Ink and Ingress
@plugnuts had an amazing prompt yesterday that sent me into a spiral and I had to write it out I'm not sorry. I don't think I've written fanfiction since... gosh, maybe 2014. I'm literally a published poet, but heaven forbid I write anything else haha.
2,400 words, no warnings apply. Dipper Pines x Wirt pairing.
Wirt finds himself at the receiving end of a variety of unusual letters from a Dipper Pines, and, while he isn't sure how he got them, he wants to make sure Dipper gets a worthy reply.
7:45 in the morning.
He stood at his window, watching the sky quietly. He’s never awake this early, but he needed to know. The strange, battered journals lay at the foot of the bed next to him, one open to a hand-drawn page of dinosaurs preserved in amber. He glanced down, breaking his intense concentration for just a moment, to look at the scribbled handwriting telling the fantastical story of underground pterodactyl chases and a heroic rescue of a pet pig. He looked back quickly to scan the sky again, his mind still filled with that handwriting. He hummed in nervous thought.
It’s been nearly six months since the journals fell from the sky. Absently, he rubbed the top of his head, fluffing his already ruffled sienna hair as he remembered the sting of the book dropping directly onto his head. He had yelled and turned to look behind him, expecting to see Greg, but his kid brother was still inside, loudly playing a set of toy drums. The second journal had fallen, then. He had looked up just in time to see the third. If he didn’t, he might have assumed someone was pulling a prank. The contents of the journals, although wildly improbable, felt a little more believable after seeing them fall from the clouds.
He wanted to believe them. The monsters were sometimes scary, sure, but he wanted to believe they were real anyway. Because he wanted to believe he was real. The author.
Dipper Pines.
Young, at least at the time of writing. The dates on the journal suggested they were about two years old now, which put him at about the same age as Wirt. The drawings of himself heroically fighting off a monstrous “gremloblin,” the intense detailed records of ghosts and vicious psychic children, and an unbelievable Mystery Shack mega-robot fight against an all-powerful demon absolutely entranced him. He had spent days – weeks – pouring over the journals in quiet, reserved awe. His love for his family apparent, his desire to help others bold, his bravery a beacon, and his fantastic storytelling… it made Wirt, in some way, feel a newfound hope.
The Unknown had been terrifying for Wirt. Greg reminisced on the good parts – helping a school of animals and playing with a band of frogs. He didn’t talk much about the more horrifying parts of the purgatory they had found themselves in nearly a year ago. The only time the now 7-year-old would acknowledge it was after his occasional nightmares, when Wirt would come running into his room to console him. But Wirt couldn’t focus on the fun Greg had. Every time he thought about any part of The Unknown, his mind would immediately turn to Lorna’s horrifying teeth, or Enoch’s looming frame, or The Beast’s cold, vicious eyes. He felt, then, truly alone. No one else would bear the weight of what he had witnessed.
But maybe Dipper would.
Wirt, in some disconcerting way, began to fall for the author. He liked the more educated, informal musings of Dr. Stanford Pines, of course, but Dipper had so much emotion. As he read, he would gently touch the letters written in blue pen, feel the slight indent it left on the paper, and try desperately to absorb what Dipper felt. It’s so much more personal, Wirt had mused to himself, to see someone’s thoughts when they write with the firm belief that no one else will ever read it. Dipper was erratic, at times, and spontaneous. He had goofy adventures with his twin sister, which Wirt was very fond of. She seemed to closely resemble Greg. It made him wonder if Dipper and Greg would get along. He liked to think so.
Wirt could see a lot of similarities between himself and the enigmatic Dipper Pines. His shy admittance to his great-uncle that his name was really Mason showed that he was still scared to be truly seen. Wirt’s heart had fluttered pleasantly over that detail, and he won’t admit to himself how much he liked the sound of Mason Pines. But he could also see – and appreciate – how different they were. Wirt believed himself cold against the world – at least for a while. When life got hard, he would hide. He wanted nothing more than to be a shadow; he wanted intangibility and insignificance. If no one saw him, he could avoid the inevitable confrontation when they became disappointed with what they saw. Dipper, however, wanted to scream at the world. He wanted to prove he was worth something, and that the things he has seen were real and that he was right. Where Wirt was a shadow, Dipper was brilliant, shining light.
