A/N: The Ninth Paradigm AU.

"Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! Come Helen, come, give me my soul again."

— Doctor Faustus.

Kissing Therapy, Ford says with his mouth right here, has proven benefits. It can strengthen your immune system and relieve stress– 'do you get headaches?' Ford asks, because kissing can help alleviate those and if Bill has a headache, Ford can fix it. Ford promises to fix everything. Everything except Bill because, Ford says, you aren't broken. It's not your fault and you are not broken.

Ford kisses and kisses and keeps talking between the kisses.

Intimate physical contact releases feel-good hormones– the same kind you'd allegedly get from an orgasm, or eating chocolate. (Kryptos hated chocolate, Bill recalls) Orgasms make good pain-killers, Ford adds, and if Bill's shoulder still hurts, they can try and get to four this time.

Four. This man was a lunatic.

Anyway, Ford says Kissing Therapy is something that should be practiced more often than not. Before this, it was just kissing, just standard foreplay– making out, slurping over each other and drinking one another in. There was so much of Ford to still swallow and Bill is empty enough. Now, it's something necessary, something that'll fix Bill. Ford says he isn't broken but Bill knows better. It's in the nuances, you see.

It's not kissing anymore. It's Kissing Therapy.

Ford kisses him, then asks, "Are you feeling better, darling?"
Bill breathes –a little more please– and Ford resumes.

Old men always act like their body organs and bodily fluids are gonna make a philosophical change in you, like a dick-sucking will birth the next Buddha. If it won't turn you into the next Jesus, it'll at least make you a man. They do that in a culture, you know, make boys ingest semen, saying this is how you become a man. Only a man can create another man. Fuck God. Fuck Teeth for reading shitty Wikipedia articles and running his mouth off at Bill. (of course, that gay baby would be researching the culture of dick-sucking)

Whatever. Typical. Next thing Ford'll say is sucking his dick will be Oral Therapy and swallowing cum will be Oral Rehydration Therapy. I'm going to hydrate all those cracked and worn parts of you, Ford will say, ORT is the best cure for dehydration and Bill, you've been thirsty for so long, haven't you?

Thirsty. Ha. (for what? Love? Love? Love? How cheesy.)

Ford doesn't actually say any of this. Probably won't ever say any of this. The Ford inside his head sounds nothing like the real Stanford Pines.

And Bill Cipher belongs to the real Stanford Pines.

Their hands link and Ford swallows the sigh that would've given away what's on Bill's mind. Ford's perceptive and it's been too many minutes since he's given Bill a breather.

Stop already.

But if Ford stops, he'll only complain, anyway.

Don't stop, Ford. I need this.

Bill begins to fret until Ford's next kiss drugs him docile.

Sticky lips, sticky kisses; Bill's the fly and these kisses have lured him into Ford's parlour.

Not a bad way to die, if you asked Bill.

When someone's lips touch you, any part of you, maybe more than saliva gets on you. Maybe a part of them gets on you, too. Sinks into you. Maybe that's how Kissing Therapy works. Because day by day, Bill's kisses begin to resemble Ford's kisses. Maybe you can kiss away the pain, kiss away the past. Maybe the hallowed spit of Ford's kisses will baptise him, and wash away everything given and everything taken. (Everything taken from him, everything he's taken.)

Father Ford.

Stubble scraps against his chin as Ford deepens the next kiss, with a hand scooping through Bill's hair, softly and cautiously as if Bill is still a trembling wild animal. The other is holding Bill's right hand. Ford's weight is on his knees and elbows and Bill's fingers are pressing into his bare and well-defined back; sometimes, nails hook in and Ford makes a cute sound. Ford, who's usually quiet during intimate moments unless Bill encourages him. Ford who tunnel-visions onto Bill in a way that is unsettling.

You fuck, nut and then zone out. But that's not Stanford Pines. Ford is always present in these moments; never mentally straying, never leaving Bill. It's the eyes. Chocolate brown eyes and Bill wonders if those feel-good hormones hit him when he looks into Ford's eyes. Chocolate was chocolate, right?

Ford is here, right here, with him.

Bill, too. Is here, right here, with him.

He's a ghost, resurrected in the chamber of mad scientist Stanford's arms.
A born-again real boy who belongs to Stanford Pines.

Ford kissed him. And kissed him. And kissed him.

Bill answered every kiss.

He answers the last kiss with question that Ford does not answer.

When Ford wakes, weeping in the midnight dark for Fiddleford, Bill initiates Kissing Therapy.

Doctor-in-training Bill kisses and kisses. Kissing away the unacceptable tears. Kissing away the squatting loneliness.
Kissing the pain of a dead love-ache away.

Pain pain go away.
Don't come again another day.

I'm going to miss you. Forever.