Work Text:
On the day Bill decided to be happy, he never imagined something like this would have happened. Frankly, he never imagined something like this could even be possible. And yet, it was possible. And yet, it did happen.
It was the autumn of 1982 when Bill understood the quiet little thing he felt each time he slipped into the mind of Stanford Pines. There was something warm inside of himself, something which he came to realize was something he never felt before – not to this extent at the very least. He felt that warmth when he decided to show Ford the silver-dusted molecule of Euclydia. With a quiver to his hands, Bill reached into his hat and presented his world.
It scared Bill. The feelings. The vulnerability. The truth.
He had vanished away after that. There was a desperate need to breathe. To be alone with this thing which scared him so. To come to terms with this epiphany.
Bill Cipher was in love and for the first time, he decided to choose happiness.
And so, he returned to the mind of Ford, exposed himself to the man he loved. Ford had stared and blinked and swallowed. He had nodded and twisted his fingers together. He had trembled. He had smiled. He had loved Bill just the same.
With a newfound purpose, the two had finished the portal together and, instead of the violent, pulsing carnage of the nightmare world pouring in, it was the new, physical body of a triangular Euclidian in love.
And love was just what had occurred within the years the two spent together in that cabin. And with love, sometimes, just sometimes, impossible things take place.
Bill was waiting for Ford as he entered the cabin.
Ford had been away during the weekend at an all-too-important scientific conference. “I’ll be fine,” Bill had told him. “Okay,” Ford had said, lingering in the doorway, not quite sure what to do. Eventually, Ford did leave. Bill had creased his eye into a smile and waved him off and in Ford’s mind he repeated to himself Everything is fine.
But everything wasn’t fine. Bill was sick and neither him nor Ford knew why.
It was sudden and foul. Bill now spent mornings puking when he never had before. His days were fatigued and his nights restless with ache. One night, as Ford rubbed Bill’s back in an attempt to make him feel even slightly better, he pondered aloud. “Perhaps it’s your physical body?”
Bill leaned into Ford. “What?”
“What if. . . What if after these years in this dimension, your body is breaking down?”
Bill laughed. “You’re overthinking things like always, Sixer.”
Ford too laughed. “You’re probably right.”
But Ford’s words lingered within both of their minds. No matter what either did, Bill was still painfully sick and the simplest of things had become excruciating for him.
Maybe Ford wasn’t overthinking things after all.
So, when Ford left for the week, Bill took the quiet opportunity to slink into the portal to find somebody in another dimension who could make sense of this sickness.
After humiliating test after humiliating test, they certainly had made sense of it.
“But that’s not. . .?” Bill had said, sitting atop the cold metal table.
The doctor nodded their head and showed Bill the results once again.
He felt numb. He felt sick.
He wanted to tell Ford the diagnosis but he couldn’t, not over the phone at least. Something as serious and life-changing as these results had to be told in person.
And so, Bill went back home to Earth to wait for Ford.
He waited. And waited. And waited. He waited until Monday morning became Friday morning and Ford entered the cabin.
It was near impossible for Ford to concentrate during his conference. He slipped into the monotonous motions and dialogue while he was with all of the other scientists. He spoke his piece over the podium and asked questions during the other talks. He went to his hotel room alone and called Bill.
“Just checking,” Ford said, worry thick in his breath.
“Please, Sixer, I’m fine!”
And yet there was something strained in his voice, something which gave way to there being something Bill was not sharing. Desperately, Ford wanted to ask him, to know what was the matter, but he held his tongue.
Ford told him that he missed him and would be home as soon as he could. He told him goodnight and when he hung up the phone, he failed to sleep.
The drive to Gravity Falls from Portland was agonizing. For hours and hours, Ford’s hands shook on the wheel and the radio passed over him heedlessly. He needed to know what was happening to Bill.
The cabin door opened and Bill was waiting.
“Hi,” said Ford.
“Hi,” said Bill.
“How are –?”
“I gotta tell you something.”
Ford held his luggage tighter. He noted that Bill had his feet planted to the ground, no longer floating. He swallowed and tried to ignore the wave of dizziness threading into his mind.
“What?”
As a response, Bill took his hand and guided him fully inside. The tapping of their steps reverberated against the wood, the only sound in the deafening cabin. The further Bill brought Ford inside the further his mind wandered. The further he moved away from hope. Further, his stomach and heart and thoughts fell away. This is it. Something with Bill’s physical body must be dying. Something must have gone wrong back in 1982 when Bill flashed through the portal, neither of them knowing about its happening. Guilt twisted inside Ford’s guts. This is my fault, he thought, he came through that portal in the end to be with me. And now Bill was dying.
