Dipper POV
I know he's got literal magic and all that but I have never had socks this soft before. I'm walking on actual fucking clouds, but they couldn't hold a damn candle to the pj set themselves. Kitten fur soft, I made sure he swore up and down that it's not actually made out of kitten fur. The black shirt and loose blue pants felt amazing after taking a shower, the fabric so incredibly gentle against my still sensitive skin.
I didn't want to look at it, or any of myself, before I showered. This past week mirrors had been a different form of torture I avoided at all cost.
I had taken a much longer shower than I meant to. I stood under the hot water long past the time it started to run clear. Going through the motions of taking a shower while not really taking any of it in, even when the wash cloth I used came away with reddish brown muck, my mind was somewhere else. Still trapped in that little dark room.
The lights are very bright in this bathroom, so aggressive against white tile I had to close my eyes for a moment. Sweet, safe, quiet darkness flooded through my senses along with the beat of warm water on my shoulders. I don't know how long I stayed like, at some point I'd crouched down on my heels, dropping my head against my knees; just breathing, waiting for something in the dark. When nothing came except for water dripping down my noses and the familiar fuzzy feeling that came with light headedness I had to open my eyes, stand up, and turn the water off.
The mirror was gracefully fogged over, saving me from everything by a pale outline of where I stood. Even still I could see myself, my arms and hands out in front of me, and my chest to feet when I looked down. It was shocking, the pure clear skin. Burns, cuts, and welts that had littered and fought for space before were all gone, not even so much of a scar was left.
That I'd sort of expected, when I woke up I couldn't feel any of the pain anymore and then Bill explained everything to me so I just assumed all traces of what happened would be gone. But I hadn't been expecting the tattoo to disappear with it. The wretched thing had caused me so much pain and stubbornly stayed in place no matter what Ford did but now it was just gone.
The shirt he'd given me was short sleeved, and I couldn't help but just stare at the blank space. Something was off, not quite wrong but I still had this pit in my stomach because of it.
"What's wrong?" Bill stood just outside of the bathroom door, worry etched in his brow. He was also sporting the softest pjs ever to grace reality, gray loose cut tank top and deep red sweatpants bunched at the ankle. Shockingly barefoot.
"What happened to the tattoo?" I held the bare arm out between us.
Bill's touch was warm, leaving traces of heat up my forearm as he carefully examined the dip of my elbow. "Our deal is broken, even though the tattoo doesn't control the deal, it was controlled by the deal, so when it broke the tattoo went away." Lifting his eyes from my arm he smiled genuinely and searched, "Why? Did you really like it that much? Do you want me to put it back, to mark you as mine?"
Deep blush-inducing comment aside, I pulled my arm back from him with a chuckle, "No I just- it was just a big deal for Ford and now it's gone- I don't really know how to feel about it I guess." Trying to explain the anvil sitting on my chest was strange, but I didn't think I would need to tell him everything, the look on his face told me he didn't need me too.
"We can come back to that later, right now I owe you a nap."
Stepping back he offered his hand to me, when I took it he led me back to the bed I'd woken up in. The sheets and blankets changed and redone, he perched on the end and looked up fondly at me. "Naps aren't my forte, I have to leave the lead up to you."
Terrifying as that idea was the exhaustion in my bones thrilled at the idea of laying down with pillows and blankets and Bill. Rounding to the side of the bed to avoid the embarrassment of crawling up it with him watching, I made myself comfortable against the impeccable plush pillows. Tentatively I fidgeted with the blankets to calm my nerves, "Will you come lay with me?"
He was already moving, crawling from his spot at the foot, grinning. "Just tell me how you want me."
"Shut up." I grumbled, nevertheless grabbing at his arms and shoulders to pull him down besides me. He wrapped me up in his arms, pulling me into his chest. He stretched out beneath me, tangling his long legs with mine and trapping my knee between his thighs, one arm firmly around my waist and the other hand working slow steady circles in between my shoulder blades. I rubbed my nose against the soft cloth of his shirt, the heat radiating from his chest quickly chasing away the chill from my still damp hair.
"Sooo, what do we do now?" Bill whispered, his voice amplified from his chest under my ear.
"I sleep and you do whatever it is you do." After a moment I tacked on, "I want to talk about all of this with you but I've been literally dreaming of this exact moment so I don't care what you do as long as you don't move or leave."
His ever moving hand wandered into my hair, combing through drying knots. "I will never leave you. I will keep you safe from this day forward, I promise, so we have plenty of time to talk this out later. For now, sleep as long as you need."
Sinking in even closer, it only took a few minutes of listening to his heart beat to realize something was missing. "This is gonna sound weird but um can you read for me, like when- you know." My stupid stutter always seems to reemerge when I least want it to.
"Do you want me to pick up where I left off in Frankenstein?"
Relieved that he hadn't just scoffed, "Yes."
So he just did, a calming lolling tone that rumbled under my hand splayed out on his collar bone. Sleep crept in slowly, hiding behind the caresses of his hands along my back and hair. This was everything and more.
Bill Cipher is a dream demon who came to this world in desperation to escape the second dimension and he did so by bringing down destructive chaos that could have killed millions. But here he was, back with the whole world at his fingertips this time and yet he was here, laying in bed with me instead of out there. Bill Cipher's heartbeat under my ear, steady as a drum with the echo of his voice, the fact that he has a heart at all. A human form when he so openly despised the human body before, spending several millennia as a two or three dimensional triangle instead.
