I've been to plenty of dimensions that had it. Even if I hadn't, there's people here who go to space. All the time! I bet there's all kinds of technical manuals in the library.
[Ford crosses to the Enclosure door and shifts the tray so he can hold it with one hand, bracing it against a hip. He wiggles his fingers in front of the keypad, as if warming them up.]
Okay. Where are we going to go?
[Hm. Hm hm hm. It's their conversation up till now that makes Ford decide what he does: he programs in a space station, but one of the ones with artificial gravity so they can eat without anything floating off. It's all gleaming chrome and an enormous domed window with a beautiful view of an endless starfield with the arm of a spiral galaxy snaking through it.]
[There are seats around a low table near the center of the room, and a bar along the far wall. Ford settles at the table. He feels a touch on-edge, too much to immediately dig into the food they brought.]
[He blinks, surprised and caught off-guard by the question.]
Well, I...I admit, it wasn't easy. It, ah...it took a lot of time. Time I spent with you. Realizing that you'd changed -- become someone who didn't intend to harm me again, if you could help it. Someone who'd take more care with that than I ever thought possible!
[Bill's been good to him, lately. Better than some. Better than most, actually.]
BECAUSE IT WAS ALREADY OVER, RIGHT? IT WAS OVER WHEN I DIED.
[Bill glances up, but otherwise is staring determinedly at his tray. He has tea, a little pile of loose salt (?) and a hamburger, which he is dissecting into its component layers.]
Bill, I don't know how to tell you this in a way you'll actually believe, but fighting you was never a game for me.
[He has said it before, and he will say it again, even if it feels like talking to a brick wall.]
I know that's how you saw it, because you were so sure no one would ever defeat you. It was...fun, for you, to watch me get closer to doing it. To know that I was obsessed with bringing you down. But it wasn't fun for me.
[He hadn't been happy. Driven isn't the same as happy.
He doesn't have high hopes for Bill getting it this time, though. Bill always brushes it off, and it's not the hill Ford's going to die on.]
[Bill looks sort of ill, actually, and pushes his tray away.
Just rip off the band-aid. Just do it.]
I JUST DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE OVER. I DIDN'T CARE IF THAT'S WHAT WAS GOOD FOR ME, OR GOOD FOR YOU... I JUST THOUGHT IF I KEPT IT GOING, I COULD TURN IT AROUND.
[Because it isn't news to Ford that Bill wants him around in a favorite chess opponent way. But that isn't all of what's being said here. It's the past tense that's getting him here -- what does Bill mean, didn't?]
[God he's actually taking it a lot better than Bill thought he might.]
I THOUGHT THE MISTAKE WAS NOT KEEPING YOU AROUND, OR IT WAS JUST THE DIRECTOR GETTING IN MY WAY... BUT I COULDN'T GET ANY OF IT TO WORK THE SECOND TIME, EITHER. IT WAS JUST ME GETTING COCKY AND SCREWING UP, THAT'S WHAT WENT WRONG.
[Ford tries to piece together what those two statements have to do with one another, but....no, no he doesn't get how the second might explain the first. Bill thinks he's been overconfident? That he's just been doing what he wants, convinced it will work out, but that's been a mistake...? He wanted to keep the game going no matter what, and that's why he.....?]
So, you've realized you've been overconfident. But that can't be the only thing you came here to talk about. What are you really trying to say?
[Don't make him read between the lines here, he doesn't want to have to guess. Spell it out.]
[Oh, Ford's feelings are doing a lot of uncomfortable half-seen gymnastics over here. He's confused and concerned and worried -- this is going somewhere he doesn't want it to go, but he hasn't figured out yet where that is.
There's a piece of this Ford's not getting. What is he missing? Bill...Bill was using him, but not for the portal, or for anything he knew he wanted. He's sorry about using Ford, which means this is serious. But what was he using Ford for? To keep the game going?
Even after all of this, was Bill still thinking of Ford as an opponent, like he did before? And in that case, getting Ford on his side..."turning it around"....
Oh no. Oh, no no no. Has it been like that this whole time? All that talk, all those things he said about Ford mattering, being irreplaceable, about liking him -- was all that part of a game, to draw Ford in?
It seems impossible, the logical part of Ford says, the part that believed Bill about this because everything had made sense. Some of the revelations Ford had believed had come out under truth magic. Multiple kinds of truth magic.
