Chapter Text
For two years Stanford Filbrick Pines had been blessed by the enlightenment of the fickle and capricious muse who called himself Bill Cipher. Two exciting, captivating, intriguing, years of devotion to research, of study and adventure. Of his ceaseless hunt to understand and explain the secrets of the Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness, helped along by the odd vision, prediction, and sly voice spouting divine and otherworldly insight in his ear of a night.
Two years of obsessing over this being, this font of knowledge, who chose him specifically to grace with his wisdom. Knowing Bill singled him out like this made Stanford feel special, unique – but in a good way, not like he had been singled out for his unusual sixth finger, or his alienating intellect.
While others had mocked his talent, scorned his intelligence, played it down or ridiculed him for it – Bill had a way of praising Stanford that built him back up after being pulled down. Every compliment, kind word, and acknowledgement only further incensed and fuelled the fire that was Stanford’s appreciation for this strange being from beyond the stars who would sit with him in the late hours of the night, talking philosophy and quantum physics together over chess and tea.
Bill’s regard sent a thrill of happiness through Ford. He was always eager, excited, and keen when Bill chose to pour his mystical knowledge Ford’s way. He was the most willing and eager receptacle, constantly craving the information Bill doled out.
After those two years of forest naps, and cosmic daydreams, Stanford began craving not just the drops of enlightenment Bill would choose to share with him, though his curiosity was always a driving factor. What Stanford was craving was not just the tidbits of knowledge gifted his way by Bill.
It was the companionship and company he offered too.
Stanford wasn’t used to people who recognised his talents, who understood him, who praised him so readily, and encouraged him regularly.
Living all alone in the small shack in the middle of the forest in sleepy Gravity Falls left Ford feeling isolated, secluded, but the thought that he was sacrificing things like company and conversation with peers for the greater good of the universe gave him a noble purpose. That noble purpose only sustained him so long though, until Bill came along.
Suddenly he wasn’t alone, seeing Bill was only a dream away, or, in certain cases, a summoning away.
Stanford had summoned Bill before, for help or advice with things that would further his research. He knew the ritual.
It was through Stanford’s initial summoning ritual that he discovered more rituals. Bill had mentioned caves in the mountainside filled with whole libraries of books on the arcane, in that offhand fashion of his, dropping the location into conversation one late night as a treat or prize for Stanford. Bill was rewarding him, always rewarding him, molding him to discover greatness and Stanford was honoured to be the receptacle for such wondrous knowledge.
Though the journey was dangerous, and guarded by a gruesome monster (which Bill conveniently forgot to inform Stanford of – he laughed for a solid hour when Stanford confronted him about it in his dream, claiming that it was “comedy gold” and “too good to pass up”) when Stanford discovered the caves, he was blown away by the sheer mass of paranatural and paranormal knowledge that library held.
For the next two weeks Stanford practically lived in those caves, pouring over the ancient tomes within, hardly pausing to eat or sleep, and when he did Bill appeared in his dreams, reminding him that humans need food, humans need sleep, besides if he didn’t sleep when would Bill get to mess with him? Stanford took Bill’s taunting for concern, and packed camping gear and food for his next expedition to the caves, spending a month up there reading everything he could decipher.
It was in that month that Bill sent Stanford the longest vision he had yet to receive. It was then that Bill enlightened Stanford, detailing to him the dimensional leak that pulled weirdness to hotspots like Gravity Falls, inspiring anomalies and unnatural occurrences. Surrounded by the books in the cave and dozens of pages of his own notebooks strewn about the stone floor, blueprints scribbled over every surface in some kind of technological puzzle to assemble, it was then that Stanford’s muse revealed the greatest enlightenment he had to date to the young researcher.
When Stanford woke up and walked to the mouth of the cave to overlook the valleys and trees, to see the sunrise peeking over the top of the mountains, spreading light and wonderment onto the forest below, it was then that Stanford knew what he must do.
His muse had spoken.
He had a new purpose now. To build the portal detailed in Bill’s notes and explore the dimensional tear that leaked the weirdness of other dimensions into his dimension. This was the greatest discovery in human history. If Stanford accomplished this, he would be legendary, the scientist who discovered the grand unified theory of weirdness and proved it to the world, by accessing the dimensions of other worlds. By traversing space, time, and the multiverse. It was a phenomenal undertaking. It was huge.
Too huge, perhaps, for one man to do alone. Bill’s blueprints were very exacting.
