Then and Now | billdip

ch 1

The morning the pines twins were scheduled to leave for gravity falls, the atmosphere held a weird tension. Not an angry tension, but one that was just off. Mable noticed it first. Waking up first, she felt something wasn't right. She decided to head over to her brothers room and get his two cents on it.

Waking Dipper up with a loud knock on his door, she let herself into his room. "Dipper. Wake up. I need your opinion." Dipper groaned. "If it's another fashion question, I'm not awake enough." The standing twin walked over to her brothers bed and sat on the end of it. "I can assure you it's not a fashion question. Just concentrate on ur surroundings. Does something feel off to you? Like the atmosphere, air, anything?" Dipper shushed her sister so her could focus. "I mean, yeah kinda. It's a little weird." Mable nodded in agreement, then, left to make herself breakfast, leaving her brother to his thoughts.
Dipper sat up in his bed and reached for the glass of water on his bedside table. He scoffed to himself as he brought the glass to his lips. His sister was right but he didn't know how or why there was such a sudden change in the environment. Surely it was just a coincidence that this happened the day they're leaving for their fourth summer in gravity falls, right? He brushed off the feeling and proceed to get dressed and heading downstairs to his sister.

"Need some coffee? You're the one drivinggg." Mable handed him a mug that read 'worlds best mom.' "Why." "Why not." Dipper shrugged. She had a point. "Anyways, shall we get going? I'm dreading the eight and a half hour drive so we'd better leave right about now." Mabel was once again correct. They planned to leave by eight am, and it was currently seven forty seven. "Yeahh. Grab my keys and meet me at the car."
The two started their journey to Oregon. They played a road sigh game in the car that kept them busy for the first three hours of the drive. "What letter are you on." Mable squinted at an oncoming road sign. "Q. What about you." Dipper sighed. "N. It's not fair, I'm driving so I can't really see the signs." "Oh boo hoo. Hey look, we're nearing the Oregon border. Twenty three more miles." Dipper furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't think that's right. We've only been driving for three hours." "Oh. Well then it probably didn't say twenty three."

Dipper was left to himself and his music when Mable fell asleep an hour after they finished their game. He really didn't do much but drive the car. Nothing was going through his mind, he wasn't chewing on anything, he wasn't tapping his fingers. The car was coming up on a sign, which Dipper read aloud. "Oregon, 263 miles. That's not too bad with only four hours left on this trip."

"Mable. Mable. Mabel wake up!!" Mable groaned into consciousness. "What." "We're almost there. Fifteen more minutes. But there's some freak weather warnings." Just as he said that, there was a long, angry streak of lighting, followed by a loud clap of thunder. "Yeesh. Oh look the backroads. Turn there I know those roads like the back of my hand." Dipper turned his blinker on and turned to an exit off the highway and towards the backroads. "Finally were almost home." Dipper laughed. The mystery shack was like a second home. They both considered it there first home as they did most of their crazy things here. And gravity falls was where they fit in and had genuine friends. Everyone in California was either rich and snobby, middle class and fake or money hungry and greedy. The pines twins didn't fit in any of those categories.

"Dipper we're almost there. In like five minutes we'll be opening the door to the house! Also, it's getting increasingly darker out cause of this storm." Dipper agreed and started driving slower, the visibility on the dirt roads was poor as it is, but add a crazy storm on top and the visibility is decreased a tenfold. "Hopefully a tree doesn't fall or something." As if by command, lightning struck a nearing tree on the side of the road, dipper slammed his foot on the breaks and jolted his head over to the tree trunk as it fell. He could've sworn he saw someone standing by the tree, but whoever it was had disappeared. "Looks like we're walking the rest of the way to the shack." Dipper pulled over to the side of the road, parked and handed an umbrella to Mable. The two of them got out of the car and headed to the shack.

In the ten minute walk it took to get to the mystery shack from Dippers car, the twins were soaked from head to toe. Dipper opened the door to the gift shop entrance and walked in.
"Oh hey dudes." Soos greeted them from behind the counter. "Soos!" The two of them ran up to the big guy and hugged him around the stomach. "How's it feel to have graduateddd." Dipper pulled away first. "It feels pretty good. Did I tell you what I'm doing for 'college.'" Soos shook his head. Mable smiled at her brother, knowing what he chose to do and although it made her sad, she's happy it makes him happy. "I'm staying here with Ford and being his apprentice!" "Aw Dip that's great! And Mable, What'd you choose to go to college for?" "I'm going for the arts. Mostly painting and sculpting but I'll play around with other things as well." Soos patted her on the back. "That's also great. You guys are gonna do amazing. Anyways, shall we find the rest of the shacks inhabitants?"

After rounding up Stan, Ford and Wendy and catching up a bit, the twins brought their things upstairs and started unpacking. "What crazy things do you think we'll get into this summer?" This was a question Dipper asked his sister every year they visited the falls. Ever since weirdmageddon, there hasn't been any crazy things in the falls. It's been mostly normal, except for the occasional weird magical creature that Dipper always went looking for. Ever since the journals were burned, Dipper had been trying to write his own in order to replenish what was missing, but for the last three summers it hadn't gone very well. "I dunno Dip Dot, in all honesty, I hope something does happen. It's our fourth year here since weirdmageddon and nothing really extravagant has happened. It's kinda weird, the falls is so different from how it was all those years ago." Dipper couldn't help but agree. Not having all the weird phenomenons happen in the town was out of the ordinary even if it had been four years.

An hour later, Stan came upstairs to tell the twins that Ford had made reservations at the diner for the four of them plus Soos and Wendy. "Alright dinner time!" Mable ran out the door and down the steps, Dipper not far behind her. "Let's go get some greasy diner food."

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an: sorry to violate anyone who lives in california 😔✊🏻
and also the first like four chapters mabel's name may be spelled 'mable' a few times so like oops