Across Dimensions //Will Cipher x Fem!Reader//

6// Mindscape

Your trip down to the lab is admittedly a bit freaky. Dipper may have said it looked like a horror movie site years back, but you think it kinda still does. The old stone stairs and the new metal elevator seem to be taking you down to the creepy underground lab where the demented scientist works.

You remind yourself that, so far, Dipper has shown no signs of dementia. So your paranoia can just stuff itself into a little hole in your brain and leave you alone.

You make it down to the lab without getting murdered, so, so far so good. You pass all the blinking and whirring machines, and then emerge in the lab beyond. Most of the desks have been cleared, or at least organized, and there are considerably less covered cages. The most interesting object in sight is a large, empty glass jar on a desk off to the side. Except, it's too big and smooth to be a jar. It's more like a big, round-ish cylinder.

You look away from it, and in that moment, you swear you see something blue in the corner of your eye.

Your eyes whip back to the jar, but it's still empty. That's strange. The thing in your periphery. . . it almost looked like. . . a triangle.

You stare at the jar for a while, sometimes glancing away and then back at it, but nothing appears. After some minutes, you hear footsteps behind you, and whirl around.

"Sorry if I startled you," Dipper said with an easy smile. "It was really great to catch up with your mom, but I figured you would probably be impatient down here."

You shrug, not wanting to say yes or no to that.

"So," he says, "you ready to get started?"

The next hours are the best of your life. Dipper starts from the beginning, explaining that Gravity Falls is a magnet for weirdness, and that anything—or anyone—strange or unusual is drawn here, including himself and his great uncle, Stanford, the first scientist to study the town. He goes over a few creatures common in the woods, such as gnomes, fairies, and were-squirrels.

"Were-squirrels?" you ask.

Dipper chuckles. "Fairies cursed to be fluffy squirrels. They're like their version of werewolves."

Magnet for weirdness, indeed.

After an hour or so, you finally work up the courage to ask, "Is there anything in that jar over there?"

Dipper stops, following your gaze to the jar. "What makes you say that?" he asks.

You hesitate. "I thought I saw something in the corner of my eye." Gah, it sounds stupid when you say it out loud.

"Interesting. . . ," Dipper says. "There actually is something in there. Something. . . invisible, you might say. I can show you some other time if you'd like. For now—"

"C-can I see it now?" you blurt. Then you cringe, and give him an apologetic look.

He looks at you for a minute, then smile. "It'll bother you all day if you don't see, huh?"

You nod.

"Alright, then. We can pay him a little visit."

Dipper weaves around tables to the jar, and you follow, bumping into table corners as you go. When the two of you are standing in front of the glass cylinder, Dipper says, "Alright, on three, put your hand on the glass."

He puts his hand near it, and you copy him.

"One, two, three."

The two of you press your hands onto the glass. It's cool and smooth.

Inside, a blue triangle appears.

He has one eye, white with a slitted pupil and no iris. There's a bowtie below it, with a faint brick pattern that runs beneath it. Thin black arms and legs stick out of the triangle, and a floppy top hat sits on top.

Maybe you just imagine it, but it looks like his eye widens when he sees you.

"H-hi there, Mr. Pines," the triangle says. "Back so soon?"

"Someone wanted to see you," Dipper replies. "Will, this is Yasmin Larson, my new apprentice. Yasmin, Will."

You stare at him. "Did you just say. . . Will?"

The triangle looks like he wants to disappear.

"Will Cipher," Dipper says. "Don't freak out, but he's kind of like Bill, the Weirdmageddon guy. Will's contained in this cylinder, though. He just showed up this morning, and we've talked a bit."

Will? The same Will you dreamt about last night? But. . . the Will from your dreams wasn't a triangle at all. He was a person. A rather cute person.

"Obviously Mr. Pines doesn't trust me yet," Will puts in.

"I won't say I do," Dipper admits. "We should probably go, Yasmin."

"Go?" you ask, not taking your eyes off Will.

"Long story. We'll see you later, Will. Hang in there."

"I'm not really in here," Will mutters. At least, you think that's what he says.

"But aren't we just in. . . the. . . ." You trail off, as you look around the lab. Something is different. Something. . . .

The colors.

There are no colors. Everything but Will and Dipper is grey.

"Wh-what?"

"Touch the glass again, Yasmin," Dipper instructs.

You obey without really thinking about it.

Suddenly, the world snaps back into color. You look around wildly, from the lab to Dipper to the jar. Will is gone!

"What was that?" you ask.

"It's called the mindscape," Dipper says. "We'll go into it in detail later, but it's kind of like you were dreaming for a couple minutes there."

Dreaming. . . .

"Alright, I let you meet Will. We can talk about him more later. For now, I want to give you something. A. . . Journal, of sorts."

You follow Dipper away from the jar to a bookshelf, and the two of you continue your lesson. However, you can't help but, every once in a while, spare a glance at that empty glass cylinder.