Good Neighbor

William Cyrus wasn't the most outgoing of kids. Sure, most of the students in his year he'd known since kindergarten, but that didn't change the fact that he was painfully introverted. He just really didn't like talking to people. He always screwed it up, stuttering and sounding awkward; people tended to escape his conversation as fast as they could.

His uncle, a speech pathologist, had recommended he enroll in speech therapy offered by the high school's special education department. And after William hadn't done it within the first month, his uncle had come to the school himself and spoken with most of William's teachers. Now, said teachers had the patronizing habit of paying him special attention.

Sighing, as his algebra teacher greeted him on his way into school, William's inner monologue booted up: I don't have a speech problem, uncle. I just get really nervous around people. I appreciate your concern, but will you stay out of my life please!

He made his way to his locker, keeping his head down. It didn't bother him that people didn't talk to him. They didn't even bother to learn his name. But maybe it is a bit lonely.

The bell signaled the beginning of the day's boring routine. William dragged his unnecessarily heavy textbook (seriously, they never even put a dent in all this stuff!) to his first class. Mr. Acord started speaking after the initial flurry of thirty students finding their seats petered out.

It's too early for Biology, William thought with a yawn, Doctors have attested that biologically, eight o clock is too early for the teenage mind to hold information. So why do they do this to us?

His eye roamed the classroom and he noticed another kid in class nursing a paper mug of something that probably not hot chocolate.

Now he's a genius.

William was so caught up in pondering a legitimate excuse for slipping out of class to pay the vending machine a visit that he almost missed the announcement: "Over the next few days we will be doing a group project on the subject of…"

The rest of what Mr. Acord was going to say turned into a low buzz as William's brain fixated on two words.

Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group project. Group…

They resounded in his ears, taunting him. But he didn't have long to worry about it. People were shuffling around, apparently moving to assigned seats. William was frozen in his own seat, hoping to the highest hope that he wouldn't look like an idiot when he didn't move.

"Hey."

William started, spinning in his seat to face a set of boys, one slightly in front of the other.

"You're William, right?" the first one asked. He was a taller kid with thick, black hair; light, brown eyes; and a pointed nose. His disarming grin brought William's stress levels down a notch.

"Yeah." William answered, peeking a glance at the second one. To his surprise, it was the kid with the coffee that he's noticed earlier. A better look made William think that he was kind of familiar: sort of short, scrawny, with unkempt brown hair, and dark bags under his eyes. William couldn't remember where he'd seen him before, but he dismissed the mystery in lieu of getting this awful project over and done with.

The two boys took a seat, and that was when William realized he hadn't caught the other boys' names when the groups had been assigned. He felt his cheeks warm with embarrassment, but he couldn't summon the courage to ask.

I'll just call them Boy 1 and Boy 2 until I can figure it, he decided.

Boy 1 read off the instructions without prompt. Not that he would receive such a thing from William, now tongue tied now that people were within five feet of him, or Boy 2, if his heavy lidded, vacant expression was indicative of anything. Apparently they were going to be given a species to dissect and then give a presentation in class on the highlights of its key qualities.

Great, he thought sarcastically, this is going to be awesome.

"Alright then," Boy 1 said clapping his hands and rubbing them together, "I suck at Bio, so this is gonna be fun." He offered William a crooked smile, "I'll go get the specimen. Dipper, why don't you get the tools."

Boy 2 identified. That didn't take long. But man, I thought my nickname was bad.

"W-what about me?" William stuttered, surprised at being left out.

Boy 1 grinned. He always seemed to have a smile of some sort, "Will, you can read through the procedure. If it's okay with you, you can do the dissection part. I'm kind of a squeamish, and I promise you I will puke if I so much as touch a scalpel. Dipper probably shouldn't do it if he plans on finishing his coffee."

William shrugged to show, nonverbally, that that arrangement was fine with him. As the other two left, he scanned the paper Boy 1 had left behind. He was pleasantly surprised to find that 'Group 3' was written at the top of the sheet, along with the names of its members: William Cyrus, Isaac Guerrero, and Dipper Pines.

