Gravity Falls
Sleepless in Gravity Falls
FanFiction Summary: After a fight with her family, Wendy moves out in a huff and is offered a place to crash at the Mystery Shack. Hi-jinks ensue.
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls was created by Alex Hirsch and is owned by Disney. I own no part of Gravity Falls.
Original Release Date: April 1, 2020
The moon was bright out on this lovely night. Not a cloud in the sky. Grunkle Stan, Mabel, and Dipper were gathered around the TV. Everything was nice and calm, with nothing seemingly on the horizon to disrupt their peace.
That is, until there was a knock at the door. Dipper stood up from his seat and walked over to open it. Standing at the door was an annoyed Wendy, holding a suitcase. "W-Wendy!" He shouted, blushing at the sight of his unattainable crush. "Wh-What are you doing here? What's with the suitcase?"
"Got into a fight with the family. Those people can really drive me up a wall sometimes." She responded, the disappointment evident in her voice.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Eh, don't be, dude. Happens more often than you think. It'll blow over, I just need a few days away from those lunatics. Is it okay if I crash here for a while?"
"Yes!" He once again mouthed off without thinking, but this time he at least had the decency to realize his mistake and cover his mouth. He looked back at Mabel & Stan, who were now looking at him cock-headed. "I mean, that's what I would say if it were up to me."
"What's all the hubbub, kid?" Stan called out.
"Got into a fight with the folks, need someplace to crash for a few days." Wendy repeated. Stan shrugged.
"Meh, just stay out of my office."
"Alright!" Dipper was visibly excited. "Let's get you settled in."
"Nah, I got it. Thanks." She responded letting herself in.
"Take the spare room!" Stan was referring to the one that had the magical carpet in it, the one that swapped Mabel and Dipper's bodies.
He followed Wendy to the room to help her get settled in, which didn't take long at all since Wendy just dumped her luggage on the floor and leaped onto the bed that was underneath the boarded up window. Since the magic carpet debacle, the bed had been expanded slightly, just enough to cozily fit two people on it. "Sorry it's not really that great." Dipper apologized. "Stan hasn't really taken good care of this room, don't know why."
"Dude it's cool." She replied. "I don't need much anyway. I'm pretty low-maintenance."
"I can tell." Dipper was trying to hide the blush he had. Even after knowing Wendy for a few weeks, it wasn't that easy for him to talk to his crush without looking or sounding like an idiot. "If you need anything let me know."
"Will do, buckaroo." She clicked her tongue and shot a finger bang at him as he turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Later that night, everyone had settled down and was in bed for the night, with Dipper & Mabel in their usual spots. "Dipper isn't this weird?" Mabel asked out of nowhere.
"What is?"
"You know...the girl you can't stop crushing on sleeping over at our place for a few days? You don't think..."
"Oh god, Mabel, if you actually think I'm going to make a move on her-"
"Oh no no, I know you won't. You're too much of a coward to do that."
"Heyyy!"
"No but you don't think it'll be a little bit awkward for you knowing she's-" Mabel was briefly interrupted by a faint rumbling sound coming from the distance. They couldn't make out what it was so they shrugged it off. "Awkward for you knowing she's only two doors down?"
"Why would that be awkward?"
"You're kidding right? Bro, you can barely even get out one complete sentence when you're around her without stumbling over your words like a klutz." Again, faint rumbling interrupted them. "What is that noise?"
"I better go check it out." Dipper said, getting off the bed.
"Why you?"
"Do you want to wander around this creepy place in the dead of night?" He asked her; Mabel had no response. "Besides, Grunkle Stan sleeps through everything, and Wendy's a guest, I'm sure as heck not going to let her be the one to deal with whatever this is."
"I'm sure she'll appreciate your gracious accommodations, Mr. Pines." Now she was teasing him. He rolled his eyes, grabbed his flashlight & camcorder, and left the room, off to explore the source of the rumbling.
As Dipper walked out the door and down the hall, the rumbling got louder and louder. With each step he took, it drastically shot up in volume. Eventually he arrived at the door leading into the room Wendy was taking up. He put his ear up against the door; the rumbling was quite loud inside. He turned the knob and slowly walked inside. Yep, this is it. He thought to himself, the rumbling now a full out booming noise that he couldn't pinpoint. Wendy was on the bed, her back was turned to the door, and she appeared to be out like a light.
He quietly started snooping around, looking for clues. He checked literally every corner of the room that he could, but he failed to find the noise, causing immense frustration on his end. But then at that point, he had a realization: there was only one place left to check: Wendy's bed. It couldn't be...could it? There was only one way to find out. He slowly tip-toed towards the bed, each step his heart beating faster and faster. Once he was about one or two steps away from the bed, something happened. Wendy started to move around, readjusting her position until finally, she just turned over so that her front was facing Dipper. And that's when the truth finally revealed itself.
