Chapter Text
Stanford hardly spoke that night during dinner. After he warned Dipper about the demon named Bill, he was abruptly sent from his office, leaving Ford alone to stew on his thoughts. Dipper didn’t like the stern manner the man had suddenly adapted, but he decided not to press it. His Great Uncle was practically a stranger, after all.
Ford spent the rest of the evening pouring over old notes and books with cracked spines, and the nice servant girl named Wendy led Dipper to his room on the upper floor. Most doors were shut on the upper level, but as they made their way down the winding halls and open foyers, Dipper looked out a set of huge windows they passed, overlooking an overgrown garden. Dipper hardly heard Wendy giving him a tour with how his attention wandered to anything but her, but finally they arrived and she pushed the door open for him. It was larger than he and Mabel’s bedroom back home, but only held one large bed in the center, and an old dresser and vanity. The window against the far wall had the dark curtains drawn, and it all smelled faintly of dust.
“Cleaned it up the best I could. I hope it’ll suffice for tonight,” Wendy said, looking around the space.
Dipper put on a polite smile. “It’s great, thank you.”
With that, Dipper unpacked his clothes, changed into his nightwear, and slid under the covers, blowing out the lit lamp Wendy left at his bedside. He was restless for a long stretch of time, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling with it’s patterned wallpaper swimming in the darkness, but finally he drifted off.
The nightmares weren’t as bad. They were brief, leaving him waking up in the middle of the night, but able to fall back asleep with ample time before morning.
The next days passed mostly uneventfully. His Great Uncle still only made small talk in passing, assurring Dipper that he need not concern himself any further with the subject of Bill Cipher, as Ford was looking into it. Dipper wasn’t one to sit around and do nothing, though. He decided to spend his time in the library, while Ford locked himself in his office.
The library was the largest room in the mansion, stretching up into a high raftered ceiling, with rows and rows of shelves built into the walls. Dipper spent days perusing the collection, pulling out old books about demonology, theories of the afterlife, history of exorcisms and the church, studies on dreams and nightmares, ancient myths about curses—Dipper could've spent years exploring the vast array of knowledge kept here.
The afternoon was growing late. The sun had set, and Dipper sat at a table with one hand propping up his chin and the other flipping through dusty pages of some diary of a mad man raving about demons in his dreams. Soft light glowed from the lit lamps lining the walls and the candle Dipper kept on the table at his side. The flame sputtered as Wendy suddenly swept past him, placing a plate of food next to his book.
“You two really are alike,” Wendy mused as she set a fork on the glassware. “Both of you, too busy reading dusty old books to even come to dinner!”
Dipper raised his head in alarm. “I’m sorry, I guess the time slipped away from me...”
Wendy shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to delivering the plates to the old man’s office or library or workshop or wherever else he’s decided to hole himself up for the day.”
Dipper stared at the plate of roasted potatoes and pork. He watched the steam curl up into the air, ghosting warmth over his skin—a stark contrast to the constant chill that pervaded the large mansion, as if it really was haunted. When Dipper lifted his attention away from the food, Wendy was walking away.
“Wendy,” Dipper called after her, cringing at how small his voice came out. If she noticed or cared, she didn’t show it. She turned back towards him with a pleasant tilt of her head. “I have a question, if that’s, erm, okay...”
“Of course. Shoot,” she replied, coming closer.
“My Great Uncle...” Dipper started hesitantly. He didn’t know if it was his place to pry like this, but... he needed to ask. It felt like Stanford had all the power, with knowing so much more than Dipper did about this so-called curse. “Have you ever seen my Great Uncle sleepwalking? Or having night terrors?”
Wendy blinked at him and leaned back, thinking. “Sleepwalking?”
“Yes, walking around in the middle of the night, but he's actually asleep.”
“Oh,” she laughed easily, as if something obvious occurred to her. “I wouldn’t know if he does or not, I don’t stay overnight.”
“You don’t?” It was Dipper’s turn to look puzzled.
“Of course not. Between you and me, this place creeps me out! My family lives in town, I just come in every day to cook and clean and such, and leave when it’s time to bed down for the night.”
Dipper’s brow furrowed. Damn, so he wouldn’t be able to get that kind of gossip even from the servant who was at the estate every day.
“Sorry, kid. I wish I could help more with whatever it is you’re trying to figure out.” She waved her hand towards the book in front of Dipper. Dipper looked at it glumly.
“Thank you anyway, Wendy,” he said.
