Chapter Text
On the very last day of his stay in Gravity Falls, Dipper Pines woke up early. Mabel was babbling in her sleep across the room – “Oh Mermando, you are a mer-fox!” – so it was clear he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. His dressed quickly and quietly, pulling his hat off the bedside table as he headed out the door. The door creaked as it closed, as did the stairs when he descended on them.
It was strange seeing the Mystery Shack this bare. Grunkle Stan had stripped it of all the knick knacks and stuff that made the Shack – well, the Shack. Now it looked like just a regular, average, normal house for Great Uncle Ford. I don’t think I really like it, Dipper thought, stealing an apple from the kitchen. The clock ticked away on the wall, reading just past five.
Without even realizing he’d come to a decision, Dipper firmly pulled his hat low over his forehead and walked out of the Shack a few moments later. As he entered the tree cover of the forest, a strange hush fell. Well, it used to be strange to him anyway, but now it was a welcome quiet these months later. The sun wasn’t fully up yet; only weak rays of dawning light filtered in through the boughs high above him. On he walked for over a half hour, deeper and deeper into the woods, until the beaten path had turned into a thin and winding trail. There was no need to talk; the steadily waking forest was doing that enough. Dipper heard birds twittering from nests high above, woodland rodents scurrying alongside his trek, and brooks gurgling just out of sight. A toad croaked nearby, and quite suddenly it appeared to plop down onto the path in front of him. It was a rather fat toad. Every time it drew breath, it made a wet squelching noise, and Dipper paused to crouch down and inspect it. “What are you doing?” he asked, puzzled.
The toad merely blinked. Dipper thought it looked a bit resentful as it squatted there, squelching away. “I don’t think I like your attitude, man,” he frowned down at it. It heaved what sounded like a wheeze and rolled a few inches away. Dipper sighed and sat down beside it, drawing patterns in the dirt with his fingers. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it.” He rolled the remainder of the apple to the toad as a peace offering, which eyed it blandly. Its tongue flicked out to taste it, and Dipper laughed when it heaved itself up with great effort in order to sit atop it.
All was relatively quiet for some while, and Dipper lay down beside the toad to gaze at the tree canopy high above. More light was pilfering through the branches, now brighter than before. A crowd of gnats buzzed above him a few feet away. Idly, he tossed bits of dirt and rock through them and tried to catch dust motes in his hands. “I’m going home today, Toad,” Dipper said quietly as his hands fell to the ground beside him. He glanced over. The toad blinked, and Dipper took that as encouragement to continue. “I think I like it better here, though. How about you? Any preference?”
He didn’t need to glance over this time to know that the toad had blinked. “I don’t know, man,” he continued, straightening his hat. “I just feel like I need to do something by myself, something interesting, something – Oh my God, I’m talking to a toad.” This realization came rather suddenly, and his voice cracked upon saying it. Dipper cleared his throat hurriedly and sat up, glaring down at the offensive animal. “You have no idea what I’m saying,” he told it harshly, jabbing a pointed finger near its head. “You are not a sentient being!”
However, at that last sentence, the toad suddenly drew itself up and widened its eyes. Taken aback at its apparent understanding, Dipper backpedaled. “Uh, I was just kidding, man!” But the toad’s unblinking, almost fearful gaze was fixed on a spot above Dipper’s last shoulder. Can toads be afraid? Dipper wondered as he turned around. Well, I suppose sentient ones can be.
The mass of gnats that had been floating in the air nearby had stopped buzzing incessantly, and was now silent as its occupants drew tight together, forming a… Wonky circle? No. Dipper heard the toad squelch off its apple and plop off the path, fleeing into the tree cover. A triangle.
Light from the canopy overhead suddenly shone bright and gathered into the gnat cloud, infusing the insects with a golden glow as they melted together and formed the personage – demonage? – of Bill Cipher. Bill’s colour was even more obvious and obnoxious against the tranquil background of the forest, and his brick pattern stood out brightly under his bow tie. He jauntily tipped his top hat, and Dipper was thrown sideways onto the ground as the entire world shifted. “Well, kid, all ya needed was a man in a yellow suit!” The jarring and echoing voice made Dipper wince slightly, as grey bled out from the triangle into the forest surrounding them.
“W-What?! You’re not a man,” Dipper protested, getting to his feet after the hat was back in place. The demon’s one eye flashed blue a few times in quick succession, almost as if mischievously saying ‘Not yet!’ Bill vanished and then popped up in front of Dipper’s face in an instant, who jumped. “What do you want?”
