#(also prominently featuring Soos Stan and Ford but the tags are long and they don't have art)

[ckret2]

Guess who's finally satisfied with part 3 of "Human Bill Cipher (In A Purple Bedsheet Toga) Attempts To Get His Revenge On The Pines"! (Real title TBD.) Here's the masterpost for the whole fic. 7/30/2024 now edited for TBOB compatibility. When we last left off:

For all Bill's struggling, flailing, and wheezing, he couldn't do much from beneath an entire school bus's worth of Mabels and Dippers. Voice thin from crushed lungs, Bill demanded, "What—how—where did you come from?!"

The entire population of Mabels grinned. The one sitting atop the pile crowed, "I think you mean... when did we come from!" Her duplicates cheered.

"Two hours from now," a Dipper added. "Our bus gets here in two hours."

####

Two hours from then, Mabel, Dipper, and Waddles got off the bus from California and looked around the bus stop with wide smiles.

Mabel's smile faded when she couldn't spot anybody. "Huh, I thought Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were meeting us. They got here this afternoon, right?"

"Maybe their flight was delayed?" Dipper suggested—then spotted another Mabel and Dipper running up. "Whoa, what—?"

At the top of his lungs, the new Dipper shouted, "AMBIDEXTROUS PLATYPUS FARTS!"

Mabel cracked up. "WHAT?"

Dipper gasped. "It's my password! After all the evil clones and shapeshifters and bodysnatchers we dealt with last summer, I came up with a secret password—"

New Dipper cut in, "—so if I ever came up to myself and claimed to be a time traveler, I'd know I'm telling the truth!" New Dipper and New Mabel skidded to a stop. "We have an emergency, guys. Bill is back—"

Mabel cut in, "Wait, Bill-Bill?"

"Bill-Bill!" New Mabel said. "And he's possessing a tourist and about to shoot Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford and Soos right now!" She paused. "I mean—right now, two hours ago."

New Dipper handed a time tape to his double. "You've got to go back to 5:18 p.m., take Bill down, and take his laser and this tape away from him! And then... do that again a bunch of times in a row, I guess."

New Mabel added, "I painted an X in the future so you'll know where to tackle him in the past!" She offered a can of red spray paint to her double. "Here, you'll need this."

Dipper dropped his duffel bag and shrugged off his bulging backpack. "We don't have any time to lose! We'll come back for our luggage later. Let's go, Mabel!"

She dropped her bags as well, and the four twins sprinted for the Mystery Shack with Waddles chasing as fast as he could.

Until Mabel skidded to a stop. "Hold on! We've got a time thingy, right? We don't need to hurry! We can just jump back to 5:18 from any time."

"Oh, yeah." "That's true." "Good thinking, me!"

The original twins retrieved their luggage, and the group headed toward the shack again at a leisurely stroll, with Waddles trotting happily between the two Mabels. The evening weather was lovely.

####

"What about you, Bill? What are you doing here?" Dipper demanded.

"Yeah," Mabel added, "I thought you were stuck in that dumb book we chucked into another universe! What happened to that whole thing?"

Bill let out as heavy a sigh as he could manage when pinned down by a ton of teenagers. "Well..."

####

This is where Bill's explanatory flashback would be, if he were cooperative.

He wasn't cooperative.

####

"You actually thought I was ever really gone? Boy, look at gullible over here!" Bill laughed.

The Dippers and Mabels exchanged a collective look, and without a word, shifted so more of the pile was weighing directly down on Bill.

He wheezed. "No sense of humor."

"I've got his time tape!" one Dipper shouted, holding it above the crowd.

"And I've got the laser," a Mabel called, waving it in the air. "Can I keep...?"

Ford gave her a stern look and held out his hand. She sighed and handed it over.

"Okay, Mabel Number One here!" another Mabel shouted, shaking her spray can. "Everybody move forward, I've got an X to mark!" The group obligingly shuffled forward, prompting more displeased grunts from Bill. Mabel considered his feet thoughtfully before spray painting an X where she estimated he'd been standing before.

"Not gonna lie, I thought we were goners," Soos said. "That was crazy! How did you two do that!"

Bill snapped, "By pulling the kind of time loop that ought to have Time Baby down here gumming you idiots to death. I throw one little party and he makes a personal trip to the 21st century just to invade my pad, but two brats pull off as clear-cut a paradox as you can imagine..."

