Horrible First Impressions

by Philiah

Summary:

So, let's say these two gentlemen with perfect chemistry happened to get off on the wrong foot.

Or,

Both Dipper and Wirt think the other is an asshole and that's making it difficult for them to get along.

Notes:

To preface I only put the OOC tag because I haven't read a lot of Pinescone that features enemies to lovers and also I've never written enemies to lovers I don't think, so I'm like not super confident.

And another thing; I didn't really research much for this fic because I didn't want to overwork myself with it, so most of the college experience in here is based off my own—and I am not American.

Chapter 1: Dipper I

“Second place?!” Dipper exclaims, resisting the urge to tear the paper off the well-decorated bulletin board. His sister hangs off his shoulder, staring at the results for the creative writing competition, eyes scanning the names to find someone that isn’t her brother occupying first place.

“What are you getting worked up for?” Mabel grins, turning her head on his shoulder, loopy earrings dangling as she does. “I thought you entered this competition for fun.”

He flushes, embarrassed to be caught so worked up over something he initially didn’t care so much about, “Well, it’s just, I didn’t expect there to be someone better than me?”

“At a creative writing club?” Mabel’s smile remains unwavering, but her eyebrows furrow, quite baffled to hear him say this.

“You’re right it does sound dumb now that I said it out loud,” Dipper answers. “But all the stuff I read from the others weren’t really…” he looks around, to see if anyone would hear him, “...that good.”

“It’s a big club, Dipper. Didn’t you say it filled a whole lecture hall?” Mabel asks smirks, finding his slight egotism endearing. “There’s no way you read allllll their works.”

He pinks by the ears, rolling his shoulders to get her off him, “But, I’ve been working on that paranormal novel for ages! How could a snippet of its, in my opinion, best chapters be bested by…” he turns, to look at the winning piece stapled next to the ranking list. “...poetry?”

“It’s really moving,” Mabel sniffs, wiping away invisible crocodile tears. “Aren’t people just suckers for wayward lovers?”

Dipper intended to briefly scan the piece, but found himself getting hooked on it by its wording. The way the words were pieced together drew him in, as though Dipper were looking at an unending tunnel, or a forest with no clear path aside from a beckoning shadow in the distance.

How it spoke to him, about lamentations, but also the joys of life. There was no clear narrative being told here, as opposed to Dipper’s haunting tale with a hint of action to leave its readers on the edge of their seats. Just words, feelings, implications of something but nothing more.

Dipper lifts his baseball cap for a minute and runs a hand through his hair in thought, before sitting the hat back down on his head. Okay, he’ll have to admit. It is pretty good. It’s vague enough to make it relatable to anyone, and everyone loves a good tear-jerker. Whatever.

“You’re irritated that it’s actually better,” Mabel snorts, noticing the telltale signs of frustration on her brother’s face. 

“I’m not!” he gets defensive, looking away from the bulletin board. “I’m not irritated.”

“You sooo are,” she pokes at his face with a pink manicured finger, then another, and another, till he gets annoyed enough to start slapping her hands away from his face, which only makes her erupt into giggles.

“Okay, fine. But it’s not about what you think! I’m irritated that it’s…” Dipper’s hands fly, trying to find the right words. “Commercially good.”

“I don’t follow,” Mabel blinks blankly with that dopey smile of hers as always.

“Like, it caters to an audience,” Dipper gestures. “Like you said, everyone loves a lover, and it’s a tear-jerker alright. So, like, it was made to tug at your heart without, you know, having actual individuality. Or creativity, for that matter.”

“You’re calling it cliché,” Mabel deadpans, still ever as amused by her brother’s verbalized thoughts.

“I guess I am,” Dipper folds his arm. “Which is why I say it’s commercially good. It’s so commercially good, it’s kinda bad!”

A throat suddenly clears behind the two of them, and it dawns upon Dipper a little too late that he forgot to check again if anybody was coming around. College campuses are a big place, it’s usually hard to find a crowd on a random afternoon, especially in some random corridor with a bulletin board and a staircase nearby. 

He sort of thought it’d remain empty since the last time he checked. But, considering his personality, he really should’ve double checked before saying anything else about the winning piece. He winces a little, as he turns, his sister less guilty since she hadn’t said anything that could incriminate her.

“‘Commercially good, it’s kinda bad,’ huh?” the man is only a few inches taller than Dipper and Mabel are, with hair a lighter shade of brown than theirs, but not any less messy than Dipper’s. Yellow sweater over a classic white dress shirt and a faded pair of jeans, Dipper could almost guess what major he was in. Something medical, maybe.

“I-I, uh, I was just…stating an opinion,” Dipper stutters out, attempting to save his skin only a little. “I mean, people improve through criticism. Right?”

“Right.” he deadpans, not any less angry-looking. Dipper hopes his gulp isn’t audible.

“I liked it,” Mabel states out loud, to which Dipper silently thanks her for. “I’m more interested in the writer’s name!”

“Mabel—” Dipper starts, hoping to interrupt, but fails.

“I mean, it’s kinda silly! Wirt’s a funny name, don’t you think?” Mabel giggles, pointing a finger at the stranger. The lack of malicious intent is incredibly evident, but that can be tossed out the window thanks to her phrasing. “I’ve seen my fair share of silly names, and that really takes the cake. Heheh.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes my mother a comedian.” the stranger answers flatly, and that’s when it clicks for Mabel that this stranger here is the writer, something which Dipper figured out a couple seconds earlier. “Look, if you, uh, if you don’t like it, at least have the-the decency to, you know, say it to my face.”

“Oh, come on,” Dipper furrows his brows, going from remorseful to a little agitated by the other’s attitude. It could be the lingering sore loser mentality in him, but he’d never admit it in favor of his ego. “It’s not like you’ve never criticized a person’s work behind their back before.”

The stranger, Wirt, chews on the inside of his cheek as though holding back a comeback, or perhaps he doesn’t have one and can only stand there and make a face. But, after a few seconds of silence from his part, he suddenly speaks again, “Fine. I think your story’s too convoluted. Do you really expect a reader to understand everything right from the start of reading your piece? Your world build is-is-is like a LEGO instructions manual with all the pages in between ripped out.”

Dipper’s jaw drops, taken aback by the fact that Wirt managed to come back swinging with his backhanded constructive criticism. Mabel, likewise, widens her eyes as she looks between the two, unable to decide whether this is something worth throwing fists for or walking away. 

But, judging by the fact that, after saying all that, Wirt looks just about ready to pass out from the mixture of anxiety and frustration building up inside of him, she decides she would most definitely feel bad for punching him in the face if she chooses to, and takes her brother by the shoulders.

“Look, we’re sorry about what we said. We didn’t mean it, and to be honest, we do think your writing is pretty good,” Mabel says, then pauses, thinking of what else to add. “Okay, bye.”

And then she steers her brother out of that corridor, who still hasn’t processed receiving negative feedback on this particular work of his for possibly the first time ever in his life.

 

“What’s with him?” Pacifica whispers towards Mabel, but keeps her volume loud enough on purpose for Dipper to still hear her. “He’s been quiet and staring at the table for fifteen minutes already.”

Every few weeks, the twins would meet Pacifica at their usual cafe to catch up, and it just so happens that today is one of those days. They’d plan to just check on the writing contest results for a little bit before heading over, since they had time, and fortunately the whole ordeal with Wirt hadn’t made them late.

“He just got his feelings hurt today,” Mabel pokes at her slice of cake with her fork, attempting to envision the best way to stuff the entire thing into her mouth.

Pacifica shoots Mabel an unimpressed look, before directing it entirely onto Dipper. She lifts her cup of latte and takes a sip, before setting it back down, “Whenever you’re ready, Dipper.”

“It’s just!” Dipper throws his hands up in the air, finally letting out his thoughts through the floodgates of his mind. “Like, sure, it was mean of me to say that! But I said what I felt, not expecting him to hear any of it. And I feel like I made a really valid point about his work anyway, he didn’t have to get so…so…you know!”

“Right, I have no idea what this is about,” Pacifica says, more confused than she was before.

“Remember how Dipper was writing that book thing for fun?” Mabel says, grabbing the blonde’s attention. “His writing club was holding this little competition thing, and he ended up submitting his favorite chapter for it. He got second place.” she turns her plate a little to get a better angle, “So, he read the winning piece and called it commercially good, but in a bad way. And then, whoopsie daisies, the guy’s right behind us and heard all that!”

“Embarrassing,” Pacifica raises a hand up to block her peripheral vision away from them.

“Also!” Dipper straightens, pointing at Mabel. “She called his name weird.”

“Silly! I said silly!” Mabel’s eyes shoot up to meet his. “I totally meant it in a good way!”

“What’s his name?” Pacifica asks, hand dropping.

“Wirt,” the two answer her in unison.

“Whatever you’re imaging,” Mabel waves her fork at Pacifica as the lady’s face scrunches up to picture an appearance to match that name. “Bin it, because he’s actually really cute. A nerdy sort of cute.”

“Uh huh.” Pacifica nods, continuing to picture it. She’s not getting it.

“Anyway, I told him it’s not like he’s never criticized someone else’s work before behind their back,” Dipper continues.

“And then he proceeded to criticize your work in front of your face,” Pacifica’s lips curl, amused. She lifts her cup again to take another sip, just to hide her smile. But Dipper can still see the way her eyes seem to laugh at him.

“Whatever,” Dipper huffs, folding his arms. “Whatever. It doesn’t bother me. Doesn’t fuckin’ matter.”

“Wowww,” Pacifica is actually laughing this time. “You’re so angry it’s both funny and adorable.”

He frowns at her, staying silent.

“Hey, if he makes you so mad,” Mabel says, finally achieving the right angle, and proceeds to stab her slice with the fork. “Why not just fight him?”

She stuffs the entire slice into her mouth, with much effort and unnecessary sounds that could very well trick them into thinking that she’s having troubles. But, knowing her, she might just be able to get the entire thing in. Pacifica watches her briefly, before turning back to Dipper with a sympathetic smile, “Just write a better piece next time.”

“Fine!” Dipper says, before getting up to head to the counter. “I’m gonna get a coffee.”

“Bring me another cake!” Mabel waves her fork, mouth full yet somehow still coherently verbal.

 

Dipper wouldn’t really consider himself a lone wolf the same way Mabel wouldn’t consider herself a solo star. They both happen to gravitate towards people, and in turn, people happen to gravitate towards them. Which is why, technically, Dipper would’ve joined his college’s creative writing club by himself, but was only motivated to do so because Candy happened to be just as interested.

Now the pair go every week for their club activities. He feels he wouldn’t be as consistent without her with him, and he likes to think it’d be the same for her, if it weren’t for the fact that she’s always oddly eager to share her fanfictions to the club with no filter, alias or censorship.

“Fanart is still art,” she frequently tells him, whenever the second-hand embarrassment seeps into his soul.

It’s been a week since the results of the writing contest and Dipper feels he has finally fully gotten over it. Sure, it sort of resurfaced when he was reminded of weekly club activities, but it’s hardly the same as it was before anymore. In fact, if he sees Wirt’s face again, he’s sure he won’t even be bothered.

“Where do you feel like sitting this time?” Candy asks, hands together as the other club members began flooding in to the lecture hall, filling up the seats bit by bit, clique by clique. Dipper gives the room a brief glance, before shrugging his shoulders.

“You can pick again,” he answers, following Candy closely behind as she nods. In the end, she ends up picking a row near the front, furthest from the door, with Dipper sitting on the outside seat.

“Have you been writing anything new?” she asks the moment they’ve sat down, excited to see more of what Dipper has to offer.

He sheepishly smiles, reaching into his backpack to bring out his laptop, “Not really. Just been brainstorming ideas.”

“Oooh, share.” she kicks her feet, leaning close as he turns his laptop on.

“So, I’ve been thinking…” Dipper starts, pulling up his Google docs, when he suddenly feels someone bump into him as they attempted to climb up the rows by the side aisle. He instinctively looks up from his laptop, right as the stranger pauses.

“Oh, I’m sor—” the not-so-stranger, Dipper soon realizes, turns to look down at Dipper, before frowning in recognition. “Oh. Hey.”

“You.” Dipper’s face sours, looking up at Wirt with just as much disdain as the other.

“Yeah. Okay. Sorry for knocking into you, or…whatever,” Wirt sighs, turning away as he continues walking up. Dipper watches him go for a little longer, before returning to his laptop, scowl unwavering. His mood is now officially ruined.

Forget what he said about being unbothered. It’s okay to be wrong about yourself sometimes.

“What’s with the strange rivalry between you and that cutie?” Candy asks once the man was out of earshot, more interested than she is confused as she leans in closer to Dipper to listen.

“We don’t have a strange rivalry.” Dipper protests, pulling up the doc he was trying to look for earlier so he can finally show her what he’s been working on. “I’m pretty sure Mabel already told you about this.”

“Oh!” she perks up, before turning her head to search for Wirt in the sea of club attendees. “It’s easy to come by book cute boys, I just didn’t think he’d be that cute.”

“Not relevant,” Dipper reaches over to turn her head away so she doesn’t embarrass him, making her giggle.

“I thought you said you were over it,” Candy smiles at him.

“I am,” Dipper huffs. “I don’t hold grudges for guys that probably only have sweaters and dress shirts in his closet and calls it a fashion sense.”

“You’re no better,” Candy scrunches up her face, tilting her head. “You only have t-shirts and flannels. And the occasional hoodie.”

“See, and the occasional hoodie,” Dipper shrugs his shoulders. “I’m better. Anyway, as I was saying about my ideas…”

He proceeds to ramble on about the general direction and themes of his new tale, reiterating every so often that it’s still in a work in progress and things will be. He wanted to do something different from his paranormal novel, and so this story he’s still trying to piece together is going to have a more fantasy take.

With his prior knowledge on Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons—which was the inspiration for this new idea of his—getting the world build right will be a cake walk. He’s mostly working through characters and conflicts to put them in, which is ironically the most interesting part to Candy at the moment.

As he’s going through his draft ideas, someone in the row one step higher behind them suddenly leans over the table to get a little closer to them so they can hear her speak, “Hey, sorry to eavesdrop, but your story idea sounds way more interesting than what the club committee is talking about right now.”

It dawns upon Dipper, through that stranger, that club activities have begun and he hadn’t noticed through his ramblings. He gets a little embarrassed, turning to gaze up at the stranger to find her smiling down at the two of them, black curls pooling over her shoulders. His voice drops to a whisper, “Th-Thanks, and, um, I’m sorry if I was, like, distracting you or something.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” she answers, extending a hand over. “I’m Sara, by the way.”

“Dipper,” he shakes it briefly before letting it go.

Candy cranes a little to grab onto Sara’s hand, “Candy.”

“You didn’t happen to have caught what, er, what they said, did you?” Dipper asks, laughing nervously as Sara retracts her hand to fold her arms on the table.

“Not really, I kinda zoned out and started listening to the two of you instead,” she looks up and over at the committee, who have gone from talking about something to leaving the club to do their own thing. They’ve probably already shared a prompt for them to do. “It’s okay, though. They usually have us do the same thing every week anyway. Get a prompt, write, share with the class, go home.”

“Sometimes we play games too!” Candy chips in, pushing up her glasses. “Remember? The one word per person game?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sara smiles, looking away in thought. “Been a while since we did that.”

“What do you been? We did that two weeks ago,” Candy tilts her head.

She turns back to look at Candy, “Two weeks ago is a long time.”

Then, Sara looks over their heads, checking to see where the committee members are, and finds them missing from the front. She looks over her shoulder, checking again, before getting up from her seat and walking one step down to get to the two’s row.

“Oh, are you going to drag a chair ov—” Dipper asks, but blinks in surprise when Sara proceeds to push herself onto the table and take a seat on it. She’s careful to not bump into Dipper as she does this, who immediately scoots away to make room for her.

“You’ve got anymore stories?” Sara asks, looking over at Dipper’s opened laptop. Instinctively, he shuts it quick, making both her and Candy jump.

“Well, there is my paranormal novel. I actually submitted a chapter to the contest thing,” Dipper diverts her attention away from the fact that it looked like he had something to hide after doing that, when in actuality it was just a habit born from insecurity.

“Oh, yeah. I read that,” Sara dangles a foot off the table. “I didn’t really get much, but I thought it was interesting.”

Dipper’s ego takes an instant nose-dive as his mind immediately wanders back to Wirt’s criticism on his story being too convoluted. He strains out a smile, nodding his head, “Didn’t get much?”

“I don’t really read that much paranormal stuff,” Sara shrugs her shoulders. “Sorry. But, I could tell you really know your stuff. I think, at least. Again, not that big on paranormal stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah, no, that’s fair,” Dipper leans back in his seat, arms folding.

Candy pats his shoulder sympathetically.

Visibly feeling bad, Sara drums her fingers on the table lightly, “Dunno if you’re looking for advice, but I think you can afford to expand on your world through the characters.”

“What do you mean?” Dipper looks up at her.

“I mean, it helps to have a character that likes to share a lot, or a character that learns a lot,” Sara waves her hand vaguely. “So, let’s say your character’s a seasoned ghost hunter, or something, and they’ve got a friend that just started. Every time something new shows up, seasoned fella starts to infodump and, like, gives his own little perspective on it to the newbie. You know what I mean?”

“Wouldn’t that be boring…?” Dipper’s eyebrows furrow.

“To hear someone ramble about ghost stuff?” Sara makes a face. “In a ghost book?”

Dipper flushes, pursing his lips.

“You don’t gotta dumb stuff down,” Sara leans back, hands holding onto the edge of the table on either side of her dangling leg. “But, I dunno, I’d like to learn a thing or two from a book I’m reading. And if I already knew about that stuff, I’d love to learn it again through someone else’s perspective. Which is through your characters.”

“Wow,” Dipper says, after a bit on consideration, realizing that she’s made a really good point. But that would mean he’ll have to rewrite the entire novel from scratch to either change a character to be that way or add a character just for that. If it’s the latter, he’ll have to think of a new personality and appearance and…

“You must be a really good writer, Sara,” Candy pipes up, hands together as she stares up at the lady in awe.

“Oh, I don’t really…write,” Sara waves a hand dismissively. “I love to read though.”

“Don’t be so shy,” Candy beams. “I’m sure you would make an excellent writer!”

Sara laughs lightly, scratching her cheek, “I’ll take your word for it.”

Meanwhile, Dipper has slowly retrieved his laptop from the table and started typing away on his lap as the two of them continued to chat away, hasty to jot down all the ideas he has before they evaporate from his brain.

Yeah. This will show Wirt.

 

Every chance Dipper got, every break he had between photography homework and studying theory, he wrote. It takes him a whole week to churn out at least three chapters of the updated version of his novel, and that also includes the nights he couldn’t stop writing. 

He decided to go with the new character idea, because he realized adding on the personality trait of infodumping would fundementally change his current ones. He wanted to make this character somewhat likeable so they’d have more to them than just providing readers information, because a part of him still thinks having a character like that would be boring—or annoying.

“Did you feel that way whenever you read Grunkle Ford’s journals?” Mabel asked when Dipper brought this up with her during his character creation phase.

“Well, no, but that was because it was, you know, important and also…” Dipper’s hands flew vaguely. “...it was you listening.”

“Yeah, so just remember that when you write,” Mabel jabbed a finger to his forehead. “Just remember that there are people who will wanna listen. Like me!”

On those days, he really appreciates having a sister like her.

He got Sara’s number on the day they met and promised to show her the updated version of his novel when he finishes writing it, and though he’s not exactly done right now, he figured she’d like to see what he has so far anyway. 

“Cool, let’s meet up for it,” she says over the phone when Dipper finally got around to contacting her.

He blinks, taken aback, “Oh, I could just send you the file and you could just text me back what you thi—”

“Nah,” she answers. “I think it’s better I read it while you’re around. Easier and stuff.”

“Alright.” Dipper mumbles, suddenly feeling a little shy. He’s only ever did this with Candy and occasionally Mabel, so it feels weird branching out to a third person. “When are you free?”

 

It feels a little awkward, waiting outside a lecture hall for someone that isn’t his sister or Candy. He’s never been near the health science block of this college before, always shifting between the engineering block, the film and media block and the design block, and so got a little lost trying to get there. It’s a big college, after all.

He eventually hears the people inside making their way out and Dipper away from the door so he doesn’t block the way. He keeps his eyes peeled for Sara the entire time, occasionally getting on his tippy-toes to look for her. She ends up being the one to find him, pushing through the crowd of students to reach him.

“Did you wait long?” she asks, standing next to him as the two begin to wait for the crowd to clear out.

“Not really,” Dipper answers. “I would’ve never guessed you’re a healthcare student.”

She flushes, the first time he’s seen her embarrassed, “Oh, yeah. I didn’t mind it, so I went with it.”

“Mind it?”

“Let’s look for a place to sit so I can get to reading that novel of yours,” she points, now that the students have completely left. She beckons for him to follow when she starts moving and Dipper does, following closely along behind her.

As they walked, Dipper decides to fill their silence a little with some small talk, since it looks like they won’t be reaching their destination anytime soon, “So, I remember you said you didn’t write.”

“Hum? Oh, yeah. I don’t. Not really.” she turns her head briefly to answer him. “Are you hungry, by the way?”

“I ate before I left,” Dipper answers, before continuing. “So, then, why’d you join the creative writing club then?”

“I like reading,” she shrugs cooly, turning her head back forward.

“We’ve got a book club here,” Dipper says.

“I like reading indie works,” she adds on in clarification.

“That word doesn’t apply to books,” Dipper smiles softly in amusement.

She turns again to grin at him, “Yeah? I’ve decided to make it apply to books then.”

“It doesn’t really work like that,” Dipper snorts. “But, in any case. We write more than we read, so…”

Sara looks ahead for a moment to make sure she isn’t going to walk into anything, before returning her attention to Dipper, “Well, not everyone has to submit a piece of writing. They’re sorta chill like that. But, when a piece is shared, almost everyone has to hear it. Sometimes within small groups, sometimes to the whole hall. In the end, I get to hear and read stories more than I have to write. Catch?”

“Yeah, I think I get it,” Dipper nods his head slowly. He’s starting to realize how interesting Sara is. Sure, he thought she was cool during their first impressions, but she’s way more cooler than he initially thought.

“Awesome,” she turns ahead and points forward to the common area that serves as a crossroad to different places. At every corner there is a patch of grass with a few picnic benches for students to lounge at, and she heads towards one that hasn’t been taken yet. “We’re here.”

 

They spend an hour or so going over what Dipper has. He’s never been so entertained by a reader’s live reaction before, it’s like Sara knows which parts of his work he’s really proud of and shows this by commenting on every single one of them in a really thoughtful way.

Not to say that Candy and Mabel are bad readers, he loves that they even give is work a time of day, but Sara does it in a way that makes Dipper feel appreciated. Like his work is being truly recognized. Candy and Mabel tend to give surface level reactions—which, again, he doesn’t particularly mind—but the only reason they took an hour going through three chapters is because Sara would stop to talk about every scene that caught her eye.

“It’s like you’re used to doing this,” Dipper laughs once they’ve finished all three chapters.

“Like I said, I like to read,” Sara leans against the picnic table backwards, one leg over the other, her elbows pulled back to rest on the table.

“Liking to read and being good at commenting is a totally separate thing,” Dipper scrunches his face up, smiling at her.

She shrugs her shoulders cooly, “If you say so.”

“No, seriously,” Dipper shuts his laptop and crosses his arm over the table, keeping his eyes on Sara as she looks towards the sky. “You’ve done this before. Do you have, like, a blog or a YouTube channel or…?” 

Her head immediately snaps towards him as she bursts into laughter, amused by the conclusion he’s drawn. Her arms fall from the table so she can cross them over her stomach, “No, man. It’s just a hobby of mine. I guess I just got good at reading and commenting on stuff overtime.”

“How long have you been doing stuff like this then?” Dipper asks. “Like, think back to the first time you ever gave a really long comment.”

She wrinkles her face in thought, trying to pull in the memory, “Maybe…high school? Fourteen?”

“That really wasn’t too long ago,” Dipper says.

“Well, I think you’re just giving me too much credit,” Sara answers with a small smile. “Maybe you think I’m really good at this because no one’s really done this sort of thing for you before.”

Dipper gapes at her for a moment, cheeks flushing as it seems like she’s got him pinned down right. He looks away, realizing in hindsight that it’s true, which embarrasses him more. Maybe Sara isn’t just literary intelligent. Maybe she’s just a well read on a lot of things.

“Anyway, it was nice hanging out with you,” Sara gets up from her seat, grabbing her bag from across the table. “But I’ve got a friend to meet for lunch.”

At the mention of lunch, Dipper’s stomach involuntarily grumbles and he smiles sheepishly at Sara, fingers intertwining so he can press his hands to his face. 

“I thought you said you ate.” she says, shooting him a look.

“I did.” Dipper says. “A granola bar counts.”

“No it doesn’t,” she tells him bluntly.

“Yeah, it doesn’t,” he sighs reluctantly.

“You can join us for lunch if you want,” Sara suggests, gesturing for Dipper to follow. “I’m sure my friend wouldn’t mind.”

Dipper perks up with interest as he gathers his things back into his bag and heaves it over his shoulder, getting up from the table, “That’d be great.”

With a person as nice and smart as Sara is, Dipper wonders what kind of person this friend would be. Surely she’d surround herself with like-minded people, so perhaps he can take that chance to see if they’d be interested in reading his novel too. Not to advertise, or anything, but the need to show off something you’re proud of is a rather strong urge.

“I’ll let him know,” Sara takes out her phone and begins sending a quick text, before pocketing her phone away. “Alright. Let’s go.”

 

He probably jinxed himself from the start.

Dipper uncomfortably stares at Wirt’s face as the two waited for Sara to get back from the bathroom before they can start ordering at the burger joint they’re at. He had been thoroughly surprised to find out the friend Sara was talking about turned out to be the one guy Dippper absolutely did not want to see on a non-club day.

In fact, he’s more surprised Sara’s even friends with a guy like Wirt.

They hadn’t made their recognition known to her, of course. Dipper had been walking behind her when they entered the place, and when he saw Wirt occupying one the booths, he didn’t even hide his scowl. Wirt, on the other hand, had to because Sara was looking at him, but the look in his eyes was obvious.

Then, they had to shake hands and introduce themselves as if they didn’t already know each other. They both silently agreed Sara didn’t deserve to be caught between the two of them, so they decided to make a temporary truce.

But now that she’s away in the bathroom, they’re free to glare at each other all they want.

Wirt is the first to break the silence, letting out a huge sigh as he rests his cheek in his palm, elbow on the table, “I really should’ve known it was you.”

“I didn’t really see this coming,” Dipper gestures a hand. “I mean, a girl as nice as Sara, friends with a guy as cynical as you…”

“I’m not cynical!” Wirt’s eyebrows wrinkle, taken aback. “I should be the one that’s surprised, with your inconsiderate attitude.”

“For the last time it was meant to be harmless!” Dipper throws his hands in the air, minding his volume so he doesn’t draw attention to their table. “You’d feel the same if you came in second place too.”

“Except I didn’t,” Wirt huffs. “You didn’t have to be such a…such a sore loser.” 

Dipper opens his mouth to protest, but Wirt is quick to interrupt him.

“ And, even if I did land in second place, I wouldn’t be there trying to come up with reasons why I deserved to win,” Wirt continues. “If I lost, I lost! It wasn’t that serious of a contest anyway.”

“I wasn’t being a sore loser, I was just criticizing your work that got itself presented on the board. You should’ve been prepared for that sort of thing if you knew you had a shot in winning,” Dipper crosses his arms. “I’m not the only one that would’ve said something about your work anyway, probably wasn’t either. You’re being unreasonable all because you saw me.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t want a person like you hanging around—” Wirt stops when he sees Sara returning from the bathroom, and goes from being visibly irritated to slightly constipated with a smile plastered over as if that would do anything. Somehow, it works.

“Hey, what were the two of you talking about while I was away?” Sara smiles, picking the seat next to Wirt, who scooches over for her.

“Nothing much, just getting to know each other,” Dipper answers smoothly, though the way his fists stay clenched under his arms almost gives him away.

“That’s nice,” she smiles, before turning to look over at Wirt. “Could you pass the menu? Let’s eat before my stomach eats itself.”

“Sure thing,” Wirt slides the menu over to her.

Notes:

welp I'm off to write yuri now bye

Chapter 2: Dipper II

Notes:

Umm i actually striaght up didn't expect this to get the amount of attention it did and ummm thank you everyone that read!! I am still. surprised. because
A. I really don't feel confident with the way I handled thier characterization (as I always am when I enter uncharted territories) so i thought it wouldn't be deserving of no more than 10 kudos,,,
B. i for some reason thought this fandom was...dead...lmfao............

So, er, I got motivated to write a second chapter :3c Whic is unexpected because I thought I Wouldn't be touching this until half a year has gone by lolll count yourselves lucky I guess ^_^

I would also like 2 reiterate that I did not put my 100% into this fic (my 100% includes heavy research into the setting I created and finding appropriate headcanons from the fandom and all that—basically thinking twice before writing something into the story) so it may get a bit ?? here and there. I also won't be super into getting this beta read before publishing, so expect other mistakes in that department as well :9

Thank you again for the attention, ermmmmm.... hehe i shy

The lunch goes fine. Dipper practically forgets about his irritation towards Wirt halfway through their three-way conversation with Sara. By some miracle, with Sara in the middle, the two manage to converse without going at each other’s throats or even subtly implying that they wanted to.

But every time the opportunity arose, be it Sara momentarily checking her phone or getting distracted by a passer-by, Dipper and Wirt would exchange glares with each other as if to blow off some steam they’ve been building up during their conversation.

It sort of reminded Dipper of his petty rivalry with Robbie when he was younger, which actually makes him cringe to think about. You’d think that would encourage him to grow up in this situation, but he can be a lot more stubborn than he would admit.

Unfortunately for him, when the three parted ways, Sara ended up going with Wirt, saying that they needed to do something—homework, Dipper guesses—and Dipper thought if he invited himself he’d be overstaying his welcome. And, as much as he likes hanging out with Sara, he really cannot endure another hour with Wirt, so he bid them goodbye and headed off.

 

“That is soo interesting!” Mabel giggles, flapping her hands at her brother as he relayed everything that has happened so far with him and Sara. They’re sitting in her dorm room, with her at her beanbag chair and him on her bed, legs hanging off the side. “What are the chances?”

“Low, but who am I to judge Sara’s taste in friends?” Dipper shrugs his shoulders.

“This seriously reminds me of Wendy,” Mabel wags a finger at Dipper, bouncing in her seat, which makes Dipper wrinkle up his nose. 

He grows embarrassed, raising a hand before Mabel can say anything further, “I don’t think of Sara that way, by the way.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that!” she huffs, hands on her hips. Dipper shoots her a look, seriously doubting her, and the corners of her lips curl mischievously. “Okay, I was thinking it a little.”

“Okay, but,” Dipper kicks his feet a little, before bringing them up to cross them on the bed. “I was thinking.”

“Uh huh?” Mabel shifts closer, dragging her beanbag. “Toss me Mr Twinkle.”

Dipper shifts his body, reaching for her star-shaped plush, and hands it to her, “Why weren’t they sitting together in the writing club if they were friends?”

“Ohh… You’re right!” Mabel straightens up, hugging the plush in her arms. “Maybe they weren’t on good terms?”

