Chapter Text
Pacifica bit at the skin surrounding her thumbnail as she listened to the quietness of the shack. A lot of the early day was a little bit of a blur. Waking up, her parents confronting her about that stupid picture, telling her she couldn’t stay unless they let them send her off for ‘therapy’. She could remember leaving, remembered going off and finding Robbie to buy her a bottle of whiskey… That was where things really started to get kind of fuzzy. Going to Camille’s house, screaming at her from the driveway, throwing up on Mabel, watching Mabel beat up Camille, Mabel’s hands in her hair. Mabel, Mabel, Mabel. The electric blue pillows smelled like her.
Ever since Pacifica woke up in her bed, later that evening, she had been listening to everyone in the house moving around, talking to each other, watching TV. Occasionally someone would peek into the room and she’d pretend to still be sleeping. She didn’t want to face them yet. Now, though, the only sound was the quiet murmur of the TV. No more chatter, no more clattering of dishes, nothing. Oh so slowly, the blond crawled out of bed and cracked open the door leading out into the hall. There were star-shaped night-lights plugged into the outlets along the floor, lighting the hall from one end to end. At either one there was a set of stairs, one going up and the other going down.
With mouse-like care she crept out of Mabel’s room and made for the stairs. Despite her best efforts there were little creaks and groans from the stairs below her feet, each one making her flinch. She didn’t let herself relax until she’d gotten on the stairs. Thankfully, through a little aimless groping, Pacifica found a light switch, because the stairs were entirely dark. As a bare, yellow bulb flicked on over head she started down the stairs, ignoring the picture frames on either side of her that depicted a happy, loving family.
The stairs ended in another hallway. Light from the stairs reached about halfway down the corridor, until it faded into nothing. She didn’t bother with trying to find a light this time, simply marched through the dark until she was at the entrance to the living room. Through the empty doorway she could see into the room with all it’s lived-in splendor.
In her own home everything had always looked like it was barely touched. Open, immaculate spaces that carried a feeling of coldness. Even though they were no longer living in the Northwest mansion, the trend carried on. The room she looked into now was worn in, and loved, given a sense of comfort by how comfortable people were inside it. There was a coat draped over the back of an arm chair, bookshelves filled with both books and bric-a-brac, all of which carried some measure of dust. What really caught her eye, though, was the couch and the girl that lay upon it.
Mabel was lit up by the dim flicker of the TV, stretched out across the couch cushions with her face buried in a pale, pink pillow. One of her legs had dropped off the side of the couch, nearly falling into a half-finished bowl of popcorn. Her hair was tangled into a messy brown halo around her head. Without her permission, Pacifica felt her lips twitch into a little smile.
Cute.
Unable to resist the urge, the blonde slipped into the room on silent feet, and went to crouch in front of the couch. In the back of her mind, she thought that it was probably creepy to be watching the other girl sleep, but she couldn’t help herself. Mabel had her arms wound around her pillow. One of her hands peeked out from under it, the bruising across her knuckles dark, even in the dim light.
Pacifica felt her insides squirm uncomfortably.
Mabel had hurt herself, hitting Camille.
She’d hit Camille because she was angry.
She was angry because Camille hurt Pacifica…
And what had she ever done to deserve having someone care if she was hurt? Especially if that someone was Mabel Pines. For the past three years she’d been nothing but rude, sometimes outright mean, not only to her but to her family. Yet she still cared about her for some reason. Pacifica didn’t feel like she deserved that.
“Pacifica, are you alright,” Mabel suddenly asked, making the other girl yelp and fall backward onto her ass.
“I um… I…” the blonde stuttered, trying to think of something to say. Some sort of excuse for watching Mabel sleep like a creep.
“You must feel like shit,” the brunette yawned. With a little hum she arched her back and squirmed on the couch before sitting up with, what looked like, a great deal of effort. “Hmmm Stay right there I’ll get you something to drink.” Another yawn as she got to her feet and wandered toward the kitchen.
She came back with a bottle of some brightly colored sports drink.
“Thank you,” Pacifica mustered as she took the bottle. She still hadn’t moved from the floor.
“You’re welcome!” Mabel smiled brightly as she dropped back down on the couch. “I didn’t know what flavor you’d like, but Rick said you were probably suffering from some mild alcohol poisoning earlier. Suggested these might make you feel better when you woke up. Heh kinda had me worried there with how long you’d been asleep,” the girl admitted, still smiling down at the young woman on the floor. She just stared up at Mabel, speechless. “Pacifica?”
