To the Nights in the Hold of Stone (BillDip)

Morning Kisses You Missed and Can't Get Back(21)

Dipper POV

I woke with a start, Bill was already standing up, jostling me from his shoulder.

He was halfway across the room before the fog of sleep cleared.

That was an annoying set back to the dreamscape, my mind was awake and alert but my body was heavy with the effects of sleep. "Wait-" I uttered, confused, trying to work around the lead in my throat.

Bill was already at the door, hand stalling on its handle, he looked back at me and for a moment I thought something flickered across his face but it was too brief to know what it was.

So many questions flooded through my head. I wanted to ask him about the kiss or about how he shrugged off any questions about his plan or what he does when he's not with me. Moreover, I wanted to ask him to stay. He'd been distant since he came back yesterday. I just wanted him to stay a little longer.

"Sorry," I back tracked feeling incredibly subconscious under the weight of my thoughts, "Where are you going?" I tried instead.

He smiled, his shoulders relaxing as he eased the door open, "My office, just across the hall." Bill gives a half bow and leaves just like that.

The soft click of my door falling shut goes off like a gun in my ears. Leaving me alone, shocked into still silence from the abruptness. "Well fuck you, too I guess." I muttered in the vague direction of the door and his office.

Bill was already infuriating but even more so in the last few days. He'd changed and not in the same mood swinging, head spinning, kind of way he normally does. This was more of a shift in the riptide, wearing down the bedrock till nothing was familiar. It left me so utterly confused, it'd been so subtle I couldn't trace it back to its origin.

I mulled over this issue all through my new morning routine, shower, dress, spend several minutes in the bathroom mirror regretting a few minor life choices. Then out to my desk I go to get a little work in before Wendy joins me for breakfast. Which, thanks to gods I don't believe in but am nonetheless thankful for right now, happens quickly. She came in without knocking, something she'd started doing after only a day or so of meeting me here.

"Hey." She hummed, leaning against the desk next to me, "You look rough."

"Thanks." I growled. Running my hands once again through stressed hair I was itching for a cap, something to physically block this annoying tic.

Sensing it, or many just seeing it plain as day written on my skin, she ruffles my hair lightly pushing my hands away. "Come on let's eat and then you can work us both to death, ok?" I nodded tiredly, letting her guild me out of my desk chair to the couch. Bill had set up a small end table next to it that when pulled out turns itself into a large dining table stocked with meal time appropriate foods. This morning I had an omelet and avocado toast.

We ate in mostly comfortable silence, I was comfortable as long as I avoided the pointed looks she kept throwing at me when she thought she could spark up a conversation I was definitely not having again.

With a heavy sigh I turned back to the desk, but was unable to sit down. There was just too much to look at, standing above it made it a bit easier to see but I'd quickly run out of space on the desk. "This is no use up here, I need more space." I turned a soured look on the floor of my room. Dim as it was in here I did not want to hunch over the carpet and work around the edges of the couch and bed for this.

"We could always use the floor of the throne room." Wendy appeared at my elbow, looking down on the floor with me.

"That's honestly not a bad idea." Looking up at her I could see a faint smile on her lips. "Do you mind helping me-" I waved awkwardly at the towers of loose papers and notes, "getting all those down there?"