Chapter 8: The Joy of Sparkles!

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Quiet Leaf for knowing that the reference in chapter six was to the YouTube video "Hot Kool Aid" by Julian Smith. As was requested, there's a pretty cute, funny, and ironic Dorito scene in here. Thanks Quiet Leaf for reviewing and loving this story so much! You da best!

Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favorited thus-far! I hope you enjoy the chapter. And Remember! Reviews are love, reality is an illusion, the Universe is a hologram, BUY GOLD!

….

The atmosphere could be described as nothing short of…. Tense. Mabel, of course, tried her hardest from the moment they stepped into the kitchen to make the room feel as bright as possible, but with Ford sitting at the kitchen table tinkering with something and Bill suddenly closing off all of the doors he'd let open with Mabel, everyone was starting to feel the tension.

"GRUNKLE STAN!" Mabel had immediately yelled upon entering the room, still dragging Bill and Dipper behind her. She let go of Dipper and he went to sit by Ford, but she continued to drag Bill around like her newest and best doll. "Grunkle Stan, Bill is going to help us make the pizza!" Mable yelled, despite the fact that she was now standing only two feet away from her Great Uncle. She held Bill out in front of her towards Stan, as if proving that she had, in fact, brought Bill up to help make dinner. Stan looked down at him from his spot in front of the stove, wearing nothing but a stained wife-beater shirt and his underpants. The look on Stan's face spoke of boredom and disinterest.

"Just don't poison anything," he said, going back to cutting up slices of pepperoni from a cylinder of red meat.

Bill was trying very hard to tell if he was serious. 'I mean, I know not to poison anything! But does he actually think I would? ….You know what, even I think I might have at least considered it if given the chance, so yes, he probably meant it quite literally….' Bill concluded to himself.

Mabel just laughed though. "Oh Grunkle Stan, you're so funny!" She said, hopping up on the counter and poking his nose. "Boop!"

Bill stood nearby and watched intently as Mabel explained what order the ingredients went on the pizza while Dipper and Ford chatted at the table, their eyes never leaving Bill.

"He sure looks a lot better," Ford commented and Dipper nodded, pulling out Journal 3 and setting it on the tabletop.

"Yeah, he washed some of the blood off, and his advanced healing abilities have been kicking in." Dipper and Ford shared a glance. "Not his full abilities," Dipper corrected. "Otherwise I think he would have healed his ribs more thoroughly by now; I noticed they were still bothering him as he was on the stairs." Ford nodded and they continued to watch Bill as Mabel handed him a container of what appeared to be a mix of sprinkles and sparkly glitter. "He thinks something called The Axolotl is in charge of deciding what powers he can and can't use. I think maybe that's the name of the being he said he made the deal with." Ford nodded.

"Perhaps. I know what an axolotl is, they're water-faring salamanders, sometimes also known as Walking Fish, though they aren't technically fish but amphibians, like frogs. I've known people to keep them as pets; I highly doubt Bill was referring to a regular axolotl though, especially if he thinks it controls and limits his powers."

"Yeah, he always calls it The Axolotl, as in the one that matters, or the only one, or something. He surely can't just mean a regular water-lizard or whatever." Dipper thought aloud, rubbing his chin in ponder.

"There's also the chance he's just lying, or messing with us," Ford said. "If that's the case, I have to find out and make sure to put a stop to it." Dipper nodded in agreement.

"For now, do you think you could….?" Dipper opened the Journal to the page where he'd been writing about the human form of Bill Cipher and handed over a pen.

"Sure," Ford said, beginning to draw, glancing up every once in a while to look at Bill, both for the accuracy of his drawing and to make sure he wasn't trying to cause trouble. As he drew, Ford glanced over some of the notes Dipper had taken. "It's good that you thought to start a page for this," he told his Great Nephew. "Some of it may come in handy later."

Dipper smiled, pleased that he'd earned his Great Uncle Ford's approval. "Maybe later we can look into The Axolotl and if everything checks out, we can add a page for it in the Journal." Again Ford nodded, not looking up from his sketch of Bill in his new human form, the drawing on the page depicting what Bill had looked like when he'd first come into the Mystery Shack that morning.

….

Bill tried very hard not to glance over at Old Fordsie, nervous about just being in the room with who could easily be called his greatest enemy, and who was easily five times his size and strength at the moment. He well enough preoccupied himself with what Mabel and Stan were doing.

