#BUT. look at this human bill

[ckret2]

Chapter 41 of human Bill Cipher being really sick of being the Mystery Shack's prisoner: after absolutely terrorizing Gideon for projecting used car ads into Bill's dreams, tries to blackmail Gideon into working for him again.

But not before showing some unexpected sympathy for the plight of a child psychic on whose shoulders the family's financial future rests.

####

Dipper and Mabel were in the middle of a race on a roller coaster track when Bill wandered back downstairs. He sat on the couch armrest next to Mabel and precariously balanced as he crossed his legs. "So I've been thinking over this whole thing," Bill said. "I think I should apologize to Gideon."

"Work that out all by yourself?" Dipper glanced at the clock. "Wow. And it only took you half an hour."

Mabel finished a lap. While the roller coaster track slowly lifted her car to the top of the hill to start the next lap, she turned to give Bill an appraising look, ready to assess his work. "Apologize for what?"

"For terrorizing him! Is this a trick question?"

She nodded slowly—a little skeptical, but so far so good—but had to look away as she regained control of her car. "What's your angle?"

"I'm equilateral, work it out."

"Shut uuup, I'm serious."

"Why do I need to have an angle? Maybe I want to practice some of the apology lessons they're teaching on Color Critters! Aren't you the one who wanted me to be a decent person? You should be thrilled. You are thrilled."

"Bill."

"Okay fine, I want you to stop looking at me like I'm evil incarnate over a silly little prank letter." He nudged Mabel's head with his elbow. She smacked his arm away. "Isn't that the only reason anyone apologizes? To stop people from getting mad at them?" He lifted his eyepatch and squinted at the screen. "Goose in the left barrel."

Mabel swerved left. "Yes! Eat tail feathers, Dipper!"

"No no no no—!" His anguished groan mingled with angry honks. He tossed down his controller as Mabel sailed past his disabled car. "I'm not playing with Bill in the room."

Mabel laughed. "You're a sore loser!"

"I'll be out of your matted hair in a few minutes," Bill said. "You're cranky, go get a juice."

Dipper stomped from the room, grumbling. "Whatever, I'm getting a snack." He pointed at Bill, "Not because you told me to! I'm just hungry! It's got nothing to do with you!"

"Sure." Bill nudged Mabel again. "C'mon, let me use my training. Don't think I haven't noticed you're trying to mold me into a model citizen. Why bother if I never get a chance to act like one?"

Mabel looked at him thoughtfully. "You know what? Okay. I guess not wanting people to be mad at you is a good enough reason to apologize." She'd been hoping he'd land on genuine remorse, but she'd take what she could get.

"Great! Fisherman's out, Questiony's working, Sixer's gonna be in his cave til dinner, Dolores doesn't care—" Bill gestured toward the door, "so let's get the bracelets and get to the kid's house while the adults are distracted."

Mabel grimaced. "Oough. Right. We have to actually visit him."

"Unless you want me to mail an apology letter—"

"Definitely not." She sighed. "Well, if it's for the greater good... put on something other than a hoodie and let's go."

"You got it." Bill hopped off the couch and swung with one hand around the doorframe as he headed to the stairs.

####

Dipper tried to protest, but he'd missed his window to talk Mabel out of it; and so Bill and Mabel headed out, with Bill in a loose smiley face-covered Hawaiian shirt—Mabel approved of the friendly message—an undershirt, the leggings that looked like jeans, and his dress shoes. In other words, about as disarmingly unthreateningly un-Bill-like as he could get. He seemed to get bouncier and more energetic the longer they walked outside, until by the time they were turning onto Gideon's street he was cartwheeling up the sidewalk.

Bill waited for Mabel to open the gate in front of Gideon's house; but while Bill blithely passed through, Mabel lingered behind a few steps. Bill paused and glanced back. "Hey. All good, star girl?"

"Yeah." Mabel laughed nervously and caught up. "Just... haven't been to his house since before he got weird. Kinda gives me the willies now."

"Can't blame you. This is the guy who agreed to be my sheriff in exchange for custody of your bubble key."

Mabel cringed. "Did he really?"

"Oh yeah. Think he was planning to visit you in there until he wooed you? I never asked him. I didn't want the details."

"Ugh." Mabel shuddered.

Bill paused. "Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that ten feet from his front door."

"It's... it's fine." She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Greater good. Right?"

He didn't answer immediately, tapping a foot as he thought. "Listen. Once we're in there, do you want me to go somewhere private to talk with him? So you don't have to worry about him leering at you the whole time?"

"Would you?" Mabel's shoulders slumped as a little tension eased up, relief obvious on her face. "But how will I know if you've apologized properly?"

"That little tattle will tell you if I do an awful job." Bill laughed. "Come on! I don't need you grading me on a rubric! Gimme a chance to prove I can say 'I'm sorry' without my life coach telling me how to behave."

"Thanks, Bill." She gave him a quick hug.

"Sure, any time kid. I'm not about to let any creeps get to you on my watch." Bill stretched his arms out, fingers laced together. "Ready?" When Mabel nodded, Bill knocked on the door.

After a long moment, a worried-looking, gray-haired woman opened the door. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Gleeful!" Bill offered a partial bow. "We're here to visit Gideon, he should be expecting us. Would you let him know we're here?"

"Oh. Yes, of course." Her voice was a hushed murmur, as though she were talking to herself—or perpetually concerned about being overheard. She didn't raise her voice much as she called into the house, "Gideon? You have visitors."

Voice muffled, Gideon shouted from upstairs, "Who is it!"

Joy glanced over Bill and Mabel, but her gaze lingered on Mabel's face. "Oh. Aren't you that girl he...?"

"It's Mabel."

Joy said, "It's Mabel, and—"

Gideon let out an alarmed squawk. "Ohmygoodness. JUST A MINUUUTE! Where did I leave my cologne—"

Joy watched the ceiling nervously, listening to the subtle thuds.

Bill glanced her up and down, as though sizing up what he had to work with; and then he smiled brightly and said, "Well, I'm sure the little star's preparing a big entrance! Shall we wait inside?"

Joy started a little. "Oh—yes, of course. Please, come in." She pulled the door open wider and gestured to the sitting area.

Bill and Mabel took a seat on the couch. Bill crossed one ankle over his knee in a casual figure 4, and gestured to the armchair as though he were the host giving his guest permission to sit. Joy hesitated, but took the seat, sitting straight up without touching the back of the seat, feet together and hands laced over her knees.

"And how has Gideon been lately?" Bill asked. "We haven't had a chance to catch up since last summer!"

"Oh—I'm sure he's probably fine," Joy said, eyes darting around—to the clean carpet, to the framed pictures hanging straight on the wall, to the doorway into the kitchen.

"'Probably'?" Bill echoed.

"Well. He's really closer to his father, you see..."

"Nonsense." Bill lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I trust a woman's intuition on this sort of thing." He paused. "I'd wink here, but uh..." He gestured at his eye patch and shrugged with a helpless grin.

Joy curled her lips into her mouth and, for the first time since she'd opened the door, for a fraction of a second, nearly almost smiled. But it faded quickly; and when she spoke, her voice was low enough that Mabel had to lean halfway across the coffee table to hear her. (Bill didn't even move.) "You should probably know before you see him: he... has seemed a little bit cranky, recently."

"Oh?" Bill prompted.

(Mabel mumbled, "'Recently'?" and Bill nudged her.)

"Nothing like he was when he—" Joy faltered and quickly course corrected, "before his arrest. But, a bit. But then he's going through so much—reintegrating into life on the outside, trying to make friends at school..."

"Say, that's nice to hear! Has he made many?"

Joy hesitated. "He's always been... such a precocious child. It makes it hard for him to relate to other... And honestly, I think most of the children are jealous of his talents."

Bill nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure they are. Kids can be so cruel when they notice someone special. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

Joy nodded. "Yes—exactly. And he's so... sensitive."

Bill gave Mabel a warning glance. She pursed her lips tightly and puffed out her cheeks. Satisfied she wasn't about to weigh in on why Gideon wasn't making friends, Bill turned back to Joy. "Do you think that's what's been bothering him lately?"

"Well, yes, there's that."

Voice a tad lower, Bill prompted, "And...?"

Joy paused. She twisted her hands together. "And—I think he might be concerned about his father's business."

"Oh, the auto dealership?" Bill sat up a little. "I hope it hasn't been struggling lately?"

"It's... been a slow few months," Joy said. "It must be weighing on him—"

"He doesn't feel responsible, does he?"

Joy quickly shook her head. "Of course not. It isn't his fault. But he's just a little boy, there's not much he can do to help. Besides perform in a commercial, maybe—and he doesn't like that, we don't make him do that anymore—or..." She trailed off. "Well. Not knowing how to help or what to do... I can imagine he must feel... guilty." She stared down at her hands as she spoke.

Bill's gaze never wavered from her face. He nodded slowly. "I'm sure the business must be weighing on the whole family. It can't be easy for you, Joy—keeping a household running during such a difficult time." He gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll see what I can do to help you all."

Joy stared at his face, eyes shining. "I'm, sorry—did I catch your name?"

"Mr. Locke is fine, thanks. I was in business talks with your son before his incarceration."

Mabel leaned against Bill and whispered, "You mean he hired you to invade my grunkle's brain—"

Bill elbowed her.

Footsteps scurried down the stairs. "I'm coming!" Gideon rushed into the room, tugging his sleeves down his wrists, all gussied up and reeking of three separate hair products. "Hi Mabel my honey pie! What a pleasant surprise, what brings you by so s—" His gaze fixed on Bill, and his sweet smile twisted into fury. "You!"

Joy quickly stood up. "I should be—vacuuming the dining room." She hurried from the room, giving Gideon a wide berth as she went. The sound of vacuuming quickly filled the house.

Gideon never looked away from Bill. "Just what do you think y—"

Bill was on his feet and sweeping across the room before Gideon could get more out. "Hello again! I don't think we were properly introduced. The name's Goldie Locke." He blinked. "Wink."

Gideon grimaced. "You serious? Goldilocks? That's the best you could do?"

"I thought it was funny!"

