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Being human is difficult.
Now, Bill had been in a human body before, he was no stranger to their softness and their fragility. But he was in no way prepared to feel any of that softness for himself.
It was beyond frustrating to not have his powers, but it was even worse that this useless bag of bones couldn't even perform basic tasks. While possessing a body he had full control over its every action, but now his fine motor skills were almost non-existent. His fingers refused to bend to his will. He could barely lift anything without his arms shaking. And don't even get him started on depth perception.
But emotions were his least favorite part of being human. He never realized just how physical human emotions were. Anger is no longer just anger, but a burning in his chest, flushing in his cheeks, tense muscles.
Crying was his least favorite symptom of human emotions; the overwhelming heartache, the shaking and heaving, the leaking from his eyes and nose. All of it was terrible.
It was all almost too much at times.
That part was confusing too. The way his body managed to simultaneously get overwhelmed by too many sensory inputs, and also crave sensory input more than anything was driving him up a wall.
Bill's thoughts were brought to an abrupt stop by a loud knock on the door. He nearly jumped out of his skin. He wished he actually had, but unfortunately it clung to him. He scrambled to a more “natural” position, trying to look like he wasn't just balling his eyes out.
He had perched himself on the top of a tall bookshelf in one of the back rooms of the shack, not unlike a cat. He had his knees to his chest, and his face buried in his knees, but quickly repositioned himself.
The door creaked open without another knock or warning. Stanford stood in the doorway, scanning the room for a second for Bill before spotting him in the corner.
“Get down from there,” Ford said, gesturing with his hand. Bill sighed loudly and dramatically. He used his hands as leverage and carefully climbed down the shelf. He landed on the floor with a small thump.
Ford turned and walked out of the room, holding the door open expectantly for Bill. He meandered behind him, slouching as he followed him. Ford led them both out of the room and through the house, Bill knew where they were going, they had done this 100 times before since he became human.
He couldn't say he was too surprised, Ford has always been paranoid. He had lived in the Mystery Shack for months now, and almost everyone had gotten used to him being around by now. He used to stop conversations dead in their tracks just by entering a room, but now no one hardly notices him at all. He liked it better that way; it made him feel uncomfortable and uneasy when everyone would turn to stare at him, and although not being noticed at all also doesn't feel great, it's much preferred to the terrible feeling of being perceived.
So for the past few months that he's been there, Ford made it a routine to conduct what he called “weekly vitals assessments.” Bill hated them. Every week Ford would rip him away from whatever he was doing to lock him up in some other room for an hour and poke and prod at him. They used to exclusively be done in the basement laboratory, but eventually Ford got comfortable enough with Bill being in the house that they moved to one of the spare rooms on the main floor.
Ford opened the door and the pair walked in. He blindly pawed at the wall for a second before he found the light switch. The small room buzzed to life with a yellow hue. Ford closed the door behind them.
Bill walked all the way into the room and took a seat on the couch against the wall. Ford walked ominously toward him with a clipboard in hand. He paused in front of Bill, staring down at his notes with a furrowed brow. Bill didn't like the way he towered over him in this position.
“Do we really have to do this?” Bill asked.
“Yes.” Ford answered quickly, setting his clipboard on the couch next to Bill.
Bill's eyes were glued to the floor. He lifted his legs up a little so he cohld dangle them back and forth off the couch. His heels clashed against the base of the couch harsher than Ford was comfortable with, but he said nothing.
He took Bill's arm in his hand, pulling it straight. Bill's face scrunched up in discomfort as Ford wrapped a large hand around his thin forearm, with his other hand he placed a couple of fingers over his radial vein. They waited in silence for a few seconds before Ford retracted himself, picking back up his clipboard and writing something down. “Heart rate is a little high, but within normal range…” he mumbled to himself. He looked up from his clipboard and set it and his pen on the nearby desk.
“Lie down,” he said.
Bill threw his head back with an exasperated guttural noise.
“I won't take long,” Ford reassured. “It will be even quicker if you cooperate,” There was a hint of a tease in that last sentence that made Bill huff.
He rolled his eye but acquiesced, pulling his legs up onto the couch and slowly repositioned himself so that he could lie his head on the arm. He felt a little too exposed like this, and shifted awkwardly, uncomfortably vulnerable under Ford's gaze.
