A/N: WOW! This is a story I've been wanting to do for a long, long time. I'd started it before my computer originally took a dive, and hadn't finished the first chapter. But I kept writing from memory on my new computer, while the beginning of the first chapter was stuck on my old computer's hard drive.

FINALLY, I've got all the stuff from my old computer back, and I could mesh everything together into one document.

This probably will be updated infrequently, given that my Gravity Falls writing muse comes and goes, but I hope you like it enough to stick around despite an irregular update schedule!

Bear in mind that the MATURE rating is there for a reason. That being for the following reasons...

GENERAL TRIGGER WARNINGS: There's no explicit sexual content, but this story will feature frequent themes of self-harm, self-hatred, and suicidal thoughts. It's going to get pretty dark in terms of emotions. If that makes you uncomfortable, I recommend either treading very carefully with this fic, or just forgoing it entirely. Your wellbeing is more important than reading this story! Take care of yourself, and don't use this fic to harm yourself.

Okay, so! With that in mind, enjoy the first chapter! 3 And don't forget to leave a review if you liked it! 3

P.S. Bill's 'language' is a simple Caesar cipher with a shift of three. You can decipher it yourself using a decoding website, or, there are translations at the end of the chapter! There'll be more in the next chapter, and Bill will slip into the 'cipher language' when he's emotional (or just whenever he doesn't want someone to know what he's saying, lol), so if you'd like to decipher it yourself, it'll be the same shift-of-three Caesar cipher every time! :)

His head is pounding.

He can't think straight.

He can't think at all.

All his thoughts are focused on stupid little sensations that he keeps getting distracted by – his heart beating in his ears, the fog that's encasing his brain, the rise and fall of his chest as his lungs take in air.

Everything hurts.

Why does everything hurt?

Why can he feel it?

Why…?

This has to be a nightmare, and if he wasn't so tired, he might laugh at the irony.

A dream demon having a bad dream.

Pathetic, when you look at it from the right angle, isn't it?

And of course, by right angle, he means literally any angle conceivable.

He's not used to this. It's all too much, too much, too much, too much, too much, TOO MUCH…

Flames run the length of his insides, and when he finally opens his eyes, his vision is blurry. That headache is pulsing against the back of his eyes. Eyes. … Eyes. As in, more than one. Why does he have two eyes? Why do they feel smaller? Why is he dizzy?

It's a bad dream. Bad dream. Awful. Nightmare. It has to be. It has to be, right? There's no way this can be real. He's stuck in limbo. Purgatory. That's what this is – basically hell's waiting room.

He's being held for punishment. He's waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting to be given some ridiculous penance by that frilly know-it-all. It's going to suck. He knows it's going to suck. Whatever he has to do, it's going to be a lot worse than standing in one place and being a pigeon perch for all eternity. Nobody in their right might would let him get off that easy.

He groans and reaches up to rub at his new eyes. Maybe if the tension goes away, so will the headache. Pain is just torture if it has a mind of its own, and he's not amused. For a few seconds, the motion of pressing against his eyelids, moving fingertips back and forth, actually feels a little soothing. It's enough for him to let out a sigh. All he has to do is wait this out. Right? Right. He just has to relax, and will himself to wake up, and he'll come to in a ludicrously soft excuse for a bed, and then he'll face whatever music the Axolotl plays for him. In an effort to speed up the process, he lets his fingertips keep kneading…

… Until he suddenly realizes how many fingers he has.

Then his eyes snap open, and stare at the digits. There are five of them, attached to a fleshy palm that he never had before. He can only remember having three fingers on each skinny arm for as long as he's ever existed. Trillions of years… surely he knows his own body by now. And this? This… this isn't his body. It feels like his body, but it's not. There's too much space. He feels long and thin and irregular and squishy. He doesn't fit comfortably inside himself. None of his parts match. He's not symmetrical or completely angular.

Is he a prisoner? Is this thing – whatever it is – his prison or something?

