Chapter Text
“Come on, Mabel,” Dipper says, “we need to keep moving.” Mabel quickly picks a few more of the iridescent flowers. Then she shoves them swiftly into her sparkly, rainbow backpack.
“Come on, Dip,” she says, “that Gorgon’s gonna be out here all night. I’ve never seen flowers that glow before.” She says it as if flowers that glow are the most wonderful thing that she’s ever heard of, and Dipper rolls his eyes.
“Picking those flowers won’t keep her from turning more people into wood,” Dipper says. Mabel puts her backpack back on, and has to hurry to catch back up with him.
“What is it with monsters in this town turning people into wood?” Mabel says, “that doesn’t seem like a normal thing for monsters to do.”
“Gravity Falls is weird,” Dipper says. After five summers spent in the town, it’s the only clear answer he’s ever gotten. And that answer, of course, led to more questions.
“I’m just saying,” Mabel says, “that it doesn’t make sense.” Dipper spots a tall, green form in the distance and they quicken their pace to follow it. This whole hunt will be for nothing if they lose it now.
They come to a small clearing, and come upon someone sitting against a tree. Someone with platinum blonde hair and keen fashion sense. Her fancy purple outfit seems much too expensive for hiking through the woods in.
“Hello!” Mabel shouts.
“Mabel,” Dipper mutters. The girl turns around abruptly, and Dipper recognizes her. She has an extremely familiar face and bangs.
“Pacifica?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says, in confusion. Her eyes drift to Mabel, and recognition settles over her features.
“Oh,” Pacifica says, “the Pines twins?”
“Yup,” Mabel says with a lot of gusto, much more than Dipper thinks the situation merits. Pacifica’s not a bad person, really, but she’s not the nicest one either. He’s not nearly as excited to see her as Mabel is.
“Mabel and Dipper?” she asks.
“That’d be us,” Mabel says perkily. Dipper lets out a frustrated sigh. The gorgon’s going to get them all if they just stand her talking all day.
“What are you doing out in the middle of the woods?” he asks.
Pacifica looks him over, and turns the question back on him, “What are you doing out in the middle of the woods?”
“We’re hunting a gorgon,” Mabel tells her.
“Mabel,” Dipper whispers.
“She needs to know what’s going on,” Mabel says. Pacifica sends him both a confused and irritated look, and Dipper lets out a frustrated groan. He kind of has to explain it now.
“Remember the ghost at your manor?” Dipper asks.
“Of course,” Pacifica says. She looks insulted that he would even ask.
“This turns people to wood too,” Dipper says.
“Don’t gorgons turn people to stone?” Pacifica asks.
“Not in Gravity Falls,” Mabel says. Pacifica scrutinizes them.
“Do you two even have weapons?” she asks.
“I have a grappling hook,” Mabel says. Dipper groans. Mabel has a tendency to make them look unimpressive.
“You two are going to die,” Pacifica says. She actually sounds a little concerned about it.
“Haven’t died yet,” Mabel says confidently. Dipper considers mentioning how often they’ve come close, but for some reason he doesn’t want Pacifica to know that.
“Do you have a plan?” she asks.
“We normally just chase things down and figure things out when we get there,” Dipper says, and then he almost kicks himself. Apparently, he’s also pretty good at making them look unimpressive. He spots the green form yet again, off in the distance, and his heart stops. And he realizes something: they’re not hunting it. It’s hunting them.
“How are you still alive?” she asks seriously.
“A lot of luck,” Mabel says, “and a lot of Duct tape.”
“Are you going to help?” Dipper asks, “or are you just going to criticize us?” Pacifica rolls her eyes, and sends him a scathing look. Dipper takes a deep breath, and tries to calm himself down. He can already feel his panic growing.
“It’s stalking us,” Dipper says, and Mabel grimaces. She doesn’t look too surprised, though.
“Did you at least bring a mirror?” Pacifica asks.
“No,” Dipper says.
Pacifica sighs, and says, “I think that a phone would work then.”
“So are you helping?” Mabel asks. She looks around quickly, trying to find out where the gorgon is.
“I don’t have much choice,” Pacifica says. Dipper rolls his eyes, and starts walking. Pacifica takes out her phone, and holds it out as she walks.
“What are you doing?” he asks. It doesn’t seem like a very efficient plan to try to walk while looking through a screen.
