Timeline Summary:
This chapter takes place shortly after Fight Fighters, but within the same time frame as Little Dipper. Some minor plot points remain relatively the same (i.e. Gideon's interactions with Stan,) while key plot points diverge heavily from canon (namely Dipper & Mabel's 'Alpha Twin' argument over her millimeter growth-spurt, which does not occur in this continuity.)
Author's notes:
In respect to my faith, I make a personal effort not to misuse God's name. As such, within the realm of this story, the phrase OMG is reconfigured as OMGEE. If a character randomly exclaims Oh Muh Grapefruit, then it's the same deal.
Story is rated 18+ for mildly suggestive language and themes.
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✨Car9723, GunCon, LordStar8045, NVS Tobi, Obvious Ghost, Straightjacketed, Theory of Weirdness, William Easley✨
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I
MUSINGS MOST OMINOUS
...
...
...
... The electricity slices lightning-spiderwebs into his consciousness, the crackling arcs unfolding around him like some giant claw.
It's happening again...
... The landscape channel-flipping as the Time Tape destabilizes...
He smells burning rubble; sees rebel soldiers with really in-your-face haircuts running for cover, dodging a giant floating baby's eye-lasers.
Then he's at the lake shore, with McGucket alerting the townsfolk to the Gobblewonker.
Then the Wax Museum's grand re-opening.
Then the Mega-Gnome attacking the Shack.
Then he's kicking up five inches of snow as he fights with Mabel over the tape, right before it time-flings them to-
Huh?
Where are they? Wait, is that...? No, it can't be!... Wendy? It is! But what's SHE doing here? And where IS 'here?'
WHAT IS THIS PLACE?!
"DIPPER!" Mabel's voice shakes his brain awake.
"Whaaaa!" he yells, and becomes a one-man 4th of July show: his arms flail, his legs jerk, and all his materials within a three-feet radius soar into the air like demented fireworks.
"Bro-Bro!" continues Mabel, footsteps approaching. The attic door is ajar, and a second later, it swings open, her head leaning in. "Hey, aren'tcha gonna join us?"
Dipper clutches his chest, trying to keep his heart from melting into goo. Finally, after stabilizing his breathing, he pinches the bridge of his nose and half-hisses, half-sighs. "Mabel..."
Mabel knows what that tone is leading up to. "Nuh-uh!" she intercepts, marching into their room. "You promised me you'd take a break! C'mon Dipper, it's Duck-tective time! It's the PTSD episode where he bites the chief inspector's nose and won't let go!"
"I know, I know," nods Dipper, palms attempting to rub away the burning fatigue in his eyes, "but I've barely made any headway on the case."
Mabel inhales sharply, and makes a concentrated effort not to sigh out loud. It's a strange experience for her, like an emotional smoothie. On one hand, she's got beat-your-head-against-the-wall levels of frustration. On the other, soul-crushing sympathy. So, not really sure what to do with these feelings, she lets her eyes wander around, tracing the rafters, the mold spots (Hi Daryl!), the walls, the floor. Or rather, what's left of the floor under her brother's junk-pile of detective-work.
It's everywhere. Library books facedown on the ground, his nightstand, some even draped along the edge of his bed. Research papers that he's spent hours printing at the Copier Store, and even more hours nerd-interpreting. He's even drawn up some blueprints, though most of them are crumpled, torn or outright crossed-out.
She knows she's the Best Big Twin-Sister Evah™, but even she doesn't know what to say to make all this right. All she knows for certain is how to read her brother. And at this stage, she knows he definitely does not want to be consoled. Noooooo way, Jose. Anything that can be mistaken for pity will end very badly.
Ever since that last time-jump, he's been as hungry for clarity as she is for Chipackerz. He's read, re-read, researched and cross-checked all these physics and sci-fi books/articles like some kind of mental frog dissection. At this point, Mabel sees him as a tracker on a trail. And it's a trail he's no longer able to follow. Consequently, his oversized brain is probably ping-ponging between two alternatives: he's either the stupidest sleuth on the planet or the answers are cheating, hiding somewhere, laughing at him.
He's not going to give up. He's not going to take a shoulder to cry on. And he's not going to forget about that place they saw or what they overheard there.
Which leaves only one other path besides active encouragement of this obsession.
She crouches next to him. "Ya need to vent?"
