Illusion is Reality

Chapter 98

-Now I'm inside your home-

With their successful venture out into another dimensional set behind them (and Bill being absolutely insistent that they go back and get Miz something to eat someplace that Bill was absolutely certain was 'safe', as 'safe' as Bill knew he could make any place at all right now), the demons headed back to Bill's Door, 'set and dimension, and settled back into their body (Bill) and vessel (Miz), respectively.

The tired-out younger demon was quite satisfied to know for certain, as she watched her brother return to his physical form safely and then did similar right afterwards herself, that Bill COULD be moved into a different vessel without breaking his anchor. This meant she could make all sorts of cool vessels for her brother to play around in!

(Before Bill moved back into his body, though, he took one good Look Around at a few key things… deliberately letting nothing impact him Mentally yet, just gathering all that information up without actually processing it yet, or even letting it register yet really - he was far more preoccupied and busy with Miz and her state of Mind at the moment, and he wanted to stay that way…)

Miz stretched and groaned, settling back into a body with bones and muscles. Mm… gravity. Joy~

She glanced over at her brother, shifting and stretching in place on the blanket on the ground next to her himself; he let out a soft humming-chitter that (weirdly enough) sounded almost like a cross between a yawn and a groan, as he finished his shifting and stretching, and she asked him, "Should we go tell Stan that we're back?"

Bill was slowly checking himself over, making sure his harmonics weren't too out of tune, that everything was in place where it should be, and that the anchor itself was still fine. "Hm." He thought for a moment, then nodded and slowly sat up. "Yes," Bill said. "Then eating. All of more of the eating." He gave her a long look until she blushed and nodded. "-Good."

He patted her on the head, then the demons slowly got up from the sheltered area and packed up their picnic. Miz noted, as she discreetly took down their protective barriers (and her brother checked his phone and... paused for a moment, starting to frown for some reason…) - Ford was still spying on them from the porch. ...Well, wasn't like he'd have seen anything except the two of them taking a nap. She wasn't worried.

Miz finished what she was doing, Bill chittered something disparaging under his breath to himself as he finished doing whatever he was doing rather rapidly on his phone while Miz got her cuffs back on, and then he shoved his phone rather roughly back down into his pocket and helped her grab up the remnants of their picnic and basket-plus-blanket; and with that, they both headed back inside. Miz even waved at Ford (who looked rather sour-faced at them) as they passed him right on by.

Bill came to a halt abruptly in the middle of the living room, trying to decide between attic and kitchen, attic and kitchen, but he only stopped in place for a moment, as that Stanford came into the house behind him, before making an 'executive decision'.

Once Bill was sure that Miz was all set and safe inside his attic room (resting and eating and drinking more than a few of the stasis-stored 'leftovers' he'd retrieved earlier, from previous trips elsewhere, ones that he'd pulled out of his hat for her before) he left her comfortably recovering from all of their other-dimensional-set work upstairs, while he went downstairs to formally tell Stanley the first bit of their news: they were 'back' and 'done with their picnic'. And after that… well…

...EVERYTHING ELSE could wait. A certain trio of idiots was and had been getting themselves into trouble all over again, but Bill had gotten a good Look at things in the meantime - and done a few things in the meantime once checking his phone, stupid desynchronized time issue mess, jumping ahead on him like that when he wasn't Mentally there - and he wasn't about to bring any of this up with his sister right here in the now. FOR REASONS. Many, many reasons.

Not until he was done looking and Looking into things. He wanted to be absolutely CERTAIN before he-

-but that whole idiotic mess could come LATER. After. -In the shortest of short-terms, he was going to sit his little sister down to properly go through her list of issues so he could help her deal with them, right then. They'd kept putting it off and only doing brief summaries, but it couldn't be ignored any longer. Not with that 'broken Bill' not here anymore, and nothing keeping her here to staying in this set with him; he needed to make sure that he helped her with these things RIGHT NOW, before she decided to leave again, out on her own and potentially without him. Because it wasn't safe for him to put it off any longer. Not if she was still having trouble with her energy levels like this, enough to have her making herself that tired to look that terrible even within her own Dreamscape! Because the next time she left, if she left without him with her-

Bill didn't want to think about what would happen if she did that, but he also did want to think about it and DID think about it. -Because he needed the reasons to be able to give them to Miz, to prepare to tell her, on exactly why that would be SUCH a BAD IDEA - he'd need to tell her these things, to keep her from making excuses now or later about why she could go out on her own before handling all of the rest of this - because she needed to know about the consequences if she did that. And they would ALL be BAD consequences for her. -He didn't want her getting cornered because she'd thought she could do a little more, even though she was that low on energy, because then-

That was how beings that existed primarily in the Mindscape got themselves caught. That was how they got themselves bound by a binding circle. That was how they ended up captured and doing all sort of things that they didn't want to do, getting almost all their choices taken away from them.

That was how they ended up trying to use vital parts of their own energy, their own energy-Self, to power their escape, in a terrible sort of desperation that no being should ever have to face. That was how they ended up no longer themselves, the remnants that were left of them no longer remembering who or what they had been - if any remnants remained, if they didn't just end up SCREAMING in never-ending PAIN forever and ever across the rest of existence, unable to stop, unable to do or feel anything else other than that, forever and ever again-

Because Bill had Seen that. Bill had Seen the results of that before, what had happened when- And he was NEVER going to tell Miz about that. NEVER. He was NEVER going to tell her about that being something that sometimes happened to the very-few beings of pure energy that existed like them, in existence. Because he was afraid that she might consider trying to do that, that she might consider that possible loss of herself and her memories, destroying herself to become a so-much-lesser version of herself, to cease to exist as herself and to become something else that only barely approximated being a 'someone else'... Bill was afraid that his younger, still-suicidal sister, might possibly, potentially consider that somehow, to be a way out for her, and then-

(If Bill had known that his sister had already done that to herself once, during her desperate attempt to escape her first Binding, if he had known that she already almost lost herself, and that her summoner killing himself before she'd finished tearing herself apart was all that had stopped her... If Bill had known that his sister's damn lizard had actually helped to protect her, helped her piece herself back together, and the eons that it took to do so… he would have panicked. He already didn't trust her lizard from what he'd heard from her about it; the idea that it had put her back together - potentially in exactly the way IT would have wanted, rather than as she was and had-been and should-be - would have terrified him. Even if he could manage to be convinced somehow that it hadn't been out to do anything but recover her as she was… he still wouldn't have trusted the lizard, thinking it too stupid to manage the process properly. And he would have found himself very stuck with the issue of WHAT to do next: try to recover her original self, potentially against her current potentially not-herself wishes that might not be her own actual wishes? Try to follow her timeline back to 'split' her from her own timeline and recover her old Self from her current possibly-not-Self? To end up with a second Miz-Self that… might not be his sister? That would react to there being two of 'her', except not… how, exactly? -And he didn't know HOW to do that sort of thing for beings of pure energy yet, to recover something in that sort of 'time-rollback' when they didn't have a physical body and possibly never-had for the duration of their current life-and-existence - let alone across several dimensions, let alone across MULTIPLE DIMENSIONAL SETS. ...And assuming he actually managed to navigate that whole mess without a rather bad meltdown - and who-knew-what actions taken in the meantime - well, he certainly would NOT have EVER allowed Miz to leave his side again after that!)

(...if he learned that such a thing had already happened to some extent as things currently stood.)

...While Bill was downstairs, after speaking with Stanley, Bill also took the time to grab even more food from the pantry and the meat coolers for Miz's general consumption, to help get his sister back up to full-energy - hopefully without starting up some other new stupid up-and-down cycle for her. (They would absolutely have to start out by talking much more about that one first.) He didn't like the idea of her being weak and vulnerable tired and hungry, and he wanted to make absolutely certain that he had enough food for her to get her levels back up to normal without her having to leave the safe environs of his set-up protections in the attic upstairs. 'More' was MUCH better than 'less', especially a 'less' of her currently 'not enough, not by a long shot'!

Reserves were better, expenditures could be managed elsewise upstairs in the attic if need be. But you couldn't expend what you didn't have, not really not even when 'cheating' - the energy-debt always caught up with you at some point, even if it was later than sooner. She was getting better at gauging things here in terms of energy expenditure, though, she'd told him in not quite those same words. She could always expend more of that 'more' energy later if she needed to, if she 'went over' a little too much.

(However, Bill's immediate plans for his sister were put to a temporary halt as, when he made his way back upstairs, he found his sister quietly snuggled up to a large stuffed animal, fast asleep in her usual very-comfortable-for-her fluffed-up pillow-nest. ...Well, that was fine. They could just talk about it all after she woke up again later, after she ate some more again if she needed to.)

"Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him."

Ford glanced up at Miz, then looked a bit startled as he realized that Miz had been addressing that particular peculiar statement to him - not just announcing it to the table in general, completely out of nowhere in the middle of dinner. ...Frankly, he didn't know why she and Bill kept coming down for these. ...Alright, fine, he would admit that he knew why Bill was eating at their same shared mealtimes - apparently Stan would go upstairs and 'annoy' Bill until he came downstairs to eat with the rest of them, and Bill didn't like that - Bill would let Stan do that... But, apparently, Bill just didn't 'not-like' it enough to actually do something to Stan about it, other than to come downstairs at or before that point, grudgingly and complaining at him all the way.

What Ford didn't understand was why the man-eater was doing it; Bill, yes, somewhat - but the man-eater? No. Because the man-eater obviously had to be going out of her way to make an effort to do so; she had to be eating at least twice at or around mealtimes as things currently stood. Ford knew how much she usually ate from that other dimension (and a few meals and 'snacks afterwards' here in this dimension besides), and she was not eating enough at any of these most-recent shared mealtimes to 'fill her up' at all. And it made no sense for her to be splitting up her mealtimes this way, in multiple sittings, in order to be eating at the same time as the rest of them.

Not without some ulterior motive in doing so…

So why Miz would decide to attend this meal with them, and say something like that to him, specifically… Ford glanced over at the rest of his family, trying to gauge whether this was truly out of nowhere or not, and... Mabel was giving him a hopeful look (Why?). But then the rest of his brain kicked in and-

"-Saying that like that doesn't mean you don't want to be him, either," Ford said smoothly, almost on reflex, as his very tired brain finally caught up with him. "Or that you don't aspire to be even worse than he is," he added after another bare second of thought. (And now Mabel was pouting at him for some reason.)

...and Miz turned her head to give Mabel a hopeless look. Mabel shrugged back.

Bill stopped chewing his food for a moment, before continuing. (Stan raised his own mental eyebrow at this. Because for Ford, that was practically a straight-up admission that he thought the kid could be worse… and wasn't. Which was… something, anyway. Stan had known his brother thought there were plenty of other worse people out there, beings and demons and junk - not talking about a trillion year avalanche of actions here in quantity, more like the quality - but he'd never expected Ford to admit it out loud...)

(Hell, the 'quality' part was kind of iffy as it was, too. Damn demon. But as much as he and Ford didn't like it or like putting up with any of it, the kid could be acting a hell of a lot worse right now than he was, and they both knew it...)

(...not that 'not currently torturing anyone mentally until they crack up, or physically until they die' was a really high bar to be setting, but at least the demon-kid was willing to keep goin' on clearing it, what with the agreement and all…)

Out loud, Stan just sighed at all this. Because... hell, Ford was definitely in a mood today, sayin' stuff like that out loud. ...A tired, really cranky mood. (Made him wonder what-all his brother been working on downstairs, after the whole thing with watching the demon-picnic and nothin'-after, that could have been leaving him that all outta sorts.)

(Then again, he was feelin' a lot more tired than usual himself, today. ...Why was that? Stan frowned a little at this; he hadn't done much of anything that day… But then Stan shook it off.)

"-Probably not the best time for this conversation, Miz," Stan told her, after taking a sip of his milk (because, hell, she looked like she was gearing up for something - no surprise there). "Not if you're not understanding what Ford's gettin' at there, just now," he told her as he set his glass back down. Because to him, it looked like she maybe wasn't getting it. (And the kid side-eyed her the way he usually did these days: looking straight-forward, blinking his eyes closed, and when he opened his eyes again they were both directed right at her, where she was sitting at the kid's side.)

Miz rolled her eyes. "I only see him at mealtimes. And even then, only sometimes. So I thought I'd just get it out of the way." She speared her rolled-up omelette with a fork and placed it in her mouth. "I told him what Mabel said I should tell him, and that's all I'm saying. I'm not gonna talk to him anymore tonight 'cause it'd probably not end well if I tried," she told them all, as she went back to focusing on eating. She'd made spinach rice balls for Bill tonight, seasoned with copious amounts of pepper. (Melody and Soos had each taken a rice ball earlier - before they'd left for Abuelita's house for their own dinner - to Miz's delight! ...And to Grunkle Ford's own worry. Mabel had also thought Miz's cooking looked really cute; she'd sort-of really wanted to try one herself! But she'd held herself back at her Grunkle Ford's expression, feeling too guilty to try it. She and Dipper stuck to eating the pasta Grunkle Stan had made for them all for dinner, instead.) But Miz couldn't actually eat those rice balls herself because of the pepper, so she had instead made herself some rolled omelettes and salmon rice balls. She paused while chewing and added quietly, "I'm gonna try to understand." (To which Bill replied, just as quietly, but far more enthusiastically and encouragingly, while patting her on the head, "I will help you understand!") She then looked lost in thought.

Ford glanced over at Bill, and got the sinking feeling that, whatever the man-eater had been trying to say, it had apparently gone over even Bill Cipher's pointed triangular frame.

...Best to be sure about a few of the facts of the matter first, however. Ford let out a huff of breath and looked over at Mabel. "You told her to tell me this?" he asked of his favorite grand-niece.

"I told her only to say it if she meant it," Mabel said, looking down at her plate and poking at her pasta disconsolately. (She hadn't thought it would make Grunkle Ford feel all like that. And now she felt guilty all over again.)

Ford sighed again and ran a hand over his face. Leave it to a demon to try and bring the niblings into something, in an attempt to make it 'aggressively acceptable' in that way somehow. To try and make him look like 'the bad guy' for objecting to her ongoing efforts to continue attacking him verbally at mealtimes, when she did it. Most likely, in an attempt to turn them against each other. ...Had the man-eater thought that he would turn right around and yell at Mabel, excoriating her for telling the demon to do that? Well, he certainly wasn't going to do that! Of course he would not! -Why would he blame his own grand-niece for something the man-eater was trying to turn from something innocently good-natured into something horribly weaponized? Mabel had likely been trying to help the two of them 'make up' and 'get along'. It wasn't Mabel's fault that she didn't understand what all demons were like; that it was a completely hopeless cause she was attempting to do on that front. And it certainly wasn't Mabel's fault that the man-eater was terrible and chose to continue in her attempts to say horrible things to him, to provoke whatever sort of response that she wanted as an end result of these ongoing and persistent verbal interactions.

Ford tried to focus on eating his own dinner, to not let whatever the man-eater had been trying to say get to him. But after awhile, he couldn't help but glare up and over at Miz as he realized that she was, in fact, doing as she'd said she would for once, essentially ignoring him for the rest of the meal after having tossed that random, almost-cryptic comment at him. Because really? Now she was willing to not talk to him, despite just saying something to him and engaging him first?!

Stan, no slouch at reading his brother and anything but asleep at the wheel for this meal (even if he did feel pretty dead on his tush right now), realized perfectly well what was going on there with his brother, and he sighed again as he realized he'd better speak up before Ford said something caustic to the dragon-lady and the two of them set off another dinnertime yelling match between them, again.

"Ford, don't overthink it too much," Stan told him. "Miz really was just doin' what Mabel suggested she do yesterday. Coulda chosen a better time and place for it, though," or, y'know, asked him for his input on this whole thing first. He sent her a look. Because this dragon-lady… despite listening to his input sometimes when he gave it, and seeming to think it was actually something she agreed with most of the time - hell, even using it sometimes afterwards (when she remembered it…) - she still didn't really go around actually asking him for any actual help on anything first, before pulling this kind of stuff. And he still didn't know why that was, or how to try and convince her to start doing it.

Stan glanced up at the kid, but Bill didn't seem to be on anything like the same wavelength as he was that night. The kid was watching Miz, sure, but he didn't seem to be pickin' up on anything from Stan tonight; not even a little, and the kid had seemed to be a lot better about that kind of thing lately. Kid was barely even looking over at him tonight, though; Stan wasn't sure if that was because the kid was just that tired too, or what. (...And something tickled Stan's brain on that one, but he didn't quite catch it just then, tired as he was…)

Ford, meanwhile, was stuck on Stan's comment about 'not overthinking things'... and proceeding to do just that. Even though he really didn't want to. He wanted to just ignore what the man-eater had just said. But it likely wasn't safe to do so; she was a demon, everything she said was pointed in some way, and refusing to search for its proper meaning generally meant being caught off-guard at something horrible in the not-too-distant future. -Even Stan had admitted to him that the man-eater seemed to mean more than the surface of what she said and did when she said and did things.

...But Stan was also likely right about not overthinking things; the man-eater had gotten him before with something she had said, and Ford tried to tell himself that it just wasn't worth it. To just let Stan handle it. That no, he wasn't and didn't have to try and pick apart each and every part of what awful message must have been hidden in her statements. ...Not that his wants to simply ignore it meant anything, as his brain was and had been already picking it apart, to his internal and ever-eternal annoyance.

'Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him.'

(...and Ford, in his usual fashion, completely misunderstood her point as his mind picked apart her simple statement for whatever malicious hidden meaning it must have held, whatever jab she was trying to make at him.)

'Oh, I admire my brother all right. But that doesn't mean I want to leave you alone like he is right now. I'm going to mess you up so well, he's sure to be proud of me for doing it for him!'

'I don't want to be Bill. I want to beat him out at being the very absolute best of the worst! You'll see! Y̻̫̑̿ͣ̑̚͡Ö̟̲̼̹̭́̑U̘͌̃̓̀̓̄̓̕'̸̟̮̮̱̲̓ͧ̂͟L̩̝̻͈̹̗͙̑̕͝Ļ̖͙̣̙͎ͬ̾̾̊ͨ̈̚ͅ ͈̳͚̼̮̀̋̿ͤ̚̕͝S̷̸̝̣̿͛͛͗̈̎̓͜E̎̉̑ͭͦ͒̅̉҉̣̤̤̪̮̼͜E͖̩ͯ͂͛̐ͥ͌̎͟...'

'HA! Why would I want to be Bill? I'm plenty terrible enough already!'

...No, that was too simple for her. Stan had told him a few things that Ford had not quite realized from the cartoon watching. And… the man-eating demon wasn't obsessed with Bill, not entirely. Many demons such as herself were capable of focusing outwards as well. Which meant… a comparison. Which meant… referring to him and another brother. And, in the context of that, that sentence suddenly took on a very different meaning, with very pointed teeth.

'Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him.'

And, taking that in that new context and light, Ford's brilliant mind spat back at him: 'Isn't it hilarious how Stan pretended to be you for 30 years?'

Which was almost immediately coupled with: 'I admire my brother, but YOU'RE a different story. -Don't you wish you were more like your brother? Why would he ever WANT to be you?'

You really want to be him, don't you? HA! -You do, don't you! He's not a freak, he's not the utter wreck of a human being who can't even get a girl to talk to him, he's the one you should want to be more like, and everybody - EVEN YOU - knows it! Because you are just a stupid, know-nothing, hopeless fool of a man, who can't even-'

Ford stabbed down at his food with more force than he planned, rattling the plate. Damn man-eater. He didn't know why she was taunting him over this out of nowhere, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him react to it! And yes, he had already reacted to it but she didn't know that, and he wasn't about to tell her-

Ford closed his eyes, pulled in a shaky breath through the pure rage, and forced himself not to look up at her. No. No. He wasn't going to fall for it; notany of it. He wasn't going to look up and see- Bill looking at him, and then looking at her, giving her such a look for getting around the agreement for him, oh-so-pleased-

Bill didn't want him. Bill had never wanted him. All that Bill wanted was for him to suffer, and-

So dinner was still a tense affair, but it carried on without any outright fighting. The four humans and two human-looking demons got through it all in a near-silence only broken occasionally by Dipper and Mabel (and sometimes Stan's and Bill's own chatter), as Miz (miraculously) kept her mouth shut (aside from eating) and Ford continued to fume and frown furiously to himself (keeping it all inside his own head, under his thick metal plate).

Stan sighed. But then, as he got up to clear the table (and the kids got up to help him), he had a bit of a lightbulb moment, and turned around, back towards the table.

"Ford, you wanna read the transcript later?" Stan asked him, "That whole Mabel-and-Miz conversation? Just to give ya some context for what the dragon-lady was really tryin' to say?" Because yeah, Stan knew that Ford had cameras of his own around the house, could probably pull it all up on his own down in the basement, but…

He could practically see the question marks dancing over Ford's head as his brother looked up at him (hell, wondering what in the heck he was doing, probably), but Stan was sure that this one was gonna end up being a good idea.

"Kid, transcript?" Stan said, holding his hand out to him and waiting.

But this time, the kid just looked up at him for a moment. ...And then looked a little suspicious.

"...Why," the kid said slowly, and that was how Stan knew for sure and certain that the kid knew about all Ford's spy cameras around the house.

"'Cause I asked you to nicely," Stan tried, also realizing that he might be running up against the edges of a few things with him finally, since they'd been back. (He also saw Ford straighten up slowly in place where he was sitting in his chair.) "Do I need another- more reasons than that?"

The kid frowned at him slightly. He looked over at Ford. He looked back to him.

And then the kid looked over at his kid sister.

Huh. That was somethin' new. "You want to ask her this time if she's okay with it, first?" Stan said, testing.

"That's NOT-!" the kid began with a frown that was almost a glare, seemingly offended by the very notion as the kid swivelled his head around to look over at him again, but then the kid stopped and seemed to really process what Stan had just asked of him.

And Bill paused.

And then the kid looked between Miz and Mabel this time. (...Huh.)

The kid stopped doing that after a bit, and looked up and over at Ford again, peering and squinting his eyes at him almost, like he wasn't sure about something.

"I got no problem with anything they said in it," Stan told the kid next, as a wild-ass guess at something that would have the kid-

-and the next thing Stan knew, the kid did something with his suit and he was having a transcript slapped into his hand by the kid... and the kid was more or less ignoring him now, making himself busy with patting Miz on the head over and over again, not even looking at him or Ford anymore. (Which kind of left Stan blinking. ...Damn. He was gonna have to ask the kid what the heck he'd all been thinking there after this, wasn't he. Damnit.)

Mabel and Miz glanced at each other. (Dipper was frowning a little, at both Bill and at Miz.) Miz shrugged. "Privacy's apparently a thing. But I don't mind if anyone knows what I've said. I willingly tell people all sorts of stuff already."

"Privacy is not the problem here. Stanley could tell him anyway, and that Stanford has cameras set up all over the house as it is," the kid put out there, and it left Stan stifling a sigh. He hadn't thought the kid was gonna say that openly, hell. And Ford didn't seem to be taking it all that well either, but...

"Here," Stan said, holding the transcript out to Ford, but Ford… wasn't taking it all from him. He wasn't even raising his hand up to try.

What Ford was doing was staring at Bill, up until he said, "Is that a transcript of the conversation that Stan was referring to?"

"Yes," the kid said without looking over at him.

"Is it accurate?" Ford asked next, with something of an edge to his tone. That had the kid looking over at him.

"Yes," the kid said simply, then added (a little to Stan's slowly-growing but well-hidden shock at this exchange), "It's as accurate as I can make it, to the very-best of my ability."

"Is the information in it, accurate?" Ford asked next.

"Of course!" Bill said, with something of a scoffing tone, practically waving it off as the kid sat back in his chair, and… Stan blinked as he realized how very differently the kid was talking to Ford, right about now.

"-But what you should really be asking me is if the information is accurate on it," Bill said next, leaning back in his chair with a growing grin. "Not like I burned it into the pages for you, or anything!" he grinned out, with an odd lilt to his tone.

Ford's eyes narrowed. "Was your 'sister' lying during any of that conversation?" Stan's brother demanded of the demon next. (Stan's eyes were ping-ponging back and forth between them. ...The kid wasn't just talking differently. As far as he could tell, Ford seemed to think that this was normal from the kid; Stan could tell. And… neither of them were at each other's throats. this was literally the first time Stan had seen anything like a civil conversation out of the two of them. ...If this could even be called a conversation. Because Ford was just grilling the demon-kid on and over-)

"Miz can't lie to anyone while her headband's like this," the kid shrugged off, moving his eyes over to his sister, who was rolling her own. "I'm working on it." Miz huffed out.

"...Not that anything like that would stop her from telling lies of omission," Ford said to them both next, eyes sharpening further.

And apparently that was the breaking point (which, hell, didn't actually surprise Stan any) that had the demon rounding on Ford (because Stan had heard the demon rant at him enough times about how-) "-I'm ONE TRILLION YEARS OLD, you-"

"-Kid, close your eyes, breathe, dial it down a little, and try again," Stan cut in, cutting off the kid's thunder, and the kid barely managed it, snapping his eyes shut and... (Hell, the kid was…) "If you're that tired, go upstairs for the night, and we'll finish this all off tomorrow," Stan told him next. He didn't know what was going on with the kid right now, but he wasn't going to push the kid that hard now (he knew better); especially not when the kid had been doing so… well? (He was gonna have to check with Ford on that one, though.)

Bill's eyes were closed, and he was breathing heavily. Miz was holding Bill's hand gently, nuzzled into his side, trying to help him to cool down a little more.

"I'm one trillion years old," the kid gritted out again, just as caustically, but with his eyes closed, his chin tucked down a bit towards his chest... and a hell of a lot less volume this time, at least. "Anything I say to you is going to be omitting one trillion years worth of things you don't know about ME."

And with that, the kid snapped open his eyes, glaring at Ford like he wanted to drop-kick him out the side door, or somethin'.

But Ford didn't say anything else, and the kid didn't say anything else, and the dragon-lady even managed to keep her own mouth shut on whatever-else, too. And after a good ten seconds of nothin' but glaring and staring, the two demons got up from their chairs and left the kitchen, heading back upstairs for the attic together.

Both Mabel and Dipper let out a twin set of breaths that they'd been holding, and then looked a little embarrassed as they excused themselves upstairs (really, made excuses to go upstairs after giving a pair of hugs to Ford), headed for their own beds in their bedroom, even though it was still a bit early that night.

Ford, for his part, slumped in his chair a little, as Stan set the transcript down on the table in front of him, and got back to clearing the dishes off of the table like he'd been doing, at the start of all this.

"Well, that coulda gone worse," Stan muttered out, and he couldn't do much more than look on as Ford buried his head in his arms on the table and let out a single soft laugh.

Stan waited a moment, then just got back to busying himself about the kitchen, cleaning up after the meal. He worked on washing the dishes, as he let Ford give himself a break for awhile; his brother probably needed it, after torturing himself with who-knew-what thoughts he'd had tryin' to figure out what the dragon-lady had been trying to say at him, all throughout dinner. Whatever Ford had been thinking she'd said, it had been nothing good; Stan had been able to tell that one himself, pretty clearly, tired or not.

"...How old is the man-eater, have either of them said?" Ford asked him wearily while rubbing a hand across his face, after finally raising his head up again from his arms a few minutes later.

Stan frowned to himself a little as he finished up with the last of the dishes, and he turned the water off. "...Hell, I don't know. Younger than the kid?" Stan was pretty sure of that, at least. "I remember one of 'em mentionin' something about her bein' over 500 billion years old at some point. Not sure how much over that she is, though," he noted. He almost wanted to ask 'does it matter?' because, y'know, once somebody got so old you couldn't even comprehend some kinda mountain or something lasting that long, let alone a person going off and living it...

"...Half his age. Right. Perhaps a little more than that, possibly," Ford murmured to himself. He looked down at the transcript on the table and frowned, still not touching it.

"Ford, it ain't a snake that's gonna bite ya," Stan told him in consternation, as he dried his hands off with the dish towel.

Ford rolled his eyes at him, while telling him, "It's the principle of the matter." ...as he reached out and picked up the brown-twine-string-bound pile of papers that made up the transcript by the string. "Why did you think that it was a good idea to ask Bill for this?" he asked him as he played a bit with the string, fingering it almost absently at first while he stared down at it.

"Wanted to see if he'd give me somethin' that he knew was gonna be for you," Stan told him. Ford looked up at him. "He gave me a copy this mornin', remember? And he didn't seem to have a problem with the Northwest girl reading over it at the diner-"

"-Bill went to the diner again?" Ford said. "Why did you take him?!"

Stan let out a sigh. "Ford, you'd've seen us come back if you'd been out on the other porch, y'know."

Ford looked like he wanted to say something disparaging to this, but instead he simply grimaced and waved it off with a frown.

"So," Stan said, "You gonna read it, or…?" But Ford was already pulling the pile in a bit closer to him. ...Right.

Stan leaned back against the counter as he watched Ford undo the string around the pile of papers. "Never heard the kid talk quite like that before," Stan said next. "You think he's-" getting any better? Stan was about to ask him (because as far as Stan figured, what he thought about the kid didn't matter for beans, what mattered a hell of a lot here was what Ford thought of how the kid was acting differently around him now), but Ford cut him off with a completely absent-minded:

"-That's how he usually talks."

Stan blinked, and then stared at his brother for a long moment. ...Well, shit.

"That's how he usually talks to you, y' mean," Stan said not quite slowly to his brother.

"No, that's how he usually talks to everyone," Ford told him, as he got the papers free from the binding string, and started paging his way through them. "When he's in a good mood, anyway," Ford muttered out next, almost under his breath. "He dropped the act for a bit, actually started acting like himself again."

"Ford, I need you to look at me for a minute," Stan told him, and his brother stopped and looked up at him, blinking up at Stan owlishly from where he was seated. "You know how people sometimes talk different to other people, depending on who they are, and what they're thinkin' and talkin' about?" …Zero comprehension outta his brother on that one. Great. "Okay… you know how… sometimes people talk differently to kids? Like, uh," crud, that was probably a bad one. Maybe… "Or, uh, small animals."

Ford looked up at him skeptically. Stan wracked his brain for a moment, and then… he finally got it.

"You and Old Man McGucket," Stan said, "You two get to talking about science-stuff, you use all those technical terms, goin' a mile a minute, right?"

"...Yes?" Ford said, then he blinked at him. "Most people can't follow it, though. ...That's what you're trying to get at?" he asked, frowning slightly as he adjusted his glasses. "Stan, do you… did you not understand what Bill and I were saying-?"

"-Not that," Stan said almost hurriedly. "Okay, well, kinda. -You know those grant-type people you had ta get money from?" Stan asked him next. "Kinda-maybe smart, but-"

"Not all that intelligent," Ford said with a sigh, rolling his eyes slightly and looking away from him.

...Yeah, okay, fine. Worked for him. "Yeah, Ford. Maybe a little less intelligent," Stan said with enough bite to his words that it had Ford looking back over at him. Good. "Definitely not somebody who either of you crazy nerds could get goin' on that type of conversation with, though. Yeah?"

"Yes," Ford said. "But I don't see where you're going with this."

"You still have to explain stuff to them enough to get the actual funds outta them, though," Stan told him next. "You can't use the exact terms and stuff maybe, or talk the way you want to - like you would if you're actually tryin' to get some stuff done. You've gotta talk to them differently," Stan said to him, "But you've still gotta find a way to explain it all to 'em somehow, if they go off askin' about something." And Stan waited, hoping that his brother would get it now.

Ford frowned at him a little. "...So, you think that Bill is talking to me like a scientific colleague, while he's talking to you like you're a grant administrator," Ford said to him. Then he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose that makes sense," Ford said next, kind of tiredly. "Given the situation with the-"

"-No, Ford, you've got it backwards," Stan told him, cutting him off. "What I'm tellin' you is that I'm the 'colleague', and you're the patsy he thinks he's gotta swindle somethin' out of."

And for a moment, Stan couldn't understand why his brother was looking so… so taken aback at him and junk.

"I didn't swindle those-" Ford sputtered out at him, and then he started to look truly angry, as he drew himself up where he sat. "I earned that grant money, fairly!" Ford spat out at him next, looking downright furious, "And-"

-Shit. Shit-shit- "I didn't mean it like that, Ford! Hell," Stan said, putting up both his hands and verbally backing off quickly. "I mean, like- con men," he tried next, his tired mind racing a mile a minute as he tried to explain that that was not what he'd meant, it was just that- "The demon's not like you, he's more like-"

"-You," Ford said, at the same Stan said, "-me," and… Stan felt a little shocked not more than a second later at what he'd just said. (At what he'd almost implied about Ford. About what he'd just-)

But while Stan was feeling a little shocked and cold at all this, the whole thing, Ford was just looking at him intently, and his brother looked almost… disappointed with him, somehow.

"Stan," Ford said slowly, setting down the transcript on the table. "I told you."

Stan looked over at him, blinking. "Told me what?" That… what, that Ford thought that he was like the demon-?

-all those times on the boat, when Ford had practically tackled him and demanded to see his eyes, restrained him and held him down-

...after all that, when Ford had checked him and calmed himself down, he'd always told him that- did that mean that Ford had been lying to him every single time when he'd said that-

Stan's eyes widened slightly. (And Ford wondered what his brother was thinking just then, with a bit of a sinking feeling that he thoroughly attempted to ignore.)

Ford sighed as he looked at his brother. "That he'll make you think that he understands you. ...What did you think that I meant?" Ford asked him quietly, and quite calmly, and…

...somehow, that all, the way he was sayin' it, all understanding and sorry-like, had Stan feeling that much worse.

"Kid's a con artist, not a scientist-geek," Stan said, not even sure what he was saying anymore, almost. It… it wasn't like he was tryin' to be defensive about it, or nothin', it was just… hell, it wasn't even right, not really; the demon-kid was a geek, he knew that, but… the whole scientist thing, he wasn't sure about… and Ford….

(It wasn't until later - after a decent amount of sleep, and a lot of really uncomfortable thinking - that Stan would finally figure out what he'd been feeling, to actually be able to put it into words all right when he wasn't feeling so goddamn tired. -He hadn't liked the idea that the demon-kid was more like Ford than like him, because of what that would say about his brother. He was the screw up in the family who couldn't do anything right, not Ford; it was okay for the triangle demon to be a hell of a lot more like him, on this. Meant they had a chance at taking him down for good if they needed to, for a start, if the demon-kid was just a dumb old a screw-up like him. And he didn't like the idea that Ford might think that the demon was more like himself than like him, either. Ford was so much better than that; he wasn't like the triangle at all. It was… just that mirroring thing, going on there. It wasn't what Ford thought; Stan knew it. He didn't want Ford thinking that...)

"Kid's a con artist," Stan repeated, too tired to really be able to get into it any more than that, then.

"He wants to know things, not lie about them," Ford told him, propping his head up on a fist. "He doesn't like lying, he likes rubbing the truth in everyone's faces and making it hurt," Ford told him next, looking down at the table for a moment. "It's why he's going to break the agreement, sooner rather than later. He won't be able to stand holding to and keeping up the lie. He'll get too impatient for it."

"I know he doesn't like lying," Stan told him doggedly, he gotten that much outta the kid on his own; it was probably half the reason the kid had so many damn tells and wasn't trying to get any better at hiding any of them. (The other half being, he had an entire face and body to have to handle here and now, and the whole 'staying low down in his body' thing made it harder for him to control all his responses out of it, to keep 'em all from showing.) "But he's still some kinda con-man or somethin'." And that was… almost right, wasn't it? (Except it was still off in a really stupid way somehow, and it made Stan feel frustrated all over again.)

"He's worse at conning people than you, Stanley," Ford said to him next, and he had an odd smile in his eyes, and his tone, and his… (...The heck? What did that even mean? He was good at conning all sorts of people - great at it, even! The Mystery Shack-) But there was a bitterness that crept into Ford's tone next as he said, "Just because I am a fool and a half to have trusted him…"

Stan pushed himself off of the kitchen counter and walked over quickly, reached out and stopped him, putting a hand down on his shoulder and shaking his head at him, frowning. That wasn't Ford's fault. It wasn't. And...

"That ain't…" But his brother looked absolutely convinced that trusting the damn demon in the first place had been all his fault, somehow, and… Stan had to stop and sit down. Ford wasn't gonna let him convince him that it wasn't his fault right now; Ford hadn't done anything wrong; it had been all that damn demon's-

He had to let go of that one. He couldn't handle that tonight, too tired to practically think straight. That sounded like the kind of thing he was gonna need to get the kids in on, to help him with. Because Ford had said that like- like Stan usually said that he was nobody's hero, when he felt like he was scamming the kids into loving him, and the kids were the ones who had always and ever made him feel like maybe, just maybe...

Stan reached out and snagged the closest kitchen chair at the table, dragged it over and sat down next to him, to his brother, as he tried to think through…

Stan pulled in a deep breath, then let it out. ...Okay. Okay. He was tired as hell, but he could still do this, at least a little bit, right?

"Okay, so he ain't exactly the best con-artist," Stan admitted, and that was true. And the kid would stay that way, if he had any say about- "But he ain't a scientist, neither. Not really." Stan knew that much. The demon-kid wasn't like Ford; not like that, not really. Ford would never hurt the kids-

"Stan, he helped me design that damn portal," Ford told him, almost fondly, like… like he was trying to let him down easy? "Just because he doesn't talk that way with you…" he trailed off.

But Stan just couldn't let it go. Not at that. Something about this whole thing was backwards. It had to be. Because...

Stan felt like he was searching for something, and… for a second, he felt like he almost got it, when he said:

"He wants to understand things, not just know 'em," Stan tried out slowly, frowning a little as he tried to work his way through it. "It's not just knowin' a whole bunch of crazy, random no-good crap. It's…" The demon-kid wanted to know stuff, but the kid wasn't like Ford, who wanted to know everything, who read every damn book he could get his hands on like some kinda book-demon himself. The demon-kid actually had priorities; but Ford had always, when they were kids- Stan had asked him once what all that stuff was actually good for, and Ford had just blinked up at him like he hadn't understood the question, and he-

-No-good, no-good, not useful, it was- Right. Right. That. That right there was the difference. (Damnit, he was tired. He knew this already. It was-)

"-It has to be useful," he said to Ford next, "The stuff's gotta be useful for…" and it was weird, because he already knew this, he knew he already knew this - and Ford knew this too, he had to already know this - but…

...for some reason, Stan also felt like he was inching up on something… something new here, almost; he could feel it. This wasn't just about the demon being a punk kid and a jerk, or a scientist-nerd or a not really great at it con-man; there was something else there, and… he needed a little help getting there. He just needed Ford to help him a little, to get the rest of the way to-

Stan shook his head roughly from side to side for a second, for a second feeling a little like everything was almost a little bit underwater on him, here. And he really didn't like it-

"Bubbles of pure insanity are not useful," Ford told him calmly. "Ducks with tarantulas inside of them are not useful. Screaming tornadoes are not useful. Walking water towers are not useful." (Admittedly, Ford knew he should probably be more worried about this for his brother, but… Stan wasn't unintelligent, and he was nobody's fool. And maybe Ford was foolish for thinking so, but… he believed in his brother, and Stan was talking to him about it, about all of this, now. Stan wasn't trying to do this alone. Stan wasn't alone, and Stan knew he wasn't alone in this; not at all. Ford would never let that happen. Stan had come to him and was talking to him about this, and Ford had faith in his brother that, with a little help from him and some clarity, he would be able to find his own way out of what Bill was...)

"The kid thinks that insane is actually sane," Stan said next, like it was a fact, a bulletpoint on a very long list, and Ford blinked at him. "He likes ducks with tarantulas in 'em, 'cause he thinks that makes 'em double-fuzzy." And Ford blinked again, and started to get a sinking feeling, as he began to realize that… "I ain't so sure about the screaming tornadoes..." and that feeling only got worse as Stan said next, with a slight thinking frown, "But I'm pretty sure that 'walking water tower' was actin' as some kinda perimeter guard, or guard dog, or somethin'."

"...Stan," Ford said slowly, and now he was actually starting to feel the beginnings of a spike of worry and fear for his brother.

And the feeling didn't exactly go away or improve when Stan said next, "Kid talks to me about stuff. Kid talks; I listen. And sometimes I even talk back, askin' questions sometimes. -Kid thinks tarantulas are fuzzy, and ducks are fuzzy. I asked him if he likes fuzzy, he said yeah. I asked him what was even fuzzier, and he told me about the double-fuzzy." And Ford couldn't help but frown at him at this because...

"Have you actually been… trying to navigate Bill's madness?" he asked his brother, rather incredulously. Because that was just-

"Not like he isn't happy to give me about twelve maps and a compass when I ask, when I do it," Stan told him almost absently, as he frowned and he thought. "And walking instructions and a shovel after that for anything that looks like it might be buried treasure, that he don't mind me gettin' a peek at." Stan looked up at him for a moment. "Heck, I might try it on his sister too, at some point. -The demons got a method to their madness, Ford," Stan told him, scratching absently at his left cheek. "They're, what's the word." He frowned a little, then frowned a little less. "Yeah. Internally consistent. Mostly."

Ford carefully smoothed his strained expression away. Because to say that he did not like it when Bill called him 'inconsistent' was rather an understatement at this point. And Stan could not have meant it like that. He-

"Even if they don't think at all like we do," Stan added next, though he didn't seem to be focusing externally on anything as he did so.

"...Stan," Ford tried again, slowly, trying to bring his brother's attention… dear Axolotl, trying to bring his brother out of his own head and back out to a somewhat-sane external reality where he was sitting, right next to him, in the kitchen. "What are you trying to say here."

"I'm just…" Stan looked a little frustrated (quite understandably, in Ford's opinion, if he'd actually been trying to understand the insane dream demon all this time-!). "He ain't a scientist, because he's not all about weights and measures and junk." (Well, that wasn't quite right. Not in the least. Ford opened his mouth to correct his brother in this-) "He's not a conman," (Ford closed his mouth again, with the beginnings of relief) "-unless he has to be," (...and there went that feeling rather quickly; Ford began to frown) "-'cause he hates lying, so he's pretty terrible at it most of the time, too, unless he has to not be terrible at it for awhile." (And Ford frowned at this even further, because… it almost sounded like…) "The kid's a punk kid, and a demon, and he messed with you for years, because-" and Ford winced as Stan stopped abruptly and closed his eyes for a moment, clenching his fists and his jaw and breathing heavily.

Ford waited. (He appreciated the sentiment his brother was feeling just then on his behalf, though.)

"...He messed with you for years, because he thought he had to," was what Stan said next, and Ford nearly corrected him, before Stan corrected himself, saying, "He messed with you, because he thought he needed you, to do somethin' for him, and the kid didn't like that at all one bit." And Ford's jaw went slack and his eyes widened at this, slightly, because- "It pissed him off, havin' to rely on you- no, shit- that's not…" Stan mumbled out, rubbing a hand over his face. Stan seemed to need to take a moment, before he was able to gather his thoughts up again - oh. Stan looked… rather tired. About as tired as he felt, really.

-then Stan said abruptly - more strongly - suddenly sounding truly angry all-at-once as he said, "Because he thought he didn't have a choice," and Ford stared at him, thoroughly taken aback.

Stan winced, then shook himself at what he'd just said. "Look, that's not- I ain't explaining this all that well right now." He'd thought he'd been too tired to think straight that other night? Hell, he felt half-asleep on his tush right now by comparison.

"Stan, take your time," Ford said slowly, and Stan pulled in another breath and let it out in a huff, feeling frustrated.

"Okay. Okay. Look…" Stan struggled with what he was thinking, then tried to back off a bit and… it was all about choices with the kid, right? Nobody had helped the kid out before, why did it have to be him? And-

...then Stan connected that thought to another side thought, and… and that was-

"Miz never comes to me for help when she wants something," Stan told Ford, letting him know that she never did it on her own, "Not without prompting." She hadn't asked him about talking to Ford first that night at dinner on the whole thing Mabel had talked to her about, or looked at him, asking him that she wanted him to help translate stuff between them both. Heck, she'd barely looked at Mabel, and that had been more of a 'hey, I tried' and nothing at all of a 'can you help me please?'

