Gravity Falls: Once More

by Absolute Rift

Four years after their faithful summer of weird, Dipper and Mabel finally return to the legendary town of Gravity Falls. Despite having new adventures and mysteries to take on, they are still tailed by the challenges that come with navigating teenage life. With friends and enemies, both new and old, the Pines must prepare themselves for whatever awaits them. (S1 done, S2 ongoing)

29. Many Happy Returns: Part 3

Mabel was beginning to grow anxious waiting for Ryland to come back to the floor room. It had been about ten minutes since he had left to use the bathroom and ten minutes since she asked Soos for a favor. Not that her plan was low on time before execution, but the longer she waited, the more she feared that she wouldn't be ready to go through with it.

Her plan was simple and inspired by some of her favorite high school romance movies. Ryland would walk into the room and Soos would cue in the slow song. At that point, when Ryland returned to her, either he would ask her to dance, or she would ask him. The 'or' part was a backup, considering she had dealt with more than her fair share of oblivious crushes in the past.

Still, she couldn't help but think of how things could go wrong. What if she doesn't look good enough? What if she forgets what to say? What if he rejects her?

"God, what happened to me?" Mabel said aloud to herself as she looked down at her shaking hands.

Seriously, though. What had happened to her? This was the same Mabel Pines who was able to go up to a boy she had never met before and casually say "My name is Mabel, but you can call me 'The girl of your dreams'" when she was only twelve. Heck, she got her Sophomore Homecoming date by going up to a guy in her class and slapping a heart sticker across his chest, saying "If you're looking for a good Homecoming date, you better stick with me."

Yet with Ryland, she had suddenly become insecure about her appearance, thought over the possibility of rejection, and even threw up from nervousness. She felt like Dipper when he asked out any girl.

"Just calm down, Mabel," she tried to tell herself. "You're better than this. What happened to your confidence? You used to be the master of cold-approach. Now look at you- a taller, sweatier shell of your former self.."

At that moment, Evan ran by the couch she sat on, holding a cup of punch in his hand as he looked around the room. "Darn it! Candy must've had to go! I can't find her anywhere! She needs to get her drink back!" He turned back to Mabel. "You haven't seen her, have you?"

Mabel's eyes glanced around quickly for a moment. "Uhhh... nope! She coulllld be outside. Maybe you can still catch her!"

"Good thinking!" Evan nodded before bolting away with the drink in his hand, which he clumsily spilled a bit of as he ran.

Mabel watched him speed off and felt somewhat guilty. Both for him and for Candy. At the same time, a part of her couldn't help but feel glad that it wasn't her that he had a crush on. That would bring two levels of awkwardness: being crushed on by a kid and crushing on that same kid's older brother.

Her eyes then glanced down at the bottom of a nearby table with a white sheet over it, which was pulled up slightly from underneath on one side. Candy and Grenda's heads soon popped out and looked at her.

"Is he gone?" Candy asked with a worried whisper.

"Long gone," Mabel assured.

"Phew! Thank goodness!" Candy said with a sigh of relief as she and Grenda stood back up from the ground. "Things were getting a little too weird before."

"Yeah, but I feel kinda bad. Evan may not have the best... social experience... but he's a genuinely smart and sweet kid with a big heart," Mabel admitted as she rubbed her arm.

"I'm sure he is. But... he's a child," Candy said. "Though, I'm still willing to be friends... if he does come to his senses."

"That didn't seem like someone who would come to his senses. Someone just has to tell him it ain't happening," Grenda told them candidly.

"Maybe... but, c'mon Grenda. There's a nicer way of doing so," Mabel said.

"You're right. Sorry. I think bluntly when I'm happy! Marius and I have made up and he's setting up a screening for Pony Heist 3, 4, and 5 at his castle in Austria! And 4 and 5 haven't even gone into production yet!"

"Oh my god! Grenda, that's great!" Mabel then gave her a stern look. "But you have to promise not to spoil them for us. I still haven't watched Polo: A Pony Heist Story yet."

Grenda pledged her hand up in the air. "I promise. But enough about me. Where's Ryland?"

"Oh, he went to the bathroom. He should be back any minute now."

"Did you talk to him while we were gone?" Candy asked.

"Sorta…" Mabel nodded while looking somewhat unsure. "I do know that he doesn't like when a relationship is forced, so... I know what'll scare him off…" She smiled reassuringly. "But the good thing is: I have a plan!"

"A plan?" Grenda and Candy asked at the same time, glancing over at each other weirdly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I sound like my brother."

Mabel knew how crazy she sounded for having developed some sort of plan as her brother used to do as opposed to behaving normally. But desperate times meant desperate measures.

"Anyways, the point is that it will bring us closer together while not necessarily forcing us together... in a way," she elaborated.

"Well, whatever it is, we know you can do it, girl!" Grenda said while putting her hands on her shoulders confidently. "Candy and I will just give you two some breathing room while also keeping hidden in case Evan comes back. So if you need us, we'll be under that table."

She had pointed back under the table they were just hiding under with the sheet over it. And at that moment, the two ran back over to it with Candy turning back to Mabel once more.

"We believe in you!" she shouted supportively.

She and Grenda quickly descended under the table, letting the sheet drop back down to hide the two. Soon after, two hands stuck out from underneath the sheet, giving Mabel assuring thumbs-ups. which she found quite sweet of them.

She then reverted her focus to the mission at hand. "Alright, Mabel. Ryland's gonna come back any second now and you gotta be ready for that dance. You got this! Everything will be fine! As long as Soos comes through and makes sure to play the music on cue. Which is no worry either! Soos always comes through!"

---

It wasn't easy, but amid all the ongoing chaos regarding half the party and his friends seemingly falling in love with him, Dipper managed to slip away back to the floor room. Not that their hunt for him was over, as some of them roamed around various parts of the Shack while some also came back to the floor room as well.

To hide, he decided to try to blend in with the other partygoers while also taking attention away from his face by covering his head up with his hoodie. He kept his head down as he walked, making sure the darkness of the hood concealed his face and that no one could easily trace him back. He was aware that it wasn't the best plan of hiding either, considering it was very recognizably the same exact hoodie he always wore. Wouldn't take too long for someone to catch on to him again.

But he didn't need too long. The only reason he came back to the floor room was to get help. He needed someone on his side to aid in figuring out why the entire party was falling for him little by little. When the girl with the punch stain and Wendy started falling for him, he had a feeling something was up, yet there was something equally convincing about how they approached him that he was beginning to believe he just had remarkably low confidence. But then Thompson suddenly flipped from wanting to beat him up for "stealing" Wendy, to wanting to fight with her over him.

And as if his best friend and half the party saying they loved him didn't add on to the weirdness. At that point, he already knew that something weird was definitely going on. Now it was a matter of finding out what was happening and getting help to solve it. And since he already lost Wendy and Derrick, he needed someone else's help.

Soos.

Of course. If anyone could get a good grasp on an odd social situation, it would be him. And he and Melody already loved each other and were getting married. No way could they make a sudden shift the way others had before.

Keeping his head down, he casually walked over to the DJ booth in the corner of the room, where Soos was rocking and bobbing his head to the beat of the ongoing song as it played through his headphones and the speakers. Right beside him, Melody was typing at a computer with her own set of headphones.

As he stepped up to the booth, he briefly glanced at his surroundings to ensure he wasn't being followed or stalked at that moment. Once he knew he was clear, he looked up at Soos as he stood at the booth above him and nervously glanced around as he whispered over to him.

"Soos."

Soos paid him no mind and kept bobbing his head to the music. Dipper looked up and was reminded that he was wearing headphones and a whisper wasn't going to do anything. He then raised his arm up to his stand and snapped his fingers in his face, grabbing his attention. He put his headphones down and around his neck as he spotted Dipper.

"Soos, it's me," Dipper whispered while anxiously looking around the room, still watching out for any sudden pursuers.

"Oh, heya Dipper!" Soos greeted in a voice loud enough to be heard over the music.

"Pipe down a bit, man..." Dipper pleaded, making hand gestures to tone it down.

"Heh, sorry bro, but we're at a party right now. Kinda hard to keep quiet when everyone's here to turn up, ya know?"

"Yeah, yeah, but this is serious. I need your help."

"Alright, dude," Soos said, leaning down over the booth to be close enough to hear him. "I'm all ears."

"Look, man. Things are getting pretty weird around here," Dipper began quietly, still watching his surroundings. "For some reason, half the party is like... in love with me or something! Even Wendy almost kissed me a minute ago!"

"Dude... Wendy? Almost kissing you?" Soos said with a chuckle. "Look, no offense, Dipper. But you were already starting to lose me when you said that half of these dudes were in love with you. Now, I'm completely gone."

"I'm not kidding, Soos! Yes, I know it all sounds hard to believe, but…"

He continued to explain himself to Soos, but as he did so, Soos froze. A smell caught his nose, to which he began to sniff a bit, inhaling Dipper's persisting cologne scent. Soon, his eyes briefly flashed pink sparkles and he unfroze. His eyes darted back down to Dipper and his pupils dilated. Having grown a new portrayal of him in his mind, Soos began to lean further against his DJ stand as he invested himself in every word that Dipper was saying.

"Uh-huh," he mindlessly nodded to whatever Dipper had just said while keeping a fixed gaze on him.

---

Suddenly, Ryland finally popped out of the bathroom hallway. Having been eagerly glancing back and forth at the hallway every three seconds for the past few minutes, Mabel's heart began racing as soon as she finally saw him come out.

"There he is!" she said to herself.

She was beginning to feel her nervousness slowly get the best of her again. Her heart began to beat in her throat. But she focused hard on swallowing it back down, not wanting to have her emotions swerve her away again. However, her knee kept on bouncing up and down out of her control, tapping her foot rapidly against the ground.

"Stop that, you stupid knee! Now's not the time to work against me!"

She gave her knee a few slaps, which somehow managed to calm it down a bit. She then looked back over at him and noticed him making his way toward the snack table, presumably to grab a snack before heading back over to her.

"Alright, he's gonna walk back over here in a second. I just need Soos to cue in that 80s slow jam. Like... now…"

The song still hadn't been cued, and she was beginning to grow anxious again. Every second that passed where the music didn't change added to her stress. While Ryland was still at the table, she needed that song to play before he got back so he wouldn't get too comfortable when he got back to the couch.

"Seriously, what's taking Soos so… HUH?!"

She had looked over across the room at Soos' DJ booth in the corner and was horrified when her eyes fell upon him distracted by a conversation with someone. As she looked on at the person he was talking to, she began to quickly recognize her brother in his hoodie, seemingly blabbering away while Soos stood there listening, over-interested.

"Dipper?! No, no, no! C'mon, bro! This isn't the time for one of your bro-talks with Soos!"

She looked back at the snack table and saw that Ryland was still filling up his plate with snacks, not even looking in her direction. Realizing she didn't have much time, she took to her only option. She grabbed her phone and quickly dialed Soos' cell number, putting it up to her ear as it started ringing.

---

"...and then when I went to talk to Wendy about it, she started flirting with me!"

"Oh man, no way…" Soos said with a mindless gaze.

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Then, she grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor!"

"Holy smokes…"

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Then, she tried to kiss me, but I backed off and ran away because I had to think about things!"

"That's wild, dude…"

RIIIIIIIIING!

Dipper raised an eyebrow at Soos' string of supposedly interested remarks. "Soos, are you actually listening to a word I say?"

"Every. Single. Syllable, dude."

RIIIIIIIIING!

Melody glanced over at his ringing phone. She picked it up and held it out to him without looking at the caller ID. "Soos, sweetie, are you gonna answer your phone?"

"Nah, I'm busy," Soos brushed off without breaking his gaze at Dipper, which made Melody raise an eyebrow. "Tell me more, my dude."

Dipper was starting to grow uncomfortable by his gaze. "Soos, why are you acting weird?"

RIIIIIIIIING!

"Soos, it's about to go to voicemail…" Melody reminded him as she continued to hold the phone out to him.

"That's fine," Soos brushed off yet again, still not breaking his gaze on Dipper, as he continued leaning against the DJ stand, which kept on tilting over little by little.

---

BEEEEP!

"'Sup, dawg. I'm probably... like... sucking really hard at Plumber Brothers Moustache-Kart right now, but when I win... or... lose... then I'll get right back to you. If that's okay."

"No! That's not okay! UGHH!" Mabel groaned exasperatedly as she hung up the phone.

Mabel's groans attracted the attention of Candy and Grenda, who promptly poked their heads out from under the table sheet.

"Mabel, what's wrong?" Grenda asked.

"Is everything alright?" Candy asked.

"No! Soos messed up the plan!" Mabel said as she turned to them.

"What even was the plan?" Candy asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I asked him to play a slow jam when Ryland came back! But when I looked over at Soos, Dipper was talking to him and distracting him! I tried calling his phone just now but he didn't pick up! UGGGGH!"

"Uh, Mabel…?" Grenda said alarmingly as her and Candy's eyes bulged in slight concern.

Mabel took no notice, however, simply sighing and stuffing her face in her hands irritatedly. "I just wanted a way to try and naturally ease my relationship with Ryland! A way for me to tell him how I really feel about him without coming off as forced and pushy! Just a natural build-up so I can say I like him without scaring him off! Is that so hard to ask?"

"Uhhh..."

Mabel's heart dropped at the voice. She instantly turned her whole body around to see Ryland standing right in front of her, stupefied as he casually held a plate full of snacks in his hand. He stared at her with his mouth hung open, unable to mouth words as his bulged eyes were full of nothing less than shock.

"R-Ryland..." she said nervously through her bright red cheeks and numb-feeling insides.

"Heyyy..." he replied awkwardly with his wide-eyed stare as he held his filled paper plate motionlessly. "I, uh... went to get, erm... snacks..."

He looked staggered in the most neutral way possible, with little to no indication to her of whether he was pleased or disturbed. He just stood there and stared without bleeding another separate ounce of emotion.

