Not the Same

"Yeah, mom, we get it. No, it's... yeah." A sigh. "Yeah. We're fine. Don't worry about us." A pause. "Yeah, mom. It's Gravity Falls, not, like.... New York City or something. There's nothing to worry about here." A sigh and a pause, this time. "No, mom, the monsters are... you know what? We're gonna be fine. Just fine. We'll make plenty of friends and everything'll be fine." Dipper slowly stretches the phone away from his ear, nodding and saying "Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah.... yes, mom... love you, too... okay, yes, goodbye. Goodbye, mom. Bye." He slams the dated black phone back onto its receiver, and falls back into his armchair, arms and legs sprawled everywhere. He groans, rubbing his hands across his face, and Mabel looks up, eyes wide, from her place on the stained shag carpeting of Grunkle Stan's living room. "We're staying here," the younger twin mutters, scrubbing at his eyes. Mabel gasps, even though he knows she heard his side of the conversation and has probably guessed everything.

"For how long?" He moves his hands, going to twist the hem of his shirt instead.

"Forever?" Her frantic fingerwork halts for the first time that day, and the fluorescent knitting needles hang loosely from her fingers. "No, not..." Dipper curses under his breath, "Not forever, that's ridiculous, but... for the first semester, yeah. Maybe the year, I dunno." Mabel doesn't reply. "I mean, we're going to do fine in high school. You've got Candy, and, and Grenda, and, I mean, if we need to we could probably get Pacifica to pay for some more friends, right?" He giggles nervously, then the clicking of the needles resumes to fill the silence. Mabel's current project is a sweater, of course; Dipper can't tell what color it is, really really dark blue or black. It's odd for her, though, he knows that much. Maybe he should be worried? Mentally, he shrugs. It's just a color. No big deal. Suddenly, a loud "Dudes!" breaks the silence, and Dipper tenses.

"Hey, Soos," the twins chorus. The handyman appears in the doorway, panting and grinning ear to ear. "Dudes! Great news!" He pauses, panting, and bends over, hands on his knees. Dipper and Mabel wait. Finally, he straightens and crows proudly, "Wendy's throwing a end-of-summer party!" There's no reaction. "Dudes?" Still nothing. Usually there'd be at least... something. Mabel loves parties, and Dipper usually jumps at the chance to hang out with Wendy and her friends. Maybe... maybe Dipper likes her again, and he just told Mabel, and that's why they're both sad! "Aw, dude... if it's about Wendy... " Dipper barks a laugh, sharp and short.

"What? No, that was years ago, Soos." It's true; Wendy definitely isn't his type anymore.

"Then..." Soos is at a loss. "What?" There is silence again. Soos looks hurriedly between the twins, trying to see what he did, if he did anything, to make them like this. Mabel stands quickly, bundling up her yarn and everything in a whirlwind of motion.

"We're staying here, Soos," she says. "We're staying for the whole year." She pushes past him, and the two guys hear her footsteps pounding up the wooden stairs. A moment later, the door slams. Dipper winces, and Soos pumps a fist into the air.

"Dude, that's great!" The boy looks down at his lap and fiddles with the hem of his ratty t-shirt again.

"Yeah... it's great, Soos." Soos's hand slowly comes down.

"But, Dipper, isn't that... uh, good?" He thought for sure that the twins liked it here in Gravity Falls. They've been back for the summer three times now, and they seem to have more fun each year. Dipper is becoming quite the paranormal expert, and Soos has watched proudly as the kid grew and got better at pretty much everything he set his mind to. But now...

"Sure, Soos," he replies, sounding defeated. "It's great, like I said."

"Dude, what's wrong?" Soos asks, a frown creasing his cheerful face. Even he isn't dumb enough to think that there isn't a problem he isn't seeing. But that's what he does, he fixes things; it's his job, and he's going to fix this. Dipper just sighs again, and scratches the back of his neck.

"We didn't really get a choice with this, Soos. Our parents are... they're working through 'issues'." He makes finger quotes for that, and Soos's brow furrows.

"Issues? Like, like... money issues, or..." He's still confused. Dipper sits up straight for this, and meets Soos' eyes.

"They're getting divorced, Soos. And they want us to stay out here so that we don't get in the way. That's why Mabel's all upset." Soos' eyes go wide.

"Oh... dude, I... I'm so sorry, dude." The kid shrugs, but can't meet his eyes anymore.

"It's whatever, man." Awkward silence falls again. Soos rocks back and forth on his heels. But then he remembers why he came in, and brightens up again.

"But dude, hey, this party will totally cheer you up! It's a high-school only party, so, I can't go, but it's gonna be great! It's at Wendy's house, at seven. You gotta go, dude." He hesitates, then rests a friendly hand on Dipper's shoulder. "Come on, Dipper. It'll get you outta this funk you're in. Make you forget about your parents." The boy rolls his eyes, shrugging off Soos' hand and standing, rolling out his shoulders.

"Sure, man. Whatever you want."

"Yes!" The handyman cheers, with another fist pump. It makes Dipper smile.

"And I'll get Mabel to come too, okay?" Soos grips him in a warm hug, twirling him before dropping him unceremoniously.

"You got it, dude! I'll tell Wendy you're coming! And... and this year is gonna be great!" He runs out of the living room as fast as he came in, and Dipper goes to lean against the wall. With a groan, he realizes that he just signed himself up for a social event with all the kids he's going to have to stand his freshman year of high school with.

"Fuck."

*****

Another ball of paper hits the wall, and Wirt falls exhaustedly onto his bed. He’s been trying for inspiration all day, and… nothing. All his poetry is crap, utter crap. He rolls over to face the wall, and curls up, bringing his knees to his chest. He doesn’t like the wall color here, but better to stare at the wall than have to carry another moving box up from the garage. He grabbed his boxes first, as soon as he could, and brought them all up before locking the door and determinedly ignoring his family. They were too busy laughing and celebrating to notice him not helping, he knew. He was too quiet for them to notice. He sighs, falling onto his back again. Bad days were rarer, now, than they used to be, but they still happened, and whenever they do, his ability to write flies out the window, like a dove, chasing… no, no no no! That isn't good at all. He wrings his hands, anxious and jittery. They know he hates change, and new places. Why did they do this to him? The part of his brain that sounds like Beatrice reminds him that his step-dad’s job had brought them out here, but the rest of him doesn’t care. With a sudden burst of energy, he is up and moving to his boxes. Maybe his books will give him inspiration.

There’s a good four boxes of them, double-thick to withstand the cross-country move. He wouldn’t be able to take it if any of them had gotten damaged. He opens the box carefully, folding the clear tape before throwing it away. These are his treasures. They all are piled on his bed, first the favorites, then the reference books, then the novels, then the random gift books or things he should but can’t throw away go last. There is a very set system, he likes to remind his mother whenever she complains about his messy bookshelf. There is, contrary to her belief, a place for everything, and everything in its place.

His Walden, younger than it looks, goes near the top of the favorites, along with the Scarlet Letter, The Old Man and the Sea and The Great Gatsby, The Journeyman, Swiss Family Robinson, the Tale of Despereaux (and that was one of Greg’s favorites), Watership Down, The Chronicles of Narnia (the full collection in one volume, leather-bound, seated in its spot of pride), The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Love is a Wild Assault (he may have stolen that one from his mother), and, lastly, his small collection of poetry. Small only because he doesn’t want anyone to realize that he likes poetry, of course. Not small out of choice. These books are kept in his closet, away from his mom’s prying eyes. Who knows what sort of fuss she and his step-dad will make if they discover his secret collection? No, it’s best to keep these out of sight. Wirt almost caresses these ones, their covers giving him a secret thrill. There is his Basho, with its soft, sweet haikus, and a collection of Emily Dickinson’s works with a ripped cover, found at a garage sale before their last move. Then there’s the Robert Frost, something he tends not to read on cold winter nights; it evokes memories he doesn’t want to touch unless the warmth of the sun is within reach. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda is put away quickly, with a furtive glance and a blush. That one is a particularly guilty pleasure. But then, at the bottom of the box, wrapped in two layers of bubble wrap for safe-keeping, is the prime piece of his collection: Chief Modern Poets of England and America, published in 1933 with a green fabric cover reminiscent of spanish moss, hanging off of centuries-old oak trees. He holds this one to his heart, grinning and closing his eyes as if he were embracing a lover. This, this book means more to him than all the others. Why? Its age, partially, although 1933 isn’t too remarkable. The poetry? Some of it is mediocre. Its appearance leaves much to be desired. But, no, the reason he loves this book so much is because of the pencil scrawls all throughout its margins. The author of these notes left her name on the title page: Helen Thomas, of Waco, Texas.

He doesn’t know when she existed, or how old her notes are. She maybe was an old woman, but he feels kinship with her, and he likes to think that she was a teenager like him, who loved poetry the way he does, who has since died, leaving only a bit of herself behind in the pages of her beloved tome of poetry. The Beatrice in his head laughs at him, but he likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at shutting her mockery out. She’s dead, anyway. But, he sometimes thinks, Helen and Beatrice would have gotten along. Helen is straightforward, and terse, sometimes. Her notes are scrawled in pencil, and not always in complete sentences, but he feels like he knows her, or at least part of her. It is her words that lead him to his favorite poem: Renascense by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her note reads: She thought that eternity was not so much; it crushed down upon her and forced her underground with the pain of the world, answering her prayers for death. The rain washes her up, though, and saves her; she feels a new birth, a new significance in living. She feels as if she has wings, now that the sky has taken away her breath. The meaning of this poem is that the world extends as far as the heart is wide. For a moment, after Wirt first read this inscription, he thought he had fell in love with Helen. But, alas, Helen is not there, and Sara... well, she had been.

But then the Brown family had moved, leaving Sara, and the forgotten remnants of their budding romance, to be crushed, withered, by the chilling autumn winds. There, that sounds nice enough to write down. Wirt hurriedly scrawls that into his battered notebook. He's going to need another one soon; this one's almost out of paper, and he can't survive another school year without a notebook. There's another reason he wants to get another poem written now: school drains him of creativity, of thought. The best he'll get out of this coming year will be snippets of work, a few lines at best. And his memory goes, too. Everything becomes fuzzy, soft, muted when school starts. His life becomes a haze, a drudgery of monotonous melancholy without purpose or intent... That's good, too. Those lines go on a separate page; Sara gets a section all to herself. Oh, his beautiful, dark-haired goddess... Now, he must learn to live without her.

For the first time since their departure, Wirt feels tears prick his eyes, and he welcomes them with a soft smile. Anything is better than the dull numbness that spreads through into his bones and to the tips of his fingers, even the stinging pain of a broken heart. He is just getting to the good part of his pain, where it feel like a knife piercing his lungs until he can't breathe, and he feels the welcome embrace of darkness creep up around the corners of his eyes, when a knock sounds at the door.

"Hey, Wirt!" Greg yells. "We're having m-ies!" Wirt almost chokes on his own spit.

"Wh- in a m-minute, Greg!" he manages to choke out. He quickly slaps a hand over his mouth, muffling the sobs wracking his body. His shoulders shake with the effort, but Greg seems unaware, chirping a cheerful "Okay!" before going downstairs again. Wirt almost laughs; he forgot about that family tradition. Every time they move, the first night they spend in their new house, his mom goes out and buys three big bags of M&Ms and a gallon of milk, pours the candy into their finest crystal bowl, hands out their biggest, nicest silver spoons, and, as they all sit in a circle on their living room floor, they all eat chocolate for dinner. They all regret it each time, moaning and groaning the next day when their stomachs ache, but it’s so much fun they keep doing it. It’s a tradition of theirs, one for all of them, even Greg and his step-dad, that Wirt usually tries to do, too. But, tonight, his heart isn’t prepared to don its fragile mask of happiness once again.

He slips out of his room, glancing around to ensure that he remains unseen, and winces at his reflection in the mirror. Even cold water doesn’t fix the redness of his eyes and the dark circles under them. For a moment, his vision swims, and he leans his weight on his hands on the countertop for support. His breath comes in a gasp, and tears prick at his eyes again. He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He- but Greg’s voice rings out again, with a hint of annoyance this time.

“Wirt! Come on!” He laughs.

“B-be right there, Greg.” Biting his lip fiercely, he straightens his navy blue button-up, runs shaking hands through his hair, and tries on a smile. It’s small, and very fake, to him, but he thinks he can get away with it. After all, it’s worked before. “I’m coming.”

The party is just picking up when the twin arrive, heavy bass vibrating the ground as they approach the log cabin-style home. Mabel lights up when she sees the people milling around the front yard, her extroverted soul leaping for joy; Dipper cringes at the thought of trying to talk to any of them. He waves at a few that greet them as they go in, but it’s really Mabel that enjoys this sort of thing. Wendy cheers when they walk through the door, coming over to them.

“Hey, guys, glad you could make it.” She drags them to the kitchen where there are drinks and red cups galore, pushing a liter of coke and some sort of alcohol into his hands. “Come on, Dipper. I can already tell you’re gonna need to lighten up.” Her words are slow, and when he sees her red eyes in the harsh florescent light of the kitchen, he realizes that she’s stoned again.

“Goddamn it, Wendy,” he mutters. She just laughs, tossing long bangs back, and leaves for the darkened living room.

“Hey, kiddos!” she calls, turning back for a moment.

“Yeah?” Mabel replies. Wendy winks and runs one hand through her flame-hued pixie cut.

“Enjoy yourselves tonight, ‘kay?” Mabel laughs.

“Will do, Wendy!” Dipper just rolls his eyes. She gives them a half-assed salute before disappearing into the smoke.

“Do you ever wonder what Manly Dan thinks of these parties?” Mabel asks, smoothly mixing up a Mabel Juice cocktail (alcohol-heavy, of course).

“Do you ever wonder what Grunkle Stan thinks?” The boy counters, putting his bottles down. He doesn’t really want to get drunk tonight; he knows he has a tendency to talk too much, and one time, he’s pretty sure he cried on Wendy’s shoulder before passing out in her lap. Neither Mabel nor Wendy have actually confirmed it, but they haven’t technically denied it, either. And, considering Robbie’s muffled snickering following him every time they encountered each other for the month afterwards, he’s convinced it’s true. He sighs, and rubs his eyes. He’s already tired of this. “Hey, Mabel, take it easy tonight, okay? We still have to go to school with these kids, remember?” Instead of laughing at him, and poking him in the side until he’s doubled over, she gives him a quick side-hug.

“It’ll be okay, Dipper.” I’m not the one who was bawling her eyes out upstairs an hour ago, he thinks, but gives her a small smile anyway.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Of course you do!” she crows, skipping away. He is left alone, surrounded by alcohol he can’t drink, at a party, where he can’t fit in. He sighs, slumps against the counter, and pulls out his smartphone. At least he could get some good research in, right?

*****

“Oh, no, mom, parties aren’t really my thing,”

“Now, young man, do you want to make friends in this town or not?” Elsie Langtree Brown plants her hands on her diminutive hips and glares her son down. She has had enough of his fooling around, locking himself in his room all day. It was all right for the first few days, but how is he supposed to get over Sara and his old friends if he doesn’t stop thinking about them? Wirt looks away bashfully, and she nods. “That’s right. Now, you’re going to march yourself up those stairs, put on a nice outfit, and go to that party. Do you want me to drive you, or would you rather walk?”

“N-no thanks, mom, I can walk,” he says nervously. Ms. Langtree ruffles his hair affectionately.

“Good boy. Now go get dressed!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies, trudging upstairs with heavy feet.

“Make sure to get a move on! It’s already 7:30, and it started half an hour ago!” She can hear his annoyed sigh from the top of the stairs, and she giggles. Oh, her big tough boy, afraid of being seen with his mom. She thinks it's cute.

*****

"Dipper, I swear, dude, if you don't get off your phone, I'm... I'm gonna..." Wendy starts giggling, interrupting her slurred speech, "I'm gonna throw it in the toilet, and piss on it!" Dipper ignores her, used to such threats coming from her sober, but when her hand slinks out, crawling up his leg, he jerks away, holding the phone protectively to his chest.

"Back off, Wendy. This is important."

"More important than this rad party, bro-bro?" Mabel calls, and Dipper rolls his eyes.

"Yes, Mabel, it is, actually." There had been signs of benevolent vampire activity in the woods to the east, and he wanted to check it out, and maybe surprise Mabel for her birthday. She’d probably just give him another sweater in return, but what can you do? She’s jumping on the couch right now, rocking out to a top 40s hit that Dipper would rather die than admit he recognized, laughing her head off about nothing, and it makes him smile. There’s not much that seems to make him happy anymore, but Mabel does. He’ll do just about anything to see her happy, even if it means putting away his phone and trying to make awkward conversation. With a sigh, he stands and slips his phone into the pocket of his cleanest jeans, then holds out a hand to help Wendy up too. She just laughs and whispers

“I like the floor better.”

“Whatever, man.” Dipper shrugs and heads out to join his sister; Wendy’ll pick herself up eventually. And the lucky bitch never seems to get any hangovers. He pulls Mabel down off the sofa with a cheer and they start rocking out to the song. He hardly even cares that people are watching, or that he doesn’t like this sort of thing. Just him and Mabel, and music, and it’s fun, and goddamn it, he’s going to have some fun this school year even their parents can’t keep their shit together. They keep going, brother and sister, until Mabel finally calls a time-out, going off to whip up another drink. Half-heartedly, he reminds her to keep it light, but at this point he can’t control her, and therefore doesn’t give a damn. With a happy sigh, he falls back onto the sofa and takes a deep breath. It’s always nice to get out of his head once in a while.

“Hey there,” somebody says, and he glances over at a bleach-blonde Pacifica knockoff who’s planted herself on the next cushion over.

“Uh… hey,” he replies, always articulate. She giggles, batting her eyelashes, and he almost rolls his eyes. But then she rests her hand on his thigh, and the disdain evaporates.

“So, I think you’re kinda cute,” she says, leaning in a little too close.

“Oh yeah?” He mutters, watching her lips carefully.

“Yeah,” she replies, giggling again. “What do you say we go find a room, have a nice little…” and she slides the hand farther up, “chat?” He swallows heavily, and finds his hand on her wrist, pushing her away. Isn’t it supposed to be harder to push a hot girl away? he thinks, and smiles politely.

“Uh, no, thanks. I mean, I, um, appreciate it and all, but I, uh… I don’t think so.” Her flirtatious smirk droops into a pout, and she whines

“Oh, but Dipper, please? Just… we don’t have to actually do anything. We can just make out, or something. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

“Uh…” He freezes, and he can tell by the way her eyes widen, hardly noticeable, but still there, that she knows. “No, what? I’ve totally…” he laughs nervously, his left hand going to rub his right arm, “Yeah, let’s go upstairs.”

*****

Wirt scuffs his leather shoe against the cracked sidewalk. Well, he thinks, this is it. It’s a party if he’s ever seen one. And there’s a couple making out in the front yard, barely visible in the darkness. He looks around furtively on their behalf, but none of the neighbors seem to be bothered by it. Huh. The thoughts are nice at keeping him from panicking, he realizes. Just keep thinking about other stuff. His usual sweater and slacks combo hasn’t made an appearance this evening, and he feels indescribably awkward. He doesn’t like the t-shirt and jeans he’s wearing, but even someone as socially outcast as him knows that you do not, under any circumstances, wear formal clothes to a party hosted by teenagers. Never. He chuckles nervously to himself, and takes the first few steps towards the door.

