skating trouble

Dipper hadn't known what he was doing, at first he was walking along the sidewalk eyeing the closed shops in the dead of night, and then suddenly he was walking up to Pacifica.

He gently tapped Pacifica's shoulder and stood tall as she turned around and let out a small inhuman squeak when she realized it was him. "Oh!! Dipper? I didn't expect to see you here!" She said as she started to rock on her feet. Dipper looked kind of dazed. Where was he again? He looked around and took in the aroma of old pizza and sweat.

He gazed up to see a banner that had the words, Eat! Play! Skate! scribbled neatly across. Dipper frowned. Am I really at the roller rink..? He thought. Pacifica looked at his eyes and followed them to see what he was focused on. The banner, she thought to herself. "Some banner.." Dipper muttered. "Oh?" Pacifica looked back to him, but he kept his eyes on the banner. "Do you like it?" she asked.

Dipper looked down at her, as if he was about to say something rude, but she just placed a weary smile on her face. "I helped make it." she managed to squeak out. He just continued to stare down at her and frown. She continued in a nervous voice, "Is.... Is it that bad?" He still said nothing and kept the same frown.

"Oh, c'mon, turn that frown upside down!" She cheered as she reached for his face and attempted to psychically turn it upside down, which resulted in her fingers in the corners of his mouth and him complaining about germs. "Pacifica." he said, obviously annoyed with her fingers in his mouth. "Remove your hands from my mouth." he continued.

She did as told. His frown turned into a faint smile, which made Pacifica let out a small clap in regards to his smile. "That's nice." she whispered. "What is?" He asked. "Oh! Your smile of course!" She said sweetly. "My smile?" He questioned blankly. "Yeah! See, you use this fake, creepy, morbid smile when you're putting on a show at your little tent thing. But you do have a real smile! Gideon owns me $10 bucks now."

She clasped her hands together and kept speaking, "Anyway, what brings you here?" He looked around wide-eyed like a lost puppy until he could think of a good excuse, because truthfully, he didn't know why he was here either. "I'm...." he looked around at the playzone, the snack bars, and then to the perfectly polished roller rink.

He cleared his throat, "I'm here to skate." Pacifica's mouth dropped open a tiny bit and then folded into a huge smile. "Wow!" She practically shrieked. "I've never seen you skate!" She said happily. She smirked and smugly said, "But are you any good?" Dipper looked overwhelmed, "I'm great at skating." he lied. "Are you up for a challenge, y'know, a race?" she requested. He blinked and sighed, "Sure." he groaned, "Why not?" Wait, he thought. Did I just say yes? To this brat? As he waited for a response he watched her smile grow bigger, which made his face flush red.

It took a minute for the red to fade from his face and her smile to die down. "Great! Let's go get skates for you!" She grabbed his arm and quickly and swiftly led him to the skate counter. "Oh, I just remembered, I didn't bring any money with me." He let out a sigh of relief. "That's okay, they're nice here, they'll let you borrow skates for free." She winked. She looked down at Dipper's feet, attempting to find out his shoe size without asking him.

He looked at her with a blain expression as she bent down and inched closer to his feet until she was sitting on the ground, touching his feet. He looked at the lady who had just arrived at the counter, he said his shoe size to her and he looked back down at Pacifica. "This floor looks dirty and disgusting." He uttered as he stared at the star-patterned carpet. "Get up." He commanded softly and stuck his hand out.

She took hold of his hand, and he helped her up. Soft hand-- for someone who's probably a murder, she thought as she refused to let go. She continued to grasp his hand, but he didn't fight it, he just went along with it. The lady at the counter had to do a double-take when she saw the towns' 80s' and 90s' sweetheart holding hands with the Gleeful twin. She handed the skates over and Pacifica grabbed them with her free hand and led him towards a table.

After releasing hands, they sat down. Dipper was trying to think of a good excuse so he wouldn't have to do this, "Pacifica.." he said sounding irritated, she didn't notice the irritation in his voice. "What? Oh, I mean, yeah?" She replied. "Where are your skates exactly?" He asked. Pacifica proceeded to pull a duffel bag out of thin air and unzip it. Dipper slammed his head down in disappointment of his plan failing, but shortly after, he lifted his head back up.

After what felt like an infinity of pulling out a bunch of cheerleading bows and custom pastel colored letterman jackets and other assorted vintage jackets,-and Dipper being curious as to seeing every detail on every object in the bag- Pacifica pulled out a pair of small, bedazzled skates. Dipper took a minute to admire how much work was probably put into the skates, before Pacifica broke the silence. "So, are you ready to skate?"

He stalled for about two minutes by pretending not to notice her or anything she said and by avoiding eye contact. Pacifica began to get frustrated and lifted her hand to flick his nose, which got his attention. She smiled happily and repeated her question, "Are you ready to skate?" she questioned as she tied her skates' laces.

Some time passed as Dipper stalled and made a big dramatic scene out of tying laces and the parts of a skate and shoe.

They both stepped onto the wooden paneled floor, one very eager to skate, the other, not so much. Dipper proceeded to lean on the outlines. The rink was like a ghost town, the place only had one worker at the time-who was probably in the breakroom doing whatever- and the two.

For about 7 minutes Pacifica warmed up, not noticing Dipper clinging to the outlines as if it were his life source. Pacifica skated over and asked, "Ready for the race?" with a smile on her face. Dipper looked at her with a worried smile that had a hint of irritation.

Pacifica grabbed his arm and tugged him mercilessly off until he flew across the rink. She watched him fly and fall in a blink. He sat at the end of the rink, rubbing his head and watching a blurry figure race towards him like lightning.

The figure bent down beside him and poked at him, pleading for forgiveness. Southeast, he thought in anger, but he still smiled.