Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Where’s your brother? Off trying to recruit more losers for his Bigfoot hunting club?”

Pacifica plops down on the missing boy’s bed and kicks her feet up on his blue comforter, rolling over to face Mabel as the other girl mirrors the movement on her own matching bed.

Dipper isn’t allowed to sleep in the same room as the girls when they have sleepovers. It’s silly, because he and Pacifica aren’t anything more than friends and the twins’ Grunkles know this, but no matter how many times he and Mabel have tried to explain that yes it’s 2016 and boys and girls can be friends and it doesn’t mean something is “going on” or whatever… Stan and Ford insist it’s asking for trouble and make him sleep downstairs. But even if he isn’t allowed to participate in the sleepover part of the night, he’s usually, well, around. And Pacifica hasn’t seen a glimpse of him all night. It’s weird. And she hates to admit she’s a little disappointed.

Pacifica glances up at Mabel’s face and swears she sees the other girls lips quirk in a small smile just so.

“Actually… he has a date,” Mabel says, sounding a little bit proud.

Pacifica chokes.

“A date?”

Mabel hums in confirmation.

“Since when did Dipper start dating?” Pacifica demands, forgetting herself.

“Since tonight, I guess.” Mabel muses. She raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you care?”

“I- I don’t. Obviously. It’s just. It’s weird right? Like, this is the first time he’s had one…” She trails off. Actually, she’s not sure about that, come to think of it. “…right?”

Mabel shrugs. “I think so, yeah. Bound to happen at some point though.” She flips over backwards on her bed, lifts up a random magazine to her face.

Pacifica is quiet for a moment.

“Who’s it with?”

“A girl.” Mabel shrugs.

“Wow, Mabel, so specific.”

“What?” Mabel looks over at her.

“Really?" Pacifica mocks. "‘A girl’?”

“So? That’s what she is.”

“But that only narrows down, like, half the population of Gravity Falls.”

“I still don’t know why you care.” Mabel raises one eyebrow.

“I don’t,” Pacifica snaps back.

“You don’t?”

“Nope.”

“Okay then I don’t need to tell you any more about her, do I?”

Well, shit.

Pacifica stays silent for a good twenty seconds before she breaks.

“Okay let’s say I did care—”

Mabel throws down her magazine, sits up on the edge of her bed, eyes blazing.

“Her name is Annie. She’s Deputy Durland’s niece. She’s staying here this summer while she does an internship with the National Parks Service. She’s from Denver and is in the same grade as us and has brown hair and is about five-foot-five maybe five-six. She has a pet chihuahua named Peso who had to stay in Colorado—

“Wait,” Pacifica cuts her off. “Have they like already been seeing each other?” Pacifica’s stomach absolutely churns at the thought of another girl over here at the Shack, laughing in their kitchen, watching TV with the family, cozying up next to Dipper on the couch—

Mabel shakes her head, nonplussed. “No, this is their first date.”

“What— so like, do you know her or something?”

“Nope, never met her,” Mabel says, just as calm.

“Mabel, how do you know all this about this girl?”

“Um, like I’m not going to research and document accordingly?!”

Mabel pulls out her scrapbook from under her bed, tosses it on the floor between them. It lands open on a hastily thrown together page labeled “Girl Who Likes Dipper Summer ‘16.” Pacifica works very hard to keep her face neutral and aloof as she lets just her eyes flit down to the page.

It’s a thrown together amalgamation of mostly web printouts, a yearbook photo and a napkin with a 303 area code phone number scrawled on it in looping, feminine script.

Pacifica studies the yearbook photo.

Annie has a sweet, round face framed by long, wavy brown hair. It looks sun-kissed, and a smattering freckles brush across her cheeks. Her smile is wide and bright. She has the look of a girl who likes being outside, who doesn’t mind bugs and mud, who probably makes good jokes and doesn’t care about getting her nails done or what Vogue is saying will be in fashion this season or about online celebrity gossip. She looks like someone who Dipper might get along well with. A fun girl. A cool girl.

Pacifica narrows her eyes.

But a second later she’s distracted by the napkin. She knows this napkin. She recognizes the the yellowing shade of off-white caused by years of sitting in the smoky kitchen in boxes because Lazy Susan bought them in bulk in the '90s and hasn’t bothered to replace anything since.

“This is a Greasy’s napkin!” Pacifica declares, a little aghast.

“Yup,” Mabel says, popping the P.

“They met at the diner? My diner?!”

“Would appear so.”

How could this have happened? Has she seen her? Pacifica runs through her mental catalogue of recent visitors. Familiar locals, families of tourists—she feels like she would have noticed a new teenager.

Mabel gives her another long look, both eyebrows raised now.

“Bothered?” Mabel asks.

Pacifica pulls herself together, straightens her shoulders. She huffs. “As if! It’s just— weird is all. I work there, I would have, like, seen her.”

“Maybe you weren’t working that day,” Mabel chirps.

“No way,” Pacifica says, shaking her head quickly. “Dipper only ever goes in when I’m working.”

She realizes her mistake a second too late.

“Oh does he now?” Mabel asks, smirking as she leans in toward her across the room.

Pacifica crosses her arms.

“Because he can only afford it when I sneak him food for free," she replies. "Obviously.”

She leaves out the part where she, weekly, without fail, finds a way to weave her schedule into casual conversation, the way that if she doesn’t he will find a way to weave it in himself and ask her. She also leaves out the comments Lazy Susan makes about how he’s their best customer when she’s on a shift, and how isn’t it funny that the Pines boy only seems to come in for morning coffee on the days she’s working?

No, Dipper doesn’t go to Greasy’s unless she’s there. She knows this. It’s one of the many, many reasons she’s convinced that this whole “just friends” thing they have going on is just a temporary game. That it’s just a matter of time before one of them cracks and admits their feelings and they make out and then live happily ever after.

Internally, she pauses.

But there was one day, one day last week. She’d woken up with a horrible stomach bug, presumably from the imported calamari her parents had forced upon her at dinner the night before (“It’s a delicacy!” Her mother had insisted.), and she could only could muster the energy to call Susan and let her know she wasn’t going to make it in that morning. Then she’d fallen directly back to sleep and didn’t wake up until after 11.

“When did this happen?” Pacifica asks, still a little lost in thought.

“Well aren’t we a curious cat,” Mabel says coolly.

This brings her back.

“Just tell me!” she snaps.

“It was the day you were sick,” Mabel confirms, voice just as even.

“Fuck!” Pacifica curses under her breath.

“Pacifica, why are you so upset?” Mabel asks, but the knowing smile on her face says she knows exactly why Pacifica is so upset.

“I told you, I’m not! I’m just— just…”

“Pacifica!” Mabel groans. “Will you just admit you like him already? For all our sakes?!”

Pacifica stares at Mabel for a long beat.

Mabel stares back.

Pacifica… keeps staring.

In the recesses of her brain she realizes that her silence has basically already acted as an admission.

Mabel narrows her eyes, smirking.

Pacifica studies her friend, the way her eyes dance knowingly and her smile doesn’t falter. And she knows it’s a lost cause.

“Okay, fine,” she blurts out.

“Fine what?” Mabel teases.

“Fine, I might…” she feels the butterflies doing somersaults in her stomach. “…like… him. A little.”

“Pffft. A little my butt. You’re in love!” Mabel rolls back on her bed, laughing.

“I am not!”

Mabel sits back up and reaches across the space separating them to pull Pacifica down to sit next to her.

“Please, I just call it like I see it. And you, missy, are head over heels for one Mason ‘Dipper’ Pines.” 

Mabel pummels Pacific with belly pokes as Pacifica groans and pushes her away.

“It’s okay, Paz,” Mabel continues. “He’s nuts for you too.”

“Whatever,” Pacifica moans.

“He is!"

“How do you know?” Pacifica asks, glancing over and trying to force her cheeks to cool through sheer power of will.

“He told me!” Mabel shares, happily.

This stops her.

“What?!” Pacifica spins to Mabel. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Um, duh, Article 17 of the Sibling Code: ‘No Sibling Shall Disclose the Secrets of the Other’. But now that you’ve admitted it too that’s superseded by Article Three: ‘Each Sibling Shall Act in the Best Interest of the Other Whenever Possible. I couldn’t say anything before because I didn’t know for sure how you felt, but now that I do I’m morally and ethically required to make sure you guys end up together!”