*****

Mystery Girl (who seems to know his name) pulls him, giggling, up the stairs. He trips over his own feet several times, face burning with embarrassment, but she doesn’t stop, yanking them both into a bedroom with a slam of the door. Determined not to screw this up, he takes a deep breath and turns to face her- and there stands Robbie and some of his ‘new’ friends.

“Fuck,” Dipper whispers.

“Ooh, language, little Dipper,” he mocks. The boy’s eyes go wide, and his back hits the door. “Oh, what, trying to run away? I don’t think so.”

*****

You can’t run away from this! Beatrice says, as he firmly walks away from the cabin. “Shut up,” he mutters, crossing his arms self-consciously. “You don’t always know everything!” But I’m right this time, she counters. You know I am. He stops. She is right, of course. She usually is, even if she’s just a voice in his head. Come on, Wirt. Turn around. He does, and, in his head, she smiles. There you go. Now get your stubborn butt in there. “All right.” He takes a deep breath. Don’t hyperventilate! That makes him smile. “I won’t, I won’t. Worrywart.” The smile grows as he imagines Beatrice flapping her wings in indignation. One step, then another, then a few really quickly as he starts to lose courage, and he's almost in front of the house again. You can do it, Wirt! Just as he reaches the last square of sidewalk before the doormat, a kid bursts out, full speed out the door. He shoves Wirt out of the way before racing down the sidewalk, scrubbing at his eyes. He's crying. As Wirt regains his balance, a girl about the other kid's age rushes out, looking around frantically.

"Dipper!" she cries, but the kid keeps running. "Come back!"

"Do you want me to go after him, or something?" Wirt ventures, scuffing his shoe against the concrete. The girl blinks at him, once, then smiles brightly.

"Hey, you're cute!" she says. Wirt flinches. "But, no thanks," the girl continues, leaning against the wall of the house and closing her eyes, "he'll be fine." Wirt nods, feeling dumb. But at least she talked to him, right? The music from inside stops, then the familiar beat of “Uptown Funk” pounds, and a cheer rings out.

"So..." he starts. The girl is starting to dance, shoulders and hips moving to the beat, then her eyes snap open.

"Oh, hi, I'm Mabel! What's your name?" Introductions. This is familiar territory, at least.

"I'm Wirt."

"Wirt?" She giggles. "That's a funny name." His cheeks flare red, and he mumbles, more to the ground than to her,

"It actually stands for... it's a nickname."

"But no funnier than Mabel. Or Dipper." She giggles again, eyes falling shut as her dance gets looser, more flowing than rhythmic. I don't think she heard you, Beatrice comments. Wirt shushes her, then takes a closer look at Mabel.

"Are you... drunk?" He asks, incredulous. "How old even are you?"

"Fifteen!" she chimes. "How old are you?" She didn't deny it. Now he's a little scared.

"S-seventeen," he stutters. She just nods, still swaying to the beat. Wirt finds himself tapping his foot in time, too.

"I don't think I've seen you around before," she comments.

"Yeah, no, I just... I mean, we, my family and I, just moved in." That prompts a grin from her.

“People don’t tend to move into Gravity Falls.” In the blink of an eye, the girl is replaced by a skeleton dressed in pumpkins, with corn husk braids, and Wirt hears a fiddle playing an old-fashioned harvest hymn. He goes pale.

“Oh y-yeah?” She continues, oblivious.

“Yeah. Small town, y’know? Weird as anything, but what’re ya gonna do?” She laughs, again, and the smothering spell is lifted. The teen gulps in air as Beatrice chides him. This isn’t Pottsfield. This isn’t the Unknown, Wirt. Come on. It’s just a girl, at a normal party. Get your head screwed on straight! “My brother- oh, he’s the weirdo who just…” she makes a running gesture that ends with her hand fisted in her long brown hair, “he, um… what’s the… there’s a word for this… oh!” She twirls, obviously thrilled, and grabs his hands in excitement. “He’s an explorer! He finds all sorts of cool sh- stuff in the woods! It’s amazing!” She’s leaned up close to him; he can smell the alcohol on her breath. She’s right there, looking up at him like… like he doesn’t even know what, and her eyes are so big and close and- he jumps back, jerking his hands away.

“P-please d-don’t do that!” He sounds like he’s about to cry, and he hugs his arms to his chest defensively. Not here, you fool! “Shut up, Beatrice,” he mutters. But the girl has stepped back, and she’s looking at him, a little confused, but mostly worried.

“Hey, are you… I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything. I’m sorry, I get a little touchy-feely when I’m… ha, who am I kidding? I’m touchy-feely all the time!” She takes another step towards him, and he turns to run. “No, hey, wait!” He doesn’t watch where he’s going, and he trips over his own feet and off the curb, landing on his hands and knees.

“Oh my sock puppets! Are you okay?” Her hands are on him, pulling him up, and the only thing he can think is thank god she’s warm past the pounding of his heart in his head, his chest, his fingertips.

“Hey, man, I…” A new girl is there, with red hair, the way Beatrice does when she appears in his dreams, and he knows it’s a mistake as soon as he moves but he runs to her, hugs her, calls her “Beatrice” and wants to cry on her shoulder. In his mind there is a voice screaming at him, paralyzing, telling him he’s just shot any chance of seeming normal in this town to hell, but she just laughs and asks, “You gave him Mabel juice, didn’t ya, kid? Jesus, Mabel, that stuff’s too strong for the average Joe. Didn’t we talk about this?” Not-Beatrice pushes him away, and the brown-haired girl catches him as he starts to fall again. “Make sure he gets home, ‘kay?” Mabel nods, he guesses, because the other girl gives her a wink and a thumbs up and goes back inside. It’s then that Wirt realizes he’s shaking, like a fragile, jewel-toned leaf, brittle and porcelain in its autumnal beauty…

“I… I’m so- I’m sorry,” he manages to mumble, clasping the hands he had pushed away. Mabel just replies, upbeat and cheerful,

“It’s okay! Just take a couple of deep breaths; it’ll be all right.” He doesn’t dare look up to see if she’s rolling her eyes. Already he’s coming back to his senses. His face burns with embarrassment. But they’re just standing on the sidewalk, in front of the house, holding hands. Beatrice laughs. There’s nothing wrong with that, Wirt. You don’t actually look like a weirdo, for once. Still, he steps back, wringing his hands nervously. “Woah, careful there! Don’t trip again; that was scary,” Mabel says. And giggles. Wow. She must really be drunk. Though she is incredibly coordinated for being so intoxicated… And she’s only, what, a freshman? The part of him that likes to debate the merits of wearing a flatbill is rather impressed.

“I, uh, won’t.” He chuckles, rubbing the edge of his shoe against the sidewalk. “S-sorry about that.” In his peripheral vision he sees her beam and he gets only a moment of warning before she swoops in for the warmest hug he’s had in a while, apart from Greg, that is. The tension that never leaves intensifies, at first, but, slowly, his shoulders drop, and his eyes open again (when had they closed?) and this is just an overly affectionate drunken embrace, on a sidewalk, in front of a log cabin, with a song he’s never heard blasting from the speakers. He even finds himself hugging back, just a little, with a pat on her back. She laughs delightedly.

“You hug like Dipper!” she squeals, and he finds himself chuckling nervously, too.

“Is that a good thing?” She shrugs, eyes closing with a soft smile.

“It’s a thing.”

“Okay.” There’s not much he can say to that.

“You were not the same after that,” the singer on the stereo croons.

“Uh, M-mabel?” Eyes flying open again, she looks up at him.

“Yeah… wait, what’s your name?” The question sends her into paroxysms of laughter, still clinging to Wirt. Her laughter rumbles through into his bones, unsettlingly. The beginnings of a poem spark into his brain, and there’s a painful sort of relief that comes with it that steals his breath for a moment.

“Wirt, r-remember? I, uh, I said it earlier.”

“Oh…” She sighs the last of her giggles away.

“Yeah.” Without warning, she steps back.

“I really like this song,” she says with a grin.

“Y-yeah?” He never knows what to say after things like that.

“Dance with me!” And there goes his breath again.

“...what? I d-don’t, no-” But she’s already grabbed his hands, and she’s swaying to the beat, back and forth and back and forth.

“Come on, Wirt! Just… sway with me.”

“You took the word and made it heard,” he hears, floating through the open windows. It almost sounds like a slow song, but it’s… not. It’s got drums and electric guitar and it’s really weird. But he’s swaying anyway, and Mabel’s smiling at him.

“You have beautiful eyes,” she says softly. He blushes and looks away. Ah, there’s piano now. And then it’s gone. There’s silence for a second, and it’s just the two of them swaying in the front yard, but then there’s an “uno, dos, tres,” and “Tonight, Tonight” is accompanied by a chorus of untuned voices from inside the house. For once, Mabel doesn’t laugh. “Keep dancing with me!” And, for once, he wants to.

It’s almost one in the morning when Wendy, the red-haired Not-Beatrice who apparently hosted this thing, shoos everybody out with a “Goodnight, you fucktards!” Somebody had played “Uptown Funk” two more times, with Wirt and Mabel flailing along enthusiastically each time. They hadn’t danced the whole time; sometimes they just sat and talked over the music and the screaming and the moans of the dude getting a blowjob on the other side of the house. Mabel knits her own sweaters, he learns, and doesn’t think it’s weird at all that he likes to wear them to school and everywhere else. She even lets him borrow hers for a while when he lets slip that he feels much more comfortable in them than in what he’s wearing. She tells him about her brother, Dipper, and how there’s “supernatural shizzle, homedog,” all around the town, and Wirt brushes it off as intoxicated ramblings. That’s what it’s got to be, right? She keeps going, talking about all sorts of things, and Wirt actually enjoys listening. She trust him, he thinks, and that makes him strangely satisfied.

“You know, I think I might not like guys,” she murmurs. “Just, girls are so pretty… and, like, people. Wirt, people are amazing! Have you seen some of ‘em that are… they’re, like, not girls, and not boys, and it’s just like… wow, I want to kiss you!” He just laughs, but not at her, and says that, no, he hasn’t; he doesn’t usually feel like that, and then he tells her about Sara to the tune of Sam Smith and Passenger. The best part is that she doesn’t make fun of him, or laugh, even when his words become verses and he stumbles off into mortified silence. She just takes his hand, gently, silently, and after making sure it’s okay, and just… they sit, watching the sky while the guitar strums in the background. When the other teens start pouring out to pool on the lawn, drunk and disheveled and leaning on each other, he offers to walk her home. She shows him her modified golf cart, beaming, and tells him she’ll get home just fine. He thinks it might be dangerous, his mind fatigued and paranoid, and says that she should be careful. With a kiss on the cheek and a smile, she assures him that she will be. He yawns, and nods, and then she’s racing off into the night at at least ten miles over the speed limit. And he goes home, and writes poetry until the sun comes up. It’s the best night he’s had in a while.     

He finds the song that he and Mabel danced to, that night, and buys it. The iTunes counter tells him he’s listened to it two hundred and seventy-nine times before the first day of school. But he’s acting happier, and his mom and stepdad are glad to see it, at least so they say. Greg’s just happy that Wirt was willing to take him to the pool one last time before school started for them both.

He’s going into third grade this year, and Wirt is very, very proud of him.  precocious as ever, and one of the brightest kids in his class, but he has trouble with his words and for a while, it looked like he was going to give up on reading entirely. Wirt remembers vividly the night that he went to Greg’s room and asked him why he was failing English. The boy’s reply had been sarcastic, evasive, and Wirt’s heart rate had picked up.

“Greg, you… you have to be worried about this! Reading is a very big deal, and if you decide you don’t care now, what are you going to do for the rest of school?”

Greg had scoffed, playing with Jason Funderberker instead of meeting his brother’s eyes. “School? Pft. Geez, Wirt. I don’t have to go to school. I can always go back to the Unknown if stuff goes bad. I don’t need school.”

Wirt panicked. Without a moment’s hesitation his hands were on his little brother’s shoulders, and he looked him in the eyes and he shouted, “Don’t you ever say anything like that again, do you hear me? You will never go back to the Unknown! Don’t even talk about- no, don’t even think about it, Greg. I never want to hear you say that again, never! Do you understand?” Greg’s eyes, wide with shock, had welled with tears, but Wirt couldn’t see them through his fear. “Dammit, Greg, you can’t go back there. You, you just… you can’t. I won’t let you.” His breath came fast, and heavy, and Greg was just staring up at him with those wide, innocent, brown eyes of his, and he just… he just… he just hugged him, and told him he was sorry, and that he loved him no matter what, and Greg let him, waiting until he stopped his messy apologies and reassurances to tell him that he wanted to do well, but the letters didn’t make sense sometimes and that he didn’t really know what to do with them. That was how they found out that Greg had dyslexia, and he had been going to therapy ever since. And now he’s reading as fast as all the other kids in his grade, and he gobbles up every book he can get his hands on. He’s already met the head librarian, Mrs. Gualtieri (Mrs. G to the little boy), and Wirt couldn’t be happier for him. But now it’s the first day of school and neither one of them wants to go.

“Dad, do we have to go?” the third grader whines, rubbing his eyes in the light of the kitchen. Wirt mimics him, but knows that, while Greg will be perfectly full of energy by his first period, he himself will feel like something stepped on and smeared across the sole of an athlete’s tennis shoe, or, in coarser terms, like shit, until at least lunch time, and probably, realistically, last period.

“Now, sweetheart, you know you gotta go to school. You’ve spent too much daggone time workin’ on your reading ot skip out now,” Jimmy Brown replies, affectionately ruffling his son’s hair. “The two of you had better get a move on. Wirt, you can take Ol’ Ginger.” The teen pauses in the middle of making a lunch he knows he won’t eat. “What?”

His step-dad laughs.

“Well, we didn’t get you that driver’s license for nothin’, sonny. You’ll be takin’ Greg and your mother to school every morning. Don’t you remember?”

Mrs. Brown looks up from her large cup of coffee, blinking sleepily. “Wirt, honey, you know I can’t drive this early, and your father’s job is clear on the other side of town. You’re going to have to drive us there, and I can get us home, all right?”

The boy nods mutely; what else can he do? His parents know that he hates driving, but his mom has seriously fallen asleep on the highway before eight in the morning, and his stepdad’s job is at least half an hour away from their new school. Greg cheers, “Yay! Wirt’s driving!” and everybody begins bustling back and forth again, like the little discussion never happened.

Wirt just sits down blank-eyed at the kitchen table and mechanically checks again to make sure he has everything on the school supplies list. He can’t remember how many times he’s checked before. Maybe three? It doesn’t matter. It’s always better to be prepared. There’s three binders, each divided into two subjects; his two plastic insert folders, one black and the other blue, just like the list said; a package of freshly sharpened pencils; five black ball-point pens; two of those big ugly pink erasers; a flash drive (for what? the school’s website says there’s no technology at their school that would require this); all in a sturdy backpack with no wheels, with no characters or offensive messaging. Wirt thinks he’ll be okay; his backpack is solidly black, no patterns or designs at all. But, apprehensively checking to make sure no one else sees him, he checks to make sure he has his old notebook (only a few pages left in that one) and a replacement one next to it, along with his special pens. They’re not actually special, he knows: they’re just blue ink pens that he got at the grocery store, but… his poems work- no, they feel better in blue ink. It’s crazy, he knows, and ridiculous, and utterly idiotic, but… well, he’s still packing them.

“Wirt, come on!” Greg yells, and he jumps. “We’re gonna be late!”

The teen hurriedly pulls down his sweater and follows Greg to the garage. Ol’ Ginger, the family’s 2002 red Chevy, is the first thing Jimmy and Elsie bought together; the second was a crib for Greg. While he’d never say anything, Wirt hates the damn thing.

“Get in, Greg,” he snaps. “You too, Mom.”

*****

“Oi, kids!” Grunkle Stan’s rough voice slowly permeates the thick groggy fog of Dipper’s consciousness, along with the harsh, glaring light of the bedroom, and he groans, pushing away the light sheet that covers him.

“What, Grunkle Stan?”

“It’s the first day of school; get your butts outta bed!”

Mabel just rolls over and pulls her fifty million layers of blankets over her head. That’s one gift that time brought, along with puberty: she’s no longer a morning person.

But Grunkle Stan isn’t having any of their crap this morning. With a skilled, and practiced move, he grabs Dipper and tosses him onto Mabel’s bed, effectually waking both of them up. It feels like hell to the boy; a freefall, then pain and heat and Mabel’s squealing and god, Grunkle Stan, really?

“Now get downstairs! We gotta half hour drive to school!”

Dipper thrashes and fights his way out of Mabel’s suffocating trap of a bed, gulping in the fresh air. “Wait… why can’t the bus pick us up?” The old man just laughs.

*****

The school is in utter chaos when they arrive. Wirt almost has a panic attack right there in the drop off line. Since Mrs. Brown is going to teach there, they have to arrive a little early, but the traffic is still backed up to the nearest intersection. There’s teachers running through the parking lot, little children crying at the thought of leaving their parents for the day, and one frazzled traffic worker trying to explain to people that they have to go all the way around the building to drop off their kids, not just open the doors as soon as they enter school grounds. Wirt’s terrified. “Mom…?”

“It’s fine, darlin’,” she reassures him, but she’s looking around too, trying to figure out what on earth is happening here. Taking deep breaths, and comforting himself with the fact that they’re probably going too slowly to hit any rampant-running kindergarteners, the teen manages to park Ol’ Ginger. Greg jumps out the second the car is off, cheering and chattering about “how great this is!” Mrs. Brown is a little more cautious, making sure she’s got her tote, laptop, and coffee all adequately balanced before heading directly to the front entrance. After a moment of paralyzing indecision, Wirt scurries after her. A woman comes out of the building then, sees the two, and runs straight towards them.

“Oh my god, Elsie, thank the Lord you’re here. Can you go watch the first through third graders? They’re running all around the gym and we don’t have the fire marshall's clearance for the upstairs and all the middle and high school kids are going to have to start class on the stage and it’s just a-” She would have kept going, Wirt’s sure, except then she gasps and runs after a little girl who had just dashed in front of a beaten-up old station wagon with an old man honking furiously behind the wheel.

“Hey, kid!” he yells. “Watch it! You couldda died! Wait, you’re going to school. Maybe it’d be kinder to put you outta your misery!”

Wirt finds himself laughing, almost hysterically. At least he’s not the only one who equates school with death.

“Wirt, honey,” his mom says, giving him her best apologetic smile, “can you take this stuff to my classroom, please?”

“Mom, I don’t even know where your-”

“It’s room 118, now go! I have some little ones to wrangle.” She giggles and shoves the tote and laptop into his arms before jogging into the building, in her first-day-of-school outfit  (brown capris, white blouse, and mint scarf), with her cup of coffee, never stealing a drop. She gets so excited over these things. Wirt suddenly realizes that he look like a complete fool and follows as fast as he can, hoping that no one will notice him. Now he just has to find room 118 and report to the… the multi-purpose room, whatever that is, for class.

