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The crashing crescendo of the piano is drowned out instantly by two long-suffering groans. “Disco Girl” pops up on-screen in puffy neon letters, a grainy disco ball spinning behind it.
“Oh come on,” Dipper snorts, picking up the microphone that Mabel had dropped onto the floor unceremoniously. “I've embraced it, time for you to embrace it too! Grunkle Stan, I know you know all the words,” he finishes, flourishing the second microphone in his direction.
Stan sinks even further into the well-worn yellow armchair. “Against my will.”
Bill, sitting curled up at the foot of the couch by Mabel, watches the interaction with the attention one would give a tennis match, his head tilting just slightly towards each person who talks. Then, without warning, that gaze lands on Ford, and he startles ever so slightly where he's collapsed on the couch. Bill must know he unsettled Ford because he attempts a small smile, one that doesn't show all his teeth. “Isn't this, like, your go-to karaoke song, Sixer?” he asks. An angry heat boils up from his ribs.
“… it is?” Dipper asks.
“Why do you think I know all the words?” Stan grouses. “He wore out two needles playing that vinyl over and over.” Bill has the gall to chuckle at this, like he's allowed to, like he's on the inside of some joke, like he's part of this. It makes Ford's skin crawl. Somewhere far away Dipper is asking Ford if he wants to sing it and handing the microphone out to him, but he can only hear the furious pounding of his heart in his ears and his scowl is secured firmly on Bill, who wilts under his attention.
“Um, I'll do it!” Bill squeaks out, snatching the microphone from where it hangs between Dipper and Ford. He passes it between his three-fingered hands nervously, like he's gauging the weight of it. “I think I remember how it goes.”
Dipper seems off-put by the development but the song is starting so he stumbles his way through the first line. He picks up steam by the second line, however, adding grandiose gestures depicting “bell-bottoms” and “hair unfurling”, and Bill cracks up mid-line, attempting to join back in but laughing whenever he does. Dipper is thoroughly emboldened by his receptive audience of one and only hams it up more, until Bill hops up and joins him. Mabel hoots and hollers against his side and Ford is sick to his stomach.
How had it gotten to this? Why did it seem like no one had any reservations about Bill Cipher, who just two short years ago had tried to destroy them all, cavorting around their house, eating at their table, singing karaoke with them? Was Ford just going insane? He tips his gaze over to Stan and that dolt is just smiling over at Dipper as he dances alongside the creature that had held him and his sister in his fist, arbitrarily deciding which of them to kill first.
“Disco Girl! Coming through! That girl is you!” Dipper and Bill sing together, each pointing at the other before devolving into peals of raucous laughter. And Bill… Bill looks over at Ford and his smile is one of unbridled joy and honest humor and-
And exactly how it was the first time they sang this song together, and though most of the night was a fuzzy, muddled mess in his memory he remembers so clearly when Bill, in his mock-human form, had looked to him and smiled like that, laughed like that, his golden face flushed with a sweet pink glow. It had all but exploded his rapidly-beating heart. “You're a hoot and a half when you finally let go, Sixer!” Bill had said. He'd been holding Bill's hand - god only knew when that had happened, or who had grabbed the other's hand first - so Bill twirled him, and his alcohol-addled body clumsily went along with it, the cord of the microphone twisting around his feet until he stumbled and caught himself on Bill's arm. “Oopsie daisy, there!” Bill tittered out, his arms coming around Ford - and when he had reflected on it that next morning, hungover, ashamed, amazed, he realized it was just to catch Ford, make sure he didn't fall, but all Ford knew in that moment was that he was in Bill's arms and Bill was looking at him, smiling at him, like… like he was the center of Bill's universe.
This was how it was supposed to go, wasn't it? Like in the books, in the movies. Ford had no power to stop himself as he grabbed the being’s face in his hands and drew their mouths together, clumsy but deep. Bill's face felt actually hot. He ran his thumbs across the smooth skin of his cheeks, which had a somewhat glassy texture in the way Bill's original form did but lacked the rigidity, was still malleable, in a way similar to flesh - similar, but not perfect. Uncanny enough to remind Ford how it's not real. Not human. He thought to ask Bill what exactly this form was made of, if it was made of something different than his original form, but then he realized his mouth was busy kissing Bill and then he realized he was kissing Bill.
