Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“One (hic) Sixer, please!”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but that makes no sense.”

“YOUR FACE MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!”

“Ugh, did I really say that?”

“Yup. And…” A moment of hesitation.

“Just tell me, Pyronica, I can handle it.”

“Well, you cried. A lot. And when you saw the server was calling the police, you grabbed the phone from her hand and said some… stuff.”

Bill Cipher, one of the most powerful entities of the whole multiverse (according to himself, that is), was scared of asking his Henchmaniacs—his closest allies! —just what he had said on that fateful night.

He knew he shouldn’t have drank that much “I’m Fine Juice”. He remembered getting weird looks from his little gang of freaks, as he downed drink after drink. But he had a reason to! After all he’d done for him, Stanford Pines had chosen to abandon him! Just swept all of their history aside like it was nothing. HOW DARE HE!

I mean, yes, Bill had manipulated him and used him and lied to him, but that’s just what partners do! It’s not like Ford wasn’t using Bill as well. Their relationship was based on mutually using each other. He thought Ford understood that. Apparently not! Stupid little human! Disgusting sack of meat and blood! Why did Bill think it was a good idea to trust a human being?

Now was not the time to mull over his feelings for Ford, though (even thinking the word “feelings” gave Bill nausea). It was time to find out exactly how much he had embarrassed himself the night before.

“What, um, what kind of stuff did I say?”

Pyronica and 8 Ball exchanged a look. The rest of the Henchmaniacs were with them in the room, but they were milling around and pretending not to pay attention to what Pyronica and 8 Ball were telling Bill. Earlier that day, the Henchmaniacs had conferred amongst themselves and chosen two representatives to break the news to their boss. The chosen two were beginning to regret everything.

“Just spit it out!” Honestly, the things he said couldn’t have been that bad. He’d probably just declared his love for good ol’ Sixer in a very embarrassing way, in front of a bunch of people. That was something he could live with.

“You… said, ‘Mum, this is Billy’. And told her you’d be coming back from school soon, so she was supposed to cut the crusts off your sandwiches. And then you started asking where she went? We… aren’t really sure what you meant by that.”

Bill tried his best not to emote. He simply nodded and said, “And then what?”

8 Ball blinked slowly.

“Well, boss, um… you got arrested. We busted you out. And here we are.”

“I meant, did I say anything else?”

“No… not really.”

Bill hummed and turned his back on them. He walked with his hands behind his back to a corner of their Nightmare Realm hideout (he didn’t even remember how he had got here the night before), as if he were deep in thought. The moment his “friends” were out of his sight, he widened his eye and quietly took a deep breath. He couldn’t let them see him like this, he couldn’t panic in front of them. He needed to get out of here. He turned back towards his henchcreatures, trying for a casual move but missing the mark by a mile and only managing to look robotic.

“Good! Very good!” Bill’s chipper tone was clearly forced, but none of the Henchmaniacs commented on it. “I have to do some thinking to decide my next course of action, and I do that better without you freaks distracting me. So I’ll be leaving now. Bye!”

Bill couldn’t see the looks they were shooting at him and at each other, but he could feel them. He knew they were judging him harshly, despite the fact they were all outcasts together. They loved to hear the tales of how easily manipulated Sixer was, of how he worshipped the ground Bill floated above, but they simply couldn’t understand that Bill and Ford’s relationship was a little more than just a muse/ scientist one. Ford was as much of an outcast as all of them, but his humanness prevented the Henchmaniacs from seeing it.

What worried him most, though, was that he’d spoken of his parents. He hadn’t thought about them in years. He certainly had never mentioned them to his friends.

He wandered the Nightmare Realm, floating aimlessly as he let his thoughts run wild. He knew none of his gang would come looking for him, but that didn’t stop a paranoid feeling from creeping up on him. It made him keep checking behind him to see if anyone was following. After a couple of minutes that seemed like hours, Bill was confident enough that the twists and turns he had taken would have dissuaded anyone from tailing him. And then… he gave himself permission to think about things he had tried his best to push to the darkest recesses of his mind.

He thought about Euclydia, his lost home, his destroyed dimension. A flat land full of (literally) two-dimensional people with two-dimensional thoughts. A bunch of non-believers who thought him stupid for speaking of stars, who bullied his family because he dared say there was such a direction as “up”. He thought of his parents, Scalene and Euclid Cipher. He remembers them trying to protect him when he was really young, remembers his mum gently telling him to stop talking about this weird “up” direction. And even though Bill kind of understands why they did, he can’t stop but think about how fucked up it was that his parents tried to blind their only son, solely to get him to shut up about the stars. He hated them for it, a hate so strong and deep he felt it burning in his gut. But he didn’t hate them as much as he expected because he still thinks fondly of them (how his mum would cut the crusts off his sandwiches, how they insisted on calling him Billy, how they never teased him about wearing Velcro shoes until he was a teen), still keeps that one atom of his dimension hidden inside his hat.

He realises he misses them, kind of. Not just his parents but Euclydia as a whole. They didn’t understand him, but they were his family, his people. He always used to go on and on to his Henchmaniacs about how he was beloved by all and how he liberated everyone, but it was all a lie. Deep down, Bill knew that if you repeat a lie over and over again, you end up believing it yourself. And that was exactly what he did. He didn’t remember what happened, but he remembered being hated and feared for being different. He remembered the blood and the screams. No one ever understood him, and when he tried to make them, he caused their destruction.

He slowly descended until his feet touched the ground. He had caused their destruction… He had massacred his people and been the only one left to tell the story, and the story he told painted himself as a hero, a liberator. But he was none of those things. He was a monster.

He was the monster he had warned Ford about.

Oh, Ford… A freak himself, by human standards. But not to Bill. He fit in with Bill. They just made sense together. Two brilliant loners, rejected by their peers for being different. And by his angles, did Bill miss him. He missed Ford so bad it manifested itself as a deep ache behind his eye. He didn’t think that was normal, and he hadn’t dared tell any of his Henchmaniacs about it. They would judge him for it, even though they were all outcasts and freaks. Big bad Bill Cipher, feeling physical pain because of a simple human being. He usually found pain hilarious but this? This wasn’t funny, this made him want to lay on the floor in an uncomfortable position while his tears gathered in a pool under him. So, Bill sat down on the floor and hugged his legs. He wasn’t going to lay down or cry, not here in the middle of the Nightmare Realm where anyone could see, but he wanted to. No one would think it weird that he was just sitting down in a random place, but crying would bring attention over to him and, for the first time in a long, long time of his long, long life, Bill did not want to be the centre of attention.

His thoughts travelled to Earth, to the portal. He couldn’t let a couple of pesky feelings stop him. He had to complete his work with the portal. He had tried getting an operational device multiple times now, had manipulated and tricked countless people. This was the first time he had got so close to seeing his goal met. But there had been an obstacle in his way. That hill billy Sixer was friends with, the man had ruined everything. But Bill was certain he could still salvage it, it was what he had been working towards for almost a trillion years, he couldn’t give up now because of a minor setback with a couple of dispensable humans.

The hill billy could die for all he cared, but Ford wasn’t dispensable, was he? Bill actually cared about that stupid human, didn’t he? He missed being admired by Ford, missed being worshipped. He liked being worshipped as a god, as a muse. But deep down, he didn’t want Ford to admire and worship him as a superior, he wanted the human to see him as an equal. He wanted to admire and worship, and be admired and worshipped back in equal measure.

Could he simply put aside a trillion years of hard work, his literal life’s commitment, and his whole gang over a human he had met just a year before? No, of course not. That would be stupid, and if there was one thing Bill Cipher wasn't, it was stupid. His life’s work was more important than a single sack of meat with the lifespan of a fly. Besides, he had promised to find the Henchmaniacs a new home, and he was a triangle of his word. He might cheat and trick and lie, but when he made a deal, he was sure to keep it. He had no way out of this deal, anyway, the Nightmare Realm would eventually collapse in on itself and he (and his friends) would have to get out or be destroyed along with it.

If Bill was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t really care for his Henchmaniacs. They had fun adventures together and it was always good to be seen as a leader, but if he got out of this doomed dimension and they didn’t, he wouldn’t miss them. He would maybe miss the companionship, the fact that they could be their weird selves without fear of judgement, but not the creatures themselves. And even though he called him his friends and enjoyed the freedom their camaraderie gave him, he couldn’t help but feel like a bit of an outcast. Bill knew it was ironic, feeling like an outcast amongst a group of outcasts. But the Henchmaniacs considered each other a sort of family and saw this decaying and entropic place as a home. He didn’t. Bill hadn’t had a family, found or otherwise, ever since his parents, and he hadn’t felt at home ever since Euclydia.

Here he was, trying to fool himself once again. If you repeat a lie over and over, you end up believing it yourself. But he didn’t want to believe this lie he was telling himself, the lie that he hadn’t felt at home in roughly a trillion years. Bill knew exactly when he had last felt at home. He didn’t want to admit it to himself because it would cause many complications in his master plan. Could he deny it any longer, though? Could he keep on repressing that and pretending to his Henchmaniacs that their coexistence was enough for him?

Bill took a deep breath. He wasn’t exactly… used to telling the truth, even to himself. However, he didn’t think he could keep up this farce any longer. It was eating away at him, scrambling his thoughts, preventing him from thinking clearly. Normally, he would be plotting his next course of action, how to get around the small mishap the humans had caused. But a single human occupied his current thoughts. A messy human with two fingers too many, and a brain so brilliant it sometimes hurt to look at (and Bill would know, he had been inside that brain multiple times).

He took another deep breath. You can do this. Another deep breath, and another, and another, and they didn’t stop, the breaths just kept on coming, Bill couldn’t stop them, and even though he was breathing and breathing, he couldn’t get enough air, does he even need air? he’s an interdimensional being, he doesn’t need air, but then why did he feel like his chest was constricting, and was his vision starting to black out at the edges? this was new and he didn’t like it, this wasn’t the type of pain he found hilarious, this made him feel desperate, he wanted it to stop, he couldn’t take it anymore, he just…

Bill opened his eye and blinked slowly. Had he… blacked out? Yes… he had. He knew he had because he felt weak and disoriented, and the only other time he remembered feeling like this had been when… when Euclydia was massacred. All this because he was trying to admit something to himself.

He was trying to admit

He was trying to admit that Ford

He was trying his DAMNED HARDEST to admit that Stanford Pines

Felt like home.

Bill exhaled harshly.

Ford felt like home.

It was easier to say the second time around. And Bill knew, with the utmost certainty, that this wasn’t a lie he was telling himself to feel better, or something he was trying to make himself believe. This was the pure, unadulterated truth. It was intoxicating. He wanted to chase that feeling to the ends of the multiverse. He preferred this to the mute bliss provided by the “I’m Fine Juice”. He hadn’t told a truth this pure in so long, he had forgotten how it felt.

He had been chasing a home for so long, he'd failed to recognise that a home didn’t have to be a place. It could be a person. Someone who understood you completely and accepted you for who you were, flaws and all. And it didn’t have to be romantic because Bill’s home had once been his parents. But this time… this time he knew it wasn’t platonic. He was willing to do anything for Ford, to give all of himself to the human, all that he had been before, all that he was now, and all that he would be in the future. Bill wanted to tie their hearts together, chamber by chamber, so they could beat as one.

What did he care about some stupid portal, some stupid decaying dimension? Ford was all that mattered, he always had been. Bill had just been too blinded by his own ego to see it.

And he had ruined everything. Bill had traumatised the hill billy, he had used, manipulated and lied to Ford. How could he ever convince Ford that he regretted it all? He had threatened to send someone to steal the human’s eyes, for fuck’s sake!

Regardless, Bill was nothing if not persistent. He knew he could do it. It would take time and patience, but he was willing to wait and to try. He was an almost one trillion-year-old being who had been searching for a way out of an entropic dimension for almost as long as he had been alive. Time and patience were things he had plenty of. It would upset Ford if Bill just traipsed back into his head, but the demon could tolerate anger if the end result met his expectations.

And if it didn’t… well. He could still take over Ford’s body, finish the portal, make Ford’s dimension into a playground for his friends, and keep the human as a pet. If he couldn’t be with Ford, he could at least own him. Yes, that was a solid plan. He would just have to execute it without alerting his Henchmaniacs.

Stanford Pines was pacing back and forth inside his home, hands behind his back. He had been pacing for so long, his shoes had started to leave skid marks on the floor. Bill’s last threat kept replaying in his head, but it had been over 72 hours and he had seen no sign of Bill or his eye stealing friend.

No sign of Stanley either. Ford was scared his brother would show up. Every time he looked in the mirror, he wondered if the face looking back at him from his reflection would be the same one he would see when he laid his eyes on Stanley for the first time in ten years, or if he and his brother had changed so much during that time that the face looking back at him wouldn’t be the same as the one in the mirror but a complete stranger’s. But Ford also worried he wouldn’t come. That their fight and Stan’s subsequent disinheritance had damaged their relationship to the point that his twin had thrown his letter in the rubbish without even reading it. But worst of all, he worried his brother had been on his way but had got intercepted by Bill somehow. They may not have been on speaking terms, but Ford would never forgive himself if Bill got his hands on Stanley.

The waiting was slowly making him go insane. He hadn’t slept in days out of fear of Bill entering his mind. Ford was so tired, he was afraid he would just keel over. The bags under his eyes had reached such a dark shade of purple they were almost black, and his hands were shaking slightly due to the gigantic amounts of coffee he had been consuming the last few days. The amount of caffeine needed to keep him awake increased every day, as Ford’s body got more and more tired, and as his organism slowly built a tolerance to the substance.

Things were easier when he’d just let Bill take over his body so he could rest his mind. His brain would be asleep, but his body would be working, a puppet in his muse’s hands. He hadn’t minded being a puppet then because he hadn’t felt like one. Even though their hierarchy was very clear (he was but a lowly scientist, lucky enough to have caught Bill’s attention, lucky enough to have his muse illuminate him with his infinite knowledge), Ford felt like he was seen as a partner, not as a means to an end. How wrong he had been. At the time, however, Ford had loved it. He loved being under Bill’s watchful eye, feeling his muse guide his every step, his every move. Unlike Ford’s parents, Bill didn’t expect him to do something that would make them money, they had a common goal (or so it seemed), and that was science.

Bill also praised him. Praised and encouraged and never got mad. His muse always had some sweet word to say to him to keep him going. Ford never realised how much he needed that. Filbrick Pines, a man that wasn’t easily impressed, didn’t have the habit of telling his children they were doing good, that he was proud of them. The man barely, if ever, emoted. All of Ford’s achievements as a child were never met with pride or a word of encouragement. If he were lucky, he’d get a nod of acknowledgment. The one time his father had seemed the least bit interested and impressed by him, had been when the principal of their high school hinted at a rich future for Ford. He should have known then that he would never be enough for his father unless he became a millionaire.

And if that little bit of encouragement had blinded him to his father’s greed and got his brother kicked out, Bill’s steady praise had kept him on a constant high, making it impossible for him to see his mu—he had to stop calling Bill his muse—the demon’s real intentions until it was too late. However, a question plagued his mind. If he had been privy to Bill’s intentions from the beginning, would he have declined their partnership? Or would he have helped the demon anyway, for the sake of science? Ford liked to believe he’d never doom his dimension like that, but a little dollop of uncertainty rested atop his brain.

But none of that mattered anymore. Ford couldn’t help thinking about how effortlessly he had fallen for Bill’s charms and manipulations. And, although he was loath to admit it now, he had fallen for something more. Bill had been so easy to love, at the time. He couldn’t care less that his former muse was a triangle being from another dimension, his form didn’t matter to Ford (and even though he knew Bill was capable of shifting into a human form, he never cared about it either). What mattered was that he and Bill were on the same wavelength, their brains all but connected through science and maths. That’s what had drawn Ford in. Their connection was stronger than a simple physical human one. It was the marriage of two brilliant minds, the merging of their consciousnesses. Ford had never felt like that before, but he had unknowingly spent his whole life chasing that feeling. To find someone who shared his thoughts and beliefs in the same intensity had been exhilarating. And it had been so easy to love someone like that. Ford had tried to stop it, knew that Bill was his muse, and the power imbalance was obvious, but he lost that battle (he didn’t fight very hard). How could he not fall for Bill? How could he not fall for the being that understood and accepted him, no questions asked?

