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

22// Aftermath

You don't move for a long time. You know you should, know you have to — you have to warn Dipper about Will's sudden change in demeanor — but you can't. You can't even move from your log, even though what you really want to do is curl up on the ground and cry.

You're just as bad as the rest of them. You think I would hurt people. You think I'm a danger.

Will's words run through your head over and over, and you start to believe them. Didn't you tell him not to use his powers? Didn't you warn him about hurting people? And now your warnings, as well as Dipper's, have caused the very thing they were meant to prevent. No wonder Will hates Dipper so much. No wonder he hates you.

You wallow in your despair for a while. You don't know how long. Finally, when the sun starts descending out of the sky, you find the strength to stand up. You look back the way you came — which way did Will go, again? — and nearly lose your resolve all over again. You came out so far. . . can you even make it home?

You grit your teeth. You will not be useless. If Will really is going to terrorize the town, you have to stop it. You have to get to Dipper.

You don't know the way to the Mystery Shack from here, only the way to your own summer home, which is not exactly near the Shack. But going there is better than getting lost, and you can recruit your mother and her car to get you to Dipper. So you plod back the way you came.

As you walk, you start to get angry. How dare Will say those things about you! He can't read your mind anymore — he doesn't know what you're thinking! Your footsteps turn to fuming stomps. If he's going to get revenge based on imagined offenses, then that makes him the bad guy! Not you, not Dipper, not anyone else! Him!

Are they really imagined, though?

Your anger slips back into shame, and you almost stop walking. At the very least, your enraged pace carried you farther than your depressed one. You try to reignite the fire, but there's no getting it back now.

Why bother going to Dipper? He'll know soon enough if Will goes rogue. Maybe he already has, and maybe you're too late. Maybe you'll just get to the Shack for Dipper to yell at you and demand why you didn't come sooner. You were on that log for a long time. Can you handle the shame of that, too?

Stop it. You have to keep going.

Maybe Will went deeper into the woods. Maybe he'll come down from his anger and try to find you. Maybe he'll try to apologize.

Ha. Like that would ever happen. Either Will has changed dramatically since escaping that alternate dimension, or he really was manipulating you. After all, you found out that demons can't lie from a demon. If they can lie, then he could just say that, and everything else he'd ever said to you could be a lie as well!

But then you remember the look in his eyes when you showed up to rescue him. The fear in his body when he first hugged you in that dream. The sincerity in his voice when he thanked you for helping him escape. All of that couldn't be faked.

Right?

Finally, you start to see signs of civilization through the trees. You pick up your pace to a jog and exit the tree line near your house. Now what? Should you go straight to the Shack, or should you stop and explain to your mother? On the one hand, she has a car — she can get you there faster. On the other hand, explaining to her and calming her down enough to drive said car will probably take forever.

But she deserves to know where you are. And you can explain everything on the way. You run up the porch steps and into the house.

"Mom! Mom, I need a ride to the Mystery Shack! Right now!"