A/N: Aaaaand we're back! Meant to post this earlier in the week, but it's cold and dry as hell down here and my hands haven't responded well to the change in the weather: suffice it to say that my knuckles now look like a PSA on the dangers of the Bucking Bronco vigor, and frankly hurt a lot... but despite the pain, I still had a lot of fun writing this - though it did get extremely dark and depressing, I will admit.
Fantasy Fan 223: Glad you liked the latest chapter and the mythological references - also, theories will be confirmed... (checks watch) next chapter.
ImpossibleJedi4: I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised that my work was able to inspire emotion other than horror - and that I've managed to aim for the feels as thoroughly as the canon material did. Hopefully, this chapter will do justice to Stan. Thanks again for the review.
Kraven the Hunter: Yeah, it's out of character, but that's kind of the point - this torture business happened right after the intro, back when Bill was still miffed out almost getting killed by Stan and Ford's last gambit. Suffice it to say he had a lot of anger to vent over his near-defeat, and as canon demonstrates, Bill gets very violent when he gets angry.
Northgalus2002: Rest assured, narratives will start being tied together very soon; there will be a resolution, of a sort... but it won't be an instant recovery. I know this sounds like teasing, but as much as I don't want to spoil, I don't want to leave questions unanswered either. Thanks again for the review!
Guest: Hey, I got the reference! I still haven't got my hands on the blacklight journal, but there've been enough tantalizing details circulating for me to get the reference. To answer your question, Bill is always watching - but there are limits to his vision: as the finale demonstrated, he's not omniscient in the real world, so he can't watch literally every scenario at once, so his attention drifts from one game to the next and to the next. When it looks like his newest game piece is going to break down and provide him with some more entertainment, he focuses his attention on the scenario. So, Mr A can only intervene and provide aid when Bill isn't paying too much attention. Bill's overconfident, but he's overconfident when it comes to the people he's conquered; forces from beyond his domain might just be enough to get Bill worried.
As for the question you asked about Filbrick and Ford's conversation, it happened in the later period of Ford's research, when Bill had really sunk his talons into Ford and trust was beginning to break down with everyone outside their partnership. The conversation went like this: Filbrick was overwhelmed by retirement plan greed and pestered Ford for money; Ford offered to lend him some cash out of his own pocket, but Filbrick wanted more, and suggested purloining it from a research grant - which, incidentally, would not only be highly illegal but extremely traceable; Ford tried to reason with Filbrick, but he only got more insistent; realizing the full scope of his father's greed, Ford lost his temper and eventually hung up in a rage. Anyway, glad you liked the chapter, and I hope this one proves up to standard. Thanks again!
Now, be warned, ladies and gents: this chapter contains Stangst. Lots and lots of Stangst... and some very dark themes. And some dark spins on canon events by extremely ill-intentioned observers. And more Stangst. And self-loathing. And even more Stangst. Seriously, be prepared to pity Stan more than you have ever pitied him before.
So, without further ado, the latest chapter: feel free to furnish me with your reviews, opinions, theories, recommendations, critiques, corrections for the typos that creep in at 4 in the morning, commentaries and exclamations! Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine, please don't be surprised.
Stan's return to consciousness was slow and unpleasant, the nerves in his spine firing painfully as he made the long, ponderous journey back to wakefulness.
He'd no idea where he was, and frankly, he was too tired to open his eyes and look. Exhaustion kept his eyes half-lidded, barely catching faint glimpses of the sunlight pouring down on him through the canopy of branches overhead, and the sound of wind whistling through the trees was too subtle to disturb his slumber.
He was dimly aware that he was lying on something rough and splintery, something that felt uncannily like a park bench, but he'd be damned if he could remember how he'd gotten there. Stan had spent far too many nights sleeping on benches for his own good, but that had been back in the bad old days before he'd arrived in Gravity Falls, those terrible times when even the most basic of scheming had fallen apart in his hands and a night at a flea-infested local motel was too expensive for his empty pockets. Those days were long past him.
The last clear memory in his groggy old brain was of an enormous stone room backdropped by an equally enormous set of crimson stained-glass windows; he didn't know what it meant, but he recalled that he'd been running a con of some kind, a very important con as far as he could tell, and Ford had been there, Dipper and Mabel, too. And…
He'd been shot.
Suddenly, Stan was wide awake, all the memories flooding back into his battered skull: he'd been trying to con Bill into entering his mind so that Ford could erase him with the memory gun, but Bill had gotten wise and blasted him in the chest, left him bleeding to death. Ford had been forced to let the one-eyed bastard into his mind, and then… well, everything had gone dark.
Am I dead?
At long last, Stan opened his eyes.
Just as he'd suspected, he was lying on a park bench, warm sunlight streaming down on him through the trees; all around him, lush forest stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by well-maintained park roads and long stretches of rolling grassland visible just beyond the trees – all of it totally uninhabited.
Looking down at himself, he realized that he wasn't dressed in Ford's trenchcoat and adventurer's duds anymore: he was back in his Mr Mystery suit and fez, plus his own mercifully uncracked glasses, minus the sash he'd worn in his brief stint of leadership over the survivors. He didn't appear to be injured: the gaping hole in his chest was gone, and he didn't seem to have any difficulty moving his body, so his spine was intact again too; even the bruises he'd earned in his botched parachute drop into the Fearamid were gone.
Maybe I am dead, he thought, eyeing the tranquil parkland around him. Maybe this is heaven… or a really passive-aggressive hell. Or maybe this whole Weirdmageddon business was just a dream. I mean, it's not like anyone could have stopped Bill and saved the world, not with the way I screwed things up. But if everything that happened this week was a dream… where the hell am I?
He cleared his throat. "Dipper?" he called. "Mabel? Ford? Is anyone there?"
No-one answered.
For twelve nerve-wracking seconds, the forest was silent except for the faint whisper of wind through the trees; and then, just as he was starting to think that he really was alone, Stan heard a sharp snap of dry twigs from somewhere very close by. Heart hammering, he spun around, frantically scanning the surrounding trees for any signs of movement. Once again, however, there was nobody to be seen… and yet, he swore he could hear what sounded like muffled footsteps shuffling off into the distance, though he couldn't pinpoint precisely where.
Okay then, if you don't wanna show yourself, that's fine. I'll just have to look for you, then… and hope that you're not actually stalking me.
Shivering, Stan got to his feet and, after pausing to stretch extravagantly and work out a few kinks left in his back, began the long, slow march down the path leading into the nearest and biggest of the clearings, away from the shadows and thick undergrowth of the dense forest. As the pine trees slowly dwindled away and the ground-hugging shrubs gave way to rolling grassland, dazzling sunlight poured down on Stan, leaving him blinking furiously as his eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness.
