#bdrpvday

Dipper was on his way to visit his joint betta fish. Because he had a joint betta fish. Because that was a totally normal thing. He hadn’t told his dad about the joint betta fish, but he told his mom and his mom gushed about how that was such an “innovative way to meet new friends!” or something equally mom-like.

Whatever.

Okay, Dipper was on his way to visit his joint betta fish and he’d just stopped at the pet shop and picked up some food, because he was on food refill duty, when he passed by a clump of bushes near Terence’s apartment and heard…a cry?

It was enough to make him stop. He peered into the bush.

There, perched among the leaves, was this peculiar creature that looked vaguely fairy-like and—

Dipper didn’t have time to analyze it more. He immediately scooped it up and held it to his chest.

“There, there, there,” he whispered to it. The creature wriggled a bit and cooed. It had such big eyes and Dipper just wanted to make sure that nothing bad ever ever ever happened to it. He would die for this…thing. The thing gave a small cough and shivered and Dipper immediately knew he had to run to Terence’s and get it out of the cold.

“Ter!” he said, knocking on the door of the apartment when he reached it. “Open up! It’s an emergency! I found this small furry thing and it’s going to die!”

Roger was walking dogs, which should be no surprise to anyone in the world, because Roger was usually most often walking dogs. And with him, was Paul, which should also be of no surprise to anyone whatsoever, because when Roger was not with Anita, he was with Paul, usually.

He did have plans with Anita later, he did, was going to have a picnic with hot chocolate and chocolate-covered strawberries by the lake and then try and go ice skating. It was going to be romantic and he’d spent all night doing the strawberries and they didn’t look like the internet photo but goddamnit they looked much better than he had expected. He’d made a card too and printed out some old pictures of them to put in a little photo album—with plenty of space for more. It wasn’t much, but, hey, he was proud of it.

But yeah, right now, it was Rog and Paul and four dogs between the two of them.

“So did those plans for Perdita work out?” asked Roger, after he finished the update of ‘the chocolate strawberries didn’t look horrible!’ to Paul.

Before Paul could answer though, one of the dogs (Sally) let out a bark, then jerked Roger abruptly to the side, sticking her nose in some bushes.

“Sally—get back here—what the bloody hell?” He peered into the bush that Sally’d stuck her nose in and saw this…creature with big eyes and soft fur and—

He gently picked it up. The creature cooed and nuzzled against his chest. Roger felt his heart hammer. He turned to Paul and then instantly, let go of the dog leashes and lifted his hand to Paul’s cheek.

“Mate—look at her—she’s perfect.”

It had been a rather uneventful morning and afternoon.  Swynlake’s newest rowing coach had spent her afternoon barking orders at new recruits (a few of them would most likely not be returning, but that was to be expected, weeding out the weak for her teams). All of them seemed utterly distracted by the day. Gabbing and blathering on about their dates later in the night. 

Really, it was just the same as any other day. What really changed were the places and stores with their themes filled with pink and red and white meant to make you believe this was some sort of special day. And if you didn’t buy into it you just seemed a fool or like you didn’t have someone to spend it with.

Amelia was rather romantic (though she wouldn’t admit it to just any passerby), but she didn’t believe there had to be a day as an excuse to be overly so. Things always felt better when produced naturally and not forced. In the recent months she had been seeing more and more and a certain blonde so aptly named after a flower that opened to the sun but closed off to darkness, much like herself. (It didn’t mean the darkness wasn’t still there of course but everyone else just saw the flower.) She’d taken them out for a joint birthday celebration just last week that went rather well (and got Daisy out of that dreadfully sad household), so not one to shy away from a challenge, Amelia proposed a Valentine’s Day plan. 

She pulled up into the Harcourt estate (which was practically next door to her Aunt’s) in her new car. She’d gotten the car for her birthday from her mother, whom she was now actually on speaking terms with and fostering some shape of a relationship to everyone’s surprise. She knew it was an attempt to buy more attention and affection, but it was also rather beautiful so she kept it. Knowing Daisy appreciated her own vehicles, she figured she’d take it out for a trip to the New Town Over and grab dinner with the blonde. 

In any case she parked outside the large house and got out of the car. Just as she was turning to grab the flowers for both Daisy and her grandparents in her passenger seat, she caught sight of a slightly fuzzy sort of thing in their driveway. Curiosity got the best of her and she got out, crossing her arms over her leather jacket as she looked over the thing. Was it dead? No, certainly not, because she just saw an ear flicker her way and sure enough it  turned and looked directly at her. 

Instantly, she felt some sort of connection with the abandoned creature and against her better judgement, crouched down over it and gently picked it up from the ground. She cooed softly, “Well look at you out here in the cold. Let’s get you out of this weather, hmm? A cold driveway is no place for the likes of you.” She cradled the creature in one arm and went back to grab the flowers, one bouquet with various types for her grandparents and roses, of course, for Daisy. 

This was certainly going to be strange but in this moment she cared far more about the needs of this small creature than her image, reputation or dignity. She knocked (with a little bit of difficulty as she juggled objects) on the large door. It opened moments later and the tiny thing seemed to get excited as if it too had a date with a beautiful, unique, charming and rather well rounded, sterling and true French blonde. 

She smiled a bit sheepishly at Daisy (or as sheepishly as Amelia could show, “Well, my mother always did tell me to never go to another person’s place of residence empty handed but I’ve found myself bringing more than I intended.”