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[mothmansplaining]

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"Stanford Pines. Leave a message."

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[mothmansplaining]

One hand is holding champagne. The other is doing this.

[tetractys]

Ha, ha, okay, okay. Bill goes to tug at his extra finger to coax him into bringing the hand on his face back down. Come, on, Fordsy, don't be embarrassed.

"TECHNICALLY THE SECOND TIME WASN'T THE MISTLETOE."

[mothmansplaining]

Oh jeez don't talk to him about that second kiss. He's been trying very hard not to think about it.

"No," he admits. "Technically, it wasn't."

And now he's thinking about it, and the redness on his face is definitely 100% embarrassment. Absolutely just that.

[tetractys]

"YOU'RE SO RED," Bill coos. "OHH, FORD, YOU'RE SO MUCH FUN TO TEASE."

Ford doesn't pull out the 'no seriously stop' gesture, though, so he assumes this is all still fine.

[mothmansplaining]

"And you're an asshole," Ford grumbles. Nope, no gesture.

[tetractys]

"HA! YEAH."

But he's not worrying about the countdown now, is he? Bill wins.

"D'YOU WANNA DO IT AGAIN?"

[mothmansplaining]

Fucking fuck, Bill is absolutely doing this to get a reaction out of him. Once he's done taking a second to be speechless at the audacity, he shakes a finger at Bill.

"I'm not answering that." Don't dignify it with a response, Ford.

[tetractys]

So, big yes from Ford. The moment of speechlessness gets more giggles.

"IF YOU WANT ME TO TRUST YOU TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, THAT WAS MY LAST REASON TO NOT TRY SOMETHING."

Bill... likes this human very much. Ridiculous man. Endearing. Horribly honest. Brilliant - and so dense. Trusting him and treating him well might mean letting Ford decide what's best for Ford, even when that decision is stupid. Bill wants Ford safe more than he wants Ford happy with him ... but a very safe, very unhappy Ford was the same mistake that other Bill made, wasn't it.

[mothmansplaining]

"It--it's still a bad idea," Ford insists, very flustered. "Objectively. If there were an objective metric for bad ideas, this would be on it."

No gesture.

[tetractys]

Uh-huh.

"YEAH, SO'S PUNCHING A HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE TWICE."

[mothmansplaining]

"You tricked me into it the first time, and this time I have very good reasons!"

Man, he doesn't even sound actually mad about it when he talks about being tricked. The personal anger's cooled down a lot in the last several weeks. The energy in Ford's accusation is the same as before: flustered and defending his decisions without a sense of immediate high stakes.

[tetractys]

"WELL, ALRIGHT, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO I GUESS YOU DON'T WANT TO," Bill says, faux-breezily. He drifts away from Ford to sip his champagne.

[mothmansplaining]

"I didn't--"

Ford cuts himself off. Wow, that sure almost slipped out, didn't it. Nope, Bill's drifting off, better accept this dodged bullet and this reprieve from talking about making a very poor choice.

That's just....bad. For nebulous reasons Ford is having trouble defining.

Bill Cipher is a bad person. So is Ford, sometimes.

Bill Cipher does bad things. So does Ford.

Bill Cipher isn't trying to be a better person. But he is trying to treat Ford well enough that Ford doesn't leave, and he's changing whether he wants to or not.

Bill Cipher kissing is something his family wouldn't understand. His family is not here, and seeing them again is a nebulous goal, pushed further down the line than it was when Ford came to the Barge. Who knows what's going to happen between now and then? The shape of his future is very, very unclear.

Bill doesn't know how to stop manipulating him. But they're talking about it?

Bill is going to take over an unsuspecting dimension without mercy. But Ford already softened the effects of his plans, prevented a lot of harm. He's doing good, by being here. And the dimensional takeover was going to happen sooner or later.

Wow, he is having a very hard time pinning down a good, concrete reason. Having to think through the champagne buzz is making it even harder.

[tetractys]

"MMM~?"

