Work Text:
Stanford Pines survived thirty years in the multiverse, hopping between dimensions and racking up a rather impressive bounty, but somehow, this was the most uncomfortable he’d ever been.
He tapped his fingers together, drumming them like piano keys. Bill sat to his left on their shared sofa, eye turned toward a lamp in the corner. Across from them, in an armchair, sat the Orb of Healing Light—Bill’s therapist for two years (or, if Bill’s claim was true, 1,655 years; time moved differently here). She had decided to take on a humanoid form when Ford agreed to the Theraprism’s first-ever attempt at ‘couples counseling’, but her form and pronouns changed frequently; today, she had settled on feminine.
The clock ticked as she stared at them both. Bill kept his hands folded on his lap, saying nothing, so Ford sighed and adjusted his glasses. “Bill, if you don’t say anything, I will.”
“There’s nothing to say, Sixer,” Bill said, trying to sound light but failing.
While nearly 2,000 years in Axolotl-mandated therapy might have tempered Bill’s anger, underlying trauma, and psychopathic tendencies, it had done absolutely nothing for his stubbornness. Unfortunately for him, Ford was just as stubborn, so he leaned forward and said, “I apologize if this is outside of your scope, but we’ve been having some… communication problems in the bedroom.”
The Healing Light said nothing for a moment. “Intimacy-wise, you mean?”
Bill sighed like a petulant child. Ford ignored it and confirmed, "Yes. We've discussed this in private, but I feel like we never get to the heart of the matter on our own."
“What have you discussed, exactly?”
Ford closed his eyes and collected himself. “When we are… intimate… I feel as though he—” The Healing Light gestured to Ford’s left, and Ford took the cue, turning towards Bill. “I feel as though you’re not enjoying it.”
Bill scoffed, finally turning to look at Ford. His eye quirked up smugly. “You think I don’t enjoy getting to absolutely rail you, Fordsy? ‘Cause I do. It’s awesome making you come.”
Ford flushed bright red at Bill’s candor, but he didn’t get a chance to respond. “Bill,” the Healing Light said gently. “Are you saying that because you mean it? Or do you want to make him uncomfortable because you’re uncomfortable?”
Bill’s eye widened slightly, glancing over to her. “…Told you we should’ve gotten someone new.”
Ford smiled despite the heat flushing his cheeks. “You just hate that she knows all of your tricks.”
The Healing Light didn’t have a face, exactly, but Ford got the feeling she was smiling, if only a little. “If you feel comfortable discussing it, what exactly is your concern, Stanford?”
Ford glanced aside, his smile fading. "You are attentive, Bill, and I'm always satisfied, but..." He looked up to the Healing Light, anxiety blooming in his chest again. He never imagined in a million years that he’d be discussing his sex life with a therapist. "I've never seen him finish. When I'm done, he detaches. He doesn't like it if I touch him afterward."
“Pfft!” Bill rolled his eye, crossing his legs up onto the sofa. “I’m a stone top, Fordsy. I’ve told you that.”
The Healing Light hummed quietly, collecting her thoughts for a moment before asking, “Why do you think you don’t like being touched?”
“I don’t mind being touched, but the last thing I need is you slicing your hand open on one of my angles. It’s a practicality thing.”
“But it starts to feel one-sided.” Ford shifted to face Bill again. “Like being with me that way is an obligation for you.” Ford had learned the intricacies of Bill’s body language well by now, and from the way Bill stilled, looking at Ford from the side of his eye, he knew that Bill was starting to feel scrutinized. So it was Ford’s turn to pull back, taking a breath to center himself. “It’s not a judgment on you. I just want to know if there’s anything I can do to make it more enjoyable for you, or if there’s something that’s not working.”
The Healing Light was silent, simply watching the exchange. Bill looked away, eye narrowing in thought, but said nothing. The silence lingered for a good thirty seconds before the Healing Light asked, “What are you thinking right now?”
Bill’s eye shifted away from both of them. “It’s stupid.” He paused, turning to Ford to quickly add, “Not you! But this whole…” He waved his hand, gesturing to himself. “I do like it. Touching is just a little, uh… tricky with me. I don’t really have any way for you to pay me back without shedding.”
“Shedding?”
