open } i've been better with the things i've said when i took the lead instead of being led

[krmvgivv]

Who: Dipper Pines and anyone who likes lurking in caves like a creeper
Where: the caves
When: 4/4 shortly after the event
Rating: PG-13ish probably
Summary: Dipper has been here for a year. He is not taking it extremely well.
The Story:

When Dipper wakes up with his emotions back on, he has to shut his eyes and swallow hard to keep them all from overwhelming him. He doesn't want to cry. He doesn't want Mabel to see him cry because while he knows she'd understand, he doesn't want her to have to carry that weight.

It's been a year.

It had been so easy not to care. The event had been so well timed, he'd barely had a flicker of panic before he shut his emotions off entirely and suddenly it didn't matter so much. But now no matter how hard he tries, the emotions are still there, threatening to overwhelm him. A year. And he's no closer to solving the mysteries of Wonderland than he was when he started. A year and three months since he's seen his parents, whose names he can't even remember thanks to this place.

It takes him a moment, but once he has himself under control again he wipes his face on his pillow and sits up, muttering some excuse to Mabel as he walks out of the room. He makes his way to the caves as fast as he can. It's where he always goes to be alone with his thoughts, and right now... he really wants to be alone with his thoughts. He finds a rock and sits down, pulling out a notebook. He turns on his flashlight and flips to the first page.

July April 1, 2012(?)

I've found myself in a strange world that I don't think even the author's visited. Or if he has, he didn't write about it in his journal. That means it's up to me to record everything I see and chronicle the mysteries of this place! Everyone says we're stuck here forever, but also that people go home sometimes, so I'm not worrying too much.

From what I've gathered, this place is Wonderland, like in the book. It's a pocket dimension, and time works differently out in the real world, so it's unclear if anyone will even notice I'm gone. More summer vacation for me, right?

I have a lot more reading to do. Evelyn, the librarian, has so many notes! But, of course, I'll be transcribing some of my own in here. This place might be even weirder than Gravity Falls!

More summer vacation. Dipper even misses going to school now. He shuts the book and throws it against the wall of the cave, curling his arms around his legs and leaning his head on his knees. He was supposed to have found a way out by now. He was supposed to be nearing 14, not still stuck at 12. He wasn't supposed to have died twice and somehow befriended a psycho killer who might make it three times any day now. It wasn't supposed to be this hard.

"Get it together, Dipper," he mutters to himself, squeezing his eyes tightly. "You can't hide in here all day." And it's not all bad here! He's got all his family, and the mysteries of this place still fascinate him, and there are friends he'd never have met if he hadn't shown up here. Non-psycho killer friends.

Tomorrow, he knows all those things will matter and he'll be able to face live again. Keep on going. Keep on being totally capable of handling this. Like a mature teen, not some little kid. But he's been fighting it and fighting it and just for today, he can't keep control anymore.

Maybe he'll just stay here for a little longer.

Comments

[needlebearer]

"I don't see your name on it," Arya replies petulantly. "You'll just have to come and take it." She realises that sounds like an invitation to fight and she doesn't care.

[krmvgivv]

"I'm not fighting you for it. That's stupid." Dipper glances away, fist balling on his leg. "Just leave me alone. There's a lot of cave here."

[needlebearer]

"Are you afraid you'll lose to a girl?" Usually she'd be smirking with that sort of taunt, but she just feels as though she's going through the motions, that chasing him off is the quickest way to get him to leave her alone to brood, as her pride won't let her back down herself.

[krmvgivv]

Dipper rolls his eyes and looks back up at her. "Yes. Terrified. How would I recover from such a blow." The fact is, he knows plenty of girls who could beat him up, and also at least one gender-nonspecific individual who would have a decent shot, though Dipper maintains he could take Chara. He doesn't want to fight win or lose, but it's easier to be sarcastic than actually respond to her taunts. Dipper has in the past worried about not being masculine enough, but he's come a long way since then. The fact is, he doesn't want to fight right now. Anyone of any gender. He just wants to sit and feel miserable.

