Chapter Text
The first time Bill was posed the Heinz Dilemma was upon his arrival to the Theraprism. It was an insult, really. A nearly-all-powerful being, suddenly helpless in an orange jumpsuit with a blue scar crackled across his flat face as some amphibian rattled off questions to him.
“Last question, Bill. Please stay focused,” said the Axolotl, firmly but with no real threat behind his voice. “There is a man named Heinz on Earth. Heinz is a human— he has no powers greater than that of an average man. Heinz’s wife, whom he loves very much, is dying of a cancer with no known cure. He catches wind of a scientist in town who has invented a surefire cure, but is charging ludicrous amounts of money for it. Heinz gathers half the money through fundraising, but the scientist will not budge on his price. It occurs to Heinz that he could easily break into the scientist’s house and steal the cure. What should he do?”
Indignantly, Bill held on to whatever semblance of defiance he could. He rolled his eye, refusing to meet those of the Axolotl, before conjuring some half-assed snarky reply. “Heinz should kidnap the scientist, make him wear an ugly jumpsuit, and rapid-fire pretentious questions at him.”
The Axolotl set the clipboard down in his lap. “Bill.”
”Oh, don’t act like you’re better than me, Axo-doc-tl. You were a hop, skip, and a jump away from being right next to me, tearing up that planet.”
”That’s neither here nor there,” replied the Axolotl. “Why are you fighting me on this?”
”I don’t need to be here!” Bill shouted. “We both know I’m not gonna change. We both know you can’t fix me.”
”Then why did you invoke my name?”
And Bill was silent.
”You knew the terms of our agreement. I told you to invoke my name once you finally realized you were a danger to yourself and others, and I’d give you a second chance,” the Axolotl said, his stoic tone seemingly peeved. “You seemed to hear that I was giving you a get-out-of-death-free card. And that’s not the case. I’m doing you a favor here, but not that one.”
”A favor??” snapped Bill. He gestured to his clothes, then to the clinical prison that surrounded him. “You call this a favor??”
”Yes,” replied the Axolotl, “a massive personal one at that.”
Between the Axolotl’s stoic stubbornness and Bill’s all-too-recent defeat, he began to fume with rage. “You must be out of your ass-backwards amphibian MIND if you think—“
”Where do you think your henchmaniacs are right now?”
And once again, silence hung in the air. Static crackled around the two as Bill tried, in vain, to summon his powers. The unique walls of the Theraprism suppressed most of Bill’s supernatural abilities.
”The moment you decide that you don’t want to get better, do let me know,” the Axolotl said plainly, with a voice that wouldn’t hurt a fly but could crush Bill in an instant. “I’ll be sure to arrange a transfer to the nightmare realm. You do know that is where they are, don’t you?”
Bill narrowed his eye at the Axolotl. “The nightmare realm is disintegrating. You wouldn’t dare send me there. Your little board of directors would fire your androgynous fish ass tomorrow.”
With a smile as close to sinister as the Axolotl could manage, the pink amphibian leaned forward in his seat. “Here’s the funny thing about how the nightmare realm is disintegrating. It isn’t fading into dust slowly but surely like you might think it is. That realm exists in negative space. And it exists on this timeline that has an asymptote of zero— it is constantly approaching nothingness, getting infinitely closer, but never quite reaching it. Meaning your henchmaniacs are off, ignorantly partying again, trying to ignore their awareness of their own imminent demise as the space within which they exist gets ever closer to zero— constantly nearing total destruction, but never quite destroyed. The physical space gets progressively closer to nothingness— as if the walls are closing in on you, except there’s no walls in sight. And, since, that’s technically where you’re from, and the environment is technically safe… I’d be following Theraprism guidelines to a T. You’d just have to, I don’t know, live with the knowledge that every day you’d be brought closer to the brink of death without ever quite finding its sweet release.”
Once more, the sterile-looking room went silent.
”I’ll ask one more time. What should Heinz do?”
Bill shrugged, avoiding the Axolotl’s gaze once more. “Break into the scientist’s house, steal the cure and some money while he’s at it, and snort the cure right in front of his wife.”
The Axolotl blinked in mild surprise. Centuries later, and he still never knew what to expect from Bill Cipher.
”I suppose we’ve got our work cut out for us,” the Axolotl said, opening the door of the private room and allowing Bill to leave. “I’ll finish up my notes here, you can get to know the other patients over art therapy.”
Over the thirty years Bill would spend in the Theraprism, the Axolotl would note multitudes of theories to explain Bill’s behavior.
Euclydians mature over a timeframe unique to their dimension, and when Bill destroyed it, he stopped his own maturing process before his morality and reasoning was fully developed. Patient’s actions are a result of lacking maturity, and because his body is “stuck” as it was when he destroyed his dimension, he lacks the physiological capacity to retain any maturity.
