Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7580644.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Gravity_Falls
  Relationship:
      Bill_Cipher/Dipper_Pines
  Character:
      Bill_Cipher, Dipper_Pines, 8_Ball_(Gravity_Falls), Teeth_(Gravity_Falls),
      Pyronica_(Gravity_Falls), Pacifier_(Gravity_Falls), Eye-Bats_(Gravity
      Falls), Hectorgon_(Gravity_Falls), Keyhole_(Gravity_Falls)
  Additional Tags:
      Angst, Romance, Violence, prison!au, Human!Bill, Demon!Bill
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-07-25 Updated: 2016-08-09 Chapters: 2/16 Words: 4396
****** Time to Kill ******
by shootingstarcipher
Summary
     Trapped inside a clinic for the demented - a hospital where living
     nightmares go to be subdued, a prison for monsters like him - Dipper
     has a lot of time to kill. But unfortunately for him, so does his
     cellmate - a notorious dream demon known as Bill Cipher.
***** Wide Awake *****
The world around him was black, shrouded from head to toe in darkness, yet he
was in fact awake. Wide awake. It didn’t feel like he was though. He hadn’t
been dreaming; he didn’t think he had been anyway.
Today was a Tuesday. That was among the handful of facts he was aware of at the
time. The few other things he knew for certain included his name being Dipper
Pines, the fact that he was a twelve year old boy who had been sent to live
with his great uncle for the summer, and that he was lying down on something
much too hard to be anywhere near comfortable.
What he didn’t know was everything else. His mind was blank, as if it had been
wiped clean at some point during his sleep. He didn’t even know whether it was
night or day.
It felt like he should have been tired, but he wasn’t. He swung his legs over
the edge of the bed - he presumed that’s what he was laying on, especially
since there was what felt like a pillow propping up his head - and pushed
himself up, first into a sitting position, and then into a standing one. For
the few seconds he struggled to regain his balance, his body swayed from side
to side, and the first step he took was a hesitant one, though he did
eventually manage to put all of his weight on his right foot without collapsing
to the floor.
After his first success, he set his heart on walking around the edge of the
room, trying to decipher at least some facts about where he was. Keeping his
hand pressed against the wall on his right, he staggered forward slowly -
trying to keep calm but failing - and tripped over something metallic,
resulting in him falling forward onto something that felt identical to the bed
he’d been lying on. Soft sheets. A hard, too firm mattress. His hand grazed
over the painted brick wall the other side of the bed. And then waved straight
through his cellmate’s body.
His cellmate didn’t say anything, but hovered cross-legged just above his
pillow, silently watching as the twelve year old flailed his arms wildly in a
desperate attempt to get off the bed and back to where he’d been before. Once
he’d succeeded, Dipper resumed the mission he’d set himself ten seconds earlier
and began to walk along the wall again - this time keeping his hand against the
wall he’d discovered on the other side of the other bed. He wondered whose bed
it was and if there were any more beds in the room - it would give him an idea
of how big the room was - but he reached the door before he crashed into any
more.
From what he could tell from trailing along the perimeter of the room, it
wasn’t very big. There were only two beds in the room, each of them having been
made for only one person. The owner of the other bed - whose presence he was
blissfully unaware of - was still nowhere to be found. Even when Dipper called
out, asking if anyone was there, nobody answered. So he returned to his bed,
laid with his face against the pillow, and cried, the sounds of his sobbing
muffled by the pillow.
Everything was new to him. He remembered being able to see; this blindness was
new and foreign. And whilst the feeling of being alone was one he’d experienced
before, he was sure he’d had a family before. He knew who he was. It was just
that he didn’t know who he’d been before, or why he was wherever he was then.
There was a desk next to the door and a cabinet by each of the beds, with
drawers that presumably contained clean clothes for him. Upon opening the top
drawer, however, he found it contained what felt like two journals - one of
which had something hand-shaped glued to the cover. They both had leather
covers but one of them was much thicker than the other. A pen lay beside them
in the drawer, and he took it out along with the thinner journal, staggered
over to desk and sat down in the chair next to it - he still had trouble
walking given his sudden state of blindness - and opened the book, preparing to
begin writing in it seeing as there didn’t seem to be much else to do there.
