Chapter Text
He woke up in pain. That was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as blacking out and coming to went. He probably would have been more surprised to not wake up in pain. But, if there was one thing he had learned over the past decade or two, it’s that expecting pain does little to improve the experience.
He opened his eyes, but it was too dark to see. Wherever he was, it was black. Nighttime, if he had been lucky. An unnavigable, inky void if he had not.
He did a quick inventory of himself. Twitch each finger, curl the toes, subtly move each limb. Never too fast, never too abrupt; if he was surrounded, attracting attention before his bearings had been gained would be disastrous. All twenty four phalanges were accounted for, and his limbs appeared in working order. He didn’t seem to be bound or otherwise restrained. The situation was improving by the moment.
He heard movement nearby, somewhere behind him. It took a great deal of willpower to not instantly freeze; instead, he focused on keeping his breathing slow. Hopefully, whatever creature was with him had not noticed his newfound consciousness.
The movements paused briefly before continuing. He swore to himself internally, certain he had somehow alerted the creature. He could hear it growing closer, and his heartbeat began to speed up as defensive adrenaline pumped into his bloodstream. He was preparing to defend himself, preparing for an attack that could happen any moment now, any moment now. The thing was so close, he could feel its body heat against his side, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, it was touching him—
The movement was sudden and fluid. Ford clawed at his hip in a mad grab for his gun while whipping around, yanking himself up from the supine position he had been in. He felt his own nails dig into his flesh in that grab, but the momentum and panic kept him from realizing what that meant. The lightning fast moment had come and gone, and he was brandishing an empty hand into the darkness, his hip smarting and his chest heaving with fast breaths.
Nothing happened. The only sound was his hyperventilation as the gravity of his error dawned on him, and he began to take a proper notice of his position. He was not wearing his gun belt. Whatever had captured him had also disarmed him. But it wasn’t only his gun belt that had been stripped from him; nay, his wild grasping had driven fingernails into bare flesh. He was suddenly aware of a chilly draft against his skin. He could feel goosebumps quickly rise over his arms and legs. He was naked, unarmed, and blinded, all while in the presence of an unknown creature in an unknown dimension.
“Back off!” Ford barked, trying to keep the nervous wobble out of his speech. It came through despite his efforts. Another cold breeze ruffled his hair, and he shivered.
“You’re cold,” remarked a quiet, gentle voice that hummed softly with warmth. The sound made Ford jump and draw back, raising both his fists in preparation for a fight. “You knocked your blankets off.”
Ford paused. “B… Blankets?” he muttered. It was then that he realized he wasn’t strewn across a hard floor. The surface beneath him was soft, comfortable. Cozy, even.
“Yes,” the voice said. He heard movement, and then a soft, downy comforter was spread across his legs. He drew away from the touch again, but with much less vehemence. He wanted desperately to wrap himself fully, but he didn’t dare lower his fists quite yet.
“Where am I?!” Ford demanded, attempting to regain his aggression. “Why can’t I see?!”
There was a quiet pause, and then the warm, reverberant voice chuckled lightly. “Oh, of course… Please excuse my negligence.”
He heard movement again. Then there were hands on his head. He instinctively lashed out, driving a fist into the space in front of his face. It hit a rock solid form, sending a tremor of pain up his arm. A sickening crunching sound accompanied it. He bit down on a yelp, instead letting out a restrained hiss.
The hands drew back, and the figure sighed softly. “Stanford, please, refrain from attacking me. You will only injure yourself, as you have just done.”
That was not what Ford expected to hear.
“W… Wh… How did you…?” Ford stammered tensely, cradling his hand against his chest. He had definitely broken something.
“Please, allow me to restore your vision. We may speak afterwards,” the voice soothed. Ford gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, but, aside from an instinctive flinch, he held still when the hands returned to his face. Some gentle pressure was applied to his eyelids, and he felt an itchy wetness seep under his lashes and into his closed eyes. They stung for a moment, and then the hands were removed. “Open them slowly. The light is quite low, but it might still cause you irritation after such a lengthy period in darkness.”
Ford did as was suggested, gradually allowing them to flutter open. He squinted through his lashes, more tears flooding his blurry vision. He wiped them roughly and shaded his face with his uninjured hand.
It was difficult to interpret much without his glasses, which must have been removed with the rest of his clothes. But he could tell that the voice had not been deceiving him: the light in the room was rather low. It cast a yellowish hue over the blurred shapes and colours around him, a hue that flickered slightly. A glance down guaranteed that he was certainly on a bed of some sort. The mattress was white, the blanket over his legs powder blue.
A glance up told him that his captor was approximately seven feet tall.
He had seen many a bizarre creature during his forced interdimensional travels and was certainly no stranger to figures with any peculiar number of eyes. The thing was, they were usually set within decidedly non-humanoid skulls. This time, however, what appeared to be seven distinct eyeballs were taking up three quarters of the otherwise humanoid face. He could make out no nose with his hazy vision. The creature’s skin was the same powder blue as the comforter.
The creature chuckled. “Oh, how silly of me. I have not yet fully restored your vision, have I?” it said. It turned and walked away from the bed, only to return a moment later with something small and black cradled in its large hands. “I believe you need these.”
