Interlude

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(Pyronica POV)

It wasn't the first time we've fought. But it was a pretty serious fight. I could tell that no one wanted to take sides. So everyone stayed out of it.

I wasn't going to back down from my stance. My daughter was a full ass adult and it wasn't right for her to essentially force Bill to fix her mistakes. If she was going to purposely get herself killed as part of some stupid martyr complex or some shit, that was on her.

....that doesn't mean I didn't love my daughter. It didn't mean I wanted her to die.

But she was barely living anymore.

There was something broken inside her. And each time Bill brought her back, that got worse. Like she was degrading. I didn't know how to describe it. Like... There was something wrong with her. Something off. And it just kept getting worse each time she was brought back. I couldn't help but think this could be something 'magic' related. Fuck if I knew. I didn't understand this mumbo jumbo shit. Never did and probably never would. But Bill has stated on multiple occasions that the AXOLOTL was in charge of Souls and that Bill only knew how to manipulate them from pure practice.

Maybe that was it. Something to do with souls? I didn't know. All I understood was that every time it happened, Pynelope was less and less like the daughter I knew. And I couldn't stand it.

How long until she was unrecognizable?

That would have been worse, watching my daughter turn into something that looked and sounded so much like my baby and yet, felt so incredibly wrong.

So I made Bill stop resurrecting her. I allowed my baby to die.

Because the alternative was so much worse.

...but I don't think Bill would understand. He just... Couldn't. He just wanted to keep us. All of us. And now he was mad at me. Refused to talk to me.

I don't think he was ever going to forgive me for this.

And that, more than our fight, hurt in a way that nearly drowned out my grief over the loss of my daughter. He was never going to forgive me. Never. Never.

Bill left. And I couldn't even blame him for doing so. Pyrone called us, in secret, to tell us where Bill was. Update us on how he was doing. How he was handling it. I asked my son how he was holding up too. It was almost bearable. None of us were any happier about any of this.

But the years passed. The pain lessened. For me. For Pyrone. We came to terms with it, accepted it and moved on with our lives. But Bill hadn't. He still hasn't spoken to me. Not once. I started getting mad at him.

Why did that idiot have to wallow in self misery and avoid me like some petulant child?! He was so much older than all of us. It'd been YEARS. Was he really going to keep moping forever? It was so frustrating.

I went by Pyrone's home many times, hoping to confront my stupid best friend and smack him for being an absolute paperclip for clinging to his stupid misery and stubborn grief. At this point I almost wanted to accuse him of just purposely making himself depressed out of some dumb sense of guilt.

Knowing Bill, that might have actually been the case. Fuck.

But I could never find him. Damn fucker hid himself every time I came by.

(But I did notice a weird looking snail. That was definitely Bill in disguise. Did he think I was stupid? I could tell that was him! But any attempt to confront him just had the damn thing slip off at that super speed snails were so reviled for as it escaped. Damn him.)

Still, at least I knew he was alright. Everyone seemed alright with just... going on with their lives without Bill in it. Kryptos even mentioned this made it easier to plan his murder of Time Baby without Bill finding out. I had to admit, aside from things being a little more boring without him, it... wasn't like our lives revolved around him.

I spent my time as I usually did. Going out with new partners and satisfying myself. Never with another Cyclopian. I wasn't going to put myself through that again. Sex and partying was pretty much all I needed in life.

...I did get bored of that sometimes. Same old gets same old after all.

I didn't want to admit it, not even to myself, but if I was bored, I wasn't going to keep doing something that didn't make me feel good. So I had to find something else to do with my time. If Bill were here we'd go on some fun adventure on the newest planet he wanted to explore or something delightful like that. But Bill wasn't here. And I was still bored.

Going shopping wasn't as fun without someone to go with. Even if I set the place on fire and have to run from the cops. So I found myself doing something I never thought I would willingly do for fun.

I got a job.

Well, it wasn't like it was the first time I got a job, I've been a night club dancer multiple times. I've worked at plenty of establishments!

