Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark--Ch. 2

Dib cupped his hands to the glass door and peered inside. He couldn't see much. It was almost pitch black—of course, it was the middle the night. The mall had been closed and deserted for hours, and the door was locked.

He considered the door for a moment. "This is going to take all of my investigation skills," he mused. "Everything's locked up tight and the only way in would be to break a window or something, unless…" He glanced up—"Air vents?"—and shook his head. "No, that's really cliche and I'd probably get stuck somewhere and die."

Instead he wandered around the outside of the mall, examining the walls but honestly not really expecting to find any way in. The doors he found were all locked, of course, except for a small one that, when he opened it, just led to a janitor's closet. On the outside. Weird.

When he arrived back at where he'd started almost an hour had gone by and he had pretty much given up hope of finding a better way in. Maybe he could come back tomorrow and see about getting the clock? Did Bill really need it right away? Well, the demon had gone to fulfill his end of the deal almost immediately, so it was only fair… With a frown, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the roof.

He gave a resigned sigh. "Okay, air vents it is," he said. "…And then I have got to stop talking to myself."

A couple of miles away and several hundred feet underground, Irken Invader Zim had no warning whatsoever for the wave of dizziness and nausea that hit him full-force like a stampeding Hogulus.

He gasped and staggered, collapsing to the ground and dropping the armload of tools he'd been carrying to the elevator. They spilled across the floor around him as he curled up, hunching his knees in toward his chest and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Zim? Uh… you dying over there?" The voice came from somewhere in the vicinity of the ceiling.

"Urgh—no—" Zim rasped, pushing himself to his knees and groping at thin air in the direction he believed the elevator doors to be. He squinted, focusing until the wall in front of him wasn't multiplied in his vision eight times, and lurched toward it, bracing himself against it while his knees buckled and his body gave way to compulsive shudders. "I'm fine, Computer! Of course, I'm fine. There's nothing that can—that can—" He reeled, squeezing his eyes shut again. His arms and legs were burning hot and freezing cold at the same time and had quickly become slick with sweat under his uniform. "Gah—Computer! I'm not fine! I've been infected with some sort of horrible virus, I think—!" Swaying, he felt his way down the wall until he found the elevator doors and weakly pounded a fist on them. "Take me to the—the television screen… thingy… room."

The doors slid open and he stumbled inside, leaning against the far wall and breathing heavily. He swallowed hard and licked his lips. His entire mouth had gone dry. "What… happened to me? I was fine before!"

"I dunno, maybe something poisoned you."

"Poisoned?!" Zim felt around his neck and under his collar but there was no needle, dart, barb, stinger, anything, and he hadn't even eaten in several hours. How could it be poison?

"Surveillance Room," the computer announced helpfully. He didn't usually announce the rooms like that and for a second Zim wondered if he really was on the verge of death.

No, no, it was just an inconsequential bug, likely brought about by the filthy germs GIR dragged home with him every day. It would be gone in a few minutes, tops.

Zim managed to shuffle his feet toward the chair in the middle of the room and toppled onto it, shutting his eyes and wiping sweat from his brow. Good thing the smelly Dib wasn't here to see—

The chair disappeared right out from under him.

Zim crashed to the ground and swallowed a mouthful of grit. His eyes snapped open and he levered himself up on his hands, retching and spitting the sand out of his mouth. He'd been transported to the middle of a desert somewhere, it looked like—sand spread for miles in every direction. The back of his head baked under a blazing sun beating down overhead.

"Finally! You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to lose consciousness! I had to resort to drastic measures, see? You really didn't want to sleep!"

Zim wiped off his mouth with his sleeve and hauled himself to his feet, turning around and giving a start. "You! Who are you?" he demanded. Floating behind him was a living triangle. It was literally a yellow triangle with a giant eye and four little limbs. He'd never seen a species like that before. What planet was this thing from?

The triangle drifted to the ground and leaned casually on a black cane that materialized in his hands. "The name's Bill Cipher. And I have to say, interesting subconscious you've got here!" He swept his hand out across their desert wasteland surroundings. "Empty with nothing but sand stretching as far as the eye can see! Not a lot going on upstairs, I'm guessing?"