*****

Grunkle Stan speeds right past the high school.

“What the heck, man?” Dipper yells. “We’re gonna be late!”

Stan shrugs. “Yeah, so, you’re not going to the high school,” he says, nonchalant as anything.

“What?” the twins chorus; Mabel, confused; Dipper, aghast.

“The high school didn’t have space for you kiddos this close to the start of the year, and since this isn’t your permanent residence, I couldn’t get you enrolled.”

“Grunkle Stan, what th-” Dipper cuts off, slammed against the door as the car makes a wild left turn, and squeaks in surprise, making Mabel laugh. His already disgruntled glare turns furious. “What the actual hell!?”

“Language!” Stan retorts.

“Language? You’re the one who neglected to tell us where we’re going to school until…” the boy hurriedly checks his watch, “twenty-three minutes before classes start! I think I’m perfectly entitled to ask you what the hell is going on!” Dipper sees him roll his eyes towards the rearview mirror.

“You’re going to Pine Ridge Academy, you’ll get your schedules when you arrive, they’re very excited to have you join their freshman class for the upcoming school year, yada yada. Anything else you wanna know, smart a- guy?”

Mabel opens her mouth to ask a question, but then, seeing the school come into view, she very wisely shuts up. The parking lot is in utter chaos, and there’s a line of cars about a mile long. Grunkle Stan shifts the gear to park and settles back. “Looks like we’d better get comfy, kids.”

By the time they finally reach the drop-off point, Mabel has suggested telling ghost stories, Grunkle Stan’s heckled a kid, and the twins are four minutes late.

“You guys are driving the cart from now on,” Stan says, good humor worn off. The twins, too busy leaving, just wave at him. “Park it off in the woods where nobody’ll see it. Remember, it’s only illegal if you’re caught!” The parking lot goes mysteriously silent, and Stan races off without a hint of remorse. Dipper buries his face in his hands.

“Come on, Dipper! Do you want to be any later than we already are?” Mabel readjusts her backpack anxiously, and they both hurry to the entrance . Just before they go in, though, with her hand hardly an inch away from the door handle, the girl turns to her brother and asks, “Dipper, do I… this is stupid, but do I look good?” He starts to answer, but she smoothes down her sweater and continues, “Even though I’m fat?” Her twin is taken aback.

“Fat? What? Where is this coming from?” Some younger kids, middle schoolers? push past them through the door, and Mabel ducks her head.

“Shut up, Dipper! Just, do I look okay?” He nods, still baffled. I thought she was, like, size eight or... something. Ten, maybe. That’s not fat, right? Apparently the nod is enough, because she grins and reaches for his hand. “Thanks, bro.” Another kid shoves them out of the way, though, and Dipper shoves him back.

“C’mon, Mabel,” he says with a smile, “let’s get in there.” She knows what he means, though; he can see it. There’s benefits to being twins, he thinks, if you’re into telekinesis.

*****

Miraculously, he didn’t run into anyone while burdened with all his mom’s teaching materials, and he made it back without anybody noticing him. It lifts an indescribable weight off his shoulders, as small of a thing as it is. He’s even smiling as he rejoins the chaos in the carpeted multipurpose room, gym thing. Who puts carpet in their gym, anyway? It’s an ugly room, even packed with kids and teachers, but his mother looks proud, standing in her relatively calm corner, with Greg and his classmates. Your mom can really pick ‘em, can’t she? Beatrice snarks. His eyes go wide, and he flaps his hand in an abortive motion to get her to go away, before he recalls that she isn’t here anymore. Oh, that’s right, she comments. For a moment, he can see her on Greg’s teapot hat, rolling her eyes. I’m dead, aren’t I? I guess that means you can’t listen to me anymore. I guess I don’t matter. But, wait a minute, didn’t you die, too? You and Greg. ‘No, not now,’ he thinks. Cold starts to nip at his fingertips, even in the crowded room, and-

“Hey, Wirt!” a shrill, high voice calls miraculously over the din. He freezes. ‘That sounds like… who is that?’ Remembering with a spark of happiness, he turns and waves at Mabel, the girl from the party. She looks cute today, in an oversized sunshine-hued sweater, with daisies all over it, and a little gray pleated skirt. Her brother, Dipper’s his name, looks miserable in comparison, but at least more comfortable than the last time Wirt saw him. He’s wearing shorts, a red shirt and a blue vest, but wow does he have a bad case of bedhead, or hat hair, or… something in between. They look cute together, and… warm? Hmm. That’s new, but Wirt’s fingers are tingling now, and he’s suddenly aware of how incredibly warm it is in his sweater, around all these other kids. It’s a good feeling; he doesn’t feel hot often, anymore.

They come right up to him, the girl dragging her brother behind her, stage whispering “Isn’t he beautiful?” Wirt looks around for a moment, but doesn’t see anyone she could be talking about. Maybe she was just talking about someone else they both know.  

“Hey, Wirt, remember me? It’s Mabel, from the party a couple of weeks ago!” ‘Of course I remember,’ he thinks, but he’s interrupted by microphone feedback scratching through the air.

“Oh, sorry, oh god, I didn’t, um… testing? Is this on? I guess it is.” It’s the nervous woman from before, standing on the stage, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “All right, welcome, everybody, to the first ever school year here at Pine Ridge Academy! Um, I’m Miss Clarissa Estrada, your vice principal, and, yes. I know that things are a little crazy here right now, but we’re working on getting everything sorted, um, as soon as possible, so, thank you for your cooperation. High school, I need you all to come up here onto the stage with me, there you go, okay.” Wirt follows Miss Estrada’s orders obediently, and Mabel and Dipper follow. The boy is holding his arm like standing up here is the most awkward thing he’s ever done, and Wirt suddenly finds himself sympathetic.

“Mabel, you can let go now,” he whispers to his sister.

Quietly, but still chipper as ever, she replies“Nope! Alpha twin protective instincts!” Wirt hides a smile behind his hand, and the woman at the podium speaks over the whispers, turning around to survey them quickly.

“Okay, so, you’re going to have class up here for a bit, because of, well, yes, but we’ll get you upstairs as soon as possible, all right?”

Dipper gasps, looking horrified. “So…” she continues, “go ahead and sit down, all of you.” She makes a patting movement, like they are all kindergarteners, but the others all follow along, sitting clumsily with their backpacks still on. Mabel yanks Dipper into her lap.

“Mabel, no!” he squeals and pushes himself away to a blank section of the stage, cheeks fiery red. She just giggles at him and pokes Wirt.

“That’s my brother Dipper!” she tells him. “Isn’t he a dork?” Wirt waves again, more tentatively this time. Dipper just groans and buries his face in his hands. Wirt grins, feeling ordinary, for once. Beatrice would be- no. No Beatrice today. Helen, though. Would she be proud of him? He’s staying focused, and people like him. That’s good, right? He thinks her smiling at him, and ducks his head, embarrassed by her imaginary praise. She looks like Lorna, with a sweet smile and skin pale as snow. He frowns. Maybe not that… but the moment he thinks that she might have darker skin, images of Sara flood his mind, and he tenses again. There goes the rest of the day.

So it turned out that every kid in the high school has the same first period class (moral philosophy), the classroom they finally get to was almost smaller than the stage, and both he and that kid have nicknames that sound nothing like their actual names. But Wirt didn’t freak out when the teacher asked for “Langtree, William,” while Dipper most definitely panicked at “Pines, Ar-”

“Dipper! Dipper, please, sir.”

The teacher just cleared his throat and said “Pines, Dipper.” The boy sighed in relief, and made a not to talk to the other teachers before class started. The rest of the day was pretty standard first day stuff, except that they don’t get lockers here (Mabel’s heartbroken that she doesn’t get to decorate one) and there were sophomores and juniors and sometimes the school’s one senior in their classes. That was weird.

*****

“But riddles are not made for me,

My joy’s in beauty, not its cause:

Then give me but the open skies,

And birds that sing in a green wood

That’s snow-bound by anemones,” Wirt mutters. Greg doesn’t even stop talking, well used to his brother’s eccentricities by now. But this scrap of verse, one of his favorite Davies’ poems, is particularly odd; school has never prompted such an optimistic feeling before. A small flutter of hope jumps in his chest; perhaps he’s getting better. Beatrice laughs, but Sara smiles and encourages him, saying, Yeah, there you go, Wirt. Always think up. He shuts them both down. He wants peace in his mind, to write a poem of yellow sweaters and cold hands warmed by voices in a crowd… ‘Entropy’, he thinks. ‘I’ll call it “Entropy.”’

*****

Soos picks them up, laughing off their thanks. They run into the shack, throwing the many, many syllabus forms at Grunkle Stan in his favorite arm chair before running upstairs, giggling frantically.

“Ha ha, very funny, kids!” he bellows, not bothering to get up. “Dipper, remember to change your patch!”

Dipper rolls his eyes and yells back, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” They both know he’ll never forget his patches.

*****

“Which is more beautiful

The fire or the smoke?

Waving, curling tendrils,

Wafting through the air…

Intangible, vague.

“This is smoke’s legacy, to be forgotten

In a moment’s time, in the whoosh

Of a breath, in a whisper.

But fire… Oh, fire!

Alive, warm, vibrant!

Its light… oh, shoot, what does firelight do?”

*****

“So…” Mabel drawls, sprawled out on her bed. She looks expectantly at her brother.

“So…” he echoes from his side of the room, purposefully flipping through the various handouts they’re supposed to read.

“Isn’t he nice?” she asks, rolling onto her stomach and propping her chin up on her hands. “And cute. And sweet. And sensitive.”

Dipper rolls his eyes. “I don’t know how the hell you got all that from the, what, four classes and lunch we had with him.”

She pouts, whining “Hey! I met him at that party, remember? I told you all about him then.”

Dipper nods distractedly. Why is that crazy history teacher having them read so much? Jesus, we do have lives, y’know. I have vampires to track down! He fishes the journal out from beneath his backpack and flips to the vampire page, skimming quickly. “Mm-hm,” he agrees.

“Plus, he gave us lunch today. That was pretty great.”

He nods; that actually was pretty nice of him. Grunkle Stan had given them lunch money, but the school, unsurprisingly, didn’t have a lunch program. Wirt had sheepishly held out his lunchbox and said “I wasn’t gonna eat it anyway.” The twins had devoured its contents voraciously, and Wirt had just smiled.

“Yeah…” Dipper replies absentmindedly, reaching for a pen to stick in his mouth.”That was nice, for a stranger.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his sister’s sweet smile grow devious, and he only has a moment to think Oh, shit before she says, “I think you should ask him out.” The pen snaps between his teeth, spewing ink everywhere, and Dipper almost swallows an entire stick of red ink in surprise.

“Mabel, wh- ew!” Ink is gross.

Mabel is laughing her head off, sprawled across the bed, and as he runs to the bathroom to wash his mouth out he hears her fall off and keep snickering into the carpet.

“Wow, Mabel,” he says with a double-dose of sarcasm, just for her, “you really think that’s funny, don’t you?”

She comes to laugh at him from the doorframe, giggling as he glares at her reflection in the mirror. “It’s always funny when you make your pens explode,” she replies, beaming.

“So that’s why you said that? ‘Cause it’s funny to get red ink absolutely fucking everywhere?”

She just grins. “No. I actually think you should.”

He snorts, rubbing his face with a towel. “Yeah, how about no. I’m not into guys. Besides, you sound like you’ve got a crush on him yourself.”

“Pshaw!” she replies, waving him off even as she comes closer to hug him. “Now hold still.” She takes the towel, carefully wiping at all the spots he didn’t see. “How do you know you don’t like guys if you don’t ever try one?”

Dipper splutters, pushing her away. “Okay, no; first, that’s not how it works. Second, he’s not, like, a computer program or something. Being gay or whatever isn’t a… a thirty-day free trial sorta thing.”

“Yeah, I know, duh,” she sighs, “but I think you guys would be cute together. Besides, who was the last girl you liked? Wendy, right? And you were twelve.”

Dipper pushes past her, back to the bedroom. “Mabel, we are not talking about this. I don’t need to… to like anybody. I don’t need anybody like that, a girlfriend, or, god forbid, a boyfriend.” Hurriedly yanking the now-ink stained sheets off his bed, he doesn’t turn around. She’s not laughing, and she’s not teasing. That’s never a good sign.

“Dipper, I just… I think you’re right, but… I’m just worried about you,” she says, softly. Must be in the hallway.

He scoffs. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Jesus, you’d think I was sick or something.” He gathers up all the sheets, about to take them all downstairs (looks like he’s stuck doing the laundry, again) when he feels Mabel’s hand on his shoulder. He jumps, dropping everything. “Hey, no! Don’t… what the hell, Mabel?”

“Dipper. Look at me.” He instinctively ducks his head, kneeling to pick up the spilled laundry. “Dipper! Stop it!”

He rolls his eyes, swallowing hard, and stands, sheets in hand. “What, Mabel?”She comes up to him, holding onto him by one shoulder.   

“I’m not going to run away,” he mumbles.

“Dipper…” she says, her voice too sympathetic.

“That’s my name, yeah.”

“Can you stop being a sarcastic little shit for one minute!”

He looks away. Mabel’s cursing. Very not good.

“Thank you. Dipper, its not okay that you don’t want anybody anymore. I don’t want you to lock people out. I get that Wendy… rejection isn’t the best.” She laughs. “I mean, look at all the times guys turned me down. But I kept trying. You sort of… gave up. You haven’t made any new friends since, like, three years ago. You sit alone, you… go do stuff in the woods alone, you don’t like anybody. Dipper, come on, please, just… work with me here!”

He breaks away, going to look out the window instead of at her, and of fucking course she follows him. “Mabel, this may be hard for you to comprehend, but I don’t need people! I’m an introvert, you’re not, so you can just shut up now.”

She outright glares him down. “You think you’re the only one who can do research? What you’re doing isn’t being an introvert, Dipper. You’re isolating yourself, and trying to make yourself tougher, and it’s because you’re afraid of another Wendy!” The room goes quiet, and there’s only her heavy breathing filling the space.

“I… uh…” Dipper takes a deep breath. “Mabel…” He can’t think of anything to say.

“See?” she retorts. “You know it’s true. You know it. Say it isn’t true; I dare you.” His eyes meet the floor.

“Yeah,” she replies, voice softening. “That’s what I thought.”

Firmly setting his jaw, Dipper goes to take the laundry downstairs; Mabel sinks down onto her bed. “Dipper, just…”

He keeps walking.

*****

“The light of a fire

Illuminates all imperfections:

Coats them with gold,

Softens their marring;

It beautifies, gilds, restores

What is broken.

“What is the smoke,

Death in air,

To compare

To flickering life?

What am I

Next to two living flames,

Burning bright

With youth, with joy…

I am the smoke.

Nothing.”

The twins’ birthday comes up quickly. The second Saturday of September finds them and almost the entire town of Gravity Falls gathered at the lake for the celebration, a fish fry/BBQ/karaoke/swim party/combination/shindig, or FBKSPCS (pronounced Fuh-bek-specs by Mabel). Soos is running the karaoke; Mabel and Dipper aren’t allowed to do any work tonight, Grunkle Stan’s orders. They were given reluctantly, and under duress from Wendy, but that still counts, right? And it’s their first birthday in Gravity Falls.

“You can’t make ‘em work today, Mr. Pines. It’s just not fair.” He had rolled his eyes, but, with copious groaning, had given them free passes for the day.

Mabel is absolutely ecstatic, cheering and jumping and dancing everywhere in her pink sundress, greeting everybody with beaming grins until she turns around and says to her brother: “Hey, where is Wirt?” Dipper shrugs, and her face falls. “He said he’d be here. I gave him a special invitation.” Dipper tries to, unsuccessfully, hide his snicker; he had seen the ‘super specialicious birthday invite’ envelope, a blindingly bright concoction of neon ink and glitter that he’s sure scarred his retinas forever. Mabel just gives him an unimpressed look and whips out her flip phone.

“I’m gonna text him,” she declares, typing furiously.

“Mabel…” he protests, “if he isn’t already here, I don’t think he’s coming.” The boy looks around anxiously. The party’s in full swing, and damn, there’s a lot of people. They’re everywhere; in the lake, at the dock, near the fire pits. And the light is hitting just right to put everything, everyone, in high definition. There’s a lot going on, and if he were, Wirt, he wouldn’t want to come either. But he takes a deep breath and sets his jaw. This is his birthday. An entire day to celebrate him! And Mabel, too, but she celebrates basically every day. On impulse, he gives her a hug, pulling her hair a little so it isn’t too sweet of a moment. “It’s okay, Mabel. We’ll see him on Monday, right?”

She grins, pocketing her phone in her bra (he will never find that not weird), and says “Actually, we’ll see him in a few minutes. He’s almost here.”

“...oh.” Dipper steps back, nonplussed. His sister punches him on the shoulder, laughing unashamedly at him.

“It’s okay, bro; you can’t be right all the time.” She runs off, waving goodbye with a casual flick of her hand.

“I know that,” he retorts, several seconds too late. He’s… he’s actually really hurt. Wow. Well, guess she doesn’t need me. Of course she doesn’t; she’s good at things like this. She’s never really needed me. I mean, it’s my birthday, so it would’ve been nice for her to, I dunno, pretend, at least, but no, it’s her birthday, too. She deserves to be happy. But, fuck, that… did she have to… I know people don’t like me, I don’t need extra guilt-tripping, jesus. By the end of his little mind rant, he’s pissed, and he definitely doesn’t want to be around people anymore, and so, with an angry scowl, he heads for the woods.

*****

Wirt stands behind a tree, watching as Mabel laughs and dances with some blond girl. It says a lot about his emotional state that he doesn’t even notice how creepy that is. Clutching his gift tightly in his hands, he takes a deep breath, choking on air. ‘Why can’t I even do this one small task?’ he asks himself. ‘It’s for Mabel and Dipper; just give it to them, then you can leave. You don’t really know anybody else anyway, so you don’t have to stay.’ Beatrice rolls her eyes. You’re pathetic, Wirt. He can’t find the determination to fight her, not today. Not now.

“I know,” he whispers. Suddenly he feels like he can’t walk anywhere; he can’t even run away. He stumbles to the nearest clear patch of ground and sits, letting the present fall to his lap. “Go ahead,” he says. “Hit me with your best shot, Beatrice.” She laughs.

And what are you going to do? Sit there and pretend like it’s not true? Oh, no, you’re going to remember everything I saw and every time you do anything you’re proud of you’ll hear me again. Do you think that that will make anything better? Do you really think that you’ll be able to make up for what you did? Her laugh grates in his mind. Do you think that you can every make amends, make anything right? No. You killed yourself, Wirt! You can never make any of this better; you killed yourself because you were a coward, and you almost-

A stick cracks, off to the left, and Beatrice disappears without a trace. Wirt looks up, desperate to hear the end of her sentence but also completely terrified of who’s there. He hears mumbles, from off in the trees, “She doesn’t need me, my stupid parents don’t need me, who the fuck-” and stands, poised to run when Dipper appears and stops, seemingly shocked to see him.

“Wirt? You okay?”

