Dipper Pines had a brilliant idea.

This idea was going to get him all the answers he could have wanted and then some. It was, albeit, degrading and he was going to later hate himself for this, but it was worth it he decided.

The preteen worked diligently, dragging his nervous yet nimble fingers across the aged floorboards. More than a few times he would have to go back and re-saturate his fingers with the 'paint' so he could continue; the 'paint' was a small bowl of his own blood that he'd drawn from his arm when carving protection runes into his skin. The initial intent was just to use the blood for the portal but the idea of defensive runes came to him after the first cut, and he was going to need all the protection he could get.

Dipper connected the lines at three points, effectively painting a triangle in the floor. He then grabbed the black and yellow candles set aside with the blood bowl and placed them at each of the vertices, carefully making sure that they were all perfectly centered on the tips. It wasn't yet time to light them-that came last for longevity purposes. Next, he picked up the sketch he'd done earlier that evening, which had really just been him tracing the lines out of his journal (because he wanted to make sure he got everything just right! Any flaws in his plan could lead to unforeseen and undesirable consequences), and placed it in the center of the diagram. Then came the black mirror, the dark glass was the gateway into the realm where the demon dwellt. He placed it in the center next to the sketch, making sure not to scuff the blood drawing as he reached over it. Taking a deep breath he stood back and mused at his handiwork. From what he could tell, it was flawless, but just in case he still had the runes on his arms, which he promptly checked again for accuracy.

This was it, do or die.

Or both.

A grating sound came as Dipper struck a match across its matchbook, and a sizzle sounded as the ember flared up and settled, burning small and bright. He started with the two bottom candles-the yellow ones-that were closest to him. First the one on the left, then the right. Finally, taking a deep breath, he leaned forward on his knees and brought the flame to the wick of the black candle peaking the image. As it caught, he muttered to himself a small protective incantation just to be safe. The boy scooted back and looked down into his journal. He had written this summoning setup into the book on his own, as it was a more generic, flexible summon that would likely work for various types of demons. But Dipper wanted one demon in particular.

"Triangulum, entangulum," he spoke very clearly, keeping his voice strong and unwavering. "Veneforis dominus ventium. Veneforis venetisarium." His eyes began to glow and radiate cerulean flame-like waves. He doubled over, grasping his stomach tight. His entire body shook from end to end. After a brief moment, he unclenched and bent backwards, involuntarily chanting incomprehensible gibberish in a stream of hypnotic muttering.

A sourceless thunder crashed and the world around Dipper promptly drained of colour, the greyscale racing along the walls until the entire room had faded into a sea of grey tones. A slow, maniacal laughter that made Dipper's skin crawl reverberated through the room. The boy stared intently ahead into the black rift that had appeared, suspended in midair. Then, everything fell silent.

"Aw, Pine Tree, did ya miss me?" a, rather obnoxious, voice sounded from nowhere in particular. Dipper made no response. The rift suddenly fabricated a bow tie and a top hat. Arms and legs popped out on either side of it while a white bubble appeared in the blank area just above where lines formed in a brick-like pattern. A sliver of black rolled in from the top of the white bubble and stared down at the preteen boy on his knees. "Of course you did, why else would you've called me here?" The yellow, triangular demon floated down to meet Dipper's height. "To make a deal? Not you, right?! Ha ha, you'd never be so dumb as to make a deal with 'Bill Cipher'!" He made air quotes with his fingers when he spoke his name. After another moment of Dipper's silence, Bill leaned back and crossed his arms behind himself, then crossed his legs. "Pine Tree, I'm insulted," he said. Dipper knit his brows and cocked his head slightly. "This summoning alter is so basic. You could call something as weak as an imp with this. You couldn't even trouble yourself to find my summoning alter in that lame journal of yours?" Dipper took a deep breath and spoke.

"It wasn't in here."

"Well, you at least could have lo-"

"Listen, Bill, I called you here for a very important reason, not to make idle chit-chat." Bill crossed his arms and stared at the kid with a mild irritation at being interrupted. Dipper got to his feet. He stood up straight and tall, cheeks blossoming with a pinkish blush, and cleared his throat. "Bill Cipher," he began.

"Y'ello," Bill responded cynically.

"I want you to..." Dipper choked on his words and cleared his throat again. His stomach was twisting into what felt like a million knots.

"Get on with it, kid, I don't have all millennium."

"I want you to-I-I think we should," he sputtered, tripping over his words. This was harder than he thought it was going to be. No matter how many times he had rehearsed this scene in his head before starting, he still managed to make a fool of himself. There was no way he could look at Bill while he said this. "I summoned you so we could...do it."

