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Mabel would always be behind Dipper. It was just how they were, as twins. One would succeed, one would catch up a few years later when the other had moved on. When they were very young, it was Dipper who was walking before Mabel could even sit up without support. When they were older, it was Dipper who was able to pass his swimming lessons on the first try while Mabel had to take the tests again and again. It was infuriating! As if being way smarter wasn’t enough for Dipper, he just had to excel in the physical aspects, too, which just didn’t add up.
He was picked last in team sports in PE only because Mabel was better at making friends (the one thing he was no good at). If she wasn’t, nobody would want her. She couldn’t throw properly, couldn’t catch either. She would misjudge where the projectile was and clasp at air, or get hit in the face. Sometimes, she wished she could just be Dipper. Even if he sucked at games like football, or baseball, he was excellent at dodgeball and benchball. Heck, she had never seen anyone move so nimbly to escape the wrath of a group of ten year olds. It was mighty impressive, if she said so herself.
Dipper had everything pinned down, she would often think. He could write like it was nothing, and upon asking how, she learnt that her experiences with it weren’t universal. Dipper’s wrist didn’t start shooting with pain after about ten minutes, his handwriting was naturally consistent and easy to read, and he said that there was no disconnect between what he meant to write and what he actually put on paper. That felt so foreign to her, the fact that her own twin could so easily write down what he wanted in a quick and presentable manner.
At least she had drawing, even if she hadn’t improved much in a very long time. As much as she tried, Mabel just hadn’t grown past what she’d draw a couple of years ago. The odds of the universe just seemed to be stacked against her. She twirled the pencil around her fingers as she thought about this, and everything else, unable to sit still very long. She chewed the inside of her cheek, glancing at the paper to see multiple attempts to draw something - anything at all, but she couldn’t get her hands working - all scribbled out. She dropped the pencil and flopped from sitting on the floor to laying on her back, holding her hands up to the ceiling.
“What am I going to do with you two?” Mabel asked them, wiggling her fingers. She frowned, because her feet were just as bad as her hands. They tripped over nothing, twisted inwards, and wouldn’t allow her to walk straight. But her hands made her feel the worst, because that could barely be passed off as clumsy.
She hated that word. ‘Clumsy’ was pinned to her like a dunce hat, and she wanted to shake it off. It was a buzz word that her parents used when explaining why, at thirteen, she couldn’t pour her own drinks without spilling half the jug. Or why she still dribbled the juice when she drank it, or why she missed her mouth, or- everything was because she was clumsy, but Mabel didn’t feel like she was very clumsy. When she focused really hard, she could carry plates across the room without dropping a single thing. And when she focused even harder, she could do the dishes without breaking one.
Mabel dropped her arms to the side, they were growing tired already. She simply resorted to staring at the ceiling, tracing the beams that ran across it with her eyes. Her feet started absently knocking against each other as she just stayed there, her body always needing to move. She made out a few burns above her, probably from her Great Uncle being himself back in the day, and a few miscellaneous scratch marks. It wasn’t very fun, but it was all she could do for the time being, until Dipper and Stan came back.
Dipper had taken up boxing since last summer, and Stan was stupidly overjoyed at that, and Mabel stopped listening to their conversation once it came up. Because Mabel also tried to box, but she couldn’t swing properly, and she couldn’t stand properly, and she couldn’t stand the feeling of the gloves on her hands, and- and they laughed at her for it. Dipper didn’t, of course, even said he would have left it too if she hadn’t encouraged him to stick to it. He shouldn’t have to quit something he seemed to genuinely be enjoying because of her shortcomings. Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
It was that that got her on the train of thought in the first place, jealousy wielded a subtle blade. Her lip curled and she pushed herself to sit up again so she could get to her feet. Mabel needed something else to do, something that wouldn’t leave her stewing in her own thoughts. With the help from the armchair behind her, she got up and stretched widely. The options were to either watch one of her movies, find a book to read, or go find Ford to bother him. She had no idea where he was, didn’t fancy using all her energy to focus on a bunch of words, so the movie it was.