“M-My glasses,” Ford said, reaching for them instantly. The tall creature gently deposited them into his waiting hand. He stuffed them onto his face as quickly as his fumbling fingers would allow, the world sharpening back into focus.
Seven eyes was exactly right.
The creature smiled warmly at him. “Is that better, Stanford?” it asked.
Ford nodded silently, examining his captor. Although, now that he could see the gentle grace of its stance and the kind, eye crinkling smile on its face, the word “captor” felt quite inaccurate. Between the warm, soothing voice, and the gentle smile, she gave off a rather motherly aura. It made Ford exceedingly wary. Far too many questions were bouncing around his mind.
The first one to come out of his mouth was, “Why do you match the bed sheets?”
The creature chuckled again and slowly sat on the end of his bed, gathering the skirt of her robe elegantly. She smoothed the rumpled blankets, tossed around by Ford’s flailing in the first moments of his awareness. “I suppose I’m fond of this shade of blue,” she said, resting her long hands in her lap and fixing all seven eyes on him. He squirmed under the intense scrutiny. “But that is not what you meant to ask me,” she prompted gently, “You are simply flustered.”
Ford scooted a little further away from her, pressing his bare back to the cold, smooth wall behind him. He grabbed the blanket and yanked it up to keep himself as covered as possible. “Yes,” he muttered, looking down at the hand he had slammed into the creature’s body. Swollen, bruised. He grimaced. That particular type of fracture was quite familiar to him, and he knew exactly how annoying and uncomfortable it would be during the healing process. He looked back up at the creature. “Who are you?”
“Jheselbraum, the Unswerving.” She lightly dusted off her dark grey robe. “ And you are in Dimension 52.”
“Jheselbraum…” Ford repeated under his breath. “Dimension 52…”
“Yes, that is correct.”
Before Ford could ask anything further, his stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him of the aching hunger pangs he had been suffering through before he landed in that 2-D dimension. Jheselbraum looked rather surprised, then drew herself back up to her full height.
“Oh, do excuse me. I seem to have forgotten your hunger. Allow me just a moment to fetch you some nourishment,” Jheselbraum said with a kind smile. She left the room.
Ford immediately hopped out of the bed, the smooth floor frigid under his bare, calloused feet. He padded across the small room, searching for his clothing and weaponry. Although his knowledge of Jheselbraum the Unswerving was extremely limited, he could only imagine nefarious motivations for the removal of all his clothing and weaponry and was feeling extremely vulnerable without it all. At the very least, the thing could’ve left him his underpants.
The room was entirely made of cold, smooth stone, and drafts seemed to blow through it every few minutes. Ford was quickly reduced to shivering, and he found himself gravitating towards the polished, mint green hearth that was the source of the soft, yellowed light. The fire was small, and didn’t appear to be feeding off of anything. It was equally comforting and unsettling: the warmth it offered was more than welcome, as was the surprisingly soothing familiarity of an orange fire rather than green or purple, but that only pushed the fact that it needed no kindling further into the uncanny valley.
Ford had never seen stone quite like the stone that surrounded him in this tiny, chilly room. It was marbled with a variety of pastel colours—soft pinks, subtle lavenders, the minty green used in the hearth, and the baby blue that seemed to be a clear preference of Jheselbraum’s. Ford wondered if the creature’s fascination with her own colour was a sign of some sort of narcissistic fixation. The stone was buffed to an impressive sheen, glinting with the yellow flickers of light the familiar but odd fire cast over the room. Despite Ford’s bare feet, no footprints or smudges marred the shine.
As for furniture, it didn’t seem to extend beyond the single, backless bed and the hearth. The room was quite small; it would only fit a chair or two in addition anyway. Even so, Ford couldn’t help but feel reminded of a barren prison cell.
Fitting, he supposed; he did appear to be in captivity.
It didn’t take long for Ford to decide that his clothing and possessions were not in the room with him. Frustrating, but not surprising. He grit his teeth and returned to the bed, sinking gingerly down into the soft mattress. A number of small aches were peppered over his body.
That didn’t seem right.
Over the past few years, he had been going through something of a desperate period. Bill’s outreach program had significantly ramped up its efficacy, and suddenly, wanted posters bearing Ford’s face and an outlandishly high bounty were popping up all over the multiverse. It seemed that every time Ford was spat into a new dimension, he would be met by hundreds of bounty hunters seeking his head on a spit, eager to capture him in whatever state they could and dump him at Bill’s feet. That had led to a long, long period of running, of combat, of urgently attempting to keep himself a step ahead of not only Bill’s personal lackeys, but any crazed alien with a lacking code of ethics and a thirst for riches. He hadn’t had much time for rest, to properly attend to any wounds he had sustained, to eat or sleep well. Dreadful pains had become such a glaringly constant presence in his life that he had become completely accustomed to them.
And now he was feeling only limited aching in a few joints, and the sharper pain of his injured hand.