But truth magic only works if you know what you're saying is a lie, he remembers.]
Are you saying you did -- all of this -- so you could feel like you won?
[Bill puts his eye in both hands, puts his elbows on the table.
He actually doesn't know. The happiness had been real. The frustration had been real. Enjoying Ford's company had been real.
But was did it just feel real because he'd been winning? Bill has no idea. He's supposed to know everything. Forget not knowing about other dimensions, he doesn't even know basic facts about his relationship.]
[What. W h a t. Under other circumstances, maybe, Ford would be gentler and more sympathetic, but....he is more than a little upset by the fact that Bill, the person whose idea this whole thing was, who drew Ford in by seeming to sincerely care, might....might have just been sincerely caring about winning.
He's a little upset about believing Bill sincerely cared and that turning out to be wrong again. It makes Ford feel very, very stupid.]
How do you not know? You were the one doing it!
This whole relationship was your idea! Are you telling me you don't know if what you actually wanted out of it was to prove you still won?!
[Wait, wait. It gets worse.]
--does being involved with you mean I lose?!
[Ford might be graduated, might be thoughtful, might have good intentions, but he is a knee-jerk emotional person, and this is too close to a lot of painful history for him to think clearly about, hey, remember how this arrangement means you don't have to battle for the fate of the multiverse? He doesn't remember anything that's at stake right now except his own emotions. And it is deeply fucked up to hear that in Bill's mind, being successfully lured into a romantic relationship is a losing condition.]
I KNOW WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO SAY BUT I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S TRUE OR NOT. I DON'T KNOW.
[He never thought he'd get to a point where not caring about what was true or false, just saying whatever propelled him through the conversation, would come back to bite him.
He never thought he'd actually lose sight of what was real and what wasn't in the midst of trying to confuse it for everybody else.
He definitely never thought using the fact that the universe is ambiguous and no one knows anything for sure as a weapon would end up being a double-edged one, that suddenly finding the truth would be critically important and it would be out of reach.
Self-loathing is a new one for Bill. It feels like the frustration he has when something totally irrational and stupid is in his way, but this time the irrational and stupid thing is his past self.]
I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU JUST ACCEPT THAT YOUR LIFE HAS CHANGED, Y'KNOW? I'VE SEEN YOU DO IT OVER AND OVER. BUT I CAN'T DO IT, FORD. I JUST WANTED TO GO BACK TO HOW IT WAS. I WASN'T HAPPY THEN EITHER, BUT IT WAS NEVER LIKE THIS. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME.
[Ford is angry, and upset, and betrayed, and already spiralling into what precautions he's going to have to take now --
-- but this doesn't feel the same as the first time Bill did it. It isn't a gleeful betrayal, it's an I was doing something to you I didn't mean to, and I'm sorry. The first time, all of Ford's feelings about Bill had burned up easier than dry paper, turning to smoke and hot fury. This time, he's still angry, but the old feelings won't catch. They're just kind of sitting here uselessly, refusing to turn into anything much. He doesn't want to feel for Bill, not until he knows for sure it's safe, but what Ford wants has never had much to do with his emotions.]
Surely not to Gravity Falls.
[The inflection on this is almost a question -- it's nicer than saying you don't have a home but Ford's not calm enough to ask, where would home be, if you went there?
WHAT, THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED? I KNOW. [VDZ KLV RZQ GLPHQVLRQ EXUQ] [It's fucking stupid. He wants to go home someplace that never wanted him, and was never a place to begin with.] [PLVVHV KRPH DQG FDQ'W UHWXUQ] IT'S STUPID. IT WAS STILL BETTER THAN HERE. THE SECOND DIMENSION WAS BETTER THAN HERE! I JUST ALWAYS THINK I'M TOO SMART FOR EVERYBODY AROUND ME, AND I SCREW IT UP. [VDBV KH'V KDSSB, KH'V D OLDU] [Bill looks up, finally.] [EODPH WKH DUVRQ IRU WKH ILUH] YOU DESERVE SOMEBODY THAT'S NOT GOING TO SCREW IT UP, FORD. I THINK YOU ALREADY DECIDED, BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT ANYWAY.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burning mention, really pretty rude joke about RL deaths
[Door opens back up! Here we are.]