“Why do you care so much about me,” she blurted, looking a little startled before she continued. “What have I ever done to make you want to give a shit about me?” Before Mabel could answer, Pacifica kept going. It seemed as though actually getting her mouth to work was enough to let open the floodgates. “I’m… I’ve been nothing but bitch to you for years! I’m a horrible person! And yet here you are! Rescuing me from my own drunken stupidity, beating people up for me, taking care of me! I.. I don’t deserve any of that!” The blonde looked away, unable to meet her eyes.
Mabel frowned at the girl. Even if she had a few points, it made her uncomfortable to hear the youngest Northwest talk so badly about herself. She was convinced there was a good person under the snobbish, rude shell that Pacifica wore to protect herself.
“Well… You’re not wrong? I mean you can be a first class bitch,” Mabel said truthfully, even as it made the other girl curl in on herself a little. “But that doesn’t mean you deserve to get outed on Facebook and… I don’t know you’re mean but I think it’s just a front.” Then it was her turn to look away, a little color rising in her already pink cheeks as she spoke. “I bet you could be really nice if you didn’t feel like you needed to be perfect all the time.”
Pacifica couldn’t help staring up at the girl after that, mouth opening and closing. She wanted to tell her that she was wrong, to try and convince Mabel that she really was just a horrible person. It was just so impossible for her to even consider that there was anything good about her to care about.
Taking a quick peek at her, to see how her message had been received. After seeing the look of panic and frustration all over Pacifica’s face, she frowned. To her it was obvious that just about everyone deserved to be cared about. Though she could think of a few that didn’t. As she watched the muscle in the blond’s jaw jump as she clenched her teeth, Mabel game to a quick decision and sprang to her feet.
“Come with me,” a moment of hesitation, a suspicious look met with one of Mabel’s infectious smiles. “Come on, Paz! I can almost guarantee that what I’m about to show you will make you feel better,” she insisted, holding her hand out to the other girl. When she felt Pacifica’s long, thin fingers slip into her own, more square-ish palm her smile seemed to grow impossibly wider.
Pacifica found herself helpless to do anything but follow Mabel as the girl pulled her to her feet and started retracing the blond’s path, back to the room she’d come from. While they did so with far less care than she had the first time, one seemed to take notice. There was a brief stop in Mabel’s room where she left the blonde at the door. She was like a whirlwind, throwing the top dresser in her chest of drawers and throwing two sweaters onto her bed, then digging deeper and shoving something in her pocket that Pacifica couldn’t make out in the low light.
Giggling, Mabel scooped up the sweaters and shoved one into Pacfica’s arms as she breezed past, leading the way even while tugging on her own pull-over. When the other girl didn’t immediately follow, she turned back to take hold of her hand again. They walked to the end of the hall, followed the stairs up and then, once in the attic, over to a ladder that was leaning up against the wall in a dark corner.
“Just stick with me a little longer,” Mabel said as she started up the ladder. With her blue-black sweater it was nearly impossible to see her, at least until the thing suddenly lit up. Over her left breast was a crescent moon, glowing white and surrounded by stars. “I promise it’s worth it.”
Taking the brunette’s word for it, she started up the ladder after her. There was an uncomfortably loud screech as Mabel shoved up on a hatch leading up and out onto the roof. She waited at the edge of it the opening, taking hold of Pacifica’s hand as soon as it was available to her. Careful steps across the slanted roof led the way to an intentionally flat area. With the pair of chairs set up and the cooler between them, it looked almost like a little deck.
“Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford claim all of this is just to make it easier to clean snow and leaves off the roof and stuff. But I think that he just knew that they wouldn’t be able to keep us off the roof so they made sure there was somewhere relatively safe for us to sit,” Mabel giggled, plopping down in one of the lawn chairs and dragging the cooler over, in front of herself.
Hunching over it, she pulled out what she’d shoved into the pocket of her pajama pants. Papers, weed, grinder, lighter. Pacifica couldn’t say she was entirely surprised. Not after having met Mabel at a rave the other night.
“Oooh, Mabel Pines, you naughty girl,” she teased, making the other girl giggle brightly. With a small smile, Pacifica tugged on the sweater she’d been given. It was purple with a pair of yellow cat eyes embossed across the front and happened to be incredibly warm. She wondered if it lit up like mabel’s did.
By the time she popped her head out of the top, Mabel was well on her way to having the joint she was rolling finished. Nimble fingers pinched and rolled the strip of paper between her fingers until it was a nearly perfect little stick. After licking it closed she flicked the lighter, quickly passing the joint through the flame. Giving it a few more experimental pinches to make sure that the thing wasn’t about to fall apart, she grinned.
