Okay, I'm so sorry for not updating in ages- but I'm afraid that updates might be a little slow for a while after this one. I've hit a low point when it comes to motivation, and I've been unable to motivate myself to write, and when I do try to write, it's fairly sloppy, and I don't want to subject you to half-assed chapters, so I'm probably going to take a break from writing, and come back when I get my motivation back! Again, I'm so so sorry, but I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Eight

The same thing happened to Dipper later on in the day too.

At first he thought it might have been a mistake, that Bill had been tired, and had simply forgotten to write down his note on the cup, that it was all just a one-off scenario, that he would go back into Starbucks later and Bill would be there with a response, just as usual. However, those thoughts didn't stop him from feeling distracted through the next tour he ran, his mind constantly drifting off subject, the brunet having to shake his head to physically snap it back into order. It didn't stop the feeling of panic rising in his chest as he penned down another note for the barista, expressing his concern for the blonde, and headed out of the Mystery Shack towards the main street, the note grasped tighter in his hand than usual, the paper crushed in his grip.

As he approached the door to Starbucks, and caught sight of Bill through the window, he inhaled a breath that guttered slightly in his throat and pushed his way into the shop, heading over to the counter with small steps. He watched Bill's movements as he walked, a slight flash of what seemed to be panic sparking across the blonde's gaze, but it was silenced swiftly enough for Dipper to believe that he had imagined it. Instead, all that he was greeted with was blank golden brown eyes, and a dull expression that looked out of place on the blonde's face, which he was used to seeing decorated with a smirk or grin of some description.

The brunet hesitantly slid the note across the counter, and Bill looked down at it. Dipper could have sworn that he saw the flash of panic cross the barista's eyes again, but once again, it was gone too soon for him to tell. All that happened was that Bill looked down at the note, and turned away towards the coffee machines again without even touching it. Bill might as well have punched the brunet in the face, because that was what it felt like. He watched as the blonde made the drink in silence, his movements harsh and almost angry. Dipper felt a jolt of betrayal stab through him, as he knew that Bill not responding to his note wasn't an accident, but a deliberate act. He cleared his throat, hoping to catch Bill's attention, and called out to him from across the counter, trying to force the tremor from his voice as much as possible.

"It's fine actually. I don't want a drink any more." With those words, Dipper picked up his note off the counter, and turned and walked out of the shop, his gaze trained on the ground, the spark of anger that fueled him refusing him the ability to turn his head and look back at Bill's reaction.

The anger faded rapidly as he walked in long strides back to the Mystery Shack, giving way to a worry that gnawed at the back of his mind and snapped at his heels, causing his fast walking pace to falter and stop. Instead of blaming the barista, he found all the blame wheeling around and falling back onto himself. He found himself descending into a state of panic, thoughts whirling around his head as he walked slowly now. The brunet curled his arms around his own body protectively as the possibility that he had done something to force Bill away from him entered his mind, the possibility that this whole thing was his fault, that the barista wanted to stay away from him because of something that he'd said, something that he'd done, something that had happened to inspire some sort of hate within the blonde.

Dipper wondered with a start whether Bill had figured out how he felt about him, and that was why he was avoiding him. Dipper shrunk further into his own arms at that thought, and he forced himself to speed up his pace, wanting to get back to the Mystery Shack as fast as possible, his nails digging into the tattooed skin of his arms, fingers pressing up the lock and key patterns that curled up from his hands to his shoulders, then met together and tangled into a small eye shape at the back of his neck.

As soon as he reached the door to the shack, he checked the clock on the wall, taking note that he had twenty minutes before the next tour, and headed up the stairs of the Mystery Shack, walking up to the bedroom that him and Mabel had shared over the summers that they had spent in Gravity Falls together. He closed the door to the room behind him and flopped down onto the floor, wedging himself into the corner of the room that he had spent many an hour in, between a set of draws and the wall, and pressing his head up against the solid surface of the chest of draws. Dipper sat there in silence for at least ten minutes, trying to file his thoughts back into order, eyes closed, trying to swim his way through the confusion that chanted in his mind. He then stood up, exhaled deeply, straightened his hat on his head, and headed back down the stairs to meet the next group.

