Illusion is Reality

Chapter 108

-The party never stops-

The Maniacs were all staring at the display in front of them with something like a combined mix of awe and pure horror.

"What?" said Blue, taking in their reactions. He'd talked out the galactic-wide adopted nutritional intake classification system with his sister that he'd come up with himself, a long time ago - one which had seen wide adoption across his entire 'set, because of course it had, for reasons - not least of which because it was both entirely-complete and it WORKED. He'd also talked through some of the recipe structures that he'd created with Bill as well. Bill had then informed him of the proper classifications for each of his friends (and himself) that Bill had learned through his experiments on their body-doubles. All of any of it should be just fine for any of them to eat. (Though some tastes were meant more for some-of-them than some-others… He'd made sure there was a mix of things that should have suited all of them, though. And he'd even gone to the trouble of making it look VERY interesting and weird for them, besides!)

"It looks… Nutritious." Teeth noted.

It kind of had to be, right? Anything that looked like some sort of cosmic Lovecraftian horror from beyond the edges of a known and (relatively-)sane universe had thrown it up all over the table, and then been chopped up and bled out over it for good measure... (though somehow inexplicably completely constrained within the confines of a multitude of plates) ...well, it had to be good for you, right?

It did smell pretty okay, though. ...For the most part. That was about the only good thing about this mess that any of them could see.

Ammy stared at it. "...I'm going for it," he declared. (Blue grinned.) The others gasped. "Wait, you're still a child!" Hectorgon wailed. Ammy picked up the plate and poured it into one of his blocks. There was a long silence. "I'm not dead." Ammy said matter of factly.

"You also don't have tastebuds, so it's kinda moot." Pyronica said, voice and tone as dry as the deserts her homeland was filled with.

"Should I point out which ones were made more for which being-friends of yours than others?" Blue queried of his sister next, at most of her friends' continued hesitation. Because was this not obvious from looking at all of them? He thought he'd made it dead obvious by color-coding the plates… (He almost asked if Bill was sure that they were hungry, but he didn't really think his sister, who cared so much about food, would not be knowing THAT one.)

"I'm sure we can figure that out." PaciFire stared at the dark teal plate with gold and black highlights. Huh, personalized dishware. Blue really WAS Bill's brother.

"Would more tables for more space make eating easier?" Blue asked of them next, raising a hand to do just that.

Hectorgon raised a hand. "That's fine, we can handle this." He looked at the table and gulped. As the adult of the household, he had to set the good example. He hopped into his seat in front of the red plates and picked up his spork. With an almost theatrical flair, he brought it into the 'food' which let out a sickly squishing sound and scooped some up, which trailed a slimy filament of goop that stretched like cheese. He opened his mouth and placed it inside.

Another long silence. 8-Ball poked him. "Are you dead?"

"It's… the texture is FedAwful, but it's not bad." ("Noted," Blue murmured, then looked a question via his eyes over his sister's way at this.)

"Good enough for me!" Pyronica picked up her plate and shoveled the whole thing into her mouth.

"So, which stuff here are you eating?" Teeth asked Blue curiously, as Blue started to lower his hand.

"I'm not wanting any of it," Blue began, then realized that that likely sounded terrible, if not terribly suspicious, and that a proper explanation was in order. "I…"

But then Blue stopped for a moment mid-sentence. Because this time, at the Maniacs' suggestion of him-eating, and with a handful of energy ready to go at creating a few extra tables for them all… Blue stopped in place as something finally occurred to him.

And he stared down at his own exoskeletal hand.

And he got… an Idea.

"One minute," he murmured to Teeth almost absently. Then, "Miz…" Blue said slowly, wanting to make certain he got this one set of reasoning right. "You like cooking for people you care about."

"Yes. It satisfies me. On an emotional level."

"And you like cooking for me, and also wanting me to eat it."

"Yes." Because Blue had trouble eating and Bill was happy to know he wasn't starving anymore.

"And I don't want to take in something that is some form of you that is here," Blue added next.

"Understandable, not everyone is a man-eater."

Blue looked up at his little sister.

"You can make atoms out of energy, too," he attempted confirming with him next.

"Yeah, it requires more work but is perfectly do-able."

Blue nodded once. He looked down at his hand again.

And then he pushed a rather large, though very compact and well-contained ball of energy out beyond the boundaries of his exoskeleton.

"This is absolutely not something that is-or-was ever some-form-of-you from here," Blue told Bill, reaching out towards him, holding out the ball of concentrated energy that he'd pulled out of himself within his cupped hands for him to take. "You could make anything you want out of this, that I could then 'eat', as long as it is all still kept fully separate from the rest of all the atoms and free-energy here, which I can do by better-expelling anything that is from here by extending my own boundaries in this way," he ended, as he handed off said energy to Bill and Bill took it from him. And then Blue quickly tweaked (read: added) a few more things to his exoskeleton that would do that for him. (Rather, Blue fixed the 'expelling' properties of it to work even more strongly and efficiently than before, in order to stop it before anything got anywhere close to his first set of layers, inside of his current physical form - because he hadn't originally planned on putting anything inside of his 'mouth' to slide down the inside of his exoskeleton while he was here.)

"Ok, I'll make some vegetable stir fry. With the peppers you like." Bill delightfully began poking at the clump of energy, forming all the ingredients and seasonings he needed from it.

"And I will eat it!" Blue told her quite brightly. (...Ah, 'compromise' to make his sister be able to be happy with him. -That made him a good big brother, right? Blue admittedly still wasn't entirely sure of this, how things were supposed to go as a big-brother to a little-sister, especially to a little-sister who had actually been human long ago at one point, but... Miz wasn't crying or looking sad over his not-eating-things anymore. That had to be the good kind of worse he was going for... right?)

Then Blue turned to back to Teeth and said, "I am eating that thing, that my sister is making," matter-of-factly. "The stuff I will be eating is over there, now." He pointed over at what Bill was doing at the counter and stove.

"This… isn't bad." Keyhole noted, crunching into his meal. "It doesn't look all that nice, but the taste is fine."

Bill glanced up from his wok. "Can someone bring Kryptos's food to him? He's still in his room."

"""Not it!""" A bunch of the Maniacs cried out. "Not… Oh. Darn," 8-Ball grumbled. "I'm always it," he whined.

"-I didn't do anything terrible to it!" Blue noted brightly, trying to be helpful. "I did not make it toxic, or ready to explode," or something more 'demon'-like, for those demons that tended to do those stupid things, because they had no capability for finesse whatsoever? He hadn't; Bill had been watching him there, besides. And (more importantly) didn't want him to do it. Did they all think that he did? (It didn't even bear mentioning that Blue had also promised his sister that he wouldn't mess with their food; he just didn't do that to other beings on principle. -That was just RUDE.)

"Hang on, I wanna finish first." 8-Ball snarfed down the rest of his dinner and, when Bill made an impatient sound, brought his dirty dishes over to the sink. And washed his hands. With the citrus scented bar of soap. Bill made a satisfied hum as 8-Ball finished. "Good boy." (Blue flicked his gaze over to them at this.)

The ogre looked pleased with himself. Then he picked up Kryptos's two plates and went off.

Ammy had finished his next plate, scooping up with his spork and watching it slowly ooze down and into his block, almost fascinated with watching the goop stretch. He placed the plate into another block, where it appeared beside the sink, and washed his tendrils as well. "I am finished," he told his mother, and at his nod, he curled up inside one of his other blocks, turning himself inside out, and disappeared.

Kryptos heard a knock on his door. He looked up from the papers (solid records of his research, never left his room, he didn't keep any important stuff on his computer, he wasn't that stupid, he knew how easily those things could be hacked) he was shredding. He didn't know what to do about anybody who might've been paying attention to his online searches or purchases, or other telepaths stealing whatever information was in his mind, but he'd deal with that later. "Who's it?" He grunted, feeling a pang of loss as another one of his journals was destroyed. Ugh, the things he did for the sake of appeasing Bill's brother. Yes, Kryptos understood the danger, but the papers never left his room, and Bill had their whole house shielded! It should have been fine. Whatever, he'd just have to figure out something else.

At least the notes on that transforming ray were still allowed, he figured that was fine.

"Um, it's me. I got dinner for you," he heard 8-Ball growl out with his usual lisp. Kryptos opened the door and recoiled. "What the ever loving FUCK is that?!" He glanced up. "Did Ammy cook today?"

"Um, actually… Blue cooked thi-" 8-Ball didn't get to finish as the door was closed in his face. "I don't want it."

"Um…" 8-Ball blinked at the door. "It's actually not as bad as it looks. Or feels. It didn't taste bad."

"Might be poisoned."

8-Ball scratched his head. "I doubt it. Bill was watching and she'd be real sad if you died."

The door opened a crack. "...fine. But only because I'm hungry." He considered the plates of slop and then sighed, opening his door fully. "I don't want it in my room, just leave it on the ground. I'll eat it here."

"Kay." 8-Ball put them both down and waved. "I'm going to the living room, wanna play that Critter Walking game that Bill just got."

"Have fun." Kryptos said absently as he pinched a small bit of the 'food' with some tweezers and placed it into a container. He was going to inspect it fully before he tried eating it.

"What textures do you like instead, then?" Blue was querying the other Maniacs, as he 'dug into' his own meal, now finished and steaming, sitting on a plate out in front of him. Bill was nibbling on some chips, tossing them back into his eye to cronch them. Keyhole shrugged, not wanting to outright diss Blue's cooking right in front of him. "Ah… I like… firmer food? That… isn't… slimy?"

"I like meat, the way it tears between my teeth. The firm chew." PaciFire grunted, "Your cooking was… mushy."

"And slimey." "And sticky." "And chewy." "Not to say those are bad textures, but we don't really like them being all of the above, all at once." They were quick to reassure Blue, in case he got offended (or sad, like Bill got when they disliked something he made, though he would just try harder to make the next meal something they liked).

"HMMMM…" Blue thought about this. Then he snapped his fingers, and the remaining food on a few plates (for those few who hadn't finished their meals yet), went up in a high burst of flames.

...and stayed on fire for awhile until he made a palm-down motion and it all went out at once.

"Should be a bit more firm, now," Blue noted of the now harder-'burned' dishes, before taking another bite of his own food. (He'd largely done the 'burning' to the 'slimy' exterior "sauces" that he'd used for all of it, which then charred the inside foodstuffs underneath and within it to a bit less of a mushy consistency. He didn't say anything further about his choice for doing this, though - before, or now - not really wanting to admit that he hadn't thought about the combination of multiple different types of textures as potentially being a problem with the dishes, when he'd opted to not follow any specific recipe - wanting to impress with something visually weird - and had basically "done everything" each of them had said they'd liked for the textures Bill had told him they enjoyed... though he'd still grouped the flavors largely by their usual profiles. But Blue had also made the foods not to their 'favorite' individual flavor profiles, but mostly ones with the most overlap between several of them instead - in case one stole a dish from another, or wanted to swap between them or share. That was the same reason that he'd also decided to stick to ingredients that none of them would find potentially harmful to ingest in any one of those dishes...)

"Always cool to see them do stuff like that. Is this just what Bill's kinda demon does?" (Blue blinked at this as he chewed.) "I dunno, Seb didn't seem to do that?" "Maybe he could and just didn't?"

Keyhole poked the blackened meal. "..." He carefully tried to slice off a piece and wrinkled his nose. "Ah… is this… charcoal?" Curse his only real skill, being able to tell what material something was made of.

"Not completely," Blue told him. "Try removing the outer layer of… charcoaled 'slime' as if it were a thin bony shell, and eating the rest," Blue added.

Keyhole peeled it open with a crack. He leaned back as the steam hissed out. "Oh that… smells… odd." He blinked at it. Everyone else was crowded behind his seat, staring over his shoulders. "Well?" Pyronica prodded him. "Try it?" Keyhole cut out a piece and held it up. He was very confused by Blue's cooking, not the least of which he had no idea what sorts of ingredients he'd used. His analytical side could only pick out a few things here and there. Slowly, the spork went into his mouth and he chewed.

"...well, the texture's… better?" Keyhole said finally. "The taste is a little bitter from the burned parts."

Blue held back an annoyed sigh. "If you don't like it, then say you don't like it! What do you WANT to eat instead?" he asked next. "Some specific recipe?" He stuck his fork in his charred vegetables again, then said without looking at any of them, "It looks like you all don't fight over food here, so I can probably get away with making things for some of you that would otherwise kill or make another one of you sick. None of you seem to be checking the contents themselves before eating them, but since you're paying attention to which dishes are which, not stealing it from each other… that doesn't look like it would be a problem." Blue shrugged, then took a bite from his fork.

"We just wanted to try your food. It's… nice, to do so." PaciFire grumbled. "Also, Bill and Pyronica steal food sometimes." He gave Bill an even stare. Bill flushed. "What? None of you claim it!"

Blue glanced over at PaciFire. "My food?" That was a misunderstanding that needed clearing up, quickly! "I'm a being of pure energy," Blue drawled out. "I don't eat 'food' in the Mindscape; I feed on OTHER things which would melt YOUR insides like butter!" He twirled the end of his fork around. "I've only been eating food lately because I have a body again-now," he added next with an eyeroll, "And because I currently haven't modded it out to not need any of that sort of thing anymore, yet, for reasons." Getting the rid of the need to eat, drink, or breathe was not a small change, when it came to his current body.

"It's only polite to try your cooking, since you're cooking." PaciFire clarified.

"Oh," Blue said, blinking. "You don't mean 'eat what I eat'. You mean 'eat something I cooked'." He popped another piece of vegetable into his mouth, and chewed. Once he was finished with that, he said next, "Why didn't you say that the first time? -I DO take requests. On occasion. And this is one of those times," Blue clarified. "-Give me a recipe each, and I'll make it? Or the name of the food, and I'll get the recipe from my sister here," he said, finishing off his meal and pushing his chair back, as he stood up to take his dishes back over to the sink. "Maybe for dessert? I do party foods and drinks for partying 'best'!" Blue noted, as he cleared his place at the table. ("Good food-cooking as usual, little sis," Blue told him as he did so, which had Bill turning orange and wiggling in joy.)

