Midnight. The witching hour. The hour when everything seems to gain legs, arms and tendrils. When the air itself seems to gain a murky, amphibious atmosphere - where the ground seems to go naturally sodden and saturated.
It is this time, Ford often said, that weirdness is truly given the power to manifest. The time when Gravity Falls is at its most bizarre. It was at midnight when the town was deadly silent, and the winds of change could flow through its streets unbridled and uninterrupted. Midnight was a cool, biting, mysterious time that was lit only by pale lamps and the moon. It seemed to turn every building in town into its primordial self. A place of wooden cabins and teetering structures with pale, ashen streets and dust bowl squares. It seemed, often, like a dive back into history.
To Dipper and Pacifica - who had managed to sneak out and drive a golf cart up to Gopher Road - it was an odd thing. As if the ghosts of the past seemed to come back to life sporadically before their eyes. Of course, they were a bit distracted, too.
Pacifica burst out laughing as she spoke with Dipper about all manner of meaningless anecdotes. Dipper talking about his failed ghost hunting career, Pacifica talking about that time her blog posts were stolen by a major national newspaper, not to mention explaining what the Pines had missed in that dark winter after they had left.
"And it was Grenda and Candy who invited me to their table, and were asking if I'd spoken to you guys-" she cackled. "And they said you'd beenoglingme! At the end of Summer!"
Dipper choked on his soda.
"And I was like,Dipper Pines is interested in girls?!and they were like -" Pacifica briefly had to pause to laugh. "They were likewell, he's interested inone!"
"I'd never ogled you, I promise-"
"Sure." She beamed, tapping his nose. "And you never stutter, either."
"H-hey, t-that's not fair, I-I-"
Pacifica giggled and nudged him in the side. "Dork."
Dipper looked down at his sneakers awkwardly - then blinked as she laid her head on his shoulder, their eyes wordlessly gazing out at the sight of the Oregon township they called home. Or, for Dipper, a second home.
He couldn't help but smile as he pondered over the scenery. The crooked stone, pine and cement of Gravity Fall, deep in its wood-enrobed cove, was a place of natural duality.
Brutalist brick blocks and outsized shopfronts sat nestled against centenarian wooden shacks, huts and churches. Cracked, fatigued asphalt ran alongside narrow stripes of dirt and gravel. Pine and redwood sat against oversized tourist trap restaurants with sombreros. Rustic, faded grandeur rubbed shoulders with tacky fibreglass junk.
And, perhaps most strikingly, the mundane fought for space with the crude, the bizarre, the paranormal and the confusing. The roar of the town's iconic falls, the hot summer breeze that seemed to collect in the great, saucer-shaped cavern - it was a dichotomy that resonated with them.
Dipper Pines, financially humble, sweaty, scruffy and neurotically paranoid teenager - sat alongside the wealthy, pristine, snobby and overly confident girl with whom he had unexpectedly collided. And with whom life seemed better. Warmer. Safer. More welcoming - for them both. They both felt like they had discovered more of themselves as equally as they had eachother.
What they felt was inseparable. An unbreakable bond. It felt like Pacifica simplybelongedwith the Pines. It felt so natural and unfettered, so lacking in the draconian expectation and demand of her old life, so accepting of her, her quirks, her likes, her dislikes…
Dipper and the Pines family may have been her opposite in many ways, but he also felt like her home. Like her future sitting alongside her, his hip pressed warmly against hers, his gaze fixed to her rather than the beautiful view of the Oregon countryside.
She smiled. "It is kinda beautiful here. Even with the gnomes. Even with the manotaurs and weird secrets."
"Yeah." Dipper said, quietly - as if he was afraid his puberty voice would ruin the moment. "It is."
"You gonna miss it?" She asked. It was a loaded question; Dipper recognised that much, at least.
"Not as much as I'll miss you."
"Correct answer, Dip." She giggled, nuzzling into his neck. "But yeah, the town?"
"Sure am." He huffed. "Never feels right leaving a place you've literallyfoughtfor. But…that's life, I guess."
The sadness, even resignation in his voice was unmistakable. They were both, clearly, still having trouble with the concept of Summer's end. They didn't have to say a word to know what they were both thinking.
