#but the excuses never stopped and ford wouldn't tell him why he hadn't left his room for over a week except to eat or use the bathroom

[billford-dump]

Ford Pines has to explain that he misses Bill Cipher to his family because he is worrying them with his... behavior of late.

Is that anything? Too out of character?

I don't think he'd ever actually explain it, not without some serious extenuating circumstances, but he would work to hide it better and try to come up with some nice little excuse to make everyone stop worrying and leave him alone.

He doesn't want to worry them, really! But sometimes he needs to draw Bill's eye or go to his statue and yell at him, beg him to come back, tell him to stay dead forever, blame him, apologize to him, tell him what's happened since he left. Sometimes he sits and stares at the space where the portal was for hours, wondering if maybe reality is thin enough at the center of it for death to lose its permanence. Sometimes he can't get out of bed, because all he wants to do is fall back asleep and hope that maybe this time Bill will show up in his dreams, even if it isn't really him.

He tells his family he was just talking to himself. That he spaced out. That he's depressed, because even with how he was raised in regards to opinions on mental health saying that he isn't well is better than saying he misses Bill.

On the off chance he does tell them, he's either forced into it or says it by accident. Stan won't leave it alone, won't believe Ford's excuses, he knows him too well for that. It takes a long time for Stan to get fed up and push hard enough for Ford to get frustrated and blurt it out, but it happens eventually. I'm your brother, don't you trust me? Just tell me what's wrong, let me help, and stop saying it's 'nothing' because it clearly isn't, stop HIDING-

"I MISS HIM!" And all at once Ford just looks tired, everything else draining out of him in an instant. "...I miss him."

Stan doesn't have to ask which "him" Ford means.