But... I never got an office job before.

....Flame I really was bored wasn't I?

Offices weren't fun places. Not one bit. But I figured I might as well go for it and see what happened. It was something new after all. Something different.

And I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to be doing.

"So... you have no experience with being a secretary." The woman before me stared at my resume. I could tell she wasn't impressed with the things I've listed on there (even though 'Demi-Goddess' was a perfectly valid aspect of my experience!) I shrugged, twirling a lock of hair between my fingers. "Eh~I can learn, can't I? Besides, how am I suppose to have experience with it until I have the job when I haven't tried it before?" It didn't make sense to me that they would ask me if I had experience doing the job, when it was my first job in this field. If they didn't hire me, then I'd never even get any experience with it! Made no freaking sense.

This was an entry level role too! The fuck were they expecting? Almost made me want to go back to dancing. At least then I got to bring home a snack from the club. (Though that DID mean we got less customers...Hm... That might have been why I was fired, now that I think about it...)

"Well, I suppose you're right. We will have you trained starting tomorrow." The interview was concluded, with me getting a Chip with the registration for the office I would be working at. "Sure." I chirped, flicking my hair back and grinning. "Can't wait to learn how a Replicator works." I joked. My interviewer didn't share my jovial attitude. "...quite. Be here by 8 dawn-standard galactic time." She told me slowly and clearly. I nodded. "Kay~" She dismissed me out the room, literally. My chair slid away on its rail and I was deposited back in the waiting room.

I got the job. But I wasn't any happier about it.

I didn't like the way she was looking at me. Like she thought I wasn't able to understand her. Like I wasn't smart enough to.

I know I'm not all that intelligent. I don't know shit about stuff. Everything of what Kryptos and Bill nerd-talk about just goes over my head. I know I'm not smart.

But I'm not stupid.

Flames, even the people at the nightclubs I worked at never treated me like I was stupid. And I was expected to dance provocatively on a stage while people flung credit chips at me! But here, at an "actual" job...

I was starting to think this was a bad idea, no matter HOW bored I was.

But momma didn't raise no quitter! Fuck no. The only way I'm leaving would be being fired and setting fires!

(I cringed at the pun. Ok, I'm actually glad Bill's not here. He'd never let me live that down.)

---

Office work was...

Miserable.

I... actually kinda liked it?

Also I got fired.

Apparently, eating the woman who was sexually harassing the other workers was a bad thing?

Fuck if I cared though. The stress of having to keep multiple things in mind and juggle all my tasks at once during the time I DID work was... awful and I loved it.

As I packed up my things to leave (nice of them not to simply have me arrested for eating my co-worker), I thought very hard about why that was. Why did struggling and having to do work feel so good despite being no fun at all?

...if I had to put it in words, it was because life was too easy.

No, really.

Being Bill's best friend and right-hand meant that I could have whatever I wanted, do whatever I wanted. Life was too easy. It was fun, sure. But without my best friend here to spice things up, just going around and getting whatever I wanted was... boring.

Working was stressful, but it made me feel alive for the first time in years.

Ah.

I wonder if this was why Bill didn't simply use his powers to solve all his problems. Why he restricted his own abilities. I knew he held back the majority of his power. After all, if Bill really wanted to, he could easily take over the Multiverse, take down Time Baby, usurp the Federation and take control of everything--

And Bill would hate that.

He hated any sort of responsibility.

Even when he still put it on himself. He would deny it, but he would still do it. All the things he didn't want to feel responsible for. He just kept putting everything on his own planes and taking on that responsibility. I wonder if blaming himself for everything wrong with the world was some messed up masochistic way he gave his life struggle to keep from being bored and empty inside?

....fuck if I know.

But Bill was definitely enough of an idiot to allow himself to suffer for such a reason.

Not for the first time, I worried about how he was doing. I wished he would just talk to me again. It was so stupid how he refused to see me. Was he really still angry? That utter idiot! There had to be some way to get him to get off his stupid-ship and come back down to the rest of us.

