Archive of Our Own ^beta

1

Twas the day before Monday and all through the Shack, not a creature was stirring, not even a… creature that rhymes with shack. That was because the only person there was dead asleep on the couch and Stan had finally called the exterminator the other day.

That particular person on the couch was Dipper, who was catching up on sleep as ordered by Ford (who really shouldn’t have been talking because that man had way worse sleeping habits than Dipper). He remained unmoving as the front door opened, other than the steady rise and fall of his chest.

But his beauty sleep was cut short when an earth-shattering “I’M HOME!” rang out right next to his ear. Dipper violently jerked awake, falling off the couch and face-down on the floor. He groaned and turned onto his side, rubbing his eyes. “What the hell Mabel?”

“Is this the famous Pine Tree you spoke of?” Dipper looked up and saw a tall blond. He stood an impressive six inches above Mabel and had on a white shirt, brown khakis and a yellow hawaiian shirt with pineapples over the white one. He grinned at Dipper and held out his hand. Dipper was creeped out by the man’s smile (it looked unnaturally wide) but didn’t want to appear rude, so he took it. And hey, in Gravity Falls everyone’s a bit off.

The blond pulled Dipper up as if he was lifting a 350 lb dumbbell. Dipper went flying into his chest. He pulled back sputtering as Mabel burst out laughing. The blond grinned at him, “sorry, don’t know my own strength. WAIT NO, I ACTUALLY DO. I DID IT ON PURPOSE.”

“...ok. Mabel, who’s your friend?”

Mabel bounced on her heels, vaguely concealing her giggles. Dipper rolled his eyes and prepared for the worst. “He is homeless, he is gay, he does not have AIDS and he’s new in town.”

“How long were you waiting to say that?”

“About…” Mabel checked her watch, “four hours now. Anyway, this is Bill. I was walking home from the crafts store because we ran out of the industrial sized glitter, and I was struggling to carry it home, so he helped me! He also knew that I was half of the Mystery Twins, so he’s actually a fan. Isn’t that cool?”

They’d gotten the occasional ‘fan’ over the years (Mabel and he were well known throughout Gravity Falls) so Dipper wasn’t surprised that Mabel had brought one home. He turned to Bill, who was just… staring at Dipper with a wide-eyed look, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This guy must be a really big fan. Dipper frowned, “wait, how have you heard of us if you’re new in town?”

Bill waved his hand, “I got ears everywhere Pine Tree.” Dipper frowned again at the nickname until Bill reached up and flicked the tree on his hat. “Don’t you wear that all the time?”

“Yeah I guess.”

“Then you’re the Pine Tree.”

“...alrighty then.”

Mabel hopped onto the couch and explained, “well we got to talking and he mentioned how he would like to meet you and all, so I invited him to hang out in the Shack for a bit, maybe buy some things, but then he told me he didn’t have a job and I was like ‘lightbulb!’ He should work at the shack! I’m gonna talk to Stan about hiring him.”

Dipper rubbed his chin. It is true that they need more employees since Soos had been staying home to take care of his Abuelita more often and Wendy had been taking a summer college class so she took less shifts as well. But…

“Mabel sauce, can I talk to you? In private?”

Mabel grumbled and sat up, walking to the kitchen with Dipper in tow as he turned to Bill and said, “we’ll be just a minute… just stay, here, please. Thanks.”

She crossed her arms once they got in the kitchen. “Bro bro, I already know what you’re gonna say. He doesn’t seem that creepy! I mean, he is a bit creepy but have you ever met someone who didn’t send a chill down your spine with their smile?”

“Yes?” Dipper rubbed the bridge of his nose, “look, I’m not saying that I don’t trust your judgement Mabes, but I mean we literally know nothing about this guy. For all we know he could just be the gnomes again!”

“Actually I already checked, he’s a person.”

“ACTUALLY I’m not.” They both jumped. Bill was leaning against the doorway, smirk still plastered on his face. “Just figured I should tell you right off the bat, I’m not human. I’m a demon!”

Mabel and Dipper stared at him. Mabel pursed her lips. “Well, he’s a fairly nice demon…?”

“Mabel!”

“I’m just saying broseph. We’ve met demons before, why can’t we hire one to work here?”

“Because, every single demon we’ve worked with has tried to trick us into making a horrible deal with them! We have no proof that he’s any different!” He turned to Bill and raised his hand, “no offense.”

“NONE TAKEN. But I would like to point out that since you already know that I’m a demon, it’s a hell of a lot easier to NOT make a deal with me. All the other demons you’ve dealt with didn’t immediately tell you that they were a demon.”

Mabel nodded, “that is true.” She paused, then furrowed her brow and placed her hands in her hips. “Wait, how did you know that?” Dipper copied her stance, giving Bill a scrutinizing glare.

“Oh sister, I’ve been a demon for a looooooong time. I know exactly how all the other demon’s tricks work.”

“What makes you think we’ll trust you?” Dipper crossed his arms, stepping closer and bit in front of Mabel. “If you’re a demon, then why would you be hanging around humans like this? Why do you need a job? Can’t you get what you want through deals?”

Bill smiled wide and stepped up to meet Dipper’s gaze, leaving only a foot between them, but Dipper refused to back down. “Ah, asking all the right questions Pine Tree! Yes, I could get all the money I need through tricking humans into deals, but if I’m being completely honest, humans are getting boring. They all want the same thing. This town seems to be one of the few places where I can be a demon and be treated like a human! Which, kind of sucks sometimes, but hey it’s a change of pace that I can appreciate.”

Mabel quietly asked, “why do you want to hang around us then?”

Bill’s smile didn’t falter, but he did fall silent for a moment. “WELL, Shooting Star, according to this town whenever something interesting happens here, which seems to be always, there’s AT LEAST one member of your family there. Usually you, Pine Tree.” Bill fixed him a smirk and Dipper glared back. “And there’s nothing I HATE more than a boring human, so I figured I could hang around you guys.”

“Well thank you for gracing us with your presence,” Dipper said sardonically.

Bill smiled, “YOU’RE WELCOME.”

Mabel pulled Dipper back by the arm and they both turned away from Bill for privacy. “I know that he’s not the most normal guy but I think he’s a lot of fun! Plus, we really need another employee.”

“I just don’t know Mabel.”

“C’mon bro-bro, you need to be a little more trusting. Let loose every once in a while. If he ends up being a bad guy, we’ll handle it like we always do!”

Dipper rubbed his eyes, “I’m trying to prevent having to handle it Mabes. I also think that you should be a little more critical, but… I suppose he can be trusted for now, but keep an eye on him!” Mabel squealed and bounded over to Bill.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you Dippin Dots! You won’t regret this! C’mon Bill, now we need Grunkle Stan’s approval.”

Bill let out an exhausted sigh as Mabel dragged him behind her, and Dipper almost felt bad for the guy.

So far Bill hadn’t done anything to show that he wasn’t trustworthy. He’d actually been an almost model employee if it weren’t for the time that he severely traumatized a six year old and her mother by talking to them about how Gremloblins reproduce.

Dipper still didn’t trust him, which Mabel thankfully wasn’t mad at him about. Apparently she also took notice of how strange it was that Bill knew so much about Dipper without having ever met him.

For example:

Last week Dipper had planned on staying up late to research how to stop the Geodites from spontaneously combusting whenever they got sick and was walking upstairs when Bill handed him a pack of candy cigarettes. Dipper raised an eyebrow, “why are you giving me these?”

“You always chew your pens until they explode, if you have something in your mouth, you won’t have a face covered in ink.”

“Huh. Thanks.” Dipper walked upstairs and only asked when he sat on his bed, “wait how did he know that?”

This has happened multiple times in the past week. Bill has known that Dipper chews his shirt when he hasn’t slept, hates needles, loves crosswords and gets migraines whenever he drinks more than five cups of coffee.

Dipper had planned on confronting Bill about it today after work, but…

Melody walked into the shack gift shop with a gigantic box of cookies in her arms. “They were giving free cookies out at the mall and I stole all of these from the lady’s hands before she could pass them out!”

Stan placed his hand on Soos’ shoulder, “Soos, you chose wisely.”

Everyone stormed to Melody and grabbed their own cookie (Mabel and Soos had a competition to see who could stuff more in their mouths). Dipper grabbed just one cookie and sat up on the cash register counter. They had all formed a circle in the gift shop since there were no customers. Bill was one of the last to grab a cookie and took a massive bite before scrunching his nose and asking, “hey Chorus, what’s in these cookies?”

Melody giggled at the nickname, “um, I think they said they were chocolate hazelnut.”

Bill’s eyes went wide and he screamed at Dipper, “DON’T EAT THAT!”

Everyone froze at Bill’s outburst. Dipper frowned, “why shouldn’t I?”

“BECAUSE, uhhh,” Bill glanced around as if he was trying to come up with an answer on the fly, which he probably was. “Because these cookies are disgusting!” He threw the cookie in his hand out the window and smacked the one in Soos’ hand to the floor. Soos frowned, “aww.”

Dipper scoffed and rolled his eyes. He’s not sure why Bill has felt the need to mess with him, but it’s not funny. “I think I’ll be the judge of that,” then he took a big bite of his cookie.

Bill cringed as Dipper chewed and swallowed. He bit his lip and shoved his hands in his pocket, muttering something under his breath as he grabbed another cookie himself.

Only a few minutes later Dipper felt an annoying itch on the side of his neck. He scratched at it but it didn’t go away. In fact, it felt like it was spreading all around his neck. Dipper placed down his second cookie to scratch at his neck with both hands. Ok, now his throat felt like it was closing. He began breathing deeper to get enough air in his lungs.

Mabel furrowed her brow and rushed over to him, “Dippin’ Dots, what’s wrong?”

Dipper clawed at his neck, trying to choke out, “can’t, breathe.”

Ford stepped forward to Dipper quickly and Dipper looked up to see all attention was on him now. “Is he choking?”

“He’s going into anaphylactic shock.” Everyone turned to Bill, who was leaning against the wall nonchalantly as if he said the most obvious thing in the world. Dipper wheezed again, suddenly feeling a lot more lightheaded and dizzy. He placed a hand on Mabel’s shoulder to steady himself. Ford turned back around and swiftly lifted Dipper into his arms, “Stanley-’

“Yeah.” Grunkle Stan already had his keys and they along with Mabel rushed to the hospital as fast as they could.

When Dipper got to the emergency room and finally got an epipen shot, the first thing he asked was, “how the hell did Bill know I was allergic to hazelnuts?”

Mabel shrugged, “maybe he’s a demon that can identify allergies?” Ford was getting coffee and Stan was calling their parents to tell them about the incident.

Dipper groaned loudly and flopped backwards on the hospital bed he was on. “It’s not just that! How does he know all those little things about me that only you or mom and dad should know? Did he stalk me before we met? Is he still stalking me right now?”

“AS FUN as stalking is, I am no Peeping Tom.”

Both Mabel and Dipper jumped as Bill appeared in the doorway. He grinned, “nice to see you not all puffed up Pine Tree. Although you do make anaphylaxis look sexy.”

Mabel snorted and Dipper scowled. “How did you know I was allergic to hazelnuts?”

Bill smiled, “I can’t tell you.”

“Why the hell not!?”

“Because Pine Tree, I like being mysterious.”

Dipper glowered at the blond demon for a moment, ignoring Mabel’s uncomfortable shifting, before dropping it and asking with a somewhat pleading face, “please?”

He didn’t expect for it to work in even the slightest, but to his utmost surprise, he saw something soften in Bill’s gaze. He stepped to the end of the bed, gripping the bar there. “I pay close attention to you Pine Tree. You’re fairly easy to figure out if someone really looked at you, and I am nothing if not an observer.” Dipper tilted his head along with Mabel.

“So, you just pay really close attention to Dipper?”

Bill nodded. “I saw you chew on your pens one day on the porch until it exploded on your face. I figured that must happen whenever you concentrated hard, and if you liked chewing on pens even when they exploded, you probably also chewed on other things like your shirt, especially when you’re tired. You have anxiety and most people with anxiety don’t like needles, you’re always saying ridiculously long words to sound smart so you probably like crosswords and anyone who drinks too much coffee will get a migraine.”

“And the allergy thing?”

“Demons are pretty good at sensing when someone is close to dying - it helps us make deals with people that’ll die sooner. I figured the cookie would be the cause of you getting close to death.”

Dipper blinked. Mabel stood up and stretched, “well, that settles that. I’ll be heading to the bathroom now.” Dipper watched her go. Bill pursed his lips, then cleared his throat.

“I suppose I should go now.”

“Wait.”

Bill quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah kid?”

“Why do you pay such close attention to me? I’m not that interesting.”

Bill smiled, “you’re far more interesting than you realize kid. I’ll see you at work.” And as if he was never there, Bill was gone.

2

The campfire wasn’t anything really big or planned, Mabel had just seen the marshmallows in the cabinet and screamed “WE’RE HAVING A CAMPFIRE TONIGHT!” and that was that.

Of course though, she dragged Dipper into it and insisted that he go into town and get more marshmallows along with a plethora of other things for the impromptu semi-party, including pink super-shimmer fireworks that “are absolutely necessary, that’s not even a question Dipper.”

This would’ve been fine with Dipper if it weren’t for the fact that Bill was also on duty when Mabel was giving him the list of things to get and Dipper just had to say, “this is going to take forever for me to get Mabes.”

Bill leaned his body over the cash register, “not if you’ve got a shopping partner.”

Dipper’s eyes bulged at the idea of shopping with Bill for hours. (Seriously, Mabel’s list was that long.) Sure, they had somewhat established that Bill was indeed not stalking him, but… there’s something in the way that Bill looks at Dipper sometimes that gives him the heebie jeebies.

