Chapter Text
The universe has a habit of playing games on Stanford Pines. From being a six-fingered freak since his birth, to his rejection from West Coast Tech, those could be excused by pure chance. Then the universe presented its greatest ace- a monster, a nightmare, dressed in all the colors Ford could never resist. A light source that took his world by darkness. A gift that grew uglier and uglier each layer Ford unwrapped, until the monster bared its teeth and the universe laughed in its horrible voice.
Thirty years, half of his life, Ford spent in vain escaping the creature. Yet as a friend or enemy, Bill Cipher was always there.
So why does it come as a surprise when the universe decided that nope, Stanford Pines does not deserve a break and dealt the cards once again.
“Stanley!” Ford calls from the door of the gift shop. “We have a problem.”
“You.” Ford whispers the word roughly.
Ice spreads through his veins.
He’s dead. He has to be dead.
The being knelt before him- no, the creature , smiles like a Cheshire cat. “Damn right it’s me, Fordsy.” He giggles, narrowed eyes meeting Ford’s. “It’s been a while. Missed me?”
At Ford’s horrified silence, he lets out another high-pitched laugh. “Come on, admit it, Sixer. You did, didn’t you. How’s life without me?”
How- how is he alive?
Fake confidence. Ford steadies himself, puts on a poker face. “You have three seconds to explain.” He shifts closer outside, making sure the demon can’t sneak in.
“Always in such a hurry, Fordsy.” Cipher sings. “Can’t a demon visit his favourite dimension for a bit of fun?”
“The last time you visited this dimension, you turned everyone into stone and tried to kill my family!”
“Not everyone-”
“Oh, you’re doing this again-”
“I turned you into gold, Fordsy, doesn’t that mean something?” Cipher taunts. “Everyone, plain boring rock. You, shining like a star.”
“You made me your back scratcher.” Ford hisses in disgust.
“I made you my back scratcher! ” He scoffs indignantly. “At least I didn’t turn you into dentures.”
“I- what?”
“Oh, trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Why are you even here? ”
Footsteps pounded on the pine floorboards behind Ford.
“What’s going on here?” Stanley appears, bleary eyed with his glasses off. “Who the hell’s ringing the doorbell at this time of day?”
He squints without his glasses. For some maniac reason, something flashes through his expression in the form of a crease of eyebrows, something Ford doesn’t have the time to decode before the crazy demon begins laughing again. “Would you look at that! Fordsy’s inferior twin’s come to join the part-”
Ford whips around and slams the door in Cipher’s face right as Stan’s jaw slackens. Rarely was his smooth-talking con man brother at a loss for words, but exceptions do happen. Notable examples include when a certain formerly triangular demon you’re sure is dead shows up at your door and threatens to turn your brother into dentures.
“I know this doesn't look pretty,” Ford speaks hard and fast. “Because it isn’t. That outside the door- I think is Bill Cipher. We have no idea why he’s back, how he’s back. He could be here to destroy us all- again. We have to do something.”
“The hell you mean? He’s dead, no way it’s that fucking triangle.” Stan argues. “I would know. Punched him into the next timeline and sacrificed my damn memory! You sure he’s not some asshole shapeshifter?”
“He isn’t.” Ford rubs his temples. “I can tell. Even if he died before, it doesn't change the fact that he’s back. What we need to do is to keep him contained before he can wreak any more madness into Gravity Falls.”
“Why don’t you load him full of bullets with your quantum-nerd-thing and call it a day?”
“I had one shot. Had.”
“Then use regular bullets!”
“It’s a bandaid solution. There could be another interdimensional rift. Right now, we can make the assumption that he doesn’t have powers, which means we could question him. On everything.”
Stan’s disbelieving expression flips a 180, eyes widening with understanding. “I’ll get the ropes.”
And Stanley returns with rope. Lots and lots of rope. Rope enough to wrap Cipher into a rope mummy and then some. He cracks his knuckles. “Get out your gun and let’s get started.”
As the door opens, Cipher grins gleefully. “Look who came back! Not very hospitable of you to leave a guest outside all alone, Sixer.”
Look who stayed. Something’s keeping him here. Ford composes himself. “I owe you nothing.” Ford says, cold. “And I won’t hesitate to shoot you in the skull if one more word comes out of your mouth that isn’t a reason for why you’re here.”