"Oooh!" Pyronica leaned over the table, "Iced Fellipops!" Blue turned to his sister. "It's a type of fruit-based ice cream. Only instead of cow milk, it uses the nectar of a Mosh flower, since it's white and creamy."

Bill set his dishes down in the sink, and got down to washing (both his current dishes, what he'd used for his cooking previously, and what Miz had used for her cooking for him just now, all three). "Recipe by my recipe-format is… what?" Blue asked him next, not wanting to guess at anything this time. He wanted to impress! He could tweak things to be faster or slower once he knew the proper instructions easily, but it would be better to start from the 'standard' recipe and go from there this time, was Blue's was of thinking, given how completely unimpressed the Maniacs had been with his last attempt here. (He was getting the impression that his sister's Maniacs here were most certainly not demon-like in any respect. They were, pure and simply, only beings, and not all that weird or 'out there' themselves, either.)

Bill gave him the recipe, and the next Maniac still at the table would then give the name of the next dish, which Bill would then also give him, rinse and repeat.

By the time Blue was finished with washing and drying the dishes, he had a full complement of desserts (and a few drinks) to roll up his sleeves and get into.

It didn't take him too long, though Bill did have to go floating off at a few points to grab some scientific beakers and other equipment for him at stages. (Otherwise, several of these dishes would have taken at least a full day to be completed - up to three million years in the case of one of the two drinks, in fact.) Bill also pulled out more than a few ingredients here and there at times for his brother, being helpful, when some of them were low in stock or not in stock at all in the cabinets nearby.

In the meantime, the remaining Maniacs finished with the current set of dishes (and in more than one case wishing they could get away with dumping the remaining leftovers into Ammy… like they usually did whenever Bill was making something 'healthy' that was mostly kinda gross to eat and they didn't want him knowing that they didn't like it) before also taking them to the sink and proceeding to go about cleaning them.

Blue finished the requested dishes easily enough (actually "cooking" them in one physical form or another, without using magic to just create them out of thin air, as-requested of these Maniacs so they could see his real skill level at cooking it for themselves - he didn't bother trying to hold back), set them out on the appropriate color-coded plates, and this time all the food and drinks were looking familiar to each of the Maniacs who had asked for them.

"You didn't tell me what you wanted to eat for just-and-only-yourself, little sis," Blue said to him next, as he wiped off his hands and depressurized the last piece of 'time sand'-distilling equipment.

Bill hummed in thought. Something he wanted… "Yi mein," he said finally. "The dry cooked kind with the mushrooms. No lobster. I don't like lobster yi mein." He was tearing up at the memory.

"Recipe?" Blue asked, already reaching up for the cupboards where all the ingredients were stored.

"Hm… it was a dish from when I was human… so I don't know it atomically…" Bill admitted.

"Use the 'ingredient weights, measures, and actions' alternate substructure format, then? I can calculate and convert it into the main atomic format with the usual ranges using averages for each of the ingredients from there, so I can check the outcome of the cooking later," to make sure that it was (probably close to being) in-spec at least; Blue could do that. "That format should be a lot closer to a human recipe card, for the basic quantities, timing, and cooking strategies and methods, even if it's not wholly-complete by the full format."

"Well… I don't really know how they cook it… just that it involves oil… and the yi mein noodles." Bill frowned. "I should have tried to learn it back when I was human, but I didn't think about it-"

"When and where was this recipe usually made and done, on Earth?" Blue asked him next. If he knew that much, he could scan his own Seen memories and find it much faster than without that information-

"Wait, hang on. You were human once? I thought you couldn't build a vessel in the 3rd dimension?" Hectorgon asked. "Or is this over in Seb's dimension? I thought you went with your dragon vessel there."

"S-something like that…" Bill wiggled, flushing orange at having let that slip. He wasn't… quite ready to tell his friends that part of his past yet. He was too embarrassed to! Telling Blue and the people in his set was fine, they weren't all that important to him. But his friends? Seb's family? Bill was too afraid of how they'd react.

Blue looked over at Miz, but didn't say anything.

"Do you have some sort of problem with humans?" Blue said very casually to them all, almost smoothly, as he pulled several types of Earth-type mushrooms out of the cabinets, not looking at any of them.

(...didn't say anything right away, for a long moment, until he did. Miz nearly smacked him for that one, because what was he doing!?)

"Well, we don't really care one way or another." Pyronica blinked slowly. "But Kryptos kinda hates them, he thinks they're boring creatures that Bill shouldn't be so interested in." At that, Bill looked away, quiet.

"I like humans," Blue said next, "For multiple reasons." He put down the bag of mushrooms that he'd been looking at, down on the counter in front of him. "And anyone who has negative amounts of like for them can just go off and burn," he said, both simply and definitively.

Blue turned around in place. "And I don't mean that figuratively." He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. "What, precisely, is Kryptos planning on doing about these 'boring creatures' that he hates. Do any of you know?" He looked out over all of them.

"...nothing? He's just super grumpy whenever Bill talks about them. Or hangs out with them." Pyronica glanced over at Bill and sighed. "Look, I know you don't like that Kryptos doesn't like them, but that's his problem, not yours," she assured him.

But at that, Blue gave her a wide, tooth-filled GRIN that was more of a threat than anything else.

"Oh," Blue said, "I assure you," he continued, "That it is very much 'my problem' because of one of my reasons for it. And YOU all would think it is a problem TOO, if I told you that reason," he added, eyes starting to look a little dangerous, "Unless you don't." Blue paused. "In which case, I think it's a VERY good thing that 'we' just got done FIXING my little sister's 'little' Deal problem," Blue ended, almost sing-song. (Because to him, with his sister having been human once, and Miz considering himself in many ways still-human still, any of them hating humans on principal or otherwise was an absolute Deal breaker, and not any sort of human definition of the word 'friend' to her at all! But if all those Deals had been in place still, and their original and earlier format, with Miz unable to think of any of them as anything other than her Friend, WELL… that would have been dangerous to his little 'human' sister in the extreme. And not something Blue would have tolerated, no, not in the least.)

They all looked confused. "What do ya mean?" 8-Ball asked finally.

"My little sister is a me-who-is-also-me," Blue told him. "And in my dimensional set, I 'walled off' every last human dimension in existence from the influence of every other demon that's out there," keeping any new demons from entering or acting on anything in the interiors in any way first, informing all the demons who had been inside at the time of how things were going to go from that point then forward next… and then went about removing said demons who had been inside at the time, one way or another, finally. "Because I wanted to, and I could." Because he'd put a great amount of effort into figuring out exactly how to do it, and then pull it off next. "Because I consider all of them mine. -Transitive property; you do the math."

A few of them were still lost as to what he meant. But Hectorgon looked grim. He turned toward Bill. "Do you really love humans that much?"

"...yeah." Bill admitted quietly. Hectorgon sighed and hopped over, placing his hand on Bill's side and petting him with gentle strokes. "You don't have to feel so self conscious about it. If you like humans, then you like humans. They're something you care about. And that's okay." Bill brightened a little at that, but he still seemed pretty down. "I just… don't like that Kryptos hates them. I'm… I don't want him to hate me."

"Kryptos wouldn't hate you just because you like humans." Hectorgon assured him. That didn't make Bill look any happier.

"It goes beyond that," Blue said concisely. "'Hating humans' makes you NOT a friend of my little sister."

"He doesn't know. It's not his fault…" Bill defended weakly.

"Not the point," Blue told her. He turned his head back towards the others. "Does he 'only' hate humans because he thinks they're boring, even when they're anything-but? Or is this an 'exposure to only a few specific humans' issue," he asked next, dropping his arms from where they were crossed over his chest. "Because, HA, I'll be the first to admit, there are plenty of specific individual humans that I've HATED beyond measure, HAHA!" Not enough to hate all of them, though; not even close. MOST of them were really fun to play with! And several had even been-

Pyronica glanced over at Bill again, but he didn't seem to want to speak up. "Well, to be fair, I think Kryptos only really hates one human in particular," Pyronica put out there which had Bill letting out a soft, "Uwu…"

"Which one," Blue asked flatly. Though if his little sister was right about him not knowing, then this was a promising line to follow.

"Stanford."

Blue blinked. Then blinked again.

"Stanford… Pines?" Blue asked her.

"...yeah? I mean, we haven't met any other Human-Stanfords yet." Pyronica blinked. She turned to Teeth. "Have we?" The Mouth shook his body. "Not that I remember."

Blue stared at this.

And then he started to laugh.

And laugh.

AND LAUGH.

...and eventually calmed down enough to (without gasping out 'body spasms!' ...mostly because he didn't have to breathe right now) turn back towards his sister with a grin (one that looked very different in character now), to tell Bill, "WELL WELL WELL! -Looks like I have a reason to not completely dislike that Kryptos of yours, after all!" ...And then Blue started laughing again.

Bill gave his brother a flat look. "Ugh, you and Kryptos both!" He threw his hands in the air and huffed.

"Six-fingered Stanfords are the WORST! -And not in the good kind of way!" Blue told (read: 'reminded') his sister (of his fact-based opinion on the subject).

"Fordsie is nice. I like him." Bill flushed dark orange. "He's my friend too! I don't like when my friends don't like each other…"

"He's not 'your friend', and I don't have to like him," Blue told him promptly. "And I already warned you on the subject of how he's going to respond to you later." He straightened a bit in place. "I DON'T want to see you get hurt. Not when I know it's going to happen and can tell you not to do the thing, to stop first. -I don't want you to get hurt by him, ever. That wouldn't be funny; that would be the OPPOSITE of funny, or fun."

"...you've never even met him. He's Seb's brother. He's… I mean, I don't know how he'd respond, but he accepted Seb, and he knows Seb was Bill, and had done pretty much all the same awful things the other Bill in their Set did. And he still loved him."

"Accepted Seb, maybe. But Seb-as-Bill-as-himself, wholly and fully? -Seb is missing at least half his Mind right now, if not his memories-almost-entire, from what I've seen," (from when he'd come visiting his 'set with Miz the first time), "And what you've told me," (much later), Blue noted dryly. "Especially since you haven't seen him trying to fix anything over there, when he is a me-who-is-also-me, too!"

"Seb's lost most of his powers, and I think he's just happy to be with his human family right now." Bill pouted. ('Oh, WELL. If all that it took for a Stanford to not try to murder a Bill anymore was for that Bill to more or less NEUTER THEIR POWERS and LOBOTOMIZE themselves… WELL then! How lovely,' Blue thought. 'How good to know!') "Which isn't bad. He just… wants to be happy." ('RIGHT. As if any of them could truly be HAPPY while-')

"-If he is a me-who-is-also-me, then he wants Liam back, too," Blue told his sister staunchly, and Bill stopped for a moment. Because had Blue really just said…? (MizBill knew how strongly Blue avoided talking about Liam in front of other people for any reason. He hadn't confirmed it to anyone in his own set yet, and he couldn't see Blue doing that outside his set for anything other than a very good reason. He remembered how hesitant Blue had been in talking about it with that other Bill in that other set, and he hadn't been the one to offer that information up first.)

"...I haven't asked him about Liam. I… didn't want to interrupt his happy ending…"

"HA!" ...And now Blue looked downright grim. "The fact that you are calling that 'an ending' of any sort," Blue began, "Means that he is the one calling it an ending. Meaning that something is VERY wrong there." Because as far as Blue was concerned, a version of him would never stop wanting Liam back. Not if- "He does still have MANY of his powers, yes?" Blue noted. "And you told me about some of his Deals." Seb should have been able to leverage that to get whatever he wanted - the rest of his own powers back included. The fact that he seemed to have not done that, nor asked Miz himself for some help on that front in order to get them back if that didn't work for him, spoke VOLUMES.

Bill looked down at his hands, clasped together almost nervously. "Seb… kinda… made a Deal-ish thing with his AXOLOTL to come back to life. He… died while fighting off the other Bill in his Set, to protect his human family… and he didn't want to have to leave them all. So… he made a Deal with his Ax…"

Blue didn't like the sound of this at all, especially not that 'fighting off the other Bill' part… but the aftermath with Seb they were talking about here was possibly workable. There were the three of them here, knowing each other, and in on the situation, after all.

"What was the Deal-ish thing," Blue asked of him.

"Well, Ax brought him back…kept the powers he had. Don't know the exact wording of their Deal, or whatever their thing was."

"There's three of us, and I live for breaking all the Rules," Blue reminded Bill, with a very thin smile. "No stupid lazy lizard is going to keep me from getting WHAT I WANT, BREAKING what I want to break, or FIXING what I want to fix," Blue told him firmly, with an undercurrent of anger, before uncrossing his arms and straightening away from the countertop. "One of us can ask Seb, the next time either of us sees him, for the details. We'll figure something out, and then we'll do it. You'll see. ALL of those things are going to CHANGE." Blue turned back around to face The counter again. "Now…" Blue tilted his head back slightly. "It is called 'Yi mein', yes? The thing that you are wanting to eat?" He closed his 'eyes' and started scanning through his own previously-Seen memories, ones of his own 'set's Dimension 46'\ Earth, starting from his most-recent planet-wide Look at everything, and working his way farther and even-farther back...

The Maniacs all glanced at each other. "Did any of you understand any of that?" Teeth whispered. There were many head shakes. Xanthar guestured, putting his hand to his head a few times and making a wiggling motion. "But I don't think Bill's gonna…" Pyronica started to say before trailing off. "Ok, you're probably right."

"It's a Cantonese style dish, very yummy," Bill said brightly, as Blue lowered his chin and opened his eyes (with a named culture and potential timeframe, he'd zeroed in on it quickly; and now he was starting to evaluate the slightly-different dishes that had all been called that within Sight of his All-Seeing Eye that he'd Seen. Blue was also listening to his sister for any further input at the same time as well). "I used to beg my human parents for it whenever they were heading out to Chinatown. Well, my mom at least. Dad always ordered lobster yi mein even though I told him multiple times I hated that version…" he grumbled, rather upset that Zyun-Jan's father never seemed to remember (or care) for her preferences.