Hunger was clawing at his belly, but it was the type of hunger one might expect from going seven hours without food, rather than four days. He was also salivating normally, which suggested he was fully and properly hydrated. He looked down at his own naked body and found it covered in bandages large and small, all pristinely white and fresh.
His list of questions for Jheselbraum seemed only to be growing.
The door opened silently, giving Ford no warning about his captor’s return. He wasn’t aware of her presence until she announced, “I have brought you a bowl of astral soup. It has been agreeable on your stomach thus far, and you seemed to enjoy the flavour.”
Ford jumped, his hand instinctively going to his hip. He stopped himself before he could once again gouge into his own skin, however: there was no gun to grab. “Astral soup,” he repeated, his voice quiet and gruff.
“Yes. I have been feeding it to you during your period of unawareness. As I said, it seemed to agree with you,” Jheselbraum said, kneeling down at Ford’s bedside. The bowl was filled with an ill-defined fluid that seemed to vibrate, the surface beset by a constant stream of ripples. The colour was metallic and black, like liquid jet. It didn’t look particularly edible, but Ford had choked down stranger things. When he reached to take the bowl, Jheselbraum silently moved it away from his reach. He bristled.
“I will feed myself,” he said angrily, his eyes glinting.
Jheselbraum was entirely unaffected by his display. “Your hand is injured, Stanford,” she said, her voice still soothing but also firm. “You cannot hold both a bowl and a spoon. I will feed you.”
“A boxer’s fracture doesn’t inhibit my ability to hold a spoon!” he snapped.
“I understand that this is frustrating for you. But please, do remember: I have been feeding you for two weeks now. There is no cause for embarrassment,” Jheselbraum said with the tone of a parent gently reprimanding a snotty child.
“Two weeks?!” Ford repeated.
“Indeed.” Jheselbraum dipped the spoon into the bowl and brought it back up full. “I would like to tend to your hand, but I believe your nourishment is of graver importance. Allow me to feed you, please.”
Ford’s wide eyes flicked from the spoon to Jheselbraum’s patient smile, and he squirmed further away from her. He was closing in on the edge of the bed. “No. No, you’re attempting to drug me. You do not get to treat me like a child. What do you want with me, how did I get here?!”
Jheselbraum was still for a moment. Then, she sighed and lowered the spoon back into the bowl. “You are becoming distressed.”
“Distressed?!” Ford laughed, an edge of panic creeping into his tone. He grabbed uselessly for his absent gun once again. “Where the hell am I, what the hell are you?!”
“I have already told you those things, Stanford. I am Jheselbraum, and you are in Dimension—”
“Shut up! That’s not what I mean and you KNOW it! How do you know my name?!” Ford cried. Then, he went rigid. A flood of cold fear rushed down his spine. “Y-You read the posters. You’re… You’re going to turn me over to HIM!” he screamed, scrambling away from her.
Jheselbraum moved so quickly that Ford couldn’t see it happen. In one instant, Ford was about to fall from the bed in his panic. In the next, he was securely being pulled back into place by a large, warm, solid arm. The sheer surprise overrode his hysterics.
“Stanford. I know you are very intelligent. Please think logically,” Jheselbraum said softly. Her voice was so gentle, brimming with concern. “If I were interested in receiving your bounty, why would you still be in my care?”
Ford’s chest was heaving and his eyes were wide. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Her words bounced around his skull, and he could not deny the truth in them. Bounty hunters would gladly deliver him to Bill in pieces; wasting the time and resources needed to nurse him would never be done.
“You are very on edge. It has been a strenuous decade for you,” Jheselbraum said, gently pushing Ford back against the pillows. She pulled the powder blue blanket up to his chest and smoothed it out. “You are in need of rest and comfort.”
Ford grasped the hem of the blanket in his uninjured hand, twisting it between his fingers. Nothing about this was right. He was supposed to be fleeing or fighting, not allowing a seven foot tall, seven eyed thing to baby him. But the bed was quite comfortable… and she seemed so very genuine in her offers of care and affection… and it had been so long since he got to lay somewhere soft…
Jheselbraum picked the bowl of soup back up. “Open your mouth, please. I will take care of your hand after you have had something to eat.”
Ford’s heart was still blasting in his ears, and his eyes were still wide. But he was hungry, and he could perceive no immediate threat. He tightened his grip on the blanket, swallowed down whatever panic he could, and parted his lips.
Jheselbraum resided in a polished stone shrine high in the clouds. She had told him when he asked why he was not permitted to leave the room. "The air is too thin for your constitution," she had explained kindly, "I am keeping this room at an appropriate level of oxygen for your survival. Outside of this room, you might struggle with respiration." Ford resented the minuscule size of the room, but he supposed the ability to breathe was a worthwhile benefit.
If she was to be trusted, at least. Ford was still grappling with that matter. He was loath to trust a being effectively keeping him hostage, but she seemed wholly benevolent. She was keeping him fed, and she had returned his clothing as soon as his hand was bandaged. Her attention to medical care was stellar; Ford hadn't been able to keep his injuries so sanitized in at least a decade.
He had recently lost track of exactly how many years it had been.
He disliked that. It signified a certain finality. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why, but losing track seemed to mean resignation.
