#like they crawl out for a while go oooh.. a ladder…

[sawvhs]

john must’ve thought he was sooo funny making a trap where you’re meant to cut your foot off and then choosing an underground jigsaw lair that you have to climb a ladder to get out of

[redwoodwrites]

Bad Dreams

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13339278

A/N: This story takes place after Dipper and Mabel have returned home. They've started their own paranormal investigation club, the Haunt Hunters, and are doing pretty well...except for the occasional nightmare...  A touch of angst, a hint of Billdip, and a whole lotta Mabel. Enjoy the fluff!

Dipper woke up sweating. His shoulders were shaking and those little stabby fork scars on his arms were burning. He sat up. His scalp felt like it was trying to crawl off his head.

Well. Obviously not going back to sleep tonight.

He swung his legs over the bed. Ew, so much sweat. If he showered now, he'd wake everybody up, but at least he could at least change his clothes. Maybe wipe off his face.

He got up slowly so his bed wouldn't creak. Mabel was flopped over the top bunk bed and one foot hung over the rail, covered in a bright pink heart-patterned sock that literally glowed in the dark. He avoided it carefully, grabbed a semi-clean change of clothes off the floor, and felt his way out of the room to the bathroom.

He reached the bathroom and shut the door, so the light wouldn't bother anyone. He flicked it on, wincing at the sudden glare. He had to stand with his eyes squeezed shut until they adjusted. He cracked them open, a little at a time. When his eyes stopped throbbing, he shucked off his clothes and threw them on the hamper. He put on the clean ones and then stepped to the sink to wash his face. He turned on the hot water faucet at full blast, to make it heat up faster, and glanced at himself in the mirror.

His reflection grinned horribly, and its eyes burned yellow with slitted pupils.

“HIYA, SMART GUY!”

 Mabel startled so badly she nearly fell out of bed. She gripped the rail, her heart pounding, her ears ringing from the scream.

“D-Dipper?”

Dipper didn't answer.

Oh, boy. She quickly swung over the rail and dropped to the floor. Her brother was sitting up, grabbing at the blankets, doing that funny breathing thing he did when he was trying not to panic. His hair stuck out in all directions, hiding his face, but his mouth was open as he gasped for breath.

Before Mabel could move or speak, their parents ran into the room. “What happened?” their mother asked, panting. “Who screamed?”

“I just woke up,” Mabel said truthfully, stalling for time. Sometimes Dipper was too freaked to talk, which freaked out their parents, which freaked out Mabel, which freaked out Dipper. It was not a good cycle.

“Are you kid alright?” their father asked. “Mabel, what on earth are you doing out of bed? Tell me you didn't sleep walk! If you fell off the top bunk –”

“No, no, I promise, I was awake when I fell. Kidding!” she said with a laugh. “I didn't fall. Seriously, I'm okay.”

Their mother stepped closer, peering behind Mabel, who was blocking the view to Dipper's bed. “Dipper? Are you alright?”

“I'm okay.” She heard Dipper scoot back so his mom could see his face. Mabel glanced at him. He looked pale and pasty and haggard, but he was an internet addict so that was a typical look for him. At least he wasn't breathing funny anymore. “I just had a nightmare," he said. "Sorry I woke you.”

“Some nightmare,” said their father. “You want a glass of water?”

“No, no, I'm fine.”

Their mother insisted on tucking them both back in and fussed over Dipper's blankets until she'd practically cocooned him.

“Aw, look at him!” Mabel squealed. “He's gonna metamorphose into a beautiful nerd!”

“Well, he's got the 'nerd' part down,” their father grumbled, and he grinned and ruffled their hair.

Finally their parents were gone. Mabel waited a little while before she poked her head down over the railing.

“So,” she said, and he knew what she meant.

“I'm really okay,” Dipper said, keeping his eyes closed. “Honest.”

“I hate when that happens,” Mabel said conversationally. “Like, you know you're okay but your brain insists on making horror movies in your sleep. You can't even eat popcorn to make it a worthwhile experience!”

