Awake oceanborn
Behold this force
Bring the outside in
Explode the self to epiphany
Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness.
The deep slumber of an eldritch being, not as much in state of being than a state of not being. Cradled in nothingness, a dream that dreams only of itself.
There is summon, rippling over the dimensions and echoing through the timelines, gently nudging the being awake. The spaces open all around the awakened being that folds its consciousness open. From a size smaller than an atom, to circling galaxies, the being settles in and blinks its one eye, which is millions at the same time. A Voice that exists as a more than just a sound wave says-
"Gravity Falls it is good to be back!"
There is a triangle in a top hat staring at him across the chessboard and Stanford tries to not think of the traditional descriptions of muses, just in case this one can read minds.
"Now, now smart guy. Is that what you wanted, a half-naked girl in a toga. I'm almost insulted."
Stanford almost chokes on his tea. "Well it's hardly my fault that the ancient Greece had a very one-sided way of representing supernatural creatures."
The triangle chuckles. "Oh IQ. You get so easily flustered."
The muse has an annoying voice Stanford thinks and immediately hopes that the creature didn't hear that. Either the triangle has decided to respect his privacy or let the thought slide.
"So smart guy. What are your ambitions? How are you going to change the world?"
Stanford moves his knight and considers the question. It is a good one, because Stanford doesn't know. He has been doing nothing but hitting roadblocks and instead of answers the only thing that he seems to find are more questions.
"I moved to Gravity falls to figure out what is making it so…so different. I am not even close to figuring anything out."
"Hmm. But will that be enough. Don't you want to build something of your own, like you did when you were young? Maybe you came to Gravity falls for a reason. Maybe Gravity falls can help you."
"I don't know. Sometimes I doubt everything that I used to know about myself in Gravity falls. It's almost like the whole town is from some other world compared to the rest of the planet."
"And is that a bad thing? Isn't that what you want deep inside you? You know that you would not have been satisfied with the old boring mundane world of everywhere else."
All the possible futures of this one human open before Bill's eye as he inspects the insignificant mortal that has in his foolishness called for the nightmare that the shamans thousands of years ago banished from this realm.
There is weight in this life, a potential that bends the space under it, but no matter how Bill tries, he can't quite seem to make out the most potential futures.
It is interesting and Bill knows that he can't leave it alone until he figures out why this mortal's futures are clouded from him.
Stanford decides not to tell Fiddleford at first. It is a cowardly thing to do, because he knows that Fiddleford would be right to be angry at Stanford. Summoning an unknown entity had been a stupid thing to do, no matter what the end results had been. The more selfish part of him wants to keep Bill all to himself, to believe Bill who had said that it is only him and only him, that he has come to inspire.
It doesn't take long for Bill to decide what he is going to do with his new found freedom. The little world where he had been summoned is amusing in its own, but Bill has already once been banished and defeated by the mortals inhabiting the small planet. If it happened once, it will happen again and a world where Bill can't play, is not a world that Bill is interested in. If Bill however destroyed the world before the oceanborn mortals evolve too much, the dimension might prove to be some entertainment to Bill and He already has the means to rip the world in the most spectacular way possible.
Stanford can easily admit that he is not as some put it: "a people person." He has always been an outcast, a six fingered freak whose brain works too fast to be able to concentrate on conversing with others and their painfully slow thought progress. Between them Stanley was always the one gifted with social skills, while Stanford found his friends in books and numbers.
Spending time with Bill is different however. Bill doesn't need or want the mindless small talk, he is not interesting in the mundane, and he wants Stanford only at his most brilliant. He pushes Stanford to be more, instead of trying to make him become less.
They play chess over the stretching nebulas. The tea that Stanford keeps sipping has a curious aftertaste, almost electric and no matter how he tries, Stanford can't figure out how the triangle opposite him keeps sipping his tea.
They do calculations together in middle of the stars and Stanford keeps wondering which one of them is providing the scenery where they practice their craft.
"Come on Sixer. You can do better than that."
"But the equation just won't work. It is not possible!"
"Don't be such a human about this. Open your mind."
"But I am a human! And maybe it would be easier to open my mind if someone would just get down from their high horse and explain things properly!"
"That is not how this works."
"Then what's the point of you!"
