Day 3
“Thank you” Dipper was saying. “Thank you, Gravity Falls. You people are the real miracles.” The audience ate the over-used line right up, and Dipper smiled broadly, seemingly basking in the spotlight. Mabel stood beside her twin, outwardly keeping up a facade of performing, but her mind on something else entirely.
Specifically, something that was sitting in the back corner of the Tent, wearing colorful clothing a decade past its time and sitting next to a short, fat boy in a trucker hat.
Mabel tuned back into her performance as she heard Dipper say, “Goodnight, Gravity Falls!” The curtains swung closed around them, and Dipper immediately went from the extravagant, charismatic idol the town (thought they) knew and loved to the creepy, sadistic psychopath that Mabel was more familiar with.
“Thank God that’s over.” he hissed. “While it’s great that these performances get the public to eat out of our hands, it would be so much easier if we could just rule directly. I swear, if Stan hadn’t bungled up that election shot we gave him, I would just quit these stupid shows altogether.
“Well he did, so it looks like you’re stuck being an attention whore for the time being.” Mabel said coolly. Dipper glared at her, and she merely smirked and left the tent through the back entrance. Dipper hastened to follow.
“Where are you going?” he asked suspiciously. Mabel raised an eyebrow.
“Do I question where you go every time you disappear? No. Now do me the same favor and go torture a gnome or whatever you do in your spare time and leave me be.”
Dipper scowled and pulled out Journal 2. “You don’t question where I go because you already know. And the gnomes don’t have any more knowledge on Journal 1’s whereabouts than the manotaurs. Plus, they’re no fun to torture. They break too easily.”
“What breaks too easily?” a southern drawl came from behind them. Dipper cursed and shoved the Journal back into his jacket.
“Pines.” he said distastefully. “I thought I smelled the disgusting scent of that Shack. Tell me, are you still cooking up half-baked conspiracy theories about the death of Mayor Befufftlefumpter?”
“And y’all’s great-uncle’s immediate, though thankfully failed bid for candidacy?” Gideon asked spitefully. “Naw. Not unless Mayor Cutebiker also ends up mysteriously dying. I’m actually here about something else entirely. I’ve been researching for a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that-…”
“GIDEON! WHERE’D YOU G-... Oh. Um, hi.” Pacifica Northwest came around the side of the tent, calling out for her cousin, but freezing when she saw who he was with. Dipper sneered.
“Looks like your knight in shining armor has arrived, Pines.” Dipper said. “Northwest, get him out of my sight before he says something he’ll immediately regret.” Pacifica grabbed Gideon’s hand and tried to tug him away.
“B-but, I wanted to-…” Gideon tried to say, but Pacifica dragged him off. Dipper ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Remind me why we haven’t killed him yet?” he whined to his sister.
Mabel smirked. “Two reasons. One, he’s too clever, he would have any information on you set up to be disclosed in the event of his death, and two, I simply don’t care enough to bother with helping you kill him. All of his information on conspiracies only applies to you. Worst thing that can happen is, you get jailed, I, suddenly partner-less, have to stop doing the show, and I retire comfortably on the money we already have from our ancestor ‘founding’ the town. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I said I had somewhere to be.”
And with that, she walked briskly away, leaving Dipper stewing in his own thoughts.
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Periodically checking to make sure that she hadn’t been followed, Mabel walked through the forest to the designated meeting spot. Upon arrival, she gave a genuine smile, a rare sight for the Gleeful girl. Sitting in the clearing, waiting for her was Pacifica Northwest.
Upon seeing Mabel, Pacifica immediately jumped up and ran over to hug her. “Thank you for earlier.” She whispered into Mabel’s shoulder.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.” Mabel warned, reciprocating the hug. “Dipper can tell when I use my amulet near him, so when I get back he’s going to ask me what I was doing. Naturally, we both know that I can hardly tell him I was telepathically calling you to get your cousin before he could blab to Dipper about… whatever he wanted to say.”
“I know.” Pacifica said. “I’ll… I’ll try to keep him away from you guys.” Pacifica said, pulling back from the hug. She stared into her girlfriend’s eyes and said, “But still… thanks. For all you’ve been doing.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Mabel hummed in acknowledgement. She sat down against a tree, and Pacifica sat next to her, leaning her head on Mabel’s shoulder. Mabel put an arm around Pacifica and asked, “Out of curiosity, what was he going to say?”
“We, um, heard a rumor through the squashvine that your brother is paying off the Valentinos to lie about the causes of death for several bodies, and completely hide several more.” Pacifica admitted. “Gideon collected what he thinks is solid evidence that your brother’s up to something.”
Mabel sighed. “When is my brother not up to something? The Valentino thing is not totally true, by the way, but also not entirely wrong. He’s not bribing them, he’s blackmailing them. And what he’s doing is both futile and mostly harmless anyway, so long as Dipper doesn’t find out that there’s a third journal.” She gave Pacifica a significant look. “So it’s in everyone’s best interests that Gideon keeps that little conspiracy to himself.”
“Can we please not talk about this anymore?” Pacifica asked softly. “I don’t like what Gideon’s doing, it’s dangerous. Could we just not talk at all?”
Mabel smiled softly, and kissed the top of Pacifica’s head. “That sounds nice.” She said.
A pleasant silence fell between the two, interrupted by only the sounds of the forest. Both knew the risks of their relationship; if Gideon ever found out, there was no telling what kind of mind-control conspiracies he would come up with, and there would certainly be hell to pay if Dipper ever found out that his sister was dating a relative of the Pines. So their relationship was confined to the forest, a pace where there were no humans around to witness it, and any cryptids that saw them were either too fond of Pacifica or too afraid of Mabel to say anything to ruin it.