Some of the materials he could scrounge from Crash Site Omega, some of the engineering he could manage on his own, certainly. He was inwardly cursing himself however when his embarrassingly limited mechanical knowledge hit a wall. He should have never treated himself to that second semester of Applied Quantum Phase Theory, he was an idiot, of course Hyper Advanced Engineering and Fifth-Dimensional Calculus would be more useful for real world applications. Idiot!
It was humbling to admit that Ford needed help. He had a few options. He could contact his old classmate Fiddleford for assistance, though admitting he needed help from him wounded Ford’s pride. He shouldn’t need help. He should be the one to do this, it was his theory.
It was then that Ford had an idea.
There already was someone helping him. Someone who had been helping him all along. Who wouldn’t shame him for needing the assistance, who would know far better than he how to assemble and shape the materials needed to create the portal, who knew every facet of the portal right down to the blueprints of the circuitry.
It was almost too easy. He could ask Bill to help him!
Summoning Bill to his dreams that night, Ford beseeched him.
“You could help me Bill! Think about it. No one knows what this machine needs better than you, we could do it together.”
Bill cackled and kicked his legs back in his chair, mirthful mocking laughter filling the air, before Bill fixed him in his single eyed gaze.
“A fun idea Sixer, but there is literally no way I could possibly help you tinker out the kinks in the portal. I’m a creature of the mindscape, champ. I don’t have a body, therefore, you’ve got no BODY to help you! Get it?”
“But what if you could have a body? I could make one. Design one for you, summon you, we could – “
“STOP right there Fordsy.” Bill’s voice echoed menacingly through the mindscape. “As appealing as taking physical form would be, there’s no way I’m hopping dimensions just so we can sit side by side and play buddy buddy portal builders together. I’ve already laid out the blueprints for you, now you want me to hold your hand all the way through the process?”
“But wouldn’t you like to experience this world? You’ve often said humans are fascinating.”
“Fascinating to watch maybe. Listen here Sixer, I experience plenty. If I ever wanted a body I could go down and grab a puppet of my own. Just call your engineering friend and work out the kinks with him.”
“So are you saying you don’t want a body, or -?”
“I want lots of things. What I want most for you right now is to get you on track to finish the portal. So call McGucket and wake up already. Put that big brain to work somewhere else. No use wasting time improving on perfection.” Bill said, rubbing his knuckles on his bricks, turning his hand over to examine his fingers, narcissistic in the way only Bill could be.
It was a shame Stanford found his narcissism so endearing.
Also a shame he took those words as a challenge.
If anyone could improve upon perfection it was Stanford. Bill often said he had the mind of a century. That he was smart. Smart enough to do anything he put his mind to.
And now he had a mind to create the perfect vessel for this whimsical spirit of knowledge. He could create the perfect body for the embodiment of cosmic wisdom to abide in. It would be flattering, beautiful, strong. The most ideal form to house bringer of enlightenment, Bill Cipher.
It played on Stanford’s mind, how he could build this form, how it could be everything he wanted for Bill, a permanent body, something to keep him around, to prolong his exposure to Bill’s wisdom, his knowledge, his company.
It was a sort of selfish hubris to think he could make this body to tie down the flighty, unpredictable, fickle creature he dreamed about. Bringing cosmic creatures down from the sky to have them sit on your couch and tell you about the universe was an arrogant daydream, a fantasy that all men had in some way. To grab the stars from the sky and have them stay by your side.
But Stanford was obsessed with Bill’s knowledge. He wanted him to be available, to not disappear whenever Stanford needed him, to not withhold information just because it amused him, to make him stay and help him. Above all Stanford wanted this to be something they did together.
He knew he could do it. He just had to make sure Bill didn’t suspect what he was doing.
Intended as a surprise, mostly fuelled by stubbornness, Stanford began sketching out his designs. Vitruvian men inked on paper like blueprints, a conceptualisation of all the things Stanford thought would suit Bill in a body. Sly catlike eyes with long gorgeous lashes, a shock of golden silky hair, smooth night black ebony skin, golden tattoos circling up his arms, binding circles on his back, runes and rituals on his wrists and ankles in that cursed gold ink designed to cut Bill off from his more deadly magics, a safeguard in case he didn’t like his new body. Stanford hoped he would.
He couldn’t see who wouldn’t, as every day with every detail he added, he fell more and more in love with the design fit to house the creature plaguing his dreams. Slim nimble fingers, slender legs, a muscular back and shoulders, a smooth broad chest, rounded buttocks, a prominent adams apple, a strong jaw, pouty full lips, a straight, pointy nose, an expressive face.
