CRACK!
Ford startles awake, unsure of what roused him from his slumber. For all of a split second, anyway.
"Ouch! Oh, did you have to take it out on our head?" comes a complaint from the lower bunk, "It was only a little nightmare! Hey, Sixer? I need your hand real quick."
Mind still addled by sleep, Ford obediently, unthinkingly dangles one hand over the side of his bunk. "You okay?" he mumbles in vague concern. If Stan is griping, he's generally fine.
His question is ignored. "Thanks, Six Fingers," the other says gruffly as he grabs Ford's offered hand. Belatedly, Stanford realizes it is not Stanley that he is currently conversing with. Blue fire covers their joined hands before racing down the back of Stan's arm and casting a silhouette of his form on the far wall. "Oh, that's better," Bill sighs and then follows that up by saying, "You know, pain is a lot more fun when it's someone else's body. It's a real buzzkill when it's your own."
Ford snatches his hand away. "Why are you awake, Bill?" he growls as he tries desperately to suppress the threatening flashbacks of the time when he'd been afraid to sleep because of Bill. He'd come back to himself with unexplained injuries too many times.
"Hm? Oh, right, my co-pilot," Bill says dismissively, "Well, you see, I gave Fez a teensy, little nightmare but he reacted a bit stronger than I anticipated he would. Knocked himself out cold on the bunk's frame!"
"You what?" Ford demands, scrambling to disentangle himself from his blankets, "Is he alright?"
"Relax, Fordsy!" Bill's glowing eyes suddenly appear directly in front of him. Ford yelps and withdraws on instinct. He's grown somewhat used to Bill taking over his twin at odd times, but he doubts he'll ever become truly comfortable with it. Bill grins at him. "I already fixed the damage!" The demon shivers and frowns. He glares around the small cabin. "Yeesh, it's cold in here," Bill grouses.
"We are quite far north," Ford answers as neutrally as he can, heart slowly settling back to a normal rate. They (Stan and Ford, that is) are actually on their way south to look into improving the insulation on the Stan O' War for extreme temperatures. As it is, while the cabin has yet to drop to a temperature that would be dangerous, it isn't exactly kind to old joints, either.
"Yeah?" Bill says, "We getting close to Time Baby?"
"I... have no idea," Ford says, "What would Time Baby be doing in the Arctic Circle?"
"You don't know!" Bill crows, "Sorry, Poindexter, I'm not going to spoil this one! You and Stanley will have to do your own searching!"
"You look positively giddy over this," Ford observes, unsure if he should be amused or uneasy about this development.
"It's a good adventure," Bill assures him, or rather he tries to. (Ford remains dubious of the claim. He isn't certain that Bill understands how little his definition of 'good' lines up with any sane being's definition for the word.) "You'll enjoy it. I mean, most wouldn't, but you and Knucklehead were pretty crazy by human standards way before you became me."
"That..." Ford trails off as he realizes that Bill may have a point. Stanley would call it being 'expert adventurers.' Ford is more prone to classify them as 'field researchers.' Most people, however, would write the two of them off as crazy thrill seekers if they knew what all they got up to on a semi-regular basis. (Perhaps Bill understands their collective levels of sanity better than Ford cares to admit.)
"Just admit I'm right," the demon advises with a smile, cat-like eyes shining.
"You... may not be entirely wrong," he says reluctantly.
"Aw, you really know how to butter a guy up!" Bill chirps, pinching Ford's cheek.
Stanford slaps the hand away. "Stop that!"
Bill opens his mouth, no doubt to make some patronizing remark, but a full-body shudder distracts him. The demon hisses and rubs his arms against the cold. "That's it!" he snaps with an annoyed expression, "Scooch over, Stanford." He ducks out of sight for a moment just before the scientist finds himself being attacked by the covers from Stan's bunk.
"What on Earth?" Ford sputters, clawing the blankets from his face to discover Bill halfway up the ladder for the top bunk. "Bill, what are you doing?"
"Whaddaya think?" the demon huffs, and that's Stanley's influence on his speech patterns coming through, "It's cold."
"So you're just going to take over my bed?" the scientist demands.
"Well, you never like it when I set the boat on fire -"
"When have you set the boat on fire?" Ford cuts in, half-panicked.
