Chapter X: Waiting for Tomorrow
Dipper stared at his phone.
Enter your PIN
As much as he wanted to blame whatever it was they were pumping him full of, he was pretty sure it was mostly his fault that he couldn't remember his own PIN. He'd just spent the better part of a week trying and failing to guess an eight character password, so only four characters should be easy, right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
It was one of the last things he'd done before he'd finally fallen asleep last night. What had been going through his head? Why did he do it so late?
He couldn't even blame the concussion!
Well, maybe he could just a little bit. His head was feeling more than a little off, even after a night's sleep, but deep down he knew the real reason his brain wasn't cooperating with him.
(Which was also coincidentally the exact same thing that had had driven him to set a PIN in the first place.)
Namely, Wendy Corduroy.
His girlfriend.
Even thinking the words brought a smile to his face and a flutter to his heart.
He still couldn't really believe it.
Wendy. Girlfriend.
It was like a dream come true, and nothing at all like any of those nightmares Bill made him suffer though. It was real. It happened.
She didn't hate him. She even liked him back now!
No matter how many times he ran it back in his head, he still felt giddy remembering what she'd said. Remembering their kisses.
Even now, a part of him screamed that it was all just a dream. But it couldn't be, because the only reason he'd set a password on his phone was to protect whatever messages they ended up sending to each other! Mabel's sense of boundaries could be wonky at the best of times, and he didn't want everything coming crashing down because Mabel decided to check out his texts with Wendy.
He felt the slightest bit bad about his intent to keep all this from Mabel, but dammit, he'd earned this!
Or at least, that's what he told himself as he fumbled with his cellphone.
He was right handed, and it was his left arm that was now working... suboptimally, so he shouldn't be having trouble with his phone. And yet, here he was. Fumbling.
(He guessed he used his left hand for more than he thought.)
He groaned in frustration and refocused on the task at hand.
His phone background stared back at him, taunting him. It was still the 38-sided die it had been since he first got his phone, even though he kept telling himself he'd change it due to how lame it was... Which he'd never be able to do now if he couldn't get back into his damn phone.
And then it finally came to him.
0138
The lowest and highest rolls you could get on a roll of a 38-sided die.
DIpper conceded to himself that maybe it was a good thing he hadn't changed his background after all as he punched in the numbers and was finally, mercifully, allowed past the lock screen.
He went straight to his messages.
And, sure enough, there it was.
A text from Wendy.
(His girlfriend.)
He knew he was grinning like an idiot as he opened it, and counted his lucky stars that Grunkle Stan wasn't there to see him.
'mornin dude. how ya feelin?'
At a glance, it was perfectly innocuous. If Mabel had somehow gotten into his phone and seen it, there's no way she'd even look at it twice. And why would she? She didn't know what their normal messages were like. She couldn't know that Wendy never sent messages like this unless she scrolled back through all of their messages and analyzed them.
(Like he himself had, during a few particularly low moments.)
Despite the innocence (and because of the significance) of her text, Dipper found his glee receding and his usual anxiety taking its place.
This was his first text to her now that they were together. He couldn't just be his usual pathetic self, he had to make it count!
Wait.
They were together, weren't they?
Had she ever actually used the words "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" last night? Had he? Were they on the same page? She'd said 'us', and that was just as good, right?
He shook his head violently.
They'd kissed for crying out loud! Several times! Why was he freaking out about this now?
He just needed to play it like usual. Nothing too crazy. He didn't even know if her phone could have lock screen like his could, after all, and he couldn't know if one of her friends was looking over her shoulder right now.
'bit better after a nights rest. how about you?'
He stared at the message for a solid thirty seconds. Was it too casual? Should he put like... a smiley face or something? They did that in television shows and stuff, didn't they?
Okay, no. He couldn't keep freaking out, he was being paranoid. He'd already kept her waiting long enough.
He sent the message and closed his eyes. Normal was good.
About a minute later, his phone buzzed, and his heart leapt up into his throat.
'same lol. did you get to ask your uncle about tomorrow?'
Dipper blanched. He hadn't yet.
He still didn't even know if he'd be getting out of the hospital today!
'not yet, sorry'
Grunkle Stan had been true to his word, and stayed the whole night with him. But Dipper had fallen asleep shortly after Wendy got picked up by her friends. And that was... what, 3 AM or so?
He'd only been awake now for about twenty minutes, and his grunkle had quickly excused himself to get him his breakfast (which a nurse had apparently tried to bring him while he slept). He knew he was going to go pick up Mabel pretty soon too, which would make it even harder to talk to him about anything related to his plans with Wendy.
If he knew Mabel, and he was pretty damn sure he did, then she wasn't going to be too happy about him spending an evening at Wendy's house immediately after getting out of the hospital. Even Grunkle Stan might want to keep him closer.
His phone vibrated again.
'well I'll see you tomorrow either way :-)'
It buzzed again.
'talk to ya later dork. tambry's watching'
He fired back with a 'talk to ya later!' of his own while his eyes bored a hole into the smiley face at the end of her previous message. That was definitely new. She didn't do smiley faces, or at least, she never had with him before.
Should he be using them too?
Dipper groaned and closed his messaging app. He was overthinking things. When he overthought things, they tended to blow up in his face, and Wendy was one thing he absolutely didn't want to blow up in his face.
If he was being honest with himself, he didn't even really understand what he'd done to finally win her over in the first place. It couldn't have just been his injury, could it? There had to be more to it.
Obviously the party at Sandra's had changed things between them, but he didn't get why.
And he wasn't about to go and ask her and have her change her mind.
Shoving the thoughts aside, he shifted his weight, trying in vain to get comfortable in the weird almost-sitting position he'd been told to maintain. He wasn't allowed to lay down fully, at least for a few days, and when he did, he definitely wasn't supposed to be laying on his left side. His arm was going to be the longer term problem, but his ribs were the particularly annoying ones for the short term.
He wiggled the fingers on his left hand. He could use it somewhat, but the cast definitely restricted his fingers' dexterity. He wouldn't be winning any gymnastics competitions any time soon, that was for sure.
Dipper sighed and glanced around the room. There was a blanket and pillow on the chair that Grunkle Stan had been using, but other than that, it looked pretty much the same as it had last night. White walls. A shabby tv mounted in the corner. His beeping IV pump. Most noticeable of all was the smell of antiseptic that overrode pretty much everything else.
His eyes fell back down to his cast, and he flexed his fingers again.
He'd really nearly died, hadn't he?
If Bill had taken another second to vacate his body... or if he'd twisted the wrong way once he regained control... he might well have died.
In the moment, he'd basically been acting on autopilot. And once he hit the stage, it was all a blur.
Was it weird for it to not feel like that big of a deal?
His musings were interrupted by the door to the room opening and Grunkle Stan barging in with a large tray of hospital food.
(Dipper's stomach rumbled involuntarily.)
"Breakfast is served," Grunkle Stan said as he laid the tray across Dipper's lap with a flourish. "Or lunch. Brunch. Whatever it is."
Dipper couldn't help but chuckle at his grunkle's theatricality as he took a closer look at his food. It was all soft stuff by the looks of it. Some oatmeal, a cup of tapioca pudding, a small carton of whole milk, and a helping of scrambled eggs.
"Sorry I took a bit, kid, was havin' a chat with your doctor."
Dipper looked back up. "Really? Did she say when I could get out?"
His grunkle grinned. "Yeah, you'll be outta here in a couple hours. Just gotta do some last checks on ya and then you'll be good to go!"
Dipper's eyes widened. As much as he wanted to get home as quickly as he could, he'd been expecting a longer stay!
Grunkle Stan tapped his cast as his expression shifted to something less cheery. "But your bone was pokin' out before they put ya back together, y'know. That means a chance of infection. If you feel a fever comin' on, or any weird pains or whatever, you tell me, got that?"
Dipper nodded. "Got it."
His grunkle returned his nod, but his expression hardened even further. "And there was something else too. I covered for ya, but you be honest with me, alright?"
Dipper froze. Something else?
Was it about Wendy?
How?
He schooled his expression as best he could. "Yeah, I'll be honest. What's wrong?"
Grunkle Stan pointed at the left sleeve of his hospital gown. "Doctor said they found some stab wounds there that weren't from the fall. She said it looked like self harm. I said my nephew wouldn't do that. What happened?"