The source of the rumbling...was Wendy. Yep. She was snoring...and quite loudly as well. Her mouth was completely open, some of her hair was drooping into it, and drool was pouring out of her mouth at an insane pace. It was quite the sight to behold. Dipper could not look away. Whether he was enthralled with what he saw or disgusted was yet to be known, but he was surely intrigued. He inched every closer to her, her blazing snoring growing louder by the second. His camcorder was filming - something he did not realize at the time - and aimed directly at Wendy's snoring face.
Dipper spent the next several minutes completely still, right up against the bed, staring right at Wendy, camcorder capturing everything. He didn't dare move. He had no idea how to respond to what he was witnessing. He didn't formulate his next move; it just happened. Dipper slowly climbed into the bed and settled himself next to Wendy. He was but an inch away from her. An inch away from her absurdly loud snoring. An inch away from the lake of drool she was creating on her pillow and mattress. An inch away from the teenage girl he had been badly crushing on since he arrived at Gravity Falls.
For what seemed like an eternity, Dipper just laid there, completely silent and still. He made not a sound nor a move, letting Wendy thunderously snore on & flood the bed. It seemed to get louder with each passing minute, and there were no signs that it was going to slow down. Finally Dipper started to move, but it wasn't to get out of the bed. It was to get even closer to Wendy, carefully scooching himself so that he wouldn't wake up, continuing to do so until he was literally right up against her, and now he could get the maximum impact of her thunderous snoring right into his ear. He was up so close against her that she actually began drooling on Dipper. And quite a lot, too. One would think that this kind of development would serve to scare or appall Dipper. But...it did not. In fact, the exact opposite was happening.
...Yes, he was enjoying this. A lot, actually. Most of it was just because he was with Wendy and he was currently head over heels for her; if this were literally anyone else in the world, it would produce a completely different reaction from Dipper. But it wasn't just anyone. It was Wendy, a 15-year old tomboy girl that he currently had a massive crush on. He enjoyed her personality, he loved her presence, he adored her stick-tuitiveness. And to top it all off, she was just incredibly attractive...even in her current snoring-like-an-oversized-wildebeest state...check that, especially in her current snoring-like-an-oversized-wildebeest state. Yeah, he definitely hoped he'd never have to explain this to anyone.
But just before he could get too deep into his thoughts, some action started to happen. Wendy started shifting around, snorting repeatedly and edging just ever closer to him. When she was done snorting, she began to mumble loudly, completely incoherent. The drool in her wide open mouth was visible to Dipper. Once she was done mumbling, she resumed snoring. And this was basically the pattern for the rest of the night, with Wendy occasionally adjusting herself and moving slightly closer to Dipper, all while her snoring got exponentially louder and her drool output increased with each passing minute. He was in extreme danger of being caught if she should open her eyes even a smidgen, but luckily for him, Wendy was an extremely heavy sleeper.
The night hours passed by relatively uneventfully...all things considered. It was very early the next minute, just before the sun was set to rise. Dipper slowly opened his eyes to get a gauge of his surroundings. He was in basically the same position he was in when he fell asleep. Which meant that Wendy was also the same position she was in, just much closer to him now. She was still snoring away, her mouth extremely agape open. The bed was almost soaked in drool. Carefully, Dipper wiggled his way out of her vice grip, grabbing his camera - and shutting off the recording - and stretching himself out, preparing to leave and return to his room, hopefully undetected.
He went to the door and turned around, taking one last look at what lay before him. He was still bewildered, almost as if he was unable to comprehend what had transpired. What he didn't realize that in his trance he had accidentally hit the "record" button again and ended up recording a solid 60 seconds of her sleeping. Once he came out of it, he stopped the recording and hastily - but quietly - left, tip-toeing back to his own room.
He opened the door...only to find Mabel sitting up, with a pillow covering her ears. As it turned out, Mabel had been up for much of the night, unable to sleep because of the thunderous noise that she could hear all the way from the room. She didn't have any idea what it was...but she thought Dipper would. "Dipper! Where have you been all night?" She asked frantically. "Don't tell me you looked all night and you couldn't find that noise!"
Dipper had to scramble to come up with a convincing lie. "Uh...uh nope. No I couldn't. S-Sorry, Mabel. I'll try again tonight."
Mabel groaned, but accepted her brother's answer.
Later that same morning, Mabel, Dipper, and Grunkle Stan were having breakfast at the table. A clearly refreshed Wendy walked into the room, loudly yawning, stretching, and scratching herself. "Good morning, dorks." She said, sitting down at the table with them.
"At least someone slept well." Mabel said in a groggy voice.
"What's wrong?"
"I didn't sleep too well last night. There was this loud, thunderous noise that kept penetrating the walls, and Dipper spent the whole night looking for it."
"Really?" Wendy was left perplexed. For some reason. "You couldn't find it anywhere?"
And suddenly Dipper began to sweat. Had to keep the lie going. "U-Uh, n-nope, nope! I couldn't! And I looked everywhere, at least I think. M-Maybe I'll have better luck tonight."
"Want me to help? Maybe we'll have better luck if we split up-"
"Oh no no no no!" He said rapidly. "U-Uh, I-I mean, no you don't have to do that. N-None of you do. I can totally handle it on my own. Totally!" Mabel started to become a little bit suspicious of Dipper's behavior. But Wendy was completely oblivious.