Pacifica falls back on Mabel’s bed. “You guys are freaks.”

“Don’t call us freaks just cause you’re a lonely only!”

“I’m not lonely!”

Mabel hops up from her bed and walks over to her dresser. “It’s okay, Paz. You’ll be a Pines someday too.”

Pacifica groans and rolls over, hiding her face in the bedding.

Mabel throws open a dresser drawer, begins rifling through stacks of sweaters.

“Here, put this on.” She tosses something at Pacifica’s head.

Pacifica pulls the fabric from her head, rolls over and examines it. It’s actually two different articles of clothing. A deep, navy blue track suit.

“Where are we going?” she asks, holding the velour (synthetic, ugh) pants up to the light.

“To spy, duh.” Mabel is shimmying out of her jeans and tugging on her own pitch-black pair of sweats.

“Mabel, that’s like a huge invasion of privacy,” she protests, not meaning it at all and already pushing an arm into the sleeve of the blue hoodie.

“Article three, sister. It’s okay if it’s for his own good.”

Chapter Text

After some bickering about which car they will be taking and a quick pit stop at the mini mart (“obviously every good stake-out needs snacks, Pacifica”), the girls find themselves crouched down in the front seat of Soos’s borrowed pickup, stationed in a distant spot in the Gravity Falls Mall parking lot.

Pacifica squirms in the worn passenger seat. “It smells like sweat and fast food in here.”

“I keep telling you, we couldn’t have taken your car. It’s hot pink— Dipper would have spotted it immediately.” Mabel peers at the mall entrance though her binoculars. “Wait, wait! I think I see her!”

“Just her?” Pacifica asks, not trying to hide the interest in her voice.

“Yeah, they must’ve driven separately. She’s standing out front.”

Pacifica yanks the binoculars from Mabel’s grasp and pulls them up to her own eyes. There, next to the entrance, is a girl who she recognizes from the yearbook photo as the interloping Annie. She’s wearing khaki-colored shorts and green tank top that just screams “I actually like camping” but her hair is curled into soft waves.

“Try-hard,” Pacifica mutters.

Pacifica glares through the binoculars, studying the way the girl glances around and down to her phone, trying to intuit something, anything, about who she is from the way she stands, the way she holds herself. She can’t really get a read, but that doesn’t stop her from immediately adding the girl to her internal list of nemesises.

“I can’t believe they’re going to the mall,” Pacifica complains after another solid minute of staring. She lowers the binoculars and turns to Mabel. “My mall!”

Mabel rolls her eyes. “Paz, you don’t own this place.”

“I’m their best customer,” Pacifica huffs. “I might as well.”

“I mean as far as date places go, this seems pretty non-romantic though, right?” Mabel suggests. “That’s good. At least it’s not a cute little cafe, or the movies, or mini golf, or the lake, or the overlook, or—“

“I got it, okay?” Pacifica snaps. “Stop putting things in my mind.” She shakes her head quickly, trying to evict the unwanted imaginings.

“I’m going to forgive your grumpiness tonight given the circumstances, but need I remind you that I’m here to help you?” Mabel tosses Pacifica a glare.

Pacifica hands the binoculars back to Mabel and crosses her arms, pouting.

“Fine,” she says after a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she adds a second later, muttering.

“You’re forgiven. Get your panties out of a twist though. It’s just a date.”

Pacifica tries to calm herself down. Mabel’s right. It is just a date. This is fine. People go on dates all the time. It doesn’t have to mean anything. She could end up as just a new friend. Or she could have a terrible personality. Or bad breath. Or get hit by a bus tomorrow, which really would solve all Pacifica’s problems.

It doesn’t mean they’re going to, like, kiss or anything. Pacifica’s stomach lurches at that thought. Oh god, but what if they do? She was sure she and Dipper would share their first kisses together. Positive even. There had already been a couple close calls.

The time spent sunning on the lakeshore, when she had opened her eyes and caught him watching her as she dozed. Or that rainy night in his truck, when she cried in his arms after yet another blow-out argument with her mom and dad. Or, most recently, sitting on the Shack’s roof at sunset, the gold rays of the sinking sun warming her face as he shuffled closer until their arms ran flush against one another. She’d almost done it herself then, just leaned over and grabbed him by the collar and planted a big ol’ one right on his lips, but had stopped herself. Call her old-fashioned, or spoiled maybe, but she kind of wants him to be the one to make a first move.

She’d really thought he would too. She’d chalked up his delay to his own awkwardness and insecurity.

But here he was, on a date with someone else. So clearly he’s capable.

Pacifica slumps in her seat.

“C’mon Pazzy, it’ll be okay,” Mabel says, elbowing her encouragingly. “She’s just, like, a girl. You’re Pacifica. Pacifica Northwest. Of ‘Dipper and Pacifica.’ Don’t let this get you down.”

Pacifica sniffs. “You’re right. Her outfit is terrible too. Like, maybe make an effort why don’t you, right?”

Mabel glances sideways.

“Weren’t you just calling her a try-hard for doing her hair?”

Pacifica is saved from answering by the sight of a familiar old pickup pulling into view. Her breath catches.

Sure enough, it comes to a stop in a parking spot near the mall entrance and soon after the headlights flicker off, out of the driver’s seat ambles Dipper. Pacifica and Mabel tussle for the binoculars before settling on pressing their faces cheek-to-cheek and each taking a lens.

Pacifica’s heart races at the sight of him slamming the driver’s side door behind him and making his way toward the mall entrance. He’s wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a zip-up hoodie. She’s selfishly pleased to see that he apparently didn’t put too much effort into his look. Hands in his pockets, he walks up to Annie before lifting one palm in greeting. He doesn’t go in for a hug, and though it looks like she might have if he did, she doesn’t make a move either. Pacifica watches intently as he gestures toward the mall doors and the two walk in and out of sight.

Okay, this is fine, she reassures herself. She can survive this.

Why can’t binoculars amplify sound though, too??

Together, the two girls lower the binoculars. Pacifica can sense Mabel turn to look at her, but she’s still focused on the mall doors, despite the fact that Dipper and Annie are well out of sight. Is it too much to hope that he will come running back out and jump in his car and leave her behind?

“You ready for phase two, girly?” Mabel asks, interrupting her fantasies.

Pacifica sighs. “Well, we’ve come this far.”

Mabel twists in her seat to reach into the back of the truck’s cab, pulling out two wigs. “You wanna be a red-head or brunette?”

Chapter Text

Pacifica chooses the red wig for reasons she won’t make herself think too hard about. She remembers all too well the day Dipper admitted that he used to have a crush on Wendy Corduroy. It had taken everything in her to not figure out a way to surreptitiously chop off all that long pretty red hair or dump bleach all over those ugly flannels.

Thankfully, that was when she was thirteen, when she was the old Pacifica. She’s grown. Matured. New, evolved, sixteen-year-old Pacifica would never go to such silly lengths out of jealousy, of course.

Pacifica plops on the wig and examines her reflection in the mirror of the mall’s women’s room.

She gives it a little flip and fluffs it up. Not bad at all. Though she wouldn’t expect anything less of herself.

Mabel has opted to go with a black bob, which she tops off with a maroon beret. The effect is that she looks like a caricature of a cartoon French woman trying to pass as a spy— or what Mabel would imagine that to look like anyway. But she looks cute, Pacifica has to admit.

“Ready, ma chérie?” Mabel coos, holding out her arm to Pacifica. “Or should I say—Dipper’s cherie?” she says with a wink.

“Mabel, stop,” Pacifica moans, but loops her arm through Mabel’s. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“True love is nothing to be embarrassed about! Now let’s go scope out the competition.”

Pacifica glares.

“Not that there really is any,” Mabel adds hastily, patting Pacifica’s arm.

The girls exit the bathroom, and in unison they throw on oversized sunglasses, ignorant of the fact it’s nighttime. And indoors.

“Now where would Dipper go on a date…?” Mabel hums. “The Carrot Cake Mill maybe? The Caper Orchard?”

“No, he’s too self-conscious for a restaurant,” Pacifica thinks out loud. “He’d want somewhere where he could hide behind some kind of activity if he got nervous. Something like…” Her heart clenches. “The arcade.”