The Dippers and Mabels worked through the logic of their own rescue as they realized they wouldn't have known to come if they hadn't told themselves. Dipper said, "Maybe this is actually the altered timeline, and in the original timeline you did kill them and we had to steal your time tape to change the past?"

Ford took a time tape from a Dipper who had two. "Although that does beg the question of why the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron isn't here to investigate all these time loops. Or how you got so many of yourselves here at the same time. Has this tape been tampered with...?"

Bill said, "Yeah, smart guy, everybody knows time tapes are designed to prevent overlapping time loops! So how are there so many kids here? The mystery must be killing you!" He laughed. "I could tell you, if you let me up."

Ford shot him a dark look. "You know I won't."

"I know." Bill sneered at Ford. "Just wanted to make sure you remember all the things I could tell you. Your loss."

Bill's eyes looked the same as they always had—maybe a little jaundiced, a little too human, but those were still Bill's eyes. Ford had never seen such wrath in his eyes before. 

He looked away. When he properly met the woman Bill was possessing, he wouldn't want to remember Bill glaring through her eyes.

####

While the adults found something to tie up Bill, the Dippers entertained themselves by journaling and the Mabels by decorating each other's faces with scented markers.

Without anything better to do, Bill twisted his head to watch the kids. "Hey. Can I get some art?"

The nearest Mabel looked at him, looked at the closest Dipper (who considered the odds that this was a trap, and shrugged warily), and looked back at Bill. Logically, he might be trying to get her hand close enough to his face for him to bite it and drink her blood or something—and ethically, the alien menace who'd threatened her family didn't deserve nice things—and pettily, she didn't want him to have nice things—but then, when she tilted her head just slightly, rather than seeing Bill Cipher, she saw a vast expanse of unblemished face skin just begging for artwork. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter if a murderous monster got to enjoy the benefits of scented markers, as long as Mabel got to enjoy the benefits of making art.

Anyway, who else's face was she gonna draw on? Dipper had already turned her down and her duplicates were running out of facial real estate. "I don't see why not! What do you want?"

"Draw me."

Mabel grimaced. "Ooh, that's gonna be a no. Grunkle Ford says drawings of you are magic?"

Bill sighed loudly. "Sheesh, you sound as paranoid as him. What are my options?"

"I specialize in tiger masks, butterfly masks, rainbows, unicorns, spiders, aaand flowers!"

"Fine, gimme a butterfly."

"Colors?"

"Dealer's choice."

"Oooh." Mabel considered his face, grabbed her banana, cherry, and raspberry markers, held them from the very butt so Bill couldn't reach her fingers, and got to work. But Bill didn't try to bite her. He just stared off into space stoically.

He did start biting when the adults returned to secure him. As they tried to restrain his limbs, he kicked, clawed, struggled, flailed, and snapped his teeth—but without the advantage of the time tape and a gift shop of projectile souvenirs, he only wore himself out. By the time they determined him sufficiently immobilized—hands cuffed behind his back, up arms chained to his ribs, knees and ankles tied up—and the twin pile freed him, Bill was gasping for breath, eyes squeezed shut. He didn't even attempt to sit up. Stan and Ford tried not to look too close at the trembling human form collapsed on the stony floor.

"And the final touch..." Soos took off the fuzzy pink belt he'd been wearing all day and wrapped it around Bill's waist. "Yes. Finally." He paused. "Hey, I was right, this belt does look good with that bedsheet. Compliments the pink in your butterfly, too!"

Bill opened one eye. Voice strained, he conceded, "Doesn't look bad."

"Is that unicorn hide? Excellent work." Ford clapped a hand on Soos's shoulder. "A few moonstones and mercury, and Bill will be trapped inside that body until we find a way to extract and contain him."

"He will? Hey, whaddaya know!" Soos beamed. "Fashionable and functional."

Ford tried to ignore Bill's gaze on the side of his head—attentive, calculating, scheming. "I'll... get the supplies and be right back."

The Dippers and Mabels consulted the tally marks on their palms, added one more each with Mabel's markers, arranged themselves in a semicircle behind the X marking Bill's spot, and all returned to the past except for two. The Dipper and Mabel with twenty-five tallies high-fived. "Yes!"

Dipper sighed, "Finally. I thought we were gonna repeat the same fifteen minutes forever."

Stan—currently guarding Bill with Ford's laser—glanced over at Dipper. "Hold on. If you kids have been doing some kind of crazy time loop, then that means you've been tackling this creep over and over for...?"

"Over six hours," Dipper groaned.

