---
"I need answers." Pacifica told Stan Pines. She'd been surprised to get a text from Mabel earlier that said Stan wanted to talk to her. She was worried, of course, about meeting so soon after that disastrous sleepover, but apparently the demons were going to be busy and distracted for a few hours. She didn't know what that meant, but Stan had set up the meeting at Greasy's Diner, with the story that he was going to be taking the niblings out to lunch there since they hadn't gotten to go with him the last time that he'd gone. So that was where Pacifica found them. And she had slid into the booth and gotten straight to the point.
...Or at least she'd meant to. But before she could begin talking, Mr. Pines pulled a rolled-up wad of papers out of his back pocket and tossed it down onto the table in front of her.
At first, in her confusion, she thought it was a magazine or a newspaper, until she picked it up and blinked at it.
Mr. Pines lounged back in his booth seat, sipping on a cup of coffee while she read it. And gone still, as she realized what she'd been holding. She was quiet as she read, and gotten even quieter as she went on.
She read the whole thing despite all this, though, and when she was done, she carefully set it down and slowly looked up at him.
"Did Miz tell him, or is his hearing just that good?" Pacifica asked him quietly.
"If you really wanted to know that one, you shoulda stuck around for breakfast, and asked the kid himself, directly," Mr. Pines told her, and Mabel winced.
Pacifica stared bullets into Mr. Pines for a moment, then looked over at Mabel.
"Why didn't you tell me we were being listened to," she stated rather coldly at Mabel, thoroughly incensed at this point, and Mabel winced.
"She didn't know," Pacifica heard from up behind her, and she went rigid. "But that Stanford does," continued a voice that sounded like playful knives.
Pacifica barely resisted the urge to punch straight out, as the demon slid into the booth seat at her side, right next to her, and...
"...Thought I told ya to stay at the house with your sister, kid," Stan Pines said, eyeing the demon over his coffee mug critically. Pacifica's mind was spinning in circles at this point, but she supposed it was a small comfort that Mr. Pines sounded at least a little disapproving of the demon's presence, as the demon picked up the transcript from last night's conversations from the sleepover right in front of her, and slid it into… a hat. Some sort of… she wasn't sure exactly what it looked like, but it was a bit floppy and pointed and she was too scared right now to turn her head.
"And miss this? --Stanley, you wound me," the demon purred out with a scary kind of sarcastic glee and a wide wide grin.
And then Pacifica all but flinched as the demon's hand came down on her head with almost a slap and--
And the demon began to… he was…
(Pacifica started to twitch.)
...petting her, on top of her head. Running his right hand into, over, and through her hair gently, in some dumb parody of--
Pacifica ducked her head and slapped his hand away.
And she was just about shaking with rage and fear as she looked up at the demon and--
--the demon was staring down at her with a low-lidded gaze, in something almost, but not quite like, amusement.
"...Bill…" Pacifica heard Mabel say quietly, across the table, at Mr. Pines' left-hand side.
"Rude, much?" Bill Cipher said to Pacifica (presumably, of her hand-slapping, rather than referring to his own improper actions like he should be), as he tossed an elbow over the back of the booth and turned away from her slightly.
Pacifica was ready to tell him off, getting her face rearranged be damned, when Lazy-Eye Susan walked by and took a moment to slow down and scratch Bill on top of his head as she went by.
"Don't forget," Lazy-Eye Susan said cheerfully, as she started to walk away again, "Your shift starts in an hour;"
Pacifica was already staring at the way that the demon had practically stretched his head and neck upwards to follow her boss' hand and those scritches. She started to twitch at the thought of the demon having taken a job at the diner, and the idea of being stuck on her shift with him for the rest of the day when her shift started in an hour--
("Mm," went Bill, leaning back in his booth seat. The demon looked a lot more relaxed now, as Pacifica eyed him critically.)
...Oh. Right. Right. Her shift, not his-- Wait.
"Kid," Mr. Pines said blandly, as he took another sip of his coffee. "You maybe wanna go up to the counter and get some more scritches in, or whatever?"
"Counterpoint: I get to mess with Llama if I stay sitting right here, plus head scritches," the demon drawled out lazily.
"Counter-counterpoint, even more head scritches up there," Mr. Pines said evenly.
Bill actually tilted his head back quite far and rocked it side to side slightly in place, with a slight grimace that came and went as he "HMmmMMMMmmmMMMmmmmm…" hummed out in thought.
...Pacifica could not believe this. The stupid-- "Just-- go up to the counter already!" she spat out at the demon, practically shoving him out of the booth with both hands.
The demon had to have been expecting this, though, because he didn't end up on his butt on the floor, he ended up on his feet in something of a dignified huff. "Rude!" the demon said, but for some reason he was grinning brightly as he turned away from them and walked off. To sit himself down over at the counter. ...For more head scritches, which Lazy-Eye Susan was providing. (The traitor.)
Pacifica pinched the bridge of her nose. "It was him?" she asked. "Not Miz?" Really? It had been him?!?
"Both of them, kinda," the old con man told her over his coffee.
Pacifica stared over at him, aghast.
