Chapter Text
“So you just… throw the clothes in? And that’s it?” Bill stands with hands on his hips, his head cocked to the side. “What’s so hard about that?”
Mabel has to stand on her tiptoes to reach the box of laundry powder, which she then gestures with. “Well, you’ve gotta add soap! That’s how they get clean. But not too much.” She opens the top of the box to show him the plastic scoop inside. “The hard part is how many steps it all is, cause they’ve also gotta do a spin in the dryer, and then you’ve also gotta put them away.”
She puts the box down on the ground next to the machine. “I have to do my own laundry ‘cause my sweaters need special care! But the boys—” Mabel rolls her eyes, which Bill loves, because it means he’s not being included in ‘the boys’. “—well, Grunkle Stan takes good care of his Mr. Mystery suit, but Dipper and Grunkle Ford get so wrapped up in stuff that they forget about laundry a lot. And Grunkle Stan just doesn’t think it’s important.”
Bill is beginning to see where this is going. “So if I help out with the laundry, I’d be doing everyone a big favor!”
Mabel grins, wide and shiny, showing off the rainbow bands of her braces. “Plus, you can do your own laundry too. That’s really important.”
Bill rubs his chin. “I guess I gotta learn how to do a lot of things before the end of the summer. All right, Starshine, it’s laundry time!”
—
They start with Stan, low stakes and low reward. There’s already enough holes in his boxers and stains on his undershirts that he’s unlikely to even notice if they mess anything up. But he’s also unlikely to thank them for digging into his dirty laundry.
Bill steals the fez sitting on his nightstand and performs impressive mimicry for Mabel’s entertainment while they wait for the machines to run. (A mistake, it turns out, when Bill’s hand with the soap proves too heavy even with guidance.)
Stan’s clothes have to take an extra spin while they clean up all the bubbles. They’re still fairly wet even after that, but Bill tosses them in the dryer anyway. They need two tumbles to be dry enough to get Mabel’s approval, and even then they’re still a little damp.
(“Don’t worry, we’ll just lay them out! Grunkle Stan is probably old enough to remember air drying stuff.”)
Neither machine explodes during their use at least, which they count as a win! And when Stan goes up to his room that night and finds his laundry draped across every surface smelling of too much detergent and sparkling with glitter, he knows exactly who to blame for the good deed.
—
Dipper is their next target. They wait a couple of days until they know that he’s going out to meet with the Multibear to talk about the highly controversial new cover of a favorite BABBA album.
Mabel has to stop Bill from simply upending the hamper full of rank, teenage laundry directly into the washing machine. “There’s a couple things we can’t just wash, they’ve gotta have special care. Like my sweaters.” She still has Bill pick through the mess, as this is supposed to be his learning experience. “He’s gotta be wearing one of them, but there should still be a couple in here…”
Bill seems curious about why a few padded tank tops get such special treatment, and Mabel is happy to explain their function as they load everything else into the belly of the washing machine.
“You didn’t notice anything… different, when you were… y’know…?”
Bill huffs softly, and plucks at a few grains of laundry powder on the floor between them. They lean side by side against the wall, watching the fabrics and fluids spin behind the glass. “Not really. Human biology is all weird to me. How was I supposed to know if some extra chest fat meant anything special about Pine Tree?”
Mabel gives his arm a pat. “You should try convincing the kids in Piedmont of that.”
They discuss garment bags and delicate cycles, and Bill floats the idea of visiting them in Piedmont at some point while the Grunks are out to sea. Mabel loves the idea, although she’s uncertain how to explain Bill to their parents. That’s Fall Mabel’s problem, though.
When Dipper gets home, there’s an embarrassed gratitude expressed for his fresh laundry, and Bill claps him on the back so hard he almost hits the floor.
There’s still a little too much detergent, but they’re dry and feel mostly normal. Bill thinks he’s really starting to get the hang of this!
—
Ford does not deign to admit that he’s still being avoidant of the upper floor since Bill’s admission into the greater part of the Mystery Shack. Despite Stanley’s assurance that he’d ’never let that sharp-edged smartass get one over on his brother again’, it’s simply easier to regress to more comfortable coping methods. He prefers the basement to the rumble of nearby tourists anyway.
Even though his initial excuse for his isolation - needing time and space to formulate replacement antivenin after the Incident - has long since expired, he continues to find menial tasks and projects to occupy himself with. Anything to look busy when his family delivers him lunches and ask him how he’s doing, anything to excuse the family dinners that he cannot attend.
But, as time goes on, he knows that there are some things he cannot accomplish from his lab. And there are some needs that must eventually be met, no matter how he dreads doing so.
Laundry is one of those needs. Bad enough to recall the shamefully neglectful state he had once lived in on his own, but to have Stanley or the children witness such was too much for him to bear. For their sake, if nothing else, he knows he must behave as a functional adult and attend to hygienic needs.
