Chapter 1: Summer Jobs
All Dipper could see was darkness, a swirling blackness engulfing all that existed, and all that ever will exist. Absolute oblivion, and he was caught in the middle, powerless to stop it as the entire world became engulfed in nothingness all around him. The end of the world, and everything else.
Dipper sat up at his desk, screaming and panting as he tried to catch his breath, barely noticing the rain of colorful strands that went tumbling to the floor.
"Thirty-seven!" a familiar voice rang out triumphantly. Dipper jumped again before regaining his composure.
"Good morning, Mabel." Dipper breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his sister. "Thirty-seven what?" "Gummy worms," Mabel replied, Dipper just now noticing the gummy candies on the floor around him, "I saw you lying there at your desk and thought to myself 'Wow, Mabel, I wonder how many gummy worms you could put on your brother without waking him up!' Sorry, Dip. Didn't mean to wake you."
Dipper chuckled, "It's fine. It wasn't you. It was just...another nightmare. Nothing to worry about." Mabel's brow furrowed with concern for a moment before placing her hand on her brother's shoulder. "You need to try sleeping in your actual bed instead of conking out at your desk every night while reading about eldritch horrors." Mabel closed Dipper's in-progress copy of Journal Six, which was open to a half-finished page about the mating habits of the West Virginia Mothman. "And eat something while you're at it. Get some food in ya!"
"I already ate, alright?" Dipper replied defensively, "You were there, remember? At Greasy's? We came in at, like, 3 AM after we spent all night looking for the Hide-Behind." Dipper had been trying to find proof of the Hide-Behind's existence since his first summer in Gravity Falls, six years ago. While it was far from an obsession, part of Dipper's mind liked to picture himself as Captain Ahab and the Hide-Behind as his White Whale. The more rational part of his mind knew deep down that his relationship with the creature was more akin to Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Dipper had made a point of searching for the Hide-Behind at least once every summer, but always without any success. Now a young man approaching nineteen, and having just this summer moved away from Piedmont with his sister and into the Mystery Shack permanently, he could devote even more time to a quest that part of him knew to be futile. He did this partly out of scientific curiosity, but mostly out of stubbornness (Dipper preferred the term "persistence").
After talking Mabel into accompanying him this time, Dipper couldn't help but feel guilty for making his sister waste six hours of her night placing mirrors around the forest, so he treated her, and himself, to a very late dinner at Greasy's. Dipper had ordered sausage, eggs, and black coffee, while Mabel had ordered an amorphous mass of whipped cream and sprinkles that Dipper hoped had a stack of pancakes underneath it. This was a typical meal for them, really. They were both terrible cooks, and Soos was usually far too busy with his duties as the new Mr. Mystery to cook for them, so most meals were shared between the twins at Greasy's, or one of the other restaurants in town. These meals together were something both twins looked forward to.
"Yeah, that was a good twelve hours ago, Dipper. You get sucked up in your work and you forget to eat. Which means you forget to hang out with me..." Mabel snapped back, an audible sadness obvious in that last sentence, despite Mabel's best attempts to sound angry.
"I'm sorry, Mabel. I've got that job interview at that pizza place later. I'll bring some food home, and we can watch TV or something." Mabel smiled, "Sounds great, bro-bro."
"You've got a job interview, too, right?" Dipper asked. "Yep! Camp counselor at Camp Diamond Pond! I love kids, I love arts and crafts, and I love getting splinters, so this is basically my dream job! And delivering pizza is great for you, because you...uh...like pizza!"
Dipper chuckled again. "No way I'm settling for some dumb pizza job. This is just until my detective business gets off the ground." Starting this summer, Dipper had planned to put his talents to good use and open up his own private detective agency, one specializing in paranormal and supernatural mysteries. Just about anywhere else, finding a steady stream of clients for such a business would be damn near impossible, but in a town like Gravity Falls, one would think people would be lining up for his help. One would think. However, despite having saved the town from otherworldly monstrosities numerous times, Dipper had only had a handful of clients so far this summer.
