Stuck at work while my next chapter of DPPD is at home waiting for me on my computer. This story is basically just an outlet for dealing with that. I hope you enjoy. Start the fic.
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Pacifica strolled up to the Mystery Shack grumbling. Since losing her fortune she had tried to use it as an opportunity to better herself. Perhaps not in skills but in how she treated other people.
This was why she took a job as a waitress at the Greasy Diner. It helped... a little.
She could never really shake the feeling of superiority to others that she had grown up with. Her ego felt just as inflated as ever and she hated that.
She was different from the other Northwests and she wanted to STAY different. However, when she comes home to her new house there isn't a mansion full of servants for her to lose herself in. There was her parents and ONLY her parents. And they were watching her like a hawk.
That being said, there were times that she couldn't help but feel like she was in danger of falling back into some old bad habits. Nothing too drastic like kicking a little girl off a ribbon twirling team for tripping; more like nearly insulting a classmate's shirt for being a color she didn't like.
She was well aware it was a slippery slope. She wanted to STAY that girl that let the townspeople into the Northwest Mansion party. And in order to do that she needed to surround herself with better company.
You judge somebody by the company they keep. And there was no better company than the town heroes, the Pines family.
She was grumbling though, because she had to resort to new levels of trickery to escape her parents. They knew exactly what kind of path she was trying to stay on and they were both doing all they could to keep her off it.
She knocked on the door and waited patiently. Well she gritted her teeth and tapped her foot rather quickly so I guess one could say she was waiting impatiently.
The door finally opened up to reveal Mabel on the other side.
Pacifica mentally winced. Dipper she could handle but Mabel was an entirely different animal all her own, and she knew it too.
"Pacifica? Well this is a marshmallow surprise. What are you doing here?"
Pacifica braced herself. "My parents are being jerks again so I just thought maybe I should come here and maybe..." Pacifica scrunched her eyes closed as she tried to find the emotional strength to finish her request. She cautiously opened one of her eyes, this was one of the most emotionally vulnerable moments of her life. "Hang out?"
Mabel screamed and yanked Pacifica inside.
Mabel hugged Pacifica while hopping up and down. Pacifica wasn't a fan of it.
As her world shook around her she saw Mabel's two friends were also here.
"Wait. What are they doing here? I thought the only ones that worked here were the brick built red head and the gopher man with his wife."
"Soos runs the Mystery Shack now but the house still technically belongs to Great Uncle Ford. Here for another summer, me and my girls have been having non-stop sleepovers. That was why I got so excited just now! A new member to our sleepover bonanzas!"
Grenda crossed her arms. "What is SHE doing here?!"
'Woof!' thought Pacifica. 'Somebody still has their voice as deep as ever!'
"Now girls," Mabel broke her hug and presented Pacifica. "I know there's a history between the three of you but Pacifica is trying to be a better person now."
"..."
"..."
"I know that might be a little hard to believe but she did let everyone in to the Northwest Mansion party. And I have it on good authority that she wants to be different from her parents."
Candy and Grenda's emotional walls weakened a little.
"And the best way to become a better person is to make amends with the people you've wronged in the past. Isn't that right, Pacifica?"
The uncomfortableness Pacifica felt was legendary. She held out her hand awkwardly in friendship but in truth there was nothing she'd rather do than run out the door. Nobody ever said changing yourself for the better would be pretty. Then again the right thing to do was hardly ever supposed to be easy. Nothing worth trying ever was. "Right. I'm sorry, like, for real."
Candy and Grenda exchanged a look.
"She HAS been leaving us alone at school." offered Candy.
"... Alright." Grenda grabbed Pacifica's hand. "Consider the slate wiped clean."
Grenda's grip almost brought Pacifica to her knees but she grinned and bared it. Then an iguana, an iguana that Pacifica hadn't even noticed, ran down Grenda's arm and looked her right in the face.
"This is Ted, my new lizard. I THINK HE LIKES YOU!"
