Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Oh my god yes." 

Mabel continued to nibble at her peanut butter, strawberry jelly and swiss cheese sandwich as if nothing was happening. It was clearly an effort to do so.

"Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Dipper continued to nibble at his peanut butter, strawberry jelly, and swiss cheese sandwich. He didn’t care for the combination much, but she’d offered to make lunch and he didn’t feel like putting much effort into it. 

“Yes.” The noises coming from the living room were steadily getting louder. 

“Right there!" 

Mabel frowned, dropping her sandwich on the plate in front of her. "Dipper, it’s still going.”

“I know.” Dipper followed suit. “I hear it, I know.”

“Why isn’t he finished yet?” Mabel groaned, leaning back on her stool and nearly losing her balance. 

“I don’t know.” Another ecstatic hoot rang out from the next room, further cementing just how much Dipper was beginning to regret showing his grand uncle how to use his laptop. The old swindler had claimed he needed to use it for market research, but it was becoming increasingly clear that he was misusing the privilege for his own dark purposes.

“YES!” Whatever Stan was watching was apparently reaching a crescendo. Dipper decided to let him finish out of the kindness of his heart. That, and he didn’t want to interrupt Stan when was really getting into it. 

A loud crash rang out, followed by the sound of something falling over. Okay, maybe he was getting a little too into it. 

Another cry of elation rang out alongside yet another crash, and Dipper changed his mind about letting the situation reach its natural conclusion. He slid off the stool and headed towards the living room. The scene that met his eyes upon arrival was shameful: the lamp was overturned as were several chairs, and there was a can of Pit Cola soaking into the carpet. The culprit was far too gone to notice the witness to his depravity, leaning over the laptop on the coffee table and staring intently at the screen while continuing to enthusiastically voice his approval. 

The battle for dominance hit its climax to a chorus of screams and police sirens as Stan’s final shout mingled with his grand nephew’s cry of protest. “Grunkle Stan you’ve been watching train fights on YouTube for six hours now. I want my laptop back!" 

Stan glanced over his shoulder at him, glassy-eyed and evidently rendered speechless by the endless bounty of candidly documented interpersonal conflict laid before him. He also seemed to notice the wreckage surrounding him for the first time since he started, surveying the living room with a completely bewildered expression on his face.

Dipper sighed. 

"I’m changing my password.” 

Chapter Text

This really shouldn’t be so hard.

Dipper raised his hand experimentally, flexing his fingers. As expected, it was damp with perspiration, although he wasn’t sure whether it was the blazing heat, nerves, or an unpleasant combination of both.

A couple of feet away from him, his date continued strolling on without him. For once her hair was down instead of in a ponytail, a long blonde sheet that swished against the tops of her bare thighs as she walked and gleamed like gold in the early afternoon sunlight. He couldn’t believe he’d ever written it off as fake, or that it had taken him so long to realize it was beautiful. Realizing that he was no longer walking alongside her, Pacifica paused and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Dipper?”

“Sorry!” Dipper blurted out, catching up with her. “Got distracted.”

Pacifica frowned. “By what? Aren’t I distracting enough?”

Dipper opened his mouth to say something witty in response and his tongue betrayed him; a jumble of things that might have once been words came out. Pacifica’s frown melted away and she laughed. “Come on.”

The fact that they were on an actual date (albeit a relatively casual one; Pacifica had thankfully vetoed any suggestions of five-star restaurants from her scandalized parents) was confirmation enough that she liked him enough to not just spend time with him, but do so with the full admission that they were stepping over the line dividing ‘friends’ and ‘more than friends’.

So it shouldn’t have been so difficult to reach out and grab her hand. He’d held hands with her before, when they watched the stars and danced and run through the mall like the preteens they were, but she always initiated it, seizing his hand and leading him along. For once Dipper wanted to be the one that led her.

For a date with a member of the Northwest family it was surprisingly low-key. They were essentially moving in unison with no actual direction in mind, talking and simply enjoying being together with no airs or pretenses or masks, and he could tell that she was happy from the brilliant smile that lit up her face even as she was calling him some variation of ‘dweeb’.

Which made it harder to make his move, because Dipper Pines was rapidly becoming a Grade-A sap when it came to Pacifica Northwest.

After a few hours of wandering (two of which were spent sitting on a bench speculating about the private lives of the town populace followed by Dipper telling her about living in Piedmont), during which he never quite managed to take her hand even when she sat right beside him or their fingers brushed against each other they found themselves on the outskirts of town, sitting in the grass and watching the sun dip below the horizon in a splash of watercolor. The light breeze teased strands of her hair, like a golden halo disguising the often sharp-tongued, cynical siren within. Dipper sighed inwardly. Liking someone was surprisingly hard even when they liked you back.

Warm fingertips ran along his palm, gently, and for a second Dipper felt quite dizzy as Pacifica reached over and placed her hand atop his. “You are so obvious,” she teased, squeezing his hand playfully. “If I didn’t like you enough to want to hold your hand, Dipper, I wouldn’t have spent all day walking around with you.”

“Oh,” was pretty much all Dipper could muster, and when she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, just as flushed as he was, words became meaningless altogether.

Chapter Text

Just because Dipper liked his girlfriend’s hair didn’t necessarily mean it liked him back.

To be fair it was only a single snake, and its beef with him was clearly a new development as he’d never encountered this much trouble before. The snakes comprising Pacifica’s hair were generally indifferent towards him; one actually seemed to be rather fond of him, occasionally drifting in his direction and nudging his hand affectionately when it was close enough. 

Whereas the rogue snake kept biting him whenever it got the chance; over the past fifteen minutes that he’d spent surreptitiously attempting to slide his arm across her shoulders he’d been bitten at least three or four times. He’d toyed with the idea of asking Pacifica to tell her hair to chill, but even now she was still particularly self-conscious about her body in general and he definitely didn’t want to ruin the tone of the moment by bringing it up. 

The tiny fangs dug into his arm yet again, and Dipper bit his lip, glaring daggers at the snake in question. The creature didn’t have much in the way of expression but he could have sworn it was smirking at him. 

Pacifica didn’t notice, continuing to relate her latest falling out with her parents while basking in the sun and warming her scaly side against Dipper’s. “So I tell Mother that I don’t care whether they’re willing to accommodate us in first class because the last place I want to go is London in November.” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Like, Mother. I’m an ectotherm. That’s not cool.”

Dipper visibly flinched; apparently his rival had decided to up the ante, and this was more than just a little nip. Pacifica did notice that, glancing over at him curiously. “You okay?”

“Yes!” Dipper responded, ears and tail pricking up with alarm and outright broadcasting that he wasn’t. “Just…um…mosquito!” He slapped his arm for good measure, wincing. “Lots of mosquitoes! I guess I’m just an easier target!" 

Seriously?

He realized he’d made a hopefully minor mistake the moment the words left his mouth; Pacifica’s face fell for a fraction of a second before she resumed smiling as if he hadn’t blatantly reminded her that she wasn’t entirely a mammal anymore. "Sorry about that! Anyway, even first class airline seating isn’t going to work for me.” She frowned again, looking down at her lower half. “Mother and Father are lucky they still look like actual people." 

This wasn’t necessarily true. Preston Northwest’s impish appearance and blood red complexion were distinctly not human and his wife now bore the odd joints and strings of a living marionette that ceased functioning independently when her husband was nearby, but they were still humanoid. First class seating could definitely work for a middle-aged female Pinocchio and a guy with horns and a forked tail. 

The crestfallen expression had returned, and Dipper couldn’t stand to see her unhappy (especially given his part in the entire fiasco). "You look like an actual person,” he countered. 

“Dipper. I’m a giant snake." 

Dipper shrugged. "I’m a deer." 

The two teenagers shared a look before laughing as one, fully acknowledging that they embodied the so-called odd couple perfectly. When they finally calmed down, Dipper smiled at her, reaching over to brush a lock of her hair to the side. "Pacifica, it’s fine. It just makes you a little more unique than you were before, and having scales doesn’t make you any less beaut…”

His brain caught up with what he was saying and made the split-second decision to trip him up with pubescent awkwardness, as usual. “Um…I mean…”

Pacifica grinned knowingly, scooting a little closer. “You know it’s okay to tell your girlfriend she’s beautiful, right?”

Damn his ears, pricking up again, although the light flush coloring his face was as much of a dead giveaway. “Um…”

“That is what you were going to say?” Perfectly aware of how flustered he was, Pacifica reached over to run her fingers along his jawline, tilting his head in her direction and leaning in for a kiss.

Allowing the now fully irritated snake to nip Dipper yet again, this time on the neck. “Ow!”

“I knew it!” Pacifica snapped; she seized the rogue snake and fixed it with a look that could have turned it to stone had it not been attached to her. “What did I tell you girls? No one bites him but me. Get over it.”

To further prove her point she let go of the snake and grabbed Dipper’s shoulders, pulling him into a kiss that was mostly passion with just a hint of possessiveness. When she finally broke it off, leaving both of them breathless for a couple of seconds, Dipper glanced at the snake scowling at him, flickering its tongue forlornly. 

He winked at it, finally draping his arm over her shoulders without interference and drawing her close, warm hide against cool scales. 

Chapter Text

Dipper was running again. 

He’d realized some time ago that running from various things comprised at least half of a deer’s life, but accepting it wasn’t such an easy task. 

Granted, running from various things seemed to comprise a good part of life in Gravity Falls, too. Even before the incident with the stream he and Mabel had spent a lot of time running from various things in the woods, so maybe nothing had really changed save having an extra set of legs to run with. At least he was getting a lot of exercise.

And at least it was only one wolf instead of an entire pack. He stood a chance of outrunning one; more than that and he might have been screwed. That didn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless. 

His call for help rang out through the early evening air, even though the chances of actually encountering anyone nearby at this time of the day were pretty scarce. Had he been thinking clearly he wouldn’t have stayed out so long by himself, either, but that ship of logic was long gone. 

The wolf snarled, letting out a savage howl that only made Dipper pick up the pace. By now he’d adjusted to fleeing from danger with his ears buried in his hair and a disconcerting hyper awareness of the slightest movement in the woods around him, his hooves kicking up small clumps of soil and crunching through tiny twigs, weaving deftly through the trees in a manner he’d have never managed while still fully human. 

Still, it had been a long day and he could only keep up his current speed for so long. The wolf was gaining on him; now close enough to snap at his heels. He felt the creature’s hot breath against the fetlock of one of his hindlegs and Dipper lowered his speed just enough to allow him to lash out at the wolf behind him, hearing the pained bark resulting from his hoof impacting with the wolf’s shoulder. He’d hoped it would stun his pursuer long enough for him to put some distance between them, but it seemed to only enrage the creature further. 

It would be really stupid if he’d survived all he did just to get eaten by a regular wolf in the woods. Not a werewolf, not a shifter, not even an unsettling amalgamation of wolf and zombie. Just a wolf.

He could already imagine the wolf’s teeth sinking into his leg, fetid breath against his fetlock, drops of saliva dampening his fur…

…and something shot past him, too quickly for him to get a good look at. He swerved to the side, kicking out with his back hooves to keep his balance, and looked back just in time to see a blur of shining yellow scales slam into the wolf and knock it off balance with a loud hiss. 

Dipper paused in his tracks, struggling to catch his breath, and recoiling at the sight of Pacifica looming over the wolf and making an unearthly noise that he’d never imagined her capable of. The tip of her tail flicked back and forth wildly, and her snakes stood at attention, fanning out above her head like a serpentine crown. The wolf leapt to its feet, snarling, swiping at her with a paw tipped with wickedly tapered claws. Pacifica twisted to the left, catching the wolf in the side with her tail with an audible thump. She hissed again; this time Dipper’s sensitive hearing picked up the nearly imperceptible undulations in the sound. It occurred to him to that the sound wasn’t random; her vocalizations held some form of meaning, and the manner in which the wolf barked at her in response indicated that she was speaking to it in a shared tongue that he wasn’t privy to.

“Pacifica, look out!” he shouted, but the gorgon ignored him. A curious scene was unfolding a few feet away, where the wolf stood before her, bristling. Pacifica stared down at it imperiously. Her tail tip continued to flicker, and her snakes writhed wildly, but the gorgon herself remained stock still, fixing the wolf with an expression that Dipper couldn’t identify from where he was standing.

“Pa…” The word died in his throat as he realized that the wolf had now gone silent as well, watching her intently. The tension in the air hung taut like an overstretched bowstring, and Dipper’s nerves were going haywire. There was danger here; his body sensed it, and it urged his brain to follow suit. Run. But he refused to leave her behind, and it seemed as if she were holding her own rather well, anyway. 

The wolf gradually grew rigid as well, never taking its eyes off the clearly superior predator before it. A minute passed, then another. The fur along the wolf’s tail began to stiffen, fading to a light grey hue that crept its way along the creature’s body, limb to broad chest to the very tip of its nose until the stone skin eclipsed it completely. 

The statue that had once been a wolf toppled over lifelessly. 

Pacifica’s stance softened, and she slumped onto the ground as well without a word, breathing heavily.

Dipper ran over to her as fast as his hooves could carry him. “Pacifica!”

Kneeling with a deer’s body was a bit of a hassle, but a combination of determination and anxiety allowed Dipper to maneuver himself into a seated position in front of her. “Pacifica?” He put a hand on her shoulder, warm in contrast to the rest of her body. She turned her head to the side, averting her gaze. “Pacifica, are you okay?” Dipper reached for her other shoulder but she shook him off, snakes limp along her back. 

“Don’t…look at me,” she said, quietly. 

“Pacifica…” Dipper reached for her again. “That was amazing. You just saved my life. Again.” He brushed back her bangs with one hand, noticing that her eyes were squeezed shut. “Are you worried about turning me to stone, too?”

A slight dip of her chin, but no eye contact. 

“I’ll be okay,” Dipper reassurred her. “Trust me.”

“I don’t even trust myself.” Pacifica whispered.

“Then trust me instead. Just open your eyes. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Her eyelashes fluttered, lavender tinted eyelids gently opening to reveal lovely blue eyes filled with tears. Dipper smiled at her, wiping away a stray tear coursing its way along her cheekbone. “See? It’s fine. You’re not going to hurt me.”

Pacifica buried her head in his shirt, actively crying. Dipper wasn’t used to seeing her cry. It seemed out of place in someone so strong-willed, and she usually responded to frustration with indignation instead of sorrow. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close; one of her snakes (the one that really liked him) nudged his hand with its nose until he ran his index finger over its head. “I guess I have to check with Mabel to see if she has a ‘world’s best girlfriend’ sticker now.”

Pacifica sniffled, pausing to glance up at him. “If she doesn’t we can probably find something online.”

Dipper burst out laughing, kissing her on the nose. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

The two stayed that way for a moment, as the fireflies awakened and lit the darkening woods with their soft glow. 

Neither noticed the figure lounging within a nearby tree, discernible only by a single dot of gold shining among the branches. Now this was an interesting development. It looked on as they finally headed back towards town, leaving the petrified wolf behind to be dealt with later, waiting until the cervitaur and the gorgon were out of sight before descending to investigate.

Chapter Text

Dipper stood up, letting the shovel fall to the ground next to him while wiping the soil from his trousers before seating himself in the soft, springy grass. The hole (more of a pit, actually) he and Bill were digging in the woods was only about two feet deep, and that wasn’t nearly enough. Since deciding that burying the corpses in an fairly obvious place was a great deal more fun than simply incinerating them, the two were gaining a lot of experience in hiding bodies. Thin moonlight streamed through the tops of the evergreens, barely enough for regular eyes to contend with, but the limitations of human sight no longer mattered for Dipper and it had never mattered for Bill.

“I think we’re serial killers now,” he remarked casually.

The demon paused, dropping his shovel as well and crossed the perimeter of the pit, sitting beside him close enough for Dipper to reach over and grab his hand. “What?”

Dipper thought for a moment before doing so, lacing his bare fingers with the demon’s gloved ones. “This is the fourth body we’ve buried in the woods this week. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as serial killer.”

Bill laughed; the eerie echo that accompanied his voice rang out through the woods, silencing whatever creatures dared to stay in the vicinity. “I’ve been around way longer than you, kid. Did you really think this was a recent development?”

Dipper shrugged with his free arm. “I just assumed. You never really killed anyone in front of me before we hooked up.”

He let out a soft yelp as the demon tugged him to the side, dragging him into his lap where Dipper could stare up into his eyes: the one with a golden iris that matched his own, and the one that contained an abyss within that still made him shiver whenever he gazed into it too long.

He couldn’t deny that it was the good kind of shiver.

“That’s because I wanted to make a good impression,” Bill crooned, stroking Dipper’s cheek and grinning lasciviously at the the way the leather against his skin made the young man shudder. “No murder on the first date.”

“You didn’t have to wait,” Dipper murmured, settling into the embrace with a sigh. This close he could smell the heady aroma of death that surrounded his lover: the sharp scent of fresh blood stood out prominently and he tilted his head slightly, running his tongue over the fingertips pressed against his face. Most of it was dried by now, but he could still pick up the faint coppery taste of the substance. 

“What can I say?” The demon leaned forward, capturing his lips in a fierce, possessive kiss that was as much a battle as a show of affection, all sharp, sharp teeth and a tongue that was just a little longer than a human tongue needed to be. 

But Bill wasn’t human, and Dipper wasn’t entirely human, not anymore with the thick white scars on his flesh and the golden eyes that gleamed in the darkness and the asymmetrical, jagged excuses for teeth he’d developed shortly after taking the demon’s hand only a short while ago and allowing him to lead him from the world he knew. 

They both still needed to breathe, though, and he was somewhat grateful when Bill broke the kiss, biting into his lower lip and lapping at the blood before sitting up again. His complexion didn’t allow for a visible flush but Dipper didn’t need to see it to know it was there. “I wanted you badly enough to hold back.”

Dipper gazed at him lovingly for a moment before glancing over at the mangled corpse that was once a man lying a few feet away. “Dealer or target?”

“Target,” Bill responded; the husky quality of his voice faded as it always did when they were talking business. “I like to hold off on the poor smucks that made the contract for a day or two before going after them. Get that false sense of security going, you know?”

“Can I help this time?” Dipper asked, eagerly. He’d spent the last four deal completions watching the demon rip their victims to shreds, gouging deep holes into soft, pliant flesh and tearing into throats that soon ceased to emit the beautiful sound of pleading for one’s life. He wanted in. He’d never gotten the chance to kill on his own, and not only did he want to make his lover proud – he wanted to experience the feeling of twisting the life from another living creature himself. 

“What, are you sick of being the honeypot?” Bill teased. “You’re pretty good at the art of deception, Pine Tree.”

Luring idiots into alleys and shadows didn’t require much skill. “It’s kind of boring.”

“I see. So you prefer something a little more hands on?” The word was punctuated by a wandering hand doing something that made Dipper arch his back against the demon’s legs, letting out a loud moan. “Yes." 

"I’ll see what I can do.” A perverted leer lit up the demon’s face. “It’s gonna cost you, though.”

“I’ll pay up,” Dipper gasped, somewhat desperately. He had no problem with pausing right there to finish what Bill had started, dead body and dirt aside. Those things were trivial compared to the corruption that flowed along his bloodstream and coated what he still optimistically called a soul. No; doing the deed with a demon in grass slick with gore wasn’t a big deal. 

He’d forgotten that Bill seemed to prefer to keep business and pleasure separate; the demon ignored the frustrated noise Dipper made as he shoved him off of his lap, levitating the discarded shovel into his hands. “Then let’s finish taking care of this stuff so we can get on that transaction.”

Dipper didn’t need to be told twice. He leapt to his feet immediately, and resumed digging with much more enthusiasm than before. If being a serial killer came with these kind of perks he could definitely get used to it. 

Chapter Text

After the first ten text messages, all to the tune of ‘Pine Tree I think she’s going to explode’, 'It won’t stop it won’t stop’ and 'the screaming never ends’, Bill switched tactics and began leaving voicemails instead. 

“Pine Tree. I am going to eat our spawn if you don’t pick up your phone.”

“She’s been screaming for twenty minutes straight how is she still capable of speech?”

“Your kid is better at torture than I am, which would normally make me proud but I’m the one being tortured so it’s considerably less impressive PICK UP YOUR PHONE.”

All the while the newborn (newly spawned? What terminology applied to a baby magicked up through a combination of soul blending and damn near incomprehensible voodoo that confused even Bill himself for a bit?) continued to shriek at an unholy pitch that he was almost certain had something to do with her partially demonic heritage. 

Torrey had been screaming for close to half an hour, and no amount of cooing, levitating objects for her amusement, or outright begging could calm her down. To make matters worse he was the only one at the Mystery Shack with the baby for the moment for the first time since her birth a couple of weeks ago. As expected Dipper was way better at childcare than Bill was and took the reigns most of the time, able to comfort her efficiently with only a few words and a cuddle. Now that he was flying solo the immensely powerful dream demon was stricken with a unfamiliar sense of panic and apprehension. Did human babies actually explode when they cried for too long? Did the same apply for half-human, half-demon babies? Was she going to sprout fangs and bite his fingers off if he picked her up while she was this angry? Hell, was she even angry?

It occurred to Bill that knowing 'lots of things’ didn’t include anything about parenting or babies. 

“I don’t know what you want,” he moaned desperately. “This isn’t the kind of screaming I’m used to, kid." 

Torrey ignored his plight, clenching her tiny fists and waving them frantically; her tan complexion couldn’t mask the flush of angry red coloring her face. Even her tears were foreign; her eyes were squeezed shut but there were no tears to speak of. Pine Tree had assured him this was perfectly normal for the first few weeks, but what the hell did Dipper know about babies anyway? 

"More than you do,” Bill muttered darkly. 

He approached the crib anxiously, staring down at his squalling daughter. He had yet to pick her up on his own; Dipper normally passed her to him or he levitated her into his arms (until her other parent found out and flipped out over it). There was something that worried him about actually picking Torrey up. He’d never explicitly told Dipper how afraid he was of breaking her somehow.

Taking a deep breath that was far more of a human expression that he was comfortable with, Bill reached down into the crib, gently lifting the baby from the nest of knit blankets. He still fully expected her to sprout fangs. 

She did not sprout fangs. 

The moment he touched her Torrey’s screams began to die down; when he cradled her against his chest they tapered off altogether. The baby’s eyelids opened, revealing brilliant golden irises that shone with the hint of magic that rested within her. 

There were few things that could shut Bill Cipher up. This appeared to be one of them. 

The demon stroked the soft warm brown curls that reminded him of Pine Tree’s hair, brushing it back to get a good look at the tiny triangular birthmark on her forehead. Torrey made soft, sweet baby noises in response; Dipper said she wasn’t capable of focusing on them just yet but it seemed to him that the baby saw him, gazing at him with those beautiful eyes, fully aware of who he was. I know you. I know what you are, but I love you already. 

The baby wasn’t capable of crying actual tears just yet, but that afternoon Bill learned that somehow he was. 

Chapter Text

The sound of a man screaming in agony accompanied by Bill’s just slightly demented laughter was impetus enough for Dipper to drop everything he was holding while ascending the stairs towards his (technically theirs, although if Bill was murdering a guy he’d be sleeping on the couch for awhile) bedroom and sprint the rest of the way. The fact that he was just a little more irate at the unwelcome interruption following a particularly tiring day of classes than concerned about the potential crime scene unfolding in the attic was a little troubling, but one couldn’t stay in a committed relationship with a demon for as long as he had and not end up with a touch of moral erosion. 

