Cable TV, Copiers, and Naps

"Shouldn't we be open?" Wendy asked as she noticed Stan was missing and the closed sign was still up.

"We decided to take a mental health day," Mabel replied as she shook a snow globe.

"Yeah, we needed a break and Soos needed some time to fix some things that Stan's been putting off," Dipper agreed, paging through a notepad and making notes.

Wendy considered that for all of three seconds before saying, "There's no way Stan would agree to that."

"You're right, he didn't," Mabel agreed, "we tied him to his bed."

"Seriously?" the red haired lumberjane asked in disbelief.

"We also mounted a TV above his bed with an eight hour video tape queued up of the greatest scams in history and a tube hanging near his face leading to the coffee pot," Dipper offered.

"Oh, huh that would probably work," Wendy said.

"Someone get me a pen and some paper!" Stan's voice rang out. "This is gold!"

"I'll get it," Mabel volunteered and ran off.

Wendy noticed a flash of light near the baseboard behind the counter and knelt down, putting her eye to the mouse hole for a few seconds before standing back up. "Dude, you should have told me I was dreaming."

"What?" Dipper asked, confused.

"I rely on you to tell me when I'm dreaming when I'm asleep," she said.

"Dream me always tells you when you're dreaming?" Dipper asked, tilting his head to one side.

"Only all the time," Wendy said. "You're like the rational figure in my head when I'm sleeping that lets me know so I know what's going on."

"Well, I'm going to take that as a compliment," Dipper decided. "But why do you think you're dreaming?"

"Because I just looked in a mouse hole and saw a half dozen tiny Dippers with flashlights," she explained with a grin.

"There is a perfectly good explanation for that," Dipper quickly said.

"Really? Like what?" she asked with a grin.

"Magic photo copier and the reduce setting," Dipper replied.

Wendy shot him an amused look.

He sighed. "I know that doesn't sound rational, but it's the truth, I swear."

"It seems far more likely I'm dreaming," Wendy said and started unbuttoning her red flannel shirt.

"Um…" Dipper found his eyes glued to Wendy's fingers and his mind misfiring. "What are you doing?" he finally got out.

"The only time I'm really relaxed is when I'm dreaming which means I get to let it all hang out," she told him. "It really helps reduce my stress levels."

"Would you consider it a betrayal of our friendship if you were actually awake and didn't believe me and I let you strip in front of me?" Dipper asked, looking as if it pained him to say.

"Huh," Wendy said, her flannel shirt completely unbuttoned, showing the white undershirt she wore beneath it. "I don't know," she admitted, pausing in her stripping. "On the one hand you were honest with me and it was my own decision, but on the other hand you didn't stop me. Of course I'm not really sure how you would stop me, wrestle me to make me keep my clothes on?"

"If that's what I have to do," Dipper said, sounding forceful for once as she stepped out from behind the counter, grinning at him.

"You can talk the talk, let's see if you can walk the walk," Wendy challenged and shrugged off her flannel shirt before grabbing the bottom of her undershirt.

"Wendy, no!" Dipper yelped and threw his arms around her.

"Good try, but I don't think you've got the upper body strength needed to stop me," she teased and started to struggle.

"What is going on here?!" Mabel demanded as she returned to find the pair wrestling with Wendy in her undershirt.

"He's trying to make me keep my clothes on!" Wendy exclaimed with a grin.

"Shapeshifter!" Mabel yelled and tackled Dipper off Wendy, quickly restraining him.

"What?" Wendy asked, before recalling their earlier adventures. "It got loose?!"

"I'm not the shapeshifter!" Dipper yelled.

"Hah!" Mabel snorted. "Dipper would never wrestle Wendy to make her keep her clothes on, that's shapeshifter behavior!" Mabel declared.

"What? How is that in any way what a shapeshifter would do?!" Dipper demanded. "And I'm only doing it because Wendy thinks she's dreaming and doesn't believe she's awake!"

"Why does she think she's dreaming?" Mabel asked, confused.

"I made a bunch of tiny copy clones of me and sent them to explore the cracks in the Mystery Shack," Dipper explained. "She saw a couple in a mouse hole and is now convinced she's dreaming even though I assured her she isn't. Also I"m apparently the voice of reason in her dreams who usually tells her when she's asleep and I don't know how to feel about that."

"Oh," Mabel said. "Wow, there is a lot to unpack there. Um, why are you stripping?"

