don't be a let down

Pacifica has just passed out on Dipper's bed, which is bad because he had intended to use it and is also bad because now what is he supposed to do?

He sits there pondering his options as her breathing evens out and slows. Call a cab for her? Then what, carry her out? He knows she can't stay, but after all that's been said he can't bring himself to shake her awake and kick her to the curb. He feels responsible. He had been there for the things that had shook her, cracking her facade and bringing out all her aspects for which she is now suffering.

He remembers confronting her at the party, accusing her of lying. He'd been too angry at the time to be shocked by her apology. In retrospect, it's hard to correlate the Pacifica who had given him an impulsive hug after what had seemed a successful ghost capture and the Pacifica who had snidely treated the twins with sneering contempt. Maybe the cracks had already been there, and he'd been too caught up in his own immediate dismissal of her to see them.

Mabel had given Pacifica an actual chance, a genuine offer of friendship or at least friendly rivalry. Dipper must admit to himself that he had filed Pacifica away as nothing but a shallow snob the moment he'd seen her. Which makes him, in his own way, just as shallow. She had gone on to justify his dislike, but only after the fact.

He's well past the point where he assumed he knew everything he needed to know about her. That had been the farthest thing from the truth. Now, as he sits in the wreckage of her life, he is ashamed to have ever thought it. It's not like she hadn't done a lot to confirm his worst assumptions, but still… With new context, he doesn't come out quite as morally superior as he would like.

Whatever lingering resentment he felt has been wiped away in the wake of her avalanche of hidden pain and genuine remorse. And the worst part isn't that she's being punished for what she did—it's that she's being punished for trying to be better.

Dipper remembers her, grease-stained and bruised, trying to tighten a bolt on McGucket's war machine despite her obvious lack of experience. Her expression had said the very act was beneath her. The way she kept trying said something else entirely.

He looks at her, trying to see her not as a snotty girl at a party or a self-proclaimed mini golf queen, but as she is. Her blonde locks spread out on his pillowcase and fall partially over her face; her expression is so much softer in sleep. Her mouth is slightly open, and each exhale sends a tassel of platinum strands fluttering. It's like he's seeing an entirely new side of her, the Pacifica that exists behind all the walls of expectations and finery. The dim illumination eases the new harshness stamped into her features and hides the shadows beneath her eyes. She is peaceful and luminous in the moonlight that falls across the dark coat which contrasts so sharply with her porcelain skin.

Dipper is suddenly, painfully, acutely aware that there is a girl on his bed.

It's not a situation he's ever been in before because Mabel definitely doesn't count, but he instinctively knows that he's old enough now that his mom would make him keep his door open. Which reminds him that Mom and Dad have no idea that there's a girl in his room in the early hours of the morning. He's not sure how much trouble that represents without any prior offenses, but he has the suspicion that it's a lot.

She's tired. She's tired and going through a lot, lot of stuff right now and Dipper needs to not be weird about the fact she's in his room and on his bed. She's reaching out, and he respects that. It doesn't matter that she's really, really pretty or that she's, you know, growing up in the way that girls grow up and maybe doing it a little sooner than some other girls, and he needs to not think about the fact that both times she hugged him he could feel them (or that even at the party there was a small, stupid, traitorous portion of his brain working frantically away trying to figure out how to get a second impromptu hug so he could feel them again), and now they are bundled up in her coat and if she wasn't sleeping in her coat then what would she be sleeping in on his bed, and… and…

He needs help.

He quietly opens his door and creeps across the hall to Mabel's room, praying that she's left it unlocked. She has, and he slips inside and hurries over to her bed. She's wrapped herself in her comforter like a pig in a blanket, which is appropriate considering there is also a literal pig in her blanket. Waddles raises his head curiously as Dipper approaches.

"Mabel!" Dipper whispers, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up!"

"No. Mabel needs snooze," she mumbles, rolling away from him.

"Mabel, I'm serious, I need your help!"

She sighs copiously into her pillow and then grudgingly rolls back over. "Dippeeeerrrr… just tell the monster to wait 'til morning."

"Pacifica's here."

Mabel's eyes shoot wide open. "Wait, what?!"

"Shhhhhhhh!" Dipper slaps a hand over her mouth. "You're gonna wake up Mom and Dad!"

"Mmmf-mmm-hmmm-mmmm!" Mabel retorts. Dipper removes his hand and she continues in a whisper, "Pacifica's here?"

"She just showed up, and… Mabel, she's in pretty bad shape."

Mabel goes pale. "Somebody hurt her?"