It was one of the reasons why Bill’s betrayal hurt Ford so deeply. Not only had he been lied to, but he had been made a fool by the one being who he thought understood him completely. The one being who didn’t see “freak” as a negative thing, who encouraged Ford to embrace his weirdness and not be ashamed of it. The complete and absolute trust he had placed in the demon, slowly cultivated over the course of a whole year, shattered in a couple of minutes. Something he thought was made of iron was simply porcelain in disguise. And Bill had grabbed that trust like it were nothing, like it weren’t a fragile thing, and thrown it on the ground forcefully, cackled as he watched it break into a million tiny pieces.

Bill had been Ford’s muse, his god, his… his beloved. He still harboured feelings for the demon, but had been trying his best to repress them and substitute them for utter hatred. He was succeeding, although not at the pace he would’ve liked. If he were being frank, he missed Bill. He had got used to seeing and communicating with the triangle demon every single day, and it was weird to have him be absent for days on end.

A knock on the door startled him badly, interrupting his train of thought. Who could it be? None of the city’s inhabitants ever came this far out. It could be Bill, wearing someone like a puppet. It could be Bill’s eye-stealing friend (although Ford didn’t think that a creature that stole people’s eyes would be so polite as to knock on his door first). It could be… it could be Stanley. That thought filled his heart with fear, perhaps even more than the idea of having his eyes stolen. He was absolutely not ready to see his brother again.

The knock came again and he was startled once more. Ford moved slowly towards the door, grabbing his crossbow on the way. He hesitatingly gripped the doorknob and yanked it open as fast as he was capable of, while also pointing his crossbow at whoever was outside.

“Who are you? Have you come to steal my eyes?”

Ford didn’t know what he had expected upon encountering his twin brother ten years after their fateful fight, but fighting again wasn’t it. He had known it was a possibility, of course, but he didn’t want it to happen. All he wanted was for Stanley to get his journal, sail away with it and hide it! Why couldn’t his brother understand that? It was so simple! But Stan had no way of knowing the danger he was in, that their dimension was in. And how could he, honestly? Ford knew that trying to explain everything about Gravity Falls, his research, and his muse to anyone would only get him a one way pass to a psychiatric hospital. So here he was, wrestling his brother in the exact same way they did as kids, except this time they weren’t pulling their punches, it wasn’t playful.

And suddenly he was being pulled towards the portal, discovering exactly how Fiddleford felt when the other man had had the same experience. It was like being at the top of a rollercoaster and feeling that pull in your gut as you began to free-fall. He threw the journal towards his brother as a desperate last act, and closed his eyes, bracing himself for whatever lay beyond the portal, whatever his former lab partner had seen.

“Woah there, Sixer!” A strangely familiar voice yelled in surprise.

Ford felt something or someone grab him and roughly pull him outside the portal’s gravitational pull. He fell to the floor and rolled until he came into contact with a wall. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes yet, the pull of the portal had disoriented him and he felt dizzy. But he could hear his brother gasping and falling to the floor, he could hear the portal powering down due to lack of fuel. And he could also hear a strangely fleshy noise, followed closely by a metallic one, and, at last, the weird noise a quartz stone wind chime made when the wind hit just right.

“What the fuck?” He heard Stanley say.

“Oh boy, it sure is good to have a physical form again.”

NO! NO NO NO! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!

Ford was panicking. He knew that voice. He opened his eyes and saw his brother looking curiously (and a bit fearful) at a form he knew very well. A form he’d seen in his dreams multiple times. Yellow, one single eye, black top hat, tie, gloves, and thigh high socks. His former muse, former god, former beloved. Bill Cipher.

Chapter Text

Time seemed to stand still. An inconstant droning sound permeated the room. Ford felt as if he were paralysed; unable to move, blink, breathe, think. His brain had come to a screeching halt and his body, deciding not to respect the laws of inertia, had frozen too. Generally, when his brain froze, his body moved of its own accord, muscle memory alone guiding him. Not this time. This time, Ford felt distant and disconnected, as if his conscience had retreated to the back of his brain and hid somewhere, as if he were watching the world from somewhere behind his eyes. Because the image in front of him couldn’t be real. It simply couldn’t. He refused to believe it was real, so he had two viable options here. Either this was a hallucination (which was a bit concerning, as Ford’s living relied solely on him using his brain. Although it could be a sleep deprivation bout of hallucination, that would explain things), or he had fallen asleep and this was all happening in the Dreamscape (unlikely, as he never remembered being able to watch the things Bill did with his body).

He shivered. Not so paralysed after all, it seemed. He was reminded of a summer, when he and Stan were about seven years old. They were playing outside, faces red and sunburnt, when their mother’s voice got their attention. She was slowly walking towards them, one glass in each hand. The boys ran to her, and were rewarded with lemonade, sweet and cold and refreshing. Stanford drank eagerly, enjoying how the beverage helped to cool his body down. And, suddenly, he felt a foreign cold feeling down his back, not provoked by his drink. He yelped, reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled. A light thump, his brother’s laughter and his mother’s chiding had him connecting the dots. Stanley had dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. That foreign feeling, wet and cold, had been the ice sliding down his spine. 30-something year old Ford now felt the same feeling, amplified by ten. An icy cold that started in the back of his neck and descended towards his coccyx.

Slowly, as if forcing his muscles to obey him, Ford turned his head towards his brother. Stanley was also on the floor, sitting up, staring straight at… not… not Bill, obviously. Because Bill being physically there was a figment of Ford’s imagination, so Stanley could only be looking at the portal. And he had good reason to be looking so suspiciously at it. If Ford didn’t know anything about the supernatural and saw the swirling light of that portal, he’d be scared and suspicious, too. If Stan had been the one being pulled into the portal, Ford would also freak out. Probably.

Wait a minute.

If… if Ford had been in the process of being pulled into his own portal and the Bill Cipher that was in front of him right now was a hallucination—most likely caused by his stress and lack of sleep—, then what exactly had saved him from being transported to a different dimension?

Ford blinked once, twice. He needed to focus, needed his brain to restart so he could think properly. Deciding to finally be useful, his brain provided him with a technique someone had taught him at Backupsmore. The people who worked at the university loved to talk about meditation and mindfulness, and Ford had attended a couple of lectures about the subject. You can never have too much knowledge, in his opinion, even if it’s something you never actually thought you’d have to use. So… five things he could see:

1. His brother, sitting up on the floor.

Ford forced his neck to start working again. If his muscles weren’t going to respond by themselves, he would have to make them.

2. The portal, all of its lights off, shut down (which was an immense relief).

Ford looked down, trying to avoid looking at the (possible) hallucination that floated in front of the portal.

3. The rocks on the floor.
4. The hem of his trench coat, bunched up on the floor.

He now looked towards the walls of his underground lab.

5. The wooden beams that supported the walls.

There. Step one was done. Now, step two, four things he could hear:

1. His own breathing, and it was fast, way too fast to be normal. Ford thought he might be hyperventilating.
2. His heartbeat, loud in his ears, preventing him from hearing other things.

Ford breathed in slowly. And slowly let it out. In. And out. One more time, in and out. He repeated that exercise for a couple more breathing cycles and, eventually, his heartbeat got less loud. The sound wasn’t gone completely, but he could at least hear the other sounds of the room.

3. The machinery, still making loud powering down noises.
4. His name, being insistently called by a very familiar voice.

Ford jerked his head, searching for the source of the last noise. Stanley was calling him repeatedly and, judging by his brother’s worried expression, he had been doing so for a few minutes now. Stan’s face was only partially turned towards him. His twin brother was trying to keep an eye on him and on B- on the portal at the same time. Ford lifted one of his hands, to try to indicate to Stan that he needed some time. He still had three steps to complete, after all, and Stanford Pines wasn’t someone who did things by half, even if said things were dubious meditation techniques. Three things he could feel:

1. The tag he always forgot to remove from his sweater, the one that always made his neck feel itchy.
2. A slight pain in the palm of his left hand.

He turned it towards his face and saw that it was scraped, probably from his failed attempt at stopping his fall.

3. The way his glasses sat on his face. For some reason, Ford felt acutely aware of the fact that the frames on his face had weight to them.

He was almost done. Two things he could smell:

1. Ozone, a common result of the portal’s workings.
2. A acrid smell he couldn’t quite describe, but that he knew was a product of the radioactive waste that powered the machine.

And last but not least, one thing he could taste:

1. The faint and bitter taste of coffee that lingered in the back of his throat. He had been drinking it to try to keep himself awake when Stanley arrived.

Ford breathed in and out again one more time. He felt calmer now, more centred and focused. He could deal with a hallucination. He was Stanford Filbrick Pines, scientist extraordinaire. He lifted his chin and started to get up.

“Are you done?”

Ford flinched. He had somehow forgotten Stan was there.

“Yes, Stanley, I’m done.”

“Good. What the fuck is that, then?”

Stanley was pointing at Bill’s general direction, which meant he was pointing at the portal, since he surely couldn’t see Bill. Another reason as to why Ford believed Bill to be a hallucination, is that the demon had yet to say a word apart from “Oh boy, it sure is good to have a physical form again”. He was just standing—well, floating, to be precise—there, hands behind his back, as if waiting for something. His eye moved from Stan to Ford and back again as the men spoke.

“It’s difficult to explain, Stanley. But to put it simply, it’s a portal to-”

“I don’t give two flying fucks about your weird ass machine!” Stan was gesticulating wildly. “I’m talking about the yellow… thing!”

Ford’s chest constricted. After their first fight, Bill had begun to acquire a large form in the Dreamscape, a form he used to grab Ford’s small human body and squeeze with all his might, until the dream human could no longer breathe. The feeling that spread through Ford’s chest now was very similar to that, except this wasn’t a dream. It was very much real, and he couldn’t escape it by simply waking up.

“Stanley… no. Please, please tell me you’re joking and cannot see him.”

Bill was still just floating there, hands behind his back and an unreadable expression on his face. He turned his body towards Ford and blinked slowly. Even though Ford wasn’t very good at reading people (or interdimensional beings, in this case), he was usually pretty good at deciphering what the demon was thinking. For a being with one eye and no visible mouth or eyebrows, his former muse was incredibly expressive. Or so he thought. It was obvious now that Bill had been either exaggerating his expressions, so Ford’s human mind could more easily comprehend him, or the demon had been projecting his emotions into Ford’s brain. This did not reassure the scientist. Not knowing what was going on through Bill’s head was somehow worse than having all the demon’s emotions inside his brain.

“I know you hit your head when you fell, but I didn’t think it had been that hard. There’s a floating yellow triangle right there!”

Later that day, Ford would feel slightly ashamed of his reaction. He would relive the moment in his head and imagine thousands of different outcomes, each more improbable than the next. In some, Bill destroyed them with a single snap of his fingers. In others, Ford somehow opened the portal back up and shoved the demon inside. With the multiverse and endless dimensions being real, Ford was sure that in some of them his imagined scenarios happened. But in his home dimension, Dimension 46’\, what happened was as follows:

“There’s a floating yellow triangle right there!”

Ford breathed in hard, gasping for air to try to fill his lungs, to combat the way his chest constricted with anxiety. In an impressive display of speed, strength and agility, the scientist, who up until now had been frozen to the spot, jumped up, ran to his brother, grabbed Stan by the arm, and pulled him, all but dragged his twin out of the portal room and into the command room. For a man who hadn’t slept in days and was surviving mostly on spite and caffeine, Ford was quite impressed by that feat. His incredulity didn’t last long, quickly replaced by a fear that consumed him. He dropped Stan on the floor and locked the door to the portal. He knew a simple door couldn’t stop Bill, but desperation had been his driving force up until now. He slumped down against the door, breathing hard, then remembered Bill was behind it and scrambled to the other side of the room, in full view of the window, so he could keep an eye on the demon.

Bill floated slowly until he was standing right in front of the window. He raised a four fingered hand and waved. If Ford didn’t know any better, he would say that Bill was trying to appear non-threatening. But he did know better. He had been the target of the demon’s lies for too long to believe his bullshit now.

“Hey, Sixer, I-”

“Don’t call me that!” Ford didn’t even register that his brother was the one talking to him. The nickname, coined by Stan and used affectionately, was now soured in Ford’s mind. He could no longer hear it without associating it with Bill. Just one more thing the triangle demon had ruined.

“Geez, okay, don’t get your panties in a twist. Wanna explain to me what the hell is going on here?”

“I- I don’t-”

“You know what? Fine! Don’t tell me shit.” Stan grumbled as he got up. “I know you wanted me gone, but I think invoking a 2D shape to get rid of me is a bit overkill.”

“NO! No, don’t leave. I- I didn’t invoke him, he… please.” Ford’s voice faltered. He didn’t think he’d ever heard himself plead so weakly before. “Please, don’t leave me alone with him. I can’t- I-”

“Woah, Six- Ford.”

Stan lifted both of his hands and started to move slowly towards Ford. The scientist felt like a wild animal, cornered and frightened. He knew his brother was just trying to help, but the fear that coursed through his veins was too potent. Stan exaggerated his every move, afraid to scare his brother, and walked until he was side by side with his twin. He then sat down and tentatively put his hand on Ford’s shoulder.

Ford expected to hate it. Expected to flinch and shrug his brother’s hand off. But instead, he leaned in, almost slumping against Stan. When was the last time another human had touched Ford? He racked his brain, but simply couldn’t remember. He had never been a very touchy person, yet he had spent so long without human interaction he now craved it. Ford was familiar with starvation, he sometimes forgot to eat for days on end, his brain too occupied with his research to think about something as trivial as sustenance. But this starvation was new, it wasn’t of the body but of the mind. And since it wasn’t something he needed to keep going, he never realised he was missing it.

It was… sad, really. Ford had been alone for so long, subsisting on nothing more than his former muse’s words and claims about how special he was, how superior from other humans, how he didn’t need anyone else. And he believed it, because his muse’s praise was enough. But he saw now that had been just another ploy, to isolate him and prevent him from forming other connections apart from Bill.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Stan said gently, still acting as if Ford were a wild animal. “I can try to help.”

“I… I don’t think you can help me with this one.”

“Try me.” His brother gave him a crooked smile. A smile Ford knew he didn’t deserve. “I’ve been through some shit.”

“It’ll sound like… well, like I’m absolutely insane.”

“Ford… there’s a giant portal thingy and a yellow triangle with one eye floating in that room,” Stan pointed at the window. Bill was still just floating near it, hands behind his back, staring at the twins. Ford didn’t know what he was playing at, and he was curious enough to want to ask but also too afraid to find out. “Can it get any weirder than that?”

“I suppose you’re right…” Ford breathed in and out once. “I came to Gravity Falls seven years ago, as I discovered this town contained an incredible concentration of weirdness and paranormal occurrences. I began to study these phenomena and acquired enough knowledge to fill two and a half journals, but after a while, I was stumped. I had a theory that would explain everything about this town, yet I simply couldn’t prove it. I began to grow desperate and would spend my time exploring the outskirts of Gravity Falls, hoping I would find some sort of clue that would lead me to answers. Eventually, I discovered a cave, which contained cryptic hieroglyphics that spoke of a creature with unending knowledge. Despite the writing containing warnings about this entity, I spoke the incantation. That was my first mistake.”

Stanley raised an eyebrow. Up until now, he had been wearing a neutral expression, and Ford knew he was trying his best to appear non-judgmental.

“What is it?”

Stan crossed his arms. “It’s just weird to hear you admitting you’ve made a mistake, is all.”

For the first time in a long time, Ford was left speechless. Stanley was right, of course, but Ford ironically didn’t want to admit it. He decided to ignore it. It would not be productive to discuss this now, especially when Bill was still staring at them from the window.

“Anyway,” he saw a small frown form in Stan’s face, but it was quickly replaced by that neutral expression, “that night, in my dreams, he showed up.” Ford pointed at Bill, who, upon realising the brothers were talking about him, waved and morphed his face into an expression that could only be read as a smile. The scientist reluctantly tore his gaze away from the demon. Not knowing what Bill was planning was making him more anxious. “He presented himself as a muse, said that every century he chose a brilliant mind to inspire. And he offered me a partnership of sorts. If I gave him free access to my mind, he would bestow upon me knowledge I could have never even dreamed of. I like to believe that, had he offered me anything else, I would not have accepted. However, you know me, Stanley.”

Stan muttered something under his breath, too low for Ford to hear. Nonetheless, it elicited a reaction from Bill, a widening of his eye followed by a strange look towards Stanley. The fact that the demon could apparently hear their conversation worried Ford—his reaction hadn’t been reassuring either—and made the scientist wish they could have this talk elsewhere. But he couldn’t simply get out of the lab and leave Bill alone down here. Who knows what sort of thing he could get up to? No, Ford would simply have to deal with it and keep an eye on the demon. And once more deciding to ignore his brother’s comment, Stanford continued with his monologue.

