Illusion is Reality

Chapter 80

-Truth is a tattletale with no friends-

"Can we buy ice cream?" Miz asked after Bill's magic show ended, the crowd dispersed, and she trotted back behind the table into the booth, to sit down on her bean bag chair. Stan finished counting out the money from his sales of her stuff, as Bill followed her into the back at an almost sedate pace. (Stan eyed him. Was the kid tired?)

"Sure, Miz. You've made plenty," Stan told Miz. What with the crowd from the show taking that long to disperse, all jazzed up by the end of it, he'd already been able to sell a decent amount of her jewelry so far; maybe about half? It was her money; he sure as hell wasn't going to try to (get away with trying to) steal it from her. (Definitely not with the kid watching him, and mirroring back at him a hell of a lot of what he saw him do. Plus, dragon-lady.) Stan handed Miz the stack of money and watched as she pulled out some bills to hand back to him. Huh. She wasn't treating it as a one-time thing, then.

"What's the rate for my commission anyway?" Stan asked, as he took the money from her. (Hey, he wasn't gonna turn down 'free' money. -Besides, he'd earned it. His selling skills weren't nothin' to sneeze at.)

"30%, more or less." Miz shrugged. (...Yeah, that sounded about right to Stan for this kinda thing.) He immediately folded the cash up and put it in a separate pocket to maybe hand to the kid later, with the previous 'commission payment' he'd gotten from her before.

(Stan explicitly did not count the bills out in front of her; either she'd lied or she hadn't, done the math right or screwed it up. Either way, counting it out right in front of her would be rude at best - and a signal of expectation of bad faith and a lack of trust at worst - when he'd just got done counting the stack he'd just handed her, to know how much 'about 30%' of it was. He could check it later, not right in front of her, to be sure he knew what he had to (worst-case) fall back on. -And not say anything about it, even if she had 'short-changed' him. Because the level of greed that would imply, with him not expectin' to get paid a commission in the first place, would just be a different kind of test. ...Though he would note that for later, if that was a thing. He didn't think so, though. He had a feeling that she'd probably short-changed herself, the other way around, the way she'd said what she had said.)

While Stan was handling the money, Miz glanced over at Mabel and Dipper. "Do you guys want ice cream?" Miz asked.

Mabel sat up with a huge grin and immediately said, "HECK yeah!" Dipper also looked up from his notebook, but shrugged noncommittally.

Miz glanced back at Stan before getting up. "Do you want ice cream?" she asked him, and Stan raised an eyebrow at that. "What? Me?"

"There's peanut brittle there," Miz told him. Stan blinked. Right. That 'all-seeing eye' thing. Of course she'd look him up, the way the kid had, to know that he liked that.

That said… Stan shrugged. "I can buy my own," he told her. He glanced over at Mabel. "Ford tell you what to avoid to keep from panicking Miz?" he asked her. He glanced back at Dipper, too.

They both looked at him, looked at each other, then back to him, shaking their heads.

...Yeah, Ford hadn't looked in good enough shape earlier to have said anything while he'd been handling the kid, and they hadn't really gotten a chance to tell the kids earlier (...or needed to, what with them both being right there to stop anything they needed to, on the spot).

"No weird magic-looking circles," Stan started off with. "Don't want her thinking we're trying to bind her if she only gets a glance at it. No pushing her into cars - and don't go into buses, or ice cream trucks, or whatever yourself," Stan added, "Since she won't be comfortable followin' you in there, if something happens," Stan told Mabel, who looked slightly abashed. (So did Dipper. His sister wasn't the only one of them who got a bit excited sometimes. Stan didn't bother to hammer it in with Dipper just then, since it was Mabel who was planning on running off with her.)

"Try to stay on the sidewalks," Stan added with a sigh, "Y'know, all the usual kinda junk about stayin' outta the middle of the street, lookin' both ways if you gotta cross somewhere and all that." Stan grimaced. "No grabbing her by the wrists, or trying to wrestle her down to the ground or holding her down against nothin'. -Hand-holding's fine, but don't just go blindly grabbing at her, or shoving her around, or trying to lie down on top of her. Ask first, and no means no. Think of the kid, and how he'd react if you did any of that kind of roughhousing stuff you and your brother like to do, to him without asking," Stan added, and Mabel blushed. "She probably won't like most of that stuff either. And don't go tryin' to startle or scare her with big loud 'boo!'s or nothin', and that's about it. Got it?" he asked the two of them.

""Yes, Grunkle Stan,"" Dipper and Mabel said dutifully.

"Good," said Stan, then he gave Mabel a smile. "Well, go on, have fun," he grumbled out at her, making a shooing motion with his hand at her. (He didn't quite wipe away the smile quickly enough to look grumpy again before he finished talking, though.)

While Bill remained silent at all this, Miz nodded at his handling of the situation (though she did look vaguely embarrassed still). Mabel, on the other hand, whooped in happiness at having been 'released' to go get ice cream. Miz and Mabel ran off to the ice cream truck parked beside the beach shortly thereafter - well within sight and not too far away, so Stan didn't worry too much about the 'lack of supervision' (thanks, Ford). Stan could see Mabel jumping around excitedly as she pointed at different things on the menu.

Stan let out an old man sigh (ugh, he was gettin' old), as he got up and poked his head out of the booth for a moment. He checked the time by the big clock farther down the boardwalk, then let out another sigh. It was past noon now. He glanced up as he made his way back in. The sun was warm overhead, even though it was just the beginning of spring, in early April, and Stan was glad their booth had a canvas 'roof', creating its own shade.

Stan looked over to check on the kid. Bill was sitting on the floor inside of the booth - at the far end away from Ford, Stan noticed - the kid was on his first real 'break' of the day, not just leaning himself up against that pole out there at the front, and the kid hadn't been doing much of anything for awhile now. The kid was sitting with his knees up, back against the side of the booth, eyes closed and arms crossed and very much in the lowest of his low-energy modes. The deck of cards was sitting on the tabletop just above and next to the kid (near the tarot deck, actually) and the demon seemed... peaceful, almost.

Stan sighed again, looking at this, and knew that they should all get lunch soon, not "just" ice cream to tide over a couple of them. He scanned the beach, knowing what he was looking for, and finally spotted the usual hot dog cart.

"Oi, Dipper, you hungry?" Stan asked, leaning back in his chair (now moved behind the jewelry display), tossing an elbow over the back of it, to address his great nephew.

Dipper looked up and nodded. Stan reached into his pocket for his tarot reading earnings and handed him some bills. "Go get everyone some hot dogs," he told Dipper, nodding over at the hot dog cart. "We've still got water in the cooler."

Once Dipper was on his way, Stan glanced over at Bill. "Do you wanna eat and drink anything, kid?" It wasn't a rhetorical question - of course the kid didn't want to 'consume' anything. So Stan said it like the statement that it was, that the kid should eat something now, and get some more water in him, and by this point the kid damn well knew it. Stan briefly wondered if he should talk to Miz about getting Bill to eat more. She seemed to like eating stuff well enough.

Stan was pretty sure that the kid wouldn't go for the hot dogs; they'd had them at the Shack a few times, and Bill hadn't so much as given the food an interested glance, more of a flat look and a stifled grimace. They had another box of crackers in the crate Bill had in his hat, still. But it had never really sat right with Stan that the kid only ate crackers, charred toast - and salad, now - and water or tea, and barely enough of any of it to make up for whatever energy he'd just got done burning throughout the day. The kid just didn't eat enough; Stan was pretty damn sure that the kid was literally just one missed meal away from collapsing on a regular basis; he had a running tally of the number of times the kid collapsed from physical exhaustion going in his head, and he knew how much the kid did and didn't eat, and... hell, was the kid even getting enough of those nutrients or whatever? Stan considered bringing it up with Miz, because he figured if it was a stubborn problem, she'd probably be able to poke her brother into eating more.

Thing was, Stan wasn't so sure it was just a stubborn problem, yet.

"You got the crackers in your hat, or you empty out the other crate for the chair?" Stan asked. "And mind bringing out the cooler?"

Bill raised his head slightly and opened his eyes the barest of slits to look over at Stan. "I have the crackers in my hat; I emptied out the other crate, yes. And yes." Stan nodded at him, then sat back in his chair as he watched Bill pull his hat off of his own head almost in slow-motion, to pull out a box he knew had come from one of the crates on the boat, and set it down on the floor next to him, as well as the cooler. ...Well, at least that was something; kid wasn't gonna give him guff like he usually did this time. (Hadn't given him much guff on the boat, either, come to think of it. Hell. Maybe the thing with the forest and Ford had finally kicked the kid upside the head the way he'd needed it to. ...Unless the kid thought 'being helpful' included not arguing at him over eating and drinking stuff on a regular basis.)

Stan leaned back in his chair, watching as Bill put his hat back on his head and then pulled out a water bottle from the cooler for both Stan and himself. Stan cracked open his own water bottle, and watched as Bill got down to cracking open the cracker box, to get at the crackers inside.

And, at watching the kid, Stan decided he'd better start to crack down on trying to figure out this eating problem of the kid's all over again. Because right now, all Stan had to work with were toast, tea, crackers... and salad when the kid got hungry enough. Though the kid didn't seem to mind the salad much, either. ...Actually, he'd actually seemed to hate it less than the other stuff. At least the salad they'd had that one night. Stan didn't usually make fresh veggie stuff like that, because he wasn't used to it; he hadn't been able to leave the Shack himself enough on the regular to make that many grocery trips to have a lot of the stuff around, anyway. It went bad easy if it didn't get used and eaten real quick, and he didn't really like the stuff much himself.

Stan thought about a couple places nearby that had salads; he knew there were a few restaurants nearby he could get one from. But… they'd had salad stuff as part of some of the lunch and dinner meals before that plenty of times, and the kid hadn't had any of that - hadn't even so much as glanced at any of it, barely. So what was all that different there?

Well, Dipper was away, Mabel wasn't there to hound either of them, and Ford was… still asleep. This was probably the best time he was gonna get to have this conversation with the kid (again, for what it was worth). And hey, maybe he'd manage to hit just the right set of words this time, kind of like the 'I want you' thing had gone?

"Hey, kid." Bill paused in what he was doing and looked over at him. "There any kinda food you'll eat besides burnt toast and crackers?" Stan brought up to start with, just to get the normal ask out of the way (already knowing that that wouldn't be enough). "You didn't mind that salad, right?" Bill looked away.

"That salad was barely edible," the kid told him, and it left Stan blinking, as the kid looked down and went back to working at 'carefully' tearing the plastic packaging open inside the cardboard box without ending up with crackers everywhere. (Kid had lost his temper a few times real early-on and learned better on that one real quick.)

Huh. Stan gave the kid a long look, because he'd never gotten an 'actually (barely) edible' out of the kid on anything, before. The other things he ate were 'almost' edible 'at best'. "So… you'll eat fruits and veggies on their own?" Stan asked him next.

"Define 'fruits and veggies'," was what he got out of the kid next, and... that wasn't a 'no'. Huh.

"Same stuff that was in that 'barely edible' salad," Stan said next, feeling almost curious now. "Lettuce, bananas, tomatoes, carrots, watermelons, strawberries, blueberries, honeydew, pineapples… honey; that stuff." Melody had gotten that stuff from the store for the new salad (keeping the melons separate from the new bowl they'd sent upstairs to the kid and Miz); Stan was pretty sure the same stuff had been in the old one, except maybe the honey.

Bill stopped what he was doing as Stan talked (focusing on what he was saying?), but didn't look up at him. And the kid made a slight face at the mention of 'honey', but none of the rest, Stan noticed. (...Well, the honey had been on the side as some sort of… 'self-serve' sort of thing, not mixed into the salad itself. Because if they had tried to mix it in, Mabel just would've drenched the whole thing to dripping with the stuff and made it inedible for the rest of them - except maybe Ford with his sweet tooth. So that probably explained why the kid had ate pretty much the whole thing a couple nights ago, when the kid had just gotten done practically starving himself. No honey-dressing stuff on it, and the kid had been okay with the rest.)

"...Define 'on their own'," was what he got out of the kid next.

Stan shifted in his chair. Huh. Kid was asking after fruits and veggies together versus separate? Was there a difference? Stan frowned slightly, thinking about the best way to put this. And then he got an idea.

So he tried something a little different, that he hadn't actually tried when talking food with the kid, yet. ...Mostly because he'd been focusing on making sure the kid ate anything at all, not what the kid ate. Instead of continuing on with trying to ask after ingredients and foods the kid might eat, Stan asked instead:

"What would make that salad you ate as 'inedible' as all the other salads we've had before that, that you didn't eat, kid?"

The kid promptly replied, "Mushrooms; salad dressing; added sugar; added salt," and when it registered, it made Stan want to punch something.

Stan pulled in a slow breath, and let it out again. Mabel liked making stuff, and she was the one who usually pushed for the greens for mealtimes. But that also meant that she usually added a bunch of stuff like gummy bears and sugar-glitter and a lot of other junk into the mix when she helped out. Melody had made that salad herself the first time, and she'd tried to keep Mabel to the strict recipe that second time when Ford hadn't been feeling well, but she hadn't, and...

They'd made that salad for the kid and Miz both, with the burnt toast as a backup for the kid in case the salad had been a fluke. Had the kid eaten any of the salad? ...Or had he given it all to his kid sister, who'd still been ravenous later?

(Miz HAD in fact, tried to make Bill eat some of the plain fruits and veggies in the salad that time in the attic, worrying over how thin he was. Bill hadn't eaten it that time, though, because the honey-glaze had been added to it, courtesy of an overzealous and over-helpful Mabel. But he and Miz had had a conversation about it, and Miz now knew what Bill would and wouldn't eat, and why. Miz was keeping this in mind for when she was allowed to use the kitchen back home. Stan and Miz were both independently scheming ways to make Bill eat more. -And if Stan had known, he'd probably have given himself another pat on the back for encouraging this 'siblings' idea; it was doing great for the kid, and in turn making things a lot easier for him... most of the time.)

But even if Bill had eaten that particular salad again that time, that still didn't really explain… "We've had salad a couple times without any dressing or junk," Stan pointed out. Had the kid just not known?

But he just got the kid looking up at him finally, to say, "Vinegar."

...And Stan didn't get it. "Vinegar?" The kid looked a little tired, as he looked away from him and shoved a hand into the cracker box.

"It smelled like vinegar." The kid wrinkled his nose at this - yeah, Stan knew the kid didn't like 'smelling'.

And Stan had to think about that one for a bit, until he remembered… yeah, they usually tossed the stuff with at least something to make it a little interesting, some kind of oil and vinegar 'vinaigrette' thing that Mabel had done… and probably added sugar to, too. (Hell.) Okay. So even really light stuff like that counted as salad dressing for the kid?

"What's wrong with vinegar?" Stan asked the kid, kind of confused still, and the kid let out something of a sigh.

"It's made using fungi," the kid told him, before popping a cracker in his mouth.

"Fungi," Stan repeated.

The kid nodded as he chewed, then finished swallowing and said, "Fungi. Commonly known as mushrooms. I'm not eating them."

Stan back in his chair. "But you'll eat fruits and vegetables." He got a nod out of the kid. Okay, next question: "You know about the ingredients that are used to make this stuff?" Stan asked, nodding a head towards the cracker box. He got a nod from the kid.

"What ingredients in that and the toast are making that stuff less than 'barely edible' for you?" Stan asked next, wondering if he'd actually get an answer out of the kid for that one, too. (Before this, he'd usually gotten long looks and silences, or some change of subject, or just an argument about needing to eat at all. Usually the last one, and that always derailed everything. But this time around, the kid had actually answered him on some stuff, on the whole 'what's making the salad inedible' thing. And the kid had answered him right away, even. Actually getting some damn answers out of the kid on this stuff for once was... new.)

"Vinegar, yeast, added sugar, added salt for the bread; added sugar and added salt for the crackers," were what Bill listed off as making toast inedible, as the kid tossed another cracker in his mouth.

Stan stared at the kid as he ate the cracker.

"What ingredients in pancakes make it less than 'barely edible' for you," Stan asked next, watching the kid carefully. His bullshit meter wasn't going off, but...

"Eggs, milk, butter, added sugar, added salt," was what the kid told him, and Stan felt frustrated as he said, "Kid, that's damn near everything but the flour." Worse, that got him back a nod and a "Yes," from the kid.