Stanford regrets lashing out immediately. He considers Bill to be his friend and doesn't want to distance himself from the muse. He is however exhausted and has once again ended up in roadblock in his research.
"What's the point of me?" Bill echoes with a hint of anger in his voice. "Like you flesh-bags could ever comprehend it."
"I'm sorry, that was out of line of me. You've been nothing but helpful." Bill doesn't look appeased, his eye narrowed and hands crossed. Stanford has a nagging feeling that if he wasn't floating, he would be tapping his foot on the floor.
"It has been a long day, maybe I should just give up for tonight."
"You're running away."
"I am not!" Stanford realizes that he is yelling again and sighs. "Sorry."
"I understand. You are tired, it is a human weakness. You humans are full of them."
"Yeah." Stanford tiredly agrees and falls on the sofa that Bill has so kindly conjured for him in the mindscape. An awkward silence falls over them. It is surprisingly Bill that breaks the silence.
"You can't give up now." Stanford would almost think that he is whining. Not for the first time he wonders why Bill has chosen him to inspire, when all he seems to achieve are dead ends.
"Because you are the man who will change the world."
"Please don't read my mind."
"What else am I supposed to do when you don't talk?"
"Ask." Already Stanford feels better. It is the same lightness that he felt when meeting Bill for the first time. Sometimes the most encouraging thing that Stanford can think of is the fact that from time to time Bill is just as awkward as Stanford himself.
"Well what are you thinking now?"
"What a pair we make."
"What a boringly human thing to think."
Stanford isn't insulted. He has spent enough time with Bill to instead be amused by the muse's remark. "Well what are you thinking?"
Bill blinks, taken aback. "You couldn't possibly comprehend."
"Have you ever heard that if the teacher can't make the student understand, then it is the teacher that is incompetent."
"I am not your teacher." Bill responds in an icy voice. Stanford hides his smile. The fact that he is getting under the muse's metaphorical skin gives him smug satisfaction. Bill might be eons old and almost omniscient, but there is still something almost humane in the way he sometimes slips with his feelings.
When Stanford looks at the incomplete numbers again, it's like all the pieces fall into their places in his brains. He shoots up and finishes the glowing equation.
"Did you do that?" He asks Bill, who has been watching Stanford silently. "Give me the inspiration?"
"No." Bill answers in a voice that could almost be described as awe-struck.
The realization that Bill needs Stanford more than Stanford needs Bill, is not an easy one, but unfortunately it is true. Stanford is smarter than your average mortal, smarter even than Bill originally gave him credit for. Bills manipulations have a flaw, mainly the fact that he hasn't been keeping the bar of expectations high enough for Stanford to feel helpless without Bill.
Stanford doesn't realize it yet, but in order for him to fulfil his ambitions, he doesn't need Bill, but if Bill wants to succeed in his plan, he will need Stanford to build the gateway.
Fiddleford is a genius, so of course it doesn't take long for him to figure out that something is going on with Stanford. When the sixth crystal pyramid appears on the shelf of the lab, Fiddleford puts his papers down and pins Stanford with an unimpressed stare.
"When are you going to tell me?"
A lie is on the tip of Stanford's tongue, but he holds it. Fiddleford is Stanford's first- and best friend, in addition of being his work-partner, and lying to him leaves a foul taste in his mouth. Besides, there shouldn't be any reason to keep Bill a secret; Stanford isn't doing anything wrong.
It would seem that Fiddleford has reached his limits, because his eyes flash with both hurt and anger.
"Where are these ideas coming from! Who are you working with?!"
"I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner. It...It is a long story."
Stanford Pines is a man who will change the world, Bill knows this. How he is going to do it, is something that Bill has not yet figured out. Every time he gazes into the possible time streams, the view is incomplete. He can see some of the possible futures, the ones where Stanford dies young. The millions possibilities where Stanford dies in poverty, wins the Nobel prize, kills, becomes killed, commits suicide, gets married and sometimes meets Bill, but mostly he doesn't.
There are billions possibilities where the picture is broken, where Bill only gets static feedback, where pieces are missing and everything is jumbled together and Bill can't make any sense of it.
Bill is sure that it is going to be one of those futures that Bill can't see that is going to become reality and he is both angered and intrigued by it.
Stanford knows that he has been forgiven when a book appears on his table, with a note attached on. I'm still not happy about the lying, but I trust you to know what you're doing.