Another groan leaves his now independent lips as he shifts his legs around. When it does, he can feel air bubbles popping the joints of his knees and muscles tugging on tendons. Is motion supposed to feel this strange? Just moving makes him feel exhausted. It used to be so simple before, and now suddenly, it feels like a huge series of steps to do nothing but bend his leg.

He finally manages to push himself up, arms raising and fingers raking through his hair.

– Wait.

Oh.

Fuck.

What?

His hair. He has hair? He's never had hair before. As soon as he realizes that he has it, he can feel it growing. Despite not being inherently painful, it's another sensation to pile onto everything else he can feel. It's all so much. How do mortals stand this? Being able to feel and feel and feel and never being able to shut it off? He pulls at his hair, only able to stop when a few strands rip loose in his hand. It's painful, just a little sting, but he can control it. That's the kind of pain that makes him feel less anxious.

Not that anything can really calm him down at the moment. He's human. Bill Cipher, a former demon, a being of pure energy with no weaknesses, is human. He doesn't know how he got like this, and he doesn't particularly care. All he knows is that this is absolutely not what he was asking for when he invoked the Axolotl.

The scream he lets out when he gets a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby mirror would probably be enough to shatter glass if he had his original voice.

"Sounds like The Almighty Three-Sided Corn Chip is finally awake." There isn't as much concern in the statement as there probably should be. Given that it's coming from Stanley Pines, who's currently ducking down into the fridge for a soda while in only his underwear, nobody would think it too much of a surprise. "Hey, Ford," he continues as he pops the tab on the can of Pitt Cola, "I'll betcha twenty bucks that he can't walk two feet without bumpin' into somethin' now. He's suddenly got two eyes an' depth perception an' he thinks he's gonna waltz around here like a ballerina? Not t' mention, he probably barely has any idea how legs work."

One eyebrow quirks upward on a nearly identical face. The owner of said face lets out a long sigh before flipping another page in his current research. "I cannot believe we had to come rushing back to Gravity Falls to deal with this. Isn't ruining our lives once enough for Bill? And how did he manage to return, anyway? You… you literally erased him along with your mind."

Stan snorts before gulping down a few swigs of his soda. "'S not like we weren't already on our way back here when Dipper called us. We just had to speed up. Anyway, ain't it all explained in the book we found with him? Y'know, the one you're readin' right now?"

"It's not even a book." Ford's brow furrows, and he closes the book completely. "The one thing that had writing on it was the page that Dipper found addressed to Bill, separate from the book. The rest of it is… is completely blank. Except, of course–" He brings one fingertip on the cover. "– For the inside cover, which is engraved with Property of Bill Cipher. What the… hell… is he messing with us? Is somebody else messing with us? This is… I don't even have a word for this. None of it makes sense. I trust what Dipper said happened and what he agreed to, but… Bill is… unpredictable and dangerous. Can someone like him even try to redeem himself? Much less the possibility that anything we try will actually take…"

"Ah, don't gripe too much, Ford." Stan leans against the counter and throws back a swig of his drink. Although he's none too thrilled to see the demon either – much less have a responsibility to basically not let the bastard die and give him lessons in not being a bastard – he's not too worried. Bill doesn't have his powers, he's human, and he's apparently in the middle of freaking out. The situation doesn't exactly spell threat to Stan. There's nothing Bill can do to any of them if he's powerless and not in his right mind. Well… nothing he can do that they can't handle, anyway. "Maybe we can think of this as… a new adventure. Y'know? Hey, it'll probably be our biggest one yet. Bigger than defeatin' a dream demon!"

"Reforming a dream demon," Ford groans as he pinches the bridge of his nose. The last twenty-four hours have been nerve-wracking. Does Stan realize that Bill has been alive for over a trillion years? If he hasn't learned anything on his own, there's nothing they can say that will change him. "Need I remind you, Stanley, that in the lab right now is a being who nearly killed us a few summers ago? Nearly killed our great niece and nephew? Nearly destroyed the world? This isn't an adventure. It's suicide."

The other man's hands (including the currently occupied one) spread in a gesture of surrender. "Listen, I didn't say I wasn't still pissed at him. If I'd been the one to find him, he'd probably have a coupla holes in him."