Dipper picked at his food half-heartedly after she had gone, but couldn’t work up the will to do much else the rest of the evening. He made his way upstairs to get cleaned up and head to bed for the night.
—
Dipper woke up to a deafening crash of lightning, followed by a roll of thunder so loud it rattled the walls. He jolted upright in bed, his forehead damp with cold sweat. His room was pitch dark, except for the moonlight spilling into the room through the window—along with buckets of rain.
Dipper swore and leapt out of the bed, rushing to slam the window shut tight. He breathed hard. He was positive that window had not been open when he'd gone to bed, but perhaps the wind had knocked it loose. It was positively torrential outside, droplets pounding against the glass and roof. Dipper grumbled; his night clothes were absolutely soaked from the rain. The boy peeled the wet clothes from his body and tossed them aside, shivering in the cold air.
Creaaak.
Dipper spun around as the door to his room leaned open just a crack. Lightning lit up the room for a split second, casting Dipper’s long shadow towards the dark gape of the hallway.
Dipper felt the urge to call out Wendy’s name, or perhaps his Great Uncle’s, but his throat closed up in the grip of sudden fear. He didn’t feel like he was dreaming or sleepwalking, but it had been getting harder and harder to tell. With his heart in his throat, Dipper crept towards the opposite side of the door’s opening and pushed it shut, clicking the lock. He exhaled, but the tension did not melt.
Going back to bed would be a bad idea, right? Monsters could form out of darkness at any moment, and...
Dipper pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. Footsteps? He couldn’t tell if he was imagining it, but what if it was Ford? Dipper had to check if it really was him wandering around in the dead of night. He needed to know if his Great Uncle truly suffered the same ‘curse’ as Dipper or not. Trust no one.
Dipper got dressed quickly, tugging on some trousers, a buttonup, and a vest handed down from his father that was just a bit too large on his slight frame. Dipper swallowed his breath and rested a hand on the doorknob. Only the constant drone of rain filled the silence. Dipper slowly opened the door.
It wasn’t as wholly dark as Dipper was expecting, which he was thankful for. Perhaps it was a full moon tonight, peeking through a patch of rain clouds, interspersed with bright flashes of lightning. Dipper’s skin crawled. It reminded him too much of the storm the night he had hurt Mabel. Dipper set his jaw and walked down the hall with purpose. No, Mabel was far away. She was safe, she wasn’t here, and Dipper was not possessed by a damn demon.
He crept through the halls as silently as he could, ignoring the rush of blood in his ears that came with a spike of fear every time a shadow in the corner of his eye moved. He didn’t spot Ford anywhere, nor any monsters or eyeballs or tiny hands reaching for him. Then, Dipper found himself in front of the impressive nearly floor to ceiling panes of glass looking out over the garden. Pale light illuminated Dipper as he stepped right up to it, shadows of rivulets running down the glass streaked across Dipper’s form. Dipper realized now, standing right in front of it, there were intricate geometric designs built into the borders of the great window. Dipper looked behind him, observing the glow of triangles dancing on the walls nearby. He turned back towards his reflection.
Slitted eyes stared back at him, out of his own face.
Dipper screamed and fell backwards. He scrambled away and watched in horror as the glass shattered and his reflection stepped into the room with him. A huge grin not unlike the one he’d seen on Mabel’s face right before she strangled him graced the face of his reflection made flesh. And the thing was bleeding, covered in lacerations from the huge shards of broken glass at their feet. The grin curled up impossibly far as his reflection self loomed over him. Dipper’s heart kick-started and he jumped to his feet, taking off down the opposite hall in a dead sprint. Discordant laughter chased at his heels, down winding halls he’d never explored. Footsteps pounded behind Dipper in time with the pounding rain. Panic seized Dipper’s mind.
Ghostly triangles of light floated across the surface of the walls around him, sourceless and encroaching. They began to spin, coming off the wall right at Dipper like projectile shards of glass, carving through his shirt and leaving cuts across his arms and face. Dipper screamed in pain, clutching his arm, but he didn’t stop running, for a voice that was his but not quite was behind him, jeering and calling to him. Dipper made to round a corner and came face to face with his grinning reflection self. What?! He whirled around to go back the way he came, but his yellow-eyed self was coming from that direction as well. Dipper cursed and hurried to throw open the shut door right beside him, praying it wasn’t locked. The cackling came to a crescendo, mixing with a cacophony of screams, piercing Dipper’s skull painfully. The door opened. Dipper fell inside and it slammed shut behind him.
The screams and laughter abruptly stopped, leaving him with silence and the patter of rain against a window. Dipper was in a small room that looked to have perhaps once been a tea room. And he wasn’t alone.