Ford sat down towards the middle of the couch near Bill's hips, twisting himself to face the other. Bill threw him a confused look.
Two large hands came down and rested themselves on Bill's stomach, the lightness of the touch made him flinch before they pressed in. For just a second, a jolting feeling spread across his nerves. But as Ford added more pressure to his probing, it faded slightly, not nearly as intense as before but still very much there.
Ford lifted his hands from one spot and quickly landed on another. Again, as his fingers made contact with his skin, though still covered by fabric, his nerves lit up with something buzzing. He gasped quietly, and Ford glanced up at him, briefly examining his face before continuing. He hummed to himself in thought as he felt around Bill's organs.
Each massage into his flesh, each slight movement and repositioning of his fingers, brought with it something intense and new. Bill's breath was hitched and uneven, his hands gripped onto the couch as if he would fly away if he let go.
“Where does it hurt?” Ford asked calmly, watching Bill's face.
“It-it doesn't hurt,” Bill answered, voice strangled.
“You don't have to lie.”
“I'm not-! It doesn't hurt, it just feels weird.”
Ford paused, removing his hands from Bill so he could fold them over his own chest. He watched with a curious eye as Bill deflated into the couch. He hummed and tapped his finger over his arm.
“Define weird,” he prompted, looking him over carefully for any other signs of discomfort, for anything Bill wasn't telling him.
“It feels like,” he paused and stared up at the ceiling in thought, gathering his words. “Like I'm being electrocuted.”
“Being electrocuted?!” Ford echoed, visibly taken aback. His eyes widened in shock and his face twisted in concern. He was barely touching him, nothing he did should have felt anywhere near electrocution. Did Bill have some sort of nerve damage? Or a hypersensitivity caused by some otherworldly disorder?
Hesitantly, he placed a hand back onto Bill, gently massaging just as he was before. Bill jumped dramatically with another gasp and quickly reached to grab his wrists. They looked at each other for a long second, Ford had stopped but there was still a tenseness in Bill that made him worried something may be seriously wrong.
His face softened however, on seeing the wobbly smile worming its way across Bill's features. Every worry and theory flew right out the window in favor of the much more obvious, and frankly hilarious, answer. He just barely fought off a smile of his own.
And an idea crept into his head. Something mean presented itself to Ford and lit up his thoughts like a light bulb, until it was all he could think about. He was glad that Bill could no longer read his mind.
“Well,” he started, pushing up his glasses and hardening his expression, trying hard not to wear his thoughts on his sleeve. “I'll have to conduct further examinations until we get to the bottom of this.”
Bill twisted his face in an odd way. “You think there's something wrong?” He asked.
“Well, I have a hypothesis, yes. However I will have to run a few experiments just to be sure.” He cleared his throat to choke out the chuckle threatening to bubble out of him.
Bill really had no idea about the human body. Not like he thought he did. He was rather naive in that regard, believing just about anything Ford told him with enough assertiveness. He wondered if that's what he was like 30 years ago.
Shaking the thought from his mind, he hovered his hands just above Bill's middle. The older stiffened, trying to suck in his stomach in a feeble attempt to squirm away from Ford's looming fingers.
He nearly choked when they landed down on his stomach. One hand gently kneading and the other poking had him doing everything in his power to swallow down all of the embarrassing noises threatening to spill out of him. He bit down on his lip and his hand flapped uselessly next to him; anything to handle the overwhelming buzzing.
Ford walked his fingers across Bill, choosing a new spot to terrorize and earning a thin whine. One hand rested on his side, and Ford was startled by the sudden jolt and gasp from Bill.
“Interesting…” Ford commented, focusing his attention on the newfound spot. Bill squirmed and his leg shook. Ford switched to poking his side. Bill squeaked, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth. He squirmed and tried to wriggle his torso away. Wide eyes were locked onto Ford’s offending fingers. Little puffs of half snickers and choked down noises just barely escaped his lips.
Without warning, Ford suddenly wrapped his whole hand around Bill and started squeezing. He jolted upward, briefly doubling in on himself before falling back down. He barked out a loud laugh, twisting this way and that. Jack pot.
“Very interesting,” Ford added. “Alright, so-” slowing his hands to a stop, he did his best to put on a more neutral voice; like he was conducting a very serious experiment and not tickling Bill half to death. “-tell me which is worse. Here?” He vibrated a couple fingers into Bill's stomach, earning a shrill yelp and a snort. “Or here?” He brought up his right hand to continue squeezing his side, and Bill threw his head back as he cackled.