---

"We shouldn't be here." Teeth chattered as I rummaged around. "Bill's gonna kill us..."

"Pffth~" I waved off his concerns. "I'll put everything back where I found them. He wouldn't even know." And if he DID get mad enough to come back here? Well, then he'd be here. And I'd be able to call him an idiot to his face for avoiding me all these years.

Teeth set his jaw and hips, I recognized it as his 'Are you an idiot?!' expression. "Bill can tell if you move a plate a millimeter out of place."

"Then I'll just move it LESS than a millimeter." I didn't see the problem here. Besides, if Bill really didn't want anyone looking through his room he would have locked the door. All our doors had locks. Bill built them that way. So if he didn't lock his door then clearly he didn't care if we came in.

Then again...

I looked around.

Bill didn't really use this place much, did he?

It was odd. I was pretty sure he spent time in his room. He'd tell us that he was going to his room. But this place felt so... cold? There were a few personal effects here and there, the huge triangular bed in the middle of the room being the most obvious sign of who's room this was. But that's the thing. It simply told us who's room this was. But... the walls were unadorned. The shelves were filled with books in languages I couldn't read. There was a desk with a lamp. And that was it.

It made no fucking sense.

Bill was a hoarder. His room should be packed with all the stuff he found over the years.

Like the seashells he collected from our Beach trips.

Or the bones of large animals he's eaten. (He liked collecting them.)

Like fuck, the drawers and closet had some clothes but what about his 'interesting rock' collection? His stuffed animals? His experiments with creating new plant life?

Those were all missing. I didn't see them. And that was incredibly suspicious. There was no way Bill would have thrown his stuff away, not when he liked having them all.

So even though Teeth was getting bored, I continued to comb the room. This was a mystery now, and I intended to solve it. Where would all of Bill's stuff be? I felt along the walls and checked under the bed. I moved the bookshelf aside to see if there was anything behind it.

Hmmm if I were some secret hidden room of secrets... Where would I be?

As I glanced around, I notice this place had an unusually high ceiling. I mean, tip of the pyramid, I guess its supposed to be high up, but it felt odd to me. I looked around for something to use in getting up higher. There were no ladders. Of course not. Bill could fly. I was the 2nd tallest of anyone here (with Xanthar being the largest) but even I couldn't even reach up to a third of the height of this room. I climbed on top of the shelf and felt around now that I was higher up. I dont know what I was expecting, but my hand actually brushed against something.

I felt around blindly. There was a floor here? A shelf? Some kind of invisible ledge? I griped it and pulled myself up, shivering at the tingly feeling washing across my body. And then I stared.

Jackpot.

A hidden invisible room. Well, not so invisible anymore.

This place I ended up in looked like a hallway. A much longer hallway than the actual dimensions of Bill's room below. Who am I kidding, there's probably room for a whole ass house in here. I saw doors lining the hallway and more doors up above them. Like Bill added new rooms but sticking them above a previous door to save space. Uh... I wasn't gonna be able to reach those. But I can check out these ground floor doors while I was here.

The nearest one to me was labeled [Game Room] and I opened it to see that it really was a game room. Shelves of various video games were here. There was a computer in the corner with a camera set up and microphone. There was a screen against the wall with several game systems plugged in. There was even another shelf filled with board games. I guess this must be where Bill kept his notes for Maid RPG or Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons.

Ooh~ does that mean I can spy on his plans for the next session? Wow. Its been far too long since we've all played together. Shit. Now I missed Bill again.

I shook myself out of that melancholy, I'll leave his notes alone for now. He'd probably find out and change it up on us anyway. Probably by adding a tentacle monster in the next dungeon. He always adds a tentacle monster. I'm convinced that's like, his kink or something. Especially since our games sometimes get rather... suggestive. Bill's weird like that. Sometimes the lewd stuff just goes right past him without notice, and sometimes he's the one making the dirtiest jokes.