The sounds of discord rose in volume as he reached the ladder, bursting through the door just in time to see Bill erupt into peals of disturbing laughter once more while watching a video of a shirtless man pitching himself forward into a cactus and letting out a series of howling noises that Dipper feared would damage his speakers somehow. He made his way over to where the demon lay on his stomach on the floor with Dipper’s laptop in front of him, reaching over to adjust the volume before Bill could protest. Onscreen the unfortunate (or stupid) victim lay on the ground continuing to wail while his friends did their best to remove the numerous barbs embedded in his skin. 

Dipper stared at the revolting display for a few seconds, then looked back at Bill. “Dude.”

“Isn’t it great?” The demon exclaimed; the expression on his face was nothing short of luminous. 

“That guy just threw himself into a cactus.”

“He did! Twice!” Bill’s eyes actually sparkled. “The first time was completely nude." 

Dipper shook his head. "Man, that’s sick.”

“I know.” The words came out in a veritable moan; Dipper wrinkled his nose with disgust before dropping to the floor beside him. Onscreen the video shifted to something ominously titled ‘Man removes GIANT splinter with pliers sooo gross’; apparently Bill had either managed to locate an entire lengthy playlist of body horror videos or created it himself. Either explanation was likely. The demon’s attention shifted back to the laptop, fully engrossed in the young man from the previous video holding his leg. There was a disturbing amount of blood on the ground, enough that Dipper was almost certain that this video was shot on the same day as the encounter with the cactus. He winced as the the pliers made their appearance. “How long have you been watching these?”

Golden eyes flickered in his direction. “Aren’t you going to ask why, Pine Tree?”

After witnessing the absolute glee with which Bill usually destroyed anything stupid enough to approach him or Mabel out in the woods with malicious intent, Dipper really didn’t need to. If he wanted to vicariously satisfy his demonic blood lust via Youtube Dipper really didn’t care. “No. Wait, are you still logged in as me?” A quick glance at the user icon in the top right corner confirmed the worst. “I don’t want that in my search history! Make your own account!”

“I don’t know how!” Bill responded, cheerfully. 

“Then how did you even get here?” It occurred to Dipper that he’d never actually given the demon his password nor showed him how to log on to the computer in the first place. 

“The old man made himself useful for once." 

Dipper sighed, resting his head on his arms. "I really need to change my password.”

He was too tired to bother with trying to take his laptop away or even consider getting up from where he lay on the floor beside Bill. So Dipper resigned himself to watching another two or three videos in a state of nauseated fascination. “Why are there so many of these? Who films themselves popping a zit?”

Bill briefly looked away from the screen, smirking. “You humans are disgusting.”

“That’s not what you said last night,” Dipper muttered, then yelped as the demon grabbed him and pulled him flush against his side. His smirk took on a lewd quality that made Dipper’s face redden. 

“That’s because it doesn’t apply to you,” he purred. “You’re gross but you’re mine so it doesn’t matter." 

Dipper smiled in spite of himself, rolling his eyes. "Way to be biased, man.” He tilted his head to accept the incoming kiss, melting into his boyfriend’s embrace…and shoving aside the thought that making out with an actual demon with both sadistic and masochistic tendencies to the sound of some poor dumbass mutilating himself for Youtube hits was pretty fucked up.

An odd hacking sound caught Dipper’s attention and he disengaged himself long enough to see a grown man eating a live scorpion and immediately regretting it. “…these people are really stupid. Seriously. This is pretty much scraping the bottom of the human barrel.” The video moved on to the next entry in the playlist. “What’s a botfly?”

“How do you feel about parasites?”

Dipper paled. “Parasites?”

Bill grinned and pulled him closer. “You’re gonna want to be distracted for this one.”

Chapter Text

It took awhile, but the glitter finally grew on her; eventually she began to expect it. 

Mabel had always been the more affectionate one in the relationship, more prone to leaving heart-shaped stickers on things and bringing her handmade items that Pacifica rolled her eyes at for show then ferreted away in the drawer where she kept her most valuable items: cards and stickers and the occasional tacky sweater that she wouldn’t be caught dead in but wouldn’t part with for the world. 

Mabel was also far more demonstrative, holding her hand when Pacifica defied her parents and dragged her ‘plebian’ girlfriend (clad in elaborate gowns of her own design that Pacifica personally thought she looked stunning in) along to galas and garden parties and other outings in a move that bordered on social suicide for them. But the parties made Mabel happy, and although she played the role of the cool, more collected half for the rest of the world and the cameras that lingered just out of sight Pacifica cared an awful lot about making Mabel Pines happy. 

So once the cameras withdrew and Pacifica had her all to herself the facade peeled away like a second skin; Pacifica Elise Northwest folded herself up into a neat pile in the corner until being needed once more and Paz (just one of Mabel’s nicknames for her) lit up from within, laughing at her girlfriend’s effervescence with little care for how she looked or sounded; bowling her over in a tangle of fluffy brown curls and silky blonde hair, pinning Mabel beneath her body and kissing her feverishly until the giggles gave way to other sweet sounds while Pacifica basked in the sugar and sunshine that she radiated. Mabel made her happy, and thus she returned the favor in spades.

It was during the warm afterglow one afternoon, with Mabel curled up in her arms, that Pacifica noticed that there were flecks of silver glitter in the soft brown hair brushing against her chest, seemingly embedded in the skin she intermittently pressed her lips to, coating Mabel’s fingernails as they trailed along her arm lightly tracing hearts and shooting stars. “Should I even ask why you’re covered in glitter?“ 

Mabel shifted, tilting her head and meeting her gaze. Her face was still flushed and her bangs were off-kilter; there was a small smear of pearl pink lipstick on her cheekbone. "Because I am a shining star that gleams the brightest when I’m with you." 

The line was the cheesy, schmaltzy stuff of stationary boutique-grade Hallmark cards, but it was so Mabel. ”That was lame and you know it,“ Pacifica sighed. 

"But you love me anyway,” Mabel sang, snuggling against her. “So I want to shine for you." 

Pacifica smiled into her girlfriend’s hair, wishing some of Mabel’s glitter would rub off on her.

Chapter Text

When he first encountered the hunter, Dipper was caught completely offguard, somehow unaware of the man’s approach until he felt the muzzle of a hunting rifle pressed against his flank.

Prior to being interrupted, he found himself enjoying a rare moment of peace, resting against the large trunk of an old oak tree deep in the woods, inhaling the scent of the world awakening after lying dormant throughout his seventh winter in Gravity Falls. By now Mabel spent the majority of her time in the lake, having far outgrown the kiddie pools that once littered the shack, and Dipper’s antlers from the year before had come and gone, being shed through a frustrating process of slamming his head against various structures in the Mystery Shack until they broke off to be immediately absconded with by Stan. Dipper suspected that his grand uncle might be making money off of them somehow, but he didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t as if he needed them anymore.

Legs tucked beneath him in the soft grass and head bent over the journal with the six-fingered hand that had become one of his most valued possessions over the years, humming snatches of some pop song that he’d never admit to enjoying, the cervitaur breathed a sigh of relief, overjoyed to have some time away from the town. For the most part the populace were now settled into their new lives and adjusted to the best of their abilities, buoyed by an economic upswing due to increased tourism (which certainly helped with the food issue, and as annoying as being treated as an oddity could be Dipper was glad he didn’t have to worry about being eaten whenever he made his way into the town proper). He’d never ceased looking for a way to reverse the catastrophe that he still viewed as his fault, but as the years drifted by the necessity of simply trying to live had eventually dawned on him. It was a lengthy process, working through the guilt and awkwardness and hairline trigger fear that defined a deer’s life, but with the support of his family, extended family and assorted friends it all became more bearable. He still spent a good amount of time by himself when not researching, which occasionally backfired for various reasons - like now, with the unsettlingly warm metal prodding him in the side and a male voice with a slightly unearthly quality issuing a damn near impossible order: “Don’t run.”

Dipper froze where he sat; the journal fell from his hands and landed in the grass. He would have marveled at the fact that he hadn’t heard the man approaching nor sensed it had he not been on the verge of fainting from sheer terror. He remained as still as he possible could, struggling to suppress his uncontrollable trembling as the nose of the gun slid along his side, ruffling his shirt on its way along the curve of his shoulder and pausing just beneath his chin. The hunter on the opposite end of the rifle moved to stand before him, and Dipper met his gaze, shuddering at the intensity of the man’s light hazel (nearly golden) eyes. “You’re pretty far from home, kid,” the man commented, grinning – and exposing a set of canines that belied his human appearance. “Not too bright, are ya?”

Dipper opened his mouth to protest – and clenched his teeth at a nudge from the rifle against his neck. He was still governed by the urge to run, especially without his fully grown antlers to serve as a form of defense, but the part of him that wasn’t a deer seethed at the implication. Bastard.

The hunter extended a gloved hand (Dipper noted that his attire didn’t really remind him of a hunter, nor the wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair that darkened to black midway), running his fingers through the cervitaur’s hair, stroking the soft fur of his ears, tracing along the velvet covered antlers growing longer which each passing day. Dipper shivered before he could catch himself. The man’s touch was surprisingly gentle. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. Not today.”

This was considerably less than reassuring, and Dipper narrowed his eyes accusingly at the statement. His reaction seemed to delight the hunter, who laughed; the sound echoed throughout the strangely silent section of the woods they were in. The silence was a new development. “Trust me. If I wanted you dead, kid, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

The hand in his hair moved to run along his left cheekbone, tantalizingly slow; a different kind of shudder ran through his body as Dipper continued to stare up at the man. A part of him that was entirely human and also stupid recognized that the man was rather attractive for a gun-toting psychopath with a gun pressed against his neck.

“Beautiful,” the hunter breathed. “I could just eat you up.”

Even without further clarification Dipper could tell that was a euphemism for something that made him shudder again.

The hunter’s fangs gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight, and the rifle shifted to the side, allowing him to take a deep breath.

“You can run now.”

Dipper struggled to his hooves and tore past the hunter, heart pounding in his chest as he sprinted through the foliage, never looking back. It wasn’t until he slammed his way into his room and locked the door behind him, collapsing in a heap and struggling to catch his breath that he realized that he’d left the journal where he’d dropped it, out in the middle of the woods.

Shit.

It took a full day before he managed to work up the courage to go back to search for the journal; thankfully it didn’t rain during that 24 hour period, but he didn’t sleep well that night. It hadn’t occurred to him how much of a veritable security blanket the book was. It wasn’t as if it held the secret to reversing his condition, but it was his, his guide to a side of the world few people knew as intimately as he did.

Against his better judgement, he went alone. Perhaps it was foolish, young adult hubris that he’d be fine this time around; he refused to admit the presence of any other motives behind what was very likely a mistake.

Beautiful. I could just eat you up.

Dipper’s stomach twisted in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

He managed to locate the small clearing with ease; over the years he’d combed every square foot of the woods up to a point he could never bring himself to stray past. There was something there, something that made every internal alarm in his body chime with unmistakable clarity that made him sick to his stomach, so Dipper stayed away, for now.

He padded his way over to where he’d been resting earlier that week with the delicate hoofsteps of a white tail. He could already feel the disappointment (and stirrings of actual panic) beginning to settle on his shoulders - it was clear from the start that there was nothing there nestled within the grass, but he retained a thread of hope anyway.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Dipper stumbled, managing to catch himself before blundering into the tree trunk beside him. Temporarily stricken with the recklessness of a buck (and already distraught enough over the apparent loss of his book) he leapt to the side, turning to face the man standing behind him. This time there was no rifle visible, but that didn’t mean the hunter was unarmed.

“Geez kid, chill.” The hunter held up his hands in a dismissive manner. Dipper considered pointing out that this was  entirely unreasonable to ask of someone whose first impression of you involved a gun, but thought better of it.

“Look,” he said, willing his voice to remain steady. “I’m just looking for something I dropped last time. I don’t want any trouble.”

The hunter raised a blonde eyebrow, visible against appealing warm cocoa skin that was way too flawless-

Dipper groaned inwardly. Damned hormones.

“You mean this?” The familiar brown book shimmered into existence in the hunter’s hands; Dipper’s heart stopped for a fraction of a second. “I figured you’d come back for it. It looks valuable.”

It is. Masking his desperation was a real challenge, and Dipper hesitated for a moment before answering. “It’s just an old book. Really.”

“A book worth walking into a wolf’s den?” The hunter quipped.

“Are you the wolf?” Dipper asked, before his brain caught up with his mouth and reminded him that flirting with a guy that may or may not have designs on killing him was probably a bad idea.

A brief flash of fang, and a predatory gleam in those golden eyes. “Maybe.”

The rational decision would have been to cut his losses and put as much distance between this man and himself as possible, but the time for rational decisions was long gone. Dipper stood transfixed by both awe and fear as the man approached him, continuing to hold his gaze until they were almost touching. He held his breath, listening to the sound of his own erratic heartbeat. As before, the woods had gone silent in anticipation.

“I’ll give it back to you, but I want something in return.”

Dipper didn’t like the sound of that; nor the implication that he was desperate (although he was, if he was honest with himself). However, it was becoming more and more difficult to think straight with the deer part of himself ordering him to run and the human part fixated on things that it really shouldn’t be.

“I don’t have anything you’d want,” he stammered, attempting to take a step back - and bumping into the tree trunk keeping him trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Hard place. Oh my god. Don’t.

The hunter seemed as aware of his inner turmoil as Dipper was, and the cervitaur outright failed to suppress the shiver of delight as fingertips slid along the incline of his jaw, cool to the touch but leaving him feeling feverish all at once. “You have no idea what I want, kid,” the hunter whispered, reaching up to touch his budding antlers. He instinctively tried to flinch away, gasping as the hand on his left antler tightened its grip. “Hold still.”

Dipper held still, holding his breath. If these were his last moments it was entirely his fault.

Death didn’t come. Instead the hunter simply regarded him carefully, scrutinizing every inch of his features, stroking his ears almost fondly, rendering him light-headed, nearly in a trance. The woods and grass beneath his hooves faded, leaving nothing but himself and the hunter and those eyes the hue of freshly minted gold boring holes into him. 

“I was right, the other day,” the hunter muttered, more to himself than Dipper. “You’re stunning.”

A denial was on the tip of his tongue, but Dipper swallowed it. Protesting would have taken more effort than he was capable of expending. What did slip from between his lips was something between a whine and a soft whimper of need. He felt himself leaning into the hunter’s touch - then almost toppling over as the man withdrew, taking whatever spell he’d cast with him.

“Here you go!” The man produced the journal from wherever he’d hidden it and handed it over cheerfully. Dipper accepted the book with trembling hands, too addled to voice his appreciation. 

“Now run along home. It’s getting dark, and the monsters come out at night.”

Dipper ducked his head in a poor attempt to hide his obviously flushed face. “Do you?”

He heard the hunter chuckle; it was a dark sound full of promises that were both terror-inducing yet alluring. “Wanna find out?”

He ran again. This time it was very, very difficult to avoid looking back, and when he reached the Shack he sequestered himself in his room with the door locked for entirely different reasons other than anxiety.

This time he forced himself to wait for an entire week. 

It was certainly a trial doing so. He spent most of the following few days stumbling around like a fawn, still feeling the aftereffects of the so-called spell woven with soft touches and praise. No one had ever called him ‘beautiful’ before, nor looked at him as if the words weren’t an empty compliment. It was intoxicating to feel wanted, and he found himself dreaming about those golden eyes and the voice with its faint ethereal echo ordering him to hold still, don’t run.

At one point he toppled into the lake while visiting Mabel, who had a good laugh at his expense. She seemed to just know that someone had turned his head, and she passed the rest of the afternoon poking fun at him over it. Dipper didn’t indulge her with any information. He didn’t even know the man’s name, and the fact that he considered himself the wolf in their dichotomy was troubling. Trouble was the last thing he needed.

This resolve lasted until the end of the week, and then he rushed out of the house leaving the journal behind, heading into the woods with a single destination in mind. 

As before, the clearing was deserted, and birdsong rang out from within the trees all around him. The grass was undisturbed, as if nothing had tread upon that ground since he’d departed. Unlike before, a few minutes of waiting with his back turned produced no results, no sudden appearances of any nature. 

He seated himself near the tree he was becoming rather familiar with, feeling the rough bark dig into his side and trying to hold back tears for reasons he didn’t understand. Of course the hunter wouldn’t be there. The last time he had an actual reason, and several days had gone by. Perhaps it was for the best.

A few stray tears broke away, coursing along his cheek and clinging to his chin before disappearing in the grass. 

“Lose something again?”

Dipper lifted his head, wiping at his face with the hem of his shirt. “Yeah, I think so.”

The hunter knelt before him, still managing to be above eye level. “And what might that be?”

“My sense of self-preservation.“ 

The hunter grinned at the statement. "Careful, kid. I bite.”

“I kn…” The words dug their heels in, and his rational self skidded to a screeching halt at the sensation of those fingertips pressed against his lips. 

“I bite pretty hard,” the hunter added. “You might not like it.”

“I…” Talking was such a hassle. 

“Yes?”

“I don’t…”

“Now’s your last chance to run.”

“I…don’t…want to,” Dipper finally managed, throwing logic out the window. 

The hunter raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Before he could respond in the affirmative Dipper found his back pressed against the tree, with the hunter invading his personal space - one hand on either side of his head, trapping him there with nowhere to move but into his embrace. “Is this what you want?” The eyes glittered. So did the fangs. “Are you offering yourself to the wolf? I’ll eat you up, kid. From head to toe. Every inch.”

“Yes,” Dipper breathed. “Please, I don’t care, I just want…”

“Tell me what you want.”

Dipper squeezed his eyes shut, mentally willing the embarrassment to fade. “You…said I was beautiful?”

“You are.” The hunter…no, the wolf licked his lips, hungrily. “I didn’t lie. Not this time.”

“Can you say it again?”

The wolf leaned forward, lips almost pressed against the cervitaur’s ear as he spoke. “You’re beautiful. One of a kind. A rarity. Special. Unique.” With every single word Dipper’s heart fluttered in his chest; he could barely breathe now without outright panting. “Shall I go on?”

Dipper shook his head. “Can you…?”

“You’ve gotta speak up, kid. I can’t read minds. Today’s an off day.”

Dipper filed that statement away for later. For now, nothing mattered except the snare he was willing walking into. “Kiss me.”

Warm lips captured his own, teeth nipping lightly at his bottom lip and a tongue slipping between them to flicker against his own. It wasn’t his first kiss, but it was definitely the first time he felt like fainting. The wolf drew back, their lips connected by a thread of saliva that hung in the air before breaking. “Like this?”

“Mhm,” because talking was now entirely out of the question. The wolf kissed him again, nipping hard this time and drawing a muffled moan from his prey. 

“Told you I bite,” the wolf reminded him, then shook his head at the sight of the cervitaur glaring at him, pupils blown wide with lust. 

“I don’t care,” Dipper said again, almost to the point of drooling; the wolf placed a hand against his chest and pushed him back against the tree as he tried to move forward to initiate the kiss. 

“Not so fast, kid. I’m the one eating you, remember?” The wolf leered at him, red tongue that was just little too long to be fully human running over his lips again. 

“…I think I need a reminder.”

The wolf was happy to oblige. 

Chapter Text

In retrospect, he really should have killed the little shit when he had the chance. Blown his brains out, put a bullet right between those pretty chocolate brown eyes and hacked his antlers off as a hunting trophy.  Stripped off that beautiful hide, sliced up the tender flesh beneath, tasted him in a far less euphemistic way than the eventuality. Humans didn’t seem particularly appetizing, but the kid wasn’t really human anymore and most self-respecting demons didn’t practice consistency anyway.

Too bad he’d gotten attached to him years ago, long before the extra set of legs and the tail and the antlers. He was endearing in his boundless curiosity when he was younger, just intelligent and witty enough to hold the demon’s attention; five to six years down the line after watching him grow from a frightened fawn to an often apprehensive young buck he was downright captivating, from his healthy, shiny coat to the sweet little tail that shot up in alarm oh so often and the clear complexion and the soft brown locks of hair obscuring the constellation tattooed into his skin as a birthright and the same intelligence and talent for repartee.  

Killing Pine Tree had never been an option, if Bill was honest with himself. He was doomed from the start.

The realization only served to increase the frustration being channeled into an utterly satisfying dalliance in the heart of the woods, fucking the kid absolutely senseless against a tree while reveling in the array oflovely whimpers and moans and unintelligible babbling noises he was managing to draw out of him.

Ever since the progression of their relationship from antagonism to feverish seduction to whatever the hell it was now Dipper had grown quite a bit bolder, consenting to a variety of creative additions to their trysts and often indulging some of the demon’s less conventional proclivities. The hilarity of pain didn’t negate how arousing it could be. Today Pine Tree hugged the tree with his wrists bound in a set of electric blue handcuffs magicked up for the occasion, keeping him pinned in place between the rough bark of the trunk and the cock thrusting into him at a pace that had rapidly grown from rhythmic to frenetic. Bill clutched at his antlers (he was grateful that they’d been shed already and were now growing anew, because nothing killed a boner quite like snapping one of your lover’s antlers off during sex), allowing him to bury himself to the hilt in the cervitaur’s delectable rear with the soft white plume of his tail brushing against his stomach.

“Fuck, kid. Fuck.” It wasn’t very eloquent, but he was too far gone for that, spurred into a nearly mindless frenzy by just how loud Pine Tree could be when there was no risk of discovery. “Maybe…maybe I won’t let you go home this time. I’ll keep you with me so I can have you all the time. I’ll chain you to the wall so you can never leave. Mine, mine, mine.” He punctuated each term of possession with an especially deep thrust that clearly drove the kid wild, screeching his name three times in succession.

“I…I…” Dipper attempted to speak actual words and failed miserably, glancing over his shoulder so the demon could get a good look at his flushed face, lips and just a little swollen from earlier, tongue hanging out in a wanton display of pleasure. “I can’t…”

“Maybe I don’t give a shit, Pine Tree,” Bill snarled, pausing within him and holding him there, impaled on his cock and completely at his mercy. “Maybe what you want doesn’t matter. You’re mine, not the other way around.”

Those eyes locked with his, full of a level of trust that few others were privy to, and something that may or may not have been love; Bill really couldn’t tell. What did demons know about love, anyway?

He could drag Dipper off, away from his insipid family and friends, loop a collar around his neck and keep his Pine Tree all for himself, all of his devotion and everything that encompassed him. All his.

But Dipper wouldn’t be happy without his sister and his foolish old coot of a grand uncle and his idiot friends and his freedom, and for some reason that he refused to acknowledge Bill actually did give a shit about that. And he hated it.

With a groan of frustration he let go of the cervitaur’s antlers, reaching for the erection beneath his undercarriage and gripping it just tightly enough to make the kid writhe against him. “I should have killed you a long time ago, Pine Tree.”

“Yeah,” Dipper rasped, smirking at him. "You really fucked that one up.”

Bill’s response was to shut the snide little bastard up by resuming plunging into him while jerking him off with rapid strokes aided by the precum oozing from his slit. The kid must have already been at the brink, letting out an actual scream of rapture almost immediately, seed spilling over the demon’s glove. The sound pushed him over the edge as well, hissing the kid’s given name upon release.

The handcuffs dissolved, letting the completely spent cervitaur slump against the tree trunk. The demon slid out of him shakily, dropping to the ground beside Dipper and pulling him close. Close enough to break his neck with one swift motion or kiss him.

He opted for the latter.

“I really wish I could hate you, kid.”

But I can’t.

