Chapter Text
“Really?” cried Cassie, her eyes wide. “You’re serious?”
Mabel smiled broadly at her daughter’s excitement. “Abso’-Rootin’-Tootin’-Lootley!” she replied, throwing a delighted glance at Dipper before grasping Cassie’s shoulders. The girl was so excited she was bouncing. “We decided it’s finally time to go back! We’ll be leaving in two days.” Cassie was practically vibrating with glee, making Mabel even happier. “You’re finally going to see some of those weird things about Gravity Falls we’ve been telling you about for so long!”
“Oh, man! Oh man oh man! Mom! Thank you thank you thank you so much!” Cassie lunged forward and almost knocked her mother over with a hug. Before Mabel could even put her arms around the hoodie-clad girl, the twelve-year-old flung herself across to Dipper and squeezed him even harder, nearly crushing her glasses against his chest. “Thank you Uncledip! Thank you thank you!” In a microsecond she was heading for her notoriously cluttered room, talking to herself. “I’ll need to find my bug spray! And plenty of sunscreen! And lots of different clothes. And the ScrapJournal! Maybe I’d better start another new one …” Her voice faded as the twins watched her bedazzled high-top sneakers disappear up the stairs.
Mabel grinned at Dipper. Her brother was looking bemusedly at the staircase. “You’re welcome,” he proclaimed to the empty space where the girl had been moments earlier. Mabel laughed and punched him affectionately on his shoulder. “Ow!” he yelped with a small chuckle. “Are you ever going to stop doing that?”
“Nope!” his sister replied happily. “And you love it!” She stepped closer and coyly placed her hands on Dipper’s waist, looking up into his eyes. “Just like you love me!” Mabel declared quietly.
“Really!” Dipper replied with a growing smile, sliding a palm across Mabel’s stomach to her waist. He lowered his face to touch his nose to Mabel’s as he wrapped his arms around her securely. “You’re so sure about that?”
Mabel leaned back and cocked her head to the side. Her face was suddenly confused. “You could be right! I haven’t heard you tell me you love me in … almost fifteen minutes now!” Her eyes widened and she gasped loudly. “Maybe all these years have just been a huge lie!” Her mouth dropped open dramatically and she froze.
Dipper stoically regarded his sister’s shocked expression. They both stared at each other motionless for a long moment. Finally, Dipper broke first, as he always did, snorting and turning his grinning face away as Mabel smirked triumphantly. Dipper pulled Mabel tightly against him. “You are a colossal nitwit!” he murmured.
“And you are the Lord of Dorkness,” Mabel whispered, sliding her hands behind her brother’s neck and shoulders, pulling his face to hers.
Still smiling, they gave one another several gentle pecks on the lips. Then Dipper produced a barely-audible gasp of desire, opening his mouth and squeezing his lover’s body more fervently. Mabel made a joyful squeak, melting into the embrace and allowing her tongue to dance with his.
The twins had never in their lives been happier than the last several months. Prior to the events of the previous summer, their romantic relationship had been inherently stressful: they had always been in constant fear of discovery, never feeling safe or secure. When they weren’t being kept apart, every minute they spent together was in hiding, even within every house or apartment they had called home. But now they were finally reveling in being able to freely be in love, at least in and around Trenton, New Jersey, and within their small rented townhouse. As far as anyone in the city knew, they were a happily married couple. The satisfaction of being able to hold hands and kiss in public, or simply being able to make out in their own living room, still hadn’t lost its luster.
A louder moan escaped from Mabel’s throat. Dipper’s kisses never failed to arouse her. She could feel the earnest, complete love for her that radiated from him, a feeling that made her knees weak every time. Her body molded and writhed into him, inviting his strong arms to hold her even closer.
Dipper lowered a hand to cup Mabel’s butt, squeezing and lifting her so her hips pressed solidly against his own. Their breathing grew ragged as their kissing became more passionate. Their pelvises instinctively ground together.
And then the mood was broken by the sound of a young girl clearing her throat from across the room.
Mabel stopped cold, a mischievous glint in her eye as her lips remained pressed on Dipper’s mouth. For his part, Dipper sheepishly pulled away and turned slowly to the bottom of the stairs, where Cassie stood with her arms folded.
