On the end of the high street, drowning in the silhouette of the clanging, towering steeple of the church, sat the town's police precinct. A place that, in truth, did little to advertise the town's legal forces. It was a battered, worn brown box of a building with deep blue and khaki accents. Hardly a place of superior architecture, if aesthetics of the place had been considered in the design at all.
It sat in the rain soaked street like an oversized brick, another of Gravity Falls' decidedly mismatched landmarks that felt as disorganised as the people who lived there.
The building's contents were in no greater shape and were no less depressing. The crumbling plaster was painted in a dull, greying pistachio, lined with cheap MDF wood panelling and battered grey filing cabinets. It was pure, bland, unpleasant office chique.
The holding cells were hidden just around the far right corner, locked behind green office doors and narrow, dripping corridors that were still displaying posters about the Y2K bug, the first Duke of the Bracelets movie and the 2004 Christmas party.
Therein, the ageing strip lights hummed and buzzed, flickering gently. They provided very little light and even less comfort.
A television was perched in one of the corners for the entertainment of prisoners. It was a clunky black CRT that weighed the same as two cinder blocks. And played endless, grating white noise.
Thin streaks of water dripped down the grey, concrete walls, feeding the sprigs and bursts of green moss that peeked from the cracks and hollows between concrete entire room was soundtracked by a constant humming from the AC units. An irritating, high pitched, continuous whine that buzzed through the ears like a dental drill.
Mabel shivered as a cold breeze floated through the iron bars of the unglazed window, huddled close to her brother as he idly tried to pacify himself by toying with the label on his vest.
The kids were all quiet. All cold. All uncomfortable.
Grunkle Stan did not have the same sense of nuance. Quite the opposite. It had been hours, and the cabin fever already seemed to be setting in. In a big, big way.
"This is a set up!" He bellowed. "I ain't ever smuggled those damned malamutes! I never even met a malamute!"
"Stanley."
"It was Ford! It was all Ford! Ya see how shifty he is?!"
"Stanley!"
"I'm too old to go back to the slammer! C'mon! He's wearin' a turtleneck! What good person wears a turtleneck?!"
Ford rolled his eyes as he journaled his experiences in the county jail, his lip twisted, his brow furrowed like a cornfield - and the bags under his eyes betraying nothing short of pure exhaustion. "I can't believe Blubs and Durland would do this. After everything we've done for the town."
Dipper huffed. "Who knew they could even do police work?"
"I thought they got their badges out of cereal boxes." Mabel sniffed, her sweater tented over her knees and her bottom lip protruding, quivering slightly.
Dipper grimaced and put a protective arm around her. A single tear trickled down her round, rosy check and onto the oversized turtleneck of her sweater.
Pacifica held her face in her hands. After this Summer, she had been into worse situations. That much was certain. The difference was that this particular situation came with particularly dire societal pressure.
It was a voice of doubt that she had kept quiet almost all summer - more or less, at least. But this? This was really difficult to ignore.
A Northwest? In jail?
Pacifica Northwest? In jail?
This was almost normal for the Pines. This wasn't even Mabel and Dipper's first time behind bars. But it made her feel worse than she expected. Made her feel worse than she wanted to. It reminded her how much things had changed, and - for the first time - not entirely in a good way.
She shuffled a little on the thin, corroded wooden bench that acted as the cell's sole form of comfort and winced. It was a far cry from what she was used to. Even the exhausted old railroad carriage felt better than this. At least it had cushions.
Her eyes gazed down to her boots as she swung her feet back and forth, trying to distract herself from the circumstances she found herself in. She was certain that she hadn't done anything bad. Not like, really bad. She had done some bad things and been a bad person from a bad family, but she hadn't done anything illegal .
It felt painful to consider the fact that, if she had never met the Pines, she would have never faced an impending court date.
What made it worse is that she could tell Dipper was thinking the same. Since they had landed in there he had told her 'sorry' at least sixteen times, and was now - seemingly - trying to maintain a distance. Just in case. Just in case she was angry? Just in case she blamed him?