Of course, she had to get some snacks to watch it otherwise it wouldn’t be a proper movie marathon. Looking at the clock, Mabel had quite a bit of time before the boys returned, so she could easily get two or three Women Of Sunshine films in before then. She grinned to herself, happiest she had been all day, before making her way to leave the living room. She ignored the fact that she walked into the doorway, and simply focused on where in the sextet she was going to start from. The first three were important for characters and story, but the last three were much better quality.
She entered the kitchen to get some crisps or popcorn, when she found her Grunkle sitting at the table with a mug of what she assumed to be coffee. He was reading from a big hardback book, but looked up and offered Mabel a very big smile when he saw her. Bounding over to say hello, she offered one back. On closer inspection, his eyes were shot red, and he had definitely been crying. There were stains down his face, and tears in his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Ford said instantly once he saw where Mabel’s eyes landed, “just a mishap with a very tricky chemical. Non toxic, I wouldn’t experiment with that sort of thing while you two are here- but I wouldn’t go downstairs without goggles until I have it sorted, if I were you.”
Mabel wasn’t all that inclined to believe him, she knew how he could get, but he didn’t look as dishevelled as he usually did after a bad spell. So she shrugged and walked over to the cabinet where she knew Stan ‘hid’ the snacks. She swung it open, hissed as it battered her arm, and reached in to pull out the big bag of sour cream pretzels she made her Grunkles buy for just an occasion like this. She pulled it out, closed the door, and started to leave when Ford’s voice stopped her.
“Mabel, you’ve been crying, too.”
Had she? She turned around and dabbed her empty hand at her eyes, and sure enough, they were very damp. Gosh, was she seriously crying over this? Yes, Mabel cried over a lot of things, but this felt kind of silly. Just because her brother could play sports and walk without his feet falling over thin air. Ford offered her what she supposed was his attempt at a reassuring smile, but he didn’t really do this thing with anyone but his own twin, so it came across a bit awkward. Mabel was oddly comforted by that.
“Hah, guess you’re right,” she said and waved her hand at him, “I didn’t even know.”
“Hmm… come sit with me? If you’re not busy, of course,” Ford said and nodded towards her bag of pretzels. She decided that a movie could wait, if Ford wanted to talk to her. She settled down opposite him, and set the snacks aside. He closed his book, pushed it aside, before he tried to say something. With the amount of times his mouth opened, closed, before opening again; he looked like a very confused fish. It would be better if she started the conversation that she knew he wanted to have with her.
“I’m not sad,” Mabel assured, “I’m… okay, I don’t know what I am, but it isn’t sad.”
“What’s going through your head?”
She looked at her hands, folded atop each other at the table. Them. Her. Them and her, and everything that she was just not good at. Everything Dipper was good at. Boxing. Writing. When she looked back up at Ford, he was also looking at her hands, still with that confused look on his brow.
“I have bad hands,” Mabel said, regretting it when something very painful replaced the look on Ford’s face. But with a few blinks, it had disappeared.
“What makes you think that, dear?”
“Because they’re bad! I can’t do anything with them!”
Ford’s own fingers tapped the table, his eyes a bit distant. Thinking, Mabel recognised. She knew Ford needed a bit of time to get his words right sometimes, so she sat back to let him do so. Occasionally, he would mess up the rhythm by banging his fingers against each other, or simply knocking two of them together rather than one at a time like he had been doing.
“You can’t do anything with them… this isn’t by chance any correlation to Dipper’s new hobby, is it?”
Mabel pouted but said, “yes.”
“You’re frustrated. You tried to box too, am I correct?” Ford asked, so she nodded. “When we were kids - Stanley and I - we also went together. For about… ten sessions? I had to quit because I couldn’t throw a proper punch without falling over.”
“Really? But after you came out of the portal you-”
“Yes, yes,” Ford said with an eagerness to not discuss that particular event much, “but that was after thirty years of having no option but to learn how to.”
“But I don’t want to wait thirty years! It’s not just that, Grunkle Ford, I can’t write well, and my arms hurt when I hold them up, and I can’t tie shoelaces, and I can’t brush my own hair properly, and-”
Ford raised a hand to stop her, and she bit her tongue. He didn’t look annoyed at her babbling, more pensive about something. His soft drumming on the table picked up speed. Mabel’s legs swung at the seat she sat on, not looking anywhere but at Ford. His forehead was creased as he tried once more to recollect his words. At least he didn’t look utterly baffled by the situation anymore. The corners of Mabel’s lips quirked upwards a little bit. He was really trying. She wiped at her eyes with her sweater sleeve.
