Gravity Falls: Once More

by Absolute Rift

Four years after their faithful summer of weird, Dipper and Mabel finally return to the legendary town of Gravity Falls. Despite having new adventures and mysteries to take on, they are still tailed by the challenges that come with navigating teenage life. With friends and enemies, both new and old, the Pines must prepare themselves for whatever awaits them. (S1 done, S2 ongoing)

28. Many Happy Returns: Part 2

"It was insane! The car was hardly even recognizable after we pelted it!" Lee said with a chuckle.

"A hundred and twenty-five balloons filled with straight paint!" Nate added. "Professor Higgins was pissed! Tambry took like twenty photos, of course."

"Twenty-five," Tambry corrected with a slight smirk as she stared at her phone screen while sitting in a chair next to Robbie Valentino.

"Man, you should've seen it, Wendy. The look on his face was absolutely priceless," Robbie said with a chuckle.

The group of friends all sat in a corner of the floor room, each of them sitting in a bunch of foldable chairs set up. Wendy sat in one of the middle seats between them all, holding a plastic cup of punch in her hand. All of her friends were laughing with the exception of Tambry, who just held a smirk while her eyes remained attached to her phone. As amused as her friends were, Wendy wasn't quite as sure of how to feel about their big prank.

"The best part- we all got away clean," Lee said while kicking back in his chair.

Wendy rubbed the back of her neck somewhat guiltily. "Guys, as funny as that is, you really shouldn't risk getting yourselves in trouble because of me."

"Please, Wendy. We're not risking getting in trouble because of you," Nate assured.

"Right. We're risking getting in trouble because of what they did to you," Lee clarified. "They mess with one of us, they mess with all of us."

"That's sweet, but still. You got your revenge on Professor Higgins. Just leave it at that when I'm gone, won't you?" Wendy asked, giving a slight smile.

"Yeah, alright," Lee accepted. Nate and Tambry nodded in agreement at the same time.

"I don't know. I still feel like there's more we could do," Robbie suggested. "Maybe we could go around collecting all the failed essays from his classes and then stuff them in his mailbox!"

Tambry scoffed at the thought. "Robbie, first off, that idea sucks. Second, Wendy already said to quit it. The paint's enough. We're done. Quit being stubborn."

"Right. I'll stop being stubborn when you figure out how to put that phone down," Robbie said, rolling his eyes.

Tambry looked up from her phone and glared right at him. "Seriously? You wanna start with this again? You used to have no problems with me using my phone before, but now it's almost always an issue for you."

He scowled. "Before, you actually paid attention to me!"

"Oh, so now you want attention... Even after all the times you pushed me away in favor of your stupid, mediocre band!"

He gasped while gripping his chest. "Mediocre?!"

"Guys!" Wendy shouted, getting between the two and pushing them apart as they entered standoff positions with one another. "Can you two quit arguing over petty crap for one day? God, you both used to be so much less annoying."

The two exchanged quick guilty glances with one another before turning away. "Sorry..." they said together.

Wendy hardly cared for the apology though. "Like, seriously, we only have a few more days to hang out together like this, and if you guys are just gonna keep fighting every time, then don't bother showing up."

"Yeah, at this point, Thompson's more fun to hang out with than you two. Imagine sinking that low," Lee butted in.

"Where the hell even is Thompson?" Nate asked, checking his phone. "He said in the group chat he'd be here like fifteen minutes ago."

Robbie snickered. "You still believe him when he says that? The guy's always late nowadays."

"At least when he's late, it's because he actually has a job," Tambry said with a side-eye before going back to her phone screen.

His snickering quickly halted as his eyes narrowed at her. "Tambry, I swear to God…"

"GUYS!" Wendy barked with the stomp of her foot, startling the couple. Lee and Nate simply sat back awkwardly throughout the whole exchange.

"Hey, guys!" Mabel's voice called out.

Despite how awkward and disjointed the group were with one another, their attitudes were immediately dialed down as their attention turned to the side. There, they watched as Mabel, Candy, and Grenda walked up to them.

Mabel waved an eager hand up. "Hi, Wendy!"

"'Sup, Mabes," Wendy waved back.

"Yo, wait. That's Mabel? Mabel Pines?" Nate asked, looking over at her in surprise.

"Holy crap, it is," Lee said with a smile as he suddenly recognized her.

"Yep. Girl's all grown up now." Wendy kicked back in her seat. "But she's still the hyper little ass-kicker she was when she was twelve."

"I approve of that nickname," Mabel said as she pointed over at her. "It's so good to see all of you again though!" She glanced over at Lee and Nate. "My favorite bromance: Lee and Nate! Good to see you both still sticking together after all this time! And good to see Lee still holding the title of tallest in the group!"

"Well, that's not a title one just gives up, ya know?" Lee said with a smirk.

"Sure it is. Just put Wendy in heels. Instant loss," Nate jabbed, which got a few laughs throughout the group, including Wendy herself.

"Tempting, but I think I'll pass on that," Wendy chuckled. "Lee can keep that title for all I care."

"And Robbie! Tambry!" Mabel said as she glanced over at the couple sitting beside one another. "Look how happy you two still look! I guess things are still going after all this time, huh?"

The couple stared at her with expressions that were quite far from happy as she said. Neither knew how to come clean to her and directly admit it though.

"Yup... we're still chugging along, as you can see..." Robbie said with a forced smile. He made an attempt to put his arm around Tambry in front of her, but she wasn't having it and quickly shoved his arm back before returning to her phone. Mabel watched this exchange with slight confusion. Something felt off about their behaviors. However, she just started laughing, almost like she didn't fully pick up on the bad blood.

"Wow, you two are surely something..." she claimed as her laughter died down. "Man, it's great to see you all still hanging out with one another after all this time!" She paused. "Wait, where's Thompson?"

"He's just running late," Wendy said. "It's kind of a thing now."

"Fashionably late, I hope! But either way, it's still great to see all of you guys again!" Mabel said as she walked back toward Candy and Grenda. "I'd love to catch up, but I already got some other gals I gotta make some time for! I'll see you guys around!" She walked off alongside the two while waving back at the gang.

"Later Mabes!" Wendy called out as she, Lee, and Nate waved at her.

"Glad she hasn't changed," Lee said.

"Yeah, she's just as cool as I remember," Nate nodded.

"Yeah, Tambry could learn a thing or two from her," Robbie said.

Tambry went ahead and elbowed him in the stomach without hesitation, causing him to wince in pain as she just kept tapping away at her phone. Lee and Nate looked on with unease just as Wendy groaned, tucking her face in her hands with great annoyance.

---

"Aaaahh, I still can't believe you two are actually here!" Mabel said happily as she sat beside Grenda and Candy on the floor room's couch. "Even though we've been video chatting while I was in Piedmont, it still feels so long!"

"I know right?" Grenda agreed. "There have been times when we've missed you so much, that we considered literally jumping right into the computer screen so we could end up in Piedmont with you!"

"Well, she did it once," Candy recalled.

"And I broke my computer screen," Grenda added. "WEAKLING!"

"I love ya, Grenda, but I don't think that's really possible…" Mabel said.

"We fought a yellow triangle who tried to take over the world a few summers ago. You really wanna tell me what's possible and what's not?" Grenda asked.

Mabel thought for a second before realizing her point. "You're right, you're right..." she admitted. "Anyways, how was wrestling camp?"

"Boring," Grenda told her bluntly. "I don't know what's up with my parents signing me up every summer. It's always the same thing! Go there, kick some butts, break some bones, then get kicked out and have to deal with a bunch of camp lawsuits. B-O-R-I-N-G! I'm just happy to be home and be able to spend the rest of the summer with my girls!"

"Awww! Right back at ya, Grenda!" Mabel said, folding her hands gratefully. "What about you, Candy? How were band finals?"

"Well, you know, at least we actually made it to finals this time," Candy said with a defeated smile as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"Aw, what? So, Gravity Falls High lost?" Mabel asked.

"Yes, unfortunately. All because the judges liked our opponent's tuba solo."

"A tuba solo?" Mabel questioned, somewhat flabbergasted. "Who the heck even likes the tuba? Even my brother hates it now!"

"Yeah, they're so loud and deep and annoying!" Grenda shouted in agreement.

"I know, right?" Mabel nodded. She put a hand on Candy's shoulder. "I'm sorry you guys didn't win, Candy."

"It's okay. It wasn't a total loss," she said with a smile. She brushed her hair back over her ear as she began to blush a bit. "I may have met someone while I was there."

Mabel and Grenda immediately gasped exaggeratedly as she revealed this. The two glanced at one another in shock as they began to bubble up with excitement.

"Whaaaaaaaaa?! Oh my GOSH, Candy! That's great! Who is he?! I NEED DEETS!" Mabel said, grabbing ahold of both of Candy's shoulders and wobbling her excitedly.

Candy put her hands on Mabel's arms, stopping her while also laughing a bit. "Okay, okay. His name is Chris. He plays French horn, and he is the cutest of the cutes!"

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" Mabel and Grenda shrieked excitedly.

"Is it anything official?" Grenda asked in a curious, yet teasing voice.

"I may have gotten his number," Candy teased back. "But aside from a few chats, nothing's really happened just yet."

Mabel kept vibrating excitedly within her seat as Candy went on. "Ooooo! Look at you go, girl! Don't worry! I'm sure it's only a matter of time before something happens and the sparks begin to fly!"

"Yeah, and at least you're actually talking to him," Grenda said as she folded her arms, looking somewhat upset. "Marius and I are currently on no-speaking terms with one another."

"What?" Mabel questioned in slight shock. "What happened?"

"Apparently he thinks that going into the Austrian army is more important than going to see Pony Heist 3 with me!" Grenda explained. "That selfish jerk. Wanting to save people's lives instead of saving our date night!" She then sighed sadly as she stuffed her face in her hands. "I'm sorry. I know I have issues."

"It's okay, Grenda," Candy said as she put her arms around her comfortingly. "Mabel, why don't we talk about your love life instead?"

This statement and subject change appeared to garner Grenda's attention back, as she pulled her face out of her hands to glance back up at Mabel awaitingly.

"Pfft... who meee?" Mabel attempted to brush off.

"Yes, youuu," the two girls said curiously at the same time. The sound of her voice made it clear she had something to say.

"Have you met anyone back home?" Candy asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Back home? Oh yeah, plenty!" Mabel nodded.

"Ooohh?" Candy and Grenda said together excitedly, listening intently.

"And they were all terrible!"