"Because you can do anything you want in dreams so you should, just to get a chance to see what it feels like to do things you'd never do in reality," Wendy explained.

"That's a pretty good reason," Mabel told Dipper.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but she's awake and I'd be a lousy friend if I let her."

"Which is also a good reason," Mabel admitted, reluctantly letting him go.

"And since I'm dreaming, which Dipper wrestling me to keep my clothes on is something I totally expect to only happen in a dream, I think I should be allowed to strip," Wendy said with a laugh.

"Hold on," Mabel said and started pacing. "Let's look at this logically… Nope, that won't work. Let's ask a bunch of questions and see if that sorts things out. Dipper, why is there a bunch of tiny yous in the walls?"

"I was bored without much to explore and there's no telling what they'd find," Dipper explained. "There was an Unsolved Mystery marathon last night and lots of mysteries were discovered because of stuff in walls and crawl spaces."

"Oh yeah, we watched that at my place," Wendy said.

"There you go, you're awake," Mabel told Wendy, "cause that is a very Dipper answer."

"Lots of tiny Dippers in the walls," Wendy repeated, rolling her eyes.

Mabel nodded. "Oh, you never saw the magic copying machine!"

"That's the part I'm having trouble with," Wendy agreed.

"Really?" Mabel asked, surprised. "After everything we've seen?"

"Huh," Wendy said. "How did I never run across it before?"

"You have to photocopy yourself for it to work," Dipper explained. "I'm pretty sure you've never climbed on top of the copy machine and copied yourself."

"Sure I have… Well, not here," Wendy admitted. "Okay, I'll take a look and if it works like you say I'll admit I'm awake and won't strip in front of you."

Dipper nodded and then frowned. "Why do I feel like I've won and lost at the same time?"

The girls just laughed and Mabel waved for them to follow her into the back office.

"And there is the copy machine," Dipper said, "I have it set to maximum reduce."

Wendy stuck her face on it. "Hit it dude!"

Dipper hit the copy button and the machine scanned and printed a dozen sheets, which he picked up from the tray and spread out on the desk.

"Huh, even though I only had my face on it, it somehow copied my entire body," Wendy admitted, "but I'm still not…" her voice trailed off as the tiny Wendys began to fill out, becoming three dimensional and pulled themselves off the paper.

"Whoa," Wendy said in shock as the dozen tiny hers started talking to one another in low voices before they ran off in a dozen different directions, leaping off the desk and throwing off pieces of clothing as they went.

"Convinced?" Mabel asked.

"This seems even more like a dream if we're being honest," Wendy said, "a really surreal dream."

Mabel groaned. "Just pinch yourself please."

"Ow!" Wendy said and rubbed her arm where she'd pinched herself. "Okay I'm not dreaming."

"That's what I've been telling you," Dipper said, relieved.

"And you just saw a whole bunch of naked mes," Wendy said with a frown.

"Who are one inch high and I don't have a magnifying glass on me," Dipper told her.

"That's a good point," Wendy said, relieved, "and just so you know, I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd let me strip, but I do appreciate the fact that you stopped me from embarrassing myself and should I be worried about all the tiny mes?"

"No," Dipper said, "water destroys them so they don't last all that long, though they don't seem to mind."

"I wonder where they all ran off to," Mabel said, picking up a tiny shirt off the floor.

"Well, I'm pretty sure they think they're dreaming, because I would if I were them, which I am, so they probably want to see what the Dippers were doing inside the walls," Wendy said. "It would have been easier to use a little camera to look in the mouse holes just so you know."

"That would take forever and be really boring," Dipper said.

"Well, the tiny Wendys are going to scare the Dippers out of the walls," Wendy said with a laugh.

"Um," Dipper said.

"What?" she asked. "You actually wrestled me to stop me from stripping."

Dipper nodded. "Because I value our relationship, while the tiny Dippers who your Wendys, who think they are dreaming by the way, know they have a lifespan lasting a few hours…"

"Oh," Wendy said before her eyes shot open, "OH!"

"Yep," Dipper said dryly.

"Abandon shack?" Mabel suggested.

"Abandon shack," Wendy agreed. "Hey Dipper, what say we go watch a Mystery Marathon at my place?"

Dipper grinned. "Fine, but if you fall asleep during it, when you wake up I'm going to tell you you're asleep and dreaming," he teased.

"Deal," Wendy said with a grin.

Typing By: Abyssal Angel

Beta By: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows