Bab 97: -There are infinite alternate versions of me-(Part 2)
"That… that feels unfair," Mabel said with a frown. Because sure, they'd treated Bill bad, back when he'd looked like a triangle, but that was because he was a jerk! Not because of how he'd looked! She sent a troubled look Dipper's way, and he nodded back grimly, in agreement: Bill was a jerk, no matter what he looked like.
Miz shrugged. "It's fine. People judge others by what they look like. I've long since gotten used to that. Heck, Jessie didn't even realize it was ME like this even though I didn't change my behavior at ALL. I had to actually give myself away by dropping hints for her to realize it was me." She sat on the railing of the boat, kicking her legs and trying to hide how unhappy that fact really made her feel.
Dipper rubbed his arm, feeling awkward. When he and Mabel had body swapped with that carpet, they'd both been acting nuts, and Grunkle Stan hadn't seemed to realize what had happened. He and Mabel still weren't totally sure if he'd given the key to that room to her on purpose, because he really did like her better… or if he'd really wanted to reward 'Dipper' for insulting him. (They hadn't talked about it until after, and… Dipper hadn't exactly felt comfortable ever trying that out? It just felt… wrong to him, to think of doing that. Especially after...)
Dipper shook his head. "Is that why you chose to look like a small teenage girl?"
"...Eh, this form is special." Miz placed a hand to her chest. "But I have made other humanoid forms that were purposely crafted to be pleasant and nice looking… so that people would like me…"
Mabel and Dipper looked upset. "But that's not fair. You shouldn't have to change what you look like just so people like you!" Mabel protested. People were… supposed to be themselves! That's what she'd always been told by her parents.
(Bill stayed rather quiet on this point.)
Miz shrugged. "That's not how the world works. People judge others based on appearances. And people just don't like what I look like." She waved her hand to float her Kirby back to herself and hugged it. "I've had over 600 billion years to get used to that."
Mabel and Dipper glanced at each other. That was… too sad. "Did… everyone hate you when you were a triangle?" Was that… something that had happened with Bill too? Is that why he was such a jerk? (Mabel glanced over at him, but he was looking away from all of them… almost like he was refusing to look at any of them. Mabel frowned.)
"Pretty much… but then I met my friends! And they didn't care what I was. They still wanted to be my friends!" Miz smiled fondly. "I wonder if I can contact them while I'm here…" She looked down at her hand and there was a swirl of sand and suddenly a smart-phone looking object appeared. (Watching this, the twins found her casual use of her powers a little startling. They both glanced over at Bill, who by comparison… generally made a big deal out of everything that he did.)
Miz tapped on her newly-created Com. "Oh hey, the chat room works…" She frowned. "But I'm not time synched…"
"It's a mess," Bill noted easily, staring up at the sky. "Not sure if your connection was attracted by the tangle I found, or if it happened the other way around."
Miz frowned at her Com. "Well… I can drop off a message anyway…" she began to mutter softly as she typed out her message. "L irxqg… d eurwkhu… zloo eh vwdblqj zlwk klp iru d elw… grq'w zruub. L fdq wlph wudyho wr jhw edfn ehiruh brx hyhq nqrz L'p jrqh…"
"You do that, and it's going to lock at least a few things into place," Bill reminded her, sitting up a bit, using his arms as leverage, to look over his shoulder at her. "I'm pretty sure that it should pop out after you left, with the way our messages have gone, but how much later is…" Bill frowned. "Might want to add a time-of-delivery to it, if you can. Automatically self-destruct it if you think there might be problems with the time-of-arrival." He let out a soft laugh. "Last thing you need is to get caught up chasing down nonlinear time loops BETWEEN doors…"
"I'll set it to arrive right after I left. I've staggered texts to arrive at different times before." Miz shrugged.
Bill nodded. He knew her Eye was working, but… the timing for when and where they'd come out here had been… close. He had a suspicion that he tended to be a bit more conservative in his own timings that she was.
...Then again, maybe some beings would consider having one billion years after deciphering the very last part of a long, long prophecy a lot of time to enact it. (HA!)
