#sevralfics

Reunion

Mabel took a break from shoveling bites of syrup-soaked pancake into her mouth to get another look at Dip and Ty. It’d been much too long since they’d all been together like this to let the moment go uncherished, and besides, it was probably wise to give herself a chance to actually chew her food. Next to her, Dipper was happily having a sip of tea, her hands curled gratefully around the warmth of the mug. Mabel had always loved catching Dip in little moments of serenity like this one, serenity being something her high-strung sis too seldom found. Mabel chewed her mouthful of pancakes thoughtfully and looked across the table at Ty. He held a slice of turkey bacon at the ready (having long since agreed to her insistence that they all give up pork as a courtesy to Waddles), his own plate of pancakes mostly emptied. Mabel wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Ty looking at her already, his grateful expression a mirror of her own happiness in sharing such a simple pleasure with her favorite trips.

“Ah!” Dipper gave a small, slightly dramatized sigh of satisfaction as she set down her mug, and Mabel watched Ty’s gaze slide lovingly to their sister. His already sentimental expression gave way to a small goofy smile, “What?” she challenged, her lips curling into a half-smile.

Ty’s smile widened and Mabel’s heart lifted as it always did when Ty smiled that way, “It just feels really great to be home.” He said simply, gesturing to the interior of Greasy’s Diner with the piece of turkey bacon before popping it into his mouth. Glancing around the diner, Mabel couldn’t help but agree. Not a thing had changed in here in the last… was it really going on ten years? The world outside kept changing and demanding different things of them, but Gravity Falls remained eerily and comfortingly the same.

Dip lifted her mug of tea, “Hear, hear!” Mabel lifted her hot cocoa in agreement.

“What the hey does Lazy Susan do to make these pancakes so good?” Mabel asked around another bite, as if the question had not been posed between the three of them thousands of times over the years.

“I’m telling you,” Dip said with a conspiratorial look, “Blood magic. It’s the only force powerful enough to explain this.”

Ty snorted, “You will carry that theory to your grave, won’t you, Dip? I’m telling you,” he said, as he had many times, “She fries them in bacon fat instead of butter.”

“Nooo,” Mabel complained stubbornly, covering her ears with her hands, “It can’t be pork fat, I already gave up bacon, don’t take pancakes from me too!”

“How else would you explain these deliciously crisp edges?” Ty asked, holding up a corner of pancake speared on his fork.

“Blood magic,” Dip replied without missing a beat, “No bacon fat alone could produce such a sinfully tasty pancake.”

Ty snickered, popping the bite of crispy pancake edge into his mouth, “Whether it’s blood magic or bacon fat, I just hope she keeps doing what she’s doing.” He closed his eyes, making a show of reveling in the taste of the pancake, “I don’t want to live in a world without these freaking pancakes.”

“I take it they don’t have pancakes like this outside Gravity Falls?” Dipper said conversationally, already knowing the answer.

“Heck no,” Mabel said, “In Florida most people call them flapjacks and they’re tasty enough but they’re nowhere near ‘sinful’.” There were some things Mabel liked about living in the Sunshine State, not least of all the animals she worked with at a zoo there, but there was no getting used to some of it. She quite liked the word ‘flapjacks’, but they didn’t taste like home.

“The pancakes at the Griddle Houses near me are passable at best,” Ty agreed, the look in his eye implying that he was running through every pancake he’d had since moving to New York, “I don’t think blood magic fits into the franchise policy.”

Dip cupped a hand to her ear, “Do I hear some doubt in your long-held bacon grease theory?”

“Not even a little,” Ty scoffed, “But it’d take more than bacon fat to kick a Griddle House pancake up to Lazy Susan quality.”

Dipper shrugged concedingly and the triplets fell back into a comfortable silence, as they tucked into what remained of their breakfast-for-dinner. Mabel and Ty had both arrived, from Florida and New York respectively, in the mid-afternoon, hungry from traveling and craving the comfort food of their youth. Mabel and Ty each eagerly cleaned their plates, leaving barely a drop of maple syrup behind, but Dipper asked for a take-away box for about half of what she’d ordered. Of course, Dipper could have Greasy’s signature pancakes whenever she wanted, unlike her sibs, having ended up living in Gravity Falls full time.

Not that it came as any surprise that she was the one to wind up here. On the contrary, Mabel thought it would have been stranger to imagine Dipper settling anywhere else. While Mabel and Ty’s respective goals had carried them far and away from the comfort of Gravity Falls and Piedmont, Dipper’s path towards investigating the supernatural had rarely wavered. Mabel had always admired Dipper’s surety and dedication to this one goal, her own wide range of interests and skills leading her down one dead end after another before she had landed on animal care. Ty had struggled similarly with artistic and career attempts, too many of which had been flops. Mabel’s heart gave a twinge, sympathizing with her brother’s rocky path and the deep self-doubt that went with it. Not that Dipper had been dealt an easy hand by any means. It was almost as if being a precocious kid guaranteed you for dissatisfying young adulthood, and Dip was no exception. She did, however, at the very least, have the good fortune of living in Gravity Falls.

The damp autumn evening met them with a refreshing gust as they left the cozy, stuffy warmth of the diner, “Autummmnnn!” Mabel sing-songed, with a little twirl on the leaf-strewn sidewalk, and pulled a deep breath of the clean Oregon air through her nose, letting it out in a satisfied sigh, “Ya don’t find air like that in Florida.”

“Isn’t the air in Florida, like, seventy percent swamp?” Ty asked, wrapping an arm around Mabel’s shoulders.

“Eighty percent, bro.” Mabel said, hugging his waist.

“I dunno,” Dip said, holding out a hand to feel the light, cool drizzle, “Oregon’s swampy air levels are at at least a fifty today, maybe we should have taken the car after all.”

“Oh, hogwash, Dipdot!” Mabel exclaimed, giving the bill of Dipper’s cap a playful flick, “You got your handy-dandy hat, a little spritz like this got nothin’ on you!”

And she was right, for most of the walk. There were very few people out on account of the overcast sky and steady drizzle, and the triplets walked along, hand-in-hand, feeling almost as though they’d gone back in time to one of the summers of their childhood. The leaves were halfway turned, the reds and oranges vivid against the still brilliantly white sky. Everything was dewy and glossed from the mist, giving the world a clean, fresh look. As they walked, they reminisced about adventures with their Grunks, forays into the supernatural wilds of the Falls, and Mabel, delighted by the novelty of the season after a few years in the static heat of the south, pointed out signs of autumn all around them. It was when she pointed out the flock of geese, honking and flying in a symmetrical chevron above, that she noticed the sky had darkened considerably from a luminous overcast white to a threatening soot grey. She said nothing to Dipper or Ty, in hopes that ignoring the portentous sky might convince it to let them reach the Shack before the rain. Surprisingly, this tactic failed and a few minutes later the heavy clouds opened up, pouring cold water down in sheets.

Dipper gave a surprised shriek, the same one she’d made when they were kids and one of her mischeivous triplets would slip an ice cube down the back of her shirt. Ty laughed at the sound, and pulling his sisters along by their hands, broke into a run. Home wasn’t far off by that point and the trips ran the rest of the way, clumsy and laughing, until three sets of feet splashed through the muddy puddles of the parking lot and stamped up the two steps into the welcome shelter of the Shack porch. The rain drummed on the wooden awning that shielded them and the triplets panted with the exertion, exchanging amused looks at each other’s bedraggled appearances, all of them drenched to the bone.

Dipper unlocked the door as quickly as she could, and they stumbled inside. Dipper put leftovers in the fridge, wet shoes squelching, whiler Ty and Mabel eagerly kicked off their own soaked shoes and shucked off socks, “Co-oo-ooold!” Mabel whined, wasting no time in peeling off her purple leggings and sequined beige sweater, and kneeling to rummage through her suitcase in search of dry clothes.

“One of the downsides to the whole season thing,” Ty pointed out and something in his tone caught Mabel’s attention as strange. She glanced at him, finding his cheeks pink and his eyes all but glued to her lace-trimmed lilac chevron-printed undies. She forced her eyes back to the jumbled contents of her suitcase, surprised to uncover a long-neglected jumble of thoughts. After all these years of telling herself that all of that business was in the past, she’d somehow neglected to consider that it might be hard for her trips to forget it once in a while. She blindly grabbed a clean pair of leggings and a shirt from her suitcase and scampered into the bathroom to change. After impatiently slipping into the dry clothes, Mabel stared down her reflection, absently trying to make sense of her mass of unruly wet curls and wishing the flush away from her own cheeks.

That wasn’t what you thought it was, she told herself, staring into her own brown eyes in the mirror, It’s just been a long time since you got into your skivvies like that and you did it without warning. You’re reading too much into it, Mabes. Plenty of people would get weird when confronted with their sister’s nearly naked caboose. Ignoring the fluttering of her own heart should be easy enough, she’d been pushing these thoughts aside for a long time now. No way was she going to squander this short, precious visit with Ty and Dipper getting them all tangled in that nonsense again.

After a few more stern words with herself, Mabel emerged from the bathroom to find Dipper making up the futon that now sat in the living room where Grunkle Stan’s yellow chair used to be. The chair now held a place of honor in the cozy reading nook Dipper had made for herself in the basement, festooned in string lights in a way that surely made Grunkle Stan groan every time he was in town. Despite getting on in years, he and Grunkle Ford were still out sailing the seven seas, determined to squeeze as much fraternity and adventure into their twilight years as humanly possible. Mabel was sorry she wouldn’t get to see them while she was in town, but pleased as punch to know her uncles were making the most of their time together.

She walked over to the futon and grabbed the nearest corner of the fitted sheet, tucking it under the mattress while Dipper did the same to the opposite side. Dipper had changed too, her wet hair wound into its customary braid over her shoulder, her wet jeans and hoodie traded for black yoga pants and a slightly oversized Mystery Shack tee shirt, the old green question mark design from before Mabel had helped to re-brand the Shack during her ill-fated attempt to beef up her graphic design resume. Without prompting, Mabel helped Dip to spread out a sheet and the big knitted blanket she’d painstakingly made for her a few years prior, “Getting caught in the rain is nothing a little cuddling can’t fix.” Dipper said, by way of explanation.

“Such wisdom,” Mabel said, fluffing a couple of the pile of pillows Dipper had scrounged up, “We don’t call you the smart one for nothing.”

“P’shaww,” Dip rolled her eyes, climbing under the covers, “Smart one, my ass. I’m just the most anxious and it keeps me motivated, you know that.”

“Anxiety and brilliance are not mutually exclusive, my dude,” Mabel pointed out, fishing the fleecey polka-dot slipper-socks Dip had given her out from under the futon, “You know--”

“FLOP!” Tyrone announced, as he did in fact flop heavily into the middle of the futon beside Dip. She giggled, and Mabel grinned along. There was simply no resisting Ty’s infectiously sweet and silly antics and she was relieved to see no sign that he might have been distressed by their little moment a moment before. Ty wrestled the blankets out from underneath himself, inviting more giggling from his sisters, before finally getting settled. He rested his head on Dip’s shoulder and she gave his tousled wet hair an affectionate kiss, as Mabel climbed into the futon. She already felt warmer, as if the sight of her two favorite people snuggled up and safe could warm her body as well as her heart. Ty wasted no time in looping his arm around Mabel’s waist and pulling her against his side.

As ever, Ty radiated body heat, and Mabel wrapped her arm around him, her fingers lacing with Dip’s, her body nesting into his side as naturally as if it were designed to fit there. In a way maybe it was, she liked to think they’d all been cuddle buddies since before they were even born. She purred happily against him, squeezing Dipper’s cold fingers, and stating contentedly, “Mmmmm, warmssss…”

“Tyrone Pines, Warms Specialist, at your service.” Ty joked, with a little salute.

“You’re the best at what you do, Mr. Pines.” Dipper assured Ty, her voice not quite sardonic enough to disguise that she absolutely meant it as she nuzzled the top of his head.

“I second that.” Mabel said, burrowing her face into the warmth of Ty’s shoulder. She breathed deep and was comforted to find he smelled exactly the same as he always had. The earthy-sweet smell of his skin was heightened by the lingering dampness from the rain and Mabel risked letting herself sink into the smell. Where her arm was hooked over the comforting squish of Ty’s tummy, her hand rested in Dipper’s, as natural as anything, and Dipper’s thumb stroked her knuckles in the same pattern it had back then.

Back when they were dumb, silly, hapless kids, their hormones raging and their vocabularies not remotely up to the task of describing the tangle of their feelings. She had made a point of putting it out of her mind as much as she could, but Mabel found she still remembered that summer with a startling clarity. It was like a well-loved movie, nearly memorized, that she could watch in her mind as if it were projected on a screen in front of her. It was the summer after their senior year of high school, when the wind through the trees had seemed to whisper ‘freedom’. The seemingly endless drudgery of K-12 schooling had in fact ended, and there was a giddiness to that alone, that the thing that had governed every day of their lives for so long had been defeated. They had all gotten into different colleges, but their minds were not on the more taxing academics in their future, or the looming day when they’d no longer be sleeping under the same roof. No, that summer had been about fun, plain and simple. Fun in all its forms, cryptid-seeking adventures around the town, getting drunk on the Shack roof, concerts, and parties, and long lazy days in bed together. In retrospect, it had been a last hurrah of their childhood together, but none of them had seen it that way then. They’d been seventeen and invincible and looking for fun around every corner.

The first time one of their drinking sessions on the roof had given way to playfully kissing each other, they had all giggled and blushed at how ludicrous and risque it was. They had acted like it was for the thrill, the taboo of it, and Mabel had not voiced the confusion running wild inside her liquor-soaked head. After that day, things shifted, imperceptibly at first. The triplets had never been shy around each other, but Mabel remembered how suddenly they were seeking excuses to touch, excuses to take off their clothes, excuses to act unlike siblings. She could see in cinematic exactness the way the dappled sun through the trees had illuminated Dipper’s eyes as she’d coyly slipped out of her bathing suit while they were swimming in an isolated little cove in Gravity Falls lake. She could feel as if it were happening that very moment the way Tyrone’s lips had felt on her neck and ear at some party where no one knew they had the same last name.

It had been fun, gloriously fun, and delightfully dangerous. Dangerous in a way that turned her stomach to look back on, petrified at the thought of how reckless and stupid they’d been. And more than anything, it had been fleeting. As the end of summer closed in, they’d tried to talk about it a few times without much success. Mabel remembered trying to tell them she was in love with them multiple times, always chickening out, terrified that what sprang from love in her was no more than teenage abandon in them. Ty had poorly explained something to do with hormones at one point, and Dipper had tried to explain her desire to not be as ruled by her anxiety (something that would soon after prove impossible with her rigorous college workload), but when the time came to ship off to their separate colleges, they said goodbye with a million unspoken explanations hanging between them. And for the first time, they spent their birthday in three different states, further apart than ever in the wake of getting closer than three siblings probably ever should have been.

Mabel realized Ty was snoring, and opened her eyes slowly, as if worried that even opening her eyes might disturb him. At some point, Dipper had scooted down in the bed and was tucked under Ty’s opposite arm and her face was directly in front of Mabel’s. The sun had set but there was still a light on in the kitchen so Mabel could dimly see her siblings’ sleeping features. Dipper’s face was uncharacteristically relaxed, the crease that almost always existed between her eyebrows smoothed away by the reprieve of sleep. She was breathing softly, her lips slightly parted, and for a second, Mabel seriously considered kissing her before reprimanding herself for the thought. Neither Ty nor Dipper had ever mentioned the events of that summer since, and Mabel generally took that as answer enough as to whether they had been motivated by the same feelings of love as she had been. Besides, even if they had been, it didn’t matter. It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t like it was something they could pursue, least of all now from three opposite corners of the continent. Ty stirred slightly in his sleep, his grip on both his sisters tightening, pulling them in closer. Mabel’s heart swelled happily, and she let her eyes fall shut again, nuzzling nearer to her triplets and reminding herself as sleep took hold that this was already more than enough cause to be thankful.

The soft music of the rain pattering on the roof and gurgling in the rain gutters, the occasional rumble of thunder, permeated Mabel’s dreams so that waking up was a slow hazy affair. She was perfectly warm, floating in a soft space that sounded like rain and deep breathing, smelled like peaches and cedar and home. She was vaguely aware of the small happy murmur she made as she wiggled deeper into this foggy happy place. The warmth around her responded with a sleepy sigh, and nestled their bodies closer together. It dawned on her that those were arms around her, that against her shoulder was a chin, and against her back was a chest, and against her backside was--

Well, now she was awake. She blinked a couple times, trying to rid the blurriness of sleep from her eyes. A familiar view of half of the Mystery Shack living room greeted her, her arms curled around Tyrone’s forearm, one hand laced loosely with his. It was hard to tell what time it was, the diffused, pale, rainy day light could have been morning or afternoon. Judging by the slow deep breaths that fell warm across her cheek and ear, Ty was still sound asleep. She couldn’t hear any stirring from the other side of the bed and assumed Dipper was still asleep as well. She’d be perfectly happy to keep on sleeping herself. Just in case she’d imagined the startling presence, Mabel gave her hips a small tentative wiggle, greeted immediately by the now unmistakable feeling of Ty’s morning wood pressed right up against her rear end.

She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks, and, for that matter, between her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut, telling herself insistently, it’s involuntary! It’s just morning wood, it doesn’t mean anything! She was pretty sure it was normal for a guy to get an erection in the morning like this, especially if he happened to be pressed against a girl’s butt. Much as she told herself that it had nothing to do with her, the familiar ache between her thighs did not waver. Hating herself for it, she moved her hips slightly again, all of her attention focused on the way he felt. He made a soft appreciative rumble that cut to Mabel’s core, simultaneously wetting her panties and filling her tummy with squirming guilt.

Reluctantly, she severed that forbidden point of contact with him, repositioning herself so that she was lying on her back. She rested her right cheek on the pillow to look at him and was surprised when his eyes met hers. His dark, heavy-lidded gaze was like a magnet, soulful and open. He wet his lips as they stared into each other’s eyes and Mabel had the sense she was looking right inside him. There was longing there that nothing could refute, a desire that ran infinitely deeper than an involuntary physical response. Their still-linked hands rested on Mabel’s belly beneath the blankets and Ty’s thumb slowly stroked the thin fabric of her tank top. Mabel’s breath caught at the innocent touch and she saw the corners of Ty’s mouth twitch towards a smirk.

The quiet intensity of the moment was broken as Dipper stirred. She’d apparently been facing away from Ty but rolled over now to wrap her arms around Ty in a sleepy, enthusiastic bear hug. She made a playful ‘eeeh’ as she squeezed him and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck. Both he and Mabel burst into wide grins, and Ty turned his head to place a kiss on Dipper’s temple that turned into a loud raspberry. Giggles erupted from Dipper as she tried to wriggle away, her hoarse morning voice protesting, “Noo, in a moment of weakness!”

A tangle of tickling and raspberries ensued before the triplets settled down again, giggles quieting as they sank gratefully back into a horizontal group hug. Dipper didn’t sound much like she meant it when she said, “We should prooobably get up.”

“Or,” Mabel suggested, “We could stay right here forev’s.”

“Hm, an interesting proposal,” Ty said, nodding thoughtfully, “Go on.”

“Well, first of all, we already have the bed all warmed up,” she pointed out, lifting one leg slightly to gesture at the blankets, “It would conserve energy to just keep using these warms than to make new warms.”

Dipper laughed, “Not sure that’s what energy conservation is, but you have my attention.”

“So, what I propose is this.” Mabel went on in a mock-formal tone, “As opposed to going out where it is cold and wet, we stay in here, where it is warm and dry.”

“Furthermore,” Ty jumped in, “In here there are cuddles, and TV, and snacks.”

“Sold,” Dipper said decisively, snuggling her face into Tyrone’s neck, bopping his chest lightly as if with a gavel. Mabel’s heart overflowed to see Dipper this relaxed and silly, a side of her she rarely got to see with their relationship dependent on texts and phone calls. Not that any of the triplets maintained walls between them, but there were just some moments you couldn’t quite have over the phone.

After a couple more minutes of snuggling, Ty gave a dramatic sigh, “Alas, I must leave the comforts of bed.”

“But the warms!” Mabel protested, as Ty disentangled himself from his sisters’ limbs.

“Will have to wait till after I’m done peeing.” He said, giving the bed a last longing look before disappearing around the corner and heading upstairs.

Not willing to risk a moment of cuddle deprivation, Mabel and Dipper closed the gap between them that Ty had filled, enclosing each other in a familiar hug. They’d always been close to the same size, and their arms fit around each other with a pleasant symmetry, their leg placement and head placement complementary. Mabel had always found it strange, on the occasions when she had snuggled with people other than Dipper and Ty, how hard it could sometimes be to maneuver. Where it had always seemed like falling effortlessly into place for the triplets, with others it could range anywhere from tangling awkwardly to feeling like you were trying to squash square pegs into round holes. Dipper nestled her head onto Mabel’s shoulder, “I’m so glad you guys are here.”

“Me, too, sis,” Mabel agreed, kissing the top of Dipper’s head before resting her cheek against her hair, “Like Ty said, it’s really good to be home.”

Dipper nodded against Mabel, squeezing her a little, “Well, it feels a lot more like home with you here,” she paused slightly, choosing her words, “Especially since Soos and Melody have been spending so much time in Portland lately, and tourist season is over again… you’d be surprised how lonely the Shack can get.”

Mabel had to admit she’d never really considered it, but she’d never spent any time here alone. For her, the Shack (and Gravity Falls as a whole) had always been such a safe haven. When she was here, she was with her friends, and her Grunkles, and most importantly her triplets, and that had always made it seem like home. In the summer, the place bustled with tourists, Soos’ kids and their playmates always underfoot. But she tried to imagine what it was like for Dipper, here all year long, through the long harsh winters when the Shack was closed and there were no tourists. Through Soos’ family’s ever more frequent visits back to Melody’s family in Portland. Through the summers when reminders of their shared childhood were around every corner, but her siblings themselves were rarely if ever there, “Aw, Dipdot,” Mabel cooed, suddenly feeling guilty for all the times she’d thought to herself that Dipper had the best circumstances of the three of them, “I didn’t know.”

