Nobody Forgets Bill Cipher

Maybes, Perhapses, And Probables

Shortly after Dan and I finish speaking, I leave to go home. I say goodbye to Dan and Lily, and then their children. Tulip and Dandelion beam and wave back at me, full of giggles. Aster shies away next to his mother, but gives a small wave and smile nonetheless.
Snapdragon quickly catches on to what's going on. The normally laughing and energetic toddler now wears a pout, and he looks as if he's about to cry.
Before he can do so, I scoop him up in my arms similar to as I do Rosanna, though, he's much bigger. His parents seem to have warmed up to me enough that they don't protest to me holding their kid.
"Hey, now," I tell the baby slowly with a smile. "You don't have to cry." Snapdragon looks up at me with wide, shining eyes. "I'll be back very, very soon, okay? I promise!"
Snapdragon coos, seemingly content with my answer. I smile once more at him and set him down. I give my final farewells to them all and head back home.
                          ::::::::::::::
     I arrive home to find Dipper and Mabel hard at work against each other in one of those human board games, Soos cooking some sort of dinner, and Melody holding Rosanna at the table. I can also hear Stan and Ford's voices through the floor in the basement.
     Dipper and Mabel give no acknowledgement of me, instead keeping their eyes glued to their game. Mabel rolls the dice and hops her piece around the board. Jumping up from her seat in victory, she shouts, "Ha! Boardwalk! Take that, brother!"
     Dipper groans. "No, you don't get it. Boardwalk is basically useless without Park Place, which neither of us own. Plus, you're just about bankrupt. If you spend four hundred, you won't be close to going once more around the board successfully."
     Mabel huffs, plopping herself back in her chair. "Ugh, you're no fun, Dipper."
"Oh, Bill!" Melody acknowledges my presence. At least someone is glad to see me. "Could you get Rosanna's bottle for me? I think I left it in her room." Oh, so that's why she's happy to see me. So be it. At least I can be useful.
I trudge up the stairs to the baby's room. Entering the space, I quickly find the bottle. As I reach for it, my hand almost brushes against a horrid, cursed object. Before my fingers hit it, I pull back my hands with an unholy (and a quite loud) shriek.
Moments later am I joined in the room by the younger Pines twins.
"What is it!?" one exclaims.
"What's the matter?" the other asks.
"What do you mean 'what's the matter'?" I shriek again, pointing at the awful thing. "Is this some kind of sick joke?"
Mabel looks at the webbed object and picks it up. "You mean this?" She holds it out closer to me. "Bill, it's just a dream ca-"
"NO!" I yelp, pressing myself against the wall. "Get it away from me!"
Dipper busts out laughing. "You can't-" he wheezes, "-be serious!"
"It's not funny!" I exclaim, extremely offended. "This is very serious! I got stuck in one of those things once for, like, a month!"
Dipper promptly falls to the floor and shakes with laughter. His sister tries to hide her amusement, but I can already see the giggles building up inside her.
Something scary lights up in Mabel's eyes and I realize a second too late what she's about to do. She playfully (and evilly) throws the horrid dream catcher at me.
I scream an unintelligible (to Dipper and Mabel, at least) string of curses that would have been extremely horrible to utter in my home dimension as the beaded thing hits me in the face.
Uneventfully, the object simply falls to the floor, and I am left unharmed. Out of embarrassment and partial frustration, I stomp on the thing just for good measure. "Your reign of terror has come to an end."
     Mabel, still trying to contain her laughter, remarks, "We were only trying to redecorate the baby's room." A thought comes to her. "Huh, do you think your henchmaniacs would be that afraid of a dream catcher too?"
     I laugh dryly. "No, I was just stupid enough to be the only one ever caught in one. Plus, outside of the dreamscape, I guess they aren't really a hindrance to dream demons." I take a deep breath to calm myself down. Man, what a stupid thing to get worked up about. However, I've come to learn that human life is chock full of dumb embarrassments.
     "Kids!" We all hear a shout from downstairs. "Kids, you've got to come see what we've found!" It sounds like Stanford.
     We give each other quick, confused looks and then hurry downstairs.
     Stan and Ford are standing in the kitchen, armfuls of books in Ford's arms and small, flower-like plants in Stan's hands.
     "What's going on?" I ask, Dipper and Mabel following with similar questions.
     "We've stumbled upon something that could change the entire game!" Stanford exclaims, excitedly nodding towards whatever Stanley is holding. "This plant I've found only grows in Gravity Falls. I've studied Gravity Falls' abnormal flora for a while, but only today have I truly discovered what properties these flowers possess.
     "So... what do they do?" I ask, inspecting the flowers from a distance.
     "Let's demonstrate," Ford says, selecting three flowers and handing them to Mabel. "Eat these."
     Mabel looks at the plants now in her hands. "Really?" She looks up and her uncle. He shakes his head in confirmation. "Okay, then." She pops the flowers into her mouth, chews them slowly, them swallows. "Ugh, tastes like spinach," she remarks with a crinkled nose.
     "Now," Ford instructs with a nod, "I need you to touch someone."
     "Touch someone?" Mabel repeats, a bit confused. "Alright." She turns to her brother and they draw their hands up for a high five.
     The moment their palms connect, Dipper collapses, and Mabel jumps about a yard in the air.
     "Uh-oh," Ford says, kneeling to check on his nephew, who's passed out cold. "I think I gave her too high a dosage. I still need to work out the kinks."
     Mabel is bouncing energetically on the balls of her feet, her body literally shaking with energy. "What's going on?!" she shouts. "Is he okay?"
     "Are you okay?" I eye her skeptically myself.
     "Yeah!" Mabel replies at once, now hopping in place. "I'm just so! Pumped! UP!"
     "Ford, what did you do?" I ask, taking one of these flowers that has fallen to the floor.
      "It's an energy transfer anomaly," he explains, standing up. "The larger the dosage, the more energy one being can take from another. However, the being that takes these can only snatch energy from that it's capable of holding. So a human could steal energy from another human only. However, in your case, I have a theory that you could steal energy from human or demon, because your human body possessed demonic energy at one point."
     "I see what your saying..." I think on it. "So, would there be danger in taking, let's say, twenty of these things?"
     "Perhaps," Ford answers with a frown. "I can see that with a dosage of three, Mabel was able to take all of Dipper's energy. If she had taken any more, the effect would be the same, because that's all the energy he had to offer. But demons have a nearly unlimited supply of energy. You, on the other hand, cannot possess near that much as you are a human. If you took too large a dose and took over way too much energy, it could possibly overwhelm your body and stop your heart."
     "Yikes," I breath. "So are you saying that this wouldn't really be an advantage to us?"
     "No, it definitely might," Ford quickly replies. "We just need to be careful with it. If you took some of these, and were able to touch one of your henchmaniacs, you could perhaps take on some demonic energy yourself, maybe stun them, and probably give them a fair fight."
     "That was a heck of a lot of maybes, perhapses, and probables, Stanford," I remark with a grin.
     "Maybe so," Ford replies with a crafty smile of his own. "But it's what we've got for now, and that's good enough for me."