Bill raised a hand and knocked on his chest, letting the dull ‘thunk’ it made speak for itself. “I can get into Euclidean anatomy if you want. Wanna take notes?” Ford hated that Bill knew him so well. He pulled his journal—Journal #4, the one he’d started when he and Stan had set out to investigate anomalies—out of his jacket and leaned forward. “Okay, so Euclideans were two-dimensional, right? They had an outline, and inside that were all their gross, organic bits. When they wanted to get it on, they had to shed the outline first. When I ascended, my ‘outline’ became an exoskeleton, because otherwise my guts would just be floating around in space, and no one wants to see that, but the physics work the same way. If you wanna get really physical, I have to shed this.”
Ford was a scientist, first and foremost, and the logical part of his brain stepped in here. He quickly scrawled down the notes, focusing on getting the information down. He’d have to attempt to draw a diagram later. “Stanford?” The Healing Light asked.
“Give him a minute,” Bill said. “Once he writes that down, he’ll come back.”
As soon as Ford finished writing and looking over the words again, he closed the journal and looked up. “Sorry. Yes.” He took a moment to really process Bill’s words, eyebrows furrowing as he returned to the moment. “So… the pyramid part is just a shell?”
“A very handsome shell, thank you very much.”
“Of course.” Ford mulled that over. “…And to shed it would make you…”
“Squishy.”
“Vulnerable.”
They spoke at the same time, and Bill went silent again as he stared at Ford. Then he let out a frustrated sound, flopping back against the sofa. “It all comes back to that stupid vulnerability thing,” he groaned. Ford grimaced sympathetically. Vulnerability had always been Bill’s emotional weakness; he chalked it up to being on his own for the better part of a trillion years.
The Healing Light laughed quietly, producing a few light chiming sounds. “Unfortunately, that’s what it means to have a relationship with someone. Trusting someone to accept you can be scary. Considering the experiences you’ve shared with me, I can understand why you’d be hesitant to make yourself even more vulnerable. But would you say your relationship with Stanford has generally been a positive one?”
Bill sat upright with a sigh. “Yeah.”
The Healing Light uncrossed her legs, letting one leg touch the floor and crossing the other one over her knee. “Then perhaps ‘shedding’ is something to consider. I’m not saying you should jump into anything. If this is something you’d like to work on, I highly recommend you start slow. Especially given your anatomical differences.”
“We haven’t been having any problems on that part so far.” The words escaped Ford so abruptly that he barely realized it, and once he did, he buried his face in his hands. Bill made a strangled sound that eventually bloomed into gregarious laughter.
The crowd of tourists at the Mystery Shack was surprisingly thick for the middle of fall. Then again, Halloween was around the corner, and Soos and Melody had done a great job of bringing the Shack into the modern era. To avoid any wayward tourists following them, thinking they were going through a back entrance, Bill and Ford had to sneak past the crowd when they came home from their session. Soos was gracious enough to let them stay here whenever Ford and Stan decided to take a break from their sailing adventures. “Even nicer that you two have a place to feel each other up where I don’t have to watch,” Stan had grumbled to Ford their first night back.
Ford hadn’t expected his relationship with Bill to return to ‘lovers,’ or to get physical so quickly. Apparently, at Bill’s request, he had come back to Earth to finish out the ‘make amends’ part of his sentence, and had immediately re-attached himself to Ford. The first months were tense, even with Bill insisting he’d learned his lesson. But late-night theorizing, chess games, and sincere, rough-edged apologies had slowly rebuilt their friendship.
And, at the end of those first few months, Ford was shocked to find himself falling for his former nemesis all over again.
Two days after their counseling session, Ford sat in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea as he watched Melody decorate the back porch with Halloween garland. Bill quietly floated in to hover next to him. He said nothing, but Ford could feel his eye on him, and he asked, “Yes?”
Bill lowered himself to Ford's eye level. "So you know my thing about letting people in." His eye shifted away. "…Letting you do to me what I do to you means… I have to do that. Let you in. Literally."
Ford set his mug down and held out his hand. Bill hesitantly took it. “I understand.” He looked at their hands, Bill’s almost comically small in his palm. “I’m not asking you to let me do anything to you,” he said, gently rubbing his thumb over the back of Bill’s hand. “I’d just like to be able to reciprocate. And… I want you to know how proud I am of how far you’ve come.”