"We ate my last pocket bus snacks ten loops ago," Mabel said. She held up her hand. "On the bright side, I smell so delicious now?"

Dipper sniffed his own hand's tally marks. "Ew."

"Haaa! You wanted the black licorice marker, bro!"

Wiping his palm on his shorts, Dipper said, "And we got up at five to catch our bus. We've been up almost twenty-one hours. I'm completely drained."

"Pffft!"

Stan, Soos, and the twins turned to give Bill a wary look.

"'Oh no! I'm a delicate little human! I've gone half a day without a REM cycle and three hours without glucose! How can I function like this?'" His laugh was a wretched, hacking cough. "It's pathetic how weak you are."

"You're one to talk," Dipper snapped. "These weak humans took you down! Again!"

"Wow, amazing, if you pile five thousand pounds of dead weight on top of a body made of calcium sticks wrapped in raw meat, it can't get up. Congratulations on learning how gravity works!" Bill rolled onto his back, and—with a laborious effort akin to a kid in gym class attempting one sit-up too many—managed to heave himself up to a sitting position. "You got lucky—" he cast a dirty look at the X spray painted on the ground, "—but luck changes." His lower butterfly wings crinkled as a smile twisted up his face. "I escaped death itself. Do you really think a bunch of stupid sub-centenarian children like you can stop me from escaping a little rope and chains?"

Stan bristled. "What I think is you've got a butterfly-shaped bullseye in the middle of your face and I've got a laser with your name on it if you don't shut up!"

Mabel gasped quietly. "My butterfly."

Bill laughed at Stan's anger, mouth open, all teeth. It seemed like far too many teeth, coming from a creature that shouldn't have had a mouth. "Oh, that's precious! Sure, go ahead, Stanley, let's find out what'll happen—!" Bill froze as Stan shoved the laser between his eyes.

"Maybe I will!"

Dipper flinched, "Grunkle Stan, what if it's a trap—"

Bill headbutted the barrel hard enough to knock the laser out of Stan's hand; and even with his body restrained in four place, with an unexpected burst of grace he was back on his feet. Bill's voice plummeted to a demonic roar that hardly seemed to fit inside the short human body. "Do you want to see what I can do?! You wanna see what I'm still capable of?! FINE! I'll SHOW you what... wh-what..."

Bill's eyes rolled back and his face went slack.

He flopped face first to the ground.

The humans stared. Stan asked, "Is, uh. Is this what you're capable of?"

The back of Bill's head didn't answer.

Soos rolled him onto his back and tugged up one eyelid. "Guys, I think he fainted. Is that a good thing, or...?"

Mabel poked his arm. "This again? You'd think he'd have learned to grab an energy drink by now."

Dipper said, "Maybe he's still trying to drink them with his eyeballs." Mabel laughed.

Stan grunted. "I'm fine with whatever gets him to shut up a few minutes."

Dipper gasped. "Wait—if we let him escape this body, he could be anywhere! The belt! Grunkle Ford, the moonstones!"

He and Mabel ran to find him. 

####

Stan said, "I say we sit him up, shoot him in the back of the head, and bury the body right in here." Dipper and Mabel stared at him with wide eyes.

"Believe me, Stanley, I'd love to do that." (Dipper and Mabel turned their wide-eyed stare on Ford.) "But all that would accomplish is murdering some innocent woman who was probably unlucky enough to pick up his book, while Bill himself escapes. And that's assuming he hasn't already left her brain!" It had taken almost a minute after Bill fainted for Ford to coat the belt in mercury and duct tape on several moonstones. "Kill her and he'd just come back wearing another poor victim."

Stan considered that. "Could he escape her brain if we buried her alive?" (Dipper and Mabel turned again to stare at him.)

There were no good solutions. There was no point in being cruel enough to ask Fiddleford to make a new memory gun so they could retry the stunt they'd pulled during Weirdmageddon, since getting shattered into psychic dust had clearly only slowed Bill down; and setting the gun to erase "Bill Cipher" from the puppet's brain would just erase her memories of Bill rather than Bill himself. They could try going into the victim's mindscape after Bill, but all the tricks Ford knew to capture dreams or exorcise spirits only might work on an entity like Bill—or might let him hop into one of their heads. 

First, they needed to make sure Bill was still in this body; and if he was, they needed something foolproof to extract and destroy him.

And until then, they had to contain him.

