Flesh and Bones
Summary:
It has been seven years since Weirdmageddon and Dipper Pines decided to pursue his passion by dropping out of college and returning to Gravity Falls. He wanted to study under the tutorage of his great-uncle Ford only to find that 12 doctorate degrees don't always mean a good teacher. In spending time with his great-uncle Stan Dipper discovers Bill Cipher is alive. The demonic triangle backs him into a corner and makes an offer he can't refuse.
Note:
I know the beginning is kind of hard to get through. My friend who hasn't seen Gravity Falls before needed a little more background than a typical fan and I did the best I could for the moment. I may edit later.
Chapter One
In the Pacific Northwest, nestled in the depths of an Oregon pine forest, there lay the town of Gravity Falls. It's not marked on any maps, and people don't really believe it exists save for those who have seen it. It is said that many odd occurrences tend to happen there as if it were a magnet for the strange and unusual. In fact just seven summers ago, the mystery of Gravity Falls almost brought about the end of the world as we know it.
A notorious villain by the name of Bill Cipher; a yellow two-dimensional triangle with a single eye and wearing nothing but a bowtie, top hat, and cane, had made it his mission to go from dimension to dimension, bringing with him chaos, insanity, and destruction. By laws that which the ordinary human couldn't understand, this dream demon could only frequent the reality of this dimension on a plane called the Mindscape. Without a body to inhabit he was the equivalent of a ghost, and unless someone shook his hand, he couldn't access one.
However, one Stanford Pines, desperate to find answers to the unknown, caught Bill Cipher's attention. He was convinced that Bill was an all-knowing being who could help with his research of the "why" in Gravity Falls. Bill, armed with flattery and encouragement, had the man create a dimensional portal, causing a tear in space and time that lead to the chaotic pyramid's physical presence in the world. Through the rip in the universe, he brought with him a flurry of demons and dementia. Had it not been for the actions of a select few, the triangular nightmare would have succeeded in his plans of ruling the world.
Despite witnessing what would traumatize most to never return again, Dipper Pines rejoined his great uncles in the coagulating point of many things magical. Before the almost end of the world, also known as Weirdmaggedon, his great-uncle Ford had offered the twelve-year-old an apprenticeship in all things paranormal. After having studied Ford's research all summer, the man had been a hero to him and he had wanted to accept on the spot. Instead, he gave up his dream so he could finish growing up with his twin sister, Mabel, back in California.
They had started college together, and Dipper made it through a few years before realizing his heart just wasn't in it. His mind was restless and aching to know the answers waiting for his discovery with his great-uncle back in Oregon. So the inseparable, separated, following their own paths. Mabel stayed in school, and she was expected to graduate her last year with a 3.7 GPA. And Dipper moved in with Ford and his twin brother Stanely.
As the months passed, Dipper quickly learned that just because someone has 12 doctorate degrees, doesn't mean that they know how to be a teacher. His Grunkle Ford was consistently frustrated in Dipper's lack of understanding of things not so easily explained. The young man couldn't recall exactly when he realized the author of the journals, the inspiration to his inquiring of magical mysteries, had given up on him. He imagined it was around the point when Dipper bought a new coffee pot for Ford to use in the lab so he didn't have to keep sending him up to the kitchen.
Having been officially shunned out of the lab hidden in the basement behind a vending machine, Dipper's presence now often graced the gift shop of the Mystery Shack. The real supernatural hidden behind a display of smoke and mirrors, obviously fake attractions named with puns. The sixpack-alope was a good example and tourist favorite. It was described as having a taxidermy head of an antlered deer on the neck of a wax figured strong man dwarf that balanced on two hoofed feet.
All the attractions were a credit to the imagination of his great uncle Stan, who had started the business as a way to make money while he tried to rescue Ford from another dimension. Providing tours, charging for pictures and selling Mystery Shack merchandise was their only source of income while Ford was hidden away asking the big questions. They had to pay the mortgage somehow. It wasn't what Dipper would rather be doing, and he still had a lot of spare time, but the business had begun doing rather well and Stan actually started paying him with a modest salary.
