Real as Unicorns

by kaleoftheforbiddencities

Summary:

Mabel experiences derealization :) just a little oneshot i wrote, warning for, well, derealization. (I think that's the right one).

Isn't it strange how one's sense of reality can be stripped away so quickly? 

One moment, Mabel was laughing with Dipper over a stupid inside joke. 

The laughter died down, but it echoed in her ears, played on loop in her head. 

Laughter sounds weird when you think about it. If you don't know the source, laughing and crying can sound the same. Sometimes you even tear up from laughter. 

They went back to their respective activities. Dipper was typing up paragraphs worth of an email to Emma Sue, a penpal he managed to keep in touch with even after the disaster of a road trip. She was a nice and understanding person, and she and Dipper shared some of the same interests.

Mabel turned to her scrapbook. She was documenting this week's worth of pictures and memories. 

She had glitter on her hands. There was glitter on her cheek, sparkling in the corner of her eye. 

She looked at her hands with her chipped nail polish. She rubbed her fingertips together. The glitter was so fine, it stuck. 

There were photos laid out in front of her. Scraps of paper and stickers. Bright colors that suddenly felt blinding. In the back of her head, she heard an upbeat song. 

It… was just stuck in her head, right? Not actually playing? 

She turned around in her swivel chair, looking over at Dipper. He had his hand hanging below his chin and the edge of his sleeve in his mouth. Mabel had half a thought to tell him not to eat his clothes, but she just stared. 

Dipper was here. That was nice. 

It's too good to be true. 

Sparkles in the corner of her vision. She wiped her cheek with her hand, but it didn't go away. 

“Dipper.” 

He glanced up, taking his sleeve away from his mouth and looking at her guiltily. “Sorry.” 

Too good to be true. Too good to be real.

Mabel's eyes had gone slightly crossed. There were now two of Dipper, and they were blurry. She blinked to set her vision straight. 

“It's fine,” she responded.

It came out in a whisper. 

She slowly turned her chair back to her desk. 

The people in the photos. Silly polaroids.

Were they real? 

Mabel, Dipper, friends from school. 

“Mabel?” Dipper's voice came from a mile away. “You good?” 

The glitter glinted in the corner of her vision. 

“Yeah.” 

Dipper paused. “Are… you sure?” 

Mabel shrugged. Her vision had gone double again. She could make it right if she tried. She just had to blink. 

Too good to be real. 

This isn't real. 

He's not real. I'm not real. 

Her thoughts were going to fast for her to make sense of any of it. One thing was steady and sure. 

“This isn't real.” 

The words barely came out as a mumble, but Mabel believed it. How could this be real? The bubble, Mabelland? Was their impossible victory a product of her imagination? 

Behind her, Dipper's bed creaked. He was getting up, or at least moving. 

Mabel could look to check. But she also couldn't bring herself to break eye contact with herself. 

Her own smiling face on a polaroid picture. 

“What do you mean this isn't real?” Dipper asked behind her. 

Mabel didn't have an answer. She just knew. She could tell. Light reflecting off her cheek and hitting her eye wrong. It felt weird. 

“I don't know,” she whispered. 

“Well, uh… it is real.” 

It's a trick. 

Maybe Dipper believed that. Or maybe he was lying. Or maybe he was misled. Maybe she'd tricked him. 

She’d trapped him in her prison like the horrible sister she was.

“Is it the photos?” The floorboards creaked. He was coming over. “Is something off? Did you get water on them or something?” 

Suddenly he was there, in the opposite corner of her vision as the sparkle. He cast a shadow as he stood between her and the light from the window. 

Her eyes got blurry again. 

“…Mabel?” 

“I'm sorry for tricking you,” she blurted. “I'm not real.” 

Dipper's arm moved, like he did a double take. “You're—not real?” 

“I can't be real. I don't feel real.” Her words were quiet and afraid. She felt afraid.

“Well, you—” Dipper laughed awkwardly. He wasn't laughing for any funny reason, it was just one of his responses to things he didn't get. Especially when it came to Mabel. They were so good at making sad things into silly. “I thought you were gonna tell me you were the shapeshifter or something.”

Mabel hummed as a reply. 

“…Mabel? It's just a feeling,” Dipper tried to assure her. He waved his hand in front of her face as if to stop her from zoning out. She blinked and looked up at him. “You're real.” 

That sentence made her want to cry. 

“I'm real?” 

“Uh, yeah?” His face was worried. 

Mabel looked down. “Are… you sure?” 

“Pretty sure.” Dipper poked her shoulder with his fingertips. “Feels real.” 

“Oh,” she breathed. 

…

…

No, the world was still muffled. 

Mabel wasn't real. She wasn't. She couldn't be. Life would go on without her. 

“I don't believe you,” she finally admitted. 

She heard Dipper's mouth open and close before he got his question out. “Why not?” 

She hummed that she didn't know. 

“Mabel, you are real, you're my sister, and– you're doing scrapbooking,” he grabbed the photo she'd been staring at. “You make so many things. Like sweaters. Those don't come from nowhere… you know?” 

Her head had become so full of conflict. Dipper was right, but… wrong? 