"Ooohh..." Candy and Grenda said together not as excited.

"Yeah... I don't wanna talk about any of the boys back home..." Mabel admitted. "But here? Mmmm... there might be something..."

"Wait, wait, wait... you've been here a few weeks, and you're already talking to a guy?" Grenda asked, growing excited again.

"Maaaybe," Mabel teased as she tried to prolong her reveal. "You guys aren't gonna believe who it is though."

"Tell us! Tell us!" the girls chanted excitedly and demandingly.

"Okay, okay!" Mabel accepted. "So remember the last time we video-chatted with one another before Dipper and I came to Gravity Falls, and you told me that you saw this new person was working at the Mystery Sha-"

"Hey, Mabel."

"-aaa... heyyyy, Ryland!" Mabel immediately greeted him upon hearing his voice come up behind her. At the same time, she fixed her posture, tone, and smile just as she turned around to face him and his little brother, Evan, right beside him. "And hey Evan! Nice to see you again so soon!"

"Our mom and dad kinda forced me to come along," Evan clarified. "But, yeah, it's nice to see you too, I guess."

"Either way, it's always nice to step out of the house every now and then, isn't it?" Ryland said as he rubbed the top of his brother's head.

"Ha-ha. Good one," Evan laughed sarcastically, knowing that his brother was fully aware of his aversion to doing these types of activities.

"Ryland. Evan. These are my best friends…" Mabel pointed out to the brothers, gesturing over to Candy. "...Candy..."

"Hello!" Candy waved.

"...and Grenda."

"I'm slightly concussed, but I can still see you!" Grenda exclaimed as she also waved at them.

"Ha…" Ryland laughed awkwardly, unsure what to make of that comment. "Well, uh, it's nice to meet the both of you. My name's Ryland and this is my little bro, Evan," he said as he patted Evan on the arm.

"Hey there!" Grenda greeted as she and Candy both waved at Evan.

"Uhh... h-hi…" Evan mumbled nervously as he fixated a gaze upon Candy. One that she didn't appear to even notice.

"Anyway, I'm still a little burnt out on party stuff after last night," Ryland admitted as he sat on the couch arm beside Mabel. "So, since I saw you guys chilling over here, I thought we could just drop by and chill as well."

"Yeah, that's totally cool!" Mabel nodded acceptingly and a bit nervously as she looked on at him.

She still felt the need inside to let Candy and Grenda know how she was feeling about Ryland, but she knew she couldn't do that if he was hanging out with them. She needed to get him and Evan away for a bit longer. As her eyes glanced around the floor room, they fell upon the table across the room that had the food and drinks, giving her an idea.

"But ya know, we were just thinking of getting some drinks. It's kinda warm in this part of the room," Mabel said, fanning herself slightly with her hand.

Ryland held a look of confusion as he glanced straight up and saw the AC vent sitting right above them, airing them down. If anything, that part of the room should be the least warm.

Mabel caught his eyes glancing at the running AC above them and realized his confusion. "You know... body heat, right? Three girls sitting close together on a couch? Whew! Gets heated pretty quickly!" Needing further justification for her excuses, she glanced over at Evan for assistance. "Isn't that how science works, Evan?"

Evan wasn't paying attention however and still gazed upon Candy, who finally noticed his eyes looking directly at her. She and everyone else gave him a weird look as he stood motionless while staring on.

"Um... Evan?" Mabel repeated.

"What?" Evan questioned, breaking from his gaze and looking around flusteredly. "What was the question?"

"Hey, how about Evan and I just go grab that punch for you girls, then?" Ryland offered, kicking himself off from the couch arm and placing his hand on Evan's back as he began leading him away. "We'll be right back."

"What just happened?" Evan asked Ryland quietly and shakily as the two walked away. "Why am I sweating? Why am I shaking? What's wrong with my stomach? Am I sick?"

"Yeah. It's a disease called puberty," Ryland answered quietly as he kept leading him toward the snack table.

Mabel watched them until she knew they were out of range. As soon as they were gone, she frantically turned back to Candy and Grenda.

"Alright, so remember that new worker here at the Mystery Shack that Candy said she saw before we came to Gravity Falls? Okay, turns out that guy is actually a super cute guy named Ryland who's really nice and sweet and cool and even knows bike tricks, and we've been talking pretty much since the summer began and we even went to the movies one time and I also took care of his little brother, Evan, who was kind of a pain when we first met him but he's actually really sweet too, but Ryland is so much more different than the guys I've crushed on before and I don't know, I really feel like there's something there, ya know?" Mabel speedily, yet comprehensively dumped on her friends.

"So you mean…" Candy began before gasping as she came to a sudden realization. "...you have a crush on the boy who works here!"

"Yes."

"And because you stay here over the summer, that means you see him almost every day!" Candy added.

"Yes!"

"Which means you've been spending a lot of time with him!" Grenda added as she began to catch on as well.

"Yes!"

"And you two are totally going out!" Candy added.

"Ye... wait, no!" Mabel shook her head. "No, no, no... we are not going out."

"But I thought you said you two went to the movies," Candy said, raising an eyebrow.

"As friends!" Mabel clarified anxiously, not wanting them to begin assuming things when Ryland could come back at any second. "We haven't gone on any real dates or anything. We're still just friends."

"Well, when are you getting out of that friend zone?" Grenda asked with a grin. "If you two spend as much time together as you say you do, you should tell him how you feel!"

"But I don't wanna rush things between us," Mabel said as she rubbed her arm reluctantly. "Every time I've rushed into a relationship with a guy, it never went well. I've been taking my time with him so far, and it's been good. I don't wanna risk messing it up."

"I understand, Mabel, but you know you don't have a lot of time either, right?" Candy asked.

"Yeah. You only have until the summer ends in August before you go back to California again," Grenda reminded. "And if you two get together, you'll have to deal with a long-distance relationship. And trust me, the distance has always been the hardest part about being with Marius."

"You can't wait too long if you wanna be able to live that relationship to the fullest extent in person before you go home," Candy explained to her. "August may seem far away, but it'll come before you know it."

They weren't wrong. Mabel only had until the end of the summer to seal some kind of status with Ryland. And as Grenda hinted, she didn't really want to end up falling into a long-distance relationship without much time having a normal relationship.

But at the same time, she hadn't been given any idea of Ryland's feelings for her. Sure, she liked him, but there was little clueing her in on whether he even liked her back. Since meeting him, he's been a good friend, but nothing said that he wanted to be more than that.

There was something about Ryland to her that was different than other guys she had dated or had an interest in. There was something more natural about him. Something simpler, yet so complex. Normally with guys, she would be outgoing with her feelings and wouldn't be afraid to make the first move if she had to. But Ryland made her nervous for some reason. Sure, she had the tendency to get crazy around guys she liked, but she felt a different kind of crazy with him. And the more she hung around him, the more comfortable she got, yet the more nervous she became.

Maybe it was the fact that she was taking her time with a guy for once when just about every other time before, she got straight to the point. Perhaps getting to really know him and be friends with him first had a greater effect on how she felt. That was probably why it was so easy to be so forward with guys before since she had no prior connection to them. But now that she had been friends with Ryland for some time, she was more anxious and concerned about turning him away with how she truly felt.

Regardless of her feelings, she was happy with him as a friend but didn't want to risk scaring him off by coming on too strong too suddenly. He still worked for Soos and basically worked downstairs from her bedroom. Was she seriously going to create awkward tension between the two in the same house?

Then again, it ended up working fine for Dipper and Wendy.

But then again, Ryland isn't Wendy. And she isn't Dipper.

"Okay, I see what you two mean," Mabel admitted. "But I don't want to try to push myself onto him unless I know how he feels about me."

"And how're you gonna find that out?" Grenda asked.

"I'll figure it out," Mabel shrugged off confidently. "Mabel always figures things out. She's dealt with gnomes, a puppet kisser, and a merman before. A cute blonde guy who rides a bike is nothing."

"Here we are," Ryland's voice was heard from behind as he and Evan walked back up to the girls holding cups of punch in their hands. Ryland handed one to Mabel while keeping the other for himself, whereas Evan handed both of his cups to Candy and Grenda.

"Thanks, Evan!" Grenda said as she immediately began to down the punch.

"Thank you, Evan," Candy said with a smile as she kindly accepted the punch.

"yOu'Re... EHEM!" Evan cleared his throat loudly as he blushed from the embarrassment of his cracking voice. "You're welcome…"

Mabel stared at her cup in hand before looking back up at Ryland, who didn't notice her look as he took a sip from his cup of punch. She began to gaze at his clear face and his long locks of blonde hair as they hung down the side of his ear. The build of his upper body and how the shape bled through his brown jacket and white T-shirt. The longer she stared at him, the warmer she felt her face getting.

Uh-oh.

She quickly got up from her seat and held her cup out to Ryland. "Ryland, would you please hold onto this for a second?" she asked with a nervous, red-faced smile. "I gotta use the girl's room…"

"Uh... sure," Ryland nodded as he took the cup from her in his open hand.

"Be right back!" Mabel called back as she immediately began making a sprint for the bathroom, gathering looks of concern from the others with how fast she was going.

What the heck happened to you, Mabel? She thought to herself as she kept running through the crowd of partygoers, trying to make her way to the bathroom as quickly as she could.

---

"What on Earth are Cheese Boodles?" Ford asked beside the snack table, examining a single Cheese Boodle puff in his fingers. "Are these the modern version of cheese puffs?"

"Gee, I dunno. Do they look like them?" Stan asked sarcastically as he watched Ford put the puff in his mouth.

Ford immediately began coughing and gagging as he ate it. Though not wanting to be rude, he still went along and swallowed it, his eye twitching as it sank down his throat. "God, that's the furthest from cheese that I've ever tasted."

"Please. Have you forgotten the mac and cheese that Mom used to make?"

"You know, I think I'm starting to accept that most of these modern-day snacks aren't for me. I mean, Cheese Boodles? Corncornos? Chipackerz?" Ford took a sip from a cup of Pitt Cola, trying to drown out the cheese dust aftertaste in his mouth. "Whatever happened to simpler snacks like ham and cheese on a toothpick? Or how about jelly beans? C'mon, the kids these days still eat jelly beans, right?"

"Honestly, after seeing what they did to the Juke Joint, I've accepted that we live in a new world, Sixer. And it ain't for us anymore," Stan said before taking a sip from his own cup of Pitt Cola.

"Oh, please. Certainly there's something still around here for us."

Stan shrugged. "I don't know. Mabel probably knows best about what's 'hot' and what's 'not' nowadays. Maybe ask her."