"Not like that," he quickly reassures her. "Her family is all messed up after what happened and she's having a really hard time."

Mabel somehow manages to look simultaneously sad and delighted. "I knew she meant everything! Dipper, we have to help her!"

"That's what I've been trying to do! She just fell asleep; I don't even know if she has anywhere to go. What do we do?" Dipper says helplessly.

Mabel's brow furrows in concentration. "…We move her into my room," she says decisively after a moment. "Mom and Dad won't be mad at me for helping a friend who's really sad. We just can't let them get all parent-y by finding her in your room."

"Good idea," Dipper says, relieved. "Then you can tell them what happened."

To his dismay, Mabel's expression turns sly. "What did happen, oh brother mine?"

Dipper rolls his eyes. "I told you, she didn't have anywhere else to go. She's going through some stuff."

"And she chose you to talk to about it? How interesting…"

Dipper is not amused. "It's not a big deal."

Mabel makes circles with her fingers and then pretends to breathe on them as if they were lenses, wiping them on her shirt. "Pardon moi while I put these on…"

Dipper knocks her hands back down. "You don't need your Skepticals or Shipping Goggles or whatever you're pretending to put on now, just help me move her before we get caught!"

"Whatever you say, bro-bro," Mabel acquiesces, but she keeps grinning in a way that tells him whatever assumptions she's making will most certainly be back to haunt him.

It doesn't help there's still that persistent corner of his brain that has asked some of the same questions.

When they enter his room, Mabel covers her mouth and releases a soft squeal at the sight of Pacifica sound asleep on his bed. "You didn't tell me she was on your bed, Dipper, you rogue!"

"Where else would she be?" Dipper immediately shuts his eyes and slaps a hand to his forehead. "That didn't come out right."

Mabel pushes her cheeks together in delight, braces glittering in the moonbeams. "This is too adorbable!"

"It's not like that, she's exhausted! Now will you help me?" Dipper hisses.

"O-T-P! O-T-P!" Mabel chants.

Dipper makes a frantic grab for her mouth, but she eludes him. "Be quiet!"

"o-t-p! o-t-p!" Mabel whisper-chants.

Dipper spends a minute or so awkwardly standing over Pacifica, trying to figure out how he's going to move her without waking her up or dropping her. Mabel solves the problem by tugging the ends of the comforter up over the other girl and creating a makeshift stretcher with both taking an end of the blanket. Carefully, they carry the sleeping girl across the hall and deposit her on Mabel's bed. Dipper notes how light Pacifica is with concern. She has never been anything but slender, but she'd unquestionably had more definition in her golf uniform. She really has been losing weight that she doesn't need to.

Mabel piles sheets and pillows and a sleeping bag from her closet into a fluffy pile on the floor. It's not exactly a hardship to give her bed away for the night; she has no problem sleeping when rolled up in soft things no matter what the location.

"Did Mom or Dad say we were going out for breakfast today?" Dipper asks, unable to remember.

"I think Mom said something about errands. We're probably on our own," Mabel says, flopping down onto her improvised bedding. Waddles grunts and nudges his way into the pile.

"Maybe she'll wake up when they're gone and we won't have to worry about it," Dipper says hopefully.

Mabel looks over at Pacifica with open concern. "She looks so tired. What happened?"

"A lot, it sounds like. It's all pretty bad." Dipper sighs. "She doesn't want me to talk about it."

"But she chose you-ooooooo," Mabel sings.

Dipper rolls his eyes. "Goodnight, stupid."

Mabel closes her eyes, resting on her hamster-esque nest with her arms splayed out. "Goodnight, stupid."

Dipper returns to his room and gratefully collapses on his vacated bed. He relaxes and starts to drift away for a moment before he realizes he's so comfortable because his bed has been warmed already. By Pacifica. Who was sleeping right where he is.

The thought makes him feel all flushed, which he knows is dumb; he just can't seem to stop it from happening. He briefly wonders if the bed smells like her at all. He doesn't try to find out, though. His hormones may be poisoning his brain, but he has just enough dignity left that he's not going to sniff his sheets, even if he is alone. She was wearing a coat, anyway. His bed probably smells like nothing.

Then he rolls over and gets comfortable on his pillow and discovers it smells faintly of floral shampoo and some other delicate scents that he can't place but are definitely feminine and definitely not from him. He lies there stiffly, not sure how to react. It's kind of soothing but also kind of creepy and a few other, newer things he's too tired to grapple with. So, he flips the pillow over and plants his face on the cool side, taking in the more familiar scent of plain cotton.

It doesn't take him long to fall asleep.