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It’s a fortunate thing Mabel has a brother that oh-so loves her and is also very good at ghost busting, the same way how it’s fortunate that she loves her friends and just has the natural talent of creating the most extravagant dresses appropriate for just as extravagant parties.
Dipper had been evidently displeased about being swayed by Mabel to help the Northwest, but he eventually came around the longer he thought about busting a ghost at a huge mansion. It just seemed like a scenario straight from a book.
Pacifica came to pick them up by car, since they needed Dipper to be at the mansion before the guests arrive. This way, their guests wouldn’t be put off by the idea of there being a ghost in the mansion, or worse, a middle class citizen joining the party.
Mabel and her friends, on the other hand… Though Pacifica would never admit out loud, she found that their dresses are pretty well-made enough to convince anyone that they belonged at the party, so Pacifica didn’t stress too much about it. In fact, Pacifica really liked Mabel’s dress, personally, but withheld the compliment the entire car ride to the mansion.
When they finally got to the mansion, Pacifica throwing open the doors to welcome them inside, Mabel and her friends were the first to rush inside.
Behind Mabel, as she’s running across the fancy carpet with Grenda and Candy, Dipper and Pacifica are briefly stopped by Pacifica’s father and mother, the former greeting Dipper with a commercial smile. Somewhere in the distance, the three girls scream about the fancy dining.
“Change of plans, Pacifica,” her father wrinkles his nose, watching Mabel and her friends goggle at every little thing in the mansion. Miraculously, his smile does not waver. “I’d like you to keep watch of your—”
“They’re not my friends,” Pacifica immediately flushes, waving her hands.
“Goodness, I’d never think so. I was about to say your invitees ,” her father places a hand on his chest, mildly offended by his daughter’s assumption of his words. “Just make sure they don’t touch anything.”
“And what about Dipper?” Pacifica asks, while the boy in question grimaces in irritation.
“I think I can handle it alone,” Dipper flatly tells her, not liking the idea that she’s suggesting that he needs her.
“We’ll have the butler lead him to the… problem room…” and with that, Pacifica’s father snaps a finger and summons a butler to his side, before whispering in a not-so-quiet voice. “And get that boy into something that can cover up all of that…you know.” a pause, “Everything.”
Pacifica watches the butler lead Dipper away, who every so often will look towards Mabel’s direction in slight worry, before eventually disappearing down a hallway. She sighs, a hand on her head as she turns to look for where the three girls are, and finds them flipping through the guest book.
“I think this boy is out of our league,” Grenda tells her two friends, gazing at a picture of who Pacifica thinks is Marius von Fundshauser.
“Grenda is right,” Candy frowns in agreement. “He’s a white whale. Hunting him will destroy us.”
“There are tons of cute boys,” Mabel raises her arms reassuringly, before being interrupted by Pacifica.
“Yeah, and they will all still be out of your league,” Pacifica deadpans, slamming the guest book shut. She dusts the cover twice with the back of her hand before placing both her arms behind her. “You three may have covered yourselves up well enough on the outside, but on the inside, they’ll all know you’re just commoners visiting this year.”
Both Candy and Grenda shrink in reaction, standing back a little, while Mabel holds her ground with a smile, “So you think our dresses are nice?”
“The- Uh, well.” Pacifica stammers, before huffing out a: “They’re good enough.”
Mabel grins at her two friends, shooting them a knowing look, as though she has Pacifica all figured out—which Pacifica remains oblivious to.
“In any case, my parents are about to let the guests in, so if you really want to fit in, I suggest you take my advice and learn some etiquette,” Pacifica tells them, turning her nose up high.
“Oh, like how to hold a spoon all fancy,” Candy says, hands to her chin.
“And lifting your pinky up when you drink fancy drinks from a fancy cup,” Grenda turns to her, mirroring her widened smile and gesture.
“Is that all you know about etiquette?” Pacifica deadpans, folding her arms. “Forget cute rich boys. No rich boys period are going to look your way.”