"And she only goes to the kid for help after I notice something, 'cause I started talking with her first, and then practically tell her I think she should do it, too." Because when she'd wanted to know about Carla, she hadn't tried asking him again, and she hadn't even tried asking her own brother about junk - she'd just gone off on her own and done a bunch of junk all on her own, alone, by herself, not talking to anybody else or their dog about it. And she'd done that, even knowing that her own brother could probably explain things to her, since he'd done just that damn thing for her more than once already, when Stan had pushed her a little bit to do it, givin' her advice just like he went around giving the kid advice, trying to keep everything from running completely off the rails, because-

"-The kid don't really ever come to me for any help, either," Stan continued. "Not really." Not for actual help. The kid sometimes just… walked into a room that Stan was in like the kid was dropping into it, but almost never like he really came to talk because he wanted to talk. Or Stan would walk into a room that the kid was there in and the kid just started talking, acting like it wasn't really any big thing, but… the way the kid always, always started things off, it always felt more like the kid was just talking to himself around somebody, than actually expecting anything really out of Stan being there. And Stan had almost been kind of offended at first, with the way the kid had acted surprised when Stan spoke up sometimes about something, when he offered advice, when he sometimes handed the kid something useful, even, but… even though the kid still acted at least a little surprised still lately when Stan handed him over something useful, something he could use... the kid still...

It was never like the kid was surprised at the idea exactly. ...Well, okay, maybe the kid was surprised at the ideas that Stan gave him sometimes - but that came later, when the kid thought over the thing, whatever the thing was that Stan had just handed him, that thought, and it was something that the kid just hadn't thought of, and wouldn't have thought of all on his own. But that was a different thing that came later. It wasn't like the kid was surprised that Stan had good ideas sometimes. It was more like… the kid wasn't expecting Stan to ever share them with him. Like he was never expecting Stan to speak up, to ever talk back to him in the first place.

Stan frowned. Because all this still meant that the kid still didn't even try to rely on him, not even a little. If anything, the kid almost did the opposite sometimes, trying to be careful not to get in too deep. And Stan sort of got why that was; oh, did he ever if he'd been in the kid's shoes…. But even after this whole 'wanting him' business, which the kid had seemed really damn serious about, the kid was still...

...it didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. Stan knew it wasn't like the demon-kid had never relied on anybody before now, ever - the kid had relied on his own dead brother, way back when, right? He'd kind of almost had to have done that, with the way that Stan saw him treating Miz now. He wouldn't know how to help his sister out otherwise, acting 'like a big brother should'; he wouldn't even know how or he wouldn't even do it, just make fun of her and call her names for bein' stupid or somethin' instead…. But neither of them still really relied on each other, and...

...Hell, okay. Stan was getting onto something here, now, something else completely... but it also felt like it might be kinda connected to the first thing, maybe. "Neither of them like askin' for help. ...Hell, askin' someone else for help ain't even the first thing that crosses their minds when either of them have an issue. Ain't even the second, or third, or fourth thing going on there, either, for either of them. Not for anything important." Stan thought back to the early days of Miz's stay here - the first day in fact, when she'd climbed the shelves herself to reach something from up high. And then she'd gone and done the same thing at that bookstore just as thoughtlessly, not even going after a ladder. "They don't ask for help unless its a last resort." Or unless someone told them that they thought the demons should. And could. And actually offered it to them themselves, that help. ...And were tryin' to do that without trying to stab either of 'em in the back while they were doing it.

"Of course they're not going to ask for help, Stan," Ford told him slowly. "They're demons. Why would anyone help them?"

...Goddamnit, not this whole thing again. "Ford, they weren't always demons, remember?" Stan reminded his brother. "They were a triangle and a human first, right? ...The way they act, it ain't like some 'oh I'm a demon so no one's gonna help me anymore, boo hoo' kinda thing," he frowned at him. "It's more like they don't even think about askin' for help because-"

"Because they know they're not going to get any," Ford said simply, and Stan felt frustrated all over again, because…

"-I know that," he told his brother grumpily, rubbing a hand through his hair vigorously, trying to feel a little more awake, because- he'd known that for awhile already, okay, and he'd been pissed as hell about it for just as long as knowin' that, almost. Because why hadn't anyone else helped them out sooner? Why hadn't somebody else yanked that triangle demon outta that Nightmare Realm place before things got any worse? Why did it have to be him that was- doing anything at all about any of this junk?

...Because they weren't going to get any help from anyone else, not even a little. Not after things had gotten to some point or another, and after at that point… They never got any help ever, even when they did try and ask, and Stan damn well knew what that exact sort of rock-bottom felt like, and it wasn't pretty. This wasn't something that had only happened to them after they'd become demons, though, or they'd be pissed off at 'being demons now' and that all being oh so unfair - neither of the pair of them were all that dumb about things. No. This was something that had been happening a lot longer, before that. This was something older. This was something-

"They never got any help, even back before they were demons," Stan told Ford. "Not after…" the kid's brother had died, Stan bet. And he'd sort of realized that before, yeah, with the way the kid had acted and talked all about it - what little the kid had talked all about it - but… he hadn't realized it like this. Not like this. Not really. Because- "The kid… the way he talked about his parents. Ford, do you even know-" No. No, Ford didn't, with the way he was looking at him like that. "This isn't just something where the kid was getting gaslighted by everybody for-" Stan shook his head, cutting himself off at the whole 'dead brother thing'. Because sayin' that out loud right now was- he'd better not. Not right now. Not when he wasn't barely thinkin' straight, here, to maybe try and keep Ford from sayin' or doin' something stupid that the kid might overhear later, and then- "This wasn't just one thing, Ford. This was-" everything. It was everything. ...Everything that mattered to the kid, he was pretty sure of, at least.

Nobody had helped out with- after the kid's brother-

"Stanley, what does this have to do with anything now," Ford asked of him, even and slow.

"It's…" Stan grimaced. "The kid thinks of himself as some kinda independent triangle here somehow, right?" Ford frowned at him slightly, but also nodded once, almost cautiously. Right. "And… he doesn't have anybody he can rely on…" Stan trailed off, grimacing, because Ford was just gonna tell him...

"Except you," Ford said, and… what?

...Hell. Stan blinked. He'd thought Ford was gonna smack him for thinking of him and the triangle being kinda the same and all that again: not being able to rely on anybody else.

"Uh…" Stan said, not really sure how to handle that one from his brother. "I guess? Kinda?" And he really didn't get why Ford was lookin' at him like that all over again now, kinda exasperated-like.

"Stan, you're giving him food, clothing, shelter, and 'schooling'," Ford said, and Ford almost didn't roll his eyes at the last one, this time. "What part of relying on you for those things does what Bill has been doing not entail?"

"...Thought you said he didn't need me for any of that stuff," Stan said to his brother slowly, which for some reason had Ford looking even more exasperated at him, instead.

"He doesn't, but he is, and has been, relying on you for it and taking it from you," Ford told him, like it was some kinda reminder of something.

"Ford, that ain't relying on me," Stan told him, downright confused. "That's just-" the heck? That was just the bare minimum there - next to nothin', almost. Hadn't they had this discussion? (That shit had been the beginning of things - the in, not the end of what Stan was tryin' to do with him. The getting the kid to actually rely on him part was-)

And now Ford looked just as confused and frustrated as he felt. "Then what, exactly, do you consider relying on someone to be, Stan?"

"Havin' their back in a fight," Stan told him promptly. "Lyin' for 'em if they need it. An alibi?" Stan told him next. Because seriously, was his brother really asking him this one? Really? Those were two things they did for each other all the time, and... "Coming to me when they don't know somethin', letting' me help them figure it out," like he did with Ford and the niblings... and had tried to do for some of those 'partners' of his that he'd been saddled with, back during those ten years when… (Well, he'd handled shit then, and it had been a hell of a lot easier after that, with the people he'd had the choice of working with or not for a lot smaller and kinda more safe-ish little-bit-less-than-legal slew of little tiny no-problem not-so-time-consuming odd-jobs, later. When he'd been working with people who hadn't always known what they were doin', but who were actually willing to listen to a guy who did know what they were doin', and do stuff maybe a little differently than they were doin' it right then, in order to not go gettin' themselves caught or make a little more money on the side for them all. By, y'know, like…) "Askin' me for advice, information, my opinion on what I think they should do, and trustin' that I'm not just gonna lie and screw 'em over for no damn reason, let alone any reason for it!"

(Stan had his hands thrown into the air by this point in exasperation. Because getting the kid to actually trust him enough to rely on him for that sort of thing would actually give him some real leverage with the triangle. And he mostly had the triangle-demon-kid convinced at this point - that it was even possible at all. That Stan could pull it off, even with everythin' else goin' on with the rest of everyone else. And the kid did want that all that from him, at least a little; at least some of it, maybe, sometimes. And the kid liked keeping all of as many of his options open as he could at all times; the kid didn't want to dump a real chance that he had if it might be useful to him later, and the kid sure wouldn't go out of his way to do it, whether the kid thought whoever it was was a sucker or not - and Stan was nobody's fool. Which meant that the kid had to 'play along' and kinda 'play nice' to keep on not losing that from him, that chance of more help and ideas from him later on in, in the future, by continuing to not cross his line-)

"You're talking about treating him like the rest of us," Ford said, sounding shocked, and Stan pulled a face, scratched the back of his neck, and said, "Well, I…?" Huh? "I mean…" What was his brother tryin' to…?

Then Stan felt a jolt of shock go straight through him.

"-Oh hell Ford, not like that," Stan said next in tones of horror, as he realized what Ford was actually getting at there - 'cause hell, the kid wasn't… wasn't his family, for the love of Paul Bunyan! (Hell, the idea made him feel sick to his stomach.) But that didn't mean- "Ford, there's a hell of a lot of ground to cover, between treatin' the kid like a rube or stabbin' him in the back, and treatin' him the same way I treat you and the kids and… y'know. Some other people sometimes," he told Ford, glancing away as he went off thinking of Wendy and Soos and Melody next, and trying not to show it.

"With you, it seems rather one way or the other, Stan," Ford said in odd tones, and Stan couldn't help but frown at that.

"I got some in-betweens there," Stan protested a bit, looking back over at his brother. "Don't even know where I was goin' with this," Stan muttered out next, because now he really didn't.

"Stan, you aren't like him, and he isn't like you," Ford told him next, firmly. "You can't possibly believe that!" and Stan couldn't help but grimace and glower all over again, because...

"I know he's not. But he kinda is," Stan told him, and damnit, just because he couldn't explain it to his brother right now, didn't mean that-

"Stan," Ford said in tones of forced patience he'd rarely heard out of his brother. "Bill is nothing like you. You care about your family to your core. While Bill-"

Holy shit. It hit Stan like a goddamn bolt out of the blue.

"-cares nothing about his family at all," Ford continued on, then- stopped, because he didn't know why Stan had gone so absolutely pale on him just then.

"Shit," said Stan. "Shit-shit-shit." He looked more than a little shocky, running both hands up through his hair. Because-

-nothing looked right when you were looking at it from the outside, sometimes. When people didn't know what you were doing-

-if anybody had ever known to ask, and wondered what runnin' the Shack had had to do with getting that portal all working again to begin with…

-it had had everything to do with it, though, because he'd needed the cash and the cover. Maybe it didn't make sense from the outside, not knowing anything about the portal, or why that goddamn portal had been so important to get running again, but…

The cash, he'd needed to pay for things - not just food and the water bill and junk, but the mortgage to keep the actual house in the first place because if he'd ever lost the Shack to somebody for good - and he'd needed money for all that electricity for the portal and all that stuff below the Shack, too - like replacement parts for all the electronics - and none of that stuff ever came cheap.

He'd even had to keep up with some of the con-man work and contacts with the local 'criminal underbelly', even though that made it more risky that somebody from those ten years would eventually hear about him at some point - because some of those things that he'd needed, he'd needed contacts to get for him, even if it was information on, say, how and when to break into a secure facility to go off stealing a shit-ton of radioactive waste barrels to portal a portal on later. Eventually.

But crime didn't pay like it should unless you were doin' something that risky, so he'd needed another legal job on top of all that, to be able to stay in one place without pushing things to the point of having to bail and run again - because this time, he couldn't just go off bailing and running anymore when things got too hot for him to handle again. So there couldn't be any running, and there couldn't be no 'too hot to handle'. That meant legal to get that much cash, at the amounts that he needed to work with. Night work paid better, but working on the portal during the day when everybody was awake would've had people talking about the 'scientist at work in his lab' and wanting to know what the hell was all going on, not staying away from the spooky forest at night, which just happened to have a cabin smack-dab in the middle of the spookiest part of it - oh, how mysterious - the perfect place to have that mysterious Mystery Shack.

So that meant working on the portal at night, which meant a day job for money instead. ...And with having a day job where he was his own boss, he worked his own hours, and nobody wondered what he was up to, to come looking. The rest of the town and everybody just thought that everything of it all was right there on the surface, no need to even go looking for a basement down there… because basement? What basement? Why would they even have a reason to go looking? All the Mystery Shack junk was right there, being all distracting and in your face, and for just twenty buck a person-

"...Stan?" Ford said to him slowly, and Stan seemed to shake himself out of his head again, his color coming back to him just a bit.

"Not here," Stan told him tersely. (He couldn't not say this to Ford anymore. Tired or not, it had to be now. Ford wouldn't get it otherwise, if he didn't...) "Your room, or the basement. Pick one."

...They ended up in Ford's bedroom, and Ford barely got the door closed after letting Stan into it, before Stan said, "Kid wants his brother back, Ford."

Ford's hand froze in place on the doorknob. He felt all his breath leave him in a flash.

It felt like all the oxygen had left the room, all of a sudden, along with it.

Ford closed his eyes. He'd worried about this ever since he'd first heard of it. Because...

"It's a lie," he told his brother evenly, as he stood in place facing the door, with his back to his brother, not yet ready to face him in the face of... "It is a lie that Bill ever had a brother. You have to believe that, Stan. Bill is playing you." He'd worried that, sooner or later, his brother would make the connection between that tall tale, and what had happened with them, and then...

"I can tell when the kid is lying," Stan told him.

...and then this would occur, shortly thereafter.

"Bill has never confirmed it himself," Ford told him, ever so slowly letting go of the doorknob, still not yet ready to face him.

"Miz can't lie to me, either," he heard Stan say. "I can tell when she-"

"-You don't know that for certain," Ford said, cutting him off, and Stan went quiet. Stan only went quiet. Stan wasn't agreeing with him, that- "You don't-"

"Ford, look at me," he heard his brother say, and Ford couldn't quite cover the wince. He did manage to steel himself a little, though, as he finally turned around to face him.

...The hardest part was that he didn't look like a Bill convert. He still looked like his younger brother, even and still in his old-age. Even after this, even with this, he still...

Ford felt the unshed tears burning in his eyes, and he couldn't-

"Ford," Stan said slowly, looking like he was about to reach for him, and Ford shook his head once, abruptly, no. No. (He barely managed to keep himself from taking a step back. Backwards. Away from his brother, who-)

"Ford, would you believe it if you heard the kid say it?" he was asked, and Ford felt himself go stiff for just a moment. "-Scratch that," he heard his brother say next. "Ford, I don't need to hear the kid say it, I already know it," he was told roughly.

"You don't-" Ford said, just as roughly, and- and he would beat the answer out of Bill if he had to! He would make Bill answer him, in Stan's presence, in something that was not a lie-

"-Ford, the only reason I was able to get the kid to do that reconnection thing with you was because I got you to say that you wouldn't kill his brother right away, if the kid brought him back." And Ford stared at him, because what? What alternate dimension had he just fallen into without realizing it, for his brother to claim that he had done such a thing?! He'd never- "Kid calmed down when you said you wouldn't hold somethin' against somebody for something somebody else did. Not even the kid," Stan said, like that meant something, as he stared directly into his eyes. As he said, "Not even a somebody of the kid."

"That's not what I-" said, Ford started to protest, to tell him, because- How had Stan gotten what he'd been saying back then so very wrong as this? Stan- Stan had to know better than that. And Stan had to have understood him at the time! -Stan had been asking him back then if he would blame Bill for something that Bill had not done, and… frankly, there was enough that Bill had done that… but, it would be the height of stupidity to so simply blame the dream demon for absolutely everything that was wrong with the universe, in any universe; there were limits.

"But you wouldn't kill somebody, just because the kid cared about them," Stan said.

"No, of course not," Ford said, shaking his head, feeling far beyond and past dead tired on his feet at this point. "But that's hardly a point of any consequence, because-"

"-Ford, just think about it for one goddamn minute," Stan told him roughly, and it made Ford stop and freeze in place for a moment again, because Stan sounded almost angry with him this time. "The kid calmed down when you told him and me that. What you said to me when I asked you, back then. He stopped bein' so about-two-seconds-away-from-killin'-you angry with you anymore; he let me talk him into stoppin' his pushing you away so much. Why would the kid care about that," Stan asked him intently. "Think about it, Ford. -Kid thinks he can take care of himself," he was told by his brother, "He wouldn't care about taking anybody else's shit on. -So why would the kid care at all about any of that," his brother told him next, "If the kid didn't have anybody at all that all that could apply to, the other way around?" Stan asked him.

And it left Ford utterly speechless.

"You remember how that demon-kid was lookin' at you when you said that to him, right?" Stan asked him, intensely, looking so very sure… "You remember that. I know that you do. You were payin' attention. You saw it." And Ford just… had no words for this. Utterly none. There was nothing that he could say to any of this, not at all.

His mind was almost blank from the strain.

"I figure it's really a brother," he faintly heard Stan tell him next, as he slowly made his way over to his bed and he sat himself down before his legs could no longer support him, for feeling like water. "Kid doesn't really know how to do the 'sister' thing right with Miz here, not really," he heard Stan say next, and… "If he'd been worried about Miz and not somebody else, he would've snapped at me when I brought her up right then. But he didn't do that, Ford."

Ford sat there, quietly, on the edge of his bed, and closed his eyes. And he breathed.

After awhile, he heard footsteps, and he felt the bed mattress dip down a little next to him.

"...Ford?" he heard Stan say. "You okay?"

No. No, he wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay.

Nothing about this was okay, and...

"...I think I'd like to finish reading the rest of this transcript right now," Ford said slowly, reopening his eyes only slightly, looking down at the papers still curled up in the grasp of his closed left hand in his lap. Because he didn't want to think about right now. He didn't want to think about any of this right now.

His brother thought he was like Bill Cipher and Bill Cipher was like him, because Bill had a brother he cared about. That was Stan's thesis: that Bill Cipher was like him, because he'd had a brother he cared about.

That Stan thought that Bill Cipher was more like him than like Ford, because they both had brothers they care or had cared about, at one point or another.

And Ford could not deal with that. Ford could not process, or deal with, the thought that Stan might think that Ford did not care about him, right now. He could not deal with the thought that Stan thought that the difference between them was that Stan cared about him, but that he, Ford, did not care about his own brother - him - in return, and...

Ford could not deal with the thought that Stan believed that he did not care about him, that his own brother believed that Ford did not love him back-

Ford closed his eyes, and barely held back the tears.

(-If Stan didn't believe that he loved him, that he cared about him, even after last summer, even after Weirdmageddon, even after regaining his memories, even after the boat and sailing together-)

Ford didn't know what to do about this. About any of this. He didn't know how to fix this, any of this, and-

There was a pause. (A far, far, far too long sort of a pause.)

(And then...)

"Okay," he heard his brother say to him. Even though it wasn't okay.

(It wasn't okay.)

And Stan didn't say anything else to him for awhile.

...Until he said, "Hell, Ford, I know he's not the same as me, okay?" after Ford had finally reopened his eyes, once he'd not been in any immediate danger of crying openly about- reacting badly to anything else that he might say.

And it took Ford a moment to blink, and bring his head out of what he'd been reading to escape the thought of Stan thinking- a bit, to quietly listen to his brother again for a little bit, just a little bit again, at least. Because he could do that, at least. He could at least do that for his brother. Even if he couldn't really help him, when he didn't know how. Because he didn't know how. Even if he still couldn't look up at Stan again, yet, he could at least still listen to him and let him know he'd been heard.

He could do that much for him, at least.

(Maybe if he just listened and let Stan talk about it all long enough, Stan would talk himself out of it…)

(He had to believe that he would. Because if he didn't…)

"It's just… this crazy mirroring thing going on with him, okay?" Stan told him next. "I… I wasn't thinking that there might be more than one angle to all of it, really, that's all," his brother told him. "I know it's the same thing, but sometimes it sorta just kicks me in the brain, when I come at it all from a different angle. I don't know how to explain it," his brother told him, "But it looks different sometimes, when I-"

"Cut glass," Ford interjected quietly, staring down at the pages in front of him, because… "You're thinking of cut glass, Stanley. Or diamonds." Because they might seem clear and very straightforward, but... "They refract the light differently; depending on the angle, it looks different, what you see. Even though it's really all the same thing, it's all still just an illusion." Just pretty colors and shadows thrown up against the wall… And his brother went quiet again.

"...But you can still kinda tell where the cuts are from the reflections you're seein' there, right," Stan said next, and Ford closed his eyes for a moment, sighed briefly, and said, "Yes." (He admitted it, really.)

Stan was quiet for another few moments, before he said slowly, "...Kid's got some pretty deep cuts in him, doesn't he."

And at that, Ford almost let out a tired laugh. Because... what was he supposed to say to that? That Bill was a being of pure energy, and that pure energy didn't take cuts like physical matter did? And as for what Bill was like mentally...

No. There was no point to telling Stan such, any of it. It was late, he was deathly tired, and he didn't want to get into any further argument with his own brother on...

So Ford told him tiredly, "Yes, Stan. He does." Not that it made any difference at this point, to believe so one way or the other. 'Deep cuts' of any sort or not, Bill was still dangerous, still an unrepentant murderer, still and always for their own safety and that of the rest of the multiverse absolutely needed to die and, this time, stay that way...

(And the unspoken truth, that Ford was rather relieved that Stan didn't know enough about what had happened to him over the years with Bill enough to voice, was, "So do you.")

Illusion is Reality

Maniac Interlude

(Kryptos POV)

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

I glanced up from my work, adjusting the beam capacitor on my temporal destabilizer. I spotted Amorphous Shape watching me. I glanced quickly at my door and then back to the segmented shape. "How'd you get in my office?" Getting into my room was one thing, but my office?!

"I'm a ninja." Amorphous Shape responded in his usual even tone. I ran a gloved hand across my plane before ignoring his response. "Well next time, please give me a warning before you're here, so I have time to prepare myself." I knew this might be a wasted effort. Everyone here just barged into each other's rooms whenever they felt like it. There WERE locks, rather there was a way to have the doors simply not open for anyone but the owner, but it didn't really work. I made a note to speak to my boss about that. Having labs where anyone could just come into was dangerous.

Back to the matter at hand...

"If you're asking me to stop my plans to kill Time Baby, I'm afraid the answer will be 'no'."

The segmented shape shuffled about, rearranging his blocks as he floated around my room. "I don't particularly care and everyone else seems on board for this, but I wonder if you all would survive Time Baby's death?"

I paused in the middle of attaching another wire. "...explain."

"The Deal you have with mother isn't only for being Friends." Ammy blinked his many eyes. "You're all living much longer than you would have. Wasn't that also part of the Deal? What happens when it breaks? Would you all decompose?" He seemed quite curious about this. Well, he didn't have to worry about aging to death, the kid didn't age. He wasn't immortal by any sense, but he didn't age through progression of time. I secretly wondered if that was part of him being Bill's kid.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, that was an issue, except… "Bill enhanced our cells. Even without the Deal we would be fine. For a few decades at least, possibly even a century." I wasn't stupid, I didn't want to die. "And Bill would manually keep us alive beyond that. She wouldn't let us die."

"True." Amorphous Shape 'nodded' before adding, "But what if Mother doesn't come home until after that century?"

That made me pause. "Bill will come back." I stated. She always did. Even if she returned much later than expected, she always made sure to jump through time so it wasn't too long since she'd left.

"Yes. But he's been gone for longer before. He gets distracted. And this 'brother' that Mother spoke about seems like quite the distraction." Ammy narrowed his eyes. Was he… suspicious out that mysterious 'brother' that Bill spoke of?

...he also wasn't wrong. I licked my teeth, "So what are you saying?"

Amorphous Shape shifted his blocks lazily. "Wait for Mother to return before you go through with it. Or, just tell Mother what you and everyone else are planning to do." He almost looked worried. "Doing something like this behind his back might be dangerous. Both for you and Mother." Amorphous Shape told me.

"Look," I groaned. "If I told Bill about wanting to kill Time Baby, she might stop me."

"Yes. That is the point." Amorphous Shape nodded. "Mother should have a choice or opinion in this. Considering it involves him. Besides, as much as I dislike Time Baby, everyone dislikes him too. Including mother. So he should be allowed to be part of this murder plot if we do go through with it."

I stared at Amorphous Shape. "But Bill wouldn't agree to this." I complained. That was the problem! That was why I was going behind Bill's back to do this! I turned away and set about ignoring Amorphous Shape, I had work to do. He didn't say anything else, the silence dragging on between us. I tried to ignore it, reaching to find another screw. The gun should be ready for a test run soon. Not quite sure what to test it on, but if it's a Temporal Destabilizer, shooting anyone who wasn't the literal god of Time itself would probably just have their local time oscillate wildly. In other words, they'd age and deage rapidly back and forth until the effect is turned off.

Which meant I was going to need a test subject.

Preferably a volunteer. Bill's really insistent on that kind of thing. Well, Bill does all sorts of awful things to people, but if it's a Deal, they technically consented when they agreed to shake Bill's hand, and for the other times it's because Bill can't… control her powers all that well.

Which was terrifying.

And how much of a freak does it make me that this fear of Bill's abilities only made me want her more?

So… I turned to my computer and opened a chat with some of my classmates at the university. I've been in school for… a pretty long time now. But they don't care how many degrees I want, as long as I can pay for it. And… I have the credits. I paid for most of it on my own. Bill insisted on helping and, after many years of switching universities and taking on new majors… I finally let her pay for part of it. It made her happy.

But more importantly I knew several classmates who might be willing to be my test subject (in exchange for some favors) and if I could get anyone to get on board with this...

Ammy was being really quiet.

I finally turned around and blinked. He wasn't here. I hadn't heard him leave.

Was this that 'ninja' thing again?

I shook it off, whatever, I had more important things to do. Like send an i-mail to everyone in my temporal studies class.

Of course I was taking a class for that! How else would I have been able to learn how to even build a temporal destabilizer?

...it was incredibly illegal to build something like that. I had to dig pretty deep in order to find anything at all. Apparently anyone who knew anything about how to make a proper one were all killed off by the Federation. Others suffered mysterious 'accidents' and I'm pretty sure those ones were the unfortunate victims of Bill's 'jobs' with Time Baby.

Really. Time Baby stamped down all knowledge he didn't approve of. Especially if it pertained to his destruction. Made sense. I'd probably do that too. But I was still annoyed at that damn god for making my efforts to kill him much more annoying than it should be. I grumbled to myself even as I typed out my proposal in a way that would not indicate my true intentions.

[Kr8tos] Hey guys, wanna help me out with my project?

[grubNugget] Depends… what's it about?

[Arby$] probably something weird or a death canon, like the one he made at one of his last schools!

[Kr8tos] you're all never gonna let me live that sdown are youoo?!

[apocalypseArisen] considering our shared class of unravelling the threads of time and how to go about circumnavigating it im going to say its time related :D

[Kr8tos] Yes. That.

[grubNugget] right yeah. Soooo what's this about? It terms of time thing- for your project- and stuf- since you kinda won't tell anyone about it?

I started typing my response [Well I need to test out my-] when apocalypseArisen sent out [knowing him i bet hes making a weapon to kill time baby :)]

I sputtered. [What?! No! Of cousrse not! What would you think that?] because saying something like that outright was liable to get you killed by the Federation! Then again, she really didn't care about things like that. Weird girl. Never actually met her in person since she was one of those online students.

[apocalypseArisen] personally id love for that to happen that baby is a brat :(

I paused. Well. At least… someone agreed with me.

[apocalypseArisen] besides i think i mostly want to see what happens when everything breaks apart :D

...then again, she is kind of a psycho...

Still, I played dumb until everyone was sure that AA was just joking like the nutjob she was. It took hours of debate with them before someone agreed. I didn't realize how late it was… or… early? It was the next morning now. I heaved a sigh of relief when Arby$ actually volunteered to be my test dumm- I mean subject. We made plans to meet up the coming weekend. Success! Now I just needed to cross my fingers and hope that none of us got gunned down by Federation soldiers before then. It shouldn't happen since Hectorgon hacked the systems to hide all of us from Federation wiretapping or whatever the thing was called when they can read anything we text out to anyone else over the net.

"So you're going to test the gun on one of your classmates?"

"FRICKIN VOID!" I gasped and turned to see Ammy peering over my top left edge. "Do you have to keep doing that?!"

"Yes." Amorphous Shape didn't even hesitate. I sighed. Whatever. "Ze agreed to it." I told him.

"Also." Amorphous Shape continued, seeing to ignore my words, "Breakfast is ready." He squinted at me. "Did you even sleep at all?"

"Oh? Who's turn was it to cook today?" I asked, ignoring his other question. Always know that first before going out to eat. I learned that lesson quick. Ugh, I really did stay in my workplace all night. Nice of them to let me, but they shouldn't.

"Technically Teeth." Ammy shrugged. I almost refused to go eat (Teeth always made all sorts of 'healthy' food, which was almost entirely plant based and I wasn't about to go through that right now) but then I blinked. "Technically?"

"He brought his new boyfriend over and Lilie is the one cooking."

I choked. "When did Teeth get a boyfriend?!"

Ammy shrugged. "Last night. Apparently." I felt my mouth drop open even more. "A-and he already brought him HOME?!"

Ammy squinted his eyes in a manner that was… very reminiscent of Bill when she was utterly thrilled by something she found hilarious. Well, he was her son, it figured he would have gotten a lot from her. "Oh, so last night, Teeth and Lilie were at a bar together, and Teeth actually passed out." Ammy's voice almost sounded amused. He was getting much better at inflections and emoting.

I groaned. "Let me guess, Teeth passed out, that new Curse Bill was working on for our protection kicked in, and Teeth got teleported home… and brought Lilie with him?" I will need to tell Bill about this, so she knows to tweak her Curse somewhat to prevent such a thing from happening. Teleporting the person and other people they're touching was going to cause some issues if an enemy managed to get in...

...then again, Bill had that barrier around the Death Star that kept out anyone with malicious intentions. So the fact that Teeth's mysterious (spontaneous) new boyfriend was allowed in and lived meant he was probably not a bad person.

"Yup." Ammy popped his 'p' like Bill did. "So he ended up staying the night. And he is currently making breakfast for everyone." He leaned closer to me, large eye only centimeters from my own. "So are you going to come eat breakfast?"

"...are you…" I leaned back. "...trying to mother me?"

"Well mother isn't here right now. And he would be upset if you didn't get the proper food and rest while he was away." Ammy leaned closer again, not picking up that I wanted some personal space. I sighed and spoke up to let him know, we had to do that often, Ammy didn't pick up on any of this stuff on his own. "Can you back off a little? Like, 2 standard galactic feet?"

Ammy floated back obediently. I nodded. Good. "Well, I am kinda hungry." I admitted. "Is the food any good?"

"I have found no disagreements with it." Ammy told me. Which, for him, meant that the food wasn't up to Bill's level but it wasn't bad. Okay. I guess I could eat that. I looked around my lab and set about fixing things up before I left. Couldn't leave the loose machinery lying around. Too dangerous. I only had to blow up my lab three times before it finally sank in.

"Alright, breakfast!" I cheered. Ammy tilted his 'head' block. "And sleep. You need sleep."

"Uuuuugh~" He was taking this 'mothering me in Bill's absence' thing seriously!

(Hectorgon POV)

I nursed my drink as I watched the kids putter about the kitchen. While I can't say I thought it was impossible for Teeth to get a boyfriend, I hadn't actually expected such a thing to happen! (No offense to Teeth, he's a great guy, but his humor tends to make everyone except Bill cringe half the time.) And without any warning what-so-ever, Teeth had apparently gotten together with someone and even brought them home (accidentally). The kid, Lilie I believe his name was, was quite adorable even!

I didn't have eyes, but I still glanced over to the side to see Keyhole looking almost… incredulous. "How'd you managed to land yourself such a cute partner?!" Keyhole whined. "You don't even have skin!"

Teeth looked almost smug. "Excuse me?!" He posed dramatically, waggling his large tongue at Keyhole. "I happen to be drop dead GORGEOUS~" He teased. Keyhole groaned and buried his face in his hands. Lilie's ears whipped around as he grew flustered. "I like his smile." The Alpicana told us all, which made Teeth squeak. "Shit, that's so sweet!" Teeth cooed as he leaned against one of Lilie's fluffy legs.

"He's entirely MADE of smile!" Keyhole cried, exasperated with all of this.

Pyronica was losing her shit, laughing hysterically at all this. "Well, I for one, am amazed that out of all of us, Teeth is the first to get an actual partner!" She paused and glanced at me with a guilty look, "Oh right! Sorry." She apologized. I waved her off. It was fine. I didn't really care anymore. It'd been too long. Pyronica nudged Keyhole. "Sooo does that mean you're gonna actually look for a partner and give Bill those grandbabies he wants so much~?"

Keyhole sputtered. "N-no! I-" His teal skin turned brown with the force of his blush. "That's not what I meant at all!" I almost felt bad for the kid, with how embarrassed he looked. I, as one of the few adults in this household, nudged Pyronica. "Leave the kid alone, he's still not ready for starting a family."

Keyhole sent me a grateful look. I simply took another sip of my boiled bean juice. "I'm happy for you." I told Teeth. I wasn't sure how serious he was about this relationship, but this was a sign he was growing up, trying something new. I felt oddly proud of that. Helengon never got the chance to grow up and find a partner. I wonder… have I really taken on this new family as my children? Not in her place, no. But… the fondness in my core when I watched Teeth nuzzle against Lilie as the two worked in the kitchen together to bring the plates of food over to the dining area… I felt so… happy for him. So proud.

I glanced around. Noting that the dining room/kitchen wasn't as loud and rowdy as usual. "Where is everyone?" Pyronica shrugged. "Kryptos never came home last night. I sent Ammy to go get him." She frowned, looking around and groaned. "8-Ball's not here… but I'm sure he left to go home last night…"

"Maybe he's still asleep?" Keyhole got off his stool and pattered off to go get him. I got up as well. "I'm going to go find Paci." Pyronica waved as the two of us left. I could hear Lilie comment, "How large is this household?" before I hopped out of earshot.

(8-Ball POV)

Oh no. Ooooh no.

What do I do?

"8-Ball? You awake?" I could hear Keyhole's muffled voice from the other side of the door. He knocked again. "Breakfast is ready."

I looked down at the tubular baby who was sticking to my side, literally. "Uuuh…" What do I do? If the others find out about it, they're gonna make me give him back! But I wanted to keep him! He's so cuuute~

Huh… is this how Bill felt when he adopted all of us?

I shook my head, feeling my eyes roll around. Okay, don't panic. Uhhh maybe… maybe those tubulars I met last night would let me keep him? Wait, more importantly, I have to hide Toobie! If the others saw him they would get so mad at me for accidental kidnapping! I looked around my room for something to hide Toobie in.

I tried to gently pull him off my side and put him on my bed, but he made a sad noise and clung on even tighter. Awww…. I stroked his side with my finger. Okay~ I won't make you leave me. Okay. So… if Toobie won't let go, then I need some other way to hide him.

"8-Ball? Are you there?"

"Y-yeah! I just woke up!" I called out. I hear Keyhole chuckle. "Wow. How late did you stay up last night?" I stumbled around my room, trying to find anything I could use. "I…" quick! Think of an excuse! "I was…" I grabbed one of my bedsheets. "...watching porn…"

"...oh…"

I wrapped the bedsheet around myself. "Y-yeah. It was… really… good?"

"Too much information dude. Well come out when you're… ah… decent? I'm going to eat breakfast." I hear his slapping footsteps as he left. I heaved a sigh of relief and finished adjusting the sheet. I tied the corners together a few times to secure it in place and once I was sure I was covered, I left my room. "Shhh. Stay quiet okay Toobie?" I told him. Toobie nuzzled against my side and stayed quiet.

I made my way down the hall, through a door that only appeared when someone knocked on the wall in a certain way, and took that shortcut to the kitchen through the other door which opened from the wall beside the refrigerator. "Morning!" I greeted everyone. Keyhole was seated and eating. It looked like some sort of mixed nuts and meat dish. There was a side of soup as well. It certainly smelled pretty good. Keyhole looked up from his food to greet me back but paused at the… what did Bill call this type of clothing? A toga?

He opened his mouth to comment, thought better of it, closed his mouth and just gave me a thumb's up. Pyronica had no such qualms. "What the heck are you wearing?" She laughed. I shrugged. "I… wanted to look pretty." I wonder if I should feel embarrassed by this? But Bill wore all sorts of weirder things all the time.

Before Pyronica could respond, we all heard PaciFire's gruff voice grumble, "Wait, you too?"

Teeth looked over and his jaw dropped. "P-Paci?!"

Hectorgon was standing beside PaciFire who was… in a dress. I noted that it actually looked pretty good on him. PaciFire flushed a darker color. "I thought it would be… nice to try something different today." He glanced over at me. "I guess I wasn't the only one." He fidgeted a little, pulling at his skirt. "I… actually feel better knowing I'm not the only one trying it out."

I blinked. Oh. I… hadn't expected this to be the outcome, but if wearing my bedsheet made Paci feel better, then I'm glad I did so. Pyronica gave PaciFire a grin and applauded him. "Well you look amazing~" she told him with a laugh. "Where'd you get that dress? Do they have one in my size?"

It was around then that Ammy and Kryptos came in. Kryptos stopped, stared at the two of us, and then face palmed with a loud slap. "I'm not even gonna ask." He grumbled before walking over to the serving bowls to scoop himself some breakfast. Pyronica lit up. "Oh my flame~ we should ALL dress up todaaaaay!" She turned to give a wide toothy grin at Lilie. "You're invited too!"

Lilie's ear whipped around. "M-me?!" He squeaked. Teeth grinned. "Welcome to my friends. We have fun here."

I wasn't sure what I'd started but… Hectorgon looked smug as he patted PaciFire's leg. And the Demon-Imp looked… more assured and happy. I wonder why? He'd looked almost nervous earlier, but now he had a small smile. It was a nice expression. We all settled in for breakfast, chatting and enjoying each other's company. I nearly forgot about Toobie. I was abruptly made aware of this when he let out a whimper. Probably from being hungry! I hadn't thought to feed him!

I'm a terrible mommy!

But more than that, everyone turned to me.

"Did… your stomach just whimper?" Kryptos asked slowly. Pyronica snorted. "That's the weakest ass stomach growl I've ever heard! That means you're not that hungry, right? Does that mean I get your share?" She was already reaching over for my plate. I pulled it away and cradled it to my chest protectively. "You heard nothing!" I got up from my seat and shuffled backward out of the room, scooping up another ladle of food into my plate as I went. "I'm going to eat in my room."

As I left, I heard PaciFire asking, "Is he okay? 8-Ball's been acting weird today."

I hurried back to my room and unwrapped my bedsheet. Toobie blinked his round eyes at me and whimpered again. "It's okay, I'm sorry. I'll feed you now. Can… you eat this?" I held out my plate and Toobie squealed before stretching his gelatinous body forward and taking a bite of the food. I could see it inside his body. It began to dissolve as his inner slime juice ate away at it. That was pretty cool. I continued feeding him. He must have been hungry, scarfing down the food like this.

And then Toobie bit me during his feeding frenzy.

I lifted up my arm and Toobie hung down from it, gnawing uselessly at the thick skin. "Ah, I'm not food." I told him. He growled playfully. I laugh and hold up my other hand to gently pull him off me. So cute~

I knew I probably couldn't keep Toobie. But… Bill got to keep us. I'm sure… if I asked, and Toobie agreed, I could keep him. I'd take good care of him! I'd be a good mommy for him! Toobie wobbled around and stuck to my side again. He did feel cold. I was warm, he must like that. I wrapped myself in the sheet again and thought about what to do now. I could go about my day as usual.

And that meant going to work. I don't work often but the job wasn't hard. They just need someone strong to carry things. It paid enough for me to have pocket money. I would need that. If I wanted to keep Toobie, I need supplies! And those cost credits. I also need to think about how to convince Toobie's parents(?) that I would be able to take care of him. And that I didn't kidnap surprise adopt him on purpose.

Is this what 'responsibility' was? No wonder Bill always complained about it. Responsibly is hard!

(Pyronica POV)

I think I'll spend today visiting the kids. They were full adults now I shouldn't really be calling them kids, but I'm still their mother, even if they look older than me now. (And wasn't that a distressing thought?)

...I knew they were going to die one day. It wasn't a thought I was happy about. But… it was still better than having them be made immortal if they didn't want to be. I gave them the talk about it. Bill gave them the choice. They chose to be mortal, which I was grateful for, but… seeing my darling daughter with wrinkles was… jarring. It was hard to remember sometimes, that the world continues on outside of my own experiences. That even as I stay the same as I was for years and years, other people are growing and changing. I felt tired, suddenly. I didn't like thinking about this. It was… scary.

I had all of time before me. It hadn't seemed so daunting before, up until I realized, really realized that I was going to lose my children. That was a thing that was going to happen.

I'd known it would happen, had made peace with it. But there's an existential horror in seeing the signs of age growing along my son's face, as he plays with his children. My grandchildren. And… knowing that his eldest daughter is nearly of age to mate and form her own family.

Time goes by too soon. Here and gone. And I don't like that I can think about that, understand that, now.

I'm not the smart one. Not like Hec. Not like Kryptos. Not like Bill. I'm not the one for thinking about deep philosophical shit. Not like Ammy. I'm just the party girl. I have fun. I don't think about things. I don't stress and worry. Because I hate that shit. If there's a problem or if I'm unhappy, I just punch it. Punch and burn whatever's bothering me. Indulge in sex and shopping and FUN until it doesnt bother me anymore.

But I guess even someone as simple as I am can start thinking too much. It's been too quiet these past few centuries. We've been on good behavior. No rampaging. No mindless fun. I had to be a mother. I had to be responsible. I had to actually grow up.

And that fucking sucks.

I go out to the dance club and fuck anyone who would catch my eye. But afterwards, when I'm alone with my thoughts, I realize how...

...

...I wish I were stupid.

I wish I were simple and airheaded enough to not have these thoughts. I wish I didn't learn how to be so introspective. I wish I didn't stress about what life would bring, what the future may hold.

...my children are lucky to be mortal.

I don't regret what I did. I don't regret agreeing to be Bill's Friend. As scared as I could sometimes get, in those quiet moments when I'm on my own with nothing to occupy my time, I didn't regret my choice at all. It was my choice. I asked to he his friend. Even if I hadn't known what it would entail, I had still chosen in.

And if I could go back, back to when I was young and meeting Bill for the first time, if I knew then what I did now, I would choose him anyway. Always and forever

Bill is my best friend. And I loved him more than I could ever say. But even if I'm too dumb for words, I can let my actions speak for me. And that is to live. For his sake and my own.

...I'm not stupid. Bill may have forced immortality onto us, but he had the foresight and mercy to give us an 'out'. We could still die. We could still choose to leave him. And that is why I choose to live. Live on as his Friend. Even if it's scary sometimes. Even if it's hard sometimes.

Even if I fear the day my children pass from this world and leave me.

Because the thought of how much it would hurt everyone if I was gone was so much worse.