"Alright, dude. If you say so. But don't be afraid to holler if you need back up." She made their signature "lock n throw-away-the-key" motion to him, which he relayed back. And that was the end of that...for now. But Mabel remained suspicious.
And she was right to. That very night played out the exact same way the previous night did, with Dipper sneaking off to "find the source of the noise," only to sneak into the room Wendy was sleeping in. Once again he found her in her bed, snoring like nobody's business with drool guzzling out of her mouth. And once again, he slowly crept up to the bed, careful not to wake her. Not that it would matter, she was an absurdly heavy sleeper. He crawled into the bed and scooched as close to her as he could get without waking her, ending up about an inch away. As if by instinct, Wendy reached her arms out, wrapping them around him as if to pull him into a hug. And there they lay for the longest time, Wendy snoring wildly into Dipper's ear while her mouth acted like Niagara Falls, and Dipper just laying there and taking it.
He turned his head to face her; there was something...oddly enthralling with seeing Wendy's hugely agape mouth snoring like it wasn't humanely possibly for someone to snore like that. He'd never be able to explain it to anyone. And this thought only got stronger as she would frequently adjust herself to bring him in even closer, all while her snoring got exponentially louder and her drool threatened to completely soak the bed. Time seemed to slow down in this state. Not that Dipper was complaining.
The hours passed by. The only sound that Dipper could hear - on the outside and on the inside - was Wendy's ever-increasingly thunderous snoring with her mouth a fraction of an inch from his ear. Finally, he wiggled his way out of her vice grip, took his camera, and started to make his way to the door, hoping to sneak back to his room again undetected. Unfortunately, this would not come to pass. As soon as he opened the door, he saw an extremely tired & annoyed Mabel standing there, arms crossed, with a death glare on her face. "Oh, hi...Mabel..."
"So it is coming from here." She said sternly. "What gives, Dipper? Why haven't you stopped-" She took a few steps into the room to investigate, and she stopped only when she saw exactly what was up: Wendy snoring like a maniac on her bed with the mattress soaked in drool, several streams of it coming from all corners of her mouth. Mabel was left confused. "Um..."
"Oh, so that's what's making all that noise!" Dipper lied rather terribly. "How could I have possibly missed that?" He was so bad at lying, at least when it came to Wendy. Mabel couldn't even dignify it with a response. That is...until she put two and two together.
"Wait, time out...have you been camping out in this room in each of the past two nights? With...that?!" She emphasized the weirdness she felt addressing Wendy's sleep presentation. And as if on cue, her snoring suddenly got much louder.
"Wha-"
"You know what? Don't answer that. It's not important. What is important is putting a stop to it!"
"What?" Now it was getting comical, with Dipper and Mabel struggling to hear each other as Wendy's snoring continued to increase in volume.
"I said what's important is putting a stop to this!" Again, the snoring got even louder.
"What did you say!?"
"I SAID I'M GOING TO PUT A-oh for the love of!" Mabel marched angrily towards Wendy, reached out, grabbed her collar, and began to shake her as hard as she could. "WAKE UP YOU HEADCASE I CAN'T SLEEP!" Unfortunately it was to no avail. Literally, with every single word, her snoring got even louder, and the drool was now literally pouring out. "Holy toledo she's a heavy sleeper."
"WHAT!?"
Mabel loudly groaned and plopped Wendy back on the bed, marching to the door and grabbing Dipper's arm, closing the door behind them. "I said I'm going to put a stop to whatever the heck is possessing Wendy to make her snore like that! I have barely slept the past two nights. How have you been dealing with it-no, don't answer that either." She groaned once more before running back to their shared room.
"Mabel wait!" Dipper's efforts to try and convince her fell on deaf ears. He sighed and began trudging back to the room.
Once Mabel got back, she got under her sheets and began flipping through the pages of one of the journals, searching for an answer to her problem. Eventually she settled on one of the pages. "Oh ho ho...this might be exactly what I've been looking for."
It was now night 3 of Wendy's stay. It was just about time for everyone to turn in again. Mabel walked Wendy down to her room. "So...Wendy, you enjoying your stay?" She asked her.
"Oh totally. It's nice to be away from the guys for a while. You try living with them for a day, they'll drive you mad." Wendy said with a completely straight face. "I tell you, the last two nights I have slept great. It's like I hit the pillow and I am out like a light."
Mabel chuckled nervously. "Y-Yeah, I get you. Totally." They arrived right outside Wendy's door. Wendy loudly yawned.
"Alright, 'night, kid. Don't let the bedbugs bite-"
"Wait, Wendy!" Mabel yelled, stopping her from leaving momentarily. She hastily pointed to the ground a foot in front of her. "I-Is that a silver dollar on the floor?"
Wendy raised an eyebrow. "It is?" She walked two paces and then knelled door, examining the floor. There was no silver dollar on the ground. Instead, it was a diversion. Mabel leaped onto Wendy's back, surprising her, but before Wendy could form a reaction, Mabel took out what looked like a pocket watch from her pocket and clicked one of the buttons on it. Instantaneously, a black & white swirling circle formed on the base, spinning rapidly and quickly putting Wendy under a hypnotic spell.
