Chapter Text
Bill is not interested in a small, reckless, twelve-year-old girl in a bright sweater and braces.
Keeping a close watch with his large, cat-like eye on the Mystery Shack, he focuses solely on Six-Finger and Pine Tree. Both are bores, yet intelligent ones. And quite the thorns in his side, so Cipher, like a triangular shadow, trails them closely, trying to discern whether their plans might hinder Weirdmageddon.
Observing their meticulous work is genuinely dull even for him. To liven things up, the demon tips over one of the test tubes, causing a small explosion. At least it's some variety.
Almost all the participants of the prophecy flock to the noise while these nerds try to understand what happened.
Stanley curses, flailing his arms: "Are you trying to get us killed?!" Soos frowns, confused about the situation. Wendy rolls her eyes wearily, knowing she'll have to clean up the mess. Mabel bursts into infectious laughter, so loud and contagious that Question Mark and the Ice Girl can't help but join in.
"I'm sorry," Star tries to calm down, catching stern looks from Stanford and Dipper, "it's just that you're so funny." Ford rolls his eyes.
The girl approaches her brother with a smile, brushing debris from his hair. Mason can't suppress a grin.
"I can bring the first aid kit."
"No need, everything's fine."
***
Bill adores the night, for it's when all the inhabitants of the Shack are asleep. And he can easily disrupt their carefree dreams with his interference.
Tormenting Pine and Six-Finger is his favorite pastime watching them fidget in their sleep, trying to escape monsters, murmuring indistinctly, presumably pleading for help.
In the morning, they look worse for wear. Sleepy, disheveled, and extremely inattentive.
Dipper accidentally [not true, but who can prove it?] falls down the stairs, nearly breaking his neck, [unfortunately] poor thing.
“Dipper!” Mabel rushes out of the kitchen and finds her brother on the floor. “What happened?” she quickly runs over to him, helping him up.
“You're ruining all my fun, kid,” they won't hear him, of course, but to hell with it.
“I don't know,” the boy rubs the back of his head, bewildered, “probably didn't get enough sleep.”
“Poor thing,” she helps her brother to the kitchen and seats him on a chair, “but don't worry, I know how to help you!”
“How?”
Mabel smiles and pours a mixture of an indiscernible color and strange smell into a glass.
“Are you sure this is drinkable?” the boy asks with evident distrust.
“Of course! You'll feel better for sure, trust me.”
“Of course, drink it, Pine, maybe we'll get lucky and you'll kick the bucket.”
Dipper still eyes the drink warily but, under his sister's pressure, takes a sip and then abruptly spits it out. A nasty aftertaste of toothpaste, glitter, and something he couldn't identify lingers in his mouth.
“What is this?!”
“Mabel-Juice,” the girl proudly declares, “the brightest, sparkliest, and tastiest lemonade in the world.”
Cipher bursts into loud, uncontrollable laughter, and a thought flashes through his mind that if the boy reacts to this mixture this way, it wouldn't be bad to pour some for Stanford.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” the girl frowns discontentedly. “It helped you; you look much better and more cheerful.”
Bill still isn't interested in the cheerful girl with the strange lemonade in her hands.
***
“Good luck to you!” Shooting Star sat on the Shack's porch, waving to her brother and uncle.
They went on another "super important mission," which Dipper, of course, couldn't tell her about. And once, they swore they'd have no secrets from each other.
Mabel wipes salty drops with the sleeve of her bright sweater.
“Come on now, kid,” Bill, who had been following Dipper and Ford like an invisible shadow, stops “these nerds won't do absolutely anything,”and he knows, having observed them more than once“except jot down numbers, formulas, and observations in their notebooks.”
He doesn't know why he's telling her this; she won't hear anyway. Maybe out of boredom, maybe stating facts, or maybe because he loves to chatter.
But that's not the point; he's actually planning to catch up with these nerds now to get on their nerves a bit. They're paranoid, after all.
