Arguments about love
May 9, 2026 at 1:57 AM
Mabel knows Dipper can’t cook. The best he can do is lasagna and hot sandwiches. He even manages to fry eggs so badly that they’re usually inedible. For this very reason, Dipper never cooks for himself. He eats either store-bought or something prepared by Mabel or someone else. But mostly, he lives on coffee — in enormous quantities — which he sometimes dilutes with an energy drink. The girl jokes that her brother’s veins are no longer blood, but rather cheap instant coffee with milk and three spoons of sugar.
So, Mabel, just entering the kitchen, was surprised not by the sight of Dipper sitting at the table with only a mug of coffee, but by the strong smell of vegetables coming from the oven. The smell of bured vegetables.
“Hey, bro,” Mabel called. Dipper immediately put down his book and looked at his sister.
“Haven’t you forgotten anything?” Mabel asked, crossing her arms. The boy frowned.
“No, I already exorcised the ghost and restored the bar…” Dipper suddenly paused with his mouth open and sniffed. “Ah,” he exhaled and rushed to the oven. Mabel laughed and moved closer to the stove.
“Have you tried not reading while you’re cooking?”
“Just watching food is boring,” Dipper muttered, taking out a steaming baking sheet.
The twins briefly stared at the blackened dish, which smelled so bad it was impossible to stand near it — the burnt onions made them cry and feel nauseous. Dipper began chewing his lips nervously. He was clearly upset.
“Come on, bro-bro, I’m sure it’s not that bad!” Mabel patted him on the shoulder, trying to reassure. “It’s probably just the top. Once we get all this black stuff off, it’ll be good to eat!”
With that, she began raking the burnt vegetables into a pile. To her dismay, finding anything unburned was difficult.
“There, now let’s try it!” the girl smiled. She finally dug out a piece of chicken that looked less like coal than the rest and popped it into her mouth. She chewed a bit. Dipper watched his sister’s reaction closely, as she forced a smile, gave him a thumbs-up, and mumbled something. Her eyes began to water.
“Just spit it out, I see you don’t like it,” the boy sighed. He took a can of juice from the fridge and handed it to the coughing twin.
“Thanks, bro,” she smiled. “For trying.”
“Yeah-yeah.”
Dipper waved his hand and returned to his book and coffee. Mabel, having gulped down all the juice, threw away the poor chilaquiles along with the baking sheet, to which the coal the ingredients had turned into were firmly stuck, and set the frying pan on the stove. “So, an omelet will do,” she thought, not the least bit upset.
“What’s that smell?!” Stan’s hoarse voice was heard. “Like someone threw rotten fish in the pan, rubbed it with garlic, and, just to be sure, soaked it in sewer water for a week.”
Dipper spat his coffee out in disgust, right onto the pages of his book. Mabel gave her uncle a displeased look as he entered.
“Ugh, grunkle,” she drawled. “Good morning to you too.”
“Morning, sunshine,” he nodded. “Are you the one stinking up the whole house? I thought you were a good cook. And what’s wrong with your face?..”
“Oh, everything’s wonderful! It’s Dipper’s culinary experiments smells like that. And I fought a ghost!
“Sounds like you had quite the night” Stan sat down on a chair with a quiet groan. He scanned the scene: his grand-nephew hiding behind a book, a pile of coal (what used to be food) in the trash can, the sticky stain on the floor left by an early morning coffee spill — and he let out a deep sigh.
“How about you?” asked Dipper. His uncle shrugged.
“Didn’t get in a fight with a ghost.”
“Your loss!” Mabel grinned. “It was fun.”
Stanley muttered something under his breath, chewing his lip. Silence fell, broken only by the soft hiss of the stove. Mabel closed her eyes for a moment and, to distract herself from the overwhelming fatigue, looked out the window.
It was early morning, and the sky was dark gray. One solid heavy cloud covered Gravity Falls. It was so dark that it blended with the black treetops on the horizon. The hot air, lazily filtering into the shack through the open window, smelled something sharp and sweet at the same time, but did nothing to dilute the smell of burnt breakfast. A thin streak of lightning flashed in the distance.
“it’s about to dump buckets,” Grunkle Stan grumbled. The teenagers nodded in unison.
Thunder rumbled.
Mabel suddenly felt very sad. The first drop of rain hit the glass.
Soos entered the kitchen to a deathly silence. He, too, frowned at the unpleasant smell, but said nothing about it. He gave everyone a broad smile and waved.
“I think we can keep the Mystery Shack closed today,” Soos said. Stan grunted in displeasure, but, looking at the gloomy cloud over the forest and the streams of water splattering the windowpane, he remained silent. It was obvious no idiot would go to a souvenir shop in this weather. “So, dudes, how about board game day?”
Leaving Dipper to set the table, Mabel dashed up to the attic to call Bill for breakfast. To her surprise, when she opened the door, the demon was peacefully snoring, sprawled out on Dipper’s bed and hugging a pillow.
“How adorable,” the girl snorted, pulling out her phone and snapping a picture. “Gotta show this to bro-bro for sure,” she thought.
“GOOD MORNING, O ALMIGHTY RULER OF MINDS!” Mabel shouted, tucking her phone away. She jumped onto the bed next to Bill and started poking the guy — who jolted up in a daze from such a sudden wake‑up — in the cheek.
