When Vic got back from the Shack late that afternoon, he wanted to just collapse on the bed and not think about anything, but Abuelita wanted help around the house.

(He was very, very tempted to say no and let her do it since she was the adult, but that was a bratty thing to do, so he decided against it in the end. Plus, she helped him a ton. He could at least repay the favor.)

So, he helped her by making dinner (throwing a couple chicken nuggets into the oven and calling it a day), picking up some of the clutter left around the house, taking out the trash, and getting the mail.

Truth be told, he'd completely forgotten about the thing he was supposed to be getting in the mail until he pulled it out of the box and saw that one of the envelopes was addressed to Victor Merlin.

He blinked, since that wasn't actually his surname, but he wasn't all that upset since the typo made it less lame. With a shrug, he walked back inside, handed the ones that weren't for him to Abuelita, and opened the one that was.

Congratulations, _Victor Merlin_!

You are our winner for the month of _May_!

Please enjoy your winnings of $_1,000_.

And that was all it said.

For the second time that day, he blinked. The cash was just sitting there in the envelope, more money than he'd ever had before. He had a feeling that dollar signs would've appeared in his eyes and he would've heard the cha-ching! if that was how the cartoon laws worked for him, but it wasn't, so it felt easy and strangely anticlimactic.

This happens every month? he wondered curiously. Then a thought occurred to him. Ah . . . this is something that never got exploited, huh?

. . .

. . . I'm gonna exploit it.

But for now, he hid the money under the clothes in his drawer (not that he used it very often—characters didn't often change their outfits unless they were Mabel, of course) and searched his room for the camera from the gobblewonker incident.

He searched the room up and down, from the tippy top of the shelf by standing on chairs to under the bed by wriggling like a worm. He looked in and out of the closet and opened and closed the drawers. And then he went through everything again one more time, because he was pretty sure he'd missed it.

He still didn't find it.

Drat. "Abuelita, have you seen my camera?" he shouted, but no reply came. Not even any calmly cussing him out in Spanish, since he'd picked those up pretty quickly with her.

". . . Abuelita?" he asked again, a little quieter, but still nothing.

. . . hmmmmmmmmm. That was a little sus.

He pushed himself off the floor and went into the living room, expecting to see her distracted by her soap operas or something, but nope. His eyebrows knitted together, and a quick scouring of the house told him that she was not, in fact, inside.

At this point he was panicking a little bit (what if a monster kidnapped her?!) but he shoved those thoughts down. Maybe she'd just . . . gone shopping! . . . even though he'd never heard of her leaving the house . . .

He found himself throwing open the front door and rushing on to the front lawn in a rush. What if it was a monster? Soos was at the Shack, so he'd have to go on a solo mission to find her, and—!

And there she was.

Vacuuming the wall.

On the outside.

He stood there in shock, gaping like a fish, at a complete loss for words, at seeing Abuelita calmly vacuuming the wall. She paused to look at him. "Vic? Que ocurre?"

"Uh . . . donde . . . esta mi . . . camera?"

"Camara," she said with a soft smile, and she pulled it out of her apron and plopped it into his hands. He stood there, quiet, but at this point he wasn't even sure he was surprised anymore. It was a kid's cartoon, after all.

So he looked down at it, blinked a couple times, shoved it in his back pocket, thanked her, and went back inside.

Now, what was he going to do? He didn't really have any hobbies of his own that didn't have to deal with Dipper and Mabel, and he did now have the money to fund something . . .

Yeah, I don't care if it's a really quick payoff. I'm buying that guitar.


Vic was tuning his cheap, bargain-bin guitar and experimenting with some chords in the middle of the dance floor when the background music started up, presumably signaling the next episode. He sighed and set his guitar on the ground next to him. No use playing it when he had something else blaring in his ears, after all.

Stan had decided to throw a party inexplicably, which did sound like a plot hook. Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy sprayed silly string on each other, Soos actually helped with the decorations, and Vic sat on the floor so no one accidently stepped on his new guitar.

Honestly, he wasn't paying the most attention to the conversation, since he mostly just wanted the musical cues to end so he could get back to his own musical endeavors. He did catch that the twins had gone to Stan's office to copy some stuff, and based off of the ominous-to-alarming-to-spiking-to-dramatic music, he guessed something plot-relevant happened.

Eh. Not his problem.

Yet.

The theme song started, and he vibed on the floor until it ended. Stan gave him a weird look and said as much. "You're really weird sometimes, you know that, kid?"

He shrugged. "Eh. At least I fit in with you guys." The guitar was back in his hands as soon as he guessed it was over, at least for now, and he went back to fumbling over the strings and frets.