But even when he'd finally recovered, the sight of the world beyond the forest still rocked him to his core: ever since Weirdmageddon had dawned in Gravity Falls, he'd seen only hellish crimson skies and multi-coloured bubbles of madness floating across the horizon, and the sight of sunshine – real, undistorted sunshine in the cloudless azure skies above – left him reeling in astonishment. But even that was nothing compared to what he saw when his eyes finally strayed to the path ahead of him.
At the very centre of the clearing, at the very end of the path that he'd found himself on, a colossal stone building stood gleaming in the sunlight. Built from polished white marble, it towered over him by almost two hundred feet, its mountainous roof and sculpted façade overwhelming in every conceivable way – so overwhelming that it took Stan almost a full minute to realize what the building reminded him of: this place was none other than the Mystery Shack.
Yes, the wooden exterior had been rebuilt in stone; yes, the collapsing porch had been replaced with a magnificent flight of stairs flanked by statues of armoured warriors and bordered by gargantuan columns; and yes, the rickety roof now looked like it had been borrowed from the Supreme Court building… but when all was said and done, the marble monument at the top of the stairs held the same basic shape as the Mystery Shack. There was even a marble replica of the old sign on the roof.
And at the front of the building, just ahead of the grand staircase, an imposing statue stood upon a plinth, a majestic, heroic figure depicted almost as something out of legend, a figure that was…
…completely identical to himself.
Stan's brain instinctively went into denial mode: he couldn't have seen what he thought he'd seen; his cataracts were playing up again, or maybe it was a trick of the light; more likely the statue depicted Ford, or even more likely it depicted a complete stranger. But as he drew closer, he realized that it couldn't be anyone but him: it was dressed in the Mr Mystery suit and fez, held an eight-ball cane – it was even wearing his totally superfluous eyepatch under his glasses! And those hands weren't Ford's: no sign of sixth fingers on either one.
Looking incredulously up and down at the statue, Stan's eyes strayed to its plinth, and saw a large plaque decorating the face of the pedestal – and now there could be no doubts about the statue's identity.
IN HONOUR OF STANLEY PINES, the plaque proclaimed. THE HERO THAT EARTH DESERVED.
Hot Belgian waffles.
Blinking in astonishment, he looked again at the "Mystery Shack," and at long last saw the carved granite sign decorating the entrance: THE MUSEUM OF STANLEY PINES, it read.
Am I in heaven after all?
And then, just as Stanley was getting ready to sit down on the staircase to catch his breath and process everything he'd just seen, he heard the sound of footsteps creeping down the path towards him; on instinct, he spun around at whiplash speed – but once again, there was no-one in sight.
Okay… either you've got some kind of trapdoor in the path, or you're invisible. And now I know for a fact that you're stalking me… and you're probably not inclined to answer me if I ask why, but I'm sure it can't mean anything good for me. No time to stop and get my wind back, then…
Turning around, he hurried up the stairs towards the museum's gigantic double doors. To his immense relief, they were unlocked and swung obligingly open before him; hurrying inside, he slammed the doors shut behind him, and bolted them closed for good measure. Only once he was absolutely sure that the doors were well and truly impregnable did he finally turn around to see the museum foyer.
Here, the similarities to the Mystery Shack ended quite abruptly: a vast white hall stretched off into the distance, gleaming vividly under the skylights in the vaulted ceiling, too wide and too massive to ever be confused with the old tourist trap's legendarily cluttered lobby. Stanley hadn't visited too many non-tourist trap museums in his lifetime, but this place seemed to fit the bill for a proper museum concourse: grandiose architecture, ridiculously oversized front desks, kiosks stacked with brochures and maps, velvet rope, red carpet, dozens of doorways and staircases and branching paths leading off into god only knew where… there was even a gift shop to the left of the front doors, almost identical to the Mystery Shack's own humble shop.
Once again, however, this particular museum was a monument to Stan Pines, and the creators hadn't been willing to let the guests forget about it at all: every single banner dangling from the ceiling was emblazoned with Stan's grinning face. Every spare patch of wall was occupied by a statue of himself, each one depicting him in some heroic pose – standing astride a defeated dinosaur, ready for a brawl with knuckledustered fists raised, or standing at the pulpit in his election garb. Every product available in the gift shop was Stan Pines-themed, from replicas of the Mister Mystery suit to Stan Pines action figures ("now with real zombie-punching action!"), from board games of his life to autographed copies of his memoires. And just on the edge of his hearing, Stan could just make out the faint echo of a soft dulcet voice being played over the museum's PA system, welcoming visitors to the museum – or as the voice called it, "our tribute to the life and works of Stanley Pines, the hero that Earth deserved."
Seriously, am I in heaven?
Stan paused, and looked out across the foyer once again.
I get the feeling heaven would have more people, he amended.
Even from here, it was pretty obvious that the place was completely deserted: the desks were unmanned, no queues had formed, the shop was barren of customers, and no security guards stood watch. Plus, Stan had already seen that there were no guests outside waiting to enter, and judging by the unearthly silence, there wasn't much going on in the other wings of the museum. Nor were there any signs of visitation: there were no scuffmarks on the floor, no wads trodden gum, no dust or dirt, no cluttered workstations behind the desks, nothing whatsoever to indicate the presence of human life on the premises. Either the janitors had just finished polishing the place up… or this museum had never seen visitors of any kind before today.
What if Bill's behind this? Stan wondered to himself. What if he's put me inside a Prison Bubble just like he did with Mabel? What if all this was set up to keep me from causing trouble?
For several minutes, he stood there, silently mulling over the theory: it seemed possible, but once again, the lack of people was a major stumbling point. If this really was a private paradise set up to keep him from breaking out and becoming a nuisance to Bill, then where were the adoring crowds? Where were the bowing employees? Where were the gladhanding officials?
Where were Dipper and Mabel and Ford?
And come to think of it, where are they in the real world? What's Bill done with them… and what's he going to do with them?
Only one thing was certain: he couldn't afford to get sidetracked by whatever this place was. If the others were in danger, he needed to find a way out of here and rescue them somehow… and if this really was a Prison Bubble, all he needed to do was to refuse the paradise that was on offer.
"Alright," he said loudly. "Fun's over. I appreciate the praise, but I gotta get outta here. So, you just show me an exit and I'll be on my way."
Silence.
"Hello? I'm done here, in case you hadn't noticed! I want out!"
Still nothing.
Okay, so it's not going to be that easy. Probably not just a Prison Bubble, then. Ah well, as long as I'm stuck here, I might as well have a look around; besides, I've got to find a way out anyway…
So, pausing only to purloin a map from one of the abandoned kiosks, he set off up the nearest flight of stairs and through a passageway leading him towards the first exhibit:
THE LIFE OF STANLEY PINES.
As he passed under the welcoming banner and the archway, Stan found himself in a long, winding corridor lined with illuminated displays, each stretch of hallway marked with a sign marking the exact year this exhibit explored.
To his right, the display cases stood against the walls in well-maintained ranks, each one occupied with an artefact from Stan's past – most of which he hadn't seen since he'd left Glass Shard Beach: favourite t-shirts, childhood toys, his boxing gloves, the one trophy he'd earned in his entire scholastic career, and even the first tooth he'd lost.
