Chapter 3: Invest in (Family) Bonds
Dipper woke up to a soft light coming in from his window. He sat up, stretched out his upper body, and looked around. He was in Ford's old room in Gravity Falls. He was in Gravity Falls. Life was amazing. He immediately threw off his now-horribly twisted and messy sheets to step onto the hardwood floor of his new room. The hardwood floor felt amazing on his bare feet, providing some much needed nerve stimuli to help wake up the rest of the body. He glanced around the room. He had set up his TV and XCube Zero (odd name since it was the third in the series but whatever) just across from his bed, allowing for quick transitions from "I am having fun playing videogames" to "Holy fuck I need to get at least some sleep so that I can function tomorrow". No rug on the floor, for obvious reasons. He had a couch down here (Grunkle Ford assured him it was no longer radioactive), which would actually be super-useful for Movie Night with Wendy. Formerly, they could only watch in the living room, meaning only one of them got an actual seat. Now, they had a couch! All in all, his room was kickass.
He looked around, still smiling broadly. He was back. This was officially his base. His base of awesomeness. He opened the door out of his room. He walked down the hallway, feeling the old floorboards creak nostalgically under his feet. The only thing that kept him from sprinting to the kitchen was his urge to maintain some kind of dignity. He walked into the kitchen to see that, surprise, surprise, everyone was up already.
"Told you!" Mabel said to Grunkle Stan before smiling to him. "Morning, Broseidon, Lord of the Dipping Waves! We're making chocolate-chip pancakes!"
"Chocolate-chip?" Dipper asked, pulling up a chair next to Grunkle Ford, who was reading The Gossiper at the table. "Geez, Grunkle Stan, no need to splurge so much just for us."
"Careful, I don't think he knows you're being sarcastic," Ford joined in.
"I see you two are getting your… cheap shots in early," Stan joked.
Mabel laughed while Dipper and Ford booed. "Ah, what do you two know? She's the funny one."
"Grunkle Stan, I've seen Mabel laugh at a spider making a web for five minutes. She will laugh at literally anything."
"Hey, that spider was hilarious! It was just dangling around, like a dangling fool," she told him, flailing her arms to simulate the experience.
"Don't flail your arms near the hot stove, Mabel," Grunkle Stan chided.
"Don't worry, Grunkle Stan, I have trained for four years to have masterful control of my body. I am an elite martial artist, a-"
"Hair's getting on the pancakes."
"Shoot!" she swore, immediately pulling her hair back, and into a scrunchie, which she got seemingly from thin air. "Guess Waddles gets a pancake now!"
Waddles, upon hearing his name, got up from the living room carpet and hustled into the kitchen, staring up at Mabel. "Waddles!" she laughed, pushing him gently with her foot. "No begging! You wait your turn, Mister Hog!"
Dipper whistled. "Here, Waddles!"
Waddles trotted over to Dipper and plopped down next to him. Dipper leaned down and rubbed his belly.
"He seems to be quite well-trained," Ford praised.
"Of course. Our parents only let him stay with us if we got him trained. Pigs aren't naturally cut out for suburban life."
"It was a little tricky, getting a pig trained in Piedmont, California, but Waddles is such a good little guy, aren't you, Waddles?" Mabel cooed.
Waddles gave an appreciative oink. Grunkle Stan set two plates of chocolate-chip pancakes down on the table.
"Thanks, Grunkle Stan!"
"Thank you, Stanley."
Dipper cut a piece off and brought to his mouth. Oh, he could feel how hot it was from the air. He started blowing on it gently, keeping it midair. He did not want to burn his tongue off. He waited to eat it until Mabel and Grunkle Stan sat down, so it seemed like he was being polite rather than just bad with hot foods. At least, that's what he hoped it looked like. Who just held food on their fork in midair though? Ah well, no one in the room actually cared, he supposed. He put the piece of sufficiently cooled-off pancake in his mouth. He winced when he bit down on it. The chocolate chips were significantly hotter than the batter. The principle of specific heat was truly a double-edged sword. It let them cook their foods, but then stabbed their tongues with surprise heat.
"So, I know that yesterday, what with Dipper's hilarious car joke, and Soos getting married, and then Dipper's watches, we all got carried away with other things, but I wanted to ask, how are you kids doing? How's it been these past four years?" Stan spoke up, interrupting his culinary revery.