“Oh, I’m okay,” Dipper insisted, eager to make light of her feelings to keep Mabel from worrying, “I love living in Gravity Falls. I just…” she looked up and met Mabel’s eyes and Mabel was startled to feel her heart speed up at the sad longing look in Dipper’s eyes, “I just want to make the most of having you and Ty here.” Just then they heard Ty’s steps thumping down the stairs and he came back into the room, Mabel’s mind off-balance, trying to make sense of the look she’d just seen in her sister’s eyes. It wasn’t altogether unlike the way Ty had looked at her upon waking.

“D’aww,” Ty said as he grabbed Dipper’s laptop and cord where they were lying on the old dinosaur skull that had long served as an end-table, “You two look so warm and comfy,” he flipped up the corner of the covers and joined them, his tone turning mischievous, “Perfect for warming my feets!” Mabel yelped as Ty’s ice-cold feet touched hers, slipping between her knees to nestle in the warm pocket between her legs and Dipper’s.

Dipper plucked her computer from Ty, leaning partway out of the futon bed to plug it in before opening it and pulling up webflix. They didn’t have to say as much, Ty grabbing the laptop had clearly communicated to both of them what he had in mind. There was fairly little discussion before they settled on something to watch and settled into each other’s arms for the afternoon.

Mabel’s thoughts kept straying from the plot of the movie they had on and carding cautiously through the feelings she hadn’t expected to still hang so heavy in her thoughts. It had been so long and so much had happened in the intervening years, she had been sure it wouldn’t be an issue. Sure, it sometimes cropped up in her mind when she was lying in bed trying to sleep, or when she couldn’t find anything to listen to on the radio in the car, but that didn’t mean she still felt it. But now, here she was, sandwiched between them with her feelings running amok. Being with them again, being in the Shack again, it made sense that it wasn’t too far from her mind, but what she really wanted to know was what was happening in their minds. She’d never really found out back then, and she sighed, accepting that she probably wouldn’t now and would just always wonder if the way they had looked at her had just been a trick of the light.

The afternoon slid by, and they said fairly little apart from on and off running commentary on the movies they were watching. Ty’s stomach started to grumble first, with Dipper joining in close behind. When Mabel’s chimed in, enough was enough and Dipper paused the laptop, “Alright, that’s it, it’s time for food.”

It took a good five minutes to tear themselves from the coziness of the bed and Mabel shivered. The Shack was drafty and her tank top wasn’t really warm enough outside of the blankets. As they walked into the kitchen, Ty must have noticed the way she was hugging herself because he draped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, “Warms specialist protects.” he murmured in a sweet, joking tone. She leaned her cheek against his, his stubble tickling slightly as his warmth diffused into her.

In the kitchen, a flurry of food prep began. As usual, Mabel opted to whip up a batch of cookies, settling on snickerdoodles at Ty’s insistence. He was already well along in making some sauce and pasta, while at the opposite counter, Dipper was obsessively arranging a cheese plate, slicing various cheeses and filling small bowls with crackers and olives and anything she found in the fridge and cabinets that seemed suitable. Dipper was softly narrating what she was doing in a silly song, a habit she’d picked up from Grunkle Stan in the periods when he and Ford returned to the Shack between adventures. Ty and Mabel exchanged an amused look as Mabel took another tray of cookies from the oven, listening to the ‘song’ Dipper was singing, “Fillin’ up a plate with cheese, fillin’ up a plate with cheese, want some crackers with that cheeeese? No, sir, I just want the cheese.”

“No, sir, I just want the cheese,” Ty chimed in, bopping his head to the repetitive melody, “No, sir, I just want the cheese.”

“Taking cookies off a sheet,” Mabel added, as she scooped the steaming cookies onto a plate with a plastic spatula, “Have a cookie, if you please.”

Ty’s hand was on the plate at light speed, plucking a cookie from the pile, “All the cookies are for me, all the cookies are for me, all the-- ow! Ow! Hot!” Ty sputtered, upon biting the cookie.

“Oh, no, you okay, bro?” Dipper asked, she and Mabel both darting to his side at once to make sure he was alright.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he waved them off affectionately, blowing on the cookie before taking another bite, “Mmmm, good thing I didn’t burn my tongue too much to taste.”

“Instant karma, you cookie-hoarder.” Mabel said, swatting his shoulder lightly with the spatula.

“No clue what you’re talking about.” Ty said, as Mabel put the last tray of cookie dough in the oven, and he grabbed another cookie from the plate. He gave her a cheeky smile, chewing a big mouthful of cookies as she closed the oven door and turned around. She couldn’t help but grin back at him. Just about no one could match her silliness the way that Ty could.

The triplets managed to carry their three bowls of pasta, towering plate of cookies, and over-burdened tray of cheese back to the futon in one trip, cans of Pitt Cola tucked under their arms. They piled back into bed, tucking the blankets up as high as they could get them to stay, and dove happily into their impromptu feast while resuming the dumb movie they’d been watching. Mabel had been too distracted by her own thoughts to take in most of the first half of the movie, but now that she was playing closer attention, she easily slipped into the rhythm of riffing with Dip and Ty.

Sometime after their food was set aside, apart from the occasional grape or olive from the cheese plate munched on, Ty’s hand slipped into Mabel’s beneath the covers, giving a comforting squeeze. She let her head fall against his shoulder and Dip, noticing the cuddles being initiated, laid her head in Mabel’s lap. Mabel’s free hand stroked Dipper’s hair, about two thirds of which had slipped out of her braid since the previous night. Mabel felt the warm fuzzy feelings her trips always brought out in her begin blossoming in her chest and softly said, “I love you guys so much.”

“We love you too, goober.” Ty said, kissing the top of Mabel’s head.

“We love you so so much.” Dip said, reaching up to give the hand that was petting her hair a squeeze.

It was already nearing sunset and Dipper adjusted her head in Mabel’s lap to gaze out the window as the dim rainy day grew dimmer, “Time’s going too fast,” she observed a little solemnly, “Three days sounded like more when we were planning.”

“Hushh,” Ty said sympathetically, reaching over to take Dip’s hand, “I know.”

“I just don’t want you to go yet,” Dip said, “It’s too soon.”

“We still have tonight, Dipdot,” Mabel reminded, trying to sound more optimistic than she felt. In truth, the deadline was weighing on her mind as well, “And aaaall day tomorrow, and tomorrow night.”

“Even a little bit of Monday morning.” Ty added.

Mabel could feel Dipper’s sad smile against her leg and felt a fierce push to kiss her sadness away, “I know, I shouldn’t be wasting our time together worrying about how we don’t have enough time together.”

“I don’t think we could ever have enough time together.” Ty said wistfully, and his sisters nodded in agreement, “C’mere, we gotta hug it out.” He held out his arms and Dipper crawled up to snuggle against his free shoulder, while Mabel ducked under his arm. They laid their heads against his chest, and as Mabel placed her hand absently on his thigh to pull herself closer, she could swear she heard his heartbeat speed up. She glanced up at him and this time there was no mistaking the pink tinge to his cheeks. Mabel’s attention was drawn away when she heard Dipper sniffle, a sniffle she’d be able to pick out even in a loud crowded place, the sniffle that belied Dipper losing hold of the reins of something that had been bothering her all day. Ty knew the sound as well as she did and immediately cradled Dipper’s head closer to him, tucking his chin atop her head and cooing soothingly, “Oh, honey, no,” he said, gently, “You’re okay. Just let it out.”

“I’m sorry,” Dipper choked, wiping the tears from her cheeks impatiently, “I’m being so stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Mabel said, reaching across Ty to rub Dip’s shoulder, “It’s totally understandable. We feel the time passing, too.”

“This is such a dumb way for me to make you spend it though!” Dipper insisted, “We should all be cuddling and having a g-good time! Not managing my dumb emotions…”

“‘Scuse you, Dippinsauce,” Mabel said gesturing vaguely to them, “But we are cuddling!”

“And we are having a good time,” Ty said, giving Dipper a squeeze, “How could we have anything but a good time with our favorite sister?”

“Exactomundo,” Mabel nodded decisively, tucking Dipper’s bangs back from her face, “Tyroni’s got it right. I’m just happy that for once I’m actually here to help make you feel better when you’ve got sads.”

Dipper nodded against Tyrone’s chest, before half climbing into his lap to snuggle closer. Mabel wrapped her arms around them both in a group hug, tucking her face against them as Dipper’s tears gradually slowed. She could feel the wetness of Dip’s tears against her, and adjusted her head slightly so that she could kiss her sister’s reddened cheek. It must have surprised her, because her breath caught slightly which made Mabel smile and kiss her again. She stroked Dipper’s hair away from her face and was surprised to feel Ty press his lips tenderly to her own forehead. She gave him an inquisitive look, noting the blush again upon his cheeks, “What was that for?”

“Being such a good sister,” he said, lightly cupping her cheek for a second. She was about to lean into the touch but he removed his hand, “You take good care of us.”

“D’aww, you big softieee,” Mabel teased, a slightly bashful smile on her lips, “We take good care of each other.”

“Just take the compliment, Mabes,” Dip said, bloodshot eyes peering up at her, “I’m grateful for it, too.”

“You guyssss,” Mabel protested, surprised to feel the tears rising in her own eyes so suddenly, “Why do we live so f-far apa-art?”

At the sound of her voice breaking, Ty tugged her close against his chest, “Oh, man, you guys are gonna make me cry. Get over here.” With surprising efficacy, Ty rearranged them, maneuvering them so that they were lying down again, with Mabel in the middle. Dipper wrapped her arms around Mabel’s waist from behind her, while Ty resumed holding her to his chest, where she let herself cry freely. She wondered in the back of her mind whether this was the right moment, the best chance she’d have to tell them how she felt, but it was no use either way as the tears were coming too heavily for her to have spoken about anything. Let them believe I’m just crying about saying goodbye soon, she thought, It’s still true and it’ll save us all a lot of heartache.

After her tears slowed to a stop, she just lay there nestled between them. She would have been content, were it not for the confession hiding under her tongue. After some time, she gave into the weariness and sleep overtook her.

The hand resting on her hip was warm, so warm it was like it was on fire, burning a hole in her clothes. It must have, she reasoned, because now it seemed that it was on her skin, the fingers curling, indulging the hand’s desire to feel more of her. She was unsurprised to find the hand belonged to Ty, facing her in bed, his tousled hair falling across his brow. That look was in his eyes again, the aching softness she’d seen before. So lost was she in the inviting liquid depths of his brown eyes, she was almost surprised when they closed as his lips met hers. Small explosions went off in her mouth, dancing down through her body, leaving in their wake little magnets that drifted towards him inexorably. Her body met his, not exploding so much as melting. Even as she was kissing him, her hands running up his arms to grip his shoulders, she was also outside of them, watching how naturally they fit together.

Even with this double vantage point, the impossibly gentle lips that found her shoulder still came as a complete surprise. They moved from the round of the joint in, trailing ethereal kisses along the crest and dip of her shoulder sending exquisite tremors to her core. As a hand rose with infinite care to brush aside her hair from her neck, she knew without the faintest shadow of a doubt that it was Dipper behind her. Who else in the universe could handle her so decisively, yet with such care that it could be mistaken for caution? As Dipper’s soft lips found the base of Mabel’s throat, she knew it could not be caution she sensed, but reverence.

She watched their bodies from above while feeling them from within, marveled at the way their bodies were clothed and unclothed at once. She watched her own hand leave Ty’s shoulder to lay lightly but hungrily on the smoothness of Dipper’s thigh. Dipper pressed closer at the touch, her hips flush against Mabel’s behind. It was that touch that awakened Mabel to her own insistence. All this softness and delicacy had lit a fire in her core, and she wasn’t sure how long her own hips had been moving, eager to draw them both nearer and stoke the fire hotter.  Each time her hips moved forward, she could feel Ty’s tantalizing hardness against her, as if through clothed and not clothed at once. That sometime-sense of cloth only tempted her more, eager to really feel him with nothing in between. As her hips pivoted between them, Dipper’s hand traced much too lightly over her hip. She was distantly aware, maybe informed by seeing from the outside, of how her back arched,  how she whimpered into Ty’s unceasing kisses as Dipper teased. The tips of her fingers just ghosted towards the junction of Mabel’s thighs, making the most maddeningly delicate contact with her yearning flesh. Her hips strained more needfully, chasing the whisper of Dipper’s touch along with the heat and hardness that belied Ty’s own need.

Ty’s hand moved from her hip, starting fires all along her side as it glided up her waist, across her ribs, coming to rest in the valley between her breasts. Dipper’s fingers connected with the seat of Mabel’s hunger as Ty’s palm set fire to her heart and she felt blinded by need. Need was all that remained, need to feel them, need to protect them, need to never leave them, need to lead them in this dance until they shuddered with exquisite torment as she did now. The need was too great, much too great.

For a second, Mabel did not comprehend that she had wakened, nor at all that she’d been dreaming in the first place. After all, she could still feel Dipper behind her and Ty before her. She could still feel Ty’s erection straining towards her, her hips dancing hungrily between the two of them. The fire of need still burned in her so hot that she thought she might break. Ty was no longer kissing her, she realized, and it hit her like a slap in the face. When did he stop? She wondered, her mind sluggish, Why did he stop? She opened her eyes, hoping for some elucidation and it hit her like a bucket of ice water poured over her heat.

Ty was asleep, his face only inches from hers on the pillow. His expression was slack, his lips parted slightly as his breath came slow and deep. His eyes were closed, the eyelids flickering slightly along to some dream no doubt purer than her own. The arousal that had burned clean and bright in her gut only an instant before turned suddenly to stinking shame, spitting and bubbling like pitch. Her hips froze, her heart raced unevenly. Tears prickled her eyes and she scrambled out of the tangle of her siblings’ limbs. She couldn’t be around them right now, their guard down, their sleeping faces innocent and calm, their trust so deeply misplaced in her. Mabel managed to make it into the bathroom before the tears overwhelmed her. She shut the door with one hand while covering her mouth with the other. She couldn’t let them hear her, she couldn’t let them know. They had moved on, they had never felt this in the first place. She was the sick one, the one who had felt more than she was meant to, who felt it still as much as she tried not to.

And she was even worse than she’d thought. Humiliation and guilt swelled in her anew at the thought of the way she’d been grinding against them, the way her body had been so eager to use them for her own pleasure while they slept. She sank to the floor, one arm hugging her knees while the other hand still muffled the sound of her sobs. Much as she loved them and they loved her, maybe it had been a mistake to come here in the first place. It was too much. Too much temptation, too much risk that she would lose one of the people she loved most. If one of them had woken, how confused, how betrayed, how used they may have felt. Her heart broke at the very thought of making either of them feel anything but safe.

She cried until her tears were spent and her butt was asleep from sitting on the floor. She pulled herself up shakily and reluctantly met her eyes in the mirror. She looked frightful, her face red and blotchy, her eyes bloodshot, her hair a stormcloud of frizz. Mabel stiffly washed her face with cold water, so cold it made her hands ache, but it felt refreshing to the heat of her inflamed face. She dried her face and blew her nose, and impatiently dragged a brush through her hair until it looked a little more manageable. She brushed her teeth, prolonging her time hiding from her triplets.

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, the sun was coming up and birds were singing. She looked out at the Mystery Shack lawn, carpeted in fallen leaves. The forest blocked the horizon from her view so she couldn’t properly see the sunrise, but she could see the sky pink and mauve above the tops of the trees. The day dawned serene and crisp, the world cleansed and enlivened by yesterday’s rain, but within her a storm raged on. Bracing herself, she turned away from the window to look back at the futon. Dipper and Ty had closed the gap between them that Mabel had left, facing each other with Dipper’s head under Ty’s chin and their hands clasped together loosely between their chests. Her heart ached with love for them and a big part of her wanted to climb back into their loving arms, but she couldn’t. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back, instead walking into the kitchen to busy her hands and hopefully her mind.

Dipper and Ty would wake to the smell of food wafting from the kitchen. It was unlike Mabel to wake up earliest, but she knew they wouldn’t question it if she claimed it had been to make them breakfast. That was the kind of nice thing she did, wasn’t it? She was feeling so out of sorts that she wasn’t even sure. She made eggs and chicken sausages she found in the freezer, she made a fruit salad from the couple fruits she found in the kitchen, meticulously cutting strawberries into roses the way she had learned in her very brief stint as a baker’s apprentice. She was buttering toast when Dipper dragged her feet into the kitchen, “Mornin’, chef of the future,” she said, her voice hoarse from sleeping. She yawned, “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d make myself useful.” Mabel replied, unable to meet Dipper’s eyes as she filled the electric kettle and turned it on. Mabel hadn’t noticed it before, but it was definitely something Dipper had gotten for the Shack.

“Everything okay?” Dip asked, sensing something in Mabel’s tone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Mabel responded automatically, pretending the toast buttering required all her attention, “Just a, uh, bit of a headache.”

“Aw, well, hopefully food will help,” Dip observed, but Mabel could practically hear the wheels turning in her sister’s head, trying to suss out what was actually wrong, “We didn’t really eat like normal humans yesterday and maybe you just have low blood sugar.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it.” Mabel said, knowing full well that that wasn’t it.

“I…” Dipper started shakily, running a hand through her hair, “Have a bit of a headache myself.” she finished weakly, taking a mug from the cabinet and dropping a teabag in it. Mabel looked at her out of the corner of her eye as Dipper turned the kettle off just shy of a full boil and poured the water into her mug. She hadn’t noticed at first, but Dipper did look a little rough around the edges. She stirred a little bit of sugar into her tea, set in on the kitchen table, and said simply, “I’ll go get Ty up.” and left the room.

Mabel stood in the middle of the kitchen for a second, a slice of toast in one hand and butter knife in the other, unable to move. She heard the groan of Ty stretching in the next room, the muffle of some words passed between her siblings, Dipper’s laugh. I don’t deserve them, the guilt told her. Stiffly, she began setting food on the table, grabbing paper towels and silverware, salt and pepper. She continued bustling around after Dipper and Ty had seated themselves at the table, thinking of more things they might need and frankly, scared to have to look either of them in the eye.

“Hey, Mabes,” Ty said, “Why don’t you hit the pause button and eat something?”

“Okay.” Mabel said, carrying two jars of jam to the table and setting them down by the plate of toast and lowering herself into her chair. She doled food onto her plate automatically, thinking she wouldn’t be able to stomach a bite of it, but was surprised to find just how famished she was when she started eating. Maybe Dipper’s right, she thought against her better judgment, and low blood sugar is most of the problem.

The triplets had spent enough time together over their lives that it was natural for silences to sometimes fall between them. Most of the time those silences were comfortable, sometimes even comforting. It was very seldom that they felt awkward or strained, but the one that fell as they ate their breakfast was tense. Mabel tried to keep her focus on her food, but once the minimum of her hunger was sated the food turned to ash in her mouth and she found herself just moving bits of sausage and egg around her plate with her fork. She glanced around the table at her siblings, found Dipper staring into her tea and Ty smiling wryly to himself.

He laughed suddenly, dropping his fork, getting the attention of both his sisters, “Remember the summer before college?” he asked casually, making Mabel’s breath catch in her throat, “When we’d just laze around and make out all day? I had, like, the most random dream about that last night.”

Dipper put her tea mug back down, and Mabel could swear her sister’s hand was shaking. She realized her own hand was shaking, her fork rattling slightly against her plate. Is he serious? She wondered, how could he be saying this offhand, like it’s normal conversation? She found herself wishing she could be as brave, so it surprised her to hear her own voice, “I had a similar dream.”

“You did?” Ty asked, his eyes searching Mabel’s, giving away his doubt, his hope, and she could have sworn, his desire.

“Y-yeah,” Dipper chimed in shakily, before Mabel could respond, “I… actually, I did too.”

Silence dragged on at the table for a few seconds, but this one felt much different than the last. Ty was the first to break it again, “I… that’s not what I expected you guys to say. Wow, okay.” he ran his hand through his hair, “I was all ready to apologize and for you to be upset but now, I…”

“That summer has been on my mind a lot.” Mabel admitted softly, her heart pounding, “I… didn’t think you guys thought about it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dipper said, turning to look straight into Mabel’s eyes, her gaze insistent, “I live here! Under the same roof where I… where we…” Mabel laid her hand on Dipper’s where it rested on the table between them.

“Sometimes it feels like that was the last time anything made sense.” Ty admitted, “I-I know it didn’t, but compared to the rest.”

“It was the last time we were all together for more than a week,” Mabel said, her voice growing a little solemn, “I didn’t think that summer was ever going to end.”

They looked around at each other for a minute before silently agreeing, all standing up nearly in unison to clear the table. This was not a conversation to be had without hugs, and they all knew it. Upon returning to the living room, they all hesitated for a moment before climbing into the bed, as if they hadn’t spent the last two days barely leaving it. Mabel forced herself to get into it first, lying a little stiffly on her back. Ty and Dipper followed suit on either side of her, although they were all careful not to let their bodies actually touch.

“I didn’t think that summer was going to end,” Dipper said in a measured tone, and took a deep breath, “And I really didn’t want it to.”

“Me neither.” Ty and Mabel said at exactly the same time.

“I wish I’d known how to talk about it back then,” Ty continued, and Mabel hated the sound of the regret in his voice, “I couldn’t say to you two what I couldn’t even admit to myself.”

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked, her heart was fluttering eagerly at the implication, thinking of the things she herself had been unable to say back then.

Ty sighed heavily, running his hand down his face, and Mabel’s heart lurched at the sight of the tears standing in his eyes, “I… god, I remember saying some just dumb shit about hormones and sexual need,” he scoffed, “As if it was ever about getting my dick wet. But I was an idiot, and that was so much easier than admitting how… that it was…” he took a deep breath and held it for a second, before managing to whisper, “That I love you.”

Mabel didn’t realize how close she’d been to tears herself until she heard her own relieved sob. Each of her triplets tentatively put a hand on her shoulder and she could feel Ty gearing up to apologize and she couldn’t let that happen, “I love you too!” she practically wailed, “I love you both and I did then and I do now!’

