Dipper Gleeful

I arrived at home late that night. And as usual, Mabel was sitting on the couch waiting for me to come back.

'So, brother dearest, how did your practice go, good I presume? Not falling out of practice are we?'

All this time that she talked, she didn't part her eyes from her book. 'Umm, yeah. Practice was okay.'

'You seem unsure.'

She looked up at me, trying to study my expression. Mabel narrowed her eyes and shook her head. 'You're lying.'

Thank god she couldn't read minds, but I knew she was on to me. If she couldn't figure it out now, she definitely could later on. She perched up as if to say something but then leaned back down, hesitating. Mabel continued to read her book like if nothing happened.

I shrugged and said 'I'm not. Practice was okay, not getting too rusty.'

She glanced upwards and looked back down, unresponsive, and gave a subtle scoff.

I'll get payback for this.

'By the way, this books ends with the main chara-'

'Dipshit, no. Don't spoil it again. It's the fifth fucking book.' Mabel muttered in an annoyed tone. Hopefully, she got the message that I didn't want her nose stuck in my business, but she was smiling, in an obvious good mood for the most sadistic reasons.

I climbed the stairs and upon entering my room I shut the door.

I opened my drawer, which had an extra drawer inside and got out a journal, which Mabel didn't know I had.

On the cover there was a gold handprint, oddly with 6 fingers instead of 5 and it was kinda old and dirty. And it had a big letter '2' inscribed on it.

I always wondered why it did.

Normally, I wouldn't be caught holding something as putrid as this, but this book of a sort was different. If it weren't for the information it contained, I would've left it where I found it 4 years ago.

I looked out the window as I opened it, thinking if Pacifica would have found one with '1'.
I'll go check if she has it tomorrow.

I must have it.

-gonna switch POV here since this chapter is too short!-

Pacifica Pines

I woke quite early in the next morning to loud chatting and music downstairs, since the Mystery Shack was also a tourist trap as well as where the Pines stayed, so it was home and where the Pines earned their money.

I tried to go back to sleep, multiple times actually, before giving in. I looked at the time on my phone, 9:33am, a great time to start a day during summer vacation, no?

Walking down the stairs to the living room after changing into whatever looked nice together and brushing my teeth, I expected there to be nothing more than breakfast. Upon my entrance, Uncle Bud pushed a pile of posters onto my arms, 'Put them up in town with Gideon will ya?'

'Oh Uncle Bud but I just woke-'

'No 'but's kiddo. Move along now.'

'But Uncle Bud!' I protested.

Soon I was shoved out the door with Gideon, without a single bite of food in my stomach, and it was growling like crazy too.

'I'm sorry Paz, it's how my dad is.'

I rubbed my eyes with my free hand while my other arm held the posters.

Gideon and I practically hiked through the woods just to get to town, and with an empty stomach, that felt like forever.

Once we got to the edge of the town we decided to part ways to finish the job quicker, since Bud sent Gideon down to stick posters with me. Bud told us to stick them everywhere, and the main goal was to finish sticking the whole pile, pile including both smaller piles Bud handed us before.

By that time it was 11:23am, my stomach, still hungry and I just wanted to finish stick random ugly posters up as soon as possible.

I rolled my eyes and continued sticking them up, I weaved my way through streets and even small alleys that smelled like burnt garbage. After a while the pile I had originally had decreased to about 150 posters left, excluding the extra 530 I assumed I had already stuck on other things.

Again, I'm going to mention my stomach, because it is a important 'character', if you will, in this story. Since my stomach was hurting like crazy, I decided to go to the supermarket nearby to buy a snack or something that would suffice. 

So, holding my pile of poster, I made my way into the supermarket, careful not to drop the posters, but who knew a clumsy trip caused by a misplaced can of beans would lead to my fall.
Like literal fall, not in the context of something else, I'm not that deep, trust me.

'I-OH MY- AH-' I screamed, loud enough but not as loud for the whole supermarket to hear me, evidently seen in the way the supermarket saw me while I walked out later on.

A pair of arms grabbed me by my wrist and waist just before I hit the floor, '-oh my god. Thank you...'

The person managed to catch me in time and swerve me upwards to minimise the impact. But the only thing I really cared about was the stupid posters, 'Frickkkk...' I mumbled to myself, so I turned back to collect the scattered banners

At that moment, I still didn't see who caught me, I was too caught up in saying my 'thank you's and muttering to myself about how helpless I was.

'Well, you're welcome Pines.'

I froze, my hands couldn't move and I didn't want to turn back.
'You again.' I said, indirectly to him.

I could tell who it was by his annoying, stupid, gross, idiotic voice.
No offence obviously.

Or maybe I meant it.

At this moment, I believe he muttered something of a 'I wouldn't have caught you if you were someone else. No one intrigues me more than a newcomer.' And to this day I still don't know. I thought nothing of it and I felt my brows furrow as I stood up to face him after I collected myself.