But to his left, the walls were dominated by life-size dioramas of Stan's life, every single motionless figure depicted in photorealistic detail, every single event replicated just as it had been in life – right down to the dirt on the windowpanes. Here were his boyhood adventures with Ford; here were his early pranking triumphs; here were the long hours they'd poured into working on the Stan O'War (complete with a display case containing the splintered remains of the real Stan O'War); here were family outings with Ma; here were lectures from Dad; here were Stan's first romances; here was Carla McCorkle; every notable moment of his life was on display, complete with lengthy information plaques to the left of each one.
And though Stan was once again almost overwhelmed by flattery, there was already a tiny knot of dread forming in the pit of his stomach: he knew that things wouldn't stay happy forever, not if this exhibit followed his life story to the letter. But he had to continue: if there was an exit hidden somewhere around here, he had to find it – for his own sake and the sake of everyone else who Bill had imprisoned. Dipper and Mabel were depending on him. So, he forced himself to continue on in spite of himself, gritting his teeth and bracing himself in preparation for the inevitable moment when his life went horribly wrong.
Sure enough, two corners later, the West Coast Tech debacle loomed out of the gloom: this particular event had no less than four dioramas devoted to it, depicting the initial discovery in the principal's office, the last friendly discussion between him and Ford, the accidental breakage of Ford's machine, and that final confrontation when Dad had thrown him out of the house. And each one depicted the very worst moment in the entire moment, the pinnacle of Stan's shock, fear, mortification and despair: Stan sitting in silence, listening in disbelief as the principal dismissed him as a loser; the precise moment on the swings when Stan realized that Ford was already slipping away; the machine lying on the floor, quite clearly broken, Stan standing over it with a look of mingled fear and shame; and last but not least, Stan lying on the doorstep, watching helplessly as Ford vanished behind the curtains and the front door slammed shut.
The display cases were no less ghastly: brochures for West Coast Tech, the dented remains of Ford's perpetual motion machine, and a charred tangle of debris that turned out to be the remains of Stan's personal possessions; according to the plaque, Dad had burned any of his belongings left in the house not long after he'd thrown Stan out.
A brightly-coloured control panel to the right of the diorama drew Stan's attention. "NEW FEATURE!" the sign proclaimed. "Press the buttons to hear their thoughts! Learn secrets known only to them!"
For several seconds, his hand lingered above the button marked "Stanley," but eventually, he thought better of it; after all, he already knew what he'd been thinking that night. So, despite the clamouring protests of his own instincts, Stan reached out and pressed the button marked "Filbrick."
Instantly, Dad's pre-recorded voice hissed from loudspeakers above the diorama: "I should have drowned him the day he was born," he snarled furiously. "This is what I get for keeping the spare around: shame and misfortune and one lost opportunity after another. Still, at least this'll keep him away: with a little luck, the gullible little shit might actually believe all that business about a fortune; he'll try – and he'll either end up dead or in jail. One way or another, he's not my problem anymore."
For a moment, Stan could only gape in horror, heart thudding leadenly in his chest as the implications of what Dad had just said trickled into place. Was this real? Had Dad actually thought this, or was it just something that Bill (or whoever had built this place) had conjured up to hurt him? Had Filbrick never cared? Had Stan really spent ten years on a snipe hunt, just so Dad could keep him out of the way? And what about…
Stan paused, furiously blinking away tears. He should keep moving; he should move on, ignore the displays, stop torturing himself and find a way out of here. This exhibit would bring him nothing but pain. But common sense wasn't calling the shots: morbid curiosity was in charge now, pressing buttons and hammering switches as if there was no tomorrow.
Entirely of its own accord, his hand strayed to the button marked "Stanford."
And now Ford's voice issued from the speakers, hurt and angry and… disbelieving. "I thought I could trust you," he whispered. "I thought you were the only one who wouldn't… I thought you'd be happy for me – that we could still be friends! I thought I could trust you! I… I thought you were different than the others." There was a pause, as if Ford was considering something. "Is this how it's going to be from now on?" he asked. "Can I trust anyone?"
Move on, dammit, Stan told himself. Stop listening to it; the more you listen, the more it'll hurt, and the more it hurts, the longer you'll stay. Move on and hate yourself later.
So, forcing himself into motion, he marched onwards down the corridor, trying not to look at the next dioramas through blurring eyes but failing, failing with every single step he took. The next ten years of his life were here, every single moment of failure and humiliation vying for attention, from the cons that led to him being banned from New Jersey to his stays in prison – gaudy commercials, angry mobs, violent debt collectors, arrests, confinement, beatings by both the guards and fellow inmates, and that vicious stabbing in the exercise yard.
All this, plus the things he hadn't been able to admit to Dipper and Mabel: the times he spent sleeping in his car or huddled in alleyways, the humiliating things he'd done to stay alive, the hurried flights from whatever gang he'd ended up owing money to, the days when he'd gotten within seconds of calling Ford – only to chicken out and hang up at the last moment.
As if to rub salt into his wounds, the display cases now housed a plethora of embarrassing detritus from that lost decade: used shammies, rip-off band-aids, broken pitchforks, hastily-arranged disguises, losing lottery tickets, tattered sleeping bags, unwanted "souvenirs" from less-than friendly clients, copious arrest records, pounds and pounds of fake IDs… and of course, one prison shiv, clearly made from a chunk of metal railing and still stained with Stan's blood.
And then…
The portal. Ford, paranoid and half-insane from sleep-deprivation, swiftly floating away. Stan, battered and branded, watching helplessly. And in the display cases across from the diorama, what could be commemorating the event but the Journals?
The rest was a bit of a blur, the next thirty years seeming to breeze past in a matter of seconds; maybe Stan had just started running, knowing full well that he'd only end up suffering further if he stopped to look at them; or maybe Bill had spent less time on the happier moments, devoting the rest of the exhibit to his moments of depression and sorrow – of which there were a great many. Few, if any of the joyful points in his life after the portal stood out in any great detail, not even the day out at the lake, but dioramas like the loss of the Mystery Shack to Gideon, his disastrous reunion with Ford, his abortive political career and that final argument at the Fearamid all stood out in vivid detail.
One way or another, Stan found himself at the end of the exhibit, staring up at the final diorama: Stan lying on the floor of the Fearamid in a pool of blood, Ford trying desperately to keep him from slipping into unconsciousness, Dipper and Mabel looking on in grief, and Bill Cipher hovering over the whole grisly display, exalting over his victory.
The plaque was uniquely unflattering: "In a desperate attempt to save the lives of his family and make amends for ruining the circle," it read, "Stanley Pines tried to lure Bill into his mind while disguised as Ford, trusting that his brother would then erase it. However, the con was too obvious, the self-sacrifice too predictable, and Bill realized the plan before it could be completed: thus, Stan was struck down, dooming all further attempts at assassination and ultimately condemning Earth to an eternity under Bill Cipher's rule. Thus ends the tale of Stan Pines, the hero Earth truly deserved."
