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freefloatingtemporally · 3 months ago

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Chapter 39 of human Bill Cipher is SURE he's about to escape being the Mystery Shack's prisoner:

Ford's confronted with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's a little bit too obsessed with Bill.

And meanwhile, Bill has found a way to reach his loyal cultists... if he can find somebody willing to help him make contact.

He thinks Ford is the perfect target.

Maybe, just maybe, the obsession goes both ways.

(warning for an incident of self-harm via burning, and depersonalization and/or dysphoria (depending on how you interpret it) re: Bill feeling even worse about his body than usual.)

####

Soos, Stan, and Ford had stayed up half the night trying to generate enough NowUSeeitNowUDontium to prevent it from vanishing the moment one of them lost (or gained) focus. They'd eventually given up and stayed the night in Northwest Manor. Soos had texted Melody around midnight, and she'd immediately replied (which alarmed Ford, but Soos assured him she was used to those hours) and agreed, with some trepidation, to spend the night by herself in the shack so that the kids wouldn't be alone all night with Bill. She'd texted a half hour later to report that the bathroom was a disaster, but the kids had reassured her it was just some werewolf thing, so, not a big deal.

Ford had thought getting to spend a night without Bill under the same roof would be a relief. Instead, he found his sleep was even worse. He kept worrying about what Bill might get up to so far away and out of sight, where Ford couldn't do anything to stop him. Surely, by nighttime, Bill had to have noticed that the only humans he'd seen all day were the kids? Would he consider Melody any kind of threat, no veteran to combating Gravity Falls' weirdness?

It figured that the dream demon would find a way to disrupt Ford's sleep when he wasn't even there.

####

Ford had given up on sleep around two in the morning and gone wandering until he stumbled across a den with walls covered in bookcases, massive windows overlooking the forest below, and a pair of richly upholstered armchairs turned to gaze out the windows. He drifted between the chairs to one of the windows. It was the kind of personal library he'd dreamed of accepting esteemed guests in, back when he'd fantasized about one day being rich and famous. He suspected the Northwests had never read a book in this room.

Ford had been staring out at the still night and the dark pines for several minutes when he heard the creak of a door and soft footsteps behind him. He whirled around, raising a weapon. "Back, you spectral fiend!"

"Whoa! Easy, Sixer!" Stan held up a hand defensively. "It's just me!" He lowered his hand. "Why are you holding up a dinner plate?"

"Er—sorry." Ford sheepishly tucked the silver dish under his arm again. "I'm sure I saw a ghost earlier. I thought it prudent to arm myself."

Stan muttered, "This place sure is creepy enough for it."

"Mm. It's built on more than its fair share of bones." Ford returned to gazing out the window, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry today was a failure. When I'm staring right at an experiment on which the fate of the entire universe depends, it's hard not to think about it."

"Eh, I wasn't doing too hot either," Stan admitted, joining Ford at the window. "There's only so many times you can hear Soos whisper 'Think about the miniature particle accelerator' in your ears on a loop before you zone out and start thinking about fishing season."

Ford huffed. "Maybe we should have switched places."

"Yeah, probably. I retired from thinking about science after I got your dumb portal running, and once you get your head stuck on something you can't stop thinking about it."

Ford laughed wryly. "Unfortunately accurate."

There was a moment of silence; and then Stan said cautiously, "Speaking of you getting your head stuck on something..."

Ford didn't like that tone. "Hm?"

"I was, uh... doing some light reading..." He held up Ford's journal.

A jolt of anger and fear shot through Ford. "Give me—" He snatched the journal back.

It wasn't until it was in his hands that he registered the absurdity of his own action; for the past year, he'd given Stan free access to Journal 5. He'd used it to document their travels and discoveries as a reference for them both; he'd even asked Stan to contribute a couple of entries. Based on a prior precedent of seven months, Stan had every right to look at Journal 5. Revoking that access now was... Well, it didn't look good.

Stan didn't immediately say anything. Ford supposed his own actions said enough. He tucked the journal under his arm with the silver dish.

Stan cleared his throat. "I think we're a little past the 'superhero nemesis' thing."

"It's not a problem," Ford said tersely.

"Not a prob—? Ford, you're letting him consume your life."

"He's consumed all our lives. The kids haven't been able to invite anyone over, Melody all but runs to her car after work, you ended up in a showdown with fae nobility—"

"It was just the tooth fairy!"

"Do you know how important a fairy has to be to claim dominion over all teeth?"

"Forget about the fairy!" Stan waved off the whole fairy topic with one hand. "Look, I'm not the one who's dedicated half a journal to talking about him!"

"You don't keep a journal, Stanley—"

"That's not the point!"

"—I'm just saying, if you did keep a journal, I think he'd have come up on more than a few pages—"

"But like this?" Stan gestured toward Ford's journal. "This is turning into an obsession. And not one of your normal obsessions."

