Work Text:
A retina-scalding LED lamp turned on Bill. He hissed and scrambled back as far as he could, rubbing his eye.
“WHAT was that for?! You can see me, I glow! ”
“I did it to hurt you.” Ford sounded the way the light felt–harsh and direct. “Why did you come here?”
“I told you, I don't know!” Ford wouldn't believe him. Why should he? Who could blame him? Bill could. Bill could blame anyone for anything.
“You're really sticking to that?” The reflections in his glasses hid his eyes. Two cat-like pupils stared back in their place, emoting asynchronously to his tone of voice–red-raw, sleepless, moving in uncanny lockstep. Pale, wispy lashes custom-framed them with the aesthetic appeal of a binder sleeve, visually overpowered by the smudges on the glass. The sight turned Bill's stomach.
“That's the plan. I could lie to you if that makes you feel better!” His back bumped up against the unicorn hair barrier. He shivered. He hated that feeling. It didn't hurt. He would've preferred if it hurt.
He was on Stanford's desk in the shack guest room, enclosed in a bubble only three times his length in diameter. It was just shy of too short to stand in unless he took off his hat, which he refused to do.
“You're even worse at lying than last we spoke.” Ford adjusted his glasses, rummaging through his desk drawers.
“I got therapy for that,” Bill said flatly. “They don't like lying over there.”
“Will you stop with that ridiculous ‘therapy’ story?!” He slammed the drawer shut.
Bill threw up his hands. “You want me to stop or do you want me to tell the truth?! Give me a chance to get it right before you–”
Ford reached into the barrier. Bill bared his teeth and ducked out of his reach, dodging until he was backed into a corner. He snapped at the fingers trying to restrain him. He was barely bigger than Ford’s falconry glove. He bit into the leather, already knowing it was useless.
“Hold still.”
“Don't TOUCH me!” Bill kept biting, tearing, clawing. “Stoppit! Get your hands off–OW!” Ford pinned him to the table and swiped a cotton swab down his open gash, twisting against its edges to gather a workable sample of neon blue leakage. Bill lashed, kicking his wrist, digging in his teeth. He muffled a humiliating shriek.
Ford took the swab away and shook his arm to dislodge the teeth and talons from his gauntlet. Bill dropped to the desk and clutched his stinging wound.
“Don't…” He swallowed back his shaky voice to let it cook longer before attempting to speak again. “Don't you have enough of that?”
“That's for me to decide.” Ford examined the sample, turning it slowly in his fingers. He opened a drawer Bill couldn't see and stored it away. “Difficult to say. Although, it's not about the amount in a case study, is it? It's about regular, reproducible results. I may need a lot more.”
Bill glared at him. He glared back.
“Does the family know we're doing torture now?”
Bill had met the family when he'd first appeared. It had been a whole event. A few would come in now, every once in a while, to gawk at him like slack-mouthed tourists. Bill didn't speak to them; they didn't offer him anything he needed nor threaten him with pain. He had nothing to say. He wouldn't speak at all if he could help it.
Ford removed his glove. “My family trusts me to deal with you accordingly as challenges present themselves.”
“Mighty big challenge I'm presenting.” Bill gestured to his cage. “Thank god you're here to poke me with a stick.”
“I'm not falling for your trap of empathy. Feigning helplessness to better perform cruelty is not a revolutionary concept.”
Bill couldn't think of anything to say to that. It was a losing battle. Anything he said could and would be used against him.
“Finally tired yourself out, have you?” Ford removed his gauntlet, then the nitrile glove from his other hand.
Some muscle group Bill hadn't noticed he'd been tensing relaxed. The probing was over. He had at least a couple hours until the next session. He laid back on the table.
“I suppose that's a yes. I'll be back later tonight to pick up where we left off. I'd advise using that time to amend your story.”
Torture sucked. Bill used to enjoy it as a pastime, particularly (not exclusively) when he was the one inflicting it. But now…he wondered if this could have been how some of his friends had felt, back in the day. He couldn't help but wonder, ever since therapy had infected him with empathy (and, consequently, guilt).
Thoughts like that did nothing but inflate the existing pain. In cases like this, when an apology would be useless, there was nothing to do but endure it. Endure, and loathe that pretentious malpractice factory for poisoning his mind.