Pacifica backed up in fear as the lizard let out a long hiss at her. She kept backing up until she brushed up against Candy. She jumped and noticed Candy was wearing binoculars.
"Oh! ... Fork... Girl?"
Candy adjusted her binoculars. "Candy Chiu."
Pacifica forced a smile. 'It's okay! It is. If you can hold hands with a hillbilly then you can handle all of... whatever all this is.'
"Nice... binoculars. What... do you plan on watching?"
"Just improving humanity. Binoculars are like super glasses!"
"... I guess."
Pacifica considered just leaving but no. The easy way out probably wasn't going to help. Not in the way she wanted anyways.
"So now we have an entirely new member to our sleepover party! Let's hear it for Pacifica!"
Without warning, the other girls trapped her in a group hug and cheered while jumping up and down. It was like the hug Mabel gave her but times three. Then to make matters worse, Waddles came over and started chewing on her pant leg.
'Nope! I was wrong! This is SO much worse than holding hands with the hillbilly!' thought Pacifica.
Pacifica was just about to reach her limit and scream for them to get off when she spotted her potential salvation.
Dipper.
He was on his way to the stairs. He was probably her ONE chance at getting out of this without offending everyone.
"ACTUALLY..." Pacifica shouted over the girls' screaming causing them to stop everything. "I'm really here for, Dipper."
Everyone, even Dipper, was surprised by this news. They got off of her and she straightened out her outfit.
"I... What?"
"You gotta be kidding me."
"For Dipper? Really?"
Dipper just silently watched the scene with interest.
"Uh... Yes! You see, while I do consider myself and you to be more friendly rivals nowadays, I actually find I have more in common with Dipper!"
"My nerd brother?" Mabel scoffed. "Really?"
"We're all more than a sum of our parts!" shot Pacifica.
"What about escaping from your jerk parents? What about the truce? What about the sleepover?!"
"I meant what I said but either of you would do and since you have company I will gladly spend time with Dipper. I meant the apologies given but you girls clearly have your own vibe going on. And finally, I never said I wanted to sleepover nor that I could afford to."
"Fine... I guess?"
Pacifica cut her way through Mabel's friends and made her way over to Dipper. She gave him an uncomfortable grin which was her silent way of begging him to save her.
"Hiiiii Dipper. What... Uh... Whatcha up to?"
"Well Mabel agreed to have her sleepover down here for a change so I was on my way up to our room to go over some new maps for D,D&D."
Pacifica fought the urge to eye roll so hard right now.
"Sounds greeaaaat! Lead the way!"
"Well... Okay then."
Dipper started up the stairs and Pacifica almost followed immediately after but stopped. She leaned back into the room and pointed at Mabel.
"And Mabel? It is NOT okay for your pig to eat my clothes! I don't care if we buried the hatchet! That's not okay! My clothes are NOT on his menu! You get me?! House train your pig!"
Pacifica kept her finger pointed and her eyes locked as she slowly left the room.
Mabel just hugged her precious pig.
"Well sounds to me like we just got our new slumber party activity!"
Dipper and Mabel's room...
"Okay, plan: Escape from Mabel's Crazy Slumber Party is a success. So what are you doing here Pacifica?"
"My parents. They're trying to control me again."
Dipper dug out some graph paper from a desk but Pacifica could hear his groan.
"You guys aren't even rich anymore! What are they expecting to achieve?"
"Some nonsense about the dignity we have left or, like, something."
"Sounds to me like they're grasping at straws."
Pacifica gave a little smile at Dipper's analysis.
"That's one way to look at it I guess. So exactly what game are you working on again?"
"It's called Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons. I wouldn't be surprised if you never heard of it."
Oh Pacifica had heard of it before, she was just never interested in it. It was just about the nerdiest game she had ever heard of.
She considered leaving but there were two problems with that. One, her parents were waiting for her at home and probably not too pleased with her. She'd need to wait until it was starting to get dark for them to cool off.
And two was Mabel. If Pacifica went downstairs now, Mabel would take it as a sign that she changed her mind about the sleepover and wanted to join her instead.