Mabel scooted up onto the arm of the sofa, took a leap off, and landed next to Bill. "I came up with it!"

Gideon smiled uncomfortably. "Oh—sure, sure. Real cute."

"We came by so Goldie here," Mabel poked Bill's arm with both hands, "could give you a proper apology for his... 'prank.'" She got behind Bill and poked him in the back, directing him toward the stairs. "So you two go off somewhere private and do that! Go! Go on!"

"Wh— private?" Gideon leaned around Bill to give Mabel a pleading look. "M-Mabel, aren't you coming too?"

Mabel laughed nervously. "No, definitely not. I'm staying right here."

"But—but—"

"It's fine! If he tries any—" her voice dropped to a whisper, "—weird space demon magic—you can just scream. But he's basically harmless! I promise."

"But... I don't wanna be alone with..."

Bill put a hand on Gideon's back, turned him around, and practically dragged him toward the stairs. "And she doesn't want to be alone with you, and I'm going to respect her wishes."

Gideon hissed at Bill. He wasn't quite sure what to do when Bill hissed back. No one had ever done that before.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Bill said, giving Gideon a very worrying smile. "I just want an opportunity to show you the sincerity of my remorse. A little heart-to-heart! And anyway, you and I have a lot of catching up to do."

####

The moment Gideon's bedroom door shut, Bill said, in an exaggeratedly innocent golly-gee-whiz voice, "'Well, Mabel, the thing is, I was just cranky because I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in days, because Gideon's been broadcasting mind control dreams to the town multiple times a week! Yeah, you know how you've been waking up feeling hypnotically compelled to buy a car? Good ol' Gideon! But you're right, bullying isn't the solution! I should have just asked him to cast his brainwashing spell a little further from the Mystery Shack—'" Bill cut off with a laugh. "I take it you get the picture! Your flesh is as white as your hair! It's—it's creepy. Stop it."

Gideon was already on the far side of the room, holding a floating arm desk lamp toward Bill like a sword. Voice shaking, he asked, "How do you know about that spell? H-how are you even alive? And here like... like this?"

"Does it matter?" Bill meandered around the room, looking at Gideon's matching nightstands, his TV, the floppy teddy bear on his bed. "Here's the only important question: what's it worth to you for me not to spill the beans to your sweetheart?"

Gideon swallowed hard.

As Bill rounded the bed, Gideon backed away from him until his back was pressed against the wall between his vanity and his dresser. Bill leaned over to look under the bed and nudged a rolled-up tarp with his foot. It unrolled across the floor, revealing Gideon's magic circle. "Uh-huh."

"Please stop looking around my room."

"Relax, I just want to see what's changed! This is hardly the first time I've seen your room." He glanced down at the subtle depiction of his face woven into the pattern on Gideon's carpet. "I've had eyes in here since you were a baby." 

He leaned over Gideon's bed, studying his knit zodiac blanket. "Although this eye is new. You went with red, white, and blue? How patriotic." He tugged at the blanket's edges, straightening it out. "Lots of pilling on the yarn, this thing's been very well loved. Does it still smell like Shooting Star, you cretin?"

"You keep your hands off of Mabel's blanket, you—!" Gideon swung his lamp toward Bill. It missed by a foot.

Bill didn't even flinch. "You're very lucky that you missed." For a moment, his voice was inhumanly low.

Gideon's blood ran cold. He clutched the lamp against his chest. "W-what do you want from me? I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep, all right? Is that what you want to hear?!"

"It's a good start!" Bill sat on Gideon's bed and made himself comfortable, propping himself up on his elbows, ankles crossed casually, resting in the center of his own zodiac. "Now, promise you'll stop advertising in people's dreams, and everything's forgiven!"

"I..." Gideon bit his lip.

Bill grinned a little wider. "What's the problem, kid? It's not like your daddy needs you running his advertising campaign! The family finances aren't resting on your shoulders!" He laughed.

Gideon just bit his lip harder. 

"Oh wait. Maybe they are. Are they?"

He looked down at the tarp. "Mrrng."

Bill sat up, leaning forward until he caught Gideon's gaze again. "So sorry, Star Boy! I didn't realize how serious your situation is!" His wicked smile said otherwise. "Wow, that must be so hard for you—the family breadwinner, at such a young age. Knowing your family needs you to keep them afloat. And it's not like you can just go out and get a job! So what can you do, except... well, whatever it is you already know how to do? Putting on a good show, right?"

"It's not like that," Gideon snapped, ignoring the weight in the pit of his stomach. He looked down at his lamp weapon and tugged anxiously at one of his sleeves. "It—it's not as though we're broke! We just... might have to tighten our belts a little bit, that's all. It's normal, most businesses have their ups and downs."

"Of course. Just no big shopping trips for a while! Pity you're about to need a whole new wardrobe, though."  Bill casually pushed himself off Gideon's bed, taking a step closer. "Hey, wanna know when your next growth spurt starts?"

Gideon shrank down. "No."

"It costs a lot to keep a growing kid clothed. And fed, and stocked with school supplies... If father asks for a little help, how can you refuse? If you don't, you could lose the business, lose your house, lose everything... all that, plus knowing it'd be your fault for not doing what you can? It's heartbreaking."

Bill leaned over Gideon, propping himself up with a hand on his dresser, trapping him in his shadow. Gideon cringed; but Bill asked, voice unexpectedly low and almost gentle, "You're so important. There's a helplessness that comes from wielding that kind of power, isn't there?"

The weight in Gideon's stomach grew heavier. Bill must have been watching his life ever since last fall; that was the only way he could have understood what Gideon was feeling so well. And yet—hearing someone else put it into words was a strange relief. He'd cut to the bleeding core of the issue. Gideon was the only one with the power to do anything, so he had to do something. It was a helplessness.

"Yeah." Gideon put his lamp back on his dresser, defeated. "Yeah, there is."

Bill crouched in front of Gideon, meeting him at eye level. "It just so happens that I'm sympathetic to your situation, kid. I get it." It was hard to read the mood in Bill's alien gaze; but for a moment, Gideon was sure he really did see a glimmer of sympathy in his slit pupil. "So how about this: I could help you out. Make some calls, pull some strings... give the family business a little boost," he said. "If you do me a couple small favors first."

Outraged, Gideon shouted, "You're blackmailing me into working for you again?! You—!" With a furious grunt, Gideon shoved Bill away from him.

To his surprise (and immediate horror), Bill lost balance, toppling onto his back with a yelp. But he just rolled onto his side and hopped back to his feet, laughing. "No no no! I'm blackmailing you into knocking off the annoying dream spell. That's all! Cut it out, or I'm telling Mabel. And—heck, how about the police while I'm at it?"

"You wouldn't—"

"I am pals with the sheriff and the mayor. Mind control happens to already be illegal in Gravity Falls, you can thank Quentin Trembley for that—such a forward thinker! I don't think there are any state-level laws yet, but I bet they'll wriiite ooone just for yoo-oou." The last sentence came out as a singsong taunt. "Anyway: drop the mind control. That's all I'm asking for. Okay?"

Gideon had circled around Bill to his bed, where he pulled off his zodiac blanket and bundled it against his chest. He wasn't sure which sounded worse. Prison probably should, but the thought of giving Mabel a fresh reason to hate him... He looked down at the blanket, and heaved a shaky sigh. "Okay."

"So? We're agreed? No more dream advertisements?"

"No more dream advertisements. You win."

"Great!" Bill beamed at Gideon. "But then, completely separately, if you want help saving the family business... well, offer's on the table! In fact, I'd happily offer to help without asking anything in return—"

"—you should, it's mostly your fault—"

"—except that, with my own situation being like it is, what with the limited access to my usual resources... I need you to help me help you." He spread his hands apologetically. "Nothing I can do about it."

Gideon pressed his lips together, looking down at his zodiac blanket. A fold in the fabric displayed part of the ripped heart. Gideon plucked out the blanket until he could glimpse the top of the shooting star.

He swallowed hard. "No. Absolutely not."

Bill blinked. "'Scuse me?"

"I can't accept your help," Gideon said. "I lead a support group of ex-cons—the very same ones I stupidly led into battle for you—and what would they say if they heard I was working for you again?"

The indulgent smile on Bill's face vanished. Rage flashed in his eye. "What would they say if they learned you're the first among them to reoffend?" He pointed at Gideon's magic circle. "Wouldn't they be disappointed. Aren't they your followers these days?"

Gideon squirmed under Bill's glare, backing away until he bumped into one of his nightstands. "F... 'followers'?"

"Your devotees—now that your Tent of Telepathy audience has abandoned you." The new smile that twisted across Bill's face now was hard and cruel, and his eye fixed like a prison searchlight on Gideon made Bill seem much closer than he was. "Isn't being worshiped sublime, Star Boy? That unconditional love? A worshiper will always be more reliable than some girl's fickle heart. But even the most 'unconditional' love always comes with fine print. How far are you willing to go to remain worthy of their love?"

Bill pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and waved it in the air. "We both know you'll help your daddy's business. The only question is if you'll do it your way, or mine." He placed the paper on Gideon's dresser and tapped it with his finger. "My way doesn't even involve breaking the law."

Gideon shook his head. "I won't..."

"I'll leave it with you anyway."

Bill strolled around the bed. "Well! I think we're finished here, how about you?" He stopped in front of the door.

He turned back. "Gideon, you're gonna have to get the door, I can't..."

"What?" Gideon asked. "Y'can't what?"

Bill huffed. "I'm sort of under this curse? So. If you could just—"

Gideon burst out laughing in disbelief. "The Amnesia Limina curse? You can't open doors?! Are you kidding me!"

"I can still ruin the rest of your embarrassingly short mortal life, you twit. Just—just get over here—"

Still laughing, Gideon crossed the room and got the door.

"Yeah. Thanks. Great."

As they came downstairs, Mabel hopped off the sofa. "Sooo? How'd the apology go?"

"Great!" Bill got in front before Gideon had a chance to speak. "I think we really understand each other better. Isn't that right, Gideon?"

Gideon grumped, "I think it's the worst 'apology' I've ever heard."

