Chapter Text
"Ah, Summer Break. A time for leisure, recreation, and 'takin 'er easy'. ...Unless you're me."
-Dipper Pines, Tourist Trapped
Now, that was said by Dipper in a different context, several Summers ago, but it still can be applied here. Because, my dear reader, this Summer was supposed to be about leisure and recreation and all that for Dipper Pines, but of course it all had to be completely ruined when one particular girl came to Gravity Falls...
Dipper and Mabel Pines sat in the eighth row of a Speedy Beaver bus heading for Gravity Falls, Oregon. Dipper had recently resolved to have a stress-free, relaxing, normal Summer for once, and Mabel had sworn off trying to woo boys. Even though they could’ve gone to Los Angeles, or Baja, or someplace way more exciting (like too many of their peers), money had been tight since their parents’ divorce, and Gravity Falls had become something of a cheap tradition.
And so, there they were, hunkering and clinking along toward that all-too-familiar backwater town in the middle of the woods; toward Grunkle Stan and Ford, toward Wendy and Robbie, and, most of all, toward all the strange anomalies that were routinely overlooked. Dipper read a boring book on foraging for edible mushrooms in East Asia, while his sister blasted an extremely overplayed playlist of extremely overplayed songs into her ears beside him. It was so loud that he could actually hear all the lyrics, and it was making it very hard for him to concentrate on the already mind-numbing book.
He sighed in irritation.
Mabel failed to notice.
He sighed again, louder.
She deliberately turned up the volume, if that was even possible.
To his mild surprise, the next song on queue was Icelandic pop group BABBA’s top hit ‘Disco Girl’, which harbored both good and embarrassing memories for him. Despite that, though, he found himself faintly humming along to the lyrics. Mabel did too, until Dipper corrected her on a lyric and they launched into a dumb and long argument about whether the song was talking about trampolines or tambourines.
Meanwhile, you were, by chance, three cars behind their bus, not listening to your dad ramble on about the death of disco and the rise of metal in the late 70’s, and all the nuances and mini-feuds that went on between bands.
“But that part was just for attention–are you even listening?” He cut himself off once he caught sight of you staring out the window boredly in the mirror.
“Huh?” You asked stupidly, zoning back in.
“Are you listening?” He repeated himself sarcastically now, raising an eyebrow in an unimpressed manner.
“Uh…no…?” Came your response, and you smiled sheepishly at his exasperated sigh.
“Of course.” He said simply, and a short silence followed in which you foolishly thought you were off the hook, until he started a lengthy lecture about quality time and how you should at least pretend to care about his interests. (In retrospect, this particular argument was quite ironic.) During that lecture, you found yourself zoning in and out again, half listening to your father’s ranting, and half daydreaming about the wondrous things you could get up to with ten weeks of sloppy adult supervision.
To spare you the head-banging boredom that ensued between those two vehicles in the next three-and-a-half hours on the way to Roadkill County, I’ll skip the story forward to the part where you had arrived.
*Cheesy fast-forwarding sounds*
Ah, finally, fresh air.
You stepped out of your family car and stretched out your arms, yawning widely. You made your way over to the trunk, popping open the cover and pulling out your suitcase with a bit more effort than you’d like to admit. Some called it ‘unnecessary packing’ –namely, your dad–, but you called it being prepared. I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t pack underwear like they’d be shitting themselves daily?
Speaking of which, what you weren’t prepared for, but probably should’ve seen coming, was your heavy-ass suitcase slipping out of your grasp and tragically colliding with the ground. It elicited a deep thud from the asphalt when it landed, and split open comically, spilling its contents. You swore angrily as you dove to retrieve it, shoving your clothes back in and forcing the lid shut.
“Damn cheap suitcase,” You complained bitterly, blaming the manufacturer instead of yourself–because you were quite obviously not the one at fault here.
Your dad snickered at your situation instead of doing the fatherly thing and helping you out, to which you just rolled your eyes and made a face at him.
“Need any help with that?” He joked, smiling widely at you.
“I’ll have you know that,” You began defiantly, pausing to grunt as you dragged the suitcase upright with herculean effort, “That I…yeah, probably.”
You both burst out laughing, and he helped you move your stuff into the lobby of the motel you were to stay at for a couple of nights until girls’ camp started.
Ugh, right. Camp.
Now, for a little background information; let’s just say you were a bit unruly this year, and instead of spending the Summer at home with your friends, like usual, going to the beach and enjoying the weather in Sunny SoCal…your punishment for your behavior was to be shipped up to Oregon to go to a cheap girls’ camp that only lasted for about three weeks. The remaining portion of your precious Summer was to be spent with your aunt Susan, working part-time at her diner. (No hot-girl Summer for you, you supposed…)
Now, you loved your aunt dearly, but she was a little, well, ‘eclectic’ to say the least. So you were just a bit apprehensive about staying seven weeks in her kind-of-untidy-cat-ridden-super-outdated house, but you figured it would feel like Caesar’s Palace after a musty motel mattress and itchy cabin cots by the lake.
You just hoped you wouldn’t catch lyme disease.
“Name and reservation, please?” The young man at the front desk asked a second time with a tad of impatience, snapping you out of your main character internal monologue.
