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“Wake up!”
Ford returns to consciousness with a small start, his body aching with pain. He feels like throwing up, but the thought is interrupted almost immediately with the realization that he’s been gagged. No part of him feels like aspirating on his own vomit, trying his best to keep it all inside as he gathers his bearings, eyes still closed to play dead or something to stall this present threat.
The last thing he remembers is falling asleep in a tight little alley that rivals the dangerous feeling of the alleys back in his home dimension in a way that always feels like it says a lot. The memory causes confusion though, Ford’s certain he would’ve woken up and fought before they could’ve gagged him like this. Then he feels his head, bruised and sharp.
They must’ve knocked him fully unconscious as a precaution, like they knew he was a light sleeper. It’s now he realizes that on top of the gag, he’s been hogtied. Whoever did it was very prepared.
Which can only mean one thing.
Bounty hunters for Cipher.
“I said, wake up!” The bounty hunter shouts, shoving him harshly against the ground until his eyes fly open on instinct, “There you are. I knew you were awake this whole time.”
Ford glares at the strapped woman in front of him, writhing in his binds as if it’ll do something other than make her angry. His guns aren’t on his person anymore, somewhere else he can’t leverage himself into finding from here, lying on his side in the most uncomfortable position against his bound wrists and ankles.
The bounty hunter stays quiet long enough for Ford to realize he’s lying in the back of some kind of hover vehicle, the forward motion becoming more obvious the more he feels for it. The fact it’s not a bumpy ride is the only thing he’s grateful for right now, his body already whining at him for whatever they’d put him through while he was unconscious, on top of being hogtied and gagged.
“Here’s the deal,” The bounty hunter says sharply while Ford idly thinks of a way out of this vehicle he’s becoming more and more certain is not as possible as he hopes, “You will not try anything while I take you to my client and maybe I’ll untie you a little bit, as a mercy. Otherwise, I will not hesitate to shoot.”
She gestures to her belt, where a mean-looking gun rests patiently for its next target. Easy to grab and shoot on a whim, proof of the deep mess he’s in right now. The only option is to stay as compliant as he needs to be, at least right now.
At least until he’s given more freedom, then all bets are off.
“Ah ah ah, I see you scheming over there,” The bounty hunter wags a finger in his face, infuriatingly, “I promise if you gain enough trust to lose some of your bindings, I will not hesitate the moment you slip up even slightly. Underestimate me at your own risk.”
Sure, and I’m still a fragile little nerd in college, Ford rolls his eyes as the indignation burns in his gut like fire, uncaring for this indignity.
It’s so fast he doesn’t know what hit him, until it blazes in his leg like an inferno.
Looking down, there’s a splotch of rapidly spreading crimson, originating in a prick of darkness right above his knee. He gasps as the pain keeps coming and gets worse as time goes on. Much worse, if that’s even possible at this rate.
Looking up, she’s holding that gun he’d seen in her holster, the muzzle smoking.
At this, he realizes she shot him.
Over an eye roll.
But instead of laughing at the absurd extremity of such a reaction, it elicits such a deep sense of fear that he can’t quell so easily, not even by focusing on his intellect as he is wont to do in these situations. A fear that tells him if he so much as breathes wrong, he’s dead.
A fear that tells him he’s in a hopeless situation.
A fear that tells him he’s being brought directly to his worst enemy.
Ford bites down on the gag as the pain sharpens ever further like a twisting knife, fighting tears as he feels unable to breathe.
“I see we’ve learned our lesson,” The bounty hunter observes coldly at the scene she created, “I hope you take it to heart before we meet my client. He is not as forgiving as I am.”
Ford trembles. The ache in his wrists and ankles is nothing on the pain of the gunshot, still rippling pain all throughout his body like he’s being shot over and over and over again.
But even that is nothing against where he’s being taken.
Now Ford knows for sure that it’s the demon that ruined his life.
No other being in the galaxy could be this cruel.
He drops his head back onto the floor of the vehicle, giving up in the face of his agony.
At least until he finds an opening, no matter what the bounty hunter has to say about it.
Because death is at least preferable to being brought to Bill Cipher like an animal destined to be roasted.
Ford finds peace with that as he passes out.