Coffee And Conclusions [Stanford Pines X Reader] FLUFF

doing perimeter patrols is a common but little known ptsd symptom, and i think ford doing it not only makes sense for him post-portal but also is a great way to force awkward, impromptu conversations between him and everyone else

THE ABSOLUTE URGE TO TURN THIS INTO A 100K WORD FIC IS KILLING ME PLEASE I HAVE 3 JOBS 😭

Nightmare Realm! Bill Cipher X Reader Headcanons

I don't see a lot of reader-insert writing for what Bill was like before the events of gravity falls. I think he'd be wandering the Nightmare realm for a long while, trying to understand how it works.

You remember the day you met Bill. You two are peas in a pod, joined at the hip since then, thick as thieves- sometimes literally! It's rough out here, in the Nightmare Realm.

It was a slow development, eons of keeping each other company and one day, his attitude towards you changed. It happens after you express a desire to leave the realm, to find broader skies and diverse dimensions. He's right there with you, already thinking of a ticket out of here!

You sometimes catch the way his eyes widen with something close to love, yet closer to obsession when he sees you fight your way out of a sticky situation. It was an intensity that would make the devil blush.

He'll give ya anything you want. A puppy? Sure! He'll make it rain puppies. They'll have an extra set of eyes or limbs, but that's close enough right?

Flowers? He actually paid attention this time and MADE you ones you like- plucked straight from the mindscape of the world's best florists. They're just as cute, fragile, and breakable as you! So what if they screamed and sprouted eyes?

Bill would never admit that he grows softer by the day with how you look at him, marvel at his powers and being with those wide, sparkling eyes of yours.

When you aren't looking, Bill makes sure to check on those flowers. With a snap of his fingers, he'd force life into them, making sure they never wilt.

In a world full of opportunistic and truly desperate dregs of what used to be people, he made sure to keep your light alive. The nightmare realm feared Bill, he'd keep you were safe.

He makes a ukulele from the hair of whoever wronged you- stringed intricately to it WHILE their streaming head is still attached to the instrument! It makes for interesting back-up vocals. He'd sing you a happy, whimsical little serenade he heard on Earth once. 

He's make sure to zip up the mouths of anyone who talked badly of you- literally! Sometimes you come across those random people around the nightmare realm, still unable to run their mouths.

He stopped a comet for you, just so you can cross the asteroid belt towards your favorite interdimexican joint. 

And if the line was long, he'd get rid of whoever's ahead of you with a snap- they'd turn into silly string or balloons. 

Of course, he'd turn them back to normal at your behest. He listens to you! Sometimes.

Bill is much more sappy than you give him credit for. He will deny it till his dying breath. It just looks… different than what mortals would call romance.

He painted the black canvas of the void with stars, comets, suns and moons for your amusement. He loves making them dance and spell out your name. Really extra, but Bill's all for big displays of affection!

He’ll poke fun at how dumb and easily amused you are, but if you see past his scathing banter, you'll see how his eye softens and gazes at you with an other-worldly fondness. Closer to obsession, really- but tom-ay-to, to-mah-to.

He'll never admit it, but he absolutely melts when you call him yours. Some other nicknames that would make him feel like putty would be Sweetheart, honey, light of my never-ending-all-consuming-void.

But of course, he won't say no if you started calling him by his REAL name. The one that would scramble your mind, melt your ears off your face, and vaporize you into nothing but atomic dust.

Just kidding. He won't tell you what it is. Depending on whether or not you're mortal, he'd never risk your well-being like that.

Much.

He will always praise you. For your ups and downs, for your wrongs and rights. He's right there with you, no matter what.

But, he'll get an extra kick out of seeing displays of power from you. Y'know, putting people in their place, defending him from opportunistic bounty hunters. Maybe burning a town or two in his honor, if you lack morals like that! That is H-O-T!

He loves you and his admiration burns. For Bill, love is something close to giving up your entire existence towards each other- in all forms, for all of time.

He will share pieces of himself with you, but give him an inch and he'll take a mile.

He's afraid of vulnerability. Love is a weakness, he's burned himself so many times with mortals and cosmic beings alike.

So, he'll expect you to give yourself fully to him... But he'll be hesitant to do the same. 

You and him against the world, forever and in death.

There are nights where he'll warp the nightmare realm into your own personal playground. 

He'll make music play out of nowhere, cheerful little tunes he heard in the mindscape of Earth's greatest artists. With a twinkle of his eye, he'll slip his hands over yours and guide you through steps. He teaches you new dances you've never seen before.