"Sorry, Wendy, but I have no other choice." Mabel whispered to herself as she readied herself to give the command. Yup, she was about to put Wendy under her mind control. To her, it was the only way she could stop her snoring so she could get some sleep. "Alright Wendy, from now on, you're gonna have...a little trouble sleeping. By that I mean you're not gonna get a wink of sleep until you're hypnotized again and told you can sleep! Now, when you're released, you won't remember being hypnotized, and you'll act like everything is perfectly normal." She clicked the button again, taking Wendy out of her spell and jumping off her back before she could comment.
Wendy stood there for a brief moment before coming to, uprighting herself and refocusing on the door to her sleeping quarters. "That was weird." She turned to Mabel and waved before opening the door and heading in. "Well, goodnight."
"Night Wendy!" Mabel shouted with excitement before turning back to her room.
Later that night, Dipper, in his room, lay awake in bed, waiting for the thunderous noise of Wendy's snoring to start up. But several hours into the night, it wasn't happening, and Dipper had no idea why. Meanwhile, Mabel, in the bed next to him, was soundly asleep under her blankets. He decided to investigate, getting out of the bed and leaving the room quietly.
He made his way all the way down to Wendy's room; just as he was about to turn the knob, he heard something inside. It was Wendy, but it wasn't snoring. Instead, it was loud grunting and what sounded like tossing and turning. Dipper gently turned the knob and let himself in, and he managed to stay out of sight but give himself a good enough angle to see what was going on. Wendy was indeed tossing and turning in her bed, struggling to fall asleep. No position she took in her bed made her comfortable enough to fall asleep, and she took plenty of positions over the hour and change Dipper spent in his corner spying on her. As the time passed, Wendy grew more and more restless and frustrated, dark circles slowly forming around her eyes.
Eventually, Dipper gave up and decided to bail quietly before he was spotted.
The morning came uneventfully, and it began just like any other morning, with Dipper, Mabel, & Grunkle Stan eating breakfast. Mabel was particularly refreshed from her night of uninterrupted sleep. Dipper became suspicious of his sister's suddenly positive attitude in the morning. As for Wendy...well, she walked into the room, and she looked terrible. Her hair was ruffled, her clothes were disheveled, her eyes were bloodshoot with dark circles around them, and she had a hint of drool hanging out of the side of her mouth.
"Morning dudes..." She said in a groggy voice, loudly yawning and taking her seat.
"The heck happened to you?" Grunkle Stan barked. "You look like you got hit by a car."
"Yeah, you don't look so good." Mabel said in a voice that sounded like she was concerned. But internally, she was giddy.
"...Couldn't sleep a wink last night..." Wendy answer, yawning again. "I don't know what's going on. The first two nights I slept great. Now all of a sudden..." Another yawn. "...nothing. And that's, like, super bad for me because if I don't get exactly 8 hours of sleep every night, I'm wrecked. Even if it's like five minutes I miss." She loudly sighed. "I'm gonna be a total weeb at work today."
"Look, Wendy, you know I love ya like a long lost niece or something, but..." Grunkle Stan patted Wendy's shoulder. "How is that any different from how you normally are at work?" She glared at him; she wasn't in the mood for these jokes, even if he wasn't wrong.
"Don't worry, Wendy." Dipper said reassuringly. "I'm sure tonight'll be better for you." He turned to his sister. "Right Mabel?"
"Oh, uh, y-yeah, totally! It was probably just a bad night." She said, still masking her internal glee at the development unfolding in front of her. Mabel had not yet decided exactly how long she wanted to keep this up. All she knew was that she was not yet caught up on her sleep, and that was priority number one for her.
"You know what? You're probably right. Tonight'll probably be better." Wendy said with a weak smile as she yawned yet again. She was confident that tonight would be different for her.
She was wrong.
Yet again she found herself completely unable to fall asleep in any meaningful way. Not even the sweet allure of sleep-deprivation-induced sleep worked for her. She continued to grow more and more exhausted & desperate for sleep but was unable to find any solace. So the following morning, she was even more exhausted & disheveled, evidenced by how she dragged her feet down the hall, passing Dipper & Mabel's room in the process. Dipper couldn't help but feel sorry for her as he watched her drag herself down the hall. And despite how much she was enjoying being able to sleep at night again, even Mabel started to feel bad for Wendy.
"Poor Wendy." Dipper said solemnly. "Two nights with no sleep. There's gotta be something we can do to help her." As Dipper turned to face Mabel, the girl quickly hid her hypnotic pocket watch under her sheets, out of sight.
"Maybe we can try something tonight." Mabel said. "Sleep can't escape her forever."
The boy sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Come on, let's go get breakfast." The boy left the room right then, while Mabel lagged behind. The girl leaped out of the bed and dashed off. As she did, the pocket watch she was still holding flew out of her hand and landed in a box sitting next to her bed. This box...was a box that they used to contain their garbage as it awaited to be taken for garbage day.
