"Dipper!"
The brunet turned at the sound of his name to the teenager walking up the road towards him. Pacifica had changed outfits since he had seen her a few hours ago; gone was the oversized varsity jacket and in its place was a simple black cardigan. She'd also let her hair down for once, although by the way her fingers fidgeted with it she seemed to be regretting the decision.
As she drew closer to his location he was unsurprised to see no change in her choice of t-shirt. It was a lilac purple colour with the phrase 'EXT-ROAR-DINARY!' written above a winking dinosaur.
Dipper knew that Pacifica didn't do fancy well (even before Mabel's somewhat rude note on her list earlier), but he could appreciate how nice she looked in formal attire, whilst still acknowledging that it made her uncomfortable. However he had to admit that her current outfit was much nicer than the dresses he had forced her to wear for events. It was a good blend of the current fashion trends and her preferred style.
"You look nice!" He blurted the moment she stopped moving.
Pacifica blinked then smiled widely at him.
"Thanks, you look good too; better than earlier at least," She peered around him, "No cape, huh? I'm seeing so many sides to you today. Like your back for instance." She prodded him for good measure.
Dipper scowled but her teasing smile managed to crack him. He'd always been weak to her smiles.
"I take it that whatever was causing a problem at the shack ruined your usual attire?"
She flushed, but only momentarily. "Actually, I wanted to dress up a little. I love my jacket, but it's a little scruffy."
"A little?"
She glared.
He waved a hand towards the door to Greasy's Diner. "After you."
Pacifica rolled her eyes and made for the door handle. "Wow, Dip Dop, you won't even open the door for me? Really classy. I thought you rich people had lessons for this stuff."
He merely shrugged in response to her comment as he followed her to a booth near the back. "If you wanted classy we could have gone to the Aquatic Restaurant."
The blonde blanched at the mere mention of the name.
"Never again." She muttered darkly.
Dipper couldn't help ginning at her expense then. "It wasn't that bad. How was I supposed to know the gnomes would target you because Mabel and Gideon had rejected their advances? Even if you were the next logical jump."
At his companion's scowl, Dipper realised he had messed up (less than five minutes in and he already wished he had his list). He tried to back pedal.
"T-that is to say, you're the next obvious choice to a species who's first choice was Gideon. I-I'm sure you'd be the first choice of any other person or species." If that was smooth then sandpaper could be used instead of silk. His face was starting to feel hot.
Pacifica's look of anger was replaced by one of confusion and concern and she retracted her hand that was reaching for the menu.
"Are you okay, Dipper?"
All hints of their playful jesting now gone, he slouched and buried his quickly reddening face in his hands. It wasn't that he disliked her looking at him, in fact it was very much the opposite, but he didn't like her seeing him embarrassed.
After a moment he began rambling into his sleeve.
"Mabel said I had to ask you out on a date and I don't know what I'm doing so I'm probably failing at it and this would be so much easier if you were influenced by money."
There was an uncomfortable silence between the two for about a minute. Dipper was waiting on tenterhooks for some kind of a reaction; laughter, disgust, maybe even consoling.
Eventually he felt a tap on his arm and his brown eyes peeked over the edge of his blue dress shirt sleeve. Pacifica was fiddling with a few strands of hair and he could just make out the slight crease in her skin from the way her eyebrows furrowed.
"Could you, like, repeat everything you just said? I couldn't hear you."
For a moment Dipper just stared at her. He wanted to laugh, but was too conscious of the other diners to actually do so. Could his day get any worse? First Pacifica was called in because he was acting like a freak, then he realised that he'd been dressed sloppily the entire time she was there, and now this. When he got back to the mansion, he and Mabel were going to have a long talk about her meddling in his personal affairs. It was her fault all of this started after all.
Eventually, Dipper raised his head. Pacifica had remained patient the entire time. She was still waiting for an answer though.
"Mabel told me to ask you out on a date, but it doesn't seem to be going too well."
"A date?" Her blue eyes were wide and questioning, "Why would she want you to do that?"
"Because I love you." Dipper was fairly certain he was infinitely more surprised by his sudden confession than Pacifica was.
"Oh..."
He knew what was coming next – rejection. He wished he was still in a position to now claim that he was lying, that it was all a ploy so that he could try to get the journal. But it wasn't, and he knew that she knew him too well to believe it anyway.
He sighed, resigned to his fate.
Surprisingly, to him, Pacifica didn't immediately respond to his confession. Instead she picked up a menu and started looking at it.
"I don't see why you're so nervous if it's just a date," She flipped the page over casually whilst her eyes darted all over the page, "We've been on a date before."
He blinked at her. "We have?"
"Mhmm," She hummed, "When we were fourteen and you cast that dumb time freezing spell. We walked around town, had a picnic and kissed. You even walked me home at the end of the night."
Dipper groaned loudly, probably eliciting the attention of the other patrons. "That doesn't count! We were together out of necessity," His voice dropped to a strained whisper, "And so was that kiss."
Pacifica shrugged and flipped the page again. "Fine, have it your way. It is officially our first 'not date', just like all the other 'not dates' we've had the past two years."
Dipper scowled. He always seemed to be scowling around Pacifica for one reason or another. "You're deliberately being awkward now."
"And you're not?"
He sighed. Maybe he was being a bit awkward, but considering what he'd told her, and how flippantly Pacifica was treating him, he felt that being a bit troublesome was somewhat deserved.
"What about the other thing I said? Y'know, about..."
Pacifica flipped her page.
"About you being in love with me?" Her eyes never left the page, "After last year I kinda thought you might like me, so I'm afraid I'm not overly surprised. I appreciate you telling me so easily though."
"Is that it? You 'appreciate' my feelings?" He sounded slightly angry, even if it wasn't his intention.
Pacifica let go of one edge of the menu, allowing the pages to quietly flip back on their own. She closed the cover and placed the menu down carefully then looked straight at him, blue eyes piercing into brown. They were more serious than Dipper was used to, but he was certain that he could see some mirth in her eyes, as if she was enjoying this train wreck of a conversation and his resulting suffering.
"I asked you out, didn't I?"
Dipper's mouth parted, waiting to say something but having no clue what to do whilst his brain processed the information. Finally he came up with a decent, if pretty childish question.
"So, you like me back then?"
He had never been happier to see Pacifica's smile than he was then.
She dipped her head slightly (he could just make out a brush of pink across her cheeks) before pushing the menu towards him.
"Hurry up and pick something. This date is your treat after all."
He was still distracted by her smile and her eyes and the way her hand was now a little closer to his to immediately register what she had said.
"Wait... I never agreed to pay."
"But you said you had planned on asking me out today."
"But you did ask me out today."
Their argument continued until after their orders had been taken and their meals arrived. From there they actually did talk about their year away, as had been their original plan, and from there still their conversation dissolved into bad card tricks he's learnt when he was seven and making the condiments march around the table with the power of his amulet.
It wasn't what most people would expect from a first date, heck, it wasn't what he had envisioned when he started making lists the previous summer, but nonetheless it was their first 'proper'date. And it was so stereotypically them that he couldn't find it in himself to be disappointed (even if Pacifica had forced him to pay for their meals in the end).
oO-0-Oo
Kind of unintentionally written in place of trying to write something else. I'm not sure if it's as good as Boing was, but it's something that I hope you enjoyed nevertheless. If you like it, I'd love to hear that!
Also, this story is completely done now, I will not be adding anymore random epilogues like I have now, so please don't expect any more from it.
