Case 36: Courter in Yellow

Serial Killer(37)

Dipper POV

"Are you a serial killer?" I'd said it faster than my brain could understand the consequences of asking.

But Bill, like always, surprised me with his answer. He laughed, relaxing further into the couch, "Direct detective," his tone akin to that of a cat purr, "Would you still date me if I was?"

I stared at him, anyone else, literally anyone else in interrogation that I've ever asked shit like that at work always goes on the defensive, guilty or not guilty. But this enigma of a man simply laughs?

I'm not in the interrogation room right now, I had to redirect my own thoughts, I'm not interrogating him. "No. I'd have to arrest you."

He slid closer to me on the couch, stretching his arm over the back of the couch around me, "Then it's a good thing I'm not. I'd hate to be cuffed by you, I'd rather do it the other way around." He rested his free hand on my knee, against my better reasoning I could feel my heartbeat pick up. "Why do you ask?"

Thinking past his fingers creeping up from my knee to my thigh, "It's- it's nothing. I can't discuss it with you, I shouldn't have."

"Yet you did." His smile was intoxicating but something in the back of my brain knew that it was mocking, no matter how pretty it is.

"You have a distractible face and I've had a very long day." I'd had long days before, longer than this one and have survived but I wasn't going to just tell him the entire reason I'd thrown protocol, not to mention my last living brain cell, out the window was his annoyingly sharp features and inescapable gaze.

"Does that mean you like my face?" He asked leaning even closer, to the point that I could feel his breath on my lips.

"I thought we'd established that." I promised any other day and time I would have had a much better come back but right now I was losing and all I wanted was to forget this case and all the shitty things that came with it.

All I want is for the world outside of me and him to fuck off and fuck itself.

"Dipper, do you think I'm a serial killer?" He'd whispered it, but it sounded more like an accusation made in a courtroom, or at the business table of men that just want to see each other burn. But the way he was touching me, ever so slightly, and the way he was looking at me, said so many different things.

"I don't." I answered first, because I wasn't sure if I should explain myself, or if he'd even need an explanation seeing as I have such a hard time reading him or anticipating him. After a pause of silence I thought, many this time he would, but did I have one I could give him without telling him that he's currently the lead suspect in my case before there's any concrete evidence to hide behind. No there wasn't, so I let the silence last and it dragged with him just staring at me and me just looking back hoping he wasn't secretly a mind reader or something.

He took in a very deep breath as if he was gearing up to say something, or rather to not say what he was really thinking. But I didn't get to find out which it was because at that exact moment Mabel thought it was the right time to come bursting back into the living room.

"Dipper, are you sure this is all of it??" She shouted and I practically flew from the couch and as far as I could from Bill.

"What!- What do you mean!" I shouted back, less from the adrenaline rush and more from the fact that it was hard not too when someone yells strangely threatening things in your general direction.

She came stomping further into the living room with Pacifica on her heels looking just as confused as I felt, phone mid dinner order still in her hands. Mabel pushed the clipboard in my face, "Thiiiissss" she hissed, pointing to a medical chart on one of the last pages.