“I know you're here,” he hears Star's voice behind him, “stop hiding,” she says almost in a whisper.
Bill turns around, looking at the girl in surprise. Is it his imagination, or is she looking directly at him with her reddened eyes?
Absurd, that's impossible.
“Come on, show yourself.”
That's impossible, right?
Mabel smiles and then rises from her spot. Is it his imagination, or is she heading straight for him... But no, she walks past, approaches a tree, squats down, and picks up a hedgehog hiding behind it.
“There's no need to hide from me, little one,” Pines presses the prickly creature to herself, [painful, probably?] smiling kindly.
The demon laughs hysterically, and who's the paranoid one here? He casts a final indifferent glance at the girl and disappears.
Bill still isn't interested in the abandoned, tearful girl with a hedgehog in her hands.
***
This time, Cipher decided to be lenient and not send nightmares to Pine and Six-Finger. These idiots already suspect him, so Bill just wanders through the dreams of the circle members.
And it's boring. Their dreams are monotonous and, frankly, [ordinary] dull. It's sad. Although Stanley dreams of money and wealth, well, at least something good.
And then he enters Star's dream. Her dreams are colorful [so much so that it blinds the eye], diverse [he couldn't even imagine to this extent], fabulous, and truly insane.
Here, the entire surface is soft, like a trampoline, rivers with chocolate instead of water, and plush toys and food instead of people. And the "culprit of the celebration" herself peacefully lies on the shore near that very river, looking at the colorful pink-purple sky. Is that cotton candy instead of clouds?
Madness.
And Bill likes it. He even notes a few interesting ideas for Weirdmageddon, taking them into account, so to speak.
But the girl with bright dreams and crazy ideas still doesn't interest him.
***
Mabel sits on the floor in her and her brother's room, captioning new photos in her memory album.
Bill hovers near the triangular window, watching Pine trying to catch a gnome for his interview. A pathetic sight.
“I know you're here,” the girl says indifferently, flipping the page.
“Oh no, kid. I'm not falling for that again.”
“What do you want, Bill?” the girl shifts her gaze to the window, as if knowing he's there. “I saw you in my dream.”
So that's it.
The demon snaps his fingers, appearing before Pines. She smiles; did he really hope to scare her?
“Smart girl, I tip my hat!”
“See, I'm not as dumb as you thought.”
Cipher laughs.
“Don't compare me to Ford, darling,”his voice carries notes of irritation,“I'm not that biased, and, by the way, I've always seen your potential [well, almost].”
”So what do you want?"
“Nothing! I'm just bored, you see?”
The girl nods. With each passing day, her brother grows more distant from her; sometimes she feels very lonely [and Bill knows this].
“You won't tell those nerds you saw me, will you?”
“I'll think about it.”
Cipher snaps his fingers and disappears. His clever, lonely girl still doesn't interest him.
***
Watching the stars at night with Mabel Pines is utterly captivating; answering her unconventional questions is even more so.
She poses questions that Six-Finger never even thought of, and Bill truly has to ponder deeply to respond.
Teaching her to play chess is challenging, but witnessing her joy as she defeats her brother, then Ford, and nearly bests Cipher himself, is astounding.
She grasped the game's essence swiftly, devising strategies that even those nerds found surprising, and Bill realized she was someone to be reckoned with.
Mabel tells no one who taught her the game, with whom she chats late at night, or how she knows things she shouldn't. She merely shrugs at her brother's inquiries and says it's their secret.
"I'm glad I have a friend like you."
And it seemed out of the blue. The girl had been chatting about sweaters, unicorns, and other monsters, then suddenly said this, just like that, with a sweet smile on her face.
"Me too, Shooting Star."
Bill isn't interested in a naive girl who calls him a friend.
***
Cipher's primary goal has always been the rift, but when Six-Finger and Pines went off to find glue, he let them.
Go ahead. Search, seal the crack, and calm down. Let your guard down, naive fools.