"Oh hey, I got some Asks on my blog." Miz played with her Com a bit, before putting it away.
The twins resettled next to each other on the deck in the meantime, and glanced at each other as Miz finished up what she was doing.
"So… you… have friends? Like--" Dipper glanced over at Bill. "--the Henchmaniacs?" he asked.
"My little sister's definition of 'friends' is not my definition of 'friends', Pine Tree -- let's get that out of the way right now," Bill pointed out almost lazily, as he lay himself back down flat on the deck again. Miz herself placed her hands on her cheeks and wiggled side to side happily.
"They're not my henchmen," she told them gleefully. "They're my friends. The way that Candy and Grenda are yours. Except with more…" She tried to think of a way to describe it.
"Though they do have the same names, and may even look the same," Bill noted easily, eyes closed.
Miz nodded. "Yeah, but I think my versions are younger than yours. For one thing, they hadn't been arrested yet when I met them."
"Younger? Maybe right now," said Bill. "Never asked." Bill hadn't thought it all that important. He wasn't sure which arrests Miz was talking about, though; they'd all been arrested DOZENS of times well before he'd met any of them. And that was just this iteration of them as demons. ...Well, after Ronnie had found HIM and started pulling in more of them. "My most recent set of Henchmaniacs has only been with me for the last three-hundred-million years or so. Ronnie's the oldest hanger-on of the set, at six-hundred-million and counting." Bill himself hadn't really been planning on trying to put together another set and trying again, given the timeframe he'd been working with at that point, seeing it as a distraction more than anything, but… she'd made it fun.
And after awhile, he'd gotten into it and started keeping his Eye out, and picking out a few more himself. "I didn't bother looking them up much before that, only the most recent ten million years or so before that," Bill added. That was usually all the time he needed to get a good sense of what type of demon he was dealing with there, start-to-finish. Even the best liars out there couldn't manage to be that consistent for that long! And it gave him enough of a recent and up-to-date pattern to actually work with. "I know Ronnie's been bouncing around from place to place much longer than that, though." He wouldn't be surprised if she'd been around for a couple hundred-billion, at LEAST!
"Well I don't think my dimension's version of them are demons. The best I can tell, when comparing mine and yours," Miz said, and Bill nodded, almost to himself, eyes still closed. Miz glanced over at the twins almost shyly. "Do you want to know about my friends?" she asked them. Dipper wasn't so sure, but Mabel nodded enthusiastically, with a just-as-enthusiastic "YES!!" and Miz grinned and wiggled her hands and formed a tiny little Xanthar plushie.
"I got Xanthar through a Deal," Miz said, showing the plushie to the twins. "I was summoned by this baron who thought to butter me up before the Deal by bribing me with food. Would have worked but then he brought out Xanthar… and started slicing him up right in front of me…" Miz's eyes flashed red. "He was in so much pain. I couldn't stand it. So I demanded to have him so I could take him away from that awful man." Miz picked up the Xanthar plush and hugged him.
"Slicing him… up?" Mabel looked ill. So did Dipper.
Miz nodded and held out the plushie again. "See how he's got this flat face? His bread face was sliced off. And eaten by that asshole."
Bill opened his eyes at the uncharacteristic quiet from the twins, and looked over. "Better stop, Miz," he said, closing his eyes again. "That's cannibalism, almost. They have cryptids as friends. They get smart non-humans not being something that should be eaten, even when they're edible."
Miz blinked and then looked up at the twins. She gasped. "Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't think…" She squeezed the doll to her chest. "But he's safe now! He's mine and I protect him so no one can ever hurt him again!" EVER.
"R-right…" said Mabel, with a strained smile, clutching at her Kirby doll, which she'd managed to 'sneak back' from the side of the deck earlier. "Good to know?" Dipper said, pulling at his cap slightly, but still looking like he was trying not to puke.
Miz looked down. "My other friends weren't as bad off. But they weren't in the best of situations when I met them either." She sighed. "And I swore to myself I would make sure they could stay safe and happy." No matter what it took. She didn't say that out loud but the twins could hear it clearly in her tone.