And as long as he’s at it, a shower is in order as well.
(If he waits until one of his security cameras captures his family in the yard playing with water balloons, it’s nobody’s business but his own.)
Ford ascends from the basement and slips directly into the master bedroom. His coat is tossed over the bedpost for later cleaning, but as he begins to draw off his sweater, he notices the empty hamper slumped onto its side against the wall.
His brows furrow, and he releases the hem of his sweater to better investigate. He’d be better able to explain an absence of the hamper than this, should the children have wanted it for some sort of game or prank. And Bill was still incapable of entering this room—
There’s the muted sound of a buzzer from downstairs. Ford’s confusion only grows.
Stanley was barely the type to do his own laundry, so what could inspire him to handle Ford’s own?
Shower forgotten, Ford descends the stairs once more. He can hear Dipper and Mabel shouting from outside still. Stanley’s grizzled laugh is a familiar buzz, a constant comfort after so many decades with only its memory for company.
As soon as Ford enters the laundry room, he realizes his mistake. Gleaming yellow eyes meet mismatched brown and grey. Bill is sitting atop the washing machine, legs folded, with Dipper’s Rubik’s cube in one hand and one of Mabel’s teen magazines draped across his lap.
“Hiya Fordsie!”
While his human form does not crackle and buzz with the same chaotic, eldritch power that his geometric form used to, there’s still an unnatural energy to the demon that Ford can sense like the static of an old tv washing across his skin. It makes his mouth pull down into a stern line on principle.
“Bill. What is the meaning of this?”
The blonde leaps down from the machine and pops open the door of the washer before Ford can even think to move. “What’s it look like, IQ? I’m doing your laundry for ya. As a favor!” He draws out a pair of dark slacks, cold and damp and heavy, and holds them up like a child displaying their artwork.
Ford pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t excuse the oncoming headache as a lingering torture migraine this time. “I mean, how did you get past the barrier into my room to get my laundry?” The idea of Bill doing anyone a no-strings-attached favor tasted bitter and false already, but especially for himself? Ford knows there’s an ulterior motive hiding away beneath that beaming smile.
“Mabes got it for me! She’s been teaching me all about laundry!” Bill continues to grab clothing from the machine and toss it into the dryer. Sweaters, trousers, briefs— Ford ignores the way it makes his stomach squirm.
“Wait—”
Bill seems to notice the issue the same that time Ford does, as a pink sock tumbles from the wadded up clothes and slaps wetly to the floor. A similarly pink undershirt dangles from the armful of laundry.
They both stare at the offending articles for several long, long seconds. When Ford lifts his gaze, Bill is still staring down at the laundry, his odd pupils slightly blown out.
With inhuman speed, Bill begins ripping the rest of the laundry out of the washing machine, his movements frantic, all but wedging his body halfway inside the barrel to make it easier for his limbs to wrap around the damp clothing inside. The shirt he’s wearing is quickly dampened, clinging to his torso, yet he seems unaware as he dumps it all on the floor and begins sorting through it.
Limply, a long red knee sock plops onto the laminate flooring of the laundry room. Bill picks it up, and it incinerates in his hand. Ford doesn’t have time to flinch back before it’s done, a hand braced on the door frame. Bill’s head snaps up, fixing his bright eyes on Ford, and his grin stretches even wider than before.
“Thought your wardrobe could use an update, Fordsie! Good thing you’re confident enough to pull off pink!”
Ford watches as Bill begins to stuff the offending load of laundry into the dryer with hands that move too fast to tell if they’re shaking. He’s still babbling away, acting as though the whole thing had been done on purpose, all while that quiet staticky background buzzing slowly grows stronger and stronger.
Ford doesn’t know how to handle the situation. He doesn’t know how to navigate this odd, human-esque, somehow vulnerable version of Bill Cipher. His instincts cling stubbornly to the idea of it being a farce, some trap to earn their trust. Yet he cannot put that panicked gaze alongside the maniacal one he knew so well and see the same similarities as before.
So he leaves. He cannot comfort Bill anymore than he can find the voice to scold him, and so he leaves. Cowardice clings to his skin like oil, uncomfortable and unwanted, as he flees to the basement where he can bury himself in things more easily understood.
When neither Mabel nor Dipper come find him to try and explain the situation, he finds that uncomfortable itch spreading further and further within him. The afternoon drifts into evening, and Ford does not emerge from downstairs. Evening slips to midnight before he finally approaches the elevator once more.
There’s a plate of dinner wrapped up with his name on it in the fridge, and outside his bedroom door is a neatly folded pile of laundry, as well as newly purchased packages of socks, undershirts, and briefs, as well as a collection of button ups.
Ford’s stomach twists again, corkscrewing even tighter than before. But he carefully gathers everything up before he goes into his room.
And if he notices the yellow eyes in the dark, watching him all the while, neither he nor the eyes acknowledge it.