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The sound of screaming children fades off in the direction of obnoxiously loud banjo and a tinny, cartoon voice recording. All that’s visible is a slice of pizza landed face-down on the stained galaxy-patterned carpet.
“Next.”
A glove box door pops open, revealing the seat of a car wrapped in a leopard print cover. A manicured hand adorned with a dozen rings reaches in to clumsily fumble around a stack of fake I.D.s.
“Next.”
Skyscrapers tower overhead. The view shifts, angles down to look directly into the face of a haggard businessman. He looks up, presumably at the person who’s been speaking to him a mile a minute about how he could be part of something big. They’re going to change the world.
“Mm. Next.”
He doesn’t need to say ‘next’ out loud to change the scene, he just likes to hear his own voice. The only one worth hearing in this shithole.
Technically, he should be keeping his voice down since it’s lights-out time (time! What a joke), but he doesn’t sleep and the sound-proofing this place has installed is good enough to muffle the wails of even the damnedest of tormented souls, so he’s not really worried about getting reprimanded for taking what precious little solitude he has to unwind after a long, hard non-day of dissociating like fucking crazy.
Try to wring the weird out of him all they want, he’ll never crack.
So now Bill’s on his slab of a bed, lounging on the pathetic excuse for a pillow that he’s got propped up on the headboard, straining for any peek he can get of the multiverse outside of this place. Anything other than bland and bleached clean.
If he’s only looking through peepholes he has into 46’\, no he isn’t. No, he’s just flipping through the newest icons that have popped up – newest, obviously meaning the ones he hasn’t gotten to yet because, once again, time is fucked. The fact that they happen to be looking into a certain particular dimension is pure coincidence. He’s popular there! Sue him! Word gets around, and the blow out party he threw there was not a forgettable dud, and Bill will flay anyone who says otherwise.
His vision is overtaken by a crowd of hooded figures, all standing in a circle surrounding the icon. One by one, they all raise knives to press against their throats—
“Next.”
The face of an older human man, hair particularly grayed at the temples, a weary look on his face.
“Nex—”
Bill doesn’t even process what was probably some loser’s quinceniera before he’s flipped back to that previous scene.
Big glasses, bigger nose, sideburns for days, brown eyes glinting off of the light of a lamp somewhere to the side. He’s looking right at the icon– no, near the icon, very intently. There’s a blur of what’s probably a hand writing something in the periphery.
Someone’s drawing triangles. Bill’s eye curves up in giddy glee.
It’s not rare that Bill gets to see Stanford Pines. Despite Ford’s worst efforts, there are still a few icons scattered around the architecture of the Mystery Shack, not to mention that Bill can still get a look through the eyes of his worthless family members. This occasion is something else, though. This is a personal peephole made just for Bill. Because Ford drew him, and Ford knows that Bill can see through any image of himself. Because this was on purpose. Because whether he realizes it or not, Ford misses Bill. This is a moment of weakness, and Bill’s got front row seats for the show.
It’s a narrow window. Most of Bill’s view is Ford’s face and what seems to be the ceiling of Ford’s shitty lab because the guy apparently still hides in the basement to wallow in his grandest mistakes. Ford’s still writing something, whatever it is. Bill’s got no way of knowing what Ford wrote alongside him, can only see his face, the crease in his brow, the troubled frown. There’s something going on in that head, some kind of emotion that–
“Hey, wait!”
Bill realizes he’s fully sat up, arm outstretched as if that could do anything to stop Ford from pulling away and snapping the journal shut in an instant. Of course it can’t do anything – it’s a one-way feed. Bill shakes himself off and settles back into the pillow. No big deal, the show’s not over yet, he just needs to adjust that antenna to fix the signal.
If Ford’s down in his lab, then the only option he has for going anywhere is up to the gift shop. They may have gotten rid of his big rug, but Bill’s still got a cheeky triangle carved into the wood of the register counter. From there, he’ll see whether Ford goes off to his room or leaves the house… or even comes upstairs at all.