Stan pulled in a breath and let it out again. "Why didn't you eat any of the fish when we were on the boat?" Stan said next, and the kid replied, "Meat." Stan stared at him and damn near started laughing, because… the hell?! Kid was some kinda vegan or something? The 'big bad demon-triangle' wouldn't eat- Seriously?

"Okay," said Stan with half a smile going, because sure, he'd play this game and see how it played out - why not? Not like fruits and veggies were all that expensive. -Hey, they were less expensive than meat, even. Not like Stan couldn't handle this easily enough. Kid wasn't asking for champagne and caviar here - and hey, probably wouldn't ever neither, because alcohol meant yeast and caviar was eggs from fish, hell. "Kid. Maybe you could, y'know, tell me what kinda ingredients you'd eat if we got them straight from the store?"

The kid didn't even eye him this time. He just said: "Plants; no fungi."

Stan let out a long breath. Hell, this was an actual thing for the kid? Hell. "Okay. So… fruits, veggies, and… nuts? Straight up unsalted or whatever nuts," he asked the kid, and he got a nod. "And maybe veggie oils?" not butter, for whatever weird demon reason, and he got another nod. "And junk like soy-stuff?" That got him another yes-nod from the kid as he kept listing things off. "Fruit juice?" Kid made a face and shook his head. "Why not fruit juice?" "-Added sugar," the kid began and Stan nodded and waved him off. Okay. 'From the store', right. So they'd need to make that themselves if they were gonna do fruit juice, then... or check the labels and have to go for something more expensive if they wanted the kid to actually drink it, geez.

"Kid, are you lactose intolerant or somethin'?" Stan asked next, wondering why milk and eggs and all that junk was out. "You allergic to some of this stuff?" Stan added, remembering how Melody had said that Miz had said she was. (Though the younger demon apparently liked the taste of it enough that she was fine with risking a stomach ache to continue eating the stuff... But ice cream was about half-and-half frozen milk and added sugar, two things that were on the kid's 'inedible-making' list.) If the kid was lactose intolerant, then maybe that explained why Miz hadn't offered to get Bill any ice cream, though, when she'd even asked Stan himself if he'd wanted some. ...That didn't explain the no-meat and no-eggs thing the kid had going on, though.

But the kid just shook his head at him. Stan frowned. The kid wasn't lactose intolerant like Miz? "Then why don't you-" want to eat it, Stan was about to ask the kid, but Stan stopped himself, when he glanced over and saw the girls headed back their way. He knew he didn't have time to get the wording right on what he really wanted to ask the kid, there; he knew it'd take a few tries. (The kid ate burned toast, but not bread. So if Stan had to guess, the kid probably could eat more than he was saying that he... wanted to?) But that could wait; the thing Stan needed to know right now was- "Why didn't you just tell me all this before, kid?" he asked Bill.

And Bill looked him straight in the eye and said, "Because if I'd told you what I didn't want to eat, then you would have known what I didn't want to eat."

Stan felt a slight chill go down his spine.

And then Stan realized every last implication of that sentence and felt himself go hot, instead.

Stan almost told the kid off right then and there - that he wasn't gonna force the kid to eat something if there was a reason that he wouldn't eat it; wasn't like the kid didn't do stuff for a reason, usually and pretty much always, even if it took the kid awhile to explain it to Stan in a way that made sense to him. And the kid wasn't a picky eater exactly, definitely wasn't some kinda food snob, so even if the kid didn't have a "good" reason for it…

...so what if the kid just ate what he ate? The kid obviously thought (for whatever reason) that most of what they all ate was literal garbage, sure. -Even if the kid didn't try to stop them from eating the stuff themselves, he still made it pretty clear exactly how he felt about it when asked about it. And so far on anything that Stan talked about the kid with, the kid has never got reactions that strong on anything when it wasn't something the kid considered important-

(And if it was that important to the kid, Stan wasn't going to just ignore-!)

-But Stan had to push it all back down and stow it, shelve the entire conversation, as the girls came in close, almost back to the booth, with Dipper catching up to them with his arms full of stacked paper cartons of hotdogs. (And it was easier for him to do, once it occurred to Stan that maybe the kid hadn't meant just him with that 'you'. He was still fighting to get enough cred with the kid, to get the kid to believe that the kid could talk with him about stuff without him getting all 'arbitrary' and 'stupid'. The very last thing he needed right now was the kids overhearing any of this and telling Ford-)

And Stan's thoughts ground to a halt when he turned towards the girls and saw what they had each brought back with them. And then he stared, because… Yeah, okay. He was certain that Miz had to be using magic to hold those ice-cream cones together, because there were ten scoops of ice cream on each of 'em.

"-Mabel, you can't eat all that, you're going to make yourself sick," Stan deadpanned.

Mabel just waved him off with a bright smile, like she usually did when she was eating something ridiculously sugary in crazy quantities that would make most people sick (and sometimes even herself). "It's fine, Grunkle Stan! Some of this is for Dipper or you and Grunkle Ford if he wants any!" Stan gave her a surprised look; Mabel shared sometimes, but sharing with three other people was considerate, even for her.

"I'm not waking him up, now that he's finally sleeping," Stan put out there. Ford had a sweet tooth sure, but making sure Ford got a decent amount of sleep was a lot more important right now.

Mabel peered inside the booth, past him, to glance over at Ford and... nodded. "He can have some when he wakes up?" Mabel said hopefully. It was mostly a question.

"And how's he gonna eat it when it's melted first?" Stan asked her, feeling amused. Wasn't like it was all that cold out, and they didn't have a freezer, even if the kid might be able to whip one up for her if Stan asked.

Mabel grinned. "It won't melt unless somebody eats it!" Stan glanced over at Dipper, about to give an 'are you hearing this?' to her twin, to let him take it and run with it. But Dipper wasn't looking at his sister, and Stan followed his gaze to look at... Miz, who was just standing almost sedately at the front of the booth with Mabel, licking at her ice cream.

Bill stood up abruptly in the next moment, walking towards the table, and Stan watched as the kid lifted the flip-up counter to allow access to the back area of the booth. "Sit down," the kid told her.

Stan cocked his head and looked at this, as Miz walked into the 'back' and over to sit down on her beanbag chair, while Mabel trotted (and Dipper walked) into the booth behind her. Huh. Bill had sounded almost… scolding?

Stan watched Miz more closely, trying to figure out what was up. She just… kept on eating her ice cream, and Stan didn't see what the problem was, exactly. But the kid was still staring at her.

Stan shook his head, let out a sigh and a groan as he got up, and helped Dipper set down the stack of hotdogs in his arms down onto the booth's table.

"Should you be eating that?" he listened to the kid ask his little sister. He glanced over to see Miz shrug at the kid.

"I like chocolate. And I'm calm right now. I'd probably just… just fall asleep." And then Miz swayed slightly, settling back into her bean bag heavily all of a sudden. Stan blinked. What?

Then, Miz started hiccuping. Stan blinked and stared, expression growing more and more incredulous as Miz slumped over, after having devoured her unnaturally tall ice cream cone in record time. She was licking her lips and making mumbling sounds, seeming to be in a daze. Stan looked over at Bill who was watching his little sister with an almost exasperated expression.

"...Kid?" Stan asked slowly, because what the heck was going on? Bill's shoulders slumped and flattened out slightly; the kid looked irritated.

"Chocolate," the kid muttered out. Stan felt more confused but then Dipper groaned as well.

"Seriously?!" the teenager complained, glaring at the dragon-lady, who was hiccuping softly while giggling. When Dipper noticed Mabel and Stan's still-confused expressions, he sighed and explained: "Some species of paranormal creatures get drunk off of chocolate."

That got Stan standing up straight and paying a hell of a lot more attention to her, because a not-drunk Miz was hell on his twin to begin with… what would a drunk one with even less inhibitions be like?! ...But Miz appeared calmer and kind of docile, now. She was humming in between her hiccups, stretching lazily. (Stan let out a slow breath.) Okay. So she was a happy-drunk, not an angry-drunk. ...Probably. Stan wasn't gonna risk it; he'd wake up his brother and have him go back to the boat if he had to.

...Good thing the kid was on his side, and even looked like he might back him up on his own on this one. Stan turned to Bill.

"Is this safe?" he asked Bill grimly, point-blank. (Damnit, he couldn't keep tripping over junk like this! What, did he have to ask after every last thing that got the dragon lady panicky or drunk or unable to control herself somehow? Everything that might have her thinking impaired? Every last thing that might be a problem here? Really? -Why hadn't the kid said anything about this earlier?)

"She's calm. Her headband is on. She's lying down," Bill listed off. Stan closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. Okay. Okay. So it was fine. He'd just gotten himself all worked up over- "I'm here to put out any fires; I can handle anything she does if she loses control." ...Great. Stan rubbed a hand over his face.

"Did she know chocolate would do this to her?" Stan asked the kid next, frowning deeply.

"She just found out it did a few days ago," Bill confirmed. "She said altering the chemicals to stop the effect makes it taste 'not as good'."

Right. Stan had a pretty bad feeling about having the kids anywhere near a demon who didn't have full control of her powers when drunk. ...Then again, the kid had a pretty strict definition of 'full control' going. On the flip-side, if Miz was a happy-drunk, she'd probably think a hell of a lot more stuff was hilarious than usual - that even more stuff that was definitely not a good idea was actually a good idea or might be really funny or fun to do instead. Like most drunk people usually got. How was he supposed to know what she'd do, and how dangerous she'd get (to try to keep her from drinking alcohol or eating any chocolate in the first place!), when figuring that out would-

...except he didn't need to risk the kids safety any more to figure it out. Because he did already know, at least a little, what Miz was likely to do, Stan realized - because he'd actually seen this before. Stan frowned as he remembered what had happened the last time she'd showed up in their dimension before this - when she'd had that friend of hers with her, and the two of them had gotten drunk off their asses on chocolate liquor.

From Ford's tapes, and what Melody and the kids had told him afterwards, Miz had done some stuff with some plants and those wishes, and then just passed out. The other one had been the one to go floating people all without their permission 'just for fun' and then cackling about it, then go up in flames before passing out, nearly starting a fire in the grass. ...So the dragon lady wasn't necessary dangerous on her own when she got that drunk; the dangerous part was that she got more suggestible to doing things other people told her they wanted her to do, instead. (...Great. Probably a good thing that Miz had nearly already passed out on them right away, then. Still meant he'd have to keep the kids away from her, though. Just for a different reason.)

So the kid was probably just being careful, or maybe more worried about her than the rest of them, with what he'd just said. ...and the way the kid had just pulled his knife and some of those stones of his out, to carve all sorts of squiggles and lines and things into. Because that was a thing.

...Well, at least the kid was taking care of it. Still seemed weird to Stan, though. First Miz making her bodies still-allergic to stuff from being human, and becoming a demon way back when had made her unable to handle chocolate now, on top of that?

Stan shook his head, and slowly sat back down in his chair, as Dipper pulled his beanbag chair over closer to the table, within arm's reach of the hotdog carton pile. (Well, at least one of the kids was eating actual food besides ice cream for lunch.)

Stan grabbed a hotdog of his own to munch on, but he kept half an eye on Bill to watch the demon-kid as he set up a few of those 'rune'-y carved stones around Miz's chair inside the booth as he did; the kid didn't seem worried, just vaguely annoyed, so there was that, at least. Miz still seemed pretty calm, just humming and rolling around to get more comfortable on her bean bag.

Mabel sat down beside her to start petting her hair. (Which got Miz freaking purring, of all things. Stan let out another tired sigh. These demon kids...) "So… she gets drunk if she eats chocolate? That's sad." Mabel looked legitimately upset that Miz was unable to enjoy chocolate normally. "Does that mean she can't have chocolate unless she's somewhere safe with people looking after her?" Mabel asked.

That had Stan hesitating for a second. Had Miz allowed herself to eat the stuff because she trusted Stan and Bill and the rest of them to protect her from harm? Stan glanced over at Bill. The kid would definitely protect her - even from the rest of them, Stan was pretty sure, which was why he was working on not letting things ever go that far - but she was allowing Mabel to pet her. And Bill was letting Mabel get that close to his little sister while she was impaired and maybe even unable to defend herself as well. That implied a level of trust Stan hadn't been expecting out of either of those two demon kids.

...And Stan didn't really understand why. Because yeah, Miz had said that he and Mabel were 'good people', but what the hell did that even mean? Was that all it took for her? ...Hell, Bill had left her up on deck with the niblings after that 'stop' thing he'd done - and the kid had actually fallen asleep the 'night' before while the kids had been talking with each other when she'd been all small-dragon-y, he'd found out from Ford on the rooftop later after the kids (demon and human) had all fallen asleep.

Stan ran a hand over his face. These two demons were surprisingly way too trusting and easy to manage, once you knew how to handle 'em, where all their lines and pressure-points were. -Seriously, Ford had had no idea what he was doing. He could have had everything he could ever want. A demon who could alter reality itself, all for him.

...And all that Ford would have had to do was toss every last moral he'd ever had into the garbage can, apparently, and get in bed with a trillion-year-old killer who would be absolutely delighted to collapse another twelve dimensions for him, if only he asked. Stan sighed. Yeah, of course that wasn't gonna happen, and hadn't happened way back when. -And whatever had happened out there in the multiverse, Ford had only gotten an even stricter moral code over time. So, yeah. Ford had completely rejected Bill; no surprises there. Ford didn't want the kid; he couldn't handle it. No surprise there, either. ...Well, Stan could handle the kid, and he would; his brother didn't have to. That was fine. Bill wasn't Ford's problem anymore. and that was better than fine, as far as Stan was concerned. Stan had handed the kid a chance, practically forced it on the triangle demon almost, and the kid had taken it and held onto it as hard as he could; the kid wasn't running, and the kid was his responsibility to handle now. -And Stan wasn't going to screw this one up, no way. Not with the kids counting on him. (And not with his brother needing…)

Stan wasn't optimistic enough to think he could get (and keep) Miz towing the line all by himself - she had no investment in him or the rest of his family - but the fact that she seemed to trust him (for reasons Stan still didn't understand) and trust Bill (for reasons that Stan could sort of see, between the two of 'em), made her a lot easier to handle. And with the kid running interference with her for him, she got downright almost manageable... most of the time. At least when she was around the kids (and Ford wasn't around…), she seemed to be mostly not wanting to cause harm to other people.

Stan let out a sigh, as he looked at the sun and made plans for the rest of the day. Stan figured they would just go to the school once Ford woke up; that way, Ford could check out the science fair project himself. Stan wasn't planning on waking him up if he could help it in the meantime, though; he didn't want to have to deal with Ford pacing a hole in the back, or thinking of pulling another useless 'guard duty' stint - only outside the high school this time. Because today was the day. The guys from that fancy school didn't come around until late afternoon, though - technically after school let out, so they still had hours to go right now. Stan didn't want to be a distraction for their younger parallel-them selves, but they could still see the thing in action before then; he figured they could feed Ford some hot dogs on the way over, as they went, then just go inside and take a quick peek, to make sure it was still a-ok.

In the meantime, Stan figured he could help the demon-lady make enough money to let her feed herself a decent amount of normal people food once she woke up, for a change. So Stan settled into his chair, ate a hotdog or two, and just focused on helping Miz out by selling out her wares. He even spun up a 'poor her' tale about how 'she'd stayed up all night makin' 'em for folks,' and that that was why she was tuckered out in the back. And hey, she was tired; they all were, from the interdimensional time lag and from trying to stay up watching the house so late.

Stan looked over to see that, yeah, she was asleep again, finally. ...And it was a little weird to see her like that. She looked kinda cute almost, cuddling that new doll of hers as she slept - at least, she would to anyone unaware she was actually a dangerous demon (and Mabel). ...Not that Stan was letting that little detail keep him from exploiting that 'cuteness' any more that he did when Mabel pulled her thing, and milking that little scene in the back for all it was worth, to get the most sales outta the customers.

He didn't have to do it for very long, either. It only took another two hours to sell out of the rest of her wares. And when he'd first completely taken over selling for her, Stan had sighed and felt annoyed that he was gonna have to send Dipper out with some money to go get some boxes or bags or something for the earrings. But luckily, Stan had looked around the booth real quick before giving up and sending Dipper on that errand, and found a bunch of small boxes under the booth that Miz must've made up earlier for them. Stan wasn't too surprised to find them there, though, because they'd talked about what she'd usually sold this stuff with before; that said, he was a little relieved Miz had thought to make enough of them for the rest of her wares before she'd conked out on him. It meant less expenditures, and more profit.