The back of Ford's neck heated up. He wanted to argue that he had to obsess over Bill if he hoped to find a way to kill him—but Stan already knew that Ford had passed off that project to Fiddleford weeks ago. "How can I be 'obsessed' with somebody I barely even see? I'm avoiding Bill like my life depends on it! I talk to him less than Mrs. Ramirez does!"

"And you're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private!" Stan gestured again, angrily, at Ford's journal. (Ford defensively tucked it further under his arm.) "You're acting like a stalker, Sixer. Not that I care about him, but, I'm starting to worry about your head."

"A st—?! I'm a scientist, he's a scientific curiosity! I'm documenting him! I document plenty of things!"

"Not like this, you don't."

"There's a lot to document!"

"Including spending a whole page trying to figure out—how to draw his—?!" Stan gestured furiously toward his boxers.

Ford pointed at him severely. "You were just as curious as I was to find out how a giant eyeball and a sentient triangle make that work, don't pretend you weren't."

Stan grimaced. "Okay, fine, I'll give you that one. But writing a full entry about his posture?"

"He's not only an alien being in a human body but a two-dimensional creature in a three-dimensional body, how he moves and gestures could tell us about how an utterly unfamiliar species perceived space! Nearly all his gestures adhere to an invisible coronal plane, that betrays worlds of information about his original anatomy. Do you know that elbow thing he does when he walks—"

"Ford. You're using your great-niece to get drawings of his childhood bedroom."

Ford raised a finger. "That's—" Ford lowered his finger. Ford sat in a nearby armchair, put his chin in his hands, and stared into space. "What am I doing."

Stan patted his shoulder.

Ford slid his journal and the dish out from under his arm and settled them in his lap. He stared at the cover, then thumbed through the pages. It was obvious when they'd returned to Gravity Falls; the drawings of Atlanteans, were-rats, shorelines, and boats immediately gave way to page after page of staring slit-pupiled eyes.

"It's just... Bill is an ancient being, many times older than our universe, and the last surviving specimen of his own bizarre species. As both an anomaly and a source of esoteric knowledge, he's an invaluable subject of study. He's going to die soon, and he should die, but... between now and then, I don't want to pass up the last ever opportunity to study him."

Stan sank down into the chair opposite Ford. "You're listening to yourself, right?" He didn't sound angry anymore, just worried. "This is a guy who tried to kill us. He isn't a 'specimen' you can add to your collection of weird stuff, you know that, right?"

"I know, I know." That was exactly why it was so important—why it seemed so important—to capture Bill in words and pictures before it was too late. (It was funny, Ford thought, how Stan's very first conversation with Bill had been a murder, and yet he was the one who talked about Bill like he was just some guy; while Ford had spent so many years obsessively trying to find out who Bill was that he'd almost forgotten he was a person instead of a terrible idea.)

"When execution day comes and you think you haven't dug up enough of his history, what'll you do? Give him a stay of execution until he's dictated his memoirs to you?"

"No," Ford said immediately. "No, of course not. I'm just taking advantage of the opportunity to learn what I can, while I can. It's no different from your 'shopping trip' at the mall—"

"Hey!" Stan pointed a finger at Ford. "Watch it! That was strictly business! It's not like I'm attached to the guy—"

"I didn't mean anything by it! I just meant—as long as we're stuck with Bill, make him useful, and—and to heck with him after that. Right?" Like Stan had said about the scratch cards: why throw away free money just because of the source? "He'd do the same to us."

Stan hesitated. "And you're sure that when the time comes, you'll be ready to pull the trigger?"

"I know I will. It won't be the first time. I'm just glad that this time I'll be able to aim at his own head."

"Hm." Stan didn't look convinced.

Ford sighed. "But, if I think I'll waver—I'll hand you the gun."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I promise."

But he knew he didn't need to.

####

Soos drove the tired gang home just past dawn, early enough for him to open the Mystery Shack on schedule.

"Soon as we get home, I'm going back to sleep," Stan muttered crankily. Ford—eyes shut, leaning against the window—nodded in agreement. Stan yawned, "And there'd better not be any nasty surprises at the shack."

####

Bill sat sleeping in his attic window seat, knees to his chest, leaning against the window, ear pressed to the glass.

Outside, Stan wailed, "My car!"

Bill's eyes snapped open. He smiled.

He ran to the kids' room, knocked on the door—"Hey, the bigger Pines are back!"—and bolted for the stairs.

####

Soos got the door open at the exact same time Bill stumbled off the stairs and collided with the living room doorframe. Bill grabbed the doorframe just long enough to steady himself, and then bounded over to the door, shoved Soos and Ford aside, and leaned out onto the porch. "HIYA, STAN!"

Stan whipped around to face Bill. "YOU!" He gestured furiously at the wizard graffiti on his car. "WHAT did you DO to my CAR!"

"Do you like it?"

Stan let out an inarticulate scream of rage.

"Oh, you love it!"

"You massacred it! I've had this car forty-five years! I've done things in this car I can't say! And it's never, never been so—so—violated!"