Bill gave him a dirty look powerful enough to kill a skittish horse; but he flinched under the weight of Mabel's disappointed frown. He laughed nervously, "Okay, so I still need some practice with my delivery! Human tones are finicky." He stared at Gideon. "But you accept the overall content of it, right?"

Bill was giving Gideon the creepiest smile he'd ever seen. But Mabel, on the other hand, was giving him this hopeful look—like she wanted this to go well so badly, and only Gideon could make or ruin her day. There's a helplessness that comes with wielding that kind of power.

In the world Gideon had been raised in, if someone who has transgressed against you apologizes, you don't have the right to withhold their forgiveness—it makes you as bad as the transgressor. The only way he could refuse was if he told Mabel he hadn't even gotten any apology; but there was no way to say that without admitting what they'd really discussed. "Yeah," Gideon muttered at his shoes. "I s'pose I accept it."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist in the air so enthusiastically she lifted a few inches off the floor. "Great work! Happy face stickers for everybody!" She smacked a sticker on Bill's shirt and Gideon's lapel.

They tugged out their clothes to inspect their stickers. Bill's had a giant yellow smiley face over the words "Good job!" Gideon's had a smiling whale surrounded by the words "WHALE DONE". They were both disproportionately elated by their prizes.

"So can we go now?" Mabel whispered, "I feel like Mr. Gleeful's new clown painting is staring at me."

"Just one second. I should have a word with the missus of the house." Bill waved back at the kids as he trotted from the room. "Be right back!"

Mabel eyed Gideon warily.

Gideon smiled winningly. "So, Mabel. As long as you're already over here, would you like to stay for dinner—?"

"Nuh-uh." She turned and headed for the door. "Goodbye forever!"

"Aw."

Bill followed the sound of vacuuming through the kitchen into the dining room, and rapped on the doorframe. "Knock knock."

Joy flinched and spun around. "Oh." She turned off her vacuum. "Yes, Mr. Locke?"

"Just wanted to thank you for your hospitality before we leave!"

"Oh—yes, of course. You're welcome."

He lowered his voice, "And I also wanted to tell you not to worry about a thing. I'm sure everything will turn out fine for your family—and for you." He flashed her a winning smile.

She hesitantly nodded. "Thank you."

####

As they walked to the gate around the Gleeful property, Mabel said, "You weren't just all talk with Gideon's mom, were you? You actually are planning to help her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Something like that. How'd you know?"

"You told her to call you Mister. That means you mean business!"

A crooked smile stretched across his face. "Hey! No fair, you know too much. You're figuring out all my secrets."

Out on the sidewalk, Bill did a cartwheel, attempted to turn it into a handstand, and fell on the sidewalk. He brushed off a scraped elbow with a grumble and got back up. Well, it matched his burn on the other side.

"4 out of 10."

"I didn't ask."

Mabel snickered. "You know—your conversation with Gideon might not have gone perfectly. But you realized you did something wrong, you apologized for it, and you're gonna do better." She patted his arm. "I'm really proud of you, Bill. That's some serious growth."

"Really?"

"Really."

He beamed. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had been proud of him. (Granted, he didn't generally tolerate relationships in which somebody felt like they had enough superiority over him to feel "pride" toward his actions. Generally "awe" or "admiration" were more common.) He was basking in the praise. He was over the moon. He was euphoric. He was the best person to ever exist.

The fact that the praise was horribly misplaced didn't faze him in the least.

####

Gideon had spent the past minute picking peas out of his pot pie and scooting them to the edge of his plate.

Bud cleared his throat. "Son, you really ought to eat your vegetables. And they'll taste better mixed in with the rest of your food than all by themselves."

"I don't want my peas."

"But they're good for you! Don't you want to grow up big and strong—?"

Gideon flinched. He pounded the table. "I said I don't WANT my peas!"

"All right, okay, that's fine! Just thought I'd suggest it."

Gideon grumpily scooped up a forkful of chicken, carrots, and corn, eyed the carrots skeptically, and took a bite. It was fine. "So, father. How was work?"

Bud sighed. "Oh, it would've made more sense just to close for the day. At least then I wouldn't be wasting money on air conditioning the office."

"Oh." Gideon stabbed at a lone piece of corn with his fork. "Maybe we oughta... stop with the nighttime ads. It doesn't sound like they're helping."

"Ahh, you might be right."

Gideon heaved a sigh of relief.

"I just don't know what else to try." Bud shook his head. "I've tried newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads, billboards, fliers, sales, cutting brake lines..." He settled his hand near Gideon's spot at the table. "Son, you know I know you're doing the best you can to help our family, and it means more to me than I can say. But, if there's anything else you can think of...?"

Gideon tried to avoid his father's gaze—and instead, spotted his mother. She usually kept to herself during dinner, wholly focused on her own plate when she wasn't setting out dishes or cleaning them up. But tonight, she was looking right at Gideon. Like she expected something out of him, too.

He shrank into his seat. "Well. I've got one other idea I could try."

####

Gideon shut the door to his room—and, just to be safe, stuck his chair under the doorknob. Then he gingerly picked up the paper on the dresser and unfolded it.

The same tall, thin handwriting as on the letter he'd received—but even more cramped, cramming as much text on one torn-out book page as possible. A terse paragraph of instructions, a phone number, a numbered list of questions, a prepared statement.

Gideon got his mobile phone and a notebook, set up to take notes at his vanity, took a deep breath, let it out, and dialed the number. As the phone rang, he looked at himself in the mirror and muttered, "Heaven help me if I'm facilitating the start of Armageddon."

Then someone picked up, and he held the phone up to his ear. "Hello? Oh, right, er—" He read off the paper Bill had given him, "'But rises gold over the pyramid.' ... Yes. Mhm, I'm calling on behalf of... of Bill Cipher. ... My name's not important, I'm just the messenger—oh, oh you recognize my voice! Haha!" He mopped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "A-always nice to meet a fan! Yeah, we know each other. Small world. N... no, he didn't give me my... I was—was psychic before I met him, actually. Sorry, I didn't catch your name—who'm I speaking to?"

Gideon looked at Bill's list of questions, wrote a 1. in his notebook, and beside it wrote "Sue Blime." One question down. "I have a message to pass on."

####

He pushed harder.

Her skin fractured and peeled off, strand after strand. It filled the spaces between his fingertips, wrapped up his arms. He could shut his eye but he still saw it through his eyelid, still felt it tickling at the corners of his mouth. He let out an angry, hysterical, broken laugh.

And then he laughed louder, and louder—higher, shriller, echoing all the way to the distant stars. "What am I doing?" He opened his eye and looked at his hands, tangled with gold threads and soaked in blood. He laughed again, gleeful. "What am I doing! None of this is real! This is a dream! We're in my dreamscape. None of this matters! I control all of you!"

Bill controlled all of them.

He effortlessly peeled his arm off the plane of his dimension into the third, still tangled in gore, and spun his finger. The golden shreds of skin let go of his hand, rotating around his hand in a loose tornado. Cackling again, he rose up into space, looping like a paper airplane on a breeze, telekinetically twirling the countless golden shreds with him like he was doing a ribbon dance. And wasn't it beautiful? He was changing their color—yellow green blue violet red orange yellow—he was melting them down to floating drops of liquid gold, he was making them vanish into thin air. There was no blood on his hands. There never had been. He had never killed. His mother did not exist.

He glanced toward the stars. "Am I gonna have any meddling from you? Want to sell me any cars tonight?"

The stars didn't answer. Good. He didn't want his show interrupted by a commercial break.

"I control you," Bill announced to the crowd of assembled worshipers below, numb and thoughtless and unmoving while the god of this dream had no use for them to live. "You answer to me!" He jabbed his thumb against his golden face—not the internal organs exposed to the third dimension the rest of the shapes had, but the exoskeleton he wouldn't start wearing until centuries after this memory. "The only life you have is in my head! All of you, all of you have been burned away for a trillion years!" He paused, then flashed two finger guns at a red hexagon in the crowd. "All except you, Hect. Always great to see a long-time fan!"

In the field of frozen shapes, Bill's memory of Hectorgon hesitantly waved.

"But..." Beneath Bill, still as aghast as he'd been so many eons ago, still playing his part to move this dream along, his father said, "But... what are we going to tell your followers?"

"Ugh, you're such a downer. Give it a rest, you old square!" Bill did something no prisoner of the second dimension had ever been capable of doing: he snapped his fingers. His father silently dissolved into origami butterflies and fluttered into space. "You barely even liked her."

He floated back down to the plane, lacing his fingers together to stretch his arms in front of him. "I don't need you," he muttered. "I've got this handled. I've always been the one who had this handled. Now let's end this dream the right way."

Time to sucker his suckers.

He swooped through the open doors to speak to his assembled worshipers as effortlessly as though he'd been doing this a trillion years: "My beautiful, loving believers! I have wonderful news. Your high priestess—my mother—has passed on; but, you should be celebrating! Because she hasn't abandoned us! Her spirit's just ascended—not up, but out of our dimension and into the third, where the spirits of all departed shapes live on! Her spirit's formed a bridge from there to me, and through me to you! She's revealed the true nature of the third dimension—a sublime realm of color and life—and I'll reveal it to you, too!"

The black starry void of the third dimension above Bill mutated as he spoke; now, it was raucous colors, beams of light, and glittery gold. Faraway neon-colored shapes danced deliriously through nebulas and clouds.

"I'll teach you the secrets passed down to us from the enlightened third-dimensional spirits; I'll show you how to see it all for yourself... and if you follow me, if you devote yourself entirely to my teachings, if you trust me blindly—blindly, for I can see what others can't—then I'll guide you INTO the third dimension! I will be your teacher, your divine guide, your muse! So tell me: do you trust me?"

The worshipers cheered.

"Do you worship me?!"

The worshipers screamed.

"Do you love me!"

The worshipers howled, mad with love for Bill, ripping each other apart in a spontaneous outpouring of zealotry.

Bill's shrieking laughter rose up above the roar of his imaginary crowd.

####

For the first time since his death, Bill woke fully rested. Dawn streamed in through the attic window, shining golden on the cloud of curly hair dangling in front of his eyes. And wasn't it beautiful? He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothed it back, and pushed it into the right shape.