“Shut up.” Bill’s voice was sharp, defensive, but Ford silently repeated to himself that it was an automatic response—a shield against feeling exposed. This was how Bill reacted to any acknowledgment of his progress, proof that he was not entirely the monster he once was.
“I will not ‘shut up’. I mean it. Two years ago—hell, thirty years ago—you would have never felt comfortable telling me what is bothering you. You would have lied, blamed me, distracted me with some schemes, or played into my insecurities.” Ford gently wrapped his hand around Bill’s. “I am proud of you.”
Bill stared silently. “…Yeah, well… the whole ‘party all day, rule the universe by night’ thing was getting kind of stale,” he muttered, a thin layer of bravado barely covering the truth. “Being here with you is way more interesting. Prommy.”
“Bill, I love you dearly.” Ford smiled at Bill. “But please, stop saying ‘prommy’.”
Bill wriggled his hand free and crossed his arms in a pout. “Wow! Way to censor me.” Ford stood up, kissing just above Bill’s eye before taking his mug to the sink. “…You’re lucky you’re cute.” And then Melody called for someone to help her reach something, and Bill flew out to assist almost immediately. Ford watched through the window with a smile.
And when Bill led Ford into the forest that night to take on a more monstrous, segmented form and fuck him against a tree, so many hands touching him that he could barely think straight, Ford couldn’t help but feel like something was shifting as one of Bill’s hands took his own, fingers winding together. Even more so when Bill spent the rest of the night cleaning him up and gently picking bark off his back.
Two nights later, when Soos and Melody went out for a date night, and Stan settled in to watch TV in the living room until he passed out in his chair, Bill suggested they head down to the now-defunct portal room, which had been repurposed as a kind of storage-slash-panic room. Ford figured that, whatever Bill had in mind, he wanted to get loud, so he went along with it, following Bill down. “What schemes do you have planned this time, Cipher?” he said with a false bravado.
Bill reacted just as he expected, squinting at him playfully. “C’mon, Fordsy, I’m a changed triangle.” Ford crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow. “…Okay, maybe I do have a scheme floating around in here, but it’s a good one, prommy—I mean, promise.”
Ford fought to hold back a smile. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
Bill floated forward and took Ford’s wrists. “You bring your journal? We’re gonna do some scientific observation on Euclidean anatomy.”
Ford’s eyes widened in surprise, and he could no longer hide his smile. “Really now?” He paused, letting the gravity of Bill’s statement settle on him, and tempered his excitement. “I would have to go get it… Are you sure?”
“No. So we gotta do this quick before I bail out on you.” Bill pulled back, hands clasped in front of him, clearly trying to look nonchalant, even as his voice was filled with nervous energy. “Full disclosure: what I’m about to show you is a, uh… milder flavor of the thing that drove your hillbilly buddy completely bonkers. So if you can’t take the heat, you can look away. You’re plenty crazy already, I don’t need you turning into a total idiot.”
“Let me get my things.” Ford departed to go grab his journal from his room. Stan was already passed out in his chair, and Ford took a moment to watch him. They didn’t have to worry about him interrupting anything for a while, at least. He returned to the basement to see Bill floating in tight circles—it was strange to see him so outwardly nervous. Ford sat on the floor and opened up a page, pen at the ready. “Okay.”
Bill huffed a nervous laugh. “Alright.” He blinked slowly, his eye opening wide—and then, two arms slid out from the corners of his eye, bracing themselves against his own angles. What happened next was a bit hard to comprehend, and Ford didn’t even draw it happening, his hand frozen on the page, too absorbed in the way Bill’s body cracked and peeled like sunburn as he pulled himself out of it.
Honestly, it was a bit hard to focus. The shape was like a pile of snakes made of meat twisting into each other, Bill’s eye centered in the midst of the mess. Thankfully, it quickly reformed, solidified, and was consumed by a thin layer of yellow. Just like that, Bill was back, except he somehow seemed flatter than usual, the bricks of his pyramid design conspicuously absent. He reached back to his old body and plucked the hat away, placing it back on his new head before snapping his fingers to incinerate the remains. “Ta-dah.”
Ford stared. He had no idea what he had just watched, how to even write it down, or what to say. Eventually, he settled on, “…’Shed’ was a very accurate term to use.”
