When all was done, he stared at the new naked form in front of him that was trying to keep balanced with the help of a nearby trunk.
Dipper couldn't believe it. Was that Bill? In a human form, but without the need of one already on earth? Why did this happen?
He was simply stuck there, observing the figure he could see clearly as a man, blushing a little of embarrassment before focusing higher. Bill seemed to have blond hair, looking nearly golden, even if the lower part was closer to being black. He was really pale, though he supposed it was because that body never really saw any sun before. The dark marks on his forearm, and maybe somewhere else, were just even more visible like this, mostly patterns with triangles, which wasn't really that much of a surprise at this point since everything seemed to be triangles with Bill. Then he took a look at his eyes. One of them was looking pretty normal, if one was forgetting the golden colour of the iris, but the left one was black with a golden iris, this one was really catching the attention.
Dipper was taken out of his observation when he could hear Bill curse to himself. "What happen!? Why do I look like one of you meatsack?! I can do nearly anything like this, I don't have enough power!". Dipper back away a little at the anger he could feel in the demon tone, seeing his left iris turn bright red, turning toward the human.
"What did you do Pine Tree?" asked Bill as he was taking unstable steps towards him, visibly not used to walk. Dipper was just backing off at every step until his back touches a trunk. "I-I really don't know Bill!" he responded in a stutter, his voice going a little higher at the end, scared that he was really screwed. "I just took the hand and then I felt burning on my forearm and this happened" he said, hand vaguely showing him to say what happened.
Bill frowned at that mention, crouching once he was close enough, grabbing his right arm. Dipper wanted to take his arm back, but the grip was really tight and trying would probably make Bill even angrier. Soon enough, the demon had ripped off the leather bracelet that was covering most of his tattoo, letting Bill clearly see what it was.
Dipper looked away, a little embarrassed that Bill was seeing this, he would never have thought he would see it. On his inner wrist there was a pine tree symbol pointing towards his palm, and just a little higher above it there was Bill Cipher wheel, but there was no other symbols but the pine tree one.
Bill was feeling confused, or he guessed that's what this body was feeling. Ugh, he was going to deal with feelings and emotions now? Why would the boy tattoo this on himself? hadn't he said he had caused him damages? He looked up at Dipper, but the human wouldn't look at him, his face a little redder than before.
"Look... I don't know if it could have caused it" started Dipper without turning toward him "Never thought it would do something like this, It was an impulsive choice and Mabel was not totally sober when she suggested it, we thought it would look nice and be a sort of reminder" he tried to explain, feeling Bill hand losing up so he could pull it back toward himself instead. "It really wasn't for some kind of summoning, we thought you were dead"
That last comment got an amused laugh, making Dipper finally turn towards Bill. "You really thought this would kill me?" Asked the demon. Dipper finally left a chuckle escapes his lips, sort of relieved he wasn't going to hurt him and that his anger had passed, or at least a little. "I had some doubt, to be honest" admitted Dipper "But I never looked into them".
He couldn't get to fully relax, not knowing what the demon could do now that he was in the physical world. But... maybe he would be okay to deal with? He did mention that he was weaker now, didn't he?
Silence had settled between them, Bill still looking at the tattoo. Dipper thought that maybe he could give it a chance and maybe learn more about the demon. Not that he trusted him, really, he just felt like he couldn't let him walk around Gravity Falls alone.
"I can help you until you can go back to your original form" suggested the young man, getting the full attention of Bill. He gains a smile from him as if the idea was something funny. "My my, why would my little Pine Tree wants to help me, got a soft spot for an old friend" he said jokingly.
"Of course not!" responded Dipper quickly "I just can't let you walk around freely and do bad stuff" he explained, "Also... you won't get far in the state you are, not without having the cop call on you" he pointed out about the other man nudity.
Bill looked down at himself, his expression seeming to agree with him. He then snapped his finger, but nothing change, so he tried a couple more times. He then seemed frustrated, Dipper guessing that he normally would have been able to summon some kind of clothing. "I can lend you some clothes for the rest of the day and we can go see what we can find in town tomorrow" suggested Dipper to calm him down. "Yeah, because I won't be wearing your clothes all the time I'm stuck like this" affirmed the demon, which made the human roll his eyes.
They finally got up, the surrounding forest starting to get darker, which wasn't something Dipper liked. He took out his phone to use it as a flashlight, starting to walk, making sure from time to time that Bill was following behind. They were again silent, but this time it wasn't as tense as before, Dipper calmer than he was after all this craziness. He really wasn't expecting to bring back a demon in is summer vacation. To his surprise, nothing really seemed to try and approach them in the dark, he wasn't complaining, he hadn't had the mind to deal with some nocturne creature at the moment, a demon was enough.