The book is titled: Meditation and reaching your spirit guide; and despite the tacky cover art, the book proves to be surprisingly effective. It soon becomes commonplace for Stanford to fall into a meditative trance in the lab in order to converse with the muse.
"Come on IQ give me at least some challenge."
"You are already losing, you just don't know it yet."
"Bluffing won't work on me, Sixer."
"I'm not bluffing. We're playing chess why would I bluff?"
"Because you left Fiddleford to work on his own just to lose on chess against me."
"Or to win." Stanford checkmates Bill's king and lifts his eyebrows smugly at the being of pure energy that seems to be pouting. "I let you do that."
"Sure you did. But you had a point about leaving Fiddleford alone. I should go back and continue on the research. Maybe a cup of coffee first."
"You humans and your cravings."
"You love us really, you wouldn't put up with us otherwise."
"Hey! It's my job. I don't usually like it."
"Oh so I'm special case then. You sure you don't say that to everyone you choose to inspire."
"Do I not look like an honest triangle?"
"I'm sure I can't judge."
"Oh dear. Oh deary deary!"
"What?"
"It looks like dear Fiddleford is in danger."
"What!"
"Looks like the necromancy book worked after all."
Some loud explicates later Stanford wakes up cross-legged on the floor, with stiff joints, to the sound of something hard smacking against flesh.
Hurrying up Stanford rushes up the stairs to find Fiddleford wielding a long metal rod meant for the portal and smacking corpses like it is going out of style.
"Stay back Stan! I'm trying to keep them out of the cellar."
"You idiot! Like I'm going to let you fight the dead on your own!"
Grabbing a chair, Stanford rushes in to the fray, letting the adrenaline sweep away his fear. "Do they have a weakness?"
"Well I was experimenting with one, before it managed to bring all of its friend upside too, and it would seem that there is a sure way to get rid of them for good."
"Great what is it?"
"well it would seem that when you echo uvular vibrations with 100-300Fo:s in three dimensions-"
"Short and to the point! I didn't take linguistics in university!"
"We need three voices to sing."
"You have got to be kidding me!"
"Look out!"
Fiddleford isn't quick enough with his warning, or maybe Stanford isn't quick enough to react, but one of the zombies manage to take a swipe at Stanford, who stumbling back in his hurry quite forgot that they had been defending the stairs down. Which were behind them.
Pain shot through Stanford's skull and for a moment there was only silence and the darkness.
"Hey!"
"Hey Sixer!"
"You can't sleep in the dreamscape!"
"Bill..."
"Yeah IQ. Now listen, you are in a bad place to be taking a nap."
"Fiddleford! Oh god is he alright? How do I wake myself up? I can't be unconscious now!"
"There is a way, but you have to let me into your head."
"You are already in my head?"
"No, you have to let me into your head. I will be able to get rid of the undead, but only if I can interact with the physical world."
"Then what are you waiting for? Do it!"
In a blink the dreamscape was gone and Stanford found himself once again on the bottom of the stairs, in his laboratory, and saw Fiddleford bash a zombie's head in, standing over Stanford's unconscious body.
Which Stanford was not inhabiting.
With growing surrealism Stanford watched as his own body awkwardly rose from the floor, unsure of its footing and the eyes glowing faint yellow.
Fiddleford took one glance at the yellow eyes and screamed.
Bill ignored him and instead opened Stanford's mouth.
The voice that followed was in no language that Stanford could recognize and echoed queerly, but
it did do its job as the groaning corpses collapsed to the floor.
"Who are you?" Fiddleford demanded, pointing his metal rod, dripping with gore, towards the now possessed body of Stanford."
"The names Bill Cipher. Have you ever noticed how hilarious pain is, cause I just did." Stanford couldn't help but to wince in horror when he saw Bill casually biting his hand. Fiddleford seemed to be speechless.
"Don't you dare to abuse that body any more than it already has gone through!"
"Relax Sixer. This way you don't even have to feel it."
"What have you done to Stanford!?"
"I saved your lives. Little gratitude would be nice."
"I want to speak to Stan!"
"Fine, he's all yours."
Stanford could feel himself being sucked back to his body and for a passing second could feel Bills consciousness brush against his own as he departed.
Thank you. Stanford threw his sincere though loudly in the direction of the exiting spirit.
