holy fuck it's finally done

so yeah this took too long- writer's block is awful and i'm honestly not even in the gravity falls fandom any more

but it's done

thanks to everyone who has supported this weird little fanfiction- I appreciate every comment, no matter how short, and I love you all for reading this far and putting up with my rambling and stupid plots

so I don't break tradition: yeah this chapter is still trash

I hope you enjoy

Chapter Fifteen

Dipper promised himself that he would tell Bill the next day, but found himself incapable of doing so.

He approached him about it upon turning up to the Youtuber's apartment, opening his mouth to speak the moment he stepped in through the door.

"Hey, Bill, I need to tell you something." He forced his hands to stop shaking, but was unable to stop the tremors that shook them and resorted to pushing his hands into his pockets to hide them from view.

"Wait, let me guess; You killed a person?" Bill's grin caught him off guard, bright, dazzling and genuine, half delighted smile, half malicious smirk, and Dipper couldn't bring himself to force the words out, couldn't make himself say the things that would inevitably cause that smile to fade off his face. He swallowed to dismiss the lump in his throat, and displayed what he hoped was a decent portrayal of a smile.

"Yeah, that's it. I need some help hiding the body." The laugh Dipper received in response, and the pressure of Bill's hands against his arms as he found himself pulled into a kiss was enough to allow him to force the fact that he would have to leave out of his mind, at least for a little while.

He tried again the next day, but to much the same result, steadying himself with deep breaths outside, then forgetting everything when a nerf dart bounced off his forehead the moment he stepped through the door, and Bill's laughing form popped up from behind the kitchen table and took another shot at him, laughing and grinning, a sense of almost childish amusement that Dipper couldn't bear to think of ruining.

He ended up halting himself every time- refused to bring it up while the two of them were curled up next to the television, eating takeout food from paper plates, didn't mention it when they were attempting to make pancakes and Bill managed to get batter stuck to the ceiling, brushed the topic aside when they kept ducking offscreen during one of Bill's livestreams to steal brief kisses.

Dipper knew he was just making it more difficult for himself, that the longer he left it, the worse the collateral damage would be when he finally told him. But he just couldn't bear the thought of telling Bill the truth and seeing him as anything less than happy.

The time ticked down to the point when he would have to leave, but every time the words rose to his throat, Bill's smile, Bill's laugh and Bill's touch would cause them to falter and leave.

One week left. The calendar on the wall of the Mystery Shack proclaimed to Dipper how long he had to tell Bill, not enough time to ease him gently into the idea of being apart for so long. Dipper knew that if the Youtuber took the news badly, he would be unable to reach a resolution before he left. So he simply didn't tell him. He let the news sit inside of him like a weight that pressed down on his chest, as the days counted down.

He filmed his final video in Gravity Falls three days before he was due to leave, hoping that the finality to it would give him enough motivation to tell Bill the news of his departure.

The whole affair was almost nostalgic, as he dragged his camera equipment up to the hill in front of the Floating Cliffs where he filmed his very first video almost a year ago, on a wobbly makeshift tripod, having no idea what he was doing, or where posting that very first video would lead him- towards his new job, towards mIndscape, and then towards Bill.

All things he was very close to losing.

The filming wrapped up smoothly, and the editing process was fast and easy, but Dipper almost wished it wasn't- he wanted to prolong things as long as possible, causing him to pause and falter as he went to upload the video, hands held above the keyboard in a state of indecision before he forced himself to post it. The moment he did so, he slung his bag over his shoulder and was out the door, running towards Bill's apartment.

"What do you mean, 'Last Video'?" Bill questioned Dipper the moment he tumbled in through the door of his apartment, the question more confused than accusatory. Dipper paused, half to catch his breath, half to steel his nerves and work up the courage to say what he needed to say. "Did you run out of abnormalities to talk about, or are you just-"

"I'm leaving Gravity Falls." Dipper cut Bill off, immediately cursing himself for the harsh way in which the revelation came out.

"What do you mean?" The look of confusion on Bill's face slid into a much more hostile one, and Dipper could feel his words rising up and blocking his throat, causing his voice to shake.

"I got a job at an institution studying scientific anomalies," He tried to put the explanation gently, but Dipper could feel the tension in the room rising and rising with every word. "I got the news about a month ago and I'm leaving in 3 days to start work."

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" Dipper could hear anger starting to show in Bill's voice, which in turn caused Dipper to start to feel a similar sense of annoyance.

"I know- I should have told you earlier. But there's no need to sound so angry about it." Frustration edged the brunet's voice as he spoke. "It's only a two year placement, and we'll still be able to skype and text. This job is the sort of thing I've wanted to do my entire life: would it really kill you to be at least a little happy for me?" Dipper was past the point of frustration, the sharp-edged words flying out of him before he could even think to stop them.

"Yeah, this is great for you, but what about me?" Bill's voice rose in volume, betraying his own anger. "Did you even think about how I'd feel about this?"

"Stop being so clingy! You can survive without me, can't you?" Dipper could tell the hostility in the room was reaching its breaking point, that one of them would slip up and say something they didn't mean before too long. He knew he should stop before the argument got any worse, but he just couldn't, fueled by anger and spurred on by harsh words.

"I'm not being clingy! You know I'm insecure about relationships because so many of my previous ones went badly." Bill gestured aggressively towards Dipper as he spoke, anger showing in his movements as well as his voice.

"Yeah, and I'm starting to see why now." Dipper knew he had gone too far the moment the words left his mouth. Bill's expression turned cold, hands curling into fists by his sides as he glared at Dipper, then past him, towards the door.

"Get out." Bill's voice was low, an icy cold tone that Dipper had never heard- never wanted to hear- from Bill.

Dipper did as he was instructed to, and left.

For the remaining days leading up to his departure from Gravity falls, Dipper was a mess. He didn't leave the Mystery Shack out of fear of running into Bill, three days of sitting indoors in numb silence, not quite believing that things had gone so badly. The photos of himself and Bill that remained on his phone, a set of childish notes and drawings that Bill had stuck to his wall and he had never taken down, the boarded up glass in his window where Bill had thrown a rock through it; all of it just caused him to break down again, under the knowledge that he had ruined everything.

He only gathered up enough composure to think about trying to fix things while sitting in a gas station cafe, two hours away from Gravity falls, a cup of stale, quickly cooling coffee in one hand, his phone in the other.

'I'm so, so sorry' He knew the text wasn't enough, knew that it wouldn't just fix things immediately, knew that there was no way he could just pretend everything hadn't happened. But it was a start.

'I can't just forgive you immediately.' the response from Bill was fast, followed up quickly by a second text. 'But I will at some point.' A third text came through just as fast. 'I just need a bit of time.' And Dipper was fine with that.

'Take as much time as you need' The relief that filled Dipper was slightly bittersweet, but it was like honey compared to the crushing sense of guilt that had weighed down on him over the previous few days. He typed out a second message, hesitating briefly but sending it anyway. 'I still love you, you know.' worried that he had overstepped his boundaries, Dipper placed his phone back in his pocket, drank the cold remains of his coffee, and left the gas station.

When Dipper reached the Dalton Institute for Natural Sciences, He found one new message from Bill waiting from him.

'I guess I love you too.'

Thankyou for reading