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minijenn · 7 years ago

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Universe Falls Chapter 43, Part 2

Damn I almost forgot to post this on here, but alas, here it is for your enjoyment if you haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet! Though brace yourself, for the feels are fucking REAL and the HURT. So without any further ado, let us begin!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/166730418164/universe-falls-chapter-43-part-1

Chapter 43: Sock Opera

Part 2

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Steven hit the ground only seconds before the laptop did, and as stunned and shocked as he was by what had just happened, there was nothing he could do to stop Bill from slamming it into the ground before gleefully ripping up the stack of photos that had been sitting beside it. Really, the most the young Gem could do was watch in frozen, agape bewilderment as the demon simply laughed wildly over the unabashed destruction he had caused, as well as over the body he had just apparently stolen. And it seemed as though Bill found yet another point of twisted amusement as he happened to glance over at Steven with a wide, maniacal grin, one that looked so incredibly out of place on Dipper’s face, though there it was all the same.

“So, Rosebud, what do ya think of my new digs?” the demon asked, clumsily stumbling forward towards the young Gem, clearly not used to the process of walking. Steven gasped, scrambling to his feet to help before he quickly remembered exactly who he was dealing with here, despite the fact that, at least physically, this was still the body of one of his best friends. “I’m usually not for small, stringy, and sweaty, but it’s been so long since I’ve inhabited a human body, so I’ll take what I can get!”

“I-I don’t understand!” Steven finally spoke up, his eyes still wide with alarm as he shook his head incredulously. “What just happened? What did you do to Dipper?!”

“What’s it look like, kid?” Bill shrugged as he finally gained proper footing. “Me and Pine Tree just struck up the deal of a lifetime! I solved his little laptop problem for him,” he nodded over to the utterly ruined remains of the laptop lying discarded among torn photo scraps on the ground behind him. “And he gave me a puppet, just like I wanted! Isn’t it just great when things work out for everyone like this?”

“W-what? No!” Dipper exclaimed hotly upon hearing this, his ghost or spirit or whatever he was now still hovering anxiously near the ceiling. “You tricked me! This isn’t anything close to what we agreed to!”

“I dunno, Pine Tree, seems pretty on the level if you ask me,” Bill remarked callously. He completely ignored Steven as he glanced around in confusion over who the demon could possibly be talking to, since, as far as he knew, they were the only two people present in the room. “Say, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you don’t look too happy with how our little bargain turned out!”

“Of course, I’m not!” Dipper asserted, absolutely livid. “The deal’s off, Bill! Give me my body back and leave us alone, now!”

“Aw, it’s just plain adorable that you think that’s how this works, Pine Tree!” Bill laughed condescendingly as he nonchalantly headed over to the nearby mirror. “But nah, I think I’m gonna stick around in this meatsack for a while and have a little fun with it, you know? Break a few bones, maybe lose a limb or two, normal stuff you humans do.”

“Whoa, hold on!” Steven finally interjected upon hearing such sadistic plans. “First of all, who do you keep talking to? Dipper’s not… still in there with you… is he?”

“No, Steven, I’m right here!” Dipper exclaimed, haphazardly gliding down to position himself right in front of the young Gem, who seemed to not even register his presence at all. “Steven?” he tried again, frantically waving his hands in front of the young Gem’s response, only for him to continue staring right through him, as if he wasn’t there at all. “Steven! Ugh, why can’t you hear me?!”

“Ha! Welcome to the mindscape, kid!” Bill goaded mirthfully, clearly taking enjoyment in watching Dipper panic over his plight. “Without a vessel to possess, you’re basically a ghost! Fun, huh? Oh, and to answer your question, Rosebud, this isn’t like one of your dumb old fusions. The only one rolling around inside this lump of flesh is me! But don’t worry about your poor Pine Tree, he’s still floating around here, nagging at me to get out of his body, as if that’s ever gonna work!”

Steven took pause at this, gasping softly as he took another tentative look around the attic, the slightest hint of hope entering his tone, despite how disastrous this situation seemed to be. “Dipper…?”

“Steven!” Dipper shouted desperately, as loud as he could, even if his voice still seemed to reach no one but himself. Still, as distraught and horrified as he was amidst existing outside of his own body as he currently was, he hardly cared. “I’m literally right in front of you! And even if you can’t hear or see me, which I guess is what’s going on here, then you still need to get help! Find Mabel, or Connie, or the Gems, or someone and-”

“Well, lookie here!” Bill exclaimed with a wide smirk as he stood before the mirror, roughly examining his new vessel. “Two eyes?! This thing’s deluxe!” The demon paused, only for a second to, of all things, slap himself hard across the face, laughing with gleeful sadism all the while, much to Steven and Dipper’s shared appalled shock. “Woo! Ha! Pain is hilarious! I could do this all day!”

“Hey, stop it!” Steven protested, rushing over and stilling Bill’s hand before it could go in for another self-intended strike. “What do you think you’re doing?! If you’re using Dipper’s body for yourself right now, then why do you wanna hurt it?”

“Uh, because like I just said, it’s funny, kid,” Bill rolled his eyes as he pulled his hand away from the young Gem. “Duh.”

Steven paused at this, admittedly taken aback by such a demented, perverse train of thought, but even so, he wasn’t going to let such harm towards his friend go unchecked. “Y-you can’t-” he began rather shakily before cutting himself off and starting again, a bit firmer this time as he squared his shoulders and set the demon a look of hard resolve. “Bill, you need to get out of him, right now. I’m not just going to stand by and let you hurt one of my best friends like this!”

“Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do about it, Rosebud?” Bill challenged haughtily. “Hug me out of him? Sic that cotton candy colored cat of yours on me? Oh, or maybe force me to ‘talk about my feelings’ until I get bored and leave?”

“No,” Steven shook his head, his manner still quite brazen as he turned to leave. “I’m going to tell the Gems. If I can’t stop you and save Dipper all by myself, then maybe they can.”

“Yes!” Dipper cheered, heavily relieved upon hearing this plan. After all, if there was anyone in Gravity Falls who could square off against a foe as crafty and dangerous as Bill, then certainly it was the Crystal Gems. “Good! Hurry up and tell them, Steven! Hopefully they’ll be able to-”

“Oh yeah, sure, go ahead and tell those three Crystal Chumps all about this,” Bill cut in, his tone surprisingly lax as he grinned confidently. “In fact, I want you to!”

“Wait… you do?” Steven’s assured manner was all but gone upon hearing this, replaced with an acute sense of foreboding at how calm the demon seemed to be over his threat in general.

“Sure! It’ll be a blast to see my old pals Fuse Box, Bird Brain, and Half-Baked again after all these years! But, uh… fair warning, kid. By the time you get back, there might not be a Pine Tree left to save, if you catch my drift…” Both Steven and Dipper were left in confused silence at this, neither of them really seeming to gather what the demon had ominously just implied, though neither of them liked the sound of it at all. Still, Bill fortunately decided to explain it to them both, letting out something of an annoyed sigh as he did so. “Yeesh, you two sure are dense. What I mean, Rosebud, is that you’re more than welcome to go tattle on me to the Gems; but if you do, then I can’t make any promises that my little puppet here will stay alive and in once piece if you do…”

While it took Steven to understand exactly what this meant, Dipper got it almost instantly as he let out a horrified gasp at what this ultimatum could entail for him if Bill actually decided to go through with it. “Oh, no! Absolutely not! You can’t just-”

“Now, now, Pine Tree,” Bill cut him off, still grinning incessantly as he pitted Steven in just as impossible position as he had with him. “Those of us here in the physical plane are talking. So, Rosebud, I think I’ve spelled it out for you pretty nicely. You blab, he bleeds. Any questions?”

Steven was stunned into silence for a moment, his gut wrenching at the very thought of Dipper being harmed because of his own attempts to save him. By all accounts, Bill seemed to have all his bases covered with this, but even so, the young Gem didn’t want to believe that there was no hope left. “Y-you wouldn’t…” he trailed off weakly, hoping that he could somehow call the dream demon’s bluff, though of course, this attempt was nothing but an abject failure.

“Oh believe me, I would,” Bill’s smirk seemed to widen manically as he nodded down to his new vessel’s foot. Before Steven could even question his intent, the demon suddenly twisted his ankle sharply, a distinctive snap sounding out along with the unnatural movement as Bill simply let out a delighted, almost euphoric gasp to go along with the boys’ shared aghast one. “Ah, now that’s what I’m taking about! And there’s a lot more where that came from, Rosebud, if you don’t keep your trap shut. So, do you think we’ve reached an understanding yet? ‘Cause I keep this pain train going for as long as I have to until you get the point.”

“I get it! I get it!” Steven instantly nodded in fearful agreement, his eyes wide as he looked down to Bill’s, or rather, Dipper’s now twisted ankle. “I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise! J-just… just don’t hurt him anymore, please.”

“What?! No!” Dipper protested, even though he knew Steven couldn’t hear him. But even so, he persisted in the small, almost nonexistent hope that at least something would make it through to him. “This is a horrible idea, Steven! Bill’s just trying to trick you like he tricked me! You have to get help, before he does something-”

“Geez, Pine Tree, would ya quit being so rude up there?” Bill deadpanned, rolling his eyes up at Dipper. “Me and Rosebud are trying to make a deal here. And it’s a deal I think I’m willing to take…” The demon extended a hand out for the young Gem to shake, one that, interestingly enough, didn’t light up with any blue fire this time. Still, knowing that this was the only real way he could keep Dipper safe for the moment, Steven knew he had no choice but to hesitantly comply, at least for now.

“Steven, don’t do this!” Dipper pleaded once more, distraught beyond measure by this point. “He’s blackmailing to you just so he can keep his tracks covered! You have to hear me, please!” In a meager attempt to stop this dangerous deal, he actually rushed down to place himself between Bill and Steven, hoping that he could at least do something. But of course, both of their hands cleanly passed through his incorporeal form and met in a firm, solidifying handshake, one that he was completely powerless to stop, just like this entire waking nightmare he now found himself in as a whole.

“Wow, what do ya know?!” Bill quipped happily, taking clear enjoyment in Steven and Dipper’s shared expressions of pained defeat. “Two deals in one day! I’m on a roll! They should give out prizes for being this good!”

While Steven really had nothing to say in the aftermath of the silence he had just agreed to keep, Dipper was far more vocal about it, absolutely outraged with the dream demon for deceiving not just him, but now the young Gem, who had really nothing to do with any of this, as well. “I don’t get it,” he glared coldly at the dream demon, who simply smirked up at him in smug satisfaction. “Why are you even doing this? What could you possibly have to gain from possessing my body and forcing Steven to keep quiet about it?! It makes no sense!”

“One thing you should learn here and now, kid,” Bill began as casual as ever. “Is that me and ‘sense’ don’t usually see eye-to-eye. But still, you’ve been getting way too close to figuring out some major answers lately. I’ve got big plans and I don’t need either of you getting in my way. Destroying the laptop was a cinch! Now I just need to get rid of that journal of yours and the rest is history!”

“Wait, the journal?” Steven asked, confused. “That… that’s all you want?”

“You bet your gem it is, Rosebud!” Bill quipped, crossing his arms. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find it, do ya?”

“No! Steven, you can’t tell him!” Dipper practically screamed, knowing that he couldn’t afford to lose both the journal and the laptop all in one day, especially if he ever hoped to regain his body. “Wait a second… do you even know where-”

“I-I don’t know…” Steven replied truthfully, unknowingly supplying Dipper with the answer he had been hoping for. At the same time, the young Gem realized that he was treading on fragile ground almost constantly now. After all, if he said one wrong word or made one wrong move, then certainly the dream demon could and would gladly mutilate Dipper in any way he pleased. A thought that made Steven practically nauseous with worry and woe. “But if you do end up finding the journal, then will you let Dipper have his body back?”

“Pfft, sure, I will, kid,” Bill remarked, his tone overtly sarcastic as he headed for the stairs. “I’ll get on that as soon as never!”

“Wha—But you can’t just-”

“But for now,” the demon interrupted with a leering smirk. “Race you boys to the bottom of the stairs!”

Without another word, Bill tipped back, still grinning all the while as he intentionally allowed himself to fall backwards down the attic stairs headfirst. Dipper and Steven both gasped in alarm at this, especially as they heard the demon thump loudly and clumsily down the stairs. And while the young Gem fretfully ran after him, Dipper hastily decided to take advantage of his new intangible form and dove right through the floor, passing through it recklessly as he largely had no idea how to maneuver about like this. He made it to the kitchen just seconds after Bill did, only to find the demon casually pulling a can of Pitt Cola out of the fridge. “Ah, human soda!” he exclaimed cheerfully, cracking it open. “I’m gonna drink it like a person!” He proceeded to do so in an incredibly unorthodox way, pouring the soda directly into his mouth before moving the can upward to pour into his eyes, laughing twistedly all the while.

“Ok, seriously?!” Dipper groaned in frustrated disgust at this. “First you go and twist my ankle, and now this?! Could you maybe just, I dunno, calm down with all this crazy masochism stuff for a minute?!”

“Why don’t you calm down with all that whining, Pine Tree?” Bill countered snidely, his face still dripping wet with soda. “After all, being an incorporeal, immaterial apparition isn’t that bad. And I should know, seeing as how I’ve been one for countless millennia! You might as well get used to it now, kid, ‘cause as soon as I get my hands on that journal, you’re gonna be as good as stuck like that. Forever!”

As Bill let out another malicious laugh over this, Dipper stilled, finding that he had nothing to say in light of such a horrific implication. The thought of him being outside of his body while it was battered and abused by an insane demon for even another minute was bad enough on its own, but the idea that he might never get it back? That he would be forced to forever remain as nothing more than an imperceptible, essentially voiceless spirit for the rest of eternity, all because of one single, thoughtless, desperate decision made in the heat of the moment? It was unthinkable, downright unbearable. And yet, as deeply as he feared such a horrendous outcome, Dipper forced himself to remember that hope wasn’t completely gone yet. In fact, he received a much-needed reminder of that hope as Steven finally arrived, breathless as nearly collapsed against the kitchen entryway after having searched the entire house to find Bill and make sure he hadn’t caused any further harm. And while Dipper knew that young Gem couldn’t currently see or hear him and that the demon had blackmailed him into secrecy about the matter, he managed to take a small semblance of solace in the fact that someone knew about his dire plight. And even though he had literally nothing else at the moment, including his own body, at least he had that.

“Wow, Rosebud, you sure are slow!” Bill quipped as Steven tried to catch his breath. “I would’ve thought your space rock half would give you a little more spring in your step, but I guess not. So anyway, speaking of that journal, Pine Tree,” the demon paused only briefly, shoving his hand into the nearby cutlery drawer before brutally slamming it onto his arm repeatedly while he continued, wincing every once in a while from the pain. “Where do you keep it anyway? Seeing as how Rosebud’s clueless—what else is new?—I figure you’d be the best guy to go to, what with you always shoving your nose into it. So, it’s gotta be around here somewhere, right?”

“Hey, cut that out!” Steven interjected before Dipper had a chance to answer, rushing over to Bill and quickly pulling his arm out of the drawer, only to gasp in alarm as he myriad of forks sticking out of it.