He looks at her with tired eyes, but shakes his head in weary determination. "Venting won't solve the mystery, but thanks."
"Bro-Bro, c'maaaannn," she groans. They haven't done anything together in the last couple days, her brother being so consumed. No chess, checkers, croquet, nada. She almost misses him rubbing his wins in her face. "This is getting ridiculous!" she declares. "Do you know how bored you've got me? Look, I've run out of animals to invent!" She gestures to the wall beside her bed, a shrine of pastels depicting endearing hybrids like the Girrottweiler, an adorable doggy with a giraffe's neck to love-bite you long distance. The animal artwork, like some schizoid's idea of evolution, then branches off into an array of completely irrelevant diagrams and schematics. "I've started inventing machines now to pass my time. Machines, Dipper! It's not natural."
"Neither is our situation!" Dipper bursts. "Nothing about what we saw makes any sense! And the mystery isn't the only thing we have to consider! Are our lives destined to play out what we saw? Or does our time-traveling have the potential to create alternate timelines?" He's pacing, practically scalping himself as he rakes his nails through his hair. "I mean, there is precedent: we did create that whole new timeline at the fair... until we chose to destroy it. With our foresight, can we really change reality?"
The question hangs in the air. Mabel places a hand on his shoulder. Softly, and with the utmost sincerity, she tells him "I'm gonna bite your nose just like Duck-tective if you don't get your butt in front of the TV."
"Look," Dipper's brow furrows so much it looks as leathery as Stan's, "the world's not gonna end if I miss one episode of Duck-tective."
"AAAAAHHHH!" goes Stan's gut-wrenching scream, piercing through the flooring.
The twins rush into the TV room to see Stan digging his hands into a hollow space in the wall, yanking out a duffel bag stuffed with stacks of his three favorite amigos: Jackson, Grant & Benjamin.
"Kids, it's the tax collector!" he wails. "Stave him off with your piggybanks!"
A gleaming Cadillac of a loafer crosses the threshold of the den, as alien to this hovel as Armstrong's boot on the moon. "Mr. Pines," addresses the salt and pepper-haired Suit, wearing the severe expression of a man who smells a spoiled egg in a packed elevator but muscles through it. "I'm from the Winninghouse Coupon Savers contest," he informs, enthusiasm suddenly flooding him like a religious experience as his voice livens and his shoulders roll, "and YOU ARE OUR BIIIIIIG WINNER!"
A cameraman enters the parlor alongside two beautiful women, who each hold a side of a gigant-o cardboard check for 10,000,000 dollars!
"Heh?" grunts Stan, beginning to register everything that's happening. The babe closest to him showers him with a fistful of confetti, mirroring the fireworks going off behind his eyes. "My one and only dream - which was to possess money - has come true!"
"Haha, we're rich!" laughs Dipper, his spirits buoying instantly. "I'm gonna get a butler!" (Despite his fierce debates on the matter, Dipper knows the benefits of proper laundering. But he's a busy young man, and washing clothes is a nice perk for people with meaningless enough lives to have the extra time. With hired help, though, he'll finally have the best of both worlds! And Mabel might stop hosing him down with Stan's old-fossil cologne. Or she might do it anyway for the heck of it, but in that case he can blame the smell on the butler. It's obviously a practical investment.)
Mabel joins in on the euphoria: "I'm gonna build a vending machine that dispenses Japanese cars!" she declares, unfurling one of her crayon-scribbled schematics from her kangaroo pocket.
"Wait," Dipper turns to her, suddenly sober. "Build your own invention?"
"Just sign here for the money," the lawyer instructs Stan, holding up a pen.
Dipper only vaguely hears Stan's gravelly "You bet!" The boy's face has gone slack but his brain is tensing. His eyes dart down to the crinkled blueprint he's yanked from his shorts.
A blueprint detailing something that looks very much like a tape measure.
... His face twitches into a smile.
And then Gideon rips through the cardboard check, just like all their hopes and dreams, gloating about how the fool of an old man just signed the Mystery Shack over to widdle ol' him. Dipper and Mabel's world is destroyed in the span of a quarter-minute, the air squeezed from their lungs in a shared, utterly shocked gasp.
... All before salvation comes in the form of Stan's cheek.