The door on his left clicked open, startling him. He dropped the pen
immediately, letting it roll off the wooden desk and onto the soft carpeted
floor. “You won’t want to use that one,” a voice, coming from the direction of
the door, advised him. “That’s already been written in. We found that in your
bag when we brought you in. You want the other one; that’s your diary.”
Dipper stayed sitting in his chair, but felt around the floor with his bare
foot in search of the pen he’d dropped. A hand suddenly grabbed his and pushed
the pen into his palm. He coiled his fingers around it, gripping it with every
ounce of strength he had left, and vowed not to let it fall again.
“Dipper Pines,” the voice stated, not at all as if it were asking for
confirmation of his identity. It was a male voice, but one he did not
recognise, and sounded gentle yet stern. “It is my job to inform you of the
rules we will be enforcing on you during your time here, which - as far as my
colleagues and I are concerned - will be a very long time indeed… an eternity,
perhaps.”
Dipper blinked once. Twice. Three times. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, trying
to force himself to wake up because whatever was going on it couldn’t be real.
It had to be a nightmare. There was no other possible explanation and in
Dipper’s mind, science and rationality always prevailed.
“What’s going on?” he asked hastily when he failed to wake up. “Where am I? Why
can’t I see?”
The man by the door held his hand up to silence him, immediately realised it
made no difference as the child couldn’t see him and let his hand fall back to
its previous position. “That’s enough,” he said gruffly, shutting him up. “You
know what you did. You deserve to be in here, just like everyone else.” He
paused for a moment or two, letting the message sink in, before speaking again.
“Anyway, as I was saying… You’ll stay in here most of the time and only be let
out for meals - except breakfast, which you’ll eat in here - and to stretch
your legs out in the yard. Hang onto that diary,” he warned. “It’ll come in
handy. And there’s a knife you’ll probably find useful in one of the drawers,
in case you need to defend yourself…
Your cellmate should show you the ropes.” He smirked slightly and chuckled to
himself at the irony of his words. “Oh, and he can get a bit… violent. But so
can everyone here - yourself included - so it shouldn’t be too tough for you.”
He looked Dipper up and down, frowning. “You’re a young one, aren’t you? Well,
I suppose your type all start young.” With that, he turned on his heel and
strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. His words rung in
Dipper’s ears, repeating over and over in his mind. Cellmate. Violent. It
sounded like a prison. Perhaps there was a reason for that.
His chair screeched as he pushed it across the floor, away from the desk, and
he stood up and turned to face his bed. “Is anyone there?” he called out
quietly, his embarrassment showing on his face as red marks began to creep
their way up to his cheeks as a result of his blood rushing upwards. He felt
like he was calling out to empty air. Surely if someone was there, he’d know it
by now? That’s what he thought, though of course that wasn’t true at all.
Bill Cipher had been watching him ever since they’d dragged him into their cell
and dumped him on the bed across the room from him. He had no real, tangible
body, though he did have an appearance, which is why Dipper hadn’t stumbled
across him yet. He hadn’t moved once from his spot on his own bed - not that he
needed one - and had been hovering above it with his legs crossed for hours on
end. He knew exactly who his so-called cellmate was. He knew everything about
him. Of course, he had no intention of telling him any of what he knew.
Watching him squirm was half the fun.
Still, he saw no reason not to let his presence be known now that his existence
had been exposed by one of the mortal guards, so he announced himself to his
human cellmate by floating over to him and startling him with his voice. “You
sound scared, kid. What’s up with that?” He knew exactly what the child’s
response would be, so it didn’t matter when Dipper failed to answer.
“Wh- Who are you? Where are you?” That last question wasn’t really needed.
Without his sight, Dipper’s sense of hearing was made more sensitive, and so he
could determine easily where his companion was in relation to himself.
“Yeesh, relax, kid,” his cellmate laughed, his voice growing louder as he
approached the bed Dipper was slouching on. “Name’s Bill Cipher. I’ll be
cellmate for all eternity - at least, that’s what it sounds like. After what
you’ve done, you won’t be getting out of here any time soon. Neither will I,
for that matter.”
Propping himself up with his elbows momentarily, Dipper let himself drop so
that he was face-down on his bed again, the soft cotton of the pillowcase
invading his mouth as he bared his teeth in frustration. “I don’t know what I
did,” he groaned miserably, seeking comfort but only receiving a loud,
delighted declaration of “Well I do” in reply. Bill had no intention whatsoever
of giving him a more meaningful reply and he said so, relishing the human’s
melancholy as he watched from no more than a couple of inches away.