You'll dance the night away as he a chorus of screams and wearing flames surrounded you. Your very own, blue and warm spotlight shines over your perfect features. Bill can't possibly take his eyes off you! Whether or not your afraid or elated at the chaos he brewed, he absolutely ADORES you!

Love is acceptance and submission. No matter what, no matter the cost. So he won't understand why you disapprove of certain things he's done. He understands morality- but that's a meat-bag concept! You two are beyond that!

It would shock him to find you won't go with his Weirdmageddon idea.

His pranks turn harmful, well, even for you. Turning coffee to decaf was his worst idea before, but that quickly turned into making arsenic taste like blue raspberry so everyone in Gravity Falls wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and Kewl-Aid.

Over time, his whimsical, funny little ideas turn into plans. Things that made you laugh out of the sheer absurdity of his ideas, becomes a twisted reality.

He expected you to be with him for all of eternity, no matter what.

So why? Why were you pulling away?

He just doesn't understand. Deep down, he does. But he refuses to acknowledge that.

The sweet gestures and love bombing come back tenfold. Until it becomes unbearable.

He nearly burns you in his attempt to show you a sun so bright and so powerful. He thought you'd love terrifying displays of power as much as he does. 

At some point, if he thinks you're pulling away, he'll try to cut you a deal.

He knows you from the inside out. He knows what makes you tick. What you need and want.

If you refuse him time and time again, he gets a little upset. But deep down, he likes the chase. He admires individuality, it is chaos and creative balanced- it makes you YOU. Not just some sad sack he had control over, in a world full of puppets.

Deep down, he doesn't want to take that individuality away from you by shackling you to his whims.

But Gods don't love the way mortal men do.

They consume and devour. Overpower everything until nothing is left and they can rebuild it all in their image. They do what they do best, cast dominion over everything they see and rule.

He whisks you away to the edge of the Nightmare realm, near a void no one comes back from. 

A pair of his slender black arms wrap around your waist tightly, almost suffocatingly. Another pair of them sprouts to lovingly cradle your neck and turn your gaze towards him. 

He holds you over the edge of this void, vast and endless. You drown in the twisted obsession building in his eye. He takes in your terrified, confused expression, and whispers promises of a future with him. Your form shakes, your feet swinging desperately for purchase.

"It's you and me against the world, I will never let you go."

All of this fear and hurt, just to prove his point. That you need him, and he needs you. If there was one thing Bill had been good at his entire existence, it was sowing fear deep into the minds of everyone he met.

It's up to you, whether or not you'll give in to that fear.

God, proof-reading this just makes me realize how in deep I am. Did you see the little secret notes between the lines? <3 Thanks for reading!

what have I done…?

͙͘͡★ i asked the stars about you

tags: sfw, Bill x reader, Bill is an asshole but he cares in his own way, existential crisis?, eh i tried to portray it like romantic tension but i failed, hurt/comfort but i failed it too lmao

a/n: why does writing Bill always unlock the part of my brain that wants to write biblical nonsense. this was meant to be like a paragraph, mb two. and now it’s this mess that ive been writing for a damn week and i still don’t like it cuz Bill here feels kind of wrong and ooc. but hey!!! fanfiction is a lawless land where we make the rules :) sorry to any Bill lovers out there tho, pls don’t kill me for bad characterisation

night in gravity falls was so warm and unusually silent, you knew that only happens in august, when the town is still too sleepily. summer is already fading, but the air still holds sweet memories in it, dust from the asphalt, warm sap from pine needles, the soft haze of moonlight across your forehead.

you’re here again, in the empty yard, on the playground where you used to play until it got dark and someone called you home. there’s no one around now. the swing creaks barely and you sit on one of them, letting your toes brush the ground, clenching your fingers tight around the chains, and you swing.

back and forth, higher and higher, and every time it feels like you’re just a little closer to the sky.

the sky, it’s the only thing that hasn’t changed. everything else left because you grew up. people came and went, switched places. but the sky is still there, still silent, dark blue, scattered with stars, each burning in its own light. you still remember them though, the eagle, the swan, andromeda, cassiopeia.

you once dreamed of being an astronomer.

and even now, grown, you still can’t stop loving the stars. every swing lifts you closer, and you want to reach out to touch them.

well. . . at least something in this world stays in place.

though, except for the stars, there was one more constant in your life.

a triangle. a ridiculous, talking, floating triangle with a single eye and too many opinions for someone who didn’t technically have a mouth.