“You two are gross!” she grumbled, a small sardonic smile on her face as she addressed her mother. “I don’t think you’d want to see me grabbing some boy and doing any of that junk, Mom!” Mabel considered that, then screwed up her face and shook her head in agreement. Cassie’s faux-disapproval expression grew as she crossed the room. With a fist on her hip, she pointed up sternly at an embarrassed Dipper, his arms still in place around Mabel’s body. “And as for you, ‘Uncle’ Dipper, you keep making me wish I didn’t figure out last summer that you’re my dad!”
“I’m sorry,” Dipper said sincerely, his face flushing as he pulled free of his sister’s grasp and pushed an awkward hand through his hair. “You’re … you’re right, Cass. It’s really not right that we do any of this. Maybe we shouldn’t-”
“No, you should!” his daughter interrupted, instantly serious and visibly upset. “… Dad … I was just kidding! Please don’t … I just …” Cassie’s voice trailed off, and she clumsily directed her attention down to the floor.
Mabel leaned down to the tween’s height, looking sympathetic with a sad lopsided smile. She ruffled her fingers through a mop of thick brown hair: her daughter’s hair was shorter, but looked and felt so much like her own. And like Dipper’s, of course. “Cassie, you’re always saying you’re okay, but are you sure that it doesn’t bother you? You know … knowing the truth?” She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We know it’s been almost a year, but … well, it can’t be easy for you to have to deal with our whole weird ‘family secret’ thingy.”
Cassie swallowed and tentatively raised her head. “I’m okay, Mom,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself.
Mabel made a pointed harrumph as she gave Cassie’s shoulder a little shake. “Pumpkin, you don’t lie any better than I do!” she gently admonished. She felt the girl’s shoulders slump, followed by the sound of a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, I guess it does still bother me a little,” Cassie confessed, playing with the hem of her glittery skirt. “I try not to let it, but … it’s hard sometimes. It was simpler before, ya know?” Her voice dropped to a timid mumble. “Before I knew about the … incest … thing.”
As Mabel made a comforting acknowledgement, neither she nor Cassie noticed Dipper slouch, his body language and expression looking like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He’d always felt somewhat guilty over the burden that had fallen on their daughter, the responsibility to help keep the true nature of his relationship to his sister, and to Cassie, under a tight lid. Now he allowed the guilt to flow freely. His eyes flicked around, unfocused.
“Sometimes I worry about messing up in front of people, ‘cause I know how bad that could be,” Cassie was saying, looking downcast. Then her face brightened. “But most of the time-”
Dipper wasn’t paying attention to Cassie’s change of mood. “Cassie, I’m so sorry,” he said dejectedly, staring out a window. “This is all so unfair to you-”
“Dipper-” Mabel tried to interject.
“No!” Dipper exclaimed, glaring at his sister. “This is our fault Mabel! This is …” His voice grew quieter as he shuffled to the other side of the room. “This is my fault! The way I’ve always looked at you, she caught on to that … then I didn’t close your bedroom door all the way that time when she saw me kissing you …” Dipper hung his head in shame. “… and she finds out her whole life was a lie!”
Cassie meekly attempted to console her father. “It’s okay … Dad …”
Dipper exhaled sharply. “Yeah! ‘Dad!’ Some father I am!” He put a hand over his forehead as he paced to the other side of the room and back. “You seemed to take it so well, I didn’t really think about how much of a mindfu- … how screwy all this must have seemed to you! I mean, what eleven-year-old kid finds out her uncle is also her father? And then …” He made himself look his daughter in eye, “… we forced you to share our secret. We tell you you’ve got to lie, because your parents are in a relationship that is illegal! That everyone in society would think your mother and I are sick! And that they’d even think that you are anything less than perfect, regardless of …” Dipper couldn’t finish the sentence as he subtly choked back a sob.
“And then on top of all that,” Dipper continued, unaware of Mabel and Cassie’s growing distress, “I come up with this brilliant plan! ‘Hey! Since Cassie knows the truth now, we can start over! Why don’t we move to a new city, where they don’t know we’re siblings! We can pretend we’re married, like we’re a nice normal family, and everything will be great!’ Yeah … just another huge lie!”
“Dipper, we came up with that plan together!” Mabel cried, moving herself into the path of his pacing and gripping his arms. “Ever since we got here, you know that things have been better!”
