery!"

"No, Thompson... I said I was allergic to Crossfire Tulips!" Wendy clarified to him as she walked backward a few steps, pulling Dipper along with her to keep shielding herself.

"Oh, crap!" Thompson shouted, panicking as she told him this.

He proceeded to chuck the bouquet of flowers aimlessly across the floor room, just trying to dispose of it as quickly as he could. He then looked back at Wendy who slowly proceeded to stop hiding behind Dipper after the flowers were gone.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Wendy," Thompson apologized, face as red as can be. "I must have misheard or wasn't paying attention or... or... something!"

"It's cool, Thompson," Wendy assured him as she stepped out from behind Dipper. "I mean, you meant well, at least…"

"Right," Thompson nodded embarrassedly as he scratched the back of his head. "Well, I'm just gonna go to the snack table and... eat a lot…" he said as he proceeded to walk away awkwardly from the two without another word.

Dipper and Wendy watched him walk off, both of them feeling kind of bad for him. Though Dipper felt much worse, having known what Thompson had gone through and how he felt. Sure, he may have gotten aggressive towards him before when he thought he kissed Wendy, but the thought that Thompson had been through so much and worked so hard for so long only to have his moment ripped away from him again by fate just made it hard not to feel for him.

Ultimately, as much as he would spend more time feeling bad for Thompson, there was something else about his interaction with Wendy that had stuck out to him.

"Wait, what did he mean when he said you were going away soon?" Dipper asked as he turned to her. As he asked this question, he could see Wendy scrunch her face up, as if he had just busted her for something she had been trying to keep secret. "Wendy…?"

"Guess it's my turn to be the honest one, huh?" Wendy asked with a guilty smile. "Look, I just wanted to say that I was planning to tell you and Mabel about this sooner but…"

"You're leaving?" Dipper asked, his face displaying disbelief.

Wendy stared at him for a moment before letting out a mellow sigh. "I'm moving away to Portland for college at the end of the month."

"For college?" Dipper asked. "But, I thought you were already going to college locally!"

"I got expelled," Wendy admitted, beginning to feel terrible as she revealed this information to him.

"Expelled?! From college?! How?" Dipper asked, each new revelation shocking him further.

"Look, man, I don't really feel like getting into it that deeply..." she calmly admitted as she placed her hands on his shoulders. "And trust me, I know this is a lot to take in and that I should've told both you and your sister about this long before. But trust me, eventually, I'll just lay it all down for you guys. It's just... things have been hard lately, and while we're here at this party with my friends and stuff, I'd just rather not start getting too personal about this stuff right now, if you know what I mean."

"I understand," Dipper nodded, still trying to process everything. "But... you're really leaving Gravity Falls at the end of the month? We really won't get to see you again for the rest of the summer?"

"C'mon, man, don't think like that," Wendy tried to tell him positively. "I'm only gonna be about a few hours away, and while that's not close enough for constant visits, it doesn't make seeing each other again impossible. After I'm settled in over there, I'll probably drop by occasionally for weekends and stuff. And I mean, we just found out this morning that Soos and Melody are getting married next month. You think that I'm gonna miss something like that?"

Dipper thought it over, looking over to the side. "I mean, I guess not, but-"

"It won't be goodbye, man," Wendy assured him. "It won't. And we still got more than a week until the month ends. If there's ever an adventure for us to go on or a time for us to hang out between now and then, then we'll just take it. Simple as that."

"But-"

"All that matters now is that we make the rest of the summer count," Wendy tried to further assure him. "As best as we can."

Dipper knew the point she was trying to make but still couldn't fathom the idea that she was actually going away soon. The questions he had but knew he couldn't ask yet just continued to lurk around his mind and it made him feel weak.

But for Wendy, he had to stay strong. She didn't want to make a big deal out of things right now and told him that there would come a better time for questions. And so until that time comes, he had to follow what she told him.

Make the rest of the summer count as best as they could.

He finally smiled back at her. "Okay," he nodded, which prompted a smile back from her.

---

Mabel quickly ran to the side of the floor room and saw the couch where Ryland sat at. He still appeared confused as to what had just happened and simply sat there talking to Evan. She knew that their last encounter involved him finding out her feelings for him, but his feelings were disrupted by the sudden scent of Dipper's love cologne, and so she still had yet to figure out what he thought of her. Or even if he was thinking about her confession.

Either way, she was there to amend whatever problems she needed to. She took a deep breath and exhaled before making her way over to him.