“Boy, these arms sure are durable, huh?!” the demon chuckled zanily, though fortunately he didn’t stop the young Gem from gently pulling the forks out of his stolen flesh.

“Like I’d ever tell you where the journal is!” Dipper exclaimed, his former dread replaced with renewed fury as he glared at Bill defiantly. “I’ve hidden it! Somewhere you’ll never find it in a million years!”

“Dipper! Steven!” Mabel’s cheery call cut through the ongoing tension like a knife as her and Connie made their way into the room. “Oh, there you guys are! We’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Did you guys, you know, work things out yet?” Connie asked tentatively. “Is everything finally ok between all of us again?”

“No, everything’s not ok!” Dipper shouted to the girls, gliding down right in front of them only to find that, much like Steven, they apparently couldn’t see or hear him either. “Mabel! Connie! Oh, come on! Not you guys too!”

“Yep! Everything’s a-ok here!” Bill replied brightly, keeping one arm held behind his back and one resting on the startled Steven’s shoulder to effectively hide the bleeding puncture wounds the forks had left behind. “Isn’t that right, Steven?”

The young Gem had practically frozen up altogether by this point, his eyes wide as he looked between Bill and the girls, completely unsure of what to say. Of course, he wanted to tell them what was really going on, to warn them about the demon’s outright theft of Dipper’s body and the danger he now posed, not just to his new vessel, but potentially to them all. But as Bill sent him a terse, conniving wink, he was all too quickly reminded that his lips were sealed, lest he inadvertently cause Dipper untold amounts of harm. Still, that didn’t mean Steven couldn’t at the very least try to get the message across somehow. “Uh, r-right! Everything… everything’s completely fine, n-nothing to worry about here!”

“Oh good!” Mabel let out a huge sigh of relief at this. “You know, Dipper, I kinda felt a little… well, terrible about what I said earlier, about Lapis not being as important as my puppet show?”

“Don’t remind me…” Dipper grumbled to himself, crossing his arms as he floated away from the girls in defeat. A part of him wanted to blame Mabel for his current disastrous straits, seeing as how her refusal to help him had, in a way, driven him into accepting Bill’s “help”. But when it came right down to it, he knew the only one he could really blame for all this was himself. And in many ways, that fact only made everything so much worse.

“But I’m so glad to see that you don’t hate me or anything because of it,” Mabel continued with a warm, though somewhat embarrassed grin. “After all, you know I didn’t mean any of that. I just… really want this puppet show to work out, and I—Steven, is something going on with your eye there?”

Steven sucked in a sharp breath, his hands abruptly falling back down to his sides upon being called out. With Bill momentarily distracted, the young Gem had made an attempt to wordlessly signal his presence to the girls by way of using his hands to make a triangle shape around his eye while subtly nodding over at “Dipper”, a look of muted, anxious desperation written all over his face. Connie had been the first to notice this attempt, but she didn’t bring it up as she had instead merely stared at him in blank confusion, unsure of what to make of his rather odd behavior. Though of course, Mabel curiously addressed it as soon as she saw it and inadvertently diverted Bill’s attention towards it in the process, and the broad, knowing smirk he sent Steven over it was more than enough to frighten the young Gem to his core.

“Steven?” Connie cut in, suddenly concerned by his visibly anxious silence. “Are you ok?”

“Y-yeah! I’m fine!” Steven exclaimed loudly, forcing a huge, albeit fake smile onto his face. “G-great, even! “Super great, actually! Couldn’t be better! In fact, I’m so great that they should make a whole new category of great, c-cause that’s how great everything is right now!”

The young Gem let out a small bout of awkward laughter, one that elicited an amused eyeroll from Bill and initially bewildered stares from the girls before Mabel split into a wide, pleased smile. “Great!” she gripped cheerfully, turning to leave. “Well, we should probably get going. The show’s only in a few hours, and there’s still so much to do! Oh, by the way, Dipper, I borrowed your journal to use as a prop in the show! I hope you don’t mind because I’m gonna go before you can finish processing this sentence, ok, bye!” Without another word, Mabel ran off, her excitement steadily building for her long-awaited sock opera as its premiere drew ever nearer.

“Sorry, Dipper,” Connie remarked with a small laugh as she prepared to go herself. “I tried to talk Mabel out of using the journal, but she wouldn’t really listen since she’s so pumped about her play and everything. But hey, look on the bright side; at least once it’s over, we’ll finally have time to sit down and figure out that password.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will…” Bill remarked sardonically as Connie left, sending Dipper in particular a smug grin as if to silently remind him that the laptop was no more. A reminder that he certainly didn’t need as he was still in the process of reeling from it, and everything else, in the first place. “And don’t worry about the journal! I have a feeling I’ll be seeing it soon enough…”

“No, you won’t! Not if I have anything to do about it!” Dipper protested crossly, more than prepared to do whatever he could to stop the demon’s ambitions. Even if, in his current state, he could do so very little. “Mabel! Connie! Wait!” he called, starting to glide after them as they left. “Don’t listen to him! That’s not me! I’m not-” He stopped short he heard the front door close behind the girls, painfully reiterating for him, once again, that no one could hear him, no one could see him, knew one even knew he was there at all. No one that is, except for Bill, which gave him no consolation at all, and Steven, who was only merely aware of his presence and nothing else, and who was only struggling because of that knowledge.

“You know, Rosebud,” Bill remarked, his tone suddenly cold as he looked over at Steven, crossing his arms disapprovingly. “You’re pretty terrible at this whole keeping quiet thing. I thought you actually ‘cared’ about Pine Tree and wanted to keep him ‘safe’ and everything, but I guess I thought wrong.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Steven asked nervously.

“I’m talking about how you just tried to sell our little secret out to Shooting Star and Sword Swinger!” the demon scowled, frightening the young Gem as he took a sudden, daring step closer to him. “You must’ve thought you were pretty clever by trying to tip them off when I wasn’t looking, but I was, Rosebud, I was! So if you think for one second that you’ll be able to get away with telling anyone while my back is turned, then you’re dead wrong. Because I can see everything…”

Steven swallowed hard, his hands trembling at his sides as he met Bill’s chilling, unnaturally slitted stare. “B-but I… I didn’t tell them!” he squeaked, sounding much more timidly than he would have liked to. “I-I was just trying to-”

“You were just trying to break our deal!” the demon snapped, suddenly outraged for whatever reason. Still, he backed off from the young Gem a bit, letting out an evening breath as he slowly, almost methodically walked back over to the silverware drawer once more. “But that’s fine, it’s perfectly fine…”

By now, Dipper had taken notice of Bill’s outburst and had turned back towards the kitchen, initially more concerned for Steven’s safety than his own. “W-what are you doing…?”

“What… what are you doing?” Steven unknowingly echoed, just as unnerved by the demon’s rather unsteady tone as he reached into the open drawer for something.

“Oh, just keeping things fair…” Bill’s sinister smirk returned as he slowly pulled something out of the drawer that made both boys freeze in unabridged terror. It was a knife, a long, sharp, narrow boning knife, one that glistened in the light coming in through the window as the demon held it up with an admiring grin. “After all, if you can’t keep your end of the bargain, Rosebud, then I don’t see why I have to keep mine!”

Steven gasped sharply, finally understanding exactly what was going on here as Bill coyly lifted the knife up to his left shoulder, its tip dangling dangerously close to digging right in. “No!” the young Gem cried, rushing forward in a sudden, absolute panic.

“W-wait! Don’t!” Dipper exclaimed fearfully, doing the exact same thing, though Bill easily countered him by smoothly stepping out of his path. Unable to really stop himself yet, Dipper accidentally crashed right into the wall behind the demon, or rather he would have if he was physical; instead, he phased cleanly through it and into the next room, leaving only Steven behind to try and fail to stop Bill.

“Oops!” Bill gleefully exclaimed as he roughly shoved the tip of the knife down into his appropriated shoulder, flinching from the pain but clearly reveling in it in the same time. Steven stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes huge with distress as he watched the demon pull the blade down just a bit, creating a rather large cut, one that began to leak with blood the moment it was made. While Bill simply laughed sadistically at this self-inflicted torment, Steven paled at it, his mind going completely blank as he watched the blood from the wound start to pour down his arm. Down Dipper’s arm, Steven had to remind himself, and as he did, instinct abruptly took over.

Acting quickly, the young Gem generously licked his hand, his expression rife with both fear and resolve as he used his free hand to pull the knife out of Bill’s grasp, clearly catching him off guard. Then, without any hesitation, Steven gently placed his spit-covered palm right on top of the bleeding shoulder wound, replacing his fear with bravery as met the demon’s surprised expression with a cold, unflinching one. One that he hoped would let him know that he wouldn’t stand for any of his friends being harmed, especially not like this.

A beat of tenuous silence passed between the dream demon and the young Gem at this, and during it, Dipper managed to phase back into the kitchen, only to freeze in shock at the sight of his own torn-open shoulder. Still, he said nothing as he noticed what he assumed was Steven trying to heal him, only as the seconds went by and the cut showed no signs of closing up whatsoever, he started to doubt if that was really the case.

“I-I don’t understand…” Steven shook his head incredulously as he slowly pulled his hand away, cringing at the resurgent blood now covering the still-open wound. “W-why isn’t this working?! My spit, i-it’s supposed to be-” The young Gem cut himself off, still rather surprised that Bill hadn’t said anything about this yet as he instead only gave him a dark, knowing grin, one that only told Steven that there was more to this than he thought. Still, he only understood what was happening as he thought about just how cold the demon’s stolen body was, just how pale and colorless his skin seemed to be, just how Bill seemed to be making no effort to even breathe at all. And all at once, every single solitary gruesome piece clicked right into place.

“Well, what do ya know, Rosebud?” the demon smirked, his voice strangely soft and subdued for a change. “Looks like your spit can’t heal everything…”

A tight sob finally escaped Steven at this, tears filling his eyes as he reeled from such a horrific realization, one that likewise nearly sent Dipper into a complete panic attack as he simply looked to his own preoccupied body, completely distraught that it wasn’t his anymore, not really. Instead, he had signed it away with just a mere handshake, to a masochistic demon who had no gripes about damaging and even destroying it in any sick, twisted way he saw fit. And if even Steven, with healing powers and all, couldn’t save him from such a dark, terrible fate, then who could?

“Steven! Dipper!” Connie suddenly called from outside, unfortunately not venturing inside to see the bloody scene in the kitchen. “Come on, you guys! We’re all leaving to go to the theatre!”

“On our way!” Bill called brightly, already heading off to do just that, but not before smirking triumphantly back at Steven. “Oh, quit your crying already, Rosebud! Pine Tree’s arm isn’t gonna fall off… yet!”

The demon simply let out another insane laugh as he went on his way, leaving Steven behind, his hand still covered in blood from a wound that, against all odds, he had been powerless to heal. Dipper, on the other hand, was nowhere near as shell shocked, his invisible hands clenching into tight, angry fists as his despair was replaced with raw, unrestrained fury. Because how dare Bill con him in the name of helping Lapis like this, and then proceed to do anything but. How dare he injure and abuse his body in such a callous, sadistic way. How dare he rope Steven into of this and prey upon his endless selflessness and devotion just to keep him quiet and compliant. The demon had crossed far too many lines, but even as relatively helpless as he currently was, Dipper adamantly refused to let him cross any more.

“I’m gonna stop you, Bill!” he lividly shouted after the demon before he could leave the room. “I’m going to find that journal before you do, and I’m going to stop you!”

Bill paused at this, but only for a moment, already letting out a dark, demented chuckle as he spoke ominously. “But how can you stop me…” he began, slowly turning to glance back at Dipper with a huge, deranged grin. “If you don’t exist!?”

The demon’s laughter amplified to absolutely psychotic levels as he walked out, leaving both boys stunned and distressed over everything that had just happened. Dipper in particular took Bill’s cruel taunting especially hard as he looked down to his own intangible hands once more, hands that couldn’t touch or feel anything at all. In fact, in his current state, he might as well have just been dead air: incorporeal, invisible, imperceptible, practically nonexistent, just as Bill had said. And as much as he hated to even entertain the thought of the demon being right, in a sense, it was largely true. No one could see him, no one could hear him; to everyone but him, it was like he wasn’t even there. The dreadful thought of Bill possibly winning somehow, of him having to remain as a hallow apparition forever, filled Dipper’s thoughts once more, only now they were more crushing and overwhelming than ever before. He couldn’t even imagine existing in such a cold, lonely state, with no one to talk to and nothing to do but wander aimlessly and formlessly, for the rest of time itself. He couldn’t imagine never being able to so much as even feel even the slightest of physical sensations ever again, to never feel the sun on his skin or the ground beneath his feet or all of the other things he had always taken for granted when he had his body. And most of all, he couldn’t imagine never being able to apologize to Steven for putting him in such a terrible position, never being able to make things right with Mabel after their bitter argument, never being able to help Lapis, who was still arguably in an even worse state than he was at the moment, all because he had been impulsive, he had been desperate, he had been stupid to think that making a deal with an actual demon would lead to anything other than complete and utter disaster.

Still, for as genuinely possible as all of that was, Dipper was still resolved to do what he could to keep any of it from becoming a reality. There had to be something, anything he could do to stop Bill in his tracks and secure the journal before he could get his hands on it. As far as he was concerned, that was very well the key now, not just to halting the demon’s ambitions, but to getting him back in his own body as well. And as long as Bill didn’t have it, then there was still a chance, no matter how small.

And so, Dipper prepared to go after Bill, largely out of fear of what would else would happen to his body if he left it alone with the demon for too long but also with the determined intent of reaching the journal first. And yet, before he could get too far, he stopped short upon hearing Steven quietly and tentatively speak up to address him.

“D-Dipper…?” he ventured, still rather tearful as he looked up at the seemingly empty space above him. “I… I don’t know if Bill was telling the truth about you still being here but… i-if you are… then I… I’m so sorry. If I had been there just a second sooner, t-then maybe I could have stopped this from ever happening! B-but I was too late… A-and now… you’re… he’s going to… I can’t…” He cut himself off with another small sob as he looked to his still-bloody hand, a heavy wave of shame washing over him, one that he had no idea how to reconcile.

“Oh, Steven…” Dipper sighed, both incredibly touched and incredibly guilty over just how upset the young Gem was over this disaster. Solemnly, he took the time to float down to Steven’s level, wishing that there was something he could do to assure him that he was still indeed there and that he didn’t blame him for his current state at all. After all, the young Gem had been cruelly manipulated and duped by Bill just as much as he had. As far as he was concerned, they were both completely lost in a storm that neither of them had any genuine hope of stopping on their own.

“I-I... I’ll figure out some way to save you, Dipper,” Steven said after a moment of heartbroken silence, his tone a little steadier this time. “I don’t know how, but I-I’ll find a way! I promise.”

Dipper took pause at this, somewhat caught off guard as he realized just how much this resolved promise reminded him of his own vow to rescue Lapis, a goal that seemed even further out of reach now that he was the one who needed rescuing. Still, for as much as he usually preferred to take on insurmountable challenges like this on alone, he couldn’t deny just how grateful he was for the young Gem’s aid now, no matter how small and tenuous it was forced to be. And for the first time since any of this mess had begun, Dipper couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, Steven,” he said softly before heading off, hoping that very soon, he’d be able to deliver his words of gratitude to the young Gem in person.

