TİCK

ENTRY 02: A PUT-ON PRETENSE

I can see it in your eyes. Mason, what's got you so panicked?
She couldn't say that.
His first name was the ultimate red flag and he'd shut down all communication.
So instead she promised to show him her secret, in the hopes that the promise of a new mystery would be enough to shift his focus.
Even now, she could see his shoulders inching into his ears and the firey red of his neck.
He was freaking out and it was starting to choke her.
When they were younger, she had always rallied against his pessimistic nature and hadn't even begun to understand why she always knew what everyone else felt.
She had tried to put herself first, look out for number one, but that made things worse.
Like she was drowning and drowning and drowning.
Especially after she had been trapped in that Dreamscape.
She knew the reality out there was tragic and Dipper needed her and she could feel his pain and his panic but she actually felt happy - like she mattered - and she just couldn't let that go.
But she had found a book.
A fourth Journal.
It was more like a diary than a scouting book and already she knew that if she had shown Dipper he wouldn't have been able to hide it from Ford.
The first page was a happily drawn girl with a speech bubble in code,
DAO NBOCT TDREUFSGT
GHRIAJVKILTMY FNAOLPLQS.
-do not trust gravity falls-
But it steadily grew into a book explaining the people of their town and even more secrets.
And she hadn't even finished the first chapter yet but already she couldn't look at Gideon the same way ever again.
His father had sold his kindness to some kind of charisma demon named Kiea.
And he'd never age past twenty.
Already he was supposed to be at least thirty but his age and memory kept winding down.
It drove his mother insane.
But worse was finding out about her own developing powers.
She didn't know if Dipper had noticed - back in California, they barely had anytime to truly talk about anything - but she had to dump several of her closest friends.
Because she could feel their jealousy and it was like having a slimy grease ball sitting on her chest restricting her breathing.
But what was truly awful was choking on her mother's disappointment in her.
She knew she wasn't Dipper but she certainly wasn't perky enough to voluntarily join the cheer team.
Plus some of them were mean to Dipper.
She had to get out of that house.
Flopping into her old attic bed, an involuntary giggle slips when she finally notices how bedraggled Dipper looks.
The goat - how old was that thing? - was once again chewing on his bookbag and the expression on Dipper's face was so done that all the stress of the school year, all the stress of becoming a freak, it all went away just like that.
"What's up, hambones!"
Rocketing onto her feet, she all but tackles their resident handy-man and brand spanking new owner of the Mystery Shack in an infamous Mabel Hug™.
His emotions are like summer, bright and flighty and she just wants to stay in the embrace but of course, she should have really been happy for the full hour of peace that she was even allowed.
Because as soon as Dipper got his own greeting in - a boring little handshake - and Soos left to go get some pizza bagels, he turned to her and paused.
"Alright, Mabel. Out with it."
She actually choked on her spit.
Or glitter.
That was a possibility.
But she could not get air into her lungs for a solid thirty seconds as she tried to figure out how to explain the Journal.
Oh, she had it.
It literally never left her side.
But it was hers.
Dipper had had his.
But this was supposed to be hers and for a moment, she contemplated playing dumb.
But she couldn't.
She had promised.
"Promise me you won't tell anyone. Not even Ford or Stan."
Dipper actually looked taken aback by that but she remained steady until he finally raises his left hand,
"I swear on the Mystery Twins."
Pulling out the white book with its dogeared pages and the odd vanilla scent that followed it, she carefully hands it to Dipper.
And the spell is broken.
She didn't know where the wave of protectiveness had come from but this was her brother.
Of course, she could trust him.
Her brother's eyes grow comically wide and she can actually see the dangly thing in his throat as though he were about to scream but all that came out in some strangled, hoarse mockery of her brother's voice was,
"Where did you find this?"