Fereality's Gravity Falls Shorts

Freckles

From the prompt: You think she's the cutest thing you've ever seen. But you know that people get a freckle for every heart they break, and she has them all over her face, shoulders, and arms. Yet every time she looks at you, your heart feels full.  

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Thanks to his birthmark, Dipper had heard that freckles were the sign that you had broken someone's heart ever since he could remember. He didn't really believe them until one day in the first grade Mabel came to him, scared that they weren't twins anymore because she had a new freckle on her shoulder. He found out later, that she had turned down a kiss from the class bully because of the way he treated Dipper.

She had vowed from then on to try to treat everyone as sweet as she could. She still gets 2 or 3 a year, but she continues on.

Dipper on the other hand was freckle free until that first Summer in Gravity Falls. He figured he may be clear until adulthood, but he gets four after the tourist trap road trip Grunkle Stan had taken him, Mabel, & her friends on. There were a cluster of four freckles on his chest when he got back to the Shack from that trip.

But he also knows that he probably put one on his best friend, Wendy. He never meant to but he fell hard for her, even though he was only twelve at the time. Her playful personality, kind heart, cheerful laugh, beautiful red hair, etc. Add in the fact that she treated him as an equal, not a scrawny armed freak and he fell head over heels. But she also had freckles dotting her face, across her shoulders, and down her arms. He heard Mabel mention that Wendy had an extensive list of exes, but that really didn't matter to him. He still got butterflies every time he was with her.

About two thirds of the way through that summer, she let him down softly and they stayed friends. But he did notice a new freckle on her wrist and wished he hadn't been the one to place it there.

Over the next several Summers, he and Mabel continued to visit Gravity Falls and he invariably reconnected with Wendy. And also invariably he would notice a new freckle on her wrist as the Summer would come to the end. He tried to tell himself that they were because he was heartbroken over leaving his friend, but he knew deep down that freckles didn't work like that.

The summer before their 18th birthday, as the twins were preparing to head to Gravity Falls, Mabel commented on his freckles. He reminded her that she was there when he got the cluster on his chest. She responded that she wasn't talking about them, she was talking about the five on his back. She had noticed the first two after that first summer and he had gotten a new one after they had gotten home each year since. Maybe he should figure out whose heart he is breaking. And considering that they really only hang out with the same group of friends each year and there is only one other single in the group, well...

He decides to take a chance when they get to town. During their first movie night he apologized for the small strand of freckles he caused on her wrist. He tells her that he tried to get over her, but he wasn't able to and he understands if she doesn't want to be around him.

She said she would do no such thing and in turn apologized herself. She said that she had been scared. That her shoulders and arms were a testament to her bad history and ability to break hearts. She was scared that she would break his permanently and she didn't want that to happen. So she was content to just be friends. But if they both still wanted more after all this time then maybe, just maybe, it would be worth the risk.