Ford could picture it, Bill inhabiting this body, leading him by the hand towards mysteries greater than he could possibly imagine, smiling cheekily back at him, sunlight hitting the rich golden colour of his hair and tattoos, making him shine. Ford’s hypothetical Bill was beautiful, exotic, tangible. A mystical being made real. A beautiful, fitting form, that would be a glorious tribute to the creature, much like the murals and statues he had erected in his study.
Finally, in the books found in the cave, Ford found the ritual that would make his dream vessel for Bill a reality, and so he began preparing. He didn’t sleep, avoided it like nothing else, to keep this secret from Bill, this present, this gift, this labour of love.
Together they would create the portal, save the world, and share the secrets of the universe. Stanford would flatter Bill beyond all doubt with this perfect body.
Or so he thought.
Filtering power from the parts for the core of the portal he had already salvaged, Stanford had finally finished creating the body Bill would inhabit. Who knew that ancient alchemy would be factual enough to be useful in creating a body. The books called it creating a homunculus, however this body would not house an artificial intelligence, but a very real one, summoned from another dimension and bound to the body that lay in the middle of the summoning circle, perfect and ready to be the receptacle for Bill.
Stanford stepped closer to the body, checking it over once more.
The eyes were closed, long lashes fanning out across its cheeks, strong eyebrows perfectly sculpted. Smooth, gorgeous dark skin covering the muscles, sinews, bones all deliberately placed. The shine of the gold ink, binding tattoos like gold leaf decorating the body, was captivating. Dressed in only black boxers, the body was there, ready for Bill to enter it and wake up.
Stanford bent down, smoothed his thumb over the thick lips of the body, feeling the breathing, the inhale and exhale of this empty shell waiting for an immortal soul to be housed inside.
Certainly, Stanford found the body attractive. It was supposed to be flattering, to be a representation of the beautiful muse housed inside it. It was meant to be like a temple to the god who resided within it, a temple Ford would gladly worship at.
He shelved those thoughts for now. What mattered more was that Bill would be there to share his insights with Ford more now. They could talk of a daytime without Ford falling asleep, entering the mindscape. They could uncover the mysteries of the world together.
It was ambitious of him. Humans were ambitious. It was like the story of Icarus, determined to fly, to ascend to the cosmos. If only he had pushed farther, achieved the greatness he sought, he would never have fallen. That was the moral Ford drew from the story. Icarus was a failure. He didn’t flap hard enough. Let it never be said that Ford didn’t do all he could to obtain universal knowledge of all the secrets the limitless dimensions out there held. He didn’t think that was too lofty a goal.
Yes. This was a good idea. The epiphanies that would come with sustained contact with the phenomenon that was Bill Cipher would be worth all the alchemy in the world and more. This was a way of unlocking the secrets of the universe. Of capturing this flighty muse who knew so much, and pinning him down long enough to eek enlightenment from him.
It was time.
He begun the summoning ritual.
The familiar cosmic tug of an ‘I need help’ phone call from Sixer was almost too frequent at this point. Bill really needed to put some distance between himself and the moronically cloying human. Him and his big ideas and his endless need for flattery. How stupid and easy to manipulate.
It had got to the point where Sixer was probably so desperate to see him, it was kind of funny! Humans sure became dependant awfully quickly. It would be appealing to play with that desperation, push it along, until it became a burning desire. A controllable mindless need to please Bill, when he deigned to show up to scatter cosmic miscellany at Stanford until the human felt sufficiently enlightened. Bill had been toying with that dependency, but perhaps a little too much, he came to realise, when Stanford last suggested he build Bill a body.
Sure, having tangible form in that realm would further Bill’s plans along by quite a bit, but without the portal working, why for all of Saturn’s rings would Bill want to bum around on earth alone for a second longer than he had to? Earth was crawling with idiot meatsacs like Sixer, harbouring delusions of grandeur about their own insignificance as no more than a spec in the wider machinations of the universe.
See, the only real appeal of going to earth in tangible form would be when he rolled his party into town, the greatest weirdest party the multiverse had ever seen. Now that would be a hoot. Heck, maybe if Sixer was still tugging at his coattails by then he could come along too. It could be a golden opportunity to wreak some havoc.
Bill hadn’t let Sixer in on his plans for the funpocalypse. He knew a square like that wouldn’t understand, but at least with Sixer as dependant as he was now, he was malleable. It was easy to lie to him in order to get him to build the portal. He was thrilled by the idea of it. A doorway in and out of the dimension set up, and Bill didn’t have to do jack shit to make it happen. Just prod the stupid scientist in the right direction a couple of times and he was dancing on Bill’s strings, eager to do more for the demon.
