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astro-b-o-y-d · 3 months ago

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Triangulum - Chapter 7 - Died and Dashed

(Content warning; contains light mentions of blood and injuries. Reader discretion is advised. This fic will also contain spoilers from The Book of Bill going forward.)

— — — — — — — It had taken Stan twenty minutes to calm down this time around.

Twenty minutes, a few dents in the walls of the boat, a couple of busted knuckles as a result of said dents—eh, semantics.

Honestly it was a miracle he’d made it back to the boat before he started swinging. If he’d stayed there any longer, there was a not-zero chance that the little bastard would’ve ended up with another black eye.

If not him, then—

“No, Stanley.”

Stan’s gauze-bound grip tightened on the paper in his hand, and he shook his head before turning back to the desk. “Come on, Stan—you can’t be thinkin’ like that…”

He’d been lucky enough to snag a decent-sized handful of the photocopied journal pages from his safe, although he’d taken great care to light any remaining portal schematics on fire and stomp the smoldering remains until they were nothing but ash.

…Probably a dangerous thing to do while in a boat made of wood. But hey, he wasn’t taking any chances!

With a sigh, he shifted irritably between a page about gnomes and one dedicated to ‘Category 3 Ghosts’. Boy, he sure wished he’d thought of that idea over thirty years ago! He sure wish he hadn’t been too blinded by his anger to think clearly and had actually done something smart at that specific moment in time! Or had actually followed Ford’s request and gotten on a boat, sailed far away from everything and buried the book where Bill couldn’t get his grimy little hands on it!

He sure wish he would’ve done any of the other smart, logical ideas at that point in time, instead of just making his brother’s life worse like he always did.

Speaking of which—

His gaze fell to a collection of pages that Ford had added after his return to their dimension. Sure, he had kept his journals at arm’s length by the time he’d gotten around to writing the back half of the third one, but Stan hadn’t spent the past thirty years perfecting the art of pickpocketing for nothing. It’d practically been child’s play to sneak up to the kids’ room while Dipper was asleep—said journal clutched tightly against his face in a perfect mirror of Mabel snuggled up to her stuffed animals—quietly nab the book outta his hands for the night, and slip it back into place before he woke up the next morning.

The specific pages in question discussed one of the dimensions that Ford had visited in his travels. A better world, as he’d labeled it in his writing. Whatever had happened there, the Ford of that dimension was thriving because his Stan had actually listened to him. The Stan of that dimension still possessed worth to his brother.

Stan pressed a hand to his hair with another rugged sigh. Geez, was this really going to work? Was he really going to find some miraculous way to stop Bill in all this mess, when Ford hadn’t even found one back when said mess was still all in one piece?

And even if he did, did he really think any of this would prove himself useful to Ford?

He slowly slid his hand down his face in exasperation, before glancing over at the desk again—

Hang on.

He turned back to the alternate dimension pages again, squinting close at a series of paragraphs near the end. Most of it was just a bunch of science-y mumbo-jumbo that Stan didn’t care enough about to decipher, but the majority seemed to discuss the creation of a power source alongside the parallel-dimension’s Old Man McGucket.

A topic that sparked something in Stan’s mind as his thoughts drifted back to Ford’s words from the previous evening:

“The only power source stable enough to power the device was only obtainable in another dimension, with the assistance of another another dimension’s Fiddleford McGucket.”

Hmm.

After staring at it for another moment of thoughtful contemplation, he moved to add the pages to the already-sorted stack on the other side of the desk. Just before he could go of them, however, the door to the cabin burst open with a loud bang—causing Stan to jump about three inches in his seat before spinning around in his seat to confront the source of the noise. “Hey, pal, whaddaya th—”

Most of the anger that had been building up escaped Stan with an exhale of relief when his eyes landed on a familiar plaid shirt and head of red hair tucked under a blue-and-white hat. “What, are you tryin’ to give me a heart attack, Wendy?!” he asked, lowering the fists he had instinctively formed. “You realize at my age, that could count as attempted murder.”

“Sorry,” Wendy said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Just needed to get away from the crowd for a bit.”

“Yeesh, is it that bad?” he asked, and leaned towards the nearest window to peek out of the blinds. “Thought the party only just got started a bit ago?”

“Yeah, a party with everyone in town,” she reminded him as she sank against the wall into a sitting position. “Most of which are all here by this point. Just saying, even the Woodstick festival has certified ‘Quiet Tents’ where you can sit and breathe air that hasn’t been breathed in by hundreds of other people yet.”

After a few more seconds of staring at the crowd, Stan let the blinds flick shut again. “Touché.”

She watched him turn back to the desk, raising an eyebrow at the papers still clutched in his fist. “So, you plan on joining them anytime soon?” she asked. “After all, the reason nearly everyone in town’s gathered here is for your family. And at least three-quarters of that family are off doing their one thing.”

“Hey, listen—” Stan began, then paused. “Wait, three-quarters?”

“Yeah, like the doc said earlier, it’d take a while for him to deactivate the security room,” she explained. “So Mabel’s been out in the woods this whole time waiting for him to finish.”

“And they’re still not back ye—hold on,” Stan said, his train of thought once again interrupted as he ticked off a few fingers. “...So if those two-quarters are there—” He flicked a thumb towards himself. “And one’s in here, that means one’s out with the party, then?”

“Yeah, that’s how fractions work,” Wendy confirmed, her raised eyebrow ascending further. “And knowing who the first three are, I think we can probably guess which fourth it is.”

After a few seconds of putting the pieces together, Stan slapped a hand to his forehead. “Yeesh, whose bright idea was it to leave Dip as the party guy?”

“His and Mabel’s actually,” Wendy said. “Decided that one of them should stick around while the other rushed off to help your brother, since you were too busy doing whatever you’ve been doing here on the boat to do it yourself.”

Stan pointed a warning finger in her direction. “Watch it, Corduroy, I told you kids that this was none of your business.”

“I know it’s not,” she said. “And I don’t care one way or another how you two deal with all of this.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “But do you think Dipper and Mabel are gonna just take it lying down? They’re just as stubborn as you are, and if you’re not gonna keep stepping up to the plate to try and help your brother out, then they’re gonna do it for you.”

She tapped her knuckles against the wall behind her. “That includes either running off to help him out and missing a party they really wanna be at, or being the only Pines at that same party and spending most of that time stressing about everything by himself.”

Stan considered this for a moment, before rising from his chair with a sigh. “You ain’t subtle, you know?”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Stan shot her a smirk in response, before he rose from his chair and started making his way to the door.. “If you wanna keep hidin’ out in here, then fine,” he said, stuffing the papers still clutched in his hand into his jacket pocket. “Just don’t let anyone else in, and don’t touch the stuff on the desk.”

“Aye aye, captain,” she said, giving him a salute.

The door swung shut behind him and the cabin fell silent, save for the muffled sound of partygoers in the yard outside. Wendy remained still for a few minutes more, letting her eyes drift shut for a second as she enjoyed the moment of peace—

—until the buzzing of her phone in her pocket drew her attention elsewhere and she flipped it open to investigate.

— — — — — — —

The first thing Bill was able to process was a throbbing pain in his forehead.

The second thing was that he was able to feel pain at all.

With a sharp inhale of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his head snapped upright—functional pupil darting about wildly as he tried to process his surroundings.

He was—

—still in the bunker?

Heh?

Judging by the vintage technology that surrounded him—technology that Ford had foolishly assumed would keep him and his country bumpkin pal safe from any apocalyptic harm (spoiler alert, Fordsy, it wouldn’t have)—there was no doubt that he was still situated down in the bunker’s observation room. Same exact spot, same exact technology, same exact—

—blood pooling beneath him?

Second verse, same as the first—heh?

With the unicorn-hair-rope still tightly bound around his body, Bill shifted awkwardly in place to get a clearer look at the fresh blood that now decorated the control panel beneath his legs. And not just the control panel; a struggled rotation of his body revealed more blood splattered against the metal and tech—with a single bullet embedded in the spot where everything was thickest and most concentrated.

A bullet about the size of the area on his forehead where a throbbing, searing pain—pain far worse than being clunked on the back of the skull with a bat—was culminating to one specific point.

