Chapter Text
He shambled through the woods, feet kicking up sticks and sharp stones along the way. Blood seemed to be seeping out from beneath him, but it was hard to tell exactly where it was coming from, at this point. Part of Bill didn't even register the pain, or very much else, for that matter. There were bigger things to worry about, like the deep and heavy crushing weight of existing inside a mortal body.
It was like existing before, but it wasn't!
If he wasn't trapped in this form for the indefinite future, it might had been more funny.
It was hard to put into words and physical thought, but, one moment he was rotting in the Theraprism for some time and suddenly, he was here! And unlike before, where the oppressing stimuli of everything that had ever existed was at a moments reach, it was now just the oppressing stimuli of all the senses and things around him, stuff he couldn't just switch off with a thought. Instead of Bill willingly sticking his hand into a bees' nest, it was like the nest came to him!
Which, again, would have been more funny if he wasn't trapped like this.
As a foreign arm reached toward his face to cradle the pain blossoming in his skull, Bill tried to remember where he was going. He had been walking--he didn't even know how to walk before this--and had just a general sense of where he was going. There wasn't a destination in mind, rather, a simple instinct to follow. So he really didn't know where he was going, but his limited knowledge on mortals and their fragility was telling him that he probably needed medical attention.
Red oozed out from his face, pooling on the white shirt he wore and dripping down to the ground and painting the grass below crimson.
One of the first things he did when he came to was scratch out the extra eye he had been given. Bill wasn't entirely sure of his reason for it, but he wasn't upset with his decision yet. It didn't really hurt when he had first done it, but now it was certainly cementing itself as second worst feeling ever: right behind the time in which he was erased in Stanley Pines' mind.
Bill's face is emmiting a dull, throbbing pain that gets worse the longer he thinks about it, but... Being erased from a mind?
Pft. Didn't even hold a candle to that.
So for that reason, the second he shed this mortal shell, unimaginable pain--worse than his eye right now--will be dealt to the Pines. For every hour they defied him, for every SECOND they decided to try to comprehend his plans would be paid back tenfold and Bill would make them rue the day that they EVER THOUGHT-
A particularly large rock caught on his bare foot, causing Bill to tumble face first into the leafy dirt below. Rocks dug into his palms and scraped on his knees: just more injuries to add to the growing amount of blood pouring out of his mortal shell. Coughing as his lungs tried to fill with oxygen again, Bill felt an emotion that... Was not particularly common for him to feel. He felt- helpless almost.
Pushing himself back up with muscle memory that he never made, Bill stumbled to his feet and tried to push those terrible thoughts away. But, it was getting harder to concentrate as he felt more and more lightheaded. "Seriously," Bill murmured, the voice sounding weaker and quieter than normal, almost sounding foreign, "these meat sacks are too fragile."
More light pushed through the forest as he reached a clearing, weary feet still moving on autopilot.
...
Bill wasn't entirely sure how you stopped these things.
In the stretch of tree-less growth in front of him, his eye landed on the house before him. Recognition flashed through his head as he studied the building in front of him- it was something... Familiar.
"Oh!" Bill would've snapped his fingers if he knew how to do that in this body.
He knew this dwelling almost better than the replica in the dream world!
He was standing in front of the Mystery Shack, albeit, one a little different than he remembered. For one, the shack looked less dilapidated, like someone had been paid to powerwash the moss coated wood, as well as new decorations strewn across the front lawn. It almost looked like an event was happening with all of the party streamers; and well, who was Bill to not enjoy a party?
He continued forward, not even registering the movement inside the shack until it was too late for him to scurry back into the woods.
People started piling out, people that Bill recognized- Mabel, still wearing a colorful sweater while juggling holding a cake and multiple streamers; Dipper, looking worriedly at the aforementioned precariously held streamers; Stanley, smiling and chuckling at something- Stanford. Sixer.
Seeing all of the people who watched him die- the people who killed him? It was like being doused with cold water, if Bill even knew what that felt like.
Before the rage set in, Bill contemplated another point.
What's to stop them from killing me? ...
He's done terrible things to these people; torture, torment, kidnapping- to list a few. Just imagining the kind of retribution that they would enact on him, especially in this breakable, fragile form? Well, thats enough to give a dream demon nightmares. Until he had a hang on the new flesh bag, it was in his best interest to lick his wounds and build up strength.
But it was already too late.
Mabel noticed him first, dropping the streamers to point at Bill, getting the other's attention. Slowly, the people on the porch stood and stopped, putting their full attention on Bill.
Bill was a deer in headlights: he didn't know what to do, or where to run, or even how to run if he wanted to. So he just stood there. And waited.
And waited.
And waited until the information seeped into those thick human skulls. God their reaction time was slow.
He expected a lot of things. Anger, rage, resentment, anger again- but he never could have expected the look of pure concern and alarm that washed over the family as they all rushed to Bill's position. It was like life sprung into the clearing again and everything around him unpaused.