"SUCK A LEMON LITTLE MAN?!" Gideon shrieks, scanning Mr. Mystery's endorsement.
And even as the little troll is carried away by his lawyer, swearing vengeance on their entire family, all is right with the world.
Or it should be. Really, Dipper knows how grateful he oughta be for the bullet they narrowly dodged.
But he remains in a staring contest with his blueprints, looking at What Could Have Been.
"Wanna see what else is on TV?" suggests Stan.
"All right!" Mabel pumps her fists, before tugging on Dipper's arm. "Dipper, you coming?"
Dipper considers it. He truly does, in the couple hundred milliseconds before his lips make an executive decision. "No," he declares. "I've... I've got something to do." His curling fingers scrunch the blueprint before he tucks it back into his vest and looks towards the front door, wide-open and beckoning him. "Something... drastic." And as Mabel watches him leave, he appears as a cowboy riding off into the sunset, even without a horse and even though it's noon.
She continues to watch until he becomes a speck in the distance. And she watches long after he's disappeared entirely. Her brow knits in concern. Stan returns with a Pitt from the fridge, and, in a moment of magnanimous sensitivity, takes notice of her. After a few awkward minutes of him nursing the soda, observing to see if she sucks it up on her own, he crushes the can against his head and kneels down, laying a massive hand on her delicate shoulder.
"Hey now, Pumpkin. I understand you're upset that the happiest moment of your life was a total lie. But I PROMISE you... things will only get worse from here on out. So, just think of this as an early heads-up from the universe. Fair enough?" And with that, he smiles, leaving her with an encouraging slap on the shoulder.
Bag-check for Mabel's eyes.
It's dusk and the sky blushes pink, mirroring Waddles, who stares up at it from his fat back.
Mabel, blindfolded, stumbles around the yard. "Marco!" she calls.
Waddles squeals, making that lovable, constipated-sasquatch noise that all pigs do. Mabel follows her ears, only to trip over him. She rips off her blindfold, beaming through a mouthful of dirt-stained metal.
"Yeah, there's a reason it's played in a pool. Haha!" The smile fades as she rubs her throbbing face. "Owww..."
Her eyes trickles upward, soaking up the pastels of the retreating sky as she leans her head back. Her posture is in direct contrast to Dipper, who treads across the yard, head hanging. "Dipper, there you are!" she calls out, standing up. "Wanna play Marco-Porko?"
"If the inflatable pool was out," he replies. "Uugh, I need a shower."
"Whoa, what?!" she gasps, scrambling across the yard to block the Shack's back door. "You? Shower? Are you sure that your pores aren't so oily by now that you two won't mix?"
Dipper meets her gaze, unamused. "Showering isn't a waste of time when you're attracting ants."
Mabel looks down, seeing a frenzy of black dots crawling all over his legs. He's soaked for some reason, hair and shirt and shorts clinging to him.
"Oh," she looks up. "I thought those were blackheads."
"Blackheads would mean puberty's hit me," her brother grumbles, maneuvering past her into the gift shop. She follows, taking a long whiff of his wet clothes and sticky hair.
"Is that soda I'm smelling?" she questions, before immediately jumping to the natural conclusion. "Did you discover a supernatural pop geyser?!"
"I don't want to talk about it, Mabel."
"That's not a nooo..."
"Not a yes, either," Dipper points out, rolling his eyes.
"What are you hiding from me?" she probes. "Is it a surprise? Like a sneak-attack holiday bash? Is that what this is? Is this Chrismanukkah in June?"
Dipper turns sharply. "Mabel-!" he hisses, then catches himself, sighing. "The only thing I'm hiding from anyone is frustration, okay? I've had a long day and I just- I need to recoup."
Dipper stalks up the stairs, once again leaving a concerned Mabel alone and confused.
Dipper runs the shower, steaming the room. Locking the door, he peels off his clothes and enters the cramped, claustrophobic, water-filled coffin people insanely thought was worth the time and money to install instead of using the occasional hose.
From behind the shower curtain, he's totally unaware of Mabel's cell phone squirming itself underneath the door, screen-up. It swivels left-to-right, before retracting itself.
Satisfied with her brother's preoccupation, she tip-toes away from the bathroom in her socks, silent as a ninja death-hamster. She slips into their bedroom, softly sealing the door shut behind her.