Stan counted out the money as he turned away from the counter, alternating bills with bites of one of the hotdogs he'd had Dipper get for them earlier. The kids were eating the rest. It was fine; he'd cleaned himself out on funds for this much of it, but he'd be able to make more in the meantime. He'd be able to buy more later, by the time the sleeping beauties woke up; they'd do just that, then head over to the science fair. It was open to the public, after all. Forget all that 'look from afar' out on the roof junk. They could just walk right in through the gymnasium's double-doors, and go see exactly what had or hadn't changed…

...and then Stan would run damage control and "fix" everything. Because the triangle demon seemed certain that something was going to go wrong, even if the younger versions of them hadn't left the house last night to go talk about the whole thing on the swingset like they had - and hadn't fought with each other in the house, either. Yet. ...Because the way Stan saw it going down, he figured that this whole thing was gonna be one hell of a shock for that younger him later that night, when that younger Ford presented this whole thing as one of those 'I got a bunch of college people interested in giving me a full-ride to college for my science fair project and, guess what, I already won!' things to him after the fact.

Those parallel-thems hadn't gone to school yesterday; that meant they couldn't have been called to the office. So that other younger Stan wouldn't have overheard what the principal and his parents really thought of him like Stan had, about how he'd just end up staying in Jersey doing shit jobs forever. He wouldn't have overheard about the fancy college people that would be coming, that were interested in his brother. And because the two of them hadn't left the house last night or fought inside the house, that younger Stan obviously hadn't had that conversation with Ford about being left behind, either... which meant that their parents had probably just told that younger Ford about the whole college board thing, and left that younger Stan right out of it. ...Because, y'know, why would it matter to him what his brother might have going for him as a good thing out of the blue, or that his twin would be leaving him behind if he went for it? Not like he had a right to know what was goin' on with his own brother, or nothin'. Right?

...And by then, in just a few short hours from now, it'd be too late for that younger Stan to say or do anything about it one way or the other, too. That Ford would have his mind set on that fancy college by then - no way that those fancy college people wouldn't want him, once they saw what he could do - and then...

...well, at least that younger Stan wouldn't be kicked outta the house, though. That was something, right? (A really lousy runner's-up prize, sure, but hey, it did kinda beat the alternative of getting kicked out onto the streets and his brother never wanting to speak with him again, right? So it was still better than…)

(...except he knew himself. He'd get fed up with everything, sooner or later. He'd still end up leaving. And then when Shermie needed someone, needed him…)

Stan looked down, pulled in a deep breath, and let it out again.

He focused on what he was doing, finished counting Miz's money, then folded it up and stuffed it in a pocket.

And then he got up from his chair and cleared off the tabletop entirely, shoving the rest of the remaining display - sand, seashells, and all that - into the larger box that Miz had made earlier and used as part of the display before.

"Kid, you wanna do card tricks over here? Or keep on doin' them out there still?" Stan asked the kid, as he half-heartedly tossed the box under the counter, letting it drop to the floor. The kid turned his head towards him, and gave him a look that made it clear what he thought of that idea, as Stan got up and made his way out of the booth again. Stan shrugged at him. "Suit yourself." Stan went around the front of the table and shoved the 'fortune teller visitor's chair' (crate) over with his heel over a bit, to center it at the center of the counter instead. Then Stan walked himself back into the booth and did the same thing with his own chair. -No reason not to take up the entire space for fortune-telling, with nothing left of the earrings.

Stan did a few more tarot card readings, and Stan realized after awhile (and another magic show or two) that he wasn't making as much money as either of the two demons had, so far. And that left him feeling a little… odd. (Okay, yeah, maybe a part of him was feeling a little inadequate. He was the one who was supposed to be providing for his family, and taking care of the kid as part of the agreement.) But… Stan had asked the kid for his ideas, and the kid had handed him the tarot deck. 'For free.' Because the kid was 'helping him out'. It hadn't been Stan's idea to go with this; he probably could've come up with something better than tarot to sell.

-And hey, he was doing pretty good for making money from nothing, when the demon-kids could literally make stuff from nothing, just 'free sand' or pulled outta a hat full of everything! Still left him feeling a little odd, though. But that was a thing. It wasn't like Stan had some kinda crazy demon powers like either of the demon-kids, to be making product out of thin air or... doing a bunch of prop magic. Which he could do, if he'd had the props. But he didn't and the kid did. And the kid had had to get it all from somewhere; the kid hadn't really pulled that junk outta thin air - that had been planning. Kid had really been prepared for everything. Huh. ...Huh.

-Wait. Had the kid prepared for something like this?

Thing was, Stan didn't know if the kid had handed him the tarot deck on purpose or not, thinking that Stan wouldn't be able to make as much money as him off of it. So, had the kid set him up for feeling this way, all off-balance and depending on the kid for this stuff? ...Then again, the kid had just been handing over all his earnings to him like he was some kind of... hell, not even a pimp, because the kid would've kept at least some small percentage of his earnings if that was the case. And, now that Stan was thinkin' about it, the kid had sort of brought up the distribution of work - him doing tarot and the kid doing card tricks - himself, but when he'd done it, he'd done it like a question. Kid had actually hesitated when he'd said it, like he'd thought Stan might have a problem with it.

Stan resituated himself on the chair was sitting on a bit, stifling a grimace, and he thought about what would have happened if he'd taken the other deck, instead. ...He could've done poker or something, maybe, or some sort of card game like the cups, but that would've required money to offset any player's buy-in, which he hadn't had to start with. Okay. So that would have been a wash, maybe. Could've worked, but maybe not. (And the kid didn't like uncertainty all that much; neither did he, when it came to a 'choice' of making money or starving.)

...He could've done straight-up card tricks like the kid, though, and maybe made at least as much money off of stuff as Bill. But… it'd be more of a Mr. Mystery act, and he would've had to leave the booth to do that and make bank. And with the kid doing the tarot, the kid would have been the one of the two of them sitting in the booth with Miz… and the kids... and Ford. (Yeah, sure. That would have gone over well with his sleep-deprived brother…)

Stan let out a sigh and rubbed a hand down his face. ...Hell, even if Ford had gone back to the boat while taking the kids with him, leaving him to do his thing with the demons, making money alone in the booth, could the kid have even pulled off the tarot readings as well as he did? The triangle demon didn't exactly seem to read people very well, and… Stan wasn't so sure that the demon would be as good at telling people what they wanted to hear as all that. (Heh, scratch that. Stan was pretty damn sure that the kid would've ended up with a lot of angry customers by telling the truth to them instead, and treating them like dirt.) That would've left Stan basically one-upping the kid by making more money with magic tricks than the kid at tarot, but… it would've caused other problems. And…

Stan glanced over at the kid again, who was still taking the magic act seriously, and then Stan stilled in place as it occurred to him. If the kid was really thinking of and treating what he was doing like 'help', then all of the kid's own earnings would 'count' as Stan's earnings… and Stan taking the tarot deck and the kid doing magic outside the booth was making them the most bank overall, combined. And it was also keeping the kid out of the booth, away from Ford.

Stan looked down at the tarot deck and reshuffled it, while watching the kid out of the corner of his eye. Thinking on it, they'd used up all Stan's earnings from this morning to buy food for everyone except Miz (who was using her own money for that - not like Stan could cover that appetite so easy - hell, he hadn't even done that at the Shack, and the kid hadn't even asked him to). But… Stan's earnings had covered it. And it wasn't like Stan had asked the kid for an idea that would make him bank; he'd just been talking about it as a way to cover them all in the meantime. And Stan hadn't even been pushing it; he hadn't been trying to do tarot readings during the kid's shows, and he'd spent a lot of time so far helping Miz sell all of her own stuff. He could've made a good bit more money here with this than he already had already, if he'd really tried. He hadn't actually spent all that much time doing the tarot readings yet today. He could've made more. -Maybe not as quickly or as much as the kid was racking up dollars for his shows, still, but…

Stan sighed, then slapped on a smile as the next set of possible-suckers started walking by the table. He called out to them, getting their attention and selling the readings almost on autopilot, as he thought about the last piece of things.

Stan didn't like having to rely on the demons for things, Miz or Bill. And it wasn't like the kid didn't know that. And Stan had talked about busking and running a proper con. But... if he'd told him that he just wanted money he could spend, and didn't care how they got it… could they have just made up a stack of forged paper money for him, if he'd asked the kid, or Miz, to do it? Just as easily as Miz had made up those earrings to sell, from the sand?

-The gaggle of older women in front of him was debating the tarot reading, and he tossed in a quick joke or two, to make them giggle, hamming it up.

Stan hadn't asked the kid for efficiency, and he hadn't asked for a big money-earner. What he had asked for was ideas while they were standing there in the booth. But what he'd wanted, and said that he'd wanted, was for Ford to get some sleep. He'd said he wanted to keep the kids with him for the day if he could. He'd said he wanted to 'busk' for enough money to be able to feed themselves, while feeling tired as anything over what-all was going on with his brother there.

...And what the kid had helped to set up and give to him was a booth for the day that they could relax in (even before Stan had really asked), and work that was about as stressful as playing cards (when asked). Kid was helping him by helping them rest, or trying to. ...Wasn't like the kid didn't know how Stan felt about Ford being sleep-deprived, either - and the kid didn't like it when Ford did that any more than Stan did, he'd lay even bets on that.

The kid had tried to give him what he wanted. What he'd said he wanted.

...This was dangerous. The kid really was trying to help him out, here, as far as he could tell. (Except the kid usually got things wrong so often that…)

Stan finally got a hook, three ladies egging each other on. ...He smiled as they approached the table, because if he played this right, he'd get each of them in a row, all listening in on each other, in a 'do her next' 'do me next' scenario. Heh.

Stan was gonna have to talk to the kid about this later, definitely. He didn't want to risk getting this wrong. Stuff with the kid had shifted again, and it was starting to get hard to keep up. 'Help by him' on top of 'wanting him' by way of a gambling-bet 'not-a-game' all sitting on top of their mutual non-aggression agreement, with a new demonic 'little sister' now thrown into the mix? Right now, Stan wasn't even sure if the level of help he was getting from the kid right now was more from the 'wanting him', or the promised help for as long as the 'gambling-bet' was going on.

And Stan figured that that was gonna be pretty important to figure out one hell of a lot sooner than just 'later'.

Bill eventually laid down next to his sister in the back of the booth, dozing lightly, for his usual afternoon nap, and Stan let out a quiet breath of relief. (He'd been worried that he might have to get in an argument with the kid over getting him to lie down for (at least one of) his usual 'midday' nap(s) - y'know, those naps that the kid never admitted that he took. That the kid had done it on his own without making a big fuss about it, or getting cranky first, or pushing things until he practically collapsed, was a good sign.) ...And then Stan was finally able to do some readings on a hell of a lot more people to properly earn his own money.

And Stan felt a little odd in a different way, now, because Stan felt plain next to the kid's earlier artsy-glittery draw, especially when he was used to being the one in the room putting on the big show. Stan could fully admit that, when comparing his tarot readings to Bill's magic act, he was nowhere near as impressive as Bill was in terms of showmanship - and to be fair, while the kid could cheat with real magic, the kid had also been showing off a hell of a lot of flair there, too.

...But the thing was, a Mr. Mystery act, acting all larger-than-life? Wasn't what people were looking for in a tarot reading; not really. People weren't walking up to the booth looking for some big puffed-up personality; tarot was about making everything about the person being read, if you were doing it right - a different and quieter kind of mystery. Yeah, you had to come across as the authority at the table, knowing what you were doing, sure. But this wasn't some psychic-crystal-ball shake-the-table here-come-the-ghosts mediumistic nonsense he was doin', here. (...And Stan had a pretty good, bad idea what his brother would have to say about all that, with some of the junk Ford had written about it in that third journal of his, way back when. -Anyway, point was:) You weren't trying to go over the top for this stuff, with the cards - and if you were, then you were missing the point.

Honestly, it all felt like a throwback almost, putting on a new-old skin, because the last time Stan remembered helping his ma out with her tarot readings had been back in… hell, elementary school. (Was he remembering that right?) And he'd just been happy and excited to be able to be all helpful to the people on the other end of the phone, drawing cards and sometimes figuring out parts of the readings all on his own from the book, for his ma, and for them.

Stan had never done a full reading on his own back then; and neither he or his ma had actually done any of those things for people in-person, only over the phone hotline at a remove. No faces, and sometimes even no names; just a voice. So doing this stuff in the booth now? Was kind of the same? But also really, really different. ...And a hell of a lot calmer than the Mystery Shack tours, he had to give the kid that. He felt removed from all the stress of the boardwalk out there because he was: all the rush and bustle was literally on the other side of the table away from him, and the inside of the booth behind him was an oasis of calm and sleepy serenity.

...And Stan, being Stan, did what he always did: he took it all and ran with it. (Wasn't like he hadn't had to make up another new persona or two before on a moment's notice. Except, this time, it didn't really feel like a 'persona', which was the really odd part of it.) Wasn't like it was hard; he'd done stuff like this before, if not maybe this exact thing here specifically...

So Stan did his thing, with a real chance at doing stuff without having to compete with or offset the kid, and by the time Ford and Miz woke up, Stan had managed to rack up a damn respectable amount of cash for his efforts, if he did say so himself. Not long after Miz woke up, Bill was blinking and yawning as he slowly sat up on his own, too. Stan leaned back in his chair and glanced back over his shoulder at the lot of them, as Miz yawned and looked around before declaring that she was hungry and, well, that was Stan's cue.

"Hey kid, here's your profits," Stan told Miz, reaching into his pocket for just that. "Maybe think about filling up on some people food this time. There's some food stalls nearby." Stan handed her the stack of bills. She took them from him, then turned and stared at the cleared tabletop.

"They all sold? How?" Miz said, sounding a little shell-shocked.

Stan shrugged. "People came and bought 'em?" She seemed surprised at that. (...Well, yeah, she didn't push customers to buy. She probably wasn't used to being able to sell all of her stock.) Stan blinked when Miz stared at him in awe, though.

"Thank you," she said with a complicated expression, heartfelt but also a little melancholy. Stan frowned slightly, not sure how to feel about that. Wasn't like she hadn't been paying him commission to sell 'em for her. All he could think of to tell her was: "Uh. No problem, kid."

Ford, who was slowly dragging his brain awake again, after having fallen asleep on the floor under a light blanket, looked confused about where he was for a long moment, as he muttered out, "Wh'sss... -Lee!" Stan watched his brother jolt upright and shove the blanket off of himself roughly. "-The science fair!" Ford made a more coordinated lurch to his feet than Stan would have ever expected out of his brother while still half-asleep… except that he'd seen Ford attempt that before on the boat multiple times on less sleep and actually succeed. (...most of the time. Unless he did it in the middle of a really bad rough sea day, full of choppy waves, and then… well...)

"Calm down Poindexter. We still have, uh…" Stan glanced to check the time. "...Two hours before the guys from that fancy school are gonna show up, yeah?" Ford started to calm down a little after checking his own watch, and Stan reached over to clap his shoulder. "Come on, let's get you some food."

Miz was flipping through her bills with an amazed look on her face. "I could buy so much food with this!" she gasped.

"Well, yeah?" Stan snorted. That had been kinda the point. (Because from what he could tell, Miz was constantly hungry. So she needed it. Though whatever reason that she ended up ravenous after doing stuff when the kid didn't, Stan wasn't sure. He knew the kid did some things differently - more 'efficiently'? - than her, but Stan didn't get what was really causing the differences, or why the dragon-lady just… didn't do all that flashy stuff, then, if it was gonna do that to her, making her that hungry that fast and that soon. He also didn't know why the kid hadn't walked through better ways of doing stuff with her yet. ...He'd have to ask later.)

Miz turned to Bill. "Do you want any of the stuff here?" The older demon looked around at the stands full of hotdogs, burgers and deep fried everything.

"No," said Bill.

Miz shrugged. "I can see about a fruit stand or something?" she asked him next. Bill hummed noncommittally. It was fine if his little sister wanted to eat the food around here, he just didn't want to bother. Obtaining, identifying, handling, cleaning, distilling, checking, cleaning-again, distilling-again, re-distilling a third time, and then checking again, long before any ingesting could happen for him safely and easily… it was too much trouble to do for any and every old thing he might think of putting in his mouth when he was stuck in this stupid human-ish body. Doing the bare minimum of burning things that were barely edible thoroughly before eating them? Well, that was annoying enough as it was. He wasn't going through ALL THAT for some stupid hotdog! No!