“You’ll get used to it, kid.” That might have been true, but the way Bill
announced it wasn’t very convincing. “Probably,” he added, only enhancing
Dipper’s view of the hopelessness of his situation. “For now though, you must
be starving. I bet you haven’t eaten for… I don’t know… a few days, maybe?”
That caught Dipper’s attention and he pushed himself up, unknowingly facing his
demonic companion. Wiping away the few remaining teardrops staining his cheeks
- and silently hoping his cellmate hadn’t noticed them - he nodded, almost
optimistically, only to be instantly disappointed by his cellmate’s response.
“That’s too bad.” Dipper’s face fell and his heart sank in unison at the sound
of Bill’s words. “You slept right through the evening meal - that was ages ago
- and you’ll have to wait until morning for breakfast.” He paused for a moment,
his temporary silence only serving as a means of making what he had to say next
all the more devastating. “Oh, and I wouldn’t get your hopes up about that.
They tend not to bring breakfast to this particular cell.” Catching sight of
Dipper’s subsequent frown, he explained further, though without giving too much
away. “I don’t eat,” he said simply.
Turning away from his human cellmate, he floated back over to his own bed and
lingered above it in the way he always did, promising himself he’d keep a close
eye on his companion at least for as long as they shared a cell - though more
likely for all eternity.
Dipper’s curiosity would be the death of him. He was coming to realise that,
and he thought it likely that it was that exact personality trait of his that
got him into this mess - whatever that mess was - in the first place. Whatever
he’d done, it must have been heinous enough to deserve him being locked up for.
And he knew he’d been able to see before, so he quickly deduced that whatever
he’d done to get locked up, it had also caused him to lose his sight. Unless of
course, his sight was taken away by whoever had locked him up. That didn’t seem
too far-fetched.
One of the things that bothered him the most was the fact that Bill appeared to
know a lot more than he was letting on. He wasn’t as naïve as most other
children his age, but he had been hoping that his cellmate would be able to
shed some light on his situation. Bill seemed more than capable of doing so,
but for some reason also unwilling. It didn’t make sense to him. They were in
it together, weren’t they? As far as he was concerned, the more he knew, the
more of a chance he and Bill had to get out of wherever they were being
confined in. Bill didn’t seem to share his opinion though.
Someone was moving around outside the door, in the corridor; he could hear
their footsteps. Doing his best to keep silent, he stood up from the bed and
cautiously approached the door, focusing solely on the sound of the footsteps.
Once he reached the door - he could tell because his hand collided with it, as
he’d been holding his hands out in front of him while he walked - he traced
over its features with his fingertips until he came to a handle, pulled it and
pushed it, but to no avail. He should have anticipated such a result. He was
locked up. He wasn’t meant to be able to get out.
Someone tapped on the large glass window on his left, startling him. He tripped
over the desk and chair in his haste to get to the window in response, falling
to the floor. By the time he was scrambling to get back up, Bill had manifested
beside him and held put a hand, pulling him up to a standing position. “Shame,”
he mused, letting go of the human’s hand. “I thought you were the smart one.”
At the time, Dipper failed to realise how significant his cellmate’s choice of
words really was; he had his mind on other things, such as the person outside
the cell in the hallway and his cellmate’s peculiarity. “Why didn’t you let me
know you were here earlier?” he asked tentatively.
“I was having fun messing with you. Get used to that, kid.” He could hear the
smirk in his cellmate’s voice. “By the way, your hand went straight through me
earlier. Try not to make a habit of that - it’s a little invasive,” he warned.
“Anyway, you’d better get to bed. It’s getting late, you know.”
If he’d had any less control, he would have screamed at him that no, he didn’t
know it was getting late because everything was dark to him now. But he
retained his composure, trudged over to his bed (almost walking right through
his cellmate, so Bill had to fling himself out of the child’s way in order to
avoid him) and perched on the edge of it. He scowled to himself and kept his
head down, but he didn’t lay down and go to sleep as he’d been instructed. In
spite of blackness in front of his eyes, he was wide awake.