Again, the two girls shrink and Mabel softens, eyebrows knitting together as she turns to look between her friends and Pacifica, “Well, then, how about this? If Pacifica here knows so much about how to be a fancy girl, then why don’t you,” she looks at Pacifica, “teach us how for the night?”
“Teach the three of you how to party like us rich folk?” Pacifica snorts, a hand to her hip, with her other hand pointing at them condescendingly. “Like that’s gonna…”
She trails off, watching her father leave through the front doors to go welcome their guests inside. His eyes connect with hers for a moment, before flicking towards Mabel and the others, and the look on his face strains with something Pacifica vaguely associates with as disappointment.
Pacifica sighs, feeling her insides twist into knots of anxiety, “Fine. If it saves the rest of us from your embarrassment, I guess I’ll be the one to save the day.”
“Awesome!” Mabel cheers, arms shooting into the air, before suddenly being pulled aside by Grenda and Candy.
“What are you doing?” Candy whispers quietly.
“Yeah! I don’t want to be hanging out with Pacifica on one of the best nights of our lives!” Grenda adds in a hushed tone as well. “She makes my insides feel bad.”
“Oh, come on girls. Pacifica’s not all awful bad, actually,” Mabel bats a hand dismissively. “I’ve recently made progress with her.”
Grenda and Candy exchange looks apprehensively.
“Besides,” Mabel continues. “If it really gets bad, we can just ditch her. It’s not like she can un -invite us from this party. They can’t kick us out, not over our dead bodies.”
The two others laugh, watching Mabel point her thumb towards her chest. Between the three of them, they all knew Mabel isn’t kidding around. If it gets messy, it will get messy.
Dwelling on it further, Candy tap her fingers together nervously, “Well, if it also means cute boys will look our way like Pacifica says…”
“And we get to know what it’s like to be Pacifica…” Grenda follows along. “Then I guess it won’t be so bad.”
When they return to Pacifica, who has been flipping through the guest book idly while waiting for the three to be finished, Mabel is the first to speak with a bright smile, “We’ll be in your fancy hands, Pacifica.”
“Great,” Pacifica smiles, closing the guest book. “First order of business. Stop referring to everything as fancy. Only commoners will refer to everything here as fancy. Today, you’re one of us, which means this is your normal.”
“Aye aye,” Mabel salutes her, loud and proud.
Pacifica winces, “Second, lower your volumn. It’s impolite to shout.”
“But what if I’m really excited about something and I can’t contain myself?” Grenda asks, hands balling into fists as though trying to contain herself right now.
Pacifica strains out a smile, “Then you just say so. Something like, ‘I’m positively elated.’”
“I’m positively elated,” Mabel echoes with a pompous tone, looking over at Candy, who giggles.
The blonde rolls her eyes, but Mabel could tell she’s just as amused as everyone else.
“Oh, and,” Pacifica adds on, bringing them over to the tables where all the food and snacks are. She takes a small plate and a fork, picking up a chocolate eclair and the three other girls follow suit. “I’ve seen the three of you eat snacks before and let me tell you, it is more than just unpleasant. Here’s the right way to do it.”
And though Mabel didn’t understand what the difference was since all Pacifica did was eat the same way they did, except with her mouth closed as she chewed in small bites, she mimicked her anyway, just to entertain the girl.
Candy does the same, but ends up getting chocolate on the corner of her lips. With her thumb, she swipes it away and licks it off, to which Pacifica makes a noise at.
“Don’t do that!” she chides, grabbing a napkin.
“But, it’d be a waste,” Candy protests as Pacifica wipes her thumb for her before giving her the napkin entirely.
“So what? There’s more you can eat,” Pacifica lifts a brow, gesturing to the pile.
“Mm,” she looks down at it, unsure whether it’s worth arguing further about. She decides to stay quiet, thinking Pacifica might not get it in the end.
“These are really good!” Grenda exclaims, taking more onto her plate so she can eat two in one go.
“Hey!” Pacifica says, hand on her hip. “You’re totally not following what I’m saying!”