Unfortunately Mabel did not seem to notice Dipper’s discomfort and sprang at the opportunity. “Great idea Bill! You two should go right now so we’ll have plenty of time to set up. Oh, should I have Grenda invite Marius?”

“I thought you said he was in Austria.”

“He has a private jet, he can get here in like five minutes. Now shoe! You two have a lot of shopping to do.” She bounded out of the gift shop, leaving Dipper with the smug-looking demon. Not that that’s saying much - he always looked smug.

Bill simply stared at Dipper as he slowly walked backwards to the door into the shack, “so, I’ll um… I’ll go get Stan’s keys.” He stumbled his way through the door and escaped Bill’s piercing gaze, all the while cursing Mabel’s name.

Dipper tried his very hardest to not have to actually speak to Bill throughout the whole journey. He actually considered dropping him off at an entirely different store to avoid talking with him, because Bill’s preferred topics of conversation are weird - and that’s coming from Dipper.

“I’m just saying, we probably wouldn’t have had that malaria outbreak if people still ate the placenta after the baby comes out! I know you humans think that’s strange or whatever but I’m JUST SAYING, would you rather eat some human organ that’s not even of use anymore or die of a horrible disease? I know MY answer!”

Maybe Bill deserved the benefit of the doubt that he’s just that socially unaware, but Dipper’s pretty sure that Bill is so old by now that he simply doesn’t care about being perceived as a “normal human.”

But it didn’t mean that Dipper had to listen to him. He turned the radio up to almost unbearably loud and shouted, “I’M LISTENING TO THE RADIO NOW.”

Something flashed in Bill’s eyes, so quick and foreign that Dipper could only assume that it meant something in demon language or whatever, then smirked and waved his hand over the car dashboard. The radio quickly turned to ear-piercing squeaks and squeals that almost caused Dipper to crash the car. He turned it off after coming to a lurching stop at a red light. Bill beamed, “NOW YOU’RE NOT. Anyway, as I was saying, the placenta was actually designed to be incredibly nutritious…”

Dipper groaned loudly and slammed his forehead against the steering wheel.

The moment they got inside the supermarket Dipper handed Bill his list and walked away from him as fast as he possibly could. It’s not that Dipper doesn’t like him, it’s just that he really prefers to be with someone who doesn’t casually talk about the wackest things at volume ten - especially in public.

He grabbed hotdogs and hamburgers for Grunkle Stan to grill, cake mix for Mabel to make cupcakes and three whole boxes of rock salt because apparently Great Uncle Ford is gonna use it to make the campfire more thermodynamic - which is awesome and Dipper definitely has to ask what the hell he means by that.

Once Dipper had all of his things in his cart he made his way to the front of the store to find Bill. He should’ve been easy to spot since he’s always the tallest in the room and has incredibly blond hair. Sure enough, Dipper saw him immediately when he turned the corner, but for an entirely different reason.

Bill in all his idiotic glory, stood there, holding an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff in his arms, balancing paper plates and cups on his head along with many, many items stuck in the waistband of his pants. Dipper stormed up to Bill while trying to avoid the eyes of every other customer in the market.

“Why are you carrying everything?!”

Bill turned to be able to see Dipper and smiled widely, “how else am I supposed to transport all this stuff. Should I use magic? GOOD IDEA!”

“No! Bill look around you, don’t you see that everyone has a cart?”

The demon glanced around and motioned to his right. “He doesn’t have a cart.”

Dipper looked at where he motioned, “that’s a child Bill.”

“What’s it to me?”

Dipper sighed and had Bill put all their items in the cart and bought them as fast as they could to avoid any more Bill-caused embarrassments. They then headed to a (not exactly legal) fireworks shop and looked around for Mabel’s sparklers and super shimmer fireworks. Since the shop was so small Dipper sadly couldn’t send Bill away, so he just had to deal with his incessant ramblings.

Tuning him out wasn’t easy, but soon enough Dipper had managed to not hear the majority of the words that came out of his mouth. Until Bill started shouting for his attention.

“Dipper. Dipper. Dipper. Dipper Pines. Pines. Pines. Pine Tree. Pine Tree, are you listening to me.”

He growled and put down the sparkler he was looking at, “WHAT do you want, Bill?”

Bill grinned and held up his hands as if he were to clap, “should I cause an ‘accidental explosion’ in this place?”

“NO!”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m just yanking your chain, Pinetree. I would only do it once you were out of the store.”

“Very nice Bill.” Dipper turned back to the display to continue ignoring him.

Bill didn’t let him though, throwing an arm around Dipper’s shoulders and continued speaking. “Are you excited for tonight?”

“I suppose, I can’t wait for Ford to show me this rocksalt fire trick. I hope it doesn’t cause any huge explosions like last time.” Dipper shuddered, remembering the explosion of the Summer of 2014, then smiled, looking at Bill. “You know, we’re still trying to get him to stop shaving by setting his face on fire. Stan said he nearly caught the shower curtain on fire on their last voyage.”

“HA! That’s smart of him to do, why would you want to stop him? Though I guess it IS pretty dangerous to set your whole body on fire instead of running an incredibly sharp blade against your incredibly fragile human skin, ESPECIALLY in the crotch area.”

Dipper sputtered and pulled away from Bill, “what- no he doesn’t set his pubes on fire, I mean, I don’t think he does, ugh, no! No, I don’t want to think about this now! I don’t want to think about this ever! Ugh,” Dipper grabbed the sparklers and made his way to the larger fireworks section. “How is it that you always manage to turn the conversation into something about cannibalism or incest or talking about my Great Uncle shaving his junk?”

Bill picked up a neon blue firework and tossed it to Dipper, who barely managed to catch it. He put the explosive in his basket and crouched to look at the larger boxes.

“All those things are taboo or immoral to you humans. Whenever I talk about something that you consider taboo, you guys start emitting a bad energy that I like to be around.” Dipper stopped looking at the bottom shelf to turn to Bill.

“Really?”

“YEP.”

“Huh.” Dipper leaned against one of the boxes on the floor and thought about that. How does that work? Is Bill gaining power simply by speaking to people about something they don’t like?

Bill patted Dipper on the head as he walked around him. “Don’t think about the mechanics of it too hard. It’s not nearly enough energy for me to use or even collect.” He sat on a box and crossed his legs, “although, knowing you you’ll probably be up all night trying to figure it out.”

Dipper blushed, turning away. “Yeah, I probably will be.”

“That’s why I like talking to you kid! Most humans just run away when I talk to them, but you listen. At least most of the time. You’re the only fleshbag who’s actually HAD an opinion when I ask for one.”

Furrowing his brow, Dipper asked, “people run away when you talk to them?” Dipper suddenly felt bad for trying to tune out Bill. ”How often do people run away from you?”

Bill shrugged, averting his eyes. “I don’t keep track of it all Pine Tree.” Dipper nodded, returning his attention to the fireworks before grabbing the one Soos specifically requested and heading for the register.

“Is Red coming to this thing?”

Dipper raised an eyebrow, “Wendy? Definitely, she loves fireworks. I think she’s bringing her brothers and Manly Dan too.”

Bill hummed. “Red is a very strong woman, in the mental, physical and moral sense. Not to mention she has a fondness for you. I approve.”

“What?”

“You should date her.”

Dipper shot him a quizzical look. “I’m not gonna date Wendy.”

Bill folded his arms, “but you like her.”

“Yeah when I was twelve, but now we’re friends… and what do you mean you ‘approve’?”

Bill shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything Pine Tree.”

The campfire ended up being fun. Dipper got to miss out on setting up the whole party because the moment he and Bill got back he passed out on the couch for a few hours. (He woke up with a blanket over him, he assumed it was Mabel). Most of their friends showed, so it turned out to be more of a large gathering than a small campfire. Then again, Mabel never planned on having a small anything.

Dipper grabbed his plate of food and opted to sit with Ford and McGucket. He glanced around the shack’s yard. He saw Mabel having a passionate conversation with Marius about something while Pacifica, Candy and Grenda were initiated in an intense game of slapjack. Stan was drinking a beer while talking with Manly Dan and Lazy Susan, Soos and Melody were playing horseshoes and… huh Bill was talking to Lee and Nate.

Wait no, Lee and Nate were walking away while Bill was talking at them. Now Bill was alone.

Dipper frowned, remembering what Bill told him before. When it came time for everyone to sit around the campfire to roast marshmallows, Dipper waved Bill to sit next to him. He didn’t miss the look of surprise on Mabel’s face, but he ignored it in favor of Bill’s excited one.

The sun went down and Mabel stood up, raising her hand - which was holding a cookie - and cleared her throat very loudly. “Hi everyone, I hope you all are having a good time. I would like to thank everyone that helped set this up and Marius for bringing these cookies that are banned in the US.” Everyone clapped for him. “Also, I am a huge fan of around-the-campfire stories, so if anyone has any stories they would like to tell, uhh,” she pointed to Mayor Cutebiker, who raised his hand, “go ahead.”

Cutebiker told some strange story about a local fisherman that fished from sunrise to sunset everyday but could never quite get ‘em. This encouraged a whole bunch of others to tell their own wild and wacky tall tales. After what seemed like the twelfth story they had winded down. Crickets could be heard from the woods and Dipper had assumed that story time was over.

But then Stan (who had his fair share of beer and then some) shouted, “hey Bill!”

Bill turned his head to Stan and replied, “HEY STAN!”

Stan leaned back in his lawn chair, “you’re like, a billion years old, you’ve gotta have some good stories.”

Dipper cringed as Bill grinned like a madman. “Oh I have plenty of stories. Wanna hear about the time I got a guy to trade his toes for a sherpa?”

Pacifica scoffed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “How about something that doesn’t have to do with the removal of body parts?”

Mabel leaned forward in her seat, “ooh, tell us a romantic story!”

Candy nodded, “yes please, you must have had some past girlfriends or boyfriends!”

Bill fake gagged, leaning over and miming throwing up in Dipper’s lap. “Yeah, no. I’ve been a single being for my entire lifetime. I don’t do love.”

“Well then tell us a love story about someone else.” Wendy said.

Bill licked his lips then glanced at Dipper before answering, “ok, I have a love story about another demon friend of mine. In fact, he was the only demon I ever knew that actually fell in love.”

Mabel and her girls were already swooning. Dipper rolled his eyes.

“The demon, his name is, uhhh Otis, he had been on earth since long before man ever showed up. When humans did show up he thought that they were silly and quite frankly pathetic.” Bill nudged Dipper’s arm. “He was right about that.”

“Watch yourself Cipher.”

Bill held up his hands but continued. “Anyways, he liked to mess with humans. You know, the classic screw them over with a well worded deal. He would make his way through villages and small towns of people and would leave once the townsfolk realized that making a deal with him never meant any good.”

“Well, one day he’s about to leave this small town when he’s summoned by one of the women living there. She was one of the more curious folk, but Otis knew she was smart, so he was surprised that she would make the foolish decision to summon him. But nevertheless, he appeared before her and asked what she wanted. The woman asked for a pencil that would never run out of lead and in exchange she would give him her soul.”

Sheriff Blubs scratched his head, “who in their right mind would do that?” Dipper and Ford shared a confused look as well then turned back to Bill. Bill just deviously smiled at Dipper.

“Otis thought the same thing. The woman produced her own document for him to sign and the deal was done. Otis created her a pencil that would never run out of lead or go dull and was about to snap her neck to collect her soul from her dead body when she took off her shoe and pulled out the sole of the shoe. Otis quickly read the document she had written and realized that she wrote in the fine print that she would give him the sole of her shoe. The woman thanked him and walked away.”

Everyone chuckled. “Otis asked for her name, and she told him it was Cassandra.” Bill smiled again, but this time it wasn’t a smirk or even a grin. It was a soft, fond smile, as if he was remembering Cassandra himself. Dipper wondered if Bill ever met her.

“Of course Otis couldn’t just move on after this. He was mad! This was the first time a human had ever tricked him and it was infuriating. So he decided to stay in town and follow Cassandra around. He discovered that she was not a traditional woman. Cassandra was one of the few women that could read and spent most of her time in the woods, studying the creatures that lived around the village. She was a scientist before science was a thing. Otis tried many, many times to trick her into another deal, but she never fell for it. Cassandra eventually grew used to Otis always being around her and vice versa. Inevitably, they fell in love.”

Candy and Grenda cooed and Mabel squealed. Paz raised an eyebrow, “is that all?”

Bill shakes his head, “far from it Llama.”

“I swear to god if you keep calling me Llama I’m gonna-” Mabel placed her hand over Pacifica’s mouth and gestured for Bill to keep going.

“Cassandra wasn't very well-liked by her fellow townsfolk.They were all devotedly Puritan and hated the idea of a woman being able to read, much less be a woman of science. Once they discovered that her lover was a demon, they used it as an excuse to…” Bill looks down at his hands. “To dispose of her.”

Robbie asked, “what? Dude, did they like - hang her?”

Dipper watched as something flashed in Bill’s eyes. Something he can only describe as demonic, and for a second he was worried that Bill would attack Robbie, but then his eyes moved to meet Dipper’s once more and Dipper watched as that demonic glint melted away.

Bill looked back over to Robbie. “No, they didn’t hang her. They dragged her into their church and proceeded to beat her.” Everyone flinched. Bill pressed on. “They beat her, cut her with knives, stabbed her. They mutilated her face until she was unrecognizable and raped her on their altar ‘in the name of god.’ She begged for them to stop but they just cut out her tongue. Her corpse was thrown into the nearest river.”

Everyone was silent. Dipper and Mabel made eye contact and Mabel mouthed oh my god at him. Dipper couldn’t help but nod in agreement. Bill was keeping his eyes on the fire now, an unreadable expression on his face.