Grinning ear to ear, Bill said, "What do you think of the girl wizard?"

"The what?!" Stan circled the car. He screamed again.

"Uh-huh?"

"Why does she have a beard!"

"Go on," Bill said gleefully, "tell me what you think! I want the full review!"

"This," Stan said, "is the most ugly, hideous, terrible—"

Bill glanced back at a sound on the stairs. "Oh, hey Mabel! Get over here!" He gestured proudly as Mabel joined him in the doorway. "And here's the artistic mastermind herself!"

Stan choked on his words. "—b... beautiful, stunning, museum-worthy work of art I've ever seen."

Mabel beamed. "It's not finished yet, we ran out of some colors! I was going to add a dragon on the hood!"

Stan's face went white. "No no, it's... perfect the way it is. Don't—don't change a thing."

"Really? You're sure? I don't mind!"

"Really." Looking slightly nauseous, Stan said, "I love it just like this, pumpkin."

Mabel squealed and ran outside to give him a big hug.

Bill was fighting back silent laughter so hard he almost fell down.

####

"...And I still haven't found any sign of the Nightwigglers," Dipper said, sighing dejectedly and dropping his journal on the counter next to the cash register. "So, I dunno, maybe I should give up on this one and move on."

Wendy was sitting back with her feet kicked up on the counter, but she straightened a bit to look at Dipper's journal. She skimmed the news article he'd paperclipped to one page. "Oh, I heard about this," she said. "The cops talked to me about the first burglary. I was in the thrift shop that day."

"Oh, yeah?" Dipper pointed at the picture next to the article. "Did you see anything like this?"

Wendy's eyes widened. "No—but I think one of my brothers did."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, he was talking about it a couple nights ago. He said it was like an armless white thing wearing pants that went up to its face. We all thought he got spooked by a deer butt or something and made up the whole story. Then dad said we should drop it and told us we should stay in at night."

"That's when they come out! At night!" Dipper laughed excitedly. "Do you think your dad knows something?"

"Pfff, not if he can help it." Wendy pulled her feet off the counter and checked the clock. "I could show you the start of the trail my brother was on. It's like ten minutes by bike and the next big tour bus isn't getting here for half an hour, wanna sneak out?"

"Are you serious?! Of course!"

"Just promise you won't tell Gus if we find something. We've been making fun of him for days and I don't want to admit he was right." Wendy laughed. "Let me grab somebody to cover."

"I'll get my bike!" Dipper was already headed out the door. "I've been looking for a lead for days! I dug through half the dumpsters in town searching for their nests..." The door swung shut behind him.

Wendy ducked into the living room. "Hey Goldie."

"Yello?" He was sitting cross legged on the couch watching TV.

"I've gotta do something with Dipper, do you mind covering for a little bit? Just twenty, thirty minutes."

His gaze flickered to the TV, then back to Wendy's face. "Sure! Anything for you, cool girl."

Wendy had a brief, eerie sense of déjà vu. She shook it off. "I'm not interrupting anything good, am I?" She nodded at the TV.

"Naaah, it's one of those terrible specials about pyramid conspiracies." He shook a cider can, "I'm taking a sip every time they mention Fishmasons or 'ancient dinosaur-worshiping civilization.'"

"Dude. You'll be wasted before the first commercial break."

"Really, you're saving me from myself." He set the can on the TV and followed Wendy into the gift shop. (As he did, Bill checked to see if he had anything on under his hoodie. No? The Pines didn't want him to be seen in public in his hoodie; they thought it would make him "too obvious." He rolled up the sleeves to hide some of the brick pattern and surreptitiously tucked the hood and the bow tie drawstrings into the collar.)

As she headed out the door, Wendy repeated, "Just twenty minutes! Thirty tops. I'll get back before the next tour bus, promise."

"No problem!" He waved her off.

"I owe you one!"

Bill made a note of that.

He looked around the gift shop—any readily-obvious mischief he could get up to? He grabbed an 8-ball cane and took it to the counter. And then he took the stool behind the register, propped his chin in his hand, gazed toward the living room, and resumed watching TV through the wall and backwards. He didn't miss hearing the conspiracy talk—he was sure it was actively making him stupider—but credit where credit was due; they made those CGI pyramid models really hot.

A cutaway of one pyramid showed its internal tunnels and chambers. Bill bit his lower lip. Oh yeah. That's what he came here for.

Several minutes went by. The door opened and a lone tourist crept in, a middle-aged woman with a sun-damaged tan. Bill straightened up and switched his eye patch over to hide his bleeding eye. "Heya! Next tour's in..." He checked the clock, how long until the next bus? "About fifteen minutes."

The woman nodded and quietly started circling the gift shop.

Bill glanced toward the living room, decided he'd better not start damaging his other eye too, mentally cursed the tourist, and pulled out one of Wendy's magazines to read. "Let me know if you need anything."