“And fixed it within a week?” Dipper lifts a brow.

“Hey, we make up within a day,” Mabel leans back and shrugs her shoulders.

“That’s different.”

“How?” Mabel grins at him, challenging just how much he’s able to admit he loves her to some degree—and he knows this because whenever the conversation reaches a point like this she always does that. It feeds her ego.

“Anyway, I never heard her mention him at all whenever we texted a little over the week, so it’s just weird.” Dipper crosses his arms.

“Maybe it wasn’t relevant.” Mabel says. “You’re overthinking it, Dipper.”

“Okay, fine,” Dipper throws his arms up. “What’s your theory?”

“Hm? Well,” Mabel slides down in her beanbag chair, legs stretched out as she squishes her plush. “I think… Wirt didn’t know Sara was gonna show up, maybe the two of them weren’t aware the other would show up, so they sat separately.”

“It can’t be that simple,” Dipper makes a face.

“My other theory is that one of them is a clone!” she kicks her feet in the air. “But, anyway, how come? It’s toootally possible! Sara and Wirt have their own reasons to be in the club. It doesn’t sound like they entered it with each other, or for each other!”

“That’s true,” Dipper nods slowly, before falling back on her bed with a sigh. 

“You know, Dipper,” she adds, chin against her neck as she looks at him from her lying down position. “I think you’re hoping they’ve got something awkward between each other, because then you wouldn’t have to bump into Wirt half as much when you hang out with Sara.”

Dipper flushes immediately, feeling embarrassed, because she isn’t wrong. He is secretly hoping that they’ve got a stiff relationship behind the scenes, and the only reason they hang out now is because they’ve only got each other. So if Dipper enters the scene, Sara can just…

He then groans, messing with his hair, “Don’t put those thoughts in my head!”

“Ha! I’m not putting anything! I’m just a weather forecaster here!” Mabel points a finger at him teasingly. “Weather forecast coming in from Dipper’s mind! We’ve got a slight chance of jealousy and high chances of possessiveness he didn’t outgrow!”

To that, he throws another plush at her, and gets a headshot.

She yelps, body writhing to dramatize the non-harmful assault, before lying still. Then, a moment later, muffled behind her plush, “So, are you going to rub it in Wirt’s face that you improved your story or what?”

“Oh.” lightbulb.

 

His sister made it sound simpler than it actually is. As it turns out, Dipper is more reluctant to approach Wirt than he initially realized. On paper, it was simple. They already go to the same club, so bumping into Wirt wouldn’t seem so out of the blue. But approaching him is another thing.

Of course, on paper, Dipper had already solved that issue. He’d just talk to Sara, and then casually mention how he needs another pair of eyes for his work, and she’d bring Wirt over. But the thought of talking to Wirt is so…

When he reaches the lecture hall for club activities and meets Candy at the entrance like he always does, he already feels like trashing the idea. Is he really that petty? Well, yes. But does his pettiness overpower his dislike for Wirt? Ehh…

“What’cha thinking, Dipper?” Candy tilts her head, holding onto the straps of her backpack. The club committee arrived just moments ago, and they’re about to pool into the room. “You’ve got your thinking face on. Are you stuck on a scene? Homework?”

“Nah, but thanks for asking,” Dipper answers as the two head inside together. Again, Candy picks their seats. Second row in the middle.

“But you’re thinking,” Candy points, before wiggling her fingers at him. “I’m going to read your mind~!”

The way she does it is awkward and stiff, which is enough to make Dipper chuckle out a laugh, “It’s really nothing, Candy.”

As they begin to sit, Dipper trailing behind Candy while she picks a specific chair somewhere more in the middle, he feels someone hit the back of his backpack and he immediately turns around to find the culprit, brightening when he learns that it’s Sara. She smiles at him, gesturing to the chair next to his, “Can I sit with you two?”

“Yeah, sure,” he answers, already knowing Candy would be fine with it.

They sit, Candy leaning against the table so she can greet Sara from Dipper’s other side, “Hello again, Sara!”

“Hi, Candy,” Sara smiles back in greeting. They begin to catch up, Dipper deciding to take a backseat on this since he knows Candy hasn’t talked to Sara in a week as compared to him who has been chatting with her the entire time.

A few moments later, as the room settled and the members of the club found their seats, someone else comes by their row and takes the seat next to Sara’s wordlessly. Distracted by his phone, Dipper doesn’t bother to check who it is, but eventually he lifts his eyes without thinking and spots the person, causing Dipper to do a double take. 

Wirt. Of course, Dipper really should’ve seen this coming. 

Well, he had subconsciously hoped they would sit separately like last time, but that incident must’ve been a coincidence. Like they happened to not sit together that day right as Dipper grew a disliking towards Wirt—the theory Mabel came up with, basically—so it wouldn’t make sense if they continued sitting apart when they just had lunch the other day together.

Still, it would’ve been nice if Sara had given him a heads up.

“Oh, hey Wirt,” Sara turns away from Candy for a moment to greet him. He mumbles back a quiet ‘hi’.

Candy, eager to finally acquaint herself with a cute boy, leans on the table some more and tries to act as suave as possible, “Hello, my name is Candy.”

Wirt doesn’t say anything for a moment—Dipper gathers that it’s due to shyness—before eventually mustering out a, “I’m Wirt.” and says nothing more.

“I hear you write poetry,” Candy continues, attempting to carry the conversation.

“Yeah,” Wirt answers.

“I read your work on the board for the contest thing,” Candy says, which causes Dipper to mentally wince—he can imagine Wirt doing the same. Not her fault that it’s still a freshly sour topic, Dipper reminds himself. “It was really good. Almost moved me to tears.”

“Oh, thank you,” Wirt smiles halfheartedly, the tips of his ears pinking a little, which Dipper finds stupid. What is he? A highschooler?

Sara leans back in her seat to make it easier for Candy to talk to Wirt, who has adjusted himself a little closer so he can hear Candy better when she talks. “I used to have awful luck with boys, so I could relate. You must be a really romantic lover, to have come up with that.”

At this point, Dipper is unsure if Candy is trying to flirt with him or if she’s being honest about her opinion on his poem, or both. Whatever, it doesn’t matter to him at the end of the day. He’ll just let this conversation fade into white noise.

Wirt flushes more, “I-It wasn’t about me. Well, not really me but… I mean- Agh. Thank you. Sorry, I shouldn’t get defensive.”

Dipper resists the urge to make a sound. Where was this version of Wirt when he first met the guy? In the back of his mind, Mabel pinches his cheek and tells him that version didn’t show up because Dipper had been an ass first.

“Oh, like, real feelings but not you?” Candy asks.

“Exactly that,” Wirt nods.

“Hey,” Sara butts in, looking apologetic for interrupting. “The comm is letting us play that one game again.”

“The create a story in a chain one?” Wirt’s lip tugs at its corner.

“I think it’ll be fun this time, Candy and Dipper are here,” Sara gestures to the two in question and Candy beams wide, waving frantically, while Dipper offers Wirt a strained smile.

“Right.” Wirt dryly smiles back, before looking over his shoulder and watching the rest of the club members break off into their own groups. “But are you sure you don’t want to, you know…look for more…or other people?”

“No, this is fine,” Sara gestures.

“Right.” Wirt says again, then turns to reach into his bag so he can pull out his laptop. This activity is usually best played when you pen down everything, just for the sake of remembering all the details. Most do it for fun, others do it because they plan on sharing with the rest of the lecture hall later.

But right as he’s doing this, Dipper, too, has started taking his own laptop out as well, and when Wirt notices, he clears his throat to get Dipper’s attention, “I’ve got it.”

“I can do it,” Dipper says, putting his laptop on the table.

“I have the disk space,” Wirt puts his own on the table extra loud, on accident judging by the way he winces in embarrassment. 

“I type faster,” Dipper flexes and wiggles his fingers, then smiles, as charming as he can so the others will think he’s just being extra polite. “Really, let me handle it.”

Wirt blinks, furrowing his brow, and goes a little red with irritation, “Well—”

“How about the both of you write?” Sara cuts in, looking between the two. “There’s no rule saying there can only be one.”

Candy adjusts her glasses, looking towards the front to find out the themes, before saying them out loud for the rest to hear, “Haunted house, gods and goddesses—”

“Haunted house!” Dipper bounces in his seat.

“But the protagonist is actually in the underworld,” Sara adds, crossing a leg over the other, before shooting Dipper a grin. “Mix it with the second one.” then looks over at Wirt, “Sounds good?”

It takes about a second for Dipper to realize she did that because it seemed like Wirt was interested in the second theme, and to compromise, she combined the two topics for the both of them. Dipper feigns ignorance.

“Yeah, sure,” Wirt rolls his shoulders.

“Oo, this reminds me of that story of Orpheus and Eurydice,” Candy chirps, kicking her legs lightly. “Can I start?”

Dipper shifts, “Sure.”

He forgets how uncomfortable he can get when playing this game with others. Sometimes his idea doesn’t sync up with the rest, so they end up changing his vision into something he thinks is worse. Though they all typically discuss whether the additions is satisfactory for everyone, Dipper feels it’d be rude of him to change everything just because he didn’t like it. He would’ve might as well played by himself.

Dipper feels this won’t end any different, judging from the way Wirt had picked a different topic from him, and thinks this will become one of the worst sessions ever. Okay, but, at least Sara’s here.

 

“Yeah, and then she sees the light, because our Orpheus here finally arrived,” Wirt gestures with his hands, placing them back on his keyboard the moment he was done.

“She’d feel conflicted about leaving, because she had already made peace with this place,” Dipper continues, typing away the same.

Candy and Sara look between the two boys, have been the entire time the moment they started getting into a groove. Candy had set the scene, of course, did most of the character building between Orpheus and Eurydice, says that it would be nice to use the same characters but create a slightly different story.

Dipper knows it’s just her inner fanfiction-wired brain talking, but he keeps that to himself. Sara made suggestions to the tale, but did nothing more than that, which gives Dipper the impression she may not really like creating stories after all.

He didn’t really think he’d get comfortable having this back-and-forth with Wirt, their brains so linked every new addition made Dipper eager to continue on with Wirt. They’re both writing this down, sometimes writing ahead because they already know what the next part will be like, and Dipper thinks Wirt may not be that bad like he thought.

“So she follows Orpheus out the underworld, straight ahead. No distractions, because if she lingers any longer she thinks she’ll never leave.” Wirt goes on.

“And then, Orpheus looks back.”

Dipper hears Wirt’s hands stop before he sees them, which prompts him to look up and see what’s wrong. Wirt’s staring at him, lips tugged to a corner, “He looks back?”

“Doesn’t he always?” Dipper lifts a brow.

“Not this time,” Wirt says. “She has to leave, but she won’t come back the same.”

“I thought the point is that she realizes she’ll never leave,” Dipper replies. “That’s why the environment slowly got more familiar, like she’s home.”

“Yeah, that’s why when she leaves she doesn’t come back the same,” Wirt gestures with a hand. “Like, a part of her is still there, or she took a part of the underworld with her. Point is, she comes back. With Orpehus.”

“Um,” Candy raises a hand slowly, but Dipper interrupts.

“I thought the whole reason we kept their names the same is because Orpheus always looks back,” Dipper argues.

“I thought we were doing it as bait,” Wirt argues back.

“Eurydice can’t leave.”

“Orpheus won’t look back.”

“Cliffhang it?” Sara shrugs, awkwardly smiling. “Reader’s interpretation.”

“ Ffffine !” Wirt says, just a little too loud, and mumbles an apology for it, looking away. “We’ll just let the club members decide.”

Dipper narrows his eyes at him, “Okay.”

 

“Heh,” Dipper rubs his nose, leaning back against his chair as he crosses his arm. “What did I say? Orpheus always looks back.”

Wirt’s jaw tightens, listening to the last bit of another member’s explanation as to why they think it’s best that Orpheus looks back in this case. It was foreshadowing, Eurydice’s growing comfort; she was already doomed to stay from the start. 

“You win,” Wirt grits out.

“Sorry, what was that?” Dipper leans closer towards Wirt and Sara pushes herself back to let him do that.

Wirt scowls, growing embarrassed from being belittled.

“Come on~” Dipper grins.

Wirt mumbles something too quiet for Dipper to hear, and Dipper leans in more so he can hear it again.

“Come again?”

“I said,” Wirt huffs, looking down at the ground as he shuts his laptop. “Fuck off.”

Dipper stares at him, taken aback, and sits back on his chair properly. Between the two of them, Sara lets out an amused snort, hands over her mouth, before clearing her throat and looking at Wirt, trying her best to look as disapproving as possible.

“You could’ve been nicer about it,” Sara tells him.

Wirt huffs out a laugh through his nose.

Dipper’s face drops for a moment, but after thinking about it, he realizes he should take this less seriously too. Pushing it any more will just make him look immature, and he’s only just started to notice that he must’ve been making Sara uncomfortable the entire time. In his mind, he apologizes to her.

And that concludes this week’s meeting. As they’re all packing to leave, Candy catches Sara in a conversation again, so they end up walking ahead the two guys while they made their way out the lecture hall. Every so often Sara would look back to check if they were still behind them, but at some point she stops worrying.

Wirt takes that opportunity to grab Dipper’s attention before the man can escape to join the two girls in their chat, holding onto Dipper’s shoulder right as they’re about to exit through the doorway, pushing through the sea of other club members.

“Next time,” Wirt leans into Dipper’s ear quietly, once again reminding Dipper that he’s the taller one between the two of them. “Don’t make Sara uncomfortable like that.”

Dipper ends up reacting instinctively, flinching away and swatting Wirt’s hand off his shoulder, “Dude.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but Sara’s not big on conflict. She’s chill like that,” Wirt ignores him and continues, the crowd thinning around them. “You can hate me as much as you want, but don’t make that Sara’s problem.”

Dipper scrunches his face. He gets what Wirt is getting at, but the irritation from the way he says it bubbles inside of Dipper and threatens to come out as a remark. Fortunately he manages to swallow it down. “Yeah, I hear you.” okay, almost all of it. “But you could’ve said it better, though. What are you? Her boyfriend?”

Wirt doesn’t answer, staring blank faced at Dipper, safe for the rising redness in his cheeks. But that could mean anything, not necessarily that Dipper is right, and Dipper feels Wirt is just someone prone to blushing. They sort of just stare at each other awkwardly for a moment before Wirt suddenly snaps out of it, straining out a cough.

“Glad you can understand,” Wirt ends up saying and hurries off, completely ignoring Dipper’s latter comment.

Dipper rubs at his ear, watching Wirt run off, and realizes in that same moment that he’s lost sight of Candy and Sara.

 

“So, did you get to show Wirt your updated story?” Mabel asks when they meet up again, this time with Pacifica joining them for lunch.

“Woww, you’re still on about that?” Pacifica snorts, neatly cutting her diner steak. If she were any younger she would’ve been incredibly against eating anywhere that isn’t backed by a kitchen filled with five-star chefs, but Mabel has changed her, the same way Pacifica has helped influenced her into properly learning fashion making.

“No,” Dipper answers, before shooting Pacifica a look. “And I can be on something however long I want.”

“Defensive, okay,” Pacifica’s brows raise, her attention still on her meal. “Mabel showed me a picture of him the other day. You sure you wanna beef with a guy like that?”

“What picture.” Dipper turns to Mabel, who’s a little occupied trying to build her rice into a volcano.

Pacifica looks over at her for a moment and sighs, pulling out her own phone so she can show it to him. It’s a selfie Candy took with Sara and Wirt, the latter looking like he got included at the very last minute. Dipper isn’t sure when this photo was taken, because it doesn’t look like it was taken on the same day as that club meeting.

“What? Just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean I can’t hate him,” Dipper deadpans.

Pacifica gives him a weird look, “I wasn’t implying that. I mean, look how sad he is. He looks like he could’ve been bullied in middle school.” she gives the photo another look, “Hm, let me guess, parents went through a divorce once?”

“You can’t be saying that, Pacifica,” Mabel lifts her head from her art project. 

“Oh, so detectives can draw conclusions on people’s backstories but I can’t,” Pacifica pockets her phone, putting her hands on her hips.

“Haha. I don’t think that’s the same,” Mabel states with a toothy smile.

“Okay, point is,” Pacifica returns to Dipper and her meal. “I think he’s more likely to break down and cry than to fight back. Don’t test him, Dipper. You’ll come out the bad guy.” then she smirks at him, “Unless you don’t care?”

“I…” Dipper’s mouth hangs open, then stuffs it with his burger.

Pacifica barks out a laugh.

“Shtop makin’ me queshtion my mora-ity,” Dipper points a finger at her and she reels away from it, wrinkling her nose at the grease. Then he swallows. “Fine. I don’t have to like him. I just have to tolerate him.”

She feigns a worried look, pouting her lip, “Can you really do that, Dip dop?”

“Don’t call me that.” Dipper says. “And of course I can. I tolerated you.”

“Hey!” Pacifica frowns, before turning to look at the window to her right, just to check her faint reflection on it. “No one’s as befriendable as me, Dipper. I’m a special case.”

“Hah,” Mabel snorts through her rice. “Right. It took a world-ending event to get us to be friends, and it seems like it isn’t gonna rain blood anytime soon.”

“You guys make it sound like I can’t co-exist with this guy,” Dipper complains.

“You can’t,” Mabel tells him bluntly. “Dipper, it’s been three weeks”—

“A week away from being a month,” Pacifica adds unhelpfully.

—”and you’re still talking about him,” Mabel smiles weirdly. “I think I’d have more faith in you if Wirt wasn’t currently friends with Sara, the girl you’ve been really into lately. At this rate, Candy’s gonna befriend Wirt before you do, and you’re gonna be the odd one out. Whomp whomp.”

“Yeah, and eight more weeks of this and we’re officially calling you obsessed,” Pacifica adds again, even more unhelpfully.

“You two are literally no help,” Dipper sighs and continues eating his burger.

“Yay,” Mabel cheers, pushing her cheek against Pacifica’s.

 

Are you free to hang? 

Dipper, five coffees into his assignment, looks over at his phone briefly when it dings alive with a message from Sara. His eyes literally hurt to blink when he processes it and he scrambles up onto his feet, feeling his back ache.

Yeah sure. he replies within an instant, scrambling into his shower to get ready. Give me fifteen. Where we meeting?

I dunno. anywhere? she answers while he takes a quick shower.

 

“Wow, actually fifteen,” Sara snorts, checking the time on her phone. She’s sitting on a brick fence outside the dorm buildings, carrying nothing but her wallet and her phone. Dipper, on the other hand, has brought a small bag—just in case.

“Yeah,” Dipper breathes heavily, having ran all the way here. “Where we going?”

“Somewhere,” Sara pops a joint in her back as she stretches, hopping off the fence. “Have you explored the entire campus before?”

“Uhm, not entirely…?” Dipper scrunches his face up, trying to map out the entire school in his head.

“Then I’m guessing you haven’t been to the older blocks,” Sara smiles. “They’re about to renovate it soon, so it’s totally abandoned and stuff.”

“Oh, are we breaking some rules?” Dipper perks up.

“Eager, are we?” Sara smirks, then shakes her head with a small laugh. “But, no. It’s not against the rules or anything. It’s totally legal and stuff.”

“Ahh…” Dipper nods slowly as she begins to lead the way.

“Don’t sound so disappointed, man,” Sara snorts, punching his shoulder.

“I’m not,” Dipper expresses defensively. “Anyway, um, is there something up or was this just, uh, for fun?”

“Don’t take this a weird way,” Sara kicks at nothing in her next step, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her varsity jacket. “Wirt’s just busy, and I wanted some fresh air. Couldn’t do it alone, though.”

“Ohh…” 

“Hey, I said don’t take it weird,” she turns to give him a look, a smile tugging at her lips to show that she’s only playing.

“I’m not,” Dipper reassures. “It’s just…mm…it sounds like he’s your only friend or something.”

“Does it?” Sara tucks her hair behind her ear. “I’ve still got you.”

“Yeah, guess you do,” Dipper holds his breath a little.

They reach the building she was talking about, and as she said, it looks a little rundown and in dire need of a makeover. The elevator, by some miracle, works, and she boldly tries her luck with it, taking the two of them to the eighth floor. 

“Random number,” she tells him before he can ask, just in case he wanted to know.

The lights are partially out when they arrive, the only well lit place being the elevator lobby. Most of light comes from the windows, but as they pass the only doorway there is that isn’t the emergency staircase, they find a locked door that leads into the actual rooms in the building. When Sara peers inside through the glass window on the door, it’s too dark to make out anything.

“Nothing,” she tells him, then a pause. “You don’t happen to know how to pick locks, do you?”

“Only my sister does,” Dipper answers.

“You’ve got a sister?” Sara perks up, interested. “Younger or older?”

“We’re twins,” Dipper tells her.

“That’s really cool,” Sara smiles. “Shame she isn’t here to help us out.”

“Thought you said nothing rule-breaking.”

Sara shrugs, “I was just playing with a rhetorical.”

Dipper points to the side, a small pathway leading into an outdoor path that surrounds the area, metal railings there to prevent accidents, “We can explore that way, if you want.”

“Sure,” Sara takes the lead again, stepping pass the cracks in the concrete. They end up circling to the other side of the building, which happens to be where the bathroom is. This end feels more like a large balcony, two dusty picnic tables residing here for lounging under a covering. 

Sara ignores the benches and keeps moving, but stops to admire the view, realizing she can see a good chunk of the campus from up here. She holds onto the railing and stays there, Dipper joining her side.

“I thought it would’ve been nice if Orpheus hadn’t looked back that time,” Sara suddenly blurts out, the wind picking up and pushing her hair back. “It always ends the same. It would’ve been nice if it was different, just this once.”

Dipper looks at her, unable to say anything. He wonders if that’s why Wirt had been so worked up over it. He wonders if that’s how their relationship is like—they often speak for each other when the other can’t find the words. 

“But I’m- Wirt and I are just sappy like that,” she laughs, actually laughs, not the forced kind to lighten the mood. “Okay, but, you know… Yeah, you’re right. Orpheus looks back no matter what, I think. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Dipper answers, without a doubt. Be it his sister, a friend, his grunkles. He’d look back, no matter what.

“Me too,” Sara grins, tearing her eyes away from the scenery. “I think Wirt would too. Sometimes, I feel like he’s looking back at someone everyday.”

“Like, who? His family?” Dipper asks, curious.

“Yeah. Think so. Not just the people back home either. I feel like, maybe, he does that with me too. I dunno.” Sara digs her hand through her hair. “I think he’s just like that. He’s always in his own head, haha.” then she drags her hand down her face and groans, “I’m not making any sense right now. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say all that weird, sad stuff.”

“Uhhgh, it’s fine,” Dipper straightens, waving his hands dismssively. “I’m, like, barely awake, so I’m not all here either. If you want me to forget it, poof, gone. Never heard it. What were we talking about again?”

“Pfft, okay,” Sara chuckles, folding her arms over the railing. She rests her chin on them, staring into the distance again. “We were talking about how your day’s been.”

“It’s been great,” Dipper answers instinctively, despite knowing fully well he has an assignment left unfinished, due tomorrow.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

 

“I think, I’ve got it pieced together,” Dipper paces around in Mabel’s room, because he can’t sit on her bed when his pinboard is already on it. She’s once again in her beanbag, surrounded by all her plushies, because, again, her bed is occupied by a pinboard he miraculously carried into her room.

It’s covered in notes, red thread, pins, no photos because he thought he’d be weird for it—drawings instead. Scarily accurate drawings, almost, Mabel feels. Tiredly, she looks at him, “Oh boy…”

“Wirt and Sara,” Dipper stops in front of his sister, two fingers together, and then he brings them apart. “Broke up four-ish weeks ago.”

“Four-ish weeks ago you should’ve forgotten about Wirt,” Mabel remarks, resting her cheek into her hand. “I’ve literally moved onto a new boy already myself. There’s this cutie—”

“Shut up and listen to me,” Dipper cuts and she huffs, folding her arms. “Sorry, that was rude. Sorry. But I promise, I promise, it’s interesting.”

“I literally already know what you’re gonna say,” Mabel complains, hands flying into the air in irritation.

“Okay, telepath,” Dipper folds his arm. “Go on.”

“You’re gonna say Wirt and Sara were dating when they entered college and then they broke up, as you just said, four-ish weeks ago. Then they decided to stay friends, but because they started as a couple Sara’s finding it difficult to make friends outside of Wirt,” Mabel drones out, crossing her arms back at him.

“Close!” Dipper pinches the air at her. “I think they were dating in high school. And the two decide to go to college together, so they take the same degree. But, Sara and Wirt have a falling out because Wirt’s a guy with regrets apparently and he probably grew to regret taking this degree, even if it meant staying together. Their relationship gets rocky. Boom! Break-up. What does he do? Write a poem about it, and then he wins the competition”—

“Again with the competition!” Mabel groans.

—”and I guess Sara must’ve figured out it was about her, so things get awkward. That’s why they didn’t sit together the following week. But Sara’s, like, really cool and mature, so she probably ended up talking it out with Wirt and they decide to stay friends, because they only had each other then and it’ll be difficult to branch out so late into the semester. But! Guess she didn’t see me coming! I’m thinking if I play this right, I can get her to cut Wirt out of her life—” 

“Woah!” Mabel stops him, baffled. “You’re treading into some dangerous territory there, bro-bro!”

Dipper scrunches his face, “What?”

“You sound like an evil mastermind,” Mabel grimaces, curling up. “Begone! Begone from my room, you-you thing!”

“I don’t think you understand me here, Mabel,” Dipper gestures wildly. “I spent the entire night thinking about Wirt—”

“You spent the entire night thinking about Wirt,” she echoes, staring right at him.

He reddens, “ About Wirt affecting Sara’s life! He’s literally making it difficult for her to have a normal social life in college, I think it’s best she leaves him for good!”

“You’re straight up telling me a lie,” Mabel deadpans. “Like, that is a made-up thing.”

“It’s a logical conclusion!” Dipper argues. “Look at my pinboard.”

“Get that nasty thing off my bed!” she wails, throwing her plushies at him. “I thought you’d take it away once you were done talking!”

“Who’s drawing made-up conclusions now?” Dipper shoots back, arms held up to block the adorably soft assault.

“Enough!” Mabel gets up and stamps her feet. 

Notes:

Hello everynyan. So, u maybes thinking;
"Herm!! Philiah!!! I am picking up some MAJOR vibes between Sara and Dipper rn. I know in the story u mentioned thru Dipper's POV that it's platonic, but there are some serious VIBES!!!" (if u r not thinking this then, err, is ok u can keep reading the note)

And to that I will answer: yeagh. vibes r on purpose. Dipper has a major squish on Sara rn, but if u interpret it as an actual crush and think his POV of it being platonic is unreliable narrator stuff, then that can also work too!! This is a pinescone fic tho, so Dipper and Sara will naurt become a thing I can prommy that. I don't....like explicit (as in clear-cut, not NSFW) love triangle tropes...make me sad and stuf

Chapter 3: Wirt I

Notes:

Hi :3c I missed this fic so I updated it

As Wirt grows older, he finds it harder to leave his own mind.

Of course, when he was younger, it was more so the fact he tended to overthink a lot. He claims he still does, but Sara disagrees. His mind would wander over the horizons towards make belief scenarios where he would come out of it becoming worse than he already feels, worse than he thought he already was.

But he grew out of that, as Sara claims, and when she told him this the first time, she said she could pin point the exact time he had stopped.

“When we fished you out from the river, that Halloween,” she said. They were three months into their relationship and they had been lying on Wirt’s bed together, hands interlaced. “You just seemed, I don’t know, less jittery at the hospital? Less clammy? Like some switch had been flipped in you.”

He hadn’t really commented much on that. Just smiled and held her hand a little tighter.

Nowadays, he feels more like a daydreamer. He used to think daydreamers were more like his younger brother, Greg. Bright-eyed, full of wonder, always finding joy in all of the littlest things, always coming up with the silliest thoughts.

But the thing is, Greg hasn’t really got his head stuck up in the clouds. Sometimes it feels more like he dragged the clouds down from the sky to be with him, and the people around him, not used to being anywhere near clouds, would get stuck with him in the process. All harmless though. Mostly.

Wirt, on the other hand, is always silently staring off into nothing, and in his mind he can still see it—an endless forest and an even more endless darkness. But if he squints, just hard enough, he’d be able to pick something out. Something nice and beautiful. Peaceful, unlike his younger self’s mind.

Sure, Wirt’s a lot calmer now. But Sara had once said she worries he’d still be calm even in face with death.

He hadn’t really commented much on that. Just smiled a little more wistfully back at her.

 

Wirt isn’t a posessive guy, inherently. Jealous, yeah, and protective too. But if Sara tells him she’s busy hanging out with Dipper or Candy, he wouldn’t blow up in her face about it. Though, it doesn’t change the fact that he really doesn’t like Dipper being anywhere near her, for mostly two separate reasons.

Sara’s the kind of girl that likes to avoid conflict, of almost all shapes and forms. With how argumentative Dipper seems, Wirt really doesn’t want her having to stress herself out pointlessly debating with Dipper. 

And Wirt just doesn’t like Dipper as a whole, so that’s a good enough reason on its own.

Sometimes she tells him about what she was up to with Dipper or Candy, but she’s always so vague about it, and Wirt wonders if it’s because she doesn’t want him feeling agitated since he’s made it apparent to her before that he doesn’t like Dipper. She goes more in depth about Candy though.

Wirt has hung out with Candy a few times and thinks that girl is pleasantly peculiar in ways he thinks Greg would appreciate. He wonders how it’s possible that such a sweet girl could be friends with Dipper, so he asked her. Without mentioning the bit about how he doesn’t like Dipper, obviously, and she answered that she knew Dipper through his twin sister.

He thought back to the first time he met Dipper and remembers a girl with him and realized that must’ve been his sister. Which really explained their uncanny resemblance to each other, actually.

In any case, the second time Wirt hears about Dipper’s sister is through Sara, who casually drops, “Did you know Dipper has a twin sister?”

“Yeah I heard it from Candy,” Wirt answers.

They’re on their way to class as they’re talking about this, with Wirt looking more worn out than he usually does. It’s why Sara had a lot of free time on her hands yesterday to hang out with Dipper, since Wirt was practically out of commission (See? He’s not possessive at all!).

“I think I’ve met her before,” Wirt continues on, rounding the corner as they reach their destination. “She was there with Dipper when they were looking at the billboard.”

“Ah, from that time.” Sara says.

“Yes, from that time.” Wirt huffs, before relaxing a little. “Actually, she wasn’t really all that bad, now that I think about it.”

Sara tilts her head curiously to the side, “Yeah?”

He gets the door first and pulls it open, letting her enter before him, “She liked my piece, first off.”

“I remember you mentioned she said your name was funny,” Sara snorts.

“Yeah, well,” Wirt rolls his shoulders. “Can’t disagree with her in hindsight.”

Sara laughs a little again and picks their usual spot. The lecture hall is usually somewhat empty when either of them get there, since they’re both used to being just a little early or right on time. But they’ve technically already reserved a spot as their spot at the start of the semester, just like everyone else, right in the middle of the staircase-seat hall.

“And she apologized,” Wirt adds, following behind as they climbed.

