July 27th
Pacifica couldn't have picked a better weekend to send her text. Because Dipper was, for once, looking for something to do.
True, he had another date lined up with Wendy, with the chance for another night at her place. She had found a really terrible-sounding science fiction movie (Your Face, It's Melting!) in some dark corner of the internet (God knows how she came across all these terrible movies!), with a promise of pizza or subs to go along with it. And she not-too-subtly hinted to Dipper that there might be even more exciting things in store afterwards.
The rest of the weekend, though, Wendy would be hanging out with Robbie and Tambry. To her boyfriend's chagrin, she didn't seem to want company. "It's not often I get to see those guys," Wendy explained, though part of him wondered whether she had explained that they were dating now...And it's not like he was still that close with Robbie, whom he'd rarely more than tolerated over the years.
Still, it stung him more than he'd expected. Maybe their relationship was still too fresh for even casual separations to seem casual. Maybe he really was that paranoid and jealous. Either way, even with the prospect of another night with Wendy, it made him feel resentful.
Nor could Dipper's twin accommodate him. For Charlie, presumably as recompense for their prolonged impeachment vacation, had offered Mabel the weekend of her dreams.
"They're staging a production of Boeing Boeing up in Portland this weekend!" Mabel gushed, hopping up and down as she talked. "Charlie got a bonus this week, so he got front-row seats! I can't believe they were available...apparently Charlie knows some people in the theater and got them for free! Either way, we have a theatrical weekend ahead...and since he didn't spend all his money on tickets, maybe some shopping too? Portland's such an awesome city!"
"That's great, Mabel," Dipper said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. "Between Charlie getting killed and you getting shot, you guys have both earned it."
"You bet we have!" Mabel chirped. Then she noticed her brother's downcast expression. "Of course, it would be even better if you could come along..."
"It's all right, sis," Dipper insisted. "You guys have fun. I'm sure I'll find something to do."
Missing Mabel for a weekend would be one thing...though he wasn't spending as much time with her as he'd like for the Mystery Twins' last childhood summer. Unfortunately, Grunkle Stan didn't seem like he'd be much help, either.
"I keep seeing this piece of shit lately," Stan said, waving a printout around. "Some putzhead claims he's unearthed a document proving the Founding Fathers hated Jews and laid out a plan for disfranchising them! Not that phony Ben Franklin thing, either. I've gotta get to the bottom of this."
"Great! Maybe I can..." Dipper started. But Stan waved him off.
"You kids have done enough history for a lifetime," Stan grumbled, entered his pass code into the vending machine. "Besides, this is more my kind of thing. Leave it to me."
Dipper groaned and shook his head, baffled that Stan would investigate a mystery without him. After all this, he wondered how his Grunkle could still keep things from him - especially things he could help with.
"Hey Soos, do you have anything going on this weekend?" Dipper asked the handyman as he came into the Shack, wearing his Mr. Mystery outfit.
"Sure, dude!" Soos enthused. "Melody and I are gonna do some shopping up at the mall, but we should be available for a movie or whatever."
Melody entered the room. "Hey, Dipper! Who's going to a movie?"
"Poor Dip's all alone this weekend," Soos explained. "Needs someone to hang out with. I said maybe we could do something tomorrow night after shopping."
"Sure, that would be cool!" Melody agreed. "I've been so busy this summer that I've barely seen you kids. Me and Soos were gonna watch The English Patient..."
"Oh...wait, seriously?" Dipper asked. "That movie they made fun of on Seinfeld?"
"Not just Seinfeld dude, it's real," Soos said in amazement. "Actually, we've watched it twice before. Kinda slow and mushy, but it's a good date movie."
"One of my favorites," Melody agreed. "Ralph Fiennes is dreamy."
"Wait a minute...I thought your favorite was Love Actually," Soos said.
"I said one of my favorites. That doesn't exclude all others."
"There was also that time you said Guardians of the Galaxy was your favorite..."
"I have a lot of favorites."
"But yeah, you're welcome to join us, dude," Soos said, steering the conversation back to Dipper. "I mean, you liked that Lost City of Z thing we watched the other day, you'd probably think this one was okay."
Dipper looked back and forth at them, both beaming expectantly. As much as Dipper appreciated the offer, he didn't want to interrupt anyone else's romantic plans.
"Nah, that's cool," Dipper said. "Thanks, though."
"You sure?" Melody asked. "I mean, we could pick another movie, if that's the problem. I bought Soos the latest Terminator for his birthday..."
"I don't wanna get in the way of anything," Dipper said. "But thanks."
"No problem," Soos said. "Sorry, dude, maybe we can hang out Sunday after we're done with church. I'm sure those mystery creatures don't observe the Sabbath...except maybe the gnomes, they have some kinda weird religion of their own, right?"
Dipper went up to his room and sighed, burying his head in his pillow. He wished he'd discovered some mystery that might interest him, but he'd been so caught up in his last two missions that nothing came to mind. He leafed through his journal, looking for mysteries from last summer that he hadn't finished yet...