Bill Cipher. the thing that defied all laws of nature, laughed at gravity, and travelled through your thoughts like a parasite and a friend.

you’d be brushing your teeth in the morning, bleary-eyed and half-alive, and there it’d be, a sticky note slapped to the mirror, “YOU DROOLED. DISGUSTING. NEVER CHANGE.”

and when you were about to leave the house, keys in one hand, bag over your shoulder, there was another one waiting on the door, “REMEMBER: IF YOU DIE TODAY, I CALL DIBS ON YOUR BONES.”

even when you’d get in the shower, it'd be stuck on the sink: “HUMAN HYGIENE FASCINATES ME. DO YOU SCRUB YOUR ORGANS TOO?”

and yeah, they were weird. a little unhinged. sometimes kind of funny. and you started looking forward to them more than you’d admit.

he used to appear more, though. materializing out of nowhere, talking your ear off about planetary alignments and obscure constellations. you remembered those nights clearly. you’d point at the stars, and he’d name ones you’d never heard of, from galaxies that didn’t even have a number in human astronomy yet. he spoke of civilizations erased by time, of things older than your own galaxy.

you used to sit on your porch with him and talk about the absurdity of human civilization. he was smart, frighteningly so. and he never dumbed things down for you. he talked like you were capable of understanding, and sometimes you did, sometimes you didn’t, but you loved that about him

and when you asked, quietly, where he was from, his eye would narrow.

“delicate topic,” he’d say, too quickly.

Bill already knew everything about you. your fears, your dreams, your favorite songs, the names you gave the stars as a child. and it felt unfair how much of you he had, while you had so little of him.

he told you once that you were weird. and then, like it was some kind of comfort, “but don’t sweat it, sweetie. everyone in this freakshow town is weird.”

so maybe he’s appearing less because of that mysterious scientist he kept mumbling about. you heard the rumors, too. people talked, said the guy had six fingers. said he was here for the anomalies. you didn't really care.

and suddenly, Bill Cipher wasn’t visiting your dreams quite so often.

and you miss him.

you hate how much you miss him. how empty the silence gets when he’s not zigzagging through your kitchen talking about 4th-dimensions. how your mornings feel like sleepwalking without his notes. how dumb and pathetic it sounds even to you, that the one presence you long for most is a floating triangle with a god complex. but what could you say?

you kept swinging. the stars watched in silence. and you, in return, kept watching them.

forward, backward. the chains creaked softly with every rise. you closed your eyes at some point just to create the illusion of flying.

you were mid-swing, when it came again. that melody. it came from nowhere and everywhere, pressing behind your ears, vibrating somewhere between your teeth and your spine.

you smiled.

of course.

“ah. there you are,” you murmured, already looking around without needing to move. you knew better. Bill could materialize out of a crack in the ground or a coffee mug if he wanted.

but tonight, that demon was feeling poetic, apparently.

the moon blinked and one giant sharp pupil eye opened, and from that glowing socket rolled out a triangle. yellow. laughing. too bright to stare at directly. you squinted, shielding your face with one hand.

“aaaand guess who’s back, baby! enjoyin’ your little emo moment, i see? what’s this, swing therapy? should i book you a session with my imaginary assistant?“

“could you, maybe, not enter through celestial bodies? you nearly burned my retinas.”

“what’s the point of making an entrance if it doesn’t cause mild visual trauma?” he shrugged, floating backwards into a lazy spin. “so. what’s the occasion? out here all alone like a tragic indie film protagonist. spooky swingset, lonely stare. classic.”

you sighed, dry. “just. . . thinking.”

“uh-oh.” Bill floated closer. “dangerous hobby, humans thinking! leads to wars and taxes.”

you let out a breathy laugh despite yourself. “i guess i’m just feeling nostalgic. you ever get that?”

he burstee into laughter immediately. “nostalgia! adorable! you meatbags are the only species that cry over the passage of time, like it didn’t warn you in advance. TICK TOCK, SWEETHEART! y’all live like, what, seventy years on average? that’s not life, that’s a limited-time free trial.”

“wow. thanks. totally made me feel better.”

“you're always welcome, cutie!” his voice dipped in mockery. “sooo, whatcha doing? starin’ at the sky again? tryna hypnotize the stars into making your life less depressing?”

“yep, i just like looking at them. makes me feel like i’m not stuck here. like everything’s bigger than this town. bigger than me. i don’t know.”

