Work Text:
While the sun was shining on the roof, Dipper, sitting on the roof of the building, was spending the last days of summer in Gravity Falls. Having survived the weirdmageddon, and then miraculously returning the memory of one of his uncles, it was necessary to take a short break and enjoy the scenery of his favorite town one last time.
But Dipper was still extremely worried about the paranoid behavior of the author of the diaries. After the end of the world and after the massacre of Bill Cipher, Ford began to behave extremely strangely. And despite the fact that the diaries were destroyed, Stanford either started keeping a new diary, or did not tell his family everything, since he was constantly fiddling with another book. It was not like the previous ones, but it made uncle very nervous, and when Dipper was interested, Stanford avoided the topic with phrases like "You trust me, right?" or "its nothing important." The youngest Pines understood that his uncle would not go to any contact with him, and curiosity got the better of him. Dipper had already survived the summer, and almost personally defeated the dream demon several times. Was there anything that Ford couldn't trust with another little secret?
So one evening, the younger Pines, carefully sneaking up to Ford's room, got inside when he once again didn't close the door completely behind him.
On the table lay the object that interested Dipper so much, which, as he assumed, turned out to be a journal. But it didn't look like Ford's book, and it didn't even resemble it in style. In addition to the fact that it was completely black, there was a triangle with an eye drawn on the cover itself. Everything in appearance indicated that this book was connected with Bill. So Dipper decided to take a chance. Since the demon was killed, that meant he couldn't come back, right? In any case, Dipper was sure that he could deal with the demon again in the worst case, so, taking the book in his hands, he began to read.
Inside, it looked like a regular diary, although its contents were eye-catching. The text was written chaotically, the number of incomprehensible symbols exceeded the number that was written in the 2nd or even 3rd diary. In addition to the fact that Dipper was immediately able to recognize Bill's handwriting, which he saw in his diary after the story with the sock puppets, he was also struck by the number of torn pages. Some of them left the silhouette of the triangle itself, and inside there was an incredibly large number of different photos of Bill and Ford , who seemed to be personally speaking and choosing words for the reader.
Still, ignoring all the strangeness and chaos, Dipper moved on to the content.
Bill seemed to be talking about his regrets about weirdmageddon, and there were also notes left somewhere about what he knew about the Pines family, something about his home dimension, his childhood photos? Dipper decided not to focus on this. After a couple of pages, Dipper was very interested in the words Bill chose in relation to Ford, and how reverently he kept the torn out pages of the 3rd diary in his. On one of the pages, he talked about how he met Ford, and how much he was amazed by his genius. But despite all this, Dipper was hooked on only one thing.
When reading the 3rd diary, he ignored the fact that Ford called the demon his "muse". This could be due to his many years of isolation, but what Bill said and thought in response? This already raised doubts about the real danger of the demon, was he that terrible?
After flipping through a couple of pages, Dipper stopped. He closed the book, hid it under his vest, and ran to his sister's room.
Throwing the door open, he ran into the room out of breath.
- Mabel! This is an emergency.
- Ooh, did Pacifica text you again?
Dipper blushed.
- No!! Well.. No, that's not it. Look.
Dipper took the diary out of his vest, showed it to his sister, who frowned unimpressively at the sight of the cover with the triangle, and then, when her brother turned a couple of pages and pointed to the contents, began to read.
Not even a couple of minutes passed, as Mabel's eyes seemed to lose all the optimism they had had before, and she looked at Dipper, hoping for consolation.
- We need to talk with our uncle.
- Yeah, that's right..
***
A couple of hours later, when Ford returned from another expedition, he was met by the children with an extremely anxious look. Before Stanford had time to say hello, the youngest Pines had already started talking.
-Uncle Ford, we need to talk..-
- YOU DATED BILL?!!
Before Dipper could finish his sentence, Mabel interrupted him out of excitement, which wasn't really surprising. This thought also struck Dipper hard, and he wanted all the answers to his questions.
Ford didn't say a word, he froze, and looked somewhere into the distance. His cheeks turned a little red, and the children who were drilling him with their eyes didn't make the situation any better.
- I... Um.. - Ford hesitated. What could he say? That he was in a relationship with a dream demon and didn't even knew that he was being used? He couldn't stoop so low in front of his grandchildren, but what else could he say?
- When I met him, he wasn't a dream demon or any other kind of terrible demons...
- He writes in the book that you're his ex!!! Why didn't you tell us anything?!
- Yeah, Uncle Ford, it's a little...Surprising.
Dipper glanced sideways at his uncle while Mabel was actively trying to catch her breath.
- There are some things that are sometimes... Hard to talk about. I was young and foolish back then, I didn't know Bill's true nature, but when he showed his true self... It was too late. But he was the only one who treated me like a human being.
When Ford finished, Soos and Wendy ran up to him, looking at Stanford with wide eyes.
- Does that mean you dumped Bill? The same one we defeated?
Wendy didn't mince words, and then Soos, who had originally invited the girl, joined her.
When Ford was surrounded by a crowd, he realized that he couldn't avoid questions. Now he regrets even more that he didn't bury the diary somewhere deep in the forest.