Dipper, equal parts confused and relieved, pulled his sleeve up. And sure enough, there were several bandages there that he somehow hadn't noticed. He tried to think back, to place when he might have gotten stabbed in the shoulder, but nothing came to him.
"Well?"
"It... had to have been Bill," Dipper managed to say, after a too long pause. When his grunkle gave him a concerned look, he put his hands up. "It definitely wasn't me! My memory of yesterday is just... kinda fuzzy. I don't really know if it's something to do with being in the Mindscape, or the concussion, or what, but I don't remember much of the time I was outside my body."
It was strange to talk about so casually, but it was true. He remembered the very beginning and end of his stint as what amounted to a ghost, but the rest of it was a bit of a blur. He remembered following his body, and trying to talk to people, and he knew he talked to Mabel, but the fine details? Those were pretty much gone.
Dipper looked down at his rapidly cooling meal. "When he... took my body," Dipper continued, "one of the first things he did was throw it down the stairs. I remember him laughing. I... I think he liked to feel pain."
Grunkle Stan's face darkened, but he seemed to accept the explanation as he sat down in the closer chair that Wendy had used last night. "And this Bill guy, do you think he'll be back?"
Dipper bit his lip. The first time they'd fought Bill, he'd really thought it was the last time they'd see him. These villains all loved to talk a big game, to act like they were unbeatable and that they'd be back, but they never really had. Not until now.
"I– I remember him talking about... plans, but he didn't say anything about them. Just that he had them."
Grunkle Stan crossed his arms. "And he's already been in my mind before, right?"
"Yeah," Dipper confirmed. "Me and Mabel and Soos stopped him that time." He snorted, now knowing that Bill hadn't been kidding when he told them he went easy on them. "But it's not the same thing as when he possesses you. He can get in your head and invade your dreams, but he can't take your body unless you make a deal with him."
His grunkle's mouth was a grim line. "Well, looks like we'll just have to avoid any more deals with devils, won't we? We can worry about his 'plans'" –he made air quotes– "later. With any luck, you kids'll be gone by the time he's done with 'em, if he wasn't just bluffin' in the first place."
The thought of going back to Piedmont hit Dipper even harder than it had before, but he hoped it didn't show. "If– when me and Mabel are gone... you'd need help, Grunkle Stan, if he comes back. You can't fight something like him by yourself." Dipper clenched his good fist. "I knew he was bad, and I still let him trick me."
"I'd figure something out," his grunkle replied with a dismissive wave. "Been here for thirty years and countin', and nothing's scared me out yet."
Dipper wanted to argue, but his grunkle wasn't wrong. He had been here for years, and he'd known about all the weirdness all along too. There was no way he hadn't come face to face with at least some of it in all that time. But Bill was different.
"When we go back to Piedmont," Dipper began, the words tasting like poison on his tongue, "I'll leave the journal. Maybe you won't end up needing it, I hope you don't, but... just in case."
Grunkle Stan's expression softened momentarily, before it promptly went back to being the model of gruff masculinity. "You've been looking for whoever wrote the stupid thing, haven't you?"
Dipper nodded, only barely resisting the urge to defend the journal from any accusations of stupidity. "Pretty much all summer."
His grunkle held his gaze. "You might think somethin' else, but I'm not stupid. I know you're goin' to keep lookin' for clues whether I tell you to stop or not. " He looked down at Dipper's cast. "But I can't be havin' something like this happen again. Your parents are gonna hate my guts for letting this happen to you, and for keeping it from 'em besides, but I don't wanna be sending you back any more beat up than you already are. You're my responsibility for as long as you're here." He paused just long enough for Dipper to start to get anxious before he continued. "So, when you're out there rooting around for your next clue, if you think there's even a chance that something's gonna get hot, you tell me, alright?"
"But... I can keep looking?" Dipper asked, feeling more than a little stunned at his grunkle's permissiveness.
Grunkle Stan barked a laugh. "If my old man told me not to do something when I was your age, that just made me wanna do it ten times more. You're gonna do what you're gonna do. That's just how it is. But you keep me in the loop, got it?"
Dipper couldn't help the grin that spread across his face as he nodded.
His grunkle's expression was still firm, but there was warmth there that Dipper couldn't deny. "I wanna hear you swear it." He extended a hand. "From one man to another."
Dipper stared at his grunkle's hand for what was probably only a second or two, but felt like an eternity.
Back when they'd finally beat Gideon, Grunkle Stan had taken the journal. He'd still been pretending to not believe any of it back then, but he'd already known the truth, and they'd already gotten into all kinds of trouble over the course of the summer. He could've just kept it.
But he hadn't. He'd given it back. And Dipper had gone ahead and shown why that wasn't such a good idea several times over. First with the zombies, and then the bunker, and then this.
Keeping his grunkle informed was the least he could do.
He took his grunkle's much larger hand, and shook it as firmly as he could manage. "If I think there's gonna be any danger, I'll tell you Grunkle Stan. I swear it."
Grunkle Stan gave him a satisfied nod. "Good," he said, as his stern expression gave way to a smirk. "Now eat your breakfast, kid, it's only getting colder."
Dipper did as his grunkle told, and picked up the provided plastic spork before scooping up a sporkful of scrambled eggs. Shoveling the eggs into his mouth, he discovered that they were indeed rather cool by now. And they were pretty bland too. A bit rubbery. Definitely not the best scrambled eggs he'd ever had.
And yet he found himself devouring it anyway.
He tore through the eggs in short order, and was moving on to his similarly cool oatmeal before he knew it. He'd never been particularly fond of oatmeal, but for some reason, it seemed scrumptious to him now.
"Need anything else before I get goin'?" his grunkle asked suddenly.
"Goin'?" Dipper echoed, though it came out as more of a gurgle due to the amount of food in his mouth. Swallowing, he repeated himself. "Where are you going?" He hadn't even gotten the chance to ask about going to Wendy's house tomorrow!
"To pick up your sister, duh," his grunkle answered with a wolfish grin, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't bring her to come see ya like I said I would."
Dipper knew that, but he'd really thought he'd at least stick around until he finished his food!
"Wait, uh, before you go–" his brain came up short, and he trailed off as he tried to think of a way to phrase his request as innocently–as secretly– as he could.
Grunkle Stan raised an eyebrow. "Before I go what?"
Dipper swallowed again despite the lack of food in his mouth.
Just be normal!
"Uh– well– do you think it'd be okay for me to, uh, spend a few hours tomorrow at Wendy's house?" He cringed internally as he was saying it, but he knew he had to keep soldiering on. "We'd kinda planned it before..." He shook his cast. "...all this."
It wasn't a lie, and honesty was always the best policy.
(He was just leaving a few things out, that's all.)
"Wendy's house?" His grunkle said, squinting at him suspiciously. Dipper waited for more, but then he just shrugged. "Yeah, sure, I don't see why not. If anything you're less likely to break your neck over there than at the Shack." His eyes took on a knowing glint. "But I'm telling ya Dipper, girls don't like it when boys follow 'em around like a sad puppy, especially boys they already turned down."
Dipper felt his cheeks warm considerably. "I'm not following her around like a sad puppy," he protested lamely as his voice betrayed him and cracked. "We're just friends, that's all."
His grunkle didn't look convinced, and Dipper didn't know whether to take it as a compliment or not, considering the fact that they really weren't just friends anymore.
"Kid, this is the perfect opportunity for ya to branch out, to see how many other fish there are swimming out there in that sea that are just as pretty as the one you spent all summer tryin' to catch."
Oh man, it was the fish metaphor again.
"Besides, look at ya!" He pointed at Dipper's cast. "With that, you're scoring twice as many points in girls' eyes. What girl doesn't love taking care of a little baby bird?"
"I thought I was a sad puppy?" Dipper retorted, "how's a baby bird any better?"
"Oh, you'll see," his grunkle said ominously, before he broke into an outrageous grin. "Just remember, all that stuff you were trying with Wendy? Do the opposite of that, it wasn't working." He pulled himself up out of the chair with an exaggerated grunt. "Now I really gotta get goin', I'll be back with your sister in a bit." He pat Dipper on the shoulder with about half of his usual force. "Don't go anywhere!"
Dipper could only shake his head as he watched his grunkle leave the hospital room. He felt his blush finally fade along with his urge to spontaneously combust as he returned to what remained of his hospital food.