“As I was saying, you know how hungry for knowledge I normally am, and at the time I felt like I was at a dead end, and he presented me with a new option, a new perspective. I accepted his offer. It was a point of no return, but I had no way of knowing that. We both fulfilled our sides of the bargain. He bequeathed me with knowledge far beyond my expectations.” Ford’s eyes shone with excitement and, for a moment, he seemed to forget about Bill. The man gesticulated animatedly as he spoke. “Parallel dimensions are real, Stanley, and we live but in one of the many dimensions that are out there! One of them, filled to the brink with phenomena we consider paranormal, leaked into our world and is directly responsible for Gravity Falls’ weirdness. The proof to my hypothesis of the Natural Law of Weirdness Magnetism was within my reach! I couldn’t believe it! All this information, this knowledge, and all he asked in return was the ability to enter and leave my mind as he wished? It seemed too good to be true!”

“And it was, wasn’t it? You seem pretty scared of this little yellow guy.”

In the ten years they had spent apart, Ford had forgotten how in tune his brother was with Ford’s feelings. If asked, Stan would probably claim it was some sort of twin telepathy, but that was not the truth. If twin telepathy was truly a real thing, Ford would be able to easily tell all the things that went through his brother’s head. Instead, he could only tell what Stanley was feeling if his brother showed his emotions openly, or if he exaggerated them. He had never given much thought to it, how observant Stan was of small gestures and expressions, it used to be just one more thing that was balanced in them. Ford was the tactless one, the one that never got cues and could never tell what people were feeling; Stan was the one with the street smarts, and that included tact and an innate ability to easily read people. Even after ten years, Stan could still read him like a book, and Ford didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I- yes. It was too good to be true, but it took me way too long to realise, and by then…”

Ford’s voice died down, and his eyes unfocused, staring at the door to the lab but not truly seeing it. Memories of waking up with his knuckles bloody and broken, his right eye bleeding and his vision blurry, pain radiating through his whole body due to Bill’s abuse, flooded his mind. He remembered being chased by zombies, remembered waking up to see a venomous rattlesnake taped to his journal. He thought of how he felt his brain slow down due to the accumulated exhaustion from all the sleepless nights. How the being that had held all of his trust and all of his love lied and tortured him to no end. Ford was shaking now, he could feel his body trembling, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it, it started on his shoulder and radiated through his body, but wait, that wasn’t normal trembling, what was happening, he turned to look at Stanley to ask and saw his brother’s mouth moving, his hand on his shoulder, shaking Ford violently, a worried look in his eyes.

“-ord? Ford? Ford, can you hear me? Ford?”

Ford placed a hand over Stan’s. “I can hear you.”

“Fuck, Ford, you scared the shit out of me. Don’t do that again. It was like… like you went away.”

“I was just… remembering.” Ford removed his hand from Stan’s and felt his brother slowly take his hand off his shoulder.

“Remembering what?”

“I’ll… I’ll get there. Where was I?”

“Something about some magnet law? And the deal being too good to be true.”

“It’s called the Natural Law of Weirdness Magnetism.” He saw Stan roll his eyes, but pretended he didn’t see it. “Yes, well, with Bill’s help-”

He was interrupted by a snort. Stan raised one of his hands.

“Hold up. You’re telling me that guy, the yellow floating triangle, the one you’re so scared of, is called Bill?”

“Yes, his name is Bill Cipher.”

At that moment, Stanley did something Ford wasn’t expecting. He laughed. A genuine, if a bit nervous, laugh. Ford didn’t understand. They were discussing something serious, why was Stan laughing? Typical Stanley, breaking the flow of a serious conversation to laugh about some stupid thing. Ford didn’t even know why he was surprised. He risked a sideways look at Bill and saw that the demon had acquired the red colour that meant he was angry about something. It was duller, though, a bit more orange than Ford was used to seeing in his dreams, and, as he watched, it slowly reverted to his normal yellow. Bill closed his eye and seemed to inhale deeply and then exhale. Had the demon calmed himself down? Ford was beginning to feel frustrated. He didn’t know what Bill’s plan was, and now he didn’t know why his brother was laughing at him.

“What is it?” He snapped.

Stanley stopped laughing.

“I, um, I just thought it was funny, that’s all.”

“What’s so funny, Stanley?” Ford’s voice was sharp, his frustration obvious.

Stan averted his eyes and scratched his neck awkwardly.

“Just thought it was funny, you know, how he’s this big bad and his name is Bill. I expected something scarier, like, I don’t know, Triangulus the Destroyer.”

“That’s a stupid name.” Stan seemed to flinch slightly, and a look Ford couldn’t decipher crossed his brother’s face for a short moment. “He’s just Bill.”

“Yeah… sorry, Ford, it was stupid.” Stan still wouldn’t look at him as he apologised.

“As I was saying,” Ford cleared his throat, “Bill helped me draft blueprints for a portal between dimensions, the very same portal you can see through that window. I’m no engineering expert, however, so I recruited an old college friend to help me build it. He knew of Bill only as a secret collaborator, and started growing suspicious after a while, but I refused to reveal my former muse’s identity. Our power imbalance was clear, but Bill seemed to genuinely see me as an equal, and I did not want to break that trust. We completed the machine, despite my colleague’s reservations. But, during our first trial, an accident happened. My colleague got tangled in some wires and got pulled into the portal. I was able to save him, yet he was… different. He seemed terrified and gave me a cryptic warning about a beast with one eye. He then promptly quit the project. I was flabbergasted. Despite his suspicions, he had been as excited as me to build this, the promise of scientific discovery being the fuel that kept us going. Something wasn’t right. I decided to confront Bill about it and he finally told me the truth. He wasn’t some benevolent muse moved by science, he was a monster, who was puppeteering me into creating a portal that would allow him to merge his nightmare dimension with ours, plunging our world into chaos.”

“That little guy?” Stan interrupted, pointing towards Bill, who seemed smaller than Ford remembered. “That tiny little thing with a top hat and a bow tie?”

“You don’t understand, Stanley! He’s a monster!”

“Ford, he’s a triangle.”

“A monstrous one! He’s been torturing me for days now! He can access my mind when I sleep and take over my body, and he’s been abusing it. I wake up everyday feeling pain all over because he jumped off a staircase, or hammered a nail in my hand, or rolled down a cliff, or punched doors until my hands are broken. I’ve had to bioelectrically encrypt my thoughts to prevent him from accessing them, but he can still possess my body. Believe me when I say that Bill Cipher is a monster, and will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

“Alright, sorry.” Stan lifted both his hands in a placating gesture.

Ford could tell he was still sceptical despite the apology. But the scientist couldn’t blame his brother. If Stan had shown up spinning a story about an evil triangle that forced him to build a doomsday device, Ford wouldn’t have believed him either, for various reasons.

“What, um,” Stan began tentatively, “what are you gonna do now?”

Once again, Ford didn’t know what to say. He knew he had to find a way to send Bill back through the portal, but that would not be so simple. It would take time and resources and he did not want to expose his world to Bill for that long. He would have to contain the demon somehow until he could get the portal working again. But how to contain something as powerful as Bill Cipher? Maybe something in his research could help him. He would have to get his journals back.

“Ideally, I would open the portal back up and send him through it. But that would demand time and resources I do not have. So my best bet is to contain him. I spent seven years researching this town, there must be something that can help me. But I will need my journals back, and you will have to be the one to retrieve them, Stanley.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because someone has to stay here to keep an eye on Bill and it cannot be you. You don’t know him, don’t know his tricks, and your thoughts are not encrypted to prevent him from reading them. I’ll give you instructions on how to reach the journals, there’s only two of them out there, so it should not take you long.”

“But, Ford-”

“Stanley, this is too important! I know you don’t really believe me, but Bill is dangerous and must be stopped.”

Stan closed his eyes and sighed deeply, resigned.

“Fine. Tell me how to find your nerdy diaries.”

When Bill felt the portal open, he considered himself lucky. If he hadn’t been paying as much attention to Fordsy and his dimension, he would have probably missed the opening of the portal, and his human would have been lost to him, thrown into some random dimension. He knew that getting Ford would have been a lot more difficult had the man gone through the portal, so many dimensions to escape and hide into. So Bill counted himself lucky that he had got to the portal in time to save Ford.

He knew the human would be terrified when he showed up. He knew the scientist would freeze up, then run away and start plotting ways to get rid of him. The demon might no longer be able to read Ford’s thoughts, but he knew the man too well after spending so long inside his beautiful brain. So he decided his best course of action was to do absolutely nothing. Bill was aware that any wrong or aggressive-looking move would terrify Ford even more. He was also aware that talking would do him no good, because Ford would refuse to listen. That’s why Bill simply stood there, not moving, not talking, only looking and listening.

He hadn’t been expecting the brother to be there, though. Sixer had thought so awfully of him that Bill didn’t believe he would ever consider calling Stanley to help him, even as a last, hopeless option. That probably wouldn’t interfere with his plans, he assumed. The brothers were estranged, surely Stanley wouldn’t meddle in his twin’s life. Stan’s thoughts (he hadn’t read a human’s thoughts in a while, it felt good) corroborated this. He would seemingly do anything for his brother, would sacrifice himself if it meant earning forgiveness. Bill would leave him alone. Stan clearly wasn’t a threat and, despite Ford’s apparent lack of affection for his brother, he probably would be incredibly upset if Bill harmed Stanley in any way.

So, Bill stood there and watched as Ford panicked and froze up, as his brother confusedly called his name and tried to wrap his inferior brain around what was happening. He watched as Ford sprang into action and dragged his brother out of the room, locking Bill in. He stood there, waving at them from the window, regardless of the fact he could easily rip the door off its hinges. Bill could hear their conversation through the window. He noticed Stan’s sadness when Ford commented on how his brother knew him, heard when Stan murmured “I don’t know about that”, felt surprised because he hadn’t expected Stan to voice his thoughts like that.

Their conversation moved on, and Bill felt a sense of pride bloom in his chest as he saw Ford animatedly speak of his research, his discoveries. This was the man he knew and adored, the man he had inspired, the man he missed. This was the Ford he wanted to get back, and Bill promised himself then and there that he would try his hardest to achieve that.

And then, Stanley was laughing at him! How dare this lowly, inferior, stupid human laugh at him? He was Bill Cipher, the most powerful entity to now reside in Dimension 46’\, and this flesh bag was laughing at him! Maybe he wouldn’t leave the man alone, he could rifle through his mind, find out his worst nightmares and plague him in his sleep, make him scared of closing his eyes, break the mind of another person close to Ford and… no. No, he couldn’t do that. He would never gain his human’s trust again if he broke his brother. Bill didn’t need to breathe, but he had seen Ford doing breathing exercises to calm himself and decided to copy him. Strangely, it seemed to help, he felt calmer. He couldn’t allow himself to get this angry again, it would ruin his plans.

When Ford began to tell his brother all about Bill’s world domination plan, he shrunk. Bill’s new physical form didn’t prevent him from shapeshifting, so he shrunk in size, because he knew humans considered tiny things to be non-threatening. Changing into a whole new form would frighten the men; shrinking in size, however, would make them think huh, I thought the triangle guy was bigger than that, maybe I’m going crazy, which, in Bill’s opinion, was a better outcome. Besides, he wasn’t even the one gaslighting them, their brains were doing it by themselves. What a marvellous thing, the human mind.

And, oh… what was that? Fordsy wanted to contain him. Bill wanted to make a kinky joke about it so bad. He held it in, though. He would have so many jokes to tell Ford when the man trusted him again.

He could hardly wait.

Chapter Text

Bill watched as Ford spent almost half an hour giving Stan meticulous instructions on how to find his journals, drew him a map to help him reach the correct places, as his brother obviously didn’t know the town, and provided him with schematics for the tree lever. And as Ford watched his twin leave, Bill could smell fear and dread creeping up on him again. Humans were so easy to read. They secreted pheromones for almost everything, and the smell of those things was potent. Sixer was currently debating between the importance of the retrieval of the journals and not wanting to be alone with Bill, he could tell.

As Stanley got into the lift and went back to the surface, a deafening silence filled the command room. Bill was acutely aware of Ford being acutely aware of him, the man sitting sprawled out on the floor, and the demon floating inside the portal room, a single pane of glass separating them. The human opened his mouth to speak, but was unable to get words out, so closed it again. Bill, then, slowly lifted an open palm, the same way that he had seen, in Ford’s memories, the man used to do as a kid when he knew the answer to a question the teacher had just asked. Ford lifted a single eyebrow and stared at the demon. Bill stood still, hand up, as if waiting for permission.

“I can see you’re clearly dying to say something, so go ahead, Cipher, spit it out.”

“Let’s just say you’re lucky I felt the portal open, Sixer, otherwise you would have been toast. Maybe literally, depending on where you landed.”

“Do not call me that! And so what? Are you expecting me to thank you?”

“I thought we knew each other pretty well by now, Poindexter. I know your ego is too big for that.”

“Do not call me that, either!”

Ford’s face was now red with anger, and Bill couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly in delight. His human was so easy to rile up.

“You’re making things hard for me here, Fordsy, how am I supposed to call you?”

“I’d rather you not refer to me at all.”

“Well, how are we meant to talk, then? I know I’m not the triangle you’d like to see right now, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet on you being very curious as to why I’m here.”

Ford ignored him. In a move Bill could only describe as childish, the man crossed his arms, huffed, and turned his head to the side, as if determined to not see the demon. Bill had once heard Ford say something along the lines of “out of sight, out of mind”. He felt that described Sixer pretty accurately right now. But, oh, the man was curious. Bill could no longer read his thoughts (and he had to give it to the human, that thought encrypting machine was another one of his strokes of genius), but he had been inside that brain, knew every corner and ridge of it as well as he knew the palm of his own hand. He could practically see curiosity rising inside the man, like a pot with milk that was put in the oven to boil. Ford would try his best to ignore it, but if left unattended, it would boil over, and Bill knew it was only a matter of time.

Ford uncrossed his arms and started drumming his fingers on his knees rapidly, a sure sign of his mind working overtime producing anxious thoughts. The milk was starting to bubble and froth, swiftly approaching the top of the pot, threatening to spill.

Five more minutes passed, and Ford’s anxious movements multiplied. He was now bouncing one of his knees and sneaking sideways glances at Bill (glances he thought were discreet) on top of drumming the fingers of one of his hands on the floor. He could see it now, the curiosity rising and rising, and it would soon reach a point at which Sixer wouldn’t be able to take it anymore.

Bill had to give him credit where credit was due, though. The man lasted for thirty jittery minutes, all the while trying his best to not let his unabated thirst for knowledge consume him (even if said knowledge was something as simple as the reason why Bill was in his dimension and not destroying everything). The demon could pinpoint the exact moment Ford caved, saw all the microexpressions that crossed the human’s face as he made an immensely difficult-seeming choice. Bill watched eagerly as Ford painstakingly turned his head towards the window.

“Why are you here, Bill?”

Ford’s voice was reluctant and full of anger, but it was like music to Bill’s ears. To have Stanford Pines cave, and over something so mundane, oh, it was delicious. Bill could taste it in the back of his throat, and it was like nothing he had ever tried before. Human blood, one of the rarest and most refreshing beverages you could encounter on his previous side of the multiverse, had nothing on this. This was sweet, and the anger made it slightly acidic, a taste he wanted to bottle and mass produce, only to selfishly hoard all the bottles, because no one else in the whole multiverse would ever be worthy of the privilege of tasting Stanford Pines caving.

Bill held his hands together and blinked at Ford in a manner he could only describe as adorable. “Oh, Fordsy, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to stand there bragging about how you finally got a reaction out of me?”

“Oh ho! For someone who was so reluctant to even look at me a couple minutes ago, we’re pretty eager, aren’t we? I should’ve made that bet, I would’ve won.”

The demon snapped his fingers and a small slot machine showed up in the air. It was the same bright yellow shade as Bill, and was just as loud. He grabbed its black handle and pulled. The machine started spinning loudly and, after a minute or two, its three displays stopped, showing the same image, the same six-fingered symbol Ford had drawn in his journal covers. Bill whooped and a bout of confetti exploded from the back of the machine.

When he turned to look at Ford, he saw the man was hugging his knees, swaying back and forth slightly and breathing really fast. His eyes were glued to the slot machine and he seemed terrified. Bill didn’t understand why, it seemed so silly for the human to be afraid of slot machines, but he snapped his fingers again and made the machine disappear. Ford’s eyes, wide and frightened, immediately turned to the demon. Bill would usually find that funny. Scared human were hilarious. The way their eyes almost bugged out of their heads, their screams of terror, the heady scent of fear they emitted. But seeing Ford be scared felt… awful now.