Wirt lifted his eyes to his ceiling in mild mortification at that thought, his cheeks dusting pink. It’s a little embarrassing, he supposed, to love someone who may not even exist. He could be fictional – the musings of someone who wants to be someone they aren’t. He doesn’t even really know what he looks like. But he feels like it was inevitable – as inevitable as being hit on the head with the heavy book.
He had expected nothing after the journals fell. The last page of Journal 3 had a finality to it that had left him with the somber reality that he would never hear of the Pines’ again. The next Sunday, however, he had found a single, crumpled-up piece of lined paper. His heart had leapt into his throat and his hands had shaken when he recognized the writing. His joy had been overwhelming. He had refrained from taking the paper and hugging it to his chest like a love-stricken schoolboy. But only barely. The writing was simple. Still in his seemingly signature blue pen, in all capital letters, large and centered, was the single word, “TESTING.” What did it mean? Did Dipper know he had received the journals? Should he respond? How could he respond?
He had never seen anything actively fall since the journal that fell painfully on his head, but every Sunday he’d find more pieces of crumpled paper somewhere in their backyard. Sometimes other things would accompany Dipper’s letters. Once it was a small chest that Greg got to before Wirt did, and in a terrible accident Wirt will not think about, Greg managed to shatter the wooden chest completely, revealing a set of false golden teeth (which Wirt promptly threw away and made Greg wash his hands thoroughly afterwards). Another time was a single, dirty sock that looked much too large to belong to any teenager. The most recent was a bottle of a viscous, murky fluid in a clear bottle that Wirt had perched delicately on the top of a very tall shelf, out of the prying grabby hands of Greg (in an attempt to prevent the same catastrophe that is referred to as “The Chest Incident” at their house). He never bothered opening it, just afraid enough of the potential contents to keep it out of reach. He wasn’t sure if Dipper was dropping these things down, or if it was Dr. Pines.
The only thing he knew that belonged to Dipper was the writing. After the first letter, more came. Some looked like crumpled research and various advanced mathematical calculations that Wirt couldn’t even begin to understand (despite endless hours of searching online). Some were extensive, well-planned to-do lists that Wirt would get a chuckle out of. His current favorite is the “Plan to Keep Sev’ral Timez Out of Our Trash” and included a variety of uses of mouse traps that might have only been conceived by a mad scientist (why a formerly popular boy band that mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth was in Oregon rummaging through trash was beyond him completely). The ones he loved the most, though, were ones that Dipper seemed to pour his whole heart and soul out, just to crumple it up and throw it down what Wirt assumes to be the described “Bottomless Pit” at the end of Journal 3.
He liked to try to imagine Dipper quietly writing these fast-paced confessions of various things at the same time, every Sunday. Was that the only time he had alone to vent? Wirt almost felt guilty for reading them. They were so personal, he felt like he was reading someone else’s diary. And in a way, he was. But they were quite literally being placed in front of him, and his curiosity and admiration of Dipper Pines wasn’t going to let him simply throw them away.
The most recent was a confession of a nightmare he had the night before. The dream demon, Bill, was a major part of it, and seems to be the main antagonist of most of his nightmares. Dipper confesses on the paper that he struggles to find the separation between nightmare and reality, and Wirt’s heart aches with both the familiarity of the situation and the desperate, romantic part of him that wants to hold Dipper close and console him with gentle words and soft touches. To tell him he’s safe and loved.
Before this letter, Wirt had found an angrily scribbled page-long rant about Dipper’s twin sister. He claimed she was loud and obnoxious, but Wirt couldn’t find any malice in any of it. It simply sounded like an all-too-familiar sibling’s exasperation. At the bottom of the page, Dipper had hastily written, “I still love her, though. But don’t tell her I said that.” And Wirt had clutched the paper to his heart, stomach fluttering, and fell in love again. It felt, despite his good sense, like Dipper was personally trusting him with his secrets. He wanted to be worthy of that trust.