***** Crazy *****
Wednesday, probably. Dipper already felt like he was going mad. From what he
could tell, his cellmate woke him up. The first thing he heard upon regaining
consciousness was the sound of Bill’s wild, enthusiastic voice, but his mind
was hazy and he couldn’t hear him well enough to deduce what he was saying -
his voice was simply a series of unclear echoes rebounding off the walls in the
background of his mind, nothing close to a coherent string of sentences.
Sniffing the air, his stomach rumbled and the delectable odour of freshly made
pancakes attacked his senses. It must have been a mirage.
It was. What he actually had to eat was a few slices of stale bread, but he
wolfed it down nonetheless. He was disappointed - there was no doubt about that
- but he was so hungry he wouldn’t have dreamed of turning his nose up at
whatever little food he was offered. Bill brought it to him, proudly announcing
that he was the one responsible for convincing the staff to bring him breakfast
and stating that if it hadn’t been for him, he would have been forgotten about
already.
“I don’t eat,” he explained as he watched Dipper gnaw on the slices of chewy,
stale bread he’d been given for breakfast. Dipper didn’t consider it much of an
explanation - it opened up more questions than it answered - but it was the
best he was going to get out of his cellmate, and at least he hadn’t been
violent yet. As the well as the stale bread, he’d also been given a small cup
of milk that he considered to already be on its way to turning into yoghurt,
but he didn’t say anything about it and thirstily poured it down his throat -
though he grimaced at the taste and texture of it afterwards.
Bill had told him during his much needed (albeit revolting) breakfast that he’d
better start writing in his journal soon, although he didn’t tell him why and
clearly had no intention of doing so, as Dipper found out when he asked. Bill’s
voice suddenly faded and it became apparent he’d been close to him and was now
moving away. Trying to ignore his cellmate, Dipper took the blank journal out
of the drawer - along with a pen - set it down on the desk at the front of the
room and started writing in it.
The trouble was, he had no idea what to write. All he did was write his name
and then he crossed it out and chewed the end of the pen instead. He heard his
cellmate laughing from across the room and whether it was paranoia or not, he
felt as if it was directed at him and suddenly became embarrassed. That got him
thinking about what his writing was actually like. He had a feeling it had been
relatively neat before but now that he couldn’t see it - or anything, for that
matter - he realised it was probably very messy indeed - possibly unreadable.
“You worry too much,” his cellmate laughed, approaching him again, and pointed
out his pink, blushed cheeks. “It’s a diary, kid. And trust me, if you could
see, it’d really come in handy!”
Dipper groaned. “But I can’t see,” he grumbled, snapping the journal shut.
“Surely you have to help me! I’m blind, I don’t know where I am, and I don’t
know how ended up here! I don’t know anything! I just can’t remember!” His
words started off as an exclamation but quickly dissolved into sobs, and he
curled up on the uncomfortable seat, hugging his knees to his chest, as his
cellmate loomed over him.
“You’re in hospital, kid,” Bill chuckled, a hint of malice in his shrill voice.
Dipper raised an eyebrow at him in suspicion. “Well, a hospital of sorts,” his
cellmate conceded. “A prison, really. But they call it a hospital. You’re
insane, kid, and so am I!” Alarmed at what he was hearing - though
simultaneously thankful that he was telling the truth - Dipper shook his head
vigorously, as if trying to rid himself of the idea that he really was insane.
“We’re all crazy here,” Bill concluded. “Just wait until you meet the others.”
He didn’t need to meet the other prisoners - or patients - to realise just how
crazy that place was. A while later - before he was let out of his cell - he
learned of the rules the prison abided by, and this was enough to convince him
he’d go insane if he stayed there any longer, although there was still every
chance he was already mad.
The diary was important, apparently, because it would remind him of the days
he’d endured before; or it would do if he could read it. According to the
member of staff (or prison guard, as he felt inclined to call him) who visited
him to check that he’d survived the night, the days reset themselves at
midnight and so every inmate spent their lives there in a perpetual cycle of
amnesia. There were two types of inmates, he learned: the predators, who were
the dominant prisoners out of the two in each cell, and the prey, who had no
choice but to bend to the will of their cellmates. The warden wouldn’t tell him
which category he had been assigned to, but he had a fair idea anyway.
