Chapter Text
"Are you okay, Stanford?"
Ford raised his head from the toilet bowl and growled. Another wave of nausea hit him then, forcing him to regurgitate whatever food was left in his stomach. From the look of it, it was more bile than digested food anyway. Absolutely vile. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a piece of toilet paper.
"One... moment, please. Ow!"
His stomach hurt. His head hurt. His whole body was bloated and painful. What a way to start the day! He couldn't believe he threw up as soon as he woke up!
Behind him, Fiddleford gave him a towel and a glass of water.
"Here, easy, my friend. No need to rush."
"I hate this." Ford groaned in pain. His stomach was cramping and the sour aftertaste almost made him lose it again. He wiped his sweating face with the towel and used the water to rinse his mouth.
"I don't understand," he sighed. "We ate the same thing yesterday night. I'm usually not prone to sickness."
"Everyone gets sick from time to time." Fiddleford shrugged. "Must be the weather. It's raining hard these days, you must've caught a cold."
"Ridiculous. I spent several winters in Gravity Falls and never got sick."
"Well, it did happen right? No need to get too worked up about it. Take it easy, I'll go to town and get you something for your stomach bug. You want to eat something?"
"No thank you. The mere idea of food is..."
Ford couldn't finish: he quickly hunched over the bowl and retched some more. Fiddleford shook his head.
"Okay, I'm going now. Try not to die before I'm back."
Ford hardly noticed when his friend was gone. He stood up with difficulty, stared at himself in the mirror on the wall and groaned some more. His face and hair were a mess.
"What a sorry excuse of a man you are, Stanford."
"Wow, you look like shit!"
Ford jumped in surprise; he hit his arm on the wall and keeled over in pain.
"Fuck!"
"What a potty mouth, Fordsy!" Bill's reflection in the mirror giggled. "Not that I mind!"
"Bill!" Ford struggled to get on his feet. He was feeling gross and exhausted and irritated at the same time. "Where were you these last two months!"
"Oh, did you miss me?" Bill's eye crinkled in mischief. "I thought you were too busy playing house with your new boytoy!"
"What?" That was it: another powerful headache threatened to engulf Ford like a storm. He shook his head in a desperate attempt to chase it away, to no avail. "I'm not in the mood for your jokes! I waited for ages for you! You stood me up after..."
Ford immediately shut up before the words could leave his mouth, but it was too late: Bill did understand what he was about to say because he blinked and laughed awkwardly. A long, meaningful silence followed.
"Oh, uh, about that... Feel better?"
"It's been two months. Yes, I... do feel better."
"Ah, okay."
The atmosphere got weird really fast, it seemed. Ford dreaded to look at Bill. Forget the nausea or the headache: all of a sudden, images of the night he spent with his Muse assaulted his mind. He cowered back with a grimace. This had been a mistake. Neither he or Bill were sober enough to stop before... that. The memory of Bill's hands (among other things) on his body made him feel so uncomfortable he flinched involuntary.
"Wow, you have a better memory of that night that I thought."
"Did you just read my mind?"
"You gave me access, remember?"
"Please stop."
"I don't know why I should. I was there too, after all!"
"Please stop!"
Ford hid his face behind his hands. How disgraceful! The events prior to that mishap were harmless enough, but the result of that? Utterly mortifying. He couldn't wait to leave it all behind, for he had better things to do than reminisce about the... torrid but assuredly temporary... intimate encounter he had with a supernatural creature named Bill Cipher. It wasn't even real! They did it all in his dream!
"And what a dream it was!" Bill giggled. "Oh, Fordsy, it was a ten out of ten! A three stars Michelin course!"
"Please stop talking."
Shameful. Humiliating. Astoundingly bad. There was no word to tell how awful an experience it was.
"Aw, come on, it wasn't that bad! I'm pretty sure you enjoyed it at least!"
"That's not the problem! It's..." Ford could feel the heat on his cheeks. Oh boy. That was so embarrassing. "We're not... I mean, you're male... I guess? Not to mention we're not the same species..."
"Oh, pff, is that all?" Bill made a dismissal gesture. "You humans are so overcomplicated! We both had fun, so where's the harm? Didn't you go out with a mermaid before we met?"
"Yes, but... She was at least half human?"
"Including her lady bits?" Bill raised his one eyebrow. "She's more scaly than fleshy down there!"
"I wouldn't know." Now Ford was overheating. "We didn't go that far."
"Oh."
Bill's expression was unreadable, not that Ford was bold enough to see him eye to eye. He could feel the discomfort creep into his bones.
"We were just... experimenting. We didn't go further than first base. You were... the farthest I went with any other... entity."
The profound, creepy silence was soon broken by the heartiest, raspiest laugh Ford ever heard coming from Bill. It went on for a full minute or two, until the demon finally stopped and wiped the tears coming out of his eye. He was still wheezing a little, though.
"Wow, at your old age, isn't that a tad late, lover boy?"
"I'm a man of the mind before the physique."
"Hah, just tell you that to make you feel better, sweetcheeks!"
"Bill!" Ford couldn't feel more mortified, he was sure of it. "Sweetcheeks? Really?"
"Hey, I did see your cheeks and I found them pretty sweet and lovely, if you ask me!"
"Please stop..."
"And bouncy! And juicy too!"
"You say that because you bit me!"
"I didn't hear you complaining! In fact, you were moaning rather loudly!"
