Before we begin I have a message for a guest, (I'm sorry in advance for this but this is my only way of communicating with you), after Christmas, I'll begin working on Atomic Puppet: New Adventures Volume 2 again. Right now The Pines Meeting is my highest priority in terms of fanfiction. The reasons for this being is that this story was a request made in late August by a friend and it's become my holiday story. Though after the holidays are over, Atomic Puppet: New Adventures Volume 2 will then be my main focus for fanfiction. Also, keep in mind that I do this for fun. When I feel the inspiration coming I write, but I'm not feeling it then it just makes it hard and no fun for me to write.

Gravity Falls

The Pines Meeting: Chapter 5

Friday, December 18th, 1998

This sure was a wild Christmas party, eggnog chugging contests, mechanical reindeer riding, DJ styled Santa Claus working the music, but then again that's what happens at teenage parties; at least that was Dipper's understanding. He only turned thirteen a few months ago and hadn't gone to any sort of parties hosted by other teenagers.

Now here he was at a high school party near the end of the twentieth century with none other than Wendy, his former turned returned crush/best friend. Of course, it felt really awkward for them right now. Almost an hour ago the two of them had almost kissed, then Mabel barged in and got them into a time travelling adventure. In the time since they arrived and got to the party neither one had been able to bring up the subject and it left Dipper feeling incredibly awkward given how he realized he still loved Wendy.

The awkward feeling was mutual. Wendy hadn't known what was going on when she nearly kissed Dipper, she'd just been in some sort of trance that she couldn't explain. Now with Mabel having run off to try to find hers and Dippers father's younger self, followed by Blendin, (to keep her from causing any time anomalies), it left just Wendy and Dipper together.

"So um," Dipper attempted to speak, though it was tuff trying to decide what to say.

"Yeah?" Wendy tried to respond back also at a loss for words.

"So um maybe…" At that moment Dipper noticed the buffet table right behind him. At the table rested massive pitchers of eggnog. This gave Dipper an idea.

"Hey, why don't I go get us some eggnog?" Dipper offered.

"Sure," Wendy replied. "Don't take too long."

"I won't," Dipper said before running off.

Immediately following this, a voice spoke up behind Wendy, "Boy do you have boy troubles."

Startled Wendy swiftly turned around to see that the person who'd spoken to her was young Sheryl, wearing Christmas tree sweater with lights that lit up.

"Yep she's definitely Mabel's mother," Wendy said to herself

Beside her stood a blond harried girl with glasses, ripped jeans, and a sweater with, (what Wendy assumed was), a dead reindeer on it.

"Oh hey, Sheryl. Who's your friend here?" Wendy asked.

"Oh this is Stela," Sheryl said with her attention temporally drifted towards introducing her old friend to her new one. "Stela this is Wendy. She's the girl I met in line while waiting to get in here."

"Sup?" Stela greeted. Not giving much attention to Wendy, (which was common for her).

"Nothing much," Wendy responded.

"Anywho. I noticed that you were having some boy troubles with, Dipper right?" Sheryl said as her attention went back to what had drawn her over here.

"What're you talking about?" Wendy asked in a desperate attempt to avoid having to talk about what was going on with her and Dipper. Though as the future mother of Mabel, Sheryl didn't budge.

"Oh don't play dumb with me. I saw the whole thing. You two were making awkward small talk, (well more acting awkward and less talk). Either way, that kind of thing only occurs when two people, (or at least one of them), likes one another, and from what I saw, it's clearly a mutual attraction."

"Uh c'mon there's nothing going between me and Dipper. We just had an unexpected situation right before the party."

"Define unexpected situation to me," Sheryl pressed on, attempting to find out more about what was going on between her new friends.

"Well, we uh, might've," this was definitely one of the most difficult moments in Wendy's life, (and that's saying something). She didn't feel like discussing it right now. However, she knew from what Dipper had told her about his mother that when she wanted something out of someone she wouldn't give up till she got it. For this reason, Wendy decided to just spill the beans and get it over with, "We almost kissed."

This drew Stela attention into the conversation; shocking her and Sheryl.

"O. M. G! YOU SERIOUS?!" Sheryl shouted.