Stan didn't comment or bother to weigh in on things; he knew now what the kid would and would not eat, and he knew that the kid still had more of those crackers to fall back on for now. So Stan only bought a few more hotdogs to pass off to Ford, to pester him to eat as the kids hit the beach restrooms before they all left the boardwalk. (Stan figured it was a good thing that those restrooms were for the public and open twenty-four-seven. They'd sure been useful last night, on the way to the roof where Ford had decided to crouch for his impromptu stakeout. One of the things he hadn't gotten set up on the Stan o' War yet to-date had been the plumbing...)

Meanwhile, Miz ran around all the stalls, getting herself a little bit of everything. She bought hot dogs, burgers, chicken skewers and french fries for herself, along with a few lemonades, and Dipper and Mabel stared at her as she ate.

Dipper looked back and forth between Miz and Bill. "How come you don't eat so much?" he asked Bill.

Bill waved the question off. "I'm more careful about what I put inside myself. You humans ARE what you EAT, you know!" Miz just shrugged in reply, simply stating: "I apparently have no standards." She didn't seem all that ashamed by this fact.

Bill, on the other hand, was something over this (though certainly not ashamed… maybe a little annoyed?) - Bill ruffled her hair and said, "You DO have standards! You just need BETTER ones. SO HAVE BETTER STANDARDS! -AT LEAST ONE MORE THAN YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW! IMPROVEMENT!" Miz made a muffled protest through her mouthful of french fries at the penalizing hair-ruffling.

Mabel and Dipper turned to each other, exchanging a look. ...Because it was really weird watching Bill and Miz interact. The demons almost seemed like real siblings sometimes. It made them feel really weird to see Bill Cipher actually acting kind of like an older brother was supposed to act.

The group made their way off the boardwalk. Miz finished eating almost all of her own food haul - which was just about enough to feed a whole sports team (and had Stan really wondering just how much energy she'd actually been using to pull off the stuff she was doing, and comparing it to how much the kid usually used by comparison). Miz was just finishing up nibbling on her last box of chicken nuggets, when the school came into sight.

From the look of the sidewalk and school courtyard, there weren't a lot of people from the community raring at the bit to go inside and look at the science fair projects for the school's spring 'open house'. ...Well, Stan wasn't surprised about that. Their school wasn't all that impressive, and people weren't all that interested in this sort of thing in their town.

But as they all approached the double-doors of the gymnasium, right before they were about to pass the threshold to the inside, Ford stopped in the middle of the doorway and turned in place to glare at the demons, blocking the door.

"You-" said Ford. "I don't want either of you anywhere near it! No messing with it just to spite me," Ford just about spat out at the two demons. (Hell, Stan couldn't exactly blame his brother for it, either. He got why Ford was so worried about the whole thing.)

Miz scowled but didn't say anything. Bill placed a hand on her head. "Just wait," Bill said to her simply. She nodded, shoving two chicken nuggets in her mouth, chewing to stop herself from speaking.

Ford glanced between them with an annoyed expression (covering up no small worry). He was absolutely certain that the demons were messing with him, stressing him and Stan out on purpose just for their own sick amusement.

Stan sighed. "Alright, Ford. What do you want to do here?" he asked of his brother. He didn't like the idea of the demons staying out here alone with the kids, out of his sight. But Stan figured he needed to be in there to help Ford out, once they saw what might've happened, or didn't happen, or... whatever; he didn't know. And Stan was pretty sure that Ford wouldn't want the kids to be in there with him, just in case there was a problem. (Because then the kids would see him completely lose his shit and…)

But to this, Stan's brother gave him an odd look.

"I'm going inside," Ford told him, as if that was obvious. (And well sure; that was.) "You weren't actually planning on letting the demons roam around the floor of the science fair, inside the building here, were you?" Ford said next, in descending tones, and…

Stan blinked at him. "Well, uh… no?" Stan said, feeling a little confused. "But the kids-"

"I'd rather not have them inside, either," Ford said. At the shocked and surprised complaints from the niblings - who apparently wanted to see the great and fabled perpetual motion machine for themselves - Ford crouched down in front of them and said, "Once the danger has passed, we can come back and you can see it, then, if you'd like. But for now-"

...the danger? The heck was Ford… Stan shook his head and let it go, as he listened to Ford talk the niblings out of going inside - or trying to sneak inside either - until at least 5 o'clock that afternoon. Which would be a couple hours past when the college board jerks would show up. ...Which Ford had gone for probably, y'know, just in case something had happened to make 'em late or something, Stan figured.

"Okay, Ford," Stan sighed out next, crossing his arms as his brother stood back up to face him. "Then what are you wantin' me to do, here? Because-"

"-What do you mean?" Ford asked him next. "You're staying outside and watching the demons here, aren't you?"

Stan stared at Ford.

"I-" Stan began, feeling a little dizzy with shock. Because he hadn't expected-

Stan took in a deep breath, and forced himself to… calm down? He wasn't real sure what he was feelin' right then, though. Just that it didn't feel really good. (If anything, it felt wrong, because he'd thought that-)

"Ford," Stan said almost carefully. "Don't you want me comin' in there with you?"

And to this, his brother stared at him like he was out of his flipping mind.

"Why would I-" Ford stopped for a moment, staring at Stan like he'd never seen him before.

Then Ford frowned.

"Stanley," Ford said, almost as carefully as Stan had just talked, except he also sounded... "Why would I want you inside?"

Stan looked at his own brother in disbelief.

"Ford, I wasn't plannin' on breaking your science fair project," Stan told him, flat-out. "You know that, right?"

"Of course I do," Ford said, and Stan let out a breath about as quietly as he could. Because he couldn't believe that he ever suspected his own brother had been so paranoid as to think that- "The best time for you to have tried that would have been last night, and you didn't try to sneak away. You laid yourself down and you slept all through the night," Ford told him next. "You've been thoroughly occupied with the demons, ever since."

Stan's stomach dropped to his knees, and he felt a cold chill go down his spine.

Miz was frowning. "So you don't trust him…" She muttered quietly.

Ford shot a glare at the demon, then turned back to his brother.

"Stan," he told him. "You have to understand-"

"Oh, no, really?" Stan said, looking irate. "Well, go on and explain it to me, then! Yeah? -C'mon! Out with it!"

Ford clenched his jaw, then shook his head and let out a breath roughly, forcing himself to try and relax. "Stan, you're already worked up over this," Ford said. He didn't mean to offend his brother, it was only that- "I don't trust myself not to say something that might offend you-"

"Offend me?" Stan blurted out, looking even angrier, and Ford grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"-which is already happening as we stand here right now," Ford said next with no small exasperation with himself (and his brother), then slowly looked up to see his brother standing there, glowering at him.

"You don't trust me," Stan said. "That's what this is. You don't trust me not to-"

"-Stan," Ford tried again, feeling increasingly tired. "Of the last few times we have fought... Of the last three times we have gotten into serious physical altercations with each other, what has ostensibly made you upset to the point of forgoing words for actions, was me. There was a tipping point where you lost your temper because of something I had said. And two of those altercations escalated to such a degree so quickly, with the two of us so incensed with each other over pettiness and old grievances, that we literally became unaware of our surroundings and completely blind to and unconcerned with the larger problems at-hand, in our surrounding environment, at the time," Ford said. "And I think you know the two altercations of which I am speaking," his first journal and the portal, and the Zodiac circle during Weirdmageddon.

Silence from his brother.

Ford pulled in another breath. "I don't want to place blame, and I will take responsibility for my part in those fights. -And regardless of how you or I may feel about any of the specific details of those fights, what I think we both do not fail to recognize is the pattern here," Ford said. "And I need to go in there and see what the state of- that science fair project is," Ford told him. "If we both go in at the same time, we risk having an altercation with each other that could very well end with that table being broken, and that project destroyed." Ford glanced over at Bill. "And I have no doubt in my mind that the demon currently standing at 'your side' would love to see that very thing happen," Ford gritted out as he looked back to Stan. "And if you go in there before the judges do, I have no doubt that Bill could have easily set things up somehow for you to be the one to break that project, accidentally or otherwise-" he saw Stan begin to protest, "-potentially even something as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time to be bumped into and pushed into the project table, whether you'd want that to happen or not," Ford told him. "And then we would both be left, wondering. And as for those younger versions of ourselves..." Ford trailed off.

Ford saw his brother clenching his jaw. Stan was all but glaring at him.

"Stan, please see reason here," Ford told his brother quietly, stepping forward to place his hands on his shoulders. "I don't even know the state of the project in there, at-present. I- I can't have you in there with me when I see it," he told him next, looking down a bit, briefly closing his eyes.

"Ford…" Stan said slowly.

"We've never talked about this, Stan," Ford said to Stan under his breath, stopping his voice from traveling. "Not once; not really," he told him, feeling his own shoulders slump a little, even as his own back tensed. "I don't-" He pulled in a breath. "I don't know if I might lose my temper at you or not, not if something is wrong in there," Ford looked up at him. "And I don't want to risk doing that. Not to you, and not in front of the niblings." He swallowed. "Please," he asked of his brother, hoping beyond hope that Stan would just see sense, just this one time...

Stan stared at him for a long time.

"...Fine," Stan said, looking away from him.

Ford let out a breath and slowly lowered his hands from his brother's shoulders, feeling a little like he could breathe again.

(And yet, at the same time, he also felt a bit like something had sucked all the breathable air out of the atmosphere surrounding the planet, and replaced it with an entirely-unbreathable mix. It was a little like breathing underwater; his lungs were expanding correctly again, but it felt like there was no oxygen left for him to...)

"All right," Ford said, taking a step back. "Alright." He braced himself, then said, "Thank you, Stan."

To this, Ford got nothing more than a noncommittal grunt, and a brother who turned away from him, looking anything but happy with him. (He'd half-expected gloating from his brother. ...Or at least a bit of taunting from Bill, who had also remained oddly silent throughout. Because a 'thank you' under these circumstances was...)

Ford let out an unhappy sigh himself, then turned back towards the gymnasium doors.

He steeled himself, then marched right on into the building.

Bill and Miz looked to Stanley as he walked past them towards the courtyard wall (and some of the benches there), saying, "C'mon, you four. Benches ain't gonna walk themselves over here for us." They glanced at each other, before they both shrugged and followed him over. (Pine Tree and Shooting Star reacted in a similar manner, though they were talking quietly to each other as they went.)

Miz popped the rest of her snack in her mouth and walked over to throw out the container in a nearby garbage can. "Sure, I'm just gonna go sit down here, then," she grumbled before settling in at one of the benches.

Bill followed her to the bench, glancing over at Stan briefly. "When you want to fix things, just tell me."

Stan let out a heavy sigh. -The kid was still convinced something was going to go wrong. He frowned, then glanced over at the twins, who had decided to sit one bench down from the demon-kids. They were both not wanting to get too close, but they were just as clearly watching the two demons like a pair of hawks. (Dipper obviously didn't want Bill and Miz going off on their own, and wanted to keep an eye on them for Ford, yeah. But he also clearly wanted to go to the science fair, see Ford's project, and help out as much as he could. And so did Mabel.)

Stan just sighed, feeling bad about the whole thing.

He turned around and sat down on the far end of the bench, on the same bench as the demon-kids. It put him between the demon-kids and the kids... and left him staring at the doors of the gymnasium that Ford didn't want him to enter.

Stan blinked as he watched Ford march into the gymnasium and… slow down. And then he saw Ford turn his head to glance over his shoulder back at him, looking almost guiltily at him before he turned away and...

...vanished out of sight around a corner.

Stan frowned a little as he sat back on the bench out in the open courtyard, and crossed his arms. ...The heck had thatbeen about? What did his brother have to feel guilty about? He'd been the one to get himself kicked out of the house, the one who'd 'ruined his own life' - and Ford's along with it, the way Ford had always talked about it, before and since...

Ford was still steeling himself as he turned a corner and- saw the booth.

And his science fair project.

-The other, younger Ford's project. The perpetual motion machine.

It was out on full display, spinning and-

Ford sucked in a breath, then let it out again in a rush again mere moments later. Because he hadn't been seeing things; it was still spinning. -It was working. The science fair project was fine. Ford took a step forward, then two, then three, then another and another and another until he was himself standing right there in front of it.

He stared down at it, almost in wonder, feeling almost like he was caught up a fever-dream. It was... surreal. It was just sitting there, spinning and working not three steps away from him farther forward. If he simply reached out a hand… It was… it was just as wonderful as he remembered it. It was...

...out on full display, he realized, looking up, and that wasn't quite right - except it also was exactly that. That was right, because…

Ford glanced to the side and noted that the curtain was still tied up at the corners of the booth between Stan's and his. His project was right next to Stan's project, the one about... about a kicking robot that Stan had built out of cardboard and an old toaster and...

...He remembered full well what had happened that day. The day that the West Coast Tech representatives had come to see his project. He'd pulled the curtain aside, and then...

And then.

...The curtain had been up. Not over to one side; it had been tied across the booth. Hiding his project from view. He remembered the chain and course of events well, and…

-At the time, as it had happened, and for days afterwards, he hadn't thought too much on the particulars beyond that - the facts of the event that had occurred being nightmarish enough as they had stood. But...

...he really hadn't put the curtain up again the day before when he'd left, had he.

Ford felt his hands clench spasmodically into fists. He had to force himself to close his eyes and breathe.

An accident. Stan had always said it was an accident. But with the curtain tied closed, when it hadn't been prior… he'd agonized over that one for days, weeks afterwards. Whether he had or hadn't. Because had he? Or hadn't he? He'd practically obsessed over it for awhile, after the initial anger and shame and frustration and sickening loss had passed. After Stan hadn't shown up for school since he'd been thrown out of the house, and hadn't been home since, either - not even so much as tried to darken the doorway of the house or the shop...

Ford been almost completely certain that he hadn't closed the curtain the preceding day, but with the stress of the situation - and everything else - he'd never been completely sure. Not really. Not completely...

But what Stan had said to him and done after had been more than damning enough not to matter, back then. Not in the long-run. Not really. -Because it would have changed nothing. 'Accident' or not, Stan had broken the project, not told him of it, and not been the least bit sorry or shown even one iota of remorse for his actions later, afterwards. Not to him; not to anyone. Ever.

But now… with the facts of the matter staring Ford right in the face?

-A closed curtain implied something that had needed to be hidden. It implied knowledge that something had been wrong. ...It didn't imply simple ignorance of a potential problem; it practically screamed of malice aforethought - which Ford had tried to tell himself it hadn't been, couldn't have been what had happened, for days and days afterwards after the initial shock and anger had worn off. Days and days and days... until he simply couldn't take it anymore.

Because he'd been abandoned by his twin. Stan hadn't even tried to apologize to him. -Stan had been kicked out of the house, yes. But nothing had prevented Stan from showing up at school to see him! Stan could have- he could have at least come to see him- instead of running away like a coward. He could have at least come and told him that he was sorry, that he hadn't meant it confessed to the deed. He could at least have had the damn courage and common decency to come to him, to talk to him, to walk up to him and look him right in the eye and tell him exactly why he'd done it-

Stan, the suffocating, arrogant, self-centered ass, had dropped him first. Thrown him away. -At the very first sign that Ford had wanted something for himself, that he wasn't fully willing to go along with one of Stan's harebrained schemes, Stan had just-! Just… he'd just...

Ford, shaking with anger and hating everything to do with what had happened-

Ford opened his eyes and glared at the perfectly-engineered, brilliantly designed, horribly beautiful, gloriously stupid-

And then Ford snapped bolt upright in place and took a quick step backwards, feeling dizzy and quite literally physically ill. Because he suddenly realized that he'd been leaning towards the-

His fists were clenched-

He was shaking-

Ford closed his eyes again briefly, tilted his head back, and forced himself to take in a deep breath. Forced himself to unclench his fingers, loosen his fists. He couldn't do this. He couldn't-

He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. What was he doing? Standing here and thinking about what Stan had-

He dropped his chin, looked back down at the machine, and felt the paranoia pressing in. Because…

-This wasn't how things were supposed to be. This wasn't what had happened. -Been meant to happen? Prophesied? Necessary? -A man with the face of the one who would kill…- It hadn't happened this way, and-

Something terrible was going to happen. Something terrible was going to happen if he didn't-

-If he didn't break it, Stan wouldn't be kicked out of the house, would he? Ford himself had had his life ruined, but by comparison? Here? What was the worst that could happen? (Bill loved his worst-case scenarios, always getting what he wanted SOMEHOW-)

Bill had been far less than helpful on that front as of late. So Ford forced himself to stop and actually think.