"It's been going good!" Mabel responded, feeding Waddles his pancake. "Dipper's a loser, but I'm super cool and everyone loves me!"
"Over-exaggerated on both counts," Dipper said, rolling his eyes. "We hang out with the same friends, Mabel just happens to be more outgoing than I am. Not that that's a surprise to anyone."
"What are your friends like?" Ford asked.
Dipper shrugged. "They're cool. We all eat lunch together, it's a fun time."
"Bobby's a clown, Leo's a nerd like Dipper, Cassie's the sweetest girl ever, and Jenna- well, she doesn't really hang out with us anymore, but she's super cool!" Mabel continued.
"What? What's this Jenna girl's problem?" Stan asked.
"Nothing! She just doesn't hang out with us anymore. It's certainly not because Dipper asked her out and now she's really awkward around him!"
A spike of irritation ran through Dipper. "Seriously? How have you still not learned how to lie?"
"Don't worry about, Dipper," Ford placated. "I was rejected plenty when I was your age, and now look at me! A genius scientist who has adventured through multiple dimensions!"
Dipper kept the question of whether or not he had ever had a girlfriend to himself.
"Mabel, you haven't had any boyfriends or anything, have you?" Stan asked.
Mabel nodded. "Two."
"Two?!"
"You and Will dated for like, two weeks. Does that count?"
"We dated longer than I knew Mermando, and I qualify him as a boyfriend."
"Mermando?!"
"Yeah, he was my first boyfriend. I met him in Gravity Falls, back when we went to the pool every day. Then I dated Will, and then I was dating Tony for a long time."
"Tony?! You said you've only had two boyfriends!"
"I thought you meant since we last saw you," Mabel replied. "Yeah, Tony was really sweet."
Dipper grunted dismissively. She swatted him on the shoulder. "Hey, we were becoming incompatible, and Tony saw it first! Don't blame him for it!" Mabel chastised.
Dipper didn't respond. Anyone who made his sister cry for an entire night, regardless of how well she recovered, was on his eternal shit list.
"So, uh, how's school?" Ford asked, taking advantage of the silence to bring the conversation back into a field he could contribute to.
"Going good. I'm maintaining my 4.0 GPA, and Mabel is passing, so we're both hitting our goals."
"Take it from someone who knows, sweetie, you're going to want to do better than 'passing'," Stan advised.
"Don't worry, Grunkle Stan! While Dipper's focusing on his studies, I'm focusing on making bank! Mabel's rolling in it!"
"There's no job that exists that pays a high schooler enough to be 'rolling in it'."
"I don't need a job! I'm working the internet!"
Stan stared pointedly at Dipper. He shrugged his shoulders. "She's actually not delusional about how money works this time," he explained. "Between her art commissions, and her YouView channel, she's actually making a lot of money. Not enough to live off of, but definitely more than most kids our age."
"YouView? What is that?" Stan asked.
"Grunkle Stan, you don't know what YouView is?" Mabel asked, shocked.
"I'm older than your grandpa and I live in a shack in the middle of Oregon. You tell me."
"That's an excellent point, Grunkle Stan. Remember Twitter? That thing we used for your mayor campaign?"
"Oh yeah! Yeah, I remember that!"
"It's like that but with videos. I make videos and then all the people who follow me watch them, and then I get paid."
"To put it simply," Dipper added.
"What about you, Dipper? You made these watches, have you done anything else?" Ford asked.
"I made a zit cream," he explained. "And I've got a manufacturer making it, and I sell it. Still, since I need people to make it, and it's just expensive, I do not make as much money as Mabel, but I can buy the videogames I want, and put money in savings, so no complaints here."
"So you kids just make money from home?" Stan asked, incredulous. "When I was your age, I had to run a paper route for a month if I wanted to take Carla on a fancy date."
"And there was no way I could ever sell my inventions back then," Ford mused. "The internet really is something."
"That, and you two are something else," Stan added. "If there's one thing I've learned, making money on your own ain't easy. Good job, you two."
"Yeah, we are awesome," Mabel agreed. Dipper elbowed her. "Thank you!" she added.
"And how's the boxing, and the, what did you say you did, Mabel? Some kind of martial arts?"
