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Dipper Pines wakes up disoriented.No– not awake.Something in between.His body floats weightlessly in an incorporeal space, with shimmering clouds obscuring the endless void around him. There’s something vaguely familiar about it all, like he should have a memory of this place, but it’s not where it should be. Suddenly, an echoing, disembodied voice disrupts the eerie silence.“Mason Pines.”He spins around in alarm, and comes face to face with a giant Axolotl.“Do I… know you?” Dipper tries to think back, but any memories he may have stay just out of reach.“No,” they say with a smile, almost sad, “but I know you.”The Axolotl's eyes start to glow, and Dipper shields his eyes as it begins to speak. 
“Sixty degrees that come in threes.

Watches from within birch trees.

Saw his own dimension burn.

Misses home and can’t return.

Says he’s happy. He’s a liar.

Blame the arson for the fire.

If he wants to shirk the blame,

He’ll have to invoke my name.

One way to absolve his crime.

A different form, a different time.”
 As the creature recites the lines, Dipper breaks out in goosebumps, and the hair on his arms stands on end. 
“He cannot regrow through denial.

So he must face my final trial.

The guide is marked, as foretold.

To balance out the new and old.

Seven stars for transformation.

Will right his wrongs across the ages.”
 The Axolotl’s eyes dim, and Dipper drops his hand, wide-eyed and frozen in place.The verses reverberate in his skull, sparking fires in his synapses– his blood rushes in his ears, and flames pulse through his veins, singing his nerves until the cryptic message feels woven into every fiber of his being.“What are you doing to me?” He gasps, clutching at his chest, breaths coming quickly. “You are fated for the task.”Dipper shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t think I-”“On the longest day, at the third hour.He’ll wake where he slept, suspended in power.”“No wait!” He tries to propel himself forward, scrambling in the open air.The Axolotl gives him one last smile.Then the stars collapse into him, and he burns.
△△△
Dipper’s eyes fly open.The sun is already up, shining brightly into his bedroom. He bolts upright, drenched in sweat and dizzy, mind muddled from his dream.Or… not dream. The giant axolotl’s words are still ringing clearly in his ears, and he throws his blankets off in a frenzy. His room spins when he stands, but he manages to stumble over to his desk and slide into his chair. The air cools the sweat sticking to his skin, and he shivers as he yanks his journal out of his backpack.A pencil rolls towards him and he snatches it up, frantically shoving everything else aside. He scribbles down the prophetic lines from his dream, repeating the words like a mantra. As he writes, the dream starts to fade from his memory, until he can’t picture any of it at all— all he remembers is a strange, giant creature, and a misplaced smile. Once he’s finished, he stares down at the page, chewing on the end of his pencil.The first half isn’t too hard to make sense of.Sure, there’s a lot to unpack– but there’s only one triangle that could fit the bill (no pun intended).The second half, however, is where most of his confusion lies. The problem with prophecies, is that they usually don’t make sense until you’re in the moment. The riddles hide their meaning in plain sight, and leave out just enough information to keep you guessing. It gets even trickier when there are multiple people involved, since there's a good chance the other party has the missing pieces you need to complete the puzzle.This prophecy (much to his dismay) seems to follow the same logic as most prophecies he’s seen.So if Dipper is understanding some of this right, then that means… No, no. I’m being ridiculous, he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. I just moved back and it’s been like, 10 years since anyone’s seen or heard from him.The metal piece at the end of his pencil molds to his molars.
There’s no way he would show up out of nowhere. And even if he is different somehow, and needs to pass some trial, what does that have to do with me? It’s not like I’m anything special.
Dipper frowns.
And after everything Bill did…
He stands up and paces the length of his room, stopping in front of the triangular window. 
Why would I be the one to help him?
Dipper waits for the window to blink open a single eye, to drain the color from the room, to spring to life and gnash its teeth.All it does is show him the world that lies beyond, and the outline of his own reflection in the glass.He turns away.“Absolve his crime,” Dipper scoffs. His phone buzzes, and he picks it up off the side table.3:11 PM. 6 missed calls. 13 messages. Fuck, I was supposed to call Mabel at noon, he swipes through her messages and winces at the excessive use of all-caps and question marks.His finger hovers over the reply option, but then he hears the echoing voice in his head say, “On the longest day, at the third hour…” and he scrolls over to the date. I’m just checking. It doesn’t have to mean anything, he tells himself as he opens the calendar.The summer solstice is marked two days from now, on June 21st.
Wait…
He looks back at the time.“Three??” Dipper yelps, dropping his phone on the bed to quickly look around for some clothes.That means he would need to be in the forest by three in the morning tomorrow night. That barely gives him any time to prepare for-He suddenly stops, and his arms slowly fall down to his sides. The shirt he was halfway through pulling on bunches up at his waist.
Prepare for what?
Dipper has no idea what to expect. This could actually be Bill, or it could be something else, or someone else, or a trap, or nothing at all. There are no notes or hidden messages even hinting at this in the journals, or else he would’ve already spent years preparing. He knows it would be insane to go out there by himself in the middle of the night, but-
I can’t seriously be considering this... right??
He fights with himself, trying to be rational, but rationality proves to be a losing battle when the thought of not going makes his chest tighten uncomfortably. His breath gets caught in his throat, and he hits his fist against his forehead, letting out a yell of frustration before biting the inside of his cheek.“Why, why, whyyy,” he groans into his hands.Ford cannot find out about this. Bill is a strictly forbidden topic around both of their great uncles, but especially Ford. They’re out on the east coast, sailing somewhere between the Bahamas and Bermuda, so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep it under wraps, but it also means he can’t consult Ford for help.When he catches his reflection in the mirror hanging on the back of his door, there’s a wild look in his eyes, one he knows all too well. He straightens out his shirt in an attempt to look like he’s not freaking the fuck out, then turns back to his bed to pull on a pair of shorts and grab his phone.Mabel is terrible at keeping secrets, and he doesn’t want to worry her, but he has to call her back, and at the very least, he could ask her if she’s also had any weird dreams. He should be able to keep things vague enough to keep her from asking too many questions… hopefully.Dipper gives himself one last once-over in the mirror, and takes a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling as he holds up his phone and presses call.The line picks up after a single ring.“It’s alive!!” Mabel announces dramatically as she comes into view, swinging one arm out to the side.“Ha, ha, very funny,” Dipper smiles despite himself, and Mabel giggles. “Sorry I missed your call. I guess I didn’t set my alarm and overslept,” he explains.“Are you feeling okay?” She asks, bringing her phone closer to her face in an attempt to look at him more closely.“I’m just tired from moving,” he waves a hand at the stack of boxes behind him. “You know how it is.”Mabel leans back, and he can tell she’s appraising him, looking for a crack in his façade. His eyes dart around the screen nervously, but her posture relaxes after a moment, and she points a stern finger at him.“Well you better make sure you’re rested up and all unpacked before our birthday,” she warns.“What day are you getting here again?”“August 21st, and don’t forget it! There’s only 73 days until the party!”“I won’t, I won’t,” he assures. “Sooo, random question for no reason at all, but have you had any… weird dreams lately?”“Hmm, I don’t think so,” she taps her cheek, thinking; when she can’t recall anything, she asks, “Why?”Dipper chews his lip.Suddenly, Mabel gasps. “That’s why you overslept! Have you seen,” she drops her voice to a whisper, “him ?”“No!” He shouts, then brings his voice back to a normal volume. “It was just a giant lizard or something, I can't even remember anymore. Not… nothing else. Just a normal, weird Gravity Falls dream.”“Okay…” Mabel says, sounding unsure again.“Sorry,” Dipper sighs. “I just don’t want you to worry. Nothing bad happened, it was just… different in some way. It’s probably just gotta do with being back here. Overactive imagination, and anxiety and all that."“If you say so…” She hesitantly accepts his explanation. “But promise me that if anything else happens you’ll tell me?”Dipper childishly crosses his fingers behind his back and nods his head.“I promise.”They talk for a little while longer, and Mabel shows off the room she’s staying in for the summer, at Pacifica’s beach house in Santa Barbara. She looks good, and happy, with her long, curly hair messily held up in a clip, and her cheeks pink from being in the sun all day.The more she talks, the better Dipper feels about not telling her the details of his dream, and after they say their goodbyes, he slips his phone into his pocket and quickly gathers the rest of what he needs into his backpack.(By the time he’s hurrying out of his bedroom, he isn’t thinking about Mabel at all.)There’s a lot to get done in the next 35 hours, and he’s going to need to make the most of every second.△△△
Something’s wrong.
Dipper almost falls to his knees when a wave of heat surges through him, so hot it feels like all the oxygen gets burnt out of his lungs. His vision goes black, then slowly comes back in flashes of multicolor auras. He almost drops the mercury he was holding, but he manages to catch himself, and the vial falls safely onto the table.Once he can breathe and see properly again, he springs into action.It’s the middle of the summer, but he’s wearing a thin, black long sleeve shirt, and black pants to blend in with the night. His utility vest holds some of his preparations, ranging from reinforced rope to unicorn hair, and pepper spray to fairy dust– anything and everything he could possibly need. He slides his feet into his sneakers, then slings his bag across the front of his body and steps outside.The air feels electric, and the forest is eerily silent as Dipper steps past the tree line and lets the stars guide him to his fate.   Bill Cipher wakes up disoriented.Moonlight bounces off the backs of his eyelids as he blinks away sleep from one too many eyes. He scrambles to push himself upright, swaying with the effort and gasping for breath. Harsh coughs wrack his body, and he strains to see through the spots in his vision. His palms smack against his torso, then his legs, feeling along the flesh covered limbs. No.No, no, no, no.  A different form. A human form.
The Axolotl calls forth a bubble from the clouds. It pops soundlessly, and Bill Cipher’s triangular form materializes from the mist. His single eye opens, piercing through the serene space.

The creature’s echoing voice calls out his name.

“It is time for the next step.”