...If he broke the project here, his young counterpart would still go to college, albeit a highly subpar one where he would have to work twice times as hard to get anywhere. He would eventually graduate and move to Gravity Falls. He would find his life's dream really.

...And he would never summon Bill Cipher, because Bill was stuck in a human'ish' form with them. This Ford would be just fine; a bit frustrated at his progress on the Universal Theory of Weirdness, certainly, but…

...He would never build a portal. Not this younger Ford here. Because the portal had been Bill's idea. Ford hadn't come up with that; Bill had suggested it, and then…

This Ford would never call this Stan for help. He wouldn't need him. And this Stan...

...would be punished for his crimes, many times over. Stan didn't talk about those ten years that he'd been missing absent from his life; he never had. Not really. But Ford was no fool.

Ford had looked over those IDs that the niblings had found earlier that summer, looked through that box. And Ford had gone on that boat trip with his brother one that he was beginning to regret that he had done… and… they'd run into an odd bit of trouble once or twice that had seemed… And there had been ports that Stan had outright refused to even consider letting them dock at. -One time, Stan had waited until he was asleep to go up to the navigation unit, and come next morning, his brother had stubbornly refused to admit that he'd put in the course change, let alone why…

Ford remembered at least some of what Stan had yelled at him, down in the basement lab, right before he'd been pushed in, sleep-deprived as he had been.

For everything Ford had suffered through, up to meeting Bill, Stan had gone through far worse.

...With no Bill Cipher in this world to lead this Ford down a path of ruin…

...With no Bill Cipher and no reason for this Ford to call his brother for help…

Stan would get what he deserved. No absolution. No second chances. Just justice, pure and simple. Just and only justice.

Ford felt his breath leave him in a rush, like a punch to the gut, as the thought hit him with the force of a compulsion, pressing in on him from all sides: step forward, break it. Do it. Do it now before- it was too late to fix-

-no, don't-

-this is wrong-

-this is all wrong, all of this is wrong!-

-NO! STOP!-

Ford shook his head and forced himself to take another step backwards, brain buzzing with 'what if's and 'I don't know's and an ocean of guilt and fear with an undercurrent of paranoid-

-but what would happen if he broke it? What if he broke it? Would that set things right? Would it-

He didn't know what he was doing here. He didn't know-

Bill was CERTAIN that it would break. The demon had said-

(No. This wasn't right. No.)

Bill had said that Stan-

(No. That wasn't right. No.)

Bill had said that 'someone' would-

(No! Stop! NO!)

Stan had said that-

-he had barely slept at all last night. He'd-

Ford quickly raised a hand to his face and slapped himself, hard.

He jolted in place as he felt the shock of the slap run through him, and the effect that it had on him was akin to being hit by a bucket of cold water (thank the Axolotl). He shook that off, and… once he'd recentered himself, feeling almost awake again…

He glanced around in alarm, all around him, all around the room (finally mentally cataloguing all of the points of exit and entry) because- what the hell was he doing here?

The science fair project was fine. Everything was fine. -And the judges were coming soon. He couldn't be seen in here-!

-He needed to get out RIGHT NOW-!

Ford turned on his heel and quickly walked back outside.

(He was shivering as he went.)

(...Meanwhile…)

Outside, Miz glanced at Bill, easily conveying her desire to go inside as well. Bill sighed and sat down. "Lean on me. Take a nap," he told her. "That Stanford doesn't want you causing trouble."

As she settled her head on his shoulder, he turned his head towards her and murmured - directly into her ear so that Stanley would not hear it - "You can pretend to sleep, jump out into the Mindscape. Do what you want, so long as you don't mess with what happens inside that gymnasium or with any of the Pines - native or Zodiac-mine - and don't get caught while you're out. I'll watch your body here." Bill was planning on covering for her as he could, keeping her vessel close enough to be within his own magical defenses letting it 'sleep' on him, while she herself was actually away.

Miz nodded and leaned against her brother's side, closing her eyes and relaxing. She slipped out of her vessel and stretched, her mental image of herself still in Miz's form. Bill carefully made sure not to glance up at her as she did; he didn't give away anything as Dipper and Mabel chatted quietly with each other where they sat on another bench nearby. Miz heard Mabel ask if Miz had fallen asleep again, before she flew off to go inside the gym.

She wasn't even paying attention to Ford's project, she was curious about what everyone else had made. She checked on Stan's first, having always wondered about it from her time watching the show. She went up and actually read the little snippets little Stan had written. Aw~ it was so cute. He actually wrote out how the kicking robot would be used to score in football and revolutionize sports. It was sweet and wholesome, a delightful little fantasy that… was actually functional? It wouldn't 'kick' a football very far, but without the football duct taped to it, the lever would move the boot in the right way to hit something at least some short distance, and… She felt a soft pang of sadness at this little dream being discarded, like so many other dreams Stan used to have as a child. Miz glared a little at Ford (from the Mindscape where he couldn't see her) when he approached the table, but turned away.

Nope. Miz shook her head. She wasn't supposed to mess with anything here. Well, nothing that related to Stan and Ford at least. She wanted to look at other people's projects. She liked reading through this sort of thing. What did these children think was important enough to do their final project on? Did they care? Did they simply make something for the purpose of a grade? Did anyone else here love science?

Was anyone else as broken up about it, having all their hopes hanging on this one event as Ford had been?

Miz shrugged and ran off to look through more science projects. Speaking of Ford, she wasn't sure what to do. Ford still hated her and she wasn't sure if he would ever stop. This was pretty much normal for her at this point, to be hated, but she still didn't like it. She glanced over at young Ford's science fair project and the older Stanford who was trembling as he stood in front of it. It was going to suck...

She wondered if Stan would know how to fix it. Well, he would know better than that Stanford at least. She turned and floated away to look at some of the other projects. Huh. A few of these weren't half bad. Granted, she hadn't been expecting much. "How music can alter emotions…" she read out from the poster on one of the booths. "Hah!"

Hm~ the kid behind this project (she Flickered and Saw: Sarah Matthews, boring name, unnotable, shy girl, ignored by most of the school, retreated into songs and music for comfort...) wasn't really appreciated for the work she put in. Miz wanted to help her with that. Perhaps steering her towards a career in music direction for media would be good for her? Movies could have scenes that felt more powerful, with the right application of sound and music. The research Miz was reading here made her believe little Sarah would go far if only she had the CHANCE to do so.

Miz hummed in thought. It could be easily done, a few Deals here and there… and the wonderful creativity of this young woman would be given the chance to grow and thrive…

How she loved watching people develop and learn and evolve, expanding their skills and knowledge! A quick, longer Flicker made her frown. Sarah hadn't gotten much positive attention from her science teachers about this project. She'd been completely overlooked in favor of Ford, the teacher's pet golden boy of the school. Hell, the teachers had barely bothered to read over her project, because she hadn't invented or built anything; to them, her project was 'just' a comprehensive paper of her findings about music and sounds as relating to the triggering of emotional responses…

It wasn't flashy or exciting or impressive at a first glance. And so they had overlooked her. And Sarah, in turn, had taken that as proof that this was not a path she should pursue because it would offer her nothing. Miz growled to herself and decided that she would step in for this.

She wasn't going to be hurting this girl, oh no, she was going to help her to make it BIG. Miz didn't want to see Miss Sarah Matthews fail, to give up on her ambitions just because no one in this stupid school realized the worth of her research. The Arts never received the same praise as the more 'important' subjects and fields of study. And that was a damn shame.

So Miz flew off to talk to a few people. It wasn't like she was going to force Sarah into the path of using her passion for a career; she'd just… inspire her a little bit towards it. Let her know that this was an OPTION that she could choose. Heck, she'd even give the girl multiple other options. Any of them would be fine, so long as she didn't allow that wonderful creative spark of hers to just die off!

Sarah Matthews was a quiet girl. Not so quiet that she was sought out as a bullying target, no, she was the type who ended up forgotten in the background. No one messed with her, no one talked to her, and she was fine with that. Better to be ignored than to catch the bad sort of attention that other kids got from their peers.

That's why she was quite surprised when someone sat down across from her desk at the library. She had a study hall for her last period of the day and was quietly working on her homework in the library. No one bothered her here. She was content to just sit alone and get her work done. So when she saw movement in her peripherals and glanced up to see a… very attractive young man sit down at her table with a bunch of leaflets and books, she was quite startled.

"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to bother you." The boy grinned at her. Sarah looked around, realizing that he really had been talking to her. She eyed him suspiciously; there were plenty of free tables, why had he come to sit with her? She scooted her chair back a little, wary of this boy she didn't remember seeing around the school. But he wasn't looking at her; he was busy flipping through all his books and leaflets… which appeared to be for various colleges.

Sarah glanced over at them, wondering what he was looking at. She herself hadn't really decided on where she wanted to go yet, or even if she'd go. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. Her parents wanted her to go into nursing, because it was something women could do, it was a pretty stable career choice, and hospitals always needed help, but... she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted to do.

Sarah relaxed when the boy seemed to ignore her and continue reading through and discarding the many college leaflets. As he tossed one away, it slid towards her and Sarah glanced over at it; it was close enough now that she could read the front.

'York's school of music and sound design.'

...Huh? Sarah almost reached for it before pulling her hand back. She shouldn't touch other people's stuff. Without looking up at her, the boy spoke up. "Feel free to look through them if you want. There's plenty," he told her, as he discarded yet another one. Sarah flushed and almost got up to leave but... the boy's tone was friendly, kind. He hadn't been taunting her, and she was pretty sure that he wasn't just setting her up to make fun of her from the way he was acting. Sarah was pretty sure that he'd just meant what he'd said. So Sarah picked up the leaflet and looked through it.

… and then she reached over, picked up another one that the boy had discarded (another music school?), looked through it... and she found herself surprised. She hadn't realized there were so many schools like this. Was this boy planning to be a musician? She glanced over at him and his discard pile, then one of the leaflets in particular caught her eye. It was a pamphlet talking about sound design and direction. Like, being a director for music, what goes where for maximum effect to sway the listener's response sort of thing. -She knew this stuff. She'd done a project about it.

She hadn't known there was a career path for such a thing.

She was so enraptured with the thought that she didn't notice when the boy got up from his seat and left, leaving all the leaflets behind and vanishing as if he were never there. He had some people to talk to, to get her set on her path, whichever she chose, without trouble. Namely some music teachers in the school who might be willing to write her letters of recommendation…

Miz settled back into her vessel with a sigh. Well. She felt a lot better now, having done something that she felt was a nice use of her time. She found Bill and the younger set of twins just lounging around on their separate benches, waiting. Ugh~ this was gonna be so boring~

Miz looked up, to see Stan standing right above her, arms crossed and leaning sideways up against the edge of the bench, looking down at her. He'd been sitting down earlier, over on the opposite side of the bench, before she'd left.

"Kid," Stan said lowly, not looking away from her.

"...Nothing that will have any impact on anything or anyone that you might care about," Bill informed him, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He looked a little sour at their having gotten caught out by Stanley. (The twins looked over at hearing this.)

"Not sure I trust your judgment there, kid," Stan said evenly, and Bill rolled his eyes with his eyes closed.

"She tossed around a couple music college leaflets in front of somebody who was interested in music," Bill informed him dryly. (He'd been tracking her progress in the process of testing out some of the newer and more experimental sensors he'd built into his suit. Because why not? Just sitting in place without thinking- or testing- or calculating-out things was BORING!) "Any major disruptions would take place at least seven or eight years down the timeline."

Stan eyed her for a long moment. "...Yeah, okay," Stan said finally, turning away from the two demons.

Miz blushed.

"She could have a bright future if she knew that following her passion was an option available to her," the dragon defended herself. "Ford wasn't the only one affected by the outcome of this science fair, you know. A lot of the other kids who didn't win or were passed over in favor of the school's top student got discouraged from pursuing their own ambitions…" She winced. "Not that I'm saying it was Ford's fault or anything but more people than just you two had a lot riding on this event… and…"

Dipper stared over at her. "You… really care about this sort of thing?"

Miz continued blushing. "Well, I don't like seeing people give up their creative spirit and passions."

"Muse," was Bill's one-word contribution to the conversation, patting his sister on the head.

Dipper looked between the two of them almost suspiciously, and then looked up at his Grunkle Stan with concern. This other Bill Cipher had just admitted to going inside and doing… things inside the school. And Grunkle Stan had just taken Bill's word for it that she hadn't done anything bad, hadn't messed with Great-Uncle Ford's science experiment… This wasn't right. Dipper looked over at his sister and tugged down on his hat. Mabel gave him a smile, but she looked a little uneasy as well.

"Look, if you're really that suspicious, there's a girl named Sarah Matthews in the school library, trying to decide between three nearby colleges-"

"-Miz," Stan interrupted her. "It ain't what you say you did, it's what they don't know that you also coulda done, too. It's that geeky problem, tryin' to prove a negative or somethin'?" Stan told her, looking out across the schoolyard. "You can't do it. Never works. Don't even try; tryin's a waste of time." It was a trap. You couldn't give somebody evidence that you didn't do something; you could only try and show that there wasn't any evidence of the thing… around. And then the next thing anybody with half a brain would say to that would be that you could've just gotten rid of the evidence - and you couldn't prove you didn't do that, either, without running into the exact same problem. "Either you did, or you didn't."

Dipper frowned up at Stan, a little upset. At the very least, Grunkle Stan could've let her keep talking until they might've had something to go on!

Miz closed her mouth and nodded, a little annoyed by the lack of faith. "I glanced at Ford but I actually looked at little-Stan's project, was more interested in that. I have no interest in that-" Miz stopped when Bill dropped a hand on her head and mussed her hair, hard. Stan gave Bill a hard look, and Dipper looked at both demons suspiciously, as Miz whined, and Bill murmured something to her under his breath. ...Well, Stan was pretty sure Miz hadn't bothered to mess with the science project. The kid hadn't been lying, earlier. And Ford would've stormed right out of there yelling by now if she had messed with it, Stan figured.

"You should have stayed out here," Dipper told Miz. "-She should have stayed here," Dipper told Grunkle Stan.

"Yeah, sure," Stan said. "But you didn't even notice she was gone; I did." Dipper pulled a face.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged another glance, and Dipper was getting ready to settle in to wait for Great-Uncle Ford, when he finally came out. As he approached the two benches, they all stood up. Dipper nearly held his breath, waiting, because...

"Everything is fine," Ford told them, "The project is fine." And he looked as relieved as Dipper had ever seen him, but he also looked… worried? (Dipper couldn't really explain it; it was almost like Great-Uncle Ford was worried about two completely different things at once? Except not, at the same time?) Dipper glanced over at Mabel, who was giving Great-Uncle Ford a long considering look, and then he bit his lip, because Mabel looked a little confused, too.

"Was everything all right out here?" Ford asked them next, glancing around between them (and sending two glares the demons' way).

Dipper opened his mouth to say something… then looked up at Grunkle Stan and slowly closed it again.

"Yeah," said Stan. "Nothin' to worry about." Ford frowned at Stan slightly (and glanced back to Dipper, who shrunk slightly in his seat and shrugged at him oddly), as Stan stretched a little, and scratched at his cheek. "C'mon, let's leave him to it. Back to the boardwalk," Stan said, rounding them all up and shooing the kids out in front of him.

"More card tricks?" Bill said, eyeing Grunkle Stan and sounding vaguely annoyed.

"Nah," said Stan. "Not unless you want to. Just figured, we've got a booth, might as well stay in it. Boat was getting kinda cramped." He figured the niblings might like to see more of the boardwalk, too. Ford could show them around, while he kept an eye on the demons and camped out with them back at the booth.

Miz glanced up. "Could I try some magic tricks?"

Stan looked over at her, surprised. "Don't see why not. -Maybe show 'em to your brother, first, before you think about trying 'em for an audience. Yeah?" He figured that either Miz was good enough that it'd be fine, or she wasn't up to Bill's standards of control and timing and that'd keep the two of them more than busy enough for the rest of the afternoon, and well into the evening.

Miz nodded before playing with some flickers of fire between her fingers, each around the size of a candle flame and Stan noticed Dipper and Ford watching her warily as Miz formed more, changing their colors as she went. Before they could say anything, Miz spoke up. "They're all light and no heat. I'm absorbing the thermal energy as they create it. Also, I have a Perception Filter on." She held up a handful of fire, and Bill reached over to run his hand along her palm, ruffling the fire.

