IV
SEEDLINGS IN FOREIGN SOIL
Timeline Summary:
Chapter is still set during Summerween. Events still spiral from canon. There are, however, references to Fight Fighters, the events of which occurred exactly as they did in the show.
Author's notes:
Rated 18+ for mildly suggestive humor.
SHOUT OUT to this story's favers/followers:
✨Car9723, CritterTheCryote, GunCon, johnnycatalina, LordStar8045, NVS Tobi, Obvious Ghost, Straightjacketed, Theory of Weirdness, William Easley✨
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Mabel pushes back the giant blanket of Gideon's breast pocket, looping a leg over the rim as she squirms free of the fabric. After settling to her feet, she adjusts the rock on the crystal flashlight's lens, pointing it directly at the continent of a boy beneath her blue ballet slippers.
ZAP!
And the world is once more as it should be, with Mabel planting one foot triumphantly on the now normal-sized boy and the other foot back on (semi) solid ground.
A semi-solid arm gently hooks around her stomach as another lifts up Gideon by his hair. The ragged breathing grows heavier as the two kids are carried further and further up the rocky slope of the tree-strewn crater.
The breathing hitches as they crawl over the lip of the newly-formed li'l valley. The Trickster lowers Mabel down with the same care as a senior's chair lift. Gideon is dropped on his butt like a bad grandpa. In one swipe, Trickster claws off the sugary sap that was suffocating the boy before bringing his heel down in an axe-kick onto the kid's belly. Gideon coughs up the syrup, simultaneously hacking while sucking up all the oxygen on the planet. Once the air flow is circulating again, he promptly passes out.
The Trickster's grunting ceases as he collapses onto his knees, falling backwards into the dent in the earth. Mabel leaps into motion, snagging the Trickster's hands and pulling him forward onto his face. She drags him as many yards away from the crater as she can.
"Trick'othy!" She cups his candy cheeks. "Please!" she begs. "Don't, like, y'know, die!"
"Kiddo," he wheezes. "I want to thank you."
"For what?"
His peppermint eyes lock with hers. "For believing there was something good in this mound of rotten junk. For offering me a chance at friendship. For believing in my potential." Some jelly beans dribble out of his mouth. "I've got no right to ask, but will you do something for me?"
"What's that?"
"Don't stop. Don't lose your Summerween spirit and wide-eyed wonder... unless you decide you want to. But don't be like Wendy, cloaking herself behind whatever image will gain her acceptance in the crowd she's running with. Promise me?"
It feels like Trick'othy, however unintentionally, has lodged a piece of himself in her throat. Mabel knows that there are words she can summon to Wendy's defense, but they feel too lost to find.
As the folds of fused-together candy-bits start to close over his peppermint eyes, Mabel snaps back to reality, desperately shaking his face in her hands with such passion, it would've snapped his neck if he had the bones.
"Trick'othy! Oh no no no! Don't go, please! You saved me!"
Trick'othy's eyes wearily pry themselves open, and a tired smile tugs at his licorice lips. "... And you saved me, kid. You saved me-"
Mabel scrambles backwards, headlights surging in her periphery. In hardly three heartbeats, Bud Gleeful's fender SMASHES INTO TRICK'OTHY, SCATTERING HIS BODY PARTS IN A SHOWER OF CANDY CONFETTI CARNAGE.
Mabel blinks in between the tempo of her twitching eye, slowly turning towards the 2012 Subaru Sho now skidded to a stop. The door pops open and Bud ducks his head out. "Why li'l Miss Mabel Pines!" he chuckles. "What are you doing out in these here woods at this here hour? Tree-huggin', as you Californyuns tend to do when you ain't busy paving over paradise?"
"You exploded my friend," she states, rather succinctly.
He giggles uncomfortably. "Well, don't I feel silly. Say! Can ya roll Gideon over here? Poor thing is out past his beddy-bye."
"He tried to kill me, y'know."
"He gets like that when his blood sugar is low. In fact, I have a can of Pitt right here," Bud explains, maneuvering himself out of the car, his steering hand behind his back as he closes the door-
-only to whip out a very peculiar, very unsettling device. Almost like one of those ray guns from Dipper's Star Safari show. A carefully assembled heap of a bulb, canister and a dial, among other features.
Including a trigger.
... A trigger which has yet to be pulled.
Mabel locks eyes with Bud, her crystal flashlight doing all the talking for her.