“Oh please Sixer, you’re bluffing,” Cipher scoffs easily. He inches forward, rocking up on human legs (it was somewhat uncanny valley). Cipher throws himself forward to grab the barrel of Ford’s gun- but just as he’s up, his leg shakes and bends into the other. For a moment, the creature wobbles violently. Precariously, like a newborn child. Overconfident.
Ford wastes no time. Instincts kick in, and his knee slams into Cipher’s chest. Cipher goes down with a shrill screech. Ford’s hand shoots out and pins his wrist behind his head as Cipher’s back hits the floor, skull smacking hard.
Stanley takes the opportunity to loop the rope around his wrists as Cipher writhes on the floor. Fingers surprisingly dextrous, Stan ties a quick knot before moving on to the ankles.
“What the hell- let me go!” Cipher shrieks, foot kicking out wildly. It hits Stanley right in the crotch. Ford’s brother yelps and leaps back, and Cipher tries to somehow roll himself away.
Ford kicks at him and finishes the knot, tying his wrists and ankles together behind his back.
Cipher’s jaw drops as he moves his limbs in vain, realizing that well, he couldn’t. But his mouth twitches as Ford watches, panting, until a laugh bubbles up in his throat. “You crazy fucker. Tying me up like this. Well, well, well, well, so you’ve got the guts after all.”
Stan had recovered. “Should we bring him inside?”
“After thirty years!” Cipher cackles.
They dump him on the ground unceremoniously. “Now,” Ford bends down to Cipher’s face. “I believe you owe us an explanation.”
Cipher smiles a bloody smile with glazed-over eyes as Stan draws his fist back and releases it with full force yet again, slamming into his left eye. “So punching people is Fez’s new choice of addiction now?”
For half an hour, Ford had been ceaselessly questioning him to no avail, only met with jeers and jokes. Though at first, Cipher had flinched and wailed, it seemed that he’d become numb to it after so much pain.
Yet, he still refused to answer Ford’s questions.
Stan flexes his fingers, showing no sign that the demon had gotten under his skin at the mention of his… undesirable past. “Only to asshole triangles that refuse to stay dead.”
A manic laugh bubbles up from Cipher's throat, a dribble of blood trickling down from the corner of his lips. “Guess what, Pi-“ His words dribble off as Cipher spits out something pearly white, the size of a fingernail.
Ford watches as the tooth soars across the air, irritated. Just another thing to clean up.. “Look, Cipher, be reasonable for once! All this can stop if you’d just give us an explanation of why-“
The bloody demon continues, ignoring Ford. “Guess what, Pines, maybe I was never dead.” He giggles. “Won’t you catch up already? Once something’s dead, they’re never coming back!” If he weren’t tied up, Ford could picture Cipher spreading his arms with inane glee, triangular form glittering with light. “You thought you mortal, weak, humans could kill me! You won’t even live past a century- but I’ll always be here! Eons before humanity was born, and I’ll remain for eons after! I am Bill-fucking-Cipher!”
“Oh, enough with your bullshit.” Ford hears Stan mumble scornfully before he lands another punch at Cipher’s shaking form, twitching on the ground.
Shaking with pain or laughter, Ford could never tell.
“I am Bill Cipher!” The demon repeats, voice pitched with something unidentifiable. Yellow blots of color flash across his body like a hologram. “And none of you will ever get rid of me! You think you can take me down with that pathetic stunt? Think again. If I were that weak, I’d have been done for long ago. You could never bear to end my existence!” And again, Stan’s fist creates another blue bruise across Cipher’s cheek, now marred with messy scarlet.
Cipher barely reacts. He isn’t even actively fighting the rope, Ford notices as he secures the bondage. Instead, his arms are shivering with tension, teeth chattering, muscles spasming.
Blue buzzes at Cipher’s hands. Ford’s eyes widen. He didn’t need decades of studying the supernatural to know what it was.
“But I’m still here, aren’t I?” Cipher breathes, eyes flickering with red and gold and black. Scattered, like static. One second meeting Ford’s and another second miles away into the distance. “You can’t fucking take me down and everyone and everything knows you’ve tried! So instead you have me trapped here in this weak mortal cage. You can’t stop me from pulling a Houdini and escaping everything !”
Ford opens his mouth to say something. Anything, to counter the rant that spilled from Cipher’s mouth, words that were picking up speed.