Their arms closed in around her and she could feel their tears mingling with her own, could hear the soft hitch of Dipper’s crying as she said, “I love you both too, I love you both too.” They held each other and cried for a few minutes of disbelief before Dipper said with a half-laugh, “We’re so duuuuumb.”

Ty laughed too, but Mabel just smiled, “Seriously, I mean,” Ty impatiently wiped the tears from his face, “We talk about everything, why did we never talk about this.”

“I never ever ever would have thought it’d go like this,” Mabel said, her voice still thick with sobs, “You don’t really ever assume your siblings are in love with you too.”

“Well, turns out we are?” Dipper said, a little incredulous and maybe a little giddy, she lightly turned Mabel’s chin towards her and kissed her. God, was it better than she remembered. Probably better than it had ever been, she’d never kissed her knowing that her love was returned.

“We definitely are,” Ty said into her ear, before kissing her cheek, “By some twisted miracle.”

No sooner had Mabel’s lips parted from Dipper’s than she turned her head so that they met Ty’s, still hovering by her cheek. The same explosive unity that had bloomed in her kiss with Dipper filled her anew. She could hear Dipper’s smile at seeing it. A moment later, she knew exactly how Dipper had as she watched Ty kiss Dipper. She had seen them kiss before, sure, about a decade ago and without the heady knowledge that they were all of them in love. They went on that way for some time, passing the same kiss back and forth between them, eyes bright and tears drying on their cheeks.

Mabel and Dipper were kissing again, the very tips of their tongues exploring just past each other’s lips, when Ty said absently, “Sooo about those dreams we had…” They broke their kiss to look at him, to see what it was he was getting at. He was twisting a lock of Mabel’s hair between his fingers and his eyes glinted playfully when they met hers, “What exactly was I doing in your dream?”

Mabel’s mouth grew dry as she considered the question, drawing to mind again each luscious detail of the dream in question, “Well, uhh,” she cleared her throat, feeling her face growing hotter, “You were kissing me, mostly,” Ty nodded, a smile quirking up one corner of his mouth, “And… and you had your hand on me.”

“On you where exactly?” he teased, as Dipper tucked Mabel’s hair behind her ear and kissed it gently, sending a small thrill through her.

“Um, my hip at first…”

“Here?” Ty asked solicitously, laying his palm flat on the hip nearer to him, making her squirm slightly. He smiled, “Funny, it was like that in my dream, too. I was kissing you and slowly,” he did it as he described it, “Moved my hand from here up to here.” His hand came to rest over her heart, between her breasts just as it had in her dream.

“Wait, really?” Dipper asked, curiously, “You did that to Mabes in my dream, too.”

“Your dream was about me doing stuff to Mabes?” Ty teased, his hand resting warm and heavy on Mabel’s chest. She wondered if he could feel the way her heart was battering against her ribs.

“No, no! It was all three of us!” Dipper corrected, flushing, “I was behind her, s-sort of spooning her, while you two were kissing and you did that thing with your hand and uhh…” Ty raised an eyebrow and Mabel gulped, “And I was reaching around her to… uh…”

“Wait… seriously?” Ty asked, and his voice was intrigued and a little husky, “This… is gonna sound crazy, but I think we all had pretty much the same dream.”

“Your dream was like that too?” Mabel asked, and it was Ty’s turn to flush. He nodded. There was a long moment of consideration, of indecision. This revelation hung mysteriously between them as they each tried to shake some sense out of all dreaming the same thing. As much as they would have loved to claim otherwise, always having been drawn to the supernatural, the triplets had long since debunked any possibility of psychic connection between them. Sure, they were pros at reading each other, but no more than anyone would be after so many years together. What were they supposed to do with this information, that this love and desire was not a curse to bear in silence, but something with which they’d all been living? The question was a complicated one, but the answer seemed simple enough, “This is stupid!” Mabel blurted out, grabbing the front of Ty’s shirt and pulling him down into a kiss. He was too stunned for a second, but quickly remembered how to kiss back. Without prompting, Dipper was scooting closer, her hands running over the both of them as she nuzzled and kissed the side of Mabel’s face, her neck, her ear. Her lips just below Mabel’s ear elicited a soft gasp that disappeared on Ty’s tongue. Dipper moved down her neck towards her shoulder and Mabel couldn’t stand it, breaking her kiss with Ty to capture Dipper’s lips again. Mabel turned onto her side to better kiss Dipper, and realized that her hips had begun swaying not unlike in her dream. Her thighs and Dipper’s rubbed against each other with insistent delicacy as Mabel’s hand found Dipper’s waist. New heat surged through her veins as Ty sidled up behind her, pressing himself flush against her, his erection unmistakable against her ass.

Thought gave way to pure sensation, and Mabel lost herself in the sweetness of not holding back. Though frenzied desire simmered not far below the surface, all three of them were content to take it slow, marveling at the peace and freedom of being together. Showing love without restraint and each challenging themselves to create more pleasure and greater oneness. There was no awkwardness, no standing on ceremony, as garment by garment they shed their clothes, no room for such barriers in as sacred a moment as this. They fell into a natural rhythm, one so innate it was hard to believe they’d never followed it like this before. There was no jealousy, no competing, just joy at sharing and creating such joy.

They spent hours a blissful tangle of bodies. Mabel intermittently had an instant of self-awareness, gratitude so immense that she thought she might burst. Once while her fingers moved eagerly in the wet depths of Dipper’s heat, her mouth glued to Dipper’s breast. Above her head, Dipper and Ty were locked in a searing kiss and Ty’s hips grinded against her back. Once again, in the moment Ty finally entered her, guided by Dipper’s hands as she nibbled at his ear. And again, and again, these unbearably bright moments of need and pleasure and closeness.

She had no idea how long it went on like that, before their frenzy cooled and they fell gratefully back into gentle kisses and soft caresses. Dipper was the first to cry, but Mabel and Ty were not close behind. They were not tears of sadness, quite the opposite, they were tears of relief. There was fear and uncertainty and sorrow not far from any of their minds, but in this moment they were locked together in a thankful prayer. When their tears passed, they slept. Not on purpose and not all at once, each drifting off for a couple minutes or hours before surfacing again. Barely a word passed between them, no word able to say the things they felt compelled to say with kisses, and looks, and fingertips traced lightly over skin.

The sunrise brought with it welcome light, gradually diluting the darkness and making it possible to see each other more clearly than they had throughout the night. But it also brought with it the most unwelcome of responsibilities. Tears welled in Mabel’s eyes again, and she did not need to explain to either of them the reason. Though time had ceased to exist to them, lost in the ecstasy of each other all night, it returned now with all the dread of a death sentence. In just a few hours, they’d have to say goodbye again and go back to the agony of being hundreds of miles apart.

Ty was the first to tear himself from the bed, while his sisters tearfully dozed in each other’s arms. He came back fully dressed and sat at the edge of the bed, looking down at them with eyes full of sadness. Dipper sat up, crawling still naked into Ty’s lap to kiss his forehead and wrap her arms around his shoulders. He cleared his throat shakily and said, “Can we… this time, can we talk about this?”

“Of course.” Dipper said and Mabel nodded, “Not talking about it all this time was a really bad move.”

“I love you both,” Ty said, his voice breaking slightly, “But I don’t know what we’re supposed to do here.”

“Me… me, neither.” Mabel admitted, pulling her fingers through her tangled hair, “I… I want this, but I don’t know how it fits into life.” She crawled over to them, laying her cheek on Ty’s shoulder, “We can’t just rush into this or whatever.”

“Mabel Pines wants a plan,” Dipper joked, “That’s how you know this is serious.” They chuckled lightly, the levity and companionship a pillar of normalcy in the mire, “But she’s right. I think we have some big stuff to figure out and they’re not the kind of decisions we should make lightly.”

Ty nodded and sniffled, reluctantly agreeing, “So we still have to leave.”

“Well, I’m not going to make you,” Dipper said, stroking his hair soothingly, “But I think, yeah.”

“At least for now,” Mabel said, and took a shaky breath, “I dunno what’s gonna happen, but can we please all promise we’re not going to go this long before seeing each other again?”

Ty squeezed them both closer as they all agreed, “No way,” he said, “Home is where you two are and good luck keeping me away for long.”

“Like we’d ever want to.” Dip said, sweetly kissing Ty’s temple. She laughed humorlessly to herself, “What a mess we’ve found ourselves in.”

“Thank you for exploring the mysteries of the Murder Hut!” Stan said jovially, as he ushered the last patrons out of the gift shop, “And thank you for buying our over-priced souvenirs! Don’t forget to tell your friends and remember, no refunds!” The couple chuckled as they got into their station wagon, as if he were joking about the no refund policy. Stan watched the car pull out, leaving tire treads in the torn up lawn. As the tail lights disappeared from view, he flipped the sign on the door so that the side that read CLOSED faced outward, resolutely turning the deadbolt.

Stanley turned around and appraised the gift shop. There was merchandise on the shelves that needed to be restocked or tidied, but apart from that he thought it had really come together. It almost looked at if the racks of punny tee shirts and shelves of tchotchkes were the use for which this room had always been intended. It had been some kind of storage room before, and alone he had hauled all of the mysterious sciencey boxes and crates to the lab below or to the junkyard. It wasn’t the first time Stan considered the irony that the weirdness he was peddling wasn’t half as strange as whatever dumb research had been going on here before.

He sighed heavily, and grabbed dad’s old fez off his head, placing it on the counter with some disdain. Stan glared at the symbol of the Holy Mackerel for a moment, absentmindedly running his hand through his hat-flattened hair. Whaddya think of my latest scam, pops? he asked in his head. Sure, he’d probably never become a millionaire at this gig, but people were forking over the dough like you wouldn’t believe. If he’d only known sooner what a natural he was at the sideshow business, he never would have wasted all that time on Stanco Enterprises.

So, yeah, he was making decent money, but it wasn’t like that would matter to dad at this point. Even if he could present the old man with millions, would that explain away the car crash in which he’d ‘died’? Or the reason no one had called him by the name ‘Stanley’ in months? Or why the real Stanford was nowhere to be found?

“The hell with you, old man…” Stan muttered dismissively, flicking the fez and watching it topple over.

-

Well, then, onwards and upwards, Ford thought bitterly to himself as he awkwardly clambered up the ladder of some sort of fire escape. The beings in this dimension had six limbs and as a result, their gait was quite different from that of a human, and the rungs were spaced impractically for a four-limbed biped such as himself. His twelve fingers had made him a freak in his own dimension, and they were no advantage to him here either.

He swiped stinging sweat out of his eyes with one of the aforementioned abnormal hands and kept climbing. He huffed and puffed as he went, cursing the abysmal heat of this dimension. He wished he could ditch his pack, the extra exertion of carrying it contributing to his unreasonably high internal body temperature, but he didn’t dare risk it. Everything he owned was on his back, and some of his belongings had been hard won. Most expendable were the outer layers of clothing he had discarded in an effort to survive the temperature of this world without heat stroke, but he didn’t even dare toss those. For all he knew, the next dimension he found himself in might very well be a frozen tundra, and he would be damned if he was felled by something as avoidable as hypothermia.

“There it is!” A voice behind him called, modulated strangely by his dimensional translator, “The interloper must not get away!”

Stanford cursed under his labored breath, forcing his burning limbs to move faster. Interloper? He didn’t know what he had done to get on these beings’ bad side, but they certainly didn’t sound happy with him. He racked his mind for some perceived infraction. The two chasing him now were the same that had given him food and shelter, and he had no idea what had precipitated their change of heart. What custom had he failed to follow? What offense had he committed? Nothing came to mind, and as he reached the rooftop, he hoped he was overlooking some innocent mistake. If not, there could only be one other explanation, he thought grimly, they struck a deal with someone who made my capture worth their while.

-

Stan’s grumbling stomach led him into the kitchen. He flipped the switch and the exposed bulb overhead came to life, bathing the room in light. The wood-burning stove was cold, useful as it had been in the winter and spring, it was unnecessary in the humid heat of Oregon summer. The climate reminded him of his childhood summers in New Jersey, but it clammier here in the western mountains. He opened the fridge, appreciating the cool air that gushed out at him as he looked over its meager contents. He grabbed a couple things before closing the door and setting about making himself a bologna sandwich just as he had the last three nights.

Stan’s evenings had been too full to devote too much time to making dinner. Instead, his nights were spent wishing he had paid attention to his science classes in high school instead of cheating off of Ford’s work all the time. He wouldn’t have been West Coast Tech material even if he had studied his tail off, but some of that nerd stuff might have come in handy now. Ford’s portal was undeniably well beyond anything the brothers might have learned in their bare minimum public school curriculum, but at least Stan wouldn’t have started right at square one.

It’s useless, he thought to himself, I’ll never be able to get him back. The bite of sandwich Stan was chewing tasted ashen in his mouth. No! He told himself stubbornly, his free hand curling into a determined fist, Stan Pines doesn’t give up that easy! He felt a pang of guilt for even considering it. Sure, it might be impossible, but he’d be damned if that meant he wasn’t going to give it his best shot.

Would Ford do the same for me? Stan couldn’t help wondering, not for the first time. He had never stopped considering Ford his brother and best friend, even as a decade of silence and estrangement passed between them. It didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, it would take more than ten years to come between twins. Apparently, it would take more than the mysterious gulf of time and space between them too. But would Stanford feel the same way? When he’d first brought Stan here, it wasn’t as a brother. It wasn’t as a friend. It was as a pawn, a partner at best. If he didn’t want anything to do with me then, Stan thought, his shoulders slumping with blame, why would he want anything to do with me now?

-

Finally on the roof, Ford desperately ducked behind a large funnel-like structure to hide. It very seldom rained here, he had been informed, and it was crucial for the six-limbed humanoids here to gather as much of the rainwater as they possibly could. Grateful for the slightly less suffocating heat in the shade of the funnel, Ford dug into the satchel at his waist for the device that allowed him to move between dimensions at will. It was not of his making, but rather a very important acquisition he had made shortly after escaping the Nightmare Realm. Hopefully he’d get a chance some time soon to tinker with the thing and make it more practical. Had he designed such a device, he would surely have given the user the power to choose which dimension they would be transported to. Whatever lunatic was responsible for the design of this device had thought to include all sorts of features, a day-counter, an external thermometer, something like a compass, but hadn’t thought to give the user any way of controlling or predicting where they ended up. It was a gamble of which his pragmatic mind was not too fond.

Holding the device in his hands now, Ford was perturbed to find that the thermometer on it read a higher temperature than he’d ever seen on it. He wasn’t sure what unit it measured in, not celsius or fahrenheit or even kelvin, but he’d gotten a rough idea of the conversion rate from observation and the number he saw before him did nothing to ease his mind. Don’t be foolish, Stanford, he scolded himself, you did not need a thermometer reading to ascertain that this dimension is unbearably hot.

Ford’s unease doubled however, when his attempt to leave this god-forsaken dimension was unsuccessful. Instead of doing as he had told it to do, the device gave him some sort of error message. He was still deciphering the language the device had been programmed to display, but he knew enough to figure out that the device was too overheated to function. He muttered a curse to himself as he heard his pursuers reach the roof.

“Where did it go?” One of them asked, “Did it go down the other side?”

“I still smell it,” the other replied plainly, “It was complaining of the heat, maybe its weak body gave out.”

“You’d better hope not,” the first creature replied, “Not if you want One-Eye to keep up its end of the wager, at least.”

“Of course, I do,” came the reply, “You check that side of the roof, I’ll check around the rain-catcher.”

So it is as I feared, Ford thought grimly, blowing on the overheated device in his hand in a vain attempt to cool it down, He’s found me again. Who knows what he promised these fools in exchange for my capture. He could hear the four feet of one of his pursuers grow near, and slipped the device back into his satchel and clenched his fists. All my education and sometimes I swear those boxing lessons are the only thing on which I can rely.

-

With the hunger in his belly acceptably sated, Stanley set to work getting the gift shop ready for the following day. It had been a decent day for sales. He hadn’t realized the summer drew so many tourists to Roadkill County, Oregon but he was more than happy to clean out their wallets for them. He tried to quiet his worries as he set about replacing shirts on emptied hangers, filling in gaps on the shelves, adding more Murder Hut pens and bumper stickers to the trays by the cash register. It wasn’t working.

This place was strange. It was the key to the Murder Hut’s success. Despite the offbeat wackiness of the fake attractions he had been fabricating, it was the pervasive weirdness of this place that really sold it. None of the outlandish attractions he was showing were as bizarre as the real things he’d seen around Gravity Falls. It had seemed like a nondescript enough place when first he had arrived this past winter, but his first impression had been wrong. He could have sworn he’d seen small bearded men scurrying across the forest floor, had seen butterflies that upon closer inspection sure looked like some sort of pixies or fairies.

His nerdy brother had always been fascinated with oddities, had always been drawn to the strange creatures and monsters of science fiction, fantasy, and folklore. It made sense that Poindexter had chosen the freakiest town in the country to throw away his grant money. Some things about his house, however, didn’t seem to add up. His eyes traveled on their own to the rug beneath his feet. He’d moved it in here to give the gift shop a more welcoming, kitschy vibe, on account of the mysterious one-eyed triangle design. He’d only ever seen something like the design on dollar bills, but doubted Ford’s otherwise shabby, unfinished home drew any decor inspiration from money. It was a motif he had found all over the house, windows, paintings, glass prisms, everywhere he looked he seemed to find more triangles. He remembered Ford excelling at and enjoying trigonometry in high school, but even Ford didn’t love math enough to let it dictate how he decorated his home. Most of the triangles had eyes, never more than one, giving Stan the skin-crawly sense that he was being watched.

Well, I’ll just have to ask him, Stan decided, using his foot to smooth a wrinkle in the eerie rug, I’m sure he has some dumb explanation for the triangle obsession, and just as soon as I get him back, I’ll find out what it is.

-

Without hesitation, Ford threw a punch, his fist connecting loudly with the face of one of the beings that had been following him. His knuckles landed square against the creature’s nose and he felt the brittle exoskeleton fracture. An instant later he was running across the rooftop, towards the edge. It was only a few feet between this building and the next, and without allowing himself time to hesitate he leapt, easily clearing the gap. It was not a maneuver that would come easily to the scuttle-y movements of this dimensions inhabitants, and he wanted to put as much distance between them and himself as possible.

The sky was a strange wash of greens and purples, something he had come to recognize as an equivalent to the vibrant sunsets in dimension 46’/. He was outside the settlement where his two betrayers had taken him in, and he knew they wouldn’t dare pass into ‘the wilds’ as they called them, especially not past nightfall. The climate here was like that of a very extreme earthly desert; once the sun was below the horizon the temperature would drop drastically. Had Ford been planning to spend another night here, he would be worried for his life. Between the cold and the mysterious beasts that inhabited the wilds, it was not a place he would like to try and make camp. However, he only intended to stay long enough to get his overheated device back in working order so he could get the hell out of dodge.

Stanford did not slow down until he approached a strange cluster of plants, large as the maples and pines of Oregon but more like cacti in structure. The sandy ground would have been shaded here for some time already and with the sky growing dark the temperature would be plummeting soon. He sat down in the sand and placed the device on the ground in front of him, impatiently checking the temperature every few seconds.

He nearly fell over with shock at the sight of Stanley on the small glossy screen, only to realize with a start that it was his own reflection he was seeing. He touched the fingertips of one six-fingered hand to the scruffy facial hair on his chin and jaw, hiding the cleft chin that was easiest distinguishing mark to tell the twins apart. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, having been too worried he would lose or break the precious tool in the chase, and he looked scruffy and wild-eyed, with a few scuffs and scrapes on his face. It was startling to realize the resemblance when it was normally like night and day for the twins to tell themselves apart in photographs. He sighed, and realized to his own surprise that he was actually disappointed that he couldn’t see Stanley. This is all his fault, he reminded himself stubbornly, pushing away the thought before it could distract him too much, If only he’d listened to me, instead of letting his emotions run rampant yet again…

Finally the device in his hand was back to a functional temperature, and not a moment too soon as the cold air was making goosebumps rise on his sweaty skin. It’s no use thinking about Stanley, he told himself sternly, It doesn’t matter where the blame may lie, you’re never going to see him again. He’s not the one you should concern yourself with. The device began whirring in his hands, sending small surges of power through his fingers, feeling almost like static shocks. As the ground seemed to fall out from under him, and he was pulled into the tight vacuum of teleportation, Ford reminded himself obstinately, Bill Cipher. It’s not my reckless brother, but my deceitful Muse who is to blame.

-

Stan gingerly rolled the snack cart aside, revealing the door down to the lab in the basement. He reminded himself again to find something better to cover the door. What lay beneath the house was too important, and too dangerous, to risk some dumb tourist wandering down there by mistake. He moved down the dim stairs carefully, reluctantly even. He didn’t really want to go down there, he had to.

He emerged into the lab and once again the enormity of his mistakes weighed heavily on his shoulders. All of Ford’s machines, many of which he did not know the function of, hummed and beeped along, absolutely indifferent to their creator’s absence. He couldn’t have disagreed more. This place, more than anywhere else in Gravity Falls, more than anywhere else in the Murder Hut, was Ford. It was of Ford, and for Ford, and every panel, lever, monitor, and jarred specimen seemed to bear Ford’s name.

Guilt gnawed in Stanley’s gut. I never meant for any of this to happen, he thought, desperate for some kind of forgiveness. But what sort of forgiveness could he find? Not from his parents, who thought him dead. Not from Ford, who was worlds away if he was even still alive. Certainly not from himself. There was no way he could forgive himself until Ford was home safely, but it was hard to believe in the probability of that. Stan’s jaw tightened as he gazed through the glass at the mysterious portal, dormant and showing no signs of ever having come alive.

How many times had he replayed that fateful day in his head in the past few months? He was dying to make more sense of it, but it had just all happened so fast. Ford had seemed so different from the moment Stan had arrived and in hindsight, that should have made him behave more cautiously. Ma always said hindsight is 20/20, Stan thought absently, and tried to ignore the stab of loneliness for his mother he felt in his chest. Grow up, he scolded himself at one, what grown man wishes for his mommy?

Even if there were some way he could reach out to his parents, there was nothing they could do. This was his mistake, his fault, his crime. And only he could fix it.

