Okay, so I know I'm usually not very happy with my writing, but I'm really disappointed about how this one turned out. I kind of hit a bit of an inspiration block while I was writing it, and I kind of feel like everyone is kind of out of character, but despite that, I hope you enjoy reading it! Also, I'm sorry for the perspective switch half way through the chapter- I needed to throw in a bit of Bill's responses to something, so I had to throw in a quick change, but I indicated it with dashes, so hopefully it doesn't throw you off too much. Thankyou so much to everyone who has read this so far, and I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling issues.
Chapter Five
It was a little over two weeks after mIndscape started talking to him through the comments of his videos when the popular Youtuber offered to share his Skype contact details with Dipper. The two of them had developed a sense of comfort when it came to talking to each other- Dipper was a lot less intimidated by mIndscape, and mIndscape seemed a lot more trusting when it came to talking about himself; responding with actual emotions when Dipper asked him how he was feeling, instead of saying that he was 'FEELING VERY REFRIGERATOR' or a similar phrase, but with varying other household objects.
However, someone had, naturally, spotted his and mIndscape's conversations, and had reported it to the rest of the Masked Youtuber's fanbase, resulting not only in an influx of views to his videos, but also a lot of people questioning him stuff about the Youtuber that he didn't even know himself. People evidently expected Dipper to suddenly know everything about mIndscape just because he'd had a few conversations with him.
So when mIndscape sent Dipper a message with his Skype details enclosed, Dipper was more than glad. mIndscape accepted his contact request almost immediately, typing out a message to him in what seemed to be no time at all.
'I SAW SOME PEOPLE INTERROGATING YOU IN THE COMMENTS SECTION THERE- THEY'LL PROBABLY FORGET ABOUT IT IN A WHILE, BUT I THINK IT'D BE BEST IF WE DIDN'T MESSAGE EACH OTHER PUBLICALLY FOR A WHILE' Dipper noted how the Youtuber still kept up his caps-lock messaging habits, even privately.
'Yeah, hopefully they'll die down in a little while. I don't know how you even manage having people firing questions like that at you all the time on every video. It's pretty exhausting. Plus at least now we can talk properly without a group of people hanging onto our every word.'
In all honesty, Dipper felt a little guilty. The first thing that came to his mind when mIndscape offered to talk over Skype was that it would be the perfect chance for him to try and figure out exactly who was sitting behind the triangular mask. Checking the clock at the bottom of his computer, Dipper hastily typed out an apology to mIndscape as he realised that it was approaching 2pm.
'One second, I'll be back in a little while- I promised someone I'd meet them in Starbucks in a few minutes and I'm going to be late if I don't head off now.'
Jumping to his feet as he realised that he was probably going to be late meeting Bill, Dipper swung his bag over his shoulder, pulling out a sheet of paper and scribbling his response to the blonde's earlier message of 'So, Pine Tree, how are you today?' onto it as he walked quickly out of the Mystery Shack and along the path that would lead him towards the main town area.
Bill had given Pine Tree his Skype details for two reasons. One was that he felt pity for the awkward Brunet, who was practically being harassed by some of the slightly more obsessed members of the mIndscape fanbase, demanding to know some pretty personal stuff. And secondly, so that he could be in contact with Pine Tree through the whole day- using Skype on his phone was a lot easier than responding to Youtube comments, so he could use it pretty much all day, plus there were the face-to-face meetings that they had each day- a scheduled one at 2pm on every day that Bill was working at Starbucks, and then often a few more times over the course of the day, when Pine Tree had time to take breaks from the Tours he ran.
It was amusing seeing Pine Tree talking to him in Starbucks and him as mIndscape as completely different people. He found it endearing, when the brunet brought up Bill the barista in their conversations, however, of course he couldn't tell him that. The only person who knew mIndscape's actual identity was his brother Will, and he intended to keep things that way.
Bill pocketed his phone as Pine Tree sent the message about heading along to Starbucks, knowing that he'd be there in a few minutes, and began to prepare the brunet's drink of choice, so that it'd be the right temperature for him to drink as soon as he got to the shop. The door to the coffee shop swung open a few minutes later, and Bill looked up to see Pine Tree walking in, his hair ruffled even more than usual, glasses skewiff on his face, breathing heavily, indicating that he had probably ran at least some of the the way to the shop. Bill grinned widely as the brunet approached, producing a slightly crumpled note from his pocket as he walked, and opened up the note as it was slid across the counter towards him, his eyes skimming over the neat handwriting upon it.