"Ryland?" she asked as she stood in front of him and Evan.

Ryland's eyes bulged slightly. "Oh... uh... hey, Mabel." He glanced over at his little brother and gave him a look. As Evan received this look, he glanced back and forth between him and her once before walking away.

Now it was just the two of them. Mabel didn't know what he knew or what he was thinking, nor did she know how to propel the conversation forward. So she decided to just ask something that she wanted to be clear about.

"Hey! Uh... quick random question…" she began as she sat next to him, though a comfortable distance away. "How do you feel about my brother?"

Ryland didn't appear to expect this question. "Uh, Dipper? He's, uh, cool, I guess."

"Just cool?" Mabel asked, proceeding to look at him interrogatively. "You don't harbor any other feelings?"

"Uhh... no…?" Ryland assured, glancing around curiously. "

"Phew! Well, that's good," Mabel said, relieved.

"I guess?" Ryland asked, confused by the general question. "Anyways, uh, is there any chance we could talk about this whole crush thing?

"Pfft... what crush?" Mabel pretended to not know what he was talking about but felt her face reddening as he asked this.

"Huh, maybe that was all just part of the dream anyway…" Ryland realized as he thought over her response.

"D-dream?" Mabel asked.

"Ah, it's nothing," Ryland assured her. "Just having a hard time trying to come to terms with what was real and what was a dream over the past hour or so. I thought that maybe this moment where you said you had a-"

He stopped and looked over at her, to which he figured he'd be making a mistake by mentioning what he was about to mention.

However, as Mabel looked back at him, she realized that Dipper was right. She was making a mistake by not coming clean now. She had a chance now to talk over things and get any feelings between them resolved. If she hid them yet again, it would be an entire situation for another day. And she didn't want to keep chasing after something for too long if there wasn't really anything to find.

"You know what? Nevermind," he brushed off. "It's not important. Anyways-"

"Wait!" Mabel cut off, covering her face with her hands out of embarrassment. "I lied! I knew what you were talking about! It wasn't a part of the dream!"

"Wait, what?"

She sighed as she looked down and rubbed her arm awkwardly. "Ryland... I do like you."

Ryland's eyes widened as she told him this. "Oh... then why...?"

"I just didn't want to risk ruining the friendship we already made these past few weeks if you didn't feel the same," Mabel explained. "I was gonna tell you at some point. Just... I guess I didn't picture to like this."

Ryland stared at her, trying to figure out how to respond. "I... uh... I gotcha."

She caught his expression and his tone and immediately began to grow even more embarrassed with herself. She sighed disappointedly. "Look, I can tell you don't feel the same. So could we just forget that this ever happened and just... try to keep things how they were before? Even if we can't be together, I still really like being your friend..."

"Well, like, I'm just trying to process everything right now," Ryland said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I mean, this is like... kind of a lot to take in for me.

"Oh…" Mabel said sadly, turning away with embarrassment.

"But yeah, I really like being your friend too," Ryland told her. "But maybe if you're down, later tonight we could do something together, just you and me? After the party?"

Mabel's eyes widened as she turned back to him. "You mean... something together as friends? Or together as... 'friennnnnds'."

Ryland started to smile awkwardly as he continued to rub the back of his neck. "I think'friennnnnds' sounds about right." He paused for a second. "If that means what I think you mean..."

"I meant it as a date."

"Then yeah, that's what I thought."

"Well then, I'd love to!" Mabel told him as she began to smile widely at him.

However, her smile disappeared as she suddenly looked over his shoulder and right past him. In the back of the room, away from most of the other partygoers, she spotted Stan and Ford hanging out on their own, talking with one another.

She had just been asked out by the guy she had been crushing on since arriving at Gravity Falls. Going on a date that night meant ditching the party and going out to do their own things. While she was thrilled to finally have that opportunity with Ryland, she knew what was more important at that moment.

"...but I'm gonna have to say no to going later tonight," Mabel finished, giving him an apologetic smile. "I already made plans to spend it with my Grunkles."

"Oh, I gotcha," Ryland said with an understanding nod.

"But we can go on Monday!" Mabel offered. "Gives you tomorrow to plan!"

Ryland smiled. "Sounds good. Monday it is."

"Great," she told him with a warm smile.

She proceeded to look over his shoulder and back at her great-uncles, ensuring they were still where they were. Ryland caught her glance and turned to look behind her, immediately understanding what she was looking at.

