Was working on a short Lucy Ann fic… but then I remembered this I started eleven months back. And the whole, 'gnomes don't have queens anymore' from the Demonologist arc. No explanation for this fic, truly.

𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝙳𝚄𝙲𝙺 𝙳𝚄𝙲𝙺 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝚂𝙴

𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚊 𝚋𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚞𝚗!

~ 𝚄𝚗𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗

Occasionally, humans have a moment in their lives wherein they receive what they themselves believe to be a stroke of brilliance, only for them to look back later on the whole fiasco and sigh at the sheer idiocy of it all.

However, this feeling isn't restricted to humans alone. The odd siren can sometimes try to lure in an ace, or a demon might decide to possess a child in a last ditch effort to save his (metaphorical) skin.

More specifically, I'm talking about gnomes.

"Listen up gnomes! I've got a new plan guaranteed to help us get a new queen!"

A chorus of groans erupted from the small group gathered under the shade of the tree, every single gnome thinking back to the last time Gerald had said the same exact words.

The tiny bearded man stomped his foot in indignation, causing the groaning to settle as he called for attention once more, "Don't- don't give me that. My ideas are great, you all just don't know how to appreciate pure brilliance! Now isn't anyone here going to ask me about my idea?"

The second to youngest gnome flung up his stubby hand, nearly flinging his pointed green hat off his head with the utter enthusiasm he held. "Gerald! Gerald!"

"It's sir to you- yes?"

"What's your plan Gerald sir?"

Gerald's chest puffed up with pride, electing to ignore the younger gnome's slip up in favour of sharing his — by no doubt — purely ingenious plan.

It was no secret that they had been lacking in the queen department for quite some time now, the last one having- well, they didn't like to talk about the last one. It was best if they scrubbed that chapter from their lives, thank you very much. Even gnomes had standards.

But with this? There was no way they were getting a repeat.

"We're broadening our bases with- Gary?" He gestured to the shimmering curtain behind him, propped up against the tree. It was hard to miss, and they were extremely lucky that a bird hadn't dived down and scooped it up.

(The same couldn't be said for the gnome who'd brought it outside.)

"Unveil the curtain!"

The gnome known as Gary did as he was bid, tugging the thing off somewhat flamboyantly (though, Gerald noted, his showmanship could do with a bit of work.) Behind of which was revealed-

"What's that?"

"A phone!" When the other gnomes continued to stare at him with the same glazed expression, Gerald trudged over to it and tapped the screen. "After my careful observation of the town's people, I came to realise that this is how they get themselves dates. So I- umm, I borrowed one."

The phone lit up, the screen displaying a lockscreen with the words 'The password isn't 1234' displayed upon a pastel background. Tap and he'd unveiled a bunch of numbers asking him to enter the code (take a guess at what that was.)

"Here!" He said after tapping it in, "Our answer to our problem! Timber! With this we'll be able to- wait! What are you doing? Put that down!"

Their town's woodcutter heaved out a sorrowful sigh, before placing down his axe.

"As I was saying, Timber — and no, Greg, cut that out — should help us out. Look at this profile!"

Timber began loading, seconds later displaying a dating profile belonging to some teenage girl, chocolate hair swept to one side as they posed with a tilted head. Underneath typed a rather generic:

ᴀʟɪᴄᴇ, 𝟷𝟽

sɪɴɢʟᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴀᴅʏ ᴛᴏ ᴍɪɴɢʟᴇ ღღღღღ

Gerald coughed before anyone could draw assumptions. "As I said, I borrowed this."

So far results had been… debatable. Granted, he by no means expected this plan to be simple to execute, but still. How had he been supposed to know that there were so many un-queen-like people out there? Even the other gnomes were starting to debate how desperate they were for one.

Gerald was about this close to losing all hope after swiping left nineteen times in a row, when an image caught his eye.

"Gary! Hold up!" He breathed a sigh of relief as the other gnome cautiously retreated his hand, mere seconds from swiping the wrong way. "Right for this one."