Ford left without a goodbye. He turned out the lights and shut the door. The sun was already starting to tip west, away from the east-facing window. The summer evenings were bright, but Bill knew he'd be left sitting in the dark before anyone came back for him.
His stomach growled.
Bill had busied himself scratching tic-tac-toe boards into the tabletop and playing himself. It kept his mind on something other than food. He scratched a final X, and then a line across his win. He won every game, of course. But really, that was a minor consolation for losing every game.
Each time he lost, he'd try to convince himself he won. And that pissed him off. He didn't ask to be condescended to. He’d had enough of that in prism. He knew a classic half-glass scenario when he saw one. He knew he had two realities to choose from–and he’d made his choice.
He could handle a loss. He didn't have to win everything. If losing weren't so infuriating, he'd be fully prepared to accept that. It was his own embarrassing insistence that made it so difficult, buzzing around his ear. Saying he couldn't handle the version of reality where he lost every game. So he sat there, in his losing reality, meditating–kept in place only by red-hot spite.
This exercise was easier in therapy.
“Bill?” There was a soft knock on the doorframe.
He opened his eye in time to see the unlatched door creak open. A round, pink-cheeked face poked through. He closed his eye again.
“Grunkle Ford said I could bring you dinner tonight.” The door made more noise as Shooting Star stepped the rest of the way through. After a moment of thought, she shut it behind her.
Bill didn’t speak. She would have to make him, and he knew she wouldn't.
“I asked to,” she clarified. ‘He said no at first, but I made a good case. Mostly because I have Ryan, for safety.” Bill heard clacking. He opened his eye to see Shooting Star holding a bowl in one hand, and wielding a plastic dinosaur head on a stick in the other, demonstrating her ability to open and close the mouth from a distance.
Apparently satisfied with Bill's attention, she took a few cautious steps forward, a friendly smile pasted across her face. “C’mon. It's menudo!” She waved the bowl.
Bill knew what it was. He'd been smelling it for hours. He'd done his best to ignore it; His mealtimes weren't a priority to the household, so they were hardly consistent. Since he'd been trapped, he'd subsisted on a couple supplement pills and half a chalk-flavored protein bar per day. This was the first time he'd been offered something prepared .
Without opening his eye, he scooted to the far side of the bubble, making space for a bowl. He gestured, clearly indicating where he wanted the food to go.
“I was hoping I could…talk to you?” Mabel said, not giving him menudo.
Keep hoping.
Bill knew he was blowing an opportunity. This was an olive branch he could be whittling into a weapon. This kid was naive, forgiving, and beloved by his enemies. If he wanted to get out, the easiest way would be through her. But he didn't feel like talking.
“It's probably really boring in there, huh?” Somehow, she said it in a way that was distinctly not a taunt. She leaned closer to look at the bowl-sized clearing on the table. “Woah…you're good at tic-tac-toe.”
“Don't lie to me!” Bill snapped. He regretted it the second he spoke.
“Woah! Okay, grumpy.” Mabel set Bill's dinner on the table next to the bubble. “I thought you liked compliments.”
“I don't. Give me my food,” Bill said, because the conversational seal was broken and there was nothing he could do about that.
“What do we say–”
“Please.” He relished the surprise on Shooting Star’s face as her worldview was shaken. That's right. The big bad Bill knows his magic words. What remains sacred?
“Huh! Okay.” She positioned the bowl, clamped Ryan on the lip, and carefully nudged it across the barrier. Bill's hands were covered in broth within the ten seconds it took to make a return trip for a spoon.
“Oh, that uh…it's pretty hot…” Mabel cringed as Bill stuffed a burning hot chunk of tripe under his eye. She gave Ryan the spoon. Ryan offered it to Bill.
Bill squinted into his plastic, factory-painted eyes, swallowed, and reached back in to fish out a kernel of hominy. Steam poured off his hands. After a few seconds of tense eye contact, Ryan backed off. Mabel set him on the bed behind her.
“I respect your commitment.” She took a step back to sit on the bed herself, and plopped her chin in her hands. She was quiet for a while as she watched Bill eat.
Bill couldn't care less what she did. The soup was good. The spice gave his waterline a cozy burn, and the meat was soft and fatty. Couldn't go wrong with chili peppered organs. Nothing was going to ruin it for him.