“ugh.” he made a gagging sound and morphed briefly into a glittering puddle before reforming. “you and your stargazing. seriously. you’re one constellation away from joining a cult.”

you tilted your head at him.

“what? you don’t like stars anymore?”

Bill fell silent for a moment. his eye narrowed slightly. but then his usual teasing voice returned.

“hate to break it to ya, but your species is stuck on that rock for another ten thousand years at best. moon was a fluke. you guys’ll be lucky if you make it past microwaving leftovers without starting nuclear winter. you’ll never reach those twinkly bastards up there. not really.”

you blinked. your throat tightened unexpectedly from a wonderful support he provides. “you really think that?”

“babe, i know that. you all stare up at the sky and make up stories about it because you can’t deal with how small you are. here’s a fact: you’re not meant to touch the stars. you’re meant to burn under them.”

“you’re kind of a dick,” you said quietly.

“no, you’re just too sentimental and blind.”

you laughed. “well, i like pretending we could go further. beyond the moon and past saturn. doesn’t mean i don’t know it’s impossible, Bill.”

not like you were expecting anything serious in return, so you received that: “hm, tragic. and here i thought i was the monster in this story.”

you looked up again, to the stars.

“you still might be.” that made Bill shut his mouth, he was quiet, for once. meanwhile, you looked down at your shoes. “anyways, ou didn’t always sound so cynical about it.”

“i’ve always sounded cynical about it,” Bill corrected. “you just had stars in your ears.”

you bit your cheek, forcing a smile. “they’re pretty,” you bit your lip and kicked a pebble. there was a question curdling in your throat. it’d been sitting there a while, sharp and annoying, like a grain of sand in your eye.

you didn’t wanna ask. but you had to.

“where were you? why’d you disappear? i didn’t even get a nightmare. not a single one.”

Bill hovered and froze for five agonising seconds, but then laughed with that horrible, spine tingling laugh you loved hated.

“oh sweetie, you jealous?” he cooed, leaning forward. “missed me that much?”

you narrowed your eyes. “that’s not an answer.”

“oh, someone’s clingy! but no, i just found a new toy to play with, that’s all!”

“a new toy?” your voice cracked with disbelief. “what do you even mean by that?” your brows furrowed

“sheesh, sweetheart, relax! you’re still my favorite toy! the others squeal too fast.”

you huffed. “you’re such an ass.”

“thanks!” he responded quickly, but noticing your face expression, he finally gave you an answer. “been busy. got tangled in a little puzzle box of a man. thinks he’s clever,”

he spun his cane around once, then tossed it into oblivion. “you’d hate him, he stinks.”

you didn’t say anything because you weren't in the mood, all what left your mouth was a deep tired sigh until—

“BOO!”

“FUCK!” you yelped, stumbling backwards as he popped into existence inches from your face.

“no need to cry, sweetheart. i’d never replace my favorite weirdo.”

you glared, the corners of your lips turned down in annoyance as you swatted your hand through him like mist. but then something above caught your eye. a tear in the dark.

a shooting star.

“Bill, look!”

you sprang off the swing, raising your arm, pointing your finger skyward like a little kid, excited. “there! did you see that?!”

Bill floated beside you, unamused, already knowing what's coming next. “agh. here we go again. . .”

you clasped your hands together and whispered under your breath, closing your eyes. Bill watched you make a wish without blinking.

if he had a mouth, he might’ve smiled. thankfully, he didn’t. because demons like him didn’t do that. they didn’t melt over dumb human eyes or the belief that the universe gave a shit about your whispered little dreams.

“why do you always get quiet when we talk about stars?” you asked suddenly, not looking at him. “you never talk about them like you do other things. didn’t you ever want to touch them, too?” you turned to face him finally, staring into his single eye. “didn’t you ever wish the same?”

“they’re empty,” Bill finally said after another silence. “cold rocks. radiation. broken bones and screaming voids. you think there’s what? some magic up there? there’s just more nothing.”

“then let me see it,” you whispered with hope in your voice. “show me. let me see the stars closer.”

he blinked, surprised at your words, as if you’d just asked to die. “you’re not serious.”

