A/N: But baby there you go again (there you go again), makin' me love youuu...
Yeah I stopped usin' my head (usin' my head), let it all gooo!
Btw the fic theme song is /watch?v=7CPYoGtI75Q
The clatter of the front door shutting drew attention from all the girls. Pacifica emerged from the kitchen with Atlantica in her arms and Mabel peeked out of the archway to the living room. Both of them spoke at once.
"Bro-bro!"
"Dipper, honey-"
But Dipper kicked off his shoes at the front door and went coasting past them, trotting down the hallway toward the staircase like he'd done every day for the past week and a half.
"Can't talk, science project calls!" he explained in a rush. He thundered up the stairs in suit of the attic. "See you guys at dinner!" he called before disappearing. Mabel and Pacifica exchanged tired frowns. 'Seeing them' just meant he would pop downstairs, take a plate, pile it with food, and vanish back up to the attic again.
Pacifica furrowed her brows and grunted. "I'm going to have a talk with him. I'm seriously tired of this. He isn't getting away with this." Mabel straightened up and leaned against the arch frame.
"Come on, Paz, he's doing it for you guys. A scholarship is a big deal!" she consoled.
"He has a daughter," Pacifica scoffed in return.
"Exactly! You could use all the money you'd be saving to take care of her. Just give him some space to work and I'm sure he'll be back around after the science fair. Until then, I'll help you out with Atlantica. She's my niece, after all." Mabel giggled, "Genetically, she could be my daughter since Dipper and I are identical twins!" Pacifica was too upset to be amused. Fire glinted in her eyes as she turned to Mabel with a deadpan look.
"What upsets me is that he's not doing it in the study."
"What? You can't be serious. That's such a little thing!"
"No, you don't get it - Dipper does all his schoolwork and job stuff in the study. Upstairs, is where all his Bill stuff is. Everything from his whole obsessive phase is all in the attic." Mabel raised her brows and glanced to the empty stairs. She turned back to see Pacifica's expression had softened to one of concern. "I'm worried about him. With Bill hanging around, I'm afraid he's gonna go back to his old ways. You saw how he already defended him for destroying your house." Mabel bit her lip and rubbed the back of her neck - a trait she shared with Dipper.
"I'm... sure he's fine." She stepped back, retreating into the living room. "Dipper's an enigma, he'll, uh, probably come around. Or whatever." She laughed nervously. "Anyway, ah, my show's on. So I'm just gonna... yeah." Mabel slipped away, leaving Pacifica in the hall, staring solemnly toward the stairs before sighing and shaking her head. She headed back into the kitchen to plan for dinner.
The clunking of Dipper's feet up the stairs drew to a stop under the hatch to the attic. He pulled the cord, disclosing the ladder up, and scaled into his shrine room.
"You're late today, Pine Tree," Bill teased as Dipper shut the entrance behind him. He took a sip out of his tea cup, pinky raised. Dipper turned to him with a smile and shrugged his backpack off his shoulders, then set his school books down next to his finished science fair project in the corner of the room.
"Sorry, my professor kept us all late because she was droning on about her husband cheating on her." He settled down in the real seat and poured himself a cup of Bill's tea. Bill shifted in his tiny, magical floating chair and laughed.
"Human loyalty is pathetic!"
Dipper opened his mouth to retort but then decided not to comment on that, else Bill might take it the wrong way. Instead, he put his 'energy tea' to his lips and took a sip. (Bill's special brew. It produced a mild hallucinogen effect by allowing certain 'dreaming' areas of his brain to sleep while the rest stayed awake indefinitely. It created the perfect environment for Bill to project into Dipper's mind and for him to still be conscious. The only side-effects were the constant tingly feeling under his skin that gave off a static shock to things he touched and the glow-in-the-dark effect he had. He carefully made sure to wait until the girls were asleep before walking around the house after dark. Bill also warned that if he continued drinking it, he'd fry his loved ones with all of the energy overflow he'd build up. Electric chair style.) Bill spawned an emery board and filed away at his imaginary nails.
"Ready to get started, flesh stick?"
Dipper swallowed his drink and nodded. Bill clapped away the tea set so that the table was clear. Dipper reached down into his backpack to retrieve a crude hunk of lead from the inner pocket.
"I swiped this from the earth science room down the hall from my classroom. Hopefully they don't miss it, but they'll get over it if they do, I guess," Dipper chuckled. He glanced up to Bill who seemed to be keenly watching his movements. He looked a little surprised.
"Pines, you aren't gonna do what I think you're gonna do, are you?" Bill subconsciously leaned in a little closer. Dipper didn't answer his question. Instead, he reached for the chalk sitting on a box beside the table and began inscribing symbols onto the lead.
"Keep your expectations extremely low. The first time I did this, I nearly took my own hand off and barely got anything out of it," Dipper stated simply, putting both his thumbs together in the center of the lead and focusing his 'tea energy' (which conveniently substituted for his own life force - just made things slightly simpler and less bloody) into the mass with as much concentration as he could, "but I practiced a lot in my highschool years and if I remember everything correctly I should get..."
A brilliant light flared through Dipper's fingers. Bill's eye widened and he alighted on the table, standing before Dipper's smouldering palms. The mineral shrank under the energy force and heat and became "-three grams of twenty-four karat gold!" An incredibly minute amount, barely the size of a quarter. Less than an ounce.
Dipper held the gold nugget out in his burned palms for Bill to take. "You can have it if you want. It's worth about a hundred bucks. Not that, uh, that means anything to you."
