Other than his experience with the weird triangle guy, Vic's unusual normal-ness stayed with its status quo, and the premise for the next episode he enjoyed much more than the last one.
"Hang on," he said, gripping the counter as Wendy told him about the holiday. "You're telling me that Halloween happens twice here? And it's today?!"
"Heck yeah, dude! Summerween rocks!"
His eyes went wide as he daydreamed about the huge piles of candy they'd get. Swimming in candy. Candy for the rest of summer. "But I don't have a costume," he complained.
Wendy shrugged. "Don't see why you need one. It's not like you're going trick-or-treating, right?"
He was aghast, and he made sure she knew it, too. "How dare you! Of course I'm going trick-or-treating! It's a tradition! Plus, why would I say no to free candy?"
She laughed. "Geez, apparently I hit a sore spot, calm down. Well, I'm going to this sick party at Tambry's with Robbie, but you can go trick-or-treating if you want."
"Bleghh, a party with Robbie? That sounds boring. Trick-or-treating is so much more fun."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Talk to Mabel or something about that, I bet she's got something great planned."
His eyes lit up. "Thanks, Wendy!" he said before he ran out of the gift shop and into the living room, where Mabel was putting new stickers on a single page in her scrapbook. She had way too many on that page, in his opinion, but oh well. "Mabel! What are your plans for Summerween?"
"Summer-what now?" she asked, looking up from her stickerification.
He had to give the rundown that he'd just received from Wendy and her eyes lit up like spotlights. "Oh my goodness, I didn't know that was a thing! Dipper!" she shouted into another room, and the boy in question poked his head out. "Halloween! In summer!"
His eyes lit up too, and in unison the twins exclaimed, "Candy!"
The three of them rushed to Stan's office, begging for more information on Summerween, and the old man rubbed his brow wearily. "Okay, okay, come on, we're getting in the car."
Cue synchronized squeals. Cue Soos running in too.
As they pulled up to the store, a dramatic sting like in an old horror movie played in Vic's head. The moment they were in the store the twins went to a wheelbarrow and started running around looking for costumes, and Vic ran after them, laughing. Soos went crazy with these candy basket bobblehead guys, Stan took a bunch of fake blood, and rom-com style music lay under everything.
Before they could even pick out costumes, they'd caused too much of a ruckus and were thrown out, running away with three barrels of blood and a wheelbarrow. Of course they were stolen, but Mabel didn't seem to get it.
Vic did. Of course he did. This was Stan they were talking about.
And their dramatic getaway was punctured by the theme song.
Later that night, they all sat in the living room with Mabel's arts and crafts supplies, making plans. Appropriately themed spooky music set the mood in his head.
"I am so excited!" Mabel said.
"We're gonna have the best costumes, get the most candy . . ." Dipper started.
"And have the biggest stomach aches ever!"
They all laughed with wide grins and the twins high-fived, even though Vic was a little slow on the uptake.
"Dude, I've never seen you guys so pumped!" Soos exclaimed.
Mabel shrugged. "Well, back at home, me and Dipper were kind of the kings of trick-or-treating." She flipped through a Halloween-themed photo album, showing their Halloween misadventures from across the ages. "Twins in costumes, the people eat it up."
"Yeah, I'm never going trick-or-treating without you guys again," Vic commented.
"Well, you dudes better be careful out there. It's a night of ghouls and goblins. Not to mention . . ." He put down his candy bowl to dramatically hold a flashlight under his face. "The Summerween Trickster!"
A dramatic sting played, but apparently Vic was in a good mood, because he laughed it off. "Eh, we've dealt with lots of monsters. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad." Probably just another tall tale.
He didn't know why he thought that, saying that he was in a TV show. Whatever got brought up would be mentioned again, meaning it was almost guaranteed to be real, but . . . oh well.
"Ohh, no, dude. The Trickster goes door to door, so the legend goes, eating children who lack the Summerween spirit."
"Yeah, I'm with Vic on this one," Dipper said confidently, almost cockily. "You don't have to worry about us. We've got spirit to go around." He tossed a piece of candy into his mouth and immediately choked on it, coughing it back up. "Oh, what is this stuff? I've never even heard of these brands. Sand Pop? Gummy Chairs? Mr. Adequate-Bar?"
Ooh, chocolate, Vic thought, grabbing the bar in question and opening it up. It was bland and had a weird texture and was an insult to candy, and he made sure that was all conveyed with his expression.
"This is all cheap-o loser candy!" Mabel said, annoyed.
"Well, I dunno what we expected," he said, swallowing with disgust. "Stan was the one who bought it."
"Quiet your discontent, children, lest the trickster overhear," Soos warned.
"Easy for you to say, you didn't try it," Vic grumbled. Though he definitely wasn't appreciating the horror themes going on.