“i am.”

his eye tightened at that response, annoyed at your stubborness. “you won’t like what’s out there.”

you stepped back. “fine! then i’ll get to them without your help! i don't need you.”

and before he could respond, you ran, your feet carried you right through the dark into the trees, the swings creaked behind you. Bill didn’t follow, at least not physically. but a hundred golden eyes peeled open in the trees around, watching you as you kept running.

you reached a tree, tall one, crooked. and you climbed, feeling branches biting at your skin. your feet slipped on damp bark and you cursed under your breath but kept going. cuts bloomed along your arms, your legs, but it didn’t matter.

your hands were scraped and knuckles raw, twigs tugged your hair and the bark flaked beneath your fingers, but you didn’t stop.

you didn’t care that your legs were shaking or that your breath was burning in your throat, you didn’t even notice the thing behind you. the long black limb slithering up the tree’s spine, shadowed darker than night, waiting. Bill’s little safety net. of course he’d never admit it.

he was watching you.

through a dozen borrowed eyes, clinging to pine. he watched your foot slip and you gasped as you almost fell. and the tendril twitched, ready.

“you absolute idiot,” Bill muttered to no one. “you picked the tallest tree in the goddamn forest.”

but you were too high on spite. too high on that breathless wild hunger to prove him wrong.

and when you were there, at the top, the branch dipped beneath your weight but didn’t break. you sat, dizzy from the wind and the way the dark sky opened up in front of you like a mouth.

holy shit. you couldn’t even think.

the stars weren’t just above anymore, they were everywhere. on your skin. in your eyelashes. crawling into your blood.

you tipped your head back and laughed breathlessly, nearly crying. raised your arm toward the dark hoping it might reach back.

“see?” you called out. “i did it! i’m here. i got closer.”

at this time, Bill was right beside you, floating and glowing in the night. he didn’t say anything for a second, until “that’s it? that’s the grand finale? you climbed a tree. congratulations. you’re a squirrel with emotional problems.”

you grinned, not even offended. “i’m still closer to them than i was ten minutes ago.”

“yeah,” he drawled. “and thankfully, that’s your limit.”

“why thankfully?” your face dropped. Bill didn’t answer so you asked again, louder this time. “what does that even mean? why are you always like this about it? what’s there, Bill? what are you hiding? what’s up there that you won’t tell me? talk to me, what did you see? what are you hiding?”

Bill froze and his form wavered. suddenly, a crimson hue ran along its edges.

“you wanna know what’s up there?” he barked aggressively. “NOTHING!” his tone and words made you flinch, but that wasn't the end of his speech. “fire! death! you’ll burn before you even reach the edge of that velvet sky you worship so bad. what are you trying to prove, huh? that you’re special? some saintly sky-gazing freak who’s above the rest of the mud-crawling masses?”

you blinked, startled. and hating yourself for your own reaction, because your body and voice trembled treacherously, you felt anger.

“yes,” you answered. “yes, Bill. i think i’m fucking special. because i fucking try! because i look! i don’t just let everything rot around me and laugh at it from the sidelines like a fucking coward!”

and that’s when your foot slipped, it happened too fast. bark tore under you and your body tipped backward, air was gone and you were falling like a shooting star, metor, until something caught you, the thing wrapped tight around you, too cold for your skin, winding around your waist, your arms, your ribs. a single black tendril, pulled you from the fall, yanking you from death.

Bill had caught you. and he immediately knew that somewhere, in another timeline, he didn’t.

but in this one, he placed you gently on the ground and his all seeing eye watched you intensely. good. not a scratch more on you.

although he didn’t float down to check more. Bill stayed at the top of the tree, watching the sky.

you looked up at him. heart still punching inside your chest.

“you just saved my life.” you whispered in disbelief, knowing full well that he wouldn't hear.

it was just silence, and that fucking tendril, still curled tight around your body like a belt. you hated this, but more than all you hated how still he was, as if he was trying to look unreadable on purpose, like he hadn’t just snapped at you five seconds ago. you felt like you were a curious child who touched the wrong lever on the wrong machine and now had to sit in time out.

you squirmed and tugged, making the the tendril tighten. you knew Bill controlled them, and if it wasn't letting go, it meant he wasn't letting go.

“seriously?” you snapped, still breathless. “what now, punishment? gonna strangle me with your magic spaghetti thing now? teach me a lesson or whatever?” you wrestled with the slick thing coiled around your waist.

nothing. and that nothing made you exhale in annoyance. worse was that he wasn't speaking. you would've rather he yelled again, mocked you again, burned you with words. . . at least that meant he cared.

it was embarrassment you felt. or maybe just confusion. whatever that emotion was, you couldn't understand it. because you didn’t fight like this, not with him. it wasn’t like that between you two, even your worst disagreements had spark, play, jokes. meanwhile, this felt like a wall had slammed down between you and he was standing behind it with his arms crossed, eye closed, pretending you weren’t pounding your fists on it.

