(A/N: Little something to point out. I posted a song at the top and it's kinda like the anthem for this chapter. It'll show a little bit of the tone in the beginning. In the second half, I'll place the other song which'll give you a hint to the new tone that this chapter is switching to.)

It was silent, both of our heads down as the street lights came on. His head, shimmering with soft brown hair, rested in the hollow of my neck, both arms draped around me in an almost hug-like fashion as I led his staggering body home.

His breath was warm against my collarbone, his lower lip grazing over it with every step he took. I dared to steal a glance at him, only to see his messy hair blocking my vision.

"He beats me, you know?" He suddenly spoke, which made me freeze in shock. Beats? Beats? Who beats him? "Grunkle Stan. He gets very angry a lot." He answered, a slight hiccup in his voice. I couldn't help but look at him once more, his brown-blue eyes now staring back at me.

"Is that where you got the scar?" I asked, looking to his left cheek which had a straight line made up of slightly lighter skin. I remembered the day I saw the scar. When we had hung signs and I asked about it, lifting my hand to touch it, only to be pushed away and rejected.

Dipper smiled sheepishly, a hum against my neck which I could only assume was his slight laughter. "You remember that? I thought I had gotten rid of that memory... Perhaps just the last one... With the Gremloblin."

And with that, I was officially frozen once more. I had forgotten all about that. The dream. The daisy. The dolphin. The Dipper. I had to know more. I had to know what he had done to me.

"If you're worried I raped you or something, chill out. I just whipped your memory so you wouldn't remember me killing it. That would've given you nightmares for months. Trust me. I know." Dipper responded... to my thoughts. DAFUQ?!?!?!?

I let go of him, letting his body crash to the ground with a thud, which I instantly regretted. But I was in a mood and wouldn't be turned into the bad guy. Not now. "I DIDN'T GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO ENTER MY MIND!!!" I shouted, Dipper's head bobbing from side to side, trying his best to keep it from tumbling off his shoulders. "Well, I didn't give you permission to think of me like that. You have some very strange fantasies about me...."

My face burned crimson red, remembering the late night thoughts and the early morning daydreams I had about him. Some romantic. Some inappropriate. Some embarrassing. Some degrading. He had seen them. God knows how many he'd seen. And, Lordy Lou, I had a lot of them.

"You sure did." He hiccupped, letting out a slight laugh as he smiled at me. "Shut. Up." I spat, more embarrassed than I had ever been in my entire life. Dipper rolled his eyes, giving off one of the sexist smiles I had ever seen. Not cute. Not beautiful. But sexy.

It was then that I realized just how different he seemed. He had himself lazily propped up by his elbows, his legs spread in an uncaring manner, his hair covering one eye while the other housed a gorgeous shade of brown, and his smile plastered on like a Cheshire cat.

"Don't worry. I give you permission." He finally let out, his face smug as ever. "Um..... What?" I replied, looking at him. He didn't respond. Instead, he lifted himself to his feet, a bounce in his step as he staggered upwards. His head continued to lull from side to side as his balance fought to become even, his face pressing near me. His eyes seemed to vibrate, the alcohol still vibrant in his veins as he shuffled towards me in a blind shift of weight from one foot to the other.

His lips were pinned back in a sharp grin, his snow-white teeth bare, as if ready to chomp down on my neck. I knew I should back up, give him space to spaz out in his drunken state of delusion, maybe tire himself out, but I couldn't. I had never seen this from him before, and I wasn't sure I wanted to either.

But, a strange part of me, a simple whisper in my ear, told me this was the most of Dipper I had ever seen. Maybe this was who he was, not some contained proper teenager, but a boy. A freakish boy. Maybe he was who I needed to know. Not the cover up. But the real deal.

"I hope this isn't me. Stan would hate this thing." He spoke after a moment of silence, followed by a hollow laugh which held no true humor to it. "He hates me, you know. It's because I killed her..." And suddenly he was quiet, fear beginning to pulse through my blood. Did he just say killed?! What? Who? How? HOW?! What the heck?! WHAT THE FHJDFSJKFSDJKSDFJKKFKF???!?!??!?

