Chapter Text
She came in like a hurricane
Wearing boots and diamond rings
With a fox fur on her shoulder, she set me wondering
— “Silver Heels,” Fleetwood Mac
1973
“You forgot to square the first parentheses.”
Over the din of the hazy lecture hall, her voice is clear and piercing, like a stream running out of the mountains.
And Mason “Dipper” Pines, prodigy and golden boy of Backupsmore University, stops dead in his tracks. The chalk stalls in his hands as a hush falls over the room.
When he turns to face his Calculus III students—or really his peers, he is only an undergraduate—it’s clear who has made the comment. She’s sitting right in the front, purple notebook open and pencil in hand. The only girl in the class.
And to add insult to injury, she’s mind-numbingly hot.
Mortified that his confidence in front of the class is so easily shaken, Dipper manages to stammer out, “the first parentheses you said?”
She nods, and somehow the small motion is stately, like a queen addressing her subjects. The field of his (admittedly very bad) vision narrows, and it’s just her, this blond bombshell correcting him on his math.
Girls who look like this don’t really talk to Dipper.
He throws his spiraling brain aside and glances down at his notes. She’s right.
“Oops, that’s my bad. Thank you for that correction, Miss…”
“Northwest.” And she tosses her long blond hair over her shoulder.
***
He’s not proud of it, but Dipper is distracted for the rest of the class. So far, pretty girls have not been an issue he’s had to deal with in his upper-level math classes. His twin sister would have called it institutional misogyny, and though they hadn’t spoken in a year, he’d be inclined to agree with her. Dipper’s college life thus far has been a real sausage fest. And when there were girls in his classes, they often tried to blend in, understandably so. But Miss Northwest seemed to be trying to stand out. He supposes it’s working.
As the class lets out, Dipper’s students stop by the front to pick up their last quizzes. Most of the grades are bad, pretty typical of both Backupsmore and higher-level math. The curve saves a lot of people.
Unfortunately, Dipper’s stammering over Miss Northwest has not escaped the notice of the Calculus III boys club.
“Smith, here’s your quiz.” Dipper glances down at the grade. 30 percent. Yikes. “And swing by mine or the professor’s office hours if you need it.”
“I bet you’d like blondie to swing by your—”
“That’s enough.” Dipper goes beet red. “Have a good weekend.”
“You too, Pines.” And he winks.
For fuck’s sake.
Miss Northwest is the last person to pick up her quiz. She struts up in a mini dress and knee-high boots, her blond hair swaying behind her.
“Pacifica Northwest,” she says, and holds her hand out to receive the paper.
95 percent. Damn. No wonder she corrected him.
“Good work, Miss Northwest.” He can feel the blush creeping up his neck again.
She rolls her eyes. “Jeez, just call me Pacifica. We’re the same age. What are you? Like 19?”
“And a half.”
She—Pacifica—cracks a smile at that. “Touché, Mason Pines.”
“I go by Dipper, actually.”
“Why?”
The shaggy hair Dipper’s been sporting since he started college very affectively hides his birthmark. His embarrassing bodily anomaly is the last thing he wants this stunning woman to know about him so, he just says, “long story.”
“Okay, whatever. I also wanted to ask if I could do the group project alone.”
“Oh, you’ll have to talk to professor—”
“I already did. And he said no. But I was wondering if you’d put in a good word for me to professor and tell him you think it would be fine.”
“Well, I…”
“Look, Dipper, you know damn well that these idiots would only drag me down. They’d make me do all the work and comment on my tits while I did it. I’m better off by myself.” She pointed at the 95 sitting between them. “And you know I can do it. I’ve skipped half of these damn classes to go tanning and I’m still eating these nerds alive.”
Dipper is silent for a moment. Pacifica holds his gaze sternly. She must be practiced in getting what she wants. He does have to admit that she makes points, especially about the other students and their “guy talk.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to the professor.”
Her stoic faces breaks into a smile, and Dipper can’t decide if he’d like it to be sunny or rainy tomorrow.
***
“My Calc III TA is hot.”
Pacifica is laying on the side of the pool in a blue bikini, tanning oil slathered all over her body. Tiffany, her roommate, is half asleep next to her, flopped on her own beach towel. The California sun is relentless, but so is Pacifica’s tanning schedule. Lying on her purple beach towel is her calculus book, a pencil, and a loose pages of practice problems.
“Your what is huh?” Tiffany asks, cracking open one eye.
“I said my Calc III TA is hot.”
“Really? Or is he just another average looking nerd?”
“Shut up, Tiff,” Pacifica says, but she has to admit she has a point. “He’s a total nerd, but he is actually hot.”
“Okay, describe him.”
Pacifica closes her eyes, conjuring up images of Dipper at the chalkboard scribbling down equations. The way his eyes lit up when he arrived at the answer. Or how he absentmindedly fiddled with his hair when he was thinking.
“Brown hair, you know that shaggy cut that guys have. Kinda curly. And a cute face. Like a nice jawline and these dark green eyes. Wears glasses, nice hands, you know.”
“Okay, okay, I see the vision. What about the body?”
“I mean he’s a nerd so, he’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger or anything. But he wears these tight jeans and he’s got a nice ass. And broad shoulders.”
Tiffany laughed. “God, you have such a type.”
“What?”
“Nerds!”
“I’m only telling you this because I might actually have to go to calculus class more instead of skipping to tan with you.”
“’Cause you want to look at your TA’s ass?”
“Maybe…”
“Paz, that’s why I love you.”
***
Much to her chagrin, Pacifica is at a Nerd Party.
She’s in her signature tall brown boots and a white minidress, looking too damn good to be standing in a basement with a bunch of losers who look like they spend all their time playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. But she’s at this end of the semester Nerd Party, anyway. And out of the goodness of her heart, no less.