He checked to make sure no humans were coming for a while, slid Journal 4 out of its hiding place, and flipped to the page where he'd stuck his "Good Job!" sticker. He'd used his stolen half-dried marker to blacken the sides of the yellow smiley face, turning it from a circle into a triangle, draining the last of its ink in the process. He wasted four pages with every detail he could recollect from this dream, going on and on about how easy it had been to assert his rightful control, how effortless to control time and space. If he ever found the human who wrote that lucid dreaming guide, he was giving 'em a planet.

At the end, he wrote in English, "You'll regret turning me down as your teacher, Stanford. You can't even imagine how many people would have committed murder to get that kind of attention. But I gave it to you."

He tried to remember how that sermon had really gone.

What did he need to remember the truth for? It must have gone something like that. He wouldn't still be here if it hadn't, would he?

####

(Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd appreciate a comment!! Next week we kick off with more of Bill's history—and then start ramping up for the biggest, longest plot arc so far.)

#bill cipher #(for the art) #human bill cipher #gideon gleeful #(for the chapter) #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #(I'm disappointed i didn't get to draw Bill menacing Gideon; but i only had time for one illustration and i picked Lots Of Colors.) #(plus it's nice every once in a while to get a reminder of what Bill actually looks like)

[thesapphiredragon13]

Heya! Sorry it’s late (as usual) but here it is! My piece for BillDip Secret Santa for @pchelaus .. hope you like my take on “Cosmic horror beyond our comprehension Bill taking a liking to flattered but confused Dipper.” !

I had a lot of fun with what features to add to give the whole ‘cosmic horror’ feel but you can never go wrong with some star speckled tentacles and extra sets of eyes lol.

#I would have added the two extra sets of star speckled arms floating beside Bill #but I ran out of time and I was already late so .. #. just imagine that he’s got them lol #Bill thinks he’s doing such a good job at looking human Lmaoo #he’s got arms! he’s got the legs! he’s even got the multiple eyes ! I don’t know what everyone’s screaming about?! #his more natural form is just entirely dark tentacles and arms and glowing eyes that’s bigger than a building #but it’s kinda hard to snuggle with his favourite human when he’s like this so #tiny form! #the face he’s hiding in Dippers hair is just a mass of inquisitive space tentacles #cause Bill can’t quite hold all his form in #essentially when he’s all excited to be juggling his Pinetree! #no mouth #Bill says mouths are stupid when you’ve got eyes and telepathy #art #billdip #billdip art #billdipss2023 #billdip2023 #billdipsecretsanta2023 #gravity falls #bill cipher #dipper pines #aged up dipper pines #billdipss23

[losuliart]

Dipper is gonna speak to HR after this

#bipper #bill cipher #dipper pines #gravity falls #human bill cipher #digital art #I saw this photo and it was so silly I had to draw them #office au #quick doodle #don’t look too closely lots of mistakes

[razzafrazzle]

Of course it goes without saying that I am hopelessly dependent on putting bill in gay little outfits

[image description: three drawings of a human design of bill cipher from gravity falls, where he is depicted as a thin, pale-skinned person with bright yellow hair. in the first, he has short hair and a mustache and is wearing a top hat, a detached shirt collar with a bow tie, abstract pants that resemble a hand wrapping around his waist, asymmetric boots, and gloves. in the second, he has bouffant hair and is wearing a blue and orange striped gown with a cone bra and matching gloves, earrings, and sunglasses. in the third, he is wearing a nun costume with the all-seeing eye symbols scattered thoughout the outfit, as well as boots whose heels resemble and mouth with sharp teeth. he is also holding a rosary with the all-seeing eye attached to it. end id]

#it is very very fun to look at weird fashion editorials and billifying them #this is entirely self indulgent but i dont CARE ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!! #if i wanna draw bill cipher in weird outfits then by god i will #doc talks #my art #gravity falls #bill cipher #humanization #gijinka

[poisonousquinzel]

"a dude in Texas legally changed his name to "Literally Anyone Else" and he's attempting to run for President against Biden & Trump" [source]

okay, but putting aside the comedic aspect of this, it is concerning the amount of people who are prompted to vote for candidates just because it's funny. I'm not the biggest fan of how his policy about the boarder sounds [Site], but I do implore anyone who is able to vote in the 2024 US election to please research other candidates.

The media is only going to continue pushing the idea it's inevitably going to be Trump vs Biden 2.0 and we have no other options, that we have to vote for Biden again because of Project 2025. Is that whole thing terrifying?

Yeah, fucking absolutely.

But voting for Biden will not solidify our safety from that. Biden is exactly like the rest of them. He always has been. You can't make the lesser of two evils argument when they're both just plain evil.

You cannot say that Biden is even mildly a better choice than Trump when he is currently directly involved in a genocide. That is not some little fucking thing. That in and of itself disqualifies him as a lesser evil. Biden is just as bad as him and he will not save us because he doesn't fucking care.

Cornel West [Site] is an Independent candidate running for President in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia [Site] are running for President and Vice-President as the candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

There are options.

There are people trying to change the corrupt foundation our system is built on, but we have to help amplify them because the mainstream media will not.

#have you looked at what's happening in New York & the subways #There's so many reported shootings and deaths and it just seems to be getting worse. #I just looked up subway shooting ny because I wanted to check before saying something #There's reports from like 3 hours ago about someone getting pushed in front of one of the moving subways & there's so many others #or how about the like thousands of police officers that they've got stationed at subways in ny literally doing fuck all #or how everyone's going through a housing crisis and cant afford rent and cant get medical care because it can cost #$4000 to get a fucking ambulance and that's cheap. That's a ride to the hospital less than 20 minutes away probably. #or the rise in hate crimes and bigotry and all the shit they're now trying to censor with the kosa bill #or how terrifying places like Florida have became for anyone thats not seen as an equel by people who dont view most others as equels. #or how they're pouring billions into wars while we're in the midsts of a homeless crisis #suicide rates are at record levels in the us and it's only going to get worse. theyre pulling telehealth which will take away #life saving medical care for people who dont have the ability to go in person. people's ability to get therapy and meds being taken away #Is going to kill people. or how the Biden administration has fucked up their Covid response so goddamn badly #people are referring to the pandemic in past tense and have lost understanding for others who they'd have understood before #they've lied and they've concealed and its killing millions of people and disabling even more. but they will not take accountability. #long covid is ruining people's lives and they've successfully led the narrative that its not real or not that serious. #they will sit there and they will lie. they will say they've protected women's rights and that its a top priority. #they'll say that healthcare is a top priority but have suggested that they'd veto a healthcare for all bill because of its price tag #but will spend billions and billions and billions on a genocide that the majority is against. the system isn't going to begin collapsing #it already is. #its crumbled and we must demolish the corrupt remains and rebuild a better government that gives a shit about people #ALL people. #they use basic human rights as bargaining chips. #the Democrats and Republicans on a Venn diagram is a circle. wake up.

[bi-functional]

“At least I didn’t loose my golden fiddle to some Hillybilly in Georgia”

I heard this audio and immediately thought of @tswwwit ‘s familiar au. This just Feels like the kinda shit Dipper would find out and use as ammo in their argument’s and I mean come on. Golden Fiddle? We already know Bill’s musically inclined! Who’s else would it be?

#this was literally like done in a day #i wanted to try smthn new too #i dont usually use lineart but i did in these so #idk how i feel about it #i also didnt use any references #at all #so #def not my maximum effort #but i wanted to get it down and out and it looks alright #bi.f.art #bill cipher #gravity falls #human bill cipher #billdip #dipper pines #gravity falls au #tswwwit’s familiar au

[theotheraxolotl]

BILLFORD DRAWINGS I’LL NEVER FINISH 😭

#billford #bill cipher #human bill cipher #stanford pines #gravity falls #old men yaoi #sorry my art has been looking a little like shit lately that’s why I’m never gonna finish these 😭

[tswwwit]

Do any of the dipper incarnations get jealous of the first incarnation? :3

#answers #This requires them to know that THEY are a reincarnation #Which most of them don't #But those who do certainly think about Bill's other lover/husband and wonders how they compare #With a spectrum of mopey to outright jealous to 'well I bet he sucked anyway. I'm better. (right?)' #Bill finds this deeply amusing but obviously will never explain why #Like his human is staring in a mirror and wondering if he'll ever be able to look like THAT guy #He's adorably misguided in his feelings and Bill is Not Helping

[ddevotee]

You'll never guess who I'm STILL obsessing over almost a decade later

#well well well #look who came crawling back #me #it's me #i came crawling back #ive been rping him consistently ever since he was first introduced its embarrassing #bill cipher #gravity falls #gf #human bill cipher #human bill #gravity falls fanart #my art

[another-clive-blog]

Thinking about the Clive and Bill parallels again...

Both started with pretty average goals (gaining money / getting closure). Both became obsessed with said goals to the point of going through with their plans no matter the cost. Both became consumed by the desire to pursue a goal that isn't actually achievable (You can get more money but it will never feel like it's enough. You can lash out in anger but it won't make the anger go away). Both ended up killing innocents.

And yet.

Bill getting rid of his humanity in the hopes of getting money. Clive getting rid of his money in the hopes of getting his humanity back. Bill claiming he despises people like Clive when he has himself killed innocents for his own selfish plans. Clive claiming he hates politicians and scientists but still using science to build a mecha and politics to justify its use. Bill hiding everything, hiding from Claire that the machine isn't ready, hiding his crime from everyone. Clive exposing everything, exposing his secret base to Layton, exposing Bill and Dimitri's crime by his staging. Bill covering up the incident while Clive broadcasted his crime inside the fortress.

I don't know where I was going with this. Maybe that prime minister Bill looks like a honest citizen, just your regular Londoner really, while Clive is so obviously violent and destructive : and yet, Clive is the dove and Bill the hawk. Funny.