As he polished off the rest of his oatmeal, Dipper decided that the whole conversation was a good thing, even if it'd been completely mortifying. Just like almost every conversation he'd ever had with his great uncle about girls or puberty. It at least meant that his grunkle hadn't noticed anything different about him and Wendy.
As far as the world was concerned, he was still recovering from his heartbreak. To everyone but Wendy, he just had to keep acting like he'd been acting this whole time.
But to Wendy…
There weren't any new messages. He knew she was going to be busy with her friends, so he shouldn't have felt sore about it, but he kinda did anyway.
Getting a random text from Wendy had always been special, but now... now it meant a whole lot more. Especially if they couldn't really be boyfriend and girlfriend out where everyone could see them.
He looked back to the smiley face that Wendy had sent at the end of one of her messages, and found himself smiling.
Dipper had basically given up any real hope of being anything but friends with Wendy after... well, after everything at the party. He'd seriously expected nothing, in fact, he'd expected less than nothing. Wendy could have broken off their friendship entirely, and he knew he'd have felt like he deserved it.
And now he had something.
He typed a quick message.
'grunkle stan says I can go'
Suddenly, he remembered the way her green eyes had looked at him last night. He remembered the softness of her lips, and even the wetness of her cheeks.
She'd been crying, but she'd been smiling too.
He typed out one more message before his flash of courage left him.
'can't wait to see you tomorrow'
Dipper locked his phone with jittery fingers as soon as it was sent, and then rested his head back against his pillow. He took several deep breaths, and, gradually, the nervous energy faded.
Now he just had to figure out how exactly it was a boyfriend was supposed to act by the time he got to her house tomorrow.
Wendy pulled at the collar of her borrowed t-shirt as she stared at another one that was hung up on the store's wall. It was just a black t-shirt with the cover art for one of her favorite albums thrown across the chest, pretty simple stuff... but it really was a great album.
Her current shirt was ever so slightly too tight, but she knew beggars couldn't be choosers. Tambry was shorter than her (something that Wendy had bemoaned during the peak of her middle school insecurity), but her torso wasn't too far off from Wendy's, which meant she could steal a shirt when she needed to. And after spending the night at Tambry's without a change of clothes at the ready, she'd needed to.
Luckily, she'd forgotten a pair of jeans at Tambry's house at some point, and they still fit just fine. Tambry's mom had even washed them too! Tambry would let her wear her pants, of course, but Wendy's legs were way too long for those. She could've worn Tambry's shorts, she supposed, but while she wore shorts sometimes, she knew jeans were her standard.
And if there was one thing Wendy was trying to be at the moment, it was "standard".
Just plain ole Wendy Corduroy.
No secrets here. No sir-ee.
"Yo Wendy, look over here!" called Lee from the other side of the store.
Wendy tore her gaze away from the t-shirt she'd been eyeing, and was met with the wondrous sight of Lee with a couple of round somethings shoved up his shirt.
"Look, I'm Ashley!" Lee joked, as he made his now prodigious chest bounce exaggeratedly.
Nate was laughing like a maniac, and even Wendy couldn't help but snort. She tried to be above making fun of girls' bodies (she knew damn well that she didn't choose hers, after all), but sometimes a bit of crude humor really hit the spot.
"Surgeon did a great job!" she yelled back, "you keeping 'em?"
Lee made a face. "Nah, they're too heavy. My back's killing me already!" He clutched at his back, and bent backwards so that his fake rack was even more prominent.
Nate laughed even harder, and Wendy chuckled too. That was one pain she was glad she didn't have to experience.
The tatted up guy behind the counter was starting to give them dirty looks though, so she knew it was getting close to the time they'd be ditching this shop and walking over to the next one. Especially if they didn't end up buying anything.
(They usually didn't.)
The curtain that blocked the way to the dressing room flew open as Tambry exited it with a bundle of clothes in her arms. Her expression was sour, as it often was, but Wendy was a pretty good judge of the finer details of Tambry's emotional state.
"Not a fan of any of them?" Wendy asked as she sauntered over to the only other source of estrogen in the group.
"Meh," Tambry replied with a distinctly un-meh tone. "They're all fine or whatever, but not good enough to blow money on." She tossed the bundle of clothes onto the designated 'put stuff here you tried on but don't feel like buying' spot. Unlike most others, Tambry at least had the grace to fold the clothes again after she tried them on. "Anything catch your eye?" she asked, before promptly taking her phone out of her pocket.
Wendy looked back to the My Bloody Valentine t-shirt hanging on the wall and bit her lip in indecision. It was a pretty nice shirt, but damn if Not Topic wasn't overpriced as hell.
As she was contemplating whether or not she could justify spending 20 bucks on a shirt, her phone buzzed in her pocket, and it took all of her considerable strength to not take out her phone and see who it was from immediately. That was another thing Wendy didn't do. She didn't anxiously await text messages and then jump at the chance to reply to them.
(Certainly not after she'd already shut down 'Mason'.)
"What, not enough cash?" Tambry drawled as she typed furiously on her phone. "I can spot you dude, you know that."
Wendy shook her head. "What? No. C'mon!" She chuckled breathlessly and did her best to ignore the cellphone burning a hole in her pocket. "Just not worth the markup."
Tambry nodded, not quite looking past her phone's screen. She walked past Wendy without another word, and Wendy followed her back to the rest of their group.
Lee had gotten a breast reduction surgery by then, but Nate was still all giggles. Wendy was about to ask where Thompson was when there was a crash near the front of the store; a rack of shirts had been tipped over, and the culprit looked rather sheepish.
"Uh... Oops," Thompson mumbled, scratching the back of his head nervously.
The guy behind the counter was staring daggers at them, and Wendy couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for him. She knew the pain of customers just not giving a shit. "I think it's about time for us to get outta here dudes."
Lee at least looked a tiny bit bashful, but Nate didn't seem to care much.
"Sure, whatever," Tambry said, still typing away to whoever it was she was always texting.
Wendy led the way out of the Not Topic, but not before helping Thompson get the shirt rack back up the way it was supposed to be. She tried not to make a big show of it, but she hoped her fellow cashier appreciated the gesture.
As they exited the shop, they were confronted by the same problem that always confronted them in their mall crawls.
"So, where to next?" Nate asked with a grin. The tank top he was wearing showed off his tattoos nicely, which she knew was exactly why he was wearing it. He flexed his right arm idly, but the intended target of his display didn't seem to notice.
Tambry shrugged and just kept texting.
"How about the jewelry store?" Lee suggested, staring off at the shop that was situated next door to Not Topic.
Wendy rolled her eyes. Someone suggested that every time. "Why the hell would we go there?"
"Maybe someone wants a piercing or something?" Lee said, "I don't know, jeez!"
Nate chewed on that suggestion for a second and then noticeably perked up. "Yo, I've kinda been thinking about getting a new piercing!" He looked around at the rest of them with an excited grin, but none of them really shared his sudden enthusiasm.
"Nah, I'm good, dude. I think I have all the metal I need," Wendy said as she ran her finger over the stud on her right ear. Every now and again she thought about getting a couple more in each ear, but she didn't really have the spare cash to get anything decent anyway.
Thompson shivered. "Yeah no thanks bro. I don't want a needle anywhere near me," he said uneasily, "and besides, none of us have the money for that place."
It was a slight lie. Everyone knew Tambry got a pretty decent allowance from her parents, but she wasn't a particularly big spender, and didn't love showing off the way some other classmates of theirs definitely did.
"Alright, no piercings then," Nate confirmed with just a bit of disappointment. They stared at each other lamely, as they all thought about possible options to alleviate their collective boredom.
(Well, Wendy kinda thought about it. She was mostly concentrating on trying to avoid the urge to rip her phone out of her pocket and finally check the messages Dipper must have sent.)
Tambry started walking away without warning, all but forcing the rest of them to follow her.
"Where we goin'?" Thompson asked, jogging a little to catch up. He was always the slowest.
"Who cares?" Tambry drawled, still texting with her typical speed and concentration. "We'll see something interesting eventually."
Lee let out a dry laugh. "Maybe if we hadn't been here a million times already."
Wendy silently agreed. There wasn't much at Gravity Malls they could see that they hadn't already seen more times than any of them could count.
'Small town problems.'