“When Otis found Cassandra’s body he didn’t even recognize her. He buried her in the place where they first met and went after the men that did that to her. Otis took out his anger on the men. He made their death’s as slow and as painful as a demon could make possible.”

Tambry and Wendy said at the same time, “they deserved it.”

Mabel chips in, “yay, happy-ish ending… right?”

Bill replied, “not exactly. See, Otis finished defiling the men and realized that he was still angry. He was livid. Beyond livid in fact. So he decided to murder the wives of those men. And their children. And their friends, and their parents. He chopped the heads off of their priests and severed the limbs from their in-laws bodies. He burned their trading partners to death and drowned their dogs. He murdered every single person in Cassandra’s village. Yet Otis found that he still wasn’t sated. He continued on in the next town, and the next, and the next, and the next until the grass was growing back red from the blood that stained the earth. He nearly caused the human race to go extinct.”

Bill chuckled, “he actually,” he snickered, “he actually had a fence over three miles long of severed heads on spears.” No one laughed with him. Bill didn’t take notice.

“But, when he got to the last civilization on earth he was stopped by the Axolotl.”

“The what?”

“The Axolotl, creator of the universe. Ax, being the stand up guy that he is, decided to put a stop to Otis’ rampage. Otis agreed with Ax to stop the bloodshed if he would reincarnate Cassandra. The Axolotl agreed.” Dipper leaned forward on his knees. “About twenty years later Otis meets a young man named Mido with a birthmark on his forearm that was identical to one that was on Cassandra’s ankle. He knew that it was her.”

Mabel squeals once more. “Aw that’s so cute.”

Surprisingly, Bill looked almost pained as he continued, “but…”

Dipper shook his head, “of course there’s a but.” Bill didn’t look at him.

“But when Otis spoke to Mido,” Bill’s voice cracked, he tried to cover it up with a cough, “it was as if Mido naturally hated him. He tried all of his best moves, flirted incredibly hard with him, but Mido simply couldn’t stand the sight of Otis. If you asked Mido why he hated Otis he wouldn’t have been able to give you an answer. Otis figured he did something wrong initially, so he waited for Cassandra to be reincarnated again, but yet again she hated him for an unknown reason. Many many reincarnations later Otis demands the Axolotl explain what he did to Cassandra.”

Bill took a deep breath, “Ax explained that this was his punishment for murdering all those innocent people in a fit of vengeance. Cassandra would in fact be reincarnated, but she will never be able to love Otis again.”

Everyone was silent, waiting for the ‘but’, but all Bill added was “The end.”

After a long pause from Bill’s audience, Dipper asked, “is Otis still around?”

He expected some snarky, sarcastic quip from Bill, but he just nods. Ford cleared his throat, “do you know if Otis still looks for Cassandra?”

“Yes he does. Even if he didn’t he would still run into her. Seems to be part of his punishment.” Bill, once again, looked at Dipper with a sad look in his eyes. Dipper furrowed his brow, wondering why the hell Bill was looking at him of all people.

Later when most of the people had left and they were cleaning up, Dipper walked over to Bill - who was on the porch, nursing a glass of bourbon - and asked, “hey, um, are you ok?”

“Of course Pine Tree, why do you ask?”

Dipper sighed, “I don’t know, it’s just, you seemed sad when you were talking about your friend Otis and earlier I saw that people were running away from you when you tried to talk to them, just like you told me they did and I’m sorry for avoiding you while we were shopping-”

“Pine Tree.”

Dipper cut himself off. Bill smirked and downed his drink. “You’re fine. I’m more than a thousand years old, I can handle some people not wanting to talk to me.”

“Doesn’t mean you deserve to be lonely.” Bill’s smirk fades for a millisecond before it’s plastered on again.

“Well that’s very nice of you to say Pine Tree.”

Dipper shifted on his feet. “I think that everyone’s tired and is gonna go to bed. We would have the TV to ourselves. Would you want to make fun of shitty horror movies with me?”

Bill grinned and threw his arm over Dipper’s shoulders. “That sounds excellent kid.”

3

After that it was like a switch in Dipper’s brain was flipped. He hung out with Bill much more often and even enjoyed his company. Turns out, Bill knows a hell of a lot about the strange creatures in Gravity Falls and actually understands what Dipper is talking about when he wants to discuss something like the latest plant he’d been studying. Sure he always had Great Uncle Ford to talk about this kind of stuff with, but he’s busy sometimes and not to mention, Bill doesn’t scold Dipper for putting himself in slightly dangerous situations in the name of science.

They began hanging out after work, taking walks in the woods occasionally and Dipper even invited Bill on some of his, Mabel, Wendy and Soos’ mystery hunts. Wendy was a bit sceptical about bringing Bill along, but after he stopped Mabel and Soos from stepping on multiple bear traps set in the woods, she had decided that he could be trusted.

Dipper also began to want to know more about Bill. The guy’s one of the oldest creatures in the world and yet Dipper knows next to nothing about him. He started asking Bill questions about himself, but every time Dipper asked anything personal Bill would get super cryptid.

“How do your powers work?”

“Who knows?”

“How old are you?”

“Never ask a lady, Pine Tree.”

“You’re not a lady Bill.”

“I am a sentient being of pure energy. I am simply just possessing a male body.”

“Is there a person in the body you’re possessing?”

“Yes, me.”

“What type of energy are you made of?”

“The sexiest kind.”

“Argggggh.” Dipper slammed his forehead against the cash register and asked, “why do you refuse to answer any of my questions?”

Bill smirked and sat on the counter. “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t answered any of your Grunkle Ford’s questions either. Some things don’t need to be answered kid. You should learn to not be so curious, it’s gonna get you in trouble one day.”

Mabel scoffed, “it already has. I swear, Dipper’s curiosity is worse than Pandora’s.”

Wendy, who had just gotten Soos to sweep the shop for her, leaned on the wall next to Mabel. “Isn’t curiosity a good thing? I mean, we wouldn’t know anything if we didn’t want to find out.”

“Wisely said Red,” Bill crossed one leg over the other and eyed Dipper, “but as the saying goes, one day curiosity is going to kill this cat.”

Dipper grinned up at Bill, “but satisfaction brought it back.”

Bill smiled back at him, “it sure did.” Dipper’s grin fell, but before he could ask what he meant by that a familiar tune came on from the boombox that was playing in the shack. He grinned and began bobbing his head to ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World.’

Bill asked, “this is your favorite song, right?

Dipper eyed Bill suspiciously. “One of them…”

“Why is Soos the only one working?”

All heads whipped to Stan, who had just entered from the ‘Employees Only’ sign. Mabel sweetly replied, “because I deserve to be paid to stand here and look pretty.” Soos nodded in earnest.

“No one’s in the shop Grunkle Stan, what are we supposed to do?”

Stan huffed, “well for starters, one of you can restock the shelves.”

Wendy quickly yelled out, “nose goes!” and put her finger to her nose, followed closely by Dipper, Mabel, Soos and even Stan. They all looked around and saw that Bill was the only one that didn’t have a finger on his nose.

“Bill, you do it.”

“WHAT? How was I supposed to know about this NOSE thing?”

“You weren’t, now go.”

Bill stuck his tongue out at Dipper and walked into the shack to collect more supplies. Dipper watched him go back inside, leaning on his palm and ignoring the pointed look that Mabel sent him.

Then the bell on the door rang and everyone quickly made it look like they were working. Dipper looked at the person that entered. An incredibly plain-looking man walked in. He wore a plain white t shirt, black slacks and… a bowler hat?

He seemed to glance around the shop before his eyes landed on Dipper and he smiled. Something about his smile made a chill run down Dipper’s spine. It reminded him of Bill’s smile whenever he was talking about something particularly gruesome.

The man with the bowler hat took a few leisurely steps towards Dipper, looking him up and down like someone would look at a piece of meat. Ok, Dipper decided, this guy is a total creep, no doubt. He made his way to the counter and placed his hands on it, drumming his fingers on it all while not taking his eyes off of Dipper. Dipper suppressed a shudder and exclaimed, “hello, welcome to the Mystery Shack, where we put the fun in no refunds! How may I help you?”

The man stared directly into Dipper’s eyes for another long moment, and Dipper was about to call Soos to come switch with him when the man’s finally asked, “are you Dipper?”

“Uhh, yes sir. My name is Dipper.”

The man's smile grew so wide that it looked like the muscle’s in his face were being torn apart. “Oh, I’ve heard about you, you got that nickname from a birthmark that’s shaped like the Big Dipper, right?”

Dipper nodded, looking over at Wendy, trying to communicate his discomfort silently. She looked like she understood him, but just shrugged.

The man’s eyes shifted to the shelf behind Dipper and he said, “I’ll take one of those.” Dipper quickly grabbed the bobble head from behind him, glad to get this guy out of the shop.

“That’ll be $15.99.”

“No, not that one, the green one.”

Dipper sighed and put the bobble head back, moving to grab the green one, but the man said again, “actually, I want the purple one.”

Dipper clenched his fists before looking up and seeing that the purple one is out of his reach. “Hold on one moment sir, I need to go get the step-ladder.”

The man waved his hand, swiftly moving around the counter, “nonsense, I can get it.” He walked behind the counter next to Dipper. He stood unnecessarily close to Dipper and grabbed the purple bobble head. He placed the bobble head on the counter but didn't move from his position, which was towering over Dipper behind the counter.

Dipper gulped, “sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to step back-”

“Say,” the man said, leaning uncomfortably close. Dipper looked over at Mabel and Wendy. Mabel was holding her grappling hook and Wendy had grabbed hold of a snowglobe, hopefully prepared to smash it over this creep’s head. “Do you ever get deja vu? Ever feel like you’ve done something or spoken to someone before?”

“I don’t know what-”

“TURNS OUT that SOMEONE - I’m not saying WHO but it was DEFINITELY QUESTION MARK - thought it was a GOOD IDEA to put the supplies that were opened in the way back of the closet, because THAT makes total-”

All eyes went to Bill as he walked back in the gift shop and proceeded to stop in place at the sight of the man in the gift shop. Said man turned and plastered on the creepy smile once more. “Hello Bill.”

Dipper’s eyes blew open. Bill knew this guy?

Apparently he did, but didn’t like him, seeing as he glared at the man with the heat of a thousand suns and said, “get away from him Tad.”

The man - Tad - grinned and only turned a bit to see Bill better. “It’s him, right? He’s a cutie, well, I suppose they’re all cute. You’re one lucky guy.”

Bill scowled and put the supplies in his arms on the ground. “I hope you know that I have the ability to smite you, right here, right now.”

Tad rolled his eyes, “but that wouldn’t solve anything would it? I would just come back to annoy you again. And I would be angry.” He turned back to look at Dipper, who had the most perplexed expression on his face, and reached up to touch his forehead. Dipper tried to slap his hand away, but Tad caught his wrist in a bone-crushing grip. Dipper cried out as Tad twisted his arm while the other brushed his bangs back, knocking his hat off in the process and peering at his birthmark.

“Let go of my brother!” Mabel shouted, pointing her grappling at Tad now.

“Tad, he’s innocent in this.” Dipper wildly looked over to Bill and almost reeled at Bill’s state. He had never seen anyone look so silently mad in his life. In fact, Bill’s clenched fists were smoking a little bit. Bill must really hate this guy.

Tad smirked, then finally let go of Dipper’s wrist and stepped back. “Oh, aren’t they all innocent?” He walked closer to Bill, “you have an answer for me?”

Bill crossed his arms. “You already know the answer.”

Tad tutted, “sad, it would be a real shame for history to repeat itself over and over and over again. Don’t you get tired of it?”

Bill said nothing. Wendy stepped forward, “listen, I don’t know who the hell you are or what’s going on, but if you aren’t out of this place in ten seconds then I’m gonna take the shards of this snowglobe and stab your eyes out with it.”

Tad raised his hands up and said, “sure thing. I’ll see you in the next life, Cipher.” He then gave one last creepy look at Dipper and walked out of the shop.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, then exploded with questions directed at Bill, who was standing silently in the same spot, seething.

“Bill, who the hell was that?”

“That was one creepy dude, was he a friend?”

“What the hell did he want with Dipper?”

Bill ignored all of this and walked to Dipper. Dipper swallowed and realized that his chest was quivering and his wrist was now sore and bruised, but thankfully not broken. Bill gently grabbed his wrist and wrapped his hand around it. Dipper felt the ache dull until it was nonexistent. Bill tightly asked, “are you ok?”

“Bill who was-”

More forcefully this time, Bill asked, “are you ok?” Dipper looked down and realized his fists were still smoking and were unnaturally warm,

“Y-yeah.”

“Good.” And with that Bill stormed out of the gift shop, slamming the door behind him.

4

Dipper slipped on his clothes, opting out of wearing his usual vest due to the fact that he’d be heading to the Woodstick festival in a few minutes and it’s one of the hottest days of the year. He was planning on spending it with Bill and the rest of his friends, but, well Bill had been somewhat distant lately. Specifically from Dipper.

About three days after the Tad incident, Bill came back. He had pulled Dipper into his room and said, “look, I’m gonna say this once and then we’re gonna drop the topic. The man you saw was an old demon friend-turned-enemy of mine. He and I had a really bad ‘falling out’ as you might say. He’s been pestering me for centuries. The only thing you need to know about him is that he’s bad news and that you should either run or call me if he ever approaches you again. Understand?”

It hadn’t answered many questions of Dipper’s, but for once in his life Dipper bit his tongue. He could tell that he wouldn’t have gotten anything else out of Bill. He did bring it up a moment later though when they were sitting on the roof.

“I know you said to not talk about it, but I never said thank you for getting Tad away from me.”

