To the Nights in the Hold of Stone (BillDip)

A Monster Free Lake Trip(5)

Dipper POV

The girls were already down stairs, waiting by the front door for me, trying to remember how to get to the lake. Mabel had two towels thrown over her shoulder, I almost burst out laughing when I saw them, our old towels that we are pretty sure Stan stole for us. She passed me one with a judgmental once over.

"Ready?" Pacifica asked, giving me a similar look just less harsh.

"Yeah, you guys did just invite me to be your guide right?" I'll admit, I don't like self deprecating humor. I spent too many years with jokes much worse than this used as weapons against me, but with Mabel it's always been the way to get a laugh out of her.

Is that really the way to her heart? I thought I was a tough one.

The hair's on my neck stood straight up, and my arms tensed. He hadn't spoken to me like that sense the day we made the deal, I'd almost forgotten.

Pacifica laughed lightly, smacking my shoulder before grabbing Mabel's hand, neither of them seemed to notice my sudden shock. "No no, don't be silly, you were just the first person we saw this morning."

I forced a laugh along with her. Mabel cracked a small smile but she didn't join in the commentary, instead she pushed open the door and moved our small awkward party out of the shack.

With that motion we kept moving, once we had fallen into a rhythm we fell into silence. I ended up out in front of the two of them, they'd comfortably stopped talking in favor of taking in their surroundings. I could do this trail with my eyes closed and still tell you where everything is, this silence was very uncomfortable to me. I was suffocating under the knowledge that if Mabel wasn't mad with me there wouldn't be a moment for anyone to catch their breath.

After an extremely painful walk to the lake, the sight of the water brought the girls back from their silence. "Damn!" Mabel was the one to speak up, she jumped past, "I forgot how big it really was!"

"There was a large robot lake monster that went undetected till we found it." I recalled softly, leaving out that sense then Ford and I found evidence that there really is a lake monster living on the lake floor.

"It's just been so long, and everything looked big to us when we were young." She looked back over her shoulder at me. I was already beaming, this is the longest conversation she's had with me since she got here. When she smiled at me, her real smile, I could have sung. "I can't imagine what it looked like for you! You were so short back then!"

Being taller than her now I could officially laugh that joke off and just enjoy joking with her again.

"Yeah and it's still huge even now." I laughed, shoving her shoulder lightly, I thought for a split second that the touch would rock her back into her senses and she would stop talking to me again, go back to giving me the cold shoulder. But instead she returned the shove and ran off. She went towards the water, stopping just short of the tide to drop her towel.

I forgot that Pacifica had stayed beside me till she put her hand on my arm, "I knew coming out here would be good for you two." Then she followed Mabel, to lay out the towel she dropped. Not wanting to be left out any longer I followed her.

We all splashed in till we started to swim out towards where we couldn't touch the sandy anymore. Mabel dove deep before coming back up to float on her back. Her long brown hair floating as a halo in the dark green waters, she smiled widely with an exasperated sigh. "I forget how nice this place is!" Her eyes turned on me and I ducted while treading water, "Are you seriously wearing long sleeves! Are you still that insecure!?!" she punctuated the jab with a laugh that made even Pacifica giggle.

I raised an eyebrow back at her, trying to ignore how the shirt in question clung awkwardly to my shoulders. Brushing off the comment I sunk under the surface to the sound of their laughter. I swam downwards till I was well out of view from the murky surface, then back up to where I knew they were still floating. Feeling for them in the water I used the last bit of air still trapped in my lungs to grab their ankles and pull hard, pushing myself off them to the surface. The relief of air was short lived, one of their hands found my own foot and I was back underwater.

Coming back up as quickly as I could, the girls had beaten me back to the surface, posed to splash me in the face with all their might. "I give!" I coughed, trying to shout and breathe at the same time. Pathetically splashing back to make them stop.

We spend part of the day going back and forth like this in the water. Mabel was laughing and talking to me but she never quit playing with me. She always found a way to be the opposite of me. Even when Pacifica joined me in an attack on her when I thought she'd want to retaliate with me she just turned on me and it ended with both of them teamed up against me. It was off putting, my partner in crime was refusing to work with me even after all this time.

"Hey, I'm going back to shore! I think I might drown if I try to stay out here!" Pacifica laughed struggling to tread water in place.

"Ok!" Mabel agreed even though she looked like she could go for a bit longer, I felt like I could go for longer too, "I'll join you!"

I nodded, if only to myself because Pacifica was already swimming back and Mabel was only looking at her.

We sunk down on the towels with very little grace. It wasn't very smart of us to not bring any food or water.

"Oh! I have an idea, on our way back to the shack we should stop by Bill's old statue. I haven't seen it in ages!" Pacifica offered, her energy already returning to her.

I blinked at her, I had almost forgotten they can't remember Bill showing up a few days ago, "Uh well- why would you want to go there?" I asked hoping they would change their minds.

Don't worry, it's time, Pinetree. Bill's voice filled my thoughts. Ery, I tried to ignore him.

Mabel squinted at me, "Are you scared?"

"I am not- He destroyed the town, turned almost a hundred people to stone and blasted a hole right through my chest." I patted the center of my chest as if the hole was still there. "He trapped you in a prison of endless summer, I just didn't think that his statue would be one of the first things you'd want to see coming home." The argument felt weak, it was the first thing I did when I came back here, but she and I have become very different so why would she want to see the statue?

Her face darkened a little, closing off from me again, "This isn't my home. California is my home. I'm just visiting and that's what you do when you visit. You see the sights." She huffed and pushed to her feet, reaching for her extra clothes and she started to get dressed, "I think I remember where it is so if you don't want to come with us we will find it on our own."

"Wait! Chill I'm coming, it just caught me off guard is all." I muttered, her stubbornness as annoying as ever.

Pacifica pulled on her dry clothes and I simply wrapped a dry towel around my waist over my damp shorts and shirt.

We made our way away from the water and whatever progress I thought I'd been making with Mabel faded away into the distance with it. 

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Also a little short cause it's technically only half a chapter, the others will become longer as the story goes.