Patient doesn’t understand the difference between “good” attention and “bad” attention; due to an outcast complex, he acts in any way that will get him attention.
Updated note: patient definitely understands the difference between good & bad attention. After acting out, another patient bit him. Bill has withdrawn.
Patient doesn’t understand what is morally good and bad.
Updated note: patient said to others “don’t fuck with me, i’m a dangerous sociopath with a history of violence longer than your dad’s dick. You think I’m scared of some wrist-slitting cuck? If you’ve got a death wish, buddy, I’m your fucking genie. I’ll end you out of sheer boredom. I know they hide all the sharp shit, that’s what makes it fun. Like a crossword puzzle but with a reward.” Pt sent to solitary. Pt definitely understands good and bad. Morality development focus ASAP.
Patient bit staff. Little bastard.
Not every theory was a masterpiece.
Progress made with pt today! Shared needles during knitting in art therapy. Needles were then used by another patient to incite violence. We are 54% sure this was not Bill’s intention when he shared.
And, after some years…
Patient Bill Cipher has displayed readiness for M3DUSA reintegration.
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“What’s all this?” Bill asked as he entered the sterile room. On the table upon which he’d normally sit, a body covered in blue cloth laid almost peacefully.
The Axolotl gave him a warm smile— an expression that was becoming more common nowadays. “Bill, I have some wonderful news for you. You’ve demonstrated eligibility for the next stage of your rehabilitation.”
Bill glanced at the body on the table, unsettled for the first time in seemingly forever. He was so used to being the most unsettling thing in any given situation. Now there was a corpse on the table, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t his fault. “And the next stage of rehab involves… a cadaver..?”
The Axolotl shook his head. He pulled the modesty cloth down far enough that the body’s face was in view. “It’s not a cadaver. It’s your new body. The next stage of your rehabilitation involves you going back to Earth as a human being.”
The body on the table was like no human Bill had ever seen. It laid at perhaps five feet and seven inches, with skin the color of a jaundiced tea-stain. Its muscles were soft and round, strong but strangely squishy-looking.
“Go ahead, you can poke at it,” said the Axolotl, as if he knew what Bill was thinking. After thirty long years, he practically did.
Bill tried to brush the warm blond hair out of the cadaver’s face when he realized the hair wasn’t quite hair. It was… snake shaped. Confused, he took hold of one of the snakes. It had a head, its eyes and jaw were closed, but it was surely a snake. When he ran his finger side-to-side along the sleeping creature, it fell apart into thick strands of hair, as if they were little knots to be brushed out.
“The M3DUSA integration,” the Axolotl explained. “The hair forms little snakes that act on behalf of your emotions. It can’t hurt anyone, and the snakes fall apart with gentle brushing, but reform at the feeling of any strong emotion. You see, some patients—“
“Can’t be trusted with the liberty of hiding their feelings,” spat Bill in a mocking tone, “psychopaths and narcissists who’ll say anything to get what they want. Patients like me.”
The Axolotl clenched his jaw and swallowed. Bill would have dwelled on this if he hadn’t seen something more peculiar— the body was missing an eye. The skin had healed seamlessly over an empty eye socket, as if the eye was never even there. The eye that was there was closed, its pupil rolled to the back of its head as Bill pulled the eyelid open. He let it close before lifting the chapped lips of the body, revealing crooked teeth with sharp canines. Bill tried to open the stiff jaw, which would not budge.
”Don’t break it,” warned the Axolotl. “That’s the only one you’re getting.”
Bill, giving up, poked at the body’s muscles. He tried to move its arms at the joints— everything was as stiff as that rigidly fixed jaw. Rigor mortis, it occurred to him, the stiffness of a human body after it dies.
”Is this thing, um… pre-owned?” Bill asked, as if he were at the most deranged car dealership in the multiverse.
The Axolotl’s eyes shifted. “We’ve gotten it as close to organically living as possible, through revitalization. I know it’s not ideal. But it’s the prototype, and the board was hesitant with the funding—“
”The prototype??” Bill asked with narrowed eye. “You mean I’m the first sucker you’re trying this out on??”
”This was what we agreed upon, Bill, and I fought like hell to even land you a spot—“
”I don’t need this bullshit!” barked Bill. “I’m a revolutionary! I was a self-made GOD!”
”And now you will be a self-made man,” bellowed the Axolotl in his tone that was calm and firm, yet many decibels louder than his normal speaking voice. “If you want my advice, try not to fuck up so badly with this one.”
As much as Bill hated to admit it, he had been successfully coerced into either complacency or recovery, depending on how you view it. The Axolotl was one of few beings truly stronger than Bill— he could kill the small triangle with a flick of his tail if he wanted to. Sure, the Axolotl was a doctor who swore to do no harm, but that did not mean he was a kind one. He was, of course, when he chose to be. He did not choose this often; at least, not often around Bill.