"That isn't my point!" Well, it's only half his point. Ford still isn't quite over everything that Bill did to the two of them and everything he did to the kids. Every possession of his still has numerous locks and magical seals because of Bill. Because of the paranoia he caused. Because of Bill. "He isn't going to change. Do you know what's going to happen if we try this? We're going to try. We're going to give and give and give. And he's going to take and take and give us nothing. He's been alive for almost as long as the universe itself has existed, I'm sure. He's more of an adult than either of us. If he hasn't changed in all that time, there isn't anything we can do to make him. We're going to give it everything we have, he won't change, and all that will happen is that we'll all end up spent. And that's if he doesn't spontaneously regain his powers and obliterate the Earth."

A frown takes over Stan's face as he thinks about all that. It makes him think. The words bring back a feeling he's not entirely sure he wants to deal with at the moment. "Maybe I'm wrong t' think about it this way, Ford… but it wasn't that long ago that not a lotta people had faith in me. Lasted a while. Over thirty years, nobody really believed in me. I didn't even believe in me. Maybe the corn chip just needs… I dunno. Somethin' nobody's ever given him before."

As far as Ford is concerned, there's only one thing in his brother's words that he thinks is right. That's the fact that, yes, Stan is wrong to think about it that way. "That isn't the same thing, Stan. You and Bill are nothing alike."

"I wouldn't say that. We're both conmen. Smooth talkers. Can't trust us as far as you can throw us. Which is maybe a little farther in my case than his, but still."

"That's not what I meant and you know it. You're a good person. Bill isn't. The power of love is not going to fix someone like Bill."

Just as Stan was thinking of something he could reply to that admittedly logical statement with, the door to the kitchen opened and in poked Dipper's head. "Uhhh… you guys aware that Bill is down there screaming about something? Just, one long, giant, ear-splitting scream?"

Stan gave up the conversation with his twin altogether and took another gulp of his soda. "Yep."

A brown eyebrow arches. "Are one of you gonna go see what's up, or…?"

"Nope," comes the response in two-part harmony.

Dipper rolls his eyes. It's not like he actually cares about Bill as a person, but a loud, prolonged noise like that is making it pretty hard to concentrate on not only his homework, but starting a new journal. "Any objections to me going down there to see what's up?"

The older twins exchange a look between themselves. It's not obvious what's being communicated; the only clear thing is that neither of them really wants Dipper going down there. Stan is the first to speak. "You're an adult, kid. Do what you want. Just, you know. Keep your guard up."

"Uh… yeah." Like he wasn't going to do that anyway. He knows Bill's tricks, and even though this situation is way different, there's no guarantee that Bill isn't going to try something manipulative or just attack him outright. "You guys forget that I now carry a taser in my pocket just in case?" he grins.

The two look at each other again in surprise, then it's Ford that breaks the silence. "Heh, I… guess we did."

"You're gettin' old!"

Stan's rewarded with a playful nudge to the arm by his brother and a laugh out of his great nephew. "Alright, well," Dipper sighs, still smiling, "I better go see what that's about. We can't exactly have Mabel coming home to unholy demon screeching. That might ruin the surprise."

The sight that greets Dipper when he gets to the locked room in the basement isn't what he expected.

Although, to be fair… he's not quite sure what he expected.

What he's faced with is Bill's human form, sitting straight up in the bed, hands buried in his hair, several angry red streaks down his cheeks, still wailing like a banshee. The blue eyes he's got are wide, and the only thing that breaks his screaming are the frantic swells and dips of his chest as he sucks air in terrifyingly shallow, rapid gasps.

Despite the fact that this is Bill Cipher, interdimensional criminal and world-class asshole extraordinaire, Dipper knows a panic attack when he sees one, and he can't just ignore it.

"Hey, hey, man! Calm down!" It's not the brightest thing to say, and he knows it. He compounds it by hurrying forward and grabbing at Bill's wrists, trying to pull the ex-demon's hands down out of his hair. What the hell is he doing? Trying to pull out his own hair? "It's okay!"