“Shooting Star, I hate you,” Cypher rasped, his eyes darting around the gloomy attic in confusion. “And why is it so dark?”
The answer came in the form of a deafening clap of thunder that sounded like it had exploded right inside the Shack. Mabel flinched, then burst out laughing.
“Because it’s raining. Come on, sleepyhead, breakfast’s waiting!”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Bill huffed, climbing out of bed. “I never sleep.”
“Suuure,” the girl drawled. She didn’t bother voicing her skepticism or showing him the pic of him snoozing like a log. “Want my famous Mabel Juice? It’s super energizing!”
A shadow crossed the demon’s rumpled face. He gave a barely noticeable shake of his head.
“I’m quite energized, like after a relaxing session on the electric chair. No juice needed.”
“Whatever you say.”
The girl gave Cypher one last poke in the cheek and then scampered downstairs. She was amused by the demon’s bewildered look as he stared at the alarm clock when she left. Come to think of it, Mabel had indeed never seen Bill sleep. He and Dipper spent their nights sitting up, each in their own bed, trying their best to pretend they were minding their own business instead of staring at each other.
Rain drummed against the windowpane, turning the view outside into a blurry mess. Mabel dashed into the kitchen, nearly bumping into her brother as he was sitting down at the table, and grabbed her plate.
“Enjoy your meal, everyone!” she smiled. Soos, his mouth full, mumbled something, and it took Mabel a moment to realize he’d said “thanks”. To her left, her uncle was teasing Dipper.
“…This is total nonsense — seriously, does anyone actually read this stuff?” Stan grumbled, peering into the book the teenager was reading. “There aren’t even any pictures!”
“I refuse to comment on that,” Dipper sighed. His uncle snatched the book from him and held it high above his head — just out of reach — while flipping through the pages.
“…remained untenanted, though later allotted to the estates of the Norrys family… blah‑blah‑blah… foundation was a very singular thing…” Stan squinted as he read aloud. “Ugh, what a bore! You seriously find it interesting to read the history of some random house?”
“The guy eats his friend’s face at the end,” the boy informed him. He climbed onto the chair and snatched the book back from his great‑uncle’s grip.
“So it’s not just a description of a house — it’s essential backstory that helps you understand why the main character went insane.”
“Well, then just read the ending.”
“If you already know how the book ends, why do you read it?” Soos asked.
“He’s re‑reading it for the fifth time,” Mabel chuckled. “If not the tenth.”
Stan pursed his lips and shook his head disapprovingly.
“You’d be better off stealing something.”
Soos snorted into his plate. Dipper lifted his head proudly, tucked the book under his arm, grabbed his breakfast, and marched off to the living room — sticking his tongue out at everyone as he left.
“Off you go, bookworm,” uncle Stan chuckled good‑naturedly.
Mabel popped a bite of omelette into her mouth and remembered how, once, in revenge for similar teasing, Dipper had woken her up every morning for a whole month, reading the same story aloud. Pines still knew the whole thing word for word. “Wonder if my bro’s brave enough to pull the same stunt on uncle Stan?” she thought.
Bill wandered into the kitchen and sniffed the air. He stared in horror at the frying pan with the leftover omelette.
“What the…?” he gasped, but the rest of the sentence was drowned out by a clap of thunder.
“Sit down, already, you wimp,” Stan got up from the table and shoved the demon into his seat, then headed over to the kettle.
“If it stinks this bad, then I…”
“Nah, the omelette’s fine. Relax, dude,” Soos smiled.
“Yeah, I made it — it’s delicious!” Mabel nodded. “And what’s in the trash is what Dipper cooked. If you don’t wanna get poisoned, better skip anything he’s made.”
“I can hear that!” Dipper’s voice came from the living room. Mabel and Soos burst out laughing.
The rain had been tapping against the windows for the third day in a row. And over these past three days, the folks living in the Shack had managed to play through every board game they could get their hands on, sit through a tedious lecture from Stanford about climate change (which only impressed Dipper), help Abuelita do a deep clean of the whole house, and witness a fight: Bill had scribbled all over Dipper’s journal with crooked doodles, and got punched in the face for it. Now the shiner under the demon’s eye was lighting up Dipper’s gloomy days, replacing the sun.
Everyone settled in the living room. To the quiet humming of the TV, Stan was teaching Cypher how to cheat at poker and, at the same time, trying to show a card trick where the cards disappear. Soos clapped every time the trick actually worked, boosting the old man’s self‑esteem. Mabel was secretly feeding the useless cards to Waddles and texting someone every three seconds, while Dipper, who still hadn’t learned to play properly, had already lost three rounds.
“Can we play something else?” he asked, pushing the cookies he’d lost toward Bill. Cypher formed an L with his fingers and placed them on his forehead, winking at the boy. Dipper sighed loudly, “Jerk.”
“I hope the rain stops,” Mabel sighed, putting down her cards. “I got asked out!”
“You’ve been stuck at home for three days, when did you have time?” Dipper frowned. The twin laughed.
“Remember how I said I met a guy at the gym?”
“While we were shopping?” Soos asked. The girl nodded.