They passed a lingerie shop as they meandered the mall, and, predictably, she caught Nate glancing quickly at Tambry. Poor guy.
Wendy would never be caught dead in a lingerie store herself, especially not now. It was a surefire way to get cornered by one of her friends and asked some very uncomfortable questions.
Besides, she didn't need anything like that anyway.
They'd only just started... dating.
(The mental admission brought heat to her cheeks that she was relieved no one noticed.)
They walked around basically aimlessly, making the occasional joke as they passed something that might warrant it, but mostly just chatting about the usual sorts of things they talked about. How lame Gravity Falls was, how bullshit it was that they only had a month left of vacation, how Woodstick was just around the corner and was going to be totally awesome...
Very normal discussions, really. Wendy made sure to chime in as much as she usually did.
Wendy had been true to her word, and told Tambry (almost) everything about what happened at Mabel's show that morning before they'd left for the mall. Tambry had been surprised to hear about Dipper's possession by a demon, but after that night they'd had at Dusk 2 Dawn back in June, she didn't seem completely surprised. Wendy had briefly considered saying Dipper had just tripped, or something, but decided in favor of the truth, even if it was weird.
Thus far none of the guys had brought it up, and Wendy wasn't sure if it was just because they hadn't heard about it yet or not. Either way, she was thankful. It was hard for her to talk about, even if Dipper was... mostly fine.
Like an itch she couldn't quite scratch, her thoughts returned to her phone and the messages she hadn't checked yet, so she resolved to finally check them as soon as she could escape from her friends.
Wendy got her chance sooner than she thought she would when they stopped a short ways from the food court. The scent of pretzels and fast food assaulted them all, and by the rumbling of Thompson's stomach, she knew she wasn't the only one who could go for a snack.
"Anyone else hungry?" Thompson said after an appropriately awkward pause, his expression betraying his unhappiness about being the one to bring up food.
"I could go for a pretzel," Wendy answered quickly, which earned her a grateful smile from her much larger friend.
Nate and Lee proved to be equally up for some crappy and unhealthy snacks, and Tambry tended to be fine with going along with whatever the majority wanted to do. Wendy took out her wallet as her friends bickered about what they were craving and where they should sit. She withdrew a ten dollar bill from her wallet and handed it over to Tambry.
"I've gotta run to the bathroom really quick," Wendy said evenly, "can you get me a pretzel and a Pitt Cola?"
It was the best way to not have Tambry follow her to the bathroom, and the quirk of her eyebrow signaled that Tambry probably realized what she was doing, but Wendy kept her expression decidedly nonchalant.
Tambry pocketed the ten silently, not even missing a beat in her rapid fire texting spree.
"Thanks dude," Wendy added casually, before she made a not-quite beeline for the bathrooms.
It was a Saturday afternoon at one of the only places in Gravity Falls that teens cared to visit; even teens from neighboring towns enjoyed Gravity Malls as a hangout spot, which meant that it was almost always packed on weekends. They'd come slightly earlier than usual, if only to be able to spend a couple hours there before lazier teens finally woke up and made the journey to the mall (and also because Thompson was going to have to work the movie theater tonight after all).
By now, there were plenty of familiar (and familiarly unfamiliar) faces to be seen as she made her way to the bathroom, but by some small miracle there wasn't a line outside of the women's restroom.
She didn't actually have to use the bathroom at all, but she didn't want to just be standing around by the sinks if Tambry decided to come and check on her so she picked out a stall and locked the door behind her.
As she leaned against the stall door, Wendy finally pulled her Razr out of her pocket.
It was 3:08, it turned out. She hadn't felt safe enough to check her phone since before noon, so she'd not realized quite so much had passed. Tambry was a natural gossip hunter, which meant she had sharp eyes and suspicion in spades, and Wendy wasn't going to risk seeming too eager to check her phone anywhere near where Tambry could see her.
Punching in her freshly set password (4031), she went to her inbox where the texts waited for her.
She didn't let the presence of several texts from Robbie sour her mood as she sought out the messages that Dipper must have sent. Sure enough, there were two, and they were both a few hours old.
'grunkle stan says I can go'
'can't wait to see you tomorrow'
Some small part of her still couldn't believe she'd gone through with it, that she'd really kissed him again... that she'd made them... a thing. That same part of her screamed at her that she was making a mistake.
But reading and-reading Dipper's messages, all she could think of was the way he had smiled at her last night. The way his nervous fingers had clutched her own. How delicately his lips had met hers.
'can't wait to see you tomorrow'
It made her heart flutter in her chest.
She wasn't supposed to let something so simple affect her like this, but it did anyway.
Slowly, the glow faded and she was met with a new problem. Namely, how to reply.
She typed out and deleted several responses, feeling more and more like a blushing schoolgirl with each one. It hadn't been easy to send texts to Dipper since the party, but she'd thought it'd be easy now that they were... whatever exactly they were.
Were they boyfriend and girlfriend now?
Did it really matter?
He couldn't wait to see her, and tomorrow they'd be alone together in her room. They'd probably hold hands, and they'd kiss too. She wouldn't... push him, or make him do anything he didn't want to, but those two things were both fine. They were both things they'd already done.
They were both things she wanted to do again.
'me either'
It was short, it was sweet, and it was true.
She hit send with slightly trembling fingers.
Belatedly, she realized that if it was okay for him to come over tomorrow, then he must be getting out of the hospital sooner rather than later.
'you getting out today?'
She did exactly the thing that she knew she shouldn't be, and waited several minutes for a reply. While she waited, she found herself re-reading his messages over and over. Her cheeks hurt a little bit from smiling.
He really was so sweet.
(Maybe that was what she'd been craving all along.)
Minutes passed, and no reply came. As much as Wendy wanted to talk to him, she knew she couldn't waste much more time. So she left the stall. Her friends were waiting, and she'd reply again as soon as she could, whenever that ended up being.
Wendy washed her hands before she left the bathroom, figuring that Tambry might notice if she showed back up with completely dry hands. Wendy wasn't a germaphobe by any means, but it wasn't a bad idea to wash her hands anyway.
She walked back to the food court with a spring in her step that she was working hard to avoid. She hadn't actually stuck around to hear where they'd decided to sit, so she scanned the food court for familiar faces. She saw a few faces she knew in the packed food court, including a few classmates, but they weren't the ones she was looking for. She finally spotted the gang seated at the table nearest to the escalators, with several trays of greasy food spread between them.
Thompson spotted her, and waved her over with a mouthful of fries and a wide grin that made the fries all the more noticeable.
But Wendy stopped in her tracks.
Something was off.
For a moment, she thought one of her friends was missing.
And then a nasally cackle cut through her thoughts like a hot knife through butter, and she realized it was precisely the opposite.
A familiar shock of greasy black hair had somehow hidden in plain sight, and the black hoodie below it signaled that the intruder couldn't be anyone else.
Why the fuck was Robbie here?
Wendy was suddenly far less hungry for a pretzel as her stomach settled somewhere between anxiety and annoyance. They'd all hung out with Robbie while she'd gone to Sandra's party, and maybe even a time or two since then for all she knew, but she hadn't spent more than five minutes in his presence since she broke up with him. She ground her teeth briefly, then schooled her expression as best she could.
She could deal with exes.
It was something she'd had to learn quickly with the amount of exes she had running around.
Wendy approached the table with even steps that were at complete odds with the pretzel her stomach had tied itself into. Luckily, they'd left some room for her on the far side of Robbie, which meant she didn't have to sit right next to him (which she was sure he wanted).
She slid into the free seat, and Robbie's dark eyes were instantly on her. His acne was looking a bit clearer, but his smirk was the exact same.
"Sup Wendy," Robbie said with a tip of his chin, his voice thick with his usual unearned confidence.
"Sup," she replied, careful to keep her tone personable. She didn't have anything else she wanted to say to him, so she changed topics before he could start talking. "Who's got my pretzel?"
Tambry (who had taken a bullet for her by sitting closer to Robbie) pushed a small tray and soda across the table to her with a look that basically screamed 'I'm sorry, I had no idea he was coming'.
Wendy accepted it with a smile, even as she eyed the rest of her friends with hopefully veiled suspicion. Tambry had promised not to invite Robbie, which meant that one of the rest of her friends must have let something slip. While it was tempting to blame Thompson, she was reasonably sure that it was probably Lee. He was too nice.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and sent her heartbeat into overdrive, but she focused on taking a bite out of her pretzel to show just how unfazed she was by Robbie's intrusion.. The pretzel was warm and salty, and the cool sweetness of her Pitt Cola complemented it perfectly.
