2.

Last summer...

Dipper shielded his eyes from the sun as he stepped out from under the canopy of the golf cart he borrowed from the Mystery Shack. The day was perfect—not uncomfortably warm as it had been last Saturday. The wind rippled through the pines, the movement creating a lazily swaying light show on the grass outside the Corduroy family's home. The sun reflected dully off the enormous two-man saw mounted above the entry.

The place had an abandoned look to it from the outside, but Dipper strode up to the front door and knocked loudly. There was a sound of furniture scraping followed by hurried stomping from inside.

Dipper jumped as the door swung wide. He was greeted by a boy about his age with messy, copper-colored hair in red flannel… Wendy's youngest brother. Although they were close to the same age, Dipper had never felt the desire to get to know him. In a way, hanging out with Wendy made him feel as if he were older than her brother.

The youngest Corduroy measured Dipper with his sleepy, green-eyed stare and picked at a bit of something crusted on his shirt. Dipper gave him a small, awkward smile.

"Heeeeey…" He raised his hand in an attempt to seem congenial. The boy said nothing, but a sly, knowing smile had begun to unfurl on his freckled face. "Uh…" Dipper paused to clear his throat, "Is your sister around?" He winced inwardly as his voice cracked on the word 'sister'. Wendy's brother chewed his lip to suppress a burst of laughter. Dipper grimaced in determination.

Just as he was about to reintroduce himself, the boy shouted:

"WENDY YOUR BOYFRIEND IS HERE!"

This was followed by the sudden and shocking arrival of Wendy herself as she launched herself on her little brother, who yelped shrilly.

"Hey Dipper, sorry about that! How's it hangin'?" She laughed, turning to him with her brother in a headlock. Dipper smiled, now genuinely amused at how easily she had turned the tables.

"I'm fine! More importantly, is he going to be okay?" He motioned to her brother, who was thrashing around wildly in the crook of Wendy's elbow. She seemed to make no effort to hold him.

"Eh." Wendy shrugged, "Just as long as he holds his tongue from now until THE END OF TIME." She punctuated her words by balling her free hand into a fist and doling out generous helpings of noogies on the younger redhead. Dipper laughed—she was incredible.

Inside, one of her other brothers shouted, "HEY TWERP, IT'S YOUR TURN TO PLAY WINNER." The youngest Corduroy groaned miserably. Wendy pushed the door open farther and Dipper stepped inside, kicking his shoes off as Wendy continued to tease her little brother.

"What was that? I think I need to clean my ears." She said innocently. The younger brother thrashed again to no avail.

"Uncle! Uncle! Wendy, come on! It's my turn to play!" He groaned, and she turned him loose. He stumbled and turned to look back at Dipper and Wendy. His flushed face cracked into a stubbly grin. "I'm gonna tell Dad you're upstairs making out." He teased. Dipper felt his face go hot and he diverted his eyes to the floor. Wendy only laughed.

"If you do that then I'm going to tell him where you stash all your nudie mags, and then where will that leave us?" She challenged. One of her other brothers shouted at the two of them to stop bickering. Wendy's youngest brother flipped them both the bird, then bolted for the living room. Dipper sighed in relief, now that he was free from the unwanted attention.

"So glad I've only got one sibling sometimes." He murmured, smoothing a hand through his hair. He kicked his battered sneakers off and pushed them to the side of the front door with his foot.

"Aw, they're not too bad, once you get to know them." Wendy laughed as she mounted the stairs, "Come on up, I'm dying to show you this thing." She took the steps two at a time and Dipper followed behind carefully. "So I was helping my Dad clean out the basement the other day—I haven't been down there in like, a decade because it's COMPLETELY cluttered with a ton of my Dad's lumberjacking junk."

They reached the top of the stairs Dipper looked beyond her to the door of her bedroom. Her contagious excitement was eclipsed a moment with the completely separate thrill of anticipation that ran through him every time he entered her room.

Come on, you've been over her. He frowned, determined to believe this was so. He did believe.

Wendy continued on, unaware, "…and there's a TON of random crap, but then I found this stuff."

She opened the door and Dipper saw what she'd been building up to. In the middle of the floor, just in front of her bed sat a dusty old apple crate filled with records, and beside it sat a turntable that Dipper surmised could have been from the 70's. "Whoa, Wendy, this is so cool!" He exclaimed, returning the grin she gave him.