“Is this what you wanted to show me? Your impeccable bone-rolling skills,” Pacifica asked with a snort. Mabel rolled her eyes but was still smiling. With the lighter she lit one end of the joint and then brought it to her lips, inhaling and making the cherry at the end flare.
As she passed it over the lights on her sweater went out. Still, with the full moon shining on them, it was easy to see the smoke billow from Mabel's mouth as she opened it to speak.
“No-oo-oo,” she coughed, leaving herself red faced as she grinned at Pacifica. “I wanted to show you all this,” the girl explained, motioning to the sky above them and then tilting her head back as she hit the joint again before passing it to the blonde, starting the rotation.Puff, puff, pass.
“The sky,” Pacifica asked skeptically, rolling her eyes up to glance up above them.
“The stars,” Mabel corrected in a slightly smoke husked voice as she scooted her chair closer to the other girl. “Just look at them,” she said, peering at Pacifica and snorting when she saw the girl just rolling her eyes up to look. “Nooo really look, she said, reaching over to put her hand on the girl’s head and tilt it backward.
Above them, their view framed by the tops of pine trees, was the endless expanse of the night sky, littered with stars. The sight was admittedly beautiful, like millions of diamond pins holding up a sheet of velvet over their heads. Still, Pacfica wasn’t sure how it was supposed to make her feel better. Extending her hand toward Mabel, she felt their fingers brush as she passed the joint.
“What is with you and the stars? Has it got to do with your brother’s forehead thing,” she asked, letting her eyes drift from one distant, glowing ball of gas to the next. “What difference are the stars going to make in my current situation? How is this meant to make me feel better?” Mabel hummed in response, blowing smoke through her nose as she let herself melt back into her seat, face upturned. Another pass, another brush of fingers.
“We all have a star thing, not just Dipper. Mine’s the Pegasus,” Mabel hummed in response, blowing smoke through her nose as she let herself melt back into her seat, face upturned. Another pass, another brush of fingers. “That one’s riiiight there! See it,” she asked, leaning in close to the blonde and pointing toward her constellation.
Pacifica shook her head a little, feeling her cheek brush against Mabel’s.
“N-no,” she said, holding her breath until the brunette settled back in her own seat. She wasn’t sure if it was Mabel or the weed but the longer she stared up at the sky, the more she felt as though she was falling into the spaces between the stars. “How is this supposed to help me again,” she asked quietly.
Mabel shrugged and laid one hand on her stomach, idly tracing the constellation that was mapped out on her left side. As a child the stars were always a big deal to her and her family because of the strange birthmarks they all seemed to share. Hers, Pegasus. Dipper’s, Ursa Major. Dad’s, Canis Major. Grunkle Stan, Taurus. Grunkle Ford, Leo Major. When they were kids she, Dipper, and their father would go lay in the grass in their backyard and he’d show them their constellations, teach them to read the stars like his father did. His father, who was taught to read the stars by his brother, Stanford. She just wanted to share a little of the happiness she associated with those memories with Pacifica but didn’t know how to explain herself.
“I guess it won’t, not really. In the morning we’re still going to have to deal with the fact that you’re effectively homeless, that your parents are horrible, that everyone you know now knows you’re into women. The stars can’t make any of that go away. But they’re a beautiful thing to lose yourself in for a little while, don’t you think,” she offered weakly, biting her lip as she looked up at the stars, feeling a little like she failed in her attempts to make the blonde feel better.
Beside her, Pacifica wasn’t looking to the sky, but at Mabel, eyes a little wet as the girl spoke. She was right. She would have to deal with everything that happened when the sun came up. Nothing could change what had already happened, not even the stars. But they were beautiful, and sitting on the roof with Mabel had left her feeling a little lighter. Be it because of the company or the drugs, she wasn’t sure. It was nice, though, and Pacifica thought that maybe letting herself get a little lost in it all wouldn’t be so bad. She turned her head toward the stars just in time to see a meteor streak across the sky, and she couldn’t help but laugh softly.
“A shooting star. Think I should make a wish,” she asked, teasingly. Though her tone carried a friendly note rather than a cruel one. This time when she passed the joint, she felt it plucked from between her fingers, but before she could pull her hand back, Mabel’s fingers shyly wormed between hers.
“My dad says that shooting stars can’t really grant wishes. They just shower the world with hope,” the dark haired girl said, watching as the meteor’s light die out as quickly as it came.
As Pacifica let her gaze fall once more on the girl next to her, she thought that maybe what Mabel’s father said was true.