"Dipper, I'm going to be out of town again this weekend," Ford said through his cell phone. "The Snallygaster's reared its ugly, serpentine head in Maryland again and I want to meet with a friend in Seattle about it before traveling all the way out east."
"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that."
"There is something you could do for me while I'm away," Ford offered. "It's kinda first grade stuff, but it could still be helpful."
"Hey, at this point I'd be happy for some kindergarten stuff. Lay it on me."
"There have been a large number of foxfire sightings out in the woods over the past week. For obvious reasons, I haven't been able to check into them yet."
Dipper racked his brain for thoughts about foxfire. "Do you mean will o' the wisps, or whatever they're called? Those weird lights out in the woods at night?"
"Exactly. Or spook lights, ghost lights, jack o'lanterns...They're not exactly a new phenomenon, but I've only known one or two instances of them in Oregon over the past few years. It's not a regular occurrence like the ones in Missouri or North Carolina."
"What do you know about them? I mean, the specific cases you're investigated."
"The local paper had some stories about it this morning. Three residents out in the woods saw weird orange-and-green lights this past week. Two just saw the lights and weren't able to track the source. The third, a man named Tom Burgoyne, tried tracking down the source of the light...This is the weird part. He remembers getting close to the spook light, saw a bright green flash, then woke up hours later with no memory of what happened."
"Wow, that's...Any chance it was an alien encounter, or...?"
"That's what puzzles me. I talked to Mr. Burgoyne earlier today, he didn't remember enough to be helpful. Maybe aliens, maybe a dimensional rift...maybe some anomaly that got through the time patch. Of course, in folklore a lot of these things are supposed to be ghosts or faeries.
"A lot of these cases are natural phenomena, as I'm sure you know," Ford continued. "They're either bio-luminescent fungi or swamp gas or something along those lines. That was my first thought here, the first two cases sounded pretty typical to me. But the third story was peculiar enough to want me to learn more."
Dipper snapped to attention. "That sounds great, Great Uncle Ford! I mean, I was looking for a mystery to keep me busy...Something more, you know, my speed."
"Hopefully it's nothing," Ford said. "I mean...I don't hope it's nothing. Let me rephrase. I hope it's something interesting, but nothing dangerous. I don't want you to get in any kind of danger without anyone to help you out. You said Mabel and Wendy will be away this weekend?"
"Yeah."
"That's unfortunate. But you're eighteen, I'm sure you can take care of yourself at this point. You know how to be careful and not to walk into any situations that will get you in trouble."
"Hey, caution is my middle name," Dipper laughed. "Just observe and report, I guess?"
"That would be best," Ford agreed. "Get as close as you can without putting yourself in danger. Would be best if you had a partner or two with you, but I trust you."
"Thanks, Great Uncle Ford," Dipper said, happy that he now had some weekend plan, even if it turned out to be nothing. "I'll do my best."
"Man, you're going on a mystery hunt without me?" Wendy teased Dipper. "Lame! At least it sounds like it's just glowing rocks or whatever, I can miss that."
"Not glowing rocks, not usually," Dipper said. "They're usually lights that float and bob through the air."
"Oh...yeah, I know what you mean."
"You've seen them?" Dipper asked.
"Of course!" Wendy said. "I won't say 'all the time,' but when you go out in the deep woods as often as we do, you'll find 'em a lot. Turn up near swamps and ponds and stuff in particular. Never was able to figure out what was going on...the light vanished or floated away before I could spot what was causing it."
"You don't remember any weird experiences?" Dipper asked.
"Weird? By our standards, not really," Wendy said, then caught herself. "Well, maybe the one time...when I was like fourteen, I remember going out into the woods just before dark with one of my brothers and seeing the lights coming over a ridge. We froze, not sure what they were. There were three blobs of light in front of us, two vanished right away. The third though...started coming at us. It was just drifting like a balloon."
"What did you do?"
"My brother took off and ran. Of course. I stood my ground so I could see what it was. The light just floated up to me, floated directly over my head...then disappeared into nothing. Literally. Like, I blinked and it was gone."
"Did you have any burn marks, any missing time or anything like that?"
"Don't think so," Wendy said, trying to remember. "I remember it seemed a lot darker when the light disappeared than when they first showed up, but...I guess that makes sense. No lights, no light. I didn't think anything of it."
"That's so weird," Dipper said. "Of course, we just traveled through time to save the world, so..."
"...It's not that weird!" Wendy laughed, slipping her arm around Dipper. "Now, I dunno about you, Dip, but I'm ready to watch some faces melt. And you know what that calls for?"
"Popcorn?"
"Pizza! Nice, melty pizza."
Dipper stared incredulously at Wendy.
"Come on man," she said deadpan, "we can pretend we're zombies eating their faces."
"That's so gross!" Dipper blanched. "How do you even...?"
"Guess that ruined the mood," Wendy laughed, striking Dipper's head with a pillow. "Maybe we can just order some subs or something."
Dipper felt more intrigued by Wendy's story about the foxfire than any lame movie, or any subs for that matter. But the evening moved on. He almost seemed to go through the motions as the movie unspooled, as they munched their sandwiches while heckling the terrible acting and nauseating effects, starting to game plan his foxfire hunt for the following day...