'I'm doing very well today- the tours are getting a lot of positive attention, and my writing is coming together nicely, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic about stuff. How about you?'
Bill read over the response as Pine Tree passed the payment for his drink across the counter too, and found himself smiling involuntarily at the news that the brunet was doing well. He was well aware of how insecure and pessimistic the man- who was now standing patiently at the side of the shop waiting for his drink- could be, but he wasn't exactly expecting to feel as relieved as he found himself being to know that Pine Tree was okay. Bill chuckled quietly to himself as he made the observation that he seemed to have grown attached to the aspiring writer.
'Good, Good. I'm the same as always. Nothing much changes in this job you know.' He penned down his response onto the cup, pausing, then added a little more. 'Although things have become a little less dull now that you come here so often. I'm guessing you just can't get enough of me~' With that, Bill tucked his sharpie back into his pocket, and slid the drink over to Pine Tree, a smirk plastered across his face.
Over the next few days, talking to mIndscape over Skype became a pretty major distraction for Dipper. Every night after he had wrapped up the last tour, and had resolved to settle down and write out the script for his next video, or another chapter of his book, he would get a few minutes of writing done, then a notification would pop through, and he would find himself typing out responses to mIndscape's admittedly bizarre messages until almost midnight, by which time he would be too tired to focus on whatever he was doing prior to the conversation.
The night that marked his four week anniversary of being back in Gravity Falls was no different. Dipper managed to type out about 5 words, before his computer bleeped at him, the noise echoing around the quiet, still walls of Stan's office. Switching over onto Skype, Dipper read the message that had just been sent through.
'HEY DIPPER, DO YOU WANT TO DO A PROPER SKYPE CALL? I FEEL LIKE TALKING TO SOMEONE RATHER THAN JUST TYPING STUFF.'
There was a short pause, before another message came through.
'I WON'T BE SHOWING MY FACE, THOUGH, AND I WON'T BE USING MY ACTUAL VOICE, JUST A VOICE CHANGER THING THAT I BOUGHT, SO DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP'
Dipper had to admit that he was slightly disappointed that he wouldn't at least get to hear mIndscape's voice, but he wasn't really surprised. Despite the fact that the youtuber seemed to feel relatively comfortable around the brunet, Dipper reminded himself that mIndscape had only been talking to him properly for about 3 weeks, so the anonymous youtuber was undoubtedly going to still be wary around him.
'That's perfectly fine- having a proper skype call sounds like a good idea, I'm also lacking a bit when it comes to conversations with people- all I've been talking about are cliffs or weird deer lately.'
He typed out his response, then waited, jumping slightly as the incoming call tone sounded. Clicking to accept it, Dipper ran his hands through his hair, and smiled as the webcam turned on, revealing his own face in the bottom of the screen, and a larger image of an empty chair and the familiar yellow walls that were present in the background of all of mIndscape's. mIndscape himself, however, was nowhere to be seen.
"You there, mIndscape?" Dipper called out, his voice taking on a puzzled intonation. As a response, a hand stuck up from around the edge of the desk that the camera sat on, the wrist decorated with a large amount of golden bracelets that clinked together as the arm waved.
"I'm down here!" A voice rang out of Dipper's laptop speaker, distorted by what sounded like a cheap joke-shop voice changer. "I can't be bothered to wear my mask, so I'm hiding under the desk. I have the computer screen down here with me, so I can see you, but I left the webcam up on the desk so you can't see me." mIndscape stuck up another hand, which was also lined with a clump of gold bracelets, and waved them cheerily, before retracting them back underneath the desk. "Greetings, human with whom I have decided to share my presence!" Even the youtuber's voice was as if it was taking on the form of verbal caps lock, clear, yet unnecessarily loud. Dipper raised his hand and gave a small wave, reaching around to scratch the back of his neck, feeling slightly unnerved by the fact that he was unable to see mIndscape's reactions to what he was saying, yet the youtuber could see everything that he was doing.
"Aww you're so adorable and awkward! You look so uncomfortable- I'm not going to slice your face open; or at least not yet anyway." Dipper frowned at the distorted comment that came from under the desk.
"I'm not adorable. I'm just not used to talking to people I've never met in real life over the internet." A loud laugh came through the speaker's of the brunet's computer as soon as he finished speaking.
"Ha, there's no point in denying it! You're adorable and awkward and everyone probably knows it!" Dipper felt colour flush involuntarily to his face, and he sighed loudly, pulling his hat down over his face to try and avoid mIndscape's mocking comments. Suddenly, another loud noise started playing through his computer, and Dipper placed his hat back onto his head, noticing that another call was coming in from Mabel.