Soos was also paying quite a bit of attention to him. He found a bad excuse to get close ("oh no! I dropped the pennant right next to Vic! I guess I need to go pick it up!") and loudly whispered, "What did you hear?"

In truth, he almost slipped up and said 'the theme song', but that might be a little weird to someone who didn't know they were in a TV show, so he just answered, "Nothing much. Don't worry about it," and pretended he didn't almost shatter the guy's worldview.

How the heck are your fingers supposed to go that way?!


When it picked up again, he was already standing in a line with everyone else, his guitar sitting like a person on the couch and his arms in the tube pocket. At least he'd finally reached the stage with it where he didn't constantly need to shove his arm all the way through it.

"All right, party people, and Dipper, let's talk business. Soos, because you'll work for free . . . and you begged . . . I'm letting you be DJ."

"You won't regret it, Mr. Pines. I got this book that teached me how to DJ r-r-right."

"Not encouraging. Vic"—he refocused on the conversation upon hearing his name—"you and Mabel are working the ticket stand."

He was okay with that, since it'd be quieter and a way from the plot-based chaos, but Mabel apparently had some problems with it. "What?! But Grunkle Stan, this party is my chance to make new friends!"

She looked at Dipper, who just sidled away awkwardly.

Vic sighed. "I can manage the ticket stand just fine on my own," he told Stan, ". . . as long as you pay me double for doing the work of two people."

"Done. Alright, so you three can just enjoy the party."

"But you better be singing praises to me later," Vic told Dipper pointedly, though the other boy was grinning widely.

Stan pulled Vic back to look at him. "Just remember, you gotta stay at the ticket stand, all night, alone."

He just waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Trust me, I don't wanna get involved with all the antics. Plus, the horde will stop eventually, right?"


Nope. He'd been handing out tickets for over fifteen minutes, at high speed, and the horde was still just as strong as before. He also felt really bad about enforcing Stan's policies on certain things ("no cops", yeah right, he let those gay guys in as long as they hid their badges and swore that what happened at the party stayed at the party).

He got to see all sorts of people, from a really tall guy, to Wendy's friends, to two weird girls who had interesting enough designs that he wondered if they were going to be important later on.

Every so often he'd peek back over his shoulder to see how it was going. He could see Dipper trying to flirt with Wendy (emphasis on 'trying'), but that was only because they were by the window. Otherwise, he couldn't really see anything.

Someone snapped their fingers in his face, and he blinked. "Hey, loser, take my money and give me a stupid ticket," a snobbish, valley-girl voice said.

He refocused on the real world and cocked one eyebrow. A dyed-blonde rich girl, flanked by a couple cronies. Of course. She's gonna be a recurring antagonist, isn't she?

"Maybe I won't, with that attitude," he replied in his best attempt at coolly. "Anyone ever teach you some manners?"

He wasn't sure where the sudden bout of stupid courage came from. Actually, come to think of it, he hadn't heard any musical cues, so maybe the universe was shoving him into plot somehow.

Or maybe he just got really, really, really stupid all of a sudden.

"What?! Do you even know who I am?"

"No, actually, I'm new here."

She scoffed. "Oh, come on. Surely you've heard of the Northwests, descended from town founder, Nathaniel Northwest? The richest and most popular family in town?"

He looked at her blankly.

"That's me. I'm Pacifica Northwest. Obviously."

"Obviously," her cronies echoed.

"Uh . . . sure. Okay." He awkwardly took the money she was just waving around in his face and handed her three tickets (after all, he wasn't a jerk who was going to forget about the other girls). "You could learn to be a little nicer, though. Have fun. If you even can," he muttered under his breath.

She huffed, spun away dramatically, and went inside, followed shortly by her lackeys.

What was her problem? he thought bewilderedly, but he ended up shrugging. "Next?"

It continued, and when there was a lull in the people, he started playing his guitar as best he could, though it was still very slow, disjointed, and it hurt his fingers.

Eh. Wasn't like he had a lack of time.

A little kid walked up and was looking at him expectantly. Vic asked, "Oh, sorry, did you want a ticket?"

He shook his head and grinned up at him. "Nope! I liked your guitar and my mommy said I should tell you!"

Vic blinked in surprise (man, he did a lot of that, didn't he?) and he looked up to see the woman in question. "Oh. Uh, thank you. It's not very good, though—I only just got it."

"I thought it was really good! Can you play a song?"

