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As the orange glow of an Oregon sunset filled the room, a monster in the shape of a man stood with his eyes to the world outside.
He was right in the wrong ways, wrong in arguably right ways. His mouth was filled with sharp teeth fit for tearing meat; his pupils were like those of a venomous snake; his ears were pointed at the tips; at the center of his forehead was a third eye, always watching, seeing all. Yet all this was compacted into a humanoid form, and usually that was enough - but there were some who saw through his disguise plain as day.
He’ll hurt you, they said. He’s dangerous, they said. He just wants something from you, they said.
He’s a monster, they said.
Things that once rang true now felt like hollow reminders that he would never be what he needed to be.
“Bill?”
Broken free of his melodramatic thoughts, Bill turned to find Dipper standing a few feet behind him with a look that was both sympathy and love. Some part of Bill still despised how such a look made him feel, but that part was small now, and so very insignificant.
“Still thinking about today, huh?” Dipper asked as he approached, arms reaching out to circle Bill’s waist.
“Am I supposed to be thinking about something else?” Bill asked with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you have a book to be writing?”
Dipper chuckled and tilted his head back to look up at Bill as he pulled him closer. When making his human form, Bill just had to come out on top (quite literally) and had made himself rather tall. Dipper had once detested that, just as much as he detested the tone Bill was using for him… but those days were long past, now.
“Bill,” Dipper said, gentle and kind. “Look at me.”
Bill rolled his eyes - a show of defiance, more than anything - and locked gazes with Dipper.
“Do you really let things like that get to you?”
The initial temptation was to wrench himself away from Dipper and resume looking out the window. Tell the boy (a man now, really) to piss off, that he didn’t need to know how Bill felt about anything. What won out in the end, however, was to sigh and unfold his crossed arms so that he could rest them across Dipper’s shoulders.
“I wouldn’t, if I didn’t think it mattered,” Bill replied.
Dipper raised an eyebrow. “Since when does Grunke Ford’s opinion matter to you?”
It had been an innocent enough decision, to bring Bill along to the Mystery Shack for lunch. Living in Gravity Falls now, Dipper enjoyed seeing his great-uncles and meeting up with other friends there. He had avoided bringing Bill along for a long time, but had thought, perhaps, that tensions had died down enough for him to finally do so.
He had been wrong.
Most citizens were content to “not mind all that” and ignore the fact that Dipper Pines’s boyfriend shared a name with the evil triangle demon who had threatened their reality years prior. Close friends were less forgiving and gave Bill distrusting looks when he passed, whispering behind their hands about him and vowing to confront Dipper and never doing so. Grunkle Stan was rude at best, lacking most memories of Weirdmageddon but knowing exactly who Bill was nonetheless. And Ford?
Ford was downright unaccepting, filled with hate and vitriol born of his own interactions with Bill decades before. He was the most vocal, the most unfriendly, and the most confrontational. After a tense lunch he had cornered Dipper and given him a thorough lecture on how dangerous Bill was, how Bill had always operated, how Bill had tried to kill or enslave them all in the past - and how Bill was, without a doubt, no questions asked, a monster.
Bill, nosy being that he was, had been eavesdropping.
Ford shoved past him when he left, hard enough to push Bill into the wall. At the time, Dipper had assumed that was why Bill looked upset; he didn’t like being manhandled. Now, though…
Bill carefully removed himself from Dipper’s embrace and returned to the window, placing his hands on the sill and hunching his shoulders as he glared out into Gravity Falls. “Pine Tree,” he said, his voice low and dark, “you know he’s right. Not about everything, but about… what I am. And what I’ve done. You were there for plenty of it.”
“And I forgave you,” Dipper said in earnest. “You’ve worked hard to change, Bill. I mean, okay, yeah, you tried to kill me. That’s kind of a big deal. But you’re a demon - isn’t that just the sort of thing demons do? ”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “So what’s to stop me from doing it again?”