The same area where blood—blood as bright and fresh as the splatters around him—slowly trickled down the center of his face at the edge of his vision, before finally dripping down from his chin to join the rest beneath him.

Oh.

It wasn’t the first time Ford had shot him with a gun. There was the time Bill had raised a horde of zombies from the dead to try and give him a gentle…nudge in the right direction. Not to mention their delightful little reunion back during Weirdmageddon, although Ford’s aim definitely hadn’t gotten better across three decades.

But this felt far more different than a blast of energy through his hat-flesh, or a quick de-possessing of a zombie after Ford splattered its brains all over the cold, winter ground with a cheesy one-liner. And if Bill didn’t have more pressing matters to deal with, he would’ve punctuated that jab at Ford’s humor with a firm suggestion for the old man to not seek a career in the field of comedy.

But unfortunately, now wasn’t the time for a cheeky “Don’t quit your day job, Fordsy!” or other hilarious remark on his end.

He tore his gaze from the blood and turned back to the front, that sense of wrongness only swelling further at the sight of Ford once again frozen in time. And as if on cue, every color in the observation room began to slowly trickle down to the floor and converge towards the center of the room, same as they had done back in the study.

Bill barely had time to roll his eyes before the shifting mess of colors morphed into a familiar, orange tint—seconds before taking on the even-more-familiar form of the shelduck. “Wow, it’s about time!” they said joyfully once they had fully formed. “And here I was starting to worry that I’d have to go the entire summer without getting a chance for us to talk again!”

They turned around to take a look at their surroundings. “Huh, so they took you down to the bunker after all,” they observed. “Half expected them to try something in the underground lab first, but I guess this one would probably want to keep you outta the house as much as possible.”

The last comment was directed at the stilled Ford, along with a bat of their eyelashes in his direction. “You know, I’ve always been more partial to the other one, but even I can’t deny that the Hot Twin gene clearly extends to both of them,” they said, leaning closer to him with a studious look. “Let me tell you, that evolution of sideburns to a beard is nice…”

They spun to face Bill again. “But enough about all that, let’s get to the actual reason I’m here!” they said, pressing a balled fist against their forehead. “And how I feel like a massive idiot for letting you dive right into my game without covering the—oh, hold on, you might want to get rid of those binds first.”

With a snap, the binds of the rope went completely slack and Bill slid from the control panel to the floor with a surprised yelp—earning a small chuckle from Tangy and an outstretched hand to help him to his feet. “Sorry, maybe I should’ve set you down on the floor first—oh!”

Tangy barely had time to retract their arm before a yellow-and-black blur came charging at them with a furious shout. “You!” Bill snapped at them, teeth bared as he prepared to launch himself at them again. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you Birdbrain?!”

Forget any previous niceties he might’ve put on before; he was going to get some clear answers out of Tangy if it was the last thing he did! Even if it meant following up on his promise of plucking every single feather out of their sorry, orange hide!

Unfortunately for Bill, any harm he attempted to inflict on them went unfulfilled, as they slid out of his way just in time for him to go crashing back to the floor on the other side of the observation room. “Trying to catch me off guard?” they asked, once again spinning to face him with a wide smile. “Honestly not a bad attempt, I didn’t see it coming!”

Bill was back on his feet in an instant, trembling with sheer aggression for the being before him. Were they mocking him?! Who did they think they were?!

In fact—

“Who do you think you are, pal?!” he asked—shouted aloud. “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with here? I’m the most powerful being in the whole Multiverse, and if you think I’m gonna stand here and take this from you—”

“Of course you’re not, Bill,” Tangy said, taking a step towards him. “You want me to tell you why I’m here, what’s going on, why you’re not dead after—”

They made a gesture with their hand towards the mess of blood that Bill had left behind. “You want answers, I understand. Well, lucky for you—I think—you went and got yourself killed, so I’m able to correct a few of the mistakes I made during our last conversation—”

Another gesture, and suddenly a piece of paper flashed into view between them. “—starting with the rules I forgot to explain to you~!”

Despite the adrenaline rush from his failed attempted to attack them, Bill once again found his rage taking a backseat to curiosity as he stared at the paper. “Rules? What rules? You didn’t mention any rules.”

A beat, before he thumped a fist to his chest. “Not that I would’ve listened to ‘em anyway!” he insisted. “Rules are just another way of telling someone the things they’re not allowed to do, and I’m the kinda shape who does whatever he wants whenever he wants!”

“Oh, not to worry,” they assured him. “It’s less a list of what you can’t do during the game, and more—”

They snapped a few times in an attempt to find the proper words. “—let’s call it an FAQ about how the game itself operates. Maybe the first few might apply to you at most, but overall they’re far more restricting for me than they are for you. Either way, I felt bad about not covering them with you before so I thought discussing them while we’ve got time now would be best.”

Bill glanced at the paper with an unimpressed look. “...You filmed an elaborate promotional ad about how the game works but wrote the rules on a piece of paper?”

“Like I told you before, the movie’s a work in progress,” Tangy explained. “Plus most of my other clients tend to appreciate having all the rules in a place where they can properly read and digest them, as opposed to a quick-moving motion picture where they might miss something.”

With a roll of his eyes, Bill turned his attention back to the paper hovering before him. Unlike the wacky lettering used in Birdbrain’s video, the font was clear and black, with the following text written in easy-to-read letters:

Rules of The Shelduck’s Game:

Once you start playing a game, you must continue to the end. So no agreeing to play if you think you can’t handle it!

Once a player agrees to playing a game, they are rendered safe from any obstacles that might permanently halt their attempts to play the game to the end. Obstacles exempt from this rule all depend on the game’s setting and other surrounding factors, but most obstacles should be unable to permanently halt the player’s progress in the game.

The Shelduck is allowed to add additional rules to the list, based on the specific game chosen. However, they can only do this before the game starts and the player must be informed ahead of time, to avoid any unfair play.

The Shelduck cannot directly interfere with the gameplay itself, but they can offer hints and advice if a player gets stuck!

If you win your game, you are granted your reward. If you lose, you win…nothing! Of course!

You are allowed to request nearly anything as a grand prize; however, the Shelduck is more within their rights to deny any requests they see unfit to grant.

Don’t forget to have fun! :) It is a game, after all!

Yeesh, were Birdbrain’s previous clients a bunch of kindergarteners? Their list of rules read more like something a teacher would tack on their classroom wall rather than the rules for some interdimensional game of chance and skill.

Despite the juvenile formatting however—Bill was silent as he once again took in every word, letter, punctuation mark on the page during several read-overs of its contents. At the very least, their list seemed pretty pretty cut and dry—most questions answering themselves in the next sentence before he even had a chance to ask them aloud and overall leaving little room for the kind of trickery he might’ve played on someone with one of his own deals.

Of course, little room for trickery didn’t mean that there was no trickery to be found at all. Especially due to the fact that Tangy had only chosen to spring the list on him now, after he’d already agreed to play their stupid game!

Oh, right, he was mad at them about something—

“Forget your lousy rules!” he said aloud, making an effort—a failed effort—to kick the paper away. “They’re not the only thing you didn’t bother to tell me about! What about the vessel I’m using? Or the fact that you dropped me down right in front of Sixer and the rest of his stupid family?”

“To answer in order,” Tangy said. “You never asked about the body thing. You just assumed the entire time that you’d be using my body as your vessel. The thought of being in a completely different body never crossed your mind. As for the other thing—”

They winked at him. “Alright, you got me; jerk move on my part! But hey, you were the one who chose to cackle wildly in front of them as soon as you woke up! Can’t exactly blame me for that one!”

Bill scowled irritably. “Alright, well, explain why it looks so much like—”

He pointed a finger at his face, followed by a gesture to his entire being. “Oh, that?” Tangy asked, tapping a finger against the bottom of their bill. “Hmm, that’s a good question, actually. Honestly it was kind of a difficult decision to figure out what your body should look like for the game. I had plenty of options to choose from—”

A clap of their hands summoned several pictures of a variety of people, most of which possessed a familiar, black-and-yellow color scheme. “I could’ve gone for a taller and fancier look—”

A gesture towards the picture of a tall, thin man dressed in a fancy suit and an eyepatch.

“—or perhaps something a bit more modern—”

Another gesture to a picture of what was assumed to be a larger woman with darker skin and curly, golden locks of hair.