Stan groaned as Mabel pulled out a bottle of glitter, sparkles and sprinkles. "Mabel, honey, how many times do we have to go over this? You can't put that on a pizza! It's inedible!" He said as he spread tomato sauce over a flat disk of dough with a spoon.

"C'mon Grunkle Stan, I eat it all the time!"

"You ain't normal kid, and you shouldn't. Be honest here, how often do you throw up?"

"Like every few days." Mabel said it as if it were an accomplishment.

"I rest my case, then. At least I know it's getting out of your system somehow." Stan groaned and began to sprinkle cheese over the tomato sauce.

"Bill!" Mabel screeched, handing him the container of sparkly objects. "Eat some and tell Grunkle Stan it's good!" Bill grimaced, glanced at Ford in the corner of the room, and began to pinch an amount of the mixture between his fingertips, bringing it up in front of him to inspect it. He bit his lip, and a thought struck Mabel.

"Wait!" Bill paused with the mix half-way to his mouth. "That's not an order," Mabel said. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

Bill sighed in relief and let the mix he'd held between his fingers fall back into it's container. "Oh thank God," he said, clearly relieved that he wouldn't have to choke down the mix. Mabel smiled at him, looking somewhat disappointed and sad.

Bill signed, looked down at the mix, looked back up at the sad smile on Mabel's face, and shut his eyes tight before pouring a somewhat generous amount into his mouth and swallowing. He instantly began hacking and coughing up a storm as Stan laughed his ass off.

"Jesus Cipher! Just because Mabel's smile wasn't one-hundred percent genuine you swallowed a load of that plastic sugary crap?!" Stan and Mabel both laughed hysterically.

Bill continued to cough for a moment before wheezing out: "Yes, well, I'm apparently a complete imbecile. You said this wouldn't kill me, right Shooting Star?" He wheezed in another breath.

She nodded through teary-eyed laughter. "Oh yeah, you'll be fine, but you'll find sparkles coming out your nose for a few hours." She handed him a glass of water which he took in shaky hands, swallowing it all down in moments, pleased when the tickle in his throat lessened*.

"I look like a Gnome threw up on me," Bill moaned as he looked down at himself, multi-colored sparkles covering the front of his shirt and the floor. Was he truly incapable of keeping himself clean for even a few short minutes? He began to rub off the glittery objects, some of them persisting and staining his new sweater with glitter that gave it an almost gold-like appearance and shine.

Stan had finally stopped laughing. "Yeah, none of that on the pizza kiddo." He pat Mabel on the head.

"Fine, I'll just put it on two slices, one for me and one for Bill!" Bill groaned again, but Mabel didn't wait for an actual protest before pouring the concoction over a fourth of the pizza.

Stan finished by placing the pepperoni slices on the pizza and placing it in the pre-heated oven. He looked from Mabel to Dipper and back. "Why don't you kids go play while the pizza cooks? It'll be at least ten minutes. Find something to watch on the TV or somethin'. Ford and I can watch Bill, or you can take him with you, I don't care." Mabel nodded enthusiastically, hugging Bill around the neck, pulling him out of the room.

"Dipper, come on!" She called back over her shoulder. Dipper sighed, picked up Journal 3 with its now illustrated page on a human Bill Cipher, and ran out after her.

He followed her into the living room where she'd just set Bill on the couch and handed him the TV remote.

"Find something good to watch!" She said. Bill looked thoroughly displeased with this order, but she ignored his…. Well, Dipper could really only describe it as a pout. He would have been surprised but, looking back on everything and what type of very strange personality Bill had, Dipper figured it actually fit him pretty well to pout a bit, especially if he was trying to play up his new form's 'adorableness factor'.

Mabel came over to Dipper. "That should keep him busy for a while," she said.

"Mabel," Dipper began, "why are you acting so calm around Bill? How can you be so at ease? And why are you being nice to him? He's not one of our friends!" He said in a harsh whisper as Mabel shushed him, not wanting Bill to overhear their conversation.

"Yeah, Dipper, of course it still freaks me out that it's Bill, but letting that show isn't going to help any of us. If anything, being nice to him while he's vulnerable, trying to act normal around him, don't you agree that that'll have the best influence on him?"

"Honestly Mabel, I don't think he's going to change at all. I think that if he ever gets his powers back, the first thing he's gonna do is kill us!" Mabel shushed him again and Dipper continued in another quiet but harsh whisper. "He may be defenseless now, but he's probably not going to stay that way, knowing him. He'll figure something out... He can already heal himself at least partially abnormally, how long before he's too powerful to beat? He won't make the same mistakes he did last time, he'll kill us for sure! Honestly? I don't know why we don't just kill him now while we have the chance."