I left the game room, not finding anything really interesting in there.

Wasn't sure what I was really looking for to be honest, just bored and wanting to see if I could somehow catch Bill's attention and get him to come the fuck home for once! It's been what? 80 years? Uuuuuugh!

Besides.

There was so much we didn't know about him. It didn't really matter after all. Bill's past wasn't important compared to who he was NOW. That was all we needed, knowing him now and having him here. But sometimes I couldn't help but wonder. Especially when he disappeared like this. I mean, we all knew where he was. It was just annoying.

So, fuck it. I was gonna snoop around.

Doubt I'd find anything about his past, but maybe I'd be able to get something.

There was a room labeled [Clothes] which was, as one might guess, filled with clothing. Racks and racks of it. I knew Bill loved to dress up but there were more than just things for his triangle form here. There was one of Space Idol Jan-Jan's outfits! I recognize it from one of his concerts.

....speaking of Jan-Jan...

It SO wasn't fair that Bill's actually Jan-Jan! Nooooo~! It was so weird to find my best friend sexy! Poor universe. Everyone being seduced unintentionally by Bill Cipher. It was Bill's fault for making Jan-Jan so hot! Fuck, even Bill found him/himself attractive! Did he think I didn't notice his Jan-Jan body pillow? Or the posters that he bought from online?

It was really weird that Bill found himself attractive. And it wasn't even some narcissistic thing... 'least I didn't think so.

That thought led me down some really weird ideas (sexy ideas~) involving BillxHimself in all sorts of juicy ways that made me giggle. I slapped myself. No! Bad Pyronica! Very bad!

.....oh but it would be kinda hot...

Nooooooooo~! I tried to distract myself by looking through the other clothing but I found Bill's lingerie collection and--

I got of out that room pretty quick.

I found a room that said [Experiments] and went straight for it. Finally! Hopefully it would be able to take my mind off Space Idol Jan-Jan and Bill--

Oh. This room was interesting.

I saw a large garden area where Bill was probably breeding for new species. There was a strong smell of spices and herbs so I figured he was trying to grow more flavoring to put into his cooking. It was cute how much effort he put into food preparation. Personally, I was fine with eating things raw. I'm lazy. I squinted at what appeared to be a miniature sun suspended above the garden. It was tiny, no more than a speck, but it was nearly blinding if it weren't for the bubble around it, containing some of it's radiation and searing glow.

Going past the garden, I found bubbles filled with swirling masses of things I couldn't identify. And a few with things I could.

"What the fuck?" I stared, flabbergasted at what looked like ME inside a bubble.

Actually... there were copies of everyone else too.

This was... really creepy.

I checked the Screen next to the bubbles and found Bill's notes on... allergies?

Huh.

Well, this was quite disturbing, but I continued on past the bubbles to see what else was here. It was every scientist's wet dream in here. I bet Kryptos would have loved to stick his angles into everything. There were half built machines, glowing things, hissing things, wiggling things--

Just how many things were Bill messing around with?

There was even a table with multiple plumbus and notes on how to improve them. How one would even go about improving on the plumbus's perfect design, I didn't know. But Bill apparently wanted to.

I almost missed it, distracted as I was with looking at everything else.

A bowl filled with a misty yellow and blue substance that didn't seem to be either liquid or smoke while exhibiting the traits of both. The edges seeped up the sides of the bowl and almost looked like they would spill over the edge and disperse... but then it would flow back down and in. This swirly substance was... captivating.

I found myself standing before the bowl before I even realized I'd moved.

The notes beside it read [Pensieve]

I couldn't help myself. It was so pretty.

I reached out a hand...

...

And

I

Fell

---

There was Bill. He was with a small blue triangle. I didn't know who that was-

His little brother. Of course! Silly me. It was his my little brother.

Sweet little Will wanted another story. He craved my stories like I craved music.

But luckily for him, at least his desires were something that could be fulfilled.

It was cute how eager he always was. So impatient to hear more.

Silly Will.

