And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman [billdip]

Steady Damage

TUESDAY, JUNE 21ST

It had been a few days since Dipper left his apartment. It had also been a few days since he'd heard anything from his neighbor. No matter how many times he'd tried to tell himself it wasn't his place to be concerned, he still was, and found himself checking through his peephole to look across the hall every few hours. There hadn't been any noises from Apartment 304 since the glass shattering he'd heard on Saturday morning; he also never saw Bill. He didn't hear the door open or close and wondered if he'd had the same idea as him: they couldn't interact if neither of them ever left the confines of their rooms.

Dipper still hadn't come up with a decent idea for his book but felt an itch to write, deciding he'd just write about what was happening in his life for exercise. It's not like he was going to publish it. The story would be a glorified version of a diary. He wrote about two characters — one was named Tyrone and the other was named William. Sure, it was obvious who each of the two were to anyone who knew him, but nobody was going to read this, so it didn't matter. Dipper considered even using his own name but he'd always liked Tyrone better than Mason. At one point he pondered the idea of legally changing it — he was old enough to, after all — but everyone called him Dipper, so there wouldn't really be a point.

Currently, he was writing a scene based on the incident of Saturday. He was trying to get into the character of William, trying to come up with any reasons that Bill, er, William, would have for yelling at Dip— Tyrone. He failed to come up with anything.

"Maybe I should just write it from Tyrone's point of view," he muttered to himself, backspacing the paragraphs he'd typed out. He would just start over. What he had was sparse, anyways, and he needed to elaborate. It was something that he always had trouble with. He could already hear his third grade teacher scolding him; anytime he'd turned in a writing assignment, it was always elaborate, elaborate, elaborate. Eventually, he began to elaborate so much that his teachers started telling him to be more concise. He couldn't figure out where to draw the line; though, he did have a better idea now that he'd finished college.

A loud noise broke Dipper's focus, drawing his attention in the direction it'd come from. He quickly stood from the desk chair and ran to his front door, looking out the peephole. There was nothing in the hall, just as it had been in the last two days, but something felt off. Maybe it came from the second floor?

Biting his lip, he pulled away from the door and went to the kitchen to grab a drink. He needed to clear his mind. It was borderline obsession at this point and he knew it was unhealthy. Pathetic, even.

Opening his fridge, he eyed the bottle of champagne, but decided against it. He couldn't write if he was drunk. Eventually he grabbed a Pitt soda, sighing as he cracked the can open. He took a big gulp, closing the fridge and setting the can on the counter, finding himself lost in his thoughts.

Dipper still couldn't get over the events of Saturday morning. Mabel seemed completely unaffected by it which confused him to no end. If anyone, he thought she'd be offended by Bill's actions. But maybe she understood his behavior more than he did. She was always good at social cues and interaction.

Dipper knew that he could be irritated when he got drunk and there were several times that he'd gotten angry with Mabel when she had to help him home from wherever he was. So maybe that was it. Bill was an angry drunk.

But no, that didn't make sense, either. He knew that Bill was drunk — or at least tipsy — when they had danced at the night club and he most definitely wasn't angry then. He was incredibly flirtatious and seemed happy. So then what was the problem?

"Maybe it's me," he said solemnly. Thinking over the events once more, he realized that's what it had to be. Dipper was just Bill's neighbor, just the guy he danced with for fun at a club, and was really just a stranger in the scheme of things. So taking care of him and accidentally staying the night in his apartment was just incredibly weird and out of place. That's what it had to be.