“People with small mouths take small bites, so it’s a good thing I have a big mouth!” Grenda shoots Pacifica a thumbs up, completely misinterpreting the reason why it’s more well-mannered to not look like you’re scarfing down your food.
Mabel laughs, watching Pacifica struggle to control the situation. She attempts to hide it better when Pacifica shoots her a look, but Mabel isn’t fooling anyone with her pinked cheeks and stretched out smile. Eventually, Pacifica gives up trying to stop either girls, thinking it’ll be best to move on.
Before Pacifica can continue on adding more rules, the grand doors to the mansion open, and in came Pacifica’s father, welcoming in the guests. She tenses up, turning back to look at the trio, who have all somehow wandered over to where the fondue fountains are.
She watches in absolute horror as they all take turns dipping their fondue forks into the fountains, going back and forth between cheese and chocolate, dripping everything everywhere. Her hands practically claw at her own face as her jaw drops. If it weren’t for her gloves right now, she definitely would’ve left marks.
Before her father can see, she’s pushing the three away from the mess after plucking their forks out of their hands to toss them onto the table. They all protest against her, asking her what gives, and as Pacifica is about to answer them with something along the lines of “You’re making a mess” and “You three are unfixable”, they all hear a spoon clink against glass for attention.
And then enters Marius von Fundshauser.
The three girls squeal in delight, almost trampling over Pacifica just to get to him when he passes them by. Fortunately, by some miracle, she manages to stop them just by pushing against them by their front. Though, she has to admit, Grenda is a lot stronger than she realized.
Pacifica’s pretty sure that girl was contributing the most while pushing against her.
In any case, before the girls can even try anything, Pacifica points a finger at them sternly, stopping them firmly in their place, “You three better cut it out. This behavior is seriously unacceptable. You’re going to ruin the party!”
“Woah hey, calm down, we’re just having fun,” Mabel holds her hands out, attempting to defuse the situation.
“Well, your version of “having fun” is going to get me into trouble with my parents,” Pacifica jabs a thumb to her chest, somehow managing to keep her volumn just low enough to not be considered a shout, contrasting her tone. “Don’t make me regret inviting you three.”
“Well, it’s not like-like you wanted us here anyway!” Candy stammers out from behind Mabel. “You only invited us, because yo-you wanted Dipper to do you a favor.”
“Yeah, and all your rules are dumb and hard to follow!” Grenda raises her voice, causing Pacifica to tense up in alarm. She didn’t want to draw attention to their quarrel.
“Girls, let’s cool it for a sec—” Mabel puts a hand between her friends and Pacifica, but before anything can escalate or de-escalate, her brother suddenly appears, running up towards them. “Oh, Dipper!”
Perfect timing. Now this whole situation will be put on hold for future Mabel to deal with.
“I just caught the ghost,” Dipper waves a silver mirror in front of them. “I thought to let you know so we can leave after I get it exorcised.”
“Leave? You’re at the world’s best party,” Pacifica raises a brow, baffled that he’d even suggest a thing.
At the mention of this, both Candy and Grenda seem to settle down, probably realizing that fighting isn’t worth it to muddy the mood when this was supposed to be the best night of their summer. Mabel mentally wipes away at her sweat, relieved that she didn’t have to do much to fix anything.
Dipper gazes at Mabel for a moment, who smiles back at him, “Well, if you wanna stay, go ahead. But I’ve got a level ten category ghost to dispose of.”
Pacifica watches him weirdly as he walks off with pride puffing up his chest, before she turns to Mabel and says, “Is he always like that?”
“Yep!” Mabel says, looking just as proud. “He’s a total nerd.”
At that, Pacifica snorts. From beside her, Candy pipes up quietly, hands tapping together as she goes, “You know what, Pacifica? We’ll try to behave tonight. I’m sorry for saying all of that.”
“I still think the rules are pretty dumb,” Grenda admits, dropping to whisper almost. “But I’ll try not to shout so much either or stuff like that.”
