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[mothmansplaining]

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"Stanford Pines. Leave a message."

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[mothmansplaining]

"No, Bill, I'm not."

Truth.

Strange, that it hadn't been the very first thing to cross his mind when he saw Bill start to disappear. A while ago, it would have been. But that isn't why he volunteered himself for this.

[tetractys]

Bill looks at the ring.

Bill taps the ring. Is it broken? It keeps doing this.

???

He's so confused, dude, give him a minute.

[mothmansplaining]

That's okay. He'll wait.

"Was that it?"

[tetractys]

"NO. SO - YOU'RE HERE TO HELP ME?"

Huh.

"WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS."

[mothmansplaining]

Ford nods: yep, here to help.

"That's right. I told you already: you have what I need to get the answers I'm looking for." Ford doesn't realize he could do it on his own. This rings true. "Besides, if I had stayed on the Barge, I wouldn't be good for anything! Except for the insulation experiment, everything important is in your room, and I can't go in there unless you open the door and let me in. I'd rather be out here, working on the problem."

Fact.

[tetractys]

"YEAH, THAT MAKES SENSE..."

Bill considers, taps his little foot.

"YOU STILL GET A LOT BY LETTING ME DIE!"

[mothmansplaining]

"I'm not going to let you die just because it would be convenient!" Ford snaps, a little louder than he meant to. He glances in the direction of the tent. Got to keep his voice down.

"Although it would be very tempting."

All true.

[tetractys]

Bill let's people die all the time because it would be convenient. He squints at the ring.

"IS THIS A MORALITY THING?"

Bill pronounces 'morality' like it's a strange cultural quirk that Bill has never really understood.

[mothmansplaining]

"Yes, of course it--wait, what?"

The ring doesn't seem to think that counts as truth.

[tetractys]

Bill's legs go straight and he points.

"AHA!"

What are you up to?

[mothmansplaining]

Ford stares at his hand. He definitely thought this was a morals thing. Didn't he?

"Okay, let's try this again," he says, puzzled. "It would be ethically questionable to kill Bill Cipher through inaction."

True.

"Which is why I'm not doing it."

False!! False again?! Ford stares at the ring, taps it with another finger. Come on, he signed up for convincing Bill of the truth, not searching his own motivations!

[tetractys]

Bill balls his fists and puts them on his lower points.

"SIXER, DO YA NOT KNOW WHY YOU'RE HELPING ME?"

This is particularly annoying because if Ford doesn't know how the hell is Bill supposed to find out?

[mothmansplaining]

"I don't know! Do I?" Ford demands of the ring, which obnoxiously flashes at him.

"Apparently, I do know," he says, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "Okay. I just have to figure out what it is." Ford clears his throat and addresses the ring.

"It's a step towards graduation."

Flash.

"The wardens wouldn't understand."

Flash.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

Flash.

"Ugh! All right! I don't want you to die anymore."

No flash. But also, this isn't exactly news. Ford's expressed before that it doesn't matter if Bill is alive or dead as long as he's powerless to do large-scale harm.

[tetractys]

Bill watches this, increasingly unimpressed. He does lift his eyebrow at the last part, though.

Wow. That's going to make your life tough pretty soon, kid.

"IS IT BECAUSE I'M CHANGING?"

[mothmansplaining]

"Basically."

It's a bit more complicated than that: Ford's conviction that it's not too late for anyone, Bill showing more consideration than Ford thought was possible, this Bill's uniqueness and how destroying him feels a little like taking something infinitesimally rare out of the multiverse, Ford's guilt about the very real possibility that he'll be driven to do it anyway.

Also, they,..they make a better team than Ford is entirely comfortable with.

But the ring isn't built to call its wearer out for vagueness. The answer passes.

[tetractys]

Bill assumes most of this is projecting, for his part. Changing is something Ford is familiar with, it makes Bill more relatable.

Also, Ford has a big crush but they're not going to talk about that.

Bill settles down near him.

"I STILL DON'T KNOW WHY FREEZA IS HERE. PRETTY SURE HE'S JUST BORED. KINDA WISH HE'D GO HOME AND LEARN KNITTING!"

[mothmansplaining]

Nope. They're not.

Ford pulls the ring off and shrinks it back down to its original size. "Eh, he was going to join somebody's quest," he says noncommittally, assuming the interrogation's over. "Who knows? He might be useful to have around."