"You had human parents before Wanda and Seb?" Teeth asked, trying to build some sort of Cipher family tree in his head. Bill glanced over, and seemed to think very hard on something before coming to a decision. "You know how I mentioned I had a Soul family? Which was different from my other family?"

"The one where you had sisters instead of a brother?" PaciFire and the others had all heard about it, still confused the heck outta them.

Bill nodded, still wiggling with nerves. "My… Soul family was… human." He flicked his bowtie. "My Soul is… human," he finally admitted. Everyone stared. (Blue noted all this, as he finished his calculations, and started pulling out all the proper ingredients for the food-dish creation.) Keyhole raised his hand. "I don't get it."

"So… you have a human soul and… a triangle demon body? Is… that what you mean?" Pyronica scratched at her horn. Then she shrugged. "Yeah sure whatever. Why're you so nervous Bill? That sort of weird dissonance is exactly the kind of thing we expect from you." She picked up on Bill's hesitancy, and knowing this now, it explained why Bill got so upset at Kryptos's out loud stated dislike for that species. Well, better reassure her best friend of this now. "Look," Pyronica knelt down and picked Bill up (while Blue tensed and watched her very carefully out of the corners of his eyes). "Whatever you might have been before doesn't really matter as much as who you are now, and what you mean to me, to us," she reminded him. "And having a human soul or whatever, doesn't change that. You're still our friend. We still love you. And Kryptos doesn't actually hate humans as much as he says he does. He's just jealous that humans catch your attention." (Blue went back to focusing more on his cooking again.)

"And the fact that you like Ford so much, on top of that," Teeth snickered. Bill blinked at that. "Why just Fordsie? He doesn't get mad at anyone else even though I like them too? He liked Wanda well enough. And I adore mommy."

The Maniacs stared. Then, almost collectively, they turned to Hectorgon ("Why is it always MY job to explain?!")

Bill looked to Hectorgon as well. The polysphere sighed, lifting his hat to scratch his head. "Kryptos hates Ford in particular because he's a rival for your affection." ("'Rivals'," Blue muttered out, as he finished measuring the ingredients and reached for the wok. Well, now he KNEW both of them were gunning for his little sister, trying to murder him! What else could the two of them possibly be rivals in, 'loving' her like that polytool had so falsely claimed? Blue rolled his eyes at the very thought, because he also knew that six-fingered Stanfords simply were NOT built for that sort of thing!)

Bill continued to stare with a wide eye, not understanding. Hectorgon buried his face in his hands. "You don't notice, do you?"

"Notice what?" Bill frowned in confusion. Hectorgon looked like he was going to answer before he shook his head. "It's fine. You'll figure it out on your own, or you won't. This is something you need to decide on your own, anyway."

Bill blinked and glanced over at his big brother, to see if he kbwe what Hectorgon was talking about, and what the other Maniacs apparently all knew and weren't telling him.

"They're both vying to murder you first," Boue noted. "This disgusting biological 'love' business is stupid; that polytool is A FAILURE at lying, can't even get his facts right! Because Six-fingered Stanfords don't DO that! Several years out there in other dimensions should have gotten rid of any stupid human confusion on that front."

There was a collective slapping of face palms and frustrated groans.

"...Ford's an asexual. We talked about it together." Bill pointed out (resulting in a "YES! EXACTLY!" from Blue), "...and I don't think he's trying to kill me. If he was, he wouldn't be so trusting with me." Then the other part of Blue's words finally registered. "Wait. Are you saying Fordsie… likes me?"

"That's phase one, 'trust' and 'adoration'," Blue told him. "Then that changes, because he listens to someone else about something or another that has to do with you, and Decides he doesn't ACTUALLY like you at all, without even listening to you or asking any questions about anything. Phase two is 'fear' and 'hatred' and wanting to do all the murdering, and never listening to you or doing anything you want ever again, at least not without ALL of all-of-the-trickery involved," Blue finished explaining.

"...but he already did that with his own Bill. He got over it." Bill frowned, not wanting to think that Fordsie secretly didn't like him or want to be his friend.

"And now he's doing it AGAIN with you, yes?" Blue said as a leading question, as if this was obvious. "Because he hasn't learned his lesson about anything from the last time, like most Stanfords of any number of fingers? And isn't going to ask any of the questions all over again, because he's an idiot?" Blue frowned as he spatula'd things around in the wok. "-My Stanley thinks he can get Sixer pushed over into some 'phase three' nonsense, where we all can still-and-again 'get along' for the kids," Blue rolled his eyes at this (because Pine Tree and Shooting Star hardly needed such 'babying')/small. "But Chaos knows what he thinks that would look like. Probably not anything like phase one again, not that I'd want that from that Stanford all over again," Blue muttered at the last. The pure adoration and worship, coming from him - one of his Zodiac symbols? It had felt a little uncomfortable and strange, for reasons he hadn't let himself think about at the time (and still didn't). "I categorically REFUSE to let Stanley turn this into some sort of cycle, instead."

"Whoa, you and your Stanford must have had a really bad break up." Pyronica pointed out (not realizing Blue had been talking about his Zodiac, not children of his own, when he'd said 'for the kids').

"'Break up'." Blue grimaced. It hadn't been a 'romantic' relationship, but the words unfortunately STILL seemed to fit better than any others that he could come up with on the spot, that he might be even a little bit comfortable with mentioning / admitting to; and yeesh, his little sister had used that term at that Stanford before, too. ...So maybe here the words meant something closer to what had happened with him, then it would back in his own 'set there?

With all that in mind, Blue took what Pyronica said completely in stride (for the moment) and explained, "He isn't trying to murder me outright right now," and OF COURSE Blue himself wasn't trying to murder that Stanford, or he would have done it already! "But that's only because he's starting to realize that he can't. 'Killing' me is ONE thing - which I ALSO will not let him do - 'making sure I stay DEAD' is something that he will never ever be able to pull off, because I won't LET him DO it," Blue ground out at the last, flipping the noodles over in the wok again, before adding the next series of spices. "I REFUSE."

The Cyclopian put a hand on her hip. "You two need couple's counseling. Or something. It sounds like you're really having it bad. Have you tried moving on?" (Teeth nudged her, "I don't think you get to give relationship advice seeing as you eat all your partners.")

Blue looked back over his shoulder at her. "'Moving on'?" He turned away from her again with a laugh, messing about with the noodles in the wok with his spatula. "He's my Zodiac," he just about purr-hummed out at her in a very dark sort of amusement. "Sixer's not getting out of this, ever. I will NEVER change." (Blue was pretty sure at this point that something to do with constant change must have been what had been going on with that other Bill over in that other dimension with the trio writing with that device. Because the idea of having a shifting and changing zodiac circle over time, symbols coming and going with no rhyme or reason, and some of them NEVER EVEN WRITTEN DOWN… the very idea of it was MADDENING to say the least, and-)

Now all the Maniacs were staring. "Definitely related," Keyhole deadpanned. The others nodded in agreement. That possessiveness was just like Bill. They almost felt bad for that other-dimensional Stanford.

"It wasn't a 'romantic' relationship that I ever had with him, you know," Blue made clear with an eye-roll on the rethink, taking into account both his sister's 'squirmy feelings' preferences for potential romance-without-sex partners, and also that 'couples counseling' comment that it had taken him a while to look back through his previously-Seen memories and effectively parse. He didn't want to not-be fully-understood and -heard by these Maniacs of Miz's, or to risk his sister otherwise getting any wrong-sided squirmy feeling ideas from it if he wasn't crystal clear in what he was communicating here (since he wasn't absolutely sure-and-certain what sort of relationship with a 'break up' they might all be assuming had been going on, yet). "But it was-and-is A type of relationship, yes." Blue didn't elaborate any furses in that, as he gave the noodle-mixture in the wok one more toss, then plated it while still warm for his little sister. "He's my Zodiac," Blue repeated, while handing the plate off to his little sister. "This is a vegetables-only version of the thing that you are wanting, I think?"

"Thanks." Bill shifted into his William form so he could taste it properly. He pulled out some chopsticks and picked up a scoop. "...so Fordsie doesn't like me?" he murmered quietly, a little sad at the thought. He 'nom'ed the noodles and chewed, eat away the sadness! Oh. It's actually really good. The flavor was stronger than he remembered, but it was really good. (Blue waved his hand, produced a piece of paper with writing on it - a copy of the exact recipe that he'd calculated and then enacted, in the 'weight and measures and actions' type format - and set it down on the table next to him, since his little sister seemed to not be hating it, and had said he hadn't known the recipe himself before.)

The Maniacs groaned. "I don't think he dislikes you." Keyhole pointed out helplessly. A few glared at Blue for putting his own break up issues into poor Bill's already low self esteem. Frankly, they were hoping for Bill to finally find someone who liked him romantically, since Bill seemed to be a hopeless romantic, if all those romance novels he kept hidden in the cupboards was any indicator. Kryptos… well, they all could tell that Bill wasn't interested in him that way, sucks for him.

"He will stop liking you, soon enough," Blue told him. "It will probably be that local Glasses that does it, down-talking you to him, and THEN…" Blue shrugged and trailed off. He looked completely irate at this, though - at least, he did if the look in his eyes, his bunched-up shoulders, and the clenched fists at his sides were an accurate open indication of that.

"...And then?"

Blue looked away from Bill. "And then he WON'T want to LISTEN to you anymore. Or want to talk with you. And will want to kill you dead." Blue frowned, crossing his arms. "I said that already."

"...oh…" Bill whispered. "So… so Fordsie… won't like me anymore?" Teeth quickly stepped in. "-Hey, no, don't think that. You're a great guy and just 'cause it happened in another dimension with some other Stanford doesn't mean it'll always happen!" Bill glanced up at him. "So Fordsie would still want to be my friend?"

"He'd be an absolute moron to NOT," Teeth assured him.

"Agreement," Blue said easily, "An absolute moron to NOT." He leaned back against the counter. "But, as I've noticed over a long period of Watching them, six-fingered Stanfords tend to… what's the human phrase for it… ahhh, 'use their brains as a paperweight more often than not'?" he said brightly, though with a low rumbling undertone underlaying it all that made his voice two-tone as he said it.

William sighed, chewing his next bite of yummy food. "So I should enjoy it while it lasts…"

"If you want it to hurt worse when it does happen later, then yes," Blue told him. "The only way you might be able to avoid it," he said after another short moment's thought, "Is if that Stanford isn't actually a 'six-fingered Stanford' of any sort at all. -Or if you kill that Glasses before he manages to say anything and convince him by saying it," Blue told him the latter breezily. "My Sixer didn't exactly need any evidence to the saying-of-things before believing it absolutely."

"If I kill Fordsie's best friend, then he'll really hate me." William huffed. Even he could understand that. Plus, killing any human was probably gonna upset mommy.

"HMMMM." Blue thought about this one, in a way he'd never thought about it or approached the problem before. (Because, quite frankly, he'd never had this much information to work with from the onset when thinking about it before, up until now. Not with only the two dimensions with six-fingered Stanfords in them that he'd been working from prior.)

And then something occurred to him.

"...I don't know if Glasses is the only one who could have convinced him of that so easily," Blue hesitantly noted, with a great deal of reserve. "But if he is, and if you manage to hold up the scam for long enough, until Glasses finally dies with-finality 'naturally'…" Blue grimaced. "-But THAT only works if that local Glasses dies first, before you start handing out immortality, and you'll need to never ever bring people back to life in that set too, or it may occur to that Stanford to ask for the same things from you for Glasses eventually - and then you'll be in trouble all over again, with your eventual down-talking and loss of him assured."

"Well the only other people Fordsie listens to are his family. And they all adore me!" William managed to sound smug. "And it's not a scam. I really DO like hanging out with Fordsie."

Blue made a face. "The 'pretending'-you've-not-done-all-those-things-that-he-will-hate will be the 'sham' and a trick and a lie, by a six-fingered Stanford's so-called 'reasonable reasoning process'," Blue told him. "Is he really worth the effort for that much of your time and energy and all that planning, for so little received back? Really? -You won't be able to ever talk about any of all of these things with him, ever; you know this," he warned William. Because it would be a tightrope balance of lies and misdirection FOREVER. He'd never get to completely act like himself - and wasn't that supposed to be the point of the whole thing, for humans? That human sort of 'friendship'? To 'be yourself' and have them completely and wholly accept you are you were-and-are(-and-would-be)? "So unless you like lying…" but Blue thought that he didn't, in most cases. This wouldn't be a 'hilarious misunderstanding'; this would be done with 'intent to mislead' for other purposes.

William twitched his long ears. "But Fordsie already knows about the terrible things I've done. He knows what being Bill Cipher entails from his own Bill. But he isn't mad at me for it. He's still nice to me." He frowned. "Though he does say things like 'don't do this' or ' don't do that' or 'don't grow up to be like my Bill'."

"Did you explicitly tell him that you did all of those same things?" Blue asked him, "Except for the doing things with the human Pines that don't exist yet? In an actual conversation? And that you still do most of the things, all of the time, and probably will do them again in the future? Because it sounds like he's got some sort of 'standards' that he wants you to meet, and THAT'S always trouble," 'because they were probably a bunch of stupid ones,' Blue grumbled.

"Well there are some things I don't do and have never done. I've never collapsed a dimension before. That seems to be a main sticking point. And I don't plan to ever do such a thing… so maybe it'll be ok?"

"That wasn't-and-isn't the only thing my Sixer doesn't like," Blue told him, starting to wonder why he was even having this conversation with his little sister in the first place. He didn't want Miz getting hurt by this Stanford of Seb's, and this conversation was almost definitely moving in the direction of, 'how can I actually make this work?' instead of the 'yeesh, this seems impossible and not worth my time at all!' that Blue had been going for.

"And Seb likes me. So he'd defend me if Fordsie tried to hurt me."

"That wouldn't stop that local Stanford from wanting to try to murder you," Blue noted with frustration. "All he'd be able to do is maybe try and stop him from actually physically going about doing it. That isn't 'changing that Stanford's mind'," Blue reminded William. "And once a Stanford has decided something, they NEVER take any input from outside their own Mind that might ever change it, So that decision never changes. Because they're idiots. And idiotically stubborn."