Wirt realizes that he’s been crying. Wiping his eyes quickly, he looks down, mumbling “Yeah, of course, I… I’m f-fine.” But Dipper doesn’t go away. He takes a step closer, actually; Wirt watches his feet. He’s wearing flip flops, and a quick glance up confirms that he’s wearing swim trunks and a t-shirt, too. And Wirt’s in khakis. Could he be even more of an outcast?

“Hey, man, it’s okay. Were you scared about the party or something?” His head snaps up. ‘How did he know?’ Dipper comes all the way to him, now, smiling a little. “I feel you. I don’t wanna be here, either.” Wirt wants to ask why Dipper doesn’t want to be at his own birthday party, but he knows that if he tries to talk now the boy won’t understand a word from his tear-clogged throat. Instead he just shoves his gift, ‘a book, how lame,’ at him and starts to walk away.

*****

“Wait!” Dipper reaches out and grabs his sleeve, who wears long sleeves in weather like this, anyway?, trying to stop him. Wirt reacts violently, pulling back with a yell, and falling backwards on his butt. “Woah, what? I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry!” Dipper knows the look in Wirt’s eyes right now; he’s seen it in Mabel’s face when she wakes up from a nightmare about the Dusk to Dawn. He knows it’s been on his face when he hears the name ‘Bill’, even if it’s in casual conversation. Wirt’s haunted. Maybe… somebody beat him up? Or… no, his parents are cool, right? His mom seems nice, at school at least, but that doesn’t mean anything. Shit, I don’t know!

Dipper doesn’t try to help him up, or walk any closer. With a reaction like that, he knows he’d be a fool to try. Wirt picks himself up, dusting off his clothes and Dipper just says “Wanna talk about it?”  

The other boy freezes. “What? N-no, I mean… there’s, uh, nothing to… yeah.”

Dipper sighs. “Mabel’s worried about you, man. She really wants you to go to the party.”

Wirt seems to curl in on himself. “No, she doesn’t. Nobody wants me at their party.”

The younger boy’s first thought is to scoff, but he gets the feeling, and it’s not a fun one. “She actually does, but…” he chuckles self-consciously, scratching the back of his neck. “You know what, we don’t have to go. There’s nothing wrong with staying out here. But you look like you’re in rough shape, so maybe we could just… hang out?” Wirt shakes his head, and Dipper feels something fall in his chest.

“You should go enjoy your p-party,” he says. “I’m s-sorry for… for bothering you.”

Dipper sighs. “Look, I’m not feeling particularly great at the moment, either, so maybe we can just talk for a bit, and uh, not go party? You don’t really look ready to go swimming, anyway.” The other teen pulls at his cuffs nervously.

“Y-you could just talk to me?” he offers, still not meeting his gaze.

“Hey,” Dipper replies coaxingly, “look at me, will ya?” Wirt does so, reluctantly. “I can talk to Mabel if I really need to, but I don’t think you’ve really got anybody, do you? So you can talk to me. I promise, I won’t say anything.” He hesitates, then mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key, the way Wendy had done for him years ago. To his surprise, Wirt smiles a little.

“Okay,” he agrees, dusting himself off again. “Sure. I… I’m sorry for crying, though.”

Dipper laughs. “Nah, man, it’s fine. I don’t care, and I won’t tell anybody. C’mon, talk to me.” And so they walk through the forest, with Wirt stumbling often (he’s definitely the clumsiest person Dipper’s ever met) and telling him about where he used to live, and his ex-girlfriend (he kind of wants to rub that in Mabel’s face, except that it hurts, so, no) and then, when the sun starts to set and the fading light makes it too hard to see, they make their way out of the woods and sit on the shore of the lake, at almost the opposite end from the party, and Wirt says, slowly, painfully,

“A couple of years ago, I… um. Well, uh, I have a little brother, Greg, he, uh, he goes to Pine Ridge, too. He’s in third grade, but… he was just a first grader at the time, and... “ For a second, he buries his face in his hands, and Dipper mentally braces himself. “I was a dick,” he finally says, with a nervous laugh. “I didn’t like him because, well, my, um, my parents got divorced, right? And Mom, she… she married Greg’s dad and I… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, really, I just… I was really stupid, and… Dipper, I…” Then he looks up, and meets his eyes, and in the light that’s barely there he’s earnest and pleading and Dipper just knows that what he’s about to say has been eating at him ever since it happened. “I almost got him killed! N-no, I… I almost killed him. I almost killed my brother, DIpper, I… how… I didn’t even think I was capable of… No. That… that was the problem, Dipper, it’s… I didn’t mean to, I swear! It just… I was so s-selfish; I couldn’t see, and i… Greg almost died for m-me! And I’d never done anything for him! He just wanted a frog and I was s-so worried about that stupid mixtape I just… I said I was s-sorry, so many times, but… it wasn’t enough. D-dipper, it’s… it’s never enough…”

Dipper blinks; nope, he’s still there, shaking like a leaf and biting his lip to keep the tears at bay. Wirt is trusting him with this, this pain that looks like it hurts more than anything he’s ever felt in his life. Wirt, right now. at least, needs him. He almost wants to grin, to hug him and thank him, but even he knows that’s a terrible idea. “But he’s alive, isn’t he?” he finds himself saying, voice softer and more gentle than it is with anyone other than Mabel. “You got him home. And, besides, from what I’ve seen, you’re really good with him.” Wirt looks up at him, a spark of hope in his eyes.

“You… really?”

Dipper nods quickly. “Yeah, man, when you pick him up from class, you’re really, uh, sweet. With him, I mean. Yeah.” He scratches his neck again, cheeks starting to burn. But the other boy doesn’t poke fun at his wording, or laugh at his blush (maybe he just didn’t see it in the bad light?). He smiles so gratefully and happily that it makes Dipper’s breath catch, and whispers,

“Thank you.”

Dipper just nods, quick and sharp. That smile did weird things to his insides. “Come on,” he says, standing up and holding out his hand to Wirt. “It’s getting dark, and I bet Mabel still want to say ‘hi’.” Wirt takes his hand, following, but he doesn’t let go before giving it a firm squeeze. When Dipper glances over (and up, dammit) at him, Wirt gives him a shy little smile, more tentative than the last one. The boy finds himself smiling back.

By some miracle, Wirt is able to keep getting up in the mornings now; no matter how cold it gets, he can make himself get up now. It gives him a little encouragement each morning, because school still sucks his will and hope that he is capable of making it through the coldest winter he’s had to face yet. He tries not to think about how much talking to Dipper helped. And, if there’s a few poems about boys with curly brown hair and the spark of life in their muddled hazel eyes, well… at least he’s writing, right?

At least that’s how he sees it until he realizes that he hasn’t written about Sara since before school started. And now it’s November. He didn’t even write a remembrance anniversary poem on Halloween! No, he spent the night out with Greg and the Pines twins instead, watching really old horror movies and stuffing their faces with candy they had trick-or-treated from the neighbors, in costume. It had been great, and Wirt hadn’t thought about Sara at all. Frantically, he flips through his old notebook which he still keeps with him (for reference, of course) and reads through the entire Sara section. It hardly hurts. Actually, he notices the mistakes and mis-wordings more than the actual emotion behind any of them. He panics.

-----

“Hey, Wirt.” Mabel’s looking less than her best today, so he knows what time of the month it is. It’s the only time that Mabel’s unfailing good cheer and energy fall to normal levels, and usually the only time she’ll wear pants.

“Good morning, Mabel,” he greets, rubbing at his eyes. They’re burning with exhaustion, and she sends him a sympathetic look.

“I brought extra chocolate for lunch. We can share if you want.”

He smiles and gives her a soft side-hug. “Bless your soul.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I know, I’m wonderful. Just come find me at lunch, ‘kay? Dipper’s sick today, so I won’t have anybody else to talk to.”

Wirt nods, ignoring the slight twinge of disappointment in his stomach at her news, and replies, “All right, will do. Thanks, Mabel.” She smiles, waving at him, before walking (not skipping as usual) off to her first class. At least he could tell her about Sara without worrying about what Dipper will think.

-----

“Hey, cover for me, okay?” Mabel asks, fishing her phone out of her pocket. It’s her new smartphone, liberally decorated with stickers and bright colors, that she got for her birthday.

“Wow, Mabel, texting in school? Shame on you,” Wirt replies with a nonchalant smile. He digs into his sandwich, happily; the teachers had forgiven him for his missing homework from the night before, and he’s actually in sort of a good mood. He will get to tell Mabel about what happened with Sara, and she will help him fall for her again, and everything will be better and sensible and right with the world again. Not to mention he gets chocolate.

She waves off his mock criticism with a grin, immediately typing out a quick message. “I’m just… uh… checking on Dipper,” she replies, beaming at her screen. He narrows his eyes at her.

“Dipper being sick makes you that happy?”

She blushes, glancing up at him quickly. “No, I, uh, of course not. He’s just, he’s doing well, and that does make me happy, thankyouverymuch.”

He puts his sandwich down and gives her his best ‘oh, really?’ face. She cracks faster than Greg.

“Okay, okay, geez, I wasn’t texting Dipper; you got me.”

With a satisfied smirk, he begins eating again. “Who is it, then?” he asks around the bite of apple in his mouth.

Nervously brushing her long hair around one ear, she says, “It’s, uh, not anybody you know. Her name’s Pacifica.”

Slowly and carefully, Wirt finishes chewing, swallows, clears his throat, and asks, “Mabel, do you… do you have a crush on Pacifica?”

“What? No, ‘course not! I would never… I mean, not really, no, I…” she giggles. “She’s just really, really cute. So… maybe.”

Wirt surprises himself by grinning. “That’s wonderful, Mabel.”

She looks up at him, surprised too. “Really? You think so?” Hurriedly, she checks around to make sure that no teachers are watching, then she pulls up a picture on her phone and shoves it into his hands. “Look! Isn’t she gorgeous?” The girl in the selfie is gorgeous, truly. She’s still young, of course, but she looks closer to Wirt’s age than Mabel’s; maybe that’s just because of all the makeup, though. Her face is pressed next to Mabel’s, and they’re both grinning into the camera. They look happy together, even though Pacifica’s hair is perfectly styled and Mabel’s is in a messy bun, and the blonde’s makeup is flawless while the brunette has paint all over her face.

“This is, um, really cute, actually,” he comments, handing the phone back over to her. “Is it just me, or did she dance with you at your birthday?”

Mabel sighs and nods, and he can practically see the hearts in her eyes. “She asked me to make artwork for her room, so she could tell her parents she had underground genius work on her wall.” She giggles. “I painted her family’s portrait with them as goats. They grounded her for a week after that one.” She hugs the phone to her chest quickly before slipping it back into her pocket. “Anyway, enough about me and my doomed crush, how’re you and Sara?”

It takes a couple of swallows to speak past the lump that manifests in his throat at her words. “I, uh… I wrote a poem about her last night.”

Mabel nods sagely. “Good, good, always nice to get those nasty thoughts out.”

He hesitates, then asks, “Would you r-read it, please?”

She stops mid-fruit rollup and gives him an uncertain look. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He nods, pulling his notebook out of his backpack and handing it over quickly. “It’s the, um, the last page.”

She flips to it and settles back to read after shooting him one last curious glance. He’s too nervous to eat while she looks, constantly turning back to her then stopping himself from asking ‘what do you think?’ every few seconds. Luckily for him, she’s a fast reader.

“Oh, wow, Wirt. And this was last night?”

He nods, looking down at his half-eaten lunch in shame. She scoots her chair closer and wraps one arm around his shoulders. “But… I mean, isn’t this kinda… good?” she questions tentatively.

“...good?” he replies, incredulous. “I’m forgetting her, Mabel! Of course this isn’t good!”

“No, no!” she counters. “You’re getting over her. It’s different. I think this could be good for you.”

“This can’t possibly… I thought that you would understand! Mabel, I can’t lose her!”

“But Wirt, you broke up with her!”

He stops, and blinks. “No, I didn’t.”

She mirrors him, brow wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

“Why would you think that I would break up with her?”

“Didn’t you leave her when you moved…?”

“What? No! No, she… she broke up with me. It was before Christmas break, last year.”

Her eyes widen, and she murmurs “Oh, I didn’t know.”

He keeps speaking, the words tumbling out in spite of himself. “She said she couldn’t handle me anymore, that she had n-never… she wasn’t a poetry or clarinet kind of person, and… and that I was too clingy.”

Mabel firmly closes the notebook, passing it back into his hands emphatically. “She didn’t deserve you,” she announces.

Wirt gapes in genuine horror. “Mabel! You can’t just say that,” he hisses.

“No, I  mean it,” she replies, looking him dead in the eyes. “If that’s how she treated you, she didn’t deserve you. You’re better off without her.”

He’s left speechless for a solid five seconds. “B-but, but Mabel! The poem!”

“What about it? You’re getting over her. And, yeah, I mean, I know it’s painful right now, but once you’re over Sara,” she says, carefully enunciating the painful words, “then you’ll be free. Free, Wirt! Don’t you want that?’

“No! I…” He’d rather be free of Beatrice. But to be free of Sara… he’d be alone. It’s terrifying. “I can’t, Mabel.”

She sighs. “Fine, whatever.” Gathering up all her trash, she gets up and goes to the trash can. “I can’t change your mind,” she continues, coming back to their solitary table, “but you’ve got my opinion now.”

He nods, despondently taking the piece of chocolate she offers. He’d been so sure that Mabel would help, but no; it is his burden to bear alone.

The teacher calls for clean up, and the two quickly pack up their things. The hallway is like a corridor to hell when lunch gets dismissed, and they want to be the first ones out. As they slip into the hallway, though, Cody, one of the three stoner/jock/asshole kids at the school, shoves into Mabel.

“Hey, girl, ever heard of a shower?” he sneers.

“What?” she asks, confused. Instantly paranoid, Wirt grabs onto the sleeve of her forest green sweater.

“Girl, you stink! Did’ya shove a can of tuna up your pussy or somethin’?”

Mabel just stares at him, face blank with shock. Wirt panics.

“Well, I bet she smells a lot better than your butt!”

Cody laughs. “And you’d know, wouldn’t ya, ass-licker?” Just then, Miss Estrada dismisses everyone, and kids flood the hallway. Wirt is left gaping as Cody slinks off into the crowd and Mabel jerks away.

“Wait, Mabel!” he cries, but she’s already gone.

*****

Dipper’s phone vibrates, and he groans. Mabel knows better than to bother him with texts after a visit from Bill. It’s gotta be his parents. Blindly fumbling for the phone on his nightstand, he pulls it under the thin sheet he’s cowering beneath. But it isn’t his parents. It’s Wirt, a simple

‘Hey’. After thirty seconds or so of what the fuck running through his sleep deprived mind, he texts back

‘hey urself’.

The reply comes so quickly that the boy resigns himself to laying on his back and actually typing a conversation.

‘How are you feeling? Mabel said you were sick today.’ Dipper wishes he knew how to type a groan.

‘im fine’.

‘Okay, that’s good to hear.’ A pause. ‘I missed having you here.’

He blinks. ‘what’.

‘I missed you?’

‘srsly?’

‘Yes. Is that too weird? I’m sorry.’

‘no its fine. i just,’ he sends too soon, cursing. ‘thanks’.

Wirt sends a little smiley face in return. ‘Okay. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

Dipper’s reply is quick. ‘ofend? fuck. u didnt offend me. ur good’. Then, a few seconds later, he shoots out a quick ‘how r u’.

A sad face is his only response.

‘that bad?’

‘It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

Dipper almost giggles. ‘u shouldnt test in history. whats wrong’.

There’s a long pause before Wirt’s next test, so long that Dipper considers curling back up into a ball and not sleeping for another four hours, at least. It’s really too hot for that, but he could always open a window, right? Finally his phone buzzes again, and he’s got his passcode typed out before he’s even realized that he’s moved.

‘You’re right.’ is the first thing he sees.

‘damn str8’ is his response, and sends it before reading the rest of the message.

‘Mabel and I were bullied today,’ it reads, ‘and it’s been getting to me. I didn’t mean to let her get hurt, but what they said hurt me too, and I wonder if, maybe, they are right about me.’

“Fuck,” he hisses, almost dropping his phone in his haste to reply and fix his mistake. ‘not u, that im right’. Sent. ‘i like being right’. Sent. ‘sorry. didnt mean u’. It’s almost five minutes before Wirt responds.

‘Wow, sorry about that wait! Class ended and I had to get to Latin. Don’t worry about it; I know what you mean.’ Another smiley face. Dipper grins in utter relief and relaxes against his mattress again.

‘im sorry anyway’ he sends. As an afterthought, he asks ‘was it cody’.

Wirt’s answer is astonishingly fast. ‘Yes, it was. How did you know?’

The freshman smirks cockily. ‘hes been checkin mabel out for weeks. plus hes a dick’

Wirt sends a smiley face laughing. ‘Thanks, Dipper.’

He catches himself smiling softly before replying with a short ‘no prob’. Then, before he can stop himself, he types out ‘whatvr he said its bs. ur great. always will b. k?’

There’s an even longer pause this time, so long that Dipper makes himself finally get up to open the window and let in the crisp November air. Thank everything good and holy in the world, he thinks, letting the cold wash over him and ease the prickling heat underneath his skin. Everytime Bill visits, he ends up feeling like he’s got the world’s worst fever or he’s covered in sunburns or something. He hates the heat. But he dives for the bed when Wirt replies, rifling through the sheets to see that ‘I’m getting over Sara,’ is what the other boy decided to say. Well, that’s put a bit of a damper on things. He knows that he gets possessive, sometimes, but reminders that he will never be the most important person in WIrt’s life. Not that he really cares, of course. No, that’s way too sappy for him. But, still, it’s nice to be needed, y’know.

‘good 4 u’

‘I’m not happy about it.’

Dipper rolls his eyes. ‘course not’.

‘You don’t think that that’s weird?’

‘...no’

‘Mabel thought it was.’ He rolls his eyes harder.

‘m is romantic’

‘Wouldn’t that make her more likely to sympathize with me?’

‘no she wants u to find somebody new’. Like her. Ugh, having Bill in his head screws up all his thoughts. Mabel had said straight out that she wasn’t, and isn’t, interested in Wirt. Not like that matters to him, but it would be pretty hard to be good friends with the guy dating his sister.

‘Okay’ Wirt replies. There’s no period at the end of the word; Dipper doesn’t know if he almost got caught texting in class, did get caught, or was emotionally affected enough by what Dipper said to forgo the period. Or, he could have just forgotten it. That’s an option. He sighs. He’s way overthinking this.

There are some days for Wirt when his house is too small, his room too confining, and his mind too frantic, to be borne with a smile. These are the days he goes to the woods. One Friday night in December finds him trekking through the patch of trees behind his house that connects with all the other trees in Gravity Falls. There's snow on the ground, and the promise of more in the air, and he's bundled up in as many jackets and layers of pants as he could find and make fit, but he still doesn't feel good. He pulls his phone out of his pocket for the millionth time, trying to convince himself that no, he doesn't really want to pull his gloves off and try to text somebody who probably wouldn't even reply this late. He's miserable, half sweating and half frozen, but he can't go back, he can't, not until this is all fixed, and he's feeling better.

