This story was written for the Dipril 2021 prompt 'Growing Up'.
This exchange takes place during Season 2, between Soos And The Real Girl and Society Of The Blind Eye. (Little Gift Shop Of Horrors is non-canon, so it doesn't count)
"Grrr, stupid ratings board, making sweeping generalizations of an entire demographic… stupid, stupid, stupid…"
Dipper was pacing up and down outside the Beeblyboop's Video Games store at the Gravity Malls. It was plainly obvious to a casual observer that he was not happy, the way his hat was shoved over his eyes, his fists were clenched and jammed into his vest pockets, his arms were tense, and he was grumbling under his breath, not caring if anyone listens in. He wanted someone to listen in, really.
He wouldn't consider himself a 'gamer', but he likes a good game every now and then - in this day and age, who doesn't? The Shack didn't have a games console, but he does have one back in Piedmont, and a game had just come out that his parents would never let him purchase (well, maybe dad would consider it, but mom would shut him down in short order) - the fifth numbered instalment of the controversial Driving Under the Influence series.
'I'm not like other kids!' he'd tried to explain to the disinterested cashier when he went in there to buy it, 'I know most people only like it for the blood and explosions and juvenile power fantasies, but what people don't know is that the writing is chock-full of clever satirical commentary on the current state of the American Dream! It's educational, it's thought-provoking! C'mon, that's gotta count for something, right?'
Obviously, the cashier was having none of it. It's an M-rated title, that means seventeen and up. Dipper is twelve. He knew he couldn't blame the cashier for not allowing it, it's not like she decides the rules, and she may not even agree with them, but the law's the law; if she overlooked it even just the one time, she could lose her job. That didn't stop Dipper from fuming about how unfair it all seemed.
"This is so stupid!" he kept mumbling to himself, "I can handle a bit of blood and violence and curse words! What, they think just because I'm below some arbitrary age I'm gonna go mindlessly parrot everything I see?! How dumb do they think I am?! I've seen full-grown adults who act like five-year-olds and they can do anything they want! UGH!"
"Woah, Dipper, you okay?"
Dipper almost jumped. His hands flying out of his pockets, he raised his hat to get a better look at what was around him. Wendy had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, holding a pink, vaguely sparkly ice cream cone - the kind his sister would usually be eating.
"Oh! Wendy, I, uh…" he forced himself to relax, putting his hands back in his pockets but this time in a more 'cool' way. "Hey. Wasn't expecting you to… a-anyway, how's things?"
Wendy shrugged. "Eh, s'not bad. I guess. Just chillin'. Literally," she said in that casual way that almost made Dipper sigh with relief.
This was the first time he'd encountered her outside work since the bunker incident - between fighting off a bunch of golf-ball people, fighting off a homicidal dating sim, and getting possessed thanks to his own stupidity, he'd almost forgotten the complicated whirlwind of emotions he'd felt as he sat on that log with her. When she showed up here, his first thought was 'oh God what if it's all weird now? What if she doesn't wanna hang out anymore?'
Wendy took a few licks of her ice cream. "Dude, what's up? You're not still hung up on the-"
"Nope! Nope, nope, nope, not at all!" he blurted out, his dumb puberty voice breaking on the final syllable.
For a moment, she looked thoughtful, clearly considering something. "C'mon, let's sit down."
As suggested, the pair of them walked over to a nearby steel bench, thankfully unoccupied save for a gross, discarded bag of fast food that Dipper dutifully dropped in the trash can next to them. (How lazy do you have to be to do that? The trash can was right there! Dipper never claimed to be some model of cleanliness, and even he thought that was too much.)
They sat there in silence for about thirty seconds, as Wendy continued eating her ice cream and they watched the various mall patrons mindlessly walk past without offering them a glance.
"Hmm…" he could hear Wendy go. "Where's Mabel?"
"Oh, she's, uh… in the craft store over there, across the… the street? The way? What do you call it in a mall?"
"Corridor, maybe?"
"Maybe... bit too big for a 'corridor', though… hall, let's go with hall."
Dipper felt sweat droplets roll down his face. He wanted to look over at Wendy, and admire her coolness and her freckles and her unkempt red hair and her grungy-yet-somehow-she-makes-it-work dress sense and… 'don't make this weird, she's a friend. You've been over this. She likes you as a friend, you like her as a friend.'