Gary raised a bushy eyebrow in his direction as if to say 'this one? Seriously?' but no more questions were asked as he swiped right.

sᴀʀᴀʜ, 𝟷𝟽

ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ

The remaining gnomes (the ones of which hadn't disbanded from complete boredom) watched on in anticipation just as a popup displayed itself on screen. They let out a collective gasp at the ad, displaying — oh come on! Advertising a game like this so called 'Whack a Gnome' was just insensitive.

Thankfully, it was wiped from the screen almost instantly (though his nightmares surely wouldn't be), a declaration of 'you have a match' appearing central.

Finally.

A sigh, he hadn't realised he'd been keeping, dispelled from his lungs as Gerald took up the phone once more. He opened up the texting aspect of the app before turning to the others, smile partially manic.

"Anyone have any good pickup lines this time? Put your hand down Gavin."

Someone — thankfully not Gavin except, ah, it was the excitable one from earlier who's name still evaded his grasp — raised his hand. This time his hat did not almost fall off, rather, he almost prodded his eye out. Gerald pulled his face into a wince, dragging his hands down his face. But without anyone else putting forward any ideas, the gnome was (reluctantly) chosen.

"What aboooooout, uh." The gnome's eyes widened, seemingly looking at something behind his shoulder. "Gerald sir, she's sent us something."

Indeed she had. The phone now displayed a text message:

sᴀʀᴀʜ: ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴜ ᴍᴇᴇᴛ ᴜᴘ? ✔️

Ding.

sᴀʀᴀʜ: ᴛᴏ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ sᴘᴇʟʟ ✔️

ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴀ ʀᴇɢᴜʟᴀʀ ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ

"Straight to it, I see?" Gerald's eyes lit up in such a way that, had this been a cartoon, there might as well have been diamonds on his face. "I knew she was the one for us!"

Gavin, however, remained sceptical, eyes trained on the phone as if it were about to leap up and eat them any second. A hand roamed through his beard, scratching at it, though whether or not it was to emphasise his dubious attitude, or because he had leftovers in it was anyone's guess.

"I… I dunno. She should have waited for us to at least drop in a pickup line first. Seems suspicious."

Gerald harrumphed, paying Gavin no mind as he whirled back to the screen, typing up a reply. Fingers tapped furiously at the screen until, in the end, he resulted to using one of the irritating pictures that had irritatingly decided to pop up on the irritating keyboard and not go away. Did he mention how irritating it was?

👍 :ʏᴏᴜ

"They're desperate, which means they will be all the more accepting of being our queen." Phew. "Now onto phase two!"

Phase two had been anticipated as the difficult phase, this being the part where they took their queen-to-be on a date, subsequently kidnapping her as their own. But with the great difficulty of one, Gerald had a feeling this was going to be a little (and just a little mind you — gnomes were a master of disguise) more challenging to execute.

They had the attire, mind you.

(And when they said attire, they meant bedazzled hoodie with a complimentary wig — definitely not stolen at all.)

And a location for the date!

(Greasy's was a good place to date, right?)

So, all in all, so far so great! The plan should have been going ahead just as planned.

Except it wasn't.

Now, this should hardly have been a surprise considering that gnomes weren't exactly experts when it came to online dating. Far from it. I mean, how were they supposed to know that this would happen?

Sarah from the profile was downright gorgeous. Model gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous. Totally realistically gorgeous.

She was not, though, the Sarah that was standing before them.

"Hey." Grunt.

This girl, too, was wearing a hoodie, but (hah!) not to the bedazzled state of which theirs was at. Honestly, the least their future queen could do was put an effort into her appearance. But, eh, no matter. Gerald was sure she would look rather elegant with a crown atop her head. They would be the ones treating her like a queen.

"Hi," Gerald responded in false falsetto, his own voice catching himself off guard at the octave. It was (embarrassingly) high pitched, he had to admit, but at least he was able to pull up a convincing enough act, "You really Sarah?"

She nodded, being all the confirmation he needed.

"You look different."

Sarah gruffly cleared her throat. "So do you."