No tumbleweeds blow by in this standoff, however much opportunity they're given.
"Now what's that little doohickey do, girl?" drawls Bud.
"What's yours do, Mr. Gleeful?"
The wind whistles through the pines, answering for both of them and revealing nothing.
"Well now, I'm certainly no FBI profiler," begins Bud, before grinning disarmingly. "Heck, I don't even play one on TV. But if I had to guess, I'd say we're both actually thinking the same thing."
"And what's that?" presses Mabel.
"Why, that th' two of us would like to forget this whole night ever happened, right?"
"I think we can settle for walking away," counters Mabel, eyes uncompromising.
Bud nods. "Fair enough."
Mabel takes a few steps back towards Gideon's form. Rearing her leg, she propels him with a kick to his side. The basketball-boy rolls towards his father, who uses his own leg to draw his son behind him. Bud then holsters his gun into his khakis, raising his hands with a good-natured grin.
Mabel keeps the flashlight trained on him as he cradles Gideon in his arm and retreats into the driver's side. Mabel inches closer to a nearby tree, should they try to pull anything that requires cover. After a tense few moments that feel longer than they ought to, the car revs up then backs up, U-Turning and-
-firing a blue bolt out the unrolled passenger window.
Before she can even dodge, a maelstrom of candy forms in front of her, taking the blow. Mabel looks up in awe, as Trick'othy turns to face her. "I feel tingly."
Trick'othy feels a heck of a lot more tingly as Robbie's van then plows into him, like some kind of catastrophe remix. As the van skids to a halt, the driver's door flies open and Wendy barrels out, dashing over to Mabel and enveloping her in a Smokey Bear hug.
Dipper does Wendy's talking as he scrambles out of the passenger side and circles around the hood. "Mabelohmygoshareyouhurt?!"
"I'm fine guys. Other people seem to be taking my hit-and-runs today," Mabel assures, a little miffed despite herself.
Trick'othy reforms his body, his misshapen, avocado-shaped bulk looming over the trio.
"Wendy," he rasps, "I want to, y'know, forgive you. For abandoning me. And for mowing me down."
Wendy fist-bumps his clenched claw. ""Thanks, man. Though, I would think your forgiveness would come after your apology for trying to murder us, but, hey, I'm flexible."
Trick'othy rubs his temples, turning to Mabel: "Y'see? It's like talking to that McGucket."
"I'LL MCGUCKET YOU!" declares Grenda, leaping over some shrubs and whacking Trick'othy with an unconscious mallet named Robbie.
"Grenda, stop!" Mabel orders as she, Dipper & Wendy hold the heavy girl back with some difficulty.
Grenda flexes free of the trio and tosses the limp goth into the dirt. "WHY?!"
"Whoo-boy," sighs Mabel. "Time for one of those sitcom-y explanations where we detail the chain of events leading up to our seemingly inexplicable circumstances. Y'see-"
"Or I could take your word for it because you're my friend."
"... read the room, Grenda," Mabel grumbles, crossing her arms.
"Well Candy wants the origin story," demands an out-of-breath Candy, jogging up to the crew and holding up... Robbie's phone? It is! And on its spiderwebbed screen is a paused video. "What is the meaning behind this?"
Seeing the phone, Dipper's eyes pop, his jaw quivering as he starts shaking his head. Wendy adopts a warning grimace. They're only feet away from the phone, but Candy's finger is a millimeter's distance. And so, the 'PLAY' icon flashes on the screen.
Shaky footage shows the pixelated food court of Gravity Malls. Sitting at the table orbiting Tofu You Too! is Pacifica Northwest in hot pink, flanked by her lackeys, all glaring at-
"Dipper?" Mabel mutters, turning to the star of the candid video.
A fly on the wall, the camera zooms in hastily on the young boy, who unfolds his blueprint and gestures urgently at it, seemingly unaware of the indifference of his audience. He becomes very aware of it once Pacifica's little redhead groupie gives Dipper a clear view of the bangle on her wrist. Which she does by reaching over his head and dumping an entire liter of soda on him. The brunette one cackles hysterically, making a clashing duet for the baritone snorts from behind the camera. Pacifica regards the spectacle with a half-lidded grimace.
The video ends.
Now begins the comments section: Real Life Edition.
"That's why you came home all sticky with soda," Mabel realizes, thinking back to the other day when her brother returned to the Shack, clothes mysteriously soaked. "But why? Why even go to Pacifica?"