The twins exchanged a glance.
They had a sinking suspicion that while this version of Bill Cipher was actually… nice(?) sometimes(??), she was also perfectly willing to do some pretty bad things if she thought it would keep the people she cared about happy. --And that made her dangerous in the same way their Grunkle Stan could be dangerous, when it came to protecting family. Because if she cared about these friends of hers that much, all it would take was someone threatening or hurting one to...
Bill himself, thinking about how Time Baby in her world had essentially tricked her into his service via blackmail over her friends for eons, blew out a breath and said: "I still think you should take Stanley's advice. Grab 'em all, and get out while the going's good. --Before you get tangled up in a prophecy someplace where your lizard can still reach you and try to haul you back in." Bill shifted in place. "Saves me some trouble. Don't feel like having to figure out that pillar thing whenever I end up having to vaporize that Time Baby of yours!" Bill had a feeling that if he ended up in her dimensional set, he'd end up doing it eventually, sooner or later.
Miz looked over and nodded. "Should we change the topic?" she asked. "I'm still trying to figure out what is and isn't appropriate to talk about." She paused and tilted her head. "I think my sister is almost Stan level of things she's ok with talking about. Or at least, they might upset her but not that badly?"
"Stanley can take a lot more than Pine Tree and Shooting Star can," Bill murmured out, eyes closed. "That Stanford's not worth trying to talk to; gets mad too easily, never thinks anything more multi-dimensional than flat these days," Bill not quite grumbled out.
"Yeah? Whose fault is that," Dipper muttered out. He didn't get any happier when Bill's response to him was to the tune of: "His."
Miz and Mabel exchanged a look. "Change the subject," the two of them suggested.
"You don't like my subjects," Bill murmured out almost loosely, his tone meandering up and down the scale almost musically.
Mabel's eyebrows went up, and she and Miz glanced at each other with an expression like 'ugh, brothers,' before Mabel thought quickly and asked, "So you like to eat stuff. Bill is super picky."
Bill let out a soft humming sound on the next breath, and his breathing evened out. Miz hummed along absently. "Well, I like tasting things and the feeling of chewing things. It's a visceral pleasure."
Dipper frowned. "Why?" he asked. Great-Uncle Ford had said that Bill had used to be… two-dimensional? The Xylians hadn't sounded like they… did stuff like that? Enjoy food? (He really had to ask Great-Uncle Ford what they ate. Mabel was starting to get waaaaay too creative in her ideas of things she'd ask Bill if he wanted to eat at mealtimes...)
Miz shrugged. "Probably a remnant of my feelings from when I used to be human."
"--Woah, wait-wait-wait. What?!" Dipper said, as Mabel's eyes went wide. "When were you human?" he asked her. And why would she want to be human when she could be a dragon, or anything else? He and Mabel had thought Bill must have been lying about her being a 'used to be human and human again sometimes' demon, when Bill had gotten caught out talking to 'a demon' on his blog. He and his sister had put two-and-two together about the supposedly 'human demon' he'd been talking to being Miz, but… "A human human? Not some human-demon, where you were always sort of… at least a little... demon-y?" Dipper trailed off at the look he was getting from Miz.
Miz tilted her head at him. "So… I was born as a triangle… with memories from a human girl. Who had human parents and a human family. And I AM her… I think? I don't really know. It's all sorts of confusing. But if you take the idea that who you ARE is determined by your memories, then I am her. Was her. I was 林趙尊欣. But now I'm a Bill Cipher." She moved to lay down on the deck of the boat. "And I still get weird quirks that I'm sure are from her, me, who I was, still am?" She looked confused. "I'm not her anymore though. I'm sure she wouldn't have done most of the things that I do now." She can't possibly have? She didn't think Zyun-Jan would have done what she did.
Dipper and Mabel exchanged glances. They didn't really know what to think.