“Thehehehere! Naha- that's soho much wohohohohorse!”
“Noted,” Ford said, abandoning his stomach to squeeze both sides. Bill squealed and his legs shot up to his chest, almost hitting Ford in the back of the head on their way. A smile broke out on Ford's features watching the way Bill's legs kicked in the air.
“Try to hold still,” he said, taking his arm and gently coaxing his legs back down on the couch.
“I cahahahahan’t!”
Ford chuckled and quickly switched from squeezing to vibrating. Bill screwed his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth. Ford moved one of his hands away completely, bringing it down to settle on his hip. Bill twitched under the touch, and squealed when Ford started vibrating a couple of fingers in a particularly sensitive cluster of nerves.
“Stoahahaha! Nahahaha!” He dug his fingers into his hair, anything to help deal with the sensory overload. Although, interestingly enough to Ford, in all his flailing and thrashing, he never once tried to pull his hands away.
Eventually, Ford slowed his hands to a stop, and waited for Bill to catch his breath before speaking.
“Well, Bill, I have to admit-” Bill looked up at him with a half lidded eye, watching him reposition himself to be straddling his hips.
“What are you doing?” Bill sat up a little, eyebrows furrowed.
“-I haven't been completely honest with you,” Ford continued.
“What are you saying? Is there nothing wrong with me?”
“Bill, are you familiar with knismesis and gargalesis?”
Bill only stared at him, tilting his head slightly.
“Both are neurological phenomena in the part of the brain that processes touch,” Ford began to explain, much to Bill's boredom. “Knismesis is a light irritation of the skin,” as he spoke he ran his blunt nails over Bill's bare arms in a feather light motion, making him shiver and squirm away. “However gargalesis is a much more intense sensory process involving the repeated application of high pressure in sensitive areas.” Again, as he spoke he demonstrated on Bill. This time he vibrated his knuckles into his ribs.
Bill shrieked before giving way to another bout of loud, high pitched laughter. He tried to twist away from it, but found it much more difficult with Ford sitting on him like this.
“Gehehet ohohohoff!” He shrieked.
“You know,” he paused his hands, starting to roll up Bill's shirt. He shivered in the cold air. “Since we're already doing a vitals assessment, I'd quite like to make sure your…axolotl, was it? Gave you the appropriate number of rib bones.”
“So do you wanna say that like a normal person or ar- EEK! Ahahaha! No, dohohon't do thahahat!”
Ford vibrated his fingers into Bill's bottom rib bone. “Oneee…” he stretched out his counting, a smirk evident in his tone despite how screwed shut Bill's eyes were. “Twoo…”
“Knock ihit ohohohoff!” Bill threw his head back, arching into Ford's fingers. All of his thrashing successfully thwarted Ford for a second. His thoughtful hum washed away any momentary relief, quickly replacing it with excited dread.
“Bill, you really need to stay still, I'm trying to conduct a very serious experiment here,” he said. Bill groaned but the few giggles that peaked through made it lose its edge. “Well now I've completely lost count, I'll have to start over.” Bill's eyes shot open, now wide with shock. He shook his head in fervent protest, big smile never leaving his face.
He howled with laughter when Ford landed his buzzing fingertips back on his sensitive ribs. The higher up Ford got the worse the sensation became, and try as he might, Bill couldn't stop himself from twisting and turning.
Ford sighed, stopping his hands. “I don't know how you expect me to gain any accurate data from this with all your squirming.” He placed his hands on Bill's hips, steadying him. Bill flinched. “Now, where was I? That's odd, I can't recall. Oh well, I'll just start over.”
“NohohohOHOHO!”
The next couple minutes felt like hours. He tried as hard as he could to stay still. That terrible buzzing kept getting worse and worse, but the threat of Ford completely starting over a third time, and counting so agonizingly slow kept him in place.
He gripped onto the couch cushions so hard Ford thought his nails might tear a hole in the fabric. Tears of mirth stung the corners of his eye. His mind and body fought with each other in a frustrating game of tug o’ war. Every nerve lit up in an electrifying sensation, one that seemed to consume his every thought. It was completely and totally overwhelming. It seemed like every nerve in his body was screaming for relief all at once. And yet, a louder scream wanted more.