"I know we're kinda having a moment now, but, um, you don't mind if I…?" Mabel began.

"No, of course not!" Ryland assured her, standing up from the couch and gesturing for her to go right on ahead. "They're your family. Who am I to tell you otherwise?"

"Cool!" she said as she stood up from the couch and began making her way over to them. She gave him one final glance, catching him as he tried to glance away from her. This caused her to blush once more before she gave him a final wave. "Well, see you Monday."

"Right," he nodded at her as he waved back. "Monday."

As Mabel walked off a good distance away, she found herself suddenly embraced in a power hug.

"EEEEE!" Grenda and Candy excitedly shrieked in her ears as they hugged her tightly.

"Mabel! Ryland just asked you out!" Candy exclaimed happily for her.

"THIS IS SO EXCITING!" Grenda shouted with a wide smile. "I'm still like... really confused as to why we were all sleeping a few minutes ago, BUT I'M STILL SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"

"Aw, you guys are the best!" Mabel said as she wrapped her own arms around the two.

"Do you know what you're going to wear yet?" Grenda asked.

"He didn't say where he was going to take you, did he?" Candy pressed further.

"WE NEED DETAILS!" Grenda demanded.

"Girls, girls! I know you two are excited and trust me, I am too!" Mabel assured them as she tried to calm them down. "But maybe we can catch up on all this and more another time?"

"We can have a sleepover at my place tomorrow!" Grenda suggested. "We can spend the night catching up, watching movies, reading romance novels, and making dresses for your date!"

"That sounds perfect!" Mabel nodded enthusiastically at the idea. "We'll catch up on everything tomorrow. But for now, I need to be a Mabel in two grunkles' lives."

"Awww, okay," Grenda and Candy said somewhat glumly as they watched her continue to walk off in the direction of the Stan twins. Though they still remained enthused by the idea that they'd all meet up again the next day for a sleepover.

"Ehem!"

The two girls turned to the side only to see Evan casually standing right next to them, particularly beside Candy. He appeared to face away from them, but he clearly meant to grab their attention.

"Oh, boy…" Candy said unenthusiastically as Grenda began to grin amusedly right beside her.

---

"Well, it looks like everything is back to normal around here," Ford said as he stood beside Stan, eyes looking around the room to see everybody acting normally again. He patted the side of his jacket, where he felt the cologne was still secure inside. "I guess the only thing I have left to do is dispose of this cologne to ensure this doesn't become a problem to any of us ever again."

"Yeah, and while you're at it, maybe put better warning labels on those other experiments of yours," Stan suggested. "I know it was the kid's fault for going into the basement and touching around at things he didn't know about, but it probably would've helped if there was a better warning on those things."

"True," Ford agreed. "I suppose I could take all of this into account when I finish cleaning up the lab. Dispose of all the old experiments I don't need anymore. Make warning labels for the things I still do need." He sighed. "It'll certainly be a trip going down memory lane, that's for sure. I remember working on a bulk of those experiments with Fiddleford. I wonder how he's holding up nowadays."

"Well, old friend," a familiar southern voice spoke up from behind him. "Aside from the occasional tick in the ol' noggin, I'd say I'm holdin' up mighty fine."

"My God... do my eyes deceive me?" Ford asked as he was greeted by the sight of his old friend. "Fiddleford H. McGucket?"

"Stanford F. Pines," Fiddleford greeted happily as he walked up to him with a knob-handle cane to aid him. He held out his hand for him to shake. "It's good to see you again, old friend."

"Good to see me? It's good to see you!" Ford said excitedly as he shook his hand, looking down at his appearance.

Compared to the old man with a scarecrow's hat and suspenders that he had met again four years ago, Fiddleford looked to be almost a completely different man. No longer did he don brown suspenders, but a fancy brown suit and tie, very akin to the one he wore during his younger days. He had also gotten rid of his hat, cleaned up his long, white beard, and also managed to finally put on some shoes. An old man he still looked, but he also looked much healthier and much happier.

"God, F! You look far better now than you did the last time we spoke!" Ford told him, greatly impressed. "Err, no offense..."

"None taken," Fiddleford dismissed, holding up his hand. "You're absolutely right anyway. I'm far better these days than when we last met. Submitting all those ol' blueprints to the government brought me this new life. And because it was your idea, I owe it all to you."

"Ah, it's nothing," Ford brushed off. "What kind of friend would I be not to aid one of the smartest minds I know? Especially after what I'd done to him so long ago?"