As time went on, and Dipper spent most of it going out of his mind with
boredom, his curiosity regarding the place grew and grew, the call of mystery
dragging him deeper and deeper into what he believed to be a web of lies and
secrets so tangled that one could do nothing but go insane trying to unravel
it. His cellmate, on the other hand, seemed to laugh an awful lot.
Suddenly remembering the warden’s earlier warning - that Bill was often violent
and he’d need something to defend himself with - and his suggestion that he
kept the knife that was in one of the drawers at hand, he took the weapon out
and slipped it under his pillow, hoping his cellmate wouldn’t notice.
Unfortunately, he did.
“Useless, kid. It’s useless.” This was just another thing for Bill to laugh at.
“You think you can hurt me with that pathetic thing?” Dipper’s eyes widened and
he scowled angrily at himself, confused and hurt but most of all frustrated
with the way his cellmate was treating him - like he was nothing. “You’ll have
to do a lot better than that if you want to defend yourself against me, kid!”
His voice suddenly grew louder as he moved closer to the twelve year old
sitting on his bed and he hovered above the mattress, alarming close to the
child. “One thing you’ll learn about me is that I always get what I want. If I
want to hurt you - or if I suddenly decide I want to kill you - there’s nothing
you can do to stop me.”
Dipper nodded in understanding, his body quivering with anxiety. If it wasn’t
enough that he’d been dumped in some kind of prison, now his cellmate - the
only being he had to talk to for the foreseeable future - was threatening him,
potentially with death. Bill chuckled to himself again and then Dipper heard
the door to their cell open with a mechanical click. Someone - his cellmate -
grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the corridor, dragging him down the
hallway until they entered another room which erupted into noisy uproar as soon
as they arrived.
He felt himself being pushed forwards and he soon found himself sitting on what
felt like a bench (though he couldn’t tell how long it was) next to someone
else, another male (who must have been an adult, possibly in his early
twenties, judging by his voice), who spoke to him when he sat down.
“So you’re Bill Cipher’s new plaything.” It definitely wasn’t a question, but a
statement about his identity. “I was wondering when you’d show up.” Dipper
wondered what he meant by “new plaything” but didn’t dare ask. “I’m Keyhole,”
the stranger introduced himself, “And this is Pyronica and Hectorgon .” He
gestured to each of his companions as he spoke, clearly unaware of Dipper’s
condition.
“I’m uh, Dipper.” His new companions all frowned at him and groaned in
response. It was only then that he realised Bill had left him alone with three
other inmates; he could still hear his voice but it was further away than it
had been before, as if he were across the room from him.
“You died yet?” the only female in the group, Pyronica, asked gruffly. The way
she phrased it made it sound like the most normal question in the world, but
Dipper was taken aback by it. Of course he hadn’t died yet. If he had, he
wouldn’t be there, would he? Too stunned and afraid to speak, he shook his head
silently, trembling slightly as he did so. Unbeknownst to him, Pyronica grinned
wickedly at him. “He’ll put a stop to that soon enough,” she warned.
The other two laughed at him in unison and he forced a smile but didn’t succeed
in fooling anybody with it. “I must say,” Hectorgon started. “I’m surprised
you’ve lasted this long - with us, I mean. Most humans run the moment they set
eyes on us. You haven’t even screamed yet.” Now Dipper was the one frowning and
he asked him what he meant, adding that he’d been blind ever since he’d woken
up the day before. “That explains it then,” Hectorgon concluded, almost being
cut off by Keyhole’s sudden exclamation of enthusiasm.
“Why not just as Bill?” he suggested, his usually quiet voice growing louder
with excitement. “I’m sure he can sort it out for you!” The other two hissed at
him to keep quiet but he took no notice.
The sound of a plate being deposited on the table in front of him - combined
with the scent of roast chicken and gravy - alerted him to the fact that it was
lunchtime in the prison (or hospital) and his companions prompted him to eat.
He ate in silence whilst the three other inmates around him chatted to one
another. His interest was piqued when one of them asked Pyronica about her
cellmate, who she seemed reluctant to talk about. He decided he might ask Bill
about it later, but he was aware that he may never have the courage to do so.
Once he’d finished eating, his cellmate returned to his side and led him back
to their cell, asking what he thought of the other “patients” on the way.
Dipper could only think of one fitting response and he couldn’t help but smile
as he said it, though he couldn’t figure out why. “Crazy,” he grinned as he and
Bill disappeared through the metal door of their cell.
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