"You don't have to be 'her'…" Bill murmured out, opening his eyes slightly. "Not if you don't want to, and really aren't her. You can isolate it." He was thinking of what had happened to himself, when he'd tried to Look forward at himself, and instead had Seen…
Miz nodded slowly, still frowning. "I don't mind many of the parts of her. She was a nice person. I want to be a nice person. I can just keep the parts I like..." … not that she would be comfortable throwing any of it out, she kept them all, both good and bad, because BALANCE was a thing.
"All or nothing; you don't want to piecemeal things," Bill told her quite seriously, with a sigh, closing his eyes again. Because if she did try to cut off and keep just pieces of herself... "It causes problems."
Miz sighed. "I'm keeping it then. There's more good than bad in here. I like my memories of her, me, so much of who I am now was built upon these memories. And despite everything, I like the person that I am." Heck, she wasn't 100% a dick, that's got to count for something? And she had considered it before, simply erasing what little humanity she had left, to try and hurt less… but she wouldn't do it. Never. Her memories of her siblings, family and friends were FAR too important.
To this, Bill just hummed out an even tone for a beat or two, in acknowledgement of her choice. (He certainly wasn't going to choose FOR her!)
"Did…" Dipper ducked his head slightly, glancing over at Bill, who was being quiet. "Did Bill used to be human?" Dipper asked Miz. He had to ask it, but he couldn't imagine that really being a thing, though. Bill was just too… demon-y.
"Doubt it," Miz commented, and Dipper let out something of a breath of relief. That would have been too much.
"No. Never human," Bill offered up quietly, leaving Dipper wincing at having been heard.
"How do you end up becoming a Bill Cipher?" Mabel asked, confused. "You said… you picked the name?" She didn't get it. Did Miz choose to be a Bill? She'd said she was a triangle like Bill, though.
"Well, I already sort of knew I was Bill because I sort of knew bits and pieces of the future from stories I read back when I was human… but after I accidentally destroyed the 2nd dimension and met Ax, he called me Bill. But he also said I wasn't what he was expecting." She shrugged. "So either I replaced the Bill that Ax was originally trying to get or I just didn't turn out how he wanted me to."
"...I need to write this down," Dipper complained, tugging at his hat. He couldn't get his thoughts straight on convoluted stuff like this without writing things down; he needed to get things out of his head and down on paper so he could sort everything out in front of him. He missed stuff otherwise, or it just didn't really make any sense. "Who's 'Ax'?" he asked. And knowing bits and pieces of the future from stories? What the heck?
"The god that created all of reality." Miz shrugged. "The AXOLOTL. Ford swears by him all the time." (Okay, Dipper recognized the name now.) Miz frowned and turned to Bill. "Does he worship Ax?"
Bill was quiet, which was weird. The twins had noticed that he pretty much always responded to his little sister. When Dipper looked over he was shocked to realize the demon had straight-up fallen asleep on them, right on the spot!
Mabel just stifled a giggle. She'd come out to the picnic tables at the Shack lots of times to find Bill dozing! (Even though he really wasn't supposed to; he was only supposed to sleep in his bed indoors. ...Okay, or maybe upstairs in the attic, now, too.) She and Grunkle Stan were pretty sure which times he'd actually fallen asleep outside and which times he hadn't. It was kind of funny to see him yell and flail a bit when he woke up and tried to pretend that he hadn't.
Meanwhile, Miz cooed softly before materializing a blanket and gently placing it over him.
Mabel got an uncomfortable look. "You shouldn't do that," she told Miz quietly.
"I'm not gonna touch him." Miz stepped away.
"That's not why…" Mabel started to say, but it was too late. Bill got restless, and flailed a bit. He kicked it off violently, and rolled over onto his side and onto it, breathing heavily and not quite clawing at it a bit haphazardly in a clearly-reflexive motion. He slowly settled again as they all watched.
Miz blinked. "Oh. Ok. That explains why he never uses blankets up in the attic."
Mabel nodded. "Grunkle Stan says he doesn't like gravity."
Miz pulled a face. "Well gravity kinda sucks." Then she giggled. "Get it? Suck? Because it's an attractive force?" She snorted quietly, rolling across the deck.