"Wow. That's huge," Stela said. "What happened?"

"Yeah, what happened?" Sheryl also asked.

This put Wendy on the spot. If she revealed too much info, she could end up messing with the timeline, just as Dipper had feared would happen if they went on this adventure. Though she realized that if she worded things carefully, then there'd be no issues. Not to mention that she really needed someone to confide in about her predicament.

"Okay, so I've been staying at Dipper and Mabel's place for a bit while my family's house is getting fumigated. Point being that Dipper and I have been getting closer lately. Then like maybe an hour earlier we were in this discussion about this dorky, but sort of fascinating, theory that Dipper had. Then I don't know we just started moving closer, and closer until our lips were just inches away from each other. Then…"

"That Mabel girl that Sheryl said was hanging out with you guys in line came barging in and ruined the moment. The reason I'm gonna assume is that she wanted to get to the party here," Stela finished. All of which was what Wendy was going for, (which shocked her).

"Um yeah. How'd you know?" Wendy asked. A hint of suspicion in her voice.

"From the way Sheryl depicted Mabel, she sounds like a person who's always fun loving, snooping into people's love lives without permission, and coming into the picture at the wrong time. I'm familiar with this," points to Sheryl when saying this. "Point being, there's always that annoyingly over-positive member of the group, and I've had to put up with it pretty much most of my life.

"Hey," Sheryl said sounding offended as she realized who her friend was talking about.

"But enough about that," Stela said. Attempted to get back to the original conversation. "You got anything to say about Wendy's situation Sheryl?"

"Oh right," Sheryl said. Completely forgetting about Stela's insult. "Well, it sounds like you're in love with him.

This put a big old blush on Wendy's face. "What? No way. We're just friends. Best friends and nothing more."

"I don't know. When I got in line behind you guys, the two of you were holding hands and talking happily together. Last time I checked that screams romance."

"We what?" Wendy hadn't realized the whole hands' thing. When they were in line, the two of them had been so caught up about time travelling that both had temporality forgotten about the "almost kissing scene." Why hadn't anyone been bothered to bring up the whole holding hands thing earlier?

Then suddenly, Sheryl snapped Wendy out of her train of thought. "Well anyways, I think you and Dipper should totally hook up. Plus I know of a few mistletoes around the place that'd make for a good first kiss. I know that's where I'd wanna have my… hey, who's the hunk talking to your boyfriend?"

Looking over Wendy felt stiff. She recognized the "hunk" as a younger version of Sherman Pines, (this one without a beard and glasses).

"That's Sherman Pines," Stela said.

"Who?" Sheryl asked.

"Sherman Pines. He's in my homeroom, computer, and English classes. He moved here a few weeks ago from New Jersey. From what I hear there's been a feud going on between his father, uncle, and grandfather for the last twenty-six years. Something about another uncle being disavowed because of some bigtime school then dying ten years later. Sherman's father was the only one to take the guy's side and hasn't gotten along with the rest of family since," Stela explained. "He's also a wiz with computers. Half my computer class, (those popular jerks who're failing), has been calling him the computer dork."

"Computer dork or not, he's hot, and he's mine," Sheryl said before walking over to Sherman.

Meanwhile…

Dipper had gone over to get some eggnog from the buffet table. Though this wasn't as quick of a trip as he thought it'd be. There was a massive crowd that stood between him and the buffet, plus he kept getting bumped by a bunch of people who, like a lot of those dancing, were holding cups of eggnog and moving around all wobbly. It was a miracle that Dipper hadn't been bruised by the time he reached the buffet table.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder why everyone was wobbling around. Maybe it was the eggnog. Or maybe for once, Dipper's mind was trying to cover up his Wendy problems by making him think that everyone was acting abnormally strange. Either way, Dipper realized that for once he really needed to chill.

Then out of nowhere a random voice, (yet familiar), called out to him.

"Hey, you okay little dude?"

Dipper definitely felt fortunate that he hadn't attempted to grab one of the eggnog pitchers at this time because if he had, he would've been startled and spilled some eggnog.

And if being startled by the surprise voice hadn't caused him to spill eggnog, then the shock he got when turned around and saw a younger, beardless/ glasses-less version of his father, Sherman Pines Jr. definitely would've.

