The God and the Thief

The Story(45)

Dipper POV

Wendy spoke looking cautiously between me and Ford, who still held the same expression he had when he sat down. "How... How did you meet?"

I smiled at her thankful someone finally showing interest in actually believing me, "The night of our first fight." I turned my gaze back to Ford, "I wasn't ready to leave Gravity Falls, but I couldn't think. So I packed a bag and left, went out into the forest that night, I found a nice spot to sit down. So I spent a few hours going back through the journal before passing out. Everything was so beautiful out there, if I wasn't so tired I would have been up all night just wandering around and taking in the view." I paused taking a deep breath, like I was back outside breathing in the fresh air for the first time again. "Then when I woke in the morning, he was there. Watching me sleep like a creep." I smiled but the joke only landed with Bill who sighed.

"I had been notified that my journal was finally home, so I left my house and started walking around. It wasn't too long before I saw Dipper laying in the grass completely asleep. So I stopped, no one ever came into my forest let alone felt calm enough to fall asleep out in the open like that. I was just going to leave him there, my journal was more important to me, and on top of that." his eyes flicked over me quickly, "He didn't look like he could be a threat against my smallest gnome. But with one less look over him, I saw my journal." He paused looking lost in thought before continuing, "I can't tell you why I didn't simply take it and move on, because I don't know why I didn't. But I didn't. Instead I sat down and waited for him to wake up."

Ford looked incredibly suspicious.

I cut in before a fight could break out, "When I woke, we just talked he told me about the journal, told me that he was the one who wrote it and that he lived in the forest but not that he was a god of any kind. And then, I don't know why but I went to the shack after that. I didn't want to go back to the shack, I wasn't ready. I hadn't actually put together my argument and on top of that I was still reeling from meeting the author of the journal. But still I went back, that's when you and Mabel found me out front."

"Ah yeah, guilty." Bill cut in looking almost sheepish, "I did use just a little suggestion magic to make you leave the forest, I had some thinking of my own to do and having humans in the forest freaks out my family and in return they bug me relentlessly. I needed some space, but the moment you passed through the doorway of the shack, the spell released and died."

I nodded along, even though this was the first I was hearing of this it made sense, it explained why once I realized where I was going I couldn't turn and run no matter how hard I tried.

The rest of the storytelling was just as slow going, explaining how I felt about the house arrest and Bill explaining how he had been expecting me back and when I didn't come he went looking for me in the town.

"Now, wait. Wait a minute." Mabel said putting up a hand, "You're leaving something out." I raised a brow, I didn't think I had. She pointed to Bill, "He, he is- was- I don't know but he was not-" She struggled to find the words, her face turned beat red and she had to look away from Bill. I eyed him for a moment, but his face stayed neutral.

Stan, for the first time since we sat down finished her thought, "He presented himself as a monster. He is evil Dipper. From what you've said I don't think you know what he's capable of."

I looked to Bill again. The image of the underside of Gravity Falls flashed in my memory. "What- what happened, when I went back to California? What did you do?" I asked him, I didn't want to hear it from my Grunkles, I wanted Bill to tell me the truth.

His eyes lingered on Ford, "It happened again, I couldn't let it happen again," he muttered more to me or himself than the people at the table, because we were the only ones who knew. He's talking about Milo. I reached out with my free hand, placing it over our clasped hands instinctively. He looked out at our hands, adding his free hand on top. "I've been through something like this before, a long long time ago." He started his eyes glued to our hands, "I lost someone very important to me because I ignored what was happening. This time, I won't let that happen again. I can't, so when you were no longer in Gravity Falls, and I felt that way again, like I had lost again. This time, I broke. But I knew, I knew you were still alive so I would be damned if I didn't try and see you again to get you back here. I wasn't going to let this godforsaken town take you too. Not when I had just started feeling that way again. Not when someone finally, finally came back around to me."