Next step? Bill doesn’t know how long he’s been in the Theraprism, but he's seconds away from finding out if he can die of boredom, so if Frills finally has a new “trial”, he’s not complaining! Maybe he’ll get a chance to sneak away if he plays his cards right.

“Finally time to blow this joint?” Bill sneers.

A glowing circle of runes suddenly appear and close in around him. They fade into his flat form on impact, and the Axolotl speaks again.

“A different form, a different time.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before,” Bill rolls his eye. “Am I finally gonna find out what that means?”

“Follow the arc to Arcturus, and speed on to Spica.”

He glows red. “Hey! That’s not-”

Flames erupt around him. His entire existence burns, and the last thing he sees before everything goes white is the Axolotl, floating alone in the space between time and space.
The memory feels far away, slipping through his fingers as pain shoots through his head. “Son of a bitch,” Bill’s voice is hoarse, and he swallows, trying to soothe his raw throat. He blinks the rest of the spots out of his eyes, and looks around slowly, taking in his surroundings.The familiar forest of Gravity Falls starts to come into focus; well, as much focus as he can manage.
It’s like he’s looking through a kaleidoscope, but the kaleidoscope is a fucking knife that’s stabbing his right eye out. He covers it with one of his hands, and his left eye adjusts, softening into the human color spectrum.
Bill grimaces despite headache easing off.It’s a meat-sack, alright.Standing takes longer than he cares to admit, and he has to lean against a tree to balance his gravity-bound body. The bark digs into his bare back, because of course he doesn’t have any clothes on. He grits his teeth, pushing his tongue against them.
So the Big Frills spent all this time making a whole blood bag to trap me in, but couldn’t be bothered to dress it?
Bill curses under his breath, and takes tentative steps forward, stumbling past the tree line into a small clearing. The stars and a sliver of the moon shine above him. He scans the area, eyes landing on the stone statue of his triangular form.It’s surprisingly clean, free of vines and moss despite being lodged into the dirt, forgotten in the forest. He takes a few more steps toward it then stops again, feeling scrutinized under its all-seeing gaze.Not so all-seeing anymore, considering the lack of energy thrumming through the rock.The outstretched hand is useless since he’s conscious and bound to this new form, and his skin crawls the longer he stares at it.Its face is colorless and gray, dull and mocking, and the worn edges only serve to remind him of his failure.An unpleasant feeling climbs its way up his throat– it’s sickening, but then the familiar flames of anger and annoyance start to simmer under the surface, and he latches on to the sensation.Heat crackles between his fingertips, and he flicks a hand in the direction of the statue– a bright blue streak of lightning whips across the clearing, hitting the stone with a loud, shattering crack. A singed fracture cuts across the single eye, and he growls in frustration, crouching down to blink the flashes of light out of his vision. He hides his face in his arms and wraps himself around his knees, thinking.This new physical form is limiting, to put it lightly. His molecules are held together by interdimensional energy, but the body is composed of organic elements. His memory seems intact, but there are some things he tries to recall that look and feel so unfathomable and distant that they only appear in nonsensical bits and pieces for now. He can sense that he's lost his near omnipotence, and since he’s no longer a being of pure energy, the amount of energy he can burn through will be dependent on what excess amount he has available. The environment of Gravity Falls will naturally replenish him, but not at the rate he’s accustomed to, which means he needs to be cognizant of how much power he’s using at one time. He can already feel how much the small display of anger has cost him– and he hasn’t even attempted to enter The Mindscape yet, if he even can.This is far from what he was envisioning for his return to this dimension. He was planning on coming back with a bang. Something with a little more… destruction. More chaos! He should've known leaving the Theraprism would come with a catch.And oh , what a catch it is. The salamander’s riddles make a little more sense now. He tilts himself back out of his crouched position, dropping to sit on the ground. The grass prickles as he stretches his legs out in front of him, and he lies flat on his back, looking up at the night sky. He places his palm on top of the scar-like sigil burned into his skin, right over his heart.“Follow the arc to Arcturus,” Bill says to forest around him, dragging his finger along the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle. When he reaches where it ends on his chest, he takes his hand and points up at the reflection of the constellation in the night sky. Arcturus shines brightly above, winking from 36 light-years away when he finds it. He looks up the length of his arm and finger as he follows the imaginary line to the brightest point in Virgo.“Speed on to Spica,” he finishes the mnemonic given to him, and with the twin stars of Spica shining in his sights, he shoots from the tip of his fingers, imitating the sound of a gunshot.Nothing happens, and the stars still blink, spelling out his fate.“Blegh,” he spits, dropping his hand back to his side.
Human bodies are the worst.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position, but the movement makes him dizzy, and he hangs his head to wait for the vertigo to pass. His hand presses against his chest again, gripping tightly at the marking, feeling his heart race underneath.After the trees stop spinning around him, he lifts his head, and gets back to his feet, feeling more bare than he did before.Despite the blackened blemish on his stone statue’s eye, its gaze is more potent than ever.No… not the statue’s gaze.  Someone else is here.  Bill’s back goes ram-rod straight as he feels a sudden, sharp pinch, and he looks down to see a thin syringe protruding from his upper thigh.For a moment, he’s too stunned to react, but then a strange, tingling sensation starts to work its way up his leg, and he quickly plucks the dart out. A small drop of blood wells up, and a trickle of transparent fluid dilutes the bright red as it drips from the needle track. He swipes his thumb over it, then brings it up under his nose, sniffing the droplet before licking it off his finger. The bitter, medicinal taste makes him wrinkle his nose, and he recoils in disgust. He lifts the dart up to his face, and runs the tip of his finger over the feathery, bright red fletching on the end of the projectile. There is a small amount of yellow liquid left inside the syringe, and whatever it is is already creeping into his senses. He snarls in annoyance.A cottony fullness starts to fill his ears, and Bill becomes increasingly aware of his vulnerability in this moment. The feeling of being spied on makes his skin itch, and he narrows his eyes in the direction the dart came from. He starts marching toward the tree line, squinting to make out the shape of whoever is hiding within.
The trees begin to whisper, beckoning him forth with their call, and the branches quiver in the wind, reaching out to him as he trips over a large root and falls into the leaves embrace. His fragmented vision breaks further, until he can’t tell which way is up or which way is down. He drops to his knees, sticks cracking loudly underneath him as he drags himself across the forest floor and collects dirt under his fingernails. When his arms lose strength, he collapses, and his face presses against a cool patch of grass.
“Where are you?” He slurs, kicking his feet helplessly.
Hours, or minutes, or seconds pass by, and he sees flashes of his life in the starry sky, and hears murmurs of his fall from the shuffling leaves. They tell stories of his birth and his life, his failure and his death; stories of fire and destruction and chaos, of lies and deception and isolation. He’s a spectator through it all, watching the collapse of everything he’s ever known at his own hand, falling and falling into an empty abyss.

A tree in the distance pulls its roots out of the ground and moves towards him, leaving a trail of shimmering amber sap in its wake. It brushes its branches over his skin, poking and prodding curiously. As it covers him in its leaves and hides him in its canopy, he can’t help but wonder if it can see its golden sap dripping into his skin, filling the cracks it finds.