“Yeah! We exchanged numbers back then, so we’ve been texting! He’s so sweet, makes funny jokes, and calls me ‘sweetie’!”
Dipper made a face like he was about to gag.
“I hope he’s rich,” Stan grumbled, dropping his cards under the table, where they instantly disappeared into Waddles’s ever‑hungry maw.
“Uncle, that’s not the point!”
Stanley snorted in disagreement.
“You two looked so cute together,” Soos mused, staring up at the ceiling. “Hope it all works out great for you!”
“Thanks, Soos!”
“Don’t forget to buy condoms,” Stan chimed in. “And…”
“Sure thing, uncle!” Mabel cut him off. Dipper let out a quiet snort, trying to stifle his laughter.
“Best of luck and love to you,” he managed to squeeze out.
“Love…” Bill rolled his eyes. “That’s just an illusion created by your silly little brains — a distraction from the unrelenting horror of knowing you’ll all inevitably die alone.”
Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look. Soos shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Stanley scratched the back of his head.
“Ye-ah,” he rasped gruffly. “Maybe you should’ve kept your mouth shut.”
“Bill, you’re wrong!” Mabel protested, slamming her fist on the table.
“Oh no,” Dipper groaned. The twin’s warlike appearance indicated that she would, if necessary, spend the entire day trying to convince the erring Cypher. Soos, anticipating a heated argument — or, more likely, another lecture — quietly slipped away. Stan muttered something about popcorn and soda and hurried to the kitchen.
“Love is wonderful! And it’s not an illusion, it’s an irresistible attraction between two hearts, sparked by a mutual interest in each other!”
“This 'interest' is simply nature’s tool, which it uses to keep people from eating each other long enough to procreate.”
Mabel cast a pleading glance at her brother, hoping Dip would help her argue her point, but he merely shrugged and pretended to be extremely interested in his fingernails.
“People don’t eat each other!” the girl declared. “And for a long time now!”
Luckily, she didn’t notice the skepticism that crossed her brother’s face.
“That’s only because your 'morality' doesn’t allow it,” Cipher snapped. “By the way, morality is just as idiotic as love.”
“I agree with him there,” Grunkle Stan interjected, standing in the kitchen doorway with a steaming bag of popcorn. Dipper shook his head and put his finger to his lips, indicating he shouldn’t interfere in this conversation.
“It’s not idiotic!” Mabel retorted, jumping up from her chair. “And Uncle, if you keep agreeing with him, I’m not talking to you anymore!”
“What’s it got to do with me?” Stanley asked, surprised, popping another handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Oh, and you’re a manipulator, Shooting Star,” Bill snorted. The girl pretended not to hear.
“Even if love, as you put it, is just a tool of nature, it brings people a ton of happy emotions!”
“Or a bunch of complexes,” Dipper whispered.
“And it also brings a ton of money into the pockets of those who sell chocolate and the colored pencils that people use to draw those things that supposedly look like real hearts. Seriously, does anyone really like those scribbles?”
“Believe it or not!”
“That’s not even original!”
“It doesn’t have to be original! It’s a gift that’s just made from the heart!”
Bill raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side.
“The heart is just a hollow muscular organ that rhythmically contracts and acts as a pump, pushing blood into the bloodstream and keeping it moving. How can you do anything because of it?”
Mabel sank back into her chair and sighed softly.
“You’re just unhappy in love, that’s why you say that. Or maybe you’re not in love at all, and that’s why you don’t understand how wonderful love is.”
“Actually…” Bill began, raising his eyebrows, but the girl was no longer listening.
“Ah, that feeling of euphoria when your lover embraces you. The bliss that washes over you with every new encounter! The joy and sadness when you say goodbye. The excitement of your first kiss…” Mabel sighed dreamily and closed her eyes. Stan, expecting at the very least a fight, which would escalate from the argument, waved his hand in disappointment and went back to the kitchen.
“Even if the relationship didn’t end well, all those feelings are worth it,” the girl concluded. Dipper stared blankly into space. Judging by the lost expression on his face, he was remembering the completely different feelings he’d experienced when he’d fallen in love.
“Okay, you poor deluded soul, let me agree with you, and you’ll wipe that silly dreaminess off your face?” Bill suggested.
“But seriously, Bill, have you ever been in love?” Mabel suddenly asked. “Have you ever been in a relationship? Or don’t you see the benefit?”
“I see the benefit,” the demon chuckled, ignoring the other questions. “By attracting mortals, you can get an army of devoted slaves who will do whatever you ask.”
The girl laughed loudly.
“That’s all you think about, huh? But what about…”
“Pleasure, joy, and all that other nonsense? Oh, you can’t imagine how happy I feel when little people, smitten with my charisma, crawl on their knees before me and beg me to let them carry out any task I ask. You know, I’m a master at making people fall in love with me!”
“Who would have doubted it,” muttered Dipper, finally shaking off his daze and blinking. “But honestly, you don’t have any particular charisma. You’re just a show-off.”
Bill narrowed his eyes menacingly, staring at Dipper.
“Did you just call me a clown?” he hissed threatingly. The boy smirked.
“Oh no, what are you talking about — of course not,” the teenager lied blatantly.