“...Why don't you like compliments?” Mabel asked, after a few minutes of silence.
Bill sighed. He could recognize when an effort was made. It wasn't easy for that kid to shut up. She'd deliberately given him time (which wasn't anything that should've mattered to him).
“Would you believe me if I told you compliments from my zookeepers don't feel especially empowering?”
Mabel thought about that. “I guess so.” She frowned. “Hey, are you trying to make me feel guilty?”
Bill, who was busy leaning over the lip of his bowl and slurping up broth with a variety of unpleasant sounds, replanted his feet on the table and wiped his eye with his arm. “Is it working?”
Mabel shook her head without a moment of hesitation. “Nope. You're a jerk, and you tried to kill us. Bubble jail doesn't do a lot to balance out that karma. Especially since you trapped me in a bubble, and that was just one of, like, a thousand other jerk things you did.”
Bill nearly challenged her to try and list those thousand things, but having to sit through a long lecture on his delinquency wouldn't feel too much like a win. He'd had enough of that for a thousand lifetimes. Besides, it seemed like the kind of thing that might trigger a guilt flareup. He had to tiptoe around all his various new maladies now–a brachiosaurus in a glass factory. The situation was shitty enough without an emotional crisis.
“When you're right you're right.” He tossed the piece of tripe he was nibbling on back into the bowl with a tiny splash. “Shame on me.”
“That doesn't mean I like to see you all…little and sad.”
Bill bristled, but kept his composure. “Woulda been easier if I’d stayed dead, huh?”
Mabel puffed out her cheeks. She let the air out with a pop. “Yeah, kinda.”
Bill laughed, surprising himself. For the first time since he'd arrived back on earth, it was genuine. “Ouch! Woof, kid, you're a straight shooter!”
Mabel shrugged. “I keep it real.”
Bill crossed his arms, settling on the lip of his bowl. He averted his eye when he glimpsed his reflection.
“You seem pretty confident I won't bust outta here and replace your organs with…” He spun his hand in a circle, trying to conjure a threat. “I dunno, bugs? Eyelashes?” He squinted. “Bad example. I'm out of practice.”
Mabel made a face. “You shouldn't say stuff like that. It doesn't help your case.”
Bill squinted. “You mind your own business. I'll botch my case however I want.”
She crossed her arms and squinted back. “I'm not scared of you.”
Bill didn't doubt that. He wasn't looking to be feared, in any case. At this point, being feared only got him probed and starved. “You should tell that to your uncle for me. He's terrified .”
“Yeah right.”
He poked the bubble, revealing the glowing symbols as it rippled. “Why else am I in here then, huh? Interior decor?”
Mabel frowned. She looked at the unicorn hair barrier. She looked at Bill. “Why are you here?”
Bill cringed at the all-too-familiar question. “Don't start.”
“What?”
He glared at her. “Why waste my energy? None of you blood piñatas are gonna believe me no matter what I say. I'm not gonna dance-monkey-dance for an unarmed preteen.”
“Teen,” Mabel corrected.
Bill growled and whirled around, kicking his bowl with all the pent up aggression his pocket-sized form could hold. “OW! God DAMMIT!” He grabbed his foot and fell to the table.
“Yikes!” Mabel stood from the bed. Bill jabbed a finger towards her, with a ferocity in his eye that sat her right back down.
“DON'T. Do not. I don't want any.” Bill sat up, rubbing the sting out of his foot. The pain only sharpened. Did he break something?
Mabel winced at Bill's wincing. “Any what?”
He groaned, eye rolling back in his head. “Anything! Everything! It's over!” He tried to get to his feet, gasped, tripped, and returned to clutching his foot.
“But we still got a line out the door! Everyone’s gotta take their shot at Billy! It ain't over til it's over–and remember! ‘With very dusk comes a brand new dawn!’” He let go of his foot to give a singular jazz hand. “How cute is that? I read it on a poster! In TIMELESS PRISON!”
“Should I get Grunkle Ford?” Mabel interjected.
Bill froze mid-gesticulation. A static crackle skittered across his form. He swallowed. "Wh… why ?” The tremor in his voice physically repulsed him. He swallowed the bile and firmed up his tone. “What did I do?!”
