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Some Children to Make Into Corpses

Summary:

There aren't any universes where he wins.

Notes:

This was written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "child endangerment." The prompt got me thinking about that page in TBOB where Bill declares that there's only one universe in which the kids survived the summer, and the question of whether that's true or not... which led me to further questions I've pondered about the nature of the multiverse in GF and Bill's place in it, which in turn led to this. Whatever this is.

Content Note: I've used "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings" on this one, because I feel like not giving it a "Major Character Death' warning would be wrong, but giving it one would be misleading. But this does feature deaths of alternate versions of the kids, as well as versions in Bill's imagination, and while it's not super gory, if children dying horribly isn't something you want in your psyche at all, now's the time to bail out.

Work Text:

There aren't any universes where he wins.

Hahaha, correction, of course: there aren't any universes where he's won yet! He's got at least sixteen different escape plans, each weirder and more brilliant than the last, so it's only a matter of time before he blows this joint, gets the band back together, something something something, MULTIVERSAL DOMINATION. (He'll work out the details later.) And he's got nothing but time in here. Well, unless he goes insane from boredom, that is, but OH WAIT, he's already insane! So that's fine!

Plus, he at least has the distraction of being able to spy on all the idiots out there in the multiverse, anywhere there's an accidental or deliberate symbol that looks anything like him. They haven't been able to stop him from doing that! NOBODY can stop Bill Cipher from seeing things! Many have tried, and you know what happened to them? Go on, take a guess. That's right. Sooner or later, they all DIE HORRIBLY.

They hate it so much, though, these guys. Try to get him not to do it, all kinds of carrots and sticks, none of which Bill cares about. (Not even when they— No. None of it. He cares about none of it.) Ooh, Bill, they say, but it's such an INVASION OF PRIVACY, what about BOUNDARIES, Bill? Oh, Bill, but you're fixated on observing such unhealthy things.

Well, of course he is. Mental health is for conformist chumps! And privacy? Boundaries? What do any of these chuckleheads know about those? Have any of them sat inside another being's mind? Danced through their dreams? Have any of them looked down, however briefly, onto a two-dimensional world and seen it all laid out beneath them: the insides of people's houses, their bodies, the fiery maelstroms eating them alive? Have any of them ever been an All-Seeing Eye? Hmm?

Hell, maybe they have. He's never cared enough to find out, and he never will. But that's not the point. The point is that there IS NO PRIVACY and there ARE NO BOUNDARIES. There's only Bill. It's just that the multiverse hasn't realized it yet.

So, yeah, he's not going to stop. They'd have to blind him to make him, and they don't seem willing to do it. Wimps. Posers. Anybody who cared at all would at least give that a shot.

Especially as the stuff he can see, even the FUN stuff, just makes him madder, makes him more determined to get out of here and fix things, to make them the way they're SUPPOSED TO BE.

Because, as previously established, there isn't any universe where he's won yet. Well, duh, of course there isn't. There may be a more-or-less infinite number of universes, but there's only one Nightmare Realm, and only one (temporarily inconvenienced) King of the Nightmare Realm. Only one unique, inimitable, irreplaceable BILL CIPER, BABY!

Sure, there were probably other triangles, a trillion years ago (or however long it's actually been, who keeps track?), equilateral misfits who answered to the name Bill's parents gave him, whatever that was. But who cares about them? They're all LOSERS and they're all DEAD. There's only him. Only ever just him. And he's only done the things he's done.

Things, he can sort of admit now, that were a liiiittttttle bit all-your-eggs-in-one-basket-y. But manipulating all of human history was a lot of work! And Dimension 46'\ was a lot of fun, and very easy to manipulate. Anyway, it's not like he didn't have a backup. Another world, another portal, another Stanford Pines. He never liked that Ford world as much, though, that's why he kind of backed off and let things get out of hand there. "A better world," Bill's flat yellow ass! Pathetic Plan B world, more like. When he's back on top, he'll destroy it completely. Won't even pay it the compliment of making it part of his multiversal Weirdness Empire. And he'll laugh in the face of that pathetic backup Ford and make it completely clear to him just how utterly unimportant he always was, before killing him horribly. No— Even better! Killing him casually! While the real Ford watches! Yeah, that'll be great. He'll definitely do that.

Meanwhile, he just indulges himself by watching the Pines brats die over and over and over, even though it's not as satisfying as you might think. Because there aren't any worlds where he threw stupid Dipper's stupid body off the water tower, letting him have it back halfway down so he could fully appreciate the splat. None where he no longer needed to keep Mabel in reserve as a potential bargaining chip and got to enjoy squashing her reality bubble under his giant heel, crushing her under the weight of her own sparkly imagination. None where he held them both in his hands and squeezed, squeezed until they turned blue and their eyes popped out and their chests collapsed, while he laughed and laughed and laughed in the faces of two pathetic old men who stupidly believed that loving your family was ever, EVER safe.

There aren't even any dimensions where they're eaten a by a gremloblin, unintentionally mauled to death by the Multibear, trampled by gnomes, splattered at the bottom of a cliff thanks to a poorly aimed grappling hook. Nothing really juicy at all, because there's only ever one pitiful dimension where they end up in Gravity Falls in the first place. No, he has to make do with boring, mundane deaths: car accidents and childhood diseases, slipping in the shower in the midst of a chorus of "Disco Girl," choking on accidentally inhaled glitter. Some of that's vaguely amusing, sure, but it's rare enough to be hard to find, and none of it is what he wants.

Convincing them that they die in every timeline but their own was fun, though. And doing the artwork was... what would his jailers call it? Cathartic. Hey, at least something in here is doing him some good!

And when he gets out, oh, doesn't he have a host of fantasies to make come true! All across the multiverse, he'll make it happen for real. They'll suffer and they'll suffer and he'll laugh and laugh and laugh, and HE'LL MAKE FORD AND STANLEY WATCH over and over and over and over.

And over, and over and over and over and...

Just as soon as he's out of here. Yeah. Just as soon as he's free.