Bill waited in anticipation as Dipper walked down the street. He moved across the boy's body like an ant, crawling to and fro. The incorporeal being was not used to being trapped inside solid objects. Even a possessed body would get stuffy if it lasted too long.

The boy was casually walking down the street. He didn't seem to have a care in the world, despite having a demon stapled to his soul. Bill's eye angrily blinked on Dipper's forearms. It felt like the bite of a fire ant.

"What?" the boy whispered. He didn't want people to hear him talking to himself.

"What are you waiting for?! Crack that thing open and split us!" Bill's voice was erratic. "I can't deal with this anymore! Your skin is like living on a baby wipe! And you're so small! Eat a little, give me some breathing room!"

Dipper just kept quiet, as an old couple passed by him on the sidewalk. He smiled at them until they passed. "Just shut up!" Dipper angrily whispered, "You're just making this more uncomfortable than it has to be."

"Hey kid. How about I move down a little lower, below the belt. Might be a nice change of scenery!"

"No!" Dipper slapped his hand over his mouth. He hadn't meant to yell.

"No?! Then hurry up!" Bill's mark felt like a cigarette burn.

Dipper rubbed his arms while swiftly walking over to a nearby bench. He pulled out the new Journal, its cover shined in the summer sun. Running his fingers over the number two engraving sent a shiver down Dipper's spine. The book's leather creaked as it opened. The pages were marked with signs of being repeatedly reread. The first couple had been torn out, leaving only chunks of scrap behind.

He flipped through the pages in search for something to do with Bill. Eldritch designs and pictures of strange monsters stopped his train of thought with almost every page turned. Sock Brownies? A collection of sentient tin cans? Cursed Egyptian super termites. Dipper shuddered at the last one.

"Yeesh! You'd think something with such a stupid name wouldn't be this scary," Dipper murmured, looking at the terrifying picture of the bug. Dipper turned the page, covering the scary drawing, and kept going through the pages.

Bill kept skittering over Dipper's skin, causing mosquito bite like itching to go up and down the boy's skinny arm. Dipper scratched at the irritating prickle in response. The demon shot across his cage and onto to the boy's face, right in the middle of the forehead.

"Well!? Where is it?! Where am I?! I know I have to be in this thing!"

"Would you cut it out, man!?" Dipper pulled his hat off to rake his nails over his skin. "I'm still searching! Calm down!"

"I'll be calm when I'm out of this disgusting meat wrap! I can feel your sweat, and –ugugh – other fluids on your skin."

A blush formed on Dipper's face. "H-Hey! It's completely normal for someone my age to sweat this amount. And what do you mean other fluids!?"

"Look for the entry kid! Keep GOING!" The itch turned into pain.

"Ow!" Dipper cried. He gritted his teeth and kept flipping through the text. His eyes were fixated completely on the book as he searched, completely ignoring the passerby. The street he was on wasn't the busiest in terms of foot traffic, but that didn't mean it was barren.

Other Gravity Falls citizens passed by the Pines boy as he read on the park bench. Strange looks pierced the oblivious preteen. The town's folk usually paid no mind to the Pines siblings. They knew the Mr. Mystery of the shack on the hill, and knew he had family in town, might have even seen them a few times, but never really cared. They didn't remember one of them being this weird, or him having an ugly tattoo in the center of his forehead. Is that why he wore that hat?

Dipper scratched at the Bill mark on his face while he read. He intently scanned each page slowly and deliberately, his index finger ran along each sentence. Dipper always took his time when he read, didn't want to miss anything right? Unfortunately for him it made him look McGucket level creepy when it was coupled with his rampant scratching.

People turned their heads with a cringe as they walked by, all of them thinking things like, "Kids these days" and "That color does not work on him." Dipper looked up when he heard a voice speak to him.

"Weirdo," A mother and child were walking past him on the side walk. Had she said that? Dipper gave them a friendly smile, but with the swelling brand on his face, it only made him seem creepier. The mother and child gave him a dual grimace in response.

Bill eyed them as they passed, his pupil following their movements. The mother's eye's bugged out to the size of dinner plates when she saw the little triangle man move. She hoisted up her child threw him over her shoulder like a sack of flower, and took off with a scream. Dipper gawked at the woman as she sprinted down the street.

"What was that?" Dipper confusedly muttered.

"Pfft! Women! Am I right?" Bill stated, matter of factly.

"No, no, what was that voice?" Dipper asked confused.

"What voice? You mean mine?! That's been there for a while, kid, remember?! Yeesh, did Gideon really smack you around that hard!?"

"Shut up, that's not what I meant," Dipper defended, "It was like I heard her talking, but she didn't open her mouth."

"Oooohhhh! That's what you meant. Yeah, sorry about that Pine Tree that was me, just a little slip up."

Dipper wasn't following, "Wh-?"