Naturally Robbie had to ruin it.
"So, Wendy, how ya been?" Robbie asked with an obviously exaggerated casualness. "Been a while!"
'Yeah and I wanted to keep it that way,' is what she wanted to say, but she didn't.
"Fine," she said, even though she'd been anything but fine for most of the last week. "Just been working a lot, you know how it is."
He didn't, actually, because Robbie had never had a part time job for more than a week. His parents pampered him. Though that didn't stop him from nodding like he had any idea what it was like to work for a living.
Wendy forced herself to take another bite of her pretzel, hoping that that was enough small talk to fend him off for a while. But if there was one thing Robbie was good at, it was not taking 'Get fucking lost' for an answer.
"Been pretty good myself," Robbie drawled, his eyes never leaving hers for even a heartbeat, "just practicing with the band. Think I've got some stuff cooking that you'd dig."
She sipped her soda to avoid spitting out the smartass retorts that immediately pushed to the forefront of her brain. It was just like him to bring up his stupid music.
Luckily, Nate came to her rescue. "You guys think you'll be signing up for Woodstick?" he asked as he stuffed a whole chicken strip into his mouth. "I remember you talking about it at the end of the school year."
Robbie choked on his own drink mid sip. "Uhhhhh... Probabaly not this year, dude." He puffed out his chest in spite of the fact that he'd just failed to drink a soda. "Competition's pretty tough at Woodstick, and I kinda think we missed the window to sign up anyway. Next year though... next year we'll show 'em."
Tambry snorted, and Robbie shot her a dirty look that she ignored by continuing to text.
Lee tossed a fry at Robbie to get his attention, and chuckled when it hit him in the forehead. "So what was it you were saying about Dr. Funtimes?"
Wendy's heart stopped.
"Doctor what now? You mean Dipper?" Robbie asked with a quirked eyebrow.
Robbie always said Dipper's name like it belonged to a bug on the sole of his Converse shoes, and the flare of anger she felt almost shook Wendy out of her panic that they'd been talking about Dipper for some reason. But not quite.
Lee shook his head like he was talking to a grandfather who was coming down with dementia. "C'mon dude, we've been calling him that all summer!"
Wendy ripped off a bit of her pretzel with jittery fingers, and chewed on it anxiously. Robbie couldn't know anything about her and Dipper. That was impossible. He hadn't been at Sandra's party, and she'd ignored or deleted all of his messages for weeks. He definitely hadn't been in the hospital room last night either.
"Yeah, Funtimes, sure. Whatever." Robbie flicked a hand dismissively. "Anyway, like I was saying, my parents went to that puppet show last night; you guys hear about it?"
That brought everyone but Tambry's eyes onto Wendy, but Wendy did what she did best and played it cool.
"Yeah, we know about the puppet show," Wendy said coolly, "I spent the week helping Mabel get ready for it."
Robbie gave her an annoyed look, but soldiered on anyway. "Well, my parents were in the audience the whole time, and they bought front row seats. Which means they had an up close view of that 'ending'."
Wendy instantly knew where he was going with this, and she began to grind her teeth in anticipation of whatever fucked up joke he was about to make.
Robbie leaned forward with a grin that made her want to slug him. "Well, not the ending exactly, since they didn't get that far." He chuckled, but Wendy didn't find it funny. "They had an intermission I guess; that girl's crazy, so her show was gonna be like four hours or something stupid. But then the show didn't start up again like it was supposed to, so they were all just sitting there waiting for shit to get started when the curtains opened up." Nate and Lee were looking curious now. "But it still didn't start then either. No one was on the stage at all. Then... WHAM!" He slapped his hand on the table, causing everyone but Wendy and Tambry to jump. "Outta fuckin' nowhere, Dipper hits the stage."
Lee's eyes were wide with genuine concern. "Wait, what do you mean, bro? Like, he fell?"
"Like a ton of fuckin bricks," Robbie confirmed with a sickening smirk that brought Wendy even closer to punching him. "Guess he fell off those... rails. Y'know, where they hang the lights and shit, I never took theater."
"Jesus!" Nate exclaimed, his chicken strips sitting forgotten. "Is the lil dude okay? That's pretty damn high up, isn't it?"
Robbie shrugged. "My parents said he looked pretty messed up from what they could see." He stared at Wendy, his smirk still plastered on his face. "But Wendy was there, she can tell us all about it, can't ya?"
All eyes turned on her, and it was all Wendy could do to not blow up Robbie for talking about Dipper like this. "Yeah, I was there, and it's pretty fucked up to laugh about, dude."
"Hey I'm just fillin' people in, that's all," Robbie said, his smirk faltering a little. "It's not like I'm the one who pushed the little rascal off the damn rails or anything." He crossed his arms. "If it'd been me, he'd be laughing it up and you know it."
Wendy's blood was coming to a boil, but she knew she couldn't make a scene, as much as she really fucking wanted to. "Whatever dude." She took an angry sip of her Pitt Cola, but everyone was still staring at her. "It was an accident, no one fuckin' pushed him." Tambry shifted in her seat at the omission of crucial details, but didn't press her.
"How is he?" Thompson's tone was concerned, but it didn't stop him from shoveling a few more fries into his mouth.
Wendy felt a rush of gratitude that her friends weren't all jerks, and she managed to force a smile despite herself. "He's alright. Well, alright for someone who fell from so high. Gonna be wearing a cast the rest of the summer though." She gestured to her left forearm for clarification.
"Jeez, hope he heals up quick," Lee said with genuine sympathy as he leaned back in his seat, before he brightened up suddenly and snapped his fingers. "It's been a while since he's come with us anywhere, hasn't it? We should invite him and his sister the next time we hang out!"
Robbie groaned and rolled his eyes so hard that she hoped they got stuck in the back of his head, but everyone else seemed to find the idea at least tolerable.
"We can all sign his cast!" Thompson said, grinning. "Man, when I broke my wrist back in fourth grade, everyone wanted to sign it. That's the most popular I ever was!"
"Or would be," Robbie grumbled, flicking his bangs out of his eyes with obvious annoyance.
For one crazy moment, Wendy thought about coming clean. About shutting Robbie the fuck up by telling him that he'd been right all along about seeing Dipper as a threat. But the realization surprised her, and so she settled on a quick glare.
And, well, as much of a fucking douche he was being right now, she didn't hate Robbie.
(And obviously her entire social life would be over for the foreseeable future.)
They settled back into something approaching normalcy, though Robbie continued to look grumpy about the fact that the rest of the group didn't find Dipper getting hurt as funny as he did. Wendy finished off the rest of her pretzel, while Nate split what was left of his chicken strips with Robbie, who'd apparently only shown up after they ordered everything.
They'd just gotten done hashing out where they were going to go next after they finished their food (the little toy store at the end of the mall, just to screw around), when Lee pulled the conversation back to Dipper.
"Y'know, it's a little weird that he fell like that..." He scratched his chin. "...Back when we hit up that haunted convenience store, he climbed up the building no problem, and there weren't any safety rails or anything!"
Tambry caught her gaze, and about five seconds later Wendy's phone buzzed in her pocket.
But everyone else just looked confused. Robbie was squinting at Lee suspiciously, and Nate and Thompson shared a shrug.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Robbie asked with a frown.
Now it was Lee's turn to look confused. "What am I talking about? What the hell do you mean?" Lee looked around to the rest of them for backup, but Wendy wasn't even sure what Robbie was talking about. "Remember, back in June?"
"Yeah, dude, I remember June, I was there." He scoffed in that really annoying way he was so good at. "But haunted convenience store? I don't remember any of that shit."
Lee's eyes were wide. "Dude, the Dusk 2 Dawn!"
Thompson looked a little nervous. "I mean, yeah, people say it's haunted, but people say all kindsa weird things man."
Wendy felt a shiver run up her spine, but Lee was talking again before she could get a word in.
"What? We got attacked by ghosts and shit! That's when we started calling Dipper Dr. Funtimes!"
Nate eyed Lee like he'd gone nuts. "I wondered why the hell we called him that, but none of this is really ringing a bell my dude."