"Isn't it? I think it was my Mom's, back before she and my dad got married." Wendy said, sitting next to the crate in the middle of the floor. Dipper followed suit, leaning over the record player to get a better look at it.

It looked like something out of a movie—The outer shell was dark green plastic, and it looked more like a spy's briefcase than something that played music. Inside, the platter and the knob to adjust the speed were black against a beige background. "I've never used one before… Grunkle Ford has one in his study but I've never really given it a second thought." He murmured as he closed the lid and flipped it over. "...And I've never seen one this small, either. Does it play?"

He looked over at Wendy, who was leafing through the crate of records. "Yep. I've listened to a few of these since I pulled it out of the basement, but not all of them." She lifted a record out of the box to better examine the cover, but her eyes seemed to look back into her own childhood instead of at the album she held. A slow and bittersweet smile welled on her face.

Dipper swallowed hard. He felt the familiar ache of longing close around his heart in a vice grip. In all the years they had known each other, she wasn't very forthcoming about this part of her life. He wanted to do something for her- the desire to simply take her hand in his stunned him with its strength.

The moment passed as she handed the record over to him. "I'm gonna try to get through her whole collection by the end of the summer. Wanna join me?" She said as Dipper took it out of the sleeve gingerly. Ford had once mentioned that you had to be careful with records. They could scratch easily and if you dropped one—

He nearly dropped it, fumbling it onto the spindle as a thrill cut through him. He looked over and saw Wendy was watching him with mild amusement. It was just like her to ask him in the smoothest, most casual way to share in an experience as meaningful and personal as listening through her late mother's— He was getting ahead of himself. Alright, just calm down. No reason to get excited. With a will, he restrained the stuttering babble that he could feel on his lips and instead took a deep breath to relax himself.

It came all the same.

"O-Of course! I mean—are you sure? I mean, your brothers probably might wanna hear some of this stuff, right? What about Tambry and the rest of your friends?" He winced as he listened to his own voice. It seemed no matter how hard he tried he couldn't downplay his feelings. She shrugged, leaning back against the foot of her bed.

"My brothers aren't really into this sort of thing. I'm pretty sure the only music they ever listen to is whatever my Dad likes… And these are obviously not my Dad's." She placed a hand on the crate, patting it appreciatively. "Anyway, I'd rather it just be you and me." Her eyes slid over him as she turned away from her mother's record collection, and Dipper forgot himself for a moment as they sat in silence, simply looking at each other. Her cheeks flooded with color watching his face betray the admiration he felt for her. Wendy cleared her throat awkwardly and patted the spot beside her against the foot of the bed. "C'mere, let me show you how to set the needle on."

Dipper re-positioned himself next to her as she leaned forward to pull the record player so that it was sitting in front of them both. She walked him through the process pretty quickly, "You just have to be a little careful not to drag the needle or else you'll screw up the record but it's not hard to do. You try it." She set the arm back in its place. Dipper leaned over the little green turntable, inspecting the record... it was warped slightly with age.

He'd never the band before, had never even heard of them. Somebody had written initials on an empty spot on the label in a cramped scrawl that bore a striking resemblance to Wendy's own. He gingerly lifted the tone arm and placed it down on the first groove. Then he waited. Nothing happened.

"It's not working… Shit, did I break it?" He looked back at Wendy, panic stricken. She held back a snort of laughter behind a hand and shook her head.

"Dude, you have to turn it on!"

"Oh." Dipper laughed sheepishly, his cheeks bright. He could've gotten drunk on all the tension. "Riiiiight…" He fumbled around for the switch and flipped it, bringing the plate spinning to life. The speaker sizzled with pops and cracks, and he settled back against the bed next to Wendy as the first song began to play out. She tangled a hand in her red tresses, and he thought it seemed her entire being was focused on the music. She leaned forward just a bit.

"I've listened to this one a few times now, actually." Wendy confessed thoughtfully. Dipper stole a glance at her and caught her looking at him. She beamed. "Pretty good, huh?"

The dust motes drifted lazily through the light from her bedroom window, and sitting on the floor in a patch of summer sun put a warm, sleepy feeling in his body that he welcomed completely. She settled in beside him, and he allowed himself the comfort of her nearness, even moving a bit closer so that they were touching shoulders.

It was pretty good.

Ice Breaker

Naoko Asakura

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Thanks for reading!