"Lifetimes ago, Buddy. Nothing recent. Calm down." Bill rolls his eyes. "Now, as I was saying, you don't like it when I set the boat on fire -"
"Definitely not. Never do that."
"- so my next warmest option is the top bunk. It even comes with a bed warmer!" Bill grins as he crawls into the narrow space between top bunk and cabin roof. Ford is forced to either make room or else get trampled.
"What? No, it doesn-" he cuts off as Bill wriggles under the covers and carelessly throws an arm over him. "You're talking about me, aren't you?" Stanford realizes with irritation.
"Yep!" Bill's cheery response only works to annoy him further.
"Of course," the man grumbles.
Bill snuggles closer and buries himself up to his nose in the blankets. The demon makes a contented noise as he claims Ford's shoulder for a pillow and lazily pats the man's side. "That's better," he sighs. The demon's eyes squint up at Ford gleefully through the dimly lit cabin. Stanford doesn't need to see his mouth to know the demon is smiling any more than he had needed such an indicator when the other had been his triangular 'muse.'
Ford frowns at him. It's with less anger than it would have once been and, now, there is a good amount of puzzlement behind it. "You've been very... tactile, since Weirdmageddon," he notes, trying for a light, casual tone and failing utterly to achieve it. He's curious about the changes in Bill since they tried to erase him with Fiddleford's memory gun; but he's also still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Bill to remember that Stanford had been trying to kill him when he'd pulled that trigger.
Bill snorts and says, "Blame your brother. Stanley's the driving force behind most of the touchy-feely stuff."
"He's not this clingy," Ford refutes.
Bill giggles. "Of course he is! He just doesn't act on it!" the demon argues and presses his frozen toes against the other's ankle. The man hisses at the cold but doesn't pull any further away than his initial, surprised flinch. "Fez would totally do all this if he thought for second that you'd let him get away with it. Too bad for him, he doesn't realize you would! You let me get away with it, after all!"
"That's..." Ford closes his mouth when he realizes he doesn't know which part of what Bill has said that he wants to address. He struggles to organize his thoughts.
Bill, as much as Stanford would like to deny it, knows him too well. The demon makes an exasperated noise and begins to answer the questions the man hasn't yet figured out how to ask. "Yes, I know you 'let me' get away with it because I don't give you another option than to go along with what I want. No, Stan won't push like I do, even though he does want all the silly little human gestures of affection. No, he's never going to figure out he can, unless you tell him. And, come on, Poindexter! Do I really need to spell out why he's afraid to ask for more? There was that big falling out when you were teenagers, and then that fight that ended with your little trip across dimensions, and then when you came back and told him to get lost with your fist. Fez has a thick skull, but you can only cut someone out of your life so many times before they get the message. The way Stan sees it, he's finally figured out how to give you enough space that you won't pull away completely. You know, again. To put it in your terms, he'll asphyxiate himself if it means he can avoid smothering you."
"Oh," Stanford says quietly, shoulders hunching. Bill makes a small noise of pleased surprise before tightening his hold on Ford. It's only then that the man realizes that he's fisted both hands into the sweater Bill is wearing. He chooses to ignore the implications. "He didn't, he didn't hear me say that, did he?" He can think of a few times he's said something similar, that being a twin was suffocating, but never to Stanley. The thought that his brother may have overheard, however... Well, it's not something he wants to think about.
"Nah," Bill waves the question away. "I know because I remember feeling that way. Both ways. But he isn't as stupid as he pretends to be. He has some idea, even if he doesn't know exactly what it is that goes through your head," the demon warns, and then sing-songs, "But he will someday!"
Ford sighs heavily and stares up at the ceiling. It's late, and, even if it wasn't, he'd still be tired of this conversation. "Roll over, Bill," he mutters, "You'll throw Stan's back out if you sleep on your side."
"More pain?" the demon asks, clearly dissatisfied with the concept.
"Yes."
Bill pouts and wriggles before exclaiming, "Found it!" There's a sudden flash of blue fire. "There! No more back problems for Stanley! Goodnight, Stanford!"