Didn't what, Ford.

Just gonna let him stew in it. Just gonna look so available over here.

[mothmansplaining]

Bill does look very available. But this is Ford Pines, and as good as he is at kissing people, when it happens, he is even better at talking himself out of kissing, especially when the pressure's off. He can do this. The champagne feels like thick cotton in his forebrain.

Bill might just be making fun of him. Bill might be making fun of him and sincerely want to kiss him.

But either way, he should definitely not do it. The answer, clearly, is to take another sip of the champagne. "...never mind."

[tetractys]

Bill sighs and turns back around to face Ford.

"LOOK, I SAID I WASN'T GONNA MANAGE. YOU - YOU SEEM LIKE YOU WANT TO, BUT IT'S NOT MY CALL TO MAKE WHETHER WANTING TO IS ENOUGH."

He frowns.

"RIGHT? THAT'S RIGHT? That sounds like something a person would say, yeah. TRUTH BE TOLD, I'M NOT GOING TO SWEAT IT IF WE DON'T DO THE HUMAN SQUISHY MOUTH THING. I MEAN, IT'S SAD, BECAUSE YOU'RE GOOD AT IT, BUT IT'S NOT GONNA KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT. I JUST LIKE THE WAY YOU LIKE ME. I LIKE THE THINGS YOU THINK ABOUT ME! I LIKE TO BE IMPORTANT TO YOU! YOU'RE IMPORTANT TO ME TOO, I GUESS."

[mothmansplaining]

Oh.

Ford's going to stand there a moment, speechless again.

He's kind of forgotten that he's holding a glass.

"The, um. The imagination spell. It hasn't progressed enough to generate constructs, has it? The-- there isn't going to be another Bill who doesn't feel that way coming in in a minute, right?"

[tetractys]

Ford is staring.

"NOT IN A MINUTE! WE HAVE..."

The countdown announces: FOURTEEN MINUTES TO NEXT BREACH.

"A COUPLE MORE CYCLES OF LISTENING TO HER. I'D SAY AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR DAYS."

[mothmansplaining]

"Oh. I see."

Ohhh god.

"You...really feel that way?"

Oh god oh god.

[tetractys]

"I'M NOT SURE WHAT THIS REACTION IS!"

And he's starting to get concerned, because this is not as immediately rewarding and positive as he was expecting it to be.

[mothmansplaining]

Ford buries his face in a free hand. He's a little overwhelmed here, caught off guard again, feeling a lot of emotions. A deep, calming breath.

"I like being important to you, too," he admits simply, when he looks up. "It's still hard to believe sometimes that that's even possible."

[tetractys]

Bill frowns, a little, putting pieces together.

"DID YOU THINK IT WAS THE SPELL?"

Did he get it that right?

[mothmansplaining]

"I was concerned about the possibility."

Because yes a Bill who is game to kiss him but respects a no and who talks about liking him and how he's good at kissing in a way that is somehow not embarrassing and to whom he, Ford, is important, dangerously resembles a figment of his imagination.

[tetractys]

"HAH."

And that needs a sanity check on Bill's end. He doubles back on the conversation. Did he mean everything he said?

"MAYBE I'M MOVING TOO FAST? I DON'T KNOW, IT'S NOT LIKE I LOVE YOU, I JUST THINK YOU'RE PRETTY NEAT."

Pats Ford on the head. Pat pat.

"I'M A LITTLE DRUNK."

:D

[mothmansplaining]

Oof. Headpats. They're --

-- he's barely even annoyed. He's kind of not. There's like the ghost of an annoyance that's haunting out of a sense of obligation.

"Well, that makes two of us," Ford replies. "On, uh...on all of that."

A thought occurs to him, and he laughs, small but warmer than the one before. "You know, I really thought that kissing you would be a bad idea because it'd make it harder for me to kill you," he says. "This was back when we were singing at each other. It looks like I didn't need to kiss you for that to be a problem!" Another laugh, at himself, at the whole situation.