Chapter Text
“Are we there yet?” Mabel says, squirming in her bus seat. “It's really humid. And hot.”
“You asked that five minutes ago.” Dipper replies. “And I agree. Why is it so hot on this bus?”
“Well anyways, do you want to play bus seat scavenger hunt?” Mabel asks. “I feel like it's going to be lucky this year.”
“Okay… but only because I've run out of books to read.” Dipper says. Maybe it will take my mind off of the van following the bus.
Mabel finds a quarter hidden under the cushion. Dipper finds an unopened bag of classic Chaaaps with a best-by date of August 4th, 2003, which was several years ago.
“Coooool, I've never seen one that old!” Mabel says in admiration.
“I wonder what else we'll find.” Dipper says in curiosity.
About 30 minutes later, Mabel finds a penny. Then another. Several minutes of finding penny after penny they have gathered a pile of approximately 100$ in pennies. By the time they arrive in Gravity Falls, they have collected 40,000$ in pennies. At this point, they are literally buried in pennies.
The van is still following the bus, despite the bus being on the interstate for hours on end and then driving to the middle of nowhere.
Mabel and Dipper attempt to get their stuff out from the massive pile of pennies and exit the bus (with Waddles, they would never forget him), only to notice that Stan is driving the bus.
“Wait, Grunkle Stan??” Mabel shouts. “Since when did you drive a bus?”
“I got this bus for Soos to use for tours but then the bus meant for y’all was canceled, so I decided to drive you here myself.” Stan says.
The moment they get off the bus, everyone shouts “Welcome back!” The group includes a great many people, a few of note include: Ford, Soos, Wendy, Candy, Grenda, Robbie and his friend group, Melody, and Pacifica. Dipper notices the van that was following them is parked in the Mystery Shack parking lot, and a tired-looking teen in a pink letterman jacket is getting out of it.
“Grunkle Stan, who's that?” Dipper says, gesturing to the teen.
“That's the new Mystery Shack employee that Soos hired for the summer. He's a jack of all trades.” Stan says. “I like him, he's really good at convincing people to buy merch.”
Soos overhears Stan. “He's also really good at fixing stuff and cleaning. And crafts.” Soos says.
“Why was he following the bus?” Dipper asks.
“Just in case.” Stan says. “I really need to get my cataracts looked at.”
Mabel bursts into laughter. “Is that meant to be a pun, because that was good. ” Mabel says.
Stan obviously ponders what he said, and starts laughing too. “Ha! Accidental punning!”
“Hi. What exactly are y'all laughing about?” The teen in pink asks, walking towards them.
Mabel repeats the pun and the teen starts laughing too. “Oh my stars, that's good! ”
After a few minutes of uncontrolled laughing, they finally stop.
“It's nice to meet you! I'm Steven.” The teen introduces himself. “Y’all must be the twins! Mr. Pines and Soos have been really excited that y'all are coming this summer.”
“It's nice to meet you too.” Mabel says. “I'm Mabel, and this is Dipper!”
Steven seems a bit… off. Like he's hiding something.
“I like your jacket!” Mabel says. “Also, we match!”
Sure enough, Mabel and Steven are both wearing pink and stars.
“Star buds!” Steven says, stars in his eyes.
Wait what's with his eyes?
Dipper blinked and the stars were gone. Mabel obviously hadn't seen them. For just a moment, Dipper thought they were a trick of the light, but then he thought about it and decided that they definitely were not.
“Hey Steven, what's with your eyes? Were they just star shaped?” Dipper asks.
“Dipper! Stop being paranoid, you're just nervous because he might become Wendy's girlfriend!” Mabel scolds Dipper.
“Am not! I saw what I saw, and that's that.” Dipper argues back. He sticks his tongue out at Mabel and crosses his arms.
“Ignore my brother, he can be just a bit paranoid sometimes.” Mabel whispers to Steven loudly.
“No worries, it's fine.” Steven says, obviously a bit confused. “... I have a partner already.”
“Wait, really?? How are they?” Mabel exclaims, very excited.
“Her name's Connie, and she's… amazing.” Steven says in adoration.
“How long have you been together?” Mabel asks.
“A little over a year!” Steven says. “But we've been friends since we were kids.”
“Wow.” Mabel says.
“So… Do you need help unloading, or are you good by yourselves?” Steven asks.
“I think we'll be good.” Dipper says, while Mabel says “Of course you can help!” over him.
“Okay, I guess you can help.” Dipper says, not happy.
Steven easily picks up Mabel's sweater suitcase and brings it into the Shack.
“Mabel, how heavy is your sweater suitcase again?” Dipper asks.
“I think it's around forty pounds.” Mabel says. “Why?”
“Then how did he pick that up with one hand without a problem?” Dipper asks quietly.
“He… goes to the gym? Dipper, that's not strange.” Mabel says. “People can do that.”
“Can't you see? Steven's not normal!” Dipper exclaims.
“No one's ‘normal’, Dipper.” Mabel says with finger quotes. Dipper rolls his eyes.
Thirty minutes later, they had just finished unloading the bus and carrying everything to the attic.
“I'm going to be in my room if you need me.” Steven says. He quickly walks to the spare room that Mabel and Dipper had fought over the previous summer.
The twins begin unpacking and redecorating the room. Dipper notices that the attic is a lot cleaner, and has a loft that was previously used for storage now completely free of stuff. There are LED fairy lights and a bean bag, as well as a ladder, a few shelves, and a desk with a comfortable looking chair. It looks to be the perfect reading nook.
I wonder how Soos got that stuff up there! Maybe he had help?
Mabel has somehow already coated her half of the room with glitter in the fifteen seconds Dipper spent looking at the reading nook. He quickly moves before Mabel can coat him too.
“Wh- Mabel, how!?” Dipper exclaims.
“I have a BUNCH of glitter!! And it needs to be all over the place!!” Mabel exclaims.
“But why??” Dipper asks.
“But why not?” Mabel returns.
Mabel runs out of the room cackling, holding a glitter bomb.
I should finish unpacking. Dipper puts up his conspiracy board (currently with notes about a weird town he found called ‘Beach City’) and a few posters of space. He puts his suitcase under his bed to unpack it later and goes into the hallway to see the damage.
Dipper opens the hall door and there is glitter in the air. The spare room door is shut but has a pile of glitter on the floor in front of it. Everything is coated in a layer of glitter. Dipper walks downstairs carefully and the amount of glitter increases the closer he gets to the living room.
The living room is the room with the most glitter. Glitter coats every surface, and the TV is coated in a layer of glitter thick enough to block the light coming from the screen.
How much glitter does she even have??!
The kitchen and gift shop are thankfully glitter-free. However, it probably won't stay that way because glitter sticks to everything.
Mabel runs into the room with a glitter bomb.
Oh no.
“I GOT YOUUUUU!” Mabel screeches.
“MABEEELLL-” Dipper screams.