Bill's center coloured over in a hue of pink and he pressed his tiny hands to his 'cheeks'.
"Oh, Pine Tree! I'm so proud of you!" Bill held his hands out for Dipper to drop the gold into his palms. Turning his eye into a jeweler's magnifying glass, Bill held it up and inspected it. He excused the shoddy craftsmanship of the transmutation in light of the fact Pines was giving it to him. "Did you know this was how that Pine Tree with the kid made the ring he gave to that Bill?" Bill said passively.
"Oh." Dipper blinked. He had butterflies in his stomach and a frog in his throat. "Cool. I-I guess." He ran a hand through his bangs and chuckled, face warming. "Anyway, uh, let's move on." Bill's magnifying eye vanished and returned to normal. He put his hands on his hips and gave Dipper a half-mast eye-smirk.
"You're cute when you're flustered."
Dipper clapped his hands to his face and shook his head as if he was trying to shake away his blush.
"No no no, you didn't see anything! Ah geez."
"There there, Pines," Bill consoled, moving forward on the table to pat Dipper's forehead, "You're only making it worse for yourself." Dipper made an embarrassing noise and shoved Bill off the table. The demon went off laughing. He flipped in the air and never touched the ground, going airborne again. "Adorable!" Dipper crossed his arms at his chest. "C'mon, Pine Tree, don't be like that," he pressed a finger to his face, "you know you love me!"
"Let's just-" Dipper dug around over the side of his chair and pulled out a square box printed with three varying classes of fantasy heroes, "You said you'd play with me if I could impress you with my transmutations. Time to pay up, Cipher!" Bill rolled his eye and sat down, cross-legged on the table again where Dipper began taking out the playing board for Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons.
"Human-brand entertainment is such a joke. It could put me to sleep. Me!" he groaned, crossing his arms.
"Give it a chance. Great-uncle Ford and I had a lot of fun playing this. When, uh, it didn't come to life or anything. If he liked it, I know you will too."
"Watch it, kid," Bill snapped, shooting a glare to him.
"Okay, okay, but still." Dipper offered a smile and took out a paper and pencil, holding them at the ready, "What class do you wanna be? A sorcerer? A mage?" he said, going by Bill's magical abilities.
"Racist." Bill raised his brow.
"Oh my god no, I didn't mean it like that-"
Bill leaned forward and tapped a finger below his eye. "Hmm, I'll be a used car salesman!"
"What? But Bill, you can't-"
"I like the cut of those guys' jibs," Bill stared up at Dipper, looking entirely serious. Dipper hesitated but eventually wrote down 'used car salesman' as Bill's class. Next to it, he put down 'rogue' as his own, feeling like mixing things up a bit. And maybe like stealth-killing Bill's character.
...
"Dipper! Time for dinner!" Pacifica's voice rang through the house, just barely reaching the attic. Dipper almost didn't hear it through his and Bill's laughing. One of Dipper's mathematical errors had caused things to work out in Bill's favour, essentially god-modding him. However, he'd used his overpowered rampage mode (powered by gold) to transform a field of cows into used cars and dazzle the evil warrior brute into handing over all his riches, damning him to a life of poverty in the village where the citizens shunned him for his greedy ways and all he had were his dozens of used vehicles. Dipper's stealth was no match for Bill's wit.
With aching sides, Dipper tried to stop laughing, taking deep gasping breaths and fanning his face.
"Okay dude, I'm gonna go get dinner and be right back," he managed through giggles, pushing his chair back and heading for the attic hatch.
"Don't keep me waiting, Pine Tree," Bill said in a jovial tone with a finger gun. "I'm actually having fun here!" Dipper smiled and nodded then descended the ladder down to the staircase.
His body and heart felt light as he entered the kitchen where his family gathered their dinner and sat down at the table. Pacifica stood at the counters with her back to the door, scooping a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate - a food she'd come to love since having known the Pines family - and Mabel already had her plate in front of her where she sat, holding a bottle for the baby in her arms. Dipper approached the spread and looked over his options as he took a plate for himself.
"Everything looks good!" he said merrily. Pacifica didn't respond, nor look at him as she took her plate to the dinner table and sat down. His smile diminished. "Everything okay, sweetheart?" he asked, spooning potatoes onto his plate.
"Glad you like it," Mabel spoke up. Dipper smiled cautiously, taking some rolls and a slab of ham as well.
"Yeah I-"
"Since I made it," she added. Dipper paused, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, Dipper tried speaking again.
"Good... job? I-it all smells really-"
"Again," she finished. Dipper dropped his shoulders and frowned at his sister.
"What's going on, Mabes?"
"Don't bother asking her," said Pacifica, still not looking up at her husband.
"What?" Dipper drew his arms in closer, subconsciously defensive.
"Why don't you ask yourself what's going on? Y'know, since you're spending all your time worshiping Bill again."
Dipper felt his throat close up and his face quickly flush red. His heart rate increased, palms sweating.
"I don't understand. This is all out of nowhere," he said carefully, eyeing the door.
"Is it? Are you sure you're not going to go back upstairs and stay there all night with Bill until work tomorrow?"
A flash of defensiveness and self-preservation went through Dipper all at once and he raised his voice toward his sibling, "Mabel! I told you not to tell her anything! I thought I could trust you!"
"Whoa, wait - 'Not to tell me anything'? So now there's something you're not telling me?" she thundered, setting the pitcher of water down hard on the table. Dipper suddenly felt his foot in his mouth as Mabel gave him an unreadable look.
"I, uh..." Dipper inched toward the door.
