Quentin Trembley, ever the showman, stood with his hands on his hips, a cape billowing in the breeze, feathers firmly embedded in his facial hair. He was slightly out of breath and clearly hadn't washed in a couple of days.
His chin, usually shaved with a blowtorch, was stubbled. He had large bags under his typically piercing, grandiose eyes, only exaggerated by his pince-nez spectacles. His cravat was half-untied into a vague impersonation of a neckerchief.
A selection of buttons were pinned to his tailcoat, apparently having been scavenged by the man. One particularly outsized example clearly said 'I AM 8' - with a scrawled '½' written on it.
The townspeople looked absolutely bewildered.
This man had just flown in on a gigantic goose and had been posing in silence for quite some time, his generous brow furrowed in an intense, inspirational gaze towards nothing in particular. Either that, or he was ogling a particularly large stray woodpecker on the wall beam.
It was horrendously, awkwardly silent.
"So uh - who's your frieeeeend?" Susan asked, gingerly.
"This is President Sir Lord Quentin Trembley the Third Esquire!" Mabel piped up, jigging with her little legs as she gestured towards the beanpole of a man, as if she was proudly presenting the discovery of a lifetime. "The answer to all of our problems!"
"Mabel." Dipper interrupted quietly, nudging his sister. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, let's not forget he's-"
"THE FOUNDER OF GRAVITY FALLS!" Quentin bellowed.
Dipper slapped his forehead and groaned. Pacifica parroted him in much the same manner. It seemed today was just full of bombshells for the relatively innocent folk of Oregon's 87th least educated town.
"...Yaaaaaaay?" Susan said, increasingly perturbed.
"Now, I - uh - I ain't one to go all judgin', but this fella seems a little bit unhinged." Bud added.
"Okay, look, we really need to explain things." Ford said, scratching his head. "This is uh-"
"Unhinged from the British Empire, like our fine democracy of the United States!" Quentin said proudly, one foot raised on a bucket.
Stan winced. "You're standin' on the pee bucket, Quentin."
"It smells like FREEDOM. And strangely like the house of congress."
The rest of the makeshift team stared at eachother, clearly struggling to comprehend why the lanky man who sounded like an old fashioned radio broadcaster was standing in front of them like a great pioneer.
Ford coughed. "So-"
Dipper rifled around in his vest. "I prepared a presentation about Quentin just in case this happened. Give - give me a minute."
Pacifica giggled. "You dork."
"Hey, we gotta be prepared, right?"
"What, do you have a full script, too?" She snorted, giving him a friendly punch on the arm.
"...No." He replied, stuffing the papers back into his pocket and handing Ford the little memory stick. "That - that'd be dumb."
Quentin watched, still in his overly dramatic stance, as the group set up the computers that they had brought into The Crawlspace. It had been Bud's suggestion - Dippy looked like the sort of nerd who knew his way around a computer, in his words.
"This place has electricity?" Wendy blinked.
Soos gave Wendy a slightly judgemental glare. "They're weird , bro, they ain't savages . I mean, some of them are savage but that doesn't mean they're, like, savages."
The Pines all glanced to Quentin, expecting some sort of flowery cooing over the modern technology.
Trembley just picked his teeth and looked at them in bewilderment. "What? I've been living in this age for over a year. You think I haven't seen a computer? I was president . Gimme some credit."
It took a few minutes of awkward fumbling - after all, nobody liked being watched while using the computer. But soon enough, the presentation was running in full splendour, projected onto the bare brick wall of the miniature tenement.
The townspeople watched in bewilderment.
"Where did you even get the government video?" Mabel whispered.
"Dude, you can find anything on the dark web." Soos shrugged. "Got Dipper a copy of it in, like, two hours."
"We just had to give them Grunkle Stan's social security number." Dipper added. "Y'know, considering it isn't even his anymore."
"That and I gotta keep some bags of flour in the basement for another two months." Soos shrugged.
Melody blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Nothin', my little mojita!"
"Mojito."
"Mojita, mojita, I'm pretty sure that's a regional thing, bro." Soos said, before leaning into the twins. "I've been thinkin' about making some bagels with it."
"Genius." Mabel said, clapping her hands onto her cheeks.
Dipper furrowed his brow. "Don't make bagels with it, Soos."
The video went through the ticking motions as it began.
"Augh, black and white?" Kevin groaned.
"Oh my gosh!" Mabel chirped, wrapping her arms around him like a vice. "What is going on here?!"
If you're watching this, then you are one of eight people in these United States with clearance to view this information…
The presentation had been rewatched by Dipper at least four times before, apparently due to a weird conspiracy theorist obsession with spotting easter eggs and secrets. As a result he had gotten Pacifica to watch it, like, thrice since the Gooseliath debacle.
Just as the townspeople were beginning to get enraptured by the sincere suity man in the black and white footage, the two of them were distracted by footsteps in The Crawlspace outside. Manly Dan was meant to be on sentry duty, but was now consuming an industrial-sized vat of Susan's Crispy Wispy Mystery Snacks. And growling every time Soos reached for them.
Dipper was half expecting to see Blubs, Durland, and a load of men in black ready to take them to Washington. Instead, he saw two familiar silhouettes nipping through The Crawlspace's narrow tenements and golden streets.
"Oh, no." Pacifica groaned. "What are they doing?"
"You think they're looking for you?"
"I don't know… It looks more like they're heading out somewhere-"
The two glanced at eachother, and Dipper couldn't help but twist his lip as he reluctantly spoke up. "Are you… sure this is what you want?"
It seemed, to his girlfriend, that it came out of nowhere. But considering what her affiliation with the Pines had got her, it wasn't that much of a surprise question.
Pacifica blinked, and made a pretty obvious show of looking her boyfriend up and down before giving a cheeky grin. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm certain."
He chuckled and looked away awkwardly, with a blush in his cheeks. "But even… after summer?"
"Duh. We've been over this. I'll call you every day."
"Like some kinda crazy obsessed girlfriend?" He snorted.
" You're the obsessed one. If I didn't call you, you'd panic ."
He chuckled. "Fine, calling pact it is."
She grinned - then, before she had much time to divert her thoughts, remembered the loss of her phone on the rampant, Boggle-powered locomotive. Every photograph. Every selfie. Every piece of blackmail against Mabel. Every secret photo she'd taken of Ford watching Shimmery Twinkleheart. Every moment of her best-ever summer.
She deflated against the window frame and sighed.
"Hey." Dipper smiled, warmly. "We'll get you an even better one."
"It's the memories, Dip."
He paused and twisted his lip. Slowly, gingerly, he held Pacifica's hair and put his hands to work.
"... Are you braiding my hair?"
"Mabel used to say it always cheered her up."
"He's a total expert." Mabel popped up, frightening the two out of their skin.
Dipper yelped and clenched his chest. "Mabel! H-how long have-"
"I basically live for you two and your serious talks." Mabel beamed. "I'm like a fly on the wall, but less gross!"
"Only slightly less gross." Pacifica grinned, poking her proxy sister.
Mabel stuck out her tongue and leant out of the window. "Watcha both lookin' at? Was one of the gnomes making out with a squirrel again?!"
"No, no, pretty sure it was nothing." Pacifica said. "A pair of snakes, maybe."
"Man, snakes are cool. You could've told me."
"They were really, really uncool snakes."
Dipper blinked and decided to play along, nodding eagerly. For now, the less trouble they caused, the less likely they were to end up back in a cell.