“I’m thinking of meeting her,” Sara tells him, she pulls her backpack off her shoulder as she heads towards the middle section of their row and drops her bag on the ground underneath the table. “Candy invited me to hang out with her and she says, if I want to, she can invite Dipper’s sister along.”

“And is he going to be there?” Wirt sits beside her, mimicking the same gesture with his own satchel. 

Sara looks at him weird briefly, with her smile tucked and her brows furrowed slightly, “No. I think it’s gonna be a girls’ thing.”

Wirt brings his hands together between his knee, thumb pressing over joints, “Just a girls’ thing?”

Her look remains consistent, but it grows a little softer, “I can ask.”

 

The thing is, Wirt was told it would just be Sara, Candy and Dipper’s sister—whom he later learned is named Mabel—but apparently when Sara greenlit the idea of meeting Mabel and then brought up the suggestion of bringing Wirt along, Candy decided to add two more people to the hang out.

Grenda and Pacifica are two girls on a spectrum of intimidating that Wirt finds difficult to map out. There’s a roughness to Grenda that feels unintentional, like a girl scout with ten thousand badges on her several sashes. Bold, proud and loud in a way that makes Wirt feel a little small next to her, even though he’s taller by a few inches.

Then there’s Pacifica who just generally looks like someone he shouldn’t really mess with. He wonders if her condescending smile is unintentional the same way Grenda’s almost too-boisterous laugh is unintentional. He doesn’t want to ask.

And Mabel he’s already met. She recognized him immediately on the spot when she entered the diner they decided to meet at and she was incredibly loud when greeting him. Shook his hands with both of hers and he was quick to note the different colored nail polish she used for each finger. Somehow she made it work.

He finds it very, very odd that Candy is capable of making such friends. He always figured she was on the quieter side. Like he is, somewhat. But the way she seems to giggle louder than usual when she’s around Grenda and Mabel makes him think otherwise.

In the end, despite wanting this, Sara ends up looking the most out of place in the room. She’s always done better in crowds than Wirt has, but he supposes the years have worn her out, or maybe it’s the way the trio are so high energy that Sara finds it difficult to match up to it.

Pacifica occasionally chirps in a few times, but even she isn’t able to squeal at the same wavelength as they can and Wirt already expected to feel disconnected in some sense, so the feeling is honestly no surprise to him.

Not to say that they’re being excluded, but a conversation would typically go like this:

“So, I heard you write poetry,” Mabel coos, tracing circles on the table. Beside her, Grenda attempts to stack her fries into a tower.

Wirt doesn’t realize Mabel is talking to him until he notices the silence that follows after. He had been distracted, staring at his plate of scrambled eggs, eating it slow as he lets the conversation between the girls fade into white noise. His eyes are quick to dart up from his food to look at Mabel and he swallows.

“Yeah. You read one.” Wirt replies bluntly. “You know. On the board.”

“You know! I’m something of an artist myself. Runs in the family,” Mabel goes from tracing circles on the table to curling strands of her hair.

“You are a fashion major,” Pacifica pipes up from the window seat, lifting her straw slow to her lips. Miraculously, her lipstick does not stain.

“And Sara’s in the writing club too,” Candy tells them, and the girl in question smiles politely with a wave.

“I don’t write though,” Sara clarifies, because she can already see Mabel’s mouth moving with her ever bright smile to ask the same questions everyone else has asked before her.

“Well, I’m not a fashionista but I still love collecting magazines!” Grenda beams, and somehow she manages to keep her tower of fries from falling. Wirt half understands where the parallel lies, but some part of him thinks it’s not the same. 

Sara seems to feel the same but hides it well behind an agreeing smile, nodding her head, “I do love reading.”

“Oh! Oh! You helped my brother with his book project thing!” Mabel points, bouncing in her seat as she lights up from recognition. “You gave him that suggestion to make it easier to read or something like that!”

“I did that, yeah,” Sara brings a hand to the back of her neck sheepishly. 

Mabel then turns to Wirt, giving him a smug look, “I don’t know if you read it yet, but let me just say she helped turn that book from a textbook to an actual book.”

“Oh? So you didn’t actually like it that much either?” Wirt crosses his arms, leaning back with his own lips tugging into a smirk.

She splutters, realizing what she just said, “Oh! I don’t mean that, no, no. I mean, you know. All his nerd stuff is, like, hard to get. I think it’s cool and everything, but I really couldn’t… You know!”

“I do know, it was the same thing I said that day!” Wirt gestures a hand. “I mean, it’s such a waste. Such eloquent writing style only to be wasted away by hubris. Does he write that way because he thinks he’s better than everyone or does he think everyone is on his level so he writes that way?”

Out of nowhere, a flash of light suddenly disrupts his eyesight and he blinks rapidly in response, rubbing at his eyes. Sara does the same, screwing her eyes shut in confusion, and when Wirt finally gets his eyes open, Mabel is holding a freshly developed photo from her polaroid.

“That is so cool! He just spoke poetry in front of us!” somehow Mabel manages to pull out a full sized A4 scrap book, thicker than the table, from her glittery book bag—he remembers seeing many other things stuffed in there as well and wonders if it’s magical. “What’d he say again?”

“Oh! I remember!” Grenda bounces in her seat, the impact causing Mabel and Candy to bounce a little. Pacifica remains composed despite being in radius. “Echolcation writing style wasted by Hugh Birch.”

“I did not say that.” Wirt deadpans.

Sara breaks into laughter.

 

“Eloquent, huh?” Sara speaks up once they’ve all parted ways, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her varsity jacket. “I’ve never heard you say that before.”

Wirt’s ears begin to burn a little as he avoids her eyes, arms folding tight against his chest, “It’s what I said when I first read it.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I remember that,” Sara hums. “But, still. You know she’s going to go running to her brother to tell him this.”

“Ughhh,” Wirt drags his hands down his face. “You’re right.”

“No shame in the truth,” Sara shrugs.

“He’s going to rub it in my face about it,” Wirt scoffs, hands flying.

Sara smiles, “You could just tell him to cut it out.”

“I did before and you told me to cut it out!” Wirt replies.

“I told you to be nicer about it.”

“Uh. Oh. Yeah,” Wirt calms, remembering it clearly now, which makes Sara ever the more amused. He takes note of this, tilting his head. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, it’s been a while, is all,” Sara rolls her shoulders again.

“Been a while since what?” Wirt asks, curious.

“Been a while since I’ve last seen you so…” Sara gestures a hand towards him. “Fired up, I guess?”

Wirt grimaces, “I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, well,” Sara hums, giving his elbow a light punch. “It livens things up.”

Even though it didn’t hurt, Wirt still rubs that elbow and remains quiet. He supposes it’s been a while since they’ve last had any excitement in their lives. He still won’t accept that as anything positive though. Not when Dipper’s the source of it.

Chapter 4: Dipper III

Notes:

Hi :) I'm back again :3

“I’m off to eat lunch with Pacifica and Candy and Grenda~!” Mabel chimes, rolling off Dipper’s bed with her phone in her hands. She walks over to his door to collect her book bag from the floor, slinging it over her shoulder.

The same way how Dipper often busts into her room to hang out, Mabel would regularly come to Dipper’s dorm room to relax in his presence. It’s come to a point where nobody really bats an eye when one of the twins is found roaming the halls of the other’s dorm building. 

However, while Dipper would only come by Mabel’s room announced and with permission, she would come in un -announced and without permission. 

Which was why when she came by this time, his nose was an inch away from his laptop’s screen, mouse shaking in his hand as he meticulously worked away on his video editing software. He hadn’t even turned to greet her, despite Mabel making her presence very much known.

Even now, as she’s declaring her leave, he only answers with a noncommittal hum. 

It’s only when Mabel is at his door, about to head out, does she add, “And Sara~!”

His chair almost topples with how fast he spins around upon hearing that name, and Mabel winces at the sight of his bloodshot eyes and eyebags. He stares straight at her, fists clenched from mostly tensed exhaustion, “You’re hanging out with Sara?”

“Yeah!” Mabel nods. “And Wirt.”

Immediately what little interest he had originally disappears and he slowly, and visibly reluctantly, turns back to his laptop, gripping his mouse once more, “...I have to submit this tomorrow…”

“I wasn’t inviting you,” Mabel places a hand on her hip. “But just know if you did ask I totally would’ve let you come.”

“Yeah, have fun,” he waves a hand dismissively and tiredly.

Mabel stares at the back of his head for a little longer, just in case he might change his mind at the last minute, but when he continues to click away on his mouse and keyboard, she concludes that he seems to hate Wirt more than he likes Sara, and goes on her merry way.

 

When Mabel comes back after the lunch, it feels like Dipper had barely moved an inch since she last saw him. With the exception that there are a few new opened cans of coffee sitting on his already messy desk, some even crushed from what Mabel assumes it brief self entertainment.

“Heyy, how’s the project going?” Mabel enters slowly, hands behind her back, book bag sliding off her hands onto the floor.

“Terrible,” Dipper turns, smiling at her with utter defeat. “Actually, not…so bad. But, it could be better. How was the lunch?”

Mabel visibly lights up, to which Dipper sours just slightly knowingly.

“Aren’t you getting a bit too old for boy obsessions?” Dipper asks, slinging an arm over the back of his chair with his body turned towards her.

“Aw, but Dipper, I’m forever young,” Mabel chimes, jumping into Dipper’s bed, sending his pillow flying into the air. She catches it as it falls, hugging it tight. “Haven’t I already said how much of a cutie Wirt is?”

“Ughhh,” Dipper groans, turning right back around.

“He’s like awkward, but in a cute way,” Mabel kicks her legs in the air, before turning over onto her belly. She crawls to the corner of his bed and reaches for her bag, pulling out her scrapbook to show Dipper the new page she created. “Look! He even spoke poetry to me, in real life!”

Only out of curiosity does Dipper turn to peek at what Mabel is trying to show him. He can already tell from the contrast and brightness of the photo that Mabel has once again turned the flash on when she clearly didn’t need to, whitening the look of irritation on Wirt’s face mid-talking. In the corner of the frame, he spots Sara.

Beside the photo, in glittery pen, with quotation marks, writes, ‘Eloquent writing style only to be wasted away by hubris.’

“You really captured his complexion well,” Dipper says, half sarcastically. He would ask what the quote is about, but he thinks he’s too tired to care right now.

“The diner was less dark than I realized,” Mabel replies, looking down at her scrapbook with mild disappointment towards herself. She’s taken better photos. She closes the book, hugging it tight as she sways and swoons. “I’ve always loved artistic guys…”

“You’ll definitely lose interest once you actually get to know him,” Dipper waves a hand dismissively. 

“Hah! I’ll probably lose interest anyway! Checkmate!” Mabel grins smugly, as if that’s any better.

Dipper shakes his head, amused and smiling to himself as he continues working on his almost-finished project.

 

“Your sister is a delight,” Sara tells Dipper when they see each other again.

It’s been a while since Dipper’s last been to their creative writing club, thanks to the projects that were piling up. The last few weeks have been dedicated to filming, writing and editing. Not fun at all. Even without knowing Sara, he would’ve still preferred being at club instead of being in his dorm past midnight in a group call with his teammates. 

So, with the last of his projects now done and over with, he’s finally free to do whatever he wants till the new semester begins, and the same goes for practically everyone else. Instead of projects, Sara is faced with having to deal with exams, and she’s just finished her final one yesterday.

They promised to hang the day after it all ends, and so here they are, somewhere along campus, aimlessly walking towards nowhere in particular.

“Yeah, I know,” Dipper answers Sara with a smile. He’s yet to meet someone that hasn’t found it a pleasant experience meeting with his sister and comes to expect it every time. He wouldn’t blame them. Mabel really is a delight.

“So, um, did she mention anything?” Sara asks, pockets stuffed with her hands. “When she got back from the lunch, I mean. After meeting the both of us.”

Dipper instantly recalls how infatuated Mabel had become since meeting Wirt and uncomfortably shifts, “What? Did something happen?”

“No, just curious,” Sara says, not noticing the discomfort settling on Dipper. “But I do have something in mind.”

“Yeah?” Dipper tilts his head.

She pauses, contemplating her wording. She probably doesn’t want to reveal what it is, just in case Dipper has no clue what she’s talking about, and tries to hint it in a roundabout way so that Dipper will know what it is without her spilling the beans herself. “It’s about Wirt, if you know what I mean.”

Dipper winces, feeling it may be the thing he earlier thought was it, “Oh… Yeah. She did say something.”

Going off of his theory that Sara and Wirt may have dated—he begins to believe it more and more each day he learns something new about her and subsequently him— he feels it may make things awkward for everyone if he addresses it directly.

Oh, yeah! My sister, Mabel, is totally into Wirt who may or may not be your ex-boyfriend! 

Bad idea. He’ll just walk around it and keep it vague for all their sakes.

Sara squints at him for a moment, reading his face, and he tries his best to look as sympathetic as possible. Hopefully it comes off as ‘Hey, it can’t be helped. Sorry it happened though!’

Carefully, she goes on, “You know, you don’t have to be shy about it.”

“Shy? Who says I’m being shy?” as much as his sister’s love life isn’t his business, he likes to think he can handle it as a conversation topic pretty well.

“Well, it’s just…” Sara chews on the inside of her cheek. “...nevermind. Are you hungry?”

“What are you feeling?”

“Tacos?”

 

At some point Sara tells Dipper where her dorm room is.

Finding the building isn’t so hard when Candy apparently lives in the same block, and with how everything is numbered—god he loves order—finding her exact room is a piece of cake. 

She doesn’t mind meeting at the usual spot between dorm buildings, but they were supposed to hang out today and she forgot to set her alarm, so she woke up late and wouldn’t be able to rush out in the time. Which is why she told Dipper to just come meet her at her dorm, since she’ll be ready by then.

He forgets this meant he wouldn’t actually have to be there by their agreed timing and finds himself at her door a little earlier than he should be. It’s only when she doesn’t answer his first three knocks does he realize his silly mistake.

Guess he’ll have to wait a little bit. She must still be at the dorm toilets, or something.

Awkwardly, he stands against the wall, fiddling with the edge of his flannel, and directs his attention to the interesting carpet pattern. There is no pattern, he just so happens to be looking at a stain.

“Dipper?” a voice that is very much not Sara’s calls out from beside him, causing him to jolt in surprise.

His mood sours, realizing who it is when he looks over, “Wirt.”

“What are you doing here?” Wirt doesn’t attempt to hide his sass, folding his arm as he glares.

“Waiting for Sara, what else?” Dipper answers back, just as snide. “I’d ask you the same thing, to be honest.”

“I’m here to return her notes, what else?” Wirt matches his tone, reaching into his bag to pull it out, as though to flex. He sighs, running a hand down his face. “Look, it’s too early to be doing this. I’ll just put this at her desk and I’ll go.”

As much as Dipper wants to keep going—for no other reason that to just rile Wirt up—deep down he pretty much mirrors that sentiment, and decides to keep his mouth shut as Wirt passes him by to enter Sara’s dorm. Dipper makes a note of that.

Wirt leaves a gap at the door after he goes inside, and so it makes it easy for Dipper to listens to Wirt shuffle around in Sara’s room. He lingers a bit too long than normal, but Dipper isn’t gonna judge that, and eventually Wirt comes back out with Sara’s notes now properly returned back.

It’s then when Dipper remembers something, and without thinking—out of character of him, seriously—he stops Wirt before he can go, “Hey, if you see my sister”—

Wirt visibly winces, which Dipper finds hard to read at the moment but he’s definitely going to overanalyze it later.

—”my advice is that you don’t entertain her,” Dipper tells him straightforwardly. “Seriously. She’ll overthink it.”

For a moment, all Wirt looks is confused, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. After a beat passes, he finally lets out a, “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Wow, okay. You’re dumber than I realized,” Dipper deadpans, before gesturing with his hands. “I’m saying if Mabel flirts with you, don’t make it look like you’re accepting it or flirting back.” 

Wirt pinks, properly from his cheeks to his ears, all the way to his neck, and if Dipper could guess, it might even stretch all the way down to his collar bone. He splutters, hands finding each other, “I don’t- I don’t think your sister- I don’t think she’d… I don’t—”

“I didn’t say she is or will, I’m saying if. If it doesn’t happen, forget I said anything.” Dipper raises his hands. “It’s just, I thought she might’ve said something to you during that lunch with Sara for the first time. With Candy and Grenda and Pacifica?”

Wirt blinks, “Wait, so you don’t actually know…what happened that day?”

“What?” Dipper, now more confused than Wirt was, blinks back. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing!” Wirt immediately says, stepping back. “I thought- You know. I thought your sister would’ve said something else. To you. Nevermind.”

“What?” Dipper says again, curious as a smirk stretches across his lips. “What happened?”

“Ugh, like I’d tell you,” Wirt wrinkles his nose. His blush has yet to fade. “I’ll be going now.”

“Hey, you can’t just leave me hanging like that,” Dipper calls after Wirt as he begins to make his departure towards the exit. “You know I can just ask Sara or Mabel about it, right?”

“Ask what you want,” Wirt waves his hand dismissively without turning to look at him.

Dipper frowns, watching the door shut behind Wirt, and as though right on cue, Sara rounds the corner with a towel dangling over her shoulders. She wears a faded band t-shirt that Dipper can’t recognize and a pair of shorts, and perks up in surprise when she spots Dipper outside her door.

“Did I make you wait long?” Sara asks, both confused why he’s here early and doubting herself at the same time.

“Oh, no, I came on time on accident,” Dipper tells her and she loosens up in relief.

“Let me get changed and we can head off,” Sara points to her room, stepping inside.

He waits for a little longer, fiddling with his cap as he does, and eventually Sara emerges from her room wearing her NASA bomber jacket over a baggy white shirt and a faded pair of jeans.

“Was Wirt here?” she asks, slinging her bag over her shoulders. 

“Oh, yeah. He came to return your notes,” Dipper answers, walking beside her as the two leave. “Which reminds me. He mentioned something else happened at the lunch the other day. Any idea what it is?”

“Hm? Um.” Sara scratches the back of her neck in thought. “I mean, if he didn’t want to tell you, I don’t think I can tell you either, haha.”

“That’s fair.” Dipper nods slowly, hiding his disappointment. “It’s just…you know. I had to tell him directly about the thing Mabel told me, and he got all flustered about it, like he didn’t know until I told him. Thought it should’ve been a bigger deal to him, in an obvious-to-him-way. You get me?”

Sara raises a brow, hitting the button for the elevator, “That… hm…”

“See? You think it’s weird too, right?” Dipper gestures.

“No, it’s just…” Sara smiles gently, hands behind her back, going silent after that.

“Just…?” Dipper prompts, stepping into the elevator when it arrives. He hits the first floor button and leans against the railing.

“I’m more surprised you aren’t making a big deal about it either,” Sara shrugs. “I think- Well, I thought it would matter to you a whole lot.”

Dipper grimaces, thinking about it. Again, his sister’s love life isn’t any of his business, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t suffer some spillover effects. Considering he somewhat knows the guy too, he suspects it’ll be a bigger problem than all her previous brief obsessions.

“I think Wirt would prefer you don’t bother him too much about it though,” Sara adds a little after she said that. “So, I’m not exactly, I don’t know, upset? Bummed out…? That you aren’t reacting as I thought you would. This is actually better.”

“Oh.” Dipper says. In hindsight, it does make sense for Wirt to be the shy type. While Dipper is the kind of guy to be proud over his works, Wirt seems more inclined to grow embarrassed and overly humble about it. Unless you’re being an “ass” about it, apparently. Then Wirt gets defensive.

Huh. Makes Dipper irritated enough to want to rile him up a bit more.

“What’s with that look?” Sara snorts, elevator doors opening to the ground floor. “You’re not actually going to bother him about it, are you?”

“What? Of course not,” Dipper tells her innocently. “I was just thinking about something else.”

 

“You’ve been hanging out with Sara a lot more,” Mabel states when Dipper returns to his dorm room.

He practically jumps out of his skin when he spots her lying on his bed, phone in one hand mid-internet surfing. He sighs, a hand to his chest, “Have you just been sitting there in the dark the whole time?”

“Yeah, I’ve got glow in the dark nails this time, and I wanted to look at them longer,” she giggles, wiggling her fingers at him. Though the lights are on now, so they aren’t glowing, he doesn’t doubt her at all. “Hey, if you’re hanging out with Sara all the time, who is Wirt hanging out with?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really care,” Dipper answers flatly, dropping his bag by the door and tossing his hat onto his night stand.

“‘Cause it’s not Candy, if you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“So, I was thinking,” she sits up, giving him room to sit beside her, and does explosion hand gestures beside her head. “If he’s not with Sara all the time, and we’re on break, this is my chance to hang out with him more.”

“Thought you had plans with Pacifica,” Dipper says. “And Grenda, and Candy.”

“I do,” Mabel points. “But, you know me, I can fit as many things as I want on my plate.”

Dipper scrunches his eyebrows together, “...Right.”

“Anyway, can I borrow your thumbdrive? I wanna binge some movies tonight!” Mabel gets up from the bed, already dangling the thumbdrive by its keychain in her hand. 

“Sure,” Dipper gestures, before hearing her skip towards his door.

“Okay, thanks! Goodnight!” she chimes, and just like that, she was gone.

He sighs, shaking his head, and is about to get ready to turn in for the night when Mabel suddenly pokes her head back into his room again, once again scaring him out of his skin.

“By the way, you don’t happen to have Wirt’s number, do you?” Mabel asks.

“Why would I?” Dipper frowns.

“Great, I’ll text it to you!” and the door clicks shut.

“Again. Why would I?” Dipper reiterates, but he hears his phone buzz in his back pocket and he lets another lungful of air out through his mouth.

As irritating as it is to think about Mabel getting along with Wirt of all people, on the bright side of it, Dipper’s idea of separating Sara from Wirt might actually come into play without Mabel realizing it. Though, that would also mean Wirt wouldn’t actually be out of Dipper’s life completely. Which is…

Whatever. He has other things better to think about than that.

He gets ready for bed.

Notes:

Mabel loves boys the same way I love toys.

Chapter 5: Wirt II

Notes:

this one's a bit longer than normal :3

“Do you know who gave Mabel my phone number?” Wirt asks Sara, toweling off his hair as he closes the door to his dorm behind him. “I can’t tell if it was Candy, you or Dipper.”

“How would Dipper have your number?” Sara lifts her eyes from her phone, leaning against the headboard of his bed, pillow behind her, and adjusts herself to give him room to sit. 

His hand runs across his seat, smoothening out the wrinkles under him, before sitting down at the foot of his bed. He leaves the towel around his neck as he replies, “I’d assume Candy or you would’ve given it to him.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” Sara puts a hand to her chest, feigning taking offense.

He pops a single knuckle of his index finger, “Oh, I wouldn’t blame you if you did though. Just figured, you know. Just in case. If something happens then he can call me.”

Sara snorts, crossing her arms now, “You’re not responsible of me.”

He raises his hands defensively, “Wasn’t implying that! I said just in case!”

She laughs, indicating that she wasn’t genuinely upset, which leads him to sigh from a mixture of relief and exhaustion. With nothing else to talk about, he decides he might as well continue where he left off last night, and bends down to reach for his suitcase. She watches as he fiddles with his things, before eventually leaving it alone.

There are only a few things missing now, but other than that, he can’t really think of what else to fill the empty spaces with. It always feel weird, when he has too much space, and feels the need to put something there. He would bring back souvenirs for Greg, but that’s implying there’s anything here worth bringing back as a gift. 

“Right,” he says, remembering what he was talking about originally, he pulls his towel off his shoulders. “My number. Then I’m guessing it was Candy.”

“What are you thinking about?” Sara asks, suspecting something from the way he brings the topic back up.

“Nothing, it’s just…,” Wirt wrings his fingers together, idly passing by his laundry basket and sweeping a hand over his desk. “Mabel asked whether we could hang out, but I’ll be back home then.”

“Did you tell her that yet?” Sara prompts further.

“Not really,” Wirt drops his towel into the basket and rubs the back of his neck. “I feel bad for turning her down.”

“You’re not exactly turning her down if you can’t help it,” the corner of Sara’s lips curl in amusement. “I’m sure she’ll understand. There’s also always next time.”

“You’re right, you’re right. As always,” Wirt pulls his phone out to reply to Mabel’s text. He had left her on read—completely by accident—and he can already imagine what she must be feeling right now. When he finishes typing his reply and tosses his phone gently onto his bed, he looks at Sara briefly, and blurts out a question. “So, did Dipper ask you anything recently?”

“What’s with you two?” Sara smirks, perplexed and entertained. “I thought the both of you were trying your best to avoid each other.”

“We are!” Wirt says defensively. “It’s just, you know. Bumped into him the other day, he bothered me about something… I get curious.”

“Well, you shouldn’t concern yourself with it too much. He’s handling it a lot more maturely than I thought.”

“But you didn’t tell him anything.”

“I didn’t,” she reaffirms.

“Huh,” Wirt says, before looking out the window. “Okay.”

Sara stares at him, more confused now, “I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“No! You’re good, you’re good,” Wirt turns back to her. She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but decides it isn’t worth prying if Wirt doesn’t show any signs of telling. She relaxes against his bed again and is about to go back on her phone when Wirt’s phone buzzes on his bed.

“What’d she say?” Sara asks curiously as Wirt picks it up.

“Oh boy.” is all he can say in response.

 

“Is that all you’re carrying?” Dipper asks Sara from beside her, pointing at her backpack, the same one she uses for college classes. In contrast, he’s carrying an entire hiking bag on his shoulders without much struggle. 

Wirt wonders if it’s just lean muscle, because he thought Dipper would’ve crumbled under the weight by now.

“Dipper. I live there too.” Sara deadpans, a small smile on her lips.

“Ohh, right,” Dipper says, smacking the side of her head, before feeling Mabel clash into his other side, grabbing onto his arm to take a selfie with her camera. He blinks the flash out of his eyes, noticing Sara had looked away in advance. “Mabel!”

“What? We’re going to a small town in a corner as a group of besties~!” Mabel chimes, slipping the newly developed film into her scrapbook, before chucking it into her glitterfest of a book bag. She’s brought along her own luggage on wheels, covered entirely in all kinds of stickers, to the point Wirt finds it difficult to tell what color the luggage actually is. “We need to document it.”

“Would you call this a road trip by technicality?” Candy asks from beside Mabel, adjusting her glasses. She, too, has brought her own luggage. Unlike Mabel’s, it’s modestly decorated with a few stickers, which makes it easy for Wirt to tell that it’s mint green in color.

(She exchanges a look with Dipper, as though sharing a silent inside joke. The latter manages out a strained, yet embarrassed laugh.)

“Of course!” Grenda answers, holding her own luggage over her head. Instead of being decorated, or being in a single color, it, instead, has a picture of a boyband printed over it in design. He can’t tell what band it is, but if the title under the picture of boys is anything to go off of, they’re called ‘Stray Kidz’. “We’re gonna be sleeping in a moving vehicle, after all!”

“Please don’t remind me, my stomach can’t take it,” Pacifica holds a glove hand up as though to shush Grenda, other hand occupied with a parasol. All she carries—which baffles Wirt the most—is a relatively large pink purse, but still not exactly large enough to carry the same amount of necessities for a month-ish long stay at a small town.

“Just take a private jet, you’re already mailing all your stuff there,” Dipper deadpans.

“Dipper,” Pacifica adjusts her sunglasses.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Dipper looks like he’s about to argue, but Sara’s laugh distracts him. Wirt sighs, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

“Just to, uh, just to check with you guys,” Wirt says, checking the bus schedule and time once more. “You really want to come with us back to our home town. You’re not worried about, like, housing or…or… Um. I don’t know—”

“Well—” Dipper starts, holding a finger up, before being promptly interrupted by Mabel.

“Yes!” she says ecstatically, shaking her brother’s arm roughly. “Small towns are just the cutest things in the world!”

“The only other small town we’ve been to is Gravity Falls,” Dipper mumbles, grimacing slightly at her sister’s enthusiasm. 

“Where’s that?” Sara asks.

“Oregon.”

“Wow that is tremendously far from where we live,” Sara blinks, before continuing Wirt’s concern. “Okay, but seriously. It’s gonna be a real tight squeeze at my place, and that’s only for the girls…” 

Both Mabel and Dipper pause in unison, which Wirt finds just a little amusing, before Dipper slowly replies, “What was the arrangement made for me again…?”

He turns slowly to look at Mabel, who grins sheepishly back at him, and at the same time, Wirt begins to pinch the spot between his eyes. As if on cue, the bus pulls up.

 

The thing is, Wirt doesn’t even need to ask why Dipper is here, and feels that if he were to ask, it would only be for the sake of annoying the guy. It’s easy to draw the conclusions, when he thinks, if he were in Dipper’s shoes, he’d do the same too.

Mabel, hearing that Wirt will be back in his home town for month of his break, impulsively asked if she could tag along, framing it as ‘visiting someplace new’. One thing led to another, and somehow she got him to agree to having the rest of her friends tag along.

And because Wirt doesn’t feel capable of handling a group of girls by himself, Sara offered to come along—even though she originally planned to stay back in college.

Which then meant Dipper would be left behind. So, of course he agreed to coming along as well. And then there’s also the thing where Dipper worried his sister and him might…

Wirt cringes slightly at the thought. Something about Dipper making that sort of assumption out of him, as if he’s the kind of guy to swoop girls off their feet, makes Wirt feel somewhat uncomfortable. He’s not Jason Funderberker. But that’s also assuming he has mutual affections with Mabel, which he doesn’t. 

In any case, he’s still reeling back on the realization that this is actually happening. Somehow he’s going home with a gang of sorta-friends, and he’s going to be living under the same roof as Dipper for a month. He thinks neither of them are happy about this.

“Go fish,” Mabel says, and the bus runs over a bump which causes her to fly into the air briefly. The pile of cards miraculously stay in place on her lap.

“You’re not playing this right,” Dipper tells her.

“Can I pay to see your cards?” Pacifica asks Dipper.

“After this, let’s play Jenga!” Grenda suggests, while Candy attempts to braid her cards into Grenda’s hair.

Sara, who’s sitting with Wirt in a seat in front of the bunch, giggles and looks over at Wirt, “On the bright side, you’ll have something to bring back to show Greg.”

“No joke,” Wirt says, running a hand through his hair.

 

Although most of the houses in his neighborhood are relatively the same size, he’d argue that Sara’s house is a little bigger than his, considering it used to house more people in it. Her mom had apparently tried to remodel one of the rooms into a dancing studio, for Sara, but that never went anywhere. It stays as the guest room, which is what the girls will be using for the month.

Wirt, unfortunately, only has one room and one bed to share.

Though they had left in the morning, they only get to Wirt and Sara’s town by late afternoon, and that’s not even accounting for the walk to the actual neighborhood.

Greg’s dad had initially offered to pick them up at the bus stop, but upon hearing the amount of people that would arrive, Wirt told him to decide against it. Otherwise, they’ll have to tie one of them up onto the roof of his car, and he has a feeling Mabel wouldn’t be against volunteering first.

Again, Wirt is taken by surprise by Dipper’s stamina and strength. Candy had looked a little winded by the time they got to Sara’s house, and Pacifica was faring no better, even though she carried the least amount of things in her hands. And that’s only to Sara’s house. They still have yet to get to Wirt’s.

“Where’s your stuff?” Mabel asks Pacifica as the girl pants, looking around.