It's what friends do, isn't it? Comes the answer, before Bill is gone.
The creatures of pandemonium are as Bill them remembers. Not surprising as time doesn't exist in Pandemonium, only chaos. They greet Bill as one of their own, which he is. They are of the same essence as Bill is, but also not the same. Bill left long time ago, becoming less, and his siblings did not. Bill is still not sure whether to pity or envy them for their unevolved pureness of being. They are closer to the chaos, never feeling the ache or having to suffer the order of the universe, but they can hardly comprehend their situation either. They just are, never doubting, but never understanding either.
"I'm going to give you a planet to play with." Bill tells his siblings. They howl in the same ecstasy that they howl their every moment, not being aware of past or future, existing only for the pure joy of this moment of chaos.
"That's right you dummies. Big brother is giving you a treat."
They continue their writhing.
Honestly, Bill expects more resistance to the idea of him possessing Stanford but now that the possibility is on the table, so to speak, Stanford embraces the idea wholeheartedly. Having a contract with someone that allows Bill just casually slip in and out of their head is a new experience for both of them. They both settle in with surprising ease. Bill is given a set of rules to abide by, which mainly consist of the limitations of the human body and how pain most definitely is not hilarious, not at least to the one who has to live with the aftereffects.
Bill abides and is slowly being introduced to the human comforts like chocolate, digging your toes in the sand, snuggling on the sofa and of course to the greatest human achievement of all history, as Bill has declared it, Dungeons, dungeons and more dungeons. (Bill takes to the game like a gleeful eleven year old nerd, to the surprise of everyone involved, but maybe most of all to Fiddleford's who has to walk to the research room and find it being taken over by sheets and sheets of paper and Stanford who is having a competitive argument with himself, his eyes rabidly flicking between glowing yellow and normal brown.)
It is Christmas Eve that finds Stanford taking a walk through the silent snow covered woods. There are snowflakes falling in lazy swirls down from the sky and the scenery is like straight out of a postcard. In the peaceful silence he immediately hears the mental knock on his mind. He lets Bill in, slipping easily to stand beside his own body as a ghostly apparition.
Bills yellow eyes blink open and Stanford finds himself staring. He has long since learned to ignore his own face and only see the eyes.
"What are you doing out here in the cold all by yourself?"
"Taking a walk. Fiddleford went home for holidays."
"You decided to come to the woods instead going home too."
"Yeah. My family...well I think I prefer the woods."
There's a moment of silence, but it is companionable one.
"Walk with me Bill?"
"Sure IQ."
They walk most of the path in silence, letting the gentle snowfall cover the tracks left behind.
"Do muses have family, Bill?"
"Sure. They know how to throw a real party. Maybe I'll introduce you someday."
"I would like that."
Bill doesn't answer and Stanford doesn't push the issue, letting the silence again fall over them and just enjoying the picture perfect moment of beauty and affection.
"Come on old man. Just a little peek."
The being that walks the garden, turns his blind eyes towards Bill. The book in his hands stays firmly shut.
"None may lay their eyes on the pages of The Book."
"What about just one teeny tiney eye taking a look at one teeney tiney fate."
"None may lay their eyes on the pages of The Book." The being repeats. He is older than any universe, and will be here after all being has ceased to exist. The Book, chained to the blind man's hands, is as old as he is. "You are testing my patience, Bill Cipher."
The dreamdemon cautiously floats back. In this garden he does well to tread carefully. "But why cannot I see him. What is it clouding my sight!?"
The man in robes continues his path through the garden-maze, without a shadow nor footsteps, steady and unyielding as he has ever been. "Isn't it clear. It is your destiny, child of chaos."
"What? What is my destiny?!"
The man walks away without a word. It has never been his way to be clear.
Stanford's dreamscape is full of blue skies, open spaces and golden fields of wheat swaying in the wind, almost ripe for harvest.
Stanford makes his way through the field, letting the wind ruffle his hair and parting a way for himself through the golden stalks.
The sun shines bright and somewhere high above, he can see a hawk circling the sky.
Stanford notices that Bill is almost the exact same shade of yellow as the wheat surrounding them when the muse pops up.
"Do you think that you can top the last night?" Stanford asks with a friendly smirk on his face, the lines of his face smoothed out and a spark on his eyes that is hardly ever there on the waking world.