Dipper seemed slightly smug, looking deeply into my eyes, his body suddenly swirling in one place as his feet tangled in a dance determined to keep up right. He was weak. His legs were shaking, sturdy yet clumsy, only to give out under their own weight. He collapsed in my arms, his own wrapped around my neck as he began to breathe heavily.

"I killed her." He continued, confusion plain on my face as he spoke. "Stan tells me it's my fault she died. So, why wouldn't it be true?" Once more, he let out a pacified laugh, burning against my ear just from the pure alcohol infused into his very breath. I gulped, my arms tightening around him as I began working up the courage to ask a burning question I had myself.

"Who?" I asked, trying my best to break away from him and look directly into his eyes, only to feel a limp body in my arms. He seemed like pure flesh, no spine, no bones, no senses. Just pure flesh, sagging in a depressed state of self-loathing.

Suddenly, I felt a shake from him, a shiver, a quiver, a weak squeak from his very bones which I instantly took notice to. His shoulders were vibrating. His breath began to hitch, ever so slightly as he continued to breath, now much more softly. His arms tightened around my neck, to the point of suffocation, it felt like. My neck, his face pressed harshly against it, grew moist with tears. He was crying.

"Mom...." He whispered yearningly, a voice left behind long ago as a child, a tone which only a true child, one with irrational fears and wondering eyes, could achieve. A child which looked to no one else but a mother for guidance. A child which lost his guidance.....

"I killed her... I had to have killed her... I was always a bad kid..." He sighed out harshly, hitches and hiccups plaguing his every word as he spoke. "I pushed her over the edge... Stan says I worked her to death... Two kids... Dead beat father... No money..." He continued, mumbling into my shoulder, letting every word which filed through his brain drip sluggishly past his gorgeous lips.

Dipper paused for a moment, a soft, shaky breathe the only thing filling the silence. "You don't care though, do you...?" Dipper questioned mournfully, quickly dropping his arms from around me to his sides. He stepped back, his eyes plastered to the gravelly road, his arms wrapping around himself as a sudden cloud of darkness seemed to pass over him.

His eyes, once a beautiful brown, began to glow an icy blue. His entire face seemed illuminated by the sheer brightness of his glowing orbs. "I-I-I killed h-er. I- I had -to. No no no no no no- It's- It's my fault. She's - I killed her- I-" Dipper began to babble, pulling in armfuls of air to his lungs as he continued, as if he had no idea how to comprehend it.

He continued to walk backwards, only for his back to hit a light post. He hunched forwards, letting his hair cover his face, his hands gripping furiously at the roots of his hair, ready to begin pulling out fists full. Suddenly, the words stopped, loud gasps for air all that could be heard, only for Dipper to let out a sudden scream. A scream of frustration, of depression, of loss, of sadness.

It was agonizing just to hear it, the pure sorrow swelling up within his straining voice. I had no idea what to do, my legs wobbly and my hands shaking, afraid of what he may do if I tried to comfort him. But, still, I had to do something.

My legs, rubber noodles shaking like Jell-O, shuffled towards him in an attempt to seem strong and reliable. But, really, I was scared. I was scared of him. Dipper, still hunched over gripping the roots of his hair, abruptly stopped screaming, as if someone pressed a button to silence him. He shook for a moment, removing his hands from his head to begin gripping at his sides once more, his legs wobbling. He collapsed. His limp body fell to the earth in complete silence, a hopeless scene apparent in that moment.

For a second, I feared he had somehow dropped dead right before me, only for him to continue his hitched breathing, tears rolling off his face in heavy streams.

He curled up into a ball, his hair draping his face like a gloomy curtain. In that moment, something overtook me, as if I could feel him. His very emotion emanating off of him, filling me to the core. I rushed to his lifeless form and skid on my knees just to get to his eye level quicker. My knees protested as the rough rocks ripped the very flesh off my bones, but I hardly noticed as I reached his side. "Dipper!" I gasped in a whisper-shout, shaking his shoulder in an attempt to get a reaction from him.