As though evoking the devil’s name, the mailing van arrives, and out comes two luggages, gently placed down and rolled out with a red carpet to boot. Soon after they arrive, they quickly disappeared, leaving Wirt staring in absolute astonishment.

“Oh, nice,” Mabel says.

“My house is like a couple more blocks up ahead,” Wirt points, adjusting his suitcase in his hand.

“Okay,” Mabel shoots him a thumbs up, before turning to Dipper. “Well, see you in a bit then!”

“Yep,” Dipper sighs, then pauses, dropping his bag to the ground. “Wait. I really need to take my flannel off, seriously. Feels like I’m gonna sweat through it.”

Politely, Sara looks away, while Candy and Grenda pretty much treat it as another Tuesday, busy talking to Mabel who is rightfully uninterested in the situation as well.

“Wearing anything under that?” Pacifica asks, lifting her sunglasses in slight disgust and a very, very minor hint of interest.

“Yes,” Dipper curtly tells her, unbuttoning the flannel to tie around his waist. Wirt had expected a shirt at the very least, and come to think of it, Wirt has never really seen Dipper in anything short-sleeved before. Always in a flannel or a worn hoodie, never in just a shirt. But that’s coming from a guy that consistently wears cardigans and sweaters.

“A man’s tank top is a girl’s bra, technically,” Pacifica tells him, turning away almost instantly, like she had already seen her fill.

“Stop talking.” Dipper deadpans, unsticking his top from his chest, picking his bag back up. “Let’s go, Wirt.”

Wirt, who has not yet stopped staring, remains silent. Well, it makes a lot of sense for Dipper to be that way, considering he’s carrying his stuff on his shoulders, and his bag is huge. Of course it would be like a workout to Dipper and he would end up that way. But he looks like he does this frequently, carrying things, Wirt wonders—

“Hello?”

“Yes.” Wirt meets Dipper’s eyes, looking away immediately and towards the direction of his house. “My house. Let’s go.”

“Okay.” Dipper itches at his elbow. 

Wirt’s hands go a little clammy, which causes him to switch his suitcase between his hands more frequently, and at some point halfway through their walk, he gets tempted to pull off his own sweater vest too. He doesn’t, because that would be weird.

“Just to be clear,” Dipper finally speaks, not at all looking Wirt’s way. “We’re not friends just because of this, okay?”

“Yeah. Of course,” Wirt answers, all his resentment towards Dipper suddenly flooding back in. He had almost forgotten, or maybe even forgiven, Dipper due to the uneventful trip. Now he learns it must have been because there were other people present and Dipper didn’t want to cause a scene. Which is oddly more mature than Wirt would give him credit for. 

The rest of the walk is less nerve wracking and more sour, and Wirt thinks his face would’ve been stuck in a permanent scowl if it weren’t for one thing.

“Wirt!” sitting on the stairs to the front porch of their house, Greg gets up and practically jumps into Wirt’s arms. Wirt is quick to drop his suitcase to the ground to catch the boy and he gives Greg a tight squeeze. “How was your adventure at the faraway castle?”

“Tiring,” Wirt answers, settling the boy down.

“Hm, as predicted,” Greg nods, patting Wirt’s chest. “We have just the cure!”

As he spins back around to face the house with a finger in the air, Greg finally spots Dipper standing a little behind Wirt, watching on in mild confusion and entertainment. Greg blanks for a minute, trying to process the situation.

“This isn’t Sara,” Greg points at Dipper in a matter-of-fact tone. “Or a girl at all.”

“Thanks,” Dipper tips his baseball cap at Greg. “The name’s Dipper.”

“Woah, that’s a really cool name,” Greg compliments.

“D-Did you think that all the friends I brought were girls…?” Wirt blinks.

“Well, it’s usually the case,” Greg says, hands on his hips. “But this time it’s also because dad said so.”

“What- Ugh. Did he- And I even told him to…” Wirt mutters, flipping between being irritated and defeated like a metronome, which makes Dipper snort out a laugh. Immediately, Wirt whips his head around to glare daggers at Dipper, who immediately drops his smile into a frown. “Nevermind. Let’s head inside.”

Greg does the honors of helping his brother pick up his suitcase to carry inside. He lets Wirt go in first, followed by Dipper, whom Greg briefly stops to survey again. He tilts his head at Dipper, who tilts his head back, before letting out a satisfied sound.

“You may enter,” Greg gestures.

“Thanks,” Dipper tells him again, tipping his hat again too.

 

It takes forever for Wirt’s parents to let go of Dipper, fawning over the cool boy in the flannel their son brought home. And even though Wirt reminds them time and time again that this was a friend group, and Dipper just happened to be the only other boy in the group, it only falls on deaf ears.

“You’ll have to forgive them, Wirt,” Greg pats his brother’s arm sympathetically. “All your friends are always girls. For some reason. To be honest, I’m also fascinated.”

“They’re not always girls,” Wirt hisses.

“Rhondi, Kathleen, Evelyn,” Greg names off the top of his fingers. “Sara.”

“Sara’s different,” Wirt corrects him.

“Beatrice.”

Wirt falls silent.

“Lorn—”

Dipper cuts in, finally free of his parents’ grasps, “So, where do I unpack?”

Relieved that Greg has been interrupted, Wirt quickly directs Dipper to the stairs so they can head up to his room and quickly escape the scene. Wirt takes his suitcase from Greg before he goes and Greg doesn’t follow, his parents’ attention now directed at him, and the two men are left on their own at last.

“Your parents are nice,” Dipper notes when they head up the stares.

“Yeah?” Wirt opens the door to his room and finally feels that he’s home. It seems like his parents hardly come in, judging from the fact that it doesn’t look any different from the day he left it. On whether they only cleaned it recently because Wirt announced that he was coming home or they do clean it periodically, he doesn’t know.

The only thing different about the room is the extra mattress on the floor, and his table has been pushed up against the wall instead of being in the middle of the room. Wirt lets out a quiet sigh, a bit uncomfortable about the change, but swallows it down.

“So you just have an extra mattress lying around,” Dipper laughs, dropping his bag to the floor. He unties his flannel from his waist and rolls it up in his arm.

“Yeah. It was for my dad before the divorce settled,” Wirt tells him, kicking the old thing by its corner, before tossing his suitcase onto his bed. “Still surprised they kept the old thing.”

Dipper falls silent, before slowly going, “Oh.”

“No big deal,” Wirt shrugs at Dipper.

“No, it’s just…” Dipper rubs his chin, “I can’t believe Pacifica figured that out.”

“What.”

“Nevermind,” Dipper shakes his head. “Can I borrow your shower? I don’t want to stink up the place when we get dinner.”

“Yeah, sure,” Wirt tells him, before pointing at the door. “Bathroom’s down the hall, on the left.”

Dipper digs through his bag to pull out a fresh shirt, stuffing his flannel inside, “Thanks.”

“Clean towels are in the bottom cabinet.”

Dipper walks out the door, “Gotcha.”

And then he’s off. Wirt stands there quietly, returning back to his suitcase so he can get to unpacking. After this, Sara and the girls will be over for dinner, they’ll probably hang out for a bit before turning in for the night, and tomorrow they’ll have lunch at Sara’s. They might want to explore the town for a bit, but Wirt thinks they’ll be done before the sun sets and…

“Hm,” Wirt hums to himself. He just had a normal conversation with Dipper, which was nice. The last time they spoke without bickering, it was when they wrote that story together. But even then, it ended with sourness. This is the first time it started normal and ended normal, and oddly enough, it didn’t feel strange.

He should write about this.

Before he can pick up a pen to note it down on a sticky note—looks like everything is still where they remember them to be—he hears his mom call him from downstairs, “Wirt!”

“Yeah!” Wirt calls back, stepping closer to the door so he can hear and respond to her better. He’s writing the first line when she answers.

“Is that you using the shower?”

“No!” Welcomed familiarity in the form of a stranger—

“Did you check if there were any towels left?” 

“No!” Coming back into my life, time and time again—

“I don’t think there’s any left!”

“Okay!” Pricking my skin full of holes—

“Can you refill the cabinet? Just in case?”

“Alright!” Yet this time, we sit together like puzzle pieces. Perhaps, all along we were supposed to be figured out. Solved. In order for my blood to stop draining—

“Now!”

“Okay!” Wirt drops his pen and sticky notepad on the mattress on the floor. He jogs out of his room and heads down the stairs, off to fetch towels to refill the bathroom cabinet. You’d think that they would refill it before he gets home, you know, just in case he wanted to shower, or either of them really, since he’s brought a guest with him. Just like how they remembered to clean his room and pull the mattress out.

Or they should just consider making it possible to fit all their towels in the bathroom cabinet, instead of separating the other half in the laundry room.

He only takes one with him—just in case they did refill the cabinet, then Wirt can just replace the one Dipper took—and heads back up. When he arrives at the top of the stairs, he finds that bathroom door open in the distance. Well, at least he now knows Dipper is fast in the bathroom.

He stops by to refill the cabinet, only to find that Dipper had taken the last towel. Wirt sighs. Of course. Well, that’s another family member’s problem now. He turns back to his bedroom and heads inside, running his hand along the walls as he does.

Before Wirt can enter his room, however, he hears Dipper’s voice inside. It’s gentle humming to one of BABBA’s songs, which Wirt can roughly recognize only because Greg’s dad listens to them occasionally. He lingers behind the door as Dipper reaches the chorus, and after letting Dipper finish, Wirt slowly opens the door.

It gives Dipper enough time to feign ignorance, but while Wirt had imagined Dipper to flail around in embarrassment from almost being caught, instead, Dipper is sitting on the mattress on the floor, back facing the door, and turns his head slow.

“Where were you?” Dipper asks.

“Downstairs,” Wirt answers bluntly, before realizing Dipper had been reading the poem he wrote on the spot earlier. He pinks by the ears, mouth dropping slightly.

Dipper smirks, waving the sticky notepad around, “Thinking about me, are you?”

“No,” Wirt lies. “It’s about this house.”

“You treat this house like a person.” Dipper deadpans, slightly confused.

“It’s-It’s how poetry works,” Wirt rolls his shoulders as cooly as he can, which somehow works. 

“Huh, guess I’ll never figure it out.” Dipper drops the sticky notepad. 

“Yeah?” Wirt folds his arms, leaning against the doorway. “And you don’t think it’s, y’know, commercially good? ”

“Oh, fuck off,” Dipper gets up, laughing lightly. “Can’t believe you’re still not over that.”

“What’d you think about that one then?” Wirt smiles.

“Can’t make sense of it. Too confusing for me. If it’s about a house, I don’t see it,” Dipper answers honestly, before ending it off with. “Kinda dumb like that.”

Wirt scoffs. Something tells him that Dipper’s only saying that and reacting in offense will be just what Dipper wants. And yet… “Only overthinking, overcomplicating Dipper will be enough of a hypocrite to criticize something for being too complicated.”

“Hey!” Dipper shoots, about to fight him about it all over again, when the two of them hear the doorbell go. Seems like the girls are here.

 

Wirt had a lot of predictions for how the dinner would go down. First off, Greg would definitely get along with Mabel, without a doubt. But he feels that Greg is peculiar in words while Mabel is peculiar in actions, and so he sensed they would clash awkwardly in this case—in which neither would understand the other for a moment.

Greg’s dad may find it a delight how lively the table will be, and if he had to guess, Candy may be his favorite, only because Candy is Wirt’s favorite—in a sense. He doesn’t mean it literally.

He isn’t sure what kind of people his mom is partial to, but so far she’s still okay with Sara, so he assumes that will stay the same for tonight.

And it seems like Pacifica predicted that Wirt’s parents had gone through a divorce, so he’ll be glad to see how she’ll handle that information real time when she realizes she was right. He thinks she’ll struggle to hold in her laugh, but he doesn’t know her that well yet, so he could just be wrong about her character.

They don’t frequently have too many guests over, so some of their chairs don’t fit the dining set. Mabel’s sitting in a folding chair, while Grenda has dragged the arm chair over to use. Greg offered his seat to Pacifica and is on a stool instead and, reluctantly, Wirt had carried the chair from his room down because he gave his seat to Candy.

They used to only have enough for the family, but ever since Sara, they got an extra just for her when she comes over, so she’s sitting in that currently. But after digging through the entire house looking for any chairs they could use, they realize this leaves Dipper with nothing. 

“Scooch,” Dipper tells his sister.

“Nuh uh, mine’s too small for two,” Mabel stays seated.

He looks at Pacifica, who pulls her hair back in a ponytail, “Don’t even think about it."

Then he gazes over at Candy, who shrugs to show that the spot she’s chosen between Greg and Grenda is too cramped to even fit Dipper with her, especially with how big the arm chair is, and he half contemplates sitting on the arm rest of said arm chair.

Wirt sighs, moving on his seat, because he’s the only option left, and Dipper sighs, just as reluctant.

They share the seat.

“Aw,” Mabel coos, before taking another one of her polaroids, causing everyone to go blind at the table momentarily.

“I see god!” Greg announces, blinking the light out of his eyes.

At first they struggled, bumping into each other one too many times. Eventually, Wirt is the first to give up, and he drops his left hand down so Dipper can eat without hitting him every five seconds. It’s not a comfortable eating positon, but he’d rather this then being knocked into. Fortunately, with the newly created space, Dipper does not take advantage of it, and continues trying his best to remain in his lane.

His parents go around asking each of them what their major is, starting with Mabel—fashion—to Pacifica—law and business in minor. Unsurprisingly, Candy reveals to be in engineering—Wirt had his theories—while Grenda is in theater. And Wirt already knew what Dipper is doing.

“Hear anything interesting to you?” his mom asks Greg, who has busied himself with building a sculpture with his mash potatoes.

“All of them!” Greg replies, without so much as lifting his eyes from his creation.

“Don’t play with your food, Greg.” his mom continues to smile sweetly.

“Heh, I used to do that all the time,” Mabel nudges Pacifica, all while mid-sculpting her own mash potatoes. The blonde rolls her eyes in endearment.

“And Sara, it’s always so nice to see you again,” Wirt’s mom warmly says, and Sara smiles back politely, nodding her head. “How are you and Wirt doing?”

“Fine,” Sara replies.

Wirt tenses slightly in his seat, and suddenly, his plate is the most interesting thing in the world. He directs his attention all towards it.

“That’s lovely to hear,” Wirt’s mom goes on. When it seemed like she was going to continue on with the subject, Sara suddenly gets up, holding her finished plate, and smiles a little wider.

“I’ll go wash my plate.” she says, robotically heading towards the kitchen.

“Oh, Sara, it’s okay, I can do it,” his mom turns, but Sara is already gone.

Then, Wirt stands when he senses Dipper contemplating by his side, no doubt choosing between joining Sara and not getting himself involved. Wirt didn’t want to take the risk of Dipper going with the former option, so he cuts himself in, “I’ll help her.” and promptly takes Dipper’s plate from him.

“Hey—” Dipper says, but he couldn’t really argue. His plate is finished too, and everyone will know taking the plate back will mean less because he wants to be nice and more because he wants to join Sara’s side.

 

They’re not in the kitchen when they’re done with the plates. They’ve taken their conversation to the backyard, so no one can walk in on them, or eavesdrop. If they strained their ears, they can hear water running, and plates clinking, all the way from the fence on the other end of the yard. It’s just them now.

“You didn’t tell her,” Sara says, not as an accusation but as a statement. Because they both know this to be true.

“I couldn’t, really,” Wirt hangs his head low, both embarrassed and guilty. He feels a bit like a coward, or something like that. 

“I know,” Sara says, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Sorry,” Wirt tells her, who dismisses it as nothing to be sorry for.

“I wouldn’t know how either,” Sara pulls her hair back and bunches it into a ponytail, before letting all her curls fly. “But she’ll have to know at some point. All of them do.”

“ All?” Wirt strains, and though he says the word ‘all’, Sara can hear the silent ‘Even Dipper?’.

“Wirt, we’re home. Everyone knows us. They’ll figure it out at some point,” Sara laughs gently, playing with her fingers. “If you don’t tell them, someone else will.”

“Even you?” Wirt asks.

“Oh, Wirt,” Sara leans against the fence, folding her arms under her to serve as a pillow. “You know I can’t tell your story. I only ever listen to them.”

He grows silent, watching her nuzzle her face further into the crook of her arm, tiredly, hazily. He puts his hands on the fence, lining his fingers on it like armed soldiers, “It’s okay if it’s you. It’s about you too, as much as it is about me. You can say something, if you want to.”

“What’s there even to say?” Sara smiles again, before, softer, and sincere. “I’m sorry, Wirt.”

“It’s alright,” Wirt relaxes next to her, defeated, or something like that. His chin rests on his fingers, pressing red lines underneath.

She hums, as though in doubt, but doesn’t say anything more.

 

They all hang around in Wirt’s living room for a little longer, all entertained by Greg’s antics as he tells them tall tales about his adventures in school. With enough thought, one might be able to decipher the reality behind the situations, but Wirt supposes no one would rather use their brain that hard just for that.

“Your brother is the cutest thing in the whole wide world,” Mabel whispers to Wirt as Greg is going on about folding his test papers into airplanes as good luck.

“Yeah, I know,” he answers.

 

“Will you two be okay?” Sara has her hands on her hips as both Dipper and Wirt are seeing the girls out.

“Of course,” Dipper beams, one hand over the other in front of him.

“Sure,” Wirt shrugs cooly.

“Alright,” Sara smiles back, turning away. “See you tomorrow then.”

“Goodnight, Dipper,” his sister waves wildly with both hands, before looking over at Wirt and batting her eyelashes at him with a smaller wave. “Goodnight, Wirt.”

“Goodnight, Mabel,” Dipper answers flatly, looking at Wirt in the corner of his eyes.

“Goodnight,” Wirt replies with a shy wave.

The moment the door shuts, leaving the two of them standing there, they both immediately shoot each other bitter looks. They’re not looking forward for their first night together.

“If it turns out you grind your teeth in your sleep, I’m kicking you out,” Wirt tells him straight and heads up the stairs immediately to get ready for bed.

“Wh-What?!” Dipper exclaims, offended, following after him. “I do not grind my teeth at night.”

They share the sink when they’re brushing their teeth and Wirt takes note of how Dipper switches to using his left hand to brush in order to avoid jabbing Wirt’s eye out—which Wirt silently appreciates. There’s also a brief moment of awkwardness when they both realize they’re actually going to be sleeping in the same room.

Wirt contemplates pajamas, even though he normally sleeps in a shirt and briefs. Dipper, on the other, holds onto the belt hoops of his jeans as though going through a mental countdown. Finally, Wirt is the first to bite the dust, and gives up on digging for his pajamas.

His vest comes off first, and methodically he unbuttons his dress shirt and fishes a shirt out from his suitcase, before pushing the suitcase aside into the corner of the room so he can deal with it tomorrow. In the background, he hears Dipper dress for bed too. Or, a better word would be ‘undress’.

His jeans lie bunched up at the end of the mattress, and Wirt would chide him for being a mess if it weren’t for the fact that he technically just did the same thing with his suitcase, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Other than that, a sense of domesticity washes over Wirt for a brief moment, and he thinks maybe the best way they can truly get along is when they don’t speak to each other at all. Which sounds a bit sad to an outsider, but Wirt finds that to be the steadily growing bitter truth.

Wirt gets the lights for them, dwelling in his thoughts about the matter, and manages to find his way to his bed thanks to his drawn open curtains letting the moonlight in. When he tucks himself in and listens to Dipper shuffle around, he notices the room suddenly going strangely dim.

“Wait—!” Wirt suddenly gets up and catches Dipper drawing the curtains close. “Leave them open.”

“But it’s bright out. Sorta,” Dipper tells him.

“I’m…,” Wirt grips at his blanket, sighing. “I don’t like the dark.”

He expects Dipper to make fun of him, but in that brief moment, Dipper almost looked soft, and he leaves the curtains open for Wirt. “Okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Chapter 6: Wirt III

Notes:

I'm back again! This is dedicated to Dragon012345, who donated to my Ko-Fi when I was in need of money. Thank you again! It really saved me that week ^_^

Happy reading!

It doesn’t come as a surprise to Wirt that Dipper is a morning person, and yet he finds himself groaning in agony anyway when his sleep is disturbed by Dipper shuffling around bright and early doing god knows what. It seems like Dipper rummaging around hadn’t been done on purpose for the sake of bothering Wirt, because when Wirt finally blinks his eyes open, he’s met with Dipper’s back facing him.

In fact, the brunette doesn’t even notice Wirt is awake and promptly leaves the room after finding what he needs from his hiking bag. Probably too caught up in his own world to hear anything aside from his own thoughts. Self absorbed as always.

When Wirt checks the time on his phone, he slams his face into his pillow. How is it six in the morning?

And because he’s the type of guy that can’t fall back asleep the moment he’s awake, Wirt ends up wasting away his time half suffocating himself against his pillow. Eventually, he sucks up his mini tantrum and pushes himself up from his bed.

Unsurprisingly enough, the house is quiet when he steps out of his room. He doesn’t even know where Dipper has gone. One slow blink later, Wirt finds himself with mint on his tongue and dressed for the day ahead, finally heading downstairs, where he spots Dipper already at the table with his laptop out.

Wirt doesn’t make a sound at first, too tired to do so, and fixates on how calm and tranquil Dipper looks working quietly by himself, not realizing that Wirt has entered the room. For a brief moment, they just stay like that.

Until Dipper stretches his back, turning his body to pop a joint, and catches Wirt standing there soundlessly. He jolts, surprised, “Dude, how long have you been standing there?”

“Just got here,” he lies, making his way towards the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Dipper yawns, picking his hat off his head for a moment to ruffle his hair. “You guys are really old fashioned. I don’t know how to use the pot and wheel method or whatever it’s called.”

“The…percolator and grinder?” Wirt furrows his brows at Dipper. He thought Dipper would be more well versed in these things. But, then again, Wirt can hardly name every software in his own computer.

“The moment I saw the beans, I just gave up,” Dipper raises his hands in defeat. “You guys don’t have instant for, like, guests or something?”

“Sara knows how to use them, so, no,” Wirt answers, getting to work. It’s a pity he couldn’t bring his own percolator to his dorm. He much prefers being able to make his own freshly brewed coffee than to drink the instant packaged ones, and heading down to a coffee shop is a hassle when he has papers due the next night.

Dipper remains silent as he watches Wirt grind the coffee beans, slowly digesting the implication that Sara is the only guest they ever have over. Then, after a few minutes passes, he goes, “Is it supposed to take this long?”

“Yes,” Wirt answers. A half-lie. He can technically speed things up, but he prefers the slow and relaxing routine.

“Can’t you turn it faster?” 

“No.”

Dipper huffs, irritated.

By the time Greg’s dad comes skipping down the stairs, less because he’s the perfect image of who Greg will become when he grows up and more because he wants to get to the kitchen as fast as possible due to hunger, Wirt is still grinding the coffee beans.

“Heya Wirt,” he greets, evidently tired but still as bright as ever. “Why’re you turning the thing so slow. Let me get that for you.”

“I knew it,” Dipper hisses, grinning wide with pride.

Wirt rolls his eyes, reluctantly stepping away so Greg’s dad can take over. He avoids looking towards Dipper, who has an expression that is more smug than irritated. Greg’s dad ends up getting the coffee brewed within minutes, and by then the rest of the family have woken up. 

His mom exchanges brief small talk with Dipper, asking how his first night was and whether he’s okay with good old fashion bacon and eggs, to which Dipper would politely answer them all. Wirt holds in his complaint about Dipper getting up too early, because he knows no one would be on his side in this case.

If not Dipper, it would’ve been Greg’s dad barging in to greet him a good first morning back home, or Greg, who most likely couldn’t sleep last night from excitement, coming in to jump on his bed to proclaim that there are new adventures to begin and they can’t possibly do that if Wirt is still asleep.

(Distantly, he had wished there was at least one family member in this home of theirs that aligned with his personality a little bit more. He used to replay cassette tapes to himself at night, rolling ‘what if’s in his mind and pretending it all to be true. Until the player stops.)

When breakfast is served, Dipper is quick to pull his laptop away, shifting away from where he originally sat and taking Sara’s seat. Wirt twitches a little at the sight of it, and bites back an exclamation, because obviously where else would Dipper sit if not in Sara’s chair?

“You know, there’s plenty of things to do here,” Greg waves his fork at Dipper, to which his mom would gently chide him for. “We have a…donut shop! And! A bowling alley!”

“Bowling, huh?” Dipper smiles at the thought of it. “Sounds like a fun time.”

Wirt can already imagine what bowling would be like with all of them there, and he can imagine Sara would agree with him too. Chaotic, noisey, obnoxious—

“Fun!” Sara says when Dipper brings it up at the door after the girls have come gathered at Wirt’s doorstep. 

By some miracle, Wirt does not manage to lose all his breath in one sigh. Well, if Greg wants it too, then who is he to deny the boy? It’s their first hangout together now that Wirt’s back, he should really consider Greg’s feelings more here.

“I’ll have you know I’m pretty good at bowling,” Mabel tells them coyly, and Pacifica outright laughs at her.

“We’ll see,” the blonde tells her.

“I’m on team Mabel!” Grenda outright exclaims with her arms raised.

“We’re not even there yet,” Candy tells her with an amused smile.

 

With eight of them in total, they split into two teams.

On one side, there is: Mabel, Dipper, Candy and Grenda.

On the other, there is: Pacifica, Sara, Wirt and Greg.

Wirt could almost see the flash of disappointment in Mabel’s eyes when he ended up going with Pacifica instead of her. But how could she blame him when she didn’t even see the stinkeye Dipper was shooting him earlier, as though challenging him to even try.

At the same time, Wirt thinks it’s worth noting that Dipper does favor his sister more than he is partial towards Sara, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Wirt isn’t stupid. Again, he’d like to raise that he isn’t at all a possessive person, but as much as Dipper might enjoy Sara’s company, Wirt doubts it can ever be fully reciprocated.

Even though bowling is one of the few fun things you can get up to in this lonely, little town—which means inevitably you’ll have to learn how to bowl and also bowl enough to get good—Wirt isn’t particularly an expert at it. He doesn’t consider himself good with his…limbs, aside from playing the clarinet—and maybe the bassoon.

Besides, this whole competition bit is mostly for Mabel and Pacifica anyway, so there really isn’t any point in trying so hard. He’ll just play as usual and the two girls can settle it between themselves.

And then Dipper does this funny little trick where he looks to be analyzing the bowling alley, holding his fingers out to measure something foreign to Wirt, and for a moment Wirt thinks he’s only doing this to show off, and that all of it was for show and it won’t actually help Dipper score a—

“Strike!” he cheers, pumping his fists after he’s tossed his ball. Then he flashes a grin at Wirt. “You mentioned you grew up playing this…?”

“Well-Well not always, I-I’m not, like, a champion or-or-or…,” Wirt waves his hands about, because he does recall telling Dipper, offhandedly, that he’s been bowling almost all his life—unwillingly—and he hadn’t meant for it to be a smug comment, not entirely anyway, and he certainly didn’t mean it in a way as to challenge Dipper.

“So you just gonna take that?” Pacifica raises a brow, arms folded, before glaring at Dipper.

“Oh, Wirt’s pretty good at bowling alright,” Greg chips in, nodding his head. “He started before I was even born!”

Wirt pinks, because it isn’t true and he’d argue that Greg is only exaggerating if it weren’t for the fact that he knows Greg would only argue harder. Then, he turns to Sara, who shrugs at him with a small smile, like she’s telling him ‘Hey, what can you do? Just play as you normally would.’

So he does. He takes his preferred ball and traces his thumb over its cool surface before slotting his fingers in, and muscle memory seeps in as he positions himself as how he normally would. Frankly, he’s more surprised that he hasn’t gotten noticeably rusty. A part of him feels glad about that, despite everything.

He bowls the ball as how he normally would, effortlessly almost, and without exactly meaning to, he gets nine pins. The last one is right in the corner, detestably so, but Wirt doesn’t really find it all that frustrating—it happens. Without much thought, there goes his second ball, and there falls the final pin.

It’s a bit strange that he’s still got the hang of it, but it’s not an unwelcomed feeling.

And then a flash of light appears from behind him, and he already knows what to expect.

“That was soooo cool!” Mabel slips the film away, giggling feverishly as she pats at Grenda’s arm just as giddy.

“Can we see it again?” Grenda bounces.

Embarrassed, Wirt finds it hard to speak. He supposes, to anyone that doesn’t regularly visit a bowling alley, the “trick” he did will come off as impressive. Every person he knows that lives here can manage a nine out of ten pins, even Sara.

“It wasn’t that cool,” Dipper bluntly says, muddying the mood. “I mean, it took him two tries to get all ten.”

“Ugh, it’s more than just result, you know,” Mabel wags her finger at him, just barely grazing her finger against his nose. “It’s also about method too.”

“What’s wrong with my method?” Dipper puffs.

“Ahem, obnoxious,” Wirt covers his mouth, directing his eyes away.

“What was that?” Dipper leans in, glowering at him.

“Nothing,” Wirt smiles innocently back at him, eyes averting the man’s gaze.

“You know what?” Dipper grabs the ball, despite it not being his turn. Distantly, Candy almost speaks up about it, but remains silent out of curiosity. “If method is what you guys are after, then I’ve got something up my sleeve.”

“Woo, go Dipper,” Sara cheers with a lazy fist, and Wirt snaps his head towards her, almost offended. “What? Think he’ll actually beat you?”

“Hey, whatever happened to teams?” Pacifica says, hands on her hips as Dipper manages to knock down all the middle pins, then proceeds to pull a maneuver where knocking one pin down at a certain angle causes it to knock the other pin down.

Mabel reaches over towards Pacifica to shush her, watching all sparkle-eyed as Wirt awkwardly lands a strike. He already said he isn’t a genius at bowling, just what are they expecting out of him?

In the end, Dipper got so hooked on the art of bowling that he ends up throwing the game without realizing it, and yet still acts surprised when the TV shows Wirt as the winner, who had no clue what to do to counter Dipper and so fired strike after strike. He even let Greg bowl in the last round, who missed all the pins then knocked down four.

“Loser pays for the winner’s lunch?” Wirt grins at Dipper, wiping the sweat off his brow. He didn’t expect to really break a sweat playing, but he guesses anything’s possible now.

“We did not agree to that at the start,” Dipper grumbles, before turning towards his sister. “Whatever happened to method?”

“It’s still a game with an actual point system, Dipper, what were you expecting?” Mabel smiles back at him sweetly, as if she hadn’t just accidentally tricked him into losing the game.

“If it makes you feel better,” Sara pipes up from the seat—she was barely off it the entire time and only got to touch a bowling ball once. “I liked half your moves.”

“Thanks,” Dipper says defeatedly, no less still appreciative of her reassurance.

“Me too,” Candy adds, adjusting her glasses. “Nice usage of trajectories.”

Slowly, Dipper felt himself feeling better about losing, which Wirt doesn’t particularly care about. A distant memory itches in the back of his mind, lining itself up as a parallel to the current moment. Second place, again. How silly that it’s happening again. But if Dipper isn’t throwing a tantrum this time, then whatever.

“You are actually such a nerd,” Pacifica tells him straightly, at the same time fixing her make up in her hand mirror. “Don’t be a sore loser. Pay up.”

At that, Dipper’s mood sours, and Wirt holds in a laugh.