"I didn't..." Before Ford could finish, another wave of nausea hit him. He managed to quell it before he threw up again, probably thanks to the fact he didn't have anything to get out of his stomach anymore. Bill observed him with the intensity of a child in front of the window of a confectionery shop.
"Did you get sick, Fordsy?"
"It's probably nothing." Ford put down the toilet lid and sat on it. "It started a few days ago. I think I ate something bad. It will pass with a lot of fluids and patience."
"Do you want me to look?"
"I thought you couldn't physically manifest in my dimension?"
"I can't, but I can watch. You gave me permission, what's a little peek between partners in crime?"
"I think you saw enough of my body." Ford refused to look at Bill in fear of remembering again. "Can't we change the subject? I'd rather forget about this... interaction."
"No fun!" Bill shrugged. "Okay, fine, it's a pity but fun is fun, whether you want to admit it or not. Now don't be a baby and let me take a look. What if it's something serious that can be avoided if you take the earliest measures possible? I want you to be as healthy as possible for my portal, babygirl! Can't have a dying human on my payroll!"
"You don't pay me."
"What about all the knowledge I gave you? They're very valuable!"
"I guess." Ford sighed. Bill was right, of course: he couldn't let his body fail him now, not when they were so close to their expected results. "A little peek then, to be sure I'm as healthy as can be, no more."
"Okie-dokie, Fordsy-baby!"
Ford closed his eyes and tried very hard not to shudder. The sensation of his Muse looking into his body was... strange, to say the least, but not unpleasant. Whatever Bill was doing inside made Ford sigh in contentment, until he caught himself and stayed still from shame. He couldn't let Bill play with his body like he did the night of his birthday. He hoped the process would be as quick and neutral as possible.
"Wow, it's a real mess in there!" Bill finally emerged from wherever he was to appear in the mirror like before. "Your body is in a bad shape, huh."
"Is it that bad?"
Bill started counting on his fingers.
"Well, you do have muscles but they're not exactly well-defined, your nutritious intake must be disastrous because you have a lot of vitamin deficiency and oh, you also have a parasite inside your abdomen."
"Wait, what?"
"Nothing a little supplement pill or two can't solve! You should eat more vegetables too!"
"Not that! I have a... parasite? Like a tapeworm?"
"How would I know?" Bill looked bored. He pointed a finger on Ford's lower abdomen. "It's here, it's very small but I guess that's what causing you these stomach problems."
"I see."
It was inconvenient, but not that much surprising, all things considered. Ford tried to remember when a tapeworm could have infected him. Unfortunately, that could have happened at any time: he wasn't the most attentive about his nutritional intakes... especially since he left his parental home. When he was a teen, his mother at least tried to make him eat three nourishing meals per day, which was far from being the case once he became a college student.
"What now, tapeworm guy?"
"I have an ultrasound scan in the lab." Ford sighed. "If I use a hand mirror, can you come with me and help me to locate the parasite? I'd rather get rid of it sooner than later."
"You bet I can!"
"It's settled then."
Ford felt a little better now that he knew what he had to do. He looked at his watch: Fiddleford was gone for twenty minutes already. He didn't how long his friend would take before he came back, so he would have to hurry. He rushed to the lab, switched on the scanning machine and started to put a generous amount of ultrasound gel on his stomach.
"Hey, why do you even have all that?" Bill asked from the hand mirror Ford brought with him.
"I needed it to examine the Shape Shifter," Ford said distractedly. The machine was something he "borrowed" from a fellow professor he worked with just before graduation. He hated the man so when he had the opportunity to get his hands on this brand new ultrasound scanner, he didn't hesitate. It was for science! Surely, his colleague would understand, to an extent.
The ultrasound gel felt cold and slimy. Ford ignored it to look at the screen. He could hear a faint beat coming from the speakers, like the sound coming from a tiny drum. A pulse? Was it normal for a parasite to have one? Because he didn't take the time to lay down, part of the ultrasound gel started to drip on the floor.
"Oh, here it is!" Bill pointed to a tiny dot. "So minuscule! Look, there's a sac around it? How impertinent! It started to build its house in your body!"
Onscreen, the thing looked like a blurry white bean inside a black circle. One side was attached to the white part surrounding it. How peculiar. Ford looked closer. The bean was moving oh-so slightly, pulsating, a series of beats that reminded him of...
"Oh shit."
"Hey, there's another one!" Bill said in a gleeful tone. "There are two of them!"
Ford looked at him, then at the screen, then at Bill again.
It couldn't be. It was impossible... was it?
Of course it was impossible. They must be... parasitic entities. Aliens. Flesh-eating cryptids that were consuming Ford's body from the inside. Anything was possible at this point. Didn't he have virtual sex with a god inside his own mind? That could be anything.
"Fordsy? You're awfully quiet."
Ford stared at Bill. Then it hit him: all the symptoms that started recently, the bloating, the morning sickness, the mood swings Fiddleford told him about...
"Bill. I need you to answer me truthfully. Can you do that?"
"It's the only answer I can give!" Bill giggled. "The truthful, all-time sincere and honest answers to all your wildest questions! Bring it on, Sixer!"
"Can you impregnate other species?"
Bill blinked once, twice, then:
"Huh?"
"More importantly, can you impregnate other species' specimen that are not built to carry children?"
"You lost me there, buddy."
"Fine, let me rephrase it: Bill, did you knock me up?"