Pacifica thinks morosely on the endless number of afternoons the two had spent together at the arcade, battling each other for top score and swearing that the next victory would be theirs. Well, mostly he swears that, because she nearly always wipes the floor with him.

Mabel snaps. “That’s it! You’re so smart, Pazzy.” Mabel doesn’t notice Pacifica’s frown, and before Pacifica can protest Mabel is dragging her down the interior concourse in the direction of the small arcade.

The Gravity Falls Mall arcade doesn’t have quite the selection as the one on Main Street, but it’s enough to keep the bored children of busy moms and the occasional group of teens entertained. Sometimes Pacifica and Dipper would come to this one specifically for the fact that it’s less busy that one one downtown, and it was easier for them to play each other one-on-one uninterrupted by others. Pacifica’s heart sinks once more at the thought of Dipper making memories with another girl in one of their regular haunts.

She hangs back as Mabel peers around the open entry and into the arcade.

“Yep, I see them,” she confirms. “Come on, let’s sneak around the side here.”

Pacifica is already beginning to have second thoughts about this whole thing, but before she can voice them Mabel has grabbed her arm and is pulling her down a side aisle toward the back of the shop, where a heavy curtain separates the employees only section from the rest of the arcade. Pacifica keeps her head down, terrified of being recognized, but they manage to make it without being seen. Mabel shoves Pacifica on the other side of the curtain, then spins on her heel to peek through a small gap in the fabric.

Pacifica sighs and leans against the cool stone of the hallway. Mabel is hogging the view, but Pacifica isn’t so sure she wants to watch anyway.

She feels like such a loser, following him like this. Her, Pacifica Northwest, spending her Saturday night trailing after the sweaty, awkward, lanky dork that is Dipper Pines.

But then, what other option was there? He’s hers, dammit. He’s always been hers. And Mabel said he liked her back, so what is he doing out with with other girl anyway?

She pushes herself up and off the wall.

“So what’s going on?” she asks Mabel.

“Hard to see,” Mabel mutters. “They’re playing some sort of street fighting game, but I don’t see any like overt flirting or anything.”

“Let me see. Move.” Pacifica goes to push Mabel to the side.

“No way! Find your own place to peek from.”

The girls push at each other for a few seconds, an eventually Pacifica groans and then gets on her knees, shuffling in front of Mabel’s legs until the other girl has to step backward to make space. Carefully, Pacifica peels back at the gap in the curtain just enough to peek one eye through, her own face situated a few heads below Mabel’s in the opening.

Near the front of the store playing on an ancient machine stands Dipper. He’s leaning forward on one leg, pushing up against it as he watches the screen, face pulled into a deadly focus. He’s taken his hoodie off and tied it around his waist, and Pacifica can see the way his forearm muscles twitch as he jabs at the controls on the machine. He’s just playing a game, but Pacifica can’t help but admire the intensity that comes over him whenever he’s doing something he enjoys. It’s a little mesmerizing— to her at least. And she feels her heartbeat quicken in the way that it always does when he lets himself get excited about something.

She’d smile, but a second later Annie walks into view holding two fountain drinks. Pacifica’s blood begins to boil as she watches the girl stroll right up to him. As if she even has the right.

“When’d you start liking him anyway?” Mabel asks after a few seconds of watching.

“I dunno,” Pacifica says, still distracted and thinking of all the ways she could get the fire alarm to go off and ruin their date. Or maybe she could just set an actual fire. “Like, awhile ago.”

“Awhile ago when?”

Pacifica narrows her eyes and glances up at Mabel.

“Why are you so nosy?”

“Inquiring minds want to know.” Mabel shrugs. “And I gotta work on my bridesmaid speech.”

Pacifica feels a snotty retort rise to her lips, but before it can come out her irritation cools. She knows Mabel is trying to cheer her up. She’s being a good friend tonight, if a sort of bad sister, and her curiosity comes from a good place.

Pacifica can play nice. Or try.

“Honestly, kind of a long time,” she admits, eyes roaming back to watch him jerk at the controls, the way his face winces as he misses a hit. “Like, probably at least a little since that night at the mansion. With the ghost, you know?”

Mabel whistles quietly. “Wow, that was like four years ago.”

Pacifica moans. “I know. And it’s Dipper! It’s, like, so embarrassing.”

“Hey now, that’s still my brother you’re talking about.”

“Exactly,” Pacifica says, reaching up to nudge Mabel in the ribs.

Mabel laughs. “Okay yeah, it is pretty embarrassing.”

“I mean it’s not like it was a big deal back then. It was just like… a curiosity I guess. But that’s when I first started to, like, respect him, I think.”

“Aw, Paz, that’s surprisingly sweet.”

“I can be sweet,” Pacifica says, a little hurt.

“I bet you wanna be sweet to Dipper all the time. I bet you wanna be sweet to him sooooo many places,” Mabel clasps her hands together and starts making obnoxious kissing noises with her mouth.

“Ugh, gross, Mabel! I immediately regret opening up to you.”

Mabel laughs again. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’re just so easy to mess with. And it’s all just so nice! You’re always so tough on the outside, it’s nice to see your vulnerable side.” Mabel pokes Pacifica in the back with her knee.

“Well I hate it,” Pacific huffs. “Being vulnerable hasn’t done zilch for me. Being vulnerable got me falling for this dork. Being vulnerable got me admitting my feelings to you, and it got me sitting here, kneeling on sticky linoleum watching him make goo-goo faces at another girl.”

“Oh, Paz. He’s not making goo-goo faces. Heck, he’s barely looking at her.”

Pacifica returns her focus on the pair. Dipper’s stepping back from the machine, gesturing for her to take a turn. Annie shoots him a smile that Pacifica wants to smack off her face, but she has to admit that Mabel’s right— Dipper only barely meets her eyes in return. As Annie drops a quarter into the coin slot and begins energetically jabbing at the buttons and controls, Dipper takes a step back and shoves his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet. It’s really hard to say. He’s obviously nervous, but whether that’s from first-date jitters or discomfort is impossible to decipher.

It doesn’t help that Pacifica can’t hear a darn thing. Annie pumps her fist in an apparent success over whatever hit she just made and turns to him, smiling. Dipper laughs and gives a thumbs up in return. She can see Dipper’s mouth moving, but she’s always been terrible at reading lips.

“We gotta get closer, c’mon,” Pacifica says, tugging Mabel down the aisle of machines behind the one Dipper and Annie are playing.

Mabel squirms a little. “I dunno… I mean spying is one thing, but eavesdropping…”

“That’s where you draw the line?” Pacifica bites out, gesturing to their outfits and waving her arms at the general circumstance around them. “Come on, you got me into this. I’m not going in alone.”

Mabel nods in defeat and follows Pacifica down the aisle. Both girls keep their heads down so as to not draw attention through the small gaps in the machines.

Their new position sacrifices a clear line of sight, but it only takes a second for Pacifica to confirm that they can now hear the two perfectly.

“Your turn!” Annie chirps, and a second later Pacifica hears Dipper’s awkward “okay, yeah” and the sound of a coin being dropped into he slot and the machine firing up.

As Dipper plays, Annie peppers him with questions. It’s all pretty harmless— where did he grow up, what are his plans for after high school, where are the fun places to hang out on the weekend. Pacifica is honestly growing a little bored when the conversation shifts.

“You know,” Annie says, sounding a little shy, “I kind of thought maybe there was something going on between you and that waitress. The one at the diner.”

Pacifica’s ears feel red hot. Besides her, Mabel grasps at Pacifica’s arm.

“Oh, Pacifica?” She hears Dipper reply, voice a little higher than normal.

“I guess. Is that her name?”

“Yeah, yeah. But, uh, no, Paz and I—”

Pacifica braces herself for the dreaded “we’re just friends” that she knows will twist in her heart like a knife.

“—we’re not together,” he finishes, but his voice trails as though he had wanted to say more.

Pacifica puzzles at the strange phrasing. It’s a true statement, but it’s also somehow less damning than the “just friends” she had expected. It leaves the space for more. For change, maybe.

“Why’d you, uh, think that?” Dipper asks, and the casual manner he asks it in sounds just a bit too forced.

“Well, I’d actually seen you guys in the diner together a few times before I introduced myself,” Annie says. “I dunno, just seemed like there was a… vibe.”