After a long walk, light from the shack was piercing through the trunk, making Dipper slow down in his track. He was starting to doubt his idea was good, but he couldn't back down on it. He wasn't sure if he could hide Bill for a long time, but at the same time, maybe they would find a solution easily. He finally stopped, turning towards Bill.
"You have to be discreet, I can't have Mabel or the Stans know you are here" said Dipper, knowing very well he would be in great trouble if they knew he somehow summoned back Bill but was also helping him. "Sure sure whatever, can't promise much about that though, but I will try, I'd rather not get shot again by one of you" responded Bill while waving is hand as if it was nothing. He didn't know how much this body could take for now, so having to deal with three angry Pines wasn't on his to-do list for now.
Dipper than started to go toward the shack again, going at the windows to try and see where Mabel was. They were lucky, Mabel seemed to still be at Pacifica house, otherwise, she would be cooking with Soos right now, so he could sneak the demon through Mabel room without trouble. "Okay, I'm going to help you to get on the gift shop roof, you just have to pass to the other side of the roof, you're going to find where you tried to make a deal with me before" he whispered to Bill, gaining a roll of the eyes as if the demon didn't already know about most of the shack.
So they did that, Dipper helped Bill on the lower roof, trying is best not to look at him as he was going up, before going inside through the front door. "I'm back!" he called, going straight for the stair "Can you make me a plat? I got to take a shower and I will be upstairs working on something" he asked Soos, receiving a "Yes dude". Well, at least Soos wasn't hard to convince on that, he wasn't really one to try and invade their privacy.
Dipper went straight for Mabel's room, quickly opening the window so Bill could slide in. It was big enough for him to pass, which was pretty good. As the demon was looking around curiously, the human was replacing the bed to make it look as if no one had passed here. Dipper finally pushed Bill toward the door, telling him he needed to shower.
"You think I stink?" ask the demon amused. "No, but you're dirty from walking around the forest butt naked, I'm not lending you any clothes or letting you in my room like this". He simply abandoned Bill in the bathroom, supposing he could figure out how to use a shower, it wasn't difficult after all, going instead to get some clothes that would fit.
Bill was a little taller and bigger than him, so he had to dig for some of his clothes that were too big for him. He could only find some jogging and a t-shirt, supposing it would do the job for now. He changed himself into more comfortable clothes to sleep in, the others one dirty from crawling on the ground earlier.
He finally went back to Bill, only hearing the water start when he opened the door, not seeing anything wrong in entering since the demon was walking naked around him for at least a whole hour. He was simply going to drop the cloth on the counter when he heard Bill complaining about the water being way too cold "How can you take a shower like this, I thought you humans were weak to cold".
Dipper had to restrain himself from facepalming himself, opening a little the shower curtain to turn on the hot water too. "You need to turn both" he said, sounding a little desperate. It was going to be a long adventure apparently. He heard a positive hum, before leaving, telling him he could use the product on the lower shelf.
He went back to his room since he couldn't go get some food, otherwise, Soos would wonder why the shower was still running. After fifteen minutes he saw Bill coming in the room, his normal eye redder, only making Dipper guessed that he hadn't closed his eyes after washing his hair. He choices not to comment on that, supposing the demon would learn from that himself.
Dipper left after telling Bill to sit and wait for him, saying he would go and get some food. He did go back to the bathroom to make sure he hadn't made a mess in it, before going downstairs. He thanked Soos for the food, sneaking up two plates instead of one. When he finally came back in his room he left out a groan, going to place the plate on his desk.
Bill couldn't stay where he asked him to, no, of course not. He had to go through all the stuff the younger one had, at least he hadn't made a total mess while doing so. "Could you leave my stuff alone" asked Dipper as he was grabbing a book on the supernatural and placing it back on the shelf.
"You got some interesting book" commented Bill, who simply went to sit on the chair, marking its spine on itself. "But where did you put those precious journals of yours?" he asked with a smirk. Dipper didn't know why he wanted them, honestly doubting Ford had ever found any information on that kind of situation. "We destroyed them not long after your defeat" simply answered the human.
This made Bill stop spinning around, frowning at him, visibly a little irritated by that information. "Tsk, all my precious help going to waste, if I had known I wouldn't have lost my time" said the demon. Dipper bit the inside of his check, restraining himself from saying he was able to actually keep most of the information in the three first journals.
He was proud to have been able to do so and that none of the Grunkles ever notice. Sure, he was sometimes feeling a little guilty not to tell Ford, but he was still proud of himself. A shame he couldn't really brag about it a little, even with Mabel. Sure, she most likely knew, since he never really hid it from her, but they never spoke about it.
He instead went for half the story. "Ford thought it would be too dangerous to keep them around because of all the knowledge in it... now stop being salty and eat" simply asked Dipper.
