[Part one] [Part two] [Part three]
-
and at any second now i think it all might fall apart,
‘cause there’s a god-awful shitty feeling of dread in my heart, yeah ♫
-
Blearily peeling his eyes open the next day is one of Dipper’s more regrettable life decisions (one of many), and his eyelids immediately clench shut again. Everything, everything hurts. He breathes out a very pained, very pitiful sound as he rolls over in bed, his body overcome with the reaped consequences of drinking such a ridiculous amount of alcohol the previous night, and even that little bit of movement feels like too much.
Huh. This must be what death feels like, he thinks faintly.
“Look at that, the Dip-man liiiives! Didn’t think you were gonna move ‘til like, tonight, bro.”
Myles is talking too loud. Way too loud. Dipper presses a palm to his stabbing forehead, grimacing. “What time is it…?”
Myles tilts his head back to kill off the last of the energy drink in his hand, then tossing the can into the corner of the room. “Almost one. ‘Bout to head out to go buy slash chill at Mackenzie’s awhile.”
Dipper smacks his lips together, his parched mouth tasting like a vomit flavored, dried up wasteland. Holy shit, he’s never been this hungover. He gropes around for the water bottle he always keeps within reaching distance of his bed, chugging what’s left of it in a few desperate gulps. The bottle slips from his grip and onto the floor as he collapses back against his pillow.
“So… hungover,” comes his cracked mutter, making Myles chuckle.
“Duuude. I’m glad you’re awake and alive though, you were pretty fucking gone last night. You owe me for dragging your ass to bed. Clothes you were wearin are in that trash bag by the door by the way, don’t throw that one out.”
“Thanks…” Suddenly awareness floods back into Dipper’s groggy brain. Harsh, painful, embarrassing awareness. “Oh no. No, no, no… I think I…oh, fuck. Yeah, I hooked up with someone last night. Ah, man…”
This gets Myles to stop in the midst of stuffing things into a backpack and look up. “Oho, you don’t say! My boy!”
“No no… no no,” Dipper grudgingly continues, his voice light and croaky, “no ‘my boy’s. This is not a my boy situation.” He’s forced to pause and fight off the urge to dry heave, a foul sound burping out of his mouth. “Oh god. I think. I might have thrown up…” he cringes deeply, “while she was giving me head…”
There’s a moment of silence before Myles throws his head back and erupts with booming laughter, causing his suffering roommate to wince with both pain and embarrassment. “Dipper, no, nooo, you fucking did not!” Dipper moans and presses his face into his pillow, pulling the blanket over his head. “Holy fucking shit, oh my god, did you barf on her, man? You’re lucky she didn’t bite your dick off!”
“I didn’t barf on her, just… near her,” Dipper grumbles, voice muffled. He rolls onto his back, pressing a pillow onto his face. “God. She freaked out though… fuuuck. Fuck, fuck everything, please just kill me. Let me die.”
Myles’ laughter starts to peter out as he shakes his head in amazement. “Hooph, damn. Yeah. Just uh… try and sleep that one off, dude. Wow.” Dipper lets out another humiliated groan, then feels what’s probably a wad of dirty socks bounce off his back— Myles’ version of being comforting. “Heyyy, c’mon tiger. You’ll get through this. I’ll be back tonight, we’ll blaze some healing kush, you’ll forget all about the bee-jay-gone-sour, it’s all good, bro.”
A listless grunt sounds off from underneath Dipper’s covers and nothing more. He hears Myles rustling around for his shoes and his bag, and then the swish of the door being pulled open.
“Alright you wild party animal, see ya tonight. Feel better!” The door shuts, and the room goes quiet.
God. Fucking finally.
Dipper turns his head so that he’s facing the wall, tucking his arms in close to his body, huddling into himself. He’s exhausted. He feels like ripe shit. He would love nothing more than to go back to being unconscious. But of course, now that he’s awake and sobered up, his brain won’t allow that so easily. The minutes tick by, the silence only broken by conversations and muffled laughter coming through the thin walls, the muted sound of heavy bass rumbling up through the floor. Goddammit. Who blasts music at noon on a Saturday? His downstairs neighbors, apparently, every fucking Saturday.
He’s desperate for sleep, but none comes. Memories from last night have already begun their journey of slowly wriggling back to him, torturing him, making him curse under his breath and grimace and shove his face into his pillow. One recollection at a time, he gets to remember all the stupid things he said, all the stupid things things he did. Stupid, stupid, so fucking stupid. And through all those idiotic things said and done, even moreso than his disastrous attempt at hooking up while nearly blackout drunk, one event in particular unquestionably holds the title for making him feel the most terrible. It repeatedly pokes him in the heart, turning his insides even more sour. The collar of shirt finds his way into his mouth as he relives every second of that phone call, again and again.
After a few more minutes of mental torment he has a ‘fuck it’ moment and heaves himself up, spitting out his shirt collar, one hand clumsily feeling along all the junk on his bedside table for his phone, praying that he didn’t lose it at some point during yesterday’s shit of a night. His fingers finally close around the plastic Monstermon phone case and he breathes a sigh of relief, laying back in bed and clicking it on, blurry vision focusing in on the tiny screen.
No new messages. His heart sinks. It’s nothing that surprises him, though.
Dipper swipes it unlocked, goes straight to his contact favorites, and touches his thumb to her name. He’s already put off fixing this for an extremely douchey amount of time. He brings the phone to his ear, cursing himself and staring blearily at a crack in his ceiling as it rings… and rings… and rings.
Her voicemail message starts to play, and Dipper gnaws on the inside of his cheek. Ah, shit. She has every right to not want to talk to him. Man, is he getting good at pushing her away.