Zim's four biomechanical PAK legs slid out of his PAK, their tips sinking into the hot sand as he rose up on them, towering over the weird triangle. "Begone with you! Leave the head of Zim!"

"Sorry, kid, I've got a job to do!" Bill replied. "Say, where do you keep your memories, anyway?"

Underneath Bill, the ground rumbled and shook and for a second he rocked from side to side, waving his arms to keep his balance. He hopped a couple of feet away from the site; right where he'd been standing a tall, vine-like, vibrant green tower grew up, displaced sand cascading down from it and spilling over the two of them. The tower was covered with slanted windows and flapping purple shutters. Satellite dishes stuck out of the walls like thorns. The tower snaked toward the sky, climbing higher and higher until it stopped at last and revealed a giant purple door facing Zim at the bottom.

"Well, that answers that!" Bill said. The ground shook again and he looked down in surprise. Enormous lawn gnomes shot up out of the ground in a circle around the demon, their glowing red gazes drifting down to lock on him. As one they lifted their stiff arms up and blasted a concentrated red beam at him. He just stepped to the side and avoided it entirely.

"Neat trick!" he said. "Wanna see one of mine?" He snapped his fingers and the gnomes started melting from the top down, the colorful plastic of their casings dripping down and exposing the harsh metal skeletons underneath. The glaring red lights in their eyes blinked out and they all fell backwards in a spray of sand.

Bill flew up over the downed lawn gnomes and hovered in front of Zim again. "Well, this has been a good chat!" He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "I'll just be up in that thorny tower that grew out of the ground, rooting through your memories for a while! Oh, and you won't remember any of this when you wake up! Sorry. Haha! See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!" With that he turned and rocketed away, blasting right through the wall of the tower and leaving a triangle-shaped hole that closed up right afterward.

"Hey!" Zim shouted after him, running up and trying the door only to find that it was locked. He leaned his entire weight on it but it didn't budge. "Hey! Hey! Let me in! That's my base!"He stepped back and blasted at it with his PAK legs. The energy beams were absorbed into the wall and left no impact.

Zim growled and looked up, examining the tower's exterior. High, high up above the ground, one of the windows was cracked open the tiniest bit. He instantly rose up as high as he could on his PAK legs and began to climb using the numerous satellite dishes as hand and footholds.

He had nearly made it and was reaching toward the sill of the open window when a single, enormous eye opened in midair right next to him.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you!" Bill's echoing voice taunted.

The window slammed closed on Zim's fingertips. He yowled and slipped downward, then lost his grip altogether, falling down into an empty void that was much deeper than the distance he'd climbed up.

The air around the eye solidified and became the yellow triangle demon, gazing down at him. "Ahahahaha! Hey, I did warn you! Also you'll probably have a little surprise when you wake up! I may need you later!"

Zim screamed, the world fading as he tumbled into the abyss.

Zim slammed to the floor and opened his eyes with a gasp. In a second he was back on his feet, lurching and catching hold of his chair again to steady himself. His head throbbed behind his eyes. His squeedily-spooch writhed and churned. What happened? Frantically he tried to recall the events of the last half hour—he must have been knocked out, yes, yes, but how? He had a foggy recollection of shadowy men in the base. Huge men whose faces he couldn't see. That was right, intruders had broken in, right after he'd gotten an important call from the Tallest. Had they taken anything? Where was GIR? Horrified, he thought he remembered—they'd been after GIR the whole time, yes, the poor robot, they had burst in and they'd just grabbed him and taken him away—hadn't they?

"Computer! Computer!" Zim screeched.

"What now?"

"Where is GIR?" he demanded. "Is GIR here?"

"Uh… no. He's been out for a while."

Zim sucked in a breath, his antennae standing straight up in the air. "I knew it, I knew it—!" He heaved himself to his feet and ran back to the elevator. "Computer, take me up to the house level!" The elevator doors slid open and Zim marched inside, clenching and unclenching his fists. He automatically reached into his PAK, retrieving his black wig and contact lenses. "I have to go, Computer. GIR's been stolen!"