"...you can't make someone change their mind. They have to do it on their own." William pointed out. "But Fordsie's got a therapist. Who's supposed to help with things like that."

"Oh, I can change someone's Mind," Blue put out there almost-threateningly. "They just won't be that same person anymore by the time I was done with them, because I'd be completely overriding their own Free Will and OVERWRITING some part of their Mind. So they'd be a different person by the end of it. Which ISN'T winning," Blue told him in instructory tones. "That's not 'winning the argument' - that's just proving that you've LOST."

"I don't want to do that." William said firmly.

"GOOD," Blue told his little sister, patting him on the top of his head. "You should keep not-wanting to do that! And also continue not-doing it!" he said brightly, leaving his hand resting on the top of William's head there.

"...how the heck did we get into the nature of free will from asking about your parents?!" Keyhole cried.

"My sister likes humans because a part of him used to be human," Blue said. "He wants another human to like him. That human is Seb's Stanford. Sooner or later, Stanfords don't like Bill Ciphers, because Stanfords decide things, and once a Stanford has decided something they won't change their Minds or their Decision on it on their own. Wanting a Stanford to like him would require a change of that particular Stanford's mind, which would - at that point - only ever happen one way - and that's by force, by making him do it. Making a being like you is a question of free will. QED, a talk about Free Will is necessary to this conversation." The whole logical thought process and overall direction of the conversation had seemed very straightforward to Blue.

"...hey, let's go play video games and not think about how fucked up Bill's life is," Teeth deadpanned. William snorted. "Good luck with that," he laughed, finishing up his plate of food.

Blue didn't comment on that; he just busied himself with cleaning up the rest of the empty 'dessert' (read: post-meal requested-this-time foodstuffs) plates, taking them over to the sink and starting to wash them.

The Maniacs filed out to their own respective nighttime activities after dinner. Soon, it was only the three of them left in the kitchen. Bill, Blue, and Xanthar. The large purple loaf was pressing his bread face against William's back as he pet him. "I'm fine, really," William assured him. Xanthar sat back on his haunches and raised both hands, extending his index fingers to point toward each other. "I won't get hurt. I've got protections." William rolled his eye. Xanthar poked William. "I'm serious." William whined.

"He's right to be 'worried'," Blue told William, as he finished drying his hands after finishing up the last of the washing. "I'm not expecting you to be physically caught or physically hurt by any idiot-human - let alone that one. I'm expecting you to be mentally attacked and mentally-hurt when that Stanford betrays you. That would come before anything else, and you have few or no 'protections' against THAT sort of thing. Not that I've seen," Blue noted, being direct.

William bit his lip. "...Ford's different…" He protested quietly. "He's nice."

"You say 'nice' is: 'patient' with you when you 'mess up' or do something he considers 'wrong' or 'bad'; 'patient' defined by you as not 'getting mad' and hating you and 'writing you off' because he's 'explained his point of view' and 'what it was that he didn't like about what you did', and because you have fixed what he sees as wrong to his satisfaction or otherwise gone about changing your behavior to suit him." Blue's look grew sharp. "Which IMPLIES that the REVERSE is ALSO true: that if he even so much as 'thinks' that you are not listening to him, or believes you do not agree that you have done something wrong, or assumes that you have not or will not or cannot fix the thing he thinks you did wrong to his satisfaction in a timeframe that he defines as it needing to be done inside, or cannot tell that you have seemed to change your behavior to the thing he SAYS he wants as HE sees or hears it, that he will 'get mad' and HATE you and 'write you off' completely. -He WANTS you to conform to him, to his desires, and what he wants."

For a moment, William thought his brother was done, until he said: "-And even if you DID conform to these unreasonable standards of his, and changed your very Self to suit him-" (And it was at this point, William decided he'd just let his brother keep talking for awhile, since Blue seemed to be stuck in full-on rant mode and maybe really needed to get all this off his angles before he'd listen to anything else. Yeesh, and everyone said he projected? Blue was projecting so hard, William could almost see the exact argument that Blue must have had with his Stanford about this very thing. Or maybe that was the shadow puppets Blue was unknowingly making along the walls as he (figuratively) caught fire (figuratively ...for now). Good thing William fireproofed the kitchen. And the pantry. And the hallways… and just… pretty much the entire Death Star.) "-He makes no allowances for what happens if-and-when he does not explain his point of view to you properly; he does not even so much as give you a promise to listen to you in return, let alone the possibility of changing his mind when he finds he is wrong about you having done anything 'wrong' for what he is accusing you of, by your own definition of what he does and does-not do. ...How 'NICE'," Blue drawled out at his sister, crossing his arms, "With this Stanford giving you no leeway for his being-wrong, and no assurances of him not being a hypocrite, and not going to ever think that anything you did more than a hundred years ago is 'fixable' - thus, the problem with him and his limited sense of timeframes and fixability."

"Brother…" William said sadly. (Really, this was saying a lot more about the problems his brother was having with his own Stanford, than anything to do with Seb's brother, a Stanford he didn't know and hadn't even met. William kind of felt sorry for him. This hadn't just been a bad breakup, it'd been a bad relationship. No proper communications at all! And a complete lack of desire to understand each other's point of view and boundaries… yeeeesh!)

"-And don't even get me started on what he thinks of as 'thought crimes'," Blue all but sneered out, looking away from him. "When he thinks you are doing something wrong because you are thinking of doing something he considers wrong, and it doesn't even matter if you've done it yet or not, The problem is you were thinking of doing it first! And you can't UN-THINK a THOUGHT! Not without KILLING YOURSELF PERMANENTLY by DESTROYING YOUR OWN MIND by WIPING OUT those thoughts! -Which at least he is right about being even-more-wrong-than anything-else you could do. -So you CAN'T 'fix' 'thinking that terrible thought', by his way of thinking things. So CONGRATULATIONS, you're DONE," Blue told William quite grumpily, with a very dark look on his face. "...Letting SOMEONE ELSE preside over you and what you do, giving them the power to judge YOU and YOUR ACTIONS to THEIR OWN arbitrary and arbitrarily-stupid standards, is STUPID, and never ends well," Blue told his sister, closing his eyes.

William waited a bit, to see if her big brother was done ranting. ...Okay, looks like he was!

"Well, your Stanford sounds like an ass." William said simply. "And it sucks that you're stuck with him." He was quick to add, "And I get why you think Seb's Ford would be like that, since he's a Stanford and you've seen Stanfords before and stuff? But… there are an infinite number of Fords out there, there's a chance that means there must be at least some nice ones out there."

"Yes," Blue said in exasperation. "I was restating you, what you said, and your definition of 'nice'. There are 'nice' Stanfords, and Seb's Stanford and my Stanford are both 'nice' by your definition of 'nice'! -I was ALSO explaining what was WRONG with it, your definition of that word-concept, that would have us trying to kill each other," he then told William. "Because Seb's six-fingered Stanford would want me dead and try to kill me, and then I would be 'within my rights' - and my Stanley's agreement with me - to outright MURDER him back. ...Except for the whole, 'Seb wouldn't like that' part of it, when I'm not trying to get in a fight with him over anything, so MAYBE no murdering would be going on, instead," Blue then grumbled-slash-complained.

"Whether or not Fordsie would want to kill you, and frankly, he'd probably only want to do so if you hurt his family or harmed his dimensional set, doesn't mean you'd have to kill him back."

"Well, yes," Blue said. "Seb would be angry if I killed someone he thought was his 'brother'. So I'd probably do SOMETHING ELSE to him for trying to kill me, instead," which he'd make sure-and-certain Seb's Stanford would like even-less-than-that, of course.

"Or, just don't do anything to him. Prove him wrong, if he thinks you're going to do something to people." William added, "Just to spite him."

Blue gave William a flat look. "Not killing him or doing something else to him for trying to kill me isn't smart. And that DEFINITELY isn't 'to spite him'. -THAT sort of thing just ends in people not respecting me or fearing me, either one. And then they just keep doing the things that I don't like - which would be all of the attempting to kill me - because they would be thinking that there are no consequences and no payback that's going to be a bitch to them. No incentive for them to STOP," Blue told him. "Because I would be showing them that I would not do anything to them for doing it. -Which is wrong."

"Nah, I meant like…" William thought about how to say it. "If your Stanford or any Stanford, starts saying you're evil or something-"

"HA! -I just laugh that off," Blue told him immediately, grinning. "It's HILARIOUS when they go off ranting about that, declaring things that I can do WHENEVER I WANT."

"Yes. That IS hilarious." William agreed. Patiently. "But, you could also do something that isn't something they consider evil, and just keep doing that."

"They think 'me continuing to exist' is evil," Blue pointed out.

"Barring that," William corrected. "Like, plant flowers-"

"What. I grow things sometimes," Blue shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

"-normal Mabel acceptable flowers that aren't harmful to people."

"WELL. Maybe not flowers," Blue amended himself slightly next, under his breath. Because noses (ew).

William grinned. "Or help out people in need, by actually helping them in a way that they would find acceptable."

"I help people all the time!" Blue told him, then complained, "That Stanford doesn't like it when I do Deals with people, or demons! He likes it better that I STOPPED doing that," he told him.

"Not Deals. Helping." William lidded his eye at his brother. "Helping wash the laundry, for example."

"I wasn't PHYSICALLY THERE," Blue griped at him, crossing his arms again. "DO you have ANY IDEA how much energy it takes to MOVE SOMETHING AROUND in another dimension when I'm not puppeting around some person's body? -Which that Sttanford also 'doesn't like' EITHER." He could do it, like that 'Dipper puppet' - not Pine Tree himself, but the sock puppet up on the stage - and those dials, switches, and buttons that he'd had to handle properly - sticking and not-sticking - during both of those Pines twins' fights...

"Helping someone with their homework, without making them too inspired," William amended. "Or comforting someone when they were sad, or giving people happy, peaceful dreams." William shrugged. "Just do things that Stanford considers not-evil. And he'll probably get super paranoid, thinking that you were planning something evil, but that's on him."

"WELL. I've done that first one." Those Deals were always a little… lackluster, but he still did them. "And sometimes that second one." Those were usually the revenge Deals. "And I've definitely done that third one," for his own Stanford, even - multiple times. "Doesn't matter. I exist, therefore I 'need to' die. That's that Stanford's own, stupid 'QED'. -And I don't feel like doing all the things that Stanford does want, and not-doing all the things he doesn't, all the time anyway. Because I'm not an idiot." Because he didn't want to stop-living anytime soon, read: NEVER EVER EVER. (...And even if he did, it wasn't like that Stanford would trust him in doing all of any of them, anyway. That would just make him PARANOID all over again, which his Stanley did not want…)

"Have Stanley and Shooting Star talk to him about whether they think people should 'die' just because they 'exist'." William scowled. Because that, that was like the pinnacle of rude and awful. Condemning someone merely for existing. "And while you're at it, ask Stanley about whether or not someone should be condemned for thinking thoughts, even if they don't act on those thoughts. Because that's entirely unfair."

"Stanley has had that discussion with him before, in the kitchen, SEVERAL times with him, about ME, FOR THAT VERY PURPOSE, since I have been back," Blue told him. "No change. He's stubborn. -He Decides something, and nothing and no-one will ever change his Mind on it again, not even himself; I told you this." Blue huffed out a breath. "Stanley's already said he doesn't care what I think about, only what I do. That's NOT a problem with HIM." (It was part of the reason why Blue had been starting to actually like him a bit better than that Stanford. Up until recently, that is…)

"Ask Stanley if he's ever had thoughts like that, and ask that Stanford if he thinks Stan should be condemned for them too." William tried instead.

Blue tilted his head back.

"I'm NOT pushing things that far," he told his little sister. "I'm not stupid. I don't want that Stanford deciding that his own brother needs to die."

"But it's unfair for him to do it to you. And I don't think that Stanford would ever decide that his brother needs to die. He loves him. He confirmed it."

Blue laughed for a bit, then said, "What part of massive hypocrite do you not understand?!" he grinned out at William. He then shook his head. "I'm not about to risk my Zodiac fighting each other over something stupid, when I KNOW I can avoid that happening by just not saying the thing," he told his little sister.

"Ask Shooting Star if she thinks that's fair of that Stanford to do that to you."

"No," Blue told him. "Same reason. I don't want to risk my Zodiac hating or fighting each other."

"But does Shooting Star know that Stanford thinks this of you?"

"My Shooting Star wants me dead, too," Blue told William in surprise, because… "What, you didn't know this? -I talk to her about that, and either she agrees with him, or she really doesn't like it. -It's more likely that she agrees with him. Trying to push her to think badly of him would either backfire, or just muddle the few things I have with her further," Blue waved off. (And neither of those things were something that Blue wanted with her at this stage.) He then gave William an odd look. "...Do you really think I haven't thought of-and-through all of this, yet?" He'd been planning things out to do with them well past the summer; nothing had technically been disrupted from what he was planning on doing, even with what he was going to have to do to 'get rid of' 'Ford in the meantime. The details weren't all THAT important on most of it, he was sure...

"I'm not asking you to make them think badly of Stanford, just to think that maybe some of his beliefs are wrong." Which they WERE!

"Which ones?" Blue queried of him. That would probably cause a fight between them on most things, but...

"The unfair ones." William huffed. "Because they're not nice." He folded his arms. "Even I don't tell anyone that they should die because they shouldn't exist… except the color Bled, but that's not a person, that's a color. I can just change their color if someone is unfortunate enough to be Bled."

Blue rolled his eyes, and raised his arms behind his back to stretch in place a bit. "Stanley's already taking care of that - the 'unfair' and 'problematic-to-me' thoughts and actions of all of the lot of them," Blue told him. "He said that he would. That he wants me to leave it to him, to then handle all of it for me. So I'm letting him… try," Blue noted, a bit doubtfully. "I'm letting him try," Blue repeated, more firmly. (Not that he thought Stanley was actually going to be able to do it. Though Stanley had admittedly already managed to pull off a few things Blue would have never thought possible between them. And yet…)

"...well, at least Stan's trying. That's good." William sighed. "But regardless. I think that if your Stanford's not even gonna try to be nice… just… ignore him."