"I can't go back," he repeats, whispering into the crisp cold stillness, "I can't." His footsteps quicken until he's running, tossing up snow with haphazard steps. "I can't, I can't, I can't!" He's gasping, not used to running or the air climbing down into his lungs and scratching, clawing, shredding his insides until he can't breathe, the air that goes in isn't enough, never enough, and there’s never going to be an end to these woods, all the trees, they’ll just keep going and going and going and he’ll never escape and he’ll never feel better and Greg! But… but he finds he's in an empty clearing, the light of the full moon making the ground glow. It is silent; nothing moves here. Only Wirt's gasps disturb the stillness. He's the only thing alive right now, right now. It's all dead, but he's alive. He’s alive. How… how strange.

"I'm alive." He says it full voice, and nothing changes. The moon looks down, bathing him in soft light, and suddenly he's too hot, far too hot. A fire burns under his skin, restless, all-consuming, scorching heat he's never felt before. His jackets come off, tugged over his head with rough fingers one by one, then the snow pants, almost pulling his boots off with them. He's left standing in his sweater, his shirt, and his jeans; he hesitates.

"I'm alive!" He hisses fiercely, then, softer, "he's alive."

A pause.

"She's dead." The sweater comes off, rolled up and thrown somewhere in the clearing, anywhere, away.

“I’m alive!” he shouts. “I’m alive, dammit!” The shirt goes, too, and he knows he looks like a complete fool, standing half naked in the snow, yelling at the sky, but he thinks tentatively that he maybe is starting to feel okay.

He laughs, grabbing a handful of snow and rubbing his face in it. “Oh, f- wow, that’s really cold.” He drops it, drying his hands on his jeans, but he’s still grinning because he’s not afraid of the cold. He could even go to school without a sweater, maybe. Wouldn’t that be great? He giggles, throwing his arms up in the air.

“I’m an idiot,” he cries, “but I’m alive!” The joy filling him is indescribable and painful and beautiful and the most wonderful feeling he’s ever felt.

And then he thinks of Dipper. It isn’t on purpose, or in spite of Sara (who used to be his only way to joy; why had he done that?). It’s almost as if this feeling and Dipper are meant to go together. The pain lodges in his chest and twist and he screams, drowning in that exquisite torture that he’s feeling, alone in the light and snow. It’s so… so alive. He’s forgotten what it feels like to live. But Dipper lives; he lives crazy and he lives weird but somehow Wirt knows that his smile is alive and loving and real and he wants to see everyday as much as possible and just be happy with him and make him happy too so they can be happy together and this is really weird why is he thinking like this but it makes him happy and dammit if he’s going to be happy like this he’s going to keep it this way no matter how weird this is.

It’s crazy. He’s crazy. But it’s not haunting him anymore; it’s okay to be a little crazy, he thinks. I mean, look at Mabel.She’s crazy, and people love her. And I… I can be crazy with people who lo- like me, too. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, pulling up Mabel’s number and dialing it as quickly as he can. His hands are shaking and numb with the cold, but he manages to get the button pressed somehow and lifts it to his ear, shifting from one foot to the other, too happy to be nervous but too nervous to hold still. Finally she picks up, voice bleary and slurred with sleep.

“Wirt? What’s up, it’s like… eleven o’clock.”

“Mabel!” he shouts, excited. “I have a crush on your brother!” There’s dead silence on the other end of the line. “Mabel?”

“I’m sorry,” she giggles, “but I just thought I heard you say...  wait, hold up.” There’s a rustle, then he hears footsteps, and then a door shutting. “Okay, I had to go outside; I think Dipper’s still awake. I thought I heard you say that you’ve got a crush on Dipper. You, who, like, last week were freaking out about maybe getting over your shitty ex.”

He chuckles, almost hysterical with his new discovery. “Mabel, that was two weeks ago, at least. But that’s not the point. I know what I said, but I don’t… I don’t mean that anymore.”

She yawns loudly. “Okay, sure, Wirt. Whatever you say. But… but Dipper?”

“Yeah, I… I don’t really know what happened, but… but he… he just… there’s this, uh, feeling? He... “ He doesn’t want to say ‘he gives me feelings’ but that’s a little too weird. “He’s just been really nice to me, before, and he’s got really nice eyes and I don’t think he would be mad that I like him even though I’m, yeah, uh, a guy, and, well, me, but more than anything, I… I just… I guess I just like him, and I don’t think I can explain why. It’s… yeah.” He stops, listening carefully for any hint of her reaction.

He can practically hear her smirk as she slowly says. “Okay. That’s all I needed to hear.”

“Wait. What?”

“I’m so excited for you! You guys are gonna be so cute when you finally get your shit together, and don’t even worry about Dipper. He may think he doesn’t like you, or that he’s not gay as hell, but trust me he totally is and I’m going to make sure everything goes perfectly! Oh my god, Wirt, I totally have the greatest idea! You can come hang out at the Mystery Shack next week! Yeah, you’ve totally got to hang out, and um, oh! Bring Greg with you, so I can hang out with him and you can chill with Dipper and by the end of the day you’ll be m-”

What he’s going to do at the end of the day he doesn’t get to hear because there’s a scream on the other end of the line that makes him jump and Mabel say “Oh, crap, okay, give me a minute.” She must drop the phone on a table or something, because he hears a clatter then footsteps running away. “Shh, shh, Dipper, it’s okay,” he hears. That was Dipper?

He presses the phone closer as if that will bring him closer to the twins on the other end of the line. There’s mumbling coming through, but he can’t hear anything clear and his grip is tightening and cold air is filling his throat like his lungs just won’t take it anymore and then the steps come back and Mabel’s there and she sounds a little desperate when she says “Hey, Wirt, um, sorry about that but, uh, could you do me a favor? See, Dipper just had a nightmare and he’s a little freaked out right now and is there any chance you could talk to him? Just real fast, then we can talk tomorrow about… y’know, okay?

“Y-yes, of course!” He stammers. “I’ll yeah, I’m so sorry to hear-” but she’s already handing the phone over and he’s shivering in the snow with a little bit of an awkward smile when he hears Dipper’s voice, shaky but relieved asking for him. “Yeah, I’m here,” he replies, wrapping his free arm around himself in a desperate bid for body heat. Dipper laughs a little, and Wirt’s responding blush helps him forget about the cold.

“I’m not even gonna ask why you were on the phone with my sister this late, but, uh, yeah, good to hear from you.”

“Oh, y-yeah?” Wirt says, wishing he could come up with some good excuse on the spot, or even be able to think articulately, but Dipper said it was good to hear from him and his brain is frozen like the air around him. Words tend to escape him at the worst times.

“Yeah…” Dipper trails off, and suddenly things are unbearably awkward. Wirt can’t help but ask “Why did you want to talk to me?”

He can almost hear the other boy tensing, and starts to take it back when he hears “Uh, well, y’know, nightmares are weird things. It’s just nice to talk to… people after one.”

For the first time in a very, very long time, Wirt feels like it might be okay to call someone out on what they’re saying. “Really, Dipper?” When the other boy sighs, he knows he’s made the right decision and almost grins into the receiver.

“No,” Dipper confesses. “I, um… there was this… guy, demon-thing, um, and… he had you and Mabel, and…” he pauses, but Wirt’s already heard the waver in his voice. It pierces him in a way the cold never has. “And I had to chose,” the boy soldiers on, laughing a little as if what he’s saying didn’t bother him. “It was you or Mabel, or, if I… if I waited, then both. And… I, I couldn’t… yeah.”

Wirt takes a deep breath. “You waited too long.”

Dipper’s reply is hardly a mumble; “...yeah.”

“All right,” Wirt replies, frantically trying to remember what Greg has done for him when he woke up with his own nightmares. “Well, um, Dipper? I’m here, and I’m perfectly fine. Mabel’s there too, right? We’re both here, and we’re both fine.” Next Greg usually sings to him, his soft little voice soothing and cheerful. Wirt blushes at the idea of singing through the phone like that, but he hardly thinks that what he’s given Dipper so far will be enough to help. “Um… do you want… I mean, do you mind if I don’t try to, uh, sing to you?”

The curly haired boy on the other end giggles softly. “Why would you sing? I mean, no, I don’t mind, but… yeah. What?”

Wirt blushes and decides that now is as good a time as any to start putting his clothes back on. “Well, um, Greg and I, we… we sometimes sing to each other. Just little, um, lullabies and other stupid stuff.”

“So you sing, too?”

Wirt stops, halfway into his sweater. “Too?”

“Along with your poetry,” he replies.

“...you know about that?”

“Well, yeah. Am I not supposed to? Mabel just said it was really good, is all.”

“She… she did?”

“Yeah, actually. So, you should totally sing for me.”

“Wh-what? Oh, no, I don’t, um, I don’t really sing, actually.”

“You just said you did.”

“...yeah, but that’s for Greg. That doesn’t count.”

“Fine, you don’t have to sing for me now. But you should someday. I’d like to hear it.”

The red on Wirt’s cheeks shoots up to his hairline. “Uh, um, I, uh, all right.” He scoops up the rest of his jackets, barely managing to keep the phone balanced on his shoulder. “Are you feeling better? I could… actually, there’s really nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Wirt,” Dipper says softly. “I’ll probably be able to sleep tonight now, so thank you.”

Wirt almost melts. “Yeah… yeah, anytime. And, um, if you have another nightmare or something you can always call, that’s okay.” Dipper yawns, and though before Wirt would have immediately started backtracking and apologizing and babbling about how he’s so sorry for tiring him, he doesn’t. But that’s probably because Dipper’s yawn is one of the cutest things he’s ever heard and it’s like a hint of that exquisite torture from before sneaks its way into his soul again for a moment.

“Thanks, Wirt. I… I totally will, thanks. Wow, I just said that twice, didn’t I? Sorry,” he chuckles nervously. “Anyway, uh, it’s pretty late, so I’ll… um, see you later?”

“Tomorrow,” Wirt says quickly.

“T- tomorrow?” Dipper asks.

“Oh, yeah, Mabel, um, she invited me. Is that all right?” Goodness, he really hopes that the other boy doesn’t have anything going on tomorrow. That would really make things awkward.

“Yeah, no, of course!” he responds, and Wirt squeaks in delight.

“Great! How about two? Is two o’clock okay?”

“Sure… I mean, uh, yeah. Two’s great.”

Wirt’s beaming. “Okay, thanks. Thank you, I, um… goodnight, Dipper.”

A soft laugh is his reply, with a sweet “Goodnight, Wirt,” before the conversation is brought to a close. It was strange, but, to Wirt, nothing could have been more beautiful.

Wirt and his little brother knock on the door precisely at two, looking picture perfect together in their argyle sweaters and khaki pants. Dipper’s been freaking out for the past hour, running his hands through his hair far too many times to make it presentable, and Mabel’s been ‘experimenting’ with a new dress and her old bedazzler so they both look ridiculous when they answer the door.

For a moment it’s awkward as hell, with Wirt looking bashful and Greg staring up at them both but then he sees Mabel’s pink pig slippers and he exclaims “Holy moly! You have beautiful feet!” And Mabel laughs her head off.

“Oh my god, I love you!” she squeals, reaching out her hand for a shake.

“I love you, too!” he replies, taking her hand firmly. “But what’s your name?”

“I’m Mabel,” she responds, grinning.

“Mabel!” he shouts, jumping excitedly. “I think that’s a perfect name!” She immediately pulls him upstairs, telling him enthusiastically about Waddles and how she’d love to introduce him to Greg, to the boy’s equally energetic joy, leaving Dipper alone with Wirt in the entryway.

“Uh… hey,” he greets, waving sheepishly.
“Hell,” Wirt replies, smiling. Dipper’s heart rate picks up.

“Um, so , we can just chill in the living room if you want?” he offers, walking in and collapsing to the dirty orange carpet. He doesn’t even have the time wasting ice breaking obligatory home tour to help with the awkwardness. Wirt’s already been to the Mystery Shack; he’s seen the gift shop and Dipper and Mabel’s room, and there’s nothing really new to show. Why did he even want to come over?

“So.... why did you call Mabel last night?” Wirt, who is just about to sit in the armchair, freezes.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to ask about that,” he replies, eyes wide. For some reason, that makes him angry, and with a definite edge to his voice he says “Why’re you worried? Got something to hide?” The boy sits, slowly shaking his head. “Good, ‘cause if you were I’d get it out of you,” he continues, still frustrated. He knows Wirt’s lying; he’s pale as the snow outside. “Do you like Mabel or something?” Not that that would technically be a problem; he’s only two years older, and he’s a very nice guy, and they would be… cute together, I guess, and he smiles around her and he really needs to stop thinking about this or he’ll actually get pissed.

But Wirt seems surprised and says “What? N-no, I… she’s lovely, but I… I don’t really like her like that. I just had… something I wanted to discuss with her, that’s all.”

Huh. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.” He knows he’s being rude, but how come Mabel gets to know more about the guy than he does? They met him at about the same time, and shouldn’t he and Wirt be closer because they’re both guys? Of course they should; they share a bond of brotherhood or something. That’s why he’s jealous, it’s gotta be.

“Uh, well, r-remember how I said I was getting over Sara?” Wirt shares, folding his hands nervously in his lap.

“Yeah?” That would be good. Every time Wirt thinks about Sara (Dipper knows, when he looks at a couple holding hands or something that remind him of her) he gets really quiet and sad for the rest of the day.

“Um… yeah,” Wirt echoes. “Well, uh… last night I… I think I did it.”

“Wow. Just like that?” Wirt smiles bashfully and nods. “Man…” Dipper’s impressed. “Good for you. That’s… that’s awessome, man.” The other boy blushes.

“Uh, thanks. I think?”

Dipper chuckles. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Then Wirt continues, face lighting up as he reveals “It… it was really nice, actually. To not have to- to wonder what Sara would think about everything. Or what Beatrice would say.”

Dipper sits up. “Hold up, who’s Beatrice?”

The poet’s face falls again, and Dipper feels like kicking himself. “She’s… a girl I used to know.” He pauses, lips pressed together firmly, then declares “She was a bitch.” He almost looks surprised at himself.

“Then it’s good that you’re over her too, right?” Dipper asks. Wirt nods, smiling. It’s his genuine smile, the real one, and Dipper’s afraid he might puke.

“All right!” he says, jumping up. “You hungry? I’m starving. Let’s find some food.” He rushes into the kitchen, managing to take a deep breath before whirling around and sending his guest what must be a crazed smile. “You want s’mores? I love s’mores! Mabel and I got s’mores stuff this morning for you guys so I really hope you like ‘em! If you don’t, uh, then that’s fine, we can go buy something else, I mean, only if you want to come along, you certainly don’t to or anything. I could just leave you here; uh, with Mabel, of course! Not just by yourself, in a strange house, no, that would be creepy and I’m totally not creepy! Yeah…” he trails off, laughing nervously and pawing at his neck as Wirt’s expression changes from blatantly confused to slightly alarmed.

“Are you… okay?” he asks. “I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”

“No!” Dipper cries, “no, no no no no no, ‘course not, not at all, I’m not uncomfortable, what, why would you say that?” His voice climbs steadily higher and higher until his nervous giggle at the end sounds more like a mouse squeaking than a human sound.

“I can go with Mabel and Greg upstais,” Wirt offers, hunching his shoulders apologetically.

“No, really, I swear, I’m…” Wirt probably won’t believe him if he says he’s fine again, and, if he’s going to be completely honest, he is a tad more unsettled than usual, so he continues with “just having, uh, I mean, I’m not feeling that great.”

The other boy’s face melts into a mask of concern and pity. “Oh, Dipper… I”m really sorry.”

Dipper almost believes him. “Yeah, well, I’ll be fine. It’s just my nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” Wirt echoes, clasping his hands.

“Yeah…? Oh shit, man, I’m sorry.” He remembers now what Wirt told him, about almost losing his brother, and wants to punch himself for bringing up something that the other boy has probably suffered from, too. Again.

Wirt grabs his arm, though, just as he’s well on his way to freaking the fuck out, and says, “Hey, Dipper, it’s okay.”

He feels like melting, and it takes Mabel clearing her throat in the doorway to get him to look away from Wirt’s deep, dark, surprisingly nice to stare at eyes. God, he’s such a sap.

*****

They don’t have s’mores right away, of course. Mabel laughs at the idea, then pulls them all to the closet to get suited up for a snowball fight. Wirt doesn’t even hesitate, shrugging into an oversized jacket with a grin. He hasn’t had fun in the snow in who knows how long. And the time goes so fast between the fights and snow angels and playing tag and shoving snow down each other’s jackets that he’s startled by the twins’ Grunkle Stan calling them in for dinner. He thinks for a moment, not without dissapointment, that he and Greg will have to make their farewells then, but the old man roughly tousels his hair and says “I made enough for you and your pipsqueak, nerd,” and Wirt can’t contain his grin.

It’s taco night, apparently, and the twins playfully wrestle each other for first dibs, not even thinking of giving the guests preferential treatment. Wirt laughs because for once there’s nothing awkward about having dinner at someone else’s house; it’s like it’s okay to be there without worrying about not being polite or whatever other rules of etiquette his mom’s drilled into him. It’s wonderful.

Mabel emerges victories, leaving Dipper to pout pathetically for a moment before hoisting Greg up to fill his plate. Wirt has to take a deep breath at that. He missed this feeling, this gut-twisting awe at the most simple things, but it’s going to be hard to keep himself from doing something utterly idiotic around the boy, like trying to kiss him or… something. It’s too late for the poetry.

But he soon gets knocked out of his head by Grunkle Stan literally knocking him over the head and bellowing “Come on, kid. You gonna just sit there making goo-goo eyes or what?” Wirt blushes and trips over his feet on his way to the food, but he doesn’t even think about how awkward he probably was, not even once, during the dinner. They all stuff their faces gleefully, Grunkles Stan telling inappropriate jokes the whole time. It’s one of the best dinner’s Wirt can remember.

*****

He wakes up to the sound of a muffled scream, followed by quick, shuddering gasps. He’s had practice staying still when he wakes up from nightmares himself so he doesn’t move, hardly daring to shift his eyes towards where Greg lies, cuddles up against Mabel peacefully. They’re both still, breathing deeply in sleep, and he knows exactly what’s happened.

“Dipper?” he whispers. The sounds instantly stop. He sits up quickly, turning to look at the other boy. He’s cowering over the sleeping bags they set up in the attic, both hands covering his mouth and his eyes wide with panic.

“Hey, Dipper, are you okay?” The boy nods frantically, and Wirt awkwardly wriggles out of his sleeping bag to go crouch next to him. “Dipper, come on. Did you have a nightmare?” He shakes his head, clamping his hands down even more tightly. Cautiously, slowly, Wirt reaches out and takes the boy’s hands. “Dipper...” The smaller kid bites his lip, looking away, and Wirt smiles faintly. “Do you want to get out of here?” He nods, and Wirt pulls him to his feet then downstairs, all the way to the closet with the snowgear. He hesitates then, but Dipper is determinedly struggling into his jeans from earlier, so the older boy follows suit.

