Courage

“Bwahahahahahahaaaaaaa!” Bill, hands wriggling for lack of anything else to do with his physical form laughed maniacally up at the sky while Mabel was helpless to look on. “Stupid Shooting Star! Now that Pine Tree has lost my game you’ve got no choice but to hand over the portal key!”

“Don’t do it Mabel!” Dipper banged uselessly on the walls of the floating pink bubble he found himself trapped in. The spherical walls echoed back like a rubber duck caught in a piano’s strings. “He’ll never let us both out of here! You’ve got to run! Get back home! I-I love you! There, I said it! please, just go!”
Mabel made to reach out for her brother, to press her palm against his bubblegum prison, but even as she did it was cruelly ripped away as the demon lifted the bubble ever higher into the air. 

“You’ll never win, Shooting Star! Only an act of true courage could have saved him, and you’ve got nothing left! Anything you do to save him will just be another thing you’re selfish about! He gave himself to save you and if you negate that sacrifice I win anyway! Aaaaahahahahahahahahaaaaa! You mortals are so predictable!” The triangle cackled, spinning slightly in the pseudo space he was floating in. 

Just then Mabel realized the trick and snapped her fingers. A standing bath tub and floating shower head materialized next to her. Bill’s one eye opened wider in surprise before narrowing to glare down at her. She simply returned his look with a contemptuous smile. Another snap of her fingers and a shower head floating in mid-air appeared inside of the tub’s invisible walls. She stepped inside and pulled the curtain around herself. 

“What are you even doing!” The demon barked, floating over the opening over top of the tub to get a better look, only to have shampoo squirted into his eye. “Why is it always the eye!? Gaaughh!” His legs kicked and flailed, sending him floating backwards as his stick figure hands clutched at the offended orb.

Mabel’s hand calmly reached out through the curtain a moment later to drop her clothes on the ground. Dipper could only stare in wonder at the scene unfolding below him. Though he found that with Bill’s concentration lacking he was actually falling not unlike a balloon that’d lost too much of its helium, gradually to the sandy island in their combined dreamscape. 

“Mabel, what are you-?” The sight of her underwear piled on top of her skirt and sweater ended whatever he may have been thinking about rather abruptly. His heart skipped several beats when the curtain parted again slightly for her arm to emerge and place her shoes and socks next to her clothes pile. That arm, he knew, was connected to a very exposed and very naked Mabel. ‘Well, arms are no big deal, b-but the rest of her…” his internal monologue stuttered.

Then suddenly the squeak of turning metal caught his attention, followed a half-second later by the sounds of water and another squeak, felt very much in the pit of his stomach. The second one had very clearly been his twin getting hit with a sudden stream of cold water.

“Oh my god, Mabel! You turned on the water while you were already in the shower!?” He recoiled in second hand horror. Even as he did the world began shaking and crumbling all around them. Bill was shrieking in horror as he disolved, evaporated, sublimed, and turned into a static mess all at the same time, cursing his fate. “An act of true courage” Dipper turned back to the shower curtain with awe. 

And in the blink of an eye the bubble was gone, the dreamscape had vanished and there they were back in their high school, as empty as it was when they’d first broken in. The eye bats and tongue-salamanders were long gone.

“Hey, uh, Dip? Little help?” Mabel’s question snapped him out of the fuzzy haze and into reality to see her crouched down, one arm wrapped around herself to shield from prying eyes and the other reaching for her clothes that were just out of reach.

“Oh! uh, yeah, sure thing” He bleated, half turning his head and half closing his eyes to reach down to help. His hand recoiled for a moment when he realized they were touching something far too silky and lacey to have been her sweater. He yelped and threw the whole mass of stuff to his sister. He could only hope she was blushing as hard as he was, and that she didn’t realize what his bubble bound confession meant.