“Oh,” Dipper responds. “That’s, um, interesting. Wait— you’d seen us before? Like before you introduced yourself?”

Annie laughs a little, sounding shy. “Yeah, I mean… not too many other people our age around here. Sorry. But I wouldn’t have expected you to notice me. That’s actually kind of why I thought maybe there was something between you guys. When she was around, it sort of seemed like your focus was on her, and vice-versa honestly.”

Pacifica blushes. She supposes that explains why she’d never noticed the new girl either.

“Really?” Dipper asks, sounding just a little too eager.

“Yeah, but anyway, I’m glad there isn’t. Shortage of cute guys in this town!” Pacifica peeks through the narrow gap in the machines and see her elbow Dipper playfully. It takes every ounce of willpower Pacifica has to stop her from climbing right over this decrepit old machine and tackling the girl to the ground for having the nerve to touch him.

I mean really, the audacity.

“Hey!” Annie continues, looking back at the machine. “You got the new top score! And— oh wow—“ she laughs. “Speak of the devil. P-A-Z. That’s your friend I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s her,” Dipper says, voice a little strangled.

“What a coincidence,” Annie continues, just as delighted. “Now you can tell her your date went so well that you dethroned her!”

Pacifica couldn’t care less about Dipper pushing her from the top score at this particular moment, all she can focus on is the light, easy-going, good-natured tone of Annie’s voice, the way she seems to just find everything so wonderful. So fun. She honestly sounds like a nice girl, and Pacifica hates her for it.

“Hah, yeah—” Dipper says, voice cracking a little. “But, uh, you know… this means a lot to her though. I think I’ll just put her initials in again so she doesn’t know…”

There’s a pause before Pacifica hears Annie say, “pretty good friend,” voice a little less exuberant than before. Pacifica takes perverse pleasure in the faint hint of skepticism that breaks through.

“You, uh, want to go do something else?” Dipper suggests after’s he’s finished adding P-A-Z back into the top score slot. “Maybe just walk around a bit?”

“Sure,” Annie chirps, sunniness returning to her tone. “But you are buying me one of those infamous Pitt Colas before the night is through.”

Pacifica rolls her eyes and turns to Mabel, who snickers and mouths “be nice.”

As soon as Dipper and Annie’s footsteps are out of earshot, Pacifica straightens up and brushes nonexistent lint off her clothes. “‘Buy me a soda’” she mocks. “So entitled! Can you even imagine?”

Mabel snorts. “Paz, that’s exactly how you flirt with him.”

“I do not flirt!”

“Oh you so do!” Mabel straightens up and puts a hand on her hip, then looks at her nails in an apparent imitation of Pacifica. “’Help me with my homework, Dipper! Drive me to the library, Dipper! Oh Dipper, there’s a gnome infestation in my basement, Dipper, help me, Dipper, do it!’”.

“That was just a real thing I needed him for!”

“Well sure, but you didn’t have to buy a new sun dress and curl your hair for it, did you?”

Pacifica narrows her eyes at Mabel, who just gives her a smug look in return. “Whatever. Let’s just go. Phase three, or whatever.”

Chapter Text

If you’d told Pacifica earlier tonight as she ambled up to the Mystery Shack for her sleepover with Mabel that she actually would be spending her evening following Dipper and some random pretty nobody around the mall, she would have laughed in your face.

And then she would have inwardly panicked and wondered why she was doing that, who was the nobody and just exactly how pretty are we talking here?

If you’d told her she would be anywhere near Edgy on Purpose, however, Gravity Falls’ local haunt for moody teens wearing graphic tees, chains and jeans with intentional holes where holes logically would never develop, she would have immediately questioned your sanity and worried no further.

Pacifica has never once stepped foot inside the dingy, damp, overpriced and under-lit store, thank you very much, and she certainly never planned to. And yet, here she is, tucked besides a display of screen-printed t-shirts with logos from cartoons popular ten years ago and bands popular ten earlier, hiding her face behind a some graphic novel she plucked off the counter at random, as she strains to listen to the conversation going on between the two teenagers presently rifling through the sale section on the other side of the display.

Behind her, Mabel stands a bit further away and out of sight, but slightly taller, keeping the pair in her peripheral vision so she can grab Pacifica’s shirt sleeve and bolt if and when the other two start making their way in their direction.

Pacifica can’t make out more than the occasional muffled bit of conversation, but has been able to discern enough to gather that Annie will be here for the rest of the summer (super), that she has an older sister who goes to school in Seattle, and that she thinks Dipper’s trademark cap is cool.

Pacifica thinks it’s a little presumptuous for her to even think she deserves to have an opinion on it.

But Dipper had blushed under the compliment, and Pacifica was left kicking herself and thinking back regrettably on all the times she had made fun of the stupid old hat.

The whole evening had started off fine enough after the arcade. After the initial nausea at seeing him hang out with an another girl their age, she’d settled down upon realizing that Dipper wasn’t really giving any strong indications that he actually wanted to be there.

And it made her feel better. Can you blame her?

Too bad it didn’t stay that way.

As she slunk deep in a booth in Hoo-Ha Owl's Pizzamatronic Jamboree, she'd watched Dipper walk up to the table Annie waited at, an order of fries and two Pitt Colas in his hands. Pacifica noted how tense his shoulders were, and how forced the expression of ease on his face seemed to be. But then Annie took a sip of her soda, made a face—and apparently a joke too—because Dipper shrugged but chuckled lightly, honestly. Pacifica’s stomach dropped as she watched his shoulders relax.

From behind a rack of discount radios in Donny’s Okay TVs, she watched the two teens rifle through discount bins of outdated electronics. Her breath caught in her throat as she witnessed the moment Annie jokingly shoved an old camcorder in Dipper’s face and his smile turned from awkward to shy and sincere.

Perhaps worst of all, from her view hidden in the Antique Emporium, she bore first-hand witness to the two shuffling through a kiosk of stuffed animals in the mall concourse, and had to bite back rising bile when Dipper picked one up and pretended to speak through it, evidentially making some joke that had Annie’s hand flying to her mouth as she giggled and grinned.

There was no way around it. He had started to have a good time. He was maybe even… flirting.

Back in the present, she’s focusing on keeping her heartbeat steady when a beautiful, horrible sound cuts through, clear as day— Dipper’s laugh.

It's his real laugh, not an awkward one, not a fake or overly gracious one. Pacifica is heartbreakingly familiar with all the varieties. This is the real deal. It’s usually reserved only for his family, Soos, Wendy… and her. But here he is giving it to this girl. The sound of it wraps around Pacifica’s heart a squeezes hard, making her feel a little lightheaded, and not in the good way that it usually does. She wants to run, but morbid curiosity keeps her planted as one of her favorite sounds causes moisture to well in her eyes.

Before the rising tears can tumble over onto her cheeks however, Mabel is quickly grabbing her wrist and tugging her sideways behind a curtain and into a nearby dressing room.

“They’re walking this way," she hisses.

Pacifica is barely on the other side of the curtain when Annie passes, and then Dipper. She holds her breath, observing from a small gap in the fabric, as he crosses through the air she had just previously been occupying.

Then he stops, relaxed smile dropping abruptly.

Pacifica’s stomach twists.

He knows, she thinks. She has no idea how he knows, but he knows.

She watches as his eyes squint confusedly just for a moment, his nose twitches and he looks back over his shoulder and around the shop. But then he’s shaking his head and closing his eyes, and continuing on to follow Annie from the store.

Pacifica lets out the breath she had been holding.

“That was too close,” she says.

Mabel studies her friend, far less bubbly than earlier in the evening when the emotions had felt lighter. Apparently she’d also picked up on the change in Dipper’s disposition. “What do you want to do?”

Pacifica slumps to the floor of the small dressing room, pulls her knees up to her chest and drops her forehead to them.

“I don’t know,” she admits, misery lacing her voice.

“Look…” Mabel starts, slipping down the wall to sit beside Pacifica. “We can go if you want.” Mabel rubs at an elbow. “When we started this, I sort of thought it would be all fun and games you know. Honestly, he seemed so… unenthused about the whole thing when he left that I thought it was harmless.” She pauses, seemingly searching for the next words. “I didn’t think he’d actually…” She trails off.

