"Are we there yet?"
"Just a few more miles, sweetie."
Erin groaned loudly. She hated road trips, even if this wasn't a particularly long one. Then again, she hated almost everything. Why did her parents have to take her to this place anyway?
"I still don't get why we have to go this 'Mystery Shack'." She grumbled, crossing her arms and sinking in her seat.
"Because it's the coolest place on Earth!" Her mother replied as she glanced back at her. "Your uncle Dipper and I spent some of the best moments of our lives there."
"And it's the place where I met your mother." Her father added, shooting a grin at his wife.
"Yes, I know. You've told me that story a million times, already." Erin rolled her eye.
"It'll be fun!" Mabel insisted. "Soos and Melody's son will be there, so you'll have someone to play with."
"Yippee..." Erin replied drily.
The car came to halt in front of what seemed to be a run-down cabin in the middle of the woods. Erin raised a brow as she read the sign on the roof, finding it ironic that the letter S from the word 'Shack' was hanging off, giving the impression that it was called 'Mystery Hack'.
"This is it?" she asked as she got out of the car. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"Don't judge a book by its cover, sweetie." Said Bill as he wrapped an arm around his wife.
Erin released an exasperated sigh as she followed her parents into the old tourist trap. She wanted so badly to get out of there, but she knew it was impossible. Every time she teleported to another location, or even another dimension, her father could always track her down.
The bell above the door gave an annoying ring as they entered, catching the attention of a heavy-built woman with wavy light brown hair who was behind the check-out counter.
"Hello and welcome to the Mystery Shack!" she greeted them with a bright grin. "Are you ready for a world of mystery?"
"Hi, Melody! It's me, Mabel!" the brunette declared, gesturing towards herself. "Dipper's sister!"
"Oh my gosh, you're Mr. Pines' great-niece!" Melody gasped as she ran up to Mabel and gave her a hug. "How have you been? I heard you had a baby!"
"I did, she's right here." Mabel knelt down and put an arm around Erin's shoulders. "Erin, this is Melody. Melody, Erin."
"Hey there, Erin!" Melody smiled down at her.
"Hey." Erin mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
"Where's your son?" Mabel inquired as she looked around. "I remember he was born a few months before Erin."
"Ash is probably up in his room playing videogames, as always." Melody chuckled.
"Hey Mel, does my bowtie look OK?" an overweight man in a suit asked as he entered the room whilst fiddling with his maroon bowtie. "Took me forever to get it right."
"Soos!" Mabel squealed, making the Hispanic man look up and smile brightly at her.
"Hambone!" he exclaimed as she ran up to him and gave him a tight hug. "I wasn't expecting you!"
"I wanted to surprise you!" she said as she released him and gestured towards her husband. "You remember Bill, right?"
"The triangle demon dude?" he asked as he eyed the blond. "Yeah, I remember. Love the new look, by the way."
"Much obliged, Question Mark." He thanked him, tipping his top hat.
"Is this your kid?" Soos inquired as he made his way towards Erin and knelt down in front of her. "She looks just like you! What's your name, cutie pie?"
"It's Erin, and I'd appreciate it if you would get out of my face." She threatened him, her eye starting to glow bright red.
"Whoa, she's a tough one." He chuckled as he stood up. "Must get it from her pop, right?"
"You better believe it." Bill declared proudly.
"Mom, have you seen my Intendo ES charger?" asked a young boy with messy dirty-blond hair as he entered the room with a small videogame console in his hands. "I can't find it any – "
He silenced himself as soon as he realized there were other people in the room besides his parents. His gaze fell upon Erin and he felt his breathing become erratic, whilst the girl just stared at him uninterestedly.
"Hi there, you must be Ash!" Mabel greeted him as she walked up to him and tousled his hair. "My name is Mabel and I'm an old friend of your dad's."
"H-hi…" he stuttered, looking utterly terrified.
"I've been dying to meet you!" she declared as she turned towards her daughter. "Erin, this is Ash. He's the boy we've been telling you about."
Erin didn't say a single word. She just kept staring at Ash, observing how nervous he looked.
"Ash, why don't you take Erin up to your room and play with her?" Melody suggested.
Ash's face seemed to pale as his eyes widened, feeling drops of sweat roll down his forehead. He kept himself silent, his mouth feeling unnaturally dry.
Erin could see the boy wasn't reacting anytime soon, so she rolled her eye and sighed exasperatedly as she walked up to him and grabbed his arm, proceeding to pull him up the stairs.
"Let's just get this over with." She grumbled, ignoring his nervous whimpers as they disappeared up the stairwell.
"Is Ash OK?" Mabel asked Melody. "He looked really uncomfortable."
"He'll be fine, he's just really shy around girls." Melody laughed.
Mabel smirked and cocked a brow, pacing her hands on her hips.
"I ship it." She said, a wide grin across her face.
"You WHAT?!" Bill shouted over Melody's giggling fit.
"Dude, totally!" Soos agreed. "Those two are perfect for each other!"
"You're kidding, right?" Bill scoffed.
"I wonder what their couple name will be. Arin? Ersh? Ooh, I know! Erainsh!"
"Are you out of your mind?! They're just kids!"
"Yeah Soos, don't be ridiculous." Melody cut in.
"Thank you!" Bill exclaimed.
"It's clearly Ashrin."
Bill groaned as the others laughed heartily at Melody's remark.
Ash slowly opened the door to his room and stood aside to let Erin enter first, feeling every inch of his body tremble in the process. His nerves were shot, not only because there was a girl in his presence, but now there was a girl in his room. He never knew how to talk to girls when they approached him, always making a fool of himself when he tried, so at some point he just decided to avoid them completely. But there was definitively no way to avoid this.
Erin looked around the messy room. Her first doubt was why he slept in the attic, but now there was another question in her mind.
