Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8582002.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Gravity_Falls
  Relationship:
      Bill_Cipher/Dipper_Pines
  Character:
      Bill_Cipher, Dipper_Pines, Mabel_Pines
  Additional Tags:
      Angst, Romance, Smut, Dark, Masturbation, Self-Harm
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-11-17 Updated: 2016-12-21 Chapters: 2/? Words: 3748
****** Set in Stone ******
by shootingstarcipher
Summary
     He got there too late.
     It might have been different if he’d gotten there sooner, but now it
     was too late.
     Still, he sits there every night, waiting, hoping for a miracle that
     will probably never come to pass.
***** A Spectacle *****
Everything was grey. That’s what the world had become - faded. The monotone
growl of the engine summed up his feelings perfectly: numb, cold, empty. He
wasn’t scared anymore, although perhaps he should have been. He was just lost.
Lost and alone. Long ago, though he wasn’t sure quite how long ago it was
(weeks, maybe, possibly even months), he had had an epiphany. She wasn’t coming
back. His sister - who had gone away for the summer without him and had meant
to return the day after they both turned thirteen - was never coming back.
He should have gone with her. He should have gone and kept her safe, and then
none of this would have happened. That had been the plan, anyway. But only a
day or so before they were due to leave, their parents decided to keep him home
and send her on her own for reasons neither of them could understand. They said
he was ill, that he wasn’t well and from then on treated him like an invalid.
Even worse than the guilt he felt for failing to keep his sister safe was the
pang of guilt that came with the realisation that he had ignore the numerous
warning signs she’d send his way. Being twins, the two of them had been
practically inseparable since birth. That’s why it was so difficult for both of
them to cope with being apart. And so, in an attempt to keep in contact as
often and as closely as possible, they’d written to each other over the summer
and in those letters, she had dictated to him many unbelievable occurrences
that he had simply discounted as make believe stories she had conjured up to
entertain herself and to make her summer sound less boring than it actually
was.
Gnomes, shapeshifters, the undead waking from their graves… It was all
impossible. Absolutely impossible… wasn’t it?
Well, no, as it turned out. All those things that he thought his sister had
been making up were in fact the truth, presumably. Since her last letter, he
had seen far worse things than the weird and magical creatures she had
described in her stories. In fact, he had seen worse things even before her
trip to Gravity Falls, but he still hadn’t realised that.
The day the earth had started to rot and everything began to fade, Dipper Pines
had lost more than just his twin sister. Not only did his sister stop sending
him letters, but his sleep suddenly became dreamless. The only friend he’d had
to call his own who wasn’t related to him seemed to have ceased to exist. Bill
Cipher, and all the wonder he’d brought to his life in the six years they’d
known each other, disappeared. And that’s when everything went grey.
Bill had always seemed real to him but in spite of this, Dipper told himself he
wasn’t, that he was simply a companion his mind had created as a way of
preventing the inevitable - his sister would leave him and then he’d be all
alone, friendless. Reason always won when it came to Dipper Pines. His sister
was the complete opposite.
And then, the morning he and his mother drove to the town his sister had been
sent to, where it all started, he changed his mind.
There were stories that Bill had told him over the years, stories which he had
thought must have been the result of his hidden creative side coming out to
play, revealing itself to him while he slept, and which he thought he could one
day put down on paper and perhaps publish in a book, but he never even
entertained they idea that they were already in one. Of course, that was only
until he found the book they were in. A thick, ivory-paged, hardback book lay
hidden away in the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, waiting to be discovered.
The funny thing was, he’d opened that drawer thousands of times and never once
happened across that book, or any other book in that particular drawer.
His hands shook slightly as held it now, sitting in the back seat of the family
car. He ran his fingers over the delicate pages, examining the golden cover
that was almost bright enough to light up the darkness the world had been
plunged into. Almost. It gave him hope, after all. The image of Bill on the
golden cover made his heart skip a beat every time he looked at it. Maybe he
was still out there - somewhere. Maybe.
He hugged it to his chest, glanced at it one last time, flinched at the
memories it brought back and stared out the window, trying to focus on the
world outside the car. They were getting closer. Outside, greyish trees with
dark, stormy leaves towered above him, threatening him. It made him glad to be
inside the safety of the family car, even if he wasn’t really safe there.