Too late, Stan realized that he'd just reached the punchline of Bill Cipher's sick little joke: all of this – the tribute to Stan, the flattery, the statues, the commemoration – all of it was just window dressing for the moment when Bill finally got to rub his nose in his last big screwup.
Not for the first time, Stan wondered if he really was in hell.
But…
He blinked: was he imagining things, or were the words on the plaque starting to change? Were his eyes starting to fail him, or had a sentence or two been altered?
Can't talk long, it read. He's just about to start watching again. Don't say anything about what you saw here. He'll want you to give in, and he'll call in help from the innermost reaches to convince you. Don't give up. Help is closer than you think. There will be a dream: he'll reach out to you if you reach out to him. Stay strong, and don't give up – no matter how much it hurts. Wait for the dream.
From Mr A.
And then, without warning, the message was gone.
Up ahead, the corridor forked – the left path leading back to the foyer, the right leading into another exhibit, this one marked with a banner proclaiming "PATHS NOT TAKEN: AN EXPLORATION OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN."
In that moment, Stan knew he couldn't afford to go anywhere near the right-hand archway: he didn't need any more distractions, and he didn't need any more blows to his horribly bruised self-esteem; if this place was what he thought it was, the exhibit was nothing but a honey trap, a massive lure for his attention mixed with even more depression-conjuring details than the last one. Right now, what he needed to do was put his head down and find an exit, preferably in another wing of the museum, preferably one that didn't involve him wandering back out the museum to face down the invisible stalker. But curiosity once again pushed an override button somewhere, and Stan found himself drifting towards the PATHS NOT TAKEN archway.
Inside the darkened hallway, the diorama continued… but this time, they were much lengthier and far more detailed – and they showed things that had never happened in Stanley's lifetime.
More specifically, they showed things that might have happened.
In one diorama, Stan had somehow kept his relationship with Carla McCorkle. With her, he was stable: with her encouragement, he began focussing on remedial studies to help lay the foundations for a career; with her support, he was even able to start his own business – legitimate and profitable; with her help, he was even able to make peace with Ford, and eventually draw him back from the precipice of madness when Bill's influence nearly drove him over the edge. One day, Stan proposed to Carla – and she accepted. They married, and eventually began a family of their own; their three children grew up happy, untroubled by past feuds, and were regularly doted upon by "Brainy Uncle Ford" and "Uncle Fidds" whenever they made the long journey from Oregon to New Jersey.
In another diorama, Stan never broke the perpetual motion machine. Indeed, he'd never gotten anywhere near it on that fateful night, unable to bring himself to look at it for fear of what he might do. Instead, he'd gotten completely hammered on cheap whiskey (courtesy of his first faked ID) and in a drunken fit of grief, confessed all his deepest anxieties to Ford. In his own awkward way, he'd comforted Stan and promised that he'd find a way to make things right. Less than a month after Ford was swept away to West Coast Tech, Stan received a letter from a mechanic offering him a job – a mechanic that just so happened to work at Ford's dream college; it turned out that Ford had spent most of his free time looking for ways to reunite the two of them and had paid the mechanic a hefty stipend to take Stan on as an apprentice of sorts. At West Coast Tech, the two flourished: Ford the star pupil blossomed into an award-winning scientist, while Stan learned his trade and started a prosperous little business of his own – and as a result of being in such close proximity to "nerd central," couldn't help but learn a little of the sciences along the way. So, when Ford needed an experienced mechanical expert to help him investigate new and improbable phenomena occurring in the Pacific Ocean, he didn't have to look far.
And in another depiction of what might have been, the perpetual motion machine had broken, but Stan had taken a different approach. Instead of simply fleeing into the night after being kicked out, he'd ambushed Ford before he'd left for Backupsmore; his brother hadn't been interested in listening, and the argument quickly spiralled into a fistfight – one that had only ended when the two combatants were too exhausted to continue. In the aftermath, the two had aired their grievances... and despite the odds, Ford gradually accepted the fact that the destruction of his machine had been an accident – an extremely stupid accident that Stan had compounded by not admitting to it, but just an accident. Thus reconciled, the two brothers remained in contact, each offering help when the other needed it the most; when Stan found himself homeless and broke, Ford found accommodation for him, paying for apartments and meals for as long as Stan needed until he could get back on his feet; when Ford suffered an apparent nervous breakdown over his failure to unravel Gravity Falls' deepest secrets, Stan soon arrived in town to comfort him. In this timeline, Ford never built the portal, never made contact with Bill, and never came within fifty yards of losing his sanity to him: he published his findings, made his name in the scientific community, made a comfortable life for himself in Gravity Falls, and stayed in contact with Stan – now running a prosperous business of his own not too far away.
There was even a variation on the day he'd first set eyes on the portal: here, pushed beyond the limits of his endurance by everything that had happened to him under Bill's "guidance," Ford had collapsed right in the middle of explaining himself. Bewildered, Stan had called an ambulance: after several nights of sleep, a course of antibiotics and a sedative to calm his nerves, Ford had been able to continue his explanation – this time with the benefit of lucidity. But when the time came for him to take the journal and leave, Stan refused once again – but for different reasons: he'd seen how weak and sickly Ford had been on the night he'd arrived, seen the self-inflicted wounds on his arms, seen how Ford had cried out in his sleep during the worst of his nightmares… and all these sights brought Stan's protective instincts rushing back to the forefront of his mind. This time, Stan insisted that he stay and help Ford; this time, the Pines twins took on Bill Cipher together.
There were more – thousands more. Once again, Stan had to look away after a while, if only to spare himself the sense of regret and lost opportunity. But then, just as he was about to give up and leave entirely, he saw something glowing in the shadows just beyond the final diorama.
An exit sign – and beyond it, a long passageway leading off into the darkness.
Heart leaping, Stan started towards it, a newfound spring in his step-
-and then behind him, he heard the footsteps approaching, the same soft footfalls creeping down the hall towards him. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that the corridor was empty, but even in the dim light, there was no mistaking those faint impressions on the carpeted floor: just as he'd expected, there was something invisible pursuing him.
"You again?" Stan called out.
He hadn't expected anyone to answer him, but to his surprise, someone did.
"Yes," whispered an unearthly voice. "Me again. Does that surprise you, Stanley Pines? It shouldn't."
"Who are you?"
"Oh, you know who I am."
"I'll have to take your word for that, pal. A name would be real helpful about now."
"You act as if I'd need one: you'd know me no matter what label I took."
"Fine," Stan sighed, wearily. "Be like that. If you don't wanna give me your name, that's not my goddamn problem. Now, is there a reason I can't see you?"
