#trig-fix

Tall, wafting grass blew in the gentle wind that mysteriously found it's way in from the trees, and into the warm, sun drenched enclosure. Through the center wound a steam being fed into by a shimmering waterfall. The constant crash against the surface of the water created a pleasant hum, and rising accumulation of foaming water droplets. The woods that surrounded the clearing gave the atmosphere a heavy feeling of seclusion. Like all of the worries of civilized life could never find a soul who dared to wander this far.

What should have been a peaceful scene was made eerie by the fog of the Mindscape. It loomed around them, making the greys of the world blend together. The only color on the dusty monochromatic landscape shone off of Bill's triangular surface.

Across from Bill, Dipper sat on the sediment encrusted mud a few feet from the water, picking at the edge of the plastic tartan patterned blanket under him. He wasn't the tallest man, but his shoulders were broad, and his body had a bit of a toned bulk to it. Forever an outdoorsman, his skin glowed with a an extra tinge of sun. His entire lumberjack-esque ensemble from the flannel, to his beat up old boots had splatters of mud, sweat stains, and other unknown discolorations.

His loose brown locks were tangled together in a chaotic mass, and to Mabel's disdain, he'd been letting a little goatee grow out. According to her, if one of them couldn't grow a beard, than the other one shouldn't out of 'respect for fairness'. To make up for it, he let her drag him out of town to a weird little costume shop to buy a fake beard for herself.

Not that Mabel knew it, but Bill had been the largest perpetuator of the beard idea. The demon didn't even need to say that he liked it, Dipper could tell by the way his pupil predatorily dilated whenever his little black fingers stroked it. That's how these things usually went between them. Little unspoken understandings and the gestures that accompanied them. Even their relationship didn't have a title. It just WAS. Which was part of the reason the forward nature of Bill's question nearly made Dipper's heart stop.

"I don't know..." Dipper choked, gaze locked on the yellow void that made up Bill Cipher's mid section, as well as... most of the rest of him.

"Oh come on!" Bill's body pulsed white with his echoing words, "Don't you trust me?"

"Not at all," Dipper answered indignantly.

Bill struck a hurt pose. One thin black hand clutching at where his heart might have been, and his other wrist dangling his above his eye. "I thought we'd come further than this!" he cried, summoning a glowing blue tissue box and theatrically blowing his nonexistent nose.

Dipper rolled his eyes, "Why do you even want to do that? You don't have nerve endings."

"I don't!" Bill poofed his prop away, leaning forward in the air to boop Dipper on the nose, "But YOU do."

"I just have a hard time believing that you want to do something solely for my benefit," Dipper explained, "And..." his eyes cast back down to that empty, yellow light, "This seems unorthodox, even for me. ...If you really want to do this, why don't you just take the form of like..." he hesitated, "a person."

"Oh, oh. I see. I'm not good enough for you? You need me to change," Bill muttered something about racism, and flew in an angry little circle, "I thought you said I was 'CUTE'?" The last word was accented bitterly, not actually appreciating the adjective. The audacity of some mortals to call HIM, a 5,000 year old nightmare weaver... CUTE.

Dipper blushed, his stomach flipping uncomfortably as he remembered the argument. That was a low blow, bringing that up. "Bill, for the love of God-"

"Oh, I bet you do love him," Bill huffed jealously.

"Cut that out! We've been through this, man. That's an expression. I'm not religious... But even if I was, I sure as Hell wouldn't worship you."

Bill scoffed, "Fine. Forget I even brought it up," he conceded, "I just thought it would be fun to watch you squirm."

Dipper knew that if he agreed, Bill would do something weird, or painful, or just plain wrong. But. Part of him felt a little bad. They were... emotionally invested in one another, after all. If his... partner... wanted to have relations, than maybe he should be more receptive to that? The fact that he was a triangular rip in time and space just seemed to complicate everything.

"Bill, I..." He reached out to grab the little hand of the demon with a couple fingers. Bill looked back at him, silent for only a second before perking up.

"You'll do it?" he asked excitedly.

"I'll think about it," underlying annoyance made Dipper bite out a little more harshly than he'd meant to.

Bill excitedly rushed in to gift Dipper with one of his seldom handed out hugs. Which proved to be just as bizarre an experience as always. Since his arms were ever shifting in length, he'd wrap them around Dipper's body once, twice, thrice, so on- sometimes doing the same with his legs. The limbs were cold, clammy snakes slithering around his waist and shoulders. Engulfing his body in black. Ready to tighten and swallow him like a boa constrictor.