"Stolen? By who, Dib?"

"No! By the people who broke in!" Zim snapped. "You're supposed to be keeping people out, Computer. What were you doing, sitting around and being completely useless?"

The computer paused for a moment. "…No one's broken in, Zim."

"Yes they did! They crashed right through the wall, knocked me unconscious, and ran out with GIR! How could you not remember?! It happened less than an hour ago!"

"How would you see someone run off with GIR if they knocked you unconscious first?"

"I don't know! Just—why isn't this thing moving?" Zim stamped his foot on the elevator floor; the doors had closed behind him, but the elevator had remained stationary.

"Seriously, Zim. No one broke in. You just got sick and passed out. Also, no one on this planet would want GIR besides maybe Dib. And even that's doubtful."

Why was the computer being so infuriating?! Zim yanked at his antennae, about ready to start blasting the wall. "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! GIR's missing and the Tallest are going to call back any minute! I have to go NOW!"

"Call… back?" The computer sounded even more confused. "When did they call before?"

"Right before the filthy intruders broke in!" Zim slammed his fist into the elevator doors. "Now take me up to the house level or I'll—I'll—" He seethed, struggling to come up with the perfect threat.

"Zim, I really think—"

"SILENCE!"

The computer did a reasonable imitation of a frustrated sigh. "All RIGHT. I'll take you up to the house level. I have no clue what you're ranting about but you know, whatever."

The elevator lurched and began to move upward. Zim realized how tense he was and forced himself to try to relax a little, though he bounded out into his living room as soon as the elevator doors opened again. However, he screeched to a halt by the front door, reaching up and running his fingers through a few strands of the plastic hair in his wig. During their call, brief as it was, the Tallest had ordered him to stop wearing his disguise out in public. But why? That went against every iota of his Invader training.

"The Tallest are just confused," Zim reassured himself. "Of course they don't want me to stop wearing my brilliant disguise. It's all a test, or a joke—hehe, yes, it's very funny. We do that, you know. We joke around." He kept his disguise on and stepped outside.

Besides, he wasn't really going out in public. It was still nighttime, and most humans were asleep.

The sun was rising by the time a wonky, highly inefficient-looking vehicle pulled up in front of the Membrane household and a rather grimy Dib slipped out, lugging a large, twitchy owl clock with him.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Son!" Professor Membrane reprimanded from the strange car's driver seat. "If you wanted a clock for your parascience—" he said the word with a certain amount of contempt—"then you should have gone out and bought one at a reasonable hour like a normal human being!"

"Sorry, Dad," Dib mumbled. "But I needed it to pay a dream demon I summoned…"

"Don't ever let me hear of you shoplifting again, or I'll revoke all of your telescope privileges!"

Dib grimaced, thinking about the giant telescope in the backyard and how useful it was to check out faraway galaxies. "It won't happen again! And besides, I was gonna leave money for it."

Professor Membrane apparently didn't hear that last part. "Now, I have to be off. Go straight to bed and stay out of trouble!" Without so much as a goodbye, the shaded passenger window rolled up and the car lifted off the ground, its wheels tucking in as it blasted into the sky.

Dib turned and trudged into the house. His arms and legs were leaden and he was pretty much exhausted. Finding his way through dirty air vents and somehow making it into the mall in one piece had been hard enough, and then there'd been that manic security guard and, bizarrely, mall zombies. Who knew there were zombies in the mall? And who knew they'd catch him by the trenchcoat and the whole thing would end with the police getting involved and then calling his father? At least he got to keep the clock. He'd be able to pay Bill back whenever he managed to make his way back to Mystical Hill.

His face split in a huge yawn and he checked his watch. It was six in the morning. He'd been up all night. With a sigh he headed upstairs, glancing at Gaz's door as he headed down the hall. It was still closed. Well, it was always closed, but she was probably still asleep anyway given how early it was. Shame, he could've told her all about his deal with Bill.

