#if you can spot gompers… uh cool

[millenniumquartz]

just another take on GF in future summers

please proceed

Time taken: 5hr 32min

[wendip-week]

What If: Love Potion

The annual Gravity Falls musical-event known as Woodstick had finally come. Tourists, young-and-old (but mostly young), repressed and/or rebellious, would flock to the Oregon town that wasn’t on any map to witness an all day-and-night concert of indie-bands in a hippie-themed get-together. One such band was led by the odd singer and aspiring matchmaker, Love God, who was busy spreading the love as he blew into town.

As Mabel Pines had discovered, the Cupid-motif wasn’t for show; he was a real-life cherub with a specially-made love-potion for greasing the wheels on promising-matches. Ignoring his warning that such a substance isn’t to be used by reckless pre-teens, Mabel Pines stole (or traded, if she were asked) his pink, powdery potion to salvage her attempt to hook up the recently-heartbroken Robbie Valentino and Wendy’s best friend Tambry, whose obsession with her phone seemed to interfere with her social-life in general.

Now it seemed that those two’s problems, and the ones they indirectly caused for the teen-gang they were part of, were over and done with. They were suddenly head-over-heels and apparently had no problems making a public show of their affection. Needless to say, Mabel was pleased with herself.

Not too long after the new couple stepped out of Greasy’s Diner, another familiar boy and girl appeared. The teenage-girl was sporting a hippie-ish look of short-shorts, a fuzzy crop-top, a bandana, and a headband. The preteen boy, on the other hand, was sporting a sleeveless jacket over a v-neck shirt (which Mabel thought was not a good look for him), with a pair of sunglasses. They were Dipper Pines and Wendy Corduroy, Mabel’s brother and friend, respectively. Mabel was still hiding behind the counter as the two approached.

“Hey, Susan,” Wendy greeted one of the diner’s senior-waitresses.

“Well hello, Wendy!” replied Lazy Susan, the waitress with the paralyzed eyelid. “My, don’t you two look snazzy!”

“Thanks,” said Dipper. “We’re going to Woodstick later.”

“How nice! So, what can I get you?”

“Can we get two large shakes to go, please?” Wendy asked. “Usual for us.”

“A chocolate-strawberry and a chocolate peanut-butter. Coming right up.” Susan headed towards the kitchen, ignoring one of the waitresses making out with a male-customer on the other side of the counter.

“Man, this is gonna be sick!” shouted Wendy.

“I know, right?” Dipper said with a grin. He looked over at the small crowd on the other side of the restaurant. “Hey, what’s that?”

Wendy turned her eyes in that direction. “Oh, cool. Looks like Love God made it here.”

“Huh,” Dipper thought out loud. “Looks kind of like Thompson, except louder and with blonde hair.”

Wendy laughed. “Oh-ho! You’re totally right! I’m so gonna remember that one!”

Dipper laughed along with her. It was moments like these that made him really admire her, even if she didn’t feel the same way… Mabel, who was watching them, thought the exchange was cute in an awkward way.

As they chatted, they didn’t notice another new couple spinning across the diner’s floor, only to fall on top of a table where a certain helping of chili-cheese fries lay almost untouched. The carton went flying… only to hit Dipper square in the face, leaving it a mess.

Wendy chuckled at her pal. “Dude, I guess lunch is on you…? Eh, that was lame. Mind if I…?” Wendy reached over and grabbed a few fries off of Dipper’s face before shoving them in her mouth. “Mmmm… Not as warm as I like, but still good.” She smiled at Dipper, only for her face to turn to mild-shock, her eyes widening and taking on a slight pinkish-tint for a moment.

Dipper wiped some of the food off of his face, licking some of it off his mouth. “You’re right about tha- Whoa!” Dipper’s eyes, too, had become like Wendy’s as he got a good look at the girl. He had always thought she was good-looking, but right now there was just something about her… “Uh, sorry if this sounds weird, but did you get a little more attractive all of a sudden?” he asked.

Wendy blushed. “Don’t know, but I’m glad that you think so. I will say this: you look really good in that v-neck.”

“Thanks, Wendy.” Dipper, too, was red in the face with that compliment.

They had been staring at each other for about half-a-minute when Lazy Susan returned with their milkshakes and a towel. They almost hadn’t noticed.

“Thanks, Susan.” Dipper wiped his faced with the damp cloth.