So I hide my apprehension. We all do. I can see that several of the others had thought about this, even if none of us have ever spoken about it.

...truthfully, I worry about Teeth. He hasn't really thought about mortality. He's pursuing his dream, living on that stage and smiling out at the world. Actually, perhaps he has thought of it. Perhaps he's gotten good enough at acting that I can't tell what he's thinking. If so, then I worry for him. His relationship. Lilie is mortal. I worry.

I didn't have to worry about my partner. He died so that I could have children. That was normal. And I didn't like him as more than just a nice fuck to knock me up. But Teeth is dating this guy. I don't know how serious he is about it. But I worry.

...well, it's none of my business.

I put it out of my mind.

However that relationship ends, we would be here to help him through it. So like all things, deal with it as it came. Don't worry so much. I try my best not to. It's hard sometimes, when everything catches up to me.

...Uuugh I'm bumming myself out! Screw that, I need to do something fun! Hm… well… Bill's not here… I'm sure I could get away with a little misbehaving~

(PaciFire POV)

No one… really seemed to mind. I excused myself after breakfast to go back to my room and heaved a sigh. Ok. So… no one made fun of me for being in a dress. That...

...actually, of course they didn't make fun of me for being in a dress. Bill was in a dress half the time.

I shook my head and laughed. Yeah. I had no reason to be afraid of what the others thought. We were friends. Family. It would be stranger to think that they would mock me. Still, knowing something in my head and seeing it in reality was different.

(Then again, Bill often told us that reality is perceived through our minds as an illusion created by our senses, and therefore what we experience in the real world has just as much weight as that which we experience within our own minds.)

But I felt almost giddy. I was so relieved. They didn't mock me. Even if I'm not cute and delicate and don't match this dress at all- no, I shouldn't think like that. Pyronica told me I looked great. And despite how flippant she could be, I knew her well enough to know she didn't give empty compliments. It did make me feel a little more confidant.

But that didn't mean I was confident enough to wear a dress outside the house. This wasn't something I could do in public. And even around my friends, I don't think I'd be able to do it often. Funny how I was so timid on this matter. Blood and violence didn't phase me. That was just business as usual, but being pretty in front of others...

(It was a thrill. A heart racing apprehension. So many ups and down in my mood all through the process of sitting there during breakfast, feeling uncomfortably warm as the dress seemed much too tight on me.)

...I wasn't sure how to feel.

It took all the courage I had to simply show up for breakfast. Putting on my dress and leaving the safe privacy of my room. It took so much for me to do it. I could go for multiple rounds of combat, wrestle with another demon-imp three times my size for hours- and that wouldn't even be close to the exhaustion I felt right now.

I was happy, in a vague way, that I did it. But my heart wouldn't calm, I stripped the too-tight dress off, and slumped over on my bed. My hands were shaking. I didn't know how to feel.

I don't think I'd be able to do that again. Not for a while.

But I couldn't keep the smile off my face.

(Queen POV)

I haven't heard from Eclipsa in a while.

I cleaned my antenna as I rested from working all day. Rebuilding a kingdom is difficult. The silverfish had elected me as their queen. I can't say it was a surprise, not after all I did to help them regain their sanity over the past couple centuries. I admit I had been quite busy and lost contact with my fellow butterfly queen during that time. Still, she usually called, if only to vent about how awful things were with the arranged husband she didn't love.

The last I heard, she was going to elope with her true love Globgor. I haven't heard from her after that. Part of me worried. Eclipsa was an intelligent young woman but she was still just one person alone against the world during the war ravaging her kingdom. Her dimensional section was run by a different governing body. It made communication difficult enough, but more importantly, it meant that even if I left my own world, I wouldn't be able to get to where she was if she were in trouble. The Federation had restrictions on travel to parts of the multiverse not under their control.

...I would just have to trust her to be okay. I got up and continued my work, carefully lifting and sliding the rocks into place in the broken wall before me.

"Your majesty! What are yo-you doing out here!" A silverfish girl gasped when she saw me. I twitched my wings. "The recent earthquake collapsed the wall. I was fixing it."

"B-but that is our job! You shouldn't have to-"

"It's fine." I waved her off. The downside of being elected queen again was everyone thinking I shouldn't lift a tarsus to do anything. It was something they learned from old records left behind that had survived the fire Bill had blazed through the kingdom. After centuries of independence, it was quite annoying. The silverfish practically worship me, calling me their 'Beautiful, undying queen' (which wasn't incorrect, but it was still-) and trying to dote on me. I used to enjoy it, back when I ruled Iznang. But I had grown used to doing things by myself, for myself and being… treated like a larva was frustrating.

Still, I knew they did not mean to offend me, quite the opposite. So I just continued working. They will learn with time that it is fine to buck tradition, no matter what the history books say. Soon, they might even be ready to reopen communication with the rest of Poelia. That would be wonderful. The kingdom of Hela had been isolated for far too long in their madness.

"But…" the silverfish girl twitched. I shook my abdomen and laughed. "It is fine. But you may help me in rebuilding, if you wish." She seemed delighted to do so. I couldn't help my fondness for her eagerness.

We finished the wall and she followed me as I continued doing my inspections for more places in need of repair. Many of the silverfish were working. I spent years teaching them construction, it was good to see my efforts have borne fruit as they did not need me to talk them through all the steps anymore. I hear a cry of surprise from a group of them as something large made its way toward me. I could hear their distress as they couldn't tell if the lumbering creature was an enemy or not.

I quickly assured them all. "Xanthar! Oh, little one, it has been too long." I flew forward to embrace him. No matter where I went on this planet, he always managed to find me. The softness of his fur was reassuring. How many years had it been? I could feel him relax against me. Gentle as always despite his bulk. "My little one, you grow bigger every time I see you." I laughed.

"Y-your majesty? What is this creature?" One of the larger silverfish asked. "This is Xanthar. My dear friend. Don't be afraid. He is a gentle one." I twitched my antenna. "But be warned, do not ever speak of him with disrespect. For a Curse was placed to protect him from wicked words."

They all gave Xanthar the utmost respect. It was almost funny.

"Is Bill here?" I asked him. Xanthar shook his head. Ah, so the god has gone off on another of his journeys. No doubt the little one was missing him.

"Well you're free to stay for as long as you wish." I told Xanthar, as I've always told him. I knew that he knew this, but saying it aloud for him never failed to make him feel better.

The happy snuffle only proved my point.

I stroked his fur fondly. "Well then, little one, would you like to help me with the repairs for this city?" He nodded, always eager to help.

Although I knew he missed Bill dearly, I was glad to have him with me for a while. I hope that wasn't selfish of me.

Illusion is Reality

Non-Maniac Interlude (Because I have too many characters)

Chapter 98.2

(Queen POV)

Repairs went much faster with Xanthar's help. He lifted heavy things for us, leaving the Silverfish in awe at his size and strength. He seemed to enjoy the work as well. It was during the construction that we discovered a cave. The entrance to it was underneath where a building once was, that was how I never noticed it before. Of course, I was a little apprehensive about checking it out. After the danger of the spores that drove an entire country into insanity and the years it took to even heal them up to this point, I was wary of any flowers that might have survived Bill's purge. An underground cave might be housing all sorts of things.

Part of me wanted to seal it back up, wait for Bill to get here so that I could have him check it out for any danger. But the other part of me didn't want to rely on him for everything. Still, I sealed it for now. Once I got some protection, like a sealed air filtration suit, I could go down to explore. I told everyone to stay away from the area for now.

Xanthar seemed curious about the cave too. But he was too big to fit inside. I was glad for that, I wouldn't want him going inside and getting stuck.

Well now that the repairs from the earthquake were done, I went back to work on repairing the rest of the country. It was tiring work, but I liked it. It was something for me to do with my time. And I suppose, being the Queen of a country again was… nice.

I haven't checked on my descendants for a very long time. I know that Iznang is doing well. I really should go back and live among my people again, once everything is settled here.

I have been grooming a few Silverfish to take over as their new queens and kings, ruling together so that they could vote for policies. They want me to stay their queen but I cannot. I may have been a queen once, but that time has long ended. I was perfectly content to wander the world, free.

Bill once asked if I would ever leave my home planet to explore elsewhere. The multiverse lay before me and I was free to go wherever I wanted. The Beetles had long since discovered space travel. It wouldn't be difficult to get passage on a ship. I have a disquiet about me when I imagine leaving. This is my home, even if all the people I knew had long since passed on. It was still my home and I didn't know If I could bring myself to leave.

I asked Bill once about his home. He went quiet. That was unusual for him, he so loved to talk. But on this subject, his words became sparse. "Misses home, but can't return." he said, more to himself than to me. "Neither of them."

Everyone knew the rumor. The rumor that Bill Cipher had destroyed his own homeland. Struck it from existence itself. I can't say if that is true or not, but the fact remains that whatever had happened, it wasn't something he liked to talk about. So I never brought it up again.

Me though, would I ever leave my home? I did not know. My feelings on this matter were quite complicated.

For now, with the reconstruction done, the cave sealed, and my curiosity pulling me, I told the silverfish that I would be leaving to buy some supplies from Hastan. If there was anywhere I could find a full body air-tight suit, it would be there. The technological advancements were amazing. I've seen them progress from basic space travel to full on casual vacations on the stations orbiting our planet. And there were many Beetles who go further than that, heading out into space to search for more life. So far, no luck. The only other Beings we've found have been from other dimensions in the multiverse. Our own dimension seemed to be alone in terms of intelligent life. Or even life at all.

Bill once said that it made things easier for him, the isolation of my homeworld meant it was easier to defend from outside attack, and also that my dimension was less interesting to the wider Multiverse, so they leave us alone. It sounded lonely to me, but Bill assured me that it was good that we were separate, we weren't under Federation rule. Bill seemed quite insistent on that. Us remaining independent. It was important to him.

I understood where he was coming from. But it still felt lonely to think about how only an interdimensional portal would allow us to contact other intelligent life. The communication portals were our only real contact to the greater multiverse.

I shook my head and discarded those thoughts for now. A matter to think of later. "Come little one." I stroked Xanthar's side. "We will be going to the market. Stay close." He shuffled closer, bumping me lightly with his flat face. I wonder if I should get a bio-suit in his size too...

(Tina POV)

Politics was my life.

...I'm not saying that I live for politics, or even that I really cared for the subject. But with my mother's position, I had no choice but to be involved. I sit in at meetings sometimes. Their discussions went over my head most days. So and so had a disagreement with so and so. She broke a treaty. He was embezzling government funds. It was the same stupid stuff all the time.

I almost wanted to return to Jheselbraum's temple. Things were simpler there. Neutrality was so much… nicer. It was stressful here. Mother was fighting hard for reforms. Granting equality to all people was… difficult. There was so much damage from the Federation's colonization and civilization policies. Entire cultures were forcibly stamped out. Traditions of the people were outlawed. All in the name of uniformity. Of Order. Of Equality.

But it wasn't equality, was it? Making everything the same, treating all people the exact same, making everyone have to be governed the same way, with the same laws, same rules- it was fair, but it wasn't fair. Different species needed different supplies, different laws, different… everything. Making everything the same didn't work. It caused problems. Because a Flamarian needed an atmosphere filled with Methane to live. But visiting Derlans who wanted to start trade needed Nitrogen. And then there were those masked Time Police on Time Baby's staff who all apparently needed oxygen. It was a huge mess all around. The Oracle got around this in Dimension 52 because of the enchantment around the entire dimension that regulated and changed the conditions for each person, so that they were all comfortable. (I once asked why this enchantment couldn't be placed on all dimensions, apparently it would require too much power to cast and maintain that no one wanted to step up to do it. Jheselbraum maintained the enchantment around Dimension 52 constantly and thus, can never leave, for it took so much of her power to keep it going. Apparently Cipher had once offered to do it, but he was refused on account of no one wanting the demon god of chaos in charge of keeping them all alive. Too dangerous to trust him, with his constantly changing moods and whims.)

Mother wants to undo the damage, but it was hard. She was more focused on building the future rather than fixing the past. It was stressful to watch her struggle. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the state of the multiverse, the rebellions, the uprisings, the wars...

...the criminals allowed to walk free and the innocents imprisoned...

It hurt to think about. I wanted to do something. I couldn't help but think of Miz. My dear friend. Even if she was a murderer. I hated that. I hated that Miz felt she had to kill, in order to protect me and the other girls. To keep us safe. It wasn't right. It was taking justice into your own hands, outside the law-

...though what choice did she have? When the law allowed criminals to walk free? No. There was always a choice. I had to believe that. I wanted to believe that. I also didn't believe that Miz was a bad person. She did what she did out of a place of love. As twisted and horrible as it was.

If the world was a better place, where bad people weren't free to be a threat to people, she wouldn't have to kill anymore. Was that the right solution? I felt like this was so. I asked mother about what sorts of criminals were allowed to walk free. Generally, they paid their way out. She mentioned that people like various rich criminals, corrupt politicians, patrons of powerful gods (like the demon god Bill Cipher and various other deities) often bailed people out of prison.

Mother did tell me that, truthfully speaking, amongst all the criminals she'd seen, Cipher's crew were the least problematic of the bunch. Sure they rampaged and terrorized, but Cipher generally tidied up the mess afterward. He also left behind plenty of precious metals after a rampage to pay for damages or stolen goods, which was further proof that the demon must have been made of gold. Some people even purposely sought out Cipher's 'playdays' just for a chance to snatch some of that for themselves. Cipher was considered one of the wealthiest of the gods.

Miz told me that Cipher's crew were actually pretty nice. I supposed that must be true. They hadn't hurt her when they abducted her that one time. And… I frowned in thought. There was that other time when Cipher dumped off his new pet on Miz, made her raise the child as he left and never looked back. It always felt rather… suspicious to me. Cipher cares about what he considers his. So why would he just...

I always wondered about that. When I asked Miz, she said that it was easier this way. What way? Frankly, I was beginning to suspect that Cipher had simply made a show about not wanting that Pladibear child so that people wouldn't go after them like they did with the other children Cipher had taken in, the ones his right hand woman had birthed. (And most of the multiverse were quite sure the twins were in fact Cipher's children. Pyronica was his right hand woman after all.) I paused at that thought. Something niggling at my mind. A thought I was edging on.

Cipher's children...

...whom he clearly cared for, if the way he slaughtered any and all who tried to harm them meant anything.

...Cipher killed those who tried to harm the ones he cared for.

...Miz killed those who tried to harm the ones she cared for.

I shook my head. That meant nothing. But… Cipher left his newest child with Miz. Trusted the pladibear into Miz's care. And… Miz… she was powerful enough to protect herself and the child. Raised the child well. I've heard about how Quackers had even gone to Jheselbraum's temple to learn to heal. And the Oracle had a connection with Cipher as well. She tolerated his presence because she helped anyone who needed it, and Cipher obeyed the neutrality law of Dimension 52. But though everyone else bought that excuse, I'm a politician's daughter. I've learned a lot about seeing behind stories. Her lady Oracle knew something. She knew Cipher more intimately than she let on. And he came to her for help. Genuinely. Even if he won't outright ask for it. He would just drop in with his problems and stick around until Jheselbraum helped him.

I was getting off track. There was something important that I was missing from all this.

I had to do more research into the gods.

(After all, Miz had once let slip that she sort of is one.)

(Pynelope POV)

[Pickle to Jello, I'm in. Over.] the voice of my partner whispered through the communicator. I clicked the button to make mine on the Active setting and whispered back. "Jello to Pickle, hold your position. I've got one of the guards in sight, need to make a distraction… over."

[Pudding to group, what's with these codenames? Over.] I heard my co-worker groan through the communicator. I rolled my eye, carefully shifting my position to hide the glow of my flames. The fire retardant jacket helped somewhat, but seriously, being on fire constantly made stealth very difficult. "It's a theme name thing! Since we're raiding a food storage, I thought food names would work! Over." I responded, watching the guard walk past my hiding spot. It was a simple task, on paper at least. Sneak into the Federation Food Storage, get the scoop on where the food comes from and where it's going.

...I can't believe I have to thank Bill's drills on espionage and combat training for knowing how to do shit like this. And I can't believe my team makes me use those skills for this sort of thing! I'm just a normal girl! I'm just a normal reporter! And damn Jion for suggesting it! Well, I gave him Pudding as a codename, just to be petty, so there's that.

As the guard walked past my spot again, I dropped down and struck him on his axillary nerve. This particular guard was an Inkurian, they had an exposed nerve along their shoulder area which, when struck, could knock them unconscious near instantly. Bill was pretty big on teaching us about the anatomy of different races.

I dragged the unconscious guard out of the way and hid him in a place where he wouldn't be found. "Jello to group, guard is neutralized. Move in. Over."

[I thought you said you were going to distract him?!]

"Well he's plenty distracted right now. Over." I grinned as I strode right into the building. "Now come on, we have a half hour before the next guard comes by. Over."

The three of us got inside, staring at all the stasis crates filled with supplies. The invention of stasis made food transport more efficient. No longer did people have to worry about spoilage or damage from the trip. They could even keep food fresh as the day it was picked for up to years at a time. At least until the batteries powering the stasis field ran out. I remember the pantry back in my childhood home. Bill maintained the food storage very meticulously, keeping track of how fresh everything was at all times. I never recalled seeing any stasis generators at home. I guess Bill simply kept the food fresh using his own powers?

I also recalled how much mother would sneak in to steal potatoes just to toss them off at the rest of us to use up in some way just so Bill couldn't cook with them. Never understood mom's hatred for them. Uncle Ammy told me that there was once a planet with a giant cancerous soul eating potato that mom and everyone else defeated. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but it was an interesting story.

"Whoa… There's enough food here to feed 12 sectors dood!" My partner in crime-I mean, information gathering, Yoland, gasped. She stared up at the towering crate stacks. Jion sneered. "And yet, there's still starving people in Dimension R8X. Even though this shipment here is for Dimension R7X, which is right next to it!"

"Do they not have enough?" Yoland asked, checking the locations each of these crates were meant to be shipped to. "No, there's several here that just say [Storage]. That… are they just… keeping some of this here? Instead of sending it out?"

"Looks like it. But why? They claimed they just didn't have enough food to send to R8X during their famine." I asked. Jion sneered harder, flicking his tendrils in agitation. "Isn't it obvious? They're lying about it. So they can charge more Credits for the shipment later."

Yoland was snapping photos of the crates and destinations. "Well, I think we've got some pretty good photos here. Should we try and get to a terminal to hack in and get more info?"

"More info is always good." I nodded, looking around. Not gonna lie, I was getting worried as I read the labels on the crates. Shit. Some of these were from one of Bill's (Xin's) planets. Oh, he is NOT gonna be happy about that. Hell, if the dragon god Xin found out the food he helped create wasn't actually being used to help people like he wanted...

I paused. Oh~ that… that would put the Federation in a rather bad spot. I'm sure they didn't want to start a fight with the most powerful harvest god in the known multiverse. Especially since they relied on him and his planets to keep up the food trade. Xin's planets supplied enough to feed a quarter of the known Multiverse as is. If the Federation lost his favor and he stopped allowing them to have access to his planets...

I cackled. Oh this was pure gold. I glanced around the room. And… yeah. No triangles anywhere to be seen and a thick metal coating of that specific type that blocks radio waves. The Federation goes out of their way to limit any type of triangular shaped construction. That explains why Bill hadn't realized this yet. He would have to come here in person to see it. Or be curious enough to go purposely looking for it.

Still~ I bet he'd like to know this. In fact. Everyone would. I could see the headlines now. Blasphemy! A Harvest God's generous gift selfishly hoarded!

Mwahahaha~

But serious time, we didn't have much time left. I signaled for my friends and the three of us tried to find a terminal. I'm glad there weren't cameras here. Bill can see through them, the Federation knew this. Even when they tried to avoid triangles, Bill could still see through cameras. He explained it once as just switching to seeing through the Eye of the camera as opposed to the Eye of the Triangle. I didn't really get it, but it essentially meant Bill could see through cameras. So the Federation stopped putting cameras in some of their buildings. At least in certain areas. This here, apparently counted as a place the Federation didn't want Bill to see.

Huh. Bill cared a lot about food. I can see why they 'hid' this place from his sight.

I heard the footsteps that weren't mine or my friends. Shit. We're out of time. I grabbed the other two and picked them up to carry over to the side of a large crate. They knew to stay quiet. I peeked out and saw another guard along with… a dock worker? Ah, yes. They were noting down the crates and pushing the buttons needed to begin moving them for transport.

There was no place to hide. I held my friends and scooted along, keeping us hidden behind the crates as they moved. Shit. There was no other place to hide. No other way to get away. The crates were being sent away. We were running out of crates to hide behind. Yoland clung to me, trembling. "What do we do now doods?"

(Yoland's verbal tic got worse when she was agitated or excited, though she told me once that saying Dood/Dude at the end of her sentences wasn't a tic. "Prinny rule number one, I must include the word Dood in every line I say!" She was technically a freed Prinny and therefore she didn't have to follow it anymore, but some things just stuck with her.)

I didn't know what to do. I bit my lip and focused on making sure we weren't seen. "Jion, plans?"

Jion's eyes darted back and forth. I could tell he was thinking hard about all the exits in the warehouse. "The crates are being teleported away to the next area for shipping, if we can get inside one of them…"

"That sounds like an awful idea, dude." Yoland groaned. I darted over to another crate when the one we were hiding behind was taken away. "Yeah, well, I could fight out way out." I grimaced. "But I really don't wanna get caught attacking a Federation worker. People will say that I'm just like my mom!"

Yoland groaned. "Fine. Let's hide inside a crate."

As I carefully cracked the top and slipped into one of the crates in the far back, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe I should have just been a farmer like my brother...

(Pyrone POV)

"Rince?" I called out, looking all around the grounds for my eldest daughter. She'd been in a bad mood all day (okay, she's always in a bad mood, but she was angrier than usual) and I was a little worried. She and Flora got into an argument and Rince stormed off. Flora told me that Rince just needed her space. But, we've been giving her space all her life. We give her a place to vent and rage. We try so hard… and I know she loves us. But she's just… always angry.

(Part of me was afraid that I had done something wrong while raising her.)

None of my other children were like this. Little Marith was a sweet girl who was kind to everyone. Hilbert was a rambunctious boy, reminded me of my sister. Sandri was a shy boy. Jilo was ernest and hard working. So where had I gone wrong with Rince?

I heard a crackling, burning sound and sighed. "Rince? Are you okay?"

I saw her now, seated at the edge of our farm, sizzling embers all around her. "Rince? Are you ok?" I asked softly. She huffed, wringing her claws together, the fire crackling along her arms. "Do you… Want to talk?" I sat down beside her. Rince huffed again. I waited. After a while, her flames died down a little. "I'm sick of this." Sje finally muttered.

"Sick of what?" I asked. "Your mother was just worried for you." Flora had scolded Rince about her temper again. Rince had attacked someone who was trying to buy some of our harvest. Apparently he looked at her in a way she didn't like. Flora was upset that we lost a customer. And we would have to pay fpr his medical bills too.

Rince groaned. "I know. But she didn't have to-" she clawed at the ground. "-keep nagging me about it! I know! Okay?! I know I did bad!" She couldn't look at me. "But I didn't like him!"

"..." I very politely didn't say that she didn't like anyone. Rince huffed yet again and actually scooted over to lean against me. "I just want to leave. Go away somewhere where I don't have to deal with people anymore."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I placed my arm around her and hugged her to my side. "Why didn't you like him?" I asked, wanting to just understand.

"He's not good. I don't like it." Rince sighed, nuzzled against my side. "He looks at mom and me in a way I don't like."

"Even so, you shouldn't go around attacking people when they haven't done anything to you first. But I will keep an eye on him." I told her. If he was really checking out my wife and daughter in some way… well, I knew all sorts of ways to break a man.

Rince groaned. "This is why I want to live somewhere without people!"

"You'd get lonely." I pointed out.

"Then I'll get a pet." Rince insisted. I couldn't help but laugh. "Well once you're old enough, you can do that."

Rince turned to peer up at me with her large eye. "You're not gonna stop me from going away and living alone?" She asked hesitantly.

"I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to stop you, considering I moved out of my parent's house and came here." I rolled my eye. "But you can't do that until you're all grown up." I poked her lightly.

"Pffth~" Rince rolled off me to flop onto the ground. "I'm already 20! Just you watch! I'll be all grown up soon! It's only 30 more years!"

"And where do you plan to go?" I asked. Rince paused to think about it. "I dunno. Just… not here." She gazed out at the fields. "I don't think I like farming. I just burn everything anyway."

"Well, burning the fields is good for replenishing the soil." I shrugged. It was something that Flora and I did every few years. Rince shrugged. "Maybe I'll become a cage fighter!" She grinned. "Then I can beat people up and no one gets mad at me for it!"

"Your love for violence will never make sense to me, but as long as you stay safe despite it, I can't… really say anything about it." I really didn't know how to deal with Rince sometimes. Like, I enjoy fighting as much as the next Cyclopian, but her tentative plan for the future made me unsure how to feel. "Are you ready to come back inside?" I asked instead.

"Naw. I'm just gonna end up getting mad at Ma again." Rince rolled onto her stomach, clawing at the ground.

"Well, I'm gonna explain to your mother why you attacked a customer." I brushed my pants off as I got up. "Come back when you're feeling better." I gave her a little kiss on her head and went back inside. Flora was feeding Marith. "Hey honey, how is she?" Flora asked, cutting up the steak into smaller pieces for our youngest. I sighed. "She claims that Mr. McGroe was looking at you and her… in a not good way."

Flora paused. "Well." She thought about it. "I hadn't noticed anything, but if Rince feels so, then we should look into it. Just in case." I smiled. Flora, ever vigilant, wasn't going to just chalk this up to teenaged complaints, she was going to check out Rince's claim for any validity.

"Well, if he does turn out to be a creep…" I leaned forward to kiss Flora lightly. She giggled. "Then I break his arms." She finished for me. My dear wife flexed, muscles sticking out prominently. I trembled. Shit, even after all this time...

I kissed her deeply, wrapping my arms around her. "Don't tease me like that~" I whined in between my kisses. Flora laughed outright. Dang~ she was still just as sexy as ever. So not fair~

Marith was making gagging sounds. "Ewww~ Get a woom!" She wiggled in her chair. Flora laughed. "You learned that phrase from Hilbert didn't you?"She poked Marith's snout.

I laughed as well, trying to put my worries behind me. Rince was a difficult child. I worry for her future. But, come what may, I was going to do my best to be a good father. Even if it was going to be hard. There was so much I didn't understand about her, even if she was my daughter.

...did mom go through this with me and Pynelope too? Did Bill?

Being a parent was… hard. I've realized that long ago, the many kids I have being testament to the trials and tribulations I have to go through in order to raise them. Still, whenever Rince loses it at us, I end up worrying. I've heard of kids who grow estranged from their families. Heck, there was a time when part of me wished Bill wasn't my parent. But now that I was older, I realize how painful that feeling was. The idea that my kid wouldn't want me anymore.

It was a hard thought to have.

I still didn't know what to do with Rince. I didn't want to push her, but I fear for what she would grow up into, if she continues to be so angry at everyone and everything. I didn't want her getting in trouble with the law.

Not the least because Bill would do everything in his power to keep Rince out of the law's clutches.

...even if she did something that did deserve punishment.

That's what I was really worried about.

I loved my daughter.

But if she did something awful, I felt she would need to face punishment for it. Bill wouldn't let it happen though, even if he knew Rince was in the wrong. I knew Bill would try to protect her anyway. And I didn't want him to do that. I didn't want Rince to become the sort of person who would think she could do anything she wanted. (Even if she didn't like Bill, I think she'd still take advantage of his help. That's what I didn't want.) So if anything happened in the future, I might have to stand against Bill in this matter.

...being a parent was hard.

Illusion is Reality

Chapter 98.5

-Anything your sick mind desires-

Ford frowned down at the papers he was holding in his lap - this 'transcript' of Bill's - as he finally calmed down enough to finally be able to really begin to focus on them enough to read through them properly, tensing and grimacing every so often as he worked his way through reading them.

He only had half an inkling of why Stan might have wanted him to have a copy. If he'd had to make an educated guess, it was likely in part a sort of checking of where the lines currently stood with Cipher - how far Bill would let Stan 'push' him, for something that was clearly meant to benefit Ford in some way - (which was not something Ford would consider to be a good idea to try and check outright), and in other part a sort of… well, as far as Ford could tell, with the way Stan had tried to hand it to him, it was probably meant as...

...It hadn't been meant as a peace offering, but rather more of a datapoint. Stan had requested transcripts from Bill before, but Stan hadn't let anyone else see or read them before. Giving Ford one for the sole purpose of being able to read it himself presumably gave him the opportunity to see exactly what sort of information Bill had been giving Stan, and in exactly the form and format in which it was being presented to his brother.

Oddly enough, the pages were color-coded by the person that was speaking. It didn't make sense, until Ford realized that reading the lines of words meandering themselves up and down across the page was more like reading a music sheet than a transcript, with the way the overlapping conversations were being displayed at the same time...

And it truly was a straightforward transcript. There was no information inside it that related tone, facial expression, gesturing, relative-placement between the individuals, or any of their general behaviors. There was also enough overlap with what he had heard outside of the door for Ford to be able to note that it was missing general actions as well, such as the girls setting up their sleeping bags and similar.

It also had nothing about whatever thoughts they might have had inside their heads. This was all just the things said aloud during the various conversations. There was no context at all to be seen.

And while that was frustrating enough on its own Ford didn't quite understand the point of the inclusion of the rather pointless-looking 'bar' notation surrounding the various lines of text, either. It seemed to be just an odd set of nonsense lines added in as framing surrounding them top and bottom, in a weird sort of stylized-

Then Ford's brain caught up to him and he stopped for a moment and blinked. Because he'd thought 'weird'.

Ford glanced up at Stan.

"This is what Bill thinks is 'accurate to the very-best of his ability'?" It wasn't quite a rhetorical question; Ford knew Bill could do better than this, because Bill read people better than this. ...Which meant that he was missing something here.

Stan shrugged. "Kid wasn't lying. What's the problem?"

Ford grimaced as he flicked at the open pages in front of him in annoyance. "This is devoid of anything visual," he noted. And quite frankly, for something from Bill Cipher, Master of the Mind with an All-Seeing Eye, that was rather disturbing in and of itself.

Stan eyed him for a moment. "It's a transcript," he said neutrally. Stan didn't get what his brother's problem was there. Whole thing was written down on paper. How was that not 'visual'?

"Does Bill really only have the ability to record audio of all words and actions taken inside the Shack?" Ford said, looking up at Stan. (Ford already knew the answer to this, though: Bill did have the ability to pick up cross-spectrum visuals of all types, in the form of that suit that he was wearing. What Ford wanted to know right now was, was his own brother going to continue to keep stonewalling him over this, or-)

Stan shrugged. "Hey, you've seen a couple those crystal-listening things. We both know the kid's got audio around the place. Kid can't use his Seeing-eye or whatever with the barrier thing you've got around the Shack, even if I let him do his whole Weirdness-thing again, no strings attached. Pretty sure he can get visual one way or another though," Stan told him noncommittally, scratching his cheek. (He didn't want to put the idea out there that the kid could probably read the signal from whatever cameras Ford had up, even if the kid's suit wasn't picking up and recording whatever for him. Ford hadn't told him out on deck what the kid could grab with that suit of his, and the kid hadn't told him either, but it was clear that the kid had gotten what he and Miz had been saying to each other from that, at least.)

Ford gave his brother a long look.

Stan sighed. "Ford, what are you thinkin' is supposed to be in there that ain't there?" he tried next.

"Gestures?" Ford tried, feeling frustrated. "Tone, pitch, facial expressions, emotions - something," Ford noted with no small exasperation. It felt largely and frustratingly incomplete - something that was not least of which offset by the way the words were… drawn out across the page, as it were. In the same way that the 'measures' seemed to show who was talking over, or at the same time as, whom, the words and letters themselves were spaced out and drawn out, almost as if stretched across the page, in places. The 'beat' and rhythm of the words were there, but the tone of the words was-

He looked up at Stan in frustration for confirmation of this, because Stan understood theatricality, of the sort that Bill himself would and did like to use, and… Stan was looking at him almost puzzled for a moment.

And then Stan's face cleared and he leaned back in his chair and said, "Ford, flip to the last couple pages of that thing for a moment, willya?"

Ford frowned at his brother - not particularly liking the idea of skipping ahead in his reading at this stage - but he did so, and when he did...

...he had to stop and blink.

And Ford flipped back a few pages to the beginning of what looked like...

There was an appendix to the transcript. A very, very long appendix.

...Two appendices. It was almost something of a dictionary and a grammar-guide for how to read the document appropriately. It gave the color-codings and explicitly matched them to the person. It explained the horizontal spacing of the text in the context of timing in relation to syllable length of the words as-given. ...It also gave an explanation of the vertical spacing within the stylized 'bars' - which apparently included an indication of who was talking to whom by the spacing and groupings there, and also who was paying attention to whom during those conversations, with the thin lines of color that flickered up and down between the actual text when the individuals weren't talking.

And when he flipped to the next page and began to read the section on how to decode what he'd originally thought to be simply 'stylized bars', of the sort of over-the-top theatricality on the page distracting in the way it was offsetting what was truly important on the page for no apparent reason, of the same and rather usual sort of madness that Ford generally expected to see out of Bill visually as he talked...

"...This is…" It left Ford blinking slightly in shock. Because those bars… Bill had created a method for displaying effectively, via a written and almost music-score-like medium, something that would otherwise require a single good audio feed and a multitude of video feeds from several angles, to capture and display everything later to someone what was going on in a single room setting between a group of more than four people - since Bill had included himself, Dipper, and Ford in that transcript, along with the three girls and one demon. Those 'stylized bars' were an exact encoding of what Ford had thought was missing entirely from the 'score': the tone and pitch and 'expression' information were represented by the markings making up the top 'bar' above each grouping of text, while the physical actions and 'gestures' were given as part of the bottom 'bar' of the score. Ford hadn't quite picked up on any correlation with the text, because the bars had been written in greyscale, not color-coded themselves - but with the 'grammar' of the way the information was being shown in those top and bottom 'bars', it would have resulted in mixed shades of color (in potentially some rather awful color combinations) to try and track everything in that respect. There was a partial overlap of the greyscale markings between individuals due to said 'grammar' of the 'bar' structure, and…

...the arrangement on the page as a whole was far better than any purely static representation that Ford himself ever could have thought of.

But Ford did not say that aloud. Frankly, he didn't want to admit that. The fact that he was still being schooled by Bill on things at this late date…

But that didn't mean that Ford would refuse to read or use it, or that he was otherwise incapable of understanding it and doing so.

He worked his way through the grammar and vocabulary in the appendix that was describing the bars, as it became more and more dense to understand, and… Ford shook his head, and gave up a bit. He removed the appendix out of the back of the stack and spread out several of the pages out to his side, across the bed, for easy reference. (He knew he wasn't going to be able to memorize all aspects of this new 'language' in the span of only a few minutes; it only seemed to become more and more intricate and nuanced as it went. -There seemed to be base 'reactions' with modifiers on them, akin to describing 'anger' and then refining the explanation to 'annoyance' or 'rage' and describing the target as inward or outwardly defined; similar modifiers seemed to describe physical gestures and motions in terms of emphasis, negation, stress level, or some other 'subtext'ual 'flavor' of some sort - such as 'nervousness' or 'casual reflection'.)

Ford pulled up a leg onto the bed and shifted sideways, to turn towards the pages in front of him, to make it as easy as possible on himself - to be able to glance up to see his reference point, as it were, rather quickly as he read the rest of the transcript pages that he held in his lap - for as smooth and short of an interruption to his reading as possible.

Frankly, Ford didn't know why Bill had put this 'key' in the end-matter, rather than at the start of everything like he should have if he'd wanted anyone to understand what they were reading, but…

...well, it was just like Bill, though, wasn't it? Leaving the most-important things you needed know about everything until the very, very end when it was already far too late by far to…

Ford let out a huff, as he got down to his reading again - his re-reading, really. And as he did, this time as he read the transcript, he glanced up and back to double-check his understanding of what he was reading, for that potentially critical little bit more detail that he might need to truly assess the situation properly, as he went.

(It occurred to Ford absently as he went, to wonder if this was a representation that Bill actually used for himself, to try and characterize and understand all other people in the world around him, or if it was simply a method that Bill thought was most accurate when trying to write things in a human-readable format. Because if it was the former… well, Ford could potentially learn quite a lot if it was the former. But if it was the latter...)

(...well, it would still say quite a lot about what Bill thought of humans and how they communicated with each other; how Bill thought he needed to communicate to humans, when he was trying to be accurate about things, 'to the very-best of his ability'.)

(Bill had been oddly musical at times, long ago - and over the years, over and over again - and, admittedly, sometimes still, even now. Ford had commented on it absently at times before... the portal incident... and Bill had never really given him a straight answer on his own preferences, when it came to music. He'd always seemed to talk around the subject a bit, talking about other human composers, other human works, and generally otherwise being a good bit distracting on the subject. He always put it in human context; he had dropped the barest of hints and little factoids at times about what music was like in other dimensions. But Bill never really talked about it in great detail, and he'd never really talked about it in relationship to himself. Not really. Not as anything more than a throwaway comment.)

(But Bill could play the piano. Bill talked about singing sometimes. Bill had once said that music had come before language for humans - in what Ford thought of as language, anyway. Bill had, during one conversation that had ended up, in Ford's opinion, going quite literally nowhere, insisted that music was language, and human language was music, and that Ford should stop being such a stick-in-the-mud about something-or-another that they'd been discussing in detail at the time.)

(...And if this representation was any indication of it, Bill certainly had found a way to represent human language as something almost music-like at some point. He was clearly trying to make a point, his point, all over again, about human language being always and nothing more than another kind of music, Sixer, get with the program here and sing a few bars with me, yeah? Don't be shy! Just try and BELT OUT a few notes with me here, and MAYBE you'll understand-!)

(...But Bill was just finding another way to lie by leaving things out here, too. Wasn't he? Because in all his thirty years out there in the multiverse, on the other side of that portal, the amount of music that Ford had encountered had been all and almost nothing but... flat. -Ford had, once upon a time, looked up several studies at Bill's urging, on the impact of music on brainwave function, among other things, and Ford could admit that there were some oddities there. But the idea that humans largely thought in music still felt almost foreign to him, even as he couldn't explain why the rest of the multiverse was so very unmusical itself. Why what little rhythm and beat that he'd heard out there just didn't seem to be very catchy. Why the species that seemed to do even that much seemed to be the ones he'd always found easiest to talk to, and the others that were the most logical - who should have been easiest to carry a conversation with, by comparison, had always seemed to be the hardest to communicate with instead. Why humming to himself sometimes as he worked, or waited, or drew a picture in his latest journal, just made whatever species that was nearby him turn and look at him oddly, like they were trying to parse what he must be trying to say. And Ford had never quite figured out if his universal translator had just not been working during those moments, or if it had been malfunctioning somehow, but...)

(...Ford frowned to himself. Because he was going to have to bring this up with Bill eventually, and… he wasn't particularly looking forward to that.)

Stan watched his brother frown, and read, and frown some more for awhile, then Stan let out a soft sigh that was almost a grunt and looked down at his crossword puzzle. Page was almost swimming on him at this point; he flipped it closed and stowed it away, just crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair where he was sitting at Ford's desk, facing him.

(If he closed his eyes and fell asleep, that probably wouldn't be so bad. He'd slept in worse places, in chairs a lot less comfortable than this wooden one.)

Ford continued reading, and checking the appendices that had been included, and reading some more as he went, until he finally caught up to where he'd been reading again, and moved beyond and past it.

Ford grimaced as he read about the man-eater's mention of her powers 'just doing things outside her control' whenever she lost control. -He'd never really understood why some demons seemed to insist on pushing themselves to a point where their 'powers' outstripped their ability to control said 'powers' and abilities - or why some of them seemed to actively pursue chaotic powers that were almost random in effect, almost as likely to make things worse for them than better. As far as he'd been able to determine, those sorts of demons were either incredibly stupid, or simply wanted to make things more difficult for themselves (and for others) almost deliberately, as they played innocent about all the problems they were causing all the while. ...Clearly the man-eater must be one of the latter of these two; Bill had little to no patience for the former.

Ford frowned to himself over this, though. Miz didn't seem the standard type of the latter set, despite this; most of the time, what the man-eater tried to do with her powers was what she wanted to have actually happen and was actually able to enact upon the world around her, largely with impunity, as far as he'd been able to tell. He continued on, brushing that matter aside for the moment - whatever it was, she clearly had to be fooling Bill in some aspect over it. Asking after Bill's help for more control was bad enough; the idea of the man-eater potentially actually getting Bill's help on things beyond what she'd needed for her 'empathetic' emotion-'hearing' issue was the stuff of nightmares. Whatever else she might say that she was wanting 'help' from Bill on, was likely just the start of a long line of false plays for sympathy. ...And yet Ford couldn't imagine anyone, demon or person, putting themselves in that sort of danger - leaving themselves at the whims of an uncontrolled emotion-sensing ability - just to try and get themselves an 'in' with Bill Cipher. Bill could have just as likely turned the man-eater down, laughing at the man-eater for her stupidity all the while, or otherwise exploited it-

...except…

Even Bill knew, and had known, and had reacted with horror at the very thought of her being in those dire-straits himself…

...and Ford had felt absolutely certain that Bill would react that negatively upon hearing that, even though he'd had no evidence of that before. He'd known Bill would not be happy about that, and would at the very least not stop anyone from trying to fix it. Even though Bill was… Bill, and Bill...

Ford shook his head, and forced himself to continue, deciding that he would at least get himself to the point at which the transcript began to cover that which had come up at the kitchen table earlier that night before he tried to go to sleep, what had been discussed between the man-eater and Mabel that had supposedly led to Mabel telling the man-eater what to say to him next. Ford was tired, and he wanted to get through this transcript enough that he could finish this conversation with Stanley, and then finally go to sleep...

Axolotl help him, he actually wanted to fall asleep right now, he was dead tired...

So Ford continued to read. And read. And read.

And when Ford finally got to the part of Mabel and Miz's conversation that they'd all been referring to at the dinner table earlier…

...Ford simply shook his head, as he turned to the next page and read onwards. -It meant nothing, the man-eater was still just as bad, no matter what she had said.

And, having gotten this far and having become more used to how to read this 'musical score' of text finally, he decided he might as well continue on with his reading until the end. He was nearly at the end of it as it was. And he'd have to read it all sooner or later anyway, wouldn't he? And for all he knew, the subject might have come up between Mabel and the man-eater multiple times over the course of that night. The man-eater had certainly repeated herself on multiple occasions before this point. So it would be better if he read the rest of it now, before handing it back to Stanley.

Ford turned another page, and upon reading the man-eater's apparent claim that 'he liked her lies more', he shook his head and grimaced again. The utter audacity of her to suggest that was-! And the fact that she'd done it right in front of Bill Cipher, no less!...

But that wasn't enough to stop Ford from reading any further in absolute disgust, and so Ford continued to read on.

And then… Ford read something and froze in place, his heart beating a mile a minute with a feeling of dread as he had to stop, take a shallow breath, and reread it, because...

-that couldn't be right. That had to be a lie. It couldn't-

Stan heard a sharp intake of breath, and he grimaced grumpily and raised his head (hell, he'd nearly dozed off for a second there…). And when Stan looked over, he saw that Ford went really damn pale at something he was reading, and-

Stan pulled in a slow breath himself. He'd moved over to the chair at the desk a bit farther away from Ford a good while ago to give him (them both) some space as he read, instead of sittin' at his shoulder, breathing down his neck. But now he was startin' to wish that he hadn't, because bein' halfway across the room from him meant he didn't know why his brother was actin' that way from what he'd been reading, and…

"...Ford?" Stan tried, sitting up a bit, as his brother kept not getting any less pale on him, just kept on starin' down at those pages. And Stan didn't get what was goin' that wrong over there. He hadn't thought that there was anythin' in there that would be a problem for Ford to go off reading. (...So what had he missed and gotten all wrong this time? Had the kid known? Was that why he'd looked at Ford like that when Stan had said-? No. No. Like hell. The demon didn't know his own brother better than he did. Hell no.)

