Wendy and Dipper were enjoying another regular day not working at work. They watched a muted screen of Stan bargaining-or more accurately, furiously arguing with a customer.
"Hello there today my good chump, is there anything I can trick you into buying?"
"I'd sure like a hand."
"Here you go!"
The two burst into laughter from their dubbing of the T.V while Stan on-screen held up a single finger in a lewd gesture towards the man. While his crush began to settle down, Dipper whispered under his breath, "These moments give my life meaning".
"What was that?"
"Laughing! that was laughter." Dipper chuckled nervously, extremely conscious of how awkward he was at the moment.
"Aww, it's so nice what you two have" Mabel smiled behind them, hands behind her back.
"Mabel, were you-"
"Watching you watch people? Yes."
"Mabel, do you mind?"
"Ok, ok I'll let you have you have your special moment. Wink!" She not-so-discretely signaled her brother and left towards her room.
While Stan and the customer went into a fist fight in the background, Robbie walked in through the door on camera.
"Hey, is this the anime store? I need to be around other one dimensional characters." Dipper mimicked while his crush elbowed him, snickering.
He looked at the pair laughing, and his omnipresent smile seemed to falter slightly. "Hey Wendy, I've been looking for you. So, there's this cool place downtown and I was thinking maybe we can go there?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Ugh, this is the third date you've asked me on. Today."
"What!? I just have a lot of time today and hoped you could join me."
"It isn't just today, you always insist on going out whenever you think I'm going to hang out with another guy. You've been so clingy lately, it's annoying"
"I've umm... got nonspecific stuff to do. Over here" Dipper mumbled while backing towards the shop's back door. Then leaving it open enough to spy on the couple's dispute.
"I'm just worried, what if one of them tries to steal you from me?" He said, and Dipper thought he saw his eyes trail towards him.
She took a deep breath and faced her boyfriend.
"Look, your jealousy problem is unhealthy for you and I need some space. I think we should take some time off."
Dipper immediately backed away from the door jumping in joy. He might finally have a chance! He picked Waddles up to hug him before putting the swine down to continue watching.
"Just give it a chance, it'll be fun I promise" He reassured.
"You always say that, but it's smothering! I appreciate that you're attentive, but man, talk about overly attached."She crossed her arms and turned away.
Seeing she wasn't budging, he put one hand on hers and pulled out a small doll from his jacket pocket.
"Come on, I made you this panda thing myself." He pulled on a string and it chirped "I love you!" in an automated voice. But something about the toy seemed extremely familiar.
Wendy loosened up a bit and smiled." You made this for me?" She took the hand stitched doll and held it.
"Yeah. I'm just kind of an artistic genius." He leaned back on the counter, pleased.
"Alright, I'll give you a chance, but this better not be something lame. Lemme go get my coat."
As she left, the two boys watched and a realization dawned on Dipper as to where he'd seen the doll before.
"Hey, wait a minute," He started, walking out from behind the shop door. "You didn't make that. I've seen people sell those cheap knock-off toys outside the shop when Stan's not around, you bought that right outside the shop!"
But just as he was realizing that thought and Wendy was out of sight, Robbie's typically kind expression contorted angrily and grabbed the preteen by the collar of his shirt, pulling him close.
"Listen you little punk, I know you've got a thing for my girl. Now, you can leave her alone and I'll leave your teeth intact" the much larger boy hissed.
"Huh? Wait I thought you were-" Dipper began to talk, but was shoved into a wall of cheap, pawn shop goods knocking over a vase and shattering it all over the floor.
"Nice? Yeah, how slow can you be? I've only put up with you and your annoying sister because Wendy likes you and I don't want to make a bad impression. "
Dipper struggled in Robbie's grip, confused that his seemingly perfect rival was much more malicious than he thought.
"Does she know you're lying to her?"
He scoffed at the boy's question. "So what? I've been keeping her on constant dates so you won't try anything dumb with her. Now, If I catch you anywhere near her, you're dead, kiddo."
Just then, Wendy walked back in through the employees only door. The goth teen instantly put his victim down and just as soon as it appeared, his angry expression was swapped with his usual polite disposition.
"Hey guys, is everything okay? I heard something break. What happened?"
"Oh Dipper here," Robbie lied, pulling the him close, much rougher than he would have liked. "Tripped and knocked over an urn. Luckily I caught him"
She seemed perfectly convinced with his answer. "Dude, you should be more careful" she replied, walking over to her date.
"Yeah, he should really keep his hands off the merchandise" Robbie said meaningfully to Dipper and put an arm around Wendy's waist. He stared daggers at him and walked towards the door with her.