Everything about him, everything about this moment right here is so incredibly unreal to me. It's so much more than a dream and so much more than reality.
Bill is everything.
~
"Did you have to leave? What did we ever do to you!"
Sharp and quick.
Heavy black muck dripped from the ceiling, down the walls, over the head and shoulders of the figures. None of them paid much attention.
"All I did was help you. You ungrateful bastard."
Fire, red, hot, only spurred on the muck, revealing its true color to be red.
One of the two figures fell apart, collapsing to the other's feet.
~
I woke up knowing something was wrong. It came with a jolt, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight on end. Immediately I was hyper aware of my body first. Heart pounding, blood rushing into my ears.
"Hey. You're ok, open your eyes."
Bill's voice forced in past the panic, heat laden fingers pressed into my hair to pull me out of my head. He was there, stretched out alongside me, so close to me, wrapped around me.
Cold sweat on the back of my neck made me twitch, something was still off, wasn't it? "How long was I asleep?"
"Only a few hours."
"Oh."
"You're ok, really, it's alright to still be panicked. Unfortunately that feeling might stick around for a bit, but we will do everything we can together to make it ok." He soothed running his hands up and won my arms, into my hair.
With a forced and counted deep breath in and then out, I relaxed into his chest. I've never felt like this before. Not the anxiety, that's an old itch that's always been around, but this, the external source of calm was so shockingly new I wasn't sure how to handle it. If it wasn't for him I'd probably be on the floor of the bathroom, passed out behind a locked door from the night before, ready for the cold shower I'd take in the morning to scrub at my traitorous skin. Bill kept me rooted to the bed, grounding me in my body with his. He moved a lot, his hands running the length of my arms, from the top of my head to my waist, and his legs twitched from the effort of laying still any extent of time. Brimming with unbridled energy.
I'm not normally a selfish person, I count myself as pretty selfless on more accounts than not, but I deserve a win sometimes and he's an immortal being, he can handle a little longer in bed without combusting. I trapped one of his legs under mine, closing my eyes against his chest, listening to the clinical beat of his heart and drinking in the warmth of his skin. A voice in the back of my head still held the belief that none of this could last, sooner or later he'd stop pitying me and take back what he's said. So I trapped myself right here, in this bed, in this room, with this version of him I so desperately wanted to keep for just a little longer.
"Are you sleeping again?"
"I said a week didn't I?"
He hummed, the sound cascading through his chest, "Yes. If that's what you need take it. Take it all."
I could easily see myself being selfish for him, with this space he's carved for me in his world, but the nagging sweat chilled against my neck. Sending a shiver down my spine, I wasn't whole yet. I still had so many questions to ask him and so many things to see with my own eyes. For starters Wendy.
"I want to see Wendy."
Hesitation, short and stiff, in the stillness of his hands and the catch of his breath. "Right now?" He asked, an edge in his voice that hadn't been there before, not anger but- caution or something akin to it. It made my heart pound.
"Yeah, right now, Bill, if she's ok I need to see her for myself." I pushed, I wanted to ask her what happened across the hall from me. I wanted to know what Ford had done to her even though I had a pretty clear guess because of what he did to me. But I couldn't ask her that, to relive that for my morbid curiosities. I just need to know that she's ok, or will be ok. It was my fault she was there in the first place, whatever Ford did to her was like I'd done it with my own hands because I put her there. I need to know she'll be ok. The guilt was a brick in my stomach.
He didn't fight me further, instead he pulled us both out of bed, creating new clothes for me as he changed into his signature suit. Buzzing with impatient renewed energy I was speeding walking down the halls and stairways to finally bridge the differences.
She and Ana met us in the throne room and every emotion I'd felt in the last week crashed through me again at the sight of her. She was ok, she's ok. Her hair brushed and clean, her skin clear of marks or bruises though some bandages pecked out from under the sleeves of her newly cleaned shirt. She broke into a wide watery grin when we made contact, crushing each other in a tight grip. I buried myself in her hair and her hands fisted into the back of my shirt.
We stayed like that, sobbing wet messes trading back and forth apology after apology. Nothing else matters to me in that moment but the wild jackrabbiting heartbeat I could feel against and in my own chest. Only pulling apart far enough to talk to each other, and dry one another's tears. Ana and Bill joined us on the floor, we sat together and talked through what we could of the last week.
Wendy asked me about Mabel, and when I explained how she acted Wendy only nodded telling me Pacifica picked up bringing food to her and would sometimes talk out her anxieties in Wendy's direct. We traded stories and filled in gaps together where we could.
Ana took a moment to tell us how the spell they'd used to save our lives worked, and how theoretically it should work ever overpowered as Bill had. Commenting pointedly while she did that she'd now have to do a lot more homework and how demonic immortality was a topic we could have discussed and navigated together once Wendy and I were at the very least conscious.
Bill for his part seemed to not have a single apologetic bone in his body on that specific topic. He did however, somehow adorably, fidget over several apologies about not protecting us in the first place, if only he'd known he would never have let us out of the town.
Bill and I parted with Wendy and Ana after eating the best dinner of my entire life, I don't care if I'm immortal now and therefore don't have to eat, food is fucking delicious.
The door of Bill's bedroom closed with a soft click behind us, something I didn't even notice as Bill's arms encircled my waist and chest.
"Now how about those three weeks of just you and I?"
____________________________________
The End.
As I said at the end of the last chapter this wasn't my original intention but I think I'm happy with this ending none the less and I hope at least this ending satisfies, the boys live happily on their little planet with their little found family.