He had to admit, he wasn't really expecting to get put on the spot by a six-year-old, but here he was. "Uh . . . just a second." He rummaged through the stuff he had on the floor next to him and pulled out the songbook he'd bought along with the guitar. "What do you wanna listen to?"

"I dunno!" the kid said, and oh my god he was adorable, he'd gotten on his tippy toes and was looking at him excitedly.

Vic, still confused as to what was going on, scanned the list of songs, until his eyes landed on one that he knew how to sing.

"You would not believe your eyes," he sang, a little slower than with the original, since his fingers were just as confused as he was. "If ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep."

The little kids eyes went big when he started singing, and Vic thought that they would pop out of his skull before too long.

"'Cause they fill the open air, and leave teardrops everywhere—you'd think me rude, but I would just stand and stare."

He looked up to the kid's mom, who was smiling encouragingly.

"I like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, 'cause everything is never as it seems."

The little kid continued to look incredibly excited, so he continued, and he found that his fingers started to slip into the right positions quicker when he relaxed a little bit, and it got easier to strum more than once per chord.

"'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs as they tried to teach me how to dance. A foxtrot above my head, a sock hop beneath my bed, a disco ball is just hanging by a thread.

"I like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, 'cause everything is never as it seems."

At this point he wasn't even thinking about anything but the song, his guitar, the book, and the kid, who was looking at him with such awe that he felt like a hero, even though it was just one song.

"Leave my door open just a crack (please take me away from here), 'cause I feel like such an insomniac (please take me away from here). Why do I tire of counting sheep (please take me away from here), when I'm far too tired to fall asleep?

"To ten million fireflies, I'm weird 'cause I hate goodbyes. I got misty eyes as they said farewell. But I'll know where several are if my dreams get real bizarre, 'cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar.

"I like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, 'cause everything is never as it seems. When I fall asleep, I like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, 'cause everything is never as it seems."

He returned to reality as he strummed the last notes and quietly sang the last line, "When I fall asleep."

And then the night was quiet once more, save for the party inside.

He looked down at the kid, who, after a moment of stunned silence, grinned and clapped. "That was super awesome! You can sing really great too! I wanna be like you when I grow up!"

The mom finally walked up and looked at Vic gratefully. "Thank you so much. You didn't have to do that, but you did. Here."

She tried to hand him some money, but he shook his head with a smile. "Nah, it's fine. I'm getting paid to be here, anyway, and he was great about it. Have a good night, ma'am."

The little kid wanted him to play another song, but Vic didn't want to do that, and the mom picked up on his signals and ushered the little kid away.

Vic sat there for a little while longer, thinking more about the little kid who had loved his playing so much, a grin glued onto his face.


He had thought that he wouldn't get bored since he had his guitar.

He was wrong.

The idea of the party lured him, especially since he could hear stuff, both from the party going on inside and plot reasons. Peering through the window told him that Mabel and Pacifica had started a contest, or something? Wendy was talking to Robbie, and Dipper was nowhere to be seen.

Hmm.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the empty line. There were only so many people in town, after all, and since they were nearing the hour mark, most people who wanted to come had already come. So surely it would be fine if he went inside for a moment to make sure there were no shenanigans going on, right?

(Or maybe to participate in said shenanigans, depending on what they might be? He was bored, okay?)

He'd barely stood up when Stan asked, "What are you doin', kid?"

"Oh, come on, Stan, there's literally no one here!" he protested, folding his arms.

"Well, when they do show up, they're not gonna rip themselves off!"

"I'll just be a minute. I wanna make sure Dipper's not up to something."

Stan narrowed his eyes. "You told me you could handle this."

"I swear, I'm gonna be back. Uh . . ." He looked around for something that he could use to prove his loyalty. There wasn't any pen or paper, either. The only thing he could see was . . .

His guitar. Great. He just bought the thing, and already he was giving it up (temporarily, of course, but still).

He sighed and picked it up, handing it over to Stan. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, you're allowed to use this as a bargaining chip. Deal?"

Stan looked at it, then at him, and then he took it by the neck. "Deal. Your timer starts now."

Vic bolted.


Alright, alright, where is that stupid protagonist?

Vic skidded around through the darkness as Pacifica sang dramatically, nearly bumping into someone, and with a hasty apology he ran off again. First place to check was the bathroom. It was the most likely place if he actually wasn't up to shenanigans.

Nope. When he knocked on the door, a low voice shouted, "I'm in here!" So, definitely not Dipper, with his girlish sort of squeak.

Hmm, figures, he thought with a roll of his eyes. "Sorry! Take your time!" he shouted back, and then he set off again, though it was just a brisk walk instead of, you know, running and inevitably sliding too far and falling on his butt.

