Title: Part-time dream demon.

Rating: None.

First: Sorry for disappearing like that! I have been busy with uni and another MTNN long fic so I kind of lost inspiration to write Mabill anymore. But I go by cycles, so I sort of came back to the fandom after reading some good works (Mabill, ofc).

This isn't exactly Mabill as a pairing, but I liked how it turned out. This was for a challenge in Tumblr. I had to use the phrase: "You are extraordinary, my darling. And together? Think of everything we could do!"

Mabel knew this was a mistake the second their hands touched. She wanted to take it back, she wanted to scream that the deal was off, but the pain was too much for her body to process anything else. The worst part was that despite having good intentions she knew it was not gonna happen the way she wanted.

Her brother was dying and she was desperate. Somehow the idea of invoking the demon that tormented her childhood seemed like the best idea, the only idea that seemed to work. Modern medicine failed her dearest brother and her grunkle Ford's technology could do nothing to cure him from the rare virus rampaging through his delicate body.

They had just ran out of ancient remedies and superstitions when she came across a paper with the incantations to summon Bill Cipher. She knew it was dangerous but she remembered amazing magic and the impossible becoming possible when he appeared in their lives. Maybe he was the only solution left.

She just wanted her brother back.

But even if she told him just that, the demon mocked her and laughed at her desperate state; he gloated in her moment of weakness and demanded her to beg for it.

"After everything you did to me, it's only fair to see you grovel for a while, don't you think?" he had said twirling his cane with an invisible smile in his eye.

She did it. She kissed his hand. She begged on her knees, crying. It didn't matter to her whatever the cost was if her brother survived. He pride meant nothing if she could go back to when everything was just fine.

After what she felt like hours, he agreed to make a deal with her. Her brother would be cured and fresh, as if the illness never happened. The price? A life for a life, he had said.

"Think about it for a moment, Shooting Star," he sat on a floating chair sipping tea through his eye, "think of everything you would do with my powers. What I'm offering is a job. Consider it as being part time dream demon."

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm tired of the same thing again and again. What happened last time made me see that millenia of doing the same boring job had robbed me of my common sense. If I had been at full capacity you brats would have never outsmarted me." He sipped his tea.

"Are you lonely?" Mabel asked, not sure what was being asked of her. Bill giggled like she had said something too funny and threw the cup to the wall behind him.

"I'm not lonely , dear. I'm bored . I want something new. And you can give it to me. You are extraordinary, my darling. And together? Think of everything we could do!"

She hesitated. A part time job? It couldn't hurt too much and she would have her brother back. It really seemed like a good idea. The temptation was too big.

She shook his hand, sealing her brother's fate.

What she should have seen coming was the catch in Bill's words. It was just too easy that he agreed to heal his arch nemesis. She should have seen it, but it was too late when her hand touched his and the deal was made and the pain entered her body. It was like an electric current, and not the cute kind she read about in her romance novels.

She thought she was going to die. She felt hot and cold at the same time, her overstimulated body suffering from the outburst of energy going rampant through her nerves. For a brief second she thought that Bill had played her and was simply killing her, but they made a deal and he always fulfilled his part.

Then came the visions. Images without sound, like some kind of memory passing through her eyes. She realized too late that she was seeing the future; hers, her family's, her friends' back in Gravity Falls, a complete stranger's… Lives and deaths going faster than what her brain could process.

And finally there was power. Raw, unadulterated power entering her body like a river flowing down a mountain. She wasn't stupid, she knew what he was doing to her, but she didn't expect to be transformed into a being like him.

"Now, Shooting Star. You are ready." Bill whispered as he let her go, but she didn't feel his hand leave her body.

"Ah?" she murmured. The power rush was subsiding now that the demon stopped passing it to her, but the information overload was making her thoughts heavy and slower.

"Welcome, my dear, to the dreamscape."

Mabel blinked away the few tears in her eyes, realizing that they were not on the Shack's attic, where she had summoned the triangle as a last resort to save her brother-

A vision came to her, blocking any other thought before she could control it. There, her brother was cured and healthy again. A journal under his arm and his phone on the other, Dipper was exploring the woods looking for something. Maybe a new mystery , she vaguely thought, happy to see him up and lively as always.

"Don't worry, Mabes. I'll save you," she heard him whisper, opening the book to check something on it. There was a drawing of a shooting star next to question marks. "Why?" was on a corner, and a sticky note with something scribbled in her brother's handwriting.

Bill Cipher involved?

There was a jump in time and in front of her was another Dipper, a bit older and tired looking than the other one, sitting on the Shack's kitchen chair with a family photo in his hands.

"I miss you, sister. I just want you back."

Another timeskip and she was watching Dipper being chained to a wall, bleeding to death and tears going down his cheeks. He closed his eyes and exhaled what she understood was his last breath, surrounded by a barely lit cave and no one there by his side.

Mabel came back to herself with a jump, gulping down air in desperation. What the heck was all of that? Well, she knew it was a vision of the future, but…

"What have you done?" the young woman grumbled when she got enough energy to talk.

"I cured your brother and in exchange your life belongs to me. A deal's a deal, Shooting Star," he twirled his came in his little hands. "But Pine Tree decided to spend what he had left looking for you. And he died for that."

I don't come back, she realized. I'm going to stay here and I'm not getting my brother back in the end.

"You tricked me," Mabel whispered lowering her head, too tired to be truly angry with him.

"I haven't done such thing, darling. You know me and still you came to me for help, so it's your own fault you are in this situation."

She blinked some tears away, letting the information sink in her heart. She was not coming back to her brother and he was going to die anyways for nothing, because she had made a deal with the dream demon and she wouldn't be able to go back even if she tried.

She should have never summoned Bill.

Of course, it was too late for any of this. She was binded by a deal to this yellow triangle until he got tired of her, whenever that is.

"C'mon, we have work to do," said triangle offered a hand to her like he was going to do a deal, but no flames appeared on his fingers. She slowly realized he was genuinely expecting her to hold it. She blinked.

"Yeah…"

She took his hand in hers, the size way too off to be comfortable with, but somehow it only added to the nightmare-like situation she was living. If she was going to spend a loooong time with Bill at least she had to get used to him. Mabel sighed.

I'm sorry, Dipper.