“All right, all right,” Mabel rattled off quickly, trying to divert Cypher’s attention — the demon was ready to lunge at her brother with his fists clenched. “So, how exactly do you make people fall for you?”
Bill pursed his lips but finally stopped glaring daggers at Dipper and turned to look at the girl.
“Oh, want to learn from the master?” the demon forced a smile. Mabel nodded eagerly.
“Why not!”
“Then listen up!” Bill propped his feet up on the table and started rocking back and forth on his chair. “But be careful! These are some seriously effective tips!”
Dipper raised an eyebrow skeptically but stayed silent.
“First off, mortals judge all other mortals by the cover. Looks are everything to you. So your clothes gotta impress! Lucky for you, Shooting Star, you’ve got that covered,” Bill ran his eyes over the bright stickers plastered all over Mabel’s face and her asymmetrical multicolored shirt. “But your brother here could definitely use a wardrobe upgrade. Seriously, Pine Tree, those ripped jeans you’re so fond of? They’re laughable.Seeing them only awakens the desire to buy you new pants.”
“That’s a bit much!” Dipper protested, throwing his arms up indignantly. Mabel let out a ringing laugh.
“I tell him that all the time!”
“Second, people hate it when there’s silence on a date. So you gotta fill every second of quiet! Tell him how to properly dispose of a corpse. Share your darkest secret and threaten him: if he breathes a word to anyone, he’ll be the next one you have to get rid of! You can also talk about eels, accidents at amusement parks — do you know how many people have died in funhouses from mirrors falling on them? — you can talk about anything at all! The key is not to be silent. Every second of silence gives your date a chance to notice all your flaws.”
“I don’t think talking about corpses is a great idea for a date,” Mabel said uncertainly, exchanging a look with Dipper. He just shrugged — he didn’t see anything weird or objectionable about discussing the dead. “And I don’t have any flaws!” the girl declared.
“Well, if he’s not interested in you, you can always put him in a cage. Let him sit there until he starts feeling what you call love. To make it more effective, you could also perform the most heart‑wrenching song ever. After that, your beloved will definitely swear eternal devotion to you.”
“Yeah, whatever just to shut you up,” Dipper huffed. Bill tossed a cookie at him, but it was caught mid‑air by Waddles.
“Well, that was… interesting,” Mabel sniffed. Cypher’s words had convinced her that the demon didn’t understand anything about love.
“That was nonsense,” Dipper cut in.
“Says the guy who, on his first date, tried to impress a girl by explaining astrophysics.”
“But that’s actually interesting!”
Grinning widely, the girl shook her head and assured him: “Only to nerds, bro!”
Dipper waved his hands, ready to utter some indignantly apologetic retort, but couldn’t think of anything acceptable and simply waved his arms, trying to formulate a thought. Mabel laughed.
“You two have very strange ideas about dating,” she concluded. “That will have to be corrected.”
“No!” the boys chorused. Realizing they’d answered simultaneously, they frowned and gave each other the middle finger. Mabel, however, smiled broadly and rubbed her palms together in anticipation. Dipper, catching a glimpse of his sister’s smile, jumped up from his chair so quickly that he hit his hipbone on the table.
“I better go help Uncle Ford… with anything,” he muttered through clenched teeth, rubbing the bruised area and hastily retreating from the living room to avoid a potential conversation about proper dating. Mabel guessed this help would consist of a three-hour game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, or complaining about Cipher. Waddles, taking advantage of the fact that no one was looking, climbed onto an empty chair and, grunting contentedly, began devouring the cookies piled high on the table. Bill thoughtfully tapped the table, perfectly in time with the raindrops hitting the window.
“Speaking of clothes!” Mabel said, breaking the sudden silence. On rainy days, she disliked the silence in the room: the rain outside made her feel melancholy, and to stave off the sadness, she needed to talk or listen to anything.
“Want to help me pick out an outfit for my date?” she asked Bill. He shrugged.
“It’s more fun than just sitting around,” the teenager chuckled.
They went up to Mabel’s room. Cipher climbed onto the dresser, draped his bare feet over it, and, hugging his knees, watched as the girl dumped her entire wardrobe onto the bed. The rain gradually subsided outside the window like a soft blue curtain.
“How do you like this?” the girl smiled, showing off a green and white jacket with a cartoon frog cut in half by a zipper. “I think it’s very sweet!”
“Quite,” Bill agreed.
Mabel, watching the demon’s genuine interest, became thoughtful: she’d been watching Bill for the past three days, and she’d begun to think he’d gotten used to her company and preferred the perpetually smiling mortal to everyone else. Perhaps their shared fight with the ghost had had this effect on him?
Mabel herself had also become much more relaxed about Cipher: after he’d offered his face to the evil ghost’s claws to shield her, it was hard not to relegate Bill from the category of “mean but cheerful acquaintance” to the category of “good friend”. Dipper, of course, wouldn’t appreciate it if he knew, but Mabel had no intention of telling him.
“What about that blouse?” Cipher pointed at the lilac blouse with orange flowers. The girl immediately emerged from her thoughts and nodded.
“Yes, yes, yes, it’s very beautiful! And it would look great with a corset!”
“Hmm…” Bill drawled, and Mabel began suggesting endless ways to pair the aforementioned blouse with a variety of skirts: straight, side-slit, striped, and even those Mabel had painted herself — these were her favorites. She finally settled on a long, pale pink skirt.
