[ID: A Photograph Of Four Gravity Falls Drawings On A Strip Of Stickers. Ford Bent Over A Desk While

trying to remember how to draw my human bill after like two months of nothing but the triangle like

BILL CIPHER GOES TO ZAXBYS AFTER BREAKUP?? (real not fake!!!)

This chapter is a whole lot of Bill and Ford talking and I couldn't think of a good illustration for it, so have a funny comic instead.

Here's chapter 9 of The Pines Have Captured Human Bill Cipher And Nobody Is Happy About It (otherwise known as Wasting Away Again in the Goldilocks Zone). Sept 13 2024 - now updated for TBOB compatibility!

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Ford knocked on the bathroom door. "Time's up. You've had your two hours, Cipher."

There was no reply.

Ford glanced at Stan.

Stan grumbled under his breath and cracked his knuckles. "BILL!" He pounded on the door. "Either you come out of the bathroom, or we're dragging you out by your ankles!"

No reply.

"That's it," Stan snapped. Ford nodded in agreement and took a step back to cover Stan as he opened the door.

The bathroom reeked of chemically-enhanced rotten eggs. From knee-height down, every single surface in the room was plastered with curly blond hair. Behind the bath tub—naked, curled up in a ball, and hiding beneath a towel like a child—was Bill.

Stan and Ford gaped at the scene. And then they cracked up.

"Most—" Stan wheezed, "Most people just use shampoo! But hey, whatever floats your boat!"

Trying to sound stern and failing, Ford said, "I hope you plan to help clean this up."

Bill didn't reply. 

Stan coughed and pounded on his chest. "Gah. Almost choked on my dentures."

"How did you do this? I know we removed the blades from the room." Ford was glad he'd put on his boots. He picked up a bottle of hair removal cream from the bath tub and tested the weight. Almost empty. "You didn't use this on your scalp, did you? It's far too caustic to use around the face."

Stan asked, "How do you know?"

"I've experimented with many shaving techniques, Stanley."

Bill didn't reply.

"Bill?" Ford's smile faded. "Did you burn yourself?" If he was burned badly enough, that was an infection risk—the last thing they needed was to haul their prisoner to a doctor...

He took another step toward Bill. Bill tightened his arms around his knees and retreated further into the corner. And still he said nothing.

####

Stan and Ford agreed that dragging Bill's naked butt out of the bathroom wouldn't do anything to help protect Gravity Falls from the horrible alien triangle menace, and also wouldn't make them feel particularly noble; so they left the door open, told Bill to get dressed and get out, Stan went back to bed, and Ford sat in the attic window seat to wait.

It took almost thirty minutes before Ford heard Bill trudging upstairs. He had dressed, thank goodness, but still had the towel draped over his head, like a Victorian widow in a mourning veil. Ford wondered if it was bad to find the sight of his obvious distress so funny, or if the fact that it was Bill made it okay.

Bill got close enough to his window seat nest to spy Ford's boots from beneath his towel, veered off to the side, and curled up in a corner of the attic.

"Well," Ford said, to say something; and then drew a blank. Finally, he said, "The next time you claim you're out of practice at a basic human task, I'll believe you."

Ford could have sworn he heard the towel-covered lump hiss like a leaky tire. Had he gotten a laugh?

The ice broken, Ford went on: "Are you injured? That stuff can burn even when used correctly. And—you did not use it correctly."

No response.

"Just—why did you—why?"

No response.

"Say something so I know I don't have to call an ambulance and tell them you're in shock." Ford did not relish the idea of explaining a mysterious woman with no ID to a hospital.

Apparently, neither did Bill, because he muttered, "I don't need medical assistance." And then, "So I didn't want hair. Baldness isn't a sin. Get off my back."

"That's a heck of a way to get rid of it."

"Yeah, wow, I guess so. I wonder why I didn't just use a razor."

"You could have... You could have asked for a shave."

Bill let out another tire-wheeze laugh. At the thought of asking for help, or at the thought that he'd have received it?

"Bill—"

"Go away."

Ford frowned; but he got up, headed downstairs, and shut the bathroom door as he passed so Bill couldn't go back in.

And a few minutes later, came back with a sandwich made out of the first odds and ends he could find in the fridge, and a six pack of hard apple cider. "Here." He set the plate and six pack on the floor near Bill. "Mrs. Ramirez hasn't touched it, I promise."

Bill didn't move, not even to see what food Ford had brought.