And as if on cue, Soos walked into the room. "Oh boy! Garbage day!" And he picked up the box and took it with him.
Later that morning, Grunkle Stan gathered Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy into the Mystery Shack. "Alright, punks, listen up! Today's a big day for the Mystery Shack. It's the start of the annual "Five Day, Super Fantastical All-Out Mystery Bananza!" For the next five days this place is going to be swarming top to bottom with out of town tourists lining up to see all of our attractions & buying all of our merchandise! It's where the majority of the money we make comes from. I'm gonna need each and every one of you at the top of your game. Because - and this is important - until the end of this Bananza, we're going 24/7! So if you're not eating, sleeping, or doing your business in the can, you're working. Is that understood?"
Dipper, Mabel, and Soos all saluted or nodded in agreement. Wendy, meanwhile, loudly groaned & buried her head in her hands. If Wendy couldn't bring herself to fall asleep, she would have to work even longer & harder than the rest of the group, and she knew that. It was at this point that Mabel was starting to feel a little bit of extra guilt.
"Okay, you got ten minutes before we open. Take care of any business you have to now before we get swarmed with - blegh - out-of-state tourists."
Without a second thought, Mabel turned around and raced back to her and Dipper's room, with everyone taking note. "Mabel?" Dipper asked. "What's up?"
"JUST GOTTA GET SOMETHING, IT'S NOTHING!" She shouted hastily as she continued running. She returned to the room and began to tear it apart, looking for the pocket watch. It was nowhere to be found, and her anxieties quickly rose as she began to recall how it flew out of her hands and landed in the box next to the bed...the box that was no longer there. "Oh no..."
"Mabel, what's the matter?" Dipper asked; he, Soos, Wendy, and Grunkle Stan were standing in the door way. The walls were closing in on her. She saw no way out. She had to come clean. She went over to the drawer and pulled out one of the journals, flipping through the pages.
"I know why Wendy hasn't been able to sleep the last two nights." She said somberly; she flipped the book around and showed the page that foretold the hypnotic pocket watch. "I...used this pocket watch thing to hypnotize Wendy into not being able to sleep."
Everyone gasped. They were in shock, but Wendy was enraged. "Dude, why would you do that!?" She shrieked.
"Because I needed to sleep! Wendy, you freaking snore like a wildebeest, and it was keeping me up!"
For some reason, Wendy was offended. Apparently she was in denial about this. "Excuse me, I do NOT snore!"
"Yeah you do!" Dipper instantaneously said without even thinking. He immediately covered his mouth upon realizing the words that slipped through his mouth. Was he about to be outed too? Luckily Grunkle Stan was there to back him up.
"The kid's right. Thanks to you, I had to break out my old noise-cancelling headphones for the first time in years." He said nonchalantly. Wendy let her feelings of offense at these remarks simmer for a moment before turning back to Mabel.
"Mabel...you better fix this. Now."
"I'd love to...but I can't." She said, defeated. More gasped. "I-I accidentally threw the pocket watch into our garbage box, and now it's gone."
"Oh yeah, today's garbage day. I was down the halls earlier collecting all of the trash for the week and-ohhhh now I see the problem." Soos backed up slowly, slinking away into the background, not wanting to be a central part of this mess.
"Well you better get it back and fix this!" Wendy hissed. "If I don't get my sleep, I can't function!"
"Soos, where does the trash go?" Mabel pleaded.
"There's only one Dump in Gravity Falls. It all goes to the same place. It's like fifteen minutes away from here. I can drive you there quick if you want, but we're not gonna get back in time unless we find it in, like, two seconds."
"Look, it's fine. I'll hold the fort down with Wendy for as long as we can. You guys just find that thing."
"You BETTER find it!" Wendy hissed again.
"Don't worry Wendy, we will." Mabel said as she, Dipper, and Soos started to run down the halls towards the path that took them to the exit. "Noise cancelling headphones? Why didn't I think of that?"
"I don't have to answer that, do I?" Dipper said jokingly as he received a glare from her as a reward.
The three of them exited the building and got into Soos's car, dashing towards the Gravity Falls dump, leaving Grunkle Stan & Wendy behind. Wendy took her spot behind the register, eyes drooping & drool dripping from her mouth, while Grunkle Stan took note of the incoming flux of cars & buses parking in front of the Shack. "Okay...moment of truth." He said. "I'll do everything I can to help you, Wendy. And we'll just cross our fingers & pray they get back soon." He took a deep breath and readied himself. He opened the door and stepped outside. "WELCOME TO THE SUPER FANTA-"
...And he promptly found himself literally run over by the incoming tourists. Literally. By the time the last tourist was actually in the Shack, Stan was flattened like a pancake, and both of his ankles were severely injured, making him unable to walk. He screamed in pure agony. "MY LEGS! OH MY LANTA MY LEGS!" He was able to crawl into the Shack with his arms, only to find that the Shack was literally completely crowded with barely any wiggle room. Poor Wendy looked on in pure terror and the tourists. "Does anyone have a crutch I could borrow!?" Stan shouted to the crowd, to no avail. Wendy looked over and saw the distraught Grunkle and raced over to help him up.