“—or heck, I could’ve gone the ‘102 Deeds for Teddie McLowd’ route and plunked you into something that wasn’t even human!”

They outright grabbed the picture of a yellow sphynx cat and held it towards him.

“—but in the end, I felt like my best bet was making it look like a body you’d possessed in recent memory.”

With a snap of their fingers, every picture vanished from sight again and they tossed their hands up with a shrug. “I did consider giving you one that resembled Blendin Blandin for a spell. But he’s kinda been MIA for a while so I just went with the one you have now.”

They looked him up and down again. “Personally, I think this one suits you much better, anyway~!”

“Personally, I think a pile of reassembled molecules and burnt feathers suits you much better than your current form,” Bill said with a sneer. “I say again; I bet you think you’re sooooo smart with that little ‘ooh, Bill, I forgot to tell you the rules, along with all this super-important information you probably needed to know ahead of time’ stunt of yours—”

“Not a stunt,” Tangy said, hand to their forehead. “I did genuinely forget, and you have every right to be mad at me.”

“Regardless,” Bill continued. “None of your nonsense is gonna do me any good now. I’m—”

He paused, a hand slowly moving to his forehead as he turned to look back at the mess on the control panel behind him. “I’m—dead?”

It was more of a statement than a question, genuine confusion painting his features for a brief second as he lowered his hand, pale fingertips now stained red. “I’m dead…”

Confusion, the faintest specks of grief and fear—

And back was his anger again as he snapped his glare at Tangy. “Which means now I can’t even play your stupid game! What d’you have to say about that, Birdbrain?!”

“Oh, right, that’s the other thing I came here to talk to you about,” Tangy said. “Funny enough, it ties back in with the rules thing! So I guess me forgetting to cover them before kinda all worked out~!”

They reached for the paper with the rules, and pointed to the first two for Bill to see with a few taps for emphasis:

Once you start playing a game, you must continue to the end. So no agreeing to play if you think you can’t handle it!

Bill stared for a moment, then gave them an unconvinced look. “Alright, so what?”

“Any player playing one of my games is safe from nearly any obstacles that might stop them from playing the game,” Tangy paraphrased. “And on top of that, they have to keep playing the game until the end. Which means—?”

“Birdbrain, if you don’t explain what you mean in five seconds, I’m actually going to pluck every single one of your head feathers out and use them to stuff a throw pillow made of pure gold.”

“Okay, first of all, that cannot possibly be comfortable to sit on—”

“Comfort comes second to power.”

“—second of all, what I mean is that any players playing the game are contractually-bound to keep playing until the very end of the game. Your game ends in approximately three months~!”

They made a ‘go-on’ motion with their hand. “Which means—?”

“I don’t know,” Bill said irritably. “That you bring me back to life after I get a bullet in my skull so I can keep playi—”

A beat of realization struck. “Oh, okay, I see what’s happening now.”

“Bingo~!” Tangy said, giving him a thumbs up. “You’re not really dead, it’s just more of a—let’s say a ‘lost life’ scenario. Like in a video game where you have a handful of extra lives stored up, so you just pop back to normal after dying without losing any progress!”

They winked at him. “And before you ask: no, there’s no limit on your metaphorical lives! You can pop back as many times as you need to throughout the course of the game!”

Bill considered this for a moment. Okay, so Birdbrain was clever enough to think that far ahead. Sure, he was currently bouncing around a few multidimensional recipes for a nice roasted duck in his skull, but at the very least, he was still alive.

A thought that eased some of his initial concerns, banishing them back to the darker, more repressed corners of his mind where they belonged! “Alright, so I’m not actually dead now, and I assume I can’t actually die throughout the game—”

“For the most part, yes—”

“Woah, woah—” Bill snapped at them, both in tone and with two quick snaps of his fingers. “Nope, you’re not glossing over that. What do you mean ‘for the most part’?”

“As rule two explains,” Tangy said, once again giving the paper a tap. “You’re rendered mostly safe from any obstacles that might stop you from playing the game. However, there could be some obstacles that might override that rule and provide more of a danger to any players. But not to worry in that regard; that’s more of an extreme case scena—”

They were cut off by the quick motion of Bill grabbing a handful of their shirt and yanking them downwards so the two of them were at eye level. “Birdbrain, I have been jerked around enough over the past twenty-four hours,” he said, face once again beet red out of sheer rage. “So I’m gonna tell you what you’re gonna do now, Citrus Breath! You’re gonna stop pulling my leg, and you’re gonna explain to me what the f—wait, what are you doing?”

Bill’s anger was abruptly halted as Tangy—still showing no sign of annoyance or irritation with the vitriol he spat at them—took his hand in theirs and began to roll up the left sleeve of his jacket. “Yet another thing I forgot to mention,” they said, giving him an apologetic look. “I’m not doing this on purpose, I swear! I’m just a bit scatterbrained at times!”

Bill narrowed his eyes. “A bit?”

“Anyway, look—”

They held up his arm to reveal something on the wrist. A small picture—or more accurately, a—

And now the halted anger was forgotten completely as Bill stared at the object embedded into the skin on his wrist. A glowing, familiar speck that Bill had only just processed he had been missing up until this point—the very idea of it being truly lost to him containing enough power to quell any rage as he gently touched his other hand to it. “Is that—”

“I was originally going to make it an orange,” Tangy explained, a sudden and genuine warmth to their tone. “But after some consideration, I thought a more…personal route for your method of contact would be more appropriate.”

Bill continued to stare at the glittering speck for a moment more, before casting a dirty look up at them. “Again I repeat; woah, woah, we’re not glossing over that! What do you mean method of contact? What’d you do to it?”

“To it, I mostly just tattooed it into your skin,” Tangy explained. “Thought it’d be easier to keep track of than your old storage method, which would’ve gotten lost very quickly if I’d given you one—”

They cast a glance up at the top of his head, before looking to his arm again. “But as for why I did that, I thought it’d be the easiest way to get ahold of me if you needed any help during your game.”

They gave the tattoo a light pair of taps with their finger. “Two taps, and you’ll be brought here into the mindscape to chat with me,” they explained further. “If you’re having trouble locating a piece of the triangle charm, or if you just wanna talk to someone, just double-tap and I’ll be here~!”

Their smile widened. “And to answer your question from before, it also doubly acts as a safeguard for your body. So long as you have this little speck on your wrist, you’ll be able to pop back to life and keep playing the game. Does that make sense?”

“And if I somehow don’t have it on my wrist?”

“Well, then you’d better be super careful, haha!” Tangy said with a laugh. “But not to worry there, the chance of anything being able to truly get rid of it is slim to none. At the same time, though, I’m only so powerful and something could always come along that could override my ability to keep you safe. And I’d rather be honest about my shortcomings than not.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet…”

After staring at the little speck for a few more seconds, Bill yanked his hand free from Tangy’s and forcefully tugged his sleeve back down over his arm. “So, got any other big bombshells you conveniently ‘forgot’ to tell me about, or am I free to get back to your dumb little game now?”

Tangy tapped their chin. “I thiiiiink that’s everything I needed to say for now,” they said with an apologetic smile. “Again though, I am sorry I forgot to tell you about all of this. That one’s totally on me, and I don’t blame you for being mad.”

They tossed their hands in the air. “But hey, everything I told you before is still in effect~! If you win this game, I’m contractually obligated to pop that weirdness barrier like a balloon for you!”

A wink. “Remember, you’ve got three whole months to find all the pieces of my puzzle and win your prize~!”

“Again I ask: how do I know there’s not something more to the game that you conveniently ’forgot’ to tell me about?” Bill asked flatly. “For all I know, you could’ve hidden the pieces somewhere where I’ll never be able to find them. Or you could’ve just kept them stored in your mindscape while I’m off on some wild goose chase!”

…As annoyed as he was, he was not about to pass up an opportunity for another good bird pun.

“Heh, good one,” Tangy said. “But no, that’d be against several of the rules on my list.”

With a snap, the list of rules flew back to their hand and they uncrumpled it to point towards rules three and four. “Remember, I’m bound by the same contract you are.”