Bill blinked and dropped his arms.

This kid.

Dipper slowly turned to look back at the dream demon levitating in front of him. Bill was just staring at him completely silent. His gentle bobbing was the only movement he made; he didn't even blink. Dipper swallowed hard, but whatever was stuck in his throat would not go down. He swallowed again, broadening his shoulders and trying to look as brave and confident as possible. Bill said nothing.

"D-Did you hear m-"

"You want me to fuck you."

Dipper swallowed yet again and after a second, nodded. Bill furrowed his brow at him and held his arms out wide.

"Seriously, kid? Jeez, I know meatbags your age get curious, but this is a new low even for you, Pine Tree." Dipper fixed a glare on him, his face was beet red and his ears felt like they were on fire. He shuffled a bit at his feet and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. Bill crossed his arms again and brought himself to eye-level with Dipper. "What's in it for me, huh? Why should I help you get off when you humans seem perfectly capable of doing it yourselves?" Dipper sucked in a breath and steadied his voice, facing Bill entirely again and staring him dead in the eye.

"I offer my soul as sacrifice."

Wow, Bill looked more surprised than Dipper could have ever explained to anyone. His eye was as wide as a saucer and his pupil had narrowed down so thin that Dipper could barely see it. It was like a needle less than the girth of a poppy seed. He wasn't even looking at Dipper, he was looking through him.

Silence stilled over the room, and Dipper wasn't sure but the room maybe even felt somewhat colder.

"Kid, do you realize what you're sayin'?"

"Yes."

"You'll be stuck with me for eternity, you know that, right?"

"Yes."

"You won't be getting it back, Pine Tree. You're overpaying."

"Yes, Bill, I know. I'm not stupid. Now, do you want it or not?" Bill relaxed back down to his normal state and shrugged. If that was the way he wanted it...

"Alright, kid, if you insist." Bill set his hand ablaze with blue flames and extended it out to Dipper. The preteen boy felt a chill run down his spine. Remembering what this was all for, he shook it off and accepted the deal.

Immediately, Bill burst into a villainous laughter. It echoed through the room and quaked through Dipper's body. The demon bent back and clawed his hands. Light energy shone bright from him until it was a blinding white that engulfed the entire room from corner to corner. Dipper couldn't see anything, but he forced his eyes to stay open anyway. Momentarily, black tendrils shot out of the brilliance and snapped a hold on Dipper's arms. Another set of them coiled around the preteen's legs. A third set constricted against his neck until he could barely breathe.

"Bill," he choked out desperately.

"Quiet, Pine Tree, you wanted this." Bill came into view. He was not yellow anymore, he was a solid shade of obsidian black, his eye a narrow red dagger in a sea of chaos. A pair of hands reached out where his bow tie normally was and for just a moment, Dipper would have sworn he could see a vicious set of shark-like teeth ripping through his form.

The hands came to press against Dipper's chest. They rested there for no longer than two seconds before phasing through his flesh and delving deep into his being. Dipper grimaced, he could feel them moving around inside him, searching. They grazed his lungs which where strangled for air, his heart which was pounding almost out of his chest, and finally came to a halt when they touched something that made Dipper's entire body jolt with a surge of liquid agony. He bit down on his lip in attempt to direct the pain somewhere else, but this was nothing like a physical pain. It was otherworldly in a way, something that hurt on an inexplicable level. Bill released a pleased hiss and took hold of the thing. He began retracting it from the boy's chest and the excruciating burning sensation that overtook Dipper could be described as nothing less than hellish. Dipper could not stifle his pained scream, it could have woken the dead. It probably did. Bill's wicked chuckle signified his satisfaction with the find. Finally, when the item was successfully pulled out of the kid's body, he grinned at it and hastened it into its new prison where it would remain for the rest of forever, just like Pine Tree agreed.

Suddenly, the pain stopped all at once. In fact, his body felt hollow and light, like he was nothing but a shell. Bewildered, Dipper unscrewed his eyes and his scream slowly died out. He blinked hard at the sight in front of him. Bill held up a glass jar, capped with a soft leather cloth and tied with a silvery string which was long enough to be worn as a necklace. A blue-white mist swirled and bobbed within-his soul. He gulped.

How many people could say that they've seen their soul right before their eyes? How many people even believed souls were an actual part of a living body? This whole thing was surreal, but there it was.

The tendrils loosened around him until eventually they vanished, piece by piece, into thin air. Bill's image faded into nothingness and eventually, the endless white dissolved back into Dipper and Mabel's bedroom where he had drawn the summoning alter.

When Dipper's feet were finally on the ground again, he collapsed to the floor.