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

One of THOSE Nights

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12TH

Bill was up before Dipper, which wasn't a surprise to him. The kid had had a lot to drink the night prior, not to mention the fact that he had to have been exhausted from a lack of sleep and the amount he was panicking when he found him up on a tree branch in the woods. The kid was an enigma, that was for sure. None of it really made sense to him, but his strange feelings didn't make any sense either: why did he want to shield him from the outside world so bad? Make it so nothing could harm him. Make it so he was fine.

He isn't a project, Bill told himself. You can't fix him, so stop trying to.

He still sat leant against the wall, legs stretched out ahead of him, watching the brunette sleep. He was still curled up in a ball. There were a few times he had stirred, his face contorting momentarily before returning to the peaceful blank slate. It was clear he was dreaming about something, but it shouldn't have been a nightmare. There was a navy blue dreamcatcher pinned to the wall above the mattress. It should've been doing its job. Bill was making sure of that.

He continued to study the younger man, going through all the details he already knew about and discovering new ones. Dipper's brown hair was messier than usual, though the sweat that beaded across his head last night was now gone. A bedhead was all it left in its wake. Some of his bangs that usually covered his forehead were pulled back, revealing parts of the constellation birthmark he had mentioned to the blonde once. He'd only ever seen it once, the day that he'd shown him in the diner when he asked about it. It suited him.

Bill was still curious to know what his birth name was, but he seemed to loathe being called it, so he never pushed to know. He supposed if he really wanted to know, he could always ask the sister. But that seemed like it would be a violation of what Pine Tree wanted and he didn't want to do that. It seemed like he had enough to deal with — whatever that was. He had tried to figure it out but the kid barely ever left his apartment, didn't really seem to talk to anyone, and didn't have very many hobbies. And he doubted that a hobby would be causing someone such pain and turmoil. Something else was going on and he couldn't figure it out. It was seriously bothering him.

If I could stop being a fucking moron and figure it out, Bill grumbled in his thoughts, then I could fix it.

Right. Not a project. He is a person.

He sighed, lifting up a leg and resting his chin on the knee.

Sometime throughout the night, Dipper's flannel had unbuttoned itself and was falling off his arms, revealing the upper-half of his arms. There was... a mark(?) on the shoulder of the arm that wasn't being laid on. Stretching out his neck to get a better view — without having to get up and make noise, possibly waking him up — he realized it was a tattoo. It was very small, and only a black outline, and it was of a pine tree. Bill smiled. Of course it was.

He pondered the thought of if this was creepy or not but shrugged it off. Dipper had done the same thing for him a month ago when he was... tipsy. So it should be fine. He was just returning the favor. As the brunette had put it, he had to make sure that he wouldn't choke on his own vomit and die. The thought of him dying caused another pang in his chest and he quickly changed the subject of his thoughts.

He still wore the jeans from last not, not having undressed before passing out, and Bill didn't want to even risk violating his personal space by doing it for him. He supposed it'd be different if he had asked, but the kid was so far gone into oblivion that he was surprised he didn't have to carry him back home. He couldn't even put his key in the door — yet again, there were several times that Bill would hear jabbing outside and look out the peephole to find him struggling to unlock it when he was sober. So maybe that wasn't the best example to use.