"Bill, when were you born?"

The question rung between them through the silence, the suddenness of it being the only thing that made the dream demon pause.

"Why do you want to know Pinetree?" he hummed in return, eyes not leaving the stars above them even as Dipper lifted himself from his laying position on top of the demon to flip over, now being belly-down instead of facing the sky as well. Even without looking, Bill could see how the light shimmered naturally in the boys eyes, unlike his own which only shined with the essence of magic.

"I was just wondering..."

"You seem to be doing that a lot lately."

"Yeah, well, ya know. I have an all-knowing, all-compromising demon as a boyfriend now and that opens up a lot of question that didn't used to have answers.. Like, per se, how you were born."

Cipher grinned lightly at his Pinetree's tone when he redirected them back to his original question. The boy had always been curious and direct, but since becoming more intimate with the demon he had also become quite persistent, attempting to learn how to press the demon's correct buttons when he needed to. And sure, he may have found one or two buttons, but it wasn't like he had the demon under his thumb or anything. No, Bill was still quite in control... He just happened to feel conversational right now.

"Haha. Well, to answer your question, I don't think I was born to begin with." Bill murmured, glancing down to see he already had his boyfriend's undivided attention.

"What do you mean you "don't think you were born"? You're not sure?"

"I'm positively sure about everything that has ever materially been, Pinetree. So, yes, I am not sure."

"I don't understand.."

Bill chuckled, lifting his eyes back to the sky before he closed them, a content smile on his face. The two were on the outcrop of the Mystery Shack's roof and while it made for a beautiful view of the sky, even to the demon that had been staring at those flecks of light for his whole eternity, he was much more interested in just opening himself up to feeling instead of seeing for a while. With his new human body he could easily feel all of the shifts in tension and heat that his human had, and though he had been able to feel it for a whole month now, it was still just as intoxicating as when he had first felt this stroke of personal humanity.

"I didn't either, kid. Still kind of don't. But, the only thing I am positively sure about is that my 'birth', if you could call it that, was pretty... instantaneous. One moment there was just.. nothing. And then I felt like I woke up somehow and suddenly there was this beautiful world around me." the dream demon prattled on, eyes still closed and his small smile twitching but not leaving as he felt some kind of emotion in his chest, though he couldn't identify it. It wasn't sad, but it also wasn't very happy. It was a kind of.. calm, he thought. Not the kind of calm that Pinetree was already giving him, but a deeper one. One that he hadn't even felt from the many humans he's encountered - though that might be because he was usually busy terrorizing them.

Dipper shifted his position lightly on Bill's body, reaching a hand up to play with the demon's hair. "It's called nostalgia, Bill. And content." the human whispered, probably smiling his ass off to himself at the fact that he could help the demon decipher himself. A chuckle went through the boy's mind and Bill knew they had heard each other's pun at the same moment as well. This referential link I established really has paid off. the demon mused to himself further, wrapping his arms around Dipper's waist as the boy continued playing with his hair, showing no signs of stopping.

"What was that world like, Bill?"

"It was.. breath-taking! Sure, I still didn't have a need for physical air at the time, so it wasn't an issue but-" Bill was tapped on the nose when he began to babble, blushing a bit at both his boyfriend's and his own habit before brushing it off and continuing. "Anyway. The first thing I saw when I.. well, when I blinked into existence, was smoke. There was tons of it, in large clouds in the sky and some even coming off of ground, like it was singed and burning. I could tell that something large had happened because there was.. not really destruction, more like.. complete obliteration, surrounding me. There was nearly nothing, but it looked like there had been something very intricate where I was beforehand. There was bone shrapnel stuck into the ground in some places, and debris of prehistoric trees laying about, mostly ashes and nothing else."

"Of course you would find that breath-taking, Bill." Dipper finally commented, breathing out a laugh, though nothing was very funny. Bill gave him a small squeeze at interrupting.

"That was all gorgeous, but it wasn't breath-taking. The part that was so interesting to me was that way out, in the very corners of my amazingly-spectacular vision, was life. Unlike what I first thought when I popped in, that everything was dead and gone and utterly destroyed by whatever beautiful power had caused the obliteration, there were still things and creatures holding on.. There were whole forests, savannas, oceans, tundras, all kinds of creatures your little brain couldn't even begin to perceive, Pinetree. They were even more beastly and gigantic than your silly dinosaurs turned out to be! And sure, there weren't humans yet or things with very individual thoughts, since packs and flocks were still very present, but there was some influential possibility with the creatures which was very entertaining to experiment with. I wasn't able to properly torment anything until almost five thousand years went by though, when the very first element of humanity came to be. I can still remember how liberating it was to find something with a personality too, something that would bite back..."