Lee looked like he was going to explode, but it gave her the opportunity to interrupt.
"I remember it," Wendy said, cutting in.
And how couldn't she? It'd been the first time she brought Dipper and Mabel along to hang out with her friends. Hell, it was everything that happened that night that made her start considering Dipper a real friend, and not just 'that kid at work'. It was also the first of many times to come that she'd run up against the supernatural. It hadn't been her finest showing either.
"Dipper broke us in," she continued, "and then we ate a bunch of snacks. Mabel got possessed, and you guys all got like... imprisoned by the ghosts."
"Yeah," Tambry agreed, putting her phone down for once, "how high were you guys?"
"Pretty high," Nate said with a chuckle that got him a dirty look from Robbie.
Robbie ignored Nate's admission. "How high were we? How high were you! Listen to yourself, talking about ghosts and shit. I think I'd remember that." He snorted disdainfully.
Lee and Tambry shared a look with her. The three of them had all tried weed a few times, of course, but she definitely hadn't had any that night. And besides, Gravity Falls was crawling with weird shit... even if she hadn't really... noticed any of it until this summer.
The shiver was back, and Wendy felt a growing sense of unease.
"Alright, you guys were clearly stoned out of your damn minds," Tambry lectured, "We remember it, and you're–" she jabbed a finger at Robbie, "–the one always trying to get us to try your new strains. Maybe lay off the pot and you'll keep a few brain cells."
Robbie turned his suspicious gaze on Tambry, but Lee held up his hands in surrender. "C'mon guys, I wasn't trying to start a fight or anything. Let's just, uh, forget about all this. We still got plenty of mall to crawl!"
"Yeah dudes, let's get outta here," Thompson agreed with an anxious chuckle that didn't come close to reaching his eyes.
Robbie still looked ready to argue, but Nate and Lee were already standing up from the table, and Wendy followed suit not wanting the disagreement to escalate any more than it already had.
Robbie and Tambry were the last to leave the table, Robbie still giving Tambry the stink eye as he shoved his chair back under the table with a clatter. Thompson hung back as the rest of them started walking in the direction of the toy store they'd agreed would be their next stop and started picking up the trash that they'd all left behind. She hung back too, and helped him.
He was a manager at the movie theater, so he was pretty much the only one other than her that ever had any sympathy for service staff.
She piled as much of it as she could onto one tray, and then dumped it all into the nearest trash can before placing the trays up on top. Once Thompson had done the same, they fell in step beside each other and walked to catch up with their friends.
When Thompson spoke up, his voice was low.
"...I don't really think I was smoking that much back in June… but I swear, I really don't remember any of that stuff you were talking about." He was looking straight ahead, studiously avoiding her gaze. "That's weird, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is."
When they caught up with their friends, Wendy did her best to ignore Robbie's presence and enjoy her time with the rest of them. She was still mad at him for talking the way he did about Dipper, and for just generally being himself, but despite her concerted efforts, she was unable to shake the unease that had crept into her.
Maybe it was everything that had happened to Dipper yesterday, but half of her friends not remembering something that the other half did was seriously freaking her out.
Whatever it was, Dipper would be able to get to the bottom of it. She was sure of that.
As Dipper entered the Mystery Shack, he realized that Dorothy from Wizard of Oz was right. There really was no place like home.
Mabel was holding the door open for him with a forceful grin, and Grunkle Stan was right behind him, ready to catch him if he somehow fell (as if it were his leg that was busted, and not his arm). Both of them had watched him like a hawk the whole way from his hospital room to the Stanmobile, but he'd gotten out of the wheelchair they provided for him as soon as they'd let him, and he'd refused to hold on to either of them for balance. He could walk well enough on his own, dammit.
The familiar creak of the floorboards beneath his sneakers did a fair bit to banish his lingering annoyance at being treated like a wounded animal, and he felt his lips twist into a smile.
"Need anything bro-bro?" Mabel asked as she shut the door behind them. "Mabel juice? A Pitt Cola? Back massage?"
"Mabel, I'm fine. Really," He replied, trying to keep his tone even. He wasn't sure how much of this he'd be able to survive.
Mabel frowned fiercely. "You say that now, but don't come crying to me when you're all sore and achey!"
Dipper rolled his eyes, but couldn't suppress his chuckle. Mabel brightened at that.
"Outta the way kids, there's a recliner with my name on it, and a television that's missed me!" Their grunkle griped from behind him.
Dipper dutifully moved out of the way, and Grunkle Stan clamped a hand on his shoulder as he passed him. He squeezed it briefly, and the accompanying flick of his grunkle's spectacled eyes toward Mabel spoke a thousand words. Dipper nodded at him, and hoped his intended message was conveyed.
'I'll try not to be too annoyed.'
Grunkle Stan disappeared into the living room, leaving him and his twin to stand in the hallway like a couple of weirdos. Which, to be honest, they often were.
"So..." Dipper began, searching for something to talk about that wouldn't lead to more of Mabel's attempts to baby him. "...where's Soos?"
That brought a furrow to Mabel's brow, but before she could even say anything, Dipper had his answer. The door in the living room that led to the gift shop slammed shut, and the voice of Soos made itself known, though he couldn't quite hear his exact words.
"Nevermind," Dipper said with a laugh.
Mabel laughed too, but there was an anxiety there that Dipper couldn't miss; he knew his twin too well.
The two of them joined their grunkle in the living room, and sure enough, the Mystery Shack's finest (and only) repairman was there. Whatever he'd been saying to Grunkle Stan was quickly forgotten, as he turned a wide and relieved smile on Dipper.
"Sup dude!" He exclaimed, one arm behind his back for some reason. "Glad to see ya up and..." he gestured at Dipper vaguely,"...y'know, moving." His chuckle was awkward, but Dipper didn't care.
"Not as glad as I am," Dipper replied. Obviously it wasn't the overriding pain on his mind (not that he had a huge amount of it due to whatever medication he was on), but his butt was a little sore from a whole morning and afternoon in hospital bed.
Soos looked like he had more to say, but Grunkle Stan, who was already planted in his recliner, cut him off, "Mind having this conversation in the kitchen?" He stared at them pointedly so they all knew it was less of a suggestion and more an order.
Mabel grabbed his good arm and pulled him out of the living room, and Dipper let it happen with only the smallest of grumbles. He didn't care for the crappy talk shows his grunkle liked to watch at this time anyway!
When they got to the kitchen, they were greeted by an expectant Waddles, who seemed to spend half his life either asleep or within spitting distance of the fridge. His beady black pig eyes looked up Dipper blankly, but he knew the piglet was pleading with him silently.
"Don't listen to him," Mabel said sternly as she let him go and put her hands on her hips, "he's already had his breakfast and his lunch."
"And half my sandwich!" Soos added as he joined them in the kitchen. "Yeah, I dropped it on the floor, but five second rule and all that. Heh heh."
Waddles was unmoved by their appeals to logic.
Mabel scooted him out of the way of the fridge and withdrew a practically full pitcher of Mabel Juice. "Sure you don't want any bro-bro? I made it fresh this morning!" She shook it around for emphasis, which made the trapped plastic dinosaurs clatter.
Dipper shook his head. He didn't love Mabel Juice at the best of times, and he wasn't totally sure if that level of caffeine could have some sort of reaction with whatever medicine he was on.
"I'll take a glass!" Soos said, with one hand still held conspicuously behind his back, and while Dipper loved his friend, he had to admit Soos wasn't always the sneakiest of guys.
"Whatcha got there Soos?"
"Oh, nothing," Soos said faux evasively, making it abundantly clear that he absolutely had something behind his back. "...Just a little something you've been missing."
Dipper frowned. Something he'd been missing? He looked down at his cast but it yielded no answers. "Uh..."
Mabel was grinning as she poured two cups of Mabel Juice, but was of little help.
"...Okay, I know this is going to be something really obvious that I'm forgetting," Dipper grumbled. "But it's not my fault, I'm wounded!"
Soos laughed, and with a cheesy flourish he revealed something Dipper had completely forgotten about. "Ta-da!" Soos said as he held Dipper's hat out to him. "After I dropped off Candy and Grenda last night, I remembered I'd seen you with your hat earlier, but, y'know, not at the... end." His tone became a little less cheery. "...So I went back and got it for ya."