The car slowed to a stop and he shifted in his seat, looking past his mother
and out of the windscreen. There, right there in front of them, was the place
his sister had been sent to for the summer: the Mystery Shack, owned by their
Grunkle Stan and apparently his twin brother Grunkle Ford (if he were to
believe his sister’s letters), in what used to be the quaint, miniscule town of
Gravity Falls. Now it was nothing more than post-apocalyptic chaotic mess.
It hadn’t always been like this but now, after his sister’s disappearance and
the catastrophic event which caused her to go missing, the beauty the town had
once held had been destroyed, along with those Dipper cared about most.
That’s why they were here now. To find Mabel. To bring her back home, to where
she belonged. There wasn’t much hope - both of them were aware of that - but
there could be no harm in trying… not now. Now Dipper had nothing to lose.
He was still staring out the window when the car door slammed, awakening him
from his trance. His mother had gotten out and was calling to him, telling him
to follow her. He did as he was told as if unable to refuse. His mind was blank
and he felt nothing at all. She was the one who closed the door after he got
out and left it open. She locked the car and took him by the hand, pulling him
in the direction of the Mystery Shack even while he ignored her, staring at the
ground and clutching his golden hardback book. If he’d looked up at her, he
would have seen the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. But he didn’t,
and so her despondency went unnoticed.
Small dollops of snow were scattered across the ground and crunched underfoot
when he stepped on them. For a moment, he stopped and frowned. This was the
first time he’d seen snow this year, even including any times he would have
seen it on the news. Was it even winter? Perhaps. He’d lost track of time ever
since Mabel left.
He didn’t remember Grunkle Stan, the man who greeted his mother at the door and
stepped aside to let them in, nor did he recall ever hearing of Stan’s brother,
Ford, before Mabel had described him in one of her many letters. The Mystery
Shack was as his sister had described - in desperate need of redecorating. It
looked as if it had been built a century ago, with its rickety design and
creaky floorboards. Cobwebs, too, encased each corner of every room.
Dipper didn’t care for the tour they were given or Stan’s offer to take them
out for dinner. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how it was still possible to go
anywhere without endangering their lives, especially in the town where the
danger originated. All he wanted to do was get to his room and sleep, and then
in the morning they’d go out looking for Mabel. Except that, as it turned out,
both Ford and Stan knew exactly where Mabel was. They just hadn’t been able to
get her back yet. Yet. They didn’t say “yet.” Dipper added that himself.
His mother had had the same doubts he had and refused Stan’s offer, so they ate
there in the Mystery Shack. It was tense and the silence only made it worse.
But Dipper knew what they were all thinking - that Mabel was gone for good,
just like everybody else. After Dinner, he sloped off by himself, claiming to
be going to bed. And he really intended to do just that at the time, but then
he reached the attic, saw Mabel’s empty bed and changed his mind immediately.
He curled up on the floor in a corner instead and shrugged his backpack off
onto the floor beside him. Then he took out his book and cradled it, running
his fingers over the pages for the nth time that day. It was mesmerising - the
way it looked, the way it made him feel, and how it brought his memories of
Bill flooding back. It was over an hour later, in the dead of the dark, grey
night, that his impulses took over.
His mother had gone to bed by then and Stan was still up, eyes glued to the TV
in the living room. Ford was in the basement. He’d been there for hours. So
nobody noticed when Dipper (with his backpack securely on his back again, heavy
with the book he’d found that morning) slipped out through the front door. It
was cold but not as cold as it perhaps should have been. His instincts steered
him towards the woods and he obeyed without question, a familiar voice filling
his head with tempting whispers, promising him all he desired.
Like his sister’s safety. And Bill’s, too, even though it had only just become
apparent that his existence may extend to the world outside his own
imagination. Choosing who to locate and retrieve first proved to be no easy
task, but in the end it was obvious, really. Bill had been the only one he
could talk to on many, many occasions and imagining a life without him seemed
impossible, but Dipper still couldn’t be absolutely certain that he was
anything but a creation of his dreams. Mabel, on the other hand, had been with
him since birth and, aside from Bill Cipher, was the only friend he’d ever had
and so ultimately she had to be the one he’d go to first.
That was, of course, until about an hour later. He’d headed deep into the
forest, each step bringing him closer and closer to the repercussions of
exhaustion as his instincts continued to whisper to him, tempting him, wearing
away at every scrap of reason left in his already broken down mind.