-

The intense pressure lifted and Stanford felt solid ground beneath his feet. His stomach heaved but he managed to keep from vomiting. It was nighttime in this dimension as well and quite dark, although the sky was littered with an unbelievable amount of stars. He crouched down, touching the ground tentatively with one hand, and was relieved to find soft grass beneath him. He lied down immediately, eager to rest after yet another day of running and betrayal. An indignant twinge ran through him, Have I not had a lifetime’s worth of running and betrayal already?

Ford drew a deep breath in through his nose and slowly let it out his mouth. He stretched out on the soft ground and looked up at the sea of stars, telling himself that he would figure out where he was come morning. No sooner had he shut his eyes than Bill was there, applauding patronizingly, “BRAVO, FORDSY,” he said, his eye smiling smugly, “QUITE  A SHOW YOU PUT ON TODAY!”

“This is a dream,” Ford said stubbornly, turning his back on Bill and trying to ignore the dim shadow of Glass Shard Beach around them.

Bill was instantly in front of him, his small black hands at his sides as if on his hips, “OF COURSE IT IS, THAT’S NO EXCUSE TO BE RUDE.”

“You have no authority to be giving me lessons in decorum,” Ford sneered. He jabbed his chest with a finger, “I escaped your goons.”

Bill shrugged concedingly, “PITY FOR THEM,” he said off-hand, “BREAKING A DEAL WITH ME TENDS TO BE FATAL.”

“Well, it would appear that isn’t always the case,” Ford said, determined not to let Bill bully him.

“OH, I DON’T MEAN YOU, FORDSY,” Bill corrected, practically batting his eyelashes, “YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY IN MY PLANS.”

“You’ll have to catch me first.” Ford snarled challengingly, only to garner a bone-chilling cackle from his ex-Muse.

“YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER, FORDSY,” Bill said, his voice almost genial.

“I’m not scared of you, Bill!” Ford insisted, shutting his eyes tight and willing the dream to end.

Bill laughed again, “C’MON, PAL, WE BOTH KNOW YOU’RE SMARTER THAN THAT!”

Ford opened his eyes, a fiery retort ready to leap from his tongue, only to find a serene starry sky before him instead of his traitorous foe. He hoped Bill was bluffing about killing the beings from that desert dimension that had taken him in and then betrayed him. Yes, they had sold him out to Bill, but who knew what he had promised them. In their world, even water was a commodity, no doubt Bill had presented a reward they couldn’t turn down. Bill cannot win, he told himself for the umpteenth time, pushing away his pity for the two new casualties, Destroying him may very well be impossible, but I’d sooner die trying than be a pawn to him ever again.

He sighed heavily and sat up, grabbing his inter-dimensional teleportation device, hoping to distract himself trying to learn something about this new dimension. He observed the temperature, the compass reading, other various readings about the atmosphere. His eye was drawn to the day-count feature. He had acquired the device only a couple days after going through the portal, by his rough estimation, and he had managed to re-program the feature to count up from that point in hopes of measuring how long he had been away from his home dimension. Like a prisoner or a castaway’s tally marks on the walls of their cell or cave, there was something sickening and yet satisfying about seeing the number grow. It read one hundred twenty; about four months.

He reminded himself that the count might be somewhat off, but it did little to ease the queasiness he felt all of a sudden. It was likely that some of that was a result of hunger or teleportation, perhaps some a response to something unique to the air in this dimension, but there was no denying that some of it was regret. Regret for trusting a lying beast like Bill Cipher, regret for turning his back on his brother, regret for calling on him the way that he had. It had been selfish, blind, and he knew it. What good does regret do you now? He reminded himself, trying to shake off the feeling, You were only doing what had to be done. But whatever his motives had been, the result was still he and Stanley spending the eleventh consecutive birthday alone.

Just at that moment, a deep menacing growl issued from a spot a few feet away from Stanford and he was back on his feet in an instant. Well, maybe not exactly alone, he thought wryly. The unseen creature growled again, and Ford thought bleakly, Happy birthday, Stanley.

-

Stan groaned in frustration, slamming Ford’s journal shut. It was no use. I’m too tired and too stupid and too fucking sad to make sense of any of this, he fumed to himself. He had been dreading today for weeks. Missing Stanford and hating himself for losing him were central to all of his days lately, but he knew it would only cut that much deeper today.

As children, they’d loved their birthday. It didn’t matter much what they did with the day, they were best friends and just the fact that the day was shared made it special. But that very same thing was what had made it impossible to enjoy the day ever since he’d lost everything. He still swore it had all been a big misunderstanding. Of course, he hadn’t wanted his best and only friend to move across the country and move onto a life in which he was out of place, but not enough to ever commit the crime of which he’d been accused. Stanford was the most important person in the world to him, he would never have sabotaged his chance at happiness and fulfillment. Sure, he was selfish, but he could never be that selfish.

But somehow it had happened twice. A fit of hurt and anger had pulled Ford from his life yet again, and this time he wasn’t going to take it lying down. He had worked hard trying to find some way to earn back his place in the family the first time around, but this time it wasn’t about pops or about acceptance or a pat on the head. The most important person in his world was no longer actually in his world, and he needed to fix it. He had broken it, and he needed to know that he could fix it.

But he had to accept that it wasn’t getting fixed tonight. He grabbed a permanent marker from the cup that held several writing implements on the desk. He stood up, popping his back, and walked over to the very utilitarian calendar that hung on the wall. At first after Ford had been snatched away from him by the bizarre portal, he had been numbering the days, before it had become apparent that he wouldn’t be able to just get the portal going with a little elbow grease and ingenuity. It had been too depressing, watching the numbers grow, and he had opted just to cross off each box with an x as the days passed.

“Holy balls! Mabel?!” Wendy was across the kitchen and at the door in a couple long strides, throwing it open wide and hoisting someone petite into a bone-crushing hug. Dipper averted his eyes when he glimpsed a brown curl, opting instead for staring hard into his cup of coffee. His chest constricted at the sound of a tittering laugh. After all this time, he could still pick up the flicker of nerves in the sound.

“H-hey, gurrrl,” Mabel managed to squeak nervously, her voice a pitch too high. Dipper gripped his mug tighter, “H-how ya been?”

“Don’t you small-talk me,” Wendy scolded, finally placing Mabel back on her feet, “What’s with the disappearing act?”

“I missed you, girl-dood.” Soos joined in and Dipper glanced in the direction of the door just long enough to see him ruffling Mabel’s hair.

Holy shit, she’s beautiful, he observed angrily before forcing his eyes back to his drink, how dare she be even prettier. Why is she here? Why is she here? Why the fuck is she here? Dipper was too busy focusing on quieting his thoughts to continue keeping track of the greetings and explanations being exchanged. This was not how he had envisioned starting his day.

“Yo, earth to Dipper!” Wendy said, smacking him lightly on the back of the head, “Why didn’t you tell us she was coming?”

Dipper took a steadying breath and forced himself to face the music. Wendy had walked Mabel over to him, an arm slung casually but encouragingly around her shoulders, and was standing right beside him. Her freckled face was smiling but her green eyes were staring into his with flinty resolve. Wendy had made it no secret that she thought it was dumb that the twins didn’t speak to each other, and the way she was looking at him now warned him against ignoring Mabel if he knew what was good for him.

“Hi, Dipper.” Mabel said shakily and Dipper finally forced himself to look at her. Although, she looked no less infuriatingly beautiful than she had a moment ago when he glimpsed her at the door, he could see her more clearly. It had only been three years since he’d last seen her, but he thought she looked like she had aged more than that. Not that her face was covered in wrinkles or her hair grey, nothing like that, but her youthful, hopeful glow had dimmed somehow. He thought she had put on a little weight, although it suited her, softening and rounding her edges. Her hair was cut differently, and her once-signature headband was absent. Her outfit was extremely subdued compared to the wardrobe she’d favored in High School, a simple teal-blue dress and pink cardigan, without a sequin in sight. But it was her face, particularly her eyes, that surprised him. She was certainly as beautiful as ever, but there was a pinched look to her face, a tightness of the lips and eyes that belied more than her momentary anxiety. He recognized it, the same weary tightness he saw in the mirror every day.

“Hi, Mabel.” He said, his tone measured and even, as he finally forced his eyes to meet hers. It was the sadness there that forced the words from his throat, unable or unwilling to leave her hanging. Her brown eyes searched his eagerly, flickering back and forth as if desperate to find something. He had seen her sad, damn, he had seen her devastated, seen her grieving, seen her heartsick, but he had never seen the look in her eyes that was there now. A long-suffering hopelessness, a sea of guilt, a brokenness that almost made him forget all his anger and draw her into his arms that very instant.

The moment of intense eye contact was ended as quickly as it had come, as Melody bustled into the room to find out what the commotion was about. All at once, Mabel was cooing over Melody’s large pregnant belly and Melody was fussing over Mabel, telling her to have a seat and fetching her a cup of coffee. Dipper stood stiffly at the counter as if he were made of stone, watching as the others happily and easily adjusted to Mabel’s return. The way that Soos and Melody began asking her for help with baby names, and the way Wendy teased her gently, it was as if not a week had passed. And why shouldn’t they welcome their old friend with open arms? Just because she had betrayed him, a fact none of them even knew, didn’t mean that they should kick her to the curb. He felt a familiar stab of guilt that his and Mabel’s falling out had cost so many people so much. He downed his coffee in two gulps, deposited the mug in the sink and made his way wordlessly out of the room.

He left the kitchen without a plan for where he would go, but found himself seated on the mouldering couch on the Shack’s back porch. He listened to the sound of Soos and Wendy opening the gift shop and getting the first tour of the day started. He could hear snippets of Mabel and Melody’s continuing conversation at the kitchen table, the occasional giggle or phrase reaching his through the screen door. Dipper tried to focus on his breathing, tried to keep his heart from stopping every time he heard Mabel’s laugh inside the house. He had been planning a day of working on his bigfoot dissertation, but he didn’t know how he could bear to sit at his desk and write about asexual reproduction with Mabel’s voice sneaking up on him like this.

The summer heat was rising as the sun climbed higher in the sky and at times he could even see the distorted little waves of heat coming off the ground. Despite his hard work to keep his breathing normal, Dipper’s breath caught and his heart began to race when he heard the telltale squeal of the screen door’s hinges as the door was cautiously opened. Without looking, he knew it was her, and waited for her to speak. It was a minute before she said, “Hey, Dipper. Do you mind if I join you?” he shook his head slightly and Mabel let the door shut behind her, “Melody went up to nap.” she said as she took a seat on the porch steps, giving him a considerate distance.

He nodded, “Yeah.” He said, trying to think of more to add, but coming up empty.

“I…” Mabel started weakly and he glanced over, his heart giving a twinge seeing the familiar way that she twisted a lock of hair in her hands, “I’m sorry.” Dipper looked away from her, back out at the sunny day, “For… for showing up unannounced like this. I… guess I should have called--”

“I wouldn’t have picked up.” Dipper cut in, kicking himself for how much colder the words sounded aloud than they had in his head.

“R-right.” Mabel stammered and gave a nervous laugh.

“So how’s whatshisface?” Dipper asked, unable to keep the venom from his voice.

“Gone.” Mabel said, with a defeated shrug.

“Gone?” Dipper repeated. He had not expected that.

“I mean, he didn’t die or whatever,” Mabel said, as if Dipper would miss him if he had, “We just didn’t… I didn’t… it wasn’t working, so we threw in the towel.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Dipper lied politely.

“Well, I’m not.” Mabel replied, her voice taking on a crisp confident tone he hadn’t heard since her unexpected arrival. He looked at her, trying to push aside the pain and the anger to actually hear what she was saying, “Marrying him was the biggest mistake of my life.” She lifted her eyes to his significantly.

“Why are you here, Mabel?” Dipper asked, his voice strangled slightly by the tightness in his chest at her statement. Does she really feel that way?

Mabel took a deep breath, “Because I miss you, Dipper,” she said softly, staring at her knees, “I miss you so much I can’t stand it.”

Dipper squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to avoid seeing the tears that he knew were coming. He heard her breath catch, heard the sniffle he would recognize anywhere. No, he thought stubbornly, this isn’t how this goes. “What do you want me to say, Mabes?” Dipper said, feeling the anger rising in him again, “You made your choice.”

“I chose wrong, Dipper!” Mabel exclaimed, and Dipper could hear from her voice that she was crying in earnest now, “I… I w-was too scared of how much I lov-- of what I felt for you, and--”

“You can’t even say it!” Dipper snarled, his eyes shooting open to cast her an incredulous glare. She shrank beneath his accusatory gaze, “You couldn’t face it then, and you can’t face it now! Jesus Christ, Mabel!” Dipper ran his hands down his face with an exasperated groan before looking back at her, crying mutely on the steps, “Be honest, would you forgive you?”

Mabel sobbed harder, but managed a feeble nod and Dipper sighed heavily. Of course, she would. Mabel had always been the more forgiving, the more adaptive, the more open-minded twin. She was the kind of girl that tried to remain friends with her ex-boyfriends, of course she’d be ready to forgive. Yeah, but it’s generous to categorize me as an exe. More like yesterday’s trash.

“I’m s-sorry, Dipper,” Mabel managed to blubber, “You’re right, you’re t-totally right to be so mad! I… The way I treated you was…”

“Fucked up?” Dipper volunteered.

“Unforgivable.” Mabel finished.

Dipper shrugged, “That, too,” and Mabel gave another loud sob. Despite his anger, the sound of his sister’s tears was tearing at Dipper’s heartstrings and he tried to speak more gently, “But Mabes… if you don’t expect forgiveness, why did you come here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mabel asked, after she calmed her sobs enough to speak. He shook his head, “Even if you can never forgive me, Dip, you… you’ll always be my best friend. I’m sick of living w-without my best friend.” Unbidden, Dipper felt tears stinging his own eyes. He’d spent all this time burrowing so deep into his anger mostly to distract himself from how much he missed her. He dug his fingers into his knees, trying with all his might to keep his pain from showing through, “And you know, Dip,” Mabel continued, having gotten her own tears under control, “I know what I did was fucked up, but you’re the one that disappeared.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Dipper countered, his tears pushed to the back burner as anger flared in him anew.

“No, I’m not kidding you!” Mabel leapt suddenly to her feet, “I know what I did was screwed up, but you didn’t come to my fricking wedding! I’m your sister!” Mabel closed the distance between them, standing over him, “You wouldn’t even stand next to me for a graduation photo! You left to come here before I woke up, and you didn’t even say goodbye!”

Dipper stood up, not willing to literally take this sitting down, “Well, excuuuse me,” he said, giving her shoulder a nudge and trying to ignore the thrill he felt deep down at their first contact in years, “I didn’t have much to add! You kinda said it all when you let that loser put a ring on your finger!”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Dipper!” Mabel scoffed, “I never stopped being your sister.”

“Coulda fooled me.” Dipper growled, pushing past Mabel and down the porch steps, taking the Mystery Shack lawn in long strides. He needed badly to clear his head and there was no better remedy to a troubled head than the woods.

“You can’t walk away from me!” Mabel snapped, hurrying to follow him across the grass.

“Fucking watch me!” Dipper said, throwing up his hands.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” she said in a snide voice, still scampering after him, “When the going gets tough, you run away.”

“Oh, that is fucking rich, Mabel,” Dipper gave a derisive laugh, “As if you didn’t do the same exact thing!”

“Stop walking and talk to me!” Mabel demanded as Dipper quickened his pace, entering the welcome shade of the trees.

“Leave me alone!”

“Not a chance, bub.” Mabel said, matching Dipper’s increasing speed.

“Mabel, I’m serious!” Dipper spat, his anger cresting again, “Turn around and go--”

“Not happening!” Mabel countered, catching up enough to grab at Dipper’s shoulder. The uninvited touch sent a surge of heat through his veins and Dipper whirled around, catching Mabel’s wrist tightly in his hand, “Owie! Ow!”

“What the hell do you want me to say?” Dipper said, his voice cracking with strain, “You broke my fucking heart!”

“Newsflash, bro,” Mabel squeaked, wincing at the pain from how tight Dipper was gripping her wrist, “I broke both our hearts!”

Without sparing an instant to reconsider, Dipper was crushing his lips to hers. To his immense relief, she responded instantaneously, matching his fervor. He had lived and re-lived the few kisses they had shared countless times, the memories faded from all that time spent doing nothing more than remembering. Those confused, stolen kisses in their teenage bedrooms felt a lifetime away, as difficult as they were painful to recall. But this time, there would be no hesitation, no backing down. This time Dipper was not going to kiss her only to have her slip away.

They stumbled clumsily, caught in a heated game of tug of war, neither knowing for certain if they were trying to pull away or push closer still. The searing kiss was not broken until Dipper backed Mabel blindly into a tree and she yelped at the unexpected collision. Reluctantly, Dipper pulled his face back from hers a couple inches and opened his eyes, dreading the rejection he expected to find on her face. Instead he found an expression he hadn’t dared look back on, the memory of which he had tried desperately to expunge from his memory altogether. Her face was flushed, her normally rosy cheeks an unbearably pretty shade of pink, her lips wetly parted, her huge brown eyes staring up at him, darkly gleaming with desire. She looked almost on the verge of tears as she said, hardly above a whisper, “Dipper, please.”

Dipper needed no more urging than that, his lips falling onto hers again without restraint. He released her wrist, and she looped her arms around his neck, eagerly deepening the kiss. Dipper’s hands roamed greedily down her body, exploring and savoring the plush softness of her curves. He breathed in deep through his nose, and the sweet smell of her, strawberries and cream, married somehow perfectly with the dark green smell of the woods. His tongue dived into her mouth and she moaned softly, the sound cutting to his core. His hold on her tightened, his hands moving from her waist to her hips, his body pinning her against the trunk of the tree.

Mabel’s hands left his neck, drawing a hungry groan from him by scratching down his chest over his tee shirt and wrapping around his waist. One hand snaked under his shirt to dig her nails into his back, while the other slipped into the back pocket of his jeans, squeezing his ass and pulling his hips harder against her. Dipper felt himself twitch at her insistence, his own fingertips digging into the enticing softness of her flesh. Mabel was several inches shorter than him and on her tiptoes to meet his lips, but kept stumbling with the effort to hold the position. Not wanting for their contact to be broken for an instant, Dipper tried to throw her to the ground, only to lose his footing and fall clumsily on top of her.

He began to pull back to make sure he hadn’t hurt her in the fall, but she only pulled him closer, which he decided was answer enough. Mabel’s bare legs wrapped around his waist and locked him against her, one of her hands tangling in his hair. Their hips grinded against each other, shamelessly eager to feel even closer. He lost all sense of time in the kiss, pouring years of passion and hurt and need into her and hoping she could feel all of its intensity. Her hand left his ass, only to slip between them. Dipper gasped, breaking their kiss for only an instant, at the feeling of her hand wriggling against his erection, fumbling to find his zipper. One of his hands joined hers, easily undoing his own button and fly. Mabel’s smaller hand quickly slipped through, her fingers finding the opening in the front of his boxers.

“Mabel…” Dipper moaned softly as her fingers closed loosely around him. She kissed the corner of his mouth as she tightened her grip on him, eliciting a sound somewhere between a growl and a groan. His lips found hers again as he thrust hard into her hand a couple times before she released him suddenly. He was alarmed for a moment before he realized she had withdrawn her hand from his pants to reach under her dress, eager to get her panties out of the way. He pulled away from her just long enough to push his boxers and jeans down around his knees and for her to snake one leg out of her panties, leaving them dangling from one ankle and pulling him against her again.

Mabel gave a moan at the feeling of his flesh bare against her own. The sound was so unimaginably sweet to Dipper’s ears and he reached one hand between them, running his fingertips along the delicate flesh and wetness he had seldom allowed himself to even fantasize about. She mewled deliciously in response to his touch and he slid one finger into her luxurious softness, his heart nearly stopping at the sound of her moaning his name.

“Mm, Mabel…” he murmured as he covered her neck and shoulder with worshipping kisses, his finger exploring, marvelling at how wet she was.

“Dipperrr,” Mabel moaned, her back arching to deepen his touch, “I love you, I love you!”

Reluctantly, Dipper stopped the motion of his hand and lifted his face from the downy skin of her neck to look into her eyes, only now seeing all the tears gathering there, “You love me…?” he repeated, wanting so badly to believe her.

She nodded furiously, the first few tears squeezing from her eyes and rolling erratically down her bright red cheeks, “I do, Dip, I always have. I love you, please, believe me.”

“I believe you.” he said, gently kissing the tears from her face as he began moving his hand again, and she gave a soft cry of pleasure even as her tears overflowed.

“D-Dipper, I want you, please,” she begged, craning her neck to place her lips back on his for a few salty-sweet kisses, “Please, I’m tired of waiting.”

He couldn’t agree more, removing his finger from her. He ran himself along her, biting his lip at the feeling of her wetness and the sound of her whimper. She wrapped her legs around his waist again, and he slid himself into her, “Oh Mabel, Mabel…” he didn’t have a chance to say any more before Mabel had claimed his lips in another kiss. He gave a few unsteady thrusts before finding his rhythm, their rhythm. He could hardly believe this was happening, even as their bodies moved seamlessly together. When he had woken up this morning, it had been with the assumption that he would never even hear Mabel’s voice again, and now here he was, pouring years of love and frustration into her body, real and soft and warm against him, beneath him, around him.

She pulled her lips from his, only to bring them down on his neck, making him growl as she sucked and nibbled on the pulse point below his ear. His pace quickened, her hips meeting his thrust for thrust, his ears full of the sound of their bodies slapping wetly together, the dry leaves crunching beneath Mabel’s back, and the sighs and moans escaping from each of them. It caught him by surprise when Mabel cried out, her body tensing, gripping him in tight bursts. Mabel tucked her head against his neck as he moved inside of her, drawing two more orgasms from her before his own drew near. She must have been able to tell from his body language somehow, and began grinding harder against him and resumed biting along his neck. His climax hit him with a force he had never before experienced, his body consumed in a white hot spasm, his mind deliriously blank.