Dipper accepted it with a smile that he hoped told Soos how much he appreciated him. He promptly put his hat right back where it belonged: on his head. "Thanks Soos," he said, and he meant it.
Soos's smile faltered. "We were really worried, dude. Candy and Grenda too." He looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry I didn't notice anything was up with you. With Bill." He chuckled breathlessly. "You know I'm kinda bad at noticing things sometimes."
"Soos, don't apologize for anything." Dipper admonished, before cracking a grin. "Just... next time I suddenly get ten times more confident than usual, you have my permission to knock me out. Better safe than sorry."
Soos laughed, and then held his arms out. "Bro hug?"
"Bro hug," Dipper agreed.
They hugged, and Dipper couldn't help but wish his growth spurt would come sooner rather than later.
After they parted, they both sat down at the table, and Mabel handed Soos his cup of Mabel Juice with a smile.
"I'll be right back!" She said with a wave, before she ran off in her best impression of the Road Runner from Loony Tunes.
Waddles migrated from the fridge to their feet, but found little sympathy from either of the two of them. Even if he was painfully cute.
"I swept up all the bits from the laptop," Soos said after he took a large gulp of his juice. "Mabel told me everything this morning. About Bill, and all that."
Dipper groaned. He'd done his best to not think much about the laptop, and his hours of now wasted effort trying to get access to the damn thing. He'd spent pretty much every waking minute that he wasn't thinking about Wendy or helping Mabel prepare for the show on that laptop, and now he had nothing to show for it.
Soos's smile was apologetic. "I'm sorry dude, it's way too smashed up for me to fix now. Trust me, I'm pretty good at Tetris."
Sighing, Dipper leaned back in his chair. "It's alright, I didn't think it was fixable anyway. It just really sucks to lose the lead, because there had to have been some good stuff in there if Bill didn't want me to see it."
"Did he even tell you the password?" Soos asked.
Dipper blew air out of his nose. "Pfft. No. It's all word games with Bill. That's how he tricks you. Makes you think he means one thing but then he means something else."
"Oof. Word games," Soos said, shaking his head, "those are the one kind of game I'm not so good at." He scratched at his stubbly chin. "Well, that and checkers. Could never wrap my brain around it!"
Dipper couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes a non-sequitur from Soos was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Soos snapped his fingers suddenly. "Oh yeah! I put all the little laptop bits in a box. It's up in your room if you need it for something. Felt wrong to just throw it all away."
"Thanks Soos, again. I mean it. I know it took a long time for you to get it running in the first place."
"Hey, that's why Mr. Pines pays me the big bucks!"
They shared a chuckle at that, before settling into a silence–
–that was promptly broken by Mabel's return to the kitchen. "I'm back!" She cried as she skipped up to the table. "With a present!" Grinning from ear to ear, she plopped a pristinely gift-wrapped box right on in front of him.
Surprised (and wondering if Soos had been in on it), he looked to Soos. But Soos just shrugged, looking about as clueless as Dipper himself felt.
Mabel took the chair closest to Dipper, and was leaning forward in anticipation pretty much instantly. "Go on, open it!" She said, bouncing in her seat.
Dipper had never been the best at receiving gifts, especially when it was a complete surprise to him, so he hesitated. "Uh, what's it for?"
That put a slight damper on Mabel's excitement that he was positive only he could notice, but her smile was still wide. "It's for helping me all week, duh!" she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You didn't think I expected all of that help for nothing in return, did you?"
By the look in her eyes, he knew that's exactly what she thought he'd thought, which made him feel a little guilty. "Of course not!" he said quickly, even though it was a blatant lie. "I just... wasn't expecting a gift, that's all."
"Well, you deserve it Dipper," she said firmly, pushing the box a smidge closer to him with a smile that told him she wouldn't accept 'no' for an answer. "So open it!"
He'd never been good about opening gifts in front of other people (a fact that was made easier due to their shared birthday parties typically being small affairs), but it was just Mabel and Soos, and Soos was basically family. "Alright, alright," he said as he pulled the gift-wrapped box closer to him.
He tore through the purple and blue striped wrapping paper quickly enough, revealing a cardboard box that was taped shut.
"Oooh!" Soos exclaimed. "A cardboard box! Never know when you might need one of those!"
Mabel shot Soos a glare that she clearly didn't mean, before turning her gaze back to Dipper and rapping her knuckles on the table expectantly. "Come on, you're so slow!" she whined.
Dipper held up his cast and stared at her pointedly, which earned him a sheepish chuckle.
Tearing through the tape with the nails on his good hand, Dipper carefully pried open the flaps of the cardboard box. He half expected an explosion of glitter or confetti to blast him in the face, but he was pleasantly surprised when it didn't.
Staring back at him from within the confines of the cardboard box was not at all what he expected.
It was a photograph, set within an obviously Mabel-made picture frame. The frame was made with a mix of her usual craft supplies, and was shaped a bit like the Mystery Shack if he squinted. There was ample glitter pasted all over it, but she'd clearly made sure to pick 'masculine' colors like blue, rather than her usual favorites. There were plenty of rhinestones too, for good measure, and on the whole it was all very sparkly and bright, much like the girl who made it.
And as for the photo, it was one that he knew all too well. It was the one he'd taken last Saturday at Sandra's party. The one he'd sent to Mabel, that had him, Wendy, and her friends Ashley and Than all crammed together to fit in the frame. All of their cheeks were varying shades of red from the alcohol, but they were all smiling.
The way Wendy looked at the camera pulled at his heartstrings in a rather different way, now.
Her smile was a little bit sloppy, and her eyes a little bit glassy, but it was still one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. It was that smile that had pushed him to all kinds of stupidity.
And it was that night that everything had changed between them.
(Had it really only been a week?)
"It's... it's amazing, Mabel," he said, his voice betraying him once again with a tremulous crack. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Mabel beamed at him. "I spent all morning on the frame! I didn't glue the photo down or anything, so if you want to swap it out, you can!"
Dipper shook his head, and, momentarily forgetting that his left arm had a cast now, nearly punched himself in the face as he tried to wipe at his stinging eyes. "No, it's perfect the way it is," he said as he ran his fingers over the rhinestones that surrounded the photograph.
Mabel clapped her hands together excitedly. "I knew you'd like it."
"Turn it this way dude, I can't see!" Soos said, leaning over the table in a futile attempt to get a better look from the opposite side.
Obliging, Dipper removed the picture frame from the box it had been sealed in, and turned it so that Soos could see.
"Woah," Soos said, whistling lowly, "that's some pretty nice work Mabel! Was wondering why we had to make that pit stop yesterday, heh heh." He leaned in a bit closer to the photo and stared at it silently for a few seconds, the gears whirring in his head. "Oh! That's from when Wendy drank too much to drive you home and you called me to pick you up, right?"
If Dipper had been drinking anything, he would have spit it out.
Soos clapped his hand to his mouth as soon as he'd let the words slip, but it was too late.
Mabel was looking at him with wide eyes. "Wendy got drunk?" She asked in the most scandalized tone possible.
Dipper made to grab the picture frame, but Mabel was faster, and had reached across the table to yank it away from him before he could get to it. He felt the heat rising in his cheeks as she inspected the photo closer. "Just... be quiet alright? I don't want Grunkle Stan to get mad at her or anything," he whispered, willing his heartbeat to slow as much as he could make it. Grunkle Stan tended to get engrossed in his shows, but he was also a Grade A eavesdropper.
Mabel had her face right in front of the photo for maximum magnification. "Oh my god," she said more quietly though no less scandalized, "did you drink too?" She shot him a look somewhere between pride and disapproval, even as a grin grew on her face.
"What? No!" He protested a little too loudly. "I mean, no," he repeated in a lower tone. "Wendy and her friends did, but I didn't have any." He felt guilty throwing another lie on the pile, but what else could he do? "I mean, you know how much of a wimp I am about that sorta thing, c'mon Mabel." When in doubt, self deprecate.
But she was still grinning. "I dunno bro-bro, looks to me like you got the same red cheeks as everyone else in the photo!" She pointed at his face in the picture like a lawyer presenting a damning piece of evidence.
Dipper swallowed. "Well, yeah, but that's... only because of how close Wendy was!"
Mabel raised an eyebrow at him, a knowing glint shining in her eyes. "Uh huh. Sure." She slid the picture frame back across the table with a laugh.