“I didn't know nightmares could be a – you have nightmares?”

“Oh sure! Mostly about Waddles getting turned into Bacon Bits, or accidentally pressing the red button so Grunkle Ford never comes back, or that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford get killed at sea and we never hear from them again and we spend the rest of our lives searching forever and never find them until we die.”

“I feel like that got progressively worse.”

Mabel shrugged, which, since she was hanging upside down, meant moving her shoulders up towards the ceiling and then back again, like an opposite-shrug. “You wanna know what I do when I get a nightmare?”

He cracked open one eye. “Eat ice cream?”

“Nope!”

“Eat ice cream with popcorn?”

“Nope!”

“Throw literally everything in the fridge into the blender and make the worst possible version of Mabel Juice ever?”

“No, but now I definitely want to try that tomorrow. No, what I do is think of a real thing that really happened, something just as good as the nightmare was bad, and I focus on that.”

“What do you do for a Grunkles-Lost-Forever dream?”

She paused. Dipper's nightmare must've been really bad. What would cheer up a nerd?

“I think, if I were you...I'd remember that one time you found an alien saucer with Grunkle Ford. You did say it was, and I quote, 'the best day of your life.'”

“Ah, yes, the day I accidentally pushed you into accidentally starting Weirdmaggedon.”

“Work with me here, Dip-Dop. Before that you know you were having a great time. Actually...” She pulled herself back up and climbed down the ladder. All that hanging upside down was starting to give her a Grenda-sized headrush. She scooted onto Dipper's bed and sat cross-legged at the foot of it. “You never did tell me what happened. You wanna tell me now?”

He picked his head up and looked at her for a minute. “I really am okay,” he said.

“If you don't tell me, I will tickle you,” she said, raising a finger threateningly and touching his big toe through the blankets.

“Mabel, I'm tired. I just want to –”

“SO BE IT!”

He squealed with laughter as she grabbed his feet and started tickling with all her Mabel powers. He was so tightly wrapped up he couldn't even fight back. And when it looked like he was about to get his arms free, she body-slammed him and started tickling his neck.

“Mabel, Mabel, stop!” he gasped, laughing so hard tears rolled down his cheeks. “Seriously! I'm gonna pee!”

She sat up, grinning from ear to ear. “Alright, Count Dorkulus, story time! Stor-y time! Stor-y time!”

“You are the worst,” he said, but he was still laughing as he sat up. He told the story, starting with how Ford blew up his face every morning to get rid of five o' clock shadow all the way through staring down a big alien security droid with a rail gun the size of a Maserati.

“Wow, Dipper, that sounds amazing,” Mabel said admiringly. “You're like a hero from a science fiction movie!”

“Yeah, well...” He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. “It was really cool, that's for sure. I wish we could have more adventures like that, but I guess not every place is as weird as Gravity Falls.”

“I dunno, bro, with you here I think we give the Falls some decent competition.”

He threw a pillow at her.

“And we did just fight off a buttload of gremlins at school,” Mabel said. “Who knows what other wild stuff the Haunt Hunters will face? I bet we'll get world-famous and have to travel to all the weirdest, most haunted places in the world!”

“Yeah! Like that forest in the Rockies with all the Bigfoot sightings! Or that one house in Colorado with the baby hands on the window!”

“Oooh! I bet the Hand Witch would love it there!”

They talked and planned until it started getting light outside. Luckily it was the weekend, so they knew they'd get to sleep in. Mabel was too tired to climb back to her own bed. She crawled up next to Dipper and stole the top blanket. The fell asleep facing each other, their foreheads just touching, their faces gilded with the soft gold of the rising sun.

A/N: So I know the whole “bad dreams” idea has been done to death, but the idea WOULD NOT leave me alone until I put it down on paper. Digitally, anyway. MENTAL SYSTEM PURGED!  Also, for more Dipper and Mabel after the Falls, please check out my work “Haunt Hunters,” where the twins have started the Haunt Hunters club and investigate paranormal events.