#GOD I LOVE READERS WHO AREN'T 100% GOOD AND WEIRD IN A DISTURBING WAY

[simping-on-the-daily]

you look good tonight (strangled by your tie to me)

Summary: Bill’s off celebrating the Endless Party with their friends, instructing you to teach the senior citizen some new moves. Reader desperately tries to assure themselves they’re mentally well.

Part 2 to this!! And this one won the poll, so here ya go!!

Warnings: Gore, Reader’s heart gets abused again, forced pet regression/mind control, toxic relationships, mentions of bullying, the inherent weirdness of asking a mind-controlled dogboy to kiss you, Reader's morally ambigious/on a destructive power trip

Notes: Title is from HalaCG’s Nightmare Worldwide, Reader has an ambiguous birth defect/condition, though I tend to imagine it as polycoria or something similar to Down Syndrome, Reader slanders BookTok, references to The Yellow Wallpaper, Bill's all pronoun swag continues, Reader's mentioned to have hair as a minor

As a young adult, The Yellow Wallpaper used to fascinate you as a kid. A tale of medical misogyny at its worst, how the woman’s postpartum depression morphed into something sinister because of her husband’s twisted ‘care.’ You once promised yourself that you were nothing like the woman, that you were stronger than her. You were smarter and better than her, you’d escape the yellow wallpaper with your sanity intact.

Of course, you’d soon learn that knowing from her example does not make you better than the woman. You were not superior to Icarus because you learned from his mistakes, you could never understand the hubris of a mad scientist because you weren’t a scientist. Meeting Ford and catching a few moments of intellectual lucidity from Old Man McGucket were sciency enough for you (quantum mechanics were so not your style). Accepting that you were human and the woman was human made you feel better about yourself.

Now? You weren’t really sure that you were human, not anymore. And you're not sure if you're the woman now, because she lost herself to the delusions of isolation and thought she was the figure in the wallpaper. But there was a man in front of you, crawling on all fours, just like the shadow, and you don't think you could ever become him. You were better then him.

Ford stared up at you, awestruck, as he always had. Did he see you as another Muse, another polygon to worship and put posters all over the basement, to dedicate his work in your name? Though, it probably wasn’t all directed at you, and you hated the way you wanted to grab Ford by the face and let his nose touch yours and not let go.

Because right beside you was Bill motherfucking Cipher, floating all smug with his cane and if you weren’t focused on Ford you’d take that giant stick you’d shove it in his eye before praying to whatever God was still alive that Bill had an ass you could shove the stake up of. And her stupid face was smug too, expression in the closest thing you think she could get to a lazy grin.

“So, snookums, you know what you’re doing?”

“What the fuck.” You were supposed to listen to them?

“Haha, need a recap? I’m a-okay with that!” Bill’s eye turned upwards in giddy glee. “Previously on Keeping Up With The Ciphers-” “Are you fucking kidding me-?”

“The best friend forever, Bill, promised his Henchmaniacs he’d go out and join them on an all out tour of Oregon! Tickets sold out, eat your heart out, Tay-tay!” With a sickening lurch and a weak scream littered with swearing, your heart was ripped out of your socket and Bill took a nibble. You curled in on yourself, hiding your attempt at a bird flip as you stared up at Bill with seething contempt. You hated how that was their new recurring gag.

“While we’ll be having fun and increasing our ALL-SEEING EYES on the Pines family,” Your heart lurched, resuming your prayers for their safety and happiness. Soos and Wendy were good kids, and the kids couldn’t take the grief if something happened to them. “Sugarbun and Sixer will be having some quality master pet time!”

The way your heart soared knowing who was the pet and who had the control could not be water-boarded out of you.

“You’ll be teaching this old dog new tricks, give his bones a peaceful workout! Say, being on his knees is letting them rest way more than always running away from the Quxezquan?” Bill floated over to Ford, rubbing his hand through his hair. You can confirm Ford purred at that one.

“You know dog-shit about human anatomy.”

“But I know dog-lots about sweet Sixer here, and that’s the important part! Give me some more time and I’ll know LOTS about you as well! The heart’s where the soul is, and we’ve been getting real intimate!” Her fingers began to rip your organ in half, and you resisted the urge to scream. Dipper had a whole rap recording of his voice cracks, you didn’t need a more fucked up version of that.

“I’ll leave this here, if you wanna play a few games with Fordsy!” With an unceremonious squelch, your heart fell to the ground. “Well, I’ll be off! Byeeeeeeee, sweeties!” With that, Bill vanished in a flash of golden, Ford turning his eyes from her to you.

“........Hi?” Not your best.

Ford embraced the ground more than he already had, forehead touching the floor. So, he thought everything was your best. You refused to address how euphoric that made you feel.

“Let’s just……run through the basics, I think?” You didn’t really want to cope with a Bill who came back and learnt you didn’t do his instructions. Everytime they came back from the Henchmaniacs, she was always jumping for joy or ready to rip either you or Ford’s face off. Ford seemed to enjoy it but Bill said he liked to respect your boundaries, said that they’d give you time. Bullshit.