No matter how sweet or close they seemed, there was always an underlying darkness about their game. It was easy to see Bill's intentions were not purely altruistic. Dipper sometimes liked to pretend they were, but he wasn't stupid. No matter how often he pushed the notion to the back of his head, he never deluded himself into thinking these nights in the Mindscape were normal or safe. Demons were dangerous.

But than, Dipper had a troublesome affinity for danger.

In response to Bill's weird gangly arms around him, he gently caressed his glowing yellow back. By this point, he was used to the sensations caused by the triangular, physics-defying body. The closest thing Dipper knew to compare it to was when you touched something and couldn't quite tell if it was wet or just cold. On top of the liquid like feeling, Bill had a gelatin like give when pressed upon but... if you pulled your hand away nothing was left on it.

They'd talked about how his projection operated a couple times. Bill's body was -for all intents and purposes- a portal. Not one with a specific destination on the other side, but rather an ever shifting rift that could be manipulated by his consciousness. It sounded much more badass than it really was. After much prodding Dipper got him to admit that without a deal he really could only send people to other parts of the Mindscape.

As Dipper contemplated Bill's form, the memory flashed through his mind of the time Mabel went barreling strait into Bill, and got shot back out. What had been on the other side?

"Mattress world," Bill hummed in response to the thought, "She bounced right off the savings."

Dipper snorted, "Well I'm glad that was it."

"You know I couldn't have really hurt her anyway," Bill might have been trying to be reassuring, but it sounded saltier than anything else.

Dipper winced. Yeah, he couldn't hurt Mabel. She couldn't feel anything but extremely dulled senses on this plane of existence. The offhanded comment was a sobering reminder that he shouldn't be able to feel Bill. That in retrospect it probably hadn't been a good idea to help Bill make his dreams more 'vivid'.

At the time Bill presented the opportunity, it seemed like such an interesting concept. Lucid dreaming on the next level. He could also argue that nothing bad had come of it yet. The nights seemed longer now, more solid, and the memories never faded away like dreams were supposed to.

Besides. It was nice to be able to feel Bill. He'd admit that much. The time they spent together was special, even if he couldn't totally trust the demon. Just because you knew someone was bad didn't mean you had to hate them. As long as Dipper kept in mind that Bill wasn't 'on his side', he could keep himself from getting corrupted or tricked. Right?

Experimentally, Dipper dipped a finger past the surface of the liquidy membrane of Bill's back. Like the surface of a lake, white, slightly risen rings spread out from the intrusion. A barely audible warbling sounded, vaguely like the resonation of a tuning fork. At first, Dipper didn't feel anything passed the initial chilly wetness of Bill's surface, but suddenly his fingers hit something that was very quickly growing hotter and hotter and SHIT- He quickly retracted his hand, and completely pushed away from the embrace.

"What the fuck!" Dipper snarled at him, defensively holding his burnt hand. Of course, in the Mindscape he was able to immediately fix himself up. It still hurt!

Bill's body pulsed with white light as he laughed giddily, "Sorry, I couldn't resist!"

"Well, thanks to your lack of self control," Dipper stood up, hands flying out emphatically, "there's no way I'm going to put my dick in there now! Jesus, I don't even want to know what you would've done to that!" On the dirt behind him, he conjured a door out of his own dream. It violently threw itself open, revealing a swirling blue portal.

Bill's eye widened, and he reached out, closing the door before Dipper could run through it, "Wait! It was just a joke, Pine Tree. I didn't think burning your hand on a stove would piss you off so much."

"You're all seeing, Bill, of course you knew it was going to piss me off!" Dipper crossed his arms over his chest. There was hurt in his tone, and as his anger calmed to a stubbornly veiled sadness, the door twisted out of reality, fading into the fog.

"I thought that we were from the timeline where you laughed it off and than we fucked," Bill shrugged.

"Well maybe you should go burn alternate timeline Dipper some more if he loves it so much," Dipper grouched, storming off into a different section of his Mindscape. He didn't dare glance behind him until after the yellow glow dissipated.

For as organized as he liked to think he was, his memories were a total mess. His mind was made up of an even more twisted version of the forest in and around Gravity Falls. Luckily, since it was his own mind, he had an sense ingrained into his very self on how to navigate it. Even if he didn't logically understand where he was, a force from deep within guided him. He could weave through the trees with his eyes shut and never falter.

