Chapter Text
Last thing Bill remembers was graduating the theraprism. He was finally deemed ‘normal’.
He didn’t feel like he got better. Didn’t feel like he was… Normal …
That wasn’t the goal anyways. Right?
He wasn’t violent anymore. Didn’t feel the need to be even, to keep it even. It didn’t feel like that was a battle he needed to fight…Not anymore, at least…
God this light was getting really bright. Bill’s mind buzzed and buzzed, opening what felt like eyelids to peek at the source. It…Looks like the sun?
The.
THE SUN?!
Where did he land???
Where was he reincarnated, WHO, was he even reincarnated as?!
Is it- is it human? Or. Is he human. Is he even a he anymore? To be honest Bill wasn’t sure to begin with. That was already a flimsy state of mind.
He feels poking on his side and it’s getting extremely annoying. Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.
…
Poke poke…Poke poke.
The poking is not stopping.
Bill turns his head slowly, or what he assumes to be his head—he sure hopes it is—to find this source of annoyance. Bill would’ve ran away the second he felt the poking but for some reason, it felt weird to move. He felt weak to even twitch, he was itchy and burning. The sting went to every joint the flesh he lived in covered. Aching from spine to neck, pelvis to larynx, where it felt hard to speak and dry to swallow.
He sees some kind of extended brown line and blinking more helps the sight through the bright lights, there stood a silhouette of a human with what he can only guess is a stick.
So he’s at least approachable enough for a person to poke him.
Said silhouette leans forward, effectively covering the source of this light. A faint echo calls out, not particularly calling out a name or anything specific.
One more blink and he can see this mystery person clearly.
It’s a little girl. Thick, long, frizzy hair shields him from the sun. Her general appearance helps block out the blinding light too.
This clearly brushed mess was then caged by a kind of purple-ish headband. He doesn’t know what color the headband is actually, everything is hued by blue thanks to the courtesy of blinking like he doesn’t have eyelids, it’s all a faded mess. And painful.
Is that…Glitter? In…Her hair? It’s so…Colorful. He almost wants to pick a piece of glitter just to see it but he can’t even move…Well. His anything. Whatever he is.
The young girl shouts for another person, “They’re awake! They’re awake!” The girl repeats like a broken record as he sees another moderately small form cover more of the sun, a boy with a lumberjack hat? He’s not too sure what hat that is. Same curls too, this time not all that frizzy.
If Bill had to guess the two had way different routines. And it doesn’t just stop at hair, he can smell the battery acid off of the little girl. The sweat he smells more accurately shows itself to be from the boy when he feels a bare and damp palm poke at his uhhhhh…Nose? Is that a nose? It feels like a nose.
Slowly but surely he sits up.
The two kids stare like a corpse just rose from its coffin. Scared and kind of unsure if they should be alarmed, they look like they’re not too sure if Bill could even inflict damage in the state he’s in.
Looking down at himself, he can better see what he looks like.
Arms spindly and thin, legs with knobby knees, elbows mimicking the knobby snap.
He’s incredibly…Sunburnt.
And the more he realizes how red his skin is the more he feels the pain being sunburnt comes with. Realizing the aching and the sting.
“What the shit…”
He mumbled
Starting to wince and groan at the consequences of being reincarnated as some average joe on earth.
He wasn’t even born like he was supposed to be. Wasn’t born with a new name, no parents in sight, and he’s definitely at least 30. Or…Above 18. He thinks. He hopes . He has yet to determine this. Surely a mirror would help tell.
He turns to ask one of the children but they’ve seem to have ran off the minute Bill sat up.
Great…Alone.
Dragging a sigh and an annoyed groan at the inconvenience, he tries to stand.
Wobbly calves and knobby knees stutter at the newfound weight that held Bill.
Even if he’s…Exceedingly skinny.
His legs struggle to function and scramble for stability, making Bill tilt over and fall right back down.
