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Dipper was standing in the centre of the living room in his pyjamas at close to 4am, feeling a bit nervous, more than a little confused and very, very cold.
“Great-Uncle Ford, why do I have to do this again?” he said, suppressing a yawn. “And why can’t it wait ‘til morning?”
Ford was standing over by the armchair, flipping switches on a remote-sized device that he set down in order to approach Dipper.
“This, my boy, is very, very important,” he said in lieu of a proper answer as he took hold of Dipper’s shoulders and guided him over to where he wanted him to stand. “It is imperative that we do this now. It cannot wait until morning.”
Dipper suppressed another yawn along with an eye roll as he glanced down at the particular spot of carpet his grunkle had moved him onto to see what made it so special. His eyes widened when he saw the circle of symbols surrounding his feet.
“Uh, Great-Uncle Ford?” he said nervously, shifting where he stood as he glanced over at his grunkle. “What exactly will this do to me?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the man chuckled, making Dipper even more worried. “It’s just to reinforce your mind and expel any demons that might have managed to sneak their way in.”
Ah.
Ah shit.
Alarm bells started going off in his mind – literally. Bill must have heard that last bit and decided to chime in with somevery unhelpful additions to an already stressful situation. Dipper started panicking as Great-Uncle Ford reached for the button that presumably turned the machine on.
“Grunkle Ford, wait–!”
The machine powered up with a loud hum and the symbols at Dipper’s feet started glowing a bright blue as they blasted upwards with a column of energy that knocked into both Dipper and Bill.
It did more than that. It knocked Bill straight out of Dipper’s mind and into the real world.
Dipper froze. Grunkle Ford gaped. Bill hovered there looking mostly unconcerned.
“Well, this is interesting,” Bill finally spoke. “Great to see you again, Fordsie. How’ve you been?”
“Stanley!” Ford yelled, dropping his remote-thing and grabbing the gun off his belt. “Get in here!” Turning to Bill, he said menacingly, “Freeze, Bill.”
Dipper just stood there and shook. Partly from anxiety, partly from the cold. He’d never wanted to know what his family would do if they ever found out, but now that they had found out every single worst-case scenario was running at light-speed through his head.
“Whoa, easy there, Pine Tree,” Bill soothed surprisingly reassuringly. Ford just stared. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s you they’re after. I don’t think you’ve destroyed any dimensions lately, so you should be relatively off the hook.”
“Yeah, relatively,” Dipper mumbled, brainstorming ways to minimise the damage before pausing with a blink. “Wait, can you still read my mind?”
“Yep!” Bill chimed happily. “Oh, don’t worry, kid, the soul bond’s gone nowhere.”
To emphasise his point, Bill waved his arms and conjured a glowing blue rope tethering him to Dipper. He pounded his fist against it twice, each blow resulting in a metallic clang and a glowing blue chain to materialise around the rope, protecting it.
“Okay,” Dipper sighed, oddly relieved, as Bill waved a hand and allowed his little display to dissipate. “Good to know.”
At that moment, Stan and Mabel burst into the room holding a baseball bat and a crossbow respectively, followed by a very confused-looking Wendy and Soos. Why they were there at 4am, Dipper didn’t know – at least until he remembered that Mabel had invited them to stay over for a ‘Pines-family-and-honorary-Pines-family-members-sleepover’. Dipper also remembered promising to take part in the aforementioned sleepover, before completely forgetting about it by the time he stumbled home in the dark a little after twelve, scratched and bruised with his pockets full of used audio tapes and Polaroid pictures.
“Oh, boy,” Dipper murmured, reaching for the brim of his cap to pull it low over his eyes before realising he’d left his cap in his room.
“Oh, boy,” Bill echoed before switching from his triangle form to his human form, which sprouted gasps from the other members of the room.
“What –” Grunkle Ford began, waving his gun around slightly. “How? Why?”
“Meh,” Bill shrugged, moving to stand beside Dipper. “I can do what I want, Stanford. Surely you know that by now.”
“Hey, none of that,” Dipper said, shooting Bill a warning glance. “Please don’t antagonise each other over your weird, mysterious pasts. I want remain as un-traumatised by this as possible, and I’d like to get at least get some sleep later tonight, thank you.”