 

“Ugh, donuts for lunch? What am I? A pig?” Pacifica wrinkles her nose at her chocolate sprinkled donut, causing Mabel’s ears to perk at her.

“What’s that about pigs?” Mabel asks, interested as she leans in. Her donut, the size of her hand and dripping in copious amount of sprinkles and pink glaze, threaten to almost invade Pacifica’s perfectly white skirt.

“Nothing!” Pacifica hisses, flustered by the distance between them. “Go back to eating your donut.”

“Roger,” Mabel hums, doing just that, quite messily too.

Wirt doesn’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with having just donuts for lunch, especially when the serving is always so huge. He remembers always coming down to Sam’s Donuts with Sara and the occasional friend or two during lunch breaks to eat, before rushing back to class. 

Dipper doesn’t seem to complain either. In contrast to his sister’s donut, his is relatively clean safe for the clear glaze and powdered sugar. As reluctantly promised, he paid for Wirt’s donut, who didn’t stray away from his usual order of a singular jelly donut.

Greg, in Wirt’s footsteps, gets the same kind of donut as well. Sara, as always, gets a regular sugared donut and recommended matcha glazed to Candy and strawberry to Grenda. Every so often Grenda will lend a bite to Mabel, who in exchange will let Grenda take a bite out of hers too. At some point, Mabel does try to suggest the same trade offer to Pacifica, but the lady was heavily unwilling to comply.

Dipper, on the other hand, lets Mabel take a bite out of his donut free of charge, and when Mabel tries to pull the same stunt with Wirt, he had uncomfortably leaned away and declined. Greg ends up offering in his steed, since they got the same donut.

Wirt could tell Mabel was desiring more than just a taste of his donut, but quickly hid the look away behind a joyous smile after trying the jelly-filled donut. Greg, innocently enough, doesn’t even realize it. Bless his heart.

They’re between finishing their donuts and contemplating getting more when someone new enters the shop. Sam’s Donuts isn’t a particularly huge place, and so it’s easy to catch the newcomers just by leaning over on your stool at the window seats.

Wirt’s breath catches in his throat as he instantly turns away from the door, hunching over at this chair, and without reading the room as always, Greg brightly waves a stained hand and goes, “Oh! Hey Jason Funderberker!”

Instead of greeting Greg back, Jason’s eyes immediately fall on Wirt and Sara, and he lights up in surprise and excitement. The last time they saw each other was graduation, and then there was the class reunion dinner that both Wirt and Sara ghosted because Wirt didn’t feel like travelling all the way to someplace he doesn’t know too well. And also he isn’t fond of Jason Funderberker.

But Sara doesn’t have Jason’s number blocked, so he called, and then she had to come up with a lousy and unbelievable excuse as to why they couldn’t make it. Jason managed to eat it up anyway.

“Hey, Saara. Hey, Wiirt, ” Jason waves, walking towards them, before noticing the others, and Greg. “Hi, Greeg.”

In the background, Wirt can hear Dipper kicking Pacifica’s leg, which causes her to yelp. He assumes it’s because she almost said something impolite. Wirt manages to pull himself away from the table to look at Jason, who has only gotten more stunning since the last time he’s seen the guy, “Hey. Jason.”

“You shoould’ve called if the two of you were baack in town,” he tells Wirt, easily slotting himself between Sara and Wirt’s seat, cooly resting his elbows backwards on the table behind him. “How’s it beeen?”

“Pretty good,” Wirt sighs out. “Fine.”

“Whaat about yoou, Saara?” Jason smiles at her.

“I’ve been alright, Jason.” Sara returns his smile, before gesturing towards the rest in the room. “By the way, these are our friends from college.”

Jason cranes his neck as Sara introduces them one by one, nodding his head in greeting. There’s a certain charm that Jason oozes just from the way he smiles at people, which is why Wirt doesn’t find it a surprise when Mabel is smiling extra wide as she uses both her hands to shake Jason’s one hand.

Honestly, the only person that isn’t impressed by Jason’s natural charisma is Pacifica, who doesn’t even entertain Jason with a smile. But that was also unsurprising. 

Even Dipper seems charmed by Jason, offering him back a smile when they shook hands. For some reason, that only irritates Wirt.

“You know, I was told by a certain someone that Wirt only had female friends,” Dipper winks at Greg, who only stares back with a smile. He doesn’t really get the notion all too well. “Unless Wirt hasn’t been checking in enough, in which case congratulations on your transition.”

Jason bleats out a laugh, caught off guard, and even Sara manages to let a giggle slip past her lips.

“Naah, we’re not thaat close. To be honest, I’m more frieends with Sara,” Jason waves a hand dismissively. “But you’re right about oone thing. Wirt hasn’t been checking in enough.”

“Ooo,” Mabel drags, childishly wagging her finger at him.

“That isn’t very nice, Wirt,” Greg places his hands on his hips. “It’s not like the birds ate your mail.”

Wirt grimaces, looking away, though remains shameless about it. Jason doesn’t take it personally.

“It’s okay, I doon’t blame him,” Jason shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve been pretty busy myself”—

“Still arranged that reunion,” Wirt murmurs under his breath. Sara puts a gentle hand on his arm.

—”so I haaven’t been keeping in touch eeither,” Jason says, then smiles at Sara and Wirt specifically. “I gueess it’s better thaat way. Woouldn’t want to come in the way betweeen you twoo.”

And then the room goes dangerously quiet.

“Hey you know what?” Pacifica says out loud, getting off from her chair. “I totally need a bathroom break right now. Can Mabel, Candy and Grenda come join me? Greg and Dipper, I need you two to go guard the door or whatever.”

“I actually do need to pee!” Greg raises his hand, before trotting off by himself. No part of Wirt thinks the boy is lying at all.

“What? Why do you need me to guard the do- Eurgh!” Dipper is cut off by Pacifica yanking the back of his shirt collar, and then he finds himself being dragged away by the collar of his shirt like a misbehaving dog.

Perplexed, Jason only watches the group disappear off into the back where the toilets are, and when he turns his head back to the two remaining people, he quirks an eyebrow up, “Waas it soomething I saaid?”

Wirt looks at Sara for a moment, who only tugs her face in a small frown, before taking a breath and going, “Jason. Sara and I—”

 

The air is noticeably thicker with tension when Sara eventually collects the rest from the bathroom, thanking them for giving them some privacy. Jason is gone when they all trail out through the door. She doesn’t elaborate on what happened, and neither do they ask, so they go on home for dinner without talking about it. 

Wirt could argue that he almost forgets about the whole situation by the time they turn in for the night.

He’s the first to have the shower, with Dipper going in after him, and when Dipper finally finishes, towel resting on his head, he finds Wirt already at his bed, ears plugged in with earbuds. His back is facing Dipper, somewhat curled, and he doesn’t notice Dipper is back until he hears the door click shut behind him.

Wirt pulls his earbuds out, pausing his cassette tape player, and pops tape out so he can keep it away safely in one of his nightstand drawers. He puts the player right on his nightstand, and then he notices that Dipper has been staring.

“Are-Are you just going to…keep standing there?” Wirt asks, uneasy.

“Aren’t you going to let go?” Dipper blurts, pulling the towel off his head to rest around his neck. His tone is sharp, accusatory, like he’s saying it’s Wirt’s fault.

“You were eavesdropping?” Wirt redirects with a hiss. He can be sharp too, if he wanted.

“Couldn’t help it, I was standing outside the bathrooms,” Dipper tells him defensively, as if that would justify anything.

“Then you should’ve gone in.”

“You’re avoiding my question,” Dipper flatly tells him. “Aren’t you going to let go?”

“What is there to let go?” Wirt grimaces, sitting up on his bed. “I was never holding on to begin with.”

“Don’t give me that,” Dipper scrunches up his nose. “Dude, I’ve literally been there. At this rate, you’re going to make things worse.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Wirt yells in a hushed tone, getting up. 

Dipper doesn’t back away, “I mean, don’t you find it a little pitiful? All those years of chasing and you never had a chance to begin with. She was never interested in you, but she couldn’t tell and she wasn’t sure, so she just…”

“Don’t—”

“...strung you along the whole time until…until,” Dipper waves a hand about. “Until you wrote that poem. And got it pinned to a board. For the whole world to see. No wonder she didn’t want to sit with you that week.”

“Stop making assumptions about my life, don’t you find that weird of you?!” Wirt finds himself yelling, pointing a finger at Dipper, who only steps in closer.

“Oh, so you’re not okay with me making assumptions about what transpired between the two of you that I inferred from, okay, fine, eavesdropping,” Dipper rolls his eyes. “But you were okay with the entire student body assuming the two of you were dating the whole time?”

“That wasn’t even my fault!” Wirt slightly shrinks.

“I bet she felt so pressured she couldn’t refute it.” Dipper narrows his eyes at Wirt, whose finger begins to waver. “And you were too in cloud fucking nine to deny it either.”

Wirt has gone dangerously quiet.

“Did you even want to study medicine?” 

Then, Wirt murmurs something under his breath.

“What was that?” Dipper squints.

“I just didn’t want her to leave me, okay?!” Wirt yells, and almost feels a vein pop. “And I didn’t want people making her out to be some…some…snobby…high standards… We didn’t tell anyone because of people like you!” 

Dipper steps back, genuinely taken aback.

“We were fine. I was fine,” Wirt pats his chest before gesturing wildly. “I’ll play the hopeless romantic, I’ll chase that unreachable goal. Sure, I loved her! Maybe I still freaking do. Who cares? Not me! I was okay with it because at least, at least, we were still together. As friends . But, the last thing I wanted was for people to make Sara out to be some heartbreaker, a playgirl.

“She didn’t want to tell people because she didn’t want people thinking ‘Poor Wirt! He’s been in love with you since forever! And he’s sweet and kind and nobody hates Wirt, so why won’t you give him a chance? Don’t you feel bad?’ Well? Don’t you?!” Wirt exclaims. “And I couldn’t tell people because always. Always, always, always. It’ll always be more about me. Than her.”

Dipper opens his mouth, stumbling back a small step.

“Fine! Congratulations,” Wirt sarcastically smiles at Dipper, practically looming over him now. “You give a shit about her. Fantastic! So glad that we at least have that one thing in common, I suppose! I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic to hear it.” 

And then Dipper falls under the weight of Wirt’s wrath. Panicked, he reaches for Wirt’s nightstand to steady himself, but misses by a smidge, grabs the cassette tape player, and it comes crashing down with him.

It cracks painfully like the clicking of Wirt’s jaw when it snaps shut. For a moment, they don’t say anything. The only thing that can be heard is Wirt’s breath, labored and exhausted, but no longer angry.

“I’m…sorry,” Dipper says, for starting the argument and for breaking the cassette tape player. “I can fi—”

“Excuse me,” Wirt dismisses himself, leaving his room without shutting the door. 

In the background, Greg calls out to him, “Wirt! Where’re you going?”

“Sara’s.”

“Okay. Feel better soon, Wirt.” Greg tells him gently.

“Thanks, Greg,” Wirt rubs at his eyes. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Wirt!”

Chapter 7: Wirt IV

Wirt can imagine that if it was anyone else in the world in his shoes, they would’ve told Sara from the get go, from the moment he rang the doorbell and she answered. Anyone in his situation would’ve told her what Dipper had done.

But when the door had swung open, her smile was soft, like she was happy to see him—because she was—and there was a knowing look in her eyes that told him she didn’t have to be a genius detective to know something had gone wrong back at home. And yet she smiled anyway, because the last thing Wirt needed was for her to be upset—and she knew this too.

She always encouraged him to open up regardless of her feelings, but how could he? She’s been trying her best all this while and Wirt feels like he never tells her that she’s doing a good job. The best he can do is present the idea that she doesn’t have to try all the time anymore.

There’s nothing he’s upset about that she has to know, much less fix.

Besides, he hates for her to see him cry, so he ducked his head under her covers that night and held his breath while he listened to her fall asleep beside him.

In the morning, when he finds himself wrapped in Sara’s arms, he feels safe.

And then he doesn’t because Mabel is barreling into Sara’s room, jumping around, announcing that Sara’s mom had made pancakes and Mabel’s allowed to use all their syrup so long Sara doesn’t want any. She only stops when she sees Wirt groggily rising from the bed with evident irritation, groaning about the noise.

“Wirt!” Mabel gasps, hands to her mouth. “What are you doing here? Did you bodyswap with Sara?”

Fortunately, to debunk this sudden theory, Sara rises from beside him, looking just as disgruntled as well, but less irritated than him. This does not help close Mabel’s hanging jaw.

“You’re both in the same bed?” she exclaims, just loud enough for the whole house to hear at this point. Thankfully, whatever happens here can’t travel to the dining table.

“Where else? You all took the guest room,” Wirt rubs at his face, ridding his exhaustion. “This isn’t the first time anyway.”

“You can’t be doing things like these in a teen and up-rated space,” Mabel says, and he isn’t sure if her tone of voice is dramatized or genuine surprise.

“We’re all grown adults here…?” Sara narrows her eyes at Mabel, too tired to make any sense out of her. “Not that we were up to anything in the first place.”

“Regardless,” Mabel swings her hands behind her back. “This behavior is absolutely no-no!”

Sara smiles, more amused than she is frustrated—unlike Wirt, who was never a morning person. Sara tilts her head, gently challenging Mabel’s rhetoric, “Yeah? By whose standards?”

Mabel blinks, pondering it, “Wow. You’re right.” then another beat passes, “So does this mean you were up to anything or no…?”

“None of your business, Mabel,” Wirt deadpans, perhaps a bit too blunt for his own liking. 

Mabel sucks her cheeks in, as though swallowing away her next response. She shifts around for a minute, trying to come up with something to lighten the mood, but eventually comes up with nothing good enough. In the end, she settles for, “I’m gonna eat your pancakes if you guys don’t hurry down!”

And then she’s gone, and Sara’s shooting Wirt a weird almost disappointed look.

“I know,” he answers before she can even say it, burying his face into his hands.

“Wasn’t gonna nag,” she raises her hands in the air defensively. “I was just gonna say you’re crankier than normal. Something happened?”

“No,” Wirt sighs, one knee lifted so he can rest his elbow on it.

“You know I can tell you’re lying, and you know I can just deduce what went wrong,” Sara smiles. “It’s pretty obvious. Won’t take Christie to solve it.”

“It’s just,” Wirt says, hands gesturing firmly with frustration, “what do you even see in this guy?”

“There we go.”

“He’s nothing but an asshole! Like, what’s his deal? The guy likes to pick fights and it’s always me! What did I ever do?” Wirt babbles on in irritation. “Just because I wrote something subjectively better than him one time and then defended myself about he when he mocked it? It’s like he thinks he’s owed something and I’m the one that has to pay up each time.”

“Oh, Wirt. I’m sure if you two talked it out it might work out,” Sara pats his back gently. “Not that I’m defending him. But, trust me, he can be a nice guy when the situation is right. Once he understands where you’re coming from and he apologizes, willingly, it’ll probably all stop.”

“This guy isn’t capable of conversation,” Wirt scoffs.

“That isn’t true,” Sara scrunches her face up in amusement. “Come on, Wirt. It’ll be like ripping a bandaid off.”

“I’m never talking to this guy again.”

“How about you think that over again after you’ve had breakfast?”

 

He does think over it at breakfast, mulls it over while staring at Mabel’s face for an uncomfortably long time. Nobody questions why he’s at the table or when he got here, not even Sara’s mom, who already witnessed this several enough times before to take it as a normalcy and nothing to bat her eye at.

(Sara’s mom has always been more quiet and dainty and not at all like her daughter, which was probably why she had tried to change that in the past. Things are a lot different now, fortunately, but Sara has never held it against her for wanting what she thought was best.)

Realistically, he can’t just avoid Dipper forever. The most Wirt can manage is to avoid communication, and that’s assuming Dipper is a decent enough guy to respect that boundary. At the same time, Wirt feels this is pettiness talking. Going ghost on Dipper feels a little immature on his part.

If he can’t reach a consensus with Dipper, then that’s something worth cutting his losses for. But then that means he’ll have to talk to Dipper about it, open up about feelings he doesn’t want to get into. Like yes he did knowingly put a poem about his personal life up onto a campus-public competition on a whim and didn’t expect it to win, and yes he’s still hanging onto Sara for reasons he hasn’t figured out yet. He can’t tell Dipper that.

He doesn’t want to be forever psychoanalyzed by a guy who only has one palette of clothing—like red and black worked once and he became too afraid to branch out.

“Hey, if you keep staring I’m gonna start thinking you’re falling for me,” Mabel purrs, already done with her second plate of pancakes by some miracle. Pacifica clears her throat from the side, expressing her annoyance.

Wirt blinks, realizing he’s been chewing on air for the past three minutes, and he pushes his chair back away from the table to excuse himself quietly.

“Hey, if you’re going back, lemme follow,” Mabel stands as well, collecting her bag as she trails behind Wirt like a little puppy.

“Um, sure,” Wirt awkwardly goes, gazing at her briefly. 

The moment they’re out the door in the biting cold—it’s that time of fall soon, when the trees have begun to orange and yellow—Wirt can just feel the curiosity leak out of Mabel like a half-turned faucet. The thing is, she holds it in better than her brother, but she’s no better at hiding it.

“One question,” Wirt sighs, rolling his wrist to grant her permission, and she almost squeals in joy.

“What did you and my brother fight about~?” Mabel chimes, hands swinging to her back. She must be assuming it’s something trivial, which feels a little insulting because that would imply she thinks Wirt is sensitive enough for it to lead to him running away.

“He broke my cassette tape player,” Wirt says, deciding that would be suffice as an answer.

“Oof,” Mabel makes a sympathetic face. “On purpose?”

“On…accident,” Wirt answers. Technically, it was on accident. Even though everything that led to it was on purpose.

“Yeah, he definitely feels sorry right about now then,” Mabel nods her head, before wiggling her fingers. “He’s really into all that gadget nerd stuff, so breaking stuff like that upsets him too.”

“Really.” Wirt says, a little disinterested in what Dipper has to think about it.

“But, like, that can’t be it,” Mabel hums again. “If you know it was an accident, then you wouldn’t be upset enough to run over to Sara’s.”

Wirt bites the inside of his cheek, not expecting Mabel to be that perceptive, before beginning to grasp at straws, “The, um, well- You know. Yesterday’s thing. With Jason. Funderberker. Didn’t think he’d be upset that we wanted to keep it between us. Us being Sara and me, by the way. Guess he must have some, like, crush or-or something. On her. Sara. Probably sees me as a rival. Or something. I don’t know. He was just mad about it for no reason. The keeping secret bit. Feels like we’re entitled to it, no?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally understand the weird thing you have with Sara. None of my business, like you said”—

Wirt winces, remembering back to the thing he said when he woke up. He didn’t think it would stick on her, but she’s treating it so nonchalantly, so it must not be that bad.

—”He’s definitely the weird one for being nosey about it.” Mabel nods her head in agreement. “I personally have no comments on it beyond, you know, what happened this morning. Water under the bridge, though!”

What a simple and delightful girl, Wirt thinks to himself as he manages out a smile, “Sorry about that, still.”

“We’ve all been there. Exhaustion crankiness,” Mabel bats a hand dismissively. “And I don’t know about the crush part on Sara? I’m not sensing a vibe… Not really, at least. I think he’s just got a thing for cool girls, and Sara is a really cool girl.”

Wirt sighs, “Yeah.”

“Like how I have a thing for cute boys,” Mabel grins at him, which causes him to flush slightly at the ears. “Anyway, if he’s gonna be all nosey about your life, then it’s only fair you break even.”

He blinks at her, not quite catching what she means.

“He used to have this crush on this really cool girl named Wendy,” Mabel begins to babble and Wirt just…listens, because he can’t exactly turn his ears off and also he’s curious. “She was pretty, had freckles, red hair, rocked a flannel and had the strength of a lumberjack mostly because she technically is a lumberjack. Always down to earth and stuff, but would break a few rules if it meant she got to have fun.”

“Yeah?” Wirt smiles, amused. “And then what happened?”

“Well, he never had a chance. We were, like, twelve and she was fifteen.” Mabel shrugs her shoulders. “Pretty sure she’s in the lumberjack business right now, or job hopping. I haven’t checked in a while, she changes jobs like she does boyfriends.”

“Oh. Wow.” Wirt blinks. Just imagining her paints a really pleasant image in his head, and he can imagine that if he knew her too, he might’ve developed a crush too.

“He got over her before we left Gravity Falls the first time, though. He confessed and everything and she turned him down,” Mabel continues. “But they’re still friends! Before college we visited every summer.”

“And he never tried again?” Wirt asks.

“Why would he?” Mabel snorts. “Never had a chance.”

“Even as he got older?”

Mabel looks at Wirt, “I think…she never got past the fact that she knew us before we even hit puberty. It was already a little weird for her that a kid had a crush on her, it’d be weirder for her to make her feelings mutual all because she watched him grow up.”

Wirt ponders it for a moment, then wrinkles his face, “Yeah, I can see your point.”

“Uh huh, because I know a kid that has a crush on me and thought things would change just because he grew up,” Mabel shudders, as though a bad memory had passed through her like a ghost. “He’s like sixteen now. Six whole years of pining, man.”

“Funny how fast kids can grow. Like the difference between a senior and a freshman is so huge and evident, but the difference between two adults in, like, an office or something is barely noticeable.” Wirt laughs lightly.

“I’m pretty sure we just have vampires living among us,” Mabel quips.

“Maybe,” Wirt rolls his shoulders, entertaining her with the thought of it.

They finally reach his doorstep and he surprisingly feels a bit better. He didn’t really go in depth about his own feelings, but talking to Mabel actually eased his mind. He has his head less wrapped around what to do with Dipper now, and he supposes her suggesting he and Dipper break even with secrets might’ve also actually worked.

When he opens the door, Greg is the quickest to answer, as though he had a psychic link to the peephole of the door. He doesn’t jump into Wirt’s arms this time, instead greets his brother with his hands stretched towards the sky, waving wildly.

“Welcome back, Wirt!” he bounces, then leans over to see Mabel standing there too. “Hi, Mabel!”

“Hey,” she wriggles her fingers at him in greeting.

“Do you want to see what I made for breakfast?” Greg sways with a grin.

“Uh, maybe later. I gotta talk to Dipper,” Wirt cranes his neck, trying to see if the guy is hanging around anywhere nearby.

“Oh, he’s in your room,” Greg points towards the stairs. “He hasn’t come down for breakfast yet. I think he’s still asleep.”

Judging from the furrowing of Mabel’s brows, it seems like she had the exact same thought as Wirt upon hearing that. Dipper sleeping in? That’s typically unheard of. 

She then takes Greg by the shoulders with a smile, humming as she goes, “I’ll look at what you made for breakfast. Wirt can go see if Dipper’s awake.”

“Okie dokie!” Greg shoots her a thumbs up. “It’ll totally blow your mind.”

“I hope so!” Mabel replies, leaving Wirt at the door.

He watches them disappear into the kitchen before heading upstairs to his room, pressing his ear to the door just in case he might be interrupting anything. When he’s met with silence, he turns the knob slow before stepping inside, poking his head in.

Wirt finds Dipper at his desk, sleeping on his arm. His lamp that is normally on his nightstand is now at the table, and when Wirt approaches it to fiddle with the switch, he finds that the battery is dead. Dipper must’ve left the thing on all night. He’ll remember to charge it again later.

That’s when his eyes fell on the other things on Wirt’s desk. Albeit it’s no cleaner than how Wirt usually leaves it, he doesn’t miss the mini tool box he normal uses to fix up his train set, opened up with most of its tools out.

In Dipper’s hand, still clenched, is a screwdriver. The closer Wirt looks, the more he can spot dried glue on Dipper’s fingertips.

In all honesty, in all his fury, Wirt hadn’t actually checked what the damage was on his cassette tape player. He was worried the worst might’ve happened, and wanted to stay oblivious. But when his eyes trail over to find the tape player, it doesn’t look broken at all.

Surprised, Wirt takes a closer inspection, lifting it to check for damage, but other than wear and scratches from being alive for a very long time, he doesn’t spot anything. He even rushes to test it out, to see if it still works, and scrambles for the first tape he can find in his drawer to play.

Sitting in front of the drawer, he waits after hitting the play button.

The sound of his dad’s voice fills the room quietly and a breath of air escapes Wirt’s lips, relieved.

“...Wirt?” and the man in question turns his head immediately, stopping the tape.

“Dipper,” Wirt answers, sort of winded, still reeling from the surprise. Dipper’s hand is fixed haphazardly on his head, and Wirt gets the urge to go over there and fix it for him. He doesn’t, and neither does Dipper.

A moment passes, and it’s then when Wirt notices just how tired Dipper looks, and it finally clicks properly in his head what happened. Awkwardly, Dipper makes an attempt at a smile the minute he notices Wirt’s realization, before finally, “I’m sorry again.”

“It’s—”

“No, I was being an ass. Sorry.” Dipper holds a hand up, the other rubbing at his eyes. “Luckily, the damage wasn’t severe. The lid popped open and I fell on it weird, snapped the hinges. Putting it back in was the tricky part though.”

“I didn’t know you were…good at stuff like this,” Wirt pops the tape out of the player and puts it back into the drawer. He rests the player on his lap.

Dipper props his elbow on the desk and puts his cheek in his palm, “I’ve fixed worse. I’m more surprised you even had a toolbox in here.”

“It’s not really a toolbox,” Wirt feels his ears hit up from embarrassment. 

“Right,” Dipper smiles tiredly. “And I’m not really a repairman.”

A finger traces down the edge of the tape player in thought, “I didn’t think you’d stay up to fix it, though. I’m sorry.”

“Wirt—”

“In hindsight I might’ve been overdramatic,” Wirt babbles on nervously, holding onto the player tighter. “I shouldn’t have yelled and stormed out like that.”

“Dude,” Dipper slips out of his seat and crawls on his knees towards Wirt. “Hey. What’s with you? I was in the total wrong, like, the whole time. Fixing the tape player because I can is the least I could do to make it up to you.”

“I think I’m just in shock that you were capable of self awareness and had to balance things again,” Wirt blurts.

Dipper scrunches his eyebrows together for a minute, offended, before bursting out in laughter. It must be the exhaustion, because Wirt thinks there’s no other way Dipper can suddenly be so strangely endearing.

“I’m willing to talk about it, if you want,” Wirt mumbles, eyes aimed downwards. “Yesterday’s thing.”

“Nah. If I want? This is your business, man. I’ll leave it alone,” Dipper raises his hands in defeat. “You were right. I was being too nosey. I mean, even though I genuinely said all that because I care about Sara… I crossed a line there.”

Wirt goes a little quiet, letting all that sink in. It feels a little jarring, for Dipper to suddenly be so understanding and nice for a change. Without knowing what to answer with, he diverts the conversation, “Greg helped with breakfast.”

“Yeah? Maybe later. I’m still tired,” Dipper finally fixes his hat, yawning. 

“Take my bed,” Wirt gets up. “My thank you.”

Fortunately, Dipper is not humble enough to even pretend to turn him down, “Aw sweet! Thanks.”

Immediately, the guy knocks out on Wirt’s bed without even pulling the blanket over him, and Wirt sighs. He puts the player back on his desk where it belongs, then leaves the room so Dipper can get his sleep.

 

Even though that’s one apology out of the way, there’s still the overarching problem.

“Wirt, what’s the point of having all those legs if you’re not even going to even try hanging that even higher?” Dipper deadpans from beside him, hooking his Halloween decoration on the porch pillar.

“I’m-I’m only a little taller than you are,” Wirt bites back, but gets on his tip-toes anyway so he can hook his decoration higher. The legs of the paper-plastic skeleton with a pumpkin for a head has seen better days and lesser grime and dirt, but has served their family well over four years already. By putting it a little higher, it hardly touches the ground.

The group has been in Wirt's town for almost a week and a half now since the incident and they've been settling down just fine. Safe for the fact that Dipper continues to bother Wirt to no end with little quips and the like. Wirt had already reiterated to Mabel countless of times that their town is nothing interesting, and they'd soon run out of things to do, but she insisted there were ways to make even the most mellow of towns a funhouse. For some reason, he couldn't quite doubt her.

She was right, in the end. They did a lot of things together with what little they had. From exploring every corner of their town to staying home and playing made-up games. And every time Wirt found himself actually enjoying Dipper's company to some extent, the illusion would quickly be shattered the moment the guy opened his mouth to say something teasingly snarky.

They’re helping Wirt’s family put him decorations for the upcoming holiday, since they had nothing else planned for the day. Again, there’s really not much to do in this town.

“Why are we putting these up if we aren’t remotely close to Halloween yet?” Pacifica asks, more perplexed than she is annoyed.

“Because Halloween is awesome!” Grenda practically yells in answer, filled to the brim with enthusiasm. 

“I agree!” Candy chimes in, sitting on Grenda’s shoulders so she can reach the edge of the roof to pin banners on it. “Remember? We have two a year, because it is so great.”

“Uh huh,” Pacifica nods her head slow. “That makes sense for us. Gravity Falls is…you know. But here? Really?”

“What’s wrong with ‘here’?” Sara makes a face at her. 

“I mean, there’s no real reason to start early.” Pacifica says. “It’s only mid-October. I’d expect, like, the last week of October at least.”

“Really.” Sara replies, bemused.

“I mean, you don’t exactly see people celebrating Februray as the month of Valentine’s,” Pacifica reasons.

“True,” Sara nods.

“That’s because Valentine’s isn’t as awesome,” Dipper holds a finger up at her. “Lamest one.”

“What?” Wirt splutters, baffled that he’d say something like that with a sister like Mabel, who practically oozes with love for the holiday specifically to celebrate love. Yet, Mabel hardly bats a eye. Most likely too distracted with cutting out her handmade decorations with Greg.

“Oh, of course you like Valentine’s,” Dipper turns to look at him, unimpressed.

“It’s not- y’know. It’s not exclusively for romance, if that’s what you’re upset about,” Wirt answers defensively. “Sure I appreciate the grand romantic gestures associated with commercial Valentine’s, but I was always reminded of what it’s really about when I receive letters and chocolates for the day.”

“What.” Dipper blinks.

“Well, that’s unsurprising,” Pacifica flatly says and takes a break from decoration hanging to sit by Mabel on the porch stairs. She’s already expecting things to unfold between the two from there.

“What? You make it sound like you hardly get any,” Wirt says, to which Dipper sours.

“You can’t be that stupid.” Dipper stresses, in a way that makes it hard for Wirt to tell if he’s annoyed or exasperated.

“I already- I already said- I already said it’s not exclusively for romance,” Wirt staggers on his words, growing redder by the minute. “And! Well, traditionally girls do exchange cards and candy platonically with friends.”

“And all of Wirt’s friends are girls!” Greg adds with a hum.

“Yes, yes, he knows that,” Wirt mutters, embarrassed.

“You were popular with girls,” Dipper gestures with his hands vaguely. “It’s one thing to just so happen to be friends with mostly girls,” he puts his hands on himself, “and another to be popular with girls.”

“I don’t…know. I don’t really think—” Wirt starts slowly.

“I can attest that he was,” Sara suddenly pipes up. “He always had this, like, cute aura around him that made girls like him more. I think it only skyrocketed after…” 

She trails off without finishing her sentence and Wirt looks away, suddenly stiff instead of flustered. Dipper, as promised this morning, keeps his nose out of their business. Yet, funnily enough, he carries the same expression Mabel does when he’s burning with curiosity.