The tourist spent several minutes making a slow circuit of the room, and then crept up to the cash register. Bill looked up with a smile, didn't see any souvenirs in her hands, and asked, "Can I help you?"

Hesitantly, the woman said, "The sun sets a deep blood red."

Bill's eye flew wide open, his heart leaped into his throat, and his breath hitched. His gaze roved over her exposed skin until he spied a tattoo on her right arm: four triangles stacked atop each other, starting with an equilateral and each getting shorter and more obtuse as they descended, until they'd reduced completely and a single horizontal line underlined all four triangles. This wasn't quite the happiest he'd ever been to see the symbol of a devastatingly self-destructive high-control cult, but it was close. "Oh! Oh, this is—" He rubbed his temples, squeezing his eye shut. "I know this. I rhymed 'red' with 'pyramid.' Why do I give everyone a different code. 'But rises gold over the pyramid'—something like that, right?" Bill gave the woman a pleading look. "I'm close enough that you can tell I know what you're talking about!"

A look of relief washed over her face. "You know him." Voice low, she asked, "Is it safe to talk?"

Knew him? He was him. But he couldn't claim that without proving it—what would convince her?—telling her something that only he knew?—great, but what? Her face was vaguely familiar—he thought he might've given her a visionary dream once—but he had so many little worshipers and they were so unimportant, most of them blurred together.

So all he could do was say, "It's not safe. Everyone here is an enemy."

She nodded sharply. "Where can we meet?"

Bill paused. "We can't. I'm... trapped."

Her brows creased with worry. "They're keeping you prisoner?"

"Afraid so."

"I could get the police—"

"Everyone," Bill repeated, "is an enemy."

She paused, processing that. Bill's gaze flickered to the clock. Wendy said twenty minutes, thirty tops. She'd been gone twenty-two minutes. "Someone's coming any minute."

"Right." The cultist grabbed Wendy's magazine, tore a corner off a page, and grabbed a pen.

"How did you find me?" Bill asked. Of all the tourist traps in all the tiny towns in all the world, how had she come in hereand walked right up to him?

"We were told a devotee was here," she said. "Someone sent the address and phone number to the Bahamian art studio."

Bill's mind spun. How? Who the heck would know to do that? The only person who knew he was here who'd come anywhere close to any of Bill's other worshipers was...

Ford? No. Did he?

The cultist shoved the paper in his hand and turned to leave.

Bill grabbed her arm. "Stay out of Gravity Falls," he commanded. "But stay close. Don't go back to Death Valley." Between the sun damage and the tattoo, she had to be one of his Death Valley girls. She looked like their usual prey: disaffected middle class white woman, probably had a dead end job and a mediocre husband and a useless degree from a liberal arts college. Maybe being able to guess where she came from would impress her.

It did. She stopped and turned back and looked at him in amazement—and then looked at him, staring hard at his eye. "You're... hosting him, aren't you?" Her voice fell to a whisper. "No. Are you...?"

"You got me." He smiled wryly—behold him, electric god bound in flesh, how low he's fallen, but at least he still has his good humor, doesn't he? "I always said you had great intuition." (It was a safe bet. He usually told the ladies that they had great intuition. Most of them ate that up, and the ones that didn't were often a little too savvy to sucker.)

It worked. She inhaled sharply. "You are," she breathed. "I knew you'd be a woman. Oh, Mary's a fool." She said this like she'd just won some years-old argument Bill had missed.

Mary, as in Mary-whom-Bill-had-put-in-charge-of-the-Death-Valley-compound Mary? Ha. She was getting on in years; maybe Bill could start a schism, that sounded fun. He opened his mouth to say something about Mary having great leadership but waning clarity of vision—

—when the cultist leaned across the counter, grabbed his collar, and pulled him into a kiss.

Okay. All right. She was one of those cultists. Got it. Got it got it got it. Wow. Definitely a "mediocre husband" convert, those were easy to seduce away with a little warmth and affection—nothing obvious, but get them infatuated with the idea of an unattainable incorporeal ideal lover and they'd chase him to the ends of the earth. Maybe a lesbian in denial that Bill had decided to push further into denial, if her assumption about Bill's gender was anything to go by. He tried to remember what he'd told this one.

He leaned into the kiss.

He'd done this before—in dreams, in puppets—he didn't prefer humans, but he could handle them well enough and earthlings had such pretty eyes. And this body he was stuck in made such insistent demands; a surge of human hormones washed over his brain so powerfully it made him dizzy. She broke the kiss to murmur, "Cipher, my lord—" and he took the opportunity to kiss her eyelid and lie, "I knew if anyone could find me, it would be you." He wished he remembered her name. She tugged his face back down to her lips. She was so eager. Cipher, my lord. Oh, it felt good to be revered again—

The door opened. "Um?"

If Bill had had one ounce of his power, he would have killed Wendy on the spot.

Instead, he seized his cultist's hands, ripped them off his hoodie, and shoved her away. "Whoa, lady! What do you think this is, a kissing booth?!" He laughed angrily. "We don't offer that kind of service here! Either get out, or—or buy a souvenir already!" He pointed at Wendy. "From her. Not from me."