When he got to his room he sat the clock down by his desk and flopped onto his bed, picking up his laptop and flipping it open. Blearily he browsed through a few of his favorite paranormal forums, not really paying attention to what they said. He yawned again and his eyes drifted closed. Yeeaaahh… maybe he should take off his boots and stuff and try to get a few hours' sleep.

He jerked himself awake again, blinking, and made to close his laptop only to find it already closed. Oddly, though, the circular logo on top—the symbol of the Swollen Eyeball Network—was still glowing, and the eye-like design in the middle seemed to have shifted position. It was now pointing straight at Dib, like it was looking at him.

"Huh?" Dib leaned closer, peering at it. "But that's—"

As he watched, the symbol collapsed inward and then widened again, reminiscent of an eye blinking.

"NYAAH!" Dib jumped backwards, slamming the back of his head into his headboard and blinking away the stars that appeared in front of his eyes. The casing of his laptop turned into a digital display of a black screen with bright white lines spanning across, the logo on the front standing out in stark contrast. Waves from the computer spread down the bed and outward in concentric circles through the room, leeching away all color and leaving shades of gray in its wake. The lines on the laptop warped and bent to form a triangle around the logo; it blinked again and became a real eye, and then Bill Cipher rose up from it, lifting into the air and becoming his normal size and color in a flash of light.

"Look at that, you got the clock!" he said. "Glad you managed to come through!"

Dib jumped down to the floor, backing away a few steps and looking at him incredulously. "What—how did you get here? I didn't summon you!"

"I just came to collect my payment!" the demon replied. "Your friend back there swallowed your false memory hook, line, and sinker!"

"Zim? He did? That's great!" Dib brightened up immediately. He pointed down at the owl clock. "Well, you can have that, then, and do… whatever it is you want to do with it, I guess." Eagerly he looked back up at Bill. "So is Zim really going to go around without his disguise now? Man, he's an idiot! Thanks for doing that! What was his mind like?" A thought struck him. "Hey, d'you mind if I take a picture of you for documentation?" He hurried to his desk and scrounged around on top, searching for his camera.

"Whoa, whoa, kid, I think you're forgetting something!" Bill said idly. "You agreed to do a few things for me, remember? As in, more than one!"

"I did? Oh… right," Dib said, glancing down at the clock. His brow furrowed. "…Hey, wait a minute! I already got you the clock! If I do something else for you, that means you need to do something else for me, too."

Bill leaned on his elbow in the air. "Actually, your end of the deal was to help me take down an organization! That clock was just the first step!"

"I don't think the clock actually has anything to do with anything. And you've already done your end of the deal! So here's your payment, and why should I do anything else?" Dib planted his hands on his hips.

"Hey, kid, you summoned me. It's almost like you asked for my help." Bill suddenly faded away and rose up again out of the floor next to Dib, nudging him in the ribs. "Haha! Imagine that! You'd almost think that should really mean the deal gets done on my terms! Right?" He backed off, shrugging. "But okay, sure, whatever you want! I'll just go back to alien-kid's mind and undo everything I did in there! Later, scythe-head!" He vanished in a burst of blue flame, and Dib gasped.

"Stop! No! Wait!" he called.

There were a few seconds of silence, in which Dib stared at the spot where Bill had vanished with his heart pounding. Then there was a flash of light over Dib's shoulder and he twisted his neck to see the demon re-materialize behind him, twirling a cane that he hadn't had a minute ago and giving him a nonchalant look. "Is there a problem?"

"Okay, I'll keep going on the deal!" Dib turned around, exasperated. "What else do you want, huh? Huh?"

Bill stopped twirling the cane and spread his arms. "Oh, I just need a little help getting into the building of the organization I'm trying to destroy!"

"Well… I guess I could try." Dib looked at him askance. "I mean, if this so-called organization of yours really is evil, then it probably should be stopped. But I don't think I'll be able to help you get into some society that I don't even—"

"Oh, don't worry!" Bill cheerfully cut him off. "I think you will. Here, just grab the cane!"