Damn it, it’s not like he hasn’t walked before, there’s no way he FORGOT …
What is he forgetting again…?
Something is missing.
Something is missing— something is missing— what is it?!
He sat up and shakily patted himself down— what is missing- what—
WHAT IS MISSING—
Something breaks. What sounds like a branch. He *hopes* is a branch.
He whips his head around to face the sound and it’s the kids! This time with…An older looking man.
Red turtleneck, big nose, trench coat…?
Will he just poke at him too?
“Hello?” Bill hesitantly greeted the figure “Hello, are you alright?” The man looked real confused. So he can speak and understand English, but he can’t walk. Right. Cause that’s totally in Bill’s favor.
Reincarnation isn’t as fun as Bill first thought.
He’s learning quick being human is even less fun.
“Uh…I don’t know…” He answered the older man truthfully, “Where…Where am I?”
“You…Do you even know how you got here?” This troubled the older man.
“…No.”
“Huh…You’re at Gravity Falls, Oregon.”
The name made Bill see a blinding white light, flashing his visual sense and causing a pounding ache from the back of his eyes.
What’s happening… WHY is it happening? The name is so familiar, he can almost taste the recollection his brain so badly wants to remember, he so badly wants to know—he’s curious! What’s it hiding???
A groan emerges from his throat, and although he wasn’t aware of it before, he has a feeling this is not the first time he’s grunted from pain.
Wincing comes next, and the gasps of agony follows when he’s rubbing at his closed eye lids, trying to apply pressure to cease the gnashing headache…Migraine?…He’s too delirious to care which.
He hears the clicking of fingers snapping together in front of him.
“Hello? Are you with me?” The deep voice called out. Brought back to reality, he blinks a few times. The colors are still so bright and distorted, the sun burning irises and his migraine certainly didn’t help any.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” The man holds up…3? 3 fingers?
Bill squints
“…Three?”
“Uh. That’s not…”
A younger voice is heard, sounding like a little boy. Maybe it’s the one in the hat.
Bill blinks more, the moving gray dots clouding his vision, and down he goes. The ground cushioning him with a thud.
—
The new start was finicky. It was messy, hurtful, miserable, and all around just plain awful.
Bill hated every bit of it…
Every. Single…Bit…
—
Cold. He once felt so hot, and now cold is all his sensory can feel.
Like he’s in some void.
Well, that’s not an entirely wrong observation.
Eyes blinking open he can see very obviously he’s back to one. Seeing from the right side much rather the left…As a deep and faint sting comes from the left cheek bone, up to his forehead.
Looking around, the surroundings he can assess is much more clearly a galaxy than a void. Turning, there hovered in front of him the axolotl.
He has…So many questions…
“What the fuck did you do to me???”
Bill called out.
“Reincarnation is not meant to be easy…With second chances comes great consequences from your past actions…”
What actions?
“What do you mean??? What consequences and for what actions? How bad WAS I???”
Silence.
The axolotl just stared…
“Drawing blanks…?”
Oh for fucks sake.
“YES! YES, I AM! I’VE BEEN IN NOTHING BUT PAIN, I’VE LANDED IN SOME NOWHERE TOWN WITH GOD KNOWS WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE, AND I WAS SURROUNDED BY STRANGERS!!” The screams still in the air, no echo was heard. And it felt unsettling. Almost oppressive with how the silence doesn’t bother making room for his intense emotion. Like it’s hard to express or convey this type of thing.
Suddenly he feels like he’s been through that kind of thing before…The bad came before the good in the Theraprism, it almost feels like. Nothing can make him so sure, though…Not yet. The feeling of nostalgia and familiarity was not something he wanted to dwell on, for it only cemented further just what kind of damage this whole deal has done.
“You’ll get used to it.”
Are. You. Kidding.
“WHAT—“
He feels the anger so deeply, he springs up in a bed, cold sweat, every muscle tensed.
Hands gripping tightly on the fabric that is his blanket…Or…The blanket he woke up in.