Bill interrupted him before he could finish his question, "We're connected at the soul level, it's bound to happen that you'd hear some of the thoughts I read!"

"I read her mind? Sweet," that was something Dipper wouldn't mind being able to do. He could get the jump on Mabel instead of the other way around, or really get to know what Wendy was thinking.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! I read her mind, not you, you little skeeze!" Bill screamed, "Don't think your some psychic savant because you heard some feedback! This is probably happening because you screwed up that spell! But hey it might not be all bad," the demon continued, "Maybe it means that we're slowly being pulled apart or something!"

"Really?! That's great!"

The Bill sigil waved its hand dismissively, "Eh, it could also mean we both get torn apart and sent to oblivion. I wouldn't worry about it though, kid. It's a just slip up. Now what were we doing again? Oh right! GETTING US ACTUALLY FIXED! Keep reading boy!"

Dipper sighed at the demon.


Dipper had read through most of the book when he heard a familiar voice from down the road.

"Yo! Dipper-dude! What's up?!" It was Nate, one of Wendy's friends. He was walking with Lee and Tambry, two more of his crush's friends. Nate and Lee both gave the boy a wave as they walked towards him. Tambry's eyes darted up from her phone for a millisecond to spy at Dipper for a second, it was like a wave, but not really. The three teens stopped at the bench.

Nate spoke in his normal jovial tone, "Hey, man. How ya doin?"

Dipper closed the book with a thud and roughly placed it beside him. Even if she wasn't with them, looking cool in front of Wendy's friends was always a matter of importance. After a moment of clumsily trying to save… whatever kind of face Dipper thought he might have lost by just sitting on a bench, he responded. "I'm good."

"Sweet! Hey listen," Nate suddenly whispered, "You seen Robbie lately?"

More sweat started to form on Dipper's forehead. Bill's mark visibly frowned in anger at the sight of more human fluids. "Uhhh… No, haven't seen him." Dipper said in the smoothest manner possible.

"Crap. He hasn't been answering any of texts or calls since yesterday. Not since he started raving about some weird stuff he saw in the park. Someone said they saw him with you."

"Nope! Didn't see him at all yesterday. Yep! Not at all," Dipper squawked back a little too quickly. He tugged on the neck of his shirt and wiped off some sweat from his forehead. His bangs now better showed off the Bill mark on his head.

"Well worth a shot. I guess we'll see you later th- Woah! Dude!" Nate pointed at Dipper's forehead. "Is that a tattoo?!"

It was then that Dipper remembered that he hadn't put his cap back on. He quickly covered up Bill.

"Uhh… No! It's just you know, some scribbling or something…" Dipper trailed off.

"Dipper, you've got ink?! Dude, let me see." Lee arced over his shorter friend with one of his long arms and pulled Dipper's arm from his face. The Bill sigil stared back at the small group. Its "face" was expressionless. Dipper closed his eyes as they looked at his "ink".

"Man that is sweet!" Lee exclaimed.

"Really?" Dipper cracked his eyes open in surprise.

"Oh yeah man," Nate said looking into Bill's eye, "I didn't think Crazy Jim would let a kid get a tattoo."

"Crazy Jim?"

"Yeah, you know? Crazy Jim? You'd have to have met him if you got a tattoo. He's the old, bald guy with the missing eye. Other eye is always red for some reason. Think he said it was a "Reoccurring Burst Blood Vessel" or something. Whatever that means."

"Uhhh." Dipper was confused.

"Or was it Crusty Jack? The guy with a hook for a hand. Surprised they still let him around kids."

"Yeeeeeah. It was that guy," Dipper slowly agreed. Whatever it took to look like a cool, fully mature, teen, guy; that was his motto.

"Awesome, little dude. Well we're gonna get goin. Thompson's gonna chug a whole tub of movie butter… again." Nate stopped for a second, "Hey, you wanna come. Since Robbie's vanished we need another man-." Tambry loudly coughed. "Uhh, person to help laugh at him. You in?"

Dipper looked at them and then the book. He needed Bill off of his head, and body in general. But he also wanted to be accepted by the group of teens that his crush spent most of her time with. The debate did not last long.

"Sure, let's go." Dipper got up from the bench, putting the book under his arm.

"Oh yeah! Let's do this!" Lee and Nate both yelled simultaneously. Tambry's lips curved up by a micrometer behind her phone. The teens, plus one, continued down the road to watch an overweight young man drink butter.

Bill remained silent as his dumb fleshy host ignored his job. He could drag Dipper into the mindscape, but that wouldn't solve anything at moment, he'd probably fall into traffic, and while that was a hilarious thought he didn't want to test that last bit of the kid's spell and get dragged into oblivion. He didn't have a good way to get a hold of the kid's body then, but he had a good idea.

As they chatted, neither Dipper nor the teens noticed the Bill tattoo had turned an ugly shade of red.