Bill Cipher.
Family died in a freak accident no one talks about. Lives with a relative.
A theatre kid. Put on a suit once and never took it off.
Stanford Pines.
Tense family life. A twin brother who ran away young and was never found.
Science nerd. Asocial. IQ too high for a kid so short.
One of the first lines Bill says to him is a confession of a confirmed diagnosis of sociopathy.
"I get these urges, you know?" Bill says. "I go to therapy weekly. They keep tabs on me."
"You okay with that, kid? Your folks would be disappointed…if they knew you were hanging around me."
Ford shrugs, says he'll bring his book collection on serial killers some time.
He doesn't know if Bill is telling the truth. People claim to be sociopaths all the time for attention, but with Bill, Ford might believe it. Even if the other boy was an obvious attention-seeker, something twinkles in Bill's face when he tells the truth.
Ford is that perceptive. Bill is that deliberate.
"If you were a serial killer, which one would you be?" Ford asks, throwing a rock off the cliff.
"I'd be the one who dresses dapper and smart, lures his victims into a false sense of security, fucks them and then kills them." Bill says, face deforming. "A real killer Casanova. "
Ford's eyebrows raise, then fall.
Monster. Liar. Snappy dresser.
"Like that guy Paul John Knowles?"
"Just like him."
"Like Ted Bundy?"
"I was thinking more Richard Ramirez."
They follow a trail into the woods. A deer comes into vision. Bill smiles as he watches it gallop away.
The smile remains with Ford until he goes to bed.
He dreams Bill makes that smile at him before fucking and killing him.
The next day, Ford receives an envelope with deer teeth.
Ford deliberately goes out of his way to be alone with Bill. Wonders if Bill ever has urges to kill him.
It's morbid curiosity, and he isn't afraid. What compelled such feelings to begin with?
If he could bring them to surface in Bill, he could study them, right?
Eventually, their friendship turns into something more.
He's on knees in front of Bill, following orders and too often, Bill likes to choke him- with his hands or with his cock.
It's one of the few times Bill genuinely looks happy.
The first time they have sex, Bill suggests Ford pretend he doesn't want it.
Ford shrugs, plays along, and it's a milestone for the first time he begins to believe the diagnosis.
Bill holds a pocket knife to his throat as he fucks him.
Says, "You do something I don't like and I'll fuck your ass with this."
It's the first-time Ford is terrified of Bill.
Bill cuts a triangle into his back, says he'd do it to all his victims. Leave a triangle on them somewhere.
Bill hits him a few times. His right eye bleeds as Bill forces into him without proper preparation. It burns, and sobs tear from his swollen, fucked-raw throat. There's an ache so deep, Ford questions how many layers the human body is really made of.
"Sometimes it feels like I'm possessed, you know? Like something just comes over me. You ever get that feeling?"
They go camping,
He kneels before Bill at the firelight, takes him into his mouth and imagines the fire as black as starless space.
"It's a shame I can't kill you. Bet you'd like that, huh? They'd suspect me immediately. I'm on record, after all."
He holds Bill down at the firelight, the black firelight, says "I own lots of books on serial killers."
He fucks Bill. Then fucks Bill with whatever else he can get his hands on.
A flashlight. A branch. Tries his fist but Bill squirms too much.
He knows Bill doesn't tell anyone. Bill's a diagnosed sociopath. A liar. Monster. Snappy dresser.
Too obvious, too loud.
Ford says, "Sometimes I feel possessed, too. But feeling and being are two different things."
He holds Bill down, wraps his hands around the bruised, mottled neck, says
"Hey, can you guess which serial killer I'd be?"
He chases Bill down the trail. Bill is slow, his old injuries burdening him.
Ford catches him, easily.
He rubs his thumb underneath the thin, dark skin of Bill's right eye. Says,
"There's only one of me. You don't need two of these."
"I'd be the one…that's kind of like a chameleon, you know? They get up close, friendly…and they imitate their target right before they kill them."
"Does it feel like you've possessed me?" He pulls Bill's tattered and deathly-pale face towards him. "Aren't we…the same now?"
His cyclops barely talks anymore. Sometimes begs him to stop, but there's no conviction in his shaky voice.
Hannibal Lecter's IQ is above 200.
So is Stanford Pines'.
The next boy he meets is named Fiddleford, at Bill Cipher's funeral.
He says,
"I'm into science, too. I own lots of books on various fields."