Boy 1 identified. That wasn't so bad.

With a clatter of the dissection pan and a variety of utensils, the group started on their project. Unfortunately for William, that's also when the awkward rambling started. Distracted by his careful work of finding the tissues and systems they were looking for, William forgot to keep his strange thoughts to himself.

"I'm so glad this thing is dead, or else it'd probably be constantly screaming."

Isaac hummed beside him, "If that was the case, I'd be puking without even touching a scalpel."

He probed around the formaldehyde ridden creature's mouth, commenting, "I have a weird collection of teeth, but I don't think I have one from a fetal pig."

"I imagine those would be hard to come by." Isaac said good-naturedly.

Another minute passed in silence before Mr. Acord, who'd been roaming around the class to offer advice, came over to check on Group 3.

"Any questions?" he asked Isaac.

"Nope!"

"Good. Keep up the good work, Bill. You're doing a fantastic job."

As Mr. Acord walked away William pulled a face. That was probably the most annoying consequence of his uncle talking to his teachers: their use of his uncle's nickname for him.

Isaac blinked once before looking William's way, "You're nickname is Bill?"

"T-that's what my uncle calls me," William went back to his work, feeling the tips of his ears burn, "but I-I-I'd prefer Will if that's okay."

Hand on his chin in a contemplative manner, Isaac stated with a smile, "Or I could just call you amigo, ammirite?" he commented to Dipper, "He doesn't really look like a Bill, don't you think?"

Both boys turned their attention to Dipper, waiting for his response. But none was forthcoming. The boy simply stood there, stiff as a board. His eyes were unfocused as proverbial gears turned in his brain. William had to strain his ears to hear a string of mumbles: "…head that's always screaming… Cyrus, Cipher, same sound at the beginning… deer teeth…"

Suddenly Dipper's gaze snapped to the scalpel in William's hand. In less than a second, he had snatched the utensil away. Dark eyes glared at William with unnerving force. Startled by the boy's sudden change in demeanor William took a step back.

Isaac stepped between them, shooting Dipper a confused look, "What gives, man?"

"I think I should handle the knife from now on." It was the first time Dipper had really spoken to them, but his tone had an edge of authority too it, like he was used to leading.

"Kay, but you didn't have to be so rude about it." Isaac grumbled. When Dipper went to work on the specimen he shrugged in William's direction.

The silent cordiality lasted for about another minute before William had an epiphany that shattered what was left of Group 3's teamwork.

"Your locker is like, three down from mine!" he said, announcing his realization of why Dipper had seemed familiar loudly enough to draw his lab partners' attention, "After school you wear that blue and white trucker's hat with the pine tree on it."

"That would be what you notice!" Dipper growled, abruptly standing so that his chair nearly fell over backwards. Without further ado, he marched to the front of the class, had Mr. Acord fill out a pass, and disappeared into the hall.

"Um…Okay?" Isaac muttered, "Let's just finish up without him then. There isn't that much time left in the period."

William shrugged, afraid to say anything that might piss off his last lab partner. But even after the bell rang, Isaac walked with him, chatting idly while William remained silent. Their one-sided conversation came to a halt as the hallway became congested with a crowd of students all staring at the same thing.

"Who's locker is that?" William heard a girl whisper.

"What's going on?" Isaac asked.

"Dunno."

The duo pushed their way to the front. But William had a hard time believing what he was seeing.

A single locker had somehow been yanked from the wall and tossed down the centerline of the hallway. The green painted metal was mangled from the force of its removal and the linoleum was streaked from where it had slid along the tiles. But the biggest surprise was that the gap of discolored cinder blocks revealed that the row was missing number 227: William's locker.

Isaac read his blanched face, "That's yours, isn't it."

William nodded.

"That jerk," Isaac's eyes narrowed and he spun on his heel, "See you after school, amigo! I'm going to tell the principal."

Tell him what? Isaac thought. That a skinny, fourteen year old boy somehow tore my locker off the wall. Yeah, I'm sure he'll believe that. I don't even believe it, and I'm staring at it!