“Right? Like I said, that was tame. In the Nightmare Realm, when I wanted to eat a galaxy or two, I went full starfish mode.”
The thought made Ford feel a little queasy, honestly, but he wrote it down anyway. “You look… different.”
Bill crossed his arms, although the movement was a bit sluggish. Careful, almost. “Well yeah. This is the closest you’ll ever get to Bill, Euclydia-style. Gimme some time and I'll get some depth back in me.” Ford closed the journal and watched Bill closely. His eye was averted, and there was a light red undertone to his usual yellow hue. As if he was blushing.
It wasn’t lost on him what a step this was, for Bill to show him something so… private. And that he was trusting him with this. “Thank you,” he said, reaching out to take Bill’s hand. It was softer than usual, lacking the hard edges of his normal hand. It was only then that he noticed Bill’s limbs were yellow, as well, not their usual chitinous black. Bill tremored at the touch, gasping quietly and yanking his hand away. Ford reacted in turn, pulling back with wide eyes. “Oh—I’m sorry, did that hurt you?”
“It felt some kinda way,” Bill said after a second, staring down at his hands. “Sensitive? That was weird.”
Ford pulled the journal back out to note that, as well. “I wasn’t expecting geometry to be insectile in nature.”
“Hm, yeah. I guess we kinda were.” Bill was still staring at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly. Then, he looked up, reaching out to rest his hand on Ford’s, fingers twitching in mild discomfort. “Huh. You’re so warm.”
“You couldn’t tell that before?”
“Logically, yeah. Body temperatures and whatever. But actually feeling it is crazy.” Ford took a careful breath, setting the journal aside and turning his hand to let Bill’s nestle in his palm. He let his fingers graze up to Bill’s wrist, fascinated by the way Bill’s eye widened. “Whoaaa-kay. Wowie.”
“How long has it been since you last, ah… shed?”
Bill didn’t answer for a long moment, his eye darting around as if it would help him remember. “…Not since Euclydia. I don’t have to do it anymore, really, not since I figured out shapeshifting.”
“So this is the first time in a trillion years that you’re—” Ford let his hand drift up Bill’s arm, and the whine Bill made was so high-pitched that he thought he was hearing things at first. “…Sensitive,” he affirmed.
Bill pulled his arm away and floated back a little, putting some space between them. “Yeah. Wild.” His voice shook slightly. “Anyway. Judging from the way your eyes glazed over, that wasn’t as much of an ‘anatomy’ lesson as it was Lovecraftian strip show, huh?”
Ford barked out a laugh. “I learned a few things either way.”
He spent the rest of the night drawing what he could remember of the process—the twisting tendrils of organic matter, the pale yellow of Bill’s new shell, the way it slowly hardened and shifted hues over the next few hours… and the newfound sensitivity. He tapped his pen against the desk thoughtfully. They’d have to take this slow, just like the Healing Light had said.
Bill made his move a week later. He’d been a bit more touchy than normal, and the Healing Light had been pleased to hear about the shedding research, but things hadn’t changed too much since then. Ford had just returned from an excursion to properly map out the section of forest that contained the size-altering crystals to find a cipher scrawled on a Post-it note. Bill was nowhere in sight.
It wasn’t hard to imagine that Bill had gotten himself into some kind of trouble—despite turning a new leaf, he had a knack for finding it (and for finding parties), so Ford was relieved when the cipher simply said, “PORTAL ROOM. ASAP. BRING THAT SEXY BRAIN OF YOURS.” Bill had many middle names, allegedly, but ‘subtle’ wasn’t one of them. Ford steeled himself for whatever his partner might have planned for him before heading down to the ‘portal room’.
Bill was lounging on a stack of storage boxes, sipping a martini. Another one sat precariously next to him, and Bill held it out to Ford as he approached. “There’s my guy!” Ford accepted the drink, eyeing it for a moment. It seemed like an ordinary martini, but personal experience told him that Bill liked his drinks strong, so he took a cautious sip. It burned, and he must have made a face because Bill laughed. “Sorry. Keep forgetting you can’t hang like I can.”
“I can ‘hang’. I used to ‘hang’ quite frequently in the library,” Ford said defensively, giving himself a moment to settle down on the floor before taking another sip, which went down much smoother.