"Ford, what's the problem," Stan asked of him directly, in his usual tones of gravel, and this time...

"...Would the anchor burn you if we tried the circle?" Ford asked of him quietly, not looking up from the pages in front of him. He didn't want to believe it; it was clearly another of the man-eater's lies - one that would make any one of them not want to even contemplate the apparent risk of performing the circle - but…

The idea, the very possibility, of Stanley potentially getting hurt or killed by the use of the circle in the process of destroying the demon for good, was not something that Ford could just let go of. He would not, could not, simply ignore something like that. Ford simply could not discount, ignore, or refuse to think about such a possibility once-voiced, in the hopes that he could leave the reality of the whole thing to chance. Because that would be what it would be at this point; blind chance. Because the idea of wagering Stan's life on the blind hope (and unconfirmed fact) that the demon simply must have lied to Mabel about this…

(...and then further tricked Bill(?!) into thinking that she hadn't been lying when she'd said that, sight and evidence of the truth of any of that yet-still unseen…?)

Ford shook himself, trying to make sense of his own racing thoughts, of the roiling mix of feelings that were slowly turning into a hard knot just under his breastbone, making it a bit difficult for him to breathe; it felt like there was a mess of strings tangling and pulling themselves harder and closer and harder together inside his chest, as they rolled and jerked themselves around uncontrollably this way and that, as they went.

-And it didn't help that Ford had no idea how the anchor worked, or why or how Stan had it in the first place, or what it even looked like - because Stanley still wouldn't let him look at whatever the thing looked like on Bill Cipher's back, wouldn't force Bill to expose it, and-

...Except he couldn't say that he didn't know how Stan had gotten that anchor the man-eater had been talking about anymore, now, could he. Not if the man-eater wasn't lying about...

'-his twin burned that anchor into him during a fight-' - '-if that Stanford attempts to brand the anchor onto any of you-'

He didn't want to ask. He really didn't want to ask.

He'd already asked, and Stan wasn't answering him.

The paper in Ford's lap began to crinkle under the pressure being exerted by his hands...

He really, truly, did not want to ask. But...

...This was important, critical, crucial information to know. And Ford could not leave this to chance.

Which meant…

"Stan, how did you get the anchor you have…" oh, it hurt to say it, "in common with Bill?" he asked of his brother quite quietly. And he very carefully left off the 'do you know?' that should have gone at the end of it. He didn't want to give his brother the out. Because if Stan didn't know...

-if Stan didn't remember, because of that damn memory gun-

...Except he did know. Of course he knew. Of course Stan did know about it; Dipper had talked about that tattoo on Stan's back, and Stan could have shown it to him, to any of them, at any time - no matter how reticent Bill himself was being on the matter - but Stan hadn't done that. Stan hadn't. He just hadn't. Stan had never even offered, not once, to show it to him, and-

"It's not important," Stan said to him gruffly, finally. Except that it was important. It was. It was, and...

-His brother didn't sound confused about it, what they both were talking about here, and he wasn't trying to play dumb with him, on this, now. Stan hadn't been surprised about it, either; when Dipper had first brought it up, when Bill Cipher had first started yelling at them all about all of it, Stan hadn't been surprised. Not when Stan had heard about it out on that porch from Dipper, after all that come before; not when Bill had started yelling about how Ford himself didn't know what he was talking about; no, Stan hadn't been surprised at all about any of it, no, not really.

'-Kid, I don't really wanna know, but I gotta ask: is that thing you've got all down your back screwing with your brain anywhere near as badly as that deal you had with Ford?-'

Stan hadn't been surprised. He hadn't even been shocked, when Dipper had brought it all up, right then and there, out on the porch there that day. No, Stan had just taken it all in stride; he'd been calm about it. Dipper had seen it before; he'd told Ford much later when he'd seen it - during some apparent seizure Bill had been having in the bathtub - and when Stan had apparently gone upstairs and retrieved Bill- ...Stan had seen it all before, weeks ago, too, and that meant that...

-Ford wasn't stupid. He dropped the 'transcript' onto the bed, scattering loose papers at his side, and stood up.

"Show me your shoulder, Stan," he said quietly, and with the way Stan immediately stood up and bristled, the way Stan's hands clenched into fists that weren't even staying completely at his sides, with the way his brother's shoulders came up-

"You've never let me see your back," Ford added, just as quietly as before, looking at him straight-on. "Not on the boat; not even in the Fearamid, when we were both changing our clothes." Stan had even - instinctively - not turned his back on him or the niblings, when they'd been helping him change back into his own clothes after they'd found him again after everything was over and done with, in the woods… "You've never let me see your back, not even once, since I've been back home again in this dimension." And yes, Ford was already feeling the warning of the coming storm between them, but he couldn't just let-

"-You never let me see your neck when you're changin' clothes, or putting on a new turtleneck," Stan tossed out there right back - which was a bit of a low blow, but Ford took the hit - and moved with it - and then Ford went even lower. Because now...

"Dipper told me once that you claim that you don't have a tattoo on your back, but that's incorrect." And now Ford knew "He misspoke, didn't he," Ford asked of his brother, and you weren't lying. And Ford was barely able to pull in his next breath, before he said, and had to say - it was hard, trying to plough right through it all, saying, "It's not a tattoo, and it's not on your back; it's on your shoul-"

Ford was flat on his back on the bed within the span of a second - less than a breath - less than the space of a thought - papers fluttering all around him, half-forgotten in the rush and reaction of it all, and-

Ford was looking up at Stan who was in-turn looming down over him from above. Stan's hands were shoving down on him at his shoulders from above with most of Stan's weight, and- Ford didn't even let himself fight it, hands at and away slightly from his sides. He could have fought it; Stan just wasn't as fast as him anymore, by comparison, and while they were likely at equal-odds when it came to strength, Stan was nowhere close to him when it came to leverage and technique. But Ford didn't do that. He didn't fight it.

He didn't deserve to fight it.

He somewhat expected Stan to toss a punch at his face next, to yell something or another out at him angrily for bringing it up to begin with, when he so clearly did not want to talk about any of it, to… Ford expected Stan to do something like that, to get in a fight with him over it, for bringing that up, how Ford had hurt him when it hadn't been the least bit deserved in any way...

That was exactly what Ford expected to have happen next. And then maybe they could begin to talk about it, once all that old poisonous and rightly-deserved anger was spewed out at him, after.

What Ford hadn't expected was what actually happened next. Not what happened instead. Because Ford hadn't expected to see the look he was now seeing on Stan's face - as it finally registered with him, and Ford grew quiet as it did so. As he realized that…

Ford never could, never would have expected to see that look on his brother's face next, in response to his words, nor to hear him say-

"-Don't act like you're sorry about it," Stan ground out at him, quietly, in low tones that weren't just made of gravel, they were so very much worse.

And Ford opened his mouth to say just that. To say that, and to protest. To say, 'but I am sorry, it was an accident-'

But he didn't say that before he stopped himself from saying it; Ford stopped right at the edge of the cliff-face of doing so, at the feeling of ash that spread over his tongue as the thought of saying that, just that, had him realizing…

Ford stopped, as he realized what he'd just been about to say to his brother. What he'd just been about to call what he had done to him. To him. What he had been just about to say to his brother, to him, after forty years of-

"I didn't mean to-" do it, was what Ford started to say instead, as he stared up at his brother above him almost helplessly - because what else could he say, really? It was all he could say without making himself into the very-worst of hypocrites left alive to still be drawing breath-

-but even that was apparently wrong, too.

Because Ford felt himself lifted and slammed back down into the mattress and loose papers scattered and scattering under his back in short order, and it left him almost breathless in shock. Because Stan's hands were in fists in the front of his shirt, now, and his grip was almost punishing, and the way he was looking at him now was-

"-Don't lie about it, damn you!" his brother told him in shaky and angry, oh so very angry, tones. Stan's eyes were blazing with it, as he- "You heard me scream, and you shoved me into it even harder!"

And at his brother's words, screamed down at him under his breath because Stan didn't want to risk waking the niblings, oh god, he didn't want them to know that- that he'd- everything inside of Ford's head zeroed out to a white-noise sort of static null, as he stared up at his brother's angry, terrified, twisted and hurt face. Because he couldn't- he didn't-

"I- I didn't-" Ford stammered out, barely able to hear himself over the pounding of his own heartbeat in his own ears, and he felt the fists caught up in his shirt tighten even further. "I- I didn't mean to do it, I- I-" Ford stammered out as he stared up at his brother. And Ford felt his breath going thready on him, felt like reality was slipping sideways underneath and around him, as the look his brother was giving him only got angrier still. "I- I didn't actually do that, did I? I- I- couldn't have," Ford stammered out next, in nothing but shock and a terrible confusion, but the look on Stan's face wasn't changing any, only growing more and more angrier as he talked if it was changing at all, and-

No. No. -No.

"I- I didn't, did I?" Ford was starting to feel both anxious and scared if not utterly terrified outright, because he couldn't have, could he? He couldn't have- because- because- "I-"

(He had been sleep-deprived for weeks.)

"-I didn't-"

(He barely remembered half of what he'd said to Stan in the portal room, before they'd fought.)

"-I didn't do that to you, did I?!" Ford said, voice rising at the end there, in panic (and his eyes began to tear up).

"You shoved me into that panel," Stan said to him in tones of terrible anger, voice shaking as he- "-and you held me there with your foot until I couldn't-" Stan told him, and then had to stop telling him, in those same, horrible, shaking and terribly-angry tones, fists in his shirt shaking - Stan was shuddering at the memory of it, even now - and Ford- no- he couldn't- he couldn't-

-he couldn't have done that-

"I- I can't remember doing that-" Ford told him, blurted out at him, as he racked his brain, trying to- (no, he hadn't meant to) trying to at least remember- (he couldn't have, could he?) to do Stanley at least the courtesy of remembering- (but he couldn't) because he couldn't remember- and (oh, please, Stan, he had to believe him) he hadn't meant to- (he truly hadn't meant to) because he'd thought- he hadn't- but Ford- he- "I- I hadn't slept for- weeks…?"

(But Ford couldn't remember how long he'd been without sleep anymore, if he'd even known it himself at the time; all he really remembered was everything just… starting to blur together into one long frantic terror-filled stream of panic and paranoia, and a loss of almost all sense of the passage of time, despite all his efforts to the contrary, in order to make sure that he knew he could stay awake, he'd had to stay awake, and-)

"I- I remember we were fighting, and-" Ford couldn't help but flinch as he had to admit, "I- I remember kicking you up against… against the side of- of... the… p-p-" and he ran out of breath, and he shuddered. "B-but I remember you screaming and… I remember letting go," Ford told him in sheer desperation, "I- I thought I pulled back and let go-" he told his brother, begging, pleading with him, because he- he couldn't have pushed him into it instead, could he? He- He couldn't have-! -No. No. Please, no-

(And it was only later, much later, the next morning, that it would occur to Ford Pines to wonder, if this was part of the reason why his brother seemed to have thought that Ford didn't love him.)

And Stan stared down at his brother in confused and angry disbelief, as Ford shook his head from side to side at him, looking him right in the eye as he said - as he choked out at him - "I didn't mean to, Stan, I'm sorry-" as tears overflowed and dripped out of Ford's eyes, cascading down the sides of his face, as his brother looked up at him, both sorry and scared, halfway to sobbing, and...

And Stan didn't get it. He just didn't get it. Because he remembered what he remembered, and… and Ford remembered what he remembered, too. Because Stan could tell that Ford wasn't lying...

Stan remembered that fight. (How could he not?) He remembered nearly getting Ford in a headlock at one point. ...He remembered Ford cheating, even though you never can cheat in a brawl - because in a knock-down drag-out fight like that one had been, anything goes.

He remembered Ford managing to trip him the fuck up, like the fuck up that he was (and still-is, really). Stan remembered getting that boot heel to his shoulder, and his shoulder to that burning hot panel behind him. Oh, how he remembered that one. ...And he remembered Ford's face, too, as he'd held - pushed and held, and held, AND HELD - him up against that white-hot thing of nothing but pain behind him - not a rictus grin of 'I've got you, I've won' writ large across his face, but simply a dagger-eyed and grimacing thin-lipped smile that said the exact same thing, only worse - as Ford had pushed and held him up against that white-hot panel, until Stan had run out of breath screaming. Until Stan just couldn't scream anymore. Until he couldn't even pull in another breath past the pain-

"Oh Axolotl, that panel was over 300 degrees, the portal was on fully," he heard his brother whisper out next, in tones of absolute and completely-shocked horror, pale as anything…

...and it was official, Stan felt like he was in the fucking twilight zone, here. He could only stare down at Ford, the anger slowly draining out of him (whether he wanted it to or not...) as he saw his brother's eyes go slightly unfocused, sliding away from his face, staring sightlessly at a point over his shoulder, lost in his own head again, and…

...Stan lost the last of the anger he'd held onto completely, as he heard Ford say next, in tones that only got more and more horrified as he went, "That would have gone and- and burned straight through your jacket, y-you-" and when Ford started clutching at his lower arms and wrists almost frantically, seeming to finally start to come out of it, coming back to himself, looking up at Stan again and saying, "Stan, you-" and then reaching up for him, for his face, looking all concerned and all scared for him like he just hadn't before, not even a little bit then, only now.

Now, after all of thirty years later and forty years gone, and everything else in-between, his own brother was lookin' up at him now, right here and now, like that-

-Stan couldn't do this. He just… couldn't do this. (He was an old man now, and he just didn't have the energy for any of this. Not all of this. No. Not anymore.)

So Stan twisted himself sideways and let gravity take him. He dropped himself down onto the bed at Ford's side, and rolled himself over onto his back right there from sideways, ignoring the papers he was crumpling under him as he went, ignoring Ford's stupid too-late concern for anything at all to do with him, and just ignoring everything stupid old broken shoulder with its 'not a tattoo' on it be damned for everything, should just keep on staying hidden like the damn stupid thing should have from the start and end of things, really, forever.

Last thing Stan had ever wanted to risk was Ford getting one good look at it sometime, and then getting a good look at Ford doing it. Because Stan hadn't wanted to know… he hadn't wanted to see, to risk seeing Ford maybe, just maybe, looking on at it and recognizing it and then looking at it smugly. Because Stan had been afraid that Ford would look on at that thing, that Stan had gotten - that he'd had branded onto him by Ford himself - on the very worst day of his life... and Stan had been afraid that Ford would've maybe looked at it, and then him, and Stan would've seen him looking all proud at how he'd finally gotten one over on his brother for once in a fight, if only for a little while that one day. Until Stan had pushed him all unthinking and not realizing into that portal, and then...

If Ford had ever looked at him like that again, over that of all things...

But now… Stan couldn't even think of his brother ever going off and doing… that… not when he was reacting like this to the thought of him… getting hurt like that, way back when - when they'd been mad and fighting with each other, even - and...

The damn demon couldn't know his own brother better than he did, he just couldn't-

There was somethin' really wrong here, but Stan couldn't… he just couldn't...

(But Stan did eventually. He did. And once Stan had realized what it was that was wrong, much later, he'd cursed up a storm about it all.)

(Not in front of the kids or his brother or his twin, but he did it. Because Ford had been right, and the kid was-)

(He hated that he hadn't caught it sooner. He hated that he'd let it go, when Ford had thought it was important, known that it was so important. He should have listened to his brother. ...He should have said 'damn it all' and forced it out of the damn dragon-lady while she'd been there; she'd almost spilled the beans on the demon-kid more times than Stan could count in retrospect, damn it...)

"...Stan?" he heard come from his left quietly, almost wetly, because his brother was still crying about something he'd done to him over thirty years ago, and Stan had been the one to push him into the damn portal, not… this… this…

-This was just so goddamn wrong.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Stan told his brother rather bleakly, raising his hands to cover over his own face, under his stupid old-man glasses, ignoring the crinkling sounds coming from the papers beneath him all the while.

"I'm sorry," Ford whispered out at him again, and to this, all Stan could do was breathe; all Stan could give him back was silence. Not because he didn't know how to forgive, but because… Stan had been angry. So angry. And he'd gotten into a fight with his brother. And he'd gotten hurt, yeah, but his brother had gotten pushed into a freaking portal and lost thirty years of his life for no damn good reason because of him next.

And Ford hadn't deserved that at all. No matter what.

'Sorry' wasn't even on the fucking table here. Stan wasn't the one who deserved an apology here - when it came to what had happened with the portal, the stupid shoulder-burn shit didn't even rate. The only reason he'd even thought of it now, was because of this whole stupid mess with the demon-kid, and Ford bringing it up with him now, forcing him to talk about it now, when he was so freaking tired he couldn't even think straight anymore, let alone see straight with his glasses on, and Ford-

"...I'm sorry, too," Stan tried out, because what the fuck else was he supposed to say to him, anyway? Making his brother cry all over again, damnit. Some brother he was, making his own brother cry.

And Stan felt Ford reaching for him, felt his brother's fingers slowly, gently, tentatively, barely take hold of the smallest bit of his left shirtsleeve, up near the shoulder - tentatively, like Ford was almost afraid to touch him. Like Ford was expecting to take a hit for even attempting, for it. But that wasn't what Stan did, that was-

And Stan could still hear him crying, the way Ford's breaths were going, all uneven and hitched and all shaky and junk like that.

And Stan sighed out almost a groan, face still covered by his hands. -This, this was why he hadn't wanted to talk about it, ever. This. This right here.

Though… now Stan wasn't even sure anymore about what was happening with Ford. About what was happening right now. About what had happened back then. About any of it. ...Was he misremembering? Or was Ford… Stan didn't even know what to think anymore. All he knew was that he wanted to... what he wanted to do right now was...

...he wanted to comfort his brother. If his brother would even let him do it. So Stan let out a breath, rolled back over onto his side to face him, and before Ford could pull away from him or do anything else about it, Stan brought his right hand up, grabbed up the hand that Ford had been using to hold onto him, and entwined his fingers in Ford's. And they fit.

Ford blinked at him a little, still wet-eyed and looking more than a little miserable, and he pulled inward on himself a bit, curling up into a little more of a ball. ...Ford also pulled in a little closer to Stan as he did it.

Stan let his brother get resituated on the bed first. He waited. And then Stan shifted himself in a little closer next, putting his forehead next to Ford's. Closed his eyes and touched his brother, forehead to forehead, hand-in-hand.

They'd done stuff like this when Ford was really little, after a bad day when Ford had just gotten too upset to even speak about anything through his hiccuping breaths. But they'd stopped doing this sort of thing ages ago; Ford had grown out of it. He'd hated it when Stan had tried to, still… He'd acted like Stan was coddling him, babying him or making fun of him or something - said-so and gotten mad at him for it, told him to stop doing that, to stop treating like he was being so weak - smacked his hands away from him, turned his back on him, tried to kick out, to kick him out of his part of the bunk-bed, to just 'get away' from him, to 'leave him alone', and just...

He heard Ford's breath hitch when their foreheads touched, but instead of Ford jerking away or slapping at him like Stan had thought he definitely would might? Ford just shoved himself in a little closer instead, almost butting heads with him doing it, tucking his head under Stan's own as he practically curled up against Stan's chest, in his arms.

Stan let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Because… Ford should've slapped him right there for doing it. Pushed him away, turned away, yelled at him for it; all the rest of it for doing this, what he was doin' right here and now. But Ford didn't. This wasn't just a thing Ford was letting him do because Ford felt so bad he wasn't gonna say 'no' to him, anymore, was it. This was… something else. Because, with the way Ford was acting now about burning him, which shouldn't even rate… Something had drastically changed with his brother at some point on the other side of that portal, and...

He heard Ford's voice, muffled into his neck almost, from under his chin, say, "I- I didn't mean to hurt you, Stan. I didn't mean to- to-" He felt his brother shudder. "I-"

"Ford, it ain't about that," Stan told him tiredly. "I ain't mad at you about that." Well, he had been, kinda. But not anymore. And it had been more about what he'd thought Ford would think about the burn still being there, anyway. Not-

"It's just that…" Stan began next, roughly, but then he trailed off as he realized something was up with his brother again. Because he felt his brother stop, literally go completely still for a moment, not even breathing. And then Stan heard his brother say something that confused him for a long freaking moment (because what the hell?), in absolute tones of a very different sort of horror as Ford said...

"I'd never do anything to the kids like that, you have to know that-" Stan heard his brother say next, and what… oh. Oh. ...Oh hell, it got even worse, and-

Stan just shoved his other arm up and slid his left hand under his brother's head. Ruffling his hair a little bit after he did that. (He had no idea how or where Ford had gotten the idea that…)

"-I know that, Ford. Hell," he told his scared, hurt, teary, and all too-tired brother, and weren't they just a pair of stupid old men laying right here, on a bed that was supposed to be meant for sleepin' on, not cryin' on, right now? "I know. Shh," he told his brother, who was starting to shake, starting to cry again, face screwed up in a terrified grimace of purely emotional pain. "I know you'd never do that to them, Ford. I know."

And as Stan said that, and kept on stroking his brother's head, trying to calm him down again and get him up off of that ledge (what the hell, why would Ford think any of them would ever think that he would do that?), Stan kept his sigh to himself. Because yeah, Stan had read that part of the dragon-lady's rant from the transcript earlier, too. And Stan was slowly remembering it now. That 'making more of them' anchors thing, and all that. But Ford had to know better by now, right? The demon-kid had said he'd thought Ford would hurt the kids if he knew that they knew about Miz being a 'Bill Cipher' and getting along with her, kinda - just like the kid had thought, and kept on thinking, that Ford was liable to hurt the niblings at one point or another, with the whole agreement that Stan was trying to balance out between them all just then. But Stan and the niblings - and Ford himself - had proved the kid wrong twice on that already, and Stan and the kids had backed him up. None of them had ever really thought Ford capable of even doing that. They'd talked that all out before; Ford had to know that now, right?

Hell, did Ford really think that when she'd said that she thought Ford would try and make more, that any of them would actually fall for that baloney, and believe it? (Damnit. With the way Ford was actin' all upset and scared over it still, it kind of looked like maybe his brother did. Damnit, Ford...)

...Hell, now that he was thinkin' about it, did the dragon-lady demon actually think that Ford would try to make more? Or had she just been screwing with Ford again on purpose by proxy, by telling Mabel that, trying to convince their niece that… Stan clenched his jaw a little.

The demon-kid getting it wrong was one thing, but Miz knew humans better than that. Miz had to know better. Which meant Miz had brought it up on purpose to Mabel for some reason, and Mabel... Had Miz been setting them all up for this whole mess, and another Ford breakdown? Or trying to make that happen? ...Because it would've come up eventually, after Miz had told Mabel; Mabel would've brought it up with all of them at some point - to Dipper or Stan if nobody else, and maybe Ford wouldn't've heard it, but…

Had Miz been trying to make Stan and his brother fight over this thing? By bringing it up? By talking about the anchor, talking about his 'tattoo', to put the thought out there for someone else to pick up? ...Stan didn't think so, because if he'd read that thing right, Miz hadn't started that one off; the Northwest girl had been the one to first bring it all up, during that whole conversation there. And when the dragon-lady got angry about stuff - and she'd been angry about this, about his burn - she almost never thought things through; Stan was pretty sure about that...

...so this was probably some kinda drive-by making a fight happen on the dragon-lady's part, probably not something that Miz had sneakily planned out in advance to make sure it happened somehow.

As Stan let out a breath, and kept trying to calm down his brother, he felt frustrated in general. He didn't get why Ford was acting this way about him getting hurt now, and he didn't really get why Miz had gotten angry about what had happened to him, either, getting burned like that. Ford was a freaking mystery, right here and now, and Miz… was actually easier to figure out than his own brother was, right now. Because yeah, Miz seemed to think that siblings shouldn't… what, fight with each other? But that wasn't how stuff actually worked, and she should've known that; she had to know that. -She'd had sisters, she must've fought with 'em sometimes... And if she was mad about them fighting, she should've been more mad about Ford ending up through the portal, out of everything, not him - because that was way worse.

And Stan didn't get why the kid had thought his sister wasn't lying over that one, either. Because for the kid, saying he didn't think somebody was lying and leaving it all at that? That was practically a seal of approval right there. ...Unless when the kid had said 'accurate', he'd only been talking about the transcript there, and not the 'not lying' stuff. ...Shit. Kid had talked about 'in' and 'on' the transcript, but not answered the 'on' question at all, and Stan hadn't caught the demon-kid on it. He hadn't thought of it then, but maybe the demon-kid hadn't actually seen what Miz was talking about because he couldn't right now, to check it and know whether or not it was 'accurate'. 'To the very-best of his ability' was one thing, but if the kid didn't actually have the 'ability' to do that currently - and he might not right now, because Stan was still holding on to all that weirdness, and he wasn't so sure the kid was actually able to use 'his eye' or whatever like he usually did, when Stan was doing that...

(Much later the next morning, after several naps and more time and a chance to understand Miz's twisty demon thought processes, it finally occurred to Stan - once he really thought about it again - that… the dragon-lady had to have known that Ford hadn't actually known anything about what the anchor was when she'd first brought it up with Mabel that night. Miz had said 'If Ford tried doing that' after knowing about it, she'd go bonkers then. So… she had been messing with them, at least a little. She'd known Ford wouldn't do that to the niblings, once he knew what the anchor actually was and how Stan had gotten it; that had been an 'if' there, not a 'when'. That been some sort of test, with Mabel and Ford, like that stupid anime-showing thing had been a test and a show she'd tried to put on with Bill and him, too. ...And Stan was going to have a hell of a lot to say to her about this one, oh was he ever. He'd told her not to mess with them, either of the niblings or Ford. Especially Ford. -And what did she go out of her way to do next? Hell, no. She wasn't gonna get out of some serious penalty-consequences on this one, this time. Not this time. And it didn't take Stan very long to think of the perfect penalty for the dragon-lady demon for pulling this, either...)

Stan wanted to get up and stomp his way upstairs, all the way up to the attic, to wake the kid up and demand that the kid come downstairs and set the record straight on whatever those other dimensions and other-thems were that Miz had apparently Seen doing a bunch of bullshit stuff, that she'd been oh-so-happy to go off talking all about; Stan figured having the kid do that for him might actually help calm Ford down a hell of a lot faster than just letting him spin on the idea himself for all night. But had the kid seen them too? Did the kid know what Miz had been talking about? (He sure as hell hadn't said anything to Stan about it, if he had.) ...But it was late, there were too many things to think about, and Stan was too tired for all of this, and then some. He wasn't gonna get up and leave his brother alone to try and chase down the kid upstairs right now; he wasn't even sure if he was gonna be up for that tomorrow. And waking the kid up to talk at Ford wasn't gonna go well; the kid got cranky at that kind of shit, and Stan knew it. Which meant that was out; that just wasn't happening, because Stan wasn't about to risk the demon-kid making things any worse when Ford was this upset and hurt like he was all right now...

So Stan let Ford curl in close to him as he cried. He eventually shoved his arm in more, giving up on trying to stroke Ford's head, to instead wrap his arm around Ford's shoulder and pull him in close to get more of a hug going, instead. ...Damnit, he was too tired for this shit. Stan relaxed (with great effort) into the embrace, and resolved to get some sleep. Ford's tears were soaking into his shirt even as Stan's face remained dry, but at least he was crying less than he had been before. Ford wasn't actually doing that whole sobbing his heart out like everything was hurting and pain, anymore.

And eventually, Ford fell asleep in his arms, hand still held in Stan's. And shortly after that, Stan, too tired to even think straight anymore long-since, finally let himself fall asleep too.

Breakfast the next morning was somewhat subdued, likely because - by some miracle of having enough self-preservation between the two of them, and at least one of them able to think far enough ahead that said demon had decided to scan everybody in the Shack first before coming downstairs with his demonic sister, to know that Stanley was both sleep-deprived and in a god-awful mood that morning - the two demons had both decided to skip out on eating breakfast with the rest of them in the kitchen that day.

Ford was grateful for this chance to compose himself.

Stan, on the other hand, was still trying to get his bearings with his brother again, after last night.

Ford kept sending him looks all morning long, and Stan was ignoring him. Mostly. Kind of. Because Stan didn't want to talk about it any more than they already had. Not one bit. (Hell, if he'd known his brother was gonna react that way to it, he would have ripped that part outta the transcript himself. He hadn't known Ford would actually… y'know, give a damn about it. Not in a freaking out on him kinda way. The very first damn thing Ford had asked about that anchor before everything had gone over ten kinds of wrong had been if Stan knew if it'd burn him if they did the circle, and Ford had been pale as anything when he'd asked it. Which, y'know, Stan hadn't exactly been expecting. Ford had been okay with pulling the trigger on him before when they'd needed to do it; so he should've been fine with doin' it again this time too, right? Not like Stan wouldn't be okay with burning inside some fire again, if they had to get rid of the demon again and that was the only way that they could do it. He'd already burned away inside his own mind once; if this circle-thing would actually work, if shit came down to it, then...)

(Stan wasn't stupid, though. He knew that the circle-thing wouldn't actually work, even if they did manage to find a way to pull it off without the demon-kid stopping them first, at some point or another. Kid hadn't been worried about the circle before when they'd all been together in that Fearamid-thing of his, and the kid still wasn't worried about it now. Before, while the deal with Ford was still on, maybe the kid might've been fooling himself at least a little bit on whether or not 'his friend Ford' would actually follow through on it or not, but now? Ford's deal was off, and the kid knew damn well where Stan's line was on all of this shit, now - he knew damn well that Stan was willing and going to try to take him out again the second he messed with his family again, the very second that he did it. And that meant, for all the reasons Stan had gone through with his brother before, that...)

Stan blew out a grumbling breath and scratched at his cheek. ...Hell. If Ford had just tracked down those lousy cultists that first week like he'd told him to, like he'd said he was gonna…

...No. Stan didn't want to get into that with his brother right now again, either. Dredging up all this stupid shit that nobody would do anything about; how was that supposed to help any one of them even a little bit right now, huh? -The thing was, it didn't.

Stan glanced back at the niblings, over his shoulder. ...Yeah, they'd picked up on the stress coming from Ford this morning, but Ford had washed up pretty well before breakfast. The bags under his bleary eyes and the bleariness itself both looked like they were from lack of sleep, not crying. It looked like the kids thought that that, and the overall stress, were just from the whole half-a-fight Ford and Bill had had with each other again yesterday. At least, Stan figured that was what they thought it was, since they both just munched down on some cereal quickly, gave Ford some hugs, and left it at that, headinng out into the Shack's gift shop to give 'em some space for the day after tossing Stan a twin pair of 'take care of him' looks.

For his part, Ford kept avoiding Stan's gaze while he was lookin', and sending him some real down looks when he thought Stan wasn't. They hadn't talked yet this morning, after that talk, and then that 'talk', that they'd had last night with each other. (Not really; not beyond Stan asking him if he wanted eggs or Stancakes for breakfast that day, and Ford telling him 'eggs'.) And Stan was a'okay with that. He was all for just ignoring the whole thing with the crying, pretending that it didn't happen. (-Because if doin' that kept Ford from feelin' like he had to do a 180 on him, tryin' to 'get back his own' later, now that he wasn't feeling so low on him anymore… well, that would be fine with Stan. He didn't exactly feel like getting into another fight with his brother again that morning. He just wanted to finish cooking their eggs, get something into his and his brother's stomachs… and then maybe go back to bed again for awhile. ...Hey, he was an old man now, all retired and everything. He was allowed to just sleep if he wanted to!)

Stan flipped some eggs on the pan, listening to the way it sizzled and twitched. And then he blinked as he had to stifle a shiver, and tell himself... No, it wasn't the same. The sound was all different, again and still. That panel had been more of a hiss than anything else...

...and Stan grimaced, because he hadn't thought about that shit in years. He hadn't thought he'd ever think of it again, after he'd stopped having dreams about-

Stan shook it off, poker face firmly on, and continued making their breakfast. But when he glanced over at the counter as he reached for the salt and pepper, he saw a small folded piece of paper tucked between the shakers on the counter there. Stan casually caught it up between his fingers as he grabbed the salt shaker, and after salting the eggs (not pepper, Ford didn't like pepper on his; that could wait) and returning the shaker to where he'd picked it up from, he pocketed the note and went back to focusing on his cooking. No reason to cause trouble before either of them were ready for it; he'd save it for later, once he was done cooking and eating and gotten some food into both him and his brother.

After finishing up the eggs and serving it out onto two dishes that he set out on the table for them both, Stan sat down in his chair with a groan and picked up his fork.

And Stan took his time eating. He waited until his brother was finished eating before he let himself finish up (which he knew Ford had noticed, given the side-eye looks he was getting, annd how Ford kept slowing down, and slowing down again, almost like he was testing him, until he let out a sigh and stopped trying to only eat one bite every minute and a half on him). Then, and only then, did Stan put down his newspaper, take his last forkful of food off of his plate, and then set down his fork to shove a hand in his pocket, to extract, unfold, and then grumpily opened up the note that he'd grabbed up before in order to read it.

And that note read: [Miz wants me to write to you that we are going out to the lake this morning. Miz ate all the fish yesterday. We will bring back enough fish to replace the ones that she ate. We will be back before it's time for dinner today. We plan to eat lunch today when it is time for lunch.]

...yeah, probably a good call, getting out of the Shack for a few hours. Stan wasn't in the mood to deal with either of them right now; now Stan was sure that the kid had picked up on that all the way from upstairs today - the kid was getting better at that, figuring that one out. Stan had mixed feelings about that one, though. The kid avoiding him on-purpose when he was in a shitty mood was okay for now today maybe, sure, but… Stan remembered what had happened with Miz, every time she'd not come to him for something, over in that other dimension, and again and still here. If the demon-kid started avoiding him for one reason or another… Hell. Even letting it slide that the kid had avoided him today instead of talking to him in-person this time was already setting a dangerous precedent. As much as Stan really did not want to talk to the kid this morning, after what had happened with his brother here last night, that kinda 'avoidance' shit would lead pretty quickly to the kid not talking to him about stuff at all, and then not too long after that-

"Is… something wrong?" Ford asked him quietly, almost under his breath, and that was when Stan realized he was frowning.

Stan smoothed the frown off of his face and answered his brother with a grunt. "It's nothin'," he told his brother, as he crumpled up the paper in his fist.

"I…" Ford began then trailed, off looking away. He seemed almost subdued that morning.

Stan let out a sigh. "Kid left a note for me instead of talking to me straight to my face," he told his brother. "I coulda missed it." If he'd gone for pancakes instead of eggs, he wouldn't have needed the salt. "...Gonna have to bring it up with him and his sister when he's back for dinner," Stan grumbled out. "Don't think hiding it between the salt-shakers was his idea."

"Oh," Ford said quietly, still not looking up at him. Stan watched as Ford looked down at his clean plate and his dirty fork. "What did it say."

Stan didn't exactly didn't like how his brother still wasn't really looking at him. Not getting in a fight with him over the kid was one thing, but this was...

Stan pulled a bit of a face and scratched at his cheek. "Kid's out someplace or another with Miz for the day. They'll be back for dinner." Stan frowned as he thought over what the demon-kid had actually wrote. "Didn't say straight-out where he was taking her, or where they were gonna be. Not sure if he was bein' shifty about it on purpose 'cause he doesn't want to get followed, or if he's just tryin' not to end up lyin' to me about it later if Miz goes off and gets distracted on the way over there."

Ford's shoulders went tense for a few long moments, almost like he was about to build up to something for a second there, but then his shoulders slumped back down. "Ah." was all Ford ended up saying, as he continued staring down at his plate. And then finally got up from the table… to pick up his plate and head for the sink with it. Still not looking up or over at him.

Stan watched as Ford set his dishes in the sink, and he wasn't really sure if Ford was giving him the silent treatment here, or what. But Ford usually liked more 'information' on junk, and the kid was acting different here, so… Stan set his elbows on the table and talked a little more about it, out loud. (Hey, it beat talking about last night instead, right?)

"Don't think it was the kid's idea to leave a note instead of talking to me," Stan told his brother - because, thinking about it a little more, the kid was usually a hell of a lot more straightforward than that. I ain't really in the mood to be puttin' up with any of that punk kid's crap today," Stan said, and tried not to change his expression as Ford turned around - gaze down, still avoiding his eyes, and picked up his own plate and fork, before turning back towards the sink. "But that hasn't stopped the kid before now. And it's better to have the kid talking to me than not talking to me at all." Stan stopped there for a second, to see what Ford had to say about that.

Ford, for his part, remained silent. The only sounds in the Shack right now were the water in the sink going, as Ford acted like a mute guy washing dishes, and the low sounds of the Mystery Shack being open for business, with customers over in the other part of it there. (Hell, he wasn't exactly tryin' to get a rise out of his brother here, but Ford…)

"So, yeah. Probably Miz's idea there," Stan put out there next, trying not to feel all that uncomfortable about being the only one of the two of them talking, here. "Kid started the note with a 'Miz wanted me to' there. Figure that's a pretty big clue." Stan ate another bite of eggs, and thought about that one a bit more. And then he realized… "Hell. Kid doesn't tell me half the time when he goes out as it is." Stan frowned as he shoved the paper back in his pocket, and ran a hand over his face. "So having a note is better than him just up and vanishing on me without sayin' anything, I guess…"

"Is it?" Ford said quietly, as he finished up the dishes, and turned the water off at the sink, and Stan couldn't help but frown at how he couldn't even tell if that was more of a statement, or a comment. It sure as hell hadn't been a question, though.

"...Dunno," Stan ended up telling him. "Miz don't usually ask for help on stuff, but she's better at human stuff still. Like leavin' notes tellin' people like me where they're goin'," because that was the kinda thing she'd probably been told to do for the folks she was living with (her parents and family?), back when that dragon lady was still human. "Don't know why she'd tell that demon-kid to do it, instead of writing it herself, though." Wasn't like she couldn't have done that, instead. "Seems kinda sketchy." Stan paused, then added, "Is writin' notes a thing you'd expect outta Bill Cipher."

There was a bit of a pause, as Ford wiped his hands with a towel where he was standing at the sink.

"No," Ford said, still not looking at him, just down at the towel as he finished drying off his hands and set it back down on the countertop. "He'd have no real control over the information at that point, who saw it or had access to it later."

"Yeah," Stan agreed, leaning back in his chair. "Sounds about right for the kid, there. Don't think he'd even think of doing it himself, either." For someone to leave a note implied that they thought someone would worry if they didn't know where they went, like a parent. (He and Ford would tell their Ma whenever they left the house to play when they were younger, but not once they hit their teenaged years half the time, and Stan couldn't think of anybody else that he himself would have ever thought of leaving a note for, after that. Not that he'd ever left notes before leaving, for any of those times before that. Kid was a little like him like that, too. Because usually, if the kid was gonna tell him something, he'd straight up tell him that thinng. Y'know, verbally, like the kid usually did if he thought Stan wanted to know something and the kid didn't mind telling him - read: if he didn't care that Stan knew.)

Stan also knew how the kid felt about leaving information just lying around, and how the kid felt about telling people his plans when he thought there might even be a chance of them going out and stopping him if they knew what they were. (Kid had ranted about this kinda junk to him at length before now, multiple times even.) He didn't think either he or Ford was that far off on that one, which meant... "Wonder how she talked him into it," Stan mused, leaning back in his chair.

Ford didn't respond.

Stan stifled a sigh, then looked away and scratched at his cheek. "Woulda figured the kid would be all over her for 'operational security', and all that, not the other way around." And that got him a frown and a-

"-What?"

-from his brother, finally. And to this, Stan let out another sigh and crossed his arms. "Don't think Miz would think far enough ahead to think that somebody might use knowin' where they were against 'em. Like watchin' 'em, or setting up an ambush or an attack; somethin' like that." Ford was looking up and over at him now. "It's how the kid thinks. Probably why he put it as a 'Miz told me to tell you that', and not a 'we're gonna be at' kinda thing."

When Ford continued staring at him evenly, not exactly contributing or really seeming to do anything other than that - like he was tryin' not to express an opinion at him, almost - Stan… well, he probably shouldn't feel a little better at his brother actually just looking at him, but he did. Because he was finally looking to be leaving at least some of that funk behind now that he'd been in all morning.

Stan shrugged at Ford. "Not like I can't decipher the kid's twistier Cipher-speak stuff, too," he noted at his brother. "I know writin' what he did the way he did it isn't actually 'promising' that he's gonna go off and do that thing any." Because all it said was that Miz wanted him to write that, not that that was what they were doing, or even planning on doing. "Only two things the kid really promised there was that they're gonna be bringing back more fish from someplace, 'cause Miz ate a bunch, and that they're gonna be back before dinner."

"And you aren't worried about wherever the two of them are going," Ford said next, just as statement-comment as he had about the 'is it' before.

"Not if the kid stays outta trouble, doesn't go bringin' any of that trouble back to us, and doesn't go talking to any other demons doing it," Stan reminded him with a shrug. Because Stan didn't really care what the kid got up to, so long as he kept following the agreement like that and didn't cross his line; not really. "Wonder how many plans he came up with this time, tryin' to make sure that nobody and their dog with a laser cannon could try to" (successfully) "ambush either of 'em out there wherever they are for the next couple a' hours." Because if there was one thing that they'd nailed down, it was where they weren't going to be for the next couple of hours, and for how long, along with when they were going to be back.

Ford made something of a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, almost. Hell, Stan wasn't really sure if it was actually a noise, or if he'd just been clearing his throat, or somethin'.

"I'm betting at least twenty plans there. What d'you think?" Stan tried, trying to get his brother into it a little more. Whether those would be good and 'useful' plans was another thing entirely, Stan thought with a bit of an internal mental smirk. Because that was assuming that the kid even had a good idea of where they were going. Wasn't like Miz wouldn't maybe run the 'risk' of getting distracted by something on the way there, or bored once she was there and wanting to go someplace else. She'd sure done more than enough of that since she'd been there; their trips to town had been pretty 'interesting' in that respect, and while Stan had kept them on-target for the diner, the kid didn't seem all that willing to try and corral his sister into doing certain stuff and not others. ...Kinda a pushover, really. At least on some things...

"Somehow, I doubt Bill will be able to plan effectively for the man-eater wanting to stop and taste every flower," was Ford's mild-toned contribution to the subject, and Stan couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

"Yeah," Stan said, starting to feel a little more relaxed. "I was kinda thinkin' that, too." He watched his brother for awhile where he was standing, arms-crossed, head tilted slightly downwards, leaning back slightly against the kitchen table, facing the sink again more than him now.

Stan could've sworn Ford had his eyes closed, though.

"...Y'know," Stan said, putting it out there, because he kind of couldn't not at this point, "You usually ain't this quiet about anything, ever." Because Ford wasn't. He was used to his brother having… almost a presence these days. Just… energy, living under his skin. Even if Ford had been kinda almost relaxed on the boat when they'd been out on the sea together, sometimes, he'd still been really really there, kind of and always.

But Ford sure as hell wasn't relaxed right now, even if he wasn't exactly all tense where he was standin', either. And Ford wasn't exactly there there, either; if he'd been a lamp that was always on and shining, just not always in your direction and right in your eyes, what Ford was doin' right now was the obviously way-too-turned-down dim setting, low lit and almost but not really off. Stan didn't really know how else to put it; even when Ford had been tired the last few days, maybe only two or three steps from exhausted, he was still either blazing about as hard as he still could, or out like a light in his own bed. Ford usually didn't do a hell of a lot of in-betweens, here.

Ford looked away from him again, more a shifting of his eyes away from anything like his direction than anything.

"I'm tired, Stan," he said quietly.

"You were tired yesterday, too," Stan pointed out. "And the day before that. And-"

"I'm tired of fighting with you," was what Ford said next, just as quietly, and it left Stan at almost a loss for words. "I don't want to fight with you anymore, again."