“I barely did anything kid. You’re thanking me for the wrong thing. You should be thanking me for not taking over this tiny world and renaming it Trash. I feel like it’s a much more accurate name.”

“Still, I appreciate it.”

Dipper had felt bold, and knew that Bill has a habit of feeling lonely and not telling anyone, so he added on, “I appreciate you hanging out with me. Your company is, surprisingly nice.”

But of course, once again Bill had to be weird and asked, “what?”

“I know it’s shocking!”

Bill just looked at him with the most perplexed look.

“I- I like you Bill. Why are you so surprised?”

“You don’t like me. You tolerate me.”

“Wha- what? No, I genuinely like you Bill.”

Then Bill disappeared off the roof and proceeded to avoid Dipper for the next two weeks.

Dipper made his way down the stairs at a snail's pace, not really wanting to go to Woodstick, but sped up once he recognized the voice at the bottom of the stairs.

Mabel and Bill were in the kitchen. Mabel was dressed “full indie” with a beanie, a fake mustache and cowboy boots. Honestly, Dipper wasn’t sure what part of the outfit was supposed to be the indie part, but he wasn’t focusing on that. He turned to the demon that was sipping a soda while leaning against the counter. Dipper couldn’t help but notice how good he looked. Well, now that he thought about it, Bill always looked good. The demon’s hair was a controlled mess, as if he had been running his hands through it and his tshirt hugged his frame in a quite flattering way. “Bill, I need to talk to you.”

Bill whipped his head to Dipper with wide eyes (very pretty, unnaturally gold and slightly glowing eyes). He threw his soda in the trash, completely ignoring Mabel’s “hey, that goes in recycling you heathen,” and slipped right past Dipper to the front door.

“Actually I gotta go!”

“Bill- wait!”

“Bye!”

Dipper sighed heavily. He raised his hands and dropped them. “I don’t even know what I did!”

Mabel slung an arm over his shoulders, “you know how Bill is. He’s probably got some weird demon disease and doesn’t want us getting sick!”

“Yeah, but he’s only avoiding me.”

“Yeah… but hey, you know what’ll make you forget about him for a bit? Really strange music being blasted across a giant field filled with people who’re higher than Jesus.”

Dipper nodded, “yeah I guess so.”

It was late and Dipper was trying to be as quiet as he possibly could. He slowly opened the front door of the shack and stepped in, wincing at the creaky floorboards. He softly shut the door behind him and took off his sunglasses that he had on despite the fact that it was night. Dipper giggled, singing, “I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can, uhhh, something something~”

“Pine Tree?”

Dipper looked up into the living room and smiled, stumbling to lean against the doorway to the room. “Bill, hey, wassuuuup? Bill, Billy boy, I’m home.”

Bill, who was sitting on Stan’s loveseat, cocked his head. “Pine Tree, are you high?”

“Mabes and I tried weed!” Dipper smacked a hand over his mouth, “but shhhhhh be quiet. Ford or Stan find out, they will kill me.”

“I doubt that. Murdering your own great nephew is frowned upon by most people. Although, Stan and Ford are both technically criminals. I suppose it’s a 50/50 chance.”

Dipper nodded, leaning more heavily into the wall as he started to slip down it. “What- uh, what are you uh- doing here?”

Bill shrugged. “Not much. Watching TV. Where’s Star?”

“She went with Pacifica and Candy to Grenda’s house when she stopped being able to tell the difference between Soos and a tree.” Dipper frowned, wondering why Bill was asking about Mabel. Why wasn’t he asking about Dipper?

“Because I can see that you’re home and she’s not. Man weed really slows down brain functions, doesn’t it?” Oh, he said that out loud.

Dipper nodded dumbly and pushed himself off the wall before stumbling and falling at the bottom of the stairs. He groaned and tried to push himself up, but his noodle arms failed him and Dipper resigned to sleeping at the bottom of the stairs for tonight.

But before he could fall asleep on the hardwood, he felt strong arms wrap around his waist and haul him up to a standing position. Dipper blinked and looked up at Bill, who had picked him up and is now carrying him bridal style. He wrapped his arms around Bill’s neck. If he wasn’t so high he would be blushing up a storm right now, stuttering and probably trying to get out of Bill’s arms, but right now he just relaxed and let his head fall against Bill’s chest.

“As fun as a high Pine Tree is, I think you should go to bed.” He began walking up the stairs. Dipper looked down over the railing and gasped, gripping tighter onto Bill’s neck and tucking his head back into his chest.

“Please don’t drop me.”

Bill chuckled and loosened his grip for a millisecond. Dipper loudly yelped and held on even tighter. “Don’t do that, asshole.”

“What, so you being in my arms means you’re in charge of me now?”

“Yes.” Dipper pouted and Bill rolled his eyes.

They entered Dipper and Mabel’s room, and before Bill could walk to the bed, Dipper scrambled out of his arms and walked to his laptop. “At the festival I heard this really really good song, I gotta show it to you.”

He opened the laptop and struggled to open google. Dipper clicked on the search bar and started typing. About five minutes later he finally hit ‘enter’ and looked at the results. “Ugh, why isn’t it showing up!”

Bill leaned down next to him and read what he typed in, “It shows me that I have the way, it is best to open a hand or a closed fist, blood tastes good. Well, you're right about that Pine Tree.”

“You’ve tasted blood?”

Bill just winked.

Dipper rolled his eyes and used Bill’s shoulder to stand up. He kept his hand there as he made his way to his side of the room. Bill and him stood next to his bed and in a drug-driven act, Dipper pushed Bill onto it.

Bill laughed and laid on his back, propping his hands behind his head. “How’re you gonna go to sleep now Pine Tree?”

Weed apparently had made Dipper a whole lot more confident seeing as his response was jumping on Bill’s lap. Bill let out an “oof” at the sudden weight of Dipper on him. Dipper giggled (he freaking giggled God what was Bill doing to him?) and said, “I am, like, really sweaty. It’s so hot out there.” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off, throwing it behind him.

Once the shirt was gone Dipper saw the look on Bill’s face, his eyes wide and cheeks flushed. He looked cute. Really cute.

“I think you should go to sleep now, get off me.”

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

Bill looked surprised, then turned his head down. He pursed his lips. Dipper peered down as well and realized that Bill’s hands were on his knees. He placed his own hands over them. “Did I say something wrong? Did I offend you? Did I get boring? Why are you suddenly not interested in me anymore?”

“Pine Tree you’ve got it all wrong. I...you did nothing wrong. And you could never be boring. Annoyingly human, absolutely.” Dipper rolled his eyes, “I just, I’ve been distant because, I just don’t believe you when you say that you like me.”

Really? That’s what this is about? Dipper furrowed his brow. “Why? Why would I lie about that of all the things I could lie about?”

“It’s not easily explained.”

“Well- well I’m a smart guy, I can understand whatever you tell me. I can pick up what you put down. I’m- i’m- i’m big brain.”

Bill chuckled and slid his hands halfway up Dipper’s thighs. “Maybe some other time. You’re high and exhausted. You should sleep now.”

“You should shut up.”

Then he was pressing his lips to Bill’s.

Bill was definitely caught off guard, but Dipper didn’t let it deter him. He leaned his whole body into the kiss, pushing his chest against Bill’s, placing one hand on the back of his neck and the other along his collarbone. Dipper pushed his lips softly against Bill’s, suddenly worried that Bill’s soft one’s would get scratched by his chapped and chewed up ones.

A moment passed and Bill still wasn’t kissing back. Dipper felt a wave of anxiety fill his chest, thinking he was about to be laughed at when Bill’s lips caught his and kissed back. Dipper almost sighed with relief. He pushed Bill down into the pillows and wrapped his arms around his neck, trying to be as close to him as possible.

Bill’s hands slid up Dipper’s thighs, moving to his hips and gripping them. Dipper bit Bill’s lip gently as Bill rubbed the skin right above Dipper’s right hip. Bill opened his mouth slightly and slid his tongue to prod at Dipper’s lips for less than a second before Dipper was parting his lips more to let Bill’s tongue slide in.

They moved in tandem, every touch from Dipper seemed almost anticipated by Bill. Dipper couldn’t seem to stop moving his hands, rubbing up and down Bill’s chest, his arms, his neck. He pushed Bill down even harder, as if he was trying to keep him from leaving, but Bill wasn’t trying to leave, he was staying right here with Dipper and it felt incredible.

Despite the fact that this was Dipper’s first kiss and he’s never been this close to Bill, he felt as if he’s done this all before. It was a weird feeling of deja vu, but it felt good so he didn’t question it.

But then it ended.

Bill pushed Dipper back gently. “Pine Tree, no.”

Dipper tried to lean back in, but Bill put his hands on his shoulders and pushed more harshly this time. “Stop. This isn't you.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, it’s not.” Bill sat up, moving Dipper further down on his lap. “You’re high and tomorrow you’ll wake up and regret ever doing this.”

“No that’s not true,” Dipper whined. He rubbed his face and scooted up on Bill’s lap. He leaned his face closer to Bill’s and said, “yes, I am high but I will not regret doing this in the morning. I’ve wanted to do this for weeks, Bill.”

Bill shook his head. “No, you haven’t. You don’t want to kiss me. You never have.”

Dipper sputtered, “What- What the hell? I suddenly don’t know my own feelings? What makes you think you get to decide how I feel about you? Do you think you know me better than I do?l

“Yes. I do know you better than you do.” Dipper reeled back, baffled by his answer. “And I’m not deciding how you feel about me, I just know.” Bill then shifted his legs out from under Dipper (letting him fall on his ass) and stood up to leave. “Go to sleep Dipper.”

“Why are you so convinced that I don’t like you? Are you that insecure?”

Bill whipped around, eyes burning. “I am not insecure. Don’t ever tell me that I am insecure. If anyone here is insecure, it’s you Dipper.”

Dipper frowned at the use of his (sort of) real name, but ignored it to keep pressing, “well then why don’t you just tell me why you think I’m lying to you about this? Whatever your reason is I’m sure it’s stupid!”

“I can’t and will never tell you Pine Tree so stop asking! I just know what I know, and I know that it is impossible for you to like much less love me, EVER. This conversation is over. Go to bed!” Dipper saw the anger in the way Bill pulled at his hair as he walked away, but he ignored it, feeling his own frustration flare as he stood up, unable to stay in his bed anymore.

“You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my goddamn mom.” Bill kept his back turned to Dipper. He let out an incredibly frustrated (to almost the point of tears) screech. “Stop running away from me you coward and answer my question!”

Bill spun on his heel one last time, his eyes burning yellow and yelled, “SLEEP!”

The world went dark as Dipper fell to the floor.

5

Mabel had absolutely no idea what was going on with her brother, and she’s tired of not knowing.

Ever since the Woodstick Festival he’s been incredibly irritable, snappy and just overall sad. He also hasn’t been speaking with Bill. Clearly something happened, but Dipper has denied it multiple times and every time Mabel has let it drop.

Well not anymore, she’s going to find out what happened whether Dipper liked it or not.

She would confront Bill about it as well, but after Dipper had made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t be speaking with him (for whatever reason) he left and hasn’t come back. Stan had been pissed about him missing work and said some not so nice words under his breath about how nice he is to his employees.

Mabel opened the door to the attic, which was where Dipper had been all day and found an empty room. Mabel frowned. She could’ve sworn she never saw Dipper leave the shack, she had been downstairs all day. Not to mention that Dipper had rarely left the attic since the festival. She moved to head back downstairs, but looked at Dipper’s bed and saw his hat. And a piece of paper on top.

She slowly walked to the bed and picked up the note. Her eyes went wide and she sprinted out of the attic and down the stairs screaming, “Grunkle Stan! Great Uncle Ford! Emergency meeting!”

Ford was already in the living room, standing at full attention and asked “what’s wrong?”

Stan followed Mabel into the living room from the hall with Wendy and Soos in tow. “Some boy we need to beat up, pumpkin?”

Mabel handed the note to Stan, “I found this note on Dipper’s bed next to his hat.”

Stan suddenly looked panicked and read the note aloud. “If you want him, meet me where you died.” Everyone was silent for a moment before Stan calmly (trying to hide the shakiness of his voice) said, “Ok, so, someone took Dipper. And this note is addressed to... who could this possibly be for?”

“It’s for me.”

They all jumped. Bill appeared in the center of the room and snatched the note from Stan’s hand. He read the note, standing stock still before the note turned crimson red and splattered all over the walls and them. Mabel screeched and Wendy asked “what the- is this blood?!”

Bill ignored her and began walking out the door. “I’ll go get him.”

Stan yelled, “hey bucko, you gotta tell us what’s going on here. Who the hell kidnapped Dipper?”

Bill coolly said, “a demon named Tad Strange. He’s been a thorn in my side for years and I think it’s time I dealt with him.” He kept walking but Mabel gently placed her hand on his to stop him. He looked at her as if she had just spit in his face. “Let go of me Shooting Star or I won’t be able to get your brother back.”

“Let us help Bill, we’ve dealt with the weird and dangerous before. We’re not amateurs.” Bill kept his eyes on her and she met them with her own. She tried desperately to communicate how serious she was while not showing how scared she was that Dipper could be beyond hurt. She gazed into Bill’s eyes. There was a tiredness so old and foreign that she knew she simply would never understand, but she also saw fear and anger. Overwhelming anger and Mabel wondered why the shack wasn’t on fire right now.

“That’s nice Star, but I have to deal with this by myself.”

“Why?” Stan shouted. “Is this your fault!?”

“Yes.”

Stan - along with everyone else - blinked in surprise. Bill nearly growled, “Tad Strange has been after my quote unquote ‘powers’ as you might call them, for centuries now. While he’s not as strong as me, he’s still a major force to be recon with. Every time I kill him it takes around ten years for me to be at full force again. He’s using Dipper as leverage because he knows that I… care about him.”