So Bill supposed he could humour Stanford one more time, and answer the summons. Just pop in and out and give him a few more breadcrumbs to get him pulling resources in the right direction to make more progress on the portal. Bill chose Stanford for a reason, and it wasn’t just his ingenuity and insecurity that motivated his choice.
Whether or not Stanford knew it, he had contacts, and if Bill could manipulate Fordsy into bringing his old university buddy in on this project, the portal would be the finest piece of engineering available this side of Time Baby’s tyrannical reign.
Reaching into mortals minds was tiring, and though it was hilarious to see them struggle and fight back it was SO much EFFORT! If Bill could get old Fordsy to pull the strings for him, using the power of friendship of all things, it could really get the ball rolling for him.
With a sigh, Bill stepped away from his friends, more like his gang, of interdimensional terrors.
They were doing the cosmic equivalent of smoking up behind a seven eleven, having just kidnapped and set fire to the ambassadors of a quaint little world looking to garner a peace agreement with their spacial neighbours in their galaxy’s quadrant. They were holding the still smoking, charred remains of that world’s version of a pope like it was a cigarette, laughing together, revelling in the chaos of the kill and inhaling the sweet smoky scent of dead holyman, when Bill felt it.
“Aw man. Get a load of this boring.” Bill complained as his bowtie vibrated, the summons calling him.
Demons had a choice, regardless of what the legends would say. Summoning a demon didn’t always guarantee you they’d come, it was a call, and they had to answer the call to be summoned to a place. Otherwise it was just plain inconvenient, being pulled from one dimension to another, zapped around until you found the place and person you needed to meet and/or destroy for inconveniencing you.
“A summons?” 8-Ball asked, his great googly eyes looking every which way as he turned to Bill, taking the burnt pope from Pyronica beside him, inhaling deeply.
“Sixer probably needs me to wipe his ass for him again. Doesn’t he realise I’m an interdimensional being of awesome cosmic power who has better things to do than pat him on the back for screwing in a light bulb?” Bill kicked the charred remains of the other ambassadors of that planet, knocking the skull off a nobel peace prize winner sulkily.
“What’s a light bulb?” Pyronica giggled, and caught the rolling skull with her pointy boot, playing hacky sac with it.
“A good idea at the time.” Bill joked, joining her in the game of hackey sac, kicking the skull back and forth while he complained. “It’s just so boring. How long, feasibly, am I supposed to put on the caring enlightened Muse act? So much sucking up to that snivelling coward. Ooooooh Fordsy, you’re sooooooo smart. Ooooh Sixer, I never would have thought of that!” Bill feigned a flattering falsetto.
“But, you think of everything Boss.” 8-Ball remarked dully.
“Of course I do!” Bill snapped back. “You think I don’t know that? But he shouldn’t be bothering me! What if I were doing important cosmic muse stuff, huh? What then?”
“We’ve been kicking heads around for the past hour.” 8-Ball noted, it wasn’t exactly important stuff.
“So?” Bill shot back, kicking the skull a little viciously at 8-Ball, and it bumped against his jaw sharply, though the gigantic monster didn’t seem to notice.
“You could ignore him?” Pyronica suggested.
Bill considered it, and his bowtie vibrated again, ringing. “Ugh, kid’s persistent. I’ll take care of this. Open up, 8-Ball!” Bill crowed, and his friend, the great ungainly monster, opened his mouth, as Bill kicked the last remaining head into his gaping maw like a goal scored, and he danced victorious when it landed right in there for 8-Ball to chomp on, feeding the behemoth and having fun in the process. “Woohoo! Take that spacepope~!”
High fiving Pyronica, Bill rolled his eye as the bowtie just kept ringing.
“Alright guys, you clean up this mess. Feed it to 8-Ball, geez buddy, I swear you’re like a Roomba for corpses.” Bill cracked his fingers, stretching out idly, before he tipped his hat to his assembled gang. “This won’t take long. I’m off to go play saviour of the waking world. See you on the flipside!”
“Bye Boss!” The gang chorused back at Bill, waving.
With flourish, Bill pressed his bowtie and looked down into his chest to answer. “Yellow?”
The moment he pressed his bowtie to answer the call however, a vortex began whirling, a black hole sprouting in the middle of Bill’s chest, sucking him through to another dimension. This was different from a normal summoning. This was forceful. Something was dragging him to the call, anchoring him down when he answered.