He collapsed on his side, slipping out of Mabel but pulling her into a tight embrace. It took him a few moments to feel her trembling against him and realized that at first he had been trembling right along with her. He lifted his cheek from the top of her head and looked down at her. Half of her face was tucked against his tee shirt-clad chest, but from the half he could see, he could tell that she was crying. He knew she had been crying on and off for the duration of their coupling, but seeing how hard she was crying now, a terror shot to his core that he had somehow misjudged the whole thing, overstepped unforgivably, “Mabel,” he said, hearing the concern in his own voice, stroking one hand down her frizzed and leaf-strewn hair, “Mabel, talk to me.”

“It’s okay,” she managed to say, unconvincingly.

“What is?” he asked.

“I just realized y-you didn’t say it,” she sputtered, “But s’okay I d-don’t blame you.”

“What do you--” it dawned on Dipper suddenly and he gave a disbelieving laugh, “Oh, jeez, Mabel, of course, I love you!”

Her tearful brown eyes looked up at him cautiously, “Y-you do?”

“Yes! Oh my god, yes, of course, I love you!” he reassured her, kissing her forehead, “Do you really think I would have been that pissed off earlier if I wasn’t still in love with you?”

Mabel shrugged uncertainly, “You’d have had every right.” she said.

“I love you, Mabel, I promise,” he said again, “I never stopped loving you. I wanted to sometimes, but I couldn’t.”

“Neither could I,” Mabel admitted, nuzzling closer against him. She was quiet for a moment before saying in a small voice, “I’m so sorry, Dipper.”

“I know, sis,” he said softly, “I’m sorry, too.”

The sun had already gone down, but the night air was still warm and fireflies dotted the lawn. Jolene loved Oregon in the summer, how lush and damp it was, the dense woods fecund and teeming with adventures to be had. No, she hadn’t come to Gravity Falls that first summer, but she had every summer since, and her heart belonged to the mysterious secrets and green woods of this town.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Her heart may thrive here, but its ownership was indisputably in the hands of her triplets. It didn’t feel so whole right at this moment because of where she was, but because of the people that stood to either side of her. To Jolene’s left, Mabel was laughing her head off, her long brown hair dancing a little in the light summer breeze. To her right, Dipper was crouched down, fastidiously buckling his sousaphone into its seldom-opened velour-lined case. When he straightened up again, there was a greenish tinge of embarrassment on his face before it was chased away by his own laughter at the spectacle before them.

About a week prior, Mabel had had a sudden inspiration, as she often did when things got boring for more than a day. “Let’s host a talent show!” she had exclaimed, her eyes glittering and her smile wide. Although this sort of thing wasn’t exactly their forte, Jo and Dipper had only shared an uncertain look and shrugged. It was no use resisting it, Mabel would talk them into it in the end either way. And as ever, the triplets had worked together like a well-oiled machine. While Mabel had spitballed ideas, sitting upside down on the couch with her head hanging off the side, Dipper had taken incredibly detailed notes. He had thought of everything, refreshments, admission, contact information, judges, potential contestants...everything, all drawn up in a neat grid, complete with cost and revenue estimates. Jo had designed the flyers, and (with Soos’ help) constructed and arranged the outdoor theater. Tonight was the night, and Jolene had to admit, they’d really pulled it off. Their persistent advertising (which hinged on badgering) and the flyers they’d plastered all over town had drawn a sizable crowd. The rows of chairs they had set out were nearly full. And Soos had even set up lights and a mic. Currently, said mic was in his hand, as he stood a bit stiffly in the center of the stage.

“But her aim is getting better!” Soos said cheerfully, in a voice slightly more gravelly than his own but not reminiscent of Grunkle Stan in the slightest. Stan had in fact only just told that joke a few minutes prior, when he had occupied the stage, doing stand-up and embracing the ‘BOO’s of the audience. The audience was absolutely eating up Soos’ act, however, laughing riotously at his weak impressions and privately patting themselves on the back for getting the references.

Jolene couldn’t help but laugh along a little, watching the pride blooming on Soos’ face at the reception he was getting. He wasn’t looking out at the Gravity Falls residents seated in rows in front of him, however, but at the screen of his laptop, open on a stool by the front of the stage. The tinny sound of Melody’s laugh over the video-call was barely audible over the crowd, but from where Jo and her siblings stood, the screen was in view. They could see Melody laughing and giving Soos an encouraging thumbs-up.

Soos stopped in his emulation of Stan and gradually the laughing and hooting of the crowd subsided. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Melody, and cautiously, he raised an eyebrow in her direction, as if asking her something. “You’ve got this, baby, they’re loving it. I think you should go for it.” Melody’s voice was comprehensible only to Soos, the triplets by the side of the stage in what passed for the wings, and the judges at a card table by the foot of the stage. Soos nodded resolutely, his face taking on a daring expression, “AHAHAHA!” he gave a sudden cackle, nothing like his own friendly chortle, “I’m going to make deals and take over the world!” An astonished gasp rippled through the crowd.

Beside her, Dipper muttered an impressed expletive under his breath. Jo risked looking over at him. Both of her triplets had good days and bad days, even years later, but Dipper was more prone to beat himself up. However, she could detect no sign of distress, and if it were there she would have seen it. Dipper had his hands in his jeans pockets, his demeanor relaxed. His eyebrows were raised, causing a single wrinkle to crease across the birthmark on his forehead, but his expression was one of admiration and surprise. His brown eyes were glued to Soos, but with no more distress than there would have been if he had been watching a particularly compelling documentary on hauntings.

“That takes some marbles,” Mabel said, her eyes wide but still grinning at the stage. She crossed her arms in a relaxed challenge, eager to see where Soos was going with this.

“Shake my hand, stupid mortal person,” Soos said, sticking out his right hand a bit awkwardly, his face relaxing slightly as a few people in the crowd chuckled nervously, Grunkle Ford the only one laughing outright,  “I am super flat and you have more eyes than me but don’t let my looks deceive you! I am a mean triangle guy and I rule nightmares and stuff.”

“That’s...not how Bill talked, right?” Jo asked, having ascertained that neither of her sibs was likely to begin hyperventilating. She dearly hoped that the entire town hadn’t somehow been fooled by the stilted voice Soos was using.

“Not even remotely.” Dipper said, laughing in earnest now at the absurdity of Soos’ performance. Soos cackled unnervingly again, “The laugh is the closest.”

“Reality is fake and the galaxy is artificial!” Soos said, triumphantly, in closing, “Bye gold! Byyeee!” He then mimicked dropping the mic, but opted instead to place it gently on the floor. Mabel rushed onto the stage and grabbed the mic from the floor.

“Giiiiiive it up for impressions by Soooooos!” she said, transitioning seamlessly into her rousing emcee voice, and the audience redoubled their uproarious applause, “I’d like to take this moment to ask the lovely Miss Melody if she would do us the favor of being an honorary cyber-y judge?” Mabel held the mic towards the laptop, but it did not pick up Melody’s response from the speakers. Mabel heard her, however, and scooped up the laptop, depositing it on the judges’ table in front of Wendy, Lazy Susan, and Mayor Cutebiker, “Ladies and germs, she accepted! A round of applause for the abso-tively charmtastic Miss Melodyyyy!”

While the crowd humored Mabel with applause, Mabel met Jolene’s eyes. This is your chance, she was saying wordlessly. Mabel had been begging Jo to perform all night, and only one performance slot remained. Jolene felt her stomach somersault thinking about getting up in front of all those people and singing, and broke away from Mabel’s gaze by way of response. Averting her eyes from her sister, Jo saw Pacifica making her way to the front of the crowd, her face stern with determination. She watched mutely as Pacifica got the okay from Mabel and climbed onto the stage.

“You’re really not getting up there?” Dipper asked, trying to keep his tone gentle, as Mabel went about introducing Pacifica to the crowd of townspeople all of whom already knew who she was.

“Shut it,” Jo said, a little more sharply than she intended, “I forgot to bring my tuba.”

“Har har,” Dipper mocked, but his heart wasn’t in it and he dropped it. Jolene’s stomach was twisting uneasily, watching Pacifica pull up a track on her phone and place it on the stool, clearing her throat softly and getting ready to sing.  Why didn’t you just do it? She scolded herself, This was supposed to make it better, but you’re just letting Mabey down all over again! Pacifica started singing, and Jolene recognized it as a ballad cover of a pop hit by &sandra. Pacifica had a pretty voice, not a singer of outrageous talent, but certainly capable and she had stage presence. Jo had never heard her sing and had internally hoped that she would be awful, but she wasn’t awful at all. As the song reached its first chorus, Pacifica loosened up more, getting more into the performance and garnering a couple cheers and whistles from the otherwise attentively listening crowd.

Dipper was humming along softly. He had long since given up on concealing his love for pop music. In fact, of the three triplets, Jolene was the only one who rarely found a top 100 song worth listening to. That right there was a reason not to get up there, she wasn’t going to sing any song these people wanted to hear. They didn’t want to hear her, and she didn’t want them to hear her. She liked singing, she truly did, but it seemed disingenuous to do it in front of a crowd somehow. She liked to sing when she was in the shower, or alone in the woods, or lying in bed, her legs tangled with Mabel and Dipper’s. It seemed dishonest to do it when she didn’t feel it.

But Mabel had wanted her to, for some reason. Really wanted her to. Does she want me to embarrass myself because we embarrassed her? It didn’t really sound like Mabel to just want straightforward payback like that, but she didn’t really think that it would have been unfair for her sister to have felt that way. It had been a few months now, but when she thought about it, Jolene still felt sick with guilt over the way she and Dipper had forgotten the production of ‘Twelfth Night’ that Mabel had worked her ass off for. They had attended the first performance they could, sitting next to each other in the very first row while Mabel took care of business backstage. Once the house lights had dimmed and the first wonderfully, garishly bedazzled players had entered, Dipper had furtively grabbed Jo’s hand, squeezing it for dear life. He didn’t have to say anything. She knew that seeing Mabel’s hard work glittering under the stage lights, imbued with a little bit of that glitteriness that Mabel seemed to have in surplus, it made it all the more real. She knew the guilt churning in her stomach was the same guilt that churned in his. Mabel had poured so much of herself into this, worked at least as hard as they had on their expedition to Tahoe, devoted her life to it for months. Neither of them took for granted how they had hurt her.

There was so much Jo would change about that opening night if she could. She wouldn’t just have been there, she’d have gotten there early. She’d have brought Mabel snacks to keep her going, knowing she often forgot to eat when she was neck deep in a project. She’d have sat in the front row, with or without Dipper, and she would have cheered until she was hoarse. And if she had somehow still failed to make it to the damn play… well, needless to say she wouldn’t have done the rest over. When she’d said as much to Dipper once, he had pointed out to her how much good had come out of that debacle. Not only the recognition and opportunity (and cash prize) that came with the photos Mabel had gotten of the Lone Pine Mountain Devils practically by accident, but more importantly the transparency in their newly blossoming relationship. Even so, she was still having a difficult time trying to forgive herself. For embarrassing Mabel and letting her down, for recklessly putting herself and the two people she loved most in danger, she didn’t understand why they seemed to think any of it was forgivable.

And now Pacifica was singing when she should have been the one singing, and Mabel was standing on the other side of the stage, watching the performance and artfully avoiding Jolene’s gaze. The song was almost over and Jo wished it would just end already. Every note that Pacifica sang into that microphone, she found herself feeling just a little guiltier. Mabel had been so proud of everyone that had performed, no matter how poor their performance had been. She’d applauded them for their bravery as much as their talent. Aren’t I supposedly brave? Jolene asked herself bitterly. Even Toby Determined had gotten up their and tap danced, did that mean even he was braver than she?

Pacifica finished the song on a sustained note that to Jolene’s ear sounded a little flat, but the crowd was applauding her all the same. She did a somewhat affected little curtsy and said, “Thank you, everyone.” into the microphone before handing it off to Mabel and leaving the stage. As she passed, Jo tried not to glare at the blond girl. She’d never had any problem with Pacifica, but at the moment she wouldn’t have minded wiping the self-impressed smile off her face.

Mabel looked at Jo one last time, giving her an opening even though Pacifica’s slot had been the intended last one. Jo shook her head stiffly, almost automatically, telling herself that if she got up there this angry, she wouldn’t perform decently anyway. Really, she knew it was just stage fright, pure and simple. Mabel turned back to the audience, “Wowee, for a small town, there’s a crazy lot of talent up in here!” the crowd cheered for themselves, “Our esteemed judges have one tough decision ahead of them! They’ll have a quick chat to talk it over and then we’ll reveal the winnerrr!” She hopped down from the stage lightly, making her way to the judges’ table to check in with them. Mabel just didn’t get the way that this felt for Jo. Mabel didn’t have to do anything special for people to love her. She got onstage and just acted like herself and that was enough. But of course it was, Mabel positively glowed, no matter what she was doing. She didn’t realize it didn’t come that easily for everyone.

The judges conferred hotly for a few minutes before quieting down. Even without hearing their discourse, it was easy to tell that Mayor Cutebiker was voicing his concerns about Soos’ disregard for the Never Mind All That Act. Jo could see Mabel confirm that they were all okay with the verdict, each of them nodding in turn, before she climbed back onto the stage, “Ladies and gentlemen, after much consideration the judges have made their decision!” The audience cheered even though Mabel hadn’t announced much of anything yet, “Although there was some squabbling about the content of the winning act, the judges unanimously agreed that this person showed the most chutzpah!” The audience cheered louder, although Jo was sure some of them had no idea what chutzpah was, “Without further ado, I’d like you to put your hands together for tonight’s winner,” she paused theatrically, letting the anticipation build, before squeezing her eyes shut and gleefully yelling, “SOOOOOOOOOS!”

Soos clambered onto the stage, looking astonished and honored, his eyes tearful, “Oh wow, doods!”

“You win, dude!” Mabel chirped at Soos.

“Cool, what do I win?” Soos asked.

Mabel punched his shoulder playfully, “Bragging rights, of course!” she replied smoothly, “From now on,” she continued, wrapping an arm around Soos and gesturing broadly at the middle distance, “ You can tell anybody that asks and anybody that doesn’t that you and only you were the victor of the first ever Mabel Pines Talentacular Spectacular!”

“Oh man, dood,” Soos said, his eyes narrowing, his fist clenching for emphasis, “That is one killer prize. Thank you doods so much!”

The crowd applauded for a moment longer before they began filing out of their chairs, walking to their cars, and leaving. Soos got down from the stage and retrieved his laptop, excitedly relaying the events of the talent show to Melody as if she hadn’t just witnessed it herself. She could be heard matching his delighted tone, laughing at each punch line all over again, and telling him how proud she was. Before the last people had gone, Wendy started folding and gathering the chairs the audience had occupied and Dipper and Jo joined in. Mabel set about gathering garbage into a trash bag while Stan and Ford set about dismantling the makeshift stage. In the span of half an hour, they had the ‘theater’ turned back into a yard, leaving the stacked folding chairs and the wooden pallets and boards to store away the following day. Stan and Ford went off to bed, up a few hours later than their standard bedtime. Soos and Wendy hung around a little longer, joking about some of the night’s acts with the triplets before saying their goodnights and heading off to their respective homes.

The triplets trudged up the stairs to the attic without speaking. They had had a long day prepping for the talent show and it was quite late now. Jolene’s body was tired but her mind was whizzing in circles. Mabel had been unusually quiet while they had been cleaning up in the yard, and even when they’d been hanging out with Wendy and Soos. Dipper entered the room first, opening the closet and eagerly stuffing his tuba case in the bottom where he could go back to trying to forget about it.

Without shame or ceremony, Mabel went to the trunk by the foot of her and Jo’s bunk bed (the top bunk of which was now very rarely occupied) and set about changing into her pajamas. She’d worn a grass green dress for the talent show, a small pink handkerchief tied smartly around her throat in a style that Jolene didn’t think anyone else would be able to carry off without looking like a total tool. As always, Mabel had looked luminous, the image of summer itself in green and pink with her hair loose and wild around her shoulders. And now she was matter-of-factly draping the green dress over the baseboard of the bottom bunk, reaching up behind her back to deftly unclasp her bra.

Jolene knew her sister’s body as well as her own (not that she could ever know it well enough) but it seemed somehow immodest to watch her like this at the moment. She averted her eyes, feeling sickened with herself that she could let herself enjoy Mabel’s nudity when she’d only just hurt her. She sat down heavily on the bottom bunk and tugged off her scuffed orange hightops, letting them fall where they would. Across from her, Dipper had removed his shoes and socks and was unbuttoning his jeans just as she looked over. There was something somehow less graceful and wistful about the way a boy got undressed, she thought. It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation. She’d had had plenty of time to observe and relish the differences and similarities between her two lovers in the past couple months and it always gave her a sort of satisfaction to see them repeat a specific quirk she appreciated. She watched Dipper remove his pants, the unrestrained way he kicked them off so different from the gentle way that Mabel handled her more fragile garments.

In boxers and tee shirt, Dipper plopped back on his bed with a relaxed sigh. Folding his hands behind his head, he said conversationally, “I think the show was a success.”

“Sorry you didn’t win, bro-bro.” Mabel said, with a small snide smile.

Dipper snorted, “Oh, yeah, I really thought I had it in the bag. I mean, Sev’ral Timez’s never-released magnum opus ‘Mabel Girl’ on the tuba? That’s an instant classic.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Mabel said, slipping into an airy aqua nightgown.

“I was really depending on winning,” Dipper said with a mock-grave expression, “I don’t know how I’ll pay my bills without those bragging rights.”

“Hey, that was a good save!” Mabel countered, grabbing a brush and tugging it through her wind-tangled hair.

“I’m not denying that,” he said, laughter bubbling up from his chest, “It was freaking masterful. I just can’t believe we didn’t come up with a prize!”

“I know, even with all your spreadsheets!” Jo kept her eyes trained on the floor as they conversed, “It’s a good thing Soos won,” Mabel pointed, “If it had been Pacifica we’d be looking at a lawsuit.”

“True.” Dipper said, grabbing his hat off his head and hanging it from the bedpost, “She sang pretty well, huh?”

“Yeah.” Mabel said, lightly, before stepping into her bunny slippers and leaving for the bathroom. They were silent until after they heard Mabel brushing her teeth.

“I can’t believe you did that, Dipman.” Jo said, leaning back on her arms.

“Wait, what?” Dipper said, still absentmindedly ruffling his own hair, loosening it up after it had been cooped up under his hat all day, “Mabel and Pacifica worked their shit out ages ago, I was just saying.”

“No, not that, Dip,” Jolene said impatiently, ready to not hear another word about Pacifica’s performing in her place, “I can’t believe you got up there with your fricking tuba and did a Sev’ral Timez song that only Mabel’s ever even heard.”

Dipper propped himself up on his wiry arms and shrugged, “Ain’t no thang,” he said, with good-natured sarcasm, trying to get a smirk out of his mysteriously grumpy sister. His dorky attempts at nonchalance usually succeeded at that when all else failed.

Not this time, “Why’d you do it, though?”

Dipper frowned slightly, “To make Mabel smile.” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Because it is, genius, Jo chastised herself, It’s really fucking simple and you didn’t do the obvious good girlfriend thing. Scratch that! Just the good friend thing!

Just as it was dawning on Dipper that Jolene was considerably more than run of the mill grumpy, Mabel came back into the room, kicking off her slippers and bee-lining for the bed, “Scoot yer boot,” she said to Jo, giving her shoulder a small nudge so she could crawl into the bed. Jo wanted nothing more than to lie down and curl into Mabel’s arms and leave this failure of a day behind her, but she couldn’t let herself do that. It wouldn’t be right. Jo could feel Dipper studying her, picking up on her distress but currently running through a mental flow chart of possible ways to address it.

“I’m so sorry, Mabes!” Jo said, the words bubbling out of her before she knew they were coming.

“Wha--?” Mabel began, caught off guard.

“I’m so fucking sorry!” the words continued gushing out of Jo, “I didn’t mean to let you down again, I wanted to make it up to you--I do want to make it up to you--but like that? I just, you know I hate public speaking and I wanted to, but I just couldn’t, and you worked so hard on this and it’s the stupid play all over again and--”

“Whooa there, cowgirl, slow your roll!” Mabel exclaimed, sitting up and putting her hand gently on the top of Jolene’s head, “What in the hey are you apologizing for?”

“For not singing.” Jolene said, her words suddenly thickening in her throat and resisting being spoken.

“You don’t need to apologize to me for that,” Mabel said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “I’ve heard you sing. It’s the rest of the world that’s missing out. I just wanted to show you off, Jo-jo.”

“But I owe you more,” Jolene said, her voice raising slightly, “You worked so hard and I was supposed to do right by you this time!”

“First of all, you don’t owe us anything,” Dipper said evenly, as Mabel placed her hand on Jo’s back, moving it in soothing circles, “The second you start doing something because you feel obligated, we have a problem.” Dipper sat forward in bed, “You don’t need to apologize.”

Jolene hoped Mabel couldn’t feel the way she was trembling, “And second,” Mabel spoke up, adding onto what Dipper had said, “I worked so hard? You were busting your cute patootie putting up flyers all week and putting together the stage with Soos. I had an idea and you helped make it happen, Miss-Sis,” Jo could hear Mabel’s smile, “That’s doing right by me right there!”

“But that’s not enough!” Jo cried, feeling the tears welling in her eyes, “I put you through so much crap and I want to make you proud of m--”

“Oh my goshh, get down here, you absolute doof!” Mabel interjected, exasperated, grabbing Jolene around the waist and pulling her down into her embrace, “I am proud of you,” she said softly against Jo’s ear, squeezing her tightly from behind, “And that’s not changing.”

“But...you could’ve died,” Jolene said, plaintively, losing track of what she was apologizing for as the tears won out against her resolve.

“Plans-a-lot, do you copy?” Mabel said, her tone a bit urgent despite the gimmick, squeezing Jo tighter but lifting her head to look across the room at Dipper, “I’ve got a soldier sorely in need of a group hug. Requesting backup.”

Before Mabel had made it halfway through her plea, Dipper was across the room, wrapping his arms around his two sisters. Jolene’s face was pressed against Dipper’s chest and she wept openly against him, finding the smell of grass and sweat on his tee shirt oddly comforting. It was a very Dipper smell somehow, fresh and earthy and crisp. Mabel scooted back until she was very close to the wall, clutching Jo flush against her, making room so that Dipper could climb into the bed, never fully breaking their embrace. He squeezed them tighter, tucking Jo’s face into the crook of his shoulder.