Grenda glanced down at her wrist, pretending there was a watch on it. "Oh, would you look at the time! Candy and I should get going!"

She backed up under the table sheet again, pulling Candy along with her. However, not more than a second later, the two girls peeked their eyes underneath the sheet while lying on the floor.

Mabel dreaded having to talk things out this way, but seeing as they were right there, things obviously had to be addressed. "How much did you hear?"

"...enough, I suppose," Ryland said, eyes still big. "I'm assuming this wasn't your intention?"

Mabel rubbed her arm awkwardly. "No…"

"Well, I... guess... I…"

CRASH!

The conversation between the two was interrupted, and everyone's attention was redirected to the corner of the room at Soos' DJ booth. There, he had collapsed upon his stand, which fell entirely onto the floor, also pulling on some wires and other attached equipment, which promptly shut off the music. Melody held her hand over her mouth in shock while Dipper stood over him the same way. Soos, on the other hand, just lay on the ground, still conscious, yet appearing completely unfazed.

"Soos, man! Are you okay?" Dipper asked.

"Yo, Dipper, dude..." Soos said as he pointed up at him from the ground, smiling. "You still look good from down here. Like really good."

Oh no... Not him too!

How was that going to be Soos' response when he had just fallen over and on top of all of his equipment? Now, he was a goner too! But how?

"Hey, there's Dipper!" he heard from behind, prompting him to turn around.

"Uh oh…" he said to himself.

Various partygoers were scattered across the room, but they all had taken notice of him and began slowly making their way over. As he looked up at their faces, he noticed something different. Beforehand, everyone looked somewhat normal, but now it looked like everyone's pupils had become dilated as they looked back at him.

"Dipper! Where you been, man?"

"I've been looking for you, Dipper!"

"So have I!"

"Me too!"

"Well, you can go away because he's mine!"

"No, he loves me!"

"This is a nightmare…" Dipper said to himself as he progressively backed away from those who were beginning to approach him.

"Hey, there he is!" said a familiar voice from behind.

"Huh?" Dipper turned around and spotted the rest of Wendy's friends: Robbie, Tambry, Lee, and Nate, all sitting in the corner of the room.

"Yo, Dipper! Thompson's looking for you!" Lee called out to him. "He's gonna try to rag on you for taking Wendy from him!"

They all appeared unfazed by him compared to a bunch of the other partygoers. Since he knew he needed allies, he quickly ran up to them.

"Guys! It's not what he seems! I didn't take Wendy from anyone! She just... liked me all of a sudden! Half the party does now! Including Thompson! I'm telling you, something weird is happening! You gotta help me!"

As he stood well within the proximities of the four, his scent had been given enough time to get to them, and they all began to gaze at him with dilated eyes too.

"Yeah, something weird is happening!" Robbie said, standing up from his chair and walking up to him. "Why aren't you going out with me instead of Tambry?"

"WHAT?!" Dipper horrifically screamed, taking a few steps back from him.

"Robbie, you sick freak!" Tambry shouted, getting up and pushing him aside. "Dipper doesn't want you! He wants me!"

"Wrong! But that's to be expected from you," Robbie argued, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Both of you are wrong. Dipper obviously wants me!" Nate butted in, standing up and getting between the two.

"Sorry, man. But you're wrong too. It's me he wants," Lee said as he stood up and walked up to Nate.

"I DON'T WANT ANY OF YOU!" Dipper shouted frantically before running away from the group.

He ran a good few feet before stopping in front of Lazy Susan.

"There you are, Dipper!" she said as she stood in front of him, holding out a pie. "I baked you a pie! It might have some cat hair, and maybe some of my own hair, but I made it out of love for you!"

"GAH!" Dipper yelled fearfully.

He dashed away from her, soon finding himself running into Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland.

"Dipper! How would you like to hop in a police car and drive around really fast?" Blubs offered. "With me, we can go around town breaking as many laws as we want without getting caught!"

"No! Break laws with me instead!" Durland pleaded. "This old man doesn't even like going fast at his age!"

"I do too!"

"Do not!"

"GAAH!" Dipper yelled again.

He ran away from them next, sliding across the dance floor before stopping yet again.

"Dipper! I've been looking for you!" Gideon told him with a crazy look in his eye. "I know I've already said that I wouldn't go after Mabel anymore, but surely you ain't outta the question, right?"

"GAAAAAAH!"

Dipper ran away screaming from him along the side of the room. As he ran, he continued to pass the remaining unaffected party attendees, converting them with his scent and causing them to join in on the love-hungry mob in their pursuit of him throughout the room. What weirded him out the most was how many more familiar faces began to join the mob. Having so many people that he knew and befriended now chasing after him and professing their undying love for him made him far more uncomfortable than any situation he ever had with any girl in his life.

Is this what it's like to be the popular guy in high school? Or a celebrity? Because if so, this is TERRIBLY overrated.

Even Melody had joined the mob after he passed by Soos' DJ corner, where she was tending to him on the ground. After passing by, however, she dropped her aid for him and joined in on the pursuit, to which Soos followed immediately along as well.

"Why is this happening?" Dipper asked himself as he ran. "What's causing this?!"

At that point, he realized he was just running around in circles throughout the floor room. He needed a better way of escaping the mob, and the only way he was going to do that was if he left the floor room. He looked over at the doorway leading through the rest of the Shack, where he had led his pursuers before. Except now, he needed another place to go. The floor room was no option anymore, as the entire party was basically chasing him at that point.

He ran for the doorway, but unbeknownst to him, he ran past his sister and Ryland, leaving them within a trail of air that held the scent of his cologne. They had watched the madness unfold before them, even jumping out of the way as the mob neared them.

At the same time, the trail of air containing his cologne had managed to reach as far as the nearby table. From underneath, Candy and Grenda soon emerged.

"Was that Dipper?" Grenda asked with dilated eyes as she pulled the cloth up and looked over at him running for the doorway.

With dilated eyes herself, Candy rushed out from underneath the table and began to chase after him. "Dipper, wait! I've gained interest again!"

Grenda also got up from underneath the table to join the mob. But in the process, she accidentally bumped her back against it, which caused a glass vase that sat on top to wobble around landing on the edge of the table.

Confused, Mabel looked on as her friends began to chase Dipper down and raised an eyebrow. Clearly, the entire party chasing after him meant that something had happened.

"Okay, what the heck did Dipper do this time?" she asked with skeptical eyes. She began coughing as she inhaled remnants of the trail of cologne. "Yikes... someone in that crowd is wearing some reeeally cheap cologne too."

As Ryland's eyes finished flashing with pink sparkles, he dropped his plate of snacks while looking in Dipper's direction. "Man, I gotta get in on this..."

He took a few steps forward as if he was about to join the mob, but Mabel quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back before he did. "Wait, what? B-but, what about... what about us?"

"What about us?" Ryland asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mabel gave an awkward chuckle as she looked at him in confusion. "Uh... hello? Have you completely forgotten what you just overheard a few seconds ago?"

"Oh... right," Ryland realized. "Look, Mabel. You're really nice and all…"

"Uh, huh?" Mabel nodded eagerly.

"...and I really like you..."

She smiled slightly. "Uh, huh?"

"...but I think I like your brother a lot more."

SMASH!

At that moment, the glass vase on the table behind her had tipped over and smashed against the floor, which seemed to occur at the same moment Mabel felt her heart shatter.

"W-what?" she asked, her face dropping as her eye twitched uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry. I really am," Ryland told her as he held a slight look of guilt. But this cleared up rather quickly as he turned around and took off to follow the mob chasing Dipper down.

As soon as he hit the doorway, he turned the corner out of the floor room and was gone. Mabel just stood entirely still and continued to stare forward blankly. She had never gone from feeling so anxious to so empty in such a short period of time. If she wasn't so muddled, she'd probably start to cry, but she couldn't. She was too busy processing the fact that her summer crush had just rejected her in favor of her brother. Everything else that had just happened, including the giant mob and her brother being chased down, had been tuned out in her head. None of it could've prepared her for the bomb she just had dropped on her.

It was one thing to be rejected.

It was a whole other thing to be told that your crush would rather be with your brother.

---

In the basement, Ford glumly poured two mugs of coffee from the machine's decanter. Once he did so, he took both mugs back to a table where Stan sat looking just as sullen. He handed him his mug as he took a seat across from him.

"Thanks, Sixer," Stan said as he accepted the mug from Ford and took a sip. "At this point, you and Shermie are about the only family I can count on."

"Quite the inverse of how things used to be," Ford remarked.

Stan huffed air through his nose, somewhat amused by the fact. "Yeah, ain't that some irony?"

Ford sighed. "Ya know, I'm with you in feeling disappointed, but now I can't shake the itch that maybe our expectations were a tad... unfair."

"Unfair? Us?" Stan questioned. "Ford, it was their promise that they didn't keep!"

"Yes, but... maybe we expecting them to be more like the kids they were when really... they're not kids anymore," Ford reasoned as he thought about it. "They're teenagers, Stanley. They've been teenagers for years now."

"You're right. And like I said, this is what teens do," Stan said bitterly. "They think the world is their oyster, and that it revolves around them. They stop caring about their commitments. They start getting moody, and their hormones start clouding their judgment. They show less regard for their own family while they search the world in hopes of finding something better."

Ford frowned. "Stan, how could you make such a generalization?"

Stan turned and looked at himself in the faint reflection of the decanter back on the counter and sighed. "It's how I was, wasn't it? With Mom and Dad? Then I used to see it in people like Wendy and all her friends. Slacking and not caring. Thinking they know better. Sure, the kids also had some of those tendencies back then, but they still had some regard. Now what do they have?"

"I still think they have lots of love," Ford admitted before taking a sip of coffee. "Hopefully, they will come back around soon enough. In the minds of the youth, there's always room to learn and grow."

Stan still wasn't too convinced. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's just get to work on this whole Bill thing. The sooner, the better, and all that."

"I suppose we need to get started at some point," Ford said as he stood back up, walking over with his mug back to the counter. "Let me just get some things set up here. I still have to get back into my usual routine of working around the lab. Basic tasks and steps are still escaping me."

"You woke up hours before me so you could work on this place, and you still have things you need to set up?"

"Luckily, it's not a lot," Ford said as he organized drawers and cabinets. "Perhaps my most foolish mistake before we left earlier was not enabling the lab's security system. Considering how many guests we have at the Shack for this party, it's unwise to leave the entire place open to being discovered behind something as indiscreet as a gift shop vendor. Anyone could just come down here and mess with all of my inventions and valuables, which, admittedly, I also need to find better protection for instead of cheap cases and cabinets."

"Well, even without security, in the thirty years I ran the Shack, keeping the basement hidden behind the vendor never failed once," Stan said confidently. "Trust me, Ford. This town has grown too dumb to expect anything as smart as secret, hidden doorways."

He then looked to the side under one of the cabinets, noticing the cologne from earlier. He raised an eyebrow, walking over to it and picking it up to examine it more closely.

"Hey, Ford?" Stan called out as he held it out in his hand.

Ford's eyes glanced over in his direction in response to his call. His eyes bulged as they laid upon the cologne in his hands again.

"Stanley! What did I tell you about that cologne?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as he walked over to him and swiped it from his hands.

Stan raised his hands defensively. "Hey, hey! Calm down! I wasn't doing anything with it! I was just gonna say- I thought you put that stuff away before we left."

"I did put it away," Ford told him as he opened the cabinet above and set the cologne inside.

"Well, I just found it sitting out on top of this counter here," Stan said as he gestured to the counter. "Outside of the cabinet."

"Huh. Really?" Ford asked. "Hmm, that's odd. Maybe I didn't put it away after all. Perhaps we're just remembering it wrong."

"Okay, there are two problems with that. First of all, why would YOU make such a stupid mistake and not put it away? Second, as the man with a demon in his head giving him apparent short-term memory issues, even I remember you putting that stuff away. Adding those two together, then I think something's gotta be up."

"So what are you saying? You think someone's been down here?"

DING!

Stan and Ford's heads quickly turned over in surprise to see the elevator arriving. As the elevator opened up, a short man proceeded to step out.

"Where's Dipper?!" shouted Toby Determined, who took a few steps out of the elevator, eyes darting around the lab.

"INTRUDER!" Ford shouted as he and Stan both jumped into standoff positions upon the sight of Toby in the lab.

"GET HIM!" Stan commanded, to which Ford quickly pulled out a weapon from the side that looked akin to a shotgun.

"Wait... what?" Toby questioned upon sight of the weapon.

BANG!

"CHRIST, FORD!" Stan screamed, startled and shocked. "What the hell?!"

"What?" Ford questioned as he put the weapon down to the side. "I handled things, did I not?"

The two looked back ahead and saw Toby stuck within a thick coat of a yellowish material. The material itself blasted him up a few feet above the ground and onto the wall, sticking him. It was as if he was placed in a cocoon of glue and stuck against the wall at the same time.

"Ughh…" Toby groaned painfully. His head ached due to the intense and sudden knockback against the wall.

"The hell is that stuff?" Stan asked as the two walked up to him.

"Experimental foam glue," Ford said. "Just another weapon from the arsenal I've obtained from my time across dimensions. It has the strength and stickiness of spider webbing."

"Yeah... great facts, but you wanna address the creep in our lab who's after our great-nephew?" Stan asked before turning back to Toby. "Explain yourself!"

"I'm just tryiiiing to find Dipper so we can rekindle our looove with one another!" Toby explained before puckering his lips and making a bunch of kissing noises. "Mwah, mwah, mwah! Mwah, mwah, mwah! Mwah, mwah, mw-"

Stan cut his weird and creepy kissing noises short by putting his hand around his throat, choking him. "Toby, you freakin' creep! You're talking about my sixteen-year-old great-nephew! You're a messed up little creature, but even THIS is a new low for you!"

"Hold on, Stan! Let him go!" Ford demanded as he came to a potential realization.

