Animal Joy

Chapter 1: An Animal Life

AN: This is part of a series of Gravity Falls fics that I have planned. It takes place after 'Northwest Mystery Mansion', and before another story on my account called Hi, My Name Is: _.

Oh, and if you got a notification about this story because you've followed me as an author, check out my profile page for some very important content updates.

Enjoy!

They hadn't taken her insolence very well. Her parents, that is. It certainly was not proper Northwest fashion to let the common rabble into the upper world, the upper city. Nor was it keenly looked upon for a Northwest to fulfill an honest agreement if there was nothing for the family to gain. Doing either would upset the balance of power, the way things are, the way things are supposed to be.

Pacifica managed to do both in one night.

Improbable? Yes, but she managed it.

The party, in which the common riff-raff and the uncommon privileged had intermingled, was coming to a close. The ghost had been caught, the skeleton laid to rest: but now a new threat was rearing itself. Pacifica smiled and waved politely as the guests slowly made their exit, each heading toward the metal gates she had known all of her life. The party seemed to have been a hit: the snooty and prideful allowed themselves to exit with the lower dwellers. At the same time.

Quite the achievement, she patted herself on the back. She never imagined that acting separate from the machine she was raised in, even for one night, could bring two split groups together. Of course, she wouldn't have been able to see the hidden side of herself if it wasn't for a certain mystery hunter. He waved to her and smiled as he made his exit. She waved, smiled back.

He looked good in a suit.

Ironic. Had her parents not requested Dipper Pines' assistance, she never would have met him. He's opened a side of her she's never seen. Does she want to explore it? Does she want to delve into this new life that had, for the briefest moment in time, felt more real than anything she had known before? She frowned when his back had turned. She knew she would be brought her back to reality, her reality. It was inevitable and unavoidable. After all, they hadn't taken her insolence very well.

Her parents, that is.

"I'd bet you think you've done the town a real service, don't you, Pacifica?" Her mother. Makeup on a made-up face, stretched in Botox and teeming with clear signs of wealth. Pacifica looked up at her with a seeming indifference. "It's clear to me now that you aren't taking our family's stature very seriously!"

"Mom," she began, but stopped herself. No point in arguing. Can't.

"Don't you mom me little missy! I-"

"Ahem." An interruption, not a throat-clearing. Preston stepped forward as his dutiful wife stepped aside. His hands behind his back, his suit in impeccable alignment. "I raised you, Pacifica Elise Northwest, to be anodyne. Do you know what that means?"

Regrettably not. It would have saved her another lecture.

Preston walked to the bookshelf and fingered his way to the dictionary. Webster. Volume A to F. 2015 edition. He returned to her with the book open in his hands, and recited from the pages, "Anodyne: extremely unlikely to provoke dissent or offense." He snapped the book shut. "Now, I don't suppose you can tell me what you've done that may have caused dissent or offense?"

Enough. "We both know what I did, dad."

He scoffed. "Indeed."

Her fists clenched in her dress gloves as her eyes narrowed. "Maybe what I did should have come across your mind a little sooner."

"Now Pacifica," His voice was unreasonably calm, "Don't think for a minute that what you did was for the good-"

She couldn't stop herself, "Of course it was! People were going to die! Or did I miss the whole 'ghost' thing-" She stopped and winced, her ears ringing with the machine. The radiance of normal sound replaced by that deafening jingle.

Preston stopped ringing. "Interrupting me is not-"

Gall. Bravery. Stupidity. She met his gaze. "That bell isn't going to work anymore."

A strike. Her father showed no joy in building the strength to strike her. Her father showed no love in finishing the sweep of his arm, his backhand across her cheek. She fell to the ground from his dog-like strength, and somehow lost the will to look back up at him. Or at her mother, who stood by. Dutifully.

The panic room seemed like a good idea now.

He turned his back to her. "Go to your room. Get out of my sight." He never raised his voice. That was the most freighting of all. His tone was still unreasonably calm. She stood, her inner voice still screaming in pain, and took the stairs upward. The upper city.

"You're a disgrace."