"It's just... I know you've got your project and stuff, but you've been spending no time with us," Mabel said. "I kinda hoped when I started staying here that we'd hang out again just like old times. I missed you, Dipper."
"You know you have a daughter, right? I mean, it's pretty uncool of you to make your wife who just had a baby cook dinner every night for almost two weeks," Pacifica added, sassily.
"You didn't have to make anything. I could have found something myself," Dipper tried.
"Oh yeah? And your sister, who is currently our guest, is just supposed to go hungry?"
"No, I didn't mean it like that-"
"What are you really doing up there, Dipper?" she demanded, crossing her arms and glaring him down. "Because I know it's not that project or you'd be doing it in the study." Dipper grit his teeth nervously and took the only way out he knew of. Bill was upstairs waiting.
"I can't deal with this right now. We can talk later. I have to get back to my project." He turned to leave the kitchen. "Have a nice dinner, girls." As he walked down the hallway, grunts and sighs of disgust came from behind him.
'Are you serious?' he heard, 'You've got to be kidding me' in each of the girls' voices. Guilt welled up inside him, bubbling in his chest, but he swallowed it down and forced thoughts of Bill to the front, recalling how much fun they were having together and would continue to have the rest of the night. This was just a small blip in what would still be a good night.
He returned to the attic to find Bill pretending to be asleep. Giant blue Zs rose from his pseudo-sleeping form and what Dipper assumed was supposed to be drool dribbled out from the corner of his mouth/eye combo. Dipper set his dinner down on the table beside Bill and sat down.
"Sorry that took so long." Bill made a gurgling noise and sucked the 'drool' back into his... whatever, then sat up and rubbed his eye.
"What century is it?" Bill yawned and stretched cutely. Dipper shook his head.
"I think Pacifica suspects I'm up here worshipping you again." Bill raised his brow.
"Is that not what you're doing?" he teased. Dipper laughed, taking then a bite of his dinner.
"Only a little!" he joked in return. "Not like I used to."
"Sounds like I'm not trying hard enough." Bill clapped his hands together like he was taking dust off of them. "I feel like I've been challenged."
"Maybe," Dipper said facetiously, leaning his chin in his hand and gazing at Bill with half mast eyes as he ate.
"Oh you're on," Bill retorted, pointing another finger gun at him. "After you're done consuming the life force of those beings," he said, gesturing to Dipper's plate, "I'll treat you to a few dimensional phenomenons and you'll be scraping your knees against the floor worshiping me by the end of the night."
"Oh." Dipper sat up straight and blushed. He shifted slightly in his chair, feeling a tiny heat roll through him. His tongue glazed over his lips. Images of the past flashed through his mind. He ruffled his bangs with nervous energy. "Hah. That's kinda... A-Alright, but just one more night okay? The girls are getting suspicious. We should probably slow things back down."
Bill considered his next words very carefully, but did not skip a beat.
"Aw, but Pine Tree," he whined sadly. He stepped forward and took Dipper's chin in his hand gently, and Dipper felt the mana buzzing under his skin. He held his breath and blinked as Bill captured his eyes. "I've been having fun spending time with you again! I missed you."
Dipper's eyes widened, his lips parting open. His chest pounded and the breath he was holding released in an embarrassing, "Wow." He swallowed hard and Bill dropped his hand back down to his side again, smiling innocently.
"Uh, o-okay. I uh, I guess that's fair," he spluttered, floundering for the right response. Bill locked his hands together in front of him. "Let's - let's just see how tonight goes. The science fair is tomorrow, so..."
"I get it, that excuse will be used up. Don't fret so much, Dipstick, I won't harass you or anything. It's all up to you, as usual." Bill crossed his arms and gave Dipper a sultry side-gaze. Dipper smiled and patted Bill on his pinnacle.
"Thanks."
Bill's brow shot up and he shivered, making Dipper snap his hand back to his body as quickly as he could retract it. Bill coloured over with a shade of pink in his center.
"Watch the vertices, kid!" he said and readjusted his hat over his head, avoiding Dipper's eyes as he blushed. Dipper did the same.
"Right, right. I... I forgot." He rubbed his thumb to the center of his palm where he'd touched Bill like a worry stone, reveling in the experience. Or perhaps like he was trying to rub off the shame. Bill didn't point out the obvious lie like he wanted to, but the look he gave Dipper told the man that he knew it wasn't true.
Dipper didn't know what else to say so instead he just shoved a dinner roll into his mouth and grinned foolishly. Bill cracked up in giggles at the sight, which made Dipper crack up as well. They laughed the awkwardness away together.
Bill sat across the table from him, propping himself up on his arms and chatting with him about the universe as the world outside grew dark.
...
Once the sun had long since set and his dinner had been long finished, Dipper checked the time on his phone to see it was an hour past midnight. He nodded to Bill, who was hanging upside down from a trapeze he'd manifested as they talked, and got up from his chair. Bill came down from his monkey bar and turned right-side up again.
"So what 'dimensional phenomenon' did you have in mind tonight?" he asked with a smile.
Bill held out his hand for Dipper to take. Dipper stared at it a moment before taking it with warm cheeks. Bill laced their fingers together and glowed bright as he teleported them, and in the next moment, Dipper clapped his other hand over his mouth and nose.
His breath held tight in his chest as water enveloped him. Frantically, he looked to Bill who had his other hand on his hip as he glanced around. His eye caught Dipper and he shrugged.