Mabel had made sure to spread the word far and wide throughout town about her sock opera, and seeing as how Gravity Falls’ local theatre didn’t often host any actual shows of any note, a surprisingly large turnout showed up for the play, mostly just to see what all the fuss was about. Immediately upon their arrival to the theatre, Mabel had immediately requested Connie and Steven’s presence backstage so they could help her, Candy, and Grenda with last minute preparations. Which was something that the young Gem didn’t really engage in as he instead anxiously peeked out from behind the curtain, his nerves still frayed as he watched Bill sit down in the audience alongside Soos, Wendy, and Stan. The demon seemed to be fooling just about everyone into thinking that he was actually Dipper, and he had even managed to conceal the shoulder wound he had given himself by partially cleaning it up and haphazardly bandaging it, though that gave Steven on consolation. Especially since he knew that Bill could just as well cause another, even graver injury at any given moment, with or without any kind of provocation on his part.

Even so, the young Gem had gotten the message clearly; he had kept his mouth discreetly shut all the way to the theater, and despite Connie’s show of concern for his apparent tension, he had managed to largely convince her that everything was fine. It was a lie he hated telling, especially given the circumstances, but a necessary one all the same if he ever wanted to help save Dipper. Still, Steven couldn’t suppress a small sigh of relief as he spotted the Gems enter the theater and take a seat up front alongside the aforementioned group, hoping that they, if no one else, could somehow see through Bill’s dangerous ruse.

“Huh, you know I’m surprised you three would turn up for something like this,” Stan remarked to the Gems as they sat down. “Especially you, Pearl. I always thought something like some boring ballet would be more your taste.”

The white Gem scoffed, crossing her arms as she rolled her eyes at the conman. “Oh, please, Stan. We’re obviously here to support Mabel and Steven’s little… what was it called again?” she whispered to Garnet, aside.

“Puppet show,” Garnet replied simply.

“Yes, that,” Pearl nodded affirmatively.

“Well, Mabel mentioned that there’d be fireworks and junk, so I kinda just came to see that,” Amethyst said as she messily munched on a large bag of popcorn.

“Amethyst, where’d you get that popcorn from?” Stan asked, raising an eyebrow. “Last time I checked, this cheapo theater doesn’t even have a concession stand.”

“Found it,” the purple Gem shrugged bluntly, leaving open a question that no one really wanted to ask.

“Ah, there’s nothin’ like the theatre, huh, toots?” Bill quipped casually as he leaned back in his seat between Wendy and Soos. “Hey, Soos, wanna hear the exact time and date of your death?”

“Heh, ok!” the handyman agreed in blithe innocence.

“Whoa, dude!” Amethyst spoke up, leaning forward in surprise as she looked over at “Dipper”. “What happened to your shoulder?”

“Oh, this tiny scratch?” Bill began smoothly, clearly reveling in the fact that even the Gems were blind to his charade. “It’s just from a little fall down the stairs. Nothin’ too serious.”

“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like it’s not serious!” Pearl frowned with concern, noticing the blood starting to soak through the bandages the demon had carelessly wrapped around the wound. “Dipper, you should really ask Steven to heal that for you. Or at the very least, have Stan take you to go get some proper medical attention.”

“Meh, he’ll tough it out,” Stan spoke up, deadpan as he absently glanced through his program, not even bothering to so much as even glance up. “Besides, a few cuts and bruises here and there never hurt anybody. …Well, I guess they do, technically speaking, but not that much.”

“Yeah, what he said,” Bill remarked to Pearl with a satisfied smirk. “So you and that traffic cone on your face there have nothing to worry about!”

The white Gem gasped in appalment at this, blushing profusely as she covered her nose in disgruntled embarrassment as Amethyst let out a rowdy laugh. “Oh man, nice one, Dipper!” she chuckled, ignoring the harsh look Pearl sent her way. “Who knew you could actually be funny when you’re not busy being a huge nerd like Pearl here?’

“Hey!” the white Gem protested, still quite flustered as Amethyst laughed once more, and this time Bill joined her. The demon cut his levity short, however, upon noticing that Garnet was staring at him, her expression cold and mistrusting as she ignored her teammates’ banter entirely. The Gem leader could sense that something was off, and while she was unable to pinpoint exactly what that something was, she could at the very least detect that “Dipper” seemed to be at the center of this apparent strangeness. And while she didn’t know what it was or why she had suddenly picked up on it, Garnet received an overwhelming sense of foreboding from it, one that was almost seemed almost familiar somehow, especially as she watched his confident grin turn into an annoyed scowl under her scrutiny. But even so, she said nothing on it for the moment, largely because her future vision was cloudier and more muddled than ever before, to the point that she couldn’t even clearly see the end of the upcoming play, much less anything past it. In a way, it was almost like her foresight was blocked off by a wall of static, one that she didn’t know how to get rid of or even why it was there in the first place. Still, that didn’t mean that she didn’t still have access to her natural perceptiveness, which was giving her whispered warnings that something was wrong, even if she what yet.

“Hey, guys!” Mabel chimed as she ran up to the group on the front row, a delighted grin on her face. “So glad you all could make it!”

“Are you kidding me? I’d never miss… whatever this is,” Stan said, somewhat uncertain, though it was clear he was still putting forth an effort to be supportive.

“So when do we get to the part with the fireworks?” Amethyst asked zealously. “Cause I’m ready to see this place get lit up!”

“They’re not till the end of the show, silly!” Mabel chuckled. “But don’t worry; they’re gonna make the super dramatic, epic, romantic climax I wrote the most explosive thing you’ve ever seen! Pa-pow!” To punctuate her point, she mimicked the sound of a firework going off, embellished hand gestures and all, her eyes practically sparkling with excitement over her grand plans finally coming to fruition.

“By the by, Mabel,” Bill spoke up, his chipper manner instantly returning as he averted Garnet’s continued suspicious gaze. At the same time, Dipper finally managed to make it to the theater himself, awkwardly phasing in through the roof after having recklessly glided across town just to get there. Still, he was still determined to figure out a way to stop Bill, though upon overhearing the question he was currently posing to Mabel, he was quick to realize that would be much easier said than done. “Where’d you put my journal again?”

“Oh, I’m using it for the big wedding scene!” Mabel quipped, pointing up to the stage, or rather the catwalk above it where she had positioned the journal in anticipation for its eventual appearance. “I still need a reverend though…”

“Hey, what if I play the reverend?” the demon offered, barely suppressing a greedy smile. “I mean, someone’s gotta hold that journal, right?”

“Ooo, great idea!” Mabel readily agreed. “Let’s go!”

Not wasting another second, Mabel began making a beeline for the stage, Bill not hesitating to follow after her all for the intent of getting the journal and nothing else, something that Dipper was acutely aware of, even if his sister wasn’t. “Wait! Mabel!” he called anxiously as he began to race after them backstage. He stopped short however, upon taking a brief glance back towards the front row, or more specifically the Gems, as he heard them talking about him.

“I wonder what’s gotten into Dipper lately…” Pearl mused fretfully, though still rather bitter about Bill’s callous teasing from earlier. “Did you hear what he said about my nose? That was just plain uncalled for!”

“Uh, did ya see those big ol’ bags under his eyes, P?” Amethyst asked casually. “The kid obviously hasn’t been catching any Z’s lately. Probably working on that dumb old laptop all week.”

“Well, I hope he gets some sleep soon,” the white Gem remarked, crossing her arms. “Honestly that laptop can wait if he’s that out of it. Don’t you agree, Garnet?” Pearl paused, noticing that the Gem leader wasn’t answering but was instead staring after where the kids had just ran off to, her expression still set in a tight, dubious frown. “Garnet?”

“Pearl, Amethyst,” she finally spoke, her voice soft, almost tense as her shades seemed to reflect the curtain ahead. “Did you two feel something… familiar just now?”

“Familiar?” the purple Gem asked with a confused frown. “Like what?”

“Like-” Garnet cut herself off upon looking around, clearly uncomfortable with the thought of talking about this with so many people around. After all, for all she knew, it could have been nothing at all, so why raise any alarm until she at least knew at least a little more about what was going on? “I-it… it’s nothing. Forget about it.”

Amethyst and Pearl exchanged a confused look at this, but even so, they decided to let the matter go if that’s what Garnet intended to do as well. At the same time, Steven gasped softly upon noticing Bill approaching, and, out of fear more than anything else, he quickly tucked himself behind the curtain just as Mabel passed by first, followed by the demon. Despite the young Gem’s attempts at making himself scarce, Bill still noticed him and still sent him a sinister, triumphant grin, one that sent shivers down Steven’s spine as he remembered what had happened back at the shack and just how desperate he was to prevent that from ever happening again. As far as the young Gem was concerned, he’d remain as quiet as he had to for as long as he had to just to keep the demon from inflicting any more harm upon Dipper. It was a difficult, almost painful charge, but one that Steven knew that he had to keep up, no matter what; after all, he was the only one who really could.

“Steven?”

“Ah!” Steven gasped, caught completely off guard by Connie as she tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “O-oh, Connie! I-it’s just you…”

“Uh… yeah, it is…” Connie frowned, taking note of just how panicky the young Gem seemed to. “Anyway, I’m glad I found you. We have to que the puppets up before the show starts, remember?”

“Right!” Steven nodded with a nervous laugh, one that was quick to falter back into fear. “P-puppets…”

“Steven, are you… ok?” Connie asked, concerned as she began to lead the way backstage. “You’ve been acting kind of weird all day. You and Dipper, for that matter. What’s going on with you guys?”

“N-nothing! Nothing’s going on!” Steven protested defensively, breaking out into a cold sweat. “I don’t know why you’d think anything weird is going on, b-because that couldn’t be any further from the truth!”

“Hm…” Connie mused, clearly not fully convinced of this claim. Really, she had picked up on the fact that something seemed off with the boys all the way back at the shack, with Steven’s sudden outright anxiousness and Dipper’s rare bizarre cheerfulness, both things that seemed quite odd considering how they usually acted. Still, with the puppet show about to begin and the young Gem being as tongue tied as he was, Connie knew that getting the answers to her steadily accumulating questions would just have to wait. “Well, if you say so…” she remarked doubtfully, making the resolve to keep her eyes open for any other strange happenings nonetheless.

The ongoing buzz of the awaiting audience quelled itself down into a silence as the house lights flickered on and off, the show’s orchestration tuning itself backstage. At the same time, Mabel stole a quick peek out from behind the curtain, taking in an excited, albeit nervous breath as she spotted Gabe take a seat in the middle of the audience, puppets still on both of his hands. In light of all her hard work, her meticulously planned show was set to turn out perfectly; and when it did, then certainly, Gabe would be enamored with her as much as she was with him, and they would both live happily ever after. And as far as she could see, nothing was going to keep that happy ending from coming true.

“The show is about to begin!” Grenda shouted boisterously over a megaphone backstage as the theater lights dimmed. “Please turn off your cell phones! Unless you’re texting me, cuties!”

With this, the curtain finally pulled open to initial applause, revealing the elaborate, glitter-drenched cardboard set the kids had constructed of the Mystery Shack and the Gem temple, both of them sitting right next to each other. Colorful stage lights illuminated the stage as fog from a pair of smoke machines began to pour in as Candy began the opening narration, playing a mystical keyboard riff all the while. “Gather round, and let us sing, about a girl who had almost everything…”

As she was rolled off the stage, the show began in proper. Mabel got to work, operating all of the sock puppets by herself seeing as how everyone else was regulated to rolls backstage. And as the first number’s upbeat tempo began, she did just that, her voice bright and buoyant as she poised her first two puppets to perform.

“Hey, look, its Mabel!” the puppet Mabel had made of Dipper began before her own puppet jumped in.

“Hi, there!” said puppet chimed brightly.

“Did you say stable?” puppet Soos asked, popping up from below.

“No, he said Mabel!” puppet Stan joined in.

“She has no labels!” Connie’s puppet proclaimed boldly.

“No one’s more able!” puppet Steven announced excitedly.

“Ok, hit it, everyone!” puppet Mabel exclaimed as the song began in earnest, the entire company of puppets singing as puppets of the Gems popped up and joined in as well.

“Who’s that girl, with the pig and braces? She puts smiles on everyone’s faces! When she’s around, you’re never bored!”

“I am a mayor!” a mayor puppet declared, holding up a small trophy. “And here’s an award!”

“I’m so confused about what’s happening right now…” Pearl whispered down in the audience below as the opening number exuberantly continued.

“What did she do to get all those socks to sing like that…?” Amethyst wondered, both impressed and disturbed. “When I had them, all they ever did was just lie around in a boring old pile in my room.”

“What, are you telling me you two have never seen a puppet show before?” Stan asked with a small snicker at their bewilderment. “Yeesh, you guys really need to get out more.”

“Shh!” Garnet cut in, silencing the ongoing banter at once lest they distract Mabel from her performance. “Just sit back and enjoy the show.”

“Thank you, mayor,” Mabel sang through her puppet warmly, having an admittedly wonderful time making her plans come to full fruition. “It’s true, I’m great. But the perfect girl needs the perfect maaaaate!”

“Hey, what’s up, I’m Gabe,” a puppet of the puppeteer himself appeared, just as casual as its real-life counterpart always was.

“Bwaaaa?!” puppet Mabel gasped, lovestruck as heart-shaped sunglasses were layered over its eyes.

With the show now in full swing and its audience fully distracted by it, Bill took the opportunity to try and get closer to the journal, all while remaining masterfully and craftily discreet the entire time. True, Steven had found out about his scheme from the get-go, but the dream demon hardly saw that as a hindrance, especially since the young Gem had been so easy to placate and manipulate that he had barely even had to try. As for everyone else, they were completely clueless to what was really going on, including the Crystal Gems, which Bill found to be an absolutely hilarious irony, all things considered. Really, all that was left was for him to get his hands on that journal and his inevitable victory would be ensured, in more ways than one.

“So, hey, Grendo,” Bill addressed the large girl who was currently in the middle of her stage managing tasks. To prepare him for his “role” as the reverend in the play, Mabel had suited him up in a very fitting clergyman costume, something that the dream demon hadn’t minded at all; as far as he was concerned, the only thing missing from the attire was his iconic dashing top hat. “Where’s that book prop I’m using for the wedding scene?”

“It’s up in the wedding cake,” Grenda replied, nodding up to the large wooden cake hanging up in the stage rafters. “But that doesn’t come down until act 3, so hold your horses!”

“Oh, I’ll hold my horses…” Bill remarked ominously as he backed off into the shadows backstage. “I’ll hold them… you monster.”

No sooner had the dream demon left than Dipper glided by, his frustration with not being able to be perceived by practically anyone quickly starting to mount. He had already perused the entire audience, hoping that someone among them, no matter who, would have been able to see or at least hear him, but that had been only a complete waste of time at most. Even Garnet, whom he had hoped would have been able to perceive the grave situation through her future vision, seemed to know nothing of it whatsoever. Still, Dipper didn’t stop trying, hoping that he could somehow find a way to communicate his dire plight to someone, before it was too late.

