if arsenic fails, try algebra
Pacifica wonders: If she stares into a mirror long enough, will she cease to recognize herself?
Because unless a bubble of madness has descended over Piedmont and possibly the whole of California (still not a possibility she's totally ready to discard), that is definitely Dipper Pines sitting next to her. His shoulder is pressed to hers and their knees meet beneath the desk.
Occasionally it just strikes her, for no apparent reason, that this is home; this is the new normal. She is so far from what normal used to be that her memories often seem like they belong to someone else. There are times when she goes to bed and thinks she might wake up in the panic room beneath a burning mansion, the gate lever untouched by her hand.
It's like a fork in the path of her life so clear and immediate that it transcends metaphor, becomes something close to literal. In dreams, sometimes she pulls the lever; and sometimes the bell defeats her, and she diminishes again. She lies there in her darkened room and stares at the shapes around her until they bring her back to herself, to the present, to the Pacifica who somehow braved the storm and came out the other side scoured of everything she had thought she was but was really what she had been made to be.
She's not simple enough to blame it all on her parents. She made plenty of bad choices for all kinds of petty reasons. But when she examines those choices, she finds it hard to connect with them the way she used to. She doesn't know why she had ever wanted to be that person.
Perhaps all she had needed was another option; she took one when it was presented to her. But she had a lot of help. She can't dismiss that, not when Dipper is sitting right next to her, reminding her of her attachment to him with his welcome presence.
This is who she's become, somehow. This girl sitting so close to her dorky boyfriend in their modest suburban home, doing homework from public school. And resting silently between them are secrets so wild and weird they sound ridiculous spoken aloud. Those truths certainly hadn't seemed ridiculous at the time. They saved themselves and the world. Who does she expect to be after something like that?
Pacifica Northwest, now queen of nothing. And so, so free.
Dipper is hunched over his math paper ostensibly making calculations in that brainy head of his, but his eyes keep darting up to Pacifica's face. He's distracted and it's her fault and she likes that. There's this single curly brown lock of hair that curves across his forehead. He brushes at it habitually, tucking it away, but it always curves back down. She wants to tug at it, like it's a string tied to his attention.
"Uh, okay, so if that's the X for the first problem, then… I mean, with the, with…" He stutters to a halt in the middle of his sentence, eyes darting to her face again.
"Then it's…?" she prompts him.
"It's, uh…" He clears his throat nervously, brought to a stop yet again when she brushes his bare arm with hers. "…Maybe we should take a break," he suggests.
They aren't getting much done, that's for sure. They're too distracted by each other, caught up in this new thing they've created between them. It's exciting and nerve wracking and Weirdmageddon may be over but the regular apocalypse has arrived because Pacifica has a boyfriend and it's Dipper Pines. A boy she hadn't even known before last summer (and how easily it could have stayed that way, she shudders to think). A boy she had dismissed then disliked then grudgingly respected and then liked and then like-liked, and now boyfriended, if that's even a word. He gave her what she needed to save herself and then kept giving, over and over. He didn't do it to make her like him; whatever else this is, he isn't a white knight and she isn't a damsel in distress. He helped her because he thought it was the right thing to do; and he had trusted that in the end, she would do what was right too.
She isn't so sure. But she's trying.
"Bored already?" she says archly.
He looks down to where her fingers are lightly grazing his. "You're totally messing with me," he accuses with a grin.
"You wish," she retorts, even though it's true.
He drops his pencil with a shrug. "We'll have to finish this later, but I'm done if you are."
She's done with homework. That doesn't mean she's done with him. She reaches out and swipes the cap from his head. "Why do you wear this all the time?" she asks, examining it. It's identical to the one she'd always seen him wearing in Gravity Falls, though that one had significantly more wear and tear. He must have received a new one at some point.
He doesn't try to take it back, which is unexpected; it makes her heart beat a little quicker to see how comfortable he is with her. "I started wearing a hat all the time in grade school. It was kind of my thing, I guess. I lost my old hat somewhere in the woods when me and Mabel were attacked by gnomes, so I snagged a new one from the gift shop."
The hat does suit him, but she also appreciates the sight of his wavy brown curls. "You should wear it less," she advises.
"Is that Pacifica Northwest's advice for hatless trends this summer?" he says dryly.
"That's your girlfriend's advice for wanting to see your hair more. It's nice," she says, finally taking the opportunity to run that single curl between her thumb and forefinger.
Dipper blushes slightly. "I don't know… maybe. I always thought I looked better in a hat." He shifts a little in his seat. "Your hair is nice, too," he awkwardly compliments her. "And I was wrong. So there's that."
"You were wrong," she repeats in confusion.
"Your hair isn't fake," he clarifies.
She forgot about that. "You noticed," she says, pleased.
"Yeah, I kind of figured when I saw that family portrait and your hair was the same color when you were little. But your roots aren't showing, so it's for sure. Sorry," he says sheepishly.
"How are you going to make it up to me?" she wants to know.
"Um…" He looks around his room as if one of his belongings will make a suitable gift.
Pacifica rolls her eyes. "You can't be serious."