“Fancy seeing you here!” A jarring bark of a voice greeted Dipper. “Glad you could drop in, kid!” Laughter. Familiar laughter.
Dipper stood up and pressed his back to the door defensively. “...Bill?”
“Right-o! Bill Cipher, at your service! Good to finally meet ya, Pinetree!” The... man ... tipped a top hat to him. Dipper’s mouth felt dry.
He certainly didn’t look entirely human, but when Dipper imagined a demon, it wasn’t... this.
At a small circular tea table in front of the window, a tall angular man was sitting in one of the chairs. No, not sitting—he was floating above it, legs crossed casually. He took a sip from a broken tea cup and set it on the table, uncrossing his legs and ‘standing up’. Pristine, pointed leather shoes rested on the carpet. A fitted yellow and black pinstripe suit hugged the man’s form perfectly, something Dipper imagined rich businessmen in the city might wear. The man’s hair was a yellow blonde, with streaks of black at the nape of his neck. One of his eyes was covered with a black triangular eyepatch—the same eye Ford was blind in—though Dipper could see no strings affixing it in place. The other eye was wide and yellow and slitted, framed by long black eyelashes. Bill Cipher was—oddly, annoyingly—a wickedly handsome man.
Dipper shrunk away as Bill walked towards him, grinning brightly and outstretching a gloved hand to him. Dipper did not move to grasp it, instead curling his lip in a snarl.
“G-get the hell away from me! Don’t come closer!” He tried to sound as intimidating as possible, but a tremor of fear made its way into his voice.
“Feisty, I like it!” Bill's grin was wolfish. The demon blinked and then snapped his fingers. “Oh! Where are my manners,” he said, and waved one hand with a flourish of bright blue flames. Dipper looked down at himself in shock as all his cuts and bruises mended themselves completely. Even his torn and bloody clothes were restored to even more pristine condition than they’d been in before. His hand-me-down vest was now embroidered with a beautiful pine forest under a starry sky.
“How...?” Dipper murmured, his fear momentarily replaced with stunned wonder. When he raised his head, Bill was leaning right in his face, inspecting him. Bill brushed a strand of Dipper’s curls off the boy’s forehead and then straightened up once more. Dipper couldn’t form words.
“You’re dreaming, kid! Anything is possible,” Bill simply said, and strolled back to the tea table, resuming his odd floating reclination. Dipper cautiously took a few steps into the room.
“You're a demon,” he said, more a statement than a question.
“Something like that.” Bill took another sip from his broken teacup. Dipper stepped closer and tried to peek at its contents, expecting perhaps a cup of blood or floating eyeballs. Instead, Bill appeared to be drinking liquified stars, a swirl of galaxy, blue and purple and glittering. Bill saw him staring and motioned at the teapot.
“You can have some, if you like. It’ll be regular ol’ leaves and water, though. This stuff isn’t meant for cute little humans like you.” He wiggled his cup at him, the galaxy liquid sloshing.
Dipper (with some difficulty) ignored the use of the words ‘cute’ and ‘humans’ and approached the table. He picked the teapot up by the handle, half expecting his hand to pass right through it. Dipper poured some of the contents into the empty teacup sitting on the table opposite of Bill. It indeed looked like completely regular hot tea. Dipper didn’t drink it. He looked at Bill with narrowed eyes.
“What do you want?” he said, a hard edge to his voice. “Why have you been tormenting me?” Tormenting our family, Dipper silently added.
“Tormenting?” Bill placed an offended hand over his heart. “Tormenting? Me?” Bill’s form suddenly collapsed into a hundred shifting triangles, a bit like a kaleidoscope, that then whipped through the air. Bill reformed behind Dipper, leaning over his shoulder and curling a hand around the shorter boy’s shoulder. “Whatever do you mean, torment?”
Dipper jumped away from him, knocking into the table. Bill’s teacup fell to the floor and shattered, but then immediately reformed and floated back up to its place on the table as if nothing had happened. Dipper glared at Bill’s curling smile.
“The curse. The nightmares. The sleepwalking, the... all of it!”
“Ah, yes, the curse.” Bill rolled his eye and circled Dipper slowly. The way he walked reminded Dipper of a cat. “I am just as cursed as you are, kid! You think I want to be here?” He gazed distastefully at their dusty and neglected surroundings. “The nightmares and junk are just side effects of me being stuck in your minds, since they can’t handle hosting such a powerful being.” He gestured to himself smugly.
