It was a cruel joke, really. One minute, he was on top of the universe, bending reality to his will, and the next, he was just another nobody in some backwater town, bound by the same rules he had once scoffed at. Eating, sleeping, feeling pain—things that had been so foreign to him, so beneath him, were now inescapable parts of his existence.

He took another sip of the coffee, wincing at the bitterness. He hadn’t yet figured out the appeal of this drink, but it was something to do, something to fill the endless hours he now had to endure. Being mortal was a slow, tedious affair, and Bill was not a creature built for patience.

“Refill?” Lazy Susan asked, breaking him out of his reverie. She stood behind the counter, coffee pot in hand, one eye closed per usual, her usual cheerful demeanor softened by the late hour.*

Bill looked up at her, his eyes—once windows into the endless void—now dull and tired. “Sure, why not,” he muttered, pushing the cup toward her. What did it matter if he drank another cup or a hundred? It wasn’t like it would change anything.

As the older lady poured, her eyes flicked toward the clock on the wall. “Getting late,” she commented. “You’ve been here for a while, young man.”

“Got nowhere else to be,” Bill replied flatly. It was true; he had zero ideas, no purpose, no grand schemes to set in motion. He was just another pathetic excuse of a man drifting through Gravity Falls, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now.

Just then, the door to the kitchen swung open, and she stepped out, her apron stained with some stuff and exhaustion etched into her features. Bill glanced at her, vaguely aware of her as one of the waitresses who worked the late shift. She looked young, too young to have that kind of weariness in her eyes.

“You should head home, sweetheart,” Susan said gently as the girl wiped down the counter. “You’ve been here all day. I can close up.”