"I suppose it'd be an interesting answer," Ford said as he looked around the room for her. "Where has she gone anyway? It's been a good while since she went with her friends."

Stan turned his head a little and quickly caught sight of Mabel sprinting in their direction. "Ah, there she is," he said, waving at her. "Where have you been, pumpkin? You haven't been talking to boys, have ya?"

His face held a good-humored smile as he made the joke. However, Mabel was in no state of mind to even acknowledge either of them, as she simply ran right past them and through the door next to them. In an instant, Stan and Ford were left completely on their own yet again.

"So, uh, does that mean she's talking to boys?" Stan asked, not sure at that moment whether she had ignored them or not. "I meant it as a joke, but uh, that looked kinda serious."

"I don't even think she acknowledged us," Ford assumed as he looked at the door she had zoomed through. "Honestly, Stanley, I do hope the kids remember their commitment. As fine as I am with them mingling around and doing their own things, I do hope they pay us enough attention so we don't let a day we could've spent working go to waste."

"Relax, Ford. Ain't none of us being forgotten yet," Stan said, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder assuringly. "Maybe she's just sick or something. She looked kinda pale. There's no need to jump to conclusions yet. Just relax."

"Hey, Grunkle Stan! Hey, Great Uncle Ford!" Dipper's voice was heard as he and Derrick walked up to the two.

Stan glanced back at Ford. "See? Told ya!"

"Sorry, I'm late," Dipper said as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I was busy... uh... cleaning up."

Ford chuckled. "Ah, you're alright, Dipper. We're just glad to see you."

His eyes then glanced over to Derrick, who appeared to have a fixed gaze on his great-nephew that he didn't even appear to notice. He raised an eyebrow as he noticed just how intimate the stare was.

"And... uh... is this your friend?" he asked curiously. "The... fellow that was with us last night?"

Dipper looked over at Derrick, who quickly cleared his gaze and started looking around normally again. "Oh yeah, this is Derrick, my best bud from back home in Piedmont. Also known as the guy who nearly got himself killed by screaming during an attempted surprise attack."

Derrick took a quick second to process this comment before breaking out laughing as if Dipper had told the funniest joke in the world. Not even ironically either. "Good one, Dipper! You're such a riot, man!"

"Uhh, that... wasn't... really a joke," Dipper clarified, raising an eyebrow at his response. "Was kind of expecting you to roast me back or something instead."

"Roast you? Why would I wanna do that? I'd never wanna hurt you," Derrick said with an extreme level of genuine sincerity, which was surprisingly discomforting to Dipper.

Stan and Ford just stared at Derrick, unsure what to make of him based on his introduction. Dipper claimed he was his best friend, but Derrick's behavior seemed to imply something different. Not that either Stan or Ford had any particular opinions on it, but it was certainly a surprise if what they thought was happening was actually happening.

Stan glanced at Dipper skeptically. "So... best friend, huh?"

"Yep! We've been the best of bros since the eighth grade!" Derrick said as he wrapped his arm around Dipper's neck.

Dipper's eyes glanced around weirdly. "'The best of bros?'"

That was something Derrick had never said before, and it was completely out of character for him. Sure, they were "bros" in a friendly sense, but Derrick was never one to put it out in such a blunt, outgoing way. Normally, he'd say something more lowkey like "Yeah, we've been friends for a few years," or "Yeah, I've been defending his ass for a while now." But "The best of bros?" That was a very odd one.

And while he had been used to the occasional noogie or brotherly arm around the neck, Derrick's grasp this time felt like he had pulled him in a little closer than normal. Close enough that Dipper was beginning to find it a little too close for comfort.

"Well, Dipper's about to be a senior. So, four years, huh?" Ford added up. "That means you both met not long after you and Mabel went back home, I assume? I don't recall you ever mentioning a Derrick fellow before."

"That's right," Dipper nodded as he put his hands on Derrick's arm and casually took it off of his neck as his discomfort had finally gotten to him. Once he was free from his hold, he began to take slow steps back. "We can catch up more on that in a moment. I, uh... think I'm gonna go grab some Pitt Cola or something."

"I'll come with," Derrick offered, taking a few steps along.

"Uh, no need!" Dipper quickly rejected, shaking his hands but also forcing a passive smile. "Just stay with my uncles. I'll be quick."

"Alright," Derrick accepted, though slightly disappointed.

As Dipper walked off to get a drink, Ford's eyes narrowed as he began to catch a whiff of the surrounding air.

"Hmm, that's odd..." he remarked.

"What's wrong?" Stan asked.

"That scent."

Stan gave the air a few quick sniffs. "What? Someone sprayed cologne or something?"

"Yes, but that cologne smells oddly familiar," Ford said as he continued to process the scent. "Very oddly familiar…"

---

Dipper had to walk across the floor room to get to the drink table. The dance floor was full of dancing partygoers and couples, but he stuck to the sidelines, making sure to go around and not interfere with anyone breaking it down.

However, his environment began to go against his intentions. There was a group of friends hanging out beside the wall, socializing and making jokes. As a joke, one of the guys facing the girls against the wall began making some weird mock dance, throwing his arms from side to side while walking backward. He did this very suddenly and managed to bump straight into Dipper, causing him to bump into someone else on his other side while on the dance floor.

The guy who bumped into Dipper turned around and glanced at him. "Sorry, dude."

His voice was insincere, and he turned right back to his friends, who began laughing away. Dipper just glared at him from behind annoyedly.

"My top!"

Dipper turned back behind him to who he had accidentally bumped into a second ago. She was a brown-haired girl about his age, and in her hand was a mostly empty cup of punch. Looking at her appearance though, he quickly noticed the giant red stain in the middle of her light blue top. Knowing that he had unintentionally caused this, his panic started to set in.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" he said guiltily as he walked up to her.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him. "You bumped into me!"

"I-I didn't mean to! It was an accident!" he defended. "I was just walking, and then this guy right behind me bumped right into me and then I bumped right into you!"

While Dipper was trying to explain himself to the girl, his close proximity allowed the scent of his cologne to reach her nose. As she took in the scent, she froze and her eyes went big. Then, a pink flash of sparkles quickly shined within her eyes before dissipating and going back to normal again.

As she came to her senses, she looked at Dipper and found that her anger with him had suddenly disappeared. It was at that point a subtle smile started to form on her face as she watched him go on.

"It's okay," she said while fluttering her eyelashes.

Dipper caught her smile as he went on and grew somewhat confused. "You... you aren't mad?"

She giggled, which visibly shocked and confused him further. "No, I'm not mad, silly! Why would I be mad?"

"Well, I mean, I did just ruin your top…" he reminded, glancing back and forth between her face and the very large and obvious stain. "I mean, that's a really bad stain... and it's probably gonna take more than just detergent to get that out…"

She burst out laughing at this, which continued to further Dipper's utter confusion. "You're funny!"

"Uh... thanks! But seriously, that stain is bad."

"Well, how about you just make it up to me by getting me a new cup of punch and then saving me a dance?" she suggested while continuing to bat her eyes at him.

"Yeah, sure, I could definitely- wait, what?" Dipper questioned as he processed her words, his face beginning to redden.

"Ya know. Since it is your fault and all..." the girl said, giving him a playful nudge with her elbow. "It's the least you could do."

"I-I... I mean... uh…" he mumbled flusteredly, trying to get his brain to work. A girl just asked him to get her some punch and then save her a dance. Now he needed to remember how to put words together. "S-sure! Yeah! I'll... I'll go do that!"

Without even hesitating, he made a bolt for the drink table. Within the span of a mere minute, he had gone from upsetting a girl to somehow making that same girl want to dance with him. Never had something like that happened before in his life. Spilling a drink on a girl's top never warranted him a dance. Usually, a confrontation like that ended with a slap in the face. Or a drink to the face. Or both.

Should he have been worried about how suddenly her reaction changed? For her to suddenly not care about a giant stain on her possibly expensive top? Perhaps she wasn't the brightest person he could've bumped into. Maybe he should've taken this as a red flag. Seriously. Who brushes off a stain that bad?

It was almost definitely a red flag, but hey, he thought she was cute. So if she could brush a stain off, he could brush the weirdness off if it meant getting a dance with her. He reached the drink table and grabbed a cup, to which someone else took a cup right after.

"Hey, Dipper!" Wendy greeted with a casual smile as she looked up at him.

"Oh, hey Wendy."

"Crazy party, huh? Amazing your sister put this all together in a single night. Over half of this junk wasn't even here yesterday," she told him as she looked around the place.

"Y-yeah!" Dipper stuttered, still flustered over his current situation. "She's great at doing the unordinary!"

"Right? Crazy little wizard she is," she agreed with a chuckle. "I just came to grab some punch. I'm dying in that corner over there," she said as she fanned herself with her open hand.

"Oh, yeah, I'm grabbing punch too," Dipper replied, glancing between her and the bowl.

"Well, go ahead then, man. You got here like a second before I did."

"T-thanks," he stuttered again as he aimed for the ladle in the punch bowl. He shakily poured some punch into his cup, while also making a bit of a mess in the process due to how anxious he was. His mind was racing in so many different directions that his focus on how much punch he was pouring into the cup began to disappear.

"Woah, man. You might wanna take it easy there..." Wendy suggested, watching as he began overfilling his cup and making an even bigger mess on the table.

Realizing the mess he was making, Dipper quickly dropped the ladle and backed up a bit. He groaned at the mess, growing embarrassed with himself and how anxious he had gotten.

"Oh, God! What am I doing?!" he said to himself as he examined the spills.

"Dude, are you alright?" Wendy asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're sweating bullets and look like you're gonna hurl."

"I'm just... kinda freaking out about something that just happened to me," Dipper reluctantly admitted.

"Oh, man. That's so vague that now you gotta tell me," Wendy said with a chuckle as she put her cup down with growing interest.

"No, no," Dipper refused, face reddening at the idea of telling Wendy, of all people, about his predicament. "It's not something you wanna know…"

"Tell me! Tell me!" she chanted in a mock deep voice while throwing her fists up and down repeatedly.

He didn't really want to, but at the same time, he felt he could really use someone to express himself to at that moment before he went and potentially made a fool of himself. Even though Wendy wouldn't be his first option for these types of talks, she was still a close friend and was cool enough to understand him anyway.

He sighed. "I was just making my way over here to the drink table before some guy bumped into me, which then made me bump into this girl and spill punch all over her top."

Wendy snickered. "Oh, man! That's unlucky..."

