Work Text:
Stanford Pines wrote in his journal, sleep pulling his eyelids down without his consent. But when his head would begin to nod forward, it would startle him awake and he'd resume writing.
As Ford continued scrawling, the marks he was making on the paper began to seem more and more foreign. He blinked blearily. That's what he got for journaling while sleep deprived, he chided himself mentally. Ford gave an exhausted chuckle. He definitely needed to write a little more slowly and with actual comprehension.
But... Ford's hand didn't move. He actually wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it. His hand stayed still, like he couldn't discern what muscles to use, and his mind was coming up with a blank.
Ford scanned the paragraph that he had just written. He glanced over the writing and something akin to dread began bubbling under his skin. Ford couldn't discern any of his previous writing.
An unspoken premonition encapsulated the back Ford's mind and he flipped furiously through the pages of his journal. Surely it couldn't be! But nothing he looked at brought anything to mind. Ford discerned some of his illustrations, and knew what writing should have been there. But it just wasn't coming to him. It was an incomprehensible series of symbols that Ford couldn't tell apart, or where one symbol ended and the other began. The letters..... what were they?? And which ones were which?
The panic built up into his mind until the inconceivable truth hit him with the force of a steam engine, knocking the wind out of him:
"I can't read"
Ford's throat seized up and he struggled to draw in shallow breaths. He stumbled back off his stool and uncoordinatedly fell to the ground. Ford shakily stood up and approached his writing desk. A piercing laugh came from behind him and Ford whipped around.
The yellow omniscient demon from his nightmares stared at him with sadistic amusement glittering in his singular eye.
"Well well well, Sixer, how has the favorite pawn of my multi-universal conquest been?" Bill crowed. Ford stepped back and stumbled over his stool. His failing attempts to get back on his feet were accompanied by Bill Cipher's unnatural snickering. Ford's heartbeat was staccato and it felt like he had inhaled a handful of cotton balls. He forced himself to speak.
"Why are you here, Cipher?! To torture me? To steal my eyes?! I've told you, nothing will make me crack; I'm never opening the portal! I'd rather die!"
"Yeesh, lighten up, poindexter! I would never, ever kill you," Bill said, clutching his hands in front of him and blinking his bulbous eye in fake innocence. Then he laughed again.
"That would be way too merciful! In fact, I'm hurt. I thought you knew me better!" The triangle said with feigned despair, pulling a handkerchief out of his top hat and blowing his nonexistent nose loudly and wetly. The dream demon then pulled the handkerchief away and rung it out. A runny yellow substance drained out and seemed to fill an invisible tiny triangular mold. The triangle became solid and black inky limbs grew from it, two pairs of pencil-thin arms and legs. Rectangular black markings appeared at the bottom as though painted by an invisible brush, while a black top hat materialized above the top vertice. Then an eye protruded, opened up in the middle of the disturbing effigy, and blinked at Stanford. Ford leaned away in disgust and Bill left the hanky floating in the air to grab the figure in his hands. The tiny Bill struggled against the real Bill's grasp. Bill formed a cage with his two hands, his fingers mimicking little prison bars. The little Bill made sad squeaking noises and it tugged desperately on the "bars". Then with a cackle, the real Bill flared up blue flames in both his hands. The tiny Bill gave a high-pitched scream and flailed about as its yellow surface melted off to reveal flesh and sinew underneath. The effigy Bill fell to its knees as the heat of the flames intensified, like that of a welding torch. The screaming grew higher and then the miniature Bill incinerated in a puff of black dust. Bill lifted his hand off the top and plucked the hanky from the air. He placed it over the lump of ashes in his other hand, then showily whipped it away to reveal that the ashes had vanished.
"TA-DAAAH! Well, whadda ya think, Fordsy? This magic trick is my most popular at parties!" Ford looked up from Bill's hand to his enormous eye and shuddered. There was bile in the back of his throat, which he fervently tried to keep down. It was times like these when Ford wondered how he had never spotted this dark side of Bill back when he was still Ford's Muse. Before that loathsome day with the portal, and Stanford's life fell apart.
"You're sick." Ford said through clenched teeth.
"Oh you flatterer, you!" Bill lifted his hat and pulled it to his chest in mock appreciation, fluttering his eyelashes. Ford scowled. He didn't have time for Bill's stupid mind games!
"Oh, ho, ho! What's this? No time for my games?! Sixer, I'm disappointed. Truly, I am! But come on, we've already been playing one, haven't we?"
Bill stared him down, waiting for a reply, but Ford's thoughts were stumbling over each other. Bill sighed with exasperation at the vacant look on Ford's face.
"Yeesh, for someone with a genius IQ, you sure think like a rock, Stanford! Hey, I guess that makes you and Stanley more similar than you thought, eh?" The low jab Bill made at Stan gave Ford an unusually resentful surge of emotion towards the demon. This jolted him from his previous thoughts and he remembered his journal... his writing... and not being able to read.
"Shut the hell up, Bill. What did you do to my mind?"
"Heh, feisty are we?" Bill rolled his bulbous eye at Ford. Stanford ground his teeth as his agitation.
"I can't read my writing, Bill. I can't even remember how to write! And how are you even here right now? I thought I had gotten rid of you!" Ford's hands clenched.
"You can't keep me away forever, Stanford! Nothing can stop me, and nobody gets in my way," Bill's eye glittered black and red. "It must feel awful having your ability to communicate restricted. You know, since you put so much self importance on your intelligence. And also, just imagining how terrifying that must be almost makes me pity you! It must be awful! But not as much as you deserve, Sixer. You deserve so much worse."
Stanford felt his hackles rise, and fear swelled in him like an ocean's current. Perhaps he could reason with Bill, a small voice at the back of his mind offered helplessly. But as Ford stared into Bill's eye, and the waves of endless hatred that came from the demon, any hopes Ford might have had of reasoning with Bill Cipher were destroyed.
"Well, Fordsy? Any last words?" Ford tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.
"Speak up, I insist! I'm dying to hear what you have to say..." Bill stared down at Ford intensely, malicious intent radiating from his gaze. Ford made as if to speak, but there was no sound. He tried to speak again, but there was nothing. His mind was slow and confused, like thoughts in a dream. Then Bill laughed, and Stanford felt terror pervading every crevice of his being. Bill made as if to speak, but strange noises case from him, not really words at all. Their meanings slipped past Ford, but he felt like he could almost understand them...
He was afraid. The monster in front of him made noise, but it's presence also scared him. He didn't know why, and this scared him more. It made more noises at him. He keened and backed away. It advanced on him. He was frightened. Had to run. Find safe. Run. Wouldn't let him.
Fear. Monster. Terror.
Run, run!
No.
No escape.
Fear.
Terror.
Monster.
Hurt.
Blood.
Fear. Hurt. Blood.
Trapped.
Pain.
Fear.
Death.
Monster.
Pain.
Fear.
***
Ford jolted awake at his desk. Images flickered through his mind's eye: blood, fire and torches, running while chased, Bill, terror, the monsters, being cornered. He was covered in a cold sweat that soaked his clothes, and he buried his head in his hands. He was safe, it was just a dream, he tried to tell himself. It was just Bill affecting his nightmares. But Ford couldn't stop shaking, and the tears kept streaming down his face as he sat cowered over his desk.