Hey guys! So I've decided to cross post this from AO3! I'll be posting a new chapter here every couple of days, but if you want to read every chapter NOW, feel free to check over there! If you'd rather wait and read it here, great! Thanks so much for reading!
Stan Pines. It would be a thousand years too soon if Bill ever had to hear THAT name again. After what he did. His brother, Stanley, he wasn't too bad. It was a shame what happened, but there wasn't anything Bill could do about it.
But Stanford. Stanford Pines. Stanford. Stan. Bill supposed he still wasn't over it. It had been thirty years, sure, but to an omniscient being of unknowable power, that was hardly a day.
It goes without saying that when the opportunity arose to enter Stan's mind, he took it without a second thought. Bill had no real intentions of actively looking for the code to the deed to the mystery shack, but really the contract with Gideon was just an easy way into the young man's head. Old man, Bill mentally corrected. He was an old man now.
He could feel it, as soon as he entered Stan's mind, he was being followed.
Oh no, that won't do, he thought, and with a mere thought time slowed to a crawl in Stans mind. He could be here for years now, uninterrupted, and hardly seconds would have passed in the outside world. Those kids, what were they again? Pine Tree, Shooting Star, Question Mark? Yes. They wouldn't get here until he was good and ready for them.
All this time, and Bill knew he wouldn't even bother searching for that deed. If he found it, he found it, good for him, but really that was so far down on his priority list as to be nonexistent.
"Where to start, where to start," Bill muttered, gleefully rubbing his hands together as he surveyed the many doors scattered around Stan's mindscape.
"Not much has changed, that's easy to see," he said. And it was true. While outside Stan may have aged like a fine wine, inside he was just the same as when Bill last saw him. Of course, last time Bill was here, he was a willing guest, but that was a different story.
He laid a hand on a dusty door knob. A memory not visited much. Private. Personal. "Let's see what's behind door number one!" He shouted gleefully, throwing the door open with reckless abandon, sending plumes of dust into the air. What he saw inside made him almost wish he hadn't.
There was Stan, 26, standing in front of a circle of candles. He was looking at a spot on the floor, as though afraid of looking directly at the creature in front of him. Bill remembered this. He remembered the anger, the fear on his part. How dare he, how dare such a low creature make Bill Cipher feel even the smallest amounts of fear.
Sure enough, there was a second Bill, a different Bill, a Bill which only existed in this part of Stan's mind.
The younger Stan coughed, and kicked at the floor, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. He flinched as the Bill in the circle grew red, large, angry, and let out a resounding, echoing, "WHAT!?"
"Look, I just…" Said the younger Stan. Bill wanted to turn away, slam the door, forget he ever saw it no wonder this door was so dusty of course he hates you he left you all your doors are gonna be dusty why don't you just leave, fulfill your contract, ruin his life, call it a done deal. But he couldn't. It was like watching a train wreck. Horrible, but you found yourself unable to turn away.
The younger Stan sighed. "I…" Bill watched as Stan's hands clenched into fists, watched as his doppelganger heaved deep, useless breathes of anger in the center of the circle. Bill remembered the feelings of anxiety that he was trying to hide, to contain in that moment. "I just can't keep doing this," young Stan finished.
Bill watched his past self shrink down, compose himself. Bill was surprised to see that his past self was still a very angry red, he could have swore he had himself completely under control in that moment. It was probably Stan's faulty memory, definitely that, it could be nothing else. Bill ignored the fact that he could feel the authenticity of this memory, ignored the fact that he was steadily turning a dusty pink himself as he watched.
"Can't keep doing, what, Stanford?" Past Bill asked, hissing the name just slightly.
Young Stan flusteredly gestured to the room around him. "This!" He began pacing. "The secrets, the lies!"
Past Bill rolled his eye, putting on a mask of arrogance that was totally ruined by his emotional coloration. "You do lies for a living, Stanford." Current Bill flinched at the venom in his own voice.
"That's different!" Stan shouted. Oh, did Bill remember this. This was when everything went Bad, he should leave, he should go, no, no. "No one gets hurt when you're not around!"
Young Stan flinched. He hadn't meant to say that.
Past Bill stood very still. Whereas before he was still bobbing up and down, now he was frozen in place. "Is that what this is about?" he whispered.
The hurt on Stan's face, the agony. It was too much.
"IS THAT WHAT T̠͕̪͉̩H̦̜̲̗͈̝̼̖̀͘Ì̛̱̦̼̙͔͚͞Ś̺̯͎ ͔͉̙̬̙I̵̴̖͖͖̜̣͎͢ͅS͖͕̼͙͚̯̥͟͡ ͖͇̝A͟͏҉̝̝̳͉̱̥͕̱B̡͕͇̜͍O̭̣Ṵ̡̫͉͚̼T̥͕̀͠ͅ!?̸͈͈̻̮̕"
"Bill, please, you have to understand-"
Past Bill wouldn't hear it. "Ņ̸̞̮̼̠͍͍͇̥̖͈̠͎̱̫͉̲̦̀ͅO͘҉̧̲̭̲̲̞̣̜̠̞̘̝̥ͅ I understand perfectly well, Stanford. Well you get your wish." He narrowed his one eye in the direction of the younger man, "You won't have to do this ANYMORE!"
"Bill-" Young Stan reached towards the circle, but it was too late. Past Bill had already blinked out of existence in an angry crack, and the color slowly leached back into the room.
Bill in the present continued watching the memory, curious as to how it panned out. He remembered being so angry that he didn't leave the dreamscape for a year, ignoring any summons he may have received.
He watched as young Stan pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and looked it over. "I can't live in this town anymore," he said to the empty circle, almost as if rehersing. He looked back at his paper. "And you can't leave. Not without making a deal. So, let's… Urgh," he groaned and balled up the paper, throwing it onto the floor. "Useless…"
Sensing the memory was over, Bill left the room.
This series is based mainly around prompt fills. If you have a prompt or a request, leave it in the comments and you just might see it filled! Though maybe not in the way you were thinking! At the very least it will go in the prompt pool.