Pacifica’s head pulls up. Mabel looks blurry through her watery eyes. “What? Have a good time? Fall in love with her? Forget all about me?”

“Oh Paz, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Mabel reassures.

Pacifica slumps back down, turning her face into her knees once more.

“I gotta admit…” Mabel ventures slowly. “I also didn’t expect you to get all that upset either. I’m sorry. I mean, I knew you liked him, but I guess didn’t realize just how much you liked him.”

Pacifica sighs. She hadn't been honest with herself about that either. She’d known she had a crush. She’d known he’s one of her best friends, and that he’s one of the first people she thinks about in the morning and the last one she wants to talk to before bed. She’d been aware of the little skip and flutter of emotion that pitter-patters in her heart when he rings her doorbell and gives her his easy grin in greeting and opens his truck passenger door for her. She’d known how safe she feels when she’s with him, how seen and accepted and understood.

She just didn’t… put it all together. But now, the risk of losing him, even if it’s really just the fear of the risk of losing him— it’s making her mind accept what her heart has probably known for a good while now. She loves him.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, miserable, as the tears that she was able to force into retreat earlier finally spill over and fall down her cheeks.

Next to her, Mabel puts a soft palm on Pacifica’s back, rubbing up and down comfortingly, as she drops her cheek to Pacifica’s shoulder. Pacifica’s instinct is to pull away, born of a childhood being taught that accepting comfort was shameful, but she fights it and is glad she does.

“Do you want to talk about it? About your feelings?” Mabel asks after a few minutes of sitting in silence, the sound of the store’s punk music and Pacifica’s soft crying the only noise. She lifts her head from Pacifica’s shoulder to look more squarely at her.

Pacifica turns her own head in her arms to face Mabel, and she knows her eyes are red and her face is blotchy, but she forces herself not to care. She’s already sitting here in a gross, grimy dressing room, crying as she mourns the potential loss of the dork she thought would always be around. How much worse can it get?

“Okay,” she sniffles eventually, a little hesitant and not sure where to begin.

“Well, why don’t you take me back to the beginning,” Mabel says. “You said you sort of started respecting him more after the night with the ghost. Tell me about that.”

Pacifica lets her eyes drift to the floor of the dressing room, the eye contact becoming a bit too much as she prepares herself to examine and share her feelings. “Yeah,” she starts after a moment. “It was just… I was so snotty to you guys, and up until then I was snotty to most people, but they still sort of just ignored it because I was rich and pretty. But you and Dipper didn’t. And then you were the first one to really give me a chance to be better—“ She looks up at this, giving Mabel a small smile which is returned instantly— “and then Dipper was the first one to really challenge me to do it. To see through my pretenses I guess.”

“You impressed him that night,” Mabel offers up, nodding. “I read what he wrote about you in the journal.”

“Mabel,” Pacifica teases lightly. She’s still sniffly, but the smallest of laughs creeps through. “That wasn’t very respectful of you.”

Mabel quirks an eyebrow and shoots Pacifica a small, guilty smile. “Little bit of the pot calling the kettle black there, sister. After tonight I think we’re both going to have to examine our relationships with respecting other people’s privacy.” Pacifica snorts, knowing Mabel is right. “But hey, we’re in it together,” Mabel goes on. She taps her chin. “And I did start it,” she adds, wincing a little.

“It’s okay, I didn’t exactly put up a fight,” Pacifica admits.

“So what about after that night?” Mabel asks, redirecting the conversation back to the topic at hand.

Pacifica looks at the ceiling.

“Well, you kind of know the rest. We became friends. All of us. But after awhile I started realizing that anytime I had some sort of emotion I didn’t know what to do with— like if I was angry at my parents, or jealous of someone at school, or just sad, or lonely… I’d start asking myself what kind of response would make him proud of me. And I realized that anytime I had news to share or just needed someone, he was the one I wanted to talk to.” She looks back up at Mabel, squeezes her knee. “And you, too,” Pacifica adds apologetically. 

Mabel shakes her head. “It’s okay, Paz. I’ve always known you and Dipper had something special.”

“You think so?” Pacifica sniffs, a little hopeful.

“Yeah, of course I do. You should hear the way he talks about you. He’d kill me for telling you, but—“ She pulls a face and shrugs “—eh, in for a penny in for a pound at this point, I guess. He’s so proud of you. He’s always talking about how you stand up to your parents, or about some grade you got on a test, or—oh!— that time you kicked that one girl off the cheer squad because she was bullying another member of the team? He wouldn’t shut up about it for like a week. He likes you a lot, Pacifica.” Mabel squeezes Pacifica’s forearm. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Pacifica sniffs. “But you can like more than one person at the same time. And it sure as heck looks like he’s at least beginning to like her. And she’s way more his type too. Like— hiking, woods, nature, all that gross stuff. He might like her way more and they’ll start dating and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”

“Eh,” Mabel says, shrugging. “If that happens we’ll just break them up.”

Pacifica’s eyes snap to Mabel’s, ready to protest, but then she sees the playful grin on Mabel’s face and she knows that she’s kidding. Mabel might be a Grade-A meddler, but she wouldn’t ever do anything that purposely hurt her brother.

Pacifica snorts. “I’ll just become a rich spinster, tucked away in my tower mourning that fact that the only boy I ever really loved got away because I was too chickenshit to do something about it.” She straightens up and leans her head back against the wall. The tears have stopped, but she can feel where mix of saltwater and mascara have dried in tracks on her cheeks.

Mabel rises from the floor and extends a hand to hoist Pacifica up as well. “You wanna get out here? Maybe we can go get some ice cream at the diner and drown our sorrows in true rom-com fashion.”

Pacifica takes in a deep breath and nods, examining her face in the mirror and wiping away at some of her smeared makeup.

If this date does go as well as it seems and Dipper does start dating this girl, it’s going to hurt like hell, but at least she’ll have Mabel there to help her through it.

She shakes out her shoulders, steeling herself. “Alright, yeah, let’s go.”

Mabel pulls back the curtain and offers her arm to Pacifica, who loops her own through it gratefully as she lets her friend lead her into the common area of the mall.

But fate is a cruel mistress, because as soon as they round the corner to head in the direction of the main exit, there are Dipper and Annie, sitting side-by-side, bodies angled toward one another as they talk on a bench. Dipper’s face is beet red and he keeps running his hand through his hair. He’s talking, and it looks like he’s saying something important. Pacifica knows that earnest expression anywhere.

Annie watches him raptly, and then, nearly in slow motion, she reaches out to put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. She’s smiling and nodding. Dipper gives her a bashful smile in return. Instantly, tears form once again in Pacifica’s eyes. She can’t think, or move, or even look away. The static buzzing in her brain is short-circuiting all cognitive functioning.

Thankfully Mabel’s head is clearer, and she abruptly turns Pacifica on her heel and pulls her back in the other direction, walking quickly. “Come on, we’ll use the other exit.”

Pacifica lets Mabel guide her from the mall and into the crisp evening air. She’s in a haze, and the only thought in her head is that she wishes she could travel back in time just a few weeks— heck, even just a few days would work—and tell Dipper how she feels before he went and had this night.

They pass a trash can as they walk on the sidewalk surrounding the perimeter of the building, meandering back toward where they parked, and Pacifica yanks off her wig and tosses it. She probably should have asked Mabel if she still wanted it, but if Mabel was thinking that she doesn’t say anything, and Pacifica can’t stand to see the thing anymore. It just underscores the humiliation and despair weighing heavy on her heart.

Mabel is prattling on about her plans for the evening, certainly in an attempt to distract her and cheer her up, but Pacifica barely hears her.

“Alright sis, so we’ll go get a pint of strawberry and a pint of chocolate from Greasy’s to-go, extra sprinkles on both. Next stop is the gas station to get every trashy gossip magazine they have on hand, then head back to the shack and get in our coziest, comfiest, cuddliest pajamas. We’ll steal every blanket in the place and pile them in the attic and—“

Whatever plans Mabel has for after the blanket heist, Pacifica will never know, because she’s smacked face-first into a firm, polyester-clad chest, and now is on the ground groaning and rubbing at her sore rear. Damn tailbone, she thinks, wincing with her eyes closed. Through the pain, her nose picks up on a familiar smell— spearmint, spruce, and the faintest hint of the musty Mystery Shack.

Oh no.