"Let him go?! Ford, he's-"

"I'm aware! But hold on for a moment, will ya?" Ford ordered again, pulling Stan back away from Toby. Toby coughed as his throat was released, to which Ford began to focus his attention on him. "Sir, how did you get into this lab?"

"Are you kidding me?! Out of all the things to be concerned about, that's what you ask?" Stan asked frustratedly.

"Dammit, Stanley, I told you to hold on!" Ford barked back.

"I just saaaw the open doorway and came dooown," Toby began, which grabbed the attention of the Stan brothers back. "The vending machine covering it was knocked down by the mob upstairs also looking for Dipper."

"Knocked down...?" Ford repeated, raising a curious eyebrow.

"...by the mob...?" Stan repeated.

"...looking for Dipper?!" they both repeated at the same time, exchanging concerned looks with one another.

---

Upstairs in the gift shop, there were several various partygoers under the influence of the cologne. They ran around, searching the Shack for Dipper. They called out for him, physically fought over him, and generally pleaded for his presence.

The gift shop's vending machine was tipped over as a result of the ongoing search, and not even because people thought there would be a doorway into the basement behind, but because they thought Dipper would be hiding inside the machine. Many ignored and dismissed the newly revealed doorway or didn't even notice it. However, some found it worth searching.

Stan and Ford quickly came to this discovery as they emerged from the downstairs elevator. While there weren't many people, it seemed like they had been waiting for the elevator while they stood outside and watched them come out.

"Alright! All of you: get out!" Stan ordered those standing by, gesturing back over to the stairs for them to leave. "C'mon! Each and every one of you! Get outta here!"

The twins began pushing them all out from downstairs. As they walked up the stairs, all the lost partygoers quickly sped out from the doorway and over the tipped vending machine. Just as the twins reached the top of the stairs themselves, their eyes widened at the sight.

Throughout nearly every square foot of the entire gift shop, people were scrambling around. Shelves and racks were flipped over, and pieces of merchandise had been moved aggressively, often resulting in various sorts of destruction of products themselves or stands. Most prominently, the twins had noticed most of the guests calling out the name of their great-nephew, creepily begging for his love, as well as promising to love him in return.

Ford had taken the cologne from the basement along with him in his jacket and took it out as he observed these stranger, yet familiar behaviors to him.

"Well, Stanley. I think you may have been right about someone coming down into the basement after all…" he said while gesturing toward the cologne in his hands.

---

Dipper was running out of places to hide and running out of stamina to run. Since running from the floor room, he had run through and around almost every single accessible corner of the Mystery Shack. While he managed to get a few of his lovesick pursuers off his tail, a good number of them continued to stick behind him, making any attempt to hide just about useless. Then when he went running again, he would end up regaining the attention of those he had managed to escape, which meant he would have to lose them yet again.

He had hesitated multiple times to leave the Shack entirely, but he knew he wasn't going to find any greater help from the rest of the town than he would from those whom he knew who were already present. That was despite the fact that most of the people he knew who had the potential to help him had fallen for him as well, which only made things even more problematic.

The next place he had run was upstairs into the attic, which was one of the last places he hadn't gone in the Shack other than his bedroom, which was a dead end in itself and a place he'd rather not let himself get cornered. Otherwise, his options were minimal.

That was until he quickly spotted the window pane to his right as he ran up the stairs. While he had his hesitations about going outside, it was at that point he realized he just needed to get away to a spot where he couldn't be reached. And while going up to the roof didn't guarantee his safety, it had to be a safer bet than what he was doing now.

As the mob gained on him, he frantically pushed half of the window pane outward and jumped outside onto the roof tiles. He jumped back to his feet and ran back over to push the window back in place before a pursuer jumped out along with him. He used all his force to keep the window clicked in position.

As a secondary precaution to ensure no one could get through the window to follow, he took off his hoodie and tied a knot around the hinges of the frame using the long sleeves. He took a step back and watched as his idea helped keep the windows shut no matter how hard the several townsfolk inside tried to press on it. He didn't dismiss the idea of them possibly shattering the window to get to him instead, but he still felt a sense of relief upon realizing he was somewhat free for that moment.

That was before he glanced down at himself without his hoodie and quickly remembered the catastrophe he had done to his shirt earlier, glancing at the rips where his sleeves used to be.

He shamefully shook his head. "Man, what was I thinking?"

He suddenly heard screeches, to which he looked back at the window. Quickly, he noticed a bunch of teen girls, including Candy and Grenda, pressing their hands and faces against the window pointing at him like a bunch of rabid fangirls.

"Look at those arms!" one girl shouted.

"So noodle-y," another swooned.

Dipper was genuinely disturbed by the whole situation overall, but still couldn't help but go red-faced at these comments. It didn't help his cause that he continued to stand right in front of the window where all his want-to-be-lovers were, and so he decided to do himself a favor and remove himself from their sight. He stepped to the side and climbed up onto the roof above the attic, crawling on the tiling until he reached a comfortable seam for him to just sit back and rest by himself.

He let out a deep sigh. "Glad I'm finally out of that..." He rested his head back against the tiles, closing his eyes for a brief moment to think. "Now what am I gonna do?"

He opened his eyes again, staring forward for a bit as the close-to-setting sun beamed upon the side of his face. He was able to make out an odd shadow, however, as well as another figure within his peripheral vision to his right. He turned his head and spotted a girl on the roof with him who sat right beside the rooftop exit from the gift shop.

From the clothes and the hair, he realized it was Mabel. She was looking away from him and didn't appear to have noticed his presence on the rooftop. From her general posture, she looked to be slumped as though she was upset or saddened by something. The fact that she was already up on the roof by herself before he came along was only further evidence of that.

He hadn't seen his sister since they had spoken in their room before the party and therefore had no idea of the culmination of events that could've led her to this position. Naturally, he was curious and concerned for what brought her up there too.

"Mabel?"

Her posture immediately straightened upon hearing his voice. She turned her head over to him, looking on at him in surprise. After realizing who he was, her eyes narrowed.

"YOU!" she shouted angrily, pointing a finger in his direction as she began to walk toward him.

Dipper's heart dropped. "Oh no... not you too!" he cried out as he backed up against the roof fearfully, holding his arms up defensively. "ANYBODY BUT YOU!"

Just as he began to consider jumping off the roof as his next means of escape, it was too late. Mabel had walked right up to him and began lightly slapping him repeatedly, albeit aiming for his face, but blocked by his arms.

"What. Did. You. Do?!" she asked angrily as she continued to slap his arms. "I've spent so much of the summer so far talking and connecting with Ryland, and then when he finally finds out how I feel, he tells me he'd rather be with my own brother instead?! You big... crush-stealer!"

Dipper's eyes widened. "Woah, woah, woah!" he said as he quickly grabbed hold of both of her wrists mid-slapping, which she tried to resist at first, but stopped. He then pushed her back, trying to get her out of his close proximity. "Hold on, so... you don't have a crush on me right now?"

Mabel's face immediately scrunched up in disgust at the question. "What?! EW, Dipper! I'm your sister! Why would I have a crush on you?"

"I don't know! Maybe because pretty much everyone else from the party does?" Dipper said as he rubbed his arms from her constant slapping. "You were there, weren't you? You didn't see me getting chased by everybody?"

Mabel thought for a second, beginning to recall the incident as it was brought back to her focus. "Yeah... actually, I did. What was up with that?"

"Again... I don't know! It just seems like everybody I speak to today just suddenly falls in love with me! Anybody I even walk next to! I know whatever's happening isn't natural, so that's why I asked. I was afraid that the same thing might've happened to you."

"Well, thankfully for both of us, that's absolutely NOT the case," Mabel assured as she took a step back in disgust at the thought.

"Yeah, thankfully," Dipper said as he sat back down, easing down from his fears. "But there's still a mob of people inside who are in love with me. Including most of the people we know- Soos, Melody, Robbie, Derrick…"

"Pfft, Derrick? Nice," Mabel chuckled at the idea, which prompted an unamused look from Dipper. She quickly cleared her throat guiltily. "Sorry."

"God, and even Wendy..." Dipper said as he stuffed his face in his hands out of embarrassment. "Ugggghhhh... I still can't believe that. We almost kissed…"

Mabel gasped and pushed her cheeks together excitedly. "Really?!"

"Yeah, but it's not like she has a real crush on me. She's just been hit with the same thing that's happening to everybody else."

"Oh…" Mabel said, her excitement dying down a bit.

"But, yeah. That's what's going on with me." He lay back against the tiles again. "What were you doing up here by yourself?"

Mabel walked up and sat beside him, laying her back against the tiles too. "Well, Ryland found out about my feelings for him. But instead of returning them, he rejected me because he, uh, said that he liked you instead…"

"Gah! Are you kidding me? Him too?" Dipper jolted up, horrified at this revelation.

"Yeah... I got upset about it and came up here to, you know, just be all sad and stuff. Then you came along..."

"...and you got mad and started slapping me and blaming everything on me."

"First, I'm sorry about that," she said, rubbing her shoulder guiltily. "Second, imagine how you'd feel if any of your crushes ever rejected you because they wanted to be with me instead."

Dipper chuckled lightly. "Point taken."

"But yeah, now I know he probably doesn't REALLY like you like that. Which is good for both of us," she said with a smile. "Unless…"

"Nope, absolutely not." Dipper instantly shook his head, denying what he knew she was thinking. "Trust me, he's all yours."

"Good to know."

"It would be even greater to know what the hell is going on," Dipper said, going back to the matter at hand. "What the source of the problem even is. Why everybody I make contact with... or even walk past... just falls head-over-heels in love with me."

"Yeah, with that cologne you're wearing, you'd expect them to do the opposite," Mabel jabbed. "Seriously, that stuff smells like someone tried to make a cologne based on the word 'intricate'." She then took another whiff of the surrounding air. "Huh... ironically, it kinda smells like what I remember one of the Love God's potions smelling like…"

"Wait a second... the cologne…" Dipper remembered as he pulled on the collar of his shirt and smelled himself. "Of course! That's what's causing all this! It's gotta be!"

"The cologne? Really?"

"Yeah! After we last talked, I got a bit self-conscious about being presentable to girls and others, so I decided to work on myself like you told me to." He pulled on one of the ripped sleeves, gesturing toward it. "I may have gone a bit overboard…"

"That's why you ripped your sleeves?" Mabel questioned, chuckling with amusement as she scanned his appearance. "Wow... I didn't want to say anything, but I thought you were just going through some sorta teen mid-life crisis or something!" She laughed for a bit before immediately reverting back to a straight and honest face. "But yeah, never do that to your clothes again."

Dipper sighed. "Already noted... Anyway, Derrick came along and shared your thoughts about my stench, and so he suggested we go look for cologne to cover up the scent."

"Why not just, I don't know... take a shower?"

"Something about not having enough time or something? I don't know! It was stupid of me to listen to him!" Dipper admitted. "Long story short- I used a bottle of cologne that we found in Ford's lab while neither he nor Stan were down there. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it wasn't until after I put it on that everyone started acting weird. Derrick started getting more touchy and friendly toward me. Girls I never met suddenly being... nice to me. Wendy wanting to be with me. I think that anybody who smells the cologne falls in love with me... except you... for whatever reason that is."

"So you're saying that this was Derrick's idea and that we should blame him for all of this?" Mabel's thought process immediately jumped to.

"Come on, now isn't the time to play the blame game," Dipper told her with a look. "But yeah, if I'm right, then it's totally Derrick's fault."

Mabel gasped, clenching her fists excitedly. "Does that finally give me an excuse to punch him in the face?"

Dipper raised an eyebrow. "Um... no?"

"Drat. It was worth asking though."

"Anyway, if this is Ford's cologne, maybe he'll have a solution for all of this." Although briefly hopefully, an uncomfortable thought entered his head. "Assuming he and Stan weren't affected by it either…"

"Well, I'm right next to you and haven't been affected," Mabel reminded. "Maybe they can't be either."

"True. Maybe they aren't. I didn't see them in the mob of people chasing me, so it's possible. Then again, the last time I saw them was right before everything got weird."

"Well, they have to be around somewhere."

"Shouldn't you know?" Dipper asked. "I mean, you were with them, right?"

"No, I was with Ryland, Candy, and Gren-"

She cut herself off as she came to a realization. Her eyes suddenly lit up with growing remorse.

"...and Grenda. I was with them... instead of Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford... Oh no..."

Dipper glanced over at her. "What?"

"The promise, Dipper!" Mabel reminded as she put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. "The one we made to them this morning! About not leaving their sides! About not getting distracted! I got distracted by my friends and Ryland and forgot about our Grunkles!"

Dipper quickly recalled the promise as she went on and began to realize that he was equally at fault. "Oh, man... I forgot too! I was talking with them and then left to get a drink. But then I got caught up with Wendy... before things hit the fan!"

"I threw this big party to celebrate them. For us to go and spend time with them after four long years without them. And then promised them that we wouldn't get caught up in other business…"

"...and then we got caught up."

Mabel dragged her hands over her face guiltily. "Ugh. And Soos even tried to warn me about what I was doing, and I just blew him off."

They both felt terribly guilty over everything. Neither of them actively planned to break their promises and get caught up in romantic endeavors, but they still meant not to get distracted. Now they lay upon the roof, realizing things long after they had already happened, and without a clue where their great uncles were or if they were okay. But regardless, they knew they'd be disappointed with them.

"What kind of family are we?" Dipper asked as he stared up at the sky guiltily.

"The worst kind. That's what."

"If I could do this day over, I would've just taken a shower after waking up."

"And if I could do this day over, I would've put a bag over Ryland's head so I never had to think about his stupid, cute face until the party ended."

They lay on the ceiling staring at the sky for a good moment. However, their attention was suddenly drawn to the side as they saw and heard the rooftop trapdoor burst open.