“Where’re we going?” Dipper finally asks, his tone cold and business-like, as they slip out the door and stand on the porch. He adjusts his hat with a sharp jerk before shoving his hands into one of Grunkle Stan’s old oversized coats.

“Um… do you mind a walk?” Wirt replies, nervously fidgeting with his gloves. He’s never actually told anybody about the place he wants to show Dipper. What if he doesn’t like it? Dipper just shrugs, and they set off through the snow.

*****

“A church? You… you brought me to this shithole of an abandoned church?” Dipper laughs bitterly, leaning up against the doorframe. He feels like shit. “I almost died here.” He glances over, and his companion’s face is a mask of misery.

“Oh, god, I am s-so sorry; I didn’t mean… we should go.”

Dipper looks him over, then drops his gaze to the ground again. “Why’d you want to go here, anyway?”

Wirt blinks. “I… um, pardon me, but did you just say you almost died here?”

He rolls his eyes and nods. “Yeah, there’s dinosaurs down there.” He makes a jerky gesture with his thumb towards the gaping hole in the floor, but the taller boy keeps his eyes on him as he just stands there, gaping.

“Ha, that’s… uh, really funny, Dipper,” he giggles unconvincingly. “Dinosaurs, yeah… funny.”

Dipper readjusts his cap and sends him a look. “Really? We can go down if you want to get a little look-see.”

Wirt goes white as paper, already washed out in the soft moonlight. “B-but… no! Dinosaurs don’t exist. They’re extinct!”

Dipper snorts. “Yeah, well, some paleontologists would have a field day down there, believe me. Don’t you remember all the other weird stuff I’ve told you about?” There’s no response. Dipper throws himself onto the only bench overhung by the demolished roof, settling in while waiting for Wirt to speak. "What, did you think Mabel and I were just, I dunno, shitting you?"

Wirt doesn't even look at him, mouth flapping like a fish. He tries three times to start a sentence, finally succeeding with "N-no, but I thought they were made up!"

The younger boy's reply is just a bitter laugh as he stretches out, resting his hands behind his head and staring up at the inky night sky. "I wish," he mutters. Not having a literal demon in his life would uncomplicated things a lot.

"So... so you actually... there's really, uh, real dinosaurs down there? Right below us?!" Dipper nods, and Wirt rushes over to look into his eyes.

"Are you serious?!" He waves him off, trying not to blush at Wirt's face being so damn close to his own.

"Yeah, but they're trapped in sap right now. It's colder than Grunkle Stan's dating prospects out tonight, so those suckers are stuck. There's nothing to worry about." The older boy keeps hovering over him like an anxious fly, fiddling with his jacket every few seconds.

"B-b-but, but you took Mabel to see vampires!"

"Benevolent ones."

"Benevolent?! How do you even know? And, and the stuff Mabel said, about almost marrying a gnome? That's t- I mean, that really happened?"

"Yeah, that's a fun story."

"So... so everything you guys have said, all those crazy things about monsters and stuff, that's all... real?"

"Yes, Wirt," Dipper replies, closing his eyes. If he would have known that this would be Wirt's reaction he wouldn't have said anything. Bill gave him a headache, and, as nice as the other boy's voice could be, it got pretty squeaky and high-pitched when he freaked out and it was starting to aggravate him.

"Oh. Oh! I'm sorry!" He says, scurrying away to pace along the opposite crumbled wall. Dipper hears him taking deep breaths as he traces a path back and forth in the snow and soon finds himself mimicking the same pattern. He scoffs at himself, used to staying on edge for hours after Bill no matter how many deep breaths he takes, but sits up in surprise as he finds himself relaxing.

"What the hell?"

The older boy cringes, looking at him guiltily. "What? What is it?"

"I..." Dipper pauses, looking at his own arms like he's never seen them before. "This is really weird."

His companion take a careful step closer, watching him warily. "What is? Did I... say something?"

He shakes his head, turning his hands over in amazement. "It's like I... I can relax." Realizing what he's said, he hurriedly crosses his arms defensively and says "Don't laugh. It's just... it's kind of a weird place to be chill. Not that... ah, fuck. Whatever." He turns away, facing the wreckage of the church instead of Wirt. At least the smashed piano doesn't have deep dark eyes that stare into his soul.

"I, um... I kind of feel like that here, too," Wirt mumbles, suddenly much closer than he was before. He's come to stand next to the pew, but he doesn't touch it or ask to sit down. Dipper decides not to invite him closer; he really wants his space right now. "I... um, call me crazy, but I think it might be that it's a church..." His voice sweeps up at the end, unsure, but Dipper glances over with a quizzical frown.

"What do you mean? A church?"

Nervously picking at his gloves again, Wirt says "Well, um, I... I've done a little research, and, well, my family's Christian, you know? And, um... we believe that the Holy Spirit is in, uh, things, and I just really like this church and I think it's because the Holy Spirit is here and soothing me or something like that and I know it sounds crazy but I'm kind of giving crazy a chance right now and just... there, um, there's my take on it."

He sort of trails off, then, but Dipper keeps watching his face, intrigued in spite of himself. "Wait, what are you... what about it?"

"What?"

"The, the Holy Spirit thing. What about it? How does it help?"

Wirt looks nonplussed. "Um... I don't, uh, know exactly, but it's, well, it's one of the forms of God that lives, or, well, is supposed to live in me. When it's near, I'm comforted, and... it gives me strength."

"And, and you think," Dipper asks, growing more excited, "you think that this Holy Spirit is in this place because it's an old church, and it's what makes you feel better? The spirit's power?"

The other guy nods, a little sheepish, but Dipper cheers. "That's awesome! You may have... damn, this could be it!"

"Wait, what could be it?" Wirt asks, tentatively coming closer.

"The Holy spirit! It could be my counter-curse to use against Bill!"

"...who on earth is Bill?"

"Oh, that's right, you didn't believe any of this stuff. Remember the demon thing I mentioned last night?"

"Wait... that's real too? You've seen a real demon?!" Dipper grins in reply and Wirt looks like he might pass out.

"Are you serious? How do you know?"

"I've met him before. He... he just really likes torturing me, I guess."

"So when you said that you had to choose between Mabel and I, you..." His voice goes all soft and tender, now, and if Dipper didn't like the sound of it so much he'd probably threaten to deck the guy for pitying him. "Did you think you actually had to choose?"

Scowling, he nods, and Wirt gasps. "Oh my... oh gosh, I... wow. That's... you... really? I can't... oh my goodness."

"...yeah," Dipper replies, not even bothering to decode what he was trying to say. "But with the Holy Spirit, there's a chance I could get rid of him for good. It's power seems to work against his pretty well so far, which is great, so I'll just make sure with a few preliminary tests, but maybe I could actually do it!"

"Have, um, wow, I can't believe I'm saying this, but have you already tried a regular exorcism?"

Dipper nods impatiently. "Yeah, it doesn't work against his brand of magic. He's not... I mean, he's Bill. He's a dream demon, and all of his magic is mentally based. If it wasn't keeping me up at night it'd be fascinating. Anyway, from what I can guess most demons are sent with a specific purpose, probably by some sort of king of demons or something. Bill, though, he just... goes where he wants, as far as I can tell. There's not too much in the journal but my attempts to exorcise him so far have failed and that's why. Yeah. So, if this is really a breakthrough, that would be incredible!"

Wirt frowns, visibly working through everything Dipper's just told him in his head. "You really think that the Holy Spirit can make this Bill-thing go away?"

"Yeah! I mean, maybe. I think... maybe I was just going by the book too much with him. I dunno."

He's psyched now, the tension from earlier all but gone, and Wirt must notice because he comments "It's good that you're feeling better," without sounding as if he's scared that Dipper's going to bite his head off.

"What? Oh, yeah. Sorry for being such a dick earlier."

Wirt shrugs, coming to sit next to him on the pew. "You weren't, don't worry. You were actually really nice, considering you woke up from a nightmare and all."

He sighs, a familiar gesture to Dipper, and continues, saying "To be completely honest, before th- before what happened with Greg, I was a total jerk, and not just to him. I don't know; it was like I felt the entire world owed me something just for being born, and when things didn't go my way, I... I panicked. So... so, yeah, don't apologize. You're not doing anything bad at all, especially compared to me." And maybe, if Dipper had thought about what he was doing, he wouldn't have done it, but at two in the morning, sitting in a crumbling church with the cutest person he'd ever met in his life, he isn't thinking at all, and he reaches over and takes Wirt's gloved hand in his own.

"Thanks," he manages to say before blushing as bright as his coat and looking away. Neither boy lets go all the way back to the Mystery Shack.

And so they enter a period Wirt later calls “The Waiting.” He and Dipper never mention the hand-holding, or the events that led to it, but they do grow closer, somehow. Some of that’s probably Mabel’s doing, because she leaves them alone together every chance she can, but it’s almost like Dipper at some sort of guard down around him, and Wirt not-so-secretly loves it. He reciprocates by ensuring he always makes eye contact with the other boy, and by listening to the things he’s excited about, even when they make his skin crawl or his eyes glaze over. One day, sometime between New Year’s and Valentine’s Day, he even shows Dipper some of his poetry. Well, he reads it aloud, until tears choke him (literally) and Dipper improvises something like the Heimlich. It’s actually pretty funny, and they both laugh, but then Dipper seriously looks at his work and says it’s good and tears well in his eyes again.

“Thank you,” he says with the most earnest tone he’s ever used.

Dipper glances away awkwardly but smiles and replies “No problem, man,” at the same time, so Wirt doesn’t think there’s a problem. He doesn’t show him anything to do with Sara, though, or the Unknown. Now that he knows about the supernatural stuff in Gravity Falls, there’s been a huge weight lifted off his shoulders, but he still doesn’t want to share what happened that Halloween. Partially, he’s still scared that someone (Dipper) will think he’s insane, or be mad at him for lying, but mostly he’s just afraid to bother Dipper. While Wirt seems to be getting better, happier, and almost normal again, the other boy is falling apart. He hardly looks like he’s getting any sleep, and Mabel tells him her brother is in danger of serving at least a week’s worth of detentions for how many days he’s missed.

“It’s because of his nightmares,” she says. “He tried the exorcism thing and it didn’t work.” He finds himself unsurprised that she knows what he and Dipper talked about: he’s almost afraid that the twins share a gift of telekinesis.

“But…” Wirt trails off, disappointed. “Wait, Mabel, what do you know about this Bill-thing?”

She shrugs, doodling absently on a napkin.

“He got summoned by a creepy not-ex of mine and he’s been bothering Dipper ever since.” Her words are clipped, and he doesn’t want to pry any farther, but he still tentatively asks “When was that?”

“Three years ago,” she snaps, crumpling her impromptu sketch and tossing it in the trash. He avoids questioning her after that.

So Wirt’s been trying to help Dipper out as much as he can, checking to make sure he finishes his readings and homework and actually makes progress on long-term projects. It’s kind of funny, because while Dipper is fine at math and science, he’s pretty terrible at English, which Wirt excels in. Or at least doesn’t fail. And if Dipper invites him over to help finish essays, and WIrt enjoys it more than he probably should, who’s to say it’s wrong?

His crush on the other boy hasn’t gone down at all; in fact, it’s gotten stronger, and Wirt’s not quite sure what to do about that. His former feelings of worthlessness and anxiety don’t feel right anymore, not with Dipper, but he’s just not comfortable enough with himself to just enjoy his company, so he’s stuck in an odd sort of half-joy, half confused loneliness state. But, he thinks, at least it’s better than before. It has to be. Right?

“Right!” Mabel encourages, wrapping him in a warm hug. She’s been particularly bright and cheerful lately; it feels good to be around. Apparently things with her… Pacifica person are going well. He’s heard the same three measures of Shut Up and Dance come from her phone as her crush’s text tone more times than he can remember. “Everything looks better with rose-colored glasses!” she declares, whipping out a cheap set of heart-shaped plastic shades. Wirt doesn’t have the heart to tell her than, one, her lenses are black, not pink, and two, that the saying doesn’t have the best connotation.

It’s going pretty well, though, until everything comes to a head at the beginning of spring break.

“Wow, uh, so we’re finally in the home stretch,” Dipper says, leading the way through the woods. He and Wirt have started taking walks together to get away from their chaotic houses, or to go see something cool, or just to hang out. It’s been more hanging out than exploring lately, and while WIrt’s not complaining (the supernatural still twists his stomach), Dipper seemed on edge the one time he brought it up.

“I don’t even wanna think about it anymore!” he had said, throwing his arms up wildly. “I just… I can’t deal with it right now.” Wirt hadn’t mentioned it since.

“Yeah,” he replies chuckling a little. “I guess we are.” The school year is rapidly coming to an end, and technically he should be studying for his standardized tests now that school’s out, but being around Dipper is far more relaxing than scrambling to study for a test.

Dipper sighs, pushing a pine branch out of their way. “High school is hard.”

Wirt laughs. “Yes, I guess it is.” It’s odd, but now that he finds himself hardly caring. Not now, with Dipper and Greg and Mabel existing around him. They’re far more intriguing than mindless panic. “You know, Dipper, I think you’re going to be okay,” he says, voice a little too soft, probably.

The other boy shoots him a confused look, but simply says “Thanks, Wirt,” in return.

They talk about a lot of things, making plans to hang out over the break (and doesn’t that just shoot beautiful, jittery nerves through Wirt’s middle and give him the most awkward grin?) and about what Wirt’s going to do about his stupid tests.

“I don’t even fully understand the purpose of a standardized test,” he comments, easily sharing his opinion where once he would have held it close with a murmur of apology. “What are the ACT and SAT really going to say about how well I’ll do in college?” Dipper nods, and smiles, and just when Wirt is about to ask if something’s wrong (he can’t get rid of all the paranoia) he grabs his arm quickly and gestures to a fallen log a few yards away.

“Can we sit?” he asks, not quite meeting his eyes. Wirt follows his lead, shoulders hunching up painfully in a way they haven’t in a while. The two boys sit, Dipper fidgeting nervously, and WIrt’s mind promptly begins to conjure up all sorts of fantasies for what he’s about to say. Just as he’s imagining Dipper flying away on a magic carpet and going to live in Papua New Guinea as king of the ghost-mermaids (and even he’s confused about that one) he clears his throat and ventures “H-hey, Wirt? Can I, uh, say something?”

Wirt blinks. “What? Uh, I mean, sure, g-go right ahead.” Dipper takes his hat off, then, twisting the edge in his hands, and Wirt is pretty sure he’s going to die. The other boy has taken off his hat in front of him maybe twice before, and both times he was sleeping; this is way too much pressure.

“Well, uh…” he starts, meeting Wirt’s eyes for a moment, “I just wanted to say thanks, for, uh, being the most normal thing in my… in my life right now.” He clears his throat anxiously, and Wirt almost jumps, tense and confused.

“Wh-” he starts to ask, but Dipper soldiers right on past him.

“I mean, there’s just so much, just, shit going down around town, and there’s Bill and I don’t even know what else and I just wanted to say, uh, thanks, man. For making this fucked up hell I’m in… normal..” He giggles then, clutching at his arm nervously, and if things were different Wirt would just sweep him up with a warm, probably awkward hug because this is the first time Dipper’s admitted that things are hard on him and he knows the other boy feels bad about it but he can’t just do that because Dipper thinks he’s normal and it feels so good but it’s also just not true and suddenly Wirt knows that he has to tell him about the Unknown.

“F-funny you should say that…” he mutters, glancing away. There’s a pause, and he flinches the moment the boy opens his mouth.

“What?” he asks, tone chillingly cold. Wirt’s convinced he’s ruined everything with that one sentence, but then Dipper starts to panic, and he looks up, frightened. “No, no no no no no no no, that’s not supposed to be funny. It’s not funny, it’s… it’s a bonding moment. It’s sweet, and cheesy, and… and pretty stupid actually but that doesn’t matter.” Wirt holds out a careful hand, trying to be reassuring, but Dipper completely ignores it, shoving both hands into his hat-tousled hair violently. “You’re supposed to, like, laugh, and make a mildly sarcastic comment, and say ‘Thanks, Dipper, wanna make out now?’ Not, not get all nervous and high-pitched and ‘funny you should say that’ like there’s something else that needs to be said, like you’re gonna l-leave or something. No! Damn it, Wirt!” His voice keeps climbing higher and higher, and Wirt cuts him off, resting his hands on Dipper’s shoulders.

“Woah, h-hey, come on now! I just wanted to, to tell you about something, Dipper, it’s not a… a... “ then he realizes what exactly he said. All of it. “Wait, what did you say?” He couldn’t have said what he thinks he said. No, it’s not possible. But Dipper doesn’t hear him and keeps ranting, almost shouting now.

“I swear, Wirt, if you tell me about another goddamn monster in these woods, or, or about your parents doing something that I should be worried about, or say that you think I’m crazy or that you’re a fucking serial killer or something I just… I can’t handle it right now! Don’t you dare ruin this for me!” Pushing his hat back onto his head, he shoves Wirt’s hands away and stands, pacing frantically.

Wirt shrinks back. “Dipper, wait, what… what are you talking about? I thought I could trust you.” He really thought that Dipper would at least listen to him. And now he’s ruining Dipper’s life?

“And I thought I could trust you to not be fucking crazy! One thing, I wanted one, just… one completely good thing from this hell of a year and I thought you were it. Why can’t you be it?!”

Wirt looks down; his hands are shaking. “Dipper, c-calm down! What are you talking about? What about Ma-”

Dipper’s too far gone into his head to hear. “I mean, yeah, you’re kinda weird. But not… not supernatural weird, not gnomes in a sweatshirt weird. I thought, of all people, this nerd in sweater vests couldn’t be a gnome, could he?”

He finds himself laughing hysterically in response. “You know, that’s funny, because my brother Greg and I-”

“I don’t give a damn about Greg!” Dipper shouts, whirling on him, eyes blazing. “I just… just… damn it, Wirt! D- no. Fuck you. I thought you were different.” Wirt gasps, mouth hanging open. He doesn’t know how to feel at that.

“Dipper…” he whispers, “Dipper, what… what? What are you…”

“Just… just leave me alone!” He yells, tugging his cap over his eyes. Then he’s gone, branches snapping under his feet as he disappears into the woods.

Wirt’s left on the fallen log, numb and speechless. He tries to stand, to clear his aching throat, anything; he’s frozen. There’s no tears, no poetry, no words that come to him. It’s just… emptiness.

It takes him over an hour to walk the fifteen minutes back to the Mystery Shack.

At the end of the most miserable spring break he’d ever spent, the Friday night before the weekend, Wirt gets a text from Mabel.

‘hey dude, dipper feels like shit. let him apologize???’

‘Sure’ he replies, apathetic. But his phone doesn’t vibrate again until half an hour later. It’s a short message: ‘be nice’. And then he hears the doorbell.

“Wirt, honey, there’s a young man here for you!” rings out a minute later and yes, it looks like Dipper really did come all the way to his house to apologize.

“Hey,” he greets tentatively, shuffling down the stairs. He almost misses the last step when he sees Dipper, though; his eyes are dull and overshadowed by the dusky bags beneath them, highlighting just how incredibly bloodshot they are. His shoulders are slumped, and Wirt’s ninety percent sure that he’s wearing the same shirt he had on when they fought.