“Why only show yourself now, then, if that’s the case?” Dipper eyed him suspiciously, taking a step back. “As soon as I entered, the nightmare stopped. Why don’t you just make it stop all the time, if you are so powerful?”
“The only reason I was able to manifest myself to you was because your mind was open to it, Pinetree!” Bill tapped the side of his own skull. “That geezer downstairs told you my name. I try to tell humans my name myself, but... it usually just makes them run away screaming!” Bill burst into a fit of laughter. Dipper thought back to the discordant whispers and voices he would hear in his nightmares. “I don’t try to torment the humans I get stuck to! It takes a rare mind to be able to speak to me, even when they do know my name.”
Dipper didn’t notice Bill had sidled up in front of him once more. Dipper’s breath caught in his throat at the way Bill held him under his gaze as he said a rare mind. Bill took Dipper’s hand gently.
“My Great Uncle told me that you are a liar and manipulator,” Dipper said, but didn’t pull out of his grasp. The reality that he was speaking to an otherworldly entity swirled through Dipper’s thoughts, making his heart race with excitement. It takes a rare mind to be able to speak to me.
“Of course that paranoid lunatic would say that! He doesn't even trust himself,” Bill scoffed. “Not after what he did.”
Before Dipper could ask about the ominous words regarding his Great Uncle, Bill suddenly snapped his fingers and sourceless music filled the air. He swept Dipper up in a dance, holding Dipper’s hand tight and putting his other arm around Dipper’s lower back to guide him along with his graceful steps. Dipper stumbled to keep up, but strangely soon found himself dancing along with Bill perfectly, despite not having the slightest idea what kind of dance this was. Bill grinned.
“The curse is only bad when my influence is fought against, rejected.” Bill twirled Dipper and caught him effortlessly. “When the relationship is more of a partnership, ” Bill’s footwork was expertly quick as he twisted and pulled a blushing Dipper against his chest, “we both flourish, together.” Dipper’s heart raced at the sound of Bill’s voice, so close to his face. The two continued to dance, and Dipper thought he understood. He sought Bill out, he was going along with Bill, and because of it, he was able to control the dreams. He was dancing perfectly because Bill knew how, and because Dipper could simply will his body to match his movements without having the real world skill to do so. A partnership, an understanding, a melding of minds, a dance.
“Then...” Dipper said breathlessly, despite feeling nothing but energized. “Why does my Great Uncle think you're so evil, if it’s just a matter of working together?”
“Fordsy and I used to be partners,” Bill said, side-stepping and swinging Dipper around with him in a flourish. Dipper couldn’t help the grin that flashed across his face at the thrill that rushed through him. “But he got paranoid. He didn't want to share anymore, his mind couldn’t handle my power, and he blamed me for it!”
Fordsy? They must've been close, Dipper thought.
“Very close. He practically worshiped me!” Bill responded, seemingly reading Dipper’s inner dialog. He flashed Dipper a playful smile and tilted his head. “Sharing, remember?”
“Incredible,” Dipper breathed. Bill took a few more winding steps and then let his hands drop, ending the dance. Dipper pushed away the pang of disspoinment in his chest, and hoped it didn’t show on his face.
“It’s gonna be morning soon, I’m afraid your dream is coming to an end!” Bill glanced almost sadly to the window, where the rain had long since stopped and the light was turning blue.
“But...” Dipper wanted to ask so many things. He needed more time. He was finally making progress in understanding what had been happening to him, and how he could keep Mabel safe from it. If he could learn more... With Bill’s help, he’d never have to worry about hurting Mabel ever again.
Bill snapped him out of his thoughts by flicking his bangs, flashing his birthmark. Dipper flushed and covered it with his hands.
“Don’t worry, kid. There’s always the next night,” Bill said. He bent down slightly and removed his eyepatch, winking at Dipper. When his eye opened, Dipper almost gasped out loud.
Bill’s other eye was like looking into the night sky itself, endless and alien and mesmerizing. He slipped the triangular patch back over his eye.
“Come find me in the dream. We have so much to talk about,” Bill said.
“The nightmare, you mean?” Dipper chuckled, but a part of him was worried he would have to traverse dangers like the ones he’d faced tonight, until he reached this safe room. Bill shook his head. For a second, Dipper thought the shadow behind him looked triangular.
“Remember what I said about the effects of the curse being controllable through our partnership?” Bill leaned in close to Dipper’s face, too close. Dipper’s heartbeat quickened. “I have a funny feeling you won’t be having any more nightmares, Dipper.”
Then Bill kissed him, and Dipper woke up.