He would have been lying if he’d said he was only focusing on Mabel. He was
trying to, but somehow Bill kept creeping back into his thoughts. And then he
saw it. Well, he saw him.
He saw Bill Cipher. Not Mabel, the one he’d been searching for. Bill, as
always, a glorious spectacle to behold.
***** Innocence *****
In his mind, he heard the demon’s voice calling to him, inviting him to abandon
his mission to search for his sister and sit by him instead, where they could
be alone together as they always had been. It didn’t take much to convince him
to forget about her. And so without giving it too much thought, he left the
moonlit clearing behind him and trudged through the snow towards the faded,
greyscale version of the being he had once thought of as a stranger he’d met in
a dream.
It looked like Bill and it felt like Bill, but in his heart of hearts he knew
that it couldn’t really be him. Bill Cipher was loud, vibrant and a chaotic
oasis in the greyed world of order and uniformity; the stone object he was
sitting next to now was merely a poor attempt at replicating all that the real
Bill Cipher stood for. And yet he still couldn’t fight the urge to lean against
the cold statue beside him and pretend, just for now, that it was really him -
that he was really back.
Losing Bill had hit him just as hard as losing Mabel had done - if not even
harder - and simply thinking about the idea that he might not really be gone
forever made Dipper feel ever so slightly stronger. It made him worry slightly
less about the state the world was in now - with its perpetually dark, cloudy
skies and the monsters that now haunted every corner of it - and gave the
courage to dream that the darkness that had swallowed up his home would
eventually be driven away… one day. One day, everything would return to normal.
Mabel would be back home where she belonged and Bill would visit him every
night in his dreams, chasing away his nightmares whenever they dared infiltrate
his mind.
He sat curled up in the wet snow with his head resting against the statue, just
next to Bill’s stone eye. Turning, he ran his fingers along one side of the
triangular stone body and sighed, each cold inch of the statue chilling him to
the core - just like Bill had done every time he looked in his direction before
he left. For years, Bill had been his only escape from the crushing reality of
the world he was confined to and now the he was gone, he just didn’t know what
to do with himself.
The book he’d found containing everything that Bill had ever told him sat alone
in his backpack, waiting to be opened and examined. He hadn’t read through very
much of it yet. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to. That book - along with the
statue he’d only just come across - was all he had to link him back to the
dreamlike being he considered his only real friend (with the exception of
Mabel, of course). If he opened it and read through every word, he wasn’t sure
he’d be able to hold back his emotions like he’d been doing until now. Mabel’s
disappearance had left him numb. He was beginning to get used to it and
dwelling too much on Bill would likely reverse any progress he had already
made. It was a risk he wasn’t sure he was willing to take.
Until he heard Bill’s voice inside his mind again, calling out to him,
promising him that it was a risk worth taking. He answered it without much more
than a brief moment of hesitation. He trusted Bill Cipher; he had no doubt
about that. And if Bill told him it was worth it, then he was willing to risk
it. Besides, Bill wouldn’t lie to him - why would he do that?
And so he answered Bill’s voice out loud almost immediately, telling him - even
though he wasn’t actually there - that he’d start reading it, and that he
wasn’t sure he’d want to stop until he’d finished it completely. Then couldn’t
help mentioning how glad he was to hear from him again, even though he was
aware the voice probably wasn’t really Bill, but merely a hallucination - his
own mind telling him what he wanted to hear.
Shrugging off his backpack, he opened it and pulled out the hardback book which
he then placed on his lap. He flicked through the pages, suddenly reluctant to
begin reading, and it was a few minutes before he eventually flipped back to
the start of the book and gathered the courage to read the first line of the
very first page. In fact, there was only one line printed on the very first
page: “Pine Tree, remember me.”
Pine Tree. That was the nickname Bill had given him. He never used his real
name, or his real nickname, for that matter. It was always “Pine Tree” - either
that or simply just “kid.” He shuddered at the thought of it, wondering if he’d
ever hear it again. He’d never understood why that nickname had been given to
him but he’d gotten used it over the years and eventually he’d stopped asking;
the only reply Bill ever gave him was something about him asking too many
questions for his own good and after a while, Dipper had come to realise that
it was probably true. And if Mabel’s inquisitiveness was what had gotten her
into trouble, then maybe Bill had been doing him a favour.