“Hey! Listen! Have you seen Mabel?” he frantically asked Grenda as he flew up to her, only for her to, just like everyone else, not notice him at all. All the same, Dipper knew that above all else, Mabel was the one he needed to warn about Bill’s intentions first, especially considering the access she currently had to the journal. A part of him hoped that Steven would be the one to fill her in on this, any injuries that Bill might inflict upon his body as a result notwithstanding, but of course, the young Gem was far too terrified of the dream demon’s threats to even try to breathe a word about the situation to anyone. Not that Dipper really blamed him though; after all, over the course of today alone, he had managed to form a pretty healthy fear of the blatantly insane, unwaveringly sadistic demon himself. “Ugh, this is pointless!” he grumbled to himself, though he still decided to take a brief pause to try and come up with some kind of strategy. “What did Bill say again? I can’t be heard without a vessel? Where would I find-” He cut his musings off the moment he glanced over to see the plentiful pile of sock puppets lying just to the side of the stage. And oddly enough, those simple gave him the first concrete idea he had all day, one that he only hoped would end up working.

“Finally, we’re together!” puppet Mabel proclaimed as it and puppet Gabe embraced, embroiled in the romantic tension of the opera.

“I’m sorry, Mabel, but I have to go fight,” puppet Gabe began melodramatically. “In the war!” At this, a helmet and gun landed upon the puppet, the background changing to cardboard flames as a gigantic, sock-tentacled monster rolled into the side of the stage. The fog machines started up again as lasers flickered about and gunshots sounded, all while puppet Gabe went off to valiantly fight while puppet Mabel saw him off.

“I’ll wait for you, Gabe!” she cried tearfully as the curtains began to draw on the first act. “I’ll wait for you!”

“Intermission has begun!” Grenda announced over the intercom as the audience applauded. “Mill about!”

As the house lights came back on, the audience proceeded to do just that, most of them pleasantly surprised at how the puppet show was turning out so far, a sentiment that its ragtag backstage crew carried as well. In fact, the only one who had barely been paying any attention to the show at all was Steven; after the beginning of the show, he had managed to slip away from Connie or anyone else, instead opting to take some time alone so he could try to think of a plan, something that he desperately needed right now. Of course, the young Gem knew that outright telling anyone about what Bill was up to was out of the question; the violent wound he had cheerfully inflicted upon Dipper’s shoulder was warning enough against that. But still, Steven had to do something; he couldn’t just sit by idle and silent while the twisted dream demon used his friend’s body to carry out his own nefarious purposes, whatever they really were beyond just the journal. And so the young Gem paced anxiously near the theater’s back door, occasionally muttering worriedly to himself as he struggled to come up with an idea that would successfully oust Bill while keeping Dipper from further harm. Which, at this rate, seemed like almost a complete and total impossibility, something that, much like everything else about this situation, only made Steven feel so much worse.

“Ugh, this is the worst!” the young Gem groaned morosely to himself, his face in his hands. “I can’t tell the Gems, or Mabel, or Connie, or anyone, o-or else he’ll just keep hurting Dipper! I feel so useless! There’s gotta be something I can to do-”

“To what, Rosebud?”

Steven froze, his shoulders tensing as he spun around to see none other than Bill, leaning casually against a nearby beam, arms crossed as he gave him a cold, almost vicious smirk. The young Gem had hoped that at the very least he would have been safe in contemplating the matter to himself, without anybody knowing, but even that seemed to be within Bill’s knowledge somehow. After all, the demon had so himself: he saw everything.

“T-to… to…” Steven trailed off, not even realizing that his hands were trembling out of fear. “I-I wasn’t… I was just… I’m not-”

“Oh, I know you’re not planning on trying to stop me,” Bill remarked smoothly, a smug grin still on his face as he brushed past Steven. The young Gem gasped softly, his eyes widening as he looked to the shoulder that had just bumped into him, with blood starting to seep through the darkened fabric now covering it. “Because that would be breaking our little… arrangement. And you wouldn’t wanna do that, would you, Rosebud?”

“N-no! I wasn’t going to—I was only-” Steven cut himself off, forcing himself to calm down as he took in a steadying breath. He knew what he was about to try was a longshot, considering how the dream demon seemed to have no sense of compassion or really anything even remotely related to mercy, but he decided to make this desperate appeal anyway. Just in case it might somehow miraculously work. “Look. All I want is to keep Dipper safe. I don’t know why you want to destroy the journal, b-but… maybe once you do, you could just, I don’t know… give him his body back and leave? The point is, you don’t have to do all of these terrible things to get it!”

“Well, of course I don’t have to any of this, kid,” Bill rolled his eyes sarcastically. “But I think what you’re not getting here is that I want to.”

“W-why?”

“Because it’s hilarious!” the dream demon chuckled twistedly. “Seeing you and Pine Tree get so panicky and riled up over every tiny cut or bruise I land on this boring ol’ fleshsack here is just endless laughs, more than I’ve had in a long time! In fact… lookie what I grabbed from the shack before we made our way over here…”

Steven jolted, his eyes growing wide with stark terror as Bill slowly pulled a knife, smaller than the one he had used to cut his shoulder but still quite sharp all the same, out of his clergyman’s coat, his sinister smirk deepening all the while. “W-wha—no!” the young Gem shook his head, his voice coming out as only a shaky whisper before it exploded in anxious protest. “You can’t! I-I already promised you that I’m not going to tell anybody a-and I haven’t!”

“But you were still thinking about it,” the dream demon pointed out, pulling the knife away from Steven as he tried reaching for it. “Which, if ya ask me, is almost just as bad.”

“But I’m not going to-” Steven grunted as Bill suddenly shoved him away to keep him from prying the knife out of his grip. The young Gem stumbled back, fortunately not falling, but still somewhat stunned, especially as he watched the dream demon begin to lift the blade slowly up towards his face.

“You know, now that I think about it, this whole two eye thing is pretty overrated,” he remarked caustically. “It’s been throwing my depth perception off like you wouldn’t believe! I don’t know how you humans stand it, looking at everything through two of these things instead of just one! So why don’t I just do Pine Tree a favor and just get rid of one ‘em for him? I’m sure he’d appreciate it, don’t you agree, Rosebud?”

“No! Don’t!” Steven cried frantically, nearly falling ill as he watched Bill draw the tip of the knife dangerously close to one his eyes, or rather, one of Dipper’s eyes. The young Gem knew that the dream demon was willing to stoop low just for the sake of fulfilling his own sadistic pleasure, but this was going way too far, especially since Steven knew he wouldn’t be able to heal any injuries that Bill might inflict. “I’m serious, Bill! You can’t do that to him!”

“Oh yeah?” the demon challenged smugly, the knife nearly touching his eye. “Why not?”

“B-because… y-you… that’s not… he… I-I…” Steven trailed off, choking on a small, desperate sob as tears began to roll down his cheeks. Once again, he was reminded of how completely helpless he was to stop this; true, he had promised to remain silent, and as far as he was concerned, he had even dutifully kept up his end of the bargain. But that didn’t mean he could force Bill to keep his. “Because… y-you just… can’t… Please… I-I’ll do anything! Just… just don’t do it!”

“Anything, huh?” Bill raised an intrigued eyebrow at this, lowering his knife, but only a bit. “Well, looks like things just got a bit more interesting… Especially since I just so happen to know about a certain… party who’d just love to get their hands on something that only you can give them, Rosebud…”

Steven’s palpable fear turned into uneasy confusion at this, largely since he didn’t have the faintest clue about what the dream demon might be referring to. Still, that didn’t mean he liked the ominous implications of what Bill had just said at all. “W-what are you talking ab-”

“Oh, there you guys are!” Connie interrupted, coming around the corner with a clipboard in hand. “Act one just ended, so we need to get ready to-” She abruptly cut herself off as she glanced up at the boys, her eyes wide with surprise as she noticed Steven’s frozen, fearful expression and the sharp knife that “Dipper” was holding alarmingly close to his face as he sent her an almost angry look of surprise. “Uh… what are you doing?

Steven simply sucked in a sharp breath, not daring to say a word or even make a move, lest Bill see that as proper grounds for harming his vessel, even if he clearly intended on doing so anyway. But even so, the dream demon was quick to cool off, his coy, confident facade returning, even if there was a hint of bitter frustration to it as he lowered his knife. “Oh, ya know, I was just telling my good buddy Steven here about how dangerous it is to play around with knives!” he quipped brightly, throwing an arm around the stiff young Gem’s shoulder. “It’s a pretty valuable life lesson, if I do say so myself. Wouldn’t you agree, Steven?”

“Uh, y-yeah!” Steven exclaimed immediately, breaking out into a cold sweat as he tried to force a smile. “I-it… it’s really, um… valuable…”

“Really?” Connie asked dubiously, raising an eyebrow as she crossed her arms. “Call me crazy, but for some reason I feel like a sock puppet show is a really weird place to be talking about knife safety, of all things. Especially since I thought you’ve had other things on your mind lately, Dipper, like, oh I don’t know, the laptop?”

“Oh, well of course, I’ve been thinking about that old laptop!” Bill contested smoothly enough. “In fact, you could almost say that I’ve been making some smashing progress with it!”

“Uh huh…” Connie nodded flatly, her manner turning even colder and more suspicious as she stepped closer to the dream demon. Now more than ever, she could tell that something was off with both boys, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it once and for all. “Say, Dipper… you sure looked pretty exhausted earlier… Are you sure you’re feeling ok?”

“Yep! I’m feeling right as rain, Con Con!” Bill assured snappily, not too phased by her suspicious scrutiny. “Why wouldn’t I be?” As this exchange continued, Steven took a small step back, his eyes still wide as he looked to Connie in hopeful amazement as well as growing fear. After all, if she did manage to somehow see through the dream demon’s clever ruse, then who was to say that Bill wouldn’t blackmail her into the same oppressive vow of silence that he had forced the young Gem into? Or, given the dangerous knife still held firmly in his grasp, do something even worse than that?

“Well, I noticed that you haven’t really been acting like yourself lately…” Connie mused, her tone still stoic and unflinching, even as she took a subtle glance down at the knife in the demon’s hand. “And I just wanted to make sure that nothing… weird was going on.”

“Weird, huh?” Bill asked knowingly, still smirking as calmly as ever. “Like what?”

Connie didn’t answer right away, her expression still incredibly skeptical, to the point of near hostility as she looked back and forth between Steven, wringing his hands anxiously on the sidelines as he intentionally averted her gaze, and Bill, who met her suspicion with an almost smug grin that was just full of untold secrets. Secrets that she knew she was getting so close to uncovering, that she was determined to uncover, because something here was wrong, perhaps even gravely wrong, with two of her closest friends. And she felt compelled, obligated even, to discover what that something was and help fix it as best as she could.

But for now, Connie was prepared to remain levelheaded and inconspicuous, largely since “Dipper” seemed intent on doing the exact same thing. However, she really couldn’t remain completely silent anymore upon noticing the blood on his shoulder starting to seep through his suit coat. But before she could even get a word out, this rigid encounter was abruptly interrupted by Mabel as she hectically hurried by.

“Steven! Connie!” she exclaimed, grabbing the pair by the wrist as she began to pull them away. “Come on! I need your help setting up for the next act! Dipper, you keep getting ready for that wedding scene! It’s coming up sooner than you think!”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mabes!” Bill replied blithely, taking care to hide the knife behind his back as the others left. “I’ll be ready alright! I’ll be ready…” His bright grin darkened as Steven anxiously glanced back at him, his eyes still wide with distraught panic, especially as the dream demon placed a finger over his lips, a sinister reminder to stay silent or have Dipper suffer the unthinkable consequences.

Whatever tension and uncertainty now filled both Steven and Connie, Mabel hardly noticed it as they stepped into her dressing room. Seeing as how the first half of the show had gone off without a hitch, her spirits were running high, just as high as her energy levels currently were. In fact, she was so elated at her success so far that she initially paid no mind to Steven’s ongoing nervousness or Connie’s growing suspicion as she took a short breather to gear up for the next act.

“Ok, you guys,” she began steadily, pacing back and forth between the pair. “The first act was a lot, but I think it turned out pretty amazing, just like I knew it would! And we’re already halfway there! Only 36 more musical numbers, and then it’ll be a wrap, and then Gabe will fall in love with me, and then we’ll get married, and then we’ll have a bunch of beautiful puppet prodigy babies, and it’ll be great!”

“Uh, sure it will, Mabel…” Connie mused, arms crossed as she at least took solace in the fact that nothing seemed out of the ordinary with her when compared to the boys. “But in the meantime, have you noticed anything… strange about Dipper today?”

“Strange?” Mabel paused, frowning in confusion. “Well, now that you mention it, he has been a lot more cheerful and smiley than he usually is… But I just chalked that up to him finally stepping away from the laptop for a bit to take a nap.”

“Y-yeah! You’re probably right, Mabel!” Steven hastily interjected, shuddering somewhat as Connie sent him a disapproving glance. “I’m sure Dipper’s just feeling better because he got some rest! Which means nothing weird or unnatural or scary is going on at all!”

“Sorry, Steven, but I really don’t think you’re one to talk seeing as how you’ve been acting so nervous and jumpy lately,” Connie shook her head dubiously. “Seriously, what’s been going on with you and Dipper? I’m really starting to worry about you guys…”

“W-worry? Why would you be worried?” Steven asked, playing her concern off with a fake, anxious laugh.

“Oh, well, let’s see,” Connie began pointedly. “There was the fact that, just a few minutes ago, I spotted Dipper talking to you with a knife in his hand!”

“A knife?” Mabel asked in sudden bewildered alarm. “W-what was he doing with a knife?”

“That’s what I’d like to know…” Connie remarked, glancing over at Steven expectantly.

The young Gem swallowed hard, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides as his eyes darted back and forth between Connie and Mabel, both of whom were looking to him as if he had all the answers. And though he did, Steven knew he couldn’t give any of them, even if Bill wasn’t there at the moment. He was playing a dangerous game with the dream demon, one that he couldn’t afford to take chances with, lest he gamble away something that wasn’t even his but was still incredibly valuable to him. But despite his submissive silence, Connie seemed to somehow be onto Bill through her own clever merits, which Steven saw as both a blessing and a curse, given that now, the pressure was all entirely on him to cover the demon’s tracks, as much as he desperately didn’t want to. But even so, he had to, especially since there could be potentially dire circumstances for all of them if he didn’t. “Connie, n-no, you don’t under-” the young Gem cut himself off, clearly struggling to come up with a proper explanation to something that he barely understood himself. “H-he wasn’t… we… we were just… Look, I-I know some weird stuff’s been happening today, but you guys have to trust me when I say that… that y-you have nothing to worry about.”

“Ugh, yes, we do!” Connie protested in apt frustration as Mabel simply looked to him in fretful confusion. “It’s so obvious that something weird is going on here! And it’s something we all deserve to know about! Steven, I thought you said you weren’t going to shut us out anymore, so why are doing that again now?! What are you hiding from us?!”