This shit was a hell of a lot easier to manage when Bill had uninhibited access and full control over his vision, but he’s not about to bitch and moan over it. He’ll take any cloudy, partially-blocked view he can get at this point, even if it might leave him with a searing headache later. He just needs to focus, because if he misses where Ford goes during the second he’s in view, it’s all over.
Bill’s god-like patience is rewarded when Ford finally does surface, even more so when he shuffles toward the front door even though it seems to be the dead of night.
Now the real game begins. Bill tries for a window view, but no dice – those have finally all been uninstalled or bashed in. Hard to tell from his angle. Any carvings, any odd structures Bill can pop into? Funnily enough, there’s a bumper sticker on what Bill assumes is Soos’ truck that’s just close enough to do the trick. He finds it just in time to see Ford’s nerdy trench coat fluttering off into the forest.
Not ideal. Despite his ability to tap into the birch trees, the forest is basically a black hole of information. The number of views to sort through makes it impossible to actually find anyone, let alone someone as weaselly as Sixer. Old man’s gonna get lost to the woods forever, or until Bill finds some other random icon at some completely different time of some completely different day.
But let’s be honest, where the hell else is the guy going in the middle of the night?
The view switches to a darkened clearing. The faint moonlight gives him a hint of the surrounding trees. Bill doesn’t need the detail; he knows what’s here. There’s no other eye he’s looked out of even close to as much as this one, which is true on multiple levels, given that it’s the eye of his own corpse.
Bill doesn’t have to wait long before he sees a faint orange light building in the periphery, and he feels a thrill swirling up inside himself. You don’t come to own a guy without learning everything there is to know about him, and puppy is as predictable as ever! Why wouldn’t he be? Fordsy loves this place – can’t ever get enough of Bill’s not-decaying not-flesh.
And there’s the man himself, carrying his stupid-ass lantern to light the way. He’s gonna burn this whole forest down one day with that thing. Bill just hopes he’ll get to be there to see the action.
Sixer stops a few steps away, eyes narrowed and lips pinched together – really playing up the ‘I don’t want to be here and looking at you makes me sick’ act. It’s cute how much he has to force it.
“Cipher.”
Ford’s using that low voice that makes Bill giggle. His posture straightens to really amplify the disdain he’s looking down at the statue with. It’s a good thing he brought the lantern, actually. The underlighting really adds to the drama.
“As much as it isn’t good to see you, it is good to see that you’re still here,” says the guy who came to visit Bill on purpose all on his own.
It’s all just theater, and the act drops with the heave of a deep sigh. Ford’s shoulders sink, and the rest of his body follows as he settles down on the grass, placing the lantern on a flat patch of ground at his side.
Stock-standard insults delivered, Bill supposes, because now they’re moving on to the staring in silence part. Bill loves this part; he always wins at it. Seventy-two to zero. There’s no beating a statue, after all.
Ford really puts his heart into it, too, twitching all those pretty little muscles in his face as it morphs and contorts between expressions of revulsion, anger, and desperation. All very appropriate ways to look at Bill. None of them have any ability to stick before he finally gives up on the endeavor and heaves out a sigh, looking down at the grass he’s crushing under his legs.
Only three minutes and twenty-six seconds, that’s a new rec–
"I made a fool out of myself today,” Ford finally says, then lets the weight of silence collapse back in on the both of them.
Bill’s brow creases.
Ford’s skipped a few steps. Normally there’s a lot more preamble – threats of violence, declarations that Bill got everything that was coming to him, desperate attempts by Ford to convince himself that he just needs his family to be happy. Actually, a lot of the time he doesn’t even get to the sharing details about his daily life, so for him to jump right into it is… something.
“I was…” Ford heaves out a deep sigh, slumping with the energy of a guy who can’t believe he’s doing this. He brings up a hand to rub at his face, pinching at the bridge of his nose and really dragging down his cheeks before he lets it drop again.
“I made the magnificent mistake of leaving my lab during daylight hours. Even after all this time, I forget that there are always… people in my house– the shack,” he corrects with no small amount of disdain for the carnival freakshow his parasite brother turned his property into. He’s clearly trying to hold it back with the way he shakes his head and moves on.