“you want me to apologize? is that it, triangle guy?” you asked louder, tired. “fine! here. im sorry, okay? im sorry i tried to understand you, sorry i wanted to see what you saw. sorry i cared. now let me go.”

Bill looked down, as if you’d finally reminded him you existed. his shape turned back to gold, he tilted in the air slightly, observing you from a new angle.

your stomach flipped, because you still didn’t know what the end of a friendship with a demon looked like. you assumed, at best, it ended with your blood on a rock.

he floated down a little.

his voice, when it came, was softer than you expected.

“you said you wanted to be closer.”

and your heart jumped, because yes. yes, you had. and you meant it. you weren’t just saying things to hurt him. you wanted this. you wanted him, wanted to understand what he saw when he talked about the stars. you wanted to be part of that world, even if it was dangerous or made no sense.

“i did. i do.”

Bill stared at you a moment longer and saw a human who reached for impossible things, despite being made of bone and flesh.

he saw in you the thing he hated about himself. curiosity, untempered. wonder, unstoppable. the desire to know, even when the knowing came with teeth. and he hated how you’d burn yourself just to see what lived behind the clouds. hated how he adored you for it.

Bill didn't like emotions, but fuck, you stirred up all the ones he thought he'd buried in whatever remained of his dark soul.

because you were the only creature he'd ever met who looked at the sky the way Bill used to. you were the first one to get that close. and you didn’t even die.

finally, Bill let the tendril slide away from you, melting into nothing.

and then his form grew, literally expanded upward in impossible geometry. limbs stretching until they threatened the shape of the forest, until everything around him felt small. and you felt small.

your head fell back to keep him in view and fuck, your knees wobbled as you staggered back.

“holy fuck,” you breathed in awe. “you are so dramatic.”

you think you just developed megalophobia.

but still, your feet didn’t move.

his hand, now the size of a huge car, unfurled from his side. he brought it low, slow, like the offering of a god.

“step on.” his voice sounded through trees and came from all directions. that's how huge he grew.

you stepped into it and his hand lifted you slowly.

Bill knew, you were the only thing he could show the stars to without it killing you.

and the air tore through your lungs like lightning. you gasped and clutched at his finger for balance, every inch of you burning with euphoria while trees became moss, rivers became threads of silver. gravity falls, your town, your whole life, was now the size of a postcard.

and you were laughing. you didn’t even realize you were until tears blurred your vision.

“oh fuck, Bill,” you gasped, dizzy. “this is— this is insane! i’m gonna die up here.”

“not unless i drop you.”

“don’t you fucking dare.” you grinned so hard it hurt. you clung to one of his fingers, half-laughing, half-crying. still not realising fully what even happened, being held by something you thought hated you five minutes ago.

“see? this is what i meant,” you said in excitement looking down at gravity falls. “down there, they live their lives without even looking up. they don’t know. dont even look up!”

“then why are looking down?” Bill questioned calmly. “didnt you want to be closer?”

and you turned to look, not down, not anymore. up. and for the first time, the stars weren’t distant and unreachable. stars weren’t a ceiling. they were around you, they swallowed you, clustered like diamonds, glowing.

“thats cassiopeia,” you whispered. “and andromeda, and— that’s perseus right? oh my god. i can see saturn! Bill, i can see saturn!”

Bill didn’t answer, because he wasn’t looking at the sky. his eye watched you, unblinking, drinking in the reflection of the stars in your eyes like a creature starved for beauty. the stars were in your eyes, not just above your head. and Bill had never seen anything like it. a creature with galaxies instead of pupils.

“you have a beautiful iris,” he said suddenly.

“what? iris?”

“part of the eye, controls light. yours looks like it could hold galaxies. i like it.”

your cheeks flushed. “oh uh, always thought my eyes were boring, heh.” inside though, you panicked because a triangle just called you pretty and that forced your heart to beat stupid.

Bill's voice sounded offended. “you’d be wrong.”

you laughed nervously, gripping his finger tighter, feeling your pulse in your ears. the cold air stung your face, but you didn’t care.

you looked away quickly to hide yourself from his all seeing eye. “hey. . . can we, can we get closer?”

