At the shack, he was exactly right; Ford didn't like the deal at all, Stan was pretty damn confused about why Dipper would sign away his life and he still didn't understand all the science mumbo-jumbo that the kid and Ford talked about frequently... All he knew was that he HATED the demon that he gave up his memories to banish because they couldn't get him any other way.

He sighed and just went to get his things, having had enough of the argument with his family for now. He'd agreed to meet up with Ford for some work later on though, something about helping him with other experiments he was conducting before he went through the portal. Not the shapeshifter though, everyone agreed that that was one to keep frozen as it was too dangerous for them to let out ever again. After all, it tried to kill Dipper and Wendy purely because it wanted the journal. He still didn't entirely understand why Ford did that experiment to begin with or how he found one, but that wasn't important in the grand scheme of things.

Right now he was absolutely buzzing with excitement, hoping to get as much unpacked as he could before he agreed to meet Ford at his lab. He didn't even bother to look and see if Bill was with him anymore, he didn't particularly care. All he cared about was getting his things at least set up enough for him to do his work and class load, he had classes starting soon enough and didn't need anything preventing him from working on his homework immediately.

"Where did I put that... I could've sworn that I brought my laptop in..." He groaned grumbling and deciding to unpack his books instead.

He'd be riding the high of getting another Pines to make yet another deal with him for quite awhile. Bill wasn't even that argumentative about getting in the car with the kid, and even though he could apparently figure out a seatbelt without choking himself, he couldn't leave anything else alone.
Violence and hostility apparently wasn't as big of a mar on a relation to the demon as it would be to most people, because in minutes he was just rambling on about whatever while playing with everything he could get his hands on.

He didn't make any mention of the inevitable meeting with the Stans, even though it was honestly looming over them both at that point in time. Bill had... a little bit of... not trauma... but...
Okay, it put him on edge. Stanford was one of the few living creatures on this plane of existence that knew any side of Bill's personality, and that automatically made him a threat, but then Stanley was totally unafraid of getting in the demon's face no matter what Bill threatened the guy with. Usually that would just irritate (or amuse) him, but there were flashes of the events going past his mind's eye and memories of the things that led up to it mixed with the Hell that followed and-

By the time they got to the shack with the feeble mortal transportation, Bill had decided it was wiser for him to duck away for a bit. He said nothing to warn about that choice, just kind of popping away so that Dipper could do some of the explaining without having the demon's presence to make it worse.

If it was actually because he felt too weak to win a fight against two men with rightful vengeance plans and a kid that would potentially just let them do what they wanted, then he didn't make it obvious. He had some power left, but not quite enough regenerated to do just whatever he wanted, and this body gave him restrictions he hadn't had the chance to really figure out.

So that was what he'd decided to do in the meantime, after abandoning his new sort-of-servant to suffer whatever situation he got into with his relatives.

Breaking into Pine Tree's stuff again seemed like a fun idea and a great way to test some magic out.

The demon made his appearance known again only when Dipper came in to where Bill had kept himself invisible, sitting with the kid's laptop balanced haphazardly across his thighs. He flickered back into visibility when the boy started talking, and Bill made absolutely no gesture to relinquish his illegal ownership of the device.

"You did." came the abrupt answer to the question directed at no one.

"You should really get a better password protection on this. Super simple." he was reading something, just whatever had come up on screen, eye moving side to side faster than most people could probably read and comprehend most words. That was assuming he was actually comprehending them, though he didn't look up, either. "Sounded exciting down there. Ford break out in anxiety rashes again?"

Dipper jumped when Bill suddenly spoke from behind him, causing him to place a hand on his chest to steady his heartbeat as he took a moment to even out his breathing. "Jesus fuck Bill what is wrong with you." He muttered, turning around to look at the demon, obviously unamused. "Really? You think it needs better password protection? You sure you didn't just read my mind to get the password?" He didn't see the point in staying mad at him for long though, focusing on the fact that he needed to unpack. "Please don't do anything to that, I need it for class."

"Not that I could tell." He actually answered Bill's question instead of ignoring it like he normally would, actually being interested in the fact that Bill seemed to want an actual conversation. "You're actually having a conversation with me?" He smiled to himself, glad that he didn't want to interrupt what he was doing and demand that he pay attention to him. "What's the occasion?" He genuinely wondered if Bill had some ulterior motive to this.