Soon enough, they saw Stan emerge from it and sprawl out onto the tiles, which surprised the twins and prompted them to quickly stand back up. Right behind him, Ford climbed up, which appeared to be a slight struggle for him. As he got his legs out, he quickly closed the trapdoor behind him.

"God, for all the hidden passageways and entrances you have around the Shack, I can't believe the only other way you have of getting to the attic is by climbing up to the damn roof," Stan grumbled as Ford helped him up from the tiles.

"Well, if you feel like going through a love-crazed mob instead, then by all means, be my..." Ford began before his eyes looked past him and over at the twins on the roof. "...guest."

Stan caught his eyes looking behind him and turned his head to look too. His eyes bulged in surprise as they lay upon the twins, who stared back at the two in surprise as well. However, he began to look upon them unhappily as his memory of their actions came back to mind.

"Well, LOOK who it is..." Stan said while narrowing his eyes at the two.

Mabel glanced over at Dipper and backed up against him, holding her arms out defensively as she looked back at the Stans.

"HALT!" she demanded the Stan twins.

"Mabel, what are you doing?" Dipper asked.

"Before either of you take any step closer, you have to answer one simple question," Mabel said to the Stans as she continued to defend her brother. "On a scale of 'Ew, that's my nephew' to 'I could still go for it', how madly in love are either of you with Dipper?"

"Jesus Christ, Mabel…" Dipper said in disgust. He knew what she was doing, but also felt she could've worded things differently.

"Uh... how about... I won't hesitate to throw you both off of this roof if you ask a question like that again..." Stan said in disgust, glancing over at Ford who held a similar look of revulsion.

"They're good," Mabel said with a smile as she stepped out of her defensive pose for Dipper. "Grunkle Stan!"

"Great Uncle Ford!" Dipper called out gratefully.

The twins ran up to the other pair of twins, hugging them both. Ford looked reluctant to hug back, while Stan simply didn't appear joyful about the hug to begin with.

"Some nerve you two have hugging us after what you both did," Stan said grumpily.

"We know!" Dipper said as he kept hugging.

"And we're so, so sorry!" Mabel said as she only tightened her hug, even beginning to feel herself tear up due to her guilt. "We know we got distracted and abandoned you guys like we said we wouldn't, and we know you two are upset with us, and we know we totally don't deserve to be forgiven, but we're sorry, and we truly love you both, and we really have missed you after all the years we've been apart!"

The elder twins processed the apology for a moment. Ford still appeared a bit reluctant while Stan still looked unsatisfied.

"Well, you're right about one thing," Stan said as he pulled the two off of them without regret. "You both don't deserve to be forgiven."

Dipper and Mabel lowered their heads sadly at his response. But Ford took a step forward and put a hand on Stan's shoulder before giving a slight smile

"But... we're going to anyway," Ford said. The twins looked back up at him and gave grateful smiles in return.

"Oh, c'mon, Ford!" Stan shouted. "You gotta let them sit in the guilt for a bit before forgiving! That's how this stuff works!"

"Shut up, old man!" Mabel exclaimed as she and Dipper both wrapped their arms around the two again. "You know you love us!"

"Yeah, yeah..." Stan brushed off with a light chuckle as he pulled the twins away again. "But keep in mind that even though we forgive you, it's still too soon to be going 'Shut up, old man' again."

"Yeah... my bad," Mabel acknowledged as she rubbed her shoulder awkwardly.

"Anyway, I feel as though we should address the obvious matter at hand," Ford said as his eyes glanced over at Dipper.

"Right... the whole 'mob of people who are in love with me' matter, right?" Dipper nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Indeed…" Ford reached into his jacket and pulled out the cologne. "Now, Dipper, I reckon that you must have some recollection of this item, correct?"

"I wish I didn't."

"I see. So, to my understanding, you had gone down into the lab without either me or Stan knowing?"

"Yes, both me and my friend, Derrick," Dipper admitted, feeling even worse for not trusting his earlier instincts.

"Why?"

"Because... I stunk," Dipper answered bluntly, which, despite his seriousness, made Mabel need to put full effort into not cracking a chuckle. "I was insecure about my presentation around girls and people and I needed to do something about it. And instead of just taking a shower like a normal person, I listened to my friend and went into the basement and put on a... love cologne... and started this whole mess. But it wasn't my idea, and I didn't want to go down there without you, and…" He sighed and just accepted his fate. "...you're still going to be mad at me anyway."

Ford sighed as he walked up to him and put his hands on his shoulders. "No, my boy. I'm not mad. I was a teen too, you know. In fact, being a teen was the whole reason I even invented this stuff in the first place. And while its final function wasn't my initial intention, I've learned that the general concept was just one of the many lesser developed ideas of my youth." He glanced between him and Mabel. "The point I want you and even Mabel to understand is that I've held onto many of those failed ideas after all these years rather than sloppily disposing of them, simply to keep them out of getting into the wrong hands. My lab is full of similarly dangerous items and other potential disasters just waiting to happen should they be used wrongly. To prevent things from getting out of control, as we can make note of from today, all I ask is that whether it's you or your sister, don't touch or use any items that you don't know the function of. You both are family, and you're older now, and so I think I can trust you both to come down there whenever it's needed, even without supervision from Stan... or... well, without supervision from me."

"Hey!" Stan exclaimed, taking slight offense to his brother's implication that he wasn't as trustworthy to supervise in the lab.

"I just need you to understand that not everything is what it seems and that down there, some of the most innocent-looking objects could bring devastation to our planet within seconds," Ford continued.

"That sounds terrifying... and oddly malicious…" Dipper said, raising a concerned eyebrow.

"Trust me, the second I have the chance, I'll be getting rid of most of it," Ford assured him before placing his hand on the top of his head and scruffing it a bit. "All I ask is for you two to be careful and to be smart about what you use down there. Just to prevent future incidents like this."

"Alright, I promise," Dipper nodded with a chuckle.

"I promise!" Mabel said as well.

Stan crossed his arms skeptically. "We should be recording these promises this time. Ya know, just to have them ready."

"Ah, drop it, Stanley," Ford said as he nudged him in the shoulder.

"So now that that's out of the way, how do we fix everything?" Dipper asked.

"Right, well, it's honestly just a waiting game," Ford admitted.

"What?! Seriously?" Dipper questioned, frowning.

"I admit that in college, I had a habit of overusing the cologne and spraying way more than I needed to on myself each day I decided to wear it, which sort of bonded the scent to me for a while even after I stopped wearing it. I even took my only week off to deal with constantly showering myself trying to kill the scent, to which the day I came back, everything appeared to be normal again. Of course, I was avoided more because everyone retained the memory of their love for me, but... normal otherwise. Generally, though, I'm unsure how long it will take before the effects die down completely once you've managed to wash off the scent. It could be days."

"I can't deal with this for days!" Dipper exclaimed worriedly.

"Grunkle Ford, what did you even put in the cologne that makes people fall in love with the user?" Mabel asked.

"Gosh, it's been so long..." Ford said as he tried to remember. "But it was the usual cologne items you would find in any typical store-bought cologne. Perhaps even safer alternatives to the more hazardous chemicals."

"You also mentioned borrowing some ingredient from a guy with wings," Stan chimed in.

"Right. A loud, hippie classmate of mine who wore wings offered me a tiny sample of one of the many substances he stored inside little flasks he kept on his belt," Ford said as he recalled.

Mabel gasped. "Love God!"

"Wait a second…" Dipper said as he realized something. "Mabel, didn't you just say that the cologne smelled like one of Love God's potions?"

Mabel suddenly grabbed ahold of Dipper's arm and took a good, long whiff of his fragrance, which he found slightly weird. Upon finishing, she let out a large exhale and gasped again. "Young Love! That's why people keep falling in love with you! Grunkle Ford, that ingredient you borrowed came from a literal love god!"

"A love god?" Ford asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Or a Cherub," Mabel added with a careless shrug.

"We met one here in Gravity Falls the last time we were here, and he had a belt of love potions like you described," Dipper explained. "The ingredient you borrowed was a sample of one of his potions, which makes the love-inducing effect."

"Love potions are also supposed to last only three hours," Mabel added. "It probably lasted longer for Grunkle Ford because of how much longer he had exposed others to the smell."

"Well, three hours isn't as bad as a few days," Ford said.

"But still, you wanna wait up here for three hours?" Stan asked. "I'm already feeling woozy at the thought of waiting three minutes."

Mabel snapped her fingers at Dipper as she came to another realization. "The anti-love potion we stole last time! I still have it!"

"You brought that stuff back home to Piedmont and back?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

She glanced away innocently. "Sometimes I use it whenever I need to get over my exes."

Dipper raised an eyebrow in concern. "I'm not sure that's healthy…"

"Anyways, if we could make our way back to our room, I could get the potion and we could use it on everybody else and reverse the effects of the cologne!" Mabel suggested.

"That could work," Dipper nodded, before looking back at Ford. "But Great Uncle Ford said that everybody still remembered the effects of the potion afterward…"

Mabel realized this potential issue and thought over it. "Well, I mean, we could just be honest and explain to everybody that it was all some sort of-"

"I almost kissed Wendy, Mabel," Dipper reminded her, looking her dead in the eye. "How exactly am I gonna go about explaining that?"

Mabel thought for a second. "Yeah... that is a problem…"

"Well, obviously, memory erasure is out of the question," Ford said as he tried to think of a solution as well.

"Though, I'd definitely consider it…" Dipper said under his breath.

"A chunk of town is in love with this kid, Stanford. How's he gonna get around anywhere this summer if everyone remembers this?" Stan asked.

"I have an idea," Ford said, snapping his fingers. "For now, you two and Stan just head over to your room to locate the anti-love potion, then bring it downstairs and meet me in the lab. We'll work from there."

"On it!" Mabel nodded as she and Dipper began to run along the tiles before climbing along the side of the roof, making their way over to where their room was located.

Ford kneeled and opened the trapdoor, to which Stan grabbed ahold of his shoulder.

"Hold up. What exactly are you gonna be doing?" Stan asked.

"You'll see when we meet again," Ford said, placing his feet back down into the door. "Trust me. Just go and help the kids!"

Stan sighed before turning around and following after Dipper and Mabel as they climbed the roof tiles up to their room, although at a slower and more manageable pace for his age. Ford watched for a moment before descending the ladder, closing the trapdoor right above him again.

---

Dipper and Mabel had managed to crawl along the steep rooftop of the Mystery Shack over to their bedroom window. However, it quickly became apparent to them that their bedroom window wasn't as easy to reach as the other windows, as there was no tiling underneath it. Additionally, it was right below a slight overhang that the tiles they stood on created.

"Now how're we supposed to get down there?" Dipper asked as he looked down below at the window.

"We could use my grappling hook…!" Mabel suggested before she patted herself down. "...which I left back inside our room…"

"Great..." Dipper remarked, realizing their predicament wasn't going to be as easy to figure out.

Suddenly, Stan came climbing up the roof behind them, panting and out of breath. As he reached them, he sat down to rest.

"Geez, Grunkle Stan. The past few years did a number on your stamina, huh?" Mabel said as she examined him

"That's the thing. I've spent the last four years sailing the world, yet I need to take a break to breathe after a minute of climbing a damn roof," he panted while holding onto his chest.

"You should probably see a doctor about that," Dipper chimed in as he stepped up to him.

"You know, walking up here, you can really tell how old and worn these tiles are with how much they sink in when you step on them," Stan said while looking down at the tiles he sat on. "Seriously, with tiles like these, who knows how worn the wood underneath must be?"

Dipper glanced between the two. "Wait, so if the tiles are that worn, is it really a good idea for us to be right next to each other in the same spot on the…?"

CRACK!

"...ROOOOOOF!" Dipper screamed along with Mabel and Stan as the three of them suddenly fell along with the collapsing roof underneath their feet.

THUD!

The fall wasn't very long, but it wasn't pleasant. However, it could've been much worse, considering they still managed to land right on top of Dipper's bed inside the twins' bedroom. The three groaned as they sat up and looked around.

Dipper looked down and groaned annoyedly as he saw all of the roof rubble and grime on his bed. "Of course we were right above my bed."

"Well, at least we're inside! And it doesn't look like anyone knows yet!" Mabel said, looking at the bright side. She jumped up from the bed, quickly brushing her clothes off before running over to her side of the room and looking through her drawer. "Just gotta find that anti-love potion! I know it's around here somewhere."

Stan got up from the bed, brushing his clothes off as well while walking toward the center of the room. He glanced up and around the room, soon realizing that he hadn't even been up there or seen the place in four years. The last time he saw it, it was empty and had been freshly packed up by the twins not too long before. But here he stood inside, and it was full again.

When he remembered Dipper's side of the room, he couldn't say he recalled much. He was a simple kid who liked to read books and hunt weirdness. His idea of decorating then was very minimal, and it still was four years later. There was little he added to his side of the room, aside from more books and some more acne cream. But it still represented the nerdy kid that Stan used to know.

He then glanced over at Mabel's side and remembered how it used to be. The colorful posters of kittens, boy bands, rainbows, and other pictures of her summer memories. The general splash of life that she had brought to an otherwise bland and colorless room. Yet four years later, she's managed to pretty much do the same thing, except slightly more organized, yet just as extravagant. There were newer posters of kittens, boy bands, and rainbows, along with pictures from home, which seemed to include her friends and parents. All of them so sparkly and colorful. She must've coated the pictures with glitter or something because there was no way any photo glistened that much naturally.

One photo stood out from the others though. An old picture from the last summer they spent together. He and Ford were standing while Dipper sat on his shoulders and Mabel sat on Ford's. They held water balloons in their hands and smiled widely as if they were mid-laugh. Ford appeared to be mid-laugh too, but Stan himself appeared to be reacting to a water balloon that he had just taken to the face, tilting over slightly.

This photo stood out not because Stan recognized it, but because it was pinned separately from Mabel's other photos of her friends and family. Completely on its own, it hung. It was as though she had put a separate value into that one picture than she did all the others.

