Dipper sighed, shifting on the armchair. He held the mysterious book of "3" in his hands, but was not reading. His eyes skimmed the pages, sure, and his fingers flipped the paper when he reached each end, but he was not comprehending. He was not learning.
It had been a few hours since Mabel left. Dipper had decided against going after her, instead opting to take a shower and let her calm down. His twin had been very emotional lately, and he figured it had to do with growing up.
Yikes.
He thumbed through the book's parchment paper, eyes gliding over illustrations and scrawled warnings.
"She'll get over it," he murmured to himself. "She always does. She's Mabel."
He chuckled, thinking of the girl's soul-crushing sadness and almost instant recovery over the loss of her soul mate, a ball of yarn.
"Oink oink."
Dipper looked down at a hunk of pink fat, nuzzling up against his foot.
"Hey buddy," Dipper murmured, attempting to scratch the fifteen-pound pig's head.
His efforts were received with a harsh squeal and thumping all the way towards the door.
Dipper frowned. Waddles had never acted like that before. Usually the pig was docile and content, loving affection and not caring who it came from.
Maybe he had gotten swine flu.
Dipper quickly raced to the kitchen and washed his hands. His paranoid thoughts wouldn't let him stop thinking about the illness until they were squeaky clean and dry from all the soap and hot water.
Mabel would be fine.
So would Waddles.
Dipper tried returning to his book on the mysterious fae and foes of his Summer home. He really, truly did. But he couldn't.
He left with the memory of Mabel, unmoving except the thunk of her head against a totem pole for a month.
He needed to fix this.