“Hey… it’s me. Um.” He winces at his lame start and shuts his eyes. “Listen, Mabes… I’m sorry for hanging up on you yesterday. I didn’t mean what I said, I’m just…” he sighs, leaning into the hand holding his phone to his ear, “…yeah. Can you please call me back when you get this? …Okay, hopefully talk to you soon… bye.”
Carefully, Dipper sets the phone back on the table beside his bed. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and hikes his blanket up to his neck, curling up on his side. The self deprecating thoughts float through his mind a little longer before he’s finally able to drift off.
He’s not out for very long before a series of quick little knocks sound off at the door, rousing him from fitful slumber. Dipper barely has any time to inwardly gripe about who the hell could be wanting in to his and Myles’ room right now before a familiar voice floats in through the poster-covered wood.
“Yo, bro, you decent in there? Can I come in?”
This particular voice causes Dipper’s bedraggled head to shoot up from his pillow, further exacerbating his monster headache. He stays there frozen, propped up on his stomach and elbows for a few seconds before he manages to respond with a hoarse “yeah,” and then the door opens a bit, and his sister’s head pokes through the gap. On it she wears a red headband with a lightning bolt and the word ‘zap!’ on one side in big, bold, pop-art letters, a cupcake sticker stuck to one cheek, and a toothy, somewhat apprehensive smile.
“Mabel,” he says dumbly, scrambling up from bed. He gets up too fast and has to swallow down the urge to vomit.
“Heyyyy, Dip,” she says, giving him a friendly wave. “Long time no see, bro-bro.” She steps inside and nudges the door closed behind her, shouldering her pig-themed backpack so it slumps down next to the sunny yellow Vans tied to her feet. She tucks a few curls behind her ear in the process, one curved pinky sticking out delicately.
The shame slams into him, squashing out the knee-jerk elation Dipper feels about seeing her. He drops her eyes, running a hand through his hair. “Mabel, you… man, you didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
Mabel takes a step toward him, a soft look on her face. “Yeah, I think I kinda did. Plus I wanted to, so there.” Then she determinedly strides forward and wraps her arms around him, drawing him down into a heartfelt embrace, holding him tight. “Missed you, goober,” she murmurs into his sweatshirt.
“Missed you too,” Dipper mumbles, unable to help himself from dropping his forehead onto her shoulder and holding her back just as tightly. She’s warm and she smells like cotton candy and it’s so fucking good to see her that his body wants to tremble, and moisture is pricking at the corners of his eyes, and he mentally berates himself to keep it the fuck together. “…Did you take the bus? At least let me pay for half your ticket.”
She doesn’t let him go, turning her face towards his neck so he can hear her better. “I caught a ride with a friend, no worries.”
“Oh. That works.”
“Hm,” Mabel hums thoughtfully, breathing in and out. “Ooph, woof. You’re kinda really really smelly, bro.”
“Thanks.”
“And kinda greasy too—”
“Thank you, Mabel. I’m aware.” Dipper pulls out of the hug, sighing and slouching down to sit on the edge of his bed. He rubs at his eyes with his palms, avoiding her eyes again. “So did you just completely bail on the fundraiser thing you spent all that time organizing, or?”
“Hey, I didn’t completely bail. I’ll be there all day tomorrow. My friend’s driving back around nine so I actually gotta head back tonight, but I thought maybe we could hang out today, just me ‘n you. Go get dinner and see a movie or something…” Mabel trails off, looking him up and down and making a face, “okay but wowie, do you look really hungover.”
He gives her a half smile, looking out at her from underneath crusty, drooping eyelids. “That, sister, is because I… am really fucking hungover.” He flops back on the bed, pressing his fists into his eyes. “Augh. Remind me to never go near Fireball ever again. Ever… ever… again.”
Mabel lets out a giggle, but it’s a halfhearted giggle. The bed creaks as she gingerly sits down next to him. Things get quiet, and Dipper suddenly feels afraid to open his eyes. He swallows. “So… did you get my message?”
“Mmhm.”
“Oh. Okay… good.” Slowly, he lets his arms sag down to rest on either side of him, peeking up at his sister. She’s gazing around his room, her eyes lingering on the monstrous piles of laundry and full trash bags and empty pizza boxes on the floor. He bites his lip, sighing sadly through his nose. “Seriously though… I’m really sorry, Mabel. I was having a crappy day, and I… I shouldn’t’ve taken it out on you.”
She tilts her head to look down at him, her brown eyes shining with sympathy and compassion, which somehow both irritates and soothes him. “It’s okay, Dipper. Really. All’s forgiven.” Now she’s the one dropping eye contact. “Um, so… do you maybe want to talk about stuff, or…”
Dipper groans again, tossing an arm across his face. “Augh, Mabel, I know this is probably why you came here, but now’s really not the best time, okay? Kinda feel like death at the moment.”
“Gotcha, gotcha. That’s okay, um… we can talk later.” Mabel rubs her arm. “So I guess going to the movies is off the table then, huh.”
“Yeah… nooot really feeling up to vomming all over the back of a movie theater seat today.” He lets his arm fall away, guilt churning around in his queasy stomach, for a number of reasons. “…Sorry you came all the way here for nothing,” he says quietly. Mabel’s head jerks back towards him, her eyebrows raising and her eyes narrowing.
“Hey hey hey,” she wags a finger at him, “you bite your tongue, lil’ broski. I did not come here for nothing. You are not nothing.” She moves a hand down to brush his bangs out of his eyes, her fingers caring and gentle, and Dipper has to resist the urge to let his eyelids flutter shut. “It’s fine, I don’t mind being Nurse Mabel for the day. Nursing my big hungover wiener brother back to life. You got any ibuprofen up in here?”