Pacifica smiles at them appreciatively, putting her hands together, “Um. Thanks,” then she looks away, “or whatever…”
Mabel grins from behind Pacifica, shooting her friends double thumbs up, who both nod and smile in some silent understanding.
“We’ll go get some fanc- ah, regular napkins,” Candy points, before walking off with Grenda behind her.
Once Mabel and Pacifica are alone, they stand there awkwardly in silence, before Mabel slowly suggests, “So, wanna dance?”
“There’s no music for dancing,” Pacifica smiles her, confused.
“So?” Mabel offers a hand. “Since when did music and dance have rules?”
She looks at Mabel’s hand for a moment, then up into her eyes, before complying, “Okay, but I get to pick the spot.”
Mabel rubs a thumb over her silk gloves, admiring it’s texture, “Sure.”
Unsurprisingly, Pacifica picks someplace secluded, a small area near the entrance to the mansion, furthest from the dining, where everyone else is. With the music somewhat distant, but still audible, Pacifica puts her hands on Mabels shoulders, who opt to rest hers on Pacifica’s waist.
“Why are you so afraid of your parents?” Mabel asks gently as they move in slow circles.
At first, Pacifica doesn’t answer, choosing to remain silent as they continue to dance, but eventually she opens up quietly, “I just don’t want to disappoint them, you know? We have a high standard to uphold as the Northwest.”
“Yeah? Even after finding out your family’s history was a lie?” Mabel smirks cockily, which only earns her a glare. “Oh, come on. The good news is that now that you technically don’t have a good reputation to uphold, you can do whatever you want!”
Pacifica blinks at Mabel, before smiling smugly, “I already get to have whatever I want.”
“You know what I mean.” Mabel smiles back, just as smug.
“Well—” Pacifica looks down, before being promptly interrupted by the front doors being thrown open.
There Dipper stands, looking pretty mad, and the two girls proceed to head over to the door where Pacifica’s parents are already standing with the mayor. They look incredibly unphased, while both Mabel and Pacifica light up.
Mabel halts just a bit before Pacifica does, sensing something is wrong when she doesn’t find a good look on his face.
“Oh, you’re back,” Pacifica says, before Dipper proceeds to shoot his glare towards her.
“You lied to me!” Dipper accuses, finger pointed straight at her, and then directs it to her parents as well. “All of you did.”
He goes on to explain how the curse could’ve been broken and the family always knew how. They just didn’t want to. And as Pacifica’s father begins to threaten Dipper subtly, the boy gets offended, before glancing towards Pacifica with the same look of disdain on his face.
“I knew it. You’re just as bad as your parents. Another link in the world’s worst chain.” Dipper grimaces.
Pacifica’s eyebrows raise, feeling a pang of guilt, unwilling to look towards Mabel’s way as the twin murmurs to her, “Did you really know the whole time…?”
“I’m sorry,” she quickly turns to the brunette, before pointing a finger at her parents. “They made me! I should’ve told the both of you, but—”
She’s immediately interrupted by her father’s bell ringing and she pulls back, cheeks pinking in shame. Dipper storms off right after her father dismisses him, and when the area empties, Pacifica is left there standing speechlessly.
Mabel remains by her side in silence, and after a beat or two, she speaks, “Your dad is such a jerk.”
“Whatever,” Pacifica mumbles, pushing Mabel away. “The party’s ending soon. Let’s just go.”
“Oh, you don’t honestly think I side with my brother on this,” Mabel follows after her as Pacifica walks back to the main hall. “I mean, yeah, you should’ve told us. But your dad—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Pacifica tells her quietly, which completely stumps her. As they near the hall, Pacifica begins to hear something akin to glass shattering and looks up from the ground to strain her eyes and ears. Just distantly, she thinks she heard someone scream and…
“Animal noises?” Mabel supplies, finishing Pacifica’s thought.
They peek around the corner cautiously, and just as they do, a wine glass comes whistling past their heads, shattering on the floor behind them. It’s absolute havoc, and Pacifica thinks there are a few new wooden statues strangely resembling their guests that she doesn’t remember her family commissioning for.