“Yeah, and how do I know you’re not just lying about that?” Bill pointed out, folding his arms across his chest. “Come on, Birdbrain, did you forget who you were talking to? I’ve been in this line of work since before you were an egg popping outta your duck mom’s cloaca! Do you really think you’ll be able to satiate me with pretty reassurances, especially with how much you’ve already forgotten to tell me up until this point?”

He narrowed his eyes. “If you really think I’m gonna take any of this lying down, then you’re even more of a birdbrain than I initially thought.”

“You raise an excellent point, Bill,” they said. “I guess there’s no actual way to prove that I have to stick to my contract. I mean, you could always talk to my boss about it, but—”

A loud beeping on their wrist pulled their attention to the watch that had conveniently been hidden by the sleeve of their windbreaker. “Oh shoot, my time’s almost up for this bout of help,” they said quickly. “Okay so once we’re done talking, your body should pop back to the way it was before you died—”

“Wait, hold on—”

“Also as an apology for all my forgetfulness—and to even prove to you that I really am trying to help you out—I’ll do you a favor this time and keep the bonds you had around your body cut once you’re outside the Mindscape,” Tangy continued. “Can’t do much in terms of cutting them or directly interfering after that, but I think I can get away with doing it this one time. You were already trying to cut through them anyway—I think it’d be a plausible enough outcome without too much meddling on my end.”

“Birdbrain, if you don’t stop talking right now and answer me—!”

“Sorry, Bill, but there’s only so much I can do at the moment,” they said. “Anyway, good luck! Remember: tap the speck twice if you need a hint—although sometimes their might be a cooldown period, so don’t go tapping it all willy-nilly and waste your chances to talk to me!”

“Oh, so that’s another thing you forgot to tell me—”

Before Bill could threaten them further, their form began to shake and dissolve, before their color sank back into the floor and slowly returned to the rest of the room.

And time unfroze.

— — — — — — —

The first three seconds after Ford fired the gun had been a rush of pure elation.

A brief moment of unbridled satisfaction, one where nothing else mattered besides the fact that he had once again pointed a gun at Bill Cipher and come out the victor.

It was around the fourth second that the shock finally set in—numbing horror overtaking all other emotions as he stared at the lifeless body sprawled across the control panel before him.

“Can’t bear to aim a gun at another family member? Especially not your little paranormal protege?”

The gun clattered to the floor of the observation room as Ford’s hands—the specks of blood that had coated his left fingertips in the backspatter the least of his worries—found his face.

He’d screwed up.

He’d let himself fall victim to another one of Bill’s horrible tricks, let that damn triangle get in his head once again. All he had needed to do was ignore him long enough to store him into one of the cryogenic tubes, and his troubles would’ve been over.

But even after all this time, he was unable to resist grabbing hold of the obvious bait Bill had dangled in front of him, like chum before the world’s most gullible shark. Of course Bill had been saving the appearance card as a last resort—probably in the hopes of pushing Ford to the brink and allowing himself to be freed from his vessel.

And look at how well that method had worked in Bill’s favor! Now the aforementioned vessel was dead, leaving the current whereabouts of his soul unknown and his overall existence far more dangerous than it had been before. All thanks to his inability to stop listening to anything that came out of that wretched triangle’s mouth!

Ford’s right hand found the edge of the control panel—far enough from the body to avoid any additional blood on his hands—shoulders trembling as a whirlwind of questions began to swell inside his mind. Questions, anxieties, guilt—

What was he going to tell his family? That he’d buckled under the pressure and done the one thing he’d been trying to avoid for the past twenty-four hours? That the fate of the world, the universe—of everything was now currently up in the air, due to his foolish, pathetic lapse in anger? Would they be furious with him for not letting them help? Disappointed? …Would Stanley be both—?

“Grunkle Ford?”

Ford was back at full height in an instant as a familiar voice called out to him from the security room. When the culprit continued to remain hidden from sight, he replied in a voice that was far too small to be his own: “Mabel?”

A beat as he looked to the body, then snapped his gaze back to the doorway. “Don’t—just stay out there, okay?” he said quickly, words forming on their own. “If you have to come in here, keep your eyes covered! Do you understand?”

“I’m not looking,” she answered just beyond the doorway. “I—I heard the gunshot, and—”

Her words were shaking, trembling just as badly as Ford’s entire being as he returned one hand to the control panel to steady himself. “Wh…Mabel, why are you here?” he asked. “I told you to—”

“I was waiting in the stairwell,” she explained. “In case you needed any help with Bill.”

“You—I’ve been down here for hours. How did you manage that?”

“I had snacks in my sweater, and my cell phone to text Dipper updates,” she continued. “We didn’t want to leave you out here with Bill all by yourself. We know you wanted to do it by yourself, but—”

Her worlds trailed off with a sniff, as if she were trying not to cry. A series of actions that tightened Ford’s chest with affection. Dipper and Mabel had really put that much effort into looking out for him? Sacrificing a whole day to linger in the stairwell on standby, just for him?

“He—is Bill gone?” she guessed. “Is that why you don’t want me to come in without covering my eyes?”

A surge of guilt clamped itself around the aforementioned affection like a triggered beartrap around its prey. And how had he repaid their kindhearted efforts? By going and ruining his original plan and putting them in further danger.

His free hand returned to his face in shame, moving upwards to brush the hair from his eyes. Forget telling the entire family that he had screwed up, how was he supposed to explain to his teenaged niece that he had just put a bullet into the head of someone who looked almost identical to her twin brother? Even if she understood the reasoning behind why—how would she look at the person who had pulled the trigger? How did she look now beyond the wall that separated the rooms?

And not only that—

He finally forced himself to look back at the body—one that looked so small and frail against the mess around him. Without Bill to twist and contort the facial expression, or to grin that wide, horrible grin in such an unnerving way, the body really did resemble a regular, unpossessed child. A regular, unpossessed child with a bullet wound smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

And suddenly the arm on the counter was the only thing keeping Ford standing, his knees on the verge of buckling as a wave of nausea threatened to rise inside him. He was no stranger to having to pull a gun on Bill, and it was far from the first time he had pulled the gun on a child in general. There had been countless dimensions with eerie children who had taken pleasure in beckoning him from the far end of a hallway, or childlike beings who had found the act of being shot at as enriching and a means of play.

But this was far different from some random, ever-changing void child who giggled with delight as he shot bullets into its vast emptiness, or a pair of twins who only ended up being ghostly hallucinations that couldn’t actually be harmed by a gun. It was a real child, the real corpse of a child who so strongly resembled his great-nephew—

“Grunkle Ford?” Mabel called again. “Are you okay?”

Before he could answer her proper, a bright, blinking light to his left pulled Ford from his trance, and his gaze snapped to one of the monitors on the wall. “Oh no…”

“What? What’s wrong?” she called in a worried tone.

“The cryogenic tubes,” Ford said. “One of them’s been unfrozen!”

The sound of footsteps came up beside him, and he turned to see Mabel standing there with her hands over her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means—”

He looked to Bill’s lifeless body again, grimacing when he realized how close Mabel now stood to it. “Take a few steps backwards.”

While she obliged, he continued his original train of thought: “When I was…dealing with Bill, I slammed his body against the nearby control panel. He must’ve fallen against one of the buttons that unfreezes the pods.”

“Can you tell which one it is?” Mabel asked

“I’m not sure,” Ford said, turning to the monitor. “Let me just take a look—”

“—so that’s yet another thing you forgot to tell me—”

A shout from the control panel was cut off by a raspy inhale of breath and Ford’s attention snapped back to Bill, staring in disbelief as the previously-deceased body—the evidence to prove as much still littered across the control panel and surrounding computer—

—well, moved.

As the clearly-not-dead Bill continued to flail over the knobs and buttons, the ropes that had bound him—both in life and assumed death—went slack, and his body slid from the bloody control panel to the floor with a thump.

Ford stared at him, too dumbfounded to react. Bill stared in return—

“Grunkle Ford, what’s happening?” Mabel asked from her spot, hands still over her eyes. “I heard Bill’s voice, is he still alive?”

—before jolting up from the floor in a flash, shoving Mabel out of his way with a maniacal cackle as he hurried onwards to the security toom.

“Wha-woah!”

Not expecting the sudden oncoming attack, Mabel was easily knocked to the side—hands moving from her eyes in an attempt to catch herself before she hit the floor. Ford had instinctively moved to pick up his gun again before he could even think to question the logistics of the sight before him, but he was just as quick to Mabel’s side to offer her assistance instead. “Mabel, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him as he pulled her back to his feet. “But what just happened?”