Bill hangs uselessly from its branches as the forest passes by in a blur, and the mumbling pines carry him into the stars.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bill Cipher wakes up disoriented.Again.There’s a roof over his head and soft cushions underneath him, but he feels even shittier than the first time. His mouth is drier than the Nile after he was done with it, and his stomach is cramping viciously. The lights dance in his vision, but he musters the strength to sit up and swing his legs off the side of the couch. The blanket that was covering him falls onto his lap as he raises his head to look around.It’s the Mystery Shack, to absolutely no one’s surprise— only a Pines would tranq him on sight. He’s almost proud of whichever one of them was ballsy enough to do it, if it wasn’t for the fact that it means they knew he was coming.
Ax has been meddling…
Bill takes a deep breath of the rich, woodsy scent of the house, surveying the once familiar room. He used to have eyes all over the place, but most have been destroyed or taken down, so he’s had a limited view while he’s been gone– not that he’s been trying to check.(He’s been bored! So what?)There are a few short stacks of brown boxes pushed up against the walls, which are smooth and intact instead of covered in ripped wallpaper and splintering holes, and the furniture isn’t held together with peeling tape and rusted screws anymore. It still has its oddities scattered around, but there are newer additions too–he picks up a picture frame off of the side table, and recognizes Shooting Star and Pine Tree. Star has big sunglasses covering the top half of her face and a wide smile taking up the bottom half. Her arms are thrown around Pine Tree while the kid is laughing mid-stumble. Bill furrows his brows.The longer he looks at the picture, the more he feels that something is off, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. It’s almost as though… Time, he realizes. How much time has passed? A shadow suddenly falls over him, and he cranes his neck to look up as the frame is plucked out of his hands.It’s Pine Tree, but different— he’s obviously older, looking down at Bill with shrewd, calculating eyes. He has the same rounded cheeks, and his tousled, brown fringe still falls over his forehead, but he’s taller, and the angles of his jaw more mature. Despite the changes, the annoyance on the kid’s face is more than familiar, and a thrill rushes through him.
Does he still have the same buttons to press? 
Only one way to find out.“Well, well, well,” Bill grins, pulling at his dry lips and splitting the skin. “If it isn’t Pine Tree, all grown up and-“ A hand slaps over his mouth.Bill huffs in shock.Breathing in through his nose, he catches the slight scent of iron in his blood mixing with the anxious sweat on the kid’s hand. He opens his mouth and forces his tongue out, pressing the flat of it against the salty grooves of the kid’s palm.Pine Tree yanks his hand back before Bill can weave his tongue between his fingers.“Ugh-” he lets out a sound of disgust, and Bill licks his bloody lips before giving him a satisfied smile.“I gotta admit,” he watches Pine Tree wipe his hand off on his shirt, “I admire your chutzpah, kid! Can’t say I’ve ever been tranquilized before.”“You’re disgusting,” He grimaces, gripping his wrist and setting the picture back down on the table.“Thank you!” Bill braces himself to stand. “Now, if you would be so kind as to- oof!”Bill is cut off for a second time as he’s roughly shoved back down. He bounces against the couch, teeth clacking together. The kid isn’t holding him down, but he has his body angled to keep Bill caged in, like an animal backed into a corner.“That confidence is gonna get you into trouble, Pine Tree,” he sits up, and bares his teeth threateningly.Pine Tree is quick to reach into his jacket pocket. Bill follows the movement, catching a glimpse of a familiar syringe peeking out. He stills at the sight. “If you won’t cooperate…” This is my only shot, Bill reminds himself . He needs to take this slow until he knows more.“Alright, alright, take it easy,” he throws his hands up in surrender, and glances up, blinking innocently. “I’m not here to make trouble this time.”Pine Tree snorts. “You really expect me to believe that?” The dart slips back into his pocket as he takes a step back and puts his hands on his hips. The movement brings more of the human’s body into Bill’s line of sight, and oh , what a sight he is.There are iridescent threads of interdimensional energy– Bill’s energy- weaving throughout his molecules, shimmering in his eyes, pulsing through his blood. Translucent particles oscillate in and out of existence around him, a dust cloud of atomic orbitals creating a layer of power between the boy and the world.Pine Tree has more of Bill’s power than he has himself right now. That fucking salamander , he bites his tongue to keep from cursing out loud.  This isn’t fair , his foot taps silently against the rug. Notfairnotfairnotfair.  “Listen kid-”“Not a kid.””Do you really think I’d be sitting here talking things out if it were up to me?” He asks snidely. “I’m only here because I cashed in a favor from an old friend, and to pay up, the bastard threw me in this meat sack and dropped me on your doorstep to play nice.”“What, so you try to kill me and my family and destroy the entire world, then get sent here on some sort of ‘community service’ field trip to make up for it?”Bill crosses one leg over the other and leans back. “Well if you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad…”Pine Tree scoffs, and Bill waits for him to bite again, but he just stands and stares, as though he’s searching for something. Bill isn’t used to feeling looked through, but with the whole power situation, it’s well within the realm of possibility. His skin prickles with each passing second, and right as Bill opens his mouth to say something, the kid beats him to it.“I want to make a deal.”Five fatal words lance through the air, striking a chord within him– Bill’s heart skips against his ribs as he drops his gaze to watch the energy collect in Pine Tree’s right hand. He moves his eyes back up and licks his lips.“A deal?” He can’t keep the smile off his face. “What do you have to offer me? I already have a perfectly tailored body here, though I wouldn’t mind taking yours for a spin again.”Pine Tree wrinkles his nose, but the comment doesn’t deter him.“I know you’re stuck in that body to complete a trial.”The admission makes Bill freeze.“And that you need my help with something,” he moves the hair off his forehead.The Ursa Major constellation matches the one inscribed into Bill’s chest– a perfect reflection, down to the freckles representing the seven main stars. He’s known since he first noticed the mark, but to see it up close… it makes his throat feel tight, and it’s not helping the churning in his guts.“So what?” He forces out. “It’s not like you know what it means.”“And you do?”“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Bill turns his nose up.“Look,” Pine Tree sighs, crossing his arms and tapping his foot like a mother scolding a child, “I really don’t have time to be dealing with all this, but the sooner we can figure this out, the sooner you can leave, right? I’m being generous in offering to call a truce here, but I can’t trust you to keep your word, so I want to make it a deal.”Bill purses his lips. He doesn’t like the way the human is looking down at him, especially since Pine Tree must think he’s sooo clever for proposing a deal first. Bill does have to hand it to him though— he wasn’t expecting it. He thought he burned that bridge a long time ago.
How much does he know?
The kid obviously has something to do with this so-called redemption, but since his power is limited, there’s no way he’ll be able to get past the energy barrier and into his head to figure it out himself.There’s also the issue of this new form. Bill knows plenty about the human body (he’s an expert on why it’s terrible!) but he’s never had to actually follow through with the upkeep of one. He assumes that avoiding the death of this plasma bag is part of the whole shebang– the Big Frilly Know-it-All wouldn’t have gone through the trouble if it wasn’t.As much as it sickens him to concede, Bill knows he doesn’t have any other option than to accept whatever Pine Tree’s terms will be.“How about this,” he uncrosses his leg, making the kid take a step back to avoid being kicked. “You help me out, I won’t kill you, you won’t kill me, and then we can have a long chat about everything we know,” he suggests. “I’ll even open up the floor to questions about the universe!”“This is my deal,” Pine Tree reminds him. “So while you’re here, you won’t kill me, or anyone . No messing with people’s minds, no making deals, no building dimensional portals. No leaving the house without me, either. We’ll talk about why you’re here, and tell each other the truth about the information we have, and if I need to add anything to the deal, you’ll let me.”The terms are straight-forward and cover the basics, but loose-ended enough for Bill to find a loophole. He’s also pleasantly surprised that the kid’s okay with adding specifics later (he doesn’t usually worry about the details at first anyway).“No killing me either,” Bill makes sure to add, holding out his hand, “and we have a deal.”After a brief moment of hesitation, Pine Tree slides his hand into his.“It’s a deal.”Blue flames illuminate their faces, and power surges from the kid– his skin tingles where they touch, and the air around them ripples as energy reaches into him, warm and electric. It zips up his arm, and buzzes through his chest, all the way to the tips of his toes. Bill wants to savor the taste of power, but as soon as the flames fade, Pine Tree takes his hand back and looks at it curiously. “It felt different,” he observes.A chill rushes in behind the dispersing power, and Bill hides a shiver behind contempt.“It’s almost like being tranquilized after waking up in the woods in a newborn fleshbag didn’t exactly leave me much power to work with,” he sneers.“You should watch your tone when you’re talking to the one person helping you right now. I could’ve left you out there to rot.”“But you didn’t,” Bill points out. Which means you need me alive for something too. “Yea, well maybe I should have,” he retorts.Bill glares up at him, but then his stomach cuts in with a loud rumble. It bubbles up under his sternum, carrying a discomfort all the way into his throat.“Agh,” he groans, clutching his abdomen.“Do you need to eat?” Pine Tree asks.“Obviously,” he hisses. “This body is more human than demon.”As soon as the words leave his mouth, his eyes widen, and he jumps up from the couch, startling the kid.
Why did I say that???
The blanket falls to the floor, and Bill tries to step out from under it, but he’s uncoordinated, so he steps on top of it as he’s pulling his other foot out. He’s also just now noticing that he’s gained a pair of pants at some point, but they’re twisted awkwardly around his legs, making him trip over himself more than he already is.For some reason, he grabs onto the kid’s arm.“Hey! Wait-”Bill lands hard on his knees, bringing Pine Tree down next to him. An elbow jabs into his ribs and knocks the air out of his lungs, but he hardly reacts, already out of breath and unable to think straight while trying to scramble away from the human, despite being the one to reach out to him first.The kid makes a grab for Bill, but he bats his hand away, kicking himself backwards. He doesn’t notice Pine Tree reaching out again, and he falters when the kid successfully gets a hold on him.“Stop fighting,” he grits through his teeth, gripping Bill’s wrist tightly while he grabs his other arm. His grip is bruising, and Bill finds himself backed into the corner again, between Pine Tree and the couch.Something about them being eye level on the floor like this eases some of the urgency he felt a few moments ago, and his struggling slows, chest heaving as he catches his breath.Pine Tree lets go of one of his arms, and it drops to the ground. He releases his other wrist after Bill doesn’t try to run, then scoots back and sits on the ground across from him. Neither of them say anything, and Bill blinks and blinks, watching the aura of power pulsate around the kid.The deal echoes in his mind, clanging like shackles against a wall– the truth about the information we have – and Bill clenches his jaw. He was compelled to say the truth when prompted, even though it didn’t directly apply to the “why he’s here” part, which means the deal is strong.
Too strong.
“How long has it been?” Bill asks suddenly. The kid looks up from where his gaze had fallen. He adjusts his legs and leans back on his hands.“You were out for four-ish hours.”“Not now, I mean how long since I was last here?”“Oh. It’s ten years this summer,” he answers. “Uh, do you know years? Like nine Earth rotations around the sun?”“I know what years are,” Bill snaps. “I’ve been around for trillions of them! It’s a new body, not a new brain.”Pine Tree makes a face at him, like he’s going to return fire, but then he turns pensive. He doesn’t ask anything else, even though Bill can tell he wants to.
Why is he holding back questions? The kid loves getting answers, doesn’t he?
Ten years is a pretty sizable chunk of time for humans, and while he’s still pretty easy to read on the outside, the kid has undoubtedly sharpened his mind with time. He prepared for Bill with more success than anyone else ever has, hiding and waiting for an opening, taking advantage of Bill’s disorientation. Whatever knocked him out had to have been an original concoction, and Bill didn’t wake up wrapped in ropes and locked in a basement with a circle of salt around him, so Pine Tree must be fairly confident in his ability to control him.And that’s all without using any of the power Ax has been channeling into him for who knows how long.Bill was impressed with Pine Tree in the past, but this Pine Tree… he’s something else entirely.
I underestimated him.