“I ran into a pair of tourists. Quite literally, actually– one of them was trying to order something from the vending machine before I opened it into their face. They didn’t get hurt, at least. Stan assured me that there was no chance they could sue us because there was no physical damage, but I did startle them quite badly.” Ford makes a little huff that could be a laugh to lighten the mood. He’s hard to hear, honestly. Barely muttering, looking away. It’s hard to tell if he’s more embarrassed that it happened or that he’s retelling it to a brick wall.
“Of course, we were all startled, but they were more curious about where I had come from than anything else, so I tried to explain to them that it was my lab, which they interpreted to mean the place where I–” now he’s really grimacing “–manufacture the attractions. No amount of elaboration would convince them otherwise! And as I was trying to explain, they spotted my hands, and…”
Bill feels a twitch at the corner of his eye.
Ford looks at his hands resting in his lap, balls his fingers into tight fists and crosses his arms to hide them away.
“They asked if I was an attraction, too,” he says through gritted teeth. “I didn’t know what to say to that. I suppose thirty years of not being the weirdest thing in the room have dulled my wit. I tried, but evidently, they were bored of me and moved on to the next freakish thing. When I told Stan about it, he just laughed and called them dumb tourists, which is true, but–” Ford bites his tongue, some hard expression on his face.
Bill’s mad, actually. Mad at those idiots, sure, but they weren’t the ones that Bill gifted with the divine knowledge to flip this whole dimension upside-down. Bill was going to make this into a place where things like this would never happen, where he and Ford would be the norm, where Ford would be a god with him, and it’s Ford’s fault any of this is happening in the first place, that Bill’s trapped, and Ford’s trapped, and–
“It’s stupid,” Ford spits out. “Meaningless. It shouldn’t bother me… it doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that I–”
He cuts off, sinking back into himself as the manic energy fizzles away. His hands fall back to his lap where he can fidget with them as he chooses his next words.
“All I could think about was how you would have helped me out of that situation,” he says softly. “Granted, you would have had me tell them how their entrails are better suited as streamers at a child's birthday party rather than anything actually constructive, but... well, it would have cheered me up in the moment, talking to you about it."
He looks back at Bill like he’s expecting a response. There’s a crease on his lips that can’t seem to commit to being a smile. A knot in his eyebrows that grows more with each passing moment of silence.
Bill can’t stay mad. Bill’s not sure what he feels.
Ford's looking at him, so lost and hopeless. He’s thinking something that Bill can never know because he can’t see into that mind anymore.
One hand raises, six fingers flexing like he can't commit to what he's trying to do with it. Then he shuffles forward on his knees until he’s close enough that he can reach it out toward the statue. It drops, though, along with the rest of his body as he slumps forward and apparently knocks his forehead against Bill’s top angle.
"You understand how it feels, don't you?” Ford whispers, and for the first time, Bill doesn’t have to strain to make it out. “It couldn't have all been a lie. All those times we talked… you couldn’t have said those things if you hadn’t felt the same way, too, could you?"
Bill feels like he’s talking to that lonely thirty year old hiding from the world in the middle of the woods, Ford freely saying everything on his mind while Bill listens.
Ford hasn’t talked to him like this in a long time.
“Why am I like this? What is it about me that makes me feel the need to go to you, of all people?” He laughs at himself, though it might be a sob and then says in a ragged voice, "I hate you so much."
Bill’s fingers twitch. Arousal. That’s what his churning feeling is. It has to be. No other explanation. Bill wants to reach out. If he could strangle Ford, he would. If he could kiss Ford, he would.
Ford lifts his hand again, and Bill shivers at the thought of those fingers running up his edge.
“If there were just some way to talk to you again, I’d…”
And he goes quiet. There must be something going on in his head with the way the sappy look disappears from his eyes and he glances off to the right. Then back at Bill. Then to the right again.
Bill lowers the hand that he’d just started tracing the line of his eyelid with and squints as if that would give him any insight into the steel trap Ford’s made his mind into.
