#trasdobc

“Just… keep close, but stand back,” Bill tells everyone. He takes a second, tapping the cane to the ground. It’s less pomp and circumstance when he changes forms this time, but Ford’s nostrils still flare slightly. Freak.

“Hands up.” And Ford lifts his hands as Bill comes to stand in the ring made by his arms. Normally, he’d lean into the heat of Ford’s body against his back, but there’s not really a time for at the moment.

He grabs Ford’s hands and sets them up—thumbs touching, index fingers touching, and then he angles it until it makes a nigh perfect triangle. Bill shifts and moves and steps with Ford, the pair of them moving together until Bill lets out a soft “ah-ha!”

“What is it?” Ford asks, breath hot on the back of Bill’s head, an unbidden shiver rushing down his spine. “What does it look like?”

“Distorted. Like a tear.” Which is a far more simplistic answer. Bill can see into the space between Ford’s hands perfectly and it’s like a window into something else. The space between his hands shows an open void only broken up by the occasional glitter of stars. As Bill moves his hands from one way and then the other, more stars show until he comes to this place that’s just like there’s a tear in fabric. It’s rough and uneven and inside of the tear pulses something purple and bubbling almost like molten rock.

Bill lifts a hand and reaches into the space between Ford’s fingers. It’s like pushing through nothing before his fingers catch on the edge of the tear. He feels the unevenness against his gloved fingers, biting into the material and his hand. Shifting, he squeezes his other hand into the space, pushing on Ford’s hands a bit. Even when the picture fizzles out because Ford’s hands are no longer holding a triangle, Bill can still feel what he’s gripping onto. He slides his other hand against his first before turning it, catching the opposite side. Anchored in, he takes in a deep breath that just looks like his body sighing. His eye snaps up to the Pineses all staring at him.

“I’m going to open it,” he says slowly, testing his grip. “Are you ready?”

He gets nods from Mabel, from Dipper, from Stan, and from Ford. It’s as ready as any of them are going to be.

Bill plants his feet once again and looks down into a void he can’t see, but feel. One more breath, Bill tightens his arms, and then, all at once, he jerks his hands apart.

And the tear, well, tears.

Nothing happens for a moment. Everyone looks at each other with an obvious sort of confusion.

“Great! Bill broke it,” Stan gripes. Bill lets go of the riff to raise his finger and point at Stan when suddenly a wave of air knocks them all back. Bill is the only one to stay on his feet, cane behind him and pushed into the dirt to lean against.

The fact he’s on his feet is a miracle. He looks around and he can’t find the source of the wind until he looks back at the tear, sees it ripple and stretch.

The Pineses behind him get to their feet, the picture of ready and waiting. Bill spreads a hand out to the side, fire igniting in his palm as he waits for the first wave to erupt from the hole.

The attack, however, comes from behind.

Bill cries out as a weight wraps his waist and knocks him forward. He goes flying forward and keeps going.

Dottie Gleeful has her arms wrapped around Bill’s waist, dragging him straight into the tear. Bill tries to wrestle her off of him, but she continues to cling until, suddenly, Dottie lets go, but another shape is wrapped around him as they tumble through the hole and into the nebulously dark abyss.

Bill tumbles end over end before the weight comes off of him and he’s just floating in space.

Copernicus is the same ball of energy and matter Bill had seen before, three pairs of limbs coming off his body. Countless eyes gaze Bill as the demon starts to laugh. Arms spread out to the side, he spins around in a circle and grins.

“Oh, now, this is much better. Hm, but it’s not complete, is it?”

Six hands snap their fingers and, much like Bill would change his own appearance at will, Copernicus’ form starts to squash and stretch—legs lengthen, a torso from the condensed gas that had made up his body. Up and out he churns until there’s a creature that looks far too similar to Bill with long limbs, though white in color, clothes of the deepest purple, and a swirling mass of eyes making up his face.

“Very original,” Bill sneers, scrambling in the air for a second, unable to make heads or tails of the way that he’s positioned. The issue is simple—with the door to the Nightmare Realm open, Copernicus has all of his powers. Bill’s powers, the full kit and caboodle, reside in the pocket of a salamander who doesn’t wear clothes.

Inconvenient.

What he’s got is good, but temporary and limited, liable to give out from too much use. But Bill doesn’t need the full wrath of the former King of the Nightmare Realm to do away with a pest. Probably.

“You look like a newly formed sprout!” Copernicus cackles, turning over onto his stomach, feet kicked up in the air. “Can’t even float.”

“I’m— I’m floating just—“ Bill curses loudly, shoving his feet down and only managing to drift a few inches up and rotate feet over head. “Shut up!”

“Goodness, Billy, this is too easy.” Copernicus continues to chortle, leaning his amorphous head on one of his six fists. He raises one of the other ones and a bolt of lightning forms in it. Bill’s eye gets wide and there’s a moment of panic. Copernicus’ eyes, all too many of them, squint before he throws the bolt at Bill in a lazy sort of throw.

It comes careening at Bill and— Sweet Moses.

His hands go up, he’s not entirely sure what’s going to happen, but, just like before, the bright blue shield goes up and the bolt ricochets off, careening into nothingness Bill can’t help but laugh.

“Ha! Oh, you thought! You thought!” Bill grins, still floating sort of miserably, but at least in the confines of a large, fiery blue bubble.

“Do you really expect to be able to do anything more than block things out?” Copernicus offers a simpering sigh. “You are on a limited time-strain, I, on the other hand, am back to my full powers.”