A beat, before she moved her hands to her eyes again. “Also sorry, I didn’t mean to stop covering my eyes.”

“That’s fine, you don’t have to keep covering them,” Ford reassured her, expression growing solemn again as he looked to the security room. “Bill’s escaped again, and we have to stop him before he gets out of the bunker.”

Mabel let her hands fall to her side again with a curious look. “What? But what about the tubes?”

“If any with specimens inside were unfrozen, the door lock should keep them sealed in the storage room for the time being,” Ford said quickly. “We can deal with them after we recapture Bill.”

“...But didn’t he—”

She turned to the splatter of blood that remained on the control panel, before her gaze fell to the abandoned gun that still rested on the floor. An action that made Ford’s chest tighten with guilt once more, just as tightly as his hand’s grip on the gun once he finally picked it up again. “It’s…a complicated situation,” he said slowly, slotting the weapon back into its holster. “The fact of the matter is that he’s still alive. And if he’s still alive, then restraining him is still our main priority.”

Mabel considered this with a thoughtful look, before clenching her fists with determination. “Well, alright then, let’s go get him!”

The two of them dashed into the security room, although Mabel did give pause at the doorway to glance back towards the bloody control panel one more time. Unbeknownst to her as she eventually turned to hurry after him, however—Ford’s blind rage had made him bring Bill’s body down on more than just the button to unfreeze one of the cryogenic pods.

He had also brought him down on the emergency release button to the door itself.

And as the two of them hurried through the tunnel after Bill, they missed as the reinforced steel door slid open to reveal one of the things that had been locked away for a reason.

A small thing, about the size and stature of Dipper Pines; one that blinked as it stepped through the doorway and took in everything before him. The blood on the control panel, the open doorway and deactivated security room—

—the rumbling of the building around him as the exit stairway once again ascended somewhere he could not see.

And with another series of blinks, one where his eyelids open and closed sideways in a noticeably-inhuman way, he fell to his hands and knees before making a mad dash for the open doorway.

— — — — — — —

Dipper wasn’t the best at parties.

At the very least, he didn’t always know what to do at a party that involved a lot of mingling with other people. A type of party that the Shack seemed weirdly dedicated to upholding, if the current one and the few from the summer prior had anything to say about it.

At the latter, he’d spent a good portion of the night either fighting his clones for a chance to dance with Wendy—he’d already made a mental note to kick himself for telling her about that later—or had been too busy trying to get ahold of the FBI agents who had visited the shack, only to unleash a hoard of zombies on said agents and everyone else at the party.

Needless to say, his track record of actually attending a Shack party and doing regular party activities was a big fat zero. And he now found himself wandering aimlessly through the crowd of partygoers without any sort of idea on what to…well, do.

He slowed to a stop near one of the food tables with a sigh. Ugh, why had he let Mabel talk him into being the one to stay behind? Sure, she had raised a convincing argument about wanting to spend more time with Ford. Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with Ford? But between Dipper’s worries about her and his inability to act as more than a wallflower (could someone be a wallflower if the party was outside without any walls?), he was starting to wish he had pressed harder about being the one to go after Ford instead.

He could’ve brought his journal along with him, maybe spent the day writing in the dark silence of the bunker stairwell by the light of his cell phone. Something he probably would’ve gotten more benefit out of than where he was now.

Speaking of which—

He once again reached into his pocket to pull out his phone with a faint hope that Mabel had sent some kind of update in the past five minutes. A hope that was dashed as soon as he flipped it open to reveal his empty inbox, leaving him with nothing more than a concerned sigh. “Come on, Mabel, what’s going on out there?”

A series of hearty shouts drew his attention towards another table to his left. One that had unofficially—but unquestionably—been dubbed ‘The Meat Table’, given the table’s contents and boisterous chants of “MEAT TABLE! MEAT TABLE!” from Manly Dan and the Manotaurs circled around it.

He cast another, more thoughtful, look at his phone. Well, if he was going to just wander around the party without any clear goal, he might as well keep his word about snapping pictures for Mabel.

He raised it up and aimed the camera at the group of meat devourers, the phone clicking with a flash before he turned towards another group. This time he was greeted by two unicorns conversing off to the side, one occasionally casting a judgy glare in Manotaurs’ direction when a bone—picked completely clean of any meat—happened to sail right onto their plates of enchanted greens. Click went the camera again as the two of them levitated their plates and trotted off in annoyed huffs.

He turned a third time—

“Ah, good evening, young Pines.”

—and suddenly his entire phone screen was taken up by the snobbish expression of Preston Northwest, causing Dipper to take a step back in surprise before he lowered his phone completely.

Beside Preston stood his wife, both dressed to the teeth in elegant formal wear—the specific shades of green of their wardrobe likely chosen with the intent of making the greens of the surrounding forest feel inferior at the sight.

“Hey, Dipper.”

And from behind both of them in a light-green gown of her own, Pacifica Northwest gave him a small, polite wave. Other than her outfit, she looked near-identical to her appearance from the last time Dipper had seen her—the only noticeable difference being the length of her bleach-blonde hair, which now rested at her shoulders as opposed to almost touching the ground.

Rather than acknowledge her father and mother—a move that was only half-accidental—Dipper waved to her in return. “Hey, Pacifica! Nice to see you again!”

“I—”

“Yes, yes, we’re all so pleased to see you and your family again,” Preston continued before Pacifica could get another word in, while he gently—firmly—guided her out to the forefront. “Especially after your heroic efforts of last year.”

He spoke the word heroic with the faintest hint of disdain, as if the word left a bitter taste on his tongue. However, his proper grin never faded as he looked to his daughter. “Isn’t that right, Pacifica? We’re all so impressed with how the Pines family managed to save the town from that dreadful demon with the horrible fashion sense!”

“The one you immediately tried to suck up to—” Pacifica began under her breath, before speaking more clearly. “I mean, yeah, we’re so grateful or whatever…”

Dipper raised an unconvinced eyebrow in Preston’s direction, but he cast Pacifica a small smile. “Well, like I said: it’s great to see you again,” he said. “And hey, don’t be so modest. You played a big part in helping save the town by being a part of the prophecy too, didn’t you?”

From beside her husband, Priscilla gave a snobby wave of her hand. “Oh-hoh~, you’re too kind,” she replied in her daughter’s place as well. “You can imagine how proud we are of our daughter for being a part of that fancy prophecy business.

“Quite right,” Preston agreed. “Even if the end result was a complete disaster, it’s the ability to slap the Northwest name on the attempt that counts! Quite an interesting attempt on your great-uncle’s part, might I add—”

He darted his head back and forth with feigned innocence. “Oh, and speaking of Stanford Pines on a completely random and naturally-approached whim, have you seen him around anywhere? I know I’d personally like to talk to such a clever man as he, maybe exchange some words—”

“Dad, come on,” Pacifica urged. “Do you have to try and rub elbows at every party that we’re not hosting?”

“Why, Pacifica, rubbing elbows at parties where we’re guests is the entire reason to show up at that party in the first place,” Preston explained, before pressing a hand to the side of his mouth and lowering his voice. “Why else would we dare show our faces at such a backwoods establishment such as this? …Quite literally, might I add—why on Earth did that man choose this spot out of anywhere else in the town?”

“Didn’t you sell the land to him at a bargain, dear?” Priscilla asked.

“Oh-hoh, that’s right,” Preston replied with an amused chuckle. “Well, I suppose even high-end college folks have to penny pinch where they can~! Guess not all of us are lucky enough to be born rich!”

It took a lot of self-control for Dipper to repress the look of disgust he so desperately wanted to cast at them, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he was succeeding in that regard. “Well, if you’re trying to find my Great-Uncle Ford, he might be a bit distracted until later in the party,” he said aloud. “But hey, I’m sure if you keep your eyes peeled, he might show his face at some point.”

His gaze fell back to Pacifica. “And while you do that, maybe Pacifica can rub elbows with me instead? You know, splitting up covers more ground and creates more connections?”

A shrug. “Right? Rich people care about that kind of stuff, don’t they?”