Candy Chiu, the only other girl in her computer engineering class, had become Pacifica’s friend due to circumstance more than anything else. On the first day of class, Candy had sat down next to her and simply said, “I’m Candy Chiu. We should be friends.” Then they were.
Candy was brilliant, not only when it came to computers, but with her criticisms of their stinky male classmates. She could make Pacifica laugh like no one else. While computer engineering might have brought them together, it was really their classmates’ B.O. that solidified the friendship. Not only that, but they quickly realized that they’d both come from the small town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. At first, Pacifica’s blood had run cold at the realization that Candy must know who she is—Pacifica Northwest, disgraced heiress left to work her ass off at Greasy’s Diner just to make enough to partially finance her first year at a shitty university. Her, a Northwest, the first in generations to actually work.
It soon became obvious that while Candy knew, she didn’t care. She was someone who gave people chances. Pacifica was a bit embarrassed to admit how grateful she was to have received one of those chances.
She is only at this Nerd Party because she loves Candy. Now Pacifica is standing in the corner nursing a cheap beer one of the boys handed her. Candy is off socializing with some people from the aerospace club, and Grenda, Candy’s best friend, is flirting her ass off with some Austrian exchange student. So Pacifica is left by herself with a terrible beer and a wasted outfit. She’d thrifted this designer dress for next to nothing—not that anyone here would care. At least they’re playing Fleetwood Mac. Pacifica fucking loves Fleetwood Mac.
“Oh shit, Miss Northwest, I mean, Pacifica?”
Pacifica’s eyes snap up in shock at the sound of a familiar voice. In front of her is a clearly tipsy Dipper Pines, drink in hand and just a few buttons of his shirt done. Pacifica’s stomach flips at his disheveled state. This is why she likes nerds. It’s ten times as satisfying to see them unbuttoned.
“Dipper Pines,” she says with a smile, fully preparing to flirt her ass off.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I’m here with Candy Chiu.”
“Oh yeah, Candy told my roommate that she and Grenda would be bringing a friend, I just had no idea it would be you.”
“Well, here I am,” Pacifica says.
“Do you want another drink?” He gestured to her beer.
“What, do I not seem like a beer girl?”
Dipper shrugged. “No, not really.”
“Then you’re not as dumb as you look, Pines.”
“I’ve got some vodka and orange juice I’m hiding in my room, if you wanna come up and get some.”
Damn. Forward.
“Sure,” Pacifica tries to make it sound like no big deal, but it really is a massive, massive deal. Going to her hot TA’s room? Maybe Nerd Parties aren’t so bad.
When they pass through the kitchen, Pacifica shoots Candy a maniacal grin. Candy has to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. Thank God, Grenda is nowhere in sight, because there’s no way she could have kept her cool. She and Candy had heard countless descriptions of her hot calculus TA’s shoulders straining against his math club t-shirts.
As they walk up the stairs, Dipper is silent and awkward. Pacifica barely notices. She’s too busy rapidly applying a coat of lipstick. Bright red, of course.
Dipper’s room is a mess. There are clothes and books piled all over the floor, and math theorems literally taped on the walls. To top it all off, there’s a poster of Bigfoot hanging over the bed. Inviting.
To his credit, Dipper immediately apologizes for the state of things. “I’m sorry it’s a mess, I wasn’t expecting anyone up here.”
“No worries,” Pacifica says, even as her nose is wrinkling up involuntarily. “I’m not that much of a princess.” Though she will admit, there was some growing pains when she was forced to get used to life without a maid. “But I do expect you to make my drink.”
Dipper flushes bright red. “I’m on it.”
As Dipper makes her drink, something else catches Pacifica’s eye.
“Holy fucking shit. Is that a Xerox Alto?”
Before she knows it, she’s darted over to the desk. The personal computer, the world’s first, sits innocuously on his desk, as if it was no big deal. “Dipper!” she shrieks again, no longer worried about her drink. “How the fuck did you get this? These things cost a fortune!”
Pacifica would never consider herself a nerd, but her one true nerdy trait was subscribing to computer news magazines. The articles on the Xerox Alto were marked with sticky tabs. But to see one in front of her, in her hot TA’s bedroom, that was a shock.
“Damnit, Pines, answer the question!”
Dipper looked a bit sheepish, but also slightly amused at her reaction. “Oh, it’s a ‘loan’ from one of the professors I did research with last summer.”
“He gave you this thing?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m supposed to work on some coding stuff, and then give it back, but yeah, I guess he sorta just gave it to me.”
“I thought you weren’t a computer person.”
“I’m not really, but that guy liked me I guess and so…”
For a moment, Pacifica was enraged by the injustice of it all. Men in this world just get everything. But then she remembered there was a Xerox Alto sitting right in front of her.
“Would you turn this thing on?”
***
Maybe Pacifica fit in better at the Nerd Party than she’d like to admit. Instead of drinking or dancing, she spent the entire party exploring every feature of that Xerox Alto to the point that even Dipper didn’t know what some of the features did.
It was two in the morning when they finally emerged from Dipper’s room. Of course, Candy and Grenda were there with shit-eating grins on their face, surely expecting one of Pacifica’s stories about making the most of her birth control pill. But no, all Pacifica could tell them was that she spent hours messing around with his computer. Literally. That wasn’t even a euphemism for anything.
“They do say computers are the gateway to sex,” Candy says.
“No one says that, Candy,” Pacifica answers.
“They will one day.”
***
The next day, there’s a note on the front door of Pacifica’s dorm. Of course, Candy told Dipper’s roommate where Pacifica lives.
The note says, “My computer is your computer. Come over any time. -Dipper”