Bill’s eye squinted in a particularly fond way, and he reached out to muss Ford’s hair. “What a nerd,” he said.
“Are we just drinking in a storage room, then?”
Bill finished off his drink and set the glass aside. “I was thinking about the whole ‘shedding’ thing. In retrospect, Euclidean sex ed was forever ago, and I forgot that we’re pretty sensitive post-shed. But I could use a refresher course. So…” Bill’s eye narrowed impishly. “Wanna try again?”
Ford took another sip of his martini, contemplating. “…If it’s too much, you’ll tell me, right? You jumped just from me touching your hand.”
Bill waved his hand dismissively. “I wasn’t ready for it then. Now we know what to expect!” Ford said nothing, leveling Bill with as expectant a stare as he could muster. After a second, Bill sighed. “Okay, fine.”
“Communication is the heart of a relationship, Bill.”
“Ugh. You’re turning me off here, Sixer.”
Ford relented with a brief smile. He’d fix that soon, hopefully. “I just have one request: I want to see the shed again.”
Before he could explain his reasoning (he had kind of blanked out at the sight of all that meat and wanted to see it now that he knew what to expect), Bill barked out a laugh. “Oh, you bet. Maybe this time, you can take a picture—it lasts longer.”
An arm was already creeping out of the corner of Bill’s eye before Ford could say anything. He quickly set his drink down and stammered, “Bill! L-let me get my journal first!”
“You’re a smart guy,” Bill purred, his other arm slipping out. The implied praise set off a pleasant tingling in a part of Ford’s brain. “You can commit it to memory, can’t you?”
Ford swallowed hard, any possible rebuttal dying in his throat. Not that it would have mattered, because Bill had apparently committed to the shed, slipping free of his old body. He seemed to move more slowly this time, though–or maybe it just felt that way, as Ford couldn’t look away. He didn’t have his journal in his hands as a minor distraction, so he took it all in, his mind straining a bit with effort.
It was… a mess of meaty tendrils, all coiling together like they couldn’t quite remember how to fit into a cohesive shape. Frankly, the mess was so big that Ford thought there was physically no way it all fit into Bill’s body, which usually averaged 4 feet tall. One of the tendrils reached out to slide under his pant leg and against his ankle, snapping Ford from his thoughts as the touch stirred something in his stomach.
As quickly as it came, the tendril slipped away, joining the rest of the mess and reforming into the familiar triangular shape Ford knew well, shifting to a pale yellow. “Your eyes didn’t even glaze over that time,” Bill said breathlessly once his new body finished, incinerating the old one just like before, but leaving his hat on the floor for now.
“That’s… one way to desensitize.”
Bill hovered closer, reaching his hands out. “Here’s another.” Ford smiled and took one last drink of his martini for courage before taking Bill’s hands, completely enveloping them in his own. He didn’t miss the way Bill seemed to tense up at the contact, and he rubbed his thumbs along the backs of Bill’s wrists to reassure him, momentarily forgetting why they were doing this in the first place. “Mm. Okay,” Bill said with an uncertain laugh.
Spurred by that, Ford let go just enough to move his hands up, sliding down Bill’s arms. He didn’t whine this time, but his breath shook, pupil shrinking impossibly thin as he watched Ford’s hands move. “Is that okay?” Ford asked quietly, watching Bill’s eye for any indication that he was overwhelmed or in pain.
“Yeah.” Bill took the initiative to settle his hands on Ford's shoulders. Touch was always how Bill had initiated sex, seeming to enjoy the ritual of turning Ford into a squirming mess using only his hands. But knowing now that Bill had been feeling through an exoskeleton that entire time, Ford was curious how it must feel now that his senses were amplified. Ford took the plunge and reached up, his fingers grazing the base of Bill’s arm, right at the junction of where it met his body. “Ah!” Bill jolted again, his hands flinching away for just a moment before he dug his fingers into Ford’s sweater. Curiously, his eye seemed to grow damp, and Bill started blinking back the moisture.
“A good ‘ah’ or a bad one?”
“Good ‘ah’.” Ford smiled and touched him again, watching Bill’s eye roll upward for a moment in delight before he snapped back into focus. “Mm–like being on the other side of this, Sixer?”