The next day, Dipper found himself instinctively heading out of the Mystery Shack to go down to Starbucks again, and he walked almost the whole way into the shop, his legs carrying him down the familiar paths, before he found himself standing in front of the door, where he remembered the events of the previous day, the dull look in Bill's eyes, the way he had turned his back on him and treated him as if he was just another customer. He caught sight of Bill in the shop, his eyes looking up briefly to meet his, before he turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction, his breath catching in his throat as he reminded himself that whatever he had done, it had been enough to make Bill uncomfortable around him.

Clenching his fists by his sides, he walked briskly back to the Mystery Shack.

For the next few days, Dipper had only left the shack to run tours and to buy food. He stayed as far away from the Starbucks as he possibly could, going near it only inspiring the spark of panic that he had done something wrong, that he had done something to anger or upset the practically perfect barista that worked there. His writing inspiration had hit rock bottom, and it was the same for his motivation to make videos. He had tried to talk to mIndscape, hoping that he could get some inspiration, however the Youtuber only responded in short, noncommittal phrases, then, after a few days, stopped responding all together, something which left Dipper with nobody but Mabel to talk to. His sister, however, was busy in classes for the majority of the day, which left the brunet with nothing to do but sit in Grunkle Stan's old office silently, the thoughts of all the things he might have done to anger or upset Bill piling up in his mind.

Dipper spent six days in that state before Mabel eventually decided to intervene.

The skype calling tone rang through his laptop, snapping out of the daze that he had fallen into, staring blankly at the slowly blinking cursor that waited on his word document for him to type his next word, his mind being able to conjure up no more than a sentence in the hour he'd been sitting at the desk. Clicking to accept the call, the brunet found himself greeted by Mabel's concerned features. Her hair was dyed fully pastel violet now, and was tied up in a small ponytail behind her head, the pink glasses seeming too large for her face in a way that would have been comedic on anyone other than Mabel now that her hair was out of the way.

"DipDop, you need to go out and do something fun. You've been holed up inside for too long and it isn't healthy." Dipper shrugged slightly.

"Well, it's not like there's much else I can do. I don't really have anything better to do than this." Mabel frowned at his response, the expression seeming out of place on her features.

"Why don't you go and talk to that barista guy? Bill wasn't it?" Dipper sighed loudly, rubbing his eyes with his hands.

"No, Mabel, I fucked everything up with him, okay? I think I've done something wrong, because he started avoiding me, so I stopped going along to the Starbucks that he works at because I just panic every time I get to the door. He's the whole reason I've ended up like this." as he spoke, the brunet gestured frustratedly with his hands, trying to get his point across to Mabel.

"DipDop, you need to go and talk to him. I'm pretty sure that holing yourself in your office thing isn't actually going to help anything, even if you have done something to upset him. What will help though, is going along to Starbucks tomorrow morning, and telling him that you're sorry for whatever you did. If you just sit there, he's going to start thinking that he's done something wrong too, and it'll just go round in some sort of big stupid circle. Apologising for whatever you did isn't going to do anything to make it worse. It can only make things better." Dipper sat still in his chair, Mabel's words seeming to kick some sort of order back into his head, his sister's comforting words providing him with a confidence boost of sorts. He smiled up at the webcam, running a hand through his hair, taking down an internal note of how tangled it had become, and how he really should brush it.

"That actually does make a lot of sense, Mabel. Thankyou so much." He paused slightly. "But since when were you the sensible twin?" Mabel let out a laugh.

"You're still the smart one- I'm just the one who actually knows how to deal with people." The brunette grinned at the camera. "Go and talk to him tomorrow, or I'll have to drive down to Gravity Falls and go and talk to him for you." Dipper smiled too, Mabel's cheeriness seeming almost infectious to him.