“No problem, dear. Anyway, have these shakes on the house. That little stunt with the fries didn’t need to happen.”

“Wow! Even bigger-thanks,” Wendy said. “Come on, Handsome. Let’s go to Woodstick.”

“Right now?” Dipper asked. “Shouldn’t we meet the guys first?”

“Nah! They won’t mind… probably. Let’s go.” She smiled warmly at the boy she wanted to squeeze like a stuffed-animal.

Well, how could Dipper say no to that face, especially as she batted her eyelashes? Dipper offered his arm, which she gladly took, and the new couple walked out of Greasy’s Diner (right after grabbing their shakes, of course).

Mabel almost couldn’t believe what she had witnessed. And honestly, she was beside herself with joy! She had mildly pro DipperxWendy when her brother first started crushing on the tall redhead and had offered encouragement or assistance here-and-there to help. Of course, her actions had also put the two of them in danger days ago, and inadvertently led to Dipper getting let down gently. This was an unexpected, but not unwelcome, turn of events. She had just delivered on two happy couples in a matter of minutes (and she thought she had outdone herself with Waddles and Gompers).

“Another match made!” Mabel shouted. “Yay, Domino-Effect!”

  //

  Well, Mabel might have been happy with these new developments. That didn’t mean everyone else necessarily agreed. Mabel found that out the hard way. She had just met Nate, Lee, and Thompson in the latter’s garage to let them know they could get going and told them the news about Robbie and Tambry. Their reactions were not what she had been expecting.

“He knew I liked her!” Nate shouted in dismay.

Lee, looking betrayed, confronted his best friend. “You told Robbie but not me?! Not cool!” He slapped Nate upside the head.

“You always make fun of my crushes!” Nate replied angrily.

“Guys! Come on!” Mabel said. “Can’t you just be happy for them? I haven’t even gotten to the other good news!”

“What?” Thompson reluctantly asked.

“My brother and Wendy just got together, too!”

Suddenly, Nate and Lee stopped bickering, looking at Mabel with interest.

“Dr. Funtimes is on a date… with Wendy… at Woodstick?” Lee asked.

“Yep!” Mabel grinned, pulling out a smartphone. “Check out Tambry’s blog. Apparently, both couples are official!”

For a moment everyone was silent. Then panic erupted.

“Oh, crud!” cried Nate.

“This is bad!” Lee shouted.

“What?! What’s going on?!” Mabel asked, now rather afraid.

“Manly Dan follows Tambry on Tweezer! That’s the problem!” Lee yelled.

“If he sees this, he’s going after your brother and his daughter. And he’ll tear apart anything and anyone that gets in his way,” Nate added. He looked at Lee. “Dude; my basement! Now! It’s got a low-ceiling. He’ll never be able to get to us.”

Lee nodded. “Got it. Come on, Thompson!”

“But guys, what about Woodstick?” the group’s punching-bag tried to reason. “I already bought tic-Whoa!” His two friends yanked him by the shirt and hurried out of his garage, leaving a freaked-out Mabel all by herself.

“Oh no…” she thought.

  //

  Dipper and Wendy stood in line for Woodstick for about an hour, but to them, it might as well have been five minutes. They were together, after all. And there was no shortage of cutesy, cliché acts that they could do to pass the time (Wendy was especially fond of Dipper walking his fingers up and down her arm). Once they got inside, they almost immediately had their lips locked and didn’t want to separate. They were like that even approaching one of the food trucks. Fortunately, the man taking their order could still make out the word “churro” amongst the face-sucking. They were also like that eating said churro.

“Oh, Dipper!” Wendy said between smooches. “I so regret ever rejecting you after the Bunker-Incident…! You’re nothing like any of the other guys I’ve dated!”

“Mmm… Wendy!” Dipper replied passionately. “There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than you! I’d even trade these adventures in Gravity Falls!”

“Dipper!”

“Wendy!”

Robbie and Tambry, who had been nearby, heard everything.

Robbie let out a low-whistle. “Smooth. Corny, but smooth.”

Tambry nodded. “Come on. Let’s leave them to their business. We’ve got selfies to take and people to make uncomfortable with our own overt-affection.”

“Sounds like a plan, babe.”