"It's colder instead. Might want to be careful with that," Bill pointed out. "Frostbite is a thing!" Miz nodded and wiggled her fingers, the temperature of the fire shifted to be semi-warm but not scorching. "Better?" she asked, holding a handful of rainbow colored flames out. It was similar to what she did at her concerts except the fire at her concerts were a little hotter, mainly because concentrating on the temperature while performing on stage with all the music, dancing and singing at the same time was difficult. As long as the fire was mild enough that no one got seriously hurt, that was all she needed.

However, with humans, she couldn't risk ANY injuries at all. Dipper was staring at the flames with a curious expression. "So… you're going to do fire tricks?"

Miz nodded. "I might need brother's help. I can make the fire but I don't know how to engage an audience the way he does. The only shows I'm used to putting on are my concerts and my cooking shows…" and she didn't really have to interact with her audience in those. There was a distance between them. But performing, right there, in front of people when they would be close enough to touch her… and the only other performance she did was when she was interacting with her summoners, playing up the persona of Bill Cipher as a cool showsman… because that was easier than the alternative. Of interacting with selfish, greedy people as herself.

Of course, this was an entirely different situation, this was about performing to delight people. She liked doing that. She liked seeing people smile. But she didn't have much faith in her own ability to do so. What if she messed up? What if she accidentally hurt someone?

Bill patted her on the head a few times.

Miz smiled up at him, then took in a deep breath, breathed carefully, and adjusted her flames again. Warm but not hot. All show, no danger. She wanted to prove she could do this! That she wasn't dangerous. Miz glanced over at Bill, as he tested the temperature of her flames again. "I had an idea for making a cool light show. Since the sun would be going down in a few hours, but I can still make it flashy enough to stand out in the daylight," she told Stan. She could do light shows. But… "I'm not sure how to spin it as a magic show though? I suppose I could play with more fire appearing over time? Match it with some music?"

"Music's good." Bill grinned. Miz laughed softly. "Add some razzle to the dazzle?" she made her flames fan out and shimmer in an array of rainbow colors. There were multiple Touhou boss fight arrays she could play around with here. The soundtrack and attack patterns from Imperishable Night or Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom would be cool too? Would that be too nerdy? Mabel seemed enraptured by the small display already. Miz kept changing her mind about what she wanted to do.

Miz started humming and making her flames dance in tune to the music. "I guess it's not much of a magic show so much as a fire show?" She turned to Stan. "Think people would pay to see it? I could start small and if they give enough money I can do a big show?"

Stan grunted. "As long as you're sure you can do it." He wasn't all that sure about her control, given what had happened with those 'sand waves' earlier that she hadn't even seemed to notice she'd been doing. But Bill wasn't frowning, and she hadn't done anything weird while she'd been all drunk on that chocolate ice cream that afternoon; she hadn't hurt anyone physically since staying with them as far as he knew, and she didn't seem to want to, either.

Ford stared. "Stanley, you can't possibly be thinking that she won't hurt anyone, using fire around crowds of humans-"

"Feel it yourself, I'm regulating the temperature so it wouldn't hurt anyone!" Miz held up her hand.

Ford glared at her. "Oh yes, and any accidents that will inevitably occur later will be completely unintentional on your part," Ford said to her, with a boatload and a half of sarcasm. (He hadn't missed Dipper's tentativeness earlier. He didn't doubt that the demons must have done something objectionable while he'd been off and away indoors.)

Miz seemed like she was going to retort, before she reached a hand up to rub her headband and took a deep breath. "Have you ever thought about, not being so angry all the time? It can't be healthy for you," she said, instead of whatever comeback she might have wanted to shoot at him instead. Stan let out a grumpy sigh, because he got the feeling that the dragon-lady hadn't actually been trying to piss his brother off more. (Hell, even the kid sent a sideways look at her himself, eyebrows raised slightly, knowing that wouldn't go over well.)

Ford straightened and sent a glare down his nose at her. "Have you ever considered not trying to be a-" but Bill interrupted him with: "-Miz, can you use Illusions instead of actual fire?" Stan actually stared at the kid for the redirect. (That was the sort of thing he usually pulled on the kid with the niblings, when things started to get out of hand. Kid was learning…)

"Sure. I could do that easily." Miz shrugged. Illusions would actually be easier. It was about changing the way the air particles reflected light, mix in some real light from her to encourage the light to shine as she wanted, and... Stan and the niblings raised their eyebrows.

Ford bristled and opened his mouth. "You-!" but Stan said, "-Ford, stop," and Ford looked over at his brother, taken aback. "This ain't helping. The kid just handed you a solution, Miz says she'll do it instead of actual fire, the kid can tell the difference if she's just blowing smoke right now, lying; you got what you wanted. Quit while you're ahead," Stan intoned, giving Ford a long, weighty look... and Ford remembered the last time Stan had told him this. (What had happened out on the porch after-) Ford pulled in a full, deep breath and tried to calm down. It was difficult for him, though.

Ford didn't have to like what his brother was asking him to do, though, overtly and... otherwise. So Ford clenched his jaw and marched ahead, resolving to put on a show of ignoring the demons while still keeping an eye on them, since Stanley somehow was naive enough to believe them when they claimed they were going to do what he wanted, pretending to be 'reasonable', saying they weren't going to harm anyone-

Miz sighed. Bill ruffled her hair a bit. "Why do you keep trying to talk to him?" he asked her. She seemed to keep expecting a positive response out of Ford for some reason, and Bill simply could not fathom why that was. When his sister just pouted harder, Bill tilted his head at her and eyed her like he was trying to See inside her Mind.

(It didn't occur to Bill that, because she wasn't wearing the glasses he'd made for her, she might still be having what he called a 'squirmy feelings' problem.)

Miz shrugged. "Well... he's stressing himself out too much with his distrust and paranoia. That upsets Mabel."

Bill considered that. ...Well, she wasn't wrong. The strings of relationships and consequences weren't only a thing just for him because of the agreement; Miz was trying to follow them, too.

While Bill was thinking about that, they made it back to the boardwalk at around the time kids without any after-school activities had managed to 'escape' and were beginning to gather at the boardwalk to hang out. Stan wasn't too surprised to see their booth had remained unvandalized in their absence. (It was Jersey in the 1970's, after all.) Stan glanced at Miz. "You think you can do this?" he asked.

Miz nodded. "I can sync the illusion to some music." She Flickered before forming a portable radio. "Is this accurate to what people played music with at this time?"

Stan nodded at her, and looked mildly surprised when Mabel spoke up suddenly, saying: "Whoa, what's that thing?" with her usual excitement, as Dipper stared at the blocky object. Miz handed it to her. "A portable radio?" Miz told her. "I think I got this right, I was Looking for something I could play music with in this time period." Hm… might be more difficult to match fire shows with music in this time period, unless she found a station with some nice jazz. Or rock?

Miz flicked the radio on and Mabel watched in wonder as she twisted the dials back and forth to try and find a nice station. She was actually tempted to just make a music bubble and use the radio as a front. She could probably sneak in some Postmodern Jukebox covers of modern songs…

She continued to mentally cycle through the elements she would be pretending to burn in order to create realistic-looking flames in the colors she wanted. (Lithium, calcium, sodium, barium, copper… potassium…) Really, what she was doing with her illusions wasn't going to look all that different from what real stage magicians did, in burning metal salts to get their fire to be whatever color they wanted. "I can start small, just making a flame on my finger…"

She waved all the fake fire she was playing with away before making a normal orange-ish flame ignite on the tip of one index finger. "And then just add more and more?" She brought her hands together to tap her index against the one on her other hand, making the flame spread to the other one, then continued tapping her other fingers with them to light them as well. "And I guess I could work my way up from there? Adding colors? I just need to find a song to sync my performance to. Maybe sing my own song if I don't find one that I like?" because if there was music, she didn't need to talk to the audience.

Stan shrugged. "Sounds fine to me." Bill tilted his head at the faked-composition of her illusionary flames. She even had some fake smoke. "Looks INTERESTING to me!" Bill told her with a grin and a voice full of praise.

Miz cheered. She flipped through the radio to try and familiarize herself with the music from this time period, checking for songs she could synch her performance to (wow, alternative universe Queen?). She hummed cheerfully with the music. Bill himself joined in on purpose this time, humming along as well.

Miz could find a song she liked and simply make the radio play that song, as opposed to what it normally would. She could See and record the song she liked and project it out for the performance. That would make things easier to do, right? She was a little giddy with nerves about it.

She finally settled on a nice rock song to use for a big performance. It had a decent beat to bounce along to. She hummed it under her breath as she practiced. Only once their group was back at the booth and she was sure she knew what she wanted to do, did she drop part of the perception filter she had going.

She stood in front of the booth and opened her mouth to try and call for attention but it was pretty loud and rowdy with the large crowd and her soft voice was drowned out. Bill watched her visibly grow more discouraged and shy as time went on. Looked like his little sis needed a bit of help!

Bill pasted on a wide grin and stepped up. Time to show Miz how to draw in a crowd! A few people from that morning brightened up at the sight of his top hat. "Are you going to do another magic show?" One of them asked. Bill grinned and shook his head. "I'm not performing..." He waited for them to look disappointed... "-My dear little sister will be doing so!" he enthused out instead, then waved at Miz with a flourish, presenting her to them as if she was the result of a magic trick he'd done himself.

They glanced over at Miz. She waved, "Hello?" One of the guys in the crowd looked her up and down. She didn't have a hat or even a deck of cards, standing there with nothing but her clothes and a shy expression on her face. "What're you gonna do?" The guy asked.

"Uh, I'm gonna do a fire show." Miz grinned. Then she paused. "Hang on a second…" She leaned over the top of the booth, flicking her fingers and from where Stan was sitting, he saw a sheet of paper materialize before she pulled it out. She placed it in front of Stan on top of the booth. The old man raised an eyebrow. Huh, it was a... permission slip for fireworks? Yeah, wasn't exactly right, but hey, it was good enough for him. "I got permission an' stuff," Miz said brightly. Stan gave her a half-smile (covering a snort) and nodded as he took the paper from her… then Stan gestured at the crate-chair on the other side of the counter, to move it to the side as a soapbox stage for her to stand on - which Bill then promptly picked up and set up for her out in front of the booth.

"Fire show?" a guy asked. Miz nodded as she took a step up, to stand on top of the crate, so what she was doing would be able to be seen by the entire, slowly-gathering crowd of people that, to a one of them, were all a good head taller than her. She flicked her fingers, a soft almost-snap sound later and there was a small flame on her index finger. "Two dollars for a small show, more for a large show. This is just a quick example." She waved her hand, putting the fire out.

Some of the crowd didn't seem all that impressed but one of the locals who had seen Bill's show earlier just shrugged, walked up to the booth, and slapped two dollars down on the table, before stepping back. Miz took a deep breath. "Ok. One small show." She hummed a melody to herself as she made her hands bounce to the song with her fingers closed in a fist.

"Work it-" a flame appeared on her index finger on her left hand as she flipped it up to point at the sky. "Make it-" the middle finger came up as well so she was now holding her hand in a peace sign with a flame over both fingers. "Do it-" a third finger was now ignited as well. "Makes us-" a fourth finger came up, orange flame flickering to life. She waved her hand around, making the fire flare much higher and brighter "Do do do do do do do do-"

Miz held up her burning left hand and gestured to her right "Harder-" the index finger on that hand popped up and ignited. "Better-" mirroring her other hand, her middle finger went up. "Faster-" third finger. "Stronger-" fourth. She waved both hands around, letting the fire trail through the air like a flickering ribbon. "Do do do do do do do do-"

Miz suddenly clapped her hands together, letting out a burst of flame which made people jump back. She was the one singing it, which means she could just skip right to the chorus. Besides, while a few people looked interested in the show so far, most of them were just thinking things like, 'Meh. It's just candle flames,' and that made Miz want to wow them.

She brought her clapped hands apart and all her fingers were now covered in fire. "Work it harder~ make it better~ do it faster~ makes us stronger~" she flicked her hands up with a quick motion and the fire jumped off her hands to impact against each other in midair to explode in a small firework display in tune to her singing.

"More than ever~ hour after~ our work is~ never over!" she clapped her hands to reignite her hands again and threw both hands into the air to make a large firework high in the sky above their heads. All the flames and sparks were yellow and orange-ish so far. As the sparks of the small illusory 'firework' fizzled out on its descent, Miz waved the fire off her hands and took a bow. People clapped.

"A short performance. Two dollars," she said as she straightened back up. Then she turned to Bill. "Was that okay?" she asked. Bill grinned and patted her on the head. "You did great!" he told her.

A few people tossed her some more money. "If we pay a bunch, will you do a big performance? Like the other girl?" they asked, glancing at Bill, who smiled a mysterious Cheshire-like sort of smile at them.

Miz nodded. "Sure. I'll make a performance last a full song."

A few more people tossed in some money, Stan watched as Bill gathered it up for her to bring back to the table for her. (It didn't escape Stan that Bill was taking on something of the role for Miz that Stan had done for Bill earlier.) Stan glanced over the money, as Bill handed it over to him. People weren't as excited for Miz's fire show as they had been for Bill's performance (probably 'cause they didn't know what a 'fire show' meant - hell, even Stan didn't), but there was still enough contributed from the crowd to be worth a large show. Stan nodded at him, adding his own 'okay' to go ahead with things. (Ford seemed to take that as his signal to get up and stand like a watchdog at the pole at the opposite side of the booth, trying to watch Miz like a hawk, suspicious owl that he was. Stan sighed.)

Miz glanced back, saw that she'd been paid enough (from the nod that Stan gave her) and took a deep breath. She thought through a couple band choices, then ultimately decided on some Queen. -Why not? They existed here (under the name Matriarch), their songs were pretty much the same… and she just needed to decide which song she wanted to use that had already been invented by this point in time. Ugh, she kept changing her mind. She liked jazz too, but swing jazz was different here… you know what? Flick of the Wrist worked. She flicked on her radio and made that song begin playing out over the speakers. Why NOT some Queen? This song was from around this time period anyway...

The piano part started playing and she flickered fire around her fingers and arms, making them change colors all through the visible spectrum. The guitar started as she began to raise her left arm in the air, the fire on her body moving and raising up to gather there. The radio began to belt out the lyrics "Dislocate your spine if you don't sign he says~ I'll have you seeing double~" Miz waved her hand quickly to the side, bringing her other hand up and fanning the flames out sideways to make two equal looking sets of rainbow fire.

As the guitar swelled, she spun her hands around to make the fire cyclone around in the air above her hands, the edges of the flames shot off sparks in time to the drum beat. "Mesmerize you when he's tongue tied~ simply with those eyes~" She made the top of the cyclone explode into some fireworks far above their heads. "Synchronize your minds and see the beast within him rise~" She allowed the sparks to rain down gently around them.

The drums picked up as she waved her hands, reigniting them with red fire in wait for the next line. "Don't look back!" She threw her hands into the air, a large explosion of light going off that bathed them all in a red glow. "Don't look back! It's a rip off!"

Miz prepared the next shot, orange this time, flicking it up into the air, as if she was throwing whatever she was using to set off the fireworks "Flick of the wrist and you're dead baby~" She moved a hand to her mouth and inhaled before blowing out through her hands, shooting up green tinted fire. "Blow him a kiss and you're mad~ oooh wooo ooooh~"

She shook her hand away from her mouth and ignited it again, flicking her hands to send up more fireworks. This one exploded into the shape of a heart, blue flames. "Flick of the wrist~ he'll eat your heart out~" She trailed her hands up her body, from her sides along the hips, up past her torso, neck, cheeks and head before flicking her hands up to set off the next fireworks. "A dig in the ribs and then a kick in the head~ he's taken an arm and taken a leg~"

(Ford was frowning quite a bit by this point, really not liking the lyrics.)

Miz clapped her hands together, sending out another small burst of flame. All of the crowd were standing far back, giving her plenty of space to work, thinking the fire real and not wanting to get burned by it. "All this time honey~ baby you've been had~" She grinned, allowing the fire to creep up along the sides of her arms and begin changing color through the spectrum as she slowly danced. She waved and weaved and wiggled, threw down some colored flame along the ground around her in a circle; jumping down from her crate, the crowd had backed up enough that they could see her even on the ground. "Intoxicate your brain with what I'm saying~ if not you'll lie in knee deep trouble~"

The fire was around her in a circle along the ground now, still shifting in color as her eyes were narrowed in concentration. She wished she could use a Touhou song but those hadn't been invented yet. "Prostitute yourself he says, castrate your human pride~ ooh ooh~" Miz slowly danced around, the fire draping and trailing behind her like a scarf wrapped along her arms. "Sacrifice your leisure days~ let me squeeze you till you've dried~" She stomped her feet on the ground in tune to the drums, the flames jumping higher and higher along the ground.

