All rights to Disney, Disney XD, Alex Hirsch and everyone involved in the great show that was Gravity Falls. Thanks for a great show, guys!

So I've got a confession to make.

The part of me that wrote this really wanted to make this story because I thought it was nice to have a future story with Dipper watching out for Wendy. We all know that Wendy would be the kind of girl to be around teen partying a lot, so this idea of her being at a raucous party and Dipper coming in to "save" her wasn't far off in my mind.

Then there's the respecting part of my mind. As a high schooler, I have no idea how alcohol works. I understand that this is a real issue, and I don't intend it as a jab to the community. I apologize in advance.

Now for Wendip! I guess! It's kinda Dipper-centric, but one can see twinges of Wendy in there. Enjoy!

It was 10:30.

He sighed worriedly, the nighttime sounds of the Shack booming quietly in her absence. The Oregon night outside was pitch black, and 16-year-old Dipper Pines knew that she wouldn't be able to walk herself home.

He sighed, facepalming himself. "Am I really going to do this...?"

He grabbed his keys. Thrusting on his great uncle's leather jacket and confidently snugging on his signature pine tree ballcap he took back from her, he took off out the front door.

The night drive wasn't so bad. The twisting road that led up to the shack was surprisingly less menacing at night than it was during the day, which surprised Dipper. He turned left on the main highway and turned to the small town of Gravity Falls.

He noticed seconds afterward that this was the first time he'd technically driven without an adult in the vehicle. He couldn't help but chuckle, noticing the similarities between himself and his great uncle when it came to breaking the automotive laws.

The town was asleep, save for one house. Dipper felt repulsed as he pulled up, as the 'bodies' of wasted teenagers lay seemingly lifeless on the lawn. As he parked his modest sedan across from a car that looked like it belonged to a small-town gangsta, he stepped over a yellow-haired teen he felt like he remembered from somewhere, who was eerily content with eating mud at the moment.

The booming bass sounds of music emanated from the cracks in the house so much that he felt if he opened the front door it would bombard him and push him back like a torrent. His hand hovered millimeters from the cold doorknob of the previously-modest home. Swallowing his fear like a good sixteen year old, (I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm-) he twisted the knob and stepped inside.

He was immediately met with a horrible stench of grainy alcohol.

Dipper was a smart kid. He knew from the wasted kids outside and from the louder than average music that the party probably featured whiskey as a prominent staple. That made his mission all the more dire.

He weaved and junked his way between and through a mob of drunken and rowdy teens. Observing a sloppily made "Do not disturb" sign on the nearby closet door, he turned away in a cold sweat and hastened up his speed.

The signature body spray of Robbie Valentino was not prominent today, a thought that amused Dipper. "Funny that of all people, Robbie went to school for psychology."

A turn of a corner revealed the subject of his rescue.

Gwendolyn Corduroy was currently in possession of an entire bottle of Jack Daniels, her plaid-green overshirt tossed carelessly to the side. A group of semi-conscious teenagers and young men surrounded her, cheering on her apparent chug of alcohol.

Dipper acted naturally in a maternal and fearful way.

Snagging the redhead's hand, he quickly led her out of the room to the dismayed shouts of her fans. He maintained a constant iron grip on the woman's wrist as he worriedly and dutifully led her out of the house. Wendy dumbly followed suit, numbed from alcohol.

It seemed like it took her a while to register what was happening. "Dipper...? What are you do-oo-hing here, silly boy?"

Dipper had to control his blush. "Uh, um, I uh... We need to go home, Wendy. You were supposed to be home a long time ago."

Opening the door and leading her inside, Dipper leaned against the side of his humble car and sighed. "How'd I manage to dig myself into this mess?"

He checked inside the car. Wendy's form was now laid flat along the three loafy seats in the back. (Was loafy a word? Dipper had heard Mabel use it before, so probably not.) She was fast asleep.

He couldn't help but grin a little. It'd been nearly three years since he'd been to Gravity Falls for the first time, and it seems like throughout the apocalypse and everything, Wendy (and everyone in general) was still herself.

His smile dropped when he realized he must have been looking incredibly creepy to the four drunk guys wasted on the lawn, so he hopped in and quickly pulled out of there.

He yawned again. The day had been tiring; as "finding new attractions" for Soos' Mystery Shack had taken too much creativity out of Mabel and himself. Then he had worked with his returned great uncle Ford, who returned apparently a month after Stanley had. Afterward he was a "guest myster-teer" for Mr. Jesus Mystery and led along a fairly ecstatic group of children and a fairly bored group of adults.

He checked along the highway for the turn off to the Corduroy's log cabin out in the wooded area of Gravity Falls. His drooping eyes vigilant, he finally spotted the poorly-crafted wooden sign placed by Dan Corduroy specifically for himself on the right side of the road. There was only one problem - Gompers stood in the way. Not wanting to mess with the somewhat tyrannical as of late goat, he kept towards the Mystery Shack.