“For…your foot?” Mabel kicked up her own rainbow-socked foot to demonstrate.
Right. Bill's glow dimmed with embarrassment. Mabel didn't let on if she noticed.
“He can probably fix a foot. He has, like, twenty doctor degrees. One of ‘em is prolly the medicine kind.” Her eyes lit up. “Ooh! Is he a veterinarian ?”
Bill scoffed. “Twelve. And most of ‘em are so niche it's a point against academia that they exist at all.”
“So…no?”
“No.”
Mabel frowned. She leaned back, scrunching around the duvet in her hands. “How are you…feeling? That's what doctors start with, right?”
Bill gave her a scathing look. He really hoped she still felt as stupid as she acted. “Foot hurts.”
She nodded slowly. “What if I– ”
“Don't touch me.”
Mabel hunched her shoulders. “Okay,” she mumbled. She went quiet. With his eye closed, Bill could almost pretend she wasn't around. But she breathed like a human–loud and repetitive.
His foot throbbed. All he wanted to do was eat, be alone, and feel less pain. A few million years ago, he'd only barely be interested in one of those activities, on the condition the food was adequately seasoned. His sense of priority had been eroded to rubble.
Back on the rock, he'd almost felt cured. Under the manipulative guidance of his personal thought police, he'd come frighteningly close to believing that his increasingly bland thoughts were an essential stage in “getting better”. His mind was balanced–smoothed over, polished clean. He was well-equipped for the next big step. Off the rock, the truth was more obvious than the gash in his face; All they'd done, all those millenia–was ruin him. If the apathy he felt in the Mystery Shack weren't so poisonous–if what he thought would be the final hurdle weren't so obviously just one more sadistic punishment for his long-renounced sins–he might have bought it. He'd still be buying it. Had anything been at all better on the outside than where he'd left it, he might never have fought the brainwashing at all.
That thought alone was more terrifying than anything Stanford could do to him.
“Were you really in therapy?” Mabel spoke cautiously.
Bill didn't owe her his useless response.
“I…go to therapy back home,” she offered.
Bill glanced at her. “Oh no. A child psychologist from suburban California. I bet you only get a lollipop at the end of your sixty-minute sessions, every other week,” he droned. “That's relatable to me, because of my similar situation.”
Mabel frowned. “Apparently it worked better on me than you. You're still grouchy.”
Bill didn't have any more energy to argue. He reached for his bowl. It was out of reach from where he'd fallen. He rolled to his hands and knees, brainstorming how to shuffle towards it in a moderately dignified way.
The bowl scooted within range. He looked up to see Ryan staring at him apologetically.
“I might be grouchy too,” Mabel admitted. “But I don't know, because you don’t wanna talk. I told you something about me, because that's how you start a conversation with someone who's being difficult.” she explained. “I'm trying to make a connection.”
A smidge too psych-ward-adjacent for comfort; At least she was upfront with her methods. Bill pretended not to hear her as he clutched the lip of the bowl and gingerly hoisted himself up. He didn't feel much less pathetic standing on one wobbly foot than he had curled on the table. He dunked his hand into the broth.
“You’re sure you don't want a spoon?” Mabel handed the spoon back to Ryan. “I even found you the tiny tea party kind for your convenience!”
Ryan approached and, gently, prodded Bill with the spoon’s end. Bill snatched it from his teeth, cocked it back, and struck him across the face with a solid clack. One of the pegs holding his jaw in place snapped and flew across the room, rendering his maw forever lopsided.
“TEST ME AGAIN, RYAN!” He managed to land a backswing before the toy retreated back to the safety of Mabel’s hands.
“Sorry! Sorry…” Mabel blushed, wringing her hands around the stick. “Your space is for you.”
Bill huffed. “His space”, like he had any. But despite everything, the apology stood out. It was the first time he'd been apologized to since he arrived. He looked down at the spoon in his hands.
A sickly eye stared back at him. He had to remind himself it was his. The humiliation each time he recalled how he looked was damn near incapacitating. Even if he had full control of himself–composed and defiant, with perfect quips at the ready–he had no shot looking the part.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Mabel whispered, after what Bill realized had been minutes of soul-staring.
“I miss my mascara.”
