I'm not dead, but Danny is

ENJOY


Chapter 12

At around just past midnight, Dipper found himself lying in bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling with a frown. He assumed the position of sleeping, but in reality, sleep was the last thing on his mind. Maybe it was the impending full moon. Maybe it was the pre-pubescent hormones. In any case, he knew it was a jerk move to take it out on Danny Fenton.

He had spent the last few hours lying in bed awake after he got back home from the library. Thinking too hard about the events of the day gave him a headache, leaving him confused with the feeling that he was missing important details and leaving his brain going around in maddening circles.

Even the 'evidence' that supported his theory amounted to nothing but speculation. It didn't mean anything. Getting involved could be dangerous for Dipper. If he found out something he wasn't supposed to know, he could put his friends lives in danger too. But what if he really was wrong about everything? He did have a habit of jumping to conclusions… but then again, when was anything just a coincidence in Gravity Falls anyway?

He stared up towards the ceiling, imagining how Danny would react if Dipper found out something about him that he wasn't supposed to know. Would he be angry? Would he kill him? How would he kill him…?

Dipper felt a chill go through his body and shivered. "Okay, now I'm just exaggerating," he said aloud. Even he knew that Danny wouldn't go to lengths to kill him, no matter how shady he seemed. He was just getting himself worked up over nothing.

He looked over to Mabel's side of the room, to find her soundly asleep and lightly snoring, clutching a teddy bear. She didn't have raging insomnia like he did. Shifting back to his previous position of staring at the ceiling, Dipper swallowed. He felt like there was a weight on his shoulders, and the more he tried to ignore it, the heavier it became.

After all the things he's seen here this summer, he's been finding it harder to sleep each night. And now that he knew that Bill was back and out on the loose, with some new goal, he was finding it hard to sleep with even one eye open. He didn't want to admit it out loud, but the truth was, he was scared.

"He can't get to me in the mindscape if I don't sleep," Dipper reassured himself, with a nod. Without moving his head, he strained his eyes to look at his wristwatch. 2:38 AM.

Not again, Dipper thought with a groan. Normal kids his age didn't stay up past two creating conspiracy theories. They didn't stay awake for the sole purpose of avoiding possession from a demon. They didn't have to worry about these sort of things on the daily. He obviously wasn't normal.

2:51 AM.

There was so much more to think about, like whatever Bill was searching for— the new presence. Bill seemed to be pretty adamant about finding out whatever it was, and for some reason, he had the idea that Dipper knew what it was. Was he supposed to know?

Dipper was missing something. It was becoming infuriating.

He resolved to going over the things that he already knew, in his head. He could practically feel his eyebags worsening.

Okay. So there's a new presence, Dipper thought. Powerful. Bill wants ahold of it. Bill thinks I know something… Danny is hiding something?

...

Dipper sat up in bed quickly, eyes widening with realization. Oh no. It's been staring at me in the face this entire time. Danny is the new presence.

Bill is after Danny.

Before he could get his thoughts completely together, Dipper tore the covers off himself and quickly slipped on his shoes and vest, hastily grabbing the journal from under his pillow and ran out of the room, almost falling down the stairs in the process.

Arms flailing as he tried to desperately flip through the pages of the journal, Dipper made his way outside the Shack, as quickly as possibly, tripping over his own feet and sprinting towards the Gravity Falls motel.


Danny was caught off guard about many things today, besides the fact that he was currently not in his own body, and subsequently, watching the dream demon that was possessing his body as it slept. In his body.

At this point, he had learned that he could expect anything and still be surprised. Needless to say, this held true as he saw Dipper walking towards his motel room window, journal in hand, at nearly three in the morning. He looked out of breath, like he had ran here, with eyebags that screamed no sleep, and was muttering incoherently to himself. To put it simply, he looked like a nervous wreck.

"Dipper?" Danny called, with a confused frown etched onto his face. "Dipper? Hello?!" he yelled, waving his arms around in the air like a lunatic. "Why can't he hear me? Is he ignoring me? I'm a ghost but… I'm always a ghost. This shouldn't be a problem!" he complained.

He sighed.

"Yep. You can't hear or see me. That's just, yeah, no, that's just great," he huffed in defeat. It was almost like retaining his invisibility and intangibility, except that he was in his human form, and he couldn't go back to normal. This was infuriating.

There had to be some sort of way he could communicate with him. He didn't want to end up talking to himself forever. He wanted his body back.

"What the heck is he doing?" Danny floated up next to Dipper, trying to figure out what exactly he was looking at. "Is he looking at me? —er… my body?"

To Danny's confusion, Dipper slid down the wall to crouch just beneath the window of the room, and flipped through the pages of the journal, before settling on a specific page.