"What?! Of course I can. I have just been holding back to shelter your small human mind from my amazingness!" With a wave of a small black hand, the triangle flattens the crop around them in to an ornate triangular shape. Stanford laughs and pushes up with his legs. In the dreamworld he is light as a feather and floats obediently up.
Inspecting Bills work, Stanford makes a thoughtful humming noise. "Not bad, but does it have the complexity of this!"
Stanford lets his thoughts take form and with a swoosh of air, another part of the field flattens to create a complicated circular pattern.
"You're attachment to circles disgusts me."
Stanford laughs as Bill creates lines around Stanford's circles, attaching the whole design so that the circles have now become very stylized eye for a very stylized triangle.
With a wave Stanford expands the design to become a geometrical flower shape.
"It was fine before."
"Oh you're so full of yourself Cipher!" Stanford takes a playful swipe towards the other floating being beside him, who quickly dodges down.
"Really now Sixer. That was almost sad. I understand that not all of us can be natural at flying, but you could at least make an effort."
"You don't fly, you just float."
"Oh yeah, well you just flop around."
"And who's flopping now." Like a long time ago, Stanford finds himself roughhousing with someone who can be both annoying and dear at the same time. Expect that this time the roughhousing consist of Stanford diving for Bill, grabbing his small black hands, that feel almost electrical in his own, and free falling down, letting the wind steal both the ecstatic laugh and the surprised scream. Like two hawks they keep holding into each other while falling in circling motion down, down, down.
When they softly land to the ground, Stanford's hair is falling in to his eyes, and it all feels so real. Bill, even without any facial expressions so to speak, manages to look lighter and glow brighter in Stanford's eyes.
Once, Bill visits the plane of the muses. They are pitiful spirits compared to Bill. Lounging around, spewing out poetry and chit-chatting about the most useless things imaginable. They adore their favourite humans and spend time and effort flaunting the accomplishments of their personal mortals to anyone who will listen. They are also vain and scornful towards those that they do not favour, which end up being everyone expect themselves and their chosen ones.
They are weak and flee from Bill in terror, without Bill having to do anything but exist.
Still the humans seem to be willing to go to any lengths to gain the favour of these entirely useless beings.
Bill hates them on principle, not just for being snivelling airheads with their noses stuck permanently in the air, but also for not even seeing the potential that their reputation could be used for.
It gives Bill silent satisfaction to know that Stanford is still more Brilliant than all of those true "chosen ones", that the muses so adore.
The Opening of the portal is supposed to be the crowning achievement of his life, but when he is holding Fiddleford delirious in his arms, Stanford realises that the world is not lining up to meet up with what he thinks.
Later, when the shock of seeing Bill so easily cast away their bond, when the pain of having a metal plate installed into your head lessen into dull annoyance, when the rage has turned into bitterness, Stanford will realize that he is not so sure that he wants to solve any more mysteries in fear that everything around him turns out to be as ugly and bad as his relationship with Bill.
Bill has not expected this turn of events. He is a being of chaos, he should thrive in the unexpected, but for his bafflement, he feels disappointment. What he thought would have become a thrilling game between him and his mortal, has become nothing but a cold and empty stalemate.
Stanford has been lost to the multiverse, hidden from Bill and his eye.
Bills plan is also bust, because now there isn't anyone on the waking side of the world to open the link between the realities. The gateway is nothing more than dead and cold bones of its potential and hopeless to repair without the notes that Stanford has warded against Bills eyes.
The cellar is now cold and boring, just how Bill feels nowadays.
He miscalculated. He should have lied when Stanford came to Bill with his accusations, but at some point he stopped treating Stanford as a pawn and instead as an equal. He had wanted Stanford to step up their game. To feel the thrill of playing against Stanford without pretences, without holding back.
He had forgotten that Stanford was nothing but a mortal, an oceanborn who just evolved to walk, a creature of flesh who wouldn't play Bill, but would instead get scared and desperate and panicked and ruin everything. Instead of playing against Bill, Stanford hid both himself and his notes, topping it all up by getting sucked into a parallel dimension where Bill will never reach him again.
When Bill firstly invades Stanford's dreams after thirty years, it is nothing Stanford hasn't expected. Mockery and threats in a perfect mix that still make Stanford hurt deep inside to remember when that voice was not malicious and when they exchanged insults playfully, instead of aiming to hurt.