He grunts, squeezing his eyes closed as his brain pounds ruthlessly away at his skull. “Ugh. I think Myles might have some? But I have no idea where it would be.”
Mabel hops off the bed, clapping her hands together. “Ho-kay, game plan. I go out and get a buttload of painkillers and gatorade and greasy food, you get your stanky butt in the shower, we meet back here and feast on cheeseburgers and nap and watch cartoons all day. Deal?”
He laughs, voice tired and rasping. “Deal.”
“Good. Let’s do dis thang.” She snaps a pair of fingerguns at him and heads for the door, plucking up her backpack on the way, doing her best to hop around the mess that is the floor of Dipper’s dorm room. He sits up, watching her prance away, his gut filling with something warm and solacing despite how crappy his body feels. Mabel turns around at the door, jabbing a firm finger in his direction, a hoard of homemade beaded bracelets clacking around her wrist. “I mean it mister Fireball. You better be clean and fine-smellin’ by the time I get back.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Still with the jabbing finger—“Clean. And. Fine-smellin. Like fancy expensive daisies.”
“Alright alright, I’m gonna shower, chill.” They share a grin. Mabel twists the knob, the smile still on her face as she turns away. She’s got one foot out the door when the words spill croakily from Dipper’s dry throat.
“Uh, hey. Mabes—”
She looks at him over one shoulder, brown curls bouncing around and wreathing her face. “Yiiiis?”
“I just. Thanks,” he mutters awkwardly, rubbing at his shoulder and shrugging. “You know. For coming. It’s really good to see you.”
Her eyes soften, her glossy lips curving into a wholehearted smile. “Of course, bro. It’s really good to see you too.” She steps out of the room. “Hang in there, hangover boy. See you in a few.”
-
Mabel power walks herself into the closest convenience store on campus, her eyes blazing with determination, a woman on a mission. She snatches up one of the tiny baskets near the door and starts methodically moving from aisle to aisle, sweeping items into it without a second glance. A bottle of painkillers, the biggest one they have. Two big bottles of gatorade, one fruit punch and one lemon-lime. A jumbo bag of Cheese Doodles, and two packs of Chipackerz, four-cheese and pizza flavored, Dipper’s favorites. As a last second thought she tosses a bag of Twizzlers into her basket as well. Also a Dipper favorite. He seems like he could use the extra pick-me-up. He seems like he could use about a hundred extra pick-me-ups.
She hasn’t even been in the store four minutes before she’s stepping into the checkout line behind a couple of other students—a girl in workout clothes buying a bag of chips and a sandwich and a hungover looking guy in a hoodie with a giant cup of coffee in each hand. Her fingers squeeze hard on the handles of her basket, her shoes tapping back and forth against the floor as she waits.
She tries to calm the fidgety tension that keeps popping up, but ugh, it’s hard. Because Mabel is worried. Very, very, worried. Being this worried and trying not to act like it is so much harder than she remembers. Ever since Dipper hung up on her yesterday, she feels like she’s been walking on the very edge of a cliff. Unable to concentrate on anyone or anything, hardly able to think of anything else. And being on the edge of this specific cliff, she has to take very, very careful steps. It’s just an ominous feeling all around.
She’s not sure how bad it is, yet. She hopes to get some answers today. But gosh, hearing his trembling voice through the phone, small and hopeless and on the verge of breaking down into tears… it really shook her up. It was like her inner Dipper’s-not-okay warning bells going from stable green to code red in one single paralyzing instant. In the past, she always had a little more warning than this.
After the line had gone dead, and the cold sting of being shouted out by her brother resided, Mabel had sat on her bed with her forehead resting in her palm, stunned as she realized how little she actually knew about Dipper’s life right now. About how he was doing. She’d gone over their last phone call—heck, their last few phone calls—over and over in her head, scouring for clues she might’ve missed, and come to the stomach-turning conclusion that they’d mostly just talked about stuff going in her life, not his, or stupid stuff, like what crazy thing had happened on the last episode of The Available Man, or whether or not they should drop the cash on a fart machine to activate under Dad’s chair in the middle of singing him happy birthday next weekend, or the tattoo she’s thinking about getting, or how he should totally try and figure out a way to visit her when she’s in London this fall. Looking back, Dipper had flawlessly dodged and pirouetted around every question pertaining to himself. Every single one. And she hadn’t even noticed. Ugh, Mabel. He’d flipped the conversation back over to something he knew she’d want to talk about, and dangit, she knows him and she knows that wasn’t an accident, and ughhh that she didn’t see it before.
Dangit, dangit, dangit, Mabel! It shouldn’t have taken her this long to realize how distant her brother has been lately. She’s supposed to notice these things. She always has before. And that was about the point when she came to the awareness of oh, crap, maybe… maybe so has she. Been distant. Or has probably come off as distant to him, at least. The semester has been busy for her, so crazy-bananas busy, what with rush and class and study abroad applications and friends and former-boyfriends and something going on what seems like every single weekend… so her and Dip haven’t been talking as much. More effort could stand to be made on both their parts. And definitely… definitely hers.
Ugh, okay fine, yes, she can see that now. Standing here alone in this convenience store checkout line behind this smelly guy in a hoodie who she really wishes would dig change out of his pocket a little flippin’ faster, she can see that now. And that fills her tummy with an ugly, churning emotion that starts with a big fat ‘G.’
Okay, to get one thing straight, guilt is not the reason why she came here today. It’s not the reason she spent a good few hours yesterday texting everyone she knew who had a car, pretty much begging for a ride to Dipper’s school, it’s not the reason she’s now going to spend her whole Saturday taking care of him.