He shut his eye, and tried with all his might to not regret giving in. If he regretted every vaguely, maybe-accidentally compliant action, he'd be much deader by now. He knew self-sabotage when he saw it (after a few centuries of workshops on the subject). He knew how to do it, and–contrary to popular belief–he understood when he was choosing to.
“You wear mascara?”
“No. If I wore mascara, I'd be slaying. Does it look like that's what I'm doing? Slaying?” Bill might have said, but his stage was stolen by a voice from across the house:
“MABEL! Dessert!”
Mabel perked up. She looked at Bill apologetically. “Talk later?”
How considerate. Bill dropped his spoon back into the bowl. “Can't guarantee I'll be in a better mood.” And if Ford kept his promise, he wouldn't be. He wondered if the man himself was having dessert too. Sugaring up for a productive torturing.
“I'll bring you a plate, okay?”
Bill hadn't consumed anything both sweet and non-gelatin-based in…however long it had been. “Mhm.”
And she left.
For a half hour, Bill played tic-tac-toe. He lost most of his games. He couldn’t help but win a few. That was the price of talent.
Mabel didn't come back. Ford did. Bill didn't fight the exam with his usual spunk. He didn't feel like throwing away his calories. It didn't hurt any more or less than the last one. Made sense, considering Bill hadn't bothered to think up a better story.
Ford concluded for the night with the promise he'd be back in the morning. He didn't need to promise.
Bill didn’t do much else for what remained of the night. He just laid on his back, watching the orange turn to purple turn to black outside the window. From his angle, he could see five stars over the trees. Five more than he had in prism. He'd trade them all for one really big lollipop.
He would have loved dessert.
Bill woke up sore, like he had every morning that week. The sky was halfway lit. If he stayed awake, he might have an hour or two to prepare for whatever the day had in store. Alternatively, he could close his eye and pretend he didn't exist until he fell back asleep, wherein he could pregame the impending real-world torment with torment-themed nightmares. But before he could make a final decision, he spotted something brightly colored out of the corner of his eye.
He sat up. There was a small pink plastic bowl in the spot his dinner had been the night before. A present sat in front, on top of a folded, torn-out piece of seahorse-themed notebook paper. The gift was wrapped In holographic foil and tied with a yellow yarn bow. It looked about the size and shape of a severed human thumb.
Bill moved to stand. Pain shot through his leg. He looked down to find his foot wrapped in masking tape and splinted with two cotton swabs. He couldn't tell if the shoddy craftsmanship was the work of an untrained child or of a massive-handed freak doing his best to mend a doll-sized foot. Either way, it kept Bill steady enough on his feet to hobble over to the new bowl.
The ice cream was completely melted into a foamy swirl of pink, brown, and white. Bill stuck a finger in. A little chillier than lukewarm. Another teaspoon stuck out from the opposite side of the bowl, just as unnecessary as the first. Bill cupped his hands, dunked them, and drank his breakfast broth the way nature intended.
He was nauseous within the first ten minutes, and continued to eat for twenty more. He decided then with certainty that, were his tiny mess of an organic body to one day perish, he wanted it buried in artificial strawberry flavoring, xanthan gum, and high fructose corn syrup.
Still, he stopped himself just short of throwing up. His impulse control and moderation skills were relatively fresh. Given a bit of (forced) space from his prior lifestyle, he'd come to the realization that he didn't have to throw up. Perpetual nausea was something avoidable with practice–not, as he'd once thought, a symptom of simply existing as himself. After the withdrawal symptoms had worn off, he'd decided he'd rather not puke if he could help it.
But nobody was checking up on him anymore. Not the way the prism had. Maybe vomiting was one of the many passions purged from his lovable personality in their efforts to cleanse his mind of sin. He may have been handed from one prison to another, but only in one did he truly have free will. He had three more handfuls, and puked into the bowl. A half-digested lump of hominy floated to the surface. Secured in his beliefs, he made the executive decision to stop.
He lowered himself to the table to lean against the bowl. As his stomach settled, he tugged the note out from under the present. It was addressed “to: Bill” with a heart over the I. The heart was scribbled out, and replaced with a triangle. He unfolded the paper and read the bubbly handwriting (which alternated color by sentence).
Hi Bill!
