During a school morning in early to mid January, Dipper is reminding his friend about the chat they had after Ford questioning Bill's change in behavior since the vacation. He is very gently asking Samuel if he had tried talking to him.
"Um..." Sammy is rather hesitant. "I tried, but... It was difficult... For him and for me..."
"Oh..." Dipper feels bad about asking more, but his friend continues regardless.
"He seemed... frustrated with all the questioning... And in a way, so was I... Maybe it'd be best to wait for some time? We both seemed concerned about ourselves, so, sorry that went almost nowhere..."
Dipper looks a little sad that he pushed him to that situation, even if respectfully. "Don't sweat it..." He then tries to move on from the subject. After the two arrive in front of the classroom, he then adds. "Be right back, okay? I gotta see Mabel quickly!" To that, his friend nods.
Meanwhile, Mabel is a tiny bit nervous about going to class, which her brother knows due to what they talked about the previous day.
Dipper comes to check on her before she has to enter the classroom. "I know you can do this, Mabel! And you know you have to. I believe in you!"
Mabel nods, putting a brave face. "Yeah, I'll try my best! See you later, Bro-bro!"
She turns around, entering class, and sees what she expected. Alan appears as the center of attention when he's sitting on his desk before the teacher arrived.
He's making the other kids laugh by telling a couple of jokes. Then he follows by telling a story about him in a very theatrical way.
"You won't believe what I saw last Friday. Some defenseless kid was being treated harshly by a group of classmates! Obviously, I wouldn't just stand there seeing this. I went and confronted the bullies by scolding them, and that made them apologize!"
Classmates are heard answering with sentences like: "You're such a saint, Alan!", "You're so admirable, more people should be like you!", or "you're an example for everyone!".
Mabel just groans before she joins her seat in silence when everyone else did.
"Hey, Mabel sweetie, I didn't see you!" Alan says, slightly tauntingly.
In contrast to how she usually acts, she barely speaks or interacts with him. "Hey..."
He looks at her with a snarky expression, but doesn't say anything for now.
A couple of hours later, after the first recess of the day starts, everyone left the room except them.
Alan is about to leave, Mabel speaks up. "Alan, we need to talk!"
He is not worried at all, and even takes it with humor. "Oh, you got something important to tell me? A confession, maybe?"
She keeps her annoyance in check for the most part and goes straightforward, keeping her brother's encouragements in her head. "I am done answering to your demands, and I am done dealing with your guilt-tripping!"
Alan just looks amused. "Oh, did sweetie Mabel grew a backbone or something?"
Mabel feels anger, but tries not to let it get to her. "I'm done pretending you're a good guy, and I don't care if others don't believe me, at least you won't take advantage of me anymore!"
Alan smirks for a little bit. "I see... If that's how it is, then that's alright..."
She stops frowning and looks pretty surprised. "Uh, really?"
"Yeah!" He takes a small piece of paper out of his pocket, and attempts to throw it into the trash can, missing it by not much. "Whoops, I'll get it..." He moves to grab the paper again, Mabel looking at him closely. But then...
He violently kicks the trash can to spill all of its contents on the ground, and she's about to complain, but he beats her to the punch, yelling. "MABEL, what have you done?"
"WHAT?" She screams of shock as the classmates that were nearby in the hallways come quickly to check on the situation.
He keeps at it, pulling a decent act. "I can't believe you'd do such a thing. I thought you were a nice girl, not a rebel... I'm so disappointed in you!"
She starts looking nervous when she hears the whispers from behind. She tries to explain. "B-but... He's lying! He did that! And he's trying to frame me!"
But as expected, the reputation Alan built himself is too strong. "Why do you dare accusing him?", "Alan is the nicest guy at school, no way he could do that!".
Mabel feels really desperate, even more so when she hears "I'm gonna tell on you!"
With that, Alan speaks up. "Wait, wait... Telling on her for something like that isn't necessary... She's kindly going to clean this mess, and then, there is no need to make it a bigger deal than it is... And really, I hold no grudge on her accusing me for that." He looks at her directly. "Just clean this up like the good girl you are, and then all this story will be behind us as it should... Okay...?"
Mabel is feeling fury inside, but she grits her teeth and says "Yes, I'll clean this up... Sorry, everyone..."
He then says with a genuine smile. "See, she's sorry for everything! So don't be mad at her for that, I'm not!"
The classmates leave, being okay with the situation and indeed not calling out Mabel at all. Alan turns around, getting a snarky expression back as he watches her cleaning a mess she didn't cause. "See how easy that was...? Let this be a warning... Far worse could happen to you if you try to fight against me!" He leaves her alone with the dirty work, but not after taking a few seconds to watch her look helpless with a smirk on his face.
Mabel is forced to get her hands dirty to clean up the mess. She does so respectfully before leaving to the bathroom to fight back tears in private for a while, leaving her brother and friend without news during recess.
When the bell rings again, she finds the courage to go out and finds Dipper looking for her, who seems hopeful. "How did it go?" He asks with an encouraging smile, but his sister is just laying against him for a little bit, looking absolutely desperate.
"Oh, Sis..." Dipper gives her a silent cuddle of comfort, feeling bad that he let her do that task alone.
Author notes: Sorry to have kept you waiting with this one. I think I kind of lost a spark stopping me from continuing.
No worries to be had because some future content are things that I've planned in advance. And these will have big things for the story's direction, so maybe that'll help my motivation.
Please don't hesitate to rate and review if you enjoyed it, feedback is always welcomed!