His friends were watching him, fear and surprise on their faces, and Bill was sure the confusion and shock was evident in his own eye, seconds before it was sucked away, into the vortex that emanated from his own bowtie.
Panic, that strange foreign emotion, whirled with him in the vortex, and with a surprised yelp Bill felt his cosmic manifestation, the essence of all that he is, stripped from the spacial equidistant location he chose to be in, dragged through time and space to a different place.
A more solid place.
A fleshy place.
A dark place.
With a thump Bill felt his consciousness land somewhere, and that somewhere was dark, stifling, and painful. An ache resonated behind his eye and he groaned quietly, raising a hand to rub above his eye but his hands felt wrong. They were too thick, too heavy. They felt different.
Rubbing his eye Bill groaned a little bit louder, his synapses connecting from ethereal places to physical places, anchoring him down. He felt electricity crackle over his body – his body???
He had a body????!
His eye (eyes?????) flew open in shock, and adjusted poorly, squinting at the light from the ceiling. The hand (Bill’s hand) shielded his eyes from the glare, and the pain settled into simply sensation, connecting his consciousness to the wider functionality of this new body he found himself forced in.
“Bill?” A nervous voice called out, hope wavering in the tone. Of course, it was Sixer, and the voice was suddenly closer to him. Bill felt a hand on his shoulder, helping him sit up. “Here, let me help.”
“Sixer.” Bill’s voice didn’t come out right, it sounded like him, but scratchy. This body’s voicebox had barely been used, the sound was gratingly painful, and Bill started coughing.
“It’s okay. It’s okay Bill. There’s a lot to adjust to. I’ve got you.”
“What-“ Bill managed to get over his coughing fit, anger simmering in his tone, anger and shock. “What have you done?”
“I –“ Stanford sounded unsure of himself for a second, before he regained that confidence to declare more proudly. “I made you a body. It’s a gift. For you!”
“Sixer.” Ah, there we go, Bill finally managed to get a grip on this whole voice box gig, and warped his voice to sound out every bit of demonic rage he was currently feeling. Bill’s hands gripped on Stanford’s stupid turtleneck, clawing at his throat, and Bill looked at Sixer properly for the first time since opening his eyes. Both eyes were glowing yellow, slitted pupils glaring daggers up at the idiot scientist, as fury coloured his gaze. “What DID YOU DO??”
Sixer seemed surprised, and his hands came up to grab Bill’s wrists. He looked like he was worried for Bill. No. He should be fearing him.
“I made you a body. It’s a good thing.”
“I’ll KILL YOU!” Bill screamed, struggling to gouge Sixer’s eyes out, not having much luck as Sixer kept a firm hold of his wrists, leaving Bill to just struggle and kick out uselessly.
“Bill! Bill stop! It’s okay.” Stanford wrestled Bill’s clawing hands down away from his face, huffing with exertion to overpower the frantic spirit’s body.
No matter how much he tried to comfort Bill, it didn’t seem he was listening. The expressive face he designed was twisted with rage and violence, Bill really seemed discombobulated by the change, but Stanford was certain that once he explained things Bill would calm down.
Forcing Bill’s hands down so he couldn’t scratch his face, Stanford tried to appeal to Bill’s wisdom, surely a spirit of knowledge would respond to reason. “You needn’t be frightened, I know it’s a big change for you, but this way you can explore humanity, you can help me with the portal!”
“It was supposed to be YOU building the portal, not me! I TOLD you what to do. You didn’t listen!” Bill fumed, still struggling against Ford’s grasp.
Dammit, this body wasn’t as strong as Stanford’s, a fact that infuriated Bill, that he had the gall to design Bill weak like this.
“You’ve really screwed things up for me Sixer! THIS wasn’t in the plan!”
“But, you said I needed help to build the portal. An assistant.” Stanford frowned, keeping firm hold of Bill’s wrists until he stilled, looking up at Stanford with that beautifully crafted face, his yellow eyes narrowed, sinister and unimpressed.
“Not me!” Bill seemed insulted that Stanford had even assumed he would take that role. He was nobodies assistant. “You were supposed to go ask your college friend. The engineer. I practically gift wrapped him for you as an opportunity.”
“Well, I saw a better opportunity.” Ford replied stubbornly, releasing Bill’s wrists and standing up.