"Dude are you okay!?" She asked in concern.
"They shattered both of my ankles, NO I'M NOT OKAY!" He answered. "This is a nightmare!"
"You're telling me!" She surveyed the Shack once more and saw that there was already a huge line at the register. "I'm going to die today, aren't I?" The reality slowly sunk in for Wendy. Stan was pretty much out of commission thanks to his shattered ankles, so Wendy - running on exactly zero sleep in the past 48 plus hours - was going to have to handle everything. Not just the register, but cleaning the place, showing off the exhibits at the Shack, all of it. By herself. Until the others returned.
As for Dipper, Mabel, and Soos, they arrived at the Gravity Falls Dump. There was a big, silver wall covering the place with a door on one end of it. "This is the place." Soos said confidently. "Wonder why they have this wall built around it though."
"Who cares, let's just find that pocket watch!" Mabel shouted, and without delay, the three of them opened the door and raced inside. There were mountains upon mountains upon mountains of garbage all waiting to be sifted through. "Holy toledo...that's a lot of trash."
"Where would we even start?" Dipper pondered, almost trembling in his shoes.
"Guess each of us should pick and mountain and get digging." Soos suggested. "If we split up, we can cover more trash & find it faster."
The kids both sighed. "You're right. Let's do this."
Nobody was looking forward to this, but it had to be done. Mabel screwed up, and she was determined to get the pocket watch back & fix what she broken, no matter what the cost was or how long it took to actually find it. That determination would prove useful, because there was a ton of trash to sort through, and it took ages to do so. Hours on hours of sifting through garbage non-stop. They were committed to finding it no matter how long it took.
"Do they ever empty this place out!?" Dipper asked. "There's gotta be, like, ten years worth of garbage piled up here."
"Since when does Gravity Falls handle anything like a normal town?" Mabel added, which got a nod of agreement from Dipper.
"Hey guys, I think I found something!" Soos yelled, pulling out something small & round from the pile. "Is this it!?" It was indeed the pocket watch that Mabel had used to hypnotize Wendy.
"SOOS, THAT'S IT!" Mabel shouted as she dashed towards him to hug him. "YOU FOUND IT!"
"Way to go Soos!" Dipper added, joining the two of them.
"And it only took five hours to find!" Soos shouted victoriously before all of their moods soured. "Five hours. Wow. Either we're really bad at this or this place is a clusterf-"
"Oh no, Wendy!" Dipper interrupted him, shouting in distress. "Poor Wendy must be wrecked back at the Shack."
"Well now I can fix her and everything will be normal again. Let's get out of here!"
And so the three of them went through the silver door and got back on the outside world. They raced to Soos's car and sped right back to the Shack, hoping to give Wendy & Stan some relief for the super event. Unfortunately for them, they were in for a rude awakening. For one, there were no cars anywhere near the Shack.
"WENDY!" Dipper shouted as they slammed the door to the Shack open. "WE GOT TH-" They were given the shock of their lives. For one, the Shack was completely void of any merchandise whatsoever. It was also devoid of tourists. The only two people left there were Stan - who was now on crutches - and Wendy, who was at the register and near-completely dazed & disillusioned. Her eyes were completely red & barely open, the circles around her eyes huge & near black. She was drooling completely unconsciously onto the counter - there was a giant puddle right by the register - and she was hunched over. "Um..."
"Have you guys been at the Dump all this time?" Stan asked, clearly annoyed.
"Time? B-But it's only been five hours."
"It's been five days." He corrected him. Yup, as it turned out, the three of them had actually been at the Dump for five days...on the outside. But it was only five hours on the inside.
"That can't be right. I was counting the seconds in my head the entire time. It only came out to five hours, and my math is almost never wrong."
"Wouldn't surprise me if this is more of Gravity Falls being insane. You have the journal on you?" Dipper nodded, pulling it out and handing it to Stan. He flipped through it towards the near end. "Uh huh, I see the problem." He handed it back to the kids, still on that same page. Turns out the journal had a page devoted to the Gravity Falls Dump being a containment area for...time dilation.
"Time Dilation...of course, that explains it."
"What's that, little dude? Soos asked.
"Basically time works differently in that place compared to how it works on the outside world. Five hours for us in that Dump ended up being five days out here. Get it?"
Soos scratched his head but ultimately chose not to argue the logic. "Makes about as much sense as anything else here."
"Please tell me it wasn't that bad here without us." Mabel pleaded before noticing Stan was indeed on crutches.
"Kid, I'm on crutches. They shattered my ankles before minute one. What do you think?"
Indeed, it not only was as bad as the kids could've imagined, it was even worse. The five days that spanned the entire event were utter hell for Wendy, especially with Stan out of commission. She had to juggle everything. She was the one that had to showcase all of the attractions the Mystery Shack had, which meant cramming quickly all of the flash cards Stan frequently used into her already running-on-fumes brain in a matter of minutes. It resulted in her frequently tripping over her lines and showcasing her exhaustion to a crowd that quickly turned hostile when her performance slipped, which happened very often.