"Why?" she asked of him openly.
But to this, the man shrugged. "Kid likes worship. Go figure."
Pacifica stared at him.
"And Miz?" she asked, after a long moment.
"Miz… kinda seems to just like the attention," Mabel told her, and Pacifica looked over at her, as Mabel squirmed slightly in her chair. "Miz is… lonely." Mabel added, as if that explained it.
Wonderful. She'd survived the demon for the moment. Despite the fact that he, and Mr. Pines, both obviously knew that'd she'd been-- last night--
Okay, this was great and all, but-- "I thought you said they'd both be busy for a few hours--!" Pacifica hissed at the old man as soon as Bill looked to be thoroughly in the throes of a good petting (practically slumped over -- and across -- the counter at the front almost fluidly). Not that it apparently meant much, considering the demon could apparently just pull up whatever people said somehow, no matter what, barrier spell that was supposed to prevent magic or not!
"Kid changed his mind when he heard I was taking the kids to the diner for a few hours," Mr. Pines shrugged off.
Pacifica was about to ask him another pointed question when she heard an "AAACK! --BILL!" from the front, and she had to let out a sigh. ...Well, Dipper was clearly out of the bathroom after washing his hands again, now.
Pacifica couldn't help but rub a gloved hand against her brow, as some cackling and muted back-and-forth occurred in-between the two of them at the other side of the cafe, until Dipper finally got away from him and dropped down next to Pacifica into his own seat there (recently-vacated by Bill and originally vacated by one Dipper Pines earlier) once again.
"How is this my life," she heard Dipper mutter as he slid a little farther into the booth next to her. "Why is this my life. Stupid demon. Stupid--"
"--Hey," Pacifica heard Mr. Pines say almost critically -- certainly, rather more sharply than she was used to hearing from the old con man ever -- and Dipper… winced and quieted down on his insults. Pacifica glanced uneasily between them.
Mabel winced. "Bill… hates being called the 's' word. It makes him really mad."
"But he's perfectly fine calling everybody else an idiot," Dipper muttered out, crossing his arms and sliding down and back in his seat.
"Never said the kid ain't a hypocrite." Stan sipped his drink. "Never said he don't take being called an idiot a hell of a lot better than 'the s word' neither," Mr. Pines snorted out, with an odd twinkle in his eye as Dipper looked up at him with… some kind of dawning realization going on, for some reason.
"What, seriously?" Dipper asked, and the old con man gave his grandnephew a nod something of a gleaming-eyed smile over his coffee cup, as he took another sip from it.
"Kid don't usually dish out what he can't take," Mr. Pines noted. "Never heard him call anybody stupid who didn't call him that first."
And this… apparently had Dipper sitting up a little and frowning, still crossed-armed, in thought. "Huh…" Pacifica watched as Dipper turned around in his seat and looked past the side of the booth -- apparently, watching the demon for a bit, with the direction in which he was looking.
"So, what," Pacifica drawled out, "Only some insults are fair game?"
Mr. Pines looked over his coffee cup at her again.
"Remind me to hand you a dictionary sometime," the old con man said, apropos of none.
"...I have several dictionaries at home," Pacifica said, almost caustically, but the old man just looked at her and shrugged it off with a "Suit yourself."
Pacifica frowned up at him, then tried not to wince as Dipper whispered out to her in her ear, "I'm pretty sure he meant all the Bill-speak stuff. The dumb dorito's got some weird definitions for things, or something," Dipper told her (reminded her, really -- Mabel had said the same thing to her last night during the sleepover, blast it!). "I think it's 'cause he's insane and doesn't think the same way we do," Dipper ended up telling her next.
Right. "...I would appreciate a copy of this demon-translation dictionary." Pacifica conceded.
"Oh, yeah? You sure?" Pacifica gritted her teeth. She really didn't like the smug smile Mr. Pines was giving her right now. Or the, "Heh, maybe I should charge you for it. Gotta be worth somethin', bein' able to talk to demons like--" ("Grunkle Stan," Mabel chided him, to a "Yeah, yeah, fine," from him next.) But she knew how to set aside her pride (and potentially her checkbook) for something important, and knowing how to essentially speak the demon's language would be something critical for her to know. So even if he really meant to gouge her on it later, Pacifica would pay up for this. If she had to. (It had just better be very accurate, and not one of those stupid scams of his.)
So Pacifica gritted out through her teeth, "I would very much appreciate it, if I could get a copy of this demon-dictionary," she repeated.
"Yeah," said Mr. Pines over his coffee cup as he downed it to the last drop, not even looking at her, "I heard ya the first time, y'know."
Pacifica bristled, but she stopped herself from saying anything caustic when Dipper put a hand on her shoulder, she turned towards him, and he shook his head at her in warning.
So she took a deep breath, and got back to the real point at hand. "That transcript you had; he knows what we were talking about." Pacifica stated. Mr. Pines nodded. "And he knows what Miz said." Another nod, and something of a lopsided smile.
"So, he knows that Miz doesn't love him." Pacifica stated. That was part of her worry, because if Dr. Pines was right about the whole pretend family play thing, then Bill finding out Miz didn't love him might make him want to call off this game.
