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"Okay!" Dipper shouted. "That is IT!"
He whirled around to jab a finger in Bill Cipher's direction, face pink with anger. "What is your DAMAGE, man?!"
Bill Cipher, floating yellow triangle of evil, now being interrupted mid upsettingly high pitched cackle by a furious twelve-year-old, actually pauses for a moment.
"What?" he says. "What does that mean? My damage? I have no DAMAGE, Pine Tree. I'm PERFECT."
"It means more like, what's your problem," Mabel interjects helpfully. "With us. You know, on account of all the mean shenanigans and such."
Bill glows incredulously. How one can do this is unclear, but he certainly does it. That's an incredulous glow, right there.
"You're IN MY WAY," he booms. "OBVIOUSLY. Sheesh! A guy can't do a little ATTEMPTED MURDER without having his MOTIVES QUESTIONED? You MESS WITH THE BILL you GET THE HORRIFYING NIGHTMARES AND FULL BODY BURNS, buddy!"
"Yeah, that tracks," says Dipper defeatedly. "Okay, you can resume evil cackling now." They were gonna kick his ass anyway. Somehow. That was how the summer had been going so far, anyway.
"No, no, no," says Mabel, as Bill seems to rear up to do exactly that, (unnoticed by her, he falters, irritated at having been interrupted again) "nuh uh, you had a point." She turns to Bill, whose incredulous glow seems to be intensifying as he takes in how casual they are being. "You got beef with us, Bill. What's up with that? You got a problem with the Pines family specifically? 'Cause this feels more personal than just us getting in your way oooone time. You're too smart to let setbacks get to ya, aren't you?"
She grins at him, shiny braces on display, and pulls up a chair from god knows where, and props her chin in her hands.
This is all so disconcerting that Bill Cipher--scourge of realms, destroyer of worlds, a monster and a demon and a being of pure, evil chaos--actually blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, which is the truth, or at least part of it.
"Your stupid uncle DUMPED ME!!!!" he wails, glowing red with miserable rage.
Dipper goes chalk white. Mabel's face, too, twists with utter shock, jaw dropping.
But unlike Dipper, who remains frozen in a sort of horrified contemplation of their Grunkle's love life that apparently involves the world's evilest flying Dorito, a grin slowly dawns on her face.
"THIS!" she shouts, waving her hands excitedly, "Is a problem I can SOLVE! Dr. Mabel is IN THE HOUSE!"
"Mabel," hisses Dipper. "He has tried to kill us!"
"Meh, so have a lot of things in town," says Mabel with a little shrug. And with a smaller smile, less bombastic and more sneaky, she says, "Dipper. I can handle this. Trust me."
Dipper swallows nervously, looking back at Bill, who seems to be angrily muttering at his fists, and then back to her. "Okay," he says after only a moment's hesitation. "I trust you."
Mabel beams at him, and then whirls back to look at Bill. "Okay, are we talkin' you wanna win his love back, or ice cream and sad movies, or you need to VENT the RAGE!?"
She says that last part with a worrying amount of gusto.
"What is HAPPENING right now?!" Bill demands.
"This is just Mabel," says Dipper, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows. "I'd just go with it if I were you."
"IF I WERE YOU," says Bill. "What an INTERESTING PHRASE."
"Answer the question!" Mabel insists. "Matchmaking or catharsis?"
Bill waffles. His glow seems thoughtful. Or maybe that's the way he's stroking his.....chin? Below mou--no, there's no mouth, either... his. bowtie area. Yeah, sure.
He doesn't seem to know how to respond.
"...catharsis?" he finally says. A few scenes flicker by on his body: a skeleton on fire, a large pile of knives mixed with a few forks and spoons, all covered in blood, and what is, somehow, a visual approximation of what a scream of pain sounds like. Literally indescribable.
"Um, less violent options," says Mabel. "I was thinking like, ice cream and complaining and some sad movies to get weepy over." Her face lights up. "We can have a girl's night!" She ignores Dipper's groan.
"What kind of VIOLENT RITUAL is GIRL'S NIGHT?" says Bill. "Are we talkin' MAENADS?" He rubs his little hands together gleefully.
"Mennywhats?"
Dipper leans over and whispers, "Followers of the Greek god Dionysus. They're basically women who tear people to shreds."
Mabel winces. "Nooo," she says. "Haven't you ever gotten weepy over a sad movie because you already felt sad before?"
She doesn't seem to realize this is an inherently ridiculous question to ask an evil triangle. Then again, maybe evil triangles have evil triangle movies. Dipper wonders if one of the other Journals has this information.
"....no?" says Bill. He seems thoroughly nonplussed by this entire series of events, and is probably confused as to why he hasn't just killed them yet. That's the Mabel Effect. Dipper used to watch Scooby Doo and think--when he wasn't trying to solve all the mysteries before the gang did--that despite not being what anyone would call a coward, Mabel often reminded him of Shaggy and Scooby, simply because when they tricked whatever was chasing them with sheer power of inexplicable cosplay and committing to the bit, it seemed very Mabel-like indeed.
Or maybe Bill just loved chaos and was going to use this against them some other way. Dipper would have to participate in the movie night. For surveillance reasons.
"I can't believe that worked," says Dipper blankly. "I mean, I don't think it's a permanent solution, but he actually didn't kill us. For now. That's crazy."
"I can't believe Grunkle Stan dated a triangle," says Mabel cheerfully.
"An evil triangle," says Dipper.
"I dated a what," says Grunkle Stan from behind them.
They whirl to look at him guiltily. He raises one eyebrow, unimpressed.
"Okay, so we kinda met your ex-boyfriend," says Mabel. "He's really mad by the way."
"And a triangle," says Dipper, matter of fact and almost blank. "A floating, evil, yellow triangle."
Grunkle Stan stared down at them with an expression of carefully curated blankness.
After a moment, his expression burst into existence, exuberant and false. "RIIIIIIIIIIGHT!" he says. "That guy! Haha. Yeah. That. That ol guy. I remember him. Yeah. He's... a piece of work. But what can I say. I. I love a bad boy." He makes a face at his own words.
"Do you still love him," whispers Mabel with huge shiny eyes.
"........no?" says Stan.
"That wasn't a very confident no," says Mabel, eyes still enormous and sparkling.
"Mabel, do NOT matchmake this," says Dipper sternly. "ABSOLUTELY NOT."
"But Dipper! It'd be a win-win!"
"THERE ARE NO WINS IN THIS SCENARIO, MABEL."
They very quickly forget Stan's there, so he quietly slips off and leaves them to their argument.
He all but collapses into his chair, putting his head in his hands.
"What the fuck, Ford," he whispers to himself, squeezing his eyes shut and banging his head against his palms. "A triangle? You fucked a triangle? Seriously?"
He hears the muffled sounds of the kids still arguing, but good-natured as always, so he isn't worried.
"Holy shit, Ford," he exhales roughly into his hands. "A triangle. Fuck. Now I have to pretend I fucked this triangle. Fuck."
"...you good there, Mr. Pines?" Soos asks.
Not lifting his head, Stan gives him a thumbs up. "I'm fine, Soos," he says.
If Soos heard the thing about the triangle, he doesn't say. He just gives a little chuckle and says, "Ha ha. Okay, Mr. Pines!"
Fucking triangle. Shit. FUCK. He can't wait for Ford to explain this one.