In the future, if asked, Bill would point this out as the moment that truly showed him how much he cared about this human. Thinking about it as he was suffering from an “I’m Fine Juice” hangover was one thing. Having the man be in front of him and still elicit such thoughts was another completely different thing. Ford was scared, and all Bill wanted to do was envelop him in his arms and pet his hair until his breath returned to a normal pace, while sprouting a couple more arms and destroying whatever had scared his human. That probably wouldn’t help much now, but Bill longed for a moment when that would be an acceptable thing for him to do.

“Didn’t know you were scared of slot machines, Sixer.” The demon raised one of his hands and put the other over where his chest would be. “I solemnly promise to never take you to a casino. Now… what is something you humans like?”

Bill scratched the space under his eye that would have been his chin had he been a human. After a couple of seconds, he lifted one of his fingers in a “Eureka!” like pose.

“Puppets! You lot like puppets, right?”

He snapped his fingers again and two small marionettes appeared in a puff of smoke. They were clearly supposed to be puppet forms of Bill and Ford. Without touching them, Bill began manipulating them, moving the puppets as he spoke.

“Oh, Fordsy, it’s so good to see you again. I’ve missed you.” Bill then deepened his voice, in a poor imitation of Ford’s gruffer one. “Yes, my muse, I’ve missed you too.”

With the semblance of a smile, Bill turned towards Ford, expecting to see a happier look on his human’s face. But the man still looked as afraid as when he had seen the slot machine. Bill snapped his fingers again, making the puppets disappear with small screams.

“Okay, not puppets either. How’s about…” With a swift swish of his hand, the demon summoned his cane and began twirling it. “Oh, I know! Cute animals! You humans love your cute animals.”

With another snap of his fingers, Bill made an abomination of nature appear floating in mid-air. A mix between a kitten, a bat, a bunny, a dolphin, and a squirrel, all stitched up like Frankenstein’s creature, was screaming in pain near the demon.

“What’s better than one cute creature, Sixer? An amalgamation made of multiple cute creatures!”

He turned to Ford and, once again, was disappointed by the expression of pure terror on the man’s face. He was still scared! Bill didn’t understand! What was the probability that Ford was scared of slot machines and puppets AND cute animals? That made no sense! He had been in Ford’s brain, the human was actually pretty brave. He used to just fearlessly go into the forest, letting his love for science and research engulf his fear and be his guide. So why was this supposedly brave man so afraid of a couple of objects and a creature that Bill had summoned?

His little abomination went on screaming, and that was not helping him think. As he snapped his fingers to make his Frankenstein’s - or, well, his Bill’s - monster vanish, he noticed it. A flinch. Ford flinched as Bill snapped his fingers. Was… was Ford scared of… him? That wasn’t so unbelievable, but Ford hadn’t shown signs of being scared of him. The man had been angry, a bit panicked and shocked as well, but not afraid. Was he maybe scared of finger snapping? No, that didn’t make any sense either. Bill had snapped his fingers and made things appear and disappear in front of Ford all the time when they were still in good terms.

So if it wasn’t the slot machine, the puppets, the abomination, himself, or finger snapping, what in the name of hell was Sixer so scared of?

Bill twirled his cane and, when it reached the end of the twirl, he disappeared it with a puff of smoke. And as he did so, Ford flinched again. That’s when it downed on him.

It wasn’t Bill or his creations Ford was afraid of. It was Bill’s powers. Not specifically of the things he made appear and disappear, but of the fact that he could do such things. Ford was terrified of the fact that Bill’s newly acquired physical form hadn’t cost him his powers. That’s why the man wanted to contain him so badly. And Bill would hate to admit it but… that made him sad. He didn’t want his human to be afraid of him. Sure, the man was scared of Bill’s powers and not Bill himself, but his powers were part of him. They made him who he was, in the same way that being a nerd was inherently part of Sixer. He wouldn’t give up a part of himself for Ford, but he didn’t want to give up Ford either. He had already given up on his world domination plans for this man, he wasn’t about to just completely neglect such a huge part of himself for a human. Sixer would just have to accept and deal with it.

However, he didn’t want to force such a choice on the man, especially considering the moment they were in now. Ford was still wary of him and terrified of his powers. Bill would have to use one of his most important skills in order to get this situation under control now: his silver tongue.

He shrunk in size once more. A little smaller than he was before, but still at a big enough size that Sixer could easily see him and all his movements. Bill steeled himself. He was about to do one of the hardest things he had ever done in his entire life, and possibly for the first time, too.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What did you just say?”

Well, that seemed to have got Ford out of his frozen-with-fear state, which is exactly what Bill wanted. A win for him. Who knew that apologising to people actually worked? And it was so easy, too! All you had to do was say “Oh, I’m sorry” and BAM! All problems solved! Why didn’t humans do that more?

“I said I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Ford’s face started getting red. Slowly, the redness spread all over his face until it reached the tips of his ears. Bill remembered seeing Ford blush over the year they had been scientist and muse and it was usually less… violent than that. The demon was starting to get scared, it seemed like the human was going to explode. He had never seen that happen before. If Ford weren’t the one with “imminent explosion” practically written all over his face, Bill would have found it delightful, fun even. After all, it was not every day that you got to watch a human explode. And explode Ford did, but not in the way Bill expected (maybe that’s why humans didn’t apologise so often, they were scared of seeing their friends explode).

“YOU KNOW WHAT? THAT’S ENOUGH! I’M TIRED OF THIS! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I HATE THIS! I HATE EVERY SECOND OF THIS! IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME, I’D KNOCK MY PAST SELF UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE I EVER REACHED THAT CAVE! I WOULD GRAFFITI OVER THE HIEROGLYPHICS IN THAT CAVE, EVEN THOUGH I WOULD BE DESTROYING A PIECE OF HISTORY, ALL SO NO ONE COULD EVER HAVE A WAY OF SUMMONING YOU! I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S HAPPENING AND I HATE IT! I HATE NOT KNOWING HOW YOU GOT HERE, WHAT YOUR PLANS ARE, I HATE THAT YOU’RE HERE! I DON’T WANT YOU HERE! WHY WON’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?”

Among the many emotions coursing through Bill at the moment, one of them was pride. Ford had screamed all that with barely no stops for breath. That had to be some kind of record for a human or something of the sort. Also, it was the least eloquent he had ever seen Ford be. He’d clap if he weren’t so… devastated. He had been expecting hate from the man. Ford was angry and stressed, so it was only fair that he spew some vitriol. Bill had prepared himself for it. Or so he thought. He didn’t understand why Ford’s words hurt so much, why it caused something inside his chest to constrict and that old pain behind his eye to flare up again. The man wanted to be left alone and, if Bill were a better demon, he might have complied with the human’s wishes. But he wasn’t even a good demon, let alone a better one. He was selfish and wanted nothing more than to be home again. Since his old home was no longer available, Ford was the closest thing he had. Or, well… wished he had.

“I couldn’t possibly leave, Fordsy, you’re the reason I’m here, after all.”

Ford’s face quickly went from angry to surprised. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that answer, probably thinking all Bill wanted was to dominate his whole world.

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

This was it! This was the moment of truth! The moment Bill had been waiting for, where he could tell Ford everything! He felt… weird. His stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots, and these knots were starting at the bottom of it and were pushing his stomach contents up to his mouth. He had seen Ford vomit before and he wasn’t keen on starting out his new life with a physical form by tarnishing it with puke. Especially not in front of Ford! Who was looking at him expectantly! He had to say something! Why was this so hard? It would have been so much easier if he could just implant his thoughts inside Ford’s head, maybe make the man think the thoughts were initially his, and have the scientist understand him completely. But he couldn’t do that, as much as he wanted to. It would freak Ford out even more, and Bill couldn’t afford that now. He was trying to get the man on his side, not push him further away. He could do this. He could! Bill Cipher had been through a lot in his almost a trillion years of life, he could face a single human being. Even if said human being had a very angry expression on his face once again.

“It’s literally you, Ford. I… had some time to think after I,” Bill scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “um, threatened to send someone to steal your eyes. Heh. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Maybe apologies weren’t so bad after all, as Ford’s expression once again changed from angry to surprised. Bill felt encouraged by that and continued on with his monologue.

“I wasn’t going to make good on that threat, you know? I mean, probably not. I did want your eyes at some point. Just to keep them as trophies. The truth is, I got drunk and forgot about it. And that drunkenness had me being way too honest about my,” the demon shuddered, “feelings. But I realised I had to think about those things, and… they made me understand that I miss home.”

“Your home?” Ford interrupted. “You mean your dimension? The one that got destroyed by a monster?”

It was incredible how Ford could go from being so mad at Bill that he seemed about to explode, to warily curious because Bill was willingly sharing information. It was so predictable yet so endearing because it was Ford. Were it anyone else, it might have annoyed Bill, but not his Sixer. And that made the demon want to share more with Ford, much as he had felt in the past, but he couldn’t. He could never tell the man about Euclydia. Ever. Better have him believe that a random monster destroyed Bill’s old home. He already thought Bill was a monster, the demon didn’t want to make that worse.

“Kind of, yeah. But I realised that home doesn’t have to be a place. My old dimension hasn’t been my home in so long that I’ve forgotten what having a place as your home feels like. And the Nightmare Realm, well, it has never been a home. It was a house, that’s all. A place my form stayed in as I explored the vast multiverse. But you, Ford.” Bill closed his eye. He couldn’t bear to watch Ford’s reaction to such an important confession, fear of rejection dominating every molecule of his body. “You were home to me. And I don’t mean the moments I lived in your brain. I mean, how you saw me as someone worthy of attention, how you worshipped me and accepted me for who I was. It was addictive. You have no idea what it feels like to be worshipped like that by someone. I’ve been worshipped before by other people but never in the same way that you did. I don’t know what it is about you, Sixer, but you’re special. I know I’ve said that many times before, but this time I’m not trying to flatter you. You just have something about you that’s… different. So that’s why I’m here. I want you back. I want your attention and your worship back, but I want to give you attention and worship you in the same way.”

He did it! He told Ford everything. Now all he had to do was wait for Ford’s response, and… a minute passed. And another, and another. The man was taking a while, wasn’t he? Bill guessed the human was entitled to silence and some time to think, but he was getting anxious. He still couldn’t bear to open his eye, he was terrified of Ford’s reaction. Why wasn’t Ford answering him?

And then he heard it.

A low laugh.

He slowly opened his eye and saw Ford still sprawled on the floor, one hand over his mouth, covering it. The man’s shoulders shook slightly and, as the laughter increased in volume, his shoulders started shaking more violently.

Wasn’t it enough that Stanley had laughed at him, now Ford was laughing at him too? That made Bill impossibly angry. He could feel himself getting redder.

Through his haze of anger, the demon was able to notice that, unlike Stan’s, Ford’s laughter lacked humour. It was dry and cold, and Bill hated it. He had heard the scientist’s laughter before, it was usually rich and warm and enveloped Bill in comfortable heat, left him wanting more. This, though, this was freezing. Bill could practically feel metaphorical icicles forming under his arms. That didn’t help cool down his anger, though, on the other hand, it inflamed it.

“Why are you laughing?” The demon felt his voice gaining that deeper tone it got when he was mad. It was subtle, but it was there.

Ford raised his head to look at Bill, and the demon saw when he wiped a tear from the corner of one of his eyes. The man breathed a couple of times, as if the laughter had left him out of breath, and as he regained control of his breathing, he smiled at Bill. It contained no happiness or humour, it was devoid of any positive emotions. This was the smile of a predator, but one that had just found out it was at the top of the food chain and was still learning the ropes.

“This has to be a joke, right? There’s no way this is real. The Bill I knew would never say anything like that. Or maybe he would, to get what he wanted. But this doesn’t sound like something he would truly want.”

This was outrageous! How fucking dare Sixer not believe him? This man had accepted all of his (sometimes blatant) lies gladly, but the one time he was telling the truth, Ford decided he didn’t believe in him?

Bill grew a bit in size. He couldn’t help it! He was starting to get mad. Here he was, wearing his heart on his sleeve for Ford (maybe he should do that literally, maybe that would convince the human he was being truthful), and this dumb man didn’t believe him. The demon was being completely and totally honest for what was probably the first time in his life, and this stupid flesh bag thought he was joking.

“You confuse me sometimes, Sixer. You wanted me to be honest with you for so long but when I finally am, you don’t believe me?”

“Let’s pretend I believe you, then. So you want me now?” Another humourless laugh. “You’ve always wanted me, Bill Cipher, just in different ways. At first, you wanted me as a puppet, someone to do your dirty work for you. And now you want me as what? A companion? A partner? Do you finally want me the way I wanted you in the past?” Bill made a motion as if to speak, but Ford raised a hand to stop him. “Oh, no. It’s my turn, and you’re going to listen now. And, you know, if this were happening a couple of months ago, I probably would have been overjoyed. Finally, my muse wants me the same way I want him! Not anymore. I’ve learned a few things about you. All you do is want. You want the portal to be done because you want to merge my dimension with yours. You want me because I feel like home to you. That’s one of your biggest problems, you know? You want and want and want, but you don’t know how to care. I honestly don’t think you’re capable of that.”

In his defence (in which he’s both jury and judge), Bill tried to keep calm. He really tried. But when Ford said he didn’t know how to care… he lost it. Wasn’t all he was doing proof that he cared for this human? He gave up on his world domination plans, he abandoned his Henchmaniacs, he acquired a physical form (something he’d been wanting for almost a trillion years now) and didn’t use it to wreak havoc on Ford’s dimension. Wasn’t that enough?

So, you couldn’t blame him for losing it. This was 100% Ford’s fault. If Ford had believed in him, he wouldn’t have grown almost ten times his previous size and turned red with anger. This stupid human only had one job and he screwed it up, so it wasn’t Bill’s fault that his voice got deeper as he yelled:

“Well, Fordsy, it’s not like you weren’t willing to go down hand in unlovable hand now, were you? You’re not exactly a normal man, you know? Kinda guy that thinks Rudolph should have killed the other reindeers for making fun of him doesn’t exactly fit in with society. But does fit in with me!” The demon desperately motioned towards himself. “You fit in with me like you’ll never fit with anyone else, and look! I want you! Win-win situation! So why are you making this so fucking difficult? Why can’t you just-”

While yelling, Bill had felt the red haze of anger that clouded his vision start to clear. And as it did, he could see Ford. The man was all but scrambling back towards the door, desperately trying to get out of the room. So this is what Ford looked like when he was scared of Bill. It’s what gave the demon pause, made him stop screaming.

This is exactly what he wanted to avoid! He didn’t want Ford to be afraid of him! Why couldn’t things just go his way? This wasn’t fair! He was trying so hard! Why did Ford have to be terrified of him?

Oh, wait.

Ford.

The man was backed against the lift door, glasses askew on his face, eyes wide, mouth open as if to scream.

Bill took a deep breath and slowly began to change from red to orange and back to yellow. His triangular form began to diminish until it reached its former size. He was back to being a tiny little triangle, (visually) incapable of hurting anyone.

“Listen, Ford, I-”

They were interrupted by the sudden opening of the lift door. Ford fell backwards on his twin’s legs, which startled Stan.

“Woah there! You good, Ford?”

The scientist rapidly stood up, adjusting his glasses and trying to smooth the wrinkles on his clothes.

“I-”

The man shot a quick glance at Bill, who, for once in his life, was at a loss for words (he was going through many firsts lately. He didn’t particularly enjoy that). What do you say to someone you want so bad it hurts, while said someone wants nothing more than to see you gone?

“Yes, Stanley, everything is fine.”

Stan raised an eyebrow.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Now,” Ford quickly changed the subject and Stan made a face, as if he clearly didn’t believe his brother, but decided not to push, “did you retrieve my journals?”

“Yeah, I got your nerdy diaries, alright. Here.”

Stan opened his bag and pulled out journals 2 and 3. Ford’s face brightened considerably. Bill felt like Ford had ripped his chest open, pulled his heart out, thrown it on the ground, spat on it, and then stomped vigorously. The man’s reunion with his inanimate journals had been happier than the one with Bill. Was it possible to be jealous of books?

Ford began leafing through the pages, quickly scanning each one for something that could help them. His eyes and lips were moving fast, as the man rapidly read his own notes.

Both Stanley and Bill simply stood there while Ford was absorbed in his research. The human and the demon exchanged a look. Stan’s mind wasn’t protected by the thought encryption, so Bill could easily read it.

Fuck this triangle looking at me for? Ugh, I wish Ford would just hurry up.

Heh, he truly had missed reading people’s minds. They always thought the funniest things.