Where else would he be?

The gears in his spun quickly. What got introduced this episode? Um . . . there was party nonsense, and the silly string, and . . .

And the copier that the twins used!

He hustled his way over there and threw the door open to see . . . well . . . yeah, that was about what he was expecting. In the room was Dipper, and Dipper, and Dipper, and Dipper, and a demented version of Dipper that the Dipper with the number 2 was holding.

"Uh . . ."

Great, now the word 'Dipper' feels weird.

"Vic!" they all said in unison, with the exact same inflection of 'oh no oh no he caught us'. The least pale one rushed up and started pushing him away. "Nothing to see here, it's all good!"

"What? No! Dipper, what's going on? Why is there . . . 4.3 of you?"

The demented one spluttered loudly, and the one holding him went, "Hey, you better take that back!"

"Sorry, sorry."

The Dipper in front of him (OG Dipper, maybe?) awkwardly rubbed his arm. "So, um, you know how I was gonna spend the night with Wendy?"

Vic's eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"

"Well, I mean, Robbie might've showed up, and I might've come up with a convoluted plan to get him away that involved cloning . . ."

"Ah, great, so that's what's going on here."

". . . and I might've gotten a little sidetracked. I mean, what if the wrong song comes on?"

"What if Robbie came back?" Number 2 pitched in.

"Or what if he caught one of us?" Number 3 said, gesticulating between himself and Number 4.

"Yeah, 3 would need help! That's why I'm here," Number 4 finished.

The demented one spluttered some more and started eating Number 2's hair.

Vic rubbed his brow. "Okay, this is getting out of hand. Can you even hear yourself? Why are you prepping like doomsday is coming? To talk to a girl?" He huffed and crossed his arms. Come on, plot is not this important.

"Well, I mean . . ." He gave up and sighed in defeat. "I won't make any more clones."

"Good. I'm gonna go back to the ticket stand before Stan breaks my guitar or something."

Number 2 looked at him curiously. "Why would he do that?"

"Well, because someone was being suspicious"—he looked pointedly at the one that he was pretty sure was OG Dipper—"and I was hearing more stuff, I figured there might be a problem, and in order to get away from Stan, I had to—you know what, I don't have time for this. Good bye."

And he bolted off again.


Apparently, he didn't learn his lesson earlier by almost bumping into someone—this time, he had to actually do it! And right into Pacifica Northwest, no less.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" she snapped, and then she recognized him. "What the heck?! Ticket stand boy? What do you think you're doing?"

"Um . . ." Getting yelled at by a rich girl.

"Ugh. Get out of my sight and let me win this thing."

He looked around, confused at what the 'thing' was, but then he saw Mabel singing (ish) onstage and doing silly little half-flips. The crowd was eating it up, and it looked like Soos was judging it off to the side.

Hmm . . . music battle? "Uh, okay . . . sure. Good luck beating Mabel, though."

He could envision a record scratch as she spun around, but of course, the music continued. "What did you just say?!" she hissed, getting up in his face.

Ah, crud. Can she not take anything as positive? Oh well, not like I can back off now. "You can see her, right? She's having a ton of fun with this, which means the crowd is, too. Passion is half the battle, and singing nicely will only get you so far."

She narrowed her eyes. "Oh? Why don't you prove it? Go up there and sing a song yourself."

"UH . . ." He was panicking now. He'd already sung one song today, and it was hard enough with only two people watching. Plus, he had to pick up his guitar from Stan, lest something happen to it. "I . . . I will, I just gotta . . . pick up . . . one sec!"

He sped off into the crowd, and he could hear Pacifica's infuriated growl behind him.

He skidded to a stop at the ticket stand, where Stan was holding his guitar and tapping his foot. "Alright, kid, back to work." He handed his guitar back, and Vic took it . . . and ran back inside.

"IsaidI'dbebackbutIdidn'tsayhowlongI'dbebackfor!" was his defense as he bolted.

"VIIIIIIIC!"

He careened through the crowd, pointedly avoiding Pacifica in the crowd. He almost thought he'd gotten away with it when she went onstage for her next song, except the words that came out of her mouth were not part of any song (that he knew of. There were some pretty weird songs out there, though).

"Let's get someone from the crowd up here!" she said with false enthusiasm. Everyone looked at each other in confusion, and he could see Soos rapidly consulting his DJ R-R-Right book for tips. "How about . . . you, with the guitar and dark hair!"

Apparently, he had not gotten away with it.