"You just -" Ford shakes his head. He's had more than enough of Bill for one night. So instead of prolonging the dialogue with the infuriating being, he grumbles, "Goodnight, Bill."
Bill slips into the arms of slumber quickly, leaving behind only his brother's sleeping body.
Ford wishes he could return to sleep as easily but his mind is busy churning over what's been said, straining as it tries to parse fact from fiction from exaggeration and hyperbole. And then there is honest insanity obscuring the truth yet further. Ford groans. It's an impossible task and yet he can't afford not to make the attempt. Sleep is becoming more unlikely by the second but he can't leave the bed to get coffee without disturbing Stan. He wonders if Bill planned that.
The scientist shakes his head and instead considers his brother's sleeping form. Stan looks comfortable at least, and Bill took care of the worst one of his twin's 'old man aches.' He shouldn't have anything too terrible to complain about come morning.
Ford rests a hand over the elbow of the arm wrapped around him. "Goodnight, Stanley," he murmurs.
Stan wakes up slowly. He's nice and warm and loath to leave his blankets for the frigid temperatures that have invaded even the Stan O' War's cabin, as of late. But if he doesn't get up soon, there's a good chance Ford will show up to personally drag him out of bed, with a complementary lecture for the trouble. Stan groans and buries his face in his pillow. ...Except it's not his pillow his head is resting on. What the... ?
"Mm? 'Morning, Stan," Ford greets him with a yawn.
Stanley looks up at his twin blankly. "Good morning?" he returns cautiously. He remembers falling asleep on the bottom bunk but a quick glance around confirms that he's somehow found his way into Ford's bunk, instead. It takes another second for the obvious answer to come to him. "Bill?" he asks.
"Hm? Oh," Ford yawns again, "Yes." The genius frowns and says, "Stan, I can't feel my arm."
"What?" Stanley bolts upright in the bed, "He didn't cut it off, did he?"
"What?" Ford blinks up at him, looking startled and confused. The man snorts when understanding dawns on him and he rolls his eyes. "No, you're just heavy. The only thing that got 'cut off' was my circulation." He has the audacity to be amused by Stanley's concern over what that psychotic triangle might have used his body to do to his own twin, the hypocrite.
Ford clumsily withdraws his arm to rest across his chest (Stanley belatedly realizes that it must have been wrapped around his back while he'd been sleeping) before using his other hand to massage the shoulder and bicep that had been serving as his twin's pillow. "You're letting the cold air in," he says lightly.
Stan bristles at the comment. Here he is, concerned about Ford's health and afraid to find out about whatever Bill got up to this time, and Stanford's biggest worry is the arrangement of the bedcovers. He's about to bite out some angry retort, but then his twin grabs a fistful of Stanley's knitted sweater and tugs until he lies back down next to him. The action leaves him wrongfooted and he forgets whatever the angry words he'd been about to say were. Instead, Stan grumbles as Ford fixes the blankets, "What did the crazy corn chip do this time?"
"Not much," Ford says, "Mostly just a lot of talking."
"And we're sandwiched like sardines in your bunk because?"
"Bill was cold."
Stan squints at his twin. "So you just invited the murder triangle to share your bed?"
"First, I didn't invite him. Bill rarely asks for permission to do anything. Second, the arsonist triangle decided it was either this or setting the Stan O' War on fire," Ford answers.
"He threatened to what?" Stan demands, horrified at the thought of their boat being used as kindling. Also, he doesn't want to drown and die just because the dream demon was too stupid to realize what a bad mix human bodies and frigid waters were without a relatively warm ship between them.
"Apparently, he's tried it before in previous lifetimes," his twin says drolly, "and the results weren't desirable."
Stanley groans and scrubs his face with his hands. "I hate that triangle," he announces as he pulls his hands away. He frowns up at the ceiling that's too close to his face for a moment before asking, "He didn't hurt you, did he?"
"No, I'm still in one piece. No new bumps or bruises," his brother assures him. Stanford hesitates for a second, but he adds, "He did give me something to think about, though."
Stanley's brow furrows in confusion. "What's that?" he asks, puzzled and a little wary.
Ford sighs and his hand finds Stan's under the covers. The conman blinks in surprise but reciprocates his brother's grip. Of course he does. Stanford is rarely the one to reach for him; it's almost always Stanley that reaches first.