Oh come on! At least they had managed to find the same hair colour as their profile!

Couldn't say the same for 'Sarah.'

Gravity Falls was home to all kinds of weird, even so, you had to admit there was something oddly sketchy about the pair who had just entered, moving with all the grace of drunkards making their way home in the dead of night.

Lazy Suzan was too sweet of a lady to bat an eyelid. Either that or she'd rather not do anything with that eye of hers — weird or no — still internally reeling from how her formerly stuck eyelid now worked like a charm.

(Which is another story entirely.)

She rummaged around in her pockets, taking out a pen and notepad (the one she couldn't help but coo at, she bought those notepads with cats in the corner for a reason) before making her way over to the customers.

5 minutes into the date:

Apparently, it appeared that the pair of them (well, not pair. Gerald was currently standing atop a pyramid of other Gnomes — it was common procedure) were both rather fond of pies. Gerald had to admire that. He and the others often sto- uhm, borrowed pies from the town quite often. More so since the Transcendence. Wandering about before whilst people screamed was extremely distracting. Amusing, but distracting nonetheless.

Though, perhaps this situation was no better. Once the pies had been delivered (after a rather awkward staredown — Sarah wasn't much of a talker) there had been the whole debacle on the gnomes coordinating the knife and fork. With such poor output, Gerald had to make a mental note to work up their team building skills. Some synchronised swimming should do the trick.

After a bit of hard practice, they would win gold for sure.

(Only because he couldn't ever recall a bunch of gnomes having ever taken up the sport before.)

6 minutes in:

So now the others were starting to drool at the pie's aroma.

If brought up, damp patches on the disguise would be hard to explain.

8 minutes in:

He sneaked crumbs down the hoodie.

Somehow.

(The things he did for others.)

11 minutes in:

Huh, Sarah was eating the napkin.

Must have been tasty.

13 minutes in:

… Did Sarah have money to pay for this? Humans did that, right?

15 minutes in:

At long last, things were drawing to a close. The scene was set, the timing perfect.

Gerald knew what had to be done.

The whole night had been drawing up to this moment, this peak moment wherein he would have to play his cards right and reveal to her the truth of their nature. Then — and only then — would she become their queen.

At least it was this part they knew.

"Sarah," Gerald coughed, diverting attention from the way his voice had dipped. "There is something I must say."

Sarah paused, took a look towards the remnants of pie on her plate, and returned her gaze towards him. "No, there's something I must tell you first."

...

This… this was unexpected.

Gerald shook Alice's head. "No, listen-"

"-No, I-"

"-What I'm about to tell you-"

"-It's important-"

"-Will come as a shock-"

"-You see-"

"-I promise nothing will change between us-"

"-We have a connection-"

"-Because I-"

"-And I think I-"

"-Am really a stack of gnomes." And on that cue, the curtain dropped. Or, more accurately, the hoodie holding them all together withdrew revealing Alice as what she truly was.

Sarah froze.

"Gerald here!" He grinned in all his gnome glory as he began listing off the others' names, pointing to them all individually. "Frederick was on the right foot, Simon on the left. Dave — the leg, Greg was, eh, you get the jist."

At Sarah's lack of reaction (he got it. She was in awe of them), Gerald continued. "And we're all looking for a queen! Which, surprise, surprise, is you. Uh, quick question, What are your opinions on kidnapping?"

"But-" The girl spluttered at last, eyes bulging. "You were supposed to be our queen! We can't, you can't- urgh!"

"Don't fret dear queen! You can have us all. Not a thing on earth can keep us apart from, uh, what are you-"

…

Oh.

Oh.

This was.

Eww.

At first sight Sarah (although not what had been outright expected) appeared to be a fine specimen of a queen. Maybe she was just shy, hiding behind her hoodie like that. She could have been prettier with it off… at least, that's what Gerald had thought. Had. Being past tense. As now, without it hiding her body-

"Smebulock?"

They were screwed.

Royally.

AN: They never did pay for those pies.

( /works/7351696 Contains reference to this.)