Bill should be furious right now. He could be trapped here for weeks, months, even years.  There are worse places to be than being stuck with Pine Tree .The thought crosses his mind unbidden. But this is still just another cage, he reminds himself bitterly.This is an unavoidable event in time, a reality-shattering shift in the karmic cycle of retribution that has been his entire existence. He can’t let himself get caught up in the novelty of it all. He needs to remember he’s playing the long game.And lucky for him, Pine Tree has always been a prime source of entertainment.(No one said he can’t have fun while he’s here!)Pine Tree’s been taking short, nervous glances at him while they’ve been sitting in their silence, and Bill makes sure to catch him in the act.“Are you wondering which sorry soul got kicked out of here?” The kid tightens his lips, and he nearly flinches when Bill barks a laugh. “Don’t worry! This right here is one-of-a-kind, au naturale, no humans harmed!”“I can tell,” he mumbles, giving Bill another once over. “So you’re just… like this now?”Bill feels his face muscles falter at the reminder, because yes– he is just like this now. 
Human.
His stomach rumbles.Another reminder.“Come on,” Pine Tree stands with an audible huff of air. Bill shakes his head to clear his thoughts, then follows suit. I’m taller than him , Bill notices, as he’s walking behind the kid. It’s not by too much, maybe three inches, four at most– enough that he knows Pine Tree hates it. No wonder he wouldn’t let me stand up earlier. He can’t help the laugh that comes out under his breath. Pine Tree shoots him a quick glance over his shoulder. Cheeky tactic.  There are a few more boxes scattered around in the kitchen, but at first glance, Bill can already tell it’s a lot cleaner than it used to be. The appliances look newer, and the cabinets have been painted over, but the pine tree wallpaper around the window has stayed.“Sit,” says Pine Tree, pointing to the small table. Bill does as he’s told, taking a seat in one of the chairs.There’s an open backpack thrown on top of the table, with a thick book sitting next to it. It looks like one of Sixer’s journals, but this one is dark blue, and instead of the outline of a hand, there’s the outline of a pine tree on the cover.
Predictable. 
Bill lifts his eyes and watches the kid fill two glasses with water. He catches a glimpse of the dart’s red fletching peeking out of his jacket pocket when he turns, which reminds him…“What’d you shoot me up with earlier anyway?” He asks. “I tasted fairy dust and?”“Ketamine,” Pine Tree answers, setting one glass down in front of Bill, and the other at the seat across the table. He does a double take at Bill and screws up his face. “You tasted it?”“Send me down a k-hole, very clever,” Bill nods appreciatively. He spent this dimension’s 80s and 90s getting well acquainted with human’s illicit drug use.(Easy targets, can you blame him?? A mind that’s tripping is a mind that’s slipping!)It’s not every day you get a human that can combine multidimensional weirdness and modern human science without getting everybody killed. Ketamine itself won’t usually knock someone out, but pair it with fairy dust? Maybe not-so predictable , he considers, lifting the glass to look through it at the kid’s distorted image before tentatively taking a sip. His cracked lips are instantly soothed with the moisture, and he tilts the cup, drinking in loud gulps.Some of the water drips out around the sides of his mouth, down his chin and neck and torso, leaving cool trails in their path, quenching a thirst he didn’t realize he had. He drinks until there’s nothing left, then sets the glass down with a satisfied sigh.The kid gapes at him as he wipes an arm across his chin.“What?” He props his elbows up on the table, and cocks his head.Pine Tree’s mouth snaps shut.“Nothing, just… nevermind,” he mumbles, averting his eyes as he sets down a small plate in front of him.There’s a slice of bread, toasted and buttered. He looks at the food, then back up at Pine Tree, who’s refilling Bill’s glass. Didn’t the kid swear to end him the next time he saw him?
Why is he being so… helpful? What’s his angle?
Bill picks up the toast and sniffs it, then takes a large bite as Pine Tree places his glass back down. The toast is pretty bland, but he hardly takes a second to breathe while he shoves the rest of it into his mouth. He has to focus on chewing to get it all down, and Pine Tree watches him curiously from the other chair, taking small sips of his own water. When Bill is finished eating, he wipes his hands off on his pants, and takes another long drink to wash it down. Hunger is inconvenient , he wipes his mouth off with the side of his hand. Taking in nutrients like this is going to take some getting used to… But he can deal with all of that later.For now, there are more important things to discuss. Bill gestures to the journal.“I believe you have some information to share?”The kid grabs the book and pulls it to himself, then flips it open to the exact page he needs. Bill wonders how many times he’s opened it, staring with eyes that see too much and too little. He flicks his gaze to Bill for a moment, then looks back down at the journal and straightens. And then he starts to read.“Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees,” it rolls off Pine Tree’s tongue like a sickening siren song, and water leaks into Bill’s lungs as he gets swept under the waves. No no no, I don’t want to hear this… and he can’t hear it, he realizes, listening to his alien heart beating loudly against his ear drums, drowning out every syllable.
Sixty degrees that come in threes. Sixty degrees that come in threes. Sixty degrees that come in threes.
Bill doesn’t know how many times those first six words repeat. It only stops when the kid takes a breath, and the song changes.“He cannot regrow through denial, so he must face my final trial. The guide is marked, as foretold, to balance out the new and old.”The new melody soars over the cacophony in his mind.“Seven stars for transformation, will right his wrongs across the ages.”Bill comes up for air, and reaches across the table, quickly yanking the journal out from under Pine Tree’s fingers. He spins it around and scans the messy scrawl, off center and barely legible.
Marked guide. New and old. Seven stars. Rights and wrongs. 
The end of this prophecy is different from the one he was given. He grips the edges of the journal and closes his right eye to cut off the interference while he commits it to memory, then he snaps his gaze up to Pine Tree.Bill pushes the journal back to the middle of the table.“Where did you get this?” He asks, a frantic edge to his tone.“The night before last, some… creature visited me in my dreams,” he says tentatively. “I don’t remember anything else besides empty space, but I wrote that down as soon as I woke up.”“And you’ve never heard it before?”The kid frowns. “No, I don’t think so.” Not completely sure, but truthful enough that it counts , Bill makes a note.“And you don’t remember anything else?”“Nothing else,” he shakes his head. “What about you? You know it, right?”Bill bites his cheek, feeling his mind muddle again.“It’s complicated. Can’t really explain it right now,” he answers shortly.“What do you mean you can’t explain it right now?”“I…” His eye twitches as a twinge of pain cuts through his head. “I know of it, but I don’t exactly know it.”“That doesn’t make any sense,” Pine Tree throws his hands up, irritated. “We have a deal!”“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, kid,” another wave of uneasiness passes through him. “Even with the deal, it’s complicated .”Pine Tree suddenly slams his hands down on the table and stands up.“No!” He shouts. “No, you know what’s complicated? What’s complicated is when you get a call from Soos, who tells you that his wife is going to be having a baby soon, so they need to move out of the Mystery Shack and into a baby proof house closer to town, and it just so happens that you’re about to graduate college, and you don’t want to bother your retired great uncles, and it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do with your life, so you decide why not? You’ll move in and take over the family business,” he sucks in a breath, and Bill stares at him in shock while he continues.“Then a few days after you move in, you get a prophetic dream about the triangle demon that traumatized you and your family ten years ago, and how he’s alone and sad and ‘didn’t mean it’ or whatever bullshit excuse there is,” Bill narrows his eyes at that, “and for some reason, you’re the one that has to help him ‘atone’ for his crimes against your dimension,” another quick breath, “multiple dimensions!”A heavy pause.“And you know what-”“Enough!” Bill yells, launching himself to his feet.The outburst causes an explosive wave of energy to surge from him, and the glasses on the table abruptly shatter. Pine Tree quickly turns his head into his arm, and Bill barely gets a barrier up in time to deflect the shards flying towards himself. For a moment, he thinks he blasted the light out too– then the vertigo slams into him. His thin barrier fizzles out, and he catches himself on the edge of the table, breathing hard and shaking his head to clear his foggy vision. After he’s confident that he won’t completely tip over, he lets go of the table and plops back into his seat, anger tempered by exhaustion.A humiliating display of his meager power. “I didn’t know,” he growls, blinking back into himself.Pine Tree slowly lowers his arm, and looks over at him with wide eyes.Bill swallows down vitriol as he remembers his bitter end.“When you all blasted me to bits, I cheated death by making a deal with the Axolotl. I didn’t know this,” he gestures between the two of them, “was going to be part of the deal.”“Okay, so an Axolotl,” Pine Tree lowers himself back into his seat. “What… or who, is that exactly?”“Hm,” he thinks about how to explain the other-wordly being. “It’s-““Let me guess— it’s complicated,” Pine Tree interrupts.“It is,” he snaps. “You should know there are monsters other than me out there.”“I don’t think a monster would give you the chance to absolve your crimes,” Pine Tree says flatly.“Monster is a relative term, isn’t it?” Bill challenges.“You know what-” he pinches his nose between his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Just tell me about your deal with the Axolotl.”“The deal was to pass a trial and have my molecules reformed. Instead, they had me locked up in a multidimensional looney bin for the past ten years,” he growls. “Stuck with a bunch of F-for-flop tier lunatics while doing gross, mushy, feel-good bullshit like talking and breathing and journaling and yoga. Pure torture!”“Wait a second,” Pine Tree holds up a hand. “Are you telling me that some God-like amphibian put you in a… mental institution?”“Sure, sure, whatever you people call it” Bill says flippantly. “All you need to know is that it's a hell hole– worse than hell, actually. The lizard is definitely the creature who hi-jacked your dreams and put us into this mess.”“Us,” Pine Tree buries his face into his hands and laughs tiredly. “There is no ‘us’, Bill. This is your mess, and I’m just the unlucky human that got dragged into it.”“Have you been listening to me?” Bill curls his lip. “It’s not my fault I didn’t know I was going to be kicked to the curb and tossed into a human flesh prison with a chaperone.”“Well sorry for thinking that this,” he waves his hand at Bill, “isn’t exactly a prison sentence. For me, maybe, but you get to run around down here in a special made body to finish making amends with the powers that be, and I get what? A babysitting job I didn’t ask for? An inconvenience of cosmic proportions?” He doesn’t know, Bill realizes, sitting up in his chair. He doesn’t know he has my power.
He doesn’t know what he can become.
“Riddle me this, Pine Tree— you were born with that constellation on your forehead right?”The kid hesitates, then nods.“The guide is marked, as foretold,” Bill repeats the prophecy. “It’s not a coincidence you’re back in Gravity Falls. You were chosen for this, born for this, drawn back here for this, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not. You can feel it, can’t you? Rattling deep in your bones.”“I…” He looks almost pained.“That's why you used ketamine instead of cyanide. Why you dragged me back to the shack. Why you didn’t murder me in my sleep,” he holds the kid’s gaze across the table. “You can’t kill me, but you can’t leave me alone, either, because you don’t know what will happen to you if I don’t successfully complete the trial.”Pine Tree swallows and looks down at his lap while Bill continues.“Not that you want to leave me alone, because let’s face it, kid– I’m the most interesting thing that’s happened to you since the last time you saw me. I bet you’ve been dying for something exciting, and here it is on a golden platter, just for Dipper Pines,” Bill says condescendingly.The kid’s name sears his tongue. Careful, something inside of him echoes, making him pause.“I didn’t ask for this,” Pine Tree finally mumbles.“Yea, well me neither,” Bill sneers, “but being special comes with a price.” “Why me?” He manages, lifting his eyes to look at Bill across the table.
Why me?
As if Bill hasn’t been asking himself that question every day since the day he was born.
Why you?
As if Pine Tree didn’t come with a stamp of cosmic approval on his forehead. This compulsion to be truthful is gonna ruin my image . “The world you’re living in was a lucky one out of infinity, and I never saw this far down the timeline,” he admits.“Great, so we basically know nothing.”“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Bill shrugs. “I didn’t get that same ending bit about the guide and the stars, so that’s something.”Pine Tree gives him an unimpressed look, then suddenly, a shrill, repetitive beeping cuts through the quiet. The kid quickly stands up and takes a black handheld device out of his pants pocket. He taps the screen, and the alarm turns off.Bill is still recovering from the terrible noise when the kid claps his hands.“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” he has some of his earlier spark back, sliding the device back into his pocket. “I need to clean up this glass, and you need to clean up in general if you’re going to be staying here.”A pause.“Oh god,” Pine Tree runs his hands down his face and groans. “You’re going to have to live here.”Another pause.“Nooo, this is a nightmare,” he groans.“Aww, that’s sweet,” Bill coos.“Shut up,” he whips his head up to snap at him. “This is serious. Do you even know how to take care of a human body?”“Hmm…” Bill puts on his best thinking face, then shoots the kid a smile. “Does a corpse count?”

