please review! :3c
The cave is mostly untouched.
There are a few empty, sticky cans, and your CDs are a mess in one corner. The bed is rippled, sheets dirty with questionable stains, and for some reason the stereo is under the bed frame.
home, you think, bitter, and tired.
.
There's the scuff of a hoof, and you're up like a shot, Manotaur musk clogging your nose. Stumbling from your stripped bed, you manage to not trample the fish laid in a pile at the cave entrance in your haste to scare the morons away.
"Huh," you whisper, staggering to a halt because.
Because that's right. There's no need for rivalry and hate anymore. Everyone is hurt, hurting, and you don't want to take the handout. You are perfectly okay on your own, the silence doesn't bother you, you don't need anybody.
lies, fucking lies, you hate it. it's drowning you, but maybe that's what you want.
You collapse in a heap, sprawl listlessly, and stare at the fish for awhile. It goes bad some time into the middle of the night, and if it is replaced some time early the next morning, and you fold, drag one from the pille and gnaw on it, then it's no one's business but yours.
.
You clean up somewhat.
Shuffle the trash into a pile in a corner because trash bags were only a luxury you could dream about most of the time, and now it's not, but—
The stereo you drag back from under the bed, slowly brush off the dirt and dust.
The CDs are stacked back into alphabetical order, and stare listlessly at your bed because all your sheets are gone apparently.
.
—boy this ought to be fun! It's like how the humans pull conjoined twins apart, except, what?
There's like seven of you, perhaps? Eight? Honestly, who cares!
Let's start with you on the back—
.
You're not really living, you know this, know it in the way you toy somberly with the eyepatch in your bed most days. Only, you don't really until the boy comes huffing and puffing up the mountain trail, two manotaurs at his heels.
It sends a thrill of fear down your spine, and you leap from your bed because even though you'd only seen him after the fact, you remember. The long and angry red line that had run from ankle to knee had been so deep the gleam of bone is forever etched into you memory. Neatly beside the screaming and painpLEASE—
"Dipper!" you gasp, and catch him against a paw as he collapses, falling forward with a squeak. "What are you doing?"
The two Manotaurs shuffle anxiously, and the one on the left gives a shaky chuckle. "The Manling wanted to see you, could not be swayed at all."
"Why?" you ask, and help him sit, let him catch his breath. You don't smell any blood, but you eye the bandages wrapped along the human's leg critically. Humans are so study, and it is forever surprising.
"T-There's," he starts, chest heaving from the strain," a Spa p-place that is going to be opened, and I just, I thought that maybe, you know."
A knot forms in your throat, and you flutter your eyes to hold back the sudden flux of tears. Oh. "I... Dipper, I'm glad you thought of—me, but I wasn't the one who knew how to do that stuff," you admit, and you feel sick because he died first, eyes rolling with pain as each of you were cut away.
A stricken look overtakes Dipper, and you want to snarl at the pity in the Manotaurs' eyes.
"I know," he says quietly, and his eyes are are a little shiny, maybe. "There's going to be an out-of-towner coming in to teach the humans first but, I thought you'd maybe like to learn? To have something to do."
He looks past you into the cave, and you know how big it looks, all for one small, misshapen bear.
"I'll think about it," you say in the end.
Dipper hangs out for awhile, the Manotaurs lounging around at the mouth of the cave, and it's somewhat better. Not being alone, that is.
Just like the town, you've been torn down to raw bare bones, left torn open and at a loss for the future. Honestly, you weren't sure you still had a place in it, not anymore at least. What can you even do?
You think about it, wave goodbye to Dipper and the setting sun, and think about it some more. You dream about your first words, hoarse and broken, but applauded by a gaggle of haunted human children and snotty unicorns. You dream of pain and suffering, of loss and the crow of victory.
You wake up the next morning ready.
.
"Hello, I was wondering if I could trade you a free massage for some trash bags once I'm certified?"