"You can breathe, Pines," he said, poking a finger at Dipper's brand new temporary gills. Dipper squeaked in shock and took a breath in. Wow, that felt weird. He stroked his throat experimentally, feeling the gills breathe underneath his fingers.
"How-"
"Don't ask questions, Pine Tree, it's not rocket science."
Dipper mumbled to himself, "It's not science at all." Bill paid no mind to his remark. He pulled out a rectangle of paper and unfolded it into a map.
"Now let's see here, we're at exactly 31 24 25. 58' North and 24 32 09. 08' West," he said, pressing a finger to the map. Dipper observed the bright red circle on the map where Bill's glowing index rested.
"The middle of the Atlantic Ocean?" Dipper questioned, glancing around himself into the dark waters. "Um... Okay?"
"So it should be around here somewhere..." Bill continued, surveying the area. He came to a stop in front of a dune of sand and seemed satisfied. "Ah! Here we go! Boy, is it dusty around here!" In one deep breath, Bill sucked in and blew.
Dipper closed his eyes as the water around him rushed and changed, buffeting against him and threatening to catch him in its current. He anchored his feet into the cold sea floor and focused on his balance until the current died down. He opened his eyes.
The sea was still as black as before. No sun penetrated to this depth, leaving Dipper with only one glowing, yellow point of reference. He looked at Bill. "I don't really know what you're expecting me to see. It's pitch black down here."
"Oh. Right, humans don't have night vision. Lemme just hit the lights!"
Bill clapped his hands together twice, in rapid succession, and for a single second nothing happened. Then Dipper caught the gentle cerulean glow that began to well up, growing brighter and brighter and spreading, racing in every direction. It twisted along walls, up spires and columns, cast shadows on the massive dune of sand that was still settling beside it. Dipper's jaw dropped, and beside him Bill clapped the dust off his hands.
He leaned into Dipper and cupped a hand around his face, snickering. "Looks like the maid took a day off, am I right?"
"The lost city of Atlantis," Dipper breathed, awestruck. Idly pressing forward, he gazed upon the complex and gorgeous architecture of the ruins, the lower halves surrounded by a gigantic, curving wall. The light that outlined them was alive, shimmering in the water, small sparks darting to and fro. Dipper pushed through the water until his muscles strained, aching with effort, but he didn't stop. He needed to see, needed to study it. Bill floated beside him, reclining against nothing.
The city gates were so close, but after only a minute Dipper had to pause and give his legs a break. Bill floated on, unaware, for another few feet, until Dipper called out to him. He returned to Dipper's side, crossing his arms.
"Come on, kid, this ain't the time to dawdle. Let's go!"
Dipper shook his head. "I'm trying. Water is a lot harder to move in," he explained, demonstrating with a lagging wave of his hand. Bill gave a thoughtful hum.
"Well, I don't have the time and patience for you to crawl all night, so come'ere." His black fingers wrapped around Dipper's wrist and pulled.
Dipper yelped as his feet went out from under him, water rushing over his skin. Bill dragged him swiftly through the water, the glowing spires growing closer and closer.
After a brief but invigorating trip, Dipper found himself deposited in front of a huge stone gate, once stunning but now cracked and faded under the weight of so many years. Parts of it had eroded away, and most of it was home to the bioluminescent plankton that covered half the city. Dipper stepped closer, reaching out to brush his fingertips against it.
"Is this just phytoplankton?" he asked without turning.
"Yup," Bill answered. "Plain and simple!"
"How's it glowing like this?"
Bill rolled his eye. "I can rip holes in the fabric of space time, kid, it's not like it's hard to activate a little dormant bioluminescence."
"But- this was all buried under sand!" He glanced at the huge dune that was piled beside the city. "How did all of these organisms manage to survive?"
"What? Oh! Oh, you mean the, uh- yeah, no, that wasn't actually there." Dipper gave him a look. "It was, y'know, an illusion. A trick!" Bill added.
Dipper tilted his head slightly. "And you did it because...?"
"Dramatic effect!" Bill explained, exasperated. "Not that there was any point. Forgot you meatsacks can't see a thing without your stupid ball of sky fire to hold your hand."
Dipper laughed. "Sorry, Bill. Maybe next time. If it makes you feel better, this whole glowing thing pretty much knocked my socks off."
"That does make me feel better, thank you!" Bill beamed, a smile in his eye. Dipper's heart fluttered ever so slightly. He turned back to the door, brushing his thumb against the slimy surface. The light seemed to thrum and pulse under his fingers, like a heartbeat.
"So should we go in?"
"Hm," Bill narrowed his gaze, then snapped his fingers, a nearby glowing fish swimming over and contorting itself into a lightbulb shape over his head. That didn't seem... survivable, but within seconds the fish was fleeing, unharmed.
Bill wound back a dramatically enlarged fist like a boxer and swung it towards the stone. An inch from contact, he paused, extending a finger and lightly tapped the stone.
"Boop!"
The stone began to shatter, a thousand hairline cracks racing across the surface, extending outward from where he touched it. An approximately Dipper-sized hole crumbled away, and Dipper gaped.
"Bill! You can't do that!" He spluttered.
"What?" Bill retorted, crossing his arms defensively. "Who's gonna be mad, the fish?"
"This is history! You can't just crash your way through it!" Dipper said with a frown. Bill blinked at him.
"So, does the rest of the dilapidation not count, or...?"
"That-" Dipper paused. "I mean- look, just don't break anything else. We need to treat this place with respect."
"I practically invented respect, Pine Tree! You can count on me!"
Dipper doubted both those things, but he was grateful for the convenient entrance, all things considered.
