Preface

The weight of a world on your shoulders...
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/20873960.

Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
M/M
Fandom:
Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Relationship:
Dipper Pines/Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)
Character:
Dipper Pines, Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)
Additional Tags:
Fluff and Angst, Insecurity, Beast Wirt, Pinescone Week 2019
Language:
English
Series:
Part 7 of DemonicBae-verse
Stats:
Published: 2019-10-23 Words: 413 Chapters: 1/1

The weight of a world on your shoulders...

Summary

Dipper has come a long way from being an insecure child that doesn't see his worth. Still, some things are enough to shake him.

Written for day 2 of Pinescone Week 2019: "Please don't leave"

Notes

Prompts and entries for Pinescone Week can be found at the Pinescone Week 2019 blog .

This is set *after* How to propose in Gravity Falls: a 5+1 story

The weight of a world on your shoulders...

Wirt takes a deep breath before reaching for the doorknob. Inside the room he can feel misery in such quantities that his instincts yearn for him to take it and feed. His logical mind however, merely feels... sad.

He turns the doorknob and pushes the door open.

"Hey" he says. Dipper is little more than a budnle of blankets on his bed, his back against the corner of the wall. "How are you?"

It takes a moment before the answer comes, but he'd been expecting that.

"I'm... Alive" Dipper says. His voice is both reproachful and doubtful, and Wirt sighs. "I... I keep screwing up Wirt"

After a moment, Wirt takes slow steps towards the bed, and climbs atop it leaving Dipper enough time to move if he so wishes.

"We all do. It never gets easier though, especially when we're trying our best, I think" he says. Dipper burrows into his arms, and he allows a bit of his real skin to manifest. Maybe the scent of the woods will help ground Dipper to reality. "It was not your fault Dipper. These things happen"

"I'm supposed to be better than this. I'm supposed to keep everyone safe, I'm supposed to-" Dipper stops, when Wirt squeezes him a bit tighter.

"That's a lot of things you think you're supposed to do" Wirt speaks into Dipper's shoulder. "You live in one of the most supernaturally active places in the continent, and you keep the communities in balance. I think you do a fine job"

"People died Wirt" Dipper sounds entirely too afflicted for Wirt's taste, but he has enough presence of mind to wonder if he'd be equally as affected were he still human.

"Poachers. Cub killers" Wirt shrugs. This is most definitely his real nature breaking through. "The Court of the Moon takes care of their own"

"Is that how you call yourselves?" Dipper asks. Wirt chuckles. Leave it to Dipper to be distracted from grief by curiosity.

"If it ain't human, it's one of us" he says. It's weird, this information that was implanted into his brain the moment he opened his eyes after they'd changed colors. It's like knowing you have to breathe. "This was not your fault. You're the only one who thinks that."

"Will you keep telling me that?" Dipper asks. His aura feels slightly more calm now, and Wirt allows himself to burrow his face in his hair.

"Forever if I have to" He says "I'm not leaving"

Afterword

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