“I can see the appeal.” Ford’s hand drifted inward to touch Bill’s actual body, but he was only just barely able to press his fingers against the angle before Bill’s fingers dug into his shoulders again, painfully this time.
“Hhhhhhholy fuck, Ford,” Bill groaned, his pupil becoming a tiny black dot in an expanse of white.
“Really? That sensitive?”
“Gee, I dunno, is it sensitive when I do—” Bill reached down to yank up Ford’s sweater, hands dragging down his stomach, drifting to the waistband of his pants. “This?”
Ford sucked in a breath. “Touché.” He pulled back, taking gentle hold of Bill’s wrists. “Need a moment?”
“Nope.” Bill leaned back to settle on the floor, pulling Ford down to lean over him. Ford could almost see his reflection in the sheen of liquid pooling in his eye, distracting him only until Bill slipped a hand into his pants. “Slow the roll, but don’t hit the brakes just yet.”
Ford huffed quietly, flushing. “Okay.” Carefully, he pressed one finger against Bill’s angle, barely applying any pressure. When Bill sucked in a breath but did nothing else, Ford pressed harder. Bill was… not ‘squishy’, like he’d insisted in therapy, but there was definitely more give than usual. It almost felt like poking a tub of frozen gelatin. Bill’s eye shuttered, half-lidded as he watched Ford, his own hands remaining still.
Ford pressed his entire palm against the angle and slowly slid up, and the way Bill’s eye rolled completely back with a borderline moan made Ford’s dick stir to life. He sighed quietly, focusing on feeling out Bill’s form, the way that the points had softened and became gentle curves. Bill eventually reached up to grab Ford’s hand and direct it down, then over, hovering just under his eye. Experimentally, Ford pressed his hand gently against Bill’s torso. His hand settled against the plane of yellow like it was a pool of water, surface tension pressing back to mold against his six fingers. Bill’s eye closed entirely, his body pulsing with steady breaths.
Fascinated, Ford used both hands to map the surface of Bill’s body, settling to wrap around his angles. His brain was going in two separate directions: one was fascinated to feel his partner in such a new way, and the other was taking logistical notes, information to furiously scrawl in his journal afterward. And honestly, the two were overlapping in a way that was making him so hard that it was starting to feel uncomfortable.
He shifted to relieve the pressure in his briefs, accidentally pressing down harder against Bill’s chest. Without warning, Bill’s eye shot open, tears pouring freely to cover Ford’s hands as he pressed into them with a strangled, ecstatic sound. It took everything for Ford to stay still, his heart pounding in his chest. Bill’s eye flashed in different colors before he collected himself, his pupil rolling back down in a thin line. “Fuck, Ford,” he groaned, his tongue slipping from under his eye to lap up the excess fluid. “Whoo!”
“Are you alright?”
Bill gave him a thumbs-up with a breathless laugh. “Never better. You, on the other hand…” Ford bit back a strangled groan as a third arm grew out of Bill’s body to press a firm hand between his legs. “Examination kink unlocked, huh?”
“I’m an intellectual,” Ford said weakly. “…does that actually exist?”
“Ohhh yeah.” Bill’s eye curved up teasingly. “Lucky for you, I don’t mind if you’re the one getting up close and personal… I don’t wanna leave you hanging. Ready to see how Euclideans bone?”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to overwhelm you.” Ford pulled his hands away to point out the sudden downpour of tears he’d triggered, but quickly realized that what had poured out of Bill’s eye was not tears. It was thicker, more slippery, closer to mucus than liquid. Strange; aqueous humor, maybe?
“Fordsy, Fordsy, Fordsy,” Bill sighed, reaching up to wrap his free arms around Ford’s neck and pull him down. “We don’t stop until I say we stop. Got it?” The command in his voice was familiar. So Ford just let his head fall back, letting out a shaky breath as Bill pulled down his zipper and undid his fly. “There we go.”
Ford pulled away to help, but it was only when his pants were around his ankles that he thought to ask, “How does this work?”
Bill paused, third arm retracting and eye shifting to look down at their bodies, inches apart. “Just shove it in, I’ll adapt.” Ford eyed him warily. “I’m serious. That’s probably the closest we can get to doing it ‘right’.”