"Why are there two beds in here?" she inquired, turning to face the frightened boy.
"M-m-my dad s-says the-they've a-always been he-here." He stuttered, doing his best to avoid eye contact with the girl before him. "P-plus he s-says I m-might have a si-sibling s-soon."
"You know, you can talk to me like a normal person." She said with a frown. "I know I look weird, but that doesn't give you the right to talk to me like that."
"S-sorry." Ash apologized as he looked down and rubbed his arm. "I-I get really n-nervous around girls."
Erin rolled her eyed and continued inspecting the room, her gaze falling upon a computer on a nearby desk. The screen was on and showed what seemed to be the pause screen of a videogame with a bunch of animatronic animals.
"What's that?" she asked, walking up to the desk.
"That's Five Nights at Hoo-Ha's." Ash stated as he took a seat at the desk. "It's a videogame where you're the security guard working the night shift at Hoo-Ha Owl's Pizzamatronic Jamboree and you have to avoid getting killed by the animatronics."
"Sounds violent." Erin commented, a hint of a smile appearing on her lips.
"It gets pretty scary sometimes." Ash declared, looking down at his keyboard and twiddling his thumbs for a second before looking back up at Erin. "Wo-would you like to p-play?"
"I don't know how."
"I-I could teach you." He gave her a hopeful smile. "W-what do you say?"
Erin simply shrugged and raised a hand towards a chair at the other side of the room, which moved forward towards her. Ash gasped as he watched her move the chair towards the desk and take a seat.
"H-how did you do that?" he asked in awe, his eyes as wide as dinner plates.
"I'm half demon from my dad's side." She said blankly, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"That is so… cool!" Ash beamed.
Erin's eye widened slightly. She had been called many things in her short existence: weirdo, freak, even atrocity… but never cool. She couldn't help but give Ash a tiny smile.
They played the game for what felt like hours. Erin got the hang of it quickly, and Ash decided to let her play by herself while he gave her some tips as she went. He was amazed she didn't react to any of the jumpscares. It was like she had nerves of steel.
After a while Ash simply observed her as she kept checking the security cameras and turning the lights on and off, admiring what a fast learner she was. His gaze drifted towards her hands, one on the mouse and the other on the keyboard. The sleeves of her black sweater were so long that they covered her hands completely, yet she didn't seem to be bothered by that at all. He couldn't help but wonder if she was the one who wanted it to be like that in the first place.
"I can also read minds, you know." She suddenly spoke up, making him jump in his seat.
"S-sorry!" he quickly apologized. "I was just wondering why your sleeves are covering your hands."
"My hands get really cold."
Ash looked up at her face and observed her skin. He could see now how pale it actually was and could feel cold radiating from it. He was so mesmerized he didn't even notice he had raised his hand and slowly brought it up to touch her cheek. He immediately retracted his fingers upon feeling the unnatural iciness of her skin.
"What're you doing?" Erin ask, looking at him from the corner of her eye.
"Your skin is really cold." He stated as he looked down at his fingers. "It's like you don't have any blood inside you."
"Yeah yeah, I know." She groaned and rolled her eye. "I'm weird, I get it. Just leave it alone."
"I didn't mean it like that. I just meant it was unusual, but since your half demon I guess that's… normal?"
Erin turned to look at the boy on her left, closely examining his face and reading his facial expressions. Other than looking a bit nervous and uncomfortable about how close she was to his face, she couldn't find any signs of falsehood.
"You know, you're the first person who didn't freak out after knowing what I really am." She declared, narrowing her eye menacingly. "What's your deal?"
"I-I don't know… It might be because I play a lot of scary videogames and I really like supernatural stuff." he explained himself, nervously looking down at his lap and scratching his arm. "Plus I don't have any friends and you seem really cool, so I really wanted you to like me."
"Wait… are you saying you want me to be your friend?"
Ash looked up and nodded, making Erin's eye widen fully. Nobody had ever tried to initiate a conversation with her, let alone tried to become friends with her. She was used to scaring everyone away, but now here was this boy who wasn't afraid of her and actually wanted to be her friend. For the first time in her life, she didn't know how to react.
"I've never had any friends before…" she said incredulously.
"I guess we're on the same boat, then." Ash chuckled.
"I don't know what to say… What are friends supposed to do, anyway?"
"I think they're supposed to hang out and have lunch together. Stuff like that."
"I guess I could give it a shot."
"Really?" Ash exclaimed gleefully.
"But don't expect me to act all chummy towards you. And if you ever try something funny…" She rolled up her sleeve and conjured a black flame on the palm of her hand. "… I'll make you regret your very existence."
He quickly nodded, feeling sweat start to form on his forehead.
"Good." She closed her hand and extinguished the flame. "Now let me finish the final night."
She turned back towards the computer screen and resumed clicking on the mouse and the keyboard, determined to finish the game. Ash tried to focus his attention on the game as well, but he was too giddy. He just grinned to himself as he thought about the fact that he had finally made a friend. And not just any friend, a half demon friend with supernatural powers!
He turned his head slightly to gaze at Erin, thinking about the good times they were going to have as friends. If all went well, they could even become best friends… and perhaps even more than that.
AUTHOR'S NOTE (PLEASE READ)
Here's another thing a lot of you wanted to read about: Erin making a friend. Good thing I had planned to write about this a while ago :)
You guys remember Ash, right? He was mentioned at the end of Catching a Shooting Star and was born around halfway through Spawn of Cipher, so he's a few months older than Erin.
I plan to make Ash and Erin's friendship take a step forward in a future one-shot, so that's basically why I used their ship name as the title for this one. Well, that and because I couldn't really think of a better one x'D
I might make a ref sheet for Ash and Erin. And if enough people want to, I might create an ask blog for them on Tumblr.