"Uh, wouldn't that be gravity pulls?" Dipper asked, a little confused. "It's not a vacuum."
"You obviously have never met a Black Hole before." Miz said blandly.
Dipper glanced over at his sister. He was pretty sure that that was a pull, too? Or… "Gravity bends?" He'd thought there were time dilation effects and things. Still not a 'sucking' kind of thing!
Miz rolled around and whined. "Don't pick apart my awful pun!"
"But it's not even a pun!" Dipper objected ("That's why it's awful!"), then stopped and went, "Okay, fine," at Mabel elbowing him. Miz grinned at Mabel -- finally, someone who doesn't ruin her fun!
Bill let out a huff and an odd mumble, twitching in place.
And then the rest of them heard movement at the hatch; somebody was coming up the ladder. They all turned to see Ford, who pushed himself up onto the deck, and looked around. He blinked when he saw Bill, then frowned. Miz huddled a little behind Mabel. The brown-haired girl noticed and frowned. It didn't feel right for Miz to be afraid of her grunkle. Miz wasn't Bill. Even if she was apparently an alternate Bill Cipher.
Ford's frown became slightly more pronounced as he took a firm step towards Bill across the deck and then stopped, when he realized Bill hadn't moved. He tilted his head slightly to the side, and he laid his right hand across his holster. Ford rippled his fingers across the hilt experimentally, a motion that seemed to match his mood and expression as he started moving again and paced a half-circle around Bill -- not quite giving him a wide berth, but watching him with a great deal of attention. (It wasn't quite predatory, but… he was almost approaching his observation of Bill the same way he would any other potentially dangerous cryptid or alien being.)
Miz was starting to growl softly, eyes locked onto Ford's movements. Mabel and Dipper glanced at her quickly before Dipper spoke up. "Ah, Great-Uncle Ford? Maybe you could take your hand off of your gun? Bill hasn't been…" Dipper bit his lip as his Great-Uncle completed his walk, and Great-Uncle Ford's frown changed in character slightly as he came around Bill's side enough to see his face. His hand relaxed on his holster slightly, but he didn't let go of it yet.
He glanced over at the rest of them and said, "Bill is… asleep?"
"Yes?" Mabel said slowly. Then she sat up straight as she realized that her Grunkle Ford hadn't actually seen Bill asleep before. Not in-person. --He'd seen Bill half-awake blinking at the TV before with Grunkle Stan once, and he'd woken up next to Bill that one time on the floor (except Bill had fallen asleep after him and woken up before him), but...
"I told you, Grunkle Ford," Mabel told him in a huff. "Bill sleeps." Mabel explained. "A lot. He falls asleep in all sorts of places!"
"Yes, but…" Ford not-quite objected under his breath, glancing between Mabel and the apparently-asleep Bill Cipher. Was it a trick? It had to be, didn't it? Except…
He'd seen Bill with what looked like to be his eyes closed on the surveillance footage of the outside of the Shack many times at this point; the places he'd most often noted this behavior were the roof of the Shack and (most-often) one of the picnic table tops, for some odd reason. But he'd thought that was some sort of ruse, not…
"...He's actually asleep," Ford realized. He straightened, feeling a bit off-balance at the thought. Bill… wasn't supposed to sleep. He'd never slept before, had he? Demons--
Ford blinked. Demons didn't sleep. But Bill was...
He frowned again. Was it possible that, after one trillion years, Bill had managed to learn a way to trick people so well that he truly seemed to be… Ford shook his head. That didn't make sense.
Ford, watching Bill grimly, raised a boot and slammed it down onto the top deck hard.
He watched Bill's eyes shoot open and Bill himself shove his body upright in a quick jerk of motion.
He heard Bill let out some sort of whistle-click as he came upright, then a garbled gargling mix of Galactic Standard, but he wasn't through two syllables of that before Bill went straight to accented American English -- "WH'A,T" -- still clearly thinking in Galactic as he spoke in English, before just as quickly transitioning to 'native': "THAT-- I-- CAKE!!! I HEARD YOU YES!" Then a slight pause from Bill, who was swaying in place where he sat, slightly. "...What."
