Gravity Falls: Snapshots
Title: Snapshots
Fandom: Gravity Falls
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Summary: 15 prompts filled about the original Mystery Twins and the influence of Bill on their lives. Original prompt table from LJ community 100_prompts
001. Evidence
As a child Ford spent his life gathering shells that swept up on the shore, studying them, filling up journals drawing them. He loved to pick things up, find out how they worked, to understand them inside and out.
As a teenager Ford spent his life gathering research on increasingly esoteric ideas, ones that could not fit inside his hand like shells. Ideas which could no longer be contained in his small town. Ideas which were never recognized, dashed into broken splinters on the ground.
As an adult Ford spent his life gathering the evidence of his ideas which had now ballooned to encompass the universe…and possibly beyond. They could no longer be contained in one human mind. So he shared them with a demon and gained the proof of everything he could have never possibly dreamed of.
He spent the rest of his life trying to cover up the evidence of the broken lives he left behind.
002. I'm here
The reflection of the other dimension gleams off his body. Bill turns his eye to Ford.
“I’m here”
003. Funeral
There was no trick Stan couldn’t pull off. He could convince a cop to let him go even after being wanted in three states, peddle tickets to see the jabberwocky and fix up a broken down hut into a shack of wild-eyed mysteries.
Hell, he could even die without dying. How was that for a trick?
He never did try to fake his death, he had just disappeared under so many other names, other states, other lives that somewhere along the way he had died. He didn’t even know it until he received a letter in the mail from his father. His father had written nothing but had attached a brief newspaper article outlining his very unimpressive high school career and subsequent disappearance.
He wondered if they were going to have a funeral and then decided probably not.
He would have to get to that some day.
004. Puppy love
There were some mornings in between sleep and wake in which Stan remembered how it felt to dance with her until they were both exhausted and how they fell down kissing and sometimes more into his sedan to drive to god-knows-where-just-anywhere-but-here.
He would wonder if all the fake identities, the sleepless nights, the never ending run away was all worth it. Then he would wake up and see his brother’s face reflected in his own and he remembered the penance he had to keep.
Puppy love wasn’t meant for men like him.
005. Gloves
Ford snapped the black gloves on. Bill hovered over his shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
006. Blackboard
Ford mulled over equations, algorithms and words that melted into nonsensical scribbles. Day in night out, night in day out in the basement of the shack writing and rewriting on a blackboard until days and nights meant nothing anymore. How long would he be in front of this blackboard, frustrated and lost until the secrets of the universe were revealed to him?
He drew a triangle on the board.
Stood back.
And drew an eye in the middle.
007. Muse
“What…are you?”
A disembodied voice, oddly cheerful and all the more disconcerting for the fact, answered back, “Just think of me as a muse.”
A stray thought fluttered through Ford’s mind…An interdimensional being…
Bill floated towards him, “I can help you with what you are looking for.” He saw Ford hesitate and he leaned in, voice lowering, “I can show you what you’ve always wanted. All the secrets of the universe.”
Was he a God?
“Let’s make a deal,” Bill held out his hand.
Or a demon?
008. Magic
Ford was a scientist. And as a scientist he privileged evidence above all else. So when Bill offered to show him evidence of knowledge of the universe, he accepted.
At first he showed him images. They swirled out of the creature known as Bill and encompassed the whole room. What he saw was no longer the concrete basement walls but the edge of the galaxy swirling around him. The span of millennia passed by in seconds, his eyes reflected the lights of a million stars. He reached out for Bill as he fell. “STOP. PLEASE STOP.”
Sweat beaded along his forehead and his hands met the concrete floor.
It was weeks before he asked him to show him the vision again. The galaxy opened up before his feet threatening to swallow him whole into the black infinity but he held on longer to the vision. Sweating and shaking he passed out and awoke on the basement floor.
It was days before he asked again. He held on longer. Then it was the next day. Then the next hour. Again and again he entered the visions Bill implanted in his head until he was unsure of what was the vision and what was the reality.
Until that no longer satisfied him.
“What is next my muse?”
A sly tone entered Bill’s voice, “Let me show you” He floated towards Ford but something was off. Something about his shape. He seemed to grow larger, wider, taking up more and more of the room. The dull pale yellow light he normally exuded deepened into blue, then a black so dark to become bottomless. A black hole. The gravity of which reached deep inside of his body, pulling the organs inside out.
He closed his eyes. He could no longer see.
“Hello Ford”
He opened his eyes, but they were no longer his.
“Don’t be scared.”
But he was. This was nothing he could explain. This had no explanation.
“I’m just going to borrow your body for a while”
This was magic.
009. Clean
The first time Stan saw his brother walk out of the portal, he knew his penance was over.
He was clean.
010. Secret
Bill took over his body many times now. He never let McGucket know. Bill had him promise and he was right. There were so many things he learned when Bill was in his mind. His senses stretched through the dimensions.
So few people could handle this power of seeing throughout the universe Bill had told him. It could become dangerous in the wrong hands he chided. So few people understood how important this really was except for Ford of course. That was why he had chosen him as his muse.
He had been scared the first time Bill had taken over his mind and body. But now he understood what a privilege it was and he relished each opportunity when Bill turned his sights on him. What man had seen these sights? What man had been chosen by a creature of god like proportions to reveal the universe to? This was so right after all the disappointments he had faced. This was the payback he deserved after all the humiliation, after all the recognition that had passed over him.
And he would not share this with anyone. This was his secret
011. Supersition
Do you believe in superstition, Fiddleford?
Well, we study strange things others wouldn’t, but surely they must have a reason. So I believe in science, Ford.
I wish I still did.
Ford?
Sorry. It’s just been a long day.
Ford…
Let’s get back to work.
012. Fantasy
Was this fantasy?
Images danced before his eyes. Images that had no words.
Or was this reality?
“Bill?” He whispered though he knew that Bill already knew. They both knew at the same time, they were the same thoughts. They no longer needed the vibration of sounds, just the vibration of neurons.
“I’m becoming confused. Is this real?”
Bill’s voice surged inside the action potentials weaved inside his mind “It’s all been real Ford.”
“How can I tell?”
But Bill ignored him as if he hadn’t heard, as if they were not one. “I am not just here to show you the universe”
“What are you here for?”
Bill monotoned as if it was the most natural statement in the world, “I am here to help you change it.”
013. Test
-I don’t think the machine is ready Ford
-Dammit Fiddleford, just test the dammed portal would you?
-Ford…
-I’m..I’m sorry. It’s just been-
-We can stop you know.
Ford pauses -No. No we can’t
014. Tease
Ford’s voice started off bold and strong, “You can’t enter into my mind Bill.” But then it faltered. “I can’t handle it anymore.”
Bill laughed, “You’re such a tease, Ford. You know I can’t resist you when you look like that.”
Ford stomped his foot down in frustration, “Don’t joke with me Bill!”
Bill placed a hand on Ford’s forehead and the room began to swirl, “Oh, but I’m not”
“Bill, No!”
But he was already inside his mind.
“Yes Ford”
015. Storm
Tonight was the night.
The night they turned on the interdimensional portal.
The night Fiddleford left.
Even though it was storming outside.
He had run away in the rain, thrashing around about the sights he had seen.
It was storming inside Ford too.
The night he decided to carry on.