####

Melody turned toward the opening vending machine door, relief on her face. "Oh, Soos! There you are! I was getting worried. I've been looking for you for twenty minutes, the gift shop looks like a tornado hit it..." She trailed off, taking in the sight of Soos and Stan carrying an unconscious, tied-up woman wrapped in a bedsheet with a butterfly on her face, and Ford training a laser gun on her. "Please tell me that's some kind of evil fairy queen and not an actual tourist."

"Worse, it's Bill Cipher!"

Stan flinched. "Soos—"

"Yeah, he took over this tourist in a cool toga, I think he's been staking out the Shack the last few months with time travel, and he tried to kill the Pineses—Dipper and Mabel had to stop him and..." Soos looked at Stan. "Oh, hold on, was I not supposed to share that?"

"Of course not!"

Ford said, "This is a very delicate situation, and the more people get involved, the less we can control it. We can't tell anyone—"

Abuelita stuck her head through the living room "Employees Only" door. "Mijo, here you are. Who is this? A... guest?"

"Oh, hey Abuelita. This is Bill Cipher—you know, the triangle guy? Yeah, we caught him trying to kill us, so we're gonna keep... him..." Soos trailed off under Stan's glare. "Oh, come on! You can't expect me not to tell Abuelita!"

Abuelita gave Bill's unconscious form a calm, considering look, said, "I will cook an extra serving for dinner," and let the door swing shut.

"Wait wait wait," Melody said. "Triangle guy Bill Cipher? Like, turned-us-all-into-statues Bill Cipher?" She'd been unfortunate enough to be on a weekend trip back to Gravity Falls for a date with Soos when Bill had invaded. He'd been in her nightmares ever since.

Soos shot Stan an apologetic look, then said, "Yeah, that one."

"So, have you called the police yet? Or—or the FBI, or...?"

"It's cool, we've got it all under control," Soos said. "We're gonna lock him in the cellar."

"You're what?"

"Yeah, I've got a mattress down there he can take. There's a TV, the pinball machine... Do you think Bill likes pinball?"

"He won't be here long," Stan reassured Melody. "I've got some out-of-state 'connections' from a previous 'business venture' who have 'resources.'" He'd hooked his arms through Bill's armpits to free his hands up to make finger quotes. "I'm calling in a 'favor.' They can hold him somewhere 'comfortable,' until..."

Firmly, Ford said, "Until we've come up with something more permanent."

Stan nodded. "Once we're sure we trapped him in this girl, he'll be outta here."

Soos said, "Oh, hey—do you think we might need to close the Shack tomorrow? I should go tell Wendy. Be right back." He handed Bill's feet to Ford and headed to the living room.

"Oh no you don't, hold on!" Stan dropped Bill's head on the floor and followed Soos.

Ford looked down at Bill in dismay, trying to figure out how best to pick him up without risking Bill trying to bite out his throat again if he woke up. From the stairwell, Mabel and Dipper peered around him to help consider the predicament; Mabel said, "Just drag him." Dipper nodded.

Melody screwed up her face, but sighed in resignation. "I've got it." She helped heave Bill back up. "But I want a really good explanation why we aren't letting the cops handle the dangerous superpowered criminal."

Ford said, "Melody, I know you haven't lived here long. But have you seen the police in this town?"

Melody sucked thoughtfully on her teeth. "Fair point. But what about the government? If there are actual aliens on the planet, surely there's some kind of Guys In Black or X-Folders squad to deal with them?" She paused at the gift shop exit.

 Mabel got the door open for her. "I think we brain damaged the last guys in black that came to town."

Dipper laughed. "Yeah, they could barely handle zombies. I don't think they'd have any idea how to handle Bill."

"Precisely," Ford said. "They don't know his abilities like we do. Once he's out of our hands, we wouldn't be able to ensure he's properly contained." Voice lowered, he added, "Besides—I'm afraid involving the government might play right into his hands. He's been pulling the strings on human politics for millennia, and there's no way to know who secretly answers to him—"

Melody made another face. "Yeeeah, no, nah, I don't believe in any of that... 'shadow government' conspiracy theory stuff."

"And in most contexts, your skepticism would be wise." Ford and Melody let Dipper and Mabel haul open the cellar doors, and then carefully descended the stairs. "But where Bill's involved—there are few facets of human history that haven't been drawn into his tangled web. He's a master manipulator, and our world has been his pet project for millions of years. For crying out loud, he even helped fake the moon landing—"

Flatly, Melody said, "The moon landing."

"Yes!"

"How do you know this."