Stan raised his eyebrows at her for just a moment, then grimaced. (Hell, and here he'd thought she might actually have the thread going there, for a second.) "Nah." He paused at her look, before letting out a sigh and telling her, as he held out his cup for a refill and got one (as Lazy-Eye Susan passed by), "She adores him."
"Then why isn't she worried about--"
"--You wanna take this one, Dipper?" Mr. Pines said, cutting her off, and it startled her.
She looked over at Dipper and he said, with a slight 'sorry' grimace and a shrug. "Bill told her to stop trying to protect him, this morning at breakfast. Stop getting angry for him, too?" He looked over at Mr. Pines, and said next "It kind of came up, when Grunkle Stan was talking to him and Miz about the while slumber party thing, and Grunkle Stan asked him for a transcript of the whole thing, and stuff." And Dipper didn't look any happier about the whole transcript thing than she felt. In fact, his own response to what must have happened this morning gave Pacifica pause.
"And Miz was tryin' to protect him," Stan pointed out, pointing his own coffee cup at her. "Tryin' to threaten you all for him, and everything. Ain't real happy about that," the old con man noted. "She still ain't playing nice yet." If she was ever going to stick by stuff and actually start playing nice, at some point. Stan wasn't holding his breath for that one anymore. At this point, he'd just take the kid being able to stop her from killing or maiming anybody.
Miz was just too forgetful, too out of control, and Stan wasn't going to count on Bill being able to straighten her out anytime soon, Even with the dragon-lady herself saying that she wanted to be quote unquote 'better', that whole nighttime conversation with her hadn't really changed anything with her and what she was doin', not really. The best he'd gotten out of that, was her keeping her mouth shut sometimes around Ford -- and even that was out the window again now, what with the whole headband thing back and forth, with the needing to stop reading other-people's thoughts stuff having tangled that whole mess up all over again, now.
Not that that really changed anything, in the long haul. She was too spontaneous, like the kid wasn't. She reacted without thinking first, forever and always -- which was really the freaking opposite of the kid, even if the demon lost his temper over shit sometimes, too. She didn't think ahead, not really, and she forgot stuff on top of everything else, like the kid didn't, so when you told her stuff, it just didn't stick, even if she seemed to mean it at the time. Stan didn't know what to do with her, really. And when she got scared and upset, if that ever happened...
Heck, she'd told them already -- and Stan really wasn't looking forward to finding out what she actually meant on that one -- that when she got scared or upset, she couldn't think properly. ...Like she was even thinking 'properly' at all to begin with. Stan grimaced at that.
--Which was what made her so damn dangerous, really. She wasn't actively malicious most of the time (except with Ford -- though that was a pretty big 'except' in his book), and it made it even harder to handle her, because he couldn't just go punching her in the face for completely deserving it, telling the kid she deserved it, and just leaving things off at that. Oh no, dragon-lady couldn't make it that easy for him. She just decided she was all 'right' about something, no matter how wrong she actually was about whatever it was, really -- because she just forgot what it was convenient for her to forget, to go forward with things however she wanted -- and then bulldozed her way forward, through everything and anything in-between, including people even. (Hell, sometimes for her, that seemed like a selling point. Murdering all those pedophiles and shit. Like she needed the excuse to 'be good'... at killing and messing with people...)
Stan sighed. Hell, getting therapy wasn't going to be nearly enough for the dragon lady, here. She didn't just need therapy, she needed someone literally freaking telling her what she could and couldn't do, and making it freaking stick, somehow. Dragon-lady wasn't going to stop any of this shit on her own, that was for sure.
And no, Stan wasn't going to be the one who was going to do that. But he was starting to understand why Bill was so worried about her being alone with him now. If Bill thought Stan could actually tell her to stop doing this stuff, and actually have her listenin' to him, he'd be real damn tempted to do it outright, and just be done with it. But he wasn't anybody's mother, and he sure as hell wasn't her friend. He wasn't signing up for any of her shit, and the sooner she left at this point, the better, far as he was concerned.
"...Miz is really afraid of losing Bill…" Mabel spoke up.
"She ain't going to lose the kid," Mr. Pines told them all, as he took another sip from his mug. "Whole point of them being siblings, and all."
"But she's still afraid of it. Of… being left alone." Mabel continued, remembering what they'd talked about out in the yard, about what Bill had said to her specifically outright, about being lonely and... "She's afraid of losing Bill. Like she lost her other siblings," the teenager emphasized. "You, um, you remember what I told you that they said to each other, out in the yard, when Bill was helping her with the whole 'listening to other people's thoughts' thing?" she asked her grunkle, hoping he would understand what she meant without her having to outright say it.
That got everyone to turn and stare at Mabel.
"Miz can listen to people's thoughts now?" Pacifica asked Mabel in horror, to which Mabel quickly waved her hands in front of her and assured her, "No! Not anymore! That's what they were working on the headband for!"
Meanwhile, while that little panic attack of Pacifica's was going on, Stan was letting out a sigh and rubbing a hand over his face as he remembered what Mabel had told him.