No. Whether Pacifica liked it or not. She had to stick it out with Dipper. His whole deal might have been annoying but at least it wasn't absolute cringe like it was with Mabel.
Pacifica took a couple of quick deep breaths to mentally prepare herself for what she was about to ask.
"So... This game. How do you play it?"
Dipper stopped what he was doing and silently stared at her. As if trying to see if she was serious or not. She only gave him an honest look in reply.
"Well..." He took a moment to clear his throat before cautiously continuing. "First, you roll a 38-sided die to determine the level of each player's statistical analysis power orb. These orbs relate directly to the amount of power quadrants that your tem has dominion over, which is inverse to the anti-quadrants in your quadrant satchel."
"So it's what we can do and the space we can do it in vs the game's?"
Dipper's eyes widened in surprise.
"Yes, actually. You're actually the first non-player I know of to get that right the first time around."
"Lucky me." Pacifica rolled her eyes. "Think we can play it a little?"
"You..." Dipper timidly smiled at her. "... actually want to play my game with me? Nobody outside of Great Uncle Ford ever wants to play that game with me."
Maybe it was his smile or perhaps it was the vulnerable side of him that she had never seen before...but whatever the reason, Pacifica suddenly found her cheeks growing a little hot. She avoided eye contact with him and cleared her throat.
"I just... got a little time to kill. That's all. Before my parents are too beat to lecture me."
Dipper's smile got a little bigger.
"It IS an excellent way to eat up time. You'll have to make your own character and start from the beginning though."
"Fine, but just so you know... None of this leaves this room."
"I can be okay with that. First we make a graph..."
'I can already tell, this is going to be nothing but sheer torture isn't it?' thought Pacifica.
Three hours later...
"The Gold Golem is shredded into hundreds of tiny metal sheets which your character absorbs into her outfit giving it gold highlights."
"YES!" Pacifica cheered. She threw her arms up in victory. "YES! YES! YES!"
Dipper smiled. He had never seen her this happy before. And somehow, for some reason, seeing her happy made him happy.
Pacifica sat down eager for whatever the next part was.
"Okay, now that I look even more fabulous than before what happens now?"
"Well it's time to exit the dungeon. There are three possible exits but only one leads to freedom. Your choices are North, South, or De... Hey, it's going to get dark soon. You should probably head home now, right? Time was sufficiently killed like you wanted."
"Head home now?! I haven't even gotten a chance to use my new Fire Rod of Fire That Shoots Out Fire ... With Fire! My parents can wait a little longer, I'm not done playing. I roll to head North!"
She rolled a 27.
Dipper gave a small smile.
"Well okay... you head North and encounter a Fire Lion. It doesn't look like it wants to fight though. What do you do?"
Midnight...
Dipper and Pacifica had fallen asleep on the floor. Graph paper and dice were spralled all over the place.
The top of their heads were touching as they peacefully snoozed away.
Pacifica tossed to her left as she tried to get more comfortable. This continued until she was next to Dipper instead.
Dipper reached out and unconsciously pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her. Pacifica smiled in her sleep and did the same to Dipper.
Completely comfortable they slept the night away, unaware that the door to the room was slowly opening.
The next morning...
Dipper and Pacifica were walking down the stairs avoiding each other's gaze.
"So..." Pacifica began in an effort to break the awkward silence. "Last night was fun."
"... Yeah. I had fun too. I'm sorry you spent the whole night here. I already know your opinion of the place."
Pacifica shrugged. "If I still had my first opinion of the place I would have come in disguise like the first time."
"Oh yeah. I didn't even notice that. Still, I should have rushed you out the door when it was getting too late. Your parents are probably worried sick."
"They deserve to worry for a night. Might teach them a lesson!"
"I don't think they'll be happy to hear that you were spending all night with me though."
"Meh. I'll just tell them I went to Mabel's slumber party and forgot to tell them. We totally mopped the floor with Probabilator though!"
"Yeah we did!" The timid smile he had given her the day before returned. "Not everybody wants to play that game with me. In fact, the only person who likes playing it with me is my Great Uncle Ford."