That didn't matter though. There were always much more pressing concerns on hand than such petty worries as that. Survival, for one. Primarily, his quest.
The stay with Jheselbraum was giving him plenty of chances to consider his plans regarding Bill. He even had the luxury of indulging himself in some unproductive rage and self flagellation now and then, although he still kept his focus on the formation of a weapon. A scheme.
Jheselbraum had not given back his weaponry, likely for her own protection. She had also not given back his flask. Everything else that had been on his person was returned to him. Thankfully, this included his papers and pens. Most of his notes were accounted for, sans a few random pages. It seemed reasonable to assume that the sheets had been dropped in whatever altercation left him unconscious. Ford couldn't remember exactly which were gone, but they all seemed too inconsequential to suspect some foul play on the part of his captor.
Host?
He still had yet to decide.
Ford sat in front of the fireplace, his amazingly, luxuriously clean coat helping to protect his form from the frequent drafts. He hadn't worn clean clothing in a very long while. Perhaps he might even have the opportunity to indulge himself with a hot bath. His heart fluttered with yearning at the thought.
He twirled his pen through his fingers deftly, the battered metal body tapping against his knuckles as it flipped. He had scrounged up his sheets of sketches and writings, all tattered and burned. Squeezed into every inch of paper possible were drawings of guns, which were accompanied by scrawled equations and the occasional tiny doodle. The weapon was a long way from completion—little more than a pipe dream at best. But something told him that, in time, Experiment 618 would be the thing that finished it all. He could feel it in his gut: with this weapon in his hand, he would finally defeat Bill.
He knew constructing such a weapon was currently beyond his capabilities. The faint whispers that had bounced around his skull for years, now and then crescendoing into agonizing screams, reminded him of that. A being of pure energy cannot be killed; energy cannot be destroyed. Ford dragged a hand through his hair, hoping the gentle pressure of fingers against his skull might calm the headache.
Headaches were frequent, reminding him of Bill's lingering presence in his mind. Ford was too far away from Bill to allow for any puppetry, but the demon's influence still remained. It was like some piece of Bill had become embedded in his brain.
Whatever piece that might be was very talkative indeed.
The neverending mumbles and taunts and laughs were dreadful. But after a year spent as a living puppet, he could deal with it. It was the nightmares that really interfered with things.
As a vagrant and grifter, sleeping was something of an unaffordable luxury anyway. He couldn’t allow his guard to be down like that for more than an hour or so at a time in most dimensions, which should have made dreaming near impossible. With Bill’s interference, though, they would happen most times he dozed off. Terrible things, mortifying things, sickening things happened in those dreams. It made sleeping incredibly unappealing, as the gamble that it would be uneventful hardly seemed worthwhile.
He hadn’t slept very much since waking up in Jheselbraum’s shrine. A day or two ago (it was difficult to keep track from his single room), he had fallen asleep for an hour and snapped awake at the very beginning of a dream. That was it. Some part of him wished he were able to take advantage of his safe location and finally rest, but it was simply no use. Bill would not allow it, not while the remnants of his stupid deal still clung to his back.
He had taken strides to conceal his self-induced insomnia from Jheselbraum. He still knew too little about her and her allegiances to trust her with that potentially damning information. While he was becoming more and more convinced that she would not be handing him over to Bill, it felt incredibly unwise to directly admit that he had the demon’s influence lingering in his brain like smog. She already knew he was being pursued. Being booted off the mountain her shrine rested atop was not a situation he needed to deal with.
His head was still pounding insistently. He sighed with annoyance and applied sturdy pressure to his right temple. Fretting over it was getting him nowhere; there were more important matters to concern himself with.
He took his pen to one of the very few blank spaces left and sketched yet another version of Experiment 618. He had been favouring black metal for the exterior lately; something sleek and intimidating. Something cool. He smiled to himself and added six fingered hands gripping it to his illustration.
His most consistent stumbling block with the design was figuring out what the projectile should be. Pure energy, as he knew very well, could not be destroyed, so he had been toying with the thought of something that might scramble it. Energy could, after all, be repurposed. He was very fond of the idea that he might be able to harvest the energy comprising his enemy and put it to practical use. Perhaps in a microwave. Or a toilet-cleaning device.
Or a portal to another dimension.
Ford sighed softly and tapped his pen against the pages before him. He wouldn’t trust the energy in that demon to power anything. He would much prefer to find a way to destroy him, but the laws of physics were not on his side. Although, when were they ever? He chuckled to himself at that thought.
“What is amusing you, Stanford?” asked the familiar warm tone. Ford jumped, his heart rate immediately spiking. He gripped the pen like a weapon instinctively. When he twisted to look at her over his shoulder, she was smiling at him. A neatly folded pile of pale blue fabric rested in her arms.
“Nothing,” he replied, “What is that?”
Jheselbraum blinked all seven of her eyes. “It’s a cloak. I was getting the impression that you were becoming… ah… stir crazy due to the size of your room. I wanted to bring you out to see the view from the edge of the shrine.”
