Title: (This Love is Like) Wildfire
Pairing: Dipper Pines/Pacifica Northwest
Word Count: +1,500 Words
Warning: Some swearing in this one.
Disclaimer: All properties belong to their rightful owners.
(Your Heart and My Heart Are) Very Old Friends
Chapter VI
The second time it happens, it's utterly accidental
It is 9 A.M., Saturday morning.
The regulars of Greasy's Diner are all in their usual places.
Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Darland munch their donuts and chit chat happily; keeping to himself as he reads the paper and eats his waffles is Tate McGucket; tucked away in a corner table are Mayor Tyler and Toby Determined, laughing and sharing stories over coffee.
The last, of course, is seventeen-year-old detective Dipper Pines.
Dipper sits by the bar stools with his homework spread out on the counter.
While most high schoolers prefer the more swanky places uptown, Dipper likes it here.
Here, they don't serve meager meal portions or charge you $2.95 for a cup of coffee. Here, most people only smile or wave and no one bothers you too much. Here is homey, folksy, and free of all the town's usual hustle and bustle.
The monsters and mysteries don't follow him here.
"Morning, Dipper," Lazy Susan greets. She's been extra cheery ever since he exorcised that demon from her cat, Sandy.
Dipper doesn't look up from his papers, but there's a polite tone to his voice, "Morning, Susan."
"So what'll it be today?"
"Just coffee, thanks."
He can feel her frowning at him. "Have you eaten anything yet?"
"Just coffee, thanks."
The waitress puts her hands on her hips. "Look, kid, I'm not going to nag you."
"Thanks," he says absently.
"But I will ask you, very strongly, to please have breakfast." She smiles in encouragement. "C'mon, this one's on the house."
He doesn't even bother to look up from his paper. "Just – coffee – thanks."
With a sigh, she leaves, and he's back to scrawling formulas.
He's so engrossed with his work that he fails to notice the chime of the doorbells as a new customer enters. Everyone else has gone quiet.
Pacifica Northwest uncharacteristically plods her way to the counter with sluggish steps. Absent of her usual air of flamboyance, today she's in nothing but tennis shoes and a romper.
The blonde sits down on the stool next to him.
Dipper finally looks up. "Morning."
She makes a groggy little noise in response and rubs the dark spots from her eyes.
"You okay, Northwest?"
"Shhh! Don't talk so loud," the girl moans, a crease forming on her forehead. "My head is pounding. God."
"SORRY, AM I BEING TOO LOUD?"
She punches him on the shoulder – "Ugh, asshole!" – and Dipper can't contain his howls of laughter.
Not bothering to ask at all, she then takes a swig of his coffee. Pacifica is particularly irritable this sunny Saturday morning which usually means –
"Looks like someone's enjoyed themselves a little too much last night," the boy teases.
She returns his coffee with a scoff, speaking, "A hangover is a rite of passage. The one I'm sure you've never fulfilled"— her piercing crystal blue eyes size him up — "among other things."
He chokes on his coffee, "P-Pa-Pacifica!"
A cheeky grin appears on her face.
Lazy Susan soon arrives, "What can I get you?" she asks with a suspicious, wide smile.
Pacifica makes a slight noise of protest at the volume of her voice but doesn't comment, and it surprises him. Last time he saw her, she couldn't even greet him without a back-handed compliment.
"I'll have a mushroom cheeseburger with barbecue rum sauce on top, a plate of mozzarella onion rings, and a cherry-vanilla milkshake. And for dessert, one slice of lemon blueberry pie."
Pacifica then turns to him and gestures vaguely with her fingers, "As for him, he'll be having...?"
He shakes his head, "Nothing. I'm good."
"Settled, then. Some curly fries, a chicken salad sandwich, and a glass of lemonade for my friend please." She puts on a dazzling smile for Lazy Susan.
The waitress winks Dipper's way as she leaves, but he makes a show of examining the water rings under his mug.
Pacifica tips her head and rubs the bridge of her nose. Out of the blue, she says, "It's cube, by the way."
"Excuse me?"
She gestures to his unsolved problem. "5x over 7x plus 9 – cube."
Dipper checks the solution again and finds the values to be equal.
There's a look of triumph on her face.
"I didn't know calculus interests you," she wonders as she twirls a straw in her fingers.
"The entire universe interests me. Calculus is just one of the many ways to understand it."
"But there are other, much more interesting ways, too. Like art or film or literature."
He's amazed how eloquent Pacifica can be, even with a hangover. "How smashed were you, exactly?"
"Think I passed out on top of my piano," she offers as an explanation.
"Aren't you grounded? What are you going to do when daddy finds out you're here, much less throwing a party while he's away?"
"I find that it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, but for the record, I am asking for neither. He's not the boss of me anymore."
Blonde strands fall out from her loose braid as she leans forward on the table with a devilish smile. "Besides, I'm on a bit of a strike, maxing out all his credit cards."
Dipper smirks, "Explains why you're randomly buying strangers breakfast this morning."
"I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. You're still answering those lab reports for Chemistry."