Jo didn’t know how long she’d been crying when her tears slowed and her lips found Dipper’s. She tasted the salt of her tears between them, but his kiss was unhesitating, his lips gently but eagerly meeting hers, his tongue sweeping ever-so-gently, just into her mouth. There was something reassuring about the way his tongue approached her, not tentative, but subtle and entreating. It was like he was placing his hand in hers, but leaving it up to her to close her fingers. Dipper was not the most outwardly thoughtful person in the world, but his kisses were a glimpse into the infinite sweetness and goodness within him. It often felt to Jo as if Dipper was the only thing in the world that could calm her, that could contain her. His kiss was steady and encompassing, like the most reassuring of hugs.

As she met Dipper’s earnest kisses, Mabel spoke up, saying very gently beside her ear, “This wasn’t a test, and you didn’t fail it.” An ache of tenderness bloomed out from Jo’s chest at her words, realizing just how frightened she had been that she had failed. As if this talent show was some measure of how sorry she was, or how much she loved them, “And please stop with the blamey jazz in your head,” she stroked Jolene’s hair for emphasis causing her to sigh slightly into Dipper’s mouth, “If you guys hadn’t screwed up, we might never have gotten our shiz together. And this right here,” she pressed her cheek against Jo’s shoulder, “Is worth all the missed plays and angry devil birds in the whole universe, forever.”

Dipper broke into a smile, interrupting their kiss. Jo opened her eyes, to see his relaxed smile right it front of her, brown eyes soft even despite his lopsided grin, “It’s true, ya know,” he said, teasing gently and quickly kissing the tip of her nose, “A whole universe forever worth. That’s the scientific term.”

“Yo, bro,” Mabel said, lifting her head even as Jo giggled at Dipper’s comment, “Quit undermining my wooing!”

“I’m well and completely wooed, Mabey,” Jo assured her, with a watery smile, “I swear.”

Mabel grinned despite herself, her cheeks flushing slightly, “D’aww, listen to the smooth-talker,” she said, her hand finding and cupping Jo’s cheek, “Lemme woo you a little more just to be one hundred and ten percent suuuure.” Jolene was feeling well and thoroughly wooed as Mabel’s lips met hers. Sweet. There was just no word that fit Mabel better than the word sweet. She always wondered if it was a result of the sheer sugar intake, or if people really tasted like their personalities. She tried not to wonder what that would make her own flavor, but that was easy enough as kissing Mabel wasn’t exactly conducive to linear thought. Mabel’s kiss was not so heartbreakingly tender and almost polite like Dipper’s, no, it was fireworks bursting, cymbals crashing, fruit bubbling over with juice. If Dipper’s kisses contained her, it was Mabel’s that filled her. She opened her mouth, eager to catch all of Mabel’s sweetness on her tongue.

Beside them, Dipper laughed softly, “You always have to one-up me, don’t you?” he teased. Mabel pulled back just slightly, Jo catching her lip between her teeth to keep her from breaking their kiss entirely, but Mabel still sent a saucy wink at her brother over Jo. Before diving back into the kiss, proving Dipper’s point by running her hand intentionally up from Jo’s waist to her breast. Jo’s breath hitched just slightly at the contact as Dipper hissed out, “Oh, it’s on.”

An instant later, he had tackled Mabel, bumping his head on the top bunk but not letting it slow him down at all. Mabel wriggled and squealed as Dipper held her shoulders firmly in his hands, peppering her face and neck with fast, playful kisses. Jolene couldn’t help giggling at the spectacle. Gradually, Dipper’s kisses slowed and moved back towards the slow tenderness that was his norm. Mabel made a soft moan against him that sent a jolt through Jolene, surprised by the sudden shift to a sound she knew to be carnal in nature. She glanced down and found the cause, Dipper’s hips grinding slightly against Mabel’s.

The shift in her was instantaneous, as sudden as Mabel’s moan had been. She moved forward, eliciting a surprised gasp from Dipper’s as her lips found his neck, kissing firmly from his collarbone up to his ear. She took his earlobe swiftly into her mouth, in the way Mabel loved. Dipper, however, they had discovered, was very ticklish in that particular spot, and true to form, he yelped suddenly, breaking his and Mabel’s kiss and bonking his head on the upper bunk again. Jo snickered softly as she pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him, claiming his lips again without further ado.

“Oooh, what’s this?” Mabel cooed, silly as ever despite the soft husky tone her voice had taken on. She sidled up flush against them, “Miss Jo-jo looks like she’s got a hankering for the Dipstick!” Dipper snorted but didn’t break their kiss, his hands tangling in her hair, “Well, let the Mabel be of assistance, my darlings.” Her hands slipped between Dipper and Jo’s bodies, surprising them both slightly. Reluctantly, Jo broke the kiss to see what Mabel was up to, only to be met with a mischievous smile as her fingers found the button of Jo’s jeans, raising an eyebrow challengingly as she slipped it through the buttonhole and began to drag the zipper down, teasingly slow.

Jo grinned, climbing off of Dipper just long enough for Mabel to peel her out of her jeans. She leaned down to kiss Mabel, kicking her bunched up jeans from her ankles. Dipper’s hand surprised her slightly, gently cupping her bottom before gliding around to the side to give her plain black undies a tug. He began kissing her shoulder while she kissed Mabel, his grip on her panties getting slightly more insistent. After a few moments of this treatment, he gave a small exasperated groan and took matters into his own hands, simply grabbing Jo by the waist and pulling her back on top of him. She managed the briefest of mock-glares before gamely diving back into his kisses, her veins electrifying each time she felt Dipper’s cock grind softly against her through the thin fabric of their underwear. Mabel sat up and decisively grabbed the hem of Jo’s tee shirt, pulling it up and off of her, breaking her and Dipper’s kiss for the briefest possible moment. Her small, nimble hands wasted no time, diving between them at once to fondle one of Jo’s breasts, carefully freeing the other from her bra and taking her nipple in her mouth.

Jo moaned into Dipper’s mouth at the stimulation, Mabel having spent many happy hours learning exactly what tooth to lip ratio worked the best. Without properly breaking the kiss, Dipper muttered a hoarse ‘oh my fucking god’ against Jo’s lips, looking down hungrily at his sisters. Jo opened her eyes (not knowing when exactly she had closed them) and glanced down at Mabel. As if the sight (and feel) of her sister’s ministrations wasn’t enough, she instantly followed Dipper’s gaze to Mabel’s free hand, hidden beneath the skirt of her nightgown. Involuntarily, the sight made Jo grind harder against Dipper and he gasped. He broke away from Jo’s kiss for a moment, his breath labored, his eyes glued to the movements of Mabel’s wrist. Without hesitation, he grabbed her wrist gently and her hand stilled, her mouth releasing Jo’s nipple so she could look at Dipper and find out why he had stopped her. Before she could even begin to formulate her question, she felt his hand slip under her nightgown, giving a small squeak as his fingers nudged her panties to the side. He ran his fingertips along the length of her wetness for a moment before pressing inside of her.

Jo relished the sound her sister made, the sound simultaneously primal and somehow delicate. She ground more insistently against Dipper’s erection, his hips rising to meet her, as she watched Mabel lay back beside him. Mabel and Dipper’s lips crashed against each other at once, and Jo thought as she had before how perfect it was the way that Dipper’s kisses held and Mabel’s kisses filled. The change in position twisted her nightgown up around her waist, and Jo bit her lip hard at the sight of her sister’s flat tummy, and the way her soft pink lips partly around Dipper’s finger, already glistening with her wetness. Jolene grunted softly, humping against Dipper in earnest now. Time didn’t exist, so hypnotized was she by the sight of the two beautiful, impassioned people before her.

Her trance was interrupted by Dipper’s free hand, his fingers grazing her hip, catching in the waistband of her undies and tugging. Getting the non-verbal signal and agreeing enthusiastically, Jo got up just enough to shimmy out of her underwear and to pull off Dipper’s boxers. Perched between his knees, she felt a tugging desire in the pit of her belly at the sight of Dipper’s penis, but couldn’t help smiling slightly at the way it swayed as his hips gave a couple of discreet thrusts. Although she could feel her own wetness between her thighs, before climbing back on top of him, she couldn’t resist taking him into her mouth. He gasped at the unexpected sensation, bucking against her face. She fell into a rhythm, sucking him steadily as she moved her mouth up and down, nearly off of him, and swirled her tongue lazily against him.

She glanced up to see Dipper and Mabel both watching her, Dipper’s fingers moving faster inside of Mabel. Mabel was trying to watch, but Jo could tell she was very close to cumming, recognizing the shade of her cheeks and her shortness of breath easily. She met Mabel’s eyes, never slowing her ministrations, and watched in disbelief as the moment of eye contact pushed Mabel over the edge. Jo’s eyes jumped at once to Mabel’s pussy, seeing the smallest flicker of her contractions around Dipper’s fingers.

Unable to wait any longer, Jo straddled Dipper again. He met her eyes intensely, his pupils dilated and dark and a faint sheen of sweat on his face. Reaching under herself, Jo carefully guided him to her entrance before easing her weight onto him. A delicious, guttural sound escaped him as he was engulfed in her wet heat. Mabel planted kisses all over his cheek and neck as he stared up at Jo, entranced. His hands, one still wet from Mabel found her hips and he pushed her down into his thrust.

Jo had resisted admitting her feelings for Dipper for so long, long after her feelings for Mabel had become undeniable. She had pushed her desire for him away, hoping that it would just evaporate. Of course, it never did and now she couldn’t believe how much better he felt than she ever could have imagined. It took no thought to fall into his rhythm, matching each other’s thrusts the most natural thing in the world.

She managed to tear her eyes away from Dipper’s intent face and darkly shining eyes to look at Mabel. She looked so luxuriously sensual, the aqua fabric in a frothy nimbus around her waist, her arms extended loosely above the cloud of dark curls, her wet flushed sex exposed, her face dewy and dreamy and pink. She had stopped peppering Dipper with kisses for a moment to watch their lovemaking. Absently, Jo’s hand strayed from Dipper’s chest, gliding along Mabel’s creamy thigh. Mabel gasped slightly, but her hips strained towards Jo, eagerly trying to meet her touch. Dipper grunted at the sight, thrusting even more deeply inside of Jo and dragging a moan from her. Jo trailed her fingers ever-so-lightly across Mabel’s lips, delighting in how insistently she bucked towards her from so small a touch. Without further hesitation, she dove two fingers deep inside her and Mabel cried out.

Dipper captured Mabel’s lips in his, interrupting her cry, thrusting desperately into Jo at a staccato pace. Jo met Dipper’s thrusts, her mind somewhere very far away as she relished the feel of him, the orgasm building steadily inside her belly, and the intense heat and slickness of that part of Mabel that Dipper had only just filled. Everything here was steam and flesh and sweet sweat and through it all, a pervading devotion that made Jo’s heart feel ready to break. She would give anything in the world not to ever hurt them again, to let nothing hurt them. Just being their sister, just knowing them at all was a blessing, being here in this transcendent world of pleasure with them was more than she could ever have asked for. She could tell that Mabel was close, those same familiar indicators on her face and her thighs trembling.

Jo’s orgasm crashed down upon her without warning. So deep in trance had she been, she wasn’t sure when she and Dipper had switched places, but there she was, underneath him, tremors of ecstasy shaking her to her core. He only lasted a few seconds longer than her, pulling out and clutching himself as he came on her quivering belly. He leaned down and bestowed her with a few more of those preciously sweet kisses before flopping down beside her. Again she was lying with Mabel to one side and Dipper to the other. While Dipper was gulping in lungfuls of air, Jo turned to check on Mabel. She was dazzled by the blissful smile with which she was met. She couldn’t help but smile back, as Mabel purred a quiet, “Heyyyy, Miss-Sisss…”

“Hi there,” Jo said slowly, unable to clear the cobwebs from her brain just yet. She said nothing for a moment and then, with a startled realization, asked, “Oh, man, Mabey. Did you…?” Her words failed her, no word seeming to come close to what she had just experienced.

“Mm-hmmmmmm,” Mabel replied with a slow, contented nod. Relieved that she hadn’t left Mabel hanging, Jo pulled Mabel to her shoulder. She luxuriated in the feeling of Mabel’s soft, misty skin against her. Just then, Dipper gave a sudden snore, causing Jo to start. Mabel giggled against Jo’s neck, “Guess we really tuckered the ole boy out.”

Jo grinned against Mabel’s forehead before planting a long, grateful kiss there, “I love you, Mabes. So fucking much.”

“I love you too, nerd.” Mabel said, barely above a whisper.

“I’m serious, Mabey. I’d do anything for you.” Jo said, suddenly overwhelmed with a need to make sure Mabel knew just exactly how adored she was. Mabel snickered, and Jo knew that laugh. That was the laughing at you in my head laugh, “What? What’s funny?”

“Nah, nah, just the lil teensy devil’s advocate in my head…” Mabel said lightly.

Dipper gave another loud snore as Jo insisted, “What’s that little shit saying now?”

“Now this isn’t what I think, it’s just a thing that my brain did,” Mabel said, as if that explanation would assuage anyone’s concerns, “Ms. Advocate said that you wouldn’t sing for me.”

“She’s wrong,” Jo said, without hesitation. Mabel raised an eyebrow sluggishly, “I will always sing for you. It was the crowd I don’t want to sing for.”

“...will you sing for me now?” she asked, giving Jo a doe-eyed upward glance from her spot on her shoulder.

“I will, Mabey, baby,” Jo said, phrasing it intentionally. She watched the grin spread on Mabel’s face as she recognized the in-joke, knowing immediately what Jo was going to sing, “Mabey, baby,” she crooned softly, barely above a whisper, “I’ll have you,” Mabel cuddled still closer, “Mabey, baby, you’ll be true,” Jo pulled Mabel near, curling lovingly into each other, “Mabey, baby, you will love me someday--”

We were lying on our stomachs beneath Handy’s orange blanket when the rain started. The natural light from the window to our right had been growing dimmer and dingier, the grey clouds threatening, for the past hour. And then all of a sudden, like flipping a switch, it was coming down in sheets. The pattering on the window, the pinging of drops against the external part of the air conditioner, the drumming on the roof made it hard all of a sudden to hear the game on the television in front of us.

“Rain!” I exclaimed softly, grabbing his arm, slightly jostling the controller in his hands, “It’s raining for us!”

Handy didn’t seem to mind the interruption. He promptly paused the game, turning to smile at me fondly, “So it is,” he agreed simply, “It was just a matter of time.”

I grinned at him broadly. We’d shared our love of the rain since before we ever kissed, before we ever even met. He was still only a username, only words and emojis on a screen, the first time he had talked to me about his love for the rain. About how he took solace in it, related to it, how the rain overhead made me feel closer to him somehow. And I’d agreed on all points. We’d talked about how, as children, we had both inexplicably found sanctuary in the crooked branches of a Dogwood tree, rain water pouring from the leaves and humble petals. How astonishing it had been to discover that many miles apart, with four years between our ages and more than ten years till we’d meet, we had hidden in the same private misty world.

But it hadn’t rained on us while we were together, not a hard honest downpour like this one. Thunder rumbled outside and when I met his eyes, they reflected the same thrill that I felt at the sound. We lay there for another moment, frozen and focused on the storm outside. He closed the small distance between us then, his lips finding mine automatically, the most natural thing in the world. I nuzzled my nose against him gently as our lips parted, “I like it better with you here.” he declared, his hand running gently from my ribs to my hip under the blanket, smoothing the wrinkles in the soft purple dress I had on.

“Let’s make the most of it.” I said, kissing the tip of his nose quickly before scrambling out of the bed. He gave me a quizzical look, watching as I turned off the television screen and stood on tiptoes to tug the pull-chain to darken the ceiling light. I jumped back into the bed, and crawled eagerly back underneath the blanket. It wasn’t cold, but I wasn’t going to spend one instant away from his warmth that I didn’t need to. Once I’d turned out the light, I was reminded that Handy had lit one of the soy candles I’d made for him, the calmly flickering flame noticeable only once artificial light had been removed.

“Ooh, that’s nice,” Handy said, his deep voice taking on an appreciative purr, eager to pull me back into his arms the moment I was back within reach. He pulled me snug against him and I curled readily into the familiar shape of his embrace. He kissed the top of my head, “My sonnet and a storm…” he cooed softly, and I melted a little closer. The beauty of the statement never diminished, no matter how many times he said it. No one had ever described me in a way that I found as lovely, or as accurate, as that.

I made no effort to measure the minutes that we lay there, my face buried snug against his chest. I breathed in his warm, welcome smell and listened to the steady music of the rain. After some time, I wriggled onto my back and my hand emerged from the blanket, sliding the accordion strip of plastic to one side of the air conditioning unit over, leaving a small rectangle of window open. I peered out, looking up at the patchwork of green leaves and grey sky, the shapes shifting and shimmering as the wind and rain guided them. I watched the dance, contentedly transfixed. The tune of the storm was clearer now, invited in by the bit of window I had opened for it.

“I love you.” Handy said softly, his voice sincere, the gentle tone seeming like a part of the storm itself.

“I love you, too,” I replied, quietly, looking away from the wind-whipped branches to look back at Handy. His eyes were open to me, the blue-green illuminated mystically by the clear pale light from the overcast sky, “With all my heart.”

A relaxed, lopsided smile spread on his lips, and I was kissing him again before I knew it. His lips, always surprising in their softness, moved against mine with an earnest passion. My hand found his cheek, resting lightly against the soft scruff of his beard and deepening the kiss, tilting his jaw towards mine just so. His tongue danced with mine almost coyly, one large warm hand gliding across my stomach and coming to rest against the curve of my waist. The rain persisted in its steady, ancient rhythm, the light of the candle seeming to sync up with the sound, flickering in time with the ebb and flow. In the darkness behind my eyelids, nothing existed apart from the love and nearness of this astounding, beloved man. And in the brief moments when my eyes fluttered open, he was all I saw, his face half painted in the warm wavering candlelight, half in the silvery light of sun diffused through water and vapor.

One such time when my eyes opened, I found Handy’s eyes opened too. Never slowing the kiss, his lids hung heavy but his eyes watched me evenly through his lashes. There was an unspeakable love in his gaze, something beyond what words or kisses could say. Something as elemental and essential as the fire and water on either side of us. A soft whimper rose from my chest, passing from my tongue to his, moving lightly from one heart to another. Handy’s hand left my waist, sliding around to the small of my back and pulling me closer. I let my own hand leave his cheek. I ran my fingers indulgently through his silky hair from temple to nape, before looping my arm lightly around his neck. It was as if we were slow-dancing, our bodies close and swaying slightly with our kisses, the rain playing our song. My eyes fell shut again as I dissolved into the kiss, neither of us in any rush.

Although he held me flush against him, our kiss remained leisurely and delicate. The soft wet sound of our lips blended into the sound of the rain mere inches away from us, and my heart ached with wholeness. I could feel his heartbeat against my sternum, and it echoed my own relief. Everything is as it should be, it seemed to say, you are as one, you’re together, you’re safe.

“I love you so much,” Handy murmured against me, never breaking the kiss fully, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I’m so glad I’m home.” I corrected gently, and he grinned against me.

He breathed in deep, as if he was savoring the lemon scent of the candle mixed with the fresh green rain smell from outside. He broke the kiss finally and pulled me into a bear hug, squeezing me just a hair from too-tight, and I knew. I knew all the gratitude he was pouring into the hug because it was my own. I squeezed him right back and he said, his voice muffled against my hair, “I’m so glad I found you.”

It had been a long night and Stanford’s body was weary as he hiked homeward through the trees. It wasn’t late in the day, no later than nine in the morning, but the humid heat was already becoming stifling. He had shucked off his jacket and undone the top couple buttons of his shirt, but he was still overdressed. He grumbled under his breath as he walked, feeling very tired and frankly, a bit cranky.

Not only had the night been long, but worse, it had been unproductive. Stanford had established a little makeshift camp up in the mountains, just down-wind of the caves that the Giant Vampire Bats inhabited. He had chosen the position due to its being down-wind, to avoid the perplexing and likely dangerous creatures catching his scent and deeming it too appetizing. He had not, however, given enough consideration to how miserable it would be to sit on a rock all night drowning in the scent of bat droppings. Even the stench of guano would have been worth it if he had learned anything, but he had left his stake-out post this morning with no more clues than he had started with.

“This town baffles me…” he muttered. He had not been in Gravity Falls for very long, but its strangeness (and the strange behavior of its residents) had been immediately quite apparent. It was that very strangeness that drew you here in the first place, Stanford, he reminded himself. It was why he was here. Not just why he was in this town, but it was also literally why he was here, sweaty, over-tired, stinking of bat excrement, and trudging through the woods, when he ought to be quietly nursing a leisurely cup of coffee. He should have suspected, perhaps, that in a town with so much strangeness that the people would adapt. He certainly had not anticipated the reluctance, the denial, the desire to turn the other cheek and pretend there was nothing abnormal at all. It seemed ludicrous, in a town where bizarre things were around every corner, that the people should be so willfully ignorant.

Ford realized he was scowling and took a deep breath. It won’t do me any good to pout about it, he thought, willful ignorance is fairly universal and I’m the one who was naive to expect it to be any different here. It had been wishful thinking, after all. That, perhaps in a place with so much weirdness, there would also be more acceptance. More of a place for him, more appreciation, more acknowledgement that he wasn’t just a freak, but special.

As if summoned by his griping thoughts, He appeared. The color bled out of Stanford’s surroundings in that way that wasn’t quite familiar yet and he felt him before he saw him, “HEY THERE, FORDSY!” he said, in that strange voice that Ford seemed to feel in his spine as much as hear in his head.

“Bill!” He said dumbly. His muse had chosen him a scant month before and he had not yet gotten the hang of casually greeting such a wise and celestial being. His legs mechanically kept walking through the grey landscape, Bill floating pleasantly along beside him.