"Dipper!" I repeated, shaking him more vigorously with each shout I let out. He shook hopelessly, his body only tightening as I tried my best to snap him out of it. Time went by, two or three minutes, when my shakes began to slow to a stop. They soon became a soft rocking of his body, a soothing lull to calm his cries as the tears persistence.

https://youtu.be/v08j9YSCPjY

The occasional whimper escaped through the cracks in his shaking breathe, to which I shushed away in a motherly manner. The crying didn't slow, the tears continued to soak the concrete by which he laid, hushed yet heard by my ears. And only mine.

"Dipper..." I spoke once more, after a moment or two of long silence. There was a pause, a hitched intake of air and choked sobs, before he let out a quiet 'hm', to which I assumed was my invitation to speak. But, it occurred to me, I had nothing to say. I had no way to relate to him, to comfort him, to understand his pains. So, I said nothing.

I sat there for a moment before I grasped his face, pressed soullessly against the road, and lifted in softly atop my lap. His eyes, closed as if he were asleep, were red and swollen from tears. His face was placed upright to the sky as I rearranged my body to lay against the light pole, his head resting horizontally on top of my lap.

I brushed the hair out of his face, his birthmark shining bleakly to the sky, all of it's original energy and mystery suddenly gone. Just like Dipper's. Silence fell over us, Dipper lying with dried white streams on either cheek, my hand reflexively going back and forth, back and forth against the soft tips of his hair, listening to nothing more than his calmed breathing.

A sudden hum startled me. A hum which I could only recall from childhood memories as a love song about playing in the sand and buying a pony. 'We were playing in the sand....' the song would begin. 'And you found a little band...' it would go on.

The very hum of his voice seemed to sooth me more than I had previously thought possible, hearing the low and sedated tone within him. "You told me to buy a pony but all I wanted was you..." I heard him let out, almost apathetically, as he finished his hum with the final verse. I looked down at his face, his eyes still softly shut as if he were dreaming, only for him to open them, baring his chocolate eyes to the world.

His face was so depressed and emotionless for a moment it looked like he might burst into tears again. But, he didn't. Instead, he looked directly into my eyes, a sudden realization of who he was with and what was happening. It was strange, his face glowing a bright red which only infuriated his brown eyes as he looked back up at me.

Within seconds, I was leaning down towards his face, his lips a clear target for my view. I looked down at him, his face turning a darker shade of red with every inch I slipped past. I was a mere inch from him, our lips grazing over each other, my lips perpendicular to his as I closed in the final centimeter between us. The kiss, soft and warm, was strange. But only for a moment.

I felt warm this close to him as I kissed him and, slowly, he kissed back. I felt strange, how it made me so happy when he took in quick, short breaths, how his saliva mixed with mine with every lick his tongue gave my lips. And how sorrowful I felt when he stopped kissing back.

He froze, a sudden darkness cast over his eyes as a realization his him: I was not his girlfriend. And, in that moment, I seemed to make the exact same realization. His palm pressed the center of my face as he shoved my head away from his, Dipper letting out an awkward and troubled laugh. "I- I think I'm sober now. I should get home." He smiled shakily, pure fear and paranoia present on his face.

He shot up off the gravel, reflexively lifting me up as well without even thinking. "This has been fun but, I really should get going. I'm sorry miss Southeast for wasting your time with these shenanigans. You really should get home before someone realizes you're gone." He let out, almost robotically.

He turned away swiftly, his gate confident and powerful, though it was far too obvious he was still drunk from all the vodka. Without thinking, I rushed to his side, locking my arm with his. "I'll walk you home. You're a little..." I began.

"Smashed." Dipper finished for me. I expected him to loosen his grip around my arm, to let go, to push me away even. But he didn't. In fact, he tightened his arm, placing his head on my shoulder. "Hey.... Wanna see something cool?" He asked. And, if I could be completely honest, nothing would make me happier than him lightening the mood. I nodded my head cheerily, seeing his face light up with the response. He reached behind my ears for a mere second or two, only to pull out a daisy.