Dipper just walked away to throw the bad candy away. "Your cape is caught in your fly, Soos."
"Touché."
Vic was contemplating what his costume would be and ignoring more horror undertones when the doorbell rang. Stan called, "Trick-or-treaters! Quick! Give them that terrible candy!" Dipper left to do so, and Vic turned to Mabel.
"Hey, what's you guys' costumes again?"
"Peanut butter and jelly!" she laughed, pulling out hers.
"Hmm . . . crud. Do you have any ideas for an impromptu Halloween costume?"
Her eyes went huge and she gasped happily. "You have no idea how long I've waited for someone to ask me that! Come on!" She roughly pulled him upstairs, to their room in the attic, and pushed him onto her bed. He had to narrowly avoid a pile of glitter as he sat down.
"Now, what style do you want? Sparkly? Horror? Teen drama? Tell me now!"
"Uhhhhhhh . . . what do you think would go best with my appearance?"
She stared at him very intently, and it was hard not to be uncomfortable. Then she snapped (right in his face; it was very loud) and exclaimed, "I've got it!" (also very loudly.)
As she rifled through a box under her bed, boppy Halloween music played in his head. Is it for Mabel or is plot happening downstairs? he wondered. Stupid musical cues weren't overly helpful most of the time.
Eventually, she pulled out a cape and mask and shoved them into his arms. "Try them on, try them on!"
He did, and she squealed loudly. "It's perfect! Look in the mirror!"
"Okay, okay, but stop shoving me! Jeez." He did look in the mirror, and he had to admit, it was pretty cool. It was a detailed bat mask that was surprisingly comfortable to wear, and the ripped black cape made it look more like wings. With his black hoodie and his gray sweatpants, it worked pretty well.
"I'm Batman," he growled in the lowest voice he could muster, which was unfortunately not that low, and Mabel giggled.
"I'm gonna go put on my costume," she told him, and he gave her a big thumbs-up, sliding the mask onto his forehead to make it easier to see.
Some time later, Candy and Grenda showed up in their costumes (a piece of candy and a witch, respectively) and Mabel introduced them to Stan. "Grunkle Stan, these are my other best friends, Candy and Grenda."
"I am so sweet I could eat myself," Candy said.
"Hello Mr. Pines," Grenda said in her typical deep voice.
"You got a cold, honey? Something wrong with your voice there?"
"What do you mean? Why would you say that?"
Vic sighed, and before Stan dramatically swooshed away the old man noticed his mask. "Where'd you get that mask from, kid?"
"Mabel," he replied, and the girl in question smiled widely, though he did notice a bead of sweat trickling down her brow.
"Sweetie, have you been going through my stuff?" When she didn't answer, he sighed. "Ah well, I don't need it anyway. It's just an ugly mask from one of my ex-wives. You can keep it."
Vic wasn't sure whether he should be happy or annoyed, but before he could decide Stan did his dramatic swoosh away.
"Is Waddles coming with us?" Candy asked.
"I wish he could, but he's got some very important meetings to attend," she said, barely holding back her giggles as she showed her friends the big in question, wearing one of those dog costumes like a businessman. Vic rolled his eyes with a grin, and after a couple pig jokes they all laughed.
Grenda asked, "What about your brother?"
"Oh, man, guys, just wait until you see Dipper's costume! It's amazing! Here he comes now!"
They all looked at the stairs, where a very usually-dressed Dipper stood.
"That is a very good Dipper costume," Candy commented.
Mabel walked up. "What the hey-hey, bro-bro? Where's your costume?"
"Look, I can't go trick-or-treating. I'm, uh, really sick!"
Cue very fake cough and a very bad excuse.
"That's a loud of bull and you know it," Vic said, unimpressed. "What's the actual reason?" What's the plot of the episode?
"I—I, uh . . . what are you talking about?" He coughed again, very badly.
Shoot. Think, think, Vic! What got brought up this episode? Summerween—obviously—the Trickster—no, not that just yet—Wendy not wanting to go trick-or-treating? Why was that again?
Right! "It's that stupid party Wendy's going to, isn't it?"
Dipper went vibrant red. "H-how do you know about that?"
"You're not the only person who talks to her, buddy."
Mabel looked distraught. "What?! You were going to abandon me on our favorite holiday?!"
"It's just Summerween! It's a made-up holiday!"
Someone pounded on the door behind them and the creepy music started up again. Even before Dipper opened the door, Vic had a bad feeling about this.
Sure enough, a dark figure loomed over the porch and said, "Trick or treat!" in a deep, raspy voice, with an extremely loud sting.
That's . . . probably the Trickster. Think! Think!