Stan recalled his earlier annoyances with the twins leaving their sides for the party. The whole ordeal led him to think that the kids he knew weren't the same anymore. That four years had changed them far more than he had thought. That they didn't value family as much anymore. That they no longer cared.

And though he had already forgiven them, it wasn't until that moment that he knew that he was wrong too. When he looked around the room, he realized that the kids he knew four years ago hadn't gone anywhere. They were still inside the teens that stood there with him right that second.

Sure, they grew. But so did their hearts.

"Found it!" Mabel announced as she pulled a flask of the dark purple anti-love potion with the same old spray bottle top attached to it. She walked over to Dipper with it.

"Nice!" Dipper said with a smile as he took it from her. "Good thing you held onto it all these years. Grunkle Stan, are you ready to go?"

Stan remained silent as he continued to look on at the picture.

Mabel raised a concerned eyebrow. "Grunkle Stan?" she asked as she walked over to him, tugging on his jacket.

He finally turned back to her and glanced between her and Dipper. At that moment, he envisioned the two in their current positions as twelve-year-olds again, watching as they looked back at him in concern. Then, he watched them revert back to their present selves, watching as their matured appearances settled back in and four years passed right before his eyes.

"Grunkle Stan, are you okay?" Mabel asked, still giving him a concerned look.

He smiled at her and then at Dipper. "Yeah. Everything's fine." He rubbed the top of her head affectionately. "It's just I realized that... I'm really gonna hate dealing with the both of you again for another summer."

Dipper and Mabel smiled, knowing that this was his way of saying "I've missed you both and I'm glad you're back." And as such, they returned the feeling, walking right up to him and wrapping their arms tightly around him. Finally, he broke and hugged back.

"We've missed you too, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, to which Dipper nodded in agreement.

SLAM!

The three quickly looked up from their tender hug to see the door to the room had been kicked open by one of the many people affected by the love cologne that stood at the door. The eyes of everyone who stood at the door quickly glanced upon Dipper, to which the front girl pointed at him and smiled widely.

"THERE HE IS!" a girl shouted.

Dipper pushed away from the hug between the two in panic. "We gotta go! We gotta go!"

"No worries, broseph!" Mabel said as she reached for her grappling hook from her shelf. She quickly wrapped an arm around him and aimed back up at the hole in the ceiling that they had fallen through, shooting the grapple upwards as it quickly stuck, and retracted the two upwards, leaving Stan behind.

"HEY!" he shouted after the two as they zoomed up. "What about me?!"

Before he could give the twins a chance to respond, the Dipper-obsessed mob began pouring into the bedroom, forcing Stan to have to back further away. Realizing he'd run out of breathing room momentarily, he glanced around for a way of escape. His eyes went to the triangular window, and he quickly opted to make a split-second decision and go for it.

He jumped up onto the nightstand, propelling himself upward before busting straight through the window, shattering the glass and beginning a short-lasting fall, plummeting to the ground from the second floor of the Shack.

Dipper and Mabel stood back on their feet on top of the roof again, brushing themselves off before walking up to the edge to see what had happened. They quickly caught sight of him laying on the ground, groaning in pain.

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel called out to him worriedly.

"Are you okay?!" Dipper asked.

"I forgot... that that room was on the second floor…" he said as he lay in pain.

He was feeling slight resentment at that moment for the twins and their quick decision to leave him behind right after he had begun to warm up to them again. Though, he'd chew them out for that another time.

---

DING!

Ford quickly turned around to see Dipper, Mabel, and Stan emerge from the elevator.

"Ah, there you all are," Ford said as he walked up to them. "I was worried you might've gotten into a brawl with the mob."

"Nope! Luckily, most of them are more focused on finding us in the attic than anything else. Getting to the elevator was pretty easy," Mabel said. "Getting Stan's dislocated arm back into place after he jumped from the second floor... not as much…"

"It saved another hospital visit, but for the record, I'd strongly vote against either of you ever becoming doctors in the future," Stan said, narrowing his eyes at the two as he rubbed the affected arm from earlier.

"Anyways, we got the potion," Dipper said, presenting the anti-love potion in his hand for Ford to see.

Ford took the potion in his hands. "Excellent. Just to ensure that it's just as effective as its name implies, we need to perform a quick test. Luckily, we already have Mr. Determined down here to assist."

Ford gestured over to the wall beside the elevator, which Dipper, Mabel, and Stan didn't notice. There, Toby Determined continued to hang from inside a ball of Ford's foam glue stuck to the wall.

"Hello," Toby casually waved.

"GAH!" Dipper, Mabel, and Stan screamed in horror at the sight of Toby's hideous face.

"God, I forgot that little troll was down here!" Stan remarked.

"At least Dipper thinks I'm beautiful!" Toby said before dreamily gazing over at Dipper. "Don't you, Dipper?"

"Yeah... uh... you just keep thinking that, man," Dipper said awkwardly as he flicked his fingers at him.

"Anyway, let's just hope this works," Ford said as he walked up to Toby with the potion, fingers around the trigger of the spray.

"Wait, what are you…? GAH!" Toby shouted as he took a full spray of the anti-love potion to the face from Ford. He then began coughing and hacking as the potion settled in on him and his body processed it.

Ford allowed the potion to settle in for a minute before stepping in front of Toby again, who was still coughing slightly. "Mr. Determined?"

"What the…?" Toby asked as he looked around. "What happened? Why do I feel like I've died inside?"

"He must get that feeling a lot," Stan said as he watched alongside the teens.

Mabel stepped forward, dragging her brother in front of her for Toby to see. "Toby, on a scale of 'yowza!' to 'bazinga!', how attracted are you to my brother, Dipper?"

Toby stared at Dipper for a moment before gaining a feeling of extreme awkwardness. "Yowza…" he said, trying to look away from him in disgust. "And I think I'd be arrested if I said anything higher."

"You're damn right you would be!" Stan nodded, pointing a stern finger at him.

"This is so weirrrd…" Toby said as he continued to look on at Dipper. "Was I obsessed with you just a moment ago? Gosh, what went over me? This is just too weird for me now! I can't look at you the same anymore!"

"No worries. You will again later," Ford said as he suddenly grabbed a long, wide tube attached to a machine behind him, holding it out in front of him.

He then pressed a button beside the tube, which expelled a puff of white gas in Toby's face. As Toby inhaled the gas, he felt himself suddenly drift off before becoming unconscious. The rest of the gas dissipated into the surrounding air, to which Ford then connected the tube to another machine next to him.

"What did you do to him?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over Toby's unconscious body.

"Knockout gas," Ford told him simply. "I designed it myself."

"Does it... erase his memory too?"

"Not quite memory erasure. More like memory distortion," Ford corrected. "After we had to clear the Shack of government agents that one time, I designed this machine as a Shack failsafe protocol in case of similar events. We stopped using memory guns because of their mind-damaging side effects, but I've repurposed components of the gun to design a safer alternate substance that we can pump through the Shack to knockout invaders and distort their recent memories."

"Distort?" Mabel repeated.

"So they'll still remember parts of today?" Dipper asked.

"The memories will be subdued or mixed up so deeply in their mind, it will not be the first thing they think of upon awakening," Ford continued. "Imagine a dream you've had that you struggle to remember. It may come back in brief moments as fragments but the whole picture is still missing. The important thing is it should be enough to save Dipper from a consequential summer of town shunning. We'll combine it with the anti-love potion and send the mixture through the entire Mystery Shack ventilation upstairs. Everyone inside will receive the mixed effects, diminishing their love for Dipper and knocking them out."

"Sounds easy enough!" Mabel said. "Look at you, bro. You got a get-out-of-jail-free card from total humiliation!"

"The one catch is we'll have an hour before the effects of the knockout gas wear off. And in that time, we'll need to fix everything up and place all the party guests back in their positions in the floor room," Ford explained further while placing the anti-love potion into a boiling machine. "We may need to play dumb when everyone reawakens. Try to play the whole thing off as a dream or something of the sort. I don't know the exact excuse yet, but if all goes to plan, we should be able to brush the whole thing under the rug as if nothing happened."

"Works for me. I'm great at playing dumb!" Stan said proudly. "Sometimes, I'm not even playing!"

"And I'll also be able to brush off my confession to Ryland as one big dream he had!" Mabel realized.

"You sure you wanna do that?" Dipper asked. "Maybe it's worth talking about and getting out of the way now that it's out and about."

"True, but I didn't like the way he found out."

Dipper wasn't sure if he agreed with her thinking, but that was more her issue than his. "Well, as long as everyone stops being in love with me and doesn't see me weirdly afterward, then I'm good with whatever."

Ford nodded. "Looks like we're all agreed. Get ready then. Because the mixture's ready to go."

He inserted the finished anti-love/knockout gas mixture into the machine. He then pressed a red button, which activated the machine, causing it to light up green.

"Firing it through the upstairs ventilation now."

---

Through about every single vent throughout the Shack, a dark purple gas began to slowly fume through. In nearly every room, there stood at least a handful of people, though some rooms had significantly more people than others.

Most of the mob stood in the attic and within Dipper and Mabel's bedroom, where they were last seen. Though plenty stood out in the gift shop and living room as well.

As the gas settled in, however, people began to drop to the floor, the effects of the knockout gas in the mixture doing quick work. With a simple brush of the nose, the gas knocked people unconscious. Before one knew it, the mob was entirely knocked out, with occasional stragglers able to crawl on the ground a bit before the gas finished them off.

The gas continued to pump through the vents for another minute or so before getting shut off. But the job had been long done at that point and the plan was working so far. Everyone in the Mystery Shack had been successfully knocked unconscious, with an approximate hour between them and their awakening.

After about five minutes of letting the gas dissipate and the air clear up, the Pines family eventually emerged from the basement, riding straight up the elevator and running up the stairs to see the results. As they looked around the gift shop, they saw just what they had hoped.

"It worked!" Dipper exclaimed with great relief. "Everyone's out cold!"

"Brilliant!" Ford glanced down at Meridian and checked the time. "Now we have about fifty-five minutes before they all wake up! In that time, we need to carefully drag all these bodies back into the floor room and make it look like none of this had ever happened. We need to be quick though!"

"Don't worry! This won't be the first time I've had to drag a bunch of bodies somewhere," Stan remarked casually before walking forward to begin the job. "Colombian prison punishments are brutal."

"As for you, Dipper, while we're cleaning up the Shack and the guests, you need to go clean up yourself," Ford instructed. "Wash that cologne off as best as you can. Take a dozen showers and scrub every skin cell if you have to."

"Oh, believe me, Grunkle Ford. If it's been as long as I think it has been since his last shower, he's going to have to," Mabel assured him as he looked over at his brother.

"Alright, I get it," Dipper said with an eye roll as he began to make his way over to the bathroom, having already realized the vitality of his need to take a good shower for once.

"Make sure to use a hand scrub!" Mabel called out to him as he walked away. She looked back up at Ford, who gave her a curious look. "Again, he's probably gonna need it."

"Well, anyways, we should get to work." Ford looked down at his watch again. "We're on the clock. The sooner we work, the better."

"Right!" Mabel agreed, just as the two began to join Stan in gathering bodies.

---

Time had passed quickly, but the Pines family had worked just as fast as they needed to. With approximately five more minutes still on the clock, Mabel, Stan, and Ford had managed to transport just about every unconscious body scattered throughout the Shack back to the floor room in manageable places and positions.

Mabel was in charge of putting everybody back in place as best as she could. She made sure that Soos and Melody were stationed back by the DJ booth, which had been fixed up after Soos collapsed over it. She left Soos' head resting on top of it at an angle that wouldn't cause yet another collapse, whereas she left Melody resting on the ground beside him with her back fixed up against the wall. Additionally, she had placed Candy and Grenda back under the table where they were previously hiding together. She also sat Wendy and all her friends in their seats back in their corner of the room, and even rested Ryland and Evan back on the separate ends of the couch. As for all the other party guests, she simply laid them around the dance floor or against the walls in groups and such, though she wasn't entirely sure who was hanging out with who, so she simply played mini-matchmaker and just grouped up those who looked best together.

While Mabel handled that, Stan and Ford fixed up the damages throughout the Shack that were caused by the recklessness and carelessness of the running mobs of people. They had even put the vending machine back in a functional position in front of the basement doorway, though Ford had commented how he needed a better way to secure it so such a blockage couldn't be simply toppled over with sheer force.

Luckily, most of the damages that needed fixing were very minimal and required nothing more than a bit of cleaning up and putting back into place. However, there were slightly more annoying destructions that were caused that they knew they had to worry about, but not right away, including the hole broken through the ceiling of Dipper and Mabel's room. Things that would take too much time to clean up or repair, they just put aside to worry about later, agreeing to just make up dumb excuses should anyone ask.

Dipper spent about forty minutes in the shower, washing himself off to the fullest extent to ensure he would get rid of the smell of the cologne. While Ford had said that one shower didn't rid him of the scent entirely, that had been due to his overuse of it over several days. Even though Dipper had gone overboard when he put it on, it was the only time he had used it, and therefore, the scent wasn't as bonded to him as it had been to Ford years back.

Once he had finished, Dipper could even admit that it had been the cleanest he had ever felt, and he appreciated the feeling of walking out of the bathroom like a new man. He realized that he, perhaps, didn't value the feeling of being clean as much as he should've. Knowing that he had let his insecurities get the best of him enough to the point where he would stop showering made him feel ridiculous. Even if he was a busy man, there was always time to clean himself up.

He quickly got dressed, putting on a clean new red shirt and tossing away his old ripped-sleeves disaster in the trash. Upon placing his lumberjack hat back on his head, he glanced at himself in the mirror again and quickly knew something was still missing.

That's when he realized that he had left his navy blue hoodie back outside, still tying the attic window shut.

He went back outside through the roof access and untied his hoodie from the hinges, brushing it off quickly. Before putting it back on, however, he gave it a quick whiff and quickly realized it was still heavily coated in the scent of the cologne.