"That Stanford is being 'nice', that's why he's trying to kill me," Blue repeated, again. "And I have been ignoring him, for the most part. -Without ACTUALLY ignoring him," Blue noted, "Because then he would PANIC, for reasons." Because that Stanford wasn't COMPLETELY stupid; Stanford knew what it meant for him to go about IGNORING someone, now. After seeing a few examples of that, throughout the multiverse-

"That's not 'nice'." William said firmly. "That's being his idea of 'the good guy', 'the hero' of 'defeating the big bad' as it were." William made a face at that. "Damn Protagonist complex. He's not even the main character…"

"Well, yes," Blue said. "What's your point? -Other than that you are TERRIBLE at defining things, HA!" he smiled out at her almost indulgently next. At the look that William gave him, he raised up both palms outwards and said, "It was your spoken definition of 'nice'. -Don't like it? Re-define it to what you actually mean!"

"Your Stanford isn't 'nice'." William shook his head.

"Define: 'nice'," Blue told him, again.

"I said that Seb's Ford was nice for those reasons I listed-"

small("-And I told you how that definition was deficient!" Blue told him brightly, with a grin.)

"-But there are more. Situational reasons. He's willing to listen to me, and try to understand me. We compromise. And oftentimes, he agrees with some of what I say and actually does what I suggest." William nodded to himself.

"Well," Blue said. "Then Seb's Stanford is stupid. He compromises; therefore, he is also compromised. 'Meeting halfway' means you can always PUSH someone exactly where you want them to go," Blue noted rather simply. (Blue won arguments, he didn't just give up when he knew he was right, or just CAVE… and Blue didn't really respect anyone else who did that, either. -To his Mind, if you were right about something, then you should be able to convince others to agree with it, and then align themselves with YOU over it! -In other words, the REAL problem with that Stanford was how he kept refusing to NOT LISTEN TO HIM, let alone hear what he had to say, so that he would then start AGREEING with him...)

"Stupid or not, I like him." William said, before pausing. Oh. Now that he said it aloud… it sounded rather...

Blue groaned at this. "WHY do you like the stupid ones?" he asked William, almost pleadingly.

"Because they're not so set in their own assurance of their own intelligence that they're willing to listen and learn and grow as people."

"Well, I like the smart ones," Blue noted huffily. "'Smart' isn't the problematic part, it's the stubborn and the willful ignorance bits that get in the way. Not all smart people are like that," he told his little sister, "MOST of the ACTUALLY smart ones aren't either of those things - almost-never. Because they learn better, and learnto be better," he added, in case William didn't know.

"My Fordsie is stubborn, but he's willing to change, accept that he was wrong and change himself to grow." William tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "And I like watching him grow as a person. It's… cute."

"...Stubborn means he's not willing to change his Mind," Blue said slowly. "What changes does he say he is willing to make?" And probably not actually do, to Blue's suspicious way of thinking.

"Well, he hated Sebastian before. He doesn't hate him now," William pointed out. "And I've checked him multiple times, he doesn't hate Seb anymore."

"Probably because he thought of Seb as a Bill Cipher before, and is now LYING to himself by telling himself that Seb isn't," Blue waved off easily. "Stanfords are VERY good at denial." Blue eyed him. "Did you get any sort of read on the 'why' of it?" Then Blue waved that off, too. William would have already said-so if he had. "LOOK," Blue said, getting a bit more serious about it. "Of all of the Stanfords that I've ever Watched or known, they either took me seriously, or they didn't," the latter being the lot of five-fingered Stanfords who hadn't thought that he was real, some kind of hallucination of their own mind, or a joke.

"Of the very-few who took me seriously," Blue explained to William next, "They all want to kill me, once they know anything at all of any significance about me, and what I do and do not do." Blue let out a huff. "And when it comes to wanting to kill me," he noted next, "They all want to kill me-"

-but then Blue paused. For just a little bit.

And then William's big brother said, "…except for that one 'anti-'Ford one. He hasn't tried to kill me. Yet." He looked down for a moment, largely neutral-faced. "...So maybe that 'anti-'Ford isn't necessarily a 'lost cause' COMPLETELY…" Blue muttered out with a frown as he crossed his arms and looked off to the side, almost like getting each word out was like someone pulling his teeth. "...Maybe." (It was less an admission than a 'well, I wouldn't have left that stupid purple square with him if I'd thought that he would kill that confused 'anti-'"Bill" that kept calling himself ME, outright.') "He isn't a six-fingered Stanford though," Blue told him, "Not really. He wears gloves," and Blue made an odd gesture. "He's not much like the other five-fingered Stanfords at all. He's not even in the same 46 series. -It's almost a fluke, that he exists at all in the first place," Blue then told him. "-But the 'liking me' part is OBVIOUSLY an act," Blue said almost stiffly to his little sister next.

"An act…" William deadpanned.

"Well, yes," Blue told him.

"In what way?" William asked him next.

"In every way? Why would he be any different than the rest of them." Blue was frowning at him now.

"Because infinite dimensions exist and there's a chance there would be a Stanford who's different."

"Well it's not like he's a Shape like that other one!" Blue griped out at him. "And he was mostly the same there Mind-wise, anyway! So clearly there isn't!" Because that had been so far out of the realm of even being a passing thought of a possibility for him to ever consider as ever having existed in the history of anywhere that it was almost UNREAL. And yet the Stanford-Shape there had STILL been the same…"

"Well my Fordsie is different." William was stubbornly holding his ground on this. "And if you do end up being right, and he ends up hurting me..." the demon grimaced.

"I will talk Seb into letting me murder him for you," Blue noted with a nod. "Because I am a good big brother, and he will deserve it."

"...what if I don't want to kill him? Even if I get mad at him?" William's voice was soft.

Blue blinked at him. "How long were you thinking of wanting him tortured for, instead?" He was usually more in for just killing beings and getting it over with, but if his little sister wanted a strong example set...

William shook his head. "I don't want to hurt him either."

Blue frowned. "...could maroon him on some other deserted planet somewhere," he muttered, "With no tech around whatsoever. Technically isn't killing him. ...Technically."

"I don't want him 'messed with'." William admitted. He almost felt guilty to say this.

Blue downright collapsed on his elbows on the counter behind him.

"Well, what do you want, then?" Blue asked of him. "To just get hurt, and not have me do or say anything about it, when I might be able to stop it, one way or the other?" That didn't sound very 'good big-brotherly' to him!

"I…" William whined. "I don't know what I want. But I know that Fordsie getting messed with would just… make me feel worse…"

"Yeesh…" Blue muttered out, deflating a little. "WHY..." He thought his little sister LIKED doing things to being who his sister thought definitely deserved it. Seb's Ford would deserve it!

"...I'm not sure." William ran a hand through his hair. "I guess… because I like him."

Blue thought about this for a while.

"...No," Blue said finally. "I don't think it's that." He straightened in place. "I think this is a 'you get sad instead of MAD' problem." Because in THAT situation, he himself would get mad. But in situations where he got mad and downright angry, his little sister (almost-)always seemed to get sad on him and cry instead. "I should at least do SOMETHING to him for hurting you," Blue told him. "Or he'll just do it again to you. …Or someone else," he tried next, thinking maybe the idea of that might get him a more-favorable answer. His little sister also seemed to get angry more often when it was other-people who were the ones getting 'messed with'.

"...well, you could curse his shoelaces to always tie together when he least expects it. That's a type of messing with him that I'm okay with, so long as he doesn't get hurt when he falls. Or just make it so his pants fall down whenever he's about to talk to people. If you wanted to punish him for hurting me." William admitted, a small smile on his face. "Or make it so every day is bad hair day. Or that his ice cream always falls off the cone when he wants to eat it. Or there's always only just enough toilet paper for him to wipe himself one time…" William was starting to get into it now.

Blue's eyes narrowed, and he got a very thinking look and smile.

"SO…" Blue began, "Anything that is very embarrassing and also mild bad luck FOREVER is 'fair game'..." His sister did come up with the most interesting tortures for people, Blue had to admit.

William actually let out a giggle. "It's not gonna hurt him." ("I did say 'mild'!") "But it will remind him of the consequences of hurting me." That smile was definitely mischievous.

"Fine," Blue said. "Fits within Stanley's 'not an attack' guidelines, too. Not enough to be considered a mental, or physical, attack." He nodded once, then paused. "I still don't like the idea of you getting hurt." Especially not by a Stanford of any sort. "Still don't like him, either."

"It's kinda unreasonable to just write him off without ever meeting him." William rolled his eye, finally sobering from his giggling fit.

"Unreasonable how?" Blue objected strongly. "I don't have to meet him to know he is all of those things and exactly like I was saying, now do I?" Blue frowned at him. "You told me ALL the 'extra' things that I could ever need to know!" he declared outright. "Yes?"

"..." William pouted. "You don't know him. And I can't think of all the things about him that is different or not, or what about him that I like or not. But," William leaned back against Xanthar (who wasn't sure if this whole conversation in and of itself was ridiculous or not) and almost looked annoyed. "And regardless, I'm happy when I'm hanging out with him. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel almost… peaceful."

Blue frowned at this. "Why… do you feel that way around him." He stopped for a moment. "You are wearing your headband around him, yes? -He does stupid things during the phase one; I told you." Just then. (Clearly he should have WARNED his little sister sooner. CLEARLY!)

"I've had my headband on and off, and my Shields up and down, to see if there was a difference," William admitted. "I just… I like hanging out with him. Helping him in his lab, making him leave the lab to have adventures… I like the way he listens to me… I like how gentle he is…"

...Well, that didn't sound right at all, to Blue.

"What…" Blue shook himself. "That can't be right." His frown deepened. "Are you SURE he's a Stanford," Blue noted almost suspiciously. "And NOT one of the other ones. -Maybe the local Seb's Stanley?"

"He's a Stanford." William confirmed. "There's a Stanley there too, but he's different from your Stanley."

"HA," said Blue. "I'll believe that when I see it! -For the first one of those things," Blue noted, "Not the second. I've Seen the second already; no extra-Sight necessary." Stanleys varied a lot more than those Stanfords of theirs did. Mostly.

"Well, he's a different kind of Stanford, maybe." William grinned now, "A type of Stanford you've never seen before!" His eye sparkled. "The shiny Stanford!"

Blue opened his exoskeleton's mouth to object that he found THAT hard to believe, but then remembered what he'd just thought and said about that one Stanford being a Shape - how he hadn't even conceived of the idea of conceiving of such a possibility before - and then winced.

"...shiny Stanford?" Blue said slowly, starting to untense a bit. Did his little sister mean a robot-version of him? There were a few of those that he knew about, in his own 'set...

"The rare spawn Stanford! Limited edition!" William was cackling now, "The super-special-awesome Stanford?" He doubled over, laughing. Xanthar deftly caught William (before Blue could, or needed to) and let the demon lie on his arm while he laughed.

Blue felt very uncertain at this. Until he didn't.

"WELL. I DON'T believe a Stanford could be ANY of those things," Blue told William. "So I'll have to see him for myself." Though he was frowning at this. -He'd wanted an invitation to Seb's 'set to see Seb - and also his little sister, whenever he-she-or-they was there. ...And maybe also this new 'mom' of William's also, to look and Look this one over. -Blue had NOT been even so much as passing-entertaining the idea of going anywhere NEAR that other Stanford of Seb's. (Not least of which because Stanley wanted him to avoid picking any fights in other places with people, and his appearing in front of them at all would probably do that very thing there, right then.)

"Hm~ WELL~" William purred, lifting himself up from Xanthar's arm to rest his head on his hands, elbows on Xanthar as he kicked his legs idly. "I could ask Seb if you could go over, to meet his family, and all that~"

"Nnn…" Blue REALLY didn't want to do this…

...but he also didn't want to leave any highly-misleading Stanford unturned, whatever rock THIS one was living under. CLEARLY this one was more dangerous than most, to be tricking his sister so thoroughly in this way. ...'Super' and 'special' and 'AWESOME' and 'rare'-and-all-that, bah...

"...fine. For meeting his 'whole family', too, not just him and you," Blue muttered out next, crossing his arms again, crossly.

"Ohh! And you can meet Zach and Zoe! They're adorable!" William bounced on Xanthar's arm, like he was a couch, which he made a really good impression of one.

Blue let out a breath that was not quite an 'I'm not going to enjoy this, am I' sigh. "Fine." Right. They were his little sister's new younger twin-siblings now, right? He didn't just have a new mother; he'd also claimed them, too. "'Adorable' is not something I find exciting, little sis," Blue noted to him, giving him a sideways look.

"Zoe likes to set stuff on fire," William deadpanned.

"I like her already," Blue said almost immediately.

Ford grumbled, carefully trying to get his hair dislodged from Xin's antlers. How did it get this tangled anyway? The dragon was asleep, and Ford admitted to himself, internally, that his sleeping face was cute. Well, Ford was very sure (in fact, 100% sure) that William had created his Xin form to be attractive. Hadn't he confirmed that? Well, Ford tugged at his hair again, ignoring Stanley and Sebastian as they continued to laugh at him. "You're both children," he complained. There they were, mocking him instead of helping him escape his predicament. Sometimes he wondered why he loved them so much.

"Hang on Sixer, hold still, right there." Stan sniggered. "I need to snap a photo of this." He was keeping this for the records.

Before Stanley could get enough teasing fodder to last him for at least a week, Xin woke up. "Ow!" The Dragon twitched. "Seriously? Are you… tangled in my antlers?" He bent his head waaaay back, an angle that would snap a human's spine, and stared at Ford. "How did this even happen?"

"I'm sure you could make an educated guess." Ford's reply was flat as a sheet of paper under a hydraulic press, and no less stressed.

"I got the photo," Stan declared and high-sixed Seb. "Do you still help though? You seemed to be very comfortable~" Seb cooed.

Xin groaned as he untangled Ford from his antlers. No time for teasing right now! He did coo when Ford stepped back and his curls were all pointing in different directions. His brothers didn't doubt laughing even harder.