BUUUT, EARTH TECHNOLOGY ISN'T ANYTHING. WE ALL KNOW THIS!
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[Ford crosses to the Enclosure door and shifts the tray so he can hold it with one hand, bracing it against a hip. He wiggles his fingers in front of the keypad, as if warming them up.]
Okay. Where are we going to go?
[Hm. Hm hm hm. It's their conversation up till now that makes Ford decide what he does: he programs in a space station, but one of the ones with artificial gravity so they can eat without anything floating off. It's all gleaming chrome and an enormous domed window with a beautiful view of an endless starfield with the arm of a spiral galaxy snaking through it.]
This'll work.
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OOH, YEAH! INFINITE VOID!
[One spaceship to another isn't what Bill would pick but eh, it's all backdrop. He sobers as he floats through the door and finds a place to set up.]
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He feels a touch on-edge, too much to immediately dig into the food they brought.]
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UH, SO.
[How to ... start this.]
LEMME ASK YOU SOMETHING THAT'S A LITTLE PERSONAL. BUT IT'S GOT A POINT, I PROMISE!
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[He's listening.]
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Well, I...I admit, it wasn't easy. It, ah...it took a lot of time. Time I spent with you. Realizing that you'd changed -- become someone who didn't intend to harm me again, if you could help it. Someone who'd take more care with that than I ever thought possible!
[Bill's been good to him, lately. Better than some. Better than most, actually.]
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[Bill glances up, but otherwise is staring determinedly at his tray. He has tea, a little pile of loose salt (?) and a hamburger, which he is dissecting into its component layers.]
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What was over, Bill?
[Seriously. He has no idea what Bill is talking about.]
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Bill, I don't know how to tell you this in a way you'll actually believe, but fighting you was never a game for me.
[He has said it before, and he will say it again, even if it feels like talking to a brick wall.]
I know that's how you saw it, because you were so sure no one would ever defeat you. It was...fun, for you, to watch me get closer to doing it. To know that I was obsessed with bringing you down. But it wasn't fun for me.
[He hadn't been happy. Driven isn't the same as happy.
He doesn't have high hopes for Bill getting it this time, though. Bill always brushes it off, and it's not the hill Ford's going to die on.]
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Just rip off the band-aid. Just do it.]
I JUST DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE OVER. I DIDN'T CARE IF THAT'S WHAT WAS GOOD FOR ME, OR GOOD FOR YOU... I JUST THOUGHT IF I KEPT IT GOING, I COULD TURN IT AROUND.
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...what are you saying here, exactly?
[Because it isn't news to Ford that Bill wants him around in a favorite chess opponent way. But that isn't all of what's being said here. It's the past tense that's getting him here -- what does Bill mean, didn't?]
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I THOUGHT THE MISTAKE WAS NOT KEEPING YOU AROUND, OR IT WAS JUST THE DIRECTOR GETTING IN MY WAY... BUT I COULDN'T GET ANY OF IT TO WORK THE SECOND TIME, EITHER. IT WAS JUST ME GETTING COCKY AND SCREWING UP, THAT'S WHAT WENT WRONG.
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So, you've realized you've been overconfident. But that can't be the only thing you came here to talk about. What are you really trying to say?
[Don't make him read between the lines here, he doesn't want to have to guess. Spell it out.]
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[He didn't come here to apologize, actually, he came here to maybe vent frustration and ask advice.]
I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW. I'M JUST - SORRY. I'M SORRY.
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There's a piece of this Ford's not getting. What is he missing? Bill...Bill was using him, but not for the portal, or for anything he knew he wanted. He's sorry about using Ford, which means this is serious. But what was he using Ford for? To keep the game going?
Even after all of this, was Bill still thinking of Ford as an opponent, like he did before? And in that case, getting Ford on his side..."turning it around"....
Oh no. Oh, no no no. Has it been like that this whole time? All that talk, all those things he said about Ford mattering, being irreplaceable, about liking him -- was all that part of a game, to draw Ford in?
It seems impossible, the logical part of Ford says, the part that believed Bill about this because everything had made sense. Some of the revelations Ford had believed had come out under truth magic. Multiple kinds of truth magic.
But truth magic only works if you know what you're saying is a lie, he remembers.]