Ford instantly jumped to his feet, scattering his papers in his urgency. “Yes, please, right now,” he gasped, any pretence of stoicism thrown directly out the window. Jheselbraum chuckled.
“It’s lovely to see you so enthusiastic, Stanford,” she said, handing him the cloak. He yanked it on, his body swallowed by the massive garment. She laughed a bit harder. “Oh. It appears to be… rather big on you.”
Ford blushed a little. At one time in his life, he may have taken it as a slight towards his height. Nowadays, he had come to learn that most interdimensional creatures had no concept for how tall the average human was supposed to be anyway. He rolled up the sleeves until his hands were free, resulting in thick donuts of fabric circling his wrists. It looked silly, but it would be more functional. As for the hem, he would just have to avoid tripping and falling on it. “You are a fair bit larger than I am, aren’t you?” Ford remarked.
“Why yes, I believe you are correct,” she agreed, gently brushing the wrinkles from the cloak. Then, she opened the silent door for him.
He had never really been captive in Jheselbraum’s shrine; he was quite sure that she would have allowed him to leave had he asked. But the room had become comfortable. It had become safe. Ford hadn’t felt safe in a very long time. Despite how restless he had grown, despite his excitement from only a moment ago, anxiety clawed at his stomach as he looked into the hallway. He made no move to approach the door. Jheselbraum watched him.
“You have become nervous,” she said, all seven eyes fixed on him. He shivered.
“I haven’t…” he muttered softly, trailing off before he could complete his thought. His body was making it more and more clear by the moment that it was not on board with this plan. His muscles were tense, and, despite the cloak, he was beginning to get chills.
After another moment passed, Jheselbraum’s faint confusion melted into kind reassurance. “I assure you, Stanford,” she said, her voice almost vibrating with warmth, “that the rest of my home is just as safe as this room. You need not be afraid while you are here.”
Ford almost let slip that it wasn’t true, that he wasn’t truly safe anywhere. That even being in the room wasn’t really safe, but it was easier to be in control when his world was that small. He bit his lip to keep it in and nodded. If Jheselbraum noticed, she didn’t let on.
Ford took in a long, slow breath, then walked to the door. He paused just before it, hesitating before finally forcing himself out into the hallway.
The first thing he noticed was how… not empty it was. His room had been near featureless, containing only the furniture, the hearth, and his own personal affects. The hallway, meanwhile, was adorned with small tapestries, paintings, and strange plants in a wide variety of colours. It was much homier, much less cell-like. He took in the view with a furrowed brow, then looked up at Jheselbraum.
“I keep my guest rooms empty for the comfort of the occupant,” she explained, seeming to understand his confusion without any explanation. “Some people find my taste in decoration too busy.”
“You should have seen my house,” Ford snorted. Her strange ability to guess his thoughts wasn’t nearly as startling and off-putting as it once was. “It was far more cluttered than this, believe me.”
“Oh yes?” Jheselbraum led the way down the hall, making sure to walk slowly so Ford could keep up. He wondered how long her legs might be under the cloak. Unfortunately, there was no way to ask her without coming across as far more forward than he ever wanted to be.
Ford nodded. “Papers, books, and charts on every surface. I kept a model skeleton just inside the door!” He snorted. “It certainly got a scare out of Fiddleford when I put it up. And also every day for a week or two after that.”
“Fiddleford. A friend of yours?”
“Friend and partner. He helped me with my research in Gravity Falls,” Ford explained, a feeling of nostalgia creeping into his heart. He sighed softly.
“You miss him,” Jheselbraum said. Not a question, just an observation.
Ford nodded. “Yes, of course I do. He was my friend and I haven’t seen him in… in a while.”
“You don’t remember how long?”
“I… No. No, I don’t,” he admitted. Jheselbraum didn’t respond.
They reached a large door, large even for Jheselbraum. She looked down at him. “We won’t be able to stay outside for a long time. Please let me know if you begin to feel uncomfortably lightheaded.”
“Understood,” he affirmed. She eased open the door.
A burst of cold air hit Ford straight on, and he immediately felt short of breath. He had been expecting it though, and was able to set aside the discomfort. Outside the large door was a sort of patio space, shaded by an overhang of the shrine and lit by a few strings of twinkling white lights. Blue rugs lined the patio, and a few cushioned chairs were dotted about. It was quite a comfortable spot, although the cold and the thin air detracted from that significantly.
Jheselbraum walked to the very edge of the patio and sat down gracefully. She swung her legs (or leg-like appendages. Ford had no real way of knowing what was actually under her robe) over the edge, letting them dangle in the open air. Then, she looked back at him over her shoulder, inviting him to join her with her gaze alone.
He did so hesitantly, not eager to slip from the overly long robe bunching around his feet. A strong sensation of vertigo washed over him when he looked out over the steep drop down the mountain. He gripped the edge of the patio.
“Focus on your breathing,” Jheselbraum instructed gently, “You will grow more accustomed to the air before too long.” Ford nodded.