Sixer's breathing quicker and harder. He’s leaning so far onto the statue now that Bill can’t see anything other than his chest and chin, the perfect angle to watch Ford’s throat contract as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing under that thin layer of flesh. Then he licks his lips, breathing in deep through his nose, trying to calm himself.
“I could–”
The tremble in his voice shoots through Bill. Holy shit, Fordsy’s terrified.
“I could talk to you if I wanted to, couldn’t I?” There’s a little pitch in his voice, a little stickiness in the sound of his tongue. He’s looking at the statue’s hand. “I just have to…”
His body shifts – did his arm move?
Ford swallows again. Exhales. He’s so close that Bill can practically feel the breath over his cornea, and it makes his eye burn. He might cum right now – is this actually happening?
Bill can’t move a muscle, can’t look away, but– but he can’t see anything. What is Stanford doing? He can’t know, he can’t see– he can’t know because he can’t see, but he needs to see, needs to see Ford holding his hand, so he needs Ford to move, or he needs to be able to look around, or… something, anything!
The hand, the hand, the hand. Bill lets the view of Ford go and blinks to something off in the distance. The birch trees are too far away; the view is dark, blurry. Just a huddled mass in a clearing.
“Sixer, I’ll fuck you into next week if I see you holding that hand,” Bill mutters as his view skips between different dim scenes. “I’ll mow you down and tear you limb from limb. I’ll make you bust harder than you’ve ever dreamed. I’ll make your brain pour out of your ears, c’mon…”
Finally, another clear angle. Something’s poking out from the mass. It’s straight, thin– the hand. Bill sinks back into the bed at the sight of it being neglected. It shouldn’t be such a surprise. He doesn’t know what he expected. Sixer’s still moving, though, and Bill can’t tell what the hell that’s about. He’s speaking, but Bill can’t make it out.
“What are you…?” Bill squints. It takes yet another angle, far off to the side, to get a better idea of the movement. He’s leaning on the statue, braced with one hand, the other arm nowhere to be seen, and… he’s wiggling. Why is he wiggling?
Whatever. Bill gives up. This angle is shit anyway.
“…dn’t be doing this,” Ford’s muttering when Bill switches back. He’s still taking up Bill’s whole view, biting at his lip, and his free hand is–
Bill blinks.
Oh.
Huh.
Really?
There’s a tingling in Bill’s limbs that bubbles up into a giggle and spills out as a fit of wild laughter as Bill realizes the guy’s started palming at himself through his pants.
“Sixer, you FREAK!” he cries out, kicking his legs in excitement as he collapses into his pillow. He strains his view into the peripheral the best he can to watch how much his Fordsy misses him.
"Goodness gracious, this is embarrassing." Ford lets out a breathy chuckle. "I don’t know if you can even see this... or if I want you to see this...” He pauses to pull back and look for something that isn’t there in the statue’s eye. “Can you see me? Can you hear me? Not that you have any way to respond... Knock on the metal plate twice if you want me to keep going."
Sixer laughs, much more easily this time, and the sound of his voice makes something in Bill melt. Fuck, Bill wants to knock. He wants to crack that skull wide open. The things Bill could do to him if he’d just shake that hand.
But Bill won’t complain, not if he’s getting a show like this. His tongue slips out and curls around his fingers to wet them. Slowly, delicately, he presses them to the corner of his eye and feels the sting as he slides them along the rim of the lid, dipping underneath.
Ford leans back onto the statue with a hum, getting comfortable, seemingly running his free hand over the stone and tracing all the cracks and patterns. He was never so touchy with Bill when they had the chance to do this before. In hindsight, maybe Bill never gave him many opportunities. That could change, if this is how Sixer’s gonna be about it.
“I know there’s some chance you can see this, unless you really were just bluffing in that book of yours.” Ford’s voice has a breathy quality to it. “I’m sure you’re screaming at me to make a deal right now.”
Bill could start screaming if that’s what he wants. He loves screaming.
“I hope you can see me,” Fordsy mutters. “I hope you’re watching.”
