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Time worked weird for Bill ever since his stint as a human. When he was fully human without powers it went so mind-numbingly slow. Days would go on for centuries, weeks lasted eons. His first year felt like a lifetime. After he got his powers back he felt it differently, both physically and mentally - his human body, which he kept (he was rather fond of it; probably Stockholm Syndrome) was no longer beholden to time as it moved in this dimension, though he did let the form age a little, gain weight a little, live a little. But it felt faster.
Too fast.
When Stan died that was when Bill first became so, so painfully aware of it. He had been steadily gaining the man’s trust and favor but after he passed Bill realized it was probably just the dementia. Ford was inconsolable, lashed out in a way that… that Bill didn’t expect he ever would again. He had to remind himself that Ford felt time differently than Bill had, and the years they’d been together still weren’t enough to outnumber the years he’d spent hating him.
But it made him aware of time. He could damn near see it. He could see it in the way Mabel’s kids would seem to just appear every now and again and be a foot taller, then a foot taller, then a foot taller.
He could see it in Ford’s face. In his hands, which soon couldn’t work in the lab at all. Bill had held those hands in his and tried to softly coax the arthritis from his joints, but Ford had yanked his hands back and scolded Bill.
“I’m getting older,” Ford said, looking down at his hands, clenched into uneasy fists on his lap. “That’s just going to happen. Please let it happen.”
“Okay,” Bill replied, and the word felt a million lightyears away from his ears.
Ford looked up and into Bill’s eye with a sharpness Bill only just now realized he hadn’t seen much anymore. “Promise me. Bill.” He held out one hand. A handshake. Bill didn’t take it, and Ford furrowed his brow more and said, “Bill, promise me.”
At last Bill took the hand and allowed Ford to shake it. He used that time to feel every single line of his palm, every divet, every wrinkle, every vein underneath, every ligament.
He had the date in his head. He’d had it since the day they met, though on the day they’d met it had seemed like an inconvenience more than anything else. Now it was a predator that stalked him at every turn. It peered out at him in the ways Ford slowed, in the moments where Ford forgot things he should not have forgotten. It bared its hideous gleaming fangs straight in Bill’s face when they’d been watching an episode of Star Trek on the couch together, when he’d been in Ford’s arms, and he’d looked down at Bill and said, tenderly, “I know who you are, don't I?”
It was the first time. It wasn’t the last time. But the instances got closer together until Bill was just… a person in Ford’s house. Ford didn’t seem to mind, didn’t complain when Bill would hold his hand on the couch or lie in bed beside him. It wasn’t out of fondness, though, and that clawed at the heart Ford had given him.
Ford turned ninety-two. He hadn’t been… quite there for the past two birthdays, but this one seemed to settle on his shoulders. He smiled at the other Pines family members who’d been there to celebrate with him - and Mabel and Dipper went out of their way to make sure he never spent a birthday alone ever since Stan’s death, even after he’d stopped recognizing them. But when everyone had gone and Bill had cleaned up the party favors Ford was still seated at the table, looking pensive. Bill walked over and sat in the chair across from him and his partner had simply put out a hand. Bill took it. Felt every line of his palm, every divet, every wrinkle.
The Day came at him so fast after that, damn near sprinted. Lunged. It was Ford’s ninety-second birthday and he sat there at the kitchen table with him and held his hand and then he blinked and it was Today.
Ford hadn’t gotten out of bed much the day before and Today was no different. Bill laid there with him, arms around him, forehead pressed to his shoulder. He’d put on an audiobook. Ford hadn’t complained about the choice. He didn’t know how much of it he was even hearing. The seconds of this dimension’s clock pelted him over, over, over, like darts at a dartboard that pierced him and pierced him and pierced him and finally he slipped his hands up over Ford’s cheeks and over Ford’s mind and nudged, gently, like clay.
As Bill looked into his eyes he could see them sharpen. They held Bill’s gaze and he could see him. Bill could see Ford and Ford could see Bill. Ford opened his mouth slowly, the first hint of displeasure twitching at the corner. “You promised,” he sighed out.
“I did,” Bill said, his tone watery. Fat tears fell onto the crags of Ford’s face, rolled down along where Bill’s hands caged his head. “It’s only for a moment. I just wanted to talk to you… again.”
This seemed to be an acceptable answer, and Ford relaxed a little into the pillow. “About what, my muse?” he asked, and Bill sobbed. He hadn't been called that in so, so long. “By this point we must've spoken about everything.”
“There's so much more,” Bill insisted. “Ford, there's so much. Entire dimensions’ worth. Endless dimensions, endless realities. There’s so much more for us. Let me show it all to you. Please.”
A stony darkness took over Ford’s expression. “Bill,” he murmured, “let me go.”
“No.” It’s petulant, like a child.
Ford frowned deeply, but Bill can’t miss the hurt that flickers in his eyes. “You promised.”
“Okay? What if I take it back?”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“Don’t- don’t do this to me!” Bill cried, tears pouring out of his good eye. “Ford, I’ve only had you for… a moment. I swear to you it could’ve been yesterday the first time you ever really smiled at me, and now you’re…”
“This was always how it was going to be. And you knew that. I wasn’t meant to live as long as you. And you’ll… who knows, maybe you’ll forget about me just as fast.”
“Don’t say that like it’s supposed to comfort me,” Bill hissed, digging his nails into Ford’s soft, craggy skin. “Don’t you fucking dare. Ford, I’m going to carry you in my heart for eons. I’m going to carry this pain just as long.” He chokes on a sob. “I won’t survive that.”
Ford put his hand on Bill’s cheek, over the tears, and it’s done with such softness and tenderness that Bill relaxed his grip on Ford’s face, guilty. There’s the barest of indents where his nails had pressed, but no blood. “Then carry the love in your heart, too. And then I’ll survive with you, for eons.”
Bill had no reply. He tried, but he couldn’t find any… because he knew this is it. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair, but it… it just was. Stars went supernova without a care for the life they took from the planets whose light they provided, life they provided. It was simply the nature of the universe. “My Ford,” he finally wrestled from his throat.
“My muse,” Ford replied with a smile.
It took years. It took a second. The universe is born and killed a thousand times over in the time it took Bill to remove his hands from Ford, remove his power from him.
Bill was alone for so, so, so terribly long.
Bill was alone again.