“I’ll just leave you two alone, then,” Mrs. Langtree chirps, disappearing into the kitchen. Wirt just turn right around and heads up the stairs, throwing a casual “Come on” at his guest over his shoulder.

His room is neat enough, so he doesn’t bother trying to move anything before Dipper comes in. He pulls out the desk chair for him, though, before sitting at the end of his bed.

“So…” There’s no answer for a while as the younger boy just looks around, taking note of everything. WIrt tries not to be bothered by the scrutiny.

“I… I’m sorry,” he finally says. His voice is rough, ragged; as if he’d been crying.

“Dipper, hey, are you…” but the boy shakes his head and Wirt stops.

“I’ve been getting more and more, uh, paranoid lately, and I dunno, I took it out on you. And I’m really sorry about that.”

Wirt wants to say it’s okay, but he doesn’t. The words he finds spilling out of his mouth are entirely different.

“I appreciate your apology, but what you said hurt and I… I can’t just forgive you.”

Dipper slumps over, leaning his head in his hands. “That,” he says, clearing his throat, “that’s fair. I just… I was s- I was scared, Wirt.” His voice cracks, and Wirt finds his shaky resolve weakening quickly. “For a second, I… I thought you might be, um… I dunno, I was just… yeah.”

The older closes his eyes. “Dipper, I don’t understand. What did you think I was?” A pause. “Did you think that I’ve been lying to you or something?”

Dipper snorts a bitter laugh. “Something like that.”

“Well… I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t.” There’s no answer. “Um. You know how I told about that time Greg almost… well.”

That makes him look up, a haunted look in his eyes. “That… that was that?” Wirt nods, and Dipper groans. “Wow, I’m so sorry, man. I didn’t even think-”

“It’s fine,” Wirt says, determination broken.

*****

Dipper leaves soon afterwards, awkwardly waving goodbye as he trudges back to the Mystery Shack. As dejected and numb as he feels, it’s nothing compared to the feeling that strikes whenever he realizes anew that WIrt never actually accepted his apology.

“Fuck,” he whispers, no feeling behind the word. He opens his mouth to… to what? There’s nobody to listen. He doesn’t say anything else. What is there to think, to do, anymore? Bill will be back in his dreams tonight and destroy whatever he tries to do, slowly chipping away at whatever sanity he’s still got. He laughs, the taste raw and sour on his lips. His mind gone for good at the age of fifteen. Well, high school didn’t seem like that much fun anyway. It’s only a matter of time before Bill takes him completely, he knows. Better sooner than later.

But the next day, he doesn’t wake up to the echoing of demonic screams in his head. No, it’s Grunkle Stan pounding at the door to the attic.

“Kid, c’mon, get your butt up! We’ve got your sister’s thing to go to.” Sure enough, Mabel’s not bundled up in the thousands of layers of covers on her bed, so Dipper finds himself getting cleaned up and being driven downtown with no clearer idea of what’s going on than that “we’re going to your sister’s thing, Dipper; that project she’s been working on.” But when they park on the outskirts of town Dipper sees that there’s at least as many people milling around as there are on Pioneer Day. And they’re wearing… rainbows?

“Grunkle Stan, seriously, what’s going on? Scrambling out of the car, he has to run to catch up with his great-uncle who’s already striding firmly towards the budding mayhem.
“What-” And then he sees it. There’s a huge banner strung up between the first two building in town, the word ‘PRIDE’ splashed across it in rainbow colors. Beneath the main title, smaller letters in pink read off ‘Northwestern Oregon’s 1st Annual Pride Parade and Festival, March 28 and 29’. “No…” he whispers. “Mabel… Mabel created a Pride festival?!” Now Grunkle Stan decides to pay attention to him.

“Look, DIpper, I may be an old fart, but even I can see how much Mabel does for you even though you treat her like crap. This is both of our’s chances to show her the support she’s given us. So if any of this bothers you, you can just shut your mouth and deal with it.” Dipper shuts his mouth.

But the panic crawls up into his throat as his head whips back and forth, trying to take everything in. There’s rainbows everywhere, plus flags in color combos he’s never even heard of. And the people look so happy! The ones he recognizes are beaming, talking with androgynous strangers with neon dyed hair and buying tacky tie-dyed t-shirts and headbands. How are they doing that? he wonders. I thought they’d all be assholes about… this kind of thing. Why are they all being so nice?

He stops cold a second later, though, right in the middle of the sidewalk. There, down the street and under a blue canopy, there’s a news crew, a national news crew, filming an interview with none other than his sister and Pacifica Northwest.

“This is Eden Myers, coming to you live from Gravity Falls, Oregon where one high school freshman is changing her corner of the world by single-handedly creating the very first Northwestern Oregon regional pride parade. Mabel Pines, tell us about what inspired you to create this revolutionary event.”

Giggling, Mabel takes the offered microphone. “Well, I wouldn’t say I did anything single-handed. The idea was mine, yeah, but nothing would have happened without the support of my amazing girlfriend.” And then she takes Pacifica’s hand, blushing and smiling as if the blonde’s the greatest thing she’s ever seen.

Pacifica is Mabel’s girlfriend? Mabel has a girlfriend?!  Then, as he watches her chatting with the reporter, he thinks: She didn’t tell me any of this. She doesn’t trust me.

And that’s it.

*****

“Wirt!” The scream pierces his ear through the tinny speaker of his phone. Despite the late hour, he’s awake the moment he hears the panicked voice.

“Mabel, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Dipper. He’s… he’s gone.”

“What? Gone?!”

“I can’t wake him up, Wirt! Bill’s got him; he’s got him completely now.”

“Wait, what? Mabel, what are you talking about?”

Her next words are small, scared, and choked with sobs. “Dipper’s lost his mind, Wirt. And I don’t know if we can get it back.”

Somehow Wirt gets the keys to his mom’s car and drives himself over to the Mystery Shack, going as fast he dares and hoping that the cops aren’t going to be out patrolling at two in the morning on a Sunday. Swinging recklessly into an empty spot in the parking lot, he almost forgets to put the car in park before running to the house.

“Mabel! Mabel, I- oh.” It’s not Mabel at the door.”Um… M- Mr. Pines, I… um.” For a split second he sees himself having to awkwardly explain why he’s there, failing entirely and being sent away for not having anything close to a reasonable explanation for showing up at this time of night, never to see the twins again. But then he sees that the grunkle’s face is creased with sorrow, and that he doesn’t even look like he’s seeing him at all; it’s more like he’s looking past him.

“It’s Dipper, isn’t it?” is all he says, and when Wirt nods, he jerks a thumb in the direction of the stairs. When Wirt glances back at him, just as he reaches the top of the stairs, he’s settled into the armchair in the living room, head in his hands. Running up the last flight of stairs, it crosses Wirt’s mind that if he never sees anyone like that ever again, he’ll be happy.

Mabel’s pacing frantically in the center of a circle of candles when he opens the door, and the look she gives him is so completely, hopelessly desperate that he’s instantly afraid that maybe what she said on the phone is true. Not to mention that Dipper’s eyes are glowing blue. When he sends a curious glance in the boy’s direction, she merely mutters “That’s a new development,” and grabs his arm.

“WIrt, you get the supernatural, right?”

“Uh…”

“You understand that it exists? And that there’s an actual demon in my brother’s mind?”

Judging by the blue glow, he thinks it’s safe to say that yes, he knows. So he nods mutely and she leans even closer, staring into his eyes as if she’s about to impart the secrets to the universe to him. “Wirt. You love Dipper, right?”

Woah, wait. “What?”

“Now is not the time for avoiding the question and hiding behind bullshit, Wirt! And it doesn’t even have to be romantic. Just, in any way, shape or form, do you love my brother?”

He wants to ask why it matters; he’s here, isn’t he? But he just nods again.

“Fine,” she says, releasing him. “‘Cause you're gonna see stuff that Dipper never wanted us to see, and you’re gonna have to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry; what?” he asks, but she’s already pulling out the battered old book that Dipper always carries around and is hurriedly flipping through it. “Wait, Mabel, what do you mean?” Then he gets a sinking feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach, and he’s very, very afraid he knows. “Are we… do you have a way to go into Dipper’s mind?”

Looking up at him, she just holds out one hand, a silent offer and reminder of his promise. He takes it with no hesitation. Both of their palms are sweaty, and he almost misses the unsure glance she sends him just before resting both of their hands on Dipper’s head and starting to read off the spell she’s found. The familiar sound of Latin fills the room, but any comfort he might have derived from the familiarity is ripped away by the cerulean flow that envelops the two of them. Mabel raises her voice as she struggles to complete the lines, and for a moment there’s pain as she squeezes his hand, but then the dark, gloomy attic is traded for something else entirely.

“It’s a book,” he says, momentarily baffled. But not just any book; it’s a massive, suspended-in-a-colorless-vacuum-of-space version of the book Mabel’s got in her hands.

“Yeah,” Mabel replies, somehow floating over to the edge of the cover. “For Grunkle Stan it was the Mystery Shack.” Wirt decides then that he probably never wants to hear that story.

“Come on and help me!” she calls, pushing against the cover. It’s at least ten times her height, and he’s not even sure that he can help. But just as he’s figured out how exactly to get over there, she snaps her fingers and the book swings open. “Oh, I totally forgot. Since this is the mindscape, you can do whatever you want here,” she says, grinning. But then she looks up at the page in front of them and her face falls. It doesn’t look like the glimpses of the journal that Wirt has seen before. Instead, it looks more like a scrapbook, and spread across the whole page is a picture of two newborns, swaddled in the genderless striped blankets and hats all hospitals provide. A caption, handwritten at the bottom of the slightly yellowed paper, reads ‘Mabel and Ariana Pines, born Sept. 15th, 2000’. There’s other information there, like birth weights and foot prints, but Wirt’s too struck by the words to take any of it in.

“Who is Ariana?” he asks, reaching out to brush the name with his fingertips.

“Um…” When he turns to look at Mabel, she just throws out some jazz hands and shouts “Identical twins!”

“Wait, that’s… that’s Dipper?” he asks, pointing up at the babies.

“Actually, he’s the other one, but… yeah.”

His mind spins as he looks back and forth between the picture and Mabel.

“And you’re really identical twins?” She nods, making a weird face like he should already know this information and yeah, maybe he should because she just told him but seriously, what? “So… Dipper… Dipper is Ariana?”

“Yeah…” Mabel drawls, looking away.

“Your brother Dipper is trans?”

“Yes,” she repeats. “But what’s the big deal? I told you you were gonna see some stuff, didn’t I?”

“Well… well, yeah, but this… this isn’t just ‘stuff’, Mabel. This is mind-blowing!” And it looks like they’re already at the point where he waves his hands for emphasis. Great. He’d thought his mental state could handle a little bit more than this.

“And what’s so mind-blowing about it, huh?” she yells. “Does this really change anything?”

Wirt stops pacing (and when had that started?). “Um… no, I… I guess not. But still, it would have been nice to know!”

“Why?” she pressed, floating up to him. “What was he supposed to do? Walk up and go ‘Hi there, stranger, my name is Dipper Pines and I’m trans!’?”

“...no,” he admits.

“Exactly.”

Before he can think of a response she’s gesturing imperiously at the pages, skimming through the rapidly changing pictures. But really, what does it matter? It’s not like he likes to think about Dipper’s, well, privates. I don’t really care, he realizes. Maybe he should be more concerned with that than he is, but, seeing as he’s in the guy’s mind with his sister ready to bite his head off with an actual demon to face, he thinks that there’s probably more serious things to worry about.

His eyes grow wide as he watches the rapidly changed collage of pictures, trying to remember them all and failing spectacularly. “All right,” he says, setting his shoulders. “What are we looking for?”

Mabel scoffs, throwing her mussed hair over one shoulder. “For Bill, obviously.”

“...okay, and when we find him, we do what exactly?”

“We destroy him for daring to mess with the Pines family!”

“Great. So, how do we do that?” The turning of the pages slows.

“Well… last time we just made him really, really mad and he went away. But he came back so that obviously didn’t work, so… I don’t really know.”

“You don’t… know.” Oh god.

A growing sense of desperation fills him as he watches the boy he’s come to love stop wearing dresses, and get his hair cut, and throw temper tantrums and cry at his first shot, and grow into someone vaguely recognizable. He watches earnestly, not knowing if he’ll ever be able to get him back.

Then he sees the Mystery Shack for the first time and Mabel squeals. “Oh yeah, here’s the fun stuff!”

“What is this?” he asks, gesturing to the smaller version of her and an adorably baby-faced Dipper driving for their lives in the far less battered than he knows it golf cart.

“2012,” she answers, watching with shining eyes. But the pages speed up, and, judging by Mabel’s frown, she’s not responsible for it.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” she mutters. “Bill’ll show up any time he wants.”

Before he gets a chance to ask what he looks like, for reference, the pictures slow again to show Dipper talking to some meaty minotaur-things, yelling at him about manliness or something. Wirt cringes, the full impact of the words hitting him strongly. The moment he reacts, though, the pages speed up and the moment is gone. So he turns to Mabel, trying to ask his question again. “Hey, Mabel, what-”

He stops; she’s gone. He’s all alone, just him and this book with its pages blowing past at a furious pace. The sheer panic grips his heart in a breathtaking moment, and he’s never felt so truly alone. Had Mabel ever really been there? Yes. Yes, she was there at Dipper’s beside; he felt her hand. He’s not going crazy. But that’s only a mild comfort in the silent empty space where the only thing he can see and hear is the book and its flapping pages.

The pictures slow again, and he turns to them, eager to catch sight of this demon guy and get out as fast as possible. This time, though, as the scene begins to unfold, there’s audible sound with it.

Dipper’s backing himself up against a bedroom door, staring with frightened eyes at a group of teens all bigger and scarier than he, led by a pimply guy with greasy black hair.
“Ooh, language, little Dipper. Oh, what, trying to run away? I don’t think so. You’ve been a pain in my ass since you first got here, and I think it’s time to make you pay.” Taking hold of the younger boy, he throws him towards two of his friends. “Hold him, guys. I’ve got big plans for this little twerp.” Pulling a pair of thin, lacy, panties out of the front pocket of his hoodie, Wirt understands what’s about to happen a split second before Dipper’s pants and boxers are ripped down and the greasy-haired kid recoils in shock. “What the fuck?” he whispers. There’s dead silence as he stares, horrified, between Dipper’s legs, and Wirt reaches out, unthinking, wishing he could pass through the very fabric of time and keep this from ever happening. But then DIpper cries out, yanking his arms out of the guys’ grips, pulling up his pants, and racing out of the bedroom. Catching a quick glimpse of the house as Dipper runs out of it, Wirt gasps; it’s the same house as where he himself met Mabel. Sure enough, as Dipper’s sight shows scuffed sneakers pounding down the darkening sidewalk, he hears her call out “Dipper!” He wants to pause the book, then, if only to have a moment to take in this information, but the pages accelerate once again, skimming through the first day of school, the twin’s birthday, and many other scenes he remembers.

There’s something strange that he starts to notice, though, shortly after Halloween. Wirt sees himself more and more often in the memories, even though he can confirm that they didn’t spend that much more time together. He also looks… different. He knows for a fact that he’s not that much taller than Dipper, and is he really that… attractive? His hand goes to his jaw, feeling along the line. Yeah, he doesn’t have a strong a jaw as Dipper sees, that’s for sure. But… does that mean that Dipper sees him like that? As… as an attractive guy? It’s not exactly a priority right  now, but he can’t stop himself from blushing at the idea.

A sharp, grating laugh rings out as the color fills his cheeks and he whips around, searching for the source of the sound. “Bill?” he ventures.

“That’s right, kid!” comes the reply. “But don’t look at me; there’s a show going on! And, trust me, Dipper’s put a whole lotta blood, sweat, and tears into this. Ooh, it’s my favorite part!” And somehow Wirt finds his face turned back to the gargantuan scrapbook, forced to watch as Dipper, a trembling flashlight in one hand, shakily reads out a Latin spell from the crumpled pages in his hand. Faintly, Wirt recognizes enough words to know that this must be Dipper’s attempt at an exorcism.

“Wow, Pine Tree,” the obnoxious voice taunts from somewhere in the shadows. Dipper’s head jerks up and he clutches the papers to his chest. “You really worked hard on this one, didn’t you? Where is that spell from, the internet? And here I thought I was up against a serious paranormal expert.” Dipper drops the flashlight, immediately dropping to his knees and scrambling to try and grab it again. “Nah, you shouldn’t bother,” says the voice. “I’m coming in whether you want me or not.” The boy on the ground stops searching and makes a sort of heartbreaking whimper that makes Wirt cringe and Bill laugh. “All right, kid, I’ll be nice and tell you what you fucked up this time. First off, you trusted that scrawny toothpick sweater-vest guy? Why? Because he’s nice to you? Because he listened to you? Ha, pathetic. Second off, little buddy, nice try and all, but I’m not a demon. Not the way you’re thinking anyway. So, calling on G-d isn’t exactly gonna help you.” Before Dipper can respond, an ambiguous shape flies in through his open mouth and he screams.

“No!” Wirt cries, but it’s too late; the pages fly past too quickly to see anything more. The voice stays quiet, but he can feel an aura of smugness radiating from him, wherever he is, and he grits his teeth.

“You… you, stop torturing Dipper!” he yells; the only response he gets is the pages slowing again.

Dipper’s lying down in this one, but sunlight is streaming through the stained glass window of the attic, so Wirt thinks that maybe he’s trying to nap until the boy moans and Wirt sees that Dipper’s hands are down the front of his pants and dear god does he really have to watch this? His face feels like it’s on fire as he covers his eyes, but in the end it doesn’t really do any good because there’s no way to block out the moans and little gasps that Dipper’s making. And, really, that should not be attractive at all because it’s DIpper’s memories and his, um, private time, but it’s still incredibly sexy to think of the boy doing that and Wirt’s starting to lower his hands just a little when he hears his own name pass Dipper’s lips, mangled into a sensual whisper. His hands fall limply to his sides, and he stands there, gaping, as his crush, his Dipper…

He wants to be horrified, he really does, because he’s in DIpper’s freaking mind for goodness’ sake and an actual demon is watching this, too, and man, is this literally the worst way to find out somebody likes you, but… well, he’s not horrified.

“Oh, so you like that?” Bill asks, the sound of a smirk gracing his tone. “Nice boner, kid. But hey! We’re not done yet! Hold onto your crotch, conehead, we’ve got one more flashback to watch. And boy. lemme tell you, is this one a tear jerker! Need a tissue yet? I’d offer some lotion, but I’ve had to deal with enough dicks in my life and I don’t really want to see yours.” He laughs maniacally and Wirt swears he can feel something pinch his cheek before he swipes at thin air. “Ah, ah, ah, not yet. It’s time for the piece de resistance! Dim the lights, cue the music, and get ready to have your heart ripped out and torn to shreds! Not seriously, of course. At least not yet.”

