Chapter Text
“Is Betty the ex-fiancée, do you think?” Stan hissed, always the gossip. Ford rolled his eyes.
“It's none of our business.” He asserted, coming to a stop outside the clearing, where the tree-line obscured the view of Dr. Petrikov's emotions. “Also, it's her choice if she destroys Cipher or not, so it's probably better if he sorts through his emotional issues before we contact her.”
“Like you did?” Stan asked wryly. Ford gasped despite himself, and rounded on his twin, slapping him on the arm.
“Like I did? What about how you did! I had no idea I was to be dragged through that portal, you had thirty years! Really, I-” Ford paused at the expression on Stan's face, good-natured and nowhere near his mean-spirited glare. “Oh!” He realised. “That was a joke. An ironic joke. That's quite funny! Yes, we both have issues, good joke.” He said, entirely sincere.
Stan smiled at him, his expression of joy at Ford understanding a social intricacy the same as it had been when they were both boys on Glass Shard Beach. “Got it in one.” He praised fondly.
Ford rolled his eye but couldn't hide a smile at Stan's delight. He sank down to sit out of view of the clearing, resting his back against a sturdy pine, the surface slightly tacky with sap. He didn't really mind, his coat had seen much worse substances over the years. Stan followed suit, slightly pickier in where he sat, but eventually slumping on a pile of fresh fallen needles and leaning against a skinnier, and less sticky, tree.
“Still,” Ford said, eager to talk about something so fascinating. “Did you hear what he said about his universe, all the candy people, and genetic modification, and the human race dipping in numbers? I wish I'd brought a notebook to take all this down, I'm sure I'm going to forget some of this.” He fidgeted with the carpet of needles beneath him, crushing some in his fingers to release their iconic scent, and wished instead that they were a pen.
Stan looked slightly exasperated. “He also said he’s magic, and hasn't seen a set of twins in a million years. It sounds like his universe is a tad more fanciful than ours. It's fine if you don't get everything, it's a lot to remember.”
“It was a thousand years, not a million.” Ford corrected. “And Cake said he had magic, but he'd lost it somehow, which had removed the magic from their world. Weren't you listening?”
“Eh, I'm more interested in the relationship drama he has with that ‘Betty’ he mentioned, you can't go wrong with good gossip.” Stan said, with a sharp smile and a spark in his eye he usually only got when watching his soaps. “You’re the weird-stuff twin.”
“You ran a Mystery Shack.” Ford reminded, in my house, he added internally, but he was past that so he didn't say it aloud. “You can't say you didn't gain any sort of appreciation for the thought of sapient, sugar-based lifeforms. Assuming we take the biological meaning of ‘candy people’ of course, it could just be a sociological or metaphorical term.”
“Maybe for how much I could scam them by.” Stan said, with a thoughtful, far-off stare. Ford rolled his eyes.
“Or if you could beat them in a fight.” Ford added. Stan snapped his fingers in appreciation, shooting him a finger gun.
“Now there's an idea.” He said, excitedly. “Though it would depend on what type of candy I'm fighting, I could take a marshmallow-man easy, I think, though a jawbreaker-guy might give me some trouble. Soos managed to gank a candy man by eating him, so that could be a strategy to go for. I'd need to take into consideration how biteable my opponent is.”
Wait, what?
“Soos ate a candy man?” Ford asked, incredulous, leaning forward towards Stan. “There's candy men in our dimension? And you guys didn't tell me? Dipper didn't tell me?”
“Candy man.” Stan corrected. “Singular. And-” but he was interrupted before he could finish by Cake, who had stretched out of the clearing to meet them at the treeline.
“We’re ready.” They said flippantly. “Do you guys have any jumper cables? Like the ones you attach to cars. We'll need them to get rid of Billy.”
Ford blinked, momentarily thrown by the nickname, and started to stand up, awkwardly brushing pine needles off his jeans. “I- oh, yes. We should have. What else do you need? Any unicorn hair? Mercury?”
“No, two jumper cables should be fine.” They dismissed. Ford nodded, it made sense for Prismo to send them already with all the harder to obtain materials.
Stan groaned dramatically as he got to his feet, joints creaking ominously. “I'll nip back to the Shack and grab them.” He offered. “They're in the Stanmobile, never can be too careful with a car that old.”
“Sounds good.” Ford said, giving him a thumbs up. Stan smiled at him and turned to leave, striding through the trees.
Cake surged forward, looping their furry flesh coils around Ford, and tugged him back towards the clearing. Ford froze for a second at the contact, the instinctual human worry of being wrapped and constricted by something vaguely snake-like flaring in his gut. He forced himself to relax past the reaction and allowed himself to be dragged along by the other-dimensional being. They were probably just a touchy person, or maybe their species had a natural tendency towards moulding around one another (which would make sense with their body structure).