"So, do you like Chinese food? I know this really great sushi place we can go to."
Papa Oscar
The siblings were in their room discussing the events that had just happened in the shop. Dipper was explaining while pacing back and forth from either side of the floor while his sister played with Waddles, listening unconvinced.
"Ok, so one minute, he was just regular overly nice Robbie-" He began.
"Yep, the one who gives us snacks based on our names sometimes." Mabel replied.
"-And as soon as Wendy was gone, he goes nuts, like he was someone else."
"What?" She set down her pig on the floor. "You mean good Robbie? The perfect guy dating your crush? Well, I think your just jealous."
His face instantly turned bright red and turned to her yelling, "I'm not jealous!" Ok, he was a little jealous. Still doesn't change the fact that Robbie's a jerk. Dipper took a deep breath and calmed down.
"It's so weird... All this time he's been nice, I think it's only because Wendy was around. And I'm going to expose him for being a fraud."
"Mmmmmm I dunno. Maybe he was just playing rough. You can be kind of sensitive" she offered, feeding her pig a piece of candy.
"Mabel, he said if he caught me with her, I'd be dead! There's gotta be someway to show Wendy that he isn't as good as she thinks he is."
"Well that's gonna be hard. Up until now, I've kinda been ranking him above you on my good people chart." She grabbed a colorful, crayon drawn chart from behind her bed with a list of people around the shop.
"Look, here's him" she pointed to the smiley caricature of Robbie only third place to herself and Waddles. "And here's you!" She lowered her pointing finger to the bottom of the list where his name was recently crossed out and switched Pacifica's (with a heart drawn around them) and Stan under both.
"Why do you have that?"
"Anyway, the point is that you pretty much can't make him look bad without looking worse. I mean, he's basically established he's better than you, nicer, taller, oh and not to mention he's got a realistic chance with Wendy since he's actually her age-"
"Ok, you can stop now, this is starting to hurt my feelings." He stopped pacing and racked his brain on what to do.
"I need to take a walk. Maybe I'll think of something"
Lima India
Half an hour later, he was sitting on a fence in a destitute horse ranch downtown, in the abandoned supernatural part. He typically surrounded himself with supernatural unexplained phenomena when distressed because it felt a lot more normal than feelings. Dipper was chewing a pen when it suddenly occurred to him:
"I still haven't thought of anything" the preteen sighed to himself as a 4th pen broke in his mouth, and he threw it onto a small pile of destroyed accumulated writing utensils.
"Pteh! Not again." He stood up and began pacing and looking into the journal.
"Hmmmm." He thought while flipping through the journal. "Truth teeth? No, he doesn't wear dentures. Demons? He's probably friends with a few. Barf fairies...?" Dipper shut the book in defeat.
"Ugh, this is hopeless. Maybe Robbie and Wendy are just destined to be together." As he continued his monologue, an unusual horse with a horn on it's head trotted behind him, a few feet away.
"I mean, he can at least pretend to be nice. And I don't have the first clue about being a gentleman."
"Did someone say manners?" A falsetto voice asked behind him.
"What? Who said that?!" The boy spun around but only saw the horse grazing behind him.
"That was me, and it's really impolite to wear shoes into someone else's house." The voice was coming from the horse, who looked up at him with massive eyes wearing...makeup?
"Whoa, a real unicorn." He thought about what to say before asking. "Hey, do all horses have the ability to speak like in my sisters favorite TV show, or is that just unicorns?"
"Do all humans ask rude questions after not taking their shoes off in stranger's homes?" Dipper took off his shoes and set them next to a fence post.
"That's better. And no, not all horses can, that show is awful" It replied.
"Anyway, not to be rude, but did I summon you with some, I dunno, weird unicorn magic ritual? Mabel's been trying it for years and it never worked."
"I approached you because you were in my ranch, but I heard of your emotional issues. But let me introduce myself. I am Celestebellebethabelle, leader of the Femares."
"Fe- Wait what?"
"It's a portmanteau of female and mares, it makes a lot more sense written out than said. It's clever. Now please, lay down on my flank while I make some dandelion tea. It's not weird."
The unicorn lay down on the grassy field and Dipper sat down next to it. Cellestebellebethabelle produced tea cups and a kettle out of nowhere and set it down on the ground.
"Now tell me what's wrong."
The troubled youth rested his head and explained. "Well, I've got this girl I like-"
"Yes, yes, go on" Cellestebellebethabelle prompted while trying to brew the tea with hooves.
"-and she's dating this other guy whose actually a jerk-"
"Mhmm, yes." The equestrian nodded and knocked tried pouring the liquid, although more got into the ground than the cups.