He ignored his own advice and looked over at her anyway - and to his surprise, the feeling was different. It was muted, calm, not the same sort of hot energy he used to feel. She was still cool, of course, in every way - even now, barely doing anything, she was cool. That hadn't changed. So why did he feel different?
"S'what was up with that, like, nervous pacing?" she finally asked, still not looking directly at him.
Oh, that's right, that was a thing he was doing. "Oh, I uh… wanted to buy the new D.U.I. V. As you do."
"An' they wouldn't let you 'cause you're underage."
"...Yeah, pretty much," he answered, already noticing the casual way he said it, a major departure from the way he was fuming earlier. Is it true what they say about moods being infectious? Does Wendy's casualness just spread over to him?
"Ugh… that sucks, I get it," she sympathized, "not a lot you can do, though. I guess you could ask your Grunkle to buy it for ya, but… actually, no, he'd probably just steal it."
"I would, but he's not here right now. Not that he'd want to waste the money."
"I'm pretty sure he tried to steal a whole-ass animatronic badger from Hoo-Ha's Jamboree the other day… he was pretty obsessed," she mused, glancing in the direction of said establishment - which was currently shuttered, with police tape criss-crossing the entrance and a big sign reading 'CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE' taped to the front. "The cops ain't been to arrest him, though, so… dunno what that was all about," she gestured in the general direction of that scene. "D'you have any idea what happened there?"
Dipper winced at the memory, still fresh in his mind - it had been less than a week ago. "I know what happened. Soos bought this old dating sim to help him talk to girls - like, in the romantic sense," he added quickly, as though emphasizing that he was not doing that with Wendy now, "but it turned out it was… haunted, I think? Or it'd somehow achieved sentience? ...Or was it sapience? Well, anyway, then Soos went on a date with this girl called Melody there, but this girl from the dating sim called .GIFfany got jealous and stalked him, and it possessed all the animatronics and tried to kill Melody before Soos threw .GIFfany's disc into a pizza oven. O-oh, and Mabel and I were there, too. We kinda played second-fiddle for that whole thing, though; Soos was the real hero."
"Huh… Soos went on a date at Hoo-Ha's?" Wendy asked, bewildered - and it was a clear testament to how normal Gravity Falls' weirdness was that this was the part of the story that raised an eyebrow for her. "I haven't been there since I was, like, eight."
"Yeah, yanno Soos is… like that. To be fair, Melody's kinda… like that, too. I heard they hit it off when she saw him riding one of those kiddie train rides."
"I mean, hey, I ain't judgin'!" Wendy clarified, "I mean, that takes guts. To be a grown-ass man who can just, like, have a date at a place like Hoo-Ha's? Major props. It ain't for me, obviously…" she shuddered, probably reliving some past nightmare involving one of the animatronics, "but if it was, I'd totally just… waltz right in there, no cares at all."
Now it was Dipper's turn to raise a brow. "Huh… you really think so?"
"Yeah," she confirmed. "C'mon, man, look at me. Look at my ice cream cone. Remember my room full'a plushies? Just 'cause I'm fifteen, don't mean I can't like that sorta stuff. Same way I bet you argued with the cashier about that video game."
Dipper's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, then closed again. "...Yeah, you got me there," he admitted. "I mean, we've watched those old horror b-movies. They had tonnes of blood and violence and… w-well, as much as they could get away with, anyway. That's mature, right? If I can handle those, surely I can handle that game."
"Yeah, though I wouldn't exactly call 'em 'mature'," Wendy said with 'air quotes' around the word 'mature', "I mean, it's mindless bloody carnage, it's not, like, commentary on the futility of war or somethin' like that. It was made to get people's dumb animal brains workin' overdrive. Not that there's anythin' wrong with that, a'course, s'long as you don't, like, pretend it's somethin' it's not. Yanno what I mean?"
Once again, Dipper was at a loss on how to answer. He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. He never really thought about it that way before. He always assumed being 'mature' meant swearing off anything even remotely 'childish'. At first he could excuse Wendy's plushies because, hey, she's Wendy - she can make anything cool. But now he was being forced to reconsider what 'mature' even means, if riding a kiddie train can be 'mature' and watching gory movies can be 'immature' (Wendy hadn't outright said that, but Dipper felt that's what was being implied). The fact that it was Wendy saying it probably hammered the point even further. If it was Soos or Mabel, he'd have probably just brushed it off - they're just like that, of course they'd say it.