"Ah, Ford. Always so hard on yourself," Fiddleford shook his head at Ford's humbleness. "What have I told ya? It's water under the bridge! I'm tellin' ya, if ya ever need anythin' from me, I'd be more than happy to oblige."

Ford glanced to the side, rubbing his chin as he thought of this. He then proceeded to walk up to him, smiling as he placed a hand on his back, guiding him away from Stan. "Well, now that I think about it, perhaps, there is a matter we can discuss."

"Right, I'll just stick right here… on my own…" Stan said as his brother walked off with Fiddleford away from him.

"We'll be just a moment, Stanley," Ford assured him as he looked back at him for a quick moment. Once he and Fiddleford were a good distance away from most people to talk privately, he stopped them in place. "So, Fiddleford, what brings you around here on such an evening?"

"Well, I found an invite at the front of the mansion this morning for this here welcome home party for you and your brother. I figured it's been four years. What kind of friend would I be not to drop by and say hello after so long?" Fiddleford explained. "Though I got the time wrong and only just arrived here a few minutes ago, so apologies if I missed the main event."

"No, trust me. You didn't miss anything," Ford assured him with an amused chuckle. "Anyway, how's that brilliant mind of yours holding up after all this time?"

"The screws tend to go loose every now and then," Fiddleford admitted as he rubbed the side of his head. "But besides that, I'd be darned not to say that my memory's almost completely regressed!"

"That's good to hear..." Ford said as his tone suddenly became serious, his smile fading away into a stern expression. "...because, old friend, I'm afraid we have a dangerous situation ahead of us for which that brilliance is really gonna need to come to use."

"Huh? What're you talkin' about?" Fiddleford questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm going to tell you what," Ford assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder as he carefully glanced around the room to ensure no one was watching them. "But I need to know that you're mentally prepared for it. For I'm afraid of how you might react when I tell you."

"Ford, in the past four years since you departed from Gravity Falls, I've been 'round to some of the highest government facilities in the country. I've seen and heard plenty that I wish I hadn't, yet I've managed to resist all urge to ever use that blasted memory gun again," Fiddleford explained to him. "Trust me. Whatever you have to tell me, I promise I can handle it."

Ford accepted his assurance and sighed preparedly. "Bill Cipher has returned."

"SWEET CORN SYRUP ON A BARBEQUED BANJO!" Fiddleford shouted fearfully, appearing to regress into his previously psychotic state of mind, doing a slight jig as he freaked out. "THE WORLD IS DOOOOOMED!"

He proceeded to give himself a quick, yet firm slap in the face, which seemed to knock him out of it.

"SORRY! Sorry!" Fiddleford apologized as he straightened himself out, trying to calm himself down. "I'm still working on that. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "Anyways, what do you mean Bill Cipher has returned?"

"It's a long story, but to explain the current crisis at hand, Bill has taken shelter within the corner of Stan's mind, with the capability to pop up and take control whenever he's at full strength," Ford explained. "We encountered him yesterday and were able to subdue him and get Stan to regain control, but Bill still lurks within him."

"I see," McGucket nodded understandingly as he listened.

"That's about where we're at here," Ford concluded. "Now we need to find another way to remove Bill from Stan's mind and destroy him once and for all. That, however, I can't say I have many ideas about how to do. Considering erasing Stan's entire memory didn't work, I'm unsure what else can be done."

McGucket thought for a solid moment, rubbing his chin. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers as he came up with something. "I think I have an idea! Remember that weapon you told me you had constructed during your trips through the portal? The one you were initially gonna use against Bill?"

"The Quantum Destabilizer?" Ford asked, realizing what he was referring to. "That thing is a super-powered, radioactive death ray! I'm just trying to wipe Bill from Stan's mind, F."

"I understand that," Fiddleford nodded assuringly. "But what if we channel the weapon in a way so it links to the mind? Similar to how I designed the memory gun. Reprogram it as the death ray against demons and other creatures hidden within the human mind!"

"It's an interesting concept," Ford admitted. "But I already used the last bit of charge stored on it. And the element I used to power it can only be found in another dimension."