Laundry was a whole separate story at that point, and while it was his signature hoodie since the start of high school, he wouldn't say he was really desperate for it at that moment.

"I'll buy a new one," he told himself casually.

He ran back to the rooftop exit, stepping past it to the edge of the tiles where he dropped the hoodie from the roof into the trash can below at the front of the gift shop. He then ran back to the trap door and climbed back down before making his way back to the floor room to join the rest of his family.

"I'm here and completely scrubbed down!" Dipper told them cheerfully as he presented himself to the three.

Mabel shoved her face within his personal space for a moment so she could smell for herself. "Hey! Nice going, bro-bro! You actually smell like a person for once! I'm impressed!" she said as she gave him a playful shove in the arm. "Now if only you could act like one around girls, you'd be set!"

"Alright, don't push it now," Dipper warned. Still, he gave a hearty chuckle to her teasing.

"But, seriously though. Nice work," she genuinely complimented, patting him on the back.

"Yes, excellent work, Dipper," Ford agreed as he looked down at his watch. "We're all right on time too. The hour just passed. Everyone should be waking up any second now." He looked back between the twins. "You two try to lay low while Stan and I deal with the confusion as it arises."

Dipper and Mabel nodded understandingly at his request and quickly rushed up the steps leading into the hallway, where the two stood back and simply poked their eyes out to watch from the doorway.

After another two minutes, there was finally an ounce of movement from a young man in the corner of the room. He shuffled his body around on the ground for a bit, groaning exhaustively as he finally rose, rubbing his head and eyes.

Just as Stan and Ford glanced over at him, they noticed several other guests begin to move as well. Whether from the middle of the dance floor or the sides of the room, everyone began to come to little by little.

"What the...?" Gideon said as he suddenly jolted awake from the middle of the dance floor.

"Ugh... not on the rug, Mr. Catface…" Lazy Susan groaned as she sleepily rose up, rubbing the side of her head. As her eyes adjusted, she began to become aware of where she was. "Huh?"

"Five more minutes, Blubs…" Deputy Durland said as his head rested on top of Sheriff Blubs' stomach, moving up and down along with movements of Blubs' breathing. However, suddenly, he snorted and jolted awake, holding onto his head as his sight adjusted. "Wait... what?"

"You say something, Durly?" Blubs asked as he slowly came to as well.

---

Dipper and Mabel watched as everyone slowly began to rise upwards from the floor, looking around in confusion.

"Looks like everyone's finally waking," Dipper said as they watched.

"Yep!" Mabel nodded. "Nice to see that all the positions I put them in are looking okay so far!"

As Dipper glanced around the room looking for familiar faces, he realized Derrick was nowhere in sight. "Hey, where'd you put Derrick at?"

She grinned. "Oh, him? Well, since you said I couldn't punch him, I decided to think of a more subtle way of getting revenge for indirectly causing all of this trouble…"

"Mabel, I swear, you better not have dumped his body in the lake…"

"Geez, Dipper! I don't like him, but I'm not that cruel," Mabel said defensively. "No, I just leaned him at a certain angle over at that table over there! Just think of what a wake-up call that'll be!"

She pointed across the room beside a table, where the two twins saw Derrick unconsciously leaning against it. With every passing second, he leaned a little bit more to the side, to which he soon woke up in the middle of his leaning. As he processed what was happening, he quickly fumbled and fell right on the side of his face, where he stayed lying flat on the ground in pain.

Dipper watched this as Mabel burst out laughing. While he never really agreed with the general idea of revenge against his friend, he was willing to accept it this one time.

"Okay, I'll let that one slide."

---

Back on the couch, Ryland slowly found himself waking up, groaning tiredly. He looked around and quickly saw several other people waking up and rising as if they were just asleep a moment ago as well. Several thoughts were racing through his head, though he couldn't figure out which one to focus on.

"Ryland?"

He glanced over to his right and saw Evan wake up on the other end of the couch, rubbing his eyes.

"Evan? You too?" Ryland questioned, confused as he looked around at everyone else as they woke up. "God, what's going on?"

---

Wendy's body began to lean forward slowly as she remained in her slumber. As soon as she leaned forward hard enough, she found herself jolting straight awake suddenly.

"...what?!" she asked as she looked around. She then put a hand on the side of her head, her memory completely blurred as she attempted to recall what had happened. "What the…?"

Beside her, she noticed a sleeping Thompson leaning forward out of his seat. At that moment, he fell onto the floor, his face planting right against the ground. The immediate impact caused him to jump awake, prompting him to hop to his feet as he stumbled around frantically.

"GAH! GIANT WAFFLE MONSTERS!" he screamed as he got into a defensive stance, but quickly realized where he was and noticed his surroundings, quickly growing confused. "Wait... what?"

"Thompson?" Wendy asked as her eyes glanced over at him, not sure where he had come from.

"Wendy?!" Thompson said, face going red upon noticing her right behind him.

"God, what just happened?" Tambry's voice interrupted as she found herself waking up a moment ago as well. She quickly heard snoring in her ear, to which she turned and noticed Robbie sleeping away right beside her in his seat. "Robbie, wake up!"

"Hmm... what?" Robbie questioned as he found himself casually waking up. He then looked around, rubbing his head in confusion.

Wendy glanced to the side, noticing that Lee and Nate were still asleep. "Lee! Nate!"

The two groaned as they immediately woke on call. They quickly glanced around the room and their peers and were barely able to process what was happening either.

"Did... everyone just wake up?" Lee asked as he scratched his head.

"Dude, I have absolutely no idea about anything anymore," Wendy admitted as she rubbed her eyes.

---

"Huh?" Melody asked as she woke up, surprised to find herself on the floor. Her head then turned to look over at Soos, who sat at the DJ stand, head laid on top, drooling as he slept. "Soos?"

"GAH! UBER THRASH BROS ULTIMATE COMES OUT IN 2018!" Soos screamed as he bounced up from his seat in panic.

"Wait, does it?!" Melody asked, eyes lighting up in near-excitement at this claim.

"I don't know…" Soos admitted, scratching his head curiously as he tried to think about it. But he found himself confused as he realized he was right in front of his DJ stand. "Wait... what just happened?"

He then turned his head, looking over his DJ booth to see Stan and Ford walking up to him and into his booth.

"Mr. Pines? Mr. Pines Number Two?" he asked, still trying to readjust from his sleep. However, from what he was able to recall at that moment, he thought the two had walked out on the party.

"Ford, son. You could just say Ford," Ford reminded him yet again.

"Right. Sorry. It's just... I kinda just woke up. Or, at least, I think I just did. I really don't know anymore…"

"Soos, can we borrow the microphone you use here so we can make an announcement?" Stan asked, gesturing over to the microphone at the stand in the middle of the booth.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sure." Soos walked over to the microphone, quickly flicking some switches at the booth before handing it over to them.

Ford took the microphone in his hand and tapped on the top a few times to check if it worked, which it did, as proved by the taps amplified through the speakers. This grabbed the attention of just about every single guest, who all looked up at Stan and Ford at the booth in confusion.

"Hello? Is this thing on?" Ford spoke into the microphone as one final test. Assured that it was working, he nodded. "Good. Anyways, good evening, everybody. I'm sure several of you are very confused as to what just happened and why you all suddenly find yourselves scattered throughout the room after awakening from a supposed unexpected slumber. Well, I can provide a very simple explanation for this..."

Ford began to look around the room as all partygoer eyes landed right on top of him. He was usually good at winging up excuses on the spot. It's how he got rid of the government agents all those years ago. But something about being a focal point of so many regular townsfolk in town was a bit unnerving to him. He was never great with crowds, and his high school valedictorian speech was evidence of that. While he had undoubtedly become better at communicating with people in his lifetime, he had never fully conquered his social anxiety with large groups of people he didn't know.

Given all that he had been through in his life, even he figured he would've been better at this by now. But clearly, as it turned out, he still had much to work on.

"You see... um…" he began to stutter nervously, followed by a brief silence. Several eyebrows throughout the room raised as he continued to delay any sort of coherent response. "The honest answer... if I were to give it... would be... uh…"

Dipper and Mabel continued to watch everything unfold from the hallway. However, they were able to quickly realize that Ford didn't know what to say and that he was stalling. They started to grow nervous themselves, hoping he wouldn't ruin everything they'd worked for up to that point.

"C'mon, Grunkle Ford!" Dipper whispered to himself, clenching his fists nervously.

"I feel it would be best to explain things in a simple manner…" Ford continued to stall, his forehead beginning to form beads of sweat. "...which... would... be-"

Stan quickly grabbed the mic away from Ford and confidently held it up to his own mouth. "I'll tell you what happened! You party people got so crazy with those drinks of yours that you all fell asleep!"

Ford was somewhat caught off-guard by his takeover, and even more so with his excuse. As they looked around the room, everyone started glancing at one another weirdly with many murmuring in confusion to one another.

"That's right! Every single one of you!" Stan continued. "Don't believe me? Well, I mean... you all were just asleep a moment ago, and so I feel that's enough proof to show!"

"Um... but none of the drinks you set up were alcoholic!" an older teenager pointed out from beside the drink table.

"Well, duh! You think that's what I meant?" Stan asked. "There's a lot of sugar in those sodas and... err... that punch! I mean, c'mon! Didn't your mothers ever tell you when you were young not to have so much sugar or else you'd get a sugar rush?"

"But I never even had a drink!" another teen raised his hand from the middle of the crowd.

"Sugar rush is contagious!" Stan added with the snap of his fingers. "And instantaneous!"

The teen remained quiet for a moment as he thought over this explanation. "Huh. Guess you learn something new every day."

Several partygoers around the room nodded and murmured in agreement, which seemed to imply that they were all buying Stan's excuse. Ford looked over at Stan in disbelief that his obnoxiously fake excuse was actually working. Dipper and Mabel smiled from the hallway, glancing over at one another hopefully at how things were looking to turn out.

"Now luckily, sugar rush doesn't come with as bad of a hangover... unless you're my great-niece…" Stan continued. "Which means that all of you are going to be okay! And also, anything you think you remember from today was probably a dream! So don't think about it too hard!" He paused for a moment to let everything he said set in. "Anyways, that's it. Enjoy the party as usual! Hit it, Soos!" He put a hand over the microphone to cover it as he leaned over and whispered into Soos' ear. "Before any of these morons ask any questions!"

"I have so many questions right now too, but whatever you say, Mr. Pines!" Soos shrugged off.

He leaned a hand over to his computer and pressed the space bar, playing a track through the speakers. As the music began to play again, nearly everyone stood still on the dance floor, still trying to process everything they had just been told. But soon enough, they began to just brush off their confusion and resume dancing again.

"I still got it," Stan said as he placed the microphone down, happy he hadn't lost his touch with the ability to tell good lies and sell them to people.

"Sweet Moses…" Ford said in disbelief. "I can't believe that actually... worked!"

"What have I been telling ya, Poindexter? The people in this town are idiots," Stan reminded. "Thank god I swooped in when I did. You weren't kidding about that anxiety of yours. I mean, you can go to toe-to-toe with a bunch of agents, but can barely speak in front of a crowd?"

Ford sighed. "I hate to admit it, but I'm not fully the man I used to be, Stanley. Perhaps in some respects, I really have gone soft over the past few years."

"Sure seems like it." Stan then threw an arm around Ford's neck, pulling him in closer in brotherly fashion. "But hey, good thing you still got a brother like me around to balance things out."

Ford couldn't argue there. Stan did come through with the last minute save. And just for that, he was more than grateful.

"Thank you, Stanley," he said with a warm smile. "You really think everyone in this room fully bought your excuse though?"

"Eh, probably. Sure looks that way at least," Stan said while looking around. "Might be a skeptic or two at worse. I'm sure it's no one important though."

---

Robbie sat beside Tambry, still trying to process the things that Stan had said over the microphone. "So is that really what happened? Because I have no idea."

"Me neither. My mind is such a mess right now..." Tambry said as she rubbed her head.

"Were we, like, fighting about something?" Robbie asked.

"No!" Nate quickly shouted.

"You guys weren't fighting!" Lee added.

"Yeah, you guys haven't fought, like, all day!" Nate furthered.

"If anything, you two were happy!" Lee nodded.

"Acting all couple-y and absolutely disgusting."

"Yeah, you guys should like... kiss or something."

Nate nudged Lee in the arm disapprovingly. "Dude! Really?"

The couple turned to one another, neither of them looking particularly opposed while simultaneously not really being excited either. However, the idea was already seeded within them.

"I mean, I'm down," Robbie said casually.

"I don't really have a reason not to," Tambry said with a shrug.

Robbie shrugged as well. "Eh, good enough for me."

The two leaned in and locked lips with one another. Tambry threw her arms around Robbie's neck while he held onto her waist. Lee and Nate groaned in disgust within their seats as they immediately turned away from them.

"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Nate asked while glaring at Lee.

"Well, it's better than listening to them bicker all day," Lee said, turning to the other seat beside him. "Right, Wendy?"

Much to his surprise, Wendy was no longer present in the seat beside him.

"Where'd she go?" Nate asked, eyes glancing around.

The two of them looked around the room, but couldn't see her anywhere, meaning she had to have gone up and walked away at some point long before. Additionally, it didn't appear that Thompson was anywhere either. As such, Nate and Lee were left to their own along with Robbie and Tambry, who continued to make out with one another just a few seats over, paying no attention to anything else.

---

Dipper made his way over across the dance floor and approached Derrick, who was rubbing the side of his face he fell on earlier.

"What's up with you?" Dipper asked, pretending not to know.

Derrick turned to him and gave him a weird look for a moment. Fragmented thoughts ran threw his mind of earlier in the day, but nothing coherent enough to truly remember properly. Still, it was hard to look up at him and not feel a little weird, even if for a bit.

"Uh... fell on my face." He then looked at his shirt and raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you tear your sleeves off or something earlier?"

