🌟 || Kissing Constellations

Setting: A summer evening in the woods of Gravity Falls

🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔

Wirt took a deep breath and smoothed away the soft, chestnut brown hair obscuring Dipper's forehead.

Dipper jerked away, ruffling his bangs back into place.

"C'mon, Wirt; you know I don't want people looking at my birthmark."

"And why not?" queried his friend, raising an eyebrow.

Dipper flushed a deep red and attempted to pull his bangs down lower. His efforts, of course, were futile.

"It's...weird."

Wirt's expression grew soft, now, as he approached the preoccupied boy. Gently, he placed his left hand on Dipper's shoulder and lowered Dipper's wrist with his right.

"Dip, you've got a great uncle with six fingers and a sister who knits a new sweater every other day. Everyone in this town's got their quirks. Heck, I study interior design and write poetry for fun!!"

Dipper remained unswayed by his best friend's efforts. There was a reason he used to wear a snapback all the time...a reason he still didn't tell most people his real name...

But Wirt wasn't like most people.

He was quiet, sensitive, maybe the first friend of his who truly understood him on a personal level.

He pondered that word for a moment.

Friend.

Not unrequited crush; not long-distance, short-term romantic relationship.

Not Wendy. Not Pacifica.

Just Wirt. His friend. They were just...

Friends.

Friends who could talk to each other about anything; friends who hiked through the woods for hours on end nearly every day.

Friends who told each other things they would never tell anyone else. Like how Wirt had basically died last Halloween and ventured through an Eldritch wood to save himself and his brother from an entity known as the Beast, all while being guided by a talking bluebird.

At this point it was the kind of topic they could casually conjure up during conversation.

Like birthmarks or secret first names.

Dipper furrowed his brows and sighed, but smiled briefly to himself as he pulled back his bangs, assuaged by the knowledge that he'd unveiled his secret to someone he could trust.

Wirt was caught off-guard by the gesture; rendered speechless by the otherworldly spectacle now candidly displayed upon Dipper's face.

"Dipper..."

The boy before him grimaced, momentarily doubtful of his choice to expose one of his greatest insecurities.

"...you have an unnaturally large forehead."

Dipper's heart skipped a beat or two, and suddenly he found himself laughing. Wirt laughed, too, and then, without any premeditation, he leaned down and kissed the Big-Dipper shaped mark emblazoned upon his friend's forehead. The action was brief, yet enough to incite a flustered state of shock in both of them.

"Um..." Wirt rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. "Your birthmark's pretty cool too, I guess. I-I mean, it's not NOT cool; if anything it's the coolest birthmark—"

Wirt's stuttering was stifled by a significantly less brief kiss from Dipper. The two stood there, unmoving, until Dipper jerked away abruptly, placing his hands on his knees.

When he stood up straight again, he sniffed. "Sorry; thought I had to sneeze."

Wirt tugged at his collar absentmindedly, his gaze drifting to the ground as he permitted a shy smile to slip. "Are...you always this allergic to the people you—"

"—Like?" His voice cracked as he said this, and Wirt blushed faintly.

"I-I don't know," Dipper stammered. "Might explain why my hand broke out in a rash whenever I held Pacifica's. Though that might have just been her perfume. But I also got pretty itchy around Wendy most of the time..."

Dipper scratched his head as if he were legitimately considering this as a possibility.

"I should be fine as long as I immunize myself to you." He paused for a moment upon realizing his cheeks were glowing. "One, two kisses a day should do the trick I think..."

"And a long walk in the woods every night," added Wirt, knitting his fingers through Dipper's.

"And we're not even accounting for the hours of ghost summoning..."

"...poetry writing..."

"...monster hunting..."

"...library scouring..."

"...horror movie bingeing—"

"Alright, alright, I get the idea, Mason!"

Dipper froze, and Wirt cupped a hand over his mouth upon realizing what he'd just said. After Mabel had forced him under oath to promise he'd never reveal the fact that he knew Dipper's real name, Wirt couldn't even begin to fathom the repercussions for his blunder.

"Dipper! I'm so sorry!! Mason's a really cool name—!"

Dipper laughed and squeezed Wirt's other hand. "It's also a great secret society", he winked.

Wirt nodded mutely and bit his lower lip. He wasn't sure what else to do.

"I don't mind if you call me Mason in private, but if you go throwing it around near anyone else, I might just have to call you Conehead for the rest of the summer. We got a deal?"

Wirt laughed and shook Dipper's hand. "I guess that's fair!"

Then he pulled him into a kiss; a proper one, this time. And they stood there for a while, simply embracing the soothing hum of the woods around them...the constellations shimmering above.

The knowledge that they were "together" together now. Technically.

And the world was halcyon.

And Mason Pines didn't sneeze.

And all Wirt could think about was how  romantic the notion of kissing a constellation was.

He resolved he'd write a poem about it later, but for the moment he was content under the gaze of a drifting star.

🌟The End⭐️