"Muay thai," Mabel specified. "And I'm awesome at it! I can still beat Dipper up, even though he's a boxer!"
Dipper nodded, munching on his pancake. "Coach says that I easily have the physical capacity, but my coordination and 'aggressive instinct' are abysmal. Mabel lacks none of that."
"I am the goddess of destruction!" Mabel cheered.
"I'm sure you are, sweetie. And don't worry too much about it, Dipper. Ford here was a lot the same, but he can hold his own. I mean sure, he's never punched eagles out of the air, or sent a pterodactyl to the floor, but hey, we all do what we can."
"Hmmph," Ford grunted. "And what I can do is make us thousands on soft lights."
"Yeah, I forgot about this thing," Dipper remarked, looking up at the light fixture. He felt his arm. "It really works fast."
"We sent some to your family, did you not get them?"
"Nah, we got them, but Dad was going to throw them out on principle. We managed to convince him to give them away," Mabel explained. "Sorry."
Ford's face fell. "No, it's fine, just… just wish we weren't estranged from the family is all. I know we put you kids into a lot of danger, but still, it feels odd having your family against you."
Dipper coughed into his hand and gestured to Grunkle Stan.
"Oh, uh, not that I, uh-"
"S'alright, you two," Stan grunted. "As far as I'm concerned, the only family I need is sitting at this table."
"Aww, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel leaned over and hugged him. "We love you too!"
"You hear that, Waddles?" Dipper joked. "Grunkle Stan thinks of you as family!"
"I meant-"
"Nope! Too late!" Mabel joined in. "Waddles is family now."
"Figures. I try to have an intimate moment, and a pig ruins it."
"Are you talking from experience?"
"I'm not going to answer that question."
As they finished off breakfast, Dipper and Mabel eating twice as much as their Grunkles, ("Damn teenagers, eating me out of my wallet." was all Stan had to say about it.) all of the Pines scattered. Mabel, to plan out her room, Stan to prepare for the day, Dipper to clean up the kitchen as per orders, and Ford to his lab.
He scrubbed pans, grumbling to himself about he was already forced to do chores. Still, it was preparation, he supposed. He was certainly far more useful around the house than Mabel was. That was something.
As he started on the actual plates, he heard someone walk in through the gift shop. "Wow, Mr. Pines already has you doing chores, huh? Lame," Wendy remarked.
He turned his head to see Soos and Wendy sitting down at the kitchen table. "Yeah, well, he and Grunkle Ford are old, and Mabel would break something, so, really, it's out of necessity. You can take over if you want," he offered, smiling.
"Ah, see, I would, but I just sat down, and the car ride here was super stressful," she replied in monotone.
Dipper laughed. "Right, right."
"Want me to do it, dude?" Soos offered.
"No, I'm good, thanks though, Soos."
"Soos! Don't actually be a nice person! You're making me look bad!" Wendy mock-chided him.
"I can't help it, Wendy. I'm like, the nicest guy I know," Soos responded seriously. "It's like a curse or something."
Wendy laughed. "That you are Soos, that you are."
"So have you guys been?" Dipper asked. "How's college and being engaged?"
"Wendy, you're engaged?!" Soos asked, shocked.
Wendy laughed. "Nope, that's all you, man."
"Oh. Wow, dude, you're totally right. I keep forgetting, and, every time I remember, it's like," He made an explosion noise with his mouth. "Mind blown, y'know?"
"I don't actually, but I'm happy for you regardless."
"I haven't quite wrapped my head around it, frankly," Dipper remarked. "It's hard to believe that my old Pterodactyl Buddy has left me in the dust."
"Dude, a cool guy like you? You're totally going to meet a super girl," Soos consoled.
Dipper laughed, putting a dish on the rack. "I think you're the first person to ever call me cool, but thank you."
"What?" Soos asked, disbelieving. "Wendy, Dipper's totally cool, right?"
"I mean, sometimes?" Wendy offered. "You definitely think he's cooler than I do."
"Ouch, well, now I know where I stand. Thanks, Wendy."
"Aw, c'mon, you know I think you're awesome, cool is just a little more subjective is all."
Dipper joined them at the table. "So, you never answered the question, what is college like?"
"Yeah, dude, is it like the movies?" Soos asked. "But like, not the horror movies, hopefully."