But the guilt is still there, simmering in the depths of her chest. It’s there, because she should’ve known. She should’ve known. When Dipper feels neglected, he doesn’t say a word about it to your face. He just accepts it and lets himself slip sadly under your radar, like a big ball of accepting-sadness, and the more she goes over things in her head, the more she worries that that is exactly what happened. Jeez, when was the last time they skyped? God, It was some point when she was still dating Zaid. She remembers because Zaid had showed up unannounced at her dorm halfway through their call, which led to her cutting out a little early and promising Dip that they’d talk twice as long the next week. Ugh. Ugh! Why does like, every single Dipper-related-recollection from the past few months make her feel so gross!
And now, he might be in trouble. Now it might’ve gotten bad again, bad-bad. And where was she? The person who’s supposed to be, who’s always been his anchor when his head checks out and wanders off into sad, bad, morbid, terrible places? Dipper’s head does that, Mabel! Just because it hasn’t in awhile, just because you don’t see him every day anymore, just because the warning signs are no longer right there in your face, doesn’t mean it doesn’t!
Mabel finally makes it to the counter, paying for her things without her usual amount of cheery banter with the checkout clerk (she does at least mention that she likes the lady’s earrings). She makes her way quickly to her next stop, one of the many food joints around the campus of this oh-so-coveted university. She picks up a large order of fries for them to share along with two cheeseburgers, (no tomatoes on hers, no pickles on Dipper’s), grabs a butt-ton of ketchup packets, and then starts to hurry back to the dorm, eager to get back to him. That’s all her mind seems to want to think, since that phone call—Get to Dipper, Dipper needs me, gotta get to Dipper, gotta get back to Dipper.
Gosh. That phone call, though. She’s just… she’s walking the edge of that cliff, and at the end of the path is her twin, and she has to get to him, but she’s gotta be careful, careful, careful.
She can’t be totally sure how bad it is yet. Even when she did live with him, her brother has always been sort of an emotionally constipated person, he doesn’t just come right out and say things. But the warning signs she’s seen so far, just from the call yesterday, to the desolate tone of his voice in that message he left her, to sitting with him in his room for all of ten minutes… it has her worried. Very, very, worried.
If she had known…
Blah. No sense dwelling on what she hasn’t done. She’s got to focus on what she can do for him now. Operation help-the-bro-bro has officially commenced. Today, she can feed him Twizzlers and fries and medicine and scratch his back while he lays in her lap with a cheesy Sci-Fi monster movie playing in the background. And then maybe she’ll fit an apology somewhere in there, although she’s not sure how she would approach that apology. And also maybe get some answers… about stuff he’s always had a hard time talking about directly… totally gonna be a breeze… and then… then they can go from there? Yeah?
Her plan is fuzzy. But it’s not too late. She can still make this work, even if she’s very, very, very worried. Mabel clutches the plastic handles of her bags full of food tighter, taking longer strides, hurrying around slow walkers on the sidewalks.
When she eases back into his room with plastic bags in hand, making sure to open and shut the door quietly, she finds Dipper laying in bed. He’s right back in the same hoodie she left him in, but now he’s wearing sweatpants and the curls hanging in his eyes are wet. His eyes open sluggishly and he greets her with a grunt.
“I come bearing gifts,” Mabel offers with a smile, making her way over to him, setting the crinkly bags on top of the clutter piles on his desk.
“Nnn. I don’t feel good,” he mumbles against his pillow.
“Mm,” she says sympathetically, “still having tum-trouble?”
“I might’ve thrown up a little in the shower.”
“Ooh. Yeah, that’s not good.” She digs around through the bags, extracting a couple of pills and holding them out to him along with his water bottle. “Here. Put these in your face. Trust me, I’m a doctorrrr.”
He gives her a tired, amused smile as he takes the pills and gingerly lifts them into his mouth, following with a gulp of water. “I thought you were a nurse.”
“I’m both.”
“That’s a lot of medical school,” Dipper says sleepily, closing his eyes again. “I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, well, I’m very dedicated.” She sits down at the edge of the bed, starts running her nails back and forth between his shoulder blades over his sweatshirt. He looks a little thinner than when she last saw him, she can’t help but notice. “Do you think you can eat?” A grunt. “I got you Twizzlersss…”
“Ahh. You’re the best,” he keeps on with that same sleepy monotone, humming gratefully when she digs her thumb gently into a knot in his back. “I don’t think I can do Twizzlers right now, but you’re the best. And I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she giggles. “How bout a boy-guh, can you do a boy-guh? A juicy cheese-boy-guh? Gotta soak up all that alcohol somehow, bro.”
“Yeah… I think I could swing that.” Again, she can see his lips pulling back into a little smile. His face looks so tired and dreary, but at least she’s been able to get him smiling. Inducing Dipper smiles—a Mabel specialty. At least she knows for sure she still has that.
Dipper crawls towards the wall to make a spot for her on his bed, Mabel doles out the food and drink, and the twins sit together scrolling through Netflix, gearing up for a lazy afternoon.
-
She doesn’t know how the day gets away from her, but it does. Every time Mabel thinks she might finally have the mental courage to approach sad subjects head-on, she looks over to find that Dipper has fallen back asleep, looking cute and peaceful despite the fact that he’s drooling on her shoulder. Or his stomach decides to be a butt all of a sudden and he has to make a break for the bathroom. Or they’re at a really good part in the movie they’re watching, or the mood feels so lighthearted and normal between them that she doesn’t have the heart to break it with the heavy stuff. She’s still walking the edge of that cliff. There’s always something that keeps her mouth shut.
It is definitely much easier to stuff Twizzlers up your nose, talk in your notorious Mr. Upside-down Face voice and make your brother laugh than it is to ask him if his depression has been acting up. There’s no denying that one.