Chapter Text

Speaking with the parents of her young charges was never a fun experience for Maggie Keane. There was a marked difference in pleasant conversation and well-intended but often poorly received criticism, and while she adored the former several unpleasant run-ins with the worst kind of helicopter parents had gradually instilled an aversion to the latter. Still, it was a necessary evil, and it was this stance that she took while awaiting the arrival of Torrey C. Pines’ father that afternoon. 

The five year old in question was in the process of building a rather complicated pyramid out of a set of weathered wooden blocks by herself when she perked up, vivid hazel eyes fixed on the door (sometimes Maggie would’ve sworn they were actually the color of newly minted gold, when the little girl fixed her intense gaze on her teacher and held it for a few seconds longer than was normal for a child her age). 

Less than a minute later the door creaked open to admit a man that couldn’t be older than his late twenties; the same chestnut brown hair and similar facial features save for Torrey’s darker skintone denoted him as the child’s father. 

Torrey stood up and flew across the room, leaping into his arms with a shout of joy. “Daddy!” Torrey’s father swept her up into a tight embrace, and Maggie looked on for a moment, smiling at the warm display before approaching them. 

“Excuse me? Mr. Pines, is it?” The man grabbed at the worn blue and white cap emblazoned with what appeared to be a pine tree as his daughter clambered up onto his shoulders nimbly. “Just Dipper is fine, Ms…” 

“Keane,” Maggie responded automatically. “Feel free to use Maggie. You’re a few years too old to be one of my students.” 

Torrey’s father (Dipper, she guessed; that was an odd name) chuckled at the joke, and Maggie immediately felt more at ease. “Can I speak with you for a moment, Dipper?” 

“Sure.” He plucked Torrey off of his back, depositing the child on the floor. “Go get your backpack while I talk to Ms. Keane, Torrey.” Torrey looked up at Maggie for what was likely a few seconds but seemed longer, with those golden eyes scrutinizing her in a way that didn’t seem entirely human. Then she ran off, with her mass of curls bouncing behind her. Maggie watched her go, somewhat uneasily. It was probably just her imagination working overtime. Speaking of which… 

She liked to preface ‘speaking’ with a parent with a reminder of their child’s positive attributes. “Torrey is really quite advanced for her age, Mr. P…Dipper. She already reads and writes at two grade levels above this.” 

The news didn’t appear to surprise Dipper. “Oh. Yeah…we do a lot of work with her at home.” 

“You and your…” Maggie racked her brain for any memories of seeing the other member of Torrey’s parentage. She recalled the first day of kindergarten, when the little girl had arrived in the arms of a slightly taller man with the same skintone, clinging to her as if unwilling to let her go. She also remembered Torrey’s father - Dipper, steering him out after handing the little girl over, chiding him for some comment that sounded suspiciously like “inferior tiny meatbags”. “Husband?” 

Dipper looked off into the distance, scratching his head with what looked like embarrassment, but the soft smile on his lips said otherwise. “Pretty much. I’m kinda stuck with him at this point.” 

Maggie chuckled herself. “I understand entirely. And I must say I’m impressed with your efforts.” 

“There’s a ‘but’ here, right?” Maggie nodded, retrieving a sheet of drawing paper from the desk beside her. “I fully encourage the use of my students’ imaginations, but in a…well, more appropriate setting. You see, the assignment in art class today was to draw a picture of her parents…” 

Dipper took a look at the paper, then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, I see.” 

Torrey had not followed instructions. Her drawing consisted of nicely rendered trees and what might have been a cabin of sorts. In front of the cabin stood a pretty well-done depiction of the man standing in front of Maggie, replete with the baseball cap. Beside him was a vivid yellow triangle with what appeared to be thin black arms and legs, holding hands with her father. 

“She insisted that this is what her Dad really looked like, even when I asked her to redraw it,” Maggie continued. “I appreciate artistic license, Dipper, but I would prefer it if Torrey followed instructions in the future. That said…she’s a good artist.” 

“It runs in the family,” Torrey’s father muttered. At this point Torrey returned, with her rainbow knit backpack in tow. 

“Can we go see Dad now?” She reached for the sheet of paper, and Maggie handed it over. “I made you and Dad! See?” 

Dipper picked up his daughter again, careful to avoid wrinkling her masterpiece. “Don’t worry, Ms. Keane. Maggie. Sorry. We’ll have a talk with her tonight.” 

Maggie smiled gratefully, glad to have avoided another unreasonable, confrontational parent. “Thank you, Dipper.” She turned her attention to the child in his arms. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Torrey.” 

“Bye, Ms. Keane!” Torrey chirped, cheerfully, and Maggie decided that the dark look from before had definitely been in her head. Torrey shifted, her forehead brushing against her father’s forearm and sweeping her bangs to the side…long enough for Maggie to notice the small dark triangle just below her hairline. It looked natural, not the result of the little girl finding a Sharpie, a mirror and a few minutes out of sight. More like a birthmark. 

And then Torrey and her father were out the door, with the former chattering about her day excitedly. 

Maggie stood there for a moment, trying to process what she’d just seen. It had to be a coincidence, right? 

…of course it was. What else could it be?

Still, from that day forward, she didn’t object to Torrey’s fixation with drawing triangles during art class.

Chapter Text

The transition from baby to toddler was pretty abrupt - and likely exacerbated by the fact that Torrey wasn’t fully human. This became even more apparent when she managed to levitate before actually walking, skipping out on the crawling period altogether.

Dipper wasn’t sure exactly when she’d picked up the ability (and whether she did so on her own without her other parent’s assistance), but one afternoon he set her in her crib for a nap only to watch his daughter rise into the air somewhat clumsily, barely missing the planet mobile in her ascent. As she did so Torrey stared at him with the vivid golden eyes and pupils elongated into slits that indicated her demonic heritage. If she wasn’t a little over a year old Dipper could’ve sworn she was smirking at him.

…no, that was definitely a smirk.

After several years of living with his significant other’s bullshit Torrey following suit didn’t faze him nearly as much as it would have otherwise. “Bill!”

It must have been a low energy day, given that the demon arrived on the scene in his original form, looking distinctly put out at being disturbed. “What?”

Dipper pointed to the baby floating in midair. “That. That’s your deal, man.”

Bill shrugged. “I don’t see what the problem is. Is she on fire?”

“She’s levitating, Bill. She doesn’t even know how to walk yet.”

“But she isn’t on fire?”

“No,” Dipper responded with an admirable amount of restraint. “No, our child is not on fire. Is that a potential concern? Is she going to catch on fire? Is that a thing we have to worry about?”

“How should I know? I’ve never done this before.”

Torrey glanced from one parent to the other, giggling. It appeared to herald the limits of her energy as well; the baby’s eyes flickered for a moment before returning to normal, and before Dipper could move to catch her Bill materialized beneath her, plucking the squirming baby out of the air with a clear expression of pride on his face. “Did Daddy’s little hellspawn have fun freaking out Pine Tree?”

As usual, Torrey didn’t seem to care what form he was in. She proceeded to babble a stream of what might have been jumbled, incomprehensible English or something more primal that Dipper had no knowledge of, pressing her tiny hands against his face (ever careful to avoid the single eye at the center).

“Don’t encourage her,” Dipper muttered, rearranging the nest of knit blankets and retrieving Torrey. The baby yawned, apparently tired out from exertion, and made no protest as he tucked her in. “We need to have some kind of ‘no levitation during naptime’ rule or something.” Torrey watched him sleepily as her father ran his fingers through her mess of soft curls.

“Good luck enforcing that one.” The demon floated over to him, shimmering for a few seconds while shifting back to human guise. “You should have seen me at that age. Wait until she figures out how to slip into your Dreamscape.”

“NO,” Dipper said firmly, shuddering at the thought of their infant daughter gallivanting around in his head. Hopefully that was years down the line when it was easier to teach her that Dad’s Dreamscape was off-limits. “And what about you? You’re not exempt from this.”

“Come on, Pine Tree, you know I don’t dream.” Torrey sighed in her sleep, and instead of having to tiptoe out of the room Bill merely teleported Dipper and himself out into the hallway, gently shutting the door behind them.

“Oh really?” Dipper rolled his eyes, preparing himself for yet another reminder of the demon’s attributes.

He was caught offguard when Bill swept him into a tight embrace. “I mean I probably could. But why bother dreaming when I’m already living it?”

Dipper flushed. “Okay, that was cheating.”

The demon’s fangs gleamed as he moved in for the kill, grinning. “I’m a demon, kid. That’s how we roll.”

Chapter Text

After having spent several summers at the Mystery Shack before moving into it permanently, Dipper discovered that one of the benefits of living out in the woods was the almost complete absence of solicitors. Apparently most door to door salesmen weren’t brave enough to venture outside the town proper to show off household appliances and knives; the latter was a blessing given that the one time some poor soul bothered making the journey out to the Shack with knives Bill just happened to answer the door and purchased all of them. No one needed 50 steak knives, no matter how fancy they were. 

The only downside was that their location precluded nearly all door-to-door activity, including the one necessary evil needed to satisfy one of his few food cravings. 

It was an utter travesty that Girl Scout cookies couldn’t be ordered online. 

It was for this reason that Dipper made a point of stocking up whenever he got the chance, often bringing home multiple boxes of Thin Mints and stacking them up neatly in the freezer, fixing both Stan and Bill with a glare that promised painful retaliation if they even looked at his stash for too long. Of course neither of them paid attention to his threats, and the supply dwindled whenever his back was turned. His two housemates were rather diligent about their crimes and feigned innocence, but Dipper suspected that Bill was the culprit more often than not due to his notorious love of sweets in general – but especially chocolate.

This suspicion was validated one afternoon when he walked into the kitchen to grab a cookie and found his stupid demon boyfriend sitting on the floor with his back against the fridge, holding his stomach and making pathetic noises that would have been troubling if he wasn’t surrounded by four empty Thin Mint boxes. 

Son of a bitch.

“I knew it was you,” Dipper sighed, walking over to get a better look at the wreckage. Not only were the remaining boxes of Thin Mints completely empty, but it seemed as if Bill had forgotten how to properly open boxes and just torn them open in the most savage manner possible. “Great.”

The clearly nauseated demon glanced up at him without a trace of guilt on his face. “The only way…to deal with temptation…is to give in to it, kid.” The words were spoken in the halting manner of someone in pain. Dipper didn’t feel a shred of sympathy for him. Greedy jerk. 

“There’s giving in to temptation, and then there’s eating four entire boxes of cookies. My cookies,” he added. “The cookies that you knew I didn’t want you to eat.”

“Shut up!” Bill snapped, unpleasantly, and he looked so miserable that Dipper had to suppress a chuckle. Apparently he did have a weakness after all: frozen Thin Mints. 

“After you, man,” Dipper retorted, kicking aside a box and sitting down next to him. He allowed Bill to rest his head on his shoulder without flinching away; the deeply satisfying sense of schadenfreude from seeing the demon getting exactly what he deserved did a good job of alleviating most of his irritation. 

“You meatbags and your inconvenient, stupid bodies,” Bill groused, scooting closer to him. 

“Don’t blame me. Most people understand that you’re not supposed to eat four boxes of cookies in one go. There’s only so much space in your stomach.”

“That’s the inconvenient part.” Blonde hair brushed against Dipper’s cheek as the demon tilted his head back slightly to stare at him. There was genuine unhappiness there, so overwhelmingly human that Dipper stopped being mad altogether. “Shouldn’t an internal organ meant for holding food be capable of actually holding food?”

“Infinitely? Dude, that’s physically impossible. That’s what self-restraint is for.”

“I am not familiar with that concept,” Bill replied, and he did so which such sincerity that Dipper had to laugh. “Stop laughing at me, Pine Tree. I am an all powerful…” His body chose that moment to remind him that for the moment he wasn’t a being of pure energy, and his hand flew up over his mouth for a few worrying seconds. Once the moment passed he resumed holding his stomach. “I’ll set you on fire,” he muttered darkly.

“You’d have to be able to sit up to do that,” Dipper pointed out, shaking his head. “Here.”

He moved a few inches to the side, gently guiding the demon’s head onto his lap and carding his fingers through his hair with one hand and running the other over his stomach in a circular motion. “It’s just a stomach ache. You aren’t going to die. Also stop eating my damn cookies." 

Bill murmured something that may have been a particularly vulgar response to that statement, but he snuggled against him anyway and graciously accepted the display of affection. He fell silent save for the occasional soft expression of discomfort, and after a couple of minutes he spoke again, just loudly enough for Dipper to hear him. ”…I’d never set you on fire, Pine Tree.“

"Yeah, I know.”

Chapter Text

“We need to have a talk.”

Whereas this particularly ambiguous conversation starter would usually evoke at least a hint of anxiety in the recipient (at least it did for Dipper himself), his stupid demon husband simply glanced over at him with disinterest before turning his attention back to the book precariously floating several inches above his head. “Whatever it is, I did it and feel no remorse over doing so.”

“Oh, I know.” Dipper crossed the room, plucking the book out of midair and setting it on the nightstand before continuing. “You’re literally the only person that could possibly be responsible for teaching our child demonic incantations, and I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

Instead of grousing over being interrupted, Bill sat up, seemingly excited over the announcement. “Wait, she actually succeeded?”

No remorse whatsoever. Dipper shook his head. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

The demon leaned forward, eye glittering mischievously. “Which one?”

“There’s more than one?”

Bill shrugged. “I’ve been doing this for the past five months, Pine Tree. It’s not like I’ve been subtle about it either. What did you think all the songs were?”

“I thought those were just lullabies!” Weird demon lullabies delivered in a tongue he could barely mimic much less interpret, but lullabies all the same. It had seemed like a safe assumption at the time - and the sight of Bill singing to a cooing baby with the odd ethereal lilt to his voice that had once been unnerving, completely devoid of self-consciousness was distracting enough on its own that the thought of an ulterior motive never even crossed Dipper’s mind.

“They were! They just happened to also contain instructions detailing the fine art of incinerating her enemies.”

Dipper sighed. “Dude, she’s one. She doesn’t have any enemies.”

“Not yet,” Bill replied, far too cheerfully.

Dipper gave up. No amount of parenting guides could’ve prepared him for a child that levitated herself before learning to walk and now lay in her crib laughing at the handful of stuffed animals that cavorted around her of their own volition. He sat down next to Bill, flopping onto his back with a huff. “Okay. Okay. Can you just…I don’t know how to have this conversation.”

“It’s part of her heritage, Pine Tree.” A weight settled onto his midsection, followed by a golden eye moving into his line of sight and meeting his gaze. “She’d figure it out on her own eventually anyway.”

“Yeah, I know.” His momentary frustration began to fade away as swiftly as it had arisen. After this long it really was hard to stay mad at Bill for simply being himself. He’d fully understood what he’d been getting into by both dating and then marrying an occasionally destructive and possibly homicidal (if laying waste to other monstrous forces in the woods counted as homicide) dream demon, so there wasn’t much of a point to becoming too irate by the inevitable culture clashes that rose from time to time. “I just don’t want her to get hurt. She’s still partially human.”

“Of course!” A hand brushed the tuft of hair covering his birthmark aside, idly tracing the chain of stars with a fingernail that tickled in the most pleasant way as it skimmed the surface of his skin. “That’s why I’m teaching her to defend herself for when we aren’t there to do it ourselves.”

This was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh.”

Bill groaned, sitting upright and staring down at him as if he was a moron. “Did you think I was teaching a toddler how to set things on fire for the hell of it?”

“Yes.” Dipper grinned, sheepishly. “Can you really blame me?”

“You worry entirely too much.” Bill stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “So which one was it? The incineration charm should just be a basic defensive reflex.”

Upon returning to Torrey’s room with Bill in tow, he was greeted by the sight of Torrey sitting on the floor, having escaped her crib. The stuffed animals (mostly knit toys courtesy of Mabel) were now joined by a handful of their peers, ringing the toddler while dancing, some solo and a few with each other. Torrey observed her handiwork with glee, babbling at them incoherently - at least Dipper hoped it was the simple nonsense of an infant working its way towards actual speech instead of some language removed from his comprehension.

“I didn’t teach her that one,” Bill commented, looking on in awe.

Dipper raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t?”

“Nope.” A luminous smile lit up the demon’s face.

Dipper paused for a minute, attempting to process this revelation. “So she just taught herself to animate inanimate objects.”

“That appears to be the case.”

“…that’s actually pretty awesome,” Dipper admitted, albeit a bit grudgingly. “I mean, finding a preschool is going to really suck, but still.”

He watched with a familiar confusing mixture of pride and affection (with just a hint of apprehension) as Bill left his side, manuevering around the discarded toys scattered along the floor. “Did Daddy’s little force of destruction master a new spell on her own?”

Torrey’s eyes lit up at his approach; the ring of animated toys fell limp when she shakily levitated herself into her father’s arms, snuggling into them with a series of soft, sweet baby noises.

Life was decidedly weird, and it only stood to spiral even further down that path as Torrey got older and the three of them faced whatever challenges might arise from raising a half-dream demon child in woods infested with any number of supernatural and paranormal creatures and occurrences. But Dipper wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

Chapter Text

Relatively unique origins and handful of racial attributes aside, Torrey Cipher-Pines was a normal infant, with all that entailed.

Being half-dream demon didn’t exclude the two month old from being a bundle of tears, poop, and other gross human things that Bill still wasn’t used to. He cringed every time she spit up on him, shrank back from the utterly horrid task of changing diapers (easily handled through magical means but he could only get away with it when Dipper wasn’t around), and once her other parent had returned from an errand to find both his spouse and their child freaking out at the same time over Torrey having emptied the contents of a souur stomach in Bill’s lap.

The experience had driven the demon back to floating around in his original form for a day and a half.

In the end, a sort of agreement arose between Dipper and himself; the former took care of most of the yuck when they both were around, and the latter dealt with her when she woke up in the middle of the night demanding attention.

This worked for Bill anyway, given that he required far less sleep and spent part of the predawn hours attending to his own business - settling down hadn’t put an end to what Dipper referred to as ‘creepy demon stuff’. Having to check on Torrey was no big deal; she generally only wanted to be picked up and cuddled for awhile before drifting back off to sleep.

And if she happened to need a diaper change what Dipper didn’t know couldn’t hurt Bill, now could it?

Tonight Torrey appeared to be legitimately upset, eyes squeezed shut, fists balled up and chubby legs kicking while she actually screamed.

“Chill out, babe,” Bill cooed in a ridiculously sappy tone reserved for Torrey alone. She didn’t care about his reputation or even acknowledge the shadowy bits of himself simmering beneath the human veneer that Dipper simply accepted as a necessary part of the whole. To the tiny infant he now levitated into his arms he was simply 'Dad’. It was a nice break, honestly.

She normally calmed down the moment someone picked her up, but this time she continued to wail; her face was visibly flushed despite her tan complexion. To anyone else the source of her discomfort might not have been as obvious, but to Bill it stood out clearly as the chime of a bell.

One of the aforementioned racial traits was an increased sensitivity when it came to dreams; the demon suspected that she might have picked up some of his memories as well. Most babies didn’t actually experience nightmares for some time - Dipper had told him that at some point. But from time to time the peaceful mass of colors and abstract images that comprised his daughter’s dreams were marred by formless cacophony and the bright gleam of fire, the electric blue of the flames that laced around his fingertips when he gave some poor sap what they wanted in exchange for something he wanted..

And yet those warm brown eyes that stared at him with more intelligence than an infant her age should have possessed they held no judgment. Maybe that would fade one day when she got older, but for now the rudimentary devotion was always wonderful to behold.

“No bad dreams on my watch, kid. I got this.” What kind of self-respecting dream demon would let his own tiny flesh creature havenightmares? Those were for other people.

Manipulating the formless dreams of a baby was a bit of a contradiction in that it required less effort overall, but that effort was more precise and complicated. Torrey didn’t dream in discernible images, not yet. There were sometimes clusters of color that resembled his face or Dipper’s face, sounds that were clearly their voices. Her dreams resembled a soft, sweet symphony - now tainted with dark threads woven into the music and distorting it.

Torrey stilled in his arms and grew quiet, eyes slipping shut as he worked - plucking the intruding threads, shading over the dark patches with pastel splotches that were rapidly absorbed into the mass. Some were considerably harder to grasp, but he kept at it with a dedication retained for Dipper and Torrey. Finally he tugged the last thread free, and the symphony resumed, now with a note that he recognized as gratitude.

The baby opened her eyes slowly, blonde eyelashes wet with tears. Instead of resuming her distressed crying, she made a couple of nonsensical babbling noises…and smiled for the very first time, a genuine one.

Bill grinned proudly, holding Torrey close; she sighed happily and relaxed, continuing to murmur to herself. 

He filed the image of their daughter’s first smile away so he could slip it into Dipper’s dreams later that night.

Chapter Text

A lot of things had changed over the past few years for Pacifica Northwest. She’d done many things she never expected herself to do before that summer. They included falling out with her parents more than once, getting grounded for the first time in her entire life, and kissing a girl she’d hated at first behind a row of immaculately manicured rosebushes in the garden after storming out of her own birthday party. 

She could now add ‘allowing Mabel to braid her hair’ to the list. 

Her parents would be furious when they found out she was spending time with at ‘that dilapidated hovel’, but sometimes the Mystery Shack felt like home more than the mansion did. Mabel was there, and Dipper (who was a dork but it worked for him) was there, and no masks or pretension were needed or employed. She could actually breathe. 

“Ow!” A particularly sharp tug made her flinch, ducking out of her girlfriend’s reach for a moment. “That’s attached to my head, Mabel.”

Mabel grabbed her shoulders and gently tilted her backwards so she could stare down at Pacifica, grinning. “Don’t worry! You can strand to lose a little.”

The pun was almost physically painful, but Pacifica couldn’t hold back a smile as she righted herself and allowed Mabel to resume. “That was probably the worst one.”

“Yeah, I’m honestly regretting it a little.“ 

She noticeably slowed down and made a point of being much more gentle with the comb, and Pacifica was grateful for that. She wasn’t used to having her hair done up in anything more than whatever fashionable style her mother felt she should wear or in the long blonde sheet intended to show off its length and shine. Thinking about how horrified her mother would be when she returned with sparkly ribbons braided into her hair made her shudder inwardly, but the feeling of Mabel’s hands in her hair and close proximity chased her anxiety away for awhile.

Mabel hummed to herself while she worked, occasionally singing a few words of two of a cheery tune that Pacifica could remember having heard on the radio a few times when riding with the Pines’ or hanging out with Mabel in her room reading teen magazines with Mabel gushing over boy bands and Pacifica scrutinizing all of the clothing on display. 

You’ll never know if you don’t go; you’ll never shine if you don’t glow.

Her parents weren’t happy when they found out about her relationship with Mabel, nor the amount of time she’d been spending with so-called social rejects. A girl with bushy brown hair and braces and tacky sweaters didn’t fit into any part of the perfect tableau they had planned for their daughter, finishing schools and socialite balls and young men that seemed more interested in her trust fund than what her favorite color was. There was a structure to their world, inlaid with platinum and frosted with diamond dust and gold flakes. 

For Pacifica it now felt like a gilded cage.

And all that glitters is gold; only shooting stars break the mold.

She’d spent a long time behind those bars, content to follow in the footsteps of a family whose misdeeds spanned generations - something she hadn’t realized until that fateful day when she found the hidden room. And even then it seemed impossible to break free of the fetters formed by expectations and affluence. 

And then there was Mabel Pines, offering her a hand and leading her down a path she’d never imagined. 

Pacifica didn’t ever want to go back.