"Pffft... me? Tear off my sleeves? W-why would I do that?" Dipper asked with a nervous laugh.

Derrick stared at him blankly. "Riiight. Anyways, what exactly just happened? Did everyone here seriously pass out because of a sugar rush?"

Rather than attempting to provide any meaningful explanation to Stan's excuse, Dipper simply shrugged. "Something like that, I guess."

"I don't even remember having a drink today," Derrick said as he tried to recall literally anything that had happened earlier. "Maybe I did. I'm just so confused right now. I thought we had already met up before. And I thought we were looking for... cologne... or something? I don't know."

"Cologne? Yeah, man. You were totally dreaming alright. I don't think I've ever worn cologne before in my life! Hahahaha..."

Derrick narrowed his eyes at him skeptically. "You know, man... You're acting really suspicious... Which means something happened here that you probably don't want me to know about. And you know what? I don't wanna know either."

Dipper gave a relieved chuckle. "Honestly, that might just be for the best."

"I'm counting on it." Derrick dragged his hands down the sides of his face tiredly, but his one pained side caused him to wince as he had momentarily forgotten about it. "Yeah, this hurts."

"There's an ice pack in the kitchen freezer if you want."

"I'll go check that out. Thanks."

Watching as he walked off suddenly gave Dipper a quick idea. He grinned humorously.

"Hey, don't forget!" he called out. "We're the best of bros!"

Derrick stopped in place, freezing for a moment. Eventually, he slowly turned back to him, paying him a deeply uncomfortable glare. "Alright, do us both a favor and never say that ever again."

"Gotcha," Dipper nodded with an amused smirk, now knowing for sure that his best friend truly had reverted back to normal.

"Hey, Dipper."

His smirk faded as he recognized the voice behind him. He turned around, and his eyes lit up, immediately growing nervous as a wave of intense awkwardness crashed over him.

"Oh... uh... hey, Wendy!" he greeted back. "W-What's up?"

"I honestly have no idea anymore," Wendy admitted as she stopped in front of him, folding her arms. "But to be honest, I wasn't really buying Stan's whole sugar rush deal and neither would anyone else with a brain."

He was already beginning to feel his nervous sweats start to form again. "R-really?"

"C'mon, man," Wendy said with a slightly amused smile. "I've worked for Stan. I know a lie from him when I hear one. You guys are a tight family that tells each other everything. What was the real reason everyone here got knocked out?"

"Uh, can't say! Guess it's just another mystery, huh? Heheh…" Dipper chuckled as he tried to play dumb in front of her.

It wasn't working though. Wendy knew that he knew she was smarter than that and just stared at him, only raising an eyebrow when he tried to cover it up.

"Dude, you know I'm not dumb. I'm not trying to get you in trouble or anything. I just wanna know the truth. I won't tell anybody else."

Dipper sighed, realizing he had to be as upfront with her as possible in order to satisfy her wants. It felt like a can of worms he really did not want to open up. The fear of how she would perceive him if he told her what happened was too strong. But at the same time, he knew it would be an even bigger risk lying even further to her about something she was already suspicious about.

Even if it risked their friendship, he knew he had to be real with her. And so he took a deep breath and sighed.

"The truth is... I put on this cologne that Ford made... and what I didn't know is that it would make people act really weird when they smelled it. And so, the whole party smelled me, and everyone started acting weird and doing weird things... including you. And I was scared about everyone remembering or even you looking at me and thinking I'm weird, even though I didn't even know that any of this would've happened, and-"

"Woah, woah. Slow down, man," she cut off. "Just tell me- did anything happen between us?"

"Us? You mean, like-"

"You and me. Us," Wendy directly clarified. "Did anything weird happen between us?"

Dipper's cheeks flushed red. "Well, uh... it was kinda weird with everybody, but you and me...?" He gulped. "...could've been worse..."

Wendy stood looking at him casually with her arms crossed as she processed his words. "Okay, so we're cool then."

Dipper stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to say more. But to his surprise, she seemed to leave at that.

"Wait, that's... that's it?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Well, if you say nothing happened, then yeah."

He was still left somewhat dumbfounded, feeling as though their resolution was a bit of an anticlimax. "Oh... well..."

"I mean, I can barely think of anything that happened," she continued. "But you said yourself that you didn't know the cologne would do whatever it did to us. And I don't believe you'd ever use something like that knowingly. You're too good a guy for that. So if you say that nothing really happened between us, then I believe you."

That was a lot better for him to hear. Of all the people affected by the cologne earlier in the day, Wendy was the one he was most afraid of dealing with after. For her to accept his vague recounting for what it was and opt to move forward like normal was such a relief for him. The nervous weight that sat on his shoulders had been pulled, and he was able to move forward with some sense of proper resolution.

And most importantly, without losing one of his closest and coolest friends.

"Well, okay then," Dipper said with a warm, thankful smile.

"Yeah, thanks for telling the truth, man," Wendy said as she smiled back at him. "Again, I promise I won't tell anybody else. If what I think you mean happened, then I don't think anyone is gonna wanna hear about that anyway..."

Dipper chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah, I think I'd prefer they didn't either."

"Ehem!"

Dipper and Wendy both then turned to the side where they both saw Thompson, who stood approaching Wendy with something held behind his back. He looked slightly nervous as he walked up to her.

"Oh, hey, Thompson," she greeted. "What's up?"

"Yo, Wendy," Thompson greeted back, trying to mimic his earlier deep, suave voice as opposed to his normally raspy voice. He shook a little bit as he cleared his throat. "You know, since you're going away soon, I decided to get you these as a going-away gift."

From behind his back, he pulled out a bouquet of bright orange flowers and held it out in front of her. Dipper was surprised at the gesture, mostly because he had momentarily forgotten about Thompson's crush on Wendy as he had explained earlier. Between all the tension and cologne-related nonsense earlier, he hardly had a moment to properly take in these thoughts and how strange it was to know another guy in her friend group had been secretly into her for so long. Still, with a move like this, there was no way he wouldn't impress her at least.

However, Wendy's eyes bulged as she looked on at the flowers, and not in a good way. As Thompson held them out to her, she took a few steps back, hiding herself behind Dipper and using him as a defense.

"Uh... Thompson?! As sweet as the gesture is... those are Crossfires!" she said alarmingly.

"Y-yeah, they are," Thompson said, glancing back and forth between her and the flowers in confusion. "I thought you said you liked Crossfire Tulips! At the cemetery!"

"No, Thompson! I said I was allergic to Crossfire Tulips! VERY allergic!" Wendy said with panic as she walked backward a few steps, pulling Dipper along with her to keep shielding herself.

"Oh, crap!" Thompson shouted.

Panicking himself, he chucked the bouquet aimlessly across the floor room, just trying to dispose of them as quickly as he could. He then looked back at Wendy, who slowly stopped hiding behind Dipper after the flowers were gone.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Wendy," Thompson said, face as red as could be. "I must have misheard or wasn't paying attention or... or... something!"

"It's cool, Thompson," Wendy assured. "I mean, you meant well, at least."

"Right," Thompson nodded embarrassedly as he scratched the back of his head. "Well, I'm just gonna go to the snack table and... eat a lot…"

Without another word, he walked off in the direction of the snack table with his head and arms hung low. Dipper and Wendy watched him walk off, both of them feeling kind of bad for him. Though Dipper felt much worse, having known what Thompson had gone through and how he felt. Sure, he may have gotten aggressive towards him before when he thought he kissed Wendy, but the thought that Thompson had been through so much and worked so hard only to have his moment ripped away from him again by fate just made it hard not to feel for him.

Ultimately, as much as he would spend more time feeling bad for Thompson, there was something else about his interaction with Wendy that his mind was more focused on.

"Wait, what did he mean when he said you were going away soon?" Dipper asked as he turned to her. As he asked this question, he could see Wendy scrunch her face up, as if he had just busted her for something she had been trying to keep secret. "Wendy…?"

"Guess it's my turn to be the honest one, huh?" Wendy said with a guilty smile. "Look, I just wanted to say that I was planning to tell you and Mabel about this sooner but-"

"You're leaving?" Dipper asked, his face dropping.

Wendy stared at him for a moment before letting out a mellow sigh. "I'm moving away to Portland for college at the end of the month."

"For college?" Dipper asked. "But, I thought you were already going to college locally!"

"I got expelled," Wendy admitted, beginning to feel terrible as she revealed this to him.

His eyes went wide. "Expelled?! From college?! How?"

"Look, man, I don't really feel like getting into it right now..." she said as she looked to the side remorsefully. "I know that this is a lot to take in and that I should've told both you and your sister about this long before. But trust me, eventually, I'll just lay it all down for you guys." She sighed. "It's just... things have been hard lately, and while we're here at this party with my friends and junk, I'd just rather not start getting too personal about this stuff right now."

The answer was a bit disappointing, but he couldn't blame her. There's a time and place for that conversation, and only she could decide when and where that would be.

"I understand," Dipper nodded, still trying to process everything. "But... you're really leaving Gravity Falls at the end of the month? We really won't get to see you again for the rest of the summer?"

"C'mon, man, don't think like that. I'm only gonna be about a few hours away, and while that's not close enough for daily visits, it doesn't make seeing each other again impossible. After I'm settled in over there, I'll probably drop by occasionally for weekends and stuff. And I mean, we just found out this morning that Soos and Melody are getting married next month. You think that I'm gonna miss that?"

Dipper thought it over, looking over to the side. "I mean, I guess not, but-"

"It won't be goodbye, man," she assured. "It won't. And we still have more than a week until the month ends. If there's an adventure for us to go on or a time for us to hang out between now and then, we'll just take it. Simple as that."

"But-"

"All that matters now is that we make the rest of the summer count. As best as we can."

Dipper knew the point she was trying to make but still couldn't fathom the idea that she was actually going away, and so soon at that. The questions he had but knew he couldn't ask yet just continued to lurk around his mind, and they weakened him.

But for Wendy, he had to stay strong. She didn't want to make a big deal out of things right now and told him that there would come a better time for questions. And so until that time came, he had to follow what she told him and make the rest of the summer count as best as they could.

He finally smiled back at her. "Okay," he nodded, which prompted a smile right back from her.

---

Mabel quickly ran to the side of the floor room and saw the couch where Ryland sat at. He still appeared confused as to what had just happened and simply sat there by himself. She knew that their last encounter involved him finding out her feelings for him, but his feelings were disrupted by the sudden scent of Dipper's love cologne, and so she still had yet to figure out what he thought of her. Or even if he was thinking about her confession.

Either way, she was there to amend whatever problems she needed to. She took a deep breath and exhaled before making her way over to him.

"Ryland?" she asked as she stood in front of him and Evan.

Ryland turned to her and he smiled like everything was fine and dandy between them. "Oh, there you are, Mabel."

His demeanor toward her immediately seemed very casual and normal, which signified that his memory of her confession had to have been distorted on some level. Thus, she knew to play along.

"Heyyy!" she greeted, returning a smile back. "Uhhh, so... how do you feel?"

He scratched his head curiously. "I don't know where to begin honestly. I mean, you heard what happened. Sugar rush. Crazy, huh?"

"Yeah... definitely." She chuckled awkwardly. "Just a sorta... RANDOM question- how do you feel about my brother?"

Ryland didn't appear to expect this question. "Dipper? Uhhh, he's a cool guy, I guess."

"Just cool?" Mabel asked, looking at him interrogatively. "You don't harbor any other feelings?"

He raised an eyebrow somewhat weirdly. "Uhh... I guess I feel like he's a really itchy guy. I've noticed he scratches himself a lot." He paused to look at her. "I have no idea if that's what you mean, but that's what I feel at least."

"Oh. Okay, well, good!" she said with relief. "Yeah, he does get a lot of mosquito bites."

"Heh. He's not the only one." He pulled up his jacket sleeve and revealed a bunch of scattered red mosquito bite bumps on his forearm. "They're really bad around here, aren't they?"

She frowned. "Yeah, they sure aren't... good..."

She was happy a moment ago that Ryland had no apparent idea about her prior confession, nor did he have a crush on her brother any longer. But that brought her back to her original problem, which was not knowing if he liked her back. Talking to him normally again, as good as it felt, was not where she wanted to be anymore. She wanted him to just know how she felt so at the very least, she could forward.

After everything that had happened, a plan didn't even feel right anymore. Maybe he didn't like forcing romance, but there wouldn't be any need for that if he didn't feel the same way back. If he didn't share her feelings, then she hoped they could still be friends at least. Either way, she needed him to know now and get things over with.

So on that front, Dipper was right. It would be a mistake not to come clean now. But at least this time, she could do it on her terms.

Glancing back at him, she saw him still looking over his mosquito bites. She took in a deep breath as she prepared to tell him everything as eloquently as she could.

"Ya know, I should probably get some ointment for these," he remarked before lowering his jacket sleeve again.

"Ryland, I like you!"

His eyes widened a bit upon hearing this. He turned his head to see her staring at him with big eyes while biting her bottom lip uncomfortably.

Her face reddened. Well, that wasn't as eloquent as I had hoped.

Ryland looked at her for a second before chuckling lightly. "I mean, yeah, I like you too."

Sigh. He doesn't get it.

"No, I mean... I like you," she emphasized, cheeks as rosy as could be.

"Oh."

He seemed to have gotten it at that point, as his eyes went much wider in surprise.

"I've been meaning to tell you all day, but I didn't wanna force anything or come on too strong because I didn't want to scare you off, a-and I really like being your friend..." She sighed. "...even if you wouldn't wanna be more than that..."

He looked on at her for a moment more in surprise, gathering his thoughts. All she could do was continue to sit beside him patiently despite the brief silence feeling like agony inside.

"Well, I'm glad you told me this because I really like being your friend too," he finally said, smiling warmly. "Maybe if you're down, later tonight we could do something together, just you and me? After the party?"

Mabel's eyes lit up hopefully as she looked up at him. "You mean... something together as friends? Or together as... 'friennnnnds'."