Dipper said nothing, and shoved his hands into his pockets nonchalantly. 'Missed one.' He gestured under one of the super market's shelves and sure enough, there was a poster under it.
'I'm not getting that. It can stay where it is.' I explained. 'I wasn't complaining, just telling you.' He shrugged and started walking away.

I glanced back down at the poster under the shelf, who was I kidding, I was gonna pick that poster up whether I liked it or not.

'Thanks, if there's any way I can-'

'Repay me?'

He turned around as he said it and appeared right by me in an instant, like he was waiting for my word.

'Sure, say it that way if you'd like.'

'Hmm...' He took a finger and tapped it on his chin, I could see he knew what he wanted but was just pretending not to.

Then he leaned in close to my ear and whispered, 'Come see the show at 7pm. Then we'll talk about it.' His warm breath making my face feel weird.

I scrunched my face in repulsion after that.

After that, he disappeared, as if he wasn't here at all, maybe he's a quick runner, I thought.
Walking out of the supermarket, it was 2:42pm, my stomach was fulfilled, and the posters were gone, I called Gideon and we met up where we parted, and we started talking about our plans for that night.

'I was wondering...'

'Yes Paz?'

'If we could maybe go to the Tent show thing you told me about?'

'I wouldn't go if I were you, if my dad finds out...'

'... but he won't, I'll make sure he doesn't, if I do then will you go with me?' I finished Gideon's sentence.

He lingered on a response but finally caved in to me.

'I guess it should be fine.'

'Would be fun for a 14 year old boy to sneak out, you can tell all your friends. Think about it.'
'I mean... I dunno.'

'Then it's settled!' I clapped my hands in success.

We talked the whole way back, about how we'd sneak out.

Gideon and I decided on a simple plan. First, we had to announce that we'd go to sleep, then we use something to distract Uncle Bud, lastly, we sneak out the window of the attic where I was staying, since Gideon, somehow, don't ask me, had a gun that shot out a metal claw, but it came in handy later on.

When we got back to the shack, it was till quite early, so Gideon invited his friends over while I just chilled upstairs with my phone.

At about 5pm, I took a nap, for which I set an alarm for 6pm. I woke up at that time and snuck downstairs, to get a snack. After such a long time of being antisocial, it is a bit weird to adjust to talking to someone else again.

Just as I was trying to close the fridge door quietly without Gideon noticing, I saw him standing patiently behind the fridge door, which scare the living hell out of me.

'Hey Paz, meet my friends.'

'-oh my. Gideon!' Then upon the sight of his friends, which looked oddly at my disheveled self. 'Hi!' I waved a hand at them and attempted to escape the moment by running back up.

'No Paz! Meet them.'

I gave a forced smile as I didn't really want to be there.

'Umm, okay.' I tried to say as quietly as possible.

I set the food I was holding down and combed my hand through my hair as I stood next to Gideon.

'This is Candy, who was brought here by Cody, my friend. I think you and Candy will be good friends, since you guys are girls, you know...'

'Mhm.' I nodded, not really listening, but caught Candy eyeing my intensely, which sent a chill down my spine. What is up with weird stares in this town?

I leaned on the door frame, listening to Gideon give an introduction of each of his friends.
Once he got to the last person, I thought, maybe it wouldn't hurt to listen to one more.
'-and this is Cody. Who brought Candy, he's her older brother.'

The guys had black hair, he looked kinda similar to that first girl who was called like Mindy or something, he was kinda hot, compared to everyone else that was currently sitting in the living room, but not that hot when you compared him to someone else.

Not mentioning whom.

I almost felt myself wanting to throw up or stick my tongue out on the spot where I stood.
It's pretty guessable who I was talking about.

Cody shook my hand and so did Candy, but she maintained her icy glare, like I was planning on killing her whole family or something. 

'Nice to meet you Pacifica. I hope we can be friends.' Cody said out of all of the others, at least he was more well-mannered than the others.

'Umm, cool. Me too? I'm... uhhh... gonna go up now.'

I took the chance to sprint upstairs and go into my room, hoping I wasn't too rude.

I rolled my eyes, Gideon's stupid introduction would've made me fall asleep if he went on.
I got changed, and threw on some better shoes for walking, since I didn't have the chance to in the morning.

At 6:30pm ish Gideon's friends all left and I breathed a sigh of relief when going downstairs.
No sight of Bud anywhere.

Gideon and I walked to the Tent of Telepathy, which Dipper invited me to go in the morning, I didn't tell Gideon that, scared that he might use the information against me, not that he would, but I didn't want him to think I bumped into Dipper on purpose.

Word count: 1880
Jesus freaking hell, my fingers are sore after typing this whole chapter out. I figured that if I wanted less chapters then I needed less cliffhangers and that I'd need to write more per chapter
I know I went into too much detail but I thought it was necessary.
Hehe.
Okay! See you guys next chapter! Btw gonna start putting GF memes at the bottom of each chapter💚
-Squishiipeeps 🥵🥰💕