sixerpath (sixerpath) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-04-02 21:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | bill cipher, stanford pines |
Alright, so...preemptive apologies. Now that Bill Cipher's in game, we got a lot of backlogged threads about their past growing up to throw up here.
Who: Bill Cipher and Ford Pines
What: Childhood friends, making their way. Bill's been missing class, Ford goes to investigate.
When: Way back machine to when they were nine years old, 1985
Where: New Jersey
Rating/Warnings: Mentions of child abuse
Status: Ongoing
“It’s fine, Stan. Come on” Ford honestly couldn’t believe how long it had taken him to convince his twin to call into the office at school and mimic their dad’s voice to get him out of school for the day. It wasn’t as if the two hadn’t, on rare occasion, done just that to ditch school and go play on the beach or break in to see a movie in the theatres. “It’ll just be for today. Besides, I’m worried .” He pressed anxiously, shoving a number of things into his backpack and using extra care for one of their blankets. “Bill’s missed like, two whole days of school. And he hasn’t even called or nothin’. He’s gotta be really sick...” He ignored any grumbling protest that might’ve started to come his way.
He scrunched his nose at the thought. Honestly, how Stan couldn’t be worried too was beyond him! But the two always seemed to have this build of tension. He slipped on his backpack and took a breath. “Okay, got everything. So um, just tell everyone I’m sick today too. And…” He grinned, wide and grateful. “Thanks Stan.” And before his brother could possibly protest or eyeroll or anything he flung his arms around the other, giving a quick hug before dashing off. “I’ll tell Bill you said hi!” And that was that.
Really, he’d have to punch Bill for not calling and telling him what was up. Or sending a message somehow . He’d give him a piece of his mind, that was for sure! The boy’s feet sped past familiar territory as he went off on this thought, taking on the old streets as if he owned them. And beside his two other best friends, he supposed they kinda did. At least if anyone knew the town, it was the three of them. Kings of New York and all.
He sped around a few houses, cut through a yard or two before climbing his way down a hill toward the far less ritzy areas of town, (not that he and Stan lived in them) the street becoming less and less organized and far dirtier as he went along. A few buildings fenced by bars started to show themselves, worn in concrete and hardly standing. Eventually he made his way to a worn down community of townhouses, and made quick work of jumping the fence. He still couldn’t manage it quite as well as Stan or Bill, but he got over it without more than a rough landing, hoisting himself over to an old tree and starting to climb against the branches. He grunted, hefting his bag along with him. He sure hoped Bill wasn’t too sick. Honestly, it felt like his mission to make sure the yellow haired boy stayed out of trouble, even if that trouble happened to be a nasty flu. He eventually reached to a particular sturdy thick area and pulled himself along the heavy branch toward a window.
“ Bill. ” He hissed, digging an old skipping stone out of his pocket and tossing it gently at the window. “Hey Bill, let me in! It’s Ford!”
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"If he finds out…" Stan warned his twin in a hiss, watching Ford stuff this and that into his bag. Normally Stan wouldn't worry about breaking the rules, hell, it was a speciality of his. Impersonating their dad wasn't even out of his realm of mischief, though maybe the reason made him hesitate. Ok. Sure… he had concern. Secondhand concern for Ford. Bill was probably fine, but he couldn't deny it was weird for him to skirt Ford like this.
"Yeah, yeah… I got your back. Go on." Stan could also lie out his teeth and spin tales on the spot if he had to. Ford was usually better for things like details, but pssssh. Stan would be fine if it came down to it. "If you need backup," he bent to pick up the passing opossum, holding it menacingly like he was wielding some amazing weapon. Bill's parents were some kinda work, he didn't want Sixer getting in too deep either.
Sick. If only he were sick. That would have been preferable to his own personal pit of despair. As if feeling like an oddball and an outcast in the rest of his life weren't enough, he wasn't even wanted at home. It didn't matter. Deep in his adolescent brain, he'd accepted that a long time ago. He had a home away from this with the Pines, he knew that. Enough of his time was spent there to wonder why he ever went back. Sometimes, he decided he wanted something from the rundown townhouse he had yet to grab. Other times came the threats of calling him in as a runaway if he didn't, which begged a whole other set of why's when there were times he would be away for days to what stretched to weeks at a time. It was a stupid game of control that had no defined rules that even at such a young age he was tired of.
When he went so far as to miss school and not even ring Ford, you knew something was up. Bill went to school if it was only to get away from here. If he didn't even contact Ford? It had to be over the edge of bad into something more infuriating. What did anyone do about it in that time though? Nada. Bruised up kids probably deserved what they got. Unable to stand the idea of the looks and the pity, Bill stayed here instead. Out of anyone, he didn't want to put that on Ford. Too often he felt like he did already, not that the other ever made him feel he was a burden. Always the opposite. If Bill was like the sun to Ford, then Ford was the entire universe itself to Bill. A safe pocket in a world otherwise unfairly balanced that always favored the ones who didn't need it.
