A/N: Ch 3 - Post Society of the Blind Eye, but pre Northwest Mansion Mystery. I really just wanted Dipper guiding Manly Dan through an exorcism by phone. Just so he could say "yeah, just toss him in there." Am I not seeing straight, or are those line breaks just getting even more strange? I should see Dr. Atbash and update my prescription.

Battle of Wills (or, Dipper vs. His Equally Stubborn Sister)

"Hello? Uh-huh. Yeah. How long now? ...Three days? Sacrilegious? Um... Do you have any prayer beads? Hmmm. Yeah, one sec."

Mabel bounced on the balls of her feet as her brother took the phone and wandered to their room in search of the journal. She really hoped he didn't have to make another house call; he'd been out a lot lately, and they hadn't spent much time together in the past week.

He ambled back into the hallway, idly paging through the book with the phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder. "Yeah, just toss him in the baptismal font at that church. Right in it. Yeah, the one in the town over. No, that should be it; no chalk necessary. Yep. Uh-huh. Silver's okay, but gold is better. Yeah. Yep. Sure. Just call back if he's still spitting ancient curses and blaspheming." Dipper sighed when he finally hung up the phone. "That was Manly Dan. One of Wendy's brothers got possessed by a lesser demon."

"Again?" Mabel rolled her eyes and flopped onto the sofa. This was a regular occurrence.

"Yeah, but I'm done trekking out to their cabin for anything less than the devil himself. It's a bit much."

Mabel flew over to her brother, buzzing with frenetic energy. "Does that mean it's SIBLING BONDING TIME?" She grinned.

Dipper couldn't quite disguise the deer-caught-in-headlights look on his face. "Would that involve board games?"

The brunette shuddered. "No, nothing like that. I just wanna hang out, Dippin' Sauce! Watch some bad movies, eat some junk food, cut your hippy-dippy hair, build a pillow fort..."

"What was that about my hair?" An eyebrow was raised, daring her to repeat herself.

She stood her ground, challenging his glare. In Mabel's humble opinion, the adventuresome preteen had wildly neglected his personal hygiene since their summer at Gravity Falls began. His hair reached down to his shoulders, and it looked ridiculous. And that wasn't even getting into the whole laundry situation ("I'm a busy boy! Teen? Man! Man. Busy man."), or the "Showering daily is too much effort, Mabel; get off my back" schtick.

"I'm gonna cut that mop you call hair, dearest brother-o'-mine—and you're gonna love it." A smirk crawled across her face. "I won't even use the bowl this time!"

Dipper's eyes flickered between her face and the door as he not-so-subtly shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.

"If you run, Dip-Dop, I'm bedazzling you to the wall." Mabel whipped the rhinestone gun out from her back pocket, aimed it at her brother, and caressed the trigger threateningly.

Dipper bounced on his toes, looking for an opening to escape, but Mabel had insinuated herself in front of his only exit, and he wasn't quite sure he could take her in a tickle fight. Finally, an irritated whine forced its way from his throat and he acquiesced, slumping down onto the floor in front of the sofa. "I'm not having fun."

Her smirk grew wide. "Dippunzel, Dippunzel, let down your hair!" She ran to get the scissors before Dipper had the sense to change his mind.

YFG R OLEV OLMT-SZRIVW WRKKVI; SV'H HFXS Z ORGGOV KIRMXVHH

"Whomp!" Mabel slapped a barrette into Dipper's locks and skipped just out of his reach before he could retaliate.

"Ugh, Mabel. Barrettes are girly!" He continued examining his newly-trimmed mane in the hand mirror before putting it on the bathroom counter and glaring at his twin.

She stuck her tongue out at him as she swept the trimmings from the tiles. "I made it and it matches your smelly hat so you're wearing it."

He stood on the toilet seat and angled his head to the side, trying to simultaneously get a good look at the hair clip in the medicine cabinet mirror and avoid falling into the sink. It indeed was a familiar image: a navy blue pine tree, similar to the one on his cap, was affixed to a silver clip, and it lifted his hair enough to keep it out of his eyes, but not so much that his birthmark was visible. He could slap his hat on over it if he really needed to.

Mabel stood on the ground behind him, his double reflected in the looking glass, as she gave him an uncharacteristically shy glance. "Do you like it?" Her eyes drifted to her sweater (he should've guessed earlier that the scissors on her red-and-white striped sweater signified that today was Forcibly Cut Dipper's Hair Day) and she pulled at the hem nervously.

Dipper's lips twitched. "No."

His sister frowned as her eyes snapped to his in the glass.

"I love it." The brunette snorted and punched him in the arm before holding out her hand to guide him off the toilet seat. She pointedly ignored his smug grin.

"Dork."

SV'H YVZFGB; SV'H TIZXV; SV'H Z UIRXPRM' WLIP

"So what're we looking for today?" Mabel turned so she could face her brother, walking backwards along the winding trail.

His nose was buried in the journal, and she took the moment to study the determined set of his jaw and the contrast of the navy pine tree against the chestnut curls. The barrette looked good on him, she decided, and his hair was a lot better when it wasn't as long as hers.

He glanced up, avoiding her studious stare. "The regular magical fauna has been scarce all week, so I asked around to see what's up. Multibear said there was something ominous lurking in the woods."

Mabel paused. Eyebrow quirked, she responded dangerously (as Dipper feigned nonchalance), "So are we running blindly into danger here to do some recon, or...?"

"He may have said to avoid the forest today at all costs, but if we could just get an idea—"

She stormed toward him, eyes ablaze. "Dang it, Dipper, we can't keep jumping headfirst into the fire all the time—"

"We won't be! We just need to know what it is he wants so badly for us to avoid—"

"Then we can ask him when it's gone! MB only warned you about it because he knew you'd launch yourself right into its path otherwise. Dipper, Grunkle Stan worries about us! He says he doesn't care, but you know that's not true. Let's just go home, okay? And watch some movies? We can ask MB about all this crazy monster biz tomorrow."

Dipper cursed his sister's application of actual logic and considered her offer, trying to ignore the innocent doe eyes and puppy-dog pout. He really wanted to find out what was going on, what was dangerous enough to make a multi-headed bear anxious. If the creature was in the journal, maybe he could help—and what if Wendy heard how strong and courageous he'd been? His name in the papers again, maybe a TV interview, undying adoration and praise...

"Please? ...For me?" Mabel turned up the wattage on her doe-eyed stare, determined to burst his bubble and drag him home to the safety of cheaply produced horror flicks starring washed-up B-listers.

The boy winced and looked up at his twin. "Ugh... fine. But you're coming with me to ask Multibear what happened."

"Tomorrow." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, tomorrow," he sighed, acknowledging defeat.

The blinding grin on her face forced a tiny smile to appear on his own as he let her pull him back the way they came, back to the Shack, back to cheesy cult classics and junk food and all things Mabel.

(the mystery of gravity falls DOT_com)