“Pacifica!” she hears Dipper’s voice shout, surprised and concerned. “Are you okay? Wait, what are you—“

She feels his warm hand grab her wrist. Slowly, she opens her eyes and looks up. He’s crouched down attempting to gently pull her from the ground. Behind him stands Annie, eyes wide and mouth formed into in a small ‘O’. Mabel tugs at Pacifica’s other hand and she groans as she lets the two Pines pull her from the pavement.

Looking around, she can see that they’re back at the main entrance, which Dipper and Annie presumably have just exited from.

She wants to melt into the ground again. Just be back on the pavement. Leave her here to die of humiliation.

Once he releases her, Dipper turns to Mabel, brow furrowed as she pulls off her beret and wig. “Wait. Mabel? He asks. “Why..?” He trails off and his eye widen as the the situation seems to catch up to him. He glances back at Annie briefly and then, strangely, spins to Pacifica. “Cif, it’s not what it looks like— well, I mean—“ He cuts himself off and shoots an apologetic look at Annie, who raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I guess it is… uh, was…—wait—“ He eyes their outfits, the wig in Mabel’s hand. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Um, shopping?” Mabel offers, twisting up her face in an expression that says she doesn’t expect Dipper to buy it for a second.

“Since when do you guys wear wigs to go— wait a minute. You were following me!”

“We weren’t!” Mabel says hurriedly.

He points between the two girls.

“Then how do you explain the all-black, the hair, the sunglasses, the fact that you just so happened to be here at the exact time you knew I’d be?”

This last bit is directed at Mabel, who has the decency to look a little ashamed.

“Okay we were following you,” she says.

Dipper glares at her. “Mabel! I told you not to say anything!”

“Did you?” Mabel says, obviously feigning ignorance.

“I definitely did. I even made you repeat it back to me.”

“Hm I don’t recall that.”

“Mabel.”

“Article three, bro-bro.”

“Wha— how is this good for—?! You know what? Whatever. Forget it. We’ll talk about it later.”

Dipper crosses his arms and stands, fuming, while Pacifica studies her shoes and Mabel hums and looks at the sky. No one ventures to speak.

Until Annie clears her throat and steps forward.

Pacifica jumps. She’d kind of forgotten the girl was there.

“Yeah, so, I’m gonna go,” Annie says.

Dipper winces as Mabel grimaces awkwardly. Pacifica just wraps her arms around her middle. She can’t really bring herself to feel sorry for the girl yet. She’s not perfect, okay?

“Didn’t your uncle take you here?” Dipper asks, guilt cutting through his tone. “Don’t you gotta, like, wait for him?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay.” Annie says, already walking backwards and away from the group. “I’ll wait… somewhere else. I think I’d rather be, like, anywhere else right now, honestly.”

Pacifica puzzles at this. Sure it's awkward, but Annie shouldn't know just how awkward it really is. As far as she knows, Dipper's sister and his sister's friend were just being creeps.

“Uh, yeah, I get that…” He rubs his neck, looking a little reluctant as he continues talking. “Uh, well, do you want me to drive—?”

“I’ll take her home!” Mabel interrupts, jumping forward, sudden enthusiasm giving Pacifica a little bit of emotional whiplash. “Dip, you got Paz, right? Remember to bring her back to the Shack! We’re still doing girl’s night later!” She grabs poor Annie by the arm and begins pulling her way before anyone can protest. “Don’t worry girl, I’ll tell you where to find the eligible cuties. Pro tip: stay out of the woods. And if anyone named Norman asks you out run the opposite way.” Mabel tosses a look back over her shoulder to Dipper and Pacifica. “Take your time!”

Pacifica watches, frozen, as Mabel drags Annie away into the parking lot. Neither she nor Dipper say anything as the girls disappear behind a row of cars. Pacifica realizes she actually hasn’t said anything at all since she fell on her ass, and the silence hangs heavy over the pair. She focuses her gaze on the glowing neon sign above the mall entrance, and it’s so quiet between them that she can actually pick up on the low buzz of the florescent energy coursing through the long bulbs.

After a long moment, Dipper sighs and turns to her. She lets her eyes drag away from the illuminated sign to look in his general direction. No eye contact yet though. She’s not sure she’ll ever be able to look him in the eyes ever again.

He’s not trying to make her though, not yet. He looks at his shoes as he kicks at nothing on the pavement. He shoves his hands in his pockets. Since he isn’t looking at her, she feels brave enough to examine his expression, just a little. His face is still red and his eyebrows are still drawn together.

But when he speaks, his voice is more puzzled than angry.

“I think we need to talk," he says.

“Do we have to?” she manages to get out.

He looks up, and there’s the dreaded eye contact. Upset, yes, but also determined, questioning, and is that… hopeful? And though she wants to, she can’t look away.

“Yes,” he says.

Chapter Text

“You know, talking usually involves saying, like, words, not just glaring out the window.”

Pacifica ignores the boy driving beside her, stubbornly crossing her arms and turning even further toward the passenger side window.

She knows she’s being unfair. After all, she was the one who got caught creeping on her crush, she was the one who crossed the boundaries, and she’s the one who has been immaturely silent since they got in Dipper’s truck in the mall parking lot.

But there’s something funny that can happen in the mind of an embarrassed and slightly heartbroken teenager, and that’s rationalization of the nonsensical. And so Pacifica finds herself, protectively turning her embarrassment and hurt into completely irrational anger.

If Dipper had been more honest with his feelings, none of this would have happened. If he had just told her about the date, none of this would have happened.

If he hadn’t had the nerve to be just so freaking cute and sweet and funny in the first place, it never would have happened.

She hugs her arms to herself closer as she glares at the dark outlines of the passing pine trees.

“This is all your fault you know,” she bites out, after the silence becomes too much. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been so weird about it.”

Dipper’s mouth drops as he turns to look at her briefly. “My fault?”

“Yes!” Pacifica says, straightening her shoulders and huffing. “I heard what you said back there at the mall. You told Mabel not to tell me about your—" she forces out the word “—date. Why?”

Dipper scoffs. “Unbelievable. That’s so typical of you to try to deflect responsibility. Besides, like I’m going to answer your questions before you start explaining yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Pacifica sniffs.

“Please. You two were practically stalking me.”

“We were not! We were just curious. And bored.”

Pacifica catches Dipper rolling his eyes. This isn’t going well. He’s calling her bluff. Which means he just going to keep pushing her to be honest.

“Whatever,” she says. “You can just, like, take me home. I’m sure Mabel would understand.”

“Oh no, no way,” Dipper says, shaking his head. “You’re not wiggling out of this that easily.”

“Wiggling out of what?”

“You know what, Pacifica.”

Pacifica crosses her arms back over her middle protectively and pushes back into the seat.

Dipper sighs, sounding long-suffering.

“Look, Cif,” he tries again, a little softer, a little more cajoling. “I’m not mad—well, I’m a little mad—but mostly I’m just confused. Why were you there tonight?” He twists his hands on the steering wheel. “Will you please tell me?”

Pacifica softens just a bit. “I did tell you,” she mumbles. “We were just… having fun, I guess.”

Dipper’s grip on the steering wheel tightens.

“Pacifica, even if that were true, that’s still totally out of line.”

“I know,” she whines. “I’m sorry, okay? We’ll never be creepy stalker girls again. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in this town though.”

It’s a lie, and a bad one at that.

Another moment of silence follows. Dipper keeps his eyes focused ahead, grip just as lethal on the wheel, while Pacifica tries to sink further into the passenger seat.

Finally Dipper’s voice cuts through the silence, measured, like he’s trying to keep himself from sounding frustrated.

“I just— forgive me, but I just don’t buy that you two were just messing around. I specifically told Mabel not to tell you, and I thought she understood why… but she did it anyway. And I know Mabel loves her shenanigans, but I don’t think she would betray me like that unless she had a good reason. And you— I just don’t know why you would care at all unless you had a good reason.” He chances a glance at her, and she knows he’s trying to encourage her to be honest.

Finding some bit of courage, she meets his eyes for a long beat.

She’s not a dummy, she knows Dipper probably suspects that his feelings are returned. Mabel wasn’t totally off base about her obvious flirting. And, yes, they’ve both been dancing around it for ages now. She knows that he’s trying to lead her having that conversation.