Until the movie ended, the TV clicked off, and Wendy planted a long, lingering kiss on his neck, her right hand reaching for his fly. And his thoughts of scientific investigation momentarily dissolved...
After Wendy repeated the same joyful experience as the previous weekend ("We'll do the real thing soon Dip, I promise," she said as she washed her hands), Dipper lay in bed thinking. The first time, he'd fallen asleep almost instantly afterwards; this time, there was too much on his mind. He barely noticed as Wendy slipped into bed beside him, pulling the covers around her neck.
"What's wrong, Dip?" she said.
"Nothing's wrong," he said. "I'm just...thinking."
"About your little light show?" Wendy said distractedly. "There'll be plenty of time for that this weekend, man."
"Well, a little," Dipper said. "But, I mean, I guess I'm thinking about us."
Wendy frowned and turned towards him. "Dip, seriously? You wait until after I jerk you off to say shit like that?"
"Yeah, Wendy, I know, typical guy thing," Dipper grumbled, anticipating Wendy's complaint. "It's not that, I mean I'm fine with our...arrangement, I guess. You know sex isn't really...I'm not sure how good or comfortable I'd be doing the real thing anyway...It's just..."
Now Wendy's frustration faded to concern. "What?"
"Maybe...I'm okay with you spending time with Robbie and Tambry," Dipper started, hesitating in fear of Wendy's response. "It's just...I dunno, maybe you could have invited me along. Maybe you could have at least told me about it."
"Sounds to me like you aren't that okay with it," Wendy scolded. "Besides, I did tell you about it. Last week. I'm not just springing it on you now."
"You didn't tell me you'd be gone the whole weekend."
"Dude, are we really gonna do this now?" Wendy sat up. "We had this talk, man. Remember dinner with Mabel and Charlie? You can't get jealous any time I talk to a guy or hang out with someone who isn't you. This relationship won't work if you're gonna act that way."
"It's really not that," Dipper insisted, none-too-convincingly. "I thought about it, and...why wouldn't you invite me along when Robbie and Tambry are a couple? Like, maybe I'm just getting paranoid and that thing that I always do, but maybe I thought...Like, you haven't told them about us? Or maybe...maybe you don't want them to know."
"Dude," Wendy said, "gimme a little credit." But her expression softened as she thought about what he said, rolling onto her back. Because deep down, she knew he wasn't entirely wrong.
"But...Yeah, maybe you're right," she said after a long, tense moment, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, it's not weird for you and me, but...I don't know how it will be for them, you know? You're still that little tag-along kid to Robbie and Tambry...and I'm sure Robbie's memories of you aren't entirely positive."
"That's an understatement," Dipper murmured.
"So yeah, maybe I want to spend time with my friends and just my friends," Wendy continued. "And yeah, maybe I wanna ease them into the idea. Maybe it's not the kinda thing I wanna talk about via text message, or just show up holding hands after seeing them for the first time in years."
"I mean...would that be so horrible?" Dipper asked, more severe than he intended. He saw Wendy's face flash into a scowl...more at herself, it seemed, than at Dipper.
"I'm sorry, Dip, I didn't mean it that way," Wendy said, nervously running her hands through her hair. "It's just...You gotta understand. I know you and Mabel think of me as like, this cool, mature older girl who knows everything, but...My relationship history isn't that great. I mean, my last boyfriend betrayed me and left me in the clutches of fucking Preston Northwest. That didn't turn out so hot. Thank God for Mabel. So..."
"That wasn't your fault," Dipper said gently. "He was a jackass and you didn't realize it until you'd been going out for awhile."
"I mean, I figure I kinda knew who he was when we started dating," Wendy admitted. "But I'm attracted to a certain kinda guy, sometimes. Dating someone like you who's nice and insecure is...a nice change."
And she turned her head and smiled, and clasped Dipper's hand in hers. And they leaned in and kissed each other quick.
"Still, Dip...You can't be clingy. Trust me, that's not healthy and it won't make either of us happy. But I'll think about what you said, I promise. And I promise next time they're in town, they'll be cool about it."
"I'm sorry," Dipper muttered. "I know you've got your own friends, and I should respect that. It's just...I haven't really had any relationships, and I just wanna be careful about..."
"Just let things go as they go, man," Wendy assured him. "But I appreciate the thought."
The two kissed gently a few more times, then peeled apart and turned to opposite directions. Dipper smiled nervously, still not entirely satisfied with the conversation, but at least feeling like he had nothing to worry about, that this weekend wasn't anything more than Wendy catching up with her pals, and that he could stand a weekend doing Dipper things by himself...
Then, as Wendy turned out the light, he felt his phone buzz. And saw the message:
Hey Dipper - it's Pacifica! I'll be visiting Gravity Falls again this weekend - wanna hang out?
"Well, fuck!" Dipper muttered under his breath. Wendy stirred, ever-so-slightly, without turning over. She must have already fallen asleep. And Dipper just stared at the screen for an endless minute.
So much for being reassured.