He grabbed the bowl of candy from the table and came to the door with a wide grin, pulling down his mask and shoving Dipper out of the way. "Happy Summerween! Here you go!" He dropped some candy into the proffered sack. "Have a good night!"
He could feel the malice radiating from behind that emoji mask, but he ignored the sweat running down his brow and kept up his smile. The Trickster lowered itself down and stared right into his eyes before slipping away ominously. "Thank you . . ." it rasped.
Vic shut the door and dropped the bowl back on the table, panting heavily and raising his mask.
"Dude, what was that? I could've handled that," he said, annoyed, but it left his face pretty quickly when he saw the panic.
Everyone else noticed it too.
"What's wrong?" Mabel asked.
"I think that was the Trickster," Vic said, his heart thumping. He whirled on Dipper. "And you are exactly the wrong person to deal with an angry holiday spirit right now."
"How did you know?" Candy asked.
Because of the musical cues. "Uhhh . . . intuition. Something was off."
Yeah. That was . . . a good enough excuse, right?
Maybe not, but it was out now and he was going to stick with it.
Someone knocked again, and everyone jumped. Vic backed up and gestured for someone else to do it, just in case, and Mabel rolled her eyes and gave the little kid, Gorney, some candy. "You're too jumpy right now. Anyway," she said, turning back to Dipper, "what the heck?! You were going to abandon me? Us?"
"Look, Mabel, it's not that big a deal!"
"Yes, it is! Halloween is our big thing, and you didn't even tell me you wanted to try something different! We could both go to that party, or am I not cool enough for that?"
"Yeah, maybe you aren't!" he snapped back, and Mabel recoiled like she'd been hit, and the vibe in the room went completely still as everyone stared at them.
Utter. Silence.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she ran out of the room, crying. Dipper cried out, "Wait, Mabel, I didn't—!"
"Well, you've done it now, haven't you?" Grenda asked angrily, hands on her hips. "C'mon, Candy, we need to help our friend."
They left, and Vic was left glaring at Dipper.
"That was uncalled for," he told him.
"I . . . I know. I should've just talked to her." He slumped down on the ground with his head in his lap and groaned. "I'm such a bad brother. Why did I say that? She deserves better."
Vic stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? He wasn't good at this sort of thing.
An idea came to him and he left to fetch Stan, who was adjusting his fake plastic teeth in the mirror.
"Stan?" he said nervously, and the man looked down at him.
"Yeah? What's up, kid?"
"Dipper and Mabel had a fight, and Mabel ran out of the room crying. Candy and Grenda are comforting her and I have no clue what to do."
"Jeez, I left you kids alone for five minutes!" Was Vic imagining it, or was Stan worried? It was just a fight, right? "Come on, show me where he is."
Vic led the grunkle to Dipper, and out of respect, he left the two of them to work it out on their own. It felt . . . wrong for him to be there. This was a family thing, and close as he might've been, he wasn't family.
So he just sat up against the wall, wearing a kinda creepy bat mask from Stan's ex, playing the Beatles on his guitar out of his book and wondering if he'd done something wrong.
After some time, a red-eyed Mabel came downstairs with Candy and Grenda trailing her and asked if they could go trick-or-treating. Vic, obviously, said yes, and Dipper showed up a bit later wearing his peanut costume. He mumbled out an apology, and they hugged it out, and while it was clear everything wasn't completely fixed, it was better.
Everyone's mood got considerably better a few houses in, and about half an hour in it was back to joking and laughing. Vic did notice Dipper occasionally checking his watch with a forlorn look, but he'd given it up.
By the end of the night they had a pretty big haul of candy, all things considered, since twins did get lots at Halloween (or Summerween, or whatever), and they were sitting on the curb outside Abuelita's house, eating candy and joking and stuff.
"Alright, if you guys give me all the candy you don't want, I'll give you one piece of your choice from my bag," Vic said, standing up. His mask lay forgotten on the curb. "Any one piece . . . including the big ones."
"Ooh! Okay!" Mabel said, and she started rifling through her bag. Most of the others did, too, except Candy, who was just munching away happily. Vic ended up with a lot of the "loser" candy, but he was okay with that . . . as soon as he threw out all the Mr. Adequate-Bars, since those were absolutely disgusting.
"I have some for you," a voice rasped, and he stuck out his hand, not looking up from his haul, assuming it was Grenda. It was only with the squelching and the wet sticky thing landing on his hand that it occurred to him that was not who that voice belonged to.
He slowly looked up, and lo and behold, it was not Grenda who had put candy in his hand.
It was the Summerween Trickster.
He shouted out, loudly, and jumped back to his feet. Everyone else looked and screamed as well, the twins clutching onto each other. Vic looked down at the slimy candy in his hand and did a double take. It had the color and consistency of partially-chewed saltwater taffy.
