To the Nights in the Hold of Stone (BillDip)

It's Nature to Want More; It's Human to Need More(25)

Dipper POV

Darkness is all consuming. Blocking out everything that came before it and everything that can come after. As it stood, now in this moment I could close my eyes against the empty room and breathe for the first time today. Numbness crawled down both my arms, threatening to crawl up my neck and overtake my head.

The only thing keeping it at bay, the only thing making my heart rabbit against my broken ribs was him. Bill's voice, a soothing melody and every present weight on my consciousness to keep me in this world.

Closing my eyes I could almost pretend I was back in the woods, curled up at the base of his statue, tricking my senses into smelling fresh dirt under the thick layer of iron that hung stale in the air.

Pinetree, did you hear me?

No, but not from a lack of trying, I'm just so very tired. Sorry.

Pinetree, he chastised tiredly but didn't say more about the previously banned word, I miss you.

Bill was ever so kind in this blurred space between my conscious and subconscious.

I'm sorry, the words bubbled up again, this time without being met with discontent my thoughts continued to unravel, right in the open for him. I could have been stronger. I wanted to be something more than this, to be the something more you thought you saw. But everything is so broken, I don't have anything left. I'm so sorry. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have offered more in our deal then I did.

I could have gone on, I wanted to go on. God, how could I have been so stupid to think I could help a dream demon in any way. He should have made the deal with someone else, someone stronger than me.

Our deal is not broken. Don't you remember my side of the bargain? I am here for you, I am in this for you. Not just what you can offer me. Pinetree, I know you're in pain and all but when you say stuff like that it makes me wanna knock you upside the head, put some sense in that big brain of yours. His tone was so low yet so kind, the kind of drawl that feels like the wrap of a warm blanket.

I laughed, a small huff that shot sharp pains through my stomach but a laugh nonetheless. Don't hit me for saying sorry again.

I'll accept it just this once. I wanted to feel his arm around my shoulders, to actually see the lopsided grin I knew he wore.

Painful, sharp light chased away the darkness, pressing into my eyelids demanding my attention. Any levity I'd felt was gone now.

I could hear footsteps carefully enter the room, too quiet to be Ford and too slow to be Mabel. The unease of a new visitor was just as uncomfortable as the fear that accompanied the known. Someone's here. I hissed on instinct to Bill, shifting the conversation quickly.

Someone? He asked, resignation filling his tone.

Good fucking question, I didn't crane my head over my shoulder to see who it was though, I wouldn't give them that. Instead I waited with my heart beating in my throat for them to round the rickety chair I was confined to.

"Dipper?" Surprisingly, Stan was the one who came to a stop in front of me. He stood with his shoulder hitched up and his hands twisted behind his back. He hasn't ever come in here and he barely looked at me that first night they dragged me in here. His face looked sullen as he took in everything I couldn't really see about myself.

I knew my shirt was torn in odd places, and I knew both it and my jeans were soaked in dried blood, but I rarely got a glimpse of my face in the bathroom mirror. So I'm not entirely sure what was there that made it so hard for him to meet my eye. Instead he looked down at my arms contorted back or either of our shoes, not daring to look around at the rest of the room and pointedly the table of torture tools.