He kept on reading Stan’s thoughts, which ranged from thinking how weird Bill and this whole situation were, to reliving his and Ford’s fight and feeling such guilt that Bill almost pitied him.

At some point, Stanley tried to catch his brother’s attention, but Ford shushed him absent-mindedly, which made Stan flinch slightly.

C’mon, Stan, you should’ve known better than to interrupt the genius while he’s working. Stupid, stupid.

Yeesh, even Bill felt the sting of that one.

Fifteen minutes passed like this. At around the ten-minute mark, Ford pulled out a blank notebook from… somewhere, and began scribbling on it. One moment there was no notebook and in the next, voilà, a random blank notebook. Bill wasn’t sure where Ford had got that from. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the man had summoned it. But the scientist wasn’t magic, Bill knew that for certain. His synapses would’ve looked different if he had had even an ounce of magic in his body.

“Got it!”

Ford’s exclamation startled both Bill and Stan. Bill really wasn’t at the top of his game anymore, and it was all this fucking human’s fault. But it was so good to watch Sixer in his element, it was hypnotising.

“We need unicorn hair, moon stones and mercury!”

“I’m sorry, we need what now?”

“Keep up, Stanley, it’s just three items.” Stan flinched again, but Ford was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice. “I believe I still have a few moon stones from my latest trip behind Trembley Falls. I have a mercury thermometer, but that won’t be enough… I’ll need to check my reagents cupboard. And… unicorn hair. Damn it! I'll never be able to get that one, I’m not pure of heart.” He turned to his twin. “And neither are you.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“I don’t mean it as an insult, Stanley. The unicorns are difficult creatures. They can sense whether you’re pure of heart, and they’ll not grant you their time of day if you’re not. And it’s very difficult for adults to be pure of heart. Too much time lived, too many white lies, or worse things.”

“Are you for real? When you say unicorns, you actually mean it? Like, horses with horns and wings and shit?”

“Well, only horns. If they had horns and wings, they’d be alicorns, and I don’t believe those are real. I don’t know why you’re so surprised. There’s a literal sentient triangle floating on the other side of that window and you’re hung up on the fact that unicorns are a thing?”

“I haven’t seen him do much, so I was kinda hoping the triangle was a hallucination. I don’t know, maybe your machine was making us see things. But you’re looking so serious, talking about freaking unicorns…”

“He’s real… unfortunately. And so are the unicorns.”

“Yeah, I’m real.”

Stan’s eyes widened as Bill spoke.

“He can talk…”

“Yeah, I can talk, extra Stan. Sorry, not sorry to disappoint.” Bill turned to Ford. “Your unicorn info is bullshit.”

Ford narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s bullshit. There’s no such thing as a pure of heart person. Every single one of you humans has done some small little thing that ‘tainted’ your hearts, making you impure. Besides, none of that matters, because the unicorns can’t sense that. All their horns do is shine and play weird techno music.”

“That can’t be. I’ve been there. I’ve spoken to the unicorns. Celestabellebethabelle showed me the impureness of my heart.”

“She’s a con-unicorn. Trust me, game recognises game.”

“We’ve encountered our problem, then, haven’t we, Cipher? I don’t trust you.”

Stan kept looking from Bill to Ford and back to Bill as the pair quarrelled. Bill could sense his confused thoughts, and his desperate need to support his brother. He stepped in front of Ford, effectively blocking Bill from his vision.

“Okay, okay, stop it, you two. Why don’t I go search for the apparently real unicorns while you look for the rest of the stuff, Ford?”

“No! No, we can’t! Someone has to stay here and monitor Bill! We can’t leave him alone down here! Who knows what he’ll do?”

“I promise I’ll behave, Fordsy.” Bill blinked adorably once more, even though none of the brothers was looking at him.

Stan blinked slowly at his twin.

“Ford, why did the triangle call you Fordsy?”

Before the scientist could even open his mouth to respond, Bill butted in.

“I’m trying to be nice here. I know I’ve done some arguably bad things in the past, but-”

Ford grabbed Stan’s shoulders and pulled himself to the side, so as to keep Stanley between himself and Bill but to have the demon back in his visual field.

“Arguably? Arguably?! After everything you put me through, that’s what you’re calling it? ‘Some arguably bad things’?”

“Look, Fordsy, you humans believe in redemption and seconds chances and all that, don’t you? Give me the benefit of the doubt, come on, work with me here.”

“Ford,” Stan began, quietly, “we don’t have another choice. You’ll have to leave this guy alone down here eventually, because I don’t know where you keep your freaking moon rocks or your cupboard that you talked about. I don’t know how to build what you want to build to keep him in check. And you said it yourself, you don’t want me to be alone with him because he can read my thoughts or whatever. So give him a chance, will you? I mean, guy’s trying to redeem himself. I can’t say I can’t relate.”

Bill watched as a multitude of expressions crossed through Ford’s face. Disbelief, concern, fear, a strange calmness that seemed fake, and, at last, understanding.

“You’re right, Stanley. I don’t have another choice. I… I’ll give you the directions on how to reach the unicorns. And I’ll… I’ll begin going through my things, I have to find that moon stones and the mercury.” He brusquely turned to Bill, anger written all over his face. “If you do anything or try anything, or even think of trying anything, so help you the gods, Bill Cipher, I will destroy you. No matter how long it takes or the sacrifices I’ll have to make to achieve that, but I promise you, I will annihilate you. Not even your molecules will survive my wrath. Do you understand me?”

Bill raised a single hand.

“I’ll behave, Fordsy. Scout’s honour.”

Chapter Text

“Ford, come on.”

“But-”

“Come on!”

Ford held on to the lift door, preventing it from closing. He had been doing so for the past five minutes, worry rendering him unable to leave Bill alone in the room.

“I can’t do this, Stanley. I cannot, in good conscience, leave this room while Bill is here, unsupervised. There’s simply too much damage he could cause, too much havoc he could wreak.”

Stan affectionately rolled his eyes.

“Listen, bro, you can either stay here forever staring at his face until one of you breaks, or you can go get the stuff you need to build your thing to contain him, and you’ll feel safer. Besides, he’s already promised he’s not going to do anything. Give him the benefit of the doubt, will ya?”

“Yeah, Fordsy, listen to your brother.”

If looks could kill, Bill would have been dead twice over. The utterly unimpressed and slightly murderous twin stares he received would have been enough to cower a lesser demon. He was Bill Cipher, however, so he absolutely did NOT take a floating step back and raise his hands in a gesture of peace. 

“I’m just trying to be reassuring here.”

Ford narrowed his eyes at Bill.

“Then we’ve encountered another problem, haven’t we? Trusting and reassuring are absolutely not words I’d use to describe you. Ever.”

“Oh, you wound me, Fordsy. I’ve already promised I’ll behave.”

Stan rolled his eyes again, this time with annoyance.

“Ford,” he said quietly, “the sooner we leave and you start your thing, the sooner you’ll be able to get back here and supervise him, alright?”

“I know. But you don’t understand, Stanley. He’s just-”

“Would you trust me enough to leave me down here by myself?”

Ford blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that question.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you to be down here, I don’t trust Bill.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, just me. Me, in this room, all alone.”

Ford blinked again. Where was Stan going with this?

“I… guess I would.”

“Well, then, that’s settled. If you’d trust me enough to leave me here all by myself, then you can trust that little guy enough, too.”

Ford stole a glance at Bill, who was already looking back at him with an unreadable expression on his triangular face. He turned back to his brother.

“I don’t understand, Stanley…”

“Well, ya know, if you can trust this guy who ruined your life,” Stan gestured at himself nonchalantly, “then you can trust that other guy who ruined your life.” He finished, pointing at Bill.

Ford’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what he expected his twin’s argument to be, but it definitely wasn’t that. How could Stan compare himself to that monster? Did the man truly think so lowly of himself?

Of course, Ford had been angry and devastated when his dreams of going to West Coast Tech got destroyed along with his Perpetual Motion Machine. It had ruined his life, in a way. But to hear Stanley say it, to hear it come from his own brother’s mouth… 

It felt like a slap to the face.

The years that passed had caused that old wound to scar and… Ford realised he hadn’t thought about it in a while. At the time, it had seemed like the end of the world. He had lost his dreams and his brother in the same night. But now, it was apparently so inconsequential that he hadn’t spared it a single thought in a couple of years.

It obviously wasn’t so inconsequential to Stanley, however. Ford was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that in the few hours that had passed following the twins’ encounter, it was the first time he had actively listened to something Stan had to say. His brother had come all the way over to Gravity Falls at his request because he wanted to redeem himself. He wanted to repair the mistakes he had made in the past. Ford didn’t know how to react to that. Did he deserve that devotion?

Probably not.

“Stanley, why would you say that?”

Stan shrugged.

“It’s the truth, ain’t it? Now, come on, man, I’m not very fond of elevators and I don’t want to be inside this one for longer than I need to.”

“I-”

Ford didn’t get to finish the phrase, as Stan grabbed his arm and pulled it, finally allowing the lift doors to close, separating the brothers from the demon that now inhabited the same house as them.

~~~~

Stan nervously cleared his throat. His arms were crossed, but Ford could see the way his hands were balled into fists, could tell that his nails would leave small moon-shaped wedges on his palms.

“So… how do I reach these unicorns, then?”

The scientist stared at his brother. The sudden change in subject was so obvious it hurt. Even Ford, who was usually bad at understanding social cues, was able to see that.

“Stanley, I think we should talk.”

“Yeah, about the directions to the unicorns, haha.”

“Stan-”

The door to the lift opened and Stan all but ran out of it, effectively cutting Ford off. Resigned, he followed his twin out of the lift and guided him to the kitchen. He gestured towards a chair and Stan sat down heavily on it. Ford shakily filled two cups with the strong coffee he had brewed earlier that day and sat with his brother.

“Stanley…”

Stan grabbed the coffee cup, smelled it, hummed appreciatively, and took one big gulp, almost as if he were taking a shot.

“Like I said, heh, not very fond of elevators… Thanks for the coffee, though.”

Ford was at a loss. For words, actions, and time. He wanted to speak to his brother, reassure him that he was nothing like Bill. Make Stan understand that, despite that one moment in their lives where they had lost each other, he had done pretty well for himself; his life wasn’t ruined.

His anxiety and their lack of time won, however.

Time was of the essence, Bill had to be contained as soon as possible. Ford knew he and Stan would have to have a conversation about their lives and feelings at some point, but that would have to wait. Their focus had to be solely on Bill, they couldn’t afford to distract themselves with pesky emotions.

Ford reached into his coat and pulled out one journal at a time, stacking them one on top of the other on the table. The solid surface wasn’t helpful, as the scientist’s hands shook so badly, he ended up fumbling a journal and dropping it on the floor. He cursed and bent down to get it, trying to hide his shaking hands. He stood up and cleared his throat, avoiding Stan’s knowing gaze.

“Alright, then. To the unicorns you go.”

The scientist flipped through his first journal until he found the correct page, then slid it towards his brother over the kitchen table.

“There are instructions to reaching their glade here. Once you arrive, just… kind of deepen your voice a bit and do the chant. It’ll be enough, the glade isn’t super picky about it. If,” he cleared his throat again, “if what Bill says is true, be careful confronting Celestabellebethabelle. She’s not the most patient of creatures.”

“If what your little guy said-” 

Stan was rudely interrupted by his brother’s irritated exclamation.

“He’s not my little guy!”

“Sure, ‘ Fordsy ’.” He laughed. “If what he said is true, then don’t worry. I’ve been a conman for longer than you’ve been doing your nerdy research in this town. I can deal with other conmen, or con-unicorns, I guess.”

“I… I believe it, heh.”

Stan smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. Ford knew he deserved that, he had no right to even think of demanding a genuine smile from his twin, but it still hurt. How he missed their childhood and the easy smiles Stan was always so ready to throw his way. As he silently pondered over this and all that they had lost, Stanley drained the last of his coffee and stood up.

“I’m off, then.”

“Wait!”

Ford stood up as well, and ran to the living room. He returned a couple of minutes later with his crossbow and a handful of bolts.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Yeah.”

Ford lifted a single eyebrow.

“Huh… I don’t know why I’m surprised, honestly.”

“Yeah, well, what else to expect from good ol’ Stanley, am I right?”

Ford was, yet again, at a loss for words. Stan kept saying such things about himself so easily and readily, it was worrying. Ford may not have the best self-esteem but not even he had such lowly thoughts about himself. Unlike Stan, though, he had had support (even if minimal) from his father and from his muse (even if mostly fake). Could he truly blame Stan for having his sense of self so tied to all the negative experiences he had ever lived through (and by the way Stanley carried himself, his negative experiences greatly outweighed the positive)?

“Stanley, I… I didn’t mean it like that.”

How did he keep messing this up? He and his brother used to be so in sync as children, with Stan’s people-reading ability and the way he used to emote exaggeratedly, so Ford would understand him. The ten years they spent apart completely ruined their relationship, but Stan was able to get back into it so easily. The way he immediately went back to reading Ford like a book was impressive. But this time, Stan was different, closed off. This made Ford realise that he didn’t know how to be a brother anymore.

Once again, Ford got lost in thoughts about his relationship with his twin and completely missed what the man in question was doing. He was only brought back to reality when he heard Stan turn the door handle.

“Well, I’m off then,” he repeated.

For a split second, the scientist debated with himself. Should he let Stan leave like that, believing Ford thought the absolute worst of him? Or should he stop him, tell him everything that had been weighing on his mind, and waste time they did not have? Or worse, risk starting a second fight?

In the end, he opted for neither. He gave a couple of steps forward and placed his hand on Stan’s shoulder, not holding him but catching his attention. His twin turned his head to look at Ford from over his shoulder, a question clear in his eyes.

“Please be careful, Stanley. I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Stan’s face softened considerably, and Ford could almost swear he could see tears in his brother’s eyes. He was still closed off, though, his face a mask, hiding all emotions from his twin.

“Don’t worry about me, bro. I can take care of myself.”

With those words, Stan left the house, leaving behind his twin and all the unspoken words between them. Ford ran to the window and watched as the snow that fell slowly enveloped his brother. Stan did not look back once.

“I still worry…”

~~~~

Ford swore as a book fell on his head. He always told himself he someday would organise his cupboards and shelves, but it always ended up being a job for future Ford. Present Ford wasn’t very happy with past Ford, but he had no one to blame but himself.

As he dug through mounds of stuff, that ranged from unwashed socks (gods, he lived in a pigsty) to broken microscopes, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander to that fateful day ten years ago. The day when he saw his brother be literally thrown out on his ass and decided to turn his back on him. Countless “what ifs” ran through his mind.

What if he had never decided to go to West Coast Tech?

What if Stan had told him about the machine and they had fixed it?

What if he had spoken up, defended his brother?

What if he had left with Stan?

What if, what if, what if…

His life could have been so different with Stan in it. Ford probably wouldn’t have made as many bad choices as he did. Stanley would have seen through Bill, wouldn’t have been so easily fooled by his empty flattery.

Would Ford have been happy, though? He knew his brother would. Stan’s big dream was to sail the world together, exploring and adventuring. Well, not really. Stan’s dream didn’t need to involve sailing and exploring, and adventuring. All he wanted was for them to be together. If they ended up going on adventures and exploring the world, that was a bonus. But his twin’s company was good enough for Stan. 

And Ford had felt the same, when they had been children. But things changed that night. Ford knew that his younger self, the one that had to work three times as hard in Backupsmore, would not have wanted to sail the world with his brother. He wouldn’t have wanted to even see his brother.

But even when they were still in good terms, would the idea of doing nothing more than sailing the world with Stan have satisfied Ford’s need for science? Or would his brain have been idle and bored?

His thoughts were interrupted by the feel of a rough texture on his hand. At the bottom of the cupboard, two palm-sized moon rocks were partially hidden under a shirt Ford thought he had lost months ago. He was usually not so careless with samples, he had no idea how these rocks ended up here. It could have been Bill’s fault. Or perhaps, his former colleague’s. Regardless, he had them now. He retrieved the hastily written checklist he had made and ticked them off.

The scientist took a deep breath. The checklist had brought his mind back to the work. He couldn’t afford to get distracted now. He was on a mission.

He walked purposefully to his chemicals' cupboard - which was arranged in alphabetical order, as it should - and quickly found a glass jar of mercury.  

Ford, then, grabbed a plastic tray and started placing the materials for this crazy concoction of his on it. Moon rocks, check. Mercury, check. Mortar and pestle, check. Small spatula, check. Beaker, check. 50 mL graduated cylinder, check. Stirring rod, check. Lab stove, check. He still needed a mould for the shackles, and the unicorn hair.