"Ah, Seb, quick question~" Xin fixed his own hair, rubbing his antlers absently. "You remember Blue right? The other Bill Cipher we met?" Seb nodded, how could he forget? "Well… he… ah… well, I told him that I was living here half the time and that Wanda adopted me, and he wants to meet the family." Xin's tail wagged. "I know you guys just met with my alien family, but I figured, might as well introduce you all to my other Soul brother and all that."

"Another Bill Cipher?" Ford blinked. Xin looked over and his smile turned strained. "Ah, he's… he doesn't really like 'Stanford's very much. Bad experience with his own. So… he might… not be very pleasant to you." He might as well give him a head's up. Ford looked taken aback. "Wait, is he… a Bill who started a Weirdmageddon?"

"Yeah, he got killed by the memory gun, and then came back. He's living with his dimension's Stanley in the shack now."

"The what now?" Stan was confused now. "They still in that summer?"

"Oh no, their dimension is SUPER different," Xin tried to explain. "For one thing, there's no Sebastian Pines there." That made the Stans go cold. No Seb? They couldn't even imagine such a world.

"Yeah, babes. Like in my old dimension. I'm pretty much the only one~ you're damn lucky to have me." Seb patted their shoulders.

"And...they're still in that summer?" Stan repeated.

Xin was distracted for a moment by a rapid-fire set of knocking noises from the Door floating in the Void. ...Some shorter than others. (Crud, what was that in morse code again? Ughhhhhh… Blue really needed to chill and stop trying to take advantage of the doorframes not kicking him into places when he touched them! Xin pouted.) "Yes it's summer, but not the summer OF Weirdmageddon, it's the one after. Also, in that dimension, Stan owns and lives in the Mystery Shack. And that Stanford lives with him."

"Why would Stanley live in my house?" "Why would I live in his house?" The Stans grimaced and said at the same time. Seb shushed them. "Wait, what does this have to do with Blue? Have you brought him here?"

"He's currently knocking at the Door, waiting to be given permission to come in." Xin rolled his eyes. Apparently he could hear the knocks on the doorframe as long as the Door was materialized. ...which apparently also happened when someone like Blue - not those broken Bills - was close enough to it on the other side of it to be able to gain entry. Cool to know.

Seb laughed at that. "Yeah sure! He can come in! Ax already said you could be here, right!" Ford looked unsure. "Wait, Seb…" He was ignored though.

Xin tapped at the Door, only enough to open it, but not enough for himself to get sucked in. There was a short pause, and then a blur tumbled out and into the local Mindscape.

(Ax sighed, wondering what happened at some point that made Seb think he was the gatekeeper of the Dimension and he could invite and uninvite whoever he wanted.)

Blue reoriented himself quickly, on full-alert because stupid lazy DERANGED local-lizard here - and was actually able to snap open and use his own All-Seeing Eye for a few eternally-long moments, to Look around at the structure of everything pretty damn quickly, because he absolutely considered this one a possible threat all the way back to his OWN 'set if-

-aaaand his Eye not quite 'cut out' on him, blinking closed quickly before the sudden pressure forced it closed, right after he finished grabbing the raw data from that, just as he started to re-orient it around to actually start openly Looking for that stupid deranged lizard thing around here, but before he actually Saw it. (Chaos take it! -STANLEY!)

Blue 'pulled in' a 'breath' of sorts in the Mindscape, and expressed a very conceptually-'solid' restraint; he did NOT lose hold of his anger enough to look like he'd just set himself on fire. (THAT would be a bad first second-impression!) And after he slightly less inclined to act on said spike of anger in an outburst, Blue reoriented himself again, to look down at the beings that were in the same… room… as he was. Sort of. (Because Mindscape.)

'Seb said yes?' Blue was the first thing that he asked of his little sister from the Mindscape. If he hadn't, Blue would have to give SOMEONE an earful, before exiting again. (Seb. It would have been Seb.)

"Yup!" Xin chirped, cheerful as can be. "Want me to make your vessel?"

'The last time you did that, it tried injecting energy into me,' Blue noted a little less diplomatically than he had before when he'd first tumbled into Xin's dimensional 'set a few short hours prior. (Part of the reason why he'd tried to cut his sister off from asking, first. He would have been a little more 'diplomatic' about it all this time, too, but Blue was starting to get just a little tired...) Then he shook himself. 'I should get more practice in, in doing this myself. Yes?'

"Sure." Xin shrugged and then turned to the Stans who were staring at the empty air, wondering if this 'blue'Bill was invisible. Then Ford remembered about the whole… mindscape thing.

They waited.

And waited.

"...is he having trouble making a vessel?" Seb asked at last, looking confused.

Blue just kept on floating there in the air casually in the Mindscape, on his back, seeming completely unconcerned. It didn't look like he was doing a thing, except maybe thinking about something. (He was taking his time in parsing more of what-all he'd just Seen.)

Xin sighed. "Ok, you can do it later if you'd like. I bet you just want to observe the local Stans first, huh?"

'If I don't have a physical vessel or exoskeleton, I can't be getting into any physical or mental fights with them - not if they can't see me, hear me, or touch me - now can I?' Blue pointed out with a pointy and almost-ruthless form of logic to his currently dragon-like little sister. 'Efficiency.' Also, he didn't particularly feel like interacting with that Stanford of Seb's if he didn't have to. He could simply watch him from the Mindscape and tell that… 'He isn't 'shiny', you know.' (So as far as Blue was concerned, his little sister's opinion-based perceptions of him were suspect already.) Blue gave Xin a long look.

"That's fair. Well, I can do the introductions anyway!" Xin leaped up and grabbed Ford's arm, hugging it to his chest. "This is Fordsie! And that-" Xin pointed at Stanley. "Is Fish."

"Oi!" Stan grumbled.

"And you know Seb already. The triplets! The whole gang!" Xin finished the introduction. "I think mom and the twins are still in the guest rooms." He looked around.

'Ah. Zoe and Zach. At least one of which is 'the more-fiery one'.' Blue grinned, as he turned over slowly in the air. ...Then he reached out and 'smacked' a palm up against Seb's head (a lot more 'softly' than it looked) with the equivalent force-pressure of a sock-puppet getting shoved abruptly across a floor. 'You coming?'

Seb blinked. He thought he felt something. Xin nodded, pulling Ford as he went. "Come on, let's go introduce everyone else in this family. We can show Blue the grown up Shooting Star and Pinetree too!"

"Actually, Dipper's still asleep, the last I checked." Seb noted, he'd gone to their room to see if they wanted breakfast, he'd gone to everyone's in fact.

"Everyone is asleep. We just woke up to see if you two were still snuggling muggling~" Stan said teasingly.

'Yeesh. Why are you bringing him with?' Blue complained of Seb's Ford, who Miz was currently pulling along. 'Don't want to make a vessel around HIM, that's just trouble.' ...And he especially wasn't about to make a vessel around all THREE of these 'triplets', given how he thought all-that would likely go in short order; he wasn't put off by the idea of doing it around Seb and Xin's siblings and 'mom', though.

"Hm…" Xin looked up at Blue and then back to Ford. "Brother doesn't want to vessel himself around you and Fishface." "Seriously why do you always call me that?" "So… go make me breakfast!"

Ford rolled his eyes, amused despite himself. "Is that an order?" He teased (actually teased!) back. Xin lit up. "Not if I say pleeeease~"

Ford reached up to pat Xin's head and chuckled. "Alright. I'll go make breakfast." He turned to go back to the kitchen. Xin called after him, "There's some chicken in the fridge, and Stan keeps the deep fryer in the bottom right cabinet."

"Fried chicken for breakfast? You're really trusting Sixer to make that?" Seb raised an eyebrow. Xin paused. "On second thought," He called out again. "Nix on the fried chicken, you'll hurt yourself. Go make me a sandwich."

Ford's laughter carried down the hall as Stan followed him grumbling. "That's pushing it!"

Blue easily and quickly made a vessel for himself after that, floating down to 'touch down' to the ground in the Mindscape first, and then creating it directly from the air and the free-floating energy here around himself, which caused a strong breeze. (If this dimensional set had been made from the corpse of something or someone else long ago, Blue couldn't feel it. Which meant that the matter and energy here weren't being claimed by them anymore; it was 'safe' for him to claim for himself, and he knew how to do that in a vessel-like way, now. It also had a very similar structure to his own… even if the not 'nothing is a Game here' part was still utterly and COMPLETELY-)

"You didn't tell me he was your minion," were the first words out of Blue's mouth, about Seb's Stanford, after he had a fully-functional body-like vessel in the physical realm of existence again. "Did you brainwash him into it? Or train him with food." Because that second one seemed like a thing that his sister might do, in retrospect and in thinking a bit more about it. Obviously, he should have asked more questions about this earlier. Obviously.

"He's not my minion. I said please." Xin corrected. "...but I have cooked for him a few times… though he's also bought me some food many times…" He got lost in thought, tallying up the food exchanged between the two of them.

"HM. Many humans are very food-motivated," Blue noted with a deep frown. (Still didn't explain that Stanford in his own dimensional set, though. Sixer hadn't appreciated his keeping him fed all that time at the beginning of his portal journey at all- WAIT.)

"Why do I feel so confused when I'm with you two…" Seb rubbed his head, confused. Xin patted his shoulder. "Just go with it."

Blue turned to look at Seb, and noted his apparent age in human years. He turned back towards the doorway. He very much had a look of pure disbelief on his face for a moment there.

Then he turned back to Seb and immediately asked (read: demanded out of) him, "How long were those 'brothers' of yours NOT in this dimension for?! Cumulative," Blue said with narrowed eyes quickly, pointing back in the direction Seb's two brothers had gone.

"Ah, you mean like behind the portal? 13 years." Seb pointed at Xin. "He helped me fix the portal so it was fixed earlier than 30, like in my old dimension, though I was VERY close to doing it myself!" Xin nodded at him. He wasn't 30 years away, maybe 2 or 3?

Blue twitched. Several times, in place.

...The corner of his right eye kept twitching, even after he seemed to get some control over the rest of himself.

"...oh, he's going to be insufferable," Blue muttered out angrily. (He DIDN'T like this already. Even more. Than before now.) Blue looked between the two hims-who-were-also-hims standing there. "-Tell me I can tie him up and gag him without having to fight with you over it." He debated only briefly before adding the word, "Please."

"I think Sixer's only comfortable doing that with Xin." Was Seb's deadpanned reply. He was feeling rather conflicted over this. Was… was Blue… also wanting to 'get with' his brother like Xin was?! What?! Why?! Ewwww….

"Fine. -You do it," Blue told his little sister. "He opens his mouth in front of me, I'm going to want to SMITE him before he's so much as twelve words in to whatever stupid things he's saying," Blue almost snarled out, before turning back to Xin. "You didn't tell me how not-! He's-!" Blue cut himself off, but he was NOT looking very happy with his little sister just then.

Xin held back a laugh at the ongoing HILARIOUS misunderstanding of his and Fordsie's relationship with Seb, and considered Blue's request. "...what's the problem right now?" He needed to know what Blue's thought process on this was.

"Do you have ANY idea what my Sixer was like before he was halfway through his third decade out there?!" Blue all but hissed out at her under his breath. "I DON'T have a Deal with this one, to make me not want to MURDER him OUTRIGHT for three-quarters of the stupid shit that comes out of his mouth!" Then he stopped and glanced over at Seb. "I am NOT murdering someone you… currently consider to be… a brother," Blue winced, "That was NOT part of the plan, or the reason why I came here! That would be BEYOND WORSE than rude!" He wasn't trying or wanting to start a fight here with either of these hims-that-were-also-him, no, not in the least! (As it was, Blue was still partially on his guard for any stupid DERANGED lizard movements. -He had a locally-working version of nearly the same protections built-into this vessel, as he'd put in place in Xin's 'set just a short while ago - overlapping black script and symbols and sigils all up his arms and legs from his hands, brick pattern set in even more firmly in this one - but no 'crown of thorns' arrangement around the top of his forehead; he'd gone with a whole 'nother sort of additional sensing scheme here...)

"Well Fordsie had Stan with him behind the portal. So however yours might have turned out, this Fordsie would be different from that, anyway." Xin sighed. "But I can have a gag ready just in case."

"I don't get what's wrong here?" Seb said helplessly.

Blue let out a breath in frustration, rubbing the side of his hand back and forth against his right temple. "-I didn't come here to KILL anyone," Blue told him outright. "I am trying NOT to do that, here, or get into any fights. -Stanfords don't like me, I really don't like the six-fingered ones for reasons," he stressed while sending a look over his sister's way, "And I have a VERY good understanding of what happens under certain scenarios-and-conditions, that will lead to all of the fighting. With that sort of Stanford, at any Stanford's age. -Yours is barely 'half-baked'," Blue informed him, then shook his head. "This was a bad idea. -I'm dissolving this and jumping back into the Mindscape. No physical form means no physical fights and he can't hear me, so no mental fights or attacks next." Blue tensed his shoulders and rocked them back and forth, getting ready to do so.

"...I don't think my brother is a pastry." Seb responded blandly. "-But he's certainly a snack!" Xin cackled. Seb looked over at him. "You're making some kind of meme reference aren't you?"

"Dammit Seb, you need to go on weird social media more!" Xin scolded, which made Seb gasp defensively. "I do SO go on weird media!" He thrust a hand at the ceiling and stuck a pose. "I watch Runway!"

Blue not-quite rocked back onto his heels and then forward onto his toes-

-and he got a very 'oh shit' look on his face and stopped cold right in his tracks as his stomach growled on him.

The sensitive ears of a dragon could hear a tummy growl from miles away. "You!" Xin turned to point at Blue. "-are getting some food, NOW!"

"..." Blue said a very dire curse in Galactic Common under his breath, slowly settling back down onto the heels of his feet. He did NOT look happy at all.

"Come on, I know Carla has plenty of vegetables. Stan doesn't touch the stuff, there's plenty-" Xin not-quite glared at him.

"You know what? Let's have breakfast together. We can get...vegan stuff?-if you want, but I'm hungry and tired of you throwing crap at my brother." Seb gave him a peace sign before walking away to bring his family.