"What are you reading on my laptop?" He recognized that constant eye scanning as he had done that constantly, slaving over his laptop and textbooks even as late as 4 in the morning. "Am I going to want to scrub my laptop history after?" He laughed somewhat, setting up his books on his bookshelf and continuing to putter around the room, only talking to Bill when he initiated conversation as he didn't know what else to say.

After about an hour of unpacking, he groaned loudly, collapsing back on his bed and rubbing his face. "I haven't had remotely enough sleep for this... I drove for eight hours and then immediately went to that stupid statue... Then the rest of my morning has consisted of dealing with a demon that doesn't understand how humans work... This is definitely not the best day I've had... Not the worst either though." He lifted his head, glancing around at the empty boxes and such in the attic, groaning again. "I'm only halfway done too... I'm seriously wondering if I have too many books." The bookshelf had been filled up and the rest were piled in front of it on the floor in a few messy stacks.

He got back up after another minute of laying on his bed, unpacking his clothes and moving the last of the boxes that he didn't want to deal with to the floor of his closet, kicking them in there as nicely as he could. "Finally... It's workable in here when I start classes and deal with the things that Ford gives me to deal with." He looked proud of himself, stepping forward for a moment and holding his hand out expectantly. "Laptop, please."

The 'what is wrong with you' earned nothing but a derisive snort, because he never treated that like a genuine question and even if he did the answer would take more than one human's lifespan to explain. A great magician never tells his secrets, and so Bill didn't even acknowledge the remark about mind-reading. If only the kid knew.

"I have conversations all the time. We've just never had a truce before." apparently Bill considered whatever they were doing now a truce. His attitude became less... moody, so far, now that he had some power over the kid and wasn't being as much of a cryptid.

"I'm a vast fountain of knowledge. What would I be asking the internet for?" He still didn't look up from the screen, and he didn't actually answer what was probably the important question. The greatest concern was probably more like what he was looking at in general, rather than if he had been searching for something. For all Pine Tree knew, he was on the dark web doing something incredibly nefarious.

The thing that might've drawn attention was when he started typing. He wasn't fast it and he hit the delete button numerous times, but that was just because human keyboards were unnecessarily convoluted in his incredibly biased opinion. Plus, he didn't have muscle memory for the keys, and kept squinting at the keyboard or various parts of the screen.

Bill only looked up when Dipper directly asked him for the device. He had been silent to the kid's exhausted sounding account of the day's events, surprisingly, but he had also been distracted by something else. Listening to a fleshbag's woes were low on his priority list... not that he had much room on said list, because his options were very limited at the moment.

"Is that a request or a demand?" the demon's voice was blunt, and didn't make it obvious if he was actually asking or not. He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but turned around the laptop anyways so that Dipper could see what he was doing. The site that he showed was pulled up on some wild looking browser whose name was written at the top in a font that the computer didn't seem able to process properly.

Essentially? It looked like alien e-bay. "You want these guys tracking you or you wanna give me a second to ensure your intergalactic security? That's what I thought, now hush. I'm busy."

Dipper didn't pay attention to the typing, much too distracted in what he was doing for the time being. "So this is a truce? I don't see how we made a deal, that's like your whole bag of tricks there." He laughed at himself again, obviously amused by how easy it seemed to be to poke fun at his currently. He wasn't entirely sure if Bill was being serious about this or if he was just trying to fuck with Dipper, that was a favorited method of torturing him previously after all.

He had noticed that Bill wasn't as moody and easier to talk to, it actually surprised him but not to the point that he would let his guard down even for a moment. Bill was still a demon after all, even if he was more "human" he figured better safe than sorry. "That's actually a good question so again I ask what are you doing?" He rolled his eyes, sighing quietly.

When he started to type he perked up a bit, watching him carefully even as he moved around and unpacked things. He didn't want Bill to be doing anything that might put his computer or his own safety at risk. He snickered slightly, watching how Bill fumbled with the keyboard or had to squint to look at things. "I think your lack of an eye is doing ya in there buddy." He couldn't help the snickering as he went about his own business, not particularly caring how Bill would react to his words. He needed to keep Dipper around if he wanted to keep that contract going after all.

"Both, it's my laptop and I need it back." He waited but when Bill showed him what he was doing he practically screeched, noticing how his laptop was struggling to process the words. "Jesus fuck Bill you're gonna wreck it if you keep looking at things it can't handle.." He glared up at the demon, annoyed that he thought he could do whatever he wanted with the electronic. "Intergalactic security? Seriously? You think someone cares enough to wonder what a barely 18-year-old man from Earth with nothing special about him to track what he does on his laptop?" He looked confused, watching whatever it was Bill was doing on the computer.