“We gotta get out of here,” Mabel immediately says, grabbing Pacifica’s wrist. “Where’s Candy and Grenda?”
“I can’t see them,” Pacifica replies, eyes flicking back and forth between place to place.
“There!” Mabel points, pulling Pacifica along as she avoids bumping into the chaos. Inwardly, Pacifica admires the way she can just whizz past people like they aren’t even there. She holds onto her own dress so she doesn’t trip, but Mabel doesn’t seem to need that same help.
In the distance, Candy and Grenda seem oblivious to their surroundings, seemingly in the middle of bickering about something. Mabel waves an arm, attempting to get their attention and she calls their names out, but it looks like they’re in too deep to notice anything.
Just as they’re about to get close enough to snap the two out of their bubble, a guest falls in front of them, the bottom half of her body slowly turning into wood. She claws at the ground, begging to be saved, and both Pacifica and Mabel jump back in surprise.
Before either can think of anything, the lady’s body transform entirely into wood, her face lightlessly stuck in her desperate cry of help, and when Mabel’s eyes raise up to check on Grenda and Candy again, she finds them both suffering the same fate. Except, neither noticed anything amiss to begin with, still stuck bickering each other.
“Girls!” Mabel reaches towards them in disbelief, but Pacifica pulls her back.
“Okay, now we gotta get out of here,” Pacifica tells her. “We can come back and fix this. We’re no use if we turn to wood too.”
Mabel trembles, looking between Pacifica and her friends, before firmly nodding her head, “Let’s go find my brother.”
Right as she says this, a taxidermy bear, still glued to its wooden platform, comes growling towards them stiffly. Somehow, it still manages to move fast despite it’s circumstance, and Mabel is quick to grab Pacifica and run away.
The exit is blocked, with more wooden statues of the former guests being in the way—a lot of them wanted to get out of here before it was too late for them—and so the two have no choice but to find another way around.
In the corner of their eyes, the ghost that Mabel and Pacifica thought Dipper had already handled cackles sinisterly, zapping more and more things with his ghostly powers. He’s about to turn when Mabel ducks towards a hallway, pushing Pacifica in first, and they find themselves somewhat alone as the chaos continues to ensue behind them.
“Don’t you have a backdoor or something?” Mabel runs, for some reason leading them.
“To where? The garden? The fountain? The pool?” Pacifica asks.
“Ugh! To anywhere that can get us out of here!” Mabel exclaims.
“Um, um,” Pacifica thinks hard, passing by a room with her parent’s favorite carpet pattern. She does a double take, almost causing Mabel to fall backwards since she’s still holding onto the blonde. “Oh my god!”
“What?!” Mabel leans over, sweating and breathing heavily.
“This room is ruined!” Pacifica wails, her fingers tensing. There’s mud all over the pattern, the silver mirror is shattered to bits on the floor, the curtains are torn. It looks like Dipper had been fighting the ghost here for some time. “He’s literally going to put me through so much trouble—”
“Does that really matter right now?!” Mabel jogs on the spot, exasperated. “Who cares?!”
“I do!” Pacifica half-shouts, already imagining the things her parents would say, her parents would do. “At this point…At this point I’d rather I just turn to wood!”
“You can’t be serious,” Mabel tugs on Pacifica’s arm, who doesn’t budge at all.
“You can go. Go find your brother,” Pacifica roughly pulls her arm away from her. “I give up.”
“Pacifica, I can’t just leave you here,” Mabel pulls her along again, but Pacifica refuses to move. “Just blame this on the ghost after we find my brother and fix this mess.”
“You know what I think?” Pacifica scowls at her, turning her full body towards Mabel, jabbing a finger into Mabel’s chest. “Your brother did this on purpose. You saw how mad he was. He probably set the ghost loose to teach us a lesson. Ruin our party.”
“What?!” Mabel exclaims, stepping back as Pacifica continues to tower over her. “My brother wouldn’t do that!”