Stan frowned a little bit. "Don't mean you gotta walk around on eggshells with me," Stan noted, "Or whatever the heck it is that you're doin' to me here, right now." Stan shifted in his chair a little uncomfortably. "Don't really feel like talkin' when it feels like I'm mostly just talkin' to myself."

Ford sighed, rubbing at his eyes. "I… don't know how to act around you right now. What would set you off, what would set me off." And now he sounded exhausted. "I just… don't…" (Hell. And now he looked exhausted, too.) "I don't want to fight with you anymore," Ford repeated.

Stan felt more than a little uncertain at this. He didn't know why, exactly, but he wasn't liking this at all. It felt… really wrong to him, somehow.

"...What's all that different between yesterday and today?" Stan asked him slowly. Because it wasn't like they hadn't been going at it with each other on and off before now, annd been all okay about it. Mostly.

"Stan," Ford grimaced. "I… I hurt you."

It took Stan a moment, because when had Ford...? Then Stan blinked. "What, the…" he raised and lowered his right shoulder a bit, and saw Ford grimace a bit again. "So? We were both beatin' on each other pretty bad that day." He saw that Ford wasn't backing down on this for some reason, but he just wasn't getting it.

"Stan, I hurt you." Ford repeated.

Shit. Stan didn't want to say it and give Ford the reason to yell at him over it, but the way things were going right now…

"And I pushed you into a portal," Stan told him simply. "You lost thirty years of your life on the other side of that thing. That's-" Stan clenched his hands in his lap. "That's way worse than some stupid burn."

Ford twitched, because- the thought had not even occurred to him, that Stan might think that… that…

...that what? "It's not…" Ford stopped, then opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for the right words to say. The right words to made Stan understand. ...Could he even find the words to express what he wanted to say?

"You didn't deserve that," was what Ford finally settled on, and it felt like almost a stab underneath his heart when Stan said back to him next, "You didn't deserve that."

"Stan…" Ford hugged his arms around his own chest a little tighter, because that hurt.

"Look," Stan told him. "I don't want to talk about it, you don't want to talk about it. I don't want to fight over it any more than you do," apparently, not that Stan had exactly been expecting that one there really, at all, not in a million years and counting. Stan took a deep breath. "So let's just not talk about it. Okay? It happened, it's done. It's over with now. ...Right?"

Ford mentally cursed his own failure to communicate. He didn't know how to make Stan understand this, any more than he knew how to make him understand that Stan wasn't like Bill, either. It… it wasn't about what either of them had deserved at the hands of the other; it was the fact that Ford had hurt him at all to begin with, and…

...and Ford had a growing sick feeling in his stomach, as he looked down at his brother and realized that maybe Stan had thought that he had deserved it, what had happened to him, at least a little bit. ...just as Ford felt that perhaps he had deserved at least some of what had happened to him due to his sheer and utter blindness before, his utter foolishness in having ever trusted Bill Cipher, and- It occurred to him to think so, because of what Stan had contested with him before, and more importantly what he hadn't. Last night, Stan hadn't contested whether or not he had deserved it, what had happened - what Ford had done to him that day - or whether Ford should have ever even done it to him or not. ...No, Stan had only contested the facts of the situation as it had happened. Not the feelings, nor the intent; not really. He'd hadn't been angry about the event itself; he'd only professed anger at the idea of Ford lying to him about it.

And Ford was slowly beginning to understand only now, just how terrible Stan's own thoughts of himself might have been, and might still be, both then and now. From the way Stan had believed their parents wouldn't have allowed him to return home after being kicked out, to not wanting to speak out when Stan had known - absolutely known - that there had been something utterly wrong with his science fair project to begin with; even when knowing how being blamed for that device having been broken in any respect - and the consequences that had come after that - would be anything but fair to him in any respect, Stan hadn't wanted to talk about it, hadn't objected, hadn't even tried to object to him or Pa or Ma about it - about any of it, really. Stan still hadn't wanted to talk about it, even after everything had come to a head with those other, younger, and still somehow different versions of them in that other dimension, and...

...Ford was now remembering how Stan had almost constantly put himself down on the boat, what Stan could do and had done for them both without mention or complaint on the boat, time and time again, not even seeming to be expecting any thanks or recognition. And he'd kept on doing it, doggedly continuing to take care of all sorts of things that Ford had never even thought of as if it was expected of him, silently doing so up until Ford had noticed it and commented upon it himself from time to time, and then... at the time, Ford had thought Stan had been trying to downplay his own work, or that the way he'd been saying it had somehow been a failed and awkward attempt at being modest - at least, that was what he'd thought of it before, but now... Perhaps Ford was misunderstanding him entirely and he desperately hoped so, that he was misunderstanding Stanley here somehow, but… was Stan truly rating his own pain and work and feelings as somehow less important than Ford's own? As so unimportant when compared to Ford's own experiences that they didn't even bear mention? As if they were of no consequence whatsoever? It was almost as if Stan somehow thought that- that-

-it was as if Stan thought that he didn't deserve-

-it was as if Stan thought that no one cared-

-but that wasn't right either. That simply couldn't be right, either, could it? Stan had to know that he cared about him, that Dipper and Mabel cared about him, too- so why? Why did Stan seem to think so lowly of himself in this regard?

"Stan." Ford said slowly, feeling like crying again for some reason - perhaps in frustration - but at least managing to not break down in front of his brother yet again this time. "You are... important." He winced even as he said it. It felt clunky and unbalanced, certainly inadequate to properly convey how he felt upon this very important matter. "I- I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have hurt you like that, with that panel, back then." He barely managed to get it out without stuttering, at the hurt he felt in the center of his chest to say it - to even have to say it, at all.

"I don't want to talk about it, okay," was what Stan said next, almost grumpily, looking away from him.

...And then Ford got it. He truly… understood. Finally.

"You don't forgive me for it, do you." Ford swallowed hard as he stared at his brother - arms crossed, not looking at him - and realized, with a remote and growing sense of horror… "You're never going to forgive me for it."

"Goddammit, Ford," his brother said harshly, looking up at him. "I said I don't-" But then, for some reason, Stan stopped talking as he looked up at him. (Stan stopped because he realized his brother was pale as a sheet, and looking at him wide-eyed and scared, even more scared than he had the night before on no sleep and all…)

"...Ford," Stan said slowly. He felt a little like he was on thin ice in not cold enough weather here now, and he wasn't sure which way the ice was gonna crack if he wasn't real careful here, either. "What are you thinkin' right now..." Because whatever it was, it sure as hell hadn't been what Stan had been thinkin' he thought, right here and now. (This was starting to feel like last night, all over again.) (Dammit, he knew his brother! He did- this wasn't-)

"I…" Ford didn't know how to explain any more than he already had. What he was trying to say. It felt like there was suddenly an impossible gulf between them, and-

Ford blinked, and he tensed, as Stan slowly got up from his chair at the table. And shoved it in, almost thoughtlessly. And slowly walked over, to stand right in front of him.

"Stan, I…" Ford tried to get out next, but then he felt nothing but absolute shock, as Stan moved forward-

...and Ford felt Stan's arms encircle him in a hug.

Ford felt all the breath in his lungs leave him.

(Not because Stan was squeezing him that hard, but because…)

And then Ford started to shake. And his arms and hands were shaking as he began to raise them up behind Stan's back, he could feel it, just as he could feel his face screw up into a horrible teeth-clenched grimace against his control, as he started to feel tears fall all over again - and Stan was going to hate him for this- because he just couldn't be-

-Stan already hated him for this, and there was nothing he could do about that -

-Ford wrapped his arms around his twin brother and buried his face into the crook of his shoulder, standing up.

"Don't know what the hell to say to you without it bein' all wrong here, Ford," he heard Stan tell him quietly, as he held him. (And Ford didn't understand why Stan was letting him do this, why he hadn't practically sneered at him for crying again now, for crying like a little kid before, for-) "I don't like you feelin' down about any of this junk, though. Almost wish you were just angry at me like you should be, instead," he heard his brother say next, "Just gimmie a good punch or two and get it all over with," and all Ford could think of to do at those words was to clutch Stan tighter and shake his head back and forth at his shoulder while Stan inexplicably continued to let him do this without complaint.

"I don't want to punch you, Stan," Ford choked out, rather horrified at the thought. And at this point, his emotions were thoroughly a mess.

"Then what do ya want? More hugs?" Stan said, almost half-jokingly, except… Ford kinda hugged him tighter right away after he said it. "What, seriously?"

"Yes," Stan heard his brother say hoarsely, but kinda firmly, too, and that was...

"Oh," Ford heard his brother say, sounding a little… blown away by this, somehow. Like he hadn't been expecting… "Uh. Okay. I, uh..." There was a pause, as Stan… seemed to be processing this? And then…

"I can do that," Stan told him, and Ford felt Stan's arms encircle him a bit more… more… And Ford shivered because Stan was-

-Stan was encircling him something that was far more of a hug than he'd ever received yet from him, and at the idea of hugging Ford more... Stan had sounded almost hopeful about it.

It left Ford at an utter loss. Because the brother he remembered hadn't wanted any hugs or touching or closeness, not since they'd hit their teenage years and he'd suddenly started liking girls.

...Just as Ford had remembered letting go, instead of pushing his brother into that panel even harder?

And it hurt, that maybe he'd simply completely misunderstood his brother back then, for all of those years, so many years ago. That there had been yet another social or contextual clue that he just hadn't been seeing, that he'd been missing, and that Stan himself had, perhaps, been missing all the closeness and twinness and hugs for so very long as Ford had been, feeling just and exactly as cut off from his twin, abandoned, lost, and alone-

-feeling, and knowing in feeling it for absolute certain, that his twin no longer loved him anymore, didn't care, didn't care about him, and starting to wonder if he ever really had-

-it was startlingly and heat-wrenchingly obvious to Ford now that Stan had thought Ford no longer loved him, just as Ford had thought of Stan in return. But while Ford had begun to think that things could be mended between them at the end of Weirdmageddon, at Stan and his willingness to sacrifice himself to… to… and then after Mabel and her scrapbook gave him that second chance to make things right with his brother...

...somehow, Stanley had not come to believe the same thing. He still thought Ford cared for him not at all. It had been clear to Ford during Weirdmageddon that Stan must still care about him at least somewhat, given the fact that Stan had come along on that rescue mission to get him, with the niblings and all the others, but Stan...

...It boggled Ford's mind, and hurt his heart, the thought that even after sailing together for almost a year, working together and watching each other's backs, cohabitating in a way they hadn't in decades, and all the rest of it, that Stan would still believe after all that that Ford didn't care about him still?

Ford didn't understand. He couldn't understand it. All he knew was that it was horribly wrong, and that it hurt, and he didn't know how to fix it.

So he stood there (and Stan stood there), and they both kept on hugging each other there instead.

And those two old men kept on standing there, leaning on each other and hugging each other in dire confusion, oh so very confused about anything and everything to do with their sibling. Something was wrong here with their other sibling, and had been wrong for a lot longer than either of them had realized; they were both beginning to realize this now. But neither of them wanted to talk about it, the things that had been hurting them - and why would they even want to do that, again? It didn't make sense to either of them to do that to each other; not when all either of them wanted to do was to hold each other close in a way they hadn't thought they'd still be allowed to do with each other again anymore, not for a very long time.

So they didn't try to talk. They just thought of Mabel almost desperately, and tried to hug it all out with each other, instead.

...Because why rock the boat, when they were both getting what they'd wanted for a very long time? Why question it that much? Why do that, when the risk of doing that might mean hurting their twin sibling enough that they might lose them, all over again? Because neither of them wanted to risk that; neither of them wanted to risk now losing even so much as the resemblance of this long-lost closeness, again.

(And because neither of them wanted to risk that…)

The two old men ended up on the couch - Stan's old recliner - for the rest of the day, almost. Stan put something on the TV for an excuse for it, but it was just an excuse for the two of them; they were both just sitting there, leaning up against each other, dozing off both together and separately at times - they were tired. (Emotionally exhausted really, the two of them.)

And while Mabel might have gotten a few pictures of the two of them when Melody came in with them to help her and Dipper make lunch, they didn't wake up then to that, and they didn't wake up when they left for the gift shop again, either.

The demons did return to the Shack before dinner. Stan had cooled down enough (a hell of a lot more mellow, and in a much better mood now, after all the hugging with his twin brother that had been going on again that day) that he didn't immediately smack Miz down for her 'anchor the niblings' things from the night before (that had led to his earlier fight with Ford and then Ford crying himself to sleep later that night). He also didn't immediately confront the demon-kid directly about letting Miz talk him into doing things that the demon-kid didn't normally do, and usually thought was a really bad idea to do on top of that. But Stan was still unhappy with the pair of them, and he let them know that when they showed up for dinner, with a, "You two are getting a couple a' learning-lessons for the shit you two have pulled lately. Gonna have a penalty for Miz too, for messin' with Ford by proxy - don't act like you didn't know what you were doin' there, dragon-lady." Stan eyed her.

And Miz had nodded, grimacing. "Yeah…" She looked a little guilty, but not enough.

Bill looked between them, not quite slit-eyed but a great deal suspicious, and said, "I have some say in the penalty-lesson."

"Yeah," said Stan. "You do. We talked about that. You can veto until you don't." In plain english: if the demon-kid thought something was going to hurt her, he'd veto it, and Stan would come up with something else instead, as many times as it took until the kid agreed with him on one of them. "You got anything to say in your defense?" Stan asked of the dragon-lady next, in descending tones.

"There…" Miz worried her bottom lip for a bit. "There were things that… you're all too stubborn to talk about unless something happened to force the issue… and I know it wasn't… very nice…" She grimaced before glancing over at Ford briefly. "Well. I was frustrated." She admitted.

"I don't care if you're frustrated," Stan told her straight out. "People aren't your pawns or puppets." Demon-speak again for that one (and he had to ignore his brother's visible shudder), because apparently she was bein' all demon-thought-y on this one here for all that right now, damn it. "Don't mess with my brother. I ain't telling you again. You hearin' me?" (Yeah. That one got the demon-kid's attention. ...Miz, on the other hand...)

"I have so many things I wanted to say, but no idea how to go about it." Miz frowned at Stan. "And some of which I can't… really, even know how to say, and-"

"-Stop," Bill said to his sister, cutting her off. "You're digging. ...Below China," he added, after eyeing Stan once-over.

Miz sighed, rubbing her face. Then she raised a hand and pointed at Ford. "That Stanford loves you. And you…" she twitched, "...l-love him too," her words stuttering there for a moment. "So…"

"Uh," said Stan, feeling incredibly uncomfortable now. (He took a chance and glanced over at Ford. ...Yeah, he looked kinda shocked and a little uncomfortable at what the demon-lady was tellin' them, too.)

"So things should turn out alright." Miz managed out. She relaxed then. "I don't like him." She said, still pointing at Ford. "But he loves you. So… I guess he's not bad."

Stan blinked at the dragon-lady over this one. Because what?

But when he glanced over at Ford this time, he had to stop and stare because… Ford was blushing slightly, looking away from all of them - himself, the kids, and the demons included. And he was scrubbing a hand through the hair at the side of his head, straight up looking kinda… embarrassed? At something the dragon lady had said? What the-

"Well… well, of course I love him," Ford told them all, in almost muted tones, with a huff of breath out at the end of it. It felt incredibly odd to say-so out loud, and he felt quite stupid in doing so, but… really, what was the man-eater trying to imply in saying such a thing to them all, Ford truly didn't know - was she actually trying to imply that he felt otherwise? He felt almost angry at the thought - because did she really feel that it was possible that he felt otherwise? Stan misunderstanding him because of… well, because of events and Ford's own inability to express himself properly was one thing, but... Ford certainly wasn't so contrary as to reject anything and everything she said every time the man-eater said something - certainly not when it was actually true - certainly not when it was so important that Stan realize the truth of it all himself at some point. Ford wasn't about to say otherwise in front of Stan, or to anyone else. And the way she'd paused there was truly beyond the pale, because- "And I know Stan feels the same way about me, as well," Ford huffed out at the man-eater next.

A soft smile grew on Miz's face. "I'm glad you admitted it." Ford flicked his gaze over to her, frowning. And when he saw Miz absolutely beaming at him, Ford twitched just looking at it. Dipper and Mabel were glancing back and forth between the two of them. Because Miz and Ford weren't… fighting. And it didn't… seem like Miz was trying to bully Ford. But they didn't quite understand what was going on either.

"Well, of course Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford love each other, silly," Mabel told Miz firmly. "They don't need to say it all the time. Grunkle Stan has real trouble with saying that to people, you know!"

("I'm aware," Ford said quietly - so quietly that Stan was pretty sure that Ford wasn't actually trying to say it to the dragon-lady herself. "You show it in other ways..." Ford said next, and Stan glanced away uncomfortably, because the way Ford was looking at him was…)

Miz nodded at Mabel, still smiling. "I know. Well, I wasn't sure at first, but I know now, figured it out for sure a while ago. I just wanted him to admit it aloud. Even if it doesn't need to be said, it's nice when it is."

And then Miz turned away from Ford, practically skipping over to the stove to begin making a quick meal for her brother, seeming much more at ease and happy with them now then she had been for weeks. Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks and then turned to stare at their grunkle Ford, Dipper had a frown as he tried to figure out why Miz was so much happier after hearing Great-Uncle Ford say those words.

Stan was just feeling downright confused at all this. He felt his shoulders come up slightly.

"...Don't know why we've gotta be talkin' about all sorts'a emotions and junk," Stan said, still feeling more than a little uneasy about all of this. (He couldn't exactly help how he felt the urge to flick his eyes around the room, scanning it for all the nearest exits - old habits died hard, or whatever.) Kids didn't need him to say it out loud; he didn't know why it was such a thing about sayin' it out loud to each other, right now. Wasn't really all that normal to do that, was it? Goin' around, just sayin' 'I love you' like that. It made it seem more like a lie, than anything real, if you had to just come out and say it, out straight like that...

Stan felt Ford nudge his shoulder slightly… no, wasn't just a nudge; Ford was leaning up against him a little bit, lightly. And Stan felt himself blush a little bit himself and slowly start to relax...

"It's… it's fine. Isn't it?" Ford asked him quietly, as Miz took over the stove for a hot minute, and Stan struggled with what he should even say to that.

"...Yeah," Stan finally told him next. "It's fine."

But Stan was really starting to wonder, now, when he was finally gonna start to wake up...

(MizBill POV)

Getting a Penalty was totally worth it just for this! Really, a little pain now meant less pain later. And I felt a lot better now that I had confirmation. Truthfully, I'd been stressing about how Stan and Ford would feel once it came out that they weren't each other's twins. And, well...

They were still under the wrong impression (and it wasn't funny at all! Not one little bit!) but they did care about each other. That counted for something. And even if they weren't each other's original brothers, they had spent all this time together. That must count for something too! And it took a weight off my mind to know that they cared. Whether they would still do so after the truth came out was something entirely different! But, I held onto the hope that things would turn out alright. Because I didn't want this to be an unhappy ending.

Stan's twin was a horrible person, if what I've been able to See meant anything. For the life of me, I couldn't actually tell if 'Ford loved his brother. Part of me wasn't feeling very charitable towards the guy, I didn't think he loved Stan back. And that was awful. Whatever, he didn't know what he was missing out. (He was also dead, but that was an entirely separate matter.)

Really, the barrier around the Shack made things so much harder than they needed to be. I couldn't See inside it like I normally did whenever I opened my Eye. But, with what I had gleamed from that time I went Up to brother's Axolotl, and my slow study of the information I had found there (slowly and carefully examined every time I returned to my Mindscape), I could See inside the Shack now. There were so many things I wanted to mess with, now that I had more knowledge on how this world worked, but I'm gonna put that off for now.

Didn't want to risk overwhelming myself with the knowledge I contained. I could take my time. This world was simply fascinating.

Illusion is Reality

Non-spoilor Interlude

Chapter 98.5.1

(This interlude takes place in some unspecified time in the future, I'm still writing stuff for later in the fic once the BlueBill/46'\-ABill Arc ends...and I might as well post some stand alone stories…)

Oh shit. Oooooh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Okay. D-don't panic. I can… fix this. Yeah. I can TOTALLY fix this. Yup. Yup. Yup.

...

...

...

I CAN'T FIX THIS! NOOOOOOOOOO!

I buzzed around the Mindscape, staring down at the Earth and trying very hard not freak out (more). Everything was flooded. WEll, not EVERYTHING, it would be impossible to flood the entire Earth at this point without completely terraforming it, but a whole LOT was flooded. I don't even know how this happened?! I-it wasn't my fault… right? I mean...

It flooded here often! They should have known and prepared for this! Why did they summon me and make a Deal for rain?! I didn't mean for it to rain THIS much! I didn't! I swear! Goddam why were they so impatient that they thought summoning a demon to make it rain was a good idea?!

Why did I think granting that Deal would be a good idea?!

Auuuuuuuugggggghhhhhh!

Ok, calm down. Think about this. How… do I fix this?

Below me, the flood waters raged on. Uuuhhhh it was like Atlantis all over again...

...the only good news was that no one was dead (so far). Like I said, they got floods pretty often. So… they had boats ready. The problem was… this water level wasn't going to drop for a while. Maybe even months!

That was going to make it very difficult for the people to survive. I guess there would be some fish that end up here from the lakes that flooded over, but most of the plants have drowned. Plenty of animals have drowned. Not that they couldn't swim, but swimming for such a long time with no place to stop to rest was… hard. I winced at the body of what miiiiight have once been a deer floating by, it's large eyes glassy and lifeless. Yeesh.

Okay. Think, think, think. I guess I could teleport this water elsewhere… except I still had trouble using my powers in the 3rd dimension. And moving the water would cause all sorts of OTHER problems-

Just… okay, let's think options. Teleporting the water wouldn't work unless I had it spread out over a large distance, otherwise I'd just end up flooding some other place. Moving it all into the ocean wasn't a good idea either. Not all at once, at least. The pH levels were all wrong and more than that, having all this water suddenly vanish would lead to all the boats, people and every other floating thing, slamming down several stories in height. Yeah. The water level was pretty high.

So… gradual would work better?

Ahhh this would be so much easier if I could just use my powers properly here! Nngh...

Wait. I got it! Plants drink water! Too much water would kill them, duh, but if they were big enough...

(And if there was one thing I'm good at, it's messing with plants!)

Well I'm gonna need some seeds to begin with, and to do that, I'm gonna need a host! A bird would be best, since they can fly and avoid all the water! The rain stopped, so that was ONE good thing to keep in mind.

I looked around for any birds nearby. Oh! There's one! A huge crow picking at the deer carcass as it floated on top of the water. I surged forward, easily overtaking its mind and felt myself fill up it's body. Ah. Felt so cramped in here.

Still, I flapped my wings a few times, getting settled in here and flew off to find any surviving plants I could take back here to begin messing with. Magic worked, even if my Weirdness didn't. I could totally pull this off!

Uuuugh! I couldn't find anything! Everything, even the tops of trees, were covered in water. I couldn't get down there to find anything. Fuck. I suppose I could have gotten a fish's body and then switch back to a bird? But the humans were catching all the fish and it was so annoying to deal with them while I'm trying to work! They kept shooing me away! A few even tried to stab me with sticks! How rude! I'm gonna send them mild nightmares about crows eating then alive as punishment for clipping my tail feathers!

...okay no. I shouldn't do something like that just 'cause I'm salty. I need to try to be the bigger person here. I can't always retaliate just becau-

That bitch just shot me with a freaking arrow!

Okay. No. Fuck this! He's getting ALL the nightmares! He killed my host! Auuuugh! Now I have to find a new one! And I finally got used to this body too!

I found myself back in the Mindscape. Poor bird. I didn't mean for her to get killed. I felt sad now. Stupid trigger happy humans. I get that they were hungry, but who eats a crow? They're like… not chickens.

...okay, that's not an excuse. I shouldn't blame them for being hungry or anything but Uuuugh. Well, I spent the next few days sulking over the dead crow before I managed to work up the motivation to try again. The water level had dropped a little, which was good since it would mean there was a chance I could actually find a piece of plant to work my magic into.

Since possessing the crow only got me shot at, perhaps I should find a different bird this time. A quick search led me to a human who actually had a pet bird. A rather fancy looking white pigeon. Aww~ she's beautiful~

Damn I love pigeons. They're just so cute. And soft. Like, have you ever held a pigeon in your hands? So soft! Their feathers were loose and that made them extra fluffy!

So I dove into the pigeon and after I settled in, I unlatched my cage and flew off. The owner cried out but could do nothing but watch me fly. It's fine dude! I'll bring her back! I was less stupid this time and actually managed a simple protection spell around my new host. Casting magic was hard without the fingers to draw a proper rune or vocalizations to recite the spell, but even mute creatures could still invoke via prayer. That sort of thing was mental after all. The only thing you needed was a deity who was willing to respond to said prayer.

And FYI, most deities didn't bother. It was too much trouble, especially if you had a lot of worshippers.

More worshippers meant more power, but it also took away from one's ability to listen to, and grant their prayers. So frankly, if you wanted a better chance of a god hearing you, you're better off finding someone obscure to worship. And you also had to actually care enough about that god to even count AS a worshipper.

In my case though, I sent off a prayer to Lord Spud, the Potato god. He was a cool guy. And he'd answered me before when I invoked him in the past, so I figured he would be willing to help me out. I was correct. I felt his divine presence flow around my host. Sweet! I really would have been upset if another host got killed. I sent off a 'Thanks Spud-man! You're the best~!'

:You're very welcome:

I flew around in search and finally found the barest tip of a tree peeking out of the water I flew over and contemplated it. Alright. How do I do this? Normally I'd simply feed my power into the tree to make it capable of sucking up all this water, but my powers were limited unless I had a Deal. And I couldn't make a deal with a tree. (I've tried, they were all stubborn sons-of-a-bitch who refuse to work with me!) The pigeon body I was in also wasn't good for using magic. But I could still do simple things. Like rip off a small twig and fly back to my host's owner.

I had a deal to make.

Well I'm glad that worked out. The water was drained by the giant tree I grew. My pigeon host's owner, a nice guy actually, was surprised to meet me inside his dreams, he asked me if I was God, and well, I mean… I am a god? I told him this but I'm not sure we fully understood each other. Still though, I got my Deal. "I will fix this flooding problem, and in exchange… you will carve a small triangle into various places." Because I might as well extend my Sight here on Earth. Would make things easier for me.

He was quite thrilled to do so, and grateful for the tree. I rather liked it as well. It wasn't a tall tree, but it was a thicc boi. Wide, stout and thirsty as all get out. It's growth managed to get the water level down within just a week. There were a lot of dead animals, people and plants (and I was so glad I didn't have a nose because it looked like it really stank) but… hey, I had a cool tree now! I almost wanted to name it. It was a really awesome tree… up until the humans cut it down to use for rebuilding their country. Which… admittedly, was an efficient use of it's wood.

...I still moped over it for a few days.

(Some indeterminate amount of time later)

Started figuring out more things I could do online in an alternate dimension. Aside from my transdimensional Tumblr and chat room, I got access to more of the internet, which I immediately used to check out any anime or cartoons that I couldn't find here. Mob Psycho season two?! Hell YES! Catching up on watching all those new shows killed a lot of time.

That's all I did anything for anymore, killing time (HAH! It's funny to use that phrase, though Time Baby finds it offensive.) There wasn't much else to do. It's a waiting game now. Waiting for time to pass. Waiting to see the Earth develop. Waiting to see when Canon begins. I mean, I knew that I shouldn't place all my hopes on Canon, it's not like the course of one summer is all that much to look forward to.

...I wasn't planning on dying anymore.

So what did I do now?

It was simpler before, knowing I would die once that destined summer came. Hoping for it, looking forward to it. (And yes, I DO realize that waiting for the day I was killed off, and looking forward to it, is really fucking messed up.) But if I died… I'd leave so many people I loved behind. I… yes, I knew my Friends loved me. I could Feel it after all.

But I always thought that they'd just move on, get over me and live out their lives just fine. I would have left them enough Credits to be financially stable for YEARS. They would have still had the Death Star to live in. They would have still been free to do whatever they wanted. They'd be able to live out their lives just fine. And, they might lose their immortality, but I had thought it would have been a plus. But Brother needed me. He… he wouldn't have been able to handle losing me. He would never get over it. He never got over Liam. Just as I still haven't gotten over Will. Just as the thought of losing brother nearly drove me mad with anxiety and fear. No. The two of us couldn't handle losing each other. Not one little bit.

My friends never really worried about losing me. They all thought I was indestructible, I could hear it, feel it. They never thought about what would happen if I was no longer there, never even contemplated such a thing ever happening. Not really. Not fully. That wasn't something they could comprehend.

Because they believed so strongly that I was eternal.

Well, they didn't know about the Zodiac, my Zodiac. I never told them. I never tell them everything. I felt bad about that sometimes, like… maybe I didn't actually trust them as much as I thought I did.

But that wasn't it.

I trusted my friends, I loved them.

I never told them because… what would be the point? It would just make them worry, and in the worst case scenario, they'd want to kill my Zodiac. And I couldn't have that. I wanted them. Needed them. They would be mine.

Brother's Zodiac were fun, but they weren't mine

Even if I didn't actually want to die anymore, I still wanted what was mine. And my Zodiac? They were mine. Mine and no others. And I wanted them.

I couldn't risk my friends getting rid of them, to keep me safe. So I never told them.

But it mattered not. I decided I wouldn't seek death anymore. Not for my own sake, not because I really wanted to be alive forever, but because I realized that there were people who would be torn up at my death, in a way they wouldn't ever recover from. And I just couldn't put brother through that. Not again. Not when he opened his heart to me, to accept me as I was, as broken, traumatized and troublesome as I was. I couldn't bear to hurt him like that. So Alive I shall be. And that meant I couldn't let my Zodiac kill me.

And it was fine. I wasn't gonna do anything that would make them want to kill me. Frankly, I don't know what I want with them anymore.

Perhaps, I just wanted them to be my friends too. That would be nice. That would be fun. And then, they would age and die and leave me alone. The thought hurt. I was sick of losing people. Could I somehow convince them to want immortality? (Okay, scratch that. I don't want Gideon being immortal. That would suck.) Maybe they would want to stay with me? Kinda doubt it, but whatever.

It would be sad to lose them. But what else could I do? I didn't plan to force them. That would piss them off and they'd probably kill me. Well, whatever. I just… didn't know what to do with myself. What to do with my life. I was just tired. This wasn't like me. I shouldn't be so tired. That was Ax's job. I guess… I just haven't been motivated to do anything recently… not since...

...I couldn't even bare to think about it.

So I filled my time with distractions and tried to take my mind off my worries. After getting a little worn out from watching shows (I was feeling restless from staying still so long), I went around as Miz and helped people who were in bad situations. If people didn't want my help as Bill, I could do it as Miz. Didn't really think it would work out as well as it did though.

"Thank you." An elderly Carpician had told me after I healed her injuries. It felt nice to be thanked, even if I shouldn't be doing this to be thanked (I'm sure that Stanford would say that it was greedy to expect gratitude for doing a good deed, but I was just happy people weren't spitting on me for helping them). Really, I was getting a name for myself in the healer's community. Well, I DID help out at Jessie's temple a lot. I didn't have a stationary clinic where patients could visit me, but I did know how to simply Search for people who needed my help. It was nice. I ended up on battlegrounds often, dodging past laser fire to grab the injured and take them back behind their ally lines. I had to be careful with those kind of jobs (was it still a job if I didn't get paid?) since nine times out of ten, they started shooting at me too. I ended up letting out more of my dragon aspects, just to protect myself.

Sure, there was that cyber suit that brother helped me design, but cool as it was, it was paltry compared to the weight of my full power here. This was my dimensional set, where I reigned supreme. When I wasn't purposely weakening myself to seem helpless and fragile, Miz's vessel was quite robust. I tanked canon fire, bitch slapping the shell into the ground as it flew at me. There were scales all along my arms, my tail was whipping about, diverting attacks as I made my way across the pockmarked fields, which used to be so pretty before this war started, before the mortars and tanks destroyed the plants here. I had my headband on, it had been redesigned multiple times until I was at a point where this felt comfortable for me. I could still absorb emotions for power, but the headband blocked the brunt of it, and the new exoskeletons I've been working with would filter out the emotional flavors from the rest.

The only downside of an exoskeleton was how cramped they felt. They weren't as natural and comfortable as my normal vessels. But having my mind clear and all my own for these past several billion years was… nice? It was easier to think, and harder as well. I found myself getting depressed more, with all the outside stimulus no longer overwhelming me, I was left with my own dark thoughts. Gosh, I wonder if that was part of the reason I've been so tired lately? Mentally tired, not physically.

But I didn't want my pessimism to win out. Lying around doing nothing made me feel worse. So I busied myself with all sorts of things. And if that meant running through a warzone to heal fallen soldiers and unfortunate civilians, then that's what I was going to do. I smacked a large mortar away with my tail and bent down to lift up a fallen tank, my reinforced vessel's dragon strength easily picking up the vehicle and flipping it over, revealing the people trapped underneath. Shit, one guy's dead, the other two were in critical condition.

I reached out to heal them, wishing I could simply bubble them and bring them out of the way of the fighting, but that was too much of a 'Bill' thing. So I would just have to move them once they were stable. I heard the bones snapping back into place and the blood flowing backward to go back inside their body. I filtered out any bacteria to prevent infection and nodded to myself when they were fully healed. Now to get these guys back to their own camps.

The Federation was going through a lot of changes. I was happy to note that there were some improvements. Tina's mom was working tirelessly to get reforms in place. Federation expansion had slowed, but the colonies still existed. There was still some forced integration but at least they weren't forcibly stamping out native cultures anymore. It didn't mean they got along though. And to keep up the prosperous dimensions under their rule, the Federation still needed supplies, which they had to take from elsewhere. A planet could be mined and stripped of all resources within a few centuries, and they'd need to find another one. They needed the metals to build their machines and factories to produce their products. They needed food to stock their markets, labor to keep up the work. They needed so many things, because people relied on them for everything. I'm gonna talk to Time Baby about making all the individual planets and dimensions more self sufficient. That would help to take some of the stress off the Federation for the supply and demand thing.

I could also head to those empty husk planets and… revitalize them. That would take a LOT out of me. I'd have to convert my own energy into materials to replace everything that was taken. It was exhausting work. I had to ask Queen to lend me a lot of the plants from her dimension (she found it weird that I called her dimension hers, but she's pretty much a god in her own right by this point, even if she doesn't recognize the worship energy she's receiving from her people. I dunno if I should tell her or not) to plant and grow in these other planets.

Of course I have to adapt the plants to the new area, different atmospheric pressures, climates, soil composition, making sure these new introductions wouldn't become invasive… and that was only getting the plant life of a planet back on track. I had to help the native species get back on their feet after their planet was drained by the miners. The holes and mines ripped out a lot of the planet's internal structure, there were not a lot of places I could work on without replacing or filling that empty space first. Otherwise everything would collapse in on themselves.

Looking into the history of the planet helped with knowing which elements I needed for rebuilding. Still, essentially turning myself into the planet… parts of the planet(?) was an interesting experience. The weird part was when people started living on me. That...

...I don't know how to feel about this.

I felt their ships land on my surface and wander around, marvelling at the miraculous recovery of the planet. It kinda tickled to have them walking on me. I might have wiggled a little. They screamed about the earthquake. But I settled down and they all picked themselves up and cautiously examined me. After the while they settled down, setting up camp. It was almost cute. It was odd, being a planet with people on it. I was curious enough to stay for a while, just to see how it went. They called in all sorts of scientists to try and figure out why the planet had suddenly healed itself. This was beginning to feel weird.

Then they brought the drills.

Aaaaaannnnnnnnggggghhhhhhh~!?

Everyone panicked at the next earthquake I set off.

As the shaking stopped, I managed to calm down enough to examine what the fuck that had just been. Those… drills… digging into me, vibrating, swirling and scraping, going deeper and deeper...

Uwwwwwuuuuuuuuu~

Oh wow… that… felt… kinda nice...

I couldn't blush as a planet, but the weather went wild, clouds swirling and lightning striking everywhere. I had to quickly stamp down and get everything back under control. Okay. Uh. That. Was a thing. So….

I had to leave my planet vessel before my feelings made things go nuts again. I shuddered in the Mindscape, unsure how to feel about what I had just experienced. It was… surprising, certainly. But it wasn't… scary? Well, I was a planet. Things felt different in my different vessels. And I'm not stupid, I know what the whole drill thing kinda metaphorically could be equated to (I'm an unrepentant pervert! I knew ALL the Drill jokes!). But it wasn't. As embarrassing as it was, it actually wasn't. It wasn't anything like being aroused or sexually stimulated. It just felt really good. It didn't feel uncomfortable or scary. It was more like a super deep muscle massage? But even once I calmed down and thought about it, I still felt rather embarrassed about it all. The way I reacted was certainly odd. But… well… I really… missed massages.

...that thought led me down a path I really didn't want to go down.

...but I still kinda… wanted to feel that again.

Wow I'm really fucked up.

I didn't feel comfortable with letting someone touch me like that. It reminded me too much of-

My good and bad memories of it all clashed. I didn't know how to feel about it. It was scary, it was fond, it was sad— it was-

A large hand placed upon my skin, rough fingers pressing down, finding all the sore parts and making the ache go away…

I hated this. I hated feeling like this. I hated missing it. The actual act itself wasn't the problem. Having my body soothed of pain, having that feeling of relaxation go through me… that was wonderful. It was something I loved. Being touched in that way felt nice.

Why did it have to be ruined for me?

I cried into my non-existent hands and tried as hard as I could to let this go.

I'm sick of it. Sick of all of this.

Briefly, I wondered, not for the first time, if maybe I'd be happier if I got rid of these memories.

But I never could bring myself to do it. I was too afraid of the risk. I was too afraid of everything. Even now, after all these years, I've never stopped being afraid of everything. All the time. I thought I'd gotten over it. But I really haven't changed at all. I was still afraid of everything. Just a stupid, pathetic coward who could never let anything go. I wanted— needed a distraction.

...no. No. I...

Fuck.

I couldn't keep...

It wasn't right to keep on-

I spasmed a little, buzzing all up and down every frequency, screaming and screaming and screaming for a long, long time. I swear I even blanked out for a while because when I finally settled back into my baseline, the planet I looked down at was already filled with villages. How many years had passed? I couldn't keep doing this. Putting off everything until I just had a breakdown. It wasn't a good way to deal with this.

Sucked that my attempts at therapy to get over my original trauma only led to a different sort of trauma now.

Feeling almost guilty, I left that place and found another husk of a planet to rebuild, molding myself a new body within it. Was I trying to get something from this? More drills? Just to get that nice sensation I craved? Probably. And I felt so incredibly guilty for wanting to feel it. Like, maybe I was a bad person for still wanting this. I don't even know anymore.

My planet rained as I cried in the only way I could as a celestial body, confused, scared, guilty and so very stressed out.

I shouldn't have tried this. Being a planet had seemed like fun… but I shouldn't have tried this. Even if it was a good experiment, realizing I could possess non-living vessels. That opened up a lot of opportunities for me. Will need to experiment further.

I still shouldn't have tried it...

I left that planet behind and went back to repairing others. It was more difficult to fix them from the outside, I had to manually find all the holes to fill, but it kept me busy and distracted, the mind numbing repetition almost soothing. It was fine like this.

It was fine like this.

I hadn't done this in a while. For that reason, and also because I felt a little bad that I didn't hang out with Facey all that often, I invited the angel along for my next cooking show.

"What is the point of this, my lord?" Facey asked, examining the ingredients arranged along the countertop.

"It's FUN!" I giggled. "Now get ready, we go live in 3...2…"

COOKING WITH BILL!

I grinned at the non-existent-but-still-present camera. "Hey kids! Guess who's back for another exciting episode?!" I threw my hands in the air and streamers flew around the room. "ITS ME!" A sound effect of a chorus of children saying "Yaaaay!" rang out. I giggled and waved a hand at the camera. "Aw~ you missed me haven't you? Admit it~"

Facey was floating to the edges of the room and examining them. "Where are we?"

"Now today's lovely guest star is FACEY!" I gestured and a spotlight shone down on them. "Welcome to the show!" The sound of applause echoed around. Facey blinked their many eyes at me. "How did we get here?"

I rolled my eye. "The same way everyone does. Now!" I turned back towards the camera. "Today we'll be baking!" I gestured to the ingredients. "I confess, baking isn't really my strong suit, but I want to practice and…" I leaned closer to the camera to stage-whisper, "Watching me fail hilariously is also entertainment." I pulled back, grinning once more, "Now who wants to learn how to make a Pizza?!"

Multiple thin black hands, suspiciously similar looking to my own, began to wave into the air from the audience. I gasped, placing my own hands on my plane, "Oh wow! So many of you?" I flushed a little. "You must all really enjoy my show!"

"...are those not your own hands, my lord?"

I shushed Facey, don't ruin my bit! "Well first off, to make a pizza, you'll need the dough. And by that, I mean you knead the dough!" The audience laughed and applauded. Facey blinked their eyes out of synch. "I don't understand what is so humorous?"

I sighed. Note to self, teach Facey about the joy of puns. "Well apparently I'm supposed to measure ingredients or something." I glanced down at the bowl with the flour and yeast and everything. "Eh…" I shrugged. "I'm sure I could eyeball it."

I tossed stuff into the bowls. One bowl had the yeast and sugar (wait, did I need something else for it?) and the other bowl had flour and salt. I snorted at the thought of how that Stanford would have had a frustrated meltdown just watching me. And I was petty enough to just go with it, because I'm kind of a little shit like that. "Hey Facey, can you pass me the water pitcher?"

They didn't move, staring at me with a faint sense of confusion. Ah, blocking out emotions and such with a Seal wasn't really something I could do while inside the Mindscape or Dreamscape. The fortifications I placed around my Self did take the brunt of it, so all I got were the faint echoes of their flavor. It was the best I could do at this time. Facey looked at the water pitcher and then up at me. "But… can you not simply grab it yourself, my lord? You are more than capable of-"

I laughed, the edge of hysteria leaking into my tone. "Oh Facey, this is a COOKING SHOW! And you're my lovely guest and assistant." I leaned closer to them, my smile going so wide my eye was nearly a slit. "So why don't you assist me?"

Facey wordlessly handed me the watch pitcher.

"Thank you." I told them sweetly even as fire flickered around my hands, warming the water in the pitcher. I proceeded to dump the water into the bowl of yeast. Yeast needed to drink right? They needed sugar to eat and water to drink. And then...

I stirred the mixture and watched as it began to froth. "And now, the yeast will f*** and that's what makes the dough rise!" I grinned, poking at the bubbles. Heh heh… bubbles.

Ah… next would be… oil! Right!

"Now you add some oil!" I told my captive audience (it's not like any of them have figured out how to escape, hence, captive!) "It can be whatever oil your species is capable of consuming with no negative side effects. In fact, you could probably substitute any and ALL ingredients for whatever you can eat with no negative consequences! I'm sure it'll turn out fine regardless."

"I don't think baking works like that…" Facey muttered. I kindly ignored their slander.

I stretched my hand out to grab some Juersun nuts. They were large, around the side of an earth chicken egg, with a hard outer skin. "I will be using Juersun nut oil. Because I think it smells nice."

"You do not have a nose, my lord…"

I kindly ignored that too. I have a nose in my other forms! Geez! Just because I'm incapable of tasting most things or smelling anything as a triangle didn't mean I didn't enjoy doing such things! Anyway, I simply held up the nut and crushed it with my bare hands, squeezing the oil out through sheer force of pressure. The fluid trickled out from between my fingers, slick and aromatic. Well, okay, I couldn't smell it right now, but it would be aromatic to anyone else who had olfactory sensors.