Sorry I couldn't get you your dessert last night. :( I got you something to make up for it! I was going to give it to you anyway but I also think it's worth forgiving me for. You be the judge! Also, Grunkle Ford agreed to give you a little space today. I let him know you aren't going to try anything, and we think the busted foot is probably enough to deal with. Have a you day instead! Maybe my present will help…wink!
Your fr Yours tru Sinser Sincerly Sinscerly Sincerely, Mabel
PS: It felt weird to sign your cast while you were passed out, so here's a tiny sticker with my tiny signature! Also some of the littlest stickers from my collection. Express yourself!
An arrow pointed at a scrap of wax paper taped to the bottom of the page, packed to the edges with stickers. They weren't bad looking stickers–multicolored stars, foods, cartoon aliens, googly eyes, letters of the alphabet, and Mabel’s practiced autograph.
Bill refolded the note (unfolded it, peeled off a blue star sticker and stuck it on his face, refolded it) and reached for the present. He bit through the yarn and tore through the foil paper.
A purple plastic cylinder. He turned it in his hands to read the label: “My Horse Flies Collection”, “Volume & Coverage”, “With Butterfly Shimmer!” It was makeup. Children's toy makeup, likely contaminated with asbestos–but makeup nonetheless.
The color wasn't specified past “Betharina’s Mane”, which Bill supposed was a sufficient specification to fans of the “My Horse Flies” media franchise. Bill could never get into those books; The writing was just too bland for the beautifully illustrated horse wings and flowing manes to justify.
The cap took some elbow grease and gnawing, but it eventually came loose. He unsheathed the mascara wand like a blade from a scabbard. It shimmered just as advertised, jewel purple and obscenely dense, flecked with chunky blue glitter that looked specifically designed to bring harm to fragile, infantile eyes. Bill could only imagine the majesty of Betharina.
He didn't need a mirror to put on mascara. He had hundreds of billions of years worth of muscle memory. Every wispy blonde lash, full coverage, not a speck on the skin. The uncooperative glitter was barely a challenge. He recapped the wand.
Only then did he desperately need a mirror. He heaved himself to his feet and ignored the ache, following the rim of the bowl to the opposite side where a spoon waited for him. He fished it out of the sugar soup, licked it clean, and polished away the streaks.
He stared at his warped reflection for a period of time he couldn't gauge because it didn't matter. By the end of it, watery globules of purple were streaking down his face. He rubbed at the stains, smudging them across his bricks, resulting in much larger stains. His breathing hitched. It hadn't hitched in a trillion years. He swiped again at his face, avoiding his makeup, then again, both palms at once, scrubbing away.
He’d been factory processed. He'd been disinfected and hosed down and baked and compressed into a thin, brittle wafer of the god he used to be, and now he was crying. He didn't cry in therapy, not once–not about his lost empire, not about mandibles, and not about his mother.
He slid down the side of the bowl, hugged his knees, and cried about his empire, mandibles, and his mother. He cried about the week of torture, and the million torturous years of compulsory healing. He sobbed because they'd worked , and he sobbed harder because they weren't working anymore.
He cried for a long time.
When he was done, he counted out his breaths–using a technique he'd learned from the very sadists that ruined him–until he felt better. He licked his hand and cleaned up the mess he'd made of his face, leaving no trace but a puffy undereye, and chafed fingertips, rubbed raw on his stony keratin. If the body came with fingerprints, they were gone now. He touched up his mascara.
Stanford would have come by in the middle of all that, judging by the position of the sun, and the sweet twitterings of avian lust. He was usually up and raring to go before the sun, let alone the birds (and instead of helping himself to all the worms he could eat, he chose to bother Bill, which said something about his priorities). Shooting Star really had managed to call him off after all. Bill scooted back over to her note, and peeled the homemade sticker sheet off the paper. She had a very distinct signature–the kind kids practiced extensively in the margins of their notebooks instead of paying attention in class. Bouncy upright cursive, with a heart in the tail of the L. It was written in purple ink. Probably to match his new look. She was artsy like that. He peeled it off, and stuck it on his cast. He added a banana split, a googly eye, and a red letter B.
Stanford returned at sundown. Bill looked up from his idle game of “spin the mascara” to follow him with his eye. He stopped before the table, looming as usual, and took account of the scene; The sticker sheet was empty, along with the pink plastic bowl, and the tabletop within the barrier was fully Mabelized.
