Well, I'm back again with another dose of trash for you all.
I don't really have much to say about this chapter really, except to apologize for any mistakes- I've had a pretty bad cold over the last few days, so my writing skills haven't exactly been the best. But I had motivation, so this chapter happened. If there are any grammar or spelling mistakes, or if anyone is out of character, I apologize in advance!
Also, I have to thank everyone who has read this so far! I think I say this in every chapter, but I really never expected so many of you to like this fanfiction- it really makes my day, reading all of your comments and seeing that people enjoy what I'm writing!

Chapter 6

The fact that mIndscape had mentioned that he had a brother remained with Dipper for the rest of that night. It was the only thing that the Youtuber had said thus far that would be any use to discovering his identity, and he couldn't just let that rest at the back of his mind. So naturally, the following day, Dipper probed a little deeper into the matter of mIndscape's brother, hoping to find enough information to discover the identity of his brother, then, eventually, the identity of mIndscape. Call him obsessed, but Dipper had found a lead, and he wasn't just going to give up on it.

'So, mIndscape, you mentioned last night that you had a brother?'

Dipper messaged the youtuber the following morning, trying to disguise his search into his identity as plain curiosity.

'YES, I DID MENTION THAT. HE'S PRETTY MUCH THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ME, BUT WE GET ALONG SURPRISINGLY WELL.'

The youtuber responded quickly, and Dipper sat and thought about how he should word his next reply, without seeming too invasive.

'What do you mean by opposite, exactly?'

Once again, the response was swift.

'MY FAMILY ACTUALLY APPROVES OF HIM, FOR ONE THING. HE'S STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY IN CALIFORNIA AT THE MOMENT, AND I'M HERE MAKING YOUTUBE VIDEOS, WHICH THEY DON'T ACTUALLY THINK OF AS A PROPER WAY TO SPEND MY TIME.'

Dipper now knew that the Youtuber's brother was in California, and was studying Psychology, which narrowed things down, but not by much. He needed more information, but he had to tread lightly. If he interrogated mIndscape too much, then the youtuber would most likely become suspicious, perhaps even to the point of losing his trust in Dipper entirely. Despite wanting desperately to discover mIndscape's identity, he wouldn't want to compromise the friendship he had created with the youtuber.

'Ah, I'm sorry to hear that your parents think that. It's interesting that your brother is studying in California- when I was choosing a course, that was one of my possible options. From what you've heard, is there anything I've been missing out on?'

Dipper hadn't actually considered California as an option of a place to study when he was picking out his writing course, but a small lie wouldn't exactly do too much damage.

'FROM WHAT HE'S TOLD ME, EVERYTHING IS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS ANY OTHER UNIVERSITY. APPARENTLY THE ONLY REMARKABLE THING IS THAT HIS ROOMMATE, GIDEON GLEEFUL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, IS SOME SORT OF PSYCHIC AND SOMETIMES DRAGS HIM OUT TO HELP ON HIS SHOWS. IT'S A BIT WEIRD AND DISTRACTING APPARENTLY. I GUESS THINGS ARE PRETTY BORING FOR HIM WHEN HE DOESN'T HAVE ME BLOWING STUFF UP IN THE MICROWAVE OR SETTING FIRE TO THE FURNITURE EVERY FEW DAYS.'

He hadn't been expecting that much information from the usually secretive youtuber, but Dipper wasn't going to complain. He had enough information to potentially get somewhere with his investigation into mIndscape's identity, and, as soon as he had finished his tours for the day, the brunet knew exactly what he would spend his evening doing.

'Hmm, it sounds pretty interesting if you ask me, although I'm not sure I'd like to have a psychic as my roommate. I'm going to have to head off and start on the first tour of the day- I'll talk to you later!'

Dipper stood up, reciting over a list of the places he was meant to be visiting on the tours that day, as a message popped up from mIndscape.