But William couldn't deny that Dipper's attitude had seemed pretty suspicious: loathing tinged with just a hint of… fear.

What did I ever do to him?

Less than a half hour later, William found himself sitting in a chair outside of the principal's office. He waited to be summoned, trying not to eavesdrop on the sounds emanating from within the office. But it was hard to ignore. And his classmate's odd behavior had only made him more curious.

"Did you vandalize Bill's locker?" Principal Rocklin asked. Geez, even the principal was on the nickname train? He really needed to have words with his uncle.

Dipper's quiet voice muttered, "Don't trust people named Bill."

"So you're confessing?"

"It's over here!" A new voice, clear and bell-like came from the other end of the hall.

William looked up to see a girl, probably around his age, and an elderly man hasten their way towards him. Without knocking, the old man barreled his way into the office before William could get a good look at him. But the girl plopped into the seat next to him, kicking her legs back and forth as she waited. She smiled at him, brown eyes crinkling at their corners.

She's really pretty, William observed. And he might've kept staring were it not from shouts issuing from the office to distract him.

"You can't just barge in here!" Principal Rocklin objected, "This is a conduct meeting!"

"I'm an old man," the old man declared, "So I don't have a lot of time to stand around waiting. What's going on? What's the kid in trouble for."

"He's suspected in removing another student's locker from its place." Rocklin admitted grudgingly. "Who are you anyway?"

The old man barked out a laugh, "I'm the kid's Grunkle Stan. You're tell'n me that you think this wimpy kid pulled a locker off a wall? Look at his noodle arms! I might be old, but I know what physics is. You can't pull one over me."

William could practically see Principal Rocklin fuming in his mind's eye. He shot a sideways glance at the girl only to find her still smiling despite the heated conversation occurring just a wall away.

Kinda creepy.

"I don't know how he did it, but he's the only one with a hall pass at the time of the incident."

"That's cute." Grunkle Stan sneered, "Thinking kids follow the rules all the time. You still have a whole school of suspects. Heck, maybe the kid did it to his own locker!"

"Bill wouldn't do that!" Principal Rocklin's voice was rising again.

"Ha! See! Never trust someone named Bill!"

Outside the office, William sank lower into his seat, hating his nickname more than ever. The girl patted his hand consolingly.

"Now I'm an old man," Grunkle Stan reiterated, "So I'd rather that the precious time I took to make this trip be spent with my niece and nephew instead of waiting for them to get out of after-school detention. We are going to go so you conduct a more thorough investigation. If you find solid evidence that the kid did it, then you can call his parents. I don't have the patience for this crap."

Grunkle Stan bustled Dipper out of the Principal's office, past William, and down the hall. The girl jumped up and tagged along behind them, a cheerful bounce in her step.

I wish my uncle was that cool, the thought leapt unbidden to William's mind. Hoping for some resolution, he listened to the trio's parting conversation.

It started with the old man whapping Dipper up the side of the head.

"Sorry." Dipper mumbled.

"Dip," Grunkle Stan sighed roughly, "Magic users attract enough trouble as is. At least have the decency to not get caught."

Um, what? Magic? If it were real, that could explain it…

"You're usually such a paranoid pants," the girl added, nudging Dipper, "Why'd you do something so careless."

William's classmate muttered something that couldn't be heard with the growing distance. But whatever it was, it caused the old man to ruffle Dipper's hair reassuringly and the girl to sling her arms around him in a hug. And they rounded the corner like that; the three of them; a family.

When William was assigned a new locker – one very far from his old one – he wondered, maybe Dipper Pines is a genius and this was his plan all along.

Whelp, this one REALLY got away from me (about 1000 words longer than the other chapters). That, and I keep preying on Dipper's likely PTSD thanks to a certain triangle demon. Also, Stan Visits! I like to think that he grows really attached to the twins and becomes acting grandfather, boxing trainer, and magical mentor. Lastly, Will is a sweetheart and he finally has a friend!

The opportunity for ideas is still open. Thanks for reading!