Ford stared down at Bill Cipher, who was still swaying in place a bit side-to-side (and using his arms as supports to stay mostly upright), blinking rapidly, and then...
He saw Bill frown slightly and his eyes refocus, and then jolt his head around in small motions to look at them all. Miz was groaning.
"Why'd you have to wake him up? He looked so cute, asleep like that." Dipper looked like he was going to choke at the idea of Bill being 'cute'. (Unfortunately, Mabel had to agree with the consensus of 'cute'; Bill did actually look almost cute when he was sleeping, especially when he was female. She'd come out of the Shack and sat down at the picnic table to watch him one or twice. He'd seemed almost… normal, like that.)
Bill swiveled his head over at Miz, then turned towards Ford and narrowed his eyes to glare up at him. ...He was clearly awake now.
Ford took a moment to formulate what he wanted to say. "...Demons don't sleep," he said aloud to Bill, staring down at him, hand still on his holster.
"Dream demon!" Bill snapped out, looking annoyed and angry, as well as tense.
Miz raised her hand. "Well, I didn't figure out HOW to sleep until I realized I needed a Dreamscape to sleep IN."
When Ford started to turn his head towards Miz, Bill spat out quickly, "--There's more than one type of demon!"
Ford paused in place, checking his motion.
He slowly turned back towards Bill, who was glaring, and tense, but also looking a bit… defensive.
Ford worked his jaw slightly. Then he said, "You were asleep. Weren't you, Bill."
Bill didn't answer but he looked livid. Miz pouted. "Why're you so interested in brother's ability to sleep anyway? I fell asleep when I got drunk the last time I was here and you haven't freaked out over THAT yet."
"I'm not 'freaked out' over you being able to sleep," Ford told her, still looking Bill in the eye. "I'm actually rather relieved." He got the smallest of smiles. "Demons don't dream. And--"
Bill snarled out something in 'alien' at Ford, but Ford, undeterred, continued with, "--generally, anything that sleeps is properly killable and will stay dead if you actually kill it completely." He rippled his fingers across his grip again. Bill's shoulders came up a bit. Neither of them broke their staring contest.
Miz coughed. "I dream all the time, my last dream was about this really long hole made of lines and pudding. It was really weird." She narrowed her eyes at Ford. "And if you shoot my brother, I will count that as you breaking whatever Agreement Stanley's got going on."
"I'm not part of the agreement," Ford informed her dryly. "Bill will 'happily' be the first to tell you that. ...Lovely creative mind you have there, though. You're a much better liar than Bill."
Miz tilted her head. "Well then, if there's no Agreement or anything, then I guess I can just--"
"--Don't," Bill cut in, cutting Miz off, not breaking eye contact with Ford.
Miz scowled. "I don't want you hurt," she said simply.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Miz," Bill said, slowly getting to his feet, not taking his eyes off of his most idiotic Zodiac member. Bill made a twisting gesture with his wrist, and the full bodysuit he was wearing under his clothes came into view again. "Nothing this idiot can do about it, now, now, can you, Sixer?" Bill drawled out the last, with the beginnings of a smirk.
Ford worked his jaw again.
"There's no such thing as a dream demon, is there?" Ford said slowly, and Bill's smile widened a bit.
"I am what I am," Bill said, spreading his arms out at his sides and straightening in place to his full height, rocking back on his heels. "If I say I'm a 'dream demon', I'm a dream demon!" His eyes were alight with an odd spark. He bobbed his torso from side to side slightly, on top of his legs.
"And if you say you're a 'triangle demon', you're a triangle demon?" Ford asked lightly.
"Yes," Bill said darkly, losing the smile as he slowly dropped his arms. "Don't worry," Bill said just as darkly, "You're too stupid to really get it." Ford felt the side of his mouth twitch up in almost a sneer, before he managed to control his reaction and level out his expression again.
Miz leaned over to Mabel and whispered, "Do they always fight like a divorced couple?"