"...I'm going to end up trying to murder that brother of his at least three times over this breakfast here, aren't I," Blue said with no variation in the tone of his voice as he watched Seb walk away from him. Oddly, Blue did not seem all that pleased at this prospect.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be just fine. What's the worst that can happen?" Xin couldn't see how things could go wrong...

"..." Xin had his face buried in his hands.

Seb was huddled on the ground, rocking back and forth. "Everything's gonna be fine, he said. What's the worst that could happen, he said?!"

"-THAT'S IT!" Blue screamed out at the local Ford in sheer rage, shooting to his feet and slamming his hands down on the table. "-I CHALLENGE YOU TO A MATH OFF!" he pointed a finger straight at the local Ford's chest, entirely threateningly.

"As the kids say, challenge accepted." Ford sounded entirely too smug at all this. He was a little afraid at first, when Xin had said this was a Bill who'd started a Weirdmageddon. He kept his cool and breathed hard. He had been expecting the vicious, cruel monster that had tormented him for years and years. But… once he actually, officially met this Bill Cipher… well… he was amused as shit. (He blamed Stanley for that, really, his terrible sense of humor rubbing off on him for years)

Blue seethed. He could taste the fear in the air wafting over from him in the biochemicals he was unconsciously letting off, but there was ZERO respect going on here, and that was intolerable to the triangle demon right now. "-IF YOUR BROTHER WASN'T SOMEONE I ACTUALLY LIKE," he informed him, "I'D HAVE MURDERED YOU H̡̰̪̠͚̫̲̞ͩ̌ͭ̈́̏̈ͪO̙͎̗̯͓͒R̮̆̋͗̉R͎̻͉̥͈͚͐ͧ̍ͮͯ́ͣͅI̶̫͚͍B̥͚̗̲͔͇ͦL̝͍̦͍̬͙̳̽̆ͫͪ͝Yͣ SEVEN MINUTES AGO WHEN YOU REFUSED TO PASS THE BRUSSEL SPROUTS OVER T̶̘̺ͯ̍͐̈̃ͤ͠H̴̻̳͖͚͌E̴̠̣͉ͥ̃̏͢ ̎͆̔ͦ̊͗҉̸̞̪̤͢F̷̤̝̺͍͔͍̈́͛͐͑̍̃̅̒͜͟ͅI̭̼͍̣͉̿̃̒̈́ͅR̷̢̪̪̪̥̱ͯ̋͒ͥ̄S̝̞̻̞͓ͧ͂̑͆̒̓̑T̺ͧͣͮͤ͌ͨ̆ͦ͡ͅ ̨͛̉ͤ͛҉͎̲̬T̺̗͓̮̬̤͉̪̞̿ͤ̉͐̎͋̐ͮ͟͞͡I̢̨̻̬̞̓ͅM̨͎̭̺͂̎͢͟E̿̓҉̧͖̪," which was really what had started all this.

"And like I said," Ford adjusted his glasses. "You didn't say please." His grin was showing a lot of teeth. Xin groaned, "Oh my spud, just pull it out and measure it already, why don't you?"

"I'm NOT 'saying please'," Blue ground out at him, offended in every way possible. "IT'S FOOD! I AM EATING IT! IT WAS UNCLAIMED, AND THEN I CLAIMED IT! -THAT makes it MINE!"

"Tut, tut. Manners. What IS that other Stanley teaching you?" Ford clicked his tongue and turned to Stan. "I blame your awful table manners for this." "Don't get me involved in this poindexter." Stan rolled his eyes and continued eating nonchalantly.

The reminder of his own Stanley's 'teachings' right in that moment was luckily enough to remind Blue that he really should just walk away from the table right now, being tired and also not having eaten enough - he knew what that did to him, now - but unfortunately not enough to get him thinking clearly enough to actually DO it.

So instead Blue stood there where he was (instead of stomping off in a huff) and ground out at the idiot Pines right in front of him, "What he's 'TEACHING me' is how to NOT mentally attack people first, which includes THREATENING to COMPLETELY DESTROY or WARP AND DEFORM the BODY of any person who even so much as thinks about EATING something I made or that is mine, which I COULD DO to them if they eat it by right of it being MINE and then being a part of that person PHYSICALLY AFTER THEY EAT IT, which is what YOU are about to be doing to 'your family' here by NOT handing THAT over to me RIGHT NOW, YOU Š̸̟̘̜͚̪͔̮ͅT̢͉̫̦͚̲͒ͭͧ̃ͫͭ̍ͧͅU̝͚̻̫ͮ̀͞ͅP͈̞ͩ̚͟Ḯ̶̬͔̺̣̪ͨ͂͛ͯ͢D̨͈͑̌͘͡-" Blue cut himself off before he lost his temper completely and ended up setting the human on fire over this.

"Fordsie, just pass the brussel sprouts." Xin kicked him under the table.

Zoe was laughing madly at what was going on, while the rest of the family huddled very far away from Blue. "Yes! Now bite him!" she screamed. Xin flicked her forehead before telling her, "Don't encourage them." Dipper was twitching madly, Mabel frowned and rubbed his tense shoulders. His parents seemed about to faint. Wanda held the twins for dear life so they wouldn't get involved.

Seb stood up from the floor, grabbed the bowl of cursed brussel sprouts, and slammed it in front of Blue. "Lick it to claim it or some shit. You scream too loud, goddammit!" Then he shitslapped Ford's head so hard the metal vibrated.

"Ow!" "Stop being an ass?"

"I wanna lick stuff to claim it!" Zoe screamed as she broke free from Wanda's grip and stuck her entire head into the scrambled eggs. Wanda twitched. Her daughter was never going to learn to eat like a civilized human being, was she?

"You don't have to lick things to claim them," Blue told the young half-human child, as he picked up the bowl with his brussel sprouts in it. "You just claim them. I will demonstrate, again: MINE." Blue grumbled as he tilted his head back and then poured all the brussel sprouts from the bowl into his mouth, before slamming the bowl back down onto the surface of the table.

And Blue hadn't cleared his mouth for two seconds (after he'd finished chewing) before proclaiming to Seb, "I'm STILL going to mentally destroy him during that math-off. Say your farewells to him now."

"Not until after breakfast, dear." Kari, the only one who seemed actually calm during all this. If this 'Blue' was Miz/Xin's brother, that made her (him? Oh dear, this was like Zully and Zach all over again.) that made him her grandchild. And Kari never turned down more grandchildren. Because she was cool like that.

"...Fine," Blue said to her (almost agreeably), before sitting down again at the table with a huff. Kari gave him a serene smile. "Thank you," she told him, which got her some sort of odd shoulder movement out of him that didn't look quite human in nature. Then she turned to her firstborn and scolded, "Stanford! That was very rude of you. Blue is our guest. You've been behaving like a child."

Ford flinched. "But-" Kari cut him off, like the queen of the household she was. "No buts. You're in your forties for crying out loud. You're supposed to be setting a good example for the kids. Go sit in the corner for five minutes." Ford looked horrified and his brothers made it worse by laughing uproariously at him. (Blue blinked, as he reached for his fork, he looked around at all of them; this was not standard human behavior for someone of these age levels...?) """Ford's in trouble~ Ford's in trouble~""" they all sang as he wilted under his mother's glare, stood up, face red, and marched over to the corner of the room and sat down. (Blue watched him go, and his 'ruffled feathers' - read: cycling energy flow - already began to smooth out rather considerably.)

Zoe, eating with her hands now and her face all dirty, stared at Blue. "Why are YOU here again?"

"Zoe!" Wanda scolded.

"Ah, the Zoe!" Blue enthused (not offended in the least at the question). "-One," Blue said, putting a fork in his green beans, spearing one of them and then gesturing upwards with it fluidly, "To see what my little sister ACTUALLY means and is trying to say when he calls Seb's Stanford 'nice'." He paused. "Among other things that I am observing about him. Also: not killing him, for reasons, mostly because Seb doesn't need to 'lose' ANY MORE brothers." At this Blue eyed Seb a bit sidelong, before turning back and continuing to address Zoe directly. "Two: to meet my little sister's siblings and 'mom' and also Seb-again, which is all of you! And three: to plot and plan with Seb about a few things. -And I hear you like fire, which is good," Blue told her next, "SO DO I!" At which point, he grinned at her brightly, then took a bite of his green bean from his fork, eating it like a person.

Zoe stared at him for a few long moments after his response, unsure if Blue was lying or joking with them. Zach tilted his head at the demon. "But Uncle Fordsie is nice. He gives us candy and drones to bother mean Mrs. Carol."

"So you two HAVE been the one's drone striking Carol!" Wanda glared and the twins turned pale. "No we didn't-" "It was accidents!" "Yes! Accidents!" The two tried to excuse each other. Wanda narrowed her eyes. "Even if Carol is a terrible person, don't quote me on that Seb, I swear to god- that doesn't mean you're allowed to attack her with your drones."

The twins wiggled in their seats. Guilty as can be. Xin made a note to teach them how to lie better. Poker face! Never let on how nervous you were!

Blue eyed them. "'Accidents'? Or 'on-purpose'?" he asked them.

"..." Zach opened his mouth and Zoe kicked him under the table. He looked apologetic, but he couldn't keep up the lies. That was too much for his sweet little heart. "Missus Carol was in the garden, and we knocked her wig off," he confessed.

Blue blinked at them. "Why?"

"Because she's a meanie! And she won't let us play with Amanda!" Zoe hissed, slapping her breakfast with her hands, smearing the gooey eggs around her plate.

"Ah." Blue looked away to spear another green bean for himself. "So you are her learning-lesson." He paused for a moment. "How is that working out for you?" he asked them quite seriously, as he lifted the green bean he'd speared to his mouth.

"I cursed her hair to fall out." Xin was very proud of himself for that. Stanford's punishment was over (he was very obedient) and he came back over from the corner and sat down next to Xin. "I think that was a good solution," he nodded and Xin grinned brightly at his praise.

Blue sighed. "Is she doing any less of the 'being a meanie' and are you getting to play with this 'Amanda' now?" Blue asked the three of them next: Zoe, Zach, and Xin.

The three siblings looked down at their laps. """...no…""" they chorused.

"Then your 'lesson' isn't causing any learning," Blue told them. (He'd learned how to say this one in human terms from Stanley rather well.) "If she's still doing the thing, that you don't want her to do, then it isn't a 'learning-lesson', or even a 'penalty'; it's a 'punishment' that just isn't working." He looked over at them again. "Do you want to get what you want now, or don't you?" He popped the next green bean in his mouth and chewed.

"We do!" Zoe stood up in her seat, and Wanda gently made her sit back down. "She's a meanie and she made Zach cry- on our birthday!"

"HMMMMM…" Blue hummed out, getting a gleam in his eyes. "WELL. It sounds like you need some kind of working PLAN here, in order to get what you want…" (He was sitting up a bit at this point, starting to go a bit 'higher-energy' - thus, more 'Bill Cipher-like'.) "Would you like some HELP with that?" he asked them all three, as a rather loaded question.

"Yeah, see~ We're actually going with the 'boring human-child raising technique', so as much as I would love to, we can't teach them about vengeance and that." Seb told Blue.

Blue frowned. "I wasn't talking about vengeance," Blue noted. He'd passed his 'babysitting exam' with his Stanley with flying colors! And he understood what it meant to say that: "I was talking about a 'learning-lesson'." Blue then frowned at the rest of it further. "You want to not teach your spawn how to properly control every last part of what they have access to? -How much of your Mind did you lose?!" He could scarcely believe that Seb wouldn't want them to have PROPER control over their fire-powers!

"I didn't lose my Mind! I'm not…that crazy." Seb grumbled.

"I think he's talking about your past self. Specifically, the memories from it." Ford and Dipper said.

"Memories, all of them, yes," Blue noted, pretending not to have heard Ford at all; thus, mostly just acknowledging that local Mason-Dipper. (He was clutching his fork pretty tightly upon hearing this, though. Wanting to stab… NO. Must. Not. Stab. Seb's. brother...) "What, were you not always insane?" Blue asked of Seb next, blinking at him a bit, not quite looking nonplussed.

"I didn't lose my memories." Seb duh'ed. In fact, I'm pretty damn good at remembering stuff even after the memory gun, ignoring ADHD of course. I don't have my Knowledge. And that's different. I… still know very much how I ended up here."

Blue was a bit confused at this point. "'Knowledge' is different than 'having all your memories' for you?" He frowned. "Define: Knowledge."

"What's this? English class? Uh...Knowledge is the stuff you...KNOW, you know?" Shermie snorted at that. Seb continued, "Like...you probably know loooots of equations and math, and everything that happened in the history of your world… I don't. The 'All-Knowing' part, I don't have it."

Blue was about to respond to the first bit of that, but then the second part of what he'd said hit, in conjunction with how he had said it, and Blue facial expression just dropped abruptly.

"-YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR EYE ANYMORE?!" The human-looking triangle demon looked caught between sheer rage (wanting to murder that local DERANGED lizard) and shock (how could Seb look so calm about it at all, that he even seemed to not evenn be caring about-) Blue shook himself. No. That couldn't be right. "-You're joking about it. This is a joke. HAHA, no, really, pick another better language for communicating in if you don't want these others to hear it," Blue said quite seriously about Seb's All-Seeing Eye, gesturing at the rest of the humans (and mostly-humans, and used-to-be-human-s) surrounding them.

Seb looked at Xin with a help me look. Xin sent a look back of 'I know, he rants'. "Dude… I think I left a much better impression than I thought? I've never had it?"

Xin sighed and reached over to Seb and lifted his eyepatch. Blue stared at the empty socket - was that where Seb's All-Seeing Eye was supposed to be? And it… was gone… (Blue felt a little faint, as he slid rather far back in his chair, eyes wide, not realizing how he was clutching the table with his hands...) Well, THAT was DEFINITELY something that needed FIXING, in Blue's book.

"XIN!" Seb reached for his eyepatch and pulled it down. (His family was confused, very confused and goddammit they just saw the scars, didn't they?) "Ok. Look. Um… that eye sure helped Seeing places and stuff, if I had an eye or triangle in the place. Then it exploded after I died-" The kids all screamed. "But I can still See things-" His human eye turned yellow to demonstrate. "...but I've never been able to…know things with it...Ya get it?"