Wendy raised an eyebrow, “what happens if he gets your powers?”

“Oh he’ll probably try to merge our old dimension with this one, destroying it in the process.”

“What?!”

“Wait,” Soos asked, “you have the power to destroy the world? Dude, that’s so awesome! Why haven’t you?”

“Soos!” Mabel scolded.

Soos raised his hands. “What? He’s a demon, it’s not the strangest question.”

Bill crossed his arms. “I have my reasons. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve already wasted too much time here.” He went to leave when Ford grabbed his wrist. Bill ripped his hand from Ford’s, “OLD MAN, do you WANT your nephew back or NOT?”

“Bill, I understand that Dipper means a lot to you-”

“You actually have no idea-”

“Actually, I do, I really do.” Ford looked at Bill as if he was having a psychic conversation with him. Bill’s angry expression washed away as he understood what Ford was saying. Mabel looked to Stan, who was just as confused as her.

Bill relaxed slightly, “how long did it take you to figure it out?”

“Ever since the campfire.”

“Figures.”

Stan interjected, waving his arms to stop all talking, “wait, hold on time out. What the heck are you two talking about.”

Ford replied, “I’m sure that Bill will explain all once we get Dipper back, but let’s focus on that for now. Ok?” Everyone slowly, but surely nodded. “Alright Bill, where is Dipper?”

Dipper groaned as he opened his eyes and found himself in total darkness. He blinked a few times but was still unable to see anything. He was laying on his side on a cool and dirty floor, he felt the small bits of gravel shift as he lifted his head from the ground.

As he sat up he realized that there were cuffs around his wrists as well as around his ankles. They seemed to be attached to chains that were latched to the floor. Dipper settled himself right-side up on the cool floor and tried to think back to earlier in the day.

He had just gotten back from the bathroom after brushing his teeth for the morning and was planning on spending the day in bed when a textbook was flying at his head and he was out. (To be honest, maybe he should get a metal plate in his head like Ford. He seems to be getting knocked out more and more easily lately).

Just as Dipper was coming to the conclusion that he was probably in a cave, many torches lit up on the walls of the dark area. They revealed that yeah Dipper was in a large cave with a small opening that probably leads to the outside. They also revealed a man standing in front of the opening, smiling wide at Dipper.

Dipper frowned. “Look, I’m not sure if you know my family man, but you might as well just let me go now. You don’t want to see my sister when she’s feral. Trust me.”

The man chuckled and stepped more into the light, “oh I’m not too worried about them. I’m more worried about your fate tonight.”

Dipper squinted at him. “Tad Strange? Seriously? Is this something about Bill?” Tad stayed silent and Dipper scoffed. “Figures. He’s been the cause of all my problems lately.”

Tad chuckled, moving to sit on a large chair that looked really out of place for a cave. It had shiny gold framing and red felt cushion and backrest. “You can say that again. I’d actually say he’s been the cause of every problem you’ve ever had.”

“What? Wait no, never mind I don’t care for cryptic demons anymore, I’m done with this BS.” Dipper sighed and leaned against the cave wall behind him. He folded his arms over his chest and waited for his family to save him. They’ll be here soon. Bill probably won’t help them (not that the Pines are ones to ask demons for help) or would give them some stupid coded message to just waste their time. He sighed and leaned his head against the wall.

Dipper wasn’t sure how long he was sitting there but he wasn’t worried. Being in Gravity Falls over the summer was dangerous, especially since Dipper had a habit of involving himself in the more sinister creatures of the small town. He looked over at Tad, who was twirling a string of glimmering violet light around his fingers.

He looked down at the chains and noticed that they had fancy carvings in them. Oh, so he was kidnapped by a demon that likes to decorate, good to know.

Dipper pursed his lips and tried to ignore the way that Tad’s eyes seemed to hold this age-old sense of self confidence, as if he’s done this a million times. “How do you know Bill? He didn't tell me much when I asked, but he said you guys had a falling out a long time ago.”

Tad snapped his head up to Dipper and grinned, clenching his fist tightly and snuffing the light. “He and I met when humans were a new thing. We worked together a few times, but most of the time he was just annoying. The falling out he mentioned was probably about the one time I killed him instead of vice versa. Although, I don’t think that was the only reason we stopped being business partners, I always hated him for needlessly killing me all the time.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow. “I bet you can guess my next question.”

Tad stretched his hands above his head. “I tricked a witch into a deal a millenia ago. Means my, uhhh, I guess you would call it a ‘soul’, regenerates a hell of a lot faster after I’m killed than most demons. Including your boyfriend.”

Dipper snarled, “he is not my boyfriend.”

Tad just rolled his eyes.

“What are you even trying to get from him?”

Tad leaned back in his chair, “you’re a smart mortal, figure it out yourself.”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “You want… he stole something from you? No, no that’s not it…” Tad just kept smiling at him as he thought. Dipper looked away from him, feeling the cogs crank in his brain. “He’s killed you before, but you didn’t say you killed him, sooooo… you clearly want to kill him. In order to do that you need to be more powerful than him. So,” he turns back to Tad “you want to take his powers.”

Tad loudly slaps his hands together, “and we have a winner! Congrats Cassie, you figured it out! Although my plan’s a bit more complicated than that, you basically got it on the nose.”

Dipper furrowed his brow. “Is that seriously what you think my real name is? I mean, I’ve heard it all when it comes to guessing but c’mon man, that’s not even a guy’s name!”

Standing and walking over to Dipper, Tad patted his head, ignoring Dipper’s attempt to kick his legs and said, “oh, I know that’s your name.”

Before Dipper could retort there was a just barely noticeable sound that came from the exit. They both turned to the sound and waited for the person there to reveal themself. And to Dipper’s utmost surprise, Bill walked in. His eyes didn’t meet Dipper’s as he strolled in and stopped a few yards away from him and Tad. He had on a yellow button up and black slacks with black loafers (and he looked so good how does he do that did he cast a spell to make him the sexiest man in the room at all times?)

Dipper’s eyes were drawn to a gold watch on his left wrist. It looked like one of Stan’s. Why does he have one? Bill’s never cared to know the time. Whenever some asked him to tell the time he just said, “time is a pathetic human construct that I don’t need to affiliate myself with.” Word for word. Every single time.

“I see you just couldn’t stay away from little Pine Tree here, could you? Got a crush?”

Tad placed his hand in Dipper’s hair. Dipper violently yanked his head away, but Tad just gripped it tightly. He grit his teeth and stopped pulling away. He wanted to glare at Tad, but he couldn’t move his head, so he settled for glaring at Bill’s shoes.

“Oh, I know I could never touch your sweetie without you flipping your shit.”

“You already have, jackass.”

“I am nobody’s sweetie!” Bill still didn’t look at Dipper.

Tad sighed, “I have a feeling I already know what you’re gonna say, but just in case, you have an answer?”

Bill rolled his eyes and walked over to the chair that Tad was sitting in before. He sat and slumped in it, grinning at the fire that burned in Tad’s eyes.

Tad slid his hand in Dipper’s hair down his head and to the back of his neck. He got on his knees behind Dipper, his chin placed on the top of his head. The hand on the back of his neck slid around to the front and lightly squeezed. Dipper pulled his hands up to pry his hand away from his throat, but Tad quickly snapped with his other hand. The chains that were attached to the ground instantly shortened enough to yank Dipper’s hands out in front of him. Tad tightened his grip on his throat to keep him from moving forward. Dipper could still breathe, but it was more wheezing than breathing. Tad’s touch was incredibly cold and made Dipper shiver. He tried to suppress them, but his body shook as Tad pressed his chest to Dipper’s back. He felt shame rise in him as he found that he was quite literally at Tad’s mercy. He wanted to puke.

Bill finally looked at Dipper. He wasn’t surprised to see how undeniably irate Bill was. He was seething and Dipper knew he wasn’t just seeing things when small wisps of smoke gathered around him. Was Tad touching him really making him this mad?

Tad made a tutting sound, “you know, I hate people touching my stuff-”

“It’s not yours Strange. Just because you killed my body after I bought it doesn’t mean you own it.”

Tad’s grip instantly increased dramatically. Dipper gasped, trying to get some, any air to his lungs but it was no use. Dipper felt the panic rise in his chest as his face grew more and more red. He opened his mouth wide, desperately trying to expand his throat. He looked up at Bill and saw that his eyes were now glowing a violent yellow. It was like there were mini suns in his eyes. He raised his hand in an awkward path to push his hair out of his face. If Dipper wasn’t having the life choked out of him, he would’ve thought he was telling someone to stay where they were.

Tad cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I don’t like people touching my stuff. Get off of it.”

Despite Dipper still having his airway cut off, Bill refused to budge. Dipper wasn’t surprised or even all that mad. He hates being used as a pawn to manipulate others. Plus, Bill isn’t one to be easily manipulated.

But it would be a little nice if he did something about Dipper’s situation.

“Get off or I kill him.”

Bill rolled his eyes, “I’m good.”

Ok, Dipper rationed, if Bill is letting Tad go this far then he knows that Tad won’t kill him. That would have been a bit comforting, if Dipper wasn’t getting more and more light-headed as the moments passed. Also, why the hell does Tad care so goddamn much about that chair?

Black spots danced in his eyes and he felt a strong buzz settle deep in his brain. Oh god, nevermind, Bill was going to just sit there as Tad killed him. Mabel’s gonna be so pissed.

Tad’s other hand came to rest on Dipper’s stomach. “Stop touching my stuff and I’ll stop touching yours.” His hand began to slowly slide down Dipper’s front. Dipper lurched and more black spots filled his eyes, completely blinding him this time. All his limbs were shaking now and he could faintly feel the skin of his wrists being rubbed raw to the point of bleeding by the cuffs.

Then Tad’s hand came to rest on a very intimate part of Dipper and squeezed.

Utter terror and rage flooded through Dipper. A surge of adrenaline shot through every nerve and gave him enough energy back to lean forward slightly and snap his head backwards as fast as a bullet.

He felt the back of his head make sharp contact with Tad’s mouth. Instantly the hands groping him released and Dipper threw himself as far away from Tad as possible. He felt his lungs expand almost impossibly wide as he heaved in the deepest breath he had ever taken. He coughed as he exhaled and hated the way his vocal chords rubbed together, but was just glad to be able to breathe again. He took another few deep breaths before looking up at Bill, who was smiling at him, that asshole. Dipper sent him a death glare and sputtered out, “you couldn’t have done anything other than sit there?” He wheezed again.

“I knew you had it handled.”

Dipper rolled his eyes and scooted backwards until he was as far away from Tad as the chains would let him. Tad’s mouth was bleeding and he was on his ass. Dipper felt a swell of pride in his chest. He wished Grunkle Stan could’ve seen that.

Tad stood up and wiped the blood from his face. He looked down on Dipper with a disgusted face, “ugh, I guess I should’ve expected that. You’ve never been the damsel type.”

Dipper stopped touching his neck - there was definitely a long bruise there now - and squinted at Tad before looking to Bill, who just looked annoyed, and back to Tad before practically screaming, “do you know that I have LITERALLY MET YOU ONCE in my life?! What the hell are you going on about?”

It was Tad’s turn to get annoyed. “Ugh, you know I think you’re dumber this time around. You’ve usually figured it out by now.”

Bill pitched in, “well to be fair, we have been more crypted than usual.”

Dipper whipped his head to him. “Seriously?”

Bill made a slightly guilty face, “sorry.”

Shaking his head, Dipper pushed forward. “If you two keep speaking in fucking tongues then I’m gonna rip your tongues out.”

Tad stood up, brushing the dust off his pants and asked, “Bill, can you put a leash on her for once?”

Dipper felt like ripping his hair out. “Do I look like a girl to you? Are you fucking blind?!”

“Honestly Tad, you would think you’d be able to identify a human’s gender by now.”

Tad crossed his arms, “I’m perfectly aware of how to identify them, have been able to since like, the fucking Pyramids you asswhack. And she’s only a guy this time.”

Dipper bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming every profane word he knew. He wouldn’t get anywhere like this. “Why do you care about that chair so much?”

Reminded of the fact that Bill was in the chair, a deep frown formed on Tad’s face. “A long time ago there was a warlock that lived here. He was actually the ex-husband of the witch that gave me my regenerating powers. He was selling this chair to only non-humans for an incredibly high price. Bill ended up getting the chair even though I had made a deal with the man the day before.” Bill scoffed, Tad ignored him, “I was pissed, so I murdered Bill and the warlock and took my chair.”

“Probably the maddest I had ever seen him. It was the only reason he had the ability to kill my vessel. Amongst other reasons.”

Dipper rubbed his forehead. “ Ok, but why was it selling for such a high price?”

“It was rumored,” Tad said, “that it held incredible power in it if you could harness it. I… haven’t been able to yet.”

Dipper scrunched his nose, “you killed over a chair that was just rumored to have power?”

“Well I didn’t believe it at first either, but once big name demons like Bill and I started spreading the rumors as well I knew it was true. Not to mention I’ve killed for less.”

They were silent for a second before Bill snorted and covered his mouth. Tad and Dipper stared at him incredulously. His shoulders shook as he leaned forward and began laughing loudly. He clapped his hands together. Tad scowled, “and just why are you laughing?”

“You- hah, you still think- oh my god… you STILL THINK that rumor is true?!”

Tad looked confused. “Why would I not?”

Bill burst out into even more cackles and Dipper could only stare. He wasn’t sure it was even possible to be as confused as he was. Bill held his stomach and laughed for another minute before settling down and wiping the tears from his eyes. “I MADE THAT RUMOR!”