Mabel glared at her twin. "You really don't have any hope, bro? Because, yeah, I think that maybe this could all go horribly, horribly wrong and we could all die horrible deaths, but killing Bill when he's defenseless doesn't sound like a victory either, and what if he really is capable of changing and we don't do everything we can to make sure that happens? Besides, I know he's done a lot of horrible things, and he's hurt people, maybe even killed people, and he's far from perfect, but we don't really know all that much about him, do we?"

"We know enough!" Dipper interjected. "Enough that we should-"

"Should what?" Mabel asked. "Play the role of judge, jury, and executioner? He started Weirdmageddon, yeah, but is that really enough to sentence him to death?" Dipper sighed.

"Okay, Mabel, okay. I get it. We don't actually know as much about him as we'd like to think, and at the very least you think it's at least possible for him to be good and get redemption or whatever. Fine. But Mabel? Please, please, please be careful around him. If you're too friendly, as soon as you start to trust him, he'll stab you in the back. Or heck, even if he really is trying to change, he can still screw up, make a mistake and you end up dead as a consequence. You understand, don't you?" Mabel sighed.

"Okay Dipper, I get it. I won't stop being nice to him and stuff, but I'll keep my guard up. I'd hate for the Mystery Twins to be reduced to just the Mystery Pinhead." Dipper chuckled lightly.

"Kids, pizza's ready!" Stan called from the kitchen and Mabel ran to grab Bill from in front of the TV. He was currently watching the News.

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Gosh, you're so Bill-ish." She said, to which Bill responded with a "no, really?" before being pulled back towards the kitchen. So what if he wanted to know what was going on in the world? He liked to know things….

They entered the kitchen as Stan set the pizza in the middle of the kitchen table, picking up a pizza slicer and cutting it into six roughly equal slices. Two of the slices were covered in still-slightly-glittery burnt-looking flecks and Bill gulped, deciding that perhaps he could scrape it off, or else skip dinner. Of the two sparkly slices, one was larger than the other, and it was this larger slice that Stan set on Mabel's plate before setting the smaller one on Bill's. Stan continued to pass out the other slices, placing one equally-sized slice each on Ford's, Dipper's, and Stan's own plate.

While it appeared no one else was looking, Stan nonchalantly slipped the left over sixth slice on to Bill's plate with a wink before sitting down and beginning to eat his own slice. It was at this moment that Bill realized that Stan had cut the pizza into six pieces instead of five on purpose, specifically so that Bill wouldn't be stuck with only the darkly-flaked slice Mabel had corrupted. Bill couldn't help but smile a little. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why Stanley would do this for him, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

They ate in silence of a while, excluding the quiet whispering between Dipper and Ford and the occasional cough from Mabel as she seemingly happily dug into her pizza.

"Oh yeah!" Mabel said, drawing the attention of Stan and Bill. Dipper and Ford glanced in her direction, but quickly went back to talking to each other. Mabel reached into her sweater pocket and pulled out the bag of Doritos.

"They are a hassle to open," Mabel said, "and I could teach you how to open it the right way, but I'm not going to!" She held the bag over Bill's plate up-side-down. "This way's much more fun!" She clapped, smashing the bag between her hands.

Bill jerked back, startled, as a loud and sudden "pop" sound erupted from the bag and chips flew. Most of them landed on his plate, but some of them ended up on the floor or, for one lucky chip, in Stan's hair. Mabel giggled madly.

Stan rolled his eyes, picking it out of his short hair and flicking it to the ground where Waddles was already munching away. "Very funny, Pumpkin."

Mabel pointed to the triangle-shaped yellow chips that had landed on Bill's plate. "See? Yellow triangles, just like a piece of pizza and just like you! These are Cool-Ranch flavored. My favorite are the Jalapeño Nacho Cheese ones!" Dipper rolled his eyes, deciding to enter the conversation momentarily.

"Mabel, you only think you like them. You can never eat more than two before having to run and get a glass of milk. It takes you a week to eat one bag! And they aren't even that spicy…." Mabel waved her hand dismissively.