Breezes washed over them both every few minutes or so, ruffling Ford’s hair and raising goosebumps over his skin. He was quite grateful for the cloak, pulling it tightly around himself with each puff of wind. It was peaceful, sitting quietly, the only sounds from those periodic gusts. The view from the mountaintop was quite relaxing as well; they were high enough up that a layer of foggy cloud swirled beneath their feet, the craggy tops of other mountains poking through. The range extended far beyond Ford’s view. Despite the chill and the thin air, he was comfortable. Content.
“It is rather nice out here, isn’t it Stanford?” Jheselbraum said after a while, keeping her voice quiet so as to not be too startling. Ford nodded, keeping his eyes on the view. “You are not as nervous now,” she added.
“No, I suppose not,” he agreed, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“That is good. I don’t want you to be nervous here.”
A stronger gust of wind passed through, whipping the fabric of their loose clothing. Ford drew his shoulders up to his ears, wishing he had a hat or scarf as well as the cloak. A shiver ran down his spine, this one separate from the cold.
“It’s quite… comfortable in the room,” Ford said.
“Yes, I thought you would find it nice. When people have been on the run for a long time, living in a small space can be a relief. There is nothing to hide from in a single room.”
Jheselbraum looked down at Ford, her seven eyes examining him intently. Ford could feel his ears burning red under the examination. He beat down an urge to flee from the stare. He didn’t take well to being watched.
“You are still nervous though,” she remarked.
“I’m fine.”
“Something is troubling you.” She paused. “Many things are troubling you, I believe.”
Ford grit his teeth and pulled the cloak tighter around himself. Another shiver unrelated to the cold ran down his spine.
“You miss many people from your dimension,” she said slowly. “You are afraid you will never see them again.”
“I already know I’ll never see them again,” Ford grumbled bitterly.
“You tell yourself you know, but you still hope,” Jheselbraum replied evenly.
Ford pulled his shoulders up a bit more, like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.
“There is nothing wrong with having hope,” she told him after a pause.
“It’s ridiculous when I know it’s futile,” Ford bit back, frustration bubbling up in his voice. “It just means that I have to mourn what I’ve lost over and over again. There is plenty wrong with that.”
Jheselbraum blinked slowly. “You mustn’t be so certain about what your future holds, Stanford. Things are often not as clear as they might seem.”
Ford swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in his throat. “You said you’re an oracle,” he said softly, barely audible over the wind. “Do you know what my future holds…?”
Jheselbraum sighed, the sound carrying with it sympathy and sorrow. “Clairvoyance is not as simple as that, Stanford. There are many versions of you. Infinite variations of the same story. And they all come to different conclusions.” She ghosted a hand over his shoulder, meaning to be comforting. He flinched, and she pulled it away. “I see many different conclusions for you, but I cannot say which one is yours.”
Ford huffed, veiling his disappointment with irritation. “Some oracle you are…”
“I know that you are upset, so I will forgive your rudeness.”
Silence again.
“I want to go back inside,” Ford said. Dark blotches were beginning to dance at the edges of his vision, and his chest was aching from how short his breaths had become.
“Of course, Stanford,” Jheselbraum said, rising to her feet. She offered him a hand. He didn’t take it. “If you want to come out here again, you need only ask.”
Ford nodded, hugging his arms around his chest with a shiver. He felt a lot better once he was back in the room, where he didn’t have to resist the urge to flee.
Intense purples, oranges, and reds swirled around him, flashing brightly enough to make his eyes water and sting. He couldn’t feel his hands or arms, and his breath was impeded by the sensation of a tight bind around his chest. He thrashed blindly, tears obscuring his vision.
He was almost relieved when the voice cut through the confusion because it was at least something he could make sense of. Almost relieved.
"Oh, Fordsy! So nice of you to join the PARTY!” The cackling laughter felt like a slap to the face, and Ford wanted to scream in anger. He couldn’t draw in enough to air to make a sound more forceful than a smothered whine.
“You know, it can be so hard to find you these days!” Bill crooned, appearing in front of Ford’s blurry vision with a poof. “With you appearing and disappearing all over the multiverse, I’m having trouble keeping track of you!”
Ford kicked his legs in the direction of the triangle, but the rapidly distorting colours of the environment make it hard to see him through the disorientation. He doubted he would be able to land a blow even if he could see clearly. He wanted to cover his eyes, but he couldn’t seem to find his arms.
“But I finally got you again! Now we can finally have a proper chat with each other again! Not that I didn’t love talking at you all day before, but it’s so much more satisfying when I can watch your stupid face!”
Tears rolled down Ford’s cheeks. His eyes hurt so bad, and his head was spinning, and he wanted to wake up he wanted to wake up why couldn’t he just wake UP.
“Aw, crying already?” It was hard to say if Bill sounded disappointed or delighted. It could have easily be either. “Some interdimensional rogue you are! Can’t even take a few seconds in the Nightmare Realm! You’re going soft, Sixer. As soon as you leave whatever cushy dimension you’re in now, you’ll get swallowed whole.” Bill cackled again. “And if you’re lucky, maybe whatever it is that does it will spit you out at my feet!”
Ford squeezed his eyes tightly shut, willing himself to snap awake. He wanted it so badly, he couldn’t remember the last time he wanted something more, he didn’t want to be in this hellish dream with Bill’s laughter bearing down on him from all sides.