“Look,” she says, “if there’s a gorgon on the loose, then I don’t really want to be turned into stone.”
“Wood,” Mabel corrects.
“Whatever,” she says, “if you don’t look it directly in the eyes, it can’t effect you, right?”
“Oh my god,” Dipper says, feeling really stupid that he didn’t think of something like that, “that’s genius.” He takes out his own phone, and starts walking while looking through the camera.
“Alright,” Pacifica says, “so now we won’t be turned into wood. Do we have any way to kill it?”
“You have to chop off a gorgon’s head to kill it,” Dipper says automatically. He read the journal entry on gorgons before leaving the Shack, and though it wasn’t all that helpful it did make that bit clear.
“Oh,” Mabel says, “Wendy’s dad has a shed close to here. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we borrowed an ax or two.”
“Or three,” Pacifica suggests.
“We are not stealing from the Corduroys,” Dipper says.
“Oh my god,” Pacifica says, “you want to go monster hunting without a weapon?”
“Alright,” Dipper says, “we can borrow the axes.” Mabel takes out her phone as well, and she leads the way to the small shed. She picks the lock, and then they each grab an ax off of the wall. He has at least twelve, so Dipper doesn’t feel too bad about taking a few. Dipper holds out his phone in his left hand, and clutches the ax in his right as he exits the tiny shed.
He walks out into the clearing, and hears the rest of the group follow him.
“So what do we do now?” Pacifica asks.
“We should split up,” Dipper suggests.
“That is the worst plan that I have ever heard,” Pacifica tells him, in her superior valley girl voice.
“Just a little bit,” he says, “we’ll all start walking different directions.”
“That actually sounds like a really bad idea, Dip,” Mabel says. Dipper thinks for a moment, but he decides that if both of them think it’s a bad idea then he probably shouldn’t suggest it again.
“Alright,” he says, “so we don’t split up.”
“We should wait for it to come to us,” Mabel says.
“That sounds reasonable,” Pacifica says. So they wait, and wait, and wait. And then they wait some more, but the gorgon is nowhere in sight.
“I’m so bored,” Mabel says. She groans, and then she sits down in front of one of the many trees.
“What are you doing?” Dipper asks.
“Sitting down,” she says. Then, she starts fiddling with her phone and making faces into it.
“Are you taking selfies?” he asks. He briefly considers banging his head against the nearest tree.
“Kind of,” she says, “I’m snapchatting Candy and Grenda.”
“You’re snapchatting?” he asks. He almost thinks that’s worse.
“Yeah,” she says, “wanna get in here?” She makes a face and takes another selfie. She pauses for a moment, and then she makes her “idea face”.
“We could have an adventure team selfie,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.
“No,” Dipper says, “I’m going to keep watch to make sure we don’t, I don’t know, die.”
“Suit yourself,” Mabel says. Pacifica sits down beside Mabel.
“I want in these snaps,” she says. Mabel grins, and the two start taking crazy, adorable selfies and Dippers just groans. They’re all going to die. He clutches his ax tighter, because if the gorgon comes he will be the only thing standing between them and certain destruction.
They wait, and wait and wait. Dipper almost convinces himself that the gorgon was a figment of his imagination and that they can just head back to the Shack. Then, he’s pulled roughly out of his daydreams,
He hears hissing near his ear, and he quickly switches his camera to frontal view. The view in the camera makes it look like he’s taking a cute, friendly selfie with the hissing, many-eyed gorgon. Dipper screams high and loud as he flips the camera again and quickly turns around. The gorgon hisses, and Dipper can see its hideous face through his phone screen. Its many eyes glow red, and its snakes sway around from every direction on its head. They hiss, and the creature presses itself up against his screen. Dipper screams, and he swings his ax with his dominate hand. It collides with the creature’s lower half, and it hisses in pain. It doesn’t fall down, but only increases its pursuit of him. He ends up dropping the ax as he pushes away from it. He desperately keeps hold of his phone, and tries to look through it as he flees. Mabel swoops in beside him.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’m fine.” She clutches her ax, and gets ready to go in for a blow. Pacifica, however, beats her to it. Pacifica swings the ax and chops swiftly through the Gorgon’s neck. The gorgon’s head falls swiftly to the ground, and the body teeters for a moment before it follows. The body falls ungracefully to the ground, and makes an unimpressive thud as it finally lands. The golden blood spatters all around, and forms small, golden dots all over Pacifica. The metallic liquid sparkles across her skin, and Dipper can’t catch his breath. Her platinum blonde hair flows sensually behind her, and Dipper bites his lip as another part of his body becomes very aware of Pacifica’s presence. He honestly never thought that Pacifica Northwest could have that effect on him.