"Could've just swam over it," he pointed out, grumbling under his breath.
Bill lightly shoved him from behind, unbalancing Dipper's movements.
"Coulda, woulda, shoulda- didn't. Let's get a move on, kid!"
Once he'd found stable footing again, Dipper gathered himself and looked around.
"Gosh." It was even more beautiful inside. The streets were paved with cracked and algae-covered stone, the buildings beautifully carved and detailed with metals that glinted in the light. Not a single human soul inhabited the place, but it was by no means dead. It was thriving, humming with activity as exotic creatures, the likes of which he'd never seen, swam around. They darted in and out of doorways, windows, and alleyways, hiding behind pillars and shadowy alcoves as Dipper approached.
"Bill, this is amazing," he whispered, almost reverent.
"Yep," Bill said, sounding extremely pleased with himself. "You should've seen it in its heyday. This place had it all. Trade, the arts, religious zealots, you name it!"
"Religious zealots?" Dipper echoed, picking his way forward. Bill floated alongside him, halfway serving as a torch.
"Mm hm. This city technically belonged to 'Poseidon', but I can tell you now that whole thing was a load of bull. I mean, come on, why the heck would a bunch of gods just settle for living on a mountain? I've been to mount Olympus, kid, it's nothing like the stories. It's empty and cold and there's some rocks. That's it. Really doesn't warrant all the worship."
Dipper raised an eyebrow, his silence speaking volumes. Bill held his gaze for a moment before shrugging. "C'mon, I'll show you."
He took Dipper's hand once more, lifting him off his feet and pulling him through the water. This time, Dipper relaxed into it, beginning to enjoy the feeling of the current rushing over his skin, through his newly formed gills.
They approached a massive cathedral, the windows long since shattered under the pressure of the ocean depths. The door was rotted away, allowing them easy access, and Bill pulled Dipper inside the darkened entryway.
The algae that lined the walls seemed to soak up Bill's light like little sponges, filling them with their own pale blue glow.
"Is this a church?" Dipper asked, drifting to the floor and easily settling on his feet.
Bill made a sound that could only be described as disgust.
"Used to be."
He floated over to the back of the hall, his yellow glow catching the shape of a massive, golden statue as he approached. Although not entirely without marks, it seemed in better condition than anything else around it, glinting dully in Bill's aura.
Dipper crept closer, gazing up. It was massive, almost scraping the ceiling of the cathedral. It depicted a man- tall, muscled, his body artfully draped in stone fabric and clenching a staff in his outstretched fist. The end of the staff was jagged and sloped, obviously broken, and as Dipper cast his eye around it wasn't hard to find the large pointed tines of the head of the trident, laying abandoned on the floor.
"Poseidon," he idly said aloud. "So was he real?" Bill floated up to strike a pose on the broken point of the staff.
"Nope," Bill answered easily, balancing en pointe. "Rome, Greece, Scandinavia- all those European gods were a lot of hooey. About as real as your grip on reality!"
Dipper idly ran a hand through his hair, pushing the free-floating strands away as he thought. "Or yours," he retorted, playfully teasing. He and Bill shared a lighthearted laugh. It was nice to joke around with him again, Dipper thought. Bill continued.
"The Mandela effect, kid. Everyone is wrong. But also no one is entirely wrong. Your puny primitive brain couldn't even begin to comprehend it," Bill said with an arrogant demeanor, waving his hand dismissively.
"Don't be so sure. Creationism and evolutionism are both correct as well as both wildly incorrect. Paradoxes aren't as mutually exclusive as most people think. Am I right?" Dipper crossed his arms and raised a brow, smugly watching Bill radiate with pride.
Bill clapped his hands together. "Bingo! Right on the money, kid!" He opened his palms, cupped together, and a shower of golden coins poured from them, drifting down to bounce off Dipper's skin and nest in his hair. Dipper laughed, plucking one of the coins from midair - or midwater? - as it floated down. It depicted Bill, a trident in his hand and a toga wrapped around his two lower points, a benevolent look in his eye as he commanded the oceans. Even as he looked, the coin began to shimmer in Dipper's fingers, wavering until he was left with nothing more that a small rock. He looked down, noting the same had happened to the other coins. Another illusion, then.
"Hah, thanks." Dipper rubbed his neck. "Truthfully though, I can't actually wrap my mind around it. Not really." He shook his head and smiled, looking up at the demon above. "It's kinda like trying to comprehend the fourth dimension, I think. Like, sure, we know about it, but when I try to picture it..." Dipper made an unsure gesture. "Y'know?"
Bill raised his brow. "What are you talking about? Fourth dimension's easy!" He stepped off the edge of the statue, drifting down to hover in front of Dipper and clapping his hands together. He drew them apart, and between his palms appeared something dark and pulsating and full of corners. It flickered in his hands, shimmering like an oil slick, and a sharp stabbing pain drove behind Dipper's eyes at the sight. He looked away, screwing his eyes shut with a grimace.
Bill frowned. "What's your deal, kid? It's just a little polychoron!"
"A what?" Dipper shook his head. "Sorry, sorry, it's just- looking at it really messed with my head, I think."
Bill rolled his eye, compressing the shape back into non-existence. "Right," he muttered. "You wads of flesh can't even see all the colors. Don't know why I thought you'd be able to handle this." He put his hands on his hips. "You know, there's a species of shrimp that have a better color spectrum than you guys? Think about that. You're inferior to a crustacean."
"My eyes may not be the best, but at least I have two of em."
