"Get in the closet." Dipper said, immediately moving to open the empty closet door and gesturing to Pacifica.

She raised an eyebrow. "You want to hide a supernatural occurrence from your twin? Really?"

He grabbed her hand, heart racing. "Yes. For once, yes I want to hide something from Mabel. Please, just go with it."

Pacifica rolled her eyes, but moved to stand in the closet. "She's gotta find out sometime before we leave. I can't just stay on this beach forever!"

Dipper shut the closet door and tried to regain some sort of neutral expression. Based on Mabel's laughter after he opened his dorm door, he didn't do a good job.

Mabel looked the same as she had last month. Her long brown hair swung about her shoulders, and her face was absolutely shimmering under all her makeup. She had gotten into decorating her face as a hobby shortly after Pacifica's accident. Her outfit was very colorful, as usual, and her oversize knitted sweater said "Suck My" and had an eggplant emoji underneath.

"Did Dad see that before you left?" He asked as she patted his shoulder.

"Yeah. Come on, Dipper, what's with the face? Are you hiding a pet in here? Is it a hamster or a puppy?" She looked behind him, eyes crinkling with the force of her grin. "I don't see a cage or bedding, it's gotta be a puppy."

Dipper Ignored as his sister tousled his hair and started picking up random things and setting them down in different spots. "Mabel, can you not?"

"Look at how busy you've been! Ah, I like this Halloween costume! Did you get Robbie to do your makeup?" She held up a selfie he had taken shortly after drowning. He lunged for the photo and missed.

"No, I didn't get Robbie to do anything! I used Photoshop!" He lied.

Mabel, the taller twin, laughed and dangled the photo above Dipper's head. "Come on, what aren't you telling me?"

Dipper gave up on getting his photo back and started working furiously on packing instead. "I have to be out of this dorm by 6 P.M. so if you aren't going to help me-"

"Did you get everything out of here?" Mabel asked, a doorknob jiggling.

Dipper felt the blood leave his face as he turned around to find Mabel opening the closet door. Pacifica tried to cover her smile.

Mabel's jaw dropped. Time stood still for a full minute. Her hazel eyes flicked back and forth between the clearly not empty closet and her brother's beet red face. She closed the closet door. "Please tell me that she's not a stripper and that she's also not Pacifica Northwest because if you knew some kind of shenanigans were happening and you didn't tell me about them, I'm going to scream."

Dipper looked at his dorm door and wondered if he could make it to the front door and then his car before his sister caught up with him. She was the faster one, though. He glanced at the window and wondered if he would die from jumping out.

Mabel opened her mouth and screamed. Her brother jolted, then ran over and tried to smother her shrill voice with his hoodie sleeves. "Stop it! Stop it, the R.A. is going to kill me!" He cried, unable to keep his sister's volume down.

Mabel bit his hand. He yelped and drew back. She threw the closet door open. "PAZ, WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

Dipper covered his ears. "MABEL, SHUT UP."

"I'll shut up when I'm dead, what happened? How are you alive!?"

Pacifica laughed, her gentle tones immediately soothing the tension in the room. "It's a long story, Mabel. I'll tell it as we clean up Dipper's dorm."

Mabel was about to shout again when someone banged repeatedly on Dipper's door. "Nobody better be getting murdered in there, Pines!" Robbie shouted through the wood.

Dipper sighed and cracked the door. "Just my sister being herself, you jerk."

Robbie smiled. "Cool. Hey Mabel!"

Mabel grinned and made some kind of hand gesture Dipper didn't see. Robbie returned it with something very rude.

"Dude."

"She started it! Anyway, I'm heading out. Gotta catch up with Wendy." And with that, Robbie winked and left. Dipper shut his door and pretended not to hear Pacifica recounting the past two months in excruciating detail. He tried not to blush too much, but that was outside of his control.

Within two hours, the three had Dipper's dorm room totally packed into boxes and the twin's cars. Dipper was glad to see that she hadn't brought the actual glitter cannon and that instead she had a marshmallow shooter. She had made capsules the fit in the shooter perfectly that were filled with glitter, though, so he wasn't sure if that was better or worse than the alternative.

"I just can't believe you had a show in a gallery up here and you didn't invite me to help decorate for it! Come on, bro, what's up with that?" Mabel joked as she bounced on her trunk lid to make sure it shut properly. Dipper cringed as the trunk crunched shut. He was glad that he had only put clothing boxes into her car and not his photography things.

"I was a corpse, remember?"

"And you didn't tell me that either! I'm gonna give you so many noogies when we get home."

Dipper rolled his eyes, which settled on Pacifica. She was wearing a pair of his sweatpants and a blue T-shirt that was pretty holey at the hem. He would have to donate his allowance towards clothing her when they got back.

"Pacifica, you may as well tell her the rest." They had refrained from mentioning that the sea goddess needed help. Specifically, Dipper's help. He had packed his Selkie suit, similar to a birthday suit except less humanoid, into his own car.

Pacifica sighed. "My goddess, The Star of The Sea, is being attacked by her siblings. She needs Dipper's help, but beyond that I don't know much."

Mabel gawped again. "Dipper has the strength of a newborn kitten."

"I resent that remark."

"Can it, Dip-dop. Look, there's no way you should be doing all this by yourself. If you guys need some real muscle, I'm your girl!" She shoved her sleeves up to reveal incredibly toned arms.

Dipper frowned. "I thought you gave up crossfit?"

Mabel winked. "I did. I'm into body building now."

"Jesus."

Pacifica's eyes glowed. "Wow, Mabel, that's incredible!" When she was done complimenting Mabel's dedication and strength, she shuffled her feet and stared solemnly at the ground. "I'm not sure what will be needed, but Dipper should go to the goddess's domain as soon as possible in order to find out what duties he must perform."

Dipper sighed. "Pacifica can't drive, so at the very least we need to drop my shit off at home before I do anything."

Mabel nodded. "I'll buy some scuba gear."

Dipper sighed. "Please, don't."

To his surprise, Pacifica agreed. "It's not safe for Mortals as deep as he'll be needing to go. Stay on the surface with me, maybe we can work together and help from here! Like… Like a home base!" She smiled. Mabel nodded.

"That seems smart enough to me. Also, you aren't the only one who's been holding back news, Dipper."

He shivered, partially out of horror and partially due to the fact that the sun was setting and rain clouds were beginning to loom. "Oh?"

Mabel winked again. "I got a boyfriend."

Dipper frowned. "You had one before I left for college."

"I have two now."

Dipper blinked. "You're… cheating?"

She laughed and slapped his shoulder. "Of course not!" And with that, she jumped off her trunk and sat down in the driver's seat of her car. "We take turns." Her door slammed shut. Dipper stood still, cogs in his brain trying to figure out what she was saying. She honked her horn in two short bursts. Dipper and Pacifica both jumped, then scrambled to climb into Dipper's car.

"Two boyfriends at once?" He asked as he eased his truck into traffic behind his sister's small purple Neon.

Pacifica laughed and stuck her feet onto the dashboard. "Polyamory is a thing, Dipper. Accept that and move on."

He shrugged. "I assume many of your sea critter friends are polyamorous then?" He said, the word fairly strange on his tongue.

"No, but we just go with the flow of things down there. We don't bother judging others. Our goddess wouldn't care for such pettiness."

Dipper sighed and flipped his windshield wipers on. Leaving campus took an extra hour since it was move-out day for most of the students. Before long, he was more concerned with the other cars on the highway than his sister's love life.

A/N

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this story orz I've been struggling with Life After College. Get ready for another hiatus lmao :P