Ford shifted his footing nervously, his common sense insisting that he'd demonstrated all the decency he was obliged to and that it was time to go; and then he sat down again on the window seat. "Listen," he said. "Bill." (He shouldn't be doing this, he shouldn't be talking to Bill Demon-Triangle Dimension-Destroyer Cipher, eternal nemesis, ruiner of Ford's life, threatener of his family; but right now, it was hard to see Bill Cipher beneath the hurting human.) "I've—been here before. I know what it's like to—to be trapped in an alien dimension, surrounded by hostile locals, with no way home." He tried not to think about the fact that Bill was the main reason Ford had been trapped, or that Ford was now one of the hostile locals, or that the locals (and Ford especially) had a damn good reason to be hostile to Bill, or that they all didn't want Bill to get home. He was kind of curious find out where the heck he was going with this conversation. "I know what that... grief is like."

Ford thought it might be an insult to suggest Bill was capable of grief; but Bill didn't twitch. Ford went on. "I know how tempting it is to—to ignore everything but the fight ahead. Never mind hot food, shelter, showers, fresh clothes, a comfortable bed. Luxuries you can tend to when your work is done. But—a fire can't keep burning without fuel and fresh air. Depriving yourself those 'luxuries' doesn't turn you into some ascetic warrior-monk. It simply... burns you out. It makes it that much harder to achieve anything." Ford shrugged. "I—learned that the hard way."

He tried not to think about the fact that Bill had been the fight Ford had burned himself out for. Or the fact that Bill no doubt saw Ford as his fight. Or the fact that Ford didn't want Bill to achieve anything. He immediately regretted the decision to find out where he was going with this conversation. What was he doing?

Voice muffled, Bill said, "You think you're the only person who's ever had to get used to an alien dimension before?"

And Ford remembered—a moment too late—that Bill had destroyed his home. It was so easy to take that information, the horrific enormity of it, and stop there; but follow the implications one step further, and that meant Ford had never once seen Bill in his own dimension. As long as Ford had known him and billions of times longer, Bill had been a stranger in a strange land. Ford should write off this conversation as a loss and leave.

"This isn't my first rodeo," Bill said. "But hey, thanks for coming back up just to patronize me. It's really what I needed tonight."

To hell with leaving. Ford wasn't letting Bill get the last word in after he'd tried to do something nice. "This is your first time being a human in an alien dimension," Ford pointed out. "You said it yourself earlier—I've bathed hundreds of times since you last did. As an energy being, you've never had to make time for regular showers, or sleep, or exercise, or..." He almost said food but paused. He'd seen Bill eat as a triangle. Was that fun or necessity? Never mind. "You probably think those chores are beneath you—but your body needs them whether you like it or not."

Bill laughed harshly. "Wow, this is rich coming from Dr. Food Pills who bathes monthly."

"Hey! I've improved since my postdoc days and if you were half the stalker I know you are you'd know that!"

Bill didn't argue; he just changed his angle of attack and muttered, "'Eat better and bathe more,' says the guy who locked me out of the fridge and bathroom."

"I—" Well. Ford couldn't really argue with that. And he didn't regret it. "I know it's... not an ideal situation." The opportunity hung in the air for an and I'm sorry, and Ford self-consciously hurried past it. It was the thing one said in these situations, but it wasn't true. He wasn't sorry, he shouldn't be sorry, Bill was here on death row. "But I'm just trying to..." The sentence died. Why, exactly, was he trying to help Bill?

"Why would I want any help from you?" Bill's voice was venomous; and under the circumstances, Ford couldn't fault him for that. "Even if you didn't kill me and capture me! For all your talk of needing shelter and comfort when you're stuck in another dimension—you never accepted any help from me. But you think I can't take care of myself?"

Ford stared at Bill. (Not that there was much to stare at, except the top of a towel.) "I never accep—? You never offeredany help!" Not that he would have accepted it if Bill had, but just the outrageous suggestion that Bill had been—what?—charitably offering interdimensional refugee services that Ford had stubbornly turned down—?

"I never got the chance! You dove into the first wormhole you could find—you didn't even bother to say 'hi'!"

"Why would I say 'hi' after everything you—! Plus, you placed a bounty on my head! Within thirty seconds of my arrival!"

"So I got excited!" Bill uncurled just enough to shrug. "Anyway, the bounty was to bring you to me alive! C'mon, Stanford, I know you steered away from the frats in college, but you know what a little friendly hazing is, right?"

Flabbergasted, Ford echoed, "'Hazing'?" And then, even more disbelieving, "'Friendly'?"

"Sure!" One eye, almost luminescent in the shadows beneath the towel, peered over Bill's knees. As if Bill was as baffled as Ford and needed to see him for himself. "You built us a portal, you got cast out of your dimension into ours—you were gonna get a hero's welcome! You'd joined the gang! You were one of us!"

"I'd—spent weeks trying to stop you!"

"So?"

Ford gaped. Bill was a liar, he reminded himself—a liar, a manipulator, and a conman. He'd say anything to portray himself however he thought most useful. Ford remembered arriving in the Nightmare Realm. He'd relived it over and over—in hundreds, if not thousands of nightmares. "That was no welcome party. You were surrounded by an army of monsters."