"It's definitely not like the horror movies, but it isn't as cool as the movies would make you think," Wendy responded. "I mean, I like it a hell of a lot more than I liked high school, but still, classes are hard man. It's tough being responsible for yourself all the time. Super-glad for summer. Now I can just laze around behind a gift shop counter. But enough about me, how has it been for you, Dipper?"
"Wendy!" Stan snapped, from across the living room. "I need you at the counter now!"
"Sure thing, Mr. Pines! Just wanted to reconnect with a friend I haven't seen in four years, but yeah, whatever, it's fine."
"You'll have all summer to chat with Dipper. In fact, I'm positive you'll skip work to do it today, anyway. So head to the counter now. There's people coming in!"
"Aye, sir," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "I'll see you later, Dipper, Soos."
"Have fun."
"Bye, dude!"
Wendy walked back through the "Employees Only" door to man her station. Dipper got up. "You probably have some stuff to do too, huh, Soos? I'll see you later."
"Uh, dude, actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you in like, private," Soos spoke.
Dipper blanched. This was new. He sat back down. "Yeah, sure thing, Soos."
"Cool, uh, so, Melody and I are getting married, but heh, you already know that," Soos rambled. "So, we decided to get married this summer, cuz I like, I super want you and Hambone to be there, y'know? You guys being there is super important. And y'know, you're like, one of the best friends I've ever had, and you're a guy. So, all things considered, I was wondering if, would you be cool being my best man?"
Dipper couldn't believe it. Him? Best man? "Of course, Soos! I'd be honored!"
Soos breathed a sigh of relief. "Cool, cause, like, if you said no, that would be rough. You're the only dude that's best man material."
"C'mon, I'm sure Grunkle Stan would be up for it!"
"Nah, I kinda want him to… what's it called when you stand in the middle and read the vows?"
"You want him to officiate?"
"Yeah that's the word. You're like a walking dictionary."
"Eh, I try. Anyway, this is, this is really cool, Soos! Like, wow, you sure you want me to be best man?"
"Dude. After all the stuff you've done for me, and all our crazy awesome adventures, there's like nobody else."
"Except Mabel."
"Hambone's a girl though. This is a guy thing."
"Well, I'm certainly glad I'm the guy, then," Dipper remarked, fist-bumping Soos.
"Soos! Outhouse is clogged again!" Stan called from somewhere.
"Okay, seriously, is he timing this?" Dipper asked.
Soos chuckled. "Duty calls. Oh, man, 'doody'. That was totally unintentional, too. I need to tell Hambone before I forget. I'll see you, Dipper!"
"See you, Soos!"
Dipper leaned back in his chair. Wow. Him, a best man. Sure, Soos would have probably picked Mabel over him had she been born with a Y-chromosome, but she wasn't, and Soos felt like he was the guy of choice. That meant a lot to him. He sat there, soaking in the happy feeling and pride for a while. After a few minutes, he decided he should probably get up and do something with his day.
He peeked into the gift shop. "Hey, dude," Wendy greeted. She was the only one in there.
"Hey, Wendy, I'm going to head down to the basement."
"Roger that."
He inputted the code on the vending machine. As the door opened, Mabel popped into the gift shop. "hey, Dipper, hey Wendy!" she greeted. "I'm making Mabel Juice, anyone want any?"
Dipper and Wendy shared a look. "Um, no thanks, Mabel, I'm good," Wendy responded.
"No thanks, I feel like being sane today," Dipper replied. "I'll see you guys later."
He walked down the steps as the vending machine swung shut behind him. Hey, they had renovated the elevator. That was good. The old one had been shoddy at best. Now he wouldn't have the nagging terror that it might be the last ride of his life anymore. He rode down the elevator to reach the basement proper. The doors slid open. "Grunkle Ford, anything dangerous going on?"
"Nothing more dangerous than usual. Come on in."
He strolled in to see that the lab had been changed a little bit. It had been renovated from a portal room to more of a proper looking sci-fi lab. Microscopes, big machines whose purpose he could not fathom, and, towards the back, there was a security door, that was probably Grunkle Ford's bedroom.
"So, research has been going good, huh? You mentioned you managed to fill out a whole 'nother journal," Dipper remarked, trying to play it cool.
Ford chuckled. "Your copy of it is on the table to your left."
