I Usually Don't Post Stuff Unrelated To Fandoms, But I Was Out With Our Cat In The Garden And He Was

I usually don't post stuff unrelated to fandoms, but I was out with our cat in the garden and he was being cute. 😅

No but actually, I might have gotten bit by the plot bunny and written a short drabble when I should have gotten to sleep.

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Pacifica supposed her parents had expected her to bend after a night or two out from under their roof. Come crawling back with her tail between her legs and meekly promise to behave. To leave the first boy who'd been genuinely kind to her in the mud, alienate Mabel by proxy, and agree to sell herself to help them purchase even a scrap of the life they'd had before that fateful summer three years ago.

What they probably hadn't expected her to do, was to prefer sleeping in a sticky booth at the diner with her dignity intact. Better that than trading it for a guilded cage. She'd rather spend the rest of her life waiting tables and serving rude customers coffee with a grating smile. She didn't need her parents. She was resourceful, she was persistent, she was all of the maybe three good characteristics found in the Northwests.

She was apparently also some of the bad, though.

She was sneaky.

It wasn't that she wanted to go behind her boss' back. Especially not after they'd been kind enough to hire her despite her family's abysmal reputation in the wake of Weirdmageddon. Taking the closing shift just to be able to crash at the diner over night might be dishonest, but she'd rather be dishonest than dead. At least in this case. In the diner, she didn't risk being eaten by gnomes or carried off by giant bats or whatever else roamed the town at night. Although, if she did, maybe Mabel and Dipper could come save her. But letting them do so would mean admitting defeat. Admitting what was going on. She wouldn't admit defeat because she wasn't defeated. She'd pull through. She was perfectly fine. She just had to stay on top of things. Stay on top of things, and also make sure to never again make the mistake of locking herself out of the diner. She didn't understand how the night air could feel so cold, it was early summer for crying out loud. What on earth could posses poor people to sleep under the stars for fun? Dipper had offered her to join the Pines on a family camping trip the month before, but she had turned him down. As far as she could tell, camping was pretty much just pretend homelessness. Funny that. Maybe if she'd taken him up on the offer it wouldn't feel so scary now.

Somehow, it didn't actually feel very funny at all.

Pacifica shivered and pulled her apron tighter over herself like a stained blanket. It wasn't nearly long enough to get the job done. If she pulled it up to cover her arms her legs would be exposed, but if she draped it over her legs her arms were bared to the wind and the mosquitos instead. She supposed she could call a coworker and ask for them to come with a spare key, Susan was pretty patient with her. But that would mean revealing that she'd been staying at the diner after hours. Or worse; that for all intents and purposes she was now homeless. The notorious Northwest heiress, trembling under a too-small piece of fabric on a park bench. Her parents would have an aneurism.

There was something moving in the treeline.

A new chill that had nothing to do with the wind gripped her tight, the anxiety squeezing her lungs until breathing abandoned her. She pulled the apron over her head and hoped whatever it was wouldn't see her.

The old wooden planks bent under the weight of a person sitting down beside her.

What had she expected? She wasn't a five year old hiding under the covers and scared of the monster in the closet! She was almost sixteen, and this was the real world with real threats! Why would she possibly think that-

"Ya doing okay there?"

She recognised that voice. It was the same one she'd heard in tacky local commercials her whole childhood, the same one she'd timidly followed as the town burned around her, the same one she'd sometimes hear laughing gruffly in the background of Dipper's phonecalls. The fear drained out of her, replaced by shame. She pulled the apron back off of her head and almost instantly regretted it. She could feel her face burn.

"I-I'm fine."

"Sure ya are. Figured you wanted to try the whole 'free trial of homelessness' thing anyways?" His voice was relaxed and casual, as always. It made her feel just the smallest bit better. "You could have called us."

"I don't need help."

He regarded her closely, the unguarded smile still plastered on his face, before suddenly he dropped it with a sigh and shrugged his jacket off. Handing it wordlessly to the girl.

"Yeah, I used to think the same."

Pacifica swallowed her pride and accepted the offering.

"But, ya know, even if we don't need it... 'Camping' sucks a whold lot less with family there beside ya."

Hmmm I am usually not much of a shipper but: Pacifica's parents want her to get together with a rich boy when she's a teen to help them get their social standing back, but she sticks by Dipper regardless. Her parents give her the ultimatum to dump him or they 'dump' her, expecting her to comply. She doesn't, and gets kicked out. The Pines' basically adopt her after that (the whole thing hit's way to close to home for Stan and Ford).

Hold on... I’m okay... I’m fine, I’m fine...

She’s too proud to tell anyone about the situation, even after her parents kick her out. Stan finds her sleeping on a bench after she accidentally gets locked out of the diner (where she’d been staying). He takes her straight home to the Shack. Ford has to stop him and Dipper from keying the Northwests’ cars. Dipper stays up comforting her and lets her stay in his bed while he bunks on the couch.

I wanna chill with some sketching before sleep (I've been stuck studying most of today.) Any suggestions?

Oh man this is so awesome and sweet, but also kind of strangely ominous? Because my overdramatic self immediately jumped to "AU where the events of the series is just Stan and Ford as children playing pretend and imagining a better future because their current life sucks."

Overdramatic cartoony villains, a new monster each time they play as the story gets gradually more and more convoluted, Stan gets to be the hero and save Ford and stuff, Ford gets to travel the universe and learn things nobody else knows, and they're the cool big kids who protect their family.

Also: the art is just amazing. It's beautifully summery and resurrects childhood memories I didn't even know I had.

IN MEMORIES THE PINES STILL PLAY ON A SUNNY SUMMER’S DAY

I LOVE your idea of Shermie raising his little brothers!

Thank you! I'm always a sucker for found family stuff and good siblings (although does it count as found family if they're biological brothers? 🤔). And also a sucker for getting those poor boys away from their dad before it's too late.

I might have to write more on this at some point...

(I wonder if Shermie really would end up getting drafted? I guess that depends on how evil I'm feeling at the time 😈)

Of course it turns out it's time to test the EAS alarm while I'm in the middle of a grammar test, as if focusing wasn't hard enough without airhorns blasting throughout the entire town. :/