So, while I've only read two chapters of "Flat Dreams" and am bingeing "A Different Form A Different Time," I am absolutely head over heels for the collective works/artistry by @doodledrawsthings, @pengychan, and @videogamelover99. The human Bill Cipher au is all around fantastic.
So, while none of these 2 a.m. ramblings of mine should be taken seriously, my tired mind started conjuring up scenarios that I thought could be, but really aren't. I just really appreciate the dynamic between Bill and Nora, y'know? I had the urge to explore. Sorry if I get anything too wrong/unrealistic!!
Bill's gloved fingers plucked at the puffy elbow of his sweater, arms wrapped tightly around his rib cage and shoulders hunched, nearly to his ears. Nora was turned to stare, observing how his heels were propped against the gutter and his ankles were crossed, knees close enough to be tucked under his chin if he angled his neck just so. She could usually tell the games he played by his stance; nowadays his finicky posture screamed defense.
His expression, however, sent puzzlement tugging at her weary mind. Pursed lips and glazed over eyes, a ghostly frown dusting the edges of his mouth. She took in the edges of his face, the curve of his jawbone, the wariness touch to his brow, before her eyes drifted to dainty wrists and stretched proportions. To his skin was not the shocking presence of gold; the hair sitting on his head was mussed, like he hadn't bothered learning the use of a comb. He would appear more normalized to human standards minus the blinding yellow that constantly cling to his torso, or if not for the the shadows pressed under tired eyes.
Perhaps, she thought, that's just what he sought to avoid.
Nonetheless, Bill remained stooped on his perch, countenance molded not to a smugness which she usually would have acquainted with him, but something entirely more... whimsical? He seemed not frustrated, nor by any means was he collected. Eventually, she settled on melancholy.
Releasing a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, Nora leaned back on her palms, facing the starry night sky. Bill didn't twitch, save for a blink, but it was slow and deliberate and wasn't caused by her sudden shift in weight, so she chose to ignore it. She still didn't know how he got that hunk of glass in his eye socket. She assumed it was by his own intentions, an impulsive action to return his short life into some semblance of regularity again, an action that had consequences which he most likely lacked in anticipating.
Nora felt no sympathy for his suffering.
Bill shifted in almost discomfort and Nora, flustered, flickered her gaze back to the moon. Hadn't realized she'd been staring.
They sat side by side like that for several moments, nothing but midnight breeze ruffling at the leaves around them to making a sound.
Just when Nora was starting to feel a little peace settle in her temples did the demon beside her begin to speak.
"Are you... angry." pointedly spoke Bill, his inquiry surfacing flat, nothing like a question at all. Her gaze turned back toward him and his arms were still crossed, resting on top of his bent knees, body shifted away from her but his head turned completely in her direction. Were she more optimistic, she would call the look on his face contemplative. Instead, he more seemed distraught, looking like he wanted to stifle a little inner turmoil; looking like he would take any answer she gave him like a slap to the face.
Exhaling through her nose, she shifted the shoulders of her disguise a little, settling into a nonchalant state of being that draped across her starlit countenance. "I really can't say I know what you mean, Norm." Nora breathed in careless response, an amused tilt to her lips.
He recoiled with enough predictability to satisfy her. A frustrated snarl left his teeth, but her eyes didn't bother to drift toward him again. She merely waited for the inevitable, patient in elegant poise.
"OH," the demon started languidly, his spindly frame turning completely toward her, knees knocking, brows knitted over his eyes. "You KNOW what I MEAN." There was a betrayed shakiness to his uneven tone that made her triumph pause. He, much to her surprise, elaborated. "Do-- are you-- do you ever just, just get angry? ARE YOU ANGRY?"
At this point she really was at a loss to what he was getting at, made that evident on her face. She turned to him as he to her, soaked up the exasperation that radiated from him and in the ways that his hands amplified his words, one cradling the side of his head, the pad of his forefinger pressed under his eye. She realized with sudden perceptiveness that he was grasping at straws. Bill craves reaction.
Pressing her lips into a thin line, she replied a curt, soft "Yes." and breathed the truth, a tiny crack in her resolve, the centuries of abhorrence that she thought would never shake.
And for some odd reason, that seemed to calm him.
Hackles lowering, his expression morphs into hasty retreat, eyelids lowering back to their exhausted half-mast, his frame curling back in on itself. Bill's body turns toward the forest ahead of them, and he plops his chin on one of his arms. Silence swallowed them in unrelentingly thickness.
Nora studied him through the corner of her eye, watched as a half-hearted smirk (smile?) tugged at one side of his mouth. Suspicion pricked her like a thorn. "Then we've reached common ground." he chimed with inane smugness, as if he were trying to get on her nerves, yet realized the fruitlessness of his attempts before they even occurred.
Quickly, she befriended silence. Bill's chin dipped until his mouth was hidden by his arms and knees, staring sullen at the expanse before them. Lounging atop the little cabin with the worn Mystery Shack sign behind them, peering at the domestic sights of the little blue planet Bill was rooted to, was almost nice, in a way. It was so small compared to everything else, to everything on her mind; it almost made her forget the strangeness of her actions. Her upside-down way of consoling the very being that once caused the anguish which she sought to end. The pines and moon and stars and charming hospitality of Bill's terminal hell soothed her spinning mind, her guilty conscious.
Unexpectedly, Bill's voice fluttered up to her again, but this time it was hushed, husky with a sorrow that didn't quite belong (or that she wasn't used to), masked by forced blandness.
"Do you hate?" he mumbled, creases and folds of sad thoughtfulness around his eyes. Nora was stunned into quiet, shoulders tense. The silent "me" tacked on to the end of his sentence was supplied in her head, but the more the gears of comprehension spun within her, the more defiantly curious he sounded. Her brain whirred with the past.
After a long and tedious pause, Nora's simple tone provided answer. "No."
And that was that. Lapsing back into a hushed state, the atmosphere on her shoulders lifted considerably, the tenseness between them soothed. Remedied by a more gentle truth, perhaps.
However, perplexed by his lack of retort, she turned to shamelessly peer at Bill. His eyes were once again glazed over, and in that moment he very much resembled a kicked puppy. She could practically feel the understanding welling in her pores in that moment, though true sympathy still lovingly evaded her, and it was Nora's turn to have a proud smugness tainting her lips.
"Common ground." she hummed, shifting her weight into a more comfortable position, eyes flickering toward the graying sky. Bill snapped his head toward her, eyes lit aflame with breif energy. His jaw squared, his mouth contorting into a screwed up line that held back some sort of defensive snap; he couldn't bring himself to disagree. Instead, looking less like a feral animal, he narrowed his eyes at the smile lighting up her face and chewed on the inside of his cheek.
He turned back toward the expanse in begrudging surrender, and side by side they observed as the sun peeked upward from the horizon, sitting mutually amongst their commonplace.
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