Dipper holds her gaze, and Mabel can see the pride wrestling with the pain. For a moment, she almost believes he'll tell her-
"GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!" swears the gravelly voice of Stan, headlights scissoring through the trees.
The group reacts, heads swiveling over their shoulders. Mabel looks to Trick'othy, alarmed. But where there once was the candyman, there's nothing but air, just in time for Stan's arrival.
The Mystery Cart almost wobbles onto its side as Stan swerves and slams on its brakes, kicking up dirt like baby spit. "What the HECK is going on here?!" he howls, throwing open his driver's door.
Mabel's eyes balloon as she takes a shuddering breath. "OMGEE. Sitcom-y flashback-sequence recap - it's happening!" She shakes Dipper's shoulder. "Let's get this right, people! Get me someone who can absolutely shred a harp!"
"SAVE IT!" barks Stan. "You all have completely riddled my gut with ulcers tonight! You ruined my attraction! And further ruined my property value!" He sweeps his arm before the gaping crater littered with the toothpick-crushed trees. "Well, enjoy it while you can, because it stops here and now! You riff raff are grounded as of midnight!"
"BWWWAAAWHHHHHAAAAA?" is the consensus of the quintet. (Valentino, being the sextet-qualifying member, unconscious. At best.)
Stan promptly shows them his back, wrenching open his cart's door and buckling himself back in. "No bwwwwaaawhaaaaa's 'cept the bratwurst you're makin' as my apology brunch!" He heaves a sigh, whipping out a hankerchief and dabbing his now-sweating forehead. "Welp, now that I've fulfilled my requisite of yelling at children, I'm heading back home. Toodles." With that, he starts the cart and is back on the (bumpy) road again.
Mabel begins circling her crew, like some kind of vulture who, ironically, is about to die herself. "This- this can't be happening! This has to be the bait-&-switch dream sequence bit before the resolution to tonight's misadventures! Grenda! Slap me!" Mabel is on her knees now, gripping Grenda's shorts. "Do it! Slap me back into the land of the living!"
Grenda obligingly WHUMP-slaps Mabel.
"... The tooth fairy's getting a gold digger tonight!" cheers a crumpled Mabel, raising a wobbly fist over her nearly owl-twisted head.
"I'll talk to him," Dipper declares, marching off, tense with intent. His elbow is tugged back by that iron-hard yet sensually-soft and all-in-all very hormonally-confusing grip.
"Everybody just take a breath, a'ight?" commands Wendy. "Let's consider this tactically for a dang moment. He's PO'd. He needs an outlet. You dudes are the only ones small, helpless and relevant enough for him to maul. We rush after him and we're pleading our case to the executioner. We need to fall back for now and regroup on this later. Clear?"
The rest of the quintet study the eldest group member before looking to one another. If anyone knows anything about grounding, it's gotta be Wendy.
A silent agreement is formed. Candy is the first to speak the silent question it leaves in its wake: "So what are we to do now?"
Wendy flips open her phone, checking the time. "I can't believe I'm saying this at only 9:57PM on Summerween, but let's just crash at our respective pads. Candy, Grenda, you ladies buckle yourselves into Robbie's ride and I'll chauffeur you home."
"What should we do with the Robbie, anyhow?" wonders Candy, pointing to the barely breathing but very noticeably torqued body that's been dragged off two yards by Stan's Mystery Cart.
Wendy shrugs. "Same thing you'd do to a hot skunk turd. Ditch him."
Grenda salutes in agreement, hurling the teen boy by his ankle. Robbie's body enters the air spinning, scything into the twiggy tree branches and pinballing off the thicker limbs, like he's some kinda gypsy-frisbee that's wandering from impact-point to impact-point, before finally landing in some shrubs.
The group all cringe, trying not to imagine his pain. Dipper rubs his neck, thinking of how Stan would disarm the situation. "Wellll... I mean, there's no eyewitnesses in the woods, sooooo..."
Wendy nods. "Yep. If he ever snitches, it's five testimonies against one, so we're home clear." She claps her hands. "Anyway... Candy, Grenders, why don't you scour Robbie's cupholders for laundry change. And Mabes, why not shrink some of these downed trees into firewood so Stan doesn't have to hire a crew to buck 'em all? Dipstick and I need a quick chat."