There was no warning at all when he suddenly felt the horrible pain slash across his sides. It was like sharp claws were being raked down his flesh. He tried to scream again, desperately struggling to escape the awful pain. But it was coming from both sides, he had nowhere to go, and he still couldn’t get enough air to make much noise. The laughter got louder.
“What’s the matter, Fordsy?! I’ve seen you deal with worse stuff than this! You go to a loser dimension for a few weeks and suddenly you can’t take a little pain! Pathetic, don’t you think?”
The pain paused during Bill’s taunts, allowing Ford a moment to gasp desperately for air. His sides burned, and he could feel tears streaming down his cheeks.
He wanted to wake up. He could feel Bill’s awful stare bearing down on him, and he was in so much pain, and he couldn’t move or see or even scream. He hadn’t felt so helpless in a very, very long time.
Bill laughed again. “You know, I gotta hand it to you, Sixer, you’re always a lot of fun to play with! I can appreciate a guy who’s always entertaining!” Ford felt a sharp jab from Bill’s cane being driven into his gut. He coughed hard. Bill made a sound of glee. “You made it so hard for me to find you, and it’s been so long… Really makes me want to make the most of this time! Gotta get it all out of my system now!” Ford shuddered bodily, making another pathetic attempt at kicking at Bill. Bill laughed yet again, the sound growing louder and louder and louder and smothering Ford from every side and stealing what remained of his breath as his body shook—
And then it all went silent.
He awoke sitting upright on something very warm and very hard. He started, scrambled desperately away, and fell to the floor, trembling horribly. A stab of pain ran up his arm from landing on the hand he had injured when he first woke. It wrenched a yelp from his chest and another bout of panic as he yanked his hand away from the ground, throwing himself off balance in the process.
“Stanford!” Jheselbraum barked from behind him. He jumped, whipping around to face her. “Stanford,” she said again, much more gently this time. “Stanford, it is alright. You were dreaming. You are awake now, and you are alright.”
Ford blinked heavily, his breath coming so hard and fast that it made his chest ache. He was in the room again, and it was warm. He wasn’t bleeding; the wounds had not carried over beyond lingering phantom aches, to his great relief. He could certainly feel his hands now; the insistent pain from the fractured one makes sure he won’t forget that. He blinked a few more times, trying to clear the tears stinging his eyes.
“Stanford, look at me,” Jheselbraum said warmly but firmly. He lifted his head, fixing his watery gaze on her. “You were only dreaming. You are awake now. You are safe. Do you understand?”
Ford nodded slowly, swiping roughly at his eyes with his uninjured hand. The other one remains carefully tucked in his lap. “Y-Yes… Yes, of course I understand.” He was starting to come around now, at least enough to want to protect his dignity. Jheselbraum sighed.
“There is no shame in feeling fear,” she said gently. “There is no shame in needing to take a moment to breathe.”
Of course, the problem with taking a moment to breathe had less to do with shame than it did with survival. Taking a moment to breathe could get one killed in a more dangerous dimension. Instincts built over years of constantly facing death could not be dismissed by a mere reassurance.
Not to mention the fact that taking a moment to breathe in front of someone was quite embarrassing.
Jheselbraum lightly touched Ford’s cheek with long, broad fingers. He drew away from them, so she brought her hand back to her lap. “You do not have to worry about survival while you are with me, Stanford. I promise that you are safe here.”
Ford brought his knees up to his chest, feeling the need to make himself as small as he could. He did not want to feel the gaze of seven eyes digging into him. But he didn’t want Jheselbraum to leave, either. Her presence was comforting.
A pained look flashed across Jheselbraum’s face. “Oh, Stanford… It is difficult to see you in such a state…” she sighed quietly.
“You can leave if you want,” he muttered.
“That is not a solution to this problem.” Jheselbraum rose from the bed, then sat on the floor in front of Ford. She still towered over him, so he couldn’t begin to imagine what the point of that was. “Stanford, how much have you been sleeping?”
Ford didn’t quite think that Jheselbraum could read his thoughts, but she seemed impeccably good at guessing what they might be. Whenever he lied to her, he could feel the disappointment hiding in her face, even when she went along with his claims. He wondered if there was any point in even trying to lie.
“Please refrain from embellishing the amount. It is very clear that you are deprived of rest,” Jheselbraum said.
Maybe she could read his thoughts.
“I can’t sleep for more than an hour,” Ford muttered, pressing his face into his knees. His eyes were still stinging. “If I do, this shit happens.”
“An hour is not very long. Humans like yourself need a considerably greater amount of sleep than that,” Jheselbraum said.
“Yes, I know. But there’s no time for ‘taking a moment to breathe’ when you’re running from bounty hunters,” Ford snapped, pressing his skull to his knees harder. “So I don’t let it happen.”
“What is it that happens when you sleep for longer than an hour?”
“Nightmares.”
“What makes them so consistent, Stanford?”
She was pushing him, needling a bit too far into dangerous territory. Ford shivered. “Stress.”
She leaned forward. “Is that the truth?”
Ford didn’t like this. “Yes.”