"What? You don't want… uh, a refreshing Pitt Cola?" he offers, pulling a dusty can out from somewhere in the mess at the back of his desk.
Never her favorite, especially after enduring a mini golf kidnapping with the tang of sickly peach flavor still on her tongue. She crosses her arms, unimpressed. "Do I have to draw you a map?" she says. When he still looks blankly back at her, she pointedly licks her lips.
It can't be physically possible, but Dipper seems sweaty within a half second. His gaze turns nervously to the open door of his room. "Oh, that. That's… I mean, Mom is just down the hall, but—" he cuts himself off and takes a quick breath, like he's about to jump off something tall. It's kind of adorable. "Sure," he finishes, voice slightly warbling.
Pacifica might make some attempt to mask her eagerness—just to play it cool, which is her first instinct—but the heck with it, she's been sitting next to her way-too-cute boyfriend for almost an hour and she wants her kiss. She leans forward with anticipation. Their noses bump uncomfortably for a second; then they adjust to their respective positions properly and their mouths slot into place like they were made to be there. Pacifica is bent forward awkwardly, and her back is stiff and she's kissing a dork and she's in heaven.
When they separate Dipper exhales too soon, fluttering hair and making her sneeze.
"Bless you," he says automatically.
"I must be allergic to nerds," she taunts, grabbing a tissue from the top of his desk.
He laughs. "We probably would have found that out already. I mean, we've been in close contact for prolonged periods before, so it really wouldn't make sense for—"
"I'm going to sneeze again."
"Can I get in there first?" he asks shyly.
They trade a few more tentative kisses in the fading evening light from his window, finally breaking apart at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
Later that night, Pacifica is seated at the kitchen table. She's losing badly at Monopoly and doing her best to ignore the irony.
"Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars," she reads in a monotone, holding her unlucky card with aversion.
"Oh, snap! Pacifica got popped by the fuzz!" Mabel exclaims. She treats every play of the game like it's a major event. Her real estate empire is haphazard at best and she seems to be succeeding, or at least surviving, through sheer enthusiasm.
Dipper, predictably, is a methodical tycoon. He takes as long on his turns as Pacifica and Mabel combined (Mabel sometimes kicks him under the table to hurry him along, though he seems so accustomed to it that he barely reacts). Mabel might be hanging in there, but Dipper has a ten turn plan and enough houses to make venturing into his territory a losing proposition.
Pacifica is just about broke. She's landed on every bad space and drawn every bad card there is, and she doesn't much care for the parallels with her real life. She never liked this stupid game, anyway. Who cares if she's getting her butt kicked in. Not her, that's who.
She looks furtively towards Dipper to see if he's noticed her sulking, but he's too busy being a good fake capitalist and a bad real boyfriend.
It takes another few turns and then she's had enough. She resigns from the game over Mabel's protestations and leaves with as much grace as she can salvage.
About half an hour later she's sitting in her room and playing one of those phone games that are more about killing time than actually interacting when Dipper makes a hesitant entry. She's all set to be appropriately frosty towards him, but she sees his expression is conciliatory, which is an unexpected level of awareness. She expected him to remain oblivious until she either said something or got over it.
"So, it's come to my attention… that maybe you're kind of upset about something?" he tentatively proffers.
Okay, so he's still half-oblivious. But it's been long enough for her to cool down, and just the fact he's pointing out she's upset is enough to make her feel kind of dumb. It's just a stupid game. She shouldn't care that she lost.
But darn it, she does. Changed though she has, she's still competitive. Which is weirdly reassuring. Maybe she can just be a better person, not a completely different person. And a better person wouldn't be a jerk to her boyfriend because he plays Monopoly the only way she ever expected he would.
Besides, he looks so cute in his rumpled sleep clothes that she can't stay angry.
"I'm okay," she says, setting her phone aside. "I just don't like losing."
"Yeah, I definitely remember that about you," he wryly agrees. "Whatever happened to Sergei?"
"His contract was up at the end of summer. After what happened he went back to wherever he was from. One of those countries that ends in 'ia.' I was done with mini golf, anyway."
"Huh. I wonder if he told anyone what happened. Or if he's encountered anything weird since. Maybe I could email him…" Dipper muses, immediately subsumed in a dorky mental tangent.
Good thing she finds that attractive about him, for some reason. "I don't know. Maybe. But I'm not asking my parents for his info."
That snaps Dipper back to reality. "No, yeah. That would be… no. Anyway, I came down to say goodnight."
She glares at him playfully. "Only say it?"
He quickly sticks his head back out of the room. The coast must be clear, because he approaches her with obvious anticipation. He leans forward. "Goodnight," he says again, voice cracking.
"Goodnight," she replies quickly, ready for the next part.
Their kiss is uncomplicated but imperceptibly more practiced; easier, familiar in the best way. When they break apart, he doesn't look away. He holds her gaze for several weighted seconds. The brown of his irises seems to pour into her, warming her to her toes like hot chocolate.
When he's gone, she falls asleep on top of her sheets and dreams of newer days with him.