He searches his mind for a tried-and-true response he can drag out from the dregs of his memory, but comes out short. This is new. Cipher had never let Ford see him like this. (The back of his mind urged him to set up a tripod and take notes.)
(Even when Cipher was out of control and so far from his carefully manufactured demeanor, Ford was still thrown a curveball and left helpless. How did he always manage to do that?)
“I am Bill Cipher!” Cipher crows with the energy of a door so unhinged it was practically on the other side of the country. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated and erratic.
Ford leans in to observe the state of his former muse with equal parts curiosity and horror, but Cipher sees right through him. He stares wildly at the ceiling, a Cheshire Cat smile pulling his lips apart.
Cipher’s voice rises to a crescendo. “I am Bill Cipher, you idiot! Fuck you! Bill Cipher!”
The words rip their way through bloodied, cracked lips, crashing into the room as Cipher screeches. Abruptly, he stops, eyebrows creasing. “Oh, fuck you.”
“Uh… are you alright?”
The former demon, now a mess of flesh and red and strange inhuman eyes, snorts. “Sure am, Fordsy.”
Cipher slumps over.
Waking up is a weird feeling.
Bill doesn’t think he likes it.
Or maybe it's just the ropes and the fact that he’d been slapped awake.
“Ugh. What the fuck is going on?” Bill says.
He waits for a few seconds before realizing oh, right, he needs to use his vocal chords now. Bill forces open his jaw, coughing to test his voice. “What’s going on?” He slurs out.
As soon as Bill opens his eyes, a beam of light slams into his pupils. A familiar, rough voice rumbles in his ear. “You’re awake.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” Bill tries to rub at his eyes before realizing that he, in fact, was still hogtied like… like- a hog. He grumbles in annoyance. “Now, I think it’s about time you let me go. I can’t feel my fingers. Which is probably not a good thing.”
Ford scowls, pushing his eyebrows together. “I loosened the rope. And I’d gladly untie it if you’d just be agreeable for once.”
Oh. Right. Briefly, Bill contemplates giving up. Telling Ford about his fun little adventures inside the Theraprism and how the Axolotl fucking tricked him! Into going back into Gravity Falls in a meat suit! But he wouldn’t be Bill Cipher if he made life easier for people- that’s just no fun.
Instead, he asks, “Are you going to finally kill me if I don’t answer your questions?” Of course, he’d been goading Ford since the moment Bill arrived at his doorstep. Taunts, insults, it was really too easy. (Ignore the fact that Ford had resisted all his tricks. He’d get Fordsy soon enough).
Ford pulls back, caught off guard. “What do you mean, finally?”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been trying to.” Bill scoffs. “Getting your genetically inferior brother to beat the lights out of me- you’re just unlucky that the human regenerative system’s so efficient. But hey! Here’s your golden chance.” Despite how immobile and useless these skin suits were, he managed to lift his arms upwards so his bound wrists hung limply from the bone joints.
“I’m not trying to kill you!” Ford says, indignant. “A monster like you is the last thing I am . The only thing I’m doing, Cipher, is-”
“Torture?” Bill suggests.
“Is,” Ford speaks louder. “Trying to find out exactly why you’re here after we killed you.”
Bill raised his wrists higher, rotating his arms like a cog. “Gee, Sixer, I wonder why.”
“As do I, so why don’t you tell me the answer? Why aren’t you dead? Why in a human form?” Ford paced the room, eyes never leaving Bill.
Bill smirks. “So you want the answer, huh?”
“For a creature of infinite knowledge and infinite power, I’d have expected you to be a bit cleverer.” Damn, that’s a lot of words for “yes, Bill, you’re right”.
“I can give you the answer,” Bill shrugs, casual on purpose. Laughter makes his lips twitch as Ford’s eyes narrow calculatedly, mouth opening to spill out his pretty little words.
Bill tuts. Holds up a finger. “Only if you throw me off a cliff. Or light me on fire. Or pick out all sixty of my ribs and saute them. I’m not picky about that stuff.” He pushes his right arm forward, palms spread, smiling at how Ford edges away from the hand like it’s poison. “Well then, Sixer, you know what to do.”
Anger flashes across Ford’s face. “Do you take me for a fool?” He slaps the hand away. “I’m no idiot. I know what you’re up to, Cipher.”