"Getting oil out of anything is pretty easy." I told my audience. "Simply crush it." My eye flickered and the room darkened. "Crushing and crushing, squeezing and squeezing. Until there's nothing left. Until every, last, drop, has been excreted and its left as nothing more than a dry, empty, husk…"

The lights went back to normal as I straightened up, dropping the now dried out seed onto the table and shaking the oil off my hands into the bowl. "Or you could buy it from a store. Either or." I shrugged.

I stuck my hands into the goopy mess and began to mix it even more. "Combine the yeast mix with the flour mix, a little at a time, and just keep mixing. Eventually it'll come together into a really sticky dough." Heh, heh, squishy squishy~ my hands were absolutely covered. It was very slimy and sticky. So much fun to stick my hands inside. And my little black noodle hands didn't have nails for the dough to get stuck under, so it didn't feel gross at all. Well, okay, a little gross? But still very fun to squish. "Well… ah… I guess this looks good." I looked down at the sticky mess. I could sort of push it into a vague round shape. "Yeah, that's good enough…."

I took out another bowl and squeezed out another Juersun nut to get more oil. I scraped the dough out of the mixing bowl and into the new bowl with the oil. I rolled it around to coat the dough with oil before placing a towel over the top of the bowl. "Now you just leave the dough alone while the yeast continue f***ing and multiplying." I told everyone.

"...isn't that called fermenting?"

"Interrupt me again Facey! See what happens!" I flipped my bricks around to glare at them. My angel shut all their mouths with a squeak and nodded quickly. "Sorry my lord, won't happen again!"

I calmed, bricks turning back to yellow and sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm…" I rubbed a hand along my side, smearing dough across myself, though I didn't care at the moment. "I'm just… trying to do a bit. It's kinda my thing? Whenever I have one of these shows?" I told them. I sighed and buried my face in my hands, smearing more dough over myself. "I'm sorry I lost my temper at you. I… keep doing that. I know I shouldn't snap so much. I'm sorry."

"Um… my lord?" Facey spoke up again.

"Like, I keep telling myself to be more patient with people. But I just can't seem to do it?" I continued. Waving my hand and just feeling like shit for doing this all the time. It was one thing to snap at other people, but Facey was MINE. I shouldn't have done that. It sucked more to scare someone I actually….

"My lord…" Facey's eyes were focused on a point behind me. Huh? Were they unable to look at me because I hurt their feelings when I yelled at them?

"What I'm trying to say is, I care about you. And if I ever scare you or threaten you, please call me out on it and tell me if you don't like it..."

"Lord…" Facey was twitching pretty violently. My metaphysical heart sank. I really screwed up didn't I?

I reached forward and placed my hands carefully along their… 'shoulder'-ish area. "If there's anything I can do to apologize properly I-"

"MY LORD IT'S MOVING!" Facey wailed with 87 voices, multiple eyes fixed upon something behind me.

I finally turned around to see the undulating mass of dough stretching high into the air as it stretched out of the mixing bowl and reached for me. "Holy SHIT!" I cried as it opened a Goddamn MOUTH and let out a low "UuuuOoooOoooOOOO!"

"KILL IT WITH FIRE!" I screamed as I blasted it. Facey was screaming and flying around the room, knocking things off shelves when they realized the dough on my hands, which had smeared over them as well when I touched them was also moving. Moaning as it spread across their faces. "GETITOFF!GETITOFF!"

"AHHHH!" I screamed as the fire only served to make the dough bubble and swell LARGER.

Facey hit the camera and the screen displayed a [Technical Difficulties] image.

Illusion is Reality

Yet another Interlude

Chapter 98.5.2

(AXOLOTL POV)

Bill still wasn't back yet.

I knew when they left (and that so long as the dimensional sets weren't synched, they could return whenever). Back out those Doors I told them not to go near. I suppose I should have known, they were too curious for their own good. I couldn't really stop them, not anymore. I could only trust that they would be safe. The real problem here, is the fact that I STILL couldn't see how they were doing. Well, I briefly got a glimpse when they visited that dimension with the ReversedFlatland. The AXOLOTL there noted their presence. I was quick to ask for an update. Even cut off as I was, I could still make my plea. So Bill was safe. They were also hanging out with another Bill, a rather problematic one. I didn't dare to hope that this other Bill wouldn't be a bad influence. Hoping only led to disappointment.

I worried instead. Worried and stressed until it hurt and I had to stop. I was too exhausted to keep up this worry. I would just have to deal with it once Bill came home.

If they ever came home.

Bill claimed that other Bill as their brother.

It was… odd to think about. Was Bill that desperate for- no, what am I thinking? Of course Bill was that desperate. I searched once again for Will's soul. Why had I lost track of it? Why had I thought it wouldn't be important to keep track of it? But this wasn't the time for regrets. It's difficult to tell Souls apart after they reincarnate anyway. Unless they had markers placed on them. Like I did with Bill's Zodiac.

...I regretted giving Bill a Zodiac.

I regretted giving Bill a way to destroy themselves. I hadn't thought it would ever be a problem. A surefire way to get rid of Bill Cipher… there were many who would have loved to have such a thing. But I didn't want Bill to be destroyed. I knew that now. I realized that now. But I couldn't take it back. The Zodiac existed. And someday, they would try to kill my daughter.

I couldn't dare to hope that they wouldn't. The world wasn't kind enough for that. People assume I made the world the way it was, I didn't. I create what I can and the story spirals out on its own. Time Baby cares more for controlling it, but the story can't be controlled anymore. Those who had that power were long gone. And it was all my fault.

I only had to worry once they all came together. They were harmless on their own. In fact Bill had already met a few of them. Killed one of them too. Bill never even realized that was who/what they were. When Bill asked for a Zodiac, I don't think they realized it meant that their Zodiac now existed. They seemed to be under the impression they would only meet them all once they had gathered together. I suppose this is good. I had another 400 billion years to figure out how to get myself out of this mess.

(...never thought I'd ever think such a thing. I had been empty for so long, mindlessly performing my duties, alone and undisturbed. I never cared about anything. There was simply my purpose, my duty and my job. But I was… free now… the other AXOLOTL have abandoned me. I don't… have to do what I had to do any more. But where did that leave me? I haven't been on my own before. I came into existence with the others. We all lived out our cycles. The Realities we created rose and fell. And we continued on. Resetting again and again, until we could get an alliteration that was…)

I couldn't take back the Zodiac. They existed now. And they would live, die and a new one would be born at some point. (Actually, there was a big chance many of them would simply reincarnate while continuing to be their Zodiac…) I worried whenever Bill was near one of them without knowing who and what they were. What I was more worried about was if Bill met their Zodiac's counterpart in another dimension. There was a slight chance that they might 'count' as Bill's Zodiac. Especially since not all of them existed at the same time here. So… their slots could still be filled by someone else. The fluidity of Bill's Zodiac wasn't something I expected (much like everything about my daughter), it was dangerous. Bill could end up taking on someone outside my dominion as their Zodiac. If that happened...

...no. Bill wouldn't just accept anyone as their Zodiac. They were surprisingly picky… and very convinced the Zodiac wouldn't exist until they were older. And so long as they believed it, I could rest a little easier knowing their ignorance would actually protect them in this case, since they wouldn't go around pulling in just anyone as their Zodiac. And even if they did somehow get some other person in some other dimension to fill a Zodiac slot, they could be replaced just as easily.

Part of me was considering holding onto the Souls of those who were Bill's Zodiac, just… prevent them from being reborn. But it wouldn't solve anything. Even if I held a Soul back, some other person would fill a Zodiac slot. After all, the symbols weren't literal. Glasses could just refer to someone scholarly.

...like that tutor Bill hired for his son...

I worried as that man researched into Bill's history, finding out all he could about my child. I worried over Bill's son wanting to research into ME. I knew what he was doing. It was pretty clear. Amorphous Shape didn't trust me. (None of Bill's friends did.) I suppose they have a right not to. Bill's blind faith in me makes me both flattered and uncomfortable.

I didn't want people knowing about my past mistakes. They technically don't even exist anymore. The previous Realities I had dominion over were long gone. Wiped from existence. There would be no way to learn about them at all. No one knew about them but me. After all, the only information they had access to was what existed here, in the current alliteration. So they wouldn't find out about that. That wasn't why I was worried about Amorphous Shape's research into me.

Every creature with a Soul is connected to me. Because I created them all. And even if I never speak with any of them, interact with any of them, they can still feel me, know instinctively who and what I am. There are spiritualist who divined back up to try and find the source of all life, and they managed to glimpse me. In that way, the original group of worshippers began. They claimed I was their god, and I suppose they aren't wrong. They claimed I was Good and Wise. I have no idea where they got that idea. But believers will convince themselves of anything, it's how belief worked. I was nothing more than my purpose, a duty I have been performing since before time began.

But they all believed so strongly that I was their god. That I was everything good in the world. When fortune favored them, they claimed it was due to my blessings (even though random happenstance was the true culprit) and when bad things happened, they simply convince themselves it was a punishment for some sort of past fault or crime if theirs.

My wiser worshippers know that I did not interfere with mortal affairs. They claimed my refusal to interact with them all to be a sign of my benevolence. As my mere presence around them would be catastrophic. I didn't want to influence them. I wanted them to make their own choices with my interference They are not wrong that I do not exert my will over them (as would have been simple, I created all their Souls, I could control them all if I so wished), but it is not benevolence that stops me from manipulating them, it is fear.

I am afraid of interfering and ruining everything. I am afraid of controlling them. I am afraid to take away their free will. Some might claim that this proves I am Good, for wanting so much to let them all be free.

That is not true.

It's not out of a regard for their independence that I do not wish to lord my power over them. I am afraid, and refuse to do so because...

...I had done it before.

In one of my previous alliterations, I attempted to control everything, to make everything perfect. People were obedient, there was no conflict, no wars or disagreements or suffering. Everyone and everything fell in line to do what they needed to do to keep themselves and their community thriving and alive. It was awful.

There was a numb blackness to that Reality. They would smile without feeling happy. They would laugh without understanding joy. It was painful to watch. Emotionless drones going about their days with no independent thought of their own. They couldn't discover or learn or grow on their own. I had to make them do everything. The Time Baby of that alliteration loved it. I hated it. (As much as I was even capable of feeling such a thing.)

And the Bill of that alliteration...

...he was the same as the others. Until he wasn't. Until he snapped free from my dominion and realized what the world was. And he spent his existence shredding my connection to try and free everyone. He destroyed countless dimensions, tearing them apart in his frustration with the 'mindless sheep' as he ripped their eyes open to the truth of the world. He just wanted them all to be free. But he was stopped. Killed by the Zodiac I created to destroy him. Because everything was falling apart. I already spent so much effort into trying to make that Reality perfect, but it was ruined. And I simply ended up discarding it. Starting over from scratch was easier. That Reality hadn't lasted all that long either, getting destroyed so soon. And I resolved to never take direct control again.

That thought made me end up remembering my other cycles. My other Bills.

It made me wonder again why Bill Cipher existed. Why did I need a Bill Cipher...

Originally… it was an accident. Bill had merely been a survivor from the original Story.

A Story of a flatland of shapes. A world that burned. That was to be the ending of that Story.

I merely wanted to know why.

But the reasons and methods were all different. All different paths that all had to lead to that conclusion. The Time Giants couldn't agree on that.

The very first Bill… had merely been the only survivor.

That changed in the ensuing cycles.

Perhaps because the Story had been thrown off track. Perhaps because of the reset cycles. But things continued to spiral out of control. The Bill Ciphers grew in power. Soon, they had become something important to the Story. A Pillar as it were, matching me and Time Baby in importance. Regardless, they were still within my dominion.

But my daughter… wasn't.

Their soul didn't originate from me.

I haven't ever seen that before.

All of Reality is Mine. Created by me. Because I was all that was left. Everytime. At the end of Reality, when all life ends and everything goes cold, I reset. Because what else could I do? An unending eternity alone in that cold silence, when Time had ended and all Life ceased to be. When there was no one left except myself.

What could I do except reset?

I admit, sometimes I don't even wait that long before I abandon that Reality. I've seen it all before. Countless times. There are repeats. I had gotten used to being able to predict where things would go. And sometimes… I just didn't feel like going through all that. There was no point. It was tedious. I could have slept through it all, waited for the end to come and perhaps even spent some time in the quiet.

I did that sometimes, slept in that silence, unbothered by anything at all. The souls would last for a while until they burned themselves out. They didn't survive long outside a body if I didn't maintain the system. But when no life could even take root, what point was there to maintain the system? I'd rather restart.

I suppose I could continuously output the energy needed to maintain the cycle. But what would even be the point. It would simply push back the inevitable. But a reset would shuffle the board, as it were. It would give me a chance to see how this alliteration might be different. From all the cycles I've been though, the only real difference I've been able to find is Bill Cipher.

Every Bill is different.

Sure, they were similar, especially once they joined their minds with those of the other Bills in the other Dimensional Sets, but all Bills were different. It wasn't much, most of them were cut from the same cloth (I ignored the Bill voice in my mind laughing over that turn of phrase). There was a lot I could expect from a Bill Cipher.

Selfish. Angry. Impatient. Intelligent. Power seeking.

Those were the most common traits I've found within the Bill Ciphers.

So when I met my daughter for the first time and found… exasperated annoyance at my lack of punctuality...

...it was something new.

My daughter was a very odd Bill Cipher. Nothing like what I had been expecting. Not at all.

At first I had merely been surprised. That surprise only grew when I realized this Bill wasn't… mine. Their Soul did not come from me. What that meant, I didn't quite know. But they explained that they used to be a human girl. That… was new. Where their soul came from, I didn't know. That dimension they claimed to have been from… I haven't seen it before. Nor had any of the other Mes. Not that we knew at least. Honestly, one person out of decillions of lives. We wouldn't have noticed.

There was so much that went on without me being aware of it. At what point had I stopped bothering to pay attention? I suppose… at some point I just… didn't really have the motivation to do so. I maintained my system, that was what was required of me.

Even isolated in the Space between Spaces, I wasn't alone. I could hear the prayers of my worshipers. There was still life out in the multiverse. I could feel them all. Even if I paid no attention, they could still be felt. But it wasn't the same as actively observing them all.

It was simple to see all the world. I could feel each and every life. Everything with a soul. I could know their lives and history. I just didn't bother to. The only people I couldn't see were Bill and Time Baby. I would have to actively look for them. It was too much of a hassle...

...it… wasn't enough. To keep track of my daughter. If Bill were here I could simply search for the soul that wasn't mine and find them. But out pass their doors, I couldn't reach. Whatever place they were in was too far. Not my dominion, nor any of my alternatives. I really hoped they came home soon.

The multiverse was still expanding, I drained Bill's Nightmare Realm for the energy needed for upkeep. I wasn't creating any new dimensions at the moment so I didn't have to really worry. Not yet.

...I feel like my thoughts had become more disjointed as time went on. Something I must have picked up from Bill.

Yet, I couldn't find it in me to really mind.

Illusion is Reality

Chapter 98.6

-But I can give you something else-

Okay, okay. Stan knew he wasn't asleep (and that Ford wasn't just gonna 'wake up' and change his mind on everything for no good reason), but that didn't mean that everything still wasn't completely freaking strange. All the hugging without getting punched in the face for tryin' it - Ford actually wanting it instead; the dragon-lady saying they loved each other - Ford actually sayin' it straight-out, out loud, himself, without getting into a fight with the dragon-lady over it...

Ford didn't say stuff like that out loud, and neither did he. And Ford… hadn't been lying. About any of it? But Stan didn't know how to square what Ford was saying and (almost unbelievably, actually) meaning now with what had happened thirty years ago, or any of the rest of it, really...

...unless at some point, Ford had changed his mind on him again, for some reason... because of something Stanley had done…? and…?

Stan had no idea what he had done that could have made Ford change his mind about him like that, though. Because if everything was supposed to be 'all better now' because of the whole memory gun thing… well, Stan had his memories back and Bill hadn't actually stayed dead, so...

...if that was the thing that was supposed to have changed Ford's mind on him, then...

...it really was only a matter of time before Ford really thought that one through again, 'woke up' to the reality of a bunch of things that he really didn't like, and decided to be disappointed and mad and angry at him all over again, wasn't it? Because Stan knew better than to think that circle-thing was going to work on the demon-kid if it came down to it bullshit about his not-a-tattoo burning him or not or otherwise, but Ford still thought that it would...

...and Stan didn't know how to explain that one to Ford, that it just flat-out wouldn't. Because he'd tried explaining it to Ford before now, and it just hadn't… clicked for him? Ford just didn't get it. Stan didn't know how to explain it to him. And Stan knew better than to think Ford always knew more and better than he did anymore, long since. Even if Ford still thought that he did... on anything he thought was important on anything, anyway. Which meant it really was only a matter of time, until...

...yeah, okay. Guess he'd better just enjoy it while it lasted, right? Wasn't really his callout that Ford wasn't thinking any of all of this stuff through completely...

(If Ford had known that was how Stan felt, he would have realized something was wrong even sooner…)

That evening, after Mabel got over 'awwing' all over the whole 'you told each other you love each other' thing (yeah, yeah…), Stan finished cooking for his own family, and turned the stove over to Miz. By the time he'd gotten all the plates out and sat down, Miz had finished cooking for her brother in the Shack kitchen (as per the usual these days), handing Bill his plate of expertly-seared vegetables with a nuzzle and a "With all my love~!" (which left Bill blinking, and made Dipper gag). Miz then informed them all, with a proud smile, that she wasn't hungry (which was anything but the usual, by contrast). Though she did put a spoonful of food (Stan's latest home cooking!) in her mouth and hold it there for taste, just because.

Stan gave her a long look, his good mood starting to evaporate already. "There any fish still left in the lake for fishing?" he asked her. Last thing he needed was Tate McGucket getting on his case, if the dragon-lady pulled something like that with the 'local wildlife', and...

"Yes," Bill replied to Stanley for her, as he used his fork on said (by his standards) actually-edible vegetables. "We got more meat from deer in the forest to replace the fish in the freezer. Non-enchanted. We went to the lake after. Miz ate there, but she didn't eat any fish."

Stan was about ready to let the whole 'non-enchanted' bit just slide right there, when Ford slammed his hands into the table as he shot to his feet, bristling in place as he shouted out in alarm-

"-Then what, or who, did the man eater eat?!" (...Okay, guess Ford didn't care all that much about that one there, then. Yup. Stan was okay with this.) Ford's yell garnered wide-eyed looks from both Dipper and Mabel. (And something of a suppressed groan from Stan, who was pretty damn sure the two of them both knew better than that. Not to mention: not liking to eat celery-hair as an already-cited 'excuse' for not eating humans. Which Ford had heard from Miz himself.)

Bill rolled his eyes and let out something of a sigh. "Relax, Sixer," he half-drawled out, as he speared another bite of his meal from his plate. "She only ate a bunch of 'what's, no 'who's." Bill said as he took a bite and chewed for a bit (speaking with perfect clarity with a nearly-closed mouth as he talked around the food in his mouth - which wasn't visible at all despite his not having swallowed it yet). "And none of the 'what's belonged to anyone either, Sixer, don't get your trenchcoat twisted into a knot about it," Bill added next, in descending annoyed tones and the start of a glare, directed at Ford. "It was just-"

"-Trash!" Miz said brightly next (having swallowed her mouthful at last), and everyone (except Bill) blinked at this. (Bill, for his part, grimaced at Miz's words instead.) Stan himself had to adjust his hearing aid before asking Miz…

"...Say that again?"

"Ugh," Bill complained. "-No," Bill told her, before raising a hand and mussing up Miz's hair, to her immediate whining noises of protest. "Not 'trash'. -You do not tell sapient species that you eat 'trash' things that they cannot and do not want to eat! They don't understand," Bill told her next, letting up on the hair-mussing finally, but still leaving his hand on top of her head (just in case he needed to start it up again at a moment's notice if she tried contradicting him on this, most very important point). "They just automatically think of you as stupid, barely-sentient, and lesser if you do that! ALWAYS." He sounded not very pleased with her at the moment.

Then Bill turned away from his sister to look up at the rest of them - mainly Stan. "-She said she wanted to clean the lake earlier," Bill Cipher told Stan. "Easier way for her to do that is to disintegrate things by stuffing them far enough down into her mouth, that is what happens to them. It is not, by any stretch of Sixer's very limited imagination, anything like what any of you would call 'eating'. Let alone 'eating trash.'" Bill rolled his eyes again.

Miz herself mumbled, "...trash and dead bodies were what they used to make baby formula back in my Flatland… that was all I could afford to eat back then..." before getting another spoonful and quickly silencing herself with a large mouthful of food again.

"... Right," Stan said. Hell, he didn't want to touch that one at all. He glanced over at Ford, and his brother… was grimacing to himself a little and pinching the bridge of his nose, while the kid was… looking rather dead-no-expression-faced for the moment, just focusing on eating instead. Great.

"...Where did you get it?" Dipper said slowly, of the 'trash' that Miz had supposedly eaten. (Luckily, he hadn't heard what she had just muttered out at them under her breath. However...) He was feeling a little weirded (and grossed) out at the idea of Miz maybe upending trashcans to eat stuff. Even the goat ate better than that… and sometimes people threw really bad and nasty stuff away...

Miz, mouth full with that 'stolen' bite of food from the serving bowl Stan had put out (read: a 'bite' so big it had been almost the size of her fist), responded by talking with her mouth closed, essentially humming her words. "Mm mmmhh hhm hhhmmmuuumm hhuu mmh!" she explained cheerfully.

...Everyone stared at her except Bill, though there was more exasperation in Bill's look after Miz finished talking than before it, as he continued looking down at his plate and speared another bit of food on said plate with a light 'thunk'.

"Kid… translation?" Stan asked the demon-kid, who apparently had understood whatever his sister had been mumble-humming at them, if the kid's response to said mumble-hum meant anything at all. Stan almost didn't expect a response outta him for asking, except 'effective communication' was a big thing with the kid, and...

"'I was swimming and found some litter and trash at the bottom.'" Bill 'translated' for her (and given how he rattled that off with the near-exact same cadence as what they'd just heard… it was pretty clear that he was largely just repeating what she'd just... 'said'... to them all). He then frowned. "Except it wasn't-"

"-So she really ate trash?" Dipper looked a little green. The stuff down in the bottom of the lake was probably moldy. And rusted and falling apart! -And had stuff living in it! EW!

"-NO!" Bill said in pure annoyance. "I JUST SAID-"

-and Miz interrupted her brother with a shrug and a, "Hhhuueee mmmuu hhuunnn hhuu huuui he hhhh!"

"'I removed my sense of taste for the duration, cleaned off the dirt, algae, and sand, and my stomach took care of the rest,'" Bill responded for her again, in the same rattled off and rather disinterested cadence, even as he rolled his eyes up rather ceiling-ward as he did it. ("Hhhm!" Miz nodded.) "-It ISN'T TRASH," Bill said in a far different manner next, in response to this, mussing up Miz's hair again. "It's discarded and lost matter at the bottom of the lake. Most of which didn't have anything living in it when she grabbed it, and what was was removed before she did anything else to-or-with it," Bill clarified in annoyance, as he let up on the hair-mussing again.

"...Well, it's good that you cleaned the lake?" Mabel tried next. Dipper still looked a little grossed out at the idea of Miz eating what was effectively still trash. "Hh hoo uhh he huhh heee huaa nng huohuu." Miz shrugged.

"'It was mostly empty beer cans, bottles, broken fishing lines, hooks…'" Bill rattled off before taking another bite of food to eat.

"Stop please!" Dipper groaned, face buried in his hands. Miz made a sympathetic hum at him, looking like she wanted to… do something from across the table. (Pat his back.) Mabel hugged him at his side instead. And after awhile (and some deep breathing as he tried not to throw up at the thought of eating all that literal likely rusting and rotten old garbage), Dipper looked up at Miz again.

"I can't believe you ate that stuff," Dipper told her, frowning. "Forget not telling people about it - you shouldn't eat tra-! ...things that might as well be trash!" Dipper ended only slightly differently, given the look that Bill had been starting to give him right then. But somebody had to say something about it, right? This was really messed up, and Dipper never thought he'd have to tell someone (who wasn't a member of Sev'ral Timez) something like this outright.

"Hhmm!" Miz pouted, as much as she could with a mouthful of food.

Bill didn't even side-eye her over that one - or try to play translator for her again this time - and it left Dipper sighing. "Just swallow or something, already; are you seriously going to keep not swallowing that mouthful for forever?" Dipper asked her.

"Hm." Miz shrugged. She didn't see what the problem was. (Mabel privately thought Miz looked like a chipmunk with her cheeks full like they were, but she just giggled quietly and kept that thought to herself.)

Ford grimaced and tried (unsuccessfully) to ignore the man-eater's annoying behavior.

Meanwhile, Stan largely let it all be. He had something of a suspicion that Miz might be doing that so she wouldn't be able to talk during dinner without some kind of translator. (It left Ford and the demon-kid talking to each other more, too, if only by proxy, and somehow not getting into fights over it - which Stan didn't have to wonder about, maybe might have been part of the dragon-lady's whole 'plan' for doin' it in the first place. Not like Stan hadn't picked up on that one there, either.)

Still, that ended up being pretty much the 'excitement' at the dinner table that night. Everyone else finished eating from there, and aside from Dipper giving Miz some grimaces for the rest of the meal this time, it was an almost-peaceful dinner.

Before leaving to go back upstairs after dinner, Miz finally swallowed her mouthful and asked, "Can I clean the Shack? Like… wipe off the dust, dirt and grime?"

"...What, right now?" Stan asked (and it wasn't just him - it even had Ford looking at her a little askance).

"Not right this second, like, just in general, maybe starting tomorrow? When I have free time?" Miz blinked at him.

"...Why do ya want to do it?" Stan asked (though it was in somewhat-descending tones, like he was almost trying not to make it a question). He was definitely in gruff old-man-mode at the moment, a bit.

Miz wiggled from side to side. "It's calming. I like cleaning. And tidying stuff," she told him. ...Right, Stan remembered, the dragon lady had mentioned something about that before, when she was wearing that maid outfit. "Y'know, you've cleaned stuff before, 'cause you were gettin' all restless. Didn't really try and stop you, then," though he still didn't get why she had such an itch for doin' it. Sure, she was a dragon-lady and all, but didn't most kids want to try and get out of doing housework? "Why're you asking for my permission now?"

"Well, before I was just cleaning the spots that no one really cared about even though they were in plain sight, but this is your territory so I have to ask for permission to do any more intensive and thorough cleaning in the other areas," Miz told him.

"Uh-huh…" Stan said neutrally. Territory, sure. And here he'd wondered about whether the kid had claimed the whole Shack for himself, like Ford kept worrying that he had. Take that one, Ford. Stan was damn well sure that the demon-kid hadn't done that, if Miz was talking to him about this, and the kid himself wasn't complaining about it right now; not like he wasn't in earshot, standin' right there next to her and all that.

"And what would this cleaning involve?" Stan asked of Miz next. Miz glanced away, over at the cabinets and then proceeded to give Stan a full-on list of every dirt, dust, and grime pile Miz had noticed around the shack. ("-there's some mold growing behind the tv, I can smell it.") And she even brought up that small termite colony that was trying to build inside the walls ("I can hear them moving!") From the look on her face, all of this had apparently been bothering her for a while now. "N-not that I'm saying the shack is dirty or anything! It's just a few places that don't get used often so stuff just collects there and-"

Stan held up a hand and Miz closed her mouth. "It's fine. I think I get it. So… you mostly just want to clean the dirt and dust off, right? Only the dirt and dust kinda stuff?" he clarified.

Miz nodded. "Mold too, since it can negatively affect your health. And moving the bugs outside, they can live just fine out there, without being in here." Stan grimaced at the last (he'd just gotten done negotiating with those stupid things about boundaries all over again; he didn't need her mucking it all up). Miz seemed to notice Stan's expression, and added, "...if you want to keep the bugs, you can keep the bugs," she relented.

"Don't want to keep 'em, exactly," Stan told her, scratching his cheek. "Just ain't worth the effort to mess with 'em like that. You should leave 'em alone," he told her. Not like they wouldn't just move right back in once she was gone - or worse, something else would end up moving in instead. ...which was half the reason why he didn't try getting rid of them completely in the first place.

Miz thought about it. "Alright." she finally nodded. "I will leave the bugs alone. What about the mice?"

"Don't got any mice," Stan said to her. "Can't you just go askin' your brother to help with you not hearin' the termites and stuff? If it's bothering you all that much hearing them."

"I could do that," Bill said casually. "You want to work on selective hearing or a full-eclipse blockout instead?" (It didn't take a genius to see which option Bill thought was a bad one - the second - but he still offered her both.)

Miz looked over at Bill, mildly surprised. "Um… I guess selective? I have a way to muffle sounds that are too loud, but I hadn't really messed with the opposite."

"Selective isn't a block or a muffle, it's a shunt," Bill noted. "Might want to listen to it later. We can talk more upstairs." He didn't particularly want to get into layering techniques with her, right in front of that Stanford as he was standing there. Or Pine Tree. Or...

Miz nodded at that. "Maybe they'll tell me their secrets."

"The termites? Not likely," Bill told her. "They're not all that chatty with each other. -Operational security, you know." They'd learned after having to deal with Stanley for so long, Bill suspected.

"Yeah, all they really talk about is how much they want to kill anything that enters their territory… not really the nicest thing to listen to." Miz mumbled.

"Termites don't talk…" Dipper said slowly, looking back and forth between the two demons, with a lot less enthusiasm and a clear lack of 'you silly! boop!' which they would otherwise be getting from his sister, if Mabel hadn't already gone up the stairs.

"Not in a language you understand." Miz huffed. "I happen to be multilingual."

"That's not-" Dipper began, but he stopped at a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at his Great-Uncle Ford with a slight frown, but Great-Uncle Ford just shook his head at him slightly, standing tall.

"Yeah, so," Stan said, trying to get the discussion back on track again. "You wanna get rid of the rest of the dirt, dust, and mold around the place, in all those places you just listed there," he clarified once more, "That right?", to Miz's nod. "Fine," Stan said. "Take your time at it, though," he told her. "Not like any of it's goin' anywhere. Maybe get your brother in on it, if he wants to," he added, which was met with an indifferent shrug from said demon-kid brother with nary a glance coming Stan's way over it.

Ford was frowning at all this (not particularly liking the idea of Miz 'cleaning' everything - or, rather, her and Bill Cipher getting into every nook and cranny of the Shack like that, in order to do Axolotl-knew-what in every hard-to-reach - and thus hard-to-see to check - place on the premises), but before he could say anything himself to this effect, he was interrupted by Dipper's aghast, "You're not gonna eat any of it, are you?" (He hadn't seen much of Miz's cleaning when it was done earlier, only heard a little bit about it from Mabel.)

"What?! Eeewww no!" Miz gagged. "Metal, plastic or glass is one thing, but the discarded skin flakes among other broken down biological matter is something entirely different!" She pouted. "Besides, I cleaned all the stuff at the lake before I ate them! I'm not a savage!"

"-How is it different? Trash is trash!" Dipper protested, to which Miz scoffed, folding her arms and looking almost offended.

"I'm not going to argue semantics with you," Miz told him. When Dipper looked about to complain some more, Miz rolled her eyes and remarked, "Don't you chew on pens?"

"I don't eat them!" Dipper squeaked as his voice cracked. "I just chew on them!"

The demon-kid rolled his eyes at all this in pure exasperation, and Stan snorted, not even hiding his amusement. When the demon-kid gave him a glare for his trouble next, Stan just outright started laughing - he really couldn't help it, the whole thing was so stupid - and he only began laughing even harder when Ford gave him a straight-up 'you are hopeless' exasperated look of his own as he did it.

"And plastic is nice to chew on. It's got such varying firmness!" Miz responded plainly, as if she was agreeing with him. "And glass is even better!"

"I'm not gonna chew on glass!" Dipper protested, which got him a sigh and a shake of the head from Miz.

And then Miz went on to say, as if educating him on this matter, "But glass is really crunchy. Even more so than plastic! And much less gross to chew on than sand!"

Stan was wheezing by this point. (And Dipper was just left staring and feeling embarrassed.)

"-Not that I chew on sand that often," Miz continued, "Because it's usually got all this extra stuff in it, because people forget and leave their food out on the beach, and I don't want anything to do with that. They should all just clean up after themselves," she informed them quite seriously. "Besides, I don't even need sand to chew on anymore! There are lots of people who will make all sorts of glass for me, now! And like, if you gave me someone's half eaten food or a rotten banana peel, I'm NOT eating that, just to be clear, sand or no sand on it," Miz continued. "But cleaned empty beer cans and stuff are different. All the biodegradable stuff is cleaned off to let nature take care of that on its own and then I eat the part that they can't break down." She was just getting rid of the man made stuff. What was the problem here?

Dipper buried his face in his hands. "So glad I'm done eating…" He was really wishing he hadn't asked her about any of this now. ...Though knowing that she cleaned the mold and stuff off first, made it a little better.

"I think that's enough talk about eating habits for now," Ford said rather quellingly (reaching rather firmly for a deep well of patience that he really had not realized he still had, when it came to any demons he might come to an encounter with), and - oddly enough - it seemed to work. Stan grunted out an agreement with him, and the demons finally left to go back upstairs - Bill essentially herding his sister out of the room as a result of this… before she could start an argument with his grand-nephew over the differences in their individual eating habits?

Dipper let out a sigh of relief at this - and the teenager turned to give his grunkle a deadpan look, because apparently he was still caught in the throes of hilarity. "It's not that funny, Grunkle Stan."

Stan just kept on laughing. It was all so freaking ridiculous. The looks they'd kept tossing around over this shit. Dipper's eating pens up against Miz's glass-eating, apparently. The fact that Dipper drew the line at Miz eating litter, despite all the other probably much worse things Miz had gone off and eaten...

...like people...

...yeah, okay. That helped kill it for him. (So did the idea of some of the literal trash that Stan had dumpster-dove and eaten out of the top of trashcans back in the day when he'd been damn near starving out on the streets, off-and-on again for a bit. He didn't want to think of what the kids would think of him for that one now, given what he'd heard from all this, especially Dipper's own reactions.) Stan let out a breath, pulled in another, and got it all under control. And then...

"Yeah, well, off to bed wi' you," Stan said, grumpily shooing the remaining of the two twins (read: Dipper) upstairs, as he got to finishing clearing the table. The demons had washed their own dishes earlier, and Stan shook his head in amusement as he got to cleaning his family's own 'human' dishes himself. ...So Miz wanted to clean, huh? Well, depending on what her definition of 'clean' was, maybe Stan could take advantage of the situation to get the kids to feel guilty enough to clear out some of the storage room or something for him. Shame the kids into doing some of their own little bit of cleaning. Hell, even cleaning up their own room for a start. That'd be useful.

That night, after a whole day of observing her brother for potential side effects and having found none, Miz finally brought up the idea to her brother of making other vessels for him to temporarily inhabit.

Bill wasn't quite sure how he felt about the odd smile Miz had going as she suggested this to him, but the idea seemed to make his sister happy, so he was willing to hear her out…

...and once he had, WELL! Then, Bill was ALL FOR IT!

...and this was how Stan came into the kitchen the next morning to find two cats in there that he was pretty sure they didn't own.

Stan blinked. "Uh…" he said. He almost asked Mabel who she'd stolen the two cats from, except the coloring on these two definitely wasn't normal, which meant that...

Mabel was petting a small black and yellow kitten that had to be Miz, while an adult cat (with black and blue fur) looked on from the countertop, watching lazily.

"So…" Stan said, deciding to take this one in stride, like he usually did with anything else strange that happened in this crazy freaking town. "Why are you two all cat-ified this morning before breakfast." Because he wasn't planning on fishing for a lot of tuna for these two; no way. They brought in deer meat yesterday for Miz to keep on eating? Then they could just eat deer meat, then.

The black and blue haired cat, which Stan would bet just about anything was probably the kid, turned its head and glanced over at Stan. The cat blinked slowly, before stretching, straightening, and then jumping onto the kitchen table, right across from him.

And then Stan heard, as the cat's eyes glowed slightly, in beat with what Stan was hearing, "Miz wanted headpats. She thought being a cat would get her all the free head pats." The cat paused, then sat down in place and added, "Also, Miz cleaned the attic area this morning while she was like this. She said it was easier to get into the small spots while she's this small."

"...Right." Stan stared at the demon-kid(-cat?), that hadn't moved its mouth at all during any of this. (And yeah, sure, Stan remembered the triangle yell-talk-glowing at him inside of his head - and outside of it - right before the whole memory gun thing, but this was-)

The kitten in Mabel's arms purred, as Mabel kept on petting it, and Mabel squealed out, "-Talking cats! Magic cats!"

"Yes!" the yellow and black cat yowled out agreeably, moving its mouth slightly as it did so. "Ooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh!" It rolled over and out of Mabel's arms, from on its back to onto its stomach on the kitchen table, and looked up all big-eyed at Stan. "-Do you think we could be an exhibit at the Shack?" Miz asked him next. "$5 to pet the magic cats!" Miz's voice squealed out next, eyes glowing faintly (while her mouth wasn't moving) as well.

Mabel scritched the kitten's ears. "I'd pay five bucks to pet a magic cat!" Mabel told her, giving her valuable input. "You're soooo soft!"

And KittenMiz looked so very proud of herself for this fact. (Being so soft and Mabel-approved pettable.)

At this, Stan glanced over at the demon-kid (demon-cat?) again, "Am I hearin' this right?" he asked. "You two are both actually doin' this 'cause you want to." Because if the dragon-lady was starting to talk the demon-kid into this kinda crazy shit when he didn't want to do it, Stan really needed to know this one, now.

But the CatBill just swished their tail calmly, no eye rolls or nothin'. "She thought it would be fun," Stan was told by said triangle-demon turned-black-and-blue-cat, before he could even ask him why he was doin' it directly.

"And if it helps earn money, that's just a bonus!" Miz said happily next.

"Uh huh," Stan said noncommittally, still looking over at the older cat here. And, okay, sure, the demon-cat wasn't complaining yet, but... "You sure you're up for this. The whole Shack exhibit thing," Stan said to him a little skeptically (and for good reason, considering what he knew the kid thought of all of that stuff).

But at this, the kid straight out cat-grinned at him, looking oh so very cat-like smug, as he eye-glowed out at him, "It would be fun to be worshipped again."

And at that, Stan probably should have hit the brakes on this madness right then and there. (For one thing, Ford was probably gonna throw a fit over anything the kid himself might ever consider or call 'worship'. He probably should at least talk to him about it, first… if he wanted a reason to stop.)

But instead of kiboshing it there, Stan started making breakfast instead, while casually remarking, "If you want to be an exhibit, we're gonna have to work out just how much 'magic' you magic cats are gonna have, here," because just straight-out talking cats would be too much. There was a fine balance between engaging fake exhibits and the real deal.

Stan wasn't stupid. And Dipper had told him what had happened when he and Mabel had tried to put a real monster on display… and it had not been anything like good for them, either. Stan knew Mabel knew that, and he wanted the reminder right out there in the open for this. Because if the demons really wanted to do this - and from the purring that Miz was letting out, she really wanted to do it - Stan would have to make sure to regulate what they were allowed to do.

...it wasn't like Stan was seeing dollar signs flashing before his eyes or anything.

(Meanwhile, Miz was very much hoping this distraction-slash-bribe would lessen Stan's eventual Penalty for her, for the whole messing-with-Ford-via-Mabel-two-days-ago thing… and she also really could more easily get into all the small places that she wanted to clean when she was this size, just like she had in the attic.)

"This is a terrible idea." Ford said wearily, knowing that his brother wasn't going to listen to him anyway. But Mabel was already worked up about it, and Dipper was going along with what his sister wanted for now, and Stan, as per the usual these days, just laughed at him and said, "It'll be fine. This might be good for the kid."

(Because it was more than just the potential of making bank by exploiting the demons' cuteness as magical cats that had made Stan want to agree with this. Having the two 'cats' as an exhibit would have the kid needing to be interacting with non-Zodiac people - adult humans - specifically, the tourists. Stan had wanted to get the kid doing that for a while now, but the demon had refused point blank to have anything to do with any of the idiots who came by the Shack. ...By which the demon-kid apparently meant any and every adult that had ever shown up, and most older teenagers. That said, Stan had recognized over time that the 'idiot-tourist' label didn't seem to extend to any Shack visitor who was younger than age thirteen, for whatever reason - and when it came to the really young ones, around ages 3 to 5 or so, and up to almost around age 7, the kid was actually pretty-)

Because now the kid was going to have to be around all those people that he considered 'tourists'. Because his sister wanted to do this thing. And… Stan paused as he thought about it, because… Huh. ...Well, what do you know? Looked like Miz was doing what Stan had been trying for, getting the kid to socialize with humans more. ...Hell, now that Stan thought about it, Miz had also agreed to go to high school when he'd brought it up, when they'd both known that the kid would feel like he'd have to go with her. ...And Stan mentally pat himself on the back over this one, yet again. Because as much trouble as the younger demon caused with Ford, having Bill take her on as a younger sister was still the best plan Stan had ever had involving the two of 'em. (...Things could'a been a hell of a lot worse if she'd been runnin' around whatever places out on her own here instead, for a start.)

And Miz was… eh, somewhat easier to handle than the kid, sometimes. (As long as it didn't involve Ford. Then they were both pretty terrible.) The real problem with her wasn't that she was trying to sabotage him or nothin'; it was actually kind of the opposite of that. Hell, if that had been the problem, Stan practically could've just dialed it in and called it a day; the kid wouldn't put up with that kinda shit from anybody messing with 'his own Zodiac'. No, a big part of the problem was that Miz usually listened to him when he told her stuff, most of the time, but she also usually didn't remember what he'd told her when she was caught up in the heat of the moment - and not only did that happen way too often with her, but that was also when Stan usually needed her to remember it the most. That made her dangerous and unpredictable...

...but not actively malicious. She wasn't actively malicious; not like the kid was. The kid really was that way about things sometimes. Miz not being that way with them was as much a problem as it was a relief though, because it made it that much harder for Stan to call her out for all of the shit she did later - 'accidents' got treated differently than 'on purpose' with the way he'd set up the agreement with the kid from the start. (He'd set that all up with just them and the kid in mind, not Miz. So at the time he'd come up with it, Stan hadn't thought he'd needed to worry more about 'accidents' than about all the 'on purpose' malicious kinda stuff. The demon-kid did almost all of the worst of all his shit 'on purpose', and almost never 'by accident' on him. Dragon lady was the other way around completely there, though. Funhouse mirrors didn't begin to cover what it was like trying to relate all of the two demons' junk.)

What wasn't a problem with Miz, though - and more of a help than anything - was that Miz seemed to understand most (if not all) human concepts a hell of a lot better than the kid did. And heck, she was trying to get her brother to hang out around humans more. (Which was just about a freakin' godsend, right now!)

...And at this point, Stan figured she was actively trying to use herself as some kind of incentive (or blackmail) to lure Bill into social situations with other (non-demon) people, for whatever reason. It sure looked that way to him, and Stan definitely wouldn't put it past her. (Probably had something to do with how she seemed to want to be around a lot more people a lot more often than the kid did, usually. Regular amounts of people, anyway, not crowds or whatever. The way she'd gotten a little bit scared from the audience at her fire show had certainly been… something, right there.) She was craftier than she seemed, though; she went at things a lot more sideways than the demon-kid liked to do it… when the kid didn't think he had to be all 'crafty' and lying and junk...

...Figured that the two 'Bill Cipher's would both be real bad at manipulation, just in their own different ways of screwing it up. -Hell, Stan actually recognized it easier with her than he did with the demon-kid; Miz's way of doing it was a hell of a lot more 'human' than the kid usually went about doing things. (Just because the kid was 'straightforward' about it inside his own head, didn't mean it didn't look twisty as hell to anybody else without twelve compasses and a roadmap. If Stan hadn't been just about forced to work with a bunch of psychopaths over the years way back when, during those ten years of...)