The young man went to sit on his bed, plate in hand and eating the pasta he brought up. He was looking back up at Bill from time to time, making sure he hadn't angered him with his response. Well, seemed like he was okay as he was slowly eating, still looking around the room, as if not believing him fully.
"Anyway, where's Shooting Start and the older twins?" asked Bill when he focused again on Dipper. "Abandoned by your family?" he asked with a smirk.
The idea made Dipper a little uneasy, knowing he and Mabel were not passing as much time together as they did younger, but he knew they were just as close. He brushed away this worry, going for answering truly instead, no need in lying about it anyway. "The Stans had a car problem on the way so they are going to arrive later, Mabel is most likely at a friend's house" he said before finishing his plate, placing it back on the desk.
"Never thought they would go away from their shack" admitted Bill, especially Stanley, who had poured a lot of years in the whole concept of the Mystery Shack. Maybe they were getting too old now, how old were they now anyway? He didn't even know how many years had gone for them.
"Stan still owns it, Soos just have some co-owning or something like that, they just do something else now that they are finally together" answer Dipper. The human went and grabbed his laptop from the desk, opening a new doc, he for sure wasn't going to open anything related to the journal in front of Bill. He needed to keep track of all the things they could find and tomorrow he would most probably have forgotten some details.
"Oh, that reminds me of something~" said Bill while placing his empty plate on the desk, rolling closer "What are you doing, let me see".
Dipper protectively brought the laptop closer to himself. He remembers what the demon did to the one he was trying to crack in and he didn't want it to have the same faith. "You can't touch it!" he said defensively. He was surprised when this brought a pout on Bill's face, not expecting him to do this. He was expecting more anger than pouting from him. Really dealing with the demon was hard. Was he just bored and trying to find something to do?
"Come on Pine Tree! You don't let me do anything here, and I'm actually nice to listen to you right now because I could be doing worse, I just want to see" he said. Well, the human guessed it was true, Bill was a very chaotic being, it was surprising he actually listened to him, so he could probably go with it. Clearly, he was just bored.
He left out a sigh, putting the computer back on his laps as he was tapping the place next to him. "Sure, whatever, just don't touch" he answered, giving in. It wasn't long before Bill was sitting really close to him, back against the wall, looking at what he was doing. "So, what's this all about?".
"I thought about documenting our research, it's always simpler to keep track of what we can find or what happens" he explained, going on a little longer with examples where he forgot to do so and things went a little more south, getting caught up in his own story. He didn't have the chance to often talk about those things since Mabel couldn't focus more than a couple of minutes, even if she tried her best to do so. He suddenly stopped, realising he was rambling about stuff Bill most likely didn't care about. "Anyway, that why I started to take notes now, so I don't forget anything".
He could hear Bill humming in comprehension, before pointing at a part of the note, telling him he should add something. Dipper was a little surprised that the demon was helping, but guessed it was because he had some benefits from better notes. Well, at least having both sides were going to help a lot.
They worked on this until late in the night, often arguing about what had or hadn't really happened, going on a tangent unrelated to the work. The tiredness was clearly not helping them focus. It after finally agreeing on one last thing that Dipper saved and closed his computer, putting it back in its place on the desk, standing up to stretch himself.
"Let go to sleep now, so we can go get you some clothes tomorrow" suggested Dipper, going towards the closet to find a sleeping bag. He was preparing Bill bed, as the demon was looking at him curiously, before asking "You don't want me to sleep on the floor".
"Yes, I don't want a dream demon in my bed when I sleep" respond Dipper. They then argue for some minutes, before Dipper told him he was going to kick him out if he didn't listen. Silence floated around them, both knowing very much that the human wouldn't, and couldn't, do that. Bill simply throwing his hands in the air, letting out an annoyed sound, before going to his sleeping bag.
Well, it was more comfortable than he thought since Dipper placed a couple of blanket under it and gave him a pillow, making it less hard to sleep in. He wasn't going to say thanks though or admit he was wrong. He simply watched Dipper going to bed after closing the light, mumbling a "good night" before laying down, his back facing the demon. "Bad night~" simply responded the demon amused.
Dipper would probably wish he hadn't slept that night since he was actually having a bad sleep, caught in a nightmare he hadn't had in years. Out of curiosity, Bill tried to see what it was, feeling relieved that he could still enter the human dream, though he had to touch him directly. "Pff, got over it years ago my ass" thought the demon to himself when he realised Dipper was dreaming about Weirdmageddon and the triangle demon.
He decided not to do anything about it, it wasn't his job to make sure some humans had a good sleep. He was a dream demon, not some guardian angel. He simply slept, happy to see he could still access the Mindscape when his body was out, though he couldn't do much.
He really needed to get back to normal, or at least get back all his power.