"... Here. Give me your hand."
"I... What?"
Pacifica rolled her eyes as if to say 'Are you REALLY going to make me ask a second time?'
Dipper did so and Pacifica took out a pen. She started scribbling something on it.
"Next time, so long as you're in town, nobody wants to play that game with you just give me a call. If these Plebes are too lame to know a fun game when they see it that's on them."
"Wow!" Dipper stared at the phone number on his hand. "Really? I mean I had fun too but you don't have to throw me a pity bone. I've adapted to nobody wanting to play with me just fine."
Pacifica avoided eye contact. "Well... Who says it's out of pity? I... had a good time. Besides," Pacifica sighed. She could already feel the weight of what she was about to bring up. "Being a better person is a little harder than I thought. Some old habits are threatening to rear their ugly heads and maybe if I have the right company, I won't fall back into them?"
For the first time, Dipper got a good look at what awkwardness was like on the other side of the fence. Pacifica's forced grin told him everything he needed to know.
"I... Well, okay. Yeah! Sure! You're on!"
Pacifica brushed some hair behind her ears. "Great! Glad to hear it."
"Do you need a ride home? Soos can probably give you a lift with his pick up truck."
"Thanks, but it's probably better in the long run if I just walk it. I'm not in a mansion overlooking the town anymore, you know? I'll see you later though, okay?"
Dipper grinned from ear to ear.
"Absolutely! I can't believe I got a girl's phone number without flirting for it! I gotta tell Soos! Wait no! I should write this down first before I accidentally smudge it!"
Dipper ran off for the kitchen and Pacifica rolled her eyes again but this time with a smile.
She was headed out the door but she saw Mabel waiting for her on the porch. Her smile was so smug it was all but insulting.
Pacifica almost let an insult about it loose but managed to reel it back. She thought for a moment about what was the best way to say that she didn't like how she was smiling at her but also wouldn't be considered mean.
"Well... What are you smiling about? Your pig ... I don't know, like, found you a truffle or something?"
Pacifica didn't even bother to look at her. She merely walked by.
"HA! No. You can try and act like an ice queen all you like but I know better. You got something for my brother!"
"Like another gift? I'm not rich anymore, Mabel. Gotta be smart about my money."
Pacifica hopped off their porch and was about to make her trek back to her house but Mabel followed respectfully behind.
"No, Silly. I mean your CRUSH on him!"
Pacifica stopped walking. She could feel her cheeks pinken.
"... I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about the thirst for affection you want his lips to satisfy! I'm talking about the romance you're eager to kindle! I'm talking about the thousand beats a minute on your heart that's tattooed with the words 'I Love Dipper' on it! I'm talking about the CRUSH you have on my BROTHER!"
It took all of Pacifica's selfcontrol not to jump Mabel and strangle her.
"I..." Pacifica swallowed a lump in her throat. ".. don't have a crush on, Dipper."
"You can try and deny it if you really want but Mabel's got evidence!"
Pacifica tensed a little and turned to face the Shooting Star.
"Evidence?" Pacifica's voice cracked for some reason. "Of what?! Us being a couple of dorks? What do you even have? A picture of something? Not that I even care! HA HA HA ha Ha!"
Pacifica was emotionally grasping at straws and Mabel knew it. This was obvious as her grin got bigger.
"Oh no, no, no. Scrapbooking is so last year. There's no photo."
Pacifica relaxed and let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Good! ... Good."
"Mabel has upgraded to digital, Baby! It's an entire video!"
"What?!" Pacifica almost screamed. She was losing ground and she needed to save face. Fast! "Do I care?" She took a moment to clear her throat to sound less emotional. "So you recorded us playing a nerd game. It's not a crime!"
Mabel waved her finger at the former heiress. "Uh uh uh. I'm talking about the romance that happened after your night of bonding. When you were asleep!"
Pacifica's face scrunched a little in confusion. "What?"
"Oh. You don't know? PFT! What am I saying? Of course you don't know, you weren't conscious for it!"