“No way, no how,” Grunkle Stan asserted, folding his arms firmly. “No one’s getting any sleep until you explain what he’s doing here.”
“I was checking Dipper’s mind for demonic anomalies,” Ford hushed, surprisingly hesitant. “I wanted to make sure there was no trace of Bill after that… Sock Puppet Debacle you all keep talking about. It looks like I was right to check,” he finished grimly, finally lowering his gun as he stared Bill down. “What are you doing here, Cipher? Why won’t you leave us alone?“
Bill shrugged, leaning one arm on Dipper’s shoulder. “Eh, just for the fun of it, you know. Also because maybe I can’t leave. Ever think of that, Stanford?”
“No,” Ford said flatly. Over his shoulder, Dipper caught Mabel frowning.
“Wait, you weren’t still in Dipper’s body, though. We got you out, didn’t we?” she questioned, sounding extremely confused. “I… didn’t we?”
“It’s… a little more complicated than that,” Dipper sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “We knocked Bill out of my body… informally, and so his connection to it wasn’t properly severed. Normally you’d need a handshake to be let in and out of a body and to exchange the souls, but Bill only got let into my body, not out. Since we can’t shake hands to swap places again – since, you know, we’re already in the same place – we basically just have to wait and hope something comes along that can break the soul bond.”
“Wait, the soul bond?” Wendy blurted out, horrified, while variations of ‘what?’ were echoed around the room.
“Yep, soul bond,” Bill added unhelpfully, popping the ‘p’ in a way that almost made Dipper think that he wasn’t taking the situation as seriously as he should’ve been. The barely-discernible tension he held under the surface, though, told Dipper a different story. “Basically, me and Pine Tree are stuck with each other until one of us dies. Personally, my money’s on you, no offence, kid. Just, you know, I can’t really see you outliving a being of pure energy that never dies.”
Dipper rolled his eyes at the smirking dream demon currently using him as an armrest. “Well, there go my hopes and dreams,” he drawled sarcastically, making Bill beam at him in an incredibly Bill-like maniacal fashion.
“Eh, you’ll get over it eventually, Pine Tree. Heck, one day you’ll thank me for giving you the wonderful opportunity of spending your limited mortal days with me!”
Dipper snorted and rolled his eyes. “I highly doubt that,” he informed him, before drawing his attention back to his family, who all looked either horrified or disgusted. Or both.
Bill took the momentary silence that followed as the perfect opportunity to slide behind Dipper and loop his arms around his waist, resting his chin atop his head with an all-too-smug smile directed towards the rest of the room.
The reaction was instantaneous. The room burst into chaos and noise as everyone started yelling, both at the demon and at each other. Ford was calling for Dipper to step away and making threatening gestures at Bill. Stan took the opportunity to start yelling at Ford – not in Bill’s defence, just because he would take any excuse to yell at his twin. Mabel was hollering a war cry and throwing the couch pillows around the room at anyone who was in her sights. Wendy was waving her hands frantically, pleading for everyone to calm down, and Soos was ducking the flying projectiles as he backed away from all the madness with a scared expression.
Dipper just blew his bangs out of his eyes with a tired sigh. “Really?”
Bill hummed happily in response, the sound rumbling through his chest where it was pressed against Dipper’s back, and he tightened his grip enough to let Dipper know that he wasn’t planning on letting go any time soon. Not that he minded that, really.
“Get your hands off my nephew!” Ford managed to yell over the chaos, shooting Bill a glare that could fell giants but only made the dream demon even more amused.
“I’m fine right where I am, thanks, Sixer,” Bill smirked, flashing Ford a maniacal grin that made Dipper want to facepalm that much more than usual.
“Really? Really?” he muttered as much to himself as to the demon currently wrapped around him before raising his voice above the chaos. “Hey!”
Everyone paused, turning to stare at Dipper. He glared harshly enough to make them all shift uncomfortably. Mabel hid the final couch cushion behind her back, pretending she wasn’t just about to lob it at Bill’s head. The Stans wouldn’t look at each other, seeming to prefer staring angrily at the carpet. Wendy avoided Dipper’s eyes and crossed her arms. Soos looked hopelessly confused and nervous as he twisted his cap in his hands. Bill just smirked.