"Oh, ok." Mabel takes the flashlight and gingerly flips the crystal a few times. And then a few more. And then one more, after which she holds the flashlight aloft and examines the crystal's placement against the glass, tugs at the string securing it, swivels it on her fingertips like an Oregon Dunk Slammer and examines the butt of the handle. She nods in approval. Then mindlessly flips the crystal again.
It's during this second circuit of burpee-flipping that she notices the joint, expectant stares she's receiving. "Oh don't mind me," she encourages, "juuuuusssssss' fiddddddlllllliiiiin'~"
Dipper's brow trickles down his face like runny yolks, but Wendy steps in before he has to crack any eggs: "Private chit-chat, Mabes. You understand."
Mabel looks at them like a dog - though it's a sliding scale between Puppy Eyes and a leery, beaten one. She slinks away, casting one last look over her shoulder at the two and absentmindedly missing her tree-targets by give-or-take the entire troposphere, potentially scaling down any Boeing 747s into paper airplanes but oh well.
Once she wanders out of earshot, Wendy turns to Dipper and announces the agenda with such blunt force he feels like he's been shotgunned. "Let's get 'er done."
"Get what done?"
"The Talk." Her air-quotes are ominous to the point of looking like bat talons.
"Oh..." His voice sinks low, body slinks in, spirit withers and tailspins. "Wendy. OK. Look. It's like... y'know. Robbie let the heat of the moment get to him. Adrenaline was pumping. Accusations were voiced. Theories were, uh, postulated. And what we have now is a fork-"
"Fork?"
"-in the road. Fork in the road."
"How'ya figure?"
"Well uhhhbviously, there's two, erm, responses we can choose. One... Well, one, it's like... see: One is we take control of the situation, the other is we let the situation take control of us."
"Meaning...?"
"We can use the situation to our advantage to avoid it taking advantage of us. Which is Option #2."
"What's Option #2?"
"Getting taken advantage of."
"By...?"
"Our situation."
"And we avoid all that by...?"
"Employing Option #1."
"That being...?"
"Gorging ourselves on candy and Pitts to drown out tonight's memory in a sugar coma hangover."
"Ah."
"Exactly. And, uh, Option #2 is, uh, y'know, the one where the situation wins out, and, uh, we sit down together and, um, talk candidly I guess, and, uh, we, uh-"
"Spoon."
"WUT?!"
She smiles teasingly. "It's not a fork in the road. It's a spoon."
"Noun, not verb, ya mean, OK." Dipper whips off his hat and rakes his hand through his hair so hard that he practically scalps himself. "Context, please?"
"No man, listen, it is a verb. What I'm saying is, I'm gunna spoon-feed our situation to ya." She kneels down, clapping his shoulders, sending him flinching and then, consequentially, blushing from said flinching. "Robbie would question my relationship with a woodpecker. You didn't do anything to cause the trash he flung at ya tonight, K? And I'm sorry you got caught in the crosshairs of his random, neurotic, dumb paranoia."
Dipper's inherent TAP-anchored mindset taps out at this moment. (Temporary Agnosticism in Practice, as he'd be quick to clarify, feeling a flush of giddy pride that he'd hide under maturity-aspiring stoicism.) However sentiment-soaked the reasoning may be, he feels as if the universe is an alive, caring place actively enveloping him in a warm fluffy towel. His spine actually tingles with euphoric relief in some kinda serotonin & oxytocin dance-off. It's... It's a fortified feeling that everything is not just OK, but it could never not be OK.
A smile, however small and reserved, scribbles itself onto his face.
Wendy crookedly grins a thin-lipped one back.
And continues grinning even once the shared moment passes. She blinks as heavily and placidly as a cow, but he swears there's some kinda... mocking, raven-lookin' gleam in her eye.
Dipper's skin moves from goosebumps to vague itchiness.
He doesn't want to speak, doesn't want to burst their bubble, when she does it for him:
"Th' ooooonnnnnllllyyyy thing you did wrong tonight was not coming clean about the whole lyin' and manipulating-me thing."
The Violin String tightens in his gut. "Wha - whuh -" Muggy breath is forced from a dried, pinched-straw throat. "Whaddya mean?" Cold sweat seeps from trembling pores. Nothing is looking out for him. "I-Is it - you're talking about m-my height, aren't you? Wendy, honestly, I don't have any idea how-"
He can't continue. He's experiencing an allergic reaction to reality.
But instead of an Epi-Pen, Wendy's doling out Epiphany-Pens: "Hold up, big shifter. Ain't about your height. Didn't Robbie let slip sooommmmethin' about you two fightin' again?" Her coyness suddenly drops. "Or do you wanna lie to me a second time and tell me I misheard?"