"...Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked him slowly, but Stan just shook his head.
"Ain't somethin' to worry about, Dipper," he told him. If there were two things he was really sure of with that triangle… "Kid looks at her like he practically wants to box her up and hang her around his neck for a start, lately. Pretty sure he's not gonna let her go off leavin' or anything, until he sure that she's gonna remember to come runnin' to him if she's having any problems with anything, and he's got his own way of going after her and getting to her if he needs to," if he thought she needed him. The rest of it -- getting his new baby sister handling her powers 'right', or whatever else it was what the kid said he wanted to work on with her before she went anyplace else that was any less safe (read: anyplace where the kid wasn't) -- was really only the 'gravy on top' for the kid, Stan was pretty sure. Stan didn't doubt that the crazy triangle demon would be more than happy to go to where Miz was if she needed him later, for more help than she could ever need on that sort of thing or whatever, but the kid might not be able to help her later if he couldn't get to her himself. First things always came first with the kid; the kid wasn't stupid -- he knew what he was doing.
"But what does that have to do with Miz thinking we can kill Bill Cipher?" Dipper asked Stan dubiously next, and Stan barely stifled the sigh. He didn't stifle the grimace.
"Don't think that the kid thinks that the whole 'convincing her to run to him' thing would work, without convincing her he can't go on bein' dead for him to not be here to help her. If the kid can't convince her, and she ends up convincin' him instead, maybe that might mean somethin'." Stan told Dipper with a shrug. Seemed simple enough to him.
...and Pacifica was staring at Mr. Pines incredulously. "What, are you joking?" she asked him somewhat rhetorically (and angrily), then stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you honestly believe that we really can't kill Bill Cipher. Again." She stared at him flatly and coldly. Because it had been one thing when she'd heard Dr. Pines say it, that Mr. Pines was refusing to help them all kill Bill Cipher. But it was a whole different thing, to be sitting here in this booth and watching the old con man scratch at his cheek and then shrug at her, going "Eh," in front of her, in the here and now -- it was absolutely infuriating and-- and--
Pacifica slammed both hands onto the top of the table in front of her and shot to her feet, about to read Mr. Pines the riot act--
--and Pacifica jolted in place as she felt a pat on top of her head again.
She not-quite froze in place again, and not just because of the looks on the faces of the two Pines twins, both in front of and next to her.
--and slapped Bill's hand away from the top of her head yet again, turning and scowling up at Bill--
--who was lounging on his side across the back and top of the booth seating, looking down on her with amusement in his eyes.
And he grinned.
"Little Llama," Bill purred out at her. "So angry. --You should be careful," Bill told her, with a gleam in his eye. "When you get so angry that you're ready to attack, don't forget to not turn your brain off!"
Pacifica stared up at him for a moment in sheer disbelief.
...and then she realized exactly what she'd been doing.
In the exact same diner that Bill was sitting around in.
Within earshot.
...And then she realized that what she was thinking was entirely wrong, and not even really the main point or the real problem of it all, when Bill said next, almost playfully: "....You do remember that you're NOT on the priority list, don't you?"
And then Bill just lounged there. And propped up his head under a fist in a listening posture. And just waited.
...turned her brain off. She'd turned her brain off. Pacifica fought the desperate urge to giggle hysterically at the sheer stupidity of what she'd just done here today. Meeting with Stan Pines directly. --Dr. Pines was already compromised, and there had been no reason whatsoever to think that Mr. Pines would have been anything better, anything more but worse than that, even. The twins hadn't been telling her anything close to everything either, and she should have known better. She should have known better than to--
She should have left. She should have left when she'd realized that Bill had first arrived...
Pacifica felt a chill go down her spine, as the demon looked at her piercingly, and Bill's grin got just a touch wider, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, here and now.
...they'd all been compromised. All of the Pines had been compromised.
"Time to answer a question for me, little Llama," Bill Cipher said to her next. "Which side are you on--"
"Bill--" Stan started to say, in warning tones.
"--Glasses, or my Six-Fingered Hand?" the kid said next, and there was no way Stan was gonna let that one slide.
But the kids started getting there first. "--That's not a fair question, Bill, and you know it!" Dipper put out there almost immediately.
Pacifica was almost thrown off by the level of accusation in Dipper's tone, but right now, she couldn't look away from the demon in front of her. She was sweating at this point, and she could… she could feel the knife's edge she was balancing on, just held, being held underneath her… ready to slice her up and--
"Kid, you didn't give her my side as an option there," Stan put out there before things could begin to get any worse.
"Because your side isn't an option for her right now," the demon said next, not looking away from Pacifica's own gaze. "She wants to attack me; she's not part of the agreement. That means she's either with Glasses, or with Sixer, right now," the demon said easily.
"And this is something you've got to know right now," Stan tried rather blandly, as Pacifica continued to sweat under the demon's gaze.
The demon's grin got a little wider.
"Yes," the demon purred out, like he was savoring the word.
There was a pause.
"...It's your funeral," Stan said next, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat, to both the twins' horror.
"HAHA! --Quite possibly!" the demon enthused, leaning in a little more closely. "Go on and choose, little Llama. I want to KNOW," he told her, with that grin still plastered across his face.
