Not A Bad Move At All

By Linda/Linables

Rated: T for sexuality and naughty words.

It had been a few years since the Pines twins had been back in Gravity Falls. They had visited a handful of times after their first summer, but never for very long – and now they hadn't even had those visits for a while. It had been six years since they first came, but even now, things looked the same in a way that was ultimately comforting. The people hadn't changed much, apart from the growing that children inevitably do. The adults perhaps had a few new wrinkles or grey hairs, but inside everyone was still the same person they had always been. The police were still hilariously incompetent, the reporters were still overzealous, the Mystery Shack still overcharged customers to see fake fantastical artifacts, and Wendy Corduroy still sought a bit of peace on the roof overlooking the parking lot and the tall pine tree.

Tonight she sat on one of the lawn chairs with a can of craft beer in her hand. She idly considered throwing something at the old target still hanging from the pine tree, but decided against it and instead pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them with her free arm. It was here, like this, that she was discovered by the young (though noticeably less so than six years ago) man who had been aching to see her again for three years.

"Wendy?" he asked, nervously adjusting the baseball cap that he'd insisted on keeping. "Can I, uh, join you? Is it a bad time?" Despite herself, the first though that Wendy had upon hearing this was that Dipper was still so cute. And somewhere in her mind, she definitely caught the fact that she had added "still" to that statement.

"Nah," she said. "Pull up a roof."

Once Dipper had situated himself in the second lawn chair next to Wendy, she turned to him and gestured to the cooler between the chairs.

"Help yourself to a beer if you want one."

"Thanks, uh, I'm still only eighteen though, you know…"

"Fuck that. You're legal in every single country outside of North America. Seriously, my family's first real holiday, I was fourteen and we went to France. They offered me wine with dinner. You're fine, dork. Just pace yourself."

Dipper smiled and reached into the cooler. Not really having any prior knowledge of craft beers, he picked a can with the best looking label. Opening it, he was really surprised and thankful to confirm that he and Wendy could still have the same kind of rapport as always, with the silly quips and casual conversations. But looking at her, he realized that something was definitely a bit off.

"Wendy, are you okay?" he asked.

She didn't look at him or answer straight away, instead chewing on her bottom lip for a moment while she seemed to stare out at some point in the forest.

"You know," she started. "I really want to say yes because I don't want to unload on you, but I figure you'd see past that, huh?"

Dipper chuckled hesitantly. "I guess. You can...you can tell me anything, you know. I still think of you as my best friend, Wendy."

She looked at him, and there was a level of sincerity in his eyes that made something stir inside her chest. This had been happening for a while now, this flutter in her ribcage that felt similar to what some other boys had evoked in her, but somehow even more sure, more fundamentally right. It had happened every time she'd seen Dipper in person in the last several years, but also sometimes when she just thought about him. When she was being honest with herself, she knew what it was. But when she wasn't - which was unfortunately often - she went on pretending that she thought of him as just her best friend too.

But right now, no matter what, he was someone who was willing to offer a figurative shoulder to cry on. Wendy didn't want to pass that up, even if the subject at hand was something that might be precarious in her present company. She took a swig of beer, and she sighed. Kind of surprised by her boldness since she was still on her first can of the night, Wendy started to tell a story.

"So yeah. About a year ago, I was really, really stupid. Well, I did something stupid. You remember Robbie?"

Feeling a twisting in his chest, Dipper nodded.

"Well, he's still a no-good punk. But I guess I something was seriously clouding my judgement, because a year ago I gave him another chance. Maybe it was just to get him to stop trying, since I couldn't take it anymore. But anyway, I thought 'hey, maybe he's changed, maybe he'll treat me right this time'. Well, it didn't work out, again. Once I finally realized that that relationship would never go anywhere, I laid it on the line and made it very clear that we were over for good this time. And I meant it, and I guess he finally got the picture. So then the next time I saw him, a couple of weeks later, he was dating this groupie his band has. And looking really serious about it, like Tambry told me they were already meeting the parents and all that. And I saw her today, at the store. I thought he wasn't there, but then he was. And she turned around, and get this, she's fucking pregnant. Guess they'll be getting married soon."