That had Ford straightening and twisting in place to stare down at Miz in something like disbelief and horror. "What?!?!" he managed to choke out, his hand sliding off of his sidearm as his arms went a bit slack in shock.
Miz blinked. "Well, that's what this is sounding like to me right now. No offence." (Mabel was making an odd snuffling sound as if she wasn't sure if she should laugh or gag. Dipper was clutching at his hat, pulling it down hard and looking like wanted to use it to take an express trip to Sweater Town.)
Bill let out something that was half a huff of breath, half a snort. "Oh, Sixer would be so lucky if my preferences ran that way." He wasn't anything close to linear enough, to start with. Or smart enough. He smiled cheekily at his 'Sixer' as Ford whipped his head back around to glare at him again.
"I don't--!" Ford began hotly.
Miz shrugged. "One of the Bill's I saw in another dimensional set was drinking himself into a crying mess because his Ford had broken up with him… it was super sad." She frowned. "That Ford was super mean about it too. Who breaks up with their boyfriend using a goddamn BINDING CIRCLE anyway?!" She huffed angrily.
Ford looked disgusted at the thought of having… Bill as a boyfriend?!?! But Bill just looked vaguely amused as he told Miz, "No other-dimensional talk in front of the idiot, remember?"
Miz blinked. "Oh right. I keep forgetting…"
"I know, I know, very restricting!" Bill commiserated. Ford twitched.
Miz rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Ugh, that's like… 90% of the funny stories I could tell, gone, just like that!"
"You--" Ford began, then stopped talking as Bill stepped up to him and got right in his face. His hand moved reflexively back to his holster again. (He did manage not to step away.)
"I'll tell you what, Sixer," Bill said, not quite nose-to-nose with him. "Since you're SO SURE that killing me will leave me DEAD-DEAD-AND-MORE-DEAD?" He tilted his head sideways at Ford. "Why don't I just… DROP the defenses," he said, tapping his own chest. "You TRY to kill me, and we'll all JUST SEE WHAT HAPPENS." Bill grinned up at him. "How about it, Sixer?" He leaned forward just that little bit more. "Double-or-nothing? ...Won't get just my hat this time. RIGHT?"
Ford was staring down at Bill throughout all of this.
He was looking a little pale as he said, "You think you'll come back."
"No," said Bill, eyelids drooping a bit, as he not-quite purred out, "I KNOW I WILL."
Ford pulled in a slow breath and seemed to gather himself up.
And then Ford took one very deliberate step backwards, away from Bill.
"I see," said Ford. "More than one type of demon. Interesting." He dropped his hand from his holster, just as deliberately. Bill stared after him, all expression dropping off of his face.
"...what?" Bill said, blinking.
"Dipper, Mabel, it's time for bed," Ford said next, turning away from Bill. "I believe there are enough bedrolls down in the hold for you two to sleep on."
Bill looked between that Stanford, Shooting Star, and Pine Tree. He eventually settled on looking back at Stanford. "...Where's Stanley?" Bill asked slowly, eyes beginning to narrow again.
"He fell asleep," Ford told him, as he held out a hand and helped Mabel upright. He barely spared Bill a glance. "He was tired after all of the running, and your antics earlier."
Miz hummed. "Should I give him a back massage?" Stan was old and she worried over his health. That had Ford turning back to her to give her another rather disturbed look.
"No," said Ford, curtly.
Miz stared. "Then, will YOU give him a back massage?" she asked.
"I'd rather not wake him up at the moment," Ford told her quite honestly, as he shooed Dipper and Mabel towards the hatch. "He seemed rather soundly asleep, and I don't think he'd wake up to hands on him well."
Miz nodded in understanding. "Well, when he wakes up, you should give him a back massage. His back's been hurting him for a while," she told him.
Bill let out a yawn, then slapped a hand over his mouth and not quite growled out through it.
Ford gave her a sidelong look. "I'll take it under advisement," he said, the same way most people would say, 'I'll consider what you say when hell freezes over and the devil starts handing out pairs of ice skates for a nice winter holiday of fun.'