"Hey, those are my pals you're talking about!" Bill laughed—a sincere, easy sound. It was unnerving, how real that laugh sounded. "Hate to point out the obvious, Sixer, but you've got a handshake that '30s Hollywood woulda designed a whole movie monster around. Who are you to judge appearances!"

Ford's thoughts flashed briefly to the Glass Shard Beach freak show he'd met as a child—the humans who'd called themselves "monsters" and who'd called Ford their "abnormal ally," the frightening friendly freaks who'd welcomed him warmly. He pushed the thought away. Bill wasn't running some kind of weirdo sanctuary; he thought making Ford think he was would win him some sympathy. "You were sitting on a throne. Made out of optical illusions. Like a self-appointed tyrant."

"Oh! You noticed my throne!" Bill's head lifted a little more. "Hey, I got that custom made! It's upholstered with the torn fabric of reality! Say, did it look three-dimensional to you? I'm told it looks 3D if you cross your eyes just right, but, well, you need two eyes to cross 'em."

"Wh—" Ford blinked, trying to remember what the throne had looked like. "Was it... not 3D?"

"No way! Do you have any idea what it'd cost to upholster a whole extra dimension in the fabric of reality? I'm not about to drop that kind of gold on a feature I wouldn't even use!" Bill grinned up at Ford. All Ford could see was the one eye and his teeth. "But hey, if you couldn't even tell the difference—I guess the autostereogram detailing was worth it!"

And Ford thought, he means it. Bill, mad thing he was, never thought that being Ford's friend and destroying Ford's universe were mutually incompatible. When he'd arrived in the Nightmare Realm, Bill hadn't been hunting him, he'd been welcoming him. Lounging on his stupid tacky throne, hanging out with his terrible friends, feigning a punch at the new guy to make him flinch before laughing and inviting him to the party. And Ford—sleep-deprived, terrified, paranoid—hadn't seen it.

And then Ford thought, he's lying. It was over thirty years ago—thirty-one, technically (time ticks ever on)—and Bill could say anything he wanted about what he would have done if he'd caught Ford, because he hadn't caught him. Today, Bill probably thought his comfort, if not his very survival, was dependent upon convincing his captors that he was so much less a threat than they thought he was. It's all a harmless misunderstanding! It was no misunderstanding and Bill wasn't harmless.

Ford got to his feet. "We remember that day very differently."

Bill's smile faded into the dark. "Yeah. Guess so." And then his eye disappeared as well as he curled in on himself and vanished under the towel. That wasn't like him. Ford had expected at least a little gaslighting.

Strange body in a strange land. And a recent death (metaphorical or literal, Ford still wasn't sure). Of course Bill was more subdued than usual.

Ford told himself not to worry about Bill. (He was unnerved that he had to tell himself.)

"Well." He gestured vaguely at the sandwich, decided against doing something nice like reminding Bill he needed to eat, and said, "Don't waste food."

He mentally chided himself as he walked downstairs. He'd been careless; he'd almost let his guard down in front of a friend who'd betrayed him. He'd been nice to Bill. He'd tried to encourage Bill to take better care of himself—when Ford was plotting to kill him, for crying out loud! Why? Because the human body made him forget this was Bill? No. Because Bill had tricked Ford into seeing him as a friend again, for just a moment, talking about parties and pals and—of all things—his stupid upholstery? Also no; that had come after Ford had offered compassion. It would have been nice if Ford could have blamed Bill. He'd like to think that he was being manipulated; it would free him from any personal culpability. But Bill hadn't done anything—except look miserable.

And that didn't line up with how Ford remembered Bill. Maybe that was what had thrown him off? But—he wasn't sure. Ford had spent thirty years with his thoughts spiraling around Bill, and now it was hard to think about Bill at all without second-guessing every thought that passed through his head. He was a recovering Cipherholic—and the fastest way to fall off the wagon was getting exposed to your addiction. He'd have to ask Stan for a reality check.

Another question gnawed at him as he kicked off his boots and climbed back into bed. When he'd been cast from his dimension, the portal was still functional, just uncharged. There was nothing Ford could do from within the Nightmare Realm to either reactivate or destroy the portal. Bill had seemed in too good a humor to have had punishment on his mind; and since Ford had been both useless and unthreatening, Bill probably hadn't wanted to recruit him for his help or eliminate him for Bill's safety.

So what had Bill wanted him for?

What had Bill wanted him for?

He'd probably just wanted to kill him. For no particular reason. For fun. Bill didn't need any other reason, Bill was insane.

Ford tried to convince himself that was true.

####

Bill had gotten careless. He almost let his guard down around a friend who'd betrayed him.

He couldn't really blame himself. He was a consummate extrovert with nobody to talk to. Captivity in and of itself was bad enough; but without his friends, he was... bored. That was the word. Bored.

But he was fine.