Bill's eye narrowed, glinting. “oh?” he purred and his usual cockiness returned to his voice. “what kind of ‘closer’ are you asking for, sweetie?”

your face went completely hot and your heart screamed. you tried to hide it, giving him a blank expression, “to the stars, Bill. closer to the stars.”

he groaned. “i swear i should drop you.”

and you giggled as his eye lingered on you, wide. “i don’t get it though,” you muttered, gripping his finger tighter as the cold stung your cheeks. “you tell me not to look up, you say there’s nothing out here. but you live here. you literally float through it like it’s your playground. so what, i’m not allowed to want it too?”

“ohh, back to our lovely term, you think you’re special?” he asked, voice flat.

you flinched at the sharpness. “yeah,” oh, how stubborn you were. “i mean, i already answered that question, Bill, i think maybe i am, so what?”

Bill was silent again. longer, this time. until you almost regretted speaking. then, “that’s cute.”

you frowned because you waited something else in response, but yeah Bill was still Bill. “oh fuck off.”

“i mean it. it’s adorable the way you reach for shit that’d melt your brain in two seconds. how you think being ‘different’ makes you immune to the burn. i remember that.” he looked to the sky too. “that hunger. that stupid obsession with wanting to matter. to see something no one else does. to believe there’s something waiting out here if you’re just brave enough.” then he let out an amused laugh, “you’re wrong. but i like that you believe it.”

you didn’t know whether to feel insulted, supported or understood. “so what now? you gonna let me fall back down?”

Bill laughed at how offended and naive your voice sounded, “nah.” a tendril, cold one and weirdly gentle, slid from the air and rested against the top of your head, petted you like you were some kind of little puppy.

“you’re good, human,” Bill admitted simply. “i love good humans.”

How to not get along with your co-worker

Don't ask what this school assignment is for

notes: temporary character death

You were a little kid, when you’d first met him. But so was he. It had been a time before time, when many things did not yet exist, and even more were simply incomprehensible. 

Other kids always talked about Bill and his ‘weird’ eye. You didn’t really get it. Your mom told you to be nice to Bill, but you didn’t really know him. When you asked the other kids why he or his eye was weird, none of them knew what to say. And if they did, they all gave a different answer. You guessed their parents just told them he was weird. Maybe you were weird, too, then. You never really knew what to say or how to approach anyone, and it’d only become a problem when your parents asked you if you had any friends. That was the moment you had realised that you didn’t. 

You didn’t really know why you picked Bill, back then. You didn’t care about him either way. But you did liked his shoes. They were big, a cool colour, and they were squeaky when he moved. What was there not to like? That morning, you had asked your dad what you should ask when you wanted to play together with someone. He had said that, after school, you should get someone’s parents’ permission if you want to play after school. 

“Bill’s mom, can Bill play?” You’d ask who you would later get to know as miss Scalene.

“I don’t know!” She responded, in that slow, sweet tone people who spend a lot of time around young children naturally begin to emulate. “I think you should Billy ask that.”

“Oh. I thought his name was Bill! I’m sorry.” You called out, swaying a little from side to side. 

“It’s Bill,” he’d said. His voice was higher than you had expected. “But mom calls me Billy.”

“Oh,” you started again. “Can I call you that too?” You asked. 

“…Mm.” Billy had hummed. “Okay. I guess.” Even when he’d said the affirmative, he hadn’t sounded entirely convinced. He was hesitant to appear from next to his mom. 

“So. Do you wanna play, Billy?” He glowed a little brighter. 

He was quiet for a moment. You think his mom squeezed his hand. “Sure. But what?” 

You didn’t really have much experience playing with other kids, either. But you weren’t about to tell your new friend Billy that! You’d offered to play hide and seek together, to which he’d agreed. After just a little bit of time together, talking and playing came a lot more easily. 

You would play hide and seek together quite a lot. That was the first time you really came face-to-face with Billy’s mischievous side. He had advantages over you that you simply could not imagine. With his eye, that could see ‘every’ which way, was always able to spot you long before you bumped into him. Yours were always just fixed in a single direction, bumping into other shapes was normal and expected. Billy never did that. He could suddenly appear behind you, and you had no idea how he did it. If you ever found him, it was because he could no longer contain his laughter, or because of the squeaking of his shoes. 

For a while, this went fine. But you grew sick of losing all the time. You’d eventually stopped, swayed violently from side to side (a sight of great displeasure amongst your two dimensional race) and cried big, fat tears. Your purple glow diminished to a flickering.