[tetractys]

"I, EH. THANKS."

For the help. For not making him figure this out alone like he's always done.

Bill takes the ring back, sticks it on his finger.

[mothmansplaining]

Ford stares. It takes him a moment to process what's happening. He looks at Bill, who just thanked him, and down at the ring, which seems like...an offer? A trade, maybe? A deal, so he doesn't feel like he's in Ford's debt.

(That feeling he felt, when Bill had gone all vague and panicky right after the first brick disappeared? The bad feeling?)

"...don't mention it."

(It feels better.)

But what to ask?

"...there's only one thing I want to know," Ford says, slow and deliberate. This is important. Like really, really important to him. "Is all of this...saying 'thank you,' this--" He makes the no-gesture illustratively, "--the theory about the Barge's real purpose...is it all just an act to get me to work on the portal?"

There might as well be a sign over Ford's head lit up in neon that reads TRUST ISSUES. If this had been a world that reshaped itself a little more flexibly, it probably would have appeared. But you gave him this baggage, Bill: you get to deal with it.

[tetractys]

Bill sighs. Oh well, another card on the table. "NAH."

True. He almost sounds like he wishes he were making it up. Damn, that'd be great.

"THE BARGE'S PURPOSE THING COULD HAVE BEEN ONE, BUT THE CHANGE OF CHARACTER WOULD BE TOO HARD TO SELL!"

...That's true. A little weird to think about. A good lie relies on reinforcing assumptions the mark has, not challenging them. You don't want to make them uncomfortable.

[mothmansplaining]

...that is an enormous relief. He'd been braced for evasion, to have to dig the truth out like he had the first time Bill had used the ring, to be confronted with the sinking realization he'd been tricked all over again.

Ford lets out a breath, and laughs. He's an old fool, he's probably still a sucker, but he's not the kind of fool he was most afraid of being. If Bill had been lying to him, and Ford didn't realize it until it was too late...

"Yes," he agrees, "it would be."

Wow, this is actually pretty okay. Bill's probably going to do something soon that'll mess it all up, but for now, Ford's in a beautiful fantasy land on a quiet night chasing a lead on a mystery and all his bigger, more complicated problems feel small and distant, left behind on the Barge. It's a good moment. Peaceful. He's happier than he's been (outside of DD&MD, of course) in a while.

[tetractys]

"IT'S BEEN FUN WORKING WITH YOU AGAIN."

A kind of callous, backhanded compliment if ever there was one, but true.

It's all going to be over, very soon, but right now it's been fun.

[mothmansplaining]

When that portal opens, everything is going to change. Ford doesn't know how, there are too many unknown factors for him to be able to predict much of anything about the other side, but once he gets there, he'll know what he has to do.

"I suppose it hasn't been too terrible. All things considered." Hang on. Is this teasing? It's a little bit somber, but Ford's still coming off the revelation that this wasn't all one big lie, which lightens it a lot. This is teasing. They work frighteningly well together, despite their occasional differences of opinion, and at points, when Ford's not thinking about how Bill's going to use this portal to get access to an unsuspecting universe and Ford's going to be confronted with a choice that's looking more horrible by the day, yes, it's even been fun.

It feels a little bit like they could do anything. Ford finds himself wishing for a moment that Bill had a goal besides...

"When you get there, to their dimension," Ford asks, a somber expression replacing the lightness from before, "what are you going to do?"

He knows he won't like the answer. He knows it won't stop him from helping Bill with the portal. He asks anyway.

[tetractys]

"I'M GONNA BE REAL! MAKE SURE NOBODY MADE ME BUT ME."

Bill holds up the ring to look at it in the dark. True.

"AND THEN I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO SAY WHATEVER I WANT, AND DO WHATEVER I WANT."

[mothmansplaining]

That last part is along the lines of what Ford was expecting. He's seen what Bill does when he's free from limits; Ford needs no clarification there. And Bill's implied before that there are things he can't say on the Barge.

But the first?

"Real?" Ford repeats, in a tone that says I have no idea what you're talking about. "What do you mean, real?" Bill's real now. Frustratingly real, in fact. Ford hasn't wondered about whether Bill is real or not since the 80s. Please tell him this isn't about to be a "brilliant scientist with paranoid delusions was imagining the demon in his head all along" award-winning movie, Ford really, really doesn't want that to be the case. He values his sanity.