“The fact that you’ve changed, Bill.” Dipper moved closer and wrapped his arms around Bill from behind. “I was there for that, too. Remember?” He rested his head on Bill’s back and sighed. “The fact that this bothers you so much is proof. The old you never would have cared - even if you thought you’d changed, you’d be too narcissistic to think someone else could be right about you being wrong. ”
Bill was silent for a few moments, reluctantly relaxing into Dipper’s embrace. Then, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, he said, “Humans can’t love monsters. They’ll only get hurt.”
Dipper lifted his head, then moved around to Bill’s side, his expression one of mild surprise. “Bill,” he said, just as quiet. “Are you really that scared that you’ll hurt me?”
They locked eyes as Bill looked away from the window, sad and angry all at the same time as he struggled to hold the gaze. Why was Dipper so trusting? Why did he so easily allow himself to fall into this situation? They lived together, now, a fact only a select few even knew. They had been in bed together many times over. They kissed, they hugged, they walked hand-in-hand - and at any time, he could destroy his little Pine Tree with a snap of his fingers. He was not just some exotic-looking boytoy. He was an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful monster.
Of course he was scared.
He was scared to lose the first being he had truly loved in trillions of years. He was scared to wake up one day and be alone, have nothing and no one to hold or kiss or tease. He had struggled so hard with those emotions years ago; now, they were as much a part of him as anything else. Dipper was his everything.
“How could I live with myself if I did?” Bill asked.
Dipper looked at him for a moment, considering his words, and then offered a gentle smile.
“That’s not how you should be reacting,” Bill said as he glared out the window again. “You should be scared of me.”
“The only thing I’m scared of,” said Dipper as he leaned against Bill, “is not being with you. And I know that’s, like, super gay… but I mean it.”
There was silence between them for a few moments as Bill looked out at the town and Dipper waited for a response. Bill moved one of his arms, then, and wrapped it around Dipper’s shoulders, pulling him close.
“That’s not true,” he said in a stage whisper. “You’re deathly afraid of spiders.”
Bill smiled as Dipper burst out laughing.
“I’m serious, dude!” Dipper said as he pushed Bill with his shoulder, still laughing. “I freakin’ love you!”
“And I love you too, obviously.” Bill wrapped his other arm around Dipper and gave him a firm hug. “That’s why I don’t want to hurt you, Pine Tree.”
Dipper pressed his face into Bill’s chest and hugged him back. “So you’re going to just because Grunkle Ford says you will?”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
Dipper laughed again and stepped backwards, dragging Bill along with him. Bill laughed along as they toppled onto the couch, then hummed in surprise and delight when Dipper put his hands on either side of his face and kissed him.
“Stop being so dramatic,” Dipper breathed when they parted. “Since when do you care what other people think?”
“When you’ve been a monster for trillions of years, only to change for the sake of the only being in the universe worth changing for…” Bill sighed and leaned his face into one of Dipper’s hands. “It’s worrisome to hear people accuse you of still being a monster. You wonder if they’re right.”
“More proof that you’ve changed,” Dipper said. He smirked and cocked his head to the side. “And what’s that ‘only being in the universe’ nonsense? You’re getting really sappy on me today, Bill.”
“I’m about to get something else on you,” Bill growled playfully as he repositioned himself on the couch and dragged Dipper along with him. “Wanna go for a ride, Pine Tree?”
Dipper snorted. “You’re gross,” he said. “I’m guessing that means you feel better?”
“Mm, I’ll feel wonderful in a moment,” Bill replied as he kissed at Dipper’s neck, smiling as his boyfriend started to laugh again.
In truth, worry and anxiety still twisted in his gut. Could he really be the being he needed to be to make Dipper Pines truly happy? Was he capable of not being a dangerous monster for the sake of his soft, vulnerable human?
Or was that not giving Dipper enough credit? The kid had weathered a great many things, including Bill at his absolute worst. And maybe he was into monsters. Maybe that was why he’d never protested Bill’s not-quite-human form.
Regardless, he loved his Pine Tree, no matter what Sixer or anyone else said. Perhaps that was what mattered most. Dipper, at least, seemed to think so, and his opinion mattered more than anyone else’s.