He was pretty sure he still had the old doughnut pan an aunt had left for him as part of her will. He didn’t think she’d approve of it being used as a shackle mould, but he needed to work with what he had. She was dead anyway, it’s not like she could care.

The shackles might be a bit thick, but that only meant they’d be denser and harder to break. His biggest problem was the fact that Bill could shape-shift and change sizes. But, if the demon were really willing to cooperate, as he had been saying he would (which Ford didn’t quite believe in), he’d keep his form in a small enough size that the shackles would fit easily without being too big.

Carrying his plastic tray filled with materials, Ford made one last trip. A trip to the kitchen, in which he spent 15 minutes turning over his barely used kitchen supplies until he finally found the doughnut pan.

With all his supplies ready, Ford started reluctantly making his way back to the lift.

It was funny. An hour ago, what he least wanted to do was leave Bill alone in the basement. Now, he was torn between running back down there as fast as he could, and running out of the house as fast as his legs could carry him, while maybe also lighting the whole place on fire.

He breathed in deeply, puffed his cheeks and held the air in for about 5 seconds. He let it go slowly, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

As the lift took him down to the command room, Ford couldn’t help but feel his chest tightening. Is this how Stan felt like every time he entered a lift? It was awful. It was constricting and anxiety-inducing. Now he understood why Stan ran out of the lift like that.

The doors opened with a slightly rusty noise. It didn’t help to lessen the feeling in his chest.

Because there he was, facing Bill Cipher by himself again.

Yes, he had already faced him alone, when Stanley left to go retrieve his journals. But this felt different somehow. It felt like he was willingly going to Bill, the same way he had done roughly a year ago.

“You’re back, Fordsy.”

Bill’s voice grated in his head. He used to find it soothing because it meant his muse was nearby, ready to guide him towards greatness. Now it felt annoying and alien.

“Yes, I am back. And you seem to not have destroyed anything. I’m pleasantly surprised.”

Bill put a finger on one of his cheeks and winked demurely.

“I did tell you I’d behave.”

“Good. Now why don’t you behave one more time and keep quiet while I work?”

If Ford didn’t know Bill better, he could’ve sworn the demon was blushing.

“Oh, Fordsy, so bossy. I like it. Never seen this side of yours before.”

Ford loudly dropped the tray with his materials on a table and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

“I’m not in the mood for your games, Bill.”

“Not a game, Fordsy. Just stating a fact.”

“Please stop calling me that.”

“I can’t call you Fordsy, or Sixer, or Poindexter. What am I supposed to call you then?”

“As I’ve told you before, I’d rather you not refer to me at all.”

Bill made a fake sad face and crossed his arms. Ford was sure that if he could, the demon would’ve pouted.

“But we’re going to be spending time together. How are we going to communicate?”

“We will not be spending any time together. I am going to make these shackles. I am going to contain you. And then I am going to spend my days acquiring the necessary components to open the portal back up and be rid of you. I will then dismantle the portal, so you will never be able to reach this dimension again.”

As he spoke, Ford saw Bill deflate. Not literally, although the demon could have done this if he so wished. The scientist watched as his former muse slowly lost the gleam in his eye and hugged his own body. Had he been too harsh?

No. Of course not. All he’d done was assert himself. Ford didn’t want to interact with Bill more than he needed to. The demon was here for a reason (and Ford absolutely did not believe that little speech about him being it), and the scientist was not going to be fooled again.

Ignoring Bill’s existence, Ford decided to begin his work. He carefully arranged the materials on the table, grabbed his modified rubber gloves (he’d rather be working with nitrile gloves here, but no manufacturer ever made them six-fingered), and got to work.

He placed the moon rocks inside the mortar and began grinding them with the pestle. The repetitive motion soothed him and brought him a little peace of mind. He focused on the manual work, on the brittleness of the moon rocks. They seemed so sturdy, but were fragile and easily breakable. Much like his relationship with Bill had been…

Try as he might, Ford couldn’t stop thinking about what he and Bill had been, especially since the demon in question was behind him, separated only by a single pane of glass.

He risked a discreet glance and found that Bill was already looking at him. The demon widened his eye as he saw Ford looking and started raising a hand, as if to speak. Ford quickly looked back to his work. He couldn’t afford to distract himself. This was too important. The literal fate of the world depended on this.

So why did he feel so bad about ignoring this creature that, with a snap of its fingers, could bring unimaginable insanity on the world?

Ford sighed. He would continue grinding the moon rocks and he would keep his back to Bill, but his conscience got the better of him.

“What is it?”

“Hm?”Bill managed to sound nonchalant, but Ford knew him too well by now to know he was faking it.

“You were going to say something. What is it?”

“I was just going to say that I think you’re being too harsh on me.”

Bill’s tone was light, but it did not match his words.

Ford opened the mercury jar and started measuring it using the graduated cylinder. When the meniscus hit the correct volume, he dumped the liquid metal onto the mortar. Only then did he speak.

“What do you mean by that?”

He started mixing the moon rocks and the mercury with the pestle, creating a thick paste.

“You keep saying we’re not going to spend any time together and that all you want to do is get rid of me. Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?”

Ford mixed the moon rocks and the mercury until they reached the consistency he desired. With the help of the spatula, he transferred the contents of the mortar to the beaker. He turned on the lab stove and placed the beaker on top of it, stirring it lightly with the rod.

“I’m not being harsh, it’s just the truth.”

“But why?”

Ford frowned. Where was Bill going with this?

“Why what?”

He risked a glance at Bill, who was throwing his arms up in the air in exasperation.

“Why does it have to be like that?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Ford, look at me.”

The scientist swallowed hard. As he stirred the moon rock and mercury mix, he turned his body partially, so he could both look at Bill and keep an eye on his mixture. He raised a single brow, prompting the demon to speak.

“I sacrificed a lot to be here. I left my dimension and my Henchmaniacs. I gave up on the whole ‘merging our dimensions’ thing. I came here just for you. And all you can think of doing is get rid of me. Why?”

Ford snorted. It was undignified of him, but it was involuntary.

“What’s so funny?”

He started carefully putting the mixture into each doughnut shape of the pan. He was able to make six shackles in total. Now, he had to wait for them to cool down, and for Stan to bring the unicorn hair so they would be complete.

When he was finished and turned back to Bill, the demon was looking at him expectantly.

“Do you truly need me to answer that?”

“Of course I do! Wouldn’t have asked it otherwise.”

“Well, Bill Cipher. Everything you say to me seems like a bad joke. Did you really expect me to want to have any kind of contact with you after what you put me through? You used me, lied to me, tortured me. And now, just because you apparently sacrificed so much for me, you expect me to just forget everything that happened and go back to what it was before? Are you really this dense?”

Bill stared at him.

“So what? You used me too. You used me for my knowledge, and I used you for your brain and your body. We’re even in that category.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Of course it is!”

Ford sat up on the table.

“No, it isn’t. I don’t suppose you’ll ever be able to understand this.”

The demon looked at him pleadingly.

“Then explain it to me.”

Ford smiled coldly.

“How the tables have turned, huh.”

Bill crossed his arms.

“So this is how it’s going to be? You’ll just forget all the things I’ve ever done for you? All the things I’ve taught you?”

“I’m never going to forget it. But it’ll always be marred by moments such as when I found myself on the roof, knowing that, if you wanted it, you could have made me jump. I would have died unknowingly, and the whole town would have known me forever as the crazy scientist who killed himself.”

“But I didn’t make you jump!”

“Clearly. But that doesn’t matter.”

Ford could see Bill getting increasingly exasperated.

“How does it not matter?”

The scientist’s smile, up until now glacial, grew sad.

“See? You just don’t get it. And it’s not my job to explain it to you.”

“But-”

The lift door opened.

Stan, a little bloodied, a little worse for wear, practically jumped out of it.

Ford immediately got off the table and ran to his brother.

“Stanley, are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?”

Stan gave him a feral smile, showing bloody teeth.

“You should see the other guy. Or… unicorn, I guess.”

He took his hands out of his coat pockets, revealing two tufts of shiny unicorn hair.

“You did it…”

Stan raised an eyebrow.

“Why so surprised? Didn’t think I could do it?”

“No, no! It’s not that! It’s just… I’m impressed! I know how frustrating the unicorns can be. You succeeded where I failed.”

Stanley’s smile became a tad shy.

“Yeah, well, here it is. Now do your nerdy thing.”

A glance at Bill revealed to Ford that the demon was pensive. At least, it seemed that their conversation had had an impact on him.

He happily took the hairs from Stan and placed them near the doughnut pan. The coldness of the room had helped cool down the material faster, and it was ready for de-moulding.

Stan laughed upon seeing the pan being used as a mould.

“Ingenious!”

Ford smiled at him.

“Do you think aunt Filomena would have minded?”

“She’s dead.” Stanley shrugged. “She can’t mind anything.”

“Yeah, I had the same thought.”

The brothers shared a laugh, and Ford couldn’t help but notice the warm feeling that spread through his chest.

He carefully de-moulded the shackles and chose a better looking pair to be the ones that would go on Bill. Ford started placing the unicorn hair around the shackles, making a circle with the material. When the two sides of the hair connected, the shackles glowed with sigils.

“The shackles are ready!”

“Shackles?”

Ford turned to Stan.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, there’s no link between them, is there? Trust me, I’ve been in enough shackles to know. Those are more like… bracelets.”

“Oh… I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Here! I have something that might help!”

Stan put his bag on the floor and began to rummage through it. A couple of minutes later, he had a bike chain lock in his hands.

“Here you go!”

“Why do you have that?”

“Don’t ask, just use it.”

Ford grabbed the chain and passed it through the bracelets, linking them together through the lock.

“Now they’re ready!”

“So now what?”

Ford’s smile died down. It was obvious he had to go into the portal room and put the shackles on Bill. That thought filled him with dread. He couldn’t think of a thing he wanted less than to physically be in the same room as Bill Cipher.

He felt as Stan gently took the shackles from his hands. He stared wide-eyed at his brother, feeling fragile. How was it that Stanley always knew how he felt? It was uncanny.

“Do you want me to do it?”

“I-”

“I don’t mind, you know?”

Ford sighed.

“I know. And my brain is screaming at me to not get into that room.” He sighed again and took the shackles from Stan. “But I can’t subject you to this, Stanley. This was my mistake. And it’s up to me to fix it.”

Stan gave him an encouraging smile.

“I’ll be there with you the whole way.”

Ford smiled back. The dread was still there, but a small, warm feeling of hope began to bloom in his chest.

They were the Pines twins! Together, they could do anything they set their minds to!

He breathed in deeply.

“Let’s do this.”

Ford straightened his spine and made his way to the portal room door. He was once again impressed with how quiet and unobtrusive Bill could be when he wanted to. As he opened the door, the demon turned to face him, and Ford noticed that he still seemed a bit deflated, the light in his eye reduced to the smallest spark.

Even though he had Stan’s encouraging presence behind him and Bill’s apparent compliance, Ford still had to dig deep to summon the courage he put into his voice.

“I am going to put these on you. If all you have said to me until now is true, I hope you’ll cooperate.”

He heard a metallic noise behind him but did not turn to look. He was afraid to let Bill out of sight for even a second during such an important moment.

In an impressive display of… something Ford did not know the name of, the demon slowly floated down until his feet were touching the ground. Bill lifted his wrists and walked the few steps that separated him from Ford.

The scientist’s mind was running a million miles an hour. Seeing Bill like this, on the floor, offering his wrists submissively, made Ford’s stomach somersault. How many times had he imagined scenes like this in the last couple months, before the betrayal?

Gods, he had to take his mind out of the gutter. This was a serious moment! The fate of the world depended on this.

Ford slowly put the shackles on Bill, and the magical items seemed to adjust to the small size of the demon’s body. He hadn’t been expecting this, it was very neat. He couldn’t wait to describe it in his journals.

He turned to look at Stan, who smiled at him proudly. When he looked back at Bill, he found the demon looking at him strangely. He opened his mouth to ask, but Bill beat him to it.

“Shackles, huh, Fordsy? Never thought I’d see that day. In my mind, this was the other way around. Anyway, my safe word is .”

Once again, he was met with twin stares of utmost disdain.

“Oof… tough crowd.”

Ford grabbed his brother’s arm.

“Let’s go, Stanley. Our work here is done. For now.”

Chapter Text

As the brothers left the command room, Ford felt a protective hand on his shoulder. His chest warmed with the thought that, even after all these years, Stan still had the urge to protect him. His twin’s hand felt weirdly different, though, it didn’t possess the softness a person’s hand should have. Ford turned his head slightly to see and…

“Are you wearing brass knuckles?”

Stan had the decency to look sheepish. He removed the knuckles and put them back in his bag.

“It was just a… how do I put it? A little suggestion to your triangular friend. Ya know, to make sure he didn’t try anything funny.”

Ford snorted.

“I don’t think he was actually intimidated by it, but I appreciate your initiative.”

Stan gave him a small smile, and the twins took the lift back to the house.

Arriving on the kitchen, the brothers sat in an awkward silence. Ford had called Stan over to help with the Bill situation, but now that that was practically taken care of, he didn’t know what to do. Like Damocles’ sword, a much-needed conversation hung above the brothers, ready to fall at any moment. Ford had been dreading this from the moment he saw Stanley’s face on his doorstep.

He had never wished so hard for Stan’s so-called “twin telepathy” to be real. How easy it would be to just implant his thoughts in his brother’s head, with no way for words to be misheard or intentions to be misinterpreted.

But, no… That was a way of thinking more suited to the now-shackled yellow triangle residing in Ford’s basement. The last thing he wanted was to have anything in common with Bill Cipher again.

And, to distance himself even further from Bill, not only would he begin this very difficult conversation, but he would also be completely truthful during it.

“Stanley, I-”

“So-”

Both men stopped talking. Stan huffed, clearly amused. Ford smiled.

As kids, when they spoke or did the same thing at the same time, unprompted, Stan would always jokingly refer to it as “braincell sharing”. Ford knew that he and his brother were remembering it fondly. It was heart-warming to him to know that even after so many years apart, they could still find joy in the little things. He couldn’t help but take this as a positive sign.

“Please, Stanley, go ahead.”

“Nah, man, say your piece. I’m still kind of getting my thoughts in order.”

“Yes, of course… I think this is a long overdue conversation…”

Stan grimaced. “Yeah, I agree.”

Ford cleared his throat. He could feel anxiety pooling in his stomach, making him nauseous.

“Let me begin, then, by… apologising. For that night.”

Stan’s grimace grew. He awkwardly scratched his neck.

“Yeah, about that… heh. That one is still kinda tender to me. Can we… skip that for now?”

Ford blinked.

“I don’t… I don’t understand. You said you wanted to talk. You agreed this was a long overdue conversation. What else could we possibly talk about?”

“I don’t know, man! How has life been? What have you been doing all these years? Did you call me here just to help you out and that’s it? I didn’t think we’d start our first proper conversation in ten years with you talking about the night you got me kicked out! It’s not like I need the reminder!”

“You don’t have to use that tone. You speak as if I got you kicked out on purpose. That’s why I’m trying to apologise! I did not mean for you to be disowned.”

Stan’s face got angry and closed off.

“If you wanna talk about it so bad, then let’s fucking talk about it! You say you didn’t mean it, but you didn’t even lift one of your twelve fingers to help me. You didn’t even protest! You closed the curtains to avoid looking at me! I lost everything that night!”

Stan was now clearly incensed. His face was red, and his breathing was fast and angry. He had stood up and pushed the chair back in his fervour.

Ford’s expression was stormy. He remained sitting.

“You have no idea how I felt that night.”

“Enlighten me, then!” He started gesticulating wildly, needing to expel his anger in some way. “Clearly it wasn’t so bad because look around! You have a nice house, a job, enough money to eat and pay your bills and fund your crazy ass experiments. You’ve been here living a cushy life while I’ve been crashing in my car for years. My last proper meal was a half-eaten sandwich I found in a trash can, Ford!”

Ford bristled. Stan had no way of knowing he had had to work thrice as hard to get to where he was, but hearing his brother diminish all of his hard work made his blood boil. It even caused him to wilfully ignore the clear signs of how badly his twin had been doing all these years.

“I closed the curtains on you because I couldn’t bear to look at what I had caused.” Despite his closed off expression, Ford’s voice was calm as he spoke. “I felt… torn and conflicted. I was the one responsible for causing the suffering of my own twin brother. I felt like an awful, despicable person. And yet… I was so angry at you. You cost me my dream university. I lost my dream and my brother that night. But I also gained something I had had to leave behind during our childhood.”