It wasn't fair. She wanted to go and give him a hug. She wanted to reassure him, or get reassurance, or - something. But she kind of figured it'd be pointless. There wasn't any positive feeling to salvage in such a horrible place. It was dark, it was damp, it was miserable, and…
There was a rat.
Why did it have to be a rat?
Pacifica wasn't scared of rats or anything, just found them gross and bitey. She grimaced at it and the barrier it had set up, unwittingly, between her boyfriend and her.
It felt like the vermin was taunting her.
A cold breeze worked its way through the empty, barred window holes - You couldn't exactly call them frames - and snapped Pacifica away from the judgemental staring contest she had begun with the rat, back to the unpleasant reality. It was dark, it was damp, it was miserable, it was cold-
"You fellas want a doughnut?" Blubs asked as he walked in with a box of his favourite treble-chocolate-glazed.
"C'mon Daryl, for old time's sake, don't you wanna let us go?" Stan asked in his best attempt at sounding sincere. "Remember that time I gave ya 9% discount on a snowglobe?"
"It was 0.9%, and I ain't bitin'." The town's sheriff replied. "The only thing I'm plannin' a bite on is these oh-so-delicious doughnuts."
"You haven't even told us the charge!" Ford protested, far less interested in trying to be persuasive. "You can't arrest children! "
"If I couldn't, I wouldn't." Blubs said, indignantly. "Accordin' to Befufftlefumpter's Kids are just tiny criminals rule, I can take 'em in just like we did to Gideon."
"Gideon was a psychopath!" Mabel yelled. She stomped her foot, which, thanks to her cushioned pumps, made a rather unintimidating 'bump' on the rotten jailhouse floor. "You can't take us in like that as if we're as bad!"
"Gideon didn't cause Weirdmageddon!" Daryl barked back, coming perilously close to raising his voice. He quickly quieted back down to his usual, impressively smooth tones. "We trusted you, we thought you were heroes and- and without you Pines we wouldn't have needed town heroes in the first place after what you did!"
"Hey!" Dipper yelled protectively, diving in front of his sister. "She didn't-"
"I wasn't talkin' about you danged kids." Blubs said. "I meant science boy over there, with his portal gadgets."
Ford's mouth hung agape at the realisation of what the police knew, with a flustered, frustrated sputter, his face going an iffy shade of purple.
Stanley put a protective arm around the scientist, as if he was still the dorky kid-brother that needed backup when someone was trying to grab their lunch money - but it was a little hard to really step up and say it was untrue .
The sheriff stopped. And, for at least a moment, his facade of authority dropped.
"I'm sorry kids. I really am." he said, handing them a doughnut each. "But we've read everythin', we've seen everythin', and- well, shucks. I don't know for sure if you guys have helped this town more than you've harmed it."
Mabel pouted and ate the doughnut with a furious glance towards her shoes, feeding another to Waddles - who had been arrested under Befufftlefumpter's pigs are a little bit too much like tubby little humans rule.
The pink, spotted swine, who was ultimately rather unaware of the situation, ate it greedily in a single gulp and curled up alongside his owner.
Mabel offered herself a little smile as she stroked his ears.
"This ain't just me tryna be a big fancy city cop." Daryl added. "This is for the good people in Gravity Falls. Our friends, our families, our-"
"We get it." Pacifica huffed.
"Then you know why you should be here. If you did something wrong, it's only right you face the music for it."
"I like jazz!" Durland spoke up from the sheriff's office.
"He really does. Durland just loves his jazz." Blubs beamed - before returning to his decidedly sharp, stony disposition and walking back to the office.
"You're making a big mistake." Ford called out after him, firmly.
Blubs paused, but didn't turn to face the greying scientist. He rolled his shoulders and said, bitterly, "The big mistake here is you comin' to town in the first place, Stanford."
Ford blinked, his face crestfallen, somewhat taken aback by the surprisingly harsh words of the town's authorities. The door slammed behind the portly, doughnut toting cop and locked.
The Pines were all but alone.
And there was a rat.