Shocked, the cultist turned toward where Bill was pointing; and then turned back, understanding in her eyes.

Wendy raised her hands defensively, grimacing. "Yeah, no, I'm not serving you either. Just... get outta here."

The cultist met Bill's gaze for just a moment, then walked quickly out the door without a word.

Bill shouted after her, "And do not come back!" and quietly mourned as, for the second time in as many weeks, he had to watch helplessly as he sent away his only hope of getting any action/rescue.

"I am so, so sorry," Wendy said. "I leave for like ten minutes and you get one of the nightmare customers."

How Bill loved nightmares. "Twenty-five minutes, but who's counting."

"Psh, shut up." Wendy reclaimed her post behind the counter. "I think she's been here before, she looks kinda familiar. You okay?"

Bill hoped nobody else in town would recognize her. "I think I'll live after some mouthwash. Terrible breath." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Hey, remember when you said you owe me one? You really owe me."

####

All his cultist had written for him was a phone number. Bill slid his stolen journal from its window hiding spot and copied the number down in two-tone dots and dashes. Plaintext transcriptions were usually tricky, given the vast difference between the language Bill wrote in and the languages humans used—but numbers, at least, were easy. Everyone had numbers.

And then he stared at the scrap of paper, reading the numbers over and over, until he was sure he'd memorized them, just in case he ever lost the journal.

And then he ate the paper.

And then he stacked the two cushions of his makeshift bed on top of each other, planted his face in them, and screamed.

Cipher, my lord. It had felt so, so, so good to be revered again.

His organs twisted with touch-hunger and loneliness.

####

Out in the Bahamas, along the southwest edge of the Bermuda Triangle, were two nut job hermits from Miami. Bill had convinced them that the only way they could purge their sins and purify their souls was by sculpting and selling golden avatars of God into which they could pour their guilt, and they had to keep doing it until they no longer felt guilty (and they would never not feel guilty; they needed so much therapy that Bill had ensured they'd never get). And then he'd convinced them that God's true face was an Eye of Providence in a top hat and bow tie.

Over the years he'd lost a little control over those two—in their desperation to be free of sin, they'd also started sculpting avatars to as many gods as they could find and selling them en masse to afford more art supplies—but hey, as long as his face was still mixed in with the rest, fine. Honestly, he was surprised those nuts weren't dead yet.

Somebody in this house had sent his location to them. And in a moment of what Bill imagined was stunning mental clarity, they had passed on that information to the single least dysfunctional pocket of Bill's top cult in the continental United States. Maybe when Bill was back at full power, he'd drop by the hermits' dreams to tell them they'd finally achieved absolution and could rest. Their decades of out-of-control scrupulosity would probably prevent them from believing him, but hey, he could say he'd tried. He washed his hands of all responsibility over them and their mental illnesses that he'd knowingly deliberately exacerbated for his own benefit. Not his problem.

But the question he came back to, over and over, was who had talked to them.

Bill needed to reach his Death Valley cultist. He needed a phone. Every phone in this house was well-guarded. No one would let him touch one... except, perhaps, whoever had sent the SOS on his behalf.

The only person who made sense was Stanford. Bill didn't think he'd ever told Ford about the nutty sculptors; but in the eighties he had given him the mailing addresses of some niche art dealers who would sell tapestries and statues of an obscure one-eyed god to collectors who could appreciate what they were looking at. Maybe Ford had gotten back in contact with them? Maybe he'd told them where Bill was, and they'd passed the information to the Bahamas?

Maybe Ford's feelings weren't quite so cold toward Bill as he'd been pretending.

Bill liked that idea a lot.

Maybe Bill's birthday gift had swung Ford back around to the side of reason—reminded him just how good he'd had it under a muse and mentor willing to teach him anything his nerdy little heart desired. Or maybe he'd always wanted to come back, and had just needed Bill to say it first.

He probably only pretended he hated Bill because they were surrounded by enemies—everyone in the house thought Ford was looking for a way to destroy Bill, what would happen if they knew the truth?

But the truth was there. Bill could almost seize it in his hands. All those moments where they almost talked like they were friends again, before Ford had to stop himself and leave. That one beautiful little word: jealous. And of course, there was the whole thing with the glass pyramid and the "Mysteries" that Ford had passed on—

—to Mabel.

There was another possibility.

As much as Bill would love if it was Ford, Mabel was the only person in the house who acted like she actually wanted Bill alive. Whatever "Mysteries" Ford was teaching her had something to do with Bill, the pyramid made that obvious. Maybe his lessons included the contact information of everyone else Ford knew who knew Bill? Maybe she'd taken it upon herself to call for help?

It was thin. And it was still dependent upon Ford harboring a secret loyalty to Bill that he was passing on to his great-niece. But that was where things stood: Ford was the only person in the house who definitely knew how to reach Bill's followers, but Mabel was the only person in the house who definitely might want to.