And as Pacifica stared up at him with her mouth dry, and her throat starting to feel closed off, and her hands numb with the cold spreading through her...
...she started to get really, truly, angry.
Her hands clenched into fists.
"Go to hell," she told him, but the demon just laughed.
"Been there, done that! Burned the t-shirt already, even!" the demon told her. And then he ducked his head down slightly closer to hers and told her, "My side isn't an option yet."
"Kid," Stan said in exasperation.
"I want to know," the demon said, and there was a flash of something sharp in his eyes. "I want to know if she's going to lie to me TO MY FACE or not," the demon told Stan Pines, while looking at her, and that was the last straw--
"--Dr. Pines!" Pacifica spat out at the demon, in defiance and rage, and--
--the demon blinked at her and his head came up.
And he broke out into a wide, and different, delighted sort of grin, all at once.
"Excellent choice!" the demon told her, reaching out and patting her on top of her head.
But before Pacifica could bat his hand away from her head again -- or even start getting over her shock at his reaction, really -- the demon pulled away from her on his own and then proceeded to slip off the top of the divider between the booths, and down onto his feet in the open aisle space of the diner, looking both relaxed and as if he was pleased at this whole turn of events somehow.
...Meanwhile, Pacifica was breathing like she just been running for miles and miles, wondering what the hell had just happened.
"Hey kid, c'mon now," the old con man called out to the demon, as the demon began to turn and start walking away. "You really going to leave it all at that?"
And the demon turned in place and looked back at him, walking away backwards with a smile on his face. "I got what I needed from her," he said casually, giving him a hand wave.
"Yeah?" said the old con man. "But did she get what she needed from you?"
And at that, the demon stopped in place abruptly and blinked at him.
And then turned his head a bit more to look over at Pacifica again.
He stared at her for a few moments, then turned back to Stan Pines with a slightly inquisitive frown on his face.
"I don't need anything from him!" Pacifica protested, feeling uncertain, and attacked somehow by the thought, and also… she wasn't sure what.
"...If she wanted something from me," the demon said slowly, almost as if he hadn't heard her. "She would have stayed for breakfast. She didn't do that," the demon said, and… Pacifica slowly began to realize that the demon… what the demon was actually doing right now, was...
"You sure about that?" Stan Pines asked the demon casually, as he took a sip of coffee from his cup, and… The demon looked between them again.
"...what do you think you see that I don't?" the demon said slowly next, and Pacifica didn't know why what Bill had said there was important, but it sure seemed to have gotten the twins' twin attention for some reason, somehow.
"I don't need anything from him," Pacifica insisted. "I just want him dead." Because, frankly, if the demon hadn't killed her yet for telling the truth about what she was doing with Dr. Pines -- which the demon obviously knew and wasn't worried about in the slightest -- then--
"--Yes!" the demon said enthusiastically, clapping his hands together, and turning towards her with a grin. "That's why you're working with that Stanford, not Glasses! --It's a good choice," the demon said next, "A good fit for you."
That left Pacifica frowning.
"...Yeah," said the old con man with a sigh. "She's not going to ask. Never mind, kid. Go off back to your sister, or whatever. Pretty sure you're right about being done here."
And to that half-a-order, the demon just gave Stan Pines a laugh, a grin, and a salute, before turning on his heel and jauntily walking off once again -- this time, leaving the diner as he did so.
And Pacifica slowly turned to the Pines and asked, "What did he mean? How is McGucket not trying to kill Bill worse than working with Dr. Pines to do that?"
And if she hadn't been looking at him and not blinked, she would have missed it.
She almost had a buzzing in her ears, as she stared at him, not hearing anything at all of what he said next. Not that it would matter, she knew it was probably some old con man thing of no importance, with the look he had plastered across his entire face right now, but...
If Gideon Gleeful hadn't ranted it at her so many times over so many years -- more and more frequently over the last two -- she would be doubting her own sanity at this point. But she'd seen it. She'd actually seen it. She'd finally seen what Gideon had been talking about, out on full display so completely, for just a mere moment.
She'd known the old con man was smarter than he looked -- he had to be, really, he wouldn't have been able to stay in business with Gideon going after him like that, otherwise -- but...
She'd said one thing, and she'd seen it. She'd been looking at him as she'd said it, and she'd seen him put it all together -- she had no idea what it was that he'd realized, but he'd realized something, something incredibly important -- and she'd seen the man behind the con man mask. The frighteningly intelligent man, lurking back there behind his eyes.
And his eyes lied like anything, pretending to be all dumb and stupid and misunderstanding again, now. ...But the twins' eyes didn't. They never did.
But when she turned to them, with the question in her eyes of 'You saw that, right? How was what I said important--'
--The twins just looked back at her with a question in their own eyes, asking, 'What's wrong?' to her.
It confused her for a moment. but then she realized that what they were reacting to was solely and wholly her own confusion, and not to anything else.
They hadn't reacted to Mr. Pines' thought, whatever it had been, that scary-intelligent flash as he'd grasped something when it had been written large for that mere split-second across the man's face. No. They hadn't even noticed it at all.