Dipper's journal lays splayed on the ground, surrounded by crumpled blueprints.
Starlight bathes the Shack's sundeck, Mabel's legs dangling over the edge. Her eyes linger on the journal propped open against her knees. As she looks at it, her face folds in on itself like melancholy origami. But how can she help herself? The pages pack a heart-punch.
Inside is a painfully detailed sketch of Wendy. Which isn't shocking. Dipper is a very persistent portraitist when given the right, eh, muse.
The drawing could practically pass for a photograph, given the level of intricacy and the tableau it portrays. With her eyes clenched and head thrown back, the lumberjill's hair flows in the wind as she is treated to the piggyback ride of her life.
While definitely a labor of love, the illustration itself isn't too profound, just because, well, that's Wendy. Wild, irreverent, horse-playing Wendy. Just a simple scene from a day-in-the-life.
The person giving her the piggyback ride is what tears Mabel's guts out.
She's never seen him before, but knows him instantly. As broad-shouldered, high-cheekboned, goateed and tall as he is, that pine tree hat is a dead giveaway.
It's a very generous interpretation of himself, but given the conversation they overheard in the time-jump, she can't blame him for dreaming.
After all, Future-Wendy had confirmed his deepest desires and deepest fears.
... She does like him. She does. But... the age thing. And unless that changes, they can't be together.
Mabel can't even imagine what that's like, to fall for someone so hard, to be willing to do anything for them, and for them to be just beyond your reach. Well, OK, actually she can, back in that alternate timeline where she was Miserable Mabel pining after Waddles. Thankfully, Dipper came to his senses and did the right thing. (Took him long enough, but whatevs.)
Of course, her bro-bro's pretending that he's not even upset about the whole Wendy revelation. He keeps hiding his pain, distracting himself with that cray-cray place where they heard her 'fessing her feelz. He's brainwashing himself, convinced that what matters most is unraveling the full context of the location, its broader implications, and blah blah blah blaaaahhhh.
Meanwhile, they can't even agree on what to call the place. Dipper keeps pushing for all these vague codenames to make it sound cool and mysterious, like 'Oz' or 'Eden.'
She's been pointing out the obvious to him: those name are dumb. They just need to call it for what it is. She's offered countless recommendations: 'Me-topia' is one, 'United States of A-Mabel-ca' is another. But she keeps circling back to one name in particular. Dipper keeps poo-poo'ing it because it's so 'basic,' but as she keeps reminding him, it's fitting:
Mabel Land.
Everything in that bubble was so perfectly her, so why not?
At this point though, does it even matter? It's not like they can ever go back there. And despite what Future-Wendy hinted at, Mabel doesn't possess the power to age-up her brother.
... At least not yet...
She runs her hand over the drawing, thinking-
"Mabel!"
"WHAAAA!"
Mabel fumbles for the book as it tumbles over the deck's side, landing in the shrubs below. She spins around to see... the girl in the journal!
The coolest gal in town is flexing her namesake, sliding down the tiled roof, as smooth as a snowboard special-made for roof-shakes. "Sorry for the heart attack, man," Wendy apologizes, landing on the deck.
Mabel peers back over the edge, clutching her head. "Dipper's journal!" she groans.
Wendy glances over the side. "Ah shoot! I'll snatch it in a sec. But first, where's your brother?"
"Showering, about four years too late."
"'Kay. He gonna be out soon?"
"He should be. I've checked on him a couple times, but he's been mopin' in there the last 45 minutes."
"Ah geez. Dipper? Bathing more than humanly necessary? Dude's more depressed than I thought!"
"Wait... you've noticed?" Mabel's eyes dart back and forth. It's been a few days since the timey-wimey misadventures at the fair, so has Wendy finally caught on to Dipper's funk? Or maybe she used her tree-ninja skills to eavesdrop?
It couldn't have anything to do with the super-secret soda geyser though, right? It's only been an hour since Dipper discovered it, and there's no way he could've told Wendy, since the twins have to share a phone and Mabel's had it this entire time.
So that leaves only one other alternative...
... Wendy knows. Somehow, she knows. About everything. The time-jump. Mabel Land, where they encountered the future-version of Wendy. Which means, Present-Wendy must know what Future-Wendy said.
"How did you find out?!" Mabel gasps.