Which was why he didn't want Ford seeing him with black eyes that faded to a patch of marbled blue and green with the time that passed. If he didn't go, no one seemed to notice or care besides Ford and by extension Stan. Bill had a notebook filled nearly cover to cover with various triangle themed drawings, others on the more disturbing side than others, some just in repeating patterns over and over again. In the margins sometimes there were notes about what he was drawing or thinking. He was tracing an outline over in thick, heavy lines, filling in the inside like a pyramid with a little bowtie. He only stopped when he heard the rock tick against his window followed by his name said by a familiar voice. Bill's heart sank some, getting up to go to it. Peeling back a sheet that covered the window, he looked out through darkened mismatched eyes, giving Ford an almost apologetic smile.
"Ford… you should be careful," he hissed back as he opened the window, very off brand for the kid who often wanted to leap off tall things and go blazingly into the unknown. He didn't want Ford seeing him like this, but still he held out a hand to help him into his window. "Just couldn't keep way, eh?" He said it lightly, with a slight laugh, but there was a heaviness to it that didn't match. "Sorry… if I worried you."
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“Don’t worry!” Ford had of course laughed at Stan’s reaction, waving it off. Of course pa was a source to be reckoned with. His punishments were no joke, sometimes extending to weeks of grounding and well, honestly more often than not they fell on Stanley’s head rather than Ford’s. Pa just had a short fuse like that, and their troublemaking sometimes got into the mess of it. He’d chuckled too at Shanklin’, giving his bro a relieved and grateful look. “Thanks bro. I promise I’ll let you know,” And dug out one of the three walkie talkies that their parents had bought the trio in the holidays last year.
But heck! It was fine, no more risky than anything else they got up to, right? And seriously. He honestly couldn’t be luckier to have Stan, even if he was being a little over the top. As if this wasn’t par for the course with the boys.
Ford crouched at that moment against the branch, peering through the window hopefully, trying to make out any sound. He gently took out another small stone, tossing it to tinkle at the glass. It certainly wasn’t the first time Stanford had hoisted and maneuvered himself along that very branch, and honestly, he couldn’t see it being the last. Though to be totally fair, there had been a few mishaps that involved sprained ankles and a couple of bruises from unexpected falls here and there. Ford just wasn’t the well built tanks of impervious energy that Stanley and Bill seemed to be, and frankly, he was a lot more clumsy, which ended with a lot more scrapes, bruises and difficulties keeping up with the two rockets of danger attracted energy.
His face broke immediately into a grin as he saw a small shadow shifting behind the curtains. Bill was sure going to get it this time. He would’ve at least expected a call if nothing else. They even had walkie-talkies, but, well of course they didn’t really extend terribly far. But Ford still wouldn’t have minded the trip if it meant secretly talking to the other, even under the bushes of the house. He waited with anticipation, ready to crawl and slip right through the window as he heard it unlock and a familiar shadow of a figure stood at the window.
“Hah! You’re one to talk, where the heck have you-”
His cheerful and excited demeanor faltered, dying too quick. His relief and grin lost then as he froze, half way through tossing his backpack through the open space. And his eyes settled, fixed behind those glasses, on Bill’s pale, bruised form.
Something stirred inside him, settling in deep. Something seemed to go hard, tight and the young boy carefully, quietly slipped his way in. He took in the words as he looked Bill over before abruptly reaching out, pressing his fingers against the side of Bill’s head, tilting the chin to get a better look. And in that moment, the boy’s eyes hardened.
“....Who did this to you.”
His voice was surprisingly harsh, surprisingly tense and cold, really so entirely off color for a kid who was usually so bright and awkward. His fingers shook, gaze meeting back up to Bill’s in a kind of cold fury that read clearly for his best friend not to lie to him.
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For long moments at a time Bill would hold onto the walkie talkie and stare at it, willing himself to reach out to Ford, if the damn things would reach that far, but always his resolve fell short. He… really didn’t want Ford here. Well, it was a double edged kind of thing because he did. Ford was a constant where there wasn’t any else and not having him there to steady his more manic thoughts did him no good. There were many of them, mind you, for him being so young. The sort no kid should ever have to have that cropped up in the dark while he listened for sounds on the stairs. No one bothered to come up here unless they wanted to give him a hard time for apparently existing. And most of the time, Bill just made himself scarce. It was easier for everyone that way.
Wrong place, wrong time described his life enough of the time.
Seeing Ford was as much a blessing as it was a curse. While Bill felt lighter just with the other boy’s presence despite the hardened look he was being given, fingers pressing against his chin, he also felt a wave of dread. He reached up to wrap his fingers around Ford’s wrist and pull his hand away, shaking his head. There was no point talking about it when there wasn’t anything anyone could do that wasn’t already being done. “Santa Claus,” he said bitterly, as if stubbornly even refusing to acknowledge the source more than he was being sarcastic. “Got ganged up on by him and the easter bunny.” He sighed and dropped down on a sagging mattress to just look back at Ford, throwing his hands up in a shrug.