Before she knows it, it’s past eight and dark outside, and they’re five episodes deep into a Tigerfist mini-marathon, already having watched a couple of their all time shared favorite movies. So she hasn’t gotten any actual answers yet… at least Dipper seems to be in a better mood. This was Operation Help-The-Bro-Bro-Feel-Better first and foremost, right?
But the more time that passed, the stuffier the air has felt for her, the faster her heart seemed to beat. At this point her insides feel like they’re going a little crazy, the worry from the past 24 hours taking its toll. Clearly, he’s not going to bring anything up himself. He’s not going to wanna talk. But this is eating away at her… Mabel turns to look down at the top of Dipper’s curly brown head where it rests sleepily against her arm. Come on, Mabel. This is all for Dipper. Just gotta suck it up and say something.
Of course, as soon as she arranges what she wants to say first in her head and takes in a breath, the door busts open and in walks Dipper’s roommate. Aw, farts.
“What up, Dip—no wayyy, it’s the twin sister!” Myles exclaims, his voice smokey and dragging and over-the-top cheerful. Mabel quickly puts on a happy face and grins, baring all her teeth and waving excitedly with both hands, the action jostling Dipper where he slumps next to her. Myles laughs, letting his bag drop to the floor and pushing the door shut with his foot. “Damn, where you been all my life Mabel, it’s been forever! Shiiit, I forgot how much you guys look alike.”
“Ah, I been around, you know. This semester’s been busy.” She swipes the bag of Cheese Doodles from Dipper’s hands to stuff some in her mouth. “How haff you been, Mylesh?” She asks, cheese crumbs spraying onto Dipper’s keyboard, prompting her brother to grumble and spitefully brush them off.
“I been good, I been good…” Myles grabs a bag of chips off his desk and tears them open, plopping himself down in his desk chair facing the twins, a big, baked smile on his face. “Man, you two are fuckin’ adorable,” he says, stuffing chips in his face and chewing loudly. “Look at you. You have like… matching faces.”
Mabel snorts and giggles. Ah, this guy. Dipper’s eternally bugged out roomie is nothing if not fun to indulge. She sidles closer to her brother and presses her smooth right cheek to Dipper’s scratchy left, batting her eyelashes and drawing imaginary circles around their faces. “It’s true, you can’t get any more adorable than this pair of twinsies. Although I dunno about the matching faces thing. I wanna say alpha twin’s got the edge on cuter twin award, today at least.”
Dipper makes a noise of disbelief, tilting his head to grace her with his most affronted expression of faux-betrayal. “Oh, cold.”
“What, I’m not the one who had to wash throw up out of my facial hair earlier.”
“I resent that.”
Myles cuts in, waving a hand around. “Dipper, man, no offense, but there’s no contest here. Let’s be real.” He quirks an eyebrow at Mabel, shooting her a crooked smile. “Your sis is like… the hot girl version of you. But… you’re not the hot guy version of her? Woah. That is fucking wild.”
His eyes bulge and he acts out the mind blown gesture, complete with exploding sound effects. Mabel is overcome with Cheese Doodle spray-giggles while Dipper’s face falls into a sullen frown, his eyes flicking back and forth between Myles and Mabel. “Okay, that’s enough. New topic please.”
“Just spittin’ truth, my friend.” Myles shrugs and leans back in his chair, still crunching obnoxiously on salt and vinegar chips, the giant, dreamy grin on his face ever-present. “So you guys just been chillin’ out here all day or what?”
Mabel nods. “Yep, pretty much. Dips over here is still in recovery mode.” Dipper grunts his agreement, stealing back the cheese doodles and munching absentmindedly, his head still leaning against her upper arm and his drooping eyes fixed back on the computer screen in her lap.
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. This crazy kiddo had a hell of a night last night, didn’t you, Dipper?” A cackle bursts from Myles’ crumb-covered mouth, and Dipper’s head lifts a few inches, his face going pale. “Oooh my god, though. Twin sister, tell me he filled you in on all that crazy wild fun he had.”
“Have not heard about the crazy wild fun yet, actually. Dipper, why you no tell me about crazy wild fun?” She laughs and twists to look expectantly at Dipper, but he’s busy glaring over at Myles with wide eyes, his face five shades redder than it was a minute ago.
“Dude,” Dipper mutters in a warning tone, hissing the word through his teeth.
“What? Oh come on, it’s a funny story.”
“Wait, wha? What’s a funny story?” Feeling very much left out, Mabel looks confusedly between her brother and his roommate, who are locked in a half extremely pissed, half tickled-pink stare down. “Booo. Come on guys, don’t leave me hangin!”
“Do not,” Dipper spits the words viciously just as the taller boy excitedly opens his mouth, and both Myles and Mabel make dramatic disappointed sounds. Mabel elbows her twin good naturedly, who no longer slumps lazily against her, but sits straight up, his back stiff as a board.
“Aw, come on Dippity-dawg, don’t be a grumpus. It’s just a-me, a-Mabel, I ain’t gonna judge.”
“Yeah Dippity-dawg, she ain’t gonna judge, don’t be such a fuckin’ grumpus,” Myles repeats, looking on the verge of exploding with mad giggles.
Dipper shoots Mabel one of his serious-faced, ‘you’re supposed to be on my side’ looks and opens his mouth, probably to tell her to knock it off and let it go, but only manages to get out the first syllable of her name before Myles finally cracks, spewing with words and high-pitched laughter.
“L-last night—grumpus over here blew chunks—while some chick was like, mid-blowing him,” he laughs wildly, banging a fist against his desk, “and she,” he can barely get the words out, he’s laughing so hard, “she lost her goddamn shit! Can someone say hookup of the week awarrrd, ow ow!”