“Bill’s fine where he is, okay?” Dipper sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose – a habit he’d unconsciously picked up from Ford. “Both where he’s standing and in my mind.”
Tilting his head back as much as he could, he mumbled to Bill, “I wish you weren’t so difficult sometimes.”
Bill just beamed down at him, absolutely no remorse present in his expression whatsoever, and Dipper sighed more fondly than he was willing to admit.
“…Alright, I think we need to have an official family meeting,” Stan finally said, breaking the tense silence. “Soos, Wendy, as much as we appreciate you, we, uh… well, this’ll probably go better with less people. Less yelling, you know?” he said, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck when the room remained in stifling silence.
“Yeah, alright, boss,” Soos finally said. “Come one, Wendy. Let’s give them some space.”
“No!” Wendy snapped, finally looking up just to glare at Stan, crossing her arms defensively. “We’re family too, alright? We deserve to know!”
“Look… Wendy, isn’t it?” Ford said, looking over at the redhead. “I know how important you are to my family, and I promise we’ll keep you updated, but the less people that are present for this, the better. Bill is too dangerous to take these kinds of chances.”
“…Fine,” Wendy muttered after a long, terse moment of silence. “Don’t leave out any details.”
“We won’t,” Stan promised awkwardly, sighing tiredly when Wendy just brushed past him without looking up. Soos shot him a nervous look on his way past, the door of the Shack clicking shut behind them and plunging the whole room into a stifling silence.
‘Well, this is awkward,’ Bill commented in Dipper’s mind, making Dipper shoot him a fondly exasperated look. At least they could still speak to each other mentally, he thought with no shortage of relief. There was no reason it shouldn’t have worked, what with the soul bond still being intact, it just felt a little like their personal bubble had been shattered now that people knew. At least they still had their own mental talking space.
Ford finally turned to look at them, his expression inscrutable. “Dipper, you can’t begin to quantify what this means,” he began, his voice and expression graver than Dipper had ever seen it – which really, really said something. “The universal consequences of this are enormous.”
Bill pressed his forehead into the back of Dipper’s skull with an ‘ugh’ as Ford kept talking about the destabilisation of reality and all the reasons why, on a quantum level, it was a very bad idea to let Bill stay linked to Dipper.
Well it wasn’t like they could help it – neither of them had wanted it to come to this.
Dipper had to agree with the dream demon’s very obvious opinion, though – it was a little boring, just because it was all stuff they’d already thought about. Occasionally Ford would mention something he didn’t know and pique his interest, but as time went on he slowly zoned out and his focus turned instead to the warm arms slung loosely around his waist and the gentle pressure of Bill subtly knocking his forehead against the back of Dipper’s skull, softly enough not to hurt him but noticeable enough to signify his boredom.
“Bill, pay attention,” Dipper mumbled, getting distracted when Bill’s fingers started playing with the fabric of his shirt, twisting it around and around between his fingers. Bill snorted softly against the back of his head, so close that Dipper felt his hair stir with the exaggerated breath.
“It’ll be fine, Pine Tree,” Bill murmured, now rolling the hem of Dipper’s shirt back and forth between his fingers just to give himself something to do (and an excuse to touch Dipper, not that he needed one, and not that they weren’t touching enough already). “Ol’ Fordsie hasn’t paid attention to us for at least fifteen minutes.”
At that exact moment Ford sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, startling Mabel from where she’d been starting to doze off on the couch. Grunkle Stan remained snoring peacefully until he was jolted awake by Mabel’s elbow to the gut.
“Are you two even listening to me?” Ford asked, levelling Dipper and Bill with a very unimpressed look.
“Uh, yes!” Dipper responded quickly and anxiously. Bill snorted, dragging his head up enough to give Ford a deadpan stare.
“No, of course not.”
A second later the demon let out an ‘oof’ and ducked his head back behind Dipper’s, mumbling something about ‘betrayal and dishonour’ while Dipper smirked, entirely willing to admit to the fact that he’d just elbowed one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos in the ribs to shut him up.
From the wary side-eye Ford gave them, he’d noticed it too, but he just sighed.
“Listen, obviously you two have some kind of… deal… going on, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bill is far too dangerous to be here.”