When Bill shows up in Stanford's dreams the second time, things turn much more bizarre.
"I could make you immortal you know."
"Get out of my dream!"
"I mean it. Free of charge. You could have all the time in the world to perfect your plan to stop me. "
"Do you think I'm entirely stupid! Get out!"
"Okay Sixer, but have you ever thought of all the things you could accomplish if you gained magic."
"I won't need magic to defeat you."
"Pssshhh. Like you are going to be able to defeat me."
"Then I will die trying."
"But IQ, surely you have realised that this dimension is holding you back. Why limit yourself when you could become something much better and accomplish so much more in some other dimension, where the rules aren't as sticky."
"I'm sure a psychopath like you wouldn't understand."
"Did you know, that there have been humans that have ascended from their flesh bag's to become beings of energy?"
"I don't care. Go bother someone else."
"Oh come on, you know you love when I tell you all-"
"I certainly don't love, nor even particularly care about anything you have to say."
Bill Cipher had never hated a human before. Bill Cipher thought that he had hated the shamans that banished him from this planet the first time, but he had learned that it didn't even compare. Stanford Pines was mundane, weak, only slightly above the normal human intelligence, cowardly unevolved being afraid of the darkness Bill thrived in, a creature unable of ever reaching any deeper understanding of the powers that move the universe, and he had ruined Bill.
Those short years with Stanford had made Bill unable to find satisfaction in his base element anymore. Before possessing Stanford's body, Bill had never experienced anything but the volatile realm of the dreamworld. He had thought that bringing chaos of pandemonium into physical world would be an excitement he had never felt before, but now he knew that the victory would be hollow and boring. Predictable. Stanford Pines had lifted the bar for what Bill found to be surprising.
The creature known as Bill Cipher twisted in despair and rage over the ever twisting dimension of dreamscape. Dreams all over space and time turned into nightmares where the dreamer feels hopeless and lost in a maze made of rotten crops with broken teacups crunching under their feet.
There is a girl with friendly smile and gentle eyes watching the pitiful eldritch being rampage in its infinite cage.
In the end she will come for everything, but now she knows that Bill Cipher will join her sooner rather than later.
"Oh, but what lucky one you are, to be able to feel such despair."
Just like the numbers of the unfinished equation so long ago, Stanford Pines saw the pieces fall into their places and the grand picture that they formed.
And what a joke it was. A grand middle finger from the universe, pointed straight in the direction of Stanford Pines, an engineer, scientist and a fool covered in blood.
The end of the world was night and Stanford had just realised that he might have an upper hand after all.
It might have been just light headedness of blood loss, (bullet wound, shot by one of Bills cultists, men and women from who knows where who had been more than glad to start the apocalypse, no possession needed, only pure human blood lust) but Stanford felt reckless and drunk with adrenaline.
"Hey Bill!" How crazy. How wonderful.
"IQ. Your odds aren't exactly looking good there."
Stanford laughed. He was all alone against a demon and an army of cultist (Stanley was with the twins, faraway and unaware that his brother was facing mortal danger) but he knew that the next thing he did was going to hurt the demon.
"No, your little cult has seen to that. I am disappointed thought. To make humanity do your dirty work for you, how banal."
Bill flashed angry red and with a snap of his fingers the men and women in robes collapsed into unconsciousness.
"No. Not anymore, the rift is already ripping and you are nothing to me."
"Liar. In few minutes I will pass out and bleed to death, but you know what?"
The demon floated down to meet Stanford eye to eye, the power of the forming rift enough to let Bill manifest himself in the waking world. "Stanford Pines the man who changed the world. The man who regrets not seeing the nature of the force he was meddling with."
Stanford curls his bloody palm around the handle of the one weapon that will kill anything and everything it pierces. The trump card he has been keeping hidden through the confrontation, which he has found left behind by the shamans of old. Created in fear of something bad returning.
"I would have forgiven you."
The creature known as Bill Cipher holds the atoms of the rift in his multidimensional hold, ready to rip them apart. He hesitates.
The music of this awe
Deep silence between the notes
Deafens me with endless love
This vagrant island earth
The very core of life
The soaring high of truth and light
We are shuddering before the beautiful