“I don’t think you do, Fordsy!” Bill sings. “Say I gave you the answers. You do whatever your little mind desires with it. I die. I’ll never bother you, or this dimension, ever again! There’s really no better way out. You agree and I answer the questions. You don’t? You spend the rest of your life wondering why I’m here.”
“I am a scientist. There have been ways of extracting information that are… unconventional but efficient.”
“You mean torture? ‘Cmon, be upfront about it, even though you know me better than that. You bluffer, you know it won’t work.”
“I don’t know you.” Ford says, cold. Bill laughs. Bullshit. What about the chess, huh? The karaoke and the rats? Bill had literally inhabited his body, for someone’s sake. “I’ve never known you. If I did, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Put it off as long as you want, Sixer. You know you want to!” Bill calls.
“I could drown you and bring you back from the brink of death. I could break your mind like a rubber band, mutilate you so painfully you’d get on your knees and beg .”
“Perflubron, huh? See you learned from the best- but get this, pain is fun! It’s only you weak humans that can’t handle it. Really nice experience overall, pain, both feeling and causing it.”
Bill can see the cogs turning inside Ford’s mind. What to do, this or that?, Sixer was always so careful about every move he played. He snickers. “Oh, Fordsy, you’ve drawn it out long enough. Just accept it and we part ways forever. If not then I’ll always be here with you until your untimely heart attack in twenty three years.”
Ford considers.
And considers.
Bill taps a finger impatiently. He had a certain triangular form to recuperate from a certain salamander and a certain apocalypse to restart. And all his Henchmaniacs! They must be waiting for him, their lord and master for all of eternity, to return!
Ford chews on a red pen. Where does he get all those pens, Bill wonders. Maybe they’re on permanent discount.
“Geez, Fordsy, hurry it up, won’t you?” Bill groans. “My bones are itchy.”
If only Bill hadn’t been so damned hasty, so desperate for freedom he’d run straight into the Axolotl’s trap exactly like the dumb idiots he tricked. Then he wouldn’t be here with a meat suit and fucking Ford chewing his fucking pen, of all people.
Ford lowered the pen from his mouth.
“So?”
“What the fuck do you mean, you made a deal with him?” Stan slams a mug on the table. Coffee splashes onto the wooden table.
“Swear jar.” Ford pointed to the glass jar, irritated. Can’t you just trust me?
“Don’t change the topic! You made a deal with that slimy piece of shit, after everything. I thought you were smarter than me!”
“Stan, you have to trust me. I know him better than you do.” Ford tried to placate his brother with little success.
“That’s what you told yourself thirty years ago!”
“I’m not that naïve anymore,” Ford insists, forcing down a sapling of doubt in his mind. He is a scientist , unable to resist the calling of a new discovery- especially if it threatened the fragile balance of his dimension. Stan had to understand that. It was his duty.
A little voice inside his mind wondered if that was the only reason. Ford shut it down quick. “Besides, I don’t even think he has powers. If he did, he wouldn’t need to ask me to kill him, or even make a deal with me. I doubt his deal has any merit behind it anyways.”
Stan glared, suspicious. “I promise you, you’re gonna eat your words.” The fist around the handle of his mug tightens. He shakes his head, as if he can’t accept it. “You made a deal with Cipher. Again.”
“It’s different this time!” Ford argues.
“Are you fucking heartless ?” Stan hisses. “The twins are coming tomorrow, Sixer. In less than twenty-four hours after ten months.”
“They won’t-”
“Ten months, after a traumatizing summer caused by that psychopathic monster, and you want them to knock the door just for Cipher to poke his one-eyed face out and say ‘hello, kids, ready to get strangled in the middle of the night’?”
“They won’t find out,” Ford cuts in, voice sturdy. “I’m killing him.”
“Well-” Stan’s voice falters, fury giving in to confusion. “Come again?”
“After he gives me the answers, I’ll shoot him. We can bury him deep in the woods, further than gnome territory. No one will ever find him.” He straightens up. “Isn’t that what you were suggesting since the start?”
Stan considers this for a moment. “If that’s what happened,” Stan says at last, tone low and heavy, “do what you have to do. Just do it before the twins come. I don’t want them to see our bad decisions.”
Ford watches Stan shove the chair back roughly and leave the room without looking back, eyes dark. Ford turns.
When I get my answers, it’ll all be worth it. I’ll have saved this dimension from the multiverses’ worst monster.
I can’t have made the wrong choice.
Bill Cipher will die.