Ford and Melody dropped Bill on the bare mattress, and Ford gestured impatiently at him. "He admitted it himself! When he was busy boasting about how he helped 'inspire' Kubrick's work."

Melody planted her hands on her hips. "So, you're telling me a 'master manipulator'... told you he faked the moon landing... and... you believe him?"

Ford stared at her.

####

"Hey Wendy," Soos said, fiddling with office phone's cord. "This is Soos. Your boss. Listen, I know you have a shift tomorrow, but uh, you might not need to come in, okay? I mean—maybe. It depends. Still figuring it out. I'll call you in the morning." He glanced at Stan, who sharply nodded.

Wendy said, "Oh? How come?"

While Stan furiously mouthed Soos do NOT tell her anything or I swear— Soos said, "Uhh, Shack might be closed tomorrow, that's all."

"Oh, is it for like family reunion stuff?"  Tone brightening, she said, "Hey, is it cool if I swing by anyway? I wanna come say hi to Dipper and Mabel."

Soos frantically waved a hand. "Nooo, you can't! For. Reasons."

Wendy was silent a moment. Soos bit his lip. Wendy said, "For... weird scary paranormal stuff reasons?"

Soos looked at Stan for guidance. Stan shrugged and made a so-so gesture. Soos said, "Yeah, pretty much."

Wendy laughed. "Oh man, seriously? Give the Pines heck for me for getting into something the first day of summer vacation. Text me every half hour so I know you're alive and I don't have to come over with an axe."

Soos sighed in relief. "Thanks, Wendy."

As Soos was hanging up, Ford barged into the office, Dipper and Mabel behind him. "Stanley, this is urgent. As soon as we've dealt with Bill, we need to visit the moon."

Stan processed that and grinned. "All right, I'm game!"

Ford's watch beeped, startling him. "What—oh! That's right, I set a reminder for us to go..." He paused, looking at Dipper and Mabel. "... Pick you two up from the bus stop."

Dipper gasped. "Right! Mabel, I almost forgot! We'll be here any minute! We've got to go tell ourselves to stop Bill! Where did the time tape go?"

"And the spray paint! I gave myself spray paint—"

"Kids—hold on a second." Stan nudged past Ford to kneel in front of Dipper and Mabel. "Listen. I know this isn't how you wanted your vacation to start—especially after we spent all year convincing your parents there won't be any more apocalypses this time—and, I'm sorry. But as soon as you get back from the bus, treat it like you just got here for the first time. We'll say hi, we'll have dinner, you two can make plans to visit your friends tomorrow—and we'll keep all this as far from you as possible."

Dipper started in first. "But, Grunkle Stan—"

"What if you need our help?"

"We've defeated Bill more times than anyone else—"

"And we just saved your lives again!"

"Whoa, easy!" Stan put his hands on their shoulders. "I know you can deal with him—but you shouldn't have to. You're kids, it's summer, you're here to have fun."

"Stan's right," Ford said. "We've already contained Bill—so try not to let him weigh on your mind."

Stan gave them an encouraging smile. "Let the old guys clean up this mess, okay?"

They didn't answer. Instead, they exchanged a glance, and then leaned in to fling their arms around Stan's neck. 

"Hey, hey! C'mon, kids, what's..." His voice caught on a lump in his throat. He wrapped his arms around Dipper and Mabel and squeezed them tight. After a moment, Ford joined in.

They didn't separate until Soos leaned in to crush their lungs.

####

As they ate dinner together around the large living room table, the Pines didn't talk about Bill. They talked about who they wanted to catch up with in town and what events they'd participate in this summer, and the kids' last semester of school, and the places Ford and Stan had traveled, and where in Gravity Falls the kids might be able to continue their judo lessons (by the sound of it, nowhere), and what Stan and Ford remembered about taking boxing as kids, and Dipper's indecision over what electives to take next year, and Mabel's enthusiasm over the parkour classes she'd started at a gym near home.

They didn't talk about why the kids had decided to pick up sports that could help them fight or escape. They didn't bring up all the times Dipper had called Ford after recurring nightmares of being pulled out of his body and left adrift. They didn't comment on Soos and Melody's absence from dinner as they took first watch over the cellar. They didn't ask questions when Stan left the living room table to take a call in the kitchen from his "connections." They didn't speculate on whether Bill might have escaped his puppet's body during the precious seconds between when he passed out and when they completed the barrier belt. They didn't talk about fear.

Down below in the cellar, the unconscious body didn't stir.