Gravity Falls, Falls in Love( Dipper x Mabel)

Chapter #12 (Poor Spirits)

*DIPPER*

The ride home that night had been a silent one; neither of us wanting to approach the weirdness of it all. So I just put Mabel in the passenger's seat, took off my wet shirt, swapping it for the warmth of Mabel's sweater, and drove us back to the shack. As we drove along the windy and bumpy road the cicadas' song coupled with the gentle hum of the summer breeze maneuvering through the foliage put Mabel to sleep. Well it was that or all the emotional trauma Gideon had caused her.
That kid. That's all he was. How could I hold so much anger and resentment for a child that barely came up to my shoulder. At this point my anger had dissipated, or at least had nulled itself a little, but it truly reached it's peak when I was drowning in that lake. Gasping for breath and each stroke never bringing me close enough to save her, yet he had the luxury to sit beside her, and he used that, no he abused it and attempted to corrupt her mind like a.. like a....
"LIKE A MONSTER!" I growled slamming on the breaks, lurching the car forward in a jaunting stop.
Mabel shot awake  gracing me with her emerald eyes, parting my cloud of personal anguish. We sat again listening to all the background noise; all the static, left alone in our own form of silence yet again. I was almost getting used to it, which sent a chill down my spine.
I could feel her concerned glance scanning me up and down.
"Sorry," I mumbled, anything to distract from the sudden stop, surveying my surroundings I realize where we are, "But um, we're here," I choke.
I watch her eyes break their involvement with me and look out the car's windows. The defensive and high alert posture she had initially upon waking, has melted away, her shoulders dropping with a shuttered breath. She was happy to be home.
We took our time walking into the house, my pants still dripping wet, and both of us covered in the mud that had surrounded the lake.
I assume Stan caught the tulle of Mabel's dress as she passed the living room on her way to the stairs.
"Hey you two where ya been?" He bellowed.
Shit we were caught. There was no way to hide it anymore I was about to come clean when Mabel interjected, "Nowhere Grunkle Stan!"
Her voice rang with excitement and joy. If I didn't know her any better I would assume it's real. But I knew her, and I knew how disingenuous her response was; she was hiding something.
I opted to let Mabel shower first, but she insisted that I smelled rank and I deserved the first shower, so I took what I could. I tried to make it quick but between the grime from the lake that caked my entire body, and my jumbled thoughts, my 10 minute shower turned into a 45 minute shower.
When I finally got out, towel wrapped around my waist, I was met face to face with an impatient Mabel towel in hand.
"Oh um I-" she stuttered. She used her hand to block me out of view, or to hide her blush, which I could both see and feel radiating off her smooth cheeks.
"You fall in?" She mumbled through her hand.
Instead of shooting back at an obviously awkward Mabel, I simply responded, "Yeah something like that."
I went to our room and quickly got changed. As I rummaged through my drawers looking for clean boxers, which there were few of because I hated doing laundry, I stumbled upon that book I found in the woods. I really took the opportunity to take it all in.
It was a worn dark leather with a few scratches along it. The binding was intact, the entire book was in decent condition; however there was something uncanny about the journal. Perhaps it was the bloody, six fingered hand print on the cover. In the center of which was a large "3".
I peered through our door into the hallway, witnessing the steam's escape from the bathroom through the crack under the door. My ears stung as Mabel belted out the words to her favorite pop song, which would change in approximately the next hour. But for now I had time, and just enough to further explore the mysteries concealed in the pages of the notebook.
I opened to the first page, hoping to meet the author, but instead I am met with a partially torn page where the author should have been; this page was also stained with someone or something's blood. Flipping through the pages, I discovered the book to only be about half full, the rest blank and empty, as though it was unfinished; someone was interrupted. And I was too.
I could hear thunderous commotion as Mabel bounded her way into our room, throwing herself onto the mountain of pillows she called a bed.
"All clean!" She boasted shining me a perfect toothy smile.
I released a small giggle to amuse her.
"Alright we've had a long day I think we should get some rest," she said, acting as the voice of reason, but I agreed it had been a long day. Just then I recognized how heavy my eyelids had become, whether it be a side effect of the night's events or reading.
"Yea," I acknowledged, "Good night Mabel."
"Night Dipper," she sang as she faded into a realm of dreams. But as tired as I was I couldn't sleep not with all the unknown creatures being lost in the pages of that book. Who was the mad man behind the documented myths? And which if those weren't myth at all? I had to know, not just for me but for her. So that night I didn't sleep, I let the dim light of the moon guide my eyes as a nodded off to the stories of nightmares.