"Yeah…" Dipper said as he rubbed his shoulder awkwardly. "Anyway, I apologized to her, but then she started acting weird and…"

Dipper continued explaining what had happened with the girl to Wendy, who kept her focus on what he was saying. However, as he went on, she began to catch the scent of his cologne, to which she quickly froze as her eyes flashed with pink sparkles for a brief second. She lost a bit of focus for a second as she felt somewhat dizzy, placing a hand on her head as she felt something happening to her.

As her dizziness slowly went away, she looked back up at Dipper, who was still explaining his situation. Almost as if nothing had happened, she continued to listen intently to what he was telling her regarding the girl. But looking at him, she was starting to feel a bit differently than usual at that moment.

"...and so that's when I went to grab her some punch. And here I am now," Dipper finished, making a gesture to his current position.

Wendy nodded. "I see…"

"Yeah, and so, you know, I don't really have a lot of experience with girls…" Dipper said as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly again. "And so I'm kinda worried that when I go back, I'm just gonna embarrass myself or scare her off or... just be a Dipper. I don't know. Do you have any, like... advice or something? If that's not weird to ask?"

"Nah man, it's not weird," Wendy assured him with a smile. "It just sounds like you're being hard on yourself. Like, 'being a Dipper'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," he admitted as he thought about it. "Being a sweaty, mumbling nerd who still doesn't know how to talk to girls after all this time?"

"Dude, you're talking to one right now!" Wendy chuckled as she playfully punched him in the arm, which got a slight smile out of him. "And that's not what being a Dipper is. Being a Dipper is being a kind, sweet, and smart guy who always puts others before himself. A guy with a big heart."

Dipper smiled warmly as he rubbed his arm. "You really think that?"

"Of course I do!" Wendy said assuringly. She then began to play with her hair, brushing it down with her hands as she looked to the side. "And I don't know if I'm just going crazy, but it feels like there's something a bit more different about you than normal."

"Well, I mean, right now, I'm kinda itchy, nauseous, and sweating a lot... and why am I telling you this?" he said, realizing the unnecessary information he was dumping onto her.

To his surprise though, she laughed, seemingly not at all disgusted.

"No, man, that's not what I meant," she said with a smile. "I don't know if I should be saying this since you're already caught up with someone else, but I guess I'm also kind of feeling a bit of vibe with you right now."

Dipper raised an eyebrow. "What? Like... a friendly sorta vibe?"

She grinned as she rested against the table slightly. "C'mon, dude. You and I both know you're smarter than that."

As Dipper looked straight into her eyes, he finally got it. And as if he wasn't already nervous from before, his heart may as well have exploded in his chest from how hard it was beating. He froze and stood completely silent as he returned her flirtatious gaze with a blank stare. His brain had effectively stopped working as all the gears had stopped turning. Perhaps even a fire had broken out somewhere inside.

"Uhhh, ummm, I-I, errrr, uh... what?" he stuttered incomprehensibly.

Wendy's face began to redden. "Like... it feels like I've been looking at you one way all this time, but now I'm looking at you another way. A better way. I don't know, is that crazy?"

"...what?"

"You know, you're grown up now," Wendy said as she examined him. "It would've been weird four years ago, but now? Maybe not so much. So, I don't know... maybe if you're still into the idea after all this time, we could give things a shot?"

Dipper's mouth hung open in absolute shock as she suggested this. He couldn't fathom the fact that this was actually happening.

Wendy flippin' Corduroy just asked him out.

There was no way this was real. It couldn't have been. He refused to believe it.

"Alright, what the hell is this?" he said as he looked around the room, eyes narrowed. "This is a trick, right?"

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Am I still in Mabel's dream bubble or something? Has Bill actually won? Have the past four years of my life all been a lie?! Is ANY of this real?!" Dipper questioned warily. "Are you going to offer your hand only for it to turn into a bunch of roaches and fall off?!"

Wendy stared at him for a moment, glancing around in confusion. Then she gave him a confidently daring look as she walked up to him and grabbed him by the hand, placing her fingers between his. This stunned him once again, as if a million thoughts attacked him at once upon feeling his hand locked with hers.

"Does that feel like a bunch of roaches to you?" she asked as she held up their joined hands in front of him.

"I...I…" Dipper stuttered as he stared blankly at her again, brain short-circuiting again.

Wendy chuckled at his stuttering before simply pulling him along with her as she walked onto the dance floor with all the other partygoers. "C'mon. I love this song, and I'm gonna be ticked if you don't dance with me."

"...I...I...I…" Dipper continued to stutter mindlessly as he simply let Wendy drag him out.

He felt limp and numb. Like everything inside him at that moment had completely stopped working. He didn't know what to make of anything, and even if he did, he couldn't. Not that it made any sense at all, but that's how he generally felt at that moment. That nothing was making any sense.

Yet all he could do was go along with it.

As she dragged him onto the dance floor, he went past several partygoers nearby. The trail of air that followed his movement contained hints of his cologne, and it brushed the noses of each guest that he passed. Those who smelt it suddenly had their eyes briefly flashed with pink sparkles.

They weren't able to catch up fast enough on the fact that the scent came from Dipper and so they simply began looking around in confusion, having no idea what had just happened to them. As they looked around, some caught sight of Dipper as Wendy held his hand and then threw him onto the dance floor right in front of her. Seeing as how he was her possession at that moment, none of them really bothered intruding, but some certainly watched or continued to do their own things while also keeping an eye on him, as there was something about him at that moment that seemed to click with them in their heads all of the sudden.

Having brought Dipper to the middle of the dance floor with her, Wendy began enthusiastically dancing along to the upbeat music thumping through the stereo. Dipper still stood completely motionless in the middle of several dancing townsfolk. He still couldn't fathom what was happening and felt as though it was all some twisted prank in some way. But the look in Wendy's eye continued to imply otherwise.

"Come on, man!" Wendy persuaded, bumping her hip into his torso mid-dance and pushing him back slightly. "You gonna dance with me or what?"

Dipper looked around and noticed the eyes of a few other partygoers looking his way as he just stood there, standing like an idiot in front of a girl who was trying to get him to dance. His former crush at that.

Despite all the confusing feelings and thoughts going through his head at that moment, he knew how stupid he must've been looking just standing there in front of her the way he did. So he slowly began to warm himself up to dancing along as well, putting on a light, yet flustered smile as he did so. He wasn't much of a dancer even in a casual party sense, so it took another case of breaking from his comfort zone to do so.

Wendy seemed to approve regardless of his skills though. "There you go, man! Just loosen up!"

Dipper chuckled blushingly, still confused as ever. But with Wendy's support, he found himself growing a bit more comfortable and less stiff every second that passed. He knew he had danced alongside her before, and so to keep his cool, he tried to tune out the current circumstances and just try to pretend like things weren't too different between them. Aside from holding hands a moment ago, there was no physical contact in place. It was an upbeat song, and there was no reason to get too intimate right now. In his head, he tried to picture them as nothing more than just two close friends dancing next to one another.

Feelings could be worried about later.

---

"Ya know, that kid sure takes his time getting a soda," Stan said as he thought about how long it had been since Dipper left to get a drink.

"Dipper takes his time to do a lot of things," Derrick said as he stood beside the two brothers. "It's why he's great at what he does."

"Kid can be great and grab a soda in less than a minute," Stan countered.

"I don't believe it..." Ford said as he stared off into the crowd of people on the dance floor in shock.

"C'mon, Ford. The kid has his flaws, but even I figured you'd think he's smart enough to grab a drink quickly," Stan said.

"No, Stanley. Look!" Ford said as he pointed out into the crowd for Stan to see. Derrick looked on as well.

It took a moment, but soon Stan was able to see that in the middle of the dance floor through a bunch of other partygoers, Dipper was dancing next to Wendy. The two were laughing away, looking like they were enjoying themselves. Though, in a surprisingly closer proximity than expected for supposed normal friends.

"What's that redhead doing with Dipper?" Derrick asked with a look of irritation and growing jealousy. "I thought he said she rejected him!"

"And I thought she had standards," Stan added, a little weirded out by the same fact that it was Wendy, of all people, dancing with Dipper.

"Stan, our great-nephew just ditched us," Ford said. "Us. His own family that he hadn't seen for four years until yesterday. For a girl that he's already had over two weeks to reunite with."

"He probably got caught up in the moment. Taking an opportunity and rolling with it, right?" Stan defended.

"That's exactly what I was worried about, Stanley!" Ford reminded him, getting a little irritated. "The kids are getting so caught up with their own personal matters to the point where they've completely forgotten about us. If I knew this was how things were going to turn out, I would've held my ground earlier and kept pushing for the party to be called off!"

"Calm down, Ford!" Stan tried to coax. "Look, I can see where you're coming from here. I'm disappointed too. But, c'mon, just because Dipper got caught up in Teen Hormone-ville doesn't mean that Mabel has! I'm sure as soon as she gets back from whatever she's doing, she'll come straight to us."

At that moment, Mabel had emerged from the doorway leading into the bathroom hallway and exhaled, as if she was trying to convince herself to keep it together. As soon as she did that, she turned in the Stans' direction and quickly began rushing up to them.

Stan caught this and pointed her out to Ford confidently. "Ya see? Here she comes now."

Mabel reached the two, but instead of standing beside them, she squeezed herself between them. "'Scuse me, Grunkle Stan!" she said dismissively before continuing on her way.

Stan's smile immediately diminished as he and Ford watched her skip her way back to the couch across the room. There, she rejoined her friends and sat back on the end of the couch next to Ryland. He smiled at her and handed her drink back.

"You alright?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow in slight concern.

"Oh yeah!" she assured, twirling a finger through her curly hair. "Just normal business. I totally didn't just get so nervous that I had to puke. Nope! This girl is all good!"

"Well, that's good to hear," he said with an oblivious smile.

"Yes. Yes, it is," Mabel said as she rested her head on the back of her hand, leaning a little closer to Ryland as she gazed up at him.

Stan and Ford continued to watch the two socialize and laugh with one another, focusing their sights on Mabel, who didn't pay them even the slightest glance. She had just squeezed right past them while giving them hardly any acknowledgment just to return to her friends across the room and a boy they didn't even know.

Both she and Dipper had promised to stick with the two and not leave their side throughout the night, claiming they wouldn't get caught up in distractions. Yet here they both were, getting caught up in what looked to Stan and Ford as their own romantic pursuits. Caught up in romance rather than spending time with their own family after all this time they had spent apart.

