Prompt: Continuation of Darkest Hours.
Darkest Hours Part II
Dipper was going to be fine.
Mabel might maybe hunt Bill down and seal him inside a bag of Doritos and smash the bag with a hammer and then banish him to the far corners of the earth like she'd first screeched upon seeing her unconscious twin lying on a gurney, but at least Dipper would be alright.
Which was the important thing, to be honest. Bill hadn't even retaliated when Mabel had reacted the way she did—yelling, little fist waving, normally cheerful brown eyes dark and angry "How could you let him get hurt?!"—and that right there had been what kept the girl's sanity. Bill did look ashamed—an alien feature on the Dream Demon, to be sure—and she'd let him off the hook because then they were rushing her brother into Emergency and Stan was coming through the doors.
Mabel had taken a moment to look between the closing hospital doors and the front ones, then decided something and rushed into her Great Uncle's arms and actually hid in his chest. Even when Stan picked her up she didn't come out from her hiding spot. Bill thought he saw her arms tighten a bit. And Stan of course, was glaring at Bill like usual, but it was brief.
He and Stan couldn't talk in such a crowded place—little girls and boys talking to thin air was one thing. But only they and Stan could see Bill, and even then all Stan saw was a faint outline, which was all Cipher allowed the man to see. Which was probably for the better, because if Stan knew exactly what had happened (though his furious glare clued Bill in on the fact that, yes, he did know something.) he'd proably make sure Mabel kept up her threat, or even added in a punishment of his own. So maybe it was best if Cipher just…lied low for a bit.
They both really did love the kid. Bill didn't really understand where Dipper's self-deprecation came from when he had two people who thought the world of him.
But Dipper wasn't here right now. He was in the hospital's care, and he was hurt. And it was Bill's fault. Still, he couldn't help but automatically follow the remaining Pines family though, when they walked down the hall and into a waiting room. Stan checked them in, Mabel still velcroed to his front and him patiently juggling her and trying to sign things and talk to the nurse all at the same time.
He lowered himself quietly on a window sill near them and simply stared at the floor.
This just hadn't been his day.
Maybe an hour or so later a nurse started approaching them, holding a clipboard.
Something strange happened. (And coming from a Demon that lived in Gravity Falls, that's saying something.) Mabel finally let go of Stan, dropped to the floor and sprinted down the hall and to a room like she knew exactly where she was headed. She'd apparently just been waiting for them to be told it was okay to go there—even if the nurse hadn't really gotten to the part about telling them Dipper was in a room and able to be visited.
That room turned out to be Dipper's. Bill knew that—he knew everything.
He just didn't know how Mabel did.
The Dream Demon hung back, over Stanford's shoulder. This was partly to give the twin's some needed space and also because he wanted to know what Dipper had just gone through. Humans were so weird, fragile. You couldn't heal them with magic so they needed hospitals, which was a magic all its own but simply foreign to the Demon Who Was Supposed to Know Everything. Terms like 'collapsed chest and 'drainage' and 'reinflating the lung' were said. Bill made out "stable" and "resting now" which were obviously good terms, considering Stan sighed in obvious relief. Stan responded to the woman but Bill, his answers answered, wandered away from the humans and toward his own kids.
If he could still call them that.
The door was closed but there was a window to be seen through. Bill moved in front and watched Mabel finish scooting up to kneel on the bed beside her brother. Dipper was bandaged heavily and had something over his mouth, and his eyes were closed and his clothes were gone. Even when Mabel's little hand touched his uninjured shoulder and ever so gently shook it, he still didn't wake up. Cipher didn't think that was the best thing to be doing right now, but Mabel surprisingly stopped after the first attempt at waking her brother up and only hung her head for a second.
To be honest, Dipper already looked better than he did an hour and a half ago. And he was under strict machines monitoring his every move, so really…
He would be just fine.
It was Mabel Bill was now focused intently on. He observed her quietly.
She curled up tighter on the bed and carefully hugged Dipper's arm, which was lying over the covers and arguably the one limb he didn't have bandages or bruising on. His hat, only slightly crumpled and dirty from this whole fiasco, was crammed onto her head over her thick hair and seemed to be as much a security blanket as her twin's arm currently was. Mabel bit her lip, wouldn't quite look at Dipper's face for some reason only she knew, and fiddled with the thin hospital sheet as she watched over him. Her lips were moving, saying something to her sleeping brother. Bill couldn't hear her through the glass and he didn't feel like going into the room and seeing the fruits of his failure up close. (Because yes, letting Pine Tree get hurt like that WAS a failure on his part. A big one.) So Bill remained dutifully out in the hall, on the outside looking in.
Bill considered this sight before him, and wondered why Shooting Star's eyes were leaking.
Why strong, independent devil-may-care Mabel suddenly seemed as weak as her brother lying there unresponsive in the hospital bed was a complete and utter mystery to Bill.
"It's sad, right?" That was Stan's voice. Bill hadn't even noticed him walk up. These kids really were a big distraction to Bill. Stan's voice seemed rougher, more grating than usual; as if the man had sand paper in the back of his throat. Bill didn't look at him, but he did blink his one eye slowly, indicating he was listening.
"She's not so tough when he's like that." It was a quiet, sad observation. Bill was quiet.
When Stan entered the room and took a chair by Dipper's bedside, the Demon still hadn't moved.
He only moved when Mabel reluctantly peeled herself from her brother's side, only to come out and pull Bill inside. And when Bill is on Dipper's left side, and Mabel and Stan on his other, only then does Mabel crawl back up on the cot and fold herself against her twin and sniffle miserably.
Sure, Dipper was going to be fine.
Mabel, on the other hand.