"I... Okay... I guess I'm not prying that away from you any time soon." He rolled his eyes once again, plugging in the radio he'd brought with and shamelessly putting one of the BABBA CDs in. He didn't particularly care what Bill thought, he just flopped back on his bed, hooking the hat over one of the posts before starting to fuck around on his phone.

"Keep talking like that and I'm gonna do you in, buddy." was the demon's snappy comeback, sounding half-offended and maybe half-amused. Maybe.

"What a dumb question, kid. Notice, kid, not man, 'cuz you're not." he laughed then, a shrill bark, "I happen to remember an incident where SEVERAL people cared what a few random schmucks in nowhere Oregon did with everything on anything."

Then he turned the screen back to himself, starting back in on his slow typing. At some point the thing started making a few weird, concerning noises, but the demon just unconcernedly knocked his hand against the screen and it suddenly stopped. Whatever he was doing was unholy.

For the first several seconds of pop music starting up, the blond demon had no discernible reaction. And then his eye twitched. And his fingers tapped at the keys without actually pressing them.
And then he suddenly slammed the computer closed and stood straight to march over to the human, dropping the thing unceremoniously on the kid's stomach.

"I'm TRYING to find something to BETTER my situation here and YOU are NOT helping with this cacophony of disco's absolute suicide!" he was seemingly more annoyed than actually angry, evident in how there was a scowl on his face but his hair remained bright gold. "If you want some real background music, try Sheppard's Tone. This cheery Swedish bop is not doin' it, Pines."

It wasn't the disco vibe or the woman's voice or whatever, but the happy-go-lucky, 'take your friends' hands and roller skate in a circle' vibe was just-
Migraine inducing.

In his natural form, it would've been enough to screech at. This human body seemed to have ears made for it, so mostly it was just a hatred for positive symphonies that led him to have such an adamant reaction.

Dipper glared at him when he refused to address him properly, sighing as he just resigned himself to the fact that Bill was going to make his life as hard as possible and it was his own fault since he made the deal with him. "I've got more experience than most other 'kids' my age." He muttered angrily, going back to his phone without even thinking twice about it.

He heard the sounds his laptop made and immediately jumped up, watching Bill smack it before it went back to normal which was definitely concerning. "What in the hell are you doing to my laptop?" Bill seemed to not care about what Dipper was saying and more focusing on his own actions. He just rolled his eyes and went back to relaxing on his bed, giving a content noise at the familiar music and comfort of his bed.

"There's nothing that you can do to better a situation that you caused yourself, you're the one who made the deal remember? You didn't have to. You could have just blown me off but you didn't seem to mind much when it came to getting me to swear myself to you." He smirked despite being annoyed by the weight dropped on his stomach. "And thank you, you put this exactly where I wanted it." He stuffed his phone back in his pocket, opening up his laptop and looking at whatever it is that Bill was doing on it.

"What exactly is it that you're trying to do to better your situation here? It's entirely possible that it's something that can be done without you trying to destroy my laptop with whatever program you're running on it." He muttered in annoyance, trying to figure out what it was he was doing on his own without Bill telling him. "And this is my room, I will play whatever music I wish. If you don't like it, you're free to leave at any time... Unless you need to be near me 24/7?" He was genuinely curious as to what it was that Bill got out of this deal, he just wanted Dipper to swear himself to him without any explanation, maybe he could pry it out of him slowly.

"You assume that this deal is the situation I was referring to." Bill replied, conspiratorial but not revealing anything. He stood there looming over the brunet for several moments, debating how honest he was going to be in answering the questions, if he was even going to try at all.

"No, I wouldn't confine myself to you for what you humans count as 'constant' time periods." He grinned, bearing pearly white teeth and demonic fangs, and it wasn't a pleasant look. Then the blond put a knee on the edge of the bed, slung his other leg over Dipper's, and threw himself to the side to fall into the space on the other side of the kid. Bill didn't seem to mind contact if he was the one to initiate it.

But someone putting their grabby hands on him?

NOPE. Thanks for NOTHING.

"Look." Apparently Bill decided to be informative in a rare show of- not really generosity, but more like he had nothing better to do right that moment so he might as well throw out some info to his 'worshiper', since the kid might be useful after all. He jabbed a gloved finger at the screen without much care for the device's safety, pointing out what looked to be a listing of various un-earthly looking things and indicating one particular item that seemed remarkably similar to a Ghosthunter's pack. "That, for a ridiculously lame example, is a rent altilium. Take notes, kiddo, because I'm not repeating this."

