Utility

Dipper stared at the stars and wondered what it was about Gravity Falls that caused all the weirdness he'd experienced. He'd spent years reading mystery novels and searching for conspiracies to uncover and found nada, zilch, zero, the big goose egg.

OK, he'd found out why Mrs. Trotski and Mr. Torbald didn't mind their spouses going on vacation together and the girl down the street who babysat for the Peterson's liked to sunbathe, but nothing interesting. He'd began to wonder if what was all just lies and stories made up for fun, the way everyone had said. Maybe life was just a long boring journey to death where the most interesting thing to happen was bumping into someone you went to high school with in the supermarket.

But Gravity Falls had changed all that.

"Dipper, you awake?" Mabel asked startling him out of his thoughts.

"Just watching the stars, Mabel," he replied.

The floor in between their beds creaked and he was unceremoniously pushed to the side as Mabel climbed into bed with him and fluffed her pillow.

"Why Lady Mabelton how forward of you," Dipper said.

"Your bed has a better view than mine, plus it's kinda chilly in here, so you Lord Dippingsauce are my designated bed warmer," she replied, tossing her blanket on top of them and cuddling into his side.

Dipper smiled and stared at the huge hole the wrecking ball had torn in the attic. "I'm going to have to fix this, aren't I?"

"Probably," Mabel agreed, "but you should make it like one of those garage doors so we can open it and watch the stars."

"I did want an excuse to play King Kong," Dipper admitted.

"Do you still lay awake at night thinking about Wendy?" Mabel asked.

"Not really," Dipper replied after a moment's thought. "These days if I'm laying awake it's because I'm planning on how to expose your latest boyfriend as a non-human and how to defeat him," he joked.

Mabel giggled. "Night, Dipper."

"Night Mabel," he said as they slowly drifted off to sleep.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Mabel awoke to the sound of sawing and saw her brother Dipper working on the roof. She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes. "Dipper?" she asked.

"Yes, Mabes?" he replied in a surprisingly deep voice.

"Are you ten feet tall?"

"Just to repair the roof," he assured her.

"I can see right up your shorts," she told him.

He rolled his eyes but couldn't help but laugh. "Gruncle Stan said we could alter the attic however we wanted, as long as I fixed the sign first. It's a lot easier to do when you're a giant."

"Not to mention being able to adjust the size of the boards so everything fits together perfectly," Mabel said, seeing several ways the size adjustment crystal could be used to make things easier.

"Err yeah," Dipper said slowly, embarrassed he hadn't thought of that himself. "Why you could even…" his voice trailed off.

"Use it on that scale model sundeck I made out of popsicle sticks to try and convince Gruncle Stan to build onto the Mystery Shack?" Mabel asked. "That is such a good idea!"

"Yeah, glad I thought of it," Dipper said, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

"I'll go make breakfast," Mabel said, "what would you like?"

"One egg sunnyside up, one strip of bacon, one pancake, a cup of orange juice and a saucer of warm water," Dipper said.

Mabel laughed as she realized why he'd ordered such a small breakfast. "We'll eat like kings! Back in ten minutes!"

Once Mabel had left, Dipper smacked himself in the head. "I can't believe I didn't think of that first."

Dipper was stunned at how quickly he got everything finished. What would have taken hours was done in seconds leaving him plenty of time to install the roll up garage door and even the sundeck Mabel had suggested. The hamster sized hot tub Mabel had made was just a mock up and the enlarged Barbie furniture was uncomfortable , but it did look good. Dipper shrank himself back down to normal size and spent the next five minutes enlarging the boards that made up the attic to remove all the cracks and gaps caused by age and moisture.

"Now for the final test," he muttered, holding up a remote and hitting a button causing the roll up garage door to open onto their sundeck, flooding the attic with sunlight and warmth.

"Cool!" Mabel said as she brought in breakfast. "It looks awesome!"

After Breakfast

"Whoa!" Wendy said. "You guys smell like you rolled in maple syrup."

"Close enough," Mabel agreed. "Hey, Soos!"

"Morning, Hambone. What's up?" the kindly maintenance man replied.

"What do you know about hot tub construction?" she asked.

"You guys rolled in maple syrup?" Wendy asked.

"Breakfast battles are sticky situations," Dipper said cheerfully.

"It has to take forever to get out of your hair," Wendy said.

"That or tons of hot water," Dipper agreed.

"All we got left is to fix the sign and roof," Stan said as he entered the room. "Once that's done we can call it a day."

"That was a quick day," Dipper said.

"What?" Stan asked eyeing Dipper strangely for a minute before walking outside and then coming back in. "Nice work, kid!"

"So, we're done?" Wendy asked.

"Sweep, dust, then clear out," Stan agreed. "We'll be open for business on Monday!"

"I'm out!" Wendy said, vanishing just after Stan did.

"We'll be working on the hot tub," Mabel called out taking Soos with her.

"Just me then," Dipper said with a sigh. As soon as it was obvious he was alone he dropped the act and pulled out the journal. It wasn't the original journal, Stan still had that, but one he had made testing the copier to see what it could clone.

He opened the book and paged through to find the section on amulets. Gideon had made one so they couldn't be that hard.

Typing by: Bankrupt Samurai

AN: Prequal to the first chapter.