“Yeah? Then why is the ghost back in here?” Pacifica jabs her finger at her again, Mabel’s back coming dangerously close to the painting behind her, about to be cornered. “I should’ve never invited you all in the first place. I should’ve just pretended you guys said no, and I could’ve gone home and told my parents so they’d hire someone more professional. Not some cheap party trick at a stinking shack.”
Mabel gasps, “Hey! You should be glad my brother ever said yes in the first place because he’s the best shot you’ve got to getting rid of this ghost and you know that. All the things he’s done, all the things we’ve done together for this town…”
“I wish the two of you had never come into Gravity Falls in the first place, because all the two of you have ever done is make things worse for us!” Pacifica yells back. “The town was great. We were great, I was great. But the two of you,” another jab, “just had to,” another, “ruin it!”
A final jab and Mabel falls backwards into the painting, swallowed behind framed cotton, and Pacifica gasps in surprise and worry. She rushes up to it, putting her hand to it gently, and softly calls out, “Mabel?”
“I’m okay!” she answers back, which sends Pacifica into relief. The blonde pushes her hand through and slowly steps inside, flapping away dust that comes near her face. “I think my brother was here.”
“How can you tell?” Pacifica raises a brow. “Twin telepathy?”
“Nah,” Mabel raises a flashlight. “Found this.”
Without realizing, Pacifica bubbles out a giggle, before pinking in the cheeks. They just had a fight earlier and she’s too quick to act like nothing’s happened. Before she can even say anything, Mabel ventures on with the flashlight, switching it on.
“Maybe there’s a secret exit in here,” Mabel says.
“I’ve never seen this place before,” Pacifica answers. “So I don’t know…”
“Or maybe we can just hide out here,” Mabel continues. “Until Dipper finds us.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Pacifica tucks her hair behind her ear.
They walk in silence for a moment, Pacifica’s eyes averting away from Mabel, feeling just slightly remorseful about blaming Mabel earlier. It’s just, she was stressed out, so obviously she would’ve ended up saying things she didn’t really, exactly mean but also did mean because that’s just how she feels and—
She bumps into Mabel’s back, not realizing the girl had stopped in her tracks, and she looks up, confused as to why Mabel had stopped walking. The girl in question turns to Pacifica slowly, shooting her an awkward look, “You might not want to see this.”
“What is it?” Pacifica frowns, before gazing up towards what Mabel was looking at. Lined up are paintings of her family’s deeds, the same ones hung around the mansion, except there’s a few things different to these versions.
Depictions of lying, stealing, cheating… Pacifica stares for a moment, feeling everything build up in her. Well, there really goes the last remaining bits of her family’s reputation.
“Pacifica…?” Mabel gently puts a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m…” Pacifica starts, sitting on the ground, pulling her legs towards her chest. “...sorry.”
“Hey,” Mabel sits beside her, letting the flashlight rest on the ground.
“No, really,” Pacifica sniffs, chin to her knees. “All my life, I was taught I was the best because we came from a line of people who were the best. At some point, it gets to your head and… I’ve always felt like I had to uphold that image, you know? I didn’t want to disappoint my parents, because they expect better from me. Always.
“It didn’t hurt then when you two found out we weren’t actually the correct descendents of the real mayor of Gravity Falls, because at least there were other great people in our line,” Pacifica continues, gesturing halfheartedly towards the paintings. “But now that…I’ve learned that we’ve always been…”
Mabel remains quiet beside her, listening.
“Your brother was right. I am just another link to the world’ worst chain,” Pacifica looks up at Mabel. “I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier. I really, really shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, well,” Mabel smiles, a hand to the back of her neck as she stretches her legs out. “When everyone out there is turning into wood and all your stuffed animals are coming to life in a bad way, I’d be stressed enough to say all kinds of things too.”
Pacifica laughs dryly.
“And you’re not that bad, Pacifica,” Mabel reassures, patting her shoulder. “You’re like…a cactus. All prickly on the outside, all soft on the inside.”