And he had to make completely sure of which one of them it was before he asked for a favor.

####

Ford had missed dinner again.

Fiddleford had sent Ford home with a pile of math. All the calculations he'd done to get the miniature particle accelerator to produce Dontium. By his reckoning, that there jar should've filled with Dontium faster than greased lightning; he just plumb can't understand why it trickled in like cold molasses. (His words.) He'd asked Ford to check his work, see if he'd missed something.

Ford was more than happy to help. It was a much-needed intellectual challenge that didn't involve Bill's underhanded birthday gift. Something that would let him feel like he was making progress. And it was comfortingly familiar. He and Fiddleford had spent weeks checking and re-checking each other's math in the lead up to the portal test, before they knew what a horror they were building.

As soon as Ford had gotten home, he'd put Fiddleford's papers in his underground study before going back to bed. Bill had already admitted he could glimpse the future, although Ford wasn't sure how far; and Ford was growing convinced that Bill's ability to perceive "higher dimensions" let him see through walls like they weren't there. He'd begun keeping Journal 5 and other sensitive materials down in his study at all times, hoping that the distance and layers of dirt and rock would keep Bill from peering in.

And when he'd dragged himself out of bed around noon—an embarrassingly late hour to get up, but he had been awake most of the night—he'd grabbed a quick breakfast/lunch, brewed a pot of coffee to take with him, and gone below to get to work.

He'd only worked seven or eight hours with a couple of reluctant breaks in the middle before his head began pounding too hard for him to ignore. He'd been neglecting his exercise regimen the past few weeks, and his back and neck were letting him know. In his thirties, he'd been able to work fourteen hours days and still want to keep going—and that was even before he'd handed his body over to Bill so he could keep working around the clock. He wasn't as young as he used to be.

He dragged himself upstairs after sunset, when the last ambient light from the sky still faintly glowed through the windows. He could make something quick and simple for dinner, go to bed early, and get up early to continue working. He pushed through the door to the dark living room—

"Hello!"

"Gah!" Ford jumped. "You. What are you doing here?"

Bill was leaning next to the door, a dim silhouette with his elbow on the wall and cheek in his hand. Even in the dark, Ford was sure he could see Bill's wicked grin at his reaction. "I happen to live here."

Ford let out an irritated huff. "Whatever you're up to, I don't have time to deal with it. Find someone else to bother." He pushed past Bill and headed toward the kitchen.

It would have been too much to expect Bill not to follow him, wouldn't it? "Aw, c'mon, don't be like that! Would it kill you to act like you're happy to see me?"

"Probably."

Bill's laugh made Ford's shoulders raise up around his ears. Maybe that was the source of his neck pain.

Bill shadowed him into the kitchen and leaned on the table, watching while Ford rummaged through the fridge. "But seriously, Sixer—who are you trying to impress by giving me the cold shoulder? I'm the only one here. You could afford to treat me like a person for two minutes." When Ford slammed the fridge door, Bill smacked it with the tip of an 8-ball cane. "Hey, have my food privileges been revoked? Give me a turn."

How long had Bill had a weapon? Ford snatched the cane from him, but opened the fridge and left it. "I don't consider you a person. I consider you an incalculably destructive force of pure, brutal chaos." He cracked three eggs in a skillet and opened a cabinet for one of the stove knobs they kept stored where Bill couldn't reach them.

"Flattering!" Bill started pulling out his usual nauseating array of condiments: today was sauerkraut, maraschino cherries, mustard, ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce. (Why did he eat like that? Did his species usually subsist on a mostly liquid diet? Was it the flavors—?) "Hey, make me mac 'n' cheese, wouldja?"

"No."

"Fine. Leave the burner on when you're done, I'll make it myself."

"You're not allowed to use the stove."

"Then how about I sit here drinking mustard while you enjoy a hot meal." Bill waved three eggs at Ford. "At least make me eggs too. Zero extra effort on your part. I'll even crack them for you if you want."

Ford gave Bill a dark look; but he supposed, as one of the people who had agreed that Bill wasn't allowed to cook, he was in no position to complain about Bill begging him to cook on his behalf. He snatched the eggs out of Bill's hand. "How do you want them."

"I haven't eaten enough chicken eggs to have a preference. Whatever you'll complain least about doing."

Poorly scrambled eggs it was. Ford shut the fridge and returned to the stove.

Bill sat on the table and crossed his legs in lotus position while he waited. "But really, what do you get out of pretending you can't stand me! We both know it's an act."

Ford gave him a tired, sour look. "Even for you, you sound delusional."

"I know you don't really hate me."

"I could write an entire dissertation and earn another Ph.D. on the topic of how much I hate you."

Ford hated how excited Bill looked by that. "Would you?"

"No! Why would I waste that much time thinking about you?"

"It seems to me like you're already doing that."

