Dipper let go of his shorts and covered his face with both hands.
"I was so mad. At what the yellows did and what happened to Sam. And all my constructs were, like, monsters, and it actually started scaring the yellows and --" This was the part that was hard to admit. "--and I liked that it scared them. I was just so tired of seeing these monsters that like making other people feel powerless and like hurting people. They were just like Bill; they thought it was okay to make other people people afraid. So...so I, like, lost it and I started liking making them afraid. And it meant I got a yellow ring, just like them, because they were so afraid of me. Like...like I was a monster, too, or something."
He pressed his palms to his eyes so hard that he could feel his eyeballs compressing.
"And my friend Hal had all the ring stuff going on back home and tried to show me the yellow ring was dangerous, and that they were bad for you, but I didn't listen in time, and Sinestro -- the yellow leader guy -- had this recall function on the yellow rings. So they caught us, me and Hal and a few other Legionnaires that picked up yellow rings during the fight."
His words started to get faster and rose in pitch.
"They kidnapped us and made us, like, fight for our lives in their 'training' and I had to just -- they were all monsters basically trying to eat me, and then there was 'conditioning' where they just --"
He couldn't stop it, tears streamed out between his fingers.
"They messed with my head because they -- they wanted to make me one of them but they couldn't do it if I was me, because I didn't want to hurt innocent people, so they made me stop being me. They messed up all my memories and made me remember everything wrong."
The only way to make him bitter enough and crazy enough to hurt others had been rewriting his whole life. They had to make him a different Dipper.
"They made it so I remembered that mom and dad hated me and ignored me and told me they didn't want me, and Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford were these crazy kidnappers that held me hostage all summer, and everyone at school was mean to me all the time, even worse than they actually were, and -- and --"
He kicked the bottom of the bed again, trying to release the pent up anxiety he felt squeezing his chest.
"And they couldn't do that to my memories of you. They tried so hard but I kept seeing the real you coming through, so it didn't work like with mom and dad and everyone else -- so then they tried to convince me you were weak or something and that I should hate you, but that didn't work, either--"
All that was left was the unforgivable.
"--so then there was only one thing left that they could try." He drew his hand away from his face because she deserved this. She deserved him at least looking her in the eye as he told her what he did.
The words sounded like they were being squeezed out through broken glass as he said them.
"They...they made me an only child. They made me forget you."
Even despite the tears, he'd held it together up to this point, to a degree, but he dissolved now, tears streaming down his face, shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry. I tried so, so hard to stop it, but I couldn't..."
Never mind that they'd done crazy things to his head, he still thought he should've been able to fight it somehow.
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"I was so mad. At what the yellows did and what happened to Sam. And all my constructs were, like, monsters, and it actually started scaring the yellows and --" This was the part that was hard to admit. "--and I liked that it scared them. I was just so tired of seeing these monsters that like making other people feel powerless and like hurting people. They were just like Bill; they thought it was okay to make other people people afraid. So...so I, like, lost it and I started liking making them afraid. And it meant I got a yellow ring, just like them, because they were so afraid of me. Like...like I was a monster, too, or something."
He pressed his palms to his eyes so hard that he could feel his eyeballs compressing.
"And my friend Hal had all the ring stuff going on back home and tried to show me the yellow ring was dangerous, and that they were bad for you, but I didn't listen in time, and Sinestro -- the yellow leader guy -- had this recall function on the yellow rings. So they caught us, me and Hal and a few other Legionnaires that picked up yellow rings during the fight."
His words started to get faster and rose in pitch.
"They kidnapped us and made us, like, fight for our lives in their 'training' and I had to just -- they were all monsters basically trying to eat me, and then there was 'conditioning' where they just --"
He couldn't stop it, tears streamed out between his fingers.
"They messed with my head because they -- they wanted to make me one of them but they couldn't do it if I was me, because I didn't want to hurt innocent people, so they made me stop being me. They messed up all my memories and made me remember everything wrong."
The only way to make him bitter enough and crazy enough to hurt others had been rewriting his whole life. They had to make him a different Dipper.
"They made it so I remembered that mom and dad hated me and ignored me and told me they didn't want me, and Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford were these crazy kidnappers that held me hostage all summer, and everyone at school was mean to me all the time, even worse than they actually were, and -- and --"
He kicked the bottom of the bed again, trying to release the pent up anxiety he felt squeezing his chest.
"And they couldn't do that to my memories of you. They tried so hard but I kept seeing the real you coming through, so it didn't work like with mom and dad and everyone else -- so then they tried to convince me you were weak or something and that I should hate you, but that didn't work, either--"
All that was left was the unforgivable.
"--so then there was only one thing left that they could try." He drew his hand away from his face because she deserved this. She deserved him at least looking her in the eye as he told her what he did.
The words sounded like they were being squeezed out through broken glass as he said them.
"They...they made me an only child. They made me forget you."
Even despite the tears, he'd held it together up to this point, to a degree, but he dissolved now, tears streaming down his face, shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry. I tried so, so hard to stop it, but I couldn't..."
Never mind that they'd done crazy things to his head, he still thought he should've been able to fight it somehow.