Chapter Fourteen
Dipper didn't remember falling asleep at the journal he had been reading. He didn't remember dreaming and he most certainly didn't understand why he was waking up in the forest.
It had to be a dream.
He had to be dreaming.
Dipper had woken up standing, but he didn't remember opening his eyes. He just remembered beginning to see in the forest.
Mabel was standing in front of him. Stan was standing behind her, but he was close by.
"Dipper?" Mabel asked. "Are you all right, Dipper? What are you doing in the forest?" Dipper hated the forest.
"No…" Dipper breathed out. It was almost the exact scenery of the recurring nightmare Bill would give him. The nightmare where Mabel would strangle Dipper to death. He hadn't had it in a long time since taking his medication, but he did remember it. It was a little difficult to forget your twin nearly killing you. "No, no, no…"
"What's wrong?" Mabel asked, the worry evident in her tone of voice. Even Stan was watching Dipper carefully now.
"No!" Dipper exclaimed, turning back and running through the woods. He ran as fast as he could, and he could hear Mabel and Stan running behind him. Dipper knew he was the slowest in the group, so did his best to run in zig zags to prevent being caught. "Leave me alone!"
"We just want to talk, kid!" Stan exclaimed. "We're not gonna hurt you!"
"You will!" Dipper shouted back. "But I won't let you!" He continued to run until his foot got caught on a root and he ended up on the ground. Mabel and Stan were quick to catch up to him. "Leave me alone!"
"Dipper, please, we're not trying to hurt you!" Mabel called out.
"Go away!" Dipper shouted, louder than he had before. Mabel backed away from him, looking away from her brother.
"Mabel, go back to the Shack and tell Soos and Wendy that we found him," Stan instructed. "We'll be back soon."
"Okay," Mabel said quietly, turning and walking back to the Shack as instructed.
"What is this all about?" Stan asked when Mabel was gone. "You disappear out of the blue and when we finally find you, you bolt? And you thought we were gonna hurt you?"
"This is real?" Dipper asked with wide eyes. He hadn't meant to snap at Mabel like he did. He meant to snap at Bill. He meant to manage escaping torment.
"Of course this is real," said Stan. "Have you been taking the medicine your parents gave you? They said it was supposed to help with…this."
Dipper didn't answer. Stan sighed before moving to dislodge Dipper's foot from the root on the ground. Dipper moved to stand, hissing when he put pressure on his right foot.
"It might be sprained," Stan commented. He lifted Dipper off the ground and began walking out of the forest. Dipper let out a groan when he was lifted. He was fifteen now, and being lifted by his uncle was more embarrassing than it was when he was twelve. "Stop your groaning; you can't walk on that ankle."
When they reached the Mystery Shack, Stan placed Dipper on a bench in the gift shop.
"Stay right there; I'm gonna get something to clean you up," Stan said. Dipper hadn't noticed, but he had gotten a bit scuffed up when he was running through the forest, especially when he fell to the ground.
Stan returned with rubbing alcohol to clean up the scratches on Dipper's knees from his fall, as well as some ice for his ankle. Wendy, Soos, and Mabel pretended not to be watching as Stan continued to clean the teenager.
"Dipper…" Stan trailed off suddenly. Dipper looked to where his uncle was gazing. He didn't escape Bill after all – Stan had rolled up his sweatshirt sleeve and there were three horizontal cuts on his left wrist. They looked like they had been made before he went into the woods – or maybe whenever he ended up in the woods it had happened. Dipper was still unsure how all of this happened.
Mabel caught on to what had happened.
"Dipper," she said as she ran over to try and help. "I thought…I thought you weren't doing this anymore."
"I'm not," Dipper defended. "I didn't…" Dipper didn't know how to tell Mabel that he had never done this to himself in the first place and her not believe he was still crazy and that his medication dosage needed to be changed again.
Stan bandaged Dipper's wrist and finished cleaning the teen up before stepping away from him.
"Dipper…under the circumstances, I'm going to need you to not wear sweatshirts for the remainder of your visit," Stan said. He didn't want to do this, but he had to make sure that Dipper didn't continue to hurt himself. "You don't have to stay in the gift shop, but you can't hide out in the attic all day either. You can stay in the TV room." While he couldn't let Dipper do this to himself anymore, he wasn't going to subject the boy to being embarrassed about the scars from the last time he had ended up with wounds like these.
"I'll go change…" Dipper trailed off. He didn't want to fight with Stan. Not after fighting with him last time, and he still felt badly about his outburst with Mabel in front of Stan. He would definitely need to apologize for that later. Dipper stood from the bench and winced again when he put pressure on his right foot.
"You can't stand on that," Stan said. "Soos, why don't you help Dipper to his room?" Stan could tell that Dipper wasn't ready to have anything else to do with him, so he enlisted the help of his handyman, who Dipper was attached to. It would help even out the tension with everyone in the Shack instead of having it all directed toward one person.
"Sure thing, Mr. Pines," Soos said. He didn't lift Dipper like Stan had done, but he did let the kid use him as a crutch. It was a bit difficult because Soos was so much taller than Dipper, but he didn't want to embarrass Dipper in front of Wendy, who was still pretending like she hadn't heard anything at the cash register.