She was also held responsible for unloading all of the incoming merchandise every single day and stocking them up as new customers kept flying in. Her extremely exhausted state often meant she got drool all over some of the merchandise as well as some of the outside food that some of the customers brought in, resulting in disgusted outrage flung towards her.
She was also responsible for keeping the Shack squeaky clean the whole time. With the sheer volume of customers they got during this event, it ultimately meant that Wendy was constantly on her feet, constantly moving, constantly working for the entire thing without any sort of break except quick snack breaks.
And the nights? The nights were so much worse. As the Shack was open 24/7 during this event, she had to deal with an even larger influx of customers during the nighttime, and it was a thousand times more exhausting & torturous. She frequently had to close her eyes to block out the pain & exhaustion she felt, but due to the hypnosis, she was still unable to fall asleep, and every time her eyes popped right back open, even more blood shot & tired than before.
On Day 1 of the event - on two nights of sleep deprivation - she was a wreck. By Day 5 - on seven nights of sleep deprivation and five straight days of non-stop, constantly, extremely exhausting & strenuous labor that saw her on her feet practically the entire time with no rest - she was beyond done. Like, four days beyond done.
"Well..." Mabel said, holding the pocket watch in her hand - and a lot of guilt in her heart - and looking over at Wendy. "At least her troubles are almost over...assuming this thing'll even work on her now. What if her brain's too fried from the lack of sleep?"
"Only one way to find out." Dipper urged. "You do realize, though, that if this does work, your eardrums are gonna be gone in like a second, right?"
Mabel nodded without hesitation. "It's the least I deserve." She walked over to the girl, held the clock up to her face, and turned it on, once again putting Wendy into hypnosis. "Okay Wendy, you can sleep again." Was all she said before turning it off. For a brief moment, the exhausted Wendy just stood there, eyes barely open, not moving a muscle. "Wendy?"
"...Is she dead?" Soos asked.
"She's not dead, man. Maybe it's just a delayed reaction because of the-"
Yup. Dipper was on the money. Not a second later, Wendy was out. Her snoring had never been louder. The counter was now soaked in drool. And only a few more seconds later, she fell backwards onto the floor, and there she lay, out for who knows how long. But at this point, nobody was going to entertain the idea of waking her up before she was recharged.
"Soos put the "Closed" sign up. I'm not stickin' around for this." Stan said with a grumble. Soos did exactly that and followed Stan out, leaving Mabel & Dipper behind with the snoring & drooling beast that was Wendy.
"You know, what you did was kinda...reprehensible," Dipper began to his sister. "But I totally understand why you did it. I'd imagine it's pretty hard for anyone to sleep listening to this all night!"
"You mean anyone that isn't you?" She quipped back with a dastardly smile on her face. Dipper had no room to talk.
"S-S-Shut up, Mabel! You don't know what it's like to be a prepubescent boy!"
"What?"
"I said you don't know what it's like to be a prepubescent boy!" He shouted louder, once again failing to get it over Wendy's snoring.
"WHAT!?"
"NEVER MIND! I'LL TELL YOU LATER!"
"NO YOU WILL NOT "SMELL ME LATER," THAT'S GROSS, DUDE!"
"WHAT!?"
"ARGH NEVER MIND! I'M LEAVING!" Mabel loudly huffed and turned to leave the room, joining Stan & Soos in another room, where Stan had unveiled his set of noise-cancelling headphones for the group. Now Dipper was left with the sleeping girl. He watched in awe as a drool puddle rapidly formed around her; within minutes, it was so large it went all the way down to her waist. In just minutes. She was that out of it. The boy still had his portable camera on him; he set it down on the counter by the register - not realizing in the process he accidentally (yes it was an accident) hit the record button - and then very carefully set himself down on the floor next to Wendy. He was going to end up in the drool puddle no matter what seeing as it was growing by the second, and his ears were going to be completely decimated by the booming snoring seeing as it was growing louder by the second, yet he stayed put anyway. He had no idea exactly how long Wendy was going to be asleep for, and for the moment, he didn't care.
Twenty four hours. That's how long Wendy stayed knocked out for. Nearly twenty four straight hours of insanely, almost humanely impossible, loud snoring powered by seven days of intense physical labor & extreme sleep deprivation, and a floor literally soaked in drool. Dipper managed to wiggle his way out of Wendy's vice grip. He collected himself and his camera, spending the next few moments staring intently at the sleeping girls as Mabel came back into the picture, now wearing a pear of noise-cancelling headphones.
"You know, when they said "big things come in small packages," I don't think this is what they had in mind." Mabel yelled over the noise.
"What!?"
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Wendy began to stir around. She was finally waking up. She slowly opened her now refreshed eyes and loudly yawned for several minutes. She wiped whatever leftover drool there was on her face and slowly stood up. "Morning, dorks..." She said, groggy but much more rested now. "How long was I out for...?"
"About 24 hours." Dipper answered, doing his damnedest to hide the fact that he had been with her the entire time. "Y-You look much better now. D-Do you feel better?"
