This is an AU story that has been basically eating me alive for the past several weeks. A sort of "What if" scenario if you will.

Now I'm not gonna lie, I got the main plot of the story down but I don't really have all of the details worked out yet so updates on this story are kinda gonna be all over the place. ^^;

That said though, big thanks to those who do read this story and I hope you enjoy it. Its definitely gonna be quite the emotional roller coaster.

Also FYI, this is set before the series so Stan is a young adult here.

Story belongs to me

Gravity Falls belongs to Alex Hirsch.

Enjoy~!

"I've told a million lies but now I tell a single truth: There's you in everything I do." - I bet my Life, Imagine Dragons

One year.

One full year.

An entire 365 days since that day.

One full year since Stanley Pines had last seen his brother.

Slightly shaky hands tightly clenched around the wrench and muscles flexed as Stan worked to turn the wrench, tightening the bolt on the lever to the portal. Sticky black oil stained his already dirty and ripped jeans along with his previously white t-shirt but Stan couldn't care less about any of that. His mind was much too preoccupied with the task at hand.

"It has to work this time. It has too!" Stan said to himself, slight desperation in his voice. Once the bolt he was tightening would move no more, Stan jumped to his feet and hurried over to the control panel. His fingers flew over the panel, pushing buttons and flipping switches.

The man's head jerked up and looked over at the triangle shaped portal in front of him. The machine began to hum as it came to life. The circle in the center of the triangle began to glow and rainbow colors began to swirl as it started up. This was it! He had finally fixed it!

"Yes! YES! Come on baby!" Stanley cheered, the biggest smile pulling at his face. At last. At long last his brother would be back.

Or so he thought.

Stanley felt his smile fall and his heart drop into his stomach. There was a spark and a buzzing noise followed by a short blast of electricity that shot itself around the portal. The lights in the portal dimmed, the rainbow colors disappeared and the humming stopped as the machine died again.

"AW COME ON!" Stanley screamed, hitting the side of the control panel with his fist in frustration. He was so close...so very close.

Stan sighed and balled his hands into fists and pressed them against his brown eyes. Flashbacks of that horrible day, the last time he saw his twin, playing again in his mind.

Stanford's crazed and paranoid look and behavior.

That stupid fight.

That stupid brawl.

Stanford kicking Stanley and accidentally causing the burn scar/tattoo on the back of his right shoulder.

And worst of all, the pure and utter wave of horror that Stanley felt once he pushed Ford into the portal and watched as his brother disappear inside as he called for help.

Stanley had lost count of how many times he thought that scenario over. What he could have said differently. What he could have done differently. The many many times he had prayed to wake up from this nightmare. Prayed for a second chance to have done things different. Oh what he wouldn't give to change this fate.

But alas, one cannot change the past. All that Stanley could do now was keep working and fix the portal to bring Stanford back.

Still, that didn't lessen the blow of yet another failure.

Stanley let out a shaky breath and removed his fists from his eyes. He blinked a couple of times warding off the threatening tears and he turned and looked at the clock. 12:47 AM.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly washed over the younger Pines twin. He had a busy day running the shop and had been even busier trying to work on the portal ever since he closed up shop for the day. It was time to call it a day.

With a heavy heart and a weary body, Stanley turned and trudged up the stairs out of his brother's secret lab. He exited the lab behind the vending machine and headed up to his room, stripping down to his boxers and white tank top before collapsing face first onto the bed. His mullet sprawling out across the pillow.

Stan rolled to his side and stared off into the darkness. Once more his mind drifted back to his brother. Was he going to bed right now too? Was it morning wherever he was at? Was he warm? Was he safe? Again and again the same old questions ran through his mind and again and again, Stanley had no way to answer them.

"Goodnight Ford...wherever you are."

Stanley rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Exhaustion began to settle in and he felt his eyelids slip down over his chocolate brown eyes, drifting off into a deep, deep sleep.

When Stanley opened his eyes he did not see the ceiling of his bedroom like he should have. Instead, much to his confusion, he saw sky.

A gray, cloudy, sky.

"What the hot Belgian waffles?"

Stan's body immediately moved into a sitting position and he looked around him at his surroundings. For miles and miles upon end, all he could see was tall dry grass that gently swayed in the breeze. Stanley quickly realized he was in some type of field but the question remained:

Why was he here?

And for that matter, how did he even get there?

The mullet man briefly wondered if his past had finally caught up with him and he had somehow been knocked out and kidnapped in the middle of the night by one of his many, many enemies. After all, he never did get to pay Ricko back that money he still owed him.

Stan shook his head, disregarding the idea. No. Surely he would have known before now if he had been kidnapped. Plus he would have been tied up and the kidnappers would have been around to make sure he didn't escape if that was the case.

So if it wasn't a kidnapping, then how'd he get there?

"Hello?" Stan called rising to his feel and looking around. "Hellooooo!? Hey! Is anyone there?"

His frown deepened and he bit the inside of his cheek when no response was heard. There wasn't another soul around for miles and Stan came to the conclusion that he was completely and utterly alone.

"Yeah, what else is new?" Stan thought bitterly.

Without knowing what else to do, the man decided to start walking and try to find...anything. A road. A house. People. Anything to give him some sort of idea where he was at. He started walking forward, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dirty red jacket.

Wait, jacket?

Stanley stopped and looked down at the jacket he was wearing. Food and grease stains marring the faded red fabric. "Huh...I could have sworn I took this off before I went to bed..."

He shrugged it off for there were more pressing matters to attend to first and continued onwards, walking aimlessly through the grassy knee high field.