He would always remember Bill. Reading it in the book made him realise that,
after everything that life could possible throw at him, the one thing he knew
he would always remember was Bill Cipher. Bill, his imaginary friend. The
imaginary friend that just might have been real. After all, if he wasn’t real,
then why would the book exist? And why would there be a statue of him deep in
the middle of the woods? Unless, of course, it was all imaginary. He couldn’t
help being painfully aware that that was a possibility - that he could have
been losing his grasp on reality and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
To his distress, he found that a part of him wasn’t as horrified by the idea
that he might have been losing his mind as the rest of him. It wasn’t that a
part of him liked that idea, but rather found it much less disturbing than he
thought it should have done. If Bill was part of the madness, then Bill would
always be there for him, surely? Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to leave
behind the world of reason and rationality where he had a family too ashamed
and depressed to engage with him properly and a sister that may or may not have
been killed by now, and escape to a world where Bill Cipher was all he really
needed.
He turned the page, re-focusing his gaze on the book in his lap, and found that
he wasn’t really going insane - or at least that’s what the book told him.
Those exact words, with the addition of the nickname that just wouldn’t go
away: “You’re not going insane, Pine Tree.” It was as if the book was talking
to him - reading his mind and then giving him the answer he wanted. But the
next page was different.
The Beginning. Those two simple words were printed on the next page in big,
bold black lettering that stood out against the yellowed paper behind it. There
was nothing else underneath it. He turned the page after staring at it for a
moment, bracing himself for what was to come. Then he nestled down against the
statue behind him, took a deep, unsteady breath and started to read.
Bill Cipher, if he were to believe what was said in the book, was no imaginary
friend. In fact, Dipper hadn’t been the one to create him at all; the identity
of his creator, the book told him, was a mystery even to Bill. He didn’t appear
to have any parents or to be adopted by any being who was willing to take
responsibility for him, nor did he appear to belong to any particular species.
He was simply a being which existed, for no apparent reason other than to
create chaos, which was the reason why many other beings he came across named
him as “the spirit of chaos and destruction” (although it was only until later
that he came to develop the habit of destroying what he touched).
He was anything but an imaginary friend - as real as anything and a friend to
no-one. A friend to no-one. Those words stuck. Surely, after everything, Bill
had been a friend to Dipper at least? Even if he was a friend to no-one else -
an enemy to them all, even - he was still Dipper’s friend, wasn’t he? Maybe. It
wasn’t mentioned at the beginning of the book, but Dipper remembered in one of
his stories the mention of a friendship a monster had come to develop and
eventually accept. That had to be him. There was no way it could be anyone
else.
It was only until a few pages later that he discovered what Bill really was,
and he wasn’t entirely sure he was glad to have finally discovered it. In
short, Bill Cipher was a monster - or a nightmare, as the book described him. A
monster, a nightmare and a criminal. But the proper term was “dream demon.” He
was part of a species that was never meant to exist and as the only member of
that species, it should have been easy to wipe him out. Dipper didn’t know why
he still existed but he did know that he was glad of it. Even if he was a
monster, a nightmare or a criminal, he still meant an awful lot to him. He
still depended on him. Maybe he was naïve or innocent for believing so but he
believed that no matter how terrible a being this book made him out to be, he
had, could or would change Bill for the better.
He dared to wonder whether their odd, close relationship was anywhere near as
important to Bill as it was to him. Because to him, it was much more than just
a simple close friendship. It was much more intimate than that. Somewhere
beyond friendship was where their relationship lay, at least in his eyes. Bill
had been there for him whenever he’d come home from school in tears. He’d been
there for him when he couldn’t talk to Mabel, like when she started making new
friends and in turn started to ignore him ever so slightly. He’d even been
there for his first and only sexual experience - something which he could never
talk to anyone about, except for Bill.
He hoped to God that Bill felt the same way but he didn’t dare ask the question
in his mind and check back a few pages for the answer, just in case he didn’t
like what he saw. They couldn’t have just been friends - not even best friends.
This may have been testament to the innocence of mortal children the dream
demon so often spoke about, but in Dipper’s mind they were far beyond friends,
beyond even lovers. They were each other’s worlds.
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