Bill snorted again, popping his head up to raise an eyebrow at the room as a whole. “Uh, I’m still here, you know.”
“Quiet, Cipher,” Ford snapped.
“Yeah, you isosceles monster!” Mabel chimed in, clearly just glad to have a part in the conversation, but that didn’t stop Dipper’s blood from boiling.
“Hey!” he snapped, glaring them all into sheepish submission. “We’re talking about his fate, so he should be part of the conversation.”
“You tell ‘em, Pine Tree!” Bill cheered, sounding not at all bothered over everyone’s tangible distrust towards him, and Dipper snorted.
“You are awful and I hate you,” Dipper deadpanned, knocking his head softly back into Bill’s to show that he didn’t really mean it. Said dream demon only snorted, burying his face in the top of Dipper’s head.
“Oh, you love me, really,” he murmured lowly and Dipper’s cheeks definitely didn’t turn red. Definitely. Nope.
His whole family stared at him with various levels of shock and horror. Dang it. There went that delusion.
To be fair, he was standing there in his pyjamas with messy hair, red cheeks and six feet of well-dressed dream demon hanging off him. Just about anyone would find that strange, let alone people who actually knew some of their history.
Dipper cleared his throat and ducked his head. “I love you more when you’re not deliberately trying to rile up my family,” he murmured almost inaudibly back, not that the volume made much of a difference considering that the rest of the room was deadly silent. Well, deadly silent apart from the near-inaudible murmur of Ford whispering something to Stan and Mabel while he eyed the carpet at Dipper’s feet. Dipper did not want to know what that was about, so he didn’t ask.
Bill made his signature confused little ‘hmm?’ before glancing up at the rest of the Pines family. “Oh, yeah, them.”
Dipper sighed, not even resisting the urge to facepalm. Bill smirked down at him, catching his wrist right before his hand hit his forehead, making Dipper glare up at him playfully.
“Dipper?” Mabel whispered, making Dipper glance over at her. His heart sank when he noticed she was twisting the front of her sweater between her hands, sniffling and blinking watering eyes. Dipper immediately stepped forwards, Bill’s arms falling easily away, as his annoyance softened into guilt.
“Oh, Mabel, hey, you don’t need to cry, just let me explain– ”
Dipper was cut off by Stan grabbing his wrist and yanking him forwards while Mabel yelled “Now!”
A blue force field shot up around where Bill was standing and his mouth opened in what was probably a shout as he threw himself against the barrier. Dipper panicked, struggling in Stan’s grip, but the old man was stronger than he looked and he managed to yank Dipper back to the doorway.
Of course. Of course. Those symbols from earlier hadn’t just been to remove demons from his mind… they’d also been there to trap whatever demons had come out.
“No! Bill!” Dipper yelled, fighting as hard as he could against Grunkle Stan’s hold as Mabel wiped the fake tears from her eyes and backed away from the bubble. Ford stepped forwards, holding some sort of futuristic steampunk-looking gun contraption and Bill’s eyes went wide. He stopped trying to force his way out of the field and instead glared Ford down, bright red flames swirling up around his feet as his one visible eye glowed a bright red. His lips moved, and Dipper couldn’t hear anything through the force field, but he could guarantee that it was some kind of uniquely Bill-like threat.
“Kid, can you– hey!” Stan’s grunting and cursing showed he was clearly struggling to keep Dipper away, which only made him fight harder.
Ford lifted the weapon, his gaze steady, only faltering at the absolutely ferocious glare Bill levelled him with, his mouth moving in what looked closer to a demonic snarl than a spoken threat. His eye glowed brighter than the light from the bulb on the ceiling and the red flames lapping at his ankles grew until they swarmed his whole figure. Dipper could see the damage to the floorboards from the other side of the room, and it would only be a matter of seconds before Bill broke out. Ford must have known this too, and yet still he hesitated, seeming to know – in the same intrinsic way that Dipper did, although maybe not as deeply – that shooting Bill now would do absolutely nothing. He would stop whatever came out of that gun before it even entered the force field with him.
But then Bill glanced over at Dipper, struggling and shouting in Stan’s hold, and just for a moment his fires dimmed.
That was the only shot Ford needed, and he took it.