"Little bit new to a physical body," said the voice. "Still getting the hang of… being present. Couldn't do so up until now – didn't even need to, in fact: all I needed to do was whisper in your ear and watch you cower and weep. But times have changed: Bill's given me physical form, given me everything I need to meet you in the flesh. And now… you can see me."
A few feet away, the air shimmered like water as something barely visible and all-too insubstantial oozed into corporeal existence: at first, it was merely a vague blur drifting across the gloom, but it gradually gained definition, manifesting a shape, arms and legs… but even once it stood before Stan with its body well and truly defined, it appeared shrouded with lines of grainy white static, its face hidden behind a dense layer of random dot pixel pattern.
"You're one of Bill's flunkies, then?" Stanley asked, unable to keep the apprehension from his voice.
"No. He did me the favour of granting me corporeal existence, but I don't take orders from him. If anything, I'm one of your flunkies, Stan."
"And we've met before?"
"Many times."
"I think I'd remember seeing – or hearing – someone like you, whoever the hell you are."
"Give it a little thought, Stanley, and you'll remember me… but maybe not. Thinking's never been your strong suit, has it?"
Stan sighed. Great, he thought irritably. More personal abuse.
"You said it, not me," he replied aloud. "So, what do you want? Why have you been following me?"
The static-fogged apparition laughed scratchily. "I've been following you your entire life, Stanley, ever since the day you realized that your dear old dad would never treasure you as deeply as Stanford."
"…what."
"I was sitting with you in the corridor when you overheard the principal call you a failure. I was watching when your precious brotherly bond with Stanford shattered and Filbrick Pines threw you out of the house. When you left Glass Shard Beach, I haunted your footsteps through every single state you were banned from, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania; I even followed you to Colombia… and when Tiego shanked you in the guts and left you clinging to life in the prison hospital, I sat by your bedside and whispered all the awful truths you couldn't bear to hear."
"Who-"
"And when the last of your schemes fell apart, when you couldn't leave your motel room for fear of the debt collectors, I was the only company you could keep. And what about that first night in the Shack, the first twenty-four hours after you shoved Ford into the portal? Who do you think was there to break the silence, to give a voice to your fear and despair? Don't you remember the conversations we had that lonely winter, the thoughts I helped cross your mind in the darkness?"
The figure chortled hideously. "I was there with you for every day of the next thirty years, and let me tell you, this summer's been a blast. That depressing day out at the lake before Dipper and Mabel finally took pity on you; that drunken roleplaying business with the wax replica; your first big argument with Mabel; the moment when Gideon stole the Mystery Shack and took all your chances of rescuing Ford with it; the point when Dipper stopped trusting you… oh, and who could forget that first punch to the face from Ford after three decades of separation? And your little election gaffe pileup with the mind-control tie? Classic. I'm not even covering all those times when you realized you'd die alone and unmourned, when you feared that you'd helped start Weirdmageddon, or when the consequences of your little feud with Ford came crashing down on your thick skull."
Stan's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he hissed. "Really? No more games, whoever the hell you are. Show me your face!"
"Careful what you wish for, Mr Mystery…"
The man straightened, and then the static shrouding its body drew aside like a curtain – and in that moment, Stan felt his heart freeze inside his ribcage as he finally recognized the stranger.
He was an imposing figure, and always had been; even when his sons had grown tall enough to stand eye-to-eye with him, he'd still somehow managed to tower over them: a burly, heavyset figure, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, with gorilla-like arms terminating in huge, shovel-shaped hands. His clothes were slightly different – after all, Stan couldn't recall him ever wearing a black jacket – but other than that, the ensemble was the same as always: the neatly-buttoned blue shirt, the perfectly-straight white tie, the crisply-ironed pants, the fedora and the inscrutable black shades. Under the brim of his hat, a heavy, cinderblock-shaped face glared out at the world, unsmiling, cleft-chinned, lantern-jawed and rough as sandpaper – a stoic face, a grim face, the face of a man who had seen everything the world had to offer and wasn't at all impressed.
But then, Filbrick Pines hadn't even been impressed with his own children until West Coast Tech had come knocking.
"Dad?" Stan whispered incredulously.
The thing that couldn't possibly be Filbrick Pines grinned horribly; those harsh New Jersey features had never been made for anything other than vaguely-approving nods and the rare half-smile, and the sight of a full-blown grin gracing that face looked unspeakably wrong.
"B-b-but…." Stan shook his head, trying vainly to process all the thoughts rushing into his already over-cluttered brain. "But you're dead!" he exploded. "You've been dead for ten years – I went to your funeral for Christ's sake! How the hell can you be here?!"
"Guess again, Stan," the monster sneered, in a voice that sounded at once exactly like Filbrick Pines but nothing like him at all. "You know better than anyone else that faces can't be trusted. Identities can be faked. You already know who I really am: you just don't want to admit it. I'm something you've known far longer than your dear old dad, something more basic to you as a person, something you've never been able to get rid of – no matter how much money you hoarded, no matter how much time you spent with your niece and nephew, no matter how many years you spent trying to get Ford back. I'm a part of your mind, Stan. I'm all your hidden anxieties, all your fears, all your despair personified.
"Who else could I be but your Self-Loathing?"
Stan hesitated.
"That… actually makes a lot of sense," he conceded.
"Glad I have your approval," said Self-Loathing, completely deadpan.
"It's just… I didn't expect you to be wearing… dad's face, that's all. I'd have thought you'd look like-"
"Ford? I could have taken that form, yes. But…"
Without warning, Self-Loathing's body warped and folded in on itself, his skin distorted by lines of eye-searing grey static; when the interference finally cleared, he had changed, and now looked back at Stan with Ford's near-identical features, now twisted with the same deranged, sleepless paranoia he'd seen at the shack's front door thirty years ago. "It's not enough," Self-Loathing continued, now with Ford's voice. "The falling-out, the fighting, the jealousy, the guilt… it ate away at your self-esteem, but there's limits to what this face can do. You could still defend yourself against him, even make peace with him for a time. As for the other faces I could have picked…"
Another blast of static, and Self-Loathing was Dipper, his expression stamped with the same look of mingled fear and anger he'd worn just before the portal had opened. "Those arguments stung, and the distrust hurt even more," he said. "And after all the time you spent with him, all the time you wasted trying to help him toughen up, the fact that that he preferred Ford to you really cut deep, didn't it? But you could still look him in the eye without faltering in guilt, so I couldn't pick his face."
His form changed again, and now he was Mabel, dispirited and all but crushed with despair – just as she'd been on the afternoon right before Weirdmageddon had begun. "Just looking at this face made you feel helpless towards the end," Self-Loathing whispered. "You could see history repeating itself: you could see Dipper and Mabel slowly drifting apart, and you could see a mistake just waiting to happen… but you didn't know what to do. And at times, you worried that Mabel resented you for bringing Ford into their lives, for helping drive a wedge between her and Dipper. But it still wasn't enough, so no joy there."
