Nobody Forgets Bill Cipher

Friends For A Reason

     I wake to the sound of a sharp gasp of intake from the other side of the room, followed by a series of rushed, unintelligible cursing.
Blearily, I rush to stand on my feet. Dipper does the same on the other side of the room, still mumbling in a sense of a mix of fear, panic, and anger.
"What's wrong?" I ask, dying to know of what was in his dreams. "What happened?"
His head whips in my direction and our eyes lock. Imbedded in his is renewed anger. Uh-oh. He storms over to me and grabs me by the neck of my shirt. Mabel stirs and wakes from the commotion.
"Did you know?" he hisses, worry beneath his rage. "Did they show you, too? They said they did! How could you hide that from us!"
Vaguely, I wonder if they showed him the horrid "future vision" apparition of Yule and Mabel. That's the only thing I can think of that would get a response like this from him.
"Dipper, what's going on?" Mabel asks, standing up, rubbing her eyes quickly.
"I- if- do you mean..." I pause, wondering how to phrase this. I don't want them to know if he doesn't know already. Like I said, 8-Ball makes awful predictions about the future. And the future can change, can't it? I would never let anything like that happen, so they don't need to know in the first place.
     He gapes at me, shocked. "How could you not even tell him? If you hide something that big from your best friend, what else could you be hiding from us?"
Now I know he saw the vision, too. "There's nothing else! Please keep it down."
     "Hey," Mabel takes Dipper by the shoulder. "Calm down. Can you tell me what's going on?"
     "He," he jabs a finger at me accusingly, "is the one who should explain. Did you seriously think you would be protecting him, protecting us, by keeping this to yourself?"
     How does he not understand that this is hurting me more than it could ever hurt him? "Be quiet." I counter, my own anger boiling. "How could you even say that? I would never do anything to hurt-" I choke back a sudden sob. "Just shut up."
     Dipper's mouth twitches, as he is sill fuming. He opens it one more time, but I beat him to whatever he was going to say.
     "I said, SHUT UP!" I yell, unable to mask the pain behind my voice. I turn and flee the room, slamming the door behind me. I hear Mabel's muffled voice berating Dipper's from behind me.
     Did I overreact? No. No, there's nothing more important to me than this. I'm doing what I can to protect everyone, so Dipper has no right to counter me! I would never let my best friend die! How could he be so cruel as to even imply that?
I ignore the other voices stirring from the commotion as I run down the stairs. I nearly run over Yule in my race to the front door.
"Woah!" Yule grabs me by the shoulder. "Hey, you okay? I thought I heard shouting-"
In a conflicted heartbeat, I tear away from his grip and rush out the door of the Shack. I hear his voice calling out after me, "Wait! Bill! Where are you going?"
I myself do not know where I'm going. I need time to cool off, time to think, wherever that may be.
I settle for the clearing where my petrified form used to reside. It's odd, but whenever I need to think or sort things out in my head, I kind of gravitate toward this spot. It's just... peaceful.
     I lose myself in my thoughts. I sit there for what must be hours until I jump at the sound of a voice behind me.
     "I thought you might be here." I relax as soon as I recognize Yule's voice. He sits down next to me, waiting for me to say something, but I never do. How do you tell your best friend that he might die? You just don't.
"I don't know what's going on." Dipper didn't tell anyone? "Dipper was upset, but told us that you needed to tell me, not him. I don't know what that is, but please, I want to know," he insists, a worried frown on his face.
"No, you don't," I tell him firmly, never meeting his gaze.
"I don't understand, Bill," he sighs. "You told me not to fight your battles for you. I told you that I'd fight them with you. I can't do that if we're not on the same page."
"I don't want you to be on the same page, Yule!" I yell at him, though I immediately regret it. He's biting his lip and I see the start of tears forming in his eyes. I've never seen him cry before.
"N-No," I stammer. "I just-I just want to keep you safe. You can't know what I know. You just can't."
"I'm scared, Bill," he tells me, cracking a nervous, quivering smile. "I'm really, really afraid. But we're best friends, right? Best friends don't keep things from each other, no matter how serious they are, because people are best friends for a reason. They exist to support each other, to form a permanent, meaningful bond. Why can't we have that, Bill? I know we have it, but a friendship is an ongoing thing. We both have to work at it. You've got to work at it, too." He looks at me with a hurt expression, and I have to give in.
"Whatever I tell you," I start, finally looking him in the eye, "you must understand that I won't let any of it happen, got it?"
"We won't let any of it happen," Yule corrects me, a small smile fixing his face back to what it should look like.
I give him a small smile back. "That's right. We won't."