Bill sees all of it. He even sees Ford’s free hand raising, fingers sliding up the front of the statue until they caress the eye. Bill’s fingers dig in at the implication. He shoves them in deeper, imagines they’re longer, with two extra digits.
Bill imagines wrapping his tongue around Fordsy’s wrist, drawing up the median, pushing into his palm as he pulls him in deeper, hearing the breath hitch in his throat—
Cruelly, Ford pulls away. Both of his hands leave Bill as he sits back to fuss with his fly. In full view, Bill can finally see how flushed his face has gotten, can see how clumsy those skilled hands are as they slip out his cock. He even gets a little peek of Ford’s belly as his sweater slides up. It trembles as he laughs.
“There’s something wrong with me,” Ford mutters as he starts to stroke himself, then he glances back up at Bill. “I blame you as the cause of it.”
“I’ll gladly take credit for–”
“I’m sure you’d gladly take credit for it,” Ford finishes before Bill can even get there.
It’s cosmically cruel that Bill can’t lunge at him and tear out his throat. The blanket is getting tangled in his legs from how much he’s been squirming, and he uses one foot to shove it off onto the floor.
“I wonder…” Ford tries to put on a cool, casual posture, kneeling there with his cock centered in Bill’s eye like he’s trying to show off. Well, it's working. “What is it you’re doing right now? A group therapy session? Arts and crafts?” He strokes himself slowly, leaning back into Bill, really getting that dick perfectly framed in his eye. “Are you talking about what I’m doing right now? Drawing pictures of me? Do they even let you near craft supplies anymore after what you did, or are you just… permanently confined to your room…?”
The movement stops. Ford pauses, probably having thought a little too deeply about the reality of that scenario and not liking the results. Bill wishes he could kick him to get him back on track. The boner you get fucking a rock in the middle of the woods is a fleeting one, and Bill doesn’t need this guy running off so quickly.
Ford shakes his head and clears his throat. His gaze shifts off to the right again, maybe looking for ways to recover the mood, and something clicks behind those pretty eyes. He bites his lip, really chewing on the thought. Slowly, his right hand raises. “Do you… can you tell what I’m doing?”
Bill can only imagine the way his fingers must be trailing up the arm. They could be light, they could be pressing in. When Ford stops moving, has he just gripped the arm to brace himself, or is he really holding the hand?
“It would be so easy.” Ford’s brow furrows, a faraway look on his face. He falls forward a little as he huffs out a laugh, bracing himself on whatever part of the statue’s arm he’s attached himself to. “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” he murmurs. “What if I actually summon you here?”
He says it like he doesn’t want it, like he shouldn’t want it, but just the thought of it makes the idiot moan.
“It would be… I shouldn’t summon you, that would be catastrophic.” Ford’s body tenses. He leans closer. His pace quickens. “But if I did…”
Bill can see the fear on him, can practically smell it. If only Bill could smell him! Probably reeks. There aren’t delicacies like that in this citrus-scented hellscape.
Ford’s speaking through gritted teeth now. “I would capture you. I would stop you before you could do anything. I’d shoot you– I’d kill you.” He gasps. “I’d make sure it’s painful.”
“Fuck, I wish you would,” Bill mutters. He loves to hear the way Ford lies to himself. He has to fight to keep his eye open, keep watching Ford as he tugs down the collar of his jumpsuit so he can dig into his open fracture with his free hand. He hisses at the sting. “You’re gonna get me out and do the most depraved shit to me that your big brain can imagine,” he says. “My treat to you.”
Ford can’t hear him.
“But maybe it wouldn’t work.” Ford’s panting his words now. “My shot would miss, or…. You’d grab me and force me down. You’d take me.” His hips jump.
Apparently torturing Bill doesn’t do it for him. He’s just so– so sweet. Bill curves his hand along the back of his eye, sliding down on the bed as he sinks into the feeling. Sixer’s so perfect for Bill. Meant for him.
“I’ll take you, I’ll take you, I’ll take you,” Bill groans. His view of Ford pumping his cock is getting misty from the strain being put on his eye. “Stick your dick in my hand, and I’ll show you how far I can take you!” Bill makes a delirious laugh at that. “You can make a binding deal with a penis, right?”