It was too much. It wasn't nearly enough.
Ford only stopped when he finally reached 12. Bill thought he might have died a second time.
“Well that side is correct. I wonder about this other side,” Bill shot up like a corpse being raised from the dead, gripping on Ford's wrist before he even attempted to tickle him again.
“24! I hahave 24 I swehehear!”
Ford chuckled. Placing a hand on Bill's chest he gently led him back down. “Alright, alright. I'll take your word for it,” he said, deciding to take pity.
Hesitantly, Bill lay back down. Ford readjusted his shirt–it had fallen back down when he sat up–raising it back to where he wanted it in a gesture that made Bill's pathetic human heart pound with anticipation.
“Do you have your ‘data’ now, Sixer?” he opted to cover up his (hopefully not as apparent as it felt it was) nervousness with a venomous quip.
“Hmm, almost. Let me try this one last thing,’ Ford replied. Bill whined as his wiggling fingers came closer to his middle despite himself.
Ford was light, so light he wasn't sure he was even touching him. He delicately fluttered and spidered all 12 fingers over his stomach, intending to give him a break with the lightness. Instead, Bill squealed and bucked and laughed harder than he has this whole time.
“WAHAIT WAHAHAHAHAIT!”
Ford was shocked for a second before the ridiculousness of the situation caught up with him and laughed almost as hard as Bill.
“Ahare you serious?!”
“SHUHUT UHUHUHUHUP!”
“Bill, I'm barely touching you.” Bill didn't respond to that, shaking his head wildly.
Ford slowed down a bit. He walked his fingers over Bill's stomach at an agonizingly slow pace. Tiptoeing from his hips to his ribs and then back down in a cycle that had Bill's head spinning.
“THIHIS IS TOHOHORTURE!”
“Good, you love torture.”
“At leHEHEAST stohop going so slohohow?”
“I'm conducting an experiment here, Bill. Slow and steady is just the right pace.”
“It's sohOHOHO BAHAD! YOU DOHON'T GEHET IT!”
Ford chortled. “I've been tickled before, Bill. I understand just fine.”
Bill snorted and covered his eyes with his arm to hide himself. His other harm latched firmly onto Ford's wrist, but not making any attempt to move it away.
“Alright, I have a question and I want you to answer honestly.” He stopped momentarily and Bill gasped for breath like he was drowning.
“Which is worse?”
“Dohohon't.”
“This?” he squeezed Bill's side and he snorted, trying to curl in on himself and leaning his body away from it.
“Or this?” Ford brought up his other hand to gently spider across the other side. Bill shrieked before his laughter went silent completely. He frantically tapped Ford's hand that was spidering.
“Can you even speak right now?” Ford asked, amused. Bill shook his head.
However, he seemed to get his voice back when Ford stopped squeezing and instead started spidering both sides at once. He squealed and erupted with hysterical laughter.
“GOHOHO SOMEWHEHERE EHEHEHEHELSE!”
“Oh, that's interesting. ‘Go somewhere else’, not ‘stop’?”
“MOHOHOVE YOUR HAHAHANDS! PLEHEHEASE!”
“Oh, alright, alright.”
He stopped entirely, watching Bill as he melted into the couch beneath him. He panted hard as he moved to wipe away some of the tears with the ball of his palm.
Ford tried to smooth his hands over his middle but was quickly grabbed by Bill, starting up another giggle fit.
“relahax, I'm helping.”
Bill groaned but did relax, quickly becoming a puddle under the gentle touch.
When he was sure Bill had completely calmed down Ford moved off of him.
“Well, I'd say that was a successful experiment, hm?” As he stood to leave the room, satisfied with his work, he felt Bill grab his wrist.
“Wait a minute, Sixer.” Ford turned back to him, perplexed. “A minute ago you said you'd been-…also…experienced gargalesis.” Bill didn't think the human form could turn that shade of red.
“Did I?” he chuckled nervously. “Well- well I-um. You know it's getting late, and I'm sure you're tired so why don't we-” he tried to pull his hand away, but Bill's grip only tightened. He raised his eyebrows at Ford.
“Bill, come on now. Let's be reasonable here, we can talk about thihihihis. Nohoho! Wahahait!”
Being human is difficult. But maybe there were some things that made it bearable.