Chapter Text
I stood there, just as floored by this revelation as Dipper was. Bill towered over him, an air of malice consuming the ancient being. "You're a fool if you think I would have ever let you hurt her." Bill's eyes shone brightly now, emanating a golden glow.
"I could say the same to you." Dipper replied, albeit weakly.
Bill's mouth quirked up slightly at the corners. "Ah. This is what I hate about you, Pine Tree. You never know when to quit, always sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Just accept that I've beaten you. I've won, and you're nothing to me."
He knelt down over Dipper's body, a yellow sphere materializing in his hand. "Now," Bill growled, his voice warping. It doubled, tripled, seeming to take up every last corner of the room. "I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago."
Black markings covered Bill's skin, forming brick patterns, symbols, and what seemed to be letters of an ancient language that I didn't recognize. His eyes were large, manic, and they glowed solid gold; ringed with black patches that spread out to the rest of his face in inky tendrils.
My breath caught in my throat as time seemed to slow down. My ears rang, pressure building in my skull. Bill was positively terrifying, the monster hiding under the bed at night, the bogeyman that haunted children's dreams. But he was beautiful.
He was an art piece, a Picasso, made up of broken pieces. Bill was a mess of broken shards, put back together in the only way they would fit. I could feel his pain, his hatred.
Regardless of what he had said, he was furious with the boy in front of him, the boy that had turned into a man in the golden being's absence. He had been humiliated by this boy so many years ago, and now he would pay for the mistake of standing in Bill's way once again.
I could practically hear Bill's thoughts as the buzzing in my brain became louder and louder. "Fool me once, you'll bend and break. Fool me twice. . . your soul I'll take." I could hear it as clearly as if Bill had said the words aloud. There was a note of grim satisfaction in the thought, a note of doing what had to be done and enjoying it.
Time hit me like a train, speeding back up all at once. It was too fast, the recoil snapping on me like a rubber band. I watched as Bill extended his hand full of light towards Dipper's chest, ignoring both the young man's desperate struggles and his panicked breathing.
He was going to kill Dipper if I didn't do something. Maybe Dipper deserved to be punished, to be locked up for what he had done, but he certainly didn't deserve to die. And at the end of the day, as much as I might hate and resent him now, he was still my brother, still the boy who had cared for me, put up with me, for almost a decade.
Dipper's eyes were closed now, his face turned towards the ceiling instead of towards Bill. He knew what was coming. He had already accepted death.
"Stop!" I cried out. Both men looked over towards me, one pair of eyes snapping open in shock, one narrowing in contempt.
"Why? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill him." Bill growled. I hesitated for a moment, frightened by the harshness of his tone.
"He's my brother." I offered meekly, but Bill's expression reflected nothing but contempt and disdain. Something in me crumpled slightly when I realized that it was directed at me. He was offended that I still thought that.
Then his face softened a little, smoothing over into cool indifference. "Sweetheart, darling ," he sounded exasperated. "This human is no brother of yours. In fact, he's not even a human anymore."
Bill gripped Dipper's chin harshly, forcing his face towards me and his mouth open. Dipper's pupils dilated as he struggled to wrench himself free from Bill. Creeping tendrils of crimson pierced the chocolatey brown as sharp fangs glinted in the dim light of the basement.
I blinked rapidly as my vision was overtaken by images, flashing far too quickly for me to tell what they were. They blurred together, different perspectives of the same scene, different sides of the same coin.
The colors ran together, my eyes beginning to water, to bleed. Cloying, metallic air filled my lungs, making me choke; a high, maniacal laugh filling my brain with static. I clamped my hands over my ears, blood pouring from my eyes, nose, ears. It was filling my mouth too, the sickly sweet taste of old copper pipes and even older pennies filling my mouth.
I retched, coughed, heaved, but everything was blood. Through the fogginess clouding my head, I heard whispers, taunts, jeers. I managed to look up, reaching through the fog, past the chains that bound my wrists, the chains that held me here.
And I saw myself.
As per usual, I snapped back to myself in a dizzying bout of vertigo; the present and future meeting in the middle for one agonizing second before they both rushed past me, returning to their respective places. I felt nauseous, the rancid taste of old blood lingering in my mouth. I swayed slightly, unable to regain my balance. I felt feverish, clammy, as if I was drenched in the blood that had poured from me in my vision.
Once more, both men had stopped their fighting to look over at me, concerned. "Mouse, you don't look well." Bill said worriedly at the same time as Dipper said "Y/n, you're shaking."
It was almost comical, Bill and Dipper's concern for me juxtaposing the aggressive stance they were in. Bill was still pinning Dipper down, his hand still gripping the other's face. Dipper had his fangs bared, his eyes blood red.
As I gazed upon them, their figures flickered and the smell of stale blood once again invaded my senses. Bill had Dipper by the throat, his eyes wide and manic. The pupils were thin, slitted, like a cat's or a snake's. Both his skin and his clothes were already stained in blood, presumably from the knife he held high in his right hand. It arched towards Dipper's chest, and despite the fact that the scene was frozen in a time yet to come, I reached out towards them.
Dipper was bloody, his bare torso covered in stab wounds, some fresh and some in the process of healing. His fangs were bared, an intense hatred clear in his dark red eyes. Blood poured from his nose and his ears, his teeth stained red, a few drops in the middle of falling from his eyes like tears.
And, once again, it was gone. I struggled to process everything, even as I teetered dangerously on the edge of oblivion. My vision was going dark at the edges as I raised one shaking hand to point at the pair. "You!" I cried out. "How could you?"
And then, before I could utter another word to answer their unspoken questions, darkness took me and I collapsed to the floor.