"Psh, yeah, whatever," she disregarded him and he shrugged, going back to looking over the Journal with Ford. "Anyway, you got to try them Bill!" Bill quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Excited about this, aren't we Shooting Star?" Ford glanced at him from across the table, but didn't say anything. "They can't be worse than the glitter, I'm sure."

Mabel shrugged. "They're okay, I mean, I guess they really aren't anywhere near close to being my favorite food…. I'm just excited because, well, you'd be a Dorito eating a Dorito! It's hilarious! Like cannibalism!" Dipper intervened again

"Mabel, you cried when Waddles ate bacon accidently!" Again Mabel brushed him off.

"This is different! It's BILL, eating DORITOS! A week ago we wouldn't have even thought it possible! Now eat!" Mabel said, pointing at the chips covering his half-finished slice of pizza.

"Okay, okay, yeeesh." Bill picked one up and popped it into his mouth. He began to chew, the loud crunching filling the silence. He was half-way done eating the chip when he stopped.

"What is it?" Mabel asked as Bill covered his mouth with his hand, looking a bit like he was going to be sick, staring down at the table intently, not looking up.

Bill had the overwhelming urge to spit out the half-finished chip and hide under the table. It wasn't that the chip was bad, no, in fact it was pretty good, it was just, 'they're all looking at me!'

He managed to finish chewing and swallowed.

He coughed a little. "Why are you all staring at me?" He managed to get out, fidgeting in his seat, glancing uncomfortably at everyone, all of them watching him intently. "It's horribly unsettling to have you all just sitting there, watching me while I eat! It's creepy!" At this, Ford laughed a loud, boisterous laugh. Bill was so startled to hear the sound coming from Ford of all people that he nearly fell out of his chair.

"What, Bill, you're creeped out because people are watching you?" Ford asked, and at this point everyone other than Bill himself was laughing nearly hysterically. Bill chuckled lightly.

"Okay, yes, I suppose that's a bit ironic and ludicrous," Bill conceded, smiling tightly, still not enjoying being the center of attention for this particular crowd.

"Aright, fine, it's funny, but the chips! How was it?" Mabel asked, drawing them back to the main topic of discussion.

"Better than anything I've had in millions of years," Bill said cryptically.

"You've only eaten pizza, a PB&J, Pancakes, and glitter with sprinkles in the last millions of years," Dipper said. "And that was all just today. Today is the only day you've eaten in over a million years!"

Bill smiled. "Precisely." Mabel poked him in the side.

"But you still like it?" Bill nodded. "Better than anything else you've had so far?" Another nod. "Alright then, now we have to search for something you like better than Doritos! I have to know if it's your absolute favorite food and the only way to do that is to have you try a bunch of things!" Mabel said enthusiastically. "I wonder if you'll like donuts with sprinkles better…. That's my personal favorite!"

For the rest of dinner Mabel talked about all the foods Bill would have to try while Dipper and Ford chatted. When dinner was over, Stan pointed at Dipper.

"Dipper, do the dishes," he said. Dipper moaned a little, but other than that silently picked up all of the plates and set to work, dumping Bill's untouched sparkle-slice in the trash. Bill was thankful that if Mabel noticed that it went uneaten, she didn't say anything.

Dipper didn't mind doing most of the chores around the house anymore, not since he'd learnt that his Grunkle Stan only made him do them to toughen him up. Actually, looking back at it, that was the first time they'd met Bill…. So, technically, without Bill, Dipper might of always thought that Stan hated him….

Dipper shook his head. That still didn't mean he owed Bill anything, and Bill was still definitely the bad guy as far as he was concerned.

The other four occupants of the Mystery Shack headed to the living room, Stan sitting down in his chair and Mabel perching on his left armrest. Bill pointedly took a seat on the floor next to Mabel as she turned the TV on, switching through channels.

Ford walked by them and towards the front of the Shack, but paused in the doorway.

'Can't let Bill know where the entrance to my underground lab is if he doesn't already know….' Ford thought to himself, glaring down at Bill as he sat on the floor. Well, there was only one way to know….

"Bill," Ford said, making Bill jump, his back going rigid and straight.

"Yes Ford?" Bill asked, looking up at him carefully through his curtain of golden hair, only slightly illuminated by the TV light. Ford considered telling Bill to refer to him as Sir, but sternly reminded himself that Bill wasn't a young child, was in fact much, much, much older than him, and while it would do Bill some good to show respect, the idea overall was laughable. Bill was a demon, an old one, and while he was, in Ford's opinion, the most dangerous creature he'd ever encountered, he did deserve some form of respect. After all, how could one not respect such a powerful being? Respect for power was both natural and necessary….