Are you saying you did -- all of this -- so you could feel like you won?
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[Bill puts his eye in both hands, puts his elbows on the table.
He actually doesn't know. The happiness had been real. The frustration had been real. Enjoying Ford's company had been real.
But was did it just feel real because he'd been winning? Bill has no idea. He's supposed to know everything. Forget not knowing about other dimensions, he doesn't even know basic facts about his relationship.]
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[What. W h a t. Under other circumstances, maybe, Ford would be gentler and more sympathetic, but....he is more than a little upset by the fact that Bill, the person whose idea this whole thing was, who drew Ford in by seeming to sincerely care, might....might have just been sincerely caring about winning.
He's a little upset about believing Bill sincerely cared and that turning out to be wrong again. It makes Ford feel very, very stupid.]
How do you not know? You were the one doing it!
This whole relationship was your idea! Are you telling me you don't know if what you actually wanted out of it was to prove you still won?!
[Wait, wait. It gets worse.]
--does being involved with you mean I lose?!
[Ford might be graduated, might be thoughtful, might have good intentions, but he is a knee-jerk emotional person, and this is too close to a lot of painful history for him to think clearly about, hey, remember how this arrangement means you don't have to battle for the fate of the multiverse? He doesn't remember anything that's at stake right now except his own emotions. And it is deeply fucked up to hear that in Bill's mind, being successfully lured into a romantic relationship is a losing condition.]
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[He never thought he'd get to a point where not caring about what was true or false, just saying whatever propelled him through the conversation, would come back to bite him.
He never thought he'd actually lose sight of what was real and what wasn't in the midst of trying to confuse it for everybody else.
He definitely never thought using the fact that the universe is ambiguous and no one knows anything for sure as a weapon would end up being a double-edged one, that suddenly finding the truth would be critically important and it would be out of reach.
His eye stays in his hands.]
I DON'T KNOW.
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Bill doesn't want him. He wants the satisfaction of winning.
If Bill doesn't want him, Ford doesn't have leverage to negotiate. At least, not like he thought.
If Ford doesn't have leverage, he can't trust Bill.
If he can't trust Bill, they can't do this.
And if they can't do this, they have to go back to how they were.]
....was there anything else I should know about?
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Self-loathing is a new one for Bill. It feels like the frustration he has when something totally irrational and stupid is in his way, but this time the irrational and stupid thing is his past self.]
I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU JUST ACCEPT THAT YOUR LIFE HAS CHANGED, Y'KNOW? I'VE SEEN YOU DO IT OVER AND OVER. BUT I CAN'T DO IT, FORD. I JUST WANTED TO GO BACK TO HOW IT WAS. I WASN'T HAPPY THEN EITHER, BUT IT WAS NEVER LIKE THIS. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME.
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-- but this doesn't feel the same as the first time Bill did it. It isn't a gleeful betrayal, it's an I was doing something to you I didn't mean to, and I'm sorry. The first time, all of Ford's feelings about Bill had burned up easier than dry paper, turning to smoke and hot fury. This time, he's still angry, but the old feelings won't catch. They're just kind of sitting here uselessly, refusing to turn into anything much. He doesn't want to feel for Bill, not until he knows for sure it's safe, but what Ford wants has never had much to do with his emotions.]
Surely not to Gravity Falls.
[The inflection on this is almost a question -- it's nicer than saying you don't have a home but Ford's not calm enough to ask, where would home be, if you went there?
Neither of them has a home anymore.]
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[VDZ KLV RZQ GLPHQVLRQ EXUQ]
[It's fucking stupid. He wants to go home someplace that never wanted him, and was never a place to begin with.]
[PLVVHV KRPH DQG FDQ'W UHWXUQ]
IT'S STUPID. IT WAS STILL BETTER THAN HERE. THE SECOND DIMENSION WAS BETTER THAN HERE! I JUST ALWAYS THINK I'M TOO SMART FOR EVERYBODY AROUND ME, AND I SCREW IT UP.
[VDBV KH'V KDSSB, KH'V D OLDU]
[Bill looks up, finally.]
[EODPH WKH DUVRQ IRU WKH ILUH]
YOU DESERVE SOMEBODY THAT'S NOT GOING TO SCREW IT UP, FORD. I THINK YOU ALREADY DECIDED, BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT ANYWAY.
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