Tad looked incredibly taken aback, “no, no you didn’t.”

Bill chuckled, “yeah, I did. I thought this thing looked pretty cool and I was willing to buy it.” He turned to Dipper, “helps to always hoard your gold. Anyway, the old hag didn’t want to sell it to me. Probably because he thought that me being a demon would mean that he would get screwed over. Which, IS TRUE, but hey. So I started a rumor in the popular circles of all the lesser demons, saying that this chair had great power. Sure enough it was spread throughout the whole frickin demon community and the warlock was getting offers of millions of pounds of gold from every demon. I then approached the man and said that if he didn’t give it to me for free then I would tell everyone that the chair was not in fact magical. And trust me when I say demon’s are the easily angered kind.”

“He was about to give it to me when this jackass walked in, screaming his head off about deals, and before I knew it I was thrown out of my vessel.”

Dipper peered over at Tad, who has the reddest face Dipper had ever seen. Dipper laughed loudly. Tad’s gaze snapped to him and Dipper knew he made a mistake. Tad stalked over to Dipper and roughly hauled him up to his feet by his left arm. Dipper felt something in his shoulder rock out of place as he was lifted and cried out.

Tad yanked him to stand right above where the chains were attached to the floor and snapped again. They shorted to the point where they kept Dipper’s hands at his sides. Tad wrapped an arm around Dipper’s belly from behind, pinning his arms to his side and placed his chin on his shoulder just like before. Dipper tried to stay calm, but it’s a bit hard to do that when he’s getting flashbacks of getting the life choked out of him literally minutes ago. His shoulder ached as he tried to relax it. He’s never had a dislocated shoulder before, but he was fairly certain that he had one now.

“I’m done playing games with you Cipher. You know the spell to give me your power. Just say the stupid chant and this will all end. You can go back to that shitty shack with your girlfriend and fuck for all I care.”

Dipper fought against Tad’s grip, “do you EVER shut up? Bill and I will not be fucking and the Shack is not shitty, it’s shabby!”

Tad ignored Dipper’s shouts. “Aren’t you tired of seeing her die over and over? Are you really gonna let Cassie die because of you for what, the thousandth time? Why make her suffer more than she already has?”

Dipper wracked his brain. Cassie? Why the fuck is Tad calling him Cassie? Why does Cassie sound familiar? Does he know a girl named Cassie?

“Believe or not Strange, but I think he would be even more mad if I did what you were asking.”

“So that makes it ok to let her die in the most painful way a human can? Do you even care about her anymore? Or has the love run out after all these years?”

Bill stood from the chair like a bolt of lightning. “You know nothing of my love for Pine Tree. I have loved him more than you will ever know. You will never encounter such a vastness that is comparable to my feelings towards him. He is everything to me in the same way that The Axolotl is to the whole cosmos. He is my reason for staying on this piece of trash planet with beings that don’t appreciate what they have the way they should. He’s the only reason there’s still life on this planet, and he’s the only reason you still get a chance at existing. You should be on your fucking knees in his presence you maggot. If it weren’t for you using him as a shield from my wrath all these years like the cockroach coward you are, you would’ve died the moment you looked at him all those years ago.”

“I’m not sorry that it kills you so much to see me experience an emotion that you’ll never understand. But one day Tad Strange I will make you understand pain the way I understand love and then I’ll tear you to tiny little pieces and spread you around the multiverse.”

Tad smirked, “maybe someday, but for now I’ll stay in one piece, thanks.”

Dipper heard none of it. He was in utter shock at, well, at everything Bill just said. If Mabel were here she would be squealing with delight. All he could do was stare at Bill and quietly ask, “you love me?”

Bill’s eyes shifted to Dipper’s and softened considerably. “Always have, always will.”

Before Dipper could ask anything else Tad said, “how sweet, but I’m gonna give you to the count of three to say the goddamn spell.” Bill met Tad’s gaze.

“One.” Bill crossed his arms over his chest. Tad snarled and brought his other hand to Dipper’s rib cage. He felt Tad’s spindly fingers feel over the thin skin there until he found a rib. He placed his pointer finger on it and before Dipper could say anything Tad pushed on it, instantly breaking it with an audible snap.

Dipper let out a guttural cry, not expecting the pain. He felt his eyes well up with tears. He blinked a few times and breathed as deep as he could without the broken rib sending a flaring pain across his chest. He looked up and saw a deep look of concern on Bill’s face, but he said nothing. Dipper grit his teeth, “Bill, if you give him your powers I swear I will kill you.” It’s not too hard to deduce that Tad’s gonna do something awful to the world if he gets Bill’s power.

Bill grimaced. “I know Pine Tree, I know.”

Tad moved his finger to another rib, “two.” He snapped that one as well and Dipper couldn’t hold back the yell. It came out hoarse and when Dipper inhaled he choked on air. He coughed, leaning forward but unable to get away from Tad. His coughing spree sent violent tremors of hot white paint through his chest and Dipper felt his legs begin to shake as he struggled to keep standing.

Bill was incredibly tense, his neck was strained and the calm look on his face was twitching. The smoke had returned and Dipper could see it was from all over his body now, not just his fists. Bill glanced at his wristwatch.

“Three.” Tad placed three fingers on a rib each and snapped them all at once. Dipper screamed at the top of his lungs, unable to stand anymore and only being held up by Tad now. The scream broke off into an incredibly loud cry.

“Stop, stop please stop, it hurts please stop.” Dipper didn’t care that he sounded pathetic as he wailed for Tad so let go of him, he could barely think. The pain boiled in his body and was all over now.

Tad kept a vice like grip on Dipper’s chest, squeezing all the broken ribs and making Dipper sob. Tears were free flowing down his face now and Dipper barely even noticed his dislocated shoulder or the deep ache from his throat anymore. “Not gonna say anything Bill? Are you a sadist? Do you get off on seeing her cry?”

Bill remained stoic, Dipper barely noticed. He checked his watch again.

Tad huffed, “how about I take away that birthmark you seem to love so goddamn much. Where is it this time?” He scanned Dipper's body before lifting his bangs, “ugh, this thing was always hideous on you Cassandra, I can see why you wanted to hide it.”

Dipper lifted his head slightly. Cassandra? As in the girl from Bill’s campfire story? What does she have to do with Dipper? He would probably be able to figure it out if he wasn’t about to pass out from the searing heat in his chest.

Tad magically produced a knife with his left hand. His right arm came to wrap around Dipper's neck again, leaving him to hang as if he was tied to a noose. Dipper quickly summoned the strength to stand on his own, but Tad didn’t let go. Dipper yanked hard on the chains but got nowhere with that.

Tad pierced the right side of Dipper’s forehead and oh so slowly dragged it across Dipper’s forehead and over his birthmark. Despite all his injuries, he fought back as hard as he could. Over the years he had grown to like his birthmark, and this jackass wasn’t about to take it from him. Not without a fight.

Said fight wasn’t really much though, Dipper really just squirmed in Tad’s hold. The knife dug into his forehead harshly and Dipper swore it was carving a line into his skull. He opened his mouth but no sounds came out as Tad continued to drag it across his forehead. Dipper eyes were practically super glued shut as he grit his teeth. His legs trembled beneath him again as he finally let out a cry similar to what a beaten dog may sound like. Dipper wrenched his eyes open and desperately tried to look through them for Bill.

“Bill, make him stop, please PLEASE,” Dipper screamed again and sobbed. “Make him stop, please please Bill DO SOMETHING, please.”

Blood ran down his face, over his eyelids, down his nose and into his mouth. Dipper whined, looking over at Bill who hadn’t moved. “Stop, Tad.”

Despite the searing pain all over, Dipper couldn’t stop the eye roll that came. Could he honestly try any less?

Bill looked at his watch one last time. Tad raised an eyebrow, “finally giving in Cipher?”

He smirked, “nope. NOW!”

The next few moments were a long blur of dust, loud bangs and blood (Dipper’s blood to be specific). He was dropped by Tad and hit the ground hard, his head cracking harshly against the stone. A high pitched ringing sound went off in his skull, leaving him deaf to the world.

Dipper felt his body shake as he tried to find his bearings on the ground, then realized that everything was shaking. Dipper curled into himself and held onto the chains as tightly as he could and tried to ride out the earthquake that had suddenly hit.

The tremors faded until they were no more after a few moments and thankfully so did the ringing. Dipper didn’t move from his spot, hearing sounds of Bill and Tad shouting spells at each other, amongst other voices. The first one Dipper recognized was Soos’.

“Dude, dude, hey it’s me. It’s ok!” Dipper slowly looked up and saw Soos crouched next to him. He had a pained smile on his face. Dipper’s eyes were drawn to a small box that was on the ground. Dipper recognized it as one of Ford’s inventions. He had told Dipper it was for incapacitating incredibly powerful beings, although he never specified how. “Sorry it took so long to stop him, Ford’s box thingy had to activate before we did anything.”

Soos lifted Dipper’s shirt and cringed at the sight, “man am I glad to see you ok.”

Dipper made a face, “I wouldn’t say that.”

Soos gently grabbed his arms and helped him sit up, “correction, I’m glad to see you alive.”

Dipper blinked a few times, trying to get the black spots out of his vision, still breathing heavily from his broken ribs. He kept his eyes on the ground and tried to keep the sick feeling in his mouth at bay, but he failed as he leaned forward and dry heaved. The pain in his ribs was not helping at all. Soos placed a steady hand on his back. “Take it easy dude, just take deep breaths. They’re dealing with Tad so don’t worry.”

At that Dipper looked up and realized that on the other side of the cave were Bill, Ford, Stan, Mabel and Wendy. Bill was shouting spells while waving his hands around, sending knives that transformed into poison darts once they impaled Tad. Stan and Wendy were helping Bill on the offensive, attacking Tad with brass knuckles and a baseball bat respectively. Tad was holding up against all three quite impressively, although it was clear he was struggling.

Behind them Mabel and Ford were holding up blacklights to the cave walls, revealing symbols that Dipper vaguely recognized as a demonic language. They were breaking the symbols by cracking the cave walls with hammers. Dipper was impressed with the speed that everyone worked at, kind of like a well-oiled machine.

“What’re they doing?”

Soos explained, “Bill said Tad would have a bunch of symbols on the walls up to make him more powerful. Hambone and Dr.Pines are taking them down.”

Dipper turned back to Soos, who was wiping the blood from Dipper’s face. He pulled out bandages and quickly began wrapping Dipper forehead to stop the bleeding. “When did you guys get here?” Dipper noticed that his words came out slower than he wanted them too. His tongue was heavy and his head felt light.

“We’ve actually been here the whole time! Bill cast invisibility spells on all of us before we came in. I waved my hand in front of your face so many times!”

Dipper chuckled softly. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the ache in his chest, wrists, shoulder, forehead, ugh practically everywhere. He felt his head become heavier as he slowly leaned forward, but suddenly he was being tapped on the cheek. Dipper opened his eyes. Soos was frowning, “dude, you gotta keep your eyes open. Ok?” Dipper slowly nodded. “I’m gonna reset your shoulder and then we can skedaddle on out of here. Melody’s waiting in the car outside. She is an awful driver, but she’s really good at breaking the speed limit and not getting caught. She’ll get you to the hospital in no time.”

“Watch out, Stan may steal her from you.”

Soos snorted and placed his hands on Dipper’s dislocated shoulder. “Ok Dipstick, I’m gonna push it back in in three, two, one.” Dipper screamed as Soos pushed and felt his shoulder make a loud popping sound. It hurt but he instantly felt relief from it. Soos started fiddling with Dipper’s cuffs.

Dipper just focused on keeping his eyes open as Soos tried unlocking the cuffs, but soon realized that he couldn’t pick the lock. Soos huffed, “I think I’m gonna need to break them.”

“Could Bill use his magic?”

Soos and Dipper looked over at the group. They had Tad on his knees, barely able to deflect the attacks that were coming at him. Mabel and Ford were running their black lights over the walls again, then Mabel said, “we’re done!”

Soos yelled, “Bill, can you help with these chains?”

Bill cast another spell at Tad before turning to look at Soos and Dipper. He walked over to them while yelling, “STAR, SIXER help keep him subdued.”

He grabbed Dipper’s chains with a gentleness that surprised him. Bill narrowed his eyes as he twisted the cuffs around, running his fingers over the small engravings. “Shit,” he whispered. “Ok, Question Mark this is a bit more tricky than I thought, you need to-“

“Uhhhh, isn’t the box supposed to be on?” Dipper asked.

They all turned to see that the little box on the ground no longer had the green light on. Across the cave Wendy, Ford, Mabel and Stan gasped all at once. To Dipper’s horror and utmost frustration, Tad’s face split into a grin. Bill threw his hand out before Tad seemed to let out an explosion of deep purple from his body.

Everyone went flying into the walls. Dipper felt the cuffs cut deep into his wrists and ankles as he was hit by the purple wave. He laid the ground, feeling the worst he had ever in his life. He rolled onto his side to once again dry heave. His vision was blurry as he glanced around the cave.

Wendy and Mabel were on top of each other, Ford and Stan on either side of them. Soos was to his right and Dipper could tell there was blood trickling out of his mouth. Bill was next to him, groaning as he seemed to be the only one that hit the wall and didn’t get knocked out.

Dipper heard footsteps and miserably tried to drag himself away from Tad. He was flipped onto his back and came to stare into glowing purple eyes. Tad folded his hands behind his back and leaned down, “I’ve always enjoyed this part Cassandra. Despite having a different voice every time, your screams are always music to my ears. And Bill’s face when you die is the icing on the cake.”

Tad kneeled on Dipper’s chest, putting all his weight onto him. Dipper stayed quiet, unable to even groan seeing as he had almost no energy left. Tad smirk and moved his hand, which now had pitch black claws, toward his throat.

