Sweatertown

Mabel

Hi, Rowan here. Just a friendly FYI, I'm an edgy shit, so trigger warning for self-harm, suicide, all that fun stuff. Have fun reading this terrible fanfic, and good luck. (You might want to break out the holy water.)

Also. I have a lot on my plate right now (being so amazing all the time is exhausting), so I probably won't be updating very often. So sorry for the slow to nonexistent updates. If anyone even reads this in the first place. Which they probably won't so it doesn't matter.

Mabel was slightly concerned. Actually, she was more than slightly concerned.

She was freaking out.

Because of Dipper. Of course it was because of Dipper.

Honestly it had been coming for a long time, she knew that, but this summer was the first time he  was really full on smacked in the face with the cement block of a fact that Dipper was unwell. Something was wrong with him, but she couldn't figure out what it was, and he certainly wasn't going to tell her. The almost sixteen year old boy was slouching around, hardly eating, and had deep purple bags under his eyes. All she knew was that the light had gone out of his once lively and expressive face, and what was once lively brown was now muted and dark. He had switched out his once lively and semi-colorful outfits for dark hoodies and long sleeved shirts, even in the sweltering heat of Gravity Falls' summer. Once, as he disappeared into his room after a long bath, she thought she saw a drop of blood slide down onto his hand from under his hoodie sleeve, but she couldn't be sure. That alone worried her, but she couldn't bring herself to tell Soos or Grunkle Stan. It felt too much like a betrayal of his trust.

He stayed in his room most of the time, only coming out when their great uncle made him show up for his shifts restocking shelves or sitting at the register, to grab food, or when he went out to sleep sometimes in the woods at night. Mabel didn't want him to go out, in case he got hurt -- after all, Gravity Falls had all sorts of weird hanging out in its bushes -- but Dipper didn't seem to care at all. He would only return early in the morning, with dirt on his clothes and his face wet, to take a shower and go sleep most of the day away in his room.

Once she asked him why he went out in the woods almost every other night, but he just snapped at her to leave him alone. She didn't press him, instead hoping he would come to her on his own terms to talk like they used to, when they were 12. Mabel smiled. It seems like so long ago now Dipper had been a happy, carefree child instead of the haunted mess that had just stomped up the stairs to the attic to bathe. She waited in her room while he took almost two hours in the bathroom, but to no avail. After he got out, he merely headed straight to his borderline closet of a room and shut the door. Mabel are almost certain she could hear quiet sobbing from behind it, but a creaking floorboard gave her away as she tried to approach.

The crying stopped. "Dipper?" she called as she lightly tapped the door with her brightly painted nails. "Are you alright?" A noise like a sniffle emanated from behind the old wood. "I'm fine, Mabel, just leave me alone!" She rested her head against the door frame and sighed. "You know you can talk to me, right, Dipper?" There was a squeaking sound as Dipper shifted on his bed. "Yeah, ok, whatever will make you go away," he muttered. Mabel bowed her head sadly and trudged back to the attic room they used to share, before Dipper insisted on moving out of it and having his own space. She couldn't really blame him, she supposed, but she didn't understand why he took a tiny almost-closet in the far corner of the shack instead of one of the empty rooms. All that fit in it was a bed, small dresser, lamp, and him.

It was later in the evening, during Mabel's cashier shift, that Dipper approached her. "Mabel." She started, and craned her head back to look at him as he passed the counter covered in oddities. "Yeah? What's up, bro?" He paused and stared at her. His face caught the light reflected off the jar of eyeballs, and suddenly Mabel could see every gaunt angle in his miserable expression. "I'm going out. Don't wait up." He continued towards the door, only to stop again as she called out to him. "Dipper, wait!" He turned his head slightly towards her. "Where are you going? Why do you stay out all night?" emotion poured into her voice and she was almost crying as she asked, "What's going on, Dipper? Why won't you talk to anyone?" It was dead silent in the shack as she whispered, "Please, let me help you."

He turned back away from her and pushed the screen door open. "For once in your life, Mabel, mind your own business. God knows you only make things worse when you don't." She winced, both from his harsh words and the slam the screen door made in Stan's too-quiet house. Tears silently slid down her cheeks as she watched her twin's form fade between the dark shadows of the twilight forest. "Please," she whispered, knowing full well no one could hear her. "Please, just let me help."