“Do you have a concept of gender?” Ford blurted without thinking, trying to distract himself from the oddly non-newtonian texture of Cake’s body.
“Not really!” Cake said cheerfully, humming slightly as they tugged him along. “But that's because I was a non-sapient house cat for most of my non-magical existence, not because I'm like, non-binary, or anything. I'm a girl cat, if you were wondering.”
“Wow.” Ford said, trying to think that statement through. So it was their species that made them so touchy feely, it was just that species was ‘cat’. “So Prismo really did you a favour when he gave you magic back. How was that transition? From cat to sapient being?” He asked, genuinely curious. “And if you're a girl cat and not a girl human, do you use human feminine pronouns?”
“It was weird.” Cake said simply. “And yeah, I use she her. I've never known anything else and it's chill.” She raised a paw to wave at her two companions as her top half rejoined her bottom and she unwound from Ford. Almost in sync, Dr. Petrikov and Fionna waved back, even though they were standing right next to her.
Ford smiled awkwardly at them, not sure what to say after witnessing part of what was clearly a long running emotional issue. They both gave him almost identically awkward smiles back.
“So.” He said. “What are you going to do with the jumper cables?” He asked, it had seemed like an odd request, but maybe the arcane interactions of their world worked slightly differently.
“Oh!” Dr. Petrikov said, as if startled he'd asked. “We’re going to use them to open up a portal to my- to Betty, using Cipher as a battery and conduit to channel magic.” Ford felt his eyes widen in disbelief, and Dr. Petrikov hurried to explain. “I know that sounds like an incredibly bad idea, but we've done it before with The Lich, who is the Manifestation of the End of All Living Beings in my cluster. It doesn't matter how evil or chaotic the power source is, it has no corrupting influence,” here his expression turned wry and slightly self-deprecating, “or sanity altering effects, I made sure of that before I used the spell in the first place. What's most important for this situation, however, is that the spell will teleport the power source to the desired location with the caster. So we can pretty much pass him off to be destroyed, like what happened with The Lich.”
Well, Ford thought, he said he didn't have magic anymore. It made sense that he couldn't use his own power to make a portal, even if he'd obviously kept the knowledge of how to perform the spell. That didn't mean Ford had to like that he was using Bill Cipher though, it felt to much like he was poking the owlbear
“Would it be possible for me to come with you?” He asked, instead of bringing up his irrational concerns. “So I can see him being destroyed. Not that I don't have the utmost trust in you and Prismo of course, it's just, I-”
“Need to see it with your own eyes.” Dr. Petrikov completed, nodding understandingly, his own blank eyes somehow focused right on Ford's, despite the lack of pupil. “I get it. I'm not sure though, I've never purposely done it with another person before. Perhaps you could just… hold onto my shoulder or something. Physical contact may be enough to bring you with me.”
“Well we can try.” Ford said, bracingly.
“That we can.” Dr. Petrikov nodded again, then pushed his glasses back up as they slid with the motion.
Ford crossed his arms, feeling suddenly nervous. He just wanted this over and done with, to remove the weight that had been on his back for over thirty years, and now it was finally being lifted in a way that felt all together too anticlimactic. It was odd, he was somehow more nervous now than he had ever been when he was trying to kill Cipher with higher, deadlier, stakes. He drummed his fingers along his pants leg in a steady five point pattern, trying to shake off the jittering energy.
“Do a lot of people in this dimension have six fingers?” Dr. Petrikov asked, tone mildly curious and seemingly driven by the urge to make conversation and noticing Ford’s nervous tick. The instinctual dread at the question rose within him despite the man’s non-judgemental tone, but Ford shook it off. You’d think he'd be used to the question by now, but at least it wasn't the first thing Dr. Petrikov had said. If it was Ford with five fingers and someone from another dimension had six, with a sample size of two people to judge from, the query would almost definitely be one of the primary questions he would ask. He had to remember that, and not hold people to unrealistic standards due to his soft point.
“No.” Ford answered, over the sound of Stan’s huffing and puffing as his twin approached the clearing, cables presumably in hand. “I'm a statistical anomaly, it's what got me to pursue education and experimentation in the anomalous and odd.” Then, because Ford could be petty sometimes, and was in part genuinely curious. “Is five the standard for people in your dimension too?”
Stan burst into the clearing, seemingly winded despite only moving at a light jog. “Oh, are we talking about hands?” He asked, something sharp in his voice despite his panting. He handed over the jumper cables to Dr. Petrikov, who in turn handed them to Fionna, who promptly dropped them to the ground.