“Yeah, better for the two of us! We got everything we always wanted.” Dipper pointed at Cassie. “But what about her? She had just learned the truth, and not two months later we pull up and move down the state, away from Mom and Dad, away from her school, her friends, everything she knew! We took from her any comfort she had before we messed up her life!” Dipper’s voice broke, and he paused only long enough to swipe away the growing wetness in his eyes before he continued ranting to his sister. “Then we ask her to go out and pretend like her whole world hasn’t just been turned upside-down! She’s not supposed to have an uncle anymore! She’s not supposed to call me ‘Uncledip’: no, I’m ‘Dad’ now! But she still slips up! Did you hear her call me Uncledip just a few minutes ago when we told her about the vacation? And, oh, but wait! What if we go back to Westfield to visit the folks, and we see the old neighbors and friends? And what about when we see the Grunkles and Soos and everyone else next week in Gravity Falls? I’m ‘Uncledip’ again, I guess!” Dipper stepped back to wave his arms in frustration. “This is insane! We’re messing up her head! How is any of this better?”
Dipper was startled as two small hands gripped one of his wrists. He looked down to see Cassie’s trembling face, and was instantly regretful of his outburst. She was tugging on his arm, and immediately he let her pull him down so that he was kneeling in front of her, feeling her hands grip his own tightly.
“Dad, I … I know you and Mom have loved each other a long time, and … well I wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t, and, well …” She sobbed quietly, swallowed, and looked into her father’s eyes. “… Please don’t think that it’s bad that I figured out the truth. ‘Cause it’s not!”
Mabel moved to kneel beside Dipper and joined her hands with her brother and daughter.
Cassie rubbed her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I’ve never told either of you, but … I was always wondering who my father was. Not his name or anything, more like …” she looked to her mother, “more like how could my father be the kind of person who could let you go? Why couldn’t my father love you enough to … want you? Or to want me?” A high-pitched whine sounded from Mabel’s mouth.
Then Cassie refocused on Dipper. “But you were always there for me. As much as it sucked to not have a father, I had the best uncle! I kind of always figured that if I had a father, it would be great if he could be like you.” A tear rolled down Dipper’s face.
“So when I found out that you actually are my father … yeah it was weird, and-” a choked giggle escaped from her chest, “… and I guess it’s still weird, but … but I’m really glad you’re my dad!” She bit her lower lip, then took a deep, trembling breath. “But more than that … I’m really, really glad that my mom and dad have each other!”
Mabel appeared to be on the brink of starting to bawl. Despite her own fragile feelings, Cassie smiled broadly and rolled her damp eyes. “C’mon, Mom!” she cried shakily. “Hold it together, would ya?” Mabel gasped happily and nodded with vigor, using the sleeve of her sweater to scrub her face.
“I guess what I’m saying is … I’ve seen how much happier you guys have been since we moved here … and yeah, I know I was just now complaining about how it all used to be simpler for me, but …” Cassie said unsteadily, “… but now I don’t care what I have to do to adjust, or if I have to lie, or anything!” The girl’s self-control was almost gone. “You gave up so much for years … for me, because of me … you deserve your turn now!”
The family collapsed into a jumbled embrace of cries and tears, of kisses and hugs, and of whispered pledges of love. Dipper and Mabel managed to ask their daughter again if she was sure she was okay with continuing the family charade. They clutched to one another for several minutes, sharing the moment and thankful for the love that they all felt for one another.
Soon the sobbing quieted, and the family rested comfortably in one another’s arms. Then quietly Cassie spoke up.
“Still … I did get to go eleven years without having to see you two being all kissy and grabby and stuff,” she murmured slyly. “And no kid wants to see their parents being all gross!” She reached up with both hands and pushed her parents’ grinning heads together cheek to cheek. Then playfully, she scolded, “So next time, take it to your bedroom, okay?” Dipper and Mabel burst out laughing, with Cassie joining in.
When the relieved laughter died down, everyone agreed that it was late, and all three of them were tired. There was a lot to accomplish before the trip could get under way, and they would be packing all the next day. Therefore it made sense that they should go to bed and be rested in the morning. They climbed the stairs together, then the twins stopped outside Cassie’s bedroom door, saying goodnight and giving her kisses before heading to their own room down the hall. They were holding hands and looking lovingly at each other as they entered their bedroom and closed their door.
Cassie watched them go from the threshold of her door, smiling despite the icky weird feeling in her stomach of watching her parents being lovey-dovey. She really did like the way things were since they’d started living like a they were a normal family. Then she thought about the trip to Gravity Falls. As much as she was looking forward to seeing strange phenomena and mysterious creatures, it also meant that she would have to be careful. She would have to try to keep thinking about her father as simply “Uncledip” again. Worse, she’d have to watch her parents play the “normal siblings” act that they’d performed for her for so long.
As she backed into her room and closed her door, she wondered if perhaps she could change that.