He crouched down and put his hands on her shoulders. It made him below her height, right where she'd been looking. 

“You're Mabel. You're real.” 

“I'm real?” Her voice broke.

Dipper nodded. “You're real.” 

You're real. 

She was real. 

Suddenly her vision was blurred again. This time, it was from tears. Where had those come from? 

“Are… you real?” 

Dipper tried for a smile. “Real as unicorns.” 

Mabel laughed. She hadn't meant to, her throat made the sound all on its own. She felt Dipper's hands on her shoulders, enough pressure to keep her in her chair instead of up in the sky where she belonged. 

I'm real I'm real I'm real I'm real. 

She laughed again. Except, it wasn't a laugh at all. Laughing and crying do sound kind of similar, if you don't know the source. 

Mabel slid out of her chair and sat on the ground in front of Dipper. Her sweater sleeves were pulled over her hands by now, and she pressed them to her face, soaking the tears from her eyes. 

Dipper moved so he was actually sitting on the floor instead of crouching. He kept a hand on her shoulder, unsure of what else to do. 

Mabel didn't know what she needed, either. She just wanted to feel like a real person again. 

“You're… real, Mabel,” Dipper assured her softly. He squeezed her shoulder. “We're both real.” 

Mabel rubbed at her face with her sleeves, feeling the friction of the yarn against her skin. Her palms had become sweaty in her fists. 

“Um, sometimes when I feel… weird…,” Dipper tried, rubbing her shoulder. “It helps to, like, ground myself by looking at the stuff around me.” 

It wasn't a bad idea. It was a valid suggestion. 

…But Mabel was afraid to take her hands away from her eyes. What if she didn't like what she saw when she woke up? 

What if she was…

…back there? 

“That's just, that's in my experience, though,” Dipper rambled when Mabel didn't reply. “If you want to try it. Or maybe not. I don't know.” 

Mabel breathed, filling her chest with air and inhaling until it reached the far corners of her lungs. Her very limits.

She deflated with an exhale, and slowly took her hands away from her face. She stared at the ground, her knees, Dipper's knees, almost touching. 

She shifted so they were. Another contact point with her brother. Another reason to want to believe she was real. 

“…Do you wanna try it?” Dipper asked. 

Slowly, Mabel nodded. 

Dipper breathed a sigh, almost as if relieved. 

“Okay, let's see,” he tapped his fingers on her shoulder. Thinking. 

Taptaptap. 

Taptaptap. 

Taptaptap. 

“Five things you can see?” He suggested. 

Oh yeah, Mabel knew this one. Classic. 

It felt like it took tremendous effort to lift her eyes to look at her brother's face. 

But that was one. 

“You,” she whispered. “Dipper.” 

He nodded. “Yeah, I count.”

“Dip…per,” Mabel repeated under her breath. She wasn't addressing him, just saying his name. She liked the way it felt on her lips. It had become a vocal stim of sorts. Sometimes she would say his name for no reason at all. 

“Four more,” he reminded her. 

Mabel got the courage to lift her head. Was it just her, or did the room seem desaturated? Drained of color? 

She glanced to her right. Her desk was there. She reached out a hand to wrap around the leg. 

“My desk.” 

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, good.” 

He wasn't sounding as sure and confident as he probably wanted to. But he was doing great. Mabel knew he was. She was being the problem here. 

Still, she continued, dragging her eyes across the room. 

“Curtains.” 

The window was shut but the curtains were open. It was probably cool outside, but Mabel wished she could open the window. Her face felt a bit warm. 

“Princess Loveacorn.” She referred to one of the stuffed animals on her bed. A unicorn. That character wasn't real, but Mabel was. 

“Good, that's four,” Dipper encouraged. 

Mabel wanted to make the last one a good one. She looked across the room, taking in each object. Posters, Dipper's desk, his bed, his laptop, the hooks by the door with their bags and coats. Piles of Dipper's clothes on the floor and his desk chair. 

She took a breath. 

“Your… dirty clothes that you need to put in the laundry,” she teased. 

“Uh– Wh– hey!” Dipper stuttered, taken aback by her response. 

Mabel's mouth lifted into a weak smile. “That's what drew my attention most.” 

“You just can't give me a break, huh,” Dipper said with a roll of his eyes. 

“Never let your guard down, bro.” 

Mabel leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Dipper, feeling the texture of his hoodie, the warmth coming from him. She even caught a whiff of the slightly gross scent of his deodorant. 

He was real. She was real. It was going to be okay. 

Dipper returned the hug. 

“You feeling better?” he asked softly in her ear. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Mabel matched his tone and volume. 

Eventually, she pulled away and stretched, lifting her arms up and slowly bringing them down. She hadn't realized she needed a good stretch until she started. 

The glitter was gone from her cheek. She must have cried it away. 

Both twins got up. Mabel sat back to her desk, and after a moment of hesitation, Dipper retreated to his bed. He kicked a dirty t-shirt on his way. Mabel couldn't help but smile. 

There was no satisfying ending. The moment had passed, the conversation fizzled out. Life continued on as it was. 

Mabel found comfort in that. 

Technically, life would continue without her. But she wanted to be here, she wanted to be part of it. 

She was real. And she would be okay.