"I don't think Dan minds." Dipper sighed as he turned off. "She sleeps over all the time nowadays."

He couldn't pinpoint why. Maybe it was the later nights she was spending to get more money off of Soos now that the pudgy man was starting to give her less. He was growing in business, Dipper had to give him that. Maybe it was the late-night movies that had become somewhat of a tradition since the first summer. They were running out of bad movies, though, and recently had to settle for a Hallmark classic that Wendy liked much to his chagrin.

Needless to say, he was surprised she liked a Hallmark movie.

The town a distant memory behind him, Dipper leaned back in his seat. "This'll be a whi-"

Something touched his shoulder.

Eyes widened with fear, he turned slowly.

Had the handwitch come back?

Was this another one of Toby's sick pranks?

Did Mabel reanimate Bear-O again?

His gaze met with a calloused, slender hand.

"Hiiiiii, Dipstick..." Wendy drunkenly groaned into his ear. Heartbeat like a Gatling gun, he turned quickly and faced back to the wheel, face burning more than his gas mileage at this point.

The grainy laugh resounded through the silent car like a clanging of metal in the bunker. She slung her arm around his shoulder again, groping his left thigh from the other side of the poor driver. He couldn't breathe.

She laughed again. "Dippler, you're so... so cute, y'know that?" She expelled sultrily.

"Wendy... sit back down, please..." Dipper hastily warned, trying hard to keep his feelings in check before he ran them both off the road. Blubbs would not be happy, especially with the recent death of Durland hanging in the air.

She pouted in the rear view mirror. "Aww... but Dippy..."

He put the stone face on. "Wendy, you're staying at my house tonight. You can't go home, I don't wanna deal with the goat. Or your father."

She clapped giddily, like a child. "Do I get to sleep with you, Dip?"

...

"N-no." He tried harder than he needed to in order to sound normal and unshaken in front of the drunken friend now wrapping her arms around his stomach as he turned up into the Mystery Shack. It was made increasingly hard when her light chuckles found their way floating into his unguarded ears.

Parking the small car in front of the disheveled house, Dipper wrestled Wendy's arms from his stomach.

"Awww..." She whined childishly, "but I love you, Dippy..."

He froze. No matter if he knew she was drunk or not, the statement still shook him as he opened his car door. She fumbled with the handle for a few seconds, laughing uncontrollably as Dipper unenthusiastically opened it for her. She fell knee-first onto the ground, giggling again. "Ouch."

Grabbing her arm again, Dipper parentally led her up to the shack. His Great Uncle Stanley was waiting, a steady stream of billowy white streaming into the violet summer night.

"You know how many coffees this took to stay up this late?" He grunted, checking his watch. Wendy, despite being drunk and having no normal fear of the older employer, straightened up her back.

"Soos passed out on the couch waiting for you guys, and Mabel fell asleep making Mabel Juice." Grunkle Stan explained as the two hobbled inside. "I'm pretty sure it was a substitute for whatever she's on."

Dipper gestured to the drunken girl shivering on his shoulder. "Wendy? Oh, it's whiskey. And it's not my fault that she's out that late."

Stan closed the door behind them, shutting off the light behind him. "Dan's probably worried sick. I'll tell him she's staying here tonight. He won't care, then."

Dipper smiled. "Thanks, Grunkle Stan." The girl whose arm was now slung over his shoulder had since fell asleep in his arms. "Poor thing. Must be tired."

The light from the living room came from the flickering 11 pm tv. Soos, true to Grunkle Stan's word, was snoring loudly on the armchair, blanket half on and half off. The new owner of the Mystery Shack seemed content enough with the house, as he hadn't changed it since he became Mr. Mystery.

He passed through the darkened kitchen with the sleeping girl on his shoulder, the Mabel Juice mess on the top of the kitchen table causing him to chuckle a bit. The stairs became a problem, as Wendy's longer legs and feet dragged against the splintered pine annoyingly. He grimaced, hoping the girl wouldn't wake up. To his joy, she must have been more drunk than Dan was on Christmas evening.

He'd experienced that the one time he came to Gravity Falls for Christmas. It wasn't fun for the Pines or the Corduroys.

At the top of the stairs, his stomach took a turn as he realized that the few rooms in the house were already taken. Stan's normal post, the couch, was taken by Soos, so he had since retreated to Soos' room, as Melody was not there for that summer. Mabel had taken the spare room, due to the fact that the twins were no longer 12. Grunkle Ford's room was a repurposed secret library that Dipper was disappointed to have never found. The old carpet room had been boarded over and semi-destroyed since the Attack on Cipher Base.

There was nowhere for Wendy.