He was tempted to say no, but now everyone was staring at him, so he gulped and made his way onstage, carefully setting his guitar down as he did so. With a smug look on her face, she handed him the mic, and now literally every pair of eyes was on him.

He could feel the droplets of sweat beading on his brow.

What am I going to do?! She can't just put me on the spot like this, can she? Oh no oh no oh no . . .

The most reckless voice in his head shot through his subconscious and shouted, PICK A SONG ALREADY!

So, he whispered his choice to Soos, who nodded, and the music started to play.

Here's hoping he could do a good Elton John.

He took a deep breath . . . and sang.

"I remember when the rock was young; me and Suzie had so much fun, holding hands and skimmin' stones, had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own."

Ignore everyone else. Him and the song. He'd done this a thousand times on Lego Rockband, he could do it now.

"But the biggest kick I ever got was doin' a thing called the crocodile rock. While the other kids were rockin' round the clock, we were hoppin' and boppin' to the crocodile rock, yeah!

"Crocodile rockin' is something shockin' when your feet just can't keep still. I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will. Oh! Lawdy Momma and those Friday nights, when Suzie wore her dresses tight, and, crocodile rockin' was ooooout of siiiiiiiiight."

It was time for the 'laaa's, but he wasn't comfortable with those yet, so he just took a pause to scan the crowd. They . . . actually looked like they were having fun! Pacifica looked livid (ha! Bet she thought he couldn't sing! Nope, he was just shy) . . . but she wasn't the only one. He could see Stan in the back, looking absolutely furious with him.

Yeah, he probably deserved that, but he tuned it out and sang some more.

"But the years went by, and the rock just died. Suzie went and left me for some foreign guy. Long nights cryin' by the record machine, dreamin' of my Chevy and my old blue jeans.

"But they'll never kill the thrills we got, burnin' up to the crocodile rock. Learnin' fast as the weeks went past, we really thought the crocodile rock would last."

His legs were moving of their own accord now. Cool.

"Well! Crocodile rockin' is something shocking when your feet just can't keep still! I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will. Oh! Lawdy Momma and those Friday nights, when Suzie wore her dresses, tight, and, crocodile rockin' was ooooooout of siiiiiiiight!"

It continued like that for basically the rest of the song, with him dancing and singing better than he thought he could, and the crowd getting into it, and his body moving in ways he hadn't anticipated and just flowing into the next move.

Stan was trying to make his way through the crowd to get to him, but it was taking longer than anticipated, since everyone was having fun (except Pacifica, who was stewing at the base of the stage).

Verse one again, then another chorus, and then he 'laaa'ed to the end of the song, and with the last beat, he ended up in a victorious pose (ha, Victor, victorious). He was panting and out of breath and sweating a little bit, but he was also had a wide grin splitting his face.

He walked up to Pacifica and handed her the mic. "Thanks for that. Did that prove my point?"

She was speechless.

Now that the song was over, Stan could get through better, and he was almost there, so Vic scooped up his guitar, jumped down to the ground, and ran for some level of solace in the Shack.


Yeah, he forgot that Stan literally owned the place and knew it like the back of his hand. While he was getting lost in the halls, Stan was hunting him down, and yep. Caught red-handed when the old man caught him by the back of his jacket and spun him around.

"You have anything to say for yourself, kid?"

He thought long and hard for a moment, for what was most likely to get Stan to not punish him, and what came out was ". . . I hyped up your crowd? More hype means more likely to come to a party like this in the future."

Stan also thought about that, and Vic quailed beneath his stern gaze. Oh, crud, I said something wrong. Oh no oh no what did I say wrong?!

Then he laughed loudly. "Alright, kid, you're off the hook. Under one condition."

". . . what?"

Stan laughed again, and it had a little more . . . uh . . . schadenfreude.


Vic stood on a stage in the Shack, guitar in hand, as Stan loudly declared, "Look at him! This is the untrustworthy bard, who's broken thousands of promises for the sake of music alone!"

Yet another wave of tourists reacted with the same level of disgust as the last one. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the next one would likely do the same.

Vic sighed.


I'm baaaaack!

. . . I think it's less of an 'oh god it's been ages since I posted' and more of a 'this is my regular now, huh?'

Sorry you guys had to wait so long either way, again, thanks for the support, and I hope you enjoyed! I got a little bit of inspiration for this chapter (and future ones . . . :D) from a fic on AO3, Fighting In The Falls by Loser_With_Fedora, if you wanna check that out.

Also, I love seeing when you guys post comments or favorite/follow this, and even though I don't really respond to it, it does make me smile.

I'll get out of your hair now. Byyyyeeee~