They couldn't lock her in her room, but they knew she wouldn't leave. Her pillow was drenched in tears, her failure evident. She had lost the fight. Everything she had learned with Dipper was fading. Dying. The fact that she couldn't stand for herself proved it: she was just another link in the world's worst family chain. What was it Dipper had said when she went to the Mystery Shack earlier today?

"You're the worst."

He seemed to change his mind about her over the course of the night, but he was right. She was the worst, and she knew it. Her parents held her in a tight grip, one she couldn't even try to escape. Her other side stayed other, her inner voice remained inner.

But, she pulled the lever! She let them in! Does that mean nothing to her?

She wanted to scream. She wanted to believe she could be saved, but you cannot break thirteen years of programming, not even with a pulled lever and a broken bell. Thirteen years of black and white, right and wrong, proper and improper. The Northwest name was true and strong: It lived on in her. Dipper was wrong, you can't change what you are. Especially if what you are is the only loose end in a long line of liars, cheats, scandals, and villains.

Anger started to take her. And with that anger came an idea. She snuck out of her room, well-aware that her parents would be asleep at this late an hour. She retraced her and Dipper's steps until she found the hidden room, the one with a visual history of deceit, of the Northwest line.

If she could only take one painting at a time, so be it. She'd have to start small, at least until she could get some kind of apparatus that could carry the larger portraits. She grabbed the first small painting she could find, one about 2 feet wide and across. Strange: It was just a smaller version of another, much larger portrait in the room. Two men shaking hands before a hilly landscape. The Northwest's fingers crossed behind his back.

She snuck back to her room and opened her window. From her closet, she removed a long string of clothing articles tied together. The makeshift rope had been used on a few occasions when sneaking out was a preferable option to staying home. An artifact from rebellious days.

Days that had quickly been rung out of her.

She tied the rope to the leg of her bed, checked the knot, and made sure to grab the party dress she was wearing earlier. Out the window, she climbed down and found her way groundside. She crept through the hole in the impermeable fences, the one hidden behind the bushes. Once she was free of the confines, she charged toward her destination: Lake Gravity Falls.

Her slippers would undoubtedly be ruined after running through the trees and emptied streets. Her nightgown would probably be spared. Before she knew it, the moonlit sands and lake sat idly before her. She took a deep breath. She thought about saying something prolific, but nothing came. She gave the painting one last look, then launched it as she would a Frisbee. It made little distance across the still waters, much to her discontent, but a wind picked up the slack. Pushed her ancestor out further into the water.

She held up the dress. That sea-foam. She let go, let the wind carry it outward across the lake. It landed a good distance further than the portrait had been, and it sank as water poured on top of it. What dragged it down?

Pacifica wanted to smile, wanted to feel free. But she wasn't. Never would be. She cast away what she could get her hands on, and it hadn't done a damn thing. Disappointment swelled. Anger remained. Her blood surged as she barely remembered why she was doing this. There was no retribution. One Northwest could never abandon centuries of lies.

Right?

She sat, defeated, in the sands. Held her knees to her chest, unsure of what she had done, and why. She checked her watch: 2 AM. She certainly had time to spare before her parents would wake, but she was too angry to care. Too disappointed. Too empty. Too drained.

She picked up her head when her peripheral vision caught a figure walking toward her. She panicked for a slight second, but, turning her head, she found no reason to be afraid of Dipper Pines. What was he doing here?

"I could ask you the same." His voice was quiet and collected. As if he had all of the answers: asking a question like that was just a formality.

"Go away, Dipper."

"Insomnia? Me too. I haven't slept a full night's sleep in years." He sat down a good three feet from her. "I come out here to soothe my nerves. Sometimes."

She snapped, "I am not an insomniac."

"Pretty defensive, though."

"What are you, my therapist?"

He cocked his head, "No, just observant."

Clearly, she didn't want this to go further. It was this dork, after all, who had planted the idea of freedom into her head. Damn him.

He wouldn't let it go. She wasn't an insomniac, and she certainly wasn't late-night fishing. "How did your parents take it?"

"How do you think?" Still snappy. He frowned, said nothing. "They 'couldn't be more disappointed' in me. I've 'treaded on the family's rightful place'." Those misquotes were intentional: Pacifica didn't want him knowing how her father had reacted when the bell broke.

"So? I told you that you don't have to hold yourself to their expectations. If you don't want to be a traditional Northwest, why should you be?"