“I’d go with something more… impressive,” Cypher commented.
Pines chuckled and hung the chosen items over the back of a chair.
“Like, pants made from pieces of human flesh?” she suggested. Bill nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah, that would be great! And a hat! Like this big!” He stood on the dresser and tried to reach the ceiling. “The bigger the hat, the better it will highlight my superiority!”
“How awful,” Mabel thought. If someone wearing meat pants approached her, she would run away without looking back, and the hat would only provoke uncontrollable laughter. But she didn’t voice this thought, she just put a tick in her head next to the item “teach Bill to impress people without scaring them or bringing them to hysterical laughter.”
“What about jewelry?” Mabel asked, taking out the jewelry box she kept. “I wonder what will go well with it?”
She sorted through a multitude of brightly colored hairpins and over stuff and finally pulled out a pair of blue gummy bear earrings.
“Oh…” she drawled sadly.
“What?” Bill asked, surprised. “Don’t like the earrings?”
“No, It’s not like that” Mabel said, rubbing her neck. “You know, I used to have a pendant with the same bear — it was part of a set my mom gave me. But I lost it a year ago… It’s so sad.”
“Are you sad about the jewelry?”
“Not exactly… More about the fact that I managed to lost a gift from someone close to me.”
Bill let out a small grunt under his breath and began tracing his finger along the surface of the dresser. Mabel set the earrings aside, sighed, and went back to sorting through the endless jewelry.
“How do you like these hairpins?” she asked, turning to the demon and showing him the yellow clips with pink flowers. Bill stopped gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling and glanced at the girl. Next to his pale foot, something blue glinted.
“Not bad,” Cypher replied.
“What’s that over there?” Mabel wondered, pointing at the object that had caught her interest. “There wasn’t anything there before.”
The guy looked where the girl had pointed. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, picked up the piece of jewelry by its thin silver chain, and showed her a pendant with a small bright‑blue gummy bear.
“Uh…” Mabel uttered, staring wide‑eyed at the chain swaying from his long fingers.
“Is this the pendant you were talking about?” Cypher asked.
“Oh… Yes… But I lost it, I told you!”
“Maybe it just got buried among the…”
“No!” Mabel jumped toward Bill and grabbed the pendant. She ran her finger along the chain and clenched the little blue bear in her fist. “I lost it… During a school field trip…” She shifted her stunned gaze to the demon and exhaled. “You created it!”
Bill blinked several times. Then he laughed and shook his head.
“I can’t create anything, Shooting Star!” he said. “Otherwise your brother would’ve been walking around with peacock tails instead of ears ages ago.”
“Then how did it get here?! What were you doing just now?! What were you conjuring up with your hands?!”
Cypher shrugged.
“Well, I was just…” he began, but suddenly froze with his mouth open and frowned.
“Bill!”
“I… I just imagined that silly pendant of yours, that’s all,” he announced in a hoarse voice. “I didn’t… I didn’t…”
Staring at Mabel, the guy bit his lip, trying to grasp what had just happened. Then, all of a sudden, he let out an excited shout, jumped off the dresser, grabbed the girl by the shoulders, and started shaking her.
“Oh my God,” Mabel whispered, stunned by the demon’s roar. Bill was shouting so loudly it was too much even for her, and the non‑stop shaking wasn’t exactly enjoyable either.
“What on earth are you two yelling about?!” Uncle Stan barked, poking his head into his grand-niece’s room. “You’re giving me a headache!”
Behind the uncle’s back, Dipper’s curly head appeared.
“Oh, we’re just…” Mabel clamped a hand over Bill’s mouth and laughed nervously. “Bill’s trying to talk me into letting him borrow some jewelry!”
“Are you some kind of girl?” Stanley huffed, giving Cypher a mocking look. Dipper, who’d sensed the tension in his sister’s voice, frowned. “Fine, just give him the dang thing so he’ll shut up,” the uncle waved his hand. “Or I’ll stuff a gag down his throat.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel nodded, breaking free from the demon’s grip. She ran to the door, grabbed the surprised Dipper by the sleeve of his hoodie, and pulled him into her room, slamming the door in her grate-uncle’s face.
“Go, uncle, we won’t make noise!” she shouted.
“Mabel, what’s wrong?” Dipper asked. “And why is he grinning like a crazy maniac?” The guy pointed at the madly grinning demon, who was still holding his hands as if they were holding a girl’s shoulders.
“You won’t believe it,” Mabel whispered. She showed her brother the pendant she was clutching. Dipper frowned in confusion.
“And…?”
“Bill just created it.”
The boy blinked. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He took the necklace from the twin’s hands and began examining it from every angle.
“It’s impossible,” he finally managed to say, handing the necklace to his sister. “Cipher lost his powers; he couldn’t create anything this whole week. Ford and I confirmed it.”
“And I say: he created it!”
They fell silent for a moment, looking at each other. Behind Mabel, Bill finally lowered his hands. The goofy grin disappeared from his face, replaced by an inspired glint in his eyes.