Bill struggles almost immediately, grappling against Dipper's grip. The only reason the screaming tapers off is so that he can devote his entire reservoir of energy into not being touched. "G-get off! GET OFF!"

"What the hell, man?! I'm trying to help you!"

A snarl of Bill's lip is followed quickly by as much of a shove as he can manage. "You can't help!" He returns to practically hyperventilating as soon as Dipper's no longer in contact with him, and reaches up to rake his fingernails down his face.

Oh. Yikes. So that's what those lines on his face are from. "Bill, listen to me!" Even Dipper isn't sure he can help, but he's got to try something. "You've gotta snap out of that! You're gonna pass out if you keep breathing like that!"

His muscles are still tense even as he looks over at the other man. Nails have left another set of crimson trails down his face – it doesn't seem like they've broken the skin, though. They're more like irritated scrapes. There's a look in his eyes like he's trapped, with a clear message: I don't know how to STOP.

Dipper snatches Bill's wrists again, yanking them back so he can't do any more damage to himself. Why was he doing that in the first place? Why wasn't his first instinct to bang on the door or take a swipe at Dipper as soon as he came in? "Take one deep breath, and hold it for five seconds, then let it out, and take another deep breath. Same thing. Rinse and repeat. Don't take shallow breaths or try to breathe fast. Take. It. Slow."

It takes a moment for him to get the hang of doing what Dipper told him to do. Eventually, though, he starts pulling in air at a normal rate and breathing like it isn't foreign to him. His eyes are still wide. His muscles haven't loosened up. He hasn't ceased to look like a cornered animal. It looks as if he wants to start screaming again. "What… did… you… do… to… me?!" he manages to hiss in between his deep breaths.

"What did I do?" The implication that Dipper would ever be cruel enough to put anyone – even Bill Cipher – through torture that makes him freak out like this offends him. Even when they had to defeat Bill, at the very least they tried to make it quick and relatively painless. None of them are into drawn-out, manipulative mind games like he is. "All I did was bring you back here and help Ford make the room Bill-proof. You've got someone else to thank for turning you human."

Those icy blue eyes are nothing compared to the stare that Bill's old eye would have given Dipper. "You've got five seconds to explain before I – be… fore… I…!" Bill's words are punctuated with one hand raising, fingers snapping. Then snapping again. Over and over. Frustration clouds over his face as he continues the action despite nothing happening. "Where are my powers?! Zkdw'v jrlqj rq?! Zkb dp L wudsshg lq wklv xvhohvv phdwvdfn dqg ZKHUH DUH PB SRZHUV?!"

The strange 'language' takes Dipper aback, and he recognizes it a simple cipher. The… same one that's in the letter he was given earlier. Bill speaks too fast to decode it in an instant. He must really be worked up to slip into what's probably his first language. Part of Dipper is kind of satisfied by seeing the monster who's been so much trouble for them suffering a little. There's an odd schadenfreude in knowing that there's something that can freak even Bill out. After a moment, however, the panicked shallow breaths come back, and that's more worrying than gratifying. "Hey, deep breaths, remember?" He's annoyed on some level, having to repeat himself because apparently Bill didn't retain the information to keep himself from passing out the first time Dipper told him what to do. "You don't have your powers."

"WHAT?!" Most of Bill's gaze right now is anger. There's something else behind it… a little pinprick of fear. Heh. So Bill's afraid of something after all. That something is not having his powers, evidently. It might go deeper than that. "And how do you know that, if you're not the one who did this to me?!"

"Calm down, asshole." Dipper grunts as he pushes himself back to his feet. "Let me go grab the letter. It'll explain everything. It's short, but I have a feeling you'll know what it means."

TRANSLATIONS!

Zkdw'v jrlqj rq?! = What's going on?!

Zkb dp L wudsshg lq wklv xvhohvv phdwvdfn dqg ZKHUH DUH PB SRZHUV?! = Why am I trapped in this useless meatsack and WHERE ARE MY POWERS?!