△△△  A corpse doesn’t count.“It was a joke!” Bill tried to tell him, but the kid dragged him to the bathroom and gave him brief instructions on how to shower anyway.It was also a joke when Bill started shimmying out of his pants while he was still there, but Pine Tree just spun around and disappeared before he could make fun of the look on his face.Now that Bill is alone, he stands bare, familiarizing himself with his new identity staring back at him in the mirror. He lifts his arms, and the reflection follows the movements, like he’s a puppet master trapped within his own puppet, plucking the strings from inside.His body is very… three-dimensional.Alive. Human .There’s a tangled mess of dirt and sticks and blonde hair on his head. He picks out the larger pieces of debris and lets them fall to the floor, then when he’s done, he pushes the hair off his forehead and tilts his head to look at the scar over the upper right side of his face.The static fissure that marred his triangular form has translated to this body as a fractal Lichtenberg figure– a high voltage electric shock burnt into flesh. Like an upside-down tree, it branches down from his hairline, reaching over his right eyebrow and eye before tapering off at his cheekbone and nose. Bill runs the tip of his finger along the network of thin, reddish-pink lines, crawling under his skin like cracks in ice, or deep crevasses in a glacier that’s under pressure, splitting apart at the surface to expose the bone-chilling darkness inside.The only physical feature of his that is undeniably not-human are his eyes.Aside from having two of them, they look like a cross between a cat and a human. The irises are an unnatural golden amber, with black slitted pupils cutting through the middle– except the pupil on the right isn’t just black, he realizes, holding open his eyelid as he leans over the counter and gets closer to the mirror.The pupil is a narrow, bottomless void of white noise, a fracture that’s been stabilized in the sticky resin squeezed out from the heartwood of a pine. That explains why this eye can’t make a distinction between the metaphysical and the physical. He leans back and releases his eyelid. Was it left on purpose?
Or was I too shattered to fix?
Bill’s attention strays to the constellation on the left side of his chest. The lines and stars are the same reddish-pink as the scar on his face, but he notices one of the corner stars looks different, appearing paler than the rest. He rubs a finger over it to check that he’s not imagining things.
Seven stars for transformation…
Seven steps? Stages? Tasks?Did Bill do something? Or was it something the kid did?
Did Pine Tree’s change too?
What does it mean if it didn’t change?
And what does it mean if it did?
Condensation fogs up the mirror, blurring his image. It doesn’t matter what it means. He sighs, and pushes off the counter.It’s just a brand burned into his skin, marking him as the multiverse’s livestock after being butchered and stitched up.Bill pulls back the plastic curtain and steps into the bathtub. He hangs his head and stands under the hot water, letting it wash over him. It eases some of the tension in his head, and soothes the vague soreness in his muscles. He stares at the dirty water running from his feet and swirling down the drain, then lifts his head and blinks the water out of his eyes, pushing his wet hair out of his face.There are a few different bottles of soap that Pine Tree pointed out, and Bill picks one up. “Dove… shampoo,” he reads off the front of the bottle, “... deeply moisturizing system for smooth, soft hair.”
Nothing about geometric perfection.
These pea-brained sheep care so much about what they look like on the outside, but they have no idea what real beauty is (try on some 60° angles for a change!). He wouldn’t usually care to go to these lengths in a human body, but since he’s going to be here a while, he may as well look good doing it.(And it may or may not have something to do with proving to the kid he knows how to shine and detail this meatmobile.)Bill flicks open the lid and pours some into his palm, then sets the bottle back down and rubs the gel onto his head. It bubbles up and makes his hair foamy, squishing between his fingers. After a few moments, he moves his head back under the water to rinse it out.The bubbles run down his chest and shoulder and arms, leaving a soapy trail in their path. Then they run down his face, and into his eyes and mouth and he’s sputtering and choking on soap and his eyes are burning and-“Fucking hell,” he curses into the stream of water, squeezing his eyes shut and spitting bubbles out of his mouth.The door swings open and bangs against the wall.“What’s going on!?” Pine Tree shouts.Bill blindly rips the curtain back, and the kid yelps.“There’s soap in my eyes,” he hisses.“Seriously? Oh my god you’re getting water everywhere,” the kid grabs the curtain out of his hand, then physically shoves Bill’s head back under the water. “Just open your eyes and rinse them out.”“How was I supposed to know that this timeline isn’t the one with soap that doesn’t blind you!?” Bill gurgles through the water, holding his eyes open to let the water wash over them.“How was I supposed to know that’s something I should warn you about?” Pine Tree exclaims. “It’s soap!”Bill clenches his jaw.Pain is supposed to be hilarious, but this…
It hurts.
He’s more connected to sensations in this body than he thought, like his eye has turned into his entire flesh and the feeling has been cranked up to the max.When he’s taken someone else’s body for a joyride, pain is always hilarious– and he isn’t one to stick around too long to deal with the aftermath of his fun, either.“Can you still see?” Pine Tree asks unenthusiastically, reminding Bill that he’s still there. He blinks through the water, eyes still irritated, but burning less than they were a moment ago. “Of course I can,” he replies, tone clipped.At least the shower curtain is back in place so the kid can’t see him like this.“Okay? Remember to uh, tilt your head back and close your eyes I guess…” he says stiltedly.Bill doesn’t answer.“I’m going to finish cleaning up the glass, then,” Pine Tree pauses once more, but the door closes after a few seconds, leaving Bill with the sound of running water and his thoughts. He angrily swipes up another bottle.Why does this body have to be so sensitive? He doesn’t have the extra energy to heal or regenerate right now– this plasma bag is gonna keel over in a strong breeze at this rate!Is it extra punishment? Karma for the forks thing?If he would have known things would turn out like this , maybe he wouldn’t have thrown Pine Tree down the stairs that extra time.Actually, no– he definitely still would’ve done that.Bill smacks his palms against his upper arms to rinse away soap. He goes slowly, from his shoulder, down his arm and back up, over the hollow of his throat, feeling down his chest and across his ribs until the water runs without bubbles. His palms are smooth and slick against his stomach, and his toes curl into the tub as he feels a twist in his guts.He quickly takes his hands off himself.
This body reacts too much. It’s useless, and weak.
Bill lets the water rinse the rest of the soap off on its own.
And human.
    Dipper leans against the wall across from the bathroom. His tongue tingles numbly, and blood rushes in his ears. He counts to ten, takes deep breaths, and pinches his arm. He pinches it again, and pinches his thigh too, just to be sure.The gravity of the situation didn’t hit him until he was standing in the living room, staring down at Bill Cipher’s unconscious body lying on his couch.Bill Cipher’s very human body.Dipper isn’t a prude, but his knee-jerk reaction was to avert his eyes when the naked blonde first stumbled into the clearing. He quickly ducked down to hide in the bushes, then cautiously peeked through the leaves, watching the man re-balance on his long legs.A shiver ran down Dipper’s spine, and deep in the marrow of his bones, he knew it had to be him .It felt like watching the beginning of a Greek tragedy play out– a mortal and an immortal, horribly destined to cross paths under the stars, changing the trajectory of each other's lives for better, for worse.
Till death do they part.There were a few moments where he swore his heart stopped. He had his suspicions about Bill coming back in a human body, but to actually see it…Dipper didn’t snap out of his initial disbelief until a streak of blue heat flung from Bill’s hand and struck the face of his triangular stone self.It was a gamble to use sedatives to try and knock him out, but the dream demon seemed dazed, and he still hadn’t noticed Dipper watching him, which gave him an advantage he wasn’t sure he’d have. He slowly slid the projectile syringes he had prepared from one of his pockets, and silently clicked open the chamber of his dart gun.On the off chance that this was just some random guy’s body with Bill inhabiting it, Dipper skipped the potentially lethal-to-humans animal tranquilizer (you would keep some on you too if you ran into a pack of manotaurs-gone-wild) and loaded the dart filled with his ketamine-fairy dust homebrew. He’d only ever tested it on himself (once, accidentally!), but there’s a first time for everything, right?Dipper braced the gun against his shoulder and looked down the scope, finding Bill lying flat on the ground, pointing at the sky. He kept one eye closed and waited patiently, counting the passing seconds.When Bill finally stood, he held his breath and fired.The projectile zipped through the air, and the demon jolted in surprise when it hit its mark on the side of his thigh. Dipper chewed his lip while Bill inspected the syringe, then froze when he looked right in his direction. He willed his concoction to work its magic, and held his breath as Bill moved across the clearing, heading right