The hair on the back of Ford's neck prickled. Surely Bill just meant Ford's research into how to kill him; but his mind flashed to the miniature grimoire he'd spent all his time poring over—the blueprints of Bill's childhood home—the face he'd absent-mindedly drawn in his journal in the middle of the night and quickly scribbled out. Could Bill still see through that face? Had Ford remembered to blind Bill's eye on the blueprints? What about the eyes drawn in his human faces? Did Bill know about Ford's other studies? What did it matter—nothing Ford was doing was wrong. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bill's smile slowly widened. "Sure you don't. You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. You might as well lean into it."

You're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private. "I am not..." Wasn't he? You're acting like a stalker, Sixer.

"Oh, Fordsy, come on." Bill uncrossed his legs, slid off the table, and was across the room faster than Ford had expected. Ford instinctively took a step back and bumped into the oven; Bill reached past him to lean a hand against the edge of the stove, inches from touching him. "You're not hiding it half as well as you think you are. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" He smirked up at Ford, exposed eye wide and eager, utterly fascinated with him. "And bringing Mabel in on it? I'll have to admit, that surprised me. Can't say I disapprove, though."

Ford couldn't tell if the heat on the back of his neck was from Bill's accusations or the stove. "I beg your pardon?" What was he talking about—their conversation in Portland? The blueprints of Bill's home? (Using his great-niece to spy on Bill, lord, what was Ford doing?)

"Quit messing around! The Mysteries, Stanford. You think I don't know I'm the star of that show?" He poked the center of Ford's chest, "There's no way you joined a cult, you're not enough of a team player! What'd you do? Invent your own cult of one? Mixed a little of what I taught you, a little of whatever you learned out in the multiverse? I know you were asking around about me." Bill chuckled. "You want to keep your little rituals private, fine—I think it's cute, really—just tell me one thing I've been dying to know: how much have you told the kid?"

Ford stared at Bill.

Then he laughed in his face. "You really bought that?"

Bill's smile immediately vanished. "What?"

Ford shoved Bill's hands away. "There are no 'Mysteries.' It was a joke."

Bill stepped back, staring at Ford, brows furrowed. "A...? No," he said. "She's got that glass pyramid—"

"She wanted it because it was pretty," Ford said. "I gave her one since I was throwing them all out."

"That's the stupidest story I've ever heard. Then why would she have brought up the Mysteries!"

"Because," Ford said, "I told her, if you asked about the pyramid, she should make up something to confuse you."

Bill's mouth was open, but no words came out. His face had rapidly turned red. Several emotions flashed across his face in quick succession, from shock to confusion to humiliation to a rage so deep it almost looked like disgust. For a moment, from how Bill's fingers were curling like claws, Ford was sure Bill was about to attack him.

But then he clenched his jaw, backed off, leaned on the table, jammed his fists down against the tabletop, and glared at the floor.

Ford turned back to the stove, grinning to himself. Some of the eggs had burned slightly. Those were Bill's now. "What's the matter? Did you forget that humans can lie?"

Bill didn't reply.

"I'm surprised you didn't expect it. I seem to remember we got you with an impressive whopper last year—"

"Shut up."

"Now you don't want to talk?"

"Now you do?"

Good point; he didn't. If he'd finally rendered Bill speechless, he should enjoy it while he could.

He'd have to thank Mabel later for inventing the Mysteries. Sometimes that girl could be genius.

Ford turned off the burner, put the stove knob away, and dumped the eggs onto two plates. He didn't even bother to keep track of which plate had the burned eggs.

He shot a quick, exasperated look at Bill—he'd sat on top of the table again—and dropped a plate next to him. "Here." He grabbed a bag of bread and looked around for the toaster.

Behind him, voice trembling but low and dangerous, Bill said, "Don't look at me like that."

Ford glanced back warily. "Like what?"

Bill violently shoved off the table. There was an awful squeal of sliding furniture. Before Ford could react, Bill was in his face, grabbing him by his turtleneck, dragging him in, forcing him to look up at Bill.

Ford's peripheral vision was filled with gold. They were so close their noses nearly touched.

"Like you don't remember who I am!" Bill stared down with wide-eyed seething rage. "Your muse!" His voice cracked, "Your god!"

Ford stared up at Bill, speechless.

Then he looked down.

Bill was standing on a chair to make himself taller than Ford.

Ford ripped Bill's hands off his sweater. "You were never, ever my god."

Bill stumbled off the chair, catching himself hard on the edge of the table to keep from falling completely. "That's not true!" He heaved himself back onto his feet with a wince. "You worshiped me—"

"I admired you!" Ford jabbed a finger at Bill's chest. "I respected you! I—I even idolized you, but I never worshiped you!"

Bill jabbed a finger back, "You're splitting hairs! You practically turned your study into a temple to me—tapestries, rugs, statues—"

"Because you said it would help me reach you!"

"And it did! That's what shrines are for, genius!"

"It wasn't a shrine! Not to me."