“Excellent idea,” Preston said, and nudged Pacifica forward further. “Pacifica, you stay here while your mother and I go mingle.”

With a huff, Pacifica reached down to straighten out her dress. “And by that, you mean try again with the fairies, right?”

Regardless of whether her remark was true or not, the words fell on deaf ears as the couple disappeared back into the crowd. “Sorry about them,” she said, turning back to him with a scowl. ”They only wanted to come so they could try and get on your uncles’ good sides. And, you know, to try and sell some property to the few remaining creatures in town that Dad hasn’t struck out with yet.”

“Property?” Dipper asked. “Don’t most of the supernatural beings here, like, live here for free already?”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “Also wait, why would he try and get on Stan and Ford’s good sides? Didn’t your family go broke because of Bill’s defeat last year? Feel like if anything, he’d want our heads for that.”

A pause. “...He’s not here to try anything with them, is he? You know, goad one of the big-time town heroes into a fight and then turning around and suing them when they knock him flat? Because I think we both know he is not going to win a fight against either of them.”

“First question, tell that to the ones actually willing to pay for it,” Pacifica explained with a dull hand. “As for the others, it’s kind of an extension to the first.”

She made a wide gesture to the surrounding partygoers. “See, when a lot of the supernatural beings started relocating into the town itself, Dad saw a great business opportunity to make back the money he’d lost investing in Weirdness Bonds. Especially when the number of lumberjacks working for him almost tripled in size overnight, thanks to—”

The gesture shifted over to the Manotaurs’ table. “So he started selling land in town to any of the weird creatures willing to pay for it. Not a lot of them actually went for it, because, like—yeah, they were already here and a lot of them aren’t that dumb.”

A scoff. “Plus at first, Dad wasn’t all about working-with-slash-living-alongside all the ‘freaky magic people’, as he put it.”

“You mean the guy who wouldn’t let the rest of the town join his fancy-schmancy parties wasn’t interested in dealing with the weird forest folk?” Dipper said, folding his arms in amusement. “I dunno about you, but that sounds pretty farfetched to me.”

“You should’ve heard him back when they were first settling into town,” Pacifica continued with a roll of her eyes. “He was all like ‘Ew, who’s letting all these weird, little bearded men run underfoot? Why is Bigfoot in the store? Ugh, the sclera on that flying eyeball is so tacky, it should get flying lasik so the rest of us don’t have to look at it!’ Bet he would’ve bribed Tyler to boot them all back outta town if we had the money at the time, it was so stupid—”

She shook her head. “But then one day this herd of unicorns were all like: ‘Hey, we also wanna be left alone by everyone else and we’ll toss money at you to help us do that!’ And apparently unicorn gold, is like—super valuable and junk, so Dad was all onboard and built them a condominium with an artificial spring and rainbow light fixture. And then the gnomes heard about it and wanted in too—”

“Lemme guess, they offered your dad the chance to make his daughter their queen if he built them a place?” Dipper guessed.

Pacifica shuddered in confirmation. “Listen, I appreciate all the help those little beardo-weirdos gave us last year with the robot-shack thing, but mushroom crowns and a bed made of moss are soooo last season—”

“No, no—no need to elaborate, I get it.”

“At the very least, Dad didn’t take them up on that offer,” she continued. “But he did build them a place on the complete opposite side of town just to keep them as far away from us as possible. And then there was a whole thing with the living video-game characters wanting to expand the arcade—you know a lot of them have coins, gold rings, exotic pets that fight each other—”

She rolled her wrist. “Yadda yadda, blah blah blah—anyway, word got out and enough of the ‘freaky magic people’ were eventually willing to toss their money at our family for a home inside the town limits that he started caring less about who they were and more about how much money he could get outta them.”

An embarrassed shrug. “We’re still only at about a quarter of what our fortune was before, but Dad thinks continuing to invest in magical, rich clients is a great way to get us back on track. Sorry he’s not subtle about his plans.”

“Well, I never expect a rich jerk to be subtle about anything if he knows it can make him even richer,” Dipper said with a laugh. “And I guess actually building places for people who want to give him money isn’t the worst way to spend his time.”

Pacifica brought a hand to her mouth with a chuckle of her own, one that quickly shifted into a look of disgust. “Ugh, the first thing I do when we see each other again is go on and on about my family,” she said. “Sorry about that—”

“Once again, no need to clarify because I totally get it,” Dipper assured her. “And hey, at least it sounds like things are…kind of better than last year? I say hopefully?”

Despite the hand still covering her mouth, uncertainty began to creep into her features. “Kind of’s a...good way to put it,” she said. “It’s not all designer-brand sunshine and rainbows—”

The uncertainty faded into a small smile, one not even her hand could mask. “—but I guess not going designer is probably a good thing for my family, huh?”

“Heh, probably,” Dipper agreed with a wink. “Although when you guys go for the bargain-bin sunshine and rainbows, then I’ll really be impressed! Ooh, and get them with a two-for-one sunshine and rainbow coupon!”

“Eugh, don’t even joke about that! We’re not that desperate!”

Smiling wider, she finally lowered her hand to give him an playful nudge to the arm, earning a bout of laughter from both of them. “Well, as much as I love it when other people hang onto my every word, I’ve talked enough about myself enough,” she said. “What about you? How’ve you and Mabel been? I know you sent everyone letters and stuff, I just haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and read through the newer ones you two sent me.”

She raised a hand to her chin. “Although I’m pretty sure our mailbox is gonna smell like bubblegum forever, thanks to whatever Mabel added to them. I wanna guess actual bubblegum?"

“She took sticks straight out of the package and rubbed them on each letter before sealing the envelopes, then rubbed them on the envelopes themselves," Dipper explained. "Said she was going for an au naturale scent.”

Pacifica opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again with a hesitant expression as she further considered her reply. “Well, tell her it was, uh…thoughtful,” she finally said, smile unsure and awkward. “Plus I give her props for the correct use of the term au naturale. Although—”

She turned her attention from him towards the surrounding party guests, expression puzzled as she scanned their faces. “Now that I think about it, where is Mabel? Shouldn’t she be, like, doing some wacky, wild stunt in the middle of the party?”

“Did someone say Mabel?”

Before Dipper even had a chance to answer her question, a firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around on his feet to the smiling faces of Candy and Grenda. “Hey, Dipper!” Grenda said, pulling her hand back to give him a thumbs-up. “Great party!”

“Or it will be now that we are here!” Candy added with a delighted wiggle of her hips. “We are going to tear up the dance floor! …As soon as we find Mabel, of course!”

Grenda placed a hand over her eyes to scan the crowd. “Yeah, you’ve gotta help us out, Dipper! We’ve been trying to find Mabel since we got here with no luck! Got any ideas on where she could be?”

“I hope she is not hiding from us,” Candy added, hand to her chin. “Although a game of Party-Hide-And-Seek does seem like something Mabel would do.”

“Yeah, but why wouldn’t she tell us about it first?” Grenda asked.

“...Surprise-Party-Hide-And-Seek?”

“Touché, Can-day,” Grenda said, before turning back to Dipper. “Is she playing Surprise-Party-Hide-And-Seek? Don’t tell us where she is if the answer is yes, just tells us if that’s what’s going on.”

Her gaze moved past him and she tilted to the side to see Pacifica standing there. “Hey, Pacifica! Have you seen Mabel?”

Pacifica shifted uncomfortably at being addressed by the girls, attention falling to a random wrinkle on the side of her dress. “Uh, no, I just got here,” she said as she tried to smooth it out. “Actually, I was also asking Dipper about her and where she might be.”

“That would explain why we heard Mabel’s name,” Candy pointed out to Grenda. “Which allowed you an opening to that clever segue of yours!”

“Oh yeah, I was on the ball for that one!” Grenda boasted with a proud grin.

While Candy praised her further, Dipper remained rigid where he stood. His expression had sank the moment Pacifica had questioned Mabel’s whereabouts, only lowering further when the other girls had chimed into the conversation. “Uh, no, I don’t think Mabel’s playing any sort of hide-and-seek,” he said aloud, racking his brain for some kind of excuse to explain away her absence. “But I think she’s—she’s—”

Shoot, his brain wasn’t racking fast enough! And he could practically feel the familiar, clammy hand of anxiety creeping up his spine as the girls continued to patiently stare at him. Come on, Dipper, think! Coming up with a believable excuse shouldn’t be this hard! Soos had done a pretty good job of it earlier—

Huh.

