This chapter is kind of short, but I wanted to leave you guys with something rather than nothing! I'll be leaving tomorrow to travel for work, so the next chapter won't be up for a while...in the meantime, please leave reviews to let me know what you think!
They all three gaped at one another for what seemed like hours. Then, without even realizing what he was doing, Bill slowly reached forward, took hold of the door, and slammed it hard in the men's faces.
He backed away, staring at the closed entry with wide eyes, swaying slightly as his muddled mind considered what was happening.
But he didn't have long to consider much of anything, as a focused laser blast exploded through the door, just barely missing his head. He dropped the whiskey bottle, spilling dark liquid and shattered glass all over the floor, and turned to run just as Stan kicked down the remains of the door and the older Pines twins charged in. Bill skittered to the side as another laser blast punched into the wall behind him.
He was giving himself a drunken, mental congratulations for managing to dodge that, when two rounds of hot lead seared through his hip and three more through his shoulder. He stumbled and gasped, feeling the warm blood begin to stain his clothing. Bill noted with bitterness that physical pain had long since lost its novelty; there was nothing euphoric or refreshing about this. It was agony, crippling, setting his nerves ablaze. Despite his injured hip, he continued the desperate scramble away from the older Pines twins as they continued their assault.
There was only one way out. He tore through the living room and barreled through the door leading into the gift shop. It was, not surprisingly, mostly empty, save for Soos, Melody and Wendy. The three looked up in frozen shock as Bill skittered through, making his way to the exit as fast as he could manage, leaving a wet, red trail behind him.
"Soos!" Stanley's voice rasped from somewhere behind him, "don't let him out!"
At that order, the big man threw himself in front of the doorway in what Bill could only figure was some sort of heavily-ingrained Pavlovian response. Unable to stop his momentum, Bill crashed into Soos and fell back onto the hard floor. Before he could so much as blink, a muddy boot was pressing hard to his chest and twin gun barrels, laser and lead, were staring him down.
"Dude!" Wendy exclaimed, shocked, "Mr. and Mr. Pines, what are you guys doing? What did Bilbo ever do to you?"
"What nonsense are you speaking, girl?" Stanford barked, eyes not leaving Bill, who lay squirming, eyes clenched in pain, on the floor in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.
"Uh, you got something against the little dude, or…?" Soos asked carefully.
"He's hurt! He needs a hospital!" Melody gasped in horror, making a move toward them.
"You three are shitting me, right?" Stanley huffed and gave Bill a none-too-gentle kick in the side, earning an indignant yelp, "you know who this is, right?"
"Uh, yeah, dude," Wendy said, "Dipper's boyfriend."
"Boyf—what?" Ford asked incredulously, "where in the world did you get that idea from? No. This person...this monster, is Bill Cipher in the body of a human."
There was a tense quiet in the room, all eyes on Bill, before the three younger people exploded into a chorus of exclamation.
"That explains his voice," Soos clutched at his own face, horrified, "an-and his freaky eyes! How did I not realize—he's—it was him the whole time?"
"That triangle guy?" Melody asked, face scrunched in confusion.
"You guys gotta be messin'!" Wendy strode forward, "this is the guy who was hanging out with Dipper and Mabel! It definitely is! He can't be Bill."
"See for yourself," Ford answered. His boot never leaving Bill's chest, he bent down and grabbed the demon by the chin, forcing his face toward Wendy, "open your eyes, Cipher, and say something. Show her who you really are."
Captured, beaten, done for. Bill figured he didn't have a choice. He slowly opened his eyes, his one pupil trained on Wendy, contracting to a thin line as it watched her recoil in terror and confusion.
He stared blearily before beginning to laugh.
"Ha...haha...hahaha...HAHAHAHAHAHA!" his body shook with the manic laughter, he clenched his eyes tight, tears rolling down the sides of his face, and brought his hands up, waving them about in a mocking manner, "oh no, it's Bill! So scary! Even though he's been here for weeks and hasn't harmed a precious hair on anyone's head!"
"Enough lies, Cipher!" Ford growled, pressing his boot harder into Bill's chest. The demon's laughter choked in his throat and he grabbed at Ford's ankle, trying unsuccessfully to push the man's foot away.
"I mean... it is true, though," Soos said uncertainly, "he's been hangin' around Dipper and Mabel for a while and they've been fine," he looked to Wendy for help and the woman, her eyes finally leaving Bill's, nodded slowly.
"I saw them all out shopping just a couple of days ago. Dipper and Mabel were….they seemed okay..."
Stanley and Stanford looked at one another for a moment before Ford set his mouth into a grim line.
"Brainwashed, or something like it. Likely how he got freed from the Desk in the first place. We shouldn't have left those kids with him...I'll not make that mistake again."
