All Aboard the Flirt Train

(This is not part of my regular continuity, but a story written for Wendip Week 2018 for Prompt 5: Flirting)

Ever since he had turned sixteen, Dipper had felt different. He could drive—when Mom and Dad let him borrow one of their cars for an hour or so. He had asked Wendy out to three whole dates the previous summer, and she'd accepted every time. So as the summer of 2016 began, he was fired up for . . . adventures in Gravity Falls! With his favorite redhead.

And when Mabel gave a sleepover alert for their first weekend in the Falls that summer of 2016, and when it turned out that Pacifica was out of town with her parents, Grenda was off in Austria for a week, and Candy was at band camp for two weeks, Wendy was the only one who responded.

"Not good," Mabel pronounced that afternoon.

"Sure, it's good," Dipper said. "You two are buddies. Like big sister and little sister."

"Augghh!" Mabel yelled, waving her arms and doing a good vocal impression of Charlie Brown missing that football again. "You can't play any of the good sleepover games with just two! Gotta be a minimum of three! So, I guess it's gonna be really boring for Wendy." She paused and then in a sly tone, she added, "Unless . . . "

OK, Dipper told himself, it would be awkward but not that awkward. Mabel would sleep, if she slept at all, in her old bed in the attic. Wendy would sleep in Dipper's bed.

Yep, right . . . in my bed.

And Dipper would sleep on the floor. On an air mattress. In his sleeping bag. At the foot of his bed, not in it.

Knowing Mabel, and knowing this is the first sleepover of the summer, we probably won't even get to bed, anyway. The first and last ones are all-nighters.

Dipper assured himself it would be all right. That morning Wendy brought an overnight bag to work, and that evening the three went up to the attic bedroom. They got into sleepwear—Wendy modestly chose green pajamas, Mabel wore her old sleep shirt plus shorts under them, and Dipper wore a t-shirt and shorts that came down to his knees, nothing racy.

And then Mabel said they first had to gossip—not a life skill Dipper had developed. But he sat mostly silent listening to Mabel and Wendy dish the dirt on Pacifica, teachers from both of their schools, Tad Strange (very bland gossip), and a few others.

"Come on, Dipper!" Mabel said at one point. "Hold up your end of the conversation!"

"I never talk to anybody or find out any of these things," Dipper pointed out. "I'd have to make up gossip. Like 'The mailman is a werewolf.'"

"No, he's not," Mabel said, laughing. "He told me he suffers from hyperpilosity , that's all."

"I said I was making it up."

Wendy shook her head. "No good, dude. It has to have some fact in it to be gossip."

Next, Mabel broke out the trusty old Twister game. Now, Dipper couldn't deny that posing nearly wrapped around Wendy with one hand and one foot on red, one hand on yellow, and one foot on blue wasn't stimulating. It was less so, though, when Wendy, laughing, lost her balance and fell on him, smashing his face into the floor.

They dealt with the nosebleed for ten or fifteen minutes. Wendy kept apologizing, but Dipper said, "Wasn't your fault. It was the game. I'm OK, really."

Then there was M.A.S.H., the game of numbered lists under the headings Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House, plus some arcane business with a spiral line and counting, and Mabel announced the results: "Wendy, you're gonna live in a Shack, drive a tank, marry Jared Padalecki, and have four kids! Dipper, you're gonna live in an Apartment, drive a minibus, marry Melanie Martinez, and have one child!"

"Name it after me, dude," Wendy said.

"Only if it's a boy!" Mabel said, and she fell over backwards, hugging herself as she gave her high, gurgling laugh.

"This is a stupid game," Dipper complained. "Why can't we play 'Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?' Or the Duck-Tective version of 'Clue?'"

"Lame!" Wendy said. She didn't have the patience for board games.

"Truth or Dare!" Mabel said.

"Yeah, I'm up for it," agreed Wendy.

"I . . . think I'm leaving," Dipper said, getting to his feet.

Mabel lunged across the floor, tackling him at the ankles. His crash hurt even more than the bruised nose had. "Mabel! Seriously, quit it!"

"Come on, dude," Wendy said. "We'll go easy on you."

"Yeah, yeah," Mabel said. "Dip, you first—truth or dare?"

Looking at her fiendishly grinning face, Dipper sighed. "Dare, I guess."

Giggling, Mabel said, "Do the 'Lamby Lamby' dance!"

"I hate that!"