“Specifics, kid, specifics!” A cane appeared in Bill’s hand and he twirled it idly, adopting a musing pose. “There’s so many delicious ways to answer that question…”
Dipper exhaled angrily through his nose. “What do you want with me?” He clarified, setting off in the opposite direction Bill was hovering. The demon leisurely floated alongside him on his side, one arm propping up the side of his shape. Dipper found it very annoying that the insufferable scalene psychopath was able to so easily stay next to him, while he crashed through the underbrush and cut his exposed forelegs open.
“Still so many ways to answer!” Bill chuckled at his expression, languidly turning a few times in midair seemingly for pure spite. “Heard it was your last day, kid. I came to see you off!”
“You’re insane, and evil, and horrible. Just leave me alone, dude.” Dipper swiped his way through a particularly thorny bramble patch, and took great pleasure at the surprised yelp Bill emitted upon one branch swinging back to hit him.
“You’re forgetting whose forest this is, Pine Tree.” The grayscale flashed red for a moment, and Dipper precipitously noticed how the trees – which had been calm and inviting before – now seemed to be leering down at him with towering, harsh faces. Ungrateful, they whispered to each other, and Dipper was forcibly reminded of the bullies at school. Wolves howled in the distance; the brambles surrounding him pricked his torso more fiercely; a gloom settled over the clearing ahead where Bill now manifested in front of him, his one eye flashing a sharp red. “Don’t be idiotic enough to presume that my amused interest in you outweighs my tolerance at being ridiculed.” Bill’s voice boomed out, lower than usual, and Dipper wasn’t sure if he imagined the ground shaking as every forest animal within earshot scampered away from it. The resounding pause was tense, and Dipper’s chest heaved as he seized up, only being able to watch as Bill stared him down. A few moments later, however, Bill sighed and his eye returned to normal. His triangle shrunk a bit, and the forest began to seem inviting again. “You’re smarter than that, kid.” He grumbled in his usually-pitched voice, straightening his bow tie.
His chest stopped heaving and instead puffed up a bit in pride at that statement, but Dipper ignored it. “I won’t apologize,” he said stubbornly, and braced himself for a greater effect on the grayscale from the demon’s reaction.
Instead, Bill’s eye crinkled in what Dipper hoped was amusement. “Pine Tree’s grown some roots,” he remarked dryly with a grudging chuckle.
“That’s not my name,” Dipper muttered irritably, but Bill only laughed harder. His laugh was jarring, going on for quite some time while Dipper impatiently tapped his foot. “I don’t know what’s so funny!”
“Oh, kid,” Bill wheezed, straightening up from where he had been doubled over in laughter. A tear of mirth had leaked from his eye; he wiped it off carelessly and it flung to the forest floor, a yellow flower sprouting where it hit the ground. “You have more names then I do, best get used to it!”
Dipper sighed and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Can I leave now, man?”
If Bill had a mouth, Dipper was sure it’d be grinning right now. The demon plucked the new flower from the ground and handed it to Dipper, his arm extending a good few feet. “Soon enough, Pine Tree, soon enough!” The hand wiggled the flower so that it brushed his nose.
Scowling, Dipper snatched it away before it could make him sneeze, and stuffed it into his pocket. “Can I leave now?”
“Ya know, kid, they say patience is a virtue!” Bill’s hand bopped Dipper’s nose before it retreated. “Not that I know anything about those!” He laughed.
“Dude, I’ve gotta go pack and stuff,” Dipper said tiredly. He should be getting home, the others would be up by now.
Bill’s form did a weird shuddering at that statement, but it happened so fast Dipper was sure he’d imagined it. “Ah, right. You’re leaving soon, huh?” At Dipper’s nod, Bill floated a few inches higher and bobbed in place. “How about a deal then, kid?”
Dipper tripped over an exposed tree root as he scrambled backwards. “W-What? No way! I’m not making any deals with you!”
“Aw, c’mon now, that cuts deep,” Bill whined. “What have I ever done to you?” Upon seeing Dipper open his mouth and start to speak, he hastily continued. “Eh, don’t answer that. I know what you’re gonna say, kid. About how I,” his voice took on a startlingly well done impression of Dipper’s, filled with voice cracks; “tried to hurt my Grunkle Stan and sister! Tried to-”
“Ruin my life?” Dipper interrupted, glaring at Bill. He crossed his arms with a scowl, hating at how his voice sounded coming from the demon. “You broke your deal last time, man. That’s reason enough.”
Bill suddenly got very quiet and his eye flashed red. Dipper, realizing his mistake, gulped. “Don’t,” Bill ground out. His voice was more echoey than Dipper had ever heard it to be. “Don’t even go there, Pines. I kept my end of the bargain. I always keep my end.”
Dipper frowned, starting to protest despite Bill’s demeanour. “But-”
“I promised you the secrets of the universe.” Bill cut him off swiftly, his eye slowly returning to normal. Well, as normal as the singular eye of a triangular demon could be, anyway. “And I delivered, didn’t I?”