"Where are they, you demonic freak of nature?" Stanley growled, "where are the kids?"
"Why should I tell you, Earlobes?" Bill asked with a bleary grin. The trauma, the booze, the blood loss, it was all becoming too much for this body to stand. He felt cold, his thoughts more and more disjointed. He couldn't feel his limbs, only the foot on his chest and the burning of the bullet wounds.
The last thing he saw was Stan reaching back to punch him. Before the blow even landed, Bill was unconscious.
He was still groggy when he woke, but he knew immediately where he was. Limbs splayed, dark ceiling above, enchanted iron burning his wrists. The Desk of Gaap. Trapped, once again. He opened his eyes slightly. Shifting shapes in the corner came into view as he focused. Stanley, Standford, Soos and Wendy.
'Gang's all here', he thought, and giggled silently, deliriously, to himself.
"I have no idea where they are, the last time I saw them was downtown, a couple days ago," Wendy whispered, her voice harsh with worry.
"Both their phones are here," Stan grumbled, his voice choked, "stupid kids, always playing on the damn things but never using them for their actual fucking purpose. Damn, stupid kids..."
"Don't worry, you two," Ford answered, not much bothering to keep his voice low, "Dipper and Mabel are smart. I'm sure they're...they're okay, wherever they are."
But even he couldn't keep the concern out of his usually steady, measured voice.
"He knows," came the low growl of Stanley's voice, "he's gotta know."
"I can't believe I'm saying this," Wendy answered, "but take it a little easy on him. He can't tell us jack shit if he's not conscious."
"We have a way to make him talk."
Bill's blood ran cold at Ford's remark, but part of him (okay, who was he kidding, all of him) was intrigued. Make him talk? The Desk of Gaap was painful when activated, sure, but it wasn't enough to torture him into doing much of anything if he didn't want to. Truthfully, he'd been about to volunteer information on the twins before Ford's remark; now his stubborn nature was kicking in and it'd be a cold day in Hell before he told these jerks anything.
As if hearing his thoughts, Stan and Ford turned to look at the demon.
"Well, look who's finally awake," Stan said in a voice like strained venom. They wasted no time in marching toward Bill, who tried to warn them off with a combative hissing noise.
"That's all?" Ford asked, a bushy eyebrow cocked in surprise, "a hiss? Is that how low you've fallen, Cipher? All that posturing and now you're acting like a mere animal. A step below human."
Bill spit in Ford's face, mainly because he'd seen people spit on other people before and it looked fun, but also to see what the man would do.
The saliva was tinged red.
Stan lunged forward, his fist raised, before Ford threw an arm out to stop him.
"Stanley, no! Wendy's right, if we want him to talk, we need him awake."
Ford pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his face as Stan reluctantly backed off, still glowering down at Bill. Bill just smiled wanly at him.
"Where are the kids, Bill?" Ford asked evenly, tucking the handkerchief back.
"Dunno," he lied stubbornly, "but I didn't do anything to them. They're fine."
'Maybe,' he thought to himself, with a strange twinge of guilt.
"I don't believe either of those things. One more warning, Cipher. Tell us where Dipper and Mabel are."
"Or what?" Bill spat in response. Ford gazed evenly down at him for several long seconds before heaving a tired sigh. He reached into the interior of his jacket and pulled out a familiar book; red leather adorned with a golden, six-fingered hand. The number 5 stood out in thick black ink against the golden handprint. Ford began to thumb through his newest journal. Bill watched warily.
"We found the cult that bound you, Cipher. We managed to steal a good bit of information from them before they accessed your power remotely and used it to attack us. Blew apart the ruins we were in, we narrowly escaped with our lives. That's when we decided to retreat, come back here, check on the kids, sort through this information."
"Hey, good for you..." Bill answered slowly, his curiosity slowly being replaced by a creeping sense of dread. There was a tone in Ford's voice that was almost as sad as it was dangerous, and it was enough to make the hair on the back of Bill's neck stand on end.
The old man evidently found the page he wanted and skimmed over it with sharp but tired eyes, then looked at Bill. There was history in that gaze, and it made Bill almost miss the days when they were partners.
Or maybe that was the alcohol and the blood loss talking.
"We found the incantation they use to harness your power. I believe they've done this a handful of times since you've gotten trapped in that body, haven't they? I know it's not pleasant for you."
"You wouldn't dare," Bill growled, but his voice came out smaller and more broken than he had intended.
"Oh we sure would, you equilateral jerk," Stan snapped back, "if Ford is right, using this spell, we don't even need to keep you locked up. Your own power can do that for us."