“Ew. Cacti are ugly. Don’t call me that,” Pacifica wrinkles up her nose, but Mabel still catches the slight uptick of a smile.
“See? Cactus,” Mabel gestures.
As they laugh, they hear someone enter the room through the painting, but before either can panic, Mabel quickly realizes it’s just Dipper.
“Great, you guys found this place too,” Dipper says in relief. “Pacifica, I need you to open the gates to the mansion. Let’s get out of here and fix this mess before it’s too late.”
“It’s too late!” the ghost bellows out from the hall, echoing down into the secret room.
The three rush out to find the entire place covered in forestry, decorated with statues of all their guests tonight. Not standing for it any longer, Dipper rushes towards the ghost, pulling out his journal, with both girls unable to stop him.
Needless to say, it didn’t end so well.
“All you have to do is open the door, right?” Mabel turns to Pacifica quick, pushing her gently. “Go! Go!”
Hearing that noise, the ghost instantly turns his head towards Mabel, and with one hand extended, he fires another ghostly blast. Mabel pushes Pacifica away in time just as it hits her, her body slowly turning into wood. She looks considerably disturbed, but gestures for Pacifica to keep going anyway.
Eyebrows scrunched in fear she tried to snuff out, a smile strained for Pacifica’s sake, Mabel’s last look before she turned to wood was full of hope for Pacifica. And then the girl is running towards the main gate lever.
“Well, I’m really in for it now,” Pacifica says, watching the townsfolk wreak a different kind of havoc at the party. Now that the gate’s been opened and the ghost finally defeated, everything instantly went back to normal, before going back into chaos.
She can practically see the grey hairs on her father’s head increasing.
“Like I said, what eeever you want,” Mabel shrugs. Through the crowd, Grenda and Candy manage to squeeze through and make it towards them, a phone number written over Grenda’s head. Mabel’s eyebrows raise, surprised, “Woah. What happened?”
“Marius happened!” Candy answers with a giggle. “At first, I was mad at her because she was breaking our promise to you, but…”
“He liked my style of flirting!” Grenda points to her forehead. “But I don’t have a phone!”
“Oh, wow,” Pacifica, too, looks surprised. “I guess I stand corrected…”
“Who can resist the Grenda charm?” she bats her eyelashes at Pacifica, who laughs lightly. For some reason, this surprises her. “Hey, now that the party’s different. Can I eat as many snacks as I want and talk as loudly as I want now?”
“Yeah, sure. Do whatever,” Pacifica gestures, leading the two girls to cheer and run off. As she watches them go, she rubs her chin in thought. “I think I’ve got a spare phone somewhere.”
From behind her, Dipper pops up looking well exhausted. After tussling with the ghost once and a half tonight, he looks just about ready to call it a night, “Sorry about all the mess. And, also, what I said earlier. I was being a jerk.”
“It’s okay,” Pacifica forgives him easily. “You wanna party away your worries?”
“Nah, I’m calling it in,” Dipper rubs at his face. “I have to go home and ice four different places at once.”
“Okay. Thanks for helping,” Pacifica waves as he limps off like an old man. He gives one final glance towards Mabel, just to check in, before continuing on.
Now it’s just the two of them and the noise around them.
Mabel smiles at her wordlessly, watching Pacifica awkwardly idle about. The blonde grows a little agitated from all that staring, and in response, Mabel only smiles wider.
“What.” Pacifica deadpans, growing irritated.
“Nothing, it’s just. Things seem different now,” Mabel tucks her hands behind her back. “In a good way. I like it.”
“Yeah, well. My parents are probably just gonna gatekeep the party again next year, so enjoy it while it lasts,” Pacifica sighs.
“I don’t mean that,” Mabel laughs. “I mean you.”
Pacifica shifts from foot to foot, “Still think I’m a cactus?”
“Uh huh,” Mabel nods. “Don’t worry, I’ve been told I’m an excellent gardener.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll tell you on the dance floor.”