“Oh,” he puffed out, popping off the other man's lips with a wet noise. “I shouldn’t’ve done that.”
But Bill's shell-shocked expression melted into something sharp, something exciting. “You really shouldn't have,” he agreed, catching Ford's chin in one hand and tilting his face up. “That's why I'm so glad you did!”
And then Bill kissed him with twice the ferocity, with tongue and teeth and touch down his chest, down his hips, and one thing led to another and-
Mabel flops over onto the couch as Ford bolts off of it, stalking wordlessly out of the living room. The song drifts out of earshot as he turns into the hall where his room was, but what doesn't die down is the sound of footsteps.
“Hey, uh, hang on- Sixer-” Bill calls down the hallway, and by the time Bill reaches him Ford's got his butterfly knife out of his pocket and flicked open to press against Bill's collarbone.
“Make a fucking move and we find out how mortal that “body” of yours really is,” he hisses. In the low backlight Ford can just barely see Bill's horrible beady eye grow wider, flitting down and up between the blade and Ford's face.
“I- I'm sorry,” Bill blurts out.
Ford grimaces. “You're sorry. For what?”
The silence thickens between them for a long time. Too long. The deep, anxious breaths Bill takes pushes his ribs against the tip of the blade until at last he says, so quiet, so gentle, “Uh… everything. I guess.” There's another bout of silence that Bill breaks with, “No, wait, that's not- that's not the apology you deserve-”
Ford bursts out into a humorless laugh that feels awful. “No, that's all I need from you!” he chortles, clicking the knife closed with his thumb and stowing it back in his pocket. “I might as well hop on the looney train with everyone else! Apology accepted, Bill. All is forgiven. Every single fucking thing.” He shoulders his way through his bedroom door, vaguely aware Bill is still upon him, registering the slight resistance as he slams it shut behind him. The yelp that explodes out from Bill is mostly buffered by the door, which bounces back spongily on Bill's fingers. He almost, almost feels compelled to open the door up again, if for no other reason than to confirm that Bill was actually in pain (perhaps for his own satisfaction), but he pushes the urge down and instead clicks the door closed, locking every single lock he has on it.
There's hushed voices outside his door for a moment. Ford hears Stan, thinks he hears Mabel. He ignores them. He pads over to the bed he'd gotten to replace the old couch he slept on and collapses onto it, staring unseeingly at the ceiling, counting his own breaths, trying not to think at all. He can't trust where his thoughts will go.
Ford returns to his lab in earnest first thing the next morning, picking back up on old devices he'd made to ward against Bill, trying to modify them to hopefully give him some insight on… any of this. What Bill was now. If any of this was real . He toils away like this for hours, his body well accustomed to the regiment. He doesn't bother to look down at his watch but when he finally does it reads quarter-past six. It's been more than twelve hours.
No sooner does he realize this than a sensor pings on one of his monitor displays, logging access to the lab. He checks another monitor and sees Mabel coming down the stairs. His hackles lower. “Grunkle Ford?” her voice asks a moment later, quiet, timid… unusual for her. “Uh… it's dinner, have you.. eaten? Today?”
“I'm alright, sweetheart,” he replies evenly, keeping his focus on the delicate wiring he's working on. “This is important.”
There's a hesitation behind him. “You're not… making something to hurt Bill, are you?”
Ford's grip on his tweezers slackens. He puts them down as softly as he can before turning in his chair to face Mabel. She stands awkwardly at the threshold of the lab, twirling circles into the dust on the floor with her toe. “Honey,” he grits out, “please tell me you hear yourself.”
“I do-”
“He's dangerous. You know that.”
She glances up at him, planting her other foot. “I don't think he is. Anymore.”
He sighs and rubs his eyelids under his glasses. “Mabel… he can't change. Hasn't for trillions of years. He's a remorseless shell of a-”
“He's not remorseless,” she interrupts. “Last week, he… we were talking about our parents. He told me about his. What happened to them.”