All of a sudden, Self-Loathing was Filbrick Pines again. "Your daddy's face? Oh, that was a face you could never bring yourself to answer back to. That was a face you were afraid of: his criticism wounded you more deeply than anything other condemnation you earned in your entire life, because even on the few times you could bring yourself to answer back it never felt like a victory, because you knew he was right about you. You couldn't even put your heart into your one big moment of defiance: you didn't bother to shout until you had a closed door, an entire street and a car between the two of you. And after being disowned, you couldn't hate him, couldn't even admit that you'd only been a fifth wheel in his eyes. So here I am, in the one face you couldn't stop fearing, speaking with the one voice you couldn't ignore."
Stan cringed. As much as he hated to admit it, Self-Loathing was right in just about everything he'd said: he'd been afraid of the old man even after he'd taken on Ford's identity, so afraid that he couldn't even bring himself to visit him in person. In hindsight, it was a relief that he'd never bothered calling the shack once Stan took over… but it had also meant that those last words he'd hollered over his shoulder as he left the neighbourhood had been the last words he'd said to Filbrick before his death.
Then again, even if he'd somehow been able to drive all that out of his head – which he couldn't – Self-Loathing's voice actively hurt to listen to: quite apart from the fact that Self-Loathing was saying things with a frequency and verbosity that the real Filbrick Pines would never have used, there was something intrinsically wrong in the monster's voice, some unearthly, nerve-lacerating tone apparent in every single syllable, audible even over the flimsy disguise of Dad's voice.
"Well, you're here," Stan said, trying desperately to hide the nervous tremor in his voice. "What do you want with me? I mean, if you're gonna tell me how stupid I am, you're not saying anything I haven't heard before."
"I'm here to help you."
"Yeah, after everything you said, there's no way in hell I'm buying that. Have a good one."
And without another word, he turned on his heel and made a beeline in the opposite direction. A moment later, however, Self-Loathing was hovering in front of him, Filbrick's stolen face contorted with rage.
"I'M HERE TO TEACH YOU TO STOP RUNNING," he roared.
"Okay, okay, no need to shout, pal. Jeez. I've already stopped running from you, anyway, so-"
Self-Loathing howled with laughter, an unearthly cackle that sounded all the weirder for having emerged from Filbrick Pines' mouth. "You've never stopped running, Stan. That's all you ever do: when the going gets tough, your first instinct's to run for cover with your tail between your legs and wait until the storm passes – or someone kicks you out into the middle of it. I mean, all that business about toughening Dipper up? "So when the world fights, he'll fight back?" Funniest thing in the world, coming from a self-absorbed coward like you."
And even with every other thought in his head agreeing with the monster, a few vague dregs of self-respect flared in the back of Stan's mind, just enough to get him to answer back in spite of himself. "You're talking to someone who's fought dinosaurs and punched out zombies, in case you forgot."
"Only because you had no other choice: you would never have gotten anywhere near the dinosaurs if it hadn't been for Dipper and Mabel, and the zombies came right to your door. You can act when you're out of options, but when you have a choice between flight or fight, you're out the door and over the hills before you have time to think about it. You run. You hide. You give up. And you've been doing it for a very long time. Let's just see if we can't jog your memory."
"Let's not and say we did."
"Remember that science fair?" Self-Loathing continued loudly. "Remember Ford's machine? Deep down, you knew you'd wrecked it, but you were too scared of the consequences to make amends. You could have been brave enough to admit the truth to him; maybe, if you'd have been quick enough to call him, the two of you could have fixed the machine and made everything right: Ford would be at his dream college, and you would still be the best of friends even with all that distance between the two of you. Instead, you just threw a tarp over your handiwork and hoped for the best – because you thought it might work out if you just turned a blind eye to your own mistake. Deep down, no matter how much you cared for your brother, in that moment you wanted him to fail."
"But I-"
"Oh come on, Stanley. You honestly think you'd have been wearing that stupid grin if you were really sorry for what happened? Do you think the first words out of your mouth would have been "maybe there's a silver lining?" You could have been brave, you could have manned up and admitted to your stupidity in full, you could have apologised… but you were too busy hiding behind all those childish fantasies."
Self-Loathing's face warped again, and suddenly he was Stanley himself. "Hey Ford!" he hollered in Stan's voice, the rendition just off enough to sound mocking. "I just made you look like an idiot in public, wrecked your chances of getting into your dream college and ruined all your hopes of validation as a human being, but let's go treasure hunting! Durr hurr hurr!"
Another flicker of static, and he was Filbrick again. "That's you," he sneered. "That's exactly what you sound like. And let's not forget how you left the family home-"
"I'd already been kicked out! Dad already disowned me!"
"And you never once tried to force your way back. You saw those museum displays back there: you could have held your ground, you could have refused to leave, you could have appealed to your mom, maybe even gotten Ford to speak up for you if you were willing to go the distance just to convince him, even sunk to the level of a fist-fight with the old man if you were desperate enough. But you never tried: you gave up. You left. You set yourself an impossible task, because that was easier than facing the reality of the situation. That night ruined your life, Stan, but only because you let it, because you were too much of a coward to confront your future head-on. And the next ten years were no different: so many years spent running from one failed con after another, never stopping to realize that your self-imposed mission would never be completed, never stopping to face the consequences, always making the same mistakes."
"Well, it was either that or get arrested! And besides, if you're going to go after me for all those cons, I was doing what I had to do to-"
"Survive? Become a millionaire? Impress Filbrick the unimpressible? Nobody ever ordered you to be a con-artist, Stan. Nobody ever told you that a life of crime was the only way for you to make money. I mean, it took you – what? – a decade and a move to Gravity Falls for you to finally work up a decent technique, so it's obvious that you were a godawful conman. Then again, if you really wanted wealth, then you could have made fast money by selling drugs or peddling flesh… but you didn't want to hurt anyone, not really. So you were happy to live a life of mediocrity, wrapped up in dreams of all the millions you'd make for the family if you just had that one perfect sale, never once daring to defy your own principals, never once daring to imagine asking for help."
"What, loans don't count?"
"Oh ho, ho, ho. Very funny. I'm sure that bit of humour was of great comfort when Rico broke that baseball bat over your head. You could have asked for real help, Stan: you could have reached out to family, and they might very well have forgiven you if you'd put your back into it. Remember how many times you called Ford, how many times you came close to speaking to him and making things right? But you didn't want to take the chance of being rejected again: you were still too afraid of your own inadequacies. So you hung up and went right back to sleeping in your car and collecting lottery tickets… up until the time came to accuse Ford of being selfish, of course. Funny, all that talk about him hoarding money and you'd never had the balls to ask for any of it."
Self-Loathing chortled hideously to himself. "Did you ever wonder what might have happened if you hadn't been such a coward? I'll bet you did… once. Were you still thinking about it when the debt collectors came knocking? When you went to prison? When you almost died? Somehow, I don't think so. I know your mind, Stan: facts go in through one ear and out the other. Remember those words Ford said to you that day?"