When Soos helped Dipper reach his room, he waited for Dipper to change his shirt so that he could help him to the TV room. He had turned around to give the teenager a bit of privacy, but turning back around prematurely had caused him to see the bruises littered over Dipper's chest. Bill had not been so kind to him recently.
"Dipper…" Soos trailed off.
Dipper pulled his shirt over his head asking, "What?"
"Nothing…" He would speak with Stan later.
Dipper spent the rest of his afternoon in front of the TV. With a sprained ankle, he couldn't really go anywhere without help. Soos said he would bring a pair of his old crutches from when he was a kid tomorrow, but that meant Dipper was spending the day in front of mindless television, when he could be messing with the journal.
Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember what happened after the journal. He didn't remember going to sleep, so he didn't know what even happened to the journal. He hadn't even seen it when he went upstairs to change in his room.
So, not only did he not know where the journal was and was stuck in front of the TV, but Mabel kept popping in to check on him like he was a crazy person – and she probably thought he was.
When Mabel came and checked on him, she wasn't coming in and asking how he was. She was coming in, walking past him, but keeping her eyes on him as she walked by, before she went back to the gift shop. It was the same way she used to check on him when he first got out of the hospital, and it was the way their mother checked on him too.
"How's it hanging, slick?" Stan asked when he walked in to check on Dipper at the end of the day. Stan actually talked to Dipper during his checks.
"The TV gets old after a while," Dipper said. With not being able to go to his room, reading the journal was out of the question, even if he could find it. Stan would never allow him to read the journal again, and Dipper would be lucky if Mabel would let him read it.
"Listen, Dipper…" Stan trailed off. "We gotta talk."
"About what?" Dipper asked. What else could there be to talk about after the day they had?
"Soos came to me after he brought you in here," Stan began. "He said something about you having…well, he said you were covered in bruises."
"Bruises?" Dipper asked. "He must've seen wrong. I don't have any bruises," the teen fibbed.
"Dipper, please take off your shirt," Stan instructed. He even said please. He hated that word.
"No," Dipper said quickly.
"No?" Stan asked. "Kid, look, you don't have a choice here. Take off your shirt. I'm giving you the chance to do it in privately instead of doing it like last time." Dipper remembered last time. It had been humiliating to have his shirt taken off and be exposed and bruised in front of Soos. Thankfully Wendy hadn't seen it.
"Fine, just hold on," Dipper said. He adjusted in the chair so he wouldn't have to stand, hesitantly lifting up his shirt. He didn't need to take it off to show the extent of the damage.
"You can put it back down," Stan said after the initial shock wore off. How could this kid hurt himself the way he did? Stan didn't understand it, but he would do his best to watch over and help Dipper through it.
Dipper slid his shirt down and avoided Stan's gaze. He couldn't admit to something he didn't do, but if he started spouting out about Bill torturing him in his dreams, they would all think he was crazy again!
"You know I'll have to tell your parents about this," Stan said after a pregnant pause.
"Please don't," Dipper pleaded. "If they know about this, they'll make me come back home." I won't be able to finish my research, Dipper added silently.
"I have no choice but to tell them," Stan responded. "But I'll try and fight for you to stay."
"They'll think I need my meds fixed," Dipper said. "They'll think I need to go back to my psychiatrist."
"Well, maybe a local psychiatrist will do the trick," Stan mentioned. "If your psychiatrist can fax your file to one closer, I'll take you there. We'll have to leave this hick town to get to a decent psychiatrist, but it'll be worth it for you to stay."
"If you can convince them of that, I guess I wouldn't have a problem," Dipper said, but he did have a problem. He had a very big problem with Stan taking him back to a psychiatrist.
"I'll help you to your room so you can go to bed," Stan said. He lifted Dipper from the couch and carried him to his bedroom where he placed the boy on his bed.
"I thought I wasn't supposed to be in here by myself?" Dipper asked.
"Mabel's on her way in," Stan answered. He stayed until Mabel entered the room, ready for bed, before giving each twin a pat on the head and leaving.
The room was silent as Mabel got settled in bed. Dipper felt like he needed to say something. He needed to apologize to his sister for what had happened in the forest.
"Mabel…" Dipper trailed off.
"You don't need to say anything," Mabel said suddenly. "I know what you mean."
"I was having a hard time, I think…" Dipper trailed off. He didn't know how to apologize to Mabel without telling her everything, and he wasn't ready for that. He wasn't sure he could admit to Bill haunting his dreams for all these years – even if most of the time, Bill hadn't been there, due to his medication.
"I told you I didn't think you reading the journal was a good idea," Mabel said. "Can you not look at it anymore?"
"I don't even remember where I put it," Dipper said. He hadn't seen it both times he had been brought to his room, and he didn't see it now.
"Good," Mabel said. She turned over in bed so she couldn't face him. "Don't look for it."
GRQ'W VOHHS. FDQ'W VOHHS.
In other news, my cousin has a baby and my dad was thinking about how he is a great uncle and he just realized that he's a grunkle. He's blown away.