He held out the end of his cane and Dib, somewhat confused, took hold of it. Up above him, Bill's eye blazed and his triangular form erupted in blue flames.

"Hah! That was almost too easy!" the demon bellowed in a deep, nightmarish voice, and Dib's eyes widened as he was hit with the horrible feeling that things had suddenly gone very, very wrong.

Before Dib could let go of the cane, Bill yanked it upward, and Dib's ears were filled with a rushing noise much like what he'd heard when first summoning the demon. There was a stretching sensation as if his entire body had become a piece of elastic and he couldn't see anything for a second. Bill flung him aside and Dib, stunned, braced himself for impact with the floor—but it never came. He tumbled through the air and stayed there, hovering.

"What? What the—" He looked around wildly. His feet were dangling a good yard or two off the ground but there was nothing keeping him up, and when he caught sight of his hands he yelped. "I'm see-through!" Even worse, however, was the realization of what was going on down below him, and his blood ran cold.

Or it would have, if he'd had any blood at the moment.

He was still on the floor—or at least, his body was. It had collapsed face-first in a heap. Now it stirred, raising its head and climbing to its feet. Its eyes were closed, but when they opened, Dib gawked and desperately wished this was just a really vivid nightmare.

His voice was small and heavy with dread and disbelief as he said, quietly, "Oh, man."

The eyes of the dark-clothed figure standing on the floor had taken on a yellow tinge and the irises were no longer brown. Instead, they were black and ovoid. Or maybe there weren't even irises in those eyes anymore, maybe those were just oblong pupils, glittering as they shifted upwards to focus on him from behind large round-rimmed glasses.

"Bill?" Dib was just noticing that his own voice now had a strange echoing quality to it. "What did you—?" He trailed off, staring down at his body in stupefied horror. It was laughing. It was laughing in Bill's voice.

"That's two humans in one week!" Bill said, taking a few rocky steps forward before kneeling beside the clock Dib had left by his desk. "Boy, there's gotta be some sort of record for that!"

"Two humans? You've done this to someone else?!" Had Gaz ever acted strange or not like herself? No, he didn't think so. What about Dad? He'd seemed pretty normal…

"Yeah, that was a lot of fun!" He looked over at Dib, raising one eyebrow. Dib's eyebrow. "Haha! Actually, he was a lot like you!" He squinted. "Maybe not quite as neurotic."

He was fiddling with a little compartment on the back of the clock. When he got it open, there was a stack of papers inside.

"What's that?" Dib asked despite himself, drifting closer.

"Oh, just some documents that shouldn't be left around where hypothetical sets of twins could conceivably come across them!" Bill replied. He lifted up the documents to show Dib but they were folded in such a way that he couldn't see the writing on them. "Here's a fun fact! This clock and that pamphlet you bought are both originally from Gravity Falls, Oregon! Here's another fun fact—these things are made of paper, and you've got matches in your pocket!" He reached into the pocket of Dib's trenchcoat and pulled out the box of matches kept in there. As Dib watched, aghast, the demon held the papers by one corner, lit the match, and set the thin stack of documents alight.

"What are you doing?! This is my room!" Dib's entire body—or ghost form—or whatever—shot downward and he scrabbled at the papers, trying to put out the fire, but his hands passed right through them.

"Hah! Good luck with that!" Bill said. "You're nothing but—AAGGH!" He dropped the burning papers, clutching his right hand to his chest for a few heartbeats. Then he laughed and examined his fingertips. "Efficient nervous system you've got there! Didn't know you could react to things so quickly!"

"The fire—!" Dib exclaimed, pointing. Bill simply stamped out the flames with the heel of Dib's boot. Dib relaxed a little bit, but when he looked back at his possessed body he noticed the redness of his hands. "Did you just burn my fingers?!" He hadn't felt anything, but that wasn't too surprising. He would later, though. When he got his body back from this thieving demon.

"This one's next!" Bill said, and pulled out the pamphlet that Dib had used to summon him in the first place. He lit another match.