“Okay,” Dipper sighed, straining. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Okay, then. Here’s the thing… Bill, you don’t have any powers,” he snapped, handing the pendant to his sister. The demon shot the boy an indignant look, but Dipper raised his hand, cutting off any protests. “You don’t have them. To everyone except me and Mabel, you’re a completely helpless creature who’s lost all his might. You didn’t create anything, got it? Otherwise uncle Ford would definitely skin you alive, trying to figure out how your magic works — or, more likely, to get revenge for the past.”
“And he might lock you up down in his boonker, since he thinks you’ll harm us,” Mabel nodded, agreeing with what her brother had said. “The only thing stopping him from doing it right now is that he believes you’re just an ordinary human.”
“Okay,” Bill huffed, looking like a creature magnanimously making huge concessions. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Great,” Dipper relaxed a bit and pulled a journal out of his pocket. “Now, Mabel, please bring the invisible ink.”
The girl dashed up to the attic with a terrible thumping sound, while the boy himself sat down right where he was standing. He looked up at the demon with a slightly tired, serious gaze — and seemed to be trying to peer into Bill’s very being with his brown eyes, searching for what Cypher utterly lacked but humans called a soul.
“Now I want you to answer all the questions I’m going to ask — and don’t even think about lying to me,” he declared flatly. Bill smirked.
“Just don’t ask how many sexual partners I’ve had — counting them over trilion years is a thankless task.”
Dipper rolled his eyes so hard he almost seemed capable of seeing his own brain.
“Show-off,” he sighed, making Bill frown in annoyance and plop down on his backside opposite the boy.
“Call me that one more time, and I’ll replace your tongue with a mop even without any magic.”
Mabel walked into the room and handed her twin an invisible ink pen he’d made himself and a small UV lamp.
“Here, bro,” she smiled humorlessly. “I’ll probably go play some video games with Soos so I don’t have to listen to your nerdy ramblings.”
“Okay, Pine Tree, ask your questions,” Bill nodded, leaning back against the dresser as the door closed behind Mabel. Dipper clicked the pen and opened the journal to the pages dedicated to Cipher — the only ones the blond hadn’t doodled all over.
Pine Tree turned the next hour into a session of soul-searching — forcing Bill to recall everything he’d thought, felt, done, even how he’d breathed and where he’d looked while creating the jewelry. After writing about five pages, the boy buried his forehead in the journal. He looked confused, while the demon — drained. It’s not every day that Bill voluntarily and honestly tells how many seconds he stared at the crack in the ceiling and, perhaps, just for a little tiny bit wanted to make Shooting Star happier.
The rain outside had stopped, and the room was filled with the scent of damp earth and grass.
“One last question,” Pine Tree sighed. “Do you think your abilities might have manifested themselves before?”
Bill bit the inside of his cheeks. He had no clear answer to this question.
Every night, when he grew tired of staring at the reading teenager, Cipher replayed the fight with the ghost in his mind. Back then, he was absolutely certain that the mirror he’d dug up from a pile of museum junk was bronze. Of course, the demon could have been mistaken, but looking at that very mirror, now hanging above his dresser — for some reason, Bill didn’t want to get rid of it — he couldn’t accept the idea of mistake. And every night he tried to make the boy’s clothes catch fire. Or make the book he was reading grow an eagle’s beak. Of course, nothing happened, and Bill, irritated, buried his face in the pillow. And he cursed himself for having managed to deceive himself so cruelly. But now… What if he had been able to influence the mirror back then?
“Perhaps,” the demon finally managed after a minute of silence. The boy raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. When Cypher still hadn’t spoken after another minute, he couldn’t hold back any longer.
“And?” Pine Tree asked. “When and how?”
“Remember that lovely lady you performed an exorcism on?”
The guy nodded.
“Well, at first I thought the mirror I wanted to trap her in was bronze.”
It was amusing to watch Pine Tree first open his mouth, then close it, nod slowly, and start scribbling something frantically in the diary. The only thing that was unnerving was that the boy didn’t read his notes aloud. Finally, he snapped the book shut and stood up.
“All right, let’s stop here for now,” he said. “I need to think.”
“So you weren’t thinking just now, huh?” Bill huffed.
Pine tucked the pen behind his ear, hid the lamp and journal in his sweatshirt pocket, and, with a wave of his hand, left the room, leaving the door open. Alone, the demon slowly rose and stared at the ill-fated earrings with the little blue bears. He sighed deeply, feeling two emotions coursing through him: delight at the realization that his powers were still intact, and frustration at Bill’s lack of understanding of how exactly they worked.
“It’s okay, I’ll figure it out,” Cipher smiled broadly, touching the gummy bear. “I’ll figure it out…”
Downstairs, Shooting Star and Question Mark were playing video games. A contented pig sprawled between them, chewing on the TV remote.
“So, how was your chat, Bill?” the girl asked, not taking her eyes off the screen, where two humanoid figures were beating up what looked like pterodactyls. A pendant Bill had created adorned Star’s neck. Cipher’s smile widened.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Pine Tree turned out to be an excellent listener.”
Question Mark sighed in disappointment as the little man he was playing as died a rather unheroic death.
“Three-nil to you, Mabel,” he shook his head. Shooting Star raised her fist in triumph.
“Yes, I am a great defender of cities!” she laughed.
“Incomparable,” Question Mark nodded.