"Dipper?" Wendy spoke up, delivering him from his stupor.
"Huh?"
"Dipper, man, you were like… in the zone, again. Somethin's botherin' ya."
He paused to consider his words, idly swinging his stupid underdeveloped hairless preteen legs.
"So, um… weird question, but… do you remember back at the haunted convenience store, where I…" he cringed, forcing himself to say what he wanted to say, "did the... that dance?"
He braced himself for Wendy to laugh at him for bringing up the Lamby Lamby Dance, but no such thing happened. Instead she just looked at him thoughtfully. "Yeah, I remember. How couldn't I? To forget that, there'd have to be like… some kinda secret mind-wiping society runnin' around town."
"Hmm…" Dipper couldn't help but consider that possibility - it would explain why everyone in town seems so oblivious to all the Weird happenings.
He shook his head, filing that thought in the back of his mind. He was getting distracted. "A-anyway, so… was that, like… mature of me? To do that?"
Wendy's brow furrowed; she was clearly starting to figure out what exactly was on Dipper's mind. "Yeah, yeah of course. I mean, ya knew what ya needed to do to save everyone, an' ya just did it! That's like, peak maturity. The most mature thing ya did that night. No way Robbie coulda done that."
Dipper went silent again, and he felt himself sitting up. It was like a switch had been flipped in his mind. The fact that Wendy had just openly admitted he's more mature than Robbie should have been his cue to be all proud, but for some reason, it… wasn't. One-upping his old rival didn't matter to him the same way anymore. That alone said something, but he didn't know what.
"Huh… I never thought of it that way before."
"Dude, I know what you're thinkin'. It's fine, I was kinda like this when I was twelve," she reminisced - and it was always a little strange to hear 'when I was your age' coming from people who weren't even ten years older, "ya think you're 'not like other kids', that you're more 'mature', but like… all kids think they're more mature than other kids. Or, most do, anyway," she paused, probably making an unspoken exception for Mabel. "I went through that whole phase, but one day after my thirteenth, I got outta bed an' I was like 'wow, literally nothin' has changed. I'm still the same gal I was a year ago', an' then I just kinda stopped carin' about bein' 'mature' and just did whatever."
Dipper nodded. He could kinda see what she was getting at. He remembered that whole Summerween incident - that was definitely not one of his better moments. But when he wasn't preoccupied with looking 'cool' in front of Wendy, when he was really getting into the rhythm of trick-or-treating - even if he was only doing because it was quite literally Trick-Or-Treat-Or-Die - he hadn't felt any different from when he did it as a ten-year-old, or a seven-year-old.
He probably should have just told her the truth, he thinks. If he'd said 'I have to go trick-or-treating because otherwise we're all dead', she'd have understood. Hell, maybe she'd have even chipped in. She'd have wanted to fight the Summerween Trickster. The idea that she'd ever want to do something so 'childish' for any reason had never occurred to him before.
"Yanno what was really mature of ya, though?" Wendy asked, smiling. That expression - the same devil-may-care look that had made him sweat like crazy in the past - made Dipper reflexively turn away, but then he looked back and again, he didn't feel that anymore.
"What?"
"The way ya took me, uh... breakin' the news. Yanno, after the bunker thing. Robbie's still not over our break-up, even though it was, like, a million years ago; I hear he keeps rollin' around in empty graves, just groaning in despair over it. Not like you, you were just like 'eh, whatever', an' moved on. Next thing I know you're helping Soos land a date an' fighting off… killer haunted animatronics or whatever? S'like nothin' happened! That's the kinda mature levels I ain't even seen from my dad!"
Okay, that was enough to elicit a blush from him. He was flattered that Wendy was saying all this, of course - the truth was, he very much hadn't 'moved on' from that, he just knew there were more important things to think about, and it'd do him no good dwelling over something that isn't even a problem. He still wants to talk about it, but… not now.
...Maybe that's what she was talking about? Was that what 'moving on' is? He didn't know. There was way too much stuff he didn't know. He thought being mature meant you had to know everything.
He sighed again, this time slumping into the bench. He almost started sliding towards the floor.
"Hey, what's up?" Wendy asked, obviously concerned.