for him.Just when Dipper thought he might be found, Bill veered off course and fell into the nearest tree. He crumpled to the ground next to it, then started crawling, dragging himself across the forest floor in what could only be described as a pathetic attempt to reach him.Bill had gotten himself turned around, and was heading back in the direction he came from when his arms gave out. He rolled onto his side and kicked his feet into the ground like a child throwing a tantrum, yelling and thrashing about, yanking up handfuls of dirt and dry leaves and sticks.It didn’t take much longer for Bill’s movements to slow to a stop. Dipper came out of his hiding spot, taking careful steps closer, watching the rise and fall of the demon’s chest. He could hear Bill murmuring nonsense under his breath, and his eyelashes fluttered as he approached him, but he didn’t react when Dipper reached down and poked his shoulder.After shaking him a few more times to make sure he wouldn’t wake up, Dipper unzipped his backpack and took out the tarp packed inside. He laid it out on the ground next to Bill, hooked his hands under his armpits and hauled him onto it, pointedly looking away from his groin. His plan had been to try and carry Bill back, but his body was trembling, and his muscles felt weak.So he dragged him, instead.The path Dipper took was narrow, but free of rocks and sticks, smoothed down by years of secret escapades to Bill’s statue. Dipper wrapped the corners of the tarp around his hands and shuffled backwards most of the way, using short bursts of strength to pull Bill’s body along with him. He couldn’t be much heavier than the furniture and boxes he’s had to move around recently, but each step felt like miles, burdened by the weight of the world.When they finally broke free of the treeline, Dipper used his dwindling adrenaline to make a beeline for the porch, yanking Bill behind him, and ignoring the feeling of eyes on him.The only eye he was ever concerned with watching him was currently closed.And now, that eye– eyes – are getting shampoo scrubbed out of them in his bathroom.Dipper sighs into his hands, then heads to the kitchen to clean up the mess Bill made. He had been waiting outside the bathroom just in case Bill tried anything, but he wasn’t expecting to have to go inside and shove the demon’s head back under the water.It’s laughable, really.To help your worst enemy get soap out of his eyes.How did his life become such a shitshow in no time at all? It’s only been two days since ground zero, but Dipper is so exhausted it feels like it’s been ages. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to get through the rest of today, let alone the rest of this week…?Month?Year?Dipper told everyone not to worry about him moving to Gravity Falls, but now he’s living with public enemy number one for who knows how long.Living with Bill Cipher .Bill Cipher in a human body. This is so fucked . He can’t believe Bill gets to redeem himself or repay his karmic debt, or whatever this whole thing is supposed to be.Dipper angrily sweeps glass shards into a dustpan.
Why does he get a second chance? And why does he get to keep secrets?
Bill’s crimes don’t seem like they’re the most forgivable offenses– not that he would know.There’s something about Bill’s past in the prophecy that he’s hiding, but he must have been serious about not being able to get into it. They did strike a deal… Maybe figuring that out is part of the trial .It’s entirely possible, especially now that Dipper is certain he’s just collateral damage in someone else’s game. The Axolotl’s game? He tries to picture the creature, but comes up blank, proving his point.Dipper’s getting completely screwed over here, and he’s starting to think that Bill wasn’t that far off when calling the Axolotl a monster.
Would that make the Axolotl Bill and I’s common enemy?
Another laughable thought (he’s hardly slept, give him a break!).The Mystery Shack just opened up for the day, and Dipper really doesn’t want to risk running into anybody, so he makes a mad dash to the trash bins to get rid of the broken glass. He gets back inside with no interruption, and drags his feet back to the kitchen, plopping down in a chair to catch his breath.The longer he can hide Bill the better.Introducing him to people sounds like a nightmare of a nightmare, but Dipper isn’t hopeful he’ll get rid of him before it gets to that point. How is he even going to begin to explain this to anyone?‘So you remember that triangle demon back in the summer of 2012?’Definitely not like that.‘Hey, I just met this guy and now he’s living with me!’No, not that either.Dipper closes his eyes and sighs, rubbing the tension from his temples. He tells himself he’ll come up with something.
Hopefully.
When he opens his eyes again, he almost chokes on air seeing Bill leaning against the counter, watching him.For a brief moment, he tenses– then he remembers Bill can’t read his mind (or else he would have already).It’s easier to look at Bill now that he’s completely dressed, but he still tries not to.Dipper saw enough of him while he was asleep– mostly against his will, but partially due to his own curiosity. He considered it necessary to check the marking on Bill’s chest to confirm that it was the same as the one on his forehead, and it is the same, though slightly different in color. Bill’s is the same shade as the scar across his face; at least, Dipper thinks it's a scar.If it’s a scar, it means Bill was hurt. Badly .And since Dipper was already examining him, he went ahead and checked Bill’s pulse, amazed that he even had a heart– 90 beats per minute was a little fast for resting, but it beat as steadily as his own, so he wrote it off as a demon thing.There was also a rusty, dry smear of blood where the needle had pierced his leg, meaning his heart was actually pumping blood. The bruise from the impact of the projectile dart wasn’t nearly as bad as it would be on a normal human, though.
Durable, but not invulnerable.
So aside from a few minor abnormalities, Bill’s body looked, and appeared to function as human as his own.And Bill said it himself right after he woke up– his body is more human than demon.Dipper has reluctantly taken solace in the fact that Bill’s eyes don’t look human, if only to remind him that he’s the devil in disguise.“I hope you don’t expect me to wear things like this all the time,” Bill suddenly speaks up. “Unlike you, I actually have taste.” “What’s wrong with those?” Dipper furrows his brows.“What’s wrong with these?” Bill repeats, displeased with the question.Bill is a little taller than him (unfortunately), but the sweatpants he gave him seem to fit fine enough, cinching around his ankles a little higher than where they land on Dipper. He also happened to have a plain white t-shirt a size larger than he usually wears, and it looks like it fits fine too.“I think you’ll live,” Dipper says. “We can get you more clothes tomorrow or something.”“Fine,” he sighs dramatically, then mumbles under his breath, “And you said this wasn’t a prison.”“How about, ‘Thank you for offering to spend your money on me’? Actually– you know what, don’t answer that,” he stands and gestures with his hand. “Just follow me.” Dipper leads Bill upstairs, into the main attic room with the red, triangular stained-glass window. It’s one of the few Bill-shaped motifs that stayed throughout the house (which may or may not have been at his request).The room is, or was, being turned into a homey reading nook– somewhere for Dipper to relax that’s not his bedroom.There are a few small empty bookshelves, and some boxes of books sitting on the desk and floor. He bought a new mattress with the move, and hasn’t gotten rid of his old one, so it’s lying flat on the ground, pushed against one of the walls– it’ll work well enough for Bill.“This is where you’ll be sleeping. My room is right there,” he points to his bedroom door, “so no trying anything at night, I’ll hear you,” Dipper warns. He doesn't think Bill can do anything with their deal in place, but he doesn’t want to leave him alone long enough to find out.“Don’t worry, kid! I’m not the monster under your bed,” Bill moves further into the room. He immediately goes to look outside the red window, then throws a sly glance over his shoulder. “Or am I?”“Get away from there,” Dipper frowns, pinching Bill’s sleeve to pull him away from the window. “I don’t want anyone to see you until we come up with a story.”“Ooh, ooh!” Bill raises his hand. “I’ve got one! We can say that we met at the slots in Lottocron Nine-”“No,” Dipper immediately shoots him down. “I’ll come up with something by the end of the day and tell you.”“Ugh, but yours is going to be boring,” Bill pouts.  I’m going to kill him, Dipper thinks.
No, no. Deep breaths. 
“While you’re here, you’re going to be pulling your own weight, which means you’re helping me finish unpacking.”“I didn’t realize you were pro-prison labor,” Bill puts a hand up to his chest and acts shocked.
I’m going to kill him.
“Bill,” Dipper takes a deep breath. “Just know, if I kill you and fuck us both over, whatever happens is entirely your fault.”That makes Bill zip his lips. 
Don’t let him get to you. He’s doing it on purpose.
“Now if you could please just unpack these books and put them on the shelves, that would be really great for the sake of our truce.” And our lives .Dipper must seem serious (he feels serious), because Bill nods his head obediently. “Any particular order?” He asks with a tilt of his head.Dipper stares blankly.Bill clicks his tongue.“What order do you like your books in? By color? Or alphabetical? You seem like the alphabetical by last name type,” Bill taps his cheek. “What about by author’s first name, or title, or I could sort them by who made a secret publishing deal with me and who didn’t,” Bill lists. “Uh, last name is fine,” Dipper blurts. 
This is… so weird.