"Robbie was at the mall, caught the whole thing on his phone," Wendy sighs, shaking her head.
"Wait." Mabel arches a brow. "The mall? What has that got to do with any of this? Are we talking about the same thing?"
"Oh!" utters Wendy, surprised. "So, uh, Dipper hasn't told you yet, huh?" She rubs the back of her neck. "In that case, maybe I should just keep the deets on a need-to-know..."
"Need-to-know? I'm his sister, why wouldn't I need to know? What happened, Wendy?"
The teen looks away, apparently enchanted by the treeline she's only seen a quadzillion times before. "Look, Mabes, I totally feel you. But keep in mind, I've got sibs myself. And you'll have to trust me when I say that this is one of those situations where, if you don't already know, it's better to leave it up to your bro ta decide when he wants you to."
"... OK..." Mabel slowly nods, deliberately putting on what Wendy doesn't yet know are Mabel's Skepticles. "Uh, Dipper's probably dried and dressed now, if you wanna see him. And I'll get the journal, no worries."
"Alright," Wendy nods back, wondering why the heck Mabel is using her hands to impersonate Where's Waldo. "Thanks for understanding, Mabes."
After Wendy's departure, Mabel allows herself to get lost in thought as she puts her body on auto-pilot to shimmy down the shack. What the hey-hey was Wendy talkin' 'bout? What happened at the mall? Why would Robbie tell Wendy? It definitely wouldn't be because he was looking out for Dipper's best interests.
So great. Now two secrets. One of which she isn't part of yet.
She retrieves the journal and readies herself to relaunch with her grappling hook. She pauses a moment, thumbing through further illustrations of Wendy with a peer-aged Dipper.
"Ah, bro-bro," she sighs, and a small part of her is afraid to say her sympathies aloud, in case the moon itself is listening. "You've got yourself the most pitiful, laughable, unconventional, impossible crush you could've hoped for... and just your luck, it's mutual."
The moon says nothing, however hungry it may be for conversation.
Mabel exhales sharply through her nose. It's getting irritated by the musty pages. Before she can help it, she explodes in a sneeze, causing the pages to flip wildly. After wiping off her face, she notices what section of the journal she's now in.
- the Gnome entry.
... When Dipper warned her about Norman, she thought he went coo-coo for Conspiracy Puffs...
But yeah, so not the case.
She flips through the entries she and her brother have made since then. All of it... would've seemed impossible before this summer... But... But this is Gravity Falls! Where reality is bendable and groovy and weird! If all this magi-tastical wonder exists, then... then yes! There has gotta be something to make the S.S. WenDip set sail! OMGEE! Did she really just conceive that joint couple name on the spot?! It's absolutely perfect! Eat your heart out, Brangelina! You too, Michelangelo! Ha, no one even remembers which pairing you're named after!
OK, WenDip is officially meant to be. How could it not, when God so obviously ordained her as the universe's anointed matchmaker? The divinely-inspired power-couple name is proof solid; how could anyone not believe in true love once those two telling syllables graced their ears? (Only unicorn-hating communists, that's who!)
She skims the pages frantically, certain she'll find something, anything to aid her matchmaking mission-
-She stops.
... Now what's this entry all about?
"Legends of miniature buffalo and giant squirrels have led me to believe there are height-altering properties hidden deep within the forest..."
Her first thought? GIANT SQUIRREL. MUST HAVE. WADDLES DESERVES TRUE LOVE!
Her second thought? Well, her second thought... is cunning. And crazy.
But it's so crazy... it just might work.
She slams the book shut and the harsh thud only seals her decision.
Her eyes rise from the book cover, drowning themselves in the sea of pines swallowing the land before her. She can feel them beckoning her with their gentle swaying. In that moment, she's Columbus. Lewis and Clark. Shackleford. All those adventure-y nerds (albeit without safari hats) that Dipper's burned into her brain.
And she's reminded how this town... is a whole new world to discover, even if it's turned a blind eye unto itself. With the journal as her compass, the Falls is her earth-and-rock treasure map for a hidden solution.
She unscrews her on-the-go nail polish, brushing the wand across her cheeks. They burn with the metallic chill. Her warpaint.
And it pales only to the fire in her eyes.
There's a way to make Dipper's sketches come true, she knows that now.
And she's gonna find it.
INTERMISSION