Bill laughed and Ford smiled politely with him. He had observed that Bill often laughed when nothing funny had been said, as if he always had some inexplicable glee to express. He regarded the strange triangular being beside him, finding the simplicity and strange symmetry of Bill’s visage to be somehow pleasing. Bill’s aura was rippling in time with his laugh, his eye crinkled joyfully. Ford was so fortunate to have been blessed with a muse of such good humor and agreeable temperament.

“SOMEBODY’S FEELIN’ GRUMPY,” Bill observed, in the wheedling tone one might use to ask if their dog wanted a treat, “WHAT’S WEIGHING DOWN THAT BIG HEAD O’ YOURS, SIX?”

Ford’s cheeks felt suddenly warm, a bit embarrassed of his petty complaints now that it was Bill inquiring, “Oh, it’s nothing for you to concern yourself with,” he assured Bill. This splendidly wise entity had for some reason seen fit to choose him, and he’d be damned if he was going to waste Bill’s valuable time.

“AW FORDSY,” Bill protested. He sounded disappointed but somehow still like he was grinning. Ford tried not to wonder about how little either made sense considering Bill’s lack of a mouth, “DON’T HOLD OUT ON ME! I THOUGHT WE WERE PALS, YOU ‘N’ I!”

“We- we are!” Ford insisted, hoping he had not upset his muse too greatly, “I mean to say, I would be honored to be considered amongst your friends,”

Bill laughed heartily, “THEN TELL ME! WHAT’S BUMMING OUT MY NEW PET?”

Stanford laughed nervously at the word choice, but brushed it off. Bill often said things that seemed a bit odd or off-color, but Stanford assumed that sort of thing would come with the territory of being an ageless keeper of knowledge. Your vernacular might end up a bit dated and strange, “I am merely frustrated by my research,” he said, hoping to downplay how irked he was feeling.

“BUT YOU’RE A GENIUS!” Bill pointed out and Ford’s heart soared at the praise. He had always been a genius, but he had rarely been told as much, and surely not by anyone with Bill’s authority.

“You’re too kind,” Ford thanked, “I misspoke. I suppose it’s not truly the research that has frustrated me. I don’t expect the bats to make it easy for me, but the lack of cooperation from the townspeople is infuriating!”

“HM,” Bill said, rubbing under his eye as if thoughtfully stroking his chin, “THOSE PEOPLE SHOULDN’T CONCERN YOU, FORDSY,” he advised, “WHATTA SHEEP LIKE THAT KNOW THAT A PRODIGY LIKE YOU DOESN’T?”

Stanford tried to ignore the bright red flush he could feel on his face at Bill’s flattery and tried to play it off with a small laugh, “It’s funny you should say that, Bill, because sheep are all they’ll talk to me about!” Bill gestured for Ford to continue, “There have been disappearances in the town, and I suspect the Giant Vampire Bats are responsible. Many livestock animals, but more importantly, a couple people! An old woman, a homeless fellow, and a young child!” Bill’s face remained impassive (insofar as one could read the expressions of a triangle) so Ford kept on, hoping to underscore his point, “When I have inquired with townspeople, all they want to talk about is how many of their sheep have gone missing! How many cattle, how many goats! Innocent people are likely dead and these people…” Ford scowled, “They joke about it being mosquitoes!”

“OH, SWEET FORDSY,” Bill cooed, and Ford tensed, unsure if he detected sarcasm in his muse’s tone, “YOU BIG SOFTIE!”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m sweet,” Stanford said, his voice having picked up a slight defensive edge, “That won’t help me to deduce why these bats would be interested in eating humans!”

Bill laughed again, harder this time. His small black hands clutched over his tie, as cackling laughter shook his strange luminous form. Ford’s footsteps slowed a bit as he curiously watched his muse’s amusement. Just as he was accepting that he would never be able to puzzle out what had set Bill’s laughter off, the sage being stilled his laughter and without having to catch his breath (Ford supposed that made sense, as surely he didn’t actually breathe) exclaimed matter-of-factly, “BECAUSE HUMANS ARE DELICIOUS! ”

That stopped Ford in his tracks and he knew he pulled a face, “Bill, you’ve got to be joking!”

“DO I-HAHAHA!-SOUND LIKE I’M-AH! HAHA!-JOKING?” Ford opted not to answer, mulling over what Bill was implying. Was it possible Bill was not as altruistic as he seemed? Ford frowned, “AW, C’MON, FORDSY, -HEH...HAHA- DON’T BE SO CLOSE-MINDED!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe it’s close-minded of me to reject the idea of eating fellow humans,” Ford said a bit tersely.

“SHEESH, KID, NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT YOU EATING FELLOW HUMANS!” Bill gave Ford’s shoulder a teasing punch. The spot tingled strangely. Touches in this odd grey in-between were always strange, “ALL I’M SAYIN’ IS THERE’S NO BIG SECRET YOUR BATS ARE HIDING! THEY EAT HUMANS BECAUSE YOU’RE TASTY! ”

“...How do you know that…?” Ford asked, quietly, hearing the doubt that tinged his own words.

“OH, IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT?” Bill laughed fondly and reassured him, “YOU REALLY ARE A SOFT LITTLE HUMAN! I’M NOT GONNA EAT YOU!”

Although the idea of Bill eating him hadn’t actually entered his mind, he was glad to hear that those were in fact not Bill’s intentions. It did not however, entirely settle the unease in Stanford’s mind, “But Bill…”

“OH, THEY WERE ALL WILLING SACRIFICES,” Bill clarified further with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Ford blanched. Still not what I was getting at, “...Willing sacrifices?” he repeated, morbidly intrigued, “You’ve accepted sacrifices?”

“NONE OF THEM WERE AS SMART AS YOU, TRUST ME, YA DON’T NEED TO BE JEALOUS,” Bill said. Taking in the nonplussed look on Ford’s face, he explained, “NOT THE SMART ONES, BUT LOTSA HUMANS WOULD LINE UP TO SPILL THEIR GUTS ON A GOD’S ALTAR!”

His muse had never referred to himself as a god before. From a young age, Stanford had rejected religion in favor of science. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing any faith could explain better than what could be learned through even-headed logical observation. He was committing his life to explaining the unexplainable, finding the facts behind those things that most people waved off as fantastical. What a stroke of irony that he of all people should be favored by a god. He supposed the title fit Bill as well as any other. He was unfathomably wise, ageless, powerful, and the very spirit of generosity, offering his help and asking nothing of Ford in return. Stanford could not deny that he felt a deep awe in Bill’s presence.

He stopped in his tracks, and looked down at his feet, reminded suddenly of their Rabbi’s voice when he was growing up, describing how Moses was made to remove his sandals by the burning bush for he had stood on hallowed ground. Neither he nor his brother had ever taken that story or any of the others much to heart, but at this moment it seemed apt. Maybe he’d simply never understood what it meant before.

It only took him a moment to snap out of his uncharacteristic reverence. He raised his gaze to Bill again. The muse, or perhaps he was a god, was watching Ford with a look of curious bemusement. Ford wondered again how such a nondescript face could convey so much, when he remembered his initial confusion, “You don’t have a mouth,” he said flatly.

“WELL, YA DON’T HAVE TO BE RUDE,” Bill snarked, a laugh hanging close by.

“No, no, pardon me, I’m not trying to be rude,” Ford said, “How do you know how anything tastes if you don’t have a mouth?”

“OH THAT! LIKE THIS!” Without warning, Bill blinked and when his eye opened again, it wasn’t an eye at all but a fanged grin. The sight ought to have frightened Ford but it sent a thrill down his spine. This creature, be he a muse or a god or something else entirely, was a mystery that only grew more enticing. A black tongue wet Bill’s new lips and to Ford’s shock, the sight aroused more than curiosity in him. Before he could even wonder if it was normal for one to desire a deity, Bill was dragging his tongue up the side of Ford’s face. The lick tingled, more intensely than a less intimate touch, it prickled like a prolonged static shock. But as fast as the contact was there it was gone again. Bill smacked his lips and said, “LIKE I SAID, HUMAN IS DELICIOUS!”

Stanford stared as Bill’s mouth closed and opened again as an eye. He hoped his unbidden feelings of lust weren’t apparent, desperately forced them to the back of his mind, “Is… is that all you meant… by delicious?” he asked.

Bill laughed, “‘COURSE NOT! SURE YOUR SKIN TASTES FINE, BUT IT’S THE BLOOD THAT REALLY PACKS A PUNCH!” Ford hmm-ed thoughtfully, unsure what to say to all these new revelations about Bill, “YA REALLY CAN’T KNOCK IT TILL YOU TRY IT, SIX. ANYWAYGOTTAGOSEEYAAA,” And with a jarring suddenness, Ford was blinking his eyes open. He had continued walking along in a trance in that threshold where Bill seemed to dwell and he was not far from home now. He began walking more briskly, eager to get out of the heat and into a cold shower.

---

An icy shower, a few hours of dreamless sleep, a couple stiff drinks, and Stanford still couldn’t quiet the turmoil of his thoughts. Worry about the Giant Vampire Bats had given way to far less welcome concerns. Was there such a thing as gods? Was it absurd for a mortal to desire a god? What was so ‘delicious’ about human blood?

“What’s come over me?” he asked himself, disbelieving the strange trajectory of his own thoughts. He had always had such a clear idea of who he was, of who he wanted to be. And none of this quite fit into the picture he had of himself. The pursuit of knowledge had always been of the utmost importance to him, but this all seemed somehow different. These were not questions that could be answered with recorded data, these demanded something from a much darker more primal part of the human mind. The very part of his mind he had always tended to keep tightly shut. It seemed the arrival of his muse, this bizarre god (if that was really what he was) had presented more questions than answers.

Not nearly for the first time, Stanford caught himself wondering what Stanley would say to all of this. What would he think of Bill? Ford wondered, What would he think of me? Stanley had always hated hearing his brother called a freak, even when it was Ford saying it. How could he begin to understand what his twin’s research in Gravity Falls meant to him? Thinking about Stanley only made this all harder to parse. His complicated feelings about his estranged brother would have to wait. There had been a time when Stanley had been his partner in crime, but those days were long past and Ford had a new partner now. He knew that with their powers combined, he and Bill could achieve great things.

His face was already a bit warm from the liquor, but he felt his cheeks getting hotter. I’m only starstruck, he told himself stubbornly, That’s a perfectly reasonable response to a deity, is it not?  He had never experienced religious zeal and he wasn’t entirely sure that this was how it was supposed to feel. The memory of Bill’s ink-black tongue snaking over his sharp teeth came unbidden into Stanford’s mind yet again and he felt his trousers growing tighter. He groaned, grateful he was alone but embarrassed nonetheless. Religious zeal most certainly did not involve that. He tried in vain to ignore his body’s response to the thought of his muse, trying instead to consider the likelihood that some faiths incorporated sexuality more than the lax reform Judaism in which he’d been brought up. It was definitely true, but he was still quite sure that what he was feeling was wrong.

He shut his eyes in frustration, willing his bloodflow to return to normal and leave his penis out of this. After a moment it started slowly to work, and Ford immersed himself. He focused on the mysterious blood, flowing dark and unseen beneath his skin. He realized too late that he was getting too caught up in the thought, that his mouth was watering. Bill wouldn’t lie to me, he reminded himself, not sure if that was more comforting or unsettling, “It’s only blood,” he said out loud, opening his eyes and staring down at his hands, crossed on the table in front of him.

He spread all twelve fingers, looking down at the broad palms and extra extremities that had garnered so much teasing and self-doubt over the years. It always surprised him that something so stupid should make such a big difference to anyone, including himself. It didn’t make him any less functional or valid, it was just a strange genetic accident. Just like any other trait a human might have, it was just a blip deep down in their chromosomes, in their DNA, in their blood.

The blood is the life! Stanley would say, in a bad Transylvanian accent. Ford smiled bitterly at the memory of watching black and white movies with Stanley. How simple things had seemed, how far away it all was from Stanford’s present. He stared at his hands, the way the pads of his fingers were slightly rosy. He pressed his thumb and forefinger together, watching transfixed as the pressure turned his fingertips white before he released and watched the blood rush back. He had never been so curious about what lay underneath his own skin, but now all at once it seemed he couldn’t stand not knowing.

He stood up abruptly, the legs of his chair squeaking noisily against the linoleum. There was a short list in his head of what he would need and he set about gathering it all. This was no different than any other experiment and thinking of it that way made it so much simpler. Of course there was no way he was going to hurt anyone else, but this was research and he was his own willing lab rat. When he returned with his arms full, Bill was waiting.

“YELLO!” he greeted cheerily, “I GUESS OUR TALK REALLY WET YOUR APPETITE!” he cackled at his own joke, watching as Ford arranged all the things he had gotten neatly on the table. There was a boxcutter with a new blade, a bottle hydrogen peroxide, some sterile gauze, and medical tape, “A BOY SCOUT IS ALWAYS PREPARED, EH?”

“I wasn’t a boy scout,” Ford said a little stiffly. He wasn’t sure when Bill had pulled him back into the grey trance of this threshold space, and he didn’t like that he hadn’t noticed. Bill’s presence made it somehow more embarrassing that he was actually doing this.

“I’M JUST YANKIN’ YOUR CHAIN, FORDSY,” Bill said making a small tugging motion with both hands, which created an odd tightness in Ford’s gut. He ignored the sensation as best he could. He took a small pad of gauze and wet it with the hydrogen peroxide. First he used the gauze to thoroughly wipe off the boxcutter blade, and then did the same to his left palm. He dropped the spent piece of gauze on the table absently, steeling himself for what he was about to do, “WOW,” Bill said, in an impressed tone that made Stanford’s chest swell proudly, “YOU’RE ONE HELLUVA HUMAN, SIXER.”

Hearing his muse’s earnest praise gave Ford the little boost that his nerves needed. As if it was the most commonplace thing in the world, he guided the blade to his sterilized left palm and pressed. His hands did not shake, and he hardly flinched, although it was more a result of surprise than pain. It took practically no pressure for the keen blade to break his skin and it happened easier than he’d expected. He watched as the dark blood surged up around the metal. Bill made a pleased oohing sound and Ford’s pulse quickened, reacting to the pain and the thrill of impressing a god.

Hypnotized by the sight of his own skin parting cleanly beneath the sharp knife, Stanford slowly dragged the boxcutter across his hand. He hissed involuntarily at the feeling, the pain acute and immediate. It hurt, but there was a harsh satisfaction to it as well. All of the confusion and doubt from only moments before fell away, and everything distilled into the exquisitely simple pain of damaged tissue. His half-cupped palm was filling with blood and he watched it dreamily for a second before putting down the boxcutter. He glanced at Bill and was stricken by what he saw. He hadn’t realized how close his muse had come, entranced, and did not expect him to be so near. His single, unnerving eye was trained on the blood pooling in Ford’s hand, his aura wavering in time with the perpetual low hum he was emitting. It was an entirely inhuman sound, requiring no air, but something about it stirred Ford much the way the sigh of a lover might. Bill met Stanford’s gaze and widened his eye slightly, as if raising an eyebrow coaxingly.

Without breaking eye contact for an instant, Ford lifted his left hand to his open mouth. An instant later, his palate was flooded. He had tasted blood before, as anyone who has sucked a papercut or lost a tooth had, but never had it been anything like this. The taste was agonizingly rich, bitterly metallic and salty and almost sweet all at once. It tasted dark and heady, like the ozone smell of pressure before a storm. He heard his own soft moan, surprised by it, as he slowly swallowed, wanting to prolong the sickeningly decadent feeling of his own blood sliding down his throat. The sound Bill was making changed in response to him, the pitch moving higher and somehow Ford could recognize that it sounded hungrier.

He licked along his own hand, his tongue feeling strange against the fresh wound and Bill’s eye was glued to the contact. Ford realized absently how hard he was, but unlike before, he no longer felt embarrassed by it. With the way his muse was watching him, it suddenly no longer seemed wrong or unwelcome. It seemed like a shared secret, something certainly taboo, but not a crime he was committing alone.

Stanford somewhat reluctantly lifted his mouth from his palm. The straight angry line of the cut bled again at once, that strange dark red swelling up temptingly. He wasn’t going to drink from himself again though. He lifted his eyes from his hand to look at Bill. He was floating as near as possible without touching and Ford could swear the normally clear lemon-yellow appeared to be tinged just slightly a pinkish-orange. His aura was glowing brilliantly, dizzyingly bright, and the sound he was making set Stanford’s teeth on edge. Bill’s eye was glued to the seeping wound, and Ford extended the hand slightly to him, “Would you like to taste me?”

The sound Bill was making changed as he blinked slowly. It took Stanford a second to identify why it had changed, taking on a warmer, throatier, even more maddening tone. Then Bill opened his mouth, and the reason became clear. Where a moment ago it had been a sound abstractly produced, it was now a starved growl being emitted from an actual mouth, “I’D LOVE THAT,” Bill’s mouth said, and watching his voice actually come out of his mouth sent a shiver from the top of Stanford’s head, down through him to settle achingly in his groin.

Bill’s small black hand reached out to steady Stanford’s wrist, his tongue lolling out of his mouth to wet his lips before moving languidly across Ford’s palm. Ford cried out at the contact. The touch of Bill’s hand was one thing, but his mouth was entirely different. Just as when he had licked his cheek in the forest, it tingled electrically. It was excruciating pleasure when his tongue would meet the rawness of the open wound. Bill moved his tongue thirstily against the small gash, making wet obscene sounds of pleasure. He closed his lips on Stanford’s palm and sucked, his tongue never stagnating. Ford hardly knew his free hand had moved to touch himself through his pants, it had been so involuntary. He stroked himself vigorously, shamelessly, the edge so close that his toes curled. Bill seemed to sense Ford’s urgency and his teeth prickled against Ford’s skin as his tongue dragged firmly against the cut.

Stanford cried out again as he came harder than he ever had before. Bill’s mouth did not release his hand until Stanford’s orgasm has subsided to rattling gasps and tremors. Bill laughed a bit airily and said a little smugly, “THAT’S ALWAYS WHEN HUMAN BLOOD TASTES THE BEST,” Ford gave a weak grunt in acknowledgement. He felt a hand on his hair and realized his eyes had fallen closed, and opened them. Just as he did, Bill’s tongue darted out to lick a couple lingering drops of blood from Ford’s lips. Without an instant’s hesitation, he opened his mouth, inviting a kiss from Bill’s strangely irresistible mouth. His tongue tasted like blood and felt like lightning and Ford drifted guilelessly in the bliss of kissing his muse. The kiss ended and when Stanford opened his eyes, Bill’s mouth was gone and had been replaced by the return of his eye, “YOU DID SO WELL, FORDSY,” Bill said, and Ford’s head swam with pride and relief at the praise, “YOU’RE EVEN MORE VALUABLE THAN I THOUGHT,”

Mabel awoke at Dipper’s voice in her ear, “Love you, Mabes,” before planting a peck on her temple. She was only just blinking her eyes open, looking across the sparsely furnished studio apartment. As it was really just a rectangular room with a teensy kitchenette and a teensier bathroom, the door was only several feet from the mattress on the floor which was their bed. Mabel watched Dipper grab his keys from the blue glass bowl by the door. He glanced back at her, the corner of his mouth quirking up at the sight of her grumpy-Gus morning face peeking out from under the covers, before all but flying out the door with a, “Seeya tonight,”

“Seeya,” Mabel grumbled sleepily to the empty apartment. She half rolled over, careful not to untuck the blankets burritoed around her, and squinted at Dipper’s alarm clock. 9:21. Shit, no wonder he was hustlin’, Mabel noted, knowing how far behind schedule he was. His bus came at 9:30, and if he booked it, he might not miss it. Maybe he’ll miss it, Mabel thought with a mischievous smile beginning to rise on her lips, flopping back to her original position to gaze hopefully at the door, then he’ll have to come back home.

Half-drowsing, Mabel lay in bed with her eyes glued to the door. After a while, she realized that Dipper must already be long gone, despite how much she had willed the bus to leave without him. She sighed and chewed her lip, reminding herself that that train of thought was selfish and clingy and indulgent. She didn’t really want Dipper to miss class. It’s important to him so it’s important to me, she told herself, although internally, she wasn’t really convinced. She knew that was how couples were supposed to feel, but did any couple really have the self-sacrificing, saintly ability to draw interest for all of their lover’s pursuits out of some cray-cray internal well that never ran out? Un-flippin-likely, she told herself.

“What do you know about relationships?” she asked herself aloud, slightly muffled against the comforter in which she was swaddled. This was the only serious relationship she’d ever been in, and there wasn’t exactly a guidebook on how to be a good girlfriend to your brother.

She’d pretty much considered herself an expert by the time they moved in here a couple months prior. When Dipper had gotten this gig as an adjunct professor at Merritt College, where Mabel was still a part-time student, it was a no-brainer. Living together in Oakland? It was a dream come true. They’d been waiting for the time to be right since High School. It’d been years already, and Mabel had been confident that she had the whole bro-friend thing on lockdown.

But it wasn’t the way she’d envisioned all those years. While they were tiptoe-ing around their parents’ house or slogging through semesters being states apart, this had always been their pet fantasy. Whispering about it late at night, trying to believe this day would come. Like an oasis, shimmering and hovering just on the horizon, where they would have freedom, and privacy, and a medicine cabinet with both of their things in it, and a dish-washing routine after meals, and maybe even a pet, and, bestest of all, a bed of their own to share. How many gazillions of times had they soothed each other with the promise that someday they’d be within arm’s reach and they wouldn’t have to deal with the constant longing, the unabating missing each other?

But an oasis isn’t real, Mabel found herself thinking bitterly, pulling the blankets tighter still, that’s like the whole biz with oases, they’re all in your janked-up mind. Maybe that made it the perfect word, though, she figured. Dip and I were dying of thirst, so this looked like a kickass waterfall, with tropical flowers and a nice lil rainbow over it and lots of sex. She peered around the tiny apartment. No waterfalls, no flowers, no rainbow. She frowned at the empty spot beside her in bed. No sex.