"In order to see…" he mumbled under his breath, reading something intently. Whatever it was, he was whispering the words he was reading, almost as if he was practicing them. He stood up and looked through the window and glanced nervously at Danny's body lying in bed, then went back to his journal. He looked around conspicuously, probably to see if anyone was watching him. (Danny was, in fact, watching him. Dipper didn't know that, though.)

"Jeez, what are you reading?" Danny asked, leaning over Dipper's shoulder to get a glimpse of the journal page he was reading.

Danny raised a brow upon looking at the handwritten writing on the page. "In order to see who was possessed recently, one must simply recite this incantation… is that Latin? Wow, you're really going all out with this, aren't you?" he joked to himself.

Dipper suddenly stood up from his position against the wall, walking straight through Danny. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he whispered to himself. "Let's just hope this works… Videntis Omnium, Magister Mentium, Magnesium Ad hominem, Magnus Opus, Habeus Corpus, Inseptus Nolanus Overratus... Magister Mentium, Magister Mentium… Magister Mentium!" he chanted.

He seemed to wait for a few seconds after reciting the incantation, maybe hoping that maybe there was just a delay of time before the spell would take effect. He looked around the room for some sort of sign, but nothing happened.

The boy stirred in his bed, and Dipper ducked down quickly, for fear of being caught. He was breathing so shakily you would have thought that he hadn't just been reciting an exorcism in Latin. Slowly peeking at the window again, he watched the body for any sort of sign. Nothing.

Danny widened his eyes in realization. How had he not thought of it earlier? Dipper was trying to save me from Bill, he thought.

"I don't get it! It was supposed to work…" Dipper muttered dejectedly, before huffing angrily. "Ugh, this is stupid! The window is closed, he probably wasn't affected— Maybe Bill hasn't even gotten to him yet. Danny's probably fine and I'm just being paranoid again. Mabel was right," he said, closing the journal shut.

"Uhhhh no I am definitely not fine, Dipper!" Danny exclaimed, waving his arms around in front of an oblivious Dipper's face. "Bill has most definitely gotten to me and he very much stole my body!"

Dipper walked through Danny again, beginning to make his way back to the Mystery Shack.

Danny considered following him there, and looked back towards his body one last time, sleeping soundly under the covers, when the marking of a golden eye flashed once on his forehead before disappearing without a trace.

Dipper's incantation did work, after all. If only he had stayed a bit longer, he would know that Bill already took possession of Danny's body. And although Danny had no idea how Dipper even came to the right conclusion that Bill was after him, he knew that the preteen was onto something, and that he'd know how to fix this.

With that in mind, Danny figured out what he had to do.

Get Dipper's attention.


He was definitely taking a chance on Dipper, but this was his only option. As Dipper quietly re-entered the Shack, Danny had followed closely behind him, tired of calling uselessly his name over and over throughout his walk home.

In a last ditch attempt to exercise his ghostly fury, Danny jumped in from of Dipper's path, arms up and 'claws' out as though to scare him. "BOO!" he cried.

Dipper sported no reaction and walked right through him, for the umpteenth time.

Danny's shoulders sagged with mild irritation. "Yeah, I doubted that would work anyway."

He paused in thought and then began to smirk at his sudden idea. "Let's try a light show then," Danny brought his hands closely together and focused on trying to create an ecto ball. What used to be a simple task now seemed impossible to him. Danny grunted in frustration. He would have stomped his foot, if he had one.

"This is ridiculous," he yelled. "It's like I'm not even half ghost anymore." With near hopelessness, Danny looked down at his spectral tail scowling at his inability to control its fragile movements. It's like I need to learn how to control everything all over again.

Clenching his other fist, he reached towards Dipper's shoulder, focusing on tangibility. His hand passed cleanly through Dipper.

Dipper shivered slightly, and exhaled through pursed lips. As he rubbed away the goosebumps forming on his arms, he skipped up the stairs and headed back to bed.

Danny remained at the foot of the stairs watching Dipper's shadow disappear into the darkness of the upstairs hallway. No matter what Danny did, he couldn't see or hear him, let alone be aware of his presence. It was hopeless.

Time to give up.


fun fact did you know that Inseptus Nolanus Overratus loosely translates to Inception by Christopher Nolan was overrated? (yep, gotta love Journal 3)

ANYWAY

I legit rewrote this chapter a bunch of times over the course of two months until I was finally satisfied with it, and a voila. You should probably start preparing for 'Banny' aka Bipper pt.2, COMING SOON TO A CHAPTER 13 NEAR YOU.

On the real though, I do love reading all of your reviews, seriously, I get an email for every review you guys make and it brightens up my day a whole lot. Also, some of you guys have guessed that the mirror has later significance, and Y'ALL ARE RIGHT just saying

so, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and you have have any concerns or constructive criticism, please don't be afraid to comment!

until next time,

-dannyghost:)