But before they reached him Tad was shoved forward, over Dipper and to the ground. A flash of yellow went over Dipper and when he refocused his vision he saw that Bill and Tad were going at it, fists accompanied by magic in a dangerous clash of two demonic forces.

Glancing around, Dipper spotted a rock about the size of a bowling ball. He dragged himself towards it. With all his strength, Dipper picked up the rock and dropped it on the chains. They made a loud clanking sound and made Dipper cringe, but he saw cracks in the links. He picked it up again, groaning at the strain in his body, and dropped it.

He picked it up again, not noticing how the fight had stopped. He didn’t hear Tad start to laugh or Bill’s scream, “Pine Tree STOP!”

Dipper dropped the rock and the links shattered on impact. And as if they were made of sand, the chains crumbled to the ground. He stared at the chains that were now dust, wondering why they crumbled. He looked up. Bill was holding onto Tad’s shirt, like he was about to knock his lights out but was looking at Dipper with the most devastated face he had ever seen on the demon. As if he had just realized he lost some game. It scared Dipper. “What?”

Tad was still laughing. Bill said, “Dipper, cover your eyes.”

He did as he was told, and the next thing he heard was Tad’s guttural scream as a neon yellow light filled the cave, followed by the sound of splattering on the wall.

Dipper opened his eyes and slowly turned to Bill, who was now standing there, clothes covered with bright red blood. “Bill?”

He turned to Dipper, “I think he’s dead.” Dipper chuckled and slowly stood up, assuming that adrenaline was the only thing keeping him going. Despite making a joke, Bill was staring Dipper with such sad eyes, like he was looking at a dead man. They met in the middle, and Bill gripped Dipper’s elbows to keep him steady.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Of course…”

Dipper smiled softly, “so, can we wake everyone and get to the- to the hosp… hospit-” Dipper felt a sharp stabbing pain in his stomach and was sure that it was because of his broken ribs. “Bill-”

“I got you kid.”

Bill slowly lowered them to the ground as the pain spread from Dipper’s toes to the top of his head. He didn’t understand where it was coming from, his injuries didn’t hurt this much before. Now it feels like his whole body, every single cell was ripping itself apart. He was burning and drowning and suffocating all at once. It was hell. Dipper felt tears spill from his eyes, “Bill, what’s happening?”

“Shhhh, it’s ok.”

The pain was becoming unbearable as Dipper hyperventilated. He vaguely recognized that he was in Bill’s arms on the ground. If he was more aware he would’ve been as red as a tomato.

“Bill, Bill it hurts. What’s going on?”

Bill brushed his hair from his eyes and brought their faces closer. “I’m sorry, it’s just a spell from the chains. I’ll fix it, it’s gonna be ok.”

He pressed their foreheads together and chanted something under his breath as Dipper writhed in his grip, struggling to not scream. Bill kept chanting, slowly stroking Dipper’s hair and keeping him close in his lap on the ground.

Gradually, the pain ebbed away. Dipper took a shuddering breath as he felt like he could finally breathe again. He relaxed in Bill’s arms, suddenly feeling incredibly numb. He felt his heartbeat slow down considerably. Dipper wondered what was happening. He tried asking Bill what he was doing, but he could barely move his tongue. “What…”

Bill pulled back but continued to stroke his hair. Dipper saw that his face was strained. He would’ve lifted a hand to touch Bill’s cheek, but he simply didn’t have the energy. He felt so tired…

“It’s ok Pine Tree, just go to sleep. I’ll teleport everyone to the hospital. You’ll be fine.”

Even in his numb state, Dipper could hear the slightest quiver in Bill’s voice. “Don’t lie to me Bill.”

Bill looked incredibly pained as he held Dipper tighter, but he barely felt it. “I’m gonna die.”

The silence was deafening.

Bill was on the verge of tears. It wasn’t a good look on him. Dipper swallowed and fought as hard as he could to keep his eyes open. Everything was slipping from his grasp. There were so many things he wanted to say. He wanted to see Mabel again, he wanted to tell her how much he loved her and their whole family. He wanted to have seen Tad explode into a million pieces. He wanted to see Bill smile at him again.

He tried to speak but was so numb, all that came out was a groan. His eyes drooped closed, and only a moment later his heart slowed to a stop.

It was eerily silent in the cave. Bill hated it. He always wanted everything to be loud. He hated silence. The mindscape was always silent. He could try to fill it with screams of terror, but they would always diminish into nothing.

When he met Pine Tree, he was surprised at how quiet he was. Of course, there were always variations with him, but most of the time he was the loudest person in the room. Then he got closer to the kid and learned that he was, in fact, loud. He never stopped talking, but he was only like that around people that he wanted to hear him. Bill was glad he was one of those people.

But now he’ll never talk again.

Obviously, he’ll speak in his next life, but now, this current Pine Tree, will never speak again. Shooting Star won’t grow old with him, Sixer and Fez are gonna die after him, Red will have to take her hat back. Personally, the only mortal he truly, truly cared for was Pine Tree, but over the years he’s realized that if he wanted to care for the kid, he had to care about the whole family.

Bill sat there with Dipper’s corpse in his arms and felt… well he felt the same way he always did. He wanted to tear every single living thing near him apart until they were unrecognizable. Of course, he won’t be doing that. Look where that got him last time. Nothing but pain and a shitty curse for the next two million years. He’s done this too many times to count.

Still, it doesn’t make it any easier.

On the cold stone ground, Bill held him in his arms the way newlyweds would sit with one another on their honeymoon. If Pine Tree were breathing he would most definitely be a nervous mess. He’s never been the best at reacting to physical contact. Bill gently tucked Dipper’s hair behind his ears and began to pull the wraps off his forehead.

His birthmark had a nasty cut right through the middle. Bill scowled. He always loved this birthmark, Tad was right about that. He had no right to touch it though, he had no right to touch Dipper either but…

Bill lightly traced the points of the constellation. He felt tears well up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry Pine Tree. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

He curled his body around Dipper as he cried. Bill paid no mind to the other’s that were coming to consciousness. The tears fell freely from his eyes and he choked on his sobs. Of his entirely too long existence, Bill had only ever cried when he was holding Cassandra’s body in his arms.

His shoulders shook and Bill lifted his head to glare at the ceiling. “Is this what you want?! Is this my punishment?!” Bill gritted his teeth, “why? He doesn't deserve this! You HAVE to know that!”

Bill ignored how everyone was staring at him and Dipper in shock and continued screaming, “JUST PUNISH ME. GOD, HE’S THE ONLY MORTAL I CARE FOR JUST LEAVE HIM BE!”

Bill screamed at the top of his lungs, letting his demonic voice take over as he practically rattled the cave with his voice. Everyone flinched. Bill swallowed thickly after he was done and whispered to no one, “please.”

The reaction was instant.

A sharp flash of pink light brought all eyes to the center of the cave. Bill’s mouth dried at the sight. There stood An Axolotl. The Axolotl. He felt his mind short-circuit.

The tiny creature scampered over to Bill and Dipper as if it were chasing after a worm. Bill slowly relaxed his hold on Dipper, gently resting him in his lap. Ax stopped next to Dipper’s outstretched hand. A pin dropping could be heard in the cave. Ax slowly crawled into Dipper’s hand, then curled up in his palm.

Throughout the cave, a deep calming voice said, “the punishment is over.”

A beat passed, then slowly, Ax faded to a soft pink light that traveled up through Dipper’s veins in his arm to his chest where it expanded out from there.

As the light danced through his body all of Dipper's wounds reversed themselves. The cracked ribs snapped perfectly back in place, the bruises went from dark purple to red to gone. All the dried blood from his face became wet again and crawled back up his face to his forehead and shortly after the cut sealed itself back together. As the pink light crawled up his throat, Dipper gasped and opened his eyes.

Gasps and cries of relief rang through the cave but Bill heard none of it. Dipper’s eyes were wide and scanning the area and so big and full of life. They landed on Bill’s and Dipper asked quietly, “Bill?”

“Pine Tree?” Bill helped him sit up, but he didn’t get out of Bill’s lap. Bill grasped Dipper’s hand tightly as if he couldn’t believe he was here, because he honestly couldn’t. “You’re ok?”

Dipper’s smile grew gradually and Bill was reminded of how much he loved that look on Pine Tree’s face. “I’m ok,” Dipper whispered.

Bill felt the tears in his eyes gather again and he was shocked that this body's tear ducts weren’t exhausted beyond their limits by now. He carefully held Dipper’s face and brought their foreheads together. Dipper sighed as they met, closing his eyes to just feel Bill close to him in the moment.

Ignoring any questions of how and why, Bill pressed his lips against Dipper’s in a chaste kiss. Then another. And another. And then a long one where Bill leaned forward to get even closer to Pine Tree. Dipper then pulled away and wrapped his arms around Bill’s shoulders, burying his face in the crook of Bill’s neck. Bill sighed and hugged back just as fiercely.

He looked up and saw that Shooting Star looked beyond ecstatic (probably due to Dipper and Bill being together along with the fact that her brother was alive), Red and Question Mark were just staring with smiles on their faces and Sixer and Fez were politely averting their eyes.

Dipper chuckled, “I’m exhausted. Can we go home now?”

Bill rubbed his back and nodded, “Yeah, let’s go home.”

1

“Wait, before we start explaining everything,” Wendy said as they all sat down at the table in the living room. She snatched Stan’s can of beer from his hand - ignoring his cry of outrage - and guzzled it. Mabel and Dipper started chanting “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

Wendy finished the can and tossed it to Stan, who just grumbled. “I should take that out of your pay. Soos, go get me another.”

Soos got up to get another beer while Bill asked Dipper, “just to be absolutely sure, you, you actually like me? Romantically?”

Dipper flushed a deep red. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Do, uh, do you like me?”

Bill smacked his forehead, “I literally just made out with you in a cave.”

“Hey if you have to ask then why can’t I?”

“Because I have a good reason to doubt you.” Dipper frowned.

Soos returned with beer, and they all turned to Bill, who was sitting next to Dipper at the table. Mabel said, “ok, so I would like a full explanation of everything please because honestly my brain is starting to hurt from thinking too hard.”

Bill leaned back in his chair. “Ok well, what do you guys know? I already know that Pointdexter here has figured out the big thing, but I kinda need to know where the rest of you guys stand on everything. Mortals’ memories tend to be shit.”

Stan shrugged, “well, we know that somehow Tad knew Dipper even though Dipper doesn’t know Tad. We know that you and Dipper have some kind of history and that Tad is an asshole.”

Dipper nodded.

Bill peered at him curiously, “really? Even after everything Tad said you still haven’t figured it out?”

Dipper rubbed his face and sighed, “yeah, I’m just as confused as everyone else. Which is weird because I love mysteries!”

Ford added, “well, it’s harder to figure something out when you’re part of the puzzle yourself.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow and Melody loudly sighed, “alright can you just tell us!”

Bill nodded. “Ok, you guys remember the story I told at the campfire? About Otis and Cassandra?”

Everyone nodded.

Bill pointed to himself, “Otis,” then he pointed to Dipper, “Cassandra.”

Silence.

Just, dead silence.

“What?” Asked Wendy.

Bill pursed his lips, “do I need to retell the tale?”

Mabel slowly shook her head, “no… no we all remember it.”

Stan looked over and gently nudged Dipper’s arm. “You ok kid?”

Dipper was staring at Bill, jaw practically on the floor. Dipper thought back to the moment he met Bill, trying to remember every time he caught Bill staring at him as if he was a kid that was looking at his confiscated toy. Bill knowing so many things about Dipper that he really shouldn’t know even if he was the most observant demon in the world, Tad saying that Dipper was only a guy this time, Dipper being leverage over Bill despite only knowing him for a few months now, Tad saying that he had a different voice each time, Bill not believing that Dipper could possibly like him.

“That’s why you doubted my feelings.” Dipper said only loud enough for Bill to hear.

A hand waved in front of his face. Dipper shook his head and snapped back to the present. Bill was smiling softly at him. Dipper felt a swell in his heart.

“So, you knew all those things about me…”

“Because I’ve known you for about two million years…”

Dipper fell back in his chair and placed his hands on his head. “Holy shit.”

Soos chuckled, “woah Dipper, you’re like, older than all of us!”

Bill made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Eh, more like his soul is really old. Not his body or mind.”

Mabel sighed, “oh thank god, I don’t think I could handle being the little sister.”

Dipper didn’t even respond. All he could do was stare at the table as if it had just transformed into an alien ship.

Melody giggled, “Bill, I think you broke him.”

Bill waved his hand, “his system is just rebooting. Give him a minute and he’ll be asking a million questions at once.”

Dipper heard him, but elected to ignore that in favor of continuing to be paralyzed in his seat.

Stan turned to his brother, “wait, how did you figure it out?”

Ford shrugged, “it seemed somewhat obvious after Bill told the tale at the campfire. I mean, it was already suspicious that he knew so much about Dipper and even I could tell that he was in love with Dipper, in his own strange demon way.”

Wendy asked, “ok, but where does Tad fit in all of this?”

“Well, when Tad and I met, we made a mutual agreement to help each other out on some big deals to make it easier on us. Of course, being demons, our agreement didn’t stop us from wanting all the earnings from our deals. I usually ended up killing him after our job and taking all the profit.”

Mabel made a face, “why did he keep coming back?”

“Because he’s a fucking dumbass.”

Wendy snorted. Melody covered Soos’ ears. “Don’t curse in front of the baby.”

“Heh,” Soos chuckled, “that’s me.”