"Ah, who am I kiddin'? You were right, Ford," Stan finally admitted, slouching sadly as he came to accept things as they were. "The kids ain't kids anymore. They're teenagers. And this is what teenagers do."

Ford put an empathetic hand on Stan's back while sharing the same look of sadness and disappointment. "Come on. Let's just head back to the lab and get to work on figuring out this whole Bill situation."

Stan looked hesitant for a second but then nodded in agreement. Dipper and Mabel were doing their own things now and had forgotten about them. There was no use being there anymore. It was time to accept that and go back and work on what was really important at that moment.

The two started to head for the door behind them, unnoticed by Derrick, who held up his look of jealousy on Dipper and Wendy from afar as the two danced.

However, Soos took notice of their departure and managed to glance over at them from his DJ booth just as they began to head out.

"Huh?" he said to himself as he spotted them.

Melody caught his voice as she handled equipment behind him and turned to him. "What's wrong, Soos?"

"Watch the booth for a sec, Melody," Soos said.

He quickly threw his headphones down and ran out from behind the booth to make his way over to the Stan brothers across the room. Melody was slightly caught off-guard by the sudden job she was given but still accepted her position.

As Soos ran, he saw that Ford had already exited through the door. Stan was right behind him and was preparing to walk as well.

"Mr. Pines!" he called out. "Mr. Pines, wait!"

Stan heard Soos' voice just as he was about to step out of the floor room and turned to him as he approached, panting out of exhaustion from his run.

"What is it, Soos?" Stan asked.

"Where... where are you two going?" Soos asked through his panting.

"Ford and I decided to just head back to the basement. There's nothing for us here," Stan said as he turned back to head inside.

However, Soos put his hand on his shoulder and turned him back around. "But... what about the party? You two are, like, supposed to be the guests of honor tonight!"

"Yeah, you wanna remind both Mr. and Ms. Infatuation about that?" Stan asked, narrowing his eyes.

"What?"

"The kids," Stan said, pointing his finger over at Mabel on the couch with Ryland and then aiming over at Dipper with Wendy on the dance floor. "They're in their own little worlds right now. Which would be fine, if they didn't promise Ford and I that they'd be spending time with us at this party." He sighed, placing a hand on his face for a second out of disappointment. "Not to sound grouchier than usual, Soos, but we wanted to spend time catching up with the kids. They promised one thing, and we ain't getting it. So why bother? At least now I can spend time separating myself from this demon in my head."

He proceeded to head back to the doorway again, to which Soos stretched his arm out hopelessly. "But... Mr. Pines…"

"Just enjoy the party, Soos. I didn't say I was stoppin' ya."

Stan walked out the door, leaving the party and letting the door shut behind him. Soos was left staring at the door dejectedly for a moment before turning back to the party. He glanced back over at the couch where Mabel sat and watched as she giggled at something that Ryland had said, playfully pushing him on the shoulder. His eyes then shifted over to Dipper and Wendy in the middle of the dance floor, watching as the two locked eye contact with one another as they danced separately. Although, Dipper displayed less of a flirty expression compared to Wendy.

As he processed the twins' separate endeavors, Soos sighed and put a hand on his head in distress. "Oh, man…"

---

"No, Marius! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have been so upset about you canceling our Pony Heist movie date!"

Grenda was speaking apologetically over the phone to her boyfriend, Marius von Fundshauser. Realizing her fault for their latest argument, she had decided to call him up and make amends with him and their relationship privately, standing away from the couch where the rest of her friends sat.

"It's just... you're joining the army! How am I supposed to feel about-"

She waited as Marius cut her off. As he spoke, she began to smile, her guilt now turning into joy.

"Really?! You can set up a private screening at your castle?!"

She began to walk even further away from the couch so she could deal with her phone call away from the party. On her former end of the couch, Evan had casually taken the spot beside Candy, leaving a fair amount of room between the two. Candy was focused on a conversation between her, Mabel, and Ryland. But Evan was more focused on her and kept giving her nervous glances.

He had not much idea what he was feeling at that moment. Outside of school and other academic-related programs and activities, he rarely ventured outside his house and computer. He hated most parties and general social gatherings, including this one, as opposed to his brother, who loved them. But even when he had to communicate with others, he was able to normally and without issue.

Being twelve years old, never had he come across anyone in his life who made him feel the way Candy currently made him feel. Whatever it was.

A crush, his older brother had mentioned to him when they had gone to get punch for the girls. He's heard of the concept behind crushes and general romantic feelings, but he's never had them. Nor has he ever wanted to. Yet here he was, sweating and shaking over someone he had never known before in his life until mere minutes ago. And his feelings of hate for coming to the party had suddenly dissipated too.

What's happening to me? he thought to himself as he looked down at his shaking hands.

None of the teens were looking at him. But, that was fine. He only wanted to draw Candy's attention. He felt an internal urge to talk to her. He didn't know or really even care about what. He just needed to.

He gulped nervously as he tried to figure out a way to get her attention. He then decided on the most direct way. He leaned forward and tapped on her shoulder.

Candy felt the tap and turned her head to find Evan, who froze with his outstretched arm as he saw her turn to see him. She didn't think too much of it, however, and simply smiled kindly as she gave her complete focus to him. Mabel and Ryland simply went on with their conversation, not paying attention to Candy shifting her attention away.

"Oh, uh, hello," she greeted as she faced him.

Evan still sat frozen with his arm outstretched, his face reddening. He soon snapped himself out of it, shaking his head and retracting his arm. "Uhh... hi…"

"Err... Evan, right?" Candy asked, recalling his earlier introduction.

"Who's Evan? I MEAN... YES! Correct!" Evan frantically corrected himself. "Evan's my name! That IS my name! Evan! Yep! I know what my name is!"

"Umm... okay…" Candy replied, somewhat weirded out by his frantic behavior.

Amidst his separate conversation with Mabel, Ryland's eye glanced over at Evan and caught on to what he was trying to do. "Oh God, what is he doing?" he said under his breath, though audible enough for Mabel to hear.

"What's happening?" Mabel asked quietly as she turned around to look at the two.

Ryland smirked. "Lil' bro's got a lil' crush."

Mabel gasped. "On Candy?" she whispered, which Ryland nodded to in response. "Aww! That's adorable! And also, kinda weird. He knows that she's fifteen, right?"

"Well, you see... I don't think he's ever had a crush before. And I think that's about to show in a second here..."

Evan cleared his throat as he came up with the closest thing to small talk that he could think of. "So, what's your favorite type of math?"

That question immediately put Mabel on the brink of cringing. "Oh. My. God."

"Uhh, excuse me?" Candy asked with utter confusion.

"You know... Statistics, Trigonometry, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC... like, what's your favorite?" Evan asked.

"I... uh…" Candy said as she continued to process the question, still finding it one of the oddest questions she had ever been suddenly asked to answer. Ignoring the weirdness of the question, she took a minute to give it a bit of actual thought. "Well, I do like-"

"ME TOO!" Evan shouted suddenly, cutting her off before she could even answer.

"Wait, what?" Candy asked, somewhat startled by his sudden outburst.

"I love AP Calculus BC!" Evan exclaimed excitedly. "People say that BC is terrible and that AB is way easier because it has fewer topics, but like, I find more excitement in the topics that BC brings! It's so challenging, and I love it! Don't you agree?"

"You didn't even let me answer the ques-"

"Yeah, I knew you'd agree!" Evan cut off yet again, his nervousness getting the best of him and killing whatever social awareness he was capable of having. "Look at us! Look how much we have in common! Man, we're hitting it off, aren't we?"

"Hitting it off?" Candy asked, now horrified once she realized what was truly going on.

"Yep, we sure are!" Evan said confidently, not at all catching her current look of horror. His eyes glanced down at her empty cup in hand, which prompted him to shoot out of his seat in a slight panic. "WOAH! Your cup's empty! Let me fill that for you!"

Without hesitation, he swiped the empty cup from her hand and began sprinting his way over to the drink table, leaving her completely appalled as to what had just happened. A moment after he left, she finally turned to Mabel and Ryland, both of whom looked at her sympathetically, well aware of what she had just endured.

"I am going to look for Grenda. She knows how to hide me," she told them as she simply stood up from the couch and began casually walking away.

Mabel sighed. "Poor Candy..."

"And poor Evan," Ryland said, cringing a bit. "Kid is gonna need a lot of work on his game."

"It could've been worse. If you really wanna see bad game, you should see how my brother flirts," Mabel said, chuckling at the thought.

"I don't know. From the looks of it, your brother's game seemed to work well enough on Wendy."

"Heh, yeah..." Picking up what he just said, Mabel's eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait, WHAT?!"

"Check it out," Ryland said, pointing a finger into the crowd on the dance floor.

Mabel's eyes searched through the crowd, eventually spotting Dipper and Wendy dancing to the music and enjoying themselves, even sharing a few laughs. Though they weren't making any physical contact, she could agree that the two were dancing in noticeably close proximity to one another. Something that she also noticed was the way that Wendy looked at him, which stood out to her as particularly flirty.

"You could say that maybe they're dancing as friends, but I don't know," Ryland said as he watched them. "I think there's something going on over there."

"She's definitely... looking at him differently," Mabel said as she examined the two, definitely getting a 'more-than-just-friends' vibe as well.

Normally, she would be excited about her brother potentially finding someone, especially in his old crush. But now, she was a bit more skeptical than anything else. Going back to the pep talk she had given him earlier about cleaning himself up, he looked practically no different here. The only thing she figured he could've done was take a shower, but even then, he and Wendy had spoken at other points in the summer. What was so enticing about him to her at that moment?

"Don't you think it's a little weird how she finds him appealing all of the sudden?" Mabel asked. "I mean, it never really seemed like there was anything going on before today."

"Could just be natural progression," Ryland suggested. "They've been friends for a while, right? So maybe now there's a spark that wasn't there before. Something that grew over time. At least that's just what I think. Relationships shouldn't be forced, ya know? Best to just let things naturally happen as they do." He got up from the couch and started walking off, looking back at her once as a heads-up. "I'm gonna go use the bathroom."

Mabel nodded at him, watching as he turned back and walked away. Soon enough, all thoughts about Dipper and Wendy had cleared her mind as she thought about what he had just said.

'Relationships shouldn't be forced, ya know?'

He doesn't like forced relationships... which is exactly what she was afraid of doing again. She had been trying to steer away from forcing anything between them and instead, just allowing things to develop naturally. So she probably couldn't blurt out her feelings or come off too strong to the point where she'd push him away. She needed to let the forces of nature bring them together. But now, she began to wonder if she could manipulate those forces of nature to bring them together instead.