Stan didn't know how long he had been walking for until he felt his body come to a dead stop. His eyes widened and he stared at the objects in front of him.

Correction: Three objects.

"No way..."

To his left, was the swingset that he and Stanford used to play on all the time as children, and even still sit on as teenagers when they were out of school. Only difference was that one of the swings was broken.

To his right, was the Stan-o-War. Well sort of. The ship bore a strong resemblance to the old dingy he and Stanford had found all those years ago and had worked on together every summer but never got to finish. It was exactly how Stan had imagined it would look when it was complete, but now the sails were torn and a large whole took up more than half a side.

And in the center, right in front of him, was the portal. Unlike the other two objects though, portal was not broken. It was as perfect and pristine and as dead as it had always been.

Stanley shuddered violently as he stared at the three objects. A sense of dread suddenly washing over him. Whatever was going on here, he did not like it.

"Okay, this is getting too creepy." he mumbled taking a few steps back. What the heck was going on?

"Hiya!"

"GYAAAAH!" Stan screamed and whirled around, his hand clutching at his chest.

"Hey, hey take it easy bub. Don't have a heart attack."

Stanley blinked and looked at the source of the voice. In front of him was a bright yellow triangle wearing a black top hat and a black bow tie. A large, single eye took up the majority of the creature's "face" and Stan felt another small shudder go down his back as the eye stared right at him, seemingly straight through to his soul.

"Take a picture pal, it'll last longer." The triangle spoke, glowing a tiny bit with everyword it spoke. Stan briefly wondered how this...thing, had the ability to speak for it did not have a mouth.

Stan blinked and looked around. Left. Right. Then back at the triangle and pointed at himself. "Are you talking to me?"

"No shit Sherlock. You see any other mullet heads around here?" the triangle spoke as it floated behind Stan and gave his long hair a little flip. Stan retaliated by smacking his hand away.

"Hey! Don't touch the hair!"

The triangle held up his hands in a surrender like motion. "Okay, okay take it easy there."

Stan rolled his eyes and looked back at the triangle again, raising an eyebrow. " Who are you?"

"Name's Bill. Bill Cipher. Nice to meet you."

Bill Cipher. Why did that name sound familiar?

"Uh...I'm Stan." Stan introduced himself awkwardly, not knowing what else to do.

"Oh I already know who you are."

Stan blinked caught off guard. "Excuse me?"

"I said, I know already know who you are."

"No offense, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember meeting a talking nacho."

"Wow! Stanford was right. You really are a smart alec."

The whole world suddenly stopped. "Stanford...you know my brother?!"

"Sure do~!" Bill raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Blue flames suddenly engulfed him, disappearing just as fast as they appeared. Once the flames were gone, so was Bill.

"WAIT!" Stan screamed desperately, reaching out to where Bill once stood.

"Over here."

Stan whirled around and felt relieved seeing Bill, casually swinging on the swingset. He walked over. "You know my brother?"

"Yep." Bill answered popping the 'p'. "Old Fordsy and I go way back. You could say, he's an old friend of mine. And he told me all about you."

Stan blinked a sense of dread settling in his stomach. Whatever Ford told Bill, he was sure is wasn't good. "Look, whatever that idiot told you, me breaking his invention was an accident!"

"Accident or not, you still screwed up his chace of going to that fancy schmancy dream school of his." Bill replied matter of factly before disappearing once again in a burst of flame. Stan looked around and this time spotted the fancy triangle in the crows nest of the broken down Stan-O-War. "But I guess that that worked out for the best cause then otherwise, he wouldn't have met me."

A million thought's jumbled through Stan's mind at once. Most of them about his brother but he needed to get some of the more obvious ones out of the way first. "Okay slow down, what are you exactly? And where the heck are we? And why are we here!?"

Bill gave a casual wave of the hand. "All you need to know about me is that I'm a very powerful guy. I know all and see all and can do things your puny little human brain cant even imagine. As for where we are, were inside your mind."

"...You lost me."

Bill poofed again and reappeared sitting on the side of the ship, casually leaning his legs over the edge. "This is a dream. You're body is still fast asleep inside that shack you call a house. The you standing here now, talking to me, is your dream self."

"Then why am I dreaming this?" Stan asked getting more and more weirded out by the second.

"Geesh you ask a lot of questions." Bill rolled his eye. "Minds and dreams are kinda my thing you see. I want to talk to you so I entered your mind while you were sleeping."

"...Yeah. That's not creepy at all!" Stan responded dryly. "Ever hear of personal space?"

"Actually, I think you're gonna be happy with what I'm about to say next: I got a deal for ya."

Every fiber of his being told Stanley not to listen to another word. To walk away and not look back. This Bill character was shady and Stan knew it...but he was also the last possible link to his brother.

"What kind of deal?" Stanley asked cautiously.

Once again, blue flames erupted up and Bill disappeared again. This time he appeared in the front of the portal. Floating in the dead center.

"I can help you bring your brother back."

Dun Dun DUUUUUUUH!

Yeah. Needless to say things are about to take an interesting turn for Stan. And not neccesairly a good one either. o-o (Im so mean to him. Im sorry Stanley. I still love you, you old fart)

So since this is an AU, I'm gonna be taking a few liberties with Bill and switching things up with his powers. All will be explained in the next chapter but for now, all you need to know is that in this AU, Bill doesn't need to be summoned to enter someone's mind. He is free to enter anyone's mind on his own.

I hope you liked this chapter so far. See you guys at the next one. Have a good day/afternoon/night wherever you are! Toodles~!