"Awesome!" Dipper dashed over to the table. He saw it and greedily leafed through it, the original intention of informing Grunkle Ford/bragging to him about his best man status completely forgotten in lieu of an expansion to what had been his life at one point.
"Don't get to excited by that stuff just yet. What I'm working on right now is pretty big."
Dipper dashed back immediately. Ford couldn't help but smile. When it came to the paranormal sciences, his nephew was just as excitable ever. "So, as you know, I've been researching this for a long time, and not even two weeks ago, I found the answer to a major question about the ecosystem of Gravity Falls."
"What force is great enough to affect the entirety of Gravity Falls?" Dipper asked.
"This one," Ford answered, gesturing him to look through the microscope. He peered in and saw microscopic bugs, eating something.
"What they're eating is a claw from a komodo mole, page 45."
Dipper flipped to the corresponding page. Komodo moles were a species of lizard that burrowed through the ground, popping above to steal trinkets, litter, whatever they thought seemed nice. Their claws were as hard as diamond. But these termites were eating through it effortlessly. So they had the ability to eat through anything, and they impacted the ecosystem, which meant-
"They serve as the decomposers for anomalous creatures?"
Ford nodded. "Precisely. I often wondered how some of the more... indestructible anomalies decayed, because there certainly aren't many corpses in the forest, but normal bacteria couldn't do it. Then, I found a decaying corpse by chance days ago, brought it to the lab, and analyzed it, leading me to discover these little guys. They'll eat through almost anything. The petri dish you're looking at is an invention of mine, that basically keeps everything floating exactly one millimeter above it, making it immune to them, but still keeping them on a flat surface."
"How do they know what to eat? And what is its waste product once it's done?"
"These things won't eat anything that's living. My guess is that they have the ability to detect the signals living cells send to each other, and that is negative feedback to them. They also don't seem to partial to inorganic matter either, but if they get hungry enough, they'll eat anything. As far what they excrete, it's actually quite bizarre. No matter what they eat, they always excrete the same thing." He led Dipper over to another machine, one with vials of greenish blue liquid. "This stuff. It's odd. It seems to be a magic jelly of sorts. It is positively infused with magical energy. That magical amulet from Journal #2 might actually have just been a version of this stuff that someone figured out how to crystallize."
Dipper's tongue numbed a little at the mention of the amulet. The idea of another one being produced was not appealing. But still, this stuff was basically magic sustenance? "Grunkle Ford," he asked. "How many of the more invincible species of anomalies did you see before arriving in Oregon?"
"Very few actually," Ford remarked, smiling at his nephew.
"So, basically, everywhere else you've been, these things have to compete with normal bacteria for what they eat. But here, since they could eat what other decompsers couldn't, they were allowed to eat and produce as much as they wanted..."
"...Creating a surplus of food to breed anomalous creatures," Ford finished. "Dead-on, Dipper. Currently, that's my top theory as to why Gravity Falls is a particular hotspot. These termites are the beginning and end of Gravity Falls' supernatural side. Of course, it doesn't explain why records of these creatures have existed for centuries across the world, or why the invincible creatures were here in the first place. I've got a lead, but, it's going nowhere right now."
"Isn't that why you built the portal? To see if you could track the origins?"
Ford nodded. "Yes, but, a friend I met in my travels explained it to me. He said that dimensional rifts weren't something that could happen naturally, and, scientifically speaking, he's the leading expert in interdimensional theory, and he knows that Earth's mythologies predate the technological use of dimensional portals. If these anomalies are from another dimension, they were summoned magically, which means someone on this side was magical, which creates a paradox."
"Wait, other dimensions use portals? But I thought you said it was dangerous."
"Mine was dangerous," he responded. "But other universes and intelligent planets have it down pat. Especially my friend, oh man, he just shoots a portal gun and bam, he can go to any plane of existence he pleases. Offered me a ride back to my dimension, and I said I didn't know which one I was from, didn't think there was even a standard, and he criticized me for my 'Columbus attitude towards exploration'."
Dipper laughed. "That guy sounds really cool. Wish I could meet him."
Ford made a face. "He's a little... special, might not be the image of genius you have in your head."
"He's special how?"
A loud burp erupted from behind them. Dipper and Ford whirled around to see Mabel behind them, grinning. "How did you get all the way down here, and then behind us, without making noise?!" Dipper demanded.