Bill reeled back, feigning shock. "Pine Tree! Honestly, I'm surprised with you. You should know me better by now!" He split himself in half, then again, dividing into countless small copies of himself in the space of a few seconds. The swarm clamoured around Dipper, and when they spoke it was with a creepy disjointed unison. "I've got more eyes than you could imagine!" he said with a playful crinkle in his bounty of eyes. Dipper laughed, butterflies fluttering in the warmth of his chest.
"Of course. How could I forget?" he said with a smile. "'Eyes in many places', right?" He gazed at the Bills with an affection he didn't realize he was holding, and they formed back into one.
"Right, kid! Eyes everywhere, even here! Oh boy, did I have tons of eyes around this place back in the day," he said with the nostalgia of an old man.
Dipper blinked, somewhat curious, but before he could ask for any kind of clarification, Bill continued. "This whole cathedral is a waste of stone and metal. It's basically a glorified dollhouse for weak-minded idiots to play make-believe. Poseidon and those other guys were a joke. The only real god in this place was me!"
"You?" Dipper raised an eyebrow, "What business did you have in Atlantis?"
"Kid, where there's humans, there's idiots, and where there's idiots, there's deals to be made! There was this-" he hesitated, realizing his story was about to go to an undesirable place, "...uh, kid."
For a fraction of a second, something unreadable flashed across Bill's face, but before Dipper could catch it it was gone. "Yeah, I had a ton of people worshipping me! A cult following, if you will!"
"And the kid? Was he one of them?"
Bill gave him an uncomfortable glance. "What kid?"
"You said there was a kid."
"No I didn't."
"You did!" Dipper insisted. "You said it literally ten seconds ago!"
"Pfft," Bill scoffed. "You've just got water in your ears. Come on, I'll show you one of my shrines!"
In an instant, Bill's fingers were back around his wrist, pulling him through the cool water at a speed Dipper wasn't exactly comfortable with. Thankfully, they made it out of the cathedral and into the shattered window of a nearby building with minimal injury.
"Hang on." Still holding Dipper's wrist, Bill reached down with his other hand and shooed a layer of glowing lichen from the stone floor, revealing a battered hatch built long ago from a now-rusted metal. The handle had long since corroded away, so Bill slipped his fingers in the seam between stone and metal and levered the door open with a low creak that rumbled in Dipper's eardrums.
With Bill's bright influence, the plankton that lined the dark passageway began to wake, bathing a set of steps in its pale glow. Dipper peered in, but he couldn't see the bottom for the inky blackness it stretched into. He glanced at Bill, uneasy, but Bill just smiled back. "Ta da!"
The pair descended the limestone stairs beyond the hatch into the secret shrine room, Bill's warm hand guiding Dipper swiftly through the water. They came to a rest at the bottom of the staircase, and Bill released the other's hand. The bioluminescent phytoplankton flowed into the room behind them, creeping along the walls and structures to illuminate their surroundings. Each surface glittered black and green with centuries of algae thriving in the dark damp.
"Yeesh, this place is real old. I haven't been here in ages!" Bill said, gliding effortlessly around the sunken room to examine the water damage. He came to a stop in front of a less giant but still huge statue of himself, painted in the same living green as everything else in the vicinity. Bill recoiled and screwed his eye shut throwing a hand out at the statue like it had personally offended him. "Ugh, that phase. Disgusting." Dipper wasn't sure what he was talking about.
"Huh?"
"I mean just look at that hideous headwear!" Bill admonished. Dipper raised an eyebrow and inspected the shimmering statue, stepping forward to get a closer look. He honestly couldn't tell the difference.
"I don't…" he trailed off, uncertain. Bill huffed an aggravated sigh and drifted over to hover right beside the statue, like a mirror image.
It took Dipper almost a minute and a half to notice that, on the statue, the brim was ever so slightly wider and the body of the hat was a few inches shorter. He gave Bill a ridiculously incredulous look. Bill threw his small black arms up. "Abominable!"
Dipper laughed, "It's not like you can tell!" He reached up to wipe away the grime from statue Bill's face, "It's hardly noticeable." He cleared away the algae off the eye and bowtie and continued to brush the figure until it was mostly clean, wiping off the arms and ornaments and sides.
A soft sigh came from behind.
Dipper turned to see Bill blushing slightly at his core, staring at him. Dipper cocked his head and raised a brow.
"You good?"
Bill blinked and said nothing. After a moment Dipper turned back to continue clearing away the algae off Bill's shrine to get a better view of it. Bill's eyes fixed keenly on the other's hand as it glided down the statue's hypotenuse, and the way time almost seemed slowed by the water's resistance made the way Dipper's thumb brushed the corners of the statue hypnotic. Bill's eyelid lowered, half-mast.
When Dipper had brushed off most of the statue, he stepped back to admire it in its former glory before stepping forward again to wipe off the petrified wooden tablet that bore old inscriptions. He skimmed over the engraved letters and quickly picked up that it was in Latin.
"Oh Bill, your summoning ritual is written here," he thought out loud.
"Beneath a statue of me?" Bill gasped, sarcastically pressing his hands to his 'cheeks', "You're kidding! That's so out of place! I have no idea why that would be there!"
"Shut up!" Dipper laughed, glancing back at Bill with a wide smile. He turned back and read aloud to himself. "Triangulum entangulum..." the words were familiar and easy on his tongue, reminiscent of summonings past and having spent years repeating these very words. He read through the entire summon without effect - because Bill was right there - and continued on, absentmindedly, to the more unfamiliar Latin.