And as much as part of her wants to direct him to pull over the truck and unbuckle their seatbelts and climb into his lap and kiss him silly, there’s another part of her still terrified to take the leap. She was comfortable with things the way they were before. He was hers and she was his, but without any of the fear of messing things up. Without the vulnerability. The risk of being hurt.

Without the honesty, a small part of her brain adds.

“Do you have a reason?” he tries again, a little bit more pleadingly.

And when she’s face to face with his sincerity like this, she knows she can’t lie to him, that she respects him too much for that.

“I… I do, okay?” She swallows. “But can I tell you later? Once my pride and ego have recovered just a little? It was pretty embarrassing, getting… caught… like that.”

“Okay, but you have to promise to tell me.”

“I promise.”  Pacifica knows Dipper means tonight, but technically she never specified when exactly. Maybe she can push it a few more days, recover her pride a bit. She watches as Dipper relaxes at her promise, and she feels a little guilty.

“You know, it was embarrassing for me too,” he says after a bit.

Pacifica squirms uncomfortably in her seat. “Were you… hoping for a second date?” She’s not sure she wants to know the answer.

Dipper gives her a look like it should be obvious, but apparently decides to humor her anyway.

“No.” He shrugs, keeping his hands on the wheel. “She was nice and fun and stuff, but I just… didn’t feel it.”

Pacifica takes in a deep breath, the deepest she’s taken all night, she realizes. The oxygen and relief blooding to her brain makes her a little lightheaded.

“‘Feel it’?” she asks, prying.

Dipper stares right ahead, eyes trained on the road. “Yeah, like the thing you’re supposed to feel when you like someone.” She watches as takes in his own inhale of breath, lets it out. “The spark.”

“Oh.” Pacifica rubs her arm. “It, um, looked like you guys were getting kind of cozy there, though. Right before you left I mean. Sitting on the bench…” She winces at how awkwardly it’s all coming out. But she can’t help but fish for more reassurance.

In the moonlight, she thinks she sees his cheeks darken. “Oh, uh, no. It wasn’t like that,” he starts. He takes a hand off the steering wheel to rub at his mouth. “I was actually telling her that I had a nice time, but I didn’t want to lead her on. That I have a pretty major thing for someone else.” He sends her a pointed look across the bench seat of the cab, expression serious.

Pacifica’s heart leaps up and into her throat.

She wants to be honest with him. She does. But she’s just not… ready. Well, no, that’s not true. She is. There’s nothing more in this world that would make her happier than being able to text and call and hold and kiss him whenever she wants.

But she wants it to be on her terms. When she’s feeling confident, unshakable, untouchable even. When she’s feeling on top. Not like this, all embarrassed and—eugh—vulnerable. She just needs to run out the clock until they reach the Shack. As soon as the truck pulls into the driveway the rest of the household will know they’re back, and one thing Pacifica has learned about big, loving families, is that privacy is seldom granted. And she knows Dipper will want the rest of this conversation to be private. It’ll buy her time to lick her wounds at least.

She tries to keep the conversations moving along.

“She seemed, like, so your type though.”

“My type?” he asks, brows furrowing just a bit.

“Yeah, you know. Outdoorsy, fun, all ‘I’m from Colorado and like dirt and hiking and probably make my own granola.’”

Dipper chuckles a little but twists his mouth confusedly. “Where’d you get that idea from?”

“Well, you know… the khaki,” Pacifica says, lamely. “And the National Parks internship thing.”

“How’d you know— ugh, Mabel .”

Gonna move past that real fast.

“Regardless, that’s like, the exact girl you’d ideally want to be with, right?” Pacifica says, quickly. “One you can take adventuring and get all gross and dirty with?”

“Okay, one: she’s a social media intern. I have no idea if she actually likes camping and hiking. And two: I mean sure, it’d be fun to do that with someone I was dating from time to time, but there are other things that matter a lot more than enjoying the same stuff.”

“Oh,” is all she can come up with in her brain for a moment. “Well, why’d you ask her out, then?”

Dipper laughs a little. “I didn’t, actually. She asked me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Dipper says, cheeks going pink again.

Pacifica still doesn’t like the girl, of course, but she has to admit it takes a certain degree of gumption to ask out a total stranger. A feeling strikingly similar to admiration wars in her mind with her distaste. She supposes she can dislike her but still be impressed. Yeah, that works. No cognitive dissonance there.

She has to admit, it stands in stark contrast to her current unwillingness to face her feelings, to let him see them for what they are. She squashes the discomfort deep down to where she doesn’t have to feel it.

“So… why’d you say yes then?” She asks, pressing her luck and trying to keep the conversation light.

“I dunno, Pacifica,” Dipper says, sounding a little tired. “Maybe it felt good that someone was interested in me. That they were willing to be so upfront about it.”

He glances over to meet her eyes again. As soon as brown meets blue she whips hers away, staring directly at the road ahead and clenching her hands.

She can still feel Dipper’s gaze linger on her a few seconds more before he sighs and returns them to driving.

They’re nearing the Shack. Pacifica has mixed feelings at the sight of it. By now she knows exactly what she can do. She can wish him goodnight, run upstairs, try to resist murdering Mabel for getting her into this humiliation, and then just simply play it cool with Dipper for a few days. Keep him at semi-arms length, take awhile to respond to his text messages, anything to remind him who the lovestruck one here is. That he can’t hurt her. Or at least, to let him believe he can’t hurt her. And that he’d better not try. And then, when she’s confident he knows his place, and more importantly, knows her place, she can put on one of the cute sundresses she knows he drools over and then, maybe, just maybe, she’ll do something about all this.

It’s sensible, but she feels sick about it for reasons she can’t quite identify.

Either way, it’s a doomed plan.

About 500 yards or so ahead of the Shack’s driveway, Dipper pulls the truck over and off to the side of the road, directing it to a small gravel clearing that butts up against a nearby stream.

Fishermen use it in the summer in the early mornings, and families of tourists often stop off for a quick dip in the cool water. Dipper and Pacifica themselves have walked here together from the Shack a dozen times or so, sometimes with Mabel, sometimes not, spending warm afternoons skipping stones and splitting a backpack’s worth full of snacks.

Dipper shifts the truck into park and kills the engine, flips off the headlights. If she thought the silence back at the mall, or on the drive here was painful, sitting in small cab of his truck, surrounded by nothing but black outlines of trees and the faint glow of the moon peeking between the branches is absolute torture. She hears Dipper unbuckle his seatbelt and shift in his seat, turning toward her. Quickly, she tries to think of something to ask, anything to keep him on the defense.

“So why didn’t you want me to know?” she says. “You never told me.”

Dipper studies her for a long beat.

“I didn’t want you to think it was a big deal.”

“But why me?”

“You know why, Pacifica,” he says, confident and level.

“Do I?” she feigns weakly, squirming embarrassingly.

It’s the wrong thing to say, and she knows the second it comes out of her mouth. He stares at her another beat, and then gets out the truck with a grunt, running his hands through his hair as he stomps down to the bank of the bubbling creek.

Pacifica is out of the truck and following him before she’s aware of where her feet are taking her.

“Dipper?” she asks, voice tentative and faint.

“We can’t keep doing this, Cif,” he says, clearly frustrated and turning toward her. “You know how I feel about you.” He takes a step in her direction. “You know I’m crazy about you,” he adds, as though he doesn’t want her to have any room to misinterpret or maneuver her way out of the confrontation. “I know you do. Heck, practically everyone knows how I feel about you.”

And there it is, he’s put it all out in the open there. Goddammit, why did he have to go and do that?

She takes a breath, meeting his eyes. The earnestness she sees humbles her. And she knows she cares about him too much to continue to pretend she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, not when he’s put his cards on the table like this.

“Okay, yes, I do now” she says, walking a bit closer. “I did not know before tonight though, I promise. ”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“It’s, like, incredibly obvious.”

“Well, okay. I suspected. Like I knew on some level, but I didn’t know-know.” She reaches for his hand, gentle. “You never told me.”

He looks down at his hand in hers.

“Well, you do now,” he says after a beat. “The only question left is how you feel.”

She blushes. He knows how she feels. He has to. Why else would she have been following him around tonight? Why else would she find so many excuses to fuss with his hair? Or spend time with him during his long, boring shifts at the Shack’s gift shop?