Dipper shouted, throwing himself forwards in Stan’s hold as a beam of crackling blue energy left the gun, making Stan yelp and dig in his heels to keep them in place. Ford hollered, watching as the energy beam passed through the force field. Bill turned with wide eyes just in time to see the beam approaching, and then the lightbulb shattered.
Mabel screamed in the sudden darkness and both Stan and Ford began panicking, shouting for each other in the darkened room. Dipper panted, going completely slack in Stan’s hold, straining his ears for any sound from Bill. What he heard was both unexpected and entirely predictable, and he sagged down to the floorboards as Bill’s voice filled his head.
‘Miss me, Pine Tree?’ he asked, infuriatingly smug tone back in his voice, and Dipper’s laugh bordered on maniacal but he couldn’t care less.
“You were only gone for a second,” he laughed breathlessly, ignoring the confused questioning from his Grunkles and his sister that followed that remark.
“Yeah, but I know you missed me anyway,” Bill spoke from behind him, cocky smirk evident in his confident tone, and Dipper whirled around to throw himself into the dream demon’s hold.
Bill grunted, staggering back a step at the force but Dipper couldn’t care less, wrapping his arms tight around his middle and holding on for dear life. Bill’s arms encircled him and he felt the all-too-familiar feeling of a nose being pressed into the top of his head.
“What do you say we get out of here, kid?” Bill murmured, ignoring the exclamations from Mabel and the Grunkles that were getting closer and closer.
“Yeah,” Dipper sighed, pressing his face into Bill’s linen shirt, chasing that honey and woodsmoke scent he’d gotten so used to. He barely even noticed when the yelling faded away, briefly replaced by the familiar swooping noise of teleportation before they were dropped somewhere in the forest, judging by the rustling of leaves and the whistling of the wind though the branches.
“Pine Tree?” Bill murmured, sounding anxious, and Dipper glanced up at him. The demon met his eyes with a familiar wide smile containing an odd nervous edge that vanished when Dipper beamed back up at him.
“You’re not… you’re okay?” Dipper questioned, that swooping sensation in his stomach returning when he thought even briefly about what had just happened. He shoved it all away and focused on the tilt of Bill’s head and the tiny hum he gave before he answered.
“I’m fine, Pine Tree. Didn’t even touch me,” he declared proudly before giving Dipper an up-and-down sweep. His gaze darkened as it caught on something and Dipper glanced down to see angry red gashes on his forearms. He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment.
“Oh, yeah, those were, uh, my fault,” he mumbled, averting his eyes from Bill’s piercing gaze. “I fought too hard against Grunkle Stan, his nails must have cut me.”
“That’s his fault, not yours,” Bill said darkly, eyes sweeping over the cuts. He thumbed gently over a particularly nasty one, jerking his hand away when Dipper hissed between his teeth.
“Not you, not you,” Dipper murmured reassuringly, trying to ward off his shivers as a harsh wind blew past them, but Bill seemed to feel nothing, too busy glaring off into the distance with a look that could only be described as hatred.
“It wasn’t Grunkle Stan’s fault, either,” Dipper reminded him gently, and Bill flinched so hard it looked painful as he turned his burning gaze back on to Dipper. “He’s got long nails, that’s all. Forgets to cut them,” Dipper finished weakly, and Bill suddenly seemed to realise how much his anger was unnerving Dipper.
He sighed, lowering his head, rubbing roughly at his eye before letting his hands fall and dangle as he stared at Dipper’s injuries.
“Here,” he offered quietly, holding out a hand while averting his gaze, like he was afraid Dipper wouldn’t take it, and Dipper’s heart softened a little more as he took Bill’s hand in his.
Bill turned his arm over, waving his free hand in the air over the gashes. The familiar tingling that accompanied healing magic spread throughout Dipper’s arm as Bill let go and reached for the other one, repeating the process. Once he was done he hesitated for a moment, then reached out to place their hands close together, but not quite touching.
Dipper smiled and bridged the last few inches, lacing their fingers together and causing Bill to blink down at their intertwined hands in surprise.
“There,” Bill declared after a moment, frightening intensity finally gone from his eyes when he looked back up to beam at him. “Now you’re alright.”