And when she looked back up at Mr. Pines, feeling all startled and frightened almost, and starting to shiver--
--and Stan Pines just looked back at her with that dumb-seeming, slightly dull-eyed wide-eyed sort of questioning look on his face, with that 'I'm just a dumb old con man' look that he always used on everyone else, except for once or twice with her here and there, when the look had let up just a little bit -- but never so very completely, a mask behind the mask--
Pacifica realized, with no small horror, that the con man never actually took his mask off, not even for his own family.
Pacifica swallowed, hard.
She closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and forced herself to calm down.
By the time she'd calmed down a few seconds later, she was ready to open her eyes, take in a deep breath again, and say...
"What am I missing here."
...with a rather shaky breath.
The con man looked at her over his cup, and the look on his face changed, just a little.
"Y'know, the kid went into a whole spiel this morning," the lying man told her, as he swirled the liquid in his cup in his hand. "Talking about how none of us were asking any of the right questions. Crowing out about how none of us were communicating with each other, how he knew you wouldn't be able to take advantage of nothin' 'cause of that, even with Miz having no brain-to-mouth filter on her at all last night, still. Stuff like that." He set his coffee cup down on the table, and slowly got up from his seat at the booth.
"Grunkle Stan…?" Mabel asked, looking up at him.
And Pacifica watched as the liar smiled down at his grand-niece, and gave her a genuine(-looking(??)) smile, as he patted her on the head himself.
"Figure I'd actually better go walk the kid home," the liar told them, "What with Gideon Gleeful still running around and all. Don't want the two of them running into each other, not like that's gonna go well." That got a grimace out of the twins; the old con man, as well. "Stay in sight of Lazy-Eye Susan; don't go leavin' the diner 'til I get back," the old con man told the twins next.
"You--" Pacifica began, still feeling more than a little thrown. Because all these years, all these years and she'd seen little glimpses, here and there, of him not acting like a campy, dumb old, gross old con man 24/7, yes. But this, this… what she had just seen was...
"Figure you two can fill in the rich kid on whatever while I'm getting the kid home, can't ya?" Stan Pines said to Mabel with a smile, messing up her hair again. "Show the triangle who's boss?"
"Boss Mabel!" Mabel called out happily with a grin, punching her fist into the air. "Back in action!"
"Yeah, we can handle it," Dipper said, glancing over at Pacifica with… something in his eyes.
"Yeah? Good," said the old con man, pulling out some dollar bills and tossing them on the table. "Uh," he said, pausing for a moment at the twins' surprise at this… development? "Don't go spendin' it all in one place."
"Yes, free money!" Mabel said, to which she got an 'Oi!' out of the con man as he left, which had her letting out a little giggle at his complaint.
...Pacifica slowly sat down.
"...You okay?" Dipper asked her, and when she looked over at him, she realized...
That look in his eyes? Was concern.
Pacifica let out a breath in a deep sigh, and slumped a little in her seat. Stan Pines wasn't compromised. No. He was the one running this whole damn thing. ...And he was also compromised, and scarily-smart, and now Pacifica was going to have to actually start listening to Gideon now, wasn't she… ugh--
Then, all three of them sat up straight in their seats at the terrible, high-pitched SCREAM they'd just heard.
"That sounded like--" Mabel began, but Dipper and Pacifica were already out of the booth and running.
They slammed their way out of the diner, down the steps, and--
--and sure enough, there was Gideon and Stan Pines and Bill--
--and Gideon was lying down on the ground, looking out-and-out wrong somehow, and Bill was holding a knife, and Stan Pines was--
"--Really, kid?" the old con man drawled out from where he stood next to the demon, as the demon set fire to... Gideon's hair? He was-- He was holding an absolutely huge chunk of-- oh my god--
--and it all went up in fire and smoke in a flash in his hand, which the demon then waved off with a slightly wrinkle-nosed grimace and his now completely free and hair-free hand, as he flipped the knife in his other hand closed and stowed it away at his back somehow--
""LI'L GIDEON!"" the two ex-prison cons cried out, running forward (...why were they all so dusty? --no, wrong question -- why had they both been so far back?), dropping to their knees and picking him up between them, to cradle him in their arms rather protectively.
"What?" the demon said, seemingly guileless. "He attacked me first; he's not part of the agreement. He was asking for it, he deserved it, and he got it! It was going to happen sooner or later. Besides," the demon waved off, as Gideon groaned and… his eyes were fluttering oddly, and his body was lying in Ghost Eyes' arms almost as if he was boneless, Pacifica realized, as she ran over to check on him herself. "Llama got that barrier spell up around his house yesterday afternoon. It's fine."
Ghost Eyes glared up at the demon. "You-- you-- How dare you! The boss's poor beautiful hair!"
"Eh, it's an improvement. --Here," said the demon, and he moved forward liquid-fast, and the next thing any of them knew, Gideon went from having next-to-no hair on his head, to really no hair left on his head, and the demon was standing back up and burning the rest of it, same way he did the first. "Happy?"