But why is it so darn important to him that she say it? Doesn’t he realize how terrifying that is?

“I think it’s… incredibly obvious,” she says, stepping forward until they are nearly toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest. She brings her other hand to take his. Holds them both between the two of them. She might not yet be brave enough to say the words, but surely she can show him, can’t she?

Dipper closes his eyes and brings his forehead to hers. She could just push up and connect their lips right now if she wanted. Bypass all the uncomfortable conversation and get right to business. Her stomach does an excited little flip.

But before she can, Dipper speaks.

“Please just tell me, Pacifica,” he begs, voice cracking a little.

“I’m scared,” she says. It comes out unwillingly.

“So am I,” he replies, opening his eyes to search hers. His palm releases her hand to come up and cup her cheek. “But isn’t it worth it?”

She nods.

“So say it,” he says, almost pleadingly. “Please.”

“Why is it so important that I do?”

He searches her eyes. “Because… you’re you, and I’m me. Because you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen— a pageant queen for gods sake—and I’m just some guy.”

Pacifica is shocked to hear his admission. Sure, she might call him dork and nerd and make fun of his textbooks and blogs, but she doesn’t mean it. And it’s no secret that Dipper has grown up nicely over the years, that his shoulders have filled out and his modest muscles have become more defined, that his jawline is sharper but his eyes have retained that same wonderful, warm brown. He’s downright handsome, in fact, especially to Pacifica.

He keeps rambling. “Because you’re smart and funny and wildly out of my league, and if I don’t hear you say it, I’m always going to doubt. I’ll wonder if you just… I dunno, got caught up in a moment, or felt bad and took pity on me,” he finishes.

She’d never stopped to consider that maybe Dipper was feeling the same fear of vulnerability that she has.

She studies his features for a moment, a little in awe. How did she manage to fall for such an honest, insightful, downright good person? And how did he manage to fall for her back?

But Dipper seems to misinterpret her silence as a refusal of some sort. Slowly, sadly, he pulls away and turns to head back toward the driver’s side door.

Pacifica’s mind starts buzzing with panic. No, no, no. Wrong. He doesn’t understand. She has to make him.

“Wait!” she shouts.

She grabs him by his shoulder, roughly spinning him back to her.

In an instant, she doesn’t even know how she does it, her lips are pressed to his. Hard.

They’re rough, chapped, a little cold and absolutely perfect.

His hands fly to her hips, grabbing them in a vice-like grip, like he’s afraid she might slip away.

Her arms move up to wrap around his neck, threading into his hair as she presses her entirely body forward and  flush with his. He presses forward too, sending her bent backwards just a little as he deepens the kiss.

She breaks it a moment later, gasping as she inhales deep gulps of air, eyes wide and honest, and the words fall so easily now, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

"I love you,” she gasps out. “I’m in love with you. That’s how I feel.”

It surprises even her.

But there it is. Her heart is in his hands now. She’s scared still, yes, but the fear is overwhelmingly dwarfed by the relief, excitement and utter joy at finally naming this thing between them for what it is. At telling him what her heart has known deep down for ages.

Dipper’s eyes go wide and he lets out a small noise, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. She catches the briefest glimpse of his wide smile before his lips are on hers again and he’s spinning her and walking her backwards until her back is pressed up against the grill of his truck. The metal digs into her back a little, but she couldn’t care less as she wraps her arms around his shoulders and brings a leg up to hook around his calf.

A few moments of pressing, gasping, and squeezing later, he pulls back. Her lips follow his, seeking more, but he raises a palm to her cheek to stop her. His eyes find hers, still barely opening.

“I love you too. So fucking much.”

She lets out the silliest, most embarrassing, most joyful laugh she ever has but before she can feel anything but mirth about it, she jumps back into his arms and plants her lips back on his. He chuckles into her smile.

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid,” she mumbles into his lips.

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid too.”

The drive back is far too short. After another good thirty minutes of stolen time spent down by the riverbank, the two concede that Mabel will only be able to make so many excuses for their absence before the grunkles begin to wonder and start asking questions.

She spends the entire ride squished up against his side in the truck’s front bench seat, unwilling to be further from him than strictly necessary. He voices no complaints as he drives with one arm on the steering wheel and the other slung around her, holding her close.

Mabel jumps out the front door of the Shack the minute they open the truck doors, of course. She quickly pulls Pacifica aside and reassures her that there’s nothing to feel bad about, that she and Annie had a nice little chat and there’s no hard feelings and they have plans to go try to meet singles at the pool next weekend now anyway.

Dipper clears his throat as he approaches the girls, sending Mabel a pointed look at he grabs Pacifica’s hand with his, lacing their fingers. Mabel’s eyes go saucer-wide and she bows dramatically, gesturing Dipper and Pacifica inside with a promise not to come upstairs to their shared attic bedroom for at least an hour.

Which is how Pacifica finds herself now, laying on her side on a small twin bed, face-to-face and hands clasped with boy she only just barely let herself admit out loud that she’s nuts about, legs tangled with his as they take in each other’s proximity.

“Sorry I ruined your date,” she whispers after a while, a small mischievous smile on her face.

“No you’re not,” he laughs, good-naturedly.

Pacifica blushes and has the good sense to look ashamed, just a little. She scrunches up her face as she looks at him. “You’re right, I’m not.”

“Eh, it worked out,” he rolls on his back and pulls Pacifica over to his chest. “Mabel will set her up with someone. And honestly, I think she was just looking for friends. You guys would probably get along actually. Maybe you can invite her to hang out.”

Pacifica considers this. “Give me a week or so. I’m still mad she thought she could just swoop in and take what’s mine.”

Dipper raises an eyebrow but lets it go, shaking his head and smiling a little.

“We have got to talk about boundaries though,” he says. “I already have enough trouble with Mabel crossing them left and right, I can’t have both my sister and my girlfriend teaming up against me. You two are scary together.”

“Girlfriend?” Pacifica asks, propping herself up on his chest to look him in the eyes. “Jumping to conclusions there a bit, Pines.”

“You literally just implied that I was your property. I think the least I deserve is being able to call you my girlfriend.”

Pacifica wiggles closer, so that their noses nearly touch.

“Hm, okay. I’ll allow it. But only if I get to call you my boyfriend too.”

“That’s usually how it works.”

Pacifica hums. “Dipper Pines, my boyfriend… My boyfriend, Dipper… My boyfriend, Mason.” She pauses, smiling. “Either way. Okay, yes, I like the sound of it. You can call me yours too, I suppose. Fair is fair.”

She looks at him dreamily and for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, his eyes flit to her lips and he moves in to kiss her again. He doesn’t seem to be able to keep his lips off her, now that he knows that he doesn’t have to.

But just as his lips are about to find hers, a loud “AHEM” breaks the moment.

Stan and Ford stand in the doorway.

The two teens break their embrace and instantly fly to opposite ends of the bed.

“Just friends my ass,” Stan mutters. “This is exactly why you’re not allowed up here when she’s over, kid!”

“Dipper, my boy," Ford chimes in. "I’m sorry but I really do have to agree with Stanley. We both know you’re a respectable young man, but with your hormones being what they are at this age we really can’t—“

“Fine! Fine, I’m leaving!” Dipper shouts, turning beet red and sitting up. “Just— stop. Stop talking.”

Dipper grabs a pillow and jumps from the bed, the bounce sending Pacifica up a couple inches. She giggles at the red flush on Dipper’s face, knowing deep down that hers matches.

“Damn teenagers,” Stanley mutters.

“Can I, y’know, say good night ?” Dipper sends his uncles a pointed look, gesturing toward Pacifica.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan mutters as he and Ford back out of the room and make their way downstairs. “Keep it PG though. I’m not about to explain to your parents why there’s a whole new set of little Pines twins on their way.”

Dipper groans and flops on the bed, hiding his face in the comforter. Pacifica flushes herself but giggles until she’s curled up sideways on the bed too, facing him.

“Quickly, kid!” Stan calls from the stairs.

Dipper sighs and pulls his face from the pillow, peeking an eye out at her.

“You sure you want to get involved with this family?”

She laughs as she scoots closer, pressing one long, final kiss to his lips. Just for the evening. There will be plenty more kisses to come in the morning.

“Absolutely,” she grins. “Where do I sign up?”