"General gestures of physical affection. Particularly initiating them. I'm no good at it," Ford states bluntly, "I just don't think about it. I don't need them like you do."
Stan stiffens and looks away, eyes seeking out anything that isn't his twin. "I know," Stan snaps without meaning to, "It's fine, Ford. I get it. We don't need to -"
"I don't think you do," his brother argues in a tone that is gentle but not to be ignored or brushed off. Stanford squeezes his hand and he relaxes just a little at the nonverbal reassurance. "Stan, I don't mind those things. I don't think to initiate them because I don't need them as much as you do, but that doesn't mean I don't need them at all or that I don't enjoy them when you initiate them. If you need a hug or whatever, it's okay. You don't need to worry."
Stan searches Ford's face. "You sure?" He wants to believe his brother's words but past experience has taught him otherwise. Hold on too tightly, and Stanford starts looking for an escape. Something in the back of his head that he's still learning to identify as Bill (rather than just a part of his own mind) stirs at the thought and offers an agreement. Stan tries to ignore the demon in his head. (Bill leaks feelings of sorrow, anger, greed, regret into his mind before withdrawing into himself.) He fails. "What if, what if it isn't just me that, that needs you to be close?"
"You mean Bill," Ford says. It's a statement but the scientist's confusion turns it into something of a question.
"Yeah, he..." Stan struggles to find the right words. "Alright, don't get mad at me, Sixer," he cautions, "but just because the flying corn chip can't possess you anymore doesn't mean he ever stopped being possessive of you." Ford bristles at the declaration and Stan wishes he could stop, but he's already opened this can of worms so he plows on instead. "Look, I know it sounds bad, and I don't like it either, but the murder triangle gets all quiet and happy when you're close. And, I swear, the farther away you are, the louder and crazier he gets."
"Balance," Ford mumbles, expression thoughtful.
Stan frowns at his twin. "What?"
"A theory," the scientist dismisses, "about Bill's origins. It would explain a few things, but Bill was the one that proposed the idea, so I'm hesitant to put much stock in it."
"Yeah? Ya gonna tell me what this theory is?" Stan asks. Honestly, he doesn't know what the creepy triangle's origins could matter now, but there's obviously something about it that's captured Stanford's interest.
Ford hesitates. "Yes... But not yet," he decides, "Give me some more time to evaluate the likelihood of the possibility."
Stan squints at his brother. Ford avoiding talk, and especially questions, about Cipher is normal enough, but this seems bigger somehow. Still, pushing Ford hasn't ended well historically. "Alright," Stan grumbles when Ford begins to look downright skittish under the prolonged silence, "But soon."
Ford relaxes and nods. "Soon," he agrees, "Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah," Stanley answers, but he squeezes Ford's hand.
There's nothing beyond the quiet sounds of the ship rocking and their breathing for several seconds, so Stanley thinks he could be forgiven for assuming the conversation was over at that point. Ford, however, decides otherwise.
"Stan?"
"Mm?" he hums. Between the extra blankets and Stanford's body heat, Stanley is warmer and thus more comfortable than he's been in weeks. He wonders if Ford would let him get away with going back to sleep for a little while.
"I imagine it's easier to manage Bill when he's 'quiet and happy' rather than when he's 'loud and crazy,' right?"
"Tha's right," he replies in a half-asleep mumble.
"Then my position remains unchanged," Ford states, "I won't object to occasional or even frequent hugging. You don't need to worry about it."
If he'd been more awake, he might have had a more difficult time accepting what his brother just said. As it is, Stan only yawns and takes him at his word. He wraps an arm around Ford's middle and pulls his twin closer. "Go back ta sleep, Nerd," he grumbles, "Boat'll be fine 'nother few hours."
Stan lazily waves off the smug, satisfied feeling radiating from Cipher. He'll worry about the dream demon some other time.
Ford huffs out a laugh. "Goodnight, Knucklehead."
"G'night, Poindexter," Stan attempts to say around a yawn. He's not sure how well he succeeds at doing so, but he's asleep before he can be bothered to try again.
Read the entire Dreams and Promises series on Archive of Our Own: archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 907191