She leaned back against her dorky, all-too-often lame, caring, creative, and (although she’d never actually used the word in person; it was something that came to her on nights when she slept over and woke up the next morning to see a groggy, half-asleep Mabel staring blankly at the wall while her brain rebooted itself) radiant girlfriend, and decided that she didn’t give a damn what her mother thought about Mabel’s handiwork. No matter how the result looked she’d wear it with pride. 

All that glitters is gold; only shooting stars break the mold.

Chapter Text

The silver disc of the full moon hung heavy in the sky, reflected upon the surface of the lake as if it were a mirror. The fireflies of late summer had faded away for the year at the arrival of the light chill that made Dipper scoot closer to the teenager at his side, seeking out his warmth for what would be the last time for several months. Dreams were nice, but at sixteen he wanted the real thing.

“I wish you could come with me,” he sighed, not for the first time that night.

“Trust me, kid, that’s the last thing you want.” Bill chuckled; the sound wasn’t particularly pleasant. “I don’t play well with others, remember? Present company excluded.”

Dipper didn’t dispute that. A vision of the blond teen storming along the hallways of the high school he and Mabel attended back at home in a rush of blue flame and fury popped into his head, and although the image was quite satisfying he had a feeling Bill going to jail might put a dent in their relationship. Still…he could barely fathom the thought of being lonely for another school year. As a geeky kid with a weird birthmark that talked to himself from time to time, hunted supernatural phenomena and chased ghosts he didn’t have much in the way of friends beyond a few acquaintances that he was on vaguely friendly terms with.

The months between the end of August and the first few weeks of May felt as if he descended into a heavy fog, shuffling numbly on heels carved of stone from one required activity to the other with gravity weighting him down. It wasn’t until he boarded the bus leading Mabel and himself back to what he now truly thought of as home that his heart began to beat at full speed once more.

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to miss you, though. As always. I can’t wait until I’m out of there.” He laid his head on the demon’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He could already feel the shadows creeping in.

“Me too, Pine Tree.” As Dipper dozed off beside him, Bill turned his attention from the lake to the plume of soft hair brushing against his neck. The pale light fell over the boy’s features, accentuating how beautiful they were - including the constellation tattooed just below his hairline. The all-too-familiar urge fluttered in the demon’s chest - to steal him away and keep him trapped in the woods, to carve a seal into his skin preventing him from stepping foot beyond the treeline, to keephis Pine Tree from leaving for once.

It faded almost as quickly as it had come.

Just the thought of doing anything to dim the light that shone in Dipper’s eyes turned his stomach. Perhaps it was pathetic to have fallen so hard for a human, but how he could he not? The kid somehow failed to notice how brightly he shone amongst the mundane, typically only aware of his exterior and the imperfections that scored it, but the glow from within illuminated the world around him and infused the demon’s existence with actual meaning. If only he could show the human who’d managed to defeat him without lifting a finger or voicing a single spell just how much he meant to him.

If only Dipper Pines knew that to Bill Cipher, he was the moon.

Chapter Text

It took awhile for the newcomer to grow on him, but after a couple of weeks of antagonism and what their human referred to as ‘cat drama’ Dipper and the one-eyed stray that just invaded his territory without warning or apology came to something of a truce.

Prior to that his interactions with Bill mostly involved him staying the hell away from the other cat, because Bill was really creepy, and there were times when Dipper caught him leering at him from across the room or atop the expensive - looking cat tree (something the blonde girl that visited their human on a regular basis had brought by on one occasion), with that single yellow eye fixed on him in such a knowing manner that Dipper briefly wondered whether he was really a cat at all.

Part of what annoyed him about the stray’s presence was that it meant the time spent with his human was now divided between the two of them. This was unacceptable. He knew it was possessive and probably selfish given that he’d been a stray himself before the girl with the mop of bushy brown hair rescued him from the box haphazardly left on the sidewalk. He could still recall the expression of joy on her face as she got a good look at the pattern of spots on his side and christened him ‘Dipper’ on the spot before taking him home to a wonderful world of bright balls of yarn, lots of kitten-sized pockets of space to explore (that he quickly outgrew) and a warm side to cuddle against. 

Some cats were content enough on their own, and he was one of them. The days spent nosing around the large, somewhat shabby wooden house they lived in or poking around in the thick grass on the lawn or watching her paint or sketch images that seemed vaguely familiar were the best. She wouldn’t let him venture beyond the treeline of the surrounding woods, which was a shame because Dipper just knew they were crawling with interesting creatures and scents and things and sometimes the suspense was almost too much. But it was bearable in the face of everything else.

Then the stray with pitch-colored fur save for the weird golden patch on his forehead showed up on the porch after a heavy spring shower and ruined everything. Maybe not ruined, but things definitely changed.

Unlike Dipper, who now knew that his name had something to do with the brilliant points of light that peppered the night sky, his human’s choice for the new cat seemed pretty arbitrary.

“You look like a…” She’d paused, staring into his single yellow eye for a brief moment before announcing, rather triumphantly, “Bill! You’re definitely a Bill.”

Dipper liked his name better.

Bill was annoyingly affectionate with their human, constantly purring and curling around her legs, and she responded readily to it. Dipper didn’t like being picked up and carried around, and he suspected the only reason Bill consented to it was to see the fur rising along his spine in frustration. The black cat made a point of attempting to approach him, but Dipper resented his presence so much that he greeted every attempt with a hiss. He knew better than to engage Bill in a fight because the other cat was a bit older and for all his sleek fur and slender form he obviously possessed some kind of skill. This was confirmed when Dipper happened to witness him taking down an unlucky rat on the lawn outside, turning to stare at the younger cat with the head in his mouth and mirth in his eye. Because he was slightly older and allowed outside at night (Dipper had yet to figure it out) Bill occasionally slipped into the woods, melting into the shadows cast by the evergreens and not returning until the first rays of dawn tinted the sky. What did he do out there? What did he get to see? Dipper envied his freedom, but not enough to try to accompany him.

Although he was certain that the other cat wouldn’t mind. For all his oddities it seemed as if Bill didn’t really hold any illwill towards him.

It occurred to Dipper that maybe he was being unreasonable. Bill was annoying, and he was definitely creepy, but that didn’t necessarily make him a bad guy.

Finally, one rainy afternoon when their human was away, he decided to let his guard down, even if only slightly. 

He sat curled up on the well-worn chair in the living room, trying to ignore how lonely he felt when she wasn’t around. Even with his own sharp senses, he never managed to hear Bill approaching, and this time was no different - he didn’t realize he was nearby until the black cat leapt up beside him, startling Dipper so badly that he nearly panicked and ran behind the couch. Instead, he held his ground, staring the other cat in the eye with all the bravery he could muster and the tip of his tail flickering in preparation to fight if need be.

It rather quickly became apparent that Bill wasn’t interested in fighting. The black cat simply grinned at him, catching Dipper completely offguard when he leaned forward and nuzzled him beneath the chin. The smaller cat resisted the urge to flinch away from the physical contact, allowing Bill to wrap himself around him, still wearing the same toothy grin, and drape his tail over Dipper’s back. Slowly his tense posture began to soften, and eventually Dipper gave in and curled up next to the black cat, allowing him to run his tongue over the spot between his ears and purring in unison.

When their human returned later that day she was surprised to find both cats fast asleep, cuddling in a warm heap of silky black and soft brown fur.

Chapter Text

Despite the slew of issues that came with having a tenuous (and likely ill-advised) friendship with a one-eyed, potentially homicidal dream demon, Dipper was glad his relationship with Bill had progressed beyond antagonism. 

He was especially grateful for the demon’s presence that night, huddled against a tree trunk holding his injured arm against his chest and straining to catch his breath while Bill faced off against the hulking creature with the face of a slavering mad man, the body of a beast, and a wicked tail that resembled that of a scorpion, oozing with venom. 

To his credit, he hadn’t been trying to stumble upon what just happened to be the territory of a creature that he dimly recognized as a manticore; his journal-driven adventures had led him deep into the woods in search of a nightblooming flower whose stalk could be used to create a poultice with near miraculous healing abilities. Delving into the depths of the woods around the Mystery Shack after sunset was clearly an ill-advised move on his part, but the very curiosity and dedication to uncovering the unknown that rendered him fascinating to Bill tended to lead to making some poor decisions. This, unfortunately, was rapidly becoming one of the worst.

The entry in the journal about the lunawort had failed to mention the presence of such a dangerous paranormal entity, indicating that the manticore was probably a newcomer to those parts - that, or migration from further within the remote area it had to have dwelled in to avoid detection had brought it within the range he could cover on foot. Whatever the case, he’d found himself slamming into the trunk at his back with a sharp pang in his forearm as Bill, now in full human guise with waves of energy radiating from his body and gleaming red eyes, pushed him out of the way seconds before the manticore tore into him then sent a gout of flame into the creature’s chest. The woods trembled beneath the sounds of the two monsters locked in combat, one rending with tapered claws and the other searing its pelt with fire that burned cerulean instead of ocher. 

It wasn’t the first time Bill had arrived on the scene like a triangular knight in shining armor to save him from the consequences of his actions; it happened on a fairly regular basis ever since the confirmation of their friendship, and Dipper had to admit that he’d perhaps become a bit spoiled on the assumption that Bill would always be there to lend a hand when he needed it, even if he declined to actually accompany Dipper on his travels in person. “Always watching” was still creepy but Dipper had come to appreciate the reassurance. This, however, was the first time he’d seen the demon resemble what he claimed to be so closely, a radiant figure rigid with unchecked rage. The sight was terrifying - it made his stomach curl in upon itself and his hands tremble beyond the sensation in his arm; and yet the sight of such a powerful being fighting on his  behalf made his heart rate pick up in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

A swell of energy crashed into the manticore, blackening the fur on the creature’s hide; the manticore let out a mournful howl of agony. As if recognizing that the supposed human in front of him was the superior foe, the beast immediately turned scorpion tail and ran, tearing through the foliage in a frenzy. Bill shouted something that most certainly wasn’t in any language Dipper recognized, some stream of syllables that rang out throughout the woods silencing even the crickets in its wake. 

Dipper took in the sight with an expression of awe on his face, breath hitching in his throat as the demon glanced in his direction with those smouldering red eyes that slowly resumed their golden hue as he powered down and the flames dissipated. The look of rage remained, however, and Dipper couldn’t help but shudder fearfully as the man stormed over to him, seizing him by the collar and hauling him up off the ground roughly. “You’re an idiot,” he hissed.

The motion reminded Dipper of his injury; the manticore had managed to graze him lightly enough to leave a gash along his forearm, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off he became aware of how much it hurt. “Ow!” He wriggled free of the demon’s grip, returning the glare. “Geez, Bill, why are you so pissed off? This literally happens all the time.”

“And that’s why you’re an idiot,” Bill spat, seizing his arm and giving it a cursory glance before shrugging. “That’s not going to kill you.”

This was new. “What the hell, man?” Dipper clutched at his arm again, flinching when his hand made contact with the gash. “Can’t you just heal it like you always do?”

“No.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Dipper quipped, trying to quell his own irritation. It wasn’t as if he’d been trying to get hurt out in the woods, so he didn’t understand why Bill was being such an asshole - or at least more of an asshole than usual. 

“Pain’s a learning experience, Pine Tree,” the demon responded with a shrug. 

“And what am I learning from this, again?” Dipper shot back. 

Friends or not, it seemed to be the wrong tone to take. As before, he found his back slamming into the trunk behind him, nearly letting out a cry of surprise that died in his throat as he realized that the rage on Bill’s face held another emotion that he’d seen on his sister’s face more than once when he came back covered in scratches or mud or limping on a sprained ankle: concern. 

“You’re not invincible,” the demon growled through a mouthful of razor-edged teeth that, upon further reflection, put the manticore’s to shame. “Without me to save your ass all the time you’re just another fragile meatbag with a pathetically short lifespan. You’re an idiot because you come close to dying every other day, and you still keep risking your life. You’ve only got one, kid. And I’ve only got you for so long.”

The last line wrapped its way around Dipper’s heart, pushing out any lingering resentment. “…oh.”

Maybe he was  being an idiot, after all. 

Bill sighed, reaching for his injured arm and running his fingers along the gash, flesh knitting itself at his touch and residual pain fading away. Dipper looked up at him gratefully, but the demon turned away, clearly still miffed at him. “There. Stay out of this part of the fucking woods, Pine Tree.”

“I’m sorry.” Dipper mirrored his action, reaching for his arm cautiously; he was glad when Bill allowed him to do so without pulling away. “I didn’t realize you were just worried about me.”

Bill glanced over his shoulder at him, studying him carefully before turning to face him once more. “I’m not the only monster out here.”

Dipper’s gaze immediately drifted to the wreckage left behind following the demon’s encounter with the manticore. His voice was shaky when he spoke once more, suddenly aware of just how close he’d come to meeting his maker. “What else is out here?”

“Things that could take you away from me.” Dipper’s eyes widened, manticore forgotten as a pair of lips met his, pressing a kiss against them that straddled the line between gentle and controlling, halting and possessive, the perfect balance between monster and man that seemed to represent his relationship with Bill in its entirety. The entity kissing him - whose kiss he returned, with what he hoped was an equal amount of passion - was dangerous, capable of sending powerful creatures heading for the hills, but when it came to Dipper he was a vengeful guardian, ready to turn his power on whatever threatened the safety of his human. It was all very confusing and weird and sort of frustrating to think about and enticing, like almost everything else in Dipper’s life, and he couldn’t help but laugh into the kiss at the thought. 

As if sensing that all was clear and that their symphony was needed once more, the crickets resumed their song, and Dipper forgot all about the lunawort for the next hour or so. 

Chapter Text

That year Pacifica Northwest welcomed spring with open arms.

It wasn’t as if she hated winter. Her cold weather wardrobe was to die for, and although holidays with her parents (and the collection of socialites that trailed them like dogs seeking table scraps) were generally less than enjoyable despite the load of presents that came around Christmas. For the previous few years, though, the highlight of her holiday season was the arrival of a package covered in stickers and ostentatious wrapping paper that contained her favorite additions to her winter clothing - knit hats and scarves and gloves that were one of a kind. Once or twice she’d received a sweater but as much as she loved Mabel she couldn’t bring herself to wear them outside. Instead they were lovingly stored in garment bags in her walk-in closet, perfectly safe from dust and moths and shelf-wear.

With spring came the fragrant breeze from the garden, the renaissance of the sun, and her personal countdown to the last week of May, when Mabel and Dipper Pines arrived at the bus stop for another summer of borderline chaos with their constantly bickering granduncles at the weather worn hovel whose name shifted back and forth frequently depending on whether Stanford was cheesed off at his brother or not. Dipper was pretty cool when he wasn’t geeking out, and ever since his assistance with the mansion’s ghost problem the two of them had developed a pretty close friendship.

The main attraction, however, was his sister…and her girlfriend of the past two years whose status as her girlfriend remained under wraps for the time being. She had a feeling her parents would not react well to the news if telling them ever became a necessity.

For now, she was content to sneak away to the Mystery Shack and spend her days alternately joining Mabel and Dipper on their misadventures or dragging Mabel and her two friends to the mall to roam around doing teenager things or simply spending time in Mabel’s presence, basking in the energy and light she radiated.

It had occurred to Pacifica that she was probably in love at this point, but she didn’t know how to handle that particular emotion. What did you do, when you realized you loved someone? What did you say? Her kneejerk reaction was buy her everything but she was beginning to understand that the way her parents operated wasn’t exactly conducive to existing outside the expensive designer snowglobe they lived in. 

And anyway, Mabel didn’t seem as concerned with money as much as she was with Pacifica’s presence. She was just as happy visiting the manor as she was sitting on her bed in her room surrounded by magazines and craft supplies as long as the two of them were together.

It was how she found herself sitting in a field of blooming wildflowers in a variety of vibrant colors - soft lavender chicory and deep golden California poppies and pale windflowers, attempting to weave her very first flower crown. 

The task wasn’t nearly as easy as it appeared to be. 

She kept sneaking glances over at Mabel’s deft handiwork while her own fingers stumbled over braiding stems together and attempting to keep from crushing the fragile petals with her clumsy actions. She’d pulled up at least three pages of instructions on how to craft flower crowns with twine and ribbon on her smartphone but Mabel insisted on doing themthe traditional way.

“You do realize we could just buy these, right?” She groused, tossing a crumpled flower over her shoulder. 

Mabel glanced up at her, warm brown eyes widened with dismay at the suggestion. “It’s not the same! They have to be handmade. It’s an unspoken rule.”

Pacifica refrained from asking her whose rule it was. “But it’s so tedious.”

Mabel paused working on her own crown, taking a good look at the messy chain of bruised flowers in her girlfriend’s hands.  "Paz, do you want some help?“

“No!” Pacifica responded, brusquely, then softened her tone a bit before continuing. “I can make a simple flower crown.”

“I know,” Mabel replied, smiling in that manner that made Pacifica both melt inwardly and feel like a heel for snapping at her. “I just wanted to show you how to add a middle lane.”

The foreign terminology passed over Pacifica’s head with a nearly audiblewhoosh. “A what?”

“Like this!" 

Instead of taking her poor attempt at a crown from her and redoing it, Mabel scooted closer, showing her how to braid the stems properly. Pacifica watched her fingers, her nails with sparkly pink polish and fingertips far less delicate than her own. As they did when she was knitting, Mabel’s hands moved almost too quickly for her to follow; she must have sensed Pacifica straining to pay attention as she eventually slowed to a crawl while the afternoon ticked away. 

"It does take forever,” Mabel spoke up, simultaneously winding the stem of a windflower around that of a poppy, “But the longer you spend, the more love they hold in the end.”

Pacifica ducked her head to hide what she knew would be a visible flush  in her cheeks. “That is unforgivably sappy.”

Mabel grinned, rather proudly. “I’m a hopeless romantic." 

After another half hour of effort, Pacifica finally completed her crown. As expected, it looked for all the world like the handiwork of a child, but with Mabel’s assistance it at least resembled a crown. She’d chosen colorful flowers that matched the array of hues in Mabel’s sweater, purples and pinks and bright yellows. 

Mabel dropped her own crown in delight, snatching Pacifica’s finished work from her hands. "Oh my gosh, it’s gorgeous.”

This was clearly an exaggeration, but Pacifica felt a slight swell of pride at the praise. If Mabel liked it, she’d succeeded, no matter how crappy it looked. “It’s for you,” she stated, feigning indifference. “It’s more your style anyway.”

Mabel gasped theatrically. “What a coincidence! I was making one for you!”

Pacifica opened her mouth to protest, flower crowns were not her style. She shut it immediately upon taking a good look at the crown Mabel presented her with. 

Whereas hers looked like that of a child, Mabel’s resembled that of a professional florist. It was well known that the other girl was something of an artistic savant, but her crown was woven together perfectly, each delicate white flower with its petals perfectly intact sans a single bruise. It was a crown fit for a woodland princess, and as she placed it gingerly atop her head she felt like one. Not a spoiled, selfish princess that lived within the walls of a towering castle, but a elven maiden from a fantasy novel, seated among the bounty of spring with her devoted consort at her side. 

“You are ridiculously good at this,” Pacifica murmured in awe. 

Mabel plopped her crown atop her head, shaking her waves of curls out behind her. “I just channeled my love for the recipient into it!”

Pacifica froze in her tracks, staring dead at her. 

Mabel’s expression matched her words; the same three word sentiment that had plagued Pacifica for the past few months whenever she found herself wishing summer would hurry on up. 

“I…” She trailed off, at a loss for her own words to express what she was feeling in the moment. Instead she leaned forward, embracing Mabel fiercely in a manner that was equal parts possessive and desperate. So this is what love felt like - falling from the sky into a sea of late spring wildflowers. “Sappy.”

“Hopeless romantic!” Mabel chimed in response.

“Oh, whatever.” Pacifica held her closer, and the two stayed like that for some time, warmed by the sun and each other. 

Chapter Text

Thirty minutes into what was arguably the most confusing conversation of his life, Dipper’s resolve broke, causing him to sink into a nearby chair with a heavy sigh of frustration and bury his face in his hands.

It wasn’t every day that he found himself arguing with a demon he’d been dating and sleeping with on a consistent basis for at least three years over the legitimacy of discussing Fight Club in public, but by now he’d accepted just how weird his life was.

“I don’t know why this conversation is happening.” He lifted his head, staring at his stupid demon boyfriend from where he sat on the bed, staring back at him. “Why is it happening? Why do you give this much of a shit, man?”

Bill huffed. “Because you’re wrong and you refuse to admit or acknowledge it, Pine Tree.”

“How am I wrong? It’s just a cultural reference!” Dipper reached for his phone, pointing at the Wikipedia article he’d been attempting to show Bill for the past half hour of the demon berating him for making an offhanded joke in the gift shop that morning. At first he’d been absolutely certain that Bill was screwing with him, because he did thatconstantly, but it slowly began to dawn on him that maybe Bill was serious. It was a really stupid thing to be serious about.

“Bill. No one cares if you talk about Fight Club because it’s not a real thing.”

“Famous last words,” the demon grumbled, folding his arms over his chest.

Dipper rolled his eyes at the display of petulance. “And please stop saying ‘thug life’. You’ve been doing it a lot lately and I’m pretty sure you don’t understand that reference, either.” He wasn’t sure where Bill had picked that one up, but the term had become something of a catchphrase whenever the demon did something he shouldn’t, intentionally or otherwise. At first it was a bit endearing, but the novelty had worn off pretty quickly.

Bill continued to glare in his direction, golden eye shooting daggers at him. “I chose it as an expression of my personal agency, kid. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh my god.” Dipper dropped his phone on the desk. “Dude, you don’t choose the thug life! It’s not a thing you just decide to do!”

This was the wrong thing to say.

Dipper watched in bewildered fascination as the demon stood up, summoning a ball of blue flame in either hand. His eye gleamed, pupil narrowing into a feline slit; the image would have been menacing if he didn’t know Bill like the back of his hand by now.

Bill grinned, displaying a mouthful of wickedly tapered teeth. “I embody the thug life, Pine Tree.”

“The thug life and the demon life are not the same thing,” Dipper deadpanned. “And technically you didn’t choose that, either.”

Instead of lobbing a fireball at him, Bill paused, slowly powering down as he mulled over the statement with his brow furrowed in consternation. “…huh.”

Dipper sighed again, internally noting that he’d have to change his laptop password yet again. Bill couldn’t be trusted with the Internet.

Chapter Text

Dipper tended to avoid the mall. Aside from having little to do aside from watching people (and he got enough of that simply observing the kinds of people that showed up for Stan’s tours back at the Mystery Shack), he’d passed the age where hanging around looking edgy or apathetic was an appealing way to spend his time. However, the Gravity Falls Mall remained one of his sister’s favorite spots to stop by whenever she was in town, and he was more than willing to stick it out for her sake. 

Thus far the outing hadn’t been too bad; a few new stores more relevant to his interests had opened since his last visit, including a new bookstore that he managed to waste a good half an hour in before Mabel dragged him away. Even though they weren’t really moving with a purpose, it was fun being around his twin for the first time in a few months, and he found himself smiling constantly as they caught up and poked fun at various storefronts. 

At some point Mabel paused, vigorously rubbing her stomach and causing the sequins on her sweater to catch the overhead lights. “Hold up, bro. The sugar tank is on empty.” The moment the words left her mouth her eyes lit up as she caught sight of a nearby store. It was one of the more recent additions in the past year, and while she’d only visited a couple of times Dipper was well-acquainted with it.

His smile faded. Ah, shit.

Knowing exactly where this was heading, he grabbed his sister’s arm, attempting to tug her in the opposite direction. “Maybe we should find another ice cream place.”