"I will, don't worry Mabes. I think I might try and sleep now, so goodnight." He waved towards his sister, and she waved back, before reaching over and pressing the button to end the call. Closing the lid to his laptop, he felt a refreshing sense of optimism spark through him, as he headed up the stairs to go to bed.

The next morning was greeted by a gnawing fear at the back of Dipper's mind, that had worked it's way in while he was sleeping, and seemed lodged there permanently, a feeling of foreboding that had replaced the optimism of the night before. However, he had told Mabel that he would talk to Bill, and he wouldn't go back on that, so he attempted to bury the fear underneath the information for the tours of that day, piles for facts and figures and maps ingrained deeply into his memories. The first tour of the day ran smoothly, the fear pushed against the very back of Dipper's skull and obscured from view. However, as soon as it got to the break, and he had to head along to Starbucks, it unburied itself and came rearing out of his mind once more.

No note was written this time- Dipper would have to deal with face to face conversation with the barista this time. He tried to drag the walk out as long as possible, but eventually he ended up facing the Starbucks door, and walked inside, glancing off to the side, a spark of confusion stabbing through him as he saw that Bill wasn't at the counter as he usually was. Walking over still, he queried one of the other baristas about the blonde's whereabouts.

"Excuse me, do you know where Bill is? He's usually working here today and I was hoping to talk to him." The person who he had questioned shrugged slightly, her tightly curled black hair shifting across her shoulders as she did so.

"I'm not sure where he is now. He hasn't turned up to work for at least four days now, and he hasn't given any explanation. The manager has tried contacting him, but he's been ignoring everything. He's getting pretty impatient with him- I think he's on the verge of firing him, because he isn't exactly the most responsible worker in the first place. Sorry, but I don't know where he is." Dipper nodded to the barista.

"Thankyou for telling me- I just wanted to tell him something, but I guess it'll have to wait." With that, Dipper headed out of the shop and back to the Mystery Shack, a sense of defeat dragging at his limbs as he walked.

Over the next few days, there was no sign of Bill turning up at Starbucks, nobody saw him around town, and he never seemed to leave his apartment, the curtains permanently closed across his windows. Dipper hadn't bothered to tell Mabel of his failure yet, knowing that she would just urge him to try again, but the brunet was completely discouraged, believing that it may even have been his fault that Bill was avoiding going into work, that it was his fault that the barista was on the verge of being fired from another job.

To attempt to distract himself from that knowledge, Dipper headed over onto Youtube and decided to check over mIndscape's channel, the name again sending a stab of regret slicing through him as he remembered the fact that the anonymous Youtuber had seemed to lose interest in him. Dipper was concerned that the youtuber had found out about the message he had sent to his brother William and was avoiding talking to him due to that, but tried to avoid thinking about it too much, and tried to focus on mIndscape's videos.

Dipper was surprised to find that the youtuber had been posting more than usual, what seemed to be at least three videos a day over the past few days, something which the youtuber would only do on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. At that thought, something clicked at the back of Dipper's mind, and he felt a spark of realization flare up in the pit of his stomach. His eyes widened as he elaborated on the thought, pulling together pieces of information from the corners of his mind, watching everything fall together in front of him like the parts of a puzzle.

Bill's days off were the days when mIndscape had the most time to post videos. As soon as Bill stopped going into work, mIndscape seemed to have more time to make videos. As soon as Bill started avoiding Dipper, so did mIndscape.

As the final piece fell into place, and completed the whole puzzle, the result spreading out in front of him, Dipper finally spoke.

"Fuck."

I really hope you enjoyed reading the trash (I've slipped into the habit of calling it that now, and there's no stopping me), and I apologize for any grammar mistakes or out-of-characterness! Thankyou so so much to all of you for commenting on and reading this- I never would have expected to have so many people interested in this fanfiction!