#In today's episode of 'Syl states the obvious' LOL #But yeah basically looks can be deceiving for them both I guess =) #This is once again a very simplified version. Hence why I don't go into too many details #Like Bill losing his humanity is the very moment he decided the risk was worth it. It's not even the explosion itself #Clive doesn't feel like a human because he's so alienated. He's ready to kill people. But he's hoping to get saved. Wrong actions ofc #It's actually so very important to me that Clive goes to jail but we aren't told a thing about Bill. Bill keeps everything a secret #Dimitri also has parallels with both. One day I'll write a good detailed analysis about these 3 #clive dove #bill hawks #professor layton and the unwound future #professor layton and the lost future #unwound future spoilers #lost future spoilers #my analysis #This goes without saying but they're both assholes btw. Idc about the actual goals or characters they're both in the wrong and messed up

[candyheartedchy]

Wanted to update my human Bill design a little.

#i still like the idea that his colors would be muted in the disguise because I seen so many human designs of Bill that are bright and flashy #and I mostly drew this because I was bored and the old one looked off to me #⚠️ bill ⚠️ #🎨 chy creations 🎨

[ckret2]

On chapter 38 of human Bill Cipher is still the Mystery Shack's prisoner, the most exciting, gripping, action-packed, page-turning chapter so far:

Bill gets locked in the bathroom.

He handles it super well.

####

Bill thought he heard a door slam somewhere far off in the shack—but every time he peeked around the shower curtain, there was no sign of anyone else would come into the bathroom any time soon. Good. Last thing he needed was a human coming upstairs to give him trouble for the crime of daring to be naked with a door open. (Of all the stupid things. He wasn't embarrassed, he was used to floating around in nothing but a top hat and bow tie, if he wasn't bothered why should they be bothered, was what he wanted to know...)

As Bill dried off and dressed, he considered what he'd do next. If someone else was back in the house—Dipper, probably—then Bill wouldn't be able to continue his planned mischief. Pity. He'd hardly had a chance to abuse his freedom. But then, Dipper loved to avoid Bill. Maybe Bill could chase him upstairs and have the living room to himself until Mabel got back.

He dressed, pulled the towels off the mirrors, quickly poked his wet hair into something approximating a triangular cloud, and turned toward the door.

Somewhere during the process of getting dressed, he must have bumped into the door, because it had swung halfway shut. Not a problem. He'd found that as long as a door was open at all, it was possible to get through the gap. Even if it was a narrow gap. If you tried to squeeze through it, it somehow widened for you. Such was the illusive trickery of doors.

But. But. Why should he try to squeeze through? His current 3D flesh body was not made for gliding through infinitesimally small gaps. And he wasn't about to let a door be the master of him. He knew how to handle them now. He'd done this in the living room. Time to show off a little.

Bill turned his back on the door, shut his eyes, simply visualized walking straight through an open doorway and out into the hallway, and confidently walked backwards.

The door made a click sound. It stopped moving. Bill froze, back pressed against the wood.

Something went wrong here.

Bill turned around. The door was very firmly closed. He leaned against it experimentally. It remained closed. It sure didn't seem like an illusion he could walk straight through. Had he done it wrong?

After several more failed attempts to walk through the doorway, Bill reluctantly conceded that for some reason this door wasn't about to yield to his mind tricks. He was quite firmly trapped in the bathroom.

Oh, how embarrassing.

No, no—no, it didn't have to be embarrassing. This would be funny. Somebody else would need the bathroom eventually, right? He could just wait here until the humans returned—maybe sit on the toilet, meditate a while—and when someone opened the door, he'd calmly say, "Hey." And after they jumped out of their skin, he'd stroll out the door. They'd never know how he got in there. It would haunt them.

He shut the toilet lid, sat, crossed his legs, shut his eyes, and settled in to wait.

####

He lasted three minutes.

Bill groaned and dragged his hands down his face. "Ugh, it's been hours. Where the heck is everyone!" He stood and angrily pounded on the door. "Okay, I'm sick of this! My lifespan's too finite to waste it in here!"

Who was here? Probably just Dipper, right? Somewhere downstairs? "HEY!" He stomped on the floorboards. "I'M TALKING TO YOU, UH—uhh, uhhhh—MABEL'S BROTHER?! Name?!" What was his name. He and Mabel had those cute matchy twin names—same length and same first two letters— "MARIO? MATTY? MAGNI? MABON? Isn't it Mabon? That sounds right, I'm sure it's Mabon." He stomped on the floor again. "It's really petty of you to ignore me until I get your name right, Mabon! No, wait, he went by a nickname, what was his nickname." Bill paced back and forth across the bathroom floor. "It was a constellation, right? ORION? No. TRIANGULUM? No, I'd remember if it was Triangulum. What's his sign—VIRGO? C'mon, kid!"

Bill glowered at the door. It showed no signs of opening any time in the near future. Where was that brat?

####

Dipper's lungs were heaving and his heart pounding as he pedaled toward the spot where Bill had cracked open the dimensional rift and started Weirdmageddon.

It was easy to find. He just had to locate the fault line that had opened in the ground and follow it until the view of the trees around him began bending oddly in the air, as though being refracted in water—the air was so thick with invisibly-sealed miniature dimensional rifts. He kept going until he found the sign they'd planted last summer:

Mabel's Fault

He still cringed every time he thought of the name they'd given the scar in the earth. He'd proposed it before realizing how it sounded; but Mabel had laughed hysterically and the name stuck.

He didn't see any sign of them around the fault. "MABEL! Can you hear me?! Bill, where are you!" There was no reply. Dipper screamed his frustration at the top of his lungs.

He was a terrible brother. He'd been one then and he was one today. He never should have left Mabel alone with Bill.

Where else could they have gone? Maybe Bill's corpse? Dipper abandoned his bike and ran off the trail, deeper into the woods. "I'm coming, Mabel!"

####

Bill frowned contemplatively at the mirror, finger tapping his chin.

He had painted his zodiac on the glass with tooth paste.

He pointed around the mirror one symbol at a time. "Okay, that one's Jesús," he said, "that's Wendy, that's Stanley—Pine Tree!" Bill smacked the sink triumphantly. "YOUR NAME'S PINE TREE! Stop ignoring me, where are you!"

There was no answer.

"Maybe he went out again," Bill muttered.

Mabel had to be back soon, right? Bill pressed his face to the bathroom window. He could see Stan's car and Waddles below; no Mabel.

"HEY SHOOTING STAR! Are you back yet?!" Bill listened for a reply. "Star girl? Mabel? Buddy? Pal? My hero? My only friend? Please?"

####

Mabel was biking back from the hardware store, her bike's basket stuffed full of spray paint cans. She'd brought along the flashlight with the height-altering crystal so she could shrink down the bags of spray paint cans to fit in the basket. It was a good choice. There had been a sale. She had sooo many colors now.

She passed the grocery store; weird, the parking lot had filled up with a crowd since the last time she passed by. Did she hear music?

She slowed to stare at the crowd—then hit the breaks. "Candy?! Grenda?!"

Across the parking lot, they turned and waved. "Mabel!"

Mabel pedaled up to them. "Hey guys! What are you doing hanging out in a parking lot!"

"Radio station live appearance," Candy said, pointing toward a red van parked next to the grocery store. A vinyl wrap around the van identified it as affiliated with Falls Radio. In front of it, Bodacious T was struggling to set up a tent over a white folding table. Candy went on, "We are here to win cheap prizes at the games. They have trivia, 'name that tune,' a prize wheel..."

Grenda pumped a fist in the air. "I'm gonna win a water bottle and a tiny backpack!"

"Oooh." Mabel craned her neck, trying to peek between the crowd to the front table. "What are the prizes?"

Candy said, "Radio station t-shirts, CDs, gift cards..."

"The grand prize is concert tickets for some old guy," Grenda said dismissively.

"The gift cards are a better value," Candy said.

"What old guy?" Mabel caught sight of a poster taped up to the side of the van. She gasped. "Phrancisco?! From Invisible Yellow Plastic?!"

"You know him?" Candy asked, surprised.

"Yes?! Invisible Yellow Plastic was this amazing 80's band! They were pioneers in the local new wave scene! I've got some of their albums!" Courtesy of Grunkle Ford, who had hyped them up to her in the first place and also told her everything she knew about them. "And based on the album covers, Phrancisco was so hot thirty years ago?"

Candy and Grenda absorbed this new information with thoughtful looks.

Mabel climbed off her bike, stuck the tiny bags of spray paint in one pocket, and used the height-altering flashlight to shrink her bike and stick it in the other pocket. "Ladies. We have got to get these tickets. I'm dropping everything for this quest." She put her hands on Candy and Grenda's shoulders. "With our powers put together, we can win all the gift cards, tiny backpacks, water bottles, and concert tickets we could ever want. Are you with me?!"

Candy and Grenda raised their fists. "Yeah!"

"It's time for radio station live appearance mini games."

####

Bill sat leaning against the bathroom cabinet, idly flipping the toilet lid up and down to entertain himself, staring at the door.

"I'm sure Mabel will be back any minute," he told himself.

####

Bill had constructed a sensory deprivation tank in the bathtub.

He'd filled the tub with about a foot of hot water, dumped in an entire bag of bath salts he'd found by prying a wooden board out of the side of the cabinet, plugged his ears with cotton balls held in place with bandaids, turned out the lights, and draped a towel over the tub.

He was going to meditate in that, and use the boost to his psychic capabilities to send a telepathic SOS to Mabel. Mabel or whoever was sensitive enough to receive it. He wasn't picky.

His nerves were too frazzled for him to drop straight into a trance. He tried to calm himself. Deep breath—wow, the bath salts reeked of lavender—deep breath through the mouth then. Calm down. Be still. Empty mind. Everything would be fine—everything would always be fine for him—there was no need to stress.

Slowly, he relaxed.

Bill's sleep schedule had been in a state of utter disarray since the moment he'd been dumped in a body that needed sleep. Over the past day, the sum total of sleep he'd gotten had been an unplanned nap last night before dinner, and a fretful nightmare-laden spell from 3 a.m. to dawn.

Bill fell asleep in the tub.

His head sank below the water. He spluttered and flailed his way back to sitting upright.

He took the towel off his head and threw it to the ground. "That didn't work." Kinda comfortable though. He lay back in the tub. What else could he try?