Mabel’s jaw drops, her eyebrows skyrocketing. “Oh. Wow.”
Suddenly out of things to say, she blinks, heat trickling into her cheeks. Myles claps his hands together, somehow taking Mabel’s blank reaction as something more like amusement. “I know, right! This crazy mother fucker right here—”
“Dude! What the hell!” Dipper finally sputters, throwing his hands in the air, his face now positively puce. “Why the fuck would you ever think it was a good idea to tell that story to my sister?”
Myles lifts his hands in surrender, clearly too out of it to be the least bit sorry, but he apologizes anyway. “Damn, sorry man, it’s just funny as hell is all! Like it’s funny, right?” Myles looks to Mabel for back up with glazed over eyes, and Mabel shrinks in the sudden spotlight, really, really wishing she hadn’t pushed the issue, because now all sorts of awkward images are popping into her head, images she’d never thought about before and would really rather not start picturing now. Dang it Mabel! This is why we don’t push!
She shrugs, trying to play it cool. “Uh, kinda! I mean it’s all good, haha, you know, these things, these things happen to the best of us…”
Her sentence trails off and her eyes shift over to where her brother sits hunched over, his face now hidden behind his fingers, and she hears him whine a quiet, mortified sound into his palms. Her features wilt sadly. Aw, man. Stupid Myles, waltzing in here and throwing her help-the-bro-bro-feel-better plan for a loop at the last second!
She reaches out to him tentatively, trying hard to tune out the ruthless background giggles. “Hey, bro, really, it’s no big deal, I’m not—” But as soon as her hand touches his shoulder Dipper flinches away, actively avoiding her eyes, cutting her off.
“Ugh, can we just— can we not, guys? All I wanna do is forget about yesterday, and neither of you are making that very easy right now, so can we fucking not, please? I… sorry, if I sound pissy or whatever, but like… jeez. Come on.”
Myles finally knocks it off with the obnoxious, rasping laughter, and Mabel’s eyes fall to the tightly clasped hands in her lap, her cheeks flushing again. With slumped shoulders, Dipper takes a deep breath, tiredly rubbing at his eyes, and no one says anything for a good eight seconds.
“Sorry, dude, didn’t mean to push your buttons there,” Myles is the first to break the semi-weird silence. “I was just playin, nobody in this room’s actually judging you for your awkward hookup stories. I mean we all got ‘em, amiright?” Again, much to her dismay, he looks to Mabel for back up, who responds with an immediate oh-jeez-whatever-you’re-about-to-say-please-don’t face. Myles doesn’t take the hint. “Mabel, quick, bad sex story, go! Even the playing field, c’mon, you got this.”
Mabel stares at him, frowning a little and willing herself to stop blushing. This should not be this awkward, what the heck. “Uhhm—”
Dipper holds a halting hand in front of her face before she can even offer up her prepared ‘no thank you,’ pinching the bridge of his nose with his other hand. He shakes his head, looking pretty pink in the cheeks himself, still avoiding looking directly at her. “Okay, please do me a favor and do not answer that.” Once again he fixes on his roommate with a stinging glare. “Myles, can you not be an ass while Mabel’s here? Quit while you’re ahead, oh my god.”
“Sorry, sorry guys, nah you right. I got a sister too, I know sibs don’t wanna hear that shit about their sibs. Ahahaa, my bad, my bad.” He smiles a dreamy smile. “You gotta excuse me, I’m pretty fuckin blazed right now.”
“Yeahh. We can see that,” Dipper deadpans. He gives Mabel an annoyed, knowing look out of the corner of his eye, and she grins back at him, shaking her head with a wordless ‘I know, right?’, just happy her brother is looking her in the eye again.
Myles tears open another bag of chips, this time dill pickle flavored, and the smell of processed pickles quickly wafts through the room. “Shit,” Dipper lurches forward, one arm cradling his middle, his face crumpling like he’s going to be sick. Mabel reacts fast, laying a concerned hand on his back.
“Dang, is it still not over?”
“I thought I was done-” Dipper’s words come out stilted and strained. “Yup, nope—Idon’tthinkI’mdone. I—” A dry heave puts the brakes on whatever else he was gonna say and he keels out of bed and half hobbles, half runs out of the room without another word.
For a second Mabel considers going after him, but stops halfway through scooting off the bed. She glances at Myles across the room, who now sits stretched out on his bed, obliviously munching away on pickle flavored chips.
Okay Mabel, now’s your chance to get some answers. Be cool. Be the cool cat you are. You got this.
“Hoo boy,” she says, waiting until Myles looks over at her before she shaking her thumb in the direction of the doorway. “Sooo, this doesn’t happen too super often, does it?”
“What, Dipper getting blasted? Nahhh, not that I know of. He’s more into the green these days.” Myles points a friendly, crumb covered finger her way. “Turns out’cher brother is a pretty chill dude.”
Weeeell, yes and no, Mabel thinks. She nods casually, starting to play with her sleeves. “Green as in four-twenty blaze it, right?” She laughs weakly. Myles grins.
“The one and very same, twin sister.”
Mabel scrambles to put words in the right order in her head, carefully, making sure they leave her mouth cool and copacetic. “That’s cool, so you and Dip smoke together more often, then? Gettin’ plenty of quality roomie-bonding time in?”
“Yep, pretty much every day,” Myles says, slouching back in his bed, pulling his laptop onto his stomach. “Half the time he’s the one asking me to smoke, it’s been quite the turnaround.”
Myles chuckles easily, while Mabel has to force it.
…Every day?