Robbie and Tambry blissfully walked off to be alone together. Mabel stuck her head out of a bush. She had no time to admire her handywork. She had to save Dipper and Wendy before they get killed. She pulled out a flask with a spray-attachment containing a black fluid. This was an anti-love potion: another something she had just procured from Love God. It would supposedly break the spell she had inadvertently put over those two.

“Just need a clear shot…” she whispered.

She didn’t get a chance. At that instance, she and everyone within a hundred feet of her, heard thunderous stomping and yelling, putting a number of attendees in a panic. Even Dipper and Wendy looked afraid as what could only be described as a tank of a man hailing from a long line of lumberjacks charged into the area in the direction of the couple Mabel was targeting.

“Oh, man! I’m too late…!” Mabel cried out.

Wendy’s father immediately spotted Dipper and Wendy and rushed over to them, and he looked ticked! People around him were smart enough to get out of his way.

“YOU TWO!!!” he shouted upon reaching them.

“Sir, please!” said a security guard who had been following at a reasonable distance. “You need to have a ticket to enter!” Dan didn’t even look at the man. He just picked him by the collar and threw him. He probably landed somewhere in the crowd surrounding the main stage.

The middle-aged giant growled and glared down at the two youths whom he towered over. Even Wendy, who was rather rebellious most of the time, was afraid. She didn’t see this side of father very often, and she tried hard not to.

“M-Mr. Corduroy-” Dipper tried to say.

“SHUT UP! I HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU!”

Wendy spoke up. “Come on, Dad! Don’t-!”

The man turned to his daughter. “WENDY, GO TO THE TRUCK!”

“But Dad-”

“I SAID GO TO THE TRUCK!” he shouted.

Wendy, looking completely dejected, reluctantly complied. “Yes, Dad…” She gave a sorry-look to her new-boyfriend before slowly walking out the gate.

“AND YOU, BOY!” Dan picked up Dipper by the arm (as there wasn’t much of a collar on Dipper’s shirt to grab) and brought him to eye-level. “YOU AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE A SERIOUS TALK!” Still holding onto the twelve-year-old, he marched off to find some place relatively-private.

A terrified-Mabel was now going over what she should do now. Things were really starting to escalate.

The girl snapped her fingers. “New plan: damage-control! First, I gotta find Wendy in the parking lot, spray her a little, then find Dipper. Hopefully, Manly Dan will be done with him. I’ll get Dipper and outside of a little trauma, it’ll be like none of this ever happened!”

“Here’s another one: you give me back that anti-love potion and face the consequences,” said a voice from behind Mabel.

Mabel turned to see the sour expression of Love God looming over her. “Uh, hi again, Love God…”

“Save it!” he said firmly. “You’re the type who never learns, aren’t you?”

“No! I mean yes! I mean…! Look, it was an accident, okay? Some of the love-potion got on some people who weren’t supposed to be affected, but maybe were meant for each other… It was all so great, but then got bad real fast and I-!”

“-Am about to make it worse by trying a quick-fix! Am I right?” Mabel looked shocked. Her lip started to quiver as she realized that she couldn’t do anything to fix things.

Love God pinched the bridge of his nose. Love comes in many forms, and compassion is just one of them. As such, he was kind of a sucker for people in trouble. “Listen: if something is meant to be, sometimes it’ll work itself out, alright? Heck, you could say my marriage was a happy-accident.”

“You’re married?” Mabel asked.

“Don’t look so surprised, kid,” Love God muttered. He pulled out a flask with yellowish-orange substance. “Now, I believe I mentioned consequences…”

  //

  A depressed-Wendy stood by her father’s pick-up truck. This was supposed to be a perfect day: first, Woodstick had finally come, so she had been excited about that. Then, all of a sudden, she got the unexpected-bonus of finding her “Mr. Right”; and in the form of her best guy-friend, no less. “Darn it, Dad!” she thought. “As if you don’t make things hard enough at home! Now, I’m single again and I’m not cool with it!”

She looked out in the direction of the festivities (which was a way’s away). She was waiting for her Manly Dan to return and either berate her or take her home. Maybe both, depending on the mood he was in. The man was somewhat old-fashioned and was often critical of who Wendy dated. Typically, she tried to keep it on the downlow. The only reason she got away with dating Robbie was because she had known him since they were kids (and probably because he knew she’d try to dump him before anything too serious had happened).

After a while, she saw a familiar figure in the distance, but it was not who she was expecting. Dipper was walking in her direction, which shocked Wendy quite a bit. She’d have thought he’d have either taken off or gotten walloped. As the young-adventurer approached, Wendy rushed over to meet him.