“I’m not hiding anything!” Steven argued, even though he knew that was a complete and utter lie. “Connie, Mabel, you have to believe me that there’s nothing-”

“I don’t believe you!” Connie practically exploded, absolutely livid by this point that Steven, of all people, would deny her of the truth like this. “Just admit it already, Steven! There’s something wrong with you and Dipper!”

“No, there isn’t!” the young Gem fiercely asserted, desperate, guilt-ridden tears starting to well up in his eyes.

“Yes, there is!” Connie retorted harshly, refusing to let up until she had the answers she was seeking.

“No, there isn’t!”

“Yes, there is!”

A unified gasp rose up from all three of the kids as Dipper’s voice suddenly cut into the argument completely out of nowhere. Their surprise turned into outright shock, however as they looked over to see that it hadn’t come from him but rather out of his sock puppet duplicate as it hovered in midair, apparently completely its own accord.

“Ah!” Mabel cried in newfound fear at the seemingly conscious puppet, Steven and Connie echoing her sentiment as they took a startled step back. “It’s come to life! The puppet books didn’t warn me about this!”

In an act of self-defense, Mabel grabbed a nearby fork and hurled it at the floating puppet, which hardly even flinched as it struck it squarely in the eye, alarming the trio even more as they huddled together in genuine fear at such an unsettling sight. Their terror was soon allayed however, as the puppet somehow began to explain itself. “Guys, calm down. It’s me: Dipper! You three have to help me!”

“Wait…” Mabel frowned, taken aback with confusion as she looked to the sock puppet iteration of her brother, unable to deny that it was indeed his voice coming out of it. “…Dipper?”

“D-Dipper!” Steven cut in with an incredulous gasp, his eyes already wet with oncoming tears as he took a step forward. “I-is that… is that really you in there?”

Dipper sighed at this, his immense relief at finally being heard thanks to his new “vessel” dissipating back into grief as he remembered just what Bill was putting Steven through in this entire ordeal. “Yes, Steven… It’s really is me.” The young Gem was unable to hold back a tight sob of joy as he rushed forward, ignoring the bewildered looks the girls gave him as he happily embraced the puppet, something Dipper hadn’t been expecting as his still mostly incorporeal form lurched forward a bit as Steven clung onto his covered hand. “Augh! Steven, what-”

“I-I can’t believe it!” Steven cried, overwhelmed with relief as he let out a small laugh amidst his tears. “It’s really you! Bill said you were still around, but I didn’t know what he meant by that o-or if I should really believe him at all, but it’s true! You’re still ok! Well, uh… mostly ok, given the whole, um, no-body thing…”

“Ok, hold up,” Connie interjected, her former shock replaced with apt befuddlement. “Can somebody please explain what in the world is going on here?!”

“Yeah, seriously…” Mabel agreed, just as disconcerted. “Steven, what’s all this about Bill, and Dipper, why are you… so much more of a… sock than usual?”

“Mabel, Connie, listen carefully,” Dipper began solidly, more than ready to fill someone else in on his dire straits after all this time of speaking to essentially no one. “Bill tricked me! He said he was going to help me with the laptop, but instead stole my body and now he’s after the journal! You guys have to get it and keep it away from Bill before he destroys it! It’s the only hope of getting me back into my body!”

“Whoa, what?!” Connie exclaimed, startled by such distressing news. “So… that means… the you that’s been around all day… actually isn’t you?”

“No, that’s Bill!” Dipper clarified adamantly. “Honestly, I’m kinda surprised that no one even noticed that, what with my eyes looking like his and his voice coming out of my mouth. Like seriously, come on, you guys! Were you just not paying attention or something?”

“Uh, I dunno, bro-bro, your body looked and sounded pretty normal to me,” Mabel shrugged truthfully.

“But I could tell the difference!” Steven contested earnestly. “I wonder why that is… Maybe it’s because I was actually there when Bill took over your body, but no one else was…?”

“That doesn’t matter right now; what matters is that I was right!” Connie cut in, more than a little proud with her accurate deduction skills. “I knew something weird was going on, but even I could have never guessed that it was something this weird! Speaking of which… Steven, if you knew about all this from the beginning, then why didn’t you tell anyone? If you had, then we all could have helped Dipper out a lot sooner!”

“I-I… I really, really wanted to tell you guys…” Steven said, glancing down guiltily. “But I-”

“It’s not his fault!” Dipper interjected, firmly intent on setting the record straight and allying the young Gem from his remorse. “Bill blackmailed him into not telling anyone, or else he’d-” He sharply cut himself off at this, not too keen on filling the girls in on the horrendous terms of the deal between the dream demon and the young Gem, a sentiment that Steven shared as he glanced away apprehensively.

“He’d… what?” Mabel asked, growing increasingly more unsettled by the shared, anxious silence between the boys. “Dipper, what would he do?”

“H-he said…” Dipper hesitated, looking over at Steven and faltering upon seeing him start to tear up once more. “He said that if Steven didn’t keep quiet… t-then he… he’d hurt my-”

“H-he said he’d hurt Dipper!” Steven finally exclaimed, unable to remain silent about it any longer as morose tears continued streaming down his cheeks. “A-and he did! I tried to stop him, I really did, but I couldn’t… I-Id couldn’t even heal him… And the worst part is he might hurt him even more if we don’t hurry and stop him!”

“Well, then we better get started with coming up with something to do just that,” Connie said with firm resolve, more than ready to help curtail this grave situation before it could get any worse.

“B-but what about the puppet show?” Mabel asked, torn between wanting to assist her brother and completing her elaborate play. “My cue’s coming up any minute now!”

Dipper, Connie, and Steven were all ready to argue against her reasoning, but before they could, they were interrupted by a sudden knock on the dressing room door. “Hey, Mabel?” Gabe asked with a soft smile as he stuck his head in, a flower bouquet in hand. “Do you have a moment?”

“Gabe!” Mabel gasped, hastily grabbing the puppet Dipper had been speaking through and hiding it behind her back so as not to raise alarm.

“Ow! Mabel! Let go!” Dipper protested at the sudden movement, struggling to free his hand from her grip as Steven and Connie looked to the freely twisting puppet curiously.

“How does this even work anyway…?” Connie wondered in a whisper, poking the puppet, which actually flinched as she touched it. “Yeah… this is just gonna keep getting weirder as it goes along, isn’t it?”

“Probably, yeah…” Steven shrugged.

“S-so, Gabe!” Mabel flashed her crush an adoring smile. “How are you liking the show so far?”

“Simply put, it… is… phenomenal!” Gabe praised, raising both of his puppets into the air. “It’s clear to me now that you really love puppets. I mean, you went whole hog! And if you stick the ending, well… maybe later you could join me for a biscotti?”

“You drive a biscotti?” Mabel asked, continually amazed at how sophisticated he was. She didn’t get to ask him more, however, before the house lights began to flicker, a signal that the second act was just about to begin.

“I’ll be waiting for you…” Gabe promised as he began to leave, sending her a wink that left Mabel blushing even after he was gone.

“I-I’ll be there…” she sighed contentedly, though she was quickly brought back to reality by the scrutinizing looks Connie and Steven were sending her. “Did you guys hear that?” she asked, finally letting go of the puppet and allowing Dipper to readjust himself. “He loves it! This play has to be flawless!”

“B-but what about stopping Bill?” Steven asked fretfully.

“Aw, can’t it wait until after the show?”

“No!” all three of the others agreed in adamant unison, surprised that Mabel would even suggest such a thing.

“Mabel, are you serious?!” Dipper exclaimed harshly, not even noticing as his vessels yarn arms flailed about in frustration. “Do you want me to be a sock puppet forever?!”

“Dipper’s right,” Connie staunchly agreed. “We don’t have any time to waste, Mabel! If Bill is really as bad as you guys say he is, then who knows what he’ll do once he gets that journal? He needs to be stopped!”

“H-he really does,” Steven spoke up apprehensively, not as incensed as the other two as much as he was desperate to see this ongoing disaster finally come to an end. “Especially since he might… well, you know…”

Mabel flinched, her hesitation to step away from her show lifting quite quickly as the young Gem reminded her of the heavy threat the dream demon had apparently put upon her brother’s head. And yes, while she still wanted her show to finish off strong, she knew she couldn’t very well completely abandon Dipper when so much was on the line. So instead, she figured she’d just compromise. “Right…” she finally consented, taking in a deep breath of newfound resolve. “Well then, Dipper, I’ll need you to cover for me with the show until we get back. Steven, Connie, you guys are coming with me. We have a journal to get.”

Steven and Connie both nodded in firm agreement with this plan, and while Dipper did partially want to protest taking over Mabel’s zany, outlandish puppet show for her, he found that he was really in no place to, given the circumstances. Still, before they could all completely split up to their respective tasks, he did make sure to stop the young Gem short after the girls were already out of earshot, knowing that he owed him so much more than the mere apology he was about to give him. But for now, it would have to suffice. “Steven, wait,” Dipper began, letting out a small, sad, apprehensive sigh as Steven stopped and turned to him. “I-I don’t know if I’ll ever get this chance again if… if something goes wrong out there, so… I just wanted to let you know that I’m so sorry… This whole mess is my fault, and I should have been the only one to suffer the consequences of that stupid deal! But then you got dragged into all of this, even though you had no parts in it at all! Bill’s been making you absolutely miserable all day just because you’re trying to protect me, which is something you shouldn’t even have to worry about in the first place!”

“Why not?” Steven asked earnestly, taking a step back towards the puppet Dipper was speaking through. “Dipper, you’re one of my best friends, of course, I’d want to keep you safe! I wish none of this had ever happened just as much as you do, but I’m glad I was at least there to know about it the moment it happened instead of not knowing how much trouble you’re in at all! And don’t worry; now we have Connie and Mabel to help us! With all of us working together, we’ll have you back in your body in no time, I promise.”

Dipper said nothing for a moment, suddenly feeling quite unworthy of the kindness the young Gem was offering him. After all, he had been the one to make that ill-fated deal with Bill in the first place, the deal that had dragged them both so far down in just a matter of hours. He should have known better, regardless of the pressure he had been under in that moment; but he hadn’t. He had been foolish, hasty, careless. And now, here he was, with nothing more than a sock to speak through as his friends ran off to put themselves in harm’s way in a fight that wasn’t even theirs. A fight that he was painfully powerless to even participate in on his own, much less win. Still, Dipper knew there was no time to contest what Steven had said; after all, the third and final act was about to begin. “R-right…” he said unsteadily, hoping more than anything else that the young Gem’s sincere promise would somehow come true, despite the immense odds against it. “Well then… good luck. I’m sure we’ll all be needing it…”

True to his word, Dipper was there to cover for Mabel as the puppet show opened on its second half. He did so a bit haphazardly, both not as familiar with her messy script as he could have been and also still dealing with the struggle of not currently having a physical form. But he made do with the puppets as best as he could, even if most of his line reads were either awkward or halfhearted at best.

“Gabe! You’re back from the war!” puppet Mabel cried happily as puppet Gabe rolled in on a wheelchair, damaged from battle.

“Yes, I am!” puppet Gabe proclaimed. “Wanna kiss and sing at the same time?”

“Ok!” puppet Mabel readily agreed as they did just that.

“Ugh, seriously, Mabel?” Dipper groaned to himself as he pressed the two puppets together, hardly even surprised by his sister’s shmaltzy storyline.

As the audience applauded over this tender romantic moment, they all failed to notice the trio climbing up onto the catwalk above the stage, an intent, very serious mission on all of their minds as they began their stealthy quest.

“Ok, so the journal should still be in the cake where I left it,” Mabel noted to Steven and Connie as they hurried over to it. “You know, unless Bill already got to it first.”

“Well, it looks like he didn’t!” Steven exclaimed with a sigh of apt relief as they reached the cake to find the journal resting safely inside it. “Thank goodness! We still have a chance to save Dipper!”

“Then let’s hurry up and grab it while we still can,” Connie urged as they all started to lean against the catwalk railing to retrieve it. Unfortunately, the cake was just a bit too far out of their reach, even as they all strained against the railing to grab it. However, as brittle and old as many things in the theater were, the railing wasn’t well equipped to handle the weight of all three of them pressed tightly against it. Which was why it didn’t take very long for it to end up snapping cleanly in half, abruptly sending the trio falling towards the cake. Somehow, they all managed to land safely inside of its empty center along with the journal, but as soon as they did, the cake itself began to rapidly plummet down towards the stage, taking all three of them down with it. Their unified fearful cry was cut short, however, as the cake suddenly and miraculously stopped its descent and began to be pulled back up towards the rafters, much to the shared relief of the kids inside of it.

“Phew, that was too close…” Steven sighed, catching his breath from the harrowing experience as he leaned against the side of the cake.

“Tell me about it,” Mabel remarked, grabbing the journal as she began to flip through it while Connie and Steven helped her in her search. “Come on… come on… There’s gotta be something in here that can help Dipper get his body back!”

“Oh, but why would you want to do that?”

All three of the kids froze at the chilling sound of the dream demon’s voice, something that they were all able to recognize now that they all knew of his presence. A round of startled gasps escaped them as they glanced up to see that Bill had indeed been the one to stop the cake from falling, a sight that hardly allayed any of them whatsoever. In fact, he looked absolutely sinister as he grinned down at them darkly, the bright stage lights behind casting sharp, dramatic shadows that seemed to illuminate his piercing yellow slitted eyes, which were filled with so much malicious intent that it struck all three kids to their cores with fear. But when they did shake off the initial shock, Mabel was the first to speak up, her grip on the journal tightening as she glared up at the demon currently wearing her brother’s skin. “Bill Dipper! Bipper!”

“Shh!” Bill quieted, still smirking manically. “You wouldn’t wanna ruin the show, would you?” He nodded down to the crowd below, all of them completely unaware of what was going on just above the stage, including Gabe, who was still happily enraptured by the parade of puppets going on upon it.

“Who cares about the show?!” Connie contested brazenly, hardly showing any signs of fear against the dream demon she had heard so many terrifying things about. “We’re here to stop you and get Dipper his body back, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do, no matter what!”

“Ah, Sword Swinger, finally we meet face to face!” Bill quipped, amused by her boldness, but little else. “I gotta admit, I’m impressed with you for nearly figuring things out earlier. You’re a little more clever than most of the other dolts around here, but not by much!”

“Sword Swinger?” Connie questioned in muted confusion.

“Oh, yeah, he’s got a thing for calling people by these really weird nicknames,” Steven filled her in in a whisper. “Yours’ doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense though…”

“And Rosebud, I have to say, I’m very disappointed in you,” the demon interjected in faux displeasure. “I really thought you were trying hard to uphold our little bargain, but then you go and blab everything to everyone! Then again, I’m hardly surprised; after all, your mom did the exact same thing way back when before just making everybody forget about it later on!”

“She… wait, huh?” Steven asked, completely caught off guard by this sudden mention of his mother, even if he didn’t understand the context at all.

“So, since our deal’s clearly off,” Bill continued regardless. “I guess that means that after I get that journal, Pine Tree’s body here will just have to take a little fall right over that railing, all the way down onto the stage way down there. What a grand finale that’ll be, huh?”

“It won’t be any kind of finale, because it’s not happening!” Mabel protested, absolutely livid at the dream demon for even making such a horrific threat against her brother.