Bill drew his wrists into his chest defensively, before blinking, and holding his arms out again, looking at the gold filigree of tattoos encircling his arms. There were protection runes there, the brick motif circling Bill’s forearms, and some sort of dampener on his powers, not to mention the –
“A binding circle???? Seriously?” Bill scowled, and tried to scratch the marks off, but they didn’t budge. All he succeeded in doing was scratching angry bleeding marks in his own skin, sending pain sparking delightfully along his nerve endings. It had been a while since he experienced sensation, and pain was among one of Bill’s favourites, so he started laughing when the blood began to well up.
“What are –“ Ford seemed disturbed before he lunged back down, grabbing Bill’s hands again, stopping him from hurting himself. “Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Afraid I’ll damage your handiwork?” Bill asked mockingly, his mouth curving into a sly smile. “So what’s it gonna be Sixer? Tell me how you’re gonna unlock me from this flesh prison you’ve made and tell me now.”
“It’s not a prison. It’s a – a temple. It was supposed to be a gift.”
“Well, I don’t want it!” Bill sneered. “So take it back.”
“I can’t take it back.” Ford knelt back down next to Bill, and watched him move and blink and breathe just like Ford had imagined. “The ritual doesn’t have a way to reverse it. I made you an immortal body for an immortal soul, and there’s no going back from this.”
Bill made a strangled sort of noise, hissing like a spitting cat, then cursing like a sailor in a multitude of different languages, throwing a colossal tantrum right before Stanford’s eyes.
Bill always seemed so civilised when Stanford met with him in dreams, so composed, so genteel. To see him unravel like this – to be so indescribably other – it made Stanford realise this is a being he only slightly comprehended. What he knew about Bill seemed to be the iceberg’s topmost sliver, he was beginning to realise seeing the violent, spiteful, childish tantrum unfold before him that Bill was more enigma and anomaly than Ford could have ever imagined.
He hardly knew a thing about Bill, about his kind, about how beings like him operated, and suddenly he had the opportunity of a lifetime, not just having a research assistant and partner, but a whole new subject to study, to understand.
It was amazing.
Bill tugged his hands away from Stanford and flicked him on the nose, pushing him away.
Ford didn’t expect him to flick his nose, like a misbehaving dog.
Bill leaned away from Stanford, and then seemed to be wriggling his limbs, testing them all out, shooting the scientist burning looks every so often as he learned how to move his new body. He wriggled his toes, he bent his legs, he flapped his arms, he scrunched his eyebrows together and tried wiggling his nose.
It was oddly charming. Stanford was itching for a notebook to write down his observations. How Immortal Muses Adapt to Physical Form. Well, maybe not muses plural, as he only has one subject to observe, but this was enough.
Bill was testing his legs now, trying to crouch down, then stand, his legs weak and trembling, like a baby deer first learning to walk. Stanford moved forward, offering help, but Bill swiped their hand at Stanford, fingers clawed, and hissed at the scientist, refusing to accept his help, nearly toppling himself in the process.
Muses were proud. Stanford noted to himself. Refusing to accept help.
Bill figured out standing finally, and teetered tall on those thin shapely legs Ford made for him. Bill looked down at his body, and smiled, teeth sharp, seemingly impressed for the first time since he’d been placed in this new body, and he tossed his head back laughing.
“This isn’t so hard. Your human babies are idiots – this is easy.” Bill claimed triumphantly, and began confidently putting one foot in the air after the other, doing an odd sort of march on the spot.
As incensed as Bill initially seemed to be about getting a body, he seemed to be enjoying discovering it, his face stretched into a giddy grin as he successfully raised and lowered his feet, marching in place, then jumping on the spot, waving his arms around as he did so.
Stanford was watching the usually dignified muse cackle at his own movements. The smile that stretched across his face was reassuring, so Stanford asked again.
“Do you like the body?”
“Of course not, I hate it.” Bill replied, still grinning sharply, leaning backwards and forwards on the balls of his heels, checking his balance. “It’s awful and I hate you, but I gotta admit, you really outdid yourself. Talk about luxury models. And two eyes? What’ll they think of next?”
“So you do like the body.” Ford surmised, watching Bill run his hands over his own arms, feeling every inch of it.
“How long did it take you to build it? I haven’t been ignoring you for that long have I?”
That at least confirmed Stanford’s suspicions that he’d been avoiding him, his muse was fickle and capricious as predicted. Ah well, at least he couldn’t avoid him now.
“About a week to build, the designs took longer though.”
“Huh.” Was all Bill said, before he walked, one foot firmly in front of the other, like some robot walking, all stiff movements, over to the shiny scrap metal Stanford had stolen from crash site omega, looking down at his reflection in the metal.