'GOOD LUCK ON THE NERD STUFF- I BET IT'S HARD SPENDING MOST OF THE DAY WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO TALK TO ME'

Laughing slightly to himself at the youtuber's comment, Dipper closed over his laptop lid, and made his way into the Mystery Shack Gift shop, flipping the sign on the door to proclaim the fact that it was open, then positioning himself behind the counter, waiting for people to arrive and buy tickets for the first tour, which would be running in an hours time. Things had changed a fair amount in the Mystery Shack since Grunkle Stan put Dipper in charge- for one thing, the prices of the merchandise had dropped significantly, and a lot of the more pointless things had been replaced by souvenirs from around Gravity Falls; rocks from the cliffs, crystals from the amber caves, even some small Pine Tree saplings in plastic pots that people could take home and plant. The first tourists arrived a few minutes later, and by the time 11am rolled around, there was a group of seven people waiting to be taken on the tour, a few of them telling Dipper that they had seen his videos, and that was how they had found the position of the Mystery Shack.

The tours Dipper ran had a set list of destinations, however the routes he took and the order he visited them in usually depended on the members of the groups. This group consisted of mainly adults, so Dipper resolved to take them around the more difficult route, which he wouldn't dream of taking children up, because having them fall down the steep path up to the cliffs really wouldn't be an ideal outcome. He lead the group around the Cliffs, Moss Caves, Amber Caves, the areas of the forest that the Five-Legged deer liked to visit, the clearing that was filled with fragments of crystal, protruding from the mossy ground, the other clearing that contained a plethora of rare fungi and grasses, and to finally the waterfall that spilled from the side of the floating cliffs and gave Gravity Falls its name. The tours usually lasted about an hour, and Dipper would wait another hour in between tours, taking the break time to go down to Starbucks and meet Bill, or to relax and eat some food, before taking the next group out. He ran about four tours each day and finishing up at 5, just as it started to get dark.

The tours of that day ran smoothly as usual, but Dipper found himself glad when he was able to shut up the Gift Shop for the night and head back into Grunkle Stan's old office, where his laptop was kept. Instead of opening up Youtube or Skype or the document that contained his writing, Dipper headed straight onto the internet, hoping that there would be something there about mIndscape's brother's Psychic roommate, Gideon Gleeful.

A quick internet search for 'Gideon Gleeful psychic' brought up the results Dipper desired- a link to a page of events being held in a small theater near a University in California, a proclaiming the weekly 'Tent of Telepathy' show, ran by acclaimed psychic Gideon Gleeful. Scrolling further through the events, the brunet struck gold, taking note of an extra name, alongside the psychic's own name. 'Featuring Guest, William Cipher.' If what mIndscape had told him was correct, then William may be the name of the anonymous youtuber's brother.

Another search for 'William Cipher' lead Dipper to the exact thing he had been looking for. A facebook page, belonging to Psychology major William Cipher, roommate of the Psychic Gideon Gleeful, and, as Dipper now knew, the brother of mIndscape.

A look through William's photo gallery presented Dipper with a lot of pictures of old books, science puns, and pictures of the owner of the facebook account himself. The man they presented had fluffy blonde hair, a slight bit lighter than mIndscape's, and seemed to dress in a similar fashion to his brother, all his pictures seeming to show him wearing light blue sweaters and shirts. His face made him look a lot younger than he probably was, his smile looked innocent and childish, and his cheeks dusted with freckles. A search of the account finally lead Dipper to what he wanted- an email address for the Psychology Student.

He sat for a little while longer after opening up his own email and typing in mIndscape's Brother's email address, wanting to phrase his message carefully. He wanted to make sure that he didn't sound too much like he was stalking mIndscape, although some people would describe what he was doing as just that. Eventually, he formulated what seemed to be a decent message, clarifying that he was a friend of mIndscape's, and that he was simply interested in talking to him, rather than seeking out information about the Youtuber. Dipper figured that if he could simply strike up a conversation with William, then he would eventually be able to find some things out about mIndscape, and clicked send, sitting back and closing his laptop over, deciding to head to bed early that night.

It was only the day after the Skype call with the brunet that Bill began to realise how much he had began to trust Dipper Pines. Not only had he managed to become one of his sole contacts outside of work and outside of the internet, the majority of his time in Starbucks being spent waiting for when Dipper would next come into the shop, but also, after only a few weeks of talking to him, he had developed enough trust to engage in a proper skype call, something that Bill hadn't even done with people he had been talking to online for a few years. There was just something about Dipper that seemed to call out that he should be trusted, and trustworthiness wasn't something that Bill saw in people easily. His parents had done a good job of affirming that, by acting as if they didn't know Bill had been recording Youtube videos, then, the moment he posted a video talking about his boyfriend at the time, getting onto his computer and deleting his channel, taking away his phone and cutting him off from society for at least a month. mIndscape had been Bill's chance to start again, the reason that he never showed his face in his videos partially out of fear that his parents would find a way to do a similar thing.