Bill's vision started swimming: he was still facing the symptoms of incredibly blood loss--something his body must have caught up on--his knees crumpled and he hit the ground. Hard. His hands went out to catch him and a spark of thankfulness went out to the preprogrammed responses in this body once again.
Bill could only imagine how he looked to mortals; perhaps like a baby fawn getting used to it's legs, Bill thought.
"Hello?! Are you okay?!" Ford breathed, sliding to his knees to hold up Bill who hadn't even realized his face was a few inches from the ground, "C-can you tell me your name?"
Dipper and Mabel were just a few feet behind him, Mabel crouching down beside him as well. As she took in the sight, Mabel's hand flew to her mouth while her other hand moved to clasp Bill's still outstretched one. "Oh my god!" she uttered, looking anywhere but into Bill's lack-of-eye, "What happened?!"
Stanley Pines arrived just a little later, looking around and scouting for any nearby danger before crowding close to Bill as well.
All of these people seemed concerned for him, which by Bill's less-than-stellar processing meant that they probably didn't know who he was.
How... Stupid of them.
He really thought that they would've learned something from Weirdmeggedon? That they would learn to never trust so blindly once more? GOD! These people were stupider than he thought!! Really, Bill could keep his mouth shut and they would be none the wiser to his-
"Well hiya, Sixer!" Bill blurted out, internally smacking his head on mental walls. "Excited to see you too!"
It went silent again- silent enough that you could hear a pin drop.
Bill unfortunately only got a few seconds to drink in all of their facial expressions before passing out, a sensation so foreign that he could almost mistake it for dying.
Worth it, Bill thought.
-------------------------------------------------
"Now how THE FU-"
"Stanley!" Ford scoffed, "Not the time- the kids are present."
Dipper leveled him with a deadpan stare, "Grunkle Ford, frankly, I think he has the right to curse in the current situation."
Like that comment reminded them all of the lanky, somehow-human Bill Cipher laying unconscious on the bed before them, everyone turned toward his limp form. He was covered in blood that had dripped down his shirt and dried on his hands and face, the whiteness of the shirt only highlighting the amount of it. The shirt itself hung from his frame loosely, dwarfing him in the fabric. The only other thing on his personnel was a pair of too loose shorts that just barely hung to his hips, also stained with a startling amount of blood.
His hair was blonde--almost a gold, yellow-ish color that caught the light around him. The one eye that they saw before he passed out seemed to be all pupil with a slightly yellow sclera instead of the normal white.
Ford had patched up his missing eye, even though Stanley suggested leaving the demon to rot in the woods. Though the suggestion was tempting, Ford also knew that it went way beyond his character to let anyone die, including demons that have tortured him for the better part of his life. His hand almost went out to brush the blood matted hair away from Bill's face, but he stopped it before it could get close. That was... Too much care for a man who made his life hell.
But, seeing Bill in this form? Ford really couldn't find it in his heart to be too vengeful: it already looked like the demon had been through hell before they found him, even if Ford was 90% sure that Bill had torn his own eye out. It had to be incredibly disorienting to be put into a human body and Ford's brain was already ticking with questions to ask him about the experience.
Scratch that- Ford wanted to ask him way more questions than that! Like, how did he even survive being erased, where has he been, how did he get here?
Thousands more followed, but his attention was brought back to the present when Soos ran into the room, covered in a few cobwebs and holding chains in his hands. They seemed to be more mock-medieval than anything else, but they were made of metal and locked- something that could help them keep Bill temporarily. "Uh," Soos looked around while he thrusted the chains into Stan's hands, "dude you seriously have to clean up down there. Like, I'm pretty sure 15 different spider breeds crawled out of a corner."
His laugh lightened the mood a bit, but Ford didn't miss the inability for Soos to even look in the general direction of Bill.
Ford sighed "Ah, Stan- I would suggest chaining his ankle and wrist-"
"Can it, Ford, I've done this before." his brother replied gruffly, locking a shackle around one of Bill's limp wrists.
"Wh-" Ford was briefly stunned, shaking his head and persisting, "Nevermind, I don't want to know. Anyway, make sure that he's secure- I don't know what powers he still possesses in that form, but it would be better to start looking for something more powerful later."
"Couldn't we just... Ya know..." Stan trailed off before making a cut-throat gesture.
"Stanley!"
"What?!" Stan threw his hands up stepping away from Bill as he pocketed the key to the chains. "This stupid triangle has made our life hard enough!"
Dipper sighed in response, "Grunkle Ford, he does, kinda, sorta have a point."
Ford pinched his brow. "As if we know he'll stay dead if we do so? No, it's in our best interest to keep him alive to figure out where he came from-"
"-and how to send him back." Dipper finished for him.
Ford nodded gravely, staring back at the pale face of the human form of Bill Cipher. He didn't look dangerous now, but- who was to say what the demon would act like when he woke up. With a sigh, Ford planted down into a nearby office chair, feeling the creak the chair made right down to his bones. "Well," Ford started, gesturing to the few chairs littered throughout the room, "All we can do is wait, at this point."
All we can do is wait and hope, Ford corrected in his mind. His only hope was that Bill was a little more docile as a human.