Maybe Wendy would come back. She said she liked hanging out here when she was avoiding people, and it sounded like she wasn't too keen on her friends—maybe she'd get sick of them and return? Yeah. Yeah! Sure, Bill was sure she'd do that. "Wendyyy! Hey! You didn't happen to come back, did you?!" He waited. "Come on! I know you're here!"

####

"No wait, this'll be sick," Nate said. He was laying down on the walkway around the top of the water tower, wriggling out under the safety railing so his face and shoulders hung out in open air.

Wendy laughed. "Dude. What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna spray paint something on the bottom of the floor. Everyone'll go, 'How did that get there?'" He waved a hand at Lee. "Gimme a spray can."

Lee handed Nate a can of purple paint, and he slid out a little bit farther. His belly button was level with the edge of the walkway.

Wendy stopped laughing. "Whoa," she said. "Careful. What are you, crazy?" She put one hand on the railing.

"Yeah. Crazy genius. It's cool, look." Nate slid out another couple of inches. "I can just—lift my legs and hang from the railing by my knees, like a monkey—" He lifted his feet off the walkway, and immediately lost balance and slid forward. "Hey—"

Time seemed to slow down. Wendy had trained for this, the water tower's wooden legs were basically thin tree trunks, if she slid under the railing she could grab Nate and swing into one of the tower legs, they could slide down that to the bottom—

Lee dropped flat on Nate's legs, using his weight to pin him in place. "HEY!"

Wendy grabbed Nate's shirt. Together, she and Lee dragged him back onto the walkway. Nate rolled onto his back and stared at the sky, eyes wide.

Lee sat beside him and laughed nervously. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Whoo. Gimme a sec."

"What the heck, Nate!" Wendy was gripping the railing hard enough her arms shook. She tried to sound calm. "You almost got yourself killed, you dummy!" Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.

"I'm fine," Nate said shakily. "I'm fine, just... lay off."

"Fine. Sor-ry. I'm just trying to make sure you don't literally die."

Lee gave Wendy an exasperated look. Nate closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, okay, mom."

The back of her neck went hot. Oh no, absolutely not. The mom friend was the opposite of the cool girl. That was the boring friend who drove everyone around and was too busy worrying to have fun. She'd never been mom-friended in her life.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lee asked Wendy. "I mean—this idiot's near death experience aside—" (Nate punched Lee's knee.) "—you've been kinda high-strung lately. Is everything cool?"

"Of course I'm cool," Wendy said automatically. Be cool, girl. "Sorry. Work junk's got me stressed. Soos keeps randomly closing at the last minute, and I'm losing hours, and... it's been getting to me, I guess. I just need to chill." She took in a deep breath. "Nate," she put a hand on his shoulder and said solemnly, "if you want to fall on your head and lose your last eight brain cells, I won't get in your way. I support your dreams, man."

"Pssh, shut up!" Nate shoved Wendy off and sat up, laughing. "Okay, new plan. What if I just—stay on the floor, but reach my arm under the side to paint it."

Lee asked, "How are you gonna see what you're drawing?"

Nate considered that. "You can reach under and use your phone like a mirror."

Wendy bit back the urge to tell them they were idiots. Were her friends not maturing fast enough, or was she just getting boring?

She leaned against the water tower and shut her eyes.

####

Laying on the bathroom floor, Bill said, "You know what, Cool Girl? I'm beginning to think you're ignoring me too." Everyone was here and everyone was ignoring him.

He heaved himself to his feet. How long had he been in here. Time lost all meaning in a sensory deprivation tank. It could have been days. He was beginning to get hungry. What would he do when his body needed food? Not to mention dehydration! Where was he going to get water in a bathroom?!

Bill did not, at that moment, possess the greatest clarity of mind.

He flinched in surprise at the sight of another human in the bathroom, and then his hopes went up—and then they went back down. Oh. Right. He'd taken the towels off the mirrors. Just him.

"Thanks for disappointing me," he snapped sarcastically at the human body in the reflection. "Again. As usual." He pointed at the reflection. "Hey—hey! What's that look on your face for? Don't you take that attitude with me, buster! It's your fault I'm in this mess!"

His reflection continued to glare wrathfully at him. It made him madder. The reflection's wrath deepened.

"WHAT?!" Bill demanded. "You keep your mouth shut, I'm the one shouting here! What do you have to be angry about?! I've never done anything to you! You owe me everything! I feed you, I clothe you, I wash you, and what do you give me in return?! Backaches and headaches! I could have been home partying with my friends by now, but do you know who's holding me back?! YOU!" He jabbed his finger against the mirror. The reflection jabbed a finger back. Voice cracking with rage, Bill squawked, "Don't you raise your hand at me, you little—!" He curled his hand in a fist, intending only to threaten the reflection; but when it shook a fist back at him, he reared back with a roar and punched the mirror. The glass crunched beneath his knuckles. His knuckles also crunched.

Bill stared at the broken glass, snapped out of his rage by the pain. Dozens of fragmented reflections stared back at him. He rubbed the stinging cuts on his knuckles.

"Of course," he said. "The solution's so obvious! Blood sacrifice!"

####

As Dipper passed the water tower, he spied an incomprehensible purple squiggle spray painted to the bottom of the walkway. How did that get there? Had Bill and Mabel been here? Maybe Mabel had done it with one of her spray cans to send a signal? Or maybe Bill had used his magic to float up and spray some magical alien rune from below.

He climbed up to look.

Nothing. No signs they'd been here, either. Dipper pulled out a town map he'd marked up with the locations Bill was most likely to hit, and peered toward them one by one from his vantage point; but he didn't see Bill or Mabel, nor any evidence of Bill's influence terrorizing the town. He was out of leads.

He climbed back down. He'd bike back to the shack, call Soos, maybe call the police, look for clues around the shack, chug some Mabel Juice for energy—desperate times—and join the hunt again...

As the Mystery Shack emerged from behind the trees, he saw, from another direction, Mabel biking up. His heart leaped into his throat.

Mabel waved. "Hey, Dipper!" She kicked down her kickstand and dismounted. "Did you find the wigglers?"

"Mabel!" Dipper almost tripped in his haste to get off his bike and pull her into a tight hug.

"Dipper? What is it?" Mabel awkwardly hugged him back. She whispered, "Why do you smell so bad."

"Are you okay?!" He held her out at arm's length, looking her up and down. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Wh—? No, I'm great! I might've kinda exploded a couple of tiny spray paint cans in my pocket, though." She pulled up her sweater, showing the purple and orange stains on one side of her skirt. "Buuut—" She held out four slips of colorful card stock. "Guess who won awesome concert tickets!"

"What about Bill," Dipper demanded, "did Bill kidnap you?"

"What? No." Mabel shook her head, bewildered. "I locked him in the shack while I went out for more spray paint."

"Well, he's not there now! I searched everywhere!" Dipper gasped, "Then—he must have escaped while you were out."

"What?! But—how—"

"I don't know, but I searched the whole shack a couple of hours ago—"

"A couple of hours?!"

"—and there's no sign of him—"

"Then he could be anywhere by now!" Mabel squeezed her hands together, crushing her tickets. "Oh, this is bad. It's all my fault if he causes trouble! We've gotta find him before Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford get home!"

"But where?" Dipper asked. "I've already looked everywhere he might go! The basement, the fault, his corpse, town hall, that street with all the katanas in the gutter for some reason..."

"You're thinking like Bill the evil overlord, I can think like Bill the party animal! We've talked about all kinds of fun places he'd go if he was free!" She got back on her bike. "Come on, I'll tell you on the way to town, we can split up to search!"

Dipper got on his bike to follow, but said, "Come on, do you really think he'd waste time doing something fun now that he's free to be evil again?"

"Fun and evil are the same thing to him! Dipper, I can guarantee you, if Bill summons his terrible friends back to town, the first place he's taking them is the Putt Hutt," she said. "Because he wants to force the townspeople to run through giant minigolf obstacles, and also teach the Lilliputtians to do war crimes."

"Okay, I believe you," Dipper said. "Lead the way."

####

As Mabel and Dipper biked away from the shack, Bill cried, "Wait wait, no! Come back!" He pounded both fists on the bathroom window and let out a prolonged, anguished, "NOOO!"

They didn't hear him.

Waddles did, though. He pulled his face out of the dirt and looked up at Bill, muddy snout twitching.

"Waddles," Bill gasped, relieved. "Good pig. Smart pig. You know, I'm—I'm really very impressed by your scientific work. Especially that jet pack, wow. Seriously. Just between you and me, I don't think Fordsy's quite the biggest genius in the house, you know what I mean?"

Waddles blinked.

"Listen. I need a little favor. Go get help." He pointed toward town. "Go get Mabel and tell her I'm— Or, or just free me yourself! Can you do that? Come on up here?" Could pigs open doors? Bill couldn't think of any reason why not. It wasn't like Waddles was cursed.

Waddles tilted his head slightly, contemplatively. He didn't look persuaded.

"It'll just take you a second," Bill pled. "And then I'll owe you one! Big time! Listen, if you help me, you'll go down in history! You think that stupid hog with the fancy spiderwebs was special? He's nothing! I'll rearrange the constellations to form your face! It'll say 'Greatest Pig In The Universe!' How's that?!"

Waddles stared at Bill.

"Have we got a deal?"

Waddles snorted, his nose twitching upward.

"More?! What more could you want! An infinite feeding trough! A hundred sows! A Nobel prize! The most luxurious mud puddle in the world, what?! Just—tell me what you want!"

Waddles lay down and shut his eyes.

"You're a lazy bum, Waddles!" Bill smacked his hand on the window. "You hear me?! You could've had a brilliant academic future in any field from bioengineering to quantum technology, and you squandered it all to mooch off a twelve-year-old! All potential but no work ethic! You're pathetic! You're nothing!"

Completely unashamed and satisfied with his life choices, Waddles fell asleep.