“You destroyed the laptop,” Dipper hissed, feeling his anger bubble up. He didn’t care how vicious Bill could be if he was angered. “And then went after the Journals!”
“Ensuring that old coot would fix it,” Bill said, in a tone that Dipper feel as though he was a toddler having basic addition explained to him. “And I never said how you’d learn those secrets, kid,” he went on, floating closer to Dipper so they were inches apart. One of his hard fingers poked Dipper in the chest. “If you let me stay in that meatsack of yours, I’d have shown you firsthand every single little thing that goes on around here in this backwater town.” He chuckled, pulling his hand back and crossing his legs. “Because let’s face it, Pine Tree, you’re tired of flipping through pages in silly, old, inaccurate books. You wanna get out there and find it out for yourself!”
Has he got a point? Dipper wondered, crossing his arms. “No,” he answered firmly, both to Bill and himself. “I’m leaving. No deals.”
The boy set off again through the forest, Bill floating along behind him, still in a meditative pose. “I’ll make it worth your while!” the demon sang encouragingly. A shake from Dipper’s head set him off again. “C’mon, kid, you won’t even have to do a thing!” Dipper ignored him, blowing an errant piece of hair out of his eyes while Bill continued wheedling. “Piedmont will be the most boring thing in the world after this place, huh?”
Yeah, Dipper thought. Nothing interesting happens there. “No. It’s home,” he said firmly, walking onwards.
Bill latched onto that opening. “Home?! Pah! Nothing’s there for you, Pine Tree! It’s all here! And, you never know, if I don’t get a deal from you, a lot of things might be a whole kid of different here than usual.”
Dipper stopped in his tracks at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked the demon, annoyed at the note of slight panic in his voice that slipped out.
Shrugging, Bill floated in place. “I bore easily, sapling. Who knows what I could get up to? Taking away all the anomalies, maybe. Death, destruction, more likely.”
“Y-You don’t have any control in this world,” Dipper protested. Right?
Bill laughed harshly. “I got to make a deal with you, kid, and you’re actually smart! Imagine me with free reign over some of the idiots in this place, eh?” He let out a happy sigh at that, his eye fluttering closed at the thought. “Ahh, just imagining it now.”
Against his better judgement, Dipper was imagining it too. Lazy Susan, Wendy, Soos… Heck, he’d probably get Tyler Cutebiker, and with him as the new mayor? Dipper would be leaving Gravity Falls in the hands of a maniac. “Not my town, not my problem,” Dipper muttered, not looking up at Bill and choosing instead to pick at the skin around his left thumbnail.
“We both know you don’t believe that, kid,” Bill said smugly, appearing on Dipper’s hands. Dipper jumped back, flinging him off. “Won’t you do this old triangle a favour and make a deal?” Bill asked, batting his eyelid rapidly.
Dipper worried at his lip. “What did you have in mind?”
Bill’s eye crinkled in glee. “It’s simple, really, if you show some manners!” He paused, seemingly for dramatic effect.
With a sigh, Dipper gave in and asked again through gritted teeth, “Please, Bill. What’s the deal?”
“So glad you asked! Now, you piddle along back off to wherever that place is called-”
“Piedmont,” Dipper cut in with a mutter.
“No interruptions!” Bill drew himself up to a greater height as he continued. “And you promise me to return here next summer. Safe, and of sound mind.”
Dipper blinked. “What? That’s it?”
“Yep!” Bill sang, popping the ‘p’.
“What’s in it for me?” Dipper asked, frowning now.
The demon seemed genuinely happy with that question, and laughed boisterously, his free arm elongating to pat Dipper’s head. “Oh, Pine Tree! Nice to see how corrupted you’ve become!”
Scowling, Dipper shrugged off the hand. “Answer the question, Bill.”
Bill shrunk his hand back with a snort. “I’ll show you all the secrets of the universe. Aw now, c’mon kid, no need for that-” He continued hastily at Dipper’s protestations. “I’ll show you secrets the way we both know you’re meant to see them. And, without inhabiting your body this time. I promise!”
Dipper thought it over. “No out of body experience, huh,” he mused aloud quietly, rubbing his chin. “I won’t be trapped in the Mindscape?”
Vibrating eagerly in what looked like a sort of nod, Bill confirmed it. “Definitely not a repeat of last time, kid! No bringing you anywhere you don’t wanna go!”
But Dipper shook his head. “Ehh, I don’t know, man. I don’t trust you.”
“Oh, my dear, sweet, little Pine Tree.” Chuckling darkly, Bill held out his right hand, now covered in crackling blue flames. The fingers wiggled impatiently; enticingly. “You shouldn’t.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Dipper took it, closed his eyes, and shook.