Dipper had spent a few years learning Latin in his free time, but he was by no means fluent. He could likely hold an everyday conversation with a Latin-speaker but when it came to demonic rituals and archaic grammar and terminology with alternate spellings and meanings, a few things were still out of his reach. It was similar in a way to reading Shakespearean works without being a native English speaker. Dipper read on, feeling the words in his mouth as he planned to add them to his vocabulary later. He read in a low voice to himself so he could hear the words as he spoke them. He reached three quarters of the way through the scripture before noticing a familiar set of words encrypted at the very bottom of the tablet and froze.
And from behind him, he heard a low groan.
"Pine Tree..." Bill rasped, his hands dancing along his edges and vertices. His words died in his arousal.
Dipper felt his throat close up and his heart rate skyrocket. His shoulders tensed and began to tingle. His eyes widened and he curled his fingers painfully tight around the podium.
Then Bill found his words and said in a hoarse plea, "Keep going."
Dipper released the podium and spun around, pressing his back against it and staring wide-eyed at Bill, horror painting his face.
"Bill, I-" he wracked his brains for words but it was really hard to think when Bill was right there in front of him, touching himself. "This isn't-! We can't-!" he spluttered, "I-I didn't mean-"
"Ah. Sorry, kid, I just..." Bill took a breath and steadied himself, "got caught up in the moment. Forget that ever happened," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Let's just change the subject."
Bill snapped his fingers and in the blink of an eye, the pair of them had completely left Atlantis and were now suddenly in outer-freaking-space.
Dipper's mind stumbled at the abrupt change of scenery. The absence of the strange sensation of water rushing through his gills- his gills! Dipper's hands snapped up to his throat, but his fingertips met only seamless skin.
Dipper flailed and panicked, holding his breath for fear he wouldn't be able to breathe in space.
Bill rolled his eye. "Kid, look." He took hold of Dipper's chin and turned his head, forcing him to look into the distance. Dipper paused, his protest dying in his throat. In front of them, hundreds of light years away and yet still so massive that it seemed to stretch on for miles, was something bright and shimmering that Dipper immediately recognised as a quasar.
"Oh. Oh, my god." Dipper shielded his eyes with his arm. The pair lowered themselves to rest on an asteroid beneath them, sitting with their legs hanging over the side.
"Yeah." Bill raised his brow, proud of himself. He snapped his fingers and a pair of snazzy sunglasses appeared over Dipper's eyes.
"Wow," he said in an amazed breath, finally able to look directly at it, "It's beautiful. Is that- where are we? The nearest quasar to earth is..." Dipper paused, thinking. "At least a couple million light years away!"
"Five hundred and eighty one million, to be exact! I saved us the trip though." Bill laughed, "Welcome to the galaxy 'Markarian two-thirty-one'! Take a good look, kid, in about a thousand years this place is gonna be bulldozed to make way for a giant minigolf course. Shooting Star would love it!"
"This is incredible. I can't believe I'm seeing this with my own eyes."
"Yeah, I drop in here every now and then," Bill bragged, smugly adjusting his bowtie. "Gives it a real kick to get it straight from the source!"
Dipper frowned. "Gives what a real kick?"
With a flamboyant flick of his wrist, Bill produced a black plastic thermos. He unscrewed the lid and tilted the mouth towards the quasar. For a few, confusing seconds, nothing happened, but then before Dipper's very eyes, light seemed to bend towards it, filtering sluggishly and then picking up speed as it was sucked into the little plastic bottle.
After another minute, Bill sharply tilted the thermos backward, cutting off the whirlpool of light.
"What, uh, what was that?" Dipper asked. Bill swirled the little thermos.
"Good stuff, that's what!" he replied. Dipper waited for a real answer. In the back of his mind, a weak connection was made to the sunlight fairies he and Bill had bullied way back when. Didn't they owe him money?
Dipper's thoughts came to a stop when a black, serpentine tongue wriggled out from between Bill's eyeball and his lower lid, dipping inside the thermos and pulled back, its tip stained with a brilliant shimmering blue. The tongue rolled itself back up like a carpet, disappearing back into the socket, and Bill blinked his eye with a sound off-puttingly close to that of lips smacking.
"Oh, yeah," he hummed in approval, "this is premium."
Dipper blinked, his mind lagging back to a few seconds ago. Specifically, Bill's tongue. He hadn't seen that since he was twelve, and there'd actually been a few more hanging out of the bright red eldritch horror Bill had briefly been. It hadn't occurred to him that Bill's normal form would have one, too.
Bill tilted to thermos towards him. "Want a sip?"
Dipper got only a brief look inside - it appeared to be some kind of swirling vortex - before Bill pulled it away. "Wait, no, it might kill ya!" He cackled, compressing the black plastic between his palms until it no longer existed. "Boy, that could've been embarrassing! If you want any, you gotta brew it first, okay? Raw energy tea can really mess a mortal up. Y'know, in the lethal way!" On his fingers remained a shimmering smear of the same stuff Dipper had seen staining his tongue. Bill inspected it, his tongue once more rolling out to clean it off. It dipped between his fingers, curled around them, black on black as the colour was licked away. The sight was certainly, uh, appealing. He shifted his eyes, glancing away and then back at Bill. He had to find something else to bring up. He looked back out to the brilliant quasar.
"It's kinda like that time you showed me the phoenix reincarnation, isn't it?" Dipper chuckled awkwardly and shoved his hands in his pockets. He bit the inside of his cheek as a dusting of red fell over his face.
Bill retracted his tongue (much to Dipper's relief and slight disappointment) and extended an arm around the other's shoulder, pulling him into his side.