And as if by way of an answer, the entire museum echoed with the words Ford had shouted at him as they'd wrestled over the journal:
You ruined your own life!
A ringing silence followed.
"What's wrong?" Self-Loathing sneered. "Nothing to say? Cat got your tongue? Or have you finally realized that I'm right about you – that I'm giving voice to everything you've thought to yourself in your darkest hours? But perhaps you'd like me to go on: we've got so much more ground to cover; we've got that winter you spent cooped up in the shack, too afraid to face the outside world; we've got all those years you hid from the rest of the family, pretending to be your brother – never facing your dear old mother and father except at funerals, because you couldn't bear the pain any other way. You couldn't even bring yourself to be honest with family member until they were in their graves. And all those lies you told to Dipper and Mabel... oh, you wanted to tell them the truth, but you chickened out at the last minute. And let's not forget the end result of all that hard work and deception, where you spent thirty years trying to bring Ford back from the portal, and the moment he landed back in your life, you gave up on him again!"
"I know when I'm beaten," Stan snapped, a little more defensively than he'd have liked. "After he punched me in the face and told me he'd have me out on the street by the end of the summer, I got the message loud and clear."
"Aw, poor Stan Pines, so scared of confrontations. Too afraid to face his brother. Too timid to admit that he'd be homeless. So fearful of being pitied. Don't worry, Stan: you'll get no pity here. Only realizations. What next, I wonder? Oh, I know: how about the realization that Ford was better at being you than you could ever be?"
"…What?"
"You wanted to play at being a mentor to Dipper, didn't you? You wanted to make him tougher, to fight back when reality fought him. But even he tired of the Filbrick Pines 2.0 treatment, and Dipper latched on to your brother in the hope that he'd provide the support that you couldn't… and Ford had a lesson of his own to teach: "being a hero means fighting back even when it seems impossible." And guess what? When Weirdmageddon dawned, Ford practised what he preached, even though it all ended in tears… all while you cowered in the Mystery Shack, lording it over the survivors, playing at being a chief and making plans for a future you couldn't possibly sustain. So tell me, whose lesson do you think Dipper had in mind when he rallied the other survivors to stop Bill? Was he listening to the brave but foolhardy genius who'd sacrificed his liberty and perhaps his life to stop Bill… or was he listening to the hypocritical old coward who was too busy capitalizing on the disaster to care about the fate of humanity?"
Stan looked away; he didn't want Self-Loathing to see the expression on his face.
"It's a simple question with a simple answer, Stanley. Do you think those impressionable youngsters preferred "being a hero means fighting back even when it seems impossible," or do you think they preferred "we got a good thing here"? Do you think they ever once imagined that your no-consequence not-my-problem survivalist bullshit was the right thing to do?" Self-Loathing paused for effect. "Or perhaps I should ask this: did you think your little house of cards would last? Would you have finally admitted that Dipper and Mabel were right once supplies started running low… or would you have carried on all the way through riots, through cannibalism, through one murder after the other?"
"You know I wouldn't," Stan snarled – barely able to disguise the tears.
"Oh, I know you wouldn't. Cowardice takes so many forms in that decomposing wreckage you call a personality. But in spite of all your flaws, Dipper and Mabel still cared about you, unbelievably enough. Shame, really. If they hadn't been so tolerant, they might still be in one piece… but that's the price they pay for being in the care of someone like you – you who had the future of the world in your hands and fumbled it. Twice," he added. "Once, because you couldn't be bothered to keep your personal problems to yourself until the circle was finished, and the second time because you were such a terrible con-artist. And because of you, Stan, the world died and took your family with it. All because of your stubbornness, your pride, your stupidity… and your cowardice."
Suddenly, Stan was in motion, running down the corridor as fast as his feet could carry him; he didn't know if this really was his way out or if this was just another trick, and frankly he couldn't have cared less. Then and there, all he cared about was getting away from Self-Loathing's unbearable voice: he couldn't bear another minute of his own self-hatred being beamed into his ears by those maddening whispers. But even as he sprinted away, he could already hear the sound of the footsteps pursuing him, the distinctive whisper of static as Self-Loathing followed him.
Already, Stan could hear monster's voice hissing in his ears, so close that he swore that Self-Loathing had to be right next to him – even though a quick glance behind him confirmed that he was alone in the corridor.
"Where are you going, Stan?" the voice rasped. "Do you actually think there's somewhere you can go where I won't find you? Do you think you can escape from a part of your own mind? I'm always there for you, Stanley; always at your shoulder… always at your throat. All the others, they'll desert you one day: they'll stop believing in you and they'll leave – or they'll realize too late that they placed their trust in the wrong man and die waiting for you to save them… but I'll always be there for you."
Without warning, Self-Loathing abruptly flickered into view with a burst of static – right in front of Stan. Before he could react, before he could stop his forward momentum, the monster had already seized him by the collar and slammed him violently against the wall.
"You see? No matter how far you run or how well you hide yourself, I'll always find you. Whether I'm out here or in there…" The monster reached out and tapped sharply on Stan's forehead with a static-shrouded finger. "…Or in a cell at the Fearamid or in the ruins of the Shack, you'll never be rid of me – not unless you accept the inevitable and take the option you should have taken a long, long time ago."
"And what option's that?" Stanley gasped.
By way of an answer, Self-Loathing wrenched him away from the wall and began hauling him bodily down the corridor, flinging him the remaining five feet: Stan caught a brief glimpse of a door marked by the long-awaited exit sign – before he hit it side on. Fortunately, the door immediately swung open on impact, depositing him roughly on the cold tiled floor on the opposite side.
But there was no escape waiting for him beyond the exit – only a small windowless room, flooded with shadows except for a tiny pool of light in its centre, empty except for a stone pedestal sitting right in the heart of the chamber. And as Stan hauled himself upright, he saw… the "option."
Hovering in mid-air just above the pedestal was a straight razor, unfolded and gleaming softly in the pale glow.
And of course, it wasn't just any blade: Stan remembered dad's old straight razor all too well, having been warned to handle it with the utmost care more times than he cared to recall. It had been inherited from Filbrick's father before him, a testament to the old man's stubborn refusal to make do with safety razors, and luxury that Filbrick had been too stubborn to sell or discard even in the hard times before his antiques business had opened… and in all honesty, it wasn't hard to see why: the handle was sterling silver and beautifully made, the blade so honed and sharp that Ford had joked that it could split atoms. Once, Stan had worked up the nerve to ask where grandpa had gotten his hands on a silver-plated razor, given how poor the family had been; Filbrick's only answer had been a curt grunt of "Ypres, 1918."
And now, here it lay, the old "cutthroat razor," as he and Ford had called it-
"Oh," said Stan, quietly.
