Don't Forgive Me

Chapter 36

Dipper comes back, closing the front door softly behind him. The demon greets him, he looks guilty.

“Look, Dipper, I- I'm really sorry. I went overboard. I had no place to say those things…”. He noticed the redness of the boy’s cheek and eyes. “Wh-what happened to you?”, his yellow eyes grow into serious slits.

Bill’s hands hover around Dipper's face worriedly. “Did she hurt you? I swear if she-”, he steams with crimson. He’s stopped in his tracks when the boy tiredly plops his forehead on his shoulder.

The beast was disarmed as the boy wrapped his arms snugly around him pulling him close. Sniffles escaped him.

“You were right…”, the boy mumbles and shakes his head from side to side. “Don’t blame yourself….it was…a long time coming.”

“None of it would have happened that way if it wasn’t for me.”, he was downcast in his tone.

“Nothing would have been fixed either. I…let her walk all over me. I’m a doormat, Bill.”

“Woah, hey”, he pulls the boy from the embrace by the shoulders and looks squarely at him. “You stood up to me, I’ve….I used to watch you all the time. Like, entertainment tv.”

“Creepy, but go on.”, the boy smiles, wiping away a few tears.

“You’re no pushover. That’s a fact. You just… have a weak spot for her.”, Bill shrugs. “That’s just, part of being human I guess.”

He shrugs, looking down at the painful welt on the boy’s cheek. The demon goes to magically heal it but his hand is batted away.

“Don’t you dare, I’m fine. I just think I need time to process.”, he pulls away from the beast. He grabs his journal from the table and goes to the back porch to write.

Bill understood, no matter what it was he wanted the best for Dipper.

As he awaited the boy’s return he got to work on the broken glass. He huffed, sweeping it into a dustpan.

Some of it fell away at the last moment by accident, he went to sweep it up again, cursing at himself. The entity retracts his hand as one of the shards cuts his finger. He hisses and draws it to his mouth to try and soothe the stinging.

His vision began to tunnel as voices crept into the range of his hearing from a distance. Bill put down what he was doing. “No no, no no no. Not again.”, he growled angrily. “I can’t…”, a memory floods his mind.

It had been a quiet night, with all the crickets chirping and fireflies flickering in the summer heat. The pair sat outside, Bill had just started to be up and around again after the incident with him reverting back.

Dipper was showing him one of his journals. The demon looked over the boy’s shoulder down at the pages.

“This one right here was my most recent discovery. I can’t believe that something that big could be hiding right under my nose this entire time.”, he was excited to tell Bill all about it.

He humored the boy, enjoying his voice and his company. The entity practically melted into listening to him.

The beast closed his eyes for a moment. “You’ll never be good enough for him…”, was spoken right next to his ear. Which made him alert to the harsh whispering.

Dipper was none the wiser, he kept going on and nerding out about his various findings. Bill looked around, swallowing dryly.

He stared out into the woods, “leave…”, the voices repeated in his ears until he couldn’t hear Dipper anymore.

The beast’s frame was still but he could not take his eyes off the forest.

Little gravity anomalies began to form around them in waves. The brunette grew quiet as he watched his set of pencils float into the air and then drop back to the ground, then he began to hear the whispers too; faintly right beside him.

“Bill…”, the demon didn’t respond to him, he looked like a deer in the headlights. “Bill, hey…look at me.”

He reaches over and turns the beast's face with his hand. His eyes still strained to peer at the trees.

“Look at me…”, Dipper forces the entity’s gaze away by placing both hands on the sides of his face.

“Look at my eyes, it’s going to be okay. You’re not alone. I’m right here.” Triangle earrings jangle as he comes out of it.

“What….it happened again.” A flash of guilt washes over him as he realizes what occurred.

“It’s alright, we caught it this time”, the brunette says reassuringly.

“But, what if it happens when you’re not around? It will come back eventually.”, the demon's expression is saddened and concerned.

“Then …, just think about me . Like I’m right there keeping your head out of that place, ok? Can you do that ?”. Bill's eyes soften, he thinks that Dipper is just way too kind to him sometimes.

“I will …”, he’s doubtful but it seemed to put the boy at ease to some capacity.

Bill looked down at his hand, shushing the voices begging him to collapse. The demon struggled for what seemed to be a very long time as his subconscious battled for reign over his mind.

He regained himself breathing heavily and trying to slow everything down. He felt the throbbing of his finger, applying pressure, feeling the pain. It kept him there, it kept him human.

Everything eventually calmed down, he had done it. For the first time, he was able to resist the urges to give in.

He sat there on the floor, a grin inching onto his face, amazed with himself. “I did it….”, he muttered in disbelief. An overwhelming sense of relief spread through him.  His cut had stopped bleeding.

He immediately got up and went to the fridge after cleaning the rest of the glass and sloughing it off into the kitchen trash can.

He snuck one of the strawberries from Dipper’s stash. “Sorry Pinetree, I have to celebrate.” He smiled as he bit into it and leaned against the counter.

The taste nipped at his tongue, he can’t believe that he’d been missing out on so many things up to this point. He would have never been able to enjoy them if it wasn’t for this ‘punishment’.

If it wasn’t for Dipper. Every sensation he took in stride. They were new, but it was something to be sought after, even the uncomfortable ones.

At one point in time, he could have had everything he thought he wanted; futile and ever hungry. Now, the smallest of things would quench it.