Hmm.

“Mabel’s off with Ford!” he started quickly, letting his words lead before his thoughts could catch up to them. “Like I told Pacifica’s parents earlier, he’s off doing something in private, and Mabel went to go help him out.”

A shrug. “I think they’re working on some kinda surprise for the party? …A not-hide-and-seek based surprise? I don’t really know all the details, but she should be back soon.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. Not that he would’ve minded bending the truth more than that, but Mabel was off working on something with Ford and he technically didn’t know all of the details.

The surprise element was a bit of a risk, but hey—Soos had already used it on Tyler and it was probably smart to avoid spreading too many different rumors about what they were actually doing. And despite the apprehension behind his words, they were apparently convincing enough to get a joyful laugh out of Grenda. “Aww, that’s so Mabel! Always trying to add a little something extra special to any party she can!”

“You were right when you called her an angel who goes the extra mile,” Candy agreed with a nod of her head.

Grenda thumped a fist to her chest. “I’m a Mabel genius!”

“Huh, wonder what kind of surprise they’re working on,” Pacifica pondered thoughtfully. “I mean, knowing Mabel, she’s probably got something super wild and we—er, uh, unique planned out. Like, I dunno, jumping off the roof into the mermaid tank or whatever…”

“Mermaid ta—wait, that reminds me!”

Dipper was quickly spun back around by a firm pair of hands and once again found himself inches from Grenda’s solemn expression. “Dipper! Important question!”

He blinked in surprise. “Uh…if you let go of me, important answer?”

“Right, sorry, I get hand-shouldery when I’m excited,” Grenda said, returning her arms to her side before she continued: “You and Mabel know about all the new stuff in town, right? Like how Wendy’s family’s got the Manotaurs, and all the new exhibits at the shack?”

“Ooh, please tell us Soos and Melody showed you them already!” Candy added excitedly. “Did Mabel see the mermaid tank?”

“I was getting to that, Candy!” Grenda said unhappily, before looking back at Dipper again. “Did she see the mermaid tank? Did she absolutely flip out at how cool it was?!”

“Yeah, Soos gave us the tour last night and she saw it,” Dipper confirmed. “She also snapped a couple of pics while Melody dived into it.”

“I knew it!” Grenda cheered, pumping a fist into the air. “I knew she’d love it!”

“You really are a Mabel genius and we could all learn from the wisdom you hold,” Candy agreed with another nod, before she peered around Dipper’s body at Pacifica. “But how did you know about the mermaid tank, Pacifica?”

Dipper looked back at her as well. “Hey, that’s a good question! Do you visit the Shack often or something?”

“No, I—”

Pacifica’s eyes shot wide open, and she quickly cut off her words with a loud clearing of the throat. “Uh, no, I just…come up here to stock the gift shop with Dad’s real estate brochures sometimes,” she explained. “Plus it’s kinda hard to live in town and not hear about the stuff that goes on at this old shack these days. Pretty sure at this rate, they’re gonna get it labeled as a historical landmark because of how important it is to everyone.”

She waved her hands. “And, you know, the part it played in the actual history of protecting the town last year, and junk.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that too!” Candy said. “I know I’ve heard Soos say that if they ever do that, he plans on hanging up a special plaque up in the—”

“‘Scuse me, girls—”

Both Candy and Grenda let out a surprised yelp as a pair of strong Pines hands slid them apart, moments before their owner continued onwards through the gap. “Outta the way, old man with old man business to attend to—”

“Eww,” they replied in disgusted unison.

Any attention that Dipper might’ve had on the conversation immediately snapped to Stan as he trudged onwards past the kids, the Meat Table—”Hey, Stan! Grab a leg and meat up!” Manly Dan hollered at him through an overly-sized bone of meat, a request met with a wave of Stan’s hand and a gruff: “Later, Dan, I got a nonspecific excuse I gotta take care of first!"—and onwards towards the edge of the wood.

Specifically in the direction of the bunker.

Dipper took a few steps forward to follow after him, but Pacifica’s light hand against his wrist stopped him from going further. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

“Uh, sorry,” he said, pulling his arm back. “I’ve gotta go—check on that surprise that Mabel and Ford are working on! Top secret, gotta make sure everything’s running smooth—”

“But—”

She barely had time to get another word out before Dipper had disappeared into the crowd. Leaving the girls alone in an awkward non-silence, the partygoers’ voices around them acting as background noise to their ceased conversation.

“So, is it just me or did he get taller? And, like, less noodley?”

Grenda was the first to speak again, her remark bringing a smile to Candy’s face. “Ooh, it looks like you are not just a Mabel genius, but a Dipper one as well.”

“I am on a roll!” Grenda said proudly. “To celebrate, why don’t we go over to the Meat Table and see if the Manotaurs will let us join them?”

“Sounds like fun!” Candy said delightedly. “I want to see if I can beat Womanataur in a rib-eating contest!”

She clenched her tiny fists together. “Candy can taste victory—and delicious barbeque—on the horizon!”

“Oh, now that I’ve gotta see!” Grenda said, with a look to Pacifica. “You wanna come too, Pacifica?”

“With Mabel working on a party surprise, we appreciate any help we can get to take those meat munchers down!” Candy said, fists clenched.

“Nuh-uh,” Grenda said, giving her shoulder a pity pat.

“What? What was wrong with my trash talk?” Candy asked.

“Just nuh-uh.”

Pacifica’s gaze lingered in the direction of where Dipper had gone for a bit longer, before she finally turned back to them. “Uh, sorry, what was the question?”

“Manotaurs, meat-eating contest, three of us,” Grenda said. “You in?”

“No!” she replied too quickly, taking a few steps back. “I mean, uh—no thanks, my parents would kill me if I got any barbeque sauce on this dress.”

“More for us!” Candy said delightedly, before taking Grenda’s hand. “Let’s go!”

The two of them hurried to the Meat Table in excitement, leaving Pacifica as the only remaining member of the previous conversation. Much like with Dipper, her attention lingered on the girls until they had seated themselves amongst the Manotaurs, before she finally turned her gaze to one of the pockets on her dress.

She reached a daintily-gloved hand inside and pulled out her cell phone, flipping it open in an instant and shuffling off to the other side of the crowd as she started typing out a text.

— — — — — — —

“Stan! Good to see you!”

“Save that feel-good feeling for later,” Stan called back to the random partygoer as he continued onwards through the crowd. “I’ve got business to take care of—move it or lose it again, Creepers!”

His warning fell on deaf—or death—ears as the Category 2 ghosts before him had no time to float out of the way before he came charging through their intangible bodies. Their forms dissipated for a moment before settling back to normal, although both shook a fist in Stan’s direction with aggravated shouts of: “Watch it, Pops!”

While Stan paid them no mind, Dipper was quick to reach them in his hurry to catch his great-uncle. And after making the wise decision to maneuver around them when he overheard them plotting a way to prank Stan back—”I’m tellin’ ya, the ‘Kick Me’ sign’s the way to go! He’ll never see it comin’!”—he continued to hurry after Stan with a shout of his own: “Grunkle Stan, wait!”

“Look, I get it,” Stan said, reaching the edge of the lawn with a gruff halt. “Everyone’s lookin’ to say hi to me! Just gimme ten minutes and I—”

He paused as his eyes landed on Dipper approaching him. “Oh, it’s you.”

Dipper also slowed to a stop at the edge of the lawn, any attempt to respond halted by him taking a sharp inhale of breath. “Hold on, just—” he gasped. “One second—”

“Yeesh, kid, you had the right idea with those pig lifts but don’t forget to strengthen the lungs, too,” Stan said. “What’re you doin’ here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be enjoyin’ the party?”

“C-could say the same about you,” Dipper choked out, before standing upright with a slow exhale. “Where are you going?”

“Me?” Stan asked. “Oh, I was, uh—”

He paused, casting a glance at the dark woods behind them. “Well, I was probably gonna head on down to that bunker of Ford’s,” he explained. “Figured if he hasn’t come back by now, then that one-eyed jerk’s probably causin’ more trouble than he’s worth and needs to get his butt into one of those freezy-pods asap.”