“Oh! Right, sorry…”
~☆☆☆~
After your dad helped you check into the small room you had booked, it was time to say goodbye. He was never really great at those.
“Dad, will you please stop bawling? I’ll see you in ten weeks,” You reasoned, although you also felt the slight, sentimental urge to cry and hug him tightly.
“I just can’t believe my baby girl is all grown up!” He sniffed, and you half-groaned, half-laughed.
“Not quite,” You replied, guiding him toward the car.
Five minutes later, you were still saying your last goodbyes, which was mostly you reassuring him that you had absolutely everything you needed.
“Yes, dad, I have my phone, wallet, room key, journal, clothes, backpack, money, food, and the teddy bear from the gas station,” You exasperated after he asked you for what felt like the millionth time in 24 hours.
“Alright, honey. I love you,” He sighed sadly, wiping his cheeks.
“Love you too, Pop.”
And with a final hug and kiss and wave, your father was off. You watched him back up out of the driveway and disappear down the road with increasingly misty eyes.
~☆☆☆~
With a mixed emotions sigh and a short arm stretch, you flopped into the semi-uncomfortable mattress in your motel room and reached for the TV remote.
Deciding to shirk your unpacking for a while and see what the local media of Gravity Falls had to offer, you flipped through the channels with increasing disinterest. News (or lack thereof), bootleg Food Network, some old cartoons, a low budget mystery movie, an even lower budget drama, and pure static. You groaned at the realization that you’d have to un-shirk your duties instead, grabbing your phone and plugging in some earbuds to help you through the mountainous task of getting yourself set up. No free wi-fi, so you’d have to listen to your downloaded music…great.
After checking the teeny tiny room for hidden cameras (stay safe, kids!), making sure the toilet, shower, and sink worked, and whipping up a weak cup of luke-warm cocoa with the cheap coffee maker, you finally went through your stuff to double-check that you did indeed have everything. Turns out that you (conveniently) forgot your Summer reading, but remembered all the essentials. Whatever, that would be a problem for future you, who would kick your ass if she could.
The sun was setting now, casting a soft orange light through the window and illuminating the tops of the pine trees of the nearby forest. It was really picturesque, so you snapped a couple photos and sent them to your mom with a text letting her know that you had made it all in one piece. You smiled at her immediate response.
‘Looks beautiful, honey! Stay safe ♥️’
You threw away your empty paper cup and scrolled through your camera roll for a while, having nothing better to do. After that, you lazily brushed your hair and teeth and changed into your bedclothes, opting for an early-ish night for once. It was now 8:43 PM, which was a pretty decent time to hit the hay. And that mattress definitely felt like hay.
It was a rough night for you, to put it lightly. You dragged yourself out of the covers at 7:08 AM without prompting, just glad to have those hours of tossing and turning and annoyingly loud bed springs over with. At least you’d catch breakfast.
…Ew.
You weren’t expecting anything, and yet it still managed to disappoint. Limp sausages and overdone scrambled eggs with bland cornflakes and suspiciously watery, translucent milk constituted your breakfast. You forced it down with a hefty serving of cheap ketchup, since there were no adults around to judge you (besides the staff). The only decent thing about it was the several cups of apple-flavored water they labeled as ‘juice’ that you downed.
‘Welp, glad that’s over.’ You mentally sighed as you left the lobby and took the elevator back to your room. Pushing open the door, you made for the bathroom to get ready for the day. A few hours out to see exactly what kind of town you were staying in for three months seemed obligatory. So, with teeth brushed, face washed, and hair adequately styled, you changed into some comfortable, casual clothes and your favorite pair of shoes. You almost forgot deodorant, like always, but managed to remember after you stuffed your crossbody bag with all your going-out stuff.
With a quick glance in the mirror to ensure you didn’t look like holy hell, you rode the elevator back downstairs and walked outside, breathing in the fresh air. Southern California air was sometimes polluted, sometimes fresh, but it seemed that the small-town Oregon air up here was pristine, virgin even. As if the trees didn’t know the meaning of smog.
You stood there for a moment before realizing you had no idea where anything was. You opened your phone to check Floogul Maps, only to be greeted with the wonderful news that there was no mapping in this part of the woods, meaning you’d have to ask the locals for directions. Yay…
Sheepishly stepping back inside, you approached the middle-aged lady at the front desk.
“Hi there, I’m new here and have no clue where to go,” You began somewhat awkwardly, offering a bit of a smile. “Can you give me some directions to town?”
“Oh, of course, dear!” She replied kindly, telling you the following directions: ‘Go left to the signpost at the end of the driveway, then follow Elken street until you see the Sundollars coffee shop. From there, turn right and you’ll be at the center of town.’ You gave her your thanks and returned outside, looking around for the signpost and repeating the directions over and over to yourself.
Being a bit directionally challenged, it took a little while longer than expected to get there, but sooner or later you arrived at the familiar chain coffee stop.
“Even in the middle of nowhere, you can count on having a Sundollars,” You remarked to yourself before turning right.
Only, you weren’t able to turn right, because you collided with a wall. No, actually, not a wall, fleshier than that–a person!