Threats.
Broken phone.
Circle Park.
He hated that day. And not just because he was beaten up by an arcade game character.
But, much like when he faced down Robbie's horribly-made fish-fist hovering above him, Dipper finds himself sapped of all energy to fight it. "No, I don't. When you came back from your camping trip... me and him weren't breaking up a fight between two other guys. I'm sure I don't need to go into the nitty-gritty details?"
"Not necessary dude," she pardons, standing to her full height and stretching. "And hey, look: I'm not saying never fight, because the rest of the world don't play by those rules. But, when it's avoidable, like it should've been with a rubber chainsaw like Robbie, don't get into the pen with the pig. You just get dirty and the pig likes it, K?"
"OK." He nods, solemnly. Then, it begins: the cardinal sin of self-justification. "And, well, look: I shouldn't have lied, you're absolutely right, but I certainly wasn't trying to manipulate you, Wen-"
"Oh really?" Her tone is a cold-cock. "Sooooo painting yourself as a hero in a made-up story about breaking up a fight wasn't meant to butter me up at all?"
"... I'm a jerk," he realizes, hanging his head.
"We all are, sooner or later," Wendy shrugs. "Ya gonna stay one or you gonna learn your lesson?"
Dipper two-finger salutes. "Won't happen again, ma'am."
Wendy playfully kicks his shin, which still hurts like a T-Bone from a semi. "I'm too young for 'ma'am,'" she lectures, wagging her finger as she strides away. "Geez, makin' me feel old when we're only a few measly years apart."
Dipper, already off-balance as he hops on one leg to cradle the other, falls all over himself as the last part of her comment registers with him.
"Oh, and Dip?" she calls, opening the van's driver's door. "Robbie was right about one thing: the height never really mattered, so we might as well not bring it up again, y'know? As long as you keep writing me prescriptions for fun times, Doc, you're still my Primary Cool Pal."
Dipper blushes. "Oh. OK. Awesome. But... but what about the others?" His mind throbs with flashbacks of the Shrink-Down Showdown happening in front of all the other party-goers.
She holds up a hand. "I'll take care of that." With a shrug and a wink: "Alice in Wonderland party, just like Mabel said. Remember?"
Dipper smiles with all the sincerity in the world. "Thanks, Wendy." Then, a bolt of boldness surges through him and he once again finds his lips moving before he can vote on the matter: "And hey, anytime you wanna, y'know, dress up as something creepy or terrifying or gross without anyone else knowing..." He makes a solemn zipping-of-the-lips.
A smirk spreads across Wendy's face. "Ya ever encounter the Gravity Falls Bargain Movie Showcase?" Dipper shakes his head and her grin reaches cereal mascot-level proportions. "Oh," she snorts, "am I gunna have some fun with you." With that, she tosses him the key to her own zipped lips before hitting the gas and disappearing into the black like some wonderful legend.
Dipper grins, blinking after her fading taillights.
Yeah. Not a bad night.
He's jostled out of his appreciation as Mabel mercilessly shoves his shoulder. "Pffffttt," she guffaws, which is a really backwoods-sounding word to describe really obnoxious laughter, but in her case it's totally apt. "Movies? Fo reel? 20th Century shill much? I for one say we outta harken back to a simpler time, and stone Robbie's body with these biblically jagged rocks like our pioneer forefathers would!"
"Ya mean the ones you gave calculators to?" Dipper dryly replies.
"Hahaha!" Mabel nervously chuckles. "Zinger!"
Dipper pinches the bridge of his nose. "Mabel, look. It's been a long night. Can we deal with everything that happened tomorrow?"
Mabel's face is a mix of worry and hurt but she ultimately nods, before tentatively holding up the crystal flashlight. "Does that include this?"
Oh. That's right. She promised to restore his height once she got Waddles back.
Dipper stares, pain and desire grappling for dominance on his face, before he instinctively snatches the flashlight and smashes it against the forest floor.
A cautious smile is Mabel's light house. A tired half-smile is Dipper's own light signal back.
And then Waddlezilla trundles up, deforesting his pathway before imprinting his giant butt onto the landscape. His breath beats against their bodies like a building-sized bellows.
The kids stare.
"We destroyed it just in time," whisper-screams Mabel, gripping Dipper's shoulder in joy.
INTERMISSION