“Are you sure about that, Shooting Star?” Bill asked coyly, loosening his grip on the rope holding the kids up, allowing them to fall a bit before he caught it once more. “Oh no, looks like its slipping! How’s about you hand that book over and I can ‘help’ you three out of there?”

“No way!” Mabel harshly refused, holding the journal closer as Steven and Connie both helped cover it as well. “This is Dipper’s! I’d never give it away!”

“Funny, you didn’t seem to have a problem taking it for your own play or ditching him when he needed you,” Bill mused knowingly, more than ready to pull off yet another masterful manipulation to get what he wanted. “Seems to me that’s just what you always do, Shooting Star: let your brother take the brunt of things while you come out on top. It’s safe, its easy, and best of all, profitable! So why let this time be any different? Come to your senses; give me the journal or your show is ruined!”

“Forget it!” Connie staunchly refused as Steven nodded in irresolute agreement. “You’re never getting your hands on this journal as long as we’re around! Right, you guys?”

“Right!” Steven readily agreed, determined to succeed in stopping Bill where he had failed earlier.

Mabel, on the other hand, was somewhat less certain. She said nothing as she glanced down at the journal in her arms before looking down into the audience below, or more specifically, at Gabe. She had put so much time, so much work, so much raw, unabridged effort into making sure everything about her puppet show was as perfect as possible, just to impress him. She had poured her heart and soul into this play, so how could she possibly stand by and watch it all go to waste over a mere journal?

“Uh… Mabel?” Steven frowned in confusion as he noticed her ongoing hesitation. “W-what are you do-”

“Wait!” Connie gasped, appalled as Mabel began slowly offering the journal up to Bill. “Mabel, are you serious right now?! You can’t give the journal to him! He’s just going to-”

“Hey, how about you two just butt out of this, huh?” Bill cut in, gladly grabbing the other end of the journal. “After all, Shooting Star’s making a perfectly reasonable move here. I mean, who would sacrifice everything they’ve worked for just for their dumb sibling?”

Mabel gasped softly at this, her eyes wide as she froze, a heavy wave of realization washing over her. Indeed, who would sacrifice everything they wanted, everything they dreamed of, just for the sake of assisting and appeasing the flighty whims of their sibling? For that matter, who would sacrifice those things time and time again, regardless of the situation, out of their sheer, ceaseless, sometimes even senseless selflessness of his own heart? Who would go even beyond just giving it everything he had for their sibling alone, but would struggle for the sake of so many others as well, from a Gem trapped in a hostile fusion to a friend forced into oppressive silence? Who would think so rarely of himself and so often of others, to the point that it had ultimately ended up costing him a price that was far more than he had been hoping to pay? All of these questions held the same exact answer, an answer that Mabel knew beyond a shadow of doubt, and one she had realized she couldn’t possibly leave hanging at a time like this. “Dipper would,” she finally answered boldly, taking in a deep breath as she prepared to pay everything he had ever done for her back in full.

“Huh?” Bill’s steady confidence was replaced with confusion, a wrench thrown into his plans as Mabel suddenly turned the tables on him. Making sure he still had a hold on the journal, she suddenly yanked it back hard, sending the dream demon stumbling forward, though somehow, he didn’t fall off of the catwalk entirely. Instead, he let go of the rope holding the cake up altogether in order to secure a firm grip on the journal, as the prop immediately began to sink down towards the stage with all three of the kids in it, Mabel’s hand slipped off of the journal out of panic.

“Jump!” Steven shouted before they could fall too far down, and that’s what they all did. They all leapt at the same time, with the young Gem only barely managing to latch onto the edge of the catwalk before catching Connie, who caught Mabel, who’s heart sank as she glanced up to see that Bill had been the one to catch the journal.

At the same time, the cake continued its rapid, unrestrained plunge towards the stage, initially unbeknownst to the audience and to Dipper as he continued to dully lead out the play, even as its plot began to take a rather ridiculous turn. “I’m giving you away, you are a woman now!” he threw his voice to sound like Stan as he manned a puppet of the conman, rolling his eyes all the while. “Waddles, the rings!” Right on cue, Waddles popped up with a squeak, two rings held in his maw. However, before he could go any further in the scrip, Dipper just so happened to glance up at the sound of a sudden snap from above, only to see the oversized cake plummeting down right towards him. Even though there was no risk of his incorporeal form being harmed by the inevitable crash, he still dove out of the way as it smashed into the stage, its wooden construction shattering to pieces as it essentially destroyed the set. The audience was instantly stirred up and alarmed by this unexpected apparent plot twist, but Dipper paid their confused murmurs no mind as he instead looked up to the catwalk the cake had fallen from, freezing in apt fear at what he saw.

Steven, Connie, and Mabel were all precariously dangling off the edge of the catwalk in a chain they were struggling to maintain, and all the while, Bill stood above them, the journal in his hand and a treacherous, triumphant grin on his face. “Whoo boy, that was a close one!” the demon remarked, smirking down at the trio as Steven struggled to hold onto both of the girls and the catwalk at the same time. “You kids nearly had me going for a minute, especially you, Shooting Star. But in the end, I still win, just like I knew I would! You know, it’s kind of a shame; I was actually thinking about letting you three walk away from this whole thing alive and mostly not dismembered. But since you three seem to have such a death wish, then who am to disappoint?!”

Steven let out a sharp, pained cry as Bill slammed a heavy foot down onto his hand that was clinging desperately onto the edge of the catwalk. But even so, the young Gem refused to relinquish his hold on it, knowing that it was the only thing keeping both him and the girls from plummeting to a rather grisly fate down below. “S-stop!” Steven exclaimed, clearly struggling as the demon pressed down harder on his hand. “Please!”

“Oh, come on, Rosebud,” Bill deadpanned, rolling his eyes as he took sadistic pleasure in the young Gem’s pain and panic. “When are you finally gonna get that the whole begging for mercy thing doesn’t work on me?”

As the dream demon let out a manic, gloating laugh, Mabel glared up at him from the bottom of the chain, her already palpable rage towards him essentially skyrocketing. Already he had the audacity to possess her brother and carelessly injure his body, and threaten the young Gem into silence about it all day, but now he was eagerly poised to send her, Steven, and Connie all plummeting to a harrowing doom. Her now-ruined show was all but forgotten, replaced with a sense of righteous fury and a deep-seated desire to finally cut the maniacal demon down to size as she decided that enough was enough. So instead of simply hanging around waiting for the eventual fall, she instead used her free hand to fish around inside her sweater, only for her to anxiously realize she didn’t have her grappling hook on her. What she did have on her was only a bundle of unused sock puppets, bunched together into a bumpy, but surprisingly weighty ball. And if that was all she had, then Mabel figured she’d just have to make due and take a chance, no matter how much of a risk it might be.

“The crowd down there’s already gotten one bang, but it looks like they’re hungry for more,” Bill commented twistedly, his grin widening as Steven clung onto the platform by just his fingertips now. “And it’s their lucky day, seeing as how they’re about to get three for the price of one!” The dream demon broke out into yet another gale of crazed laughter, holding the journal up in triumph as he practically crushed the young Gem’s fingers, bringing agonized, fearful tears to his eyes as he realized there was little he could do to save himself or the girls. But where Steven lacked an idea about what to do, Mabel went ahead and enacted hers’, lobbing her bundle of puppets up towards Bill with as much force as she could possibly muster. Her aim missed the dream demon, but miraculously enough, it ended up squarely striking the journal, cutting his laughter off instantly as flew out of his loose grip and off the edge of the catwalk towards the stage below.

“No!” Bill shouted in blind fury, not even hesitating to dive over the railing after his prize, something that aptly shocked all three of the kids. And yet, mere seconds after the demon began taking his deadly plunge, Steven’s grip on the catwalk finally faltered as he was unable to hold on any longer, sending him, Connie, and Mabel falling right after him. For a brief, breathless, absolutely terrifying moment, all four of them were in a paralyzing freefall, with their sole destination being the hard, unforgiving stage far too many feet below them. Dipper could scarcely believe what he was seeing as he watched them all fall from the sidelines, desperately wanting to do something to somehow save his own body, as well as his friends, only for him to remember just how incredibly helpless he was to stop any of this, just as he had been from the very beginning of it all.

Fortunately, before anyone could hit the ground, Steven abruptly snapped to his senses, his eyes widening as he watched the stage grow closer and closer, but even so, he did what he had to. The young Gem threw his arms out wide, his gem sparking with light for an instant as a large pink bubble blossomed out from it, one that quickly spread to encompass him, Mabel, Connie, and even Bill, only mere seconds before they all hit the stage. And those seconds proved to be just enough as the large bubble rammed into the stage hard, providing a mostly suitable cushion for what would have been an otherwise deadly fall.

But even so, the audience was completely taken aback upon watching four kids brutally crash onto the stage from above, everyone spectating letting out a collective gasp of alarm. Likewise, the Gems all darted up in their seats the moment they saw the pink bubble, the fact that Steven would even need it for something like this catching them all completely off guard.

“Whoa, mama!” Amethyst quipped with an exhilarated smile. “Looks like this show just got a ton more exciting! Now this is the kinda explosive action I’m here for!”

“W-what’s going on?!” Pearl exclaimed frantically, especially as the lasers and smoke machine began obscuring the kids from view. “There’s no way this can be part of the show, can it?”

“Who cares?” Stan remarked, just as excited as the purple Gem. “I’m with Amethyst; this is exactly the kind of unexpected action that lovey-dovey fluff fest needed!”

Of course, the kids paid the audience no attention at all in the immediate aftermath of their hectic landing, all of them struggling to regain their bearings now that they were on the ground. Given how they had fallen, Steven, Mabel, and Connie had all landed on one side of the bubble while Bill landed on the other. Regardless, Mabel was the first to pick herself up, a sharp gasp of stark fear escaping her as she noticed the dream demon listlessly lying face down, a small pool of blood spilling out from his body. From Dipper’s body, Mabel reminded herself, her heart pounding with blind terror as she rushed over to him, hoping that it wasn’t too serious, hoping that perhaps Bill had finally been knocked out of him, hoping that he was somehow ok after—

Her fretful thoughts were abruptly cut short as the dream demon suddenly shot upright right before she could reach him, still very much in control of his stolen vessel and absolutely outraged with all three of the kids. Mabel stumbled back a bit, a gasp of surprise escaping her as the bubble fell, Steven and Connie running over to join her. At the same time, Bill picked himself up off the ground slowly, glaring at the trio with nothing less than complete, livid hatred and allowing them to see that the knife he had earlier had managed to dig itself into his side during the fall. The demon’s hostile expression didn’t change as he swiftly pulled the blade out and tossed it aside, ignoring the alarming amount of blood already pouring from the newly-opened wound as he sulked towards the frightened kids menacingly.

“You three!” he shouted furiously, his violent intent against them all quite clear. “I’m gonna make you wish you were never even brought into existence for getting in my way! You’ll regret so much as even thinking about trying to stop me when I’m through with-”

Bill stopped short, his anger fizzling out just a bit as he happened to glance over and notice the journal lying just a few short feet away, something that all three of the kids spotted at the exact same time. And of course, after both sides exchanged just the briefest of confrontational glances, they all leapt for the book at once.

By now, the fog that had quickly covered the stage had begun to clear somewhat, allowing the audience to see the outright brawl that had just begun. Bill and Mabel had reached the journal simultaneously, and as soon as they had grabbed it, neither one of them refused to relinquish their grip on it as they essentially grappled for it, with Steven and Connie rushing to join in where they could.

“Get out of my brother’s body, you evil triangle!” Mabel ordered fiercely, using her leverage to shove the journal down hard onto Bill’s face, resulting in what already looked like a pretty nasty black eye.

“Ah!” Steven gasped in alarm upon seeing this. “C-could we maybe do this without hurting Dipper?!”

“Whoa, children fighting!” Stan exclaimed down in the audience, immensely intrigued as he pulled his camera out and started recording. “I can sell this!”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Stan!” Pearl scolded harshly, swiftly rising out of her seat. “The kids are up there beating each other senseless for some reason! We have to do something to stop them!”

“Aw, come on, Pearl!” Amethyst protested. “It’s probably just part of the show! Right, Garnet?”

The Gem leader was silent, her manner tense as she watched the disaster unfolding onstage, her future vision giving her no clear answer to that question whatsoever. As the fog started rolling over the kids once again, her foresight seemed to become even more clouded, something that only made her even more indecisive about what to do. “I-I… I don’t know…” she finally answered, her voice just a soft, almost nervous whisper at first.

“What?” Amethyst and Pearl asked in unison, both of them knowing this was a rare thing to hear from Garnet, of all Gems.

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, clutching the sides of her seat tightly as she tried as hard as she could to peer into the future, only to find absolutely nothing at all.

Meanwhile, back up on stage, the kids had finally managed to pry the journal away from Bill, largely through all three of them pitting their combined strength against his and winning. Still, the dream demon had no plans of giving up so easily.

“You can’t stop me! I’m a being of pure energy with no weaknesses!” Bill boasted angrily, hands clenched into tight fists as he lunged at Mabel, seeing as how she was the one who currently had the journal. She barely managed to use the book as a shield as the demon plowed into her, knocking her to the ground as he tried once more to wrestle the journal back, despite Steven and Connie’s shared attempts at prying him off of her.

“True, but you’re in Dipper’s body,” Mabel pointed out with a confident smirk as she formulated an impromptu plan. One that she desperately hoped would end up working. “And I know all his weaknesses!”

“What do you mean his-” Bill cut himself off with a sudden, involuntary laugh, one that he was powerless to stop as Mabel suddenly reached up to tickle his underarm. The sudden reaction allotted Connie enough time to shove him away from Mabel, who quickly hopped to her feet and began taking off before he could recover.

“Guys, split up!” she called to the other two, the journal still tucked under her arm. “I have an idea!”

Steven and Connie did as she said, neither of them questioning what that plan might be, seeing as how something was better than nothing at a moment like this. However, they were delayed in putting it into action as Bill remained on the floor, still lost in an uncontrollable fit of laughter as he wildly jerked about, struggling to so much as pull himself up into an upright position. “Ah! Body spasms!” he cried in shocked confusion as he weakly rose to stand. “What are these?!”

“Fun fact about the human body,” Mabel began goadingly, not even flinching as Bill finally regathered his bearings and began charging for her. “You haven’t slept in over 24 hours! Meanwhile, I got a full night’s sleep and I’m on four mega-shots of Mabel juice! Connie, catch!”

Right before the demon could make it to her, Mabel tossed the journal right over his head to Connie, who stood on the other side of the stage and caught the book perfectly. A clever smirk crossed her features as she realized exactly what the plan here was, a plan that she was more than ready to go along with, even as the demon hotly spun around to face her.

“Sword Swinger!” Bill growled, rushing at her and wheezing in growing fatigue all the while.

“Oh, what’s the matter, Bill?” Connie deadpanned slyly, holding the journal up teasingly. “Can’t keep up? Maybe you should take a little break!”