Pacifica closed her eyes peacefully - but soon bolted back up. After all, as much as she knew about Dipper, there was one thing that she never had really heard about. One thing she'd never really learnt from. One thing, at least, that she was genuinely fascinated in. "Hey, Dipper."
"Yeah?"
She leaned a little closer and bit her lip before finally speaking up. "What is it like at… home?"
"You mean in Piedmont?"
"Yeah. Y'know. Home."
Dipper shrugged. He had a bit of trouble talking about his 'normal' life back at home. Truth be told, he found it difficult to think of absolutely anything to say. He tapped his trainers together and raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it's fine. Not exciting or anything. Mom and Dad are pretty laid back - not too crazy or fussy or anything, just kinda… quiet."
"What are they… like?"
"Nerds. Nothing like my Grunkles or Grandpa. Stan said my dad was like a beatnik or a hippy when he was growing up. He's like, as manly as-" He blinked. "Well, as manly as me."
"Hippies."
"Yeah, sorta. Super laid back."
"Hippies." Pacifica wrinkled her nose. "In the80s?"
Dipper shrugged. "Our folks, they're pretty… y'know. Out there. My Grandpa was in the Navy or something, and was a little more strict, so I guess it was a rebellion thing. Dad was dating Mom when he was, like, 13? And they just kept going."
The Northwest heir giggled and held Dipper's chin. He didn't seem to catch the parallel. "I could believe that."
"So there they were, doing computer junk instead of joining the navy or running off to wear uniforms. My dad spent more time playing with radios and floppy discs than he ever did on a boat. My Grandpa always joked that my mom had corrupted him." Dipper chuckled to himself as he reminisced. "Grandpa Shermie was funny. Pretty uptight, always in some kinda tie or uniform or some junk and trying to teach us how to use boats and stuff. We were all pretty sad when he was gone."
"Oh. I'm sorry…"
"Yeah. Retired to Hawaii."
She blinked. "...Right."
"I think in many ways Stan kinda looked up to him. Can't be a coincidence he always wanted to sail the world, right?"
"You think he wanted to be like his big brother?"
"Totally."
"Man. Your Grunkle Stan is kinda a dork."
The two laughed. The idea of the Stan O'War just being the result of rough-and-tumble Stanley trying to be like Shermie was hilarious to them.
It was getting cold - unusually bitter for the height of Summer in Oregon. A fog was beginning to roll in, too. A white, low lying fog - crawling and floating in a thick series of cloudy, soft tendrils that wrapped around the buildings and smothered them. The lower grounds of Gravity Falls seemed to disappear.
Dipper shivered and zipped up his vest. It occurred to Pacifica she had never seen him do that before. "We'd better get back home." He said.
"Why, you sca-a-ared?" Pacifica beamed.
"It's 1AM. You wanna drive through fog in Gravity Falls at 1AM?"
"Alright, granted- but for what it's worth, we'd be able to beatanythingafter the giant eyeball and Dinkie combo." She smiled, climbing down from the factory roof. "Hopefully without me losing a hair pin, too."
"You ever going to let me forget that?"
"You know what you did." She relied as her boots hit the ground. She couldn't help but notice that the thick fog was beginning to rise up the hillside, rolling across the floor like it was a thick layer of cotton wool on casters. She tried to get the uneasy feeling out of her stomach.
Dipper continued to protest fiercely. "How was I supposed to know it was platinum?!"
Pacifica - still trying to ignore that strange wariness that was sweeping over her - waited for her boyfriend beside the golf cart, an eyebrow raised and her lip twisted. She gestured to herself in response. "Duh."
"Man. You Northwests."
"Sure, until you put a ring on it."
It was another well-targeted tease from the 14 year old socialite - and one that Dipper, as ever, was completely unprepared for. "Wait- what?"
"Nothing." She replied with a voice as artificially sweet as a Dinkie, jamming the keys into the ancient, battered cart and putting her foot down.
Dipper blinked and stared at her as she deftly negotiated the hairpin curve back down the hill. Somewhat startled by the mention of long term commitment.
Pacifica had clearly been spending way, way too much time with Mabel.