On My Way Home (A Gravity Falls / Over the Garden Wall Crossover fanfic)

Ch. 2: Team

Wirt

Ribbons of pain snaked up my legs each time my worn shoes made contact with the forest floor. The sky was blurred with a mixture of light blues and yellows, and the trees seemed to stretch with the waking of the sun. I could feel my body sagging and my feet slowing with every second, however my brother's pace had been unchanged since we started our journey. I raised my hand to shield my tired eyes from the glare of the sun.

"It's almost morning," I said to my brother next to me. "We should've found a town by now. This is the way the Woodsman told us to go, right?"

Greg filled his cheeks with air and promptly forced it out by squishing his cheeks with his fingers. "Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying?" He asked, incredulous. "For the past couple of hours, I've been saying -" Greg blew another raspberry, sending a deflated pppffttt into the air in front of us. I should have known I wasn't going to get a serious response from him.

"Well, that settles it. I'm gonna walk up ten feet ahead of you." I sighed, picking up my pace.

"Hey - I hear something!" Greg piped up a moment later, halting so fast he kicked up some dirt, which floated around his feet like a murky cloud.

"It's probably nothing," I told him, not in the mood to play pretend.

"No, really!" Greg insisted, turning around. "I hear something! It sounds like people!"

"Greg, how can there be people?!" I turned too, and marched toward him. "We haven't seen anybody, or even a sign of civilization for -!" A plank of wood suddenly caught my attention as I read the words engraved on it. "Hey - look. Pottsfield, one mile. A town! Let's go this way."

"OK. Let's go this way."

"No, Greg - " I started in frustration when I heard him escaping in the other direction. "Y-oh!" I jerked my head towards the sudden echo of movement in the bushes and distant voices, which sent my heart scampering up into my throat.

"See?" Greg said triumphantly. "People!" He turned and started to run towards the noise, but a sudden increase in the volume of the voices made me grab his arm to hold him back.

"I said I was SORRY," a female voice cried through the bushes, evidently raw from tears.

"Sorry doesn't get us out of here, does it!?" another voice yelled in reply, this time a boy.

"FINE!" a voice screamed, shrill and angry. "IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE SUCH A DUMB-DUMB THEN I'LL JUST-"

I turned to Greg but found he was gone. A rustle of leaves in front of me told me that he had just done what I was about to tell him not to. I slapped my palm against my face as I heard Greg run through the bushes.

The arguing stopped abruptly.

"Hi, my name's Greg!"

At that, I ran after him, praying that he didn't anger them any more than they sounded. Unfortunately, my foot got caught on a root and my body was jerked forwards, and I fell ungracefully onto their path, knocking one of them down.

"OhgoshI'msosorrythatwasatotalaccidentohgosh," I apologized as fast as I could and tried to push myself off the stranger in the least awkward way possible. Of course, knowing me, the extra effort I put into trying not to make it weird made it ten times more awkward.

"That's okay, Wirt," Greg said, patting me on the back.

"I... Thanks, Greg," I said, figuring it was best to just go along with him. I turned to the figure still on the ground and held out my hand. "Ah... are you okay?"

A pink hand brushed away a mass of brown wavy hair to reveal a pink face. The girl brushed off her sweater and stood up without taking my hand.

"I'm fine, thanks," she said shakily, glancing at what I guessed to be her brother. He was looking at me in surprise, and I suddenly realized we had run into actual people wearing real clothes who didn't look like loonies carrying axes in the forest.

I guess he had the same idea because at the same time I blurted "Do you know how to get out of here?" He asked hurriedly, "Can you help us get home?".

We blinked at each other for a second before asking "What?!" in unison.

"You don't... you're not... what?!" The boy stammered, bracing his forehead in confusion. "What world are we in?"

"Wha... what world?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Inside, I was screaming one NO after another. Was it seriously possible that these two were just as crazy as the Woodsman?

"We're in the U.S.A!" Greg piped up, throwing his frog in the air.

"So we're still in the states," the boy said, clearly relieved.

"Hey," Greg said again. "We still don't know your names. I'm Greg, and that's my brother Wirt. So who are you?"

The boy with the blue hat glanced from Greg to me, and back to Greg again. No doubt he was analyzing our trustworthiness. Or maybe just judging us, I didn't know.

"I'm Dipper," he said finally. He glanced sideways at the girl next to him. When she refused to meet his gaze, he introduced her for us. "And... and this is my sister, Mabel."

"So... where are you headed?" I asked, adjusting my cape as a gust of wind blew through the trees. A red leaf whipped up from the ground and settled gently in Mabel's hair, but she didn't try to remove it. She didn't even seem to notice it.

"We're trying to get back to Gravity Falls, Oregon," Dipper said dejectedly, still glancing nervously at his sister.

"Hey, we're trying to get to Oregon too!" Greg yelled in excitement, tossing a single piece of candy in the air. "Wanna go together?"

"That's not a bad idea," I contributed. I figured a group of four was better than me and my nut of a brother.

"Sure," Dipper agreed.

"Mabel, you in?" I asked tentatively, realizing we had hardly heard three words from her. She looked up and smiled faintly. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Let's find a way out of here."