"Natural progression, eh?" Mabel said as she thought up different ideas, eventually coming up with one that sparked her interest.

"Hey, hambone."

Mabel's thought process was interrupted as she glanced in front of her to see Soos standing over her. Realizing her new idea connected to him, she quickly jumped up from her seat and rushed up to him.

"Soos! I was just thinking about you! I need you to do me a HUGE favor!"

"Oh... uh, sure," Soos nodded acceptingly as he rubbed the back of his head. "What do you need?"

"Ryland just went to the bathroom," she explained. "When he comes back, can you play one of those 80s slow jams at your DJ booth?"

Soos thought over the favor for a second before frowning, beginning to rub his shoulder hesitantly. "You see, dude, I was actually just coming over here to talk to you about that."

"Talk about what?" Her eyes widened as she made an assumption. "Me and Ryland?! W-what?! That's... that's craz- okay, I admit it! I'm guilty! I may have a teeny, weeny thing for him and that may or may not be the reason I'm asking you this favor."

"Well, I mean... that wasn't really what I meant…" Soos clarified, still rubbing his shoulder hesitantly.

"Wait... you think me having a crush on one of your employees is bad for the Shack, huh?" Mabel assumed once again. "That I'll distract him and take away from the business, or that I shouldn't be like Dipper and fall for and get my heart broken by someone who works here, right?"

"What?" Soos questioned. No... dude, I have no problems with you having a thing for Ryland. I just don't think Ryland should be your only focus today."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, have you forgotten why you threw this party?" Soos asked, gesturing toward the rest of the room. "I'm afraid you might be letting this whole crush of yours get in the way of what's supposed to be really important."

"Well, what's really important right now is that I don't miss my chance at trying to naturally progress my relationship with Ryland!" Mabel insisted, hardly hearing him out. "Candy and Grenda already told me that I only have the summer to start a relationship with him before things have to go long-distance. I want to cherish whatever time I can get with him in person before then."

Soos sighed, realizing he wasn't getting to her. "Look, I see you really care about this, so I'll do that favor for you. But you should really think about what you're doing here. The real reason you threw this party and all." He began walking away to head back to his position. "And if you don't, well... you're young. You'll figure it out soon enough."

"Thanks, Soos!" Mabel called out to him as he walked away while not really sure what to make of those final words of his.

---

"You see, and that's another thing I've started to hate about you!" Tambry ranted as she got up in Robbie's face. "You're always so arrogant!"

"Arrogant?!" Robbie questioned. "Uh, news flash! Social media is for selfies and quick funny videos! Not for reading your hundreds of daily status updates complaining and talking about self-conceited morals!"

The two kept bickering back and forth with one another while Lee and Nate sat a few feet away from them, just watching with growing irritation.

"Didn't this start because Tambry found Robbie's burps disgusting?" Nate asked.

Lee just sighed and put his face in his hands. "I honestly don't even know anymore, dude. I really don't."

At that moment, a fit man in a light green plaid shirt with his sleeves rolled up and brown cargo pants walked over to the group. In his hands, he held a large bouquet of orange flowers in his hand.

"Sorry, I'm late, peeps. Had to drop by the store real fast," he said in a deep, smooth voice, grabbing the attention of the whole group.

"About time you got here, Thompson," Nate said as he and Lee got up to greet him.

"God, I feel like I die inside every time he says 'peeps'," Robbie said, cringing in his seat.

"Oh, lay off, Robbie," Lee said as he patted Thompson on the back. "At least Thompson's got confidence."

"Yeah. More than you could ever manage," Nate nodded in agreement.

"Confidence doesn't equal being able to say things that are stupid," Robbie said with an eye roll.

"Yo, are those flowers for Wendy?" Lee asked, pointing over at Thompson's flowers.

"Possibly," Thompson said with a smirk as he held the flowers up. "I got her favorites. Crossfire Tulips."

"Her favorites, huh?" Tambry asked with an amused chuckle as she texted away. "Where'd you get that from?"

"It was just something I picked up on from one of our last cemetery hangouts," Thompson said with a suave grin.

"Ooooooh! Paying attention to the details! My man, Thompson!" Nate teased as he gave Thompson a hard, brotherly slap on the back, which prompted a smile from him.

"Hahaha, ow…" he winced under his breath.

"So what? You're gonna ask her out finally?" Nate asked.

"Nah, these are more of a goodbye gift than anything," Thompson said, rubbing his neck.

"Bro, c'mon! You gotta tell her how you feel soon!" Lee urged as he wrapped a brotherly arm around him. "You've cleaned up big time over the past few years, and she knows it too!"

"Yeah, you gotta shoot your shot before it's too late," Nate added. "Trust us, man. You got this!"

"As long as she doesn't remember the loser he used to be," Robbie said with a smirk right before Tambry yet again elbowed him in the stomach. "OW! WOULD YOU QUIT DOING THAT?!"

The three guys stared at the two for a second, but quickly brushed it off and went back to normal.

"As we were saying... you gotta let her know soon, bro," Lee reminded him again. "Before it's too late."

"You've had this thing for her for the longest time," Nate also reminded. "You going to let that all go to waste now?"

Thompson thought for a second but then smiled confidently. "No, of course not! What am I talking about? I've waited years for this! And I'm not about to wait any longer!" He glanced around the room, looking for her within in the crowds of partygoers. "Where is she? I'm going to hand her these flowers, and then I'm going to ask her to dance!"

"Well, you already missed your shot," Tambry said without looking up from her phone. "She's already with someone else on the dance floor."

"WHAT?!" Thompson questioned in horror, his scream sounding raspier than the smooth voice he had been using before. At that moment, he, Lee, and Nate all turned their heads toward the dance floor. Each pair of eyes eventually landed on Wendy dancing alongside Dipper.

"Wait a sec... is that... Dipper?!" Nate realized in shock.

Robbie's eyes lit up in disbelief. "What?! No way!" He shot up from his seat to see for himself. As his eyes eventually spotted Dipper, he couldn't believe it was actually happening. "What the...?! How the hell did that little punk pull her?!"

"He ain't so little anymore, Robbie," Lee said as he looked on.

"WHAAAAAAAT?!" Thompson screamed with further outrage at the sight, dropping to his knees dramatically.

"Tambry... you knew about this?" Lee asked as he turned to her.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Nate asked.

"First off, I just glanced up at her for, like... a second. I had no idea who it even was or if it even mattered," she explained. "Second, it's not MY fault that Thompson showed up too late, like he always does, to beat a kid to a dance with Wendy."

With this said, Thompson's horror began to shift into anger. He clenched his teeth together as his eye began to twitch. At that moment, he pulled himself back onto his feet and started to angrily march a few steps toward the dance floor.

Lee and Nate quickly took notice of his body language and ran up to him, putting their hands on his shoulders and pulling him back.

"Woah, Thompson! Easy man!" Nate coaxed. "Don't lose your cool now. There's nothing to be upset about just yet."

"Yeah, I mean, look at them!" Lee pointed out while trying to restrain Thompson. "They aren't even touching one another. They're not so much dancing with each other, but next to each other! They're just friends!"

"Yeah, and Wendy's never even told us anything about Dipper before!" Nate added. "At least, nothing that ever implied she liked him like that."

"She's sure giving him a look though…" Robbie said as he kept focus on the two on the dance floor.

"Not helping, Robbie!" Nate barked.

"Yeah, and why do you care?" Tambry asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I don't! It's just... interesting!" Robbie defended as he sat back down, but kept his eyes on the pair.

"Interesting enough for you to care?" Tambry pushed, narrowing her eyes.

"Would you two shut up?" Lee told them bluntly as he and Nate led Thompson to a seat so he could calm down. "Look, Thompson. Just chill, alright? I'm telling you. Nothing is going on between them. Just ask her to dance when she comes back."

Thompson remained unconvinced though. While he gave into the idea of sitting down to cool off a bit, he still kept a fixed stare on Dipper and Wendy as they danced from afar. Every single move they made, he watched.

---

On the dance floor, Dipper continued dancing along to the music beside Wendy. However, he had begun to grow tired of dancing to every next stereo-thumping song. Although he was enjoying the music, his body wasn't really trying to bust many more moves. Or at least his version of moves. He decided this was probably a decent moment to take a rest or go find Derrick and his great-uncles again.

He stopped dancing and stood in front of Wendy, making a gesture with his thumb outside of the crowd. "Alright, I think that's enough for me. I'm gonna head back."

"Aw, what? C'mon," Wendy said with a chuckle. She grabbed for his hand and held onto his arm, pulling him back before he could walk much further back.

This immediately took Dipper by surprise, and he felt like his mind was about to break yet again. He had gotten so lost in the idea that the two were just dancing alongside one another as friends that he forgot that Wendy had basically confessed to having feelings for him before. Something he still felt like he didn't have an appropriate response to, though it didn't seem to matter yet because Wendy had already taken his feelings from four years ago into account and simply took them for granted.

But he didn't share those same feelings anymore, did he? Truthfully, he didn't know how he felt. His mind ran in circles. Sure, if he was still twelve, he'd be jumping for joy at this opportunity to be with her. But after having spent so much time trying to get over his feelings for her and then successfully doing so, having her suddenly come back to say she had a thing for him now felt like he had been punched a million times in the gut. Like all that time he had spent getting over her was all for nothing.

Now he didn't know what to feel about her.

But he knew that he wanted to know why she suddenly felt the way she did for him. Since at that moment, it seemed like she knew her own feelings better than he did his own.

Rather than letting his mind break again, he turned to face her and gave her a look of uncertainty and curiosity. "Why?"

Wendy looked puzzled for a moment. "What?"

"Why now?" He pulled his arm from her grasp so he could focus on just talking to her without letting her physical touch mess with his head. "Like, I know I'm older now and stuff. And yeah, feelings change over time, but I mean... I spent so long trying to forget I ever liked you after you turned me down. So like... why is this happening now? Especially since Mabel and I got here a few weeks ago. What changed? Because... I don't feel different."

"I don't know," Wendy admitted as she looked to the side for a moment. "To be honest, I don't even feel much different either. But then I look at you, and things just seem different. Like a bunch of weird pink sparkles just flashed in my eyes. Does that make any sense to you?"

Her odd description prompted a weird look from him. "Uhh... not at all."

"Well, maybe it doesn't have to make sense," she suggested while nudging closer to him. "I mean, nothing in this town does anyway, right?"