Sitting behind the register's counter on a backless stool Dipper wallowed. Ford had finally been successful in capturing a pixie early that morning. He didn't even bother asking to help anymore. He didn't want to see the older man try and hide the annoyance that started appearing on his face with each inquiry. So Dipper's navy blue sweater jacket hung forward on either side of the single black pine tree on his red t-shirt, his body hunched disappointedly. He cradled his chin in his right palm, his other arm resting flat against the wooden surface, picking at the folds and wrinkles of the fabric resting at his exposed elbow. The room was an odd temperature of being too cold for one layer but too warm for a jacket.
Dipper glanced up from his picking as a snowglobe was placed delicately by a well-manicured left hand. A woman about thirty years old greeted him with a smile and a friendly hello. Short blonde curls stopped at her chin, and she hooked the thin strap of her small purse from behind her back, ruffling her white button up blouse with puffy ruffled sleeves. She flushed a little when he ignored her polite acknowledgment.
"That'll be twenty dollars," Dipper mumbled through the pressure of his palm pressing into his chin. The tourist woman let her face fall from it's previously charming grin to a deadpan glare as she began to dig through her purse to pay for the cheap plastic snowglobe under the young man's unimpressed gaze.
"If you're going to cheat me out of eighteen bucks, the least you could do is smile about it." She growled.
"Dipper! What's wrong with you?!" The gravelly voice of his great uncle carried past the ending tour group filtering into the store from the side room of attractions. The woman looked towards Stan as he strode forward, pressing her lips into a thin line.
"Don't worry about it, miss. All we need as payment from you is a happy smile." His deep vocals drawled as he snatched the globe from the counter with his left hand. He stuck out his right for a handshake. "Deal?" The lady responded with a show of pearly teeth, nodding and shaking his hand in thanks.
Dipper's brows knitted together at the odd generosity displayed by his normally stingy uncle. This demonstration was far out of character, no woman was worth a loss of profit. He watched as their hands connected, and for a moment he could have sworn he saw a flash of blue flame lingering on the elder's palm when he pulled away from the gesture. Dipper snapped upright like a hinged toy, his chocolate orbs bulging in worry.
The woman glanced at Dipper and smirked, expecting his new found alertness caused by a reprimand to come. That was far from the case. Handshaking deal? Flash of blue flames? These were classic trademarks of a certain dream demon. One Bill Cipher, supposedly destroyed within the original memories of one Stanley Pines, stopping the advancement of demonic destruction via a blast from a memory gun! A memory gun that his own sister had stomped out of existence on their thirteenth birthday just before they left at the end of the summer seven years ago.
He moved his gaze to his uncle's face and gulped as he didn't see the familiar shade of brown iris looking back. Instead, he saw all yellow with black slits in their centers.
"Thank you for stopping by folks!" Bill spoke in the same gravely tone, a perfect imitation of Uncle Stan. He stepped over and picked up his old 8 ball cane he had left on the counter. "But we have to close early today! Seems like we have a bit of a staff problem." The tourists chuckled to themselves as Bill had twirled the stick in his hand at the word 'staff' and directed them towards the front doors.
The screen slammed against the frame behind the last person's exit and Dipper tensed while his uncle's body faced away from him. He watched the unsuspecting crowd get into their cars and continue on their way.
"Well well well well well." The familiar nasal tones cooed, taking the place of the previous imitation. Stan's body turned slowly and the world began to fade into shades of grey, and black. Dipper was pulled into the Mindscape, where time stopped around them and he couldn't call for help. Not that Ford would've heard him anyway.
"I had hoped to draw this out a little longer." Long legs carried Stan's body to face the front of his shaking form in three quick strides. Dipper's hands clenched into fists as his body quivered, more from anger rather than fear, he lied to himself. "Hope you're ready for the deal of your life, kid." Palms pressed into the register counter, that 8-ball cane sticking straight out behind him against the surface.
Pink lips turned a plusher crimson against the force of Dipper's teeth. He didn't know how the dream demon had managed to survive but he had a guess. Regardless, that wasn't what was important now. Standing across the splintery table top wasn't just an enemy, but an enemy in a position to harm his family. The wheels were turning beneath chestnut curls, searching desperately for a smidgen of a plan that could get them both out of this situation not only alive but demonic possession free. Stan's nostrils twitched, inhaling the placid air in pulses as if there were a scent lingering.