At this, Connie threw the journal over to Steven, who jolted somewhat as he caught it, especially when Bill started lividly storming towards him, albeit a bit slower than before as his feet started to drag with increasing tiredness. “H-hand it over, Rosebud,” he warned rather breathlessly, still scowling hatefully all the while. “Or else.”

Steven gripped the journal close for a moment, his eyes wide as he knew he didn’t even have to ask or else what. And yet, for as afraid as he had been all day, and as much as that fear, as well as the dream demon himself had manipulated and controlled him in such unspeakable ways, the young Gem had decided that enough was finally enough. “No,” he said, his tone cold as he stared Bill down unflinchingly, effectively surprising the demon enough to stop in his tracks. “All you’ve done since this whole thing began is threaten and hurt me and my friends, but no more! I’m done letting you get away with all of these horrible, messed up things! After all, you said so yourself; our deal is over.”

Steven’s expression was still bold with firm resolve as he threw the journal back to Mabel, who was quick to toss it off to Connie once again. From here, things quickly began to boil down into what was essentially a game of keep away with the book, with Bill stuck in the center as he frantically tried and failed to claim it for himself. The audience was still largely unable to see or hear what was happening on stage as fog clouded everything and the puppet shows’ music continued prattling on at full blast. But all the same, the kids kept their fast-paced throws going, laughing in cathartic amusement as the demon began to stumble, panting and sweating out of exhaustion, to the point that it was clear he wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer.

“Augh! W-what is this feeling?!” Bill shouted, both enraged and weary as he struggled hard to keep going, the journal continually flying right over him as the kids continued throwing it amongst themselves. “My body is burning! I can’t move these stupid noodle legs! Curse you, useless flesh sticks! B-body… shutting down… Must… s-scratch… mosquito bites…”

By now, the kids had put their keep away game on pause, the journal resting in Mabel’s arms as they all waited apprehensively to see what would happen next. Even so, it seemed as though Bill had finally reached the physical limits of the body he had appropriated as he began to sway about, unable to maintain his balance. The demon let out a long, completely depleted groan as he started falling forward, before, with not a single once of energy left to spare, he finally collapsed to the ground hard. The very moment he hit the floor, Bill was sent starkly tumbling out of his vessel, back to his usual triangular form and, at last, no longer able to control his “puppet”.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!” the demon shouted in protest as he flew backwards, unable to stop the force that had launched him back into the mindscape. At the same time, Dipper, who had been anxiously watching the entire skirmish from above, instantly recognized this as his chance. Not wanting to waste a second, lest Bill somehow reclaim his body before he could, he dove for it, mindless of the fact that it was absolutely still and completely battered in its spot on the ground as he slipped back into it seamlessly.

At the same time, Mabel, Connie, and Steven all took a cautious step forward, none of them wanting to risk the possibility that Bill might still be inhabiting Dipper’s apparently unconscious body. However, their worries were soon allayed as he slowly, almost tentatively opened his eyes a moment later to reveal that they were no longer yellow and slitted, but just as normal as they should have been. Likewise, so was his voice as he let out a soft, barely audible groan, one that elicited a heavy sigh of apt relief from all of the others.

“Dipper!” Steven cried, joyous tears starting to fill his eyes as he realized this ongoing nightmare was finally, finally over. “Y-you’re back! W-well, I mean, you were never really gone, but still, you’re back to the way you’re supposed to be!”

Dipper had hardly heard the young Gem’s proclamation of relief as he remained lying where he was for a moment, staring at his outstretched arm beside him in utter disbelief. The fact that he was back in his own skin hadn’t really seemed to dawn on him yet, as if his previously disembodied spirit was still trying to reacclimate itself to having a physical presence at all. He only barely remembered that he had to breathe again, and as numb as he initially was, even moving seemed like a challenge that was far beyond his current capacity. He had thought that, reclaiming his body would feel natural and welcome, like returning home a long, perilous journey. But instead, it only felt odd, foreign, alien, even somewhat uncomfortable.

Almost as if he didn’t even belong inside his own body anymore at all.

“Uh… Dipper?” Mabel cut in, looking down at him with concern as she took notice of his silence, as well as the shaken expression on his face. “Y-you… you ok, bro-bro?”

“H-huh?” he finally spoke up, flinching somewhat as he found both his voice and his ability to move again. As both Steven and Connie offered hands out to help him up, he accepted them, his movements rather slow and awkward as he struggled to regain proper control over his own limbs. “O-oh… uh, no, I-I’m fine—Ow!” he let out a sharp cry as the first wave of pain washed over him, its epicenter being his twisted ankle as he tried to steady himself on it. “Ok, ouch! No, I take it back, I’m not fine! Ugh, everything hurts…”

Before any of the others could offer him any comfort or support, their reunion was starkly interrupted by a chilling, twisted laugh from none other than Bill himself. Startled, the kids all quickly found its source: the very same sock puppet that Dipper had used to speak through, which the dream demon was now using as his own mouthpiece. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me!” he warned fiercely, his outraged manner still quite apparent. “If any of you think that this is anywhere close to over, then you can just forget it! Big things are coming, and not just from me either! You can’t stop me! Nobody ca-”

“Ok, ok, we get it!” Connie cut in, exasperated. “You’re gonna try and get your ‘revenge’ or whatever. Can we just speed this along already?”

Mabel nodded in agreement with this sentiment, letting out a long sigh as she pulled out her “big finish” button. “I’m sorry, Gabe…” she muttered remorsefully, closing her eyes and looking away as she pressed it.

Bill was more than ready to continue throwing vicious threats out, but before he could, he just so happen to notice that the puppet he was utilizing was sitting squarely atop a box laden with a huge array of various pyrotechnics. And as soon as Mabel pressed her button, they all immediately started going off at once, the initial explosion shaking the entire theatre as the fireworks went completely haywire. The colorful blasts rocketed themselves in nearly every direction, even out into the audience, who were all aptly shocked and terrified by such an abrupt, wild, admittedly dangerous display. Well, mostly all of them.

“Whoo!” Amethyst cheered, jumping up onto her seat as the fireworks continued going off above her. “Now this is what I’m talking about!”

“I’m still so confused about what’s happening here…” Pearl mused, shaking her head in bewilderment.

“So am I…” Garnet muttered in agreement, though she did let out a small gasp as her future vision finally began to clear itself up. Almost as if the fog, fog that carried an ominous familiarity that she couldn’t even begin to explain, was lifting at last.

As the pyrotechnics continued shooting about at random, it only made sense that one of the blasts would manage to strike the highly flammable crate of sock puppets sitting near the edge of the stage. In another violent explosion, puppets began flying everywhere, and as they rained down in a burning cascade of fiery destruction, Candy began playing a mournful rendition of Ave Maria on her keyboard backstage, to add to drama of it all. Mabel’s shoulders sank in another sigh as she spotted Gabe in the audience, a completely horrified, almost tearful expression on his face as burning puppets rained down all around him.

Not long after this, what little remained of the fireworks soon went off in a massive, cacophonous explosion, effectively destroying what few puppets were left. One of them, namely the Dipper puppet, happened to, ironically enough, land on the stage right in front of Dipper. And seeing as how Bill had just been using said puppet, he didn’t hesitate to slam his uninjured foot down on it as hard as he could, a small, though still somewhat hallow smile of cathartic satisfaction on his face as he realized that the demented dream demon was finally gone. Or at least, he hoped he was.

As the smoke cleared up from the explosions and the audience settled down into a tentative silence, the kids all slowly turned to face them, unsure of what might happen next. The set behind them was smoldering, a piece of scaffolding from above snapping and crashing down onto the stage as they stood in awkward silence before a crowd that was just as initially quiet, a sign which none of the kids really knew what to make of.

“Don’t worry,” Mabel spoke up, putting on an air of hopeful confidence. “I’ve seen enough movies to know that this is the part where the audience thinks it was all just part of the show and loves it. Cue applause!”

Of course, the audience did the exact opposite of applaud as a round of uproarious, disappointed boos rose up, various patrons grumbling about how they nearly died from the fireworks show as they got up and began to file out of the theatre. One of the last to rise was Gabe, who looked anything but pleased as he stared Mabel down with a cold, disapproving glare.

“G-Gabe!” she quipped, still hoping she could somehow salvage this. “Stick around for the wrap party? W-we’ve got mini-quiches!”

“Don’t speak to me, Mabel,” the puppeteer scoffed harshly, turning his nose up at her. “You’ve made a complete mockery of my art form! Let’s go, my loves.” Gabe turned on his heel, affectionally kissing his puppets as he stormed out of the theater and leaving all four the kids rather disturbed as they watched him leave.

“Did he just make out with his puppets?” Dipper asked, raising a bewildered eyebrow.

“I… might have dodged a bullet there…” Mabel noted, scratching the back of her neck.

“Kinda hard to believe that all this craziness sort of started because of him, huh?” Connie remarked with an incredulous smirk.

“Gaeibeu'i jamkkan! Kaendi na ajikdo neol saranghae!” Candy cried as she ran after the puppeteer, still clearly holding affections for him even if Mabel no longer did.

“So, that was some show, huh?” Amethyst spoke up, plopping back down into her seat. Out of the entire audience, the Gems and Stan were the only ones left, though really only out of obligation to the kids and little else. “Steven, I loved what you did what that whole bubble stunt. That was so hardcore!”

“U-uh, yeah…” Steven chuckled awkwardly, exchanging a nervous glance with the others. “Stunt…”

“Yes, your play was very… interesting, Mabel…” Pearl said with a halfhearted smile. “Though I’m still not sure if I understood the part where you kids started fighting each other…”

“What’s there to understand?” Stan shrugged callously. “It was just a bunch of good, clean, slapstick humor. It’s not like it’s supposed to be ‘high brow’ or anything. Either way, ya did great, pumpkin.”

“Heh, thanks, Grunkle Stan…” Mabel blushed, though as she glanced over at Dipper, she found she was unable to ignore the growing guilt in her gut any longer. “Uh, actually… Do you guys mind giving the four of us a minute?”

While somewhat confused, the adults all consented to this request, allowing the kids to take a step further back on the stage so they could have some relative privacy. And as soon as they had that privacy, Mabel wasted no time in making an attempt at a much-needed apology, only for Dipper to beat her to it.

“Mabel, I’m sorry about all of this,” he began, glancing away from her remorsefully. “It’s my fault all of your puppets got ruined, and your show… I was just so obsessed with that dumb laptop, that I didn’t even-”

“Dipper, no,” Mabel quickly cut him off, her eyes wide as she looked him over, every single solitary injury out of many reminding her that this was her fault. That he had been robbed of his body and had been hurt so brutally all because she had been blind and selfish and stupid enough to think that her pointless, frivolous crush had outweighed his legitimate fears and goals. “Please, please don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“B-but… but I made a deal with-”

“I don’t care about that!” Mabel interrupted, fighting back tears as she realized her pent-up remorse was hitting her all at once. “All you were trying to do was find a way to save Lapis, and what did I do to help you? Nothing! If I had given you just a little of my time instead of putting it all into this stupid show, then maybe you would … m-maybe… maybe Bill wouldn’t have… I-I didn’t think that… h-how was I supposed to know that this would…”

She ended up trailing off into a sob, one that only ended up making Dipper feel even worse. He was more than ready to contest that this was indeed his fault, that their lives had all been put in grave danger because of one thoughtless, reckless decision. One that he already knew he’d likely always regret, even now that everything was all supposedly said and done. “Oh, Mabel…” he sighed, reaching out a hand to place on her shoulder, though he stopped it as he felt a heavy ripple of pain go through his own, the feeling finally returning to it in full force.

Mabel flinched as she heard her brother’s sharp hiss of pain, pain that, while it had been inflicted by the dream demon’s hand, she was ultimately responsible for. “I-I guess what I’m trying to say is that… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Dipper. I spent all week obsessing over some dumb guy, when the dumb guy I should have cared about is you.”

“Awww!” Steven chimed in, him and Connie equally charmed by such a heartwarming reconciliation. “When are you two finally just gonna hug it out already? We all know it’s coming!”

“Oh, well, uh, I would, but…” Dipper trailed off with a frown, nodding down to his already aggravated injuries, though he didn’t really feel like detailing the newfound pain pounding through his ribs. A pain that felt nearly startlingly identical to the injury he had sustained from Jasper knocking him back in the moments right before her and Lapis fused.

“How about we settle for a four-way fist bump instead?” Mabel suggested, perking up once more. The others all agreed to this, letting out a triumphant cheer of “Mystery Kids!” as they did so, only for Dipper to immediately pull his hand back with small gasp of pain.

“Ow! Ugh, what’d Bill do to my hand?” he grumbled, noticing that it bore no apparent external injuries. Then again, the demon had managed to inflict more than a fair share of wounds that weren’t just physical, perhaps even a few that he wasn’t even fully aware of yet.

“Nothing that a little sleep can’t fix,” Mabel assured warmly as she began to lead the way offstage.

“Yeah, and maybe a little healing spit too!” Steven added with a tentative smile, hoping that it would actually work this time. Dipper, on the other hand, didn’t seem too keen on the idea.

“Uh, m-maybe we should hold off on that for a while, Steven…” he said hesitantly. Even so, he still cringed a bit as he grabbed his arm and felt the sting from the puncture wounds the forks Bill had indirectly jammed into his skin.

“What? Why?” the young Gem frowned as him and the girls turned to him in concerned confusion.

“B-because… I-I… I don’t think I… I...” Dipper trailed off, his breathing suddenly labored as the full force of his various injuries finally seemed to hit him all at once. It was as though he had finally settled back into his skin, but it was hardly a welcome sensation as it was instead racked with flash after flash of intensive pain, unlike any had ever really felt before. Still, he didn’t really cry out in response to it as much as he froze, his hands shaking as he slowly reached up to feel out the sharpest of these agonies, one that was accompanied by a rush of unexpected, wet warmth at his side. He hardly even heard the round of suddenly distressed gasps from Mabel, Steven, and Connie as he pulled his hand away from the wound, more confused than alarmed upon seeing that it, as well as at least half of his torso was covered with blood from an injury he hadn’t even seen the demon inflict upon him.

“Dipper!” Mabel’s fearful cry barely registered to Dipper as his vision started to blur, the world suddenly tilting sideways more and more with each passing second. The echoed shouts of newfound concern from Stan and the Gems as they shot out of their seats were also mostly lost on him. Really, all he was aware of as he helplessly slipped into the void of unconsciousness was pain. A kind of pain that was, without question, more than just skin deep.

Mabel’s eyes hadn’t left Dipper from the moment they left the theater, and even as he was languidly propped up against her for the car ride home, she continued watching him like a hawk, even as out of it as he was. After all, watching her brother collapse right in front of her from injuries far more serious than she had initially thought had been more than enough to shake her to her core. And she hadn’t been the only one; Steven and Connie had both been just as distraught as Mabel upon watching Dipper lose consciousness, and Stan and the Gems hadn’t hesitated to rush up onto the stage to help, all of them equally as shocked and confused as to how he had sustained so many horrific wounds. The barrage of questions they had put upon the equally frightened kids had received no answers, since they really didn’t know how to even begin to explain everything had happened, nor did they really want to in the immediate aftermath of it all. Still, one thing was incredibly clear to everyone: Dipper needed some serious medical attention, and fast, and Steven had readily volunteered to provide it via his healing powers.