Bill's trust in Dipper was what could only be called uncharacteristic, but having someone other than Will to talk to was a thing he never thought he would find himself needing. Yet there he was, worried over the fact that Dipper hadn't responded to his messages that night. The brunet always responded quickly, so the fact that he hadn't sent anything back for over an hour had begun to concern Bill, and he found himself wondering whether Dipper was hurt, or was angry at him for some reason. Bill shook his head slightly at the thought. It seemed to him that he didn't just trust Dipper, but cared about him too.

So when a message came through onto his Skype, Bill found himself hurrying to answer it, deflating slightly when he saw that it was from Will, not Dipper. Not that he wasn't glad to hear from his brother- Will was the only family that actually seemed to hold any respect for him, however, at that point of time, the Youtuber would rather have clarification that Dipper was okay than engage in conversation with his younger, and admittedly smarter, brother.

'Hey, Bill, how are you?'

The youtuber didn't want to worry Will, however, and knew that his brother would instantly pick up on the fact that he was feeling off if he didn't respond- Will had an unnaturally good ability to read people's actions and emotions, and ever since he had started his Psychology course, that ability had only been enhanced.

'I'M PRETTY GOOD, HOW ABOUT YOU?'

Bill didn't even pick up on the fact that he was still typing in caps lock until Will picked up on it.

'Well, I was good, but now I'm worried. You never usually keep up the mIndscape act while you're talking to me, so it's clear that there's something on your mind.'

Will didn't even need to prompt Bill to tell him what was wrong to get him to do so.

'I'm just concerned about one of my friends, I guess. They usually respond to me really fast and it's been over an hour since I sent a message to them and they still haven't sent anything back. I think they might be hurt or avoiding me. They do a lot of travelling around and climbing cliffs and caving and all that sort of stuff, so it wouldn't be impossible for them to be trapped and injured somewhere.'

There was a pause from Will, before another message came through.

'It's the 'Journal number 4' Guy that you're talking about here right? I'm sorry to break it to you Bill, but I'm not sure that you should be trusting him as much as you do. I got an email from him about 20 minutes ago, talking about he was a friend of yours, and how he just wanted to have a talk with me. It was obvious that he was waiting for me to slip information on you. Are you sure he isn't just keeping up his 'friendship' with you for his own personal gain?'

As Bill read over Will's message, he wasn't sure over whether to be angry at Dipper for going behind his back like that, or angry at Will, for suggesting that he had poor taste in confidants. The Youtuber's hands hovered over his keyboard for a long while, his mind racing with possibilities of what he could respond with, however every one of them tangled into a mess of words, and he pushed away from his computer, leaving his recording room, slamming the door behind him.

Bill sat down on the floor, his back pressed against the pale coloured wall of his apartment, trying to sort his thoughts into order. Despite feeling slightly betrayed at how Dipper had been attempting to discover his identity for a while, he didn't feel as angry as he would expect himself to do. Instead, he found himself almost impressed, The fact that Dipper had been able to find Will from the simple information that he had given him causing Bill to admire the brunet's ability to uncover things. He also found himself unable to become angry at Will- his brother seemed to be acting out of concern, and evidently wasn't aware of how much Bill valued his friendship with Dipper, only thinking to look out for his older brother.

A loud sigh exhaling from his mouth, Bill rose back to his feet and headed back into the recording room, sitting back down at his computer and typing out a response to Will.

'It's fine, Will. Dipper is naturally curious- I should have expected him to try and find stuff out about me. Just tell him that you're not too happy with talking to people that you haven't met in real life before, and leave it at that.'

He thought a little bit longer, then added something else.

'And don't tell Dipper that I know about him trying to find out who I am. I have a feeling that would scare him away for good, and I wouldn't exactly want that. Believe it or not, but I think I might actually have gained his friendship.'

Cue Dipper's detective mode

Thankyou so much for reading, and again, I apologize if I made any mistakes!
And also, if any of you want to ask any questions about the fanfiction, or just want to talk to me about stuff (seriously, you can just come and start talking to me about random stuff and I will probably just go along with it) My tumblr url is 'ghost-noises', so feel free to send me messages and stuff on there!