There was no rush. I wasn't going anywhere.

We'll always be together.

Always.

Always.

Al̵wa̵ys̸.͢

A̻̬͚̰͇ͅl̲̞w͇̤a͢y҉̥̜̼͍̘̼͍s̬̣

A̶̡̱̭̮̖̤͈͙ͪ̏̌̋͌̋̈ͬ͆͜l̙̦̹ͣͪ̑ͤͥͣw̗̥̦̖̹̑͐̀̄ͭ͑͟͞a̧̞̭̹̖̲͒̑ͭ̃ͬ͗ͧ̃y̵͓̾ͩ̔͆s̅҉̞̺͚

A̶̪̫̙͎̭̖̜͓̯͎̮͕͠l̵̸̢͉̰͍͓͔͙͈̗̥̟͠w̶̶̧̤̻̪̱̭̻̩̱̟̠͝a̷̸̡͓̬͙̱̦̬̟̫͎ỵ̷̩̬͇̪͍̪̫͕̪̲̗̫ͅs̶̛͖͖̜͍͔̯͙̲̥̱̞̮

A̸͔̦̗̮͓͚̣̲̹͓͎ͨͬ̀͐́̌̄̂͊̍ͫ̍ͪ̓̈͒ļͬ̊̚͜͏̫̫͍̦͚̙̤̪͈̼ ̿̂͂͊̓ͩ̓̐̒̌̐̂ͯ̊̑͏̶̢̰̤͍̘̭̹̼̙͓̱͔͢w̡ͪ͋͆͑̂̃͒̆́̚͏̶̨̡̮̪͙͙͔̲̫̞̼͈̙͚̯̫a̷̱̺̳̬͕̠̜̻̤̹̹̘͎̜̲̮͈̬̾̿͂̔ͫ͝͞ ̛͕̙̮̼̺̫͍̖̑̾̊ͤ̆͐̈́ͬ̑ͪ̔̾͋̿̓̇ͬ͠y̛̛͚̦̥̙̗̖͇̯͓̫͇̗̳̽́̆̽̑̐ͤͫ̍͆̓ͅͅs͋ͥ͗̂̚҉̨̛͏̥̖̙̙͍̯̺̘̟̫͙̟̥̠̠̰͉͕.̷̢̛͔̻̤͕̘͉̹̩̓̔̾̔ͨ̓͌̓̈͂͆͋̆͑̓̄̂ͅ

I reared back, screaming.

A waving arm knocked over a table but I didn't care.

I clutched at my face, sobbing and shrieking and screaming.

As much as I scrubbed at my eye, I couldn't get the image out of my mind.

And then, I did.

I lowered my arms, shaking as I suddenly couldn't remember.

Well, I remembered that it happened and I saw it-- but I couldn't... remember... it?

No. I did. I saw it. It happened. I remember it.

But I didn't?

I shook at the painful contradiction. I couldn't understand. It... happened. I remembered it. And... it hurt.

I slapped myself. Focus. Shit. What the fuck was that.

I stared down at my hands. Slender and clawed with white fire dancing along my skin, seeping from my pores.

I. Am... Pyronica.

Yes. I knew this.

The pounding in my head lessened once I realized remembered got this down.

I turned to glance at the bowl, so innocent looking (if you ignored the weird mist thing). What the fuck was that?!

It...

Was that...

Bill's memories?

That...

The details were still there, I remembered them. But... it was... lessened in intensity somewhat? I dunno. The longer I thought about it, the more the things I saw, and felt and knew, slipped away from me. Until I was blinking at the bowl. Huh. What was...

I knew I saw something very... upsetting. But... for the life of me, I just couldn't remember.

I was unsettled though. I felt so uncomfortable in here. I had to leave.

As I made my way out (Teeth was right, this was a bad idea) I couldn't help but see that thing when I closed my eye. Some... after image floating around in my mind. The last lingering traces of something I realized-- something I noticed-- far too late--

The image of little black fingers twitching weakly.

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