His voice was unreadable, his resting expression apparently somewhere between annoyance and blank apathy. "It's one of the lower grade batteries. I'm talking harness the power of the SUN, alright? Found in the Horror's Street Market in the Ninety'Nth dimension, usually, but this bad boy right here is like the online BLACK MARKET of interdimensional imports and exports."

Which... he might need something like that... because if this body ended up proving itself unable to withhold all the energy he would typically procure simply by making deals and having worshipers...

"Are you following? Because, if not, I'm just gonna stop trying to break it down into mortal terms for you."

He was obviously confused by what Bill meant, unsure what he was referring to when he wanted to change his situation. "Well, of course, you wouldn't. You never have Bill." The grin was mildly unsettling, causing him to actually inwardly cringe at it but when he started to get on the bed, he flinched immediately. "What the hell...?" He blinked as he threw himself on the bed next to Dipper, but found himself almost enjoying the close contact... Even if it happened to be a powerful demon able to kill him with a snap of his fingers.

Dipper was quick to keep up with Bill, even if he was mildly distracted by the warm body next to him. "You won't need to repeat anything, you've seen me keep up with your monologing before Bill." He rolled his eyes, following his finger to where he was pointing on the screen with some mild confusion. It was still new to him to have a demon who at this point, had monopolized his laptop into something that he almost didn't recognize at this point.

"You need it to get your power back? That would be the most logical guess to me anyway considering that it's a battery... Unless you're looking for something to harness the energy?" He was mildly confused but was hoping that he could bluff it well enough to trick Bill into explaining more.

The way it felt to be so close to Bill made him infuriated but he scooted a tiny bit closer, hoping that the other wouldn't notice. He was just loving every little bit of heat that he could soak up, the weather hadn't been the best in California and Oregon was no different... Plus normally he would just cuddle with Mabel but she wasn't here anymore... He wondered if that was what was making him enjoy the close proximity to him.

"I don't need it to get my power back, I pretty much have my power. I told you, Pine Tree, I'm a being of infinite power." Bill drawled, glancing at Dipper with an expression that suggested he thought the kid was an idiot. He turned his pointing hand towards the brunet, wagging his finger at him like scolding a dog before just dropping his hands again.

"Well... Normally. I'll only tell you this because it's your problem, too, now that you've promised yourself away to me. But tell anyone else and I'll delete all your files. I saw what you keep on that thing." Probably one of the least violent things he'd threatened the Pines boy with, but there were insinuations in his words that had a chilled edge to them. That vivid gold eye narrowed dangerously, a warning. "The problem isn't the power, it's energy. I'm MADE of it."

That was pretty backwards, and whether or not Bill realized, he added to it, anyways. "When I possessed you- and don't glower at me, get over it-, I put all that energy into your body. If I kept it up too long, you would probably have been incinerated from the inside out."

He didn't seem to find an issue with that in the least. "Sooo... What do we think might happen with this one?"

The demon didn't wait for an answer, "And what's a battery for? Storage. It's a backup, for when I'm getting that energy back. Which reminds me, I need you to be a little more 'worshipy'."

He gesticulated wildly for that, practically doing jazz hands at the mention of worship. Surely SOME people still know how to properly honour their idols? What do gods even do anymore? Everything's pretty self-sustaining, so Odin's probably just sitting around feeding his birds and putting his goth son in the bad kid corner.

Dipper had to admit that the way he shook his finger at him was amusing, causing the brunet to snicker. Bill was treating him as if he were a child which wasn't too funny, but if he were doing it in a sense that Dipper would take seriously he would have more of an issue with it... This just made him smile from the ridiculousness of it.

"You wouldn't dare." He glared at him, knowing that most of them were safe, one of the files was an extensive research paper about his time in Gravity Falls. The rest, however... There were some that Dipper was honestly embarrassed that Bill saw it. The eye narrowing made him shut up and listen to him more carefully, looking back at the screen instead of the demon. "I know THAT." He rolled his eyes at Bill, grabbing his journal and immediately flipping to the page about the demon. "You do realize that Ford kept extensive notes on you right?"

"I don't know about that actually, that body wasn't something that you chose right? I doubt that whoever made it for you would make it so that you could burn yourself from the inside out." Dipper raised an eyebrow as Bill told him to be more 'worshipy', not really sure what it was exactly that he was supposed to be doing.