“You mean what he did to them,” Ford replies. Mabel just nods solemnly. “He told me too. Years before he made my life a living hell. Years before he tried to kill me and you and everyone we've ever known and loved. He's a monster.”
“No, I could tell,” Mabel insists, stepping forward. “I could feel it, Grunkle Ford, he's not the same-”
Ford cuts in roughly, “I'm sorry, but you trusting in him won't do much to convince me.”
The second it's out of his mouth he regrets it. He has the misfortune of watching it hit her, seeing the hurt pass across her face. She whirls around before the tears can spring from her eyes and Ford can hardly get himself up to his feet before she's already gone.
He feels like shit. Like a… like a monster. He deflates into his chair, letting it wheel back absently into the desk he'd been working at for an entire day. He'd been doing this for her, for Dipper, for Stan and Soos and his wife and their unborn child and he'd gone and hurt Mabel worse than… than Bill ever had since he'd arrived.
Was this Bill's plan? Gain the others’ favor, sow division between them, turn every member of his family against him until he had no one left? Until it was Ford, alone again, like he had been thirty years ago?
Was it a plan… at all? He didn't know.
He couldn't know.
But he could hypothesize.
If he could run with the assumption that this was all true, find proof - for or against - he could put this all to bed one way or another.
That… that he could handle.
He waits a few more hours before leaving the lab, not ready to run into Mabel again. Sure enough when he comes out he finds the Shack empty. Listless. Quiet, save for the distant drone of the TV in the living room. His twin brother is seated in that chair of his, beer in hand, like any other day that ended in “y”. He barely looks over as Ford enters. “One conversation all day and you managed to fuck it up,” he says in acknowledgement.
The bitter embarrassment bubbles up in his throat but he bites into the side of his cheek against whatever bile he was ready to spit in retaliation. He didn't need to prove Stan right immediately. “Is she in bed?”
“Might be, I dunno. I think Dipper went upstairs already at least.”
Ford responds with a nod and passes Stan on his way to the kitchen. Maybe it was for the best that he speak to Mabel tomorrow anyway, give them both time to gather themselves. At least now he can have the first meal he's had in-
Bill pauses where he sits at the kitchen table, hand stuffed elbow-deep into a box of cereal. He's frozen like some kind of prey animal, that wretched eye wide, so wide, trained on Ford, unblinking. The thrill of horror that always accompanies the sight of his eye trickles down his spine like ice water. At length Bill slowly continues chewing the mouthful of cornflakes and relaxes his shoulders a little, settling back into the chair. Ford allows his gaze to tip down for a brief moment at the hand holding the cereal box, fingers bound by athletic tape to some popsicle sticks in a kind of makeshift splint.
“They're not broken, are they?” Ford asks, voice coming out quieter than he'd hoped. He can convince himself it's so Stan can't hear from the other room.
Bill cradles the hand to his chest but his eye stays locked on Ford's face. “I don't know,” he replies, and his voice is quiet too. Ford can't justify to himself any reason why. “Stan doesn't think so. It doesn't hurt as much as it did last night but I still have to… take ibuprofen and put ice on it and stuff.”
Ford looks down at the fingers again if only to grant himself reprieve from looking into Bill's eye any longer. “I'm sorry.”
A dry laugh rattles in Bill's chest. “Stanford,” he says firmly, “you never have to apologize to me for anything you do for the rest of your life.”
“Yes I do,” he insists, settling down into the chair across from Bill, joints popping. “I made a mistake. I hurt someone. I'm owning up to it. That's how it works, being human.”
And when Ford finally looks at Bill again his expression turns from one of bemusement to an almost sad acceptance. “This isn't for my sake,” he murmurs.
“No.”
The corner of Bill's mouth tugs up into a weary smile. “Then it's not me you need to be apologizing to.”
“I still needed to.” Ford drums his fingers on the table then yanks the box of cereal over from where it stands forgotten in front of Bill. “Also need to eat.”
“Wh- well then get your own food, I was eating that!” Bill sputters, brows knitting together.