"You knew this had to happen, Stan," Self-Loathing whispered. "This is your only way out: a brief slice across the wrists and a long fall into nothingness. The only alternative is an eternity spent here, in this tribute to your worthlessness as a human being, with me as the only company you'll ever get to keep… and I do mean an eternity by the way. Bill's seen to it that you won't die of old age here, and you won't die of starvation or hunger either – not while I'm around to force-feed you; he's made it so that you'll get to live a very, very long time with your cowardice if that's what you want."
"You want me to kill myself?"
"You're telling me you want to remain alive? After everything you've seen here, can you honestly tell me that yours is a life worth living: you've failed at almost everything you ever attempted, and your one notable success helped kickstart the end of the world; your parents died without ever realizing who you really were, your brother's been condemned to an eternity of pain, and your darling grandniece and grandnephew are either dead or worse-than-dead… and the world as you know it has been reduced to a museum that will never see any visitors except for you and I. Not because there's any shortage of human beings, mind you," Self-Loathing added. "It's just because nobody wants anything to do with you or your family – because by now, everyone out there knows who they can thank for causing the end of the world."
In spite of himself, Stan managed to rally a few embers of self-esteem – just enough to meet Self-Loathing's eyes as he responded. "You don't feel like showing me any of that, do you?" he snarled. "How do I know you're not lying, pal? I mean, it doesn't take a good con artist to recognize a bad one."
"Of course not. But if I offer to show you the truth, you won't take it. You don't want to see what might have happened to Dipper and Mabel. You don't want to see their shattered little bodies. You don't want to imagine how much they screamed."
Inwardly, Stan just about managed a sneer of Yeah, wiseguy, like you're the most honest person in the room.
Outwardly, he could only grit his teeth and half-snarl half-whimper the words "stop it."
"Shall I tell you how long it took for them to die? Do you want to hear what… methods Bill used? I can give you hours of audio recordings, Stan, hours upon hours of compressed agony – and I can have it playing in every single room of this museum until you give up and accept the inevitable. I can even let you hear the exact moment when the two of them stopped screaming your name and started cursing it – and let's be honest, why wouldn't they? You brought this on them."
"…stop it…"
"Oh, you can't deny that, Stan. Ford might have given Bill a doorway into our reality, but you were the one who opened it. You were the one who made Weirdmageddon possible. You were the one who ruined the circle. And you were the one who failed them all and left Ford with the burden of saving your worthless life. And now all humanity suffers for your failure."
"I'll find another way out," Stan muttered – but even he couldn't hide the doubt and despair in his voice by now. "I'll find another way to escape, to stop Bill and save the others."
"What's wrong? Run out of brown meat at long last, Mr Chief? No more Gnomes to barbecue? Is it time for Stan Pines, wasteland chieftain, to get off his throne and mount a daring rescue? Whoops, too late for any of that, Stan: everyone's dead, dying, doomed or damned or some combination of the four, and there's nothing you can do to save them. In point of fact, there's nothing you can do to save yourself – nothing except running that straight-razor down your arms and letting your worthless blood piss out over the floor."
This time, Stan couldn't even bring himself to respond.
"So why delay the inevitable? You know what you have to do: lord only knows you've thought of doing it before, back when you were alone, impoverished and with nothing to look forward to but another visit from the debt collectors. You thought about rope and car exhausts and long falls and gaping exit wounds and cold lake water a thousand times, but you never could bring yourself to take the final step. This'll be so much cleaner, Stan: a tiny bit of pain across your wrists, some nice vertical slashes, and then a soft, gentle descent into oblivion. You'll be rid of me at last, and the world will be rid of you. Can you honestly say that's something you don't want?"
Stan hesitated.
Then, he reached out to take the razor from the pedestal.
"That's right, Stan. Just take it and be done with it. End it all."
His fingers closed around the razor's handle…
And then...
Maybe it was the message he'd received, maybe it was the last atom of the old Pines family stubbornness. One way or the other, Stan hesitated.
"You were right about me being a coward, by the way," he said quietly.
"Glad to hear it."
"And you were also right when you said I kept making the same mistakes."
"Very true."
In spite of himself, Stan smiled. "What's a few more between friends, huh?"
And with that, he turned and brought the straight razor hissing through the air in a deadly arc – right at Self-Loathing's face. The blade dug deep into the apparition's face, tearing through the not-quite-flesh and embedding itself deep in his left cheekbone.
As the monster roared in pain, hands flying to his face as he struggled to tear the blade free of his mangled features, Stan put his head down and ran – flinging the door open and launching himself down the corridor. He didn't know where he was going or what he expected to happen next, but he had to find an exit: he had to get out – to find Dipper, Mabel, Ford – to stop Bill, anything. He couldn't stay here forever, even if it didn't mean killing himself. He had to do something.
If only he could figure out what.
Bill observed the unfolding drama with interest – and more than a little bit of amusement.
This game was turning out to be more intense than initially expected: when he'd first built the museum and plucked Self-Loathing from his place in Stan's mind, Bill had been expecting nothing more than a straightforward psychological assault on everything on the grotesque old man's will to live, compounded by a little effort from a personality trait given life - an appropriate element considering that Stan, like Ford, had always been his own worst enemy.
Once the museum exhibits and Self-Loathing had done their part in whittling away at Stan's survival instinct, he could then be induced to commit suicide.
And then, Bill could bring him back, alter his perceptions of reality to make him think that the whole thing had been nothing more than a nightmare, and then lead him back to the museum to start the whole thing all over again. The exhibits would once again push him to the brink of suicide, Self-Loathing would drive him over the edge, and Stan would end it all once again – only to wake up a few hours later, believing that the awful experience had been another bad dream… with perhaps a moment or two of deja-vu-induced clarity. Lather, rinse, and repeat, an endless cycle of inescapable torment that would only grow more excruciating for every moment Stan realized the full scope of the torture; a fitting punishment for someone who'd thought he was clever enough to pull the wool over Bill's eye.
But Stan was putting up more resistance than expected; maybe enough to require herding into the nastier wings of the museum. And funnily enough, Self-Loathing was proving more aggressive than anyone had thought. Bill had known that the personality element had despised Stan with a passion - no surprises there - but even he hadn't expected Self-Loathing to go on the offensive as viciously as he had a moment ago: after all, there were supposed to be limits as to how much force a personified trait could exert. Perhaps he might even diverge from the game plan if pushed far enough… but maybe not.
From his position in the ether just above the museum, Bill watched as Self-Loathing finally tore the razor free from his skull with a howl of rage and threw it at the wall and began following Stan back down the corridor.
He wasn't troubled by Stan's refusal, nor did Self-Loathing's aggression stir any concerns. The manifested personality trait would play by the rules, and no matter how many times he tried to shrug off his despair, Stan would succumb to the inevitable sooner or later.
And if he didn't…
So?
Bill had an eternity to wait, and a thousand more games to play in the meantime.
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is House of Black and White by Ramin Djawadi.
Coming up next... uncharted territory. OUR INTERMISSION HAS BEGUN! MILL ABOUT!