Dipper had run away from everything and everyone he knew...

All the teasing at school and being ignored by his parents most of the time in favour of praising their prized little girl Mabel, who got good grades and had no mental problems or odd birthmarks, was too much for him to take any longer so the kid ran like the wind, determined never to look back again.

He would miss his twin and she might wonder what happened to him, he couldn't bear to think she might wonder if it had been something she had done. It wasn't, she was perfect and he was just dead weight as far as he was concerned. To her and to his entire family.

Dipper's grades had fallen after they returned from gravity falls, he'd become slightly paranoid about being watched and the teasing of his classmates over the mark on his forehead, as well as his newfound paranoia has escalated, leaving him depressed and thinking very little of himself. Mabel had tried her best to help him and he'd lasted a couple of years with her help before resorting to this.

Sixteen and on the run. He'd never imagined doing this before that summer he'd spent with monsters, mysteries, and a dream demon bent on taking over the universe.

Bill... The dream demon was scary for sure, but Dipper kind of missed him, he wouldn't admit it though. He tugged harshly on the strap of his bag to secure it on his shoulder again.

He might have imagined it but he remembered something almost sweet from one of the dreams in which Bill had terrorized him during his stay in gravity falls, he'd scared the boy out of his wits and cornered him in a nightmare but then seemed to soften as Dipper thought back to it. Instead of making him feel pain or threatening him again the demon had traced his birthmark for which he got his name with a claw and an unreadable expression before suddenly tapped his nose and started howling with laughter at the look of terror and confusion that had been plastered to his face, acting as if it had been a perfectly normal action.

It had been such a gentle gesture, but Dipper shook it off as just Bill being weird, as per usual. He was distracted from thinking any more about the demon by the sudden feeling of being watched sending a chill up his spine and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, something about it was eerily familiar but he didn't want to think about that. He decided to get on the closest bus headed out of town he could find. he needed to escape the city, hopefully even the state, before his absence was reported.

"As if anyone other than Mabel would care enough to do so..." He sighed, feeling bad for leaving his twin behind, but he couldn't stay. He needed out of this place before the empty feeling of not belonging here devoured him...

~~~~~timeskip~~~~~

Bill sighed and poked at the fire in front of him, he'd been stripped of most of his powers and dropped in the middle of the woods in human form after his weirdmageddon plan went down the crapper. Unbeknownst to the Pines family he'd lead a mostly peaceful existence living out here on his own, he didn't really have anyone but the animals to be horrible to considering this was the middle of nowhere. At first he'd kept watching the entire family with what power he had left; planning a way to get back at them if he ever regained his position as a demon but after a while he realized he was wasting his time and would have to wait until he was dead for that to happen, but he kept watching anyways, mostly for amusement, partly because he could experience emotions much stronger than they had been before and the lack of contact with others made him feel... what was the word... Lonely?

A blue glow came from underneath his eyepatch, he'd decided to check in on them again. Over the past several months Bill had been increasingly more interested in watching Dipper than the rest of his family. He always seemed to sense when he was being watched; unless the demon caught him in the act of "pleasing himself" anyways.

A sly, perverted grin crossed the creature's face as he thought about it. The poor boy had no idea that he was usually watched during his rare private moments when he felt even remotely like doing that to himself, Dipper was always too wrapped up in his pleasure by the time the demon checked in on him and it made Bill feel good to say the least knowing that he was the only being to have ever seen the boy like that.

It made him want so badly for his name to be the one spilling off his dear Pine Tree's tongue instead of the name of some random person he found attractive, and he would get it if he had to use all of his remaining power to do so. As it turned out Dipper running away gave him the perfect chance.

He was able to push little suggestions on what to do into Pine Tree's mind and would hopefully be able to lure him straight here...