"-and I'm starting to think it might be because I'm not good enough for her. Hey, you seem pretty well versed in ettiquette, do you think you can teach me to be more gentlemanly?
"Perhaps." It knocked over both teacups with it's hooves, spilling tea everywhere although it didn't seem to bother her. "Considering the tea has gone unbrewed, we will go now to talk to the rest of the Femares. Hop upon my back, mannerless child." The unicorn got up, and Dipper slowly climbed onto it's back.
"So, where are they? Are they in another ranch, or-"
"Now, we ride!" The unicorn reared back mightily and... Dipper fell off.
Tango
A few minutes later, the two were racing through the city, warranting odd looks from the passerbys who weren't used to seeing boys ride unicorns during traffic hour. He struggled to hold on as they ran through the streets, and various litter was thrown into his face but somehow hadn't affected his carrier.
The duo continued to run through the city and began to approach a different barn on the other side. While they approached, Dipper saw they weren't slowing down, but speeding up. a few meters from the ranch enclosure, he screamed and braced himself as Cellestebellebethabelle jumped majestically over the fencing, launching her rider through the barn wall and landing into a bail of hay.
"Uhhhh..." He regained his bearings and looked up to see a barn full of brightly colored equestrian mammals, all staring back at him. Then looking away to avoid staring.
"Umm. Hello" he awkwardly waved, unsure of what to do. Luckily, Cellestebellabethabelle trotted in to save him from the social awkwardness that comes from bursting into people's houses.
"Femares, I present to you a mannerless child." She turned to him. "Allow us to have a discussion about whether we should help you." She joined the rest of the unicorns a the table before clearing her throat at Dipper.
"Oh, right." He turned around so as to not eavesdrop into their conversation. The horses lay around a tall tea table to talk over their decision while unsuccessfully trying to pour tea.
"So, should we help become a better person or not?" Their leader asked.
"He's a human, I don't like them. They come in, destroy roofs and wear shoes inside like they're manotaurs" one unicorn argued and knocking over the ceramic cup trying to pick it up.
"I say, why not. He's doing it for a girl he likes, and we might as well make one human less disgusting."
"There's no hope for them! It's like they were all born in barns."
All the members of the table quarrelled and talked over one another, spilling tea and breaking cups before suddenly stopping. Everyone at the table turned to him with a decision."We have reached a verdict. Upon further consideration, we have opted to deny your request."
"Oh." He was dissapointed, but thought for a second and came up with an idea. "Well, isn't it rude to turn away someone who needs help?"
There was a general discontent amongst the herd over this revelation as Dipper continued.
"Yeah, maybe you all just think I'm too difficult. Maybe you just don't have the manners to do it."
Some small gasps were had in the crowd and the council quickly reconvened, murmuring quickly and knocking over tea accessories. After a few seconds, they faced him again with a new judgement.
"Upon further, further consideration, we have decided to teach you our secrets. The course begins now. But be warned, it will be rigorous and very uncomfortable."
"Yes! So, hey, what are we doing-"
"No, no, no. Hey is for humans." She shook her mane in disagreement. "Try again."
"Oh, um alright. What are we doing first?"
"Well, first use your indoor voice. Now, we go to a special place to test you."
Outside the ranch a hundred feet away, there was a small gopher looking hole in the ground labeled "The Waxing hole". The horses surrounded the hole and Dipper, who was wary to do as they asked.
"It is completely safe. Trust us, you're getting advice straight from the horse's mouth" one unicorn reassured him.
"Have you ever tried to put anything in here?" He asked hesitantly, looking into the dark pit.
"No, of course not. We aren't stupid. Some human put this here years ago to harvest our hair for whatever reason, but now we can use it to test your resolve."
"I'm kind of suspicious. Will it hurt?"
"We don't know, but it can't be that bad. It's not like you have much hair anyway. Now do it!"
"Do it! Do it! Do it!" The unicorns began chanting around him and he slowly put his hand in to the black cavity in the ground.
Shortly after, a high pitched scream could be heard over the treetops near the ranch.
Having proven his worth, the band had accepted him as their own, and so began the long and grueling process that comes with making a polite member of society. The Femares put him through numerous trials through the hours: the strength to open doors for others, the mental concentration of having to listen to someone at a table and feigning interest, and for whatever reason, stacking books on his head. And in one short afternoon, the training montage was over.
Finally, the time had come. The unicorns had Dipper in a clearing just outside of the ranch wearing a suit and tie, waiting for someone to arrive that they had invited. But it wasn't going to be the one he expected.
"The time has come, child. Are you ready for the final test to become a gentleman?" Cellestebellabethabelle asked him.