Bill rolled his eyes and continued. “Tad and I’s little spurt over that chair really got him pissed at me. It was before I met Cass- wait, shit,” Bill smacked his forehead, “I mean, Pine Tree. He killed me and when I came back we stopped working together as the Demon Dream Team. Honestly can’t blame him, I was gonna screw him over no matter what.”

“He found out about Dipper, wait, I mean he found out about Dipper who was Cass at the time- ugh! I’ve never had to do this before.”

Dipper, who had zoned back into the conversation, said, “just refer to, uh, current me as my name and past me as whatever name I went by.” He blinked, “huh, past me… that’s a mindfuck.”

“Tell me about it,” groaned Bill. “Alright, so Cassandra and I were found out by Tad fairly fast. I tried to prevent the rumors from spreading, but if a creature sees a demon fraternizing with a human, it’s gonna be the talk of the town.” Bill tilted his head to look at Dipper. “I didn’t realize until afterwards but uh, the men that killed her, or you, I guess, weren’t entirely doing it of their own free will. Tad influenced them.”

Dipper bit his lip, “why’d he do that? Why didn’t he hold me hostage, like just now?”

Bill looked down, “that time wasn’t for leverage. It was just plain revenge.”

They all nodded. Dipper subtly slipped his hand into Bill’s under the table and squeezed.

“Tad’s been the cause of most of your deaths throughout the years. Sometimes I managed to stop him before he got to you, but since you hated me - it was kind of hard to get close…”

Dipper murmured “I’m sorry.”

Bill shook his head. “Not your fault.”

Dipper gulped, holding onto his chair. He leaned closer to Bill and quietly spoke. “So, you said you approved of Wendy because… you never thought you would have me again?”

Bill nodded.

Mabel clicked her tongue, “ok… well, Bill, if Dipper’s, uh, I guess, reincarnations, were always different, then how did you know so much about him when we met?”

“There’s always variations with Pine Tree, but for the most part he’s pretty much the same. He’s always smart and an anxious mess. He’s always allergic to hazelnuts and asks too many questions.” Bill turned to him, “he always has a nice ass.”

Dipper’s face went bright red. Stan threw his empty beer can at Bill’s head, “I do not need to hear any comments about my nephew’s backside to be reaching my ears.”

Ford turned to Mabel, “what is it the kids say these days? TMI?”

Bill rolled his eyes. Dipper asked, “do you know if I get immediately reincarnated when I die or there’s like a delay or…?”

“From my experience, reincarnation usually happens when the soul leaves the body and that usually takes about 10 minutes to happen after death, so yeah, it’s pretty immediate.”

Dipper sat up tall in his chair, “wait, so since I died in the cave,” Mabel winced, “does that mean that I was reincarnated before the Axolotl brought me back? Oh my god, does that mean there’s two of me at once-”

Wendy interrupted him, “bro, calm down. Bill said your soul’s gotta like, move on after you die. And I’m pretty sure your soul’s still in your body. Is it not?”

Dipper felt his chest for a moment, “I suppose so. Nevermind.”

Ford asked, “was Dipper ever someone famous? With all those reincarnations, he’s bound to have become famous at least once.”

Bill hummed, tapping his chin. “I’m not sure, LET’S SEE!”

He snapped and a box appeared in the middle of the table. Bill reached into it and pulled out a picture of a woman with pale skin and greyish hair. “This was Pine Tree like, two or three reincarnations ago.” He handed the picture to Dipper, who peered at it as Stan leaned over to get a look as well.

Stan snatched the picture from Dipper’s hand. “What the hell? This isn’t Dipper, this is my ex-wife!”

Bill furrowed his brow, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, that’s definitely Pine Tree.”

Stan - along with the rest of the table - drew a look of horror on his face. Dipper gave Bill a disbelieving look until Bill cracked and began cackling. Stan asked, “is this funny to you?!”

“I’m just yanking your chain, old man. I found that picture and thought it would be funny.”

Stan sighed with relief, then glared at Bill, “hey, you’re older than me!”

Bill ignored him and pulled out a different photo from the box. He handed it to Dipper, who peered at it with curious eyes. It was a picture of an Asian woman with spiky hair, a Green Day shirt on and black lipstick. Dipper flipped it over and on the back it had a date and a name, 10/23/1979 - 08/31/1999. Lillian.

She appeared to be at a concert and was on a man’s shoulders in a large crowd. She was screaming along with the music. Judging by her shirt, it was probably a Green Day concert. But it wasn’t. It was a Nirvana concert. She had worn a Green Day T-shirt to piss off her boyfriend who didn’t like Green Day at all and refused to let her play their music when she was around.

Dipper blinked. What… how did he know that?

He realized that many, many pictures covered the table now. Everyone was looking at them. Dipper quickly picked up another. It was a man with tan skin and naturally wind swept hair standing on a fence in a park. He held a pride flag behind him. The back said 05/12/1962 - 10/23/1979. Naveed. Dipper pursed his lips. He was seventeen when he did that. He went to a march with his other friends - all who weren’t straight - and marched hand in hand with them. Naveed had planned on running away from home with them after this, but when he got home his father… Dipper cringed. He remembers an intense and sharp pain in his chest and falling to his knees in a pool of blood. He didn’t meet Bill that time.

Dipper quickly began picking up as many photos as possible, ignoring the looks he was getting and just grasping onto every memory he was getting.

07/01/1923 - 12/14/1943. Harper. He wanted to be a journalist. Dipper worked so goddamn hard to get into the best school in Pennsylvania, only to be killed the year after he got there by Tad.

02/18/1896 - 04/30/1904. Bora. She was kidnapped when she was ten by a scary man, who Dipper can see now was Tad, and died a peaceful death after a blonde man saved her from torture. Dipper frowned, her parents - no, his parents - must have been devastated. He was their only child.

11/05/1845 - 09/10/1870 . Léon. He had twelve siblings. He was exactly in the middle and felt invisible, but loved his family more than anything. His eldest sister gave Léon a locket that she stole at a carnival the night she ran away with her boyfriend. He never saw her again.

As Dipper rifled through picture after picture after picture, the rest of the table asked questions.

“So… all of these pictures are of Dipper?”

“Yes indeed.”

Wendy whistled low, showing a picture of a tall Indian man to Melody. Melody whispered under her breath, “damn.”

Soos scratched his head, “uhh, should we be concerned that most of these people, I mean, I guess most of these Dippers, died in their twenties?”

Bill shook his head, “since we’ve dealt with Tad, there shouldn’t be a reason for Pine Tree to die. Again, at least.”

“Speaking of that…” Stan said, “what the hell caused Dipper to…” Dipper wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, and Stan was glad. He quickly choked down his emotions.

Bill replied, “it was a cruel spell that Tad invented a few centuries ago. When Dipper broke his chains, it was cast on him. It’s basically a spell that makes a person’s body kill itself as quickly as it can. It’s incredibly painful.”

Mabel pursed her lips, “and you stopped the spell?”

Bill shook his head, “NOPE, I just numbed Pine Tree. Casted a spell of my own devising that basically acts as, what is it you humans invented? LAUGHING GAS! THAT thing, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve got high off of that. Anyway, Ax healed him afterwards.”

Ford picked up the next photo in front of him and examined it closely. His eyes then blew wide open as he gawked at the photo. He practically threw the picture to Dipper, who flailed to catch it. “Look at it closely, Dipper.”

Dipper check out the back. 12/14/1943 - 05/12/1962. Pasha. An incredibly young man stands in a room full of men that are looking at computers intensely. Dipper narrows his eyes to a small sign on a man’s desk. It says something in Russian with a one at the end. Dipper rolled his eyes at first because of course Great Uncle Ford knows Russian, but then he remembers how cold that room was and how he was brought in because of his calculator-like mind. And that they were working on-

“No. Way.”

Ford and Dipper looked at one another before bursting out into cheers and screams and whoops of celebration and utter cheer.

“What?” Mabel asked, “what are we celebrating?”

Ford and Dipper were standing now. Dipper was practically vibrating like a school bell. Ford grabbed his hair, “I can’t believe you-“

“I know!”

“And you were so-”

“I know!”

“And it-“

“I KNOW!”

“What do you know?!” Screamed Melody.

Dipper handed her the photo. “See something interesting there?” He freaking giggled from pure excitement. He looked down at Bill, who was staring at Dipper as if he were the moon, smiling softly and just taking him in. Dipper felt a blush creep up on his face. While everyone was distracted from the photo, Bill pulled Dipper down and stole a quick kiss from him.

Dipper sighed as he pulled away, loving the feeling of Bill’s lips against his own. It was like a perfect swirl of deja vu and satisfaction that left Dipper weak in the knees.

Melody shook her head after a minute. “I just see a guy, or uhh, you I guess, wait.” She flipped it over to see the name. “Pasha. I see Pasha standing in a room full of men in white shirts. They all look like nerds too.”

Ford said, “look at the sign at the bottom.”

Soos scratched his head, “you’re the only one here who reads French Dr.Pines.”

Mabel frowned, “Soos, that’s clearly Greek!”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “It’s Russian, genius. It says Sputnik 1!”

Dipper and Ford looked at the group with excited faces. They all responded with confused looks. “What’s that Dip-Dop?”

Ford answered for him, “how have you not learned about this in school!? It was the first satellite in space! Ha!” He held out his hand and Dipper gladly high fived him. “I can’t believe my nephew worked on Sputnik 1! This is unreal!” Ford sat down, “Stanley, don’t you remember me forcing you to watch the news about the launch with me on the television?”

Grunkle Stan rolled his eyes, “don’t remind me.”

Wendy frowned, “Wait, dude, since when can you read Russian?”

Dipper sat down again, “oh, uh, I can’t.”

“Then, how’d you know about this Sputnik thing?”

Dipper squirmed in his seat, “I just remembered it.”

Bill’s head shot up at that. “You WHAT?”

“I can remember being in that office. They had hired me at a young age because I could do math in a fraction of the time that they could.”

Bill smiled, “do you-“

“Yes.” Dipper smiled at him, already knowing the question. The rest of the table shared a confused look, but let it drop.

Mabel leaned forward. “That’s so cool bro bro! So, can you, like remember every single life you've had?”

Dipper shrugged, “ehh, mostly. Looking at pictures is starting to bring things back. I can definitely remember more from the 1990s than the 1850s.”

Bill quietly asked, “how far back can you remember?”

Dipper cocked his head at Bill, studying his features. Throughout all these years, Bill hasn’t changed much at all. Although he has clearly aged, even though he’s immortal, Dipper can see the wear and tear of time that has made him just a bit more sad than angry. He remembers… he remembers when Bill and him met. He was so angry but Dipper could only laugh as he walked away from the tricked demon. He remembers Bill standing outside his window at midnight yelling about…

“Cherries.”

Dipper swore he’d never seen a happier face in his long, long life.

Bill snorted, looking away. “Cherries.”

“Cherries.”

“Cherries?” Asked Soos.

Dipper and Bill continued staring at each other as they linked hands under the table again. “Inside joke.”

Stan sighed, “I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more of those soon.”

Mabel stood up, “well, I think that settles that. Dipper, I’m happy for you and yes, I will be planning the wedding.”

Dipper blushed while Bill clapped his hands together, “PERFECT, Shooting Star I want twelve elephants to carry me down the aisle. They still do that right?”

“I’m only 20, Bill.”

“Yeah, we don’t need a wedding anytime soon. Unless you’re planning on paying a great deal to marry Dipper...” Said Stan.

“Grunkle Stan!”

Stan waved his hand, “was worth a try.”

Mabel continued, “anyway, I’m starving and I say we go to Greasy’s.”

“Agreed,” Soos stood up, “pancakes fix everything.”

As everyone stood up, Bill stayed still. “ACTUALLY, I kind of really really hate pancakes.” Mabel gasped. “So I think I’ll stay here.” He then proceeded to give Dipper a look™. Dipper raised an eyebrow.

Bill gave him the look™ again and Dipper mouthed ‘what?’ at him.

Mabel, not being an idiot, took the hint far before Dipper did and yelled, “OH YEAH! Dipper, you must be EXHAUSTED, you know after getting kidnapped and then Tad beating you up and then dying. I bet you’d want to stay here and take a nap.”

Dipper knit his eyebrows together. “I’m not that tired Mabes. I’m kinda hungry too.”

“Ohhhhh, it’s ok. We can bring you something back.” She not-so-subtly winked at Bill, who just put his face in his hands. Dipper narrowed his eyes before he made an ‘o’ with his lips.

“Right. Yes, I am in fact, very tired.” Dipper turned to Stan, “I’m gonna stay-“

Stan rolled his eyes. Hard. “You’re awful at this kid. Yeah, whatever you stay here. C'mon let’s go.”

Melody giggled as she grabbed Soos’ hand and headed out the door. Wendy slapped Dipper on the back and followed suit. Ford cocked his head. “What? Dipper you just said you weren’t tired. Why the sudden change?”

Stan places his hand on Ford, directing him out the door. “Despite having 12 PhDs, you still ain’t got a clue. C’mon Pointdexter, let’s get some pancakes.”

They all exited through the front, with Mabel closing the door behind her after winking at Dipper.

Dipper stood there for a moment. He looked to Bill. He looked so smug, Dipper wanted to kiss the look off his face. He slowly walked around the table back to him. Bill stood up and wrapped his arms around Dipper’s hips as Dipper did the same around his neck. They rested their foreheads together.

Something deep in Dipper’s chest felt full. And he had never even realized that it was empty. He pressed his lips to Bill’s.

Dipper pulled away and quickly said, “I’m topping,” before sprinting upstairs.

Bill gaped, “oh HELL NO, PINE TREE! I have been waiting CENTURIES for this! There is NO WAY you are topping!” He raced up the stairs after Dipper, a smile wide on his face.