"Can't I repay my debt by furnishing your living room or something?"
She squints at him in warning, "Are you implying my decorating taste isn't up to par?"
He only replies with a shrug.
"What do you know about interior design anyway?" She rolls her eyes. "You probably spend most your time tinkering away in some shoddy, old abandoned warehouse or whatever."
A pause.
He gives her a suspicious look, "Are you trying to trick me into telling you where my lab is?"
He's referring, of course, to the underground laboratory behind the Mystery Shack vending machine.
"Why? It's not like I care," she declares, but he can see her covering her smile with her hand. He counts that as a victory.
Pacifica wrinkles her nose at his delight. "When did you get so annoying?"
"I've always been this annoying," He leans closer. "You've only just started paying attention."
"Oh? Who says I'm paying you any attention?"
"Well, if you aren't," His voice turns low and smooth, barely over a whisper. "Then the real question there is: why not?"
She stops for a moment to fix him a calculating look, and that's when he realizes, in a sudden rush, how forward he had just been.
He holds her gaze in spite of the heat flooding his face, crimson red. Her eyes glint dangerously at him, the cogs turning in her mind. It only makes the pounding of his heart all the more deafening.
He almost leaves, then and there, when the blonde beside him laughs.
Dipper's chest heaves a sigh of relief.
She insists that he's an absolute moron and he calls her out for her questionably large appetite, but somewhere under the counter top, their knees touch and send electric jolts up his spine, and he has never, ever talked to anyone quite like this before.
"You did not make out with Peggy Bradford in ninth grade," Pacifica shrieks as he finishes telling her about the hijinks of his eighth-grade year
Dipper cringes and her mouth gapes open in gleeful surprise, "You are shitting me right now. Tell me you're shitting me right now! Braceface Bradford? Really?"
"Hey, don't judge me! I was awkward and needy and desperate for love at fifteen."
"Aw, I'm sure you weren't that bad." The blonde gives him an endearing look, but she never even noticed him back in ninth grade.
"One time, in Algebra class, Mrs. Irvine called me Dylan and I was so embarrassed I didn't bother to correct her. So for the rest of the year, I was Dylan Pines, nice to meet you."
Pacifica roars with laughter, but at least she has the decency to look sympathetic about it.
"I mean, sure, Peggy she was like, the eighth prettiest girl in Home Ec, and her braces hurt me a bit when we'd kiss. But she said I was funny and her hair smelled like cinnamon and she called me Dipper."
"Oh, please. She was a tuba-playing tramp who singled you out from the class because you were easy pickings!"
He puts on a wounded look. "Just because she's in band club she's automatically a loser?"
"Are you even hearing yourself?"
Dipper is about to retort something witty when Lazy Susan arrives with their orders. They thank her, and she leaves with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
Pacifica stirs her milkshake while leveling his gaze. "So how come you've never dated anyone yet? Nobody caught your eye?"
"There were a few," he admits, chewing a couple of curly fries. "But once I figure out the person I like, I grow bored of them."
"Oh, well, that's a shame," she sounds genuinely apologetic.
Dipper bites his lip, rubbing the nape of his neck. "There is one person I've never quite figured out though."
Curiosity is evident in her voice, "Who?"
He takes a long, slow sip of his lemonade, his mouth suddenly going dry, and he lies, "Oh, you don't know her."
Before Pacifica has time to dig any deeper, Dipper redirects the conversation. "You're one to talk, anyway. I could count on one hand all your dating disasters."
"What? No way, I —"
"That motorbiking convict wannabe Malcolm Rutledge?"
"He was a bad boy! Everybody loves a bad boy!"
"Not an alcoholic, cigarette-addicted juvenile! Besides, we both know you just dated him for the street cred. You two were barely even in the same room together."
"Alright, fine. I'll give you that but —"
"Summer before junior year, Avery Carmichael?"
"He was a tortured artist and I was —"
"The only one who truly understood him for the complexity that he was?" Dipper scoffs. "Yeah, sure, you...and Stacy...and Katherine...and Jillian...and Em—"
"Alright, alright! I get it!" She bites back a smile. "But, you know, he was only flirting with me. I never dated him, so that means I'm home free."
He clicks his tongue in disagreement. "You think I forgot about Edmund Radcliffe? That guitar-playing slacker got held back a year because he failed five classes."
"Yeah, he was a mess," Pacifica sighs dreamily. "A hot mess, though."
Dipper flicks some lettuce at her and she laughs.
"Doesn't take away from the fact that I've dated girls hotter than you and all your chess club combined."
"Don't you dare insult my chess club!" He proclaims dramatically. He squirts some ketchup her and she deflects it with her tray, cackling.
Lazy Susan smiles as she watches the pair go at it from where she's cleaning coffee cups. She wonders when was the last time she was ever that young and in love.
Viola! Part 2 of 5 in the series. Thanks to everyone who pointed out Chapters 3 and 5 were glitching, btw. I fixed it up now. Please leave me your thoughts and reviews, it would really mean a lot. Hope you enjoy this one!
xoxo Amaya