“And invincible!”
Cypher rolled his eyes and headed to the kitchen.
Over the past three days, under Stanley’s watchful gaze, he had learned to make tea. There wasn’t much to it, of course, but the drink itself turned out to be excellent — far better than that stupid coffee Shooting Star had once foisted on him. During these days, Bill had grown fond of tea and was now downing it by the liter. Pine Tree had once made a poor joke about it, saying that if the demon lived on nothing but chamomile tea, they’d only face another apocalypse if the world suddenly ran out of chamomile.
“Yeah, dumb joke,” Bill huffed, inhaling the soft, herbal aroma. He hadn’t tried chamomile tea yet, but he wanted to.
“Ooh‑ooh‑ooh, he made a date for eight in the evening!” Shooting Star’s squeal suddenly came from the living room. Bill rolled his eyes. “Silly child,” he though, and, unable to hold back, shouted:
“Don’t forget to bring a knife so you can eat him more easily!”
“Ugh, Bill! People don’t eat each other on dates!”
“I’ll totally deny I ever said this later, but I agree with this half‑witted blondie,” Fresca chimed in, cutting into the exchange. “But only on one point: you, sweetheart, should bring a weapon with you. Who knows what’s going on in the heads of today’s teenagers?”
“No need to worry, uncle,” Cypher heard Pine Tree’s voice. “Mabel’s perfectly safe.”
“That’s right!” Shooting Star shouted cheerfully.
“Because whatever’s in her head is way scarier than anything that guy might be thinking,” Pine Tree finished.
“Hey!”
Bill laughed and nearly choked on the tea he’d just sipped. He actually agreed with the boy: Cipher had once been inside Shooting Star’s head, and what he’d seen there had been terribly vivid, loud, and unbearable, even for him. To say that he experienced trauma then is to say nothing. And that had been almost five years ago. And the demon was wary of what was going on in her mind now. There’s probably an endless line of pumped-up guys there, serenading to the girl in languid voices.
When Bill returned to the living room, Shooting Star, with Pine Tree’s head pinned to her side in a wrestling hold, was clearly trying to twist her fist into the back of his head, but only tangled his already disheveled hair, which hadn’t known the existence of a comb.
“Take that, take that, take that!” she chanted with a vengeful smile.
“M‑a‑abel, enough!” the boy laughed, trying to wriggle free. Stanley, chuckling maliciously, was filming the whole thing on camera.
“Come on, kid, don’t you have enough strength to break free from your sister’s grip?” he goaded. Question Mark, resting his chin on the armrest of the couch, was smiling with such bliss that it looked as if the grace of the Demiurge himself had suddenly descended upon him.
“Oh, he’s drinking tea again,” Stanley huffed, spotting Bill. Cipher saluted the old man with his cup and sank into a chair. Pine Tree, whom the twin had finally released, smiled reservedly and tried to smooth his spiky curls to cover the birthmark on his forehead. Bill met his gaze, and the mischief that had been shining in the boy’s eyes was replaced by a quiet thoughtfulness.
“I wonder why, after finding out I have my powers, he didn’t immediately run off to report it to Sixer?” Bill thought suddenly, continuing to bore his gaze into Pine Tree. The latter, letting out a nervous chuckle, turned to his sister.
“You’ve got my hair all tangled up,” he said with feigned displeasure.
“Oh, come on,” Shooting Star brushed it off. “Your hair’s always tangled.”
“Want me to shave you bald?” Stanley offered. “No hair — no problems.”
“Thanks, I’ll pass.”
“Everything is clear with Shooting Star,” Cypher continued to reason silently, tuning out the rest of the world. “She ignored all of Six‑Finger’s demands from the very start and didn’t run to him even when I nearly took Pine Tree out. But what’s driving him? Could it really be that the kid simply fell for the act that I voluntarily saved his sister?”
Bill hid a satisfied smile, pretending to take a sip of tea. “So he’s a fool, then,” he concluded. “All the better for me. I wonder how soon he’ll agree to remove the barrier from this shack?”
“Hey, blondie,” a raspy voice pulled him out of his thoughts. Bill blinked and stared at Stanley, who had settled on the sofa, closer to the demon. They were the only ones in the living room.
“What is it, old‑timer?” Cypher smiled. The old man narrowed his eyes and, without breaking his intense gaze on the demon, leaned closer to him.
“You’re good at deceit, aren’t you?” he asked, but the phrase didn’t sound like a question at all. Bill suddenly felt an intense surge of tension. He gripped the mug tightly with his fingers.
“Maybe Pine Tree did tell and not just Sixer, but everyone around,” a nasty thought suddenly flashed through Bill’s mind. But aloud, he said:
“Better than all of you, skin‑bags.”
Stanley nodded several times and, groaning, rose from the sofa, beckoning the demon to follow him.
“Come on,” he grumbled.
Cipher frowned warily and pursed his lips, not even thinking of getting up from the chair. Then the old man demonstratively cracked his knuckles and clenched his fists.
“Should I drag you by the scruff of the neck?”
Bill set his mug down and slowly rose. “I wonder if they’re going to torture or just kill me?” he smiled nervously.
Stanley led him into a small room with gray walls. In the center of the room stood only an old wooden table and a matching chair. The demon glanced around warily.