The flames roared into the sky with a particularly hard stomp and exploded into multiple colors "Don't look back! Don't look back! It's a rip off!" She made the fire dance through the air, exploding with the guitar riffs. With a smug grin, she shaped one into a dragon made from yellow flames.

"Work my fingers to my bones I scream with pain~ I still make no impression~" She waved her arms, making the fire dragon fly around as it's edges bled off into sparks of color until it was the skeletal frame of what might have been a dragon, looking like some sort of wire kite that Miz was pulling through the air. "Seduce you with his money make machine~ cross collaterize~" She pulled and made the dragon light up in red flames before exploding. "Reduce you to a muzak-fake machine~ then the last goodbye~"

Miz threw more fireworks into the air, making them explode in all sorts of colors for the final chorus. "Flick of the wrist and you're dead baby~ blow him a kiss and you're mad~" The song went on as Miz focused on making a spectacle to end this. She danced, sweeping her leg out to scoop up the fire along the ground and throw the rest of that up into the air as well, jumping back onto her crate for a little extra height.

There was a beautiful explosion of colors that lit up the sky. The last notes of the song faded out. Miz huffed. Everyone was staring up at the sky. ...Well, she hoped they liked it?

The audience clapped and cheered. "How'd you do that?" "Did that burn?" "How'd you get that dragon?" "Where'd you learn to do that?" They began to crowd in, stepping closer, closing in on her. Miz went wide eyed and suddenly wanted to hide behind the counter. They were so close to her. Not even a proper stage and bouncers to keep them away. She backed off a little, unsure how to feel. Stan frowned at the mild distress Miz seemed to be feeling as people stepped closer to her. Was she not good with crowds? Miz backed up but couldn't go anywhere since she was on her crate. "U-um…"

Stan stared. Was she really afraid of the crowd? He saw Ford even beginning to look around warily, putting his hand on his gun-

-and Stan got up to intervene before they could manage to spook her (or anybody else…) enough to get some kinda fear response from her. Cornered, scared animals weren't good. Stan had a feeling that cornered, scared demons (with a twitchy sci-fi nerd-owl practically standing next to them) would be even worse-

-but Bill stepped in first, coming up from behind Miz to drop a proprietary hand on top of her head, then step up next to her side. "-Good job, sis!" the kid enthused brightly as he looked down at her with a big grin on his face, taking her attention for himself… and with a set to his shoulders that practically screamed 'back off or I will cut you' to anybody else who was paying the least bit of attention nearby…

...and the crowd unconsciously obeyed. Miz relaxed, pressing closer to Bill's side. "Thanks big brother."

Bill just grinned and patted her on the head twice, then turned away to look to the crowd and said, "Questions? Step right up! -One at a time." with a fixed smile of warning of an unspecified and unspeakable fate, were his words to be ignored...

The crowd thought better of it and just backed off, unconsciously feeling the pressure in the air.

"No?" Bill asked, swiveling his head to look around. ''That's fine!" Bill said next. "A magician should NEVER be asked to reveal one too many secrets!" he told them all, then paused for a full second and said, "There will be a ten minute break!" And with that, Bill turned in place and reached down to flip the boombox to a different station and turn up the volume with a flourish.

And then he turned back to Miz still on top of her box, and offered her a 'gentlemanly' arm. She took it and stepped down from the crate. She walked with Bill back to the booth and got inside it and behind the table, relaxing once there was an almost-barrier between her and the other people.

Miz dropped down into her beanbag chair and slumped a little as the crowd dispersed. "Sorry. I froze up." She looked down, frustrated at herself. Mabel went up to pat her shoulder. "It's fine! Crowds can be intimidating!" Miz still seemed upset at herself. "I shouldn't be afraid. I shouldn't!"

Mabel pressed her lips together. "Hey, it's ok. Everyone can get a little stage fright?" She asked awkwardly. When Miz didn't see to feel any better, Mabel sighed. "It's ok to be scared. I'm afraid of old special effects animation." That got a small laugh out of the dragon.

"And I'm afraid of cars," Miz admitted.

Mabel blinked (while Stan, Ford and Dipper straightened as they stared at Miz). (Bill slowly closed his eyes and looked like he was getting a headache.) "Really? Cars like the vroom vroom, human cars?" Mabel asked of the human-demon in surprise. Miz nodded.

"Why cars?" Dipper asked the dragon-demon, chiming in because he was confused. He was pretty sure that in a 'battle' against a car, a dragon-Miz would win. She was huge!

"It was how I died… back when I was human." Miz said sadly, shivering a little, and Dipper and Mabel both stared at her.

The kid looked like he was struggling with himself over something (...probably worried that the kids might either take advantage, or not take it seriously, if Stan had to guess, maybe; one of the two). And for a couple seconds there, it looked to Stan like Bill was either going to snap at the kids, practically biting their heads off verbally, or grab Miz and… do what, exactly?

"-Kid, breathe," Stan reminded him evenly.

And Stan waited.

...And after a few moments, the kid slowly dropped his 'gentlemanly arm' down and away from her hold, to fall back at his side. He also began breathing a little more evenly and looking a little less like he was going to vibrate his way out of his skin on them. They all took that as a signal that this rather major problem Bill had been having, whatever it was, had now passed.

Once the danger of Bill losing his shit (in the immediate moment) had passed, Mabel went up to Miz to hug her gently. "So you died in a car crash as a human? That must have been scary." she said sympathetically. Miz nodded. "I'm fine with spaceships and hovercrafts but I can't stand cars."

"Ooh!" Mabel said, dropping the hug to clap her hands together excitedly. "Bill could fix up one of the security drones for you when we get back! You could use it as a taxi," Mabel told her, grinning up a storm. Miz smiled back, a little less enthusiastically about it, but glad that Mabel wanted to help. Also, security drones… probably not a good idea.

"No," Bill said, almost a groan. "I told you, Shooting Star, I am NOT doing that." He was NOT making Shooting Star her own personal autonomous taxi-car-thing for her to hover everywhere in. He did NOT want to THINK about where she and her brother could go in one of those, and what trouble they could get into in town or in the forest, let alone ANYWHERE ELSE they would potentially be able to go in one of those. (...like three states over, in the span of minutes. Or low-earth-orbit in even less time than that...)

Mabel whined. "But… flying!"

Miz looked contemplative. "You could ride on my back?" her dragon form was big enough.

"-No flying until you have your shuttle license!" Bill insisted, nearly snapping the words out. "Even on friendly intelligent-biologicals. -And no shuttle license until AFTER you have gotten your human car driver's license LEGALLY, Shooting Star," he added next, crossing his arms and glaring down at her. "I am NOT getting blamed for you flying off and getting you and your sibling KILLED on MY watch using MY TECH," Bill told her, adamant.

Mabel groaned. "No fun~" Miz also pouted. She would have liked to go flying with Mabel.

"...Shuttle license?" Dipper asked, looking between them all. "Like, the Space Shuttle?" he asked, almost positive that was wrong.

Bill rolled his eyes. "No." Bill dropped his arms. He had far higher standards than that! "There's a programmable simulator in the spaceship," Bill said, and left it at that. (Ford was giving the kid a long, unreadable look now that Stan wasn't so sure he liked. Just how much trouble was one of these 'security drone' taxi things?)

Mabel and Miz were glancing at each other, a silent conversation happening as they each twitched their eyebrows and wiggled their hands in gestures that made no sense to anyone else. Mabel was slowly beginning to grin. Miz nodded, grinning herself.

"Nuh uh," Stan said, picking up on what the two girls were kibitzing on. "Nope. Don't even think about it, you two." Stan knew what trouble looked like, and those two were planning it. "And you two are already in enough trouble for ending up in another dimension as it is," Stan said next, glaring down at Mabel and Dipper next, quellingly. "You ain't getting out of that, once we get back, the both of ya." The twins groaned, having hoped Stan had forgotten all about that. (As if.)

"But we just wanted to help," Dipper protested, about the use of the time tape. Stan rubbed his face.

"Yeah, sure," Stan said. "Help yourself right out of existing," he reminded them heavily, which got a wince out of Dipper. "The science fair thing is fine here, now, sure. So what. You think either of us care about that?" he asked them both. "Really care about that? We came here for you two! -And you two are only fine because you got sent to another dimension instead of back in time, or whatever the hell else could've happened if the kid hadn't set things up to bounce you instead of vaporize you instead, or whatever the hell he could've come up with that could've been a hell of a lot worse." Stan glared down at them both, frustrated beyond belief.

Mabel looked properly chastised. Dipper huffed. "Well at least this world's version of you guys are going to be alright-"

"Yeah?" Stan said challengingly. "Well, great for them." He firmed his jaw. "-What d'you think would've happened to you if I'd asked the kid to look for you and get you two back, and he had said 'no'?" Stan demanded out of them both, pointing a finger at them both. "Couple of thirteen years olds from 2013 stuck in Jersey in 1971 with no money on ya and no family around to help take care of you?" he ground out.

Miz made a distressed sound. She was holding Mabel's sleeve. "I would have gone to find them…" She shuffled her feet.

Stan looked over at her. "You're only helping out because of your big brother here," Stan told her. "If you two weren't all," Stan made a gesture between them, "Would you even have been in Gravity Falls still, the last couple of days?" he asked of Miz, already knowing the answer was gonna be... "Or would you have gone someplace else to wait this broken not-there demon thing out."

Miz paused. "I guess not? Might have gone to explore Earth." She frowned. "But at least things turned out… not awful?" She shuffled her feet again.

"Yeah," Stan said. "So far," he said, looking over at Bill. "But not because of them. They screwed up." Stan turned his gaze back down on the both of them. Dipper and Mabel didn't look cowed - of course they didn't, they were Pines - but they did look pretty damn uncomfortable finally, the both of them.

"You're giving Bill an idea of how much leverage he has over you…" Stan heard his brother say under his breath at his shoulder. Stan glanced back over his shoulder at Ford.

"Pretty sure that ship already sailed back when I told the kid to do anything he needed to to find 'em, Ford," he told him brother in normal tones. "Kid already knows the two of 'em are my line. Ain't some big secret, here."

"Admittedly, keeping your family from messing with themselves is beginning to look like a losing proposition, Stanley!" Bill drawled out with a false brightness to his tone that had Stan sending an annoyed glare his way. Miz was glancing off into the distance. A worried frown on her face. "Um… brother? The thing just happened."

"What?" Ford said, with the beginnings of a vague alarm to his tone. "What thing?" But Bill let out a snickering laugh.

"Oh," said Bill. "That's not the thing," he told her, then added darkly, "WAIT FOR IT."

Stan clenched his jaw. The kid actually sounded amused for some reason.

"Kid…" Stan began, but he was beaten to it by a frantic and angry sounding Ford wheeling on him and demanding, stomping right up to him and getting in his face, "What did you DO?!"

Bill simply smiled. "I didn't," he told Ford, with a gleam in his eyes. "And I did. -Do you want to know what I did?" he asked, almost teasingly.

Ford looked fit to strangle the triangle demon with his bare hands outright.

Bill's smile widened ever so slightly. He leaned forward just a bit and said, "I… came here," he told Ford. "And I found Pine Tree and Shooting Star for you. And I descended upon them like a demon with a mission!" Bill grinned. "And I retrieved them both for you both! -And then I stayed with you and Stanley," he gestured at said Stanley, "Allllll this time," Bill paused. "And while everything else that is going to happen has been going on?" Bill added, inching that little bit closer to Ford's face. "I DIDN'T EVEN WATCH." Bill breathed out at him, eyelids dipping low. (Bill looked amused as hell; damn near ecstatic. It made Stan want to punch him, even as he watched Bill slowly lean back to upright again, away from his brother.)

Miz was covering her mouth so she wouldn't let anything slip. Brother had asked her not to. Dipper stared at her before he put it together. "Did something happen at the science fair?" Miz's expression gave it away without her even having to say anything.

"And someone is going to get kicked out of the house," Bill said breezily, waving a hand casually in the air. But he still had an amused look on his face as he took a solid step back away from Ford and raised his hands into the air at his sides, palms up, and said, "...Oops?" And the kid was grinning now.

And then the kid had the audacity to turn to Miz and say, "No spoilers!"

Stan gritted his teeth, shoulders rising, fists clenching, and it took everything he had not to step forward and give the kid a good solid punch to the face.

...and the kid seemed to realize this as he looked over at Stan and he… paused for a moment.

And then Bill slowly lowered his arms just a bit (his grin and expression lowering a lot more than just a bit...) and the kid said to him a hell of a lot more soberly than he'd just been talking to Ford... "I told you, you can fix it. And I'll help. When you want me to." (And it was clear to Stan, from the look of the kid, that the kid had some insane idea of his own what that 'when' should or was going to be.)

"Brother didn't cause it!" Miz stared at Stan's angry look and defended Bill.

Bill let out a gusty sigh, dropping his hands to his hips and rocking back on his heels. He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. "Yes, oh little sister mine. I think Stanley knows that." Miz's gaze darted over to Ford. She made another distressed sound. The type of things going through Ford's head right now were-

"You let me take point on this, Ford," Stan ground out, not even looking over at his brother. "You understand me? You let me handle this."

Stan heard his brother let out an inarticulate snarl, turn, and stomp off. ...Yeah, that would work.

"Kids, go with him," Stan said next, and the niblings exchanged glances and hurried off.

That left Stan alone with the two demons in the booth.

"Sit. down." he told them both, glaring.

Miz sat down, looking distressed and worried. She REALLY wanted to tell him. But she would try to keep her mouth shut until brother gave the okay.

Bill sat down almost casually. He looked happy with the state of things and the world in general.

Stan looked over the two of them. He didn't sit down himself.

"You want to tell me what I'm walking into here?" Stan ground out at them both, but mainly the kid. (He wasn't going after the kid's little sister, putting the screws to her and dragging the kid's 'family' into this; the kid had made it clear earlier that he didn't want Miz saying anything, anyway. Stan had no reason to go that route today, and every reason to stick it to the kid instead.)

The kid looked up at him, unconcerned, and told him: "No." Stan felt himself tense, and had to force himself to unclench his fists. "I told you. You're a con-man, not an actor," the demon said next.

"...What are you expecting me to do here," Stan said to the kid next. Because he'd be damned if he'd give the kid the satisfaction of running around like some idiot when he-

"I expect you to spend the rest of the day doing... " Bill made a gesture that encompassed the booth in general. "Because that Stanford will hardly want to change things any further, I think."

Stan glared at him.

"You think," Stan said, and the kid nodded at him.

"Yes," the demon kid told him, and that just clinched it for Stan - the kid really didn't know his brother at all.

"And then, after night falls," Bill continued, "and the beach is empty, I expect that we will go out to the water's edge, and we will set up a portal, and then…" Bill smiled. Stan didn't give him the satisfaction of a response. He waited the kid out. ...Kid didn't even look put out as he continued as if he'd never stopped to begin with, saying: "I expect you to stop and listen and fix things," the kid stressed, and the kid wasn't exactly smiling anymore. He looked downright serious, and his eyes looked deep and full of- spiders- ...And Stan couldn't help but lean away from the demon slightly, at the look in the kid's eyes as he watched the kid put his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, and leaned forward, to say, "I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT."

Stan didn't quite stifle a shiver. "...How are you expectin' me to fix things," Stan said almost flatly next. And he felt another chill go through him as the kid just lit up, and the next thing he got out of the kid was a delighted chittery giggle.

"I DON'T KNOW!" the kid told him, eyes wide and bright, and grinning like a maniac. "But I want to SEE!" the kid told him next, looking excited, almost bouncing in place. "I want to SEE you FIX THINGS!"

And that… just drained the fight right out of him. Stan stared down at the kid in pure, dumb disbelief.

"Can we bring Stan to see what happened at the science fair?" Miz suggested. "Just so he can see what the damage is?" in more ways than one.

"Later, maybe," Bill said absently. "Better if it's a surprise! Don't want that idiot Stanford getting involved and messing things up," Bill said darkly. "Making things even worse. -No," Bill said, "Better to wait until tonight. Let the dust settle. -Just in case!" Bill all but chirped out, and it left Stan half-drowning in a stewing sea of mixed emotions all over again.