Stan blinked, confused, and sat down, processing everything being said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I got back my ability to express myself.”

“You’re not making any sense. And besides, you think you had it bad? I lost everything! My house, my mom, my sense of security and stability, my best friend… So don’t tell me about how awful you felt! Because I can guarantee that I was way worse off.”

Ford smiled humourlessly.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Of course you thought that. Stupid Stanley, he can’t keep up with my lightning fast brain.”

“Listen, Stanley. Before we started this conversation, I promised to myself that I’d be completely truthful with you. Even though I now know you will not understand my point, I’m still going to make it.”

Stan crossed his arms in front of his body.

“I’m all ears, Sixer”, he said pointedly.

“I’ve told you not call me that!” Ford breathed deeply. “Perhaps this was a bad idea.”

“Why? Because my brain can’t comprehend the depths of your genius thoughts?”

The scientist grit his teeth.

“I meant calling you here. I’m thankful for all your help, but I knew we’d end up fighting eventually.”

Stan laughed without humour.

“Of course. I should have known you’d think that way. I don’t even know why I came, to be honest.”

“What else do you want me to say? I’ve tried to apologise, I’ve thanked you, I don’t know what else you expect from me!”

Stan opened his arms abruptly.

“Since you wanted to talk about the night you got me kicked out so bad, do it then. Tell me, brother”, he said, venom dripping from the word, “why would I never understand how you felt?”

Ford breathed in harshly.

“You’re not going to like what you hear.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Fine, then…”

He didn’t truly want to tell his brother the truth, he knew it would deepen the wound even further, but Stan was looking at him expectantly, a look of vulnerability barely concealed in his eyes. It would crush him, Ford realised, it would break his twin’s heart and he might lose him forever. It was a complicated feeling, one even he barely understood. But he had promised to be sincere. And Stanford Pines was not a man of empty promises.

“The moment dad threw you out onto the sidewalk, I realised it. After all the years of having to be the “golden twin”, unable to express even the slightest irritation I felt towards you in fear that our father would verbally abuse you at best and beat you, at worst. You couldn’t even begin to imagine how difficult it was to be a small boy, unable to show even the slightest negative emotion towards you. We are twins! Siblings are meant to fight and bicker! But we never could. I never could. Because if I did, you were punished. So in that night, I realised it. I resented you for it. And I’m so sorry, but it’s not a feeling I can control.”

Stan was facing down, but his face was clearly pale. Ford could practically see the gears in his brain moving as he processed the information. Slowly, Stan’s mouth curled into a cold and cruel smile.

“So that’s it, huh? Boohoo, the poor widdle boy who couldn’t ‘expwess’ his ‘feewings’.” Stan lifted his face now, and Ford was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “It must have been so difficult, being loveable and perfect. You are the one who wouldn’t understand what it’s like. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a little kid and have every adult around you tell you that you’re inferior, that you’re stupid and flawed and ‘why can’t you be more like your brother?’ To the point that you hear it so much you end up believing it yourself?” Stan abruptly stood up and grabbed his bag. “Thanks for telling me you see me that way too, because now I know exactly who I can rely on, and that’s only myself.” He started moving towards the front door, and Ford made no move to stop him. His voice was devoid of emotion. “I was so excited when you called me here. I thought I was finally gonna get my brother back. But now I hope I never see your fucking face again. In person or on my reflection.”

Without looking back, Stanley left. Ford heard as the front door opened and closed, and as the car’s engine struggled to turn on. He did nothing but listen as his brother hurriedly drove off and only when the engine sounds were too far away to hear, did he let himself slump onto the table.

He felt… conflicted. Much like he had that one fateful night. The relief of getting it all out of his chest was at war with how absolutely awful he felt. He never expected this conversation to go well, but this exceeded his expectations, in the worst way possible.

He replayed the entire conversation in his mind, thinking of ways he could have expressed himself better, ways in which they somehow reached better outcomes and Stanley stayed. He knew that calling his brother back after the confession would’ve had no effect. Stan felt too agitated and betrayed and it was so painfully obvious even Stanford himself could see it.

It had been a comfort to see his brother again. The loneliness that permeated Ford’s soul was appeased for a few moments. But now, he was back to being alone…

“Oh, gods, no!”

His eyes widened as he realised that the only two beings in the house at the moment were himself

and Bill Cipher.

Bill doesn’t need to sleep. He’s never had to. But he’s starting to feel like a human who hasn’t been able to sleep in a couple of days. And he knew what that felt like. He had possessed Sixer’s body after a few such occasions. He was sure the shackles were to blame for this. When they were placed on his wrists, he could feel his brain getting sluggish and slower.

Ever since the twins left, Bill had been pacing, trying to concentrate enough to dig into his power reserves, see if anything was left or if the shackles had drained it all.

He found that floating still came to him easily. However, he was only capable of floating a few centimetres off the ground. More than that, and the effort tired him out so completely he felt like passing out.

Shape-shifting was harder. He could still do it, of course, Bill Cipher would not be deterred by a pair of hastily-made shackles. It was harder, though. It took up most of his concentration and strength, he could only keep it up for a few minutes, and it left him feeling exhausted and drained, as if a truck had run over him (Bill didn’t know how that felt, but he imagined it was similar to this).

Expanding his consciousness to the floor above in order to read Stanley’s thoughts also took a heavy toll. To him, reading minds was usually as natural as breathing was to a human. And now it was as if someone had removed a very important organ of his body, but he couldn’t quite put his finger in which one. Bill felt so fatigued that he wasn’t even able to keep up his floating.

He fell to the floor abruptly and hit his head. This was the first time in almost a trillion years that Bill Cipher felt physical pain. Much like his emotional pain, this was not funny. Deciding to just give up on his power investigation, he simply laid there, staring at the ceiling.

“Maybe this was a bad idea.”

He placed his hands over his eye in a gesture of annoyance.

“So stupid! What did I just do?”

A thought struck him, like a lightning bolt hitting a tree during a storm.

After spending so long telling himself that he wouldn’t give up on his powers and that Ford would simply have to deal with it, Bill had simply, and with absolutely no resistance, offered his wrists to be shackled.

He prided himself in being a triangle of his word, but apparently all that was necessary for him to break a promise to the being he considered most important in the multiverse (himself) were a few words from Ford.

How was he allowing this human to have such power over him?

He knew the answer to that, obviously. Had admitted it to himself a couple of hours ago.

Bill considered himself an enlightened being, presented himself as such to the minds he influenced over the years.

This decision didn’t feel so enlightened. It had seemed like such a good idea, but, if he were being honest (he was still getting used to that), his brain hadn’t been the one in charge of decision-making at the time.

Curse his weak heart! Why couldn’t this have been the metaphorical organ missing?

If he had his powers in full, he would have plunged his hand into his chest and ripped it out.

Bill would have to deal with the consequences of his actions now. His biggest problem is that he had absolutely no idea how to do that.

Chapter Text

Ford was pacing. Again.

His shoes were leaving skid marks on the floor. Again.

The prospect of having an eye-stealing fiend coming to his house, or being mind controlled by an evil triangle demon, were no longer worries that hung over his head.

No, he had a bigger worry now.

“Sixeeeeeeeeer! I’m bored!”

Said worry was sitting on a table (after spending at least fifteen minutes trying his best to climb it and refusing help), swinging his legs back and forth and staring at him intently.

Ford ignored him. He had been doing so for at least twenty minutes now. It was not an easy task, though. It seemed that Bill’s ability to be annoying was not dampened alongside his powers.

“Oh, Sixeeer!” The demon sang.

“What? What is it?” Ford snapped.

He looked angrily at Bill. The triangle seemed pleased with having got his attention.

“I’m bored,” the demon replied cheekily.

“Yes, Bill, I heard you the first twelve times.”

“Well, why didn’t you say anything, then?”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. He had never wished so hard for a situation to be a nightmare that he could simply wake up from.

Oh, to be able to pinch himself and just poof wake up.

That reminded him… he hadn’t slept in days.

He knew his irritation and lack of patience were partly due to the (probably) worrying levels of cortisol his body was sporting due to his lack of sleep.

But now, Bill was no longer capable of entering his mind. He was restrained by the shackles. And that… that meant Ford could sleep.

An idea formed in his mind.

He lifted his head and found Bill already staring expectantly at him. The scientist walked towards the demon, grabbed the bike chain lock that connected the shackles, and lifted Bill.

“Hey, let go of me! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Bill kept swinging his little legs back and forth violently, trying to free himself. But, with his powers greatly diminished, and his body stuck in a small triangular form, the demon was powerless even against Ford’s heavily sleep-deprived body.

When he had first started his research in Gravity Falls, Ford had bought a bird cage to keep specimens in. The first fairies he had kept in there had easily unlocked the door mechanism, wreaked havoc on his home, and escaped. So he secured the cage door with a more complicated lock mechanism, and no specimens had ever escaped since. Said cage now lay forgotten in the corner of an office, and Ford had never had the heart to get rid of it because what if he ever needed it again?

Its time to shine had finally come.

Still holding on to Bill (who kept squirming and loudly protesting), the human unlocked the cage mechanism.

“Ford, what are you doing?”

Bill laughed nervously.

“You’re not going to put me in the cage, are you?”

Feeling no need to reply, Ford deftly opened the cage door, stuffed the demon inside and locked it.

“HEY! You can’t do this to me!”

“Not only I can, but I just did. And now, I am going to do something I have not been able to do properly ever since you showed me your true colours. I can’t estimate this precisely, but I’d venture a guess that I’ll be back in 18 hours. Enjoy your new room.”

As Ford turned to leave, he heard Bill inhale loudly and then start to shriek. To make things even worse, the newly-made prisoner started violently shaking the bars of the cage.

Ford had never heard such a grating and irritating combination of sounds in his entire life, and he had shared a house with a younger baby brother who was prone to crying.

He turned back to Bill and stared at him. It took the demon a while to realise he had got the attention he so clearly wanted and stop screaming and shaking the bars.

“If you don’t let me out, I won’t stop,” Bill said, voice pitched to a tone he seemed to think made him sound innocent.

The scientist slowly smiled at his former muse, an icy cold showing of teeth that could hardly be called a smile.

“Scream all you want. I live far enough away from the city that no one will hear you. And better yet, neither will I, because my room is soundproofed.”

Ford could have sworn he saw Bill’s face fall. The demon hadn’t been emoting much ever since he showed up through the portal, but Ford could tell.

“I’ll come by later to unlock it.”

And, denying Bill the chance to have a last word in, Ford purposefully turned around and left the room.

Despite Ford’s warnings, Bill screamed himself hoarse for another 15 minutes.

The lack of reaction made him stop. There was no fun in screaming annoyingly if there was no one to get annoyed by it.

He let go of the bars and scooted to the back of the cage, crossing his arms.

Gods, he was so fucking stupid!

He had given up everything for this man, and what had he got in return? Shackles and a cage. And not even a comfortable cage!

Bill wasn’t usually an impulsive triangle. He loved to plan and plot and have every detail laid out and every possibility of failure accounted for.

But Ford brought out an impulsiveness in him that he wasn’t capable of explaining.

And now, here he was, dealing with the consequences of his actions.

Typically, his actions didn’t have consequences. Any collateral caused by his plans could be overcome or avoided with the help of his powers or Henchmaniacs.

Well, his powers were mostly gone. And his Henchmaniacs were in another dimension, with no way of getting to the one he was in.

He still had his brain, of course, but he was so used to thinking about ways to escape using his powers, that now he had no idea how to even begin.

“I should probably begin with the lock, I guess,” he said to no one in particular.

He approached the lock. It was a normal one (store-bought, not one of Sixer’s inventions), but the key wasn’t in the keyhole, and also nowhere in Bill’s (fairly limited) field of vision. So, using all of his concentration and a big amount of will, the demon shapeshifted his hands into lock picks. Manoeuvring around the bars of the cage, he began the simple yet time-consuming task of feeling for the tumblers and picking the lock.

He had done this before, in places where the expectation was that one would use one’s power to unlock something, and thus the lock was resistant to all kinds of magic. So the logical thing to do was the unexpected: pick a lock manually.

Bill had forgotten how slow this process was. Having to feel for each tumbler, push it up, hope it was the correct one, move on to the next one. He spent 45 minutes in this endeavour, the awkward position he was in and the fact that he was using most of his concentration to keep his hands in the shape of the picks acting as enormous hindrances.

Eventually, he heard a click.

“Fuck yeah. Still got it.”

Slowly, he opened the door of the cage. An immense sense of satisfaction filled him. He didn’t have his powers at their best and his Henchmaniacs were not there to help him, and yet! He had freed himself from that cage!

He jumped out and immediately fell on the floor. His legs felt like noodles and his body felt too heavy to be supported by them. Bill knew this was due to his using his powers to shapeshift his hands, but he didn’t want to believe it. Such a simple thing, a small bout of shapeshifting (and not even of his whole body) had been capable of completely draining his energy.

How could those shackles, made in such a hurry and with absolutely no plan, be so efficient?

He forced himself to his feet. He would not be defeated by Sixer’s stupid stroke of luck. He would go after the man and show him that he couldn’t imprison him, no matter how hard he tried.

Bill started to drag himself through the room. How he missed being able to fly… His tiny form had tiny legs, which weren’t very good for walking. His already small steps were made even smaller by the tiredness that had begun to settle itself deep in his bones (he had bones now, real bones! How cool was that!).

He crossed the seemingly endless floor of Ford’s office. Upon reaching the door, he was met with his most daunting challenge in this dimension up until now.

The hallway.

Bill realised at this moment that he had no idea which door led to Sixer’s room. He didn’t use to pay a lot of attention to the house’s layout when he was possessing Ford’s body. He was close to regretting it, except that Bill Cipher was not a triangle of regrets.

He would have to find Ford’s room by process of elimination while exploring the place.

No time better than the present.

It took Bill four hours.

Four whole hours of walking around the house, checking every door to see if that would finally be the one that led him to Ford’s room.

Every few steps, he had to stop and try his best not to fall asleep. This was a foreign feeling to him, but his body felt heavy and he could feel his eye closing of its own accord.

The flying was not helping either. Bill couldn’t reach the doorknobs, so he had to summon will and strength from the deepest parts of his apparently existent soul in order to fly up to the knob and then jump on it to make it turn and open the door.

The demon finally came upon a locked door. None of the doors had been locked so far, so he felt it safe to assume this was Ford’s bedroom. He touched his face to the door, in the same way a human would put their ear to it to listen to a conversation.

Silence.

He strained a bit and picked up on some faint mumbling.

So this was Ford’s room. He had done it! But what was Sixer mumbling about?

Bill laid down on the floor in front of the room, and placed his would-be ear near the small slit that separated the door from the floor.

“No, no, please,” he heard.

Who was Ford talking to? They were the only ones in the house.

“Leave me alone.”

Was someone threatening Ford? Had a creature, or perhaps another human, invaded the house and was now posing a threat to Sixer?

“Please, please, get away from me!”

Bill’s brain started going a mile a minute. His tiredness seemed to fade in the face of his human possibly being in danger. His mind went through multiple scenarios in which he found a way to break out of the shackles and save Ford, and the scientist showed such immense gratitude towards him that he forgave all of Bill’s so-called mistakes.

Yes, he could do this. He could drain his last energy reserves and be a hero for once, protect Ford from whatever was scaring him.

And then, he heard it.

“Bill, no, please, leave me alone.”

Oh.

There was no threat. At least, not a real one. Whatever was plaguing Ford existed only in his dreams.

It seemed that even when Bill was not in his mind, he was still in his mind.

If this were happening in any other moment of their relationship, Bill would have been proud to know he occupied Sixer’s thoughts even in sleep.

But now? He felt… he didn’t have the words to describe this feeling, because he wasn’t sure what it was. It wasn’t good, though. Whatever it was that permeated his body now, it was not a nice feeling.

The unnamed sensation added to Bill’s previously forgotten tiredness. His limbs were again heavy, so much so that he started questioning if they hadn’t turned into iron (which was a thing he could do if he wanted to, but now it seemed very unattainable).

With a lot of effort, the demon got back up. He refused to stay lying down on Ford’s doorstep, like a dog missing its owner. Slowly, he dragged himself back to the office and to his cage. It took him less time than during his first exploration of the house, but when he reached his cage, Bill collapsed inside as if he had been walking for hours and hours.

And, as he curled up on himself and finally let his eye close, a name to that strange feeling finally popped into his mind.

Shame.

Chapter Text

Ford wasn’t a man of guesses. When he did guess, it was based strictly on logic. Which, as Stan loved pointing out when they were kids, meant his guesses weren’t really guesses.