"What's good for Bill Cipher is generally not good for anyone else," Stan's brother told him.

Stan shook his head.

"Look, Poindexter. We'll all be here watching." He seriously doubted that anyone would actually start seriously worshipping the demon-cat on the spot like the kid seemed to think was gonna happen, there. Not in a place like this, hell. "And I talked Miz through some protections she could put on herself to keep any of the tourists from grabbin' her in a way that could panic her." Stan had made certain Miz didn't forget about that. That new kitty collar she was wearing now for the display was both her 'Emotion filter headband' as well as 'protection' from others. And… "I even got the kid in on it, too." The demon-kid had even actively hands-on helped her rework the magic-cancelling cuffs she'd been wearing into the other new 'golden' accessories she was now decorated with, physically going over the pieces with her outside of the barrier, instead of just talking her through it (which apparently the kid had been doing usually). (The fact that the kid had been doing more and more of that helping 'hands-on' type of stuff with her lately, for some reason, was something Stan knew he was gonna have to ask after sooner rather than later, too).

(Stan later found out that apparently Miz was much better at hands-on learning as opposed to simply hearing about something without trying it out herself, right then, on the spot. Something about 'tactile'-something or another. Which apparently the kid got like nothing-going… and Stan tucked that pretty damn telling little piece of information away in the back of his brain to keep in mind for later, for another long talk on another rainy day, when the kid was in a really good mood.)

Ford had let out a long sigh and made some complaint or another under his breath, one that Stan hadn't actually heard real well as Ford turned away from him and strode away. Stan watched as Ford punched in the right buttons on the vending machine, to walk his way into the 'secret entrance' down to the basement and... disappear off downstairs 'for the duration' again, probably.

Stan left him to it, looking in one of the gift shop mirrors while adjusting his tie just a bit. He himself was tossing in a bit of his own 'buy-in' into the whole thing, too - he was back in his Mr. Mystery outfit, leading all the tours today that were gonna be displaying the newest exhibit. (It let him keep an eye out on both of the demon-kids, and would give him a chance to keep anybody from even thinking grabbing either them from the start. Because it was...) A grand unveiling today! Just $25 to go in to see it and…

...a part of him had really kinda missed doing this, a lot more than he wanted to admit.

"Step right up folks! Come see the artifacts unearthed from a real Egyptian tomb!" Stan enthused out Mr. Mystery-style, as he grinned widely and waved his hands at the display that Mabel, Miz, and Dipper had built together. The girls had had fun with the arts and crafts part (outside of the barrier, where Miz wasn't restricted to just and only her cat paws), while Dipper (nose in a book on ancient Egypt) had interjected with help on all that 'historical accuracy' stuff for the hieroglyphs and structures and things. Meanwhile, the kid had stood off to the side and taken way too much pleasure in correcting Dipper when apparently his 'Pine Tree' managed to somehow get anything wrong. (...Not that any of them had paid much attention to the demon-cat's asides on any of that junk, despite any and all of the demon-kid's cat-like complaining, heh. It had sounded like a lot of technical, nitpicky stuff that nobody in their right mind would ever care about, anyway. And hey, the way things turned out, the darn thing certainly looked authentic to the four of them. And with the lighting down dim, it certainly gave off an air of spookiness to the whole thing.)

As the tourists took their photos and all "Ooh"ed a bunch over the display, Stan grinned as he hammed it up. "Oh no! The flash photography has activated the CURSE! When light shines upon them, the spirits of the dead will be stirred once MORE…!" Stan cried out spookily (in true hammed-up Mr. Mystery fashion) and the crowd gasped out loudly at this display.

"-And the only way to appease the curse is to give them an offering of gold!" Stan told them next, as he gestured to a coin dispenser machine with the words 'gold dispenser' on it. "Just your luck! They're only five dollars each! ...Though the curse is pretty minor, so unless you mock them, you probably don't have to appease the spirits... to get out of it all aliiiiiiive." (It almost hurt him to say that one, but the dragon lady had insisted on that, that "They should still have a choice to refuse if they want," so he'd gone with it. Gettin' the kid to even be in the same room with the adult tourists was a big step up, and definitely worth the potential loss of revenue he could've otherwise scammed out of these suckers, even if he didn't want to admit it.)

Stan let none of these thoughts mar his Mr. Mystery grin, though, as he pointed to the spot on the machine that accepted bills. "But if you're worried - and hey, if I were you, I would be - you can deposit the gold into the altar to be freed from any" - ugh - "potentially" (- there, he said it! -) "horrifying consequences."

A few guys scoffed at the idea of a 'curse'. "Yeah right," one guy laughed out. (...Heh. Showtime.)

Stan gasped out at this terrible, terribly stupid thing that this guy had just done right here. (Heh.) "Oh no! You've mocked the spirits!" Stan cried out next, and at that cue-

The regal 'black cat statue', adorned with glinting jewels and gold, sitting beside a tiny little sarcophagus with some wrapped-up bandaged thing inside it, almost creakingly rotated its head level on its nec towards the chuckling rube, to stare straight into the eyes of the man who had laughed, who was now standing there looking absolutely shocked as he slowly turned pale.

The crowd gasped. "Holy- it's ALIVE!"

And at that gasping reaction, the bundle of bandages in the sarcophagus began to wiggle a bit next. And out of said bandages something torturously crawled itself free and slowly sat up, a tiny black kitten with gleaming golden eyes. The crowd screamed.

And the man who had laughed before was staring wide-eyed at this whole scene now, looking almost frozen in place. "H-heh. Neat trick. It's… it's just a cat…" he said nervously, swallowing hard. But the larger cat was still staring unblinkingly at him, making the man somewhat uncomfortable. And the man winced next as the moving kitten stopped moving all at once and stared at him too, then opened its mouth wide and began hissing at him softly.

(Heh, thought Stan. ...Man, and he'd thought the two demons had just used their natural demon-ny-ness to win themselves that prize booth. This was actually some next-level shit right here. Stan could unabashedly appreciate the stagecraft that was goin' on, here. Even if he sure as hell wasn't gonna show any of it at all on his face.)

That… wasn't normal right? You couldn't train a cat to do that, right? The man managed to get his feet unstuck from the floor, and started to move a little bit away from them, but the cats continued to follow his movements with their eyes. He was starting to break out in a cold sweat, because... Holy hell, were that kitten's eyes glowing?!

"-Quick! Give the machine five dollars!" Stan gasped out next. The man immediately shoved his hand into his pocket, digging around for his wallet, and he all but stumbled backwards as he fumblingly turned and all but ran over to the 'Gold dispenser' next.

With shaking hands - oh god, he could still feel their eyes drilling into him, he needed to make it stop-! - he shoved his cash into the slot and hit the dispensing button hard, and the machine churned out a large golden coin for him. The man grabbed it up quickly, and then froze in place for a moment, as he realized that in order to get rid of this curse-thing he was going to have to…

The man turned back shakingly, and swallowed hard with al almost-audible gulping noise. He slowly forced himself to approach the altar, step by step, where the two cats continued to stare him down, to just keep on staring him down, and… and he just barely managed to reach out with a trembling hand, to deposit the coin down into the serving bowl altar there.

Immediately, the tension in the air seemed to dissipate as the cats finally broke eye contact with the man. The larger cat turned its head back to its previous stone-still position (just a hair faster than before), while the kitten suddenly relaxed and... meowed cheerfully, going up to rub her face against his hand, which he had left on the altar in his panic. The man stiffened when the kitten brushed against his hand, but relaxed when... she suddenly seemed... just like any other friendly kitten that the man had ever seen, purring loudly as she nudged his hand with her head, begging for attention… just like any other normal cat would do, totally normally.

The man relaxed immediately. "Awww, its so soft!" he said almost thoughtlessly. He pretty much forgot his earlier fear almost completely, as he began scratching the kitten gently on its head. The kitten let out some really adorable mewls at this treatment, and the tourists all "Awww"ed at the whole scene, as the tension fully and finally broke.

Stan grinned. "Five dollars to appease the curse and pet the kitten!" he crowed out next, pointing a finger up in the air before gesturing at the machine next. (Hey, he knew how to milk a crowd with any dragon-lady given 'choice'.)

...And the entire crowd was immediately clamoring to get in line at the machine.

Stan laughed internally at all the money rolling in, and Mr. Mystery grinned externally at them all. Miz was basking in all the attention, purring as she nuzzled the tourists, while the demon-cat-kid sat his vigil, his appearance every bit that of the sacred animal who was worshipped by the ancients. After awhile, one of the tour group rubes got bold enough to approach the 'scary status', to try their hand at petting the kid, too. But before Stan had barely even had the thought of intervening…

...the demon-cat-kid just straight-up avoided the incoming hand as deftly as any real cat would, twisting away gracefully on his own and then huffing before flicking his tail at them. The rube stopped in place for a moment, trying to figure out how to pursue, but the kid sure didn't; it wasn't long before the demon-cat was firmly ensconced up in the rafters (by way of two jumps via a high shelf in-between), to resume his regal seated posture on one of the exposed wooden beams, to stare down at them all from above (...effectively avoiding any and all grasping hands for the entirety of time of the rest of that tour session).

The tour group finally left, having spent plenty of money for a chance to pet the cursed kitten. As soon as the door shut and everyone was gone, Miz started to giggle, purring as she rolled around on the altar. The kids, who had been standing nearby - ready to intervene and smooth things over if there had been any trouble (or cat-grabbing) - relaxed a bit and came over to the table outright. Mabel declared Miz's purring 'adorable', while in the midst of petting her once again, and in the meantime Dipper was... having some sort of staring contest with the demon-cat-kid from the rafters (who looked like he didn't want to come back down to the table-altar display right away when either of the niblings would be that close to him nearby).

"Did we do good?" KittyMiz asked as Mabel continued to pet her on her fluffy round head. Stan let out a laugh as he pocketed the cash he'd scooped up from the altar.

"Yeah, you did good! Uh, we can discuss ways to change up the act for other groups too, though," Stan added as he thought it all a little bit through. "There's always somethin' you can get a little better at, and little variety never hurt nobody so no-one ever gets the same experience twice," because he was pretty damn sure he wasn't wrong about getting a bunch of repeat customers for this one. Not if the sound of all those 'awwwwww's when the tour had been declared over, and he'd shooed all those rubes over into the gift shop area to close the door behind them, said anything to him at all. He had so many ideas for other ways to milk this for all the money he could get, too. It wasn't like they could get a bunch of cat-related knick-knacks for the gift shop on such short notice, but he sure bet he could get Mabel and Melody to bake up some overpriced cat-shaped cookies to sell off at the door to the gift shop there, as a start. (-Hey, what did you want from him? Old habits died hard!)

Illusion is Reality

Interlude Chapter 98.6.1

-Know this, Cipher-

It was that time again. The festive season. The biggest holiday celebrated throughout the Multiverse.

Crimbo.

And while it was a wonderful holiday, created by a race of beings who's purpose was to spread love and joy to all living (and even some non-living) creatures (as well as a socially acceptable excuse to get outrageously drunk), it had changed through the eons, evolved with each celebration, altered it's core message and traditions until every sector had their own version, some with different names and even wholly separate lore for how and why this holiday was created. Despite this, there were a few things that remained the same.

The giving of Gifts to others.

But there was another core to this holiday that few knew about, not at first. They figured it out real quick once they experienced it for themselves. But after many complaints were sent in to the head office, filed under 'disturbing the peace' and 'unimaginable terror', the current council leader (though how long he would hold his position was in question, what with that councilwoman rising in the ranks with no sign of stopping) finally decreed for an official Public Service Announcement throughout the multiverse for the sake of warning everyone so that they would be safe this holiday season.

And due to the issues with different languages throughout the multiverse (sure, translators existed, but sometimes they didn't get the message across without being there in person to explain properly) he found, to his annoyance, that he would have to give his PSA in the only language that was universal.

Music.

So he stood there, in front of the camera and cleared his throat before singing his warning to the multiverse.

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Bill Cipher is coming to town

He's making a list,

Checking it twice,

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.

Bill Cipher is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping

He knows when you're awake

He knows if you've been bad or good

So be good for goodness sake

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Bill Cipher is coming to town

With little black limbs and a little black hat

He'll pull you right in, you're not coming back

Bill Cipher is coming to town

He'll give out his gifts, even when we refuse

We simply can't stop this chaotic mad muse

Bill Cipher is comin' to town

He seeks out those with wicked hearts, to devour them whole

Frankly this is so much worse, than receiving coal

So! You better watch out, you better not cry

Better not pout, I'm telling you why

Bill Cipher is comin' to town

He sees you when you're sleeping

He knows when you're awake

He knows if you've been bad or good

So be good for goodness sake

Goodness sake

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Bill Cipher is coming to town

He waited for the music to fade and then cut the feed. He could only hope that the citizens would heed this warning. Really, what was it about this holiday season that made Cipher even more energetic and active than usual? It made things so much harder on all of them, running interference, sending aid ships to the towns that had been rampaged through, hiring all the cleaners and construction workers to fix the damage...

...hiring the curse-breakers to check over anything Cipher left behind at the places he visited to make sure they were safe...

Really, it took so much money out of the budget! The councilman sighed. And that meant he couldn't embezzle that money for himself to take a vacation to Rinh-2 for the holiday! Worse, Cipher specifically tracked down people who embezzled money and took them away... where they wouldn't be returned until after the holidays were over. It was horrifying. He remembered seeing one of the other councilmen get snatched up into a sack and slung over the demon's shoulder. Even after he was returned to them... he was never the same.

The councilman shuddered. So he couldn't even try to sneak a little money away from the stores for his own use. It was so incredibly unfair!

Illusion is Reality

Chapter 98.7

-Blame Schrodinger-

"So… how long are they going to be cats?" Dipper deadpanned as he watched Bill napping in a sunbeam, while Miz ran around pouncing on ants in the backyard.

Stan, who had decided after a few more tours, some overpriced cookies, and plenty of cash rolling in, to give the demons a break since they'd all needed some lunch, and the kid had been starting to get antsy (not during the "scare" show, but he'd definitely been showing it with the way he'd started half-pacing, half-stalking the tourists from up in the rafters), shrugged at Dipper's question, from where he was leaning up against the railing of the porch. "Kid went back into his body to eat earlier. So he don't have to leave the cat body there for another few hours." Whether he could convince the kid to do the petting exhibit thing again or not was a completely different story. And that was assuming that Miz-

Stan blinked - and Dipper winced - as they heard a small growl, and they both turned to see that KittenMiz had sprouted antlers and scales as she went half-dragon and half-cat. She wasn't just racing back and forth across the yard, stopping briefly to sniff or bite at some of the green-growing stuff here and there; not anymore. A rabbit had ventured past the woods into the yard, and now Miz was "playfully" chasing it down.

Stan and Dipper watched this quietly for a few moments.

...Yeah, nope. Dragon-lady definitely needed to get some energy outta her system. ...So had Mabel, with the way she'd been enthusiastically "stalking" Miz with her camera around the yard. Looked a lot more like skipping and running, on both their parts. (Mabel had stopped and backed up a little bit closer to the porch, once Miz had started going after the rabbit. She was filming this; she'd stopped "just" taking pictures awhile ago now...)

Dipper twitched as he watched Miz try and pounce on the rabbit again, missing it by millimeters this time at most. It looked like she was playing with it… except Miz wasn't Mabel's cat back home in Piedmont, and it looked a lot more like she was barely missing on purpose and enjoying its terror than... "Should we be letting her do that?"

"Eh, depends if she's gonna eat it or not." Stan shrugged. Killing for fun wasn't good. But killing for food was… well, at least it was a rabbit. He knew what Dipper might be thinking, but he'd seen cats and dogs and stuff go after prey like that when they were full and when they weren't. Miz looked actually hungry there, even if she was enjoying it a lot more than Stan would've thought...

Stan glanced over at the kid, who was lazily lounging over on the porch, flicking his tail back and forth absently, head down, lying down all splayed out on his belly, just slit-eyed watching his little sister with his eyes lidded low. (...If the triangle demon liked playing with people that way… would a working substitute for that maybe be havin' him go after a rabbit or two himself? ...Stan didn't really think so, though. Kid didn't look at all inclined to be jumping off the porch there and joining in; he was too relaxed for it, not watching it the same way.)

Dipper shivered as he watched Miz finally catch the hapless rabbit; she lashed out quickly with claws and teeth - crunching down on its neck abruptly - and held it until it's struggles ceased. That was disturbing enough, but then Miz somehow skinned it, tearing the fur off before unhinging her jaw to swallow it whole.

It was one thing to see her do something like this as a large dragon-cryptid of some kind, but she'd lost the dragon claws and stuff as she'd crunched down on the rabbit and it had struggled and struggled and stopped, and... seeing a kitten do that, skin it and swallow it whole like that, was… well, it was really messed up. It was like… like watching a dog eat something the way a snake would, and then just sit there in place with a big bump in the middle of it afterwards; it just looked out-and-out wrong. Dogs and cats weren't cryptids, and Dipper had never thought he'd see something like this. But it was a stark reminder of how Miz wasn't human, not anymore. A human wouldn't think it was okay for a kitten to just swallow some animal whole, bones and all - and definitely not in front of other humans who would maybe end up having nightmares about larger, grown-up cats trying to eat them later. Miz was a demon now, even if she had been human once.

Ford, who was leaning up against the corner of the railing, on the other side of the porch where Bill was lounging - within the dream demon's sight, arms-crossed, gun left in his room rather than on his hip, at Stan's discretion (because apparently keeping it on him might be a little too threatening, when both Ciphers were in bodies that barely came up past his ankles) - was feeling a bit twitchy at watching this. (He wasn't grossed-out or disgusted at her behavior like Dipper was; he'd seen far worse in his years on the other side of the portal, and he hardly thought of her as in any way human at-present. What he was was cautious of was the small predator that could change characteristics - such as the size of their claws and teeth and antlers - at will, so easily and fluidly. Not least of which because he'd seen Shifty do similar when-)

"How big of a thing can you swallow?" Stan called out to Miz, thinking about the two kids standing nearby him. At this point, he was hoping that… "Bigger than a breadbox?", was not what she ended up saying. Probably give the kids nightmares if they thought of her being able to swallow small people, and whatnot. ...And if she could, now would be a really good time to have her remember and reiterate upon her promise not to eat anybody sentient or sapient or whatever. (And Ford turned his head and stared at his brother in abject horror, under the wrong impression and thinking that Stan might be wanting to know because he was contemplating what other acts he could ask the man-eater to perform for the Shack's attractions, of all things!)

Miz wiggled. "Dunno. I haven't really checked. But my mouth isn't that big right now. So I don't think I'd be able to fit anything larger than me," she responded as she cleaned off the tuffs of fur from her paws and mouth. Frankly, she'd swallowed it whole because there wouldn't be any blood that way, she thought it would be less graphic and less scary to eat it like so. Unlike the more fun way to eat which would be tearing the animal into strips and savoring each bite. "And I won't eat any people," she added. "If that was what you were wondering. Eating people is… uncomfortable, mostly. I don't like doing it."

"Yeah," Stan said, "And in that other dimension, you talked about not eating people unless they straight-up told you they wanted you to. And that you don't like eating hair. Right?" he prompted her, as he glanced over at Ford. "And we know you get stuff wrong sometimes, just like the kid does, so if anybody does try and tell you that here, figure you'd be better off comin' to me and letting me make sure that that's all on the up-and-up first, before goin' off and doin' anything like that, okay?"

Miz rolled over onto her back and purred adorably. "Okay. I won't eat anyone here, just in case they didn't actually mean it the way it sounded to me," she agreed, wiggling her little limbs in the air as Mabel made her way over and started rubbing her belly. (Mabel had been a little pale at the rabbit death and subsequent consumption, but she'd seen all sorts of documentaries on snakes doing that stuff before, so… she hadn't been too horrified at it like Dipper had been. Dipper still had that thing about all those alien snake people or whatever going; she knew snakes were still kind of a touchy subject for him. She was definitely relieved to hear Miz tell them that she wouldn't eat any people at all now, not even if they straight-up asked her to.)

"Good!" Mabel told her, as she petted her and rubbed her stomach - because positive reinforcement was a thing! "Grunkle Ford's still kinda upset about the body-eating you did last time, so not doing that while you're here's a really good thing."

Miz pouted. "Seb told me to get rid of it. And there was no soul inside, it was an empty vessel."

"But he didn't know that," Mabel chided her. "You know that, right? He got really scared!"

"...Yeah." Her ears drooped and then she looked almost chastised. "...I might have wanted to play a little prank on Ford, I didn't know he'd react that badly though." She flipped over onto her stomach and tucked her tail in. "I'm sorry for my prank not being as funny as I thought it would be."

Mabel sighed. "You should really tell Grunkle Ford that, you know, if you mean it." She glanced over at said grunkle. "...Or maybe tell Grunkle Stan to tell Grunkle Ford for you. When Grunkle Ford isn't around... to hear you ask him to tell him for you." That would probably work out better. Grunkle Ford still got mad whenever she said stuff like that even in front of him.

Miz glanced over as well before she got to her feet and toddled over to Stan, peering up at him from where he was standing on the porch, staying in the grass a step down and away from him herself. "Um… mister Stan. Can you tell that Stanford that I'm sorry I scared him way back when, when I ate Seb's vessel? I was trying to prank him, but it didn't end up funny." To everyone else, Miz hadn't said anything at all, just meowed; her words being projected to Stan alone.

"What was that?" Ford said, frowning over at the man-eater suspiciously. She hadn't been meowing at anybody up until then, so why was she-

"Yeah, maybe later," Ford heard Stan tell her, and then glance over at him. "Nothin' to get all worked up over, Ford. Forget it." At Ford's continuing frown, Stan sighed and added, "Dragon-lady just asked me somethin' she don't want to screw up sayin' out loud in front of you herself. Like I asked her to," Stan emphasized.

Ford was still frowning at this, but the character of it changed slightly - high suspicion became a slightly more disgruntled look. (Stan figured that was the best he could do just then. Stan squatted down, reached down, and - slowly, he knew the kid was watching him like a hawk, here - petted Miz a bit, scratching her on the head gently, and then behind the ears, before pulling his fingers away slightly and ticking his chin back at the open yard slightly.)

Satisfied that she'd done what Mabel had asked (and without Ford or anybody else getting super-mad at her even!), Miz bounced back into the yard to play some more, running around and tumbling across the grass, getting back to burning off the hyper energy she had inside. All that worship from the tourists was buzzing under her skin - it felt great!, but this vessel was so very small, she needed to use it up before she caught fire or something.

After awhile, Miz thought of something she thought was fun and dashed off towards the woods (which alarmed Bill for a moment, who leapt to his feet and turned towards in the direction she'd run off) before coming back with a small stick in her mouth and practically dropping it to the ground right in front of Mabel's feet. ...And, well, that got Mabel going all right; she finally put the phone away for good and started throwing the small stick for her to play fetch. It was more of a dog thing, but Miz liked playing with her. At a bit of jumping-prompting from Miz, Mabel even began throwing it high into the air as Miz leapt for it, once again growing dragon scales as her energy churned and shifted her vessel to allow for such high jumps.

Dipper still looked a bit upset at all this, almost squirming in place a bit where he sat as he watched Miz go through yet another transformation again. He got back to glancing up and down between this, and writing in his journal again, though. Because somebody ought to be cataloguing all this, and as much as he wanted to intervene and tell Mabel to stop because this really didn't feel right to him, he knew she was having too much fun to stop anyway. He was probably just being paranoid about things; it had finally occurred to him that the reason he wasn't liking what Miz was doing here was because she wasn't sticking to just one form - it reminded him waaay too much of the shapeshifter, and... And Grunkle Stan and Great-Uncle Ford were right there. They wouldn't let anything bad happen to Mabel. Especially not from Miz. Dipper forced himself to take a deep breath.

Soos came out to the porch after awhile, and Dipper saw Grunkle Stan basically wave him off, back in to the Shack (with a salute and a "Sure thing, Mr. Pines!" from Soos), then slump a little bit in place and loosen his tie. ...So they weren't gonna be doing the cat exhibit thing again, and Soos was going to take over the tours for the rest of the day as Mr. Mystery again. Okay. That was probably a good thing. Dipper was pretty sure that Miz wasn't gonna be up for any more sitting still again anytime soon. So, a good call there. ...Huh. Guess Grunkle Stan really wasn't pushing it with her. That was weird. He usually pushed things as hard as he could when he was making that much money...

So Dipper sat where he was on the porch, taking notes, and Mabel kept on running around the yard with her own store of boundless energy, playing fetch with Miz (with an old frisbee she had a lightbulb moment over and ran over to go pull out of the bushes next), while Ford and Stan watched from the porch, and Bill watched all of the rest of them, too. And this was how things generally progressed for the rest of the afternoon, until a little after the Shack's closing time finally hit.

...at which point Miz finally seemed so start running out of steam, and ended up trotting back over to the porch, to slump down under it, right below where Bill was still sitting, all sprawled out, head-down, and breathing on his own paws quite calmly. Ford did let out an involuntary snort when he saw Bill's tail twitch absently, Bill almost half-asleep where he was laid out, draped down almost right in front of Miz's nose, and…

-Miz immediately batted at Bill's tail, which had the older "cat" blinking his eyes open and pulling it up again (almost reflexively?) before dropping it. (Ford blinked at this, because that was rather odd. Bill didn't have human reflexes; not really. He'd had to 'work at' those with Stan. But that motion had looked rather natural-)

But when Miz started grabbing at it with her little paws as he twitched it back and forth, with something of a 'what the heck was that?!' eyeball-look… Ford couldn't help but let out a snort, as he watched the older demon finally shove his head over the side of the porch and give the younger demon a very put-upon look…

...but Bill didn't actually, actively stop her from doing it. He didn't actually pull his tail up to the porch until several more battings later, and even then he didn't turn around and snap at her for it, for pouncing up to the porch herself and rather continuing to...

And Mabel got it all on her phone and was texting it off to pretty much everyone that she knew. Which Dipper saw, and it left her brother groaning.

Dipper wasn't sure what his life even was anymore.

"...So the demons are actual cats now." Pacifica deadpanned as she showed Dipper the footage from her phone (having received all the texts from Mabel documenting the 'adorable' occasion). She was following Dipper and Melody around as they walked through the grocery store, the closest they could get to a 'private visit' with Dipper and Mabel still on Mr, Pines' 'must be babysat at all times outside the Shack' supervision-punishment-thing. (She didn't particularly appreciate the sentiment, given how it was making life that much more difficult for her, but at least the Pines twins weren't stuck at the Shack for the duration anymore.) Dipper had used the excuse of going out with Melody to buy some supplies to go visit her (which Mr. Pines had, for once, actually okayed), while Mabel stayed at the shack to keep the demons occupied. Luckily, Melody also seemed perfectly fine with this arrangement, as Dipper had checked for Pacifica in advance on the other side of his texting as she'd requested.

Dipper groaned at the footage in front of him. "Yeah."

Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "...And? What have you learned from this?" Because she'd gotten quite a lot, and she had a whole list of questions she wanted to ask him, better discussed in-person. -Such as, why was the demon lying there on the porch looking so very calm? Had he been doing that the whole time? Because any time he showed up in the frame, he was in the same spot, lying there, not doing anything. And Pacifica remembered Weirdmageddon; oh, how she could not. That demon had acted anything but calm and relaxed and chill at any point during it; he'd been practically bouncing off the walls doing whatever he wanted with a completely manic and crazy energy about him, instead. So what the hell was going on there? Not to mention that the two of them had apparently been one of the Shack attractions?! Hadn't the demon been mostly avoiding most people in town up until this point? Hadn't that been the whole point of what Mr. Pines and Dr. Pines had been trying to do? But Mabel had texted an off-hand comment that had made it sound like what Mr. Pines was actually trying to do was-

"That Mabel really can't resist a cat," Dipper deadpanned back, interrupting Pacifica's line of thought. Pacifica let out a little huff at this; she didn't like that Dipper didn't seem to be taking this (or her) seriously. "Also, that Bill's surprisingly good at being a cat." Dipper added, pretty annoyed at this fact. "If he wasn't talking to people, and didn't have the whole blue fur thing going, I'm pretty sure he could run off and we would never find him." And it was clear that that worried Dipper a little bit.

Meanwhile, Melody was politely giving them some space to have their conversation, keeping herself a little ways down the aisle looking through various fruits. She could still see them both, but couldn't quite hear what they were saying. (She knew how frustrating it must be for the twins to be babysat like this, and she certainly wasn't trying to be some kind of gulag jailer, listening in on all of their private conversations. As long as they were following the letter of the law Mr. Pines had laid out, she was fine with what they did. She knew Mr. Pines only wanted someone to be ready to look out for them if they got into any trouble, and not to go running off into trouble all over again. She'd told Dipper that, and they'd worked out their line-of-sight deal; he stayed within sight and didn't go running off, and she didn't have to look over his shoulder all the time, breathing down his neck.) And that was good enough for her. It let her concentrate on other things, like what she was buying. Because now that they knew more about what Bill could and couldn't eat, she knew what to look for.

Melody had a feeling that it would be good to stock up on a few more things that Bill could eat, both as a cat and a 'human-ish person', since Bill still had to return to his human-ish body to eat, to keep it nourished. But she'd asked him the first question that had come to mind upon hearing about that, and he'd told her in an almost-aside murmur that he could eat plenty of other things in a 'cat vessel' like that one; anything a cat could eat, he'd confirmed to her, straightforward but quietly, when she'd asked it of him. (And he'd looked about as surprised and then pleased at her response to that as most cats did when they got a surprise petting in passing. So she figured she was on the right track for Mr. Pines there...)

Pacifica frowned slightly at Dipper's comment about 'losing Bill' that easily. But it also reminded her of something, as she looked down at the video that was still playing on her phone, as she watched as Miz transformed on-camera as she jumped after… a common stick. Because seeing this, and hearing that from Dipper, left her coming back to the thought that she'd first gotten from Susan, when she'd talked to her about the two demons. About how Susan had called Bill a cat, but called Miz a dragon who wanted to be a cat but should stop pretending to be one, and...

...well, looking at the cat-dragon creature that Mabel was playing with in the recording that was playing on her phone, it did seem like Miz's dragon-ness was leaking out through and into the cat body even when she was 'pretending' to be an actual cat, whenever the younger demon was paying too much attention to something she was pouncing at, rather than… staying calm enough to act only excited about everything going on around her? (Or was she doing it on purpose?) ...Like when Mabel began wiggling some string at Miz, who had then pounced at it. Or the stick. Or the frisbee. Or the rabbit. (Ew. Pacifica let out a huff at this, though what she really wanted to do was sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose. That would ruin her makeup, though.) This all reminded her of that thing with the flying robots Bill had been moving around in that other video that the twins had sent her. While Miz hadn't gone 'dragon' on them that time, despite looking like she was having fun pouncing at all sorts of things while she was supposedly supposed to be acting human then...

And yet in this video, the younger demon had a long snake-like tail now, that she was whipping back and forth as she played. -So what was different between the last time and this one? Did it have to do with being inside the Shack's barrier versus being outside in the yard? Why didn't Dipper question these kind of things?

"Well, he does have the whole 'blue fur thing' going," Pacifica informed Dipper dryly, "So thank goodness for that." She let out a sigh. "Mabel knows that Miz isn't a cat, right?" Pacifica pointed out, feeling more than a little exasperated with her friend at this point.

Dipper sighed himself. "She knows that. Yeah. But you know Mabel. Miz looks like one right now, so Mabel wants to play with her." He watched Pacifica roll her eyes at this, and Dipper privately wondered if getting Mabel to play with her had actually been Miz's plan all along. (Kind of like how he'd had trouble not treating her like a normal cryptid when she'd been a dragon, when they'd been stuck in that other dimension. Mabel had been better about it before than even he had been, just like she was with Bill; Dipper was starting to think that his sister was just better at wrangling demons than he was, period, hands-down, just like she was with everyone else who wasn't a demon or an out-and-out jerk. But when Miz had started doing the whole kitten thing...)

"...and, Miz is a dragon." Dipper blinked, because had Pacifica just phrased that like it was almost a question? Dipper nodded at her.

"Yeah, Miz is a dragon. Grunkle Stan even calls her 'dragon-lady' sometimes," Dipper told her, and… Oh right, Dr. Pines had mentioned that to her before, back at the mansion, too. But Pacifica hadn't thought he'd meant it literally. -Yes, there had been those pictures that Mabel had taken of her looking like a dragon in that other dimension, but... Wait, more to the point-

"Dipper, what is a dragon?" Pacifica asked him. Yes, she'd done some research on the subject, but it was mostly folklore and fairytales. She didn't know how much of it might actually be real or not, or even be based in any fact at all, so when it came to the actual real life magical definition for dragons…

Dipper gave her a weird look. "You don't know what a dragon is?"

Pacifica barely stifled (most of) her irritation with him. "I know the basics. I'm not writing a fantasy novel, here; I'm asking about what real dragons are. -What are they? What are they like?" Pacifica clarified to him. Because her research into dragons, both western and eastern had been… mixed, to say the least. (And she was still rather disturbed by a note she'd found about how Chinese dragons in particular were generally written about in legends as being almost exclusively attracted to older men…which had reminded her of how Miz apparently had a minor crush on Dr. Pines, so saith the Mabel. Via text. Frequently.) "Like, is Miz just some fire-breathing lizard? Or a force of nature given form?" Or a minor god, like some sources claimed? Which had only gotten that much more confusing and worrying, once she'd begun connecting that to the ancient Egyptian worship of cats, and the Egyptian pyramids, and what Bill Cipher and his own floating pyramid had actually looked like...

Dipper paused. "I'm not really sure. The journals never really talked about dragons, probably because there aren't any here in Gravity Falls, but I think Great-Uncle Ford knows more." Pacifica nodded, and closed out the video on her phone to make a note to herself, a reminder to ask Dr. Pines about that later (in front of the demon, if at all possible, because she'd be damned if she was going to sneak around about talking with him, after what had happened in the- no, no, that was a stupid and terrible idea, and probably exactly what the demon wanted her to do-).

While she was in the middle of a little deep breathing, trying to calm her unmistakable (and unhelpful) rage down, Dipper ended up accidentally helping her out with a good distraction from her earlier thought, by opening his own journal and flipping it around to hand it to her, forcing her to put away her phone for the moment.

"This isn't on dragons," Dipper prefaced this with, as he handed his open journal over, "But here are some of my own observations about Miz, so far." He held it out to her, and he didn't have to wait long before Pacifica took it from him and started reading it. He couldn't help but give her a small, lopsided and slightly embarrassed smile, as he saw her blink at seeing the words 'A study on Miz Cipher' written across the top of the page where he'd gone and opened it for her.

There were sketches of Miz in both her human and 'dragon' forms, and not that badly drawn. There was a new sketch of the kitten form that Dipper had to have done just that afternoon, and a few of the different kitten-dragon forms as well, travelling across the bottom of the next page. Pacifica blinked at them. (She still thought Miz looked like a weird snake as a dragon. The demon didn't have wings, which lent to the idea that she was an eastern dragon, if there was anything at all to the legends. She also noted how Dipper had left space for potentially a few more forms, and turned to the next page.) There were notes about how Miz loved to eat. Where and how she liked to be petted, in both dragon and cat form. How Miz had incredibly strong magic and could create things out of almost nothing, make plants grow, shape plants into different forms (something about a piano?) and was both telepathic and (apparently also) empathic (though Pacifica had no idea what the latter might refer to - she inferred that maybe it was something like the ability to telepathically send emotions, rather than thoughts? If it was, that would be horrifically dangerous in close-quarters with a large group of people nearby...).

Pacifica read on about how Miz said she could make 'deals' with people just like Bill could, but hadn't outright made one with anyone here yet. There was a large list of warnings, with a triple-underlined part about how Miz was afraid of getting into or being too near any cars, and would also freak out if she was grabbed by her wrists, with a warning to never attempt to do such a thing. (Pacifica had narrowed her eyes at this, expecting to read something about how Bill would do something terrible to them all, next. But instead, Dipper had wrote that the reason that nobody should do it was because Miz's magic went out of control whenever she was scared or ended up panicked. And that was just terrifying to consider. Because if Dipper had written that instead of a warning about Bill, knowing full well what Bill was like even when he wasn't angry and hell-bent on tearing up the town, then… exactly how bad would Miz's powers going out of control have to be, to be worse even than that? Pacifica remembered how Miz had talked about her powers needing to be kept in check constantly, during the sleepover, but hadn't thought it was that serious, or known about the cars thing. ...She'd have to keep this in mind, but only as a last resort. The younger demon could be lying, and who knew if it would actually work on Bill himself. She didn't remember the demon being scared of anything; he'd seemed to take nothing seriously during that whole Weirdmageddon thing he'd had going on. ...And he'd driven away through the sky in a car, after rearranging her own father's face. Pacifica highly doubted that the demon had a problem with cars.)

Weirdly, there was also a note from Dipper about how when Bill had possessed his body, he had put on a seatbelt when he was in a car. That… was… (Pacifica pulled in a breath. ...Right. Demonic possession. Apparently this was a thing... which had happened to Dipper... by Bill… at some point. Got it.) Pacifica read through the page some more and paused at the… transcript that was written there? It appeared Dipper had written down a conversation that Miz had had… with herself? She raised her incredulous gaze up to meet the other teenager's eyes, and Dipper shrugged at her. "I… recorded it on the phone, if you wanna watch?"

"I would." Because she couldn't possibly be reading this right, and context was everything in these matters. Pacifica held out her hand imperiously for the twins' shared phone.

The video was taken from behind the door frame, peeking out at Miz. (Okay. Dipper must have been sitting at the base of the stairs. She recognized that part of the house from when she'd been there for a few days during Weirdmageddon.)

"-ello dino skull~" Miz said to the dinosaur skull that Stan kept in the living room. Miz was casually wiping the dirt and dust away from the stairs, swiping at it with her paws and somehow shifting it out and away from the stairs, gathering them into a pile at the base. "Hello Miz. Miz responded to herself, as the dino skull, shifting her voice in pitch. "What are you doing today dino skull? "Oh you know, just lying around." "Doesn't that get boring?" "Well, it's not like I can do much about that, you know? What with being dead and all." "Awww… that's unfortunate." Miz nodded. "Can't you help me?" the 'dino skull' pleaded. Miz frowned. "Help with what?" "Bring me back. Set me freee~" Miz wiggled. "I… don't think I'm allowed to do that." "Sure you can! Just reanimate me." Miz shifted around in place, looking uncomfortable. "But I wouldn't be able to bring you back as 'you' anyway. You won't be the same." "So what? At least I'd be alive. Anything is better than being dead here, having my body used for decoration." Miz seemed very uncomfortable now. "I… can't…" She whispered. Then, louder, she declared "I don't wanna talk to you anymore. You're not fun!" before she scrambled to her paws back up the stairs.

The video cut off not long after that. Pacifica lifted her eyes from the phone screen and stared over at Dipper.

"...Did she know you were there?" Pacifica asked first. Because this had looked even worse than the transcript had been. She'd thought that she must have been missing something, and yet...

Dipper shrugged. "I don't know. But… I've actually seen her talk to herself like that a few times. Once when she was out in the yard, talking to the ants? I was in my room and watching from my window, don't think she knew I was there. There was another time she did it, while she was cleaning the kitchen, after Grunkle Stan said she was allowed to clean if she wanted to. I think she was talking to the sink." Dipper rubbed his arm, looking pretty uncomfortable. "I didn't get to record those ones though, or really hear what she was saying; Mabel had her phone at the time, and I was too far away, anyway." (Right, Dipper considered it to be his sister's phone; even though Mabel had freely and happily admitted to Pacifica when she'd asked that they were supposed to be sharing it.) "But she does seem to just… talk at and as things, sometimes."

"So she really is crazy," Pacifica deadpanned. Great. She'd known the demon was nuts, but the fact that his sister was apparently talking to random objects like they can talk back to you nuts, was...

Dipper shrugged. "They both are." (Pacifica stiffened at this.) "I have a theory that all demons are probably crazy in some way." Oh, this was bad. Did Dipper even realize how bad this was?

Pacifica frowned down at the phone and Dipper's journal, trying to remain calm as she tried to confirm from him... "So, Miz talks to inanimate objects and… ants?"

"I think she'd talk to anything, if bored enough." Dipper pointed out. "The only real issue is what'll happen if the thing she's talking to actually manages to convince her to do something."

"Well, duh," Pacifica said. For a moment there, she'd been worried that he hadn't realized it. She had no idea how he was remaining so calm about it all, though. ...And given what Miz thought things like Stan's dinosaur skull decoration apparently wanted from her, when Miz was left to her own devices without anyone else in the same room with her to talk to, Pacifica suddenly realized exactly why Dipper and Mabel were so worried about Miz getting bored.

And now for the next question, which she really hoped wasn't going to end up being what she was worried it might end up being. "Where was Bill when all this was going on?" Pacifica asked him. Because if Bill had been left alone to his own devices, too…

Dipper sighed. "Asleep, probably. -No, really," he told her, at her look of disbelief. "Bill sleeps a lot. And I mean a lot. I think Miz gets bored when she's awake and he's not, without him." Dipper frowned in thought. "I don't think Miz sleeps as much as Bill does. -Not that she doesn't get enough sleep," Dipper rushed to assure her, "I'm pretty sure Grunnkle Stan would've said something if she was doing that, but…" Dipepr frowned for a moment. "I think if Miz wasn't here, Bill would just go back to spending most of the day sleeping, again. He used to do that, before she came. Even if he didn't freaking admit that that was what he was doing, out on the picnic tables outside; those aren't meant for sleeping on," Dipper complained. And what was worse to him was that the crazy demon would never admit that was what he was doing out there when he did it, and Grunkle Stan really didn't want any of them calling Bill out on it, for some reason. And it was just stupid. The dumb dorito chip did it every time; he went out there, he lay down on top of it, and he fell asleep. ...And then he tried to act like he'd just been 'thinking' or something, instead of falling asleep, later.

And for some reason, this had Pacifica staring at him like she'd never heard of people falling asleep outside before. "He does what?" she asked him.

Dipper let out a sigh of frustration. "Bill sleeps a lot. The dumb dorito can spend hours just sitting or lying down doing nothing. He just stares up at the ceiling, says he's doing a whole bunch of thinking, but I swear he just passes out and doesn't do anything."

"He's thinking? Scheming?" Pacifica pressed him.

"No," Dipper said, "He's sleeping."

"And you've never seen Bill talking to himself, or any other inanimate objects," Pacifica asked him next, and-

-Dipper paused at that, because what? "Uh, no," he told her, feeling a little weirded out all of a sudden. "I don't think so. But… Miz definitely does," he told her, starting to see what Pacifica might be looking for, here. Her questions today had definitely had a pattern to them so far, "And… I mean, sometimes it seems like Miz is just the opposite of Bill, almost. Grunkle Stan called it, like, 'looking into a funhouse mirror'," And Dipper almost also told her right then about how Grunkle Stan had also said that sometimes, a lot of times, Bill was 'mirroring' them - whatever that meant. But Dipper didn't really get it, and he'd gotten kind of made at Grunkle Stan for saying it - because none of them were like Bill at all. He seriously doubted that Pacifica would go along with something that their Grunkle Stan had said just like that, let alone something made that little sense to anybody. And there was just no way that Bill was really going to leave them alone, just as long as they 'don't do anything to the kid that you don't want him doing to you', anyway. So he didn't even bother to try telling her that. He didn't want her thinking he was trying to insult her, or anything. That would just be stupid.

"Bill just wants to lie down and do nothing all the time," Dipper continued. "But Miz is completely different. It's like she gets all stir crazy or something, and needs to actually get up and do something, or she'll practically explode." Which was a little more like Mabel, kind of.

(Dipper didn't realize how on the nose he was about Miz exploding. If he'd known, he'd have been way more worried. Having a literal nuclear bomb walking around nearby was a terrifying thought.)

