Wayfarer [Bill Cipher x Reader] [REVISED]

Chapter Thirty-Three: Twin Skeleton's (Hotel in NYC)

That article stayed with you. It scooped out a place to live inside your sternum and hung there, and it was all you could do not to let it sink you. Even now, in this quiet darkness punctuated only by soft snoring from your right, it pressed down upon you. God, what a nightmare!

You clutched yourself, squeezing your eyes shut. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It—it wasn't true. It couldn't be true. There was no way. This was a bad coincidence, that was all. So what, a guy with the same name was wanted by the police—plenty of people shared names! Given the odds, was it really that weird to think that maybe, just maybe, there was more than one person out there with that name? He couldn't be the same person. He couldn't!

Your mind thrashed like a wounded beast, but the steel trap of your gut intuition held firm. You curled into yourself. Why would you consider such a thing? He'd helped you when you were sick, and he'd comforted you when you dealt with your mom. He was a nice person. He couldn't!

But, like bubbles in a pond, doubts rose to the surface. After all, there was the fact that he was somehow just walking around with $10,000 in cash on his person. And he'd once made a phone call to a person called "Ronnie"—which, coincidentally, was the nickname of that person they'd arrested in Oregon. And he did have a weird thing about wearing sunglasses when other people were around...

But all of that could be explained away. Right? Right? You squeezed your head between your hands, trying to push away the incoming tide of realization. Oh, God. He was that guy, wasn't he?

Chills came over you. God—that meant—that meant that he was probably responsible for all those crimes they'd been reporting on in Oregon, wasn't he? The robberies, the arson, the murders and disappearances—all of it. All of it was him. You'd harbored this man. You'd let him sleep in your room, ride in your car, eat your food, and listen to you as you floundered in emotions. You—you were an accessory to a crime. Multiple ones! What should you do? Call for help? Turn him in?

At the thought of it, though, your heart sank. All you could imagine was Bill's eyes, soft and wide, staring at you as some anonymous grunt in a uniform hauled him into a cop car. Eyes like the ones he'd offered you after the party in Aspen—

Oh, you couldn't do it. No matter what version of Bill the news gave you, you had yours, and God forbid you hurt him. Your mind could not bridge the gap between the cold-blooded killer and the boy you had come to know. Perhaps horror lay behind those eyes, but so, too, did warmth. And empathy. And compassion, and humor, and—!

Curling up into a tight ball, you whimpered. God, what a terrible burden, knowledge!

That burden made for poor sleep, and now that you were packing up, you could barely move half as briskly as you wanted. You shuffled around the clearing, head hanging low, as you hauled some of the food from the food locker back to the car. You didn't even notice where you were headed until a tree trunk smacked you in the forehead.

"Ow!" You reeled back. "What the heck?"

"You okay there?" Bill called out. He shuffled over from the side of the car, where he'd been taking out bedding.

"Yeah, yeah," you mumbled. You rubbed a few flakes of bark off of your forehead. "Just being clumsy, that's all."

"You sure? You've been acting kind of funny all morning. Something the matter?"

"No. I was just, you know, thinking," you replied. "I'm kind of sad that we're leaving Yellowstone now. It's been a good run. I'll miss this place."