...No. That just left Blue feeling even more confused.

"...You had an All-Seeing Eye," Blue said slowly. "But having it wasn't the same as… being able to obtain 'Knowledge' so that you could be knowing things, for you?" He wanted to make sure he was getting this right.

"It was more like a super power thing?" Mabel chipped in. "We helped him practice to see around the Shack with it." Dipper nodded. "Yeah, he can search for things around as long as there's something he can see through, but, Uncle Seb never told us he could search for information with it?"

"Because I can't do that!" Seb whined. "I couldn't do that ever since I was reincarnated."

""Imagine doing that for cheating."" Stan and Shermie whispered.

Blue looked around at all of them. ...Was he really hearing this right?

"...An All-Seeing Eye is for seeing all of the things, yes," Blue said slowly. "And then memorizing all-of-everything that you See, for thinking about all of it later. -Knowledge is obtained by going through all of that, and then thinking about it, in many ways, carefully. Knowing things requires looking at and then thinking about things, and then understanding all of what it is you have Seen. Knowledge-obtainment is a skill. ...Yes?"

"Ah… I could See, but I didn't remember the stuff unless I really paid attention?"

Blue stared at him like he was having trouble (both parsing and) comprehending what he was hearing from Sebastian just then.

"Reincarnation." Xin ate a spoonful of his breakfast. "It wasn't a Demon-type of reincarnation, he lost a lot of himself."

"I'm still me! But I'm not-not a demon!"

"But HOW DID YOU DO THAT in the FIRST PLACE BEFORE THIS," Blue said, in complete non-comprehension. Because where was that so-called Knowledge then coming from?! -Had he missed something fundamentally different somewhere in the structure of the 'set, here?!

And then it hit him. "WAIT." Blue's eyes widened. "-Did that deranged lizard pull you here from another 'set?"

"...ah, well, kinda? I'm from a different dimension than this one."

"-Not dimension," Blue snapped out at him. "Dimensional set. -With a potentially completely different structure than this one. Yes? No?"

"Well, like, there was another Bill Cipher here, and he actually didn't know I was another Bill Cipher until we actually met." Seb explained. And he got into his mind.

"...Different 'set then; there was isolation between other Bill Ciphers," Blue muttered out. That explained that, at least. "-Different lizard? Same?" Blue demanded out of him next.

"No, it's the same Ax from my past and now."

Blue let out a long breath, and set down his fork.

"...yeesh," was all that Blue said next, slumping a little in his chair, then reaching up his hands to half-attack, half-scrub at the top of his head... or his hair? "Stupid, lazy, DERANGED frilly lizards!" It looked a little like he was getting some kind of headache. Xin reached over to push another plate of veggies in front of him. "It's reincarnation, but I think it's different from mine. Here, food."

Blue seemed to shake himself out of whatever odd thought process he had going on there just then, and dropped his hands down slowly, back towards his lap. "Well, yes. You didn't go to other 'sets when you reincarnated. You stayed in place, mostly." But Seb had apparently gotten himself transplanted. -Xin was wrong about the rest of it, though. It was very much like the demon-from-the-outside type of reincarnation, if Seb had kept all his memories from his previous go-'round, but simply gotten an entirely new-and-potentially-different body. (He'd have to explain that one better to Xin later.)

"...Right, yes, more food," Blue noted. "Eating; fine. More talking again after the eating," he promised them. "Different sets just means that we need to find it first, before we can bring your Liam back," Blue grumbled out. "Might take awhile." More work for him. That said, he picked up his fork again and got down to it, focusing more on eating and getting it all down far more quickly and efficiently this time.

Everyone else sighed in relief as it seemed like the demon was calm now. Seb, on the other hand, looked a little poleaxed, because what had Blue just said?

"...My head is going to explode." Dillon massaged his temples. This was all too much.

"I didn't understand!" Zoe exclaimed and Wanda waved a tired hand at her. "Adult things."

Sebastian looked at Xin, wondering if he'd heard that right.

"Brother wants to fix everything." Was the very unhelpful answer. "I'm gonna need context." Seb rubbed his head too. ("Context later; food now," Blue came up for air long enough to tell Seb concisely.) Xin swallowed another bite of food. "Do you…" Xin paused, and then leaned over to whisper into Seb's ear. "Do you want to bring Liam back to life?"

"Liam…?" Seb whispered. "How can you-N-No…"

Blue looked up at this, and frowned, seeming to think something through.

"Was it… another sibling instead?" he asked, "Another name? Or your…" then grimacing hard, "...parents." He looked like he wanted to throw up a little at that last one, almost. Then Blue physically shook his head back and forth several times, hard.

"Who did you 'lose'? Who was murdered?" Blue gazed at Seb steadily. (He was sure about this one. Seb was a him-who-was-also-him; he'd both Seen it, and felt it. That meant that those idiots with their flat minds in that flat world of flat dreams had MURDERED someone dear to him, too. Sun rises in the east when it's a counter-clockwise spinning planet; sky is blue when it's the Earth in this time period, not cloudy out, not nighttime, and not raining; of course Seb had, had a big brother who had been murdered by a bunch of idiots who all deserved to DIE HORRIBLY, too. ...or maybe they'd done it to a younger brother, like his sister had had? Some sibling, or… parent, or some-other.)

(Frankly, Blue wasn't capable of thinking otherwise, that Seb hadn't lost someone near and dear to him that he'd loved. Blue wouldn't ever think of that not having happened to any Bill Cipher that he met, not on his own...)

"Liam-Liam… You can't bring him back…" Seb nervously looked at his family who was very much listening about this.

"Why not?" Blue said simply, like he'd just asked him the easiest and most simplest question while they were already discussing the weather. "I'll have to finish fixing everything eventually. -Might as well start with fixing some of the things over other-things with you, first."

Blue shrugged and put down his fork, finished with eating for now, and picked up his glass of water for drinking instead. "The only reason I haven't brought my Liam back yet is because I'm planning on fixing everything else first back in my own dimensional set. For reasons. ...It's not like I don't know how to do it. I figured out the math for it a long time ago! Mostly." He took a sip of his water. "Just need to verify a few more variables, and I'm good to go! -If I wanted to do it all RECKLESSLY. And maybe end up wrecking a bunch of OTHER THINGS in the process, that is." Blue grinned out at him. "So there's a bit more optional math that I'm solving on top of that, to really work it all out PROPERLY first." Blue shrugged. "Your dimensional situation might be different from mine, though. Xin's is, currently." Blue looked a little more sober again at the last bit of that, and he sent a glance over his sister's way, giving Xin a significant look.

"Let the dead rest. Liam wouldn't like this." Seb breathed, closing his eye with a strained expression.

"No," Blue said, frowning. "The problem with death is the whole staying-dead part of the idiocy, and the problem of 'not liking this' is EASY to solve - just tell me what he would like, instead. That is part of fixing all of the things everywhere, yes?" Blue told him, taking another sip of his water.

Seb softly excused himself and went to the kitchen. His triplets frowned in worry. Stan stood up almost immediately. Ford and Shermie followed. Wanda clenched her jaw, worried about what Sebastian was thinking now.

Blue stared after Seb, watching him go.

Blue thought about this, and evaluated what he saw.

And then he finished off his glass of water. Set it down. Propped his chin up on a fist, on the table.

And said, almost rhetorically: "Am I really one of only very-few me's who hasn't ever given up on getting Liam back, ever?" Who had not only refused to not-die, but also refused to do anything other than find a way to WIN? To get everything (and everyone back) that he wanted? And more? "Really?" He seemed slightly perturbed by the thought.

"Probably." Xin sighed, sipping his cup of fruit juice.

"WELL." Blue thought about this for awhile. "That's… hilarious." He wasn't smiling at all. He said it quite calmly.

But anyone looking at his eyes could see that they were filled with a deep, hot, and nearly-bottomless kind of RAGE. (Largely, on Seb's and his sister's behalf. Those lizard had DARED-)

And while Blue was fuming to himself in place quite quietly, everyone went back to eating, very confused. Then, Kari spoke up. "Was Liam your brother?" she asked, making everyone else shake their heads at her quickly, trying to make her not talk about it, scared of what Blue might do.

Blue paused for a moment. "I had a big brother named Liam who died a long time ago, yes," Blue said slowly, blinking his eyes closed, and when he opened them he was looking over at her. "WHY ...do you want to know?" he ended a bit more steadily (and less two-toned in voice) than he began.

"You must miss him a lot." Kari said sympathetically. "I hope you'll be able to bring him back."

Blue gave her a tight smile. "I don't miss him," he said to her. "-I'm ANGRY instead. 'Missing him' isn't useful; getting ANGRY is. I don't have any reason to waste my time on that. And I don't need any 'hope', either. Dead currency. -Of course I'm going to get him back. I won't let anyone stop me. It's GOING to happen. I've decided, I've made all the plans for it, and I'm going to be seeing it through. I WILL make it happen," he said with a rather scary-intensity for some of them listening at the table. (Because while he sounded calm as he talked, which was bad enough given what he was talking about, he also sounded perfectly insane.)

"One should always have a goal. It's very admirable." Kari nodded at him. "Well, when you bring Liam back, you're free to come and visit us any time you want. I'd love to meet him."

Blue paused for a moment at that. He almost froze in place.

"...that…" Blue stopped again, sounding strained (without meaning to). "...might not be a good idea…" It came out almost strangled. There was another long pause, while Blue seemed to be trying, and finally working up to saying something else, before he finally managed to drag out of himself, "...for you to meet him."

"Why not?" Kari wondered if there was some sort of magical space alien reason?

"...reasons," Blue said with just as much difficulty, before refusing to elaborate further.

"Alright. You can tell me if you want to. I won't force the subject." (Blue unconsciously relaxed at this.) Kari pushed the plate of grilled carrots over. "Now eat more, you're too skinny."

Blue stared down at the carrots, then moved his head back up to stare at Kari.

"But I ate all of the things," Blue said to her.

"Oh, then you don't want any carrots?" Kari tilted her head. "No one's claimed them yet," she added, having picked up on that part of Blue's rant earlier.

"Yes, I can tell that they are currently unclaimed," and Blue was, frankly, starting to think that none of them actually knew how to do any of all of that, here - not properly, anyway. "But I ate all of the things?" he tried again, to an approving nod and no change in Kari's expression in the slightest.

Blue turned to Xin with a frowning look, unsure of what to make of this, but the dragon just laughed. "Welcome to my human family. We've got food here. And lots of it."

"Yes? You have food. I noticed. What's your point?" Blue asked him.

"Well, since you're my brother, granny Kari seems to consider you her grandson as well. And there's a human thing where grannies want feed people, especially grandkids." Xin chuckled. "So… you're gonna have to get used to eating a lot while you're here."

Blue frowned at this. He'd never had a 'granny' before. (Not that he knew of, anyway.) He had no idea what to do with that statement. That being said…

"...But what if I don't want to eat any more of the other-things," Blue said almost dangerously, testing.

"Then that's fine. Just tell us that you're full." Kari answered easily.

"HM," said Blue. And then he nodded... and immediately followed her easy instructions. "I'm full," he declared to them all simply. "And I am also Blue!" he grinned. "'Blue' is a name that my little sister gave me. -You can call me Blue," he told Kari, with his usual grin. "You're full, and you finished your food," Kari acknowledged. "That's great, Blue."

"Of course," Blue noted. "I'm not an idiot like- my idiotic Sixer," he told her. "I know what happens if I don't eat a meal at-or-around the right three spaced-out-times over the course of every twenty-four hour day period of relative-to-me time when I'm in anything resembling a human-ish body, and I figured it out in less than two weeks of having a human-ish body. -He's going on 'sixty-something', and STILL refuses to figure that one out," Blue noted with disgust. "The idiot."

Kari laughed. "Oh, my little Stanford tends to skip meals sometimes too. You're much better than him in that regard." She raised her voice near the end, almost teasingly, in the direction of the kitchen. "Oh my god, ma!"

"Unsurprising," Blue told her. "He does not seem all that different in his deficiencies than my own six-fingered hand."

Kari laughed lightly. "Oh I like you. You're adorable." (Blue blinked at this.)

"No, he's not, grandma," Dipper said, looking a little freaked out. The way he kept switching how he talked too, was really putting his teeth on edge - sounding exactly like Bill the one minute, and then sounding like he was half brain-damaged the next.

"Nope. Definitely adorable." Kari declared, laughing behind her hand. Blue turned to Xin and laughed. "I like her. She's completely insane, too!" Blue was absolutely intrigued by this, not least of which because he got the feeling that Kari was also the same kind of insane that he was - which was new. He'd never met anyone who was exactly the same kind of insane as him before - not even close! ...Then again, he was making an assumption of that largely on one specific piece of information that he hadn't self-confirmed himself, just yet. So he should probably make certain of that, first. If it was true.

Blue turned back to her. "So, I hear that you decided to be a… 'mom', because you would kill anyone who tried to even-so-much-as hurt any of your children, ever again. Is this true? Or no?" His little sister sometimes got confused on things, so he figured he should probably check. This one might not be worth his time, otherwise.

Kari knit her fingers together and leaned forward on her elbows. "Oh, dear boy, I wouldn't kill anyone who hurt my babies, I would destroy them~"

(Bill's eyes went a little wide at this, and he rather looked somewhat excited, where he was sitting stock-still and ramrod-upright suddenly in place at the table.)

"WELL." he said rather respectfully, then grinned outright and leaned forward onto both of his elbows towards her, rather intrigued. "WELL!" (And that rather helped to solve his 'remember you need to NOT kill that Stanford' problem for him right there, didn't it? -This was a MUCH better incentive for him for him not to do that, HA! ...Not because he was afraid of her, but rather because he wanted to get to know her better, and killing him - killing any of them, really - would absolutely disrupt him doing that with her, of that Blue was certainly sure.)

"Ma, you're scarin' us." Stan called from the kitchen. Really, he just wanted a quiet breakfast! Xin was holding back laughter, ah, introducing Blue to his human family had been a GREAT idea!