Wendy paused for a breath and a sip from her can. She steeled her eyes.

"Now don't get me wrong, okay? I don't care who he dates or marries or knocks up. I don't give a shit. I have no feelings like that left for him at all. But it's...it's like the whole idea that he just jumped from me to the next girl like it was no big deal, like I never even existed. Like it was just that easy to get over me when he'd been trying to get me back for a stupidly long time. I dunno. I guess I'm being selfish or something but am I just really THAT easy to get over? I guess so, right? Really makes me feel great about myself."

Dipper had listened to her every word, the painful knot in his chest releasing and transforming into utter concern for the redhead. She, under no circumstances, deserved to feel that way. So with this to fuel him, Dipper's mouth got ahead of his brain and these words spilled out:

"That's definitely not true. You're not easy to get over."

Wendy raised an eyebrow and looked at Dipper with a curious expression.

"What do you mean? How would you know?" she said it without any aggression, just pure interest.

Dipper gulped, realizing that he was completely responsible for digging himself into this hole and now he really had no other way out. 'Here we go,' he said to himself. 'I'm six years older, maybe I'll be smoother this time…' He looked her in the eyes, making sure she saw in his that he was telling the truth.

"Because I've been trying to get over you for six years, and I still can't do it."

Wendy stared at him for a few seconds which felt like eternity, the air becoming thick like the whole universe was collapsing on him, his heart beating so fast and hard that he was sure she could hear it.

In those seconds, something had shifted inside of Wendy, like the pieces of a long unfinished puzzle had finally snapped into place. She shed her denial once and for all, giving into the stirring in her chest and finally acknowledging it for what it was. Her face broke out into the first true smile she had worn that night.

"Well stop it. You don't have to."

This time Dipper was the one who was confused. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice sounding embarrassingly much like the crackling, childish one his friends had given the techno remix treatment to years ago.

"Come here," Wendy simply said in response. Dipper hesitantly scooted his lawn chair right next to hers, pushing the cooler out of the way.

"Closer," she said. He leaned in. They were now centimeters apart.

Their eyes locked for a moment, and in a split second, Wendy flicked his nose and the brim of his cap, as a child might do upon telling someone they "had a spot there, hang on". Dipper's cap tumbled off, and he opened his mouth to ask what was up, but never got a word out. While he was distracted, he suddenly found himself silenced in the most surprising, most insane, most beautiful way ever.

It took a few moments for his brain to kick into gear and react, having been immediately occupied by the sensation of fingers weaving into his newly exposed hair and the most perfect pair of lips ever pressing against his own. But once it got going, Dipper found that everything flowed naturally, more naturally than anything else he could remember. Their heads somehow tilted to the perfect angle to accept the other's closeness, as if acting of their own accord. Neither could quite remember whose tongue first darted out to trace the seam of the other's lips, but neither cared. Their only thoughts were in that moment, and the only thing they could feel, taste, sense in any way was each other.

When they pulled apart they found themselves entangled in a way which from an outsider's view might verge on comical; Dipper had been pulled (or maybe he had moved himself, maybe both) off of his own chair so that only his lower half still occupied it, his chest hovering over Wendy's reclining body and his forearms propping him up. Said woman's arms were wrapped around his middle, her legs dangling off of the lawn chair and very nearly kicking her partially finished beer can off the edge of the roof.

Dipper looked down to really take in for the first time what he would swear was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Wendy's hair, as long as ever, had spilled out over the chair like some sort of red waterfall, contrasting strikingly with the blue of the plastic. Her chest heaved slightly, and her pale freckled cheeks took on some colour as her mouth broke into a wide smile.

"I take it that wasn't a bad move on my part, then?" she asked in a lighthearted and teasing tone.

Dipper could feel the blush taking over his face, but he didn't care. He smiled back.

"I think that was my favourite move that you've ever made."