I need a break.
“I’m going to finish unpacking some stuff downstairs,” he says, turning and walking away. “If you need anything just come find me.”Dipper looks over his shoulder one last time, and his breath catches– Bill is standing in the light and shadow of the triangular window, hair dyed red by stained glass.It makes him feel like he’s twelve again.But Bill doesn’t yank him outside of his body– he just sends him off with an, “Aye, aye, Pine Tree,” and gives him a little wave.Dipper turns away quickly, blinking halos out of his eyes as he descends the stairs to freedom. Temporary freedom .There’s no such thing as peace until Bill is gone.    Bill feels like he’s been unpacking books for hours.And it was hours, until they stopped for sandwiches. (“Is bread the only thing you’ll feed me?”, “I haven’t been able to go to the store, gimme a break.”)Now it’s been hours again, and he’s running out of steam, groaning as he reaches down to take another book out of the box. He’s been following the kid’s lead today, staying quiet upstairs and letting Pine Tree have his space, even though it’s agonizingly boring.The more he can convince the kid he’s not a threat, the easier time he’ll have blowing this joint later on.(And Pine Tree’s death threat earlier had enough heat behind it for him to zip his lips… for now.) Bill almost gets lost in the spiraling optical illusion on the bright yellow cover as he plops down in the window seat. He lies back and brings his knees up to rest the book on his legs, searching his memories. Throughout the day, Bill noticed that the kid has a strange assortment of books.Classical, modern, fiction, non-fiction.Cryptography, conspiracies, geometry, religious texts. He wouldn’t expect anything less than weird with Pine Tree, but the more books he sorted through, the more he realized that he recognized most of them. Each book had the edges of some colorful little note papers sticking out too– how was he supposed to stop himself from taking a little peek?Reading Pine Tree’s notes has helped pass the time, and it’s a good thing he’s been looking, because most of the notations have something to do with him – little pieces of Bill that have managed to get documented throughout history, despite various attempts at wiping away his existence.The notes are color coded, and the kid’s notations are pretty spot on, even if the details are lost or the connection is unclear. He’s impressed Pine Tree’s managed to connect the dots between so many instances of him.It’s almost… too good.Bill flips through the book– there’s a note marking an Eye of Providence on a membership application page, a note marking an Illuminati advertisement, and one marking the Illuminati cyphers.If it was just a handful of books, he would let it slide, but it’s all of them– and who knows how many more Pine Tree might be hiding around the house.Did Ax help him with this? Leading him to a series of hints on Bill’s history all this time?No, that would be too much involvement.
Unless…
Could their connection be deeper than Bill originally thought?Bill closes his eyes, and focuses on extending his senses. He used to be able to use his infinite energy to perceive everything around him, or see through his windows into this world, but it’s different in this body, with his current capabilities.More feeling, instead of seeing.There are a few beacons of energy from various objects throughout the house, and he files those away to investigate later.And then there’s Pine Tree.Bill is drawn to his energy like a moth to a flame, because it’s bright, and buzzing, and his. Well, not all his– Pine Tree has his own unique energy hidden under the rest. He pushes himself a little further, testing how far he’s able to reach without touching the kid’s mind.As long as he doesn’t go inside, he’s still working within the confines of their deal. It shouldn't be too hard; he’s an expert on the containers of consciousness! No one knows their way around a human’s soul better than-The kid’s energy suddenly jumps out in response, meeting him halfway.Bill’s eyes fly open. He blinks away the afterimage of Dipper Pines, and the fragment of his own soul, taking up space between the kid’s ribs, ugly and black and rotting, dripping tar over its confines.
It’s not just my power he has-
The distance between them lessens as Pine Tree comes up the stairs fast, hardly slowing down as he steps into the room. His eyes land on Bill in the window seat and his gaze drops to the book. He doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of Bill, lifting the book out of his hands. “What are you doing?” He asks. Bill flits his gaze up.
What has that slimy lizard done??
“I’m tired,” he throws an arm over his face, then peeks out from underneath it.The kid is flipping through the book. He frowns, and looks at the partially filled shelves, then back to Bill.
Pine Tree was right to be cautious about killing me. 
“Have you been reading these?” He waves the book around.Bill bites his cheek, fighting the compulsion to say something. Have you been using my missing piece to find leads on me this whole time? He wants to ask.“You’ve got quite the interesting collection here,” he says instead, sitting up and lowering his knees to put his feet on the ground. Pine Tree narrows his eyes. “Is it too much to ask for you to not look through all my stuff or do I need to add it to the deal?”“Come onnnn, I was bored! And you didn’t really expect me to not notice, right? It’s like dangling candy in front of a kid– except the candy is me, and the kid is also me,” Bill grins. “You’ve been keeping an eye on me, haven’t you?” “No, I haven't,” he quickly denies.Bill stands up and stalks over to the bookshelf. He plucks one of the more obvious books out, and waves it at the kid. “Have to.”“Have not,” Pine Tree stomps over and reaches up to take the book, but Bill stretches his arm higher.The kid looks like he wants to kill him again.
It’s a good look.
“Deny all you want,” Bill leans forward and shelves the book. “We both know the truth.”“I don’t think you have the right to complain about the truth,” Pine Tree grumbles, taking a step back.“I wasn’t complaining. I just thought it was interesting, is all,” Bill shrugs. “Why’d you come up here anyway?”Pine Tree blinks. “Oh. Uh, I was just checking on things.” “Checking on what?” Bill presses.“Checking on how far you’ve gotten,” he looks around the room. “Which is not that far.”“It’s my first day doing literally anything, cut me some slack!” He whines. Pine Tree must have felt something, or else he wouldn’t have rushed up here. And he knew where to find me in the woods.
Does he really not know?
The kid sighs, then looks at the watch on his wrist. “It’s not time for dinner yet, but if you want to take a break I guess you can sit downstairs while I finish up some things.”Bill readily agrees, and leaves the books to follow Pine Tree back downstairs. He enjoys another cup of cold water, then throws himself onto the couch, instantly feeling relief now that he’s off his feet.“I’m finishing up in the kitchen, can I trust you to turn on the TV without breaking it?”“Yea, yea, I can manage,” Bill waves him off, relaxing into the cushions.One moment, Bill is lying there, paying attention to the kid’s movement and debating whether to go snoop around or not.Then the next, he’s opening his eyes to Pine Tree standing over him, shaking him awake.“What the…” Bill sits up, and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.“You fell asleep,” he moves away to give Bill some space. “I ordered pizza. It’ll be here in just a minute, if you want to go wait in the kitchen.” Bill stands and groans loudly as he stretches his limbs. He gets the hint that the kid wants him out of sight, and it’s Pine Tree’s lucky day that he’s not in the mood to fight him on it.  Is this what waking up in the middle of a REM cycle feels like? Yikes. His first few steps are off balance; he ignores the kid’s bewildered staring as he walks away, and when he nears the table, he smacks his hands against his face, trying to wake himself up more before sitting down. It’s a miracle he fell asleep without realizing it.Without waking up in The Mindscape.Or The Nightmare Realm.Without dreaming at all. (Not that Bill knows what it feels like to dream– the last time he slept, and the last time he dreamt are a lifetime away.)Sleeping and dreaming are overrated, anyway. Bill is more of a nightmare guy himself, and needing sleep to function is a design flaw. Humans are vulnerable while they’re unconscious and dreaming, which is good for Bill, but bad for them. Was good , he reminds himself, slouching in the chair to lean his head back and look at the ceiling.If he can’t access The Mindscape in his sleep, that means he most likely can’t access it at all right now. Maybe he needs more energy stored up, or he just needs to sleep for a longer period of time, and it’ll work when he intentionally goes to sleep next.And goes to sleep again, and again, and again, because he’ll always need sleep while he’s in this body. He needs to eat and sleep and breathe, and tons of other disgusting bodily functions he hates thinking about. This is almost worse than those six hours in Dimensional Authority Lockup, he shudders thinking about it. No, that was definitely worse. But what dreams are a dream demon supposed to wreck when he’s stuck in the body of the thing that dreams!?A knock at the door interrupts his spiraling thoughts. He hears Pine Tree answer and exchange a few words with someone before closing the door. Bill sits up in his seat, and watches the kid come through the doorway. “Pizza’s here,” he announces, dropping the two boxes on the table before getting two plates. He sets one in front of Bill, then spins around and gets two cans from the fridge, hesitating briefly while setting one of those in front of Bill too.  Again with the niceties , Bill thinks, watching Pine Tree open up one of the boxes.It makes him feel… weird. Like something is wrong, but not in the way that it normally is. He feels his heart start to beat faster while looking at the kid’s face, so he drops his gaze to the food.Bill instantly perks up when he sees the slices, cut to resemble triangles.“Did you get this on purpose?” He asks, reaching out and picking up a slice before Pine Tree can stop him. The cheese stretches and snaps, dangling over the sides as he holds it up beside his face. “The resemblance is uncanny!”“It’s just a coincidence,” he says defensively. “Can you put that down?”“Sure, Pine Tree, we can call it a coincidence,” Bill winks, and drops the slice onto his plate.The kid scoffs and rolls his eyes, pointedly looking away from him while he gets his pizza. Bill waits, and watches him take a bite before picking up one of his own slices to do the same.The pizza isn’t bad– it’s plain in comparison to pretty much every other pizza in the known universe, but he actually kind of likes it. It’s warm and cheesy, and it’s fun taking bites out of its triangular shape. He can taste more in this body than he could while possessing someone else, which probably has something to do with this form being made for this dimension.Because this body is the only form he has right now.
A human body.
Bill looks up at Pine Tree while he reaches for a second slice. He’s spaced out and chewing slowly, and Bill can tell he’s slightly on edge.The more he tunes into the shared part of his soul, the easier it is to get a read on the kid. He’s also hyper-aware of his movements– they’re mirroring each other, and already creating a routine here on day one. He wonders if Pine Tree has noticed. Maybe he has, and that's why he’s on edge.Pine Tree’s eyes suddenly slide up to look at Bill. “Have you ever had pizza?”It’s such an innocuous question that it throws him off for a moment. “Have I ever had- of course I’ve had pizza! I’ve had pizza with toppings you couldn’t even imagine, kid!” Bill takes another bite. “And toppings you don’t want to imagine!”“Nice to know that pizza is a trans dimensional phenomenon,” Pine Tree says, reaching out to pick up his cola. “And chew with your mouth closed,” he adds, popping the tab before taking a drink.Naturally, Bill does the same. He drinks it properly, pouring it into his mouth and keeping it all inside. It bubbles and fizzes, sweet and syrupy as he swallows.“Ah,” he exhales. “Just like I remember it.”Pine Tree glares at him. “Very funny.”“It was funny, wasn’t it! We’ve had some great times, you and I,” Bill gives him a smile. “And look at us now! Making more great memories!”“We’re not-” Pine Tree stutters over his words. “Don’t mistake this as anything other than a contractual obligation.”“Youch!” Bill clutches his chest. “I’ve been contractual obligation-zoned! How will I ever recover,” he groans, sinking down in his chair. The kid sets his drink down, hard. “Bill, seriously. None of the time we spend together is as ‘friends’. This isn’t some vacation, okay?”Bill blinks at him, sitting up straight at the shift in tone. Who does Pine Tree think he is to tell him how to spend his time here? If Bill wants to treat it as a vacation he will!But he doesn’t want to do that, so HA! Pine Tree wasn’t even right. “Fine! I don’t want to be friends with a human anyway!” He yells, jumping up from his seat. “And of course this isn’t a vacation! This place is terrible, and it’s boring and I hate it!” Bill stomps his foot, fists clenched at his sides. “I hate this dimension, and I hate Ax, and I hate this body!”Bill is breathing hard, and he opens his eyes, unaware that he had closed them. Pine Tree is staring up at him, and he can’t tell what’s on his face– confusion, irritation, gratification. Bill can’t pick out the kid’s emotions within his own, churning in his stomach with the fizzy soda and greasy pizza.  Why is this happening to me? I feel like the kid, all sweaty and gross, he inwardly cringes at the comparison. But it’s the truth. Him and Pine Tree are two parts of a whole, now.“Uh, listen,” the kid interrupts his inner turmoil, standing slowly. “It’s been a long day, so why don’t we just go ahead and turn in for the night. I could use the extra sleep too.”“I don’t need extra sleep,” Bill snaps, crossing his arms and turning his head. “But fine. If your weak little brain needs it then that’s less time I have to spend with you.” “Whatever,” Pine Tree mumbles. “I’ll clean up and meet you upstairs.”“Hmph,” Bill stomps out of the kitchen and up the stairs, into the attic. He paces across the room, then back again, glaring at the books around him.  This is bullshit, he thinks angrily, wiping his arm across his clammy forehead.How is the kid gonna act nice and then turn around and be mean to him? He didn’t even do anything! In fact, he even helped him today! Bill charges at one of the boxes sitting on the desk and shoves it off. It tumbles over the side, and lands on the floor with a thud, spilling books around his feet. What’s the point in acting nice if Pine Tree’s just going to spit in his face?
That’s what I get for trying to be agreeable and act like I’m ‘changing’ or whatever. It’s not like I-
One of the books on the floor catches his eye– it’s old and worn, with dull, golden gilt-edged pages. He leans over and picks it up, turning it around in his hands.The title and author have been rubbed off of the cover and spine. He thumbs over the sides, noticing there aren’t any sticky notes in this one, either.  Pine Tree must’ve just gotten it, he thinks as he opens it.The spine creaks, and the pungent smell of sulfur drowns out the sweet, aged must he was expecting from its thick, linen pages. There are stale remnants of magic clinging to it, but none that he recognizes.What he does recognize are the contents– pages and pages of detailed alchemy operations, handwritten in faded black ink. It’s copied from alchemy manuals from the dark ages, ones that he contributed to as part of a deal.
This can’t have been an easy find. How did he get a copy in good condition like this?
“Hey,” Pine Tree’s voice comes from behind him. Bill turns around, and slyly slides the book onto the shelf behind him– he’ll come back to it later.“Pine Tree,” he greets cooly.The kid is holding something, and he holds it out when he notices Bill looking. “I found a spare toothbrush you can use. I figured it’s part of the whole routine,” he waves his hand around in the air. “I’m finished in the bathroom and the toothpaste is in there. If you need anything-”“You’re right there, I know,” Bill finishes for him.Pine Tree scowls at him. “Goodnight,” he growls, walking past Bill and shoving the toothbrush into his hand before going into his room.“Sweet dreams, Pine Tree,” Bill shoots back, voice dripping with artificial sweetness as the kid slams his door behind him. Brat , Bill thinks angrily, making his way to the bathroom. His cheeks feel hot, and they hardly cool off as he brushes his teeth and gets ready for bed. I don’t care what Pine Tree thinks. He didn’t affect me at all. I’m just… I’m just tired. He splashes cold water on his face before heading back to the attic.  It’s only the first day, he tells himself. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. Taking things slow, which means I need to rest, and conserve energy.  He flicks the light off when he gets back. The bed in the corner has a thin sheet thrown on it, with a thick blue blanket and a single pillow for him. He lies down on top of the sheet, then gets back up and ditches his shirt and pants before lying down again and pulling the blanket up to his chin. Sleep evades him for hours.Bill can’t remember the last time he intentionally slept, so he’s not sure what he’s doing wrong. He twists and he turns, he counts sheep and dust particles, and repeats the prophecy to himself over and over as though he’ll find something new within its words. He watches the moon moving across the sky through the red window, and wonders what the stars think of all this.When he closes his eyes, he sees emptiness– no dreams, no Mindscape, no Nightmare Realm.There is nothing for him. Not anymore.