Bill silently watched his appraisal, awaiting judgement. The mascara would be confiscated for sure. The bowl and spoon too, which he cared less about. Maybe he could keep the stickers, but, then again, Ford wasn't a big fan of joy and whimsy–specifically when Bill experienced them.
“How’s the foot?”
Bill looked down at his cast. He knocked his heel twice on the table, then looked back at Ford. “Broken.”
“It's a sprain. If you had toes, I expect you would have broken a few. Does it feel any better?”
“Doesn't feel worse.”
“Good.” He adjusted his glasses and knelt down to get a closer look. Bill felt himself tense. Embarrassing.
“Is it?”
“Hm?”
“Is it ‘good'? I saved you the effort of a maiming, you don't wanna play with me a little? Maybe twist it around some more, make me run laps? Jumping jacks? That sorta thing?”
“It's good,” he repeated dryly. “Try to stay off it for a day or two.”
“No more long, scenic walks in nature…” Bill lamented.
Ford sighed. “Bill, why are you here?” It was the calmest he'd ever said it, but it still sent a shiver down Bill's exoskeleton. “Take your time.”
Every time he asked that question, it was with glass eyes–solid and immutable. For once, there was a smidgen of depth to them. Extending an olive twig. A splinter, even. Easy to lose to a gust of wind. Bill knew himself, and he knew what he would have said to that offer the night before. Good moods were fleeting, and tended to hot potato in his hands; The longer he held on, the worse the outcome. Bill didn't trust himself with a good mood. He'd much prefer to absolve himself of the responsibility, in which case he'd be more inclined to burn Ford's face with a projectile potato than to simply set it down. It was a malfunction so deep-set in his behavior he considered it posthumously instinctual to his species. That was just how he was, if therapy had taught him anything (which it had).
“I wish I knew. That's the truth.”
Ford’s expression didn't change. He had to be as dissatisfied with that answer as ever, but he wasn't closing the gate. Bill wondered if his own voice had come across differently, somehow, or if the change of heart had nothing to do with him at all.
“Best guess so far,” he continued, “the powers that be are giving you the final word. All I know is…” Bill stared at his cast. The signature, and the carefully installed splints. “I'm not going anywhere after this. I spent a long time in purgatory to be here. Whether ‘here' is a punishment is on you. As afterlives go, I'd consider the current setup a mild hell.” He made a so-so gesture with his hand. “And to be fair, I'm not making it any better for myself.”
Ford looked surprised. Bill realized that was probably the most he'd heard him speak in one breath since he showed up. Whether it was the result of Ford being more patient, or his own mood, he couldn't say. A little of both.
“Thank you,” Ford said. “For your honesty.”
Bill had no response. He hadn't been dishonest once since his arrival. He breathed, graciously, through the indignance.
“I'll get those dishes out of your way.” Ford picked up the wrapping paper and empty sticker sheet and placed them in the ice cream bowl, followed by the spoon. He paused with his hand on the rim, like a dog that picked up a scent, before lifting it away.
Only after his hand was out of range did Bill notice the lack of gauntlet. It hadn't crossed his mind, even staring directly at it. There hadn't been any extraordinary urgency in Ford’s movements.
“Thanks.” He looked back to his cast. The googly eye stared back at him with the innocence only a soulless object could possess.
“You're welcome.” Ford stood, pushing off the table. He checked the unicorn hair barrier for breaks, running his finger around the perimeter. Satisfied, he turned towards the door.
“I'm sorry. For what it's worth.” It sounded thin and strange. Bill cleared his throat. “No thanks to you. You don't exactly make it easy.”
“Mhm,” Ford said from above, after a lengthy pause. Without looking at his expression, Bill had no way of knowing what that meant. “I'll check in again tomorrow. Mabel will bring you your food tonight.”
Bill listened to his heavy, dirty footsteps as he crossed the room, muffled on the carpet. He wondered how he was getting away with wearing those boots around the house. How the old lady hadn't killed him. The steps stopped just short of the door.
“The makeup's nice.” The hinges creaked, twice, and he was gone.
Bill spent the rest of his time–until Mabel returned with dinner–losing at tic-tac-toe.