Dipper told her that he and Myles were on better terms now, but apparently, clearly, she didn’t know the full extent of what that meant. Mabel tries not to let her face reflect the sinking feelings in her tummy, even though Myles looks pretty zoned out over there, now playing music and focused on his computer.
“IIII’m gonna go make sure Dipper’s okay,” she says, sliding off of the bed. She stuffs her feet in her shoes and heads for the door, Myles grunting his acknowledgement without looking up from the screen.
Out in the hallway, Mabel walks slowly in the direction of the boy’s bathroom. Once she makes it there she leans heavily against the opposite wall, holding one of her curls in her mouth. A few guys walk out of a room a few doors down, looking at her as they pass, but she doesn’t look up, barely even noticing them. She’s too busy staring off into space, chewing anxiously on her hair, waiting for Dipper to come out of the bathroom. She’s not sure what she’s planning on saying to him when he comes out, yet.
It’s just… it’s just… man. She used to think she knew almost everything about the life-and-times of her sweet nerd of a brother, and now… now, it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t. And that’s doing things to her heart. Sad things.
Dipper’s a pretty private person, so she always felt so privileged to be the one person he would continually share things with. Now he’s got this whole secretive-college-Dipper thing going on, where he does things like fail to mention to her that he’s become kind of a class-skippin’ stoner guy. Like, what the heck? That’s not the Dipper she was so sure that she knew. And he doesn’t seem to be very willing to share much about his new, er, lifestyle, and not only does she have a bad, sinking feeling about all of this, but ow ow ow, feeling like she doesn’t totally know her brother hurts her heart. It really, really hurts. She used to be his numero uno, there was no question about it. Is she still? She’s been so wrapped up in stupid school stuff that she’s been kinda neglecting her numero uno position. Has the position been filled by someone else? By Myles maybe, his new number one smoking buddy or whatever?
And then there’s the other ‘Dipper’s secret life’ thing she’s kinda-sorta dwelling on. The getting-majorly-drunk-and-gettin-with-ladies thing. A flash of the uncomfortable images from before pop into her brain again, vivid and obnoxious, and her left eye twitches. “Get out,” Mabel grumbles under her breath, lightly bumping a fist against the side of her head, willing her thoughts to go in any, any other direction. Really, she’ll take anything. Okay… thinking about kittens now. There we go. Kittens. Kittens dressed as celebrities. Even better.
Unfortunately the kitten images fade fast, leaving her brain right where it was before. Mabel sighs, crossing her arms and frowning down at the dingy tile floor. It’s annoying, how annoyed by this she feels. Blargh. It’s not as if she thought Dipper was never hooking up, but…well, she supposes she was never really thinking about the opposite, either. It’s not the sort of thing sisters think about. Or like to think about. And like… he’s her baby bro-bro, and he’s obviously not in a good place right now, and the thought of sad-’n-drunk Dip being, um, yeah, by some girl who doesn’t even know him, is… it’s… it just doesn’t seem like what he needs right now, okay?
Not that she’s claiming to know what he needs, in… that life department… ugh.
Mabel scuffs her shoe along the floor, spitting out her hair.
Other life departments, though. There’s so much she doesn’t know. She should know. Ugh, she should know these things! She’s known about Dipper’s tendency to withdraw as long as she’s known Dipper, and she still… she still let him get away from her.
She wraps her arms around herself.
Yeah, that’s a big friggin’ oops, Mabel.
The sound of a toilet flushing comes through the wall across from her. A few more minutes pass before Dipper finally trudges out of the bathroom, no longer wearing the University sweatshirt he’s had on all day, instead carrying it bunched up in a fist at his side. He sees her standing there hugging herself and raises his eyebrows in a silent ‘what’s up.’
The first thing Mabel notices is that the fabric of the hoodie is damp, and her eyebrows lower with sympathy — he must’ve not totally made it to the toilet in time, poor Dip. She starts to ask how he’s feeling, but then notices a second thing, and her heart stops, the question dying in her throat.
Oh. Oh god, no.
Dipper must’ve noticed her freeze, and he follows her eyeline down and back up and connects the dots, stopping in his tracks. The rest of the color leaves his already pallid cheeks.
She knows she’s staring pretty obviously at his arms, but she can’t bring herself to look away at first, reflexively trying to assess the damage from where she stands ten feet away. Her gaze rakes from each thin, pink sliver to the next. Some on his right arm but mostly on his left, scattered here and there, from just below his wrist to one that disappears into the sleeve of his t-shirt.
There aren’t very many of them. But there are definitely enough to have her eyes welling up, because she knows… she knows how they got there. Mabel blinks furiously, stunned at finally having this abrupt answer to the question she’s been asking herself all day, willing herself not to just start crying. That would only make him mad. Her lips purse, and she looks at him then, looks at him so hard and so desperately that he can’t look away, even though he clearly wants to.
No, no, no.
Dipper ends up talking first, his voice small and scared and defeated. “Not… not now, Mabel. Please.”
“Dipper—” she tries, but nope, voice not good to talk yet without tears getting involved, abort, abort mission. Her lips go back to being tightly pressed together.
“Please. I’m serious, I’m really not up for this right now.”
She shakes her head fiercely, her mouth wobbling a little, managing to squeak out, “no, now.”
His face darkens. “Mabel. Listen to me. I said I’m not doing this.”
“…But. You’re cutting yourself,” she weakly forces out the words, thick and caustic on her tongue, and hearing them aloud causes a tear to break free. It slides halfway down her cheek before she hastily smears it away.
“I didn’t—” Dipper starts too loudly, too defensively, and his mouth snaps shut, his ears pink and getting redder by the second. He gives the empty hallway around them an anxious once-over as he steps closer, lowering his voice to a flat mumble, no longer meeting her eyes. “I didn’t cut myself, okay? They’re— scratches. Just superficial crap. It’s fine.”