“Isn’t this the only one in the mall?” Mabel asked, sounding bewildered by his sudden shift in attitude. 

“Maybe there’s one in town!” Dipper suggested, feigning cheer he most certainly didn’t feel. “We should totally go check and see if there’s one in town. We should support local businesses…and stuff.”

Mabel dug her heels in, refusing to move another step. “Dipper, we’re already at the mall. What’s wrong with this one?”

Dipper sighed, releasing her arm and averting his gaze, refusing to meet her eye. “That guy works there.”

“What guy?" 

"You know the one.” Dipper knew his name; there was no way he couldn’t at this point, but he refused to speak it aloud lest he summon the employee in question. “That guy.”

“What guy?” At this point Mabel seemed to be genuinely confused. “There’s at least three different guys that work there. You’re going to have to specify by hotness level.”

Dipper lifted his head, looking at her incredulously. “Seriously?”

Mabel nodded. “Is he the hot guy, the super hot guy, or the less hot but still pretty attractive guy?”

Dipper blinked. “What’s the difference?”

“Oh, come on!” The tables turned; Mabel grabbed his arm, dragging him towards the ice cream shop resolutely. “We’re just grabbing a couple of cones and leaving. It’ll be fine.”

The shop was well-decorated for its purpose, a splash of bright colors and shiny surfaces with a large glassfront case displaying various flavors of ice cream, yogurt, and a couple of offerings of gelato. Suspended atop the case were jars of sprinkles, crumbled cookies, and chocolate chips, next to stacks of cones (regular, waffle, and some tantalizing waffle cones dipped in milk and white chocolate). Upon entering the store a sweet, sugary aroma assaulted Dipper’s senses, temporarily erasing his mild apprehension. 

It lasted for but a moment, returning in full force when he noticed the man standing behind the counter. He noticed Mabel first, greeting her enthusiastically. “Hey there! What can I get for you today, Sparkles?”

Mabel giggled, immediately racing over to the glass case and placing her hands against it much like an excited child. Dipper followed with a good deal more reserve, eyes narrowing as he and the employee behind the counter locked gazes. A smile that was little more than a leer spread across the man’s face, and Dipper pressed his palm against his forehead. Not this shit again.

He wasn’t sure which of Mabel’s descriptions applied to the guy; it wasn’t the latter, because Dipper had to admit that he was pretty attractive, with a warm brown complexion, soft deep blonde hair and golden eyes that were strangely intense. His uniform (if it was a uniform; this was the most oddly dressed ice cream shop employee he’d ever laid eyes on) consisted of a yellow, black and white shirt that resembled a tuxedo, and the black hat placed precariously atop his head looked for all the world like a top hat. His name was printed on the shiny golden nametag positioned over his heart in black lettering: Bill. It wasn’t as if hedisliked Bill, not exactly; if it was he wouldn’t have found himself being drawn back to the shop time and time again, like the pull of a magnet. 

The guy was just so damn obvious, in the most embarrassing way, and every encounter they had left Dipper in a confusing state of irritation clashing with a funny sensation in his chest. Asshole.

There was also the distinct possibility that he was a bit of a masochist.

Bill continued to leer at him, with no further commentary; it wasn’t needed, because at this point Dipper was certain he’d heard every ice cream themed innuendo in existence. He glared back, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket and focusing his attention on Mabel instead.

His sister was still entranced by the large selection; she suddenly stood up, pointing to a container towards the back. “Oh my gosh, is that rainbow chip? Is that new?”

“It most certainly is!” Bill responded, cheerfully. His gaze remained fixed firmly on Dipper as he continued, not without a furtive wink. “Want a taste?”

Dipper’s mouth dropped open. 

The comment seemingly went over Mabel’s head. “Yep! And can you get a sample for my grumpy brother over there?”

“I sure can,” Bill said, smoothly. Dipper felt like he needed an adult, then remembered that he was one. Damn it.

The worst part of all of this was that the shop’s ice cream was damn near orgasmic, and it was difficult to hide it. Mabel expressed her appreciation openly, but Dipper struggled to pretend like it wasn’t some of the most delicious ice cream that had ever graced his tongue. Bill seemed to be fully aware of this, and his grin widened as he watched the twins polish off their samples. “Like it? There’s more where that came from.”

Mabel nodded vigorously, but Dipper’s expression settled into a forced pout. “No.”

His sister raised an eyebrow at him, but Bill appeared nonplussed by his rejection. “That’s too bad, Pine Tree. Wanna try banana split instead?”

“You’ve got banana split ice cream?” Mabel’s eyes gleamed. 

The banana split flavor was amazing, but Dipper steeled himself, lying through his teeth when Bill asked him (and him directly), “Well?”

“Nope.”

None of this bothered Bill, who continued to suggest flavors…all with a perverse twist that somehow only Dipper appeared to notice. “We’ve got premium chocolate/vanilla swirl…”

”…I don’t like chocolate.“

"What? Dipper, you love chocolate!” Mabel admonished him; Dipper folded his arms over his chest. 

“Today’s an off-day.”

Bill shrugged. “There’s always Boston cream pie!”

Dipper hoped the flush in his cheeks wasn’t obvious, but the expression on Bill’s face nipped that in the bud. Meanwhile, Mabel was clearly loving the free samples, and she placed her hand against the glass with an appreciative sigh. “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Ten samples, three winks, a lick of his lips and a continual litany of lascivious glances later, and Dipper was on the verge of killing both Bill and Mabel. 

“Mabel, just choose a flavor so we can get out of here." 

"I can’t decide!” Mabel wrung her hands in distress. “You choose. You’re not nearly as invested in this decision as I am.”

“So what’s it gonna be?” Bill asked. “There’s always-”

“No,” Dipper said, firmly. “Rainbow chip. Let’s just go with rainbow chip.”

“Want a triple scoop? Usually it’s extra, but I’ll make an exception for you.” The invitation included both of them, but his attention was still being directly solely at Dipper. 

“I’ll take it!" 

”…I just want one.“

"What kind of cone?”

This was a conversation that had taken place at least five times in the past. Bill seemed intent on giving him a cone instead of a cup, and Dipper couldn’t understand why. The guy had a thing for triangles, given the handful of tattoos lining his arms, and maybe that was it, but he refused to indulge his weird isosceles fetish. Mabel went for one of the chocolate-dipped waffle cones, but Dipper responded as always. "Just put mine in a cup.”

“Dipper, an ice cream cone is like a cup you can eat." 

"I don’t like cones." 

Mabel shook her head, looking at Bill apologetically; he returned the gesture as if agreeing with her. "Want sprinkles, Sparkles?”

Mabel pumped her fist in the air. “Hit me, baby!”

Bill watched Dipper expectantly. “Well, Pine Tree?”

Sprinkles didn’t seem so bad. Dipper opened his mouth to answer…then noticed something about the colorful sprinkles topping his sister’s ice cream cone. “Are those shaped like triangles?”

The sprinkles were shaped like triangles. Dipper had never seen triangular sprinkles before. This was a product that Bill had obviously gone out of his way to get.

“No. No sprinkles." 

Mabel accepted her ice cream cone happily; upon reaching for his cup Dipper’s fingers brushed against Bill’s, causing him to shudder slightly. He told himself it was the bad kind of shudder. He knew good and damn well he was lying to himself. 

"I’ll pay, let’s just get this over with,” he said, hurriedly. “How much is it?”

A few taps of the cash register, and the machine spat out a receipt…totaling three dollars and thirty-three cents. 

Dipper’s head shot up, bristling; calm golden eyes met his. “Paper or plastic, kid?”

After a minute of contemplation, Dipper returned his perpetual leer with one of his own. “You know what? I think I want a cone after all.”

For the first time since they’d met, Bill appeared to lose some of his composure. “Really?”

“Yeah. Just add it on." 

"Don’t worry about it, Pine Tree, it’s on me.” He grabbed a waffle cone and reached for Dipper’s cup, offering to scoop the ice cream into it for him; Dipper pulled back, gently plucking the cone from his grip. 

“I can spoon it in myself.” He sat his cup on the counter, holding the cone in one hand while digging out a five-dollar bill and placing it on the counter before Bill. 

He then proceeded to lift the cone to his mouth upside down, staring directly at Bill while wantonly running his tongue along the tip…then biting into it with as much force as possible. 

It was Bill’s turn to look at him in shock, rendered absolutely speechless. 

Dipper calmly handed the cone back to him sans the tip, and retrieved his cup of ice cream. “Keep the change.”

He nudged Mabel out of the store and back out into the mall, hazarding a glance back at Bill before walking off with his head held high. 

Mabel had watched the entire exchange without comment, and she refrained from saying anything for a minute or so following their departure. Once they were out of sight of the store, she swallowed a mouthful of ice cream and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, glancing over at her twin with an expression that rivaled one of Bill’s. “That guy was pretty nice, wasn’t he? I think we should hit that place up more often…Pine Tree.”

Dipper’s face burned as he shoved a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth. “Shut up, Sparkles.”

Chapter Text

They decided on a night where the eye of the moon shed no light over the woods. It was cliché as hell, but Dipper appreciated the additional cloak of darkness. It was fitting for both what they had planned and what he would become before the sun rose again.

Still, he couldn’t help the anxiety that churned his stomach and left him tense as he stood in the dead center of the complicated series of symbols lining the dirt beneath his heels. This was a big step, and although he knew in his heart that he wanted nothing more than to step over the line that divided his world and Bill’s the thought of casting off his humanity still left him rather nervous. 

Then again, it wasn’t as if he was leaving anything behind that was worth sticking around for, anyway.

“You sure about this, kid?” The sound of Bill’s voice from a few feet away brought him back to reality; the demon was in the process of completing the remaining runes along the edges of the circle. The whole thing was done up in some red substance that Dipper hoped wasn’t blood, because there was a ridiculous amount of it, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if it was. Bill didn’t cut corners with most things. “There’s no turning back. Once you’re in, you’re in.”

Permanent. A involuntary shudder ran throughout his body. “You can’t reverse it?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer. He had to give Bill credit: for a lying, murderous monster he was at least honest about what Dipper would be facing if he decided to go through with the transformation. 

“Nope!” With a nod of satisfaction over his handiwork Bill stood up and approached him, pausing just outside the circle inscribed on the ground. “That’s why I’m giving you the option. But why wouldn’t you?” His single eye glittered eagerly in the darkness, hovering before and slightly above him; even though he’d grown in the several years since their infamous introduction to each other Bill’s human form still managed to be slightly taller than he was. “The perks are totally worth the loss of your humanity.”

Dipper rifled through the information he’d received multiple times in his head over the past month or so. He really couldn’t see the downside of embracing the chance to become something more than he could ever achieve as a human being. It was Bill that had found him, curled up beside a tree in the woods following that fateful day below the Mystery Shack; it was Bill who comforted him and slowly became someone he could truly rely on even as he and Mabel said less and less to each other, and it was Bill who he’d eventually fallen in love with amidst being privy to all the knowledge the universe had to offer. How could he possibly reject the offer to join him? 

“Yes." 

"Yes?” There was a hint of barely bridled excitement in the demon’s voice, and Dipper reached out to meet his gloved hand, smiling.

“Yes,” he replied, firmly. “There’s nothing left for me here, anyway. And it’s worth it to be with you.”

The answer was a catalyst; sinister laughter that he’d grown to love over the years rang out throughout the woods, and a warm body crossed the barrier, embracing him tightly enough for it to hurt. A pair of lips he knew by heart met his, and time paused for a moment while he melted into the kiss. 

“This is gonna sting,” he heard the demon whisper, breath warming his ear and making him shudder again. “But I’ll kiss it and make it all better." 

Dipper nodded, laying his head against his shoulder and bracing himself. "Do it.”

“Try not to scream too loud.” Bill took a step back, seizing his wrist and turning his right hand palm up. Something that felt like a set of claws tore through the skin, drawing a hiss from him, and Dipper found himself unable to look away as a drop of blood trickled from the wound and landed at his feet. 

Everything exploded. 

It didn’t just sting, it hurt. The scream was caught in his throat and reduced to a pained mewling noise as waves of energy flowed throughout his body, setting every nerve alight. All the while a hand gripped his tightly, grounding him when the agony became almost overwhelming. After what might have been an eternity as far as he was concerned the blinding light from the circle faded alongside the pain; he took a shaky step forward and collapsed into Bill’s arms, breathing heavily. His head was spinning, and he felt odd. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the difference was; perhaps the sensation of something trickling throughout his veins. It wasn’t unpleasant, really.

He heard the demon’s voice from above. “I was wondering what you’d look like afterwards. Very nice. I gotta say, I like the new you, kiddo. You were pretty cute before, but now…”

Dipper forced himself to sit up, ignoring the urge to go limp once more. “Am I…?” He couldn’t find the words in the cloud of fog that was his head. 

“Take a look.” A mirror appeared before him, and Dipper gasped at his reflection. The soft brown of his eyes was now a rich golden color that matched Bill’s, and the constellation on his forehead shimmered electric blue from within. Running his tongue over his teeth resulted in the discovery that they were a lot sharper than he remembered, and here and there along his skin ran thin lines that gleamed much like his birthmark. He was humanoid, hell, he could still pass for one, but it was obvious that it was a poorly fitting mask. 

So long, humanity, he thought, without a single trace of bitterness. 

Bill tugged him to his feet. “Try it out. All of my innate knowledge is now yours.”

Dipper held up his hands, inspecting them curiously. “Don’t I need to learn a spell or something?”

“Not for basic stuff. Just decide what you want to do and do it.”

That wasn’t exactly helpful; he’d seen Bill do an endless number of things during their time together, and as far as he knew the possibilities were limitless. Decide what you want to do, and do it? Dipper mulled over the request in his head for a moment before remembering something he’d intended to do much earlier. Focusing on his backpack tossed haphazardly on the ground near a tree, he fished out three burgundy-colored books, worn by time and overuse, and levitated them into the air. He’d managed to steal them from his grand uncle’s hidden base beneath the house the day before; they contained information that could be used to harm and even banish Bill, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. 

With a snap of his fingers all three journals were rendered a pile of smoking ash scattered throughout the grass. It turned his stomach to see them go after so long, but it was necessary. 

Dipper stared at his hand in awe, summoning a small blue flame of his own that engulfed it; it tingled, but it didn’t hurt in the slightest. It felt like an extension of himself. “This is amazing.”

The demon closed the distance between them, pulling him into another embrace and tilting his chin up so their eyes met. “So are you. Welcome to the weird side, Pine Tree.”

Chapter Text

Upon returning to the large pocket of space in the Mindscape that he and Dipper now called home (in a sense), Bill became witness to a rather confusing sight: his recently demonically transformed significant other repeatedly slamming himself into a wall of what appeared to be some form of solid matter. Upon impacting the surface, bouncing off with anoof, and landing on his rear end, Dipper would rise to his feet, brush himself off, square his shoulders in a stance of determination, and shakily levitate himself once more before ramming into the wall again.

Thus far watching Dipper adjust to both his new body and the variety of new abilities that came with it had been both entertaining and endearing. The same wealth of curiosity and enthusiastic attempts at understanding the world around him that had drawn Bill to the kid in the first place went into high gear, manifesting in the form of a million questions and continual experimentation. It was a good thing he was much hardier now, because he’d managed to set himself on fire no less than ten times over the past few weeks.

At least there was an explanation for that.

Shifting into humanoid guise, he slowly approached Dipper from behind, drawing close enough to hear him muttering to himself.

“Okay, one more time. You can do this.”

WHAM.

“…okay. Maybe you weren’t ready that time. Alright.”

WHAM.

Bill shook his head, summoning his cane and lightly tapping Dipper on the head with it. “Kid, what the hell?”

Dipper let out a yelp of surprise, whirling around and losing his balance in the process. He lowered his head shamefully, letting out a soft sigh. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he groused. The crook of Bill’s cane pressed against his chin, gently lifting his head and forcing him to make eye contact with the other demon.

“Too late!” Bill snickered, flicking the cap from where it rested atop his Pine Tree’s head and running his fingers through the brown locks possessively. “It’s not like this is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever walked in on you doing.”

Dipper’s face flushed at the innuendo. “I can’t get the hang of this,” he said, hastily changing the subject. Bill withdrew his hand, offering it to Dipper and helping him to his feet.

“The hang of what?”

Dipper reached out to touch the wall, placing his hand against it. “Phasing. And teleportation. I can’t go a single foot before this happens.” He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration and clenched his fists, going rigid. After a few seconds his form grew translucent, slowly fading from view. He reappeared almost instantly, in exactly the same spot as before. “How do you make all of this look so easy?”

Bill shrugged. “Because it is. For me, anyway. You started out as a dumb meatbag so you’ve got a lot to learn before you’re even slightly close to reaching your full potential.”

Dipper’s face fell. An expression of disappointment spread across his face as he knelt to retrieve a stack of papers that Bill hadn’t noticed before. 

“What’s all of that?”

“Notes.” Dipper flipped through the stack, brow furrowing. “I’ve been analyzing the underlying mechanical processes that go into your abilities. Phasing is, in theory, simply a matter of redirection at the atomic level. Actually implementing it is the problem, though.” His golden eyes met Bill’s. “Is atomic redirection even possible for us?”

Bill blinked. Technically he understood the words that had left the kid’s mouth, but the stream of technobabble as a whole went over his head. “Pine Tree.”

Dipper tossed a few sheets of paper aside, scratching his head. “Then again, shouldn’t deconstruction of your physical form be too complex to even risk? Reconstitution could result in physical deformity or even be fatal.”

“Pine Tree.”

Dipper’s voice took on a twinge of anxiety as he discarded another couple of sheets, growing more and more frazzled by the second. “What happens if you lose focus while phasing? Are you just stuck partially merged with the object or is the limb passing through it severed altogether?”

“Kid!” Bill snapped, halting Dipper in his tracks just as he began to go off the rails. “You’re thinking about all of this way too hard. That’s the problem with you meatbags; you can’t accept that there are some things that go beyond your misguided concept of how reality functions.”

“Then how does it work?” Dipper sounded legitimately downcast at his lack of comprehension. “There has to be some kind of…an explanation for all of this.”

He was just so earnest in his quest for knowledge, so dedicated to making sense of everything; it was times like these when it was very difficult for Bill to refrain from tackling the kid to the ground and simply holding him in his arms, tracing the lines of electric blue light lacing his arms and gracing the constellation on his forehead. His boundless curiosity was one of the things he loved the most about his Pine Tree; unlike so many members of his former species who showed little to no interest in the wonders the universe itself had to offer. He was glad that his interests had shifted elsewhere following his initial plans to just exploit it like he had a good forty years before with his former devotee.

Seizing Dipper’s hand, he tugged him into his arms, winking out of existence and reappearing several feet away from the wall. “With teleportation, you just envision where you want to go and voilà. Phasing is pretty similar.” Dipper tensed as the demon floated towards the wall with him in tow, passing through it effortlessly. “You just do it. That’s how magic works. You want to do a thing, and you do it.”

Dipper twisted out of his grasp, unsteadily rising into the air and hovering above his head. “But then that would imply that there’s a complex system of laws defining how magic itself works.”

“Geez, Pine Tree. You really weren’t kidding about wanting to know the secrets of the universe, were you?”

Dipper beamed in response, placing a hand against Bill’s cheek lovingly. “Of course. I want to know everything there is to know.” Two pairs of golden eyes met, and Dipper’s voice took on a husky quality as he leaned forward to plant a kiss on the demon’s forehead. “And thanks to you, I have all the time in the world to discover it.”

It took a lot to make Bill blush, damn near impossible in fact; he was grateful for the complexion of his humanoid form effectively concealing it. “You’re a real nerd, kid. It’s kinda cute. So where do you want to start?”

A familiar leer that Dipper could only have picked up from him spread across his face; much like Bill had a few minutes previous he faded from view, reappearing right in front of the demon and wrapping his arms around his neck. “It can wait awhile.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until all of the assorted boards, screws and other fixings were laid out on the nursery floor that Dipper realized that deciding to purchase a crib from the recently opened (smaller, naturally; Gravity Falls wasn’t a huge place, yet still just as complicated to navigate somehow) IKEA at the mall might have been a mistake. 

Upon opening the instruction manual and noticing that the majority of it was printed in a language he did not understand, he chose to voice his concerns to his smug-faced significant other leaning against the wall a few feet away. “This may have been a mistake.”

Bill shrugged, completely unconcerned with his plight. The purchase hadn’t been his first choice (nor his second), and of course the asshole was enjoying watching Dipper fret over the large amount of components he now had to piece together into a functional crib for the upcoming addition to the Mystery Shack. “You’re the one that wanted boring furniture.”

Dipper lifted his head to glower at him. “You can’t have a mobile made out of teeth in a nursery, man. That’s both creepy and unsanitary.”

Bill shook his head with a mixture of disappointment and pity. “Teeth are a natural and wholesome part of life as a corporeal being, Pine Tree, and it’s really sad that you can’t appreciate that.”

“No,” Dipper replied, firmly.

“Aww…why not?”

“Whatever, Bill. Shut up and hand me…” He rotated the manual, squinting at the tool printed on the page. “What is this?” He held the booklet aloft for Bill to see; with a heavy sigh the demon peeled himself from where he stood and walked over to him. “What is this even supposed to be?”

Bill inspected the image for a few seconds before announcing, rather cheerfully, “That looks like a human femur.”

“Oh my god.” Dipper dropped the manual, burying his face in his hands. “You have to stop with the body parts.”

“I’m just pulling your leg, kid.” To his credit, the demon did seat himself on the floor as well to poke around at the pile of components with only minor disinterest. “Whatever the hell that is isn’t in here, though.”

“Really?” Dipper groaned. “Okay, we can do that part later. Let’s just get the boards in place for right now." 

”…I’ll only help if you stop being so uptight about the teeth mobile,“ Bill said, feigning a sweetness that made Dipper consider hitting him with one of the boards. 

"I will think about the teeth mobile,” Dipper conceded. “Think.”

“Good enough!” The demon retrieved the instruction manual. “You know, you’re lucky I like you. This parenting thing would probably be a bad idea otherwise.”

Two hours of effort later, Dipper stood up, brushed his hands off on his pants and gazed upon their handiwork. 

Then he dropped to his knees, hanging his head mournfully. “I’m beginning to suspect that we were lied to about this being easy.”

Strangely enough, his irritation had not yet spread to Bill, who appeared to be as cheerful as before even in the face of their complete failure to construct a functioning crib. “Why is there an entire store devoted to selling these products? This experience is a little like torture but without the fun part.”

Dipper glanced up at him wearily. “What the fun part? The screaming?”

“You know me so well, Pine Tree." 

Dipper surveyed the wreckage for a brief moment of contemplation before sighing again. "So we can either take all of this outside and burn it, or…”

At that moment the demon standing over him burst out laughing, raising both hands over the mess. The various pieces of the unassembled crib glowed in response, white particle board shimmering electric blue, and before Dipper’s unbelieving eyes the crib began to take form as the boards slotted themselves into place, screws affixing themselves to the places they belonged and rotating of their own accord. Within ten seconds of magical intervention the crib lay before him, fully assembled, without a stray screw or metal washer left behind. 

Dipper blinked. 

“Not bad!” Bill cast a critical eye over it, nodding with grudging approval. “A bit bland, but maybe…”

“Bill.”

The demon glanced down at his silent, fuming significant other, grinning. “Yes?”

“You could have done that the entire time?” Dipper’s tone had acquired a unhinged quality that would have unnerved anyone else. Anyone else but Bill Cipher. 

“Yep!” He announced, proudly. 