"You also told me that the element was needed for maximum power in order to blast creatures like Bill out of existence!" Fiddleford reminded him. "But Bill ain't at his maximum power when he's cramped up in a normal body he doesn't have complete control over! Therefore, we don't need some interdimensional super element! We just need something capable of providin' enough power to give the slightest bit of charge! We're not trying to annihilate your brother, are we?" he asked with a light chuckle. "Unless you want to that is…"

"No! No, I don't want to do that," Ford chuckled at his twisted little joke. "Alright, I guess I see where you're coming from. The only thing is I left the Destabilizer in the old underground bunker because I figured it might've been too dangerous to keep around the Shack, even if it was drained. So I'll have to go back down there and retrieve it one of these days."

"We can go there together!" McGucket suggested. "I've actually been down into the bunker several times over the past few years, makin' adjustments and fixes to the layout and such. While we look for the Destabilizer, I can also show you what I've been up to down there!"

"Sounds like a plan," Ford nodded at the idea. "We can go tomorrow."

"Actually, I'm gonna have to leave in a second here for a trip back to Area 51. Tomorrow, I gotta help them fix a malfunction they made to the death ray I gave them step-by-step schematics for," he told him while giving an annoyed facepalm at the thought. "This darn country... anyway, we can go down to the bunker on Monday instead."

"Monday it is, then," Ford said as he offered his hand for McGucket to shake, which he did.

McGucket then looked down at his wristwatch, realizing it was time for him to leave. He proceeded to walk off with his cane. "Welp. I'll see you Monday, Ford. The chopper's waiting outside."

"Good luck, Fiddleford!" Ford waved at him. "It was a pleasure to see you again!"

With everything said and done, Ford proceeded to walk back over to his brother, where he saw Dipper and Mabel standing right beside him. They all watched as he approached, to which he looked surprised to see the two there with them.

Dipper pointed over in the direction McGucket head in curiously. "Was that... McGucket?"

"He looks so spiffy now!" Mabel said, realizing how much cleaner he looked now.

"Yes, he just dropped by to say hello," Ford briefly summed up. "Nevermind that, though. What are you two doing here? I thought you were handling your own personal businesses."

"Well, I finished clearing things up with Wendy and Derrick," Dipper replied as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Making sure neither of them really wanted to date me anymore."

"Meanwhile, this girl's got herself a date!" Mabel exclaimed happily as she pointed two thumbs at herself.

Stan had taken a sip from a cup of water he held in his hand and proceeded to do a spit take as he heard this. "Say what?!"

"Yep, but that's for another day!" she clarified as she proceeded to hug the Stans. "Today, we celebrate the best Grunkles in the world and their return to Gravity Falls!"

"Geez, kid," Stan said with a hearty chuckle. "Don't you ever get tired of hugging?"

"Nope!" Mabel shook her head as she pressed it against Stan's chest.

"Well, I do," Stan said, before proceeding to place an arm around her anyway. "But I'll make one last exception."

"You kids are too kind," Ford said with a warm smile. "It's moments like these that we missed most about coming home." Suddenly, a thought came back to mind. "On an unrelated note, however, I have to ask: despite how critical it was to our success, did anybody else wonder earlier how we were the only ones that couldn't be affected by the cologne's influence?"

"Honestly, I choose not to wonder about that," Stan said, disgusted by the idea of being affected by the potion himself.

"I mean, the family part of me does too," Ford agreed. "But the researcher part of me honestly remains somewhat curious."

"Well, tell the researcher part of you to tone it the hell down," Stan replied bitterly.

"Maybe the reason it didn't affect us is that we're family and we already love each other!" Mabel suggested as she wrapped her arms around everybody, bringing everyone close together. "And no love potion is stronger than the power of natural love!"

"That's sweet, kid," Stan told her, smiling warmly. "Incredibly corny, but sweet."

"Oh, you want incredibly corny?" Mabel asked as she stood back, giving the three daring smiles. "In that case, I think it's time to bring a certain band back for a reunion tour…"

"Sev'ral Timez?" Dipper questioned, not knowing what band she could be talking about.

"Try all you want, sweetie, but you're never gonna pull those beautiful men away from those trees," Stan told her bluntly.

"Oh, that's not the band I was thinking of," she said as she slowly pulled up a purple book in her hands.

The cover displayed a picture of a microphone and the title: Karaoke Songs. Right away, Dipper and Stan's eyes both narrowed at the sight of the book, while Ford just looked on in confusion.

"Aw, son of a…"

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ZMW GSV SVZIGYIVZPVI DROO OVZW GSV DZB

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Hope you all are enjoying the longer chapters because they ain't gonna get much shorter. Just thought I'd warn you all now.

-Absolute Rift

(Chapter updated as of December 30, 2022)