What the heck?
More curiously, one of the Trickster's hands was missing, and with a squelching sound, before their very eyes, it reformed.
"What are you?" he asked, somewhere between wary and curious.
"I am made of the 'rejected' candy thrown into the dump, all the candy at the bottom of the bag that no one likes. No one would ever willingly trade it out. Except for you." It gestured to the blackish lump in Vic's hand. "Would you take the same deal with me as you did with your friends?"
This is so weird . . . "Uh, sure? Whaddya want?"
It reached its hand into his bag and pulled out one of the good chocolate bars, and candy corns began to fall from behind its mask before it took it off, revealing candy in the shape of a face, with its mints for eyes generating candy corn. "Thank you for your kindness and willingness to eat the 'loser candy'. You have made this monster . . . happy."
Vic exchanged a confused look with the twins, who shrugged, equally confused.
"On all Halloweens and Summerweens to come, you shall have the blessing of the Trickster. No harm shall befall you on that night."
"I . . . thank you?"
The Trickster smiled, and before their very eyes, from inside the hat and coat, the candy just gave up on human-esque form and spread out like a bunch of bugs, scattering, and within a couple short moments, the Trickster was gone.
They all sat (or stood, in Vic's case), in silence for a moment, trying to figure out what that meant.
"Ah well, I've got a Halloween blessing now, I guess. Anyone want any saltwater taffy?"
Several days later, Vic and Mabel were engaged in a pig dance party in the Shack since everyone else was out. He figured it was probably a montage in the show itself, but he'd discovered something amazing about his mental musical score.
Since Mabel had turned on the music in the world itself, and it had an in-world explanation for being there, he just heard it like a normal song. This was very important to him, since it meant not getting stabbed in the brain by random snippets of song for a couple seconds, only for it to vanish just as quickly.
Countless pictures were taken and many popsicles were eaten, though he absolutely refused to eat it off the floor like Waddles. Or shove a book in his mouth like Waddles. All in all, anything that was not a usual dance party thing he didn't partake in, so he made sure he did double the dancing required to make up for lost time.
It ended with Mabel falling asleep in the sun spot while cuddling Waddles, and Vic yawned and slowly began to fall asleep on the side of the ice pop machine, though he hadn't quite made it to asleep by the time Stan came in, chuckling and counting his dollars, just in time to trip on his great-niece and her pet pig.
"Mabel! Vic! What are you two clowns doing on the floor?"
"Being cute and great," Mabel said.
"Sleeping," Vic said.
"And I thought your brother was weird."
"No, he's more like:" (she grabbed a Dipper hat from a shelf and proceeded to mimic her brother) "'Oh! Let's solve a mystery! I kiss a pillow with Wendy's face drawn on it.'"
Ugh, too much information.
"Ha! That's pretty good! Kissin' a pillow. What about you, Vic? What's your excuuuu—hey!" He looked down at Waddles, who was chewing away at Stan's pant leg with Mabel cheering him on. Stan's attempts at removing said pig only ripped the pants.
Oh, right. He'd forgotten just how easy it was to rip clothing here. His hand traced a new rip on the side of his jacket. He'd just been trying to put it on yesterday morning, and bam. Ripped open. Just like that.
It sucked.
"All right, outside. Now!"
"NO! Grunkle Stan! It's not safe for Waddles outside. There's predators! And barbecue-rs!"
Vic wasn't blind and could see the growing confrontation, so he stepped between the two. "Well, Mabel, maybe we should take our party outside. The . . . uh . . . porch isn't that bad?"
There was a moment of quiet, and then she nodded. "Yeah, okay, that's a good idea. Come on, Waddles, we are migrating to outside!" She marched out of the room with her pig in her arms, leaving Stan and Vic alone.
"Heh . . . thanks, kid, that could've turned sour." He walked behind the counter and started to pull the money out of the cash register. "So, how's Soos's house been?"
". . . okay." He didn't like where this conversation was headed . . .
"Yeah? You, uh . . . talked with your parents recently?"
Nope. He definitely didn't like this conversation.
"No, I haven't gotten the chance. I'm worried it'll be a while until I can see them again. It feels like it's been ages." He fiddled with the ring on his necklace absently, though he didn't miss the flash of sympathy that flitted across the old man's face. "Did you lose track of someone too?"
". . . yeah, you could say that." Stan closed the cash register with a ding! and sighed. "Do you want help calling them? I can get you something like that."
I doubt it would help. I'm gonna need to at least finish Gravity Falls first. "Not yet. I'll tell you if I want it, though."
He left the gift shop to join Mabel on the porch, and what he did miss was Stan shaking his head and mumbling, "Nah, you won't."
He left to go to his office, and the room lay empty.