“Why did…” Dipper paused; his left eye began to twitch. “What did…what?”

Bill’s inhumanly sharp teeth gleamed as he leaned down, almost completely closing the distance between them. “You’re really cute when you’re pissed off.”

Dipper took a deep breath, and his tense expression relaxed into a gentle smile. “You know, maybe a tooth mobile isn’t such a bad idea after all.”

The demon’s face lit up with genuine excitement. “I knew you’d come around!”

Dipper nodded, continuing to smile as he rose to his feet, placing a hand on his stupid demon boyfriend’s shoulder in the most loving manner he could muster. “And I know just where to get the teeth.”

Chapter Text

One of the things Dipper loved most about their summers at the Mystery Shack was the lack of light pollution, allowing for some of the best stargazing he’d ever been privy to. Even now, years later (and now a semi-permanent resident of the tourist trap he’d initially balked at being shipped off to) the sight of the sky on a clear night was breathtaking. 

It was even better sharing the view with someone else. 

They sat on the ledge, huddled together against the light October chill, with Dipper’s head in his surprisingly calm significant other’s lap and arms wrapped around his torso in a gesture that was equal parts possessive and protective, as if to shield him from the breeze. A million stars peppered the canvas above their heads, exactly one million, no more, no less, and Dipper found himself wondering whether any were new for Bill; were these the same stars he’d gazed upon for the duration of his existence? It always made him feel small, infinitesimal even, imagining that these were the same stars his ancestors had lain beneath, oh so very long ago. 

“You’ve been around a pretty long time, right?" 

It was more of a rhetorical question, but Bill glanced down at him for a few seconds of silent contemplation. "You could say that, Pine Tree.”

Dipper considered inquiring as to how long was ‘a long time’, but decided he didn’t really want to know. “I guess you’ve seen some pretty impressive things." 

"More than your meatbag brain can even conceive of, kiddo.” The demon redirected his attention to the sky, idly running his gloved fingers through Dipper’s hair. “It would take a least a century to describe it all. I’ve seen civilizations rise and collapse under their own weight, entire species thrive and go extinct in the blink of an eye.”

Dipper shivered; if imagining the age of the stars hanging over their heads made him feel minute and inconsequential against the magnitude of it all, just considering where his existence fell during the lifespan - did it even count as a lifespan? - of someone who’d witnessed entire millenniums of sunrises and sunsets was almost incomprehensible. His life was and would be a mere second among countless hours - but at least Bill had chosen to pass that second at his side. 

Not wanting his thoughts to stray towards his own mortality, Dipper changed the subject. “What’s the most amazing thing you’ve experienced in all that time? Can you even narrow it down?” He doubted it. How did one choose between all the wonders of the world, laid out before them like a mural?

He wasn’t expecting the incredulous expression on the demon’s face as he stared down at him. “Of course.”

Dipper braced himself, excited at the prospect of being regaled with some (only slightly embellished) tale of places or creatures beyond his wildest dreams, even the ones Bill directly influenced. 

“This.”

Dipper was used to cryptic responses at times, but “this” was barely a response at all. “This?" 

The demon sighed, as if he were dealing with an idiot. "You, dumbass.”

Dipper blinked. “Oh." 

Oh.

A blip among the wonders of the world, a second measured against a year, a grain of sand at the bottom of an ocean of experiences. He wasso very small.

But not to Bill.

He smiled softly, raising a hand to press it against the demon’s cheek. "You too.” 

Chapter Text

“Hey Dip?” Mabel took a sip of her hot chocolate (moreso marshmallows than liquid). “What’s with all the mashed potatoes out on the lawn?”

Dipper sighed, massaging his temples; he’d been nursing a headache for the past hour, before Mabel’s arbitrary visit. “It’s…it’s really stupid, Mabes.”

“We live in Gravity Falls, Dipper,” his sister deadpanned. “Everything that happens here is either weird or stupid.”

“You may have a point.” Dipper took a sip of his own hot chocolate. It was also mostly marshmallows, and there appeared to be a plastic dinosaur struggling to bob to the surface below the top layer. A whole decade later, and Mabel was still Mabel. “Okay, so…”

The sound of particularly large hail caught Dipper’s attention, effectively destroying his concentration while poring over a withered tome. He now had an entire stack of strange books scavenged from somewhere within the multiverse thanks to a visit from Grunkle Ford, and the past few days had been spent studying them with breathless glee.

This was odd, given that the soft shhhh of pouring rain appeared to be absent. A lot of odd things happened in the weird little town he called home, but the weather tended to be fairly mundane. He set the book aside gently, swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up to go take a look out of the window.

It was raining. The rain consisted of potatoes, splattering against the ground and the sides of the Shack and making quite a horrendous mess of everything. At least they were small potatoes instead of the larger, clearly genetically modified ones that would have done much more damage.

Dipper stared out of the window at the rain, taking in the sight with the placid expression reserved for such situations (well, not potato rain specifically; that was a new one).

Then he set off to find his stupid demon boyfriend. Chances were Bill was involved somehow.

Locating Bill wasn’t that difficult; the demon was sprawled out on the sofa, eye shut in a semblance of slumber that Dipper could see right through. “Bill.”

Bill gave up on the facade immediately, opening his eye and smiling at him innocently. “Good afternoon, Pine Tree. What can I do you for?”

Dipper retained his placid expression. He was getting pretty good at it. “It’s raining potatoes outside. Actual potatoes.”

Bill shrugged. “Rain is an ecological necessity, kid.”

Placid. Still so very placid. “It’s raining potatoes.”

“You’re really hung up on the potato aspect of this, aren’t you?” Bill smirked, closing his eye again and humming to himself. Dipper’s placid expression wavered for but a few seconds before righting itself.

“Did you do this?” He knew this was an obvious inquiry, but Dipper figured there was at a 25% chance that Bill wasn’t involved.

Bill ceased humming. “That’s kind of a loaded question, Pine Tree.”

This was not the response Dipper was expecting. Neither was the clearly intentional pun embedded in it.

His placid expression shattered like a glass window being pelted with a large potato.

“…wait. Wait, wait.” Dipper took a deep breath before continuing. “Did you make it rain potatoes for the sole purpose of making that joke?”

“I guess it was kind of a half-baked plan,” Bill admitted, with his characteristic shit-eating grin.

Dipper shoved him aside on the sofa, making room for him to sit down, shaking his head in disbelief. “You…you…made it rain potatoes…so you could make bad puns about it.”

Bill continued to grin.

“Man, I love you and all, but that’s just stupid.”

“Ouch!” The demon sat up, clutching his chest as if the insult was a physical barb. “That really hit a raw nerve. I’d say go getstuffed but-”

It was then that Dipper lost his shit entirely, dragged his stupid demon boyfriend outside and threw him into a recently accumulated pile of mashed potatoes.

Dipper finished his hot chocolate, handing the plastic dinosaur to Mabel, who was far too engaged in laughing with tears of mirth streaming down her face to accept it. “And that’s what happened to the potatoes.”

Chapter Text

Despite the notably shaky start of his career as the parent of a tiny dream demon and human hybrid who learned to levitate before even attempting to walk, Dipper was surprised (and pleased) to find that Bill made a pretty good dad. Granted his maturity level sometimes fluctuated to that of their significantly younger daughter, and he remained notorious for slacking off when it came to tasks he didn’t care for and couldn’t just magic away as easily others. But for the most part he fulfilled the role of dedicated, loving father almost perfectly, watching over Torrey with an intensity that was both reassuring and a little unnerving. Dipper pitied whoever did as much as look at their child the wrong way.

Aside from serving as the fierce guardian he also assumed the role of playmate on a near constant basis; at first it was a little odd to see an entity of immense power seated on the carpet surrounded by Legos or attending a tea party consisting of apple juice and graham crackers, but the scenes gradually became commonplace and rather endearing. There were many times when Dipper caught himself looking on fondly as the two made ‘art’ (on the walls, once) or built towers only to smash them, reveling in how lucky he was to have them.

Even still, he really wasn’t expecting just how dedicated Bill could be when trying to entertain Torrey - at least not until one otherwise unremarkable afternoon he wandered into the living room and immediately stumbled backwards as his sneaker began to smoke the second he stepped over the threshold, accompanied by Torrey’s voice ringing out: “No Dad! You can’t come in! The floor is lava!”

And so it was.

Instead of the sediment streaked magma with a thick consistency that he’d seen in images in geology textbooks this lava was more befitting the limited vision of a five-year old, more closely resembling steaming tomato soup than an ecological byproduct. The entire living room had been transformed into the volcanic cavern only a child could dream up, full of inexplicably solid rocks big enough to stand on; whatever illusion magic was at work didn’t extend to actually altering the shape of the original object employed as part of the scenery, leading to a strange amalgamation of reality and fantasy, all shaded in the colors of Torrey’s imagination.

“Literally,” he muttered to himself, catching sight of Bill hovering above the sofa at the far side of the room lazily with Torrey clinging to a cushion, eyes lit up with excitement. Talk about going the extra mile.

“Isn’t this supposed to be imaginary lava?” He called out to his spouse, who simply cast him a cursory glance over his shoulder.

“It’s a thematic enhancement.”

Dipper wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, and it suddenly ceased to matter - the pool of lava was beginning to cross over the threshold where he stood, moving with clear malicious intent. Torrey shrieked in that way that drove him nuts sometimes when he couldn’t tell whether she was playing or legitimately in trouble. “Oh no! The lava’s spreading! Come on, Dad!

Dipper met Bill’s gaze, watching him intently with his lips curled into a slight smirk. “You heard her, Pine Tree. Better get up here.”

Dipper took a step back, attempting to avoid contact with the ‘lava’. “How? Not all of us can cheat,” he exclaimed, obviously referring to Bill’s levitation.  This statement received an obnoxiously self-satisfied laugh.

“It’s not cheating, dear. It’s called using your natural talents.”

Dipper sighed. In hindsight, it was entirely his fault for marrying a self-professed asshole.

Torrey continued on, unaware of any subcommunication between her parents. “Climb up on that rock, Dad!”

The rock in question was an upended bookshelf, with the contents of the shelf scattered around it as gleaming slabs of red crystal polished to a perfect shine by the flames. It was indeed within jumping distance, and it did indeed seem possible to make it to the couch without scalding himself.

It was time to make a deal.

“If I can make it over there without dying, can you return the living room to normal and clean it up?”

Torrey looked up at her father for guidance. “Deal?”

Bill nodded, reaching down to ruffle her soft blonde hair fondly. “Deal.”

“Alright.” With that Dipper launched into his best Indiana Jones impression, springing from where he stood onto the rock Torrey had indicated (and silently thanking the Manotaurs for the training all those years ago). From there he carefully crossed over onto a smaller rock, perching atop it while wiping the sweat from his brow and contemplating his next move.

The rock he was crouched on seemingly didn’t care for this, and Dipper yelped as it began to move beneath him, letting out a snarl that sounded for all the world like two rocks grating against each other. Torrey gasped, covering her mouth with her tiny hands. “Dad, that’s not a rock! That’s a rock monster!”

He managed to leap onto another flat slab a few feet away before losing his balance, barely managing to hold in the expletive that came to mind. “This game was never this intense when I used to play it with Mabel,” he called out to Bill.

“That’s because you weren’t playing it right.” Bill replied cheekily.

Dipper had to admit that he was, to some extent, having fun; the addition of the scenery to set the tone of urgency made his heart pound just a little faster, as if he were actually clambering over a pool of fully molten lava to reach his family instead of destroying the living room. Another leap deposited him on a lengthy slab of rock connected to the couch by a rope bridge of dubious durability. “That really doesn’t look safe, guys.”

“But Dad, you have to! It’s the only way!” Torrey wrung her hands nervously, and Dipper wondered if she was still aware that this was all Bill’s illusory capabilites at work. “That rock is sinking!”

Dipper groaned; the moment the words left her mouth he felt the rock shift beneath his heels as it began to descend into the lava below. “Seriously?”

“Looks like you’re going down, Pine Tree!” Bill quipped, winking at him like the unmitigated ass that he was.

“Use the bridge, Dad! Use the bridge!” Torrey cried, shaking her head wildly and sending one of her trademark triangular barrettes flying. It landed on the bridge, which proceeded to collapse, igniting into blue flames upon contact with the lava.

Dipper watched it burn for a few seconds before glaring at Bill. “Dude. What? Really?”

Torrey’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh.”

The slab of rock he stood on continued to sink at a disturbingly rapid pace, and Dipper felt his heart rate pick up. The lava was fake, right? It couldn’t actually burn him… “Can’t you just make a new one?”

Bill shrugged. “I thought you said magic was cheating.”

“You’re a demon, man!” Dipper snapped. “That’s kind of your thing! Oh crap.”

The slab, which was now close enough to the lava’s surface that he could feel the heat radiating from it, cracked, causing him to lose his balance with a sound that bordered on panic…

…and toppling him into Bill’s arms. The demon grinned, canines on display and eyes glittering with mirth. “You know I’d never let you fall for anything but me.”

It was the sort of cheesy line that belonged in a summer blockbuster, and Dipper couldn’t help but roll his eyes and flush at the same time.

Torrey cheered, jumping up and down on the couch as her parents landed next to her. “Yay! We’re all together now!”

Dipper pulled her into a tight hug, smiling, irritation completely forgotten. “So what now?”

“Technically you forfeited our deal when I had to come rescue you…” Bill started.

“Because you destroyed the bridge!”

“It caught on fire! How is that my fault?”

“I broke the bridge, Dad! It was me!” Torrey chimed in, proudly.

“What the-” Dipper, Bill and Torrey looked up to see Stan lingering in the doorway, gazing upon the scenery with disbelief.

“Hi, Grunkle Stan!” The five-year old in Dipper’s arms struggled free, leaning over the arm of the couch and waving at the newcomer.

“The floor is lava,” Dipper added, with a perfect poker face.

Stan blinked, then turned around and walked away without another word.

Chapter Text

“Those are fire ants.”

Either the demon didn’t hear him, or he didn’t particularly care about Dipper’s input, but he decided to try again anyway. “Bill. Those are fire ants.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bill didn’t look up from where he knelt next to the anthill, bustling with activity. “I’m like a billion years old, Pine Tree. I watched these evolve.”

Dipper took a deep breath before continuing, switching to his now fully mastered placid expression. “Alright. So why are you putting your hand in an anthill full of fire ants?”

“Because I want to see what happens,” Bill responded as if the answer was obvious. He paused to slip off a glove, tossing it aside. 

“They are going to bite you,” Dipper said, continuing to watch the idiocy occurring right in front of him unfold calmly. This wasn’t the first time Bill had done something stupid, at least from his perspective, and generally he knew it was best to let the demon learn from his own mistakes. But he’d be a poor ‘dumb meatbag boyfriend’ if he didn’t at least make an attempt to stop his stupid demon boyfriend from injuring himself. “That’s what’s going to happen.”

Bill glanced over his shoulder at him irritably. “I know. I want to see what it feels like in this dumb meatbag body.”

Dipper refrained from reminding him that it was his idea to parade around in human form most of the time. Calm Eternal calm. “You want to see what being bitten by fire ants feels like." 

"Yes.”

“It’s going to hurt. That’s what happens when you are bitten by…” Dipper sighed, realizing the futility of trying to rationalize with Bill any longer. If he wanted to see what being bitten by fire ants would feel like to a human body, who was he to get in the way of the demon’s curiosity. “Whatever, man. Go ahead and do it." 

"I was going to do it anyway,” Bill snapped. “I don’t need your permission to stick my hand in an anthill, Pine Tree.”

“Then just do it. Don’t keep talking about it. Do it.”

Bill glared at him, then plunged his hand into the anthill. 

That afternoon, Bill learned what being bitten by fire ants felt like, and Dipper learned what the sound of a dream demon screaming sounded like.

“…I told you that was going to happen.”

The contents of the first aid kit laid scattered across the kitchen table; Dipper reached for the second tube of insect bite cream and squeezed a small amount onto his fingers. Bill perched on a stool sullenly, holding out his hand so Dipper could apply it to his numerous stings. “There was literally no other outcome for that.”

The demon grumbled to himself; it sounded like a stream of profanity melded with a tirade against fire ants. However, he obediently held still long enough for Dipper to finish applying the cream and wrap his hand up with a roll of bandages. It was funny, Dipper thought, weaving the white strips of cloth in-between his fingers. For someone with so much so-called life experience, a good deal of the time the demon was much like a curious child experimenting with the world and never quite learning from his mistakes. Today was an anthill, tomorrow would probably be a stick and a hornet’s nest, and some point something would happen involving fire and they’d end up having to patch the Shack up again. Eventually he’d learn the limits of having a human body, but for now it was Dipper’s job to simply let him indulge in his bad ideas as long as they didn’t go too far. 

“There you go.” Feeling somewhat sorry for him (but not much), he pressed a soft kiss against the demon’s bandaged hand before releasing it. “So. What did we learn about fire ants?”

Bill inspected his hand for a minute before responding. “Shut up, kid.”

Before the conversation could devolve further, the two were interrupted by Stan poking his head into the kitchen, ignoring the open first aid kit and the scowling demon clutching his injured hand. “Hey Dipper, be careful on the porch. Looks like some hornets built a nest out there." 

Dipper’s face fell; he glanced over at Bill, who seemed to have forgotten his hand for the moment and was now staring at the front door with obvious interest. 

He decided to leave the first aid kit out.

Chapter Text

Pacifica wasn’t sure how a Girls’ Night Out at an extremely mediocre club with her likely closest friend had devolved into making out with said friend in a storage closet with one hand rummaging around beneath her sweater and loosening the ribbon holding her mass of warm chocolate curls at bay with the other, but with Mabel half-giggling, half-moaning into her mouth and returning the kiss with the same fervent intensity she really couldn’t say she was dissatisfied with the turn of events.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t suspected things to go as they had, even before Mabel suggested checking out the town’s recently opened nightclub. The two of them had grown incredibly close over the years following their first summer together, with Mabel serving as a bright spot of genuineness within the plastic castles and faux camaraderie that Pacifica was used to. There was no point to trying to change Mabel Pines, sophistication be damned, and her influence inspired the heir to the Northwest fortune to let her own hair down with increasing frequency despite her parents’ disapproval. The freedom she felt when they were together was enough to bind her to her friend emotionally, but as the two of them blossomed into young women Pacifica became aware of some new emotion, a combination of lightheaded glee whenever she heard Mabel’s voice and deflation when she returned to Piedmont every August, 
lingering glances at her departing figure, a hyperawareness of how her ever present array of sweaters hugged her recently developed curves. At first she wrote it off as overactive hormones, but the slow realization that only Mabel sparked that particular fire within her nipped that in the bud.

That she was likely falling in love with her best friend came as a surprise. Pacifica had never really considered her sexuality all that often, as it was an unspoken assumption that she would marry some rich boy from another disgustingly loaded family that she may or may not be able to stand. She wasn’t sure whether her parents would be too pleased with any divergence from that predetermined trajectory.

She also didn’t particularly care.

She suspected that Mabel was well aware of how she felt, if not actively reciprocating - she grabbed Pacifica’s hand constantly and invaded her personal space and bowled her over with hugs and nuzzled against her when they sat together watching TV or a movie or simply sharing each others’ warmth, but she couldn’t be sure where the loving presence that was Mabel Pines ended and romantic gestures began.

Several minutes earlier Mabel had answered that question for her while they were dancing to a terrible yet catchy technopop song, leaning forward and locking lips with Pacifica right there on the dance floor among a selection of other club attendees, no self-consciousness, no hesitation, just Mabel herself.

That was when Pacifica pulled her down the hallway, making only the most cursory of glances to check for witnesses before dragging her into the storage closet and sticking her tongue down her throat.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She managed to ask between kisses, backing Mabel up against a box of string lights.

“I thought you knew!” Mabel laughed, placing a hand against her cheek. “I thought we were doing that thing when you’re dating but you don’t really say you’re dating and then one day you realize you’re dating.”

This was a sparkling example of Mabel logic, and under normal circumstances Pacifica would have paused to roll her eyes at the explanation, but that could wait. Right now there was nothing between her and the object of her affections but a light knit sweater, and Mabel Pines was going to pay for leaving her hanging for so long.

For all of her effervescence and usual take charge attitude Mabel was surprisingly submissive, allowing Pacifica to take the lead; perhaps it wasn’t that shocking. She didn’t have much control over many aspects of her life, or at least she hadn’t until recently, and she was glad to get it where she could.

Also she’d grown as addicted to the sound of Mabel’s moan just as much as the sound of her laughter, and she was determined to hear the former as much as she could before they were discovered.

The hand under Mabel’s glittery, somewhat gaudy sweater wormed its way beneath the silky fabric of a (probably rainbow print - Pacifica didn’t put it past her) bra, seeking the rapidly hardening point of a nipple and tweaking it between her forefinger and thumb; the action halted the giggles with a gasp and she was pleased to see her friend’s cheeks flush crimson, lips parting to exhale sharply in response to the stimulation. Pacifica didn’t have any real experience with doing this with another girl, but she knew her own body and as such could assume that she knew Mabel’s. The assumption wasn’t wrong; she moved to run the tip of her fingernail over the surface of the girl’s other nipple, drawing another increasingly loud exhalation from her lips that Pacifica silenced by capturing them with her own once more. All these years she’d been seeking a way to shut Mabel up. Who knew that a kiss would do the trick so efficiently?

This was all well and good, but she wanted, needed more; the act of winding Mabel up was doing an excellent job of doing the same for Pacifica herself. This time she did pause, meeting Mabel’s gaze to ask for permission to continue. Mabel nodded, granting it enthusiastically, and Pacifica leaned forward to press a kiss against her damp forehead before slipping a hand beneath her skirt, running it over her stomach before pressing forward towards its goal.

By now the glittery sweater was hanging haphazardly off of Mabel’s shoulder and her (as she suspected) rainbow printed bra pushed up to give Pacifica access to her chest; the hand that wasn’t up her skirt tweaked at the nipple that wasn’t between her lips, tongue flickering over the nub and making their owner let out a series of sighs and needy whining sounds that would have been audible outside the closet if not for the blaring music loud enough to drown out anything quieter than a scream.

“Oh oh oh,” and then Pacifica found her mark, slipping a finger between the soft petals of her womanhood and brushing against her clit as if it were a magic button - given the sound the action drew from Mabel as far as she was concerned it might as well have been. She carefully added another finger, grinning at the way Mabel arched her back in response and bit down on her hand to muffle her cry of pleasure, slowly working up to a rhythm that was just enough to drive her towards the edge, neither too languid or rapid enough to hurt. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

By now the words spilling from Mabel’s lips were damn near incoherent, although Pacifica could make out the first half of her name; hearing it spoken like that had her close to the edge as well, and she was still fully clothed, all attention focused on getting Mabel off. Maybe that was love - being just as happy with giving as receiving. Maybe.

“I think I love you,” she whispered, sure the words couldn’t be heard over the symphony of Mabel’s ecstasy; she was surprised to hear a breathy “Me too” from the other girl.

Oh, do I love you.

With that she picked up the pace, fingerfucking her now girlfriend while making sure to pay just as much attention to the hardened knot of her clit, hand slick with the evidence of Mabel’s arousal. With every stroke she whispered the words again, until they became a mantra: I love you, I love you, I love you. Mabel was incapable of responding now, head thrown back and hair fluffed up by their generated humidity in a halo; her reddened lips parted to allow her to sing out her appreciation.