“Is that the truth, Stanford?” she asked again. Ford wanted to flee. He could feel the warmth of her body, but it wasn’t nearly as soothing as it usually felt.
“Yes, of course it—”
“Stanford.” Her voice was cold. “Is that the truth?”
A chill ran down Ford’s spine, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to melt into the floor. Her stare was suffocating, like a physical weight squeezing him from every direction. It was too much.
He shook his head.
Jheselbraum was quiet for a few long, agonizing moments. Then, she asked, “It is Bill that gives you these nightmares, correct?”
Ford stiffened, his head shooting up to stare at her. “You… You… You know…?” he squeaked.
“Of course I know, Stanford. Bill is omnipresent.” Ford’s eyes went wide and he stopped breathing, so she quickly clarified, “Metaphorically speaking. He is known throughout most dimensions, especially to transcendent beings like myself. He himself is trapped within the Nightmare Realm.”
Ford supposed he should’ve expected this. “If you knew this whole time, then why did you let me stay here…?”
Jheselbraum smirked bitterly. “Bill Cipher is childish and violent, but he is not stupid. He would not try to reach me. You are quite safe here.”
Ford shook his head a little. “But… he found me… He said that he can… tamper with me again…”
Jheselbraum gave him a look that bordered a little too closely on pity. “Stanford… If there is one thing you must know about Bill Cipher, it is that he always lies.”
A pang struck Ford. Of course, he was bluffing. The reason he had not been having nightmares was not because of his self deprivation of rest; that had never been reliable in the past. It was because he was in the shrine. As for why he finally had one now… It must have been because of the time spent on the outside. That would explain why Jheselbraum had not offered him the chance for a long while.
But then again, if she knew, then... why would she offer at all?
She noticed his questioning look, or perhaps read his mind (he still wasn’t certain if that was something she could do, and was afraid to ask), and said, “Sometimes, it takes a drastic event for people to realize something must be done.”
“You… planned for this?” Ford asked, his voice very small.
She nodded, apologetic sympathy plain on her face. “I’m very sorry that I had to put you through this. I wish it was not necessary. I very much hoped that you would come to me yourself, but you clearly had no intention of doing so. If I allowed you to continue this self destructive pattern, you may have done some very serious harm to yourself.” She bowed her head slightly. “I do hope you will forgive me.”
A lot of things were bouncing around Ford’s head now. That was a lot to absorb at once. He tried to piece together where that left him. “But… what is it you plan to do now…?”
She scooted forward very slightly. “Stanford, there is a way for me to remove Bill’s influence from your mind.”
Ford stiffened. “What?!”
“It is rather—” She was cut off when Ford grabbed her by the collar of her robe with both hands. Jheselbraum’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“You knew what was happening to me this whole time, and you knew how to fix it, but you said NOTHING?!” he yelled.
Jheselbraum gently grasped his wrists and prised his hands away from her. “Stanford, please refrain from attacking me. I understand that you are upset—”
“UPSET?! I’m not UPSET, I’m LIVID! Do you have any idea how LONG I’ve been dealing with this?!” His face was bright red, contorted in a furious glower. Jheselbraum was unfazed.
“Stanford. Control yourself,” she said firmly, “This anger will not lead anywhere productive.”
“Why didn’t you do anything?!” he demanded.
“It is because you were in no shape for my solution. It will take a considerable toll on you, Stanford. There is a reason I was so insistent on getting your strength up,” Jheselbraum says.
“What is it then?!”
“Invasive cranial surgery.”
That shocked Ford enough for him to sink back down on his haunches, the anger evaporating from his face. Jheselbraum shifted the defensive grip on his wrists to a comforting, gentle hold on his hands (with particular gentleness shown to the one he had injured).
“I would have to install a metal plate into your skull. In order to prevent it from becoming too heavy, I would also have to remove a portion of the bone underneath it. The metal would then act as a barrier that keeps Bill from accessing your mindscape,” Jheselbraum explained, her voice back to that soft gentleness, exuding warmth and comfort. She stroked her thumbs over the backs of his hands soothingly. “It’s a drastic maneuver, one that I could not propose until I knew you were physically capable of dealing with it. And I would understand if you do not feel comfortable with undergoing—”
“Do it.”
Jheselbraum paused. Ford wore a completely unwavering expression of determination, but she could plainly see the notes of fear creeping in from the edges. “Perhaps you should take a little while to contemplate the risks.”
Ford shook his head hard. “Please. Jheselbraum, please, do it. As soon as you possibly can. Please.” Desperation was beginning to creep into his tone.
Jheselbraum sighed softly, another subtle wave of pity coming over her features. “Alright. Of course.” She squeezed his hand gently, letting go of the injured one to lightly stroke his upper arm. “Of course. We will begin preparations for the procedure in the morning.” She slowly rose to her feet, helping him up as well. Then, she directed him into the bed, tidying the mussed sheets and tucking him in. He made no move to stop any of it. “I understand if you do not wish to sleep, but you must at least allow your body to rest.” She gently brushed his hair from his forehead, fluffed his pillow, and walked silently out of the room.