Stanford watched Bill hook a finger under his lips, pulling them back to look at his teeth in the reflection like some sort of demented dentist. Bill blinked, one eye at a time, at his reflection, and rubbed his chin, considering.
“You know, as a temporary deal, this isn’t so bad.” Bill said, still rubbing his chin. “Sure you couldn’t figure out a loophole to get me out of this corpse, but I won’t have the same limitations. Besides, I’m sure there are upsides to being this tangible and good looking on the mortal plane.”
“Excellent!” Ford clapped his hands together, ecstatic that Bill was warming up to the idea. “You can stay in the shack.” If Bill stayed in the shack the chances of him being too bored not to help build the portal increased exponentially. “I can show you how humans live, you’ll have food, shelter, safety.”
“You’re going to cook for me?” Bill turned around, and looked at Stanford, assessing him. “You know, that’s only the tip of the iceberg really Sixer. You dare to lock an immortal muse in this sub-par temple and you’re only going to break a few eggs, make a few omelettes? I’m gonna need a lot more worship and servitude to make this schtick worth my while. I’m talking full time slavery here!”
Ford had the audacity, the audacity, to roll his eyes and smile at Bill.
Bill was furious.
“Oh? Oh, you think I’m joking do you?” Bill gave a cruel sort of laugh, and then paced sharply over to Ford, pointing at him with his index finger. “You won’t be the man who changed the world without me, Fordsy. You won’t even be the man who changed a lightbulb if you don’t give me what I want. I’ll fry every last brain cell occupying your thick skull. I’ll rip away everything that ever brought solace to your sad pathetic life. Your descent into madness will be one for the history books. I’ll have you make Pythagoras look relatively sane!”
Ford blinked, confused. “But Pythagoras was a famous mathematician and scientist.”
“Yeah but he also founded a religion forbidding people to eat beans, and the guy was obsessed with triangles.” Bill straightened his shoulders proudly. “With good reason.”
“So then you …” Ford began piecing things together.
“What, you think you’re the only meatsac on this godforsaken planet who I’ve gifted my divine knowledge to. Don’t think you’re special. In fact, you’re the opposite of special.” Bill said loudly, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. “Unworthy of the secrets of the cosmos. What kind of idiot meets a god who can grant them their wildest wishes and does this to them?”
Ford sighed, and looked seriously at Bill. “Look, I’m sorry I foisted this on you. I should have asked. I thought you’d like the body. I’m sure in time you’ll come to see the benefits.”
Bill scrunched up his nose, and scowled at Ford.
Though the body that Bill inhabited was utterly beautiful, and intentionally so, it was beginning to disturb Ford how disparate the vessel and the spirit inhabiting it was. Ford thought he knew what Bill was, what he was about. A spirit of enlightenment, calm, wisdom, whimsy, blessing the worthy with science, technology and advancement of the species.
The cruel things that had been spilling from Bill’s perfect lips since he inhabited this body led Ford to believe that that wasn’t the Bill he thought he knew at all. Certainly, it was the same spirit, but it became clear to Ford that Bill had only been showing Ford a sliver of his personality, and beyond granting enlightenment at a whim, Bill was, on a whole, disdainful of humanity. The crumbs of knowledge he bestowed must have been so inconsequential, if he was favouring ancient scientists like Pythagoras with advanced mathematical knowledge while calling humanity meatsacs and idiots in the same breath.
On a whole it came off as rather patronising really, but Ford supposed that was to be expected in some ways, when a being of immense understanding had to spoon feed information to a race that differed completely from the being in question.
Still, Bill’s tendency to threaten violence was something Ford was keeping an eye on. After tackling the dangerous and mysterious beings of Gravity Falls for two years, Ford wasn’t afraid of a little violence, of fighting back against the monsters that lived here, but he never thought for a moment that Bill would be one of those monsters. He was probably just in shock, settling into his new body. He likely didn’t mean what he was saying.
In fact, the only thing that he said that legitimately struck fear into Ford’s heart was when he threatened to withdraw his help with Ford’s destiny. He knew he was to be the man who saved the world, with his inventions, his studies, his calculations. He knew he could save millions of lives by perfecting the interdimensional portal to travel between universes and advance their scientific know how exponentially. Now he had the portal blueprints, but no idea how to decipher them, and a million questions that he needed to rely on Bill for.
No matter how strange and alien Bill seemed now, he was Ford’s only hope to staying on course with his destiny and delivering the knowledge Ford so desperately seeked.