Bill groaned in frustration. "I'll never get out of here!" He kicked over a box, kicked a shampoo bottle, kicked one of the many ancient cursed sigils he'd inscribed on the walls in his own blood, and kicked a towel. "They've abandoned me in this shack. They're never coming back. They're gonna burn it down with me inside. Those brats just came by to taunt me! Mabel's probably been in on it all along! They all have. After all I've done for them! Those ungrateful—"

Bill stomped across the bathroom and hammered on the door. "Was this your idea, Stanford Pines?! I know it was you! You've had it out for me ever since we finished the portal and you decided you didn't need me anymore! It was your big plan to trap me in here! You're just waiting to see if the hunger or the boredom gets to me faster, aren't you?! Gonna record that in your journal, huh? A cute little experiment to see whether my body or my mind gives out first?" He gave the door another violent pound. "You're an evil, sadistic freak, Stanford! And not even the fun kind! I know you're laughing at me right now! I know that's what you're doing!"

####

Ford kept his gaze fixed firmly on the Dontium generator as he blindly groped across the card table for the deck. "Where's—?"

"Here, I've gotcha." Fiddleford pushed a playing card into his hand.

"Thanks." Ford groped around the table until he found the three cards that had already been placed down, flipped the new one over, and carefully set it next to the others. "What's this one?"

"Four of clubs."

"Remind me why I'm responsible for dealing the community cards when I can't look at them and you can?"

"Because it's real distractin'," Fiddleford said, "Which is just what you need to keep you from thinkin' about the... oh."

Oh. The Dontium.

Sitting at the generator's controls, Soos said, "Aw, dudes. Needle's back down at zero."

Ford shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Sitting on a folding chair faced away from the Dontium generator, Stan groaned. "Seriously?! Again?"

Fiddleford said, "Sorry, sorry."

"Start from the top," Ford said tiredly. "Stan, you just focus on your part and I'll focus on mine. Or... not focus on mine, as the case may be."

Stan groaned again, but said, "Fine!" and crossed his arms irritably.

"Right," Ford said. "Where were we? Remind me what the current community cards are?"

"King of hearts, seven of hearts, two of diamonds, and four of clubs."

"Hmm." It wasn't an inspiring bunch of community cards. No chance for a straight, no chance for a flush, slim odds for four of a kind. He tried to mentally calculate the probability of a win. "And..." Ford waved the two cards he was holding. "What's my hand?"

"I'd tell ya, but last I checked, peekin' at yer opponent's poker cards is still considered cheating."

"Right," Ford sighed. That was going to make calculations harder.

"I could look," Stan said. "I'm allowed to look anywhere except the one place I'm not, right? If I tell you your cards—"

"You can't," Fiddleford said irritably, "because then you'll think about poker when you're s'posed to be thinkin' about—er..."

Soos laughed awkwardly. "Aw, dudes. You'll never guess what."

"Darn it!" Stan got to his feet and pointed at Ford. "You started thinking about the thing again!"

"You stopped thinking about the thing again!"

"How am I supposed to think about the thing when there's a game of Texas hold 'em five feet away?!"

"I knew we should have switched to a game Stan doesn't like." Ford looked at Fiddleford—it didn't matter, they weren't making any progress. "What if we try...?"

Firmly, Fiddleford said, "Stanford, I'll do many things for science. But you ain't getting me to play that diabolical hocus-pocusy wizard game."

Ford groaned. "We're going to be here all night."

Soos slowly raised a hand. "I have an idea," he said. "What if you both put on headphones. And Stan's plays a recording that just says 'think about the NowUSeeItNowUDontium generator' over and over. And Ford's plays—uh—I don't know, an audiobook with cool science facts or something?"

They considered that. Ford slowly nodded. Stan shrugged. "Eh, can't hurt."

####

Were shirts edible?

Nothing in this accursed bathroom qualified as human food. But if Bill could eke out just a few calories, maybe he could survive until the humans came by to pry the gold fillings from his starved corpse and turn the tables on them. Shirts were plants. They might accidentally contain a mineral or two. Right? Maybe? Bill knew a great many things about Earth, but he had never once needed to learn whether cotton yielded any nutritional benefit to human beings.

It was probably better for him than trying to chew up the wooden counter. He peeled off his shirt, steeled himself for the least appetizing meal of his life, and began distastefully chewing on the hem.

Several minutes in, it suddenly occurred to him to check the shirt's tag for nutrition info. He peered in the collar.

65% polyester, 35% cotton.

Well. He wasn't wasting his time on a shirt that was two-thirds plastic. He'd burn more energy chewing than he'd gain.

He pulled his shirt back on and lay on the bathroom floor. He could already feel his famished body metabolizing his own muscles for fuel.

If he returned to his true form when he died, the first thing he was doing was heating every ounce of polyester on the planet to five hundred degrees and melting it onto the skin of the humans stupid enough to wear it.

####

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid..." Mabel was muttering to herself in sync with pedaling the bike. She'd spent most of the ride along the road back to the shack alternating between this chant and berating herself in more detail: "I'm so stupid, augh! Why is it always me? Why am I always the one who lets Bill get out? Because I'm an idiot!"

"Whoa, hey. Don't say that," Dipper said. Granted, he did think leaving Bill home with no guards was kinda stupid, but Mabel was already punishing herself far in excess of what Dipper thought she deserved. And he'd left Bill home with one guard, so was he much better? "It's not all your fault—"

"Yes it is! I'm the one who decided to trust him at home alone! I'm the only one who's been trusting him at all! I knew he'd try something like this eventually!" Mabel tilted her head back and let out a long noise of frustration at the sky.

Dipper opened his mouth to try to offer more reassurance; but then he paused. "Wait. If you knew he'd do this, then why did you trust him?"

"Because...!" Mabel fell silent for a moment. "Because, I know he's a bad person... but I really, really do think he can get better." She had that little waver in her voice that she got whenever she was trying not to cry. "I'm figuring out how he thinks, I'm teaching him manners, I'm getting him to lie less... But, he can't prove he's getting better if he isn't given room to do the wrong thing, so he can choose the right thing instead. If he can't choose, then he's not good, he's just controlled. So I've... gotta give him chances."

Dipper stared at her, momentarily lost for words. "And—you're willing to risk the safety of the whole town—?"

"I mean I didn't think he'd escape entirely!" Her front tire wobbled; she slammed on the breaks. Dipper skidded to a stop just a few feet ahead.

Voice thicker, Mabel said, "I just—with Grunkle Ford so close to figuring out how to kill him, I really... really wanted him to prove he can be better."

All this time, watching her playing and goofing around with Bill, Dipper had assumed she was just ignoring how dangerous he was. But if anything, she was thinking about it more than anybody else. All the rest of the family had to worry about was Bill finding some way to destroy the world; while Mabel was worrying about Bill destroying the world, and Bill not making enough progress on some nebulous road to being "better," and whether he could prove himself to everyone else before it was too late.

Dipper didn't think Bill could do anything to prove himself. He thought Bill deserved to die. But that just made Mabel's position even worse.

"Oh, Mabel," Dipper murmured. "I'm sorry. I... didn't realize how much pressure you're under." All this time, Dipper had been seeing this as a battle where Bill won if he escaped to restart Weirdmageddon and the Pines won if they killed Bill. But for Mabel, she'd lose either way.

No wonder she'd learned so much about him, so fast. No wonder she was spending so much time around him. She didn't have any time to waste. And to think Dipper had been jealous of her bizarre new expertise. He didn't want to be doing what she was doing.

"S'fine. It's stupid." Mabel rubbed her nose on her arm, eyes downcast. "I'm the dumb-dumb who tried to be friends with an evil space criminal."

"You're not a dumb-dumb," Dipper said. "You're like, one dumb maximum."

Mabel snorted and laughed weakly. "Seriously, Dipper."

"You just want to help. Maybe too much."

She shrugged. "I guess." She rubbed her face again, then got back on her bike. "C'mon, it's almost dark. We should go."

"Yeah." Every second they wasted was one more second Bill could spend putting some devastating plot together.

They were headed back to the shack, but only long enough to regroup. They had already split the cereal bars and jerky that Dipper kept in his backpack for excursions, but they needed to get some proper food before they continued the hunt. And—as much as they dreaded it—they'd conceded they couldn't fix this themselves, and they had to call the adults to tell them they'd let Bill escape.

As they biked, Dipper said, "Hey. What did you mean, you're 'getting him to lie less'? Bill tells like four lies a minute."

"Oh. Right," Mabel said. "I guess I don't exactly see it as lying anymore because I understand what he really means."

"What, is he talking in some kind of code?"

"Sorta? I'm not sure if this is only a Bill thing, or if it's how people talked back on his planet? But he just doesn't have conversations like a human. When he says something, he doesn't really care about if it's true. He's telling you what he thinks should be true. So it's not like he's actually trying to lie, he's just... trying to use words to make a better reality." Mabel shrugged. "You've just gotta negotiate with him on the details of the new reality so you both like it."

Dipper blinked in bewilderment. "Mabel, that's objectively insane."

"It works, though!" Her proud smile wilted. "I thought it did, anyway."

Once they found Bill and had finally figured out how to kill him, Dipper would kill him twice for breaking Mabel's heart.

####

"Where haven't we looked for him yet?" Mabel asked, packing fresh provisions in Dipper's backpack. Waddles, who had come in with them and could tell something was wrong, had sat down reassuringly in the exact center of the kitchen.

"I didn't explore much of the forest." There was a lot of forest. "He's probably out there with a pair of scissors cutting open the dimensional rifts we glued shut last summer."

"Or taking over the radio station to broadcast a mind-control signal."

"Or breaking into the buried UFO to summon an alien invasion."

"Do you think we need to check the UFO?" Mabel asked. "I've never gotten to see it."

"Probably. If I was an evil triangle trying to restart an apocalypse, that's where I'd go." Either that, or hitch the first ride out of town—but that wasn't an option for Bill. Their one blessing was that they knew Bill still had to be nearby. He couldn't be farther than the weirdness barrier. "We'll need the magnet gun." Dipper headed for the stairs.

"And my grappling hook!" Mabel called. "Can you grab it for me?"

"You got it!"

As Dipper jogged past the bathroom, something rattled the door so thunderously that Dipper jumped sideways like a startled deer. The door howled, "Let me out, you monster! I'll kill you! I'll atomize you! I'll turn your intestines into a Klein bottle! I'll anti your matter—!"