"Yeah, Pines, it kinda is." He gave Dipper a sly gaze, "Pretty romantic, huh?"
Dipper's blush deepened.
Bill leaned more into Dipper's side and gently placed his small hand on Dipper's thigh. The sudden contact surprised him. His heart fluttered in his chest. His eyes darted down and then slowly widened when the demon's hand began moving in slow, caressing strokes. The moment quickly went from romantic to uncomfortable. Not necessarily in a bad way, but…
"Uh, Bill?" Dipper started, but Bill continued staring at the quasar. His hand continued its movements, drawing closer to his hips with each stroke. Dipper bit his lip, suddenly cursing his gender. He anxiously crossed his legs, also happening to nudge Bill's hand off. When Bill looked up at him, he turned his head away, embarrassed. Hopefully he wouldn't notice.
And oh, he did. But he wouldn't let Dipper know that. He simply put his hands in his own lap and snuggled into Dipper's side. The young man breathed a sigh of relief, but he couldn't completely relax. The… problem was still there.
The rest of the date went pretty smoothly. Dipper tried his best to pay attention to Bill's long, winding spiels about space and whatnot, but despite his efforts, his mind was fixed on the memory of the demon's hand on his leg. He ended up mostly nodding and offering quiet "huh"s and "wow"s when it seemed necessary. What little attention that wasn't directed towards Dipper's recursive musings on Bill's advances was reserved for the sight in front of him. The massive quasar shone bright, almost blindingly so, even through his sunglasses. It reminded him of the time Mabel had spilled a gallon of glitter paint over the kitchen table and how the afternoon sun rays through the window hit it; a thousand shifting points of light, each as eye-catching as the others. She would've loved to see this. It was right up her alley, color wise. A maelstrom of gorgeous hues of pink and purple and sunset orange, all gathering around a beam of dazzling blue.
Dipper started as something nudged his side. He looked over at Bill, who was watching him expectantly, as if waiting for an answer.
"Well?"
Dipper blinked. "Um. Well what?"
Bill gave a longsuffering sigh. "You know, if you're gonna tune out, least you could do is warn a guy."
"Sorry," Dipper said with a sheepish grimace. "I didn't mean to zone out like that. It's been a long day. I think." He checked his watch, but didn't take it in. "I'm just kinda starting to wear out." He pushed the sunglasses up, rubbing at his tired eyes. A yawn bubbled up in his chest. "Believe me, this is incredible, but-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Humans and their limited battery life." Bill got to his feet, jumped up, and was airborne again. "Well, you saw what we came here to see, so I guess there's no point in sticking around any longer. Plus, I'd kinda rather you slept. Insomniacs really skeeve me out, y'know?" he made a disgusted face and shriveled his body like a rotten fruit for dramatic effect.
Dipper huffed a breath of laughter through his nose. "I know." He tilted his head with a soft sigh, trying to get one last good mental snapshot of the wondrous sight before they left it behind.
Bill unzipped a portal from thin air and they both stepped through onto Dipper's front doorstep. He closed it behind them again.
Dipper rubbed his arm, "I had a really nice time tonight." Bill proudly straightened his bowtie.
"I know, I'm great and a delight to be around!" he said jubilantly, making Dipper smile and giggle.
"Sure are." He stretched his arms upward, feeling tension leave his back muscles, then turned the knob. "Man I'm beat," he groaned, leaving the door open for Bill to wander in behind him. Bill's magic force shut it behind him when he was inside. Dipper collapsed backwards onto the sitting room sofa, relishing the softness of the cushions and pillows hitting his back. He sighed in contentment. "I'll never move from this spot!"
Bill floated over to him and hovered just above.
"Wouldn't you rather sleep in one of your little human nests?"
"The couch is fine tonight. 'Sides, I'd rather not wake the wife up," he mumbled from where his face was smushed into a pillow, half asleep already. "Could use a blanket though."
He peeked out when a surprise warmth settled over him, wriggling into comfort atop his torso. Bill gazed at him with a half-mast eye. In an almost loving way, he began caressing his tiny dark hands over Dipper's chest. Body worship. Dipper relaxed into his touch, head rolled back, adoring the attention he was receiving. And as if by instinct, his hands moved up to Bill's hips to caress him the same way. The strokes to his sides sent sparks of pleasure to Bill's core. He huffed.
On hyper alert since about a half-hour earlier when Bill's hand rubbed against his thigh, Dipper's body took notice. And reacted. He bit his bottom lip, head light and mind hazy from sleep deprivation, and gazed back at Bill.
This time he didn't try to hide it.
His thumbs glossed down to Bill's corners and pinched them gently. Bill's body jerked and he gasped, a slight blush befalling him.
In return, his hands dipped under the hem of the other's shirt and snaked their way up, smoothing along Dipper's chilled skin to flick his thumbs against the man's nipples. Dipper gave a light moan and turned his head sideways into the pillow. He sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly, his skin prickling. Bill felt the aroused pressure urge against his bottom edge. He shuddered and shifted slightly, lowkey rolling himself against it. Another breathy sigh was drawn from Dipper's throat.
Bill then adjusted himself again so that he was laying flat across his companion and Dipper was massaging his bottom two corners effortlessly. He settled, dotting warm pressures across Dipper's belly every now and then as if to place kisses on him without a mouth. His hands journeyed down the other's sides again, taking in the lithe frame before him. It was wonderful, the moment they shared before drifting off into a peaceful slumber - even Bill. Tangled in warm embrace.