He winked at Dipper. “Also I figured it was time to give your sister a break from doin’ that job in my place.”

Dipper’s eyes widened. “You knew about—I mean, uh—” A pause. “What are you talking ab—”

“Save it, Dip,” Stan interrupted. “A little birdie in flannel spilled your plan.”

Dipper snapped his mouth shut again. “Okay, I know you told me and Mabel not to worry about all the Bill stuff, but—”

His words were cut off by the feeling of a hand plapped against the top of his hat. “Again, save it,” Stan insisted. “It’s not like anyone else was steppin’ up to help him out, anyway.”

He cast him a small smile. “Plus I guess askin’ the two kids who spent all summer pokin’ around these woods behind my back to stay outta all this Bill stuff was a pretty stupid request, eh?”

From beneath his ruffled hat, Dipper smiled up at him in return. “So, you’re gonna go get them, then?”

“That’s that plan,” Stan said, with another look towards the forest. “But hey, haven’t exactly been to the bunker myself in, uh—”

He paused to tick off a few fingers. “Alright, so I’ve never been to the bunker. Let alone at night, where I’ll have to trek through the dark woods, full of weird creatures who’d probably wanna eat me—”

A pause as he looked back towards the party. “Although I guess most of ‘em are already here and horfin' down tablefuls of meat, so that takes care of one issue.”

“Sounds like you could use a guide to help you out,” Dipper said, his smile widening. “If you don’t mind having a tag-along, that is.”

Stan smiled wider in return. “You know of any Pines who can get the job done?”

“I think I might know at least one, yeah.”

With a laugh, Stan returned his hand to the top of Dipper’s hat. “Come on, let’s go get ‘em.”

And with a shared nod, the two of them hurried off into the darkened wood—the sounds of the party growing fainter and fainter behind them.

— — — — — — —

Running was hard.

Running was so hard.

Bill could feel his stupid, human lungs attempting to claw themselves out of his chest as he ducked around the side of a tree to catch his breath. An action that also brought himself to his knees for a moment as his pathetic little legs gave out from the unexpected burst of energy.

Yeesh, couldn’t Birdbrain have stuck him in a vessel that could actually do things properly?!

Speaking of which—

Taking another deep breath to flood his lungs with desperately-needed oxygen, Bill yanked up the sleeve of his left arm. As Tangy had promised in the mindscape, the little speck was still right there on his wrist.

He stared at it for a few minutes in silence, the mix of emotions from before swelling again inside his gut. How could such a thing have been an afterthought for him, even for the length of a single day? He was always so used to keeping it close to him at all times, tucked safely in his—

“Thought it’d be easier to keep track of than your old storage method, which would’ve gotten lost very quickly if I’d given you one.”

A pause, before he pressed his other hand to the top of his head. Huh, guess if his human vessel had been given a hat, it would’ve been a lot easier to lose than his usual, floating top hat.

Ugh, he was really starting to hate how often he gave Tangy internal kudos for their ability to (mostly) think ahead. Bird-brained or not, they did at least seem to be on top of the more important things when it came to their game. If it wasn’t finding a workaround when it came to the limits of his vessel, it was the foresight to make sure that vessel wouldn’t die—

The hand atop his head drifted down to the spot on his forehead where he’d been shot, lingering for a moment as he tried to locate the bullet hole in the spot where all the pain had accumulated earlier—

—pain that, Bill only now realized, had ceased to exist since the moment he’d popped back to life.

Sure enough, the throbbing pain from before was gone, with no noticeable wound to be felt in the area where it had been before. And not just that, but holding out his hand in front of him revealed a clear lack of blood on his fingertips, as if the wound had never even existed in the first place. And a further inspection of his outfit revealed a clean, unstained suit of black and yellow—

—one he’d only just processed he was wearing, and gave an unimpressed double-take to by the overhead light of the moon as he pulled himself back to his feet. Really, Birdbrain, a suit? Yeesh, the duck dressed like they’d crawled out of a vat of Trademarked Sludge from the Radical Kidz With A Z!!! Television Network, and they couldn’t even splurge for a more creative outfit than some generic suit?

“There he is!”

The sound of Mabel’s voice in the distance snapped Bill out of his internal judgment, and he ducked back behind the nearest tree again. “That won’t work, Bill!” he heard her call to him. “You can’t hide behind a tree we saw you duck behind!”

Ugh, okay—thinking-fast time! He needed a way to get rid of Mabel, and assumedly Ford. If she was hot on his tail, there was no doubt that Ford was right behind her—especially given her use of the ‘we’ pronoun. He needed a way out of this, a way to get away from them.

Overall, he just needed something to—

His gaze fell to his still rolled-up sleeve on his left arm, the glowing speck sparkling bright against his pale skin.

—help.

After casting it a suspicious look for a few seconds, then peering back around the tree—

“Cipher!”

—yep, Ford was with her!

After re-ducking back behind the tree, Bill gave the speck one last glance before slapping his palm against it twice. Heck with it, even if Tangy provided no help, at least he’d get a few extra seconds to catch his breath.

And as promised, the colors of the woods immediately conversed to one area in front of him—shifting into one, specific shade of orange before Tangy rose up and out of the forest floor. “Well, that was quick! What’s up, buddy?”

Bill narrowed his eyes at them. “Save it, Birdbrain. You said I could call you when I needed help, right?”

“I did indeed~!” Tangy confirmed with a grin. “What do you need help with? Did you happen to locate one of the pieces to the charm?”

“No,” Bill said flatly. “Right now, I need lungs that don’t feel like they’re about to pop or legs that can keep me going for more than a few seconds at a time. And on an extended note to that, I need to get away from Ford and Shooting Star before they can drag me back down to the bunker.”

He paused, as a thought occurred. “Hey, since they’re trying to infringe on my ability to play the game, would that mean you’re allowed to stop them?”

Tangy tapped their beak for a moment. “Hmm, it’s a good question. But I’m gonna have to say no.”

“What do you mean no?!”

“Well, they’re not trying to kill you,” Tangy pointed out. “Just freeze you—”

“Yeah, freeze me long enough for my timer to go out and for me to lose the game!” Bill countered. “Doesn’t that count for anything?!”

“It means that you still have a chance to get away from them,” Tangy pointed out. “For the time being, they’re obstacles. Which is a key part of the game, keeps things from getting too easy.”

“Thought you said players were mostly safe from obstacles in your dumb rules,” Bill said with a scowl. “By the way, don’t think I didn’t miss how you avoided elaborating on the specifics of that rule. We’re not just gonna gloss over that—”

“Either way, I can’t help you avoid them,” Tangy said, their smile widening. “But if it’s any consolation to you, there is something out there that might potentially distract them long enough for you to get away.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What did Stanford Pines smash your body against down in the bunker?"

“The—”

Bill’s eyebrows shot way up, a toothy grin of his own stretching across his face. “Oh, interesting.”

“There you go,” Tangy said with a shrug. “Of course, I can’t exactly take credit for that; it happened of its own accord. But hey, lucky break for you—”

Another beep of the watch on their wrist drew their attention away, and they clamped a hand across it. “Whoops, looks like time’s almost up for now~!” they said. “Guess if you need anymore help else today, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

“What do you mean?” Bill asked. “Thought you said I could just tap my wrist again and ring you up if I needed anything?”

“Hey, I also said there would be a cooldown period between uses,” Tangy reminded him. “Try again after midnight, we’ll see if that works!”

“Wait, I’m not done talking to you yet—”

Despite Bill’s protests, Tangy’s form once again sank back down into the earth, and both color and sound returned to the surrounding forest.

Sounds that included two pairs of footsteps hurrying rapidly towards his hiding spot.

With a huff, he took off in the opposite direction as quickly as his legs could carry him. Yeesh, for someone who was supposed to be helping him out during this stupid game, Birdbrain was proving to be extremely unhelpful.

#Hayley Writes Triangulum #Gravity Falls #The Book of Bill #Triangulum The Fic #Bill Cipher #Tangy Shelduck #My OCs #(More characters in the chapter; they are just tagged for the art)#(Lots of Stan; Dipper; Ford; Mabel; and some Pacifica)#Blood //#Long Post #(There's only a few small spoilers from TBOB in this chapter but y'know; better to tag for them anyway)

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