Ford hesitated. On the one hand, Bill probably knew his own limits, but on the other, he had more or less admitted that he was flying blind here. Eventually, he gave in with a sigh. “As long as you tell me if something’s wrong.” Bill held up a two-fingered salute with one hand; the other hand drew a single finger up his cock as if to entice him further. Ford let out a strangled grunt and shifted up, suddenly not caring too much anymore whether this was physically possible or correct.
It only felt right to aim between Bill’s legs, but that same surface tension pressed back against him, refusing to budge. “Come onnnn,” Bill urged, his voice sickeningly encouraging. “Come AH—” Whatever he was going to say cut off in a sharp cry as, with a little more pressure, something gave, and his body parted, letting Ford press in almost to the hilt. Bill’s eye violently rolled back in his head, humor pouring out and starting to pool on the floor underneath him.
Whatever orifice had opened to let Ford in was lubricated, which Ford only took a split second to appreciate before he realized it was moving. Something was shifting against him, and instinct kicked in; he took hold of Bill’s angles again and thrust shallowly to start, biting back a groan. But the things inside Bill seemed to lack patience as they twisted around his cock, and he quickly followed their lead, abandoning caution to pick up a harsh but measured pace. “Ngh, fuck, Bill.”
“Fuck yeah, fuck yeah,” Bill encouraged, and Ford could swear his pupil was shaped like a little heart. It quickly shifted when Ford’s thumb drifted close to Bill’s eye, the pupil straightening and thinning to a knife’s edge as he snapped to attention. His tongue slipped from his lower lid to lap at the digit. “C’mon,” he urged, delirious ecstasy in his voice. And, well, Ford had taken it this far, so… He carefully pressed his thumb against Bill’s lower lid, then slipped past it, pressing into the curve of Bill’s eye. Bill let out a choked sound, his tongue slipping back to eagerly lick at Ford’s thumb.
If he were in his right mind, he might be mildly horrified at what was happening right now: he was fingering Bill’s eye while fucking an orifice full of writhing things. As it was, he was drunk on the feeling of Bill’s body around him, the way his partner seemed to let go, choked moans filling the room as a welcome reprieve to the wet sounds of sex. So Ford curled in on himself, fucking Bill with wild abandon, and god, it felt so right. He couldn’t help but think that they really were made for each other.
It was with that thought that Ford came, suddenly and maybe a bit earlier than he really wanted to, but he couldn’t be too bothered about it in the moment. He stilled, slipping his thumb from Bill’s eye to stroke his angle affectionately. And that seemed to trigger something. “Ford, f—” Bill couldn’t finish whatever he was trying to say before his body convulsed, and a truly excessive amount of humor flooded out of his eye, soaking through Ford’s sleeves.
Ford groaned at the feeling of the orifice gently squeezing around him; if he hadn’t already just finished, that probably would have pushed him over the edge. As it stood, he tilted his head back and savored the feeling with a quiet moan. Soon, all was quiet aside from the sound of Ford’s breathing. Bill’s eye eventually rolled back into place to stare upwards, unblinking, but something was off with it. Aside from being slightly reddened with irritation, his pupil was shaped like a ‘3’. “Three?”
“Three?” Bill repeated deliriously. “Oh. Yeah. Could’ve gotten a fourth one out of me, honestly, but three’s impressive.”
Ford stared down for a moment, his brain lagging slightly. He thought about the humor that had poured from Bill’s eye throughout this whole ordeal, how it was thick and only seemed to spill when… oh. It struck Ford suddenly that he was mistaken again; the fluid leaking from Bill’s eye hadn’t been tears or aqueous humor. “That’s how you—you came three times?”
Bill dragged a hand down his eye. “Yep,” he said gleefully, eye unfocused as he stared up at Ford.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Mama didn’t raise no quitter. Coming before the main event just from you touching me? Talk about embarrassing!”
Right. He’d been sensitive post-shed. Something about the thought tickled Ford, and he couldn’t help but laugh quietly. “Are you alright?”
Bill tried to give him another thumbs-up, but his hand was noticeably shaking. “Never better.”
Ford carefully pulled out, glancing downward. He wished he hadn’t. The orifice that had opened up for him was a deep red maw, out of which a smaller, visceral tendril chased after him as if wanting just one more taste. Eventually, it gave up and slipped back inside, and Bill’s body sealed itself over like there had never been an entrance at all. Post-nut clarity hit Ford, then, and he sat back, pressing a hand to his forehead. “…That was… I don’t even know how to describe what just happened.”