"It has the added benefit of making you more compliant," Ford added, "I don't want to do this, Bill. But you've threatened my family for the last time. Where are the kids? What did you do with them?"
"They're fine!" he turned his eye toward Wendy and Soos, who watched uncomfortably from the corner of the room, "Big Guy, Red! Tell 'em! Shooting Star and Pine Tree have been fine this whole time, I haven't done shit to them!"
"Where are they, Bill?" Ford barked, not giving the two younger people a chance to respond. Bill's eye flashed back to him, the gears of his mind turning wildly to try and figure a way out.
He couldn't tell them that the twins were at the hospital. How would that look?
"They're in town. They're fine!"
"Let's find out for sure, then," Ford said, and to Bill's horror, he began to read the spell.
"Want a lollipop, Dipper? The nurse gave me like ten of them to give to you."
Mabel steered the old golf cart with one hand, holding her other hand under Dipper's nose to display the wide variety of Tootsie Roll Pops.
"They didn't give you any of those, Mabel," Dipper sighed, "you stole them when she wasn't looking. I saw."
"Well they shouldn't leave them out in the open like that," Mabel huffed and stuffed the candy back into her purse, "besides, it's impossible to steal candy. Access to candy is a universal right. It should be free, like air!"
She rested her hand back on the steering wheel, her eyes trained on the dirt road before her. Dipper would have much preferred to drive, but the doctors had given him a dose of painkiller and bandaged his burned arm in a stiff mass of bandages; at this point, it was marginally safer to let Mabel drive.
She'd been uncharacteristically quiet on the way to the hospital, all the way up to the point when the doctors had informed her Dipper would be just fine. A concussion, burns, shock, but all minor. At that point, her natural vibrancy had come flooding back and she'd shared countless hugs with the nurses and a couple of high-fives with other patients. But now she was quiet again, and, when she did speak, her voice struggled to find purchase over the sounds of their bumpy cart ride.
"Dip..." she began slowly, "I really don't want to know what you guys were doing in there. But...you know I have to ask."
"A ritual," Dipper answered blandly, staring sidelong at the trees whipping by.
"I know that," Mabel had the decency not to sound annoyed, but her voice held a note of worried frustration, "you were both...I don't...did you like...do stuff with him…?"
Dipper closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat, sighing. It was really no use lying to her at this point. Mabel was smarter than she let on, and if he didn't tell her the truth, there was a good chance her overactive mind would imagine something more horrific than what actually happened.
"Yeah. We did."
Mabel nodded an unsurprised nod to herself, her eyes never leaving the road.
"Okay...like...sex stuff…?"
"We had...uh...sex. Yeah..."
"...was it...was that what...you wanted…? Or..."
"It was consensual," Dipper was quick to confirm, "totally consensual. I know it looked bad, especially since he was freaking out when you came in, but...yeah. He never forced me to do anything I didn't want. We...I guess we've kind of been...um...messing around anyway..."
"Bill really is your boyfriend?!" Mabel gasped, whipping around to stare at Dipper with wide eyes, nearly careening the cart off the road in the process. Dipper clung to the safety handle in panic, and once Mabel righted the cart, he answered.
"No! I mean...not really! We've been...you know...making out and stuff...but he's not my boyfriend! It just...it's complicated!"
"I don't know if I should be super impressed or super freaked out," Mabel mused, but the smirk on her face definitely lent credence to her being impressed. Dipper shrugged
"He's been nice to me. Sweet. Gentle, really. I think he's changed. What you saw in there, what happened...he was just upset because the ritual didn't work..."
"Maybe, but he needs to learn that part of being human means not having a temper tantrum when things don't go your way," Mabel pointed out. Dipper acknowledged his agreement with a slight nod of the head before he leaned back and closed his eyes, sighing.
"I don't know what we're going to do if we can't free him from that body."
"Guess you'll have a boyfriend to take back to California," Mabel chirped. Dipper was about to argue, but as they pulled up to the Mystery Shack, Mabel let out a gasp. Dipper opened his eyes.
Stan's car was parked in front of the house.
"Oh no," Dipper said softly. Mabel stared, then offered Dipper a panicked grimace that was trying desperately to masquerade as a reassuring smile.
"I'm sure it's okay, bro-bro. I bet Bill isn't even here. I mean, I told him to come back here. Like he's really going to listen to me, right?"
But when they made their way to the entrance, they saw the door broken and blasted off its hinges. Their wide eyes followed the destruction, the broken glass and whiskey on the floor, the holes in the wall. The blood on the floor, wide smears of it, leading through the basement door and down the rickety old stairs.
And even though several yards separated them from the basement, they could feel thrumming beneath their feet and the distant echo of a familiar, pained voice.