Ford drew the line at ‘slavery’ but he had no problems with buttering the muse up a little to get what he needed. That was what motivated most of the renovations in the shack, the icons and alters he made to Bill. Heck, level two in the basement was temple enough already to Bill, but Ford just had to go the extra mile. Ford was a proud man, too proud to stoop to agreeing to anything like enslaving himself for this, but he was sure he could make Bill’s stay in the human realm as comfortable as possible.
“Here.” Ford extended a hand, an olive branch, to Bill, who was still scowling, now crossing his arms. “I can get you some clothes to wear and show you around the shack if you like.”
“Fine.” Bill said, but did not take Stanford’s hand, instead stepping mechanically past him to the elevator, mashing his whole hand against the call buttons on the lift. “But don’t think an apology is gonna make up for the torment that is you forcing me into this disgusting physical plane. Two thousand years of slavery barely makes up for it. No. Four thousand. Eight thousand!”
Ford watched the lift come down to meet them and he resolutely refused to acknowledge Bill’s talk of slavery. No. This would just be two, enlightened individuals, sharing living space, and possibly the secrets of the universe.
This would be fine.
When the lift doors opened they both stepped inside the doors. Bill peered at the buttons on the inside of the door, then looked at Stanford and smiled wide, his pearly teeth standing out brilliantly against his smooth dark skin.
The expression was stunning, and had someone so incredibly attractive smiled at Stanford that way in the street he would have probably tripped over while walking or something equally as embarrassing.
However, because this was Bill, the smile, however gorgeous, was chaotic, and looking Stanford directly in the eye Bill pressed every single button in the lift, lighting all the stops up red.
“One of these goes up, right?” Bill said cheekily, and began whistling as the lift stopped and started on all the basement levels in a disjointed manner before levelling out up top in the shack.
When they finally got to the top floor, Bill seemed to enjoy taunting Stanford by pressing the door close and door open buttons over and over, infuriating Stanford. Judging from the way Bill was still smiling, he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Stop that.” Stanford complained, and snatched Bill’s hand away from the button.
“Got a problem, roomie?” Bill’s eyes were lit up with mischief. “You can always send me back from this horrendous physical plane if you don’t want me touching your stuff, but I could have sworn you just said I could live here! How does the saying go again? What’s yours is mine?”
“It’s ‘what’s mine is yours’.” Stanford corrected, already irritated.
“Exactly!” Bill replied, chipper. “Now just remember that Sixer and we won’t have aaaaaaany problems now, will we?”
Clapping Stanford on the back, Bill stepped out of the lift easily and began walking up the stairs, not needing Stanford’s tour apparently. He made a beeline straight for Ford’s bedroom, and as soon as he was there he slammed the door behind him and locked it.
Stanford followed, and called out from the other side of the door, trying the handle. “Bill, I was giving you a tour of the shack!”
“Don’t need it. Remember what I said Sixer. I’m always watching!”
“I set up a room for you, you have your own room, you don’t need to stay in my room Bill.”
“Too bad, I’m taking your room. What’s yours is mine remember!”
“No, that isn’t-“ Ford bit out, frustrated.
He was tired, he hadn’t slept in about a week, trying to hide this from Bill, and now he was locked out of his room? What was he supposed to do, sleep on the couch? The futon in Bill’s room just wasn’t the same, and Ford had been craving a decent night’s sleep in his own bed the moment he started this project. Now he was locked out of his own room on a cruel whim. It wasn’t fair.
Ford could hear Bill moving about in his room, his footsteps loud. The muse seemed to be poking around Stanford’s room, and he listened to Bill’s off key discordant voice talking to himself, but loud enough it was clear he was talking for Ford’s benefit.
“This looks nice and breakable.” There was a crash and a shattering sound, as Bill was apparently throwing Ford’s stuff around, continuing his tantrum. “Aww, is that a precious memory? In the bin! Wow these research notes sure make some lovely ripping sounds. Hahaha, paper tastes terrible!”
Rubbing his temples and groaning, Ford nursed his steadily growing headache, thinking he had bit off more than he could chew.
No no, Bill was just settling. This would be fine, this was fine.
Stanford heard more noises, the sound of paper ripping, and loud chewing. It sounded like Bill was talking with his mouth full of paper.
“What an adorable sad little handwritten book. I bet this is his journal. Hey Sixer, your journal tastes like tears, failure, and cheap ink. Sure is tasty though.”
This was not fine.