Dark, sad Mabel headcanon/ficlet time, and I mean dark, so I thought I should warn you in advance for those on whom such content has a negative effect.



A few years in the future, when the twins are seventeen, Mabel goes through a really bad spell of mental health. She’s badly dissociating from reality again, and she’s feeling the old guilt kicking back in. Dipper’s been having nightmares again lately, and as she hears him moaning and groaning in his sleep every night, all she can think about is how much she feels it’s her fault.



She thinks on how Dipper wouldn’t be having nightmares if she hadn’t made that one mistake, that he wouldn’t have gone through three days of hell alone if she hadn’t made that one mistake. And going down this path of thinking, it starts to tear her apart.



She’s thinks about how much everyone suffered during Weirdmageddon, and she places all the blame squarely on herself. This combined with her dissociating makes her feel completely cut off from the world around her and especially her loved ones. Dipper notices how off she’s feeling, notices how she can’t even look him in the eye when they’re in the same room together.



He notices how cut off she feels, and realises that her guilt and depression is flaring up again. He does everything he can to make her feel better, giving her a lot of affection and reassurances that he is real and that he doesn’t blame her. Sadly, it doesn’t help, Mabel keeps getting worse and worse until she can barely hold herself together. It all comes to a head when she locks herself in the bathroom one night with a knife, intending to end it all.



Dipper sees her and realises a moment too late what she intends to do. He slams his fists on the door as she closes and locks it, begging at the top of his lungs for her not to do it. Hearing him beg, it makes her hesitate, but all she can think about is how much better off she thinks he and everyone else would be without her, how much suffering she feels that she’s caused, and she presses on, putting the blade to her skin. Dipper is repeatedly slamming his body into the door at this point, but she doesn’t stop.



It’s only when Dipper truly breaks down, sobbing on the other side of the door and saying over and over that he loves her, loves her more than anything, and eventually just begging her not to leave him, begging her to let him help her, that she halts. She bursts into tears hearing his desperation. She throws the knife away and runs to the door, unlocking it. Dipper bursts into the room and crushes her in the tightest hug he’s ever given anyone.



The two of them collapse to the floor and for a very long time they just stay there, clinging to each other’s shaking bodies and sobbing into each other’s shoulders. Dipper, his voice cracking and broken, begs her to never do that ever again, and she promises that she won’t. And she means it. It’s just now dawning on her the enormity of what she was about to go through with, and she never wants to let it happen again. Her and Dipper don’t sleep that night. Instead they sit in the living room watching TV, cuddled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around them. Dipper made hot chocolate for both of them, but he’s barely able to drink any.



Mabel on the other hand practically guzzles it down, feeling the heat of the drink spread through her. She’s so relieved that she’s still here, and for the first time in weeks, she feels real, and it’s both wonderful and terrible all at the same time. All she knows is that for now, she wants nothing more than to stay wrapped up in her brother’s warm embrace and watch shitty TV shows together. For the next several days, the two of them are barely out of each other’s sight for more than a few minutes at a time. She still sees the fear in Dipper’s eyes whenever she goes on her own, but she knows that he trusts her.



She’s still feeling very off, with frequent bouts of depression and guilt, but at the very least she feels back to reality. She feels connected to her brother again, and god she’s missed that feeling. She could handle everything else, but feeling disconnected and distant from the person she loves most was always unbearable. And now that she’s back, she just wants to get away from this place, to be as far from home as she can get in some new and unfamiliar place, to just drive into the night for hours and not even know where she’s going.



Because she knows that will make her feel alive, heading into the unknown, towards who knows what adventures. So that night, she and Dipper sneak out of the house and take their shared car, and just set off. Their parents will be worried sick, school will be furious with them, but right now they both need this. Where they’re going, neither of them know. All they know is that they’re going there together.



As they hit the freeway and speed along through the night, Mabel looks over to Dipper, and she smiles. He smiles back, and offers her his unoccupied hand. She takes it and they both squeeze comfortingly. Mabel leans back in her seat and lets out a deep, contented breath. She’s going to be okay. They’re both going to be okay.