This time, he had guessed wrong. Stan would’ve been overjoyed!

18 hours? More like 48.

If his digital clock was to be trusted (and it usually was), he had been asleep for two whole days!

Ford had never slept this long in his entire life. He guessed it explained the dryness of his throat and the way his stomach hurt, like it was trying to digest itself.

He needed food and he needed water, and he needed them now.

Ford sat up slowly. His head felt weird, as if someone had stuffed it with cotton while he was asleep. He tried getting up, but his head swam, his vision blurred and he fell backwards onto his bed.

“Shit.”

Ford realised his glasses were still on his bedside table. Putting them on made no difference. His blurry vision was not due to his eyesight problems, but to the weakness of his body.

He tried again, slower this time. His vision was still blurry and his head still swam, but he was ready this time. Holding on to the wall, he half-walked, half-dragged himself towards the kitchen, hoping to find something, anything to stop the gnawing in his stomach.

It took him longer than he cared to admit. Had his hallway always been this long?

The light streaming from his kitchen window seemed to him like salvation. His sink looked like the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes upon. Ford opened the tap and stuck his head under it, drinking the water so fast he felt sick and vomited it back onto the sink, its clear colour marred by his bile.

He held onto the sides of the sink, feeling that his lungs had lost their capacity to inflate to their maximum volume. He took a deep, slow breath, until he could feel his lungs fighting with his ribs for more space inside his chest.

Feeling a little more under control now, Ford cupped his hands under the water that was still flowing from his tap, collected some of it, and used it to rinse his mouth, getting rid of the taste of bile.

Applying some restraint, he began to drink again from his cupped hands. Smaller, slower sips. He could feel his head and vision becoming clearer, the scratchiness in his throat diminishing.

When his thirst was abated, he took his glasses off and splashed some water on his face.

Water, check. Now, he needed food. His stomach growled angrily, protesting the fact that all it had consumed for the last few days had been coffee.

Putting his glasses back on, he began to check his kitchen. The cupboard over the sink was empty. The ones next to it had nothing but cobwebs. His other cupboard had a half-feral rat who hissed at him when he opened the door.

Ford looked over at his last hope: the fridge.

A shrivelled husk that could hardly be called an apple anymore. A gallon of milk that was no longer liquid. And a pizza box containing… something green and full of fungi (and not the edible ones).

Ford needed to get some food. The little corner shop run by the old couple wasn’t terribly far away, but it was snowing, and his body was weak. It would take him longer than normal. If he started going now, he might make it home before nightfall.

He needed to layer up, his already frail body would not take to the cold very well. He couldn’t afford to get sick.

When he left the kitchen, Ford noticed something his slightly delirious brain had failed to observe earlier. The doors to the other rooms of his house were open. He was pretty sure most of them had been closed before.

And then it dawned on him.

He had completely forgotten about Bill.

His former muse, Bill Cipher, was in his house.

Breath quickening, Ford hobbled to the room he had left Bill in.

A conflicting feeling grew in his chest upon seeing that 1. Bill was still in the cage, but 2. The cage door was open.

Ford let out a single hysteric laugh. Had he truly been so stupid to believe he could leave Bill unattended and the demon would simply stay put? He was lucky nothing had happened.

“Fordsy!”

Bill was looking at him, single eye open, curled up at the bottom of the cage.

“How did you get it open?”

“Good morning to you too, sleepyhead.”

“Bill,” the scientist’s voice was a little desperate, “I’m in no mood for your games. How did you get the cage open?”

The demon made a show of sitting up and stretching.

“Well, Fordsy, I know you know how powerful I am. You know what I’m capable of. It’s why you made these.” He lifted his wrists, jangling the bike chain that connected his shackles. “And even though your little move with the shackles was good, I’m better. You may have dampened my powers, but you didn’t get rid of them completely. So it was only a matter of will and concentration to shapeshift my hands into lock picks. You know, I expected better of you. When I saw that the lock on the cage was just a simple one, I was disappointed. You’re such a brilliant man. Surely you could have come up with something more… I don’t know. Challenging.”

Trying to keep a straight face, Ford inwardly sighed in relief. So the shackles had worked, even if partially.

“You still have your powers, then?”

“I do. But they’re… lessened. Let me phrase that in terms your little number-loving brain would understand. I’d say I’m at a solid 5% right now.”

Five percent. The shackles, made in a hurry, had been able to contain 95% of Bill’s abilities.

What a great academic article that could have made. He could even see the publication: ‘The usage of moon stones, mercury, and unicorn hair in the containment of interdimensional entities by Dr. Stanford Filbrick Pines’. Of course, he would have to find a way to measure the extent of Bill’s powers to figure out if the demon was telling the truth, but still!

Now was not the time to think about his scientific prowess, however. He couldn’t be a greatly revered scientist if he died of starvation. He needed to tell Bill he was going out, while also threatening the demon to stay put and not destroy his house in the meantime.

“Bill, I am going out. As you might know, humans need to eat. I haven’t got any food in the house at the moment and I-”

“You do know that if you took these things out, I could conjure food up for you, yeah?” The triangle interrupted, indicating his wrists.

Ford smiled icily.

“I have to admit it would be a lot more practical. However, I do not trust you enough to even think about removing those shackles.”

“Come on, Fordsy, we’d be helping each other out! You get your food and I get my powers back. Win-win!”

“I don’t think you truly understand the meaning of the expression ‘win-win’, but I’ll let it slide for now. In any case, I am not removing the shackles. My thoughts were a bit more along the edge of locking you back into the cage and then locking the door this time.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not gonna take me along? Not let me out of your sight or whatever?”

“Of course not,” Ford laughed. “Did you really expect me to walk around the convenience store with you under my arm?”

Bill laughed along, its sound fake even to Ford’s ears.

“Ha, no. Did you really think I was being serious? Stupid human.”

Despite his answer, Ford was sure Bill was lying. The way the light was snuffed out from the demon’s eye was a clear indicative of his mood.

Kneeling down near the cage, Ford cleared his throat.

“I’m going to lock this again.”

He didn’t know why he was speaking so gently, as if he were trying to lessen the impact of his words and soothe Bill.

The demon refused to look at him as he clicked the lock back in its place.

“I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

Bill didn’t even seem to notice Ford had left, so intent he was on not looking at the scientist.

This time, Ford locked the door on his way out.

Bundled up in as many cold weather clothes as he could find, Ford began the arduous trek through the snow to reach Dusk 2 Dawn. His body, thinner than it should be due to his skipping meals, was beginning to grow cold faster than normal. He felt frail and tired, despite sleeping for 48 hours.

He couldn’t stop thinking of Bill, alone in the house, trapped in a cage. He felt weirdly bad about the way he left the demon, alone and sad.

He knew he shouldn’t feel this way. Keeping Bill in a cage didn’t even come close to half the things the demon had done to him.

What was wrong with him? Bill had tortured him mentally, physically and emotionally, and yet he felt bad because he left the demon trapped inside a tiny cage.

Speaking of the cage, he hoped Bill was still imprisoned.

It was so paradoxical! Ford wished with all his heart that his former muse had not escaped incarceration, but he also felt awful for keeping Bill confined.

This line of thought kept him busy until he reached Dusk2Dawn.

He didn’t even realise he had arrived at his destination, until he almost went face first through the glass doors. People had seen his faux pas, so he laughed awkwardly, as if to dismiss it. Two people at the car park gave him strange looks as he laughed. Ford cleared his throat, self-conscious.

As he entered the store, a man who had been leaving gave him a wide berth.

An old lady that was near the shopping carts stepped away from him with disgust all over her face as he grabbed a cart.

On his way to the instant noodles’ corridor, a little kid had been playing with some canned food. Upon seeing Ford, the child’s mother grabbed her son and all but ran away from the scientist.

Were the people at the store… avoiding him?

He knew he had never been the most social citizen, but this was a bit much.

That is, until he passed a freezer door and its glass window showed his reflection.

The bags under his eyes were so big and purple, they made him look like a raccoon. His hair was dishevelled and disgusting, clumps of dirt clearly visible in it. His face was sallow, and his beard was long and unkempt. His clothes were dirty and wrinkled, a clear sign of neglect. Ford was sure that, on top of all that, he smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a week and a half (because he truly hadn’t).

He guessed he didn’t blame the townspeople. If the weird scientist that barely spoke to anyone had shown up looking like a homeless man, he’d avoid him as well. He quickly gathered what he needed and paid, pretending he couldn’t see the badly disguised look of disgust on the face of the old cashier.

Plastic bags in hand, Ford began his long and cold trek back home. He could feel the judging stares of every single person in the store, boring down on his back. It made him feel self-conscious. He walked as fast as his weak body (and shopping bags) would allow.

Ford usually ignored the comments and snide looks people threw his way (usually not about the way he smelled, but it was the principle of the thing). Ignoring such things didn’t mean he could magically stop listening to them, though. It just made him internalise everything, until all the bottling up reached its limit and the dam broke. Being called a freak since infancy made you create some maybe-not-so-healthy coping mechanisms.

Mulling over the store situation, the scientist didn’t even pay attention to where he was walking, letting his feet guide him automatically. He didn’t expect to have his body take him back to his house. Muscle memory was indeed an interesting function.

Ford stood in the snow, staring dumbly at the front of his house, as if he expected something to be wrong with it but couldn’t really figure out what.

All the walls were still up, his windows were caked with snow but otherwise intact, and his door was locked in its place. There was absolutely nothing wrong, he didn’t know why he felt so deeply that something-

Ah.

That’s what was wrong. Or, well, not wrong. But Ford simply wasn’t expecting his home to still be there when he got back. He had been ready for a house fire, or perhaps a void where the building used to be. Not… this. Complete normalcy.

He unlocked the door and walked in quietly. Inside, nothing seemed out of place. The door to the office Bill’s cage was in was still closed, just as he had left it.

Ford dropped his bags in the kitchen and slowly made his way to the office. He unlocked the door and peeked inside.

Was it weird to say he was disappointed at the lack of chaos?

Everything was still the same way it was when he had left for the store. He could see Bill’s small body curled up at the bottom of the cage, apparently sleeping.

Ford was speechless (and that was a very rare thing). He couldn’t believe the demon had been left on his own and just… done nothing. This was unheard of. Bill was a creature of chaos, he needed it to thrive. The scientist could feel incredulity oozing from him like sweat.

Speaking of sweat, Ford remembered he felt - and smelled - disgusting. His surprise at Bill’s actions (or lack thereof) could wait.

He desperately needed a shower.

His bathroom wasn’t the cleanest. If he were being honest, his whole house was filthy. Cleaning wasn’t a top priority when the threat of world destruction was looming over your head.

However, he had been neglecting his personal hygiene for weeks, which meant that was the best shower Ford had ever taken. He was usually very self-conscious about his water usage, and never spent more than ten minutes in the shower. He wasn’t caring now. This was his first (and last) 50 minute-long shower.

Despite telling himself he would ponder later about the strangeness of Bill’s inaction, his mind, relaxed and miraculously empty because of the warm water, was powerless to stop the subject from creeping up on him.

Ford hadn’t believed Bill speech about how he was the reason the demon had come to this dimension. He had believed in the triangle’s lies for long enough now, he knew better than to believe in another.

But this… this was something else. Bill had always been a demon of words, his silver tongue his best and most utilised weapon. The only words involved in this situation, however, were ones his former muse was apparently living by. The promise to behave was being kept. Ford couldn’t for the life of him understand why.

It made him feel weirdly appreciated. All he had ever wanted from his former muse was for his love to be reciprocated. But this apparent reciprocation confused Ford. He didn’t know if the demon was being truthful about caring for him, or if he had second intentions.

The scientist wished Bill were a creature as simple as the moths he collected, so he could pin him to a board and study him.

The mechanical action of drying himself took his mind off the demon for a couple of minutes.

Putting on clean clothes after wearing the same outfit for weeks was life-changing.

Ford was staring to feel human again.

All that was left was to eat.

Before going back to the kitchen, Ford stopped in front of the office door, straining his ears to listen for… anything, really.

The silence was surprising and yet eerily disconcerting. He had never seen Bill be silent, except when the demon knew silence was the best course of action to achieve his goal.

The scientist was so concentrated in trying to discover the reason for his former muse’s silence that he nearly missed it.

A sob.

Very faint, a bit muffled.

But most definitely a sob.

Impulsively (he wasn’t an impulsive man, what was he doing?), he opened the door.

Ford pretended not to see as Bill wiped at his eye while sitting up.

“Fordsy!”

His tone was obviously fake happy, but the human ignored it.

“I have to say, Bill, I’m… pleasantly surprised. My house is still in one piece, there’s not a single speck of dust out of place.”

“I did promise I’d behave, didn’t I?”

“You did. I just… didn’t expect you to follow through with it.”

Bill grabbed the bars of the cage, eye wide, the very picture of innocence.

“I didn’t lie to you, Ford,” his voice was earnest in a way that almost left Ford speechless, “not this time. You’re the reason I’m here. I don’t plan on messing things up again.”

The scientist could feel his face flushing. He put his closed fist in front of his mouth to clear his throat. He didn’t know how to react to this.

During adolescence, Stan always let him know when someone was flirting with him (which was rare), even though Ford never cared about any of it.

Now, he regretted not having had dalliances during his youth, because he was completely out of his depth here. Of course, none of his peers had been a triangle demon from another dimension, but it was the principle of the thing.

His neurons were firing wildly. What was the best course of action here? For so long, he dreamed about Bill returning his feelings, about their muse/scientist relationship becoming something more. But that dream had been crushed the moment the demon had revealed himself and the torture began.

Feelings were a lot harder to get rid of, though.

Ford still harboured feelings for Bill, that much was clear to the scientist. But said feelings were marred by the toxicity of their relationship.

As far as he could see, he had two options here: either play along or ignore it. And he didn’t have it in him to play along.

After what felt like hours, but had probably been no more than two seconds, Ford felt like he could formulate an answer without stuttering or hesitating.

“Would you… like to come to the kitchen with me?”

Bill blinked, clearly confused.

“What?”

“I’m going to cook myself some… I don’t know if I should call it dinner or lunch. You’re welcome to accompany me, if you want.”

“Oh.”

Ford could see the gears turning in Bill’s brain. He had no way of knowing what the demon was thinking. Why was he so anxious about the demon’s answer? Hadn’t he just told himself he had no energy to play along?

After some thinking, Bill shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant but missing the mark.

“Yeah, sure, why not? I’m not doing anything right now.”

Ford chuckled slightly, then unlocked the cage.

The triangle stood there, unmoving, staring at the open door incredulously.

“You’re letting me out?”

“Unless you’d prefer to stay there…”

Bill immediately jumped out of the cage.

“Nope, I’m good.”

“That’s what I thought. Now, come on.”

Ford started moving towards the kitchen and listened intently for the pitter-patter of Bill’s tiny feet. The scientist decided to walk slower, so the demon’s little legs could keep up with him.

An unusually peaceful silence enveloped them. Ford couldn’t think of a single moment in their very troubled relationship in which they had shared a silence. It was… nice.

In the kitchen, the man started putting away his shopping while the demon struggled to perch upon a chair.

“What’s this?”

Ford looked to the triangle. Bill was peeking over the table at one shopping bag whose contents had spilled out. He was on his tippy-toes, his finger lightly poking a jellybean packet.

“Oh, those are jellybeans. Mostly made of sugar. They are… an indulgence. Would you like to try one?”

The demon’s eye widened.

“Really?”

“If you’d like.”

A certain childhood wonder took over Bill’s expression. Ford had never seen anything like it; it was written all over the demon’s face, so painfully obvious even the scientist could tell.

Bill extended his hands, palms up.

“Gimme!”

Chuckling, Ford opened the packet.

“Pick a colour.”

The demon pretended to think hard.

“Octarine.”

The scientist rolled his eyes.

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Yeah, it is. I allowed you to see it. You just decided to give it a weird name.”

“You mean to tell me Fordtramarine has an actual name?” His hand stopped midway to the packet, curiosity getting the better of him.

Bill looked at him as if he were stupid and made grabby hands.

“Of course it does. Now, gimme the bean!”

“They don’t make Fordtra- I mean, octarine, is that it? They don’t make jellybeans in that colour.”

Bill sighed.

“Give me a yellow one, then.”

As Ford reached for the packet, a loud knock on the door interrupted their moment. They looked at each other, and then to the door. The man dropped the packet back on the table.

Another knock, this time followed by a desperate voice:

“Ford, please, open the door, please!”

The scientist’s eyes widened.

“Stanley?”