"You want me to wait," Stan ground out at the kid, and the triangle demon actually nodded at him.

"It could resolve itself on its own?" the kid told him, cocking his head to the side. "I wasn't completely sure when the project would break! 'If' was a longshot possibility," Bill told him, "But not an absolute zero! They could fix things," the kid told him, "All on their own. But…" the kid trailed off almost leadingly, ticking his head from side to side.

Stan had to fight down a grimace. "...You don't think so," Stan said in descending tones, sitting down heavily on one of the beanbag chairs. He watched as Bill nodded at him, looking downright overstimulated, higher than high-energy here, and Stan ran a hand over his face. ...Hell, Ford had warned him. He'd signed up for this. The kid's 'not a game' penalty-game gambling bet, here. For rushing him to get here, to get back the kids right away without… (stopping to think, or to listen to the kid first, before jumping out to other dimensions that the kid thought were his area of expertise. Stan had figured that part out of it, finally. Hadn't taken him more than a few hours after a decent amount of sleep and a bit of time to actually sit down and think, while his hands were busy with shuffling and shuffling and reshuffling cards, but… it sure as hell didn't make him any happier to have figured out that much of it.)

The only thing left for Stan to decide was… did he say 'the hell with it' and give up, refusing to play? Or did he see it through?

...Yeah. Like that one was a choice.

Stan dropped his hand and looked up at the triangle demon sitting right in front of him. "You are damn well helping me with this," Stan said quietly, because damn if he was going to let the kid off the hook. Not for this. Never for this.

Ruining people's lives… this hit far too close to home. (...Did Ford feel like this all the time, when the triangle pulled this shit on other people? ...Or when the triangle had pulled this on him directly? -Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit.)

To this, Bill nodded, bright-eyed and seemingly still perfectly 'happy' to help Stan out with fixing this gigantic mess. (Which he'd let happen. Because…)

Miz gave Stan a reassuring smile. "I'm sure you can figure out what to do." She frowned. "Can I give hints? Later?" she asked of the kid, and Stan wasn't sure if he was being pitied or not. (Either way, Miz seemed to want things to go well, too - not just the kid, who was wanting him to 'fix it'.)

"Uh…" Stan began.

"-Later-later," Bill cut in. "Once I tell you. I'll tell you when it's most safe," Bill told his sister, and that had Stan pissed off all over again. Stan almost snapped out at him that he would decide when- "Least chance of negative impact on my Zodiac, and the two younger local twin Pines," Bill continued, and Stan damn near bit his own tongue, with how hard he clacked his jaw back shut.

Stan forced himself to stop and take a breath, before he said to the kid: "I should get a say in this. It's my call, and my play. My fix. Yes?" Stan said heavily. Bill looked surprised. Damnit. "I'll ask you to weigh in first," Stan told him. "But it's my decision. -You're on my side. Got it?" The kid looked almost taken aback, and then squared his shoulders, looking combative, then- ...stopped. And Bill frowned, looking down at the ground, looking almost contemplative.

There was a long silence.

And then the kid's posture shifted, just slightly.

And the kid looked up at him, eyes dark and deep again. Serious again. And the kid nodded, once.

Stan slowly let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. He hadn't been sure he'd be able to take the reins back that easy, if at all. Kid was kicking him for a loop, here, and with the 'little sis' in the mix, now… damn near everything was almost out the window, now. At least with how he'd been handling things before. Whole thing now was a wreck.

"Alright," Stan ground out. He needed a breather, needed to get his head screwed back on straight. (He needed the kids. And maybe a hug or two.) "I'm gonna go and catch up with Ford and the kids. Where are they."

"End of the boardwalk," the kid told him promptly. "Pine Tree and Shooting Star are trying to talk him out of going to 'talk' to that local Stanley."

Stan didn't even question how the kid knew this. He was up and out of that booth like a shot.

The look on Miz's face showed how much she was unwilling to let Ford do that, herself. "Of course he immediately blames Stanley for it!" she huffed out, as she and Bill slowly got to their feet. Bill shrugged at Miz's annoyance, and they left the booth together to follow after Stan at a more reasonable pace.

"Ford!" Stan caught up and took his brother's shoulder, turning him around. Ford tried to shake him off. The kids were already holding Ford's hands, tugging at him (and talking to, if not complaining worriedly, at him) to try and get him to stop moving forward as well.

And with the three of them now holding on to him, Ford finally stopped trying to move forward and simply commanded: "Let go, Stanley! I have to-!"

"-Have to what Ford?" Stanley gripped his brother's shoulder more tightly, debating on whether to grapple with Ford if he needed to. "Go run down and yell at a teenage boy who don't even know who you are, other than some kinda boat pirate? -What are you even going to do? Scold him? Scream at him?" (...Punch him in the face?)

Ford bristled and drew himself up, struggling again - not quite hard enough to break free, though, because the kids were still holding onto him for all they were worth and he didn't want to hurt them. "He broke-!"

"Funny how he immediately blames Stan for it. Without even knowing what happened." Miz huffed as she and Bill caught up, as they walked over. Frankly, that was just biased of him.

"Hilarious, not funny," Bill amended, then shrugged. "He's working off of what very little he knows." The adults didn't seem to be listening to either of them - too mad at each other - but Dipper (and Mabel) heard them. The teenager looked over at the two demons and frowned.

"-What did you do?" Dipper demanded, narrowing his eyes at Bill, who let out a single laugh.

"I told you all, I didn't do ANYTHING," Bill told him. Then he paused for a moment and added (for completeness), "Miz didn't do anything either." The smaller demon nodded, snuggling Iseblonker. Dipper made an aggravated sound, not believing them in the least!

"-isn't important right now!" Stan yelled out at his brother, and that finally got Ford stopping in place for good, instead of running off, got him actually turning around and looking at him.

"How is this not important, Stan?!" Ford shouted out at him, and the kids let go (and moved away to stand little behind their grunkle). "Y- the other Stan broke the project-!"

Stan clenched his teeth as he stared his brother down. "-Gettin' the kids home is more important right now," Stan told Ford firmly, gesturing down at the niblings at his sides. "I can fix whatever the heck happened here after we do that." And he was damn well going to MAKE Bill help him, if it came to that. (Serve the demon right if he didn't like what Stan came up with for him to do, and had to get punched in the face a couple of times before he finally said 'yes' to it.)

Ford blinked, taken aback, and looked down at the twins. "I…"

Stan wasn't sure what that expression on Ford's face was about but he pulled in a breath and nodded, feeling relieved and a little glad that his brother was finally calming down enough to think a little better. "Yeah. The kid's eye should be healed up enough sometime later this afternoon, so we can go home sometime in the next couple of hours. He'll be able to do the portal then."

Ford finally noticed the demons were there, standing off to the side, watching him and his brother with interest and boredom, respectively. He scowled. "And you are waiting until nightfall for Bill's 'help' why?" Ford demanded of his brother. He could hardly believe that Stan still thought that Bill was going to keep his word! -Because when nightfall came, and Stan expected Bill to open that portal… (Stan would finally get to experience a real bout of Bill's derisive and gleeful laughter for the very first time, Ford was sure of it. Not that that was something that he would wish on anyone, but his brother was willfully-)

"You want to have to deal with a bunch of the locals seein' one of the kid's portals come out of nowhere?" Stan told him. "They barely kept off him for the hat trick!"

"That's not-" Ford began.

"Ford, you let me handle this," Stan said again, and Ford fumed in place.

"You can't trust him," Ford said firmly.

"Who said anything about trusting me?" was Bill's straight-faced contribution to the discussion, which had both Stan and Ford looking over at him.

"Not helping, kid," Stanley said, sounding more than a little incensed. Bill saw Miz frown-pout up at him in clear disapproval too, and blinked.

Bill glanced between the two of them for a moment.

"...Apologies," Bill said after a long moment to Stanley, before falling silent again.

Ford glared at Bill, not trusting the demon in the slightest.

Stan finally let go of Ford when it seemed like his brother wasn't going to immediately run off.

"The kids come first, Ford," Stan repeated firmly. "We get them back home; worst-case, we can come back here later if we have to, to fix things later. I can have the kid pick the time."

Ford gave Stan a dead-eyed thousand-yard stare for that one.

Stan took a step forward, patted Ford's back, and took him by the arm to start steering him toward the beach. "Come on. Let's go." Stan didn't even glance at the demons as he did it. As far as he was concerned, he had a good plan of attack here: he'd get the niblings home first, poke his head through and make sure they were settled, and then he'd stay here for a little longer with the triangle demon and do whatever fixing that he needed to do, that the demon-kid was so sure that he could do, even if the kid had no idea what or how. (Maybe even get some help from Ford for that, if his brother was still speaking to him after all this. ...Because fixing things here couldn't take more than an hour or two, right?)

But damn if this whole thing didn't piss Stan off.

The kids started moving, but Stan startled and had to stop in place as he pulled at his brother's arm and… got nowhere at all. The hell? "-Ford, we're going back to the beach," Stan said, turning back towards him.

"No," said Ford, jerking his arm out of his hold.

Stan stared at him.

"What?" said Stan.

The children were hanging back, worried and really hoping there wasn't going to be another fight. Miz groaned. "Look, do you guys want to See what happened? Would that… help?" she suggested. Bill shushed her. Miz frowned. "Can I at least show them how it happened back in this Stan's past? So at least they know what they have to compare to?"

"What part of 'no spoilers' do you NOT understand?" Bill said to Miz, looking tense, at the same time as Ford yelled out at her, "-I wouldn't trust you to show me that the sky is blue!"

Stan whipped his head around and glared at the demons, then back at Ford.

"Kid," Stan barely managed to get out in a flat tone with seething, "Get your sister under control." The absolute last thing any of them needed was for that demon to go off showing them all exactly whatever the hell had happened in the gymnasium with that science fair project, like a home movie from hell. It would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and then some - to Ford, and to him.

Miz wilted. "I thought it would help? Would it not?"

"-No," said Bill.

"Oh, on the contrary-" Ford said in a tone dripping with venom (as he shook in place with rage), which had both Dipper and Mabel wincing.

"NO," said Bill, stomping forward to get up into Ford's face, shoulders squared, moving between him and Stanley. "You hear me, Stanford? NO-"

Stan shoved himself between them both.

"Get out of the way," Ford ground out at Stan, looking like the spectre of death come calling.

"We are not doing this," Stan said to Ford in flat tones. "Not here, and not now."

Ford looked fit to punch him in the jaw. "Why are you listening to him?!" he demanded from Dtan.

"Kid," Stan ground out, not breaking eye contact with his brother. "One reason why you think it's a bad idea for Ford to see what happened the way the dragon-lady is talking about it. -The best one you've got. Right. Now."

"-No timeloops to fix anything," Bill said immediately, sounding a little bit tense. "It'll set in place what we all see, since Miz will have Seen it, to be showing us that. I wouldn't even be able to use an illusion to cover the actual things up later, to distort her sight, to make a nonlinear time loop, to make it all work!" Bill told them. "If you want to fix THAT from happening," Bill said, "That will be out if she Looks and Sees it. -Which is WHY I keep told her to wait until I know when and whether it's safe to do!"

"That why you weren't watching, kid?" Stan said next, still looking at Ford.

"...It was one reason among many," Bill said tersely. He didn't exactly sound happy about something or another in there, though, and that had Stan's eyes sliding sideways a bit, even though he couldn't see Bill that way - kid was literally at his back right now.

"Stan…" Ford said in warning tones.

"We ain't doing this, Ford," Stan told him staunchly, looking back to his brother. "You sure as hell ain't torturing yourself with seeing that, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you go off half-cocked on anybody when we don't know what the hell happened, if anything." Stan glowered at his brother. "Unless you're really trusting the dragon-lady on everything now, all of a sudden," since she had been the one to say that something had happened.

And Stan saw his brother fight the urge to punch him in the jaw just then.

He also saw his brother barely keep in some complaint or another, too. Probably somethin' to do with the kid more or less 'confirming' what had just happened with the project… except the kid hadn't really. ...Not to Ford. And not to him. The demon had been bouncing all around it.

Something was really off, and the kid wasn't talking. Yet. But-

"You let me handle this, Ford," Stan repeated.

"We leave now," Ford demanded. "If you really care about getting the kids home that much?" Ford said as if it was a challenge, tilting his chin up slightly while leveling a glare at him, "Then do it now. -Bill said he would be fine this afternoon, didn't he? But he wants to wait until this evening! -We leave now," Ford demanded.

Damn it. "-That's why we're not leaving until evening, Ford," Stan ground out at him. "Kid said he'd help me with anything after that. And we aren't gonna be able to handle a bunch of lunatics rushing us, if we do this thing out in broad daylight." (Forget those perception-thingies that the demons could do; that wouldn't help his argument, so Stan left that out.)

"That isn't a reason; that's an excuse. Bill won't help you with anything, evening or not, and Bill's blocked things from sight using magic before. He could even set it up in some of the caves nearby, if he's been trying to claim that he couldn't have both spells going at once for some reason," Ford said shortly.

"I don't want the kid risking breaking his eye over nothing, Ford." The way the kid had talked about (and around) the problem before, it had sounded like his eye might end up permanently damaged if he pushed things too much, too quickly. (And Stan knew damn well that that'd just about be a deal-breaker - or agreement breaker- for the kid. He wasn't risking it.)

"We can wait a couple more hours, just to be sure that he can't screw this thing up by us rushing him again," Stan told him. Because for all he knew the kid might need his eye working right to make the portal work right, and... "The dragon-lady can't make this one." Hell, it wasn't like the project at the 'fair could get any more broken now than it already (probably) was... "We went over this." Because Stan had. He'd finished filling Ford in on things last night on the roof, after both the kids and demon-kids had fallen asleep. (Ford hadn't been much more pleased with him then than he was with all this right now; just marginally a little less angry and less likely to punch him in the face in the next two seconds over it.)

Stan needed them to wait until dark. The kid wasn't talking yet. Maybe the kid would help a lot on his own or maybe Stan would have to be 'convincing'. Whatever. Stan could handle it. -The main thing here was that the kid had given him a clue. A 'hint'.

Stop. Listen. Fix things. On the beach, after dark. ...After the portal was open.

The kid was expecting something important to happen after nightfall on the beach. Something he thought Stan might shrug off and ignore, probably depending on what else was going on with his family. So if they left before then...

The kid had promised to help as much as Stan wanted until they got home again. Poking his head through the portal for a second or two was one thing, but if Stan left and then came back with him later… he wouldn't have the blank check the kid had written him anymore. He'd 'only' have the 'wanting him' thing to go off of (which did who-knew-what for him), and the agreement - which didn't extend that far - and since he had no idea how far this 'wanting him' thing might actually go or get him...

Stan might not know that, yet, and he wouldn't until they were all back home; he had no idea how useful that might be later. ...But he did have an idea of how far he could take things with the kid right now.

"I am not going back to the beach," Ford said emphatically. "I am going to that school, and I am going to-"

"-No, you're not," Stan told him firmly, pissed off that Ford was still acting like a big fat jerk, still treating this stupid thing like it was his own project that had gotten broken again - Stan hadn't missed those little 'slip-up's of Ford's - and still not listening to him! It had Stan getting angrier by the second, fists clenched, and barely squashing it down. "You are not going to that school, or anywhere else."

"Oh, yes I am," Ford said, with a mirthless chortle at him.

Stan gritted his teeth.

"No, you're not," Stan repeated again, clenching his fists that much tighter.

"Oh?" Ford said. He took a step forward and got right up into his face. (Miz tried very hard not to find Ford's expression aesthetically attractive, hell, Stan's expression was pretty hot too. GODDAMN sexy Pines men!)

"And how, exactly," Ford said, slowly and ponderously, "Do you propose to stop me?"

"What," Stan said, tilting his chin up at his brother. "Because you think you can just, kick my ass and run right over me?" When he was the one holding all the damn cards in every last deck? -Yeah, right!

Ford narrowed his eyes at him.

Stan smiled.

It wasn't a very nice smile, and he knew it.

"We," Stan told his brother. "Are going to talk." Because like hell he couldn't win a verbal fistfight without resorting to actual fists, screw him. "We are going back to the booth right now. And I will drag you back there by your stupid 'adventuring' boots if I have to, just watch me."

And Ford had the audacity to make a scoffing noise at him.

...right up until the moment Stan dryly informed him exactly how he was going to do it.

And then the REAL argument began.

(Miz was glad she had her headband on.)