Weekend Ruse

Part 4

Whatever effect the kiss had had on Mabel wore off quickly. She's laughing as they run through the streetlamp lit roads towards the campus dorms. It bleeds into the night, brilliantly outshining the stars and the moon. He isn't sure if it's the endorphins from the running, or if it was the kiss or her laughing, but Dipper feels high. All the anger and anxiety melts away. He finds himself laughing along with her. Their laughter doesn't stop until they fall onto his sofa, exhausted.

"That was really cray-cray, Bro," she manages to say after their breathing became normal again. "What was all that about, anyway." She does jazz hands, gesturing towards the heavens in reference to that.

And he didn't know what else he could possible say other than, "Just um...Had to bring the point home for them."

It doesn't explain why they had to run off, but she accepts his answer with a nod.
"You got some weird friends, Bro-ster," she mumbles, more to herself than him. They fall silent. Dipper starts to squirm next to her, quickly coming down from his high.

They should actually talk about it, right?
Wait, no. They don't need to. It was part of the ruse, part of the game. Nothing's different between them. He should just drop it. She seems perfectly fine with dropping it. She isn't pressing the issue. So just pretend it didn't happen, because it's kind of like it didn't. It didn't mean anything. He couldn't let it mean anything.

So he keeps up the charade.

"Today went...well."

"Well? Dippingsauce, it went epically. I should be an actress. We should totally drop out of school, and fly to Hollywood."

"Yeah, okay." But he's shaking his head. Ann saw through it, and maybe Jean did too. They were horrible actors. But Mabel doesn't need to know that, or anything Ann had said outside the frozen yogurt shop. "How about we drink hot chocolate and go to bed instead?"

"That is an equally acceptable plan."

He smiles, surprised by how easily things are going despite that only minutes ago he had been nibbling on her bottom lip. And okay, he shouldn't be thinking about her lips or how soft and sweet they are...
He hops up off the sofa to the tiny kitchen.

"I'm gonna go take a Russian shower. I feel kind of..."
He isn't certain what she's going to say, or why he feels like whatever word she's about to use is directly linked to the kiss. He does know that he doesn't want to hear how disgusting it was, because it didn't feel all that disgusting to him (even though he knows it should've been gross and much, much harder to press his lips onto hers).

So he quickly nods and asks, "Russian shower?"

"You rush in, ya rush out."

He forces a laugh, suddenly feeling awkward as he pulls out the one small pot he owns and fills it with water.

As he sets the water to a boil, he listens for the shower to come on. He listens as she starts caterwauling the chorus of Walking on Sunshine.He feels his muscles relax for the first time since waking up this afternoon. Everything's fine. It worked out fine.

He mixes the hot water and chocolate powder into cups, dropping extra marshmallows into Mabel's. Back at the couch, he's placing the hot chocolate onto the coffee table when she reenters the room. Damp hair curling, fresh faced, eyes lidded, wearing nothing but his plaid shirt as she glides over to him.

His pulse is racing. He can the feel the vein in his neck along with a lower part of his anatomy twitch at the sight of her. His mouth goes dry, and he finds himself licking his lips when she sits down next to him. Her fresh scent floods his nose. He glances down at her bare legs and blinks.