"I'm ready, for whatever it takes!" The horses in the inner circle cheered congratulating him.
"So, what is this final test anyway? Do I go on a date with Wendy, or ask her out?" He asked, straightening his tie.
"Not quite."
"Hey dork!" A certain emo teenager yelled, entering the clearing. "I got your weird invite, what kind of freak puts a 'fight me' invitation in a shoe, then throws it into my window? And what's with the tie-dyed horses, you playing fairy princess or something?"
"Wha-Robbie?! You inited Robbie?!" Dipper turned to Cellestebellebethabelle in shock.
"Yes, human, we invited the one you call 'Robbie'. This is the final test to prove your dedication. You must fight him to the death!" She pushed him into the clearing with his rival and surrounded both of them, closing off any escape and creating a boxing type ring.
"What does this have anything to do with etiquette?! Didn't we just spend the last two hours balancing tea cups and learning boring conversation?"
"The most romantic thing you can do for a lady is to fight to the death for her. Now go!" The unicorns went into a frenzy, rearing back, throwing tea cups and some began playing rave music with their horns to encourage them.
"Tear him limb from limb!"
"Kill him!"
"Neigh! I mean, also kill him!"
Robbie looked at him panicked. "Hey, I don't know what your trying to pull here, but every time you're around, some stupid thing with - I dunno, magic rhino horses or clay video game characters happens that almost kills me." He struggled to put words together, as he tried to make sense of his situation. "I'm leaving."
Robbie made his way towards the ring of equestrian fury, but they pulled him in and pushed him back into the ring in front of Dipper tied up.
"Prove your loyalty, boy." Cellestebellebethabelle handed him a knife; not something he expected a unicorn to be carrying around. "End him, and you will become the true gentleman Wendy needs."
Dipper took the knife, and looked at his beaten opponent. He close his eyes, preparing to do it, until he realized what a ridiculous and barbaric situation he was in.
"No. I'm not doing this."
The knife fell, and Robbie opened his eyes to see his hands and legs free. Immediately, he jumped over the enclosure and back into town, yelling about how he'd never forget this.
Every horse in the circle looked at him, confused and shocked.
"Why didn't you do it? Why did you spare his life?!" Their leader asked furiously.
"This isn't right!" He yelled back. "This isn't what a gentleman is about at all!"
"You think you know better than us? We, who have been upholding etiquette for decades."
"You know, all of you pretend to be so much higher than everyone else" He started. "You put on these false pretenses, and practices because you think it gives you a right to treat other differently. But I'm starting to think it's a bunch of horseradish!"
Numerous unicorns gasped in shock of the forbidden word, and one even fell over. Cellestebellebethabelle snorted angrily over him and stomped her hoof. "Kill Robbie or never become a true gentleman!"
He looked at her unfazed. "Then it looks like I'll never become a true gentleman."
The crowd around him dispersed in various degrees of dissapointment. Their leader looked back at him with a mixture of distaste and anger.
"Never return to here ever again!"
Echo
Later, that night, after the long day, he was in his room with Mabel telling each other about their days. Mabel had spent the better portion of the day with Soos, cleaning up the shop(Long story, but it involved a really complex dare). Upon finding out he had spent the day with unicorns, she shoved him in disbelief (and a little furious envy).
"So, wha are you going to do about Wendy?" His sister asked, prying the gum off her sweater.
"I dunno. But it feels like the whole day was kind of a waste. I tried learning to be a gentleman, but it turns out the people teaching me were awful, so I don't know what to believe."
"Well, maybe being a gentleman is about staying true to your beliefs. I think that you stood up for what you believe in and that's super gentlemanly."
"You think so? That's kinda corny."
"I know so, bro. Well, might be kinda cliche but whatever, it works."
As Dipper went to sleep, he decided to just let things work itself out.
The next day at the shop, he was hanging out with Wendy, sitting under the counter so Stan couldn't see them not work. And to watch him do his weird Stan things without him knowing
They finished laughing at him get beat up by an old lady who he made a suggestive comment on when Wendy got a text.
"Ugh, it's Robbie. Ignore." She rolled her eyes.
"Oh, yeahhh. So how's it going with him?" He tried to ask casually.
"I broke up with him yesterday and he won't stop texting me?"
"Huh? Wait what happened?" He tried to contain his excitement and not embarrass himself like usual.
"We went to the horse ranch yesterday night and he got super scared for some reason. What kind of person's afraid of horses? Along with that, the cattle ranch owner said he got into a fight with some other guy. Could you believe him? One thing on the outside and someone totally different inside. I just want a real honest gentleman, you know?"
He chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean."
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