Fordsy should at least stick it in Bill’s eye. He’s so close. He’d be rutting into hard stone if his hand wasn’t there to act as a buffer, the coward. His other hand is still braced on the statue as far as Bill can tell, higher up, but moving.
Bill stops, his eye widening. It’s not bracing him, it's moving. Hesitantly, his fingers stroke along the back of his eye, and he shudders.
Ford’s slowed now, he’s pulled back, looking down at Bill. His eyes shoot towards the hand, then back to meet Bill’s lifeless gaze. His arm creeps out an inch farther. A challenge. “What would you do to me?” he asks. “Throw me in your… what was it you called it? Your love cage?”
Bill laughs, but it's nervous, stilted. “Only if you keep playing hard to get!” He’s torn between that cold gaze and the hand moving farther to the right. There’s a tingling in Bill’s arm. He wishes there was tingling in his arm.
“Would you chain me up again?” Ford swallows, his voice rough. “Put a collar on me so tight that I can’t breathe?”
There isn’t enough peripheral view. There’s no way to see what Ford is doing. No amount of straining his eye gets Bill a better idea of how far Ford’s hand has gone.
“I’ll do you better than that, I’ll string you from the chandelier upside down ‘till your head pops from the blood rush!” Bill babbles, as if it’s going to convince Ford to do anything. “I’ll rip out your intestines and shibari you in them, I’ll lock you up, I’ll– I’ll hold your hand– hold my hand! Just hold my… Just shake the hand, Sixer.” he demands.
Is it still even moving?
Ford leans in close, panting into Bill’s eye; could practically be kissing it. "You’ll do... something weird to me,” he mutters, too far gone to be creative anymore. “I want it to be weird."
He needs to take the hand. He has to be holding it, doesn’t he? He is holding it. He is.
There is a way to know for sure.
Bill keeps straining his vision instead. It’s blurry. His eye is watery. The sheets around him are getting damp from all of the fluid seeping out.
”I wish you were here,” Ford whines. He shifts again. His arm moves– to where? “I hate you.” He gasps. “I need you. You’re the only person who’s ever understood me.”
Fordsy’s hand is holding Bill’s. There’s nowhere else it could be. Bill can feel the warmth of it, and he closes his fist around the air.
He digs deeper behind his eye. If he reaches back far enough, maybe he’ll be able to grasp at Ford’s hand. Could really take him. Could force the matter. He wants to force it. He should be able to force it.
He should be able to.
Ford’s still rambling some shit, but Bill doesn’t hear it anymore. Ford’s touching him, but Bill could never feel him. He’s right there, but Bill can’t see him. All Bill can really hear is the squelching as he fondles his own eye. All he can see is this dark, empty room, barely lit by his own glow.
When’s the last time Ford spoke to him before this?
How long will it be before it happens again?
All Bill has is this miserable prison. He’s trapped and powerless in a dumb way, not the horny way Ford’s been babbling about. The best Bill can get is this fantasy where Ford admits that he misses him, where Ford goes out of his way to touch Bill and acts the way he used to.
Imaginary breath fogging his imaginary eye, imaginary chest pushing into him, imaginary hand gripping his, imaginary warmth washing over him.
Bill feels himself falling backwards.
There’s pressure, suddenly, and warmth above him. Enveloping him. Something is wrapped around his hand, squeezing. Something else presses into Bill’s eye.
Then that something else shoots a hot load into it.
Bill immediately recoils, snapping his eye shut.
Everything is still for a moment while Bill rubs it clear, but then the pressure abates. When he opens his eye again, he’s looking directly into the cow-eyed face of Stanford Pines. It’s clearer, now, so much more full of life. Full of shock that’s slowly twisting into horror.
It takes Bill a second to actually register that this is something different than the vision he’d just been failing to jerk it to. Denser. More dimensional. Much quieter than it had been a second ago.
Slowly, like someone trying not to spook a wild animal, Bill reaches up to the side of Ford’s head–
And the clang of the metal plate resounds twice into the cool, morning air.