“You said I never have to apologize to you,” Ford insists, getting up to grab a bowl from the cupboard. “I'm going to thoroughly abuse that privilege.”
When he shuts the cupboard door he sees a smile pass over Bill's face, and the man snorts out into genuine laughter. Perhaps it's out of relief but he laughs too hard and for far longer than Ford thought the comment deserved. It's been... so strange to hear Bill laughing like this so much. Like... a person. No sharp edge to it, no malice. Like how he had that night in the mindscape. “I guess I walked into that one,” Bill admits finally, hiding his smile behind his good hand. All at once Ford realizes he wants to see that smile. Warmth creeps up at the junction of his jaw, over his cheeks; he turns and leans into the fridge as he grabs the milk, hoping to hide the red on his face.
Then motion from the entrance to the kitchen catches Ford's eye - it's a crop of curly brown hair as Mabel peers around the doorframe. She looks between Bill and Ford appraisingly. “You still up this late?” Ford asks, handing the box of cereal back to Bill after putting the milk away.
“I was about to go to bed,” Mabel reports, not entering the kitchen, so Ford holds one arm open for her. Without hesitation she pads across the tile floor and envelopes Ford in a hug. He ruffles her hair and plants a kiss and an “I'm sorry” amongst the curls. She squeezes his middle a little harder before pulling back with a timid smile. “Night, Bill,” she says as she walks out. “Try to get some sleep tonight, okay?”
“Don't tell me what to do!” he sing-songs back with a mouth full of cornflakes and a lighthearted tone that Mabel truly smiles at. Once Mabel departs Ford scoops his bowl of cereal up and plonks it down on the kitchen table across from Bill. He eats in silence, poking at his “smart” watch a little to pass the time and give him an excuse not to look up.
“Um, she doesn’t-” Bill starts, and when Ford snaps his head up towards Bill he clacks his jaw shut hard, grimacing. “Uh,” he mumbles, “she doesn’t… blame you.”
“That so.”
“Y-yeah,” Bill continues, fishing around in the cereal box. “She didn’t tell me what happened but she said… you weren’t wrong, so she shouldn’t even be upset.”
He doesn't know what he hates more - the words themselves or the fact that he heard them from Bill instead of her. “I assume you’ve apologized to her already,” Ford says instead.
“Yeah,” is all he says at first, then shovels some cereal into his mouth. “She… uh, Soos too, they really… came around quick. I guess I was gettin’ kinda used to that.”
Ford hums in response, folding spoonfuls of cereal around in the milk. “When you…” he starts, then pauses, puts the spoon down. He folds his arms and leans back in the chair, giving Bill his full attention. Bill stiffens. “When you're ready to apologize to me,” he finishes, “I'll hear it.”
No expression passes over Bill's face for a long moment, his eye still wide, still fixed on Ford, lips pressed thinly together. Then the corner quirks up and a smile so… tender slips across his features. Ford had thought he would be able to tell if Bill's response would be schooled, fake, calculated - but he can't. If he's faking, he's faking it so, so well. “I guess that's the most I could hope for from you, huh?” he replies, and god even his tone sounds… gentle. Honest. Heat blooms up in his chest. His face. It's not anger. It’s the same punch-drunk warmth he felt fizzling against his ribs back in the mindscape, in Bill’s arms, the only two beings in their own universe. He realizes all at once how useless it is for him to try to figure out Bill's game; he'd had no right to chastise Mabel about falling for his tricks, Ford had been doing it since before she was born... and could be doing it now. But could he have such a grasp on human mannerisms and tone to be this... convincing? To look this hopeful and longing and sweet? Or was Ford seeing what he... what he wanted to see?
“Okay,” Ford spits out, picking up the half-eaten bowl of cereal. He dumps it unceremoniously into the sink and drops a “good night” behind him as he stalks out of the kitchen. He doesn’t acknowledge Stan again, just beelines for his room, closes it softly behind him, locks all the locks. He lies awake in his bed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling, counting his own breaths, trying not to think at all. He knows where his thoughts will go.