Difference here is that Wirt doesn’t fold as easily as he did with her.

“Anyway,” Pacifica brings their attention away from the glaringly obvious and awkward tension in the air. “It’s a shame we won’t have time to celebrate Halloween. We have to be back on campus before Halloween.”

“What?!” Mabel raises her head, suddenly snapped back into the world. “Really?!”

“Yes, really.” Pacifica answers her.

“Did you not check the schedule before we left?” Candy asks, pulling out her phone to find it for her. Even Grenda seemed aware of how long they were allowed to stay.

“Oh man… And I had a whole party planned too,” Mabel huffs, putting the scissors down to sulk. 

“Who said you still can’t hold it?” Grenda asks, walking towards her, causing Candy to jerk backwards for a minute before grasping onto Grenda’s head for balance. “The whole of October is Halloween, baby!”

“It can be your going away party too!” Greg adds, before unfolding the papercraft he made with her, stretching out the makeshift Halloween banner with pumpkins and skeletons on it. “And you can have cake!”

“Absolutely genius,” Mabel brightens up, just at the thought of it.

“And age-appropriate drinks,” Sara pipes up, just in case anyone had any funny ideas. Just barely does Wirt notice Pacifica’s mild disappointment.

Despite there already being hype for this supposed party, Wirt feels the need to bring up one crucial detail, “When you say party, you mean like an actual house party…? How are you gonna get people to come?”

“Easy, I already have an interest check list,” Mabel pulls out her phone and waves her list of messages from contacts only half he can recognize, all agreeing to the invitation she’s sent out to them. She turns to Sara, beaming wide. “Thanks again for the help!”

Sara blinks, confused, then perks up in realization, “You got all that from just Jason?” 

“Of course.” Wirt throws his hand in the air. “Of course you achieved that through Jason Funderberker.”

“Hey, give me some credit too,” Mabel places her wrists to her hips. “It wasn’t easy getting these many people to come! I had to craft the pamphlet on my phone!”

And then she shows him the e-poster she made. Orange in color, in the center is a cute drawing of her and the rest of them with Halloween graphics decorating the border. The address and date section has been left empty, which seems very unprofessional on her part.

“Don’t worry, Wirt. Mabel’s parties are usually tame. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Dipper pats Wirt on the back reassuringly, but every part of Wirt knew the guy was being patronizing as always, so he shrugs Dipper’s hand off him.

As awesome as it is that Dipper isn’t sticking his nose too far deep into Wirt’s business anymore, he’s still pretty annoyed that Dipper can’t seem to let go of picking on Wirt one way or another. Wirt wants to think it’s just part of who Dipper is, now that he’s seen how he is with Pacifica, but that behavior seems to be warranted and reciprocated.

Wirt isn’t at all into this, and he’d tell Dipper so if it wasn’t for all the aforementioned feelings that he dwelled on earlier this morning. 

But progress is still nevertheless progress, he supposes. Maybe Dipper will eventually let this weird habit of his go.

“Okay, but is there even going to be a party if the address and date are blank?” Pacifica points out, leaning against Mabel shoulder as she peers over at the girl’s phone.

“Let’s party in the woods!” Grenda sends her hands into the air, forgetting about Candy on her shoulders. This leads to her falling off.

Fortunately, Candy lands fine on the grass and shoots everyone double thumbs up, “I second the outdoor party idea, but preferably not the woods.”

“Parking lot!” Grenda cheers, which causes the gears in Mabel's head to actually turn.

Wirt rubs at his face, feeling drained. They’re actually going to plan for this, and there's a likelihood he and Sara will have to be the rational one. He can already sense Greg ready to pitch his own venue, and a part of Wirt thinks it's going to start with 'g' and rhyme with 'guard'.

Notes:

next chapter im finally back on Dipper POV...

Chapter 8: Dipper IV

Notes:

not my most satisfied chapter but i think that's just the exhaustion talking

When it comes down to Halloween costumes, Dipper and Mabel always wins.

Their charm has always been duo acts, even after they’ve grown to live apart from each other. People who considered dressing up for Halloween something only kids would do always looked forward to what the Pines twins had in store for the year.

Last year, they had dressed up as a mermaid and a pirate. Dipper had been the mermaid. 

Mabel had plenty of fun wheeling her brother around  on a trolley with a hook hand, speaking in pirate lingo, while her brother—in a tattered shirt and a handwoven mermaid tail—occasionally used a water gun to squirt water at anyone that dared tried to make fun of him.

And although that aspect of the costume was fun—their look of surprise got him every time—it still didn’t change the fact that he was incredibly embarrassed being in a traditionally female costume.

“Next year,” he shook a fist at her when they got home to conclude their Halloween. “Next year you’ll be the mermaid.”

Somehow, Mabel took that somewhat literally, because this year she reveals her costume to be a victorian maid. To pair with her, she has Dipper dress as a butler. However, it’s not Mabel if she doesn’t put a small spin to the design.

Borrowing Sara’s guest room, which the rest of the girls use to sleep, it was the twins’ turn to get dressed for the Halloween party. They were the last to go, for no particular reason other than Dipper offering to get dressed with Mabel last.

“Oh, so we’re vampires too…?” Dipper fixed the fake fangs in as Mabel adjusted his vest. It would explain the sequins that splashed across the edges of his outfit, resembling blood splatters.

“ I’m a werewolf,” Mabel grins, wiggling her acrylic nails in the shape of claws. He should’ve guessed that from the wolf ears that replaced her usual hairband.

“Doesn’t that make us sworn enemies?” Dipper snorts, amused by her choices.

“Nuh uh. We defy that rule,” Mabel places her hands on her hips. “We special like that.”

“Sure,” Dipper laughs again.

After getting an estimate amount of people that would be showing up to the party through Mabel’s first interest check, she continued to plan for it and officially released the actual party poster around town. Jason had been nice enough to offer his backyard for the party—but specifically not his house.

Right off the bat Dipper could sense that Wirt didn’t like Jason, and though Dipper would agree that there’s a layer of awkwardness that just oozes from Jason, he literally has no idea why Wirt has an underlying grudge for the guy. According to Mabel, the guy had been a great help organizing this whole thing.

“Maybe it’s old beef,” Mabel dismissed when he mentioned this offhandedly during the halfway progress of getting this party organized, not wanting her brother to overthink it. “Besides, Wirt doesn’t like you, and on the surface you’re not that bad of a guy.”

“Was that a jab or a reassurance?” Dipper deadpanned. She only smiled in answer.

Whatever the case is, Dipper would say any enemy of Wirt’s is a friend of his, if it weren’t for the fact that a friend of Wirt’s is also Sara. Which means, logically, Wirt’s friends are better than his enemies. Maybe his sister is right to not make him overthink it.

“By the way,” Mabel tells Dipper as he’s helping her fix up her hair—the nails get in the way whenever she tries. “I’m gonna ask Wirt out to the party, so you can hang around Sara as much as you want.”

Dipper splutters, tugging on a strand of hair accidentally, which causes her to wince, “Sorry. And, what the hell do you mean by that?”

“Oh, okay. Fine. You can have Wirt during the other half of the party, if you so badly want,” Mabel sighs, relenting dramatically, and it only irritates her brother further. This time, he actually pulls on her hair on purpose. “Ow! Hey!”

“No, you can keep him all to yourself for all I care,” Dipper rolls his eyes. “It’ll be better that way.”

“Great! We both win,” Mabel chimes, before admiring her braided hair bun in the mirror. It’s pretty average work, compared to her own handicraft, but Dipper’s got the idea nailed down. That’s good enough for her.

When they finally come downstairs, the rest were just about ready to tell the twins to hurry it up. It seemed like Pacifica was midway through walking towards the stairs when the two finally came down.

“Awesome, what took you two so long?” Pacifica brushes her hair aside. Her outfit is reminiscent of the movie character Elle Wood’s bunny costume, with the exception that her version is purple. Dipper couldn’t really tell if she wanted to be on theme with Mabel’s whole wolf thing and doesn’t consider to ask.

“You forget. When it’s Mabel dressing Dipper, they can take forever,” Candy answers on their behalf, which seems ironic of her when her outfit, a walking magic eye poster, took ages to get the makeup done right.

“Maybe we should’ve all helped!” Grenda says, who’s dressed as Veronica Sawyer—but specifically the movie version and not the musical version, which she has corrected Mabel multiple times.

“Oh, I don’t think he would’ve liked that,” Sara muses with a giggle, which looks a little terrifying when she’s currently wearing jack-o-lattern makeup to pair with her clown outfit. She never really thinks to change her costume, but always makes sure to change her makeup. She’s alternated between skeletons to ghouls to zombie.

Dipper grimaces, remembering how they would practically strap him to a chair if they ever wanted to get makeup on him.

 

For some reason, Dipper figured Wirt the type of guy that didn’t appreciate the Halloween spirit. He seemed oddly reluctant celebrating the holiday, but when the group showed up at Wirt and Greg’s doorstep to collect them for the party, Dipper was taken aback by Wirt’s actual effort to dress up.

Donning a tricorn hat and a cloak, it seems like Wirt’s theme is something along the lines of some medieval hunter or assassin of some sort. When Mabel asks, Wirt only sheepishly shrugs and replies, “It’s just something I put together from my old stuff.”

Okay, so Wirt just happens to have a hunter costume lying around the house.

Greg, on the other hand, has crafted together his own handmade outfit. With strings of paper attached to his waist, he proudly declares that this year he is an octopus. Dipper thinks he must’ve gotten inspiration from Mabel when they were cutting paper banners together the other day.

“Heh, you guys are kinda trio-ing this,” Grenda points out, finger aimed between Mabel, Wirt and Dipper. “Like, he’s a vampire-werewolf hunter or something.”

“Right,” Pacifica says flatly, clearly bummed that Wirt matched Mabel a lot better than she does. 

“Oooh, that’s perfect,” Mabel clings onto Wirt’s arm immediately, who flushes at the sudden contact. “Let’s see if anyone else at the party notices.”

“Where’d you guys get your costumes anyway?” Wirt asks as they all begin to step out, heading towards Jason’s place. He’s quick to adjust to Mabel on his arm, to which Dipper notes as something he must be really used to from high school. Dipper finds it hard to feel jealous.

“Made it,” Mabel tells him proudly, pulling at her dress to give it a little flap.

“ Wow,” Wirt breathlessly answers, clearly impressed.

Sara hangs back as the two walked in front of them, bumping shoulders with Dipper when she gestures towards his hair with a small grin, “This is the neatest I’ve ever seen your hair. Especially without a hat.”

“Hah, yeah,” Dipper resists the urge to run his fingers through his hair. Mabel had asked if he wanted to cover up his birthmark for this, because she had planned to gel it back instead of just properly combing it and keeping it in place with hairspray. Obviously, he didn’t want his hair slicked back, so he chose the latter option.

They don’t continue their conversation any further. Strangely enough, Sara is quiet, and so is Wirt. Dipper could argue on their behalf it’s because they’ve been separated, and maybe Wirt is distracted by Mabel rambling with her friends to really start a conversation of his own. But this quietness is strangely different.

It’s stiff and... 

Dipper shakes his head. He promised to stop overthinking them. He’ll just have to be proven right or wrong at a later date, and listen if they want to tell him what’s going on.

As they continued to walk, Greg suddenly pipes up, like he was only just reminded to say this the moment he saw Jason’s house in the distance, “I’m gonna go see my friends! We’re gonna get snacks at the party first and then go hunt for flowers!”

“Greg, it’s autumn. There won’t be many in the wild,” Wirt tells him tiredly, yet smiles at him anyway.

“Now that isn’t a very bright outlook to life,” Greg replies, wagging a finger at Wirt. “I see them over there! I’ll see you later, Wirt and friends!”

“Okay, bye bye,” Mabel smiles, waving as he runs off into the distance to meet up with a group of kids his age at Jason’s door. 

“Be home safe,” Wirt calls out, before following up louder with. “And don’t go to the graveyard!”

“Okay!” Greg answers, just as loud, and then he’s gone with his friends. Wirt doesn’t take his eyes off him, not even after he’s out of sight. His gaze simply continues to linger on the door, where Greg and his friends had disappeared into.

Dipper holds his breath. He promised not to overthink them.

 

The party starts smoothly. They manage to set everything up in time for the first group of guests to arrive, since they had bought everything beforehand and left them at Jason’s so they can unpack quickly. It’s a good thing Pacifica is always willing to have a good time.

As promised, no alcohol. Well, even if Sara was okay with it, Jason said he’d rather not have a sea of drunk people in his backyard. It was the one thing his parents wouldn’t allow when it came to letting them have their backyard to host the party.

They managed to find someone to volunteer as DJ for the party, so with music and snacks, things were going pretty well. Dipper had worried they might overcrowd, but he forgets that this is a fairly small town, that even if every college student that had their high school here participated, it still wouldn’t be enough to fill the yard.

It reminds him a bit of Gravity Falls in that sense. Difference is, the majority of the people here seemed normal with no real defining traits.

As already established, Mabel has Wirt all to herself, and somehow the only person irritated by this is Pacifica, who has dismissed the fifth man in a row trying to strike friendly conversation with her. It’s come to the point where Sara and Dipper have made it a game to guess how long it takes for someone to get a clue when approaching Pacifica. Their record is two seconds.

The moment the guy realized Pacifica wasn’t even going to return his gaze, he was already one-eighty-ing away. Sara and Dipper laughed so hard their stomachs began to hurt.

Grenda and Candy had gone off to hang out around the snack bar, no doubt making shots at trying to pick up boys. Which leaves only the three of them together to hang out at the party.

“You know, this always happens,” Pacifica huffs, tucking her hair back and adjusting her outfit. “Every time we have a party, I get stuck with Dipper, because those three idiots will goof off on their own with boys.” 

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Dipper frowns with faux disappointment, holding his cup a little tighter to sell the look. “Like you hate me or something.”

“You’re not exactly the most entertaining person to spend time with at a party,” Pacifica huffs, the trick bouncing right off her.

Sara holds back a snort, before waving her hands dismissively, “I wasn’t laughing at you, Dipper. It’s just. The two of you are funny together.”

“Hear that, Dipper? At least one of us is having fun,” Pacifica sighs, offering Sara a small smile, before walking off. “I’m going to find Candy and Grenda. Just in case. I’ll be back.”

“You know,” Sara says, watching Pacifica go. She takes a slow sip from her own cup, before turning to Dipper. “I can never tell if she’s serious.”

“About?” Dipper asks, drinking from his cup.

“Whether she actually hates you,” Sara smiles. “You guys bicker and banter so much it’s hard to tell if you guys are actually friends sometimes.”

“Oh, no, we’re definitely friends,” Dipper laughs with a nod. “But we also, like, don’t like each other. Kinda. It’s a little complicated.”

Sara tilts her head, curious, “Oh…?”

“She says she can’t stand me and my nerdiness or whatever. I think she’s arrogant and pretentious,” Dipper hums with a smile. “But when push comes to shove, if she ever needs me, or I need her… Well, we’ll fold. We’ll be there.”

“That’s sweet,” Sara’s lips stretch, softening.

“Yeah, don’t tell her I told you that,” Dipper sinks a little, smile straining a little. “She’ll tear me a new one.”

Sara laughs, “You’re a really interesting guy, you know that?”

Dipper tips his head to the side, crossing his arms, “Yeah? How so?”

“I don’t know. The way you act with Pacifica reminds me of how you act with Wirt sometimes,” Sara pushes her hair back in thought. “There’s a difference to it, though. That’s why, deep down, I think you don’t actually hate Wirt.”

“Ohh.” Dipper shrinks a little at the thought of it. “Ughm. Hm. I dunno. I mean, yeah it’s fun to poke at the guy sometimes. But, I still think he’s…a little too annoying for me.”

“You think the same about Pacifica though?”

Dipper’s brows furrows, because he really doesn’t like the idea of paralleling Wirt to Pacifica. That’s a guy he thinks is somewhat attractive but irritating, and that’s a friend who’s really pretty through effort and genes and knows it, so she’s annoying about it.

But the longer he dwells on it, the more he realizes that there’s no genuine reason why he should dislike Wirt anymore. Aside from the weird thing he did to Sara, which Dipper promised not to pry yet can’t seem to get his mind off regardless, Wirt’s a pretty alright okay. As alright as Pacifica can get, at least.

Honestly, the only thing that makes Pacifica better than Wirt is her self awareness. At least she’s aware that she can come off as obnoxiously self absorbed, but Wirt has this weird hero complex or something. Dipper isn’t stupid. He knows Wirt is protective over Sara.

“Am I frying your brain?” Sara smirks.

“I don’t know if this is some fucked up attempt at trying to get me to get along with Wirt,” Dipper laughs, rubbing his temple.

“Well, why wouldn’t I want you two to get along. You’re both my friends,” Sara places a hand behind her back with her lips tugged at its corners, which would come off as cute if it weren’t for all that scary makeup on her.

“Honestly, speaking of friends,” Dipper scratches his cheek sheepishly. “Aside from Candy, sorta. You’re probably, like, the closest friend I have right now. Candy has Grenda and Mabel, and Pacifica would rather them than me… You’re honestly the first person that’s ever been close to me like this since…”

He trails off, deciding he’ll mention Wendy a different time. It’s a really long story that doesn’t deserve to be told over a party setting. Picking up on this, Sara doesn’t pry, instead, she grins at him, “Well, I’m glad to be friends with you like this too. I don’t usually make new friends these days, since…”

Well, now they’ve both left opened cans out in the open for later discussion. Dipper couldn’t help but laugh a little at this.

They both fall into silence together, occasionally drinking from their cups to fill up the space, and they watch the party go on side by side. Occasionally, someone would come by to greet Sara, but most times they’re left alone.

At some point, the crowd parts in such a way that they can see Mabel and Wirt in the center together, having fun with the music. Squinting, Dipper can tell Mabel is enjoying herself as always, but it’s a little rare to see Wirt matching that level of enthusiasm. He supposes Mabel’s eccentric nature can be addictive in that way. Makes you want to mirror it.

“Huh. Oh, this is weird,” Sara stares at the two in the distance, having the time of their life from the looks of it. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“What? Having fun? I can imagine,” Dipper nods solemnly.

“No. Well, not really,” Sara says, shaking her head as she chuckles lightly at his jab. “I’ve never seen him have fun without me before.”

“Oh.” Dipper pauses, his brain suddenly turning.

“I probably shouldn’t make a big deal about it,” Sara huffs, drinking from her cup. “It’s just. It’ll be like, what? Four…years? Since…he technically confessed to me, and other stuff. It’s a little weird that so much time has passed. It’s always a little weird when Halloween comes along.”

Then she laughs, growing a smidge embarrassed of herself as she continues, “It’s a little silly, but sometimes I feel like he’s always falling in love with me again every time it’s Halloween again. I’m surprised he isn’t clinging onto me like always. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Wait,” Dipper stops her briefly, shaking his head as though to clear his thoughts and get it straight. “Can I check something?”

“What?” Sara blinks at him, confused.

“I thought you knew that Mabel’s currently into Wirt,” Dipper points, remembering their conversation from a long while ago about this. “It’s why they’re hanging out so much right now. She sorta asked him out for this party thing.”

“I…,” Sara’s eyes widen, glancing back at the two in the distance. “I didn’t know that.”

“Then what was that thing you were talking about last time…?” Dipper asks, puzzled, but pulls back when he realizes Sara’s still digesting this new information Dipper has given her. He didn’t think it would be such a big deal to her, all things considered, but if he knew she would take it like this, he definitely would’ve laid it lighter on her.

“Sorry,” she says, noticing that Dipper’s gone nervously quiet. “It’s just…change is weird and stuff. I’m glad he’s opening up to new people, but…” she sighs, “…nevermind.”

He doesn’t reply, unsure of what to say. The mood has gone noticeably awkward and tense, and before Dipper can even try a hand at comforting her, Sara sighs again, louder this time. She stretches, popping the joints in her back, before grinning at Dipper and pointing towards the house.

“I’m gonna take a leak.” she tells him, and he can’t really tell if she’s being honest with him. Still, he nods, and watches her head off.

Halfway there, Sara bumps into Wirt. Dipper hadn’t noticed the guy was away from Mabel until he spotted Wirt again, and he continues to watch as the two exchanged a few words. Dipper shifts a little, picking up on the tension between the two.

Wirt looks a little agitated while talking to Sara, hesitantly reaching to place his hands on her, but she pulls away, patting his shoulder reassuringly. Yet, the way she had done that seemed halfhearted, like she couldn’t quite bring herself to be sincere about whatever she was saying. Wirt, in response, tries to be a little more firm, but she puts her foot down and continues on to the toilet.

It’s quite a miracle that no one but Dipper seemed to have noticed that incident. His gaze lingers on at the aftermath, watching Wirt look slightly distressed and frustrated, hands on his hips, before turning to spot Dipper from across the yard.

Slowly, Dipper lifts his cup to his lips, and pretends he wasn’t just watching the whole time. It perfectly obstructs his view. So much so that he doesn’t notice Wirt walking up to him until it’s too late.

“Oh, hey Wirt—” Dipper starts, attempting to act casual, but is immediately interrupted by a fist to the face.

A chorus of ‘ooo’s chimes around them as Dipper registers the assault, eyes blown wide. He crushes his cup, feeling his blood boil, and returns the favor back to Wirt. Okay, if he wants to speak with fists, Dipper is absolutely fluent in that.

He’s already aware that Wirt isn’t the most well built person out there, especially compared to Dipper, so Dipper finds himself surprised when Wirt manages to take the punch with only a wince. Honestly, Dipper had expected Wirt to be on the ground by now, but at the same time, he’s willing to admit he was holding back with that punch.

The recovery had been instant, and before Dipper can react or maybe even defuse, Wirt is dragging Dipper by his cape collar, in an attempt to toss him to the ground. Realizing this in time, Dipper wraps his hands around Wirt’s wrists and takes the man with him to the floor.

By this point a circle has already begun to form around the two as they tossled on the ground, kicking and shoving at each other. Wirt’s hat goes flying, and Dipper’s hair, which Mabel had put copious amount of effort into styling, comes completely undone and all messed up. The feeling of dirt smudging against their clothes is something they’d cringe at if it was even a priority at the moment.

In the background, Dipper thinks he can hear Mabel yelling, but whether she’s egging him on or rooting against him or telling the two of them to stop, he can’t really discern very well. He’s way too distracted by Wirt stradling his waist so he can pin Dipper down, pulling his arm back in order to get another good punch in.

Fortunately, Dipper blocks this by raising both his arms up, and musters up the strength to swap their places, pushing Wirt back onto the ground, before throwing his head forward to knock it against Wirt’s. He must’ve not aimed it too well, because Dipper thinks he hears something crack.

“ Jesus!” Wirt yells in pain, before swinging his fist reflectively and clocks Dipper in the eye.

Momentarily stunned, Wirt takes the opportunity to toss Dipper off of him, blood dripping down from his nose, and goes back wailing punches onto Dipper, who only manages to deflect half of them. Dipper can taste iron the longer this goes on, chest heaving as he grabs onto Wirt’s face feebly, tugging at his hair.

Dipper wants to say he’s holding back, but Wirt’s irritating determination to knock his teeth in was overpowering Dipper’s actual strength. Most of his effort is being put into not getting his face decorated with bruises, which still tires him regardless.

Even Wirt grows exhausted, gripping onto Dipper’s collar, before dropping low to press his forehead onto Dipper’s. Blood continues to drip from his nose, staining Dipper’s face, and Dipper can feel Wirt’s labored breaths on him.

It feels weirdly intimate and that disturbs Dipper a little, so he understandably ends up kicking Wirt off him. Wirt doesn’t even try to cling on or continue, simply falls back in exhaustion, which marks the end to their fight. Perfect, because Dipper’s entire body was beginning to ache, and if they fought any longer he would’ve genuinely started letting Wirt have his way.

Before Dipper can rest his eyes and recover, the last thing he sees is an off-put Sara hovering over the two of them, arms crossed and somewhat disappointed at them.

Chapter 9: Wirt V

Notes:

im back ^_^

Wirt isn’t particularly dense or stupid—contrary to what Dipper seems to believe—but he will admit that he has a nasty habit of avoiding problems instead of solving them head on. Which is why, despite being acutely aware that Mabel might have a thing for him, he played stupid even till now.

“Come on,” Mabel hooks an arm around his, beaming wide as the yard fills with people dressed in all sorts of costumes. “Let’s show off our costumes!”

“Oh, what about your brother?” Wirt nervously stiffens in her arm, pointing at Dipper, who pretends he isn’t listening.

“He’d rather be lame and stand around,” Mabel waves her hand dismissively.

Then why bother matching outfits to begin with if they aren’t going to show it off? At that point, Mabel’s logic was beyond Wirt’s, and so he opts for defeat and lets himself be dragged away. But that’s not before exchanging a nervous glance with Sara, who shrugs her shoulders and gestures for him to go ahead and have some fun.

There’s never been a girl, not even Sara, that has been so blunt and straightforward with their affections for him. Even throughout highschool, girls being partial towards him was consistently dismissed as just them being polite towards him. He didn’t like making assumptions of their feelings, no matter how “obvious” they were being.

He tried the same tactic with Mabel, even though by this point it’s no denying that she definitely likes him to some degree, but he supposes subtle solutions can only solve subtle problems. Unless he tells her no outright, she’ll keep trying with him.

In the back of his head, a pang of déjà vu hits him. He shakes the feeling off.

At first, being around Mabel felt a little strange. Her high energy did not match his low one, and often it felt like she was simply dragging him around instead of them going around together—sometimes it felt like he wasn’t even there.

But then, whenever she stops to check on him, smile ever so bright, fangs miraculously not smudging any of her lipstick, he feels reassured. It’s the sort of care he doesn’t really expect from Mabel, an assumption based on…pretty much nothing, to be honest. A hunch, if you will.

Eventually she stops socializing with the rest of the party-goers, and decides it’s about time they have some fun between the two of them on the dance floor. He isn’t much of a dancer, the same way he isn’t much of a singer, so he only awkwardly shifts around beside her as she throws her whole body into it.

“Aw, is that your idea of having fun?” she coos when she catches him barely giving his all. He pinks in response, embarrassed, and thanks the heavens that a hat is in place to hide half his face away. She gently takes his hands into hers, swinging them as she moves to the beat.

Instinctively, he mirrors her as they sway together, and she giggles in amusement. Something about her vibe feels incredibly contagious, now that she’s forced him to look at her and match her pace, and without realizing it, he feels his face stretch into a smile too.

He worried this Halloween would come and go like the many Halloweens before this, but soon enough he found himself forgetting why he was ever so somber about this holiday to begin with. Granted, it’s not exactly Halloween, but with the costumes and the decorations, it’s hard not to trick himself into believing it is.

Still, he’s having fun, a Halloween without sticking to Sara like a magnet, and he’s having fun.

And then Mabel puts her arms around his neck, pulling him closer towards her, gentle in a way that lets him make the final choice, and he stiffens up again. It really does seem like he has no other options now.

“Agh, look. I’m sorry, but, I can’t do this,” Wirt says, pulling away from her, and the magic immediately cuts itself short.

Mabel stares at him, perplexed, holding onto herself, before forcing out a strained laugh, “Pfft, whaaat? You’re way too adorable. I’m just, y’know, playing with you. I know you don’t- won’t actually like me back!”

Uncomfortably, almost, Wirt shifts, “A-Are you sure…? I don’t…want to mislead you, or anything.”

She punches his shoulder, “Is that your idea of a rejection? Four out of ten.”

“Oh, what? I failed…?” Wirt frowns, falling into the lighthearted mood she’s setting out for him.

“Yeah, too bad,” Mabel nods her head, arms folded, before dampening a little back into the realm of seriousness. “Can I ask something personal?”

He has a feeling what it might be, if twins sharing thoughts are an actual thing, “Yeah?”

“Is this because, um, you and Sara are like…,” she gestures her hands about vaguely, before settling on. “Is this because you like Sara?”

Wirt blinks at her, unable to come up with a response shorter than five sentences.

“I mean! You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to!” Mabel quickly goes on. “It’s just! That time at the donut shop, and then that time when you slept over without the rest of us knowing… I get curious, you know! But, I’ll totally back off if you tell me to. Seriously!”

“I believe you,” Wirt lightly laughs, amused by how eager Mabel is to convince him that she’s trying to be nice. “I get it. You’re not the first to be curious about it. But, it’s rare when people ask first to get the facts straight.”

Mabel eases up, smiling in relief.

“I…like Sara, as a friend.” Wirt fiddles with his fingers, taking advantage of his hat again. “I mean, it used to be more, but overtime it sort of…got more and more ambiguous. I guess, in a way, it still seems like I’m in love with her. But, you know,” he looks up at Mabel, “do we all not fall in love a little bit with the people we cherish?”

She stares at him, glitter-eyed, and fumes, shaking her fists, “I knew I should’ve brought my camera! This is a rare poetry moment here!”

“It’s not that rare,” Wirt flusters. “And I’m being serious.”

“I know,” Mabel hums, swinging her hands behind her back. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so…soft-hearted and pure like that. I would’ve played with you more otherwise.”

“Yay for me, then?” Wirt halfheartedly cheers, confused.

“Yeah.” Mabel snorts. “I think if I keep this up, it’ll only get messy. So! From now on, I’ll stop flirting with you. That’s a pinky promise!”

Wirt smiles, “Thanks.”

She steps away, gesturing with her thumb towards the snack bar, “I’m gonna go find my girls, then. You go hang out with Sara. She’s with my brother right now.”

“Okay,” Wirt nods, giving her a small wave. “See you around, then.”

“Laters!” and she’s off, dress swooshing as she sharply turns her back towards him.

He sighs, relieved that this concluded way more smoothly than he could have ever imagined. He thought he’d be breaking her heart, or something. But, surprisingly, Mabel handled it quite maturely. He supposes his impression of her being an immature goof had been a little harsh. 

When he turns to find Sara, as though on cue, she appears right before him.

Immediately, even with all the Halloween makeup, he could tell something is wrong with her. She seems uneasy, or upset, and he’s quick to ask what’s wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Sara replies, quick as always to defuse Wirt’s worry. Though, the bothered look in her eyes remains consistent.

“You can’t expect me to believe that,” Wirt pushes in exasperation. 

“Well, even if there was something wrong, I wouldn’t want to sour your mood,” Sara tells him, eager to dismiss him as she attempts to leave.

But Wirt reaches towards her, holding her by the shoulders, “You can’t just say that and expect me not to double worry now.”

Sara pulls back, her face now a mix of amused and tired, “If it makes you feel better, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

And yet, the way she pats him, like she always does when she wants to reassure him, seemed insincere unlike the other times she’s done it—like it was the only thing she could come up with to get him to back down, rather than to actually comfort him.

“Hey, talk to me,” Wirt stresses.

“Dude, I need to pee,” Sara replies, just as firm, but leaves him with a smile when they part ways. So, at least he knows she isn’t mad at him.

Wirt sighs, hands on his hips as he tries to decipher what could’ve possibly sent Sara into the dumps like that. It’s a rare sight to ever see Sara so visibly upset, and sure, Halloween always puts them in a weird mood, but never that weird.

