Work Text:
It needs skin, and Bill doesn't have any.
This is the first roadblock to the process - stymied almost before it could begin, an idea killed fresh in the crib.
Ford has skin, though, and Ford has a regenerator that needs calibration, and Ford has plenty of thin, sharp knives.
It hurts. It obviously hurts. But it's necessary, and it's abundant, and it'll be worth it in the same way Bill's name on his lips never was, and Ford can't think of any good reason not to do it.
It takes everything in him not to pass out from the pain; he can't pass out, because that would be a sign too large for Bill to ignore, because Bill wouldn't ask any questions, because he wouldn't need to, and because Ford would lose his nerve.
But once that part's done - the hardest part, by far, the skin on the backs of his thighs and around his waist still pink and taut and fresh and new - once that's done, all it needs is Bill.
So Ford asks.
He starts small, innocuous, a favor Bill would find fun and exciting, a novelty because Ford doesn't ask for things, Ford bargains and Ford demands and sometimes, sometimes, he's allowed to get what he wants. He wants blood, and it's a favor easily asked and a favor easily given, and Ford doesn't meet the heat of Bill's gaze as he pulls the needle free, but he does drag the tip of it over his tongue, because it was a gift, because it's his now, and there's no reason to waste it.
The second favor is a bargain. He can't ask for this, not directly, because there's a league and a half wide gap between blood and bone and what he needs is something that idle curiosity can't explain away.
Ford bargains for this one. Ford loses something in the process, but he can't remember what it is, because it didn't matter to him then and it won't matter to him now, not when Bill is sliding his hand down Ford's face, and the tip of Ford's knife is skating under the edge of his skin, soft and clean, as gentle as a kiss, and when the blood begins to spill it leaves searing burns on Ford's hands, and he abandons the knife because it would only go so deep, and Ford needs to be deeper, still.
His nails curl around the tendons of Bill's wrist, and Ford can almost ignore the hand in his hair as his teeth tear through the sinew, and he rips it out of Bill in a long, thin strip, tearing it from bones that hadn't existed moments prior, because Bill can be generous, Bill can be kind, and because Ford bargained for it, and sometimes, sometimes, Ford's allowed to get what he wants.
Ford has to do this. It's not even a question. If there were other ways, he would have thought of them, and since he couldn't think of them, he has to do this.
The third favor is never voiced, but it is given, all the same.
Bill's mind is heavy in Ford's head, omnipresent, and it's all Ford can do to muddy the waters, to mire him in the exhultative and the exhaustive, to drown out the barrels of lye in his lab and the welded metal frames hidden behind the laminar flow hood - and Ford can't tell if it works, can't stop to consider the thought, because if it doesn't he won't have to do any of it, and if he won't have to do it it'll mean he didn't have to do it, and Ford knows he had to do all of it.
Even so, it's dry-mouthed and shaking that he accepts the proffered hammer and chisel, and it's with a cold, gnawing dread that he sets the sharp edge against the seam in Bill's bricks, because if he'd seen this, what else had he seen?
And then Ford remembers, and he's saying something, tasting Bill's name in his mouth again, and he's barely able to wait for a response before the hammer is falling and there's a sound like
and the room is lit up in
and Ford is
and Bill
and Bill
and Bill
and Ford is holding a flat, smooth piece of exoskeleton, cold and light, brittle in all of the worst ways, would be terrible for what he intends it for, but he has to, so he will.
And Ford thanks Bill for the piece, even though he didn't ask for it.
And Bill says, "You're welcome!"
And Ford is in his lab, and he's scraping the meat off of the flesh, and he's stretching it across the steel frames, and he's dragging the lunellum across it in steady, steady strokes, because if he punctures it, he'll have to get more, and it'll be another two weeks, and Ford can't afford to wait.
And Ford cuts the vellum into sheets, and folds them into signatures.
The next thing Ford does is prepare the exoskeleton. He sands down the edges; he ensures the corners are square; he brings a saw to the long side, braces for the impact, feels the fear coil through him when it cuts like glass, inert and dead, and it should be a relief, shouldn't it? But Ford knows the fear for what it is, knows it's for his project, that if it's inert the whole thing might not work, and isn't that a fearful thing?
And the panes split in two so beautifully, like they were made for this purpose, and Ford feels the sudden swell of anger at that thought before he can tamp it down, because nothing about him was made to be helpful, Ford knows this - it has to be ripped out, first, it has to be beaten and split and carved and remade from the base elements, because the only way to make Bill into a useful thing is to unmake him, to take every graciously given inch and alchemize it into a mile, to use him in every way that he permits and then to make him permit more.
Ford feels the burn on his skin as he beats the sinew into a fibrous mass, and welcomes it, because it hurts, it hurts, everything he does and everything he is is designed to hurt, it's all he's capable of, so all Ford can do is accept it and embrace it and strip it clean and pound it into fibers and weave them into cords and string them through the parchment because at the end of the day this is how you make a book and this is how you bait a hook and this is how you play the game
and Bill loves what Ford has made of him. And he loves that Ford is the one who made it.
And he snaps his fingers and the brittle, coptic-bound, untrimmed mess of skin and vellum and glass is suddenly deep ruby red and warm gold, and it looks like Ford, and it looks like Bill.
And it bleeds.
And sometimes, sometimes, Ford gets what he wants.