And so the rush back to the shack was on, with the intent that such healing would happen there as it was much less public and admittedly more sterile than the heavily damaged theatre. The Gems, Steven, and Connie had promised to meet Stan, Mabel, and Dipper there, which left the latter group to ride back as the conman largely ignored the speed limit the entire time. Stan had spent the first half of the trip hounding his niece with demanding questions, awash with both anger and concern for how Dipper had gotten so beaten up in the first place. But as Mabel maintained a solemn, morose silence, the conman eventually gave up, leaving her to her own heavy, guilt-ridden thoughts.

All of this pain, pain that was only inflicted upon her brother alone, and for what? Just so she could appease a boy she had already fallen out of love with? So she could give herself yet another aimless distraction to try and steer her mind away from the dreadful events of the invasion? How could she have been so blind not to see that, while she was diverting herself from what truly mattered, Dipper had been engulfing himself in it all, desperately searching for answers that she had done nothing to help him find? How had she not seen him struggle, not noticed the guilt in his eyes or heard the anguish in his voice? How could she have let something like this happen? For while she had sailed through the world with her head in the clouds, just as she always did, her brother had been dragged so far down below them. Really, when it came right down to it, he could have died, a fact that chilled Mabel to the bone, especially as she fixated her gaze on his blood-soaked side. And if he had, then what would she have done? How would she have ever been able to live with herself, knowing that she could have done something to stop all of this? True, Bill had objectively been the one to harm and hurt him, but as far as Mabel was concerned, her own hands might as well have been the ones to cut and cripple him for all she had done to lead him to this point.

As she let out a soft, sad sigh, her eyes finally drifted away from him for a moment, instead landing on a folded slip of crinkled paper on the floorboard in front of her. A frown of curious confusion crossed her features as she reached for it, taking care not to disturb Dipper too much as she retrieved it and flipped it open, her eyes widening at the message inside. It was written out in messy, manic handwriting, no consistency between letters to be found and even a few sparse blood spots on the page for good measure. But what really horrified Mabel was what was actually written in this haphazard scrip, a sharp, distraught gasp escaping her as she struggled to hold back tears. She had only barely finished reading what it said before she quickly folded it back up, though instead of discarding it, she shoved it away into her sweater, knowing that getting rid of it would be the same as denying that any of this had ever happened. Which was something that no one would likely be able to do for a very long time.

The collective group gathered at the shack was a very solemn one, with everyone showing their apt concern and care for Dipper as they eased him onto the couch. With the other kids all intently and worriedly crowded around him, the adults all congregated on the other side of the room, discussing the matter in hushed, bewildered whispers amongst themselves, all of them trying to make some sense of what had just occurred. Steven, Mabel, and Connie did notice them glancing over at them fretfully every few minutes, but for the most part they kept their attention focused on Dipper as he rested before them, still completely out of it, even if his expression was tight with almost feverish agony.

“Uh… aren’t you going to heal him, Steven?” Connie spoke up, breaking the ongoing tense silence between them. “Because he really looks like he could use some of your spit right now. As weird as that sounds…”

“I-I know,” Steven nodded anxiously, holding his hands close to himself out of stress. “It… it’s just… I’m not sure if it’ll work…”

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked fervently, gripping Dipper’s hand tightly in the hopes that it might wake him up. “W-why wouldn’t it work?”

“B-because it didn’t when Bill was… w-well… you know…” the young Gem muttered, glancing down remorsefully. “This is all my fault. The only reason why Bill kept hurting Dipper like this was so he could force me not to tell anybody that he was possessing him! E-even though I tried my hardest to stop him, even though I did everything I could, I still wasn’t able do it on my own. And now, because of me, Dipper’s… h-he… h-he’s…”

As Steven trailed off into yet another guilty sob, Connie was quick to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Steven… Don’t beat yourself up about this. It wasn’t anybody’s fault that any of this happened! In fact, the only one responsible for this mess is Bill, and Bill alone.”

Seeing as how they were still both weighed down by mutual regret, both Steven and Mabel prepared to argue such a claim, but before they could, they were all caught off guard as Dipper suddenly let out a soft, tired groan below them. The trio all held their breath and Stan and the Gems’ quickly looked over as he gradually eased his way back into consciousness, though in a way that was anything but peaceful. Just about every inch of his body was seeped in varying levels of agony, his ribs and his shoulder currently causing the worst of it, though his side wound was still a pretty potent source of pain as well. On top of all that, exhaustion, a feeling he was no stranger to by now, covered him like a veil, to the point that he made no effort of even addressing the multiple faces hovering over him, all of them filled with overwhelming concern and apprehension.

“H-hey, bro-bro,” Mabel greeted, her voice and smile both soft and subdued. “How you feeling?”

“…How do you think?” Dipper remarked somewhat dryly, though his sarcastic manner completely dissipated as he attempted sitting up, only to gasp in pain as his torso jolted in aggressive protest.

“Careful,” Garnet advised, stepping in to lend a lend him a hand, one that he had no choice but to accept. “Whatever happened during that final act certainly left its mark on you, Dipper.”

“Yeah, seriously, kid,” Stan cut in with an openly worried frown. “What the heck happened to you back there? You’re so cut up that I almost considered taking you to the hospital, until I thought about how insanely overpriced they are.”

“O-oh, um… well…” Dipper glanced over at the others, who were just as unsure about what to tell the adults as he was. After all, how could just come right out explain that they had all just battled a twisted, masochistic, incredibly powerful dream demon and only barely won without some kind of disastrous consequence resulting from such a daunting revelation? The short answer was that they couldn’t. And as far as Dipper was concerned, they weren’t going to. “I-I… guess I just… hit the stage the wrong way when we all landed in Steven’s bubble…”

“Y-yeah!” Steven exclaimed in anxious agreement, hating to lie to the Gems especially, but knowing that he was far from ready to tell them about what had really happened. “That… that’s totally what happened! B-by the way, Dipper, did you want me to try healing you up now? I wanted to wait until you were awake because—well, j-just because…”

Dipper flinched upon hearing this offer, not from his ongoing pain but from something else entirely. All day long, Steven had been running himself ragged, just in a futile attempt to protect him from Bill’s sadistic pleasure; he had been dragged into a catastrophe that had never been his to begin with, one that had trampled on his good-natured selflessness time and time again to the point that Dipper was surprised he had any of that left in him. Yet even now, in spite of all the horrors, dread, and danger he had been put through, the young Gem was still kindly extending the offer to heal him, to help him, once more. And even though this was an offer that he knew he needed, it was one Dipper knew he couldn’t think of accepting without piling even more endless guilt onto his already injured shoulders.

“Uh, n-no thanks, Steven,” he shook his head, averting everyone’s gaze as he covered his still-bleeding shoulder. “I… I think I’m good.”

“Good?” Amethyst scoffed incredulously. “Dude, you’re like, totally janked up right now. You might as well take whatever offers for a free healing session before you clonk out on all of us again.”

“Amethyst’s right,” Pearl nodded fervently. “Dipper, you’re badly hurt, and while my knowledge on human anatomy isn’t encyclopedic, I do know that if those injuries of yours aren’t treated soon, then they could-”

“Don’t worry, you guys, I’m fine,” Dipper assured as smoothly as possible. “They’re all just flesh wounds anyway. All they need is a good cleaning and like, a few bandages or whatever and it’ll be like they never even happened.”

“Well… do you at least want some help wrapping everything up?” Connie asked, dubious of his claim to wellness seeing as how his side was still completely covered in blood.

“N-no,” Dipper readily refused as he slid off the couch, though he still had to rely on it to help him steady himself. “No, like I said, I’m ok. You guys are all freaking out over nothing. I just need a good night’s sleep and I’ll feel completely better by morning, I promise.”

Everyone exchanged a concerned, bewildered glance at this, but ultimately no one protested as they watched him begin to slowly limp over to the stairs, suppressing an agonized cringe with every single step he took. But even so, Mabel noticed his feeble gait, her heart aching as she desperately wanted to run over to him and offer him all the comfort and assistance she could offer. But instead, her feet remained planted right where they were, her voice trembling with worry somewhat as she addressed him before he could leave the room. “Dipper… are you sure you’re ok?”

Dipper did briefly stop at this, one foot on the first stair as he glanced back to look at her, her pleading expression almost crumbling him apart completely. But even so, he couldn’t fall apart; not here, not now, and especially not in front of her. “Y-yeah…” he answered, putting on a small, bittersweet smile as he tried to convince himself of this lie more than anyone else. “I-I… I’m ok…”

Even if he had refused to take the easy way out when it came to his injuries, Dipper had still decided to do as he had said and patch them up as best as he could on his own. His torso had been easy enough to wrap up in copious layers of bandages, even if they did rather painfully constrict his ribs, which he had the shaken suspicion a few of which had indeed been broken during the fall from the catwalk. His shoulder had been a bit trickier as the blood pouring out of it had been rather persistent, but he had managed to get it mostly under control. Aside from that, the worst external injuries he had sustained were a myriad of smaller cuts and bruises, the worst of which he made sure to cover, even if they’d heal on their own soon enough. But then there were the injuries he couldn’t hide behind bandages, like the black eye Mabel had accidently caused, or his ankle, which still pounded with pain every time he put pressure on it, or the countless other wounds he had received from this ordeal that weren’t even physical at all.

He had been outside of his own body for nearly an entire day. What an odd, bizarre, outright horrific thing to think about in retrospect. But what Dipper still found so terrifying was the fact that he could have very well stayed like that forever if his friends hadn’t intervened when they had. But even so, their intervention had nearly gotten them all killed, which was something that would have been so much worse than being condemned to a formless existence within the mindscape for all eternity. Especially since, if they had indeed met their ends at Bill’s hands, it would have been entirely his fault. All because of one wrong choice, one single moment of foolish impulse, one desperate, but failed attempt to set things right.

With a mere handshake, he had lost his body. But now that he had it back, he realized he had lost so much more than that. He had lost a part of himself, one that had died the moment it left him. One that he’d likely never get back.

And for what? It was a question he kept asking himself as he tried to make sense of this, as he tried his hardest to rationalize something that held no reason at all. Why had this happened? Where had it begun? Who was really to blame? And most importantly, was it ever really going to end?

As Dipper slowly dragged himself up to the attic, he realized that he had gotten so tired of asking questions like these. Really, of asking questions in general. After all, they had been what had indirectly lead him to such a low point in the first place: questions about the author, about Gravity Falls, about the Gems, about Homeworld, about so many other things that he had stopped bothering to keep count. Not knowing the answers to any of them had driven him to uncertainty, which had driven him to fear, which had driven him to desperation, which had driven him to devastation. And in the aftermath of such devastation, the only thing he really found amidst the ruins of it all was despair.

In fact, that despair only seemed to grow as he passed by the other attic room, the one where this disaster had started in the first place. A part of him was almost too afraid to enter through its threshold again, out of the admittedly irrational fear that if he did, then certainly Bill would show up and he’d violently rip him out of his body once more and this entire catastrophe would start all over again, endlessly repeating itself in a vicious cycle that would never end. And yet, upon noticing the ruined remains of the laptop still sitting exactly where the dream demon had left them, Dipper knew he couldn’t stay away. The entire room was seeped in solemn silence as he quietly walked in, approaching the laptop’s broken pieces with care. Bill had certainly done a thorough job at destroying it, to the point that Soos or even someone as technologically adept as Pearl likely wouldn’t be able to salvage it now. It seemed like such a waste to Dipper; so many untapped answers, so many brand new leads and clues, now all completely gone forever. Even so, he didn’t wish for it back. After all, the laptop itself was inconsequential when compared to the ends he had hoped to accomplish with it. Ends that he was painfully reminded of as he noticed the scattered bits of photographs littered amongst the laptop’s debris.

Slowly, he lowered himself to his knees, his hands trembling somewhat as he reached out to collect what pieces of pictures he could find amidst the mess before him. Most of the scraps were unrecognizable, but a few he could clearly make out: the pine tree on his hat here, a piece of Lapis’ hand there, one of their now disjointed smiles there. Still, despite his careful efforts, none of the pieces seemed to fit together they way they should have. He had spent so much time since Malachite’s formation wistfully staring at those pictures that he could recall what they looked like from memory. And now, it seemed as though the memory of them would be all he’d have left, not just of the photos themselves, but of the blue Gem in general.

It was so unfair, so incredibly unfair that it almost enraged Dipper. Lapis had taken a chance, she had made a deal, and had given up everything she had, just to save him. Her sacrifice had been selfless, noble, heroic even. She had known exactly what she was doing when she had accepted Jasper’s offer to fuse, and had brazenly turned the tables on her in a way that had ultimately saved the day. Yet there she still remained, trapped at the bottom of the lake, existing as only a fusion composed of mutual hatred. Meanwhile, Dipper had done nearly the same thing; he had taken a chance, made a deal, and had been willing to give what he could up, just so he could find a way to rescue her. But he had been tricked, deceived, manipulated, and robbed of something that he could not truly exist without. His foolish choice had gravely endangered the lives of his friends, it had nearly resulted in his own sister dying, it had almost ended up with him dying for that matter too. He had been selfish, cowardly, impulsive, and reckless. And yet, where was he now? Right back in his body where he belonged, beaten and battered, yes, but alive and safe and free and back among the warm love of family and friends, something he couldn’t help but feel like Lapis deserved more than he did right now. For unlike her, he had made no sacrifice, he had only caused harm. Unlike her, he had showed fear, not courage. Unlike her, he was a failure, not a hero.

As this brutal realization struck him, the spares photo pieces slowly slipped out of his hands and onto the floor, a starting tear hitting it not long after, soon followed by several more. He had tried, so hard and for so long, ever since Malachite had disappeared into the depths of the lake really, not to lose himself to grief like this. To keep the pain held inside, where it was easy to manage and easy to control. But with every single part of his body and his mind engulfed in a sea of agony, he found it impossible to keep it all in any longer. A harsh sob escaped him, one that he could do nothing to stop as it all finally hit him at once. Lapis was gone and so too was the only lead he had found that could have possibly helped her. Bill had possessed him, had torn him out of his own skin and had mutilated said skin in unimaginable ways. Steven, Connie, Mabel, had all been put in life-threatening danger in their reckless pursuit to save him. And now, at the end of it all, here he remained, but only just barely. Because despite his now-covered outer wounds, on the inside he was still bleeding, he was still bruising, he was still breaking. And given how much of him had already been broken by the past few weeks alone already, there was a good chance that soon enough, there would be simply nothing left of him to break at all.

Which was why he didn’t bother to make any effort to move from that spot, broken laptop and ripped-up pictures all strewn before him aimlessly, all just as disconnected and useless as he currently felt. And, with nothing left to give but tears, he simply sat and sobbed, blanketed by the blood red glow of the familiar triangular window above him, the glass gaze of its central eye gazing down upon him with a shallow, soulless stare that had always been watching, and always would.

#jen writes #universe falls #gravity falls #steven universe #crossover #au #sock opera #dipper #mabel #steven #connie #bill cipher #stan #garnet #amethyst #pearl #blood warning #self harm #keyword is puppets

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