Then he lifts his head, looking around, just for the sake of taking the matter off his mind, only to spot Dipper from across the yard, and then it all clicks in his head. Sara and Dipper were hanging together while Wirt was with Mabel. With no other explanation, Wirt can only conclude that Dipper definitely said something that ticked Sara off—regardless if he meant to or not.

And…fuck. Silly him! To think that Dipper would actually live up to his promise that he’ll stop bothering them. Of course, Dipper would open his mouth and say something to upset Sara. Because this is Dipper they’re talking about, who’ll say just about anything because he’s a smartass apparently and he’ll make an obnoxious display to prove it so.

Without even realizing it, Wirt is making his way towards the man in question.

“Oh, hey Wirt—” Dipper starts, and Wirt finds himself swinging his fist to Dipper’s face.

 

The good news is, the damage isn’t too severe.

When both Wirt came to, he finds himself in the hospital, which embarrasses Wirt to no end. Sure, he started this whole ordeal, but he didn’t think it would escalate into the hospital. He sorta assumed they’d be waking up on Jason Funderberker’s couch—preferably him on the couch and Dipper on the floor.

Wirt’s body is less sore than he expected it to be, no doubt because they got patched up at the hospital. The only real damage seems to be on his nose, which he vividly remembers Dipper breaking. The moment he blinks awake, Sara is hovering over his head, concerned and relieved at the same time. He tries to sit up and talk, but she uses a finger to push his forehead back onto the pillow.

“The quicker you rest up, the quicker we can go back,” Sara folds her arms, falling back onto the chair beside his hospital bed. “I’d ask what’s gotten into you, but I want you to save your breath. So, instead, I’m going to tell you that Dipper’s fine and can only see out of one eye at the moment.”

Wirt would cheer, but he thinks Sara would make sure he’ll match with Dipper if he does.

“Once the two of you are out of here, I want you to apologize to Dipper,” Sara continues, a finger at Wirt.

That isn’t so bad. Wirt isn’t petty enough to reason with anyone that him instigating a fight with Dipper was justified. Even if Sara hadn’t brought it up, Wirt thinks he still would’ve gone out of his way to apologize to Dipper. Something something, Wirt did it in the ‘heat of the moment and it was emotionally driven’ should suffice with Dipper.

“And!” Sara adds with emphasis. “You need to start getting along with him. Like, actually try.”

“What?” this actually sends Wirt sitting straight up in his bed, sores he never thought he had shooting straight through his body. He cringes.

Sara sighs, “Look, the weird rivalry thing was maybe a little funny and harmless for a while. But this is seriously getting out of hand.”

“So the solution is to make us get along?” Wirt asks, exasperated.

“ Yes, because clearly even though you two,” she lifts her fingers up in air quotes, “hate each other so much,” she stares, unimpressed at Wirt, folding back her arms, “you guys can’t seem to stay away from each other either.”

“I was gonna start actively avoiding Dipper after we go back,” Wirt mumbles, but even he feels unconvinced by his own statement. Something in his gut tells him that no force in the universe is capable of making them steer clear from each other’s paths.

Sara doesn’t answer, merely lifts a brow, similarly skeptical of his statement too.

They sit in silence for a moment, Wirt dwelling on his choices, every so often he’d look up at Sara, whose gaze hasn’t left his bruised knuckles. Thoughtlessly, he runs a thumb over them, feeling the scratches. He only realizes, at this exact moment, that Sara isn’t just worried for Wirt—she’s worried for Dipper too.

As much as Wirt doesn’t like to acknowledge it, Dipper is still a dear friend to Sara, as dear as Wirt is to her. He can only imagine how awful she must feel right now.

With a heavy heart, he sighs, loud and evidently reluctant, “Okay. I’ll try.”

Immediately, Sara’s face brightens, “Oh, Wirt.”

“But only because you asked,” Wirt tells her, before asking on. “Can I add a catch?”

“Sure,” Sara eases back into her seat.

“I’ll promise to actually try getting along with Dipper. But if it really, really, can’t work out between the two of us after the next semester is over…,” Wirt clenches his jaw for a minute. “You’re gonna have to start distancing yourself from Dipper too.”

Sara sits up, stunned, “ What?” 

“Think about it,” Wirt quickly says, and he’d wave his hands around if his arms didn’t hurt. “You know me, I’d never lie to you about putting in the effort to get along with Dipper. But, if it doesn’t work, then logically this will be because of Dipper. So, following that…”

He lets her connect the dots, which she does. She thinks about it for a moment, and though she doesn’t hide the fact that she doesn’t like the idea very much—a sucker for happy endings, as always—she slowly nods her head in agreement, “Deal.”

Wirt relaxes, slumping against the headboard, “I’m also gonna guess you might be planning to tell Dipper the same proposal—”

“No,” Sara interjects. “I didn’t, and I won’t.” then shifts, almost guilty to say such a thing, “I really want to believe that Dipper does like you, deep down. I don’t want a deal to make him start believing that too.”

“Then why’d you—?” Wirt puts a hand on his own chest.

“Because you’re still my closest friend, Wirt, and I trust you,” Sara smiles lightly, before tilting her head. “And also because you threw the first punch, so it’s only fair.”

“Yeah. Yeah that does sound fair.” he slumps down. “You’re not angry, right?”

Sara sucks in a breath of air, shoulders rising along as she deflates with a half-hearted shrug, “Not anymore, I guess.”

“Okay.” Wirt says with a slow nod. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“Save that for Dipper,” she smiles, face wrinkling up in part amusement.

He nods again, “Still.”

“Alright, apology accepted,” she rolls her eyes, her smile unwavering.

Chapter 10: Wirt VI

Notes:

Before I start, I went and backread some earlier chapters as a refresher and noticed in 【Chapter 7: Wirt IV】I completely missed like two entire paragraphs—which totally fucked with the flow and context of the current story LMAO.

I'm not gonna make u guys go back and witch hunt for it though 😭 u all can probably backread in ur own free time and find it. In the meantime, the paragraph was supposed to provide a timeline of how long the team has been in Wirt and Sara's hometown.

After Dipper's apology and fixing the player, they all casually hung out for like two-ish weeks doing shits and giggles, and then we move to our current time period which is close to Halloween and the kids have to go back to college soon LOL.

They decide to spend the night in the hospital.

Not necessarily because they had to, but because Pacifica could afford it for them, and Wirt wanted to sleep alone for once. Of course, to Sara, it seemed much like he was trying to delay the apology as long as possible, but he promised that wasn’t the case. Still isn’t.

Greg had dropped by earlier to visit, and judging by how he reacted with more concern than disappointment, Wirt could tell no one had told the boy what actually landed Wirt in the hospital. He appreciated that.

“If I had a nickel every time you were in the hospital during Halloween season, I’d have two!” Greg had told him once he was sure Wirt was going to be fine. “Which would be enough to afford me…”

“Nothing,” Wirt had supplied with a small laugh.

“What an economy,” Greg had shaken his head sadly.

When the night came and everyone left, promising that they’ll come in bright and early tomorrow to come pick the two of them up, Wirt was left with his own solitude and mind. Having people around had distracted him from the inevitable, so now that he’s staring up at the ceiling in the dark, all he can do is rehearse what to say to Dipper when he sees him.

At some point, you can run a self-made script as many times as you want in your head, but nothing will quite stick nor stay. This, of course, frustrates Wirt, because how else will he sleep if all he can think about is coming up with synonyms to ‘sorry’?

After his third roll over, Wirt decides to get up, despite his body’s protests, and clumsily makes his way towards the door through the dim room—the drawn curtains and the moon being his only source of light. He remembers vaguely where Dipper’s room may be, because when the girls had dropped by, they mentioned it offhandedly.

By some miracle, he does not get caught by any staff members on his way to Dipper’s hospital room. The corridor had been well lit enough to make his journey there easy, and after double checking the number on the door several more times, Wirt takes a deep breath and heads inside.

Expectedly, Dipper is asleep. His back faces Wirt, body rising and falling steadily, and Wirt leaves the door open just enough for the corridor light to trickle in to luminate the room for his comfort. For a while, Wirt hesitates. Maybe he should save the apology for tomorrow, after all.

“Well,” Dipper’s voice quietly jolts Wirt, almost surprising the man out of his skin. “If you want to keep watching me while I sleep, at least close the door all the way.”

Wirt sours, “So you couldn’t sleep either.”

“No, you just woke me up,” Dipper answers, and finally he turns over to face Wirt, causing the latter to wince once he saw the patched up eye. “Wow, I really did a number on you.”

“I could say the same,” Wirt deadpans, attempting to mirror Dipper’s coolness, yet finds himself failing when he softens up in remorse again.

Dipper adjusts himself so that he’s sitting up, and Wirt catches the way he cringes a little from his own aches, “I’ve had worse, and I was holding back.”

“Really,” Wirt folds his arms, unimpressed. 

“Anyway,” Dipper says. “Did you come all the way here just to banter with me, or did sleeping in the same room for the last few weeks have you missing me so soon?”

Wirt splutters in surprise, feeling his knees buckle all of a sudden, and it causes Dipper to immediately get out of bed—just in case Wirt does actually fall over himself. But, fortunately, it was just a false alarm and Wirt manages to catch himself without needing Dipper’s help.

“How about you sit here with me?” Dipper steps back, sitting back onto his bed, and pats the spot beside him. “I’ll let you have my pillow.”

While Wirt would much rather decline for the sake of his ego, his body is quick to declare for him to accept it through sudden sores, lest he wants a second close call later on. So, with a barely withheld sigh, Wirt walks over, leaving a gap between him and Dipper while the other hands him the pillow he promised.

They sit in silence for a little while, mostly because Wirt is still digesting the fact that Dipper doesn’t seem remotely pissed off at him. He expected Dipper to throw him out the room, or at the very least shoot a few more snarky comments before that. But, it almost seemed like the fight was nothing to him.

Regardless, the man still deserves an apology, so once Wirt finally collected his thoughts into something coherent, he opens his mouth to speak, “Sorry for throwing the first punch.”

Dipper blinks at him, “Oh.”

“Oh?” Wirt scrunches his brows together, puzzled by Dipper’s consistent aloofness. “Is that it?”

“Nah, it’s just…,” Dipper rubs the back of his neck, which gives Wirt a better look of his bandaged up arm. It’s really fortunate that thing wasn’t broken during their fight. “I’m a bit disoriented, that’s all. I kept thinking this was somehow my fault.”

“What?”

“I mean,” Dipper waves his hands around. “You’re a level-headed guy, so for you to explode on me like that, I figured I must’ve done something again. Normally you’d just…yell at me, or something, and I’d yell back and we’d bicker, then go our separate ways.”

“You’re justifying my actions for me?” Wirt squints at Dipper, confused. “Did I crack your skull too?”

“Hey, man. I’ve still got the energy to be mad at you, okay?” Dipper strains out a smile. “I’m just choosing to play nice because of what’s been going on lately. You won’t get this again when we’re back on campus.”

Back on campus. Right. The deal he made with Sara… Wirt supposes it’ll be a lot harder for Sara’s ending to be achieved if Dipper’s going to be like that. He frowns in response, “But is that really all you’ve got to say to my apology? No questions, nothing?”

“I pretty much gathered it’s about Sara again, since the two of you were talking before you came whaling it on me,” Dipper hums, waving a hand dismissively. “And that’s a sensitive topic, so even if I did want an explanation, I probably wouldn’t get it.”

Which reminds Wirt. Sara never really told him what was up with her at the party earlier. He simply forgot to ask the whole time, but even if he did remember, he thinks it would’ve been too awkward to have that conversation here. At least with the noise of the party, it’d be harder for people to come eavesdropping on them.

Wirt puffs a cheek, feeling slightly embarrassed as he admits, “Actually, she never told me anything, but I could tell she was upset about something. I just made a baseless assumption and blamed it on you.”

“Ahh… So I was half right about it being my fault,” Dipper nods, looking slightly tired, if not a little irritated. “Then I guess it’s only fair I tell you this. The whole time I assumed Sara knew Mabel had a thing for you, because of some…miscommunication, I guess. I broke the news to her at the party, then she said she wanted to use the bathroom.”

Wirt stares at Dipper for a moment, mouth beginning to hang, “She…was upset that I was potentially getting with Mabel…?”

Dipper raises his arms, “Hey, I don’t know the details of what she was thinking. I can only tell you what I said.” then drops to a glare, “And I hope you’re not actually “potentially” getting with my sister.”

“I turned her down,” Wirt bluntly says.

“Oh, great.” Dipper relaxes. “She’ll probably move on to someone new when school starts again.”

“Wait, but are you sure?” Wirt asks, squeezing the pillow in his arms.

“Am I sure about…?” Dipper tilts his head.

“That Sara got upset about the whole Mabel liking me and then shooting her shot thing.”

“Um,” Dipper rolls his shoulder in a shrug. “I can only say she maybe got upset after seeing you and Mabel having fun together and I told her Mabel was into you. I still don’t know what she exactly felt at the time.”

Wirt pauses, staring down at the ground between his feet as he pulls the pillow closer to his chest. There’s no doubt about it. For the first time since he’s known Sara, she’s displayed some form of jealousy towards another person that could’ve, in some way, compromised their current relationship. 

In other words, on some level, Sara doesn’t want Wirt diving his attention onto someone else. What this means for him could be huge, or could be frighteningly small. The chances are as even as winning a slot machine, but whether Wirt wants to take that gamble is truly up to him.

“You’re lowkey freaking me out right now, Wirt,” Dipper suddenly speaks up, leaning over in confusion as Wirt’s mind continues to fly. “What’re you getting excited for?”

So let’s say Wirt decides to act upon this new discovery. What could he possibly do? He couldn’t just go back to what he used to always do, because if it hadn’t worked before, it certainly wouldn’t work now. He had to do something different, play into this new knowledge. 

“I know I don’t have the right to speak on this whole thing, but I feel like maybe you shouldn’t make a big deal out of this,” Dipper continues when Wirt doesn’t answer him. “I think it’s best you just forget this whole thing ever happened. Or, like, wait for her to talk to you in her own time about it.”

If jealousy is how Sara can show any sign of ever reciprocating, then the logical conclusion is to make her jealous enough to realize that, maybe, just maybe, deep down, she really does like him after all. The same way he has always loved her. Perhaps she never realized this because she was reassured that he wouldn’t be going anywhere, and therefore never had to rush to make a decision.

“Dude, are you listening?” Dipper snaps his fingers in front of Wirt’s face. “Earth to Wirt.”

“Tell me, Dipper,” Wirt suddenly smiles at him, hugging the pillow warmly. “Does a caged, well-cared bird not yearn for the taste of freedom once it sees a key for the first time?”

“What.” Dipper furrows his brows at Wirt, which makes him flinch for a moment thanks to his injury. “What the fuck are you saying?”

Wirt sighs, returning Dipper his pillow with a gentle smile. All of a sudden, he feels rather rejuvenated, and if his wounds were to magically heal itself overnight, he wouldn’t at all be surprised. As he makes his way towards the door, he replies to Dipper, “I’m very glad I had this talk with you now.”

Before the man could leave, however, Dipper quickly grabs his arm, pulling him back, “Wirt, you can punch my other eye out and tell me it’s none of my business, but don’t tell me you think you actually have a shot with Sara now just because she got upset once when she saw you on a date with a different girl!”

At that, Wirt slightly snaps out of it.

“I mean, you can’t be that stupid,” Dipper continues, loosening his grip. “Wirt, c’mon. Sit back down and think about it. You’re letting yourself get carried away with your feelings.”

“Oh.” Wirt says, watching his arm limply fall back to his side once Dipper had completely let go of him. “You were right.”

“Hum?” Dipper nervously shifts, watching Wirt listlessly stand in front of him in deep realization.

“I really need to let go.” Wirt mumbles. “Oh my god, I’m horrible.”

Dipper begins to fret, confused where all of this is coming from, but not at all a stranger to love troubles thanks to his sister’s repetitive dilemma with heartbreak. He beckons for Wirt to sit back down, to which the man listens, and awkwardly rests a hand on the guy’s shoulder, “Relax, Wirt. You’ve liked Sara for, like, a really, really long time now. Anyone would jump the gun like you did if the girl they were into suddenly did that.”

“My desperation is no excuse,” Wirt would bury his face into his hands if it weren’t for his nose. “I’ve gone mad with hunger, my last resort is to cannibalize myself.”

“Or you two just need to learn to stand on your own and eventually you guys will be okay being apart,” Dipper says. “For you, at least. I mean, do you even have anyone else besides Sara? Friend-wise, I mean.”

Wirt falls silent, embarrassingly so. But then, he manages out a, “I mean, Candy is counted. Sorta? And by extension her friends as well, I guess?”

Dipper drags a hand down his own cheek, exasperated, “Greg was not kidding. Sorry to burst your bubble, but even Candy finds you attractive. Pacifica’s the only girl not interested in you. At all, actually. You need a friend that doesn’t want to get with you.”

“And you expect me to pluck this metaphorical friend from thin air?” Wirt deadpans.

Dipper grumbles, shifting about, looking away as if the answer would be written anywhere on the hospital walls, before sighing out, “For Sara’s sake, I guess we could just get along for the next semester and see how it goes.”

Oh, well that’s awfully convenient. Wirt stares at him, silently considering it. Deal with Sara aside, if Dipper’s solution towards their supposed separation anxiety with one another is to put himself between them, then it might just work. It’s like the reverse of introducing two dogs into the same house technique.

“I’m already hanging out with Sara one-on-one,” Dipper reasons reluctantly, like he’s only saying this to convince himself. “So there’s no chance of her getting stressed out over you distancing away too far, or something. Same goes for you.”

“Deal.” Wirt says.

“Wow, that was quick—”

“And for the record,” Wirt points. “I don’t get stressed over Sara having other friends.”

Unimpressed, Dipper only nods, “Sure.”

 

When morning came and most of what happened last night finally resurfaces into Wirt’s mind as they’re being checked out from the hospital, he resists the urge to crumble and cry in the back of Greg’s dad’s car. It’s one thing to have a charged outburst in front of your most beloathed, it’s another to show emotional vulnerability.

He blames the painkillers, the late-night-exhaustion-high. He blames the way Dipper’s attitude had totally flipped on him, lowering Wirt’s guard. He blames himself for falling into it. Has rooming with this man not taught a single thing to Wirt?

Dipper being tolerable is fleeting. He will, at some point and eventually, become a nuisance later on, completely destroying down whatever progress they’ve made as friends. In fact, it’s this quality that Wirt is banking on to win his side of the deal with Sara. Though, he still does hope she wins for her sake, of course.

Sara and Mabel are the only ones that showed up—aside from Greg’s dad—and try as Wirt might, he could not sense any awkward tension between the two. Given the fact that Wirt now knows Sara is, to some extent, jealous of Mabel, he assumed it would show. Yet, they seem perfectly fine.

She must’ve gotten over it quicker than Wirt had anticipated. 

Same goes with Mabel, who had only just technically confessed to Wirt last night. Just like Dipper had expected, she didn’t seem at all heartbroken that Wirt did not reciprocate her feelings and remained as bubbly as ever. Wirt wishes he were more like her in this aspect.

He sits in the front while Dipper, Mabel and Sara sit in the back. The car ride is mostly silent, but at some point, Greg’s dad finally breaks the tension with a casual, “So, final week in paradise, huh?”

“Do not remind me,” Mabel sighs, tilting her head back as she ragdolls in her seat. “I haven’t even started packing.”

“It’s okay, even if you start now, you’ll still be done before Pacifica finishes packing hers,” Sara snorts, before whispering in a not-so-secret tone. “She started two days ago.”

“Told her not to pack too much,” Dipper mumbles. “At this rate she’ll probably leave behind a few things on accident.”

“Well, it’s not like she isn’t allowed to come back and get it,” Greg’s dad laughs lightly. “For the few weeks you guys have stayed here, you’ve all made it seriously lively. Feel free to drop by again next break.”

“Thanks, we try,” Mabel grins, fingers to her chest in flattery. “And we’ll definitely be coming back again sometime.”

“Maybe not next break though,” Dipper pipes up, glancing over at his sister. “Reserving that for a different trip.”

She smacks her forehead, “Oh, right!”

“Going home?” Greg’s dad asks, curious.

“Nah, we’ll be visiting Gravity Falls,” she answers, batting her hand, before giving it a thought. “But I guess it can count as going home.” then she brightens, turning towards Sara, “Hey, you know what? You two should totally come! Pacifica definitely has the spare rooms for it.”

Wirt grimaces at the thought of Pacifica lending her home to him. He can already imagine the sour look on her face. “Well, we’ll think about it.”

“It sounds fun,” Sara smiles sweetly.

“Hey, before you go on planning for what to do next break, why don’t you think about what you’re gonna do when we go back to school,” Dipper deadpans, arms folding. “I thought you wanted to apply for a minor. How’s that going?”

“Ughmm…”

The car resumes being quiet, but Wirt could tell that Greg’s dad was barely holding back a laugh the entire time.

 

Even though they’ve only been gone for a night, the girls still rush up to Dipper to check up on him when they finally arrive back at Wirt’s place. Meanwhile, both Sara and Wirt had slowed their walk down to put some distance between them and the rest, and Sara takes the opportunity to ask Wirt something.

“Did you manage to apologize?” she asks as she watches Candy comment on how Dipper will look like a cool pirate when they get back on campus.

“Of course,” Wirt looks away, hands swinging behind his back. “We’ve decided to try getting along from now on.”

“That’s great, I’m glad it turned out well,” Sara says, smiling gently, before softening up a bit more. “Thanks for doing this for me.”

“Yeah. Of course,” he mutters back, and almost blurts out a, You know I’d do anything for you. 

She smiles again at him, patting him gently on the shoulder, and he watches her walk over towards the rest, joining in on the chatter about battle wounds and needing to get ready to leave soon. For a brief moment, Wirt felt fourteen again. Worrying over nothing about her.

 

(They then spend the day playing indoor games so the two recovering men wouldn’t hurt themselves again.)

 

“You know you’re doing that wrong,” Dipper tells him as he’s replacing his own bandages, finishing up the patch over his eye. 

To save them time, they’re both sharing the mirror in the bathroom, and it didn’t take Dipper long to finish up his own bandages. It seemed like the man was familiar with patching himself up, and not only that, the damage done to his body isn’t half as bad as Wirt had expected it to be. So it made sense why he was quicker to finish first.

Or maybe Wirt just bruises a lot easier than Dipper does. “What do you mean?”

“See here?” Dipper raises his bandaged arm, stretching past his elbow. He gives it a good bend and unbend, then points at Wirt’s half-wrapped knee. “You can’t bend if you wrap it around like that, unless you’re trying to achieve the complete look of a mummy with rigor mortis.”

Wirt, who had been wrapping himself up on the edge of the bathtub, stops completely with a defeated sigh, “Well I’m sorry if I don’t get into fights often enough to know how aftercare works.”

Dipper resists the urge to roll his eyes, “Let me help you with that.”

“Something tells me you don’t make a good nurse,” Wirt leans away, skeptical as Dipper looms over him, medical supplies in hand.

“I said give it here,” Dipper opens his palm towards Wirt, who reluctantly undoes his bandages and hands the roll over to Dipper. Then, he sits in front of Wirt’s knee, and brings out a piece of gauze to lay over the area that’s been bruised. Fortunately, most of the ointment had not wiped off when Wirt undid his bandages.

He proceeds to tape it onto Wirt’s knee with medical tape, which causes him to wince in pain.

“Low pain tolerance, huh?” Dipper grins smugly at the man as he begins wrapping the knee up, avoiding wrapping over the knee directly so it wouldn’t end up restricting the bending of the joint.

“I can kick you, you know,” Wirt threatens.

“You wouldn’t,” Dipper scoffs, finishing it up. He then stands, bending forward towards Wirt as he leans a little closer to the man’s face, which almost causes Wirt to lean away and fall into the bathtub.

“Uh—” Wirt starts, feeling his ears heat up in confusion.

“Not bad on the nose,” Dipper finally moves away, dusting his hands. “I think we’re done here.”

Wirt feels his chest fall along with his enormous exhale, “Great. Let’s head to bed.”

 

Greg stands at the doorway, looking as though it’s taking everything in him not to come running towards Wirt in an effort to drag his older brother back into the house. Still, if he can’t do anything, at least he can say something, “Are you sure you can’t stay for a little longer?”

“You know I would if I could, Greg,” Wirt shifts his suitcase from one hand to the other.

“Sometimes I wish clones were real, because then one of you could stay here while the other goes back to the faraway lands!” Greg raises both his arms into the air, to which Wirt laughs and pats the boy on the head.

“You sure about that, Greg? You might have to give up your desserts to Wirt 2.0.”

“Hm. Nevermind then.” 

Finally, Dipper steps out of the house as well, bag over his shoulders after making sure he’s brought everything with him. Wirt’s mom kept reassuring Dipper that if he had forgotten anything, they wouldn’t mind mailing it to his dorm, but Dipper insisted that he didn’t want to cause them such a trouble.

Wirt, on the other hand, finds it a miracle that Dipper even managed to find everything he brought along. After he had grown comfortable sleeping in Wirt’s room, he started making it a habit to simply throw his dirty laundry haphazardly into a corner or whatever direction he happened to be flinging it towards at the time.

(Wirt does that too, but it’s his room so he’s allowed to do that.)

“Let’s go,” Dipper tells him, then turns to Greg, holding up a hand. “See you around, Greg.”

Greg hits Dipper with a high five, doing it three more times just for good measure, “Bye, Dipper.”

Wirt had already said all his goodbyes, but he still finds himself waving at Greg till his wrist grew sore and the boy became nothing but a speck in the distance. He huffs when he finally puts his hand down, then glances at Dipper, who has his eyes drilled forward as they make their way towards Sara’s place.

After a while, Wirt speaks up, “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Dipper replies without looking back.

“Can we make a quick detour?” Wirt points towards the direction of the graveyard, which makes Dipper raise a brow in confusion. “I’ll be really quick.”

“Uhm,” Dipper goes, unsure of what Wirt’s intentions are. “Do you want me to come with or…?”

“You can hang back, it’s okay.” Wirt speeding up the moment he got the idea that Dipper isn’t planning on stopping him. 

Awkwardly, Dipper nods, watching Wirt rush off towards the graveyard, passing the gate and skipping along towards the wall where it all happened. He doesn’t bother to look back to see if Dipper followed along, more so focused on climbing that very same wall.

Some days, he finds himself wondering if it had been a dream, despite a lot of the evidence claiming otherwise—Greg shared the same “dream”, Jason Funderburker the frog and the bell, the taste of death in his mouth—and whenever this time of the year comes around, Wirt likes to make sure.

He doesn’t cross over the wall, mostly sit there for a good five minutes breathing in the air and listening to the wind. It’s a lot harder to catch anything late into the afternoon, but if he strains hard enough, he can still hear—

“Dude, what are you doing up there?” Dipper snaps Wirt out of his daydream, causing Wirt to jump out of his skin.

“Hey, I could’ve fallen,” Wirt turns sharply, looking down at Dipper.

“You didn’t. And if you’re so worried about that, maybe get down?” Dipper folds his arms. In his hand holds Wirt’s suitcase, which the man had put down in order to climb the wall in the first place. 

“I was going to,” Wirt huffs, but not before looking back at the forest and the river and the worn train tracks. Every year, it always grows a little feinter. He thinks next time maybe he should just try getting closer, hop over the wall and meet the other side again.

“Wirt,” all of a sudden Dipper has climbed the wall as well, only in an effort to get Wirt to come down quicker. “We gotta board the bus back to college, man.”

“Uh, right,” Wirt blinks, turning over so he can get down with Dipper.

 

“Almost thought the both of you got caught up fighting again,” Sara folds her arms when the two finally arrive at her yard. The rest of the girls have decided to occupy their time waiting for them by stacking leaves on top of each other in gradient, with the brownest leaves at the bottom and the orange to yellow ones on top.

“We would never,” Dipper says, holding a hand up to cover his bandaged eye.

“Yeah, if anything it’ll be Dipper’s fault we’re late,” Wirt bluntly points at the man in question with a thumb, who immediately takes offense to this.

Dipper knits his brows together, grumbling at Wirt, “I’m always on time, thank you very much! It’s not my fault you decided to take a deto—”

“In any case,” Wirt interrupts him, checking the time on his phone. “We’ll definitely make it for our bus if we start walking now.”

In the background, Mabel calls for their attention, “Look! The perfect leaf tower!” 

To entertain her, Sara snaps a photo of it with her phone, then nods her head down the road, “Let’s go.”

Mabel grins widely, getting up and pulling her luggage along—Wirt thinks there are more stickers on it than before—and wraps her arms around Sara’s, “Send me that photo later!”

“I’m sending it to you now,” Sara tells her, and briefly they all hear Mabel’s phone buzz.

Pacifica hovers next to them, or more specifically Mabel, and asks, “Are you gonna scrapbook on the bus?”

They all start walking down the direction of the bus stop as Mabel lets go of Sara, pulling her phone out to take a look at the photo. She answers with a beam, waving her phone at Pacifica, “You know I am!”

While Grenda shifts to join in on the conversation, making suggestions on what Mabel should add on her next few pages, with Pacifica occasionally making comments on it and Sara nodding along, Candy moves towards the back where Dipper and Wirt are walking side by side silently.

“Dipper, I was helping Mabel apply for her minor earlier this morning,” Candy says, bumping shoulders with the man, who bumps her back. “And I noticed they added a new minor you might like.”

He raises a brow at her, amused, “I already checked the listings, I didn’t notice anything.”

“It might’ve been a last minute addition,” Candy shrugs her shoulders. “If I told you what it was, you’ll probably deduce why.”

“Well? Don’t leave me hanging,” Dipper smiles curiously. Wirt, nosy as well, leans just a little closer so he can listen in.

“Parapsychology—”

“ Seriously?!” Dipper exclaims, tipping towards her with his eyes blown wide with excitement. “They brought it back?”

“Back?” Wirt asks from behind him. 

Noticing Wirt’s lost expression, Candy elaborates on behalf of Dipper, “The years before we enrolled, our college used to offer parapsychology studies as a minor. They ironically took it down when it came our year. Probably due to lack of funding.”

“Is that the study of, like, ghosts or something?” Wirt asks, tilting his head.

“It’s more than just ghosts,” Dipper spins around at Wirt. “It’s the study of psychic phenomena and other paranormality. The study of like…like…”

“The unknown?” Wirt smiles, just because he thought his answer would be funny. If his life were documented as a book, readers would circle his response and deem it a parallel of some sort. A reference, or something like that. Nothing more than just a little inside joke, and yet.

“ Pretty much!” Dipper cheerfully goes with a fierce nod in agreement and Wirt stares at him.

A pause, a thought, and Wirt opens his mouth, “How many slots are open…?”

He supposes the universe really works in mysterious ways.