Red throws it on two, it sails right past Bill’s ear, Bill screams, and nothing else happens.

“What happened to ‘go on one’?!” Bill shrieks when he comes back to himself, heart hammering in his chest.

“It’s no fun if you expect it,” Red laughs, going over to collect her axe where it is sunk deep into the target beside Bill. “We’re trying to simulate a ‘near death experience’.”

“Yeah, well—“

“What are you doing?”

The three of them look up to see Ford and Mabel wandering to them. Ford is staring at Bill like he’s got three heads while Red pulls the axe out and puts it on her shoulder.

“I actually don’t know how to answer that question,” Bill confesses.

“We’re seeing if we can coax that other version of Bill out through fear,” Dipper says instead.

“By throwing axes at him?” Ford doesn’t sound mad, almost unimpressed. “There’s better ways to scare him.”

“Well, if you’ve got anything better, I’ll hear it. Nothing’s happening,” Bill tells him.

“Short of just praying that it happens when it happens, we’ve tried everything I would normally suggest,” Dipper notes from the truck.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

“You could try the ‘Mew Mew Kissy Cutie’ method?” Mabel suggests, climbing up into the truck to sit next to Dipper.

Ford and Bill both blink at her while Red groans and rolls her eyes.

“The what?” Bill asks.

“It’s a stupid kid’s show,” Red dismisses.

“It is an ‘anime’,” Mabel corrects with a good deal of gravitas, “and it is a very important anime.”

“Those are the shows that Soos watches sometimes, right?” Ford recalls and Mabel nods enthusiastically.

“Soos showed them to me! It’s about a magical girl!”

“Magical—” Bill starts.

“Girl?” and Ford finishes.

“Well, I’m not magic or a girl.”

Dipper makes a thoughtful sound.

“You are magical and, technically, you aren’t a boy or a girl, you’re a demon.”

“I mean, yes, your binary understanding of gender doesn’t work outside of your realm, but according to the fake ID your grunkle got me so I can buy various age-appropriate implements, I’m a man.”

“It’s not about being a boy or a girl,” Mabel insists before standing, striking a pose, “it’s about saving the world and doing so in a cute outfit and magical powers! One of those things is taken care of.”

“…but I can’t access the magical powers,” Bill reminds. It’s stupid, incredibly stupid, but at this point, they’ve only got so many options.

“Alright, what do I do?”

Mabel energetically jumps down from the truck and goes over to him.

“So, the first thing you do is you have to spin around in a circle and put your arms above your head. After a couple circles, you stop, you strike a pose, and you wink.”

“…I do what?”

“You know, you—“ And Mabel comes closer before lifting her arms above her head. She turns in a neat circle a couple of times before stopping short, hip popped with one hand on it and the other holding a peace sign next to her face.

Bill blinks at her.

“You’re kidding.”

“You heard her,” Ford insists, sounding amused. “You spin in a circle with your hands above your—“

“You just want to see me dance around and make an idiot of myself.”

“The concept has merit, yes,” Ford teases.

Bill waves him off before looking down at Mabel. “I seriously have to do all of that?”

Mabel nods energetically.

The entire group is staring at Bill hopefully and— Look, they’re desperate at this point. …what’s the worst that happens, honestly?

Bill lets out a deep sigh, squaring his shoulders, and muttering under his breath about “stupid powers” and “stupid magical girls”. Stopping a few paces away, he takes a deep breath in, willing the pale heat in his face to die down.

He lifts his arms over his head, spins in two circles before doing the same move as Mabel before stopping, hip popped, hand on his hip, and peace sign near his face.

Nothing happens.

Bill sighs at that.

“Well, it’s… a little more complicated.” He stares down into the cup for a second. “I always knew him like that, as a diamond with three eyes, similar to the way I used to look, but a different shape, color, and eyes set-up. He also likes neck-ties and bowler hats.”

“But?”

“But incubi are a lot more fluid with their form,” Bill explains. “He put that form on to appease me. To… To make me feel less alone.”

Copernicus, once upon a time, had been very good at that. Up until a couple of months prior, he hadn’t remembered their time together unfondly. Copernicus had been a pretty good boyfriend, all things considered. They’d drifted the Nightmare Realm together, caused undue chaos, and when Bill had told him about the things he heard, the things he saw, Copernicus believed him.

Another universe, they might have ruled this stupid planet together.

But now Bill wants to “protect it” and that kind of throws a wrench in everything else.

Not to mention his current “boyfriend” situation which is less of a “boyfriend” situation and a “maybe-not-also-kind-of-yes-boyfriend-situation”. Which, like, now isn’t exactly the time to quantify that just because they slept together.

And Bill said that he loves him.

And neither of them have commented on it in the few days since.

It’s fine. It’s good. All fine. Time to figure this stuff out once they dealt with everything else.

Right.

“What’s he look like when he’s normal?”

It takes a second for Bill to conjure the image, thinking back to the dream he’d had before they exorcised him.

“Kind of… amorphous. A cloud, grey-purple in color. Lots of hands and eyes. God, Cooper’s really just eyes. Incubi tend to have very fluid forms, lets them adapt to different forms with ease.”

“So if he is able to get the rift open—“

“No, he won’t just turn into anyone.” Bill lets out an almost bitter laugh. “He’s vain as anything, you saw the way he was with Dottie. He’s got forms he favors and he’ll turn into one of those. But, we’re not opening the rift, so it’s not really an issue that we—“

“We’re going to open the rift,” Ford announces as he walks into the kitchen.