Ford nodded, hearts in his eyes as he looked up to you, getting up and ‘standing’ at perfect, doggy attention. Fuck, you were always more of a cat person, what were you supposed to do now? Fuck, you needed your phone.

You stuttered a bit, brain racking through the list of easy tricks. Ford’s head tilted ever so slightly to the side, but the look of sheer love in his eyes didn’t subside.

“L-Lie down.” That seemed like the easiest one.

Like a lightbulb turned on, Ford’s face brightened, before flopping on his right side. You distinctly remember it as the way human Ford, pre-Weirdmaggedon Ford would occasionally go to bed, one the few occasions he did and didn’t pose like a dead man.

It felt a bit off to you, though. “Upright.” Dogs layed like that, right?

With no hesitance, Ford adjusted his position, lying on his stomach, hands stretched out towards you on the floor. Yeah, that looked more accurate. “Roll over.” You continued, motivated by Ford’s face and your lack of failure. Ford continued to impress, with a quick roll you think you’d seen in action movies, hands and legs up as his stomach faced the roof, decorated by Bill’s visage, surrounded by a wheel of household items, what you’re pretty sure was an alpaca, and stuff you immediately recognised from the Pines Family. After all, you knew only one man who wore that crescent oyster phoenix pearl fish thing.

“Play dead.” Ford’s limbs were out strewn before going slack, tilting so that he leaned more to the left.

“Headstand?”

Ford’s head titled in confusion. God, that was stupid. What kind of dogs could do a headstand?

“Fuck!” You growled under your breath, bitter that your streak was ruined. Your anger was interrupted by Ford’s nose gently nuzzling your knee, and you felt it all dissipate. Times like these reminded you that Bill wasn’t going to be death of you. Rather, it was his damned dog and his adorable little glasses and cute innocent smile.

You pat his head gently, and Ford only responded with a ‘yip!’, which he could apparently do. As if your heart wasn’t growing three times its size every day Fordsy was in your vicinity.

“Kiss me.”

What.

“I-” You froze, arms outstretched as your hands shook. “No, that’s weird, you’re in the headspace of an animal, that’s so fucked- but like, people do way worse then that, right? People wayyyy younger then me writing all their stories about rich millionaires and getting their brothers to fuck you instead, ha, yeah, I’m way better then those TikTokers and their books-”

His lips touched yours. Ford was fucking kissing you. This was wrong. He was being mind controlled, there was probably a pendulum swinging in his brain to keep him like this, you weren’t Bill, you were better than him, you were better then the high-schoolers and kids who picked on you and threw rocks at you and locked you in the closet and made you play seven minutes in heaven with a guy who threatened to cut your hair-

And yet you leaned in. You grabbed him by the waist and hugged him, as though you were going to lift him up. You couldn’t- Ford was tall and you weren’t in your prime, but knowing that Ford wouldn’t fight you if you tried felt like a massive boost to your confidence. He’d do anything for you, he’d protect you from the kids who called you a freak and never invited you to their birthdays. And he’d do it with a smile, because he loved you and Bill-

Bill. You opened your eyes (when did you close them?) and looked up to the roof, terror etched in your pupils.

Bill’s visage, surrounded by that stupid wheel.

You pushed Ford off, overcome by panic. He wasn’t out with the Henchmaniacs, he was probably laughing at you and saying that you were a horrible person who deserved to be alone but you weren’t. You were a good person. Ford wouldn’t have hung out with you if you were a bad person. Dipper and Mabel wouldn’t hang out with you if you were a bad person. Stan wouldn’t let you be near the kids or Ford if you were a bad person. Wendy and Soos wouldn’t let you hang out near the kids or the shack if you were a bad person.

But you had just kissed Ford when he was a dog. You liked it when he was a dog. You enjoyed the power you had over him. You wanted your name on his collar and for your symbol to be on his leash, not just that triangle chain that connected the two.

You fell to the ground, unable to stand. You stomped on your heart and something burst, blood splattering all over your face and arm. You didn’t scream, though, or curl in on yourself. The pain of one organ and its constant abuse was nothing compared to the rollercoaster your mind was.

I’m a good person. I’m better than the people who hurt me. I won’t hurt people. My revenge is being better than those who hurt me.

Your misery was interrupted by Ford, curling up next to you with a worried look and a yip. You stroked his hair, the pattern soothing the tension in your body ever so slightly, but unlike with the headstand, he couldn’t fix this or soothe your worries. Not when he had caused them, not when he was the root. Ford and his stupid little cute face and the way he didn’t look so stressed and the way those soft gloves were probably protecting him from the pain of his knuckles on the ground.

No, not him. Never Ford. You couldn’t blame him, heaven knows he did that enough himself. Bill, it had to be Bill. Because it couldn’t be you. You couldn’t be a monster, you couldn’t be continuing a cycle of pain just because the opportunity was in your lap.

The woman in The Yellow Wallpaper had no-one, not really. All she had was her husband’s shitty reassurances that she’d be ‘cured’ if she stayed in the nursery and a woman she made up. You weren’t the woman, because the two people who haunted you were very much real. The psychical manifestations of a drug and the dealer.

You weren’t sure which was worse.