Ford’s throat burned. He merely followed Bill on. It had never occurred to Ford before just how endless the cabin seemed to be.
He was brought into their room and Ford hated how quiet Bill had been during the walk over. He hated even more so how exhausted Bill seemed to be from it. Bill struggled to sit on the edge of the bed so Ford set his bag down and helped him, promptly sitting next to him once Bill seemed settled.
“What do you need to tell me, Bill?”
Bill watched his own fingers twisting aimlessly in his lap and Ford wanted to hold them. He felt sick, faintly wishing that Bill won’t say anything, that the two of them can simply continue in this strange bliss they had constructed for themselves. Ford’s head throbbed. He couldn’t bear the thought of Bill’s death, of losing him to mortality, of watching the one he loves rot and vanish before his very eyes.
“I –” Bill started. He seemed to want to glance up at Ford but couldn’t quite manage.
“You’re?”
Finally, Bill did look up. “I’m pregnant.”
There was ringing in Ford’s ears and a shifting of the earth. Bill had said something but it didn’t make any sense. He blinked. The dizziness returned.
Ford moved from the bed to the floor – knees hitting the wood painfully. Quietly, Bill watched Ford shuffle closer to look up at him.
The yellow of Bill’s body was bright, his glow the moor of the sun. Ford tried to focus in on that yellow but it was impossible not to look into Bill’s eye instead. The slit of his pupil was soft and warm and Ford had the sudden need to cry.
“What?”
Bill’s angles brightened ever more as he laughed. “I’m pregnant, Ford.”
“You.” Something was twisting and bending and twining inside of him. He tried to breathe. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to sob. He couldn’t hear his own voice and all he could see was Bill.
“You’re…?”
Bill blinked and nodded and smiled. He laughed again. “Yeah.”
Somehow, Ford managed to reach for Bill’s entangled hands. He couldn’t tell who was shaking but Ford believed it was both of them.
“But how is that…?” Ford shook his head. Everything rang. “But that’s not…”
“It is.”
That thing which pulled and pulled and pulled inside Ford’s stomach and chest and head seemed to snap and Ford could only do one thing. He cried.
He couldn’t make sense of it but he grasped Bill’s hands as tight as he could. Gently, he sobbed with the warmth which seemed to flare and burn with Bill’s touch. The relief of Bill’s news – that he wasn’t dying – lifted from him as summer dew. Then the news of Bill’s impossible words echoed and burst forth. It’s not possible, his mind continued to say. It is was what Bill had said instead.
“Really?” Ford’s throat ached but he needed to say something.
“Yes, Sixer!”
And Ford looked at Bill and felt the warmth of that eye and that smile and that yellow and that love and my god, he said it is possible, Bill said that it is possible. It is possible and it is real and Bill is pregnant.
The light of Bill grew ever lucent. Its coruscating molecules poured out over the earth and Ford laughed. He cried and he laughed and Bill laughed too and Ford lifted himself from the floor and laughed some more and kissed the tiny hands grasped around his own and laughed and cried. He laughed and he bent forward to kiss Bill’s yellow and his angles and he kissed him and kissed him and Bill laughed and Ford laughed and this is real this is real this is happening. Bill grabbed Ford’s wrist and brought his hand to Bill’s body, just under the bowtie.
“See?”
Whether it had been in Ford’s mindscape or this new physical reality, Bill’s body had always been flat. And yet now, oh so subtly, there was a rise, gentle and three-dimensional.
“My god.” And once again, Ford laughed. Once again, Ford cried. Once again, his chest burst with incomprehensible love. “And I’m the…?”
“Well duh, Brainiac!”
Ford laughed. “This is– Bill, you’re pregnant!”
Bill too laughed. “That’s what I’ve been telling you!”
Ford pressed his hand deeper onto Bill’s front. While Bill still gripped onto Ford’s wrist, he brought his other hand to Ford’s jaw, caressing it for a moment before pulling him down. Flipping his eye into a mouth, Bill’s lips met Ford’s own and warmth liquified into their kiss, soft and sunlit.
This is real, Ford’s thoughts continued to serenade. This is real.
Everything was warm and everything was bright and everything was quiet and atop a little bed in a cabin in the woods of Gravity Falls, two impossible parents kissed.