"I don't know… I just… don't know. I hate not knowing things. ...Maybe I'm not 'not like other kids' after all."
By now, Wendy's ice cream was down to the cone, and she took a crunchy bite out of it - enough to keep Dipper alert. "There anythin' wrong with that?"
Dipper sat back up, considering his words. For a moment, he gave himself a headache. Was this some logical paradox he was dealing with? If he admits he's 'like other kids', then he's not like other kids? If he tries to be not like other kids, then he is like other kids? If he tries to be mature, he's immature? So everything is backwards? But that surely can't be the case - surely if he goes out of his way to be immature, that wouldn't make him mature. If he went on a kiddie train ride like Soos did, that wouldn't be mature, that'd be weird and awkward.
Then again, Mabel could do it, and she wouldn't make it weird and awkward. But she's his twin, she's the same age as him. ...Maybe it's got less to do with age and more to do with personality? She can make anything fun and goofy, he's only good at being weird and awkward. Same way if Wendy did it, she could make it cool, somehow. She just wouldn't care.
...Maybe he should just not care. If he is 'like other kids', that's still a working excuse. He doesn't need to figure out everything yet. Right?
"...I guess not," he finally replied.
Just then, he heard the sound of ballet flats clattering against the mall's tiled floor. He knew who it was, but a loud gasp interrupted any further thoughts.
"Wendy! ...Dip! ...WENDIP!" Mabel just came up with out of nowhere, as much of her non-sequitur as her arrival. "Aww, why didn't I think of that before?!"
"Hey, Mabes," Wendy answered.
Dipper looked back at his newly-returned sister - for some reason she'd chosen to wear the same vertical-striped referee sweater she'd worn to Soos' date-turned-disaster, and she was holding two bags packed to the brim with…
"Mabel, are those spray paints?" Dipper asked.
"Yep! Don'tcha remember, tomorrow I'm gonna make Mabel's Guide to Graffitti. It's a rich art form with a long history, yanno!"
"I thought you needed to be over sixteen to buy those…"
"Ya do?!" Mabel briefly appeared shocked, but it quickly vanished. "Eh, who cares, I have 'em now! So didya get your rooty-tooty-shooty game or whatever?"
"No, of course I didn't! 'Cause I'm underage!" he said, sounding kind of indignant - this time he wasn't fuming about being denied the game, it was more about the fact that Mabel could somehow circumvent those same barriers with no difficulty.
"Aww, booooo!" she yelled, ignoring her brother's frantic gestures to quiet down, "that's totally unfair! We're not like other kids, we can handle it!"
Wendy obviously noticed Mabel's use of 'we' instead of 'you' and turned to look at her. "Wait, have you played those games?"
"Yeah! This one time when mom and dad were away, we played D.U.I. IV on dad's console thingy. Dipper kept tellin' me there was loads of, like, 'satirical commentary' hidden in it, but I never found it. Just seemed like dumb shooty times to me. Not that there's anythin' wrong with that!"
Dipper briefly thought back to that time. He's still amazed his parents never found out. He was about to make some snarky comment about how it just flew over his sister's head, but stopped.
"Maybe I was overthinking it a little," he admitted. "...I still want the new one, though. That hasn't changed."
He felt faintly embarrassed to admit that, after all the thinking he just did about what 'mature' means. He feels like at some point he should have reached some conclusion, but he got nothing. He just thought around in circles for about ten minutes while he killed time waiting for Mabel to return.
One possible conclusion he thought of was 'perhaps Mabel is more mature than me', but he squashed that. He refused to admit that to himself; there was no way. ...Maybe he could settle for, 'in her own way, she's more mature'? ...But no, she kept doing dumb things in the name of getting a crush… but then he did equally dumb things to impress Wendy…
Bleh. Maybe they're just equally immature. But they're twelve, they can get away with it for now.
"Well, I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here today," Wendy mused to herself, catching the twins' undivided attention.
"If ya wanna buy somethin' you're too young for, use a fake I.D. Or just steal it. They can take the loss."
"YES! Preach it, sister!" Mabel declared, offering Wendy a high-five.
Dipper groaned. She didn't even know the context behind what they were talking about. This was dumb.
I s'pose this is good a time as any to mention I have a Tumblr - PresidentStalkeyes. I post some art there sometimes, along with fanfic links.