"Better be careful, Pine Tree. I think I smell smoke." The older man drawled. If there had been any room for doubt as to who the presence before him was, the familiar nickname shattered it.
It referred to his old baseball hat, the first gift his great uncle Stan had given to him that summer. It was blue in the back and white in the front, with a single blue pine tree in the front's center above the blue bill. And before Bill was defeated, it was Dipper's connection as one of Bill's only weaknesses. A zodiac wheel that prophecized a way to defeat the demon should he ever be unleashed upon the dimension. If those who represented the symbols had joined hands, Bill would have been destroyed by the magic. Though every person had been present and ready, Ford and Stan's differences prevented the circle from being complete and Bill had to be handled through other methods.
Afterwards, Wendy had taken his hat, to remember him by before he boarded a bus home, and traded it with the current brown flaphat he wore daily. Though the hat was gone Dipper still wore the single pine tree on his shirt as a badge of honor. A sign that he could have helped in breaking the demon's reign.
Pushing off the wood gently, legs spread in a slightly wider than shoulder stance, Bill placed the end of Stan's cane to the floor in front of him. One hand over the other cupped the rounded top, wrinkled fingers wiggled in short waves as he waited for Dipper to speak.
"Why would I be making another deal with you, Bill Cipher?" A stinging sensation distracted him from his fraying nerves, the rough nail tips dug into Dipper's palms. Cipher smirked, arching one caterpillar of an eyebrow.
"Well because within the next minute or so, your dear uncle's brain here," he tapped the side of the man's signature rouge fez atop his peppered hair. "will start to melt from the pressure of the mindscape." Panic slithered in Dipper's gut as questions stormed through his head like a fast-forwarding parade.
"You're bluffing!" He urged, hoping it was the truth. How was it even possible? Could the mindscape cause someone's death if they're forced into the plane while possessed? He had to be lying.
"Oh, I wish, kid." The demon possessed body of his uncle started to pace around the front room of the shack. His citrine orbs roamed the decor of the walls as if he was looking at them for the first time. "I mean you see for yourself, he's not here" He spun around, shrugging his shoulders, his palms flat to the ceiling.
It's true, usually, when Bill possessed a body, the previous inhabitant would be sent propelled into the mindscape, unseen by those on the normal plane. Bill brought them away from the normal plane and his great uncle Stan was nowhere in his sight.
"Nope, he's trapped in here with me and with every moment we both share this space on this plane, the pressure starts to build and " He brought the elder mans hands together, one a fist over the cane's top the other covering it. "Pop!" He burst them apart, demonstrating the effect.
Dipper's mouth momentarily fell open before clicking his teeth together, clenching his jaw. Bill was holding Stan hostage like a suicide bomber. A kamikaze pilot of possession. That's if the demon was telling the truth. Dipper processed the information, Bill had basically suggested that he was trapped in Stan's mind, with Stan.
"But to be honest, Fez's head here doesn't give me much to work with." The cane clicked against the ashen floor with each step across the room. "It's taken me five years of nonchalant bartering to get me to this point." Bill's voice rang with a sense of defeat that felt like a punch to Dipper's gut. He'd been back for that long? Dipper had only been present for the last year or so but, shouldn't he have noticed? The thought of Bill returning with his uncle's memories had occurred to him, but there had been no indication.
This was something slow in progression, a stealth mission. Bill couldn't have had Stan under constant was no way he could have had the strength for that if he only gained enough power for this kind of stunt after 5 years of manipulation. No, the demonic triangle possibly started with persuasive whispers. He had probably been studying his great uncle's mannerisms for quite some time. Dipper would have noticed rather quickly if Stan had seemed too out of character. And with Ford wrapped up so tightly in his research, that thought trailed off as Dipper realized that Stan's genuine kindness also stemmed from a loneliness he hadn't realized was there.