“I dunno what you want me to say, Sixer…”
Day after day that stretched into endless adventures running along the beach and causing general havoc with the only people he ever considered family suddenly sort of hit him with Ford here looking at him like that. Would they still try to drag him back if they were afraid he was going to out them for the scum they were? If pa Pines showed up at the front door with blunt objects and threats of bodily harm? He just never wanted to put their parents in that position as much as he didn’t want to his friend, but he had a feeling Ford wasn’t about to give him much of a choice in the matter.
“I don’t know why I ever come back here either,” only he knew that too and it was a bit of revisiting his prior point of not wanting to feel he was making a constant burden of himself. Also revisit that he knew that was dumb. “Can we just… go home?” Bill was more than ready to go with whatever he could stuff into a bag and never see this place again if he could help it. Now that Ford was here, there was no getting around it or avoiding it.
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Ford wasn’t blind. He may have beliefs, may strike out for adventure and imagine the world before them, but he wasn’t clueless. In fact, Ford could be said to be the opposite. He was observant, careful, and always interested in the world around him. He’d noticed right away, almost the day they met, the way the other seemed to shrink in certain situations, in the presence of certain people. Like the manic, ruelly boy would just want to disappear or become a ghost, sink away to float into the shadows. He could recall grasping Bill’s hand in both of his, dragging him back out into the light and, despite being that little nerd, despite always being that twerp, geek, and easy pickings for all kinds of teasing, shot out a defiant look for anyone that might approach them and try and tell Bill otherwise.
Bill was the sun to Ford. And the sun belonged in the light.
When he saw his friend’s parents, when he observed the way they treated him, he remembered nudging Stanley in the side one rainy afternoon after preschool had let out, eyes following the family. “I really don’t think I like them.” He’d decided then, quietly, gaze a bit firm. “There’s something about them, Stan.” But that’s all he’d said. The only tone of warning to spin against his small brain, to pick out its meaning. An intuition, you could call it. An observation that forced in him a much older person to climb out and see.
It was any wonder the boy would sneak up to that window and break Bill out, like a convict helping spring a fellow escapee into the night. If they couldn’t head home to their parents' place, Ford would drag Bill all over town, doing his best to engage him however he could. Sometimes in talks about scientific theories or wild, impossible ideas, sometimes in movies like Star Wars (which all three boys loved, for varied reasons), sometimes in whatever came to his head or odd games or tricks. Sometimes he’d beg Bill to play make believe, that they were adventurers, partners among the stars. Over all, Ford never lost an opportunity to try and spring Bill from this dump of a home and insist he stay with them. There had been many pleading eyes and quiet beginnings for their parents to allow the constant never ending sleep overs. And when they hadn’t, Ford had taken to simply deciding on his own to break Bill in one way or another, sometimes throwing down a tied sheet for the other to climb up into and hide securely in his and Stan’s old blanket forts.
Mama Pines had quickly discovered this of course. And it seemed, in time, had done very little to prevent or protest his best friend’s constant presence at all, even making plates of every meal with the boy in mind and without real words or conversations on the matter, the fake psychic giving no more than fond, concerned looks, buying whatever extra toiletries, extra clothing, or the like they might need. Bill even celebrated the holidays with them, even things like Hannaka. At this point, Ford considered him nothing less than family and nothing short of his best friend.
As he stood there, Ford stared then at his friend. His gaze instantly softening, growing far more gentle. He watched as Bill strode away, throwing his arms in the air and collapsing to the bed, a stirring of concern lingering under his own gaze as he watched the other. He padded over, dropping into the old mattress beside him, sinking against the springs.
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here. This place is terrible.” He placed a hand on the other’s knee, careful and cautious as he kept his eyes against Bill’s. “And listen. One day, we’re all going to get out of here for real, Bill. We’re going to take that sailboat, and never come back. And until then? You’ll stay with ma and pa, me and Stan. And if you can’t stay with us, then. Then we’ll just go, you and me. We’ll go out there together by ourselves. And...and we’ll live on the streets. And find monsters and adventures...we’ll explore the stars too someday. Just like in your dreams. But whatever ends up happening, whatever tries to stop us, we won’t be here anymore. Even if no one else will have us, it doesn’t matter you know, because we’ll still be together.” He believed every single word of it as he spoke it, words filled in a kind of sure certainty, an undeniable clarity that rivaled any thread of doubt. “...Okay? So...let’s go, Bill. You get your stuff. I’ll keep watch. Let’s just leave this place forever.”
As it was, Bill’s parents really didn’t like him. Really, really, at all. He was always met with distrust and narrowed gazes, with the kind of look that he sometimes garnered from certain people after they’d taken a good look at his fingers. The kind that were reserved for something distasteful or unwanted. He guessed he couldn’t blame them really. After all, he’d been trying his damndest to get Bill out of this place, this nightmare, since almost he met him. He squeezed his hand against the other’s leg slightly, still trying to meet his gaze, still trying to convey what he was saying as absolute truth. “Also, when I’m older...I’m going to punch them in the face.” He decided then seriously, more something said for himself than anyone, looking out into the room in another spur of pure determination, a quality and set of words that were absolutely unlike the boy who was the last to be prone towards any violence.
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