So that's why a new anger mixed into his gullet along with mute terror as his foot splashed against surface of a puddle, and phased right through into the depths of the memory that was playing beneath. Bill, it had to have been Bill! Was that stupid memory even there before?

Dipper grumbled, readjusting himself as the world spun around on itself. The exit back to the rest of his Mindscape now appeared as the puddle he'd come into on the carpeted floor of the memory.

Dipper watched his memory-self settle down on the living room couch. No sooner had his butt hit the cushion, did an ad for lacy women's underwear come on. Impossibly attractive young ladies pranced around on screen as a seductive voice narrated in the background.

Suddenly, the commercial paused on a set of particularly large tits. Clearly memory-Dipper's doing, with the remote in hand. He gave the room a quick once-over, actually called out Mabel's name, and once he was sure the coast was clear, he wasted no time in getting his pants undone.

The real Dipper watched in embarrassment, barely able to look Bill in the eye when the yellow glow appeared beside him. "Why are you showing me this?" he asked incredulously. Getting off to an underwear commercial wouldn't exactly get filed under 'proudest moments'.

Red flashed across Bill's surface as he gestured to the scene, pupil contracting to a horrified sliver. Dipper's head leaned against the back of the couch, splaying out as his hand worked. His gaze never faltering as he injected the silvery lingerie clad model into his fantasies.

Slowly understanding came to Dipper. "You're jealous!" he couldn't help the amused smile that broke out on his face, "You're jealous of a Victoria's Secret ad."

The memory paused. Bill huffed, shrinking and hovering over to where memory-Dipper laid, eyes glued to the television. His body cast an eerie red light onto the features of stilled Dipper. There was a moment of hesitation, than he reached out to gently touch the double's beard.

"I just wonder when you're going to leave me for not being able to cater to this particular interest of yours."

Oh. So that's why he was persistent about taking the next step. It kind of freaked Dipper out. He'd seen Bill throw plenty of fits, breakdown, but this seemed so much more genuine than usual. The look in his eye was so fragile and sad. What did Dipper even do with this?

"Bill, you know... I'm not really wired to be sexually attracted to, uh, triangles," Dipper hesitated, "That doesn't make this entire... thing... we have any less valid, though. I have a lot of fun with you. I'm okay with not being able to have sex."

"But I'm not!" Bill bit back, letting go of memory-Dipper's face to turn to the real one, "I don't like being told I'm incapable of any task. If I want to unleash horrific nightmares into the whole of your reality, or be worshiped like a god by an inferior species, or satisfy my boyfriend sexually- guess what I'm going to do, Pine Tree? Not sit back and let some two-bit hussy steal away all the attention! Do you know how much work she's had? She could've bought enough gold to be set for the apocalypse-"

Several things went through Dipper's mind. First, that he should probably be more concerned about all the Armageddon and 'superior being' talk that Bill openly indulged in. Second, that having someone get a little jealous over you was totally underrated (even if the circumstance was really embarrassing and weird). The pride boiling within him actually felt pretty good. But over the rest of Bill's ranting and raving, one particular word repeated in Dipper's head. It was impossible to stop the grin from spreading across his face.

"What are you smiling about?" Bill narrowed his eye.

"'Boyfriend'?" Dipper quoted, tilting his head to the side with a raised eyebrow, "That's a new one."

"Well..." Bill slowly returned to his natural yellow state, but there was a discomfort written in his face. It wasn't like him to let such a huge slip of the tongue through. After a moment's hesitation, he crossed his arms indignantly, and explained in a clipped tone, "That's what you are." His pupil flashed to look to Dipper, gauging his expression for a millisecond before flicking away. The whole time a hard glint stayed firmly planted in his eye.

Dipper stepped forward and reached out, completely enveloping Bill's little black hand in his own. His head was leaned down slightly, eyes cast up with a goofy little half smile. An anxious show of joy that members of the Pines family were known to recreate in sentimental moments. "It is, huh?"

Bill glowed warmly, coming to rest the top of his 2-dimensional body against Dipper's forehead. Their posture grew more like a closely intertwined dance until they actually swayed slightly. "What'dya say you and me ditch this dumpy old memory and go someplace a little less-"

Dipper didn't want to know what adjective Bill would stick on the end there, so he helpfully filled in himself, "Filled with shame? Yes. Please. I never want to watch myself do anything that humiliating ever again."