"Hey, I said are you, okay little dude?" Younger Sherman asked again while waving his hand in front of Dipper's face, (which was frozen in shock). "Little dude."

The shock quickly wore off and Dipper soon snapped back into reality, realizing that his future father was staring down at him with a confused expression on his face.

"Umm… um… sorry. I was just caught up in a train of thought," Dipper explained while hoping that his father wouldn't want any further explanation. Fortunately for him, that was enough.

"No worries little dude. I've been there before," younger Sherman said, reaching his hand out towards Dipper. "The names Sherman. Sherman Pines Jr., but you can call me Sher."

Dipper then reached out and shook his father's hand. "Names Dipper. Dipper Pinecone."

"Dipper huh? That's a cool name. Unheard of, but still cool."

"Yeah, cool," Dipper replied.

"But anyway, are you alright?" Sherman asked again.

"Alright? Sure. Why wouldn't I be? Do I look sick or something?"

"No, it's just I was hanging with a buddy of mine when he noticed you in the crowd, and how you appeared embarrassed. He theorized that you probably messed up in a hookup or something like that. He's very good at reading people. Thinking that was the case, I felt bad and thought you might want someone to talk to. If you don't mind."

"Well I uh, thanks but I uh really need to get going. I promised my friend I'd grab her some eggnog and be back ASAP."

"Friend, or do you mean to say your love interest?" Sherman smirked. "Guess Mabel has a lot more of Sherman in her than I thought."

"What? NO!" Dipper barked.

"Relaxed dude. I'm just fucking with you. though seriously there's something going on between you and this friend of yours, isn't' there?"

"Sigh, yes there is," Dipper admitted. "I thought I was over her, but during the last few months we've been getting closer, and I think my feelings for her are still strong. You got any advice on what I should do?"

"Hmm, that depends on whether or not you're a fast thinker dude. Are you?"

"I am actually. Though that's only when I'm absolutely desperate and out of time. Like during this Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons competition when my opponent trapped me with this prison spell and I only had two minutes to devise a plan to free myself, destroy said opponent, and retrieve the ancient chalice," Dipper explained.

"Okay, great dude. Then I suggest you go the long way back to your girl and take your time. Given the size of the crowd, this will hopefully give you about ten, maybe fifteen minutes to return to her. During this time you can devise a plan for how to deal with your girl issues. Or if you feel that that's not enough time then see if you can come up with a short-term plan to get you through till the end of the party, and work on a long-term plan when you get home."

Dipper thought about this for a moment while he poured two glasses of eggnog for himself and Wendy.

"That's genius! Thanks, da, a, da, du, dude," Dipper said, (quickly catching himself before he caused an incident).

"No prob dude," Sherman responded back.

Dipper then took off in the direction that his father had suggested as he also began coming up with a plan to deal with his feelings for Wendy.

Once Dipper was gone, Sherman poured himself some eggnog and just hung by the buffet. That is till someone appeared right behind him and poked his back, startling him. When he turned around he saw, (who he thought was), a babe with a pretty cool Christmas tree sweater.

After the two gazed at each other for like a couple of minutes, the girl spoke up. "Hello, handsome. Name's Sheryl."

Meanwhile somewhere else…

"So that's how it happened," Mabel said to herself. She'd been looking all over for either one of her parents till she eventually saw her father talking to Dipper at the buffet. Then as Dipper left the buffet, their mother came up behind their father and then, (after getting his attention), started flirting with him.

Despite finding out how they met, Mabel still couldn't help but wonder why her parents wouldn't discuss this with her?

To be continued…

F.Y.I. Sherman Pines also shares his father's belief that Stanley didn't deserve to be disavowed over a fancy school that Stanford had only actually shown interest in for like a day. Because of this, Sherman refused to speak to his grandparents and uncle. Heck, it was Sheryl's idea to send the kids to Gravity Falls to live with "Stanford Pines," and it took a lot of effort to persuade her husband to agree on it.

Also if any of you think that the dead reindeer sweater that Stela wore is a bit much, feel free to mention it to me and I'll remove the "dead" part. I just wanted to give her a sweater that matched her negative personality.