[needlebearer]

Arya shrugs. "Most boys would just lie and tell everyone they won anyway. There's no one watching to prove otherwise." She pokes at a loose bit of rock, prying it free and wondering how much she'd have to take out to make the whole cave fall down on top of them.

[krmvgivv]

Dipper lets out a dark scoff. "You're a girl from a medieval style princess world that likes wearing pants and trying to provoke innocent bystanders into fights. Are you really gonna go around assuming that all boys follow boy stereotypes?"

She probably doesn't know half the words Dipper's using, but he honestly doesn't care right now. He thinks his point is clear anyway. He scowls, leaning on his knees. "I'm more of the scholarly type. I'll fight when I have to, and a lot of stuff's tried to kill me over the past year and a half, so I've had to a lot, but my brain serves me better than my fists."

[needlebearer]

"So that's why you're sat in a cave in the dark feeling sorry for yourself, instead of punching out your problems." Arya nods knowingly.

[krmvgivv]

Dipper rolls his eyes. "My problems can't be punched, believe it or not. And anyway, I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm studying my notes somewhere free from distraction."

...and feeling sorry for himself.

"Besides, you're down here too."

[needlebearer]

Touché. Arya clenches her teeth, hating her own hypocrisy being pointed out, and hating even more that she doesn't have a good comeback. "I'm down here because it's the one place that feels like it's actually natural rather than the stupid frills of that stupid mansion."

[krmvgivv]

"Aren't you basically a princess?" The subtleties of Westerosi titles are mostly lost on Dipper. Sansa dresses like a princess and definitely is nobility, so he's pretty sure she and her family are royalty. "Like frills can't be that new to you."

[needlebearer]

"No." She wrinkles her nose up in disgust at the idea of being a princess, even if was technically true after Robb had proclaimed himself King in the North, for all the good that had done him. "Is that what Sansa's told you?" If so, perhaps that's why he likes her sister so much - he envisions himself as the next king after their marriage. "In the North there's no place for the fancy frills here - we have tapestries and things, of course, but that's different."

[krmvgivv]

"I dunno, I just kind of assumed. We don't have royalty where I'm from." Dipper isn't sure how tapestries and things are all that different from other fancy frills, honestly, but he doesn't know much about their home. Except that a lot of bad things happen.

"Anyway, you're clearly not going for the right frills. Anyone show you video games yet?"

[needlebearer]

Arya's ears prick up a little at the mention of games, even as she fights the impulse to respond that they're childish, and she's had to grow up long ago. "No... Video is like the dinosaur story, right?" She'd seen Jurassic Park a few weeks ago and thought it was the best thing ever.

[krmvgivv]

"Yep, and video games are like that, but you get to choose how the story goes. You can be in control of one of the characters. Or the dinosaur, depending on the game."

[needlebearer]

She peers at him from where her head's been rested in her arms folded over knees drawn close up to her chest, forgetting her need to wallow in her sadness and feeling altogether intrigued. "That sounds fun."

[krmvgivv]

"It is. And there are so many of them." He grins. "Also? Pizza. Ice cream. And women can vote and stuff!"

[needlebearer]

None of those concepts mean anything at all to her, but if there's one thing she's found she enjoys here, it's trying out the things that seem so commonplace to those from other worlds. "Can we--" she flushes a bright red, annoyed at herself for suddenly wanting to hang out with him so badly, when she'd been clinging to her reasons to resent him and by extension resent Sansa. "I mean, if you'd even want to play a video game with me."

[krmvgivv]

Dipper looks more amused than anything else. Maybe because usually he's the one who's turning red and getting awkward around girls. Having a girlfriend has really changed him.

"Duh. I wouldn't tell you about them and then not play them with you."

[needlebearer]

She wouldn't have put it past him, after all her brothers had always told her about the things they got up to and rarely included her. She can't help but grin, her original melancholy that had brought her down here completely forgotten. "I'll hold you to that."