“Mabel, I have to say that I understand. Just because you can’t do simple tasks, doesn’t mean you have bad hands. You shouldn’t chastise them for that, they don’t have mouths to defend themselves. In this dimension, at least.”
Mabel giggled at that and mimed her hand opening and closing as if it were inside the mouth of a puppet. Ford smiled and mimicked her motion. After a few seconds, she dropped her hand again and frowned.
“But… I don’t know why I can’t do those things,” Mabel muttered, “it all seems so easy for everyone else to just do them, and I feel so stupid because I cant…”
“You’re not stupid at all. Some things are just harder for people, and that's okay. I struggle with a lot of things too, would you call me stupid?”
“No, but-”
“Exactly, then why would you call yourself stupid? You’re a very bright girl, Mabel.”
She nodded her head, not feeling much better about it. She sighed and asked, “what do you struggle with, then, Grunkle Ford?”
“Oh, the list goes on. The worst offender is walking, I think. I tend to drift a lot.”
“Me too! My mom always tells me to walk in a straight line, but I don’t know how. My feet also went inwards, so she signed me up for dancing lessons when I was a kid to get better. I fell over so much!”
Ford chuckled and put a finger to his chin before saying, “did it work, by chance? Mine used to do the same.”
“It did, actually,” Mabel said before registering his words, “they did the same?”
“Yes, once upon a time, but that got squashed out of me early on. I’m still awful with my balance, I fall over my own feet a lot.”
“So do I! And it’s weird, but when I walk, I don’t actually know where my feet are going to land!”
“Me neither, now that I think about it. You’re much better at putting this into words than I am.”
She blinked a few times, because she was crying again. This time, she was well aware of it, and it wasn’t out of frustration like Ford had said it was earlier. Her Great Uncle was just like her, struggled just like her, and he was the Author. He did great things, did so many things, and he struggled to walk in a straight line. He was right, she couldn’t call him stupid if she really wanted to. She looked at her hands again, flexing her fingers as many times as she could before they tired out. They were the same. If Ford were to copy her, his fingers would likely wear themselves out too.
Ford said nothing as she heard the scrape of his chair against the ground, and the distinct sound of his loafers making their way over to her. She looked up to see him level her, kneeling. He offered another attempt at reassuring, and Mabel gasped a lungful of air down before collapsing into him. She threw her arms around his neck and clung on to him, crying into his shoulder, because she wasn’t such an outlier when he was there. He hesitated at first, but he wrapped her up after a second. There was no noise on his behalf, but Mabel had a suspicion he was also tearing up.
He ran his fingers through her hair, soft and comforting. She didn’t feel amazing yet, but she was doing better knowing she wasn’t alone. This wasn’t a Mabel situation, this was a Mabel and Ford situation. A Pines situation. She curled her fingers into the fabric of Ford’s overcoat, not wanting him to go away, even if she knew him enough to know he wouldn’t. He gave her a tight squeeze when she did, and she never felt more protected than in that moment. It was the two of them, together, strong. It would all be okay.
Eventually, her arms grew heavy, and she pulled away. Ford stayed on her level, propped on his knee, but he looked like he would topple over at any moment. He wiped her eyes with his own sweater sleeve, rolling back his coat to do so. Mabel wanted to do the same to him, but knew getting in his face was off limits. So instead, she patted his arm in hopes to give the same sentiment, and he nodded like he got it. She tried to smile like she always did, yet it was watery and unnatural. So she dropped her lips and just let herself be in the very weird state you fall into after having a good cry.
She wasn’t normal, but she was just like one of her favourite people, and that had to amount to something.
“Thank you,” Mabel said softly, “I love you, Grunkle Ford.”
“I love you too, dear.”
Ford rose to his feet and stepped aside for Mabel to get up. He leant across her and picked up the bag of pretzels to give them to her, knocking one of the placemats off the table in the process. Mabel giggled, because that was just what she would do, and Ford’s face never looked gentler when he fixed it right up. He went back over to where he was sitting, pressed the back of his hand against his mug, then took it over to the sink to pour it out. She wiped at her eyes again, now bubbling over with the need to do something. At this point, watching a movie might be too little.