"Tell me, would you like to stay in Gravity Falls after the holidays and become my apprentice?"
"Here's your biggest mistake, Stanford; this is what will lead me to victory."
For Dipper, this day is one of the best; for Mabel, it's one of the worst. [So go ahead, Pines, finish off your sister.]
"I thought at least you'd stay with me!" the girl screamed hysterically, tears streaming down her face, and Bill almost felt sorry for her. "And now you're leaving me too?!"
She grabs her backpack and runs off.
The sun had already begun to set, so the forest seemed bathed in red light, [like blood how ironic and fitting].
"I wish summer could last forever."
A lovely wish. As naive and childlike as she is. And Bill can easily grant it, [he can give her even more].
"That's easy to arrange," the demon's voice echoes through the clearing.
"Is that you, Bill?" the girl asked, looking around. Of course, she recognized him how could she not?
Cipher snaps his fingers and appears before her. Mabel wipes her tears and smiles. Sincerely, almost joyfully, but with a hint of sadness.
"You saw what happened," a statement, not even a question.
"Of course," he floats closer to her and offers a chocolate bar that appeared out of nowhere in his hands.
"Why did he do that to me? We're family."
«Family… Love, relationships… ah, such sweet words», Bill strokes her head, as if to soothe her, «sickeningly sweet. Right, Star?»
She doesn’t know how to respond, [maybe the meaning of his words just hasn’t reached her yet?].
«I think you mentioned something about eternal summer?» the demon smoothly steers the conversation where he wants it.
«Yeah, and you said you could help».
«Family… Love, relationships» ah, such sweet words» Bill strokes her head, as if to soothe her, «sickeningly sweet. Right, Star?»
She doesn’t know how to respond, [maybe the meaning of his words just hasn’t reached her yet?].
«I think you mentioned something about eternal summer?» the demon smoothly steers the conversation where he wants it.
«Yeah, and you said you could help».
«I can. There’s this bubble of time. Time stands still there summer will last as long as you wish».
«And how do you make it?»
«I can. There’s this bubble of time. Time stands still there summer will last as long as you wish».
«And how do you make it?»
“I need one of your nerd-uncle’s gadgets,” Cipher uses magic to project the image of a sphere before her. “A trinket he won’t even notice it’s gone.”
“And how am I supposed to get it?”
“You already have it, Shooting Star,” the demon taps his cane toward her backpack.
Mabel frowns, giving a slightly nervous smile. Is he joking? How could she possibly have that thing?
But Bill looks completely serious. She had rarely seen him like this usually he was cracking his odd [sometimes actually funny] jokes, talking about how Dipper and Stanford were total nerds, and how Candy and Grenda were freaks. She, of course, disagreed, but there was no convincing him.
Pines glances at the backpack nearby, then looks inside. Notebooks, pads, chewed pens.
She’d mixed up the bags.
And then, almost at the very bottom, she spotted that very device.
“This is it?” showing the device to the demon, Mabel couldn’t help but admire it. The strange liquid behind the glass shimmered so beautifully, just like her favorite lava lamp, the one her mom had given her. “What does this… thing do?”
“Hasn’t your brother told you?” the feigned surprise sounds far too theatrical [only the girl doesn’t notice].
Mabel grew flustered and shook her head. Tears were already welling in her eyes again.
“It’s just a trinket, it doesn’t do anything, so give it to me, Star” his tone is a bit harsh, but the demon quickly collects himself. “If you want summer to continue.”
“Of course I do!”
With a light smile, the girl hands the device to Cipher because they’re friends, and she trusts him without question.
Bill shatters the sphere to pieces [and their friendship along with it].
“Oh!”
“What…” but she doesn’t finish the sentence before fainting.
As a thank-you, the demon will grant her wish, gifting her his own dream world, where everything will happen just the way she wants. But Bill is no longer interested in the little [almost] tricked girl in the bright sweater and braces.