Gripping the photo with his good hand, Dipper fought to keep his voice even. "Look, just don't talk to anyone about all this, please? I don't want Wendy to get into trouble for taking me to a party like that." Whether Mabel believed him or not, he had to make sure the information didn't spread any further.
Mabel stared at him for a long moment. Abruptly, the mischief faded from her eyes, and her expression softened. "I won't. Consider that a Mystery Twins promise," she said, before she looked across to Soos. "Right, Soos? We're not gonna go blabbing?"
Soos still looked completely mortified, and he perked up immediately at her prodding. "Absolutely! My lips are sealed tighter than the lid of my abuelita's medication!"
Dipper let out a ragged sigh. He couldn't be mad at Soos, or Mabel for that matter. He was the one keeping secrets here, and it had already bitten him once. "Thank you," he said, his voice still a little too shaky.
Scooting her chair closer to his, Mabel reached over to him and gave his good arm a comforting squeeze. Quickly though, the mischief was back in her eyes. "So, what're we going to do today Mr. Party Time?"
That gave Dipper pause. What was he going to do today?
"...Believe it or not, I don't think I'm in much of an adventuring mood," he said, the thought of lugging his cast around the woods not sounding in the least bit appealing. So much of his brainpower was being spent in anticipation of his movie night with Wendy (first date?), that he hadn't really thought much about how he was going to spend his Saturday.
"Yeah, duh," Mabel said with incredibly exaggerated emphasis. "I meant like around the house!"
Dipper shrugged, genuinely at a loss for options. "Uhh, I don't know. My brain's foggy, gimme a break!" He turned to Soos. "You got any ideas, man?"
Soos made a show of thinking about it, but after a solid ten seconds of silence, he shook his head sadly. "Sorry dude, comin' up blank. But I'm down for whatever you guys can think up!"
"Well," Mabel said with a knowing grin, before she turned away to hide it, "I was thinking of something a little more epic," She turned back to him with a steadily growing smile and a glint in her eyes that usually signaled trouble.
"Like what?" Dipper asked suspiciously, his eyebrows raising involuntarily.
"It's got ma~th," Mabel said in a sing song tone, as the realization of what she was hinting at dawned on him. "What do you say, Dipdop? You ready to dust off your dice while I rustle us up some calculators?"
His eyes widened. "Really? Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons? But you hate it!" He pointed at Soos. "And there's no way you've played it, Soos, right?"
"I usually prefer to keep my RP to the LA side of things," Soos said slowly, before he bowed his head, "but if you are willing to teach me, sensei, then I am your eager disciple."
"Yeah!" Mabel exclaimed with a wiggle of her eyebrows, "you love lecturing people! Let's get started!"
Dipper stroked his chin (once again almost punching himself in the face on accident) and considered it. He knew Mabel. She'd be bored out of her mind with all of the math involved in your average game of DDMD and she was clearly just suggesting something she knew he liked on account of his just getting out of the hospital.
Which was, theoretically, the sort of babying he should be totally against.
...But he hadn't had a chance to break out his dice all summer.
"Alright, fine," Dipper said, flatly failing to hide his excitement. "We can play, but we gotta hit the ground running. If we start now, we should be done with our character sheets by dinner time, and then we can get to the real gameplay."
And that was if they were lucky!
When Dipper collapsed into his bed, his brain was pretty much fried. Hours of mathematical calculations on top of explaining the basics of a complex homebrew of an already complex pen and paper RPG to a couple of noobies would take a lot out of him at the best of times, and he definitely wasn't firing on all cylinders at the moment.
He hoped his wayward pupils had some fun, and weren't playing solely for his sake, but this time around he wasn't going to feel guilty about it. They'd been the ones to offer it, after all.
He'd stashed their character sheets away in case they ever wanted to play again, although he frankly doubted that they would. Still, he appreciated that they'd sat down and played it with him, and that was good enough for him.
The photograph Mabel had printed and framed for him now sat on their shared desk, and it had taken all of Dipper's power to not turn it so that he could lay on his side and see Wendy's face. But he wasn't supposed to be laying on his left side, and Mabel might figure out even more than she already had if he obsessed about the photograph.
Dipper stared at his 38-sided die lock screen.
He remembered his password just fine, now, but he found himself paralyzed anyway.
It was funny how getting what he wanted could make him feel just as anxious as he'd been when he sent her his first text ever back in June.
He hadn't been able to check his phone throughout the game, and he swore he'd never felt a buzz. What if she hadn't actually sent anymore messages? Did that mean something? Should he wait for her to say something first, if he'd been the last one to say anything?
He couldn't help but remember her tear streaked face that night at Lookout Point, when she'd broken up with Robbie.
'Don't make everything about yourself.'
It was a lesson he hoped to never forget.
He couldn't be clingy. He wouldn't. He knew that was something girls complained about, and he didn't want to be one of those guys.
But he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to see her. And tomorrow afternoon felt like it was an eternity away.
Dipper sighed, and looked up to the rafters.
The sound of Mabel's shower provided a pleasant white noise, but didn't ease his nerves any. Anything he wanted to say, he should say now, before Mabel got to their bedroom and started noticing things.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself for whatever was on the other side of his lock screen, and, turning his gaze back to his phone, input his password in a rush.
He went to his inbox, but his courage faltered momentarily and so he tapped his conversation with his mom. He'd been... unable to send a goodnight message last night, so he went ahead and did that now before he forgot and she got suspicious.
(How mom and dad were going to react to his injury was a whole can of worms he didn't even want to think about quite yet.)
His heart hammered in his chest as he finally went to his conversation with Wendy.
There were three messages.
Two from hours ago.
'me either'
'you getting out today?'
And two from only 45 minutes ago.
'I'm totally exhausted so I'm going to bed early'
'remember, 4 o clock sharp ;-)'
He was torn between elation at her messages (She couldn't wait to see him either! Another smiley face!) and the total depths of despair at the fact that he'd completely missed them. And there was no way she wasn't asleep by now.
She couldn't be mad if she was reminding him of their... date, right?
Dipper groaned. Should he even reply? Was it worse to leave her hanging or to come up with some lame excuse?
He had no idea! And there was no one he could ask even if he wanted to.
He took another deep breath. He was being stupid. The last message had a smiley face, and that was only the second one she'd ever sent him. That meant something.
Especially since this one was winking.
...but why was it winking?
Did that mean something?
The shower shut off downstairs, and Dipper realized he only had only a couple minutes to figure something out. Agonizing about it wasn't going to make it any easier, either.
What he settled on was a sequence of messages that left him woefully unsatisfied.
'sorry, i did get out today, but soos and mabel kept me really busy so i missed your messages'
'i hope you had fun with the guys'
'and tambry'
'ill be there on the dot'
He really wanted to throw in another 'cant wait to see you', but he'd already said that today, and he wasn't sure if sending the same message twice in one day would make him seem boring, even if it was still just as true.
With a heavy heart, he left it at that, and plugged his phone into his charger before setting it right where he usually did. He adjusted his pillows, and tried to lay on his back the way the doctors said he should. It wasn't very comfortable for him, since he'd always been a side sleeper.
When Mabel burst into the room, her hair still wet and dripping and Waddles cradled in her arms, she couldn't have noticed anything was off.
And yet.
"You feelin' okay bro-bro?" she asked, her eyes glowing with concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth either. "Just tired." And anxious about tomorrow.
Mabel nodded, but Dipper could tell she wasn't convinced. She set Waddles down on her bed and approached him, her hand hovering over his forehead as if to check for a fever. Dipper fought the urge to swat her hand away, but ultimately let it happen.
"I said I'm fine, Mabel," he said, an unhelpful note of irritation creeping into his voice.
"Well, there's no fever," Mabel said as she removed her hand from his forehead. "I just don't want you to overexert yourself or anything. That was a lot of math you did today."
"I'll be alright," Dipper said, his voice softer now. "Thanks for playing it with me."
Mabel gave him a small smile before turning to settle into bed. Dipper watched Waddles find his usual spot at the foot of Mabel's bed before his gaze flickered back to his phone. The urge to check to see if Wendy had replied was great, but he managed to squash it.
Mabel turned off the lights five minutes later, and Dipper spent the following hour trying and failing to fall asleep.
He wanted it to be tomorrow.
But more than anything else, he didn't want to mess it all up.