Bill's stomach ached. He peered at the food Ford had brought.

After a moment, he dragged over the six pack and popped out a can of cider. Nothing better to prove he was fine than some good old I'm Fine Juice.

That bathroom could be useful. He'd never be trusted in there for two hours unsupervised again, but if he mastered the art of the ten-minute shower and claimed he still needed an hour, that would give him some uninterrupted privacy. He could work a little magic in that time, even if he was limited to human capabilities. Most local female humans wore makeup, Melody probably kept hers in the bathroom; and in a pinch, there was toothpaste and shampoo; he could write with those. You could get a lot done with two mirrors, running water, a writing tool, and a human body full of blood.

Maybe he could call for help. Acquiring the supplies to get a call through to Hectorgon or Amorphous Shape would be difficult, much less calling any of his outerplanar pals; but Kryptos kept a psychic line open in dimension 46'\, if Bill got his hands on some candles he could reach him. At least, assuming Kryptos bothered to pick up the call. Bill hated the thought that his fate rested on whether or not the most annoying person in the multiverse felt like taking a call from an unknown number, but what could he do about it? If he could just reach the mindscape, this would be so much easier—

No, that wasn't quite accurate. He could reach the mindscape. He dreamed. He just... couldn't control it.

This body clamped onto his soul like an iron maiden. He couldn't just shed it like an old coat, the way he'd always effortlessly moved in and out of physical bodies before. He'd tried, curled up in the window for hours at a time, meditating silently, reaching for that point where he quietly detached from his borrowed form—but never grasping it. A couple of times the effort had exhausted him into falling asleep.

He knew his way in and out of human bodies—along with plenty of other earthling bodies and the bodies of aliens from countless dimensions. Leaving it should have been easy. There was no good reason for him to still be stuck.

But there were plenty of bad ones.

Three possibilities: thanks to the unconventional way he'd left the Theraprism, his power was still sealed away (if not removed entirely), and he was simply too weak to disentangle himself from this body's neurons; the reincarnation process had fully turned his soul from a triangle into a human; or, something about the Theraprism's machine locked souls into their new bodies. Maybe to keep the newly-rehabilitated from immediately shedding their body and returning to their old ways.

A lock that simply needed to be picked would be the best option—but with his limited powers, it was also the hardest to identify except via process of elimination. He could start by figuring out humans' own techniques for controlling their dreams and shedding their bodies and see if that helped him. (Part of him hoped it wouldn't. If it did, it would be all the more likely that he really was just a human—the worst possible option.) He was sure Ford had done some reading on astral projection at Bill's suggestion, maybe he still had those books somewhere. Bill couldn't just ask for them. Ford wouldn't trust Bill with them.

Not yet, anyway. But with time...?

Ford's little visit had been unexpectedly encouraging. He'd been a fool to ever offer Ford freedom and power instead of leaning on humans' soft spot for vulnerability. The whole woe-is-me routine was clearly working. Even if Ford had probably only pitied him because...

Under the towel, Bill's scalp burned. He could feel the alien contours of his head.

Never mind, never mind, never mind. This was all part of his strategy. This was his plan.

The point was—he thought, for just a moment, he'd gotten a glimpse again of the Ford that was his friend.

Bill could use that.

He'd keep working on Ford, softening him up. Ford had already brought food. Rookie mistake. So few humans realized that once they'd done one favor for someone, they'd set themselves up to make every favor after that a little bit easier. Bill would have Stanford Pines wrapped around his finger again in no time.

And until he'd worked his way back up to big favors, it might be nice to have someone to play chess with again. He was bored. He missed his friends.

He missed home.

He missed himself.

A lump formed in his throat. 

To drown it, he popped open the first can of cider, chugged it in several large gulps, and reached for the second.

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(This is sort of the first chapter we've had to slow down since this fic started, so let me know what y'all think!)

OK I REALLY LIKE HOW IT TURNED OUT-

Getting even sillier. Look at my We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together Billford AMV

it's a shame that we don't really get to see stan showing off his knowledge/experience with handling the town's anomalies (despite his attempts to ignore/avoid them as much as possible)

also deciding to make stuff that 12 year old me would have wanted to draw

am i too late to yaoi day

tfw you realize the mortal you where planning on using and discarding, is a little unhinged actually, and matches your freak so you scrap that plan and start planning to rule the universe together

AKA bill realizes Ford "is just like him fr"

The page in The book of Bill that started this nonesense

commission info here

Transcript of text from the page of TBOB under the cut

Text reads: "Unfased, F has been making hot cocoa and welding rivets while playing christmas songs on the radio. (These songs make no sense. Why did Rudolph forgive his tormentors for their mockery of his facial deformity? He should have used his red-hot nose to burn his oppressor's workshop to the ground. A lesson to all!)"

“Different” - based off the “Better World” page in Journal 3 (Fiddauthor)