We dove into the dark and stayed there

[isthisapidge]

Who| Pidge and Dipper
What| An important talk
Where| Dipper's room
When| Post-Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| Talk of trauma mixed with awkward teenage angst

It seemed like things were making progress. Pidge had a goal, and little by little she felt more able to achieve it. In other words, she was feeling better, if only by a slight margin.

But then Pidge realized that she hadn't seen Dipper all day. And they probably had some things to talk about. His words replayed in her mind:

"I used to think I was smart, but it was, like, 'I use big words I don't know the definitions of to sound smart' smart. You're genius smart. You're 'people will always think you're amazing for something' smart."

She was fixating, and she knew it. But she couldn't help but maybe think she had some kind of hand in him feeling that way. Not that she knew for sure. It went back to the whole "understanding people" thing she was never all that good at.

"And you're actually cool."

That too. She'd been called a lot of things, but "cool" wasn't typically one of them.

She suspects he's hiding out in his room, mostly because it's exactly what she would do. And has been doing. So she rings the buzzer outside his room.

"Dipper? Can I come in?"

Comments

[captainbuzzkill]

For a second, all Dipper can do is stare at her. Then his mouth presses into a thin, little line, and he narrows his eyes.

"Okay, first of all, Great Uncle Ford studied the phenomenon and it was definitely centered around the town. Secondly, Mabel and I had totally normal lives before we went to visit, no weirdness at all, so it definitely wasn't either of us. Thirdly..."

He holds up a finger.

"Hold that thought."

He gets up from the couch and goes over to a little tray table where Mabel's crafts had been left behind, and kneels on the floor next to it. Then he picks up a pair of scissors and starts cutting out some weird oblong shape out of construction paper, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he does it.

He briefly looks up at Pidge again.

"If you're wondering what I'm doing, I'm making you an Awkward Award. I feel, as the reigning multiversal champion of putting my foot in my mouth, that there should be some kind of official handing down of the title. What color glitter do you want your name in?"

[isthisapidge]

Pidge was certain she'd blown it, that he'd kick her out and that would be that, they'd never speak again. He looked so mad at her...

And then he went over to his crafts and said that. And she can't help but laugh.

"OK. OK, I deserve it. Would green be too obvious?"

She gets up and joins him by the tray, mulling over his story. She supposes that eventually this Bill Cipher guy would have moved his mini-apocalypse out of Gravity Falls eventually, make it the actual end of the world.

"...You and Mabel really stopped an apocalypse all by yourselves?"

[captainbuzzkill]

"Not all by ourselves, but everyone else had given up, Great Uncle Ford had been captured and turned into a trophy on Bill's giant petrified throne of human agony..."

The paper shape turns out to be a yellow foot, perfect to represent a foot shoved in one's mouth. He takes out a glue stick and starts writing the letters of her name, putting green glitter on the glue as he goes.

"Some of the survivors were hiding at the Mystery Shack. A unicorn spell Uncle Ford put on it beforehand kept it protected. So Mabel and I convinced all the survivors to fight back. Then we all worked together, Uncle Ford's inventor friend McGucket engineered a design for the Shacktron, and we managed to fight our way into the Fearamind." He briefly stops and gestures vaguely with the glue stick. "It was like a pyramid of unholy horrors? Hence: Fearamid."

He figures he should explain the name.

"Anyway, we got in, freed most of the town and Great Uncle Ford, then Ford and Grunkle Stan messed up this group spell thing we could've used. So Mabel and I fought Bill ourselves to keep him busy, and that was long enough for our grunkles to arrange a trap. That part's...complicated."

There's a lot to explain there, with their feud, and the plate in Ford's head, and the memory gun, and...

"But it worked." He smiles slightly as he pours more glitter onto the foot. "Bill was a liar, and a sneak, and he cut shady demonic deals. Grunkle Stan won because he's a conman, so he out-conned another conman. Then everything went back to normal. Nobody outside Gravity Falls even knew what almost happened to the world."

He shrugs.

"We didn't really do that much. Mostly it was just getting everyone to stop giving up." A pause and he waves the glue stick around again. "And then coordinating the operation of a giant mecha where everyone was responsible for a different part."

Surely that's not something she'd know about, no sir.

[isthisapidge]

"So...you made your own Voltron."

Does Pidge look impressed? Because she's really impressed. No, really impressed doesn't quite cover it. She's completely astounded.

"That's...incredible! You used a tourist trap to do what it took a combination of advanced alien technology and magic to do in my world and you had to have done it in, what, days?"

She'll keep the foot ribbon with pride. Had she realized the sheer scope of what he had done, she wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss him.

"I mean, I've seen some crazy things but...wow. You're something else, Dipper."

[captainbuzzkill]

Now he's blushing like crazy. He rubs the back of his head..

"It wasn't really a big deal. I mean, I just, like, steered it, but McGucket was the one that designed it. Everyone did their part, and Mabel and I just sort of...enabled it."

He adds, "But that means a lot coming from you. You're like this robot space hero hacking genius."

His face flushes even hotter.

"So...thanks."

He feels a lot better now.

[isthisapidge]

"If there's one thing I've learned piloting Voltron, it's that most everything is a team effort." And that was a difficult lesson for her so hopefully he'll get something out of her words.

She's smiling at him, because he's smiling at her and all the tension in the room is gone. They're both going to be OK, huh?

Now it's her turn to blush a little. "Thank you." She knows she's a genius, so trying to downplay the compliment would come off as insincere.

"I mean, I could teach you some tricks on building robots if you wanted?"

[captainbuzzkill]

"That would be so cool." He appreciates science, but it's not like he's gotten that far along in school with it.

But that's a later thing. There's no way he's leaving his room right now. He needs to just...be somewhere comfortable.

And he is. He's a lot more comfortable and a lot less upset.

In fact, he's comfortable enough to use what he learned in all that stuff with Wendy. Instead of tripping over himself, he just...goes for it.

"For right now, though, I bet with that genius brain of yours that you're probably pretty good at video games. I mean, I bet I can still beat you," he says slyly, "but do you want to maybe hang out and play something? I probably have like fifty downloaded that I haven't gotten to yet."