Soos, Stan's former maintenance man, and good friend had left Gravity Falls after his abuelita passed. He had moved in with his longtime girlfriend, Melody, in Portland. And this happened just before Wendy, his teenage part-time cashier, graduated from Gravity Falls High, who promptly followed suit to continue her education in the city. With his twin brother constantly inhabiting the basement searching for answers to the universe, Stan was more than welcoming of Dipper's company. A pang of guilt hit him like a slap in the face.
If Bill had another option over the years, he would have taken it. His powers were weakened to the tiniest blip on the magical scale after their last encounter. He couldn't leave this flesh suit, not unless someone knowingly agreed to let him out in a deal. And giving people handouts just didn't provide a lot of power generation. It takes a lot to come back from being almost erased out of existence you know. He looked down at the cheap leather watch on the old man's wrist. The second hand still ticked slowly over its face and Bill regarded it thoughtfully. Pretty soon, the atmosphere of Bill's magic would take its toll on Stan's body in this dimension, but after being exposed, this was his last resort to escape or die trying.
"Now, unfortunately, I'm at the edge of a cliff and you" the demon's voice hummed his address of Dipper like a boat rocked by a wave on the sea. "are all that stands between me and the crumbling rock face. And I will happily drag this geezer down with me." He turned and faced the young man, grinning sadistically. "You wouldn't want your great-uncle's death on your shoulders, would you kid?"
Dipper only hesitated a moment, his breath having been caught in his throat. Grunkle Stan had been the only light in the darkness of his current failures. If not for his reassuring affection, their fishing trips, and this job, Dipper felt he would have long drowned in his own hopelessness. The hopelessness that he had been so selfishly wrapped up in, he missed the fact his uncle was possessed right in front of his face. Dreaded resignation stagnated his flipping stomach. He turned his head before swinging it in a roll. He slammed his fists on the counter, finally having the will to move more of his body. He starred at the grey surface a moment, blinking away tears, willing away his self-hatred. Now was not the time. He lifted his eyes, peaking through the chestnut-colored curls of his bangs pressed against his forehead. He took in the vision of his "uncle's" knowing mug and his anger contorted his face so strongly his muscles ached.
"What are your terms?" He shuttered as the words threatened to make him violently sick, bitter and sticky against his tongue.
"Oh Pine Tree!" The demon twisted Stan's lips, a sneer of confidence. "I would have thought it was self-explanatory!"
Dipper was backed into a corner. If he had noticed Bill's tricks sooner. Maybe if he had paid more attention to his Grunkle's increased frequency of habitual handshakes? It seemed silly as he thought it, to consider such a normal gesture of a salesman as something important to note. Bill had been so careful. He had waited for just the right moments, grabbed just the right opportunities. He once again pushed aside the "if only" scenarios.
"Skip to the point, Cipher." He spat, his impassioned anger surged within him. Bill once again approached the counter, chuckling slightly as he bemused the fact that Dipper Pines was, in fact, going to be making a sale today.
"As you wish," He purred, passing the black cane from his right hand to his left. This opportunity was quickly slipping away. "You will be taking his place. Now, what would you like in exchange?"
Facing the possessed man, Dipper swallowed through the dryness of his mouth. It was a vague proposition. A simple trade of a life for a life. However, the young man knew better. He had made a deal once before with this evil. He had been just a boy then, about a month from becoming an official teen. In exchange for the password of a computer that contained important research on Gravity Falls, Dipper had traded a "puppet". One of the many mistakes he had made in this life. At the time he had been unaware that the research on that laptop was information on Bill's grand plan. The pressure of a countdown clock was ticking the seconds away from a memory wipe that had been triggered by so many failed password attempts. Dipper caved. He had shaken the demon's hand, blue embers licking their joined appendages. His soul was forced from his body, and without wasting any time, Bill used Dipper's physical form to destroy the computer despite their verbal agreement.
"Tick tock, kid!" Bill tapped his uncle's foot against the floor. "We don't have all day." Dipper was drawn out of his memory, Grunkle Stan's mind was on the line.
"How do I know you'll keep your word?" Bill scoffed at the twenty-one-year old's question, muttering about how he didn't have time for this, reiterating to Dipper that the crunch was indeed real to some extent. He wouldn't risk Stan's mind to find out just how much truth Cipher was telling.