Even Dipper didn't exactly like sitting and doing nothing for that long, either; and he meant actually nothing - no reading any books, no writing in his journal, no staring at his conspiracy wall, nothing. His thoughts started going in circles when he did that, and he always started feeling really bad and anxious, worried, and maybe kind of a little paranoid. (-Not that that happened very often; it usually only happened on long car trips, if he forgot to bring a second book with him or didn't have a game to play. But even then, he could pretty much always count on Mabel to be doing something nearby, to notice and speak up and say something, to help talk him out of whatever.)

(It was one thing if he was working on a problem, a cipher or a code, or reading a book or something, but just… lying down and doing nothing, really? Just… 'thinking about stuff' while not writing his thoughts down, and trying not to fall asleep from boredom, or get up and start pacing from stress? He could barely understand how most people could do any real thinking without writing things down!)

And while Dipper was lost in his own thoughts, unaware of Dipper's internal monologue, Pacifica's own thoughts were stuck on the idea of how different these 'Bill CIpher's really were from each other, rather than similar. Sleeping versus active. Different kinds of crazy. ...And were they anything like the differences between a cat and a dragon, or not? Because cats did seem to nap a lot, like Dipper said that Bill was doing. But... were dragons less likely to sleep as much... because they had to watch out for people trying to steal their treasure, or something? Pacifica internally grimaced at this, because she didn't really like the idea of maybe having to 'cat sit' Susan's cats for her again sometime, to try and figure this one out. And she also felt like she was starting to take this animal metaphor way too far, or too seriously. Maybe both.

"Okay, so, what's our plan on this going forward?" Pacifica asked of Dipper next.

"Miz shouldn't be left unsupervised," Dipper told her promptly, though he didn't feel too happy about it. "She gets bored if there's nothing to do around the Shack, or people that she can interact with." The problem was, she said really horrible stuff when anybody talked with her for too long, so it wasn't like Dipper or Mabel could do it. (Dipper really didn't know how Mabel kept on talking to Miz or Bill as much as she did without losing it completely.) And Great-Uncle Ford was out, because there was no way any of them were going to let Miz do anything like that to him, again. Once out in the forest had been enough, and she was still plenty terrible enough at mealtimes. "...Maybe we can get her to help Melody out in the gift shop, to sit with her more." Dipper wasn't all that sure that they could get Miz even wanting to do that, though, because it wasn't like he or Mabel had ever found it fun to sit out there with Wendy, even with it being Wendy, and...

Dipper paused for a moment, when that thought suddenly sparked something else. "She might be feeling pent up, restless, being stuck at the Shack all the time," he realized. He and Mabel being grounded for a week had been annoying for him, but really really bad for Mabel. They were both used to just coming and going whenever they wanted - okay, well, whenever they could get out of doing work for the Shack like they'd had to do all throughout last summer every day the Shack was open, anyway. But Mabel hadn't stayed inside all the time even during those 'forced' work hours last summer; sometimes she'd either 'escape!' and run around indoors or outdoors or wherever, or she'd roll around on the floor of the gift shop, or something. But with this whole 'babysitting' thing, they'd had to not only stay inside most of the time and not go into town or the woods exploring, they'd also had to have somebody in the same room as they were… And since Melody had been the one watching them most of the time, and she'd been the one manning the gift shop… they couldn't even go out in the yard or just sit out on the porch there together, because Melody had had to stay indoors manning the cash register. And Grunkle Stan had either been watching the demons or cooking stuff mostly, so unless the demons were upstairs he hadn't been able to 'tap in' as another babysitter for them, and Grunkle Stan hadn't been all that free all that often. And Great-Uncle Ford could take one of them at a time places, but not both of them, but he'd spent most of his time down in his basement labs, working, and neither of them had wanted to interrupt him for something that stupid and silly-sounding and not nearly as serious or as important as trying to figure out how in the heck to finally stop Bill for good. ...Which meant he and Mabel had had to spend more of that time indoors, in the gift shop of the Shack, with Melody. Which meant they'd had to stay inside almost all of the time, for the entire week. And being forced to stay in the Shack 24/7 had been… stifling. And they had complained about it a lot at first, but Grunkle Stan hadn't given in.

...And Bill didn't want Miz being in the same room as Grunkle Stan without him. Dipper remembered that first morning that she'd been there. Bill had practically tossed himself down the stairs, looking for her. He'd seemed almost scared, frantically searching for her until he'd found out where she was. And then he'd straight-up said out loud that he didn't want her being in the same room as Grunkle Stan without him; he hadn't seemed like he was lying about wanting her to stick to that, either. Dipper didn't know why the dumb dorito had demanded that, but he was. Maybe it had something to do with the whole 'we adopted each other' thing? And that had just been the first day that they'd started being all officially brother and sister with each other; Grunkle Stan had said that they'd only 'decided on that' just the afternoon before. But after that, Miz had always stayed close to Bill; as far as Dipper knew, she barely left Bill's sight while the older demon was awake, other than stuff like the sleepover, and Bill had stayed in the same room as Miz every chance that he got. The number of times that Miz had come downstairs without Bill right there with her had been… not a lot. Dipper knew Great-Uncle Ford had a more accurate count, but Dipper was pretty sure that she didn't leave the attic often when Bill was asleep, and she definitely never went too far away. And Bill had only ever left Miz's side when he had to deal with his body's needs (like the bathroom, or getting something to drink from the kitchen), and even then it was never more than a few minutes - assuming that Miz didn't just follow him into the hallway or kitchen, to wait for him there.

Bill still went outside sometimes, but he'd stopped falling asleep out on the picnic tables while 'his sister' was here, from day one. And Dipper still didn't know why that had changed. The last time he had talked to Great-Uncle Ford about it, he'd said it was because Bill was being smart and didn't actually trust Miz because she was a demon, that sleeping under the unicorn hair barrier was helping to keep Bill safe from her doing something to him in his sleep. But that didn't make sense to Dipper, knowing what he knew now. Bill's room up in the attic wasn't 'under the barrier' in the same way as the rest of the Shack was; he could do whatever magic he wanted up there. And the two of them had slept together, right next to each other, all the time when they were all in that other dimension with the younger Stans. No mystic barrier there. So that couldn't have been the reason. Dipper shelved that thought for now, getting back on track.

Anyway, Miz was practically getting 'big-brother' stalked by Bill, now that Dipper thought about it, and Miz hadn't complained about that, or about being indoors with Bill so much of the time, not aloud like he and Mabel had done. And sure, Bill snuck out of the Shack sometimes, and sometimes he even said it straight-out in front of all of them during breakfast, but that didn't mean that they were going outside together very often. It also didn't mean Miz hadn't been feeling cooped up and understimulated most of the time that she'd been here so far. Miz had seemed really excited that time Stan had said he was going to take her and Bill into town, and he and Mabel had seen how much happier that Miz had seemed after their grunkle and great-uncle had taken the two demons out shopping to buy a bunch of meat and supplies at someplace or another in the area.

Heck, Miz had gone out to the lake the other day with Bill, and eaten trash and liked it (though Dipper tried not to think about that), and she'd been nothing but happy when they'd both gotten back. So clearly she did want to go outside, leave the house, and do stuff around other people.

"Maybe… getting Miz outside more often…?" Dipper said, but he was already grimacing as he said it. Because yes, Miz could sort-of pull off 'being human' in a crowd, sure… as long as she didn't have to talk to anybody, and didn't get all too excited. Or crowded by strangers. Or stared at too much by said crowd of strangers. Which meant she didn't actually last very long before something went wrong and Grunkle Stan had had to step in, in that other dimension. The longest that Miz had gone around other people so far without stuff going weird had been today, with her... "...as a cat, maybe?" Dipper said slowly, trying not to wince as he said it. "Might keep the damage down a little, at least."

"Somehow, I doubt that," Pacifica told him dryly, and Dipper sighed.

Yeah, he knew that wasn't a good idea. Because Miz didn't exactly stay a cat, even when she was trying to be one, for starters. And she liked running around in the yard, outside the barrier. Dipper hadn't missed how Great-Uncle Ford hadn't had his gun on him, or how he'd kept shooting looks at Grunkle Stan every time he'd started going to reach for it. And if Great-Uncle Ford had seen something that was that off, that many times? And he'd thought it was important enough to still be at least watching her out there, in person, even without having his gun on him to be able to do something about it when she did something wrong, because Grunkle Stan must've said something to him about it? Then that meant that even having her run around outside probably really wasn't a good idea at all. And if Grunkle Stan took Miz out into town again...

...Bill would go with her again, too. Bill really didn't like going into town, or interacting with any of the tourists either, so that was just asking for trouble. ...Which reminded him. "Miz really likes being around people, but I'm starting to think that Bill doesn't actually like being around other people at all," Dipper told her. "I mean, he talks to us, but he doesn't exactly go looking for us to talk to us. He only really talks to us if we're in the same room as him." Dipper frowned. "I can count on one hand… okay, maybe two hands. But, the number of times he's walked into a room looking for us is…" Dipper's frown deepened. "I know we kind of have to see him at mealtimes, but other than that… almost every time he's actually gone looking for us to say something has been when he was taking Mabel out to the spaceship." And that was weird, because before Weirdmageddon? He'd seemed to love doing so, just out-and-out taunting them whenever he could.

But now Bill almost ignored them when they were in the same room as them. ...Okay, not really, but the more that Grunkle Stan said he was working things out on the 'mental attack' stuff, the less Bill talked to any of them at all...

...unless they started talking to him first. Dipper snorted. Figured. Of course the dumb demon wouldn't be able to think of anything nice to say at all to any of them. It wasn't like he was even trying to get along with any of them, really. And it wasn't like he was ever going to say 'I'm sorry' or apologize for anything that he'd done to any of them ever at all.

And that was kind of the whole problem, right there. Nobody really wanted Bill around, because he was awful, and Miz wasn't really that much better than Bill at not saying horrible things to people all of the time. They couldn't take either of them anywhere without the other one coming along, and when the both of them were anywhere doing anything together was just a mess and a half.

"...I'm not even sure how the lake is still in one piece, after them going out there the other day. Did you hear anything at all about that?" Dipper asked Pacifica, then he hesitated. "Uh, the lake is actually still in one piece and all the townsfolk are okay, right?" Dipper asked, starting to wonder if-

"I heard that 'that young punk staying at the Pines' place' was out in Mr. Pines' boat on the lake again," Pacifica told him, "But I didn't hear anything about Miz being out there with him."

Dipper looked at her, aghast. "So they lied?" Then he shook his head. He didn't know why he was so surprised about it. It wasn't like Miz hadn't gotten him and Mabel in a lie before, with those glasses.

Pacifica frowned. "That depends. What did they say?" Pacifica asked him.

"Bill said that they both went out to the lake. And Miz…" Dipper frowned. "She actually hummed a bunch of stuff. Grunkle Stan asked Bill to 'translate' for her." Dipper rubbed the side of his arm. "I don't get why Grunkle Stan wouldn't call them on it, though. He's pretty sure he can tell when they're lying."

"How many times have they said that they've been out at the lake together?" Pacifica asked him. Dipper frowned and flipped open his journal to the dates and times to show her, and she diligently wrote them down. "I'll look into it," she told him. She couldn't remember hearing of anyone ever seeing someone else with 'that blue-haired, teen-aged punk' at the lake, but if they'd split up in the woods before the older demon continued on there, it was worth finding out where the younger demon had been going instead. That said...

"But they did leave that hovel together. And returned together?" Dipper started to say yes, then stopped himself.

"I can check the footage with Great-Uncle Ford," he told her. "I really don't want to take Bill's word for it."

Pacifica nodded. She really didn't like the idea of either of these demons slipping out from under her, for lack of a better word, surveillance net. "But when at least one of them is known to be at the Shack, they seem to be together a lot? Both of them normally seem to be there together at the same time?"

"Usually," Dipper told her. He pulled down on his cap as he thought about this. Because… he felt like he should be doing something else, he just didn't know what. And it all left him feeling oddly uneasy.

(And Dipper realized only later, after talking with Great-Uncle Ford about it, and watching him panic at the thought of not knowing where they'd gone, or what they might've been doing while they were away and outside the barrier, able to do who-knew-what to a bunch of other people so easily… that, that was it. Panic. The thing he hadn't been doing was panicking like Great-Uncle Ford had. Panic was a normal reaction to hearing about a crazy dream demon being out on the loose. But Dipper hadn't felt that way about it at all, and he didn't know why...)

"Well," Pacifica said, "If divide-and-conquer won't work for them, we might as well try to take advantage of them both always wanting to be in the same place, at the same time - at least, reportedly." If Miz really was uncomfortable with the idea of venturing too far from the older demon, with Bill also following along to where Miz went if she did want to go somewhere… well, then. That sounded like bait for a trap, if any of them ever managed to actually get that far without getting killed first. "In the meantime, we should find something else to occupy Miz's time, to keep her distracted. And we can use her wanting to be in a particular location to lead and keep Bill in that same location as well," the blonde suggested. "Should I send over my library of Japanese animation?" Her butlers had improved upon her collection significantly after the movie night showing.

"That actually might work," Dipper told her, "But you might end up losing your own day because of it, if she wants to do another marathon showing." Dipper paused. "I'm not even sure if that would work again for anything she doesn't already like a lot. She hyper-focuses on stuff once it's caught her attention, but if it doesn't, then she gets really easily distracted away from whatever it is she was doing," Dipper warned her. "She can't even sit still when she gets excited about something sometimes."

"What do you mean?" Pacifica asked him. That sounded a little foreboding.

"Well, I saw her get excited earlier when Mabel put a ribbon on her head - one of the sticky bow ones, on her forehead, uh, right between her cat ears? - because Mabel was trying to get Miz to sit still and let Mabel brush her fur, to play dress up with her? But it didn't work. Miz just sprung up and started running around back and forth, up and down the Shack's hallway." She hadn't just been running up and down the hallway, either. She'd been doing that cat thing where they race up the side of the walls a little bit with their claws, leaping off the walls, and squealing the whole time as she did it. Luckily, Mabel had been her usual easygoing self, declaring all Miz's running-around craziness to be super-cute and giving up on dress-up time completely; Mabel had settled for just watching the kitten go crazy running around the Shack's living room and hallways instead.

"So, they really do act like cats when they have the bodies of cats," Pacifica said, with a tired mental sigh as they circled back around to their original discussion. She hated going in circles like this on things. She resisted the urge to rub her temples, but only barely. "But Bill apparently has two bodies now… one body, and one cat 'vessel'," she self-corrected before Dipper could - yes, she had read his texting on the subject. "And while he's a cat, his actual body is left behind somewhere else. -Can we use this?" She wondered if they could steal it, maybe lock it away somewhere. Would that help to stop him, somehow? How powerful could he be, as just a simple housecat?

"Not gonna work; he's been keeping it up in the attic and there are all those protections he put in up there that keep us all out. Great-Uncle Ford made some comment about him being stuck without a body earlier if his 'nine lives' run out, because he'd have to get through the barrier to get it, and Bill basically told him off for that one. It sounded like, however this stuff works, the dumb dorito wouldn't be stuck outside the barrier, while his body stays stuck inside the barrier, inside the attic. He straight-up told Grunkle Stan not to worry about it, that he can't get trapped outside of it, outside his 'real' body, if somebody killed the cat vessel that he was in. Even Great-Uncle Ford seemed to think that killing that vessel wouldn't kill him," Dipper told her. "Plus, even if we did take his body and hide it or something, he'd probably be able to still find it and get it back; I'm pretty sure that Miz would help him out with that."

"What would happen if we killed him while he's inside the cat… vessel?"

"I'm pretty sure he'd be fine. The way that everybody was talking, it sounded like he'd just leave the dead cat and return to his own body." Dipper made a face. "And Miz would probably eat it."

"Wait, eat the body?" Pacifica said. She grimaced when Dipper told her, "No, the vessel," because that didn't make it any better.

And of course Dipper was serious. He'd seen the tape; they all had. There was a reason why Great-Uncle Ford called her a man-eater. ...Though, in this case, would it be cat-eater instead? Dipper nodded.

Why would she do that?" Pacifica asked him in disgust, and Dipper just grimaced and shrugged. "Well, the first time she came here, she was with another guy. Great-Uncle Ford captured him, but he was kind of like Miz? He was in a vessel, too. Just like Miz is in one now. And Miz ate his vessel after he left it. She'd said something about not letting it go to waste or something," Dipper told her, sparing her the gruesome details. On the surveillance footage of the bunker, they'd all seen Miz set the vessel on fire, then put it out and twist off the head off, before tearing off a leg to eat for starters. And she hadn't stopped there… "But hey, at least she promised Grunkle Stan today that she wasn't gonna eat anybody that could talk to her while she's here?" Dipper gave her a long look, which Pacifica did not mistake the meaning of: this was something that had actually needed to be asked of her, in order to try and make it clear that she should not be doing it.

Pacifica held down a shudder at this news. Because this was… disturbing. And she was not going to think about that too hard when they were standing not three yards away from the meat case, with all its red steaks and pork cutlets. "Alright. What else have you learned about them in the meantime, since we last talked?" she asked Dipper instead. It looked like his babysitter was getting close to leaving, given how full the cart she was moving around was, and she wanted to get as much information out of Dipper as she could while he was here. Melody would be heading to the checkout aisles soon, and she doubted that Dipper was going to want to leave Mabel at home, trying to keep the demons distracted all by herself without him.

Frankly, Pacifica didn't like the idea of that one all that much, either.

Illusion is Reality

-Maniac Interlude-

(3rd person POV)

Sometimes it was weird to think about how all the dimensions weren't time synched. Teeth realized that whenever he came home from work at the theater. This particular dimension where the Death Star was located was in a 'dead zone' with no Federation traffic and no real influence from Time Baby trying to exert his power over it. Time didn't… move here the same way. So he could be at work for a few hours and return home to find out a few days had passed. Or he could come home to realize it had been barely a minute. It was confusing sometimes, but since he and everyone else here were sort of immortal, that didn't generally cause problems.

Except when it did.

Teeth wasn't dumb. He wasn't some nerd like Bill, Kryptos or Hec were, but he knew stuff too! And he knew that Lilie was mortal. And that sending Lilie back to his home dimension after taking him here would put him out of synch with it. For Teeth this wasn't an issue, the Teleporter that Bill built for them had a Temporal, as well as Locational setting. So he could spend days here before heading out to work and it wouldn't matter. But Lilie would be aged older than he should have been if he stayed here for too long before heading home to the time when he left. Which meant that he would need to head home while still time synched.

Essentially, it meant that Lilie had stayed here at the Death Star overnight, so it would need to be a whole night and a few hours set into the Teleporter back to Lilie's homeworld. (Part of the reason Time Baby synched the dimensions the Federation had direct control over was to prevent issues like this.) And that meant that even if Teeth wanted Lilie to stay for longer, he couldn't. Because they would have to work in a few hours and Teeth didn't want to go to work yet, so he would have to send Lilie back on his own and then head over once he was done relaxing around the house before going out to work again.

(And no, Teeth wasn't being lazy! He was simply exploiting his own agelessness to take a break from work!)

"Aww… I can't stay longer?" Lilie pouted, dressed in a lovely lavender dress. "I wanted to play dress up with your friends some more." Pyronica made through on her idea of everyone dressing up. Even Teeth had a little bow on his top.

"Yeah, we have to work in a few hours, remember?" Teeth reminded him. Lilie's ears drooped. "Oh, right." He tilted his head. "Then… why aren't you coming with me?"

"Oh I will, I'll be right behind you." Teeth assured him, knowing he could simply set his Time of Arrival to just after Lilie's. "I just need to get some stuff done." He told his boyfriend honestly. Because Teeth hadn't cleaned his room. He liked to arrange his blankets and other bedding to resemble the inside of the jaw, like how he used to be enclosed back when he was living with his colony. But Lilie had preferred lying down on top of the blankets and Teeth had snuggled with him the night before, passed out from drinking. That had been nice, but Teeth woke up feeling rather… exposed.

So he really wanted to set his room back to normal, for his own peace of mind.

Lilie accepted his excuse and sighed before leaning his long neck down to nuzzle against Teeth's side with his soft fur. "Alright, I'll see you soon." The Alpicana kissed him lightly on the top of Teeth's head, his ears flapping around wildly. Teeth could tell he was flustered from performing such a bold action. But Teeth grinned and kissed back, as best he was able without lips, bumping his top edge against the young man's neck.

"Yup. See you." Teeth liked the way Lilie squealed in bashful joy even as he typed in the Teleporter for him. The last thing Teeth saw before he hit the [Go] button was Lilie wiggling his rear end back and forth as he practically bounced at the sign of affection. Damn that guy was cute.

"Oooooh~" Pyronica, dressed in a very revealing black dress, teased. Teeth chuckled. "Shaddup~"

Pyronica opened her mouth to make a teasing remark but was interrupted by a distant sound of air being displaced.

Teeth and everyone else stared when Pynelope suddenly popped into the living room with two other people.

"Fffffffuck! I can't believe that worked?!" Pynelope gasped, sitting up from the people pile. They had landed on Hectorgon, who was groaning at the weight ("I'm too old for this!"). A small round creature (was that a Prinny?) sat up with a squeak. "We are NOT doing that again, dood!"

A dark purple Tentafiloo groaned. "Hacking the teleportation beam, while inside the object being teleported, is utter stupidity!"

"But it fuckin' WORKED!" Pynelope cackled. Then she paused at the sight of her family. "Oh, hiiiiii mooooom~!" she waved. Pyronica cackled back. "Hacking a teleport beam? What sorts of wonderful law breaking have YOU been up to?"

"Ehhhh just information gathering. No biggie." Pynelope shrugged. She and her friends distangled themselves from the pile. The Tentafiloo looked around and paled. "I-is this Bill Cipher's lair?"

"Oi, that makes it sound like we live in a dungeon." Keyhole scoffed. "This is just the house. It's a spaceship as well, technically. Though none of us know how to fly it." He paused. "Does this place even HAVE a steering system?" He mumbled to himself.

"So who're your friends?" Hectorgon winced as he picked himself up. "If they managed to get through Bill's barrier, they're not bad people."

"Wait! More importantly-" the Tentafiloo interrupted, "-I need to write down what we learned today!" He pulled out his Com to begin typing rapidly. The Prinny shrugged, "Don't mind him, he just forgets stuff if he doesn't save it down somewhere." She straightened up and extended a flipper. "Hello. I am Pynelope's friend, Yoland. That guy there," She gestured back at the Tentafiloo, "-is Jion."

"Nice to meet you…" Keyhole trailed off. "...ah, okay, no offence but um…" He glanced between Yoland and Pynelope. "Why do you have a prinny?"

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not her servant or anything, I'm a free Prinny." Yoland told them quickly. "And I just haven't bothered to reincarnate yet. Still so much I wanted to see and do before then, you know?" Everyone paused to think about that response before Pyronica shrugged. "Fair enough."

During this time, Pynelope was stretching out her body, groaning at the cracking sounds it made. She was getting old. "Hey mom, is my room still here?" She asked. Pyronica rolled her eye. "Of course it is. Bill would never get rid of it. He even made sure it was undisturbed since you left."

"Sweet!" Pynelope gestures for her friends to follow her. "Come on, we can rest in my room, compile our information and get started on the article."

"Is… is this alright? Are we allowed to stay here?" Jion glanced around, somewhat nervous. He knew from Pynelope that Bill Cipher wasn't an evil demon. But she had mentioned her father's temper and how volatile it could be. He didn't know if having people in his daughter's room without permission would be something that made the demon angry. Pynelope shrugged, not seeing the issue. "Eh~ so long as you're not planning to do anything naughty-" and here, Pynelope waggled her eye at him teasingly, "-then I think dad would be fine with it."

"Oh, Bill's not here right now." Hectorgon informed them (making Jion relax somewhat), "But as the 'adult' here, I would have to tell you that no naughtiness is allowed to happen unless all parties have agreed to it."

"Uuuugh~" Pynelope groaned. "I'm not 60 years old anymore uncle Hec! I know that. I can take care of myself."

"I know, but you'll always be our child, no matter how old you've grown." Hectorgon told her. Pynelope waved it off. "Yeah, yeah. Come on guys, my room's this way, follow close, I don't know what to do if you got lost or eaten by the house."

"The house can eat people?!" Jion's worried response made Yoland laugh as they walked away.

Keyhole stared after them before sighing, tugging at his skirt. "It almost feels like she never left." He sounded a little nostalgic. "But… she looks older."

"She IS older." Pyronica picked up some of the clothes that had fallen to the ground during their impromptu fashion show. "It feels like only yesterday she was still small enough to hold in my arms…" the Cyclopian frowned before shaking it off. It was going to happen. Her children were aging. They were dying slowly everyday. And that had been their own decision to do so. She had even encouraged them to choose this. Pyronica shook her head and continued cleaning up.

"Well, I kinda wanna know what she was up to, that an emergency teleport was necessary." Keyhole wondered aloud. "You think it'll be in the next issue of the SoundBoard? Or one of the other papers?"

"Most likely." Hectorgon hopped over to help Pyronica tidy up. "The next issue should be up next week, right?"

"I'll have to check that out when it does." Keyhole grinned. "Whatever it was, it must have been something big."

"I'm sure you'll find out next week." Hectorgon chuckled. He looked forward to Pynelope's articles. They were very jabbing attacks against the Federation without outright being something they could use to arrest her. News was an odd thing. The Federation didn't like bad press, but couldn't fully stop it from happening. They could bribe, threaten or deny it, but people still had opinions and could express them. The Federation would simply deal with those reporters afterward and then run smear campaigns to discredit whatever information was written. How well that worked out varied with different dimensions. But Hectorgon didn't want to think about how obnoxious it was.

Frankly, the lot of them were amazed Pynelope didn't have any Federation agents attempting to silence her yet. Then again, no one wanted to piss off Bill. So, there was that.

"Hey, where'd 8-Ball go? I haven't seen him since breakfast?" Keyhole wondered absently, pulling at his skirt again to adjust it. Teeth 'looked' around. "You're right. Do you think he's got some kinda stomach problem? His belly was makin' all those weird noises…"

"Well, if he's in the bathroom, pooping his guts out, I'm staying WELL away from it." Pyronica shuddered.

"Where's Ammy? I haven't seen him either? Or Kryptos." Keyhole pointed out next. "Wow, I didn't even notice they were gone." actually, Xanthar and PaciFire weren't here either. Where was everyone?

Pyronica gasped, dropping the handful of clothes in her hands. "That bitch escaped!" She pouted, hands on her hips as her fire raged. "No fair, I was gonna snap some photos of his embarrassed face and text them to Bill."

"...the two of you really like teasing that poor boy." Hectorgon sighed.

"He makes it too easy." Pyronica waved off. "If he wasn't so flustered whenever we dress him up, we wouldn't bother doing it." Really, making those funny expressions only served to make her more interested in fucking with him. Pyronica's face broke into a grin. "Game idea!" She swept the clothes off the floor again. "Find Kryptos and make him wear an article of clothing. One point for each individual piece. Bonus points if they match."

Teeth perked up. "Oooohhhh~" He laughed. "And what do we get if we win?"

Pyronica looked around the room. Keyhole didn't seem all that interested, Teeth was quite eager for this game, Hectorgon seemed exasperated, Xanthar…wasn't here. PaciFire was… not here either, he'd gone back to his room after breakfast. Oh wow everyone was off doing their own thing today, huh? "If you win…" She drew out, "...you get to choose what clothes we get to wear for the next week." well it was their own fault for not being here, she would just have to text them later about the game.

Teeth began to cackle and run off, holding a pile of frilly clothing in his arms. "Yeeeeessssssss!"

Hectorgon sighed. "Well, as long as you don't make a mess. I don't want to have to clean up after you." He called to Teeth's retreating back. Really, sometimes it sucked to be the adult here.

"Can I participate as well?" A monotone voice asked. Pyronica jumped with a squawk and turned to see Amorphous Shape floating beside her. "Void! Ammy! Don't DO that!" She gasped, sitting down on a sofa seat. "One of these days you're gonna give one of us a heart attack!"

"That would be quite the disappointment." Ammy nodded solemnly. "To think you would die from a simple attack of the heart."

"Look, just because I don't technically NEED a heart to live it no reason to-" Pyronica groaned loudly before stopping herself. "-nevermind. So you want in?"

"I know where Kryptos is, and have the means to get to his location quickly." Amorphous Shape nodded. "I believe I will do quite well in this game." that was when Teeth ran back into the room. "I can't find Kryptos!" He wailed even as Ammy squinted his eyes into a smile. "It appears victory is mine." Before he folded himself into one of his blocks and teleported through it. "Fuck that's not faaaaair!" Teeth complained. Keyhole finished folding the clothes he was helping Hectorgon tidy up, before he sighed. "I'm gonna sit this game out. I can't get Kryptos to wear anything." He pouted. Kryptos didn't always want to play with the rest of them, especially nowadays when he just stayed in his room or at his lab. Whenever Keyhole asked if the other guy wanted to hang out, go to the arcade, feed the turtle-ducks or rampage with the rest of them, Kryptos would claim to be busy.

"Hey, do you think we should stop Kryptos from that silly plan of his?" Keyhole asked. Pyronica looked a little lost as to what Keyhole was suggesting at first before she understood what he was trying to say and shrugged. "Well, I for one, think that his idea of killing Time Baby is great."

Hectorgon chuckled. "I'm sure all of us would like to see that tyrant taken down. Even if it wouldn't last. But I don't know if this plan of his will work." Not that he was going to stop Kryptos from trying. Try and fail, to learn to do better next time. That was something Kryptos needed to learn. Hectorgon was curious to see what his friend would do.

Keyhole sighed. "If Kryptos wanted to kill Time Baby because he wanted to take down a tyrant, that would be ONE thing. But he's only doing this because he's thristy as fuck for Bill." He rolled his eyes. "And that makes this so stupid."

"Peh, I see nothing wrong with his motivation." Pyronica laughed. Keyhole sighed. "Of course you wouldn't…"

Pyronica hummed, sauntering over to Keyhole and bending down to be face to face with him. "Well… what about you?" She asked, grinning at him. A long finger trailed up his face, warm but not burning despite the flames. Keyhole's eyes went wide. "What would you do for a chance with me?"

Keyhole gulped loudly, shivering under her touch. "Y-you… h-how did you know…"

Pyronica laughed and straightened back up. "You're adorable Keyhole, really." She rocked her hips back and forth, watching the way Keyhole blushed. "It was pretty obvious. You're not very good at hiding it. I mean, I'm not as oblivious as Bill is." Pyronica told him simply. Keyhole buried his face in his hands. "Noooooo~"

Teeth and Hectorgon sighed. "I'm going back to clean my room." Teeth noped out of there. He didn't want to deal with this right now. Ugh, relationships. Hectorgon just wanted to give Keyhole some privacy.

When the living room became empty of everyone except Keyhole and Pyronica, the young man finally lifted his face out from his hands. "Ah… so… you… know…"

"I've known for a while, yes." Pyronica sat down on the couch, crossing a long shapely leg over the other. Keyhole winced. "Right...okay…" He fiddled with his thumbs. "So..." He glanced at her and then down to his hands. "What now?"

"You tell me." Pyronica sighed. "I'm not sure how I feel about it. You're my friend, and I love you a lot. But I don't find you attractive." Keyhole twitched. "O-oh…" he wilted. Pyronica continued, "I'm more into the big beefy guys. Some real meat on them-" She held out her hands and gestured, "-with a huuuuuge-"

"Okay I get it!" Keyhole moaned, flushing a deep brown.

"And you're a really nice guy. But I'm not really into nice guys." Pyronica told him. "Because there would be no point. I'm gonna eat my partner anyway. So if they were nice, that'd just be a waste." She bit her lip. "There are too few nice people in the world, I don't want to lessen that number."

"...but you don't have to eat me in a way that kills me." Keyhole not-quite pleaded. "L-like you could just swallow me and then spit me up afterwards-"

"Sure, I could." Pyronica shrugged. "But that'd get you off more than me. I wouldn't really enjoy it as much. No offense, I just really need to chew and tear into my man."

"Oh. I… I understand." Keyhole sighed. "Sorry, I'm just… I dunno, I just… you're really sexy. And cool! And just the most amazing woman I've ever met. And I really like you. And-and I sometimes fantasize about being with you." He was still blushing. "A-and imagining what it would feel like to be eaten by you. How warm your throat would be, how wet it would feel..."

"Awww~" Pyronica leaned over to pull Keyhole against her side for a hug. "You flatterer~" she batted her eye at him. "You know, none of the guys I've eaten have ever told me how much they'd enjoy the process~" She paused. "But you DO know that, that's pretty fucked up, right?" Sure, it was perfectly normal for her species, but she understood that other people weren't supposed to enjoy being eaten. Plus… "And I don't want you to die. I love you."

"I don't need to die. Are you sure you have to chew me up?" Keyhole asked. Pyronica nodded. "I instinctively bite down."

"So no blow jobs…" Keyhole sighed. Pyronica laughed. "Not unless you've got two dicks and can afford to lose one."

"Nope. Singular dick." Keyhole chuckled. Then he sobered. "So… it's not gonna happen, between us… is it?"

"I care about you too much to risk it." Pyronica leaned back on the couch. "And, well, I don't find you physically attractive. No offense, you're very cute, but you're not exactly my type."

"Oh." Keyhole leaned against Pyronica's side. "I'm not sure how to feel about this."

"Same." Pyronica rested her arm on top of Keyhole's large head. "It's why I never really wanted to talk about this with you. But, it's been years, I kinda got tired of it. So, might as well just… lay it all out or something."

"Ah. Right." Keyhole closed his eyes, relaxing into Pyronica's touch. "So… what now?"

"You tell me." the giant woman pulled him closer into the hug. "How are you going to go on past this point? Are you going to give up on me? Find some other sexy giantess to pine over?"

Keyhole managed to laugh. "Doubt I'd meet anyone as awesome as you."

"Well of course! I'm the epitome of awesomeness~" Pyronica posed, throwing her head and arms back, white hot fire flaring up and around them in a lovely display. Keyhole sniggered. "Won't find anyone with an ego to match either."

"Pffth~ says the dude with a head larger than his body~" Pyronica teased back. Keyhole preened. "Oh please~ the larger my head, the larger my Key, and I'll have you know, my Keys are quite girthy~"

The two snorted and burst out laughing. Keyhole kicked his stubby little legs while Pyronica's mouth was wide as she snorted heavily through her laughter. After a while, they had to stop, gasping for air. The two panted heavily, slumped over the couch and each other. It was then that Teeth re-entered the room and went shock still. "Shit, did you two actually do it?!"

That set the two off on another round of laughter.

Kryptos sipped on his breakfast while working. Taking his food off to eat at the lab was much quieter. No one to jostle the table, no impromptu food fights, no rowdy conversations… not that Kryptos didn't enjoy them, when he was in the mood for it.

But he wasn't feeling up for that right now. Finding out that TEETH of all people, had gotten a partner was...

...well Kryptos wasn't jealous, per say. But he felt pretty miffed. He'd been pursuing Bill for a few centuries now. But he had nothing to show for it. Well, aside from a lot of handjobs that Bill didn't remember and would probably be quite distressed once she did… um… shit. Kryptos hadn't actually thought of that. Like, he knew NOW that what had happened between them that day had been wrong, in all the ways, but he hadn't thought about it in a while. He winced. He hadn't meant to… and Bill hadn't known but-

Kryptos resolved to apologize, down on his knees if he had to. He felt like an awful person once he did more research into the subject and realized what exactly the thing he had gotten Bill to do for him was. Kryptos felt like a horrible person once he understood the full gravity of it all. He took advantage of Bill, and even if he hadn't known that at the time, it didn't change the fact that what he'd done was wrong.

So he would apologize. However many times it would take. He would do anything to make things right between them.

But he couldn't even apologize for it, not until he could talk to Bill about what had happened without Bill's own Deal messing with her memories about it. That was...

...that was an even bigger reason why Kryptos had to do this. Confessing to Bill was one thing, heck, if he was honest with himself, Kryptos had the feeling Bill wouldn't return his affection, not in the same way, not in the way Kryptos wanted. But the apology? That was something he desperately needed to do. He felt horrible and would continue to feel horrible until he could finally let Bill know, finally face consequences for what he'd done to her.

...and if Bill… didn't want to be friends anymore because of it...

...he would accept that too.

Kryptos shuddered, wiping at his eye when it threatened to leak. He turned back to his work, but really, there wasn't much left to do at this point but wait to begin testing and contact the mafia for the missing parts. He just needed to mess with something, to DO something, to quell this unsettlement inside him.

So lost in his thoughts, Kryptos almost didn't notice when a bow was neatly tied around his top point. He blinked slowly, coming back to himself and looked up into Ammy's many blinking eyes. "I have secured my victory." Ammy said in monotone. "Prepare yourself, for I shall be shopping for flannel."

...and then he was gone.

Kryptos blinked slowly, looking around his now empty lab, Amorphous Shape was nowhere to be seen. What… just… happened?

8-Ball paced his room, unsure what to do. He had to find Toobie's parents(?) but he had no idea where to start. They were just random dudes he met at a dance club. And it was morning now. So who knows where they'd gone! He had no idea where to start!

Wait.

8-Ball headed over to his mirror, the reflected glow of his eyes stared back. Those eyes that people always wanted. Because they were useful. It was why 8-Ball spent much of his life being bought and sold stolen. Because people wanted to use his eyes. He never really tried using them himself, never saw the point. He didn't understand how they worked, no one did. Bill once said it was because 8-Ball's eyes were tied into the lines of Fate or something, but 8-Ball didn't understand what he was talking about.

All he knew was that his eyes always knew the answer to questions, even if 8-Ball himself knew nothing. So… perhaps he could ask them what to do.

"...should I ask for help in finding Toobie's parents?" He gave the side of his head a light smack and watched his eyes swivel before a message appeared on them.

[ƨǝγ oɈ Ɉnioq ƨnϱiƧ]

...what did that mean? 8-Ball realized he couldn't read it. He whined. Why couldn't he read them? Bill had worked so hard to teach him how to read! 8-Ball felt ashamed for still not knowing how to read everything. He squinted, pressing his face close to the mirror. What did that say?

8-Ball whined at the mirror before he had to go lay down. His head hurt from thinking too hard. Toobie bounced along his face with some high pitched warbles.

Pynelope and her friends finally left, even though Hectorgon and the others asked if they wanted to stay longer. She shook her head. "Sorry Uncle Hec, we need to get back to the office and get this edited."

She did pause and looked around before she left and asked, "Where's Bill?"

"He's off on some wild adventure." Hectorgon responded, it was about as true as anything else. Pynelope shrugged. "Well, prepare yourselves for when he gets back and reads my article. Things are gonna be getting pretty intense." She grinned wickedly. Hectorgon couldn't help but feel worried. "Knowing you, is your article going to egg on Bill to attack the Federation?"

But Pynelope didn't look worried. Even as her friends looked over at her. "It's not Bill that I'm gonna be setting off." She grinned before hitting the [Go] button and disappearing from view as her group teleported away.

Teeth and Keyhole looked over at Hectorgon. "Should we be worried about this?" The polysphere shrugged. "We can deal with that when it comes up." Not like Bill was even here at the moment.

Amorphous Shape stared at the selection before him. "Hm…."

Rows upon rows of flannel shirts hung before him. The lines and colors melded into each other in a dizzying clash of eye cancer. The shop attendant continued to smile, though they were beginning to get nervous. "Dear customer, you have been staring for the past few hours. Are you sure you do not require assistance?"

Ammy reached out a tendril to press against their mouth, "Shhh, I am thinking."

The shop attendant twitched. They looked over at their manager, but he shrugged and gestured for them to stay with the customer. They sighed. This particular customer had come in without anyone noticing him. The attendants went to assist him in finding something he might want, but he had brushed them off, claiming he had to do this himself. Something about claiming his prize? But he had been staring at the rack of clothes for hours now.

"Do you… have any questions?" The shop attendant asked, wanting to do something besides stare at the customer and be bored out of their mind. Speaking of staring, they couldn't help but blush, he had such vibrant colors. And he didn't seem to mind the way they stared, so they couldn't help but continue to look him up and down. As nice as it was though, they were getting bored of standing here. Could they ask one of their coworkers to swap out?

"Do you have anything larger?" The customer finally asked.

The shop attendant was quick to snap out of their haze. "Y-yes we have sizes ranging from XS to X³L. And we can special make anything larger than that."

The customer nodded slowly before floating up to the racks, finally pulling shirts out. All different colors. He turned to hand the pile to the attendant. "These. But bigger." He said simply. The attendant nodded. "Ah, how much bigger sir customer?"

Instead of answering, he disconnected his segmented-block body and spread out, the attendant stared as he arranged the pieces of himself out and around before a lines of light raced through them, connecting all the pieces together into a sort of outline. "Needs to fit this." He said, voice never changing from its flat (but oddly echoing) tone.

The attendant stared for a few seconds before scrambling to pull a tape measure from their pocket and set to work getting the dimensions. Once they were done, the customer rearranged himself into a different formation, smaller. "And one for this." The attendant dutifully marked down the new size as well. And the one after that. And the one after that.

"My, these are a lot of clothes." They remarked, trying to start friendly conversation now that the customer was finally doing something. The customer nodded. "I won. So I got to choose." They said. The attendant waited but he didn't elaborate. And they weren't sure if they should ask. Finally, the customer arranged themselves into the last shape and the attendant recoiled a little. It was a triangle shape. The attendant deliberately did not think about it, but took the measurement anyway. Not going to ask. They knew better than to stick their feelers into that particular subject.

Finally the customer seemed done. "Ah, so you… wanted one shirt of each color in those shapes?" They asked, tone forcibly cheerful, just as they were taught during orientation.

The customer stared at them, unblinking. "One of each color for each shape. All of them. Multiple for each." The attendant could see the Credit signs going off in their manager's eyes. All nine of them. They held back the urge to roll their own. "Very well sir. The custom ordered shirts would cost a little more. Please come to the checkout counter so we can calculate your purchase."

They all went over and the attendant rung him up, staring at the large number. "That'll be 23595 credits, sir." They saw their manager fanning himself over by the corner of the room. The customer pulled out a Credit chip. A gold one. The attendant could see their manager practically salivating. A gold chip was a sign of a very rich customer. A real surprise considering this customer didn't look wealthy. He wasn't even wearing clothing. But… when they put the card through, it was legitimate and the credits were successfully transferred.

"Alright, what is the address you need them delivered to?" "...what is an address?" The customer asked. The attendant blinked. He blinked back. They stared at each other for several long seconds. "Um… your… home address. The place you live?"

"The Death Star." The customer said plainly. The attendant had to pause at that. "But… where is it located?" They asked patiently. "In space."

…...okay. Deep breaths. "Which sector?" "...space." The attendant looked over at their manager. He simply waved for them to keep trying.

"Is there any location you would like this order to be sent to? In terms of where you would like to pick up the order?"

"Home."

The attendant reached for patience they didn't know they had. "How about, do you have a Com?" They asked finally. "We can call you or leave an I-mail when the order is done so you can come in to pick it up." Thank the AXOLOTL he had a Com. He handed it over to the attendant and they flipped it on to get the number off it, since the customer didn't seem to get what they wanted from him.

The attendant flinched at the wallpaper. It was the customer floating beside a bright yellow triangle who had their arms wrapped around them in an embrace. The attendant secreted oils nervously as they quickly found the ID number and I-mail address they needed and handed the Com back.

Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask.

"Alright sir. We will contact you when it is time to pick up your order." They smiled, trying their best to act like nothing was wrong. The customer nodded, managing to look solemn through all this. "Very well. I shall be awaiting my prize." And then he was gone. They didn't see him leave. He was just… gone.

"Ohbythestarsthatwasstressful!" The attendant slumped over the counter. Uuuugh. Rich customer or not… that wasn't something they ever wanted to do again. They finally got up to put the sample shirts away and paused to find them gone. Did that guy just-

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuu-!"