Chapter Text
Dipper groaned as he felt someone poking him on his cheek, “boop boop, boop boop, boopboopbooopboop-“ Dipper groaned, sat up and rubbed his eyes, “Alright, alright I’m up.”
His sibling was standing in front of him with their hands behind their back, “Okay, guess who I am.”
Dipper groaned, “this game suuuuucks.”
His sibling pouted and rocked on their heels, “Come oooon guess!”
Dipper squinted looking his sibling over, considering their hands were behind their back so it was one of the alters who used the bracelet system. He stood up and rubbed his eyes, hmmmm… Mabel tended to prefer sweaters, but they were wearing an oversized T-shirt. Sophie or Quinton… He squinted a bit longer.
“You can never get me Quinton.” He said, maybe there was a hint of smugness in his voice. Until he saw them wink.
“But I always could.” They held up their arm revealing the small fox charm bracelet. It was Moon, of course it was Moon- and now kit was rummaging through his stuff for kit’s chosen prize- a red jolly rancher.
“Better stock up a bit more Dip, you’re almost out of the red ones.” Of course he was, Moon was almost the only one who consistently ‘got him’ at this game, which was probably why kit enjoyed playing it so much.
“Oh yeah,” Moon said, handing him a piece of paper, “Mabel left this for you.” And with that kit left.
In color changing glitter pen the note said, “Hi Dipper! So remember that thing that I was talking about with ‘structured time’ so everyone who wants to have a life outside of headspace can have that life out of headspace? Well, this week will be our first attempt at seeing how this will work! It probably won’t go perfectly, but I just figured I’d let you know so you didn’t think we were just rapid switching and in trouble or anything.
Good luck! Bye!
Mabel
Dipper sighed as he put the paper in his pocket. Good luck indeed.
Moon was a bit of a kleptomaniac, so when kit said they wanted to go to the mall, Dipper was a bit skeptical.
“Come on Dip Dip, it’ll be fun!”
“Do you remember what happened last time?” Moon had made a game out of stealing one thing from every store that they’d gone to. It’d started small, candy bars kept by the exits, little pins. Then kit got cocky and tried to claim that the umbrella that they had was totally one that they brought it.
It was 80 degrees out and sunny.
They were banned from that shop.
Moon put kit’s hand on their chest, “I Moon Pines, promise I will behave if you bring me to the mall.”
“Well…” Dipper stroked his chin.
Moon looked at him with the biggest, roundest eyes in the world. They did puppy eyes like no other.
And a few minutes later the two of them were at the Gravity Falls Mall. Since they were alone (and Stan had given them a quarter each with the statement ‘here, if you want bubble gum or something’ and responding to their protests that gum costs more than that with ‘I don’t know. Barter or something.’) They were basically just browsing around. Occasionally trying on things they thought looked cool or messing around with displays. Dipper got himself especially engrossed in the Books and Things store when he found a copy of The Sibling Brothers: Case of the Missing Mysteries- one of the few books in the series he hadn’t gotten his hands on.
He turned around, ready to tell Moon about how it turned out the stolen goods were hidden in an underground bunker- only to find empty space where his sibling once was.
“Moon?” He said quietly. Then more loudly, earning him a shush from the nearest adult. He ran about, this way and that throughout the mall, looking for his lost sibling- the mall was only so big. Where could kit have gone, were they in trouble? Shoot, he should have looked after them better!
Then the wind was knocked out of him as a being about his size rushed at him and began to drag him. He looked down to see his assailant only to see Moon, holding some sort of book thing in kit’s mouth. Trying their best to run.
“Moon?! Where have you been?!” Dipper shouted
Moon scrambled to move the book from kit’s mouth to their hands, “No time to explain, we have to get out of here NOW.”
In the distance Dipper heard an old man’s voice shouting, “Stop! Thief!” An arrow barely missed his head as he ran alongside Moon. Moon stumbled a bit, and decided to switch to full fox-running mode. Eventually the pair managed to escape the angry shopkeep as they caught their breaths on a nearby road.
“Moon! You promised this wouldn’t happen!” Dipper shouted.
Mood spat out the book and switched back to bipedal standing, “I know, I know, I just-“
“Do you know how worried I was? You could have gotten us hurt or worse!” Dipper began to pace, “They’re never going to let us in again, why did I let you do this. I knew you would ruin it-“
Moon shoved the book to his chest, “Here!” Dipper looked down at the book. Wards: Ways to protect yourself from the unknown.
“There was a small place called ‘the vanishing shop.’ It only stays in one place for 20 minutes at a time and… I thought you might want this. To protect yourself during your whole mystery hunting thing.”
Oh. Dipper shuffled, and the pair stood in silence for a few minutes.
Moon sighed, “We’ll, come on. We should try to find our way back to the Mystery Shack.” Kit started to walk forward; Dipper took a deep breath.
“Moon wait.” They stopped and looked back at him. “I’m sorry for immediately thinking the worst of you. It wasn’t fair of me.”
Moon rubbed kit’s arm, “It’s okay, I know I cause trouble sometimes… I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“It’s okay.” Dipper gently nudged Moon, “Hey, it’ll be pretty fun to see how we can sneak into the mall next time you front.”
“Oo! I have the perfect idea for disguises!”
The pair walked back to the Mystery Shack together, discussing their future hijinks