Pacifica kissed her again, capturing her final cry as Mabel came, essence flowing over Pacifica’s fingers and a single happy tear sliding down her cheek. The sound of her girlfriend’s orgasm was enough to push her over the edge as well; the world spun, whited out, and Pacifica slumped against her, breathing heavily as the two of them settled into a wonderful shared afterglow.

Outside the door the real world beat on, with its expectations and barriers, but for the moment Pacifica was in what she was pretty sure was heaven, with Mabel in her arms.

The rest of it could wait.

Chapter Text

The thing about sucking cock, Dipper realized, was that it flipped the tables, shifting dominance from one side to the other. Granted it was him kneeling with his forelegs, bent over with his scut in the air, gripping the Wolf’s hips for leverage with the man’s shaft between his lips, allowing his tongue to linger over the small patch of nerves along the its underside, but he could clearly hear the muffled sound of the Wolf struggling to hold in his own gasps of pleasure - who was coming apart at whose hands this time?

But it also allowed him to return the favor for all the times the Wolf had spent his time skillfully winding him up until he melted beneath his lover, and he was perfectly content to reciprocate.

“God damn, kid,” the Wolf lost his composure for a moment, sucking in air between his teeth. “You’re really good at this.”

Dipper glanced up at him with warm brown eyes full of adoration, responding by taking in just a little more of his cock; he hadn’t learned to fully suppress his gag reflex well enough to deep throat him, but he did his best, hoping that dedication made up for lack of skill.

For once it was him that had the Wolf backed up against a tree, trapped between a figurative rock and a hard (pun not intended) hard place, and he allowed himself a cheeky grin in celebration of being in charge.

It didn’t last long.

He was well aware of the Wolf’s magical abilities, given that they often made an appearance in their sexual exploits, but they rarely caught him by surprise. Something firm and slick with lube prodded at his entrance before unceremoniously slipping inside him; his eyes widened, gazing up at the Wolf - who was now grinning down at him. “I’m the carnivore here, kiddo. Don’t forget it.”

The object inside him moved with purpose, gradually picking up speed as it pressed forward and withdrew, in and out, nudging at the spot that made him drool around the cock in his mouth; now he was yet again the one trapped between two epicenters of sensation - the Wolf seizing his antlers and holding him in place while the dildo fucked him senseless, completely indistinguishable from the Wolf’s own member.

“Shit,” he murmured, with an odd cross between a moan and a satisfied sigh. “Shit, you didn’t…”

“Tell you I’d made a couple of toys?” The Wolf winked at him. “Surprise!”

The dildo tilted to diliberately prod at his prostrate, making him temporarily forget what he’d been doing; the Wolf’s cock slipped out of his mouth as he let out a sharp cry of ecstasy. “Shit!”

Suddenly the wolf wasn’t standing before him, and he reached for the tree trunk to keep from falling forward onto his face. A gloved hand pressed against his flank while the other gripped the end of the dildo, increasing the pace of its thrusts until he was crying out loud with each one, a ragged “Oh oh oh” with no respect for volume control - fuck, if anyone was within earshot they were welcome to listen in; he was too occupied to really give a shit.

“Like it?” He could just picture the expression of glee on the Wolf’s face. “I made itjust for you.”

This revelation would have been heartwarming had he possessed the presence of mind to acknowledge it; instead he simply moaned his approval. He was nearing the edge, body growing light and his skin tingling.

“In fact,” the Wolf continued, surprisingly calm for someone who’d been on the verge of letting go himself only a few minutes before, “You provided the material; I just applied the skill.”

This statement didn’t make any sense, but fuck it, he was sooo close, so fucking close to spilling his seed upon the forest floor for what might have been the third time that day; he’d long since lost count. “Whatever,” he hissed, letting loose another wanton moan. “Whatever, just please don’t stop, please.”

“I wasn’t intending to, kid. I’m gonna make you scream my name until you go hoarse. I was just thanking you for giving me the raw material for my…new hobby.”

Dipper threw his head back, finally losing strength in his arms and collapsing in the dirt with his ass in the air.

“Did you know you could make certain things out of deer sheddings? Likeantlers?”

Oh what the fuck. Deer antlers. Specifically his. 

This was fucked up. It was also inexplicably hot, enough to tip him right over the edge with one of his own antlers buried in him. 

“Dude,” Dipper whined. “Dude, this is so fucked up.”

And then he came, screaming the Wolf’s name as expected…and mentally vowing to continue handing his discarded antlers over whenever it was time to shed.

Chapter Text

For the first time in a few years, Dipper was actually enjoying fall. 

Ever since reaching a certain age following his (and the rest of the town’s) transformation, a few weeks out of the season were extremely uncomfortable due to a particular biological imperative that left him agitated in more ways than one. Having someone to assist with the frustration (again, in more ways than one) was a lifesaver, even if it took the form of simply holding him while the aggression coursed throughout his body in waves, setting his teeth and nerves on edge. 

That afternoon had involved both, leaving him both exhausted and light-headed with an emotion that he’d recently come to understand was what love felt like. 

He leaned against the wolf on the porch of the lodge he’d recently been introduced to, repositioning himself so that his antlers were less intrusive, basking in the hunter’s warmth. The breeze now held a light chill, indicating that the trees would be shedding their flashy regalia soon enough as winter approached, but his thickening coat shielded him from most of it.

“You know,” he commented, with more than a hint of regret in his voice, “I’ve got to go home eventually.”

The wolf glanced over at him for a second, responding to the statement by pulling him closer rather possessively. “Nah.”

“I should. It’ll be getting dark pretty soon.” Despite his confidence that the wolf could handle whatever threats lurking within the shadows left in the wake of the setting sun, Dipper didn’t want to take any chances. There were real monsters in those woods, he knew that much, and he’d as soon as avoid them if at all possible. 

“All the more reason for you to just stay here!” The wolf said nonchalantly, as if this was a non-issue for him. 

“No ulterior motive?” Dipper deadpanned. He knew exactly why the wolf wanted him to stay, and as enticing as the possibility was he really wasn’t prepared for his family’s overwrought reaction to him spending the night out, even though he and Mabel were only a year away from twenty-one. 

The wolf grinned at him, displaying canines that had left their mark on his skin only a few hours before. “None whatsoever." 

"Uh-huh.” The cervitaur sighed, disengaging himself from the wolf’s grip and forcing himself to stand on legs that were still just a bit shaky. “Come on, let’s go.”

For a moment he wondered if he’d have to nudge his reluctant significant other into action with his antlers yet again, but this time the wolf didn’t put up as much of a fight as usual, retrieving his ever present rifle from where it lay a few feet away and walking past him with only a grumbled “You’re lucky I like you so much, kid.”

Dipper had to admit that he was, but he kept it to himself. Bill’s ego was inflated enough. 

They headed in the direction of the Mystery Shack in companionable silence, allowing Dipper to reflect on his surroundings. Interspersed among the evergreens were trees done up for the season in vivid shades of orange, gold, and fiery red, catching the sunlight that streamed through the sparse canopy, casting faint shadows on the forest floor. All around them wildlife busied itself with either gorging for hibernation on tough, out of season berries or stocking up on fallen nuts and roots before snow blanketed the ground. They weren’t the only ones preparing for winter; back at home Soos was in the process of ‘Mabel-proofing’ the Shack given that it would be far too cold for her to remain in the lake from late November to early March. Now that she was fully grown that meant larger tanks than the kiddie pools that had sufficed when they were younger. Dipper loved his twin unconditionally, but the tanks did take up a lot of space. With the addition of his antlers sweeping things off shelves onto the floor, Stan’s tail slamming into and denting the walls and Ford sometimes forgetting his wingspan Soos had his repair work cut out for him. 

The fact that the house was a lot more crowded now and would only be worse in the upcoming months, as well as how much time he’d been spending with the wolf over the past few weeks had implanted an idea in his head. It was a little frightening, the idea of essentially moving out, but the idea of waking up beside the wolf every morning (and not tripping headfirst into one of Mabel’s tanks every five minutes) overpowered that fear. 

After half an hour of traveling they reached the small clearing where they’d first met, and Dipper consented to stopping to rest for a bit. He wasn’t too tired, but it seemed like as good of a time as any to bring up the subject he’d been ruminating over. They settled beneath a tree whose leaves had already begun to fall away, with the wolf’s back against the trunk and Dipper lying at his side with his head bowed. 

“So…I was thinking. It’ll be harder to travel all the way out here during winter. And it’ll be kind of crowded at home with Mabel there while the lake is frozen.” He paused, gazing up at the wolf meaningfully. Golden eyes met his, although the man’s expression remained steady. As usual, Dipper couldn’t tell what the man was thinking. “So…”

“So you’re willingly confining yourself to the wolf’s den?” The wolf’s blank face relaxed into a sly grin, and Dipper flushed, looking away. 

“I guess. As long as we can move that pile of skulls on the porch to somewhere that isn’t the porch." 

The wolf’s brow furrowed. "Why? They’re bleached and polished, kid. I worked hard on that.”

Dipper groaned. “Because having a pile of skulls on your porch is creepy. I’m not sure how else to get that point across. Oh, and that grizzly bear pelt in the living room? Can we put that in the bedroom?”

“Anything else?” The wolf asked, dryly. 

“And we’re gonna need to talk about Internet access.”

The wolf fell silent, and Dipper’s heart sank a bit. Maybe he’d been too forward, just expecting the wolf to move over and let him do whatever he wanted. After all, it wasn’t his house, even if he would be living there for awhile.

A gloved hand found its way to his ears, then began to lightly scratch behind them in the way that always made him go limp. “Just make a list, Pine Tree.”

Dipper blinked. “Really? You’re okay with it? Not with me staying there, but-”

The wolf shrugged. “You’re needy as shit, kid, but it’s worth it to have you all to myself for a few months." 

"Oh.” Dipper fell silent for a moment, then spoke up again, keeping his eyes trained on the ground. “…some of the skulls can stay. Since you worked so hard on them. And I guess we can stay here a little longer.”

“I thought you needed to get home.”

There was still a bit of afternoon sunlight left, bathing the beautiful fall display in its light, and Dipper couldn’t think of a better place to enjoy it than where he was now. He leaned into the wolf’s touch with a sigh of perfect contentment. “It’s not going anywhere.”

Chapter Text

Dipper had been involved in a great deal of harrowing experiences in his time, ranging from the merely exciting to the legitimately terrifying… and yet he’d rather have faced accidentally waking the undead once more if it meant he could skip actually having to attend the cluster of final exams looming on the horizon.

Despite his best efforts, his first semester hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, most likely due to the surge of hubris that had lead to him ignoring his sister’s advice and registering for seven classes in one go. His grades thus far weren’t terrible, but they most certainly weren’t up to his standards and they definitely paled in comparison to what Ford’s had been during his stint as a freshman (not that he’d elaborated on it during his grand uncle’s visits home from gallivanting around the multiverse). It was honestly rather depressing; academics had always been his thing in comparison to what Stan and Mabel called personality, so this was a pretty big blow to his pride as a straight-A student. 

The ledge wasn’t an exact approximation of Mabel’s Sweatertown, but it was isolated enough, and he had a nice view of the stars, at least. The early December chill wasn’t pleasant but he barely noticed it, sitting with his back resting against the roof and his knees tucked beneath his chin while lost in his own thoughts. 

After this many years he could sense the faint, nearly inaudible buzz that preceded Bill apparating next to him, making it difficult for the demon to sneak up on him through teleportation anymore. Ordinarily he’d have welcomed the company with open arms, but Bill didn’t really get why school was so important to him and made a poor choice of partner when it came to venting about it. 

“Wow, kid.” Dipper lifted his head just enough to look up at the new arrival, towering over him with his characteristic grin on display. “You look like shit.”

Dipper narrowed his eyes, curling back in on himself. “Thanks.” Supernatural asshole.

He felt the demon settled down beside him, invading his personal space as usual. “You gonna live?”

That was up for debate. He shrugged to the best of his ability with his hands tucked in his hoodie. 

“Had a crappy day?”

That wasn’t up for debate. He nodded vigorously in response, tilting his head to the side slightly so he could look at Bill with downcast eyes that might have been just a little misty, even though he refused to admit it. Bill’s expression remained playful with more than a hint of mischief, but there was a familiar edge to the demon’s voice upon getting a better look at him. “Want me to kill someone and bring you their severed head? Arson is also a possibility. Really I’m good for anything, Pine Tree.” He wasn’t kidding; Dipper knew that from experience, and he needed to shut that situation down before things got out of hand again. He shook his head no, unsure of how to express what was wrong in a way that Bill could actually sympathize with.

Bill raised a blonde eyebrow, staring at him intently. “You’ve gotta give me something here. You get pissy when I read your mind, so that’s off the table.”

Dipper unfurled slowly, much like a hesitant flower, and took a deep breath. There was a lump in his throat, and his chest physically hurt from the weight of everything he needed to say - that he felt like a failure, that he couldn’t live up to a set of standards that he wasn’t even sure Ford expected of him, that he was legitimately terrified of the set of exams facing him within less than a week, that this was what he was good at and he wasn’t good at it anymore. “I don’t want you to kill anyone or burn anything down,” he sighed. “I just…" 

Bill’s intense gaze rested on him, waiting for him to continue. "You want me to leave you alone?" 

That was new. 

Dipper sat up straight, stunned; rarely did his overly enthusiastic boyfriend offer to stop bothering him, usually leading to Dipper being forced to chase him off by threatening to break out a vial of holy water or something along those lines. Bill and boundaries didn’t mix. 

The idea of the demon leaving was unbearable; even if he couldn’t understand why Dipper was upset he was a warm presence that loved him enough to tear the head off of anyone who even considered harming him. He lunged at Bill, clinging to his arms and burying his head in the demon’s chest. 

Bill stiffened for a few seconds before relaxing and returning the embrace; Dipper felt his cap being removed, followed by a hand stroking his hair affectionately. "You meatbags and your weird meatbag feelings.”

This was clearly hypocrisy, but Dipper let it go. 

“So…is that definite ‘no’ on the murder thing?" 

"Yes,” Dipper mumbled. 

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well, there’s always next time,” Bill responded with just a touch of disappointment, then resumed running his fingers through Dipper’s hair.

Chapter Text

All things considered, the tentacles and everything that accompanied them weren’t exactly a major inconvenience, but they still took some getting used to. At least they did for Dipper, but that was probably born of having gone for a little under a decade only seeing Bill as either a geometric figure or in human guise, both of which were very different from the body the demon was relegated to for the time being.

Torrey didn’t care. At first he’d been concerned as to how she would take her father’s temporary form, and justifiably so; had Dipper, at her age, been faced with…well, a monster composed of bits and pieces of his nightmares, tapered claws, asymentrical teeth, far too many appendages and the multitude of pitch black tendrils that seemingly moved of their own accord he’d likely have been scarred for life.

None of it bothered Torrey in the slightest, visually or otherwise. Perhaps this was due to the fact that she shared half of her unique genetics with Bill, rendering her a monster in her own right, but Dipper doubted it. To their daughter Bill was Bill, regardless of what shape his body took on, and he had to admit that their interaction was rather endearing after walking in on the two of them upon returning from classes one day and finding the baby curled up in her father’s lap with several tentacles draped over her back to form a sort of blanket while Bill sang what might have been a lullaby composed of their shared demonic language in an haunting, otherworldly tone. Torrey wasn’t asleep, but she appeared to be perfectly content, staring up at Bill intently with her own vividly glowing golden eyes, perfectly silent. Some other form of communication was definitely taking place, as Dipper noticed that her irises had narrowed, indicating she was using some ability or the other. As adorable as the scene was, it also served as a reminder that for all his ‘human’ traits Bill was very much not human, and exactly what he was remained incomprehensible; there would always be that locked door behind which lay knowledge and experiences that were simply beyond Dipper because of what he was. And, by extension, there was a part of Torrey that he would never know, either, and the gap would only widen as she grew older and came into her own inherent abilities. At least she’d have Bill to guide her through it, but the thought of never being able to fully understand his own child left a funny sensation in Dipper’s stomach, and he made a point of roughly pushing it aside whenever it arose.

At any rate, neither Bill nor Torrey were particularly affected by the change, and although he had his own set of hangups about Bill’s new (temporary, it was temporary, not forever) Dipper was glad his family was happy.

And the convenience of having extra limbs for fetching and holding multiple items at once (bottles and powdered formula and jars of baby food and utensils) weren’t too bad of a bonus when it came to the juggling act that parenting tended to be, either.

Chapter Text

There were smears of dark ichor on the walls and table surfaces, heavy claw marks scoring the wooden slats of the floor, a toppled bookshelf surrounded by its contents scattered across the carpet, and an absolute mess in the kitchen clearly resulting from yet another attempt to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the use of unconventional appendages, probably solely for Torrey’s amusement.

At this point Dipper only felt a mild twinge of irritation upon returning to the scene of chaos; after several weeks of becoming acclimated once more to the side effects of Bill’s other form (following its initial appearance a couple of years back) he’d ceased being alarmed by the disarray resulting from the dream demon simply moving from room to room, sweeping things off of tables and shelves in his wake. Bill had never really been too concerned with being tidy anyway, and in full slathering monster guise he cared even less, so the task of cleaning up after him and Torrey fell to Dipper himself. The upside of it all was that, for the moment, Bill had taken on the role of stay-at-home parent - something sorely needed now that neither Stan nor Ford were present on a consistent basis. And hell, if the only cost for having full-time childcare was sweeping and rearranging furniture Dipper had no real complaints whatsoever.

Besides, he’d once walked in on the demon trying to appease him by washing dishes in a flurry of soapy water and tentacles, and that hadn’t gone well at all. 

Neither Torrey nor her father were anywhere to be seen, indicating that it was probably naptime and he could expect to find the four-year old curled up in a handful of baby blankets on Bill’s back; he was somewhat surprised to find that that wasn’t the case after dropping his knapsack by the front door and setting off to the nursery to check in on the two of them. 

Perhaps, at some point in his life, the scene that awaited him in Torrey’s room would have been mildly disturbing, but now it merely made him smile fondly at the sight of his daughter dressed up in one of the ridiculously gaudy and glittery party dresses Mabel had provided her with, serving Oreos to an at least 8-foot tall Eldritch abomination crouching next to a child-sized pink table that was covered in a somewhat ornate tea set she’d received from Aunt Pacifica for her birthday earlier that year. 

Obviously the dress code didn’t apply to Bill, but he did notice that the demon was at least wearing a bowtie fixed under one of his mouths and his top hat had made a reappearance for the occasion; Dipper guessed it was the best he could do under the current circumstances. 

Torrey paused mid-pour, catching sight of Dipper standing in the doorway looking on. Her eyes lit up, and she dropped the teapot on the carpet as she began gesturing wildly at him. “Dad, you’re late! Come on!”

He wasn’t aware of having been invited in the first place, but Dipper kept the thought to himself, allowing the little girl to grab him by the hand and tug him towards the table. “Sit next to Daddy,” she informed him imperiously, leaving Dipper to settle down on the carpet next to Bill while retrieving the upturned teapot from where it had landed.

Dipper reached for a teacup, glad that this time Bill had at least been responsible enough to veto the idea of using grape juice instead of something that stained a little less readily. Something that felt like the blunt side of a claw tapped against his shoulder, and he glanced up at his monstrous significant other, words blooming in his head in an otherworldly (yet somehow flirtatious) voice that should have been unnerving. *You come here often?*

“This isn’t that kind of party, man,” Dipper replied haughtily, taking a sip of apple juice. “Also I’m taken.”

The demon rolled his eye. *That guy’s probably a real jerk. You can do better, kid.* He accentuated the statement by gesturing to himself with one of his tentacles (thankfully neither of the two that were precariously gripping teacups).

“He is a jerk half the time,” Dipper teased, running his free hand over the tendril closest to him, noting how strange it still felt against his skin despite him now being a good deal more familiar with all of the intricacies of his husband’s current body. “I wouldn’t trade him for anything, though.”

Bill’s ego obviously didn’t need any further inflation, but it was true.

Whether the demon was floating around as the golden primary shape that just happened to have been Torrey’s first word (at least in English, she’d said far more in the incomprehensible language she and Bill shared that must have been instinctive), the relatively ‘normal’ human body with its lovely expressive eyes and array of strange symbols tattooed across his skin that Dipper never tired of looking at, or the giant mass of additional mouths and teeth and claws that would have scared anyone else shitless he was still an inextricable part of Dipper’s life that he couldn’t imagine having to live without.

Torrey’s impatient pounding of her tiny fist against the tabletop brought him back to reality; however, even as he directed his attention to their daughter’s rambling about the current events in her stuffed animals’ lives he remained aware of the claw still resting on his shoulder, returning the gesture by keeping his palm pressed against the tentacle at his side the entire time.

Chapter Text

Bill doesn’t particularly care for humans.

Granted, they’re amusing creatures, from their fragile, far too squishy flesh casings to their inherent hubris leading to the fall of civilization after civilization from the dawn of their concept of time. They’re fun to toy with, like delicate little dolls in a planet-sized dollhouse, and they’re fun to observe, but that’s where his interest ends. Their physical forms are inconvenient, their minds are typically dull, save for a handful of outliers that have shone brightly enough over time to catch his attention, and they exist as little more than a large hill of ants to be crushed or coddled given whatever frame of mind he is at that moment and time.

His Pine Tree, however, is different, especially now that’s he’s shed his humanity like an unwanted cloak and crossed the threshold towards fulfilling his full potential. 

The shell necessary to move among the material plane in search of fitting targets for what they have to offer (the promise of dreams in exchange for ardent nightmares) is attractive, as humans go, and fully worth Bill assuming his own meatbag guise on a fairly regular basis - their bodies may be fragile, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fun, and when his hands are buried in the soft brown curls and his tongue trailing along his Pine Tree’s collarbone while his other half writhes beneath him in mindless ecstasy he has to admit that were they to be stuck like this for a longer period of time he could most certainly get used to it. 

But the form that is distinctly not human, vaguely humanoid in shape but less a body and moreso a mobile galaxy of drifting constellations -that is beautiful, so much so that Bill’s glad that he doesn’t really have to worry about breathing most of the time, because the sight of his Pine Tree as the monster he was always meant to be takes his breath away.

His skin is the deep blue velvet hue of the night sky, almost ebony but not quite, peppered with oh so many stars, pinpricks of light arranged into constellations both familiar and unidentified within the fledgling field of astronomy; they glow from within in vivid cerulean, accented by the rows of ciphers and ancient sigils tattooed across his wrists, the nape of his neck, directly where a heart should be and his lower back that gleam with the same deep golden hue as his eyes; his Pine Tree is a shadow devoid of the absence of light, imbued with all the knowledge the universe has to offer alongside the curiosity needed to appreciate the gift he’s been given. 

And unlike the physical limitations of a human body, the melding of their true forms lacks that restriction, allowing for a nearly infinite well of sensation and experiences far beyond what his Pine Tree could ever have imagined before taking Bill’s hand and allowing the demon to lead him to his destiny. 

When they’re entangled within each other, a sea of stars blended into a mass of slick golden surfaces and obsidian tendrils coiling around his object of what Bill’s gradually beginning to understand is legitimate affection, it occurs to him that for his countless millennia of existence he’s never been quite as happy as he is now, bonded forever with his Pine Tree. 

His.  

Chapter Text

He’s been around way too long to be impressed with everything he does, but sometimes Bill feels the need to give himself a pat on the back; he really does know how to pick ‘em. 

