To the Nights in the Hold of Stone (BillDip)

To be Your Shield, to Weather the Storm(15)

Dipper POV

So I did and it didn't take us long before we came across it. What I remembered to be a small compartment in the base of the tree was replaced with the door to the lab, without the vending machine it was just a metal slab with large bolts and a green keypad. The bark above the door was scared with the simple phrase 'The Lab'. There was so much it didn't say, so much it should.

Bill, for his part, had followed without commenting on the passing doors and he now stood behind me still withholding any comments he might have.

"Ok." I sighed. "Ok." Again I tried to reach for the handle, unsure if I would have to put in the code or not, but my arm didn't budge. "Bill." His name tumbled from my lips and I turned quickly away from the door, stepping away from it and towards him.

"Yes?"

"I need to tell you something first." fisting my hand into my hip to steel myself. This was ridiculous, he likes pain even finds it hilarious but I can't have him laughing at this. "This is not a pleasant memory for me ok? I've been actively avoiding it since it happened." That openness met me again, his whole body leaning into what I had to say. "Shit... happens to me in there and I think we might be walking right into the middle of it. Just- please don't laugh at it, or say anything, or anything you might want to do. I need you to, to just watch ok."

His eyes skimmed the door over my shoulder, "What happens down there?"

"I don't like to talk about it, and I'd rather not once we're done ok. Just in and out for the spell."

"Pinetree, if it's that strong of a memory, the door won't reopen to us till it plays to it's completion. If you haven't dealt with it, you will relive it, especially if it was traumatizing. You human brains are funny that way." He spoke slowly, as if cornering a wild animal with no sense of humor in his tone.

My heart skipped and panic hissed in my lungs. "Fine. It's fine." It had to be, for the sake of my own health, "I just don't want to talk about it when we're done here."

He looked spectacle for a moment but ultimately shrugged, "Once we get that spell you will never have to feel that way again. I will personally make sure of that."

Bill took my hand again, this time softer, lacing his fingers in mine. If alarms weren't already blaring this would have sent off several I'm sure. I stared down at them, joined together. Even as he tugged me towards the door and opened it himself, I kept my eyes lowered and my attention focused on his hand in mine as we made our way down the narrow stairs.

The dimly lit space was empty, everything covered in a thin layer of dust despite being cleaned regularly. Ford's computer and writings littered the large desk space, trinkets and small projects pushed to the edge or gathered around on the floor all in different stages of completion, the walls covered in machines making the whole thing run. The space gave me the creeps which had come as a shock after being so excited to come down here the first time. Bill gilded us closer to the desk, looking around till he found the three journals neatly tucked on a shelf below the table top. He pulled them out one by one with his free hand.

"Help me." He pushed the third journal my way, I watched as he flipped open the first. Numbly following his lead I flipped through some of the pages. I quickly closed it though, putting it to the side to reach instead for the second journal, out of all of them the third journal is the one I spent a full summer studying and I already know it doesn't say anything about the weirdness field around the town. It'd also become too nausea-inducing to look at my own entries in the second half of the journal, the ramblings of a younger more extroverted version of myself.

We worked carefully through our respective journals, scanning down page after page. Ford had a knack for little sketches and I was hoping he would have drawn some sort of rendition of the field alongside his notes of it. That was, till the door creaked open slowly at the top of the stairs. I tensed, tightening my grip on Bill's hand. He looked over at me, then turned to look up the stairs. We both watched as a 15 year old version of myself came creeping down. A wild animalistic look in his-my eyes. He-I looked worse than I remembered, gaunt and clearly exhausted with dark circles under his eyes, brown hair grown out to an uncomfortable length sticking to his forehead from attempts to push it away from his face. I tugged Bill to the side as the younger me joined us, jittery, at the desk.