"Hey, mIndscape, my sister is calling me- would it be okay if I added her into this conversation?" Dipper was reluctant to introduce Mabel into a Skype call when one of her favourite youtubers happened to be one of the participants, knowing that it wouldn't exactly do much to keep her calm. However at the same time, he didn't want to hang up on mIndscape, or ignore Mabel, so his only option seemed to be to offer to add her into the call.
"Yeah, go ahead. She can't be any worse than you, and it's not like she can see me, so I can't see it doing any harm. Plus I'm sure she has plenty of embarrassing stories about you!" Dipper was beginning to regret the preposition already.
"Okay, one second- I'll add her in." Dipper sent a quick message to Mabel, warning her that mIndscape would also be in the chat, then clicked the option to add her into the call. There was a pause, a moment of silence between the two original members of the conversation as they waited for Mabel to pick up the call, then were greeted by a loud shout from the excited brunette who appeared on the screen, her hair dip-dyed pink now, the yellow streaks from last time Dipper had talked with her long gone from her hair. A loud incoherent jumble of words and screeching exploded through Dipper's laptop as Mabel remembered that mIndscape was also in the conversation and could see her.
"OHMYGODMINDSCAPEHELLO!" Dipper flinched as there was an exclamation of surprise from mIndscape's end of the call, followed by a loud thud, and the view of the webcam toppling off the desk and falling onto the floor, revealing a shot of mIndscape's foot and leg, before a hand, the nails painted with black glittery nail varnish, reached over and plucked up the camera up, positioning it back on the table. mIndscape's voice floated up from underneath the desk again after the camera was back in position.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting you to be that loud. I don't know what I've damaged more; my head or the bottom of the desk." Mabel looked sheepishly into her own camera.
"Sorry- I just got a little excited!" mIndscape let out a quiet chuckle into the voice changer.
"I can tell. it's all good though- I'm the one who thought sitting under the desk would be a good idea. One second actually." There was a sound of movement from mIndscape's end of the call, and after a few seconds, the youtuber jumped into full view, the triangle mask secured over his face once more, what seemed to be the full monitor screen of his computer in his arms as he repositioned it in its usual place on top of the desk. The youtuber was wearing an obnoxiously yellow shirt, rolled up to his elbows and accompanied by a black bow tie, the gold bracelets on his arms shifting and clicking together as he made a jazz-hands motion after depositing the screen onto the desk. He raised the voice changer, a cheap-looking, megaphone shaped object to his face before he continued speaking.
"Okay, sitting under desks is definitely not a good idea. I might not want to get my nose squashed by the mask, but at least I don't risk brain damage now! So where were we before I almost broke my own skull?" The youtuber put the voice changer down and clapped his hands together, his bracelets rattling together violently.
"mIndscape, this is my sister, Mabel." Dipper introduced Mabel to the masked youtuber. Mabel, in turn, waved vigorously towards mIndscape, her pink-tipped hair bouncing around her shoulders, which were clad in a fluffy maroon sweater. "What was it that you wanted to call me about anyway Mabes?"
"Oh, nothing really, DipDop! I just felt like calling you!" The bubbly female responded, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "When was I required to have a reason to call you anyway, DipDop?" mIndscape nodded in response to Mabel's comment.
"Yeah, DipDop- since when did siblings have to have an excuse to call each other? I call my brother up to annoy him all the time." Dipper wasn't sure whether he should be interested in the mention that mIndscape had a brother, or annoyed that the Youtuber had instantly adopted one of his sister's nicknames for him.
"Exactly- mIndscape knows what he's talking about." A wicked smirk spread onto Mabel's face. "Plus you're a bit of a hypocrite, DipDop, because I seem to remember that you were the one who insisted on calling me at least 4 times a day when you first went to University." Dipper heard mIndscape let out a snort of laughter as the brunette recounted her memories of what was probably one of Dipper's less dignified moments. In response, he sunk back further into his chair, frowning at the webcam. "Oh, Oh, and I'm assuming DipDop didn't tell you about that time he got his head stuck in a lampshade when he was trying to chase a moth out of his room?" Dipper sunk even further into his chair, knowing how much ammunition Mabel was giving Youtuber, and how he would probably hear nothing but lamp jokes for at least a week.
He was beginning to regret allowing Mabel anywhere near mIndscape.
Yeah, this chapter was a little dull, but I hope that you enjoyed reading the trash anyway!