Ryland chuckled as he started to awkwardly rub the back of his neck. "I think 'friennnnnds' sounds about right." He paused for a second. "If that means what I think you mean..."

"I meant it as a date."

"Then yeah, that's what I thought."

"Well then, I'd LOVE to!" Mabel shouted as she began to smile widely at him.

However, her smile disappeared as she suddenly looked over his shoulder and right past him. In the back of the room, away from most of the other partygoers, she spotted Stan and Ford hanging out on their own, talking with one another.

She had just been asked out by the guy she had been crushing on since arriving at Gravity Falls. Going on a date that night meant ditching the party and going out to do their own things. While she was thrilled to finally have that opportunity with Ryland, she knew what was more important at that moment.

"...but I'm gonna have to take a raincheck," she finished, giving him an apologetic smile. "I already have plans to spend the night with my grunkles."

"Oh, I gotcha," Ryland said with an understanding nod.

"But we can go tomorrow!" she offered.

"I already have plans tomorrow," he admitted. "Monday?"

"Monday it is!" Mabel nodded excitedly. "And it'll be the best Monday of our lives!"

Ryland chuckled. "I'm sure it will be."

As eager as she was, she couldn't help but look over his shoulder again and back at her great-uncles to ensure they were still where they were. Ryland caught her glance and turned to look for himself, immediately understanding.

She cleared her throat. "I know we're kinda having a moment now, but, um, you don't mind if I…?"

"No, of course not!" Ryland assured, standing up from the couch and gesturing for her to go right on ahead. "Go ahead. They're your family."

She stood up from the couch and began making her way over to them. Instinctively, she gave him one final glance, catching him as he tried to glance away from her. As she noticed, her cheeks flushed red again before she gave him a final wave.

"Well, see you Monday," she said with a flustered smile.

He nodded as he waved back at her. "Right. Monday."

She continued to walk a good distance away, but suddenly, she found herself embraced in a power hug.

"EEEEEEEEE!" Grenda and Candy excitedly shrieked in her ears as they hugged her tightly.

"Mabel! Ryland just asked you out!" Candy exclaimed happily.

"THIS IS SO EXCITING!" Grenda shouted with a wide smile. "I'm still like... really confused as to why we were all sleeping a few minutes ago, BUT I'M STILL SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"

"Aw, you guys are the best!" Mabel said as she wrapped her own arms around the two.

"Do you know what you're going to wear yet?" Grenda asked.

"He didn't say where he was going to take you, did he?" Candy pressed further.

"WE NEED DETAILS!" Grenda demanded.

"Girls, girls! I know you two are excited and trust me, I am too!" Mabel assured them. "But maybe we can catch up on all this and more another time?"

"We can have a sleepover at my place tomorrow!" Grenda suggested. "We can spend the night catching up, watching movies, reading romance novels, and making dresses for your date!"

"That sounds perfect!" Mabel nodded enthusiastically. "We'll catch up on everything tomorrow. But for now, I need to be a Mabel in two grunkles' lives."

"Awww, okay," Grenda and Candy said somewhat glumly as they watched her continue to walk in the direction of her great-uncles. However, they still remained enthused by the idea that they'd all meet up again the next day for the sleepover.

"Ehem!"

The two girls turned to the side only to see Evan casually standing right next to them, particularly beside Candy. He appeared to face away from them, but he clearly meant to grab their attention.

"Oh, boy…" Candy said unenthusiastically as Grenda gave an amused grin right beside her.

---

"Well, it looks like everything is back to normal around here," Ford said as he stood beside Stan, eyes looking around the room to see everybody acting as per usual again. He patted the side of his jacket, where he felt the cologne was still secure inside. "I guess the only thing I have left to do is dispose of this cologne to ensure this doesn't become a problem to any of us ever again."

"Yeah, and while you're at it, maybe put better warning labels on those other experiments of yours," Stan suggested. "I know it was the kid's fault for going into the basement and touching around, but it probably would've helped if there was a better warning on those things."

"True. I suppose I could take all of this into account when I finish cleaning up the lab. Dispose of all the old experiments I don't need anymore. Make warning labels for the things I still do need." He sighed. "It'll certainly be a trip going down memory lane, that's for sure. I remember working on a bulk of those experiments with Fiddleford. I wonder how he's holding up nowadays."

"Well, old friend," a familiar southern voice spoke up from behind him. "Aside from the occasional tick in the ol' noggin, I'd say I'm holdin' up mighty fine."

"My God... do my eyes deceive me?" Ford asked as he was greeted by the sight of his old friend. "Fiddleford H. McGucket?"

"Stanford F. Pines," McGucket greeted happily as he walked up to him with a knob-handle cane to aid him. He held out his hand for him to shake. "It's good to see you again, old friend."

"Good to see me? It's good to see you!" Ford said excitedly as he shook his hand, looking down at his appearance.

Compared to the old man with a scarecrow's hat and suspenders that he had met again four years ago, McGucket looked to be almost a completely different man. No longer did he don brown suspenders, but a fancy brown suit and tie, very akin to the one he wore during his younger days. He had also gotten rid of his hat, cleaned up his long, white beard, and also managed to finally put on some shoes. An old man he still looked, but he also looked much healthier and much happier.

"God, F! You look far better now than you did the last time we spoke!" Ford told him, greatly impressed. "Err, no offense..."

"None taken," McGucket dismissed. "You're absolutely right anyway. I'm doing far better these days than when we last met. Submitting all those ol' blueprints to the government brought me this new life. And because it was your idea, I owe it all to you."

"Ah, it's nothing," Ford brushed off. "What kind of friend would I be not to aid one of the smartest minds I know? Especially after what I'd done to him so long ago?"

"Ah, Ford... Always so hard on yourself. What have I told ya? It's water under the bridge! I'm tellin' ya, if ya ever need anythin' from me, I'd be more than happy to oblige."

Ford glanced to the side, rubbing his chin as he thought. He then walked up to him, smiling as he put a hand on his back, guiding him away from Stan. "Well, now that I think about it, perhaps, there is a matter we can discuss."

"Right, I'll just stick right here… on my own…" Stan said as his brother walked off with McGucket away from him.

"We'll be just a moment, Stanley," Ford assured him. Once he and McGucket were a good distance away from most people to talk privately, he stopped in place. "So, Fiddleford, what brings you around here on such an evening?"

"Well, I found an invite at the front of the mansion this morning for this here welcome home party for you and your brother. I figured it's been four years. What kind of friend would I be not to drop by and say hello after so long?" McGucket explained. "Though I got the time wrong and only just arrived here a few minutes ago, so apologies if I missed the main event."

"No, trust me. You didn't miss anything," Ford said with an amused chuckle. "Anyway, how's that brilliant mind of yours holding up after all this time?"

"The screws tend to go loose every now and then," McGucket admitted as he rubbed the side of his head. "But besides that, I'd be darned not to say that my memory's almost completely recovered!"

"That's good to hear..." Ford said as his tone suddenly became serious, his smile fading away into a stern expression. "...because, old friend, I'm afraid we have a dangerous situation ahead of us for which that brilliance is really going to need to come into use."

McGucket raised an eyebrow. "Huh? What're you talkin' about?"

Ford put a hand on his shoulder as he carefully glanced around the room to ensure no one was watching them. "I'm going to tell you what, but I need to know that you're mentally prepared. For I'm afraid of how you might react when I tell you."

"Ford, in the past four years since you departed from Gravity Falls, I've been 'round to some of the highest government facilities in the country. I've seen and heard plenty that I wish I hadn't, yet I've managed to resist all urge to ever use that blasted memory gun again. Trust me. Whatever you have to say, I promise I can handle it."

Ford accepted his assurance and sighed preparedly. "Bill Cipher has returned."

"SWEET CORN SYRUP ON A BARBEQUED BANJO!" McGucket shouted fearfully, appearing to regress into his previously psychotic state of mind, doing a slight jig as he freaked out. "THE WORLD IS DOOOOOMED!"

He proceeded to give himself a quick, yet firm slap in the face, which seemed to knock him out of it. Ford simply looked on with great concern.

"SORRY! Sorry!" McGucket apologized as he straightened himself out, trying to calm himself down. "I'm still working on that. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "Anyways, what do you mean Bill Cipher has returned?"

"It's a long story, but to explain the current crisis at hand, Bill has taken shelter within the corner of Stan's mind, with the capability to pop up and take control whenever he's at full strength," Ford explained. "We encountered him yesterday and were able to subdue him and get Stan to regain control, but Bill still lurks within him."

"I see," McGucket nodded understandingly as he listened.

"That's about where we're at here. Now we need to find another way to remove Bill from Stan's mind and destroy him once and for all. However, I can't say I have many ideas about how to do that. Considering erasing Stan's entire memory didn't work, I'm unsure what else can be done."

McGucket thought for a solid moment, rubbing his chin. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "I think I have an idea! Remember that weapon you told me you had constructed during your trips through the portal? The one you were initially gonna use against Bill?"

"The Quantum Destabilizer?" Ford questioned. "That thing is a super-powered, radioactive death ray! I'm just trying to wipe Bill from Stan's mind, F."

"Yes, but what if we channel the weapon in a way so it links to the mind? Similar to how I designed the memory gun. Reprogram it as the death ray against demons and other creatures hidden within the human mind!"

Ford stroked his chin curiously at the thought. "It's an interesting concept. But I already used the last bit of charge stored on it long ago. And the element I used to power it can only be found in another dimension."

"You also told me that the element was needed for maximum power in order to blast creatures like Bill out of existence!" McGucket reminded. "But Bill ain't at his maximum power when he's cramped up in a normal body he doesn't have complete control over! Therefore, we don't need some interdimensional super element! We just need something capable of providin' enough power to give the slightest bit of charge! We're not trying to annihilate your brother, are we?" He paused. "Unless you want to, that is…"

"No! No, I don't want to do that," Ford chuckled at his twisted little joke. "Alright, I guess I see where you're coming from. The only thing is I left the Destabilizer in the old underground bunker. I figured it might've been too dangerous to keep around the Shack, even if it was drained. So I'll have to go back down there and retrieve it one of these days."

"We can go there together!" McGucket suggested. "I've actually been down into the bunker several times over the past few years, makin' adjustments and fixes to the layout and such. While we look for the Destabilizer, I can also show you what I've been up to down there!"

Ford nodded. "Sounds like a plan. We can go tomorrow."

"Actually, I'm gonna have to leave in a second here for a trip back to Area 51. Tomorrow, I gotta help them fix a malfunction they made to the death ray I gave them step-by-step schematics for." He gave an annoyed facepalm at the thought. "This darn country... anyway, we can go down to the bunker on Monday instead."

"Monday it is, then," Ford said as he shook hands with McGucket in agreement.

McGucket then looked down at his wristwatch, realizing it was time for him to leave. He started to walk off with his cane. "Welp. I'll see you Monday, Ford. The chopper's waiting outside."

"Good luck, Fiddleford!" Ford waved. "It was a pleasure to see you again!"

With everything said and done, Ford walked back over to his brother, where he saw Dipper and Mabel standing right beside him. They all watched as he approached, to which he looked surprised to see the two there with them.

"Was that... McGucket?" Dipper asked in slight surprise.

"He looks so spiffy now!" Mabel said, equally as impressed.

"Yes, he just dropped by to say hello," Ford summed up. "Never mind that, though. What are you two doing here? I thought you both were tending to personal business."

"Well, I finished clearing things up with Wendy and Derrick," Dipper said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Making sure neither of them really wanted to date me anymore."

"Meanwhile, this girl's got herself a date!" Mabel exclaimed happily while pointing two thumbs at herself.

Stan had taken a sip from his cup of Pitt Cola and did a spit take as he heard this. "Say what?!"

"Yep, but that's for another day!" she clarified as she proceeded to hug the Stans. "Today, we celebrate the best grunkles in the world and their return to Gravity Falls!"

"Geez, kid," Stan said with a hearty chuckle. "Don't you ever get tired of hugging?"

"Nope!" Mabel shook her head as she pressed it against Stan's chest.

"Well, I do," Stan said, before putting an arm back around her anyway. "But I'll make one last exception."

"You kids are too kind," Ford said with a warm smile. "It's moments like these that we missed most about coming home. But on an unrelated note, I have to ask: despite how critical it was to our success, did anybody else wonder earlier how we were the only ones that couldn't be affected by the cologne's influence?"

"Honestly, I choose not to wonder about that," Stan said, disgusted by the very idea.

"I'm certainly not complaining," Dipper nodded in agreement.

"Maybe the reason it didn't affect us is that we're family, and we already love each other!" Mabel suggested as she wrapped her arms around everybody, bringing everyone close together. "And no love potion is stronger than the power of natural love!"

Stan smiled. "That's sweet, kid. Incredibly corny, but sweet."

"Oh, you want incredibly corny?" Mabel asked as she stood back, giving the three daring smiles. "In that case, I think it's time to bring a certain band back for a reunion tour…"

"Sev'ral Timez?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Try all you want, sweetie, but you're never gonna pull those beautiful men away from those trees," Stan said.

"Oh, that's not the band I was thinking of," she said as she slowly pulled up a purple book in her hands. "I was actually thinking Love Patrol Alpha were in need of a comeback with their newest member."

The cover displayed a picture of a microphone and the title: Karaoke Songs. Right away, Dipper and Stan's eyes both narrowed at the sight of the book, while Ford just looked on in confusion.

Stan sighed. "Aw, son of a…"

---

NI KZIZMLRW URMWH OLEV HLNV WZB

ZMW GSV SVZIGYIVZPVI DROO OVZW GSV DZB

GSV LOW LMV DROO HVZO SRH UZGV

ZMW NI HRCVI DROO YV GLL OZGV

---

Hope you all are enjoying the longer chapters because they ain't gonna get much shorter. Just thought I'd warn you all now.

-Absolute Rift

(Chapter updated as of March 9, 2024)