“Dipper! What happened? Are you okay?” she cried out.

“I think so,” he replied, looking somewhat shocked himself.

“What did my dad do to you? I heard him shout as I left?”

Dipper looked a little nervous. “He, uh, grabbed me, took me to the side, and laid down the law…”

“Oh no…” Wendy said, worried. “Did he, you know, end it? I don’t want this to end, Dipper!”

“Actually, Wendy, he gave me permission to date you,” he said, looking like he almost didn’t believe it.

Wendy looked confused. “What? But that doesn’t sound like him.”

“Well, there are some conditions, though. A lot of them if you don’t mind my saying…”

Wendy looked nonplussed. “Okay, that sounds a little more like him.”

“See, I guess he was a little move when I told him how I feel about you. He said it reminded him of brief time as a wimp, before he started liking your, uh, mom.”

“Mom…” Wendy thought somberly. She sighed. “Go on…”

“So, these conditions… Doors open at all times for starters… No going out together without permission. No going out where no adults are present… No Lookout Point.” Dipper looked nervous as he was saying all of this.

“What?!” Wendy exclaimed. “That sucks!”

“It gets better,” Dipper said. “I have to get a gym-membership. Your dad’s gonna coach me…”

Wendy cringed. “Ooohhh!!! I don’t envy you there.”

“Tell me about it… You know, there’s a whole list of this stuff. I’ve got it written down.” Dipper reached into his pocket and unfolded a rather long piece of paper with an extensive amount of written-conditions.

Wendy looked at what had all been written. “’Dining with my family once a week…’ Ouch. ‘Six inches apart unless you’re displaying affection’?”

“And I gotta do it right.”

“Dang. ‘Showering every day’? Okay, that I can sort of live with. No offense,” she told her dork.

Dipper nodded. “None taken.”

“And you’re on call whenever my dad needs an extra hand logging?”

“Pretty much. Oh, I’m also apparently not allowed to kiss you without his pre-written permission.”

“Drat! And that’s not even half of it, either.”

“Pretty much…” Dipper said, shrugging.

“Dude, this is a lot to ask for. I know I’m willing, but are you sure you want to go through this? I know I’m not really that awesome…”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I’m going to go through it all. To me, you’re more than worth it.”

“Oh, Dipper!” Wendy pulled the boy she fallen in love with tight. He returned the sentiment for a moment, but then reluctantly pushed her away.

“Boundaries, remember?” he said awkwardly.

“Right…” she replied, clearly not too happy about this arrangement. “So, you want to go back to Woodstick?”

“Sure!” Dipper replied enthusiastically. “Oh, and FYI, your dad says we’re allowed one kiss here.”

Wendy gave him a small-smile. “Well, guess we better make it count. We just gotta choose the right moment.”

And so, the young couple enjoyed their date at Woodstick together, being careful not to do anything to provoke Manly Dan (who was still around). They had some nice festival-food. They danced to some of the catchier songs on stage. They laughed at some of the antics of some of the more serious attendees. And when Stan Pines’ malformed, blazing hot-air balloon crashed in the middle of the festivities, the two of them decided that was a perfect time to have that kiss.

Meanwhile, as people gawked at the flaming balloon being put out by the fire-department, Mabel, clad in a cowboy hat and boots, sang a fun country-tune with the local minstrel, Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, briefly entertaining them and the firefighters as the flames went out.

Of course, most everyone took off as soon as they saw Stan approach…

  //

  Ten years later, at one of Gravity Falls’ fancy restaurants full of dinner, dancing, and live-music, a married-couple were dancing closely to the nice, slow, jazzy beat. One was a tall, fetching redhead in a shimmering, sleeveless gown. The other was a tall, muscular man in a custom-made tuxedo that probably wouldn’t tear when he flexed. It was easy to tell how blissfully enamored they both were.

“Oh, Mason!” the woman exclaimed. “I’m so glad we decided to stay together that summer!” Her husband gently dipped her low. “You’re so devoted. Show me that list of conditions again!”

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, worn out slice of paper with faded-writing. His wife swooned in response.

“You’re never going to let me live that old fantasy down, are you?” he said with a chuckle.

“Not a chance, Mister!” Wendy smiled as he pulled her back to eye-level. “Not a chance.”