He sweated profusely; where was he supposed to go? He sighed, making his final decision.

He carried Wendy bridal-style to his bed, shade of red burned seemingly permanently into his face. Setting her down carefully and setting her under the custom pine tree quilt Mabel had stitched him in memory of the victory in Piedmont, he took a quilt from across the room and propped himself up against the wall.

He stared at her sleeping form for a while. Blushing at the action, he forced his eyes shut and turned away.

"I'm over her, I'm over her, I'm over her..."

He wasn't over her.

Three freaking years, and he wasn't over her. Three years. Fourteen boyfriends for her. A girlfriend back in Piedmont for him. Mabel had tried to set him up with Pacifica, but the girl was still prissy and rich even after their family's humbling after Weirdmageddon. Too prissy and too rich for his taste.

He still wasn't over her.

He sighed. He needed to. If those fourteen boyfriends showed anything, it was that she'd stayed firm on her idea that the age gap was too wide.

For the first time in three years, Dipper Pines thought himself to sleep.

A loud, piercing scream jerked Dipper from his slumber.

His eyes jerked open, furiously searching immediately for the source of the scream. His neck and back ached from sleeping upright and bent against the wall, and he felt it crack in agony against him as he stood up.

Clearing the sand from his eyes, he noticed the source of the scream: the covered lump on his bed was convulsing and screaming loudly.

Wendy Corduroy was staring everywhere confusedly, eyes darting between and among things she recognized and did not recognize.

He rushed over to his confused friend. "Wendy? Wendy, it's okay, you're just having a hangover—"

Her pained eyes latched on to him with a crazed need in her eyes, one that blew the wind out of Dipper. She flew up, latching her aching form onto him and refusing to let go.

"Dipper!" She wailed. "Everythings all weird! I feel heavy... What's happening?" She let out another scared wail.

Dipper hushed her by squeezing back and covering her mouth with his hand. "Wendy, calm down."

He checked his watch. It was six a.m. the following day. "People are probably still sleeping."

"Not anymore, bro-bro." Mabel Pines entered his room. "She's woken everyone... up..."

Mabel looked between the shirtless Dipper and the screaming Wendy who was in his bed. She jutted a finger up quickly to ask a question, but silenced herself. Dipper wasn't really that kind of guy anyway.

"She's got a hangover." Dipper explained curtly. Mabel nodded in acknowledgment and retreated downstairs to get a glass of water and to calm down a raging Stanley Pines.

"Dipper," Wendy bit down hard on her lower lip after he released his hand from her mouth, "how much did I drink last night?"

He chuckled a bit before going dead faced at the sight of Wendy's uncharacteristic lack of humor in this situation. "Uh, probably a lot. There were a couple bottles by your feet when I came to pick you up."

She released, curling up into a ball of inner pain on the other side of the room. "I need help, Dipper. I don't wanna end up like my mother. You know what happened to my mother."

Dipper gazed downward, unable to connect eyes. Drunk driving accidents were always an uncomfortable subject for him in the first place, and the loss of Wendy's mother to one only made it more unbearable.

He grabbed her hand, hugging her tightly to the surprise of them both. "I care for you a lot, Wendy. You know I'll help you get through this. I may not know much about alcohol or drinking issues, but the first thing I'm sure of is that you don't have one. Yet, at least."

He felt her lay her chin in the crook of his neck, smelling him for some reason. "Thanks, Dip. It means a lot."

Why did her whimsical voice still get him all ruffled up?

"D'aww." Mabel's voice floated from the doorway. "Scrapbook-ortunity!"

Dipper lifted his head to scold her, but Wendy's hand brought him back. "Don't mind her, dude. Just let me have this."

They stayed like that for a while, just holding each other while Dipper's freshman face reddened more and more.

Eventually she got up. Dipper sighed, standing up as she turned away.

"Hey, Dipper..."

He straightened up, turning around confusedly. As he turned, he barely had time to register what was happening as the grainy taste of Wendy's lips met his. His eyes jerked open, long enough to see her content face before she released laughing. "That was for giving me a place to stay last night. Shoulda sucked on your back, though. I thought that pay you back fairly well."

WHY DOES SHE PLAY WITH MY EMOTIONS

All he did was smile. "Anytime Wendy."

He watched as she took her duffel bag from the entryway of the shack and left out from the front window. He cracked his back.

"Anytime."

"That's the fastest I've seen anyone recover from a hangover."

He turned, red-faced, to see Soos, Mabel, and Grunkle Stan and Ford in the doorway, all grinning mischievously.

Dipper straightened up. "How much of that did you see?!"

His twin raised her Polaroid camera, a few pictures streaming from the front. One could make out the basic figure of a younger man kissing an older girl.

Dipper facepalmed. "Of course you would, Mabel. Of course."

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