Work Text:
Summer was over. School was back and time was ticking slowly.
The first week of school was a bummer, 8th grade sucked. At least for Dipper, Mabel was having a blast and was as bubbly as ever with her friends, old and new.
She had moved on from that summer surprisingly fast, Dipper observed, like nothing had happened. Well, Dipper didn’t move on, his mind still raced with thoughts at night and most of his day too, looking constantly around for any hint of the supernatural.
But… his neighbourhood was so normal, it was boring him a bit. By the end of the first month back, the boy was starting to wonder if he hadn’t imagined it all, to save himself from a boring summer in a small town. Mabel refused to talk to him about those months in Gravity Falls, and with no one else to talk to, Dipper was starting to feel alone. Gruncles Stan and Ford, were sailing somewhere, unreachable, and he somehow forgot the addresses of his friends to write them letters. The Mystery Shack didn’t have a website to get its number to call Soos, who was now a manager. The local news didn’t help either, since its web pages didn’t write anything weird, under the rule of not talking about the Weirdmageddon.
Dipper was starting to think he was crazy.
One day he broke down, and told his parents everything, Mabel didn’t back him up. He felt betrayed.
His parents decided to send him to therapy the following week, worried about his mental state.
Psychotic episode, the therapist said after a few sessions. That didn’t sit right with Dipper, but he started to take the pills he was prescribed with.
Slowly things got back to normal, better, even. Dipper surprisingly managed to make some friends, with a local group of older teens who played Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons.
Everything was fine.
Nothing could get rid of the nightmares, though, chilling fever dreams with yellow triangles and a maniac laugh. At some point Dipper just accepted he would have to live with the occasional night of waking up in cold sweat, not bothering to mention it to anyone.
Years later, when packing his things to go to college, Dipper found something in the back of his closet. A hat, a brown and green hat, that made his eyes tear up instantly. He ended up curled into a ball in his bed, hugging it as he sobbed, knowing he had received the hat on his last day of summer in Gravity Falls, all those years ago, when he was just thirteen.
But what made him cry was that he couldn’t remember who gave it to him, he could only see the blurred face of a ginger. It was like there was something missing on him.
He felt empty.