Dipper stared. He opened the door. The bathroom belched forth a cloud of artificial lavender fragrance.

Behind it stood Bill Cipher, both hands on the doorframe, arms shaking, chest heaving, face contorted in rage. The moment the door was open, the rage melted away into a look of profound relief and his knees buckled under him. 

Dipper said, "What."

"You saved me!" He placed one hand reverently on the floor boards outside the bathroom. "You're my hero. I knew you wouldn't abandon—" He blinked, squinting up at Dipper's face. "Oh. It's just you. Eh."

Dipper said, "What."

"I was trapped!" His hair was disheveled; his hands were covered in scrapes and cuts; and his shirt's hem was shredded and tattered. There was a wild look in his dark-ringed eyes. He looked like a man who'd been crawling through the desert for a week, who'd then crawled into an active minefield. "I couldn't get out! I tried everything!"

Dipper gazed past Bill. The bathroom walls were coated in mysterious sigils drawn in toothpaste, makeup, and blood. One mirror was shattered, and the other had a smeared drawing of Bill's zodiac. There was a pile of wet cotton balls and used bandaids on the floor.He'd started writing his will on the shower curtain. He'd written an invocation to something called ⅃TO⅃OXA on the ceiling.

"I thought I was gonna die in here." Bill crawled across the hall, leaned back against the opposite wall, and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. "I had to eat shampoo to survive." He hiccuped up several soap bubbles.

Dipper stared at Bill, stared into the bathroom again, and stared at Bill. "How long have you been in here?"

Dragging his hands down his face, Bill declared, "All afternoon! And evening!"

"You resorted to drinking shampoo in one afternoon?"

"I was hungry! Do you know how much fuel human bodies need?! It's insane!"

And that was the moment Dipper realized that all along, Mabel had been half right: Bill probably wasn't becoming "better"; but even so, they no longer had anything to fear from Bill Cipher. He wasn't haunting their dreams, he wasn't opening rifts. This, this was all he could bring to the table. He was so harmless it was pathetic.

Dipper would never be afraid of him again.

"Welp," Dipper said. "Enjoy your freedom, man. Bye." He turned to leave.

A hand closed on the back of his neck. Bill snarled in his ear, "Ohhh, no. You're not going anywhere. We're going down to the kitchen, and you're opening the fridge for me."

Wow, right, Bill couldn't even open the fridge by himself. Wow. Wow. That was so sad.

They had to slow down at the stairs; Bill was stumbling down them with the weariness of a soldier who'd survived a week in the trenches. As they went, Bill said, "Hey. What's your first name?"

"Wha—?" Somewhat offended, he said, "It's Dipper."

"No. I know that, obviously. Why wouldn't I know that?" (He sounded defensive.) "I meant your—your baby name. Birth certificate."

"Why do you need to know?" Was this like a fae thing? Was telling Bill his real name dangerous?

"It's been driving me insane all day." With the eyes of a desperate man grasping at the last fraying threads of his sanity, Bill said, "Is it Mabon? I could swear it's Mabon. Tell me it's Mabon."

"What? No, that's stupid. Mabon isn't even a real name."

"Yes it is, it's Welsh."

"It's Mason."

"HA!" Bill screamed triumphantly in Dipper's face, "MASON!" He was way too loud and looked way too ecstatic.

Dipper opened his mouth, then decided he didn't want to know and shut it.

Mabel was in the living room on her phone. "Hey, Soos? Could you put Grunkle Ford on a second?" She paused, then took a shaky breath and said, "Grunkle Ford? Hey. I've... got some bad news... We, uh..."

"Psst," Dipper hissed from the doorway, "Mabel!" He pointed at Bill. Bill pointed at himself.

Mabel's eyes widened. "We... ate all the leftovers! Haha, yeah, sorry, thought you should know! Anyway, love you, bye!" She lowered the phone. Dipper faintly heard Ford say, "What leftovers?" before Mabel ended the call. "Bill! You came back!"

"He never left the shack," Dipper said.

"You didn't?!" Mabel bounded across the room and flung her arms around him. It nearly knocked him over. "I knew you wouldn't let me down."

"Yeah, of course not. You can count on me, kid." Bill glanced sideways at Dipper, brows raised questioningly. What?

Flatly, Dipper said, "He got locked in the bathroom."

"What?!" Mabel stepped back, looked Bill up and down, and said, "You look awful! What happened?"

"I was trapped," Bill said wretchedly. "I thought I was a goner." Dipper rolled his eyes.

"Oh my gosh, you poor thing!" Mabel hugged him again. "Tell me all about it."

"In the kitchen."

"Of course! You must be starving."

"I am," Bill said, hand on his heart, the most pitiful thing you ever did see. "That was the worst afternoon of my existence. You know—being stuck in a human body makes waiting for anything absolute torture. An energy being can wait indefinitely, but a flesh being can feel the passage of time via its own cycle of slowly decaying flesh. The flesh knows it's got less than a century til its expiration date. Compared to the length of my entire life, one afternoon to a human is proportionate to, like..." There was a pause as Bill did some mental math, "over nine million years of my life? So I was basically in there for nine million years!"

"That's awful! I'm so sorry, if I'd had any idea..."

Bill was enjoying this performance, Dipper was sure of it. If he were any hammier he'd be a pork chop.

Still—and Dipper never thought he'd be grateful for this—at least Bill was here.

He followed Mabel and Bill into the kitchen to get some proper dinner.

####

Dipper pulled a tray of dinosaur chicken nuggets out of the oven. "Okay, dinner's ready. You guys want any condiments? Ketchup? Barbecue sauce?" He looked at Bill. "Shampoo?" Mabel snorted.

The absolute picture of dignity, Bill said, "Shampoo's really more of a dressing than a condiment." Once he'd raided the cabinet for snacks, Bill had gotten bored with the woe-is-me act and was now acting like he was above any petty jabs about his bathroom adventure. "I'll take maple syrup."

Mabel looked at Bill like he'd just invented a brand new number. "I'll take maple syrup, too."

Dipper split the nuggets on three plates—they weren't quite divisible by three, so he gave Bill the plate with one fewer.

"By the way," Bill said conversationally. "How was dumpster diving?"

"Shut up." Dipper took one more nugget from Bill's plate.

Once they were all seated around the table, Bill said, "So! Let's talk alibis."

Dipper frowned. Mabel said, "Alibis for what?"

"I might have been safe at home all day, but you two didn't know that, because you both decided to leave the big scary triangle here alone. I mean, anything could have happened. What if I'd burned the house down?" Bill feigned a grimace. "I don't think you want the grunkles to know you left, do you?"

Mabel winced. Dipper said, "So, what—are you blackmailing us?"

"Nooo. I'm saying we need to get our stories straight in case they ask. After all, I'd hate for you kids to get in trouble."

"I think you're just embarrassed they might find out what you were doing all day."

Loftily, Bill said, "I don't see why I should be embarrassed by your negligence."

After half an hour of rigorous debate, they agreed that, if anybody asked, they'd never left the house and had spent all afternoon battling a ghost werewolf. It was the one thing they could think of that made them all feel sufficiently cool, but was mundane enough it wouldn't call for any follow-up questions.

They collectively decided they didn't know anything about the state of the bathroom.

####

(I hope y'all found that half as hilarious to read as I found it to write. If you enjoyed I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts! Next week: the complete emotional opposite of this week.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #(realize belatedly that coloring The Slime green in the second picture kinda made it look like puke) #(that wasn't what I was going for. i was going for Unnatural Colored Substance Of Indeterminate Origin.) #(so I've edited it to be teal now.)

[billford-dump]

Bill's humanoid form, in the mindscape at least, is put together from pieces of what Ford subconsciously considers most attractive, mixed with Bill's personal aesthetic. He originally made it for manipulation purposes, since people are more likely to trust those who they find attractive (anglerfish know whats up). He doesn't like using it much but Ford's flustered reactions when he drapes himself over the nerd are absolutely adorable.

The key word as far as descriptions go is humanoid. From a distance it may look normal, but when you get closer it's very clearly not human. He gives off a strong uncanny valley vibe. If you ask Ford, it just looks exotic rather than creepy.

For Ford, the appeal is less that he looks like a human and more that he doesn’t look like a human, and it only serves to highlight how alien Bill really is. At first glance it’s all well and good, but the longer he looks the more clear it becomes that the form is only human in the same way that eyespots on a butterfly are eyes. He could just reach forward and peel off that illusion and Bill would be underneath with an amused crinkle in his eye, saying “if you wanted me to stay in this form, all you had to do was ask, Sixer.”

#billford #bill cipher #ford pines #human bill cipher #i dunno i just think things that are pretending to be human but in a way that you can tell they arent is neat #the uncanny aspect is from fords preferences btw #hes a monsterfucker through and through #bill was pleasantly surprised when the form he made with fords preferences didnt turn out as a conventionally attractive scantily-clad woman #but instead as a fucked up thing that looks almost human but very much isnt #only reason it looks human at all is bc bill decided that it would be better to take a somewhat-familiar form #rather than looking completely alien

[willbeck]

nobody look at me

#the human centipede #bill boss #josef heiter #dr heiter #heiterboss #idk what's their name #this was sketched in 10 mins some parts look wonky i know #my art #human centipede

[gobblewanker]

From the first "Conquistador" Captain to the final Pirate Captain. Also, I have come to the conclusion pre 17th century clothing looks dumb af

Was at least easier to give him a triangular silhouette with earlier clothing styles

#gravity falls #human bill cipher #bill cipher #pirate au #my art #since last chapter was the Bill backstory chapter and he's been at it since the 1500s his look would have had to change #also just to be perfectly clear conquistadors fucking sucked #that's the point #they were already violent thugs. making them help him murder and steal his way across the world was convenient

[mutatedleemon]

i have a fanfic with billford btw look  https://archiveofourown.org/works/43217457?view_full_work=true 

#gravity falls #bill cipher #hum!bill cipher #human bill cipher #stanford pines #ford pines #fanfiction #gravity falls fanfiction #billford #Bill Cipher x Stanford Pines #bruh the hashtags i love them asfvjnaikvjfn i just literally dont know how to tag this #just look at the art and maybe read the fic idk