Her brow crinkles. She shakes her head slowly, staring at him with wide, teary-eyed confusion. She’s trying hard to understand why he keeps lying to her, why the heck he keeps insisting everything’s fine when it’s so obviously not fine, not even a little bit fine, but no dawning moment of understanding comes. The whys just keep piling on. Why is he doing this? How did this happen, how did this get so bad without her knowing about it? Why does he hide so many things from her now? Is this what them growing apart looks like? Is this partly her fault?
Dipper rubs his neck and continues, only because he’s never been good at handling loaded silences between them. “Look, I don’t… I don’t mean to do it, okay? It’s like- a reflex, I don’t know. It doesn’t register that I’m doing it until it’s already done. And… I mean, like I said, it’s superficial stuff, it’s not like I’m like, bleeding everywhere, or something…”
If he’s saying this stuff to try and make her feel better, it’s really not working. Mabel still can’t bring herself to speak. Dipper visibly shrivels under her pleading stare, his tone growing higher, more and more defensive. “Mabel, would you — ugh. Would you stop looking at me like that? I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not cutting myself and I’m not trying to kill myself. Is that what you wanna hear? ‘Cause if it is, I’m not, so, there you go. Now can you please just—” his voice has gotten so quiet, it sounds on the verge of tapering off. His head sinks forward, a hand running up the side of his dejected face, “can you please stop looking at me like that? …God, Mabel. What do you want from me?”
He doesn’t look back up. Mabel stands there, stricken, taking in the image of her brother standing limply in front of her, head hanging, body sagging, face crumpled. He looks… broken. It’s been a long while since he’s let himself look like this in front of her, and her insides feel like they’re trembling violently, her heart caught in her throat. It was never easy to see him like this. It’s not any easier now.
There’s so much she wants to say. So much she wants to ask him, so much she wants to do for him. She’d do anything for him, anything, if only he’d just let her, just tell her what’s going on in his head.
But for his sake, for now she only takes a breath and shuffles forward, carefully putting her arms around him, her head burying itself in his shoulder. Dipper goes stiff in her arms, but she doesn’t let go.
“I’m sorry,” Mabel whispers, her rosy cheek squishing up against his collarbone, her headband falling crooked. “I just want you to be okay.”
He doesn’t respond right away. She feels him exhale heavily in her embrace. “I know you do, Mabes,” is all he ends up saying, sounding like all the life has been sucked out of him. Another thick tear rolls out of the corner of her eye and disappears into his shirt. She wonders if he felt it, because his hands finally lift to return the hug, slowly patting her back a few times.
Soon her phone begins to chirp and buzz in her pocket. She ignores it. The high pitched, pretty annoying-when-heard-repeatedly Sailor Moon-themed text tone goes off again and again, but Mabel doesn’t move, just keeps her arms locked around her brother. Finally it starts to ring, a happy, jolly, 8-bit tune, but she doesn’t move to pick it up, only burrows her face further against his shirt.
Dipper shifts in her grasp when it stops ringing, his arms awkwardly falling away from her. “Um, I think that was your ride.”
Mabel says nothing, making a small noise, holding onto him tighter.
“Mabel… they’re gonna leave without you. You gotta go.”
“Uh-uh,” she murmurs. “Can’t leave. Can’t stop hugging the bro. Gotta hug the bro.”
“Mabel, come on…” he says, trailing off. Her phone chirps for the jillionth time with that ironically cheery sound, and he makes a low, chagrined sound in his throat, finding his voice again. “Okay, look, I… we can talk more about this later, I guess. But right now you… c’mon, you gotta let go of me, Mabel.”
“You promise?”
There’s a beat of hesitation that doesn’t go unnoticed by Mabel. “Yeah, fine. I promise.”
It’s a lackluster promise, but she knows it’s all she’s going to get out of him. She lets another good few seconds pass, then sniffs and pulls away from him, wiping at her eyes.
After Mabel retrieves her stuff from his room, Dipper walks her down the two flights of steps and out of the front double doors of Wampler Hall, where a car with the engine running waits for her out on the street. She gets the urge to take Dipper’s hand at multiple points during the walk, but his hands are deep in the pockets of his sweatpants, and they haven’t done the hand holding thing in a long time anyway, so the urge gets stamped down each time.
When they arrive at the car, she throws her arms around his neck, unable to help herself. Dipper hugs her back much more willingly this time, his head leaning gently against hers. Mabel breathes in the scent of his bodywash and that classic Dipper-smell on his clothes and is struck with another deep, resounding compulsion of not wanting to leave him, of not wanting to let him go, ever ever ever. She bites her lip and shakes it off.
As they exchange goodbyes she makes him promise her a second thing–if he would please answer his phone whenever she calls, because she will be calling. He stiffens a little, but softly agrees, sounding too tired to put up any sort of fight about it.
She pecks him on the cheek before finally stepping away and getting in the car. Her friend Chris, a junior she met through her art frat, greets her from the driver’s seat, and she feels herself smiling at him, hears herself apologize for taking so long. She turns to wave at Dipper through the window, who gives a little wave back, wearing a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.
The car starts, and then Mabel is driving away from him, Chris striking up a light conversation about stuff going on this weekend, parties, the fundraiser, this and that. Chris’ voice sounds far away in her ears. So does her own, as she musters up pretending-to-listen responses, her eyes fixed on the passenger side mirror. She stares as the image of her brother—alone under the orange glow of a streetlight, back hunched, hands in his pockets—becomes smaller and smaller until Chris finally makes a right turn and Dipper is gone.