“Pacifica,” Mabel says excitedly, “that was amazing!” The other girl starts laughing.
“Wait,” she says, “I-I did it.” Realization dawns on her, and she leaps up and down.
“I did it!” she shouts. Mabel laughs along with her, and they jump up and down excitedly. Dipper goes quickly from weirdly turned on to confused. He has no idea how they got so chummy so fast.
“Okay,” she says, a little breathlessly, “that was actually really fun.”
“I nominate Pacifica as the third member of the Mystery Twins,” Mabel says.
“Mabel,” he says, “That’s not how it works.”
“Fine,” she says, “we can be the Mystery Squad or something.”
“Who said that I want to hunt any more monsters?” Pacifica asks.
Mabel looks confused, and asks, looking sad and disappointed, “But you had so much fun?”
“I also almost died,” Pacifica says.
“The key word here is almost,” Dipper says. He laughs awkwardly, hoping that he didn’t end up sounding stupid.
“Alright,” Pacifica says, a little reluctantly,
“Mystery squad, Mystery squad!” Mabel chants. Pacifica giggles, actually giggles and Dipper can feel himself getting sweaty and nervous and embarrassed. Dipper fucking hates crushes.
“I didn’t agree to this,” he says frantically, and much too loudly.
“Ah come on, Dip,” Mabel says, “the more the merrier, right?” He really would prefer not to have Pacifica around. He doesn’t want to let this stupid little crush grow, but he doesn’t have a good reason to say no. Pacifica killed the monster, and that more than earns her a spot on whatever team they have.
“Alright,” he mumbles, and Mabel cheers.
“Do you think that we should do something about the body?” Pacifica asks.
“Nah,” Mabel says.
“Well we do have to do something about the axes,” Dipper says. They each grab one, and take it back to the shed. Dipper really hopes that Dan doesn’t notice the gorgon blood that’s coating one of them. They’re much too lazy to clean it up. They start to make their way back to the Shack, and they talk as they walk through the more normal parts of the forest.
“We need matching sweaters,” Mabel says.
“No,” Dipper says.
“I could do the first letters of our names,” Mabel says. She thinks about it for a moment, and then a thoughtful look passes over her face.
“Wait,” she says, “that probably wouldn’t be good because your name starts with a D and Pacifica’s starts with a P.” A blush spreads across Dipper’s cheeks. If she makes another, “I want both the D and the P” joke, he thinks he might scream.
“But I would like either of those,” she says with a shit eating grin.
“Oh my god, Mabel,” he nearly groans, “more pansexual jokes?”
“Like half my humor comes from sexuality, Dipper,” she says.
Pacifica looks to her in confusion, and asks, “What is pansexual?”
“Oh,” Mabel says, “it just means that my attraction isn’t defined by gender.”
Pacifica’s confusion doesn’t lessen, and Mabel adds, “I like guys and girls.” A conflicted look crosses over Pacifica’s face, but she quickly changes the topic.
“How about favorite animals?” Pacifica asks.
“Oh yes,” Mabel says, “that sounds fantastic. I would have a unicorn, Dipper would have a deer-“
“I never agreed to that,” Dipper says.
“What would you want, Pacifica?” she asks.
“Well,” Pacifica says, “I kind of like llamas.”
“Then a llama it is,” Mabel says. They keep walking, making weird awkward jokes and Dipper finds himself laughing loudly about almost all of them.
“Hey,” he says, “you could like, come hang out at the Shack if you want.” He curses himself internally. He’s so bad at being nonchalant, and flirting. Really, he’s bad at interacting with people in general but he ups that factor like twenty times when it’s with a girl he likes.
"Yeah," Mabel says, "just come by anytime."
“That sounds fun,” Pacifica says, and Dipper almost lets out a sigh of relief. He hasn’t fucked this up yet. At least hypothetically, he still has a chance with her. Which is really weird, because Dipper hasn’t had a crush in five years, since back when they were twelve and he had his monstrous crush on Wendy. It’s kind of weird, and kind of terrifying, but it’s kind of exciting too.