"I don't have time for all the details," he hissed in reply. "Just know, I don't have the power to go back on a verbal contract at this time." Bill shoved the right hand of his current meat puppet forward. Dipper blinked, he hadn't even thought of his terms yet, but clearly, the end of their bargaining opportunity was crashing swiftly upon the both of them. He had no choice but to focus on the only one that mattered.
"No harm can come to any of my friends and family." Flames of electric blue burst forth from the wrinkled palm in front of him. He met the demon's snake-like gaze, seeing the lids of those eyes adjust ever so slightly closer together, a curt tilt of his uncle's head forward and Dipper reached out and wrapped his fingers in a strong handshake as Bill muttered his acceptance grudgingly.
"Deal," Bill growled.
Dipper cried out, a searing burning sensation ringing through his nerves, starting at the palm connected to his uncle's. His vision encased tightly behind crinkled lids, Dipper felt rather than saw the blue fire climb up his arm, beginning to engulf his body whole.
Stan's eyes rolled back in his head exposing blank whiteness. The flaring tongues of sapphire that engulfed his person on contact began to recede, flowing over Dipper instead. His head was thrown backward with such force, the flaphat he always wore falling to the floor. Gazing at the ceiling with yellowed eyes, his rounded pupils stretched into black slits and the young man screamed in agony, burning from the inside out. Tendrils of fire brushed up his neck and crept around his head, exploding into an inferno that forced his hair upward as if the wind were gusting strongly from beneath him. Bill manipulated his new body's vocal tones, and Dipper could feel the demon's revelry through the scorching agony surging in his bones before passing just as quickly as it had come. The brown curls on his head fell to rest like they had simply been ruffled by an affectionate hand. It was about time Bill's luck had started to turn around.
The echoing screams ended abruptly and color washed back into the Mystery Shack. Dipper could feel himself swaying on his feet, his ears ringing from the sudden silence and a familiar cackling echoed in his head. He placed his palms on the counter to stop himself from moving, but it didn't seem to keep the room from spinning. He couldn't be sure but he could've sworn he heard someone calling his name. Dipper. Dipper.
"Dipper!" Grunkle Stan grabbed his shoulders and shook the young man gently. "You don't look so good, kid." His gravelly voice finally drew Dipper's eyes up.
"Grunkle Stan?" After a moment of confusion, Dipper perked up, eagerly meeting his gaze. He sighed in relief, brown eyes, no longer yellowed by the demon's presence.
"Geez, kid. You should take the rest of the day off. You look like you're going to be sick." He removed his grasp and Dipper realized just how right his uncle was. His stomach churned in protest at the thought of relieving its contents. He rushed to the bathroom, black sneakers smacking against the hardwood taking him to the tiled room where he threw himself to his knees in front porcelain just in time.
His whole body writhed like a hanging worm from his legs upwards as bile pushed past his lips. He gripped the edge of the toilet trying to urge nausea to pass and his knuckles whitened under the pressure. He groaned through the dry heaves and his maneuvers slowed and stilled.
Lifting an arm to wipe his mouth of lingering sick and he slowly pushed himself off the floor. Forcing his body to lurch towards the sink he slapped at the faucet nozzles encouraging a rapid stream. Dipper heard Stan stop momentarily in the doorway and he waved him off, relieved when a sympathetic grunt proceeded the elder's retreating steps. Gratitude welled in his chest, water dripped from his open mouth and his breath was ragged.
Dipper forced his feet to carry him up the attic stairs, ignoring the shutters causing his body to quake. He tripped on the frame of the door barely saving himself from falling on his face. He let the door shut behind him he tried to clear the fuzziness in his head. A single palm pressing into his eye as he turned and let his bed catch his falling form. Everything was aching, pulsing as if he had just been through a rigorous training montage. He promptly let his consciousness fade away, his arm falling to his side as black cured his twisting vision.
Note:
I'm not going to lie. I am scared as fuck posting this. I intend for mature language, sexual content, and general gore to be carried out in the process of telling this story.
Thank you for reading!