"Oh, dude, I feel like I slept a month." She said while stretching herself out. Comparing how she was the day before to how she was right now, it was like night and day. "Floor isn't exactly the best for your back but after you've been up so long you'll take anything. And it's still more comfortable than most of the beds at home."
"That reminds me..." Mabel interrupted. "We never asked, and it's not my business, but...what did you guys fight about that caused you to move out?"
"Pfft, get a load of this: the boys started complaining to Dad that I snore like crazy at night. They said it was driving them crazy and they were like all up in his grill that he do something about it. Can you believe that!? I don't snore!"
Actually, neither could. Talk about happenstance. "Um...that's...that's oddly specific. Right Dipper?"
"R-Right, Mabel! Oddly specific. Bizarrely, even!" They were not doing a good job of hiding what they knew. Wendy truly was in denial about it, but neither of them were interested in diving into that rabbit hole. Not that Wendy was buying their act anyway.
"Look at the time, Dipper!" Mabel said, checking a watch on her wrist that she wasn't wearing. "Breakfast is ready! Let's go!" She hastily grabbed Dipper's arm and pulled him with her as they ran off. In the process, Dipper dropped the camera he was holding, which Wendy took note of.
"Dude, you forgot your-" She went to pick it up. Something about it compelled her to check it out. She pressed a button on it, and immediately footage began to play. IT was footage of the very first night Wendy stayed at the Shack. It was showing a first-person view of Dipper trying to track down the noise that was plaguing his sister and he. This was before he knew what the sound actually was. The footage showed Dipper approaching the door leading to Wendy's room, something the girl picked up on slowly. It was clear to her based on what she was watching that there was nothing skeevy intended here. Dipper was in investigator mode the whole way through, up to when he opened the door and went into the room. As the noise in the footage got louder, it slowly began to sink in for her what was happening.
As in-footage Dipper approached Wendy's bed and the girl flipped over to reveal her loudly snoring & drooling self, it finally clicked in. Her folks were right about her. But it wasn't just that, as she would soon learn that Dipper was not only fascinated by the girl and her snoring ways, but he was enthralled by it too, as subsequent footage would show. Safe to say she had a lot on her plate to consider, including hiding this knowledge from Dipper as he came racing back into the room. She quickly shut off the camera and tried to act like she wasn't watching anything.
"You say something, Wendy?" He asked.
"O-Oh, y-yeah, you dropped this." She said nervously, handing the camera back calmly to him.
"Thanks!" He took it with him without a second thought, leaving Wendy by herself with her thoughts.
Later that night, Wendy was in her room, packing up her suitcase. She had decided it was time to make amends with her family and return home, but not before one final night in the room she had called home for the past week and change. As she finished packing, Dipper knocked on her open door and walked in. "Wendy?" He took note of the suitcase. "...You're leaving?"
"Not until tomorrow, but...yeah. It's...just time to go home." She said calmly.
"I see..."
"Hey, I never thanked you guys for letting me crash here. That was really cool of you."
"Don't mention it. IT was no trouble. I'm just...sorry that Mabel...you know..."
"Oh that? Nah, don't worry about it. Water on the bridge."
Dipper was confused. "...Really?"
"Yeah, dude, it ain't easy letting a newcomer into your house to sleep on your couch. You're almost always gonna have problems, and things are gonna be whack and stuff, and you're gonna find stuff out that maybe you didn't know before, but it's all good." Without actually saying anything specific, she was saying everything she needed to in order to clue Dipper in that she knew. But he wasn't quite getting it...yet.
"I-If you say so."
"Anyways, I should hit the hay. Night."
Dipper sighed nervously and looked away for a moment. "Yeah yeah, I-I should probably get to bed too...I guess..." He sighed again. He suddenly felt like he owed her something. "Wendy...look, there's, uh...there's something I have to-" And before he could say one more word, a familiar sound filled the air. He looked over and saw that Wendy had fallen asleep and had resumed her regular snoring & drooling ways. Right there. Right in front of him. And for whatever reason, this was exactly what caused Dipper to realize that she knew. About everything.
Regardless, it was Wendy's last night at the Shack, so he figured that if she was going to be leaving anyway...how much harm could one more night do? So he closed the door to her bedroom, returned to her bed, and carefully climbed in. On instinct, she readjusted herself, wrapping her arms around him and getting herself as close to him as possible and resumed snoring - now louder - right into his ear.
Thus we come to the end of a bizarre, surreal, confusing, and yet unforgettable time for these characters. It's safe to say that - for better or worse - they will probably never forget this ordeal.
The End.
So...why did I write this? A) I was bored and this idea wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. B) I needed variety from my current long-running Star vs The Forces of Evil fics, and C) Because space is warped and time is bendable?
I don't know, it's done now, thank goodness, so maybe it'll stop bugging me. I hope you at least get some enjoyment out of it. If you liked this one, I'm currently writing primarily Star vs fanfictions, including a long-running series that takes place after the series finale. Go check it out if you want. Or don't, it's fine either way.