Of all of his toys over the measly handful of minutes humanity has existed in comparison to the planet they’ve infected with their presence, Stanford Pines is quite possibly his favorite. He’s an aberration in his own right, from his fearless pursuit of the supernatural and paranormal to the extra digits he was born with to the particularly deviant thoughts that run through the man’s head whenever he’s subjected to the slightest compliment from the demon’s metaphorical lips. It isn’t just the physical birth defect or exceedingly high intelligence level that makes Ford a worthy candidate for his attention, nor what differentiates him from the slew of others that have fallen under Bill’s influence - it’s the devotion, the adoration, the faith in a god whose true face Stanford’s never seen but whom he loves wholeheartedly anyway, although the words have never left his lips and likely never will without being coaxed out of him for fear of offending the center of his universe. 

Praise and attention might be Ford’s drug of choice, but his reaction to it is unequivocally Bill’s.

It isn’t that he’s starved for that level of adulation, having experienced it so many times before in varying degrees, but there’s a distinct note of exceptionally ardent passion that extends beyond fierce piety in the way Ford’s eyes light up whenever Bill speaks to him for even the most mundane of reasons. While the notion was initially highly amusing (a mere human seeking the intimate affections of a force of destruction older than the galaxy he dwells in; the inherent arrogance in even entertaining that thought still makes the demon laugh whenever he recalls the moment of realization while idly poking around in the man’s head), over time it’s become less of a joke. Perhaps it’s that brand of infatuation elevating this particular toy above the others that he’s played with, broken, and discarded, further impetus to take better care of this one. 

Having a devotee is one thing, but completely possessing another individual is something different entirely; as far as he’s concerned, Stanford Pines is his from every single hair on his head to each beat of the heart within his chest, body and mind and soul and spirit and heart, his to enhance or destroy at will, and the knowledge that he can do so with very little to absolutely no resistance just makes their relationship even more alluring. 

And it only serves to fuel the surge of jealousy that comes close to overtaking him whenever anyone even comes within a few feet of him, from the denizens of the town Ford thankfully doesn’t pass much time in to his overly friendly companion that looks upon his toy the same way his toy looks upon Bill himself.

There are times when he’d like nothing more than to trap the man within his own head, essentially brain dead to the physical world, fettered to the Mindscape where Bill and Bill alone are all he knows, but such rash actions can only backfire. He’s far closer to completing the portal than anyone else has ever come, so despite his desire to incinerate Stanford’s weasily fellow researcher the demon is content to wait for the moment, sated by fiddling around with the former’s dreams and giving him what he wants so desperately within them and tormenting the latter with the most vicious nightmares he can dream up out of pure, unadulterated spite.

Because Stanford Pines is his toy. His and his alone. 

And Bill Cipher doesn’t like to share.

Chapter Text

Despite having been anticipating it for at least a year (following the announcement that the Northwests would be sponsoring Mabel’s education overseas; after all, if she was going to join their family she needed at least a touch of culture), the separation was much harder to deal with than Dipper had expected it to be. 

Although Bill was a constant presence, as well as his grand uncle, his friends that had remained in town after graduation, his classmates at the local community college he’d be attending for awhile, and the steady stream of tourists, there was a silence that their presence couldn’t fill. As they’d grown older they hadn’t spent all of their time together as they had as kids; Mabel had Pacifica and Candy and Grenda and the slew of issues, both exciting and trying, that came with being a teenage girl, and Dipper had his own concerns - mainly exploration of both the woods alongside Bill, collecting samples, recording all of his findings to be analyzed later, and making out with a guy that had stolen his body and tried to kill him at some point. 

But his sister was still there; she still snored at night while he was reading and babbled about whatever she’d done that day and madeterrible jokes and poked fun at him for being an incurable geek, and he still held her hand when she cried or became unsure of herself and her artwork or fretted over her relationship with Pacifica, and they argued over small stuff and shared pancakes and expressed their disdain over things together, and while he chose not to Dipper could have finished her sentences, and vice versa. No matter how far apart they were physically he and Mabel were a unit, and after this long he severely doubted it would change. The lack of noise and the particular light she radiated left him feeling empty at first, and even with Bill being there he had trouble sleeping for the first week after moving in for good.

He supposed it would be a lot worse on Mabel’s end - after all, he was simply having to deal with her absence; the Mystery Shack and the town itself were now as familiar to him as his former home back in Piedmont, as were its inhabitants and his mildly demented significant other, but his sister was now adjusting to an entirely new county and the inevitable culture shock in addition to having Pacifica as her only contact from back home. He had no doubt that Mabel of all people would have a couple of new friends in no time - she wasn’t the Shooting Star for nothing, but the first couple of weeks would be probably be pretty harrowing for her, as well. But it was Mabel, so the barrage of text messages and video chats contained no trace of the separation anxiety he was undergoing - only enthusiasm at being in a new city and a million photos of food she was trying for the first time and old buildings and flowers and inquiries about how things were going across the ocean. To anyone else, it would have seemed as if she were having no trouble acclimating to life without him nearby, but by now Dipper knew her well enough to read between the lines and recognize the ‘I miss you’ embedded within them. 

Dipper knew that as the months passed and they settled into their lives it would hurt a lot less; she was only a phone call, video chat or text message away (thank goodness for technology), and in spite of it all he wouldn’t have done anything any differently or made any other choices than those leading him to where he was now - he loved Gravity Falls, he loved how weird it was, he loved Stan and Soos and Wendy, and he loved Bill.

But he missed the other half of himself terribly, and those text messages and reassurances that she was still there despite the distances brightened his day in a way that nothing else could.

Chapter Text

This was most definitely not how Dipper Cipher-Pines had expected his afternoon to go.

The creatures that poured from the shimmering aquamarine portal suspended just above their heads were an odd amalgamation of reptile and rat, foul in both feature and scent. Tattered rags did a poor job of protecting their modesty, not that Dipper was particularly affected by that. He’d fought far too many monsters to give a damn about something as meaningless as monster junk.

A fetid stench filled the air as the creatures latched on to his and Bill’s clothing, tearing at their exposed skin with asymetrical, tapered claws whenever they were allowed to progress that far. Fortunately they weren’t exactly hardy, and a number of burnt corpses already littered the forest floor.

A kobold leapt at Dipper, aiming for his throat while uttering what could only be an oath in whatever language they spoke. He caught the creature in midair, electricity flowing from the gloves he wore into the kobold’s writhing body before tossing the charred corpse over his shoulder. His back was pressed against Bill’s as the demon fried monster after monster, hands engulfed in blue flames that seared through skin upon contact. Together they formed a terrifyingly efficient unit of destruction, despite Dipper’s constant griping over the turn a perfectly pleasant day had taken.

“Let’s explore this dimensional rift, you said! It’ll be fun, you said!” He seized another kobold, slamming it against the ground with a sickening crunch. “There’s no chance of it turning out to be a portal to a nightmare world full of horrific abominations hell bent on ripping us to shreds.”

He didn’t need to see Bill’s face to know that he was rolling his eyes at the statement. “That’s not what I said, kid.”

“That’s exactly what you said,” Dipper snapped bitterly. “Those were the exact words that came out of your mouth.”

“No, what I said was…” Bill paused mid-battle with a dead kobold in his grasp. The corpse was now blackened beyond recognition, beginning to smoke. “Actually, you’re right.” He shrugged. “Okay, so I was wrong.”

“No shit.”

Dipper flinched slightly as a hand gripped his; he could feel the odd tingling sensation of the demon’s power being channeled through his body, but as always it caused no pain or discomfort. The gesture actually calmed his frayed nerves a bit. “Chill, Pine Tree!” Bill squeezed his hand reassuringly. “This happens all the time, it’s no big deal. I’ve got you covered.”

Dipper sighed, relatively placated, and the duo returned to the task at hand. The stream of kobolds seemed to be decreasing in frequency, but there were still quite a few at their heels. Bill was right - this wasn’t the first time he’d found himself tearing through a horde of monsters out in the woods, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Bill spoke then; his casual tone constrasted with the situation they were in. “Aren’t Shooting Star and Blondie coming over for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, so we really need to get this taken care of. I don’t trust Grunkle Stan in the kitchen anymore after the incident.” The incident had evolved from past event to legend, in that neither the twins, Ford, nor Bill himself could explain how Stan had managed to set a bowl of cereal on fire. It made no sense, but that was par for the course in Gravity Falls.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was on fire!”

A rather adventurous kobold slithered up Dipper’s arm and poised itself on his shoulder, extending its claws to take a chunk out of Bill’s ear. “Watch out!” Dipper shouted, alerting the demon to the creature’s presence; Bill made quick work of it, crushing its trachea with his bare hands.

“Thanks, Pine Tree. So…” He continued, obviously smirking, “You trust yourself in the kitchen?”

Hold the fuck up.

Dipper kicked at a kobold near his foot, connecting with its stomach and sending it flying into a tree trunk several feet away. He turned around, grabbed hold of Bill’s shirt and whirled him around while glaring daggers at him. “The hell is that supposed to mean? At least I can make a sandwich without getting blood everywhere.”

“Once.” Bill grinned at the fond memory. “That happened once.”

Tiring of the battle (and wanting to get it over with so they could go about their day), Bill raised his hands, prompting Dipper to press his palms against them. A sphere composed of cerulean flames tinted with gold flared up around their bodies, crashing into the creatures surrounding them and incinerating them on contact, taking the remnants of their deceased comrades with them. Encased within the sphere, Dipper leaned forward, resting his forehead against the demon’s while the world outside burned.

Silence filled the small clearing as the flames receded, save for the sound of the two of them breathing heavily. There remained no evidence of the skirmish save for their own bloodstained and ripped clothing, as well as a large circular area of the ground completely devoid of grass. Bill patted Dipper’s back, smirk replaced by an expression of concern. “You alright, kid?”

Dipper nodded, bent over with his hands in his knees, gasping.

“Sorry, that one was on me,” Bill apologized, with a level of sincerity reserved for Dipper and Dipper alone. “Let me stabilize this thing and we can get out of here.”

“Idiot,” Dipper muttered, but he was smiling. This kind of thing just came with the territory, and he wouldn’t give it up for anything. “Man, you wanna just order a pizza?”

“Works for me.”

Chapter Text

At a much earlier and far more innocent (relatively) period in Dipper’s life the end of summer had merely represented a cessation to his and Mabel’s freedom for the following nine months, and while his sister faced the beginning of the school year with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on death row it didn’t faze him as much. Academics had never been much of an issue for Dipper, and as the years passed and he and Mabel grew older and slightly wiser the occasional bullying that resulted from being an egghead dried up to a trickle of what he’d been subjected to in elementary and middle school. High school still sucked, but at least there were easier targets to shove against lockers.  

Of course this didn’t mean that life became less complicated and confusing; there was the usual struggle for identity and recognition, peer pressure, tumultuous relationships consisting of communication attempts that could be and generally were taken entirely the wrong way - the typical teenage experience that Dipper was definitely ready to move past. And unlike his sister, for whom her longtime rival turned girlfriend was just a text message or Skype call away, Dipper had the extra dimension of being separated from the so-called being of pure energy with no weaknesses that he’d gradually developed an eventually reciprocated crush on during their summers away from home…who couldn’t be reached through any convenient methods. Sure, he could try drawing a magic circle on his bedroom floor and attempting to summon Bill but that was a terrible idea and he wasn’t willing to risk putting the entire state of California at risk just for a few minutes of the demon’s time. 

He also wasn’t entirely sure whether the dull heartache was an indication that he was clingy; by now he had a passing knowledge of just how old of a being Bill was - he wasn’t an awkward, overly emotional teenager and was more than likely perfectly fine during the three-quarters of a year Dipper wasn’t physically there. 

That didn’t stop Dipper from missing him terribly. 

He pointedly ignored Mabel’s comments about him pining away, mostly because it was a terrible joke but also because he didn’t want to admit that everything seemed much duller in Piedmont, as if a bit of the color in his world faded away whenever they left Gravity Falls for the summer. California lacked the ambient sense of mystery and magic that pervaded their home away from home,  alongside the plethora of supernatural and paranormal phenomena that kept Mabel and himself busy while visiting Stan and their friends in Oregon. It also lacked his guide to what he couldn’t see on his own. He told himself that was it; that he was simply bored to the point of distraction, but when he worked up the nerve to be honest with himself, staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on his ceiling while failing at sleeping at night, he was forced to acknowledge just how much he wanted to nestle into demon’s embrace beneath an open expanse of sky peppered with celestial bodies that Bill knew all the names of, resting his head against his chest and listening to the erratic, alien heartbeat within. 

But that was seven months away, an entire semester and a half, and unless he and Mabel could convince their parents to let them visit over winter break again there wasn’t really anything he could do to sate that desire. He had to just deal, and he did so, devouring reading material from the dark corners of old bookstores and developing his own theories based on the entries in the journal that was now somewhat of a security blanket and occasionally allowing Mabel or his friends to pull him into some form of age-appropriate shenanigans or the other, tainted all the while by a sense of numbness that persisted despite his best efforts to shake it off.

It was then, sometime around the third month of radio silence on Bill’s end, that the dreams began.

They were neither frequent, nor did they follow any particular pattern; they came arbitrarily, without warning, and sometimes with entire weeks between occurrences. At first Dipper failed to notice anything out of the ordinary about them. His dreams were usually weird, probably a side effect of all the equally weird experiences he’d gone through for the past seven summers, with the rare completely unremarkable, mundane dreams that were more abstract in nature.

These took the form of the latter, much like a collage of sights and sounds that were torn from his memories of Gravity Falls, the lapping of the waves atop the lake in the wake of the monster that dwelt within its depths, the chill running along his forearms at the sound of footsteps behind him in the woods, silver dew on flowers that glowed with an internal, ethereal light casting eerie shadows along the tree trunks that surrounded him, all underlain with a voice that was overwhelmingly familiar but escaped concrete recognition whispering words in a language he couldn’t comprehend. They left him feeling a barrage of conflicting emotions, nostalgia and longing and a twinge of apprehension, but the most prominent was warmth; when he opened his eyes the morning after he woke up light-headed and giddy andhappy in a way he couldn’t put into words.

After the first couple of dreams, it became apparent that these weren’t exactly normal. As time went on they started to gain a level of clarity that approached that of a lucid dream, although they remained scattered and cobbled together. But the pieces themselves were more vivid, and the emotions and sensations associated with them more intense. He could clearly recall his heart thrumming within his chest while catching sight of some creature that wasn’t supposed to exist outside of the realm of his imagination, the smell of upturned earth or sharp amber or the smoky aroma of a crackling campfire, to the tune of the voice speaking to him. Although the words were foreign, they were soothing, much like a lullaby, enfolding him within their arms. The words were an embrace, a soft kiss on the cheek, fingertips tracing odd symbols on his skin, the pure sentiment of affection granted both auditory and visual form in the absence of touch.

And yet, every time he awakened from one he could barely recall any specific details, only that he was warm and happy, always so very happy and complete, however temporary it was.

At some point he realized that they were related to Bill, somehow, even without the demon making an appearance in them in his typical showy, arrogant fashion; the words being spoken were in Bill’s voice, in a lower tone with a more musical cadence than what Dipper was used to, but it was definitely Bill’s voice.

And the knowledge that the demon was reaching out to him (albeit in a cryptic manner with no method of returning his calls) was a blessing; he couldn’t answer, but it meant Bill was thinking of him enough to expend the effort.

And it served as a reminder that they’d be reunited at some point. when Dipper could actually respond to them as he wished, with more than just words.

Until then, he was content to wait for the next love letter.

Chapter Text

The yellow roses were a point of contention between the two of them, and for the life of him Dipper couldn’t understand why. 

Moving in with Bill just sort of happened sans much preparation; he’d committed to spending the winter at his cabin out in the remote woods to avoid having to make the trek there in the snow for a few months. Winter gradually turned into spring with its copious amount of light showers that left the ground soft beneath his hooves and the awakening of all the plant life that had lain dormant since the previous year, and spring marched on towards early summer - during which the green buds unfurled and gave way to crisp new leaves and soft, delicate blossoms that were absolutely delicious. 

Although he’d spent a great deal of time when he was younger denying the existence of any traits inherited from the other half of his species following the transformation and straining against the inherent urges that came along with being mostly herbivore seven years was more than enough time for Dipper to come to terms with it. Once he’d started growing a full rack of antlers every year and undergoing the hell that was rutting season it was pretty pointless to continue holding himself back from certain things - and one of those things was treating the entirety of the world outside as an open snack bar. 

He knew from his own research and simple observation that deer were notorious for leaping fences and ruining gardens by sampling almost everything they had to offer, and now that he was one he could understand why. At first the human part of himself railed against the idea of nibbling at leaves and stripping the petals from fresh flowers, but the part of him that wasn’t human had told that part to get bent while he indulged in destroying a shrub near the Mystery Shack, ignoring Mabel’s mockery from one of her tanks out on the lawn. They tasted good in a way that he couldn’t particularly explain to anyone else; a handful of leaves was little different from a handful of broccoli crowns save for texture, and as with most white tails it took at least a couple of pounds of vegetation a day in addition to ‘normal’ food to keep him from becoming dizzy from hunger. 

The yard around Bill’s house (and now his, he guessed) was an immense buffet of overgrown plant life, from the poorly maintained garden plots that seemed to be regulating themselves in the backyard to the English ivy that clung to the walls of the cabin to numerous wildflowers and shrubs that were a nice change from the regular fare out in the surrounding woods. Although Bill consistently ribbed him about it the wolf seemed to actively encourage his foraging, even going as far to erect a shoddily constructed trellis for blackberries later on in the year to ensure that there was a fair supply on hand for Dipper to munch on when the mood hit. But the yellow rosebushes towards the back of the house were off-limits; the wolf had actually gotten mad at him for sampling a particularly inviting bud at one point. 

This didn’t make much sense to Dipper. It wasn’t as if Bill was overly concerned about any of the other plants in the yard, including the ones in the garden that actually did require some level of maintenance that eventually fell to Dipper himself after realizing that his significant other was pretty incompetent when it came to horticulture. To make matters worse they just happened to be an unrivaled treat that was difficult to come by on a regular basis, even with the threat of being pricked by the thorns while helping himself to one of the soft, tantalizing golden blossoms. The damn things were his rampion, to the point of offering Bill considerably less than innocent favors in exchange for access to the bush. That the wolf didn’t immediately jump on the opportunity (pun very much intended) and denied the request time and time again was mind-boggling. 

At the same time it was sweet to see Bill so protective of something that wasn’t a nice, reliable rifle or a fine piece of taxidermy or something else creepy that Dipper had just gotten used to over time, so he respected the wolf’s wishes and the rosebushes went unscathed despite his desire to strip them clean. 

He wasn’t used to waking up in the morning without Bill there; it was a rarity that Dipper found the bed empty save for himself. At least it wasn’t cold anymore or even chilly at night now that they were around a week or so into the official start of summer, but he did feel a slight twinge of loneliness at the absence as he stood up and stretched his legs before leaving the bedroom and heading for the kitchen. That was yet another oddity - Bill wasn’t much more competent in the kitchen than he was out in the garden, so the task of cooking generally fell to Dipper, who managed to fare much better in his culinary endeavors. Maybe he’d skipped breakfast before heading out to take care of something out in the woods. At any rate, it probably wasn’t anything to really worry about.

Which was why what he found in the kitchen surprised him so much that Dipper came close to tripping over his own hooves after years of finally walking without forgetting how to use his legs. 

Bill sat at the dining room table, wearing an oddly impassive expression that was obviously forced, and a large glass bowl that Dipper hadn’t noticed before lay before him, filled to the brim with yellow blossoms neatly separated from their thorny stems. Upon further inspection he also noticed that the wolf’s fingers were haphazardly wrapped with white bandages through which splotches of pink could be seen bleeding through. 

Dipper’s gaze shifted back and forth from the bowl of roses to Bill’s fingers, then back to the bowl of roses, and his brain temporarily short-circuited as he searched for words to express the confusing jumble of emotions he was experiencing. What came out was a decidedly unintelligent sounding “Wha?”

He could’ve sworn that Bill’s voice quavered for a second as he responded, completely failing at assuming the aura of self-confidence with just a touch of narcissism that he usually exuded. “It’s been a year.”

“Since what” danced along the tip of Dipper’s tongue before he bit it back, suddenly realizing what the wolf was referring to. “Oh. Really?”

Bill shrugged. “Pretty sure. I haven’t been keeping track or anything, though.”

It occurred to Dipper that the tension involving the roses hadn’t actually begun until he’d expressed interest in them upon visiting the wolf for the first time the year before, after which Bill had become overwhelmingly protective of them. 

All of the details were beginning to paint a picture that made his heart pick up the pace and left him feeling a little dizzy. 

“Anyway…” The hint of awkwardness in the wolf’s tone dissolved and his lips curled into his characteristic smirk. “I figured I’d take you up on some of those offers if they still stand.”

His hooves clicked rather loudly against the wooden planks as Dipper cantered towards him, rounding the table and throwing himself at his boyfriend with his tail swishing back and forth in excitement. He wasted no time in seeking out Bill’s lips in a kiss that immediately became much less chaste; he hoped the wolf realized that it was a non-verbal confirmation that those offers were most definitely still on the table as he now had far more important things to do with his mouth than talking. 

The roses would have to wait for a bit.

Chapter Text

The days following the cataclysmic event neatly swept beneath the rug under the ‘Never Mind All That!’ edict were, unsurprisingly, rather peaceful. Not that there was much in the way of actual crime in Gravity Falls, save for the general lineup of individuals speeding, jay walkers, and petty offenses along those lines, but even that slowed to a halt after the thing that had happened, though only time would tell how long it would last. And it was a good thing that there weren’t any incidents requiring law enforcement, because the town’s sheriff and his deputy were occupied with other, more pressing matters - mainly enjoying their reunion. 

The brief period of separation had been harrowing for both the bumbling sheriff and his equally bumbling deputy, although Edwin didn’t really remember most of it between being petrified and subsequently awakened to his emotionally overcome partner barreling into him in a nearly spine-crushing hug. Nevertheless, the experience led to an epiphany, two to be exact: life was short and meant to be lived to the fullest while it lasted, and they intended to do so together. 

So they celebrated in every way possible, from stuffing themselves with pancakes at Greasy’s until neither of them could move, especially Blubs, having spent a few days subsisting on suspicious canned meat while hiding out in the Mystery Shack; 'borrowing’ a golf cart from the former Northwest Mansion and driving it around at top speed while hooting at the top of their lungs; setting off fireworks they may or may not have had a license for, and generally wasting their time - at least to anyone looking from the outside. 

The two officers finished up another full day of being utterly unproductive sitting in their squad car, engaged in attempting to solve a Rubik’s cube that continued to stump them after three hours of rotating the toy’s sides back and forth and making no progress whatsoever. The problem was solved by setting the stupid thing on fire with the flare gun on hand and watching it burn with twin expressions of satisfaction on their faces.

As the Rubik’s cube collapsed in on itself, something that had been on his mind ever since the conclusion of the thing that had happened occurred to Blubs. He looked up at his taller companion, stomach twisting ever so slightly at the memory of seeing Durland’s body become rigid, eyes going dull and skin taking on the appearance of smooth stone. In a voice a shade more serious than usual, he spoke up, over the sound of the crackling flames. “You’re not planning on retiring anytime soon, are you?”

Durland stared down at him for a second before responding, indicating that, in a rare moment of clarity, he’d comprehended what he was really being asked. “No sir! I’m on duty…as long as you need me.”

“I’ll always need you,” Blubs replied immediately, reaching out to take hold of his partner’s hand and gripping it tightly; they stayed like that long after the Rubik’s cube dissolved and the fire grew low before sputtering out altogether.

And they were happy.