Miz rolled her eyes. "Well, ask him first, of course. I'm just saying, if Stan's in pain, you should try to help. And since I'm probably not allowed to help, I figured maybe you would."
Ford straightened in place and turned back towards her, after the niblings had descended.
"With all due respect to someone who thinks Bill Cipher is a brother one can love," Ford said, with both sincerity and extreme sarcasm in equal measures, "If you truly believe that I have not tried to convince my own brother to let me recreate and use several medical remedies for back pains and musculoskeletal problems such as he has, to his benefit, well, then…" Ford met her eyes. "You might want to listen to Bill when he says he knows me better than you do, and you really don't know me at all." And with that, Ford turned and made his way down the ladder himself.
Miz sighed. "Why won't he accept the help? I… don't understand?" She glanced over at her brother.
Bill was rubbing at the side of his head with one hand, tired. From his drooping posture, that had worsened pretty quickly after Ford had descended out of view, it was clear that he was having trouble staying awake, not quite swaying in place. "Mm," was his contribution to the conversation.
Miz shrugged and decided to put that topic aside for now. She dropped down onto the blanket she'd created and curled up on it. "I'm gonna ask him tomorrow." She yawned, snuggling into the soft blanket.
Bill blinked hazily down at her.
He stood there swaying for a moment, before habit (not reason) took over, and he walked over to drop down next to her on top of the blanket. He was out like a light-switched-off shortly thereafter, drifting off to her soft humming.
----
(???'s POV)
Reaching. Searching. They're not there. Reality placed into a standstill. No moving forwards without them. A quiet Void with no sound or light. Infinite and yet a realm without depth. No time. No space. No energy. In any of its forms. Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING. But they couldn't give up. They couldn't turn back. There was nothing back where they came from.
Circle around. They aren't there. Reaching. Clawing. Desperation. Falling apart at the seams. If they could just find them. Find the other. Cling to them for sustenance. The Void ripples. They're asleep. They dream.
But they're not HERE. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not HERE. Not HERE. N̟̪̩̗̣̒̏͒̏̑O͙̣̘̰̭ͬ̊T̛̑͂ͨ̋ͭͪ ̴̹̭̲͚̤̽H͌̋ͪͤ̿ͦE̬̠̟̳̦ͅR̼̰̘͈ͨ̕E̠̓͐̌̔ͯ.̶̗͓̺̻̅ͭ͌̓͒ ̙̲͙̯̹̪̽̑̒̈́͊̚N͔̍̆͗̿̎̈́O̘̞̤̞̝T̝͉̦̩͋̾͒̓̽ͦ̽ ̼͍̬̖ͣ͒ͩ̍H̠̹ͥ̄ͪͥͮ̒ͅE̩̙̜͍̩̹̘ͩ̊͒ͪ͛̈͐R̓̆ͪ̐ͧ̓̚͏̮͕E̜͇͚͈.̳ͭ͠
Clawing. Screaming. Desperation. Why weren't they here?! They were sleeping. Dreaming. They should be HERE!
Breaking apart. It was getting harder to hold themselves together. They needed another. They needed more power. Enough to keep together. Enough to survive so they could--
But they couldn't open it on their own. They couldn't get inside! They needed them. Needed them HERE. If they were together...
L̛ ̛g͜rq͠'w zd̡qw w͞r ̵g̡lvd̕ss͟h͝d͜u.͟..͝L̴ grq'҉w z̧dqw̧ ̨wr eh̛ ҉wkurzq͢ dzdb̵...soh̨dv͡h̢.̵.̡.so͢hd̡v͏h͡..̛..
A desperate scream even though they knew that no answer would come.
"⅃...T...O...⅃...O...X...A..."
The Void shook and rippled.
But nobody came.
----
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Mlzuum4
Mlzuum4 The BlueBill Arc is getting to be much longer than I expected...I...kinda had too much fun writing ＼(Ｔ∇Ｔ)／
For everyone looking forward to the TripletAU crossover, I'm sorry it's gonna take longer than I thought.