Bill cut himself off when he realized his Pinetree wasn't tapping his nose like he should have been, keeping him on one train of thought. Another silence rang between them as Bill came out of his thoughts, for the first time realizing that he had opened his eyes and was once again staring at the stars. He took a minute to examine the constellations that were set before him, being able to map them and their movement out like child's play in his mind's eye - well, his immortal one anyway, that he had in his actual demonic form. They were different now, he noted. Their paths were slightly off-put, their trajectory as well, and none of them were quite as big as they were when he first came to be.. It wasn't bad that they had changed, it would be awfully boring if they hadn't after all and technically it was even better now since so many little lights were actually more illustrious than the fewer huge ones he had been born to, but it made a new-found pain spring into his chest for some reason. He didn't like it and found that his smile from before had left without his knowing as well.

Dipper wasn't the one to break the silence this time, having learned that Bill wasn't as open to being taught the darker human emotions as he was with lighter ones. The demon would usually just ignore the feeling in his chest on any other day, but already being vulnerable (hah, the very word was laughable to him) from their current conversation and sensing that the other was awaiting permission to speak, Bill opened back up again. "What is this emotion, Pinetree?"

"You're homesick, Bill.."

"That's preposterous, kid. I've known this world my whole life, how can I not be home?" the dream demon laughed suddenly, a slightly forced smile on his face as he ripped his eyes away from the heavens and finally caught his boyfriend's gaze. For a split second he had felt amusement bubble up in him from the very thought of being claimed 'home-sick'. There was just no way for that to be a possibility since he was surely home and perfectly comforted by his boyfriend's presence - as he had read in one of Mabel's books that that could also be considered as an established home. But locking eyes with the other made it fade, seeing more intimately just how sure Dipper was.

"Being in this realm or on this planet doesn't instantly mean you're home, Bill. Home is where you feel safe and happy and not judged by anyone or anything, and where you feel you can always come back to. It doesn't have to be a physical place and it doesn't technically have to exist at all." Dipper claimed suddenly, eyes bright again and shining- oh, now they're leaking.

Bill sat up slowly, giving Dipper a chance to shift and settle on his knees in front him before pulling him in and making Dipper sit on the demon's lap, a hand coming up to run over the boy's cheeks, brushing away the tears that were there. A shiver ran through Dipper now that their changed position let the midnight air brush over his previously protected skin, prompting the demon to wrap his arms around his further as he strengthened their bond, letting Dipper's emotions flood into him to take away what he had expected to be pain. To his surprise, and delight, what he felt wash over him instead was... wonderful. It was just as the boy had said, and he couldn't stop himself from melting into the emotion and letting it soak into him fully as well, seeping into his bones and nerves as he rested his forehead on top of his Pinetree's hair. Safe, happy, un-judged, uninhibited..

The dream demon opened his eyes and connected his gaze with Dipper's once again when the emotion had swept through him enough for him to properly move function. And he pushed out all of Dipper's emotions in order to full examine what he himself was feeling instead.. Just as he thought, the emotions the boy held were still present, though faint and wary instead of strong and unprotected.

If he hadn't looked for them he wouldn't have found them, and he surely wouldn't have realized what they really were or meant unless Dipper had shown him like just now. But still.. He felt it.

He felt at home. He felt protected. He felt utterly and totally loved... Yes, taking on this human body and bringing in this human to be by his side was definetly the best decision he had made since blinking into existence, however he possibly did so.

And looking into his Pinetree's eyes, he knew these emotions were going to double and then double again, over and over, until he couldn't possibly be filled with more emotion. He was going to be utterly consumed by these feelings as long as Dipper was beside him, he knew it better than any prediction he had ever made, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was okay with it. He was okay with being home, and with protecting that home until both of them shall suddenly back out of existence, which he knew would be at the same moment at the very same place.

Blinking out of existence as one singular being, being home for the rest of whatever eternity truly was defined as.