“Bill.” “…”“Hey, Bill.”“Hmm.”“Bill, wake up,” Dipper shakes his shoulder harder.“Uhhgh…” Bill groans, turning over so his face is hidden in the pillow.Dipper grips his arm and pulls him back around.“No, you need to wake up,” he urges. “We have things to do today.”“Gimme a minute,” Bill croaks, raising a hand up before it slaps back down. His voice is raspy, deeper than it usually is, and his skin is hot to the touch.Dipper pulls his hand back.“If you’re not up in 10 minutes I’ll be back, and I won’t be this nice about it,” he warns before standing up and walking away. Bill gives a groan of acknowledgement as Dipper makes his way downstairs, escaping from the threat of seeing the demon barely clothed again.It’s bad enough knowing Bill only has a pair of his underwear on. Ugh, Dipper shakes his head to clear the image, and runs a hand through his hair. At least they’ll be getting Bill his own clothes today. He’s not exactly looking forward to shopping, but they really need to get groceries, and his wardrobe isn’t big enough to sustain them both.Dipper picks his coffee up off the table and leans against the kitchen counter to wait. He managed to get a few solid hours of sleep last night but it wasn’t easy, and even though he can’t remember his dreams, he has a feeling they were crawling with Bill. So much for a lowkey week settling in . What’s the point of taking the week off from work if he’s just going to have his hands full with all this?The demon has been behaving himself for the most part, but that’s almost worse than him acting like the psychopath he really is– in combination with the security of their deal, it makes it too easy for him to relax around Bill.But it’s more than that, too.Something about Bill is… familiar. His presence in the house feels inexplicably normal, which makes Dipper feel like things are very not normal.There’s also the issue of his new ability to sense Bill like he has an internal compass pointing toward him.Dipper thought– hoped– he was just imagining things yesterday, but it’s the only explanation for how he knew where to find Bill in the first place.
Maybe that’s what the matching marks mean… we’re connected in some way, so I can feel where he is?
It’s something worth testing out more, but he doesn’t get a chance, because Bill comes trudging loudly down the stairs. He hears the bathroom door close shortly after, and he takes another sip of coffee. Can Bill feel me too? He wonders. I should ask. He won’t be able to lie if I ask the right way. Dipper sets his mug down and gets a bowl out for Bill. They should leave right after he’s finished eating, so there’s less of a chance that someone sees them. He still hasn’t come up with a story.Just as Dipper hears the bathroom door open, his phone buzzes. He takes it out of his pocket. Shit .“Heyyy Wendy,” he greets, walking towards the living room. “What’s up?”“Yo Dips, I know you’re busy but do you know where the candy bags are?”
“Candy bags?” Dipper echoes, looking out the window.“Yea, for trick-or-treaters,” she replies. He can hear her rustling around in the background.“Trick-or-treaters?” He echoes again.“You forgot it’s Summerween, didn’t you?”“Ah, fuck,” he knocks a fist against his forehead and spins around. Why does everything have to be this week!? “I totally forgot, but I’m about to go out so I can pick some up at the Summerween Store and bring it over. That’s my bad, sorry.”“No problemo, boss. If any kiddos come by before you get back can I hand out some of the lollipops for free?”Dipper opens his mouth to tell her yes, but nothing comes out as he sees Bill stumble by and into the kitchen. His heart rate picks up.“Uhh, yea that’s fine. I- I gotta go, bye-” He hangs up the call and goes after the demon.Bill is already slumped in his chair when he walks in. His face looks pale, but his cheeks are bright red, like he has a fever.“Uh… are you okay?” Dipper asks tentatively.“Do I look okay?” Bill mumbles.“Not really,” Dipper mumbles back. “Are you… sick?” “No way,” Bill snaps with more energy, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes. “That’s impossible.”Dipper raises a brow. “Are you sure?”“No, I’m not sure,” he huffs angrily.“Okay? Well we need to go shopping today to get food and clothes, and I forgot it’s Summerween, so we’ll need to stop for candy too since I didn’t have time before today.”“Fine,” Bill says under his breath, pointedly looking away from him.Dipper rolls his eyes, and pours milk and cereal into the bowl for Bill. He takes it over and sets it in front of him. “Here. Eat so we can go.”The demon snatches the spoon from his hand, and throws it to the side. He jumps up from his seat, and his legs shake the table, spilling some of the milk over the side of his bowl. “Bill!?”“You’re acting so normal it’s driving me crazy,” Bill says frantically, hands fisted in his hair. His eyes are darting around wildly. “Why are you being so nice? Do you feel sorry for me? Is that it?”Dipper stares at him, stunned.
Do I feel sorry for him? Is he serious?
“What are you so worked up about?” He asks, completely thrown off by Bill’s behavior. “There’s obviously nothing we can do about this, and I’m just doing what I think I’m supposed to do,” Dipper raises his voice. “I don’t really have the energy to be mad.”“Hah!” Bill laughs, and it turns into a hacking cough. “You don’t have the energy! No pun intended, am I right?” He sneers, catching his breath.“Hold on-” Dipper waves a hand around. “You’re not making any sense. What’s the problem, Bill? Literally nothing has happened, all I did was give you cereal.”“Nothing has happened?” He says lowly, almost threateningly. Dipper can’t help but take a step back. “ Everything has happened,” he spits, finally looking right at him.Bill’s eyes are out of focus, and his hair is damp with sweat. He’s going to pass out , Dipper realizes, instinctively rushing towards him.But it’s too late. Dipper doesn’t reach Bill before the demon’s knees buckle, and his body hits the ground.