"What do you expect from me? I'm not sure how you expect me to worship you." He sighed, finding himself scooting closer to the warmth of the demon with a soft hum. "I mean the amount of warmth that you give off is pretty nice.." He mumbled, not really caring what he said too much at this point as he was caring much more about how he was coming across to Bill. He was getting warmed up in the cold weather and obviously enjoying the close contact even if he wasn't exactly touching him.

Bill's eye focused on the journal, looking reproachful. Damn. Those are still around?

He resisted the urge to lunge for it with a literally burning vengeance. It was touchy subject for him, so he didn't mention how he also lied for pretty much that whole time with Ford. Playing nice, being friends... Most of those notes? Either wrong or out of context, he was sure. But he had to watch. See if he could get a hold of that thing again.

"Of course I can self-destruct in this thing!" he announced instead, once again giving Dipper that, 'are you stupid' look. "If I burned this thing out, I'd just be stuck in a husk until I could figure out the next step. They aren't anyone's friends, kid. Maybe I can introduce you, see if ya live."

Not that he was going to ever go back there. Alone or not.

Another derisive snort, like Dipper should've known the answer to that question. Bill still paused, though, considering the best way to supply a solid reply. "...The first thing you could do is shut off that damn music. Makes me think those voices are coming back again."

He was deadpan about that, but then fell silent for a moment as he finally noticed how the kid was... moving closer. The demon grew tense, and his expression closed off from the... not exactly openness, but there had been some emotion of differing levels.

"...That's... A start." Sort of?! If you pushed it, maybe." Bill minutely leaned back. "...It can be pretty much anything. I mean, virgin sacrifices and forsaken voyages in my name are always great."

The demon seemed alarmingly serious about that, blinking once, twice, and then ducking his head away to stare at the brunet from the corner of his eye. "Or you could just do whatever you do for that half-baked pop band. You worship what you lov- like, after all. Draw the symbols, say the name... think about them without pause."

"You can stop looking at my journal like that, you aren't getting your little demony hands on this ever again." He was dead serious, glaring at him intensely. "Seriously, that would interfere with my work AND classes." He smirked like the smug little shit he was, stuffing it back into his jacket hurriedly.

Dipper noticed the way he talked and frowned slightly, wondering exactly what it was that made Bill so upset over who or whatever it was that put him in the form he was in now. "I didn't know, you have to remember that almost everything about this situation is new for us both. I'm used to you looking like an angry Dorito!" Some part of him hoped to whatever god or gods there may not be that he didn't know what a Dorito was, he was pretty sure that Bill would take offense to it.

"...Fine." He begrudgingly turned off the music, huffing quietly and pouting a bit as it was one of his favorite songs that started to play right as Bill told him to turn it off. When he noticed Bill's reaction to him getting closer he shifted away from him back to where he had been previously, hoping that it would make him a bit less uncomfortable. Sure it wasn't something that he particularly needed to care about but that didn't mean that he wouldn't.

"You do realize that virgin sacrifices would get me arrested and in enough trouble that you wouldn't have me around to give you what you need right?" He rolled his eyes, listening to the demon closely to see if there was anything else he would give him on the matter. "Hey... You alright...?" Bill's sudden looking away set off alarm bells in his head as he'd never seen the demon do anything of the sort until now. "Bill... I can only do this if you actually tell me what you think will work. I can't give you the energy that you need unless you tell me."

Oh. He was definitely getting that thing. Even if he had to tear off Pine Tree's stupid jacket to get it. But that was in due time. There were... bigger issues to address first, especially since certain things were more time-sensitive than others.

'Dorito' sounded like an insult. He didn't know why, how, or what, but it sounded like an insult. Rude.

"Pfft, like I couldn't get you out of prison." He had active arrest warrants out for him in numerous dimensions, not to mention the good number of time he'd broken/cheated/lied/bartered/bailed himself out of confinement of all types. Sure, the last time he ended up just waiting until things worked out for him, but if it took too long he definitely would've figured something out.
Except for that stupid spell over the town. Now that was... wait. Was or is? He didn't actually know if that was still a thing now that he had been bound to a single, solid body.

"What kind of question is that?" No one asked him if he was 'alright' or 'fine' or whatever. It was a pointless inquisition of the well-being that generally communicated false care and only garnered lies for answers. A perfect tool for deception, but not one for normal conversation, as far as he was concerned.

He was not just bitter.

And he also did not wait for a reply.