Well, not no sex, she reminded herself, wanting to give credit where it was due, we just did the do the other day. Just last week. Wait… Or was it the week before? She screwed up her face, trying to backtrack through the uniform days of classes and waitressing shifts, of Dipper sprinting out in the mornings after inevitably sleeping in, of scraping together rent and writing the check, somehow feeling both triumphant and deflated about the transaction. It was the day I took Alicia’s morning shift, Mabel realized, adding days together on her fingers. Her heart sank.  Twenty days? For real? That’s almost three stinkin’ weeks! No wonder I’m such a sourpuss!

Without another moment’s hesitation, Mabel slipped her hand under her sleep shorts within her blanket cocoon. Sexual frustration was a problem to which she actually had the solution. Her skin was pleasantly warm to the touch, a result of hours wrapped up in blankets, and it made her hand feel quite cool. She probed one cool fingertip just between her lips, unsurprised to find herself already pretty wet. It’s a pretty consistent weather pattern down south lately, she absently noted as her fingers fell into a familiar choreography. Mabel closed her eyes, trying to focus on the feeling of her fingers sliding steadily in and out of her, nudging the sensitive spots just so. Her thumb brushed against her clit, trying to imitate the sensation of that thing Dipper did with his thumb. It sent a thrill through her, but it was also a little like trying to tickle herself. Being able to anticipate the exactness of the touch dulled the effect.

It felt good, though, and Mabel found her breath growing heavier. She was often frisky in the mornings and today was no exception. What if Dipper walked in right now? She wondered. Indulging her fantasy, she imagined he’d missed his bus after all, and willed her ears to hear his key engaging the lock. How he’d drop them in the bowl with a jangle, already walking towards the ‘bedroom’. He’d be flushed from running in vain to the bus stop, his cheeks bright and a dewy film on his skin. The hair would be sweaty and stuck against his temples and his forehead and he’d gratefully shed layers of clothing as he approached her. He’d be talking, oblivious to her illicit activities, but as he looked at her face, he’d recognize the expression and his eyebrows would lift in an intrigued little way.

“What’s this?” he’d say, or “I see you’re having a good morning!”, or “Keeping all the fun to yourself?” or some other dorky flirtation. And he’d sit down on the edge of the bed, the sweat cooling on his bare chest, having just ditched his shirt on the floor. And even with him right there, Mabel wouldn’t stop, raising an eyebrow and daring him to intervene. He’d grin then, pulling back the covers like unwrapping a present, revealing her. Just the sight of her hand moving under her pajamas would be enough to ignite a hungry passion in him and he would be all over her. His lips and teeth worshipping her neck and breasts, his hands peeling away her clothes, dancing across her skin, sometimes firm, sometimes as delicate as butterfly wings. He’d eagerly replace her hand, and they would move together with abandon, their uninhibited cries bouncing off the walls of this space that they didn’t have to share with anyone. Their movements would grow more and more desperate, grinding and thrusting in an effort to get even closer to each other, clawing and biting and kissing tenderly even amidst the madness of their lust. His thrusts would grow more needy, more stiff, his gasping breath more and more ragged against her neck. His orgasm would build in unison with hers, both climbing closer and closer and closer to that edge, only to reach climax together in glorious harmony.

Only she didn’t. Growing more and more frustrated, Mabel forged on, replaying the third act of her fantasy again. She was fingering herself in clumsy desperation, her palm cramping badly. She replayed the fantasy again, paying special attention to the spots she knew to have the most sensation. It had grown excruciatingly hot beneath the blankets. She rolled onto her stomach, hoping the extra pressure on her clitoris and lower abdomen would ensure orgasm as it normally did. She replayed the fantasy in her head yet again, rutting against her hand beneath her, moaning the urgency of her need into her pillow.

Fantasy Dipper reached his climax without her yet again and her need easily crossed the easily-blurred boundary between lust and anger and her moan crescendoed quite suddenly into a roar. Impatiently, she threw the blankets off and sat up, hurling her pillow across the room with a sound somewhere between a cry and a growl. It was a pillow, of course, so there was no satisfying crash, no bang, no shattering pieces to serve as a small outlet to her anger. The pillow simply slid across the floor until it came to rest against the foot of the fridge with an anticlimactic, barely audible whump. Mabel glared at the pillow. Dipper wouldn't be walking in anytime soon and when he did, it was unlikely he would suddenly remember he desired her after weeks of disinterest. The thought stung, but there was no use denying it, he doesn't want me.

It’s not fair, she thought tritely, and slapped her palms against the bed. It felt good to hit something and she repeated it several more times. She noticed the fitted sheet beside her was damp from the steam that had built up under the blankets as she’d chased her elusive orgasm. They need to be washed anywho, she reminded herself (since Dipper seemed unaware of the fact that bedsheets in fact require washing) and mechanically began stripping the bed. She threw them into the plastic laundry basket and padded over to the stuffed dresser she and Dipper shared to grab a change of clothes.

Everything in her drawer was just a bit too cheerful for her present mood. Maybe wearing something purdy will lift my spirits, she told herself, digging through sweaters and dresses and lingerie. The thought of putting on lingerie at present was a bit laughable, as she felt anything but sexy. Exactly! It might make you feel sexy, you cranky-butt! The infuriatingly optimistic voice within her nagged, As we always say, life needs more lace. Both she and her internal voice knew that that was not a catch-phrase of hers, though it had a good enough ring to it. Mabel lifted a pair of frilly lavender panties from the drawer and regarded them skeptically.

Striking a bargain with herself, Mabel discarded her sticky pajamas into the laundry basket on top of the sheets. She slipped into the frilly lavender panties, feeling slightly ludicrous putting on such a flirty, girly garment. Flirty and girly was normally one hundred and twenty percent her scene, but she just wasn’t feeling it today. To even out the silliness of wearing panties that looked nothing like how she felt, Mabel covered them in a pair of grey basketball shorts swiped from Dipper’s drawer and one of the several murky green Mystery Shack tee shirts the twins had acquired over the years. It was soft and thin from many trips through the spin cycle and nearly a size too big. The baggy clothes in their muted colors suitably mirrored how Mabel was beginning to feel as her sour mood grew stormier and stormier.

She counted out quarters from the dish on top of the dresser and frowned, noting that only three remained. She dropped the handful of coins into the pocket of Dipper’s basketball shorts, hefted the laundry basket and trotted off to the laundry room. It was in the same building but two floors down. The elevator had been out of order for some time and Mabel gave it a longing glance as she trudged by to go the long way down the stairs. Her arms were feeling a little wobbly when she reached the laundry room and she silently thanked the universe that none of her neighbors were there. How can a room that literally exists for cleaning stuff be so grody? she wondered, as she always did. The cloying scent of bleach and dryer sheets stung her nose. She loaded the washer, careful not to let anything touch the filthy floor even on its way in to the wash, and glumly watched quarters disappear into the slot before turning back around and making the trip back to the apartment.

Upon returning, Mabel found herself underwhelmed by her own home. She looked at it appraisingly from the front door. The big window by the bed was the only particularly nice feature to the apartment. The cracking linoleum and dated appliances sure weren’t the selling point. Nor were the roaches in the bathroom, such a constant presence that Dipper joked that they ought to chip in for rent. Mabel shut the door behind her, dropping her keys in the glass bowl. Her stomach rumbled and a lightbulb just about went off in her head. Food! It cheered, Food will make you feel better!

No such luck. The cupboard was nearly bare. Mabel scrounged up a can of tuna, a couple sorry slices of bread, and a couple leftover mayo packets and distractedly combined the ingredients to make a pretty sad tuna sandwich. The only dishes that were clean were some colorful plastic kids’ dishes Mabel had picked up for a buck at a thrift store at some point, and there was no denying that the neon green of her plate only made her pathetic lunch look more grey by contrast. She found herself famished though, and standing at the counter, she lifted it and took a bite. And got a mouthful of stale bread with a little bit of mayo as the runny tuna, displaced by the pressure of her teeth, slid out the back and landed directly on the top of her bare foot with a splat.

“EUGH!” Mabel cried out in disgust, instinctively lifting her foot from the offending wet sensation. The sudden motion threw her off-balance and with all the grace of drunken hippopotamus, she teetered and landed painfully on her rear end. She held on uselessly to the empty slices of bread that had refused to perform as a sandwich, and once on the ground she blinked at them twice before dropping them. They hit the floor with a weak little sound. Mabel cast a wrathful eye at them, and the mess the tuna had made, on the floor and where it had splashed onto the baseboards of the cabinets.

I can’t do this, she thought limply, shaking her head slightly from side to side, it’s not bleepin’ worth it. The optimistic voice in her head piped up at once, insisting that of course anything was worth it as long as she and Dipper were together. But I don’t know how long that will be, she countered, the thought she’d been avoiding finally sneaking up on her. She felt her lip begin to quiver. He already doesn’t want me, how much longer till he doesn’t love me? Till none of this junkum is worth it to him either? She asked herself bitterly as burning tears began to stream down her cheeks. She hated the sound of her own hitching sobs, echoing pitifully in the tiny apartment. She hugged her knees to her chest, letting the tears pour out of her.

It had hardly ever entered her mind that things might sour between her and Dipper. They were meant to be, after all. They were soulmates. They came into life together and they were supposed to share their lives...right? What was the last time it felt like that? Even the last time they’d had sex, 20 days prior, it hadn’t been the mind-bending intensely intimate magical thing that it had once been. It was quick and kinda dutiful, and they hadn’t even turned the lights on. Is it really ending? Mabel asked herself, hating what that meant. What kind of normalcy could they ever build out of the total crud-storm that splitting up would be? Dealing with an ex was hard enough when they weren't at Thanksgiving, at Christmas, in your own reflection in the mirror. Because if they couldn’t make this work… well, it was weird enough to reconcile being in love with your twin, how could they handle falling out of love with their twin?

Badly, dumdum, Mabel told herself, you’re handling it badly. But I’m not falling out of love with Dip, Mabel reminded herself, clutching her knees tighter, I’m just watching him falling out of love with me. The sobs that quaked her body hit with even greater force, and Mabel gave herself over to the anger and the hurt.

When the key turned in the lock and Dipper opened the door, with a “Mabes, I’m home,” Mabel stirred slightly from her trance. She wasn’t sure if she’d fallen asleep or if she’d just zoned out, but apparently a few hours had gone by, “Mabel?” Without looking up, she could sense the passage of his eyes, checking the bed, the lumpy little couch, the desk they shared, before his gaze landed on the grey-and-green blob on the kitchen floor. He was at her side in an instant, “Oh, god, Mabel, are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s going on?” She just shook her head. Dipper looked around, his investigative mind quickly picking up some of the clues around her. He grimaced at the tuna salad, turned brown from sitting out. Without saying another word, he cleaned up the stinky mess and then returned to Mabel’s side, “I kinda get what happened with the tuna sandwich,” Dipper said gently, “But why is your pillow over there?”

The good-natured voice buried stubbornly in Mabel’s head chuckled, knowing it was a reasonable question. But Nice Mabel wasn’t in charge right now. She lifted her head to glare at him, “Because I put it there, dammit,” she snapped.

Dipper cocked his head, “Oo-kay… and why’d you do that?”

“I wanted to!” she insisted, hating the petulant tone in her own voice. She saw Dipper’s effort not to smile, and added, “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you, babe,” Dipper assured her, laying his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened at his touch and his forehead creased in concern, “Mabel…?”

“No, I’m not okay,” Mabel snarled, before he could ask, “Everything stinks!”

“Yeah, that would be the tuna,” Dipper joked. When he received no laugh, he said in an even voice, “Lemme help you get cleaned up.”

“Don’t pretend like you care,” Mabel grumbled.

Dipper froze, “What the hell, Mabes?” he asked, his own irritation rising, “Of course I care,” Mabel blew an unconvinced raspberry, “That’s not fair,” he said quietly as he dragged her to her feet.

Upon standing, she discovered her butt and feet were asleep from being bent in that position for so long. His disappointed tone stung her and she chanced another look at him. He was thinking hard, probably trying to puzzle out the reason for his sister’s rotten mood. She hated the cute way his brow furrowed, the thoughtful way his lips pursed to the side. How will I ever be able to fall out of love with his dumb cute face? Mabel asked herself hopelessly, daunted by the idea of going back to only being his sister. He was beginning to approach the situation as a mystery to be solved, she could tell from the expression alone. I can spot Dip’s mystery-solving mug from a mile away. He kept his hands on her to guide her to the bathroom and she tried not to love the feeling of his touch.

In the bathroom, she took a seat on the closed toilet lid while Dipper sat on the edge of the tub turned on the water, testing the temperature before stopping the drain so that it would start to fill, “I don’t need a bath,” Mabel groused.

“The rancid tuna on your leg thinks otherwise,” Dipper snarked, without looking away from the water burbling out of the spout.

Mabel stared at the opposite wall, dispassionately watching the progress a cockroach was making. It was a small-ish one and as a result slightly lower on the Nightmare Fuel Scale than its heftier brothers and sisters. A couple months ago, the sight of it would have been enough to send Mabel into kill-it-with-fire hysterics, but she’d become de-sensitized to this, along with so many of the other less-than-ideal elements of her new life. Mabel glanced at the water rushing from the faucet into the scratched too-small tub. Not exactly the waterfall I expected, she thought as, instead of rainbow-festooned mist, the tiny room filled up with clammy steam.

Dipper sighed at her uncooperative muteness and turned off the water, the silence sudden apart from the occasional drip, “C’mon,” he said, willing his voice not to be too pushy, “I’ll wash it off for you,” Grudgingly, Mabel stood up from the toilet and stepped one foot into the pleasantly warm water, “Ew,” Dipper said, his face level with her hip, “You got it on my shorts?” He sounded disappointed again and Mabel grimaced slightly, “Take them off, it’ll be easier anyway without them getting in the way.”

Her hands had already risen to the waistband of the grey basketball shorts, but something about Dipper’s direct, pragmatic request froze them in place. She’d never been shy about her body around Dipper, even before their relationship had begun. A lifetime of swimming together, dressing rooms, and doctor’s offices together, sharing a bathroom and sometimes bedrooms had made semi-nudity pretty much a non-issue between them until they’d started wanting to look and touch more than was appropriate. But right now, for the first time since maybe ever, Mabel couldn’t quite stand the thought of him seeing her body. Not in this context. Not so he could wash her up like an invalid, not when he’d see her sans rose-tinted glasses in all her blah-ness “C’mon, Mabes,” Dipper said. His voice was gentle, but there was an edge of irritation that Mabel knew him too well to miss. All she could manage was a weak shake of her head, “Mabel,” Dipper said again, his tone a little more authoritative this time. Pulling her foot back out of the bath, Mabel pushed the shorts past her hips and let them pool around her ankles.

“Whoa, hello there,” Dipper’s tone confused Mabel. It was his silly, flirty tone. Not at all what she expected as his response to her reluctantly exposed blah-ness. She looked down, just to make sure she hadn’t accidentally acquired the body of a swimsuit model without remembering it. What she discovered was so much worse. She’d completely forgotten the frilly panties she’d pulled on in an idiotic fit of attempted optimism but there they were, in ridiculous contrast to the little bulge of her tummy and her pasty skin. With a groan, Mabel covered herself with both hands, feeling the color rising in her cheeks. Dipper laughed, great, he’s laughing at me again, and said “Why so modest, Mabes? It’s not like there’s anything I haven’t seen before.”

None of this is special to him anymore and he doesn’t even give a fig-newton, Mabel stewed. She stepped back into the bath and sat on the edge of the tub, tugging at the frayed hem of the Mystery Shack tee shirt, willing it to cover every last inch of her, “You really don’t have to be so shy, Mabes, I just thought they were cute,” Dipper assured her, trying to smooth over whatever it was he had done wrong now. They were cute, Mabel repeated in her head, as Dipper picked up a dreg of bar soap from the soap dish and lathered his hands a little, they. The panties. Not me. The tears were stinging her eyes before she even saw them coming and when Dipper’s hands dotingly lifted her leg out of the water and gently smoothed the soap across her (prickly) skin, she couldn’t hold back a sniffle.

From his posture, Mabel knew that Dipper had heard her. Oh, butt nuggets, now he’s gonna feel sorry for me. His hands continued to massage the soap into her skin, but his eyes darted immediately to her face. Mabel continued to stare down at the water in the tub, her hands clutched the shirt so tight her knuckles were white, trying to hide. It was about as close to sweatertown as she could get in a tee shirt. She knew he was gonna ask, hoped that he would just leave it alone, but as usual Dipper did not defy her expectations,  “Mabel, honey, what’s up?”

She shook her head stiffly. Please just leave me alone, she begged in her mind. She had always been the more confident of the two twins and she could feel Dipper’s incredulity. I’m sorry, Dipper, I can’t anymore. He said her name again, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t answer. The effort it was taking for her to keep from crying left her throat too tightly constricted to form words. He said her name again, his own voice sounding uncertain now. She shook her head again, tucking her chin close to her chest, and managed to whisper, “Please, just don’t look at me.”

“Aw, Mabes,” Dipper joked shakily, “Nothing says sexy like the smell of fish.”

“Shut up,” Mabel pleaded, letting go of the shirt to bury her face in her hands, unable to hold back the tears any longer, “S’not funny,”

“Hey, hey,” Dipper gently released her foot, dipping his hands in the water for an instant to rinse away the soap before wiping them impatiently on his pants and taking her in his arms. It felt so good, so warm, so right to be in his arms. Don’t get used to it, she reminded herself and grew rigid at his touch, “You’re right,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He held her reluctant frame close for a moment before saying, “Please tell me what’s going on,”

“You don’t have to...to tease me about it…” Mabel stammered, “I know you don’t want me, b-but you don’t have to tease me about it.”

“Whoawhoawhoa, what?” Dipper pulled back, holding Mabel at arm’s length. Mabel lifted her eyes to his uncertainly. He looked confused, scared, maybe even a teensy bit offended, “Since when do I…? What are you…? Is that what this is about?”

Mabel gave a dry laugh, how could he even ask?, “Um, yeah, that’s what this is about. S-sorry I can’t just...just take it in stride like you do.”

“Take it in stride?” Dipper eyes were searching her face, struggling to catch up, “There’s nothing for me to take in stride! I want you as much as I ever have!” Mabel squeezed her eyes shut. Why is he making this so much harder than it had to be? Why is he denying it? It made it hurt so much more. He took her face in his hands, his palms still damp against her flushed cheeks, “Mabel, seriously. I’ve never stopped wanting you. Please look at me,” she raised her eyes to his again. He was looking at her intensely, his brown eyes blazing, the way he used to look at her in High School after their jimmies would get rustled by almost getting caught, “Of course I want you. I love you. Why would you think that?”

Mabel blinked at him, “You want me?”

“Yes, dummy, of course I do!” Dipper insisted. Mabel considered what he was saying. Even if he does, this can’t all be in my head, she thought.

“Things are s-so different,” she managed to squeak, “Not...not at all l-like we expected,”

“That’s true,” Dipper admitted, as the small roach on the wall reached the shower curtain, “It’s not like we expected. But it’s better!”

Mabel scoffed, “What part is better?”

“The part where it’s not all in our heads,” Dipper replied, his voice softening a little. He scooted a little closer and leaned his forehead against hers, not allowing her eyes to leave his, “The part where we’re not scared, and we’re not apart. The part where we don’t have to whisper to keep from waking up mom and dad, or roommates, or Grunkle Stan. The part where we don’t have to be afraid to do this,” he kissed her. His lips were so familiar, so soft, pressing against hers and willing her to listen. Maybe he’s right, she thought, leaning a tiny bit into the kiss, It’s not like I used to daydream, but… she couldn’t deny the things he said. Had she really begun taking for granted the privacy and the immediacy of being together? And she couldn’t deny that there was immense love in this kiss. Not the kind that burned, not the madness of how it had been at the start, not the fierce lips and starving hands of their High School kisses, reckless and needy. Not the kind that froze time, not the tender, tear-jerking kisses of reunion, after months of distance the way the heart fluttered and threatened to burst at the slightest touch. No, it was not the frenzy of new love or the precious delicacy of being together again. It was warmth. It was the dependable security of coming home, the safety and solace of one’s own bed.

Their lips parted and Mabel opened her eyes to find Dipper still watching her, waiting to see if she understood. She gave him a small bashful smile, “You know what else?” he said, eyes twinkling.

“What?” Mabel asked.

“I can also do this!” Before she knew it, he was hoisting her up into his arms. She wriggled in his grip, unable to suppress the panicked giggles that bubbled out of her. He squeezed her squirming form close to him and kissed her shoulder. All the fight went out of her at the tiny, sweet gesture and she relaxed, curling up close against him. He stood up and walked out of the tiny bathroom, turning sideways so that they would fit through the doorway. He turned towards the bed and then turned to her, “The mattress is naked!” he said in a tone of mock-terror.

Mabel giggled, “Yes, it’s this crazy thing called doing laundry.”

“Ohhhh,” he nodded, as if suddenly understanding a new concept, “So lemme get this straight, you strip the dirty sheets off the bed,” Mabel nodded, “Take them down to the laundry room,” Mabel nodded, “And then leave them there?”

Mabel scowled jokingly, “I got distracted,”

Dipper shrugged, “We’ll just have to make due,” without warning, he jumped onto the bare mattress, still holding Mabel, and they fell in a cackling fit, all tangled up in each other’s arms.

When the last tremors of their laughter quieted, Mabel quietly said, “Sorry for forgetting the laundry,”

“Pssshh,” Dipper rolled his eyes, “I don’t care,” he rolled onto his side so that he was facing Mabel, their cheeks resting on the slightly rough ticking of the mattress. Dipper’s eyes grew serious and he touched Mabel’s cheek, “I’m sorry, too, Mabes. I’m really sorry I...made you feel that way,”

Mabel’s cheeks got hot and she felt the uncomfortable squirm in her stomach, the twinge of embarrassment and guilt, “I was just being a dumbbell,” Mabel murmured, her voice getting quieter and quieter with each word, “I just wasn’t...it’s been such a long time since we...and I…”

“Shh,” Dipper said and kissed the tip of her nose, “Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry.” his mouth bent in just the slightest bit of a crooked smile, “And I still want you.” His smile broadened mischievously, “I still reeeally, reeeally want you,” he crawled on top of her and she couldn’t help but grin up at him.

“Are you sure?” Mabel asked, challengingly, “I miiiight need to see some proof,”