"Would you stop starting fires in my room?! And that pamphlet's a genuine paranormal artifact—I spent two hundred dollars on it!" Dib protested.

"Hah! Yeah, and look where that got you!" Bill stretched his mouth in a wide grin, displaying every one of Dib's teeth. "A bit of friendly advice: be more careful about how you spend your money! AHAHAHA!" He set the pamphlet on fire. Dib could only hang in the air and watch it burn.

"I can't believe you did this!" he shouted at last, flinging his arms in the air. "This wasn't even part of the deal we made! You can't do something that's not part of the contract—it goes against everything I've read about demons!"

"You must not have read very much, then!" Bill laughed. He stomped out the last of the flames devouring the pamphlet. The two fires had left dark scorch marks in the carpet. "I told you I needed you to get me into the organization's headquarters. I didn't say how!"

"What organization? What are you even talking about?" Dib demanded.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the demon said.

The door to Dib's bedroom slammed open, making Dib jump while Bill just looked around with one eyebrow cocked. Gaz stood there, breathing heavily with her fists shaking in anger. "How many times do I have to tell you not to laugh psychotically early in the morning before you finally STOP?"

"Oh, hey, you must be my little sister!" Bill said, turning his wide, unnatural grin to her. "Want to go destroy a secret organization with me? It'll be fun! There might not even be any survivors this time!"

"Gaz! Can you hear me?" Dib called, flying forward and waving a hand in her face. "That's not me! You have to tell the Swollen Eyeballs I've been possessed! Remember that phone number I gave you?"

Gaz didn't respond to him at all, which meant that either he was completely nonexistent to her or she was just being herself. Or both. She peered at Bill with her eyes partially open. Without a word she turned and went into the bathroom. There was the sound of running water and then she came back with a cup full to the brim with it, which she proceeded to dump over Bill's head.

"Oh, come on!" Dib said in exasperation.

"Hm, not sure what you expected to happen there!" Bill said, examining his now dripping trenchcoat.

"Okay, you're not a robot," Gaz concluded. "Just go be weirder than usual downstairs and let me sleep."

"Sure thing, Gaz-a-rino!" Bill gave her a thumbs-up and she left, glaring. The demon glanced over at Dib. "Hah, some sister! Inconsiderate siblings are fun!"

"Hey, whatever you think you're doing here, just leave Gaz out of it!" Dib flew down and spread his arms out in front of the door, trying to block it even though he knew that he was completely intangible.

Bill smirked. "You certainly seem to care more about her than she cares about you! Anyway, relax, I'll leave her alone. Haha! Well, can't stick around here all day!" He passed right through Dib and headed out of the room, stumbling a little in Dib's boots at first but quickly getting the hang of walking in them.

Dib felt sick. He tried to go off after Bill, struggling to swim through the air but mostly just succeeding only in bobbing up and down and flailing his arms around uselessly. How had he moved before?

He froze. From out in the hall came the thundering sound of someone running down a flight of stairs at breakneck speed, then an awful thud as the person landed hard on the floor.

After a moment, gurgling laughter floated up to him. "Hahahaha—stairs are still amazing! You humans literally have death traps just sitting around in your houses!"

Cringing, Dib at last figured out that to move forward all he had to do was think about it—it took a conscious effort, but he was finally able to move in any direction he wanted. It was kind of fun, actually. Well, it would have been fun if a triangular mind demon hadn't taken over his body. Still, he had to repress a jubilant "Whee!" as he hurried down the hall. He found Bill at the bottom of the stairs, veering around with his arms outstretched like he'd suddenly gone blind. Which made sense, since he'd taken off Dib's glasses and had them clutched them in one hand. Blood flowed from his nose—probably from falling down the stairs—and ran down onto his shirt, leaving dark brown stains. Dib recoiled.

"Boy, having two eyes is pretty useless if you have to stick lenses in front of them just to see straight!" Bill said, squinting at Dib. "Your eyes are terrible! I can hardly tell up from down! You ever considered having these puppies gouged out and just putting them out of their misery? I could do it for free!" He stuck up his thumb and brought it near one eye.

