The Things We Leave Behind (Gravity Falls Fic)

Chapter 18: Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Saige's POV:

        After three days, bedridden and bored off my rocker, my handlers finally said I was ready to graduate to the living room couch. Yay! Now I get to watch endless hours of Gravity Falls television. Isn't that just fabudelicious? 

        I just want to go for a run. Just five minutes, around the cabin. Is that too much to ask?

        Mabel even tried hand feeding me yesterday... I'm not thathelpless...

        Anyway. I was just sitting there, a dumb movie playing on mute on the TV, flicking through a magazine (chosen at random from a stack of magazines brought by the Sweater-clad Wonder herself), when Dipper shows up at my side.

        Without looking up, I say, "Hey, man, what's up?"

        He sets his Journal down on the coffee table, "I have a question."

        "Ask away."

        There is a pause, "...When is your birthday?"

        I turn a page in the magazine, grimace, and reply, "Why?"

        "Because."

        "April twenty-third. And, now, I ask you again... why?"

        He sighs, "Well, Mabel and I had this idea to give you a present to cheer you up."

        I flip to another page and make another disgusted face, "This magazine is terrible, why am I still reading it?"

        I shut the magazine and drop it back on the stack. Then I turn to Dipper, "I really appreciate the thought. I really do. But all I need to cheer me up is a chance to stretch my legs."

        His eyes are sympathetic, "You bored?"

        I moan, "YESSS."

        I look at him, slowly, pleading, "Maybe you could... I don't know... let me just-"

        "No," He says, immediately.

        "But whyyy???" I complain.

        "You need to rest!" He cries.
        
        "But resting is exhausting!" I whine.

        Dipper speaks, matter-of-factly, "First of all, that is an oxymoron. Second of all, remember what I said about getting you something to cheer you up?"

        I sigh, and then nod.

        "And you know how you've had nothing but soup and fried eggs for the past three days?"

        I nod again, suddenly very interested.

        "Wait here," He says, and then leaves the room.

        "Not going anywhere," I say, more to myself than anyone else.

        Dipper reappears, his hands behind his back.

        "Close your eyes."

        I shake my head, "I never close my eyes when other people are around."

        "Just do it, okay?"

        I huff and then slide my eyelids shut.

        "Alright, now, open them."

        I do as he says.

        The first thing I see is Dipper's hands outstretched towards me. On them sat a single cupcake with purple icing and white star sprinkles.

        I stare at it.

        Dipper is waiting, "Take it, Mabel made it for you."

        I reach out with one hand pick up the tiny cake.

        I'm still staring at it.

        Dipper is suddenly very uncomfortable, "Do you not like cupcakes or-"

        He stops.

        The cupcake is gone. 

        "Oh," He says. I suppose I answered that question.

        I look at Dipper again, "Are you some kind of freakish mind reader or something?"

        He laughs, "I'm guessing you like cupcakes."

        I nod, "Sweets are my Cryptonite."

        "Well, I'll have to remember that. Anyway. Don't be surprised if Mabel and I throw you a surprise belated birthday party."

        I blink, "I think that you telling me to not be surprised by a surprise party completely negates that whole surprise part."

        He shrugs and walks away.

        I lick icing from my fingers.

        Then I reach out, slip the terrible magazine off the stack and open it up again, both horrified and intrigued at the same time.