“I was just curious.” Dr. Petrikov said lightly, perhaps sensing Ford and Stan's guarded tones. He crouched to inspect the cables (which seemed counterintuitive to Ford, why did he hand them to Fionna in the first place?). “And no, actually, to answer your question, Stanford. Most people have four.” Ford blinked in surprise, out of the corner of his eye he saw Stan do the same. “It used to be five, before the nuclear fallout of the mushroom war, which is why I have these.” He wriggled his fingers in demonstration. “But as humanity evolved to survive the new environment, or as they were mutated by their environment, most of the population lost their pinkies and their noses flattened to blend in with the newer species that were born from the blast.” He rubbed a finger down his aquiline nose in what appeared to be a subconscious move, highlighting what must be an obvious difference to the other humans in his dimension. “It stuck around as advantageous because there was a boom in population of a predatory species that primarily hunted humans and had a weakness to sunlight, the more favourable weather conditions brought by nuclear winter let them multiply and spread further than their weakness would usually allow. It was a sort of camouflage, to hide between other species that vampires couldn't eat. I'm quite different from the standard human these days!”
“Humans evolved a form of Batesian mimicry?” Ford asked, stunned. Even skipping past the mention of vampires, the man had survived a nuclear apocalypse! No wonder the human population had bottlenecked, and no wonder he’d passed through so many atomic wastelands when he'd shortcutted across the AT cluster!
“So that's why they all looked so weird!” Fionna cried, with the air of sudden realisation. “I thought they were all just hybrids with the magic species!”
“Ah, no. Humans are a completely different evolutionary line to post-war species. There's no way to interbreed with them.” Dr. Petrikov said, and picked up one end of the cable, scanning his body as if looking for a place to attach it to. “And Batesian mimicry is when animals mimic a more dangerous species, isn't it? I’d say humans are more like the caterpillars that look like bird poop.” He sighed, clipping the cable to the back of his ankle, around his Achilles tendon. He winced as it locked into place. “Can someone go attach the other end of this to Bill Cipher? I don't want to walk with this on.”
Ford mentally rose an eyebrow. If he couldn't walk with it on why did he no do Cipher's first? But maybe it was part of the spell, so he didn't say anything out loud, instead he simply strode forward to collect the other end of the cable and made his way over to Cipher. Despite himself, Ford could feel anxiety racing up his spine with each step he took towards the statue, and his hand felt stiff around the cable. He stretched open his unoccupied hand to try banish the tension, wriggling his fingers to break the stiffness and opened his mouth to speak past his irrational feelings.
“Where do you want it?” He asked, forcing himself to keep a light tone. He was right next to Bill, now.
“Ah, wherever you can fit. Then come back here and put a hand on my shoulder.”
Ford reached down and clipped the cable to Bill’s ankle, his mind screaming at him to not go anywhere near his skinny wrist, as if he could accidentally give the statue a handshake. “Right.” He said, and walked away as fast as he could without running to Dr. Petrikov’s side.
He gripped Dr. Petrikov's shoulder quite roughly as he reached him, almost shoving him backwards, and then stepped back on instinct, releasing him. “Apologies.” He said, cursing his over-anxious mind. “I'm a bit on edge, at the moment. I've wanted to be rid of him for longer than you know.” Ford reached forward more gently, and merely laid a hand on the man's shoulder, instead of grabbing it.
“Such things weigh on the mind.” The man said, his blank eyes scanned Ford, cataloguing his tense posture. “I understand. I was once as desperate to use this spell as you are now. Though, of course, it was for an entirely different reason. I…” Dr. Petrikov paused, and his eyes scanned Ford again, gaze unreadable. “I hope you can reach… clarity, or peace, or relief. Or whatever you want out of this. You probably know the scars he left won't disappear with the statue. The type of madness he inspires is long lasting.” His tone sounded commiserating, and, more importantly, understanding. “After this? Go to therapy. Genuinely. You don't understand how mean your thoughts can be until you hire somebody to argue against them.”
“You sound just like my great niece.” Ford managed, taken aback. It was kind of presumptuous for Dr. Petrikov to assume that Ford didn't go to therapy just from looking at him. But it was not like the man was wrong.
“She sounds like a smart lady.” Dr. Petrikov smiled. “Anyway.” He took a deep breath, and shooed Ford with his hands, gesturing for him to stand behind him, to which Ford complied. When he spoke again it was in a measured tone, and his hands moved robotically, pivoting up and down at a 90 degree angle. “Reveal the path and grant me passage.” He intoned. “Reveal the path and grant me passage. Reveal the path and grant me passage.” At the third utterance the jumper cable lit up with an unearthly light, travelling up from Cipher until it was shining out of the man’s blank eyes. Some light began to shine out through the back of his head, but it sputtered and died, like the last dregs of water in a hose had been tipped out, after the faucet had been turned off.
Stan cut in, speaking to Dr. Petrikov. “He'll be fine. Won't he?” He asked, and with a jolt Ford realised he was asking after him.
Dr. Petrikov smiled again. “Don't worry.” He said, and the light poured from his mouth, now, as well. “I’ll ask her not to hurt him.”
Then Ford’s vision went white, and he was falling backwards into nothing.