As Dipper began to internally ponder that particular mystery, he suddenly heard "Disco Girl" begin to play from the direction of his desk. Immediately recognizing his phone alarm, Dipper grabbed his phone and gave Mabel a hug before rushing out of the shack and into his pickup truck. For the twins' sixteenth birthday, Grunkle Stan had gotten them both their own vehicles to celebrate them being old enough to drive. Dipper got the aforementioned brown pickup, and Mabel got a pink convertible. Both vehicles were purchased from an old prison friend of Stan's, and were both used cars, slightly beaten up, and almost certainly stolen. Nevertheless, both twins loved their gifts, particularly Mabel. She had hugged Stan so hard that Soos had to quite literally pry her off with a crowbar. Dipper laughed at the memory as he pulled out of the driveway and headed into town.
Dipper found the place easily enough, with the large sign reading "Evergreen Pizza" being very easy to see from the street. He felt a little strange when he saw a familiar-looking blue pine tree wedged between the words "Evergreen" and "Pizza". Looking himself over in the rear view mirror, it dawned on Dipper that he wasn't exactly dressed for a job interview. He was wearing Wendy's lumberjack hat, a ratty old trench coat that had once belonged to Grunkle Ford, and a pair of filthy, worn down sneakers. He hadn't showered yet today. Maybe not yesterday, either; he couldn't remember. He looked like a homeless person, and likely smelled like one, too.
"Shit," he thought. "I hope this guy isn't super picky." The smell of pizza greeted Dipper as he walked through the front door. The hairy, overweight, middle-aged man who greeted Dipper introduced himself as Mr. Evergreen, although his name tag read "Tony". He reminded Dipper of Grunkle Stan. He followed the man into the back office and sat down in front of his desk.
"So," Mr. Evergreen began, "you want a delivery job, yeah?" "Uh, yeah..." Dipper replied somewhat awkwardly. "And you have your own vehicle, yeah?" "Yeah, I do," Dipper answered. "And this vehicle...you know how to drive it, yeah?" "Well, yeah, I drove it here..." Mr. Evergreen stood up and reached out to shake Dipper's hand. "You're hired." Apparently, he wasn't super picky. Reaching into his desk, he handed Dipper a plastic bag. Inside was everything Dipper would need for the job: a name tag (Dipper was silently thankful that it read "Dipper" rather than "Mason"), a jacket with "Evergreen Pizza" written around a crude drawing of a pizza slice, and one of those signs you always see on top of pizza delivery cars. The thing that stood out to Dipper, though, was the hat that came with the uniform: a blue and white hat with a blue pine tree on the front. It was identical to the old hat he wore during his first summer in Gravity Falls, but which now belonged to Wendy.
Lost, in thought, Dipper was interrupted by Mr. Evergreen. "Okay, kid. See you at nine tomorrow morning. Oh, yeah, and one more thing: change your clothes and take a fucking shower before then, alright? You look and smell like shit." Mr. Evergreen patted him on the back, roughly but affectionately, as he walked out the door. Lost in thought again, he almost forgot to order pizza on the way out.
Dipper walked into the Mystery Shack in his new uniform, and in turn saw Mabel in hers: a pair of khaki shorts, a whistle around her neck, and, most notably, a pink T-shirt with a shooting star across the front, and "Cabin Leader" printed on the back.
"Dipper! Rockin' the classic look, I see." Dipper sat a pair of large pizzas down on the table. "Heh, yeah, it's part of the uniform. It's weird, though. This looks just like my old hat, and that T-shirt looks like one of your old sweaters."
"Yeah, that is weird," Mabel replied, "And speaking of weird, we got another postcard from Stan and Ford."
"Why is that weird?" Dipper's question was answered when he looked at the postcard Mabel handed him. The front of the card showed Stan and Ford posing for a picture with a minotaur in the middle of a vast labyrinth, large red text reading "GREETINGS FROM CRETE". Dipper smiled, then turned to his sister. "So, why the shooting star?" "You're looking at the cabin leader for Shooting Star Cabin at Camp Diamond Pond! All the cabins have some random theme assigned to them, I think," Mabel answered.
"Well, congrats, Mabel, that's great!" "Congrats to you, too, my bro!" The two hugged before sitting down at the table, and they both began to gorge themselves on their respective pizzas. Mabel was the only person Dipper knew who liked her pizza with peanut butter icing and gummy bears. "You know, Dip, it's pretty strange how we're both dressed like when we were twelve." "Yeah. Weird coincidence, probably," Dipper responded through a mouthful of pizza. "Nah," Mabel answered back, peanut butter and pizza sauce dribbling down her chin, "It's probably one of those things that seems like a weird coincidence, but ends up being super important later." Dipper started another slice of pizza; "Yeah, you're probably right."