Mabel brought out her phone. "Just watch the video."
Pacifica watched the phone as a video played of the two of them last night basically snuggling each other like they were their own private teddy bears.
"This..." Pacifica's entire face was blushing beet red. "This doesn't mean anything! We were asleep! We didn't know what we were doing! He can't be held responsible. I can't be held responsible. NEITHER of us should be held responsible!"
"Exactly. Neither of you didn't know what you were doing, you were just doing what you were feeling. And what you were feeling was good in each other's arms. And Hoo-Boy did this snug fest go on for a while! But just look at the smiles you two are sharing!"
"We aren't sha-ring anything! There is no conscious choice here!"
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about here! You two were just doing what you felt was natural!"
"MABEL! Delete that video! I demand it!"
Pacifica could feel herself falling back into one of her nasty old habits but she didn't care. This was TOO personal! This was her... VULNERABILITY for pity's sake! She couldn't have someone like MABEL of all people having that kind of control over it.
Mabel held her phone back and gave her a completely different kind of smug grin. "Or else what?"
Pacifica was expecting a lot of things from Mabel but not this.
"You're not rich anymore just like you said so you can't throw your money at me. You could try to force it off of me but Candy and Grenda are still here having breakfast inside. Wouldn't take them long to come running to help me."
"I... I..."
Pacifica tried to come up with a decent threat but her mind was in too much of a panic to think straight.
"Admit it, Pacifica! I got you over a barrel!"
The young Northwest let out a growl of frustration. Ever since the first day she met Mabel, the girl had a knack for kicking her feet right out from under her. Mabel basically had her at gun point in this situation!
"FINE! Just tell me what it'll take to get you to delete that video!"
"Well I suppose I could delete the video... At the end of the summer."
Pacifica gritted her teeth.
"And my heart does go out for you on your quest to be different from your parents. So I'll make you a deal. I'll delete the video at the end of the summer IF you come over once a week for game night with my brother."
The blonde just stared at her as if she grew a second head. "... What?"
"I saw how well you two were hitting it off last night..."
"How?"
"I have eyes everywhere. Live with it. And I honestly believe the two of you actually ARE good for each other. I also heard your little conversation off the stairs, very sweet but not enough. Sometimes becoming better doesn't mean treating everyone around you better all at once, sometimes it means taking it slower and more peacefully with just one person."
"And you think playing graph paper games with your brother will help me become a better person? Really?"
"I understand the scepticism but think of it like this: if you're too busy playing board games with my brother than you won't have time to hurt anyone's feelings. And if it leads to something deeper than friendship then what's the harm?"
"... This is a bit of a stretch. Even by YOUR logic!"
"You have to admit though, it's something you're parents would never do!"
"... Even so!"
"Girl, we BOTH know you had fun with my Bromigo last night. And while your offer to have him call you is... Nice, it's also a little too... Likely to blow up in his face what with his weird mystery hunts. Scheduled game nights are the only way to make them a sure thing."
"... I still don't know."
"Look. All I'm asking for is for you to have more of the same fun you had last night with Dipper. Does that really sound so bad?"
"I guess not... I suppose I could agree to it... But you can't tell ANYONE about it AND you have to delete the video at the end of summer like you said!"
Mabel shook her hand. "It's a deal!"
"Good."
"You GOTTA make me a bridesmaid when you marry my brother though!"
Pacifica blushed again. "MABEL! I'm not going to marry Dipper!"
"Well not with that attitude you're not."
"I don't have FEELINGS FOR HIM!"
"Keep telling yourself that, sister. As a gesture of good faith, I won't tell Dipper about this. I'll see you next week for Game Night."
"Fine!" Pacifica turned and left. "I'll be back next Thursday to have fun with Dipper playing his stupid NERD game but don't expect any kind of romance to blossom! There's no feelings, so nothing is going to happen!"
Pacifica flipped her hair and walked off.
Mabel smirked and just when she was sure Pacifica was out of ear's reach, she said two words.
"Match Made."
The End.