We're All Lost ⇋ Bipper x Wirt

Chapter III

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Bill

Wirt's eyes floated in Bill's direction, confused and helpless.

"W-What? You can?"

Greg's body was unmoving—surely Cone Head had noticed.

The lantern cast streaks of light into the otherwise shadowy scenery, glistening off the snow on the ground and shining into Bill's eyes, making them gleam. They cast a murky shadow over Wirt's face, since the lantern and its flames were behind the boy, from Bill's perspective. The storm had died down, and the woods seemed unnaturally silent, like it was swallowing up all the sound in its darkness. Bill thought the eerie quietness felt welcoming.

Bill smiled maliciously, his bright eyes all but searing a hole into Wirt's skull. "Of course I can. I'm all knowing, have you already forgotten?" Bill paused then proceeded to explain, "You let the beast's soul go from the lantern, and replaced it with your own."

Wirt's eyes widened. They had already started to take on a colorful hue. "But I thought Greg's soul would... because the beast said... is... is Greg going to be okay?"

Bill glanced at Greg, who was still engulfed in Edelwood branches, pale and lifeless.

"Nope. It's too late; he's already dead."

"That... that can't be right," Wirt said, his voice taking on a desperate edge. The look of realization on his face was comedy gold—or, it was to Bill, at least. To anyone else, it would have looked like Wirt was confused, distraught, and tired, which was exactly what he was.

"You're a jerk, Bill," Dipper's ghostly voice chided from somewhere nearby. Bill didn't respond, but simply chuckled again to himself. He supposed he was, but he didn't quite care.

All he cared about was getting what he wanted.

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Wirt

The small snowflakes that graced the freezing breeze fell upon two dead faces—Wirt's, and his brother's.

Greg's eyes were daintily closed, while Wirt's eyes were swirling with a bright (and, ironically, lifeless) rainbow. Wirt was kneeling in the snow beside Greg, indifferent to the cold that was slowly, but surely, seeping through the fabric of his pants. A small Edelwood branch clawed up Greg's cheek, and Wirt quickly broke it away with a shaking hand.

Fresh tears bubbled up under Wirt's eyes, as did an aching feeling in his chest. "No." His voice rippled with emotion in the air. "You're wrong."

"I'm never wrong, kid."

Wirt grabbed a handful of snow and hurled it at Bill, quite pathetically. "You're wrong!"

Bill didn't say anything in response, and it was a good thing, because Wirt was ready to fight.

He was angry at the beast, and the woodsman, and the creepy kid with cat eyes who's last name was Cipher. He was angry at himself, for not making it to Greg on time.

His poor brother was dead, all because he wasn't here.

"Greg," Wirt whispered. His voice was so soft that it hardly carried sound and drifted off into the breeze as if it never existed in the first place. "Please, I—" He let out a strangled sob. There were more tears on his face now, running in steady streams over his eyelids and down his face.