Notes:

I think I've mentioned veyr early on in this fic, but I'm writing this fanfic very casually so the story can be a little Don't make Sense. (can you tell I never applied for a minor) But regardless I hope it is still as coherent and entertaining as I want it to be ❤️

I would infodump about my thoughts on my fic Analysis style (becuase I do have many things to say about how Dipper and Wirt have progressed so far in the story) but,,, hm. I'd rather do that when prompted :3c so if u wanna talk about my fic so I can talk about my fic feel free to leave a comment asking for it ✌️

Chapter 11: Part 2

Notes:

WHAAAAAT WHAT IS THIIIIS? I'm suddenly back with a new chapter?!?!?!?!?! And what's with that title....
Well, to explain it simply: I've decided to clearly indicate that this is Season 2 of the fic. The original plan was to segue to the next season seamlessly, but then thought it'd be nice to just incorporate that into the fic for ur clarity :)

(That also means I'm restarting the chapter counter [i.e the whole Dipper II, Wirt IV chapter naming] back to zero :9)

Again, not that big of a deal. Whole point is just to divide the story a little clearer ^_^

Originally planned for this chapter to be blank and act as a divider, but I thought That's not fair! It's been months and all I do is just update with a blank page? Boooooo. So! I ended up writing short stories from Sara's POV :) So, sadly, no pinescone here...

First Night Over

Sara found it endearing that Mabel’s upbeat personality remained consistent, regardless of the time of day, regardless of the situation she’s in. 

One of the many things she did, when settling down in Sara’s guest room along with the three other girls, was take a group picture right as they were all unpacking. She told them, right as they were recovering from the flash, that every moment should be worth documenting, and for a moment Sara thought that was so beautiful of her to say.

Dipper actually spoke little of his sister, only bringing her up in bits and pieces, and claimed it’s because, “There’s just so much to her, you’ll just have to see her for yourself.”

She thought he was being lazy then. Maybe he never got the chance to learn how to talk about her, because he never needed to before—he made it sound like they were rarely apart, after all—so he never figured to even try. But now that she’s getting to know the young lady, Sara can understand where Dipper was coming from.

How Mabel managed to pack so many sets of outfits is beyond Sara, but ironically she only owns one set of pajamas. An oversized tee with a picture of a book with a bookmark between its pages, and a pair of sweatpants made out of several different types of patterns sewn together.

Sara had been surprised to see how eager Mabel was to get changed quickly for bed, thinking that she may not be that much of a party girl after all. But, as if to prove her wrong, the moment everyone had their teeths brushed, faces washed and whatever other routine finished up, Mabel had quickly declared for a sleepover party.

Which is how Sara finds herself on the floor of the guest room, sitting between Candy and Mabel, with age-appropriate drinks and some snacks in the middle. It’s no different from the things they were up to on the bus here, safe for the fact that the mood is slightly different thanks to their partial exhaustion. Sara thinks they’re about two deep conversations away from just passing out on this hardwood floor.

Pacifica is the first to start getting sleepy, after their conversation about annoying group mates they’ve had this semester, and their hopes for better ones in the next. She doesn’t try to hide it, simply yawns as freely as she wants with a hand over her mouth—out of practised politeness—and starts crawling for the futon she had shipped over here.

“Don’t talk too loud,” she tells them, and Sara thinks it would’ve sounded more like a threat if she hadn’t been so tired when she said it.

Then, eventually, Grenda and Candy get sleepy around the same time while in the midst of listening to Mabel’s long ramble on some music video she watched the other day. Sara is only half paying attention—something about camera work, something about how cute the boys were—and doesn’t notice the two girls have fallen asleep until Mabel stops talking.

“And then there were two, huh?” Mabel giggles, before cleaning up the mess they’ve left behind. “I guess we should sleep too.”

“Sure,” Sara mumbles, before feeling a yawn stretch out of her mouth.

They leave the guest room together so Sara can help Mabel find the bin for their things, and as they’re walking to the kitchen, Mabel begins small talk, starting with, “How tired are you? Like, rate it between ‘I’m gonna collapse when we get to the kitchen’ to ‘I can totally hang with you longer, Mabel!’”

Sara blinks slow, feels for the light switch to the kitchen, and squints when it hurts her eyes. To nobody’s surprise, Mabel fares better than her, and finds the bin with ease. While she dunks the trash in, Sara finally gathers enough brain cells to reply, “I don’t mind one more convo if you wanna.”

“Aww, that’s awesome!” Mabel bounces. “But, to be honest, I’m kinda getting tired too.”

“Oh,” Sara snorts. “I couldn’t tell.”

“And I couldn’t tell you were all that awake either! You were, like, totally quiet most of the conversation. I mean, you were like that too at the diner, and on the bus. But Candy says you’re cool and you’re not, like, shy or anything. So I’ve got it!”

Sara blinks, letting the girl speak.

“You’re just one of those super good listener types!” Mabel wags both her fingers at her as they make their way back upstairs. “That means you’re also, like, a surprise egg!”

“A surprise egg,” Sara echoes in amusement.

“At any moment, you’re gonna say something super cool,” Mabel jazzes her hands. “And the whole room will stop and listen and then there might even be an applause at the end. Because, good listeners have loads in their mind. The moment it’s all processed… It’s like chocolate.”

Sara feels she isn’t awake enough to make any sense out of what Mabel is saying, but nods along anyway, bubbling out a laugh, “Yeah. Maybe. Will you be there when it happens?”

“Of freaking course!” Mabel chimes, pumping her fists. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

They part ways when they reach the hallway, and Mabel tells her goodnight before turning her back and heading towards the guest room. Sara mimics the sentiment, albeit with less of a beat to her tone, and finds herself dragging her feet when she gets to her bed. 

When her head hits her pillow, she thinks about how lucky Dipper is to have such a fun-loving sister.

 

The Morning After Wirt Was Here

Once Mabel and Wirt were gone, Sara breathed a sigh of relief.

It seems like the boy had finally come to his senses. She’s always known that he could be very petty, extremely petty, but it’s been a while since he last held a grudge, so she wasn’t sure if dipping back into old habits would make him cling harder.

Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the case, and it looks like he’ll be willing to talk to Dipper about what happened last night. Plus, Mabel will be there with him, and Sara has a feeling that will go well—the girl has a certain charm to her that makes things feel alright in the end.

(Her whimsy, maybe? The way she doesn’t take things too harshly? Her boundless empathy?)

Candy is helping her with the dishes and they’re standing shoulder to shoulder. In the background, Pacifica and Grenda are making their way upstairs, going back and forth on what they should wear today, and when their voices have grown faint enough, Candy clears her throat for Sara’s attention.

Sara shakes the dish before handing it to Candy to be wiped down, turning to the girl as she does this, “Yeah?”

“Are you doing okay?” she asks, putting the dish away once she’s done drying it thoroughly.

“Sure I am,” Sara smiles. “What makes you think otherwise?”

“You sighed loudly when they left,” Candy points out.

Sara winces. Yeah, that was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? “I don’t really mean anything by it.”

“Dipper can be a real jerk sometimes, you know.” Candy states.

“I…,” Sara starts, brows knitting. “I don’t really want to call him that…”

“But you know it’s true,” Candy hums.

“Of course I do,” Sara grimaces. “But I’m only getting that perspective from Wirt, and I know he doesn’t lie. Overexaggerate, maybe. But never straight up lie.” 

“Well, as long as you know that Dipper can be selfish sometimes,” Candy bumps her shoulder against Sara’s. “But, it’s quite noble of you to try and patch things up between them. I would’ve never tried.” then she smiles softly, tiredly, quietly, “It took me a while to get used to Pacifica.” 

“What was that?” Sara asks.

“Nothing.”

Sara decides to leave the conversation there. She doesn’t doubt Candy for a moment about her opinion on Dipper. After all, they’ve known each other longer, and Sara gets the impression that Candy might be the type to form a bias—if their gossip sessions are anything to go off of. So, hearing Candy go on the opposing side really does mean something.

Outside the whole Dipper-Wirt thing, however. Candy has been nothing short of interesting. Sara has always known there was something more to her demeanor, so when she got to meet her other friends, it started to all make sense. At the heart of it all, she’s kind of a wacky girl too.

Sara thinks she’s never seen someone quickly invent so many new random DIY contraptions for the sake of fun in her life. Mabel had boasted that, if given enough time, Candy could probably build a pillow castle in the guest room. The girl, however, had flushed and humbly bat her hand dismissively.

Wirt had mentioned offhandedly once that he was surprised a person like Candy, all sweet and kind and just a touch of quirky, could befriend someone like Dipper. Sara had given him a look then, and he immediately retracted the statement.

But she sort of sees where he’s coming from. Around Dipper, Candy hardly shows all the qualities she would usually display around her other friends. So it’s likely Dipper and Candy only got along due to mutual interest, not because they had any actual chemistry to go off of. Not to say their friendship is shallow, but Candy does play favorites. 

 

Thirty Seconds Before The Fist Fight

Sara opens the door, toilet still flushing behind her, her hands still slightly damp despite drying them on a hand towel. She sees a flash of blonde in her way and jumps a little in surprise, “Oh, sorry.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Pacifica, as it turns out to be, says. She shifts so that she’s farther from the door. “I wasn’t gonna use it. Used the toilet excuse on some guy earlier.”

Sara laughs, amused, “Must’ve been a persistent fella then.”

“Ugh. Literally,” Pacifica rolls her eyes, adjusting her costume around her chest. “Would’ve socked him, but I didn’t bring my wallet to pay him off to let it go.”

“And it wouldn’t be nice to have a fight happen at a party,” Sara adds.

Pacifica looks at her from the corner of her eyes and smirks, “Sure. That too.”

It dawns upon Sara that this would be the first time she’s been left alone with Pacifica. Usually Dipper or Mabel would be there, mostly because Pacifica normally follows them around. Sara doesn’t blame her. She wouldn’t actively seek out one-on-one with Pacifica either. Only because she’s not motivated to do so.

Funnily enough, Sara hasn’t gotten the faintest idea what Pacifica is like outside of her friends. When she’s with Mabel, she’s coy and witty and plays nice in a fun teasing way. But when she’s with Dipper, she gets foul and mean. Sara can at least say Pacifica likes to run her mouth sometimes, but that’s as far as her observations go.

But now, Pacifica is—for a lack of a better word—polite. Well mannered. Which makes sense, considering they aren’t close. Though, Sara would be lying if she said she wasn’t fascinated with this side of Pacifica. Something about it seemed practised. From the way her back is held straight, to the way she catches social cues faster than anyone she’s ever seen.

Sara vaguely recalls that Candy and Grenda weren’t able to get along with her initially, but she never got the full story on why that was the case. She can’t imagine Pacifica being mean to people she isn’t familiar with, not unless they deserve it.

Regardless, Sara was about to start a conversation with her to get to know her better, when she notices that Pacifica has gotten herself distracted by something in the backyard. Sara peers, just to see what’s up, and notices a crowd has started to form—and the music’s been cut.

“What was that about fights at parties?” Pacifica grins at Sara.

“I still stand by it,” she replies with a huff. “It isn’t nice. Honestly, I hope someone’s trying to break it up.”

“And if no one is?” Pacifica hums.

“Then I’ll do it,” Sara flexes with a smile of her own.

“ Wooooow , now I really hope no one’s brave enough to step in.”

“I’ll knock the sense into them.”

 

The First Ride Back From The Hospital

They played tetris with their bodies when trying to fit in her mom’s car, and though they all insisted that Sara takes the front seat—for obvious hierarchy-bullshit reason—they had Grenda sit up front to maximize space in the back.

Some of them would’ve hitched a ride back with Greg’s dad, since he dropped by earlier to let Greg visit, but that would mean leaving slightly earlier, and nobody wanted to do that. 

It’s past midnight, and everyone but Grenda and Sara are fast asleep from exhaustion. Sara thought Mabel would last longer than this, but she supposes that, out of everyone here, she did party the most, so it makes sense. They’ve all cozied up together, Candy against the window, Mabel sandwiched between her and Pacifica.

Sara has the other window, which means she’s seated right behind Grenda, and so with nothing better to do, she leans forward to check if the girl’s fallen asleep yet.

“I’m still up and runnin’!” Grenda announces, but just quiet enough to not wake the others. Sara thinks she hears her mom snort in amusement. “What’s up, Sara?”

“Nothing, just wanted to see if you were awake.” she answers bluntly, but remains where she’s at. “You can sleep, if you want.”

“Nah, I’m not tired,” Grenda replies. “To be honest, I’m still kinda pumped up from earlier!”

“Yeah?” Sara says, brow raised.

“Heat of the fight and everything,” Grenda elaborates. “I mean, I’ve seen my fair share. It can get dramatic in theater, sometimes.”

She’d figure as such, but it’s the sort of cliche she would’ve never fully believed in either. “At least the damage wasn’t too severe.”

“Oh yeah, I know Dipper,” Grenda grins, turning her head back. “If he wanted a fight, it would’ve really been a fight. He must’ve thought he deserved it, or something!”

“Huh,” Sara presses her cheek to the back of the headrest. “You think so?”

“Either that, or he just wanted Wirt on him,” Grenda shrugs.

“What could you mean by that?” Sara gasps, leaning back in surprise.

“Woah, woah!” Grenda raises her arms in defense, laughing a little. “I’m just playing with the idea.”

Sara flushes, “Seriously. These are our friends.”

“Uh, yeah. Duh,” Grenda folds her arms. “But fact is fact, girl. They looked like they were doing more than just fighting.”

“No, they were definitely just fighting.” Sara shakes her head. 

Grenda turns her head completely, sincerely surprised by Sara’s denial, or at least unwillingness to play along with her, “Wow we need to get you on some yaoi.”

“I know what that is!” Sara says in exasperation. “I’m not sheltered!”

(Her mom hums in agreement, or something along the lines of that.)

“Okay, so did you think Wirt would’ve preferred being under Dipper or…?” Grenda’s just saying these things to bother Sara at his point, because Sara can just see the shit eating grin on Grenda’s face as she feels her skin grow a little warmer at the mere thought of Wirt being that way with another person.

They’ve never once been intimate before, not in that regard at least, so it’s foreign land to her. Foreign and sacred. She would never in her life be interested in Wirt’s intimate love life to that degree.

“You’ve gotta at least admit they were seconds away from making out sloppy,” Grenda laughs.

“ Stoooop!” Sara wails. This is just too much for her! What a crass girl!

Grenda chuckles again, reaching over to flick Sara’s forehead playfully—a trick she seems to be heavily attached to considering she uses it almost all the time, “Okay, I will. So, don’t worry your silly little head over it!”

Sara huffs, and fusses, then sighs and falls backa against her seat, “Good. Thank you.”

She’s always thought Grenda was rough and vulgar but she’d never imagine it would be to this extreme. It’s not exactly displeasurable, but it’s not something she’s used to either. 

Honestly, Dipper’s friends—and sister—are all so…strange in their own ways. Wonderfully strange and unique.

Notes:

I have a general outline for the next chapter, so depending on my mood and motivation, it may come out soon... No promises though ^_^ But I can pinky promise guarantee to you that I am determined to finish this fic, even if it takes me ... literal years. OR LESS. OR LESS OKAY!!

Chapter 12: Dipper I

Notes:

Hiiii!!! Yes!!! I promised, didn't I? This should be where the pinescone kinda begins. You'll see what I mean later :)

Apparently, the last minute addition of the parapsychology minor had been because a retired professor had decided to come back on board to teach the college again. The reason why she came back is unknown, but Dipper has little care for it. Whatever her reason is, he’s glad she came back.

He had been so bummed out when they coincidentally decided to take out the class right as Dipper enrolled, so much so he had wallowed in his room for god knows how long about it. Mabel had comforted him about it, Pacifica called him dramatic. Eventually, he did get over it. 

Of course, that didn’t mean he forgot about it. Once the new semester came by, Dipper immediately scanned the listings again. To no avail. Safe to say he was disappointed, again. But thanks to his sister’s sense of urgency—or lack thereof—and Candy’s considerate nature, he found out just in time that they had added it in late.

But what ultimately surprised him more than just the return of parapsychology is Wirt’s interest in it. Considering the fact that Wirt had basically bashed Dipper’s novel for being too complicated, Dipper figured Wirt wasn’t that kind of nerd. So, for a brief moment, Dipper had thought that maybe they’ll finally get along.

And then Dipper found out the guy’s just a poser.

The moment Wirt had shown any interest in the minor, signing up for it along with the other, Dipper had immediately probed Wirt about it. Asked stuff like what his favorite type of paranormal activity is (“Er, ghosts, or something like that, I guess?” Wirt answered. Dipper had resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at how basic of an answer that was.) to how Wirt would normally hunt for these activities—no answer. 

He had played nice about it, not wanting to cause a scene when everyone was chilling out on the bus back to their college. But he had shot a look at Mabel, who wasn’t paying attention at all but managed to pick up with her brother was putting down anyway, and she softened, shrugging her shoulders as her eyes flicked to Wirt for a moment.

Translation:

Dipper had said, “Can you believe this guy?”

Mabel had responded, “Aw, man. Yeah, hang in there bro-bro.”

So, begrudgingly, here Dipper is, waiting on Wirt outside his dorm so they can head to class together because Sara had said it would be awkward if they didn’t. And also because they did promise to start trying on getting along with one another, which already feels impossible.

“Should I bring anything?” Wirt pokes his head out of his dorm.

“What would you usually bring to class?” Dipper deadpans.

“Right, gotcha,” Wirt ducks his head back into his dorm, door clicking shut, and Dipper sighs. Fortunately, Dipper had accounted for this, so they definitely won’t be late to class. But it would still be nice if Wirt took note of the time.

Finally, Wirt comes out, dressed in his sweater vest and button up, book bag slinging across his chest. He smiles with this first-day-of-school look to him, which Dipper somewhat smiles back to without realizing and nods his head towards the exit.

Dipper’s smile immediately drops—if it was even there in the first place, to be honest—remembering their main objective. Be on time, or early, to their first parapsychology class. If they start walking now, they might even be ten minutes early!

“Well, let’s get going then…,” Dipper starts, stiffly making his way out through the exit.

Despite sharing a room with this guy for a whole month, it still feels a little awkward hanging out with him like this one-on-one. Dipper supposes the difference between that situation and this one is that sharing a room had been out of their control, and they mutually agreed to tough it out. This…This had been a willing choice.

Wirt had willingly agreed to take parapsychology with Dipper, despite his own alleged disinterest. Did he do it to uphold the promise they made for Sara’s sake? Surely not. Not even Dipper would tough through a medical class for the sake of spending extra hours with Wirt like it’s overtime.

Maybe the guy is really interested in parapsychology and Dipper had been bashing a beginner the whole time. Just look at the look on Wirt’s face. He looks genuinely excited for their first class too.

Okay, now Dipper feels bad.

He clears his throat, getting Wirt’s attention, and as smoothly as he can possibly achieve, “So what got you interested in this anyway? You clearly don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Wirt furrows his brows, “I do know what I’m getting into.”

Ouch. Not the best wording in hindsight. Quick! Save it! “I mean- I mean you’re not, like, super, super interested in it, you get what I mean? Like… You’re not into it. So- I mean you didn’t even know what parapsychology was. I had to explain it to you.”

Wirt grimaces, but eventually buys Dipper’s sincerity—awesome—so he folds and goes, “I just wanna learn more about the paranormal stuff, that’s all.”

“Yeah? Because you’re into ghosts, or something?” Dipper scoffs with smile.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Wirt mutters.

“Dude, I live for this stuff. I’m, like, the only person that gets it,” Dipper pats his chest.

For a second, Wirt doesn’t respond, but eventually he musters up a small smile and nods his head, “Sure.”

Dipper could tell the look on his face meant that he had only compiled to avoid arguing about it, but since Dipper isn’t in the mood to bicker and banter right now, he decides to take it and shut up too. Then, perfectly timed, they reach their classroom.

 

Dipper has read up plenty on Professor Spades Kimiko’s work. She keeps a public journal that anybody can access while having published works detailing her findings. She’s dabbled in everything in her lifetime, but steers clear away from things that border on being occult due to safety reasons. He doesn’t blame her.

When asked about what her favorite thing to study is, by some sheer divine luck or something, she says, “Ghosts.”

Dipper caught the perked look in Wirt’s eyes before he even turned his head.

The first lesson mostly served as an introductory to the class, and they went around discussing the syllabus, everyone’s interests in the class, and more on Professor Kimiko’s life as a researcher turned professor. When class was dismissed, Dipper felt like a customer at a restaurant that was just given the best garlic bread as the appetizer to his main course meal ever.

“I kinda thought it would be more…,” Wirt gestures vaguely with a small smile. “Complicated? But, it was kinda easy to follow and…it really sounds fun. I think I might manage in this class.”

“Hah! Now you get it,” Dipper nudges him, to which Wirt reacts with a strained chuckle.

“I was kinda tempted to ask her more questions after class but,” Wirt flushes, hand behind his neck. “I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?”

“Don’t worry, I was thinking the same thing,” Dipper smiles, patting Wirt’s shoulder. “So I emailed her about getting a coffee sometime to ask questions and stuff.”

Wirt blinks, surprised, “Isn’t that…too forward?”

“What?” Dipper makes a face, amused by Wirt’s question. “I’m just a curious student.”

“Sounds like you just asked her out,” Wirt deadpans.

Dipper gasps, feigning offense, “What kind of man do you take me for?”

“Maybe you have more in common with your sister than you realize,” Wirt hums, playing along.

Dipper rolls his eyes, shoving at Wirt lightly, “I’ll have you know she’s my grunkles’ age.”

“Grunkle?”

Dipper rolls his shoulders, figuring this to be as common as rain, “Yeah. Grand uncle. Grunkle.”

Wirt stares at Dipper for a moment, looking transfixed, or maybe fascinated, which leads Dipper to feel a little self conscious under his gaze, so he shoves at Wirt again to get him to stop under the pretense of play fighting again. This time, Wirt laughs. “I thought it was…cute. The name. I don’t have grand uncles, so…”

And because Dipper can’t seem to have anything nice when it comes to Wirt, he laughs a little too loud and folds his arms, looking away, “Sucks to suck. Grunkles are awesome.”

Now Wirt’s smile has dropped, “Yeah. My family life is kinda complicated.”

Dipper bites on his tongue. He’s slept under the same roof as Wirt long enough to know that the word ‘step’ will always be a permanent stain next to the word ‘dad’—though curiously this doesn’t apply to Greg, who is Wirt’s brother, not half. He’s not half of anything, according to Wirt.

“Anyway,” Dipper winces. Smooth redirect. “If you wanna tag along with me to see Professor Kimiko, just hit me up.”

Wirt rolls with it, but his smile doesn’t return, “I don’t have your number.”

“You don’t?” Dipper whips his head around, surprised.

“Yeah, back home, we never really, like,” Wirt gestures his hands vaguely. “Were by ourselves, I guess? So whenever we needed to get in contact, we just texted the closest person. Like, I’d text your sister, you’d text Sara. Vice versa. Sometimes Candy.”

“Huh,” Dipper digs for his phone. “Never noticed that.”

“You wouldn’t notice anything about me even if I was sitting naked in front of your face,” Wirt rolls his eyes.

Dipper barks out a laugh, taken aback by his sudden sass, “We’ve changed in the same room. I know plenty about you after that field trip.”

“Yeah? Name ten things you know about me,” Wirt crosses his arms. 

“Put your number in my phone first,” Dipper waves his phone.

“Nope. Ten things first,” Wirt stubbornly goes.

Dipper raises his hands up in surrender, “Hey, I was the one that offered you to tag along with me to talk to Professor Kimiko. This will be your loss.”

“And I guess this shows that we can’t really get along, huh?” Wirt drags a finger down his cheek from his eye, mimicking the falling of a tear. “Sara will be so pleased that we don’t even have each other’s phone numbers.”

“When did you get so—” Dipper struggles, feeling a weird rush in him. Must be adrenaline from being challenged. He doesn’t experience this often, after all. “Fine.”

Wirt grins, extending a hand to Dipper, “One thing, one number. How’s that?”

Dipper places his phone on Wirt’s palm, “Sure.”

They’ve sorta stopped walking since this part of the discussion came out, so now they’re standing in the middle of a corridor. To their right is a little grassy area for students to lounge at, with table benches they can use. He points towards that direction, “Let’s sit for this.”

“Alright,” Dipper shrugs, following behind him. He sits across the table from Wirt, arms folded on the wood. “You like writing poetry.”

Wirt knits his brows together, “Hey, that doesn’t count—”

Dipper narrows his eyes at Wirt, smiling cockily, “You said ten things, not ten obscure things.”

“Fine.” Wirt sighs, and Dipper’s phone goes boop as he hits the first number.

“You’re into model trains,” Dipper adds. “And retro gadgets like cassette tape players.”

Wirt hits in two numbers. There’s the area code.

“You’re a sappy guy, so you like cliche romance novels or dramas,” Dipper snorts, remembering the books in Wirt’s shelves and the boxes of CDs for movies in the living room that haven’t been touched since Wirt left for college.

Wirt flushes, “Not anymore. I-I’ve branched out.”

Dipper raises a brow, doubting the ‘not anymore’ part.

Wirt sighs, embarrassed as he hits one more number. Nice.

“You’re…,” Dipper rolls his shoulders on the thought of how he should phrase this. “A really good brother.”

Wirt’s eyes sparkle a little, “You think so?”

Dipper smiles, like Wirt had just asked something stupid and ridiculous, before leaning forward a little, “Yeah, man. The kid freakin’ loves you.”

Wirt flushes, tapping in another number, “Flattery won’t make this easier, by the way.”

Dipper raises his arms in surrender, “Caught me! But, it was worth a shot.”

“Sure it was.”

Dipper drums his fingers on the table in thought, realizing he’s coming up dry soon. He’d pull in stuff about Sara, but that has never really gone well before. Other things he can remember are… “You’re, like, a girls’ girl.”

“A what.” Wirt flatly says.

Dipper rubs the back of his neck, “It’s a term I hear my sister use sometimes. You’re super friendly and get along with girls really easily.”

“And you don’t? Is that not normal?” Wirt squints, confused.

“Come on, even your brother’s mentioned it before. You have a startling huge number of girl-space-friends,” Dipper tilts his head with a smile. “And my situation is different. I get most of my friends from Mabel.”

“So you’re a loner,” Wirt jokes.

“Watch it,” Dipper points. “I call it solitary by choice. Key that number in.”

“Okay, but this doesn’t mean I agree with you,” Wirt does as such. “This is apparently an objective thing.”

“Literally name me the last guy friend you had.”

Wirt visibly grits his teeth, “Haven’t really had the chance to make any since…”

Awkward silence and Dipper looks away, wringing his hands together. His bad again. He’s been hitting landmines with this boy non-stop almost all day, it’s getting pretty ridiculous. “Sorry.”

Wirt blinks, hard, and lets out a sigh through his nose, “It’s fine.”

“You’re also, despite the things we’ve gone through, weirdly nice,” Dipper points out. “I don’t get to experience it regularly, but I’ve seen the way you hung out with Mabel and the rest. You’re so considerate and kind for almost no reason.”

Wirt pinches the hair at the nape of his neck in thought, then hits another number, “Yeah. I’ve been trying.”

And then it sort of dawns upon Dipper, in this exact moment, as he watches the way Wirt’s eyes sort of unfocuses, staring off at nothing, this gentle look to his lips that is neither a smile nor a frown, what Sara had meant all those months ago. About Wirt, always looking back.

Dipper thinks Wirt may be reminiscing about something, but he has this same look when he’s in deep thought too. It’s hard to tell. But, regardless, Sara wasn’t kidding. Wirt’s wistful look has Dipper feeling lost with him too.

“Okay, but,” Dipper shakes the feeling off. “You’re seriously petty too, which is a weird combo.”

Then Wirt snaps out of it, “I am not.”

“Maybe a better word is stubborn?” Dipper taps his chin. “You have this weird ‘proving people wrong’ complex thing going on.”

Wirt rolls his eyes, scoffing, “You’re only saying that because of what we have.”

“Congrats, you’ve learnt something new about yourself,” Dipper jazzes his hands. “I take payment in the numbers for your phone number.”

Begrudgingly, a boop is heard. Right, that leaves two more. Shouldn’t be too hard.

“You’re…sentimental?” Dipper digs, hoping to hit jackpot. He can sort of gather this to be the case, but he isn’t entirely confident about it either. Lots of things Wirt has done that could be considered sentimental could easily just be relabelled as something along the lines of attachment issues. Contrary to popular belief, there is a difference.

(Dipper pretends for Wirt’s sake, but there were times he’d catch the man listening to his cassette tape player at night. Later, Dipper would find out which tape was Wirt’s favorite.)

Wirt makes a face, noticing the lack of confidence in Dipper’s face, unsure if he’d like to count this one because of this. But, unfortunately for him, “You’re right.” and then he hits another number.

Dipper brightens, liking it whenever he’s right. “One more!”

“One more,” Wirt agrees with a hum.

Dipper closes his eyes, wracking his brain, brows furrowing until, “You’re afraid of the dark.”

“I hate the dark,” Wirt stresses his correction. “There’s a difference.”

“Okay, but I’m right. Right?” Dipper smiles, leaning forward. 

With a sigh, another number is keyed in. “That last one is a bit lackluster compared to the ones before it.”

“Whatever comes to mind, y’know,” Dipper smugly smiles with a shrug. The corner of Wirt’s lips tug, then he hits call on Dipper’s phone, promptly ringing Wirt’s in his pocket.

“There, now I have yours,” Wirt says, handing Dipper’s phone back once he’s hung up. 

“Guess that means I can’t turn the tables for you, huh?” Dipper frowns, editing the contact name for Wirt’s number to ‘WorryWirt’. 

The other hums noncommittally, presumably editing Dipper’s contact name too. Curious what Wirt could’ve put, Dipper tries to lean forward to get a snoop, but Wirt catches on early enough to pull his phone away, meeting Dipper’s eyes inches away from his own.

A heat grows in Wirt’s face. Dipper takes this as a sign to back off. 

“We’ve been out long enough,” Wirt mutters, looking away as he stuffs his phone away. “Let’s head back.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dipper watches as Wirt gets up from his side of the table, still averting his eyes.

 

“Sounds like your first day with him went well,” Sara says, adjusting the bun of her burger so it lines up better with the rest of the burger. She takes another big bite.

“That’s supposed to be a ‘went well’ scenario?” Dipper asks in exasperation, picking off the fries in Sara’s tray. She lets him.

“You told him ten things you noticed about him, good and bad,” Sara snorts, wiping the corner of her lips with her thumb. “If he didn’t go back to his dorm kicking his face in his pillow, then I don’t know what could ever possibly make him any happier.”

“Well, you know him best,” Dipper rests his cheek in his palm. “Other than that, how’re you holding up?”

Sara blinks, in the middle of licking the ketchup off her thumb, “Good?”

“It’s just..,” Dipper awkwardly flushes, taking another fry. “If I’m hanging out with Wirt now, and he’s hanging out with me. Doesn’t that mean…?”

“Jeez,” Sara spits out a laugh, genuinely amused. “Dude! Did you think I didn’t bond at all with your sister and her friends? I’ve been hanging out with them. In fact, they invited me to the mall the other day.”

“Oh,” Dipper says, growing a little embarrassed by his own bold assumption, the shade of pink of his face now resembling a vibrant red. “Of course. Yeah. Duh.”

She laughs again, sympathetically to soothe his embarrassment, “But you’re still my best buddy, Dipper.”

“Next to Wirt,” Dipper adds.

“Next to Wirt,” Sara nods, then finishes her burger. “In any case, I’m glad the two of you are finally getting along.”

“Trying to get along,” Dipper corrects, taking the rest of her fries. “We’re not there yet.”

Sara smiles lopsidedly, “Sure.”