Ford frowned deeper and refocused on the task at hand. "Do you know where my lab is?"

Bill made a small "ah" noise, as if realizing what Ford was getting at. "Yes," he glanced at Mabel and Stan before deciding that it was safe to assume they already knew. "You are referring to the one behind the vending machine, are you not?"

'Guess that means he knows about the one by the old tree, too,' Ford thought, but nodded and turned to leave. He paused and turned back again.

"Do you know the code to get in?" Ford asked.

Bill hesitated, considering his options carefully, before responding: "I assume that come tomorrow morning I no longer will," Bill said, then as an afterthought "and I suppose that I should also mention that there are, in fact, several ways down that you may or may not even be aware of. It's not nearly as secure as you'd like to think, I can assure you." Ford nodded, somewhat having been expecting as much. He'd already discovered one of those ways when Dipper fell through a hole under the house last year.

"I kind of figured." Ford shook his head. "I'll leave the code as it is for now, but if you ever go down there, especially without permission, I'll kill you." Ford leveled him a blank and serious stare, Mabel trying to ignore what was going on and failing, and Bill instantly knew that Ford meant his threat most literally. Bill nodded minutely and Ford turned to leave.

Stan put on some kid's show called "Ducktective" that Bill had observed them watching before on more than one occasion. Bill let his mind wander as Dipper finished the dishes and sat down to watch with them, sitting on the armrest opposite of Mabel's.

It wasn't until the end of the episode that Mabel noticed Bill had fallen asleep on the floor next to her, despite the fact that it was only about eight o'clock at night. She supposed that his body was still healing, and he'd said earlier that the advanced healing made him easily exhausted. On top of that, her parents had made her and Dipper go to bed super early when they were younger, and Bill's body was only about equal to that of an eight years old's. Mabel made a mental note to ensure that he always went to bed by nine, whether he liked it or not!

They watched a few more episodes before Grunkle Stan decided to call it a night. "You kids can stay up if you wanna, but I'm not getting any younger, and it's been one hell of a day. I'm going to bed."

"Okay, goodnight Grunkle Stan," both Dipper and Mabel said as their Grunkle headed for the stairs. "We should put him to bed too," Dipper said, nodding his head at Bill. "He's young, and healing. He needs rest." Mabel gushed. "What?"

"Aww, Dippy, you're so nice! I thought I was going to have to be the one to take him downstairs!" Dipper rolled his eyes as he stood up.

"Yeah, whatever." He stepped up next to Bill and stared down at him for a moment. "What should I do? Kick him awake?"

"No!" Mabel said in a harsh whisper. "If you do that he'll never let his guard down enough to sleep near us again! And he's so adorable when he's asleep! How could you even think about kicking that?" She gestured with both hands rather enthusiastically at where Bill sat slouched against Stan's chair, his right cheek squished against the material of Stan's cheap old recliner.

Dipper sighed. "Okay, fine, what should we do?" Mabel adopted a most mischievous grin.

"You should carry him downstairs," she said, poking him in the side with a huge grin on her face.

"What? No!" Dipper harshly whispered, a most incredulous look on his face.

Mabel was about to say "please" when Dipper sighed, quickly realizing where this was going. When it came to matters of cuteness, there was no refusing Mabel.

"Fiiiine…." Dipper leant down to quickly scoop up the sleeping demon.

"Careful!" Mabel interrupted before Dipper could touch him. "Don't hurt him, or wake him up! If you wake him up he definitely won't let you carry him!" Dipper groaned quietly and this time carefully picked Bill up, his left arm going behind Bill's knees and his right wrapping around Bill's back.

Mabel grinned again and ran ahead downstairs, Dipper following slowly behind her, mindful not to bump anything or drop his cargo down the stairs, though the thought did cross his mind for a moment. The only reason he didn't send Bill rolling down the wooden steps was because Mabel would be absolutely furious with him if he did that, and while he might not care for Bill at all, he definitely loved his sister, and for whatever reason, Mabel seemed to be developing a little bit of an attachment to Bill.

Dipper couldn't help but think that this whole "helping Bill" thing wouldn't end well.

*When I was young I swallowed quite a bit of glitter, confusing it with sweet sugary sprinkles. I was only about six or seven at the time; it was most unpleasant. It really does end up in your nasal cavity….

I swear I'm not an idiot. XD