“Sit,” Stanley nodded. Bill, glancing sideways at the unusually serious old man, carefully lowered himself onto the lopsided chair.
“Here,” in front of the demon, who was practically expecting a thorough interrogation, were placed a crumpled banknote, a pile of blank sheets of paper, paints and brushes. “Draw. I’m sure your counterfeits will be just like the real ones.”
Whistling cheerfully to himself, Stanley left the confused Cypher alone.
By the time Question Mark arrived and invited him to dinner, Bill had managed not only to draw a pile of fake money — which, indeed, looked no different from the real thing — but also to develop a nagging backache. “How disgusting it is to be human,” Cypher groaned silently, stretching and cracking every vertebra.
“What time is it?” he asked the fat man walking calmly beside him.
“Uhm…” Question Mark drawled thoughtfully, glancing at his wristwatch. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”
“How much?!” the demon asked, indignantly surprised. “Have I been sitting in that room for six hours?!”
“I think so,” the puny human nodded. Then he asked sympathetically, “Tired?”
“Pfft,” Bill waved his hand dismissively. He’s not going to complain to some leather bag about back pain.
To Cipher’s surprise, only Pine Tree and Shooting Star were sitting at the table, the latter looking incredibly upset and angry.
“How was the date?” Bill smirked. The girl gave him a withering look, while Pine Tree, pursing his lips and making an indignant face, began waving his hand near his neck, probably miming a beheading.
“HE IS DATING THREE AT THE SAME TIME, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!” Shooting Star shouted. Cypher barely held back a gloating laugh.
“Mabel, please don’t shout — the adults are already asleep,” Pine Tree asked. Question Mark soothingly patted the girl on the shoulders.
“DON’T SHOUT?! DON’T SHOUT?! THAT JERK ASKED ME OUT ON A DATE! HE SWORE HIS LOVE TO ME!!! AND HE’S GOT THREE GIRLS, DIPPER!!! THREE!!!”
Bill sat down at the table and opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, but Pine Tree gave him such a vicious look, foreshadowing at the very least hellish torment if the demon said anything wrong, that Cipher had to force out a falsely sympathetic response:
“Don’t worry, Shooting Star, he’s just trying to boost his paltry self-esteem. I hope you gave him a good whack?”
Shooting Star smiled nervously.
“I broke his nose!”
“Well done!” Question Mark nodded. “Serves him right.”
“Want me to convince the gnomes to break into his house and steal all his things?” Pine Tree suggested. Bill whistled, and the girl laughed.
Over the late dinner, all four of them heaped such abuse on Shooting Star’s former suitor that even the most inveterate swearer would have had his ears screwed up. Finally, after drinking three mugs of hot chocolate, she told them absolutely everything about her bad date in the finest detail.
“…You won’t believe it — he took me to a luxury store just to look at clothes. That’s fine, I like looking at stuff too, but then he spotted fashion magazines on a table and sat down to flip through them. I looked at him like: ‘Are you serious? Sitting there looking at magazines? Is this really super important right now?! ’ I had to sit down next to him and leaf through a second magazine with fake enthusiasm until he was done. He spent two whole hours looking at it! I thought I was going to lose my mind,” Mabel rattled off in one breath.
After finishing her story, the girl listened to a bunch of supportive words, yawned widely, wished everyone good night, and, happy, headed off to her room. Soos, who lived in the next room, went with her, leaving Bill and Dipper alone at the table. Cypher pushed away the empty plate that had held fried potatoes and stared thoughtfully at the guy slurping his favourite coffee.
“Hey, Pine Tree,” Bill called. “Why didn’t you tell Sixer about my powers?”
Dipper set his mug on the table and turned to the window. The scent of wildflowers drifted in through the slightly open pane.
“I’ll tell him if you bother me,” Pine Tree snorted. “Consider that I have leverage over you.”
The demon laughed merrily.
“So, while I’m a good boy, you cover for me, but as soon as I, for example, take over your bed again, you’ll immediately run to your uncle to complain about the bad evil Bill?
“Of course,” Dipper rolled his eyes. Since 'evil Bill' had appeared in his life, eye rolling had become his most frequent expression.
“But seriously?”
“But seriously,” Pine Tree repeated. “What I mean is, I’m not saying anything until your powers pose a threat to my family or any living thing. But the moment you decide to do anything, I’ll personally put a leash on you and hand you over to Grunkle Ford for his experiments.”
“You’re cruel,” Bill breathed admiringly. “I like it.”
“I don’t…” Dipper sighed heavily. “Look, believe it or not, I don’t like scientific violence, let’s call it that. I prefer empirical research methods over dissections and the like. I’m not an immoral freak to hand you over to the scalpel just because you created a pendant. Besides, I don’t think you understand how your powers work in this form yet, so you’re unlikely to be able to use them again anytime soon. So I don’t see the point in telling Ford what happened. But I want to keep my family safe. So as long as you’re not a threat, I’m helping you and, as you put it, covering you.”
“Alright, I get it,” Cypher nodded. “Then… I’m off to take over your bed!”
With a nasty giggle, Bill dodged the plate flying at him and ran off to the attic. Deep inside, the demon felt warm with the realization that everything was going according to his plan.