With growing horror, Wirt finds his head turned back to the final few pages. He knows what it is immediately; Dipper’s standing in front of his house, clothes disheveled and eyes red, and it has to be the day he came over to apologize. But instead of knocking on the door he pulls out his phone, hitting the call button before Wirt can see who he’s trying to talk to. He holds his breath in anticipation, flinching when Dipper’s shoulders fall and he hears the faint automated voicemail greeting on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Mabel? It’s me,” he says, “and I’m sorry to call you again but I really don’t know if I can do this. I mean, I know you said he’d forgive me, but what if he doesn’t? What if he ends up hating me because of goddamn Bill Cipher? … no, no, you’re right. It’s not Bill, it’s me. I’m letting him do this to me. I just need to-” A beep cuts him off, and the automated woman oh-so-politely tells him that his message has failed and to have a nice day. Hanging up the phone, he sighs. “-to do this. Even… even if he never talks to me again.” And then he rings the doorbell. A few more memories flash by at the speed of light, but soon enough the last page is turned and Wirt’s left staring at the back cover of the scrapbook, black as night except for a flowing yellow triangle, dead in the center.

“Isn’t that just heartbreaking?” he asks, sniffling as the glow pulses. “If I had a heart it’d be in pieces right now. Well, anyways…” Blowing his non-existent nose into a lace-edged handkerchief, it snaps into a trim white business card which he then holds out with a black, stick-like arm. Taking it, Wirt reads ‘Bill Cipher, professional dream demon extraordinaire’ before it explodes into blue flames.

“You’re a triangle,” he says, voice colored with disbelief.

“Ha, yeah, I am. And Dipper used to be a girl; what’s your point?”

“Hey!” Wirt frowns, advancing on the demon.

“What? Oh, no, don’t worry; I’m not an asshole. I terrorize all people, regardless of gender.” He comes fully out of the shadows, then, a yellow pyramid with a black top hat and one unnatural eye. “It’s good to finally meet you in person,” he says, adjusting his hat. “You’ve featured in a lot of Dipper’s dreams recently. But, I gotta say, I’m surprised you haven’t tried to fix your appearance at all. Mabel cut her dress size down by five two seconds after getting in. Seriously, kid, everything’s possible in the mind; you could make yourself ten times hotter here.” With a snap of the demon’s fingers, Wirt feels himself grow, arms gaining muscle and his jaw expanding. He screams in agony and his voice grows deeper, too. “There! Look at that handsome devil!” A mirror appears in front of him, and Wirt can’t hold back his gasp of surprise. He’s older looking, stronger, and hotter than he’d ever hoped.

“This… this isn’t right!” he shouts, grimacing at the sound of his altered voice.

“No? Fine. Your loss.” Another snap, and everything’s gone. The image in the mirror is as bad as the one he has to look at every day. “Maybe it’s the inside you’d rather change, huh? You wanna be less clingy, right?”

“No!” he shouts, reaching out in a desperate attempt to stop Bill from snapping again. “I don’t… I don’t want to change anything!”

Bill gives him a very unimpressed look. “Conehead, you and I both know that’s bullshit.” Wirt hangs his head. “If you’re lying to yourself, that’s hardly my problem. So, what do you want? Hold on, is this some sort of rescue mission? How cute! You’re here to be the Prince Charming, saving your lovely damsel in distress, aren’t you?”

“I’m here to fight you. You have to get out of his head, Bill!”

The demon laughs. “Says… you? Yeah, like that’s going to happen. But hey, that’s boring. Let’s talk about something more interesting, shall we?” Whipping out a cane, he twirls it dramatically and the whole scene changes. Wirt’s standing in a forest now, the trees vibrant with autumn colors. Everything is strangely muted, though, as if it was all watercolor, washed in sepia. He knows immediately where they are and turns on Bill in panic.

“How do you know this place?!” he asks. The sounds echoes faintly off the trees, but nothing stirs. “I… how… are you reading my mind?”

Bill dismisses him with a wave of his spindly hand. “Psh, as if. I don’t need to. You think you and your brother and the only ones who ever went to the Unknown?”

Wirt shakes his head, trembling. He never thought he’d have to come back.

“Wow, even after what Mabel told you, you’re not going to try to change anything. Don’t you feel useless? It’s not like there’s anything you can do to stop me, but still, I like to see my victims struggle. It’s cute to see how helpless you are.” Somewhere in the distance, someone screams, and the demon sighs contentedly. “Music to my ears.”

“Seriously!” Wirt yells, his hands clenching into fists. “What are you trying to do?”

“Me? Oh, not much, just destroy your mind so you’ll never bother me again. I need Dipper’s body, y’see, to keep an eye on Gravity Falls. And if I have to worry about you trying to save him all the time, that’s going to be a little difficult. And, conehead, I’m going to be honest with you: it’s going to be a piece of cake. Your greatest fear is what, a bluebird? Ha, I could snap your sanity like a twig. Or an icicle. How do you like the cold?”

Before Wirt can even blink the forest is growing darker, and snow begins to blow past in the wind whipping up the leaves at his feet. He hugs his arms to his chest, hunching his shoulders, but he still manages to glare at Bill. “I’m not scared of the cold anymore!”

“Oh yeah?” he replies, eye narrowing. His voice goes infinitely deeper, rumbling through the very earth. “Not even when it cuts straight to your bones?” A knife forms out of thin air, silver and gleaming in the fading light, and with a sharp cackle it’s sent straight for Wirt’s heart. He throws out his hands to stop it, screaming as it pierces his skin not with pain but with ice. He doubles over, shivering, and Bill grows before him, his sickening yellow glow morphing into a fiery red. “Still think you can win against me, kid? But wait! I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve! There’s an old friend I’m dying to introduce you to.”

Wirt looks up, and falls to the ground. There stands the Beast, two eyes glowing out of his shadowy, antlered frame.

“Did you miss me, boy?” he taunts. Wirt clamps a hand over his mouth to keep from puking into the rapidly growing drift of snow beside him.

“That’s right, conehead,” the Beast says, kneeling next to him and resting a chilling, skeletal hand on his shoulder. “The Beast, Bill Cipher; we’re the same guy.”
Fighting the despair rising in his throat, the teen manages to squeak out a desperate “No!” Clutching at the thin fabric of his t-shirt with numb fingers, he thinks No… it can’t be.

The Beast’s laughter is infinitely worse than Bill’s. “Didn’t you wonder why your parents were in the Unknown? Or why my dear Beatrice never left you alone? Or why both Adelaide and the Woodsman seemed familiar?” Leaning closer, he hisses into Wirt’s ear: “It was all in your head.”

“No!” he cries; the word is choked with tears he can’t keep holding back.”No, it can’t- I don’t believe you!” The Beast makes no response. “Greg was there! He almost died! That… that wasn’t in my head!” Sobs begin to rack his frail body, and he desperately hopes that he’s right, that Bill is wrong. He couldn’t have tried to kill his own brother; it’s just not possible.

“You shared a dream,” is the Beast’s reply, though, and Wirt buries his face in his hands. He can hardly hear the demon through his own shuddering breaths. “It is not uncommon in families.”

“Oh, Greg,” Wirt moans. “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry.”

Dipper’s all but forgotten as the realization that, while he had tried to kill his brother, Greg had sacrificed his life anyway, washes over him, drowning him in waves. He sobs openly, teeth chattering in the frigid wind, while the Beast simply watches. I’ve failed, he thinks, and the demon laughs.

“Yes,” he agrees. “You have.”

It’s a long time before Wirt looks up again, and when he does, he sees that whatever sort of light that exists in this hellscape has dimmed and the only things he can clearly see are the Beast’s hypnotic, glimmering eyes.

Wait. The darkness… there’s something… something about the darkness…

“I… I defeated you once,” Wirt grits out, forcing himself to his knees. “I can do it again.”

“Ah, but, boy, as you can see,” he retorts, voice transforming into Bill’s, “this time, I have no lantern.”

“...no,” Wirt says. “I didn’t mean then.” He wipes his eyes, sniffling quickly, and continues. “I got rid of Beatrice. And I can get rid of you. You… you said it’s all in my head?" Slowly, he stumbles to his feet, looking defiantly into the faintly colored eyes. "She was never there?" He steps forward, snow crunching under his foot, and the Beast steps back. "Then never were you.”

The demon growls, the sound enveloping Wirt, and his glowing eyes merge into one. “I have power over you!” it shrieks. “I am the master of the mind!”

The boy meets his eyes and shakily smirks. “No,” he says. “You’re not.”

The eye glows scarlet, growing and spreading and melting and covering everything until Wirt’s surrounded with scalding, crackling heat, building to the sound of an unearthly wail ringing in his ears. He throws his hands up to cover them and screams “I am not afraid of you! You have no power over me, demon! And you have no power of Dipper! L- leave his mind, and stay far, far away from us, forever!”

Just as the sound and heat feel like they’ll pierce his very soul, everything in plunged into darkness, and silence, once more.

“Wirt? Wirt! Wirt, wake up!” Mabel’s voice fades into his hearing slowly, fighting the buzzing in his ears.

He moans, blinking slowly. “Mabel…?”

“Oh, thank everything,” she gushes, hugging him fiercely. “Thank every beautiful, glittering, fluffy, wonderful thing in the world. I thought Bill got you, ‘cause i hear the screams and everything went red and I honestly didn’t know what was happening.”

He laughs shakily, using all his strength to hug her back. “So we’re not dead?” he whispers. Oh god, it hurts to talk. Wait. “Dipper?” He sits up, looking around as quickly as his aching body will allow. The two of them are back in the attic, sprawled out on the wooden floor; there’s only the faintest glow coming in through the window. And DIpper’s there, curled up on the bed, unmoving. His eyes are no longer glowing, either. Wirt struggles to get up, pushing himself off the floor with a groan, but Mabel rests a hand on his arm and says “He’s breathing; I checked.”

That probably shouldn’t be as much of a comfort as it is. After all, Bill never said he wanted to kill him; but the pure relief that flows through him is as good as a painkiller at the moment.

“Do you think Bill’s gone for good?” Wirt asks softly. The girl opens her mouth to answer, but a  pained moan from the bed has them both scrambling up and over to him.

“Dipper!” Mabel calls and Wirt whispers.

The boy blinks slowly, looking up at them with bleary eyes. “Guys?” he croaks, and Mabel outright laughs. She throws herself at him, tackling him in an overjoyed hug. Wirt sits back on Mabel’s bed, watching them with a smile. They both look exhausted, but he hasn’t seen Dipper smile that brightly in months, and he knows Mabel sees it, too.

“Okay, but seriously,” the curly-haired boy says, poking his sister, “we’re gonna have to have a serious talk later. Because Pacifica, really? I mean, just because she’s actually a decent human being sometimes does not mean you need to date her. And, honestly, she’s still kinda a bitch.”

She grins, leaning in conspiratorially. “But she gives amazing head.”

“Eww, Mabel! That’s gross; we’re, like, fifteen!”

She just giggles and falls back on top of him. “I’m just teasing, bro. But she’s really great, trust me, once you really get to know her. And that one party three years ago does not count as getting to know her. I’m gonna make you guys got to lunch together someday so you can learn to get along.”

He groans, half-heartedly shoving her away. “Just tell me she’s getting you decent gifts and stuff. If you’re not milking her for all she’s worth, Grunkle Stan and I both are gonna be disappointed.” The girl laughs gleefully, and Dipper joins in until her locks eyes with Wirt from across the room. “Uh, hey, Mabel? Could you… um. Give us a minute?” he asks, gesturing awkwardly to the older boy. She frowns, but slides off the bed and goes to the door, turning back to say “You better not take too long. I finally got my brother back, and I wanna spend time with him, okay?” Both of them nod quickly, and she pulls the door shut behind her.

What’s left behind is an awkward, heavy, silence, until Dipper starts giggling, hiding behind one hand. “I’m sorry, Wirt, it’s just… have you seen your hair?”

“What?” he asks dumbly, reaching up to feel. “What’s wrong with it?”

Tilting his head and squinting, Dipper says, “It’s just… I think you might have burned it or something. I guess you fell too close to the candles.”

That’s when his fingertips brush a stubbly patch on his head that’s significantly shorter than the rest of his hair and he winces. “That… was probably why I felt like I was on fire.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dipper’s still snickering. “At the… end part. But hey, maybe you can start wearing a hat all the time, like me.”

Wirt nods, his mind already miles away. “So… you saw all that?” He probably should have known, seeing as it was his mind the whole thing took place in, but he had hoped that maybe some of the time he didn’t see. He tries not to cringe when Dipper nods, suddenly finding a patch of the bedspread very interesting. “Um. Well,” he chuckles nervously, “I guess now would be as good a time as any to say that I like you, and, um, yeah.”

“Really? I mean, I kind of, uh, guessed, but… even after seeing all that?”

Wirt finds himself nodding before Dipper’s even finished talking. “Of course I do, I just… I wish I hadn’t seen it. Because it was your- I mean, because you probably didn’t want me to, uh, watch some of that, and because that means that you… you had to go through that.” The younger boy looks away. “That all looked like hell. I… I had no idea that… Bill is, er, was…” Wirt laughs helplessly. “I don’t think I can really talk right now,” he says, one hand going to his throat subconsciously. He almost misses the way Dipper’s eyes latch onto his hand and the way he swallows too quickly. But if he panics a little at the implication, well, he’s had a long night. “And you… you like me?”

Dipper turns red. “You literally watched me jack off over you and you still have to ask that question?”

“...yeah, I guess that was pretty dumb.” And Wirt thought that things wouldn’t be awkward as hell if he ever confessed his feelings. Well. “All right, look,” he says, only a little desperate. “I know you’ve seen the Beast, and… and how I reacted, and you know I’ve seen, um, a lot more that you meant for me to, but it’s over, it’s gone, and, if you want, we can pretend that never happened. I mean, personally, I’d rather not, because I really, really l- um, love you and I want to… to be- uh, to… to do whatever you want, whenever you want, with you, because you’re, um… Fuck. Just… will you go on a date with me?”

Dipper blinks. “You…? Okay.”

“Okay? Okay.”

“Yeah… okay.”

Wirt stands up, wringing his hands. “Does that mean I can hug you?”

“Well, uh, I think I’d prefer a kiss right now, but whatever you’re cool with is good.”

And Wirt guesses that he must have overloaded his panic levels in the past few hours or something because he hardly hesitates before going to take Dipper’s face in his hands and gently pressing his lips to the other boy’s. They’re surprisingly soft, especially for someone who likes tramping in the woods as much as Dipper does, and Wirt has to fight to keep himself from melting into it.

“There,” he says, “now y-” The look on the younger boy’s face stops him. He’s watching him with wide, shining eyes, fingertips brushing his lips softly.

“That… felt really nice,” he mutters, blinking quickly. “I’ve never done it before, but… I liked that.”

“Wait, wait a minute, you let me take your first kiss at, what, five in the morning on a Monday when we both probably have morning breath and my hair’s been on fire and we just fought an actual demon! What… what the hell, Dipper? You should have at least let me take you out on a date first.”

Dipper laughs at that, shaking his head and shoving the besotted look away. “I don’t think there was much of a ‘we’ involved there,” he comments, “since I was stuck watching the whole thing, but you seriously want to take me on a date?”

“What? Oh… yeah. I guess I do.”

Wirt’s starting to wonder now if his awkwardness is due to not being in a relationship (or even in love) in such a long time, or if this is just his doomed-to-last-forever, natural state of existence around Dipper Pines.

“I don’t want you to,” the boy retorts, scooping up his hat from the bedside table and firmly shoving it on his head. “‘Cause if we’re gonna do this, really do this, I don’t want to be the girl in the scenario, okay? You’ve already done enough. The first date’s mine.”

The older boy can only chuckle, half hysterical and half overflowing with joy. “Okay, Dipper. The first date’s yours.”

Dear Mom and Dad (don't worry, I'm sending a copy to each of you),

I get that sending a letter is a little old-fashioned, but there's some news that I think it would be better to share on paper than over the phone (especially since face-to-face isn't exactly an option right now). First off: both of your darling twins are queer! Surprise! Though I don't think Mabel has sworn off boys entirely. She told me to tell you she's pansexual (I'm not entirely sure of what that is, so I guess I'll just tell you to look it up if you want to know), and I guess I'm gay? Except there was Wendy. I don't know exactly what I am...

Mabel has just kindly informed me that I am bisexual. So, there you have it. Anyway, what's important is that Mabel is dating Pacifica Northwest (and yes, that is the same Pacifica I've been complaining about for upwards of three years) and I now have a boyfriend. Before you get freaked out or anything, we haven't done anything, we haven't done anything yet, and even if we do I'll make him wear a condom.

I can't believe I just made myself write that sentence. Anyway, he's a great guy, two years older than me (and no, it's not weird) and his mom teaches at our school. He'd got a little brother that Mabel absolutely loves, and I think even Grunkle Stan likes him. Wirt, my boyfriend, not Greg, the little brother. Actually, I think he likes them both. That's not the point, though. His family is the cloth-napkins-at-dinner and handmade-wreaths-at-Christmas type, if you know what I mean. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Langtree even makes her own popsicles. Mom, you would either really like her or not be able to stand her, I can't tell. Wirt gave me a photo of his family plus their contact information to send to you, so that's what that random family photo is, in case you were wondering (sorry Dad, you get the copy). One other detail you might want to know if that he and I have been dating since the end of March, so only a few months now, but I met him at the end of last summer, so I know he's a good guy.

But all of that is not really the point of this letter. I know that both of you are going to freak out, but, all things considered, I think we've got a point here: Mabel and I want to stay in Gravity Falls. Not just for the summer, but for the foreseeable future. Okay, now I'll give you a minute to go freak out.

You’re back? Great. Now, for reasons:

First, you sort of abandoned us here for the whole year while pretending we didn’t know exactly what was going on with you two. I’m going to completely honest with you: that really bothered me and Mabel.

Second, Grunkle Stan says it’s okay, and while he’s not an ideal parental figure, I’ve learned more about responsibility from him than I think I would have learned at home.

Third, I never really liked California; sue me.

Fourth, our weird little backwoods school is actually kind of cool. I think the stoners aren’t coming back next year, too, so that’s a definite plus.

Fifth, Mabel created a Pride Festival that she wants to be here to run next year (I really hope she told you about that).

Sixth, (and the list just keeps growing), Wendy’s sort become our unofficial life mentor, and I think she’ll be great for when we need help with college and stuff, and she doesn’t introduce us to bad influence guys anymore because she had an epiphany moment at Mabel’s parade and realized she just doesn’t do romance.

Seventh, Wirt and Pacifica are here. I’m not going to try to defend that one.

Finally, eighth, we’re happy here. Don’t get me wrong, we love you guys; you’re still our parents, and that’s not going to change, but I’ve learned a lot about life in general this year, and myself, and other people, and I know now that I want to be as happy as possible as much as possible. I get that here. I also learned that the people who really love you are the ones who will do anything for you, and Mabel, Soos, Grunkle Stan, Wendy, and Wirt are those people for me.

Anyway, I hope summer is going well you guys, and hey, one upside of letting us stay in Gravity Falls is that you won’t have to go to court over us.

       Lots of love,

               Your son, Dipper Pines

P.S. I added a picture from Wirt and I’s first date (it was really cold out). Mabel knit that sweater for me. Originally it was just navy-blackish, but she said that was too depressing, so she put silver stars on it for me. Isn’t she great like that?