"I'm a ninja! BELIEVE IT!" she screamed, jabbing him in the sternum.
He backed away, hand over his chest. "Mabel, why are you being so loud and aggressive?"
"I just made and chugged an entire blender of Mabel Juice."
"...Why?" Dipper asked.
"Well, nobody else wanted any of it, so what was I supposed to do?"
"Not drink enough stimulants to kill a horse? That'd be my first guess."
"Pshaw, the horse didn't die, it just had a heart attack! I'm gonna be fine!"
"Wait, that wasn't an analogy?" Ford asked, horrified.
"Anyway, come upstairs, Dipdop! I'm going to be filming the next Guide to Life and I need you on camera duty!"
"Mabel, I'm talking with Grunkle Ford right now."
"Grunkle Ford will be here when we get back! He's not that old! I, on the other hand, only have three days until my next video is scheduled to upload, and you know I will never miss an upload!"
"Mabel's Guide to 101-Degree Fevers did drive that home for me, yes," Dipper agreed. "But Grunkle Ford was telling me about-"
"It can wait! To the attic! Vrooooom!" With that, she sprinted off back upstairs.
Dipper sighed. "Sorry, Grunkle Ford, I need to go film Mabel's stupid vlog, otherwise I'll never hear the end of it," he grumbled.
"Don't fret at all! I don't know what a 'vlog' is, but it seems very important to your sister. In fact, I bet it isn't stupid at all to her," he remarked, trying to keep his voice light. "You just need to see it through her eyes, is all!"
Dipper walked to the elevator. "Easier said than done," he muttered to himself.
"And here we have one of my nicer catches, the mystical Meatloafer!" Stan declared, pulling back a curtain to reveal a meatloaf on a stool.
"That's a meatloaf on a stool," one of the younger kids pointed out. Yeesh. Every family had a Dipper, he supposed. "That's because you haven't seen its true power yet! You see, no matter how hard you try, this meatloaf will not budge from this stool, for it is just that lazy!"
There were mutterings of "Oh, the name makes so much sense now." in the audience. He grinned. Now that wordplay had (for the billionth time) convinced them, he would reel in the cash. "Of course, for $20, you can try to pull the meatloaf off of the stool, but y'know, it would take the strongest guy in the state to do that."
Immediately, every male in the group held up cash. Male stupidity was awesome. He was literally making money off of a meatloaf superglued to a stool. As he was about to ask them to line-up, Mabel ran through the exhibit.
"Nyyyooooooowww! Targets sighted! Pew pew ratatatatatatatat kerbloom!" she cried, keeping her arms fully stretched out, like an airplane. "Krsh, targets eliminated, returning to base! Nyyyuuuuuuu!" And then ran back around to the rest of the house.
Ok, that was weird. The group was just as shocked as he was. Hadn't he heard her asking around earlier about anyone wanting her energy drink from hell? That would explain it. Whelp, time to profit from it.
"Oh, no! My sweet, darling great-niece!" he cried, falling to his hands and knees. "She's been possessed by the ghost of a fighter jet! She was so precious, the light of my life! If only I could afford an exorcism! But with all the bills, my medication… I don't have the money! Why her?! Why her?! It should've been me!" he sobbed, keeping his head to the ground so no one could see his complete lack of tears.
"I… I can donate some money for her exorcism," one of the goody two-shoes in the group offered. Then, guided by mob mentality, all of them started offering him money. Stan smiled to himself before standing up, frown back on. He loved those kids. Good for his wallet, and, as much as he seldom cared to admit it, good for his heart.
AN: So here's another new chapter. Sure, it's shorter than the last one, and yeah, one fourth of it is dedicated to discussing fake nerd science, and y'know, it doesn't even mention Pacifica, and, that all sounds pretty lame in the context of a romantic fanfiction, but, I like to think that all of this world-building stuff is really nice. It's not just about the romance, it's about their lives, which helps make the romance more real. Or something. I dunno, I just like writing Gravity Falls. Get off my back! I'm not acting defensive, YOU'RE acting defensive! WHAT'S A FANFICTION?!
*coughs* My inner Grunkle Stan aside, the next chapter will be dedicated to Pacifica world-building, so, stay tooned for that. That joke will never get old to me.