She thought back to the drawing she was attempting, and wondered if she could maybe get some help. Or at least a companion. A drawing partner would be good, even if he read instead of drew. So Mabel straightened her back, walked over to grab a bowl from the cupboard, and managed to not drop anything in the process. She beamed at that, but knew even if she did, that would have been equally as okay. Once she set the bowl down on the counter and filled it with the pretzels, she turned to face Ford with a less forced smile, nodding towards where the sitting room stood.
He collected his book, and followed her lead out of the kitchen. She made extra care to not drop any of the pretzels, but a few fell out as she set it down. Not letting it get to her, she wasn’t bad for that, she simply collected the contents and put them back. With a huff, Mabel sat back before her drawing to tackle the particular pose she was struggling to get her character into. While she expected Ford to sit in the chair she had leant against, he actually settled next to her.
“I find it easier to draw if the pencil has a grip, that might help,” he said and reached into his coat pocket to extract a pencil with a blue rubber near the tip, “I have a lot more, you can keep that one.”
“Ooh, it feels nice! I used to get into trouble for holding my pen wrong,” Mabel said with a newfound nonchalance about the subject, “we had weird charts about that sort of thing when we were very young.”
“I could only write in pencil for the longest time. When we had to write with pens, my fingers couldn’t hold it properly. My handwriting was atrocious.” Ford brought the bowl of their snacks down to the floor, and Mabel missed it once or twice before grabbing a couple. She drew a very non-straight line, but she didn’t even feel half as bad as she had done the last time she had made a similar mistake.
“Was Grunkle Stan any better?”
“Much better, his handwriting was the same no matter what, and it always confused me.”
“Right? Dipper can write the same all the time! It’s freaky. Do you want some paper to draw too?” Mabel added because Ford was staring at her every movement. He shook his head and extracted his own notebook from his coat, which seemed to hold every item known to man, and yet another pencil with a grip. Mabel grinned at him, and he smiled back.
They continued to talk about it as they drew, both of them pausing every now and again to shake their wrists as if it would ever help the pain. Mabel found it was easier to finish the drawing when she hadn’t so much on her mind, and it was nice to pick up some subtle tips from Ford. He sketched much quicker than her, but she couldn’t compare herself to him, he simply had much more experience. Though, it did make her extremely excited. She could improve, then. If Ford did, then so could she.
At some point, they took to playing a very makeshift game of Pictionary. Mabel won narrowly in the end, marked by the front door opening, and she threw her arms into the air and fell backwards. She banged her hand against the armchair on her way down, which she did all the time. It was just part of her, and that was okay. Still hurt though, and Stan was saying something to her, so she got back up and smiled. She was better than she had been in quite some time, if she was being honest.
Dinner was takeout that had been bought on the way back home from the gym, or wherever they actually went. Something to do with sports, boxing, probably. She decided she would ask later. Mabel and Dipper fought over the very small dips they got, which of course he won, but she didn’t feel awful about that at the moment. She just ate her fries, not minding one bit that she dropped more than she had or missed her mouth. Five second rule, she called as Dipper contorted his face in mock disgust. Stan ruffled her hair and gave her the rest of his after he had stolen most of Ford’s.
After Dipper nodded off where he sat following a long bout of late night TV, Stan declared it bedtime. Mabel hugged him goodnight, and he gave her a loving squeeze back. She hauled Dipper to his feet for him to do the same, and made her way over to Ford once more.
“Thank you again,” she said as he wrapped her in another hug, “I already feel better about it all.”
“Any time. And thank you, Mabel, for the exact same reason.”
“Good hands?” she said as she pulled apart, holding them up. She wiggled her fingers, and Ford positively beamed. He pressed his large hands against hers.
“Good hands.”
And that night, Mabel relayed the events of her day to Dipper once he had done the same. She had a feeling Ford and Stan would be having an almost identical conversation downstairs. Mabel fell asleep very shortly after her story, a warm feeling in her chest. She may not be the best at all the small things, but that didn’t diminish anything about her. She might always be behind other people, sure, but she can - she will - always catch right up. Even if she never did, her self worth isn’t determined by her ability, she‘s starting to get that now. Her night was dreamless, and she was at peace with herself for the first time in far too long.