"It's a sacred dare! You gotta! Wait a minute!" Mabel dashed to her bed, hauled out a trunk from beneath it, and rummaged in it. She produced a white crocheted tam and gloves set, and she followed those with a wooly white sweater. "This'll be close enough! Costume, Broseph!"

She tugged the junk onto him. He sighed. "I hate this." But he sang the song and danced the dance, going down on one knee at the end. Mabel laughed so hard she was gagging.

But Wendy smiled and clapped. "Brings back memories, man. And Dip, you still make a darned cute lamb. You could follow me to school one day."

Wendy chose dare, too, and Wendy challenged her: "Flirt with my brother for five minutes!"

"Don't humiliate her," Dipper said. "Wendy, you don't have to—"

"It's cool, man. I won't embarrass you. Hey, dude, I love the way you're always trying to protect me."

He squirmed. "I know you don't need to be protected but I just don't want Mabel to embarrass you. Or me. And she always finds a way to do it."

Wendy hip-slid over to sit next to him. "But you're mature enough to let that roll off your back," she said.

"Like a duck off a log!" Mabel yelped.

Wendy reached out and gently touched Dipper's cheek. "Hey, hey, don't let it bother you like that. It's just flirting. It's not that bad. It doesn't hurt anything."

"Yeah, but it makes me all crazy," Dipper complained, huddling where he sat. "I mean, it's different for you, Wendy. You're the coolest person I've ever known, and you've got all the confidence in the world."

"You think so?" Wendy asked. "Let me tell you, I've got rotten judgment in guys. That's why I'm so glad you came back this summer. You're not like the guys I usually see. You never try to pressure me into anything. You're a true gentleman, Dipper."

He blushed. "Wendy I'm not—but if I seem that way, it's because being close to you makes me better than I really am. Better than I thought I ever could be. But that's you, not me. I'm a mess, and you're so fantastic—I wish I had your strength and your confidence. I wish I was one-tenth as hot as you are. Oops, I didn't mean to say that!"

"It's a compliment, Dip," Wendy said with a sweet smile. "Just like you to say something nice like that and get embarrassed. Man, it's kind, but please don't talk about me like that. I'm, like, a wreck! I wish I could be as loyal as you are, as willing to help anybody in trouble, as forgiving. I'm none of that. When you find a girl—"

"Time!" Mabel yelled. "That was some pretty good flirting, Wendy!"

Dipper blinked. "Wait, what? The game already started? I thought—oh." He sighed. "Not real. Like my made-up gossip."

Wendy touched his arm, rubbing her palm up and down as she caressed it. "Nope," she said. "That was one hundred per cent from the heart, man. Mabes didn't say the flirting had to be made up."

"You—were serious?" Dipper asked.

She kissed him on the lips. "Yep," she said in a whisper.

Mabel switched back to Dipper's turn without him noticing she hadn't taken her own turn yet. "Truth or Dare, Brobro?"

"Truth," he said.

Chuckling, Mabel said, "How many girls have you ever kissed?"

Dipper winced. "You mean on the lips?"

"On the whatever!" Mabel said. "Come on, spill it!"

"Go on, Dip," Wendy said.

He squirmed. "Um. Let me count. There's my mom, on the cheek. There was that girl in fifth grade that Mabel promised a dollar to if she'd let me kiss her on the cheek."

"Oh, yeah, Anna," Mabel said. She glanced at Wendy. "She didn't get the dollar, 'cause at the last second she ran away screaming. I think she had to have therapy later."

Dipper was frowning as he did mental arithmetic. "I guess it's a total of . . . thirty-three, counting Mabel. Just a brother-sister kiss."

"Dude," Wendy said, "that's more impressive than I figured!"

"Wait, wait," Mabel objected, frowning. "Dipper, there is no WAY you've kissed that many girls!"

"It's true," Dipper said.

"Name them all!"

Dipper shrugged. "You, Mom, Anna . . . Wendy."

"That's four!" Mabel said. "Boo, you liar!"

"I'm not lying," Dipper said, reaching for Wendy's hand. "Wendy's ten times better than each of the others, and three tens make thirty."

Wendy laughed. "Oh, Dip, that deserves another one!" And she kissed him again.

"I feel like I've been touched by an angel," Dipper said.

Mabel said, "Hang on, no fair! You weren't dared to flirt with Wendy!"

"Mabes," Wendy said, comfortably hugging Dipper and looking not at Mabel, but deeply into her twin's eyes, "we just started a whole different kind of game."

The End