"You're kidding me! All the money you dropped on that gold-plated statue and you expect me to believe that wasn't an act of worship—"

"Do not. Remind me. How much. That stupid statue cost."

"If you didn't build a shrine for worship then what in the world did you build it for!"

"Friendship!" Ford took a shaky breath in. "I thought... I honestly thought you—you—were my best friend." The air in the room trembled with heat. They were standing too close to each other. Ford refused to be the one to back up.

"I was," Bill said. "I still could be if you'd stop being a moron."

Ford laughed in disbelief. "Which is it, were you my god or my friend?!"

"They're not mutually exclusive—!"

"You can't keep your story straight for THIRTY SECONDS!"

"Don't you call me a LIAR, after EVERYTHING I taught you—!"

"In all the years I've known you I don't think you've told me the truth ONCE—!"

Stan flipped on the lights.

They froze and stared at him. They had their hands around each other's throats. Bill had a foot planted on Ford's stomach like he was trying to get a foothold to climb him. They were both covered in egg.

Stan said, "Could you do this in the morning?"

Ford said, "Sure."

Bill said, "He started it."

"I st—?! You started all of this thirty years ago—"

"Guys," Stan said tiredly.

With some effort, Ford unpeeled his hands from Bill's neck.

To his surprise, Bill voluntarily let go as well. Ford snatched up what was left of his plate of eggs, took the loaf of bread—he had lighters, he could toast it downstairs—and left the kitchen, turning the light off as he went.

Stan was waiting out in the entryway. "Heading to bed?"

"No." Ford shoveled a forkful of eggs in his mouth. "Going to be up late." He was too angry to sleep. He could eat, take a painkiller for his headache, and keep working.

"More research?"

"No. Calculations."

Stan's shoulders slumped; but all he said was, "Suit yourself. Don't stay up too late."

Ford glanced back once into the kitchen. Bill wasn't moving. He sat slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees. He'd pulled on his hood. Its eye stared at Ford.

Ford wasn't about to pity Bill over a performative display of angst. He'd fallen for that already.

He returned to his study and mathematics.

####

Bill stared at his plate of eggs. He mechanically pushed them around on the plate until they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. He scooped out an empty white eye in the middle.

He stood, snatched up the plate, and smashed it on the floor.

They thought he was stupid. They thought he couldn't use a stove if it didn't have knobs, as if he was a child! The humans made it easy for themselves to think of him as a child when they treated him like one, "baby-proof the doors" and "no sharp objects" and "don't talk to strangers." He could show them.

He grabbed the stem where one of the knobs had been removed, and twisted. He heard the hiss of gas under the burner. Everyone was asleep. He could fill the house with gas. It would only take a little push to make a spark and set the entire shack ablaze. In the dark room, he could see the first glimpse of future flames flickering yellow-orange in the periphery of his foresight. No one would survive. Who's your god now, smart guy? He'd rise like a phoenix from his own corpse and he'd tear this town apart.

Where was Mabel?

Was she home tonight?

Bill turned off the gas.

He pushed up his sleeve and pressed the fleshy part of his forearm onto the still-hot burner. The pain burned away his jumbled anger so he could think clearly.

Who cared how the nutty sculptors had gotten Bill's address? He was making good progress on lucid dreaming; maybe he'd astral projected across the country to call for help and forgotten it when he woke up. He'd probably saved himself without even remembering it. It didn't matter. The important thing was that they'd received the message; and now, Bill had friends on the outside. Friends who were on his side.

If he could ever contact them again.

Bill would find a way. He didn't need Ford's help. "Never worshiped you." Ha.

He needed fresh air. Even if it wasn't safe to escape yet, he needed to breathe. He carried himself backward through doorway into the gift shop, pulled aside the curtain hiding the ladder to the roof—

The trap door was shut. He stared up in despair.

He shot a glare toward the vending machine, and angrily crossed back into the living room.

The air was so stuffy inside the shack. "Never worshiped you." Liar. If it wasn't worship then what was it?

Bill took himself upstairs. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. He lay on his makeshift bed curled up around himself, arms wrapped tight across his stomach, his burn pressed hard against a layer of knit yarn, thighs pulled up against his arms. It was a wholly alien position. It felt unnatural and bizarre. This body had curled like this of its own volition. It seemed like the only thing that briefly smothered the ache of emptiness and the hormonal inferno screaming loneliness through every vein. The loneliness wasn't his. He wasn't lonely. This body was.

Cipher, my lord.

He hated this body.

He ached to be revered again.

####

It was two in the morning. Ford sat at his desk, pages and pages of math scattered before him, glasses off, hand rubbing his eyes.

He didn't want to be checking a mountain of math like a human calculator. He wanted to be studying strange magic and researching new anomalies. He wanted to be digging through Bill's grimoire.

He wanted to be awed again.

####

(I've been waiting to write/draw Bill screaming his grief over not being worshiped since literally April. I hope y'all enjoyed! This is one of my favorite chapters so far, I'd love to hear what y'all think!!)

#Read later #billford

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