The other ex-con burst out crying, as Ghost Eyes looked down at Li'l Gideon in shock. "Oh, boss is gonna be real mad when he wakes up."
Bill nodded. "And if you want him to wake up anytime soon, you should get him home quickly," Bill told him, as if instructing a couple of two year olds. "And not let him leave after that."
Ghost Eyes frowned up at the demon mightily. "And why would we listen to you?"
"Oh, you won't have to listen to me," the demon said, "I'm just stating facts." He splayed his hands to the sides rocked back on his heels, and said next, "You think that kid's going to want to leave the house, when he's looking all bald like that?" He grinned.
The two ex-cons exchanged a look.
"Oh, get goin', you two," Stan Pines said next, pretty grumpily, "Before I go tellin' the kid I don't think you've learned your lesson yet."
Pacifica wasn't sure what about those words had been all that threatening, but it sure had these two ex-cons getting up and running off in a hurry, with Gideon Gleeful carried along for the ride.
"--Better give it a week or two!" the demon called out after them brightly, as they both ran off. "Just in case!"
Dipper was fretting anxiously beside Stan. "What happened?"
"Eh, Gideon got mouthy, and I let the kid have at 'im," Stan shrugged off. "Tried siccing his two 'bodyguards' there on him for just standing there and breathing air, the little jerk." Stan snorted. Really, that brat. He could've pretended not to see them and gotten himself around the next corner, or just turned around, hightailed it and ran, but noooo--
Pacifica slowly got back up to her feet from where she'd been kneeling next to Gideon -- before the two ex-cons had run off with him, anyway.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked them both angrily. Because honestly, Gideon was a little jerk at the best of times, and now she was gonna have to be the one to deal with the fallout!
"Hey, he ain't dead," was Stan Pines' response to that, as he turned and started to walk away with the demon right at and by his side. "Hell, how long were you planning that one, kid?" she heard him ask next, to Pacifica's shock.
"Quite a while now!" the demon enthused out matching Stan step for step. "Really, I'd thought old Fordsy would have gotten that barrier spell out there sooner for the rest of them, what with Glasses being so stingy and all," the demon said next, "And here he's only gotten it out to two of them so far? Rude!" -- which almost had Pacifica marching after him next to demand what in the world he was talking about.
But she stopped herself first. ...Two steps and a "Wait!!" in.
And let out a shocked breath as she realized what she'd almost done.
"Word of advice, Llama!" she heard called back to her from the demon, which startled her rather badly all over again. "Ask the cat-lady for head scritches, if you want to know so badly! --You won't regret it!!" was his bright reminder, as she opened her mouth, about to call back a confused and almost reflexive 'why??'
She stared after the demon and the old con man, then turned to the twins, shaking her head in bewilderment and trying almost desperately to understand, what had just happened--
"Uh, we should probably go…" she heard Dipper say, as he pulled down on the brim of his cap. "Great-Uncle Ford's gonna have a fit when he hears about this, and…" he looked to his sister.
"...We should probably be there to help Grunkle Stan with the fallout," Mabel finished for him, looking sorry. They both did, really.
"We'll call you on your phone, okay? Promise," Dipper told her, as they both turned and began to run off after them both.
And Pacifica stood there and stared after them as they went, trying to remember what it was like to breathe.
She'd almost run off after the demon just now, demanding answers. Expecting him to give them to her? Expecting him to...
...It wasn't just Dr. Pines that was compromised here, was it. It wasn't just him. She was also compromised, too. Already. Somehow.
'...You won't be able to help it.'
No. Oh, no. No… it was worse than that. The demon had known what she was doing all along. He'd known what was happening in the Shack. He knew what was happening in town.
He knew what had been happening up at the mansion. He knew. He'd known. (...Had he always known??)
And he didn't care. He didn't care at all. It…
Pacifica covered her mouth with her hands, and barely suppressed the bubble of hysterical laughter she was feeling down to a giggle.
It was just a game to him. One that the demon was completely sure that he would win.
Because they were already compromised. All of them were already compromised. Weren't they?
...with maybe the single and sole exception of Old Man McGucket. But even he wasn't trying to kill Bill, which meant that...
...he was basically useless. And with the rest of them being already so compromised… no… she couldn't...
"Paz?" she heard at her side, and she looked up at Lazy-Eye Susan. "Are you ready for your shift, honey? It starts in five," the woman told her with a smile, but also something of a slightly-confused look.
"Did… did you see what just happened out here?" Pacifica not quite stammered up at her, almost plaintively.
But the diner waitress just looked down at her, with a slightly bemused smile.
"Well, now," the woman told her rather authoritatively, as she placed a hand on her shoulder. "If Gideon Gleeful hasn't figured out by now that he shouldn't go messing with cats like that, I don't think he ought to be surprised at getting all clawed up by one that's been around the block a few times, if you know what I mean," she was told, with a, "Wink!"
... a cat. She thought the demon was a...
"...Why do you think he's a cat?" Pacifica tried next, rather slowly. Because she knew her boss well enough by now to know that she'd get an intelligible answer, even if the answer itself would be...