Dipper wasn't sure how to respond to this, mostly because her getting closer to him made his mind run wild again. The more he looked at her and the more she talked, it felt like he was remembering his twelve-year-old feelings. Yet, something inside him still felt unmoved and unconvinced. Like he was still living a lie or maybe didn't reciprocate those true feelings for her anymore. He wasn't sure.

But it seemed as though she was more than sure, as she shut her eyes and began to lean her face closer to his.

---

That was a movement that Thompson had immediately noticed as it began, and at that point, his mind was made up. He stood back up on his feet and aggressively pushed Nate and Lee to the sides.

"YOU CALL THAT 'JUST FRIENDS?!'" he screamed angrily, his voice letting even more rasp out.

"Thompson, wait!" Lee called out with an outstretched arm.

"NO! I'm DONE waiting!" Thompson dismissed as he began marching his way over to the dance floor. "I've waited for too damn long now!"

---

Wendy had kept leaning in on Dipper, which took him a moment to notice as he was getting lost in his own thoughts, but soon he began to feel the warmth of her face growing inches away from his. That was when reality hit him again and he realized that what was happening was actually happening, which prompted one of the conflicted parts of his brain to come to a decision.

Wendy's right. This DOESN'T make sense...

His eyes lit up, and he quickly pulled away from her in panic an inch before their lips made contact with one another. Wendy felt his sudden shuffle away, opening her eyes again to find him in a panicked state a foot away from her.

"Dipper? What's wrong?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

"I... uh…?!" Dipper spoke frantically. "I need to use the bathroom! Like... right now!"

Without leaving room for further questions, he quickly sped off through the crowd of people, making his way in the direction of the bathroom as fast as he could.

"Dipper!" Wendy called out to him as she stood behind in place, soon losing sight of him within the crowd.

He didn't look back, however. In fact, he just began to feel sick to his stomach. Not just because he was confused and conflicted, but because he had just abandoned Wendy to deal with it. If his stress wasn't loaded enough already, it sure wasn't getting better. The fact that he was an inch away from kissing her, and he wasn't totally on board with it was a sign that something wasn't fully right.

This is moving too fast. I don't know what I'm doing! I don't know anything! I need to breathe!

His run was unorganized and frantic, and he found himself trying to squeeze between several party guests. He slightly bumped into a few of them, apologizing as he did when he could. But ultimately, he didn't pay much mind afterward, as he just kept going on his way.

Unbeknownst to him, however, the swift-moving trail of air that he left behind as he ran contained his cologne scent, which brushed the noses of most of the guests that he passed by. In response, several guest eyes sparkled pink for a brief moment. Those affected were then left feeling confused for a second, but their heads soon turned in the direction Dipper ran, watching him go through the open doorway leading into the bathroom hall.

---

As Dipper entered the bathroom hall, he quickly ran up to the bathroom door, putting his hand on the knob and turning. Right away he found that it was locked.

"Oh, c'mon!" he shouted while impatiently tugging on the locked knob.

"Hey, hey! Occupied, man!" a voice called from inside.

Dipper backed away from the door and clenched his stomach. He considered for a moment just rushing upstairs to get to his own bathroom but thought it would be far too late if he did so. Instead, he resolved to lean his back against the wall to try to focus all of his brain power on keeping himself together.

He shut his eyes. "Keep it together, Dipper. You've been through the literal apocalypse when you were a child, yet you can't figure out feelings for a girl as a teen?"

He sat in silence for a moment, trying to clear his head, but to no avail. He frustratedly tugged down on the muffs of his bomber hat, pulling it over his eyes as he sunk to the floor.

"UGH! Why me?! I didn't even want to attract any girls today! I just wanted to be presentable! Now Wendy likes me? I thought I was over her! Am I over her? Gaahh! What do I even know anymore?"

"YOUUUUU!"

The sudden voice startled Dipper, causing him to jump. He turned his head over to the doorway, where a man stood. He pulled himself up from the ground as he scanned the stranger's appearance.

"Thompson?"

Compared to the last time Dipper had seen him, Thompson was now thinner and had a bit more muscle; his light mustache stubble was now a full goatee stubble, which admittedly fit him well. His clothes were fitted to his build and he had even grown a tiny bit taller, which was a little surprising considering he was in his late teens the last time they met as well.

"Dang, man! Look at you! You've really managed to clean yourself up since I last saw you!" Dipper said with an impressed smile. However, recalling his sister's earlier talk about cleaning up and then seeing Thompson started to make him feel more judgemental of himself. "Wow, maybe I do need to listen to Mabel..." he said under his breath. "Anyways, how have you been, bro?"

"DON'T YOU 'BRO' ME!" Thompson scolded as he walked up to Dipper, which prompted him to back up in slight unease. "NOT AFTER WHAT YOU DID!"

The smooth and deepened voice that he had maintained when talking with his other friends before had completely dropped at that point, and he was shouting with the old raspy voice he was known for four years ago. Not that Dipper was ever able to tell the difference.

"Huh? What'd I do?" Dipper questioned.

"I SAW YOU KISS WENDY!" Thomson accused, pointing his finger at him. "I SAW IT!"

Dipper's eyes lit up as his face flushed red. "WHAT?! I didn't kiss her! I mean... we almost did... but I pulled away! I didn't even start the kiss!"

Amidst his flustered rambling, a thought came to mind - why was Thompson, of all people, confronting him over whether or not he kissed Wendy?

"Hold on... why do you care?" Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically. "Are you two DATING?!"

"WHAT?! NO!" Thompson denied, his face flushing red now. But then he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "But I wish we were!"

Dipper's eye began to twitch in shock. "No way... YOU have a crush on Wendy now?!"

"I've ALWAYS had a crush on Wendy!"

---

[Eight Years Earlier]

"Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!" chanted a young Robbie, Lee, and Nate to a young Thompson, who was chugging down an entire bowl of punch at a party.

Thompson eventually finished the entire bowl, to which he burped loudly, which was met by a bunch of laughter from the three boys. His stomach felt like liquid and very sick inside, but seeing the three laugh brought a smile to his face.

"Man, you sure are crazy, Thompson!" Nate said, wiping a tear from his eye after laughing so hard.

"Crazy stupid," Robbie jabbed before laughing again. "Where's everyone gonna get their punch from now?"

Thompson hiccuped, to which he clenched his uneasy stomach. "Aw, man..."

"I'm sure they can still get it from Thompson in a few minutes," Lee joked, which got laughs from Robbie and Nate.

Thompson simply stood and took the cruel jokes, rubbing his belly with his hand. Beside him, Nate's eye caught a young girl with purple hair talking to a redhead girl with pigtails beside one of the snack tables which wasn't too far from where the guys were standing.

"Yo, is that Tambry?" Nate asked, pointing her out to the other guys.

"Yeah," Lee nodded as he looked over at her. He then turned to Nate and gave him a look. "Why are you asking? Do you like her?"

"What?" Nate questioned, his face reddening. "Pfft! No way, man! She's just in my class. Might need to ask her for homework later…"

Thompson's attention shifted from Tambry over to the redhead girl with pigtails who she was talking to. A quick glimpse at her face as she turned to the side for a moment was enough to temporarily take away the sick feeling in his stomach. As he looked on at her, he found himself smiling with wonder and interest.

"W-Who is she talking to?" Thompson asked the guys while keeping his gaze on her.

"That's her friend. They sit together at lunch all the time," Nate said. "I don't know her name though. I've never met her."

Thompson thought for a second that maybe he could take this as an opportunity to be the frontman and introduce himself and the others to her. He raised a timid finger up for a second. "Maybe I can-"

"Well, if you want to get a name, you go and get a name!" Robbie cut off, not even noticing that Thompson was talking. He stood up in front of the guys and cracked his knuckles in preparation. "Watch and learn, boys."

He began to smoothly walk up to the girls, the other three watching closely. The two girls were completely unaware of him as he walked up right behind the redhead.

"Hey there, ladies," Robbie greeted in an attempted smooth voice. "Name's Robbie. And you are…?"

The girls either ignored him or continued to remain absolutely unaware of his presence, as neither of them even gave him even a hint of acknowledgment and continued with their conversation. Robbie looked confused for a moment, to which he heard the three guys soon snickering behind him at his failure.

"Oh yeah! I'm learning a lot, alright!" Lee cracked through his laughter.

Robbie was immediately irked by his friends laughing at him, to which he turned back to the young redhead and wrapped his hand around one of her pigtails. He tugged down a few times, causing her face to scrunch up with a look of pure irritation and pain. Tambry looked up in shock as he did this.

"Hey? Did you hear me? I asked for your name!" Robbie told her as he continued tugging her pigtail.

POW!

Nate, Lee, and Thompson gasped as they watched the redhead proceed to deck Robbie right in the face, sending him sliding on the ground back to the three. The punch garnered a lot of attention from the rest of the fifth-graders at the party and a lot of heads turned in his direction. He held onto the side of his face in pain as he lay on the ground.

"Name's Wendy Corduroy, you idiot!" the redhead girl called out while looking on angrily at Robbie.

"You alright, man?" Nate asked as he and Lee came to his side and pulled him back up.

Thompson just stood back and smiled at seeing Robbie get his just deserts, knowing he'll learn from this and hopefully stay away from Wendy now.

Robbie groaned in pain for a second as he sat up, to which he soon started to smile. "That was... awesome."

"Awesome?!" Thompson questioned, his smile fading away in an instant. "That girl just nailed you in the face!"

"I don't care," Robbie said, already gazing at Wendy distantly. "I call dibs on her."

"After that punch?" Lee asked, looking back and forth between the two hesitantly. "Yeah... she's all yours, dude."

"Yeah, for sure," Nate nodded in agreement "Though, you might wanna do something about that chipped tooth she gave you."

"Chipped tooth?!" Robbie said, putting a hand on the side of his mouth in panic. "Aw, man! I hate the dentist! I don't wanna go there again!"

Needing to see this tooth for himself, he quickly pulled himself from the ground and started running away to find the nearest bathroom. He found Thompson right in his way as he stood up and pushed him out of the way with a shove to the stomach.

"Move it, punch bowl cleaner!" he shouted as he sped past him.

Thompson's punch-filled stomach didn't take too kindly to Robbie's shove, and his face quickly flushed with green. "Oh no! I'm gonna need that punch bowl again!"

He managed to only run a few feet before retching and proceeding to empty all the punch he drank onto the floor in front of everybody. Most of the fifth-graders, including Lee and Nate, watched in disgust but slight amusement. Many began screaming or just laughing away at the scene before Thompson continued to run off in embarrassment.