“It’s not fair!” You mumbled out, and crossed your arms in front of your chest. “You always win, and I never, ever do. You’re cheating.”

“I’m not cheating!” He exclaimed a little too loudly, and you cried even harder. “It’s my eye,” he said and pointed at it. “It’s not my fault I can see things you can’t. I’m not cheating.” 

“…It’s still cheating if you’re not doing it on purpose,” you mumbled huffily. Not to mention, he had been way too happy beating you over and over and over again! You sniffle and loosen your arms. “Did you know people call your eye weird? Why is it like that?”

“Yes. Duh. I know people say that… And I dunno. Mom says it’ll be alright when I’m older.” You were too young to know to recognize or maneuverer around a touchy subject. “…Do you think it’s weird?”

“I don’t know yet,” you responded. “What else can you see? And do?” 

Billy told you about the stars. Whereas his parents had tolerated his talks about the stars, had found his enthusiasm for something they couldn’t see endearing and worrying in equal measure, you were fascinated by them. Perhaps exactly because you couldn’t see them, your interest had expanded. Bill and you would exchange drawings. He’d draw the stars for you, while you would show him what the world looked like to you, or other things. Sometimes, you drew the two of you together, too. 

Afterwards, the two of you had become inseparable. And, years later, when Billy’s parents had lost all hope in the possibility that his eye would change, when people started to fear him, you’d stuck by his side like glue. He had told you of his plan to show everyone the stars, and you’d practically vibrated with excitement. You had counted down the hours. 

And, like the rest of them, you had ended up smashed. Into. Pieces, scattered into nothing but the finest of dust, leaving behind a pile of static, writhing blood. Maybe, unlike the rest, you had felt a sliver of happiness when you died. Maybe you’d even gotten to see it. 

--

In another life, many, many, many years in the future, you had been a human. In this life, you were born with the same fascination for the stars, and granted the opportunity to study them to your heart’s content. Maybe the Axolotl had taken mercy on your soul, or something along those lines. You had a good life. A comfortable one. A life that was much, much happier than the one you had lived a trillion years ago. 

But you had a childhood imaginary friend. Perhaps a part of your traumatic past life had lodged itself so deeply in your soul that not even reincarnation had washed away all memories of it. You had a childhood imaginary friend named Billy, who was a floating little triangle with a big, glossy eye and cool shoes. As you grew older, he’d slipped from your mind, and the only remnant of his existence were some drawings you’d kept of him in a forgotten drawer in your room. 

When you had doodled him again once, many years later, the shape was in line enough with his current appearance to allow him a portal of view into your life. He hadn’t been able to explain what it was that drew himself to you. Why he started to infiltrate your dreams, merely to watch from a distance. The design of your mindscape, the big, starry expanse spanning out above it, had felt familiar to him. The desire to watch you go about your day and do the boring, mundane things that every meatbag does every single day. But when he finally decided to show himself in one of your dreams, it had all clicked into place.

“Billy!” You’d exclaimed happily. “Huh… I haven’t thought about you in forever. It’s been a really long time.” It was something in your eyes and the way you’d said it, that had jolted him back all that time. He’d almost forgotten about you. Forgotten your name, and what you’d looked like. Only vague memories of happiness had remained in contrast with the sight of your corpse. “But you look a bit different from what I remember. Well, a dream’s a dream, right?”

“Y…Yeah, well, ahahaha!” It wasn’t often that Bill was thrown off-balance, and it’d made him a little sick. His mind jumped between destroying you from the inside out then and there, and cradling you into a little pocket dimension he could fit in the palm of his hand for the rest of his eternity. “You’ve changed, too, kid. Like you said, a lot of time has passed. So! What are you up to now, huh?” 

Bill knew from the moment he set his eye upon you, that he’d have a soft spot for you. It was dangerous. You weren’t like those others, who he could grow amused with for a little bit, toy around with and, eventually, discard without a second thought. No. The two of you went waaaay back, and he’d already seen you die once before. 

Could he really let that happen again? 

Anyone else not care if a character is “redeemable” even a little. Either they get better or they die terrible. I am not Anubis, weighing their hearts against a feather. I wanna see what else they can do and how they can grow or change or even get worse. Stop asking me if a character can be forgiven. I don’t care.

Bill starts using a lot of slang words from different planets and dimensions and the future and such and Ford tries to play it cool but secretly freaks tf out because he can't tell what Bill means without knowing the words he's saying

subscribing to a fic isn’t enough I need the author to blast a bat signal into the night sky whenever they update