Bill made no motion to move from his position on the floor. “Awesome,” he said after a second. “Brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, et cetera, et cetera.”
Ford barked out a laugh. “Well put. Ah…” He ran a hand through his hair, staring down at the unfocused gaze in Bill’s eye. He’d come three times. Which meant… he was probably out of it. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
With some maneuvering, Ford managed to scoop Bill up, mourning the soiled state of his sweater. Luckily, he did his laundry separately from Stan’s. The puddle on the floor would have to be an issue for later. Stan was still fast asleep in his chair as they snuck past to the bathroom, and Ford breathed a sigh of relief when he closed the door behind him.
Bill immediately dug through the medicine cabinet for some eye drops, nearly pouring the entire bottle into his eye. “—Ow, OW! God damn it!” he hissed. Ford made a note to buy more as he ran water into the tub, making sure the water was hot but not uncomfortable. But once Bill was submerged, he tried to pull away to tend to himself, only for Bill to grab him by the wrist and pull him back down. “C’mon, there’s room for two.”
Ford rolled his eyes but obeyed, stripping to join him. Once he was relaxed in the water, he noticed an ache in his knees and back that slowly melted away. It was a terrible thing about getting older; while he made it a point to stay in shape and eat healthy, there were just some things he couldn’t do as much anymore.
Bill’s limbs were starting to harden and turn black by the time they got out, but he didn’t seem to notice as he draped himself across Ford’s back with a little, still-sensitive shudder. “Damn, Sixer. Is this why you always sleep like a baby whenever we bang?”
“Yes,” Ford answered honestly, reaching up to pat Bill’s arm. “Now, what do you need? Would you like some water?”
Bill pulled back to float in front of him, eye peering at him searchingly. “Are you after-caring me? Please, Sixer! I’m a trillion years old. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“After what you just let me do to you, the least I could do is make sure you’re alright.” Ford made sure the towel around his waist was secure. “Now: would you like some water?”
Bill stared for a long moment. “…Okay, sure.”
Once Bill was nestled in Ford’s bed with water and a bright green silly straw, Ford took care of the mess in the storage room. When he returned, he froze in the doorway to see Bill had an image pulled up in his eye, looking at it like it was a Polaroid of a fond memory. Except, instead of a family vacation, it was a downward angle of Ford’s face, expression a mixture of concentration and bliss, midway through fucking Bill on the floor. “A good memory?” he asked.
Bill dismissed the image and glanced over at him, reaching for his glass of water and slurping some up obnoxiously through the straw. “Yup,” he said lightly. “Topping is a good look on you, Sixer. I might have to let you do it more often.”
“Is that so?” Ford approached to sit on the bed, exhaustion starting to settle in his muscles. “…Thank you. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”
Bill stared for a moment. “Yeah, well, now you can tell the entire universe that you’re the only being in existence to ever get that Bussy. Bill p–”
“Bill, I’m serious.”
Bill glanced away. “…Yeah, sorry.” He scratched his finger against the comforter. “I’m serious, too. Shedding for someone is serious business. You saw how easy it was to go poking around my insides. The wrong person gets under my shell, I’m screwed. So don’t make me regret this.”
Ford smiled, reaching his hand out. “I won’t. We’re done trying to hurt each other, right?”
Bill glanced back up at him. “Right,” he agreed after a moment, briefly taking his hand to squeeze it. “You should get writing before that little human brain of yours forgets to.”
Ford settled in at his desk, ignoring the occasional slurping sound of Bill’s straw, and started drafting the image of the triangular tangle of Bill’s internals. More than once, his mind would drift, and he’d find himself staring at Bill. Not for the first time, he was amazed that this was his life now: adventuring the seas with his brother and enemy-turned-lover, coming home to Gravity Falls, and looking at his six-fingered hands and feeling understood for the first time in his life.
He kept the information in his journal dry and clinical, making no note of just how vulnerable Bill was post-shed. Those details would just be for him for now. He had no idea how long Bill would be staying here, what other amends he needed to make, but for now, nothing was going to get in the way of their second chance together.