"What? No! Don't do that!" Dib cried. Bill brought his thumb away, laughing, and Dib shook his head. "What is wrong with you? And what are you planning to do with my body, anyway? You're not working for Zim, are you? You've been in league with him this entire time, haven't you!" Even as he said it, though, he realized how stupid that notion was.

"I don't work for anyone, kid." Bill propped Dib's glasses back on his face and waved his hand impassively. "This whole thing is just a little side project of mine, anyway. My real plans have nothing to do with you, so you can just sit tight and not worry for a while!"

"…Real plans?"

"Haha, yeah, you'll want to stick around when they come to fruition! It'll be quite the spectacle!" He wandered through the living room, picking up the remote control from the coffee table and pressing a few of the buttons. "I think this thing is broken!" He tossed it over his shoulder and rubbed his hands together, craning his neck to see into the kitchen. "Say, what kind of foodstuffs do you have around here, anyway?"

"Huh? Food?"

Bill walked across the tiled floor, taking a peek in the fridge, then clambered up on the counter and rooted through one of the cabinets. Something caught his eye and he reached inside, taking hold of it. "Whoa-ho! What is this?" To Dib's horror, he pulled a jar of jalapeños out of the cupboard and dropped down to sit on the counter, legs swinging over the side.

Dib flew forward, waving his hands. "No! Not that, no, no, nuh-uh, don't—"

Bill unscrewed the lid and plucked out one of the peppers. "Really? Well, if you insist—just kidding! Down the hatch!" Eyes on Dib, he opened his mouth wide and bit into the pepper just below the stem.

His pupils constricted and his face twitched, gazing unseeing across the room as the stem slid out of his fingers. He gave what sounded like a choked hiccup and snapped out of it, shaking his head and coughing into his elbow, wheezing. "Wow—Wow! That was incredible!" Gleefully he took out another pepper and chomped into that one too. "Man, it hurts! It's like a mother puma's giving birth in my mouth!" And another pepper. "Who knew your wimpy little meat tongues could feel this much pain just by tasting things? Hahaha!" And another one, his pupils dilating this time. "I think I can see into eighty dimensions at once now!"

Dib buried his face in his hands. "Why do we even have hot peppers?"

Bill abandoned the jar for a moment and stood back up on the counter, looking in the cupboards again. "Hey, you've got chocolate? I've heard humans are crazy for the stuff!" He pulled out an old chocolate bar that Dib had forgotten was even in there and peeled back the wrapping (Dib found himself feeling a little grateful that at least the demon didn't bite into it wrapper and all) and took a chunk out of the candy bar. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Hm… hm… Oh, I know what'll make this better!" He reached up higher, grabbed a bottle of syrup out of the cupboard, and dumped a huge glob right on the chocolate as well as all over his fingers and onto the counter. Then he took another bite out of it. "Fantastic! Oh, and here's another idea!" He picked up another one of the hot peppers, dumped syrup on it, and bit into that as well.

His mouth full and smeared with syrup, he grinned up at Dib. "Hey, how much of this stuff do you think I can eat before your heart shuts down completely? Wanna find out? Do you have any wasabi?"

Dib, fuming, clenched his fists. "No! And what I want is for you to get out of my body and never come back!"

Bill brandished a jalapeño at him. "You make a good point! This is all fun, but I should probably head out now! Lots to do!"

He hopped off the counter (not making a move to clean up his mess of hot peppers, chocolate, and syrup) and headed to the door. His nose was still bleeding and he wiped it on his sleeve.

"Anyway," Bill continued, grinning toothily again, "I need to find transportation! You have vehicles around here, right?" He went to the front of the house and peered out the window.

"You won't be able to get a ride!" Dib said, flying after him. "Dad's already left and no taxi's going to come pick up an eleven-year-old!"

"Why would I want someone to give me a ride?" the demon said. "I think it's time I gave driving a shot!"

A/N: Bill-Dib!

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Bib