Her voice grew soft, "…You make it sound so easy."

"Shouldn't it be?"

She paused, contemplating. It didn't take her long to turn her head from him. "No. You don't live with it, that constant pressure to be more than you can be." A tension swelled in her throat, "To stay in the lines. To not speak out. To live in constant…" She couldn't even say it. Dipper filled in the gap,

"…Fear?"

A pause, then a nod.

"Fear of who?"

"Take a guess, smart-ass." That anger was coming back.

He turned his head toward the lake, its waters bending the moonlight around its surface. "I want to hear you say it."

She raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

Dipper smiled, "A good friend of mine told me that actually talking about what's bothering you can go a long way." He closed his eyes and breathed the water-air deeply. "I didn't believe her at first, but she was right. So tell me: Who are you afraid of?"

Pacifica was silent for a long time. She knew the answer, he knew the answer, so why couldn't she just say it? Was she that afraid of them? Too scared to admit the truth when they weren't even around?

"…My parents."

He took a breath in. "That makes sense." He didn't seem to offer some kind of apologetic sympathies, of which she was thankful for. Still seemed strange, what was his game?

"I guess it does."

They were both silent for another moment. Dipper took his gaze from the cloudless starlight and looked lakeside once again. "You know, when I said 'you can change who you are', I wasn't lying."

"Yes you were." She replied quickly and bitterly. She still could not look toward him. "Even if you didn't know it. I didn't take you for an optimist."

That hurt. His mind was never clouded, or at least he hoped it wasn't, with unrealistic expectations. "I guess I just didn't elaborate as well as I could have."

His pride for finally getting to use the word 'elaborate' passed quickly. Dipper had to admit, he may have been biting off more than he could chew: He wasn't her therapist, and he wasn't even sure if he was her friend. Less than a day ago, he openly admitted to her that she was, in fact, the worst. Helping her with something so daunting? Now, this was uncharted territory, and Dipper couldn't say no to a trip into the unknown. He continued,

"I hope I didn't let you think you could change in one night." She looked downward, sullen at her foolish and hasty interpretation. "You really have to work at this. If you want to change, you need to act."

He was looking directly at her now, the only thing separating them was a few feet of moonlit lake sand and the night air. "You've got to start doing things you could never see yourself doing. It sounds simplistic, but that's the best way I can put it." Her expression showed a thoughtfulness, so Dipper seemed to be making progress. "Letting the party open and fulfilling a Northwest promise was a great way to start, but you have to keep going."

Now, it seemed, he was losing her. "I can't. I can't upset them anymore then I already have. They'd…" She gently palmed her cheek where her father had bestowed his dominance. Tears welled, but she could not show such weakness (the Northwest line had taught her at least that much). She looked away and silently choked back tears.

Dipper resisted the urge to reach out to her. If there's one thing he's learned from Mabel, it's that a simple embrace can easily end a cry. Pacifica, it seemed, would not accept such comfort. "I wouldn't ask you to do that." He paused, and an idea came up front. "Why don't you come on a mystery hunt with Mabel and I tomorrow? We've got a map that leads-"

"Like, a supernatural hunt?" She interjected. "I think I've had enough of ghosts for a while."

"Well, not a ghost. Not exactly." He rubbed the back of his neck. "The caves that our map leads to: we don't really know what we'll find there. Could be ghosts. Or Gnomes. Or maybe nothing at all, that's the mystery."

"…I don't know."

"Like I said, it's certainly something you wouldn't normally do. Could open you to a new way of approaching things." Still facing her, he stood from the sand. "If you want to change this, it's as good a place to start as any." He reached his hand downward toward her, "C'mon. I'll take you home, you can give it some thought overnight."

Unsurprisingly, she hesitated. She looked up at him as he said, "There's always a first step, Pacifica."

A reliance on others was not her way. She convinced herself that she wouldn't take his hand, but something in Dipper's eyes recognized this. His gaze and smile were soft, and he refused to pull back his hand when she did not take it. Does he understand?

And so, she resigned herself. "This is not going to work," she admitted as she took his hand. He pulled her up,

"But at least you're going to try."

Chapter 2 will come soon!

Live and love,

JR (Taspiron)