Throughout a several month period, there had been some hastily-written letters regarding his struggle with his sexuality – something Wirt also found himself relating to. But he will never admit to anyone that he grinned like an idiot for the rest of the day over his newfound, naïve surge of hope when Dipper came to the eventual realization that he was bisexual.
Another that Wirt enjoyed was an angry four-page tirade about a rich girl named Pacifica Northwest. Dipper had every right, it seemed, to dislike her, even though Wirt knew this was a one-sided story. But he found that Dipper could be outright sassy, and he had to stifle his laughter behind his hand when he read the petty onslaught of Dipper’s insults he had laid out for her. It was so expressive, Wirt imagined Dipper right there next to him, yelling about decorative peacocks and mini-golf escapades. He wondered what he sounded like.
Dipper vents through writing just like Wirt does, albeit more straightforward than poetry, and Wirt desperately wanted to reply. He didn’t know how. What would he say? How would he even get the letter there? But he made a plan. He needed to let Dipper know that he was listening, and that he cared. He wrote and wrote, crumpled and threw away and wrote again, days on end, until he came up with a letter he deemed “good enough.” He wasn’t necessarily proud of it, but he couldn’t think of anything better. He wanted to make a good first impression.
Last week, he had gotten up early and waited. He was not a morning person, and he certainly did not get up early of his own volition, especially during summer vacation. But he wanted to see when the letters fell. He had watched the letter fall a few minutes after 8:00 am, and decided his plan needed to be put into action. He wasn’t a scientist, and he certainly didn’t think himself as smart as Dipper, but the romantic in him wanted so badly for this to work.
The letter he had finalized (after nervously proofreading nearly seven times) was laid gingerly next to the open journal, folded into the best paper plane he could manage. He checked the clock. 7:55 am. Dipper was probably already writing about whatever was weighing heavily on his mind somewhere in Gravity Falls right about now. He bit down on his lower lip to hide his smile at the thought.
He picked up the paper plane with unnecessary care and quietly tiptoed past Greg’s bedroom and out the back door. The morning air was cold on his skin, and he listened for a moment to the chittering songbirds to try to calm his sudden spike of nerves. This is ridiculous, he thought to himself. Am I really doing this right now? He almost turned to go back inside. But a slight breeze blew from behind him, and he turned to face it and looked up at the sky. He imagined Dipper in that moment – the face he’s only seen in drawings lighting up as he read what Wirt had written to him. The same cool morning breeze that Wirt feels now kissing his face and gently tossing his bangs. Ignoring the butterflies that inspired, Wirt shook his head and took a deep breath to steel himself. I can do this. I need to do this.
His watch read 7:59 am. He watched the sky for a few more seconds, as if willing it to part for him. Please work, he begged the universe. He then looked down at the paper airplane cupped in his hands, as gentle as if it were made of the most fragile glass. Despite himself, and despite the self-mortified blush spreading over his cheeks and nose, he let his eyes flutter shut and gently kissed the wings. Keeping his lips close enough to the pristine white paper to brush against it with feather-like tenderness, he whispered, “Your secrets are safe with me. Please write back soon.”
A timer that he had set on his watch beeped for 8 am as he gripped the paper plane a little tighter. He reared his arm back and put his whole body into throwing the plane as hard as he could. He stumbled briefly in his effort and hissed at himself in frustration. Looking up quickly to try to find the letter he worked so hard on. But the plane was gone. He felt his breath hitch, his heart light in his chest with optimism. It never came back down. He wasn’t entirely sure if it worked, but he smiled affectionately at the slowly rolling clouds, trusting them to carry his message to the sweet, kind, brave boy that stole his heart.
And somewhere, in a forest filled with pine trees and monsters, a brunette boy angrily scribbling on a piece of paper with a worn, blue pen gets tapped in the temple with a gently soaring paper airplane.
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