In an act of de-escalation, or perhaps complacence, Bill bit his tongue. “When do I start, y’know… being human?”
”Tomorrow morning.”
”Where will you leave me?”
”I won’t leave you until you find your parole residence. But you’ll find yourself in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Exactly where you left.”
”Will the people there know who I am, after thirty years?”
”Oh, yes, definitely. It’s only been a little less than two years on Earth. Time moves slower here, you know.”
He didn’t know. And he knew lots of things.
”Will I still have all my memories?”
”Your memories, yes, mostly. Your ever-updating database of all knowledge and awareness? No. You’ll have the intellectual capacities of the brain inside this body— early 20’s male, IQ of 128. The human brain works differently than what you might be used to. You’ll remember most people you meet, important life events, things like that.”
“What’s the first thing I’ll forget?”
”Mmm, it depends. Usually older or mundane memories fade the fastest. Many humans find themselves forgetting numbers and dates.”
Bill’s eye darted around the room. His memory, and his ever-updating database of knowledge were the two godlike abilities that the Theraprism hadn’t suppressed. He had taken them for granted, and he was about to lose them.
The Axolotl took note of his discomfort in this. Out of pity, he reluctantly handed Bill a small notebook, the size of a human palm, and a pen. “I didn’t give you this. And, whatever you do, do not sneak into this room and put this notebook in the body’s hand.”
Looking up at the Axolotl with the closest thing to gratitude he could manage through his reflexive layers of assholery, he took the notebook. “And, um…” Bill gestured to his hat, which they both knew contained the last fragment of his home dimension.
“That too,” the Axolotl replied. “After you fall asleep tonight, you will wake up in the M3DUSA body. It will be disorienting. I will be there, but I will look human as well. You will not recognize me.”
“Where is my… parole residence?”
The Axolotl gave a smile. Bill couldn’t tell if it was genuine or derisive— it was significantly harder to read people when he couldn’t go inside their minds. “Somewhere familiar.” And, with that, Bill knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of the Axolotl. “Is that the last of your questions?”
”For now, I guess.”
”Good. I have only one for you, Bill.” The Axolotl covered the body with its cloth. “Where do you stand with the Heinz dilemma?”
The Heinz dilemma, first posed to him thirty years ago, upon his arrival.
“Oh, right,” Bill mumbled, “that one.”
”Shall I reiterate it for you?”
”No, that’s fine, I remember,” said Bill. “Heinz can’t steal the cure. It’s wrong to steal. And since the cure is worth a ton of money, he’d get charged with a greater degree of theft. In most countries on Earth, that’s prison time.”
The Axolotl smiled. His eyes lit up with the glory of success. “This is progress, Bill. This is excellent progress.”
Bill blinked in surprise. “Wait, really? I got it right?”
Still smiling, the Axolotl shook his head. “Not exactly. Your response indicates you’re in the preconventional stage of moral development. You’ve developed the moral compass of a human child, aged 3-7.”
”What??” Bill exclaimed. “A child? After thirty years of this shithole, I’ve developed my moral compass to that of a child??”
”Bill, this is so much better than you think it is.” The Axolotl lowered himself to Bill’s level. “Thirty years ago, you were shuffling the orifices of law enforcement. Now, you understand what they do and why they do it. You’ve gone from a terrible, terrible person—“
”Thanks, ax-hole,”
”— to a person. One who’s trying to be better. That’s more than a lot of human beings can say for themselves.”
It was strange how Bill found himself concurring. He was trying to be better. Nobody predicted this, not even Bill himself. The board of Olms even told the Axolotl that Bill was a hopeless cause. They offered to euthanize him, for the greater good.
Thankfully, the Axolotl did not take them up on that offer.
”And, plus, we’ve been working on a lot more than your moral compass these thirty years, haven’t we?” said the Axolotl. “Your delusions of grandeur, the death of your parents, destruction of Euclydia, Weirdmageddon, your relationship with Stanford—“
”Okay, doc, we don’t need a rundown,” Bill inturrupted, waving his hand dismissively.
The Axolotl let out a soft chuckle. “Perhaps you’re right. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow, Bill. You should get to bed.”
That night, Bill took the small notebook and his pen as he deliberated about what to write. Of all the things he’d experienced, he now had to choose a select few memories or facts to keep with him.
He opened up to the first page, and pressed his pen to the first line. In his ancient scrawl, he wrote the words—
STANFORD PINES.
The notes ran from cover to cover. Likes, dislikes, would-never-admit likes, deepest secrets and shames, personal values— everything there was to know about Stanford Pines was written in barely legible print in a tiny notebook that would later be nestled into the hand of a revitalized corpse.
And, on the very last page was the date
AUGUST 29, 2044
AGE 92
HEART ATTACK.