Wendy wasn't very amused at all and cringed as she watched with disgusted remorse. Although right beside her, Tambry was holding her flip phone and snapped a picture.

"So gross!" she said as she looked at the picture she took, to which Wendy turned to her and gave her a look. Tambry caught this look and gave her a confused shrug. "What?"

---

[Present]

"Ever since grade school, I've liked Wendy!" Thompson continued to explain to Dipper as he paced around the hall. "But Robbie got in the way and called dibs! And as you know, in fifth grade, calling dibs meant everything! So I had to keep my crush a secret from everyone and accept that Robbie was the only one allowed to go out with her. But after they broke up and Robbie started dating Tambry, I realized that I had hope! And from that point forward, I decided to start working on myself: working out, getting better eating habits, actually showering!"

Ouch, Dipper thought to himself upon hearing that last part, once again feeling a sense of judgment for himself.

"I was gaining confidence! My friends were actually starting to respect me! And I didn't have to do dumb things to keep everyone together anymore! The old Thompson was in the past! For once in my life, things were starting to look up! And I thought that I might actually have a shot with Wendy..." Thompson then turned to Dipper and gave him a look of anger as he started to approach him slowly. "That was until YOU got in the way!"

"Got in the way? Dude, I told you! We didn't kiss!" Dipper defended while slowly backing away.

"Even if you two didn't, for some reason she likes you now! And don't think I've forgotten your crush on her four summers ago…"

Dipper's eyes bulged. "My cru- how did YOU know about that? I never told you!"

"But Robbie did," Thompson revealed. "Looong ago. He told everyone except Wendy when he got his new phone to replace the one that you broke!"

"Look, Thompson! I understand where you're coming from, but I swear I didn't do anything! It's not my fault that Wendy suddenly likes me! Hell, she's never even hinted at liking me before today! And besides, I don't have a crush on her any more!" Dipper quickly realized he wasn't sure if that statement was entirely accurate. "Well, actually... I don't even know how I feel about her..."

"So you do still like her!" Thompson said as he towered over him, to which Dipper found his back hitting the wall behind him, no longer having room to run should he need to.

"That's not what I meant!" Dipper said, shaking his head fearfully. "I was just saying that I don't know what to do about her!"

"Well, I know what I'm gonna do about you!" Thompson shouted as he raised a fist in the air, prompting Dipper to hold his arms out over his face in preparation. "I hope you're ready. Because I'm gonna…"

Suddenly, Thompson caught a whiff of the air, inhaling a bit of Dipper's cologne within close proximity of him. His eye began to twitch as he began to react to the scent. For a moment, his eyes flashed with pink sparkles. Once the effects settled in, he looked back down at Dipper.

"...I'm gonna... HUG YOU!"

Dipper's fearful stance with him holding his shaking arms defensively over his head was put to an end as he took a second to process his words. He stopped shaking and raised an eyebrow as he turned to look back up at Thompson. "Wait... what?"

"COME HERE, YOU BEAUTIFUL BASTARD!" Thompson shouted ecstatically as he wrapped his arms around Dipper and hugged him tightly, lifting him up from the ground.

Dipper was so confused at that suddenly bizarre moment. While he was unharmed, he still wasn't thrilled by the fact that Thompson was hugging the air out of him. "Alright, I think I would've much rather gotten a punch to the face instead of this!"

"Why would I do that?" Thompson asked, genuinely shocked by the presumption. "I love you, man! I'd never do anything to hurt someone as frail and noodle-y as you!"

"What the hell?!" Dipper asked, now officially 100% weirded out.

He put a hand on Thompson's face and shoved him away, prompting him to let go. Dropping on the floor, Dipper quickly crawled a good distance away before standing back up on his feet. He got into a defensive stance, looking over at Thompson and preparing himself for any move he might try to make next.

"Dipper?"

He turned to his right and saw Wendy suddenly walk into the hallway, which made his skin go cold.

"Wendy… uh…"

"What's going on? Are you okay?" she asked as she started walking over to him.

"Back off!" Thompson commanded while walking up to her. "I saw you two together earlier! You had your chance, but Dipper's mine now!"

"Huh…?" Dipper questioned, his confusion growing by the second.

"No, he's not! Dipper likes me!" Wendy said, trying to push him aside, but to no avail. She glanced over his shoulder and right at Dipper. "Right, Dipper?"

"Uhhhhh…" Dipper said, catching her glance.

"There you are, whatever your name is!" said the brown-haired girl with the punch stain on her top as she entered the room behind Wendy. "I was wondering when you'd come back for that dance you owe me."

Dipper felt himself pale at the sight of her, realizing he had completely forgotten about her after getting caught up with Wendy. "Oh God…"

"Dipper, who is she?" Wendy asked suspiciously.

"She's the girl I ran into that I was telling you about over at the punch table," he explained awkwardly to her.

"Huh. And she doesn't even know your name?" Wendy questioned, turning her head toward her skeptically.

"Hey! I'm still qualified enough to be loved by him!" the girl defended, giving Wendy a look of her own.

"Well, at least I actually know Dipper's name and don't have a giant stain in the middle of my shirt!" Wendy argued, getting in the girl's face.

"What does it matter when you're still wearing such an ugly hat on top of that messy red hair of yours?" the girl cracked back, narrowing her eyes.

"This used to be DIPPER'S hat!" Wendy pointed out. "And he's wearing MINE! It's our thing! What's your thing, Punch Stain?"

"GIRLS!" Dipper intervened as the intensity rose. "What are you doing?! What's wrong with you two?!"

"Dipper's right!" Thompson stepped in. "He called me his bro earlier! No use fighting over him when I'm the one who's most qualified for his love anyway!"

"HUH?!" Dipper questioned, face perplexed beyond repair.

"Well, which one of us do you love then, Dipper?" the girl with the stain asked as she turned to him. "And explain why it's me?"

"Oh, please. Dipper, can you tell this broad off and remind her who her competition is?" Wendy shouted as she shoved the girl in the arm.

"I-I... I don't..." he stuttered while continuously glancing between the three.

"Hey, there he is!"

Before Dipper could even say anything, his eyes bulged as a flood of people suddenly entered the bathroom hallway all at once. It took a minute to process the fact that the people were about half of the entire party guests who came to the Shack. Now they all stood beside Wendy, Thompson, and the stained-top girl, all in a line staring directly at him.

"Is that Dipper?" a voice called out from the crowd.

"Looking good, Dipper!" another voice called out.

"I don't know who you are, but I love you Dipper!" yet another voice called out.

"Be with me, Dipper!"

"No! Don't be with her, be with me!"

"I'd be a better girlfriend than any of these people!"

"Don't listen to her! I'd be a better boyfriend than all of these people!"

"Tad Strange can assure that he would be the superlative choice for a romantic partner!"

"Shut up, Tad! Be with me instead, Dipper!"

The crowd of people soon became a mix of indistinguishable calls and pleas to be Dipper's romantic partner. And Dipper was weirded out the whole way through. People of various ages, most of them inappropriate, were pleading for his love. Most of them calling his name out were people he didn't even know. Some of them he swore he had never even seen before. Yet all of them were in love with him?

"What the hell is happening?" Dipper asked himself fearfully as he began backing up away from the crowd, who continued to move closer toward him. "Who are these people? Why do they love me? Why do they KNOW me? WHAT'S GOING ON?!"

"STOPPPPP!"

A sudden, familiar voice called out from the crowd that managed to get everyone to quiet down. Within a moment, Dipper spotted none other than Derrick popping out from the front of the crowd, rushing to stand in front of everyone else and stop them from moving further.

"ALL OF YOU! STOP IT!" Derrick shouted further.

"Derrick!" Dipper called out happily, full of relief. "Oh, thank God you're here! Dude, I have no idea what the hell is going on, and I'm freaking out!"

"It's alright, man. I'm here to end this," Derrick assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He turned back to the crowd. "Everybody get this through your fat skulls! Dipper doesn't love any of you! He barely even KNOWS most of you, so why in God's name would you POSSIBLY think that you're qualified to receive his love?!"

Dipper let out a grateful sigh. "Thank you!"

"The only person in this room qualified to receive his love is me!" Derrick continued.

Dipper's eyes widened yet again. "What?"

"What?!" questioned the voices of many people from the crowd at once.

"That's right! I'm the only one qualified!" Derrick shouted as he wrapped an arm around Dipper's neck, which now made him visibly uncomfortable. "Unlike most of you, I've known Dipper for four long years! And I've always been there for him! We've helped each other a ton throughout the eighth grade and throughout all of high school so far! And even when the summer's over, we'll still be together in Piedmont! I've always been there for Dipper, and he'll always be there for me! I love Dipper... and Dipper loves me! And only me!"

There was a brief silence for a moment as Dipper stared forward, absolutely terrified and bewildered by everything that was currently happening. He glanced around at different people in the crowd as the silence maintained, expecting there to be some sort of response, but everyone just stood there.

Eventually, a single finger pointing upward raised from amidst the crowd. "Tad Strange objects."

His words got a rise out of the crowd and everybody started shouting angrily over one another again.

"I WANT DIPPERRRRRR!" belted the unstable voice of Mr. Poolcheck, who pointed directly at him.

At that moment, the crowd of partygoers went loose and began running toward Dipper. In reaction, he threw Derrick's arm off his neck and began running down the hall leading into the rest of the Mystery Shack, trying to get away from this nightmare of his as fast as he could. Derrick had merged with the crowd in their chase after him down the hall, everybody screaming and shouting for him.

Within moments, the bathroom hallway was empty. Eventually, the bathroom door finally opened up, to which Ryland cautiously poked his head out, looking around for the commotion that he had heard from inside before. He then proceeded to slowly and casually walk out.

"If, uh, anyone needs to use the bathroom now... it's free!" he called out through the supposedly empty hall, watching his surroundings with caution. "If anyone… wants it…"

Realizing there was no one around, he figured that it would probably have been better to just abandon the scene before it was too late.

"I'll... I'll just be on my way…"

---

Bit of trivia: Alex Hirsch said in a Reddit AMA that Robbie and Wendy met at a 5th-grade party, and Wendy punched Robbie in the face after pulling her pigtails. So that flashback is actually an adaptation of that whole incident for those who weren't aware.

Anyways, had some good fun writing this one. Hoping it's as much fun for you all to read.

-Absolute Rift

(Chapter updated as of March 7, 2024)