"Well, he's got those beautiful eyes," Susan enthused. "And that coloring! So unique!" she enthused at her, as she steered Pacifica up the stairs towards the door of the diner.
"...Right," Pacifica said slowly, then shook herself. Ugh, what was she thinking, letting herself get sidetracked so easily when that demon was just running around and-- she didn't have time for a bunch of boring, normal diner-shift work--
...except all this demon stuff was driving her crazy and a bunch of normal boring work, in their normal, boring town sounded really, really good right about now.
So Pacifica walked along, letting herself be steered by her good-natured boss up the stairs to the diner, and Pacifica asked, "...and his sister?" as they went, because at this point, why not.
"Oh that poor little thing. She's very sweet. It's nice that he adopted her as his own and all, but she really shouldn't pretend to be a cat like he is, you know," Susan told her almost confidentially. "That's just not normal. I don't know why she would do that." And Susan looked almost concerned at this point. "...She seems a little too obedient, too. Must have been through a lot." Was the waitress'... unusual but surprising assessment. Pacifica didn't discount it for that reason, though -- not in the least. Pacifica generally took what Susan said about people very seriously when she assessed them, after having learned that, nine times out of ten, the aging waitress had generally turned out to almost-always be pretty spot-on.
"If she's not a cat, then what is she?" Pacifica asked next, feeling like she was on the cusp of something.
"Well, she's human," Susan said like it was obvious. "But…"
"'But' what?" Pacifica pressed her.
"Oh," Susan said. "Well, if I had to say she was something... oh, but it's rude though," she fluttered. "I really shouldn't," she added, waving a fingernail-laden hand at her as they both headed for the back, for Pacifica to change into her work clothes in the staff changing area.
"I won't tell, you know that," Pacifica said, then before Susan could go into her usual 'oh, I really really shouldn't' routine, she took the plunge and added, "You know, if she comes in here again, I really want to be able to waitress her table properly."
"Well," Susan said. She looked around for a moment, checking to make sure no-one else was listening, then whispered to Pacifica rather less loudly than she usually did, "I think she's a bit of a dragon, really, if you ask me. She's certainly not a big cat like him, at all. Not even a little."
Pacifica barely kept a straight face at this.
"...Good to know," she told her boss. Because apparently the demon who wanted them all dead was a cat, but his so-called sister rated somewhere on the order of a dragon instead.
"Maybe more of a dragonling, though," Susan carried on next. "Oh, I'm just not sure what to call the young ones. --I'll have to ask that cutely serious scientist brother of his, the next time that they all come in. ...Poor thing's so confused, trying to be whatever she thinks other people want her to be. I suppose that cat of Stan's will set her straight on the cat front soon enough though -- preferably without a terrible scratching to remind her of it, poor dear," Susan said, looking sad. "But she's not a cat, definitely not one of those. Never will be either; humans just can't be cats no matter how hard they try, and I should know -- I've got three of them!" she smiled at her. But her smile faded as she said, "And fire-breathing dragons aren't cats either, the poor thing. She really should stop trying, I'm sure she'd grow into a lovely little dragon if she'd just let herself be herself, you know. --Might cause a bit of a problem with the cows over by your parents' factory, though. Wink!" she noted with a nod (and said eyelid-wink), before she bustled herself out the door and back to the kitchen, presumably headed back to the main area of the diner...
...leaving Pacifica alone in the changing room area with her own thoughts.
As she changed clothes into her more common-looking (and -feeling) work outfit, Pacifica tried to think about what it all meant. When Susan said things, it generally meant something larger, even if the elder waitress couldn't really unpack or explain it herself. Cats, what were cats? Independent, sure of themselves…
...with claws just like small knives? (...Or big knives, in the case of a 'big'ger 'unique' type of cat? Pacifica shook her head at this.)
And dragons… fire-breathing dragons… what were dragons? Fierce. Protective. They hoarded their gold, their treasure, and killed any who would try to steal it, any who would try to take it from them-- greedily and angrily protecting what they saw as theirs...
Could a (...big?) cat take on a (little?) fire-breathing dragon and win? Did dragons listen to and want to be cats, instead of dragons themselves? ...Well, cats usually got pampered by humans, and dragons usually got people trying to slay them instead, while they were trying to sleep... or nap…?
Pacifica shook her head at herself as she finished tying off her apron. Maybe she was reading too much into this. Dr. Pines had said that demons weren't like humans, and Susan really only was a human herself, while the demons just weren't...
...She'd worry about all of this more later. Right now, she had to get in the game. --Waitressing. It was a thing.
Pacifica took a few moments to splash some cool water on her face, wash off the old and don some new makeup in the proper 'waitressing' style, slapped herself lightly on the cheeks twice, then turned and stomped out of the changing room with her head held high. She was a waitress on a mission.
She had gnomes to shoo out of the trash bins with prejudice.
...And a broom. She needed the broom. Really really needed the broom for this. --And she made a beeline back for the closet to get it. She didn't want to think about the last time she'd tried to shoo those stupid little buggers away without one...
Pacifica, broom firmly in hand, slammed the back door to the outside and back of the diner firmly closed behind her.
---